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# Universal Features of the Time Evolution of Evanescent Modes in a Left-Handed Perfect Lens.

## Abstract

The time evolution of evanescent modes in Pendry’s perfect lens proposal for ideally lossless and homogeneous, left-handed materials is analyzed. We show that time development of sub-wavelength resolution exhibits universal features, independent of model details. This is due to the unavoidable near-degeneracy of surface electromagnetic modes in the deep sub-wavelength region. By means of a mechanical analog, it is shown that an intrinsic time scale (missed in stationary studies) has to be associated with any desired lateral resolution. A time-dependent cut-off length emerges, removing the problem of divergences claimed to invalidate Pendry’s proposal.

Long ago, Veselago Veselago (1968) pointed out that very unusual properties, such as negative refraction, would be exhibited by materials with negative refraction index. Recently, Pendry Pendry (2000) has claimed that those so called left-handed (LH) materials with $`ϵ(\omega _0)=\mu (\omega _0)=1`$, can act as perfect lenses with, ideally, arbitrary sub-wavelength resolution. In addition to its genuine conceptual importance, this proposal has attracted much attention due to the practical realization of man-made materials expected to be left-handed Smith et al. (2000), where negative refraction has been claimed to be observed Shelby et al. (2001). The challenge to conventional ideas conveyed in Pendry’s work has fueled a heated debate that has contributed to sharpen the issue, if not to settle it ’t Hooft (2001); Valanju et al. (2002); García and Nieto-Vesperinas (2002); Pendry .

The criticism expressed by García and N-Vesperinas García and Nieto-Vesperinas (2002) (see also Refs. ’t Hooft (2001); Pokrovsky and Efros (a)) seems of particular importance, for it would imply that some sort of fundamental violation of physical laws is unavoidable in Pendry’s perfect lens. The idea is that the necessary amplification of evanescent modes would turn a square-integrable incoming wave into a non normalizable signal, something deemed unacceptable by the authors of Refs. García and Nieto-Vesperinas (2002); ’t Hooft (2001); Pokrovsky and Efros (a). Pendry Pendry  has replied that losses, unavoidable in the real world, would provide a natural cut-off, forbidding the amplification of large wavevectors (though degrading the perfect resolution). Haldane Haldane  has put the blame of divergences on the role played by surface modes (polaritons) Ruppin (2000) localized at the interfaces of the LH material: amplification of evanescent modes is a gift of those modes Pendry (2000). For a homogeneous material, those surface modes exist and become dispersionless for increasing wavevectors, being the unphysical absence of an intrinsic cut-off length which causes the pathologies Haldane . Any realization of a LH material (think of the composite nature of proposed LH materials Shelby et al. (2001) or photonic crystals Luo et al. (2002)) must have a natural length below which the homogeneous description fails, providing the necessary cure to divergences at the price of lower resolution.

Although Pendry’s and Haldane’s escapes from divergences are certainly safe, they seem to suggest that the textbook idealization of lossless and homogeneous media, that works so well otherwise Jackson (1975), is fundamentally flawed when applied to a material that happens to satisfy $`ϵ(\omega _0)=\mu (\omega _0)=1`$, at some frequency $`\omega _0`$. Apparently, only after the inclusion on the real world constraints (losses and/or small-distance structure) could the proposal be made physically acceptable. I find this state of affairs very unsatisfactory, and it is the purpose of this paper to show that, even within the self-imposed idealizations of a lossless (for $`\omega =\omega _0`$) and purely homogeneous, left-handed material, Pendry’s perfect lens proposal is correct.

To this end, we will consider the time evolution Ziolkowski and Heyman (2001); Smith et al.  of sub-wavelength features. Time development requires the study of the frequency dispersion of a particular model (or material), apparently preventing us from drawing general conclusions. However, it will be shown that the structure of the relevant magnitudes in the immediate vicinity of the target frequency is dominated by the surface polariton modes Ruppin (2000); Haldane . These modes show universal features for any LH material at long wavevectors, therefore allowing us to extract general conclusions. A key point will be the identification of a time scale for any intended length resolution. This time scale, linked to the near-degeneracy of surface modes and missed in stationary studies, will provide the clue for overcoming the problem of divergences.

Consider a transverse current oscillating at frequency $`\omega `$, located in a source plane at $`x=x_0`$ (see Fig. 1). The Fourier component $`(k)`$ of the current leads to an electric field given by (S polarization, for simplicity):

$$E=[0,E_k(x,t),0]e^{ikz}$$
(1)
In vacuum and for evanescent modes, $`E_k(x,t)e^{\rho |xx_0|}e^{i\omega t}`$, where $`\rho =\sqrt{k^2\omega ^2}`$, in units with light velocity $`c=1`$ (the connection between current and field need not concern us here Smith and Kroll (2000)). In the presence of a slab of LH material between $`x=\pm a`$, the field acquires the usual reflected and transmitted components (only the vacuum part explicit and for arbitrary normalization of the incoming wave):

$$\begin{array}{cc}E_k(x,t)=[e^{\rho |xx_0|}+r_k(\omega )e^{\rho (x+x_0)}]e^{i\omega t},\hfill & x<a\hfill \\ E_k(x,t)=t_k(\omega )e^{\rho (xx_0)}e^{i\omega t},\hfill & x>a\hfill \end{array}$$

Pendry Pendry (2000) has shown that, for a frequency $`\omega _0`$ such that $`ϵ(\omega _0)=\mu (\omega _0)=1`$, the reflection and transmission coefficients are:

$$r_k(\omega _0)=0,t_k(\omega _0)=\mathrm{exp}(4\rho _0a)$$

with

$$\rho _0=\sqrt{k^2\omega _0^2}$$

This leads to a perfect restoration at the focal plane $`x_1=2a`$ of a source field at $`x_0=2a`$, as shown in Fig. 1.

The exponential amplification inside the LH material, necessary for image restoration, is at the root of the divergences pointed out before García and Nieto-Vesperinas (2002); Pokrovsky and Efros (a). Notice that a square integrable field with Fourier components $`_k`$ at the source plane $`x_0=2a`$, will emerge at the plane $`x=a`$ with norm:

$$𝒩=d^2r_{}|E(x=a,r_{})|^2\underset{k}{}|_ke^{\rho _0a}|^2,$$
(2)
This norm certainly diverges for large wavevectors, unless unjustified constraints are put on the source field.

So far we have described the stationary solution, but our aim is the time development of such a situation. Therefore, the frequency behavior of $`r(\omega )`$ and $`t(\omega )`$ is needed. In the vicinity of $`\omega =\omega _0`$, and in the deep sub-wavelength region, the reflection and transmission coefficients exhibit a highly singular behavior controlled by the appearance of simple poles. This singular behavior can be described by:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}t_k(\omega )\hfill & =\hfill & e^{4\rho _0a}\frac{(\omega _0^2\omega _{k,+}^2)(\omega _0^2\omega _{k,}^2)}{(\omega ^2\omega _{k,+}^2)(\omega ^2\omega _{k,}^2)}\hfill \\ & & \\ r_k(\omega )\hfill & =\hfill & 2t_k(\omega )\frac{(\omega ^2\omega _0^2)}{(\omega _{k,+}^2\omega _{k,}^2)}\hfill \end{array}$$
(3)
and is depicted in Fig. 2 (left panel). One can see that, for instance, $`t_k(\omega )`$ is basically the sum of four simple poles located at frequencies $`\pm \omega _{k,\pm }`$. Notice that the target frequency is sandwiched between two such poles $`\omega _{k,\pm }`$, corresponding to the surface modes (right panel of Fig. 2). These are the even and odd combinations of the fundamental mode of an isolated interface, that would take place exactly at $`\omega =\omega _0`$. The frequencies $`\omega _{k,\pm }`$ are solutions of the equations Ruppin (2000): $`[\mathrm{tanh}(\rho _ma)]^{\pm 1}=\mu (\omega )\rho /\rho _m`$, with $`\rho _m=\sqrt{k^2ϵ(\omega )\mu (\omega )\omega ^2}`$. This gives:

$$\omega _{k,\pm }^2=\omega _0^2\pm \eta _k^2$$
(4)
with an exponentially small coupling Haldane  for large wavevectors

$$\eta _k^28C\omega _0^2e^{2\rho _0a}$$
(5)
where $`(C\omega _0)^1=2\mu _0^{}+(ϵ_0^{}+\mu _0^{})(k^2/\omega _0^21)^1`$, with $`\mu _0^{}=d\mu (\omega _0)/d\omega `$ and $`ϵ_0^{}=dϵ(\omega _0)/d\omega `$. It is important to realize that the expressions of Eq. 3, though only valid in the neighborhood of $`\omega _0`$, do contain the singular structure associated with the surface modes. Therefore, the relevant dynamics of these modes is expected to be well reproduced. Ruppin Ruppin (2000) has studied these modes thoroughly, and their importance for the amplifying process has been noticed before Pendry (2000); Haldane ; Smith et al. .

We can now study, for instance, the time evolution of the transmitted field at the right interface $`E_{trans}(x=a,t)`$, in terms of the incident field at the left interface $`E_{inc}(x=a,t)`$. This is enough to understand the amplification issue. We will assume a pure sinusoidal wave at the frequency $`\omega _0`$, but with a well defined time origin, chosen to coincide with the signal arrival at the left interface:

$$E_{inc}(x=a,t)=\theta (t)(E_0e^{i\omega _0t}+c.c.),$$
(6)
$`\theta (t)`$ being Heaviside’s unit step function.

The evaluation of $`E_{trans}(x=a,t)`$ is now trivial but, given the unusual and controversial nature of this subject, we choose to change the language in the hope of bringing the results to a far more familiar situation. Let us say that we have two identical (left and right) oscillators, $`(x_l,x_r)`$, with natural frequency $`\omega _o`$, and a weak coupling $`\eta _k^2`$ that splits the degeneracy $`\omega _{k,\pm }^2=\omega _0^2\pm \eta _k^2`$. Now we force the left oscillator with the external force $`f(t)`$ and watch the dynamics of the right oscillator. The equations of motion are:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\ddot{x}_l+\gamma \dot{x}_l+\omega _0^2x_l+\eta _k^2x_r\hfill & =\hfill & f(t)\hfill \\ \ddot{x}_r+\gamma \dot{x}_r+\omega _0^2x_r+\eta _k^2x_l\hfill & =\hfill & 0\hfill \end{array}$$
(7)
where a damping $`\gamma `$ has been added for later convenience but, in accordance with our idealization, is supposed to be $`\gamma =0`$, for the moment. Upon identifying the external force, left, and right oscillators with the incident, reflected ($`E_{ref}`$), and transmitted fields in the following manner:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}f(t)& & \eta _k^2e^{2\rho _0a}E_{inc}(x=a,t)\\ x_l& & E_{ref}(x=a,t)\\ x_r& & E_{trans}(x=+a,t),\end{array}$$
(8)
this simple problem is entirely equivalent to our original one. The interpretation of Eq. 8 is direct: the incoming wave plays the role of an external force hitting the left interface, and exciting a reflected (left oscillator) and a transmitted (right oscillator) wave. This mapping allows us to understand the physics of the original situation in simpler terms. For instance, forcing the system (left oscillator) with frequency $`\omega _0`$, the stationary solution tells us that, surprisingly, only the right oscillator moves. This corresponds (through Eq. 8) to the absence of a reflected wave.

