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# Height inequalities and canonical class inequalities

## 1

This lecture is concerned with apriori bounds on the size of solutions to Diophantine equations. We will present a rather random collection of results with the intention to provide a flavor of the subject, with only a glimpse of something like a unifying principle. In the next lecture, we will make a better attempt to give coherence to our exposition, by describing the relation to canonical class inequalities from the theory of algebraic surface. The beginning of the lecture is intended to be entirely popular, while the technical language will grow denser towards the end.

It might be best to begin with an example from ordinary number theory which is likely to be more familiar than the arithmetic of function-fields, although it is with the latter that we will be most concerned, and for which there are definite results of a general nature. Consider the equation

$$x^3+y^3=1729$$

to which we seek solutions in integral coordinates. Ramanujan observed the existence of the solutions (9,10) and (1,12), and noted that these were the only ones. How might one go about proving this assertion? Here is one method: The left hand side of the equation factors into

$$(x+y)(x^2xy+y^2)$$

so one notes that for any solution $`(x,y)`$, the quantity $`x^2xy+y^2`$ must divide 1729. In particular, $`|x^2xy+y^2|1729`$. But $`x^2xy+y^2=(xy/2)^2+3y^2/4`$ so we get

$$3y^2/41729|y|2\sqrt{1729/3}48$$

and by symmetry, we have the same bound for $`|x|`$. Thus, we arrive at a brute force algorithm for finding all the solutions, namely, by enumerating all the possibilities up to the given bound, and observing that the pair above are the only ones. In general, this method shows that the integer solutions to

$$x^3+y^3=m$$

satisfy the bounds $`|x|,|y|2\sqrt{|m|/3}`$. This bound can be used to verify another of Ramanujan’s claim from the same anecdote, that 1729 is the smallest natural number which can be written as a sum of cubes in two different ways.

Finding solutions to Diophantine equations such as the above, or such as $`x^n+y^n=z^n`$ is almost always a non-trivial problem, and simple resolutions are an extreme rarity. Also, if one is looking for rational solutions in addition to integral ones, the difficulties multiply, as may be seen even in the example above: $`(20760/1727,3457/1727)`$ is also a rational solution, and in fact, the equation has infinitely many rational solutions. At present one can safely say that the general problem of finding all rational solutions to a two-variable Diophantine equation has a satisfactory systematic resolution only for equations of genus zero and some families of genus-one equations, in addition to scattered examples (e.g., Fermat’s equation, some families of modular curves, certain hyperelliptic equations). On the other hand, for equations of genus at least two, Faltings’ theorem assures us of the finiteness of solutions, so it makes sense to ask the question: Given an (irreducible) equation $`f(x,y)=0`$ with rational coefficients and genus at least 2, can one find an apriori bound for the size of its rational solutions? Here size of a solution $`(x,y)`$ may be defined as follows: Write $`(x,y)=(p/r,q/r)`$ with $`(p,q,r)=1`$. Then the size or height of $`(x,y)`$ is defined to be sup$`(|p|,|q|,|r|)`$. Thus, giving a bound for the height ensures that the brute force search is a finite algorithm.

This question is known as the effective Mordell conjecture. While it is increasingly clear that this conjecture sits inside a coherent network of arithmetic-geometric investigations (Vojta’s conjectures, ABC conjectures, Lang’s conjectures, etc.), it is also fair to say that the problem is very difficult, and there are no positive results at present. A goal of these two lectures will be to convince the audience, by bringing out the underlying structure of the conjecture, that it is nevertheless reasonable to believe in its validity.

For this, we are motivated to study the same question in the context of Diophantine equations over function fields, which have traditionally been a source of inspiration and techniques that often end up influencing in a decisive way the corresponding problem over number fields. Furthermore, the function field set-up has given rise to many questions of algebraic geometry interesting in their own right, independent of their provenance in number theory.

So we move on to some examples in that direction. Let $`f(x,y,t)`$ be polynomial in $`𝐂[x,y,t]`$ and suppose we are interested in finding all rational function solutions to the equation

$$f(x,y,t)=0$$

where by solution, we mean pairs $`x(t),y(t)𝐂(t)`$ such that $`f(x(t),y(t),t)=0`$ as a function of $`t`$. For example, the equation

$$y^3=x^46tx^3+11t^2x^26t^3x$$

has the solution $`(t,0)`$ and the equation

$$(t^4+t)y^3=(t^3+1)x^4+tx^3t^4$$

has the solution $`(t,t)`$. The well-known analogy here is between the field $`𝐐`$ of rational numbers and the field $`𝐂(t)`$ of rational functions over the complex numbers. There have been many results that give apriori bounds for the degrees of solutions, of which we start by mentioning one, in simplified form. Let $`f(x,y,t)`$ be an irreducible polynomial and let $`X`$ be the closure in $`𝐏^2\times 𝐏^1`$ of the zero set $`f(x,y,t)=0`$ in $`𝐂^3=𝐂^2\times 𝐂^1`$. Thus, $`X`$is equipped with a map $`\pi `$ to $`𝐏^1`$ and can be viewed as a projective surface fibered over $`𝐏^1`$, or a projective family of curves parametrized by $`𝐏^1`$, where for each $`t𝐏^1`$, $`X_t`$ is the closure of $`f(x,y,t)=0`$in $`𝐏^2`$. We assume that $`X`$ is a non-singular surface, and that the general fiber of $`\pi :X𝐏^1`$, that is, (the projective plane curve corresponding to) $`f(x,y,t)=0`$ for a general value of $`t`$, is connected and smooth. Further assume that the $`(x,y)`$-degree $`d`$ of $`f`$ is at least 4 and let $`e`$ be the $`t`$-degree of the polynomial $`f`$. We define a two invariants $`s,k`$ by looking at each curve $`f(x,y,t)=0`$ for fixed $`t`$ separately, and noting that only finitely many are singular, while the rest are smooth of genus $`g=(d1)(d2)/2`$. Denote the number of singular fibers by $`s`$. The singular fibers may contain some components that are rational curves, and these can be found readily. Denote by $`k`$ the total number of rational components obtained thus.

All the quantities just defined can be easily computed if $`f`$ is given. We will measure the size of rational solutions as follows: If $`(x(t),y(t))`$ is a pair of rational functions, then write $`x=p(t)/r(t),y=q(t)/r(t)`$ where $`(p,q,r)=1`$, and define $`h(x,y)=\text{supdeg}(p,q,r)`$. Among many results on apriori bounds, we mention one, which is in many senses the sharpest :

###### Theorem 1

(S.-L. Tan) With the assumptions above, one has the following bound for the height of solutions in $`𝐂(t)`$ to the equation $`f(x,y,t)=0`$:

$$h(x,y)\frac{(d^23d+1)(s1)+k}{d3}$$

This allows us in principle to find all solutions to the equation by putting $`N`$ to be the right-hand side of the inequality and doing a subtitution

$$(x,y)=(\frac{p_0+p_1t+\mathrm{}+p_Nt^N}{r_0+r_1t+\mathrm{}+r_Nt^N},\frac{q_o+q_1t+\mathrm{}+q_Nt^N}{r_0+r_1t+\mathrm{}+r_Nt^N},$$

to find all solutions via Groebner basis techniques.

Where does this kind of inequality come from and why does one get so much stronger results than the number field case? One answer might be that the algebraic geometry of surfaces gives us powerful tools for dealing with problems of this kind. More specifically, the main technical advantage over the arithmetic version of the problem is the use of differential forms on curves and surfaces. To explain this, let us recall the set-up for translating the Diophantine problem into algebraic geometry.

Given a polynomial $`f`$ as above, we can view it as defining a curve $`X_\eta `$ of genus at least two over $`\eta =\text{Spec}(𝐂(t))`$ which, in turn, is the generic point of $`B=𝐏^1`$. Thus, we can thicken the curve into a family

$$\begin{array}{ccc}X_\eta & & X\\ & & f\\ \eta & & B\end{array}$$

that is, an algebraic surface fibered over $`B`$. There is actually a canonical way of constructing this fibration, which is called the regular, relatively minimal model. Solutions of the original equations can then be interpreted as diagrams

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & X\\ & \stackrel{P}{}& \\ B& \stackrel{Id}{}& B\end{array}$$

or sections of the fibration, in the terminology of algebraic geometry. We will also be more generally interested in the multi-sections of the fibration, that is, diagrams

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & X\\ & \stackrel{P}{}& \\ T& & B\end{array}$$

where $`TB`$ is a finite covering, corresponding to solutions of the original equation with coefficients in some finite extension of the function field of $`B`$, i.e., an algebraic solution. Then given a projective embedding $`X𝐏^n`$, one can view $`P`$ as being a map $`P:T𝐏^n`$ and use the geometry of $`X`$ to give bounds on the degree of this map. Typically, the results are phrased in terms of bounds for

$$h(P):=\frac{1}{[T:B]}\text{deg}(P^{}\omega _{X/B}),$$

where $`\omega _X:=K_Xf^{}K_B^1`$ is the relative dualizing sheaf. Being intrinsic to the surface, it is easier to work with, and it is near enough to being ample to actually give height bounds.

For example, in the case of a surface in $`𝐏^2\times 𝐏^1`$ of bidegree $`(d,e)`$ fibered over $`𝐏^1`$, we get $`\omega =𝒪(d3,e)`$ Also, when considering algebraic points, an important invariant is the relative discriminant $`d(P):=(2g_T2)/[T:B]`$, which measures the ramification in the map $`TB`$.

Then the height inequalities mentioned above follows from a geometric result,

###### Theorem 2

(S.-L. Tan) Let $`X`$ be a projective smooth surface, $`B`$ a projective smooth curve. Let $`f:XB`$ such that the generic fiber is smooth and connected of genus at least two and the fibration is relatively minimal. Then for every section $`P`$, we have

$$h(P)(2g1)(d(P)+3s)\omega ^2.$$

where $`s`$ refers to the number of singular fibers in the fibration $`X/B`$.

This result is an immediate consequence of a logarithmic version of the Miyaoka-Yau inequality for algebraic surfaces of general type, due to Sakai and Miyaoka , . As such, it uses the differentials $`\mathrm{\Omega }_X`$ (in fact, even the log differentials) on the surface $`X`$. Once one has degree bounds of this sort, one knows that the possible rational points run through a finite algebraic family of divisor. On the other hand, if the fibration is not ‘isotrivial’, that is, is not birational to a product of curves even after a finite base extension, any rational point $`P`$ in the above sense satisfies an intersection-theoretic inequality $`<P.P><0`$. Thus, each $`P`$ is rigid, so that the boundedness of the family actually implies finiteness. So inequalities of the above form are always much stronger statements than general finiteness results, that is, Manin’s theorem.

A class of results that uses the differentiation on the base $`B`$, which is often cited as being the distinguishing characteristic of function fields, involves the Kodaira-Spencer map of the fibration which measures the variation of the family.

