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# Equation of State for Helium–4 from Microphysics

## I Introduction

When we regard a multiparticle system such as helium–4, we can choose between two possible points of view. We can zoom in on the details of the interactions, focusing on only a few particles, and in a first approach we might choose to study how the interactions of just two particles can be described. This is typically investigated by scattering experiments, and a quite precise picture of the two–particle interaction for helium–4 exists. On the other hand, we can also take a broader view and turn to the thermodynamic properties of many particles where properties such as pressure, temperature, and superfluidity arise.

These two pictures are, of course, connected to each other as the thermodynamic properties are large scale effects of the (local) microscopic interactions. Yet for helium–4 in the interesting region around the superfluid phase transition, a complete mathematical description, which makes this connection explicit, is still lacking, to our best knowledge. A general problem in the calculation of thermodynamic properties is the occurrance of infrared divergences. Here, we present a novel approach, which is free of those divergences. It is based upon an exact renormalization–group equation.

The goal of this work is threefold. First of all, we demonstrate how nonuniversal properties of thermodynamic systems can be calculated by means of an exact renormalization–group equation. Second, we present first results for the critical chemical potential and the equation of state for helium–4 obtained merely from the microscopic interactions. And third, we show the necessity of a shift of the chemical potential in the action, which arises from the mathematical manipulations of the functional integral and becomes important in the calculation of the phonon spectrum and the critical chemical potential. We have reported on the appearance of this shift earlier  and now show its effect in application.

The renormalization group is well suited for the treatment of the superfluid phase transition. While a perturbative approach is plagued by infrared divergences, the renormalization group naturally circumvents these difficulties. It also presents an intuitive connection between the microscopic and the macroscopic pictures. It starts with just the microscopic interactions. After integrating out the single–particle degrees of freedom consecutively from the effective ultraviolet (UV) cutoff at large momentum down to zero momentum, a complete thermodynamic description of the system is obtained.

This basic idea is implemented in our approach by a functional differential equation that represents the lowering of an infrared cutoff. There is, in principle, no restriction on the relative interaction strength or the density of the system as in most perturbative approaches. Details of the method can be found elsewhere.

A similar approach to the calculation of nonuniversal properties for Bose condensates by renormalization–group methods was taken by Bijlsma and Stoof, restricted to low density gases. Another recent application of renormalization group methods to superfluid helium combined with the exploitation of the underlying symmetry and related Ward identity has successfully treated the infrared divergences that occur in the computation of low–lying excitations.

## II The action for helium–4

We describe helium–4 by the many–body bosonic Hamiltonian operator

$$=\underset{q}{}\left(\frac{q^2}{2m}\mu \right)a_q^{}a_q+\frac{1}{2}\underset{q_1,q_2,q}{}a_{q_1+q}^{}a_{q_2q}^{}v(q)a_{q_2}a_{q_1}.$$
(1)
The mass $`m`$ of the helium atom is $`3.73`$ GeV, $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential, and $`v(q)`$ the two–particle interaction potential.

Such a description is clearly not valid below the atomic scale, and we therefore assume a UV momentum cutoff proportional to the inverse atomic length scale given by the atomic diameter $`\sigma `$: $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=(2\pi )/\sigma `$, $`q^2<\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$. (In all formulas, units are chosen such that $`\mathrm{}=c=k_B=1`$.) We choose to describe the interaction by a simple Lennard–Jones potential

$$v(r)=4ϵ\left(\frac{\sigma ^{12}}{r^{12}}\frac{\sigma ^6}{r^6}\right)$$
(2)
with the maximum energy of attraction $`ϵ=10.22`$ K and $`\sigma =2.556\text{ Å}`$. This fits the measured interaction potential very accurately. For the definition of the interaction in the momentum domain, we identify the atomic diameter $`\sigma `$ with the scattering length and cut off the potential at small distances while fixing $`v(q=0)=(4\pi \sigma )/(Vm)`$ as required by low energy scattering theory. Here, $`V`$ is the system’s volume, which we will let eventually approach infinity. The Fourier transform of the two–particle potential thus derived is shown in Fig. 1.   FIG. 1.: Fourier transform of the two–particle interaction for helium–4.

The action $`𝒮[\chi ,\chi ^{}]`$ for helium–4, which is a functional depending on the four–dimensional classical complex field $`\chi `$, is defined via the grand canonical partition function

$$\text{Tr}e^\beta =𝒟\chi 𝒟\chi ^{}e^{𝒮[\chi ,\chi ^{}]}$$
(3)
with $`\beta =1/T`$ denoting the inverse temperature. As we have shown earlier, great care has to be taken in constructing the action, and for the Hamiltonian operator (1), we have obtained a perhaps unexpected shift $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ for the chemical potential $`\mu `$ in the action. One finds (up to a constant)

$`𝒮[\chi ,\chi ^{}]`$ (4)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^\beta }d\tau \{{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}\chi _q^{}(\tau )({\displaystyle \frac{}{\tau }}+{\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{2m}}\mu \mathrm{\Omega })\chi _q(\tau )`$ (6)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{q_1,q_2,q}{}}\chi _{q_1+q}^{}(\tau )\chi _{q_2q}^{}(\tau )v(q)\chi _{q_2}(\tau )\chi _{q_1}(\tau )\}`$
with

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{1}{2}\underset{q}{}\left[v(q)+v(0)\right].$$
(7)
All momenta are restricted by the UV cutoff $`q^2<\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$.

It is convenient to express the field as a sum over Matsubara frequencies $`\omega _n=2\pi n/\beta `$

$$\chi _q(\tau )=\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{i\omega _n\tau }\chi _{n,q},$$
(8)
such that

$`𝒮[\chi ,\chi ^{}]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n,q}{}}\beta \chi _{n,q}^{}\left(i\omega _n+{\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{2m}}\mu \mathrm{\Omega }\right)\chi _{n,q}`$ (11)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n_1,\mathrm{},n_4}{q_1,q_2,q}}{}}\chi _{n_1,q_1+q}^{}\chi _{n_2,q_2q}^{}`$
$`\times \chi _{n_3,q_2}\chi _{n_4,q_1}v(q)\delta _{n_1+n_2,n_3+n_4}.`$
This action differs in the appearance of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ from a functional–integral approach proposed earlier within a coherent–state ansatz, where a complete set of eigenstates of the annihilation operators is used for the conversion of the partition function to a functional integral. In contrast, Eq. (11) is obtained by transforming the creation and annihilation operators in the Hamiltonian (1) to location and momentum operators before the conversion to a functional integral. This allows us to choose an operator ordering that avoids uncontrollable contributions from next–to–leading–order terms in the discretization parameter. The correctness of our approach has been tested by numerical calculations in quantum mechanics.

## III Phonon spectrum

From the action (11), we can already calculate the phonon velocity for a weakly coupled Bose condensate at $`T=0`$. Altough this can also be obtained by a Bogoljubov transformation of the Hamiltonian operator (1), we sketch the calculation as it shows how $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ cancels a corresponding term evolving from the one–loop correction. In this way, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ acts as a counterterm though it has naturally emerged from the construction of the functional integral.

The generating functional of the connected Green functions $`W[J,J^{}]`$ is defined by

$`e^{W[J,J^{}]}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }𝒟\chi 𝒟\chi ^{}\mathrm{exp}\{𝒮[\chi ,\chi ^{}]`$ (13)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{n,q}{}}(J_{n,q}^{}\chi _{n,q}+J_{n,q}\chi _{n,q}^{})\},`$
and the generating functional of the 1*PI* Green functions by the Legendre transform

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }[\phi ,\phi ^{}]=\mathrm{ln}W[J,J^{}]+\underset{n,q}{}\left(J_{n,q}^{}\phi _{n,q}+J_{n,q}\phi _{n,q}^{}\right).$$
(14)
To calculate the phonon spectrum, we need the zeros of the inverse full propagator $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{(2)}`$. We restrict ourselves to the case of a static and homogeneous condensate $`\overline{\phi }_{n,q}=\phi \delta _{n,0}\delta _{q,0}`$. Considering only low–momentum excitations, we can approximate the interaction potential $`v(q)`$ by $`v(0)`$. The tree–level approximation yields

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_0[\phi ,\phi ^{}]=𝒮[\phi ,\phi ^{}]$$
(15)
and therefore (for fixed $`n`$ and $`q`$)

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{\delta ^2𝒮[\phi ,\phi ^{}]}{\delta \phi _{n,q}^{}\delta \phi _{n,q}}& \frac{\delta ^2𝒮[\phi ,\phi ^{}]}{\delta \phi _{n,q}\delta \phi _{n,q}}\\ & \\ \frac{\delta ^2𝒮[\phi ,\phi ^{}]}{\delta \phi _{n,q}^{}\delta \phi _{n,q}^{}}& \frac{\delta ^2𝒮[\phi ,\phi ^{}]}{\delta \phi _{n,q}\delta \phi _{n,q}^{}}\end{array}\right)`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`\beta \left(\begin{array}{cc}i\omega _n+\stackrel{~}{q}& v(0)\phi _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\\ & \\ v(0)\phi ^2& i\omega _n+\stackrel{~}{q}\end{array}\right),`$ (23)
where

$$\stackrel{~}{q}=q^2/(2m)\mu \mathrm{\Omega }+2v(0)|\phi |^2.$$
(24)
The one–loop correction is obtained as

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_1[\phi ,\phi ^{}]=\frac{1}{2}\text{Tr}\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^{(2)}$$
(25)
with the trace including a sum of $`n`$ and momenta. Neglecting terms of $`𝒪\left(v(0)^2\right)`$, we obtain in the limit $`\beta \mathrm{}`$ the simple expression for the leading term,

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^{(2)}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\beta \mathrm{\Omega }& 0\\ 0& \beta \mathrm{\Omega }\end{array}\right).$$
(26)
This cancels the corresponding term in $`\stackrel{~}{q}`$ appearing in Eq. (23).

For $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^{(2)}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^{(2)}`$, we can now compute the eigenvalues:

$$\lambda _{1,2}=\beta \left(\frac{q^2}{2m}\mu +2v(0)\left|\phi \right|^2\pm \sqrt{(i\omega _n)^2+v(0)^2|\phi |^4}\right).$$
(27)
The phonon energy spectrum is determined by the zeros of $`\lambda `$ for complex $`\omega _n`$ (with the first–order approximation $`\mu =v(0)\left|\phi \right|^2`$):

$$E(q)=i\omega _n(q)=\left|q\right|\sqrt{\frac{1}{m}v(0)|\phi |^2}+𝒪(q^2)$$
(28)
with the correct phonon velocity of a weakly coupled Bose condensate at $`T=0`$.

## IV Flow equation

The physical situation of vanishing sources corresponds to an extremum of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ since $`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }/\delta \phi =J^{}`$. The value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ at the extremum $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{eq}}=\mathrm{\Gamma }[\phi _{\mathrm{eq}},\phi _{\mathrm{eq}}^{}]`$ is directly related to the free energy $`F`$ by

$$F=T\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{eq}}+\mu N.$$
(29)
For a computation of thermodynamic quantities, we therefore aim at a computation of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{eq}}`$ as a function of $`T`$ and $`\mu `$. This involves a complicated functional integral over fluctuations (13). We proceed by a stepwise solution by introducing a cutoff $`k`$ for the fluctuations such that only fluctuations with momenta $`q^2>k^2`$ are included in the functional integral. The variation of the effective action with $`k`$ is described by an exact flow equation.