The time development of the field corresponding to the incoming perturbation of Eq. 6 is now easily obtained, with the following result:

$$E_{trans}(x=+a,t)=A(t)e^{2\rho _0a}\theta (t)E_0e^{i\omega _0t}+c.c.$$
(9)
where a characteristic time-dependent modulation amplitude $`A(t)`$ appears:

$$A(t)=1(e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _+t}+e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{}t})/\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}$$
(10)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _\pm =\omega _{k,\pm }\omega _0\pm \mathrm{\Delta }\omega _k/2`$ for $`|\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _k|<<\omega _0`$, with the splitting of polariton modes $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _k`$ given by:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _k=\omega _{k,+}\omega _{k,}8C\omega _0e^{2\rho _0a}$$
(11)
in the deep sub-wavelength region. This beating of modes, familiar from the mechanical analog, is sketched in Fig. 3. Notice that the total response is the superposition of the stationary solution $`(\omega _0)`$, which is Pendry’s solution, with the normal modes $`(\omega _\pm )`$. The latter are unavoidably excited and do not decay in time owing to the absence of losses around $`\omega _0`$.

The relevance of this behavior for the problem of divergences should be clear by now. For a fixed lapse of time $`t`$ (large in units of the bare period: $`\omega _0t>>1`$, but otherwise arbitrary), short wavelengths corresponding to splittings smaller than $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _kt^1`$, have barely begun to emerge at the right interface. Therefore, we can identify a time-dependent crossover wavevector $`k^{eff}(t)`$, satisfying the condition:

$$t\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{k^{eff}}=1$$
(12)
such that, for $`k>>k^{eff}`$, then

$$A(t)(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _kt)^2\left(C\omega _0t\right)^2e^{4\rho _0a}$$
(13)
The norm of Eq. 2 is now replaced by

$$𝒩\left(C\omega _0t\right)^4\underset{k}{}|_ke^{3\rho _0a}|^2,$$
(14)
for $`k>>k^{eff}`$. Therefore, amplification has been replaced by decay, solving the problem of divergences. Of course, progressively shorter details take longer and longer time (and more energy from the current source) to develop Ziolkowski and Heyman (2001); Smith et al. , but nothing pathological affects the physics of the system. I emphasize again that this picture is unavoidable in the deep sub-wavelength limit, irrespective of the model details of $`ϵ(\omega )`$ and $`\mu (\omega )`$ . It amounts to recognizing that, for a given wavevector $`k`$, the system’s dynamics has a characteristic time scale given by the (inverse) of the frequency splitting between the two surface polaritons corresponding to that wavevector (Eq. 11 ). The relevance of this time scale would remain hidden if only stationary solutions were analyzed. It is a curious though rewarding fact that, in a system that has been idealized to be homogeneous down to arbitrary small scales (absence of intrinsic length scale), time takes up the responsibility of providing the necessary cut-off length in order to prevent divergent catastrophes.

It could be argued that the solution provided here to the problem of divergences is an artifact of the ideal lossless nature of the problem. Real systems would show losses that will eventually kill any transient regime, perhaps leaving again the divergent stationary solution. This is not the case, as can be seen by the explicit inclusion of a finite life-time $`(\tau =\gamma ^1)`$ in Eq. 7. A stationary solution is indeed established, but with amplitude $`A_{stat}`$ greatly reduced from the lossless limit $`A_{stat}(\mathrm{})`$ at large wavevectors:

$$\frac{A_{stat}(\tau )}{A_{stat}(\mathrm{})}=\frac{1}{1+(\tau \mathrm{\Delta }\omega _k)^2}$$
(15)
Notice that, for small values of $`\tau \mathrm{\Delta }\omega _k`$, the stationary amplitude is what would have been expected if the lossless evolution were suddenly stopped at a time of the order of $`\tau `$. Therefore, we see exactly the same physics as in the lossless case, but now the role of the observation lapse of time is taken by the polariton life-time. A resolution wavenumber $`(k^{eff})`$ can be defined again (compare Eq. 12):

$$\tau \mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{k^{eff}}=1$$
(16)
such that, for wavenumbers larger than this cut-off, exponential decay rather than amplification is observed at the exit of the slab. The norm of field at the exit is now as in Eq. 14, with the exchange $`t\tau `$.

The transient behavior for the two regimes $`\tau >>(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _k)^1`$ and $`\tau (\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _k)^1`$ is illustrated in Fig. 3. The picture is simple: when the life-time of surface polaritons is much longer that the characteristic time scale (inverse splitting of modes) for the wavevector $`k`$, the stationary limit approaches the lossless case. This means that surface modes have had enough time to build the final response before dying away. On the other hand, if the surface modes do not live long enough, no amplification is possible.

In the deep sub-wavelength limit, Eq. 16 allows us to provide an explicit expression for the minimum life-time ($`\tau _{min}`$) required to get a resolution $`l_{res}=2\pi /k^{eff}`$, with radiation of wavelength $`\lambda _0=2\pi /\omega _0`$:

$$\tau _{min}\frac{1}{8C\omega _0}\mathrm{exp}(4\pi a\sqrt{l_{res}^2\lambda _0^2})$$
(17)
Similar results have been obtained before for the resolution Smith et al. , further reinforcing the correctness of our restriction to the polariton dynamics. Notice the characteristic exponential dependence on resolution. Although mainly concerned with matters of principle in this paper, this demanding result clearly shows that the polariton life-time may well be a major limiting factor for a practical realization of perfect lenses. I believe this vulnerability Smith et al.  of the ideal situation, a fingerprint of the near-degeneracy of surface modes, is at the root of similar results found before Shen and Platzman (2002); Feise et al. (2002).

In spite of potential difficulties in the road to a practical left-handed amplifier, the essential physics described in the paper may have been observed in a different system. The role of coherence between surface modes (and the required time scale associated with it) in the explanation of the extraordinary transmission through hole arrays Martín-Moreno et al. (2001) is strikingly similar to our treatment. This reinforces the view Pendry (2000) that both problems (left-handed amplification and extraordinary transmission through hole arrays) are probably different manifestations of the same physical behavior of surface modes.

Financial support from Grants No. CAM-07N/0015/2001 (Madrid, Spain) and MAT-2002-04095-C02-01 (MCYT, Spain) is acknowledged


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# On the cellular decomposition and the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of 𝑆𝑝𝑖𝑛(7)

## 1. Introduction

In this paper, we assume that a space has the homotopy type of a CW-complex. The Lusternik-Schnirelmann category $`\mathrm{cat}X`$ of a space $`X`$ is the least integer $`n`$ such that $`X`$ is the union of $`(n+1)`$ open subsets, each of which is contractible in $`X`$. G. Whitehead  showed that $`\mathrm{cat}Xn`$ if and only if the diagonal map $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{n+1}:X^{n+1}X`$ is homotopic to some composition map

$$XT^{n+1}(X)\stackrel{n+1}{}X,$$

where $`T^{n+1}(X)`$ is the fat wedge and $`T^{n+1}(X)^{n+1}X`$ is the inclusion map.

The weak Lusternik-Schnirelmann category $`w\mathrm{cat}X`$ is the least integer $`n`$ such that the reduced diagonal map $`\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{n+1}:X^{n+1}X`$ is trivial. Then it is easy to see that $`w\mathrm{cat}X\mathrm{cat}X`$, since $`^{n+1}X=^{n+1}X/T^{n+1}(X)`$.

The strong Lusternik-Schnirelmann category $`\mathrm{Cat}X`$ is the least integer $`n`$ such that there exist a space $`X^{}`$ which is homotopy equivalent to $`X`$ and is covered by $`(n+1)`$ open subsets contractible in themselves. $`\mathrm{Cat}X`$ is closely related with $`\mathrm{cat}X`$, and Ganea and Takens  showed that

$$\mathrm{cat}X\mathrm{Cat}X\mathrm{cat}X+1.$$

Ganea  showed that $`\mathrm{Cat}X`$ is equal to the invariant which is the least integer $`n`$ such that there is a cofibre sequence

$$A_iX_{i1}X_i$$

where $`X_0`$ is a point and $`X_n`$ is homotopy equivalent to $`X`$.

The Lusternik-Schnirelmann category for some Lie groups are determined, such as $`\mathrm{cat}(U(n))=n`$ and $`\mathrm{cat}(SU(n))=n1`$ by Singhof , $`\mathrm{cat}(Sp(2))=3`$ by Schweitzer , $`\mathrm{cat}(Sp(3))=5`$ by Fernández-Suárez, Gómez-Tato, Strom and Tanré , and Iwase and Mimura , $`\mathrm{cat}(SO(2))=1`$, $`\mathrm{cat}(SO(3))=3`$, $`\mathrm{cat}(SO(4))=4`$, $`\mathrm{cat}(SO(5))=8`$ by James and Singhof . Some general argument about the Lusternik-Schnirel-mann category implies that $`\mathrm{cat}(G_2)=4`$ (see for example ).

As is well-known, we have the following isomorphisms:

$$Spin(3)S^3,Spin(4)S^3\times S^3,Spin(5)Sp(2),Spin(6)SU(4).$$

Thus $`Spin(7)`$ is the first non-trivial case in determining the cellular decomposition and the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category as well; it is our purpose in this paper.

###### Theorem 1.1.

We have $`w\mathrm{cat}(Spin(7))=\mathrm{cat}(Spin(7))=\mathrm{Cat}(Spin(7))=5`$.

Since $`Spin(8)`$ is homeomorphic to $`Spin(7)\times S^7`$, we obtain the following corollary.

###### Corollary 1.2.

We have $`w\mathrm{cat}(Spin(8))=\mathrm{cat}(Spin(8))=\mathrm{Cat}(Spin(8))=6`$.

The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we give a cellular decomposition of $`Spin(7)`$ such that $`Spin(7)`$ contains a subgroup $`SU(4)`$, which turns out to be useful for determining the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of $`Spin(7)`$. In Section 3 we give a cone-decomposition of $`SU(4)`$, which gives rise to the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of $`Spin(7)`$ in Section 4.

## 2. The cellular decomposition of $`Spin(7)`$

In this section, we use the notation in . Let $``$ be the Cayley algebra. $`SO(8)`$ acts on $``$ naturally since $`^8`$ as $``$-module. We regard $`SO(7)`$ as the subgroup of $`SO(8)`$ fixing $`e_0`$, the unit of $``$. As is well known, the exceptional Lie group $`G_2`$ is defined by

$$G_2=\{gSO(7)|g(x)g(y)=g(xy),x,y\}=\mathrm{Aut}().$$

According to , the group $`Spin(7)`$ is the set of the elements $`\stackrel{~}{g}SO(8)`$ such that $`g(x)\stackrel{~}{g}(y)=\stackrel{~}{g}(xy)`$ for any $`x,y`$, where $`gSO(7)`$ is uniquely determined by $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$:

$$Spin(7)=\{\stackrel{~}{g}SO(8)|g(x)\stackrel{~}{g}(y)=\stackrel{~}{g}(xy),gSO(7),x,y\}.$$

It is easy to see that $`G_2`$ is the subgroup of $`Spin(7)`$. Observe that the algebra generated by $`e_1`$ in $``$ is isomorphic to $``$. $`SU(4)`$ acts on $``$ naturally, since as $``$-module $`^4`$ whose basis is $`\{e_0,e_2,e_4,e_6\}`$. We regard $`SU(3)`$ as the subgroup of $`SU(4)`$ fixing $`e_0`$ and also as the subgroup of $`G_2`$ fixing $`e_1`$.