There are many different kinds of K-S maps that one can associate with a family of curves, but the one that seems to have the most relation to the Diophantine properties seems to be the K-S map measuring the variation of the Jacobians (that is, the period integrals). We recall the definitions. If we have a fibration $`X/B`$ as above, choose an open set $`UB`$ such that $`f:X_UU`$ is smooth. We get an exact sequence

$$0f^{}\mathrm{\Omega }_U\mathrm{\Omega }_X\mathrm{\Omega }_{X/U}0$$

from which we get a map

$$f_{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_{X/U})R^1f_{}(𝒪_X)\mathrm{\Omega }_U$$

as the boundary map for the higher direct images. Passing to the limit over open sets $`U`$, we get

$$\text{K-S}:H^0(\mathrm{\Omega }_{X_\eta })H^1(𝒪_{X_\eta })\mathrm{\Omega }_\eta $$

This map is actually the cotangent map of the map to the moduli stack of principally polarized abelian varieties given by Jacobian of the curve $`X_\eta /\eta `$. It is a fact that the generic curve over a function field $`\eta `$ will have a K-S map of full rank, that is, will be maximally varying. The Kodaira-Spencer map already occurs in the original proof that Manin  gave of the geometric Mordell conjecture. This is because the K-S map is a ‘component’ of the Gauss-Manin connection. For example, the assumption that K-S map is of full rank is equivalent to the assumption that the Gauss-Manin connection is generated by the global relative differentials.

We state a few more height inequalities in this vein.

###### Theorem 3

(Moriwaki  complemented by ) Let $`X`$ and $`B`$ be as above and suppose the K-S map of $`X/B`$ has full rank. Then for any algebraic point $`P`$, we have

$$h(P)4d(P)+4c_2(X)c_1(X)^24(g_B1).$$

This inequality is striking in that the dependence on the discriminant $`d(P)`$ is very weak. Serge Lang  has posed the question of finding the best possible constants for which one can prove inequalities of the form

$$h(P)Ad(P)+B$$

for algebraic points $`P`$, where $`A`$ and $`B`$ should depend on the surface $`X`$. The results above are all motivated by this question, which is related to the algebraic geometric investigation of the geography of surfaces. In the theorem above, we see that one can take $`A`$ independent of the surface $`X`$ for a generic family.

Another result that should also be mentioned in this regard is the

###### Theorem 4

(Vojta) With $`X`$ and $`B`$ as above, we have

$$h(P)(2+ϵ)d(P)+O(1)$$

where O(1) depends on $`X`$ and $`ϵ>0`$, but not $`P`$.

This results is a function-field version of Vojta’s conjecture on algebraic points. This result can be extended to characteristic $`p`$ under the assumption again that the K-S map is of full rank (), which is a stronger assumption in positive characteristic than in characteristic zero (because of the possibility of inseparability). In relation to Lang’s question, one has made the $`A`$ term (dependence on $`d(P)`$) very small at the expense of making $`B`$ inexplicit.

Diophantine equations over function-fields of characteristic p are different again from the case of complex function fields. One advantage over complex function-fields, as far as the closeness to number fields goes, is the fact that one can have finite residue-fields. On the other hand, because of the presence of inseparable maps, many difficulties have a flavor entirely unique to this domain. Here is one general result:

###### Theorem 5

() Suppose $`X/B`$ is not isotrivial. Then

$$h(P)p^e(2g2)d(p)+O(\sqrt{h(p)})$$

where $`p^e`$ is the degree of inseparability of the classifying map, that is the map $`B_g`$, for the family $`X/B`$.

The proof of this result also goes through the K-S map. Voloch has shown how a new proof of the Riemann hypothesis for curves over finite fields follows from this inequality. That is, the square root of the height inside the big-Oh is the same one that occurs in estimates for numbers of points on curves. So there are interesting arithmetical connections which have not at all been investigated in detail.

Because of the Frobenius maps, the assumption of non-isotriviality is important in characteristic p. That is, for example, if $`X=B\times B`$, and $`B`$ is defined over a finite field, then some power of the Frobenius map will give a morphism $`F^n:BB`$, so morphisms $`F^{kn}:BB`$ for each $`k>0`$. Thus we get infinitely many rational points of $`X=B\times BB`$. There are various more complicated ‘twisted’ situations where similar phenomena can arise. Purely inseparable maps are pervasive objects in characteristic p geometry, which must always be dealt which separately. For example, consider the following amusing problem: Given a fibration $`XB`$, how many diagrams of the following sort can one have?

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & X\\ & \stackrel{P}{}& \\ B& \stackrel{F^n}{}& B\end{array}$$

An elementary way of stating the question is to consider a polynomial $`f(X,Y)`$ with coefficients in a characteristic $`p`$ function field $`K`$, and to start ‘twisting’ the equation with the Frobenius map of $`K`$, that, raising the coefficients of $`f`$ to the $`p`$-th power. Denote by $`f^{(n)}`$ the polynomial twisted $`n`$ times. Notice that if $`(X,Y)`$ is a solution of $`f(X,Y)=0`$, then $`(X^p,Y^p)`$ is a solution of $`f^{(1)}=0`$. That is, old solutions can be twisted to give solutions of the twisted equation. The question being posed, then, is whether or not we can keep getting new solutions as we twist $`f`$. These can be view as solutions to $`f`$ in the purely inseparable tower $`K^{1/p^{\mathrm{}}}`$. There is a sense in which ‘purely-inseparable points’ of this sort should not be that different from rational points since the map $`F^n:BB`$ is just a homeomorphism. This sentiment is captured by the following result, which is more natural to express directly in terms of a curve over a function field rather than a surface fibered over a curve:

###### Theorem 6

( ) Suppose $`K`$ is a function field of chracteristic $`p>0`$, and suppose $`C/K`$ is a smooth curve of genus at least 2. Finally, suppose $`C`$ is not isotrivial, that is, $`C`$ does not become isomorphic to a curve defined over a finite field after some finite base-extension. Then $`C(K^{1/p^{\mathrm{}}})`$ is finite, where $`K^{1/p^{\mathrm{}}}`$ is the tower of all purely inseparable field extensions of $`K`$. In fact, if we assume that the curve has semi-stable reduction over the smooth model $`B`$ of $`K`$, then the purely-inseparable points satisfy a height inequality

$$h(P)(2g_B2+s)$$

where $`s`$ is the number of singular fibers in the semi-stable reduction.

All the results mentioned use differential forms in one or more serious ways, posing for arithmeticians the problem of finding a number field substitute for differentiation. This problem has occupied the efforts many number-theorists for the last few decades.

## 2

The point of view we will emphasize here for understanding the height inequalities mentioned in the previous lecture is that they are all instances of canonical class inequalities. That is, if one didn’t know of it beforehand, one would expect such height inequalities to exist, simply because of the pervasiveness of canonical class inequalities in algebraic geometry.

To elaborate a bit, a class of geometric objects will typically come with a set of numerical invariants which are often related by various natural formulas. As an example, one may consider Noether’s formula for algebraic surfaces. In contrast to such equalities, one also has general inequalities between numerical invariants which are of aid in classification theory, and which are often more elusive than the equalities.

For example, for a surface of general type $`X`$ over a field of characteristic zero, we have ,

$$c_1(X)^23c_2(X),$$

known as the Miyaoka-Yau inequality, which arose from a long sequence of results due to Van-de-Ven, Bogomolov, Miyaoka and Yau .

That is, one attempts to classify surfaces of general type according to the pair of numerical invariants $`(c_1^2,c_2)`$. Those surfaces with a given pair of invariants form a moduli space in a natural way (Gieseker). However, it is still an ongoing project in classification theory to determine which of these schemes are non-empty, that is, which pairs of integers $`(n,m)`$ actually occur as $`(c_1^2,c_2)`$. This problem is often referred to as one of determining the ‘geography’ of the surfaces of general type. If one plots the possible values in the plane, the M-Y inequality says that all the values lie above the line $`c_2=3c_1^2`$. For reference, we quote from the book of Barth-Peters-Van-de-Ven  some of the other facts known about the distribution of the $`(c_1^2,c_2)`$’s for surfaces of general type, i.e. some other canonical class inequalities:

-Clearly, $`c_1^2+c_20`$ (mod 12);

-$`c_1^2>0`$ and $`c_2>0`$;

-$`5c_1^2c_2+360`$ if $`c_1^2`$ is even;

$`5c_1^2c_2+300`$ if $`c_1^2`$ is odd; (Noether’s inequalities).

The point we wish to emphasize is that such equalities and inequalities between numerical invariants are pervasive in geometry.

Another class of canonical class inequalities is associated to the geometry of the moduli space $`\overline{}_g`$ of stable curves of genus $`g2`$. On $`\overline{}_g`$, there are several natural divisors classes. One is the class $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of the boundary, corresponding to the singular curves, and two more classes arise from the universal curve $`f:𝒞\overline{}_g`$. One is the first chern class of the Hodge bundle, $`\lambda =c_1(\pi _{}(\omega ))`$, where $`\omega `$ is the relative dualizing sheaf of the universal curve, and the other is the direct image $`k=\pi _{}(\omega .\omega )`$ of the self-intersection of $`\omega `$ which gives a divisor on $`\overline{}_g`$. It is well known that these divisors (and the universal curve) are only defined on the corresponding moduli stack, but there is also a well-known isomorphism of rational chow groups, which is where our classes lie. They are also $`𝐐`$Cartier divisors, and hence can be intersected with curves. From these classes one can construct numerical invariants for any family of stable curves parmetrized by a projective curve. That is, if $`f:XB`$ is such a family, then we get a map $`B\overline{}_g`$, and so numbers $`\delta _X,\lambda _X`$ and $`k_X`$, obtained by pulling back the $`𝐐`$Cartier divisors above and taking degree. These can be interpreted directly in terms of the family itself: $`k_X=<\omega _{X/B}^2>`$ and $`\lambda _X=\text{deg}f_{}\omega _{X/B}`$. $`\delta _X`$ is perhaps best explained by taking a minimal desingularization $`p:X^{}X`$ and taking the number of singularities in the fibers of $`X^{}B`$. Note that here, we are taking into account the fact that the original $`X`$ may have been singular as a surface, not just have singularities in the fibers. $`X^{}`$ is usually refered to as the regular semi-stable model of $`X`$. In any case, this way we arrive at natural invariants of a family $`X/B`$.

One general inequality due to Cornalba-Harris  and Xiao X is that for any stable family, we have:

$$(11/g)\delta (2+1/g)\omega ^2$$

That is, $`\omega ^2`$ is bounded below in term of the number of singularities. One the other hand, the invariants for $`X^{}`$ as a surface can be related to the invariants of the family $`X/B`$, where we assume that $`B`$ also has genus at least two, so that $`X^{}`$ will be of general type. The relation arises from the exact sequence

$$0f^{}\mathrm{\Omega }_B\mathrm{\Omega }_X^{}I_Z\omega _X^{}0$$

where $`I_Z`$ is the sheaf of ideals for the singular points of the fiber in $`X^{}/B`$. One also has $`p^{}\omega _X=\omega _X^{}`$ ( $`X^{}X`$ is a crepant resolution), so that $`\omega _X^2=\omega _X^{}^2`$. If we put these facts together, we find that $`c_1^2(X^{})=(\omega _X+K_B)^2`$ while $`c_2(X^{})=\omega _X.K_B+\delta `$, where we will abuse notation a bit by basically confusing $`X`$ and $`X^{}`$. So Noether’s formula, for example, reads

$$12\text{deg}f_{}(\omega )=\omega ^2+\delta ,$$

while Noether’s inequality translates into:

$$\delta 5\omega ^2+9(2g2)(2g_B2)+36$$

which is similar to the C-H-X inequality, but weaker. This version of Noether’s formula is also responsible for the fact that our three invariants are not independent, so that any other relation involving two of them, such as the preceding inequality, actually has obvious consequences for the remaining one. How does the M-Y inequality apply to families? Simple arithmetic yields

$$\omega ^2(2g2)(2g_B2)+3\delta ,$$

an upper bound for $`\omega ^2`$ in terms of delta. To summarize, canonical class inequalities in two different settings, that of surfaces of general type, and that of families of curves, are related in a natural way. We just described the relation in one direction, that is, from surfaces to curves, but it is not hard to work out implications that the C-H-X inequality, for example, has for Chern numbers of surfaces, by choosing a canonical model and a Lefshetz fibration.

