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# The ROTSE-III Robotic Telescope System

## 1 Introduction

For many years, it was realized that progress in understanding gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) would depend on accurate localizations only attainable at longer wavelengths. Following the premature failure of the onboard tape recorders on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory in 1992, the shift to real time data transmission opened the window for ground-based fast response systems that could slew to designated targets within ten seconds. The first optical system to exploit this capability was the GROCSE-I wide-field camera at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Lee, 1997; Park et al. 1997-a, ). The hardware was originally conceived under the aegis of the Strategic Defense Initiative as a test bed for developing the technologies to rapidly locate hostile incoming missiles and launch appropriate countermeasures. By the time the GROCSE collaboration obtained the use of this instrument in 1993, it had been abandoned and neglected for several years. The collaboration invested considerable effort in adapting this device to respond robotically to the GRB trigger messages relayed from the Goddard Space Flight Center alert system called BACODINE (BATSE COordinates DIstribution NEtwork), later renamed GCN (Barthelmy, 1998) (GRB Coordinates Network).

The sensitivity of this device was limited to $`m_v9`$ by the restricted angular acceptance of the fiber optic light guides that coupled the spherical focal surface to the array of image intensifiers and the modest quantum efficiency of the intensifier photocathodes. Probably no more than 0.3% of all photons entering the 62 mm aperture lens were available to contribute to the detected image. It was soon realized that a much more powerful system could be constructed with fast 35 mm camera lenses and large format CCD image sensors. This much simpler system promised at least 5 magnitudes greater sensitivity and a field of view to match BATSE error boxes, typically $`16^{}\times 16^{}`$, yet could still be built for $``$ $200,000. This overall design was implemented within a few years as two competing systems, LOTIS at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and ROTSE-I at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. This design choice proved prescient when, on January 23, 1999, the ROTSE-I camera array recorded the first contemporaneous optical flash from an exceptionally bright gamma-ray burst (Akerlof et al., 1999). However, in several years of operation, no other similar events were detected by either ROTSE (Akerlof et al., 2000; Kehoe et al., 2001) or LOTIS (Park et al. 1997-b, ; Williams et al., 1999). Clearly, a rapid response instrument was needed with a limiting sensitivity exceeding ROTSE-I/LOTIS but not necessarily better than $`m_v20`$ that is exhibited by typical GRB optical afterglows many hours after the original event.

In fact, several years before the first GRB afterglow was detected on February 28, 1997 (Groot et al., 1997), Akerlof proposed building two 0.45-meter aperture wide-field telescopes to systematically search BATSE error boxes in an hour or so following a GRB detection in space. With support from the Research Foundation and NASA, the telescopes, called ROTSE-II, were designed and built. Unfortunately, a variety of flaws compromised the ability of these instruments to reach the original objectives.

The detection of a contemporaneous optical flash from GRB990123 prompted a thorough re-evaluation of our ROTSE-II development program. Three design requirements received special attention: (1) a fast slewing telescope mount; (2) a CCD camera with a high quantum efficiency image sensor; (3) a simpler optical design. Furthermore, if system costs could be contained, we might be able to build a sufficient number of identical instruments to distribute an effective global array of observatories. Six instruments, three in each hemisphere, would be sufficient to promptly observe a large fraction of all GRBs, 24 hours per day. The logistical problem of installing a complete, functioning instrument anywhere in the world forced a modular approach to the overall design. Taking a lesson from the GONG helioseismology project, we required that the telescope enclosure dimensions permit shipment via a 20’ standard seagoing container unit. This constrained the width and height of the telescope enclosure to slip through the $`92\mathrm{"}\times 90\mathrm{"}`$ container door frame. We selected a vertical cylinder 90” in diameter and 86.25” high to keep the structure simple and rugged. The telescope tube assembly must rotate freely within the enclosure roof opening. With a square roof aperture 58” on a side, the optical tube assembly was limited to a maximum swing radius of 29 inches. This put a stringent limit on permissible optical designs.

The original optical design for ROTSE-II was predicated on the need to search a $`16^{}\times 16^{}`$ error box within an hour, demanding a field of view as large as possible. With a greater emphasis on GRB follow-up observations from missions like HETE-2 and Swift that promised much higher accuracy localizations, this requirement was no longer dominant. However, we had learned from ROTSE-I the value of continual repetitive observations of the night sky. In this case, our secondary goal was a search for ‘orphan’ optical transients that might signal GRB-like events whose energetic gamma-ray beams happened not to intersect the Earth. An orphan search with ROTSE-I data indicated a wide-field instrument would be ideal to search for these transients (Kehoe et al., 2002). Thus, we opted to continue our efforts to build an f/1.9, 0.45-meter aperture instrument despite the realization that we would sacrifice about a factor of two in signal-to-noise ratio. These parameters were not entirely selected out of thin air: we were acquainted with the US Air Force satellite tracking telescope systems called GEODSS. These are 1.0-meter aperture telescopes (Jeas, 1981; Beatty, 1982), operating with a focal ratio of f/2.1. Designed in the late ‘70s by David Grey, these devices have played a major role in detecting Earth-crossing asteroids (Pravdo, 1999; Stokes, 2000).

The prompt detection of GRB990123 was a landmark for robotic telescopes: it is probably the first significant scientific result for which the autonomous robotic performance was absolutely critical to success. We have tried to incorporate essentially all of the useful features of ROTSE-I into the present ROTSE-III system. It is hoped that some of these ideas may be useful to others who are interested in building low maintenance autonomous remote observatories.

## 2 Optical Design

The optical design was strongly constrained by the demand for a compact instrument with a swing radius of not more than 29”, which could be well baffled against stray light and which would be relatively insensitive to decollimation issues. A high premium was placed on simplicity and upon anticipated ease of optical manufacture as the ROTSE-III program called for multiple copies to be constructed in a timely manner and at an affordable cost.

Initial specifications for the telescope/camera outlined a (modified) Cassegrain with a 450.0-mm diameter f/1.80 primary mirror and an all-refracting field corrector providing a final focal length of 850.0 mm, with the final focus located not more than 75.0 mm in front of the primary-mirror vertex. A (0.40 to 0.90)-micron passband was chosen and a $`2{}_{}{}^{}.64`$ diameter flat field of view (f.o.v.) was stipulated so as to cover a 2048$`\times `$2048 Marconi CCD with 13.5 micron pixels to its corners. The pixel scale (3.28 arcsec/pixel) will undersample the “seeing” but that limitation was accepted in order to attain the desired $`2{}_{}{}^{}.64`$ field coverage.

The specifications also called for the inclusion of a flat broad-passband colored-glass filter and space for a Prontor magnetic E/64 shutter within the field corrector, as well as a flat fused silica vacuum Dewar window and a back focal distance (b.f.d.) not less than 7.7 mm. The image quality goal was to enclose 70% or more of the incident energy inside a 13.5 micron diameter at all field angles and wavelengths without refocus, with not more than 7 microns of maximum rms lateral color over the full spectral range.

Modeling and optical optimization were done (by HWE) with his proprietary code, OARSA. Some of the figures and the subsequent image analysis presented here were computed with the commercially available code, ZEMAX© which provides a convenient independent assessment of the system.

An initial exploration of the design demonstrated that a refracting corrector composed of 4 free-standing powered lens elements made of the same material would satisfy the requirements. Similar 3-element correctors were first suggested by R.A. Sampson (Sampson 1913-a, ; Sampson 1913-b, ) and pioneered algebraically by C.G. Wynne (Wynne, 1949). Aberration control as well as remarkable color correction are achieved by adjusting the power ratios among the lens elements. An early practical example of a 4-element corrector of this type is one designed at f/3.52 for the Palomar 5-m prime focus (Wynne, 1967).

Preliminary optimizations demonstrated that hyperbolic (or higher-order aspheric) correction on the primary mirror would not be needed so a parabolic primary mirror was chosen for relative ease of manufacture and testing. Further calculations showed that the extra degrees of freedom provided by a curved secondary mirror would not be required. Thus the system became a prime focus design in effect. A flat secondary mirror was retained to fold the optical system so as to meet mechanical constraints. An overview of the optical design is shown in Figure 1.

Subsequent optimizations were carried out to explore possible optical glass alternatives for the 4-element all-spherical corrector. It was found that a variety of crown glasses could be used for the first 3 lens elements, as long as all of those glasses were the same in a given design. However it proved advantageous to use a lower-index, lower-dispersion glass type for the last lens element. Ohara S-FPL51Y (497811) was found to be the best choice. Ohara BAL35Y (589612) was chosen for the leading lens elements in the construction design, based upon a combination of factors including ready availability, excellent internal transmission, reasonable cost in the required (relatively small) sizes and best image quality. A flat 4.0-mm-thick piece of Schott BK7 (517642) was used as the colored-glass filter simulator.

Eight identical sets of optical glass were ordered from Ohara Corporation, based upon a preconstruction version of the optical design. High precision (6-place) melt-sheet indices of refraction for the BAL35Y and S-FPL51Y glass types were measured by Ohara at each of 10 standard emission-line wavelengths in the (0.365 to 1.014)-micron spectral range. Measured melt indices were transformed to the nominal system operating temperature, T=+10.0 C, using published thermo-optical constants (dn/dT values) from the Ohara catalog. The transformed indices were then fitted differentially to the dispersion curves of the respective generic glass types. Indices calculated from these fits were subsequently fitted to the Schott formula. The resulting Schott dispersion constants are given for each of the melt glass types in Table 1 which also includes catalog Schott BK7 and fused silica at T=+10.0 C.

