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# Galaxy merging, the Fundamental Plane of elliptical galaxies, and the 𝑀_BH-𝜎₀ relation

## 1 Introduction

Two distinct scenarios have been proposed to describe the formation of elliptical galaxies (Es): roughly speaking, according to the monolithic scenario Es form at high redshift in dissipative collapses (see, e.g., Eggen, Lynden-Bell & Sandage 1962, Larson 1975), while in the hierarchical merging scenario spheroidal systems are the end–products of several merging processes of smaller galaxies, the last major merger taking place in relatively recent times, i.e. at $`z\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}1`$ (see, e.g., White & Rees 1978, Kauffmann 1996, Cole et al. 2000). In particular, this second picture is supported by some observational data suggesting that a fraction of red galaxies in clusters at intermediate redshift are undergoing merging processes: these galaxies could be the progenitors of present–day early–type galaxies (van Dokkum et al. 1999).

In any case, it is well known that Es satisfy many scaling relations (more or less tight) that must be accounted for by any proposed formation scenario: for example the Faber–Jackson relation (hereafter FJ, Faber & Jackson 1976), the Kormendy relation (Kormendy 1977), the $`\mathrm{Mg}_2`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relation (see, e.g., Burstein et al. 1988, Bender, Burstein & Faber 1993) the color–magnitude relation (Bower, Lucey & Ellis 1992), and the very tight Fundamental Plane (hereafter FP; Djorgovski & Davis 1987, Dressler et al. 1987). In addition, it is now widely accepted that central supermassive black holes (hereafter BHs) are a common characteristic of spheroidal stellar systems (see, e.g., Kormendy & Richstone 1995, van der Marel 1999, de Zeeuw 2001); it has also been found that their mass ($`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$) is linearly proportional to the mass of the host spheroid (Magorrian et al. 1998), and it is even more correlated with the spheroid central stellar velocity dispersion (Gebhardt et al. 2000, Ferrarese & Merritt 2000). Due to their relevance in this work, here we briefly review the main properties of the FP, FJ, Kormendy and $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relations.

The FP of Es is a scaling relation between three of their basic observational properties, namely the circularized effective radius $`R_\mathrm{e}\sqrt{a_\mathrm{e}b_\mathrm{e}}`$ (where $`a_\mathrm{e}`$ and $`b_\mathrm{e}`$ are the major and minor semi-axis of the effective isophotal ellipse), the central velocity dispersion $`\sigma _0`$, and the mean effective surface brightness $`I_\mathrm{e}L_\mathrm{B}/2\pi R_{\mathrm{e}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ (where $`L_\mathrm{B}`$ is the luminosity of the galaxy, for example in the Johnson B-band). A parameterization of the FP, that we adopt in this paper, has been introduced by Bender, Burstein & Faber (1992, hereafter BBF), by defining the three variables

$$k_1\frac{\mathrm{log}\sigma _0^2+\mathrm{log}R_\mathrm{e}}{\sqrt{2}},$$
(1)
$$k_2\frac{\mathrm{log}\sigma _0^2+2\mathrm{log}I_\mathrm{e}\mathrm{log}R_\mathrm{e}}{\sqrt{6}},$$
(2)
$$k_3\frac{\mathrm{log}\sigma _0^2\mathrm{log}I_\mathrm{e}\mathrm{log}R_\mathrm{e}}{\sqrt{3}}.$$
(3)
In particular, when projected on the $`(k_1,k_3)`$ plane, the FP is seen almost edge–on and it is considerably thin, while the distribution of galaxies in the $`(k_1,k_2)`$ plane is broader. For example, Virgo ellipticals studied by BBF are distributed on the $`(k_1,k_3)`$ plane according to the best–fit relation

$$k_3=0.15k_1+0.36,$$
(4)
(when adopting respectively, kpc, km s-1 and $`L_\mathrm{B}`$ pc-2 as length, velocity and surface brightness units), with a very small 1-$`\sigma `$ dispersion of $`\mathrm{rms}(k_3)0.05`$ over the whole range spanned by the data, $`2.6\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}k_1\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4.6}`$ ($`0.75\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}k_3\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.05}`$). This translates in a scatter of $`15\%`$ in $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ for fixed $`L_\mathrm{B}`$ and $`\sigma _0`$. The slope and the scatter of equation (4) are usually called “tilt” and “thickness” of the FP, respectively. By combining equations (1) and (3) with equation (4) the FP relation is obtained in terms of the observables, and is in good agreement with the FP derived (in the same photometric band and for a much larger galaxy sample) by Jørgensen, Franx & Kjærgaard (1996)111As it is well known, the FP tilt depends on the adopted photometric band. Curiously, when using the $`k`$-space, the coefficient in the K-band is only slightly different from 0.15, with a reported value of 0.147 (Pahre, Djorgovski & de Carvalho 1998b)..

Strictly related to the FP are the less tight FJ and Kormendy relations. These scaling relations have been often interpreted just as projections of the FP with no additional information, and, for this reason, their constraining power on galaxy formation scenarios has been underestimated. However this is misleading, because these two relations describe how Es are distributed on the FP and so, even if characterized by a larger scatter than the edge–on view of the FP, they contain important information on the galactic properties. The proposed original form of the FJ relation was $`L_\mathrm{B}\sigma _0^n`$, with $`n4`$, while Davies et al. (1983) found that the double–slope fit

$$\frac{L_\mathrm{B}}{10^{11}L_\mathrm{B}}0.23\left(\frac{\sigma _0}{300\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1}\right)^{2.4}+0.62\left(\frac{\sigma _0}{300\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1}\right)^{4.2}$$
(5)
provides a better description of the data. Note that for small galaxies and bulges ($`\sigma _0\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}170}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) the exponent is $`2.4`$, considerably smaller than 4; this situation is also reflected by the fit of Dressler et al. (1987) to the galaxies of Virgo cluster, $`L_\mathrm{B}\sigma _0^{3.5}`$. Due to indeterminacy of the exact value of $`n`$, in the rest of the paper we use 3.5 and 4 as representative values of the FJ exponent.

The total luminosity of spheroidal systems also correlates with their length scale as measured by $`R_\mathrm{e}`$: in fact, the Kormendy relation can be written in the form

$$R_\mathrm{e}L_\mathrm{B}^a,$$
(6)
where the exponent $`a`$ is strongly dependent on the galaxy sample used, and is found in the range $`0.88\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}a\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.62}`$ (Ziegler et al. 1999). The latest estimates seem to converge to a value $`a0.7`$ or less, as a function of waveband (Bernardi et al. 2003).

In the last years, another important scaling relation has been added to the list, the so–called $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relation (see, e.g., Gebhardt et al. 2000; Ferrarese & Merritt 2000, Merritt & Ferrarese 2001, Tremaine et al. 2002):

$$M_{\mathrm{BH}}\sigma _0^\alpha ,$$
(7)
where $`\sigma _0`$ is the projected central velocity dispersion of the parent galaxies (or within $`R_\mathrm{e}`$), and the exact value of $`\alpha `$ is still matter of debate, ranging between 4 and 5. An important characteristic of this relation is its extremely small scatter, consistent with measurements errors only, so that equation (7) can be considered a “perfect” relation.

In the context of galaxy formation studies, a natural question to ask is how well dissipationless merging is able to produce and maintain these relations. We focus on dissipationless merging since it is simpler to be modeled with respect to gas rich merging, and because in this way we can check whether the contribution of gas dissipation is required in the merging scenario of Es formation. In addition, the analysis of dissipationless merging should indicate whether the merging between gas poor systems observed at $`z<1`$ (van Dokkum et al. 1999) is a common phenomenon in Es lifetime, or a rare event. Among others, existence of serious problems encountered by the picture of Es formation mainly driven by dissipationless merging to reproduce their scaling relations was pointed out by Ciotti & van Albada (2001; hereafter CvA). In their phenomenological approach, just by combining the observed (edge–on) FP and the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relations, they demonstrated that in a dissipationless merging scenario, and under reasonable assumptions for the addition of BH masses during the merging, elliptical galaxies forced to lie on the FP and to satisfy the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relation would have effective radii exceedingly larger than those observed in real Es.

Here we follow a complementary approach, and the main goal is verifying, by using high resolution N-body numerical simulations of one and two–component galaxy models, whether the end–products of merging of galaxies, initially lying on the FP, lie on the FP (as well as on the other scaling relations) or they fail in some other respect (see also Pentericci, Ciotti & Renzini 1995; Capelato, de Carvalho & Carlberg 1995; Bekki 1998; Evstigneeva, Reshetnikov & Sotnikova 2002; Nipoti, Londrillo & Ciotti 2003a).

Numerical simulations are needed since, owing to possible structural and/or dynamical non–homology and to projection effects, one cannot predict with simple theoretical arguments how $`\sigma _0`$ and $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ evolve as consequence of merging: however, rough indications on their behavior can be derived from the study of the evolution of the virial velocity dispersion $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ and the virial radius $`r_\mathrm{V}`$222By definition in a one–component galaxy $`\sigma _V^22T/M`$ and $`r_\mathrm{V}GM^2/U`$, where $`T`$ and $`U`$ are the total kinetic and the gravitational energy of the galaxy, respectively.. In fact, as a consequence of the virial theorem and the conservation of the total energy, in the merging of two galaxies with masses $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ and virial velocity dispersions $`\sigma _{\mathrm{V},1}`$ and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{V},2}`$, the virial velocity dispersion of the resulting galaxy (in case of no mass loss and negligible kinetic and interaction energies of the galaxy pair when compared to their internal energies) is given by

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{V},1+2}^2=\frac{M_1\sigma _{\mathrm{V},1}^2+M_2\sigma _{\mathrm{V},2}^2}{M_1+M_2}.$$
(8)
It follows that $`\sigma _{\mathrm{V},1+2}\mathrm{max}(\sigma _{\mathrm{V},1},\sigma _{\mathrm{V},2})`$, i.e., the virial velocity dispersion cannot increase in a merging process of the kind described above. Under the same hypotheses, the virial radius $`r_{\mathrm{V},1+2}`$ of the resulting galaxy is given by

$$\frac{(M_1+M_2)^2}{r_{\mathrm{V},1+2}}=\frac{M_1^2}{r_{\mathrm{V},1}}+\frac{M_2^2}{r_{\mathrm{V},2}},$$
(9)
where $`r_{\mathrm{V},1}`$ and $`r_{\mathrm{V},2}`$ are the virial radii of the progenitors. Identity (9) implies that
$`r_{\mathrm{V},1+2}\mathrm{min}(r_{\mathrm{V},1},r_{\mathrm{V},2})`$, i.e., the virial radius cannot decrease in a merging process of the kind described above.