One last result in this vein we mention is an improvement on the C-H-X inequality due to Eisenbud, Harris, and Mumford, which holds for generic families of stable curves:

$$\delta (1+o(1/g))\omega ^2.$$

What do these results have to do with height inequalities? And why was it stated above that height inequalities are natural things to expect? The point is that height inequalities for rational points are nothing but canonical class inequalities for families of pointed curves. That is, they relate the invariants arising from $`\overline{}_{g,1}`$, the moduli space of stable pointed curves. For a pointed stable curve

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & X\\ & \stackrel{P}{}& f\\ B& \stackrel{Id}{}& B\end{array}$$

the natural analogue of the sheaf $`\omega `$ is the sheaf $`\omega (P)`$. One can give many justification for this analogy, but the most important one is perhaps that $`f_{}(\omega ^2(P))`$ at the generic point is the cotangent space to $`\overline{}_{g,1}`$ at the point corresponding to the pointed curve: that is, $`\omega (P)`$ governs the variation of a pointed curve in the same way that $`\omega `$ governs the variation of a curve. Thus, one gets the new invariants, deg$`f_{}(\omega (P))`$, $`(\omega (P).\omega (P))`$, and others which need not concern us at the moment. Now

$$(\omega (P).\omega (P))=\omega ^2+2(\omega .P)+P^2=\omega ^2+(\omega .P)$$

since $`P^2=(\omega .P)`$ by the adjunction formula. So the height of the point $`P`$ is the most natural new invariant that arises out of the situation when considering pointed curves rather than curves.

On the non-fibered side of the story, the relevant theory is that of log surfaces, the category of pairs $`(X,D)`$, consisting of a surface $`X`$ and a divisor $`D`$ on $`X`$. A point of view which has become very current in higher-dimensional classification theory, and espoused by Kollar in his Santa Cruz lectures, is that this category of pairs is a more natural and fundamental framework for classification than that of varieties by themselves, especially in the study of singularities.

Miyaoka and Sakai  have also proved a version of the M-Y inequality for log-surfaces. The generalization that is relevant for our purposes is in the situation where $`(X,D)`$ is a pair such that $`X`$ is smooth and $`D`$ has normal crossings, and concerns the log differentials $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\text{log}D)`$. Suppose $`c_1(\mathrm{\Omega }(\text{log}D))=K_X+D`$ is nef. Then

$$c_1(\mathrm{\Omega }(\text{log}D))^23c_2(\mathrm{\Omega }(\text{log}D)).$$

We outline how this leads to S.-L. Tan’s inequality (The following proof was shown to me by N. Shepherd-Barron): Suppose $`f:XB`$ is as in the previous lecture, and we assume for convenience that the family is semi-stable. Let $`PX`$ be the image of a section and let $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ be the sum of the singular fibers, and $`S=f(\mathrm{\Sigma })B`$ the points lying below the singularities. Then $`D=P+\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is a normal crossing divisor, so we consider the log differentials $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\text{log}D)`$. There is an exact sequence

$$0f^{}\mathrm{\Omega }_B(S)\mathrm{\Omega }(\text{log}D)\omega (P)0$$

arising from the fact that the relative dualizing sheaf $`\omega `$ can be identified with the relative log differentials. Thus $`c_1(\mathrm{\Omega }(\text{log}D))=\omega +P+K_B+\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ so that

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill c_1^2(\mathrm{\Omega }(\text{log}D))& =& \omega ^2+2<\omega .P>+<P^2>+2<\omega +P.K_B+\mathrm{\Sigma }>\hfill \\ & =& \omega ^2+<\omega .p>+2<\omega +P.K_B+\mathrm{\Sigma }>\hfill \end{array}$$

while

$$c_2(\mathrm{\Omega }(\text{log}D))=<\omega +P.K_B+\mathrm{\Sigma }>.$$

So Miyaoka’s inequality reads

$$\omega ^2+<\omega .P><\omega +P.K_B+\mathrm{\Sigma }>=(2g1)(2g_B2+s)$$

, since the intersection of a horizontal divisor and a divisor coming form the base is the product of the degrees. This is exactly the first height inequality we stated. One can use the lower bound for $`\omega ^2`$ given by C-H-X to eliminate the $`\omega ^2`$ in favor of the more explicit invariant $`\delta `$. In any case, this derivation makes clear the point that a height inequality is nothing but a canonical class inequality. That is, and this is the main point we wish to convey, far from being a result of purely arithmetic interest, height inequalities sit squarely inside a well-established body of theory from the mainstream of algebraic geometry.

In the last fifteen years, much effort has been expended in developing an intersection theory for arithmetic schemes, that is, projective schemes that are flat over $`\text{Spec}(𝐙)`$. The inspiration of course has been intersection theory for varieties fibered over a curve, and this has motivated much of the reformulation of results from surface theory into a fibered setting, some of which we saw here. Once we see the results in fibered terms, they can then serve as a springboard for the study of arithmetic surface, that is, families of curves over $`\text{Spec}(𝐙)`$, for the formulation of conjectures and as well as for ideas and techniques that can be emulated. The arithmetic intersection theory started by Arakelov, was developed by Faltings , Deligne  , Gillet and Soulé , and many others and an increasing number of results from ordinary intersection theory are being carried over into this arithmetic setting. It has come to seem reasonable to believe that every result for algebraic surfaces has a compelling arithmetic analogue, whose proof will involve translations and refinements of the geometric theory. Faltings proof of Mordell’s conjecture was to a large extent inspired by this viewpoint, and one spectacular application of the intersection theory was the second proof given by Vojta, which followed a line of reasoning entirely analogous to a function field theorem he had proved earlier. This of course was extended by Faltings to include finiteness theorems for certain sub-varieties of abelian varieties. In all, the benefit of having a clear understanding of the arithmetic geometry of function fields has become generally accepted, as well as the belief in a strong analogy and interplay between geometric and arithmetic theories of various sorts. Then, having demonstrated the occurence and application of canonical class inequalities in a setting common to geometry and arithmetic, it seems reasonable to hope that canonical invariants for arithmetic surfaces will satisfy relations of a similar nature. This has already been demonstrated for a good class of equalities, including the adjunction formula, Riemann-Roch theorems, and Noether’s formula . Most recently, an important inequality, the positivity of $`\omega ^2`$ has been established by E. Ullmo. The other interesting inequalities have remained elusive, in particular, the one which would give us an effective Mordell conjecture. However, the remarkably coherent structures emphasized here, tying together the many different theories through precise analogies, can hardly allow us to believe otherwise than that they also remain merely to be discovered.


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# A simultaneous XMM-Newton and BeppoSAX observation of the archetypal Broad Line Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548

## 1 Introduction

It is widely believed that the primary luminosity of an AGN originates in an accretion disc around a super-massive black hole. However, in the X-ray band, a hard power-law component generally dominates above $``$2 keV in the well studied Broad Line Seyfert 1 galaxies and is considered to arise in a hot corona above the surface of the accretion disc, where optical/UV photons from the disc are Comptonised to X-ray energies. These X-rays in turn illuminate the disc, being either ‘reflected’ towards the observer or thermalised back into optical/UV emission (Mushotzky et al. 1993). In the X-ray spectral band, evidence for this disc reflection component, in the form of a fluorescent Fe K$`\alpha `$ line near 6.4 keV, an Fe K edge at $`>7`$ keV and a Compton ‘hump’ at $`>10`$ keV, is found in many bright Seyfert 1 galaxies (e.g. Pounds et al. 1990, Nandra & Pounds 1994). The improved resolution of ASCA has more recently been used to show that the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line is often broad, with excess flux, particularly in a ‘red’ wing to the line (Tanaka et al. 1995, Nandra et al. 1997), believed due to emission from the inner disc in a region of both high velocities and high gravity (Fabian et al. 2000).

The substantial gains in sensitivity, bandwidth and spectral resolution of XMM-Newton and Chandra are now further qualifying this standard picture, with indications that the energy, breadth and strength of the broad Fe K$`\alpha `$ line (the inner disc component) is critically dependent on how the underlying X-ray continuum is modelled. Also, the frequent detection of a narrow emission line at $``$6.4 keV, probably having a distinct origin, away from the inner disc (Reeves et al. 2001, Yaqoob et al. 2001, Kaspi et al. 2001, Matt et al. 2001, Gondoin et al. 2001, Pounds et al. 2001), now has to be accounted for in determining the profile of any broad emission line component (Pounds and Reeves 2002, Weaver and Reynolds 1998).

In this paper we report on a simultaneous XMM-Newton and BeppoSAX observation of NGC 5548, one of the brightest and best-studied, medium luminosity Broad Line Seyfert 1 galaxies. At $`z=0.017`$ (with $`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc$`{}_{}{}^{1})`$ NGC 5548 has an X-ray luminosity (2–10 keV) which historically lies in the range $`14\times 10^{43}`$ erg s-1. The Galactic absorption column towards NGC 5548 is $`1.65\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 (Murphy et al. 1996), rendering it easily visible over the whole ($``$0.2–12 keV) spectral band of the EPIC and RGS detectors on XMM-Newton.

The hard X-ray spectrum of NGC 5548 obtained with the GINGA satellite (Nandra and Pounds 1994) showed the 2–18 keV spectrum to be well described by a power law of index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$$``$1.65-1.85, including a reflection factor R = $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$/2$`\pi `$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the solid angle subtended by the reflecting matter, in the range 0.5–1, with an Fe K emission line (equivalent width $``$110 eV at $``$6.4 keV) and the imprint of low energy absorption by ionised gas of equivalent hydrogen column density $`5\times 10^{22}`$ $`\mathrm{atoms}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. Fitting a narrow line to an early ASCA observation refined the line energy to $`E=6.39\pm 0.04`$ keV, with an EW of $``$90 eV, increasing to $``$170 eV for a broad line fit (Nandra et al. 1997a).

Evidence for a ‘soft excess’, whereby the X-ray spectrum below $``$1 keV lies above an extrapolation of the hard X-ray power law, was first implied in spectra of several AGN obtained by HEAO-1 A2 (Pravdo et al. 1981), EXOSAT (Arnaud et al. 1985; Turner & Pounds 1989) and Einstein (Bechtold et al. 1987). However, quantifying the soft excess has remained uncertain, since its determination depends on knowledge of both the power law component and the effects of overlying absorption. The physical origin of any soft excess is also generally unclear, since thermal emission from the accretion disc around a $`10^6`$-$`10^8`$ $`M_{}`$ black hole (e.g. Arnaud et al. 1985; Czerny & Elvis 1987), should be much cooler than the $``$100 eV soft X-ray temperatures typically inferred, without secondary heating or reprocessing of the disc photons. Understanding the origin of the disc emission, and its interaction with the ‘corona’ nevertheless remains a key to understanding the whole X-ray emission mechanism in Seyfert galaxies.