Tucson Optical Research Corporation (TORC) was identified as the optical manufacturer for the refractive components and the construction design was optimized using standard TORC test-plate radii for all of the corrector-lens surfaces. Construction design Run No. 061900AC is the best in a sequence of optimizations of this general description. Its system prescription is given in full quantitative detail at T=+10.0 C in Table 2.

This construction optical design shows rms image diameters of 6.6 $`\pm `$ 2.2 microns averaged over all field angles and wavelengths within the (0.40 to 0.90)-micron passband without refocus, with 1.9 microns of maximum rms lateral color. These image characteristics, calculated in real time during the design optimization process, suggest that the expected image quality is better than the specified requirements. That is confirmed by Figure 2 which shows the polychromatic fractional encircled energy as a function of image radius, at 5 field angles which are: on-axis, 39%, 78%, 96% and 100% of the full CCD f.o.v. Each of the 5 polychromatic ray traces is composed of equal numbers of randomly distributed rays at (0.40, 0.43, 0.47, 0.52, 0.58, 0.65, 0.73, 0.81 and 0.90)-micron wavelengths.

It is evident in Figure 2 that the residual aberrations have been distributed so as to produce a strong gradient toward the outer 10% of the field radius, where there is very little detector area available (in the corners). Nevertheless, it can be seen that some 72% of the energy lies within a 13.5-micron diameter for the worst-case image at full field while the other images are considerably tighter.

## 3 Mechanical Design and Fabrication

The parabolic primary mirrors for ROTSE-III have been figured by Don Loomis of Tucson; the refractive components and secondary flat were produced by Tucson Optical Research Corporation (TORC). Although the CCD pixel size of 13.5 microns relaxes the optical tolerances so that diffraction-limited performance is not required, it was still necessary to hold the primary surface to $`\frac{1}{4}`$-wave peak-to-peak and $`\frac{1}{20}`$-wave smoothness to maintain a satisfactory point spread function. The refractive components were anti-reflection coated by TORC and the mirrors were silver coated by Newport Thin Films and Denton Vacuum. J. Alan Schier designed the optical tube assembly. Considerable effort was exerted to minimize the weight and moment of inertia that sets the scale for the telescope slewing torques. The corrector cell lenses were mounted with Delrin spacers to provide radial thermal compensation. The primary mirror is also athermally supported with radial Delrin spacers and longitudinally constrained at three points, 120 apart. There was some concern that this would lead to surface deflection under gravity that would degrade stellar images. Dr. Anna Moore assisted us by running finite element calculations of these effects, showing that such distortions would not be a serious problem.

No attempt was made to compensate for longitudinal temperature expansion. The focal plane temperature shift was calculated to correspond to a secondary mirror motion of 7.9 microns/C, in excellent agreement with experimental measurements. Since the total operating thermal environmental range is less than 50 C, the maximum secondary mirror travel is less than 0.5 mm. This permitted a simple but rugged design for controlling the mirror position and providing focus adjustment. The secondary mirror cell is suspended by two thin stainless steel annuli, perforated with diagonal slots. These sheet metal rings are flexible enough to permit a 1.0 mm longitudinal travel while rigidly constraining the transverse motion and prohibiting tilt. A small motorized micrometer assembly drives the focal motion against a spring-loaded restoring force. The focus distance does shift slightly with elevation angle as well as temperature but no azimuthal dependence is apparent. This has been empirically modeled with a simple mathematical function, yielding a residual RMS error of 10 microns. No hysteresis has been observed, evidence of a good rigid structure.

## 4 CCD Camera

The CCD camera design was predicated on the use of the Marconi Applied Technologies CCD42-40-2-343 back-illuminated 2048 $`\times `$ 2048 sensor with 13.5 $`\mu `$m pixels. This device was selected on the basis of its high quantum efficiency (QE) and low readout noise at 1 MHz clock rates. The increased QE promised a factor of two improvement in sensitivity, equivalent to increasing the telescope aperture by a similar factor. Astronomical Research Cameras was selected to build the mechanical housing and the readout electronics. The original camera was designed with an air-cooled Peltier cooling system to avoid handling any kind of cryogenic or room temperature fluids. This led to some engineering problems that favored a more compact liquid-cooled device. The current camera relies on a propylene glycol heat transfer loop driven by a Polyscience model 340 air-cooled recirculator. In operation, the camera can routinely reach -40 C in an ambient environment of +20 C. To allow fast readouts without bus contention problems, the camera interface is mounted in a dedicated PC running under the Linux OS. The image files are stored on NFS cross-mounted disks resident on the data acquisition computer and commands are communicated via TCP/IP socket protocols.

The CCD42-40 chip can be read from two independent amplifiers or in single-ended mode at half the speed. This choice is software selectable. We have been using the camera principally in the latter mode with a total readout time of 6 seconds. A drawback to dual-channel operation is the presence of cross-talk from bright star images. For studying the rapid variability of GRBs at the earliest times following a burst, this deficiency is less onerous. The readout noise of the current camera is expected to be $`10\mathrm{e}^{}`$ while the sky noise is of the order of 15 e- per second. Thus, the image noise is sky dominated within 10 seconds. Exposures of 5 s, 20 s and 60 s reach limiting magnitudes of 17, 17.5 and 18.5 at the test site at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This is expected to improve at the darker sites where these systems will be permanently located.

## 5 Telescope Mount

The scarcest component of the ROTSE-III telescope system was the equatorial fork mount. With an 18” aperture, the optical tube assembly was just beyond the capacity of telescope mounts for the amateur mass market and our scientific requirements for fast slew and accurate tracking further aggravated the problem. Such systems are frequently built for military customers, but with price tags starting at $100,000. We were extremely fortunate that just as this problem became acute, the Astro Works Corporation introduced a modestly priced instrument for deep sky photography called the “Centurion 18”. The telescope fork was constructed from stamped and welded sheet steel, providing an optimal strength-to-weight ratio, making this an ideal starting point for a low-inertia, rapid slew platform.

These mounts were subsequently modified by J. Alan Schier to provide higher slewing torques, more accurate tracking and improved mechanical tolerances. The original stepper motors were replaced by Pittman servomotors in friction contact with 4” diameter hardened steel disks fixed to the right ascension and declination axes. The angular position is derived from incremental encoders consisting of precision ruled tapes with 10 micron spacing in close proximity to opto-electronic detectors that sense relative motion. The absolute angular location is derived from counting the ruling marks relative to mechanical home sensor switches. One problem with a welded steel frame is that accurate co-alignment of the declination axis bearings is difficult to obtain. This potential pitfall was evaded by rigidly constraining the drive-side shaft while thinning the shaft on the opposite fork to allow a small amount of flexure.

The mount control code is written in C++ and executes on an independent PC under the Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 operating system. Communications with the ROTSE-III data acquisition system is via RS-232 serial line.

The telescope mount has a maximum slew acceleration of $`16.4^{}`$/s2 along the right ascension axis, and $`20.6{}_{}{}^{}/\mathrm{s}^2`$ along the declination axis. Both axes have a maximum slew velocity of $`35.0^{}`$/s. At these speeds, the mount can slew from horizon to horizon in just over 8 seconds. A typical alert slew time from the standby (zenith) position takes less than 4 seconds.

During regular system startup the telescope redetermines its absolute home position. This is accomplished by moving the right ascension and declination axes to their limits, where limit switches on the mount are triggered. In this way, our typical pointing error on the sky is up to 25 arcminutes, due to offsets in the home position. To correct for this offset, a test image is taken every night during twilight and automatically calibrated. The true pointing offset is then fed back into the telescope system and the home position is updated. Combining the improved home position with a pointing model calculated by Tpoint (Wallace, 1998), we can achieve rms pointing errors of $`1`$ arcminute.

## 6 Telescope Enclosure

The four currently funded ROTSE-III telescope systems are scheduled for installation in Coonabarabran, Australia, Mt. Gamsberg, Namibia, Bakirlitepe, Turkey, and Fort Davis, Texas, as listed in Table 3. The diversity of these locations demands a simple and robust enclosure. To keep installation efforts to a minimum, the complete enclosure is assembled from only four pieces: an 8’ $`\times `$ 12’ skid, a 90” diameter vertical cylindrical enclosure, a 24” diameter telescope pier and a motorized hatch cover. With the exception of the aluminum hatch cover, the entire structure is welded steel. The total weight of the enclosure is 6750 pounds. By using a steel platform as the support base, the requisite ground preparation is limited to pouring five 25 cm diameter concrete piers. For locations where wind gusts are not a problem, the foundation can be as simple as wooden blocks laid directly on the earth. Since the components are bolted together, the total assembly time in the field is less than four hours. D & R Tank Co. of Albuquerque, New Mexico has been responsible for the development and fabrication of these units. A photograph of a fully assembled enclosure is shown in Figure 3.

The enclosure hatch cover is one of the most critical elements of the design. For rapid triggered observations of GRBs, access to the full sky is essential. The cover must swing completely away from the telescope so that 2$`\pi `$ steradians are visible at all times. Concern about icing problems with roll-off roofs convinced us to choose a swing-away design as less likely to fail under adverse weather conditions. For reliability and cost, a Duff-Norton 24” linear actuator with 2400-pound drive force was selected for the electromechanical drive. This presented an interesting mechanical problem: with only linear motion, the applied torque must rotate the hatch cover assembly by 180. Fortunately, we found an efficient angle-multiplying crank mechanism that provided nearly constant torque over the entire travel. The telescope declination axis is located 4.15” above the highest visual obstruction, setting the minimum elevation angle at less than 10. Since the optical tube assembly can clear the hatch aperture in any orientation, the hatch cover can be closed at any time without fear of damaging the telescope.

