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# Carbon Abundances of Faint Stars in M13 - Evidence for Two Abundance Altering Mechanisms Based on observations obtained at the W.M. Keck Observatory, which is operated jointly by the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

## 1 INTRODUCTION

A detailed history of the thirty years of progress in our understanding and interpretation of the compositions of globular cluster stars is far too long and complex to offer in the present work. Hence we present below only the shortest of summaries. For a more proper treatment, we recommend to the reader the more comprehensive reviews of Kraft (1994) and Da Costa (1998).

Contrary to the canonical picture of globular clusters as chemically homogeneous populations of stars, significant star-to-star differences in the abundances of C, N, and often other light elements associated with proton capture reactions, have been found in every Galactic globular cluster studied to date. Locked within these inhomogeneities appears to be at least a partial history of processes at work in the early cluster environment. However, these patterns are also likely subject to further modification driven by a less than well-understood mixing mechanism at work within the stars themselves. With this in mind, intra-cluster abundance inhomogeneities are usually discussed in terms of these two distinct origins: internal post-first dredge-up “deep mixing” or a process external to the present day cluster stars (e.g., the accretion of ejecta from more massive stars).

In the case of deep mixing, material exposed to the CN (and possibly ON) cycle regions above the H-burning shell of an evolving low-mass star is circulated into the outer convective envelope during red giant branch (RGB) ascent resulting in increased surface N abundances at the expense of C (and possibly O). Observational evidence that such a process operates can be found among low-mass metal-poor ($`2`$ \[Fe/H\]$`1`$) field giants where Gratton et al. (2000) note lowered C abundances, enhanced N, depleted Li, and lower 12C/13C ratios than expected from first dredge-up (see also Charbonnel & do Nascimento, 1998; Keller, Pilachowski, & Sneden, 2001). Mixing may be even more efficient in the metal-poor ($`2`$ \[Fe/H\]) globulars where substantial decreases in \[C/Fe\] ($``$ 1 dex) with increasing luminosity have been observed along the RGBs of M92 (Bellman et al., 2001), M15 (Trefzger et al., 1983), and NGC 6397 (Briley et al., 1990). Mixing has also been suggested as an explanation for the detections of O underabundances and O-Na, Al-Mg anticorrelations among the bright giants of numerous globular clusters, e.g. M5, M3, M10, M13 (see the composite figure for O-Na relations assembled by Ramírez & Cohen, 2002, their Fig. 12, and references therein) \- trends notably absent from the field population (Gratton et al., 2000). If proton capture reactions on Ne and Mg resulting in Na and Al are also operating at ON-cycle temperatures (Cavallo & Nagar, 2000, and references therein) one could then expect the abundance patterns observed in most cluster giants to be at least qualitatively reproduced under the conditions of sufficiently deep mixing.

But the underlying physical process connecting the shell region with the envelope beyond first dredge-up is not included in standard models of low mass stellar evolution and remains poorly understood. Some possible mechanisms explored include meridional circulation (Sweigart & Mengel, 1979), various treatments of diffusion (e.g. Charbonnel, 1995; Denissenkov & Tout, 2000), and shell flashes (Aikawa, Fujimoto, & Kato, 2001) \- see the review of the theory of red giant branch stars by Salaris, Cassisi, & Weiss (2002) for a more through discussion.

As early as 24 years ago it was known that the subgiant branch (SGB) stars and likely the main-sequence (MS) stars of the metal-rich (\[Fe/H\]$`=0.8`$) cluster 47 Tuc exhibit C and N differences similar to those found on its RGB (Hesser, 1978). These results have been confirmed by Cannon et al. (1998, and references therein), and significant C/N inhomogeneities among SGB and MS stars have since been observed in NGC 6752 and M5 (Suntzeff & Smith, 1991; Cohen, Briley, & Stetson, 2002), and M71 (Cohen, 1999a). Variations in other light elements have also been noted among the SGB/MS stars of these very clusters: Na-CN correlated on the MS of 47 Tuc (Briley et al., 1996), O-Na and Mg-Al anticorrelated among the MS stars of NGC 6752 (Gratton et al., 2001), and O-Na anticorrelated in M71 SGB stars (Ramírez & Cohen, 2002). Most recently, Ramírez & Cohen (2003) have shown a significant dispersion in Na extending from the M5 RGB to its MS turnoff. These inhomogeneities are of course difficult to explain within the framework of mixing theories and imply that some component of the abundance differences is in place well before appreciable RGB ascent, possibly embedded in the present-day stars much earlier in the cluster history. Indeed, the nuclei observed to vary among the SGB/MS stars, i.e., C, N, O, Na, Al, and Mg, suggest as a source the hot bottom burning regions of intermediate mass asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars (Ventura et al., 2001). As put forth by Cottrell & Da Costa (1981), the proton-exposed ejecta from such stars may then have been accreted by and thus “polluted” the present day cluster stars (see Cannon et al., 1998, for a more thorough discussion).

It has become increasingly clear that a full description of cluster abundance inhomogeneities requires an understanding of the extent of the contributions of both deep internal mixing and external sources of chemical differences. Unfortunately, the same reaction chains (proton captures on C, N, O, Ne and Mg) appear to be associated with both mechanisms. Perhaps the only method of disentangling the role of each process is to compare the abundances of the less luminous cluster stars with their more evolved counterparts. Because of the strength of the CH band, for technical reasons this is easier to accomplish at present for C than for the other light elements listed above.

In this regard, the globular cluster M13 provides us with a particularly interesting target. With an overall metallicity of \[Fe/H\]= $`1.51`$ dex (Kraft et al., 1992), it is perhaps one of the most thoroughly studied “intermediate metallicity” clusters. It has long been known to contain giants with a large and bimodal spread in CN band strengths, anticorrelated with CH, whose origin lies in an apparent C-N anticorrelation (e.g. Smith et al., 1996). In addition, among its RGB stars, large111As commented by Kraft et al. (1997), the M13 RGB stars exhibit some of the largest inhomogeneities known. O differences are present (anticorrelated with N), as well as significant star-to-star scatter in Na and Al (Na anticorrelated with Mg and correlated with O, see Kraft et al., 1997; Cavallo & Nagar, 2000). Such observations are suggestive of the mixing of proton exposed material to the surfaces of some cluster members and there is evidence of shifts towards lower O and higher Na and Al abundances among the most luminous RGB stars ($`M_V<1.7`$) (Pilachowski et al., 1996; Kraft et al., 1997; Cavallo & Nagar, 2000). Yet, at the same time, a large dispersion in these elements is present in the data of Kraft et al. to at least within a 0.25 mag of the luminosity function (LF) bump at $`V14.75`$ (Paltrinieri et al., 1998). A large scatter in C and N abundances was also followed to a similar luminosity by Suntzeff (1981). Grundahl,VandenBerg, & Andersen (1998) found scatter in Strömgren photometry among the RGB and SGB stars in M13 which they attributed to a spread in CNO abundances probably extending at least to the main-sequence turnoff.