In the case of NGC 5548 an early EXOSAT observation (Branduardi-Raymont 1986) found evidence for a soft excess emerging when the 2-6 keV flux was above some average level. This conclusion gained support from an extended ROSAT observation (Done et al.1995) where the 0.2-0.7 keV flux from NGC 5548 was found to vary more strongly than that at 1-2 keV. However, in a long BeppoSAX observation in 1997, Nicastro et al. (2000) found the spectral variability in NGC 5548 was primarily due to a change in the power law slope, with no requirement for a soft excess. Other results of this BeppoSAX study were: a high energy cut-off in the range 90–165 keV; low energy absorption well-modelled by OVII and OVIII edges; an unresolved Fe K emission line and a continuum ‘hump’ around 20–30 keV consistent with reflection R $``$0.5 from ‘cold’ matter.

## 2 Observation and data reduction

NGC 5548 was observed on 2001 July 9/10 and 12 during orbits 290 and 291 in the XMM-Newton Guest Observer programme. The observations with the EPIC MOS2 (Turner et al.2001) and PN (Strüder et al.2001) detectors were of order $``$90 ksec in orbit 290 and $``$35 ksec in orbit 291, with medium and thin filters, respectively. MOS1 data were in timing mode and therefore not useful in the present analysis. The simultaneous RGS observations were of $``$90 ksec and $``$40 ksec, during orbits 290 and 291, while the BeppoSAX observation covered the period 8–10 July, overlapping the XMM-Newton longer (orbit 290) exposure.

BeppoSAX data were reduced in the standard way (Guainazzi et al.1999). MECS counts were extracted from a region of 4 arc min. radius, and the PDS spectrum was extracted using the fixed pulse rise-time threshold.

The EPIC data were first screened with the XMM SAS v5.3 software. X-ray events corresponding to patterns 0-12 for the MOS2 camera (similar to grades 0-6 in ASCA) were used; for the PN patterns 0-4 (single and double pixel events) were selected. A low energy cut of 200 eV was applied to all data and known hot or bad pixels were removed. The non X-ray background remained low until the last $``$5 ksec of the orbit 290 observation, which were excluded from the subsequent spectral analysis.

We extracted source and background spectra for the PN and MOS2 detectors with a circular source region of 45′′ radius defined around the centroid position of NGC 5548, with the background being taken from an offset position close to the source. The 2-10 keV X-ray flux from NGC 5548 varied between $`57\times 10^{11}`$ ergs cm-2 s-1 during the XMM-Newton observations, lying at the upper end (though near the mean) of the historical range; however, photon pile-up was negligible in the Small Window mode chosen for all EPIC observations. The individual spectra were binned to a minimum of 20 counts per bin, to facilitate use of the $`\chi ^2`$ minimalisation technique in spectral fitting.

The primary analysis in this paper is based on observations from the first XMM-Newton orbit, which has the longest exposure and also benefits from simultaneous BeppoSAX data. In the present analysis we use both MOS2 and PN data to evaluate the hard X-ray spectrum, but only the MOS2 data to study the ‘soft excess’, since the MOS2 broad band calibration is considered to be more certain than that of the PN at present. Response functions for spectral fitting to the XMM-Newton data were generated from the SAS v5.3. We use the MECS and PDS data from BeppoSAX to constrain the continuum reflection and high energy cut-off.

All spectral fits include absorption due to the line-of-sight Galactic column of $`N_H=1.65\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. All fit parameters are given in the AGN rest-frame. Errors are quoted at the 90% confidence level (e.g. $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=2.7`$ for one interesting parameter).

## 3 The hard power law spectrum

It has long been clear that the key to modelling the X-ray spectra of AGN is to first identify, if possible, the ‘underlying continuum’ on which additional emission and absorption features are superimposed. We therefore began our analysis of NGC 5548 by fitting the XMM-Newton data above 3 keV, where any effects of intervening absorption should be negligible, a view supported by the RGS analysis of the warm absorber (Steenbrugge et al. 2003). A power law gave a good fit to both MOS2 and PN data over the 3-10 keV band apart from a clear excess flux near 6.4 keV. The respective parameters are listed in fit 1 of Tables 1 and 2. The power law index was flatter by $``$ 0.02 in the PN fit, a difference that is now only marginally significant and suggests an encouraging convergence in the latest calibrations of the EPIC cameras. Figure 1 reproduces the data:model ratio of the MOS2 and PN power law fits. No other features are seen in addition to the narrow emission line at $``$ 6.4 keV.

### 3.1 The Fe K band

The addition of a narrow Gaussian emission line to the simple power law fits, with energy, width and flux free, produced a very significant improvement to both MOS2 and PN spectral fits. These improved fits are detailed in fit 2 of Tables 1 and 2, respectively. Inclusion of the emission line in the 3–10 keV fits increased the power law index by $``$0.03 for each data set. The line is narrow and lies at a rest energy consistent with fluorescence from neutral iron. More specifically, the upper limit of 6.41 keV in both MOS2 and PN fits, corresponds to ion stages between FeI and FeX, while it is interesting to note that the high statistical significance of the EPIC data gives a line width with similar formal precision to that reported from an earlier observation with the Chandra HETG (Yaqoob et al. 2001). We return to this point in the Discussion (section 5).

The formal 3 $`\sigma `$ upper limit for an additional broad line, modelled as a ‘diskline’ (Fabian et al. 1989) with energy and profile as reported from an ASCA observation (Nandra et al. 1997) is 43 eV. In contrast, the ASCA analysis, which recorded a power law index and flux almost identical to the present observation, found a broad line equivalent width of 200$`\pm `$90 eV.

### 3.2 Cold reflection

An important limitation in XMM-Newton data is a rapid loss of sensitivity above $``$10 keV, preventing the unambiguous determination of continuum reflection, which is in general required to determine the true slope of the primary (power law) continuum. Fortunately we have simultaneous BeppoSAX data on NGC 5548 for the longer, orbit 290 observation, which extends the spectral coverage to $``$200 keV and constrains the continuum ‘hump’ caused by down-scattering of high energy photons and is a key measure of reflection. We first compared the MOS2, PN and MECS data, finding good agreement in describing the NGC 5548 spectrum over the band 3–10 keV. The PDS and MECS data were then combined, and tested against a model with components of a cut-off power law, a narrow Fe K line and cold reflection modelled by PEXRAV. All fit parameters were tied for the 2 detectors, with an additional normalisation constant of 0.86 for the PDS (Fiore et al.1999). An excellent fit (figure 2) yielded a cold reflection factor R $``$0.7 which, in turn, led to a steepening of the powerlaw index by $``$0.05. Addition of the MOS2 data, with again only the normalisation untied, confirmed the excellence of this fit, details of which are listed in Table 1, fit 3. The parameters of the reflection fit were found to be only a weak function of the assumed iron abundance. In the best fit, quoted, the abundance was left free and determined to be $`1.4\pm 0.6`$ solar. The cosine of the disc inclination was fixed at 0.9. The PN, MECS and PDS data were next fitted with the above model, yielding the parameters detailed in Table 2, fit 3.

In summary, an overall and self-consistent description of the 3–200 keV spectrum consists of a cut-off power law and cold reflection at a level that could also explain the narrow Fe K emission line (not included in PEXRAV). The observed 3–100 keV flux was $`1.2\times 10^{10}`$ ergs cm -2 s-1.

## 4 The Soft Excess

Extrapolating the best-fit description of the hard X-ray spectrum (fit 3 in Table 1) to the lower well-calibrated limit of the EPIC MOS camera ($``$ 0.3 keV) shows an apparently unambiguous excess of soft X-ray flux below $`0.7`$ keV (figure 3). There is also clear evidence for absorption which ‘cuts’ a significant fraction from any smooth profile continuum between $``$ 0.7-2 keV, a factor that appears to be common in the EPIC spectra of low and medium luminosity AGN and must be accounted for before attempting to model any soft excess emission (Pounds and Reeves 2002). In the present case the simultaneous XMM-Newton RGS data (Steenbrugge et al. 2003), confirm the presence of complex absorption and associate it with an ionised outflow. We have worked with colleagues at SRON to assess joint fits to the EPIC and RGS data for NGC 5548 (see Figure 4). Our conclusions, are that the data are in good overall agreement, though the RGS data are relatively insensitive to the precise continuum shape, which in the joint fit is effectively determined by the EPIC data. For the present EPIC analysis a simpler description of the warm absorber was used, with advantages in terms of modelling speed and in being a better match to the resolution of the EPIC detectors. This working description of the warm absorber is in terms of a series of absorption edges at (rest frame) $``$0.725 keV ($`\tau `$ $``$0.29) , $``$0.87 keV ($`\tau `$$``$0.28), $``$1.23 keV ($`\tau `$$``$0.08), and $``$1.78 keV ($`\tau `$$``$0.06). The energy and optical depth of these edges were left free in fitting to the EPIC data, and correspond approximately to the absorption edges of O VII, O VIII, Ne IX/X and Mg XI/XII. Visual comparison of figures 4 and 5 indicates why the absorption edge set is a reasonable substitute for the complex RGS absorption spectrum at the resolution level of the EPIC detectors. We note the two deepest edges, are consistent with the main features found in ROSAT and ASCA modelling, and account for the strongest absorption, from O VII, O VIII and iron M- and L-shell ions, while Ne K-shell absorption is also clearly seen.

Fixing the cold reflection factor and Fe K line parameters as determined from the 3-200 keV fit, we then proceeded to model the ‘soft excess’. A second power law, or a single blackbody, gave a very poor fit, the breadth of the soft excess requiring 2 blackbody components to obtain an acceptable value of chi-squared. Table 3 (fit 1) details this best-fit to the overall (0.3-10 keV) spectrum, which is reproduced in Figure 5. Parameterised in this way, the soft excess is found to be energetically a minor part of the X-ray flux from NGC 5548, the multiple blackbody component accounting for only $``$20% of the observed 0.3–1 keV flux of $`2.1\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, $``$12% of the 1–2 keV flux of $`1.5\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, and a negligible fraction of the harder (2–10keV) flux of $`5.0\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1.

### 4.1 Comptonised disc emission

While the addition of multiple blackbody components is a useful way to parameterise the soft excess it reveals little about the physical origin of this emission component, since - as noted earlier - the intrinsic thermal radiation of an accretion disc around a supermassive black hole is expected to be much cooler than implied by the observed soft X-ray spectrum.

To attempt a more physical description of the spectral curvature underlying the complex absorption, we therefore replaced the blackbody components with Comptonised thermal disc emission, a model successfully used to describe XMM-Newton detections of strong soft excesses in PKS 0558-504 (O’Brien et al. 2001) and 1H 0419-577 (Page et al. 2002), and applied to BeppoSAX data on NGC 5548 (Petrucci et al. 2000). Specifically, we used the compTT model in xspec which gave a good fit to the 0.3–10 keV MOS spectrum of NGC 5548, with parameters as detailed in Table 3, fit 2 and illustrated in Figure 6. We assumed an input photon temperature of 25 eV, and found an optically thick scattering region ($`\tau `$$``$16) of kT $``$0.4 keV. These parameters were found to be relatively insensitive to the input photon temperature over a factor of 2-3. Since they are also known to be strongly covariant we show in Figure 7 the range of acceptable values for the temperature and optical depth. We interpret the relatively low temperature of the scattering medium (compared with previous fits to the soft excess of PKS 0558-504 and 1H 0419-577) in terms of matching the less broad (less hot) soft is excess in NGC 5548. An important prediction of this fit is that soft X-ray variability would be reduced by the large optical depth (in contrast to the conclusions of Done et al.1995).