The enclosure also houses the three PC-type computers responsible for the operation of the ROTSE-III telescope system. The primary computer runs the data acquisition software system (see Section 8) and interfaces with the outside world via an ethernet connection to a fiber optic link in the enclosure. There is also a monitor and keyboard interface to this computer for an on-site operator to manually test and control the system. The control computer acts as a firewall for the second computer, which is dedicated to running the camera and saving images (see Section 4). These two computers use the Red Hat distribution of the Linux operating system. The third machine’s sole function is to run the mount control code, compiled under the Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 operating system (see Section 5). It receives commands from the control computer via a RS-232 serial line.

The electrical system for the enclosure provides power for the data acquisition computers, mount drive motors, hatch cover linear actuator, air blowers, an electric space heater and number of small instruments related to monitoring the weather and the night sky. The absolute peak load is about 3 KVA with the space heater turned on and the linear actuator in motion but the average load is no more than a few hundred watts. Since observatory environments are frequently plagued by electrical storms, the electrical system is designed to protect the equipment from line surges by including a surge protector on the incoming single-phase line and passing the power through an uninterruptable power supply (UPS). The UPS capacity must be at least sufficient to close the hatch cover on detection of power loss. Standard line voltages differ by a factor of two between the United States and virtually everywhere else. We selected most of the electrical components to be compatible with the standards for its destined location and tried to keep the number of items requiring 115 VAC to a minimum. Motor control of the hatch cover is mediated by a custom I/O interface.

The thermal control of the enclosure is quite simple. We decided that air conditioning was far too unreliable for such a remote system. Consequently, the only temperature regulation consists of a thermostat and two 3 CFM Greenheck air blowers (CW-80-L). On exceeding a settable high temperature threshold, both fans turn on and pull air through a large air filter in the enclosure door. This keeps the system from reaching temperatures greater than the ambient external air. To keep the heat load low, the exterior surfaces are painted with Tnemec semi-gloss white polyamide epoxy paint (Pota-Pox series 20, WH01 white). This coating has an 88.2% solar reflectivity, considerably reducing the daytime heating load. At night, the hatch is fully open so convective flow easily maintains equilibrium.

## 7 Environmental Sensing & Protection

The key to an autonomous robotic system is the suite of environmental sensors that inhibit observations under adverse conditions and initiate system shutdown when such situations arise. The most obvious dangers are high wind and rain. The Davis Weather Station II provides information on temperature, humidity, barometric pressure and wind velocity. The temperature data is one of the required inputs for the telescope focusing model. To avoid damage, instantaneous wind velocities in excess of 30 mph force automatic system shutdowns. The dew point is determined from the humidity and temperature. Precipitation is sensed with a Vaisala DRD11A Rain Detector and a dual-channel night sky monitor provides information about the average sky brightness in the I and B+V photometric bands. The most likely system failure is the loss of control when a computer ‘hangs’. To safeguard the system, a watchdog timer circuit must be updated once every second to avoid a shutdown sequence that will close the hatch cover.

## 8 Automated Data Acquisition Software

The ROTSE-III system runs unattended with a fully automated data acquisition (“daq”) system. The daq system runs on a Pentium-III PC with RedHat Linux, and is based on the software developed for the ROTSE-I automated telescope system. It consists of a set of daemons that communicate via shared memory, as in Figure 4. The central “rotse daemon” (rotsed) handles communication between the various daemons. The peripheral daemons each interface with a different aspect of the telescope system.

The clamshell daemon (clamd) interfaces with the clamshell control lines. It issues commands to open or close the clamshell. The spot daemon pings the watchdog module in the i/o box every second. If the watchdog module loses contact with the control computer, the system is assumed to have shutdown abnormally and the clamshell is automatically closed via a hardware switch.

The camera daemon (camerad) communicates with the CCD camera computer over a TCP/IP socket connection over a private LAN network. The camera software is multi-threaded and can write one image to disk while reading the next image from the CCD camera. The hard disk drives on the camera computer are cross-mounted on the control computer for easy data access.

The weather daemon (weathd) communicates with the Davis Weather Station II and the Vaisala Precipitation Detector. The weather station is multithreaded, and continuously monitors weather quality. Upon detection of bad weather (when either precipitation in measured or weather statistics exceed configurable limits) the weather daemon issues a Linux signal and the clamshell will be commanded to close until the weather clears.

The Schier mount daemon (schierd) communicates with the mount controller computer and focus motor controller via serial lines. The mount daemon implements a Tpoint (Wallace, 1998) pointing model for pointing and tracking. It also implements a simple polynomial focus model based on outside temperature and field elevation. The mount daemon monitors the pointing quality from automatically calibrated images to ensure the pointing accuracy on the sky. In this way we achieve our required pointing accuracy of $`1^{}`$.

The astronomical scheduler daemon (astrod) schedules observations, system startup and system shutdown. The astronomical scheduler uses a prioritized queue scheduler that decides in real-time which configured field is the best to image next. Gamma-ray burst alerts are automatically put in the front of the queue for immediate processing. Regularly scheduled observations consist of two primary modes of operation. First, a large area of sky is tiled into “sky patrol” fields for wide-field transient searches. Second, specific fields can be targeted for long- or short-term monitoring of specific astronomical objects. The standard imaging sequence consists of two 60 s exposures dithered by $`10`$ pixels to relocate bad pixels in consecutive frames. Each field is re-imaged after a configurable cadence interval.

The alert daemon (alertd) communicates with the Gamma-ray Burst Coordinates Network (GCN) via a TCP/IP socket interface. The alert daemon also operates a separate server for simulated GCN triggers sent from the University of Michigan and other ROTSE telescopes. Upon receipt of a trigger packet, the alert daemon issues a signal that interrupts the current schedule, stops the mount, aborts the current exposure, and notifies the astronomical scheduler daemon. The total time taken from the receipt of an alert to the start of the first image is typically 5-10 s. The response sequence itself is handled by the astronomical scheduler daemon.

Upon receipt of a prompt burst alert from the GCN, the scheduler initiates an imaging sequence consisting of 10 5 s, 10 20 s, and 80 60s exposures. Under the current configuration, there is a time delay of $`7`$ s between exposures due to camera readout and mount dithering. After the prompt burst response, follow-up images of the burst-field are scheduled at logarithmically increasing time intervals. For photometric calibration, each burst response sequence is followed immediately by imaging a high-elevation field of Landolt standard stars (Landolt, 1992).

Manual telescope operation and realtime status monitoring are accomplished with the Rotse User Shell (rush), which is a simple telnet compatible shell based on rc, the configurable open-source shell written by Byron Rakitzis. In addition, selected status variables are sent over a TCP/IP socket to our webserver at www.rotse.net, where near real-time status information is available to collaborators and the general public.

## 9 Conclusion

The ROTSE-III project is an example of an optical system that is completely contrary in spirit to the many recent efforts to build extremely large aperture instruments. However, it fulfills a significant need in a relatively unexplored area of astronomy, the search for fast optical transients. The prototype ROTSE-III instrument is still being tested and debugged at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico but it has already reached a satisfactory performance that will permit shipment to the Siding Springs Observatory in Australia by September 2002. The remaining three units are in production and will be completed by November 2002. We hope our development efforts will serve as a useful guide to others who wish to pursue similar paths.

## 10 Acknowledgments

The authors are extremely grateful to Dr. Anna Moore at the Anglo-Australian Telescope for performing finite element calculations of the primary mirror gravitational sag. This work has been supported by NASA grants NAG5-5281 and F006794, NSF grants AST-0119685 and 0105221, the Michigan Space Grant Consortium, the Australian Research Council, the University of New South Wales, and the University of Michigan. Work performed at LANL is supported by NASA SR&T through Department of Energy (DOE) contract W-7405-ENG-36 and through internal LDRD funding. Work at LLNL was performed under the auspices of the DOE, National Nuclear Security Administration by the University of California, LLNL under contract No. W-7405-ENG-48.


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# On quasivarities of groups and equations over groups

## Abstract.

We prove that the quasivariety of groups generated by finite and locally indicable groups does not contain the class of periodic groups. This result is related to (and inspired by) the solvability of equations over groups. The proof uses the Feit-Thompson theorem on the solvability of finite groups of odd order, Kostrikin-Zelmanov results on the restricted Burnside problem and applies techninal details of a recent construction of weakly finitely presented periodic groups.

Supported in part by NSF grants DMS 98-01500, DMS 00-99612

Let $`𝒳=\{x_1,x_2,\mathrm{}\}`$ be a countably infinite alphabet and $`U_1,\mathrm{},U_n,V`$ be words in $`𝒳^{\pm 1}=𝒳𝒳^1`$ (called $`𝒳`$-words). A quasiidentity is an expression of the form

$$(U_1=1\mathrm{}U_m=1)V=1,$$

where $``$ and $``$ are the signs of conjunction and implication, respectively. A quasiidentity holds in a group $`G`$ if it is a true formula for any substitution $`g_ix_i`$, where $`g_iG`$, $`i=1,2\mathrm{}`$. A quasivariety of groups is the class of groups defined by a set of quasiidentities; that is, the class of all groups in which every quasiidentity of a given set holds (see  for more details). For example, the quasiidentity $`x^2=1x=1`$ defines the class of groups without involutions.

