text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

As shown by Coleman , the existence of Q-balls is a general feature of scalar field theories carrying a conserved $`U\left(1\right)`$ charge . Q-balls can be understood as bound states of scalar particles and appear as stable classical solutions (nontopological solitons) carrying a rotating time dependent internal phase. They are characterized by a conserved nontopological charge $`Q`$ (Noether charge) which is responsible for their stability (see, for example, Refs. -). These features differentiate the Q-ball interaction properties from those of the topological solitons since here the charge $`Q`$ can take arbitrary values in a specific range, allowing for the possibility of charge transfer between solitons during the interaction process.

The concepts associated with Q-balls are extremely general and occur in a wide variety of physical contexts . Q-balls are a generic consequence of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM)  where leptonic and baryonic balls may exist. In this context the conserved charge is associated with the $`U\left(1\right)`$ symmetries leading to baryon and lepton number conservation, and the relevant $`U\left(1\right)`$ fields correspond to either squark or slepton particles. Thus, the Q-balls can be thought of as condensates of either squark or slepton particles. It has been suggested that such condensates can affect baryogenesis via the Affleck-Dine mechanism  during the post-inflationary period of the early universe. Then, two interesting possibilities occur: (i) If the Q-balls are stable and avoid evaporation into lighter stable particles like protons, they are cosmologically important since they can contribute to the dark matter content of the universe ; (ii) If they are unstable, they decay in a nontrivial way into baryons protecting them from erasure through sphaleron transitions .

Up till now, comprehensive studies of these objects have been made by using either numerical simulations - or some analytic considerations . In our approach we will semi-analytically identify the explicit relation between the energy and the charge of the Q-balls by using a semi-Bogomolny argument in the energy density. Subsequently, we will show that similar results can be obtained by using the Woods-Saxon ansatz for describing the Q-ball profile function; an approach which has been successfully applied to describe analytically the properties of multi-skyrmions in three  and two spatial dimensions . This way, some universal properties of Q-balls in the thin-wall limit can be established.

## 2 Energy of the Q-balls

Although Q-balls can exist in a variety of field theoretical models, we will consider the $`U\left(1\right)`$ Goldstone model describing a single complex scalar field $`\varphi `$ in three spatial dimensions with potential $`U\left(\left|\varphi \right|\right)`$. The Lagrangian is

$$=\frac{1}{2}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \overline{\varphi }U\left(\left|\varphi \right|\right)$$
(1)
where the potential is only a function of $`\left|\varphi \right|`$ and has a single minimum at $`\varphi =0`$. This is equivalent of stating that there is a sector scalar particles (mesons) carrying $`U\left(1\right)`$ charge and having mass squared equal to $`\frac{1}{2}U^{\prime \prime }\left(0\right)`$. The corresponding energy functional is given by

$$E=\left(\frac{1}{2}\left|_t\varphi \right|^2+\frac{1}{2}\left|\varphi \right|^2+U\left(\left|\varphi \right|\right)\right)d^3x.$$
(2)
The model has a global $`U\left(1\right)`$ symmetry leading to the conserved Noether current

$$J_\mu =\frac{1}{2i}\left(\overline{\varphi }_\mu \varphi \varphi _\mu \overline{\varphi }\right).$$
(3)
The conserved Noether charge $`Q`$ is

$$Q=\frac{1}{2i}\left(\overline{\varphi }_t\varphi \varphi _t\overline{\varphi }\right)d^3x.$$
(4)
A stationary Q-ball solution has the form

$$\varphi =e^{i\omega t}f\left(r\right)$$
(5)
where $`f\left(r\right)`$ is a real radial profile function which satisfies the ordinary differential equation

$$\frac{d^2f}{dr^2}=\frac{2}{r}\frac{df}{dr}\omega ^2f+U^{}\left(f\right)$$
(6)
with boundary conditions $`f\left(\mathrm{}\right)=0`$ and $`f^{}\left(0\right)=0`$.

This equation can either be interpreted as describing the motion of a point particle moving in a potential with friction , or in terms of Euclidean bounce solutions . In each case the effective potential being $`U_{eff}\left(f\right)=\omega ^2f^2/2U\left(f\right)`$ leads to constraints on the potential $`U\left(f\right)`$ and the frequency $`\omega `$ in order for a Q-ball solution to exist. Firstly, the effective mass of $`f`$ must be negative. If we consider a potential $`U\left(f\right)`$ which is non-negative and satisfies $`U\left(0\right)=U^{}\left(0\right)=0`$, $`U^{\prime \prime }\left(0\right)=\omega _+^2>0`$ then one can deduce that $`\omega <\omega _+`$. Furthermore, the minimum of $`U\left(f\right)/f^2`$ must be attained at some positive value of $`f`$, say $`0<f_0<\mathrm{}`$ and existence of the solution requires that $`\omega >\omega _{}`$ where $`\omega _{}^2=2U\left(f_0\right)/f_0^2`$. Hence, Q-balls exist for all $`\omega `$ in the range $`\omega _{}<\left|\omega \right|<\omega _+`$.

Thus, the charge $`Q`$ of a stationary Q-ball solution simplifies to

$`Q`$ $``$ $`\omega I\left[f\right]`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`4\pi \omega {\displaystyle r^2f^2\left(r\right)𝑑r}`$
where $`I\left[f\right]`$ is the moment of inertia. Numerical and analytical methods have shown that when the internal frequency is close to the minimal value $`\omega _{}`$, the profile function is almost constant, implying that the charge (7) is large (thin-wall approximation). On the other hand, when the internal frequency approaches the maximal value $`\omega _+`$ the profile function falls off very quickly (thick-wall approximation). In the thick-wall approximation the behavior of the charge $`Q`$ depends on the particular form of the potential and the number of dimensions . In the case studied here we show that $`Q\mathrm{}`$ as $`\omega \omega _+`$.

In order to derive the minimum of the energy of the Q-ball at fixed charge $`Q`$, it is convenient to represent the energy in the form

$$E__Q=\frac{Q^2}{2I\left[f\right]}+4\pi \left(\frac{f^{}^2}{2}+U\left(f\right)\right)r^2𝑑r$$
(8)
where the stabilizing role of the Q-ball rotational part is obvious. Note that, without rotational energy the Q-ball would collapse since $`E__Q0`$ as $`f\left(r\right)0`$ everywhere except at the origin $`r=0`$. This is similar to the case of rotating skyrmions when the 4-th order Skyrme term is omitted in the Lagrangian. The zero mode (rotational) quantum correction to the energy, which is proportional to $`\left(I\left[f\right]\right)^1`$ plays a stabilizing role in this case.