### 4.2 Ionised reflection

We next attempted a fit with an ionised reflector model (eg Ballantyne et al. 2001). In this model when the disc surface is highly ionised it produces a smooth excess of emission in the soft band, with relatively weak spectral features. The result was again a good fit to the soft X-ray excess, with a ionised reflection factor of R $``$0.6. Other details of this fit are given in Table 3, fit 3, and the model is reproduced in figure 8.

At the high ionisation parameter implied by this fit, individual spectral features are smeared out, due to the occurrence of multiple ion stages and to the effects of electron scattering in the upper layers of the reflector. This smearing is critical in fitting to our NGC 5548 observation over the $``$ 7–9 keV band where deep absorption edges of ionised Fe would otherwise be in conflict with the data.

## 5 Discussion

Our analysis emphasises the importance of simultaneous broad-band data to de-convolve the several inter-related components in the observed X-ray spectrum of AGN. Without such data, progress in understanding the primary emission and re-processing mechanisms will remain elusive. The key importance of measuring continuum reflection is underlined in our study of NGC 5548 where it has a significant effect on the deduced hard X-ray power law slope, which in turn is critical in quantifying any soft excess component. The impact of over-lying absorption on the emerging emission in the soft X-ray band must also be properly accounted for to determine the true soft emission spectrum.

With the above constraints in mind our analysis of the long observation of NGC 5548 on 9-10 July 2001 proceeded by first determining the amount of cold reflection using the simultaneous BeppoSAX data. The value obtained, R $``$0.58-0.75 for the BeppoSAX plus PN and BeppoSAX plus MOS2 fits, is compatible with the strength of the narrow Fe K line, from which one conclusion could be that the only significant reflection is from cold matter some distance from the central continuum source. That would imply that the inner accretion disc is either absent or highly ionised, a conclusion consistent with the absence of a broad Fe K line.

In the latter respect it is interesting that one description of the (relatively weak) soft excess is by enhanced reflection from highly ionised matter, presumably the inner accretion disc. However this interpretation of the soft excess is not unique, and we have no useful constraints in terms of either ionised absorption edges in the $``$8-9 keV region (where the XMM-Newton sensitivity is rather low) or a definite contribution to the continuum ‘hump’ at higher energies. The latter point is considered further in section 5.3.

### 5.1 Narrow Fe K line

The best prospect for clarifying the origin of the narrow Fe K line, with current observational facilities, appears to be via a careful search for variability with the statistical precision of XMM-Newton EPIC data, or by constraining the line width with the HETG on Chandra. A comparison of our present data with the Chandra observation of Yaqoob et al. (2001) provides a basis for such a future study in the case of NGC 5548.

Taking our PN data, which has the best statistics on the iron line, we find a line energy of $`6.40\pm 0.01`$ keV, consistent with the Chandra line energy of $`6.402\pm 0.026`$ keV. The line fluxes are also consistent, albeit not well constrained. Given current uncertainties in cross-calibration between the two observations, we note instead that the continuum flux was a factor of 2 lower during the Chandra observation, while the equivalent width was double the XMM-Newton value ( Yaqoob et al. 2000 find $`133\pm 58`$ eV, compared with our XMM-Newton figure of $`60\pm 18`$ eV), suggesting that the bulk of the narrow line may have remained constant over the 17-month interval between the Chandra and XMM-Newton observations.

However, we also note that the PN data marginally resolve the ‘narrow’ line, with $`\sigma `$ = $`60\pm 24`$ eV ($`6500\pm 2600`$ km s-1 FWHM). The comparable Chandra HETG parameters were 4500$`{}_{2590}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+3560}`$ km s-1 FWHM. Effectively the much better statistics of the XMM-Newton detection are compensating for the fourfold worse energy resolution, lending some support to the conclusion that the ‘narrow’ Fe K line in NGC 5548 is marginally resolved. If confirmed, the implication of this result is that a significant component of the ‘narrow’ Fe K line arises at distances from the hard X-ray source comparable to the Broad Line clouds.

### 5.2 Soft Excess

Having obtained a reliable measure of the dominant power law component, extrapolation to the lower useful energy limit of EPIC confirms the presence of a ‘soft excess’. Given the simultaneous measure of the ‘warm absorber’ by the XMM-Newton RGS we feel confident that - in this case - the soft excess is reliably determined. We find it to be characterised by a smooth upward curvature, probably typical of unobscured, radio-quiet AGN (Pounds and Reeves 2002), which can be parameterised by blackbody emitters of $`100`$ and $`300`$ keV.

An explanation of the soft excess remains unclear, however. Two physical models, which we find to be equally good fits to the EPIC data, have different inferences for the X-ray emission process. Ionised reflection is an attractive explanation, given the energetically dominant and relatively hard power law spectral component in NGC 5548. This implies that in NGC 5548 - which we point out may be an archetypal Broad Line Seyfert 1 galaxy - the X-ray emission is primarily due to accretion energy being deposited in a low density, high temperature medium (eg a ‘corona’), and there is little or no intrinsic X-ray emission from the accretion disc.

On the other hand, if the soft excess arises by thermal disc emission, upscattered into the soft X-ray band by passage through an optically thick, hot ‘skin’ (eg Hubeny et al. 2001), it offers the important possibility of studying the thermal structure and internal heating of the inner disc. Some support is provided for the Comptonisation model by the finding of a time lag between EUV and X-ray flux variations from NGC 5548 in simultaneous observations with ASCA, RXTE and EUVE (Chiang et al. 2000).

In principle it should be possible to distinguish between the above two models in the higher energy spectral band where the ionised reflector will continue to make a contribution. We have attempted this comparison by extending the Comptonised thermal and ionised reflector fits to 100 keV by inclusion of the PDS data. The power law index was fixed in each case at the MOS2 fit value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$=1.75, and the warm absorber and Fe K emission line parameters were also retained from the 0.3-10 keV fits. Good fits were obtained with both models, which yielded interesting (but not decisive) differences in 10-100 keV band. The Comptonised thermal description of the soft excess ($`\chi ^2`$/dof = 576/590) has essentially no effect in the higher energy band (Figure 9), with all the continuum ’hump’ being due to the cold reflector. In the case of the ionised reflector fit (only marginally worse with $`\chi ^2`$/dof = 593/590), there is a contribution across the whole observed band (Figure 10). In consequence, the Fe abundance in PEXRAV drops from $``$1.3 to $``$0.3 to compensate for the ’filling in’ of the observed flux at $``$7-15 keV. In addition the high energy cut-off energy of $``$150 keV in the Comptonisation fit extends beyond $``$300 keV in the ionised disc fit. We conclude that, in the present case, our high energy data are unable to distinguish between the two models for the (relatively weak) soft excess.

### 5.3 The X-ray signature of NGC 5548, a low accretion rate AGN

The average observed flux in the 2–10 keV band during orbit 290 was $`5\times 10^{11}`$ erg s-1 cm-2, corresponding to a luminosity of $`2.5\times 10^{43}`$ erg s-1. The bolometric luminosity is then likely to be of order $`5\times 10^{44}`$ erg s-1. Assuming a black hole mass for NGC 5548 of $`M6\times 10^7\mathrm{M}_{}`$ (Ferrarese et al. 2001) this luminosity requires an accretion rate of $``$ 4 percent of the Eddington rate. We suggest this may be a typical value for many Broad Line Seyfert 1 galaxies.

The corresponding X-ray signature of Broad Line Seyfert 1s might then be much as we find for NGC 5548, namely a dominant power law component with (hard) photon index $``$ 1.75, a weak but relatively ‘hot’ soft excess, and a narrow, ‘cold’ Fe K emission line. The most clear cut reflection component, dominating the $``$ 10-100 keV spectrum of NGC 5548, appears also to be from cold (perhaps the same) matter subtending $``$1-1.5$`\pi `$ steradian. The emergence of a similar value in Compton-thick Seyfert 2 galaxies (Matt 2002, Schurch 2002) suggests that substantial reflection from cold matter, distant from the hard X-ray source, is a common property of all Seyfert galaxies. If so, this underlines the importance of taking due account of such reflection in any analysis or modelling of AGN spectra.

The absence of a broad iron K line is consistent with the inner accretion disc being highly ionised by the relatively hard incident spectrum, or simply absent at the low implied accretion rate. We note that the former explanation would be qualitatively consistent with one of the two physical models fitted to the soft excess, with magnetic flares providing the localised source(s) of hard X-ray flux.

In the context of the alternative, thermal Comptonisation description of the soft excess, it is interesting to recall that EXOSAT data showed that the ‘soft excess’ in NGC 5548 was only apparent when the source flux exceeded $`3.5\times 10^{11}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 (Branduardi-Raymont et al. 1986), as it is here. We note that a flux-related ‘switching on’ of the disc X-ray emission in AGN could be a further analogy with the X-ray properties of Galactic black hole candidate sources, which are found to change from a faint/hard state when the accretion rate rises above $``$ a few percent of the Eddington rate (eg Chen et al. 1995). A common physical explanation might then be sought in terms of the well known radiation pressure instability (Shapiro et al. 1976), with re-structuring the inner disc leading to Comptonisation of the thermal disc photons at a relative accretion rate of a few percent (Kubota et al. 2001, Done 2002).

A truncated disc provides the most obvious alternative (to the highly ionised inner disc), consistent with the X-ray signature of NGC 5548, namely hard power law spectrum, moderate luminosity, weak soft excess, and absence of a broad iron K line. In this scenario the inner radius of the dense matter should penetrate further into a hot inner flow as the accretion rate increased, perhaps giving a more gradual spectral change.

Future studies of the broad band spectral variability of sources such as NGC 5548 will be important to search for such effects, as will the testing of models over a wider sample of AGN, with a larger range of spectral properties.

## 6 Conclusions

(1) A long XMM-Newton and BeppoSAX observation of the bright broad line Seyfert 1 galaxy finds a broad-band X-ray spectrum dominated by a hard power law of index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$$``$1.75, a value derived after due allowance for a continuum reflection component peaking at $``$30-40keV.

(2) The continuum reflection corresponds to cold (neutral) matter subtending a solid angle of $``$1-1.5$`\pi `$ steradian at the hard X-ray source. We suggest this may be a very common component in the nuclei of Seyfert galaxies.

(3) The only spectral feature seen in the 3-10 keV spectrum is a narrow emission line at $``$6.4 keV with an equivalent width of $``$60 eV, consistent with iron fluorescence from the same cold matter. The lack of variability over a 17 month interval between Chandra and XMM-Newton observations is consistent with this matter being in the putative torus; however, the marginally resolved line width suggests a significant component lies at a smaller radius.

(4) A weak soft excess is seen, after allowing for over-lying absorption, as a smooth upward curvature in the X-ray continuum below $``$2 keV, and can be modelled by 2 blackbodies, Comptonised thermal emission from the accretion disc, or ionised disc reflection.

(5) The overall X-ray emission spectrum is consistent with a model in which accretion at a relatively low rate (a few percent of the Eddington rate) is depositing most of the corresponding accretion energy in a hot, low density medium (or corona), with the dense inner disc being absent (a truncated disc) or highly ionised.

(6) The 3 $`\sigma `$ upper limit of 43 eV on a broad iron K line confirms the inner disc to be in a very different state from that indicated by the earlier ASCA observation, although the hard X-ray power law emission was essentially the same.

