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# Candidate tidal dwarf galaxies associated with the Stephan’s Quintet

## 1. Introduction

Optical and HI studies of interacting galaxies (e.g. Hibbard & van Gorkom 1996, Duc & Mirabel 1998) have shown that dwarf galaxies may be produced during galactic collisions. Duc & Mirabel (1998) have presented an especially convincing case of NGC 5291, where more than ten star-forming high-metallicity dwarf galaxies may have been formed in a recent merger. These newly formed tidal-dwarf galaxies may be good sites to study galaxy formation in the nearby universe.

Although the concept of the formation of self-gravitating objects in tidal tails is an old one, considered by Zwicky as early as in 1956, it is only recently that these objects have received more attention and have been searched for systematically. HI observations have so far been the principal means used in searches of tidal dwarf galaxies since these are usually gas-rich systems. HI maps can reach large radii but have the disadvantage of being (mostly) of too poor spatial resolution for a direct investigation of the velocity field of the spatially-small and low-velocity-dispersion objects (typically 5-20 arcsec in extent, and velocity gradients of 2 – 20 km s-1 arcsec-1; Duc, 1995). The study of the kinematics of the ionized gas of a galaxy, when it is present, with high spatial and spectral resolution velocity maps, can alternatively provide a useful tool to probe the nature of the candidate dwarf galaxies at small scales, complementing the lower-resolution radio studies.

This paper presents new data on the kinematics of the ionized gas for seven star-forming tidal dwarf galaxy candidates and many other giant HII regions of Stephan’s quintet. Combining Fabry Perot H$`\alpha `$ maps with deep B and R images, we study the photometric and kinematic properties of 23 emission-line regions of the group.

Stephan’s Quintet (Arp 319, VV288, HCG 92) has been the subject of studies in x-rays, radio continuum, HI and H$`\alpha `$. Most of its gaseous material is not concentrated around the bright galaxies but in the intragroup medium, suggesting that collisions among the group members may have taken place. Arp (1973) was the first to obtain an H$`\alpha `$ image of the group and to identify HII regions around galaxies N7318A,B, N7319 and N7320. As part of an imaging survey of compact groups, in the R band, Hunsberger et al. (1996) identified 27 tidal dwarf galaxy candidates possibly associated with N7318A,B and N7319. One of these regions was observed by Xu et al. (1999) to be a bright infrared source, when observed with the ISO satellite (their source A). Xu et al. (1999) also presented H$`\alpha `$ \+ \[NII\] images of the group highlighting the spatial overlap of the two emission clouds of ionized gas in the intragroup medium centered around 5700 km s-1 and 6700 km s-1. A similar result was found by Plana et al. (1999) based on Fabry-Perot H$`\alpha `$ maps.

An interesting possible scenario for the interaction history of Stephan’s quintet has been put forward by Shostak et al. (1984) and refined by Moles et al. (1997, 1998). The scenario is based on the analysis of optical images of the quintet, spectroscopy of a number of systems (Moles et al. 1998) and HI maps which show three velocity components associated with the group, at $``$ 5700 km s-1, 6000 km s-1 and 6700 km s-1 (Balkowski et al. 1973, Allen & Sullivan 1980, Shostak et al. 1984). In their scenario, one or more major collisions occurred between N7320C and N7319 (at velocities $``$ 6000 km s-1 and $``$ 6700 km s-1 respectively), which may have resulted in the removal of the HI gas from the inner parts of N7319. More recently, Stephan’s quintet would have received a new member, N7318B (it has a radial velocity of 5774 km s-1 while the other core-group members, N7317, N7318A and N7319, have a mean velocity of 6664 km s-1, Hickson et al. 1992). N7318B would be entering the group for the first time and it would be colliding with the intragroup medium (Moles et al. 1997). We identify a number of possible tidal dwarf galaxy candidates most probably formed as a result of the ongoing collision that involves N7318B. Only one of the candidates studied here may be associated with the collision N7320C–N7319 and hence the HI cloud removed from the center of N7319. An alternative possibility is that the latter originated from N7318A (see Sections 4.7 and 4.8).

All the regions we measure in this work have been previously identified as HII regions by Arp (1973). A number of them have also been listed by Hunsberger et al. (1996) as tidal dwarf galaxy candidates and Gallagher et al. (2000, using HST images) as massive cluster candidates. However, these studies did not have velocity information. Radial velocity information for some of the regions is summarized in Table 1 of Plana et al. (1999). Determination of the velocity gradients within the regions is the main contribution of the present work.

The organization of this paper is as follows. Section 2 describes the observations and reduction procedure. In Section 3, we present the new photometric and kinematic results. In Section 4, we discuss the results and section 5 summarizes the paper. Throughout this paper h75 is the Hubble constant in units of H0 = 75 km s-1 Mpc-1. We assume that all the regions are at the same distance, and the differences in cz are just kinematical. For the figures and the determination of the star-formation rates we assumed a distance to the group of 80 Mpc, for an average velocity of 6000 km s-1 and a Hubble constant of 75 km s-1 Mpc-2.

## 2. Observations and Data Reduction

### 2.1. Fabry Perot data

The observations were carried out with a scanning Fabry-Perot instrument mounted on the Canada-France-Hawaii 3.6m telescope (CFHT) and the Russian SAO 6m telescopes. The observations and characteristics of the set-ups are summarized in Table 1. During the CFHT run we mostly detected sources with radial velocities VR $``$ 5700 km s-1, since we used a narrow-band filter that cut the higher velocities. We, therefore, did not detect the 6700 km s-1 velocity component of the group. The filter used during the observations at the Russian SAO 6m telescope allowed the detection of a much broader range of wavelengths and both velocity components were detected. However, the data are of much lower signal-to-noise and spectral and spatial resolution than the CFHT data.

Reduction of the data was performed using the CIGALE/ADHOC software (http://www-obs.cnrs-mrs.fr/adhoc/adhoc.html). The data reduction procedure has been extensively described in Amram et al. (1995, 1996), Plana et al. (1998) and references therein.

Wavelength calibrations were obtained by scanning the narrow Ne 6599 Å line during the observations. The relative velocities with respect to the systemic velocities are very accurate, with an error of a fraction of a channel width ($`<3\mathrm{kms}^1`$) over the whole field.

The signal measured along the scanning sequence was separated into two parts: (1) a constant level produced by the continuum light in a narrow passband around H$`\alpha `$ (continuum map), and (2) a varying part produced by the H$`\alpha `$ line (monochromatic map). The continuum level was taken to be the mean of the three faintest channels. The monochromatic map was obtained by integrating the monochromatic profile in each pixel.

The CFHT data were roughly calibrated in flux using a common galaxy also observed in a previous run when a flux calibrator was observed (Amram et al. 1998). We estimate an error of 30% in the flux calibration. The H$`\alpha `$ profiles were measured to a minimum flux density of 4.9 $`\times `$ 10-17 erg s-1cm-2 arcsec-2. We were not able to flux calibrate the data obtained at the SAO 6m telescope for lack of calibrators.

### 2.2. Imaging

Images of Stephan’s quintet in B (5 x 900s) and R (6 x 350s) were obtained with the CFHT and the Subarcsec Imaging instrument. The values of seeing on the final images were 0.8 and 0.6 arcsec respectively.

Preprocessing of all frames through flat-fielding was carried out using IRAF tasks. The individual frames were registered and combined with a clipping scheme that eliminated one lowest and one highest pixel values in each registered stack to exclude cosmic rays, hot pixels and low pixels.

The program SExtractor (Bertin & Arnouts 1996) was used to obtain the photometry of all objects in the B and R images with a sky “meshsize” of 128 pix. “Automatic–aperture magnitudes” were obtained, which give total magnitudes for the objects (based on the Kron’s, 1980, first-moment algorithm).

Calibration to the standard system for the B and R band observations was done via observations of standard stars from the list of Landolt (1992) and updated magnitudes for the KPNO consortium fields in M92 and NGC 7006. The transformations from instrumental to standard systems were made using the following: $`R`$ = $`r+`$ 0.015($`BR`$) $`+`$ $`31.37`$ and $`B`$ = $`b+`$ 0.047($`BR`$) $`+`$ $`31.27`$. The final combined images of H92 can be obtained upon request. A B–R map was obtained after the images were calibrated and their seeing profiles were matched (shown in Fig. 1a).

## 3. Results

### 3.1. Magnitudes and colors of the emission-line regions

The H$`\alpha `$ contours superimposed on the B–R image of Stephan’s quintet is shown in Fig. 1a. The 23 emitting regions detected by Plana et al. (1999) are marked. Dark is blue and white is red. The letters “L” and “H” are used to identify the systems for which we have an unambiguous determination of their radial velocities. The ones marked with “L” belong to the low-velocity system associated with N7318B, with velocities of 5700–6000 km s-1 and the only system marked with “H”, region 6, is the high-velocity system probably associated with N7319, at a velocity of $``$ 6700 km s-1.

In Fig. 1b the corresponding R image of the group (after subtraction of a heavily smoothed sky) is shown. The optical blobs corresponding to the H$`\alpha `$ emitting regions are marked in this figure (e.g. regions 1A and 1B correspond to the B and R counterparts of region 1 in H$`\alpha `$, see Fig. 1a). All regions detected in H$`\alpha `$ have counterparts on the B and R image. Region 17 is faint, it is affected by dust, and it is too close to the galaxy N7318A. Although it is not evident given the contrast of Fig. 1b, it does have a counterpart on the B and R images.

The B–R image of the group shown in Fig. 1a reveals some interesting features. The galaxy N7319 may contain several dust spots (white regions in the figure, which are those with the reddest values of B–R), particularly the one to the north of the galaxy corresponds to strong CO emission (Gao & Xu 2000). We also note that the center of galaxy N7318A has a dust lane with a very peculiar shape, suggesting that this galaxy may have taken part in the interaction history of the group (not contemplated in the scenario described by Moles et al. 1997). The complicated dust lane structure of N7318A is much more impressive in the HST image of the group obtained by Charlton et al. (2000). Further evidence that galaxy N7318A may be in interaction is given by Fig. 1c, which is discussed in Section 4.7.

Table 2 shows the main photometric parameters for all the 23 H$`\alpha `$-emitting regions shown in Figs. 1a and 1b (with exception of a few entries for region 17, for the reason explained previously). Total B magnitudes (“automatic-aperture magnitudes” given by SExtractor) and B–R colors are listed in columns 2 and 3. When one H$`\alpha `$ region corresponds to more than one identification on the B and R images we list the apparent B magnitudes of the different blobs in a single entry, separated by slashes (magnitudes and colors are corrected for Galactic extinction only). The B–R color was measured inside an aperture of 1.0 arcsec radius centered on each blob. The total absolute magnitudes given in column 3 correspond to the sums of the individual luminosities (e.g. the absolute magnitude for region 8, see Fig. 1a, corresponds to the sum of regions 8A, 8B and 8C, see Fig. 1b). The ID’s marked with a “c” on Table 2 correspond to the candidate tidal dwarf galaxies (see section 3.3). The magnitude and color of region 14A is contaminated by light from a red background galaxy that overlaps with this region. There is an object to the northwest of region 2 which also seems to be a background object, given its red color.