The choice of the potential is not unique, the standard requirement is that the function $`U\left(f\right)/f^2`$ has a local minimum at some value of $`f`$ different from zero. Here we will consider the following potential

$$U\left(f\right)=f^2\left[1+\left(1f^2\right)^2\right].$$
(9)
Note that $`\omega _+=2`$ and $`\omega _{}=\sqrt{2}`$ and so that stable Q-balls exist for $`\sqrt{2}<\omega <2`$.

## 3 Semi-Bogomolny Argument

We now proceed to obtain an ansatz for the profile function by applying a semi-Bogomolny argument  in the energy functional (8-9). Initially, this approach was applied to the Skyrme model , where it was shown that the lower energy bound is proportional to the topological charge. Although the model studied here is not a topological one (ie there is no topological charge), the Bogomolny argument can still be applied and leads to an upper energy bound. This way, the profile function satisfies an exactly soluble first order differential equation and the corresponding energy and charge density can be easily derived. The same approach was applied for description of multi-skyrmions properties, as presented in .

The energy (8-9) using the Bogomolny argument can be expressed as:

$`E__B`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega }}\right)Q+4\pi {\displaystyle \left(\frac{1}{2}\left(f^{}\right)^2+f^2\left(1f^2\right)^2\right)r^2𝑑r}`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega }}\right)Q+4\pi {\displaystyle \left(\frac{f^{}}{\sqrt{2}}+f\left(1f^2\right)\right)^2r^2𝑑r}4\pi {\displaystyle \sqrt{2}f^{}f\left(1f^2\right)r^2𝑑r}`$
$``$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega }}\right)Q4\pi {\displaystyle \sqrt{2}f^{}f\left(1f^2\right)r^2𝑑r}.`$
The equality is satisfied when the total square term is zero which gives the semi-Bogomolny equation

$$f^{}=\sqrt{2}f\left(1f^2\right).$$
(11)
The corresponding profile function has the simple form

$$f\left(r\right)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+C__B\mathrm{exp}\left(2\sqrt{2}r\right)}},C__B>0$$
(12)
which satisfies the boundary conditions $`f\left(0\right)=1/\sqrt{1+C__B}`$ and $`f\left(\mathrm{}\right)=0`$, while $`f^{}\left(0\right)=\sqrt{2}C__B/\left(1+C__B\right)^{3/2}`$. Note that the asymptotic value of (12): $`f\mathrm{exp}\left(\sqrt{2}r\right)`$ is in agreement with the equation of motion (6) for $`\omega =\sqrt{2}`$ (ie for large values of $`Q`$). In fact, inside the $`Q`$-ball $`f^{}0`$ and $`f1`$, while outside the $`Q`$-ball $`f^{}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ and $`f=0`$ and so (12) describes accurately the profile function of the Q-ball outside and inside its region where the last term in (10) vanishes. However, (12) does not describe accurately the profile function of the $`Q`$-ball on its surface (the so-called transition region). Although, in the thin-wall approximation the analytical and numerical results (presented in Table 1) converge as $`Q`$ increases since the relative contribution of the surface decreases like $`Q^{1/3}`$ at large $`Q`$.

For the specific form of the profile function (12) the charge and the energy can be evaluated explicitly. We find that

$`Q__B`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \omega }{2\sqrt{2}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{6}}\mathrm{ln}\left(C__B\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\left[\mathrm{ln}\left(C__B\right)\right]^3+Li_3\left[C__B\right]\right),`$
$`E__B`$ $``$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega }}\right)Q+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}\pi }{4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{6}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[\mathrm{ln}\left(C__B\right)\right]^2+\mathrm{ln}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C__B}}\right)+Li_2\left[C__B\right]\right)`$ (13)
where $`Li_n\left(z\right)=_0^z\frac{Li_{n1}\left(y\right)}{y}𝑑y`$ and $`Li_1\left(y\right)=\mathrm{ln}\left(1y\right)`$ is the polylogarithm function.

Next, the equation for the energy $`E__B`$ above has to be minimized with respect to $`C__B`$ while $`Q__B`$ is kept constant. We expect the semi-Bogomolny ansatz to be valid only when $`C__B0`$ where the initial “velocity” of the trial profile function $`f\left(r\right)`$ tends to zero. In this region, the logarithms will dominate the dilogarithm and the trilogarithm functions respectively, since these functions tend to zero like polynomials. Thus, by substituting $`z=\mathrm{ln}\left(C__B\right)`$ for $`z>0`$ one obtains

$`Q__B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \omega z}{12\sqrt{2}}}\left(\pi ^2+z^2\right),`$
$`E__B`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega }}\right)Q__B+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}\pi }{4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2+3z^2}{6}}+z\right).`$ (14)
One can explicitly solve $`\omega `$ in terms of the charge $`Q__B`$ given above in order to obtain that

$$\omega =\frac{12\sqrt{2}Q__B}{\pi z\left(\pi ^2+z^2\right)}$$
(15)
which when substituted into the energy gives

$$E__B=\frac{6\sqrt{2}Q__B^2}{\pi z\left(\pi ^2+z^2\right)}+\frac{\pi z\left(\pi ^2+z^2\right)}{12\sqrt{2}}+\frac{\sqrt{2}\pi }{4}\left(\frac{\pi ^2+3z^2}{6}+z\right).$$
(16)
Now, upon minimizing the energy with respect to $`z`$ we find that the frequency $`\omega `$ and the charge $`Q__B`$ are given by

$`\omega ^2`$ $`=`$ $`2+{\displaystyle \frac{12\left(1+z\right)}{\pi ^2+3z^2}},`$
$`Q__B^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2z^2\left(\pi ^2+z^2\right)^2}{144\left(\pi ^2+3z^2\right)}}\left(6+6z+\pi ^2+3z^2\right).`$ (17)
Finally, the relation between $`z`$ and $`\omega `$ is

$$z=\frac{2}{\left(\omega ^22\right)}\left(1+\sqrt{1\frac{\pi ^2}{12}\left(\omega ^22\right)^2+\left(\omega ^22\right)}\right).$$
(18)
It is obvious that in the limit $`\omega \sqrt{2}`$ the parameter $`z`$ goes to infinity in consistency with the analytical results (14). Thus, the semi-Bogomolny argument is valid in the thin-wall approximation.