For notational simplicity, we rescale the fields by absorbing a factor of $`\sqrt{\beta /(2mV)}`$ into the field variable and define $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }=2m(\mu +\mathrm{\Omega })`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{v}(q)=4m^2Vv(q)/\beta `$. For the action this yields

$`𝒮[\chi ,\chi ^{}]`$ $`=`$ $`V{\displaystyle \underset{n,q}{}}\chi _{n,q}^{}\left(2im\omega _n+q^2\stackrel{~}{\mu }\right)\chi _{n,q}`$ (32)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{V}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n_1,\mathrm{},n_4}{q_1,q_2,q}}{}}\chi _{n_1,q_1+q}^{}\chi _{n_2,q_2q}^{}`$
$`\times \chi _{n_3,q_2}\chi _{n_4,q_1}\stackrel{~}{v}(q)\delta _{n_1+n_2,n_3+n_4}.`$
In the grand canonical partition function, we add source terms $`J`$ and an infrared regulator $`R_k(n,q)`$ and define the functional $`W_k[J,J^{}]`$ as the generating functional of the connected Green functions in the presence of an infrared cutoff $`k`$,

$`e^{W_k[J,J^{}]}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }𝒟\chi 𝒟\chi ^{}\mathrm{exp}\{𝒮[\chi ,\chi ^{}]`$ (35)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{n,q}{}}(J_{n,q}^{}\chi _{n,q}+J_{n,q}\chi _{n,q}^{}`$
$`V\chi _{n,q}^{}R_k(n,q)\chi _{n,q})\}.`$
For the infrared regulator, we choose

$$R_k(n,q)=\frac{Z_kq^2}{\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{q^2}{k^2}\right)1}\delta _{n,0}.$$
(36)
Here, $`Z_k`$ is a wave–function renormalization, which will be defined below in Eq. (42). We note that this particular regulator cuts off the momentum modes with $`q^2<k^2`$ only for the $`n=0`$ Matsubara frequency. The $`n0`$ modes are not affected and contribute fully in the functional integral (35). For large enough $`T`$, the integration of the $`n0`$ frequencies poses no problem since temperature acts as an infrared regulator for these modes. Nevertheless, a future extension of the infrared cutoff to the $`n0`$ Matsubara modes may be welcome for low $`T`$.

The effective average action is defined as

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k[\phi ,\phi ^{}]`$ $`=`$ $`W_k+{\displaystyle \underset{n,q}{}}[J_{n,q}^{}\phi _{n,q}+J_{n,q}\phi _{n,q}^{}`$ (38)
$`V\phi _{n,q}^{}R_k(n,q)\phi _{n,q}].`$
As the infrared cutoff $`k`$ is lowered, the evolution of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$ follows the exact renormalization group equation

$$_k\mathrm{\Gamma }_k[\phi ^{},\phi ]|_{\phi ^{},\phi }=\frac{1}{2}\text{Tr}\left(\left(_kR_k\right)\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^{(2)}+R_k\right)^1\right).$$
(39)
The functional differential equation (39) can only be solved approximately by truncating the most general functional form of the effective average action. For a truncation scheme, we choose a derivative expansion

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k[\phi ^{},\phi ]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^\beta }{\displaystyle \frac{d\tau }{\beta }}{\displaystyle }d^3x[U_k(\rho )`$ (42)
$`+\phi ^{}(\tau ,x)\left(2m{\displaystyle \frac{}{\tau }}Z_k^2\right)\phi (\tau ,x)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}Y_k(\rho )(\rho )].`$
We consider an arbitrary dependence of the effective potential $`U_k(\rho )`$ on the invariant $`\rho (\tau ,x)=\phi ^{}(\tau ,x)\phi (\tau ,x)`$. The derivative terms (“kinetic terms”) are multiplied by wave–function renormalizations $`Z_k`$ and $`Y_k`$. The momentum and field dependence of $`Z_k`$ and $`Y_k`$ are expected to be weak  and therefore neglected for the computation of ground–state properties at this stage. For the calculation of the excitation spectrum, these should turn out to be important and thus should be included in future calculations.

We obtain evolution equations for the effective potential and its derivatives by expanding the renormalization–group equation (39) around a constant background field and taking the appropriate derivatives with respect to $`\rho `$. In particular, we will use the evolution equation for the first derivative of the effective potential $`U_k^{}=U_k/\rho `$, which is obtained as

$`_tU_k^{}(\rho )`$ (43)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^3}}\left(_tR_k(q)\right)({\displaystyle \frac{U_k^{\prime \prime }}{\left(Z_kq^2+U_k^{}+R_k(q)\right)^2}}`$ (45)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3U_k^{\prime \prime }+2U_k^{\prime \prime \prime }\rho +Y_kq^2}{\left(Z_kq^2+Y_k\rho q^2+U_k^{}+2U_k^{\prime \prime }\rho +R_k(q)\right)^2}}).`$
Evolution equations for $`Z_k`$ and $`Y_k`$ are obtained by taking further appropriate expansions of Eq. (39).

The solution of $`U_k`$ for $`k0`$ is directly related to intensive thermodynamic quantities as pressure $`P`$, energy density $`ϵ`$, or particle density $`n`$. Denoting by $`U_{\mathrm{eq}}(T,\mu )`$ the value of $`U_{k=0}`$ at its minimum, one finds the relations

$$P=TU_{\mathrm{eq}},n=T\frac{U_{\mathrm{eq}}}{\mu },ϵ=T^2\frac{U_{\mathrm{eq}}}{T}+\mu n.$$
(46)
Therefore $`U_{\mathrm{eq}}(T,\mu )`$ contains the information about the equation of state. Furthermore, the correlation length is encoded in the derivatives of $`U_{k=0}(\rho )`$ at the minimum. We therefore aim for a solution of the flow equation (45) (or a similar equation for $`U_k`$) for $`k0`$.

This is obtained numerically by discretizing $`\rho `$ and using discrete approximations for the $`\rho `$ derivatives of $`U_k`$. As $`U_k(\rho )`$ remains fairly smooth throughout the evolution, a relatively small number of sampling points suffice to give a good approximation of the shape of $`U_k`$. The results presented in Sec. VI were obtained with 20 sampling points in $`\rho `$ space. In contrast to a Taylor expansion of $`U_k`$ around its minimum, this retains more information about the influence of regions of the effective potential away from the minimum. The resulting system of coupled ordinary differential equations was solved by an adaptive–stepsize Runge–Kutta integrator, where the momentum integrals were also evaluated numerically at each step.

The generic evolution of $`U_k(\rho )`$ is discussed in detail elsewhere. In short, one observes that the minimum of $`U_k(\rho )`$ moves towards zero, but converges to a finite value $`\rho _0`$ for the superfluid phase with $`U_0^{}(\rho _0)=0`$. Furthermore, $`U_k(\rho )`$ is found to level out in the region $`\rho <\rho _0`$ in accordance with the requirement that the true effective potential at $`k=0`$ must be a convex function of $`|\phi |`$. For the nonsuperfluid phase, on the other hand, the minimum of $`U_0`$ is at $`\rho _0=0`$ with $`U_0^{}>0`$.

The finite number of sampling points is a possible source of numerical inaccuracies, especially in the approach of the nonanalyticity at $`\rho _0`$ in the superfluid phase and at the boundary $`\rho =0`$ in the nonsuperfluid phase. But since changing the number of sampling points does not substantially affect the results and since the critical exponents are calculated with high accuracy as seen later, we do not expect these numerical sources to be major contributions to the errors of the results.

The critical line separating the superfluid and non–superfluid phase corresponds to a “fixed–point” or “scaling” solution of the evolution equation in the dimensionless variables $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }=Z_kk^1\rho `$ and $`u_k(\stackrel{~}{\rho })=k^3U_k(\stackrel{~}{\rho })`$. It is given by $`_ku_k(\stackrel{~}{\rho })|_{\stackrel{~}{\rho }}=0`$. Figure 2 shows an example of the flow of the location $`\kappa `$ of the minimum of $`u_k(\stackrel{~}{\rho })`$ for two different temperatures above and below the critical temperature.   FIG. 2.: Flow of the location of the minimum of the dimensionless effective potential $`u_k(\stackrel{~}{\rho })`$ close to the critical temperature ($`T_c=2.172`$ K, $`\left|TT_c\right|10^7`$ K). One observes the approximate fixed point in the range $`\mathrm{ln}(k/\mathrm{\Lambda })4`$ to $`10`$.   We see that $`\kappa `$ stays close to the fixed–point solution for several orders of magnitude of $`k`$. Above the critical temperature, it finally runs towards the symmetric phase where the minimum of the effective potential is at zero. Below the critical temperature, the minimum eventually runs off in the other direction leading to a finite expectation value of the field and therefore to the case of spontaneously broken symmetry.

## V Dimensional reduction

Since our cutoff acts only on the $`n=0`$ Matsubara frequency, the “initial value” of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$ at $`k=\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ has to be computed as an integral over the $`n0`$ frequencies. This procedure is known as *dimensional reduction*. It adds to the classical potential

$$U_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(0)}(\rho )=\stackrel{~}{\mu }\rho +\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{~}{v}(0)\rho ^2$$
(47)
a correction. The crudest approach would compute this in a one–loop approximation. In order to get a little more accurate, we choose, instead, a description in terms of a standard Schwinger–Dyson equation. This takes the leading mass renormalization into account. The Schwinger–Dyson equation is obtained by a one–loop calculation of the inverse full propagator of the Goldstone mode, with renormalized vertices given by Eq. (42). It yields a self–consistent equation, which we solve numerically at discretized points in $`\rho `$ space for $`U^{}(\rho )`$ while keeping the wave–function renormalizations and $`U^{\prime \prime }(\rho )`$ fixed at their original values. This procedure is justified *a posteriori* by the observation that the effect of the Schwinger–Dyson equation is nearly a constant shift of $`U^{}(\rho )`$ for all $`\rho `$.

The Schwinger–Dyson equation is obtained in the following way. We decompose the field $`\phi `$ into its real and imaginary parts $`\phi =(\pi +i\sigma )/\sqrt{2}`$ and write the truncation (42) as

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }[\pi ,\sigma ]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^\beta }{\displaystyle \frac{d\tau }{\beta }}{\displaystyle }d^3x\{U\left(\rho \right)+2im\pi {\displaystyle \frac{}{\tau }}\sigma `$ (49)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}Z[(\pi )^2+(\sigma )^2]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}Y(\rho )^2\}.`$
The inverse full propagator of the Goldstone mode is then given by

$$\frac{1}{V}\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{\Lambda }[\pi ,\sigma ]}{\delta \pi _{n,q}\delta \pi _{n,q}}|_{\pi =0}=Z_\mathrm{\Lambda }q^2+U_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}(\rho ).$$
(50)
In order to calculate this propagator from the action (32), we use the identity

$`0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }𝒟\pi 𝒟\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{\delta \pi _{n,q}}}\mathrm{exp}\{𝒮[\pi ,\sigma ]`$ (52)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{n,q}{}}(J_{n,q}^{(\pi )}\pi _{n,q}+J_{n,q}^{(\sigma )}\sigma _{n,q})\},`$
where $`J^{(\pi )}`$ and $`J^{(\sigma )}`$ are source terms for $`\pi `$ and $`\sigma `$. This leads us to

$$0=\left(\frac{\delta 𝒮}{\delta \pi _{n,q}}[\frac{}{J^{(\pi )}},\frac{}{J^{(\sigma )}}]+J_{n,q}^{(\pi )}\right)e^{W[J^{(\pi )},J^{(\sigma )}]}.$$
(53)
We can now substitute the derivatives of $`W`$ by the renormalized vertices that we obtain from the truncation (42), e.g., by using the fact that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{(2)}`$ is the inverse of the full propagator $`W^{(2)}`$. We denote the propagators of the Goldstone and the radial modes by $`P_\pi `$ and $`P_\sigma `$:

$`P_\pi `$ $`=`$ $`Z_kq^2+U_k^{}(\rho )+R_k(n,q),`$ (54)
$`P_\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`Z_kq^2+Y_k\rho q^2+U_k^{}(\rho )+2\rho U^{\prime \prime }(\rho )+R_k(n,q).`$ (55)
To account for the $`n`$ dependence of the propagators, we distinguish the propagators of the zeroth Matsubara frequency (with $`R_k(n,q)0`$) by writing $`\widehat{P}_\pi `$ and $`\widehat{P}_\sigma `$.