We measure a very low continuum level (on the Fabry-Perot map) for several of the H$`\alpha `$-emitting regions. Since we were not able to perform calibration in flux of the continuum map (for lack of calibrators), we determined the ratio of the total flux contained in each blob to the flux within an arbitrary aperture of radius 1.8” centered on galaxy N7318B. This fraction (in percentage) is shown in column 5 of Table 2. This procedure is intended to show, in a relative way, which regions are the ones with brightest and faintest continuum emission. The regions with the lowest fluxes are regions 20 and 23. They have $``$ 10 times less flux in the continuum than the median for the remaining regions. Regions 9, 13 and 17 could not be measured due to contamination from the bright galaxies N7318A,B.

We show color gradients for each emission-line blob in Fig. 2. The (B–R)0 (corrected for galactic extinction) profiles in general become bluer toward each HII region, despite the fact that the R-band flux is contaminated by the H$`\alpha `$-line emission. We can see from column 4 of Table 2 that all but one emitting region detected in H$`\alpha `$ are blue (the median value of the color is 0.7). The exception is region 6, with a B–R color of 1.3.

### 3.2. The kinematics and the nature of the emission-line regions

Plana et al. (1999) detected 23 H$`\alpha `$ emitting regions around the N7318A/B system. For seven of them (six systems and one complex with four regions) a velocity field is derived and shown in Figs. 3a to 3g. These correspond to the objects which show rotation. The velocity fields were used to derive the rotation curves shown in Fig. 4. In all cases the velocities were measured within $`\pm 35^{}`$ of the major axis in the plane of the sky, except for regions 2–5 and 6, where a cone of $`\pm 40^{}`$ was used instead. The rotation curves were obtained using the position angle and inclination listed in columns 2 and 3 of Table 3. The position angle of the major axis (given in column 2) is taken to be the axis of symmetry of the main kinematic body of each galaxy. The center of the velocity field is whenever possible chosen to be a point along the major axis which makes the rotation curve symmetric, with similar amplitudes for the receding and approaching sides (this is, however, not always possible, e.g. region 6). The values of inclination with respect to the plane of the sky (given in column 3) are determined from the velocity fields of the candidates. Specifically we used a least square’s fit program which gives the best value for the inclination fixing the position angle, the central systemic velocity and the kinematic center and by fitting a classical rotation velocity model for data points inside crowns at increasingly growing distances from the center.

In the top-left panels of Figs. 3a–g we show the H$`\alpha `$ contours determined from the CFHT Fabry-Perot maps, superimposed on the deep B-band image of the galaxy (see also Plana et al. 1999). For region 6 the H$`\alpha `$ map is derived from the SAO 6m data (since its velocity was outside the filter range for the CFHT observations). The lower-left panels show the continuum-subtracted emission-line profiles. These have been smoothed spectrally by a gaussian function having a FWHM of three channels (or 35 km s-1) and spatially (3x3 pixels), except for Fig. 3a (see below). Each pixel represents 0.86” on the sky. Although the pixel size for the image of region 6 was originally 0.67”, it was degraded to 0.86” to match the CFHT data. In the right panels we show the velocity fields of the galaxies superimposed on the corresponding monochromatic H$`\alpha `$ images. We mark the absolute value for each isovelocity for regions 2–5, 6 and 21, but for regions 8, 20, 22 and 23, only relative velocities are marked, since we do not know the systemic velocities of these regions.

We classify systems 2–5, 6, 8, 20, 21, 22 and 23 as tidal dwarf galaxy candidates on the basis of the clear signature of rotation, above a cut-off value of 8.0 h75 km s-1 kpc-1). Examples of non-rotating structures, possible associations of giant HII regions, are regions 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18 and 19.

We see continuous profiles between regions 9 to 11 (the data have S/N $`>`$ 20 in between the emission blobs) showing that these are connected. These regions are most probably attached to the southern tail of N7318B. No velocity gradients are detected within them. Regions 14 and 15 are attached to one or more tidal tails (these regions correspond to double velocity components, Plana et al. 1999). Even if these complexes have H$`\alpha `$ fluxes, sizes and colors consistent with their being tidal dwarf galaxies (like the ones studied by Duc 1995), we detect no velocity gradient within the objects. In the same way, regions 18 and 19 also show bright H$`\alpha `$ emission with no velocity gradients. These are very close to N7318A but, as indicated by their radial velocities ($``$ 5700 km s-1, Plana et al. 1999), they may belong to N7318B. Regions 18 and 19 do not have any obvious contact to a tidal arm.

Region 1 is isolated. We detected no velocity gradient within the region but the S/N of the data may be too low to allow a gradient measurement.

We summarize below the properties of each object that we classify as candidate tidal dwarf galaxies.

### 3.3. Properties of the candidate tidal dwarf galaxies

Regions 2–5: The complex formed by regions 2–5 has a radial velocity of 6020 km s-1 (velocity obtained by Moles et al. 1998 for region 2) and it shows an H$`\alpha `$ diameter (full width at zero intensity) of $``$ 34” (corresponding to a radius of R=6.5 h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$ kpc). In order to increase the S/N ratio we performed a spatial smoothing of 3x3 pixels in the center and 5x5 pixels outside the inner region. Since this complex is large, smoothing does not affect the results. We can see on the lower-left panel of Fig. 3a that the complex formed by regions 2–5 is connected by continuous velocity profiles. Although with a much lower S/N, the effect is also measurable in the unbinned data. This suggested to us that these regions may form one system, perhaps within a tidal tail. Fig. 4a shows the corresponding rotation curve. The approaching and receding sides of the rotation curve differ in shape and amplitude. The curve is increasing regularly, reaching the average maximum velocity of 50 km s-1. As the monochromatic map shows, we have at least four emitting regions and therefore the velocity field and rotation curve may be averages of internal motions of these various regions. This could explain, at least partially, the disturbances of the velocity field. The R image in Fig. 1b shows at least six bright condensations. The system as a whole has no defined center. The conditions needed for the complex of regions 2–5 to become an independent galaxy are discussed in Sections 4.1 and 4.6. We conclude that there is little chance that this region will survive as a single object. It could, however, form several condensations that could then be stable. We point out that there is an HI cloud encompassing the region with velocity similar to the optical velocity measured from the H$`\alpha `$ emission ($``$ 6000 km s-1, Williams et al. 1999).

Region 6: Region 6 has a radial velocity of 6680 km s-1 (Moles et al. 1998). It shows a disturbed and fairly extended velocity curve out to a radius of R=3.5 h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$ kpc. The profiles shown in the lower-left panel of Fig. 3b indicate a larger velocity dispersion (i.e. they have larger widths) than for the other regions ($``$ 115 km s-1 compared to 80 km s-1 for the others). A larger dispersion is expected when there is, for example, a second component blended with the main velocity component. However, in the case of region 6, the components are not resolved and any attempt to decompose them would be arbitrary. As can be seen in Fig. 3b, some of the profiles do show double peaks but no consistent solution for a moving second component could be found, perhaps due to low S/N. The rotation curve presented in Fig. 4b is peculiar. There is complete disagreement between the amplitudes of the receding and the approaching sides. The approaching side has approximately constant velocity at $``$ 10 km s-1 while for the receding side the velocity reaches 90 km s-1. The maximum rotational velocity listed in Table 4 is taken to be the average between both sides. The mass estimate obtained from this number is therefore very uncertain. Williams et al. (1999) have detected an HI cloud at the position of Region 6 with similar velocity to that measured from the H$`\alpha `$ emission ($``$ 6700 km s-1). It was also detected in CO by Gao & Xu (2000). In addition, this region was detected with ISO by Xu et al. (1999) and it was found to be a very bright source in the infrared. This could therefore be a peculiar object, given its infrared luminosity and its disturbed rotation curve.

Region 8: It shows an extent of R $``$ 4.5 h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$ kpc. The velocity field is quite regular. Fig. 4c shows the rotation curve rising up to an average maximum velocity of 115 km s-1 in 12 arcsec ($``$ 4.5 h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$ kpc). This is the largest maximum rotational velocity we detect for a candidate tidal dwarf galaxy. Interestingly enough, this is the only tidal dwarf galaxy that seems to be embedded in a tidal tail and it is the one closest to the parent galaxy. Nonetheless the very high velocity gradient measured along a very short path and the optical condensations coincident with the emission-line region motivated us to list this as a possible candidate.

Region 20: It has an extent of R $``$ 3.2 h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$ kpc. As the profiles of Fig. 3d show, the emission is centrally concentrated. The rotation curve presented in Fig. 4d is regular except outside a radius of 2 h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$ kpc, where we can see a discrepancy between the approaching and the receding sides. The average maximum velocity is 30 km s-1. The R image in Fig. 1b shows a single center and no bridge to the parent galaxy (possibly N7318B).

Region 21: It has an extent of R $``$ 3.5 h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$ kpc. The velocity field (Fig. 3e) does not show perturbed isovelocities, but the position angle changes along the radius. The rotation curve, shown in Fig. 4e, is derived along a mean position angle of the major axis of $``$ 80. The approaching side of the rotation curve has a normal behavior, with velocities increasing up to 65 km s-1. For the receding side, due to the position angle change, the velocities are scattered beyond 2 h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$ kpc. The R image in Fig. 1b shows two condensations, the one most to the west being the brightest.

Region 22: It shows an extent of R $``$ 3 h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$ kpc. The velocity field is disturbed. A second component may also be present in this case, as suggested by the profiles of Fig. 3f. We were not able, however, to do a satisfactory decomposition of the two components. The rotation curve, shown in Fig. 4f, presents a strong rise in the first 2”, a decrease in velocities after that and then a new increase around R $``$ 6”. The error bars are very large for radii beyond 6” indicating a higher scatter in the velocities. Three condensations are seen in the optical image, the ones most to the east being the brightest. It is interesting to note that the blueshifted isovelocities of region 22 point towards the blueshifted isovelocities of region 21. This suggests the velocity gradients measured are probably intrinsic to the regions and are not larger scale motions within a possible faint tidal tail that joins the regions.

Region 23: It has an extent of R $``$ 2 h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$ kpc. The velocity field (Fig. 3g) does not show disturbed isovelocities, but the rotation curve (Fig. 4g) shows that the velocities for the approaching side increase in the first 2” and then decline while the velocities for the receding side increase with radii. The receding and the approaching sides are therefore not in agreement.

The rotation curves for four of the galaxies rise linearly with radius, without reaching a significant plateau. For two dwarf galaxy candidates, regions 22 and 23, the shape of the curve is disturbed. For region 6, the shapes of the approaching and receding sides are very different.

The rotation curves presented here can be compared with those for other tidal dwarf galaxies and blue compact galaxies. This is done in Section 4.2.

### 3.4. H$`\alpha `$ luminosities and SFR’s

Table 2 gives H$`\alpha `$ fluxes for each emitting region, derived from the calibrated monochromatic map, measured above a threshold of 4.9 $`\times `$ 10-17 erg s-1 cm-2 arcsec-2, within apertures of diameters given in column 9 (defined as the diameter of the aperture of zero intensity). For region 6 no flux is listed given that the data for this region is uncalibrated (see Section 2.1).

The current star formation rate can be derived from the formula SFR(H$`{}_{\alpha }{}^{})=7.5\times 10^8L_{H_\alpha }(M_{}yr^1L_{}^1`$). This formula is valid for 0.1 – 100 M (Hunter & Gallagher 1986). The H$`\alpha `$ fluxes given in column 6 of Table 2 were transformed to luminosities for use in the formula above integrating over the sphere of space, assuming spherical geometry and a distance to the group of 80 Mpc.

