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# Luminosity and Mass Function of the Galactic open cluster NGC 2422 Based on observations made at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile.

## 1 Introduction

Accurate determinations of the stellar Initial Mass Function together with the star formation rate are fundamental to understand star formation mechanisms and related astrophysical problems. Since Salpeter’s estimation of the IMF for stars in the solar-neighborhood (Salpeter, 1955), several investigations in Galactic and extra-galactic stellar systems seem to converge to a universal IMF described by a broken power-law (Scalo, 1998). Many models of stellar population, chemical evolution and galactic evolution adopt a priori a single IMF assuming its universality, although their results are highly sensitive to uncertainties in the IMF (Kennicutt, 1998).

Testing the universality of IMF is a challenge for astrophysicists because several indirect evidences suggest that the IMF ought to systematically vary with the time due to the different star forming conditions (Larson, 1998). Nevertheless, no convincing proofs for a variable IMF still exist and evidences for uniformity of the IMF are deduced by estimates for different populations (Scalo, 1986, 1998; Kroupa, 2002).

However, a large scatter in the logarithmic power-law index, for stars more massive than $`1M_{}`$, is evident. In order to understand how large apparent IMF variations are due to uncertainties inherent to any observational estimate of the IMF, Kroupa et al. (2001) investigated the scatter, introduced by Poisson noise and dynamical evolution of star clusters, of the power-law indices inferred for N-body model populations. The resultant apparent variation of the IMF defines a ”fundamental limit” such that any true variation in the IMF that is smaller than this fundamental limit is not detectable. In addition, determinations of the power-law indices are subject to systematic errors arising from unresolved binaries.

Being systems of coeval and equidistant stars with the same chemical composition, open clusters are key samples in investigating the IMF and its possible spatial and temporal variations. Determination of the IMF of open clusters can however be challenging because of the contamination from background Galactic field stars. A further complication comes from the difficulty to transform the observed Present Day Mass Function (PDMF) into the IMF using proper assumptions on the stellar and dynamical evolution, mainly affecting high and low-mass stars, respectively.

In order to reduce these complications it is convenient to study young open clusters or star forming regions. In the low mass star range the IMF is more uncertain but stellar evolution effects are not important; in this mass range the Present Day Mass Function is representative of the IMF.

Additionally, for the question of the universality or variability of the IMF, it is convenient to compare clusters with same age in order to highlight other possible parametric dependence. For these reasons we choose to study the southern Galactic open cluster NGC 2422 which has an age comparable to the well studied Pleiades cluster.

The equatorial (J2000.0) and galactic coordinates of NGC 2422 are RA$`=07^h36^m36^s`$, Dec=$``$1430 (Lynga, 1987), $`l`$=230.97, $`b`$=3.13, respectively. Estimates of the fundamental parameters of this cluster, such as age, distance modulus and reddening were given in the past by various authors as summarized by Barbera et al. (2002).

The age of $`10^8`$yr was estimated using theoretical isochrones (Rojo Arellano et al., 1997); the most recent value of the distance $`d=498_{88}^{+135}`$ pc, corresponding to a distance modulus $`(Mm)_0=8.48_{0.42}^{+0.52}`$, was deduced by Hipparcos measurements on 4 stars (Robichon et al., 1999) while the most recent value of the reddening $`E(\text{B–V})=0.088`$ was reported by Dambis (1999).

Several papers have been devoted to NGC 2422 in the past: the most recent of them report Strömgren photometry (Shobbrook, 1984; Nissen, 1988; Rojo Arellano et al., 1997), while the available $`UBV`$ photometric values, either photographic and photoelectric, extend only down to $`V16`$ (Zug, 1933; Lynga, 1959; Hoag et al., 1961; Smyth & Nandy, 1962; van Schewick, 1966; Ishmukhamedov, 1967). Mean photometric data and spectral classification from the former papers were compiled by Mermilliod (1986) in a catalog of 212 objects. Using this catalog and 564 additional stars from Ishmukhamedov (1967), Barbera et al. (2002) obtained a large literature-based compilation of measured data of stars in the field of NGC 2422; for some of these stars, X-ray counterparts were found.

The layout of our paper is the following. We present, in Sect. 2, our photometry and astrometry and in Sect. 3 the method adopted to select the candidate cluster member sample. In Sect. 4 we describe how the Luminosity and Mass Functions of NGC 2422 and the spatial distribution of cluster members were obtained. Finally in Sect. 5 we summarize and discuss our results.

## 2 Cluster UBVRI Photometry and Astrometry

### 2.1 Observations and Data reduction

The data used in this paper are CCD images in the UBVRI pass-bands collected at the 0.9-m telescope of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) on January 30, 1997. The scale on the sky of the instrument is 2.028 arcsec/pixel, for a total field of view of $`1.15\times 1.15`$ square degrees, making such an instrument suitable to cover most of the apparent size of the cluster. The observing log is summarized in Table 1. While the quality of seeing was limited, all images were collected in photometric conditions. Possible effects on the crowded field photometry, due to the limited seeing, have been ruled out by the artificial star test described in Sect. 2.4.

All the images were pre-processed in a standard way with IRAF, using the sets of bias and sky flat-field images collected during the observing night. The instrumental magnitudes and the positions of the stars for each frame were derived by profile-fitting photometry with the package DAOPHOT II and ALLSTAR (Stetson, 1987). Then we used ALLFRAME (Stetson, 1994) to obtain the simultaneous PSF-fitting photometry of all the individual frames. In order to obtain the transformation equations relating the instrumental magnitudes to the standard UBV (Johnson), $`RI`$(Kron-Cousins) system, we also derived the instrumental profile-fitting photometry for the two Landolt (1992) fields of standard stars SA95 and SA98 observed during the same night.

In order to obtain the total integrated instrumental magnitudes we derived aperture photometry for the same stars that we used to define the PSF, after the digital subtraction of neighboring objects from the frames. We used DAOGROW (Stetson, 1990) to obtain the aperture growth curves for each frame and to compute the aperture correction to the profile-fitting photometry.

The transformation coefficients to the standard system were derived using transformation equations of the form:

$`v`$ $`=V+A_0+A_1\times X+A_2\times (\text{V–I}),`$
$`b`$ $`=B+B_0+B_1\times X+B_2\times (\text{B–V}),`$
$`i`$ $`=I+C_0+C_1\times X+C_2\times (\text{V–I}),`$ (1)
$`r`$ $`=R+D_0+D_1\times X+D_2\times (\text{V–R}),`$
$`u`$ $`=U+E_0+E_1\times X+E_2\times (\text{U–B}).`$
In these equations $`v`$, $`b`$, $`i`$, $`r`$ and $`u`$ are the aperture magnitudes, already normalized to 1 sec exposure and $`X`$ is the airmass.

Due to the limited number of standard star observations, we do not have a complete coverage of airmass and we have not been able to derive the extinction coefficients. In order to overcome this problem, we used typical values for CTIO available at http://www.noao.edu/scope/ccdtime/ctio.db; both the adopted extinction coefficients and the best fit values for the zero points and the color coefficients are summarized in Table 2. Second order color terms were tried and turned out to be negligible in comparison to their uncertainties.

The calibration process we have adopted is based on two sequential steps, following a procedure adopted by Stetson (private communication). First, 45 program stars on the NGC 2422 images were selected using the condition (following a criterion described in Stetson, 1993, Sect. 4.1) that each star has to be well separated from its neighbors, observed in all frames, and with a statistic index $`\chi `$, relative to the goodness of the PSF-fitting photometry, less than 1.5. The photometric calibration based on the Landolt standards is applied to these selected stars only (which we refer to as local standards), which were then used (together with the Landolt standard stars) to calibrate the other program stars.

### 2.2 Astrometry

The astrometric solution has been computed using as reference the recently released Guide Star catalog, Version 2.2.01 (GSC 2.2). At beginning, our pixel coordinate list was matched to the celestial coordinate list of the GSC 2.2 by projecting the celestial coordinates onto a plane and using as reference three stars for which we had both the pixel and the celestial coordinates from the Hipparcos catalog 111available at http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/VizieR (Turon et al., 1993).

An initial estimate for the linear transformation has been computed using the reference coordinates of the 1350 matched stars. Then, a plate solution has been computed using the same matched pixel and celestial coordinates by fitting a power series polynomial (IRAF task CCMAP). The final accuracy is of 0.24 arcsec. Finally, the IRAF tasks CCSETWCS and SKYPIX were used to obtain the celestial coordinates of the total sample.

### 2.3 The Color-Magnitude Diagram

In order to obtain the color-magnitude diagram (CMD) of the cluster, a selection based on the sharp parameter was first done following Stetson (1987). The sharp parameter is related to the angular size of the astronomical object allowing to reject non-stellar objects as semi-resolved galaxies and unrecognized blended double stars, for which sharp is significantly greater than zero, or cosmic rays, for which sharp is significantly less than zero. We considered stellar objects those having the sharp parameter in the $`(0.2+0.2)`$ range. In this way we obtained a list of 36 101 stellar objects for which we have $`V`$ and $`I`$ magnitudes. For 35 732 of these we have VRI magnitudes, for 35 140 we have BVRI magnitudes and finally, for 33 494 we have UBVRI magnitudes.

The $`V`$ vs. V–I color-magnitude diagram for all the stellar objects in the NGC 2422 field is shown in Fig. 1 (left upper panel). Horizontal bars indicate the median errors in color, while vertical bars indicate the median errors in magnitude for bins of one magnitude. Clearly, the diagram is heavily contaminated by background and foreground stars, as expected from the position of the cluster in the Galactic disk.

In order to determine the cluster main sequence minimizing the contamination effects, we show in Fig. 1 (right upper panel) the $`V`$ vs. V–I color-magnitude diagram approximately corresponding to the cluster core. The centroid of this circular region of $`16`$ arcmin of radius has been estimated using the stars with $`V11.5`$.

We considered several theoretical isochrones available in literature (Siess et al., 2000; Baraffe et al., 1998; Girardi et al., 2000; Castellani et al., 1999) and we have found that the cluster main sequence is well fitted by the 100 Myr and solar metallicity (Z = 0.02) theoretical isochrone computed by Siess et al. (2000, SDF00), for higher mass stars ($`M>0.6M_{}`$), and the one computed by Baraffe et al. (1998, BCAH98) with a general mixing length parameter $`\alpha =1`$, for lower mass stars ($`M<0.6M_{}`$). Both isochrones were transformed into the $`V`$ vs. V–I plane using the apparent distance modulus $`(mM)_V=8.76`$, derived from the distance modulus $`(mM)_0=8.48`$ of Robichon et al. (1999) and the interstellar absorption $`A_V=0.273`$, from the standard relation $`R_V=A_V/E(\text{B–V})=3.1`$ (Mathis, 1990) where the reddening $`E(\text{B–V})=0.088`$ is the value calculated by Dambis (1999). The color excesses $`E(\text{V–I})=0.11`$, $`E(\text{R–I})=0.06`$, $`E(\text{U–B})=0.07`$ were derived using the relations for $`R_V=3.1`$ given by Munari & Carraro (1996). As shown in Fig. 1 (left lower panel), the resulting theoretical isochrone is in good agreement with the apparent cluster main sequence, confirming the literature cluster parameters, such as distance and reddening.

Furthermore, using a set of theoretical isochrones by Siess et al. (2000) for different ages, and the well defined main sequence of bright stars in the $`B`$ vs. U–B color-magnitude diagram, we verified that the NGC 2422 age is $`10^8`$ yr, in agreement with the value given by Rojo Arellano et al. (1997).

Finally, we matched our photometric data with the X-ray sources of Barbera et al. (2002). The matched stars are plotted with large squares in Fig. 1 (right lower panel). There are two populations of X-ray sources: a blue faint population, dominated by background objects, and a group of sources belonging to the cluster main sequence. The photometric position of the X-ray members allow us to confirm our choice of the main sequence.