Recall that an equation over a group $`G`$ with an unknown $`y`$ is an expression of the form

$$w(y,G)=y^{\epsilon _1}g_1\mathrm{}y^\epsilon _{\mathrm{}}g_{\mathrm{}}=1,$$
(1)
where $`\epsilon _1,\mathrm{},\epsilon _{\mathrm{}}\{\pm 1\}`$ and $`g_1,\mathrm{},g_{\mathrm{}}G`$. The elements $`g_1,\mathrm{},g_{\mathrm{}}`$ of $`G`$ are called the coefficients and $`\mathrm{}`$ is the length of equation (1). The equation (1) is called solvable  if there is a group $`H`$ that contains $`G`$ as its subgroup and there is an element $`hH`$ so that the substitution $`hy`$ in (1) results in the equality $`w(h,G)=1`$ in $`H`$. Clearly, the equation (1) is solvable if and only if $`G`$ naturally embeds in the quotient of the free product $`y_{\mathrm{}}G`$ by relation (1), where $`y_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the infinite cyclic group generated by $`y`$. The equation (1) is called nonsingular  if $`\epsilon _1+\mathrm{}+\epsilon _{\mathrm{}}0`$ (otherwise, it is singular).

It is a well-known conjecture of Kervaire and Laudenbach that every nonsingular equation is solvable over any group $`G`$. We will say that the equation (1) is strongly solvable  over a group $`G`$ if it is solvable for an arbitrary $`\mathrm{}`$-tuple $`(g_1,\mathrm{},g_{\mathrm{}})`$ of elements of $`G`$. Clearly, the Kervaire-Laudenbach conjecture is equivalent to its strong version, that is, the Kervaire-Laudenbach conjecture holds if and only if every nonsingular equation is strongly solvable over any group $`G`$. It is also easy to see that if the equation (1) is strongly solvable over a nontrivial group $`G`$ then this equation is nonsingular.

The following establishes a link between foregoing definitions.

###### Proposition 1.

Let $`𝒦(w(y,G))`$ denote the class of groups over which equation $`(1)`$ is strongly solvable. Then $`𝒦(w(y,G))`$ is a quasivariety of groups whose quasiidentities can be written using $`\mathrm{}`$ letters $`x_1,\mathrm{},x_{\mathrm{}}`$, where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the length of equation $`(1)`$. Furthermore, the class of groups over which all nonsingular equations are solvable is a quasivariety of groups (denoted by $`\text{Qvar}`$).

It was proved by Gerstenhaber and Rothaus  that the Kervaire-Laudenbach conjecture holds for finite groups, and so every finite group is in $`\text{Qvar}`$. By Proposition 1, this result can be stated as follows: $`\text{Qvar}\text{Qvar}`$, where $`\text{Qvar}`$ is the quasivariety generated by all finite groups ($`\text{Qvar}`$ consists of all those groups in which quasiidentities of finite groups hold).

It was asked by Klyachko whether every periodic group $`G`$ is in $`\text{Qvar}`$; this would imply that every nonsingular equation is solvable over $`G`$. Note that any locally finite group, the finitely generated infinite periodic groups constructed by Golod  and the subsequent examples of Aleshin , Sushchanskii , Grigorchuk , Gupta and Sidki , , are all in $`\text{Qvar}`$, because they are either locally finite or residually finite.

We also mention that, in view of Proposition 1, one possible way of proving the Kervaire-Laudenbach conjecture would be to prove it for groups in a class $`𝒦`$ which generates the quasivariety of all groups. In this regard, recall that Howie  (see also Brodski’s articles , , ) proved the Kervaire-Laudenbach conjecture for locally indicable groups (a group $`G`$ is called locally indicable if every nontrivial finitely generated subgroup $`H`$ of $`G`$ has an infinite cyclic homomorphic image). Let $``$ denote the class of locally indicable groups. By Proposition 1, $`\text{Qvar}\text{Qvar}`$. Since it is also true that $`\text{Qvar}()\text{Qvar}`$, it follows that the Kervaire-Laudenbach conjecture would be proven if one could show that $`\text{Qvar}()`$ is the quasivariety of all groups. To address these natural questions, we will prove the following.

###### Theorem.

Let $`n>2^{16}`$ be odd and $`𝒦`$ be a class of groups such that if $`A𝒦`$ and $`B`$ is a finitely generated subgroup of exponent $`n`$ in $`A`$ then $`B`$ is finite (in particular, $`𝒦=`$ or $`𝒦=`$). Then there is an infinite finitely generated group of exponent $`n^3`$ which is not contained in the quasivariety $`\text{Qvar}𝒦`$ of groups generated by $`𝒦`$.

To prove this Theorem we will use some of technical results of article  whose construction is based upon  (see Lemmas 1, 2 below). We will also use fundamental results of Feit and Thompson  on the solvability of finite groups of odd order and those of Kostrikin  and Zelmanov  on the restricted Burnside problem for finite groups of prime power exponent (together with the Hall-Higman reduction  and the classification of finite simple groups; for $`n=p^\alpha `$, where $`p`$ is a prime, our proof becomes simpler and uses only Kostrikin-Zelmanov results , ).

As an immediate corollary of this Theorem, we have negative answers to both Klyachko’s question and the question whether every group is in $`\text{Qvar}()`$.

###### Corollary.

The quasivariety $`\text{Qvar}()`$ generated by finite groups and locally indicable groups does not contain the class of periodic groups.

We remark in passing that no results are known that deal with the solvability of nonsingular equations over free Burnside groups of exponent $`n1`$, Tarski monsters and other nonlocally finite groups of bounded exponent (see , , , ). It is not even known whether there are such groups in $`\text{Qvar}`$. In this connection, observe that every group $`G`$ has a largest homomorphic image $`G/(G)\text{Qvar}`$, where $`(G)`$ is the normal subgroup of $`G`$ generated by values of the right parts of the quasiidentities of $`\text{Qvar}`$ whose left parts are true in $`G`$. Therefore, the question whether there exists an infinite $`m`$-generator group of exponent $`n`$ in $`\text{Qvar}`$ (resp. in $`\text{Qvar}`$) is equivalent to the question whether the quotient $`B(m,n)/(B(m,n))`$ (resp. $`B(m,n)/(B(m,n))`$) is infinite, where $`B(m,n)`$ is a free $`m`$-generator Burnside group of exponent $`n`$, that is, $`B(m,n)=F_m/F_m^n`$ and $`F_m`$ is a free group of rank $`m`$. These problems seem to be rather interesting new versions of the Burnside problem (which have some similarity with the restricted Burnside problem, see also Problem 3).

###### Problem 1.

Does there exist an infinite $`m`$-generator group of (odd) exponent $`n1`$ over which all nonsingular equations are solvable? Equivalently, is the quotient $`B(m,n)/(B(m,n))`$ infinite?

###### Problem 2.

Does there exist an infinite $`m`$-generator group of (odd) exponent $`n1`$ in which all quasiidentities of finite groups hold? Equivalently, is the quotient $`B(m,n)/(B(m,n))`$ infinite?

Since $`\text{Qvar}\text{Qvar}`$, we have that $`(B(m,n))(B(m,n))`$ and so a negative solution to Problem 1 would imply a negative solution to Problem 2 (we would conjecture, though, that $`B(m,n)\text{Qvar}`$ for (odd) $`n1`$).

It is relevant to mention another problem (stated in , ).

###### Problem 3.

Does there exist an integer $`r=r(m,n)>0`$, where $`m>1`$ and $`n`$ is odd, such that if $`G`$ is a finite group, generated by elements $`g_1,\mathrm{},g_m`$, and every word $`v`$ in $`g_1^{\pm 1},\mathrm{},g_m^{\pm 1}`$ of length at most $`r`$ satisfies $`v^n=1`$ in $`G`$, then $`G`$ has exponent $`n`$?

Recall that a positive solution to Problem 3 for (odd) $`n1`$ implies the existence of Gromov hyperbolic groups  that are not residually finite.

As in the proof of Theorem, putting together results of  and , ,  (together with the classification of finite simple groups), we will show the following.

###### Proposition 2.

For given $`m`$ and $`n`$, a positive solution to Problem 3 implies a negative solution to Problem 2.

Proof of Theorem. Let $`I`$ be a finite index set with $`|I|>1`$. Consider an alphabet

$$𝒰=\{a_i,b_i,x_i,y,c|iI\}$$

and the following relations (2)–(8) in letters of $`𝒰^{\pm 1}=𝒰𝒰^1`$.

$$x_icx_i^1=cb_i,iI,$$
(2)
$$yb_iy^1=b_ia_i,iI,$$
(3)
$$c^n=1,$$
(4)
$$x_ib_j=b_jx_i,i,jI,$$
(5)
$$a_ib_j=b_ja_i,i,jI,$$
(6)
$$a_ic=ca_i,iI,$$
(7)
$$yc=cy,iI.$$
(8)
Let a group $`𝒢`$ be given by the presentation whose alphabet is $`𝒰`$ and whose set of defining relations consists of relations (2)–(8), thus

$$𝒢=𝒰(2)(8).$$
(9)
Let $`F(𝒜)`$ denote a free group in the alphabet $`𝒜`$ and $`B(𝒜,n)=F(𝒜)/F(𝒜)^n`$ denote the free Burnside group of exponent $`n`$ in the alphabet $`𝒜`$.

The following two lemmas are proved in .

###### Lemma 1.

The subgroup $`a_i|iI`$ of the group $`𝒢`$, generated by the images of letters $`a_i,iI`$, is naturally isomorphic to $`B(𝒜,n)`$.

###### Lemma 2.

Let $`n>2^{16}`$ be odd. Then the subgroup $`a_i|iI`$ of the group $`𝒢/𝒢^{n^3}`$, generated by the images of letters $`a_i`$, $`iI`$, is naturally isomorphic to $`B(𝒜,n)`$. In particular, this subgroup $`a_i|iI`$ is infinite.