In contrast to the H$`\alpha `$ luminosity, the B luminosity is more sensitive to the older stellar population of a system (Larson & Tinsley 1978). Using the formula proposed by Gallagher & Hunter (1984) it is possible to derive the star formation rate averaged for a period of 109 years: SFR(LB) = 0.29 $`\times `$ 10$`{}_{}{}^{10}L_{B}^{}`$ ($`M_{}yr^1L_{}^1`$). The ratio SFR (LB) / SFR $`(L_{H_\alpha })`$ gives a rough measure of the evolution of the star-formation rate inside the emission-line region during the last billion years. The star formation rates are listed in columns 7 and 8 of Table 2 and are discussed in section 4.3.

## 4. Discussion

### 4.1. Masses, mass-to-light ratios and escape velocities

The fate of a tidal dwarf galaxy is basically driven by the ratio of its mass to the virial mass and the ratio of its mass to the so called tidal mass (Binney and Tremaine 1987, Duc 1995). The virial mass condition tells us if the tidal dwarf candidate is massive enough to be gravitationally stable against internal motions. The tidal mass condition will tell us if it is massive enough to survive the tidal forces exerted by the parent galaxy. In this work we only estimate the tidal mass since for the virial mass we would need a measurement of the internal velocity dispersion of the galaxy which we do not have.

In Table 3 we give, for each dwarf-galaxy candidate, in (1) the region identification number, (2) the position angle (3), the inclination (4) the total luminosity of the region, in the B band, measured inside an aperture of size similar to that within which the ionized gas was measured, (5) the radius $`R`$ that corresponds to the maximum rotational velocity (except for region 22, where $`R`$ is the radius within which emission was detected), (6) the distance to the parent galaxy, (7) the maximum rotational velocity (derived from the rotation curves, shown in Fig. 4), (8) the total galaxy mass, (9) the mass-to-light ratio and (10) the tidal mass.

The values given in columns (6), (8) and (10) are based on the following assumptions: 1) the tidal dwarf galaxy candidate was drawn from material from galaxy N7318B (or N7319 only for region 6), 2) the dwarf candidate presents a velocity gradient due to rotation, it is virialized, and therefore a value for the mass can be derived from the rotation curve, and 3) galaxies N7319 and N7318B have masses of 1.3 and 1.8 $`\times `$ 1011 M respectively (see below).

Total masses of the tidal dwarf galaxy candidates: We estimated the total mass of the candidate tidal dwarf galaxies from their rotation curves, derived from the velocity fields (Figs. 3a–3f) using the simple virial estimator (Lequeux 1983) in which the mass within a radius R of a rotating disk system is given by M(R)=f $`\times `$ R $`\times `$ V(R)2 $`\times `$ G-1. Here V(R) is the rotational velocity at radius R, G the gravitational constant and f is a constant value between 0.5 and 1. We chose a value of 1 for simplicity.

M(R) is a lower limit on the estimate of the mass, since most likely these regions are not pure rotators. Random motions of the gas could provide significant dynamical support for the tidal dwarf galaxies as indicated by their line widths. As an approximation, if we assume that the gas is in equilibrium, and that the gas velocity ellipsoid is isotropic, a very rough estimate of the contribution from the pressure support could be made using an “asymmetric drift correction” following Oort (1965). For gaseous objects in formation, such as those present in the Stephan’s quintet, and under the above assumptions, a general rule may be: 1) for rotation curves with amplitudes Vmax $``$ 25 km s-1, i.e. for the most internal regions of the self gravitating structures or for the least massive objects, the contributions from the dispersion and the rotation components may be comparable; 2) for Vmax $``$ 50 km s-1, the contribution of the dispersion velocity component may be approximately half of that for the rotational velocity component and 3) for Vmax $`>`$ 50 km s-1, i.e. at larger distances from the center of the objects and/or for more massive structures, the dispersion velocity may be negligible at first approximation.

M/L of the tidal dwarf galaxy candidates: The mass-to-light ratios of the candidate dwarf galaxies were obtained by dividing the values in column 8 by those in column 4 of Table 3. The median value for the mass-to-light ratios of the tidal dwarf galaxy candidates is 7 $`M_{}/L_{}`$, with a large scatter, with values as high as 74 $`M_{}/L_{}`$ for region 8. The mass-to-light ratio of region 8 reflects its steep velocity gradient of $``$ 26 h75 km s-1 kpc-1, the highest observed among the tidal dwarf candidates observed (see a discussion of this point in section 4.4).

Total masses of the progenitor galaxies: In order to determine the tidal masses, an estimate of the total mass of the progenitor galaxies is necessary. As we were not able to measure the rotation curves of the parent galaxies N7319 and N7318B due to the lack of ionized gas in their disks, we estimated their masses using the Tully-Fisher relation (MB = –5.85 log (2 Vmax) – 5.61, Pierini (1999), the factor 2 within the log was included to match our definition of Vmax to theirs). For absolute magnitudes of –21.4 and –21.3 and R25 of 10.4 and 13.2 h75 kpc for N7319 and N7318B respectively we obtain maximum velocities of 249 and 240 km s-1. Using the virial estimator we then obtain masses of 1.3 and 1.8 $`\times `$ 1011 M$``$.

Tidal masses: The tidal masses listed in column 10 of Table 3 were derived from Binney and Tremaine (1987), Mtid = 3M(R/D)3, where $`M`$ is the mass of the parent galaxy, $`R`$ the radius of the tidal dwarf and $`D`$ the distance to the parent galaxy. We assumed that the masses of the parent galaxies NGC 7318B (for regions 2-3-4-5, 8, 20, 21, 22 and 23) and NGC 7319 (for region 6) are 1.3 and 1.8 $`\times `$ 1011 M respectively, as calculated above. The results in Table 3 show that the dwarf masses determined are in two cases larger than the tidal masses (for regions 6 and 21), suggesting that the regions considered may survive tidal forces. This is not the case, however, for the complex of regions 2–5 and for regions 8, 20 and 22, for which the tidal mass is larger than the total mass estimated.

Escape velocities of the candidates: We can also estimate the escape velocity of the tidal dwarf candidates and compare this velocity to the systemic velocity difference between the dwarf candidate and the parent galaxy. We have found that the velocity difference between region 21 and N7318B is of the order of the escape velocity calculated at the distance of the region (27 h-1 kpc), indicating that it may be able to escape from the parent galaxy potential. This is not the case for regions 2–5 and 6 (for the latter N7319 is the parent galaxy). For regions 8, 20, 22 and 23 we do not have an unique systemic velocity determination. Nevertheless we can give some estimate based on the possible systemic velocities (see Plana et al. 1999). For these four regions (8, 20, 22 and 23), the minimum possible velocities are $``$ 5935, 5855, 5975 and 5935 km s-1, respectively (Plana et al. 1999, their Table 1). If we assume that NGC 7318B (with velocity 5774 km s-1) is the parent galaxy, then the differences between the velocity of the parent galaxy and that for each of the tidal dwarf candidates are 161, 81, 201 and 161 km s-1 (or larger) for regions 8, 20, 22 and 23 respectively. On the other hand, the escape velocities are 344, 259, 253 and 259 km s-1 respectively. Therefore, if the minimum possible velocities are the true radial velocities, only region 22 of the four may be able to escape the potential of the parent galaxy, since for this region the escape velocity is similar to the velocity difference. We then conclude that only two out of the seven candidates may have velocities such that they can escape the gravitational field of the parent galaxy.

### 4.2. Comparison of the velocity fields

Just a few kinematic studies are available on tidal dwarf galaxies and dwarf galaxies in general. Duc and Mirabel (1998) showed velocity curves of dwarf galaxies around NGC 5291 measured from HI kinematics. The curves show in general stronger gradients than those measured for the galaxies in Stephan’s quintet. However, the diameter of the objects, as computed from the optical images, are similar.

Another set of velocity curves and rotation curves for dwarf galaxies comes from Östlin et al. (1999) and Östlin et al. (2000). Their sample is composed of luminous blue compact galaxies (hereafter BCG’s). The radial extent of the rotation curves are comparable to those for the candidate tidal dwarf galaxies in Stephan’s quintet and the velocity amplitudes also seem to be similar. The shapes of the rotation curves, however, are very different. While in our sample the rotation curves show in general a typical shape for solid body rotation, in Östlin et al. (1999) the rotation curves of the BCG’s have flat plateaus.

In Östlin et al. (1999, 2000), the velocity fields are irregular and often contain secondary dynamical components although they in most cases display overall rotation. By comparison of the stellar masses (by means of multicolor images and spectral evolutionary synthesis’ analysis) to the total masses of the galaxies (derived from the rotation curves), they showed that at least half of the galaxies cannot be supported by rotation. They found that the morphologies and dynamics of the BCG’s suggest that the starburst activity in these galaxies are most likely triggered by mergers of dwarf galaxies and/or massive gas clouds. In the case of the candidate tidal dwarf galaxies, it is possible that they are also partially supported by random motions as it is the case for the BCG’s. Moreover, the starburst activity in the tidal dwarf galaxies could also be nurtured by merging of gas clouds during the ongoing tidal process.

Hunter et al. (2000) have recently made a compilation of possible dwarf galaxies in many different environments which could have tidal origin. A comparison of the maximum rotation velocities as a function of the B absolute magnitudes of the tidal dwarf galaxy candidates in Stephan’s quintet and galaxies in Hunter’s sample is shown in Fig. 5. As can be seen, the velocities and magnitudes of the H92’s tidal dwarf candidates are within the ranges of parameters of other possible candidates.

### 4.3. Comparison of the SFR for various classes of emission-line objects

There are several classes of emission-line objects which have similarities in some respects with the objects we observed in Stephan’s quintet.

A comparison of the star formation rates (SFR) for five samples of dwarf galaxies, one sample of HII regions in nearby spiral galaxies and our sample is shown in Fig. 6. We identified each of the galaxies in our sample with its corresponding ID number. Included in the comparison are (1) a sample of irregular galaxies from the Local Group (Mateo 1998), (2) a sample of isolated irregular galaxies of low luminosity and central surface densities, (3) a sample of blue compact galaxies studied by Sage et al. (1992) with blue luminosities similar to the systems observed in Stephan’s quintet, (4) another sample of blue compact galaxies studied by Östlin et al. (1999), (5) a sample of tidal dwarf galaxy candidates around N5291 studied by Duc and Mirabel (1998), and (6) a sample of HII regions in the spiral galaxies NGC 1365, NGC 1566, NGC 2366, NGC 2903, NGC 2997, NGC 3351, NGC 4303, NGC 4449, NGC 5253 studied by Mayya (1994, their table 1, only objects with data quality 1 or 2 were included).

Fig. 6 shows that the Local Group and isolated irregular galaxies have SFR($`H\alpha `$)’s that are on average lower than those for all the other samples. HII regions in nearby galaxies and blue compact galaxies have values for the SFR($`H\alpha `$) in between those observed for isolated galaxies and those for tidal dwarf galaxies and giant HII regions of Stephan’s quintet. While in the sample of Sage et al. (1992) the blue compact galaxies have a comparable range of luminosities to the galaxies in the other samples, Östlin et al.’s sample is dominated by blue compact galaxies with high B-luminosities. Still, the SFR($`H\alpha `$) for these two samples agree in the region of overlap. The faintest blue compact galaxies seem to overlap with the location of the figure occupied by the HII regions in nearby spiral galaxies, although the latter extend to much lower luminosities. The tidal dwarf galaxies studied by Duc & Mirabel (1998) have average SFR($`H\alpha `$)’s that are comparable to the objects studied in this paper. However, Duc & Mirabel’s measurements were made through long slit observations and the values may be a lower limit on the H$`\alpha `$ fluxes and therefore to the SFR($`H\alpha `$)’s derived for these galaxies.

