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# Arp 194: Evidence of Tidal Stripping of Gas and Cross-Fueling

## 1 Introduction

Arp 194 (Arp 1966; $``$ UGC 06945 $``$ VV 126; Vorontsov-Vel’Yaminov 1977) is a small-angular-size system of two major components: a north-western galaxy of disrupted morphology (0’.8 x 0’.6; see Fig. 1 and Fig. 2), and an apparently more regular galaxy (0’.35 $`\times `$ 0’.35) located $``$ 40 arcsec to the South-East. From the heliocentric velocity of the Arp 194S ($``$ A194S hereafter), $`v_\mathrm{r}`$$``$ 10500 km s-1 (see §3), we infer a distance of 175 Mpc for the system (H$`{}_{0}{}^{}`$ 60 km s-1 Mpc-1). Arp 194N and Arp 194S are therefore separated by a projected linear distance $`d_\mathrm{p}`$ 34 Kpc (1 arcsec corresponds to $`d_\mathrm{p}`$ 850 pc). Arp described the Arp 194 system as belonging to the class of “galaxies with material ejected from nuclei.” Arp noted further “outer material connected by thin filament to very hard nucleus.” Several peculiar features of Arp 194N ($``$ A194N) have been also discussed in an early study (Metlov 1980).

Theoretical modeling involving a reliable treatment of dissipative phenomena like star formation, as well as high resolution numerical simulations of stellar and gas motions are still the current frontier in our understanding of interacting galaxies (see e.g., Hearn & Lamb 2001; Semelin & Combes 2000; Barnes & Hernquist 1998; Barnes & Hernquist 1996; Mihos & Hernquist 1996). From simulations, we expect a wide range of phenomenological properties due to interaction. Gravitational forces can marginally enhance the star formation rate (SFR) in an unbound intergalactic encounter as well as give rise to the most luminous bursts of star formation observed in merging systems (see e.g., Krongold et al. 2002, and references therein). Tidal effects drive noncircular motion in disk galaxies, can strip a significant amount of stars and gas, and even lead to the formation of the so-called tidal-dwarf galaxies (Barnes & Hernquist 1992). A related issue is the role of gravitational interaction in fueling nonthermal nuclear activity. Both simulations and observations of single interacting systems are a necessary complement to statistical studies on the frequency of interacting systems among active galaxies, since the latter provide valuable but only circumstantial evidence in favor of interaction as a major driver of nuclear activity (Krongold et al. 2002; see however Schmitt 2001, and references therein). Collisional ring galaxies are excellent laboratories for studying galactic evolution, global star formation, and the occurrence of gas cross-fueling among galaxies. The prototype of this class of objects is the Cartwheel galaxy A0035-33. Only few systems similar to this object are known: among the best studied we recall VII Zw 466, Arp 10, II Zw 28, II Hz 4, Abell 76, LT 36, NGC 985, LT 41 (Appleton & Marston 1997). Other likely cases are Arp 119 (Hearn & Lamb, 2001), Arp 118 (Charmandaris et al. 2001), Arp 284 (Smith & Wallin 1992, Smith et al. 1997), and Arp 143 (Appleton et al. 1992). The dominant ring morphology is thought to result from a head-on collision between two galaxies, one of which traveled close to the spin axis of the other, striking the disk close to its center. The resulting gravitational perturbation is believed to drive a set of symmetrical waves or caustics through the stellar disk (Lynds & Toomre 1976, Theys & Spiegel 1976, Toomre 1978, Appleton & Struck-Marcell 1987, Struck-Marcell 1990). Computer simulations of such head-on encounters, in which at least one galaxy has a significant gaseous component, show indeed the production of density enhancements and shock waves in the interstellar medium. These high density regions coincide with the location of recent, large scale star formation observed in ring galaxies.

Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 suggest that A194N is a collisionally induced ring galaxy connected to the past intruder A194S by a string of relatively bright knots (§3). Several photometric properties indicate star formation rates typical of Starburst galaxies (§3.5). The surprisingly strong radio emission from A194S and knot A is likely due mainly to supernova remnants which imply even higher star formation rates (§3.5.1) and substantial internal obscuration. Relatively rare systems like Arp 194 where gas motions are induced by a head-on encounter enable us to unambiguously infer the geometry of the system. In this case that information provides evidence for “cross-fueling” (see §4.1). Our results for Arp 194 have intriguing implications on the analysis and interpretation of galactic superwinds (§4).

## 2 Observations, Data Reduction & Analysis

Johnson (B, R) and narrow band (H$`\alpha `$) images of Arp 194 were obtained at the Cassegrain focus of the 2.1 m telescope of the Observatorio Astrónomico Nacional of México at San Pedro Martir (SPM) on January 30–31, 1995. The detector was a Tektronik CCD (24 $`\mu `$m square pixel size, 1024$`\times `$1024 format) that yielded a scale of 0.315” pixel-1, and a field of view of 5.4’. A narrow band filter with $`\lambda _C6819`$ Å, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda 86`$ Å allowed coverage of the H$`\alpha `$+\[Nii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6548,6583 blend of Arp 194 (§3.1). Table 1 provides a log of each single exposure taken at SPM.

Long slit spectra were obtained on February 2, 1995 at the 2.1 m telescope equipped with a Boller & Chivens spectrograph. A 1200 lines mm-1 grating was employed for observations of the H$`\alpha `$ spectral region (coverage $``$ 6170 – 7240 Å). Four spectrograms were taken, two at position angle P. A. $``$ 145 and two P. A. $``$ 118, with an exposure time totaling 60 min. at each P. A. (see Fig. 1 for slit placement). The slit was opened to 200 $`\mu `$m (2.6” on the focal plane of the telescope). This setup resulted in a resolution of $`2.5`$ Å FWHM ($``$ 110 km s-1 at redshifted H$`\alpha `$). The data reduction for both imaging and spectroscopic data and the calibration procedure followed standard IRAF practice and has been identical to that employed by Marziani et al. (1999), who used data obtained during the same nights. We will not describe them again here. Table 3 presents line fluxes for emission line regions isolated along the slit.

## 3 Results

### 3.1  Morphology & Photometry

The morphology of the Arp 194 system in the B band is shown in Fig. 1, where some of the most prominent features are identified. A multifrequency view is provided in Fig. 2. The four panels show (clockwise from top left) the SPM B-band image (with a cut optimized to show the internal structure at the expense of loss of the fainter envelope), the continuum subtracted H$`\alpha `$ \+ \[Nii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6548,6583 narrow band image, the B–R color index map, and the radio map at 1.4 GHz obtained from the FIRST survey (Becker et al. 1995). Table 2 reports the photometric properties of the main features visible in these maps. The uncertainty in the B and R photometry is estimated to be $`\pm 0.05`$ mag at a 2$`\sigma `$ confidence level. B–R values are therefore accurate within $``$ 0.1 mag. The uncertainty associated to the overall H$`\alpha `$\+ \[Nii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6548,6583 calibration is estimated to be within 10 %. Due to the diffuse nature of large part of H$`\alpha `$ emission, an appropriate uncertainty is probably a factor 2 for the measurements on the faintest and most diffuse regions, while it should be within 20 % for the brightest and least diffuse ones. A194S is a surprisingly strong radio source when compared to nearby Seyfert galaxies. The specific power of A194S is $`\mathrm{log}P_{\nu ,1.4GHz}`$ 22.1, with $`P_{\nu ,1.4\mathrm{GHz}}`$ in W Hz-1), placing it at the high end of the distribution of radio power in Palomar Seyferts, which cover the range $`\mathrm{log}P_{\nu ,1.4\mathrm{GHz}}`$ 18–22 (Ulvestad & Ho 2001; Ho & Ulvestad 2001). Of course this is still negligible compared to nearby radio galaxies such as NGC 1275 with $`\mathrm{log}\nu P_{\nu ,1.4\mathrm{GHz}}`$ 25.6 (Owen et al. 1980).

Another remarkable feature of this system is a string of relatively bright knots (“blobs”) in between the two components of Arp 194, aligned along the north western direction (the “streamers” in the terminology of Metlov 1980). The blobs B and C have B–R$``$ 0.12 and 0.26 respectively. In Table 2, the J and K magnitudes are upper limits from the isophotal contours published by Bushouse & Stanford (1992). The blobs are not present at the lowest contour levels traced by these authors. The trail of blobs between A194S and A194N can be readily interpreted as stripped gas due to the interpenetrating encounter between A194S and A194N (see Marziani et al. 1994; Horellou & Combes 2000). There are several lines of evidence in favor of this interpretation:

* the rough alignment of the three main blobs observed in between A194S and A194N. The blobs literally provide a trail of “footprints” tracing the path of the intruding galaxy (A194S) after crossing A194N. They identify a direction pointing close to the geometrical center of A194N;
* the lack of any K counterpart for all blobs, which suggests a common origin for the blobs. In particular, it rules out that blob A is a background galaxy;
* almost no solution of continuity nor any radial velocity discontinuity H$`\alpha `$ emission in the 2D spectra at P. A. 145 (see Fig. 3 and §3.3);
* several features of A194N, which can can be ascribed to a collisional ring, as discussed below.

Following the collision interpretation we might expect Arp194 to show features predicted by models for off-center interpenetrating encounters including: (1) a prominent outer ring and (2) displacement of mass toward the ring (Gerber et al. 1992; see also the K images of several ring galaxies in Appleton & Marston 1997). A194N can be interpreted as a distorted ring galaxy although tracing the outer ring is not easy. Two arcs towards the south and north can be traced unambiguously, suggesting a ring of radius $`R_\mathrm{d}`$ 17 Kpc. The hollow region towards the SE reinforces the collisional ring galaxy interpretation because it cannot be easily explained in other terms. Another supporting element involves the trend in radial velocities along P.A.=145, which can be more easily explained as the result of expansion than rotation (see §3.3). A194S shows a larger and brighter nuclear bulge suggesting that it is an earlier morphological type (Sa-Sb?) than N (originally type Sc?). Two blue arc-like features (Fig. 1 & Fig. 2) are displaced towards the eastern and western sides of the A194S nucleus (see also the color map). They may be signatures of a ring-like expansion wave produced by the assumed head on encounter between A194N and S.

Interpretation of A194N is complicated by the complex morphology on the north-western side. Two main condensations (corresponding roughly to A194N-A and A194N-B) are visible in the K images. This may indicate that we are detecting the nucleus of N and another galaxy projected nearby (i.e. A194N \+ an additional perturber). The color map reddest region to the North ($`BV1`$) may be associated to such a perturber. The issue requires more data but the trail of blobs suggests that A194N and S are the main players in this interaction. Our discussion reflects that assumption.

### 3.2 Emitting Regions

##### The Nucleus of A194S $``$A194S-A

The intruder nucleus is a luminous H$`\alpha `$ source (L(H$`\alpha `$) $``$ 2$`\times 10^{41}`$ ergs s-1) with color index B–R$``$0.5. The ratio I(\[N II\]$`\lambda `$6584)/I(H$`\alpha `$) $``$ 0.4 (Fig. 5 and 4) suggests that there is no significant source of ionization other than hot stars. The moderate I(\[Sii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6716,6731)/I(H$`\alpha `$) ratio ($``$ 0.3) and very low I(\[O I\]$`\lambda `$6300)/I(H$`\alpha `$) ratio ($``$0.02) support this conclusion. A further confirmation comes from the I(\[O III\])$`\lambda `$5007/I(H$`\beta `$) ratio ($``$ 0.8) measured by Metlov (1980). Line ratio diagnostic diagrams (Veilleux & Osterbrock 1987) show that A194S is located very close to the Hii zone. Our data show no evidence for non-thermal nuclear activity. In this respect, it is worth noting that there is (Fig 4) no variation of the I(H$`\alpha `$)/I(\[Nii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6548,6583) ratio along the slit (an increase would be expected if a nonthermal contribution were present). The ratio I(H$`\alpha `$)/I(H$`\beta `$) measured by Metlov (1980) 3.7:1.0 suggests moderate extinction ($`E(BV)0.2`$). The heliocentric $`v_\mathrm{r}`$ $``$ 10502 km s-1 agrees with Metlov’s (1980) determination within 10 km s-1.