In Fig. 2, we show the $`V`$ vs. V–I, $`I`$ vs. R–I, $`V`$ vs. B–V and $`B`$ vs. U–B color-magnitude diagrams for the stars in the NGC 2422 field. The curve in the $`V`$ vs. V–I and in the $`I`$ vs. R–I color-magnitude diagrams is the Siess et al. (2000) theoretical isochrone extended to lower stars using the Baraffe et al. (1998) theoretical isochrone as described above. For the other two diagrams we only considered stars with $`\sigma _B<0.03`$ and $`\sigma _U<0.03`$, respectively, and the Siess et al. (2000) theoretical isochrone because we use the $`V`$ vs. B–V and the $`B`$ vs. U–B color-magnitude diagrams to select only the bright cluster members.

### 2.4 Data completeness and photometric errors

Since we are interested in deriving the Luminosity Function from star counts and because of the limited seeing of our data, particular attention has been devoted to estimate the accuracy of the photometry and the completeness of the derived star list. For this, a list of artificial stars was created and added to the original frames in order to compare the photometric results of the recovered artificial stars and the input values.

In order to avoid overcrowding, the artificial stars were placed in a spatial grid (cf. Piotto & Zoccali, 1999) such that the separation of the centers in each star pair was four PSF radii plus 1 pixel. Using a random-number generator for the $`V`$ magnitudes, a list of 2470 stars ($`7\%`$ of the total sample) with a flat distribution of the instrumental $`V`$ magnitudes between 11 and 21.5 was created. These limits were chosen on the basis of the instrumental $`V`$ vs. V–I color-magnitude diagram. The $`V`$ magnitudes for each artificial star were converted to the other filters using the fiducial lines representing the $`V`$ vs. V–I, $`V`$ vs. B–V, $`I`$ vs. R–I and $`B`$ vs. U–B color-magnitude diagrams.

DAOPHOT’s ADDSTAR routine was used to add these artificial stars into copies of the original data frames, with the appropriate frame-to-frame shifts in their position and brightness. Calibrated magnitudes were derived using the same photometric parameters and the same procedure described in Sect. 2.1.

We estimated the completeness fraction as the ratio between the number of artificial stars recovered simultaneously in the $`V`$, $`I`$ and $`R`$ filters and the number of added stars per one magnitude bin. This condition was imposed because the photometric selection of low-mass candidate cluster members was based on the use of $`V`$ vs. V–I and $`I`$ vs. R–I color-magnitude diagrams.

We found that this ratio is equal to 1 down to $`V=18.26`$, while it decreases to $`0.94\pm 0.06`$ to the limit $`V19`$ of our data. Therefore, we can conclude that our catalog is complete down to $`V=18.26`$ over the whole $`V`$ vs. V–I and $`I`$ vs. R–I color-magnitude diagrams while it is $`94\%`$ complete to $`V=19`$, so that a $`6\%`$ correction will be required to the number of faintest stars when computing the Luminosity Function.

Finally, photometric errors were estimated by the differences between the ”observed” magnitudes and colors derived for the artificial stars and their known input values. We defined the external error $`\widehat{\sigma }_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ for the $`V`$ magnitudes and for the V–I and R–I colors as in Stetson & Harris (1988); the results are summarized in Table 3.

## 3 Photometric selection of Candidate Cluster Members

In order to select possible NGC 2422 cluster members, we used only photometric informations as described in the following steps:

1. In the $`V`$ vs. V–I color-magnitude diagram, we selected as possible candidate members all those stars which, according to their $`\sigma _V`$ and $`\sigma _{VI}`$ errors, belong to a well defined strip in the CMD. The lower envelope of this strip follows the representative main sequence for the cluster (see Sect. 2.3) while the upper envelope is displaced upward by 1 mag to include binaries. We have choosen 1 mag instead of the canonical 0.75 mag since our isochrone is, in some points of the diagram, slightly lower than the apparent ”true” sequence of the cluster (see Fig. 1). With our larger strip we are sure to include X-ray detected stars that are probable members since significant X-ray emission is a common property of young stars. After this selection, our sample contains 2059 possible candidate members.
2. We considered at first only those stars (1895) for which UBVRI photometry was available. We constructed an analogous strip as above, in the $`I`$ vs. R–I color-magnitude diagram and we rejected from our sample of initial possible candidate members 540 stars which, according to their $`\sigma _I`$ and $`\sigma _{RI}`$ errors, do not belong to the strip in the $`I`$ vs. R–I color-magnitude diagram.
3. From the resulting sample, we considered only the 333 stars having typical error in $`B`$ magnitude less than 0.03. We saw that this occurs for $`B16`$. Therefore, using the Siess et al. (2000) isochrone, we constructed in the $`V`$ vs. B–V color-magnitude diagram an analogous strip and we rejected those 58 stars that, according to their $`\sigma _V`$ and $`\sigma _{BV}`$ errors, do not belong to the strip.
4. Subsequently, we allowed for the $`B`$ vs. U–B color-magnitude diagram to select the bright stars with $`U13.5`$ for which the errors in U magnitude are less than 0.03 mag. Using the same criterion as above, we defined a strip taking into account the isochrone’s shape in this diagram thus further rejecting 195 stars.
5. Finally, we considered the stars for which only VRI magnitudes are available. As above, we considered as possible cluster candidate members those belonging to the strip defined in the $`I`$ vs. R–I color-magnitude diagram.

In our final sample we retained only those stars with $`\sigma _I0.3`$ mag.

The selection procedure described above was chosen to take advantage of all the available photometric informations and to avoid excluding too many possible cluster members.

The photometric/astrometric catalog of the candidate cluster members, containing 1277 stars, is given in Table 4222available in the electronic format via the World Wide Web site http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/ where we report RA and Dec (J2000.0) coordinates in decimal degrees, an identification number for each star, the $`U,B,V,R,I`$ magnitudes and the associated uncertainties.

Fig. 3 shows these cluster candidates in the color-magnitude diagrams so far considered. Clearly, the sample includes contaminating objects that do not belong to the cluster. The approach to estimate and to deal with such a contamination will be described in the following section.

## 4 Determination of Luminosity and Mass Functions and Spatial Distribution

To construct the Luminosity and Mass Functions of the cluster we need to correct the luminosity distribution of our selected sample for field star contamination. To quantify the contamination we adopted an iterative procedure schematically summarized in the following steps:

1. We defined as “field region” an area of our field of view where we expect to find only few cluster stars. We used such a region to quantify the field star contribution and then to obtain a first approximation of the cluster Luminosity and Mass Functions as well as of the cluster spatial distribution from stellar counts in a circular area centered on the cluster centroid.
2. By fitting King’s empirical profiles (King, 1962) to the cluster spatial distribution we then estimated the total number of cluster members beyond our cluster region and the number of cluster members contaminating the “field region”.
3. After correcting the field star luminosity distribution and the field star spatial distribution for cluster stars falling in the field region, we re-obtained the cluster Luminosity and Mass Functions and the cluster spatial distribution. By re-fitting King’s empirical profiles to the new cluster spatial distribution we re-estimated the total number of cluster members beyond our field of view in order to correct the cluster Mass Function.
4. We re-corrected the field star luminosity distribution and we repeated the above step 3. The entire procedure was rapidly convergent and indeed the “step 3” correction was applied only three times, since after the third application the previous and final corrected Mass Function differ by less than $`1\%`$, i.e. well within the intrinsic uncertainties.

### 4.1 First approximation of Luminosity and Mass Functions

As summarized above, a first approximation to the contamination of foreground and background sources has been obtained using the lower region of our field where we expect to find only few cluster stars. In fact, as shown in Fig. 4, the cluster is mainly concentrated in the upper region of our field where we defined the ”central cluster region” corresponding to the circular area within the radius of $`27.07`$ arcmin. A value for the cluster centroid position has been calculated as the median value of the $`X`$ and $`Y`$ coordinates of the bright stars ($`V12`$). This position corresponds to the equatorial coordinates (J2000.0) $`RA=7^h36^m34^s.8,Dec=14^{}29^{}18^{\prime \prime }.5`$. We verified that the coordinates of the centroid do not change significantly if the $`V`$ magnitude limit changes in the $`11.5V13`$ range.

We consider the rectangular region in Fig. 4, of $`67.6\times 13.52\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$ size ($`2000\times 400\mathrm{pixels}`$), as representative of the Galactic field (the ”field region”), i.e. we suppose that the observed luminosity distribution in the rectangular region is given by

$$\widehat{N}_\mathrm{f}(V)=\widehat{N}_{\mathrm{f},0}(V)+\widehat{N}_{\mathrm{cl}}(V)\widehat{N}_{\mathrm{f},0}(V),$$
(2)
where $`\widehat{N}_{\mathrm{f},0}(V)`$ is the ”true” field star luminosity distribution, while $`\widehat{N}_{\mathrm{cl}}(V)`$ is the cluster star contribution within the rectangular region. Therefore, the field star luminosity distribution in the ”central cluster region” is given by

$$N_\mathrm{f}(V)=\widehat{N}_\mathrm{f}(V)\frac{A}{\widehat{A}},$$
(3)
where $`A`$ and $`\widehat{A}`$ are the area of the ”central cluster region” and of the ”field region”, respectively.

The NGC 2422 Luminosity Function, $`N_{\mathrm{cl}}(V)`$, has hence been obtained subtracting the field star luminosity distribution, $`N_\mathrm{f}(V)`$, from the luminosity distribution of all the stars in our sample within the ”central cluster region”, $`N_\mathrm{t}(V)`$. Fig. 5 shows the contaminated luminosity distribution of the candidate members (dotted line), the luminosity distribution of the field stars (dashed line) and the Luminosity Function of NGC 2422 obtained as described above and corrected for incompleteness as derived in Sect. 2.4 (solid line). We found that the contamination rate from field stars is negligible for the brightest stars, but starts to become significant at $`V13`$ where it is of the order of the $`40\%`$. At fainter magnitudes this value increases with a peak of the order of $`90\%`$ around $`V16`$ where the contribution of the field giant stars is dominant. The total number of the cluster members estimated at this step is 347.

The Luminosity Function obtained at this step has been transformed into a first approximation of the Mass Function, $`\xi ^0(M)`$, using the mass-visual magnitude relation derived from the same models that we used to fit the cluster color-magnitude diagrams. The resultant first approximation of the Present Day Mass Function, extending from $`0.5`$ to $`3.5M_{}`$, is shown in Fig. 6.

As already mentioned, due to dynamical evolution, the angular size of the cluster is almost certainly larger than the investigated ”central cluster region” hence this Mass Function is not representative of the whole cluster mass distribution. In order to estimate the correction to the Mass Function due to the dynamical evolution, we studied the spatial distribution of NGC 2422 as described in the following Sections.

### 4.2 First approximation of the Spatial Distribution

The spatial distribution of the cluster members was studied in order to investigate the cluster dynamical evolution and to determine the cluster dynamical parameters. As first approximation, we corrected the radial surface density distribution of candidate cluster members for foreground and background contaminating stars assuming that the field stars are uniformly distributed, i.e.

$$\frac{dN}{dr}=2\rho \pi r,$$
(4)
where $`r`$ is the distance from the cluster center and $`\rho `$ is the star distribution for unit of area in the rectangular region considered in Sect. 4.1.

In order to take into account the dynamical evolution and mass segregation effects due to the energy equipartition (see Kroupa et al., 2001 and relative references), we subdivided the stars into 4 bins of $`V`$ magnitude as in Table 5. In Fig. 7 we present the cluster surface density profiles in $`\mathrm{stars}/\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$ as a function of radius in parsec, assuming the distance value of $`497.5`$ pc by Robichon et al. (1999).