We report here on recent observations and derived C abundances of a sample of SGB/MS stars in the globular cluster M13 which appear to support the hypothesis of a substantial intrinsic spread in the distribution of light elements within the cluster which is further modified during RGB ascent.

## 2 OBSERVATIONS

The construction of the photometric catalog used here for M13 is described in Stetson, Hesser, & Smecker-Hane (1998) and Stetson (2000) and is similar to that built for M5 and described in detail in our earlier work (Cohen et al., 2002). Slitmasks were designed focusing on the subgiants in M13 and on the region just below the turnoff. We note that the base of the RGB in M13 is at about V = 17.7, I = 16.9, while the MSTO is at about V = 18.2, I = 17.8.

These slitmasks were used on the blue side (McCarthy et al., 1998) of LRIS (Oke et al., 1995) at the Keck Telescope in May 2001 and in May 2002. As the weather was sub-optimal, four 1000 sec exposures were obtained with the slitmask intended for the fainter stars. The 600 g/mm grism was used with a 0.7 arcsec wide slit, yielding a dispersion of 1.0 Å/pixel, and a spectral resolution of 4Å. The spectral coverage was from 3500 to 5500 Å for essentially all the stars. There are 81 stars with spectra good enough for present purposes, namely more than 450 ADU/pixel (with 2 $`e^{}`$/ADU) in the continuum at 4360 Å.

Non-members are very easily recognized due to the low metallicity of M13 and its large negative radial velocity. Since the stars were selected to lie on the cluster isochrone and M13 is at high galactic latitude, one would expect very few non-members. All of the stars in the sample presented here are members of M13. Full details of the sample of stars and the observations will be given in a forthcoming paper.

## 3 ANALYSIS

Our analysis essentially parallels that of Briley & Cohen (2001, hereafter BC01) and the reader is referred to that work for details.

The strengths of the 4350Å CH (G) bands of our program stars were measured via the I(CH) index of Cohen (1999a, b) \- a double sided index which compares the flux removed by the G-band to the adjacent continuum. The resulting indices (corrected for the radial velocity of M13) are plotted as a function of I magnitude in Figure 1, where a significant spread among both the SGB and MS stars can be seen. As is discussed in BC01, the decrease in the spread in I(CH) near $`I18`$ is the result of the high temperatures and low metallicities of the M13 MS turnoff stars (i.e., there simply is little CH formation in such stars).

In order to relate the observed indices to the underlying \[C/Fe\], we employ a series of synthetic spectra based on MARCS (Gustafsson et al., 1975) model atmospheres. We assume that the iron abundance is constant within M13 as suggested by the high dispersion spectroscopic studies of low luminosity globular cluster samples by Gratton et al. (2001) and by Ramírez & Cohen (2002, 2003). Our MS turnoff models are those used in BC01 to which we have added an additional 3 luminous SGB models (at $`T_{eff}`$/log($`g`$)= 5168/2.96, 5224/3.15, 5281/3.33) and 5 fainter MS points (at 6118/4.47, 6034/4.53, 5833/4.59, 5601/4.66, 5351/4.70) taken from the 16 Gyr \[Fe/H\]= $``$1.48 O-enhanced isochrone grid of Bergbusch & Vandenberg (1992). As in BC01, we adopt a geometric distance of 7.2 kpc (plus an additional 0.11 magnitudes in $`(mM)_V`$) and a reddening of E($`BV`$) = 0.02 magnitudes following Harris (1996).

From each model and a given set of C/N/O abundances, synthetic spectra were computed using the SSG program (Bell, Paltoglou, & Tripicco, 1994, and references therein) and the linelist of Tripicco & Bell (1995) (see BC01 for further details). The result was then convolved with a Gaussian to match the resolution of the observed spectra and I(CH) indices measured. Four compositions are illustrated here (\[C/Fe\]/\[N/Fe\]/\[O/Fe\]): $`0.85/+0.7/+0.4`$ and $`1.1/+1.2/0.5`$ which (as in BC01) roughly match the observed compositions of M13’s CN-weak and strong bright giants respectively, $`0.0/+0.4/+0.4,`$ an arbitrary “pre-mixing” composition, and $`0.5/+1.4/0.0,`$ a redistribution of the “pre-mixing” composition holding the sum of C+N+O constant. The curves plotted in Figure 1 are I(CH) indices calculated from these synthetic spectra where it can be seen that the small scatter in I(CH) among the MS turnoff stars is due to the intrinsic weakness of the G-band, rather than an absence of inhomogeneities (as pointed out by BC01).

Note that among such warm relatively metal-poor stars the resulting indices are remarkably insensitive to all but our choice of \[C/Fe\]. This is the result of the low metallicity; CN and CO play a less important role in the molecular equilibrium for carbon. For example, using the 5281/3.33 model ($`M_I=+1.89`$) with $`0.5/+1.4/0.0`$ as a baseline, increasing \[O/Fe\] by 0.4 dex decreases I(CH) by 0.006, decreasing \[N/Fe\] by 1.4 dex increases I(CH) by 0.006, and increasing 12C/13C to 90 has essentially no effect. The greatest sensitivity appears to be to microturbulence ($`v_t`$), as increasing $`v_t`$ from 1.5 to 2.5 km s-1increases I(CH) by 0.010 (an 8% increase), which is negligible compared to the changes resulting from different values of \[C/Fe\].

We have applied the method of Briley et al. (1990) to convert the observed I(CH) indices to corresponding C abundances: the model isoabundance curves were interpolated to the $`M_I`$ of each program star, and the observed I(CH) index converted into \[C/Fe\] based on the synthetic indices at that $`M_I`$. As such, we are assuming that a given star’s $`M_I`$ maps to the $`T_{eff}`$, log($`g`$), and mass specified by the Bergbusch & Vandenberg (1992) isochrone based on our calculation of model luminosity/color and choice of distance modulus and reddening. Returning to the 5281/3.33 model (the faintest model used in deriving SGB \[C/Fe\]), we note that an underestimation in $`T_{eff}`$ of 100K would correspond to an error of +0.03 in $`VI`$ and a derived \[C/Fe\] some 0.12 dex too large at \[C/Fe\] $`=0.5`$. Likewise, an underestimation of log($`g`$) by 0.1 dex would be equivalent to a shift of $`0.25`$ in $`M_I`$ and $`0.08`$ dex in \[C/Fe\]. Essentially identical changes result when considering our most luminous SGB model (5168/2.96). Thus if one takes 100K and 0.1 dex as reasonable errors in $`T_{eff}`$ and log($`g`$), we estimate our uncertainties in \[C/Fe\] to be roughly 0.1 dex.