## Acknowledgements

The results reported here are based primarily on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and the USA (NASA). The authors wish to thank the SOC and SSC teams for organising the XMM-Newton observations and initial data reduction. RE acknowledges support from the NASA XMM-Newton grant NAG 5-10032. JNR and KLP are supported by a Leverhulme Fellowship and PPARC studentship, respectively. GM and GCP acknowledge support from ASI and MIUR under the grant cofin-00-02-36.


text:
# Predictions of the Generalized Glauber Model for the coherent 𝜌-production at RHIC and the STAR data

## 1 Introduction

Ultraperipheral collisions(UPC) of relativistic heavy ions at RHIC and LHC open a promising new avenue for experimental studies of the photon induced coherent and incoherent interactions with nuclei at high energies (see  for the reviews and extensive lists of references). Really, the LHC heavy ion program will allow studies of photon-proton and photon - nucleus collisions at the energies exceeding by far those available now at HERA for $`\gamma p`$ scattering.

Hence, it is very important to check our basic understanding of the UPC processes using the reactions which have smaller theoretical uncertainties on the level of the $`\gamma A`$ interactions. Recently the STAR collaboration released the first data on the cross section of the coherent $`\rho `$-meson production in gold-gold UPC at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130`$ GeV ,. This provides a first opportunity to check the basic features of the theoretical models and main approximations which include the Weizsäcker-Williams (WW) approximation for the spectrum of the equivalent photons, an approximate procedure for removing collisions at small impact parameters where nuclei interact strongly, and the model for the vector meson production in the $`\gamma A`$ interactions. In the case of the $`\rho `$-meson production the basic process is understood much better than for other photoproduction processes. Hence, checking the theory for this case is especially important for proving that UPC could be used for learning new information about photon - nucleus interactions.

Earlier we published  predictions for the cross section of this process at higher energy $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200`$ GeV. Hence, a direct comparison of the STAR result with  is difficult. In this paper we perform the analysis of the $`\rho `$-production at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130`$ GeV including the effects due to the cuts of the STAR experiment.

## 2 Outline of the model

Production of $`\rho `$-mesons in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions can be expressed in the Weizsäcker-Williams approximation through the $`\gamma A\rho A`$ cross section

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{A_1A_2A_1A_2V}}{dy}}=n_{A_1}^\gamma (y)\sigma _{\gamma A_2\rho A_2}(y)+n_{A_2}^\gamma (y)\sigma _{\gamma A_1\rho A_1}(y).`$ (1)
The quantity $`y=ln\frac{2\omega _\gamma }{M_\rho }`$ is the rapidity of the produced $`\rho `$ meson and $`n^\gamma (y)`$ is the flux of photons with the energy $`\omega _\gamma =\gamma _cq_0`$ emitted by one of nuclei ($`\gamma _c`$ is the Lorentz factor for colliding nuclei, and $`q_0`$ is the photon momentum in the coordinate system of moving nucleus). The photoproduction cross section $`\sigma _{\gamma A\rho A}(y)`$ can be calculated in the Glauber model

$`\sigma _{\gamma A\rho A}(y)={\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{t_{min}}{}}}𝑑t{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{k_\rho ^2}}\left|F_{\gamma A\rho A}(t)\right|^2={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{k_\rho ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑t_{}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{ik_\rho }{2\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{b}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}_{}\stackrel{}{b}}\mathrm{\Gamma }(\stackrel{}{b})}\right|^2.`$ (2)
Here $`\stackrel{}{q}_{}^2=t_{}=t_{min}t`$, $`t_{min}=\frac{M_\rho ^4}{4q_0^2}`$ is longitudinal momentum transfer in $`\gamma \rho `$ transition, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\stackrel{}{b})`$ is the diffractive nuclear profile function

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\stackrel{}{b})=\underset{z\mathrm{}}{lim}\mathrm{\Phi }(\stackrel{}{b},z).`$ (3)
To calculate the eikonal function $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\stackrel{}{b},z)`$ the Glauber approach  was combined with the generalized vector dominance (GVD) model . More properly such an approximation should be called the Gribov-Glauber model because the space-time evolution of high energy processes is different in quantum mechanical models and in quantum field theory and therefore theoretical foundations for the high-energy model are different. In particular, in QCD in difference from quantum mechanics a high-energy projectile interacts with all nucleons at the same impact parameter almost at the same time . Such formulae allow to extend the domain of applicability of the Glauber model to the description of high energy phenomena where inelastic (high multiplicity) particle production gives dominant contribution to the total cross section. As we are mostly interested in the accurate estimate of the coherent diffractive production of the vector meson $`\rho `$ with $`M_\rho =0.77`$ GeV, the spectrum of the higher corresponding hadronic states of $`M2`$ GeV can be approximated by one effective $`\rho ^{}`$-meson with some reasonable fixed mass, say $`M_\rho ^{}=\sqrt{3}M_\rho `$. We want to draw attention that the value and sign of the $`\rho ^{}`$ contribution as taken from quenched GVDM is fitted to describe approximate Bjorken scaling in the case of highly virtual photon. Thus the model used in the paper correctly accounts for the fluctuations of cross section including color transparency phenomenon .

Then the GVD model comprises elementary amplitudes

$`f_{\gamma N\rho N}={\displaystyle \frac{e}{f_\rho }}f_{\rho N\rho N}+{\displaystyle \frac{e}{f_\rho ^{}}}f_{\rho ^{}N\rho N},`$
$`f_{\gamma N\rho ^{}N}={\displaystyle \frac{e}{f_\rho ^{}}}f_{\rho ^{}N\rho ^{}N}+{\displaystyle \frac{e}{f_\rho }}f_{\rho N\rho ^{}N}.`$ (4)
In the optical limit ($`A1`$), with accuracy $`O(\sqrt{\alpha _{em}})`$ the eikonal functions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\rho ,\rho ^{}}(\stackrel{}{b},z)`$ are determined by the solutions of the coupled two-channel equations

$`2ik_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{d}{dz}}\mathrm{\Phi }_\rho (\stackrel{}{b},z)=U_{\gamma A\rho A}(\stackrel{}{b},z)e^{iq_{}^{\gamma \rho }z}+`$
$`+U_{\rho A\rho A}(\stackrel{}{b},z)\mathrm{\Phi }_\rho (\stackrel{}{b},z)+U_{\rho A\rho A}(\stackrel{}{b},z)e^{iq_{}^{\rho \rho }z}\mathrm{\Phi }_\rho (\stackrel{}{b},z)`$ (5)
$`2ik_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{d}{dz}}\mathrm{\Phi }_\rho (\stackrel{}{b},z)=U_{\gamma A\rho A}(\stackrel{}{b},z)e^{iq_{}^{\gamma \rho }z}+`$
$`+U_{\rho A\rho A}(\stackrel{}{b},z)\mathrm{\Phi }_\rho (\stackrel{}{b},z)+U_{\rho A\rho A}(\stackrel{}{b},z)e^{iq_{}^{\rho \rho }z}\mathrm{\Phi }_\rho (\stackrel{}{b},z)`$ (6)
with the initial condition $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\rho ,\rho ^{}}(\stackrel{}{b},\mathrm{})=0`$. The exponential factors $`exp[iq_{}^{ij}z]`$ are responsible for the coherent length effect, $`i,j=\gamma ,\rho ,\rho ^{}`$, $`q_{}^{ij}=\frac{M_j^2M_i^2}{2\gamma _c\omega }`$. The generalized Glauber -based optical potentials in the short-range approximation are given by the expression

$`U_{iAjA}(\stackrel{}{b},z)=4\pi f_{iNjN}(0)\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z).`$ (7)
Here $`f_{iNjN}(0)`$ are the forward elementary amplitudes, and $`\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z)`$ is the nuclear density normalized by the condition $`𝑑\stackrel{}{b}𝑑z\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z)=A`$. We calculated $`\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z)`$ in the Hartree-Fock-Skyrme (HFS) model which provided a very good(with an accuracy $`2\%`$) description of the global nuclear properties of spherical nuclei along the periodical table from carbon to uranium and the shell momentum distributions in the high energy (p,2p) and (e,e’p) reactions.

Following the simple suggestion of Ref. which is quite reasonable in the case of light vector mesons, we fixed the elementary scattering amplitudes and coupling constants by relations

$`f_{\rho ^{}N\rho ^{}N}=f_{\rho N\rho N},f_{\rho N\rho ^{}N}=f_{\rho ^{}N\rho N}=\epsilon f_{\rho N\rho N},f_\rho ^{}={\displaystyle \frac{M_\rho ^{}}{M_\rho }}f_\rho ,`$ (8)
with the value of the $`\rho `$-meson coupling constant $`f_\rho ^2/4\pi `$=2.01. The diagonal amplitude $`f_{\rho N\rho N}`$ was taken in parameterization of the Landshoff-Donnachie model while the value of parameter $`\epsilon =0.18`$ was found from a best fit to the differential cross section of the $`\rho `$-meson photoproduction off lead at $`\omega _\gamma =6.2`$ GeV and $`t_{}=0.001`$ $`GeV^2`$. With all parameters fixed, we compared our calculations with all available data on $`\rho `$-meson photoproduction off nuclei at low and intermediate energies  and found a very good description of the absolute cross section and of the momentum transfer distributions (see ). Hence, it was natural to expect that this model should provide a reliable parameter-free predictions for production of $`\rho `$-mesons in high energy heavy ion UPC. Note here that the inelastic shadowing effects which start to contribute at high energies still remain a few percent correction at energies $``$ 100 GeV relevant for the STAR kinematics. For LHC energy range one should account for the blackening of interaction with nuclei. In this case cross section of inelastic diffraction in hadron-nucleus collisions should tend to 0. Also it leads to a suppression of the $`\rho ^{}`$ contribution to the cross section of the diffractive $`\rho `$ meson photoproduction .

## 3 Results and discussion

The calculated momentum transfer distributions at the rapidity $`y=0`$ and the momentum transfer integrated rapidity distribution for gold-gold UPC at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130`$ GeV are presented in Figs.1a,b.

Let us briefly comment on our estimate of the incoherent $`\rho `$-meson production cross section. The momentum transfer distribution(dashed line in Fig.1a) is practically flat in the discussed $`t_{}`$ range. The total incoherent cross section obtained by integration over the wide range of $`t_{}`$ is $`\sigma _{inc}=120`$ mb. To select the coherent production the cut $`t_{}0.02`$ GeV2 was used in the data analysis . Correspondingly, the calculated incoherent cross section for this region of $`t_{}`$ is $`\sigma _{inc}=14`$ mb. Our calculations of incoherent production which are based on accounting for only the single elementary diffractive collision obviously present the lower limit. The residual nucleus will be weakly excited and can evaporate only one-two neutrons. The events $`A+A\rho +xn+A_1+A_2`$ were detected by the STAR and identified as a two-stage process - coherent $`\rho `$-production with the subsequent electromagnetic excitation and neutron decay of the colliding nuclei . In particular, the cross section estimated by the STAR for the case when only one of the nuclei is excited and emits several neutrons is $`\sigma _{xn,0n}^\rho =95\pm 60\pm 25`$ mb. The momentum transfer distribution for these events is determined by the coherent production. Hence, it differs from that for incoherent events but in the region of very low $`t_{}`$ it is hardly possible to separate them experimentally and obviously the measured cross section $`\sigma _{xn,0n}^\rho `$ includes contribution of incoherent events on the level of $`15\%`$.