We fitted King’s empirical profiles (King, 1962), given by

$$\rho (r)=\rho _0(\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+(r/r_\mathrm{c})^2}}\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+(r_\mathrm{t}/r_\mathrm{c})^2}})^2,$$
(5)
to the surface density profiles. In this equation, $`\rho _0`$ is a normalization constant, $`r_\mathrm{c}`$ is the ”core radius” determined by the internal energy of the system and $`r_\mathrm{t}`$ is the tidal radius where the cluster disappears.

The tidal radius was calculated as in Jeffries et al. (2001) as $`r_\mathrm{t}=1.46M_\mathrm{c}^{1/3}`$, where $`M_\mathrm{c}`$ is the cluster mass in solar masses. In order to estimate the total mass of the cluster we integrated the Mass Function obtained in Sect. 4.1 and found a value of $`M_\mathrm{c}=357\pm 35M_{}`$, corresponding to the tidal radius value $`r_\mathrm{t}=10.36\pm 0.34`$ pc.

The results of King’s empirical profile fitting, with the 1-$`\sigma `$ uncertainty estimates for the parameters, are reported in Table 5 and are shown in Fig. 7. Comparing the $`\chi ^2`$ values with the number of degrees of freedom ($`\nu =6`$), we conclude that the fits are all acceptable.

From the resulting distribution we can see that, while the distribution of the brightest stars vanishes to zero as the radius increases (at the top on the left of Fig. 7), the other profiles tend to non negligible values when fainter $`V`$ magnitudes are considered. This result suggests an evidence of mass segregation of high mass cluster stars toward the center of the cluster and low mass cluster stars out of our investigation region of $`27`$ arcmin of radius. This conclusion is confirmed by the increase of the core radius as the mass decreases.

In order to estimate the fraction of low-mass stars beyond the ”central cluster region”, we extrapolated the surface density profiles as far as the tidal radius. Using the integral of equation 5 as given by King (1962), we calculated, for each bin of magnitude, the total number of cluster stars within the tidal radius, indicated in Table 5 by $`N_{\mathrm{tid}}`$. We compared the calculated total number $`N_{\mathrm{tid}}`$ with the number of cluster members $`N_{\mathrm{sur}}^{\mathrm{cl}}`$, detected in our survey, that is within $`r_{\mathrm{sur}}=3.7`$ pc and we found that while the stars with $`V11`$ are all in the investigated region, the fraction of the cluster stars lying outside our survey is $`8\%`$ for $`11.13V13.75`$, $`22\%`$ for $`13.75V16.38`$ and $`38\%`$ for $`16.38V19.00`$. In order to verify the consistency of these numbers we also integrated King’s empirical profile within the radius $`r_{\mathrm{sur}}`$, indicated by $`N_{\mathrm{sur}}^{\mathrm{cal}}`$, finding consistent values with the number of the cluster stars found in the central cluster region ($`N_{\mathrm{sur}}^{\mathrm{cl}}`$).

The results of the King’s empirical profile integration also suggest that the cluster star contribution within the adopted ”field region”, $`\widehat{N}_{\mathrm{cl}}(V)`$ is non-negligible and that the estimated field star luminosity and spatial distributions have to be corrected for the cluster star contamination. In order to estimate the correction factor, we split the ”field region” in a grid of $`5\times 20`$ subregions and we calculated the King’s profile surface density, $`\rho (r_i)`$, where $`r_i`$ is the radius of the centers of each subregion $`i`$. Therefore, the total number of cluster stars within the ”field region”, per magnitude bin, is given by

$$\widehat{N}_{\mathrm{cl}}(V)=A_\mathrm{s}\underset{i}{}\rho (r_i),$$
(6)
where $`A_\mathrm{s}`$ is the area of each subregion.

Finally, using equation (2), we estimated a more accurate field star distribution as

$$\widehat{N}_{\mathrm{f},0}(V)=\widehat{N}_\mathrm{f}(V)A_\mathrm{s}\underset{i}{}\rho (r_i).$$
(7)
### 4.3 Luminosity and Mass Functions

Using the value of $`\widehat{N}_{\mathrm{f},0}(V)`$ from Eq. (7) and the iterative approach described in Sect. 4, we recomputed the Luminosity Function of the cluster taking into account the presence of cluster stars in the “field region”.

This final Luminosity Function has been converted into a Mass Function that has been integrated to compute a new value for the total mass ($`M_\mathrm{c}385M_{}`$), corresponding to $`r_\mathrm{t}10.61`$ pc. Dynamical parameters were also obtained in the various iterations, and by integration of King’s profiles we interpolated the ratio $`R=N_{\mathrm{sur}}^{\mathrm{cl}}/N_{\mathrm{tid}}`$, deriving a factor $`1/R`$ for the Mass Function to correct for the cluster stars lying beyond the investigated cluster region. The corrected Mass Function has been computed by the expression:

$$\xi _c^1(M)=\xi ^1(M)/R.$$
(8)
In Fig. 8 we compare the final Mass Function, $`\xi _c(M)`$, with the Mass Function derived from the central cluster region but without correction for dynamical evolution. We also compare them with the Pleiades Mass Function derived using the Lee & Sung (1995) Luminosity Function and the same mass-luminosity relation used for NGC 2422 in the present work.

According to the recently proposed analytical IMF forms (Kroupa, 2002), we considered a multi-part power-law IMF to fit our data. We found that in the mass range $`0.9M/M_{}2.5`$ the value of $`\alpha `$ is $`3.09\pm 0.09`$ (rms) and $`2.63\pm 0.16`$ for NGC 2422 and Pleiades, respectively. The latest value is very close to the value 2.67 derived by Barrado y Navascués et al. (2001) for the Pleiades, using the Hambly et al. (1999) data in the $`0.610M_{}`$ mass range. The two values here derived are in better agreement, within the errors, with the Scalo (1998) value $`\alpha =2.7\pm 0.3`$ rather than with the Salpeter (1955) value $`\alpha =2.35`$.

Using the final Mass Function, we also estimated the corrected cluster total mass ($`M_{\mathrm{c},\mathrm{cor}}453M_{}`$) and we compared this value with the NGC 2422 total mass estimated within the ”central cluster region”, $`M_\mathrm{c}385M_{}`$. In the same mass range ($`0.53.5M_{}`$), the total mass of the Pleiades is $`M_{\mathrm{Pl}}=467\pm 26M_{}`$, a value very similar to the one of NGC 2422. We note that our estimate of the total mass of NGC 2422 is, in any case, a lower limit, since we do not have taken into account the presence of companions in photometric binaries.

## 5 Summary and Conclusions

Using UBVRI images, covering a field of view of $`1.15\times 1.15`$ square degrees, we extracted a photometric and astrometric catalog of the stars in the field of NGC 2422 down to $`V19`$ ($`M0.4M_{}`$). Adopting a representative cluster main sequence to the color-magnitude diagrams, a photometric criterion was defined to obtain a list of candidate cluster members. A test with artificial stars allowed us to verify that our data are complete down to $`V=18.26`$ while a correction of $`6\%`$ was necessary for the lowest $`V`$ range ($`18.26V19.26`$) in deriving the Luminosity Function.

We have defined a ”central cluster region” within a radius of $`27.07`$ arcmin from the cluster centroid and a ”field region” of $`1.12\times 0.23`$ square degrees to estimate the contamination of background and foreground stars. An initial determination of the Luminosity and Mass Functions has been obtained assuming that all the cluster stars lie in the ”central cluster region”. By applying an iterative procedure we have estimated the number of cluster stars within the ”field region” in order to obtain a more accurate correction of the cluster Luminosity Function for field star contamination.

Evidence for mass segregation and energy equipartition have been found from the spatial distribution of the stars. Extrapolation of the King (1962) empirical model allows us to infer that, while all the stars with $`M1.7M_{}`$ are inside the ”central cluster region”, a non negligible fraction of lower mass stars lies outside. In particular, by integrating the spatial distribution within the tidal radius we are able to estimate the number of cluster stars lying beyond the ”central cluster region” and within the tidal radius. Therefore, we are able to estimate a correction to the Mass Function in order to take into account the cluster dynamical evolution.

The corrected Present Day Mass Function was compared with that of the Pleiades which is known down to the brown dwarf limit ($`0.08M_{}`$). We found that, in the mass range $`0.9M/M_{}2.5`$, the Mass Function of NGC 2422 can be represented by a power law of index $`\alpha =3.09\pm 0.08`$ (rms) comparable with the index $`\alpha =2.63\pm 0.15`$ obtained for the Pleiades in the same mass range. The index is also consistent with the data presented in the log $`M`$ vs. $`\alpha `$ plot of Kroupa (2002).

By taking into account the correction due to the dynamical evolution, we computed a lower limit of the total mass of NGC 2422 as $`M_{\mathrm{c},\mathrm{cor}}453M_{}`$. This value is similar to that of the Pleiades.

A future spectroscopic study and a deep survey on a wider field of this cluster will allow us to find an independent membership criterion and to extend the Mass Function below the mass limit of the present survey.

###### Acknowledgements.

We acknowledge P.B. Stetson for having made available to us his software and for useful discussions. This work has been partially supported by MIUR.


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# Strange Quark Matter Theory

Facing the tantalizing amount of experimental and simulated or computational data which were shown us at this meeting I was tempted to say that now the task of theorists would be to describe (these) data. Then I started thinking. And realized: no! I am objecting this view. Our task is not to describe, but to understand data.

This effort to understand, whereas understanding necessarily involves reduction (not throwing, however, really important parts away), implies further efforts. Here is a to-do list of the necessary prerequisites of understanding:

* understand theory (this might sound trivial first, but I assure it is not),
* verify assumptions (assumptions are always there, explicit or implicit, when applying abstract theoretical concepts in models of reality)
* falsify assumptions (equally important as verification, otherwise different theories would interpret the same data)
* weave a network of non-contradicting statements (which is still a process internal to the theorist’s work), and finally
* make a new theory only if it is unavoidable (otherwise we would be led too much by our phantasy and mathematical invention instead of experimental facts).

Ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be the theoretical summary talk of the Strange Quark Matter 2003 conference. When I was alerted by the e-mail we all got, “prepare your transparencies”, I took this home-work exercise seriously. I have prepared quite a few pages before this conference. What can one know in advance, before listening to the talks?111I attended to almost all of them, and I listened to all I attended.

First of all there is a general outline which a summary talk should follow. On the level of the basic theory one is supposed to conclude about the present status of the underlying theoretical concepts, one ought to emphasize important news, the novel aspects we are encountering, and finally it is useful to formulate in a possibly definite way, what our perspectives for further development are.

A summary of the phenomenology should also be given, not necessarily in the order of their original presentation, but restructured, following the natural clusters and network of themes and applied methods which is formed by the contemporary research. Alas, this dichotomic splitting to basic theory and phenomenology is basically false: reality is rather described by a continuous spectrum than by two peaks, there are even cases of mixed states.

A separate effort should be devoted to selecting out highlights, new predictions and explanations, if any occurred. Some colleagues used to apply the defaming expression “post-dictions” to explanations. This attitude – I think – is mistaken. Really good explanations of already known experimental facts help us towards understanding, especially when, if they are selective, clearly separating alternative approaches. The key requirement is to contribute to our understanding.

Finally, in order to complete the summary, I have written up a list of issues “we did not talk about”, meaning to mention theoretical works and concepts not taken explicitly into the official program, although implicitly used and often referred to by speakers in their presentations.

After attending to the lectures, listening to the talks and a seemingly uncountable number of follow-up discussions I was able to formulate a second summary outline. This I would like to present in a form of questions. The main question of this and several previous meetings remained:

Have we seen (strange) quark matter?