##### Blob A

This is the second strongest source of H$`\alpha `$ emission in the interacting pair and it is also clearly detected as a FIRST radio continuum source. Metlov (1980) measured I(O III)$`\lambda `$5007/I(H$`\beta `$) $``$ 1.56. The intensity ratios I(N II$`\lambda `$6583)/I(H$`\alpha `$) $``$ 0.23, I(\[Sii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6716,6731)/I(H$`\alpha `$) $``$ 0.24, and I(O I)$`\lambda `$6300/I(H$`\alpha `$) $``$ 0.027 indicate that Hii emission is dominant and this is confirmed by the source location in the diagrams of Veilleux & Osterbrock (1987). A ratio L(H$`\alpha `$)/$`\nu `$P$`{}_{1.4GHz}{}^{}`$ 800 is a useful measure of what can be inferred about star formation processes. It is noteworthy that Blob A is clearly connected to the nucleus of A194S by more extended line emission (Fig. 3; see §3.3).

##### A194N-A

Source A194N-A is likely to be the nucleus of the disrupted spiral but it was only partially in the slit at both position angles. H$`\alpha `$ and \[Nii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6548,6583 show FWHM $``$ 250 km s-1which is approximately twice as broad as the adjacent emitting regions. The observed broadening is significant at a confidence level $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ 3 $`\sigma `$ taking into account a FWHM error of 15% or $`30`$ km s-1(1$`\sigma `$). The broadening is appreciable in both spectra and it is due to the presence of an additional (redshifted) line component in the slit since the H$`\alpha `$ and \[Nii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6548,6583 profiles are double-peaked with peak $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{v}_\mathrm{r}`$ $``$ 130 km s-1 (see Fig. 5, where spectra of the main emitting regions are shown). The I(\[Nii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6548,6583)/I(H$`\alpha `$) ratio ($``$ 0.6) for the red component suggests the presence of non-thermal emission probably associated with shock-heated gas (not strong, otherwise the \[Sii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6716,6731 lines would be detected).

### 3.3 Radial Velocity Curves

Fig. 3 is a grey-scale reproduction of the extended H$`\alpha `$ \+ \[Nii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6548,6583 emission. The radial velocity ($`v_\mathrm{r}`$) curve derived from this figure is shown in Fig. 6 (centered on A194S-A) and in Fig. 7 at P. A. $``$ 118. Both radial velocity curves agree qualitatively with the data provided by Metlov (1980). Emission is continuous between blob A and A194S. $`v_\mathrm{r}`$ increases monotonically to within $``$ 3” NW of A194S-A (maximum $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_\mathrm{r}`$ $``$ 120 km s-1). This emission line component produces the cusp in the radial velocity curve between 0–5” from the continuum peak of A194S. The velocity curve on the northern side of A194S is obviously not due to rotational motion because it appears to turn over. The velocity cusp is most likely due to blending of the rotational velocity field with the redward-displaced component visible in Fig. 3. This is made more evident by the contour overlaid on Fig. 3 and by the cross-dispersion intensity profile shown in the upper panel of Fig. 4. The main H$`\alpha `$ component has been summed over $`160`$km s-1$`\mathrm{\Delta }v_\mathrm{r}`$110 km s-1; the redward component in the range $`110`$ km s-1 $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_\mathrm{r}`$ 330 km s-1. In correspondence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }d\mathrm{"}4\mathrm{"}`$, the total H$`\alpha `$ emission is significantly broader since the two H$`\alpha `$ components are blending together (the H$`\alpha `$ profile appears double-peaked).

### 3.4 The Geometry and Kinematics of the Encounter

Any inferences on the systemic $`v_\mathrm{r}`$ of A194N-A are uncertain (§3.2). The P.A. = 145 slit, however, crosses A194N not far from the geometrical center of the ring. Our spectrum at PA= 145 mainly samples the “empty” inner region of A194N. This gives us confidence that we are measuring a reasonably reliable radial velocity $`v_{\mathrm{r},\mathrm{N}}`$ for A194N at $``$ 41” in Fig. 6 (the edges of the ring are at 30” and 50”, and interestingly, in their correspondence the $`v_\mathrm{r}`$ is constant over 3”). A fit to the $`v_\mathrm{r}`$ curve in this region is shown by a filled thin line in Fig. 6. We derive a value $`v_{\mathrm{r},\mathrm{N}}`$ 10477 km s-1if we consider the midpoint between the two segments of constant $`v_\mathrm{r}`$; $`v_{\mathrm{r},\mathrm{N}}`$ 10457 km s-1 if we consider the average $`v_\mathrm{r}`$ between the two segment. The roughly symmetric appearance of the radial velocity curve around this point reinforces our confidence that $`v_{\mathrm{r},\mathrm{N}}`$ 10500 km s-1. We derive from the observed continuum peak (the 0 point of Fig. 6) $`v_{\mathrm{r},\mathrm{S}}`$ 10502 km s-1. Therefore, A194S is receding from A194N with $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{r},\mathrm{coll}}2540`$ km s-1.

We conclude that A194S is more distant and this implies that the motion of the blobs relative to it follows straightforwardly. Blob A, in the 2D spectrum of Fig. 3 is connected to the emission line component of increasing $`v_\mathrm{r}`$ detected up to a few arcsecs from the continuum peak. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{v}_\mathrm{r}`$ between A194S-A ($`v_\mathrm{r}`$ measured at continuum peak) and blob is still positive ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{v}_\mathrm{r}30`$km s-1). Therefore, blob A cannot be the product of outflow for the obvious reason that it would be moving in the wrong direction. If the blobs trail A194S, Blob A – as well as the extended emitting gas of increasing $`v_r`$ in between blob A and A194S-A – must be falling toward A194S-A. The validity of this results is based on two considerations: (1) the blobs, and blobs A especially, trail after A194S; (2) $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{r},\mathrm{coll}}0`$ km s-1, implying that A194S is further from us than A194N. In this case, blob A is closer to us than A194S. We must remark that, albeit $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{r},\mathrm{coll}}`$ is small, $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{r},\mathrm{coll}}0`$ km s-1 is inconsistent with the $`v_\mathrm{r}`$ curve and the geometry of the system (see Fig. 6).

##### Ring Age and Time After Crossing

To estimate the time after crossing, we can consider that, in the special case of a head-on encounter in which the direction of motion of the intruder is strictly perpendicular to the plane of the target galaxy, the distance between the intruder and the target galaxy can be deprojected once the inclination of the target galaxy is known (this may not be strictly true for Arp 194; this is just a first approximation). The main underlying assumption is that the ring starts to expand at the time the intruder nucleus was interpenetrating the disk of the target, as suggested by theory and numerical simulations (Lynds and Toomre 1977). The expansion velocity will be $`v_{exp}=R_\mathrm{d}/d_\mathrm{p}\mathrm{\Delta }v_\mathrm{r}\mathrm{tan}i25\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{r},\mathrm{coll},50}\mathrm{tan}i`$ km s-1. The time after crossing is $`\tau =R_\mathrm{d}/v_{\mathrm{exp}}`$. We can estimate the inclination of the ring making two extreme choices: (1) the NW end is traced by the Arc Spots A,B,C; (2) the NW end is the fainter spot $``$5” to the NW from the Arc. Since this implies $`54^{}i75^{}`$, we obtain 2$`\times `$108 yr$`\tau 6\times 10^8`$ yr if $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{r},\mathrm{coll}}=40`$ km s-1. If $`i=64.5^{}`$, $`\tau 4\times 10^8`$ yr.

### 3.5 Star Formation Properties

The total H$`\alpha `$ luminosity of the Arp 194 system is $`1.5\times 10^{42}`$ ergs s-1. This yields a star formation rate $``$ 10 Myr-1 for masses between 0.1 and 100 M, assuming a Salpeter Initial Mass Function (see Kennicutt 1998 for relationships and references). This value is comparable to the one of powerful Starburst galaxies.111Unfortunately, Arp 194 has not been covered by IRAS observations. It is interesting to note that if we consider the tight FIR-radio correlation of star-forming systems (Mirabel & Sanders 1996), with logarithmic index q=2.35, $`\mathrm{log}`$ $`L_{\mathrm{FIR}}`$ 14.92 $`\mathrm{log}P_\nu `$, we obtain $`L_{\mathrm{FIR}}2.3\times 10^{44}`$ ergs s-1 $`6\times 10^{10}L_{}`$. Arp 194 may be well a luminous IRAS galaxy. A vigorous star formation going on in the produced ring seems to be a common property of ring galaxies (Marston & Appleton 1995). Optical images often show a compact off-centered nucleus surrounded by a number of blue knots that are HII regions. The ring component often hosts giant molecular complexes, and its color is consistent with a very young stellar population. Indeed, the ring arcs of A194N stand out in the color map since they are bluer than the surrounding regions.

##### Is it just a Starburst?

A Starburst surrounding the nuclear region, as well as infall of gas from above the galactic plane may produce extinction to the point to fully obscure an active galactic nucleus (AGN). Actually, the early stages in the life of an AGN may be dominated by obscuration, so that even the very AGN detection may be troublesome. This seems to be true over a wide range of luminosity, from ultra-luminous far IR galaxies ($`L_{\mathrm{FIR}}10^{12}L_{}`$), down to the nearest Seyfert 2 (see e.g., Krongold et al. 2002; Maiolino et al. 2000; Dultzin-Hacyan 1995; Sanders et al. 1988). We computed the $`L`$(H$`\alpha `$)/$`\nu P_\nu `$ at $`\nu =1.4`$ GHz as a function of the aperture radius for increasing apertures from 2” to 9”. In this interval the ratio is $`L`$(H$`\alpha `$)/$`\nu P_\nu `$ 2200, with a $`\pm `$ 10 % change along different aperture sizes. The nuclear value is larger than the value observed on Blob A (see below). Blob A is not strictly a galaxy and most likely lacks the deep potential well associated to the nuclei of galaxies where massive black holes are thought to be present. Furthermore, both the nucleus and blob A obey to the correlation between $`f`$(H$`\alpha `$+\[Nii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6548,6583) and radio $`f_\nu `$ at 20 cm found by Kennicutt (1983) for spiral galaxy, which implies $`f`$(H$`\alpha `$+\[Nii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6548,6583)/$`\nu f_\nu 1500`$. This suggests no contribution from an obscured active galactic nucleus in A194S-A.

Having ascertained that most of the H$`\alpha `$ and radio emission is due to Hii regions, we can deduce several parameters related to star formation reported in Table 4. We will focus on blob A and B for which we have a more complete dataset. The absence of any J, and K counterparts for the blobs (Bushouse & Stanford 1992) readily suggests that, if the blob are associated to star forming regions, their age must be relatively young, and that mainly gaseous matter has been stripped through the encounter.