To obtain the propagator of the Goldstone mode, we furthermore need to take the derivative of the resulting expression for $`J_{n,q}^{(\pi )}`$ with respect to $`\pi _{n,q}`$. We neglect two–loop graphs and explicitly evaluate the sums over Matsubara frequencies stemming from the $`\delta S/\delta \pi `$ term in Eq. (53). This yields (for vanishing momentum and Matsubara frequency zero)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{V}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\delta \pi _{n,q}\delta \pi _{n,q}}}|_{\pi =0,q=0,n=0}`$ (56)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{V}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta J_{n,q}}{\delta \pi _{n,q}}}|_{\pi =0,q=0,n=0}`$ (57)
$`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }+\stackrel{~}{v}(0)\rho +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^\mathrm{\Lambda }}𝑑qq^2\left(\widehat{P}_\pi \widehat{P}_\sigma \right)^1`$ (61)
$`\times \left[\left[\stackrel{~}{v}(0)+2\stackrel{~}{v}(q)\right]\widehat{P}_\sigma +\stackrel{~}{v}(0)\widehat{P}_\pi 4\rho U_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\prime \prime }(\rho )\stackrel{~}{v}(\rho )\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^\mathrm{\Lambda }}𝑑qq^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\frac{\beta }{4m}\mathrm{coth}\frac{\beta }{4m}\sqrt{P_\pi P_\sigma }}{\sqrt{P_\pi P_\sigma }}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{P_\pi P_\sigma }}\right)`$
$`\times \left[\left[\stackrel{~}{v}(0)+2\stackrel{~}{v}(q)\right]P_\sigma +\stackrel{~}{v}(0)P_\pi 4\rho U_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\prime \prime }(\rho )\stackrel{~}{v}(\rho )\right].`$
By equating the right–hand sides of Eqs. (50) and (61), we obtain the Schwinger–Dyson equation, which we solve numerically for $`U_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}(\rho )`$ with $`U_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\prime \prime }(\rho )=\stackrel{~}{v}(0)`$ on a discrete set of $`\rho `$ values. This yields the initial condition for the evolution of $`U_k^{}(\rho )`$.

A similar procedure could be used for a determination of $`Z_\mathrm{\Lambda }(\rho )`$ and $`Y_\mathrm{\Lambda }(\rho )`$ from the Schwinger–Dyson equation at nonzero $`q^2`$. We omit here the fluctuation effects for the wave–function renormalization and use the “classical” values $`Z_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$, $`Y_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$. We believe that this simplification gives a sizeable contribution to the error in the computation of nonuniversal quantities presented in Sec. VI.

We are aware that the use of the Schwinger–Dyson equation becomes problematic for low $`T`$. In this region, one would prefer to use an infrared regulator that drops the Kronecker delta in Eq. (36). As a result, also the contributions of the $`n0`$ Matsubara frequencies to the Schwinger–Dyson integral would be suppressed by the cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, and all modes with $`q^2<\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ could then be dealt with by the renormalization–group procedure (in contrast to the present version where this holds only for $`n=0`$). One would thus expect a more reliable treatment. Modifying the cutoff (36) by dropping $`\delta _{n,0}`$ results again in a simple form of the evolution equation since the Matsubara sum can be evaluated explicitly. We find

$`_kU_k(\rho )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^3}\left[_kR_k(q)\right]}`$ (63)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{8m}}{\displaystyle \frac{P_\pi +P_\sigma }{\sqrt{P_\pi P_\sigma }}}\mathrm{coth}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{4m}}\sqrt{P_\pi P_\sigma }.`$
A numerical solution of this evolution equation, however, shows instabilities, which we have not managed to overcome so far.

## VI Results

From the solution of the evolution equation, we can calculate the quantities of interest for the phase transition to superfluidity.

Critical chemical potential. For a constant temperature of $`2.172`$ K, which corresponds to the experimental critical temperature under vapor–pressure conditions, we can tune the chemical potential to obtain the fixed–point solution. We thereby find a critical chemical potential $`\mu _c=6.7`$ K in good agreement with the experimental findings of Maynard, where a value of around $`7.4`$ K has been extrapolated from the measurements of the velocity of the fourth sound in the superfluid phase. We emphasize that the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ shift in Eq. (11) is essential, as otherwise we would have obtained a value of about $`12`$ K higher. This supports again our ansatz for the action for helium–4.

Critical exponents. By exploring the region around the critical temperature, we can compute the critical exponents $`\nu `$, $`\beta `$, and $`\gamma `$ of the helium–4 system. They describe the divergence of the correlation length above and below the critical temperature ($`\nu `$), the growing of the order parameter, i.e., the expectation value of the field, below the critical temperature ($`\beta `$), and the divergence of the susceptibility above and below the critical temperature ($`\gamma `$). We present our results as a demonstration that the flow equations can indeed be followed directly from microphysics to macrophysics without encountering infrared problems. No resummations of series or other technical tricks as used by other analytical methods are needed.

It is well established that helium–4 at the lambda transition is described by the $`O(2)`$ universality class. The critical exponents can therefore be compared to previous high–precision estimates for this universality class. The excellent correspondence with other, more demanding calculations and experimental values shown in Table I demonstrates that our truncation is reliable for the universal quantities. The scaling requirement that $`\nu `$ and $`\gamma `$, respectively, obtain the same values above and below the critical temperature is also well fulfilled.   TABLE I.: Critical exponents for the superfluid phase transition of helium–4 and comparison with values for the $`O(2)`$ universality class. The slight differences in the values obtained for $`\nu `$ and $`\gamma `$ above and below the critical temperature reflect numerical inaccuracies.      Our Other Experimental   results approaches results      0.6695<sup>c</sup> 0.67095(13)  $`\nu `$ 0.675<sup>a</sup> 0.671<sup>d</sup> 0.6705(6)   0.667<sup>b</sup> 0.672<sup>e</sup> 0.6708(4)    0.3455<sup>c</sup>   $`\beta `$ 0.359<sup>b</sup> 0.3485<sup>d</sup>     1.316<sup>c</sup>   $`\gamma `$ 1.305<sup>a</sup> 1.315<sup>d</sup>    1.298<sup>b</sup> 1.33<sup>e</sup>

Pressure. Since $`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }/\delta \phi ^{}=J`$, the minimum of the effective potential $`U_{k=0}(\rho _0)`$ corresponds to the physical case of vanishing external sources for the stationary helium system. The pressure $`P`$ is given by the value of the effective potential at the minimum $`\rho _0`$, $`P=TU_{k=0}(\rho _0)`$. The minimum value $`U_k(\rho _0(k))`$ can be followed by an evolution equation, which is obtained from Eq. (39). It is given by

$`_k\left(U_k(\rho _0(k))\right)`$ (64)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^3}}\left[_kR_k(q)\right]({\displaystyle \frac{1}{Z_kq^2+R_k(q)}}`$ (66)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Z_kq^2+Y_k\rho _0(k)q^2+2U_k^{\prime \prime }(\rho _0(k))\rho _0(k)+R_k(q)}})`$
in the spontaneously broken regime ($`\rho _0(k)0`$) and by

$$_k\left(U_k(0)\right)=\frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{_kR_k(q)}{Z_kq^2+U_k^{}(0)+R_k(q)}$$
(67)
in the symmetric regime ($`\rho _0(k)=0`$). The starting value is the classical minimum $`U_\mathrm{\Lambda }(\rho _0(\mathrm{\Lambda }))=\stackrel{~}{\mu }^2/[2\stackrel{~}{v}(0)]`$.

We find that the solution of the flow equations does not lead to a reliable estimate of the absolute value of the pressure. The main reason for this is a strong dependence on the UV cutoff, which is not well controlled by our method. For example, the initial value of $`U_\mathrm{\Lambda }(\rho _0(\mathrm{\Lambda }))`$ should also receive a correction from higher Matsubara frequencies, which we do not calculate in our Schwinger–Dyson approach. This correction will depend notably on the microphysical details of the interaction and the choice of the UV cutoff. Fortunately, this is not the case for the temperature dependence of the pressure, which is mainly governed by the momentum range $`q^22mT`$. We thus resort to normalizing the pressure at the critical temperature, where $`\mu `$ is given by the fixed–point condition, and only calculate the $`T`$ dependence of $`P`$. Figure 3 shows the dependence of the pressure on the temperature for three different values of the chemical potential. Since we need to specify the chemical potential in our formalism when we want to calculate the order parameter and the density at vapor pressure, we determine $`\mu (P,T)`$ from this result and use the experimentally known vapor–pressure curve for $`P(T)`$.

Order parameter. While the critical exponent $`\beta `$ describes the growing of the order parameter in the $`O(2)`$ universality class, we can also calculate the order parameter for the helium system explicitly. It is given by the expectation value of the field $`\phi `$. Therefore, $`\rho _0(k=0)`$ gives the magnitude squared of the expectation value of the field. In Fig. 4, we show the results for the temperature dependence of $`\rho _0=\rho _0(k=0)`$. The superfluid density is proportional to $`\rho _0`$. The proportionality constant, however, depends on the wave–function renormalization, which is not accurately determined so far.   FIG. 4.: Magnitude squared of the order parameter of the superfluid phase obtained from the evolution equation (45). The chemical potential is adapted so that the calculated pressure yields the vapor pressure corresponding to the temperature.   Density. Finally, we compute the particle density as

$`n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{V}}<{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}a_q^{}a_q>`$ (68)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{V}}{\displaystyle \underset{n,q}{}}<\chi _{n,q}^{}\chi _{n,q}>={\displaystyle \frac{\rho _0}{V}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2V}}\text{Tr}\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{k=0}^{(2)}\right)^1.`$ (69)
The inverse full propagator is block diagonal in $`n`$ and $`q`$ with

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^{(2)}(n,q)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{\delta ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_k[\phi ,\phi ^{}]}{\delta \phi _{n,q}^{}\delta \phi _{n,q}}& \frac{\delta ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_k[\phi ,\phi ^{}]}{\delta \phi _{n,q}\delta \phi _{n,q}}\\ & \\ \frac{\delta ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_k[\phi ,\phi ^{}]}{\delta \phi _{n,q}^{}\delta \phi _{n,q}^{}}& \frac{\delta ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_k[\phi ,\phi ^{}]}{\delta \phi _{n,q}\delta \phi _{n,q}^{}}\end{array}\right)$$
(70)
and contains for $`k=0`$ the information about the phonon energy spectrum for given $`\mu `$ and $`T`$ and arbitrary strength of the interaction. The trace in Eq. (69) includes a summation over momenta and Matsubara frequencies. We calculate the eigenvalues of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{k=0}^{(2)}`$ from the truncation (42) and explicitly sum over the Matsubara frequencies. This yields (in the rescaled field variable)

$$n=\frac{2m}{\beta }\rho _0+\frac{1}{8\pi ^2}_0^\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑qq^2\frac{P_\pi +P_\sigma }{\sqrt{P_\pi P_\sigma }}\mathrm{coth}\left(\frac{\beta }{4m}\sqrt{P_\pi P_\sigma }\right),$$
(71)
where $`P_\pi `$ and $`P_\sigma `$ again denote the inverse propagators of the Goldstone and the radial mode as in Eq. (55), but with $`R_{k=0}(n,q)=0`$. The masses $`U_0^{}`$ and $`U_0^{}+2U_0^{\prime \prime }\rho `$ are taken at $`\rho _0`$, so that in the spontaneously broken phase we have $`U_0^{}(\rho _0)=0`$ and in the symmetric phase $`\rho _0=0`$ and $`P_\pi =P_\sigma `$.

As in the calculation of the pressure, the calculations of the density do not give reliable results for the absolute value of the density, which strongly depends on the UV cutoff and is expected to get a sizeable contribution from three–particle interactions. We observe that the momentum integral in Eq. (71) is dominated by high momenta $`q^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ and is therefore strongly affected by the choice of the cutoff. Furthermore, this implies that the precise momentum dependence of the propagators $`P_\pi `$ and $`P_\sigma `$ could also have a substantial influence on the value of the density. The temperature dependence of the density, on the other hand, is dominated by $`q^22mT`$. We thus allow for an overall shift of the density and only calculate its temperature dependence. The results are shown in Fig. 5. They reproduce the qualitative picture of the density close to the phase transition. The peak at $`T_c`$ is clearly visible as well as the slightly negative thermal–expansion coefficient for $`T<T_c`$.   FIG. 5.: Temperature dependence of the density. The density is calculated for different temperatures around the critical point (filled boxes) and compared to measurements (solid line). The chemical potential is adapted so that the calculated pressure yields the vapor pressure corresponding to the temperature.