Let $`D^i`$ be the $`i`$-dimensional disc. We define four maps:

$`A:D^3=\{(x_1,x_2,x_3)^3|x_1^2+x_2^2+x_3^21\}SO(8),`$
$`B:D^2=\{(y_1,y_2)^2|y_1^2+y_2^21\}SO(8),`$
$`C:D^1=\{z_1|z_1^21\}SO(8),`$
$`D:D^2=\{(w_1,w_2)^2|w_1^2+w_2^21\}SO(8),`$
as follows:

$`A(x_1,x_2,x_3)=\left(\begin{array}{cccccccc}1& & & & & & & \\ & 1& & & & & & \\ & & 1& & & & & \\ & & & 1& & & & \\ & & & & 12X^2& 2x_1X& 2x_2X& 2x_3X\\ & & & & 2x_1X& 12X^2& 2x_3X& 2x_2X\\ & & & & 2x_2X& 2x_3X& 12X^2& 2x_1X\\ & & & & 2x_3X& 2x_2X& 2x_1X& 12X^2\end{array}\right),`$
$`B(y_1,y_2)=\left(\begin{array}{cccccccc}1& & & & & & & \\ & 1& & & & & & \\ & & y_1& y_2& Y& 0& & \\ & & y_2& y_1& 0& Y& & \\ & & Y& 0& y_1& y_2& & \\ & & 0& Y& y_2& y_1& & \\ & & & & & & 1& \\ & & & & & & & 1\end{array}\right),`$
$`C(z_1)=\left(\begin{array}{cccccccc}1& & & & & & & \\ & z_1& 0& Z& & & & \\ & 0& 1& 0& & & & \\ & Z& 0& z_1& & & & \\ & & & & 1& & & \\ & & & & & z_1& 0& Z\\ & & & & & 0& 1& 0\\ & & & & & Z& 0& z_1\end{array}\right),`$
$`D(w_1,w_2)=\left(\begin{array}{cccccccc}w_1& w_2& W& & & & & \\ w_2& w_1& & W& & & & \\ W& & w_1& w_2& & & & \\ & W& w_2& w_1& & & & \\ & & & & 1& & & \\ & & & & & 1& & \\ & & & & & & 1& \\ & & & & & & & 1\end{array}\right),`$
where we put for simplicity

$$\begin{array}{cc}X=\sqrt{1x_1^2x_2^2x_3^2},\hfill & Y=\sqrt{1y_1^2y_2^2},\hfill \\ Z=\sqrt{1z_1^2},\hfill & W=\sqrt{1w_1^2w_2^2}.\hfill \end{array}$$

###### Lemma 2.1.

The elements $`A(x_1,x_2,x_3)`$, $`B(y_1,y_2)`$, $`C(z_1)`$ and $`D(w_1,w_2)`$ belong to $`Spin(7)`$.

###### Proof.

Apparently the elements $`A(x_1,x_2,x_3)`$, $`B(y_1,y_2)`$ and $`C(z_1)`$ belong to $`G_2`$. In the proof, we denote $`D(w_1,w_2)`$ simply by $`D`$. Let $`D^{}`$ be the matrix

$$\left(\begin{array}{cccccccc}1& & & & & & & \\ & 1& & & & & & \\ & & 1& & & & & \\ & & & 1& & & & \\ & & & & w_1& w_2& W& \\ & & & & w_2& w_1& & W\\ & & & & W& & w_1& w_2\\ & & & & & W& w_2& w_1\end{array}\right).$$

Then we can show by a tedious calculation that $`D^{}xDy=D(xy)`$ for any $`x,y`$, which gives us the result. ∎

Let $`\phi _3`$, $`\phi _5`$, $`\phi _6`$ and $`\phi _7`$ be maps

$`\phi _3:D^3Spin(7),`$
$`\phi _5:D^3\times D^2Spin(7),`$
$`\phi _6:D^3\times D^2\times D^1Spin(7),`$
$`\phi _7:D^3\times D^2\times D^2Spin(7)`$
respectively defined by the equalities

$`\phi _3(𝐱)=A(𝐱),`$
$`\phi _5(𝐱,𝐲)=B(𝐲)A(𝐱)B(𝐲)^1,`$
$`\phi _6(𝐱,𝐲,𝐳)=C(𝐳)B(𝐲)A(𝐱)B(𝐲)^1C(𝐳)^1,`$
$`\phi _7(𝐱,𝐲,𝐰)=D(𝐰)B(𝐲)A(𝐱)B(𝐲)^1D(𝐰)^1,`$
where $`𝐱=(x_1,x_2,x_3)`$, $`𝐲=(y_1,y_2)`$, $`𝐳=(z_1)`$ and $`𝐰=(w_1,w_2)`$. We define sixteen cells $`e^j`$ for $`j=0,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,18,21`$ respectively as follows:

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}e^0=\{1\},\hfill & e^3=\mathrm{Im}\phi _3,\hfill & e^5=\mathrm{Im}\phi _5,\hfill & e^6=\mathrm{Im}\phi _6,\hfill & e^7=\mathrm{Im}\phi _7,\hfill \\ e^8=e^5e^3,\hfill & e^9=e^6e^3,\hfill & e^{10}=e^7e^3,\hfill & e^{11}=e^6e^5,\hfill & e^{12}=e^7e^5,\hfill \\ e^{13}=e^6e^7,\hfill & e^{14}=e^6e^5e^3,\hfill & e^{15}=e^7e^5e^3,\hfill & e^{16}=e^6e^7e^3,\hfill & e^{18}=e^6e^7e^5,\hfill \\ e^{21}=e^6e^7e^5e^3.\hfill & & & & \end{array}$$

Let $`S^7`$ be the unit sphere of $``$. Then we have a principal bundle over it:

$$SU(3)SU(4)\stackrel{p_0}{}S^7,$$

where $`p_0(g)=ge_0`$.

###### Lemma 2.2.

Let $`V^7=D^3\times D^2\times D^2`$. Then the composite map $`p_0\phi _7:(V^7,V^7)(S^7,e_0)`$ is a relative homeomorphism.

###### Proof.

We express the map $`(p_0\phi _7)|_{V^7\backslash V^7}`$ as follows:

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}a_0\\ a_1\\ a_2\\ a_3\\ a_4\\ a_5\\ a_6\\ a_7\end{array}\right)=D(𝐰)B(𝐲)A(𝐱)B(𝐲)^1D(𝐰)^1e_0=\left(\begin{array}{c}12X^2Y^2W^2\\ 2x_1XY^2W^2\\ 2(w_1Xx_1w_2)XY^2W\\ 2(w_2X+x_1w_1)XY^2W\\ 2(y_1X+x_1y_2)XYW\\ 2(y_2X+x_1y_1)XYW\\ 2x_2XYW\\ 2x_3XYW\end{array}\right)$$

and hence we have

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}1a_0\\ a_1\\ a_2\\ a_3\\ a_4\\ a_5\\ a_6\\ a_7\end{array}\right)=2XYW\left(\begin{array}{c}XYW\\ x_1YW\\ (w_1Xx_1w_2)Y\\ (w_2X+x_1w_1)Y\\ y_1X+x_1y_2\\ y_2X+x_1y_1\\ x_2\\ x_3\end{array}\right).$$

Since $`X>0`$, $`Y>0`$, $`W>0`$ and $`1a_0>0`$, an easy calculation as for the first component in the above equation gives the following equation:

(2.1)
$$XYW=\frac{\sqrt{1a_2}}{\sqrt{2}},$$

from which we easily obtain

(2.2)
$$x_2=\frac{a_6}{\sqrt{2(1a_2)}},x_3=\frac{a_7}{\sqrt{2(1a_2)}}.$$

Further we obtain three more equalities from the above equalities:

$`(1a_0)^2+a_1^2=4X^2Y^4W^4(x_1^2+X^2),`$
$`a_2^2+a_3^2=4X^2Y^4W^2(w_1^2+w_2^2)(x_1^2+X^2)=4X^2Y^4W^2(1W^2)(x_1^2+X^2),`$
$`a_4^2+a_5^2=4X^2Y^2W^2(y_1^2+y_2^2)(x_1^2+X^2)=4X^2Y^2W^2(1Y^2)(x_1^2+X^2).`$
Using these three equalities, we obtain

(2.3) $`Y^2={\displaystyle \frac{(1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2}{(1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2+a_4^2+a_5^2}},`$
(2.4) $`W^2={\displaystyle \frac{(1a_0)^2+a_1^2}{(1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2}}.`$
It follows from (2.1), (2.3) and (2.4) that

(2.5)
$$X^2=\frac{(1a_0)((1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2+a_4^2+a_5^2)}{2((1a_0)^2+a_1^2)}.$$

It follows also from (2.2) and (2.5) that

(2.6)
$$x_1^2=\frac{a_1^2((1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2+a_4^2+a_5^2)}{2(1a_0)((1a_0)^2+a_1^2)}.$$

Since $`Y`$, $`W`$, $`X`$ are positive, (2.3), (2.4), (2.5) imply respectively

(2.7) $`Y={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{(1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2}}{\sqrt{(1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2+a_4^2+a_5^2}}},`$
(2.8) $`W={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{(1a_0)^2+a_1^2}}{\sqrt{(1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2}}},`$
(2.9) $`X={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{(1a_0)((1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2+a_4^2+a_5^2)}}{\sqrt{2((1a_0)^2+a_1^2)}}}.`$
Since the signs of $`x_1`$ and $`a_1`$ are the same, (2.6) implies that

(2.10)
$$x_1=\frac{a_1\sqrt{(1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2+a_4^2+a_5^2}}{\sqrt{2(1a_0)((1a_0)^2+a_1^2)}}.$$

Now we determine $`y_1`$; we have

$$a_4X+a_5x_1=2XYW(x_1^2+X^2)y_2.$$

Substituting the equations (2.1), (2.9) and (2.10) in the above equation, we obtain

(2.11)
$$y_1=\frac{a_1a_5(1a_0)a_4}{\sqrt{((1a_0)^2+a_1^2)((1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2+a_4^2+a_5^2)}}.$$

We determine $`y_2`$; we have

$$a_4x_1+a_5X=2XYW(x_1^2+X^2)y_2.$$

Substituting the equations (2.1), (2.9) and (2.10) in the above equation, we obtain

(2.12)
$$y_2=\frac{a_1a_4+(1a_0)a_5}{\sqrt{((1a_0)^2+a_1^2)((1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2+a_4^2+a_5^2)}}.$$

We determine $`w_1`$; we have

$$a_2Xa_3x_1=2XY^2W(x_1^2+X^2)w_1.$$

Substituting the equations (2.1), (2.7), (2.9) and (2.10) in the above equation, we obtain

(2.13)
$$w_1=\frac{(1a_0)a_2a_1a_3}{\sqrt{((1a_0)^2+a_1^2)((1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2)}}.$$

Finally we determine $`w_2`$; we have

$$a_2x_1a_3X=2XY^2W(x_1^2+X^2)w_2.$$

Substituting the equations (2.1), (2.7), (2.9) and (2.10) in the above equation, we obtain

(2.14)
$$w_2=\frac{a_1a_2(1a_0)a_3}{\sqrt{((1a_0)^2+a_1^2)((1a_0)^2+a_1^2+a_2^2+a_3^2)}}.$$

Thus we have expressed $`x_1,x_2,x_3,y_1,y_2,w_1,w_2`$ in terms of $`a_0,\mathrm{},a_7`$, that is, the inverse map has been constructed, which completes the proof. ∎

In a similar way to that of Section 3 of , we can obtain the following theorem, which is essentially the same as Yokota’s decomposition .

###### Proposition 2.3.

$`e^0e^3e^5e^7e^8e^{10}e^{12}e^{15}`$ thus obtained is a cellular decomposition of $`SU(4)`$.

###### Proof.

First we show that $`\stackrel{˚}{e}^i\stackrel{˚}{e}^j=\mathrm{}`$ if $`ij`$. We consider the following three cases:

(1) For the case where $`i,j\{0,3,5,8\}`$; both cells $`e^i`$ and $`e^j`$ are in $`SU(3)`$ and $`e^0e^3e^5e^8`$ is a cellular decomposition of $`SU(3)`$. Then we have $`\stackrel{˚}{e}^i\stackrel{˚}{e}^j=\mathrm{}`$ if $`ij`$.