## 4 RESULTS

The resulting \[C/Fe\] values for the subgiants only are plotted in Figure 2, as well as the \[C/Fe\] values derived by Suntzeff (1981) and Smith et al. (1996) for more luminous cluster members. Immediately obvious from Figure 2 is a marked decline in \[C/Fe\] with increasing luminosity among the M13 giants - the mean \[C/Fe\] of Sunzteff’s “RGB” sample is $`0.9\pm 0.3`$ dex, while for the present SGB stars the value is $`0.4\pm 0.2`$ dex. This pattern in \[C/Fe\] was noted by Suntzeff, but the depletions appear to set in at a luminosity below the limit of his sample. Such as result can most easily be understood in the context of the deep-mixing framework where C-depleted material from the CN-burning region above the H-burning shell is progressively circulated into the stellar envelope as discussed above. We note however that changes in the distribution of O, Na and Al in M13 are suggested by Pilachowski et al. (1996), Kraft et al. (1997), and Cavallo & Nagar (2000) to occur only among its most luminous giants, i.e., $`V<13`$ which is also the point at which the C abundances drop precipitously in Figure 2. It would thus appear that during the bulk of RGB ascent, mixing only into CN-cycle regions is taking place in M13.

At the same time, a large scatter in \[C/Fe\] (roughly 0.8 dex), comparable to that found among the more luminous stars, is present in the LRIS SGB sample in Figure 2. Figure 1 further suggests a large dispersion in C abundance is also present at luminosities below the MS turnoff. (We have no information on N abundances at present.) These inhomogeneities are in place well below the LF bump and the operation of proposed deep mixing mechanisms. Thus it appears that the action of an external process has shaped much of the star-to-star scatter present in M13, i.e., the large range of C, and likely other light abundances found among the giants (at least fainter than $`V=13`$) is to a great extent not the result of varying mixing efficiencies within the stars themselves.

If we assume the initial \[C/Fe\] values to be roughly solar in the proto-M13 gas cloud, the C-poor stars in our sample might be explained by the incorporation of C-poor, N-rich AGB ejecta. However, the large spread in C abundances seen here requires far more than the “pollution” of the stellar surfaces by simple accretion of AGB ejecta - such surface contaminations would be quickly erased by the deepening convective envelope following the MS phase. This is clearly not observed and a substantial fraction of the stars’ total mass must therefore be homogeneous in these elements. This in turn requires the accretion of not just of a sprinkling but rather of a significant amount of material: if we consider a typical C-poor M13 star (\[C/Fe\] $`=0.6`$), some 70% of the star’s mass must be captured ejecta (assuming the accreted matter to be completely free of C). While this initially seems implausible, we note the recent calculations of Thoul et al. (2002) which demonstrate that large accumulations may be possible, particularly in clusters with small core radii, e.g. 47 Tuc where they estimate as much as 80% of the mass of a 1 M star could be accreted material. Unfortunately, the core radius of M13 is considerably larger, and similar calculations yield an expected accretion of only 8%. Whether this is a problem that can be overcome with more detailed accretion models (e.g., Thoul et al. included several assumptions such as chaotic orbits with stars spending 20% of their time in the cluster core, which was also the spatial extent of the central gas reservoir), a reflection of changes in the structure/dynamics of M13 since its formation, or can be better explained by an alternative mechanism remains to be seen.

The work presented here implies we are seeing the effects of a significant external “contamination” of unexplained origin upon which a poorly understood mixing mechanism acts during the later stages of RGB ascent. However, there remain a number of issues to address: The critical region just fainter than the M13 LF bump at $`V14.75`$ has yet to be explored, leaving the exact luminosity of C-depletion onset uncertain. Also, in comparing the present results with those of Suntzeff (1981) and Smith et al. (1996), we are comparing abundances based on different instruments, indices, and analysis tools - note the apparent 0.3 dex offset between the C abundances of Suntzeff and Smith in Figure 2. Furthermore, we urgently need a larger sample of stars below the MSTO in M13. To address these items, we will be returning to M13 in the near future.

The entire Keck/LRIS user communities owes a huge debt to Jerry Nelson, Gerry Smith, Bev Oke, and many other people who have worked to make the Keck Telescope and LRIS a reality and to operate and maintain the Keck Observatory. We are grateful to the W. M. Keck Foundation for the vision to fund the construction of the W. M. Keck Observatory. We wish to express our thanks to Roger Bell whose SSG code was instrumental in this project. Partial support was provided by the National Science Foundation under grant AST-0098489 to MMB and grant AST-9819614 and AST-0205951 to JGC and by the F. John Barlow professorship (MMB).


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In quintessence models the current acceleration of the universe is due to potential-dominated evolution of a scalar field today. This typically implies that the potential is very flat today and hence that the Compton wavelength, $`\lambda _c=(V^{\prime \prime })^{1/2}`$, is very large. This makes standard quintessence models difficult to distinguish from the simple cosmological constant ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$)  since clustering will only occur on scales larger than $`\lambda _c`$. Moreover, quintessence models fulfill the condition of a large $`\lambda _c`$ at all times. Therefore two interesting questions are:

(1) Can we build models which are not associated with a large $`\lambda _c`$

either today or at earlier epochs?

(2) Are such models favoured or disfavoured by cosmic data?

A strong affirmative to the second question would provide compelling evidence against both $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM and quintessence. In answer to the first question we propose the idea of condensate dark energy 111Note that k-essence for example, can lead to a strong variation in the speed of sound, potentially leaving a detectable signal in the CMB .. In this scenario, part of the dark matter (which we take to be CDM) undergoes a transition to a condensate at some low redshift $`z_t`$, described by a scalar field with equation of state given by eq. (1). Such condensate models have previously been envisaged , though with slightly different properties.

To isolate the effects of the Compton wavelength we must be sure that our models have the same background dymanics. We therefore use the model-independent parametrisation of the equation of state of  (and generalised in ):

$$w(z)=\frac{w_f}{1+\mathrm{exp}((zz_t)/\mathrm{\Delta })}$$
(1)
where $`w_f`$ is the final value of the equation of state, $`z_t`$ is the redshift at which $`w(z)`$ changes from $`0`$ to $`w_f`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ controls the rapidity of the transition.