The fact that our calculations deviate substantially above the critical temperature is due to the crude treatment of the wave–function renormalization $`Z`$. In the present approach, we have used $`Z(q^2,T)=Z_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$ and $`Y(q^2,T)=Y_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$. For a more reliable treatment, the wave–function renormalizations $`Z_{k=0}`$ and $`Y_{k=0}`$ in $`P_\pi `$ and $`P_\sigma `$ should be replaced by momentum–dependent functions $`Z(q^2,T)`$, $`Y(q^2,T)`$. We are aware that the simplifications $`Z(q^2,T)=Z_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$ and $`Y(q^2,T)=Y_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ are less appropriate for the temperature dependence of the density, for which the integral is dominated by $`q^22mT`$. In the vicinity of the phase transition, the contribution to $`dn/dT`$ from the fluctuation integral (71) scales roughly $`Z^{3/2}`$. Replacing $`Z_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$ by $`Z_{k_T}`$, $`k_T^2=2mT`$ leads to a less pronounced temperature dependence if $`Z_{k_T}>1`$. Furthermore, for $`T`$ near $`T_c`$, critical fluctuations influence the behavior of $`Z`$ and $`Y`$ at low $`q^2`$. We believe that our crude treatment of the wave–function renormalization constitutes the most important source of error in determining the temperature dependence of the density. We nevertheless see that we obtain qualitatively correct results, which are stable against shifting the UV cutoff.

Since the temperature dependence of the density is not a universal critical quantity, an understanding of the momentum and temperature dependence of $`Z(q^2,T)`$ is mandatory for a quantitative prediction. This is illustrated by Fig. 6 where we show the temperature dependence of a momentum–independent $`Z(T)`$ that would be needed for a reproduction of the experimental data. (The latter may be viewed as an effective $`T`$–dependent mean value of $`Z(q^2,T)`$, which yields the same $`q^2`$ integral (71) as the true $`Z(q^2,T)`$.) This curve seems reasonable, including the modest feature near $`T_c`$. Using the dotted curve of Fig. 6 as an approximation to these $`Z(T)`$ values still leads to considerable deviations from the observed density in the immediate vicinity of $`T_c`$, demonstrating the high precision to which $`Z`$ has to be known.   FIG. 6.: Temperature dependence of the wave–function renormalization $`Z`$ (filled circles) that would be needed in Eq. (71) to yield the observed density. The dotted line displays a simple exponential fit to the data.

Another question why more precision on the wave–function renormalizations will be needed concerns the calculation of the excitation spectrum and the sound velocity. This requires an understanding of the $`q^2`$ dependence of the inverse full propagator $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{(2)}`$ and thus strongly depends on $`Z(q^2,T)`$ and $`Y(q^2,T)`$.

## VII Conclusion

We have computed thermodynamic properties of a strongly interacting system near a second–order phase transition from “first principles”. Starting from the microphysical interactions, we have determined the macroscopic thermodynamic potential for helium–4 near the superfluid phase transition. Our method is based on an exact renormalization group equation. The critical exponents obtained by this approach agree well with more elaborate state–of–the–art calculations and measurements. Our most robust nonuniversal result, the critical chemical potential, is also in good agreement with experiment. It supports our computation of the microphysical action by which helium–4 is described in the language of functional integrals. This action contains an additive shift of the chemical potential that has not been considered so far.

For quantitatively convincing results of the equation of state, one needs to improve the treatment of the UV cutoff as well as additional effects of higher Matsubara frequencies beyond those that we have taken into account in the Schwinger–Dyson formalism. A more accurate treatment of the wave–function renormalization is required as well. Qualitatively, though, we reproduce important features of the equation of state such as the density peak at the phase transition.

We emphasize that we treat here a temperature range where collective effects and critical behavior are crucial and where many previous methods are plagued by severe infrared problems. Despite certain quantitative shortcomings, this work may be viewed as a demonstration that *ab initio* computations of the equation of state become possible with modern renormalization–group techniques.


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# Particle creation by moving spherical shell in the dynamical Casimir effect

## 1 Introduction

The Casimir effect is one of the most interesting manifestations of nontrivial properties of the vacuum state in a quantum field theory (for reviews see ) and can be viewed as a polarization of vacuum by boundary conditions. A new phenomenon, a quantum creation of particles (the dynamical Casimir effect) occurs when the geometry of the system varies in time. In two dimensional spacetime and for conformally invariant fields the problem with dynamical boundaries can be mapped to the corresponding static problem and hence allows a complete study (see  and references therein). In higher dimensions the problem is much more complicated and is solved for some simple geometries. The vacuum stress induced by uniform acceleration of a perfectly reflecting plane is considered in . The corresponding problem for a sphere expanding in the four-dimensional spacetime with constant acceleration is investigated by Frolov and Serebriany  in the perfectly reflecting case and by Frolov and Singh  for semi-transparent boundaries. For more general cases of motion by vibrating cavities the problem of particle and energy creation is considered on the base of various perturbation methods (for more complete list of references see ). It have been shown that a gradual accumulation of small changes in the quantum state of the field could result in a significant observable effect. A new application of the dynamical Casimir effect has recently appeared in connection with the suggestion by Schwinger  that the photon production associated with changes in the quantum electrodynamic vacuum state arising from a collapsing dielectric bubble could be relevant for sonoluminescence (the phenomenon of light emission by a sound-driven gas bubble in a fluid ). For the further developments and discussions this quantum-vacuum approach see  and references therein. In the present paper we consider particle creation from the quantum scalar vacuum by expanding or contracting spherical shell with Dirichlet boundary conditions. In next section we derive the equations for the instantaneous basis expansion coefficients and the formula for the Bogoliubov coefficients. The examples when this coefficients can be explicitly found at adiabatic approximation are discussed in section 3.

## 2 General consideration

Consider a scalar field $`\phi `$ satisfying Dirichlet boundary condition on the surface of a sphere with time-dependent radius $`a=a(t)`$:

$$(\frac{^2}{t^2}\mathrm{\Delta })\phi (x,t)=0,\phi |_{r=a(t)}=0.$$
(1)
The corresponding eigenfunctions can be expanded in a series with respect to the instantaneous basis

$$\phi _\alpha (x)=\underset{\beta }{}q_{\alpha \beta }(t)\varphi _\beta (x,a(t)),$$
(2)
where the collective index $`\alpha `$ denotes the set of quantum numbers specifying the solution. Here $`\varphi _\beta (x,a)\mathrm{exp}(ı\omega t)`$ are the corresponding eigenfunctions for a static sphere with radius $`a`$:

$`\varphi _\beta (x,a)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}j_l(j_{l,n}r/a)}{a^{3/2}j_l^{}(j_{l,n})}}Y_{lm}(\theta ,\phi ),`$ (3)
$`\beta `$ $`=`$ $`(l,m,n),l=0,1,2,\mathrm{},lml,n=1,2,\mathrm{},`$
with $`j_{l,n}`$ being the n-th zero for the spherical Bessel function $`j_l(z)`$, $`j_l(j_{l,n})=0`$, $`Y_{lm}(\theta ,\phi )`$ is the spherical harmonic. Note that the sets of quantum numbers are the same for static and dynamic cases. Function (2) satisfies boundary condition (1). Putting expression (2) into the field equation (1) we obtain

$$\underset{\beta }{}\left\{\varphi _\beta [\ddot{q}_{\alpha \beta }(t)+\omega _\beta ^2(t)q_{\alpha \beta }(t)]+2\dot{q}_{\alpha \beta }\dot{\varphi }_\beta +q_{\alpha \beta }\ddot{\varphi }_\beta \right\}=0,\omega _\beta (t)=j_{l,n}/a(t),$$
(4)
where dot stands for the time-derivative. Let us multiply this equation by $`\varphi _\beta ^{}^{}`$ and integrate over the region inside a sphere at a given moment $`t`$. Using the orthonormality relation

$$\varphi _\beta \varphi _\beta ^{}^{}d^3x=\delta _{\beta \beta ^{}},$$
(5)
this yields

$$\ddot{q}_{\alpha \beta }(t)+\omega _\beta ^2(t)q_{\alpha \beta }(t)=\underset{\beta ^{}}{}(2\dot{q}_{\alpha \beta ^{}}g_{\beta ^{}\beta }+q_{\alpha \beta ^{}}g_{\beta ^{}\beta }^{(1)}),$$
(6)
where we have introduced notations

$$g_{\beta ^{}\beta }=\dot{\varphi }_\beta ^{}\varphi _\beta ^{}d^3x,g_{\beta ^{}\beta }^{(1)}=\ddot{\varphi }_\beta ^{}\varphi _\beta ^{}d^3x,$$
(7)
with integrations over the region inside the sphere. The relation between coefficients (7) can be found by making use the completeness condition for eigenfunction (3):

$$\underset{\gamma }{}\varphi _\gamma (\stackrel{}{r})\varphi _\gamma ^{}(\stackrel{}{r}^{})=\delta (\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{}).$$
(8)
This yields

$$g_{\beta ^{}\beta }^{(1)}=\frac{g_{\beta ^{}\beta }}{t}+\underset{\gamma }{}g_{\beta ^{}\gamma }g_{\beta \gamma }^{}.$$
(9)
By taking into account this relation we note that the general structure of equations (6) for the instantaneous basis expansion coefficients is similar to that for the plane case. Using the standard orthonormality relations for the spherical harmonic it can be easily seen that

$$g_{\beta ^{}\beta }=g_{n^{}n}^l\delta _{ll^{}}\delta _{mm^{}},g_{\beta ^{}\beta }^{(1)}=g_{n^{}n}^{(1)l}\delta _{ll^{}}\delta _{mm^{}}.$$
(10)
To evaluate the integrals in (7) we use the formula for the integrals involving the Bessel spherical function

$$_0^1z^2j_l(az)j_l(bz)𝑑z=\frac{aj_l^{}(a)j_l(b)bj_l(a)j_l^{}(b)}{b^2a^2}.$$
(11)
From this formula the following expression for the coefficients can be obtained

$$g_{n^{}n}^l=ha_{n^{}n}^l,g_{n^{}n}^{(1)l}=\dot{h}a_{n^{}n}^l+h^2\underset{p}{}a_{n^{}p}^la_{np}^l,h=\frac{\dot{a}}{a},$$
(12)
where

$`a_{nn}^l`$ $`=0,`$ (13)
$`a_{n^{}n}^l`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2j_{l,n^{}}j_{l,n}}{j_{l,n^{}}^2j_{l,n}^2}},nn^{}.`$
As we see the coefficients $`g_{\beta ^{}\beta ^{}}`$ are antisymmetric. This is a direct consequence of orthonormality relation (5). From expressions (7) it follows that the coefficients $`q_{\alpha \beta }`$ in (2) can be chosen diagonal with respect to the quantum numbers $`l`$ and $`m`$, and are independent on $`m`$:

$$q_{\beta \beta ^{}}=\delta _{ll^{}}\delta _{mm^{}}q_{nn^{}}^l.$$
(14)
Now the expansion for the eigenfunctions takes the form

$$\phi _{lmn}=\underset{n^{}=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}q_{nn^{}}^l\varphi _{lmn^{}}(x,a(t)),$$
(15)
with the following infinite set of coupled differential equations for the coefficients:

$$\ddot{q}_{nn^{}}^l+\omega _{ln^{}}^2(t)q_{nn^{}}^l=2h\underset{p=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\dot{q}_{np}^la_{pn^{}}^l+\dot{h}\underset{p=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}q_{np}^la_{pn^{}}^l+h^2\underset{p,s=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}q_{np}^la_{ps}^la_{n^{}s}^l.$$
(16)
If the sphere is asymptotically static at past and future then the in- and out- vacuum states can be defined by using the solutions for coefficients corresponding to the in- and out-modes $`\phi _\alpha ^{(\mathrm{in})}(t),\phi _\alpha ^{(\mathrm{out})}(t)`$ with asymptotics