According to Feit and Thompson , every finite group of odd order is solvable. Furthermore, if $`F`$ is a finite $`m`$-generator group of odd exponent $`n`$, then Kostrikin-Zelmanov results ,  on the restricted Burnside problem, a reduction theorem due to Hall and Higman  and the classification of finite simple groups imply that there is an upper bound $`c(m,n)`$ for the class of solvability of $`F`$.

Let us again consider relations (2)–(8) and rewrite each of them in the form $`W=1`$. Construct a quasiidentity whose premise is the conjunction of all these equalities $`W=1`$ and whose conclusion is $`S_d(v_1,\mathrm{},v_{2^d})=1`$, where $`S_d`$ is a ”solvable” commutator of class $`d`$ (so that the quotient $`F(𝒜)/S_d(F(𝒜))`$ is the free solvable group of class $`d`$ in the alphabet $`𝒜`$) and $`v_1,\mathrm{},v_{2^d}`$ are arbitrary elements of $`F(𝒜)`$. Picking $`d=c(|I|,n)`$, it is easy to see from Lemma 1 that the system of these quasiidentities (over all possible tuples $`(v_1,\mathrm{},v_{2^d})`$ of elements of $`F(𝒜)`$) holds in any group $`A𝒦`$. On the other hand, if this system holds in the group $`𝒢/𝒢^{n^3}`$, where $`𝒢`$ is given by presentation (9), then the subgroup $`a_i|iI`$ of $`𝒢/𝒢^{n^3}`$ would have to be solvable of class $`d`$ and so it would be finite. This contradiction to Lemma 2 shows that $`𝒢/𝒢^{n^3}\text{Qvar}𝒦`$ and Theorem is proved. ∎

Note that if $`n=p^\alpha `$, where $`p`$ is a prime, then the above argument becomes simpler, because a finite group of such an exponent $`n`$ is nilpotent (so we do not need to refer to ) and Kostrikin-Zelmanov results ,  directly yield the required upper bound $`c(m,n)`$ (so we do not need to refer to  and use the classification of finite simple groups).

Proof of Proposition 1. If (1) is a singular equation then $`𝒦(w(y,G))`$ contains the trivial group only and our claim is obvious. Hence we can assume that the equation (1) is nonsingular.

Let

$$𝒳_{\mathrm{}}=\{x_1,\mathrm{},x_{\mathrm{}}\},w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=y^{\epsilon _1}x_1\mathrm{}y^\epsilon _{\mathrm{}}x_{\mathrm{}}$$

and consider a group presentation

$$x_1,\mathrm{},x_{\mathrm{}},yu_1(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1,\mathrm{},u_k(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1,w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1,$$
(10)
where $`u_1(𝒳_{\mathrm{}}),\mathrm{},u_k(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})`$ are words in $`𝒳_{\mathrm{}}^{\pm 1}=𝒳_{\mathrm{}}𝒳_{\mathrm{}}^1`$, $`k1`$.

A spherical diagram $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ over presentation (10) is called $`w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})`$-regular if the following properties (W1)–(W3) hold (for the definition of a (spherical) diagram over a group presentation the reader is referred to ; see also ).

1. If $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is a 2-cell of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is the positively oriented boundary of $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ then the word $`\phi (\mathrm{\Pi })`$, up to a cyclic permutation, is either $`w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})^{\pm 1}`$ (in which case $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is called a $`y`$-face) or $`u_j(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})`$, where $`j\{1,\mathrm{},k\}`$, and for every $`j\{1,\mathrm{},k\}`$ there is precisely one 2-cell $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ with $`\phi (\mathrm{\Pi })=u_j(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})`$ (in which case $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is called a $`u_j`$-face).
2. If $`e\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is an (oriented) edge and $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is a $`u_j`$-face in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ then $`e^1\mathrm{\Pi }^{}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{}`$ is a $`y`$-face.
3. Every vertex $`o`$ in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ has degree 3 and if $`e_1,e_2,e_3`$ are 3 (oriented) edges whose terminal vertex is $`o`$ then for one of them, say, $`e_1`$, one has $`\phi (e_1)=y^{\pm 1}`$ and $`e_2,e_3^1`$ are consecutive edges of $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{\pm 1}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is a $`u_j`$-face.

For every $`w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})`$-regular spherical diagram $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ we consider $`k`$ quasiidentities

$$\left(u_1(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1\mathrm{}u_{j1}(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1u_{j+1}(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1\mathrm{}u_k(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1\right)u_j(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1$$

for $`j=1,\mathrm{},k`$.

By $`\text{SQ}(w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}}))`$ denote the system of such quasiidentities over all $`w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})`$-regular spherical diagrams $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (for all $`k=1,2,\mathrm{}`$). Finally, let $`\text{Qvar}(\text{SQ}(w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})))`$ denote the quasivariety defined by the system $`\text{SQ}(w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}}))`$.

###### Lemma 3.

The class $`𝒦(w(y,G))`$ of groups over which the equation $`(1)`$ is strongly solvable is $`\text{Qvar}(\text{SQ}(w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})))`$.

Proof. To prove that $`𝒦(w(y,G))\text{Qvar}(\text{SQ}(w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})))`$, suppose, on the contrary, that $`G_1`$ is a group such that $`G_1𝒦(w(y,G))`$ and $`G_1\text{Qvar}(\text{SQ}(w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})))`$.

Since $`G_1\text{Qvar}(\text{SQ}(w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})))`$, there is a quasiidentity

$$\left(u_1(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1\mathrm{}u_{j1}(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1u_{j+1}(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1\mathrm{}u_k(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1\right)u_j(𝒳_{\mathrm{}})=1$$

in the system $`\text{SQ}(w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}}))`$ which does not hold in $`G_1`$.

Assume that this quasiidentity fails for an $`\mathrm{}`$-tuple $`(g_{1,1},\mathrm{},g_{1,\mathrm{}})`$ of elements of $`G_1`$ and let $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ be the $`w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})`$-regular spherical diagram used in construction of this quasiidentity. Relabelling edges of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ whose labels are $`x_1^{\pm 1},\mathrm{},x_{\mathrm{}}^{\pm 1}`$ by corresponding elements $`g_{1,1}^{\pm 1},\mathrm{},g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\pm 1}`$ and taking $`u_j`$-face out of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we will get a disk diagram $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ over the relative presentation

$$y,G_1w(y,g_{1,1},\mathrm{},g_{1,\mathrm{}})=1$$

so that $`\phi (\mathrm{\Delta }_0)=u_j(g_{1,1},\mathrm{},g_{1,\mathrm{}})1`$ in $`G_1`$. This proves that equation (1) is not strongly solvable over $`G_1`$, contrary to $`G_1𝒦(w(y,G))`$.

To prove the converse inclusion $`\text{Qvar}(\text{SQ}(w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})))𝒦(w(y,G))`$, assume, on the contrary, that $`G_1\text{Qvar}(\text{SQ}(w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})))`$ and $`G_1𝒦(w(y,G))`$.

Since $`G_1𝒦(w(y,G))`$, there is an $`\mathrm{}`$-tuple $`(g_{1,1},\mathrm{},g_{1,\mathrm{}})`$ of elements of $`G_1`$ such that the equation $`w(y,g_{1,1},\mathrm{},g_{1,\mathrm{}})=y^{\epsilon _1}g_{1,1}\mathrm{}y^\epsilon _{\mathrm{}}g_{1,\mathrm{}}=1`$ is not solvable. This means the existence of a disk diagram $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ over the relative presentation $`y,G_1w(y,g_{1,1},\mathrm{},g_{1,\mathrm{}})=1`$ so that $`\phi (\mathrm{\Delta }_0)G_1`$ and $`\phi (\mathrm{\Delta }_0)1`$ in $`G_1`$. Now it is easy to construct a $`w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})`$-regular spherical diagram $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ from $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ such that one of quasiidentities associated as above with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ does not hold for the $`\mathrm{}`$-tuple $`(g_{1,1},\mathrm{},g_{1,\mathrm{}})`$. This contradiction to $`G_1\text{Qvar}(\text{SQ}(w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}})))`$ completes the proof of Lemma 3. ∎

The first claim of Proposition 1 follows from definitions and Lemma 3. Furthermore, in view of Lemma 3, the union $`\text{SQ}(w(y,𝒳_{\mathrm{}}))`$ over all nonsingular equations (1) is a system of quasiidentities which defines the class of groups over which all nonsingular equations are strongly solvable. Therefore, this class is a quasivariety of groups and Proposition 1 is proved. ∎

Proof of Proposition 2. Assume that Problem 3 is solved in the affirmative for given $`m,n`$ and $`r(m,n)`$ is a required integer. As in the proof of Theorem, it follows from results of , , ,  (and the classification of finite simple groups) that there is a bound $`c(m,n)`$ for the class of solvability of an $`m`$-generator finite group of odd exponent $`n`$. As in the proof of Theorem, consider a ”solvable” commutator $`S_d`$ of class $`d=c(m,n)`$. Define a system of quasiidentities whose premise is the conjunction of equalities $`u(x_1,\mathrm{},x_m)^n=1`$, where the word $`u(x_1,\mathrm{},x_m)`$ has length at most $`r(m,n)`$, and whose conclusion is $`S_d(v_1,\mathrm{},v_{2^d})=1`$, where $`v_1,\mathrm{},v_{2^d}`$ are arbitrary words in $`\{x_1^{\pm 1},\mathrm{},x_m^{\pm 1}\}`$. It is easy to see that every quasiidentity of this system holds in any finite group. Therefore, the subgroup $`(B(m,n))`$ contains the verbal subgroup $`S_d(B(m,n))`$ and so the quotient $`B(m,n)/(B(m,n))`$ is solvable and finite. This proves Proposition 2. ∎


text:
# Charmonium with three flavors of dynamical quarks Talk and poster presented by P. Mackenzie and D. Menscher.