In the case of quintessence we can impose this equation of state to hold identically at all times. However, for condensation we require that for $`z>z_t`$ it hold only on average, i.e. $`w=0`$. This allows the potential to be very curved and hence for $`\lambda _c`$ to be small and allow clustering on small scales.

## 2 Results

To compare our models we use all recent CMB data sets (excluding Archeops), the LSS power spectra inferred from 2df, PSCz, Abell/ACO and the binned SN1a data as described in  and . We compute likelihoods over the 4d grid $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_Q,z_t,w_f,H`$) where $`H`$ is the Hubble constant. We show the 1d marginalised likelihoods for our $`w(z)`$ parameters in fig (3) for both condensation and metamorphosis/quintessence. We also plot the same curves when we introduce a Gaussian prior for the Hubble constant coming from the HST key project result: $`H=72\pm 8`$ km s-1 Mpc-1.

Overall the condensate model has a better best-fit $`\chi ^2`$ than the best $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model. Indeed, we found that for condensation the best-fit $`\chi ^2`$ is 79.3 corresponding to $`z_t=5,w_f=0.95,\mathrm{\Omega }_Q=0.75`$, while for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM the best-fit $`\chi ^2`$ is 84.9, (corresponding to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.73`$). The best fits for metamorphosis are even better with $`\chi ^2=78.8`$ for $`z_t=1.5`$ .

To understand why condensation does not favour $`z_t<1.5`$ we note that this is due both to the CMB and LSS. Unlike quintessence models which have an almost trivial effect on the CMB (see e.g. ), varying $`z_t`$ in condensation affects the CDM density at decoupling and hence alters the gravitational potential wells. This effect is only significant for $`z_t<2`$ and boosts the height of the first acoustic peak relative to metamorphosis for $`z_t=0.5`$ while giving an asymmetric off-set pattern to the 2nd and 3rd peaks.

The $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ curves of fig. (2) can be understood by realising that they interpolate between standard flat CDM (small $`z_t`$) and pure $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models (high $`z_t`$). While the total energy density of the universe is continuous across the transition surface at $`z_t`$, the CDM density is not, since some of it is rapidly converted into dark energy. Hence the ratio $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b/\mathrm{\Omega }_{cdm}`$ is not constant in this model, but jumps across the transition at $`z_t`$. The smaller is $`z_t`$, the larger this jump is, and hence the smaller is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b/\mathrm{\Omega }_{cdm}`$, and vice versa. This leads to the characteristic pattern of asymmetric 2nd and 3rd peaks seen for $`z_t=0.5`$ due to the change in the gravitational potential wells at recombination .

The LSS disfavours low $`z_t`$ since the turnover in the power spectrum occurs at too large a $`k`$ value, inconsistent with current observations .

## 3 Discussion

In quintessence the Compton wavelength $`\lambda _c`$ of the scalar field is always very large, which implies that the transfer function of fluctuations is trivial on large scales. This is not necessary for a successful dark energy model however and dropping this constraint yields a richer phenomenology. We consider one of the simplest models with a large change in $`\lambda _c`$ : condensation, and find that it is a worse fit to the data compared with quintessence models if $`z_t<2`$ due to both CMB and LSS constraints .

It is important to realise that our conclusions with regard to condensation would be altered if we assumed a different value of $`\lambda _c`$ initially by choosing our dark matter to be warm instead of cold. In that case we would probably have a better fit to the data for $`z_t<2`$, especially regarding LSS due to the well-documented problems of flat CDM models in fitting both COBE and $`\sigma _8`$ constraints. Perhaps the most interesting result of condensation is that it opens up the possibility of having dark energy which non-trivially alters the CMB and cluster-scale physics. Detailed analysis of condensation and comparison with quintessence/metamorphosis is reported elsewhere .


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# 3D Anelastic Simulations of Convection in Massive Stars

## 1. Introduction

Two-dimensional studies of turbulent convection in the interiors of massive stars have been quite common (Deupree 2000; Asida & Arnett 2000; Bazan & Arnett 1998), but the problem is inherently three-dimensional and many aspects of the convective flow will not be reproduced correctly in two-dimensional models (Canuto 2000). Only recently has it become possible to begin tackling the problem of simulating convection in all its three-dimensional g(l)ory, and several major projects are under way to do just this (Dearborn et al. 2001; Brun 2002; Porter & Woodward 2000). The price of this additional dimension is additional computational complexity, the need for faster computers and more data storage capabilities, not to mention difficulties in visualizing and analyzing the resulting data. In this paper we describe three-dimensional simulations based on anelastic hydrodynamics, which we hope capture the essential phenomena of the problems at hand, while allowing more rapid progress at a lower computational cost than comparable studies using fully compressible codes.

This paper is divided into three parts. After very briefly describing the anelastic approximation and Glatzmaier’s implementation of it in Section 2, we present our hydrogen core convection model and results of this simulation in Section 3, and the oxygen shell convection model and results in Section 4.

In addition to the static plots shown here, please look at http://www.supersci.org for movies of these models.

## 2. The Numerical Method

The simulations presented in this paper were performed using anelastic hydrodynamics. This approximation allows a background density stratification, but filters out short-period, acoustic oscillations, thereby allowing larger timesteps than fully compressible codes. We believe that these attributes make anelastic hydrodynamics an excellent method for studying stable convective regions in massive stars.

### 2.1. The Anelastic Approximation

For completeness we have included the anelastic equations below. Any interested reader can find a much more detailed exposition of the anelastic approximation in Glatzmaier (1984) and references therein.

Barred symbols denote reference state quantities, all others perturbations.

$`(\overline{\rho }𝐯)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (1)
$`\overline{\rho }{\displaystyle \frac{𝐯}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`(\overline{\rho }𝐯𝐯)\overline{\rho }({\displaystyle \frac{P}{\overline{\rho }}}+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}_g)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\rho }}{s}}\right)_Ps\overline{g}\widehat{𝐫}+2\overline{\rho }𝐯\times \overline{𝛀}`$ (2)
$`+\left(2\overline{\rho }\overline{\nu }(\overline{𝖤}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(𝐯)\overline{𝖨})\right)`$
$`\overline{\rho }\overline{T}{\displaystyle \frac{s}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`(\overline{\kappa }\overline{\rho }\overline{T}s)\overline{T}(\overline{\rho }s𝐯)+\overline{\rho }(\overline{ϵ}_{\text{nuc}}+ϵ_{\text{nuc}})\left[+\overline{\rho }(\overline{ϵ}_\nu +ϵ_\nu )\right]`$ (3)
$`\rho `$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\rho }}{s}}\right)_Ps+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\rho }}{P}}\right)_sP`$ (4)
Here $`𝖤`$ is the rate of strain and $`𝖨`$ the identity tensor. A vanishing coefficient of bulk viscosity is assumed for the viscous force calculation, and viscous heating is neglected.