$`q_{\alpha \beta }^{(\mathrm{in})}(t)`$ $``$ $`e^{ı\omega _\alpha ^{\mathrm{in}}t}\delta _{\alpha \beta },t\mathrm{}`$ (17)
$`q_{\alpha \beta }^{(\mathrm{out})}(t)`$ $``$ $`e^{ı\omega _\alpha ^{\mathrm{out}}t}\delta _{\alpha \beta },t\mathrm{},`$ (18)
where we use the notations

$$\omega _\alpha ^{\mathrm{in}}=\frac{j_{l,n}}{a_{}},\omega _\alpha ^{\mathrm{out}}=\frac{j_{l,n}}{a_+},a_\pm =\underset{t\pm \mathrm{}}{lim}a(t)$$
(19)
for the corresponding eigenfrequencies. The field operator in the Heisenberg representation may be expanded in terms of the corresponding eigenfunctions

$$\phi _\alpha ^{(s)}=\underset{\beta }{}q_{\alpha \beta }^{(s)}(t)\varphi _\beta (x,a(t)),s=\mathrm{in},\mathrm{out}$$
(20)
as

$$\phi (x,t)=\underset{\alpha }{}[a_\alpha ^{(s)}\phi _\alpha ^{(s)}+a_\alpha ^{(s)+}\phi _\alpha ^{(s)}].$$
(21)
The in and out vacuum states $`|\mathrm{in}>,|\mathrm{out}>`$ are defined in accordance with

$$a_\alpha ^{(s)}|s>=0.$$
(22)
The corresponding eigenfunctions are related by the Bogoliubov transformation

$$\phi _\alpha ^{(\mathrm{in})}=\underset{\beta }{}(\alpha _{\alpha \beta }\phi _\beta ^{(\mathrm{out})}+\beta _{\alpha \beta }\phi _\beta ^{(\mathrm{out})}),$$
(23)
with Bogoliubov coefficients $`\alpha _{\alpha \beta }`$ and $`\beta _{\alpha \beta }`$. Substituting instantaneous basis expansion, multiplying by $`\phi _\gamma ^{}`$ and integrating over the region inside the sphere we obtain the corresponding relation between expansion coefficients:

$$q_{\alpha \gamma }^{(\mathrm{in})}(t)=\underset{\beta }{}(\alpha _{\alpha \beta }q_{\beta \gamma }^{(\mathrm{out})}+\beta _{\alpha \beta }q_{\beta \gamma }^{(\mathrm{out})}).$$
(24)
Here we used the formula

$$\varphi _\beta ^{}\varphi _\beta ^{}^{}d^3x=\delta _{nn^{}}\delta _{ll^{}}\delta _{m,m^{}},$$
(25)
and the fact that expansion coefficients are independent on $`m`$. Now by taking into account relation (14) the Bogoliubov transformation can be written in the form

$$q_{nn^{}}^{(\mathrm{in})l}(t)=\underset{p}{}(\alpha _{np}^lq_{pn^{}}^{(\mathrm{out})l}+\beta _{np}^lq_{pn^{}}^{(\mathrm{out})l}).$$
(26)
In particular, taking into account (17), in the limit $`t\mathrm{}`$ from (24) we receive

$$q_{\alpha \gamma }^{\mathrm{in}}(t)=\alpha _{\alpha \beta }e^{i\omega _\beta ^{\mathrm{out}}t}+\beta _{\alpha \beta }e^{i\omega _\beta ^{\mathrm{out}}t},t+\mathrm{}.$$
(27)
The mean number of out particles with quantum number $`\alpha `$ in the in-vacuum state is determined by the Bogoliubov coefficient $`\beta _{\sigma \alpha }`$ as

$$<\mathrm{in}|N_\alpha |\mathrm{in}>=\underset{\sigma }{}|\beta _{\sigma \alpha }|^2,\beta _{\sigma \alpha }=(\phi _\sigma ^{(\mathrm{in})},\phi _\alpha ^{(\mathrm{out})}),$$
(28)
with the standard Klein-Gordon scalar product (see, for instance, ). From (28) it follows that $`\beta _{\alpha ^{}\alpha }=\beta _{n^{}n}^l\delta _{ll^{}}\delta _{m,m^{}}`$ and hence the total number of created scalar particles is given by

$$<\mathrm{in}|N|\mathrm{in}>=\underset{lmn}{}<\mathrm{in}|N_{lmn}|\mathrm{in}>=\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(2l+1)\underset{n,n^{}=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}|\beta _{n^{}n}^l|^2$$
(29)
The coefficients $`\alpha _{np}^l`$ and $`\beta _{np}^l`$ in (24) are determined from the solutions of infinite set of coupled differential equations (16) with time dependent coefficients. The problem can be simplified in limiting cases when various approximations can be used (see, for example, - for the case of plane boundaries). In next section we consider the adiabatic approximation.

## 3 Adiabatic approximation

From the form of equations (16) it follows that there are two types of effects which lead to the particle creation (see also ). The first one, called squeezing of the vacuum, is due to the nonstationary eigenfrequencies $`\omega _{ln}(t)`$ as a result of a dynamical change of the radius of the sphere and is described by the second term on the left of (16). The second one, referred as acceleration effect, is due to the motion of the boundary and comes from the terms on the right of (16). Due to the antisymmetry of the coefficients $`a_{nn^{}}^l`$ the squeezing- and acceleration- effects give additive contributions to the number of created particles per mode to first non-vanishing order of perturbation theory. In this section we will consider the squeezing contribution to the number of particles. Note that when the sphere is moving on a time scale slow on the scale of the created quanta frequencies (adiabatic approximation)(see  and references therein) the terms on the right of (16) containing the derivatives of the sphere radius are small and the squeezing effect is dominant. In the adiabatic approximation the matrix $`q_{\alpha \beta }`$ can be chosen in diagonal form $`q_{\alpha \beta }=q_\alpha \delta _{\alpha \beta }`$ and $`q_{nn^{}}^l=q_{ln}\delta _{nn^{}}`$ and from (16) we receive

$$\ddot{q}_{ln}(t)+\omega _{ln}^2(t)q_{ln}(t)=0.$$
(30)
As it follows from (16) the necessary conditions for the adiabatic approximation are

$$\dot{a}^2,a\ddot{a}j_{l,n}^2.$$
(31)
As an example let us consider an exactly solvable case when

$$a(t)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{A+B\mathrm{tanh}(t/t_0)}},A>|B|,$$
(32)
where $`A,B`$ and $`t_0`$ are constants. This motion corresponds to the sphere contraction for $`B>0`$ and expansion for $`B<0`$. The corresponding frequencies are

$`\omega _{ln}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`j_{l,n}\sqrt{A+B\mathrm{tanh}(t/t_0)},`$ (33)
$`\omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{in}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{j_{l,n}}{a(\mathrm{})}}=j_{l,n}\sqrt{AB},\omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{out}}={\displaystyle \frac{j_{l,n}}{a(\mathrm{})}}=j_{l,n}\sqrt{A+B}.`$ (34)
Now we need to solve the equation (30) with $`\omega _{l,n}(t)`$ given by (33). The corresponding solutions are given by hypergeometric function. The normalized in- and out- modes are given by formula

$`q_{ln}^s(t)`$ $`=`$ $`(2\omega _{ln}^s)^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}[ı\omega _{ln}^+tı\omega _{ln}^{}t_0\mathrm{ln}[2\mathrm{cosh}(t/t_0)]]\times `$ (35)
$`\times `$ $`{}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(1+ı\omega _{ln}^{}t_0,ı\omega _{ln}^{}t_0;1ı\omega _{ln}^st_0;{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1\pm \mathrm{tanh}(t/t_0))),s=\mathrm{in},\mathrm{out},`$
where uper/lower sign corresponds to the in/out- modes, and

$$\omega _{ln}^\pm =\frac{1}{2}(\omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{out}}\pm \omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{in}}).$$
(36)
Using the diagonality for the coefficients $`q_{nn^{}}^l`$ over $`nn^{}`$ we conclude that the same is the case for Bogoliubov coefficients in (26):

$$\alpha _{nn^{}}^l=\alpha _{ln}\delta _{nn^{}},\beta _{nn^{}}^l=\beta _{ln}\delta _{nn^{}}.$$
(37)
Now the Bogoliubov transformation (26) can be written as

$$q_{ln}^{(\mathrm{in})}=\alpha _{ln}q_{ln}^{(\mathrm{out})}+\beta _{ln}q_{ln}^{(\mathrm{out})}.$$
(38)
Using the linear relation between hypergeometic functions, similar to  for the coefficients in this formula one finds

$$\alpha _{ln}=\left(\frac{\omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{out}}}{\omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{in}}}\right)^{1/2}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1ı\omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{in}}t_0)\mathrm{\Gamma }(ı\omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{out}}t_0)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(ı\omega _{ln}^+t_0)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1ı\omega _{ln}^+t_0))},$$
(39)
$$\beta _{ln}=\left(\frac{\omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{out}}}{\omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{in}}}\right)^{1/2}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1ı\omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{in}}t_0)\mathrm{\Gamma }(ı\omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{out}}t_0)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(ı\omega _{ln}^{}t_0)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+ı\omega _{ln}^{}t_0)}.$$
(40)
The mean number of particles produced through the modulation of the single scalar mode is

$$<\mathrm{in}|N_{ln}|\mathrm{in}>=|\beta _{ln}|^2=\frac{\mathrm{sinh}^2(\pi \omega _{ln}^{}t_0)}{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi \omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{in}}t_0)\mathrm{sinh}(\pi \omega _{ln}^{\mathrm{out}}t_0)}.$$
(41)
The total number of particles produced is obtained by taking the sum over all the oscillation modes inside the sphere:

$$<\mathrm{in}|N|\mathrm{in}>=\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(2l+1)\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{sinh}^2[\pi j_{l,n}t_0(\sqrt{A+B}\sqrt{AB})/2]}{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi j_{l,n}t_0\sqrt{AB})\mathrm{sinh}(\pi j_{l,n}t_0\sqrt{A+B})}.$$
(42)
Therefore the energy related to the particles production inside the sphere is given by

$$E=\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}N_{ln}\omega _{l,n}^{\mathrm{out}}=\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(2l+1)\frac{\mathrm{sinh}^2[\pi j_{l,n}t_0(\sqrt{A+B}\sqrt{AB})/2]}{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi j_{l,n}t_0\sqrt{AB})\mathrm{sinh}(\pi j_{l,n}t_0\sqrt{A+B})}j_{l,n}\sqrt{A+B}.$$
(43)
It can be seen that the similar results may be obtained for another type of boundary conditions, for instance, for the Neumann or more general Robin conditions taking instead of $`j_{l,n}`$ the corresponding eigenvalues.

As an another example let us consider the case in which the sphere radius varies as (for the corresponding problem in the case of parallel plates see )

$$a(t)=a_0\left[1+\frac{b^2}{\mathrm{cosh}^2(t/t_0)}\right]^{1/2}$$
(44)
with $`a_0,b,t_0`$ being constants. This function describes a pulse with characteristic duration $`t_0`$ and modulation strength $`b`$. As in the previous example the corresponding in- and out-solutions to equation (30) can be expressed in terms of hypergeometric function (see, for instance, ). Expanding in-modes in terms of the out functions for the mean number of scalar particles with a given mode one receives

$$<\mathrm{in}|N_{ln}|\mathrm{in}>=\frac{\mathrm{cos}^2[(\pi /2)\sqrt{1+(2j_{l,n}bt_0/a_0)^2}]}{\mathrm{sinh}^2(\pi j_{l,n}t_0/a_0)}.$$
(45)
An alternative way to obtain this result is øuse the corresponding quantum mechanical reflection probability given in . Now we can find the total energy released by adding the energy of each quantum:

$$E=\frac{1}{a_0}\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(2l+1)\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}j_{l,n}\frac{\mathrm{cos}^2[(\pi /2)\sqrt{1+(2j_{l,n}bt_0/a_0)^2}]}{\mathrm{sinh}^2(\pi j_{l,n}t_0/a_0)}.$$
(46)
Recall that we have obtained formulae (41) and (45) neglecting the terms on the right of equations (16), and hence these formulae give the number of particles produced due to the squeezing effect. In general, the acceleration effect will give additional contribution to the particle creation. It is important to stress again that these two types of effects give additive contributions to first non-vanishing order of perturbation theory. As a result the formulae (41) and (45) as giving a part of the quanta number due to the squeezing effect are valid for more general situations, when additional contributions to the total number of particles have to be taken into account due to the acceleration effect.

By using the results given above for a scalar field we can obtain the number of produced particles in the physically more realistic electromagnetic case. For this note that electromagnetic field in a spherical cavity is a superposition of two types of modes: transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM). The TE-modes correspond to the scalar modes with Dirichlet boundary condition (excluding the $`l=0`$ mode) and TM-modes correspond to the scalar modes with mixed type (Robin) boundary condition

$$j_l(\omega a)+\omega aj_l^{}(\omega a)=0,$$
(47)
on the sphere surface $`r=a`$. Now the number of photons produced can be presented in the form

$$<\mathrm{in}|N_{ln}|\mathrm{in}>=<\mathrm{in}|N_{ln}^{(\mathrm{TE})}|\mathrm{in}>+<\mathrm{in}|N_{ln}^{(\mathrm{TM})}|\mathrm{in}>,l=1,2,\mathrm{}$$
(48)
where the first summand on the right is given by formulae (41) and (45), and the corresponding expressions for the second summand are obtained from these formulae by replacement $`j_{l,n}\gamma _{l,n}`$, where $`\omega a=\gamma _{l,n}`$ are solutions to the equation (47).