The SFR($`H\alpha `$)’s for the BCG’s may be affected by dust, which would artificially lower the rates derived for these objects. Therefore, in reality, the SFR($`H\alpha `$)’s for tidal dwarf galaxies and BCG’s may be similar although these galaxies are fundamentally two distinct classes (for instance they have completely different metallicities, with the BCG’s being metal poor objects and the tidal dwarf galaxies having the high metallicities of their parent galaxies). One should also be aware that there exists a very large range of SFR($`H\alpha `$)’s for both the BCG’s and the tidal dwarf galaxies. Only a crude comparison between the SFR($`H\alpha `$)’s of the two populations is then possible.

### 4.4. Considerations about streaming motions in tidal tails

Region 8 as well as the complex of regions 2–5 seem to be a part of a tidal tail. In addition, region 6 may be at the edge of a tidal tail, if we assume that it is associated with N7318A and not with N7319 (see section 4.7). One obvious concern is then that the observed velocity gradients for these regions could be a result of streaming motion in the tail within which the region is embedded.

In the case of region 8, if we assume that it is attached to N7318B (at a velocity of $``$ 5700 km s-1) and it has a velocity of $``$ 5900 km s-1 (J. Sulentic, private communication), the gradient of the motion in the tidal tail (lower velocities in the south and higher velocities in the north) has opposite sense to what is observed in the region itself (the red side of the region is to the south, see Fig. 3c). This represents clear evidence that the strong velocity gradient observed for region 8 cannot be due to streaming motions within the tidal tail. In addition, we note that there is a large misalignment of at least 30 degrees between the PA of the major axis of region 8 and that of the tidal tail within which it seems to be embedded (see Fig. 1a). This again indicates that region 8 cannot be just a part of a tidal tail and it is, instead, an object with its own rotation pattern.

In the case of the complex of regions 2–5, we find that the velocity gradient we observed for it (these regions are located at the edge of a tidal tail that emanates from the northern arm of N7318B) could not be strongly affected by streaming motions for the following reason. For this complex we have information on the HI velocity field kindly provided by L. Verdes-Montenegro (private communication). The motion observed in HI encompasses an area that goes from the base of the northern tail of N7318B to our region 1 and it has a very similar mean radial velocity ($``$ 6000 km s-1) to that of the H$`\alpha `$ emission in complex 2–5. We compared the H$`\alpha `$ and the HI velocity fields for regions 2–5 and we found that while the H$`\alpha `$ gradient reaches 50 km s-1 over a radius of 13 arcsec in extent, the HI gradient reaches only about 15 km s-1 over the same area. Assuming that the HI velocity gradient gives us an upper limit on the large-scale motion of the tidal tail (upper limit because some internal motion is also expected to be present in the HI component) the difference between the two gradients (35 km s-1) is due to internal motions within the complex 2–5. With this correction the new mass-to-light ratio of the complex of regions 2–5 would be 3 $`M_{}/L_{}`$.

In a scenario where region 6 were at the edge of the tidal tail that emanates from N7318A, there would be no concern about its velocity gradient being due to streaming motion since the center of the parent galaxy and region 6 have almost exactly the same velocity.

We conclude that streaming motions within the tails may not significantly change the observed velocity gradients measured in this study.

### 4.5. Other dynamic considerations

Dubinski et al. (1999) find that a good criterion for making tidal tails during a collision appears to be that the ratio of the escape velocity (Ve) over the circular velocity (Vmax, in our notation) of the galaxy, measured at a radius of 2Rd, must be lower than 2.5 (Rd is the scale length of the galaxy). According to Dubinski et al. (1999) this condition is valid for a wide range of models including those with disk-dominated and halo-dominated rotation curves. They also find that galaxies with declining rotation curves are the best candidates to produce tidal tails during collisions. We do not have information on the rotation curves of the galaxies (due to their lack of ionized gas) but we can still check the velocity ratio condition Vesc/Vmax $`<`$ 2.5 assuming that the galaxies follow the Tully-Fisher relation (see Section 4.1). The masses inside 2Rd are 1.1 and 0.8 $`\times `$ 1011 for N7318B and N7319 respectively (if we assume that the scale length of the galaxies Rd $``$ R25/3.2). The ratio Vesc/Vmax is, then, well below 2.5 for both galaxies, indicating that they may develop tidal tails during collisions. This is a comfortable confirmation since both galaxies obviously have developed one or more tidal tails.

It is interesting to note that the inclination of the seven tidal dwarf candidates lie in between the values of 50and 65, which are very similar to the inclinations of the progenitor galaxies of 59and 66(from the Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic Database, LEDA), for N7319 and N7318B respectively. If the candidate tidal dwarf galaxies are formed in the plane of the disks of the parent galaxies, they probably could keep the angular momentum of their progenitor disks. This inclination concordance would then be expected by the conservation of angular momentum of the system. However, the inclination found for the candidates could be biased by the fact that standard methods for deriving inclinations favor high values of inclination (low inclination values are harder to be determined). In addition, since we do not have information on which side of the galaxy is pointing to us, the two inclined disks with 60inclinations could actually be separated by 120!

### 4.6. Summary of the properties of the tidal dwarf galaxy candidates

Table 4 summarizes the characteristics of each of the seven tidal dwarf candidates of Stephan’s quintet. A “plus” in an entry means (1) In column two if the color is bluer than B–R = 0.8, (2) in column 3 if the SFR(H$`\alpha `$)/SFR(LB) (see section 3.4) is typical of a tidal dwarf galaxy, (3) in column 4, if the galaxy presents a velocity gradient larger than 8.0 h75 km s-1 kpc-1 (this will be true for all of the objects since they were classified as tidal dwarf candidates based on the presence of the velocity gradients), (4) in column 5 if the mass of the galaxy as measured from the internal kinematics of the ionized gas is larger than the tidal mass obtained in section 4.1, (5) in column 6 if the escape velocity of the parent galaxy is lower than the velocity difference between the systemic velocity of the tidal dwarf candidate and that of the parent galaxy (assuming that the parent galaxy is N7318B for all regions except for region 6, for which the parent galaxy is assumed to be N7319). The last two columns of Table 4 mark if the candidate belongs to a tidal tail and if it is associated with an HI cloud.

Regions 6 and 21 seem to be the ones with the highest chance of surviving as single entities. This is specially true for region 6 where CO emission at the redshift and location of the galaxy has been recently detected (Gao & Xu 2000) indicating a molecular gas mass of a few times 108 M. Other less massive candidates like regions 20, 22 and 23 may not be massive enough to become independent entities. However, we should keep in mind that the values for the mass were determined under the assumption the regions are pure planar rotators and hence these are lower limits. In fact, random motions of the gas and stars may provide significant dynamical support for the tidal dwarf galaxies as indicated by their line widths. Larger values for the mass of the candidates (obtained if the internal dispersion velocity is also taken into account) would result in an increase of the number of objects that could survive.

Although the complex of regions 2–5 may not survive as a single entity (the tidal mass is very large mainly because of the large radius of the complex), it may be split into several smaller candidates which could then survive the tidal forces exerted by N7318B.

### 4.7. Other probable tidal dwarf galaxy candidates

The HI map of Stephan’s quintet presented by Williams et al. (1999, their Fig. 5) shows that the HI component at velocity 6600–6700 km s-1 is distributed along a fragmented ring around the galaxy N7319, possibly formed after a tidal interaction with N7320C. Such HI rings have previously been observed in other interacting systems like e.g. N5291 (Malphrus et al. 1997). The northwestern side of the HI ring overlaps with the dwarf galaxy candidate identified as Region 6. It is possible that there are other tidal dwarf galaxy candidates along what would be the continuation of the ring, to the north, beyond region 6, north of N7319, where HI is not measured by Williams et al. (1999).

Comparing the eastern side of the HI ring with an optical image of the quintet we notice that the end of the tidal tail of N7319 that points to N7320C (in the southeastern side of the group) has a number of optical condensations (Hunsberger et al. 1996, Gallagher et al. 2000) that overlaps with maxima in the HI distribution. These regions probably have similar velocities to that of the HI gas (6700 km s-1) and are most likely tidal dwarf candidates formed during a past encounter between N7319 and N7320C. Other faint condensations can be seen in this region, between N7319 and N7320C. The velocities of these objects have to be measured in order to confirm their nature.

What is very intriguing at first is the exact superposition of the HI component at 6700 km s-1 with the galaxy NGC 7320, at 800 km s-1. This superposition may be understood if the following is considered. Moles et al. (1998) noted that while in a narrow-band image (e.g. H$`\alpha `$) the galaxy NGC 7320 appeared symmetric, in a broad-band image it appeared very asymmetric, showing an extension to its northwest. In fact, what may appear to be the northwestern extension of the nearby galaxy N7320 in broad-band images may be in reality a chain of smaller background objects (perhaps other tidal dwarf galaxy candidates?) superimposed on the line of sight, but with velocities that coincide with that of the HI component at 6700 km s-1. Other regions may have velocities of $``$ 5700 km s$`{}_{}{}^{}1`$ (possibly associated with N7318B). Support for this scenario comes from the mix of velocities measured in this region by Moles et al. (1998). Again, more velocity measurements of the condensations present in this region are needed.

Other tidal dwarf galaxies may be associated with N7318A. Although Moles et al. (1998) did not consider this galaxy in the interacting history of the quintet, it must have been part of collisions given the peculiar pattern of dust seen in the HST image (Charlton et al. 2000) and due to the several linear features that seem to emanate from the galaxy. These were marked with arrows in Fig. 1c. A few of these could be projected material from N7318A into the intragroup medium, in the same way it has been observed for Arp 105 by Duc (1995). Alternatively it could be material in the process of re-accretion onto the parent galaxy after an interaction. There seems to be two different types of linear features, a few that are long and filamentary, with very low surface brightnesses and others that are small and have high surface brightnesses. Perhaps also region 6 may be born out of gas from N7318A and not of N7319 as it has been assumed throughout this paper. This would be a specially appealing scenario if we could confirm that there is material in between galaxy N7318A and region 6 at a common velocity (of $``$ 6700 km s-1). However, it is more probable (see Fig. 2 of Xu et al. 1999) that the apparent optical connection between regions 8 and 4 (seen as a filament in the HST image) is at a lower velocity of 5900–6000 km s-1. Also important would be to confirm if the features marked in Fig. 1c coincide with the velocity of N7318A.

We would also like to point out that the emission detected in regions 7 and 9 and in the features in between these two regions might be associated with the higher velocity component of the group at 6700 km s-1 instead of being related to the lower velocity component (as it has been assumed in this paper). This is supported by the H$`\alpha `$–\[NII\] map presented by Xu et al. (1999, their Fig. 2), which shows clearly that these regions are dominated by emission from the high-velocity component. Further indirect evidence is their low H$`\alpha `$ content despite their high optical luminosities (see Fig. 1a and 1c), which suggests that the emission from this area may perhaps fall at the very edge of the CFHT filter, where the transmission is minimum. These regions would not have been detected in the lower S/N data taken with the SAO 6m, where only very bright sources like region 6 were detected. As can be seen from Fig. 1c the optical luminosities of the sources in the area in between regions 7 and 9 are comparable to those of other regions identified by us. This only illustrates the incredible mixture of matter at two different velocities in this group.