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The current experimental program of precision flavor physics at the $`B`$ factories, at CESR-c, and at the Tevatron needs accurate lattice QCD calculations of the relevant hadronic matrix elements to yield stringent constraints on the CKM sector of the standard model. Precision lattice QCD results in turn require that the systematic errors associated with lattice calculations be brought under control to the desired accuracy. The most important sources of systematic error in lattice calculations include the incomplete inclusion of sea quarks (quenched approximation), lattice spacing artifacts, perturbative errors, and the chiral extrapolation. We are planning a series of lattice calculations of the phenomenologically most important quantities in the $`B`$, $`D`$, $`\overline{c}c`$ and $`\overline{b}b`$ systems. We will address the first two sources of systematic error by performing simulations with highly improved actions on gauge configurations with $`n_f=2+1`$ improved staggered quarks . This effort must be complemented by the corresponding perturbative matching calculations of the improvement coefficients and currrent renormalizations. This should be possible with recent advances in automated perturbation theory .

The MILC collaboration has generated dynamical gauge configurations  using improved staggered and gluon actions. Their configurations include three (or $`2+1`$) flavors of light staggered fermions at several different light quark masses ranging from $`m_s`$ to $`m_s/5`$. Hence, the systematic errors usually associated with the quenched approximation should be absent with these configurations. Furthermore, since numerical simulations with rather light quark masses are feasible with staggered actions, the issue of chiral extrapolations may be carefully studied.

The heavy quark action used in this work is based on Ref. . It is related to NRQCD, but uses the four component fields and operators of the Wilson action rather than the two component fields and operators of NRQCD. Similar to NRQCD, the space-like and time-like components of the operators are uncoupled, and the coefficients of the operators are mass dependent. This action smoothly interpolates between an ordinary light quark action as $`am0`$ and NRQCD when $`am>1`$, but is applicable at all values of $`am`$. Our formalism can be regarded as a summation of terms of the form $`(am)^p`$ to all orders in the normalizations of operators, which is useful when $`m\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$. To $`O(a)`$, our action uses the same operators as the clover action . Starting at $`O(a^2)`$, the operators are somewhat different from those in the analogous light quark action. The reason is that a two-hop correction to the Wilson time derivative operator cannot be used because it introduces ghost states for heavy quarks. Its effects must instead be duplicated with Hamiltonian-style operators . The action may be particularly useful for the charm quark on lattice spacings with $`am_c<1`$. It has smaller discretization errors than standard light quark actions since the $`(am_c)^p`$ errors, which it resums and eliminates, are much larger than the remaining $`(a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}})^p`$ discretization errors. Since it has a well-defined $`a0`$ limit, it may be more convergent for $`am<1`$ than NRQCD, which does not.

Now that we are calculating with dynamical quarks, lattice spacings obtained from the simplest quantities should all agree within errors. We start our work with a study of the charmonium spectrum, to test our methods and lattices. As a byproduct, we obtain a new determination of the strong coupling.

## 2 DETAILS OF THE CALCULATION

MILC uses the Asqtad action  for the staggered fermions which contains errors of $`O(\alpha _sa^2)`$, and an improved gluon action with $`O(\alpha _s^2a^2)`$ errors. For the charm quarks we use the Sheikholeslami-Wohlert action  (which has $`O(\alpha _sa)`$ errors) with the Fermilab interpretation . The quenched gauge configurations are generated with the Wilson gauge action. Table 1 lists the simulation parameters for all three lattices. The quenched lattice has a slightly smaller lattice spacing than the MILC lattices.

As usual, we calculate charmonium two-point functions using smeared source and sink operators. For this purpose, when working on MILC lattices, we use the Richardson potential  model wave functions shown in Figure 1.

The quenched propagators were generated using Coulomb wave functions.

### 2.1 Fits

As shown in Refs. , constrained fits allow for better control of the systematic error due to excited state contributions, because they allow us to fit the correlators to a large number of states without loss of accuracy. Furthermore, with constrained fits one is also able to use all of the time slices in the fits without adjusting $`t_{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`t_{\mathrm{max}}`$ to determine the best fit. We investigate this issue by comparing constrained and unconstrained fits. We fit meson correlators to the form

$`G(t;\{Z_n\},\{E_n\})=`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}Z_n^2(e^{E_nt}+e^{E_n(Tt)}).`$
We force our energy levels to be ordered by defining

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_n=E_nE_{n1}\mathrm{exp}(ϵ_n).$$
(2)
In our fits we use Baysian statistics,

$$\chi ^2\chi _{\mathrm{aug}}^2\chi ^2+\chi _{\mathrm{prior}}^2,$$
(3)
where $`\chi _{\mathrm{prior}}^2`$ is used to constrain $`E_0`$, $`ϵ_n`$, and $`Z_n`$ to a predetermined range.

For simplicity, we test our fit program on the quenched lattice. Figures 23 show our fit results for the $`\eta _c`$ ground and first excited state energies as functions of the number of states in the fit ($`n`$) obtained from the $`\eta _c`$ propagator with a $`\delta `$-function source and sink.

We observe that the fit results — particularly the error bars — for the ground and first excited state energies are stable under adding more states to the fit when constrained fits are used, but not in the case of unconstrained fits. The unconstrained fits do not use Eq. 3, but they do use the energy ordering constraint of Eq. 2, which is probably the reason for the relative stability of the central fit values even in the unconstrained case.

The prior constraints must be chosen so that they do not unduly influence the physical results. Figure 4 shows the dependence of the ground state fit on the prior width.

The fit includes four states and the ranges for all priors are varied together with the ground state energy prior width. We see that the fit results are stable, once the prior width is large enough. Furthermore, the error on the ground state energy is unaffected by the variation of the prior width, after the plateau is reached. Table 2 lists typical choices for the energy prior values and ranges used in our fits.

The prior values for the $`Z_n`$ are chosen by matching the hadron propagators evaluated at $`t=1`$ to Eq. 2.1; the range is usually set to a factor of three of the central value.

The results discussed in the next section are obtained from fits to multiple correlators, making use of the different source and sink operators listed in Table 1. These fits are generally consistent with fits to the delta-function correlators, albeit with smaller statistical errors.

## 3 THE SPECTRUM

Figure 5 summarizes our results for the charmonium spectrum.

Our results for the hyperfine, 1P–1S, and 2S–1S splittings are shown in Figures 68 as functions of the light quark mass.

We observe very little light quark mass dependence in the hyperfine splitting, and our chirally extrapolated result still disagrees with experiment, although the inclusion of dynamical quarks has removed one possible cause of a small hyperfine splitting: the fact that the short distance coupling constant is too small in the quenched approximation. We note that the charm quark action is only $`O(a)`$ improved. The leading order operator which controls the spin splitting is $`\overline{\psi }\sigma _{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }\psi `$. Its coefficient is being included only at tadpole improved tree-level, and it is plausible that the observed discrepancy is a result of both $`O(\alpha _sa)`$ errors and $`O(a^2)`$ lattice spacing artifacts. We will be able to study this issue further once our $`O(a^2)`$ improved action  is ready for numerical simulations.

The spin-averaged 1P–1S and 2S–1S splittings are considerably less sensitive to the leading order lattice artifacts; they are used to determine the lattice spacing. Figures 78 indicate that the dependence of the spin-averaged splittings on the light quark mass is mild.

The extent to which the lattice spacings from the 1P–1S and 2S–1S splittings disagree with each other is an indication of residual systematic errors in our simulation, which are a combination of higher order lattice spacing and sea quark effects. For this comparison we compute the ratio of lattice spacings,

$$R\frac{\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }M(2\mathrm{S}1\mathrm{S})}{\mathrm{\Delta }M(1\mathrm{P}1\mathrm{S})}^{\mathrm{lat}}}{\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }M(2\mathrm{S}1\mathrm{S})}{\mathrm{\Delta }M(1\mathrm{P}1\mathrm{S})}^{\mathrm{exp}}}$$
(4)
Table 3 compares the lattice spacings obtained on all three

lattices. On the quenched lattice the deviation of $`R`$ from unity is about $`1.5`$ standard deviations. On the two MILC lattices, the deviation of $`R`$ from unity is less significant, because of the still somewhat large statistical errors. To clarify the situation we need to reduce the statistical errors of the results on the MILC lattices.

Now that dynamical fermions are included in the calculations, lattice spacings from the best-understood quantities should be consistent. We note that although the lattice spacings obtained from the 1P–1S and the 2S–1S splittings are consistent with each other, the lattice spacing from the 1P–1S splitting is consistent with several determinations of the lattice spacing from the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ system , while the one obtained from the 2S–1S splitting is not. It is possible that higher order discretization effects are responsible for this. A more interesting possibility is that due to the fact that the 2S is so close to the $`D\overline{D}`$ threshold, physical effects from the coupling to $`D\overline{D}`$ channels may have a more dramatic effect in the 2S than in other states.