## 4 Conclusion

In this paper we have considered the particle creation from the scalar vacuum by moving spherical boundary. For the general case the set of equations is derived for the instantaneous basis expansion coefficients and corresponding Bogoliubuv coefficients are considered. To solve these equations and to obtain the particle number, various approximations can be used. Here we use the adiabatic approximation, assuming small velocities for the sphere motion or large frequencies for the radiation quanta. Specific examples are considered when the number of particles produced can be explicitly found. The first one corresponds to the expansion or contraction of the sphere between two finite values of the radius, and second one corresponds to the pulse described by (44). The results for the electromagnetic field can be obtained by summing the contributions from TE and TM modes, corresponding to the scalar modes with Dirichlet and special Robin type boundary conditions. In general, when the acceleration effect in the particle creation cannot be neglected the formulae presented in previous section give only the squeezing parts of the total number of particles. To first non-vanishing order of perturbation theory the contributions from these two types of effects are additive.

## Acknowledgments

This work has been completed during the stay of one of the authors (A. A. S.) at Sharif University of Technology. It is a pleasant duty for him to thank the Department of Physics and Prof. Reza Mansouri for kind hospitality.


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# A Chandra detection of the radio hotspot of 3C 123

## 1 Introduction

The magnetic field strengths in the extended components of extragalactic radio sources cannot be inferred directly from observations of synchrotron emission, and so the energy densities and pressures in the radio-emitting components are poorly constrained. In order to make progress it is common to estimate ‘minimum energy’ field strengths (Burbidge 1956), which minimise the energy density required for a given synchrotron emissivity. This is roughly equivalent to the assumption that that magnetic and relativistic particle energy densities are equal (‘equipartition’). But without measurements of magnetic field strengths these assumptions, for which there is no physical justification, may underestimate the true energy densities by arbitrary factors.

The magnetic field strength may be measured by observations of the ‘synchrotron self-Compton’ (SSC) process, in which the synchrotron-emitting electrons inverse-Compton scatter synchrotron photons up to X-ray energies. Because the emissivity from this process depends on the photon number density (which is known from radio observations) and the electron number density as a function of energy, observations of SSC emission allow the electron number density to be inferred, and so determine the magnetic field strength. Such tests require observations of regions with well-measured volume and a well-defined synchrotron spectrum with a high photon energy density; these conditions exist in the hotspots of FRII radio sources. Direct evidence supporting the equipartition/minimum energy assumptions in hotspots has come from only two X-ray observations. Harris, Carilli & Perley (1994) detected the hotspots of the powerful FRII Cygnus A (3C 405) with ROSAT and showed that the X-ray emission could be interpreted as being due to the SSC process, with a magnetic field strength consistent with the equipartition model. \[This result was recently confirmed with Chandra by Wilson, Young & Shopbell (2000).\] ROSAT was not sensitive enough to detect any other SSC hotspots, though it was used to put lower limits on the field strengths in some sources (Hardcastle, Birkinshaw & Worrall 1998). More recently, Chandra verification observations have detected the hotspots of 3C 295, another powerful radio galaxy, at a level which implies field strengths fairly close to the equipartition values if the emission process is SSC (Harris et al. 2000). Here we report a third detection, of the E hotspot of the radio galaxy 3C 123, based on our Chandra AO1 guest observer (GO) observations.

3C 123 is a $`z=0.2177`$ radio galaxy, notable for its peculiar radio structure. Like normal classical double sources it has twin hot spots on either side of the active nucleus, but the lobes take the form of diffuse twisted plumes unlike those in any other well-studied object (e.g. Riley & Pooley 1978; Hardcastle et al. 1997, hereafter H97). Like Cygnus A and 3C 295, its radio luminosity is unusually high for its redshift. For our purposes, its most important feature is its bright eastern double hotspot. With a flux density of $`6`$ Jy at 5 GHz, it is the second brightest hotspot complex known (after Cygnus A). The hotspots’ structure and synchrotron spectrum are well known (H97; Meisenheimer et al. 1989; Meisenheimer, Yates & Röser 1997; Looney & Hardcastle, 2000).

Throughout this letter we use $`H_0=50`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 and $`q_0=0`$. At the redshift of 3C 123, 1 arcsec corresponds to 4.74 kpc.

## 2 Observations

We observed 3C 123 with the Chandra X-ray Observatory for 46.7 ks on 2000 March 21. The source was near the aim point for the S3 ACIS chip. After filtering for intervals of high background, the usable exposure time was 38.5 ks. We considered events in the energy range 0.5–7.0 keV, as the spectral response of the instrument is uncertain outside this range. Fig. 1 shows the exposure-corrected Chandra image of 3C 123 in this band. Diffuse cluster emission, an X-ray nucleus and the eastern hotspot are all detected in X-rays. We discuss each component in turn. In each case, spectra were extracted using ciao, with the best available responses being constructed for each extraction region, and analysed using xspec. Spectra were binned such that every bin had $`>20`$ net counts.

## 3 The cluster

The X-ray counts from 3C 123 are dominated by diffuse cluster-scale emission, which is detectable above the background more than an arcminute away from the central source. The source was known to be extended from ROSAT images (Hardcastle & Worrall 1999), and there are many faint optical objects in the field of 3C 123 which may be cluster members (e.g. Longair & Gunn 1975), though strong galactic reddening (the source is at $`b12^{}`$, and see below) means that this cluster has not been studied in detail in the optical. We detect around 5,000 counts in a 75-arcsec radius circle centred on the nucleus, excluding the core and hotspot. The overall spectrum of this region is well fitted with an absorbed MEKAL spectrum with $`kT=5.0_{0.4}^{+0.6}`$ keV, abundance of $`0.47_{0.11}^{+0.12}`$ solar and a galactic hydrogen column density of $`4.3_{0.3}^{+0.2}\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2 (errors are $`1\sigma `$ for one interesting parameter). 3C 123 lies behind a well-known molecular cloud system in Taurus (e.g. Ungerechts & Thaddeus 1987), and our derived column density is consistent with the total hydrogen column inferred from radio observations of the molecular cloud system. From HI absorption against 3C 123, Colgan, Salpeter & Terzian (1988) derive $`N_{\mathrm{HI}}=1.97\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2 at the velocity of the cloud system, while the molecular hydrogen column can be inferred from CO measurements \[$`W_{\mathrm{CO}}10`$ K km s-1, Megeath (private communication)\] to be $`N_{\mathrm{H}_2}1.6\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2, with a large systematic uncertainty \[we use a recent estimate of the conversion factor averaged over the galactic plane, due to Hunter et al. (1997), but this may not be appropriate for the Taurus region\]. We adopt a galactic absorption column of $`4.3\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2, unless otherwise stated, from now on.

The X-ray spectral fit implies a rest-frame 2–10 keV luminosity from the cluster within a radius of 75 arcsec (360 kpc) of $`2\times 10^{44}`$ ergs s-1, consistent with the fitted temperature on the temperature-luminosity relation (determined largely for Abell clusters) of David et al. (1993). Fig. 1 shows a plateau of X-ray emission on scales comparable to those of the radio source, with clear structure in the emission (note particularly X-ray voids to the E and SW of the nucleus) although there is no evidence for interaction between the X-ray gas and the radio lobes. The voids may represent large-scale inhomogeneity in the cluster gas; if so, they would help to explain the peculiar radio structure. The central cooling time is a few $`\times 10^9`$ years, so we might expect to see a cooling flow around the source. But there is no strong evidence for cooling in the temperature fits; the best-fitting temperature for the material within 15 arcsec of the nucleus (fixing the abundance to the value obtained for the whole cluster) is $`4.4\pm 0.3`$ keV. Since gas with temperatures below $`3`$ keV is not observed even in the centres of well-studied cooling flows (e.g. Fabian et al. 2000, Peterson et al. 2000) this is perhaps not surprising. Our preliminary analysis implies particle densities around the lobes which are similar to those reported by Hardcastle & Worrall (2000) using ROSAT data, and the measured temperature implies comparable, but slightly larger, external pressures.

## 4 The nucleus

The point-like nucleus contains $`517\pm 36`$ 0.5–7.0 keV counts, measured in a 2.5-arcsec region about the centroid, with the background being taken from a 3–5 arcsec concentric annulus. Pileup is not significant. The X-ray core position (J2000.0) is measured to be 04 37 04.30 +29 40 11.2. The core position measured from the VLA radio map of H97 is 04 37 04.375 +29 40 13.86, and this is expected to be accurate to within about 0.05 arcsec. The X-ray core position is therefore offset from the (true) radio position by about 3 arcsec. We attribute this to uncertainties in aspect determination in the early version of the pipeline software (R4CU4UPD7.4) used to process the Chandra data (see URL: $`<`$http://asc.harvard.edu/mta/ASPECT/$`>`$). In Fig. 1 we have aligned the radio data with the X-ray core.

The spectrum of the nucleus is well fitted with an absorbed, flat-spectrum power law model. Fitting with free galactic absorption, the best-fit values of photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ are $`1.16\pm 0.14`$ and $`1.48_{0.24}^{+0.32}\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2, respectively. If we fix galactic absorption at the value derived from the cluster fits and require the absorber to be at the redshift of the galaxy, the best-fit $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ for the intrinsic absorber is $`1.69_{0.41}^{+0.51}\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2, with the photon index unchanged. This implies a rest-frame 2–10 keV luminosity (assumed isotropic) of $`10^{44}`$ ergs s-1, comparable to the luminosity of the nuclear component in 3C 295 (Harris et al. 2000). Fits in which the absorbing column is constrained to the galactic value are much poorer and require an inverted nuclear spectrum. The column density required for the intrinsic absorber is considerably lower than the $`4\times 10^{23}`$ cm-2 inferred for Cygnus A by Ueno et al. (1994), and more comparable to that inferred for the much lower luminosity nucleus of Hydra A by Sambruna et al. (2000). The best-fit photon index is flatter than might be expected from, for example, the photon indices of radio-loud quasars (e.g. Lawson & Turner 1997) or other radio galaxies (Sambruna, Eracleous & Mushotzky 1999) although the errors are large; as shown in Fig. 2, more reasonable values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ are allowed in conjunction with somewhat higher intrinsic absorbing columns. The inferred absorbing column in front of the nucleus explains the non-detection of this core component in the ROSAT HRI image (Hardcastle & Worrall 1999).

## 5 The hotspot

The E hotspot complex is detected with $`145\pm 32`$ 0.5–7.0 keV counts, using a 2.5-arcsec source circle and concentric 3–5 arcsec background annulus. The X-ray hotspot is positionally coincident with the larger, ‘secondary’ hotspot of the eastern hotspot pair in the radio (after the X-ray and radio cores have been aligned). The X-ray emission appears to be slightly elongated in an east-west direction, matching the radio. (The X-ray structure will be discussed in more detail in a subsequent paper which will include results of further radio observations now in progress.) The X-ray spectrum of the hotspot is well fitted with a power law with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.6\pm 0.3`$, with the absorbing column fixed at the galactic value. The corresponding unabsorbed 1-keV flux density is $`4.6\pm 0.9`$ nJy.