The total rapidity-integrated cross section of coherent $`\rho `$-meson production calculated in the GVDM for the range of energies available at RHIC is shown in Fig.2a (dashed line). We find $`\sigma _{coh}^{th}=540`$ mb at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130`$ GeV. The value $`\sigma _{coh}^{exp}=370\pm 170\pm 80`$ mb was obtained at this energy by the STAR from the data analysis at the low momentum transfer $`t_{}0.02`$ GeV2. Thus, before making a comparison we should take into account this cut. It leads to a reduction of the cross section by $`10\%`$ (the solid line in Fig.2a). In our calculations we did not account for the $`t_{}`$-dependence of the elementary amplitudes which are rather flat in the considered range of energies and momentum transfers as compared to that for the nucleus form factor. So, in the region of integration important for our analysis neglect by this slope is a reasonable approximation but, nevertheless, an account of this effect would slightly reduce our estimate of the total cross section. Also we neglected a smearing due to the transverse momentum of photons and the interference of the production amplitudes from both nuclei . This latter phenomenon results only in the narrow dip in the coherent $`t_{}`$-distribution at $`t_{}510^4`$ GeV2. All these effects does not influence noticeably the value of the $`t_{}`$-integrated cross section but can be easy treated and taken into account in a more refined analysis. Thus we find $`\sigma _{coh}^{th}=490`$ mb to be compared to the STAR value $`\sigma _{coh}^{exp}=370\pm 170\pm 80`$ mb. Since our calculation does not have any free parameters, this can be considered as a reasonable agreement.

At this point we would like to comment on the statement of  that our prediction for coherent $`\rho `$-production in gold-gold UPC at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$=200 GeV is $`50\%`$ higher than the value given by model in. We already briefly explained in  that this discrepancy originates from a number of approximations made in the model of Ref. which differs from the conventional Glauber model. The coherent photoproduction cross section was defined in by the expression:

$`\sigma _{\gamma A\rho A}={\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{\gamma A\rho A}(t=0)}{dt}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{t_{min}}{}}}\left|F_A(t)\right|^2𝑑t.`$ (9)
where $`F_A(t)`$ is the nuclear form factor (two-dimensional Fourier transformation of the parameterized nuclear density) and the forward photoproduction cross section was estimated using the vector dominance model and optical theorem

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{\gamma A\rho A}(t=0)}{dt}}={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _{em}}{4f_\rho ^2}}\sigma _{tot}^2(\rho A).`$ (10)
The total cross section of the $`\rho A`$ interaction was found in using the formula:

$`\sigma _{tot}(\rho A)={\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{b}\left[1exp\left[\sigma _{\rho N}\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z)𝑑z\right]\right]}.`$ (11)
Eq.(11) presents the classical mechanics model with standard for this approach expression for the total cross section $`\sigma _{tot}^{cm}(\rho A)`$. The quantum mechanics expression is given by the Gribov-Glauber model (here for simplicity we give the expression in the limit of Re/Im=0) 111In the Appendix we demonstrate how the model used in Ref. but with the correct high energy expression for the total cross section can be obtained from the Gribov-Glauber based Generalized Vector Dominance Model and what essential approximations have to be done on the way.:

$`\sigma _{tot}^{qm}(\rho A)=2{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{b}\left[1exp\left[\frac{1}{2}\sigma _{\rho N}T_A(\stackrel{}{b})\right]\right]}.`$ (12)
In the Black Body Limit($`\sigma _{VN}\mathrm{}`$) the total $`\gamma AVA`$ cross section estimated with the use of the classical mechanics ($`\sigma _{tot}^{cm}=\pi R_A^2`$) and the quantum mechanics ($`\sigma _{tot}^{qm}=2\pi R_A^2`$) expressions in Eq.(10) differ by a factor of four. The difference for the case of the gold nucleus and reasonable value of the $`\rho N`$ elementary cross section $`\sigma _{\rho N}25`$ mb can be found using the simplified model of the nucleus of constant density $`\varrho _00.16fm^3`$ and radius $`R_A`$. With the value of radius $`R_{Au}6.5fm`$ one can obtain the reasonable estimate of the ratio

$$\frac{\sigma _{tot}^{qm}(\rho A)}{\sigma _{tot}^{cm}(\rho A)}2\left[1\frac{3}{2\sigma _{\rho N}^2\varrho _0^2R_A^2}\right]1.55$$

Hence, we find that due to use of the classical mechanics expression (11) instead of the Gribov-Glauber model expression (12) the total $`\gamma A\rho A`$ cross section was underestimated in Ref. by a factor $`2.5`$. Note, that in the range of the photon energies essential in photoproduction of $`\rho `$-mesons in UPC at RHIC the elementary $`\rho N`$ cross section still weakly depends on the energy of $`\rho `$-mesons. Hence, this factor weakly depends on $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$.

Next important approximation made in Ref. in deriving formulae Eqs.(9) and (10) was the neglect by the coherence length effects. This requires $`q_{}^{\gamma \rho }z=\frac{M_\rho ^2z}{2\gamma _c^2q_0}1`$. This neglect is not justified because large longitudinal distances are essential in the diffractive $`\rho `$-photoproduction. The $`\rho `$-meson can be formed far from the nucleus. Besides, the photon flux is large at small $`q_0R_A^1`$, i.e. in the region where the coherence length effect is important. We estimated that the cross section for $`AuAu\rho AuAu`$ at the energy $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200`$ GeV is overestimated by a factor $`1.5`$ if one neglects the coherence length effect. The coherence length effect becomes more essential with decrease of the energy. As a result at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130`$ GeV this effect suppresses the cross section by a factor $`2`$. On the contrary, at much higher energies where the coherence length is very large (for example, at LHC) this effect will be small.

Note in passing that the calculations in Ref. were performed neglecting the real part of the elementary $`\rho N`$ amplitude which we accounted for using the Landshoff-Donnachie parameterization. In the high energy domain, for example, in the region of the central rapidities at RHIC the real part of the $`\rho N`$ amplitude is negligible but one should account for $`Ref_{\rho N\rho N}`$ at the edges of rapidity distribution which correspond to the photoproduction at intermediate energies of photons. Since the contribution of this region to the total cross section is enhanced by the high photon flux, the total cross section of the coherent $`\rho `$ production at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130`$ GeV would be underestimated by $`10\%`$.

Thus we emphasize that a number of approximations were made in the model of the Ref. which are inconsistent with the conventional Glauber model and their interplay depends on the photon energy. Thus the estimates obtained within this model contain systematic uncertainties. We want to draw attention that the model we have used is well theoretically justified. It correctly calculates the nuclear form factor in the coherent photoproduction. We checked  that this model provided a very good description of the coherent $`\rho `$-photoproduction off nuclei at low and intermediate energies along the periodical table without any free parameters.

At present the comparison of our predictions with STAR data is still preliminary because the experimental errors are too large and there are few points in the procedure of the data analysis which should be discussed. Really the acceptance of STAR is very strongly $`y`$ dependent being maximal at $`y=0`$ and going to zero at $`y=1`$ (Fig.3a in ) while the theoretical distribution is expected to have a double bump shape, see Fig.1b, which is simply due to the symmetry of collision and the interplay of the energy dependence of the photon flux and $`\gamma A\rho A`$ cross section.

Due to the acceptance conditions $`AuAu\rho AuAu`$ events were detected in the range of rapidities $`|y|1`$, while the cross section reported in  is corrected for the $`y1`$ using the Monte-Carlo extrapolation based on the model  in which 222We thank S.Klein for the discussion of this issue.

$`R=\sigma _{4\pi }/\sigma _{y1}=2.7.`$ (13)
Thus the cross section in the region $`y1`$ is

$`\sigma _{y1}=140\pm 60\pm 30mb.`$ (14)
The errors for this cut are scaled accordingly. However the model  differs from our in many aspects, described above. In particular, the neglect by the coherence length effect leads to a significant modification of the value of factor $`R`$. The rapidity interval $`y1`$ corresponds high energies of the photon where this effect is negligible. On the other hand due to the neglect by the coherent length effects at the edges of the rapidity distribution the relative contribution of photoproduction cross section at $`y1`$ was overestimated in Ref.. Hence their value of $`R`$ is lower than the one we obtain from our rapidity distribution which gives $`R=3.2`$, and the cross section $`\sigma _{y1}=170`$ mb. It is this value of the cross section which should be compared (Fig.2b) to the experimentally measured cross section (14). Obviously a more detailed comparison would require a detailed study of the sensitivity of the analysis to the assumed $`y`$-distribution.

## 4 Conclusions

We demonstrate that the cross section of coherent $`\rho `$-meson production in high energy heavy ion UPC calculated within the GVDM is in a good agreement with experimental results of the STAR collaboration. More stringent test will involve comparison of the model predictions with the cross section and the rapidity distributions of the $`\rho `$-meson production measured with higher precision.

We thank A. Baltz, B. Kopeliovich, P. Yepes, and especially S. Klein for very useful discussions. This study was supported in part by GIF, DOE and CRDF

## 5 Appendix

For the completeness let us discuss how classical mechanical formulae used in Ref. arise from the quantum mechanical ones. Since the Vector Dominance model was used in  we should neglect by the nondiagonal $`\rho \rho ^{}`$ transitions in Eq.(4). Thus we need to put $`\epsilon =0`$ in Eq.(8) instead of $`\epsilon =0.18`$ which is used in our calculations. If we keep all other parameters of the model fixed, we pay for such a reduction by the increase of the $`\rho `$-photoproduction cross section by a factor $`(1+2\epsilon /\sqrt{3})1.2`$. With $`\epsilon =0`$ equations (5) and (6) become decoupled and the solution of Eq.(5) gives the eikonal function of the $`\rho `$-meson

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_\rho (\stackrel{}{b},z)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2ik_\rho }}e^{\frac{1}{2ik_\rho }\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{z}{}}U_{\rho N\rho N}(\stackrel{}{b},z^{})𝑑z^{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{z}{}}}𝑑z^{}U_{\gamma N\rho N}(\stackrel{}{b},z^{})e^{iq_{}^{\gamma \rho }z^{}}e^{\frac{1}{2ik_\rho }\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{z^{}}{}}U_{\rho N\rho N}(\stackrel{}{b},z^{\prime \prime })𝑑z^{\prime \prime }}.`$ (15)
Using Eq.(2) and Eq.(3) and standard expression for the elementary amplitude

$$f_{\rho N}(0)=\frac{ik\sigma _{\rho N}}{4\pi }[1i\beta _{\rho N}]\beta _{\rho N}=\frac{Ref_{\rho N}(0)}{Imf_{\rho N}(0)},$$

we obtain the amplitude of the $`\rho `$-meson photoproduction off the nucleus in the optical limit of the standard Glauber plus the Vector Dominance model

$`F_{\gamma A\rho A}=f_{\gamma N\rho N}(0){\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑\stackrel{}{b}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}_{}\stackrel{}{b}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑z^{}\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z^{})e^{iq_{}^{\gamma \rho }z^{}}e^{\frac{\sigma _{\rho N}}{2}[1i\beta _{\rho N}]\underset{z^{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z^{\prime \prime })𝑑z^{\prime \prime }}.`$ (16)
Note that accounting for the real part of the $`\rho N`$ amplitude leads to appearance of the phase factor $`exp[i\beta _{\rho N}\underset{z}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z^{})𝑑z^{}]`$ which is similar to that describing the coherence length effect and which is important in the same energy domain. Following the assumptions of Ref. where both the coherence length effect and real part of the $`\rho N`$ amplitude were neglected we remove these exponential factor from Eq.(16). Then in the limit of the purely imaginary elementary $`\rho N`$ amplitude we obtain