From equations (8) and (9) it follows that, in the highly idealized scenario of a merging hierarchy based on identical, one–component seed galaxies characterized by $`\sigma _{\mathrm{V},0}`$, $`r_{\mathrm{V},0}`$ and $`M_0`$, we expect $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}=\sigma _{\mathrm{V},0}`$ and $`r_\mathrm{V}=(M/M_0)r_{\mathrm{V},0}`$, independently of the merging sequence. Thus, by qualitatively assuming that $`\sigma _0\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ and $`R_\mathrm{e}r_\mathrm{V}`$, one should conclude that the FJ and Kormendy relations are not consistent with the scenario depicted above. Now, it is well known that for a large variety of mass models there is a good correlation between $`r_\mathrm{M}`$ (the half–mass radius of the galaxy, strictly related to $`R_\mathrm{e}`$) and $`r_\mathrm{V}`$, with the proportionality constant showing little dependence on the particular density profile333For example in truncated power–law spherical models $`r_\mathrm{V}/r_\mathrm{M}=2^{\frac{1}{3\gamma }}(52\gamma )/(3\gamma )`$ and so $`2r_\mathrm{V}/r_\mathrm{M}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}2.1`$ for $`0\gamma 2`$. (see, e.g., Spitzer 1969, Ciotti 1991), and so, even in presence of structural non–homology in the merging end–products, the “prediction” of a linear growth of $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ with $`M`$ should be quite robust. A more problematic situation (that can be properly addressed only with numerical simulations) arises when considering the relation between $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ and $`\sigma _0`$: at variance with $`r_\mathrm{M}/r_\mathrm{V}`$, structural non–homology can strongly affect the ratio $`\sigma _0/\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ (see, e.g., Ciotti, Lanzoni & Renzini 1996; Bertin, Ciotti & Del Principe 2002). In addition, a systematic variation of orbital anisotropy with mass (the so–called dynamical non–homology) can produce an increasing $`\sigma _0`$ even at constant $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ (although Nipoti, Londrillo & Ciotti 2002, hereafter NLC02, showed that the whole tilt of the FP cannot be ascribed to orbital anisotropy effects only).

Here, with the aid of high–resolution N-body simulations of one and two–component galaxy models, we investigate the effect of subsequent generations of merging on the galaxy scaling relations. Our study explore two extreme situations, namely the case of major merging, in which equal mass galaxies are involved at each step of the hierarchy, and the case of accretion, in which a massive galaxy increases its mass by incorporating smaller galaxies: the evolution of more realistic, “mixed” merging histories should be bracketed by our simulations. This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we describe the properties of the galaxy models and the adopted numerical methods. In Section 3 we present the results, while in Section 4 we specifically discuss the consequences of the findings on the implications for the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relation. Finally, in Section 5 the main conclusions are summarized.

## 2 Numerical methods

### 2.1 Galaxy models

As initial conditions for the first generation of merging we use spherically symmetric one and two–component Hernquist density distributions (Hernquist 1990; Ciotti 1996, 1999). This choice is motivated by the fact that the Hernquist model is both a reasonable approximation (when projected) of the $`R^{1/4}`$ law (de Vaucouleurs 1948), and it is also similar to the Navarro, Frenk & White (1996) profile, thus providing a sufficiently realistic description of the galaxy stellar and dark matter (DM) density distributions. The density, mass, and (relative) potential profiles of the stellar component of the Hernquist model are given by

$$\rho _{}(r)=\frac{1}{2\pi }\frac{M_{}r_\mathrm{c}}{r(r_\mathrm{c}+r)^3},$$
(10)
$$\frac{M_{}(r)}{M_{}}=\left(\frac{r}{r_\mathrm{c}+r}\right)^2,$$
(11)
$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{}(r)=\frac{GM_{}}{r_\mathrm{c}+r},$$
(12)
where $`M_{}`$ is the total stellar mass. In the two–component models, the DM halo is described by $`\rho _\mathrm{h}`$, $`M_\mathrm{h}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{h}`$ profiles of the same family of equations (10)-(12), where now $`r_\mathrm{h}\beta r_\mathrm{c}`$ and $`M_\mathrm{h}\mu M_{}`$. At variance with the models used in NLC02, here we restrict to globally isotropic models: the distribution function (DF) of the stellar component is then given by

$$f_{}()=\frac{1}{\sqrt{8}\pi ^2}\frac{d}{d}_0^{}\frac{d\rho _{}}{d\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{T}}\frac{d\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{T}}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{T}}},$$
(13)
where $`=\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{T}v^2/2`$ is the relative (positive) energy, $`v`$ is the modulus of the velocity vector, and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{T}=\mathrm{\Psi }_{}+\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{h}`$ is the relative total potential; an analogous identity holds for the DM halo, where $`\rho _\mathrm{h}`$ substitutes $`\rho _{}`$.

According to the given definitions, the one–component models are completely determined by the two physical scales $`M_{}`$ and $`r_\mathrm{c}`$, and in the numerical simulations $`M_{}`$, $`r_\mathrm{c}`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$ are adopted as mass, length and time scales. In particular $`T_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$ is the half–mass dynamical time, defined as

$$T_{\mathrm{dyn}}\sqrt{\frac{3\pi }{16G\rho _\mathrm{M}}}8.33\sqrt{\frac{r_\mathrm{c}^3}{GM_{}}},$$
(14)
where $`\rho _\mathrm{M}=3M_{}/8\pi r_\mathrm{M}^3`$ is the mean density inside the half–mass radius $`r_\mathrm{M}`$. Finally, the velocity scale is given by

$$v_\mathrm{c}\frac{r_\mathrm{c}}{T_{\mathrm{dyn}}}0.12\sqrt{\frac{GM_{}}{r_\mathrm{c}}}.$$
(15)
The two–component Hernquist models are characterized by four quantities, the two physical scales $`M_{}`$ and $`r_\mathrm{c}`$, and the two dimensionless parameters $`\mu `$ and $`\beta `$. In order to transform the results of the numerical simulations in physical units we express $`M_{}`$ in $`10^{10}M_{}`$, $`r_\mathrm{c}`$ in kpc, $`L_\mathrm{B}`$ in $`10^{10}L_\mathrm{B}`$, and the constant stellar mass–to–light ratio $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}M_{}/L_\mathrm{B}`$ in solar units. For a detailed description of the numerical realization of the initial conditions, see Section 2.1.3 of NLC02.

### 2.2 Initial conditions

#### 2.2.1 Equal mass merging

The first generation of the equal mass merging hierarchy is obtained by merging a pair of identical, spherically symmetric and isotropic Hernquist models (the “zeroth order” seed galaxies), while the successive generations are obtained by merging pairs of identical systems obtained by duplicating the end–product of the previous step. We followed the evolution of the hierarchy of 5 steps of head–on mergers (that would correspond, in absence of mass escape, to a mass increase of a factor 32); we also explored 3 steps of the head–on merging hierarchy whose seed galaxies are two–component Hernquist models (in which we assume a DM halo more massive, $`\mu =3`$, and less concentrated, $`\beta =2`$, than the stellar component), and, finally, 3 steps of the hierarchy of encounters of one–component models with non zero (orbital) angular momentum.

In the assignment of the initial conditions for the head–on encounters the two galaxies are initially placed on an orbit characterized by vanishing relative energy and angular momentum, i.e., they would have a null relative velocity while at infinite relative distance. In practice, at the time $`t=0`$, we place the two galaxies at a distance $`d_{\mathrm{rel}}3r_{90}`$ (where $`r_{90}`$ is the angle–averaged radius enclosing the $`90\%`$ of the total mass $`M`$ of each galaxy), and, neglecting the effects due to tidal forces, we assign to their centers of mass a relative velocity with modulus $`v_{\mathrm{rel}}=2\sqrt{GM/d_{\mathrm{rel}}}`$. The end–products of each merging are non–spherical, and so, when exploring a successive merging, their mutual orientation at the beginning of the new simulation is randomly assigned. In the simulations with orbital angular momentum, we still consider vanishing relative energy and $`d_{\mathrm{rel}}`$ defined as above, and we assume as impact parameter the sum of the angle–averaged half–mass radii of the merging galaxies.

#### 2.2.2 Accretion

In the case of the merging hierarchy in which the test galaxy grows by accretion of smaller systems (accretion), the seed galaxy is a one-component Hernquist model, and the first merging event is identical to that in the equal mass merging case. In the second step, however, the first end–product (of mass $`2M_{}`$) merges again with a seed galaxy, and so on. As a consequence, the mass ratio between the infalling stellar system and the test galaxy decreases approximately as $`1/n`$, where $`n`$ is the step in the accretion hierarchy. Due to the higher computational cost required by accretion simulations with respect to equal mass merging in order to reach the same mass increase, in the former case we limit to 15 steps (of head–on merging) and to 9 steps (of merging with angular momentum), for a putative mass increase of a factor 16 and 10, respectively. As in the case of equal mass merging simulations, the relative initial positions and velocities of the infalling satellite and of the test galaxy are chosen so that at $`t=0`$ they are on parabolic orbit, and the mutual orientation of the two galaxies is assigned randomly. In practice, as initial relative distance we adopt $`d_{\mathrm{rel}}r_{90,1}+2r_{90,2}`$, where the subscript 2 refers to the smaller galaxy. Again, in case of non zero angular momentum, the impact parameter is given by the sum of the angle–averaged half–mass radii.

### 2.3 The numerical code

For the simulations we used a new, fast and accurate, parallel N-body code. Recently, a numerical scheme has been introduced to simulate collisionless N-body systems by Dehnen (2000, 2002), with a substantial improvement in force computation over standard tree–based codes. By combining in an original way the Fast Multipole Algorithm (see, e.g., Greengard & Rokhlin 1987, 1997) with the Barnes & Hut (1986) tree data structure, Dehnen scheme achieves exact momentum conservation with an effective $`O(N)`$ operational complexity (for particle numbers $`N\begin{array}{c}>\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}10^5`$).

By taking advantage of these improvements, we have implemented the Dehnen fast force solver (FalcON) in a parallel Fortran-90 N-body code named FVFPS (Fortran Version of a Fast Poisson Solver; Londrillo, Nipoti & Ciotti 2003). The FVFPS code is based on domain decomposition, and uses the MPI routines for data communication. A mass dependent opening parameter $`\theta =\theta (M)`$, that assures faster performances and a more uniform error distribution, is also employed (Dehnen 2002). Time integration is performed by a standard leap-frog algorithm, with (uniform) time step $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ determined adaptively. Thanks to effective $`O(N)`$ scaling of the force computations, the FVFPS code assures a speed-up of a factor $`10`$ over existing codes, in particular over the Springel, Yoshida & White (2001) GADGET code. In the present version, the FVFPS code is characterized by three preassigned parameters:

(i) The minimum value of the opening parameter $`\theta _{\mathrm{min}}`$, associated with the total mass. We adopt $`\theta _{\mathrm{min}}=0.5`$, resulting in mean relative force errors of $`0.3\%`$, and 99 percentile errors of $`3\%`$.

(ii) The softening parameter $`\epsilon `$ (i.e., the softening length expressed in units of $`r_\mathrm{c}`$), dependent, according to literature indications (e.g., Merritt 1996, Athanassoula et al. 2000, Dehnen 2001), on $`N`$ and on the specific density distribution profile.

(iii) For the initial time step we assume $`\mathrm{\Delta }tT_{\mathrm{dyn}}/100`$. The time step is allowed to vary adaptively as a function of the maximum particle density, but is kept the same for all the particles.

For the stellar distribution of the seed galaxies we use as a rule $`N_{}=16378`$ particles for each galaxy, and in the two–component cases the DM distribution is made of $`N_{\mathrm{DM}}=49152`$ particles: with this choice, halo and stellar particles have the same mass. As a consequence of the merging hierarchy, the number of particles in the simulations increases with the galaxy mass: in the final merging of (one and two–component) equal mass systems and of the accretion scenario, the total number of particles involved is of the order of $`5.2\times 10^5`$ and $`2.6\times 10^5`$, respectively.