We used the synchrotron-self-Compton code described by Hardcastle et al. (1998) to predict the SSC flux density expected at this frequency from the hotspots. The basic model for the hotspots is described by Looney & Hardcastle (2000). The larger hotspot is treated as a cylinder of $`1.14\times 0.54`$ arcsec (length times radius); the fainter ‘primary’ (more compact) hotspot is a cylinder of $`0.74\times 0.14`$ arcsec, based on the MERLIN maps of H97. Radio flux densities of the two components are taken from Looney & Hardcastle. In addition to these, we have used infra-red and optical upper limits and a 231-GHz data point from Meisenheimer et al. (1989, 1997) and archival HST observations, and low-frequency radio data from Readhead & Hewish (1974) and Stephens (1987). As these data do not resolve the two hotspot components, we have approximately corrected them by scaling by the appropriate factors measured from the 5-GHz data. Looney & Hardcastle showed that the radio-to-mm spectra of the two hotspots are well modelled as broken power laws, and we adopt the break energies they found. The apparent low-frequency turnover in the spectrum observed by Stephens (1987) requires a low-energy cutoff in the electron energy spectrum corresponding at equipartition to a minimum Lorentz factor $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}1000`$, and we adopt this value, although Stephens’ flux densities are inconsistent with a larger flux at a lower frequency derived from the scintillation measurements of Readhead & Hewish. If we were to adopt the scintillation measurements as our low-frequency constraint, we would obtain $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}400`$, which is more consistent with the value inferred for the hotspots of Cygnus A by Carilli et al. (1991); but this would not significantly affect our conclusions. (Scheduled low-frequency VLBA observations should give a definitive answer.) An upper limit on the maximum Lorentz factor is given by the non-detection in the IR, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}<3.6\times 10^5`$; a lower limit is given by the detection at 231 GHz, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}>8\times 10^4`$. The SSC emissivity at 1 keV turns out to be insensitive to $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ if it lies between these two values, and so we fix $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ at its largest value. With these parameters, the equipartition field strengths of the two eastern hotspot components, assuming no contribution to the energy density from non-radiating particles such as protons, are 24 nT (primary) and 16 nT (secondary), and the predicted SSC flux densities at 1 keV are respectively 0.44 and 2.6 nJy. The predicted photon index at this frequency is 1.55 (of course, this is simply a function of the electron energy spectrum, and so is true for any inverse-Compton process). Fig. 3 shows the synchrotron fluxes and SSC prediction for the secondary hotspot. The predicted SSC flux density for the much weaker western hotspot pair is negligible, $`0.07`$ nJy, corresponding to 2 Chandra counts in this observation.

These predictions are relatively insensitive to cosmological parameters; for example, using a cosmology where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{matter}}=1.0`$ gives a 3 per cent decrease in the expected flux density from the secondary, while using $`H_0=70`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{matter}}=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ gives a 2 per cent decrease. The hotspots may be projected, but this also has only a weak effect: if the projection angle is $`45^{}`$ then the true long axis is larger by a factor $`\sqrt{2}`$ and the predicted flux is about 7 per cent lower. One clear systematic error in the calculations comes from an assumption of spherical symmetry for the scattering geometry which is used in the SSC code. Because a cylinder has a higher surface area to volume ratio, the mean photon density is lower in a cylinder than in a sphere for a given volume synchrotron emissivity. We estimate that this effect is less than 10 per cent for the secondary component, but we may be overestimating the SSC flux from the fainter primary by 30 per cent (these values are increased if there is substantial projection).

Comparing our predicted flux densities with the data, we see that the magnitude of the observed flux density, its origin in the larger eastern hotspot and its photon index are all in good agreement with the equipartition predictions of the SSC model, as is the non-detection of the western hotspot pair. The observed 1-keV flux density of the E hotspots is somewhat higher than the predicted value for an equipartition field, though only by about 1.5 standard deviations. Most of the changes to the model discussed above have the effect of reducing the SSC flux density; to increase it we must reduce the magnetic field strength or find an additional (external) source of photons. If the magnetic field in the secondary hotspot is reduced by 25 per cent to 12 nT, the secondary can produce all the flux seen in X-rays. Neglecting the small SSC contribution from the primary hotspot, the Chandra data with their associated uncertainties imply within the SSC model that the magnetic field strength in the secondary hotspot is $`12\pm 2`$ nT ($`1\sigma `$ statistical errors only).

One possible external source of photons is the active nucleus of 3C 123. Inverse-Compton (IC) scattering of photons from the active nucleus will make a significant contribution to the X-ray emission if such photons (at frequencies around $`10^{11}`$ Hz, since $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}1000`$) are comparable in number density to the synchrotron photons. At this frequency, the number density of synchrotron photons is approximately 0.08 m-3 Hz-1; since the hotspots are a projected 37 kpc from the nucleus, a similar number density would be produced from the nucleus if its luminosity at this frequency as seen by the hotspot were $`2\times 10^{27}`$ W Hz-1 sr-1, which would correspond to a flux density of $`100`$ Jy at $`10^{11}`$ Hz. (This condition is equivalent to $`S_{\mathrm{core}}=(3D/2R)^2S_{\mathrm{hs}}`$, where $`D`$ is the core-hotspot distance and $`R`$ is the hotspot radius, and the two fluxes are measured at the required frequency.) The observed core flux density of 3C 123 at $`10^{11}`$ Hz is about 40 mJy, though it may be variable (Looney & Hardcastle 2000), so that isotropic radiation from the core cannot provide the required photon density. However, if the core emission at this frequency is beamed, the hotspot will see the core as having a higher luminosity than the one we observe. We assume the most favourable case for this model of no misalignment between the pc- and kpc-scale jet, though such good alignment is not often observed, and we neglect effects due to the finite angle subtended by the hotspot at the nucleus, which may be significant. The ratio of required to observed flux, $``$ ($`2500`$ for rough equality of predicted SSC and IC flux densities), then constrains $`\beta `$, the bulk speed in the nucleus, and $`\theta `$, the angle of the core-hotspot vector to the line of sight:

$$\frac{(1\beta )^{(2+\alpha )}+(1+\beta )^{(2+\alpha )}}{(1\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta )^{(2+\alpha )}+(1+\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta )^{(2+\alpha )}}=\frac{(1\mathrm{cos}\theta )^{(1+\alpha )}}{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }$$

where the term $`(1\mathrm{cos}\theta )^{(1+\alpha )}`$ approximately corrects for the anisotropic nature of the resulting IC emission (e.g. Jones, O’Dell & Stein 1974), and the core is treated as a two-sided jet with a power-law spectrum; the $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$ term incorporates the effects of projection. If we assume a core spectral index $`\alpha =0.5`$, then we can obtain $`2500`$ for plausible $`\beta `$, corresponding to bulk Lorentz factors $`4`$$`10`$, if the source is within 50 degrees of the plane of the sky. (In reality, this value for $`\alpha `$ is probably an overestimate, since the $`10^{11}`$ Hz photons seen by the nucleus will be blueshifted from lower frequencies where core spectra are typically flat, $`\alpha 0`$. Lower $`\alpha `$ requires higher $`\beta `$.) As no jet has been detected in 3C 123 and its optical emission lines are weak, the angle to the line of sight is not constrained, and so we cannot rule out a contribution to the X-ray emission from nuclear IC scattering. However, a contribution at approximately the same level as the SSC emission would not affect the conclusion that the hotspot is close to equipartition; in fact, it might account for some of the difference between the equipartition prediction and the observed 1-keV flux density. But if nuclear IC emission dominates the observed X-rays, then the hotspot could have a magnetic field higher than the equipartition value, and this cannot be ruled out by the present observations. For example, $`=2.5\times 10^4`$, corresponding to an IC emissivity ten times the SSC value, can be obtained for a bulk Lorentz factor $`6`$ if the source is close to the plane of the sky and $`\alpha =0.5`$, and would require $`B4B_{\mathrm{eq}}`$. Such a model requires a coincidence to explain the similarity of the observed emissivity to that predicted by the simple SSC model with a near-equipartition field.

In carrying out the SSC calculations we have assumed that the hotspots are homogeneous, that they contain no relativistic protons, and that the small-scale filling factor is unity. From the MERLIN maps of H97 we know that the hotspots do have internal structure on 100-pc scales, although the variations in surface brightness are not very large; there is no evidence for filamentary structures of the kind seen in radio lobes. As discussed in Hardcastle & Worrall (2000), the general effect of a filling factor less than unity is to increase the SSC emissivity, but the results are dependent on the geometry of the synchrotron-emitting regions, particularly if the low filling factor is a result of a spatial variation in electron density in a relatively constant magnetic field. Our present results may be taken as evidence against low filling factors in the hotspots, as such filling factors would require coincidences to produce X-ray emission at the observed levels. Similarly, if the particle population is energetically dominated by non-synchrotron-emitting particles such as relativistic protons, it is a coincidence that the energy density in magnetic field corresponds so closely to that in the synchrotron-emitting electrons.

Although SSC emission is a required process, we cannot rule out the possibility that the magnetic field strength is much greater than the equipartition value and that some other process happens to produce X-ray emission at a level consistent with the SSC model. One such process which we have already discussed is the IC scattering of nuclear photons. Some other simple models can be rejected. Thermal bremsstrahlung can be ruled out by the compact structure seen with Chandra and the flat X-ray spectrum, while, as shown in Fig. 3, IC scattering of the microwave background is two orders of magnitude too weak to be responsible for the observed emission. But more speculative models remain possible. For example, we cannot rule out the possibility that the X-ray emission is synchrotron radiation from an arbitrarily chosen population of electrons. This model has been invoked to explain some other X-ray hotspots (e.g. Harris et al. 1999) in which the IC or SSC models do not seem to work well. In the case of 3C 123, it requires a coincidence to explain the close similarity between the observed X-ray emission and the predictions of the SSC model.

One model which makes quantitative predictions about the origin and properties of this second population of electrons is the proton-induced cascade (PIC) model of Mannheim, Krülls & Biermann (1991). In this model, the high-energy electrons which produce X-ray synchrotron emission are the end result of photomeson production on a population of ultra-relativistic protons, through pion decay and pair production. If protons are present in the jet, they should undergo shock acceleration in the hotspot; there is some evidence for high-energy protons in the lobes of FRII sources (Leahy & Gizani 1999, Hardcastle & Worrall 2000). Mannheim et al. considered the hotspot of 3C 123 and predicted that the PIC process would dominate over SSC if protons were highly energetically dominant in the hotspot and in equipartition with magnetic fields at the level inferred by Meisenheimer et al. (1989), somewhat higher than our equipartition fields. Their predicted X-ray flux at 1 keV is $`30`$ nJy, nearly a factor 10 higher than the observed value, so a model with extreme proton dominance does not seem to be consistent with the data. However, if protons have energy densities closer to those of the electrons, we cannot rule out an origin from PIC-generated electrons for some or all of the observed X-rays; the spectra of the two processes are not distinguishable with our data. Once again, though, a moderate contribution from the PIC process would not affect our conclusions regarding the closeness of the hotspot to equipartition, while a model in which PIC was responsible for all the emission would require fine-tuning of the energy fraction in fields, electrons and protons, and so seems less plausible than the simple SSC model.

## 6 Conclusions

The X-ray emission from the E hotspot of 3C 123 is consistent with a SSC model, with the inferred magnetic field strength close to the value predicted from equipartition of energy between the magnetic field and the synchrotron-emitting electrons. Other models are possible, but require coincidences to explain the closeness of the X-ray flux density and (in some cases) the photon index to the SSC prediction. This reinforces a conclusion already drawn from observations of Cygnus A and 3C 295 that the magnetic field strengths in typical hotspots are near their equipartition values. Although there is still no a priori reason to expect equipartition, it is now very likely that it is achieved in the hotspots of at least some fraction of the source population. Observations of inverse-Compton scattering of microwave background photons from radio lobes may tell a similar story (Feigelson et al. 1995; Tsakiris et al. 1996; Tashiro et al. 1998). Even the deviations from equipartition reported by Tashiro et al. require a magnetic field strength only a factor $`2`$ below the equipartition value. However, some X-ray detections of hotspots (e.g. 3C 120, Harris et al 1999; Pictor A, Wilson, Young & Shopbell 2001) are at a level much too bright to be consistent either with synchrotron emission (from the electron population responsible for the radio and optical synchrotron radiation) or with SSC at equipartition. More observations are necessary to demonstrate that Cygnus A, 3C 295 and 3C 123 are typical of most radio sources. We will report on the results of scheduled Chandra observations of further hotspot sources in a future paper.

## Acknowledgements

We thank all those involved with the design and operation of Chandra for doing such an excellent job, and particularly the staff of the Chandra X-ray Center for their help with data analysis. We are grateful to an anonymous referee for a careful reading of the paper and constructive suggestions. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory Very Large Array is operated by Associated Universities Inc., under co-operative agreement with the National Science Foundation.