(2) For the case where $`i\{0,3,5,8\}`$ and $`j\{7,10,12,15\}`$; we have $`p_0(\stackrel{˚}{e}^i)=\{e_0\}`$ and $`p_0(\stackrel{˚}{e}^j)=S^7\backslash \{e_0\}`$. Then we have $`\stackrel{˚}{e}^i\stackrel{˚}{e}^j=\mathrm{}`$.

(3) For the case where $`i,j\{7,10,12,15\}`$; suppose that $`A\stackrel{˚}{e}^i\stackrel{˚}{e}^j`$. Since $`\stackrel{˚}{e}^i=\stackrel{˚}{e}^7\stackrel{˚}{e}^{i7}`$ and $`\stackrel{˚}{e}^j=\stackrel{˚}{e}^7\stackrel{˚}{e}^{j7}`$, we can put $`A=A_1A_2=A_1^{}A_2^{}`$ where $`A_1,A_1^{}\stackrel{˚}{e}^7`$, $`A_2\stackrel{˚}{e}^{i7}`$ and $`A_2^{}\stackrel{˚}{e}^{j7}`$. We have $`A_1=A_1^{}`$, since $`p_0(A_1)=p_0(A_1A_2)=p_0(A_1^{}A_2^{})=p_0(A_1^{})`$ and $`p_0|_{\stackrel{˚}{e}^7}`$ is monic. Then we have $`A_2=A_2^{}`$ and the first case shows that $`i7=j7`$, that is, $`i=j`$. Thus $`\stackrel{˚}{e}^i\stackrel{˚}{e}^j=\mathrm{}`$ if $`ij`$.

Next, we will check that the boundaries of the cells are included in the lower dimensional cells. In the proof of Proposition 3.2 , it is proved that the boundaries $`\dot{e}^3`$, $`\dot{e}^5`$ and $`\dot{e}^8`$ are included in the lower dimensional cells. Observe that the boundary $`\dot{e}^7`$ is the union of the following three sets:

$`\{DBAB^1D^1|AA(\dot{D}^3),BB(D^2),DD(D^2)\},`$
$`\{DBAB^1D^1|AA(D^3),BB(\dot{D}^2),DD(D^2)\},`$
$`\{DBAB^1D^1|AA(D^3),BB(D^2),DD(\dot{D}^2)\}.`$
The first set contains only the identity element, since $`A`$ is the identity element. It is easy to see that the second set is contained in $`e^3`$ and that the third set is contained in $`e^5`$. We have $`\dot{e}^{10}=e^7\dot{e}^3\dot{e}^7e^3e^7e^0e^5e^3=e^7e^8`$. We also have $`\dot{e}^{12}=\dot{e}^7e^5e^7\dot{e}^5e^5e^5e^7e^3=e^8e^{10}`$, and $`\dot{e}^{15}=\dot{e}^7e^5e^3e^7\dot{e}^5e^3e^7e^5\dot{e}^3e^5e^5e^3e^7e^3e^3e^7e^5=e^8e^{10}e^{12}`$.

Finally, we will show that the inclusion map $`e^0e^3e^5e^7e^8e^{10}e^{12}e^{15}SU(4)`$ is epic. Let $`gSU(4)`$. If $`p_0(g)=e_0`$, then $`g`$ is contained in $`SU(3)=e^0e^3e^5e^8`$. Suppose that $`p_0(g)e_0`$. There is an element $`he^7`$ such that $`p_0(h)=p_0(g)`$. Thus we have $`h^1gSU(3)=e^0e^3e^5e^8`$, since $`p_0(h^1g)=e_0`$. Therefore we have $`gh(e^0e^3e^5e^8)e^0e^3e^5e^7e^8e^{10}e^{12}e^{15}`$. ∎

###### Remark 2.4.

(1) We regard $`SO(6)`$ as the subgroup of $`SO(7)`$ fixing $`e_1`$. Let $`\pi :Spin(6)SO(6)`$ be the double covering. Then, according to the Proof of Lemma 2.1, $`\pi (SU(4))SO(6)`$ so that $`\pi |_{SU(4)}:SU(4)SO(6)`$ is the double covering.

(2) For $`1n3`$, the subcomplex $`e^0e^3\mathrm{}e^{2n+1}`$ is homeomorphic to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }P^n`$, which consists of the elements

$$A\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& & & \\ & 1& & \\ & & 1& \\ & & & e^{2i\theta }\end{array}\right)A^1\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& & & \\ & 1& & \\ & & 1& \\ & & & e^{2i\theta }\end{array}\right)$$

for any elements $`A`$ in $`SU(n+1)`$. Moreover, according to Proposition 2.6 of Chapter IV of , we have $`e^{2i+1}e^{2j+1}e^{2j+1}e^{2i+1}`$ for $`i<j`$; in fact we have $`e^{2i+1}e^{2j+1}=e^{2j+1}e^{2i+1}`$ (see ).

Let $`S^6`$ be the unit sphere of $`^7`$ whose basis $`\{e_i|\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}i7\}`$. We consider the following diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}SU(3)& & G_2& & S^6\\ & & & & & & \\ SU(4)& & Spin(7)& \stackrel{p}{}& S^6\\ & & \pi & & & & \\ SO(6)& & SO(7)& & S^6\end{array}$$

where the horizontal lines are principal fibre bundles and $`p(g)=\pi (g)e_1`$.

Lemma 4.1 of  implies the following lemma immediately.

###### Lemma 2.5.

Put $`V^6=D^3\times D^2\times D^1`$. Then the composite map $`p\phi _6:(V^6,V^6)(S^6,\{e_1\})`$ is a relative homeomorphism.

Now we can state one of our main results.

###### Theorem 2.6.

The cell complex $`e^0e^3e^5e^6e^7e^8e^9e^{10}e^{11}e^{12}e^{13}e^{14}e^{15}e^{16}e^{18}e^{21}`$ gives a cellular decomposition of $`Spin(7)`$.

###### Proof.

First we show that $`\stackrel{˚}{e}^i\stackrel{˚}{e}^j=\mathrm{}`$ if $`ij`$. We consider the following three cases:

(1) For the case where $`i,j\{0,3,5,7,8,10,12,15\}`$; both cells $`e^i`$ and $`e^j`$ are in $`SU(4)`$ and $`e^0e^3e^5e^7e^8e^{10}e^{12}e^{15}`$ is a cellular decomposition of $`SU(4)`$, whence we have $`\stackrel{˚}{e}^i\stackrel{˚}{e}^j=\mathrm{}`$ if $`ij`$.

(2) For the case where $`i\{0,3,5,7,8,10,12,15\}`$ and $`j\{6,9,11,13,14,16,18,21\}`$; we have $`p(\stackrel{˚}{e}^i)=\{e_1\}`$ and $`p(\stackrel{˚}{e}^j)=S^6\backslash \{e_1\}`$, whence we have $`\stackrel{˚}{e}^i\stackrel{˚}{e}^j=\mathrm{}`$.

(3) For the case where $`i,j\{6,9,11,13,14,16,18,21\}`$, suppose that $`A\stackrel{˚}{e}^i\stackrel{˚}{e}^j`$. Since $`\stackrel{˚}{e}^i=\stackrel{˚}{e}^6\stackrel{˚}{e}^{i6}`$ and $`\stackrel{˚}{e}^j=\stackrel{˚}{e}^6\stackrel{˚}{e}^{j6}`$, we can put $`A=A_1A_2=A_1^{}A_2^{}`$, where $`A_1,A_1^{}\stackrel{˚}{e}^6`$, $`A_2\stackrel{˚}{e}^{i6}`$ and $`A_2^{}\stackrel{˚}{e}^{j6}`$. We have $`A_1=A_1^{}`$, since $`p(A_1)=p(A_1A_2)=p(A_1^{}A_2^{})=p(A_1^{})`$ and $`p|_{\stackrel{˚}{e}^6}`$ is monic. Then we have $`A_2=A_2^{}`$ and the first case shows that $`i6=j6`$, that is, $`i=j`$. Thus $`\stackrel{˚}{e}^i\stackrel{˚}{e}^j=\mathrm{}`$ if $`ij`$.

Next, we will check that the boundaries of the cells are included in the lower dimensional cells. In Proposition 2.3, it is proved that the boundaries of the cells of $`SU(4)`$ are included in the lower dimensional cells. In Proof of Theorem 4.2 in , we showed that $`\dot{e}^6e^3e^5`$, $`\dot{e}^9e^6e^8`$, $`\dot{e}^{11}e^5e^9`$ and $`\dot{e}^{14}e^8e^9e^{11}`$. By using (2) of Remark 2.4, we also obtain

$`\dot{e}^{13}`$ $`=e^6\dot{e}^7\dot{e}^6e^7e^{11}e^{12},`$
$`\dot{e}^{16}`$ $`=e^6e^7\dot{e}^3e^6\dot{e}^7e^3\dot{e}^6e^7e^3e^{13}e^{14}e^{15},`$
$`\dot{e}^{18}`$ $`=e^6e^7\dot{e}^5e^6\dot{e}^7e^5\dot{e}^6e^7e^5e^{16}e^{14}e^{15},`$
$`\dot{e}^{21}`$ $`=e^6e^7e^5\dot{e}^3e^6e^7\dot{e}^5e^3e^6\dot{e}^7e^5e^3\dot{e}^6e^7e^5e^3e^{18}e^{16}e^{14}e^{15}.`$
Finally, we will show that the inclusion map $`e^0e^3e^5e^6e^7e^8e^9e^{10}e^{11}e^{12}e^{13}e^{14}e^{15}e^{16}e^{18}e^{21}Spin(7)`$ is epic. Let $`gSpin(7)`$. If $`p(g)=e_1`$, then $`g`$ is contained in $`SU(4)=e^0e^3e^5e^7e^8e^{10}e^{12}e^{15}`$. Suppose that $`p(g)e_1`$. There is an element $`he^6`$ such that $`p(h)=p(g)`$. Thus we have $`h^1gSU(4)`$ since $`p(h^1g)=e_1`$. Therefore we have $`gh(e^0e^3e^5e^7e^8e^{10}e^{12}e^{15})e^0e^3e^5e^6e^7e^8e^9e^{10}e^{11}e^{12}e^{13}e^{14}e^{15}e^{16}e^{18}e^{21}`$. ∎

###### Remark 2.7.

Araki  also gave a cellular decomposition of $`Spin(n)`$, but the one we have given here is a cellular decomposition with the minimum number of cells, satisfying the Yokota principle (, , ). As will be seen later, it is effectively used to determine the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category.

It is easy to give a cellular decomposition of $`Spin(8)`$ using a homeomorphism $`Spin(8)Spin(7)\times S^7`$.

## 3. The cone-decomposition of $`SU(4)`$

Obviously there is a filtration $`F_0^{}=F_1^{}=SU(4)^{(7)}F_2^{}=SU(4)^{(12)}F_3^{}=SU(4)`$. It is well-known that $`F_1^{}=\mathrm{\Sigma }P^3=S^3e^5e^7`$ and $`F_2^{}=F_1^{}e^8e^{10}e^{12}`$. Thus the integral cohomology $`H^n(F_2^{};)`$ is given by

$$H^n(F_2^{};)\{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & (n=0)\hfill \\ y_n\hfill & (n=3,5,7,8,10,12)\hfill \\ 0\hfill & (\text{otherwise}).\hfill \end{array}$$

The action of the squaring operation $`Sq^2`$ is given as follows:

$$Sq^2y_n=\{\begin{array}{cc}y_{n+2}\hfill & \mathrm{for}n=3,10,\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \mathrm{for}n=5,7,8,12\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`y_n`$ is regarded as an element of the mod 2 cohomology. To give the cone decomposition of $`SU(4)`$, we use the following homotopy fibration:

(3.1)
$$F\stackrel{\Psi }{}F_1^{}\stackrel{𝜄}{}F_2^{}.$$

Without loss of generality, we may regard this as a Hurewicz fibration over $`F_2^{}`$.