### 4.8. Properties of region 6 in a scenario where N7318A is the parent galaxy

We assumed in the previous sections that region 6 is formed of remnant gas from N7319 (Moles et al. 1997). We favored this scenario based on the evidence from the HI observations (Fig. 5 from Williams et al. 1999) which showed a structure similar to a ring (an HI incomplete ring) around galaxy N7319. The HI gas associated with region 6 seems to be part of this large ring, in which case region 6 would be formed from gas originally in N7319. On the other hand, there is also the possibility that region 6 was formed from gas spelled from N7318A. Support for this is given by Fig. 1c, where linear features apparently associated with N7318A are seen. In this scenario region 6 might be located at the tip of a tidal tail that may originate at the northern arm of N7318A. We need new velocity measurements of the region to decide between the two scenarios.

In the following we give the parameters for region 6 in the case where it is physically associated with N7318A: (1) it would be at a distance of 25 h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$ kpc to the parent galaxy; (2) it would have a tidal mass of 6 $`\times `$ 108 M, smaller than its inferred mass; (3) the difference between its radial velocity and that of the parent galaxy is still lower than the escape velocity of the parent galaxy; (4) its inclination (60$`\pm `$ 15) would still be similar to (within the errors) to that measured for the parent galaxy (49, value taken from the Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic Database, LEDA).

## 5. Summary

We presented B and R photometry and a Fabry-Perot H$`\alpha `$ map of 23 emission-line regions in Stephan’s quintet. All but one region may be associated with N7318B (region 6 may be attached either to N7319 or to N7318A).

Our main results are:

* We find that seven of the regions have velocity gradients greater than 8 h75 km s-1 kpc-1. We classify those as tidal dwarf galaxy candidates.
* Two tidal dwarf candidates may be located at the edge of a tidal tail, one within a tail and for four others there is no obvious stellar/gaseous bridge between them and the parent galaxy.
* Two of the candidates are associated with HI clouds, one of which is, in addition, associated with a CO cloud.
* The tidal dwarf candidates have low continuum fluxes and high H$`\alpha `$ luminosity densities of F(H$`\alpha `$) = 1 – 60 $`\times `$ 10-14 erg s-1 cm-2, magnitudes of M$`{}_{B}{}^{}=`$ –16.1 to –12.6, sizes of typically $``$ 3.5 h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$ kpc, colors $`BR`$ between 0.3 and 1.3, gas velocity gradients of $``$ 8 – 26 h75 km s-1 kpc-1, SFR(Hα)/SFR($`L_B`$) between $``$ 1100 and 6000, masses of $``$ 2 $`\times `$ 108 to 1010 M and a median mass-to-light ratio of 7 M/L.
* The lower limits of the masses of the candidate tidal dwarf galaxies determined from their rotation curves (assuming that they are pure rotators) are in two cases larger than their tidal masses.
* Two out of the seven candidates may have velocities such that they can escape the gravitational field of the parent galaxy.
* Possible streaming motions within the tails may not have significantly affected the observed velocity gradients of those tidal dwarf candidates that are located within tails.
* The dynamical criterion for formation of tidal tails during a collision Vesc/Vmax $`<`$ 2.5 is followed by galaxies NGC 7319 and NGC 7318B.

A few of the tidal dwarf galaxies we identified in this study may survive as single entities, leading to the formation of new group members of the Stephan’s quintet.

We would like to thank Dr. Jacques Boulesteix and the SAO observatory staff (Drs V. Afanasiev, A. Burenkov, S. Dodonov, V. Vlasiuk and S. Drabek) for their help during the observations. We would also like to thank Drs. S. Hunsberger, M. Marcelin and J. Sulentic for insightful discussions and Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro for sending us the HI map of the quintet. CMdO thanks the Marseille Observatory for their hospitality and funding of a trip in July 1999. PA thanks the Brazilian funding agency FAPESP for the financial support for two visits to the Instituto Astronomico e Geofisico, project numbers 99/05514-3 and 99/03744-1. HP acknowledges the financial support of FAPESP through a pos-doc position, project number 96/06722-0, and the Mexican CONACYT under project 32303-E.


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# Disks around Hot Stars in the Trifid Nebula

## 1 Introduction

The Trifid nebula is a nice example of a small HII region in an early stage of evolution. It is located at a distance of $`1.68\text{kpc}`$ (Lynds et al. 1985) and has an estimated dynamical age of $`0.30.4\text{Myr}`$ (Lefloch & Cernicharo 2000). Because of its youth and its small size, it provides us with a comprehensive picture of the early stages of massive star-forming regions like Orion. Indeed, previous observations at millimeter wavelengths have shown that the protostellar cores surrounding the HII region have physical properties similar to the cores observed in Orion. These protostellar cores show good evidence that their birth was induced in the expansion of the HII region (Lefloch & Cernicharo 2000).

The Trifid is excited by the star HD 164492A, classified as O7 V by Lynds et al. (1985). Five other stars (HD 164492B-F) were identified within $`20\mathrm{}`$ ($`0.16\text{pc}`$) of HD 164492A, suggesting that the formation of a cluster accompanied the birth of the ionizing star. The spectral types determined for some of the sources indicate they are of intermediate mass (Kohoutek, 1997). Here we report on mid-infrared ISOCAM observations of the central region in the HII region. These observations bring more insight of the star formation which accompanied the birth of the ionizing star. In particular, they reveal the lower mass star formation, embedded in the low-density ionized gas of the HII region. We find that many sources are surrounded by dense material, possibly in the form of disks photoevaporated by the ionizing radiation of the Trifid, similar to those found close to the Trapezium stars in Orion.

## 2 Observations and Results

### 2.1 The Mid-infrared Emission

Several images of the Trifid were obtained with ISOCAM onboard ISO (Cesarsky et al. 1996) in the LW4 filter centered on the PAH band at $`6.2\mu \text{m}`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =1.0\mu \text{m}`$) at $`6\mathrm{}`$ resolution, in the LW7 filter centered on the silicate band at $`10\mu \text{m}`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =3\mu \text{m}`$) at $`6\mathrm{}`$ resolution and in the LW10 filter ($`\lambda =11.5\mu \text{m}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =7\mu \text{m}`$) at $`3\mathrm{}`$ resolution. The final maps are shown in Fig. 1. Several maps of the Trifid were obtained with the Circular Variable Filter (CVF) between 5 and $`17\mu \mathrm{m}`$, with a spectral resolution $`\lambda /\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda 30`$. Each map has a size of $`32\times 32`$ pixels with an angular size of $`3\mathrm{}`$ per pixel.

Superposed to the extended emission from the dust lanes, we detect in the central LW4 image several point-like sources (IRS 1 to IRS 5) near the stellar cluster (see Fig. 1d) and two more remote sources (IRS $`67`$), apparent on Fig. 1c-e. The pointlike sources appear with the highest contrast in the LW4 filter; by comparison, IRS 4 and IRS 5 are hardly visible in the LW7 and LW10 band. Except for the bright sources IRS $`12`$ and IRS 6, the emission of the individual sources in the LW7 filter can hardly be separated from the extended emission of the dust lanes.

The maximum of emission (source IRS $`12`$) peaks approximately $`15\mathrm{}`$ Southwest of HD 164492A and coincides with the members of the central cluster HD 164492C-D. They are optically visible (Fig. 1a) and were classified as B6 V (Gahm et al. 1983) and Be LkH$`\alpha 123`$ (Herbig, 1957) respectively. In the LW4 filter, the flux distribution is marginally resolved and indicates a size of $`3\mathrm{}`$ for the emitting region. The angular resolution of the infrared observations does not allow to distingush the respective contributions of components C and D. However, a gaussian fit to the CVF data gives a size of $`2.5\mathrm{}`$ for the emitting region. This size is very close to the projected distance between components C and D ($`4000\mathrm{AU}`$, Sect. 2.3) and suggests that both sources are contributing to the infrared flux; we identify IRS 1 (IRS 2) with component C (D) of the stellar cluster. All the other infrared sources are unresolved in our images.

### 2.2 The physical properties of the dust

The spectra of IRS 1-2, IRS 3 and IRS 6 between 5 and $`17\mu \text{m}`$ were obtained from the CVF data after subtracting the emission of a nearby 3 x 3 pixel2 area used as a reference. The observed emission was fitted with a gaussian function convolved with the Point Spread Function of the instrument. The IRS 1-2 spectrum is shown in Fig. 1f. It does not exhibit any narrow emission, apart from a weak NeII line at $`12.7\mu \text{m}`$. Remarkably, the silicate band at $`9.7\mu \text{m}`$ is detected in emission whereas it is seen in absorption in the dust lanes (not shown here).

We model the dust emission as a black-body law modified by a dust opacity $`\tau _\nu \nu `$. The $`517\mu \text{m}`$ continuum emission is satisfactorily fitted by two components at temperatures $`T500`$ K and $`T200`$ K respectively (Fig. 1f). We adopted $`0.2\mathrm{}`$ for the size of the “cold” component, as determined from the VLA observations (see below). The lack of constraints on the size of the hot component makes the amount of material difficult to quantify (especially the hot component). We derive typical hydrogen column densities $`\mathrm{N}(\mathrm{H})10^{21}\text{cm}\text{-2}`$ for the component at 200 K. The IRS 3 and IRS 6 spectra taken with the CVF display properties similar to IRS 1-2 (not shown). The continuum emission can be accounted for by the same simple model : one hot layer at $`7001000`$ K and a warm component at $`150300`$ K.

The shape of the silicate band around $`9.5\mu \text{m}`$ (Fig. 1g) can help constrain the composition of the dust. The blue wing of the band (8-10 $`\mu `$m) is well reproduced with amorphous pyroxene grains containing FeO inclusions (we assume spherical grains of $`0.1\mu \text{m}`$ size and the optical constants are taken from Henning et al. 1999). Comparison with laboratory transmission spectra of submicronic grains obtained at the IAS suggests that the broad shoulder longward of $`11.5\mu \text{m}`$ is probably due to crystalline silicates; it is well fitted with pure forsterite grains (Fig. 1g). We note that other crystalline silicates, such as pyroxenes, could also be present and account for the red shoulder. However, observations of other bands longward of $`15\mu \text{m}`$, like the $`33.6\mu \text{m}`$ forsterite band or the $`40.5\mu \text{m}`$ pyroxene band are necessary to confirm our identification and search for other disk components, like crystalline pyroxenes.

### 2.3 The ionized material

We observed the continuum radiation of the central region at 3.6cm using the Very Large Array in its highest angular resolution configuration in 1998 March 13. The field was centered at $`\alpha =18^\mathrm{h}02^\mathrm{m}27.223^\mathrm{s}`$ $`\delta =23{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{o}}03\mathrm{}15.91\mathrm{}`$ (Eq. 2000), so that all the infrared sources but IRS6 lie within the field. We used 1328+307 as absolute amplitude calibrator and 1748-253 as the phase calibrator. A bootstrapped flux density of 0.271$`\pm `$0.001 Jy was obtained for 1748-253. The observations were made in both circular polarizations with an effective bandwidth of 100 MHz. The rms noise in the map is $`20\mu `$Jy beam-1; the beam size (HPFW) is $`0.38\mathrm{}\times 0.19\mathrm{}`$ and the position angle is $`11^{}`$. The map reveals the presence of two radio sources that coincide respectively with components C and D of the stellar cluster. We do not detect any emission from any other ISOCAM source, nor component B of the cluster, for which Yusef-Zadeh et al. (2000) report a 3.6 cm flux of 0.66 mJy, much higher than our $`5\sigma `$ limit of $`0.1\text{mJy}`$. It appears unlikely that this emission arises from a circumstellar disk, as suggested by these authors; we propose that component B is a time variable gyrosynchrotron emitter, that may exhibit circular polarization in high-sensitivity radio-observations.