The elimination of the $`z`$ variable from the equations that define $`Q__B`$ and $`\omega `$ can be easily performed. By letting $`\epsilon =\omega ^22`$ one gets

$`z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\epsilon }}\left(1+\sqrt{1+\epsilon {\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{12}}\epsilon ^2}\right),`$ (19)
$`Q__B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \sqrt{2+\epsilon }\left(24+18\epsilon +\left[24+\epsilon \left(6+\pi ^2\epsilon \right)\right]\sqrt{1+\epsilon \frac{\pi ^2}{12}\epsilon ^2}\right)}{9\sqrt{2}\epsilon ^3}},`$ (20)
$`E__B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \left(2+\epsilon \right)}{\sqrt{2}\epsilon ^2}}\sqrt{1+\epsilon {\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{12}}\epsilon ^2}+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \sqrt{2}\left(1+\epsilon \right)}{\epsilon ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4+\epsilon }{2\sqrt{2+\epsilon }}}Q__B`$ (21)
It is obvious that $`Q__B\mathrm{}`$ as $`\omega \sqrt{2}`$ (which corresponds to $`\epsilon 0`$) while the upper energy limit for any value of $`Q`$ (or $`\epsilon `$) can be obtained from (21).

Next, by eliminating $`\epsilon `$ between $`Q__B`$ and $`E__B`$ we get the Q-ball energy-charge dependence since

$`E__B`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2}Q__B+{\displaystyle \frac{3^{2/3}\pi ^{1/3}}{2^{7/6}}}Q__B^{2/3}+{\displaystyle \frac{5\pi ^{2/3}}{2^{11/6}3^{2/3}}}Q__B^{1/3}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \left(4+3\pi ^2\right)}{36\sqrt{2}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^{4/3}\left(17216\pi ^2\right)}{25922^{1/6}3^{1/3}}}Q__B^{1/3}`$ (22)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^{5/3}\left(2054\pi ^2+27\pi ^4\right)}{19442^{5/6}3^{2/3}}}Q__B^{2/3}+O\left(Q__B^1\right).`$
Note that for large values of $`Q`$ (ie for $`Q^{1/3}1`$) the expression (22) gives the upper energy bound. In Table 1 we compare the results obtained from the semi-Bogomolny argument by means of (22) with the ones obtained by solving the full second order differential equations (6) numerically, for different values of $`Q`$. The agreement is impressive and appears to extend far beyond the expected range of validity of the semi-Bogomolny argument.

| $`Q`$ | $`E_{_{num}}`$ | $`E__B`$ | $`\omega _{num}`$ | $`f\left(0\right)_{num}`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 47.691 | 95.5007 | 87.9945 | 1.99750 | 0.1530 |
| 25.703 | 51.6331 | 49.8406 | 1.98997 | 0.3020 |
| 18.064 | 36.4665 | 36.0640 | 1.97737 | 0.4460 |
| 15.168 | 30.7595 | 30.7182 | 1.95959 | 0.5798 |
| 14.065 | 28.6076 | 28.6585 | 1.93649 | 0.7018 |
| 14.193 | 28.8511 | 28.8982 | 1.90788 | 0.8093 |
| 16.268 | 32.7688 | 32.7587 | 1.87350 | 0.9000 |
| 19.256 | 38.2651 | 38.2417 | 1.83303 | 0.9723 |
| 23.678 | 46.2186 | 46.2262 | 1.78606 | 1.0244 |
| 34.910 | 65.9541 | 66.0215 | 1.73205 | 1.0555 |
| 61.603 | 111.220 | 111.482 | 1.67033 | 1.0654 |
| 149.263 | 253.840 | 254.515 | 1.60000 | 1.0564 |
| 722.656 | 1140.119 | 1141.95 | 1.51987 | 1.0345 |

Table 1: Comparison of the energy given by (22) obtained from the semi-Bogomolny argument ($`E__B`$) with the ones obtained by numerical simulations ($`E_{num}`$).

Note that although the semi-Bogomolny argument and therefore the corresponding energy-charge formula (22) holds only for large values of $`Q`$ the agreement between the numerical and analytical results holds for a wide range of $`Q`$. However, although the profile (12) describes very well the energy of the Q-ball as a function of the charge $`Q`$, its value at the origin $`f\left(0\right)`$ is always smaller than one and differs considerably from $`f\left(0\right)_{num}`$ of Table 1.

In Figure 1 we plot the energy obtained from the semi-Bogomolny argument (22) and from the numerical simulations ($`E_{_{num}}`$) for a wide range of $`Q`$. Note the impressive agreement between the two results. The peculiar behavior of Figure 1 for small $`Q`$ can be explained from Figure 2 where the energy and charge (obtained numerically) as functions of $`\omega `$ are presented. It is obvious that in a range of $`\omega `$ two different values of energy and charge exist. Finally, in Figure 3 we plot the charge obtained from the semi-Bogomolny argument (20) and from the numerical simulations ($`Q_{_{num}}`$) in terms of the parameter $`a=\sqrt{4\omega ^2}`$ in the allowed range $`\sqrt{2}<\omega <2`$.

Remark: The semi-Bogomolny method can be applied for other potentials of polynomial type. For example, in  the potential is of the form

$$U\left(f\right)=f^2\left[1+\left(1f\right)^2\right]$$
(23)
and the corresponding semi-Bogomolny equation (analogous to (11)) is $`f^{}=f\left(1f\right)`$ while its solution

$$f\left(r\right)=\frac{1}{1+\stackrel{~}{C}__B\mathrm{exp}\left(\sqrt{2}r\right)}.$$
(24)
has the same asymptotic behavior for large $`r`$ as in (12).

## 4 Woods-Saxon Ansatz

A more general form of the ansatz (12) is widely used in nuclear physics describing nuclear matter distribution inside heavy nuclei, or potential of nucleon-nucleus interaction. This is the so-called Woods-Saxon distribution and the corresponding profile function is given by

$$f\left(r\right)=\frac{C_{_{WS}}}{\sqrt{1+\mathrm{exp}\left[a\left(rr__Q\right)\right]}}.$$
(25)
In this case, three arbitrary parameters (instead of one) appear in the parametrization, and thus, more degrees of freedom exist. Here, $`r__Q`$ corresponds to the radius of the Q-ball and $`1/a`$ defines the thickness of the shell of the Q-ball. At the origin, the values of the profile function and its derivative are: $`f\left(0\right)=C_{_{WS}}\left(1+e^{ar__Q}\right)^{1/2}`$ and $`f^{}\left(0\right)=aC_{_{WS}}e^{ar__Q}\left(2+2e^{ar__Q}\right)^{3/2}`$. Recall that, due to boundary conditions, $`f^{}\left(0\right)`$ needs to be very small (in fact, zero). This limit can be obtained when the product $`ar__Q`$ is large that is in the thin-wall approximation where $`\omega \sqrt{2}`$ (see below). The field-theoretical motivation for the Woods-Saxon ansatz was presented in the previous section since for $`C_{_{WS}}=1`$ and $`C__B=\mathrm{exp}\left(ar__Q\right)`$ the two profile functions given by (25) and (12) coincide.