##### “First Generation” of Stars in Blob A?

If we were observing a very young population (i.e., a first generation of stars in which all stars are still in the main sequence with a total mass reported in Col. 7 of Table 4), radio emission should be due exclusively to thermal Bremsstrahlung in the Hii regions. In this case, the emissivity ratio between H$`\alpha `$ and radio specific flux is dependent only on the electron temperature $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ (Osterbrock 1989, pp. 80, 88, 95). Assuming $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ 104∘K, we obtain that the expected ratio at $`\nu =`$ 1.4 GHz is $`j_{\mathrm{H}\alpha }/\nu j_\nu `$44000 for optically thin free-free emission. This value is most likely an underestimate because the emitting region should be optically thick at 1.4 GHz: Hii regions have frequently a turnover frequency between the optically thick and thin regime at $``$ 3 GHz. Since the observed ratio is more than an order of magnitude smaller, we conclude that radio emission must be mainly due to a non-thermal sources associated to supernovæ. The “first generation” scenario is not supported by the optical properties either. We computed the numbers of ionizing photons needed to sustain the L(H$`\alpha `$), and hence the number of OB stars (spectral type earlier than B9) under the assumption that no photon escapes from the nebulae. Approximately 30000 OB stars are needed for blob A. However, a larger number of OB stars would be needed to account for the B absolute magnitude ($`M_{\mathrm{B},\mathrm{blobA}}`$17.9), implying that star formation has been going on beyond the main sequence lifetime of OB stars. Population synthesis calculations using STARBURST99 (Leitherer et al. 1999) confirm this suggestion. In Fig. 8, the dot-dashed line shows the spectral energy distribution expected for a star cluster of total mass $`5\times 10^6`$ M, with a Salpeter IMF predicted by STARBURST99. Emission from such star cluster fails to reproduce the observed luminosity of blob A.

##### Population Synthesis

We simulated blob A and blob B as star forming systems with SFR $``$ 1.22 Myr-1 and SFR $``$ 0.42 Myr-1 respectively (estimated from L(H$`\alpha `$) and as reported in Table 4), using STARBURST99. In Fig. 8 we plot the luminosity in the bands for which we have available data (uncorrected for internal extinction), along with the results of STARBURST99 simulations (solid lines). A reasonable fit to the observed colors and to the absolute B magnitude of blob A is obtained for constant star formation rate and an age of 7$`\times 10^7`$ yr. This implies that the mass of the blob is $`M_{blobA}10^8`$M (a lower limit since we do not know how much of gas mass belongs to the blob). We are able to reproduce the total blob A luminosity within a Starburst age significantly lower than the time lapsed after A194S and N crossing. Not surprisingly, this is not possible for A194S-A, the nucleus of A194S: if SFR$`{}_{\mathrm{A194S}\mathrm{A}}{}^{}`$1.55 Myr-1, after 7$`\times 10^7`$ yr a star forming system would be less luminous than A194S by a factor $``$ 10 in the K band. This implies that the tidally stripped matter making blob A was, in origin, predominantly gaseous.

#### 3.5.1 The Supernova Rate From Radio Properties : Evidence of Substantial Obscuration

Radio emission in star forming galaxies is expected from three major sources: (1) radio supernovæ (RSNæ), (2) supernova remnants (SNRs), and (3) cosmic ray electrons injected through the Fermi acceleration mechanism in the interstellar medium (see, e.g., Condon 1992 for an excellent review). We can write the emitted power as a function of time as $`P=\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{k}_{t_{\mathrm{min},\mathrm{k}}}^{t_{\mathrm{max},\mathrm{k}}}𝑑n(t)/𝑑tP_\mathrm{k}(t)𝑑t`$, where the integration in summed over the three main radio emission mechanisms, and $`dn(t)/dt`$ is the number of supernovæ per year, and we assume that the age of the starburst is longer than the maximum $`t_{\mathrm{max}}10^7`$ yr (see below).

A notable example of radio-emitting supernova has been the RSN (with a type Ibc progenitor) discovered in the circumnuclear starburst region of NGC 7469, a Seyfert 1 galaxy (Colina et al. 2001). The conditions of NGC 7469 may be ultimately similar to the ones of A194S-A. However, unless a Starburst is extremely young, RSNae due to type II events should dominate the radio luminosity contribution due to SNae. We consider as representative one of the best studied cases, SN 1979c in M100. The luminosity is an order of magnitude less than RSN NGC 7469, $`\nu P_\nu 5\times 10^{36}`$ergs s-1, and the light curve can be modeled as flat for a time $`t_{\mathrm{max},1}`$ 2 yr with a sharp rise and steep decline (see also Yin & Heeshen 1991; Mioduszewski et al. 2001). This seems to be, at present, a reasonable albeit rough assumption. The contribution due to SNR, $`P_{\nu ,\mathrm{SNR}}`$ is a strong function of time. The SNR diameter depends on time as $`D=4.3\times 10^{11}(E_0/n_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{int}})^{\frac{1}{5}}t^{\frac{2}{5}}`$, where D is in pc and t in years (Clark & Caswell 1976; see e.g., Ulvestad 1982) up to a $`t_{\mathrm{max},2}10^5`$ yr. $`E_0`$ is the total energy of a SN, and $`n_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{int}}`$ is the electron density of the circumstellar medium ($`n_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{int}}1cm^3`$). It is usually assumed that $`E_0/n_\mathrm{e}10^{51}`$ ergs cm3. We consider the observational surface brightness $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ vs. D relationship in the form $`\mathrm{\Sigma }10^{15}D^3`$ W m-2 Hz-1 sr-1 (Ulvestad 1982, and references therein). Assuming a power law index 0.8 typical of type II SNae (Weiler et al. 1986; Colina et al. 2001, and references therein), we obtain that the total power emitted at 1.4 GHz by a SNR as a function of time is $`\nu P_{\nu ,1.4,\mathrm{SNR}}1.3\times 10^{35}t^{\frac{2}{5}}`$ ergs s-1. A third term is due to relativistic electrons injected by supernova shocks in the interstellar medium. These “cosmic ray” electrons are thought to account for $`f`$ = 90% – 94 % of the total radio power output from a supernova remnant (Condon 1992; Bressan et al. 2002), and may radiate for $`t_{\mathrm{max},3}10^7`$ yr.

Assuming $`dn(t)/dt`$ independent on time, we obtain a rate $`dn/dt2(1f)0.10.2`$ SNæ yr-1 for the nuclear region, and $`1(1f)0.050.1`$ SNæ yr-1 for blob A. The SN rate deduced from radio power is in any case much larger than the value expected from stellar population synthesis, which predicts $`dn(t)/dt0.015`$ SNæ yr-1 for the nuclear regions of A194S, and $`dn(t)/dt0.01`$ SNæ yr-1 for blob A. The SN rate deduced from radio is $`510`$ times larger than the SN rate deduced from optical properties. This hints at (1) the presence of an AGN, which may significantly affect the total power of A194S; however, this does not seem the case since the ratio between optical and radio SN rate on A194S-A is similar to that of blob A; at (2) obscuration; (3) a short-lived ($`10^7`$ yr), post-Starburst phase in which the ratio SFR/$`\nu P_\nu `$ reaches a minimum (Bressan et al. 2002). This is predicted for an impulsive Starburst, and is due to the strong enhancement of the radio emission following the Supernova explosion of the lowest-mass type-II supernova progenitors (which are also the most frequent for standard IMFs). Obscuration is most likely to play the major role. Especially in systems like the nuclear regions of A194S, and blob A which are spheroidal in appearance, H$`\alpha `$ emission may be detected only from the star forming regions nearer to be observer. The SFR measured from the FIR luminosity is $``$10 times larger than the SFR measured from H$`\alpha `$ (Kennicutt 1998). The rate of SNæ found from a search in the K band is also a factor $``$ 5–10 then the rate estimated from optical surveys (Maiolino et al. 2002; Mannucci et al. 2002, in preparation).

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 Cross-Fueling in Interpenetrating Encounters

Numerical simulations of head-on collisions between galaxies show that a substantial mass of gas is “splashed out” into a bridge connecting the two centers of potential. After the collision, the gas is re-accreted either from the intruder and from the primary disk. The amount of material pushed out in the collision depends on the relative orientation and impact parameter of the encounter. The subsequent infall is spatially asymmetric and is primarily located in a well defined streams. Most of the accreted gas ends up in the central regions of the model galaxies (Struck 1997). However, cross-fueling is definitely not an easy phenomenon to prove observationally. In the framework of a galaxy pair, it implies three physical requirements: (1) that gas is stripped from one galaxy; (2) that the gas, stripped from one galaxy, is falling toward the other; (3) that the infalling gas is actually fueling a Starburst or an AGN. These three conditions may be met only in very special systems, and may be demonstrable in many fewer. At least, in the case of collisional ring galaxies systems like Arp 194 it is easy to test whether cross fueling is indeed occurring. First, the blob and the morphology of A194N provide evidence in favor of stripping. The second condition is also satisfied with reasonable certainty for blob A (nothing can be said on blob B and C). On blob A we are observing H$`\alpha `$ and \[Nii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$6548,6583 line components whose redshift is increasing as the gas is approaching the nucleus of A194S. The third condition is also met, since the SFR$``$ 4.5 Myr-1 for A194S-A and $`10`$Myr-1 are typical for estimates of SFR from H$`\alpha `$ luminosity in Starburst galaxies.

The emission line feature observed between blob A and A194S in the spectrum at P. A. =145 is not unlike the one observed in NGC 7592, in which the two interacting galaxies are much closer, and in which a bright H$`\alpha `$ filament connects the nuclei of the two components (Rafanelli & Marziani 1992; Marziani et al. 2001). Interpenetrating encounters lead to some easily demonstrable cases of tidal stripping. Al least two other cases have been studied in detail, Kar 29 and ESO 253-IG026 (Marziani et al. 2001, Marziani et al. 1994). ESO 253-IG026 shows an impressive, bright filament connecting the two galactic components. Evidence of cross-fueling has been collected in other galactic pairs, especially in mixed spiral/elliptical pairs in which a Starburst has been induced in the early type component: for example, in AM 0327-285 (de Mello et al. 1995; 1996), and in Arp 105 (Duc et al. 1997; see also Domingue 2001). We can study more easily some systems containing a collisional ring galaxy since they are at a special timing after contact and oriented favorably. Even if the conditions are special, they provide a laboratory to study accretion gas flows on 100 pc – Kpc scales which cannot be obtained as easily in more complex systems like most merging systems.

### 4.2 Tidal Stripping, Tidal Dwarf Galaxies & the Superwind Phenomenon

Albeit the blob B and C look slightly fainter than A, it is conceivable that they may be of comparable mass. The total mass of the blobs can therefore be several 108 M. The ejection of stellar and gaseous material into the intergalactic medium and its subsequent rearranging may lead ultimately to the formation of self-gravitating tidal dwarf galaxies (Duc et al. 2000). In this respect, it is interesting to note that the mass of blob A is within the range of dwarf galaxies.

The Arp 194 system shows that a part of the orbital energy can be transferred to the gas motion (e.g., Marziani et al. 1994 in the case of Kar 29, Horellou & Combes 2000) in the special case of a collisional ring galaxy. This is expected in general from simulations of interacting galaxies. Orbital energy transfer leads to vertical motions of gas from a system that, when unperturbed, was dynamically very cold with a very low vertical velocity dispersion. Filamentary structures emerging from disk and dwarf galaxies are a telltale signature of superwinds (see for instance the spectacular case of NGC 1808; Phillips 1993). Superwinds are currently explained as due to the kinetic energy injected by stellar winds and SNæ around compact Starburst regions (e.g. Heckman et al. 1993; Heckman 2001). This explanation neglects the observational fact that the wide majority of superwind galaxies belong to strongly interacting systems (Marziani & Dultzin-Hacyan 2000). A rather large fraction of superwind galaxies (possibly 9 out of 20, of which 3 with obvious evidence of tidal stripping) were found in merging systems. Small companions, leading to appreciable perturbations, were also seen near $`\frac{1}{3}`$ of the superwind galaxies. Also in the case of minor mergers, the velocity dispersion in the inner disk is expected to be significantly increased, and the disk structure to become unstable (Walker et al. 1996). Implications of ongoing interactions – and of gravitationally-induced, non-rotational gas motions – have not been taken into account in the theory of galactic superwinds. Even if it is possible to obtain a momentum and energy flow consistent with the observed superwind properties from the mass ejections by stellar wind and SNæ (Leitherer et al. 1992), several superwind aspects – including the possibility that the wind matter could escape from the galactic potential well – could be influenced if the out-of-disk flow is eased by tidal forces, since most superwind flows are apparently only “marginally bound” (Martin et al. 2000). There could be important consequences for the enrichment of any intra-cluster medium. We know the relative velocity between blob A and A194N-A. We can estimate the kinetic energy of tidally stripped matter as $`E=\frac{1}{2}M_{\mathrm{blob}}\mathrm{\Delta }v^22.5\times 10^{54}M_8\mathrm{\Delta }v_{50}^2`$ ergs. This is a lower limit, since the blob mass could well be much larger than estimated. The kinetic energy imparted to blob A corresponds to the total kinetic energy produced by $`10^310^4`$ SNæ, and it may be still a small fraction of the total superwind energy ($`10^{55}10^{57}`$ ergs, which corresponds to the total output of 10$`{}_{}{}^{4}10^6`$ supernovæ). However, gravitational forces could have still an important impact. The kinetic energy could easily be much higher, since $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ imparted to the streaming gas could be much larger than the one assumed on the basis of the blob A observations. The kinetic energy value for tidally stripped matter and superwind outflow can therefore be comparable. We have shown that at least blob A and B can be thought as being entirely gaseous in origin. The relevance of Arp 194 to the superwind phenomenon is that it demonstrates observationally that gas motions can be perturbed to the point of giving rise to a stream perpendicular to the galactic plane because of gravitational acceleration.