This question implies further questions. What is actually quark matter? Is there any quark-level collectivity? The concept of collectivity can be split to the following main subtopics:

* the question of flow and $`T`$ (meaning a common slope of transverse momentum spectra of different particle species, not temperature),
* quark level recombination and its effects on the finally observed hadronic states,
* suppression and/or enhancement of any hadronic or leptonic signal known from $`pp`$ and $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions, and finally
* the very question whether all what we see is just a maximum – entropy state, washing out all memory of that, whatever may have existed before.

Can we trace back the pre-hadron state? Do we understand already what quark matter is or are we misled by preconception and wishful thinking of simplicity by doing the theorists’ homework?

In order to present an overview of the theoretical topics of this conference I would like to confront you with an “artist’s view” of the theory landscape of SQM 2003 (Fig.1). This landscape includes a lake with a big, fat duck swimming in it at the front, a small stream rushing into the lake, a few big trees, green fields in the background and far-away hills and mountains. I have learned from the talk given by Barbara Jacak – and I think she was citing Nu Xu – that the quark gluon plasma (QGP) “looks like a duck and talks like a duck” (the experimentalists just cannot say whether what they see is a duck). The duck first has been spotted in the Lattice Lake which receives some fresh water from pQCD (perturbative QCD) stream through the Resummation Falls.

There is a tree behind with ramified roots near to the water, symbolizing the parton model and in particular the quark level recombination. On the other hand a unique, plain-textured stem dives high from this, the “standard thermal model”. Its main and only advantage lies in simplicity. It may dart some shadow onto the duck, but can hardly help to learn what the duck looks like. The branches of the tree carry uncountable leaves representing fluctuation and correlation studies, and a big, reddish fruit is starting to reach the state of maturity, the apple of hadronization.

The big vast field in the background stands for the big micro-dynamical codes. At a distance they all show the same green color, only by laying down can one start to see separate grass pieces. It requires close inspection. Beyond all those smooth hills of hydro and the Mt.EoS, symbolizing the far leading problem of the equation of state, occur. The top of this mount, where all climbers must be heading to, may – by the way – be reflected in the water of the Lattice Lake quite accurately. Above, mostly in cloudy skies, reside astrophysics and cosmology. Finally to our left some strange looking pine trees hint to a forest of exotic theories.

A further prepared transparency shows you a clustering of the theoretical themes presented at this conference, deciphered from the preliminary program. Up to a few name changes it reflects now the real program well. The themes in a rather reverse order of their presentation, were: lattice QCD, (Steven Gottlieb, Péter Petreczky, Owe Philipsen) astrophysics, (Mark Alford, Fred Walter, Markus Thoma, Madappa Prakash, James Lattimer) strange and exotic, (Johann Rafelski, Volker Koch, Jack Sandweiss, Ariel Zhintnitsky, Jeffrey Bowers, Sarmista Banik, Jürgen Schaffner-Bielich) partons, pQCD, charm, (Klaus Werner, Thomas Mehen,Ralf Rapp, Joe Kapusta, Bob Thews, Kevin Haglin) hadronization and fluctuation, (Rainer Fries, Dénes Molnár, Chiho Nonaka, Ulrich Heinz, Sangyong Jeon, Ziwei Lin, Sean Gavin, Laura Tolos, Gary Westfall) HBT, correlations, (Roy Lacey, Zhangbu Xu, Fabrice Retiere, Huang Huang) big micro-dynamical codes, (Marcus Bleicher, Sven Soff, Julia Velkovska, Christoph Hartnack, Barbara Jacak) and statistical models (Johanna Stachel, Detlev Zschiesche, Fuming Liu, Jean Cleymans, George Torrieri).

Now let me reconsider – in the original time order – what we have learned, what I, as a test-person, have learned from the theoretical talks of this meeting. In the opening review talk given by Ian Rafelski we were reminded of the basic facts of strange quark matter physics:

1. Strangeness is produced. On the quark level by $`s\overline{s}`$ pair production, on the hadronic level by associated hyperon and strange meson production – so actually net strangeness is never produced in strong interaction.
2. Strangeness is equilibrated. This fact can be really understood only on the quark level, where the gluon fusion ($`ggs\overline{s}`$) cross section is large and dominant leading to equilibration in fractions of 1 fm/c. On the hadronic level strangeness is not equilibrated. It is practically impossible due to much longer, in the order of tens of fm/c hadrochemical time scales. A caveat to this point: it was tacitly assumed that that gluons and gluon fusion is not suppressed by some nontrivial, non-perturbative phenomenon.

The central role of chemistry and the usefulness of thinking in terms of chemistry was also emphasized by the speaker. We learned that the equilibrium chemical potentials ($`\mu _a`$) do not fix all particle species numbers ($`N_i,i>a`$). Conventional chemical potentials are related to conserved charges, to a few selected linear combinations of particle types ($`Q_a=_iq_{a,i}N_i`$). There are other combinations, e.g. those related to pairs, which are linearly independent from these constraints. They can be characterized by fugacities ($`\gamma _b`$). Whenever such a quantity is not one, the system is not in chemical equilibrium.

It was made plain by him with a definite statement: a $`\chi ^2/`$degree of freedom fit is much better using $`\gamma _{\mathrm{strangepairs}}<1`$, than without this possibility taken into account (Fig.2). Later (by others) an equally firm counterstatement was made: $`\gamma 0.75`$ does not matter (does not quark matter). Last but not least to this point I would like to emphasize that contrary to Johanna Stachel’s remark fugacity is not a “fudge factor”. It is as fundamental as the chemical potential itself, no less, no more.

We have two principal possibilities of dealing with conservation laws: i) take them literally and then end up with a (micro)canonical description, or ii) take them on the mean (hoping that a reservoir is there) and use the grand canonical approach. Where it matters, is the case when the available phase space is small. This phenomenon was named – strangely enough to me – “canonical suppression” and was promoted by Redlich, Cleymans, Koch, Tounsi and others. The next figure (Fig.3) borrowed from Johanna Stachel’s talk shows how effective this factor really is: from about ten participants on it becomes unimportant. Jean Cleymans has shown us in his talk yesterday trends of statistical model parameters as a function of the participant number. The $`\gamma _s`$ rises from 0.5 to 0.75 at SPS and from 0.65 to 0.9 at RHIC, showing a clear trend (Fig.4). The temperature parameter, fitted to spectral slopes, is much less trendy, it behaves differently at SPS than at RHIC energies. The most characteristic behavior is shown by the baryon chemical potential, $`\mu _B`$: it is namely constant, albeit a different constant, at both accelerator energies (it shows no centrality dependence at all).

Many of us were shocked by the thermal model, more so, that it has been applied and seems to work not only for heavy ion collisions, but also for $`pp`$ and $`e^+e^{}`$ data (Becattini et. al.). In my opinion we who have been shocked might have been misled by our gut feelings and have been misjudging the minimal size which is necessary for the thermal limit to make sense. How far can the thermal limit be? This question was also addressed by Fuming Liu in a micro-canonical analysis of $`pp`$ data and was shown that for pions the thermal model works well (not for heavy hyperons, however).

I would like to present here a simple case study which might help to change our attitude towards what is big and what is small with respect to thermal models. Take a random variable $`x`$ distributed in the interval $`(1,1)`$ uniformly (Fig.5). The distribution of the sum of two such variables, $`P_2(x)=𝑑x_1𝑑x_2\delta (x(x_1+x_2))`$, shows a triangular shape. The distribution with three variables is made of parabolic (second order) pieces, it already shows the main qualitative features (symmetric maximum, two inflection points) of the Gauss distribution

$$P_{\mathrm{}}(x)=\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}dx_i\delta (x\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}x_i).$$

Already $`P_4`$ is not easily distinguishable from the Gaussian (thermal) limit.

Talking about finite systems the main classification is done according to the value of mean occupancy (number of quanta) $`N`$. If it is much bigger than one, we approach $`N^2N^2`$ and everything looks like a Gaussian distribution. In the opposite case, when $`N1`$, we have $`N^2N`$ and the generic distribution is Poissonian. From Volker Koch’s review talk on the topic we could learn that the normalized second cumulative moment of charge fluctuations, $`F_2`$, most probably varies in time, so whenever one is led to infer $`F_2<1`$ from experiments, he/she would witness a memory of a short time scale process. Several other talks, e.g. those given by Chiho Nonaka, Sangyong Jeon and Gary Westfall elaborated on this point. A main message of these studies is that the finite size scaling of cumulative moments is important: equilibrium can be excluded (although not positively proven) by analysis of scaling powers.

In general we would like to understand both the mechanism and the timescale of the formation of the observed hadronic final state in high energy heavy ion collisions. On an abstract map with qualitative scales (Fig.6), the horizontal axis of time constants distinguishes between 0, 1 and infinity, the vertical axis represents the recombination and fragmentation mechanisms by $`0`$ and $`1`$, respectively. Here pQCD draws the upper line border of nowadays theoretical approaches, while micro-dynamical codes cover rather the lower edge. The effective quark recombination model by Zimányi et.al. (ALCOR) resides near to the origin, its philosophical counterpart, the “standard thermal model” occupies the right side line at infinite time scales (assuming equilibrium, so the hadronization mechanism does not matter in this case). We do not yet know where the real process of hadronization of a quark-gluon plasma should be located on this plot, it has a big question mark.

As a flavor of success of the thermal model strongly logarithmic ratios of particle numbers for many selected types were shown at different accelerator energies by Johanna Stachel. Fig.7, plotting RHIC data is a good representative for the overall quality of these fits, used to infer bulk parameters such as temperature, baryon chemical potential, etc. I was very pleased to hear the speaker’s conclusion at the end of her talk: “It works perfectly, but it can’t be.” I rather agree with the second half of this sentence and I would leave the word “perfect” certainly out from this evaluation, but otherwise we can witness a novel convergence of opinions here. That this simple model “works” on the other hand imposes on us a real task to try to understand even the relative success of such simplifications.

It is clear that we are dealing with highly non-equilibrium dynamical processes, which lead to a (closely) statistical final state. This is not simply “equilibrium”. Such a result can occur via at least three different underlying mechanisms with different physical background.

1. gain and loss term rates are nearly equal leading to a “steady state”; this is the textbook case for equilibrium (however, this equilibrium is sometimes partial only),
2. all rates approach zero fast enough resulting in a state in which the pre-history of the mixture is frozen in (this process is called “freeze out”),
3. a repetitive and self similar dynamical process, e.g. multiple fragmentation, leads to a pattern reflecting self organized criticality (s.o.c.).

Giorgio Torrieri pointed out nicely in his talk where the main uncertainties of statistical models (which assume a state of maximum entropy, or thinking of entropy as lack of information, a state of maximal ignorance) lie. He showed the general formula

$$E\frac{dN}{d^3p}=𝑑\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mu p^\mu f(T,p_\mu u^\mu ,\mu _f)+\mathrm{resonances}.$$

The form, evolution and the very nature of a freeze-out hypersurface, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mu `$, may pose restrictions, e.g. causality limits on the statistical interpretation. This question was copiously studied in HBT concentrated works on which Roy Lacey, Fabrice Retiere and Ziwei Lin presented talks. The latter called our attention to non-trivial $`xt`$ correlations which may influence the interpretation of experimental data. Furthermore the value of chemical potentials and the neglect of further fugacity factors is correct only as far as chemical equilibrium has been established. Finally the presence and different time evolution of resonances may add new terms to this simple picture.

These experiences push us back to the roots. The roots of statistical and bulk models grasp into the parton dynamics which in turn should have its backup from field theory. Here is quite new the application of the idea of quark recombination (Fig.8). Following Rainer Fries I repeat here the main idea in its possibly simplest form. Assume that a meson with transverse momentum $`p`$ is a recombination of two partons, a quark and an anti-quark, each with a momentum of $`p/2`$. With the same logic baryons are composed of 3 quarks each with a momentum of $`p/3`$.

$$\mathrm{meson}(p)=\mathrm{quark}^2(p/2),$$

$$\mathrm{baryon}(p)=\mathrm{quark}^3(p/3).$$

Interpreting this as a functional equation it gives us the hint that the stationary solution of hadronization rate equations is proportional to $`\mathrm{exp}(p/T)`$. On the other hand pQCD calculations using fragmentation functions always connect a parton with momentum $`p`$ to hadrons with less momentum $`zp(z<1)`$ and – due to the very nature of free propagators – always lead to a power-law behavior of transverse spectra ($`p^a`$). Experimental data show a nice interpolation between these two mechanisms as passing from low to high $`p_T`$ at around $`4`$ GeV/c (Fig.9). Here we deal with absolutely non-equilibrium processes.