For $`Q`$ large, the energy of the Q-balls given by (8-9) can be approximately evaluated using the Woods-Saxon ansatz (25). To do so, integrals of the following type are used:

$`I_n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\left(C_{_{WS}}\right)^{2n}}{\left(1+\mathrm{exp}\left[a\left(rr__Q\right)\right]\right)^n}r^2𝑑r}`$ (26)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^3}}\left(C_{_{WS}}\right)^{2n}\left(b^2I_n^0+2bI_n^1+I_n^2\right)`$
where $`n=1,2,3`$ and $`b=ar__Q`$ while the moment of inertia becomes: $`I\left[f\right]=4\pi I_1`$. In general, by letting $`w=\mathrm{exp}\left[a\left(rr__Q\right)\right]`$ while $`dr=dw/aw`$, the $`m`$-power of the integral $`I_n`$ is defined as:

$$I_n^m=_{w_0}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{z}\frac{\left(\mathrm{ln}w\right)^m}{\left(1+w\right)^n}𝑑w$$
(27)
where $`w_0=\mathrm{exp}\left(b\right)`$. After some algebra it can be easily shown that the integrals $`I_n^m`$ are related via the following recursive relation

$$I_{n+1}^m=I_n^m\frac{m}{n}I_n^{m1}\frac{\left(\mathrm{ln}w_0\right)^m}{n\left(1+w_0\right)^n}.$$
(28)
For $`w_01`$ one gets:

$`I_1^0b,I_2^0b1,I_3^0b{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}},`$
$`I_1^1{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{2}}+L,I_2^1{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{2}}+L,I_3^1{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{2}}+L+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},`$
$`I_1^2{\displaystyle \frac{b^3}{3}},I_2^2{\displaystyle \frac{b^3}{3}}2L,I_3^2{\displaystyle \frac{b^3}{3}}3L`$ (29)
where the parameter $`L=2\left(11/4+1/91/16+\mathrm{}\right)1.644`$ does not contribute in the leading order expansion of the parameter $`Q^{1/3}`$ (which we assume to be small – see below). Then the energy of the Q-ball (8 -9) can be approximated as

$$E__Q\frac{Q^2}{\gamma 2VC_{_{WS}}^2}+\gamma VC_{_{WS}}^2\left(2\alpha 2C_{_{WS}}^2+\beta C_{_{WS}}^4\right)+E_{deriv}$$
(30)
where $`\alpha =13b^1`$, $`\beta =1\frac{9}{2}b^1`$, $`\gamma =1+6Lb^2`$ and $`V=\frac{4}{3}\pi r__Q^3`$. The derivative term of the energy: $`E_{deriv}=\frac{1}{2}f^{}{}_{}{}^{2}r_{}^{2}𝑑r`$ is going to be neglected (initially).

The minimization of $`E__Q`$ with respect to $`\gamma VC_{_{WS}}^2`$ occurs at

$$\left(\gamma VC_{_{WS}}^2\right)_{_{min}}=\frac{Q}{\sqrt{2\left(22C_{_{WS}}^2\alpha +C_{_{WS}}^4\beta \right)}}$$
(31)
which determines $`r__Q`$. The corresponding minimum of the energy is

$$E__Q\sqrt{2}Q\left(22\alpha C_{_{WS}}^2+\beta C_{_{WS}}^4\right).$$
(32)
Further minimization with respect to $`C_{_{WS}}`$ gives the following value for the energy

$$E__Q\sqrt{2}Q\left(2\frac{\alpha ^2}{\beta }\right)$$
(33)
at $`\left(C_{_{WS}}\right)_{_{min}}^2=\alpha /\beta `$. For large $`b`$ (of order $`Q^{1/3}`$), the parameter $`\left(C_{_{WS}}\right)_{_{min}}`$ can be approximated by $`\left(C_{_{WS}}\right)_{_{min}}\sqrt{1+3/\left(2b\right)}=1+3/\left(4b\right)`$ and in this limit the energy becomes:

$$E__Q\sqrt{2}Q\left(1+\frac{3}{4b}\right)$$
(34)
where

$$\left(r__Q\right)_{_{min}}\left(\frac{3}{4\sqrt{2}\pi }\right)^{1/3}Q^{1/3}=0.55Q^{1/3}.$$
(35)
Note that equation (34) implies that $`E__Q\sqrt{2}Q`$ as $`b\mathrm{}`$.

Next the derivative energy contribution is considered:

$$E_{deriv}\frac{a\pi C_{_{WS}}}{4}\left(r__Q^2+\frac{2r__Q}{a}+\frac{2L}{a^2}\right).$$
(36)
Taking into account the highest order terms in $`r__Q`$ one obtains

$$E__Q\sqrt{2}Q+\frac{3Q}{2\sqrt{2}b}+\frac{\pi b\left(r__Q\right)_{_{min}}}{4}.$$
(37)
Further minimization with respect to $`b`$ gives the energy-charge dependence of the Q-balls up to order $`O\left(Q^{2/3}\right)`$:

$`E__Q`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{2}Q+\left({\displaystyle \frac{9\pi }{8\sqrt{2}}}\right)^{1/3}Q^{2/3}`$ (38)
$`=`$ $`\sqrt{2}Q+1.35702Q^{2/3}`$
which occurs when

$`b_{_{min}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{3\sqrt{2}Q}{\pi r__Q}}\right)^{1/2}`$ (39)
$`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{12}{\pi }}Q\right)^{1/3}1.563Q^{1/3}.`$
Note that the $`O\left(Q^{2/3}\right)`$ terms of (38) and (22) coincide, and therefore the two analytic methods are in good agreement. In addition, from (35) and since $`b=ar__Q`$ one gets that $`a_{_{min}}=2\sqrt{2}`$ which is the value obtained from the semi-Bogomolny argument (12).

To conclude, let us state that in the thin-wall limit the profile function (25) is given by $`f\left(0\right)1+3/\left(4b\right)`$ (or by $`f\left(0\right)1+1/\left(2b\right)`$ including higher order corrections). Moreover, in this limit the Woods-Saxon distribution (25) is close to the exact values of the Q-ball profile function (obtained numerically) presented in Table 1. In fact, for $`Q=149.26`$: $`f\left(0\right)=1.06`$ and $`f\left(0\right)_{_{num}}=1.0564`$ while for $`Q=722.66`$: $`f\left(0\right)=1.0356`$ and $`f\left(0\right)_{_{num}}=1.0345`$.