Of particular interest is the mass conservation equation in which the Eulerian time derivative of the density perturbation drops out. This in effect filters out sound waves and greatly ameliorates the Courant condition, which in turn allows larger timesteps. Note that by design anelastic codes cannot model any shocks, or (super)sonic flow in general. The anelastic approximation attempts to solve for an average solution of the flow, ignoring the propagation of any small scale pressure fluctuations.

### 2.2. Glatzmaier’s Implementation

The numerical implementation of these equations has been performed by Glatzmaier, and a detailed description of the code can be found in Glatzmaier (1984). The code is fully spectral, with an expansion in spherical harmonics to cover the angular variations and in Chebyshev polynomials for the radial dependence.

The models described here have no radiative energy transport, so there are only two ways to transport energy: convective and diffusive heat flux. The nature of the diffusive heat flux is explained below in Section 2.5.

### 2.3. The Reference State

One of the most important steps in producing these simulations is the generation of the reference state. We have incorporated a general equation of state and have added temperature and density dependent energy generation and neutrino losses.

#### Radial Structure

As the reference state is one-dimensional, we take advantage of our 1D stellar evolution code KEPLER (Weaver, Zimmerman, & Woosley 1978) and fit its density and pressure to a polytrope ($`P=K\rho ^{1+1/n}`$). For the radial dependence of these quantities we solve the resulting Lane-Emden equation.

#### Equation of State

The background temperature $`\overline{T}`$ as well as the necessary thermodynamic derivatives $`\left(\frac{\overline{\rho }}{s}\right)_P,\left(\frac{\overline{\rho }}{P}\right)_s`$ are determined using the publicly available Helmholtz code (Timmes & Swesty 2000).

#### Energy Generation and Neutrino Losses

It is important to capture the full temperature and density dependent nature of the energy generation within the convective region, and in the case of the oxygen shell also of the neutrino losses. For this reason we have added not only radially varying reference state nuclear energy generation and neutrino loss rates, but have also kept the perturbations to allow for differential heating between cold and hot convective bubbles. The nuclear energy generation rate in the relevant zones is fit to the conventional $`ϵ_{\text{nuc}}\rho T^n`$ law, and the neutrino loss rate to $`ϵ_\nu \rho ^mT^n`$.

### 2.4. Boundary Conditions

The top and bottom boundaries are modeled as impermeable and stress-free ($`v_{}=0\text{ and }\frac{}{r}\left(\frac{v_{}}{r}\right)=0`$). This means that presently we are not able to study important phenomena such as convective overshoot.

Generally we fix the entropy gradient at the bottom boundary by specifying a base luminosity, taken from KEPLER. For the boundary condition at the top we either force the entropy perturbation to vanish or we specify the top luminsity, i.e. the entropy gradient at the outer boundary.

### 2.5. Turbulent Diffusion

The diffusion of momentum and entropy by small-scale eddies is expected to dominate the diffusion due to radiative and molecular processes. The effects of all unresolved motions are parametrized as turbulent diffusion. In this model we have chosen constant turbulent viscous and thermal diffusivities, which we have tried to minimize to the extent permitted by the finite resolution.

## 3. Hydrogen Core Convection

As our initial testcase for this code, in order to get familiar with it, we chose to model core convection of a $`15M_{}`$ star half-way through the main sequence. This stage of the star’s life is not very violent; there are no neutrino losses, the energy generation doesn’t have a very steep temperature dependence, there are no shocks, and density and pressure contrasts are expected to be small - a perfect case for an anelastic model. We view this model as a proof of principle, and as preparation for modeling more advanced stages of stellar evolution

### 3.1. Parameters

The dependence of the reference state radius, density, temperature, and pressure on the Lagrangian mass coordinate are shown in Figure 1. Table 1 below summarizes the remaining parameters of interest.

$`M_{\text{base}}`$ is the mass of the central portion of the star that is cut out, and $`M_{\text{top}}`$ is the total mass within the convective core of this $`15M_{}`$ star. Even without the central region we are still modeling $`99.8\%`$ of the convective core, both by volume and mass.

### 3.2. Results

#### The Non-rotating Case

The non-rotating model was run with a final resolution of 241 Chebyshev polynomials and spherical harmonics up to $`l=63,m=31`$. The model simulates about 44 days in the life of the star. An average convective speed of $`10^5\text{cm/s}`$ implies a convective turnover time of $`\tau _{\text{to}}=7\times 10^5s8\text{days}`$, and hence about 6 convective turnovers. The first row of Table 2 summarizes the numerical results of this simulation, and Figure 2 provides some visualization of the convective motions. Note that without rotation there is no preferred orientation of the model, which explains why figures 2a) and 2b) look so similar. Both slices seem to indicate a somewhat dipolar flow field, with high entropy gas rising on one side and falling at the other. Such dipolar flow pattern have been observed in fully compressible calculations as well (Jacobs, Porter, & Woodward 1998).

All thermodynamic contrasts ($`(\delta \rho ^{}/\overline{\rho })_{\text{max}},(\delta P^{}/\overline{P})_{\text{max}},`$ etc.) are of the order $`10^5`$, comfortably below $`1\%`$. The mass-averaged reference state sound speed is about $`700\text{km/s}`$, so the flow is completely subsonic. We conclude that this problem is very suited for an anelastic treatment, as expected.

#### The Rotating Case

The rotating model was run for about 120 days in the star’s life, with the same resolution as the non-rotating case. This amount of star time corresponds to about 15 convective turnovers. As is immediately obvious by looking at Figure 3, rotation has a significant effect on the convective flow pattern. The rotational axis breaks the symmetry of the problem, so the flow behaves differently in the equatorial plane than in any meridional plane and the dipolar flow pattern is no longer visible. In the meridional slice the strong, high kinetic energy flows are concentrated close to the axis, with convection being strongly suppressed in the equatorial regions further away from the axis. We also see evidence of Taylor columns, elongated, columnar flow structures parallel to the rotation axis.