In order to understand better this interplay we need to gain information on the process and on the achieved degree of equilibration. This is the main goal of microscopic computer simulation codes, reviewed and reported about by Sven Soff, Marcus Bleicher, Klaus Werner and Christoph Hartnack. This field looks like a huge jungle, at least for non-experts. It is not really transparent for us and looks like the same green color everywhere. Efforts to incorporate QCD color dynamics, if only on the semiclassical level, are rare. We have listened for a while to the sounds from this jungle. A clear tenor has emerged: all calculations conclude that simple string dynamics would not do a good job in reproducing experimental data. Either the string constant has to be changed or the hadronization mechanism without deeper justification. A further negativum is the presence of far too many internal code parameters, a positivum is the self-equilibrating property inherent in this approach. Fig.10 shows elastic and inelastic rates, related to the maintenance of thermal equilibrium and to the evolution of chemical composition, respectively. A cross over of the respective dominance of these two rates is clearly seen at times of the order of $`10`$ fm/c.

There are two main problems microscopic codes suffer from:

1. the initial state is unknown,
2. the final state, in particular the dynamics of hadronization, is oversimplified.

New progress has been presented by Joe Kapusta, who calculated thermal baryon – antibaryon production rates in a QGP by using effective field theory (a quite realistic one). His result, stating a characteristic time of about $`10`$ fm/c at the usually inferred temperature gives some interesting perspective to improve microcodes in the future (Fig.11).

Studying the dynamics of hadron formation is not simply a selfish entertainment of pQCD adversed colleagues. Dénes Molnár has pointed out that parton recombination may resolve the so called opacity puzzle. Studying the flow asymmetry via the Fourier expansion coefficient $`v_2`$ as a function of the transverse momentum $`p_T`$ baryons, mesons and partons can well be separated into three distinct curves (Fig.12). This explains why baryon and meson (proton and pion) flows are different, and on the other hand also reduces the need for assuming too many gluons in the initial state used for the calculation. Very important data are in this respect the flow asymmetry, $`v_2`$, the collectivity ratio $`R_{AA}`$, and their flavor dependence. This is a “háp” (pronounced: kha up) from the QGP duck – at least this is what Hungarian ducks say…

Studying the very low $`p_T`$ flow asymmetry data in the framework of parton hydrodynamics Ulrich Heinz made a remarkable conclusion related to this issue222Since his talk was going on by an express speed I hardly realized first what the matter is, but thank to talking him after his presentation he reinforced me in that, what I am going to say now. The $`v_2p_T`$ data for protons and pions from RHIC simultaneously “cannot be described by hadronic equations of state”(EoS). One has to use at least mixed phase EoS to fit (Fig.13). The inferred initial state has an enormously high initial energy density ($`24`$ GeV/fm3) which lasts at least $`5`$ fm/c in time. Another “háp” from the duck.

These achievements bring me to mention upcoming efforts to describe hadronization dynamics on the elementary level. Ralf Rapp has given a review talk on this and many others, e.g. Thomas Mehen, were presenting QCD based studies of heavy meson formation. Here an expansion in terms of $`\alpha _sm_c\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}/m_T^2`$ has been established. However it is still unresolved that what is the real process of hadronization. It is in particular unclear, what the correct hadronic wave function in the final state is, and what is the leading soft process. A clean-cut theory approach would here explain the very fragmentation function applied and would recombine partons to hadrons not just statistically, but by first-principle, non-perturbative QCD dynamics.

So we have arrived at lattice QCD. This is our only hope in the moment to learn about these questions. Now we are dashing in the water of Lattice Lake and are closer to the duck than ever before. We just should proceed carefully, the QGP-duck may be a shy creature, easy to whisk away.

The main new lessons we have learned from lattice QCD at this conference are as follows:

1. The $`q\overline{q}`$ potential at temperatures moderately over $`T_c`$ does not resemble a picture of Debye screening (contrary to former expectations), but rather justifies a gradual string break picture.
2. Studies of mesonic spectral functions reveal that up to $`T=3T_c`$ temperatures the deconfined phase is far from being a plasma of free quarks and gluons; plasmons alike pre-hadrons are formed. I would like to show here characteristic results presented by Péter Petreczky on Friday morning (cf. Fig.14).
3. Finally, as we could have learned from the review talk of Steven Gottlieb, there are finite $`\mu _B`$ calculations by Zoltán Fodor and Sándor Katz, and also other upcoming results at $`\mu _B=0`$ which all confirm that in the most realistic $`2+1`$ flavor QCD with dynamical quarks there is no first order phase transition at color deconfinement just a crossover (cf. Fig.15).

These important new results of lattice QCD should be taken seriously also in our community. No naked quarks can be used for recombination (only effective ones, and plasmons) and very probably there are less gluons present at this process, as previously believed. Nobody is entitled to take bag models as input for the phenomenological calculation any more, rather the string picture should be revitalized.

We do not need to be plainly passive in this field. We should try to communicate our needs and wishes to lattice people. What would we, what would I like to ask from them? The main message for lattice Santa Claus has to be: please, help to deal with hadron formation from the quark gluon plasma. This wish can be expanded to a longer list:

* Clarify the QGP structure near $`T_c`$. (Lattice QCD is already going into this direction).
* Carry out finite $`\mu _B`$ and not less finite $`\mu _S`$ simulations. (The latter would be important also for strangelet and strange star search, for the main idea there is still built on the bag model. Now it is within reach that we can do better.)
* Give hints about the real time hadron formation. (Although this is usually considered to be hopeless, it is not impossible. I shall elaborate on this remark a little bit later.)
* Inform about hadron properties near $`T<T_c`$ in the confining phase. (Mass, width, hadronic sizes are of interest.)
* Help to clarify string dynamics. (String melting to color rope and string breaking in case of non-trivial, higher color multiplets at the ends.)

Coming back to the question of squeezing real time information out from lattice QCD, let me outline, what the problem blocking the way here is. The main difference between real and imaginary time treatment can be comprised into two versions of the path integral formula. In the Euclidean version,

$$𝒪_{\mathrm{Euk}}=\frac{1}{Z}𝒟Ue^{S[U]}𝒪(U),$$

$`𝒪(U)`$ is the observable (any operator with physical meaning) and $`𝒟Uexp(S[U])`$ is the weighted integral measure in the field-configuration space allowing for Monte Carlo type simulation techniques to converge in an acceptable time to the expectation values we are seeking for.

The real (Minkowski) time version of this formula,

$$𝒪_{\mathrm{Min}}=\frac{1}{Z}𝒟Ue^{iS[U]}𝒪(U),$$

would lead us to treat $`e^{iS[U]}𝒪(U)`$ as an observable (because the complex $`exp(iS)`$ factor is oscillating now and is therefore useless for Monte Carlo). It would burden a hopeless task upon us: to integrate over all possible configurations (with the measure $`𝒟U`$ only). On a lattice with $`𝒩`$ elements (sites, links, etc.) even in the case of a most simple-minded two-state (Ising) model this means an order of $`2^𝒩`$ contributions to the wanted integral. This is exponentially prohibitive, akin to algorithmic NP problems, which cannot be solved in a time polynomial in $`𝒩`$.

In principle there can be two ways out from this problem, one of them may become viable already in the near future. At finite temperature and short enough real-time problems the re-weighting technique – already applied in finite $`\mu `$ calculations – can be of use. The other way today still sounds like science fiction, being hopeless yet not impossible: using quantum computers and corresponding q-bit manipulating algorithms which would solve the NP problem in general. We should watch the development in this field in the future.

Last but not least our QGP-duck may be already flying. Flying in the high skies of astrophysics and cosmology. Let me try to reconcile the main message here. The basic idea is that if and whenever a star according to some observable properties like size and brightness occurs to be abnormal, two possible reasons could hide behind:

1. the core or the whole of that (neutron) star consists of an exotic material with non-nuclear equation of state, or
2. a misjudgment of either observable led us to a wrong conclusion.

For such an exotic material we have heard quite a few suggestions. Ariel Zhintinsky talked about Q-balls tightened together by axion domain walls (unfortunately no sign of any axion has been observed yet), Jeffrey Bowers about color crystals, Madappa Prakash about strange quark matter, several others about color-flavor locking or kaon condensate. Markus Thoma has shown us nice photos of the Chandra satellite and of the star RXJ1856. This star was a candidate for being extraordinarily compact with a radius of $`R<6`$ km, and still too bright in the X-ray spectrum. Several speakers concluded, however, that in this case the size of this star has been misjudged. The following two figures borrowed from Markus’ talk show that present astronomical data would exclude pure strange quark matter stars, but not hybrid stars with quark or mixed phase core (Fig.16). Using another equation of state promoted by Prakash and Lattimer there even could be a version of strange quark star compatible with the allowed range.

Following this review of main themes and rhymes of this conference I would now like to summarize the main achievements. My third prepared transparency had two words on it: “Explanations” and “Predictions”333I swear it was otherwise empty. Now I can fill this form.. Two nice, exclusively non-hadronic explanations of the difference in proton and pion flow asymmetry at RHIC were given by Dénes Molnár (based on parton recombination) and by Ulrich Heinz (based on non-hadronic EoS in hydrodynamics).

Also a few predictions has been made. Sean Gavin suggested a dcc signal observable in charge fluctuations, Joe Kapusta predicted thermal baryon - antibaryon pair creation rates from QGP. An important prediction of lattice QCD was presented by Péter Petreczky. He has shown that with $`2\sigma `$ confidence the $`J/\psi `$ ground state does not disappear above $`T_c`$. Even a quantitative value for the width of this resonance has been given ($`210`$ MeV at $`T=1.08T_c`$). Finally Prakash has made444according to himself just last week a prediction pointing out much smaller time scales for strange quark stars in a neutron-star black hole binary system than for normal neutron star partners, $`\tau _{\mathrm{SQM}}\tau _{\mathrm{NS}}`$, in the pre-merging stage. This should, in principle, be seen in the modified spectra of gravitational waves.

I am now almost at the end of this review, so – as a summary of the summary – let me put on a list of dualisms. These are dual views which have to be resolved in order to achieve further progress in the theory of our field. In general dualisms can be resolved in two ways: either by fusion, merging to a more complex view555as the particle – wave duality had been resolved by working out quantum mechanics, or by decision, which view is correct.

* Thermal vs. combinatorial models of hadronic final states. We hope to be able to decide here some day.
* Parton vs. constituent quark picture. Here an interpolating or unifying model should be searched for.
* Real time vs. imaginary time problems treated in lattice QCD, related to the question of statistical weights and observables. Here a case by case decision seems to be favorable.
* A very important dualism existed between first order and higher order phase transition or crossover at color deconfinement. This question now seems to approach clarification quickly.

Last but not least a shortlist of topics which were not on the official program, although many of them have been mentioned or referred to. Finite $`\mu `$ lattice calculations should have been worth for a self-contained review. The quark recombination model ALCOR, pioneered by József Zimányi as well as ideas like colored molecular dynamics, gluon saturation and colored glass condensate were only indirectly talked about.

Now we have arrived at the conclusion. The conclusion of the theory part of the SQM2003 conference is straight and simple. This conference has been a success because

* now we understand more than before, and
* we have got some idea what needs to be done.