Remark: For the alternative potential given by (23) the semi-Bogomolny function (24) can be generalized in a similar way as (25) and the corresponding energy is similar to (38) since

$$E__Q\sqrt{2}Q+\left(\frac{\pi }{3\sqrt{2}}\right)^{1/3}Q^{2/3}.$$
(40)
Note that the two expressions differ only by a $`2/3`$ factor before the term $`O\left(Q^{2/3}\right)`$.

## 5 Discussion and Conclusions

It has been shown that for specific parametrizations of the scalar field a semi-analytic treatment for Q-balls exists leading to transparent and simple results. Two kinds of approximations have been considered: one based on a semi-Bogomolny argument which gives an exponential-step parametrization for the profile function and the Woods-Saxon parametrization (the semi-Bogomolny generalization) motivated also by nuclear physics experience.

The agreement of the results obtained using both approximations with the numerical ones follows from the fact that the ansatz for the profile function obtained from semi-analytic approaches have the correct asymptotic behaviour as $`Q`$ and $`r`$ are large. This was not the case in the semi-analytic treatment of the Skyrme model in three or two spatial dimensions . Although the energies obtained were accurate within $`0.5\%`$ compared to the exact ones for large values of baryon number, the asymptotic behaviour of the profile function was incorrect .

The thickness of the Q-ball surface (ie transition region) where the profile $`f`$ decreases from $`f1`$ to $`f=0`$ can be estimated by

$$t\frac{2}{b}r__Q.$$
(41)
For $`Q`$ large (and using the results of section 4), the thickness is independent of the charge since $`t\sqrt{2}`$. Thus, the large Q-balls can be visualized as spherically symmetric balls with constant internal energy density

$$\rho _{_{E,V}}2.$$
(42)
These balls are surrounded by a surface of constant thickness and constant average energy density per unit volume since

$`\rho _{_{E,S}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{E_{deriv}}{4\pi tr__Q^2}}`$ (43)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}`$
in natural units of the model. Therefore it is energetically favorable for small Q-balls to fuse into a bigger one since the surface of a single big Q-ball is smaller than the sum of surfaces of several smaller Q-balls, for the same value of $`Q`$ (or with the same total volume).

Our approach can be extended in lower (and also higher) spatial dimensions in a natural way. In particular, in the one-dimensional case the energy-charge dependence is

$$E\left(Q\right)_{_{1D}}\sqrt{2}Q+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}$$
(44)
which is in a close agreement (within $`1\%`$) with the numerical results obtained in . In addition, the value of the profile function at the origin is (approximately) given by

$$f\left(0\right)_{_{1D}}1+\frac{1}{4Q}$$
(45)
where terms of the form $`\mathrm{exp}\left(ar__Q\right)`$ have been neglected since $`Q`$ is large (ie $`r__Q>>`$).

In the two-dimensional case the corresponding results are

$$E\left(Q\right)_{_{2D}}\sqrt{2}Q+\left(\frac{\pi }{2\sqrt{2}}\right)^{1/2}\sqrt{Q}$$
(46)
while

$$f\left(0\right)_{_{2D}}1+\left(\frac{\pi }{\sqrt{2}}\right)^{1/2}\frac{1}{4\sqrt{Q}}$$
(47)
The formulas (44), (46) and (38) indicate that the relative contribution of the surface energy ($`E_{deriv}`$) increases as the dimensionality of space increases. This property of Q-balls can be useful in cosmological applications. In some respect Q-balls are similar to the multiskyrmions which correspond to bubbles of matter with universal properties of the shell, where the mass and baryon number density is concentrated .

We conclude by saying that our arguments can be extended to other types of potentials. Another important issue concerns the semi-analytic identification of the profile function satisfying equation (6) for (9). We expect to report on this problem soon.

## Acknowledgements

The work of VBK is supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grant 01-02-16615. TI thanks the Royal Society and the National Hellenic Research Foundation for a Study Visit grant.

References


format: text

text:
# The SED in the hot continuum of the symbiotic binary AR Pavonis

## 1 Introduction

AR Pavonis was discovered by Mayall (1937) as an eclipsing P-Cygni type star with a period of 605 days. Andrews (1974) found that the eclipsed object is highly variable in both brightness and size. On the basis of ultraviolet spectroscopy Hutchings et al. (1983) confirmed this view. Bruch, Niehues and Jones (1994) observed a periodic ($`P_{\mathrm{orb}}`$) wave-like variation, which occurred in the visual light curve between eclipses from 1985.7. As the most satisfying explanation they suggested a brightness modulation due to variation in the mass transfer rate from the red giant to the hot component. Analysing historical 1889–1998 light curve, Skopal et al. (2000a) identified the real change of the orbital period at a rate $`\dot{P}=3.5\pm 0.8\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^5`$ between 1896 April and 1985 September. They also noted that during quiescence, the light curve has characteristic features similar to those observed in CVs. Recently, Skopal et al. (2001a) refined the mean orbital period to 604.45$`\pm 0.02`$ days.

As to the AR Pav configuration, Thackeray and Hutchings (1974) proposed a binary model, in which the red giant fills its Roche lobe and loses mass to an evolved, $``$30 000 K hot, compact object surrounded by a moderately dense gas cloud or a thick ring. Kenyon and Webbink (1984) found that the observed UV continuum colours for AR Pav are well comparable to those derived from a model of an accretion disk around a main sequence accretor. Recently, Schild et al. (2001), having new radial velocities of the red giant, determined its mass function to 0.055 $`M_{}`$ and the projected rotation velocity of 11$`\pm 2\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Assuming co-rotation, they derived the giant radius of 130 $`R_{}`$ and by comparing its adequate stellar parameters with RGB/AGB evolutionary tracs in the HR diagram, they suggested the giant mass as 2 $`M_{}`$, and, consequently from the mass function, the hot component mass as 0.75 $`M_{}`$. Based on these parameters, Schild et al. (2001) suggested that the hot component in AR Pav is most probably a white dwarf and the cool component is deeply inside of its Roche lobe (however, as we will show later in this paper, the giant in this system does most probably fill its Roche lobe). Most recently, Quiroga et al. (2002), having radial velocities of both components, determined their masses as $`M_\mathrm{g}=2.5M_{}`$, $`M_\mathrm{h}=1M_{}`$. They obtained the radial velocity curve of the hot star under assumption that the broad emission wings of the H$`\alpha `$, H$`\beta `$ and He II 4686 profiles originate from the inner accretion disk or an envelope around the central star. In addition, the authors suggested that the central absorption in hydrogen line profiles is formed in the neutral part of the giant’s wind, which is concentrated in the orbital plane.