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# On the Levi problem with singularities

1. Introduction
Is a complex space X which is the union of an increasing sequence
$`X_1X_2X_3\mathrm{}`$ of open Stein subspaces itself a Stein space ?
From the begining this question has held great interest in Stein theory.
The special case when $`\{X_j\}_{j1}`$ is a sequence of Stein domains in $`\text{I}\text{C}^n`$ had been proved long time ago by Behnke and Stein .
In 1956, Stein  answered positively the question under the additional hypothesis that X is reduced and every pair $`(X_{\nu +1},X_\nu )`$ is Runge.
In the general case X is not necessarily holomorphically-convex.
Fornaess , gave a 3-dimensional example of such situation.
In 1977, Markoe  proved the following:
Let X be a reduced complex space which the union of an increasing sequence $`X_1X_2\mathrm{}X_n\mathrm{}`$ of Stein domains.
Then X is Stein if and only if $`H^1(X,O_X)=0.`$
M. Coltoiu has shown in  that if $`D_1D_2\mathrm{}D_n\mathrm{}`$
is an increasing sequence of Stein domains in a normal Stein space X,
then $`D={\displaystyle \underset{j1}{}}D_j`$ is a domain of holomorphy. (i.e. for each $`xD`$ there is $`fO(D)`$ which is not holomorphically extendable through x).
The aim of this paper is to prove the following theorems:

###### theorem 1

-Let X be a Stein normal space of dimension n and $`DX`$ an open subset which the union of an increasing sequence
$`D_1D_2\mathrm{}D_n\mathrm{}`$ of domains of holomorphy in X. Then D is a domain of holomorphy.

###### theorem 2

-A domain of holomorphy D which is relatively compact in a 2-dimensional normal Stein space X itself is Stein

###### theorem 3

-Let X be a Stein space of dimensinon n and $`DX`$ an open subspace which is the union of an increasing sequence
$`D_1D_2\mathrm{}D_n\mathrm{}`$ of open Stein subsets of X. Then D itself is Stein, if X has isolated singularities.

2. Preliminaries
It should be remarked that the statement of theorem 2 is in general
false if $`dim(X)3`$:
Let $`X=\{z\text{I}\text{C}^4:z_1^2+z_2^2+z_3^2+z_4^2=0\},H=\{z\text{I}\text{C}^4;z_1=iz_2,z_3=iz_4\},U=\{zX:|z|<1\},`$ and $`D=UUH`$.
X is a Stein normal space of dimension 3 with the singularity only at
the origine. Since D is the complement of a hypersurface on the Stein space U, then D is a domain of holomorphy. But D is not Stein. (See ).
Let X be a connected n-dimensional, Stein normal space and Y be
the singular locus of X.
There exist finitely many holomorphic maps

$$\varphi _j:X\text{I}\text{C}^n,j=1,\mathrm{},l$$

with discrete fibers, and holomorphic functions $`f_1,\mathrm{},f_l`$ on X such that the branch locus of $`\varphi _j`$ is contained in $`Z_j=\{f_j=0\}`$ and $`Y={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{l}{}}}Z_j`$.
3. Proofs of theorems
We prove theorem 1 using the method of Fornaess and Narasimhan  (See also lemma 7, ).
For every irreducible component $`X_i`$ of X, $`X_iDX_i`$ is an irreducible component of D and a union of an increasing sequence of domains of
holomorphy in the Stein space $`X_i`$. (See ).
Since each $`X_i`$ is normal and $`(X_iD)_i`$ are pairwise disjoint domains, then we may assume that X is connected.
Let $`qDY`$ and choose holomorphic functions $`h_1,\mathrm{},h_m`$ on X such that: $`\{xX/h_i(x)=0,i=1,\mathrm{},m\}=\{q\}`$, and j such that $`qZ_j`$.
Since $`DZ_j`$ is the union of the increasing sequence $`(D_kZ_j)_{k1}`$ of the Stein sets $`D_kZ_j`$ in the Stein manifold $`XZ_j`$, then $`DZ_j`$ is Stein.

Let $`d_j`$ be the boundary distance of the unramified domain
$`\varphi _j:DZ_j\text{I}\text{C}^n`$. Then $`logd_j`$ is plurisubharmonic on $`DZ_j`$. Therefore the function

$$\psi _j(z)=\{\begin{array}{cc}Max(0,logd_j+k_jlog|f_j|)onDZ_j\hfill & \\ 0onZ_j\hfill & \end{array}$$

is plurisubharmonic on D, if $`k_j`$ is a large constant. This follows from a result due to Oka. (See also , lemma 7).
By the Nullstellensatz, There exist a neighborhood V of q in X and
constants $`c>0,N>0`$ such that

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}|h_i(x)|^2c|\varphi _j(x)\varphi _j(q)|^N,xV$$

Since $`\varphi _j`$ is an analytic isomorphism at q and $`f_j(q)0`$, it follows that,
if V is sufficiently small, there is a constant $`c_0>0`$ such that

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}|h_i(x)|^2c_0exp(N\psi _j(x)),xVD.$$

Now, since $`\psi _j0`$, there exist constants $`c_1,c_2>0`$ such that

$$c_2exp(N\psi _j(x))\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}|h_i(x)|^2c_1exp(\psi _j(x)),xD.$$

And applying the theorem of Skoda , we deduce that there is a constant $`k>0`$ and holomorphic functions $`g_1,\mathrm{},g_m`$ on $`DZ_j`$ such that

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}g_ih_i=1onDZ_j$$

and

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}_{DZ_j}|g_i(x)|^2exp(k\psi _j(x))𝑑v<\mathrm{}$$

Where dv is Lebesgue measure pulled back to D and k depending only on N and m. The existence of a holomorphic function f on D which is unbounded on any sequence $`\{q_\mu \}`$ of points approaching q follows from lemma 3-1-2 of Fornaess-Narasimhan . Since $`DY`$ is dense in $`D`$, it follows that D is a domain of holomorphy.
We shall prove theorem 2 using the following result of R.Simha .

###### theorem 4

-Let X be a normal Stein complex space of dimension 2, and
H a hypersurface in X. Then $`XH`$ is Stein.

Proof of theorem 2
By the theorem of Andreotti-Narasimhan , it is suffficient to prove that
D is locally Stein, and we may of course assume that X is connected.
Let $`pDY`$, and choose a connected Stein open neighborhood U of p with $`UY=\{p\}`$ and such that U is biholomorphic to a closed analytic set of a domain M in some $`\text{I}\text{C}^N`$. Let E be a complex affine subspace of $`\text{I}\text{C}^N`$ of maximal dimension such that p is an isolated point of $`EU`$.
By a coordinate transformation one can obtain that $`z_i(p)=0`$ for all
$`i\{1,\mathrm{},N\}`$ and we may assume that there is a connected Stein
neighborhood V of p in M such that $`UV\{z_1(x)=z_2(x)=0\}=\{p\}`$.
We may, of course, suppose that $`N4`$, and let
$`E_1=V\{z_1(x)=\mathrm{}=z_{N2}(x)=0\}`$, $`E_2=\{xE_1:z_{N1}(x)=0\}`$.
Then $`A=(UV)E_1`$ is a Stein closed analytic set in V as the union of two Stein global branches of A.
Let $`\zeta :\widehat{A}A`$ be a normalization of A. Then $`\zeta :\widehat{A}\zeta ^1(p)A\{p\}`$ is biholomorphic. Since $`\zeta ^1(E_1)=\{x\widehat{A}:z_1(\zeta (x))=\mathrm{}=z_{N2}(\zeta (x))=0\}`$ is everywhere 1-dimensional, it follows from theorem 4 that $`\widehat{A}\zeta ^1(E_2)`$ is Stein. Hence $`AE_2=\zeta (\widehat{A}\zeta ^1(E_2))`$ itself is Stein.
Since $`pE_2`$ is the unique singular point of A, then $`UVD`$ is Stein being a domain of holomorphy in the Stein manifold $`AE_2`$.
If $`pDY`$, then there exists j such that $`pZ_j`$. We can find a Stein open neighborhood U of p in X such that $`UZ_j=\mathrm{}`$. Then $`UD=U(DZ_j)`$ is Stein.

The main step in the proof of theorem 3 is to show, when D is,
in addition, relatively compact in X, that for all $`pD`$, there exist an open neighborhood U of p in X and an exhaustion function f on $`DU`$ such that for each open $`VU`$ there is a continuous function g on V which is locally the maximum of a finite number of stricly plurisubharmonic functions with $`|fg|<1`$. Which implies that $`DU`$ is 1-complete with corners.
(A result due to Peternell ).
This result will be applied in connection with
the Diederich-Fornaess theorem  which asserts that an irreducible n-dimensional complex space X is Stein if X is 1-complete with corners.
The proof is also based on the following result of M.Peternell

###### lemma 1

-Let X be a complex space of pure dimension n,
$`WX\times X`$ be an open set and $`fF_n(W\mathrm{\Delta }_X)`$ where
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_X=\{(x,x):xX\}`$, and let $`SS^{}X`$ be open subsets of X such that $`S\times S^{}W`$. Define $`s(x)=Sup\{f(x,y):y\overline{S^{}}S\}`$ for $`xS`$ and assume that $`s(x)>f(x,y)`$ if $`yS^{}`$.
If S is Stein, then for each $`DS`$ and each $`\epsilon >0`$, there is a $`gF_1(D)`$ such that $`|gs|<\epsilon `$ on D.
Here $`F_n(D)`$ and $`F_1(D)`$ denote respectively the sets of continuous functions on D which are locally the maximum of a finite number of strongly n-convex (resp. stricly psh) functions.

Proof of theorem 3
Clearly we may suppose that D is relatively compact in X.
Since the Stein property is invariant under normalization , we may
assume that X is normal and connected.
For $`n=2`$, theorem 3 follows as an immediate consequence of theorem 2. Then we may also assume that $`n3`$.
Let $`pDY`$, and choose a Stein open neighborhood U of p in X that can be realized as a closed complex subspace of a domain M in $`\text{I}\text{C}^N`$.
Let E be a complex affine subspace of $`\text{I}\text{C}^N`$ of maximal dimension such that p is an isolated point of $`EU`$, and let E’ be any complementary complex affine subspace to E in $`\text{I}\text{C}^N`$ through p.

We may choose the coordinates $`z_1,\mathrm{},z_N`$ and the space $`E^{}`$ such that $`z_i(p)=0`$ for all $`i\{1,\mathrm{},N\}`$ and $`dim(E^{}U)1`$. Since $`T=E^{}U`$ is a closed analytic set in U, and $`h(z,w)=|z|^2+|w|^2log(|zw|^2)`$ a strongly n-convex $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ function on $`E^{}\times E^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_E^{}`$, then there exists a strongly n-convex $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ function $`\psi `$ on a neighborhood W of $`T^{}=T\times T\mathrm{\Delta }_T`$ with $`WU\times U\mathrm{\Delta }_U`$ such that $`h\psi /_T^{}h+1`$. (See Demailly ).
Let W’ be an open set in $`U\times U`$ such that $`W=W^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_U`$. We may choose W’such that there exist a neighborhood N of p in X and a Stein open neighborhood $`U_1`$ of p with $`U_1N`$ and such that $`U_1\times (NU_1)W^{}`$.
We now construct an exhaustion function $`f_1`$ on $`U_1D`$ such that for each open $`ZU_1D`$ there is a $`gF_1(Z)`$ with $`|gf_1|<1`$.
Let $`f_1(z)=Sup\{\psi (z,w),w\overline{N}U_1D\}`$, $`zU_1D`$
Obviously $`f_1`$ is an exhaustion function on $`U_1D`$. There exists $`m1`$ such that $`ZU_1D_m`$.
We now define

$$g_j(z)=Sup\{\psi (z,w):w\overline{N}U_1D_j\},forzU_1D_j,jm$$

Since $`U_1D_j`$ is Stein, $`\psi (z,w)`$ is n-convex on W, and $`g_j(z)>\psi (z,w)`$ for every $`(z,w)(U_1D_j)\times N`$, then there is a $`h_jF_1(Z)`$ such that $`|g_jh_j|<\frac{1}{2}`$. Since, obviously, $`(g_j)_{j1}`$ converges uniformally on compact sets to $`f_1`$, then there is a $`jm`$ such that $`|g_jf_1|<\frac{1}{2}`$ on Z. Hence $`|f_1h_j|<1`$. Now the theorem follows from the lemma and the theorem of Diederich-Fornaess

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