We followed the dynamical evolution of each merging event up to the virialization of the resulting system, which is usually reached on a time scale shorter than $`50T_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$ after the first encounter between the two galaxies: for example the virialization time for the first step in the one–component (head–on) equal mass merging hierarchy is of the order of $`2\mathrm{Gyr}`$ having assumed $`M_{}=10^{10}M_{}`$ and $`r_\mathrm{c}=1\mathrm{kpc}`$. In the following we call “end–product” of a simulation the system made of bound particles after the virialization. For the determination of the intrinsic and “observational” properties of the end–products, we followed the same procedure described in NLC02. In particular we measured the end–product intrinsic axis ratios $`c/a`$ and $`b/a`$ (where $`a`$, $`b`$ and $`c`$ are the major, intermediate and minor axis of the associated inertia ellipsoid), their virial velocity dispersion $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ and angle–averaged half–mass radius $`r_\mathrm{M}`$, and, for several projection angles, the end-product circularized effective radius $`R_\mathrm{e}`$, the central velocity dispersion $`\sigma _0`$, and the mean effective surface brightness $`I_\mathrm{e}`$ (obtained from the stellar mass profile by assuming a constant stellar mass–to–light ratio $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$). In particular, the central velocity dispersion $`\sigma _0`$ is obtained by averaging the projected velocity dispersion over the circularized surface brightness profile within a radius of $`R_\mathrm{e}/8`$. As a general rule we find that discreteness effects on the derived values of $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ and $`\sigma _0`$ do not exceed $`1÷2\%`$ at each projection angle.

We checked the reliability of the numerical simulations by running a few merging events both with the parallel version of GADGET (with $`\alpha =0.02`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{min}}=0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{max}}=T_{\mathrm{dyn}}/100`$, $`\alpha _{\mathrm{tol}}=0.05`$, and $`\epsilon =0.05`$ ;see Springel et al. 2001 for details) and with our FVFPS code (with $`\theta _{\mathrm{min}}=0.5`$, $`\epsilon =0.05`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=T_{\mathrm{dyn}}/100`$). The results are in remarkable agreement: the end–products in three-dimensional shape, angle–averaged half–mass radius, density and velocity dispersion profiles are practically indistinguishable. With both codes the total energy is conserved within $`1\%`$ over 100 dynamical times. As an illustrative example, in Fig. 1 we show the density profiles of the end–products of the head–on merging of two Hernquist models (GADGET, empty triangles; FVFPS, solid circles); note how “minor” details, as the slope change in the density profile at $`r10r_\mathrm{M}`$, are nicely reproduced. All the simulations were run on a Cray T3E, and on a IBM Linux Cluster (with a number of processors from 4 up to 32, depending on the number of particles of the simulation).

## 3 The results

### 3.1 Equal mass merging

Before presenting the effects of equal mass merging on the FP and on the other scaling relations, we briefly describe the induced modifications of the internal structure and dynamics of one and two–component galaxy models. In general, the end–products are triaxial systems with axis ratios in the range $`0.5\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}c/a\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.7}`$ and $`0.7\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}b/a\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.8}`$ (where $`a`$, $`b`$ and $`c`$ are the major, intermediate and minor axis, respectively), in accordance with observed ellipticities of Es. For comparison with real galaxies, we also fitted (over the radial range $`0.1\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}R/R_\mathrm{e}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}`$) the projected stellar mass density profile of the end–products with the Sersic (1968) $`R^{1/m}`$ law:

$$I(R)=I_0\mathrm{exp}\left[b(m)\left(\frac{R}{R_\mathrm{e}}\right)^{1/m}\right],$$
(16)
where $`b(m)2m1/3+4/405m`$ (Ciotti & Bertin 1999), and

in Fig. 2 we plot the best fit parameter $`m`$ as a function of the total mass of the systems, for one–component (solid squares and triangles) and two–component (stars) models. Clearly, the fitted quantities $`m`$ and $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ depend on the relative orientation of the line–of–sight and of the end–products of the simulations: the two points for each value of the mass in Fig. 2 show the range of values spanned by $`m`$ when projecting the final states along the shortest and longest axis of their inertia ellipsoids. We note that higher values of the best fit parameter $`m`$ correspond to more massive systems, a trend similar to that observed in Es444Curiously, NLC02 found that in the case of end–products of unstable galaxy models $`m`$ decreases for increasing radial orbital anisotropy in the initial conditions. Note also that in NLC02 and Londrillo et al. 2003 we used a radial range $`0.1\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}R/R_\mathrm{e}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}`$. (see, e.g., Caon, Capaccioli & D’Onofrio 1993, Prugniel & Simien 1997, Bertin et al. 2002). Note also that the values of $`m`$ are in the same range obtained from observations, in fact we found $`2\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}m\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}11}`$. (However, as pointed out to us by the Referee, from Fig. 2 one could argue that $`m4`$ galaxies should have experienced at most one major merger event in their life.)

Following the discussion in the Introduction, in Fig. 3 (top panel) we show the relation between the virial velocity dispersion and the total stellar mass of the mergers at each step of the merging hierarchy. In one–component models (solid squares and triangles) a modest increase of $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ with $`M_{}`$ is apparent: for the last model in the hierarchy the mass is increased by a factor $`24.5`$ (instead of the maximum possible value of 32), while the $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ is increased by a factor $`1.16`$ only. This small increase of $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ with respect to the expectation of equation (8) (i.e., $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}=const`$) can be explained with a simple generalization of the highly idealized situation formalized there. In fact, if during a merging between two galaxies with mass $`M_1`$, $`M_2`$ and virial velocity dispersion $`\sigma _{\mathrm{V},1}`$, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{V},2}`$ a mass $`\mathrm{\Delta }M`$ is lost with mean velocity $`v_{\mathrm{ej}}`$, then the virial velocity dispersion of the end–product $`\sigma _{\mathrm{V},1+2}`$ is expected to be

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{V},1+2}^2=\frac{M_1\sigma _{\mathrm{V},1}^2+M_2\sigma _{\mathrm{V},2}^2+\mathrm{\Delta }Mv_{\mathrm{ej}}^2}{M_1+M_2\mathrm{\Delta }M}:$$
(17)
in particular $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ increases as a consequence of the mass (and associated kinetic energy) loss. We found that in the simulations the mass lost during each merging never exceeds $`\mathrm{\Delta }M/(M_1+M_2)0.06`$ and, consistently, the corresponding increase of $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ is $`2÷5\%`$ (Fig. 3, top panel).

In Fig. 3 (bottom panel) we plot the half–mass radius as a function of the stellar mass of the mergers. As for $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$, also for this quantity the simple virial expectation of a linear growth of $`r_\mathrm{V}`$ (and of $`r_\mathrm{M}`$) with $`M`$ (dotted line) is apparent. The “jump” from the initial condition position to the first merger is due to the significant change in the galaxy density structure (as revealed by the change of values of $`m`$ in Fig. 2); the successive generations of merging are characterized by more similar density profiles, and, correspondingly, the points in Fig. 3 move parallel to the dotted line.

How does the presence of massive DM halos affect these results? As anticipated, in this case we investigated 3 steps of the (head–on) equal mass merging hierarchy by using two–component galaxy models. Due to its observational relevance, we focus here on the description of the properties of the stellar component only. As in the one–component case, the end–products are triaxial, and with the axis ratios in the same range. The best fit Sersic parameter $`m`$ still increases with mass (stars in Fig. 2). In the two–component simulations, owing to the presence of the DM halo, there are not arguments as simple as those used in equations (8), (9) and (17) in order to predict the effects of merging on $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ (defined as $`2T_{}/M_{}`$) and $`r_\mathrm{M}`$ of the stellar component. However, it is apparent from Figs. 2 and 3 that the presence of a DM halo or angular momentum in the initial conditions does not modify the general trend of $`m`$, $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ and $`r_\mathrm{M}`$ at increasing mass.

#### 3.1.1 Fundamental Plane

In Fig. 4 we plot the results of equal mass merging simulations in the principal planes $`(k_1,k_3)`$ and $`(k_1,k_2)`$, where one–component galaxy models resulting from head–on mergers and from merging with angular momentum are identified by solid squares and triangles, respectively; two–component models are represented by stars. The progenitor of the merging hierarchy (the point without bar) is placed on the edge–on FP by choosing its luminosity $`L_\mathrm{B}=3\times 10^9L_\mathrm{B}`$ and stellar mass–to–light ratio $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}=5`$, so that equation (4), represented by the solid line, is satisfied. Consistently with the adopted dissipationless scenario, the value of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$ is kept constant during the whole merging hierarchy. Due to the loss of spherical symmetry of the end–products of the merging simulations, their coordinates depend on the line–of–sight direction; however, being the luminosity (mass) of each end–product fixed, variations of $`k_1`$, $`k_2`$, $`k_3`$ due to projection effects are not independent. In fact, the $`k_1`$ and $`k_3`$ coordinate of a galaxy of given luminosity are linearly dependent as

$$k_3=\sqrt{\frac{2}{3}}k_1+\sqrt{\frac{1}{3}}\mathrm{log}\frac{2\pi }{L_\mathrm{B}};$$
(18)
this dependence is reflected by the straight lines in Fig. 4 (top panel), each of them representing the range spanned in the ($`k_1,k_3`$) space by a given end–product when observed over the solid angle. As in NLC02, in order to quantify the deviation of a model from the FP, we use the vertical distance $`\delta k_3|k_30.15k_10.36|`$ from the point to the FP itself. It is interesting to note that for all the end–products the projection effects translate into a $`\delta k_3`$ of the same order of magnitude of the observed FP dispersion. In addition it is also apparent from Fig. 4 how $`k_3`$ and $`k_1`$ increase with the galaxy mass consistently with the observed FP tilt and thickness. Being $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$ fixed in our simulations, from Fig. 2 we conclude that one–component equal mass dissipationless merging is able to reproduce (basically by structural non–homology) the edge–on FP of elliptical galaxies (see also Capelato et al. 1995).

We also explored the behavior of the models in the $`(k_1,k_2)`$ plane (Fig. 4, bottom panel), which represents the face–on view of the FP; the region populated by real galaxies in this plane is identified by dashed lines. By fixing the scale length, we place the first progenitor (with $`R_\mathrm{e}0.7\mathrm{kpc}`$) in a zone of the $`(k_1,k_2)`$ plane populated by low–luminosity ellipticals ($`k_13`$, $`k_24.5`$), and for each end–product we plot the ($`k_1,k_3`$) positions for a few random projection angles. Note that, at variance with the coordinates ($`k_1,k_3`$), $`k_1`$ and $`k_2`$ are related (for a given end–product) by an expression containing $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ besides $`L_\mathrm{B}`$, and for this reason in the $`(k_1,k_2)`$ plane the effect of projection is to distribute the end–products on two–dimensional regions. One–component equal mass mergers (solid squares and triangles) are moved by merging towards the bottom right of the ($`k_1,k_2`$) plane, roughly parallel to the line defining the zone of avoidance, in accordance with the prediction of BBF. The produced displacements are very large: it is remarkable that the end–products of the last step of the hierarchy are found in a position only marginally consistent with the populated region in the ($`k_1`$,$`k_2`$) space. It is also interesting to note that the presence of substantial angular momentum in the initial conditions does not change significantly the properties of equal mass mergers, both in the ($`k_1`$,$`k_3`$) and in the ($`k_1`$,$`k_2`$) plane.