## 4. Oxygen Shell Convection

Of the advanced stages of stellar evolution the oxygen shell burning phase is of particular importance. For one, convection during this brief time before core collapse might produce an asymmetry, leading to non-uniform mixing and perhaps even an asymmetric supernova explosion. Several two-dimensional studies of this problem have been conducted (Arnett 1994; Bazan & Arnett 1998; Asida & Arnett 2000), and several of these simulations found close to sonic flow, large density and pressure contrasts, and hence significant acoustic fluxes.

As an alternative to these simulations, we present results of our anelastic model of a similar problem - oxygen shell convection in a $`25M_{}`$ star, shortly after core oxygen depletion. As shown below, we have found a solution within the anelastic approximation, with small density and pressure contrasts, and subsonic flows.

### 4.1. Parameters

During the modeled phase the rate of nuclear energy generation exceeds the rate of neutrino losses by about a factor two. The net energy generation rate is positive, $`_{\text{base}}^{\text{top}}4\pi r^2\rho (r)(\overline{ϵ}_{\text{nuc}}(r)+\overline{ϵ}_\nu (r))=1.5\times 10^{45}\text{erg/s}`$. KEPLER indicates that this energy is going into $`PdV`$ work and into change of the gravitational potential. In the models presented here we have chosen to allow this excess energy to escape off the top, as we are currently unable to model expansion.

### 4.2. Results

#### The Non-rotating Case

The non-rotating model was run for an equivalent star time of $`6500`$ seconds. Given an average speed of about $`50`$ km/s we determine the convective turnover time to be about $`70`$ seconds, which implies that we followed convection for about $`90`$ turnovers. Figure 5 shows that the convective speed remains around two orders of magnitude below the sound speed throughout the entire modeled region. All thermodynamic contrasts are below the $`1\%`$ level, as shown in Table 5. It is important to note that nothing in the model forces the resulting convective velocities to be subsonic and nothing prevents the thermodynamic perturbations from rising to a level comparable to the background. The fact that this solution remained subsonic and with small thermodynamic contrasts implies to us that the anelastic approximation is a valid one for the problem of the convective oxygen shell.

The entropy perturbations in the equatorial plane (see Figure 6) indicate a flow pattern dominated by four large cells. High entropy fluid is rising towards $`90^{}`$ and $`270^{}`$, and low entropy fluid is falling along the $`0^{}`$ and $`180^{}`$ directions. We have not yet determined how much of this simple structure is dependent on Rayleigh and Reynolds numbers. It is possible that higher resolution simulations, with higher Rayleigh and Reynolds numbers, will destroy this pattern.

#### The Rotating Case

The rotating case was run for $`3300`$ seconds, which corresponds to about 50 convective turnovers. Again the convective speed is very subsonic and the thermodynamic contrasts are still below $`1\%`$, albeit somewhat higher than in the non-rotating case.

Although the reference state is rotating with a fixed angular speed ($`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}=0.08`$ rad/s) the flow is free to arrange itself into any form of differential rotation. The result can be seen in Figure 5. Our rotating model shows a lot of differential rotation, with the outer regions of the equatorial plane rotating nearly twice as fast as the inner ones. Just like in the hydrogen core convection model we see Taylor-column-like structures parallel to the rotation axis in the meridional planes.

## 5. Conclusions

Anelastic hydrodynamics appears to be a useful tool for studying convection in the interiors of massive stars in three dimensions. As long as the problem at hand satisfies the anelastic conditions of subsonic flow speeds and small thermodynamic perturbations, a lot of progress can be made with an anelastic code in a shorter amount of time and with less computational resources than with a fully compressible code.

In this paper we have presented results of our efforts to model convection in the core of $`15M_{}`$ main sequence star as well as in the oxygen burning shell of a $`25M_{}`$ star at a much more advanced stage of stellar evolution. The resulting convective speeds are in agreement with results from KEPLER using mixing length theory. The resulting three dimensional flow pattern are not always uniform, and can show strong asymmetries, such as the dipolar flow in the hydrogen core convection model. We have found a significant difference in the flow pattern of our rotating models compared to the non-rotating ones. The presence of rotation breaks the spherical symmetry and allows more vigorous convection along the axis of rotation. The rotating oxygen shell model showed a significant degree of differential rotation.

This work was supported by the Scientific Discovery though Advanced Computing (SciDAC) Program of the DOE (DE-FC02-01ER41176).

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text:
# Particle Accelerators in the Hot Spots of the Radio Galaxy 3C 445, Imaged With the VLT

Hot spots (HSs) are regions of enhanced radio emission produced by supersonic jets at the tip of the radio lobes of powerful radio sources. Obtained with the Very Large Telescope (VLT), images of the HSs in the radio galaxy 3C 445 show bright knots embedded in diffuse optical emission distributed along the post shock region created by the impact of the jet into the intergalactic medium.

The observations reported here confirm that relativistic electrons are accelerated by Fermi-I acceleration processes in HSs. Furthermore, both the diffuse emission tracing the rims of the front shock and the multiple knots demonstrate the presence of additional continuous re-acceleration processes of electrons (Fermi-II).

HSs are common features in powerful extragalactic lobe-dominated radio sources (Fanaroff-Riley class II). Their radio spectra are interpreted in terms of synchrotron radiation. Detection of optical radiation from HSs is difficult due to the natural decay of the synchrotron spectrum toward higher frequencies. Yet, the optical detection of HSs has a number of fundamental implications in our understanding of the physics of particle acceleration in these regions. Relativistic electrons rapidly lose their energy-emitting synchrotron radiation and the radiative lifetime of the electrons responsible for the emission in the optical band is $`300`$ times shorter – between a few hundred to a few thousand years, depending on the magnetic field strength – than that of the less energetic electrons emitting in radio wavelengths. As a consequence, optical detection of HSs implies either an extremely efficient transport of the ultra-relativistic particles from the core to the HS (1), or the in-situ production of such energetic particles with Lorentz factors $`\gamma >10^5`$ to $`10^6`$ , where the Lorentz factor $`\gamma `$ is defined as $`\gamma =(1(\frac{v}{c})^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ (2). Although the search for optical emission from radio HSs has a long history (3 - 5), few HSs have been detected as synchrotron emitters at optical frequencies (6). Indeed, at high frequencies most well studied HSs show an abrupt steepening of the spectrum below the straight power law extrapolated from the low frequencies, which is interpreted as a result of a high energy cut-off in the spectrum of the synchrotron emitting electrons. Thus far, there are only two known HSs in which the radio power law spectrum can be extrapolated up to the optical or ultraviolet regime (3C 303, 7) or even to the X-ray regime (3C 390.3, 8), indicating the continuation of the synchrotron emission to higher energies. In the case of optical detection, the short radiative lifetime of the emitting electrons as well as their diffusion length scale of much less than 1 kpc make high-resolution optical imaging (so far obtained only with Hubble Space Telescope) 9 an unequaled tool with which to sample those regions where high energy electrons are injected and/or re-accelerated.