Firstly we consider the Serre spectral sequence $`(E_r^,,d_r)`$ associated with the above fibration, where the generators of $`E_2^{,0}`$ for $`7`$ are permanent cycles and survive to $`E_{\mathrm{}}`$-terms. Hence $`F`$ is $`6`$-connected and the transgression $`\tau :H^7(F;)H^8(F_2^{};)`$ is an isomorphism to $`H^8(F_2^{};)y_8`$. Thus $`H^7(F;)x_7`$ for some $`x_7H^7(F;)`$. Similarly, the generators in $`E_2^{3,7}y_3x_7`$ and $`E_2^{10,0}H^{10}(F_2^{};)y_{10}`$ must lie in the image of differentials $`d_3`$ and $`d_{10}=\tau :H^9(F;)H^{10}(F_2^{};)`$ respectively, and we have that $`H^8(F;)=0`$ and $`H^9(F;)x_9x_9^{}`$, where the elements $`x_9`$ and $`x_9^{}`$ in $`H^9(F;)`$ are corresponding to $`x_{10}`$ and $`y_3x_7`$ by the transgression $`\tau `$ and $`d_3`$ respectively. We remark that the choice of the generator $`x_9^{}`$ is not unique. Continuing this process, we have that $`H^{10}(F;)=0`$ and $`H^{11}(F;)x_{11}x_{11}^{}x_{11}^{\prime \prime }x_{11}^{\prime \prime \prime }`$ whose generators are corresponding to $`x_{12}`$, $`y_3x_9`$, $`y_3x_9^{}`$ and $`y_5x_7`$ respectively by the transgression $`\tau `$ and differentials $`d_3`$, $`d_3`$ and $`d_5`$.

Thus the integral cohomology $`H^n(F;)`$ for $`0n11`$ is given by

$$H^n(F;)\{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & (n=0)\hfill \\ x_7\hfill & (n=7)\hfill \\ x_9x_9^{}\hfill & (n=9)\hfill \\ x_{11}x_{11}^{}x_{11}^{\prime \prime }x_{11}^{\prime \prime \prime }\hfill & (n=11)\hfill \\ 0\hfill & (\text{otherwise})\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`x_7`$, $`x_9`$ and $`x_{11}`$ are transgressive generators in $`H^{}(F;)`$. Hence $`F`$ has, up to homotopy, a cellular decomposition $`e^0e^7_{\phi _1}e^9_{\phi _1^{}}e_1^9_{\phi _2}e^{11}`$ (cells in dimensions $`11`$), where the cells $`e^7`$, $`e^9`$ and $`e^{11}`$ correspond to $`x_7`$, $`x_9`$ and $`x_{11}`$ respectively. Then we obtain a subcomplex $`A^{}=e^0e^7_{\phi _1}e^9_{\phi _1^{}}e_1^9_{\phi _2}e^{11}`$ of $`F`$.

Secondly, we determine the attaching maps $`\phi _1`$ and $`\phi _1^{}`$: Let us recall that $`\pi _8(S^7)/2\eta _7`$ whose generator $`\eta _7`$ can be detected by $`Sq^2`$, the mod $`2`$ Steenrod operation. Since the action of mod $`2`$ Steenrod operation commutes with the cohomology transgression (see \[8, Proposition 6.5\]), we see that $`Sq^2x_7`$ is transgressive, and hence is $`cx_9`$ for some $`c/2`$. We know that $`\tau x_9=y_{10}0`$ and $`\tau Sq^2x_7=Sq^2\tau x_7=Sq^2y_8=0`$, and hence $`Sq^2x_7`$ must be trivial. Thus the attaching maps $`\phi _1`$ and $`\phi _1^{}`$ are both null homotopic and $`A^{}`$ is homotopy equivalent to $`(S^7S^9S_1^9)_{\phi _2}e^{11}`$.

Thirdly we check the composition of projections with the attaching map $`\phi _2:S^{10}S^7S^9S_1^9`$ to $`S^9`$ and $`S_1^9`$, which can also be detected by $`Sq^2`$. Again by the commutativity of the action of mod 2 Steenrod operation with the transgression, we see that the composition map $`\mathrm{pr}_{S^9}\phi _2:S^{10}\stackrel{\phi _2}{}S^7S^9S_1^9S^9`$ represents a generator of $`\pi _{10}(S^9)/2\eta _9`$, since $`Sq^2:H^8(F_2^{};/2)H^{10}(F_2^{};/2)`$ is non-trivial. If the composition map $`\varphi _1=\mathrm{pr}_{S_1^9}\phi _2:S^{10}\stackrel{\phi _2}{}S^7S^9S_1^9S_1^9`$ is non-trivial, we replace $`\phi _2`$ by the composition of $`\phi _2`$ and the homotopy equivalence $`\xi :S^7S^9S_1^9S^7S^9S_1^9`$ where $`\xi |_{S^7}`$ and $`\xi |_{S_1^9}`$ are the identity maps and $`\xi |_{S^9}`$ is the unique co-H-structure map $`\varphi :S^9S^9S_1^9`$; then we obtain that $`\varphi _1`$ is trivial, since $`2\eta _9=0`$. Then $`A^{}`$ is homotopy equivalent to $`((S^7S^9)_{\phi _2}e^{11})S_1^9`$. Let $`A`$ denote the subcomplex $`(S^7S^9)_{\phi _2}e^{11}`$ of $`A^{}`$ and $`\psi =\mathrm{\Psi }|_A:AF_1^{}`$.

###### Lemma 3.1.

$`F_2^{}`$ is homotopy equivalent to $`F_1^{}_\psi CA`$.

###### Proof.

The image of $`H^{}(A;)`$ in $`H^{}(F;)`$ under the induced map of the inclusion coincides with the module of transgressive elements with respect to the fibration (3.1) (see \[8, Chapter 6\]). Thus we may regard that $`H^{n1}(A;)=\delta ^1(\iota ^{}(H^n(F_2^{},;)))H^{n1}(F;)`$:

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}H^{n1}(F;)& \stackrel{\delta _F}{}& H^n(F_1^{},F;)& \stackrel{\iota _F^{}}{}& H^n(F_2^{},;)\\ & & & & & & \\ H^{n1}(A;)& \stackrel{\delta _A}{}& H^n(F_1^{},A;)& \stackrel{\iota _A^{}}{}& H^n(F_2^{},;),\end{array}$$

where $`\iota _F`$ and $`\iota _A`$ are given by $`\iota `$, and $`\delta _F`$ and $`\delta _A`$ denote the connecting homomorphisms of the long exact sequences for the pairs $`(F_1^{},F)`$ and $`(F_1^{},A)`$, respectively. Thus the image of $`\delta _A`$ is contained in the image of $`\iota _A^{}`$ and we also have

$$H^n(F_1^{},A;)H^n(F_1^{}_\psi CA,CA;)H^n(F_1^{}_\psi CA,;).$$

Since the composition map $`A\stackrel{𝜓}{}F_1^{}\stackrel{𝜄}{}F_2^{}`$ is trivial, we can define a map

$$f:F_1^{}_\psi CAF_2^{},$$

by $`f|_{F_1^{}}=\iota :F_1^{}F_2^{}`$ and $`f|_{CA}=`$.

In order to prove the lemma, we show that $`f^{}:H^n(F_2^{};)H^n(F_1^{}_\psi CA;)`$ is an isomorphism for $`n=3,5,7,8,10,12`$. We have a commutative diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}& & H^n(F_2^{};)& \stackrel{\iota ^{}}{}& H^n(F_1^{};)\\ & & f^{}& & & & \\ H^n(F_1^{}CA,F_1^{};)& \stackrel{j^{}}{}& H^n(F_1^{}CA;)& \stackrel{i^{}}{}& H^n(F_1^{};),\end{array}$$

where the bottom row is a part of the exact sequence for the pair $`(F_1^{}CA,F_1^{})`$. The induced map $`i^{}`$ is an isomorphism for $`n7`$, since $`H^n(F_1^{}CA,F_1^{};)=0`$ for $`n7`$ and since $`\iota ^{}`$ is an isomorphism for $`n7`$. Then we obtain that $`f^{}`$ is an isomorphism for $`n7`$. Moreover we can show that $`j^{}:H^n(F_1^{}CA,F_1^{};)H^n(F_1^{}CA;)`$ is an isomorphism for $`n8`$, by considering the exact sequence for the pair $`(F_1^{}CA,F_1^{})`$, since we have $`H^n(F_1^{})=0`$ for $`n8`$. To perform the other cases for $`n=8,10,12`$, it is sufficient to show that $`f^{}`$ is surjective. In fact, we have a commutative diagram

where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is the suspension isomorphism. Since $`j^{}`$ is an isomorphism for $`n8`$, we obtain that $`\delta _A`$ is an isomorphism for $`n8`$. Since the image of $`\delta _A`$ is contained in the image $`\iota _A^{}`$, we see that $`f^{}`$ is surjective for $`n8`$, and hence $`f`$ is a homotopy equivalence. ∎

###### Proposition 3.2.

We have $`w\mathrm{cat}(F_i^{})=\mathrm{cat}(F_i^{})=\mathrm{Cat}(F_i^{})=i`$.

###### Proof.

The cohomology of $`F_i^{}`$ implies that $`w\mathrm{cat}(F_i^{})i`$. The cone-decomposition

$$F_1^{}=\mathrm{\Sigma }P^3,F_2^{}F_1^{}CA,F_3^{}=F_2^{}CS^{14}$$

implies that $`\mathrm{Cat}(F_i^{})i`$, which completes the proof. ∎

## 4. Proof of Theorem 1.1

We define a filtration $`F_0=F_1F_2F_3F_4F_5=Spin(7)`$ by

$$\begin{array}{cc}F_1=SU(4)^{(7)},\hfill & F_2=SU(4)^{(12)}e^6,\hfill \\ F_3=SU(4)e^6e^9e^{11}e^{13},\hfill & F_4=Spin(7)^{(18)}.\hfill \end{array}$$

We need the following lemma to prove Theorem 4.2.

###### Lemma 4.1.

We have a homeomorphism of pairs

$$(CA_1,A_1)\times (CA_2,A_2)=(C(A_1A_2),A_1A_2).$$

(The proof can be found in p.482-483 of .)

Now Theorem 1.1 follows from the following theorem.

###### Theorem 4.2.

We have $`w\mathrm{cat}(F_i)=\mathrm{cat}(F_i)=\mathrm{Cat}(F_i)=i`$.