There are other examples of a superwind-like outflow manifestly driven by interactions. Kar 29 is likely to be the result of a high velocity encounter ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{v}_\mathrm{r}`$$``$ 1000 km s-1) between an early-type galaxy (the northern component) and a late-type spiral (see Hearn & Lamb 2001 for a review of observational data on this object). The stripped gas emerging from the spiral southern component has not been captured by the elliptical, and may be instead falling back toward the spiral as in a true “galactic fountain.” Fraternali et al. (2001) found that the “galactic fountain” Hi motions in the spiral NGC 2403 are difficult to explain in the pure superwind scheme without accounting for interactions. Also, van der Hulst and Sancisi (1988) suggested that the high velocity Hi gas moving at high speed perpendicular to the disk of Messier 101 could be explained in term of a collision between a large gas mass and the disk of Messier 101 itself. Similarly, some high velocity clouds observed in our Galaxy are likely due to tidal effect related to the crossing of the Galaxy by the Large Magellanic Cloud (e.g., Wakker & van Woerden 1997). These findings can be understood through the simulations mentioned in the introduction. We conjecture that, in mergers and in minor mergers, there could be an important effect of gravitational forces on gas motion perpendicular to the original disk plane.

## 5 Conclusion

We have analyzed in detail the photometric properties and the kinematics of the strongly interacting system Arp 194. The main constituents of this system are a collisional ring system (A194N) and an intruder (A194S) that have experienced an interpenetrating, head-on encounter a few $`10^8`$ yr ago. We have shown that tidally stripped gas is falling toward the center of the intruder, A194S, and that it is fueling a strong nuclear and circumnuclear Starburst. Arp 194 is therefore one of the few known objects for which convincing evidence of cross-fueling exists. Considering that gas is usually confined in a “dynamically cold” configuration in disk galaxies, the Arp 194 case indicates transfer of orbital energy to the internal motion of gas during the the encounter. We suggest that gas motions in superwind galaxies – which are mostly interacting systems – could also be affected by the same mechanism.

Several aspects of the Arp 194 system deserve further scrutiny. The morphology of A194N is fairly complex, and the distorted morphology of the ring as well as the bright arc of A194N indicate the possibility of perturbations by a third party. A full coverage with slit spectroscopy will allow to confirm the presence of a second intruder galaxy located approximately in correspondence of the northern side of the ring. High spatial resolution spectroscopy may reveal more complex motions in proximity of the nucleus of A194S. In the interacting galaxy pair NGC 1409/10, the ongoing mass transfer seems to follow a spiraling pattern (Keel 2000; similar considerations may apply to NGC 7592: Hattori et al. 2002). There is no indication of an hidden AGN presence from our data, but this result depends on the resolution of the FIRST survey data. It is possible that higher resolution data may reveal a high surface brightness compact core. In addition, further radio observations could detect radio supernova events: if $`dn/dt0.3`$, and if a radio supernova event remains detectable for $``$3 yr, we expect to reveal 1 event at any observing time.

P. M. acknowledges financial support from the Italian MURST through Cofin 00–02–004. D. D.- H. acknowledges grant IN 115599 PAPIIT-UNAM. We wish to thank Alessandro Bressan for providing us with the numbers of ionizing photons as a function of stellar spectral type and Radoslav Zamanov for a fruitful discussion on pulsars.


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# Dark Energy and the Hubble Age

## 1 Introduction

The realization that some unknown form of energy density associated with otherwise empty space appears to dominate the gravitational dynamics of the Universe has changed virtually everything in cosmology. For example, the future evolution of the Universe becomes largely independent of its geometry (Krauss and Turner (1999)), so that a closed universe can expand forever, and an open universe can ultimately collapse.

One of the earliest motivations for assuming the existence a cosmological constant, the simplest form of dark energy, involved a comparison of the Hubble age of the Universe—determined for an assumed cosmological model on the basis of the observed expansion rate today—with a lower limit on the age of the oldest objects in our galaxy. In order to resolve the paradox when the latter exceeded the former (Janes and Demarque (1983)), cosmologists were driven to consider the possibility of exotic cosmological models that might allow an older universe for a fixed value of the Hubble constant today.

An accelerating universe allows for this possibility simply because galaxies that are now located at a certain distance from us, and which are moving at some fixed velocity were separating from us at a smaller velocity at earlier times, and thus would have required longer to achieve their present separation than would otherwise be required. For a flat Universe, in the limit where a cosmological constant dominates the energy density, the Hubble age can approach infinity for any value of the Hubble constant.

We currently have no fundamental understanding of the nature of the dark energy (or perhaps more accurately dark ”pressure”). It is significant that a lower limit on the age of the Universe determined from globular cluster dating techniques now provides independent evidence for the existence of dark energy, and puts a limit on the equation of state parameter $`wp/\rho `$ ( i.e. w=pressure/energy density) of the dark energy $`w<0.4`$ (Krauss and Chaboyer (2003)). The question also arises however, if exotic equations of state for dark energy can increase the Hubble age, can one put useful constraints of such equations of state from an upper limit on the age of globular clusters, or from direct estimates of the Hubble age itself. I investigate these questions here.

## 2 Exotic Equations of State and The Hubble Age in a Flat Universe

Determination of the distance-redshift relation made using distant Type 1a supernovae (Perlmutter et al (1999); Schmidt et al (1998)), combined with independent estimates for both the mass density in the Universe today, and the geometry of the universe from CMB measurements (de Bernardis et al (2000); Hanany et al (2000)) have definitively established the need for a dominant component to the energy budget that involves a negative pressure.

While there is currently no fundamental understanding of the nature of this dark pressure, one particular value of the equation of state parameter carries special weight. A vacuum energy density is fixed, by Lorentz invariance, to have the form $`T_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{\mu \nu }`$ and thus as $`w=1`$. Unfortunately, however, all estimates of the vacuum energy density on the basis of first principles calculations yield a value which is orders of magnitude too large, and thus it was commonly assumed for many years that some new symmetry mechanism might yield a value for the vacuum energy which is precisely zero. A uniform scalar field, for example, that is slowly rolling down a potential and has not yet achieved its minimum value can mimic vacuum energy. For such a field, w is given by

$$w=\frac{\dot{\varphi }^2/2V}{\dot{\varphi }^2/2+V}$$

Since the kinetic energy of the scalar field as it rolls in the potential gives a positive contribution to the pressure, any rolling implies $`w>1`$.

Of course, since we do not have any underlying theory for the dark pressure one must allow for the possibility that $`w<1`$ (Caldwell (2002)). It is clear that Lagrangian models that have an equation of state of this form will be extremely exotic, implying for example, a negative kinetic term. Such models will have the remarkably odd feature that the energy density of the dark energy will increase with time! As a result, the Hubble constant itself will continue to increase with time.

If a cosmological constant allows for an older universe for a fixed Hubble constant today, what will be the effect of even more exotic forms of dark pressure? If the equation of state parameter remains constant, for a fixed universe, the age-Hubble constant relation is given by:

$`H_0t_0=`$
$`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dz}{(1+z)[(\mathrm{\Omega }_m)(1+z)^3+(\mathrm{\Omega }_X)(1+z)^{3(1+w)}]^{1/2}}}`$
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ is the fraction of the closure density in matter today, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_X`$ is the fraction of the closure density in material with an equation of state parameter $`w`$.

It is clear that as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_X`$ approaches unity, the age of the Universe can approach infinity if $`w1`$. However, we have good estimates on the density of dark matter today, coming from gravitational lensing of clusters tony, X-Ray studies of clustersevrard, and studies of large scale structure sloan; 2df, that conservatively imply $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.2`$. If we assume this minimal value, then the implications of the above relation between age and Hubble constant for exotic forms of energy become quite different.

If we normalize to the Hubble Key Project best fit value $`H_0=72`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 (Freedman et al (2001)) then we can plot the above relation for age as function of $`w`$, shown in figure 1. Also shown in this figure is the Hubble-independent product $`H_0t_0`$. As is clearly seen in the figure the age of the Universe is a sharply increasing function of $`w`$ for $`w<0`$, but then it quickly begins to asymptote, so that for $`w<10`$ the age increases by less than 0.5 Gyr for $`w>30`$!

This behavior is easily understood. As has been descibed, as $`w`$ decreases below -1, the net energy density stored increases with time. Thus, the relative contribution of this exotic energy to the total energy budget of the Universe was smaller at earlier times (higher redshifts) than, say, the energy density stored in a cosmological constant. In short, this exotic energy has ’just’ become important. As a result, the more negative is $`w`$, the less time there has been for it to have an effect, even though the acceleration rate increases during the period in which it is significant. The net result is that, for fixed fraction of the closure density today in matter, there is effectively a maximum age for the universe, independent of how negative $`w`$ is! For $`H_0=72`$ today, one finds, for example, that for $`w>600`$, $`t_0<20`$Gyr. Put in $`H_0`$-independent terms, one finds $`H_0t_01.47`$.

( One can also derive an asymptotic upper bound $`H_0t_0<2/(3\mathrm{\Omega }_M^{1/2})(=1.49`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.2`$) (valid also for non-constant $`w`$) by taking the limit of the equation above for $`H_0t_0`$ as $`w`$ approaches negative infinity111This result was independently suggested for inclusion here by Chiba (for constant w) and Repko (for varying w) (T. Chiba; W. Repko (2003)) following the posting of the original astro-ph version of this article..)

## 3 Limiting $`w`$ From Age Considerations

From the above analysis, it is clear that in order to derive a robust constraint on negative values of the equation of state parameter $`w`$, one must be able to place an upper limit on the age of the universe in the range of 15-18 Gyr, $`H_0=72`$. The sharp rise of age with negative $`w`$ tails off considerably above 18 Gyr.

Unfortunately, at the current time such a direct determination of the upper limit on the age of stellar systems is not possible. Recent Monte Carlo studies of stellar age constraints in old globular clusters yield a $`95\%`$ upper limit of $`16`$ Gyr (Krauss and Chaboyer (2003)). If this were the end of the story, then some useful constraint would be derivable. However, to this upper limit one must add a conservative upper limit on the time between the Big Bang and the formation of stars in our galaxy. While the epoch of first star formation is likely to be at $`z>6`$, galaxy formation continues down to redshifts as low as 1-2. This implies that the first stars in our galaxy could have started forming when the Universe was as old as 4-5 Gyr. This not likely, but it is possible. While new techniques (i.e. see Chaboyer and Krauss (2002)) may allow the upper limit on globular cluster ages to decrease, it is difficult to imagine ways to reduce this latter 5 Gyr uncertainty on the period before the formation of our galaxy.