The results of equal mass merging of two–component galaxies are represented in Fig. 4 with stars. Due to the presence of DM, in order to place the first progenitor ($`L_\mathrm{B}=3\times 10^9L_\mathrm{B}`$) on the FP, we assumed a stellar mass–to–light ratio $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}=2.3`$. It is apparent that both in the ($`k_1,k_3`$) and ($`k_1,k_2`$) planes, the behavior of two–component models does not significantly differ from the corresponding one–component models. In other words, dissipationless, equal mass merging of one and two–component models seems to be consistent with the existence of the FP of Es.

#### 3.1.2 Faber–Jackson and Kormendy relations

As we have shown in the Section above, dissipationless merging of one and two–component galaxy models is surprisingly consistent with the existence of the FP, especially considering its small thickness when seen edge–on. However, Es do follow additional scaling relations as the FJ and Kormendy relations, and so here we compare the results of our simulations with these scaling laws.

The solid line in the upper panel of Fig. 5 represents the FJ relation in the form $`L_\mathrm{B}\sigma _0^4`$ together with its scatter ($`\delta \mathrm{log}\sigma _00.1`$, Davies et al. 1983, dashed lines); the dotted line represents the steeper fit ($`L_\mathrm{B}\sigma _0^{3.5}`$) derived by Dressler et al. (1987). The end–products of (head–on) equal mass merging of one–component galaxies (solid squares) have a $`\sigma _0`$ lower than that predicted by the FJ relation for the given mass increase, and the discrepancy is stronger in case of merging with angular momentum (solid triangles). It is interesting to compare this plot with the upper panel of Fig. 3: it is then clear how the failure of FJ can be directly traced to the constancy of $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ and to the significant dynamical homology of the mergers. This latter point again suggest that structural non–homology, more than dynamical non–homology is at the origin of the FP in the explored merging scenario (see also NLC02). Models with DM (stars in Fig. 5) seem to follow more closely the FJ relation, even though the representative points show the same clear trend as the one–component merging hierarchy: it seems clear to us that additional simulations would bring also two–component models completely outside the FJ relation.

Considering now the agreement with the FP on one side, and the failure at reproducing the FJ relation on the other side, we would expect that also the Kormendy relation is not reproduced by the equal mass merging hierarchy. In fact, if we assume that the Es obey to the FJ relation, $`L_\mathrm{B}\sigma ^n`$, then from equation (4) we obtain a fiducial Kormendy relation $`R_\mathrm{e}L_\mathrm{B}^{1.2252/n}`$. For example, with $`n=4`$ (for which the exponent is remarkably near to that reported by Bernardi et al. 2003) the effective radius of the end–product of the last equal mass merger is a factor $`3`$ larger than that predicted by the “Kormendy” relation. In other words, the results of our simulations are characterized by too large effective radii (see Fig. 5, bottom panel). Thus, in the explored equal mass merging hierarchies both $`\sigma _0`$ and $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ deviate systematically from the values expected from FJ and Kormendy relations. Yet, their deviations from the two scaling laws curiously compensate reproducing the edge–on FP; this shows clearly that the FJ and Kormendy relations are not simple projections of the FP, which is actually preserved by merging, but, despite their larger scatter, contain additional information on galaxy structure and dynamics.

### 3.2 Accretion

In Section 3.1 we showed that, in the case of equal mass merging of one and two–component galaxies, the virial expectations were qualitatively followed also by the observational properties $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ and $`\sigma _0`$, in addition to $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ and $`r_\mathrm{V}`$. We recall that these expectations are independent of the specific merging history, as far as the zeroth order seed galaxies are identical systems, and so we could consider “accretion” simulations superfluous. However, the amount of escaping particles or the non–homology of the final end–products could depend on the mass ratio of the merging systems, thus resulting in substantial changes in $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ and/or $`\sigma _0`$. Following this argument we now present the results of accretion simulations, whose technical setting is described in Section 2. From the structural point of view, the end–products of accretion are less flattened than the corresponding (i.e. with the same mass) equal mass mergers, being, in general, triaxial systems with axis ratios in the range $`0.6\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}c/a\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.9}`$, and $`0.7\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}b/a\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.9}`$, and becoming more and more spherical with increasing mass as a consequence of the higher number of merging events and the random direction of accretion. The evolution of the surface brightness profile in the accretion hierarchy is shown in Fig. 2, where the best fit Sersic parameter $`m`$ is represented with empty circles and triangles (for head–on merging and merging with angular momentum, respectively). A first relevant difference with the equal mass merging results is the decrease of $`m`$ with mass at mass ratios larger than 4 for the head–on accretions, and the consequent smaller range of $`m`$ ($`2\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}m\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8}`$) spanned by their end–products. Therefore, the explored head–on accretion scenario fails at reproducing the relation between the surface brightness profile shapes and luminosity of real galaxies, which are characterized by $`m`$ increasing with galaxy luminosity and also spanning a larger range. A different situation is obtained when considering accretion simulations with non negligible orbital angular momentum: the structural properties of the end–products are curiously similar to the equal mass cases.

In the upper panel of Fig. 3 we plot $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ as a function of mass of also of the head–on accretion end–products (empty circles). We found that the fraction of mass lost in each merging $`\mathrm{\Delta }M/(M_1+M_2)`$, decreases from $`0.06`$ in the first step to $`0.01`$ in the last one, summing up to a total amount of mass lost over 15 steps of $``$ $`18\%`$, about the same value found in the corresponding equal mass merging cases. The slightly larger increase of $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ in the head–on accretion hierarchy with respect to the equal mass merging cases is fully accounted for larger values of $`v_{\mathrm{ej}}`$, in accordance with the estimate given in equation (17). In the lower panel of Fig. 3 we also show the evolution of $`r_\mathrm{M}`$ in the head–on accretion hierarchy (empty circles). The behavior of this quantity is qualitatively similar to that of equal mass mergers: the slightly flatter slope of the sequence with respect to the simple expectation $`r_\mathrm{M}M`$ is due to the stronger evolution of structural non–homology, as revealed by Fig. 2. On the other hand, the end–products of accretion simulations with angular momentum (empty triangles in Fig. 3) are more similar to equal mass merging case.

#### 3.2.1 Fundamental Plane

The most striking difference of the end–products of head–on accretion simulations (empty circles) with respect to the equal mass merging hierarchy and also to accretion simulations with angular momentum (empty triangles) is apparent in the upper panel of Fig. 4, where the results are plotted in the $`(k_1,k_3)`$ space. In fact, after few accretions, the end–products are characterized by a $`k_3`$ decreasing for increasing $`k_1`$, at variance with the FP slope and the trend shown by the end–products of equal mass mergers. As a consequence, the last explored models (corresponding to an effective mass increase of a factor $`12`$) are found at a distance $`\delta k_3`$ larger than the FP scatter. This result, when interpreted by using the information in Fig. 2, is not surprising. In fact, being the coordinate $`k_3`$ a measure of non–homology for galaxies with constant $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$ (as those explored in this paper), the decrease of the Sersic parameter $`m`$ at increasing mass (at variance with real galaxies) reflects directly in the unrealistic trend in the $`(k_1,k_3)`$ plane. On the contrary, in the face–on $`(k_1,k_2)`$ plane (Fig. 4, lower panel), the end–products of accretion (both head–on and with angular momentum) evolve along the same direction followed by equal mass mergers, albeit with a smaller excursion in $`k_1`$ and $`k_2`$.

#### 3.2.2 Faber–Jackson and Kormendy relations

In Fig. 5 we also plot the results of accretion simulations in the planes representing the FJ and the Kormendy relations. At variance with the case of the edge–on FP, and independently on the presence of angular momentum, the behavior of the end–products is considerably similar to that of the equal mass mergings, i.e., both FJ and Kormendy relations are not reproduced. The end–products have $`\sigma _0`$ smaller and $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ larger than the values predicted by the two scaling relations for the given luminosity (mass) increase. However, a closer inspection of Fig. 5 reveals that both $`\sigma _0`$ and $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ are systematically larger in the case equal mass mergers than in the case of head–on accretion: in other words, the end–products in the latter case deviate more from the FJ and less from the Kormendy than those in the former. The result relative to the effective radius simply reflects the different evolution of the half–mass radius in the two scenarios (see Fig. 3, lower panel), while the behavior of $`\sigma _0`$ depends both on structural and dynamical non–homology effects: the combined effect of the lower values of $`\sigma _0`$ and the larger values of $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ is responsible of the decreasing of $`k_3`$ with $`k_1`$ observed in the analysis of the edge–on FP. In other words, at variance with equal mass mergers and accretions with angular momentum, there is not enough compensation between the trends in $`\sigma _0`$ and $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ able to reproduce the FP tilt in case of head–on accretions.

## 4 Dissipationless merging and the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relation

On the basis of the results of the previous Section, it is particularly interesting to investigate whether dissipationless merging is able to reproduce the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relation, and we attempt to answer this question by using the simulations presented in Section 3. Here we recall that in our simulations we do not take into account the presence BH in the merging galaxies, yet we argue that we can reach robust conclusions, and this for two reasons. In fact, as well known, at the equilibrium (i.e. after the virialization of the end–product) the presence of the BH has not significant influence on $`\sigma _0`$. This can easily be seen by considering that the sphere of influence of a BH with mass $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ at the center of a galaxy with central velocity dispersion $`\sigma _0`$ has a fiducial radius $`r_{\mathrm{BH}}GM_{\mathrm{BH}}/\sigma _0^2`$, and combining this equation with equation (7) we obtain

$$r_{\mathrm{BH}}0.01\times \left(\frac{\sigma _0}{200\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1}\right)^{\alpha 2}\mathrm{kpc},$$
(19)
where we assumed $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}=10^8M_{}`$ when $`\sigma _0=200\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (see, e.g., Tremaine et al. 2002). The central velocity dispersion used in the definition of the FP and of the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relations is the luminosity weighted projected velocity dispersion inside the radius $`R_\mathrm{e}/8`$ which, for ellipticals with $`\sigma _0200`$ km s-1, is in the range $`0.2\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}R_\mathrm{e}/8\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.6}`$ kpc, one order of magnitude larger than $`r_{\mathrm{BH}}`$. Thus, once the numerical end–products reached the equilibrium, their $`\sigma _0`$ is a good estimate of the real quantity even in presence of a BH of realistic mass. The second reason requires a more careful discussion. In fact, during the dynamical evolution of the merging system, a BH binary is formed and, in principle, its evolution could affect the kinematic properties of the end–product even beyond $`r_{\mathrm{BH}}`$. However Milosavljevic & Merritt (2001), with the aid of numerical simulations, showed that the formation of a BH binary does not modify significantly the central velocity dispersion measured within the standard aperture $`R_\mathrm{e}/8`$, although the inner density profile is modified (for interesting observational evidences of this case see Lauer et al. 2002). In any case, we remark here that, if any, the expected effect of binary BHs is to decrease the central velocity dispersion, as a consequence of dynamical friction heating against background stars.