###### Proof.

The mod 2 cohomology of $`F_i`$ implies that $`w\mathrm{cat}(F_i)i`$. Then it is sufficient to show that $`\mathrm{Cat}(F_i)i`$. Obviously we have a homeomorphism $`F_1=\mathrm{\Sigma }P^3`$. Since the cell $`e^6`$ is attached to $`F_1`$, we obtain that $`F_2F_1C(S^5A)`$ using Lemma 3.1. Since we have $`e^9e^{11}e^{13}=e^6(e^3e^5e^7)`$, the composition map

$$(CS^5,S^5)\times (CP^3,P^3)(CS^5,S^5)\times (\mathrm{\Sigma }P^3,)(F_2e^9e^{11}e^{13},F_2)$$

is a relative homeomorphism. Then we obtain $`F_2e^9e^{11}e^{13}=F_2C(S^5P^3)`$ using Lemma 4.1. The cell $`e^{15}`$ is the highest dimensional cell of $`SU(4)`$ and is attached to $`F_2`$. Then we obtain $`F_3F_2C(S^{14}(S^5P^3))`$. Now we consider the following composition map:

$$(C(S^5A),S^5A)=(CS^5,S^5)\times (CA,A)(CS^5,S^5)\times (F_2^{},F_1^{})(F_4,F_3).$$

Since we have $`e^{14}e^{16}e^{18}=e^6(e^8e^{10}e^{12})`$, the right map is a relative homeomorphism. The left map induces an isomorphism of homologies of pairs so that the map $`H_{}(F_3C(S^5A),F_3;)H_{}(F_4,F_3;)`$ is an isomorphism. Thus we obtain $`F_4F_3C(S^5A)`$. Obviously we have a homeomorphism $`F_5=F_4CS^{20}`$. ∎


text:
# A census of metals at high and low redshift and the connection between submillimetre sources and spheroid formation.

## 1 Introduction

The star formation history (SFH) of the universe deduced from optical/UV surveys (Lilly et al. 1996; Madau et al. 1996, 1998) has recently been revised to account for dust extinction (Steidel et al. 1999), largely motivated by the detection of a population of dusty star-forming objects in deep submm surveys with SCUBA (Hughes et al. 1998; Eales et al. 1999; Smail, Ivison & Blain 1997; Scott et al. 2002). The current best estimate of the SFH is that the global star-formation rate in the universe was fairly constant over the redshift interval $`1<z<4`$, falling by a factor $`>10`$ to the present epoch, see Fig. 1. (Steidel et al. 1999; Ivison et al. 2002). A simple integration of this history implies that $`25`$% of all stars and metals today should have formed by a redshift of $`2.5`$.111In a flat cosmology. However, the metal content of objects believed to contain most of the baryonic matter at high-z – principally the Lyman alpha forest and damped Lyman alpha absorption systems (DLAs)– is only 2.5% of the total amount of metals in the universe today (Pettini 1999; Pagel 2002). Thus 90% of metals expected to exist at $`z=23`$ have not yet been seen or recognised – the ‘missing metals’.

The submm surveys revealed a population of extremely dusty and obscured objects with very high bolometric luminosities, probably residing at high redshifts, $`z>2`$ (Dunlop 2001a; Ivison et al. 2002). If the dust is heated by stars, the star formation rates implied by the submm fluxes are $`1001000\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, high enough to produce an entire galaxy worth of stars in $`1`$ Gyr. Since the properties of low-redshift ellipticals suggest that most of their stars formed quickly at high redshift (Bower et al. 1992; Renzini 1997; Jimenez et al. 1999), several authors have argued that the SCUBA sources may be elliptical galaxies in the process of formation (Lilly et al. 1999; Eales et al. 2000; Dunlop 2001b; Granato et al. 2001). It has been claimed (Cen & Ostriker 1999) that the regions of greatest over-density in the universe at any epoch are the most metal enriched, and that these regions will have reached a given metallicity much earlier than lower density environments. This argument suggests that SCUBA galaxies should be a large reservoir for metals at high redshift, since if they are proto-ellipticals they should have formed from the highest density peaks at high redshift when there has been less time for pollution of the low density inter-galactic medium (IGM).

In this paper, we wish to investigate the connection between the ‘missing metals’, the formation of the spheroids and the dusty sources seen by SCUBA. However, instead of using the bolometric luminosities of the submm sources to infer their physical properties, we interpret the results of the deep submm surveys and our submm survey of the nearby universe in a completely different way, by carrying out the first investigation into the cosmic evolution of the dust mass in galaxies. This provides a new way of looking at the chemical evolution of the universe, as there is evidence that the fraction of ISM metals which are bound up in dust grains is $`40`$ percent, a value which seems remarkably constant from galaxy to galaxy and which also appears to apply at higher redshifts (Issa, MaClaren & Wolfendale 1990; Edmunds 2001; Pei, Fall & Hauser 1999; James et al. 2002). We will determine the dust content of the low and high-z universe by constructing dust mass functions, i.e. the space densities of galaxies as a function of dust mass. At low-z, we will use the results of the SCUBA Local Universe Galaxy Survey (Dunne et al. 2000), the first attempt at an unbiased submm survey of the local universe. For the high redshift dust mass function, we will use submm data from the deep SCUBA submm surveys. In Section 4 we will use these dust mass functions, together with a simple chemical evolution model, to estimate the co-moving density of metals and baryons associated with the ISM of galaxies at low and high redshift. Finally, we will produce a simple prediction for the dust mass function of the spheroids during the epoch in which they had their maximum dust masses, and compare with our observational estimate of the dust mass function of the SCUBA sources.

## 2 Dust Masses from Submillimetre Fluxes

Dust mass can be calculated from the submm flux according to

$$M_\mathrm{d}=\frac{(1+\mathrm{z})\mathrm{D}^2\mathrm{S}_{\mathrm{obs}}}{\kappa _\mathrm{d}(\nu _{\mathrm{em}})\mathrm{B}(\nu _{\mathrm{em}},\mathrm{T}_\mathrm{d})}$$
(1)
where $`D`$ is the distance for the assumed cosmology and $`\mathrm{S}_{\mathrm{obs}}`$ is the observed flux. The dust mass opacity coefficient $`\kappa _{d(\nu _{\mathrm{em}})}`$ normalises the submm emission for a given dust mass and is currently measured only at FIR wavelengths and then extrapolated to the submm with a $`\lambda ^\beta `$ dependency. We have taken the average value from the following sources of $`\kappa _{d(125\mu m)}=2.64\pm 0.29\mathrm{m}^2\mathrm{kg}^1`$, where the $`\pm 0.29`$ is the error on the mean value (Hildebrand 1983; Draine & Lee 1984; Krügel, Steppe & Chini 1990; Sodroski et al. 1997; Bianchi, Davies & Alton 1999). We use $`\beta =2`$ (for which there is compelling evidence from our local survey and elsewhere, Dunne & Eales 2001 and references within) to extrapolate $`\kappa _{d(125\mu m)}`$ to the rest wavelength of the submm emission ($`240\mu `$m for an 850$`\mu `$m source at $`z2.5`$). This agrees with the recent estimation of $`\kappa _{d(850\mu m)}=0.07\pm 0.02\mathrm{m}^2\mathrm{kg}^1`$ using a different technique (James et al. 2002).

We also require the value of $`T_d`$, which is a mass-weighted dust temperature. Submillimetre and ISO observations of many nearby galaxies have shown that, when enough data is present, the SED is best described by dust at more than one temperature (Haas et al. 1998,2000; Frayer et al. 1999; Braine et al. 1997; Dumke et al. 1997, Calzetti et al. 2000; Guélin et al. 1995; Sievers et al. 1994; Neininger et al. 1996; Alton et al. 1998, 2001; Papadopoulos & Seaquist 1999; Reach et al. 1995; Trewhella et al. 2000). For our local SCUBA survey of bright IRAS galaxies, we found that in addition to the typical ‘IRAS-detected’ dust at $`3545`$ K, a colder dust component at $`1725`$ K was required in all cases (Dunne & Eales 2001), even for highly luminous galaxies such as Arp 220. Klaas et al. (2001) also find that the SEDs of 41 local ULIRGs are best represented by a combination of warm and cold dust. Following the notation of the two-component SED model from Dunne & Eales (2001), the value which should enter Eqn. 1 can be approximated by

$$T_d=\frac{2(T_wT_c)}{(1+N_c/N_w)^2}+T_c$$
(2)
where $`T_c/T_w`$ is the characteristic temperature of the cold/warm dust, and $`N_c/N_w`$ is the ratio of mass in the cold/warm components. For the local survey, the value of $`T_d`$ was 21.3 K, with a standard error in the mean for the population of 0.5 K. This mass-weighted temperature should not be confused with the dust temperature traditionally used to estimate bolometric luminosity, which should be the temperature defining the peak in the spectrum. Since we are not integrating the SED and have observations at wavelengths longer than the peak, our estimation of the dust mass from a single submm flux is not as sensitive to temperature as an estimate of the bolometric luminosity would be. In local galaxies, including ULIRGs, most dust is contained in the cold $`20`$ K component, which means we do not need to worry about the location of the peak in the SED; the temperature of the warm dust has a negligible effect on the dust mass estimate, providing $`N_c/N_w>1`$. For the local objects, we use $`T_d`$ for each galaxy in our survey (Dunne & Eales 2001).

The biggest uncertainty in our analysis is our lack of knowledge of $`T_d`$ in the high redshift SCUBA galaxies. As discussed above, there is now a lot of evidence that most of the dust in low redshift FIR sources, including ULIRGs, is at a relatively cold temperature. It will not be possible to perform a similar analysis of the temperature of dust in high redshift galaxies because of the lack of instruments operating at wavelengths long enough to sample the rest-frame emission from the cold dust (i.e. 850$`\mu `$m in the rest-frame). It is difficult to determine the existence of a colder dust component without many fluxes at wavelengths at and beyond the peak in the SED. It is plausible that the mean temperature of dust in galaxies was higher in the past, as star-formation rates and possibly interstellar radiation fields were higher. However, it is also possible that the mass-weighted dust temperatures in high-z SCUBA galaxies might be as low, or even lower than in low-z ULIRGs. This is because dust equilibrium temperatures are very sensitive to the relative geometry of dust and heating sources, as well as optical depth effects. If the clouds in which the stars form are very dense, it is likely that few UV/optical photons escape (we know this is the case for the high redshift SCUBA galaxies as a whole), and so dust outside these regions will see a much weaker radiation field and hence have a lower temperature. There is also evidence (Frayer 2001; Ivison et al. 2001,2002; Isaak et al. 2002; Lutz et al. 2001, Eales et al. 2000) that the physical sizes of the star forming regions in some submm luminous objects at high redshift are larger than in local ULIRGs. Local ULIRGs have very compact regions of star formation ($`<1`$ kpc) while the radio, mm and CO sizes of the high-z submm sources have been estimated to be as large as 10–30 kpc in some cases. This could be due to the high-z objects having much greater gas fractions than local ULIRGs. Mihos & Hernquist (1996) have argued that it is the presence of large stellar bulges in local ULIRGs which provide enough stability to allow the gas to reach very high central concentrations before forming stars. Galaxies at high redshift may have greater gas fractions and small or non-existent stellar bulges compared to galaxies today. This means that the star formation induced by an interaction or perturbation at high redshift could be much more widespread, as the gas will collapse to form stars before it inflows to the centre of the remnant (Mihos 1999; Tissera et al. 2002). A given star formation rate which is spread over a larger volume will result in a lower intensity radiation field, possibly leading to lower dust temperatures. Two sources at $`z=0.51`$ from the 170$`\mu `$m FIRBACK survey have also been followed up with SCUBA and appear to have much colder dust for their luminosity than local objects selected by IRAS (Chapman et al. 2002). Such sources may be more representative of objects selected in deep submm surveys, as selection at longer wavelengths is less biased toward objects dominated by warmer dust. The models of Pei, Fall & Hauser (1999) however, predict that there should have been a modest amount of positive evolution in the dust equilibrium temperature between $`z=0`$ and $`z=23`$. In the absence of any direct evidence on the amount of cold dust in the high-z SCUBA galaxies, we have assumed the equilibrium temperature predicted for dust sources at $`z23`$ by Pei, Fall & Hauser (1999) of 25 K. If temperatures are more akin to local galaxies (20 K) then the high-z dust masses we present will increase by a factor $`2`$, and more if the equilibrium temperatures at high redshift are actually lower than in local ULIRGs.