The emission from components C and D is compact and forms a close double, separated by $`2.4\mathrm{}`$. The flux densities at 3.6cm were $`1.64\pm 0.02\text{mJy}`$ (for C) and $`1.48\pm 0.02\text{mJy}`$ (for D). Both sources appear unresolved with an angular size smaller than $`0.2\mathrm{}`$. No linear or circular polarization was found in the sources to an upper limit of $``$4% for the degree of polarization. The lack of polarization is consistent with a free-free interpretation for the observed emission. To obtain the spectral indices of both objets we undertook additional VLA observations at 2-cm in the C configuration during 1998 November 21. We used 0134+329 as absolute amplitude calibrator and 1741-312 as the phase calibrator, with a bootstrapped flux density of 0.574$`\pm `$0.003 Jy. The flux densities at 2-cm were 1.66$`\pm `$0.14 mJy (for C) and 1.30$`\pm `$0.14 mJy (for D), that combined with the 3.6-cm measurements imply spectral indices of 0.0$`\pm `$0.2 and -0.2$`\pm `$0.2, for C and D, respectively. These flat spectral indices in the centimeter range are characteristic of optically thin free-free emission. The measured fluxes are in rough agreement with similar observations at a lower angular resolution ($`0.5\mathrm{}`$) by Yusef-Zadeh et al. (2000). From the observed emissivities and adopting a transverse size of $`0.2\mathrm{}`$ for the emitting region, we estimate a density of $`10^5\text{cm}\text{-3}`$ and a total mass of $`6.0\times 10^6M_{}`$ for the ionized gas around C and D.

## 3 Discussion

The color excesses measured by Kohoutek et al. (1997) towards the central stellar cluster ($`0.30.4`$) indicate very low hydrogen column densities $`\mathrm{N}(\mathrm{H})=1.92.6\times 20^{21}\text{cm}\text{-2}`$. Hence, there is no large-scale gas reservoir which could slow down the expansion of the ionized gas detected around components C and D. The ionized gas must expand on the sonic timescale $`\tau _i=R_i/c_i80\text{yr}`$, with $`R_i=0.1\mathrm{}`$ as the radius of the region observed and $`c_i=10\text{kms}\text{-1}`$. This timescale is so short compared to the age of the nebula that the free-free emission has to be sustained through the ionization of some “fresh” neutral material. The mid-infrared data provide direct evidence for some neutral material around components C and D. Therefore, we propose that the emission observed at the VLA and in the infrared originates from a reservoir of dense circumstellar material exposed to the ionizing radiation of HD 164492A, similar to the photo-evaporated disks detected in Orion (Churchwell et al. 1987; O’Dell, Wen & Hu 1993).

Following the same approach as Churchwell et al. (1987), we estimate an ionizing flux $`J_i=1.6\times 10^{11}\text{cm}\text{-2}\text{s}\text{-1}`$ at the ionization front and a mass-loss rate $`\dot{\mathrm{M}}4\times 10^8M_{}\text{yr}\text{-1}`$. It implies the mass of warm material detected in the infrared ($`23\times 10^5M_{}`$) would have completely evaporated on a timescale of $`400\text{yr}`$, whereas the nebula is $`0.3\text{Myr}`$ old. The total circumstellar mass is probably much higher than the mass of material detected and the bulk of disk material corresponds to a colder component which emits at longer wavelengths. We also note that the mass of the photo-evaporated disks discovered in the Orion nebula are 100 times larger than the masses estimated here (Störzer and Hollenbach, 1999). The similarity between the mass of the ionized gas and the mid-infrared material suggests that we are detecting the emission of the photon-dominated region at the surface of the circumstellar disks. Interestingly, the column density of warm gas derived from the CVF data is in good agreement with the model of Johnstone, Hollenbach & Bally (1998) for the warm PDR gas at the surface of a photo-evaporated disk.

The only two infrared sources detected at the VLA are classified as massive or intermediate-mass objects; this suggests that all the infrared sources detected with ISOCAM have also low- or intermediate masses. This would naturally explain why neither IRS 3 nor IRS 4 were detected at the VLA, though at similar apparent distances to the ionizing source. However, we cannot exclude that we are misled by a projection effect and that the true distance to the exciting star is much larger. Apart from IRS 1-2, IRS 3 and IRS 6 exhibit the silicate band at $`9.7\mu \text{m}`$ in emission although both lay behind the Western dust lane of the nebula. It means that the dust temperature of the circumstellar reservoir must be at least $`200`$ K. Since IRS 3 is very close to HD 164492A and is also detected in the optical $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ line, one cannot exclude that the circumstellar dust is externally heated by the exciting star. Interestingly, this is not the case for other sources like IRS 5. This is probably because these sources are still embedded in their cocoon, and the outer heating is not sufficient to compete with the inner continuum source.

Only very few examples of crystalline silicates in protostellar disks have been reported so far (Malfait et al. 1998, 1999). The mechanism responsible for the crystallization of silicates is unclear (Molster et al. 1999). Our observations in the Trifid nebula show that many young stellar sources are removing their parental cocoon, leaving their dense circumstellar disk exposed to the ionizing radiation of the exciting stars. In some sources we find a dust component at temperatures comparable to the glass temperature of silicates ($`10^3`$ K). We speculate that dust annealing in the PDR of the photoionized disks could contribute and maybe account for the crystalline component detected in IRS 1-2 (see e.g. Gail, 1998). Complementary observations of IRS 1-2 with upcoming infrared instruments like SIRTF are necessary to confirm the presence of crystalline silicates, characterize their physical properties, and to constrain the possibility of such a scenario.

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Spanish DGES for this supporting research under grants PB96-0883 and ESP98-1351E. LFR is grateful to CONACyT, Mexico, for its support This research made use of SIMBAD.


text:
# CMB Bispectrum from Active Models of Structure Formation

## I CMB Bispectrum from active models

We assume that, given a model of active perturbations, such as a string simulation, we can calculate the energy-momentum tensor $`T_{\mu \nu }(𝐱,\tau )`$ for a particular realization of the sources in a finite spatial volume $`V_0`$. Here, $`𝐱`$ is a 3-dimensional coordinate and $`\tau `$ is the cosmic time. Many simulations are run to obtain an ensemble of random realizations of sources with statistical properties appropriate for the given model. The spatial Fourier decomposition of $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ can be written as

$$T_{\mu \nu }(𝐱,\tau )=\underset{𝐤}{}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }(𝐤,\tau )e^{i\mathrm{𝐤𝐱}},$$
(1)
where $`𝐤`$ are discrete. If $`V_0`$ is sufficiently large we can approximate the summation by the integral

$`{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤}{}}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }(𝐤,\tau )e^{i\mathrm{𝐤𝐱}}{\displaystyle \frac{V_0}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐤\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }(𝐤,\tau )e^{i\mathrm{𝐤𝐱}}},`$ (2)
and the corresponding inverse Fourier transform will be

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }(𝐤,\tau )=\frac{1}{V_0}_{V_0}d^3𝐱T_{\mu \nu }(𝐱,\tau )e^{i\mathrm{𝐤𝐱}}.$$
(3)
Of course, the final results, such as the CMB power spectrum or bispectrum, do not depend on the choice of $`V_0`$. To ensure this independence, we shall keep $`V_0`$ in all expressions where it appears throughout the following sections.

It is conventional to expand the temperature fluctuations over the basis of spherical harmonics,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }T/T(\widehat{𝐧})=\underset{lm}{}a_{lm}Y_{lm}(\widehat{𝐧}),$$
(4)
where $`\widehat{𝐧}`$ is a unit vector. The coefficients $`a_{lm}`$ can be decomposed into Fourier modes,

$$a_{lm}=\frac{V_0}{(2\pi )^3}\left(i\right)^l4\pi d^3𝐤\mathrm{\Delta }_l\left(𝐤\right)Y_{lm}^{}(\widehat{𝐤}).$$
(5)
Given the sources $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }(𝐤,\tau )`$, the quantities $`\mathrm{\Delta }_l(𝐤)`$ are found by solving linearized Einstein-Boltzmann equations and integrating along the line of sight, using a code similar to CMBFAST . This standard procedure can be written symbolically as the action of a linear operator $`\widehat{B}_l^{\mu \nu }(k)`$ on the source energy-momentum tensor, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_l(𝐤)=\widehat{B}_l^{\mu \nu }(k)\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }(𝐤,\tau )`$, so the third moment of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_l(𝐤)`$ is linearly related to the three-point correlator of $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }(𝐤,\tau )`$. Below we consider the quantities $`\mathrm{\Delta }_l(𝐤)`$, corresponding to a set of realizations of active sources, as given. The numerical procedure for computing $`\mathrm{\Delta }_l(𝐤)`$ was developed in Refs.  and .

The third moment of $`a_{lm}`$, namely $`a_{l_1m_1}a_{l_2m_2}a_{l_3m_3}`$, can be expressed as

$`\left(i\right)^{l_1+l_2+l_3}\left(4\pi \right)^3{\displaystyle \frac{V_0^3}{(2\pi )^9}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐤_1d^3𝐤_2d^3𝐤_3Y_{l_1m_1}^{}(\widehat{𝐤}_1)}`$ (6)
$`\times `$ $`Y_{l_2m_2}^{}(\widehat{𝐤}_2)Y_{l_3m_3}^{}(\widehat{𝐤}_3)\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_1}\left(𝐤_1\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_2}\left(𝐤_2\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_3}\left(𝐤_3\right).`$ (7)
A straightforward numerical evaluation of Eq. (7) from given sources $`\mathrm{\Delta }_l\left(𝐤\right)`$ is prohibitively difficult, because it involves too many integrations of oscillating functions. However, we shall be able to reduce the computation to integrations over scalars (a similar method was employed in ). Due to homogeneity, the 3-point function vanishes unless the triangle constraint is satisfied,

$$𝐤_1+𝐤_2+𝐤_3=0.$$
(8)
We may write

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_1}\left(𝐤_1\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_2}\left(𝐤_2\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_3}\left(𝐤_3\right)`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`\delta ^{(3)}\left(𝐤_1+𝐤_2+𝐤_3\right)P_{l_1l_2l_3}(𝐤_1,𝐤_2,𝐤_3),`$ (10)
where the three-point function $`P_{l_1l_2l_3}(𝐤_1,𝐤_2,𝐤_3)`$ is defined only for values of $`𝐤_i`$ that satisfy Eq. (8). Given the scalar values $`k_1`$, $`k_2`$, $`k_3`$, there is a unique (up to an overall rotation) triplet of directions $`\widehat{𝐤}_i`$ for which the RHS of Eq. (10) does not vanish. The quantity $`P_{l_1l_2l_3}(𝐤_1,𝐤_2,𝐤_3)`$ is invariant under an overall rotation of all three vectors $`𝐤_i`$ and therefore may be equivalently represented by a function of *scalar* values $`k_1`$, $`k_2`$, $`k_3`$, while preserving all angular information. Hence, we can rewrite Eq. (10) as

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_1}\left(𝐤_1\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_2}\left(𝐤_2\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_3}\left(𝐤_3\right)`$ (11)
$`=`$ $`\delta ^{(3)}\left(𝐤_1+𝐤_2+𝐤_3\right)P_{l_1l_2l_3}(k_1,k_2,k_3).`$ (12)
Then, using the simulation volume $`V_0`$ explicitly, we have

$$P_{l_1l_2l_3}(k_1,k_2,k_3)=\frac{(2\pi )^3}{V_0}\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_1}\left(𝐤_1\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_2}\left(𝐤_2\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_3}\left(𝐤_3\right).$$
(13)
Given an arbitrary direction $`\widehat{𝐤}_1`$ and the magnitudes $`k_1`$, $`k_2`$ and $`k_3`$, the directions $`\widehat{𝐤}_2`$ and $`\widehat{𝐤}_3`$ are specified up to overall rotations by the triangle constraint. Therefore, both sides of Eq. (13) are functions of scalar $`k_i`$ only. The expression on the RHS of Eq. (13) is evaluated numerically by averaging over different realizations of the sources and over permissible directions $`\widehat{𝐤}_i`$; below we shall give more details of the procedure.