In this paper we analyse the SED in the continuum between 0.12 and 3.4 $`\mu `$m with the aim to determine a basic configuration of the hot object in AR Pav. In Sect. 3 we introduce individual components of radiation often used in interpretation of the spectra of symbiotic stars. In Sect. 4 we compare the observed SED and those given by current models of symbiotic stars, including a standard ionization model and models with an accretion disk. Finally, in Sect. 5 we discuss their physical plausibility and suggest basic structure of the hot object.

## 2 Observations

To reconstruct the SED of AR Pav in the range of 0.12 to 3.4 $`\mu `$m we used the broad-band optical and infrared $`UBVRI`$ and $`JHKL`$ photometry and the IUE (International Ultraviolet Explorer) low-resolution spectroscopy.

The optical/IR magnitudes were summarized by Skopal et al. (2000a) and some new observations were recently published by Skopal et al. (2000b). To determine the star’s brightness in eclipses we used photometric measurements of Andrews (1974) and Menzies et al. (1982). Observations in the $`R_\mathrm{C}`$ and $`I_\mathrm{C}`$ bands of the Cousins system were transformed into the Johnson system according to Bessell (1983). Stellar magnitudes were converted to fluxes according to the calibration of Léna, Lebrun and Mignard (1999).

The ultraviolet fluxes were taken from Fig. 5 of Schild et al. (2001). We used average values from those measured out of eclipses (i.e. between orbital phases $`0.91>\phi >1.1`$; the rms within 10-15%) and values from the mid eclipse. To get better coverage of the ultraviolet continuum we added a few values from Fig. 2 of Hutchings et al. (1983) and measurements presented in Table 4 of Kenyon and Webbink (1984).

Finally, we dereddened observations with $`E_{\mathrm{B}\mathrm{V}}`$ = 0.26 (Kenyon and Webbink, 1984) using the extinction curve of Mathis (1987) in the UV/optical region, while in the IR wavelengths we used reddening ratios of Savage and Mathis (1979). Table 1 summarizes the observations used in our paper.

## 3 Spectral energy distribution

Figure 1 shows the 0.12 – 3.4 $`\mu `$m SED in the continuum of AR Pav. This suggests a high luminosity of the hot object, similar to that of its cool companion. The out-of-eclipse continuum is characterized by: (i) A round far-UV shape with decreasing fluxes to shorter wavelengths, and (ii) a flat profile in the near-UV/optical region. Both the steep far-UV ($`\lambda <\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}500}`$ Å) continuum and the prominent Balmer jump in emission – characteristic features of the continuum of symbiotic stars during quiescence – are not present. We will fit the out-of-eclipse continuum by that including an accretion disk, but also test whether a standard ionization model of symbiotic binaries can explain these characteristics.

During eclipses, the ultraviolet continuum weakened by a factor of $``$3–5, it is flatter than that observed out of eclipses and displays a discontinuity at $`U/B`$. This suggests the nebular-type spectrum of a very hot gas. We will fit the uneclipsed continuum by the nebular radiation of a high electron temperature. In the following sections we describe simple models of the considered components of radiation, which we use to fit the observed SED.

### 3.1 Nebular continuum

In the conditions of ionized gaseous nebulae in symbiotic stars (a dense medium with $`n_\mathrm{e}10^610^{11}\mathrm{cm}^3`$), the main contributor to the near-UV/optical continuum is the free-bound (f-b) emission from hydrogen. Less important are the f-b emission of He II and He I. Due to the dominance of the H I f-b emission and its basically similar profile with that of He I and He II (see Fig. 1 of Brown and Mathews, 1970), and also for the sake of simplicity, we calculate here only H I f-b and f-f nebular contributions. The nebular flux is proportional to $`n_+n_\mathrm{e}𝑑V`$, where $`n_+`$ and $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ is the concentration of protons and electrons, respectively. Accordingly, the observed flux, $`F_\lambda ^{\mathrm{obs}}`$ ($`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{\AA }^1`$), of the nebular continuum at the wavelength $`\lambda `$, can be written as

$$4\pi d^2F_\lambda ^{\mathrm{obs}}=\epsilon _\lambda _Vn_+n_\mathrm{e}𝑑V,$$
(1)
in which $`d`$ is the distance to the object, $`V`$ is the volume of the ionized zone and $`\epsilon _\lambda `$ ($`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{\AA }^1`$) is the total (f-b + f-f) volume emission coefficient per electron and per ion in the wavelength scale. We calculated them according to expressions given by Brown and Mathews (1970) adopting the Gaunt factors to be unity. In spite of this approximation, our procedure reproduces the tabulated values (Brown and Mathews, 1970; Gurzadyan, 1997) within $``$5% at the blue side of the Balmer discontinuity and within 1% or less at other wavelengths for electron temperatures $`T_\mathrm{e}`$10 000 – 20 000 K. The difference is smaller for higher $`T_\mathrm{e}`$.

### 3.2 Blackbody accretion disk and the boundary layer continuum

Because of having defined the continuum only by fluxes at selected wavelengths (i.e. only the continuous radiation can be investigated), we will assume a steady-state, time-independent accretion disk around a central star of mass $`M_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ and radius $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$. Further, the accretion disk is optically thick and radiates locally like a blackbody (e.g. Tylenda, 1981). The source of its energy is the gravitational potential energy of the accretor. The observed flux distribution of the disk, $`F_\lambda `$, is then given by contributions of blackbody annuli integrated through the entire disk. The flux emitted by each annulus at the radial distance $`r`$ is weighted by its area, 2$`\pi rdr`$. Thus the observed flux distribution of a disk at a distance $`d`$ can be written as

$$F_\lambda =\frac{2\pi \mathrm{cos}(i)}{d^2}_{R_{\mathrm{acc}}}^{R_\mathrm{d}}B_\lambda (T_{\mathrm{eff}}(r))rdr,$$
(2)
where $`i`$ is the inclination of the disk, $`R_\mathrm{d}`$ its radius, and the radial temperature structure of the disk,

$$T_{\mathrm{eff}}(r)=T_{}\left[\frac{R_{\mathrm{acc}}}{r}\right]^{3/4}\left\{1\left[\frac{R_{\mathrm{acc}}}{r}\right]^{1/2}\right\}^{1/4},$$
(3)
where

$$T_{}=4.10\times 10^4R_9^{3/4}(\mathrm{acc})M_1^{1/4}(\mathrm{acc})\dot{M}_{16}^{1/4}(\mathrm{acc})\mathrm{K},$$
(4)
in which $`R_9`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ are the radius and mass of the accretor and $`\dot{M}_{16}`$ is the accretion rate (Warner, 1995). The notation $`X_n`$ means that the parameter $`X`$ is expressed as fraction of $`10^n`$ units (the units are $`cm,g,s`$). A useful characteristic of the disk is its maximum temperature, which occurs at $`r=(49/36)R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ and has a value 0.488 $`T_{}`$.