## 3 Dust Mass Functions at Low and High Redshift

We estimate the space density of galaxies as a function of dust mass (the dust mass function – DMF) using standard accessible volume techniques, such that

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(M)\mathrm{\Delta }M=\mathrm{\Sigma }_i\frac{1}{V_i}$$
(3)
where $`V_i`$ is the accessible volume in the parent sample of the $`i`$th source and the sum is over all objects in the range $`\mathrm{M}\mathrm{M}+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{M}`$. For the local galaxies $`V_i`$ is their accessible volume at 60$`\mu `$m, which was the wavelength of selection of their parent sample, the IRAS BGS (Soifer et al. 1989). The local dust mass function (DMF) we will use here is described in detail in Dunne & Eales (2001).

For the high redshift dust sources, we construct the DMF using submm data from the CUDSS blank field submm survey (Eales et al. 2000; Webb et al. 2002), and also the submm number counts at higher and lower flux densities (Smail et al. 2002; Scott et al. 2002; Borys et al. 2002). In order to allow for star forming objects which may be too submm faint to appear in the blank field surveys, we use the statistical submm analysis of starburst galaxies in the HDF by Peacock et al. (2000). The characteristic shape of the thermal dust spectrum means that in a flat cosmology, an object of a given dust mass will be observed to have virtually the same 850$`\mu `$m flux-density over a wide range of redshift ($`1<z<10`$). Therefore the redshift we assume for the sources has very little effect on the derived dust masses, providing that the objects are at $`z>1`$ (any objects known to have $`z<1`$ were excluded from this analysis). Spectroscopic redshifts (Eales et al. 2000) and estimates using the Dunne, Clements & Eales (2000) version of the radio-submm redshift indicator (Carilli & Yun 1999) were used where available, otherwise sources were placed at $`z=2.5`$ for the purposes of calculating $`M_\mathrm{d}`$. Figure 2 shows that due to the flat flux-density redshift relation, a source visible at $`z=1`$ will still be visible (in a flux limited sample) at $`z=510`$ (depending on the exact shape of the spectrum); therefore $`V_i`$ for the submm sources was simply taken to be the volume in the redshift interval $`z_{\mathrm{max}}z_{\mathrm{min}}`$. We fix $`z_{\mathrm{min}}=1`$ as there is dramatic evolution in the submm population below this redshift, very few submm sources being found at $`z<1`$ (Dunlop 2001a), while we take $`z_{\mathrm{max}}=5`$. This is the redshift at which the 850$`\mu `$m flux density of a source with an SED similar to Arp 220 would start to fall off (Fig. 2). The effects of using $`z_{\mathrm{max}}=4`$ or $`z_{\mathrm{max}}=6`$ are a modest $`\pm 20`$% change in the space density. We have treated the statistical detection of submm flux in the HDF in a similar manner to the blank field sources, using $`z=3`$, the average of the photometric redshifts, to estimate the dust mass. The photometric redshifts show that the galaxies responsible for the submm emission are found between $`z=16`$ and this redshift range was used to calculate the space density. There were also 5 optical sources in the HDF which are plausible $`>3\sigma `$ detections in the submm, these are treated separately and we have used their photometric redshifts to estimate the dust mass.

This high-z dust mass function is shown in Fig. 3 for two cosmologies, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}=1`$ (solid) and a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}=0.3`$ (blue dashed), along with the DMF from our local survey. A value of $`\mathrm{H}_0=75\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ is used throughout. It is immediately obvious that there has been substantial evolution in the dust mass function, particularly at the highest dust masses.

## 4 The Metal Content of the Universe

There is growing concern that the metal content of the high-z universe is not observed to be as large as the inferred star formation would suggest (Pettini 1999; Pagel 2002; Blain et al. 1999a,b). Accounting for the metals observed in DLAs and the Lyman forest leaves a shortfall of $`90`$% in the cosmic metal budget at $`z=23`$. Metals are thought to be produced by supernovae and in the winds of cool evolved stars. They are then injected into the ISM with a fraction of them ($`\eta `$) bound into, or subsequently accreting onto dust grains. From here they can be expelled out of the galaxy into the inter-galactic medium (IGM) by starburst winds, or become part of the next generation of stars. The fraction of metals found in these different locations today is summarised in Fig. 4a.

These fractions do not remain constant, of course, as the fraction of total metals in stars and the IGM will decrease with redshift. Today the fraction of metals in the ISM of galaxies is negligible, but how different could this have been in the past, when galaxies were more gas rich? It is clear that more metals should be found in the most evolved objects at a given redshift, although their distribution between stars and ISM will depend on how far the object has evolved. This has been presented by Cen & Ostriker (1999) as a correlation between over-density and metallicity, the fastest evolving objects being found preferentially in the most over-dense regions. The monolithic collapse models predict massive episodes of star formation at high redshift, and this should be accompanied by rapid enrichment of the locality. Observations of DLAs and the IGM at high redshift have failed to find evidence for this level of enrichment, although high-z QSOs are often found to have near solar or super-solar metallicities (Warner et al. 2002). This makes sense if QSOs represent the accretion phase of the massive black hole, which is presumably forming co-evally with the stellar bulge, as required to produce the BH-bulge mass correlation in the local universe (Magorrian et al. 1998). The IGM is a low-density environment and so not expected to be very enriched at high-z. It has been argued that the Damped Lyman alpha absorbers represent the co-moving mass density of gas in galaxies at high redshift and that the column density-weighted metallicity of these systems traces the global metallicity evolution of the universe222provided that no class of galaxy is excluded from the DLA samples (Pei & Fall 1995). However, there are potential biases in the selection of DLAs as they are only observed along sight lines to optically bright QSOs and thus they are less likely to be observed if they contain dense gas and dust. The cross-sectional area available at the edges of galaxies is also greater than the denser, more evolved inner regions and therefore a sight-line is more likely to intercept a less dense and less metal enriched part of a galaxy (Mathlin et al. 2001). Thus current samples of DLAs may underestimate the metal content of the neutral gas at any redshift. The obvious place to look for the most enriched systems at high-z is to look at the most obscured and actively star forming objects – submm sources, especially as they show evidence for being located in over-dense regions (Ivison et al. 2000).

One simple thing we can do with the high-z DMF is to integrate the total amount of dust in galaxies at low and high redshift. The co-moving density of dust is given by $`\rho _d=\mathrm{\Gamma }(2+\alpha )M_\mathrm{d}^{}\varphi ^{}`$, where $`M_\mathrm{d}^{}`$ and $`\varphi ^{}`$ are the Schechter parameters fitted to the dust mass functions in Fig. 3. $`\rho _d`$ can be converted into $`\rho _z`$, the co-moving density of metals, by dividing by $`\eta `$ – the fraction of ISM metals which are in dust. We have used $`\eta =0.4`$ and there is some evidence that this fraction is fairly constant both locally and at higher redshifts (Pei, Fall & Hauser 1999; Issa, MacLaren & Wolfendale 1990; Edmunds 2001; James et al. 2002). Table 1 lists the ISM metals at low and high-z inferred from the dust, along with an inventory of metals and baryons in other locations. Integrating the DMF is currently quite uncertain at low redshift due to the very steep faint end slope fitted to the local DMF333This may simply be because we have not yet probed to low enough dust masses to properly sample the turn over. The minimum and maximum values in Table 1 are obtained by integrating the local DMF down to the lowest observed mass, and to zero mass respectively. To facilitate comparisons with work from the literature, we now restrict ourselves to the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1`$ cosmology, noting that this does not affect any of our conclusions.

The baryon values are taken from the literature (Fukugita, Hogan & Peebles 1998 – FHP) except for that associated with the ISM at high-z. For this we have used the metals in dust, plus a simple ‘closed-box’ chemical evolution model to predict the baryon content of the ISM at high redshift. This chemical evolution model (Fig. 5), and others which incorporate inflow and outflow of gas, predict that the ratio of dust mass to baryonic mass should change quite slowly over a large part of a galaxy’s evolution, and should peak when roughly half the gas has been converted into stars (Eales & Edmunds 1996, Edmunds & Eales 1998). We have used the maximum ratio of dust mass to baryonic mass (we are assuming that the submm sources are observed at their maximum dust mass) given by the model, and the integral of the DMF, to estimate the total amount of baryons associated with the objects in the DMF. Since the maximum occurs at a gas fraction of $`0.5`$, the total baryonic mass is split equally between stars and gas (ISM). The assumption that the submm sources are observed close to their peak dust mass is probably valid for the bright submm selected sources, but cannot be presumed to hold for the faintest lensed sources and the statistical detection of optically selected sources in the HDF. This means that the baryon density we have associated with the ISM in Table 1 is really a minimum.

The results in Table 1 and Fig. 4 show a number of different things. First, there was $`645`$ times more dust in galaxies at $`z=2.5`$ than there is today (assuming the dust properties used to estimate the masses are similar at low and high-z, most of the uncertainty here comes from the integration of the local DMF). Secondly, as illustrated in Fig. 4, the amount of metals traced by dust at high-z is 3–10 times the total amount of metals in DLA and Lyman forest systems. The Lyman forest represents the IGM at high-z, while the role of the DLAs is less clear. They may be the ISM of galaxies (Wolfe et al. 1986), either the outer parts of galactic disks or their precursors (Efstathiou 2000; Boissier, Peroux & Pettini 2002), or dwarf galaxies (Yanny & York 1992). Some fraction of them may also be linked to outflows from star-forming galaxies and therefore could be classed as IGM (Shaye 2001). Whichever is the case, at high-z the metal content of the ISM is clearly much greater than that of the IGM. At low redshift the situation is reversed: the IGM now contains far more metals than the ISM of galaxies. This is due to two processes: the consumption of ISM gas and metals by star formation and the expulsion of metal enriched gas from galaxies by winds. Much of the IGM today may be contained in groups of galaxies (this is shown in Fig. 4 and Table 1 as ‘IGM+’). The amount of this gas is very uncertain but could be enough to provide the baryonic matter necessary to match that inferred from recent CMB measurements (Netterfield et al. 2002). The amount of metals which may be contained in the postulated group IGM gas is even more speculative. The hot IGM gas in rich clusters has a metallicity of $`0.3Z_{}`$ (Renzini 1997) but the metallicity of gas in less dense environments, such as in groups, may be lower (as predicted by Cen & Ostriker 1999). We have used an estimate of $`Z=0.1Z_{}`$ for the ‘IGM+’ metallicity but stress the large uncertainty in both the amount of gas and metals in this category.

We have also included in Table 1 an admittedly uncertain estimate of the total amount of metals contained in stars at $`z2.5`$. This was estimated from the following three populations:

1. Lyman Break Galaxies (LBG) – we took the $`z=3`$ LF from Shapley et al. (2001), corrected to this cosmology ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1`$), and integrated to $`0.2L^{}`$. Using $`(\mathrm{B}\mathrm{V})=0.16`$ and $`M/L_B=0.15`$ (Pettini et al. 2001) we used the integral of the LF to estimate the stellar mass density $`\rho _{}=4\times 10^7\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{Mpc}^3\mathrm{h}_{75}`$. We used a metallicity of $`Z=0.10.3Z_{}`$ (Pettini et al. 2001) to produce an estimate of the metal density in stars in bright LBG: $`\rho _{z,}(\mathrm{LBG})7.5\times 10^42.3\times 10^5\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{Mpc}^3\mathrm{h}_{75}`$. An obvious uncertainty here is the correction to the luminosity density required for dust extinction, which could be a factor 2–5
2. Submm selected sources ($`>3`$ mJy) – the dust mass density (from integrating the dust mass function down to 3 mJy), and the closed box model were used to estimate the mass of metals in stars (and the mass in stars). As above, we assumed that the galaxies were halfway through their evolution, with a gas fraction of $`0.5`$. This gave a stellar mass density of $`\rho _{}=3.8\times 10^7\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{Mpc}^3\mathrm{h}_{75}`$ and a stellar metal density of $`\rho _{z,}(\mathrm{sub})2.4\times 10^5\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{Mpc}^3\mathrm{h}_{75}`$. The main uncertainties here are the temperature of the dust (estimates will increase by a factor 2 if the temperature is 20 K rather than 25 K), and the broadness of the maximum in the ratio of dust mass/total mass (Fig. 5). This means there is a considerable range in the gas fraction and hence the stellar mass associated with a given dust mass. Using a model with inflow or outflow will lead to one inferring a greater baryonic mass from a given dust mass
3. The rest of the stellar mass at $`z=2.5`$ predicted from the SFH and not in bright LBG or SCUBA sources. We assumed that this is in lower luminosity systems and DLAs and has $`Z=0.07Z_{}`$ (the average DLA metallicity (Pettini 1999)).