Here, we report on the imaging of the local accelerator regions in the southern HS of the radio galaxy 3C 445. 3C 445 is a classical double-lobe radio source at redshift z=0.0562. At the tips of each lobe are the southern HS, placed at $`450`$ kpc ($`\mathrm{H}_0=50\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, $`\mathrm{q}_0=0.5`$), and the northern HS at a projected distance of $`460`$ kpc from the core (10). Both HSs were observed with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory and the Infrared Spectrometer and Array Camera, at the bands Ks (2.2 $`\mu `$m), H (1.7 $`\mu `$m) and Js (1.2 $`\mu `$m), and the Focal Reducer/low dispersion Spectrograph, at the I-band (0.9 $`\mu `$m). Each final image is the result of stacking between 10 (I-band) and 30 to 40 (Js-, H- and Ks-band) slightly shifted frames. Sky background removal was done by a median filter of several adjacent frames. The integration time ranged from 35 to 60 min depending on the band. The final image quality has an equivalent full width at half maximum of 0$`.^{\prime \prime }`$6 in Ks, 0$`.^{\prime \prime }`$5 in H, 0$`.^{\prime \prime }`$45 in Js, and 0$`.^{\prime \prime }`$55 in I. The counterpart of the radio emission from each HS was detected in all bands. The emission is extended in both cases and in all filters, but only the emission in the southern HS could be resolved in several compact regions. Thus, we focus our analysis and discussion on the southern HS.

The emission from the southern HS of 3C 445 is resolved in at least three compact regions (Fig. 1). These regions are further enclosed by diffuse emission detected at about the 5$`\sigma `$ level in all bands; the diffuse emission is more evident in the lower-frequency images. The overall optical emission has an arc-like shape and size as in the radio image, presenting the typical structure of a post-shock region usually seen at radio waves (10). We checked whether the electrons responsible for the synchrotron emission could have been transported by the jet from the core of the galaxy to the HS. The maximum distance electrons can travel away from the galaxy nucleus depends on both their synchrotron and inverse Compton (IC) radiative lifetimes ($`1/\gamma `$) as well as on the velocity of the jet. The Lorentz factor of the electrons emitting synchrotron radiation in the I-band is $`\gamma 3\times 10^6B^{1/2}`$, where $`B`$ is the magnetic field strength in the HS region in nT. A first estimate of $`B`$ can be derived assuming the usual equipartition conditions (11): From the observed synchrotron luminosity (Fig. 2) and the radio HS size (4$`.^{\prime \prime }`$8$`\times 2^{\prime \prime }`$), $`B2.8`$ nT and the corresponding Lorentz factor is thus $`\gamma 2\times 10^6`$. The maximum distance (projected on the plane of the sky) the optical electrons in 3C 445 South could have reached away from the nucleus of the galaxy is less than 100 kpc, independent of the jet velocity and assuming that the electrons suffer only IC losses due to the interaction with the microwave photons (i.e. the intrinsic magnetic field is neglected, 12) Yet, HS 3C 445 South is 450 kpc from the core and, thus, the optical electrons witnessed must be produced in place.

An effective mechanism to accelerate relativistic electrons in the HSs of radio galaxies to the required energies, $`\gamma 10^5`$ to $`10^6`$, to emit optical light, is strong shocks. Strong shocks are expected to be produced by the impact of the jet into the intergalactic medium (6,13). From an observational point of view, the bow-shock shape seen in the images of the southern HS in 3C 445, at the tip of the radio lobe supports the shock-wave scenario. The integrated magnitudes in the Ks\- ($`18.^\mathrm{m}5\pm 0.^\mathrm{m}09`$), H-($`19.^\mathrm{m}5\pm 0.^\mathrm{m}2`$), Js\- ($`20.^\mathrm{m}3\pm 0.^\mathrm{m}1`$) and I-bands ($`21.^\mathrm{m}3\pm 0.^\mathrm{m}1`$) of the HS, together with the integrated emission at 8.4 GHz ($`90\mathrm{m}\mathrm{J}\mathrm{y}\pm 9`$ mJy), were fit to theoretical synchrotron spectra produced by a population of accelerated electrons \[after (14)\]. Assuming a power-law electron distribution with typical injection spectral indices $`\delta =2.0`$ to 2.2, the models can successfully reproduce the data with a best fit cut-off frequency ($`\nu _c`$, the synchrotron frequency emitted by the electrons accelerated at the maximum energy), $`\nu _c12\times 10^{15}`$ Hz (Fig. 2). For those parameters, the break of the synchrotron spectrum ($`\nu _b`$, the synchrotron frequency emitted by electrons of Lorentz factor $`\gamma _b`$ beyond that radiative losses cause a steepening of the electron spectrum) occurs at $`\nu _c/\nu _b300\pm 100`$ for $`\delta =2.2`$, and at $`\nu _c/\nu _b1000\pm 300`$ for $`\delta =2.0`$ (errors at 90% confidence level). Because there are no radio observations with sufficiently high resolution, attempts to determine individual synchrotron spectra for the brightest compact regions in the HS are currently inconclusive; however $`\nu _\mathrm{c}>3\times 10^{14}`$ Hz is obtained for the three main knots in the HS.

Numerical simulations of HSs (15 - 18) show that a high pressure cap is formed at the tip of the jet, from where the pressured plasma escapes backward into a larger, diffuse region, or cocoon, that forms around the jet. The VLT observations show a ‘primary’ knot, identified as the tip of the jet characterized by its enhanced brightness; two ‘secondary’ fainter knots, on each side of the primary; and diffuse emission with a bow-shock shape that we associate with the emission from the plasma which escapes from the shock region into the cocoon. However, the detection of emission up to 3 to 5 kpc away from the primary knot, is surprising because, assuming an equipartition magnetic field in the HSn the optical emitting electrons have a radiative lifetime of $`2\times 10^4`$ yr and thus a typical travel length $`1`$ kpc. Consequently, unless an improbably low intrinsic magnetic field $`B<0.5`$nT is assumed, optical and infrared emission on scales larger than 1 kpc provides direct evidence for additional in-situ re-acceleration in the HS region with an acceleration time scale of the order of $`10^4`$ yr. Similar evidence has recently been observed in extragalactic optical jets (e.g., 3C 273, 19).