As a result, the most robust age constraints on $`w`$ (or on the time-weighted integral of $`w`$, if $`w`$ varies over cosmic time) will probably come from direct lower limits on $`t_0`$ itself, but from cosmological estimates of $`t_0`$ or the combination $`H_0t_0`$, which can be directly probed by redshift vs distance measures (i.e. Riess et al (1998)) and CMB experiments, for example (i.e. Knox et al (2001)). These depend to some extent on cosmological parameter estimation, and on uncertainty in cosmological models (which become more uncertain if $`w`$ is not constant), but early estimates already suggest limits of $`H_0t_0<1.1`$ may be possible. This would put a constraint on constant $`w>1.5`$.

Equations of state with $`w<1`$ violate the weak equivalence principle, and thus have not been examined theoretically in great detail. One might hope therefore, that observational constraints could provide some significant guidance for theorists in this regard. Unfortunately, direct age determinations have a residual uncertainty which is unlikely to allow significant constraints to be derived. Instead, cosmological estimates using supernovae and CMB data appear to offer the best possibility for constraining large negative values of $`w`$.

At the same time, it is significant that cosmology implies an upper limit on the age of the Universe that is essentially independent of the unknown value of $`w`$. This allows a globular cluster ages, at the very least, to provide a direct consistency test of our fundamental cosmological framework. While unlikely, a direct age determination in excess of $`20`$ Gyr would be inconsistent with the Hubble Age for any cosmic equation of state, for a Hubble constant of $`72`$..

The author acknowledges support from the DOE and NSF, and useful conversations with Robert Caldwell. This work was initiated at the KITP at Santa Barbara.


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# 𝜋𝜂 scattering in generalized chiral perturbation theoryPresented by J. N. at Int. Conf. Hadron Structure ’02, Herlany, Slovakia, September 22-27, 2002

## 1 Generalized Chiral Perturbation Theory

As it is well known, on the classical level the QCD Lagrangian with $`N_f`$ massless quarks (corresponding to so-called chiral limit of QCD) is invariant w.r.t. chiral symmetry ($`\chi S)`$ group $`SU(N_f)_L\times SU(N_f)_R`$. On the quantum level there exist strong theoretical (for $`N_f3`$) and phenomenological arguments for spontaneous symmetry breakdown (SSB) of $`\chi S`$ according to the pattern $`SU(N_f)_L\times SU(N_f)_RSU(N_f)_V`$. As a consequence of Goldstone theorem, $`N_f^21`$ pseudoscalar Goldstone bosons (GB) appear in the particle spectrum of the theory. These massless pseudoscalars dominate the low energy dynamics of QCD and interact weekly at low energies $`E<<\mathrm{\Lambda }_H`$, where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_H1GeV`$ is the hadronic scale corresponding to the masses of the lightest nongoldstone hadrons. The most important order parameters of this pattern of SSB are the Goldstone boson decay constant $`F_0`$ and the quark condensate444The parameter $`F_0`$ is however more fundamental in the sense that $`F_00`$ means both necessary and sufficient condition for SSB, while $`\overline{q_f}q_f_00`$ corresponds to the sufficient condition only. $`\overline{q_f}q_f_0`$.

Within the real QCD the quark mass term $`_{f,mass}^{QCD}`$breaks $`\chi S`$ explicitly. The GB become pseudogoldstone bosons (PGB) with nonzero masses. Nevertheless, for $`m_f<<\mathrm{\Lambda }_H`$, $`_{f,mass}^{QCD}`$ can be treated as a small perturbation. As a consequence, the PGB masses $`M_P`$ can be expanded in the powers (and logarithms) of the quark masses and the interaction of PGB at energy scale $`E<<\mathrm{\Lambda }_H`$ continues to be weak. PGB are identified with $`\pi ^0,\pi ^\pm `$ for $`N_f=2`$ and $`\pi ^0,\pi ^\pm ,K^0,\overline{K^0},K^\pm ,\eta `$ for $`N_f=3`$. Because $`M_P<\mathrm{\Lambda }_H`$, the QCD dynamics at $`E<<\mathrm{\Lambda }_H`$ is still dominated by these particles and can be described in terms of an effective theory known as chiral perturbation theory ($`\chi PT`$). The Lagrangian of $`\chi PT`$ can be constructed on the base of symmetry arguments only; the unknown information about the nonperturbative properties of QCD are hidden in the parameters known as low energy constants (LEC).

In order to be able to treat the effective theory as an expansion in powers of $`(p/\mathrm{\Lambda }_H)`$ (where $`p`$ are generic external momenta) and $`(m_f/\mathrm{\Lambda }_H)`$, it is necessary to assign to each term $`^{(m,n)}=O(^mm_f^n)`$ of the effective Lagrangian a single parameter called chiral order. To the terms $`_k`$ with chiral order $`k`$ it is referred as to $`O(p^k)`$ terms. Obviously, $`=O(p).`$ The matter of discussion is, however, the question concerning the chiral power of $`m_f`$. This question is intimately connected to the scenario according which the SSB of $`\chi S`$ is realized.

The standard scenario corresponds to the assumption, that the SSB order parameter $`\overline{q}q_0`$ is large in the sense, that the ratio $`X`$

$$X=\frac{2B_0\widehat{m}}{M_\pi ^2}$$
(1)
(where $`B_0=\overline{q}q_0/F_0^2`$ and $`\widehat{m}=(m_u+m_d)/2`$) is close to one. Because $`M_\pi ^2=O(p^2)`$, it is then natural to take $`m_f=O(p^2)`$, i.e. $`k=m+2n`$. This results into the Standard $`\chi PT`$ ($`S\chi PT`$ in what follows). This scenario has been experimentally confirmed  for $`N_f=2`$ and it is perfectly compatible with experiment for $`N_f=3`$ in $`\pi ,K`$ sector.

Let us note that at $`O(p^2)`$ there is none free parameter, because at this chiral order $`F_0=F_\pi =93.2\mathrm{MeV}`$, $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}2}B_0\widehat{m}=M_\pi ^2=135\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ and $`r=m_s/\widehat{m}26`$.

Alternative to this way of chiral power counting is Generalized $`\chi PT`$ ($`G\chi PT`$)  corresponding to the scenario with small quark condensate $`X<<1`$ so that it is natural to take $`m_f=O(p)`$ and $`B_0=O(p)`$. I.e. $`k=m+n`$ and the $`O(p^2)`$ Lagrangian is

$`_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{F_0^2}{4}}(_\mu U^+^\mu U+2B_0U^++^+U+A_0(U^+)^2+(^+U)^2`$ (2)
$`+Z_0^PU^+^+U^2+Z_0^SU^++^+U^2).`$
This scenario is still possible for $`N_f=3`$, as has been discussed in 555The point is, that provided we define the $`n`$-flavor condensate as
$$\overline{q}q_0^{(n)}=\underset{m_f0,fn}{lim}\overline{q}q_0,$$
the two-flavor condensate relevant for the $`\chi PT`$ with $`N_f=2`$ is related to the three-flavor one relevant for the $`\chi PT`$ with $`N_f=3`$,
$$\overline{u}u_0^{(2)}=\overline{u}u_0^{(3)}m_s\overline{Z}_1^S+\mathrm{}$$
where $`\overline{Z}_1^S`$ is the fluctuation parameter measuring a violation of the Zweig rule in the $`0^{++}`$ channel. That means, that the three-flavor condensate might be small provided $`\overline{Z}_1^S`$ is large. Recent phenomenological studies suggest possibility of $`X^{(3)}1/2`$, cf.  and ..

In the generalized case, there are two free parameters in the $`O(p^2)`$ effective Lagrangian, the usual choice is $`(r,\zeta =Z_0^S/A_0)`$. Within $`S\chi PT`$ at $`O(p^2)`$ we get roughly $`(r,\zeta )=(26,0)`$. Note, that $`\zeta `$ measures the violation of Zweig rule in the $`0^{++}`$ channel, which is, however, not well under control. In what follows, we therefore prefer to parametrize the deviations from $`S\chi PT`$ directly on terms of $`X`$, i.e. our choice of free parameters is $`(r=m_s/\widehat{m},X)`$, cf. (1) (standard $`O(p^2)`$ values are then $`(26,1)`$). The $`O(p^2)`$ LEC can be then expressed in terms of these free parameters.

In oder to distinguish between the two scenarios of $`\chi S`$ SSB, it is necessary to find observables, which are sensitive to the deviations from the standard case. It seems, that the $`\pi \eta `$ scattering might offer such observables, though we left open the question about their experimental accessibility.

Let us note, that the amplitude of this process was already calculated within $`S\chi PT`$ to $`O(p^4)`$ (and within the extended $`S\chi PT`$ with explicit resonance fields) in the paper , where the authors presented prediction for the scattering lengths and phase shifts of the $`S`$, $`P`$ and $`D`$ partial waves. We quote here their $`O(p^4)`$ results for the $`S`$-wave scattering length $`a_0`$ (in the units of the pion Compton wavelength): $`a_0^{S\chi PT}=7.3\times 10^3`$ and $`a_0^{S\chi PT+resonances}=4.9\times 10^3`$.

## 2 General structure of the $`\pi \eta `$ scattering amplitude

Due to isospin conservation and Bose symmetry, the process is described in terms of one $`su`$ symmetric invariant amplitude $`A(s,t;u)`$

$$\pi ^b\eta _{out}|\pi ^a\eta _{in}=\mathrm{i}(2\pi )^4\delta (P_fP_i)\delta ^{ab}A(s,t;u)$$

Using analyticity, unitarity, crossing symmetry and assuming chiral expansion in the same way as in  we get the following general form of the $`O(p^4)`$ amplitude666Here and in what follows, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=M_\eta ^2M_\pi ^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=M_\eta ^2+M_\pi ^2`$ .

$`A(s,t;u)`$ $`=`$ $`R^{(3)}(t;s,u)+V_0(t)+W_0(s)+W_0(u)`$ (3)
$`+[(tu)s+\mathrm{\Delta }^2]W_1(s)+[(ts)u+\mathrm{\Delta }^2]W_1(u)`$
Here $`R^{(3)}(t;s,u)`$ is the most general $`su`$ symmetric subtraction polynomial of the third order777Within the generalized chiral expansion, $`\alpha _{\pi \eta }=O(1)`$, $`\beta _{\pi \eta }=O(p)`$, $`\lambda _{\pi \eta },\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{\pi \eta }=O(p^2)`$, $`V_0,W_0,W_1`$ $`=`$ $`O(p^4)`$ and $`\kappa _{\pi \eta }`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }_{\pi \eta }=`$ $`O(p^4)`$.