A side remark to the discussion about the future of this conference series: please, do not change the name! We are already fond of it. The phrase “Strange Quark Matter” does not exclude any new, good physics ideas related to heavier flavors or other aspects. Finally let me thank the organizers, first of all Berndt Müller and Steffen Bass for providing us this inspiring atmosphere and to you all for making the meeting to a success by your contributions as speakers and listeners. Thank you!

Acknowledgments I thank the organizers for inviting me to give the theoretical summary talk at this meeting and the Hungarian National Science Fund OTKA for supporting my travel and participation, as well as the research under contract Nr. T034269.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In most models of inflation, the source of inflation is a positive potential energy from a scalar field which dominates over the kinetic energy. The precise contribution of the scalar field is still undetermined, except that the potential has to be flat enough in order to produce sufficient inflation. Recently it has been shown that four dimensional accelerating universes can be obtained from pure gravity in higher dimensions . In these models111The solutions of Ref.  correspond to taking the zero-flux limit of the S-brane solutions in Refs. . Previous work on accelerating cosmologies from time dependent flat internal spaces include Refs. . the role of the inflaton is played by the scalars coming from the higher dimensional metric after dimensional reduction. These models therefore have the attractive feature that the scalar field potential arises in a natural way and is completely determined by gravity.

The no go theorem in Ref. , states that Einstein gravity coupled to any matter fields with positive kinetic energies can not generate non-singular warped compactifications to de Sitter space $`dS^d`$ (nor $`\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}^d`$) with finite $`d`$ dimensional Newton constant, unless there is a positive potential for some scalar fields. An assumption in this no go theorem is that the compactified dimensions are time independent. Discarding this assumption, Townsend and Wohlfarth  found an accelerating phase for hyperbolic compactifications222 We shall assume that $`H_n`$ is compact. This can be achieved by taking a quotient of the noncompact hyperbolic space by a discrete subgroup of the isometry group. Since the particular choice of the subgroup and its action does not affect the local Einstein equations, we do not have to specify these details in this paper. Refs.  discuss some aspects of compact hyperbolic extra dimensions for cosmology. of the form $`\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}^{3+1}\times H_n`$.

The fact that we need negative curvature for acceleration can be understood from the following observation. For a product space with metric

$$ds^2=\alpha ^2ds_4^2+\beta ^2ds_n^2,$$
(1)
the Hilbert Einstein action is

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^{4+n}x\sqrt{g}}`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^nx\sqrt{g_n}d^4x\sqrt{g_4}\alpha ^4\beta ^n\left[\frac{_4}{\alpha ^2}+\frac{_n}{\beta ^2}+\mathrm{}\right]},`$
where $`_4`$, $`g_4`$ ($`_n`$, $`g_n`$) are the curvature and metric defined by $`ds_4^2`$ ($`ds_n^2`$) 333The additional terms in the bracket involving derivatives of the scalars $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$ are
$$\frac{6^2\mathrm{ln}\alpha 6(\mathrm{ln}\alpha )^2+(n^2n)(\mathrm{ln}\beta )^2}{\alpha ^2}.$$
.

When $`\beta =\alpha ^{2/n}`$, the $`4+n`$ dimensional action simplifies into the sum of the 4D Hilbert Einstein action plus an action for the scalar field

$$\varphi =\mathrm{ln}\beta ,$$
(3)
which determines the size of extra dimensions. The line element $`ds_4^2`$ is now the metric in 4D Einstein frame.

The second term in (2) acts as a scalar field potential for $`\varphi `$

$$V=_ne^{(n+2)\varphi }.$$
(4)
Therefore in order to have a positive potential we need to compactify a space with negative curvature. For extra dimensions of constant curvature, that is spherical or hyperbolic spaces, we see from (4) that the potential has an exponential form. (For the flat case the potential vanishes.)

Except for very large $`n`$, the parameters in the theory are all of order $`1`$ which is a problem in generating inflation from the potential in (4). To have large acceleration, we need large $`V`$, but this also implies large slope $`V/\varphi `$ and so the kinetic energy quickly catches up according to the equation of motion for $`\varphi `$. Therefore the number of e-foldings of such inflationary models is expected to be only of order $`1`$. This is indeed the case for compactification on a single hyperbolic space . If we generalize this setup to extra dimensions which are product spaces for example, this problem might be evaded because there are more scalars and more complicated potentials. The situation might be similar to the hybrid model of inflation. We construct a model in Sec. 4 showing that sufficient inflation can be achieved even if all parameters are of order $`1`$.

The plan of the paper is as follows. In Sec. 2, we give a general formulation of Einstein gravity in vacuum for product spaces of flat, spherical and hyperbolic spaces. In Sec. 3, we begin with a review of compactifications on a single hyperbolic space $`\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}^{3+1}\times H_m`$, and then analyze the next simplest case, a product of two compact spaces $`\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}^{3+1}\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_1\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_2`$. Although we did not find sufficient inflation for these cases, but we show in Sec. 4 that in principle, similar models with only coefficients of order one can produce eternal inflation. In Sec. 5 we begin analysis of general product spaces $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_0\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_1\times \mathrm{}\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_n`$, where the large $`d`$ dimensions does not have to be flat and $`d`$ does not have to be $`3`$. We have found exact solutions for the case $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_1=\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_2=\mathrm{}=\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_n`$, where $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_i`$ can be a spherical, hyperbolic or flat space. Finally we comment on our results in Sec. 6.

## 2 Generic case

In this section we consider Einstein gravity in vacuum for spacetimes which are products of an arbitrary number of spaces, which are each either flat, spherical or hyperbolic. In Subsec. 2.1 we first give the vacuum Einstein equations, and then treating the scale factors as scalar fields we rewrite the theory from the dimensionally reduced viewpoint in Subsec. 2.2. The advantage of this approach is that we can now apply our knowledge of scalar field inflation.

### 2.1 Einstein equations for product spaces in vacuum

Let us consider spacetimes of the form

$$\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_0\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_1\times \mathrm{}\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_n,$$
(5)
which are products of flat, spherical and hyperbolic spaces in addition to the time direction. Each factor of $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_i`$ can be either flat, spherical or hyperbolic which we label by a numbers $`ϵ_i`$, which are $`0,1`$ or $`1`$, respectively. The dimension of each space $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_i`$ will be denoted $`m_i`$ for $`i=0,\mathrm{},n`$ so the total dimension is $`_{i=0}^nm_i+1`$. We define $`m_0`$ by $`d`$, and we will find the dimensional reduction of the higher dimensions to $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_0`$.

Our metric ansatz for the vacuum solution is

$$ds^2=\mathrm{e}^{2A(t)}dt^2+\underset{i=0}{\overset{n}{}}\mathrm{e}^{2B_i(t)}ds_i^2,$$
(6)
where $`ds_i^2=\overline{g}_{ab}^{(i)}dx^adx^b`$ is the metric for the space $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_{(m_i,ϵ_i)}`$ given by

$$ds_i^2=\{\begin{array}{cc}d\chi ^2+\chi ^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_{m_i1}^2,\hfill & \text{for}ϵ_i=0,\hfill \\ d\chi ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\chi d\mathrm{\Omega }_{m_i1}^2,\hfill & \text{for}ϵ_i=1,\hfill \\ d\chi ^2+\mathrm{sinh}^2\chi d\mathrm{\Omega }_{m_i1}^2,\hfill & \text{for}ϵ_i=1.\hfill \end{array}$$
(7)
For each component of the product space, the Ricci tensor is given by

$$\overline{R}_{ab}^{(i)}=ϵ_i(m_i1)\overline{g}_{ab}^{(i)}$$
(8)
so the Ricci tensor for the full metric (6) is relatively simple

$`R_{tt}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{n}{}}}m_i(\ddot{B}_i+\dot{B}_i^2\dot{A}\dot{B}_i),`$ (9)
$`R_{ab}^{(i)}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{\mathrm{e}^{2B_i2A}\left[\ddot{B}_i+\dot{B}_i\left(\dot{A}+{\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{n}{}}}m_j\dot{B}_j\right)\right]+ϵ_i(m_i1)\right\}\overline{g}_{ab}^{(i)}.`$ (10)
From the above expressions, we see that the equations simplify using the gauge condition

$$A+\underset{j=0}{\overset{n}{}}m_jB_j=0.$$
(11)
This is merely a gauge condition corresponding to a time reparametrization since all the functions depend only on time. In this gauge, the vacuum Einstein equations reduce to

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{n}{}}}m_i(\ddot{B}_i+\dot{B}_i^2\dot{A}\dot{B}_i)`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (12)
$`\ddot{B}_i+ϵ_i(m_i1)\mathrm{e}^{2A2B_i}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (13)
Although the general solutions are not easy to obtain due to the coupling between the differential equations, we have obtained exact solutions for some particular cases. We will discuss some of these solutions below.

### 2.2 Effective theory in lower dimension

Let us assume that $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_0`$ corresponds to the large spatial dimensions in which we live, so the $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_i`$’s are extra dimensions. We would like to dimensionally reduce the theory to $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_0`$ and obtain an effective theory of $`d`$ dimensional gravity coupled to scalar fields.

As noted in Sec. 1, the metric of the $`d`$ dimensional Einstein theory is different from the $`d`$ dimensional part of the full metric. We rewrite (6) as

$$ds^2=\alpha ^2a^2(d\eta ^2+ds_0^2)+\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}a_i^2ds_i^2,$$
(14)
where $`\eta `$ is the conformal time in the $`d`$ dimensional Einstein frame, $`a`$ is the $`d`$ dimensional scale factor and

$$\alpha =\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\alpha _i,\text{with}\alpha _i=a_i^{\frac{m_i}{d1}}.$$
(15)
The Einstein tensor is

$`G_{00}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d(d1)}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}\right)^2\rho a^2,`$ (16)
$`G_{11}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(d1)(d4)}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}\right)^2(d1){\displaystyle \frac{a^{\prime \prime }}{a}}pa^2,`$ (17)
where $`\rho `$ and $`p`$ can be identified with the energy density and pressure in $`d`$ dimensional space. The other non-vanishing components of the Einstein tensor give redundant equations. In the above we have denoted the derivative of $`\eta `$ by a prime: $`f^{}=df/d\eta `$.

From $`\rho `$ and $`p`$ we deduce the kinetic and potential terms444Potentials coming from compactifications were discussed in Ref. . for the scalar fields

$`K`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho +p}{2}}={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_i(m_i+d1)}{2(d1)a^2}}\varphi _{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+{\displaystyle \underset{i>j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_im_j}{(d1)a^2}}\varphi _i^{}\varphi _j^{}ϵ_0{\displaystyle \frac{d1}{2a^2}},`$ (18)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2a^2}}\phi _{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+{\displaystyle \underset{i>j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2c_ic_j}{a^2}}\phi _i^{}\phi _j^{}ϵ_0{\displaystyle \frac{d1}{2a^2}},`$
$`V`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho p}{2}}={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}(ϵ_i){\displaystyle \frac{m_i(m_i1)}{2}}e^{\frac{2}{d1}\left((m_i+d1)\varphi _i+_{ji}^{1jn}m_j\varphi _j\right)}ϵ_0{\displaystyle \frac{(d1)^2}{2a^2}},`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}(ϵ_i){\displaystyle \frac{m_i(m_i1)}{2}}e^{\sqrt{\frac{2}{d1}}\left(\phi _i/c_i+2_{ji}^{1jn}c_j\phi _j\right)}ϵ_0{\displaystyle \frac{(d1)^2}{2a^2}},`$
where

$$c_i=\sqrt{\frac{m_i}{2(m_i+d1)}},$$
(20)
and the scalar fields $`\varphi _i`$, $`\phi _i`$ are defined by

$$a_i=e^{\varphi _i},\varphi _i=\frac{\sqrt{2(d1)}c_i}{m_i}\phi _i.$$
(21)
From (15) we then have

$$\alpha _i=e^{\sqrt{\frac{2}{d1}}c_i\phi _i}.$$
(22)
The last terms in (18) and (19) are the contributions from the curvature of the $`d`$ dimensional space.