Substituting Eqs. (12) and (13) into (7), Fourier transforming the Dirac delta and using the Rayleigh identity, we can perform all angular integrations analytically and obtain a compact form for the third moment,

$$a_{l_1m_1}a_{l_2m_2}a_{l_3m_3}=_{l_1l_2l_3}^{m_1m_2m_3}r^2𝑑rb_{l_1l_2l_3}(r),$$
(14)
where, denoting the Wigner $`3j`$-symbol by $`({}_{m_1m_2m_3}{}^{l_1l_2l_3})`$, we have

$`_{l_1l_2l_3}^{m_1m_2m_3}`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\left(2l_1+1\right)\left(2l_2+1\right)\left(2l_3+1\right)}{4\pi }}}`$ (20)
$`\times \left(\begin{array}{ccc}l_1& l_2& l_3\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l_1& l_2& l_3\\ m_1& m_2& m_3\end{array}\right),`$
and where we have defined the auxiliary quantities $`b_{l_1l_2l_3}`$ using spherical Bessel functions $`j_l`$,

$`b_{l_1l_2l_3}(r)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8}{\pi ^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{V_0^3}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle k_1^2𝑑k_1k_2^2𝑑k_2k_3^2𝑑k_3}`$ (21)
$`\times `$ $`j_{l_1}(k_1r)j_{l_2}(k_2r)j_{l_3}(k_3r)P_{l_1l_2l_3}(k_1,k_2,k_3).`$ (22)
The volume factor $`V_0^3`$ contained in this expression is correct: as shown in the next section, each term $`\mathrm{\Delta }_l`$ includes a factor $`V_0^{2/3}`$, while the average quantity $`P_{l_1l_2l_3}(k_1,k_2,k_3)V_0^3`$ \[cf. Eq. (13)\], so that the arbitrary volume $`V_0`$ of the simulation cancels.

Our proposed numerical procedure therefore consists of computing the RHS of Eq. (14) by evaluating the necessary integrals. For fixed $`\left\{l_1l_2l_3\right\}`$, computation of the quantities $`b_{l_1l_2l_3}(r)`$ is a triple integral over scalar $`k_i`$ defined by Eq. (22); it is followed by a fourth scalar integral over $`r`$ \[Eq. (14)\]. We also need to average over many realizations of sources to obtain $`P_{l_1l_2l_3}(k_1,k_2,k_3)`$. It was not feasible for us to precompute the values $`P_{l_1l_2l_3}(k_1,k_2,k_3)`$ on a grid before integration because of the large volume of data: for each set $`\left\{l_1l_2l_3\right\}`$ the grid must contain $`10^3`$ points for each $`k_i`$. Instead, we precompute $`\mathrm{\Delta }_l\left(𝐤\right)`$ from one realization of sources and evaluate the RHS of Eq. (13) on that data as an *estimator* of $`P_{l_1l_2l_3}(k_1,k_2,k_3)`$, averaging over allowed directions of $`\widehat{𝐤}_i`$. The result is used for integration in Eq. (22).

Because of isotropy and since the allowed sets of directions $`\widehat{𝐤}_i`$ are planar, it is enough to restrict the numerical calculation to directions $`\widehat{𝐤}_i`$ within a fixed two-dimensional plane. This significantly reduces the amount of computations and data storage, since $`\mathrm{\Delta }_l\left(𝐤\right)`$ only needs to be stored on a two-dimensional grid of $`𝐤`$.

In estimating $`P_{l_1l_2l_3}(k_1,k_2,k_3)`$ from Eq. (13), averaging over directions of $`\widehat{𝐤}_i`$ plays a similar role to ensemble averaging over source realizations. Therefore if the number of directions is large enough (we used 720 for cosmic strings), only a moderate number of different source realizations is needed. The main numerical difficulty is the highly oscillating nature of the function $`b_{l_1l_2l_3}(r)`$. The calculation of the bispectrum for cosmic strings presented in Section II requires about 20 days of a single-CPU workstation time per realization.

We note that this method is specific for the bispectrum and cannot be applied to compute higher-order correlations. The reason is that higher-order correlations involve configurations of vectors $`𝐤_i`$ that are not described by scalar values $`k_i`$ and not restricted to a plane. For instance, a computation of a 4-point function would involve integration of highly oscillating functions over four vectors $`𝐤_i`$ which is computationally infeasible.

From Eq. (14) we derive the CMB angular bispectrum $`𝒞_{l_1l_2l_3}`$, defined as

$`a_{l_1m_1}a_{l_2m_2}a_{l_3m_3}=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l_1& l_2& l_3\\ m_1& m_2& m_3\end{array}\right)𝒞_{l_1l_2l_3}.`$ (25)
The presence of the 3$`j`$-symbol guarantees that the third moment vanishes unless $`m_1+m_2+m_3=0`$ and the $`l_i`$ indices satisfy the triangle rule $`|l_il_j|l_kl_i+l_j`$. Invariance under spatial inversions of the three-point correlation function implies the additional ‘selection rule’ $`l_1+l_2+l_3=\text{even}`$, in order for the third moment not to vanish. Finally, from this last relation and using standard properties of the 3$`j`$-symbols, it follows that the angular bispectrum $`𝒞_{l_1l_2l_3}`$ is left unchanged under any arbitrary permutation of the indices $`l_i`$.

In this paper we restrict our calculations to the angular bispectrum $`C_{l_1l_2l_3}`$ in the ‘diagonal’ case, i.e. $`l_1=l_2=l_3=l`$. This is a representative case and, in fact, the one most frequently considered in the literature. Plots of the power spectrum are usually done in terms of $`l(l+1)C_l`$ which, apart from constant factors, is the contribution to the mean squared anisotropy of temperature fluctuations per unit logarithmic interval of $`l`$. In full analogy with this, the relevant quantity to work with in the case of the bispectrum is

$`G_{lll}=l(2l+1)^{3/2}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l& l& l\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)C_{lll}.`$ (28)
Details of this derivation are presented in the Appendix. For large values of the multipole index $`l`$, $`G_{lll}l^{3/2}C_{lll}`$. Note also what happens with the 3$`j`$-symbols appearing in the definition of the coefficients $`_{l_1l_2l_3}^{m_1m_2m_3}`$: the symbol $`({}_{m_1m_2m_3}{}^{l_1l_2l_3})`$ is absent from the definition of $`C_{l_1l_2l_3}`$, while in Eq. (28) the symbol $`({}_{\mathrm{0\hspace{0.25em}0\hspace{0.25em}0}}{}^{lll})`$ is squared. Hence, there are no remnant oscillations due to the alternating sign of $`({}_{\mathrm{0\hspace{0.25em}0\hspace{0.25em}0}}{}^{lll})`$.

However, even more important than the value of $`C_{lll}`$ itself is the relation between the bispectrum and the cosmic variance associated with it. In fact, it is their comparison that tells us about the observability ‘in principle’ of the non-Gaussian signal. The cosmic variance constitutes a theoretical uncertainty for all observable quantities and comes about due to the fact of having just one realization of the stochastic process, in our case, the CMB sky .

The way to proceed is to employ an estimator $`\widehat{C}_{l_1l_2l_3}`$ for the bispectrum and compute the variance from it. By choosing an unbiased estimator we ensure it satisfies $`C_{l_1l_2l_3}=\widehat{C}_{l_1l_2l_3}`$. However, this condition does not isolate a unique estimator. The proper way to select the best unbiased estimator is to compute the variances of all candidates and choose the one with the smallest value. The estimator with this property was computed in Ref.  and is

$$\widehat{C}_{l_1l_2l_3}=\underset{m_1,m_2,m_3}{}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l_1& l_2& l_3\\ m_1& m_2& m_3\end{array}\right)a_{l_1m_1}a_{l_2m_2}a_{l_3m_3}.$$
(29)
The variance of this estimator, assuming a mildly non-Gaussian distribution, can be expressed in terms of the angular power spectrum $`C_l`$ as follows

$$\sigma _{\widehat{C}_{l_1l_2l_3}}^2=C_{l_1}C_{l_2}C_{l_3}\left(1+\delta _{l_1l_2}+\delta _{l_2l_3}+\delta _{l_3l_1}+2\delta _{l_1l_2}\delta _{l_2l_3}\right).$$
(30)
The theoretical signal-to-noise ratio for the bispectrum is then given by

$$(S/N)_{l_1l_2l_3}=|C_{l_1l_2l_3}/\sigma _{\widehat{C}_{l_1l_2l_3}}|.$$
(31)
In turn, for the diagonal case $`l_1=l_2=l_3=l`$ we have

$$(S/N)_l=|C_{lll}/\sigma _{\widehat{C}_{lll}}|.$$
(32)
Incorporating all the specifics of the particular experiment, such as sky coverage, angular resolution, etc., will allow us to give an estimate of the particular non-Gaussian signature associated with a given active source and, if observable, indicate the appropriate range of multipole $`l`$’s where it is best to look for it.

## II Bispectrum from strings

### A The string model

To calculate the sources of perturbations we use an updated version of the cosmic string model first introduced by Albrecht et al.  and further developed in Ref. , where the wiggly nature of strings was taken into account. In these previous works the model was tailored to the computation of the two-point statistics (matter and CMB power spectra). When dealing with higher-order statistics, such as the bispectrum, a different strategy needs to be employed.

In the model, the string network is represented by a collection of uncorrelated straight string segments produced at some early epoch and moving with random uncorrelated velocities. At every subsequent epoch, a certain fraction of the number of segments decays in a way that maintains network scaling. The length of each segment at any time is taken to be equal to the correlation length of the network. This and the root mean square velocity of segments are computed from the velocity-dependent one-scale model of Martins and Shellard . The positions of segments are drawn from a uniform distribution in space, and their orientations are chosen from a uniform distribution on a two-sphere.