$`R^{(3)}(t;s,u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3F_\pi ^2}}(\alpha _{\pi \eta }M_\pi ^2+\beta _{\pi \eta }(t{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\mathrm{\Sigma })+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _{\pi \eta }}{F_\pi ^2}}(t{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\mathrm{\Sigma })+{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{\pi \eta }}{F_\pi ^2}}(su)^2`$ (4)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _{\pi \eta }}{F_\pi ^4}}(su)^2(t{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\mathrm{\Sigma })+{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\kappa }_{\pi \eta }}{F_\pi ^4}}(t{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\mathrm{\Sigma })^3).`$
The unitarity corrections $`V_0`$,$`W_0`$, $`W_1`$ start at $`O(p^4)`$ and are determined by means of the dispersion integrals along the cuts $`((M_\pi +M_\eta )^2,\mathrm{})`$ or $`(4M_\pi ^2,\mathrm{})`$ with the discontinuities given by the right hand cut discontinuities of the $`S`$ and $`P`$ partial waves in the $`s`$ and $`t`$ channel. Using partial waves unitarity, it is possible to proceed iteratively and determine the relevant $`O(p^4)`$ discontinuities through the $`O(p^2)`$ amplitudes $`A^{\eta \pi \varphi _\alpha \varphi _\beta }`$, $`A^{\varphi _\alpha \varphi _\beta \eta \pi }`$, $`A^{\pi \pi \varphi _\alpha \varphi _\beta }`$ and $`A^{\eta \eta \varphi _\alpha \varphi _\beta }`$. These are real and first order polynomials in $`s,t,u`$, so that we can parametrize them with (altogether 11) real parameters. Adding to this the 2 extra real coefficients of $`O(p^4)`$ part of the subtraction polynomial $`R^{(3)}(t;s,u)`$, it is possible to parametrize the $`O(p^4)`$ amplitude $`A(s,t;u)`$ in terms of 13 real free parameters888In the following formulas, the parameters of the $`O(p^2)`$ amplitudes $`A^{\eta \pi \varphi _\alpha \varphi _\beta }`$ and $`A^{\varphi _\alpha \varphi _\beta \eta \pi }`$ are $`\alpha _{\pi \eta }`$, $`\beta _{\pi \eta }`$, $`\alpha _{\pi \eta K}`$, $`\beta _{\pi \eta K}`$ for $`\varphi _\alpha \varphi _\beta =\pi \eta ,\overline{K}K`$, the parameters of $`O(p^2)`$ amplitudes $`A^{\pi \pi \varphi _\alpha \varphi _\beta }`$ and $`A^{\eta \eta \varphi _\alpha \varphi _\beta }`$ are $`\alpha _{\pi \pi }`$, $`\beta _{\pi \pi }`$, $`\alpha _{\eta \eta }`$, $`\alpha _{\pi K}`$, $`\beta _{\pi K}`$, $`\alpha _{\eta K}`$, $`\beta _{\eta K}`$ for $`\varphi _\alpha \varphi _\beta =\pi \pi ,\eta \eta ,\overline{K}K`$.. As a result of the iterative procedure we get for the $`O(p^4)`$ unitarity corrections $`V_0`$, $`W_0`$, $`W_1`$ the following formulas: $`W_1^{(4)}(s)=0`$ and

$`W_0^{\left(4\right)}\left(s\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{J}_{\pi \eta }\left(s\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{3F_\pi ^2}}\alpha _{\pi \eta }M_\pi ^2\right)^2`$
$`+\overline{J}_{KK}\left(s\right){\displaystyle \frac{3}{8F_\pi ^4}}\left[\beta _{\pi \eta K}\left(s{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\mathrm{\Sigma }{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}M_K^2\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\left(2M_K^2\mathrm{\Sigma }+\alpha _{\pi \eta K}M_\pi ^2\right)\right]^2`$
$`V_0^{\left(4\right)}\left(s\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{J}_{\pi \pi }\left(s\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{3F_\pi ^4}}\alpha _{\pi \eta }M_\pi ^2\left[\beta _{\pi \pi }\left(s{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}M_\pi ^2\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{6}}\alpha _{\pi \pi }M_\pi ^2\right]`$
$`\overline{J}_{\eta \eta }\left(s\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{18F_\pi ^4}}\alpha _{\eta \eta }\alpha _{\pi \eta }M_\pi ^4\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{4M_\eta ^2}{M_\pi ^2}}\right)`$
$`+\overline{J}_{KK}\left(s\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{8F_\pi ^2}}\left[\beta _{\pi K}\left(s{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}M_\pi ^2{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}M_K^2\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\left(\left(M_KM_\pi \right)^2+2\alpha _{\pi K}M_KM_\pi \right)\right]`$
$`\times \left[\beta _{\eta K}\left(3s2M_K^22M_\eta ^2\right)+\alpha _{\eta K}\left(2M_\eta ^2{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}M_K^2\right)\right]`$
where $`\overline{J}_{PQ}(s)`$ is the Chew-Mandelstam function, cf.. The role of $`\chi PT`$ is then reduced to the determination of the above mentioned parameters in terms of LEC and quark masses. Let us now briefly comment on the results of the calculations.

## 3 $`\pi \eta `$ amplitude in $`G\chi PT`$ at $`O(p^4)`$

Let us write the complete $`O(p^4)`$ amplitude $`A(s,t,u)`$ in the form

$$A(s,t,u)=A^{(2)}(s,t,u)+A^{(3)}(s,t,u)+A^{(4)}(s,t,u),\mathrm{where}A^{(k)}(s,t,u)=O(p^k).$$

$`A^{(2)}`$ and $`A^{(3)}`$ contain the contributions from tree graphs with vertices derived form Lagrangians $`_2`$ and $`_3=O(p^3)`$ respectively (see (2) and e.g. ); $`A^{(4)}`$ includes tree graphs with vertices from $`_4=O(p^4)`$ as well as 1-loop graphs with vertices from $`_2`$.

Because the unitarity corrections start at $`O(p^4)`$, $`A^{(2)}(s,t,u)`$ and $`A^{(3)}(s,t,u)`$ are both polynomials of the form (cf. (4))

$$A^{(k)}(s,t,u)=\frac{1}{3F_\pi ^2}(\alpha _{\pi \eta }^{(k)}M_\pi ^2+\beta _{\pi \eta }^{(k)}(t\frac{2}{3}(M_\pi ^2+M_\eta ^2)),k=1,2.$$

Moreover, the amplitude must vanish in the chiral limit, therefore $`\beta _{\pi \eta }^{(2)}=0`$. From (2) we get

$$A^{(2)}(s,t,u)=\frac{M_\pi ^2}{3F_\pi ^2}\alpha _{\pi \eta }^{(2)},$$

where, in terms of the free parameters $`(r,X)`$

$$\alpha _{\pi \eta }^{(2)}=1+\frac{\left(1+2r\right)\left(2\left(1X\right)+r\epsilon (r)\right)}{\left(2+r\right)}\frac{2\mathrm{\Delta }_{GMO}}{r1}.$$

In this formula

$$\epsilon (r)=2\frac{r_2r}{r^21},r_2=2\frac{M_K^2}{M_\pi ^2}1,\mathrm{\Delta }_{GMO}=\frac{3M_\eta ^2+M_\pi ^24M_K^2}{M_\pi ^2}3.6.$$
(5)
The standard $`O(p^2)`$ result (corresponding to the current algebra (CA)) corresponds to $`\alpha _{\pi \eta }^{(2)}=1`$ . The dependence of $`\alpha _{\pi \eta }^{(2)}`$ on $`r`$ and $`X`$ is shown in Fig. 1. The deviation from the standard case might be even by a factor ten larger than the standard value, provided the quark mass ratio $`r`$ is small in comparison with $`r_2`$ and the three-flavor ratio $`X`$ is smaller than one. This result is encouraging enough to calculate the higher order corrections.

The $`O(p^3)`$ Lagrangian $`_3`$ contains 9 LEC999Some of them, namely $`\stackrel{~}{\xi },\rho _3`$, $`\rho _4,\rho _5,\rho _6,\rho _7`$, violate Zweig rule and might be neglected (the only exception is $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }`$, which could be relevant as the measure of the fluctuations in the $`0^{++}`$ channel, cf. )., namely $`\xi `$, $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }`$ and $`\rho _i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},7`$. $`\xi `$ can be expressed in terms of decay constants as follows

$$\widehat{m}\xi =\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_F}{r1},\mathrm{\Delta }_F=\frac{F_K^2}{F_\pi ^2}10.5.$$

For the NLO corrections in terms of $`X`$, $`\epsilon `$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{GMO}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_F`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }`$ and remaining $`O(p^3)`$ LEC we get

$`\beta _{\pi \eta }^{(3)}`$ $`=`$ $`4\widehat{m}\stackrel{~}{\xi }(r+2)`$
$`\alpha _{\pi \eta }^{(3)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{\Delta }_F}{(r1)}}(1{\displaystyle \frac{2(2r+1)^2(1X)}{3(r+2)}}{\displaystyle \frac{(8+r(6r+13))(r1)\epsilon }{6(r+2)}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{GMO}}{3}})`$
$`4\widehat{m}\stackrel{~}{\xi }(2r+1)\left(1(X1)+{\displaystyle \frac{r^21}{2r+1}}\epsilon +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{GMO}}{2r+1}}\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}\widehat{m}\stackrel{~}{\xi }(r+2){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }}{M_\pi ^2}}+\mathrm{}`$
The ellipses stay for the $`O(m_f^3)`$ terms which includes the unknown LEC $`\rho _i`$.

The NNLO $`O(p^4)`$ corrections have the general form (cf. (3)) with $`\kappa =\stackrel{~}{\kappa }=0`$ and   with $`V_0^{(4)}`$ and $`W_i^{(4)}`$ given above. The complete formulas for $`A^{(4)}`$, which are rather lengthy, will be published elsewhere. Let us only briefly comment on the result.

As usual, 1-loop graphs which contribute to $`A^{(4)}`$ are generally divergent; therefore the renormalization procedure is needed. As a result, the amplitude depends explicitly on the renormalization scale $`\mu `$. This scale dependence is compensated by the implicit scale dependence of the renormalized LEC, this fact we used as a nontrivial check of our calculations.

Let us also note, that the $`O(p^4)`$ Lagrangian is parametrized by means of 40 LEC, most of them are unknown. Influence of these unknown constant (as well as that of the unknown $`O(p^3)`$ LEC) can be roughly estimated using the above mentioned explicite $`\mu `$ dependence of the amplitude. The idea behind is based on the assumption that the variation of LEC with $`\mu `$ is of the same order as LEC themselves. Setting all the unknown LEC equal to zero and varying the scale $`\mu `$ is then (up to the sign) equivalent to the variation of the LEC and gives therefore information on the impact of the unknown LEC.

The observable which seems to be sensitive to the deviation from the $`S\chi PT`$ is the $`S`$wave scattering length $`a_0`$, (note, that at $`O(p^2)`$, $`a_0\alpha _{\pi \eta }^{(2)}`$, while $`P`$wave scattering length $`a_1`$ starts at $`O(p^3)`$ ). In Fig. 2 we show the numerical results for $`a_0`$ as a function of the quark mass ratio $`r`$ for $`X=1`$ and $`X=0.5`$with $`\mu =M_\eta `$ and $`\mu =M_\rho `$.

## 4 Conclusions

We have calculated the $`\pi \eta `$ scattering amplitude in $`G\chi PT`$ to the order $`O(p^4)`$ and evaluated the $`S`$wave scattering length as a function of the free parameters $`r`$ and $`X`$. The influence of the other unknown LEC was estimated using explicit dependence of the loops on the renormalization scale $`\mu `$. Preliminary numerical results suggest that $`S`$wave scattering length might be sensitive to the values of the quark condensate and quark mass ratio. $`G\chi PT`$ allows for systematically larger values of $`a_0`$ in comparison to the standard case . The dependence of the loop corrections on the renormalization scale can be understood as a signal for relatively strong dependence on the unknown LEC. In order to get sharper prediction further estimates will be necessary (resonances, sum rules…). Numerical analysis of other observables, which has not been completed yet, might be also interesting.

Acknowledgement. This work was supported by the program “Research Centers” (project number LN00A006) of the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

We consider the Randall-Sundrum background scenario , where we have an extra dimension that is compact and verifies a $`Z_2`$ symmetry. All matter fields are supposed to live on the two branes of the scenario. In order for the static background of this setup to solve Einstein equations, the tensions on the branes must be fine-tuned (they have to be related with one another, and with the non-zero, negative Cosmological Constant of the Bulk). This scenario was introduced originally to explain the hierarchy problem between Planck and Electroweak scales. The warp factor appearing in the 5-dimensional metric of the model allows to generate this huge hierarchy in a ‘natural way’.

But when we add dynamical degrees of freedom to the static background of the setup, the existence of the two branes will have important consequences.