## 4 THE STRONG COUPLING

The spin-averaged splittings discussed in the previous section are used to determine the strong coupling $`\alpha _s`$. The $`2+1`$ flavor lattices are our most realistic. We take the 1P–1S splitting as our most reliable determination of the lattice spacing because of the possible threshold effects in the 2S state. Following the procedure of Ref. , we obtain the strong coupling from the plaquette. For our actions we have

$`\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{Tr}U_P=`$
$`3.0682\alpha _P(q^{})\left[1\alpha _P(0.770+0.09681n_f)\right]`$
where $`q^{}=3.33/a`$ is the BLM scale for $`n_f=3`$. The coupling $`\alpha _P`$ is defined to coincide through one-loop order with $`\alpha _V`$, the coupling defined from the heavy quark potential. Using

$$\alpha _{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}(q)=\alpha _P\left(e^{5/6}q\right)\left[1+\frac{2}{\pi }\alpha _P+O(\alpha _P^2)\right],$$
(6)
we obtain

$$\alpha _{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}(M_Z)=0.119\pm 0.004.$$
(7)
The difference between our value and the value reported in Ref.  arises mainly from differing implicit treatment of $`O(\alpha ^3)`$ corrections, which will soon be known. The main sources of uncertainty are $`O(\alpha ^3)`$ corrections (3%), discretization errors (2%), and statistical errors (1%). All three should be significantly reduced soon.

## 5 CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK

We present preliminary results of a calculation of the charmonium spectrum on gauge configurations generated by the MILC collaboration using $`O(a^2)`$ improved actions for the gluons and the $`n_f=2+1`$ dynamical staggered fermions. We use the $`O(a)`$ improved clover action with the Fermilab interpretation for the charm valence quarks. Since the MILC configurations were generated with the correct number of sea quarks, no extrapolation in $`n_f`$ is necessary. Furthermore, the nondegenerate strange and light quark masses in the MILC lattices allow us to consider the chiral limit. Comparing results at $`am_s=am_l=0.05`$ and $`am_s=0.05,am_l=0.01`$, we find only mild light quark mass dependence for all spectral quantities we consider. Finally, our calculation yields a new determination of the strong coupling where systematic errors due to sea quark effects are under control.

For future work, we are planning to improve the statistical accuracy of this work. The improvement of the heavy quark action beyond $`O(a)`$ is in progress .

We thank the MILC collaboration for the use of their configurations. We thank Peter Lepage for helpful conversations. This work was supported in part by the Department of Energy. We thank the Fermilab Computing Division and the SciDAC program for their support. Fermilab is operated by Universities Research Association Inc., under contract with the DOE.


text:
# OKHEP-02-09 Entropy Bounds in Spherical Space

## 1 Introduction

The remarkable appearance of the holographic principle has fostered the understanding that some hitherto distant branches of theoretical physics may have a much deeper common origin that was expected. One significant example of this sort is the relation, suggested by Verlinde  between the Cardy entropy formula  and the Friedmann equation for the evolution of the scale factor of the universe. Moreover, the proposal that in the early universe there exists a holographic bound on the cosmological entropy associated with Casimir energy suggests that there should be a deeper relation between Friedmann cosmology and the Casimir effect . Specifically, there has been much interest in studying the entropy and energy arising from quantum and thermal fluctuations in conformal field theories . Whether the Verlinde bound for the ratio of the entropy to the thermal energy can be realized in realistic situations is a matter for specific calculations. Previous computations have been limited to the regime of high temperatures, so they are unable to provide definitive results. Here we obtain exact results for various fields in the $`R\times S^3`$ geometry, so the issues may be more decisively addressed .

## 2 Conformally Coupled Scalar

### 2.1 Green’s Function Method

We can start from the formalism given in Kantowski and Milton . The energy is given by the imaginary part of the Green’s function,

$$U=V_3^0^0\mathrm{}G(x,y;x^{},y^{})|_{x=x^{},y=y^{}},$$
(1)
where the “external” coordinates $`x`$ consist only of the time. We introduce a Fourier transform there

$$G(t,y;t^{},y^{})=\frac{d\omega }{2\pi }e^{i\omega (tt^{})}g(y,y^{};\omega ),g(y,y^{};\omega )=\underset{lm}{}\frac{Y_l^m(y)Y_l^m(y^{})}{M_l^2/a^2\omega ^2},$$
(2)
with $`M_l^2=(l+1)^2`$ for conformal coupling on $`S^3`$, so the Casimir energy is

$$U=\frac{i}{4\pi }_c𝑑\omega \omega ^2\underset{l}{}\frac{D_l}{M_l^2/a^2\omega ^2},D_l=(l+1)^2,$$
(3)
where the contour $`c`$ encircles the poles on the positive axis in a negative sense, and those on the negative axis in a positive sense.

Temperature dependence is incorporated by the replacement

$$_c\frac{d\omega }{2\pi }\frac{4i}{\beta }\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}{}_{}{}^{},\omega ^2\left(\frac{2\pi n}{\beta }\right)^2.$$
(4)
The prime means that the $`n=0`$ term is counted with half weight.

We carry out the sum on $`l`$ in Eq. (3) by using the general representation

$$\underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{m^2\alpha ^2}=\frac{\pi }{2\alpha }\mathrm{cot}\pi \alpha \frac{1}{2\alpha ^2}.$$
(5)
We then make the finite-temperature replacements (4) and obtain, after dropping the contact term arising from the constant ($`\zeta (2)=0`$)

$$U=\frac{1}{a}\left(\frac{2\pi a}{\beta }\right)^4\left[\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}{}_{}{}^{}\frac{n^3}{e^{4\pi ^2an/\beta }1}+\frac{1}{240}\right],$$
(6)
which, since the summand vanishes at $`n=0`$, gives only exponentially small corrections to Stefan’s law, which is the result of Kutasov and Larsen :

$$U\frac{1}{a}\frac{(2\pi aT)^4}{240},(aT1).$$
(7)
### 2.2 Statistical-Mechanical Approach

We recall the usual statistical mechanical expression for the free energy,

$`F=kT\mathrm{ln}Z,\mathrm{ln}Z={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(n+1)^{d2}\mathrm{ln}\left(1e^{\beta (n+1)/a}\right),`$ (8)
for conformally coupled scalars in $`S^{d1}`$. Here the zero-point energy,

$$E_0=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(n+1)^{d2}\frac{n+1}{2a}=\frac{1}{2a}\zeta (1d),$$
(9)
has been subtracted. The specific results for two and four dimensions are

$`E_0^{d=2}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2a}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}B_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{24a}},E_0^{d=4}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2a}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}B_4={\displaystyle \frac{1}{240a}}.`$ (10)
For the temperature dependence, we differentiate the partition function,

$$E=UE_0=\frac{d}{d\beta }\mathrm{ln}Z=\frac{1}{a}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{n^3}{e^{2\pi n\delta }1},\delta =\frac{\beta }{2\pi a}.$$
(11)
This is a very different representation from Eq. (6). Nevertheless, from it we may obtain the same result we found above if we use the Euler-Maclaurin sum formula.

### 2.3 Relation Between Representations

We have two representation for the Casimir energy, the one obtained from the Green’s function, Eq. (6), and the one obtained from the partition function, Eq. (11). The relation between the two can be found from the Poisson sum formula. If the Fourier transform of a function $`b(x)`$ is defined by

$$c(\alpha )=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dx}{2\pi }e^{i\alpha x}b(x),\text{then}\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}b(n)=2\pi \underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}c(2\pi n).$$
(12)
It is then easily seen that the energy (11) is

$$E=\frac{1}{a}\left(\frac{a}{\beta }\right)^4\mathrm{\Gamma }(4)\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{\left(1+kia2\pi n/\beta \right)^4}.$$
(13)
If we sum this on $`n`$ first, we obtain the alternative expression (6)

$`E={\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi a}{\beta }}\right)^4{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{n^3}{e^{4\pi ^2an/\beta }1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{240a}}\left[(2\pi aT)^41\right].`$ (14)
The two representations are best adapted for the low- and high-temperature limits, respectively:

$`U={\displaystyle \frac{1}{240a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{n^3}{e^{2\pi n\delta }1}}={\displaystyle \frac{(2\pi aT)^4}{240a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(2\pi aT)^4}{a}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{n^3}{e^{2\pi na/\delta }1}}.`$ (15)
## 3 $`d=2`$ Conformal Scalar

Because there is a subtle issue involving zero-modes here, it is useful to repeat the above calculation for $`d=2`$. From the partition function we immediately obtain the low-temperature representation,111Dowker  has suggested that the zero-mode contribution be retained here. We see no reason to include the $`n=0`$ term, which would in any case lead to a violation of the Third Law of Thermodynamics .

$$U=\frac{1}{24a}+\frac{1}{a}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{n}{e^{2\pi n\delta }1},$$
(16)
displaying an exponentially small correction to the zero-point energy if $`\beta 1`$. Again, by use of the Euler-Maclaurin sum formula we can obtain the high-temperature limit,

$$U\frac{1}{24a}(2\pi aT)^2\frac{1}{2}T,(aT1).$$
(17)
This again coincides with the result found in Kutasov and Larsen . However, the linear term in $`T`$ is omitted in the analysis of Klemm et al.  with an apparently erroneous remark that it only contributes when the saddle-point method breaks down, for a small central charge (the number of fields). So their derivation of the Cardy formula cannot be sustained.

It is easy to reproduce this result from the Green’s function method. After the finite-temperature substitutions, the expression is

$`U`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{24a\delta ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}T{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a\delta ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{n}{e^{2\pi n/\delta }1}},`$ (18)
which gives the explicit exponential corrections to the high temperature limit (17). The low-temperature limit displayed in Eq. (16) may be easily obtained from this by using the Euler-Maclaurin sum formula. A proof of the equivalence of the two representations (18) and (16) can be carried out along the lines sketched above, with due care for the presence of the zero-mode at $`n=0`$ .