The total energy of the string network in a volume $`V`$ at any time is $`E=N\mu L`$, where $`N`$ is the total number of string segments at that time, $`\mu `$ is the mass per unit length, and $`L`$ is the length of one segment. If $`L`$ is the correlation length of the string network then, according to the one-scale model, the energy density is $`\rho =E/V=\mu /L^2`$, where $`V=V_0a^3`$, the expansion factor $`a`$ is normalized so that $`a=1`$ today, and $`V_0`$ is a constant simulation volume. It follows that $`N=V/L^3=V_0/\mathrm{}^3`$, where $`\mathrm{}=L/a`$ is the comoving correlation length. In the scaling regime $`\mathrm{}`$ is approximately proportional to the conformal time $`\tau `$ and so the number of strings $`N(\tau )`$ within the simulation volume $`V_0`$ falls as $`\tau ^3`$.

To calculate the CMB anisotropy one needs to evolve the string network over at least four orders of magnitude in cosmic expansion. Hence, one would have to start with $`N10^{12}`$ string segments in order to have one segment left at the present time. Keeping track of such a huge number of segments is numerically infeasible. A way around this difficulty was suggested in Ref., where the idea was to consolidate all string segments that decay at the same epoch. The number of segments that decay by the (discretized) conformal time $`\tau _i`$ is

$$N_d(\tau _i)=V_0\left(n(\tau _{i1})n(\tau _i)\right),$$
(33)
where $`n(\tau )=[\mathrm{}(\tau )]^3`$ is the number density of strings at time $`\tau `$. The energy-momentum tensor in Fourier space, $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^i`$, of these $`N_d(\tau _i)`$ segments is a sum

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^i=\underset{m=1}{\overset{N_d(\tau _i)}{}}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{im},$$
(34)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{im}`$ is the Fourier transform of the energy-momentum of the $`m`$-th segment. If segments are uncorrelated, then

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{im}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^{im^{}}=\delta _{mm^{}}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{im}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^{im}$$
(35)
and

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{im}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^{im^{}}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\gamma \delta }^{im^{\prime \prime }}=\delta _{mm^{}}\delta _{mm^{\prime \prime }}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{im}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^{im}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\gamma \delta }^{im}.$$
(36)
Here the angular brackets $`\mathrm{}`$ denote the ensemble average, which in our case means averaging over many realizations of the string network. If we are calculating power spectra, then the relevant quantities are the two-point functions of $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^i`$, namely

$`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^i\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^i={\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{N_d(\tau _i)}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m^{}=1}{\overset{N_d(\tau _i)}{}}}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{im}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^{im^{}}.`$ (37)
Eq. (35) allows us to write

$`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^i\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^i={\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{N_d(\tau _i)}{}}}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{im}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^{im}=N_d(\tau _i)\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{i1}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^{i1},`$ (38)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{i1}`$ is of the energy-momentum of one of the segments that decay by the time $`\tau _i`$. The last step in Eq. (38) is possible because the segments are statistically equivalent. Thus, if we only want to reproduce the correct power spectra in the limit of a large number of realizations, we can replace the sum in Eq. (34) by

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^i=\sqrt{N_d(\tau _i)}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{i1}.$$
(39)
The total energy-momentum tensor of the network in Fourier space is a sum over the consolidated segments:

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }=\underset{i=1}{\overset{K}{}}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^i=\underset{i=1}{\overset{K}{}}\sqrt{N_d(\tau _i)}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{i1}.$$
(40)
So, instead of summing over $`_{i=1}^KN_d(\tau _i)10^{12}`$ segments we now sum over only $`K`$ segments, making $`K`$ a parameter.

For the three-point functions we extend the above procedure. Instead of Eqs. (37) and (38) we now write

$`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^i\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^i\mathrm{\Theta }_{\gamma \delta }^i={\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{N_d(\tau _i)}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m^{}=1}{\overset{N_d(\tau _i)}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m^{\prime \prime }=1}{\overset{N_d(\tau _i)}{}}}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{im}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^{im^{}}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\gamma \delta }^{im^{\prime \prime }}`$ (41)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{N_d(\tau _i)}{}}}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{im}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^{im}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\gamma \delta }^{im}=N_d(\tau _i)\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{i1}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\sigma \rho }^{i1}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\gamma \delta }^{i1}.`$ (42)
Therefore, for the purpose of calculation of three-point functions, the sum in Eq. (34) should now be replaced by

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^i=[N_d(\tau _i)]^{1/3}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{i1}.$$
(43)
Both expressions in Eqs. (39) and (43), depend on the simulation volume, $`V_0`$, contained in the definition of $`N_d(\tau _i)`$ given in Eq. (33). This is to be expected and is consistent with our calculations, since this volume cancels in expressions for observable quantities.

Note also that the simulation model in its present form does not allow computation of CMB sky maps. This is because the method of finding the two- and three-point functions as we described involves “consolidated” quantities $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^i`$ which do not correspond to the energy-momentum tensor of a real string network. These quantities are auxiliary and specially prepared to give the correct two- or three-point functions after ensemble averaging.

### B Results and discussion

In Fig. 1 we show the results for $`G_{lll}^{1/3}`$ \[cf. Eq. (28)\]. It was calculated using the string model with $`800`$ consolidated segments in a flat universe with cold dark matter and a cosmological constant. Only the scalar contribution to the anisotropy has been included. Vector and tensor contributions are known to be relatively insignificant for local cosmic strings and can safely be ignored in this model <sup>*</sup><sup>*</sup>*The contribution of vector and tensor modes is large in the case of global strings .. The plots are produced using a single realization of the string network by averaging over $`720`$ directions of $`𝐤_i`$. The comparison of $`G_{lll}^{1/3}`$ (or equivalently $`C_{lll}^{1/3}`$) with its cosmic variance \[cf. Eq. (30)\] clearly shows that the bispectrum (as computed from our cosmic string model) lies hidden in the theoretical noise and is therefore undetectable for any given value of $`l`$.

Let us note, however, that in its present stage our string code describes Brownian, wiggly long strings in spite of the fact that long strings are very likely not Brownian on the smallest scales . In addition, the presence of small string loops  and gravitational radiation into which they decay were not yet included in our model. These are important effects that could, in principle, change our predictions for the string-generated CMB bispectrum on very small angular scales.

The imprint of cosmic strings on the CMB is a combination of different effects. Prior to the time of recombination strings induce density and velocity fluctuations on the surrounding matter. During the period of last scattering these fluctuations are imprinted on the CMB through the Sachs-Wolfe effect: namely, temperature fluctuations arise because relic photons encounter a gravitational potential with spatially dependent depth. In addition to the Sachs-Wolfe effect, moving long strings drag the surrounding plasma and produce velocity fields that cause temperature anisotropies due to Doppler shifts. While a string segment by itself is a highly non-Gaussian object, fluctuations induced by string segments before recombination are a superposition of effects of many random strings stirring the primordial plasma. These fluctuations are thus expected to be Gaussian as a result of the central limit theorem.

As the universe becomes transparent, strings continue to leave their imprint on the CMB mainly due to the Kaiser-Stebbins effect . This effect results in line discontinuities in the temperature field of photons passing on opposite sides of a moving long string.In an extension of the Kaiser-Stebbins effect, Benabed and Bernardeau  have recently considered the generation of a B-type polarization field out of E-type polarization, through gravitational lensing on a cosmic string. However, this effect can result in non-Gaussian perturbations only on sufficiently small scales. This is because on scales larger than the characteristic inter-string separation at the time of the radiation-matter equality, the CMB temperature perturbations result from superposition of effects of many strings and are likely to be Gaussian. Avelino et al.  applied several non-Gaussian tests to the perturbations seeded by cosmic strings. They found the density field distribution to be close to Gaussian on scales larger than $`1.5(\mathrm{\Omega }_Mh^2)^1`$ Mpc, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ is the fraction of cosmological matter density in baryons and CDM combined. Scales this small correspond to the multipole index of order $`l10^4`$. We have not attempted a calculation the CMB bispectrum on these scales because the linear approximation is almost guaranteed to fail at such small scales, and because of increased computational cost for higher $`l`$ multipoles.

In summary, we have developed a numerical method to compute from first principles one of the cleanest non-Gaussian discriminators—the CMB angular bispectrum—in any active model of structure formation, such as cosmic defects, where the energy-momentum tensor is known or can be simulated. Our method does not use CMB sky maps and requires a moderate amount of computations. We applied this method to the computation of some relevant components of the bispectrum produced from a model of cosmic strings and found that the non-zero non-Gaussian signal is unobservable even with forthcoming satellite-based CMB missions. Further computations and improvements using this method will be reported elsewhere.

## Acknowledgments

L.P. and S.W. give special thanks to Tanmay Vachaspati for valuable insights. A.G. thanks I.A.P. and D.A.R.C. for hospitality in Paris, France, and CONICET and Fundación Antorchas for financial support.

## A Plotting the bispectrum

We explain here our choice for the normalization of the angular bispectrum, as given in Eq. (28). The argument is an extension of the case of the angular power spectrum.

We can express the two-point correlation function at zero lag in terms of the angular spectrum as follows

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T}{T}\right)^2=\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{l}{}(2l+1)C_l.$$
(A1)
In the small angular scale limit, the approximation that $`C_l`$ is a smooth function of the multipole index $`l`$ is well justified. We can then replace the sum by an integral and get

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T}{T}\right)^2\frac{1}{4\pi }\frac{dl}{l}l(2l+1)C_l.$$
(A2)
Now, $`dl/l=d(\mathrm{ln}(l))`$ and therefore $`l(2l+1)C_l`$ is the contribution to the mean squared anisotropy of temperature fluctuations per unit logarithmic interval of $`l`$. In standard practice, one usually plots $`l(l+1)C_l/2\pi `$ versus $`l`$, which for large $`l`$ is proportional to $`l(2l+1)C_l/4\pi `$. On small angular scales, then, this is $`l^2C_l`$.

In the case of the three-point correlation function the situation is a bit more involved. Let us consider the skewness:

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T}{T}}\right)^3={\displaystyle \underset{l_1l_2l_3}{}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2l_1+1}{4\pi }}}`$ (A3)
$`\times \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2l_2+1}{4\pi }}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2l_3+1}{4\pi }}}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l_1& l_2& l_3\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)𝒞_{l_1l_2l_3}`$ (A6)
We know that $`𝒞_{l_1l_2l_3}`$ is smooth in all three indices. We can split the skewness into three sums: the sum of terms where all $`l_i`$ are different, the sum where only two of the three $`l_i`$ are different, and the sum of terms where all $`l_i`$ are equal. Omitting constant factors of $`4\pi `$, we outline the same procedure as above for the two-point function. For the first sum we get

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dl_1}{l_1}\frac{dl_2}{l_2}\frac{dl_3}{l_3}}`$ $`l_1\sqrt{2l_1+1}l_2\sqrt{2l_2+1}l_3\sqrt{2l_3+1}`$ (A7)
$`\times `$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l_1& l_2& l_3\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)C_{l_1l_2l_3},`$ (A10)
while for the second sum we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dl_1}{l_1}\frac{dl_2}{l_2}l_1\sqrt{2l_1+1}l_2\left(2l_2+1\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l_1& l_2& l_2\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)C_{l_1l_2l_2}},`$ (A13)
and for the third

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dl}{l}l(2l+1)^{3/2}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l& l& l\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)C_{lll}}.`$ (A17)
If one is interested in the diagonal terms $`C_{lll}`$, then, following the last equation, the relevant quantity to plot is given by

$`l(2l+1)^{3/2}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l& l& l\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)C_{lll},`$ (A20)
which is $`l^{3/2}C_{lll}`$ at large $`l`$.