$`F_{\gamma A\rho A}=f_{\gamma N\rho N}(0){\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑\stackrel{}{b}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}_{}\stackrel{}{b}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑z^{}\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z^{})e^{\frac{\sigma _{\rho N}}{2}\underset{z^{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z^{\prime \prime })𝑑z^{\prime \prime }}=`$ (17)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\gamma N\rho N}(0)}{\sigma _{\rho N}}}2{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑\stackrel{}{b}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}_{}\stackrel{}{b}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑z{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dz}}exp\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{\rho N}}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{z}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z^{})𝑑z^{}\right]=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{f_{\gamma N\rho N}(0)}{\sigma _{\rho N}}}2{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑\stackrel{}{b}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}_{}\stackrel{}{b}}\left[1exp\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{\rho N}}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z)𝑑z\right]\right].`$ (18)
Now using the vector dominance relation $`f_{\gamma N\rho N}=\frac{e}{f_\rho ^2}f_{\rho N\rho N}`$ we can write the formula for the forward $`\gamma A\rho A`$ cross section in the optical limit of the Glauber +VD model

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{\gamma A\rho A}(t=0)}{dt}}={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{k_\rho }}\left|F_{\gamma A\rho A}(t=0)\right|^2={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _{em}}{4f_\rho ^2}}\sigma _{\rho A}^2`$ (19)
where

$`\sigma _{\rho A}=2{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{b}\left[1exp\left[\frac{\sigma _{\rho N}}{2}\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\varrho (\stackrel{}{b},z)𝑑z\right]\right]}`$ (20)
Thus in the Glauber+VD model we have got the expression for the forward cross section of the photoproduction coinciding with Eq.(10) used in calculations performed in Ref. but with high energy quantum mechanics formula for the total cross section.


text:
# 1 (i) Region of the Einstein static universe (represented by an embedded cylinder) which is conformal to the whole of the space-time described by metric (6). (ii) The Penrose-Carter diagram of the space-time described by metric (6). Each point, except 𝜄⁰, 𝜄⁺, 𝜄⁻ and those on 𝑟=0, represents a two-sphere. The corrections denoted as C on the diagram express the effects of introducing a radiation field.

## Abstract

It is shown that if a small negative cosmological constant is added to quintessence models with equation of state $`p=\omega \rho `$ on the range $`1<\omega <1/3`$, the resulting scenarios could not contain any future event horizons. Therefore, such cosmological accelerating scenarios could not present the kind of obstacles recently pointed out to define a set of observable quantities analogous to an S-matrix needed by predictive M and string theories in an accelerating universe driven by dark energy. These scenarios become accelerating only at early times after coincidence time, and lead finally to re-collapse.

Accelerating Universe Without Event Horizon

1Instituto de Matemáticas y Física Fundamental, CSIC,
Serrano 121, 28006 Madrid, Spain.

Perhaps one of the biggest problems of nowadays physics is the possible incompatibility between the recently discovered accelerated expansion of the universe and a consistent mathematical formulation of string or M theories based on the existence of a S-matrix or S-vector, provided the universe would accelerate eternally due to the existence of a positive cosmological constant or quintessence scalar field with constant parameter for its equation of state, and hence shows a future event horizon ,. Solutions to this problem have been considered only at the cost of allowing loss of quantum coherence  or the existence of real light signals traveling backward in time . In this report we present a very simple solution to the problem which is based on the simultaneous existence of both a quintessential slowly-varying scalar field $`\varphi `$ and a negative cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$  whose absolute value is very small, so that the deceleration parameter keeps negative along the entire evolution after coincidence time. Disregarding the effects of any matter field (see later on), let us then use the action

$$S=d^4x\sqrt{g}\left[\frac{1}{16\pi G}\left(R2\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)+L_\varphi \right],$$
(1)
where all symbols have their conventional meaning, and $`L_\varphi `$ is the Lagrangian for the quintessence field, $`L_\varphi =\varphi _{,n}\varphi ^{,n}V(\varphi )`$, $`V(\varphi )`$ being the quintessence potential whose explicit form is not of interest for our present purposes . In the most observationally favored case of a spatially flat universe , if we use the customary definition of the quintessence field, $`8\pi G\rho /p=\dot{\varphi }^2+/V(\varphi )`$ (with $`\dot{x}=dx/dt`$), a state equation $`p=\omega \rho `$, with $`1/3<\omega <1`$ being constant, and the conservation law $`\rho _\varphi a^{3(1+\omega )}`$ , then we obtain the Friedmann equations for the scale factor $`a`$

$$\dot{a}^2=\frac{8\pi G}{3\alpha }a^{(1+3\omega )}+\lambda a^2$$
(2)
$$\ddot{a}=\frac{4\pi G}{3\alpha }(1+3\alpha )a^{(2+3\omega )}+\lambda a,$$
(3)
where $`\alpha `$ is an integration constant and $`\lambda =\mathrm{\Lambda }/(3H_0^2)`$, with $`H_0`$ is the current value of the Hubble parameter. We have been able to obtain the general solution to these differential equations, that is

$$a(t)=\left\{\sqrt{\frac{8\pi G}{3\alpha \lambda }}\mathrm{sinh}\left[\frac{3(1+\omega )\sqrt{\lambda }t}{2}\right]\right\}^{2/[3(1+\omega )]}.$$
(4)
Note that this describes an eternally rapidly accelerating flat universe and becomes the solution for a constant quintessence field used by Fischler et al.  and Hellerman et al.  in the limit $`\sqrt{\lambda }t/2<<1`$. By the same reasons as given by these authors, it is again deduced that also for solution (4) there will be a future event horizon which conflicts the formulation of any fundamental theory based on the existence of an S-matrix at any infinite distances. However, if we change sign of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\lambda \lambda `$, and use a small enough value for $`|\lambda |`$ such that the deceleration parameter  $`q_0=\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M+\mathrm{\Omega }_\varphi (1+3\omega )+|\lambda |\right]/2`$ (where the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$’s are the usual dimensionless cosmological parameters for matter ($`M`$) and the quintessence field ($`\varphi `$)) keeps a negative value for sufficiently large $`|\omega |`$, then the resulting general solution

$$a(t)=\left\{\sqrt{\frac{8\pi G}{3\alpha |\lambda |}}\mathrm{sin}\left[\frac{3(1+\omega )\sqrt{|\lambda |}t}{2}\right]\right\}^{2/[3(1+\omega )]},$$
(5)
will not show any future event horizon, while keeping the same dynamical accelerating behaviour at small values of $`3(1+\omega )\sqrt{|\lambda |}t/2`$ as the solution used in Refs.  and . Assuming then that we are now living in such a accelerating regime, one should expect that, instead of an event horizon, the future of our universe will show a re-collapsing behaviour tending the size of the universe to recover that at the coincidence time. In order to see this in more detail, let us consider an equation of state for $`\varphi `$ with $`\omega =2/3`$. In that case, the flat FRW metric reduces to

$$ds^2=dt^2+\left(\frac{8\pi G}{3\alpha |\lambda |}\right)^2\mathrm{sin}^4\left(\frac{\sqrt{|\lambda |}t}{2}\right)\left(dr^2+r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_2^2\right),$$
(6)
where, by taking the initial condition $`a(t)0`$ as $`t0`$, $`0t+2\pi `$, $`r0`$ is the radial coordinate and $`d\mathrm{\Omega }_2^2`$ is the metric on unit two-sphere. Following next the procedure used by Hawking and Ellis , metric (6) can be transformed into a line element that is defined in terms of a conformal time

$$\eta \eta _0=\frac{3\alpha \sqrt{|\lambda |}}{4\pi G}\mathrm{tan}^1\left(\frac{\sqrt{|\lambda }t}{2}\right),$$
(7)
in which $`\eta _0`$ is an integration constant, $`\mathrm{}<\eta <+\mathrm{}`$, and (redefining $`\eta =\eta \eta _0`$)

$$a(\eta )=\frac{8\pi G}{3\alpha |\lambda |}\left[1+\left(\frac{4\pi G}{3\alpha }\right)^2\frac{\eta ^2}{|\lambda |}\right]^1,$$
(8)
which is conformal to that part of the Einstein static universe defined by the interval covered by time $`\eta `$, $`\mathrm{}<\eta <+\mathrm{}`$ (see Fig. 1(i)), with a conformal factor $`\frac{1}{4}a(\eta )^2\mathrm{sec}^2\left[\frac{1}{2}(t^{}+r^{})\right]\mathrm{sec}^2\left[\frac{1}{2}(t^{}r^{})\right]`$, in which the new coordinates $`r^{}`$ and $`t^{}`$ are related with $`r`$ and $`\eta `$ by the expression provided on page 121 of Ref. . Metric (6) has an apparent singularity at $`t=0`$ (i.e. $`\eta =\mathrm{}`$), but does not show any event horizon.

The latter conclusion can most easily be seen by checking that the quantity $`=|\eta \eta _0|_{t=t_0}^{t=2\pi }`$ diverges for any finite $`t_0`$ , leaving no inaccessible region for an observer on $`r=0`$. Moreover, a possible apparent horizon must generally satisfy ,  $`\eta =2r/(1+3\omega )`$, so $`r=\eta /2`$ for $`\omega =2/3`$, and hence $`\eta =2\mathrm{tan}[(t^{}+r^{})/2]=2r`$ and $`t^{}r^{}=\mathrm{tan}^1\{\mathrm{tan}[(t^{}+r^{})/2]2r\}`$. We can readily see that no horizon can exist satisfying these expressions and $`r0`$ (i.e. $`r^{}0`$) simultaneously. Now, since our metric is conformal to Einstein static universe on the region showed in Fig. 1(i), the Penrose-Carter diagram is as given in Fig. 1(ii). Following the general procedure put forward by Bousso , we have also determined the holographic screens to be placed at the two infinities at $`\eta =\pm \mathrm{}`$. Nevertheless, the whole cosmological model we have considered so far does not match any kinds of the realistic standard models. Having nearly a seventy percent of dark energy  in the form of a quintessence scalar field plus a negative cosmological constant does not prevent taking into account the effects produced by the cosmological parameter $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$. Notwithstanding, for the purposes of the present report it will suffice to add a radiation field (e.g. a massless scalar field $`\phi `$ which is conformally coupled to gravity), amounting to an term $`4\pi G\phi ^2/3\phi _{,n}\phi ^{,n}`$, to the quantities in squared brackets of action (1). After performing the calculation with that additional field, we obtain that for early times the scale factor goes as $`at^{1/2}`$ and as the solution (4) at later times. This gives rise to the slight modifications of the conformal diagram shown in Fig. 2, which do not lead to any change in the main conclusions obtained before. Thus, the adding of a small negative cosmological constant to the quintessence models makes the resulting accelerating expansion of the universe to be non eternal while preventing the eventual emergence of any event horizon in its future. The mathematical formulation of M and string theories seems to become therefore safe from all cosmological challenges originally posed by dark energy.

Acknowledgements.  The author thanks Carmen L. Sigüenza for useful discussions. This work was supported by MCYT under Research Project No. BMF2002-03758.