The sum of these three populations is designed to be equivalent to the total stellar density predicted from the SFH, and has a mean metallicity of $`0.2Z_{}`$. Correction of the LBG values for dust would mean less stars in category (iii) and more stellar metals overall (as LBG have higher metallicities). A comparison of the metals traced by dust (ISM) and those in stars at the two epochs leads to a third conclusion: at low redshift the ratio of metals in the ISM to those in stars is only $`0.08`$, while at $`z2.5`$ this ratio is $`49`$. The chemical evolution model suggests that the ratio will be as high as this when only $`2030`$% of stars in the universe have formed, in agreement with the star formation history inferred from observations. Taken together, this means that most metals at $`z=23`$ are in the ISM of galaxies. This is as expected in the early stages of galaxy evolution; later as the gas is consumed, the metals become locked into stars and expelled into the IGM.

Table 1 shows that we can now account for all the metals predicted to exist (from integrating the SFH) at both low and high redshift, and thus there is no longer a ‘missing metals’ problem. The DLAs do not seem to trace the bulk of the metals within galaxies at high-z, suggesting that there are indeed biases present in DLA samples against regions of high density and obscuration (Pei & Fall 1995). A survey of DLA’s selected in the radio (Ellison et al. 2001) has found that there is no evidence for a large missing population of high column density absorbers. The data allow for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{DLA}}`$ to increase by a factor of 2 at most. However, the statistics of the survey are still somewhat limited, especially at the highest column densities where one may also expect to find the greatest quantities of metals (in an unbiased survey). We have also shown that the ‘missing metals’ can be accounted for without resorting to a large reservoir of metals in a hot, diffuse and as yet undetected part of the IGM at high redshift, as has been suggested by various authors (Pettini 1999; Pagel 2002). However, there is still a ‘missing baryons’ problem, since the total amount of directly observed baryons is less than the amount inferred from recent microwave background (CMB) measurements (Netterfield et al. 2002). This shortfall is currently thought to be made up of inter-galactic gas at both low and high redshift (FHP) (‘IGM+’ in Table 1 and Fig. 4).

## 5 Dust mass evolution and the spheroid connection.

The chemical evolution models can also be used to try to explain the evolution in the dust mass function shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 6 shows how the ratio of dust mass at any point in the evolution of a spiral galaxy compares with that today. Present-day spiral galaxies have a gas fraction of $`0.10.2`$, and so in Fig. 6 we have shown how the mass of dust in a galaxy is predicted to change relative to the dust mass it has at $`f=0.1`$. The figure shows that there is relatively little scope for the evolution of the dust masses of spirals; they can have at the most dust masses which are factor of 4 greater in the past than their dust masses today. The local DMF is composed entirely of spiral galaxies, and using pure luminosity evolution (or, in this case, dust mass evolution) requires an increase in the dust masses of the local galaxies of a factor $`10`$ in order to reproduce the high redshift objects with $`M_\mathrm{d}>M_\mathrm{d}^{}`$. Due to the different shapes of the high and low redshift DMFs, the discrepancy is not as large for the lowest mass objects, and so the dust masses of the faintest submm sources (from the statistical analysis of optically selected starbursts in the HDF) are consistent with simple evolution from the local DMF. Thus the high redshift DMF cannot be reproduced by a chemical evolution model applied to local spiral galaxies, which argues that the high redshift dust sources found in the deep SCUBA surveys are a population which is not represented in the dust mass function today, i.e. that the high redshift sources are in fact the ancestors of the gas and dust poor elliptical galaxies in the local universe.

Present-day elliptical galaxies have a much lower typical gas fraction $`0.01`$ and if Fig. 6 were to be drawn for ellipticals (showing how dust mass in the past changes relative to that at a gas fraction of 0.01), we would see curves of similar shape to those in Fig. 6 but which peak at a maximum of between 10 and 35 times more dust in the past. However, we note that because the gas fractions and dust masses of present-day ellipticals are poorly known, and because the ratio in Fig. 6 becomes very sensitive to $`f`$ at low gas fractions444For example, if the gas fraction today were 0.001 then the maximum increases in dust mass allowed become 50 – 250. these simple models are unable to predict accurately the factor by which the dust mass of ellipticals could have been greater at their peak dust content. By the time elliptical galaxies have reached their current evolutionary status, there will be competition between grain formation in low-mass giant stellar atmospheres ($`0.81\mathrm{M}_{}`$) and the very occasional SNae-Ia, and long-term erosion of grains by hot X-ray gas. These are very different conditions from the grain formation in massive and intermediate-mass stellar envelopes, SNae-II, mantle growth in interstellar clouds and ISM gas conditions that were present at the peak of their dust content. Until a comprehensive model can be based on reliable measurements of the gas and dust content of present-day ellipticals, it is probably unwise to try to extrapolate the dust masses ellipticals should have possessed at their peak dust content (robust value) to the dust masses they should have today (very uncertain), other than to accept that there are good reasons why the dust masses could have been much greater in the past (by factors 10–100).

The highest ratio in Fig. 6 is for an outflow proportional to 4 times the star formation rate. This is quite extreme, and leads to an original mass 5 times greater than the remnant today, which would be difficult to produce in most hierarchical models of galaxy formation. Outflow episodes are expected in a galaxy’s lifetime but at a much lower rate, or for a shorter time. Table 1 also shows that the change in ISM baryons from high redshift to today is of the same order as the increase in stellar baryons. This means there is not scope for 70–80% of the ISM to have outflowed between $`z2.5`$ and today. Some level of outflow is probably necessary to produce sufficient evolution in the dust masses of ellipticals, and to provide an obvious source of at least some of the inter-galactic metals observed in the Lyman-forest at high redshift, and the inter-cluster medium today. However, the elementary outflow models can give rise to problems in interpreting the nucleosynthetic yields and metallicities.

We now use the results so far to address the hypothesis that SCUBA galaxies are the ancestors of today’s massive ($`L>L^{}`$) spheroids. First, we compare the baryons contained in the two populations. At low-z, we construct a $`b_j`$ optical spheroid luminosity function (LF) from the 2dF redshift survey (Folkes et al. 1999) and type specific bulge/disk ratios (FHP). We then multiply by the stellar mass-to-light ratio (FHP) $`(M/L)_{}=4.58.3`$ to give a spheroid baryonic mass function (assuming that in today’s spheroids, the stars dominate the baryonic mass). This is integrated down to $`M_b^{}`$ to give the mass density in $`L>L^{}`$ spheroids as $`\rho _{\mathrm{sph},\mathrm{b}}=8.515.6\times 10^7\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{Mpc}^3\mathrm{h}_{75}`$. At high-z, we integrate the DMF down to a mass equivalent to an 850$`\mu `$m flux of 3 mJy ($`M_d^{}`$). We then use the ratio of $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{dust}}/\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{baryon}}`$ from the closed box model (Fig. 5) at a gas fraction of 0.5 to estimate the baryon content of the submm sources, $`\rho _{\mathrm{sub},\mathrm{b}}=7.615.3\times 10^7\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{Mpc}^3\mathrm{h}_{75}`$. Since we use the ratio at its maximum (which is very broad) we are being conservative in our estimate; using outflow or inflow would also increase the inferred $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{baryon}}`$. The baryonic content of the SCUBA sources at high-z is therefore similar to the baryonic content of today’s massive spheroids, the distant submm sources simply being observed at a time when a greater fraction of those baryons were in the form of gas rather than stars. There is a further interesting result, namely that if we compare the baryons at $`z=2.5`$ associated with the SCUBA sources to those in DLAs, we get the same ratio (1.2 – 2.4) as when we compare the baryons in $`L>L^{}`$ spheroids and all disk galaxies today (FHP). This coincidence supports the idea that spiral disks are the descendants of the high-z DLA population (Wolfe et al. 1986; Pettini 1999), and that the spheroids are the descendants of the SCUBA sources. That there are far more metals in the SCUBA sources than the DLAs is evidence that the bulk of stars in spheroids formed at earlier times than those in disks.

We can also use the chemical evolution model to predict the dust mass function that should have been produced by the spheroids when they had formed $`50`$% of their stars. We again take the local spheroid LF and multiply by the stellar mass/light ratio to give a spheroid mass function. Using the closed-box model from Fig. 5, we then multiply the spheroid masses by the maximum ratio of dust/baryonic mass to give a dust mass function. This is shown as the shaded region in Fig. 3. Including outflow has little effect on this shaded region, as the decrease in the maximum dust/baryonic mass ratio (Fig. 5) is offset by the increase in overall baryonic mass at higher gas fractions. The agreement between this very simple prediction and the observed DMF is rather good, supporting the idea that the descendants of SCUBA galaxies are not the dusty objects in our low-z DMF, but the now dust-poor spheroids. Putting this another way, bright submm selected sources ($`>3`$ mJy) can account for all the predicted dust from $`L>L^{}`$ spheroids.

## 6 Conclusions

We have used submillimetre surveys of the local and distant universe to produce dust mass functions. Taken together these show the evolution in dust mass and ISM metals from redshift zero to $`z2.5`$. In conjunction with a simple chemical evolution model we have found that:

1. There was much more dust in galaxies in the past. Simple dust mass evolution in local dusty galaxies to match the high-z dust mass function is not feasible as the chemical models do not permit spiral galaxies to have had $`\times 10`$ more dust at an earlier point in their history. This argues that the local submm sources are not the descendants of the sources in the deep surveys.
2. Most metals ($`>70`$%) at $`z2.5`$ are found in the ISM of galaxies – preferentially in the most obscured and active objects. This solves the ‘missing metals’ problem, which was evident when comparing the metals observed in DLAs and the Lyman forest with the metal density inferred from integrating the star formation history. This supports the suggestion (Pei & Fall 1995) that DLA samples are not unbiased tracers of star forming galaxies at high-z, but instead sample the lower density/unobscured (and therefore un-enriched) environments.
3. Comparison of baryons in $`\mathrm{L}>\mathrm{L}^{}`$ spheroids today, and $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{d}>\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{d}^{}`$ submm sources at high-z, show good agreement, indicating that the submm sources are plausibly the ancestors of the spheroids. Using the local optical spheroid LF and the chemical evolution model, we can also predict the dust mass function the spheroids should have had at the time when they had formed $`50`$% of their stars. This agrees remarkably well with the observed dust mass function at high-z, and again strongly supports the hypothesis that SCUBA sources (particularly brighter ones) are elliptical galaxies in the process of forming most of their stars.

We would like to thank the referee for helpful suggestions on improving the manuscript and also Jon Davies, Sarah Ellison and Bernard Pagel for useful comments. L. Dunne aknowledges the support of a PPARC fellowship. S. Eales thanks the Leverhulme Trust for the award of a research fellowship.