The effective Lagrangian is ($`8\pi G_{d+1}=1`$) 555 In our convention, the factor $`\sqrt{g_4}=a^{d+1}`$ is included in $`L`$, and so the action is just $`S=d^{d+1}xL`$.

$$L=\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{}{2}+KV\right)=a^{d+1}\left[\frac{d(d1)}{2}\left(\frac{a^{}}{a^2}\right)^2+KV\right].$$
(23)
The action for the scalar fields can also be derived from the Hilbert Einstein action in higher dimensions, up to total derivatives, as we explain in Appendix A.

It is well known that off-diagonal terms omitted in (14) are gauge fields from the lower dimensional viewpoint. We can include their effect by adding Yang-Mills Lagrangian to the effective action, but the gauge coupling will be a function of the scalar fields. If we redefine the gauge field to absorb these factors so that the gauge coupling is constant, we are effectively introducing charges to the scalar fields. We will not pursue this effect here.

## 3 Simple Product Spaces

In this section we study the acceleration of the product spaces $`\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}^{3+1}\times H_m`$ and $`\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}^{3+1}\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_1\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_2`$.

### 3.1 $`\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}^{d+1}\times H_m`$

Our ansatz for the spacetime metric of $`\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}^{d+1}\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}`$ is

$$ds^2=\alpha ^2\left(a^{2d}dt^2+a^2dx_{(d)}^2\right)+\alpha ^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}(d1)/m}r_h^2ds_1^2,$$
(24)
and $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}`$ is taken to be an $`m`$-dimensional compact hyperbolic space with the metric $`ds_1^2`$ given by (7) for $`ϵ_1=1`$. The ansatz (24), with

$$\alpha ^2(t)=\left(\frac{e^{d\lambda _0t}}{K(t)}\right)^{2m/(m1)(d1)},a^2(t)=\left(\frac{K(t)}{e^{[(m+d1)/m]\lambda _0t}}\right)^{2m/(m1)(d1)},$$
(25)
solves the vacuum Einstein equations for

$$K(t)=\frac{\lambda _0r_h}{(m1)}\frac{\beta }{\mathrm{sinh}\left[\lambda _0\beta |tt_1|\right]},\beta =\sqrt{\frac{d(m+d1)}{m}},$$
(26)
where $`t_1`$ is an integration constant. This solution was first found in Ref.  when $`d=3`$. Henceforth we take $`\lambda _0=1`$, $`r_h=1`$, and shift the time so that $`t_1=0`$.

The proper time for a four-dimensional observer (i.e., $`d=3`$) is measured by $`\tau `$, with $`d\tau =a^3(t)dt`$. The metric (24) then takes the form

$$ds^2=\alpha ^2(\tau )(d\tau ^2+a^2(\tau )dx^2)+\alpha ^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}/m}(\tau )ds_1^2.$$
(27)
According to (19), the potential of $`\phi `$ is

$$V=\frac{m(m1)}{2}e^{\phi /c_m}$$
(28)
where

$$c_m=\sqrt{\frac{m}{2(m+2)}}.$$
(29)
In order to have sufficient inflation, the potential can not be too steep, otherwise $`\phi `$ rolls down the hill too quickly and the inflationary era will be too short. The slow roll condition $`V^1\frac{dV}{d\phi }1`$ is satisfied if $`c_m1`$. However, $`c_m`$ is bounded by $`1/2c_m<\sqrt{1/2}`$.

The 4D spacetime is expanding if

$$\frac{da}{d\tau }>0n_1(t)1+\frac{m\beta }{m+2}\mathrm{coth}(\beta t)<0,$$
(30)
with $`\beta `$ defined in (26). The expansion is accelerating only if

$$\frac{d^2a}{d\tau ^2}>0n_2(t)\frac{m(m1)\beta ^2}{(m+2)^2\mathrm{sinh}^2\left[\beta t\right]}>(n_1(t))^2.$$
(31)
The conditions (30), (31) are satisfied simultaneously for $`t<0`$ in a certain interval. A small but negative time $`t`$ actually corresponds to a positive proper time $`\tau `$. Specifically, in the limit $`0<t1`$, we find

$$\tau \left(\frac{1}{t}\right)^{(m+2)/2(m1)},a\left(\frac{1}{t}\right)^{m/2(m1)}.$$
(32)
This also implies that the singularity of the function $`K(t)`$ at $`t=0_+`$ corresponds to $`\tau =\mathrm{}`$ in Einstein frame.

An intuitive understanding of why the acceleration occurs at negative time $`t`$ is given in . Numerical studies show that the number of e-foldings 666 The initial time $`t_i`$ and final time $`t_f`$ are defined by the times when the scale factor $`a`$ starts and stops to accelerate, respectively.

$$N=\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{a(t_f)}{a(t_i)}\right)=_{t_i}^{t_f}𝑑tH$$
(33)
is of order $`1`$, see table $`1`$. (Here $`H=a^1(da/d\tau )`$ is the Hubble parameter.) The solution for the spacetime metric $`\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}^{3+1}\times H_m`$ is therefore not applicable for implementing inflation in the early universe. We note that the initial condition $`\phi ^{}(t_i)`$ does not significantly affect the value of $`N`$, because a larger initial velocity will shoot up the hill to a higher point, which is good for inflation, but it will roll down faster as the slope is also larger at higher points.

### 3.2 $`\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}^{3+1}\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_1\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_2`$

In this section we consider the spacetimes $`\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}^{3+1}\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_1\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_2`$, which are the product of a large 3 dimensional flat space and two compact spaces. The ansatz for the spacetime metric is

$$ds^2=\alpha ^2(\eta )a^2(\eta )(d\eta ^2+dx^2)+\beta _1^2(\eta )ds_{\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_1}^2+\beta _2^2(\eta )ds_{\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_2}^2,$$
(34)
$`\alpha =\alpha _1\alpha _2,\alpha _1=e^{c_m\phi _1},\alpha _2=e^{c_n\phi _2},`$ (35)
$`\beta _1=\alpha _1^{2/m},\beta _2=\alpha _2^{2/n},`$ (36)
where the metric for $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_1`$ and $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_2`$ are of the form given in (7), and their dimensions are $`m`$ and $`n`$.

As shown in Sec. 2, the Einstein theory dimensionally reduced to 4D is equivalent to 4D Einstein gravity coupled to scalar fields $`\phi _1`$, $`\phi _2`$ with the kinetic term

$$K=\frac{1}{a^2}\left(\frac{1}{2}(\phi _{}^{}{}_{1}{}^{2}+\phi _{}^{}{}_{2}{}^{2})+2c_mc_n\phi _{}^{}{}_{1}{}^{}\phi _{}^{}{}_{2}{}^{}\right),$$
(37)
and the potential

$$V=V_{m,ϵ_1}e^{2c_n\phi _2}+V_{n,ϵ_2}e^{2c_m\phi _1},$$
(38)
where $`V_{m,ϵ_i}`$ are given by

$$V_{m,ϵ_i}=ϵ_i\frac{m(m1)}{2}e^{\phi _i/c_m}.$$
(39)
Let us define the new scalars

$$\psi _1=\phi _1+2c_mc_n\phi _2,\psi _2=c_{mn}\phi _2,$$
(40)
so that the kinetic terms take the canonical form $`K=\frac{1}{2a^2}(\psi _{}^{}{}_{1}{}^{2}+\psi _{}^{}{}_{2}{}^{2})`$. In these variables the potential term becomes

$$V=ϵ_1\frac{m(m1)}{2}e^{\psi _1/c_m}ϵ_2\frac{n(n1)}{2}e^{2c_m\psi _1+c_{mn}\psi _2/c_n},$$
(41)
$$c_{mn}=\sqrt{\frac{2(m+n+2)}{(m+2)(n+2)}}.$$
(42)
This resembles a hybrid model for inflation.

## 4 Parameters of order $`1`$ vs. $`60`$ e-foldings

For the spacetimes $`\mathrm{𝙸𝚁}^{3+1}\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_1\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_2`$ studied in Sec. 3.2, the scalar potential is

$$V=e^{2\psi _1}+e^{\psi _1+\sqrt{3}\psi _2}.$$
(43)
for $`m=n=2`$, $`ϵ_1=ϵ_2=1`$. One might be tempted to claim that it is impossible for this potential to generate sufficient inflation because all the parameters here are of order one. How can we obtain 60 e-foldings from such a potential?

Although it is true that for this particular model we can not obtain sufficient inflation, the argument above is over-simplifying the problem. Let us demonstrate this with an explicit example showing that the interaction between two fields can lead to a surprising difference from the naive expectation.

### 4.1 Numerical results

The potential we examine

$$V=e^{2\psi _1/3}+e^{3\psi _1+\sqrt{3}\psi _2},$$
(44)
is of the same form as the one in (43), where all parameters are of order one. The only difference between these two potentials is the coefficients of $`\psi _1`$ in the exponents.

The equations of motion for the scalar fields expressed in the physical time $`t`$ ($`dt=ad\eta `$) are

$$\ddot{\psi }_i+3H\dot{\psi }_i+\frac{V}{\psi _i}=0,$$
(45)
and the Friedman equation

$$H^2=\frac{1}{3}(K+V)$$
(46)
determines the evolution of the scale factor $`a(t)`$.

We have studied the expansion of this model numerically. For two 2nd order differential equation, we can set four initial values $`\psi _1,\psi _2,\dot{\psi }_1`$ and $`\dot{\psi }_2`$. If we fix the initial condition so that it coincides with the starting point of acceleration, we first set three of the initial values, $`\psi _1(0)`$, $`\dot{\psi }_1(0)`$, $`\dot{\psi _2}(0)`$, and this fixes the initial value of $`\psi _2(0)`$ by requiring that $`\ddot{a}=0`$, or equivalently $`V=2K`$ at $`t=0`$. A set of such initial conditions is $`\psi _1(0)=0,\psi _2(0)=0,\dot{\psi }_1=1,\dot{\psi }_2=1`$. Note that all the initial values of this set are of order $`1`$, and the results will be qualitatively the same for variations of order $`1`$ for the initial conditions.

Our numerical study showed that the acceleration never stops, but asymptotes to zero acceleration, $`\ddot{a}0`$. The evolution of $`\psi _1`$, $`\psi _2`$ and the scale factor $`a(t)`$ are given in Figures 1, 2 and 3, respectively. In contrast, the results for the potential (43) from dimensional reduction are plotted in Figures 4-6. Note that the time scales of the plots are quite different.

The Hubble parameter $`H=\dot{a}/a`$ is found to be $`0.004,0.0004,0.00004`$ at $`T=10^3,10^4,10^5`$, respectively. The corresponding e-folding number is $`21,32,42`$, respectively. It is remarkable that while the two potentials (43) and (44) are so similar, their spacetime evolutions are so drastically different.

The behavior of the coupled system is quite interesting. We see from the figure of $`\psi _2`$ that it asymptotes to a constant as $`t\mathrm{}`$. The only difference we noticed between the potentials (43) and (44) which might be the crucial here is that the relative magnitude of the coefficients of $`\psi _1`$ in the two exponents in $`V`$ is reversed. It will be very interesting to understand better the mechanism behind the model (44) that leads to eternal inflation. This knowledge will be important for inflationary model building.