On the basis of these considerations we simply assume that each seed galaxy contains a BH of mass $`M_{\mathrm{BH},0}`$, and that each merging end–product contains a BH obtained by the merging of the BHs of the progenitors (at the end of this Section, however, we will discuss two important problem faced by this last assumption). Unfortunately, BH merging is still a poorly understood physical process, in particular with respect to the amount of emitted gravitational waves (see, e.g., CvA, and references therein), and for this reason we consider two extreme situations: the case of classical combination of masses ($`M_{\mathrm{BH},1+2}=M_{\mathrm{BH},1}+M_{\mathrm{BH},2}`$, with no emission as gravitational waves), and the case of maximally efficient radiative merging ($`M_{\mathrm{BH},1+2}^2=M_{\mathrm{BH},1}^2+M_{\mathrm{BH},2}^2`$, corresponding to entropy conservation in a merging of two non rotating BHs). Following this choice, in Fig. 6 we plot the central velocity dispersion of the mergers versus the mass of their central BH in the case of classical (panel a) and maximally radiative (panel b) BH merging. As expected from the similarity between the FJ and the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relations, in the classical case, both (one–component) equal mass mergers (solid squares and triangles) and accretion mergers (empty circles and triangles) are unable to reproduce the observed relation, even when its slope is assumed as high as 5, with representative points well outside the observed scatter (vertical dotted bars). As it happens for the FJ relation, the situation is somewhat better when considering equal mass mergers of two–component galaxy models: in presence of DM the stellar central velocity dispersion is higher for given BH mass and the end–products are found closer to the observed relation (stars in Fig. 6). Thus, as for the FJ, the reason of the failure of dissipationless merging at reproducing the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relation is that the end–products are characterized by a too low $`\sigma _0`$ for the given $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$, i.e., $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ is too high for the resulting $`\sigma _0`$. A promising solution to this problem could be the emission of some fraction of $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ as gravitational waves. In fact, by assuming maximally efficient radiative BH merging, the points are found remarkably closer to the observed relation, even if it is apparent that the slope of the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relation is not well reproduced by the end–products of head–on accretion (empty circles). Note however that, while in the classical scenario the Magorrian relation is (obviously) nicely reproduced (Fig. 6), in case of substantial emission of gravitational waves the relation between BH mass and bulge mass is not reproduced (Fig. 6).

All the results presented in this Section holds under the strong assumption that the BHs of the merging galaxies are retained by the end–products, but there at least two basic mechanisms that could be effective in expelling the central BHs. The first is related to the general instability of three body systems: if a third galaxy is accreted by the end–product of a previous merging before the binary BH at its center merged in a single BH, then the escape of the smallest BH is highly possible. It is clear that if this process happens more than a few times, then the Magorrian relation will be not preserved at the end. A plausible solution to this problem is then to assume that the characteristic time of BH merging (first by dynamical friction on the background stars and then by emission of gravitational waves) is shorter than the characteristic time between two galaxy merging (for a detailed discussion of this problem see, e.g., Milosavljevic & Merritt 2001, Yu 2002, Haehnelt & Kauffmann 2002, Volonteri, Haardt & Madau 2003). However, a second physical mechanism could be more effective in expelling the resulting BH from the center of a galaxy merger, i.e., anisotropic emission of gravitational waves. This process, commonly known as the “kick velocity”, is directly related to the fraction of BH mass emitted anisotropically during the BH coalescence (see, e.g., Flanagan & Hughes 1998, CvA). Gravitational waves in fact travel at the velocity of light, and so even the anisotropic emission of a few thousandths of the mass of the BH binary will produce a recoil (due to linear momentum conservation) of the resulting BH with a characteristic velocity higher than the escape velocity typical of massive galaxies. In conclusion, it seems to us not trivial to assume that in each galaxy merging the resulting BH will reside at the center (see, e.g., Haehnelt & Kauffmann 2000).

## 5 Discussion and conclusions

As outlined in the Introduction, the present study is similar, in some aspects, to previous studies concerning the effects of merging on the FP. The results of our simulations are consistent with those of Capelato et al. (1995), based on N-body simulations of King (1966) galaxy models, and of Dantas et al. (2003), based on Hernquist models, who found that the edge–on FP is reproduced by dissipationless merging, owing to non–homology of the end–products. However, they considered only the first two or three steps of the merging hierarchy. In the same line of investigation, Gonzalez-Garcia & van Albada (2003) found that also the first generation of end–products of dissipationless merging based on Jaffe (1983) models preserves the FP when seen edge–on. At variance with these works, we used galaxy models with a substantially larger number of particles, we explored the cumulative effects of several generations of merging, and we also compared with other scaling laws, such as the Faber-Jackson, the Kormendy, and the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relations.

The main results of our simulations can be summarized as follows:

* The edge–on FP is well reproduced by dissipationless hierarchical equal mass merging of one and two–component galaxy models, and by accretion simulations with substantial angular momentum, with their seed galaxies (i.e. the merging zeroth order generation) placed on the FP itself. On the contrary, in the case of head–on accretion, the $`k_3`$ coordinate decreases at increasing $`k_1`$, at variance with real galaxies. The physical reason of these different behavior is due to a different evolution of structural non–homology of the end–products in the two scenarios; in fact the Sersic best fit parameter $`m`$ grows monotonically with mass in equal mass mergers (and accretion with angular momentum), while decreases with mass in head–on accretion end–products.
* In both scenarios the scatter in the ($`k_1,k_3`$) coordinates associated to projection effects is of the order of the observed 1-$`\sigma `$ dispersion of the edge–on FP.
* At variance with the results of the edge–on FP, all the results of our simulations are in qualitative agreement when plotted in the ($`k_1,k_2`$) plane, where the FP is seen nearly face–on. In this plane the mergers move parallel to the line defining the zone of avoidance, and remain in the region of the FP populated by real galaxies.
* As a direct consequence of the numerical findings that the “observables” $`\sigma _0`$ and $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ follow closely the evolution of $`\sigma _\mathrm{V}`$ and $`r_\mathrm{V}`$ as predicted by the virial theorem, the end–products of our simulations fail to reproduce both the FJ and Kormendy relations. However, in the case of equal mass merging and accretion merging with angular momentum, the large values of $`R_\mathrm{e}`$ and the nearly constant values of $`\sigma _0`$ curiously compensate, and the end–products follow nicely the edge–on FP (see the first point above).
* Under the reasonable hypothesis that the derived values of $`\sigma _0`$ are not strongly affected by the dynamical evolution of binary BHs, our results show that dissipationless merging, while in accordance with the Magorrian relation, fails to reproduce the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relation. We have then shown that, allowing for substantial emission of gravitational waves during the BHs coalescence, the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _0`$ relation is surprisingly reproduced, but the Magorrian relation is not. Merging by head–on accretion suffers of an additional problem when considered together with the Magorrian relation: our simulations in fact showed that the best Sersic $`m`$ parameter decreases at increasing mass of the end–product, a behavior opposite to what is empirically found (Graham et al. 2001).

In conclusion the results of the presented simulations suggest that substantial dissipationless merging (especially when involving stellar systems of very different mass) cannot be the basic mechanism of formation of Es. We note, however, that our exploration of the parameter space is by no means complete, because in the simulations we did not consider initial conditions corresponding to multiple merging. In any case, indications exist that our results should be obtained also under these more general circumstances (Nipoti et al. 2003b). Finally, we note that from the numerical results one cannot exclude, on the basis of FP, FJ, and Kormendy relations, that Es could experience few occasional mergings with other Es, even in recent times as observed by van Dokkum et al. (1999). In any case, it is well known that many other astrophysical evidences, based on stellar population properties, such as the $`\mathrm{Mg}_2`$-$`\sigma _0`$ and the color-magnitude relations, and the waveband dependence of the relation between mass–to–light ratio and galaxy luminosity (see, e.g., Pahre et al. 1998b, Pahre, de Carvalho & Djorgovski 1998a), strongly argue for a substantial dissipative phase in the formation of spheroids.

If we exclude dissipationless merging as the formation mechanism for Es, then we are left with two possible solutions, namely the monolithic scenario or a merging scenario where dissipation plays an important role. In this last case the presented simulations can also say something. In fact gas dissipation should be effective in shrinking the density distribution of the merging end–products, and, at the same time, increasing their central velocity dispersion, changes that are in the direction required by the FJ and Kormendy relations. In addition, in order to preserve the Magorrian relation, a fraction of the star forming dissipating gas must flow on the central BH, producing QSO activity; in this case the cosmological evolution of QSOs would be a tracer of the merging history, in accordance with the old ages of stars in Es. As a consequence, numerical simulations of galaxy merging in presence of gas (see, e.g., Bekki 1998), taking also into account the feedback from the central BH in a self-consistent way (see, e.g., Tabor & Binney 1993, Binney & Tabor 1995, Ciotti & Ostriker 1997, 2001), and finally a better understanding of BH merging (see, e.g. Merritt & Ekers 2002; Hughes & Blandford 2002) are highly needed for a substantial progress in this field.

## Acknowledgments

L.C. would like to thank Giuseppe Bertin, Piero Madau, Jerry Ostriker, Silvia Pellegrini, Alvio Renzini and Tjeerd van Albada for useful discussions. We thank Reinaldo de Carvalho and the anonymous Referee for helpful comments. C.N. and P.L. are grateful to CINECA (Bologna) for assistance with the use of the Cray T3E and of the IBM Linux Cluster. This work was supported by MURST CoFin2000.


text:
# Measurement of 𝐵⁰→𝐷_𝑠^limit-from(∗)+𝐷^{∗-} Branching Fractions and 𝐵⁰→𝐷_𝑠^{∗+}𝐷^{∗-} Polarization with a Partial Reconstruction Technique

## I INTRODUCTION

Precise knowledge of the branching fractions of exclusive $`B`$ decay modes provides a test of the factorization approach ref:th-fact . Factorization neglects final state interactions between the quarks of the two final state mesons. The pattern of branching fractions for two-body $`B`$ decays to modes such as $`D^{()}\pi `$, $`D^{()}\rho `$ ref:Dstpifact  can be successfully accommodated in such a model. However, it is possible that the factorization assumption is not applicable to the decays $`BD^{()}X`$, where the meson $`X`$ contains a heavy quark. The current experimental uncertainties for $`BD_s^{()+}\overline{D}^{}`$ branching fractions ref:cleo-dsinc  do not allow us to perform a precise test of the factorization approach in this case.

Further tests of factorization are provided by measuring the polarization in decays of $`B`$ mesons to vector-vector final states. Within experimental errors, polarization measurements are consistent with factorization predictions for the final states $`\overline{D}{}_{}{}^{}\rho `$ ref:cleo-dstrho , $`\overline{D}{}_{}{}^{}\rho (1450)`$ ref:dstrhoprime , and $`D_s^{}\overline{D}^{}`$ ref:cleo-dds-polar .

In this paper we present measurements of the branching fractions111footnotetext: Reference to a specific decay channel or state also implies the charge conjugate decay or state. The notation $`D_s^{()+}`$ refers to either $`D_s^+`$ or $`D_s^+`$. $`(B^0D_s^{()+}D^{})`$. We also report a measurement of the $`D_s^+`$ polarization in the decay $`B^0D_s^+D^{}`$, obtained from an angular analysis. These results provide tests of factorization with increased precision.