In addition, the appearance of multiple knots may indicate the presence of incipient Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities that produce variations in the plasma density and path length, leading to multiple emitting components such as those expected by simulated synchrotron images of HSs (18,20). The development of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities in the cocoon may power magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence that can account for the required additional re-acceleration of the relativistic electrons downstream. Assuming Alfvénic turbulence in the cocoon, the MHD Fermi-II-like acceleration time (21) and ref. therein\] is :

$$\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}^{II}(\mathrm{sec})\frac{lc}{v_\mathrm{A}^2}\left(\frac{\delta B}{B}\right)^2$$
(1)
where $`l`$ is the typical distance between the peaks of turbulence responsible for Fermi-II acceleration, $`v_\mathrm{A}`$ is the Alfvén velocity, and c is the speed of light. In following with Eq. 1, the acceleration efficiency $`(1/\tau )`$, is proportional to the energy density in turbulence waves with scales $`<l`$, defined as $`(\delta B)^2/8\pi `$. The scale $`l`$ should be between the minimum scale ($`2\pi v_\mathrm{i}/\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{i}`$, $`v_\mathrm{i}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{i}`$ being the sound velocity and the cyclotron frequency of the ions, respectively) and the maximum scale of the turbulence in the plasma. Two regimes of plasma temperatures are considered. For $`T<10^7`$ K, the largest possible scale of the undamped Alfvénic turbulence is $`l_{\mathrm{max}}=2\pi /k_{\mathrm{min}}`$, where $`k_{\mathrm{min}}(ϵ/\nu _\mathrm{D}^3)^{1/4}`$ m-1 \[(22) and references therein\]. The dissipation coefficient $`\nu _\mathrm{D}`$ relevant for the damping of the turbulence waves is $`\nu _\mathrm{D}3.8\times 10^{10}T^{5/2}/n_\mathrm{p}`$, whereas $`ϵ`$ (J kg-1 s-1) is the energy source of the fluctuations that balances the dissipation. For proton thermal densities $`n_\mathrm{p}10^2`$ m-3 assuming $`ϵ0.1`$ J kg-1 s-1 typical of HSs (22), the maximum scale of the turbulence is found $`l_{\mathrm{max}}20(T/5\times 10^5)^{15/8}`$ pc. Substituting this value in Eq. 1, with $`\delta B/B1`$ and $`v_\mathrm{A}5\times 10^6`$ m s-1, the Fermi-II-like acceleration time is

$$\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}^{II}2\times 10^5(l/l_{\mathrm{max}})(T/5\times 10^5)^{15/8}\mathrm{yr}.$$
(2)
As a consequence, waves with turbulence scales of $`0.1\times l_{\mathrm{max}}`$ (which account for the bulk of the energy) can easily power Fermi-II processes. For $`T>10^7`$ K, which is typical of the intracluster medium, damping processes are less efficient and the largest turbulence scale is limited by the injection scale: here, of the order of the transverse dimension of the downstream region, i.e., $`l_{\mathrm{max}}1`$ kpc. Assuming $`\delta B_{k}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}k^s`$ ($`\delta B_{k}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}/8\pi `$ is the differential energy density in waves between k and k+dk and $`s=5/3`$ in the Kolmogorov case, $`s=3/2`$ in the Kraichnan case) and $`\delta B^2=𝑑k\delta B_{k}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}B^2`$, we find that in the Kraichnan case, $`\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}^{II}36\times 10^4`$ yr for $`l0.10.2`$ pc. Waves with that turbulence scale contain enough energy density to accelerate the optical emitting electrons. However, in the Kolmogorov case MHD Fermi-II-like acceleration is less efficient and very strong turbulence, $`\delta B/B25`$, is required.

To test whether additional Fermi-II-like acceleration in the downstream region can account for the observed properties of the observed HS, a calculation in three phases was considered. This calculation attempts to mimic the behavior of the plasma in the HSs as seen in MHD simulations. First, the relativistic electrons diffuse, expanding from the high pressure region (central primary knot), being also subject to synchrotron and IC losses. Second, an approximate pressure balance is reached and electrons suffer only synchrotron and IC losses. Finally, the plasma is recompressed in the regions of the two secondary knots, possibly due to the development of non-linear plasma instabilities. During the three phases, relatively efficient ($`\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}^{II}25\times 10^4`$ yr) second-order Fermi re-acceleration mechanisms are assumed. We calculated the evolution of the electron energy considering a magnetic field frozen into the plasma (homogeneous) and obtained the synchrotron cut-off frequency, $`\nu _\mathrm{c}`$, as a function of the distance from the primary knot for different model parameters (Fig. 3). Assuming a canonical transport velocity from the primary knot in the range 0.03 to 0.1 c, we found that the combined effect of adiabatic expansion (during the first phase) and second-order Fermi processes can maintain $`\nu _\mathrm{c}`$ high enough to have optical and infrared emission from secondary knots located at $``$ 3 kpc distance from the primary knot and still have detectable residual extended optical and infrared emission in between the knots. More specifically, we find that this scenario works only if we assume relatively strong expansion factors during the first phase ($`f>2`$, $`f`$ is defined as the ratio between the size of the plasma region after and before the compression or expansion), to alleviate the strong synchrotron losses in the region of the primary knot, and if we assume a relatively low initial magnetic field strength $`B15`$nT (at least for a conservative $`f>0.25`$ during the third phase). We also found that such a limit yields a magnetic field strength averaged over the total HS region $`B<4nT`$, which is consistent with the field strength estimated from equipartition. The above limit on the magnetic field strength and the derived $`\nu _\mathrm{c}`$ from the synchrotron spectrum allow constraining the efficiency of the acceleration in the primary knot, where the relativistic electrons are accelerated directly by the shock (Fermi-I). The acceleration efficiency here is higher: $`\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}^I10^3\left(B/15\right)^{3/2}`$year, as expected.

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* The positional coincidence between optical, infrared and radio data has been very carefully checked using the galaxy core position (for the radio maps) and the position of nearby stars taken from the USNO-A2.0 catalogue (for the optical maps, accuracy: 0$`.^{\prime \prime }`$25).
* KHM was supported by a Marie-Curie-Fellowship of the European Commission. GB aknowledges partial finantial support from the Italian MIUR (Ministero dell’Istruzione dell’Università e della Ricerca) under grant Cofin01-02-8773. We would like to thank the staff at the VLT Paranal Observatory for their professional service. We are grateful to M. Bondi, I.M. Gioia, M.J.M. Marchã, K. Meisenheimer, M.-A. Pérez-Torres, G. Setti and S.R. Spangler for their valuable comments on the manuscript.