We are interested in weak perturbations of the metric, and these will in general include a tensor field, a vector field (the $`({}_{\mu 5}{}^{})`$ part of the metric) and a scalar field ($`({}_{55}{}^{})`$ part of the metric).

In the weak field approach, we always have a gauge freedom on the metric perturbations, and we can ask ourselves what can we gauge away by fixing appropriately the gauge. With two branes, it turns out that the vector perturbations (μ5) can be completely gauged away, and the 5-d scalar perturbation can be turned into a 4-d scalar perturbation.

This was done in  and  by using the so-called ‘bent-brane’ procedure (see also ). This procedure in general terms, uses two coordinate frames, in which one of the branes is not at fixed-y position. In these frames, we can always gauge away vector and scalar perturbations, but when switching to a frame where both branes are at fixed-y, a massless 4-d scalar field appears and is identified as the radion.

There has been some discrepancy in the literature about this method  and we therefore propose instead, to carry out a gauge fixing procedure that will maintain always the two branes fixed, and show that the linearized version of  is actually correct and consistent. The metric ansatz calculated in  and originally introduced to correct the problems of the ‘bent brane’ method, will turn out to be completely equivalent with our result, the difference residing on a simple gauge transformation, that we will write down.

We will not address here the issue of the stabilization of the radion and its consequences on its couplings. This issue comes from the fact that the inter-brane distance of the static background is not set by any scale. This ‘scale-invariance’ of the background, is ultimately responsible for the masslessness of the radion. The problem, among others, is that for the model to solve the hierarchy problem, we need to fix the interbrane distance to some specific value. This fixing, or stabilization, would induce a potential for the radion, that would become massive. Some specific mechanisms have been proposed and studied in the literature  and we do not intend to study here any of them in the context of our gauge fixing process.

But before anything, let’s first review the static background setup of Randall and Sundrum.

Through the rest of this paper, capital Latin letters $`(A,B,C,..)`$ run from 1 to 5 and Greek letters $`(\mu ,\nu ,..)`$ run from 1 to 4, and primes ($`^{}`$) denote derivatives with respect to the extra dimension $`y`$.

## 2 Randall-Sundrum setup

The background action of the model is

$`𝒮=M_{}^3{\displaystyle d^5x\sqrt{g_5}}{\displaystyle d^5x\sqrt{g_5}\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\displaystyle d^5x\sqrt{\widehat{g}_1}\lambda _1\delta (y)}{\displaystyle d^5x\sqrt{\widehat{g}_2}\lambda _2\delta (yr_0)}`$ (1)
and we want to find a solution for the static background metric $`\overline{g}_{AB}`$ of the form

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2\sigma (y)}\eta _{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu +dy^2`$ (2)
where $`\eta _{\mu \nu }`$ is chosen in the convention $`(+++)`$.

In general, the induced metrics $`\widehat{g}_1`$ and $`\widehat{g}_2`$ on each brane have the form

$`\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }(x)=\overline{g}_{AB}(X(x))_\mu X^A_\mu X^B`$ (3)
where $`X^A(x)`$ describes the position of the brane in a 5-dimensional reference frame with respect to the position $`x`$ on the brane.

We will work in a frame in which $`_\mu X^A_\mu X^B=\delta _\mu ^A\delta _\nu ^B`$ so that the induced metrics are simply of the form $`\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }(x)=g_{\mu \nu }(x)`$. In this frame, the two branes sit on a fixed y-position.

The Einstein equations for the background configuration give then

$`2\sigma ^2\sigma ^{\prime \prime }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6M_{}^3}}\left[\mathrm{\Lambda }\lambda _1\delta (y)\lambda _2\delta (yr_0)\right]`$
$`\mathrm{and}`$
$`\sigma ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{12M_{}^3}}`$ (5)
Now eq. (5) tells us that $`\sigma ^2`$ is constant (and, therefore, continuous). But $`\sigma ^{}`$ is not necessarily continuous, since

$`\sigma ^{}=\pm k`$ (6)
If we choose $`\sigma ^{}(ϵ)=k>0`$, which in turns requires that $`\sigma ^{}(ϵ)=k`$ (with $`ϵ`$ being an arbitrarily small number), we get

$`2k={\displaystyle \frac{1}{6M_{}^3}}\lambda _1\mathrm{and}2k={\displaystyle \frac{1}{6M_{}^3}}\lambda _2`$ (7)
So that finally, we have the well-known relations between brane tensions and bulk cosmological constant, that is found to be negative.

$`\lambda _1=\lambda _2=12kM_{}^3\mathrm{\Lambda }=12k^2M_{}^3`$ (8)
These relations actually represent a forced fine-tuning of the model since the three terms are in principle of different nature and origin.

The warp function is111To be more precise and to cover the complete circle (and therefore include both branes), we should write , $`\sigma (y)=k\left[y(2\theta (y)1)2(yr_0)\theta (yr_0)\right]+c`$. This makes explicit the presence of the second brane at $`y=r_0`$, and ensures that $`\sigma ^{}`$ makes a jump on the two branes.

$`\sigma (y)=k|y|+c\mathrm{for}r_0<y<r_0`$ (9)
where c is some constant of integration that we will chose in the manner that follows.

If we live in the negative tension brane at $`y=r_0`$, we will set the constant c to $`kr_0`$ so that the induced metric in our brane has the good old Minkowski form, and no field redefinitions will be necessary . If we live in the brane at y=0, then we will set $`c=0`$ for the same reason.

We assume our brane is the one located at $`y=r_0`$ and therefore write

$`ds^2=e^{2(k|y|kr_0)}\eta _{\mu \nu }+dy^2`$ (10)
## 3 Perturbations around the Background

In what follows, we will not use the explicit form of the warp function $`\sigma (y)`$. Instead, we will carry out everything in terms of a generic $`\sigma (y)`$ function, having in mind its fundamental properties (see eq. (2) and (5))

$`\sigma ^{\prime \prime }(y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6M_{}^3}}\left[\lambda _1\delta (y)+\lambda _2\delta (yr_0)\right]`$ (11)
$`\sigma _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}(y)`$ $`=`$ $`k^2`$ (12)
$`\sigma ^{}(ϵ)=\sigma ^{}(ϵ)`$ $`\mathrm{and}`$ $`\sigma ^{}(r_0ϵ)=\sigma ^{}(r_0+ϵ)`$ (13)
This will ensure that we are always keeping track of the $`S_1/Z_2`$ properties of the fields in the setup, and that every time we encounter a $`\sigma ^{\prime \prime }`$, we know we are handling the information coming from the branes. It also allows us to work in a general manner without having to solve first in the bulk and then impose boundary field equations.

### 3.1 Gauge freedom equations

We define the metric perturbations $`h_{AB}`$ as

$`g_{AB}=\overline{g}_{AB}+ϵh_{AB}`$ (14)
In the weak field approximation, when we take the inverse of the metric, we will only keep terms up to some order in $`ϵ`$.

The functions $`h_{AB}(x,y)`$ satisfy the symmetry conditions:

$`h_{\mu \nu }(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`h_{\mu \nu }(x,y)`$ (15)
$`h_{\mu 5}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`h_{\mu 5}(x,y)`$ (16)
$`h_{55}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`h_{55}(x,y)`$ (17)
There is a gauge freedom on the metric perturbations that maintains the first order lagrangian invariant, and it is related to infinitesimal coordinate transformations.

$`x_A^{new}`$ $`=`$ $`x_A+\xi _A(x,y)`$
$`h_{AB}^{new}`$ $`=`$ $`h_{AB}_A\xi _B(x,y)_B\xi _A(x,y)`$ (18)
where $`_A`$ is the covariant derivative.

We can calculate explicitly these gauge equations for our simple background metric.

$`h_{\mu \nu }^{new}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`h_{\mu \nu }(x,y)_\mu \xi _\nu _\nu \xi _\mu +2\sigma ^{}\xi _5\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }`$ (19)
$`h_{\mu 5}^{new}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`h_{\mu 5}(x,y)_\mu \xi _5e^{2\sigma }\left(e^{2\sigma }\xi _\mu \right)^{}`$ (20)
$`h_{55}^{new}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`h_{55}(x,y)2_5\xi _5`$ (21)
It is crucial to realize that the functions $`\xi _A`$ satisfy the symmetry conditions

$`\xi _\mu (x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`\xi _\mu (x,y)`$ (22)
$`\xi _5(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`\xi _5(x,y)`$ (23)
and the boundary conditions

$`\xi _5(x,0)=\xi _5(x,r_0)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (24)
$`\left(e^{2\sigma }\xi _\mu \right)^{}|_{y=0}=\left(e^{2\sigma }\xi _\mu \right)^{}|_{y=r_0}`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (25)
Now, we want to write down the equations of motion of the metric perturbations from Einstein equations. But the task will be simplified if we choose a gauge in which the number of perturbations is reduced.

### 3.2 Choosing the gauge

We will first try to fix the gauge for the field $`h_{55}(x,y)`$ but, we insist, making sure we maintain the branes at fixed-y. This means that we need to ensure that the function $`\xi _5(x,y)`$ that we will choose vanishes on each brane location.

We propose

$`\xi _5(x,y)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle _y^y}𝑑Yh_{55}(x,Y){\displaystyle \frac{y}{4r_0}}{\displaystyle _{r_0}^{r_0}}𝑑Yh_{55}(x,Y){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma ^{}J[\sigma (y)]r(x)`$ (26)
where $`r(x)`$ is any function of the $`4d`$ coordinates $`x`$ and where $`J[\sigma (y)]`$ is some unknown function with the boundary conditions $`J(0)=J(r_0)=0`$, and that will be determined later. This choice ensures that $`\xi _5(x,y)`$ vanishes on the two brane locations at $`y=0`$ and $`y=r_0`$. Moreover, we see that $`\xi _5(x,y)=\xi _5(x,y)`$, in agreement with the orbifold symmetry.

We plug this in (21) to get

$`h_{55}^{new}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2r_0}}{\displaystyle _{r_0}^{r_0}}𝑑Yh_{55}(x,Y)+\sigma ^2{\displaystyle \frac{J[\sigma ]}{\sigma }}r(x)+\sigma ^{\prime \prime }J[\sigma (y)]r(x)`$ (27)
The $`\sigma ^{\prime \prime }`$ term is identically zero. And we can still fix our choice more by asking that

$`\alpha _0r(x)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2r_0}}{\displaystyle _{r_0}^{r_0}}𝑑Yh_{55}(x,Y)`$ (28)
with $`\alpha _00`$, being some constant that we can fix later.

Our gauge-fixed $`h_{55}`$ metric perturbation becomes

$`h_{55}^{new}(x,y)=F(y)r(x)`$ (29)
with the function $`F(y)`$ defined as

$`F(y)=\left(\alpha _0+\sigma ^2{\displaystyle \frac{J}{\sigma }}\right)\mathrm{with}J(0)=J(r_0)=0`$ (30)
We see that it was not possible to gauge away totally the perturbation $`h_{55}`$ (because the boundary conditions impose $`F(y)0`$).

In the case of a one brane scenario, the last two terms in eq. (26) would not be needed, and gauging away the perturbation $`h_{55}`$ would have been possible (the translational ‘vibration’ of one brane is unphysical). But, when we add a second brane, we impose an extra boundary condition that forces us to keep some dynamical function. It was identified as the radion  and it keeps track of the relative ‘vibrational motion’ of the two branes .

The next step is to gauge away the $`h_{\mu 5}`$ perturbation which turns out to be possible , and we even keep some residual gauge freedom on the tensor perturbations.