## II THE BABAR DETECTOR AND DATA SET

The data used in this analysis were collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II storage ring. An integrated luminosity of 20.8$`\text{ fb}^1`$ was recorded in 1999 and 2000 at the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ resonance, corresponding to about 22.7 million produced $`B\overline{B}`$ pairs.

A detailed description of the BABAR detector is presented in Ref. ref:babar . Only the components of the detector most relevant to this analysis are briefly described here. Charged particles are reconstructed with a five-layer, double-sided silicon vertex tracker (SVT) and a 40-layer drift chamber (DCH) with a helium-based gas mixture, placed in a 1.5 T solenoidal field produced by a superconducting magnet. The charged particle resolution is approximately $`(\delta p_T/p_T)^2=(0.0013p_T)^2+(0.0045)^2`$, where $`p_T`$ is the transverse momentum given in $`\mathrm{GeV}/c`$. The SVT, with a typical single-hit resolution of 10$`\mu \mathrm{m}`$, provides measurement of the impact parameters of charged particle tracks in both the plane transverse to the beam direction and along the beam. Charged particle types are identified from the ionization energy loss ($`\mathrm{d}E/\mathrm{d}x`$) measured in the DCH and SVT, and the Cherenkov radiation detected in a ring imaging Cherenkov device (DIRC). Photons are identified by a CsI(Tl) electromagnetic calorimeter (EMC) with an energy resolution $`\sigma (E)/E=0.023(E/\mathrm{GeV})^{1/4}0.019`$.

## III METHOD OF PARTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

In selecting candidates for the decays $`B^0D_s^{()+}D^{}`$ with $`D^{}\overline{D}{}_{}{}^{0}\pi _{}^{}`$, no attempt is made to reconstruct the $`\overline{D}^0`$ decays. Only the $`D_s^{()+}`$ and the soft $`\pi ^{}`$ from the $`D^{}`$ decay are detected. In this way, the candidate selection efficiency is higher by almost an order of magnitude than that obtained with full reconstruction of the final state. Given the four-momenta of the $`D_s^{()+}`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$, and assuming they originate from a $`B^0D_s^{()+}D^{}`$ decay, the four-momentum of the $`B^0`$ can be calculated up to an unknown azimuthal angle $`\varphi `$ around the $`D_s^{()+}`$ flight direction. This calculation uses the constraint of the known center-of-mass (CM) energy and the masses of the $`B^0`$ and $`D^{}`$ mesons. Energy and momentum conservation then allows a determination of the four-momentum of the $`\overline{D}^0`$, whose square yields the $`\varphi `$-dependent missing mass

$$M_{\mathrm{miss}}=\sqrt{(\mathrm{P}_B\mathrm{P}_{D_s^{()+}}\mathrm{P}_\pi )^2},$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{P}_B,\mathrm{P}_{D_s^{()+}}\mathrm{and}\mathrm{P}_\pi `$ are the four-momenta of the $`B^0`$, $`D_s^{()+}`$ and the soft pion, respectively. In this analysis the missing mass is defined with an arbitrary choice for the angle $`\varphi `$, such that the $`B^0`$ momentum $`𝐩_B`$ makes the smallest possible angle with $`𝐩_\pi `$ and $`𝐩_{D_s^{()+}}`$ in the CM frame.

## IV EVENT SELECTION

For each event, we calculate the ratio of the second to the zeroth order Fox-Wolfram moments, using all observed charged tracks and neutral clusters. This ratio is required to be less than 0.35 in order to suppress continuum $`e^+e^{}q\overline{q}`$ events, where $`q=u,d,s,c`$.

We reconstruct $`D_s^+`$ mesons in the decay modes $`D_s^+\varphi \pi ^+`$, $`D_s^+\overline{K}{}_{}{}^{0}K_{}^{+}`$ and $`D_s^+K_S^0K^+`$, with subsequent decays $`\varphi K^+K^{}`$, $`\overline{K}{}_{}{}^{0}K^{}\pi ^+`$ and $`K_S^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$. These modes are selected since they offer the best combination of large branching fraction, good detection efficiency, and high signal-to-background ratio. Charged tracks from the $`D_s^+`$ are required to originate from within $`\pm `$10 cm along the beam direction and $`\pm `$1.5 cm in the transverse plane, and leave at least 12 hits in the DCH.

Kaons are identified using $`\mathrm{d}E/\mathrm{d}x`$ information from the SVT and DCH, as well as the Cherenkov angle and the number of photons measured with the DIRC. For each detector component $`d=\{\mathrm{SVT},\mathrm{DCH},\mathrm{DIRC}\}`$, a likelihood $`L_d^K`$ ($`L_d^\pi `$) is calculated given the kaon (pion) mass hypothesis. A charged particle is classified as a “loose” kaon if it satisfies $`L_d^K/L_d^\pi >1`$ for at least one of the detector components. A “tight” kaon classification is made if the condition $`_dL_d^K/L_d^\pi >1`$ is satisfied.

Three charged tracks consistent with originating from a common vertex are combined to form a $`D_s^+`$ candidate.

In the case of the decay $`D_s^+\varphi \pi ^+`$, two oppositely charged tracks must be identified as kaons with both satisfying the loose criterion, and at least one, the tight criterion. No identification requirement is applied to the pion. The reconstructed invariant mass of the $`K^+K^{}`$ candidates must be within 8$`\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$ of the nominal $`\varphi `$ mass ref:pdg . In the decay $`D_s^+\varphi \pi ^+`$, the $`\varphi `$ meson is polarized longitudinally, resulting in the kaons having a $`\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _H`$ distribution, where $`\theta _H`$ is the angle between the $`K^+`$ and $`D_s^+`$ directions in the $`\varphi `$ rest frame. We require $`|\mathrm{cos}\theta _H|>0.3`$, which retains 97% of the signal while rejecting about 30% of the background.

In the reconstruction of the $`D_s^+\overline{K}{}_{}{}^{0}K_{}^{+}`$ mode, the $`K^{}\pi ^+`$ invariant mass is required to be within 65$`\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$ of the nominal $`\overline{K}^0`$ mass ref:pdg . This wider window leads to a larger fraction of combinatorial background than in the $`D_s^+\varphi \pi ^+`$ mode. To reduce this background, we require $`|\mathrm{cos}\theta _H|>0.5`$. In addition, substantial background arises from the decays $`D^+\overline{K}{}_{}{}^{0}\pi _{}^{+}`$ and $`D^+\overline{K}{}_{}{}^{0}\pi _{}^{+}`$, which tend to peak around the nominal $`D_s^+`$ mass if the pion is misidentified as a kaon. This background is suppressed by requiring that the kaon daughter of the $`\overline{K}^0`$ satisfy the loose kaon identification criterion and the other kaon, the tight criterion.

For the decay mode $`D_s^+K_S^0K^+`$, with $`K_S^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, the $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ invariant mass must be within 15$`\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$ of the nominal $`K_S^0`$ mass ref:pdg , and the charged kaon must satisfy the tight criterion. To improve the purity of the $`K_S^0`$ sample, we require the angle $`\alpha `$ between the $`K_S^0`$ momentum vector and the $`K_S^0`$ flight direction to satisfy $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha >0.98`$.

The invariant mass $`M_{D_s}`$ of $`D_s^+`$ candidates is required to be within three standard deviations ($`\sigma _{D_s}`$) of the signal distribution peak $`M_{D_s}^{\mathrm{peak}}`$ seen in the data.

$`D_s^+`$ candidates satisfying these selection criteria are combined with photon candidates to form $`D_s^+D_s^+\gamma `$ candidates. Candidate photons are required to satisfy $`E_\gamma >50`$$`\mathrm{MeV}`$, where $`E_\gamma `$ is the photon energy in the laboratory frame, and $`E_\gamma ^{}>110`$$`\mathrm{MeV}`$, where $`E_\gamma ^{}`$ is the photon energy in the CM frame. When the photon candidate is combined with any other photon candidate in the event, the pair must not form a good $`\pi ^0`$ candidate, defined by a total CM energy $`E_{\gamma \gamma }^{}>200`$$`\mathrm{MeV}`$ and an invariant mass $`115<M_{\gamma \gamma }<155`$$`\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$.

The $`D_s^+`$ candidates must satisfy $`|\mathrm{\Delta }M\mathrm{\Delta }M^{\mathrm{peak}}|<2.5\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }M}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^{\mathrm{peak}}`$ is the peak of the signal $`\mathrm{\Delta }M=M(D_s^+\gamma )M(D_s^+)`$ distribution observed in the data. The CM momentum of the $`D_s^{()+}`$ candidate is required to be greater than 1.5$`\mathrm{GeV}/c`$.

$`D_s^{()+}`$ candidates are combined with $`\pi ^{}`$ candidates to form partially reconstructed $`B^0D_s^{()+}D^{}`$ candidates. Since the transverse momentum of the pion in signal events is less than 210$`\mathrm{MeV}/c`$, these tracks are not required to have DCH hits.

Due to the high combinatorial background in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }M`$ distribution, more than one $`D_s^+\pi ^{}`$ candidate pair is found per event, with about a 20% probability from signal Monte Carlo simulation. To select the best candidate in the event, the following $`\chi ^2`$ is calculated for each $`D_s^+`$ candidate

$$\begin{array}{c}\chi ^2=\left[(M_iM_i^{\mathrm{peak}})/\sigma _i\right]^2+\left[(M_{D_s}M_{D_s}^{\mathrm{peak}})/\sigma _{D_s}\right]^2\\ \\ +\left[(\mathrm{\Delta }M\mathrm{\Delta }M^{\mathrm{peak}})/\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }M}\right]^2,\end{array}$$
(2)
where $`M_i`$ is the measured invariant mass of the intermediate $`i=\varphi `$, $`K^0`$, or $`K_S^0`$ candidate, depending on the $`D_s^+`$ decay mode, $`M_i^{\mathrm{peak}}`$ is the corresponding peak of the signal $`M_i`$ distribution, and $`\sigma _i`$ is its width obtained from data. The candidate with the smallest value of $`\chi ^2`$ in the event is retained.

## V RESULTS

The missing mass distributions of candidates for partially reconstructed $`B^0D_s^{()+}D^{}`$ decays are shown in Fig. 1. A clear signal peak is observed in all modes. We perform a binned maximum likelihood fit to these distributions. The fit function is the sum of a Gaussian distribution and a background function given by

$$f_B(M_{\mathrm{miss}})=\frac{C_1(M_0M_{\mathrm{miss}})^{C_2}\text{}}{\text{}C_3+(M_0M_{\mathrm{miss}})^{C_2}},$$
(3)
where $`C_i`$ are parameters determined by the fit, and $`M_0M_D^{}M_\pi =1.871`$$`\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$ is the kinematic end point. The fits find $`3704\pm 232`$ and $`1493\pm 95`$ events under the Gaussian peak in the sum of the $`D_s^+\pi ^{}`$ and $`D_s^+\pi ^{}`$ distributions, respectively. However, due to the presence of cross feed and self-cross feed, discussed below, further analysis is needed in order to extract the signal yields and the branching fractions.