### 4.2 Exact solutions

In the above we studied numerically models of two scalar fields with the exponential potential

$$V=e^{b\psi _1}+e^{c\psi _1+d\psi _2}.$$
(47)
In fact, exact solutions can also be obtained. From the ansatz

$$\psi _i=p_i\mathrm{ln}\tau +q_i,H=\frac{h}{\tau },$$
(48)
we find the solution

$`p_1={\displaystyle \frac{2}{b}},p_2={\displaystyle \frac{2(bc)}{bd}},`$ (49)
$`e^{bq_1}={\displaystyle \frac{2(3h1)(d^2c(bc))}{b^2d^2}},e^{cq_1+dq_2}={\displaystyle \frac{2(3h1)(bc)}{bd^2}},`$ (50)
and

$$h=\frac{2(d^2+(bc)^2)}{b^2d^2}.$$
(51)
These special solutions are either acceleration for all $`\tau `$ or deceleration for all $`\tau `$. The condition for acceleration is $`h>1`$. For the potentials from compactification on $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_1\times \mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_2`$ in Sec 3.2,

$$h=\frac{m_1+m_2}{m_1+m_2+2}<1,$$
(52)
and there is no inflation. For the hypothetical model (44) we studied numerically in the previous subsection, $`h=38/3>1`$.

To understand the form and simplicity of these solutions it is useful to change variables from $`\psi `$ to $`\phi `$. For the case where the extra dimensions are $`H_2\times H_2`$, we have

$`b=2,c=1,d=\sqrt{3},`$ (53)
$`p_1=1,p_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}.`$ (54)
The time dependence of the $`\phi `$’s is given by

$$\phi _1=\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{ln}\tau +\text{constant},\phi _2=\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{ln}\tau +\text{constant},$$
(55)
so we find $`\phi _1`$ and $`\phi _2`$ have the same time dependence. This result is consistent with the fact that $`\phi _1=\phi _2`$ is a symmetry axis of the potential; our numerical simulations confirm the intuition that most solutions tend to fall along this line of attraction due to energy lost to cosmic friction.

Comparing these solutions to the general solution for a single product space $`H_m`$, we see that these exact solutions can be understood as the large $`\tau `$ limit of the generic solutions . If we understand these solutions as representing future infinity, we see that although we can start with generic solutions, their eventual fate seems to be that the different hyperbolic spaces attain the same time dependence.

In the next section we will find exact solutions where the product spaces all have the same time dependence and we find that inflation is not improved. If all solutions are generically attracted to the symmetry axis, then eternal inflation is apparently ruled out when the product spaces are all of the same type.

Apparently the ansatz (48) can be easily applied to an arbitrary number of scalar fields with exponential potential. Exact solutions of this class will be reported in a follow up paper.

## 5 Product spaces

The eternal inflation in the hybrid model of the previous section motivates us to look for solutions for more general product spaces as extra dimensions.

### 5.1 Equal Product Spaces

In this subsection, we discuss the case of $`n`$ copies of $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}_i`$: $`ϵ_0=0,m_0=d,m_1=\mathrm{}=m_n=m,B_1=\mathrm{}=B_n=B`$ and $`ϵ_1=\mathrm{}=ϵ_n=ϵ`$. For this case the equation for $`B_0`$ can be solved

$$B_0=\alpha _0t+\beta _0,$$
(56)
where $`\alpha _0`$ and $`\beta _0`$ are integration constants, and the variable

$$A=d(\alpha _0t+\beta _0)+mnB$$
(57)
is determined by the gauge condition (11). Then the only equations we need to solve are (12) and (13) for $`B`$

$`\alpha _0^2d(1d)+mn[\ddot{B}+(1mn)\dot{B}^22\alpha _0d\dot{B}]`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (58)
$`\ddot{B}+ϵ(m1)\mathrm{e}^{2d(\alpha _0t+\beta _0)+2(mn1)B}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (59)
The change of variables

$$B=\sqrt{\frac{m1}{mn1}}f\frac{d}{mn1}(\alpha _0t+\beta _0),$$
(60)
$$A=mn\sqrt{\frac{m1}{mn1}}f\frac{d}{mn1}(\alpha _0t+\beta _0).$$
(61)
simplifies the equations of motion

$$\ddot{f}+ϵ\lambda \mathrm{e}^{2\lambda f}=0,\dot{f}^2+ϵ\mathrm{e}^{2\lambda f}=f_0^2,$$
(62)
where $`\lambda =\sqrt{(m1)(mn1)}`$. The solutions of this differential equation are

$$f(t)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{\lambda }\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{f_0}{\mathrm{sinh}[\lambda f_0|(tt_1)|]}\right)\hfill & ϵ=1.\hfill \\ f_0(tt_1)\hfill & ϵ=0.\hfill \\ \frac{1}{\lambda }\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{f_0}{\mathrm{cosh}[\lambda f_0(tt_1)]}\right),\hfill & ϵ=+1.\hfill \end{array}$$
(63)
where the value of $`f_0`$ is fixed from (58) to be

$$f_0=\sqrt{\frac{(mn+d1)d}{mn(m1)(mn1)}}\alpha _0.$$
(64)
The constants $`\alpha _0`$ and $`\beta _0`$ can be set as $`\alpha _0=1`$ and $`\beta _0=0`$ by rescaling and shifting time $`t`$.

Following the ansatz (6), the ($`d+1`$)-dimensional Einstein frame metric for this generic case is

$$ds_{d+1}^2=\mathrm{e}^{\frac{2mn}{d1}B}\left(\mathrm{e}^{2A}dt^2+\mathrm{e}^{2B_0}dx_d^2\right).$$
(65)
When $`\mathrm{𝙸𝙺}`$ is a hyperbolic space (i.e., $`ϵ=1`$), we have

$$ds_{d+1}^2=a^{2d}dt^2+a^2dx^2,$$
(66)
with

$$a(t)=h_1(t)h_2(t),h_1(t)=e^{\frac{mn+d1}{(d1)(mn1)}t},h_2(t)=\left(\frac{f_0}{\mathrm{sinh}[\lambda f_0|(tt_1)|]}\right)^{\frac{mn}{(d1)(mn1)}}.$$
(67)
In terms of the proper time coordinate $`\tau `$, with

$$d\tau =a^ddt,$$
(68)
the metric (66) can be written in the standard FLRW form as

$$ds_{d+1}^2=d\tau ^2+a^2(\tau )dx_d^2.$$
(69)
The accelerating phase occurs when

$$_\tau a>0,_\tau _\tau a>0,$$
(70)
which, after a straightforward calculation, give

$`\sqrt{mnd}\mathrm{coth}\theta \sqrt{mn+d1}>0,`$ (71)
$`d(mn1)\text{csch}^2\theta (\sqrt{mnd}\mathrm{coth}\theta +\sqrt{mn+d1})^2>0,`$ (72)
where $`\theta =\lambda f_0(tt_1)`$. It is interesting that this equation is dependent only on the product $`mn`$ and not $`m`$ or $`n`$ separately. For these particular solutions we find that the period of acceleration and the number of e-foldings are the same for $`H_{mn}`$ and product spaces such as $`n`$ copies of $`H_m`$.

Analysis of these conditions shows that acceleration phases exist for all values of $`d1,m2,n1`$. We find larger e-foldings for smaller $`d`$ and larger $`mn`$. For $`d=1`$, inflation can last forever, although the acceleration eventually approaches to zero. For $`d=3`$, the number of e-foldings is of order one for $`mn`$ of order 100 or smaller.

We finally note that for the case of a simple product space, going to higher dimensions $`d`$ and $`m`$ actually decreases the amount of inflation. In arbitrary $`d`$ dimensions, the slow roll condition becomes

$$\left(\frac{V^{}}{V}\right)^2\frac{d}{(d1)^2}$$
(73)
which is consistent with our results that inflation for $`d=1`$ can last forever. For the spacetime $`R^{1,d}\times H_m`$ the potential is of exponential form and we find

$$\left(\frac{V^{}}{V}\right)^2=4\frac{m+d1}{m(d1)}$$
(74)
which is of order $`1/d`$ for the case where we take $`md`$, and also for the case where we take $`m`$ large. While going to large $`d`$ does flatten out the potential which is good for obtaining large inflation, going to large $`d`$ also increases the cosmic friction. Going to large $`d`$ therefore does not help us satisfy the slow roll conditions and does not increase the amount of inflation.

Apparently there is no room for a realistic inflation model for the early universe using the solutions found in this subsection.

## 6 Discussion

In this paper, we generalized the work of  and considered compactifications of product spaces of flat, spherical and hyperbolic spaces. Unfortunately, for all the cases we studied, the acceleration phases are still not sufficient. Nevertheless, we can not yet conclude that $`60`$ e-foldings cannot be achieved from pure gravity compactification.

For the product spaces considered in Sec. 5, the exact solutions we found are only very special solutions. In general each space in the product can have a different scale factor, but we have only found solutions with a single overall scale factor for the extra dimensions. At least numerically, one can also study products spaces for which we did not obtain exact solutions. In view of the importance of interactions between scalar fields which we discussed in Sec. 4, the phase diagram for the solutions can be very complicated and the implication of the special solutions can not be taken too far.

Since we know that radiation induces deceleration, adding off-diagonal components into the full spacetime metric does not seem so promising. Similarly, in view of the no go theorem of , adding matter fields will probably not help. It would be interesting to know whether modifications to Einstein theory, such as Brans Dicke theory or adding Gauss Bonnet terms will admit solutions with sufficient acceleration.

If we assume that the compactified space is stabilized before nucleosynthesis in order not to violate observational data, it will be hard to apply the acceleration associated with the shrinking of extra dimensions to explain the acceleration of the present universe. This is why we have kept in mind the inflation of the early universe as our main application. But a more careful study is needed before this possibility is completely ruled out.

Although this original setup of Townsend and Wohlfarth does not provide large e-foldings for a three dimensional universe, it is possible that with modification, solutions with large amounts of inflation can be found from a suitable high energy starting point using gravity as the source of inflation. In a follow up paper we will discuss the details of these more complicated scenarios.

Acknowledgements: We thank Je-an Gu for useful discussions. This work is supported in part by the National Science Council, the Center for Theoretical Physics at National Taiwan University, the National Center for Theoretical Sciences, and the CosPA project of the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, R.O.C. The work of P. M. H. is also supported in part by the Wu Ta-Yu Memorial Award of NSC.

## Appendix A Dimensional reduction

Consider a product space metric

$$ds^2=G_{MN}dx^Mdx^N=e^{2\varphi }g_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu +\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}e^{2\varphi _i}ds_i^2,\mu =0,\mathrm{},d,$$
(75)
where each $`ds_i^2`$ characterized by $`ϵ_i`$ can be flat ($`ϵ_i=0`$), spherical ($`ϵ_i=1`$) or hyperbolic space ($`ϵ_i=1`$) with dimensions $`m_i`$. The total spacetime dimension is $`D=d+1+_{i=1}^nm_i`$. For this ansatz, the $`D`$-dimensional Hilbert-Einstein action decomposes as

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^Dx\sqrt{G}_G},`$ (76)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d^mx{\displaystyle }d^{d+1}x\sqrt{g}\mathrm{exp}[(d1)\varphi +{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}m_i\varphi _i]\{_g2d^2\varphi `$
$``$ $`d(d1)(\varphi )^2+{\displaystyle \underset{i,j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}m_im_jg^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _i_\nu \varphi _j{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}m_i(\varphi _i)^2`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}ϵ_im_i(m_i1)e^{2\varphi 2\varphi _i}\}.`$
If we go to Einstein frame using

$$(d1)\varphi +\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}m_i\varphi _i=0,$$
(77)
then the term $`2d\sqrt{g}^2\varphi `$ becomes a total derivative which can be neglected. Finally, the $`d`$-dimensional effective action becomes

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d^{d+1}x\sqrt{g}\{_g{\displaystyle \frac{1}{d1}}{\displaystyle \underset{i,j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}m_im_jg^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _i_\nu \varphi _j{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}m_i(\varphi _i)^2`$ (78)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}ϵ_im_i(m_i1)\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{2}{d1}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}m_j\varphi _j2\varphi _i)\}.`$