$`h_{\mu \nu }^{new}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`h_{\mu \nu }(x,y)e^{2\sigma (y)}_\mu V_\nu (x)e^{2\sigma (y)}_\nu V_\mu (x)`$ (31)
Our gauge choice can be summarized by

$`h_{55}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`F(y)r(x)`$ (32)
$`h_{\mu 5}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (33)
and the corresponding metric ansatz is

$`ds^2=\left(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }+ϵe^{2\sigma }j_{\mu \nu }(x,y)\right)dx^\mu dx^\nu +(1+ϵF(y)r(x))dy^2`$ (34)
where $`\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }=e^{2\sigma }\eta _{\mu \nu }`$ is the background metric that we will use to raise and lower indices.

We have used the notation $`j_{\mu \nu }(x,y)=e^{2\sigma }h_{\mu \nu }(x,y)`$ instead of simply $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ because the equations of motion turn out to be simpler for the $`j_{\mu \nu }`$ field, but also because the residual gauge freedom on the tensor perturbation seems to point to this parametrization (see eq. (31)).

The problem now is that the equations of motion for these perturbations will turn out to be coupled and we need to decouple them to get the correct physical fields.

### 3.3 Decoupling the equations of motion

We intend to write and decouple the field equations for the perturbations in the absence of any matter field.

The perturbed Einstein equations give a visually complicated set of equations that we will divide in 4 sets: the $`(\mu \nu )`$ equations, the $`(\mu 5)`$ equations, the $`(55)`$ equation and the contracted equation $`[({}_{\mu }{}^{\mu })(55)]`$ or ($`{}_{A}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{A}`$), which will help us in the decoupling process.

For the $`(\mu \nu )`$ equations we get

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^{4\sigma }\left(j_{\mu \nu }^{}e^{4\sigma }\right)^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{Fe^{2\sigma }}{2}}_\mu _\nu r+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(^\alpha _\mu j_{\alpha \nu }+^\alpha _\nu j_{\alpha \mu }^\alpha _\alpha j_{\mu \nu }_\mu _\nu j_\alpha ^\alpha )`$
$`+\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }({\displaystyle \frac{Fe^{2\sigma }}{2}}\overline{g}^{\alpha \beta }_\alpha _\beta r+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}e^{6\sigma }r\left(F\sigma ^{}e^{4\sigma }\right)^{}+2\sigma ^{}j_{\alpha \beta }^{}\overline{g}^{\alpha \beta }`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{g}^{\alpha \beta }j_{\alpha \beta }^{\prime \prime }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\{^\alpha ^\beta j_{\alpha \beta }^\alpha _\alpha j_\beta ^\beta \})=0`$ (35)
for the $`(\mu 5)`$ equation:

$`e^{2\sigma }\overline{g}^{\alpha \beta }(_\mu j_{\alpha \beta }+_\alpha j_{\mu \beta })^{}+3F\sigma ^{}_\mu r=0`$ (36)
for the $`(55)`$ equation

$`\left(^\mu ^\nu j_{\mu \nu }^\mu _\mu j_\nu ^\nu \right)+3\sigma ^{}\overline{g}^{\mu \nu }j_{\mu \nu }^{}+12Fe^{2\sigma }\sigma ^2r=0`$ (37)
and the contracted equation ($`{}_{A}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{A}`$)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^{2\sigma }\overline{g}^{\mu \nu }\left(e^{2\sigma }j_{\mu \nu }^{}\right)^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^{2\sigma }F\overline{g}^{\mu \nu }_\mu _\nu r\left(F\sigma ^{}e^{2\sigma }\right)^{}2e^{4\sigma }r=0`$ (38)
We immediately see that these equations are coupled differential equations of motion, and to extract the physical fields we need to separate them in independent equations for each field. To decouple them, we will try the redefinition

$`j_{\mu \nu }=H_{\mu \nu }G(y)\eta _{\mu \nu }r`$ (39)
By carefully analyzing the new equations that we get, we find that the double requirement

$`G^{^{}}=F\sigma ^{}\mathrm{and}{\displaystyle \frac{F}{2}}=G`$ (40)
on our yet unknown functions $`G(y)`$ and $`F(y)`$ is the only one that decouples the equations.

We can then solve for $`G(y)`$ and $`F(y)`$:

$`G(y)=\alpha e^{2\sigma (y)}={\displaystyle \frac{F(y)}{2}}`$ (41)
with $`\alpha `$ an integration constant that we will arbitrarily set to 1.

To completely decouple the equations we also need to partially fix the residual gauge freedom that we still had for the field $`H_{\mu \nu }`$ (see eq. (31)) to finally get the decoupled equations of motion

$`\overline{g}^{\mu \nu }_\mu _\nu r=0`$ (42)
which is the equation of motion of a massless 4-dimensional scalar field.

and

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^{4\sigma }\left(e^{4\sigma }H_{\mu \nu }^{TT}\right)^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{g}^{\alpha \beta }(_\alpha _\beta H_{\mu \nu }^{TT})=0`$ (43)
which is the equation of motion of a 2-tensor field in the T-T gauge, i.e., such that

$`H_\mu ^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`0\mathrm{and}^\alpha H_{\alpha \mu }=0`$ (44)
and we still have some residual gauge freedom on $`H_{\mu \nu }^{TT}`$

$`H_{\mu \nu }^{TT^{new}}`$ $`=`$ $`H_{\mu \nu }^{TT}_\mu \chi _\nu (x)_\nu \chi _\mu (x)\mathrm{with}\mathrm{}\chi _\mu =^\mu \chi _\mu =0`$ (45)
So, we have decoupled the equations of motion by redefining the tensor perturbation and this has fixed the function $`F(y)`$ that was part of our gauge fixed metric (eq. (34)). It also fixed the function $`G(y)`$ that appeared in the tensor field redefinition (eq. (39)).

The radion turns out to be a massless 4-dimensional scalar field, and we have proved that we can choose the 4-dimensional T-T gauge on the tensor perturbations.

Before we end this section, we remind the reader that the function $`F(y)`$ should verify some boundary conditions that we need to check for our solution to be consistent.

We have

$`F(y)=\left(\alpha _0+\sigma ^2{\displaystyle \frac{J}{\sigma }}\right)\mathrm{with}J(0)=J(r_0)=0`$ (46)
We need to integrate this equation and make sure that with $`F(y)=2e^{2\sigma (y)}`$, the function $`J(y)`$ vanishes at $`y=0`$ and $`y=r_0`$.

We get

$`J(y)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}e^{2\sigma (y)}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _0\sigma (y)}{k^2}}+\alpha _1`$ (47)
where $`\alpha _1`$ is a constant of integration, and $`\alpha _0`$ is some constant that we can fix at our convenience. Obviously, a solution for the boundary problem exists:

$`\alpha _1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}\mathrm{and}\alpha _0={\displaystyle \frac{1}{kr_0}}(1e^{2kr_0})`$ (48)
and, therefore, our solution for $`F(y)`$ is consistent, proving that the process of decoupling was successful.

Let us then write down our simple ansatz, which decouples the equations of motion

$`ds^2=\left(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }+ϵe^{2\sigma (y)}H_{\mu \nu }^{TT}(x,y)ϵ\eta _{\mu \nu }r(x)\right)dx^\mu dx^\nu +\left(1+2ϵe^{2\sigma (y)}r(x)\right)dy^2`$ (49)
This ansatz turns out to be equal to the linear expansion of the ansatz in  that was derived using a different approach (see also ).

Finally, we must mention that this radion that appears in the metric ansatz is not canonically normalized in the 4-dimensional sense, its kinetic term in the effective 4-d lagrangian not being canonical. A canonical normalization of the radion in the framework of the linear expansion of the metric of  (and, therefore, ours) can be found in .

The process of extracting the effective 4-d lagrangian for the tensor perturbations can be found in .

### 3.4 Gauge transformed ansatz

We have decoupled Einstein equations by fixing the gauge and using a simple redefinition of the tensor perturbations. So, starting from our ansatz, we are now going to define the gauge transformation

$`\xi _\mu (x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^{2\sigma (y)}\left({\displaystyle _0^y}𝑑Y\sigma ^{}e^{2\sigma (Y)}J(Y)\right)_\mu r(x)`$
$`\mathrm{and}`$ (50)
$`\xi _5(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma ^{}J(y)r(x)`$
with $`J(y)`$ given in (47) and (48).

From the gauge invariance equations (18), we can get the physical metric perturbations in this new gauge

$`h_{\mu \nu }^{new}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`h_{\mu \nu }(x,y)e^{2\sigma (y)}\eta _{\mu \nu }\alpha _0\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha _0}}+\sigma (y)\right)r(x)`$ (51)
$`+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _0}{2k^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha _0}}\sigma (y)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\alpha _0}}e^{2\sigma (y)}\right)+C_0e^{2\sigma (y)}\right]_\mu _\nu r(x)`$
$`h_{\mu 5}^{new}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (52)
$`h_{55}^{new}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _0r(x)`$ (53)
where $`\alpha _0`$ is given in eq. (48) and $`C_0`$ is an unphysical integration constant.

The metric ansatz that we get in this new gauge is the same as the one proposed in  (they write $`\varphi (x)=\alpha _0r(x)`$ and choose $`C_0=0`$), which was introduced to solve possible problems of the ‘bent-brane’ procedure used for example in . As it now becomes clear, both aproaches are correct and equivalent to linear order, being related by the gauge transformation defined above. We stress that our ansatz was derived without any ‘bent brane’ procedure, but is equal to the linear expansion of the metric solution of .

We also need to mention that in , a complete investigation on the general features of the RS scenario, another result for the metric perturbations is given and seems apparently incompatible with ours. But, there are only two differences. The first one resides in that they choose to start in the same gauge used in  (i.e., the gauge defined in this section, although not necessarilly with $`C_0=0`$). The second is their method to solve the coupled equations, which involved expanding first all the fields in complete sets of functions of the y-coordinate and then decoupling the equations. Because they start in the same gauge (up to the constant $`C_0`$), their analysis should simply be equivalent to the one in , and, therefore, to ours.

A simpler gauge transformation (starting in our gauge) in which $`\xi _5=0`$ and
$`\xi _\mu =\frac{1}{2}C_0e^{2\sigma (y)}_\mu r(x)`$ would give

$`h_{\mu \nu }^{new}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`h_{\mu \nu }(x,y)\eta _{\mu \nu }r(x)+C_0e^{2\sigma (y)}_\mu _\nu r(x)`$ (54)
$`h_{\mu 5}^{new}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (55)
$`h_{55}^{new}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`2e^{2\sigma }r(x)`$ (56)
which was an ansatz discussed in , also gauge equivalent to our ansatz.

## 4 Conclusions

We have worked out the linear metric perturbations in the context of the RS1 setup. To simplify the task, we fixed a gauge, in which the two branes remained at fixed y-position, and reduced the number of metric perturbations. Einstein equations turned out to couple the remaining physical fields, but we carried out a very simple decoupling procedure and we ended up with the equations of motion of a massless scalar, the radion, and a 4-dimensional 2 tensor field, verifying transverse-traceless conditions.

The metric ansatz resulting from this analysis turned out to be equal to the linearly expanded ansatz given in  where the ‘bent brane’ method was used. We also showed that our ansatz is completely equivalent to the more complicated ansatz calculated in , the difference being only on the gauge choice and, therefore, unphysical. We also argued that the ansatz of  should only differ with ours by the choice of gauge, which is (up to a constant $`C_0`$) the same as .

We believe to have solved an apparent conflict between ‘different’ metric solutions that turned out to be all equivalent and correct, being simply written down in different but compatible 5-dimensional coordinate frames.

We did not discuss any stabilization issues and their influence on the metric (backreaction), although they are evidently of great interest and will be the subject of future studies.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank James Wells, John Gunion, Steve Carlip, Bohdan Grzadkowski and Sayan Basu for their patience and helpful conversations. I would also like to thank the hospitality of Chérif Hamzaoui and the Physics Department of UQÀM, in Montréal. Special thanks too, to the TASI summer school where this project took its final momentum.