We use a Monte Carlo simulation, which includes both $`B\overline{B}`$ and $`q\overline{q}`$ continuum events, to study the missing mass distributions of the different background sources. We consider two kinds of backgrounds: a peaking component that contributes predominantly at the end of the missing mass distribution in the signal region and a non-peaking component that is more uniform. The non-peaking component is well modeled by the background function (3). The peaking component receives contributions from related channels due to

* Cross Feed (CF): if the soft photon from a $`D_s^+D_s^+\gamma `$ decay is not reconstructed, $`B^0D_s^+D^{}`$ decays may lead to an enhancement under the signal peak of the $`D_s^+\pi ^{}`$ missing mass spectrum. Similarly, $`B^0D_s^+D^{}`$ decays may lead to a peaking enhancement in the $`D_s^+\pi ^{}`$ $`M_{\mathrm{miss}}`$ spectrum, due to the combination of a $`D_s^+`$ with a random photon.
* Self-Cross Feed (SCF): this is due to true $`B^0D_s^+D^{}`$ decays in which the $`D_s^+`$ is correctly reconstructed, but combined with a random photon to produce the wrong $`D_s^+`$ candidate, resulting in a peaking enhancement in the $`D_s^+\pi ^{}`$ spectrum.

Table 1 presents the reconstruction efficiency of correctly reconstructed signal $`B^0D_s^{()+}D^{}`$ decays, as well as cross feed and self-cross feed, found for simulated events in the signal region $`M_{\mathrm{miss}}>1.86`$$`\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$.

In addition to these background sources, we also considered a possible contribution from the charged and neutral $`B`$ decays $`BD_s^{()+}\overline{D}^{}`$. These potential background sources were simulated with four $`\overline{D}^{}`$ states: the observed $`\overline{D}{}_{1}{}^{}(2420)`$ and $`\overline{D}{}_{2}{}^{}(2460)`$ mesons, and the $`\overline{D}{}_{0}{}^{}(j=1/2)`$ and $`\overline{D}{}_{1}{}^{}(j=1/2)`$ mesons predicted by HQET ref:HQETDst . Their contribution was determined to be negligible, mainly due to the $`D_s^{()+}`$ CM momentum cut. Multi-body decays $`BD_s^{()+}X`$ are found not to contribute due to the same cut.

Figure 2 shows a comparison of the missing mass distributions in data and Monte Carlo simulation. We assume 1.05% and 1.59% branching fractions for the $`B^0D_s^+D^{}`$ and $`B^0D_s^+D^{}`$ decays, respectively, in the Monte Carlo simulation.

The number of events in the peaks in the $`D_s^+\pi ^{}`$ and $`D_s^+\pi ^{}`$ $`M_{\mathrm{miss}}`$ distributions is obtained from the fits described above. The branching fractions are computed from these yields correcting for cross feed and self-cross feed background. This is done by inverting the $`2\times 2`$ efficiency matrix, whose diagonal elements correspond to the sum of signal and self-cross feed efficiencies presented in Table 1, and whose off-diagonal terms are the cross-feed efficiencies. The efficiencies corresponding to transverse and longitudinal polarization of $`B^0D_s^+D^{}`$ have been weighted according to the measured polarization discussed below. With this procedure, the $`B^0D_s^{()+}D^{}`$ branching fractions are determined to be

$$(B^0D_s^+D^{})=(1.03\pm 0.14\pm 0.13\pm 0.26)\%,$$
(4)
$$(B^0D_s^+D^{})=(1.97\pm 0.15\pm 0.30\pm 0.49)\%,$$
(5)
and their sum is

$$(B^0D_s^{()+}D^{})=(3.00\pm 0.19\pm 0.39\pm 0.75)\%,$$
(6)
where the first error is statistical, the second is the systematic error from all sources other than the uncertainty in the $`D_s^+\varphi \pi ^+`$ branching fraction, and the third error, which is dominant, is due the uncertainty in the $`D_s^+\varphi \pi ^+`$ branching fraction $`(D_s^+\varphi \pi ^+)=(3.6\pm 0.9`$)% ref:pdg . Correlations in the systematic errors between Eqs. (4) and (5) are taken into account in Eq. (6). The sources of the systematic error are discussed in Sec. VI.

The measurement of the fraction of the longitudinal polarization $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_L/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ in the $`B^0D_s^+D^{}`$ decay mode is performed for candidates having missing mass in the signal region ($`M_{miss}>1.86`$$`\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$). To minimize the systematic error due to large backgrounds, the polarization measurement involves only the $`D_s^+\varphi \pi ^+`$ channel, which has the best signal to background ratio. Two angles are used: the helicity angle $`\theta _\gamma `$ between the $`D^{}`$ and the soft photon direction in the $`D_s^+`$ rest frame, and the helicity angle $`\theta _\pi `$ between the $`D_s^+`$ and the soft pion direction in the $`D^{}`$ rest frame. Since the $`B`$ meson is not fully reconstructed, we compute $`\theta _\gamma `$ and $`\theta _\pi `$ by constraining $`M_{\mathrm{miss}}`$ to the nominal $`D^0`$ mass ref:pdg  to obtain a unique solution for the azimuth $`\varphi `$.

The two-dimensional distribution ($`\mathrm{cos}\theta _\gamma `$, $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _\pi `$) is divided into five ranges in each dimension, resulting in 25 bins. The combinatorial background, as well as the cross feed and the self-cross feed obtained from Monte Carlo simulation, are subtracted from this two-dimensional data distribution. The resulting signal distribution is corrected bin-by-bin for detection efficiency, which is obtained from the simulation separately for each bin. A two-dimensional binned minimum-$`\chi ^2`$ fit is then performed to the efficiency-corrected signal distribution with the fit function

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\mathrm{\Gamma }}{d\mathrm{cos}\theta _\pi d\mathrm{cos}\theta _\gamma }}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_L}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _\pi \mathrm{sin}^2\theta _\gamma +`$ (7)
$`(1{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_L}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}})\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _\pi {\displaystyle \frac{1+\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _\gamma }{4}}.`$
The resulting fit has a $`\chi ^2`$ of 23.1 for 25 bins with two floating parameters ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_L/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and total normalization). Figure 3 shows the data and the result of the fit projected on the $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _\gamma `$ and $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _\pi `$ axes.

From the fit, the fraction of longitudinal polarization is determined to be

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_L/\mathrm{\Gamma }=(51.9\pm 5.0\pm 2.8)\%,$$
(8)
where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic.

## VI Systematic Uncertainties

The various contributions to the systematic errors on the branching fraction and polarization measurements are summarized in Table 2. The dominant systematic error for the branching fractions is the uncertainty on the three $`D_s^+`$ branching fractions. To evaluate the uncertainty due to the background subtraction, the signal yield is determined using an alternative method in which the number of events is extracted directly from the histogram after subtraction of the background, which is estimated with the Monte Carlo simulation. The difference of the signal yields obtained in this way from the results of the fit was taken as a systematic error. This also accounts for the systematic error due to a possible deviation of the signal shape from a Gaussian.

The Monte Carlo statistical errors in the determination of the signal and the cross feed efficiencies are included as a systematic error. The uncertainty in the calculation of the $`B^0D_s^+D^{}`$ polarization is propagated to the branching fraction systematic error. The systematic error due to the uncertainty on the efficiency for the reconstruction of charged particles is 1.2% times the number of charged particles in the decay. An additional error of 1.6% is added in quadrature to account for the uncertainty in the reconstruction efficiency of the soft pion. The systematic error due to the $`\pi ^0`$ veto requirement was studied by measuring the relative $`D_s^+`$ yields in data and Monte Carlo with and without the $`\pi ^0`$ veto.

In the polarization measurement, the level of the various backgrounds depends on the charged track, neutral cluster, and particle identification efficiencies. The fit was repeated varying the background according to the errors in these efficiencies, and the resulting variations in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_L/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ were taken as the associated systematic error.

To check that the simulation accurately reproduces the background $`M_{\mathrm{miss}}`$ distributions in the data, a thorough data-Monte Carlo comparison is made in control samples containing no signal events. These samples are events with $`1.78<M_{\mathrm{miss}}<1.85`$$`\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$; events in the $`D_s^+`$ sideband $`1.89<M_{D_s}<1.95`$$`\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$ or $`1.985<M_{D_s}<2.05`$$`\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$; events in the $`D_s^+`$ sideband $`170<\mathrm{\Delta }M<300`$$`\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$; wrong sign $`D_s^{()+}\pi ^+`$ combinations in either the $`M_{D_s}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }M`$ sidebands or signal regions determined above; and candidates in which $`M_{\mathrm{miss}}`$ was calculated with the inverse of the $`D_s^{()+}`$ center-of-mass momentum $`p_{D_s^{()+}}^{}`$. The comparison between data and Monte Carlo simulation for these control samples is shown in Table 3. The average level of discrepancy is used to estimate the uncertainty in the modeling of the background.

## VII SUMMARY

In summary, based on a partial reconstruction technique, we have measured the branching fractions

$`(B^0D_s^+D^{})`$ $`=`$ $`(1.03\pm 0.14\pm 0.13\pm 0.26)\%,`$
$`(B^0D_s^+D^{})`$ $`=`$ $`(1.97\pm 0.15\pm 0.30\pm 0.49)\%,`$
$`(B^0D_s^{()+}D^{})`$ $`=`$ $`(3.00\pm 0.19\pm 0.39\pm 0.75)\%.`$
The fraction of the longitudinal $`D_s^+`$ polarization in $`B^0D_s^+D^{}`$ decays is determined to be

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_L/\mathrm{\Gamma }=(51.9\pm 5.0\pm 2.8)\%.$$

This measurement is consistent with theoretical predictions assuming factorization, which range from 50 to 55% ref:richman ; ref:rosner . Our results are also in good agreement with previous experimental results ref:cleo-dsinc ; ref:cleo-dds-polar .

## VIII ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful for the excellent luminosity and machine conditions provided by our PEP-II colleagues, and for the substantial dedicated effort from the computing organizations that support BABAR. The collaborating institutions wish to thank SLAC for its support and kind hospitality. This work is supported by DOE and NSF (USA), NSERC (Canada), IHEP (China), CEA and CNRS-IN2P3 (France), BMBF and DFG (Germany), INFN (Italy), NFR (Norway), MIST (Russia), and PPARC (United Kingdom). Individuals have received support from the A. P. Sloan Foundation, Research Corporation, and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.


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# A random quantum key distribution by using Bell states

## 1 Introduction

The main goals of cryptography are securely supplying a key to two parties and detecting eavesdroppers. These goals cannot be achieved classically, but they can be overcome by quantum cryptography. Since *BB84* protocol ,the first quantum cryptography scheme, was published, various quantum encryption schemes have been proposed, such as the EPR scheme  , the $`4+2`$ protocol , the six-state protocol, the Goldenberg /Vaidman scheme, Koashi/Imoto scheme , and the recent protocol  and so on. But most of protocol need transport particles.

In this paper,we present a new method in which the communicators use entanglement swapping to distribute the quantum cryptographic random key and use the correlations of entanglement swapping results to detect the eavesdropper. There are two merits than the previous protocol in our scheme, $`1.`$if the communicators shared enough known entangled pairs before the key distribution,sender $`\left(\text{Alice}\right)`$ need not send any particle to receiver $`\left(\text{Bob}\right)`$. $`2.`$ The efficiency can approach $`4`$ bit secret communication per $`2`$ entangled pairs (in *BB84* protocol, it is only $`1`$ bit per pair particle).