## 4 Vector Field

The analysis proceeds similarly to that given above. For $`S^{d1}`$ the degeneracy and eigenvalues are

$`D_l={\displaystyle \frac{2l\left(l+\frac{d}{2}1\right)(l+d2)(l+d4)!}{(d3)(l+1)!}},M_l^2=l(l+d2),`$ (19)
so for $`d=4`$ if we add the conformal coupling value 1 to $`M_l^2`$ we obtain for the Green’s function mode sum

$`{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2l(l+2)}{(l+1)^2/a^2\omega ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega ^2}}+i\pi a^2\left(\omega a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega a}}\right)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{e^{2\pi i\omega a}1}}\right).`$ (20)
After making the finite temperature replacement, we carry out the sum on $`n`$, with the result

$`U={\displaystyle \frac{(2\pi aT)^4}{120a}}{\displaystyle \frac{(2\pi aT)^2}{12a}}+T+{\displaystyle \frac{2(2\pi aT)^2}{a}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{n+(2\pi aT)^2n^3}{e^{4\pi ^2aTn}1}},`$ (21)
where the $`T`$ term comes from the $`n=0`$ term in the sum. Since the remaining sum is exponentially small in the large $`T`$ limit, this form is well-adapted for high temperature. (The $`T^4`$ and $`T^2`$ terms are as given in Kutasov and Larsen .) However, it is exact, and by using the Euler-Maclaurin sum formula it yields the low temperature limit, $`U\frac{11}{120a}`$, $`aT1`$, up to exponentially small corrections. The latter may be directly inferred from the partition function,

$$\mathrm{ln}Z=\underset{l=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}2l(l+2)\mathrm{ln}\left(1e^{\beta (l+1)/a}\right).$$
(22)
By taking the negative derivative of this with respect to $`\beta `$ we obtain the alternative representation

$$U=\frac{11}{120a}+\frac{2}{a}\underset{l=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{l(l^21)}{e^{\beta l/a}1}.$$
(23)
The exact equivalence of the two expressions (23) and (21) again is demonstrated either by use of the Euler-Maclaurin sum formula, or by the Poisson sum formula,.

## 5 Weyl Fermions

Here, the degeneracies and eigenvalues are $`D_l=2(l+2)(l+1)`$, $`M_l^2=(l+3/2)^2`$, so including the minus sign associated with a fermionic trace, and the antiperiodicity of the fermionic thermal Green’s functions, we have the following expression for the energy,

$`U`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{7}{960}}\delta ^4{\displaystyle \frac{1}{96}}\delta ^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}[(2n+1)^3\delta ^4+(2n+1)\delta ^1]`$ (24)
$`\times ({\displaystyle \frac{2}{e^{2\pi (2n+1)/\delta }1}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{\pi (2n+1)/\delta }1}})\}.`$
The low-temperature limit (the zero-point energy) may be obtained from this by the Euler-Maclaurin formula, and the exponential corrections in that limit may be obtained directly from the partition function,

$$\mathrm{ln}Z=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}2n(n+1)\mathrm{ln}\left(1+e^{\beta (2n+1)/2a}\right).$$
(25)
That is

$$U=\frac{1}{a}\left[\frac{17}{960}+\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{n(n+1)(2n+1)}{e^{\beta (2n+1)/2a}+1}\right].$$
(26)
The equivalence between Eqs. (24) and (26) may be demonstrated as above.

## 6 Entropy Bounds

From the above results, thermodynamic information may extracted in terms of the free energy, in terms of which the energy and the entropy may be extracted:

$$EUE_0=\frac{}{\beta }\mathrm{ln}Z=\frac{}{\delta }\delta F,S=2\pi a\delta ^2\frac{}{\delta }F=\beta (EF).$$
(27)
### 6.1 Two-dimensional scalar

Klemm et al.  ignore the linear $`T`$ term in the energy, and so have

$`E={\displaystyle \frac{1}{24a}}(\delta ^2+1),F={\displaystyle \frac{1}{24a}}(\delta ^21),S={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{6}}\delta ^1.`$ (28)
These imply the Verlinde-Cardy formula, and the entropy bound,

$$S=4\pi a\sqrt{E_0(E+E_0)},\frac{S}{2\pi aE}=2\frac{\delta }{\delta ^2+1}1.$$
(29)
However, this result is not meaningful as it stands. Even in the high-temperature limit we must add the term linear in temperature to the energy, which implies instead from Eq. (17), for $`\delta 1`$, that

$`E={\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2+1}{24a}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi a\delta }},F={\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^21}{24a}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}\delta }{4\pi a\delta }},S={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{6\delta }}+{\displaystyle \frac{(\mathrm{ln}\delta 1)}{2}}.`$ (30)
The ratio of $`S`$ to $`E`$ is then unbounded as $`\delta \mathrm{}`$. Yet this takes us to the low-temperature regime, where we must use the leading exponential corrections,

$`E{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}e^{\beta /a},F{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\beta }}e^{\beta /a},S{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{a}}e^{\beta /a},(\beta 1)`$ (31)
so the entropy-energy ratio is

$$\frac{S}{2\pi aE}=\delta ,(\delta 1).$$
(32)
It is apparent that this latter result is universal because the energy always dominates the free energy in the low temperature regime.

### 6.2 Entropy Bounds in Four Dimensions

In the following we will consider cases with $`N_s`$ conformal scalars, $`N_v`$ vectors, and $`N_f`$ Weyl fermions. In the high-temperature regime we may write the free energy, energy, and entropy as222What is called the Cardy formula is simply the observation that the leading behavior of $`S`$ is the geometric mean of the leading and subleading terms in $`E`$. The term “Casimir energy” for the latter is misleading in other than $`1+1`$ dimensions. The entire energy $`U`$ is due to quantum and thermal fluctuations, so it all should properly be reckoned as Casimir energy.

$`F`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}[a_4\delta ^4+a_2\delta ^2+a_1\delta ^1\mathrm{ln}\delta +a_0],`$ (33)
$`E`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}[3a_4\delta ^4+a_2\delta ^2a_0a_1\delta ^1],`$ (34)
$`S`$ $``$ $`2\pi [4a_4\delta ^3+2a_2\delta ^1a_1(1\mathrm{ln}\delta )].`$ (35)
Here the coefficients were determined in the previous sections to be \[see Eqs. (14), (21), and (24)\]

$`a_4={\displaystyle \frac{N_s}{720}}+{\displaystyle \frac{N_v}{360}}+{\displaystyle \frac{7N_f}{2880}},a_2={\displaystyle \frac{N_v}{12}}{\displaystyle \frac{N_f}{96}},a_0=3a_4a_2,a_1={\displaystyle \frac{N_v}{2\pi }}.`$ (36)
Even ignoring the $`a_1`$ term, Klemm et al.  note that no entropy bound is possible, unless special choices are made for the field multiplicities. For the $`𝒩=4`$ case ($`N_s=6`$, $`N_v=1`$, $`N_f=4`$) the entropy-energy ratio becomes

$$\frac{S}{2\pi aE}=\frac{1\mathrm{ln}\delta +\frac{\pi }{6}\delta ^3(13\delta ^2)}{\delta ^1+\frac{\pi }{8}\delta ^4(1+\delta ^2)(13\delta ^2)}.$$
(37)
If the $`a_1`$ terms here were omitted, the zero in both the energy and entropy at $`\delta ^2=1/3`$ would cancel, and we would have the limit given by Klemm et al. :

$$\frac{S}{2\pi aE}=\frac{4}{3}\frac{\delta }{1+\delta ^2}\frac{4}{3}$$
(38)
in the high temperature regime. But $`a_10`$, and the ratio (37) diverges as $`\delta \mathrm{}`$. Of course that limit is the low-temperature one, but the argument given above then applies and shows that

$$\frac{S}{2\pi aE}\delta ,(\delta \mathrm{}).$$
(39)
Although in this limit both the entropy and the subtracted energy are exponentially small, their ratio is unbounded.

It should noted that we are not in formal disagreement with previous studies. The interest there was restricted to high temperature, which is presumably all that is relevant to nearly the entire history of the universe.333Before or after photon decoupling, but after inflation, the value of $`aT`$ stays nearly constant, essentially reflecting entropy conservation. That value is far into the high temperature regime, the present value of $`\delta `$ being $`\delta _010^{30}`$. Insofar as it is permissible to speak of temperature during inflation, $`aT`$ is also constant then, but of a much smaller value, which value increases dramatically during reheating. In that case, only the leading terms in $`1/\delta `$ are relevant, and the ratio of entropy to energy is always of order $`\delta 1`$. It is not surprising that such results as Eq. (38) are an unreliable guide to the moderate and low temperature regimes, which might be relevant in the very earliest (pre-inflationary) stages of the universe.

Another point, which is more closely connected with physics, is that it is permissible to make use of the thermodynamical formalism for fluctuating quasi-classical systems only when the temperature $`T`$ is sufficiently high , that is, $`\delta 1`$. It seems that we must be careful in not assigning too much physical significance to the subleading corrections.

## 7 Conclusion

Our main qualitative result is that entropy/energy bounds should be relevant only in the ultra-high temperature limit, which applies to the universe after inflation. With the decrease of temperature the bound becomes much less reliable, until at low temperature ($`aT1`$), which might be the case in the very early universe, the entropy dominates the energy. This effect occurs already for conformal matter. The situation for non-conformal matter is much more complicated. Hence, it is unclear if entropy/energy bounds should exist at all even for high temperature. This question will be discussed elsewhere.

## Acknowledgement

KAM thanks the US Department of Energy for partial financial support of his research. He is grateful for the invitations of the Third International Sakharov Conference on Physics for the invitation to present this work there.