The final stage of the mass transferred throughout the accretion disk is its deceleration and landing onto the accreting star. This happens in the so called boundary layer (BL), in which the inner disk material loses its kinetic energy to match the surface velocity of the star. If the accreting star rotates at a small fraction of its breakup velocity, then the BL emits a luminosity comparable to that of the disk. Contrary, when the star rotates close to breakup, there should be little emission from the BL (e.g. Warner, 1995). The geometry of the BL can be approximated by a ring with thickness $`2H`$ surrounding the accreting star. Then the luminosity, $`L_{\mathrm{BL}}`$, of its area, $`2\pi R_{\mathrm{acc}}2H`$, for a non-rotating star is comparable to that of the accretion disk. So,

$$L_{\mathrm{BL}}=4\pi R_{\mathrm{acc}}H\sigma T_{\mathrm{BL}}^4\frac{1}{2}\frac{GM_{\mathrm{acc}}\dot{M}_{\mathrm{acc}}}{R_{\mathrm{acc}}}=L_{\mathrm{AD}}.$$
(5)
The effective temperature of the BL can be derived with the help of Eq. 5, and according to Warner (1995) it can be approximated as

$$T_{\mathrm{BL}}2.9\times 10^5M_1^{1/3}(\mathrm{acc})R_9^{7/9}(\mathrm{acc})\dot{M}_{18}^{2/9}(\mathrm{acc})\mathrm{K}.$$
(6)
In the following section we use these components of radiation to fit the observed SED.

## 4 Modeling the UV/optical continuum

### 4.1 The uneclipsed nebula

Figure 1 shows a faint component of the nebular radiation seen during eclipses. We compared a grid of models of the nebular continuum to these fluxes and selected that with $`T_\mathrm{e}=\mathrm{40\hspace{0.17em}000}\pm \mathrm{5\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K, which corresponds to the best fit to observations (Fig. 1). Luminosity of this nebular emission is $`L_\mathrm{N}500(d/4.9\mathrm{kpc})^2L_{}`$. The uncertainty in $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ results from that in fluxes as given by the IUE observations (about 10%, in average). An analysis of the $`\chi ^2(T_\mathrm{e}`$) function is described in Skopal (2001).

### 4.2 SED of an ionization model

During quiescent phases of symbiotic binaries the hot component ($`T_\mathrm{h}10^5`$ K) ionizes a fraction of the neutral wind of the cool giant giving rise to the nebular continuum ($`T_\mathrm{e}1.52.0\times 10^4`$ K). As a result the UV/optical continuum is given by superposition of the stellar and nebular components of radiation. Below we test this possibility for the case of AR Pav.

The maximum luminosity of a blackbody hot star of a radius $`R_\mathrm{h}`$ and temperature $`T_\mathrm{h}`$, which can be converted into the nebular radiation is

$$4\pi R_\mathrm{h}^2_0^{912}\pi B_\lambda (T_\mathrm{h})d\lambda =\zeta L_\mathrm{h}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1,$$
(7)
where the factor $`\zeta (<1)`$ represents the fraction of the hot star luminosity, $`L_\mathrm{h}`$, below 912 Å. It is a strong function of the blackbody temperature between 20 000 and 60 000 K (Fig. 2). Under assumption that the ionized medium is optically thick in the Lyman continuum, i.e. all the photons with $`\lambda <`$ 912 Å are converted into the nebular emission, the maximum nebular luminosity can be expressed as

$$L_{\mathrm{neb}}^{\mathrm{max}}=_{912}^{\mathrm{}}\epsilon _\lambda d\lambda _Vn_+n_\mathrm{e}dV=\zeta L_\mathrm{h}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1.$$
(8)
Thus if the near-UV continuum is of the nebular nature, then for the observed flux, for example at $`\lambda `$=3 600 Å, $`F_{3600}^{\mathrm{obs}}5\times 10^{13}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{\AA }^1`$ (Table 1), the distance $`d`$ = 4.9 kpc and the emission coefficient $`\epsilon _{3600}=2.6\times 10^{28}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{\AA }^1(\mathrm{T}_\mathrm{e}=\mathrm{20\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K), we get by using Eq. 1 the emission measure $`EM=_Vn_+n_\mathrm{e}𝑑V=5.5\times 10^{60}\mathrm{cm}^3`$ and according to Eq. 8

$$L_{\mathrm{neb}}^{\mathrm{max}}=EM_{912}^{\mathrm{}}\epsilon _\lambda d\lambda \dot{=}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}230}L_{}.$$
(9)
The corresponding minimum of the hot star luminosity, which is capable of producing such nebular emission, is $`L_\mathrm{h}^{\mathrm{min}}=L_{\mathrm{neb}}^{\mathrm{max}}/\zeta `$ = 1380 $`L_{}`$ for $`T_\mathrm{h}=10^5`$ K ($`\zeta `$ = 0.89). To compare the model with observations, first, we scaled the emission coefficient $`\epsilon _\lambda `$ to fluxes between $`\lambda `$3000–3600 Å, where the nebular component of radiation dominates the SED in the ionization model. The scaling factor $`k_\mathrm{N}=F_\lambda ^{\mathrm{obs}}/\epsilon _\lambda =EM/4\pi d^2`$. Second, we scaled the hot star radiation with a factor $`k_\mathrm{h}L_\mathrm{h}^{\mathrm{min}}/4\pi d^2\sigma T_\mathrm{h}^4`$ to match observations in the far-UV. Figure 3 shows our best solution, given by superposition of the nebular continuum with $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ = 20 000 K and a hot stellar source ($`L_\mathrm{h}2.5\times L_\mathrm{h}^{\mathrm{min}}`$, $`T_\mathrm{h}=10^5`$ K), which roughly matches the observed UV continuum with a larger deviation at the far-UV. Cases with $`T_\mathrm{e}>`$ 20 000 K significantly exceed the far-UV fluxes, and those with $`T_\mathrm{e}<`$20 000 K cannot produce its rather flat profile. All cases do not match the optical continuum. Finally, the hot star with a lower temperature transforms a smaller fraction of its stellar radiation into the nebular (e.g. $`T_\mathrm{h}=\mathrm{5\hspace{0.17em}10}^4`$ K gives $`\zeta `$ = 0.57), which then requires too high $`L_\mathrm{h}^{\mathrm{min}}`$ other than to match the SED in the far-UV.