## 2 protocol

Entanglement swapping has been proposed by Zukowski et al. for two entangled pairs in one of the *Bell* states. Entanglement swapping works as follows. Consider two pairs of entangled particles $`1`$,$`2`$,$`3`$ and $`4`$, prepared in *Bell* states respectively $`|\varphi ^+_{12}`$ and $`|\psi ^{}_{34}`$. If a *Bell* operator measurement is performed on particle $`2`$ and particles $`3`$, then we have

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{1234}`$ $`=`$ $`|\varphi ^+_{12}|\psi ^{}_{34}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left\{|\varphi ^+_{23}|\psi ^{}_{14}+|\varphi ^{}_{23}|\psi ^+_{14}|\psi ^+_{23}|\varphi ^{}_{14}|\psi ^{}_{23}|\varphi ^+_{14}\right\}.`$
From above equation, we found the four possible result $`|\varphi ^+_{23}`$,$`|\varphi ^{}_{23}`$,$`|\psi ^+_{23}`$ and $`|\psi ^{}_{23}`$ have the same probability to occur. In fact ,the outcome of each measurement is purely random. Suppose that the resulut $`|\varphi ^+_{23}`$ is obtained, consequebtly the state of the pair $`1`$ and $`4`$ after the measurement is $`|\psi ^{}_{14}`$. Therefore, the state of 1 and 4 become s entangled although they have never interacted.

Recently entanglement swapping has been used in quantum key distribution. Although there are $`3`$ entangled pairs in protocol, yet *Alice* must send particles to *Bob*. Here we propose a quantum key distribution scheme without particles transported. The proposed protocol for quantum key distribution is illustrated in Fig. $`1`$ and it is described as follows. The parties, *Alice* and *Bob*, initially share $`2n`$ *EPR* pairs in known entangled states $`|\eta _{AB}`$, $`|\eta _{AB}`$ is one of the four *Bell* states. *Alice* and *Bob* divide all entangled pairs into $`n`$ ordered groups, every group include $`2`$ entangled pairs. *Alice* and *Bob* agree beforehand that $`|\varphi ^+`$,$`|\psi ^{}`$,$`|\psi ^+`$,$`|\varphi ^{}`$ are encoded as $`00`$,$`01`$,$`10`$,$`11`$ respectively. They can perform the series operations as followsing,(*Alice* own particle $`1`$ and particle $`3`$, the particle $`2`$ and particle $`4`$ belong to *Bob*. )

$`1`$.*Alice* made a *Bell* operator measurement on particle $`1`$ and particle $`3`$.

For example, we can assumed initially the state of particle $`1`$ and particle $`2`$ is $`|\varphi ^+_{AB}^{12}`$, and the state of particle $`3`$ and particle $`4`$ is $`|\psi ^+_{AB}^{34}`$, where

$$|\varphi ^+_{AB}^{12}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|00_{AB}^{12}+|11_{AB}^{12}\right)\text{ and}$$

$$|\psi ^+_{AB}^{34}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|01_{AB}^{34}+|10_{AB}^{34}\right)\text{.}$$

*Alice* perform *Bell* operator measurement on particle $`1`$ and particle $`3`$, and record the measurement.

$`2`$.*Alice* calculated out the state of particle $`2`$ and particle $`4`$.

Suppose that *Alice*’s *Bell* operator measurement is $`|\psi ^+_{AA}^{13}`$, she can obtain *Bob*’s *Bell* operator measured result$`|\varphi ^+_{BB}^{24}`$ by the following equation,

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }_{ABAB}^{1234}=\frac{1}{2}\left\{|\varphi ^+_{AA}^{13}|\psi ^+_{BB}^{24}+|\varphi ^{}_{AA}^{13}|\psi ^{}_{BB}^{24}+|\psi ^+_{AA}^{13}|\varphi ^+_{BB}^{24}+|\psi ^{}_{AA}^{13}|\varphi ^{}_{BB}^{24}\right\}\text{.}$$
(2)
*Alice* decode the *Bell* operator measured results,she get $`10`$ and $`00`$.

$`3`$.*Alice* told *Bob* she had made *Bell* operator measurement on her particles,but did not told him the measured result by classical channel.

$`4`$.*Bob* performed a *Bell* operator measurement on particle $`2`$ and particle $`4`$ and calculated *Alice*’s *Bell* operator measurement result.

After he captured *Alice*’s classical information, *Bob* make *Bell* operator measurement on particle $`2`$ and $`4`$. He get the measured result $`|\varphi ^+_{BB}^{24}`$, and he obtain *Alice*’s *Bell* operator measurement$`|\psi ^+_{AA}^{13}`$ from the eq.($`2`$). So *Bob* can gain the bits $`10`$ and $`00`$.

they perform above progrcee repeatedly,

$`5`$.*Bob* chose some results and sent them to *Alice*, then *Alice* compared *Bob*’s results with her corresponding results, she can find if there is eavesdropper.

The important point is that the efficiency of the quantum key distribution has been improved in this protocol. From above operations, We know,that *Alice* shared $`4`$ bits with *Bob* by two entangled pairs. This way largely improves the efficiency of the distribution for cryptographic key. The efficiency can reach $`1`$ bit per paticle, it is higher than the previous protocol, for exampal, in BB84 protocol it is $`1`$ bit per pair, and in B92 protocol it is $`1`$ bit per two pairs.

## 3 Security

How secure is this protocol? Now we discuss the security of our protocol against three type of attacks.

Type I. General eavesdropping

Suppose that,*Eve*,the eavesdropper, can get secretly the classical information of *Alice* and *Bob* and know all the states of the quantum channel. If *Alice* and *Bob* do not publish their’s *Bell* operator measured result, eavesdropper (*Eve*) can not get the information from the known entangled channels. For example, both the quantum channels are the same *Bell* states $`|\varphi ^+_{AB}^{12}`$ and $`|\varphi ^+_{AB}^{34}`$. By the entanglement swapping calculation, we know the state of these entangled particles is

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }_{ABAB}^{1234}=\frac{1}{2}\left\{|\varphi ^+_{AA}^{13}|\varphi ^+_{BB}^{24}+|\varphi ^{}_{AA}^{13}|\varphi ^{}_{BB}^{24}+|\psi ^+_{AA}^{13}|\psi ^+_{BB}^{24}+|\psi ^{}_{AA}^{13}|\psi ^{}_{BB}^{24}\right\}.$$
(3)
*Eve* have many entangled pairs in state $`|\varphi ^+_{EE}`$,she performed Bell operator measurement on her particles $`1^/`$,$`2^/`$,$`3^/`$ and $`4^/`$,

$`|\mathrm{\Phi }^/_{EBEB}^{1^/2^/3^/4^/}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\{|\varphi ^+_{EE}^{1^/3^/}|\varphi ^+_{BB}^{2^/4^/}`$
$`+|\varphi ^{}_{EE}^{1^/3^/}|\varphi ^{}_{BB}^{2^/4^/}+|\psi ^+_{EE}^{1^/3^/}|\psi ^+_{BB}^{2^/4^/}+|\psi ^{}_{EE}^{1^/3^/}|\psi ^{}_{BB}^{2^/4^/}\}.`$
The four *Bell* operator measurements in eq.\[$`3`$\] and \[$`4`$\] are equally likely, each occurring with probability $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}`$. The probability, *Eve’s* *Bell* operator measurements on particles $`1^/`$ and $`3^/`$ is same as *Alice’s Bell* operator measurements on particles $`1`$ and $`3`$,is only $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}`$. That is to say,the probability, *Eve* eavesdrop $`4n`$ bits and is not detected by *Alice* or *Bob*, is only $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\right)^n`$. When $`n`$ is large enough, this probability is $`0`$ approximately.

Type II. Share the quantum channel.

If the *Eve* were smart enough, she made the state $`|\varphi ^+_{ABE}^{}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|00_{AB}|0_E+|11_{AB}|1_E\right)`$ instead of $`|\varphi ^+_{AB}`$, when *Alice* made a *Bell* operator measurement on particle $`1`$ and particle $`3`$, the state became

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{ABE}^{123456}`$ $`=`$ $`|\varphi ^+_{ABE}^{}|\varphi ^+_{ABE}^{}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\sqrt{2}}}\{|\varphi ^+_{AA}^{13}\left(\right|\varphi ^+_{BB}^{24}|\varphi ^+_{EE}^{56}+|\varphi ^{}_{BB}^{24}|\varphi ^{}_{EE}^{56})`$
$`+|\varphi ^{}_{AA}^{13}\left(|\varphi ^+_{BB}^{24}|\varphi ^{}_{EE}^{56}+|\varphi ^{}_{BB}^{24}|\varphi ^+_{EE}^{56}\right)`$
$`+|\psi ^+_{AA}^{13}\left(|\psi ^+_{BB}^{24}|\psi ^+_{EE}^{56}+|\psi ^{}_{BB}^{24}|\psi ^{}_{EE}^{56}\right)`$
$`+|\psi ^{}_{AA}^{13}\left(\right|\psi ^+_{BB}^{24}|\psi ^{}_{EE}^{56}+|\psi ^{}_{BB}^{24}|\psi ^+_{EE}^{56})\}.`$
Compare eq.\[$`3`$\] with eq.\[$`5`$\] , we found if there is an eavesdropper, there is only $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}`$ probability that the two results are same. *Bob* can send some results randomly to Alice; then Alice will be sure that there is an eavesdropper if she finds different results—they would then abandon this key. That is, Eve cannot gain any information about the key.

Type III. Replace the quantum channel

If *Eve* shared the entangled pairs $`|\varphi ^+_{AE}^{ij}`$ with *Alice* instead of *Bob*, and *Eve* shared entangled pairs $`|\varphi ^+_{EB}^{i^/j^/}`$ with *Bob*, before the key supply, both *Alice* and *Bob* would be unaware of this. Then the process of key distribution become

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }_{AEAE}^{1234}=\frac{1}{2}\left\{|\varphi ^+_{AA}^{13}|\varphi ^+_{EE}^{24}+|\varphi ^{}_{AA}^{13}|\varphi ^{}_{EE}^{24}+|\psi ^+_{AA}^{13}|\psi ^+_{EE}^{24}+|\psi ^{}_{AA}^{13}|\psi ^{}_{EE}^{24}\right\}$$
(6)
and

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }^/_{EBEB}^{1^/2^/3^/4^/}=\frac{1}{2}\left\{|\varphi ^+_{EE}^{1^/3^/}|\varphi ^+_{BB}^{2^/4^/}+|\varphi ^{}_{EE}^{1^/3^/}|\varphi ^{}_{BB}^{2^/4^/}+|\psi ^+_{EE}^{1^/3^/}|\psi ^+_{BB}^{2^/4^/}+|\psi ^{}_{EE}^{1^/3^/}|\psi ^{}_{BB}^{2^/4^/}\right\}.$$
(7)
From Eq.($`6`$) and Eq.($`7`$), we know that, the probability, which *Bell* operator measurement of particle $`1`$ and $`3`$ is same as particle $`1^/`$ and $`3^/`$, is only $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}`$, when *Bob* send some his measurement results to *Alice*, *Alice* can find if there is eavesdropper.

So we can say this protocal is secure.

## 4 Conclusion

We have given an effective quantum key distribution protocol,if the two legitimate partities shared much enough entangled pairs before the random key distribution, then there is no particle to be transported. The efficiency can approach 1 bit secret communication per particle.

Fig.$`1`$ Random quantum key distribution protocol