This analysis shows that the observed SED of the AR Pav UV continuum does not correspond to that of the ionization model of symbiotic binaries during quiescent phases. On the other hand, the presence of highly ionized emission lines in the UV spectrum (Hutchings et al., 1983) and the nebular emission during eclipses indicate a source of ionizing photons in the system.

### 4.3 SEDs with accretion disk

In accordance with previous suggestions, here we will fit the UV/optical/near-IR continuum of the hot object in AR Pav by models with an accretion disk as introduced in Sect. 3.2.

#### 4.3.1 SED with a single accretion disk

Here we calculated a grid of models of fluxes given by Eq. 2 for fixed values of $`M_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ and $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, but different $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, and selected that giving the best fit to the observed fluxes under conditions of the least square method.

According to Schild et al. (2001) we adopted the mass of the donor (the giant star) $`M_\mathrm{g}=2M_{}`$ and that of the accretor $`M_{\mathrm{acc}}=0.75M_{}`$. The rate of period change $`\dot{P}=3.5\times 10^5`$ (Skopal et al., 2000a), the mass ratio $`q=M_\mathrm{g}/M_{\mathrm{acc}}=2.7`$ and the orbital period of 605 days yield the accretion rate $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{acc}}=\mathrm{1.7\hspace{0.17em}10}^5M_{}yr^1`$ for the Roche lobe overflow if the transferred mass and its angular momentum are conserved in the system (Pringle and Wade, 1985, see Sect. 5.1 for more details). Using these values of $`M_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ and $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ to fit the component of radiation supposed to be due to the accretion disk (= SED - N - G; Fig. 4) by Eq. 2, we found the best solution for $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}=0.78R_{}`$ (Fig. 4, Table 2). We integrated the disk contributions to its outer radius $`R_\mathrm{d}=10R_{}`$, which can be considered as the smallest dimension of the disk for these parameters. This is because the disk temperature between the surface of the accretor and $`r10R_{}`$ is higher than 5 000 K, and thus radiative contributions of this part of the disk are important to explain the UV/optical SED (i.e. $`R_\mathrm{d}`$ cannot be smaller than $`10R_{}`$), but the disk annuli with $`r>10R_{}`$ (i.e. $`T(r)<\mathrm{5\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K) do not contribute significant emission at UV/optical wavelengths, and are negligible with respect to the radiation of the giant in the IR region (i.e. $`R_\mathrm{d}`$ can be larger than $`10R_{}`$). Superposition of the considered components of radiation here (G, N, AD) matches well the observed SED of AR Pav (Fig. 4). This model expresses the round profile of the far-UV continuum, the flat near-UV/optical continuum and a relatively significant (with respect to the ionization model) contribution to the near-IR continuum of the giant. Note that we observe about 0.2 mag deep eclipse even in the $`I`$ band (Menzies et al., 1982).

The accretion disk luminosity here, $`L_{\mathrm{AD}}\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}700}(d/4.9\mathrm{kpc})^2L_{}`$, can be balanced by the energy liberated in an accretion process for large accretion rates of $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{acc}}>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^4M_{}yr^1`$ (Table 2). In addition, for the orbital inclination of $`70^{}`$ (Sect. 5.2), and assuming the disk plane to be coplanar with it, the total disk luminosity is by a factor of about 1.5 larger ($`L_{\mathrm{AD}}^{\mathrm{obs}}2\mathrm{cos}(i)L_{\mathrm{AD}}`$). As discussed below (Sects. 5.1 and 5.2), observations do not contradict such a large $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ for a certain period of evolution of the giant star in AR Pav.

#### 4.3.2 SED with the boundary layer and accretion disk

To calculate the flux contributions from the BL we assumed that this region can be approximated by a blackbody at a constant temperature $`T_{\mathrm{BL}}`$ (Eq. 6). In our procedure we fitted superposition of fluxes from the accretion disk and the BL,

$$F_\lambda =F_\lambda (AD)+\pi B_\lambda (T_{\mathrm{BL}}),$$
(10)
to the observed SED, where $`F_\lambda (AD)`$ is given by Eq. 2. First, we scaled contributions from the BL with a factor

$$k_{\mathrm{BL}}=_\lambda F_\lambda (AD)d\lambda /\sigma T_{\mathrm{BL}}^4$$
(11)
to satisfy conditions of Eq. 5. Second, we calculated a grid of models for $`M_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ = 0.75 and 1.0 $`M_{}`$, $`R_\mathrm{d}`$ = 30 $`R_{}`$, $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ between $`\mathrm{1.0\hspace{0.17em}10}^5`$ and $`\mathrm{5.0\hspace{0.17em}10}^4M_{}yr^1`$ and $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ between 0.1 and 3.4 $`R_{}`$. Finally, we selected models, for which the function

$$\chi ^2(M_{\mathrm{acc}},\dot{M}_{\mathrm{acc}},R_{\mathrm{acc}})=\mathrm{\Sigma }(F_\lambda ^{\mathrm{obs}}F_\lambda (M_{\mathrm{acc}},\dot{M}_{\mathrm{acc}},R_{\mathrm{acc}}))^2/N$$
(12)
reached a minimum. We used fluxes from 1270 to 7000 Å (Table 1), but omitted those at 2200, 2600 and 2700 Å, i.e. N = 11. The function $`\chi `$ is plotted in Fig. 5. As can be seen from this figure there is no satisfactory solution. The best fits correspond to radii $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ between 0.7 and 2.5 $`R_{}`$ and the BL temperature $`T_{\mathrm{BL}}`$ 40 000 – 60 000 K. The impossibility to obtain a better solution is reflected by the too low required temperature of the BL, of which the flux dominates the far-UV wavelengths. Figure 6 shows an example. The results of this section suggest that the BL emission is not important to fit the AR Pav SED. Below, in Sect. 5.3, we discuss the BL emission in more detail.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 A mass transfer problem in AR Pav

The accretion rate of $`\mathrm{1.7\hspace{0.17em}10}^5M_{}yr^1`$ (Sect. 4.3.1) derived from the orbital period change corresponds to the conservative mass transfer from the giant star onto its companion. However, successful fits of the UV continuum require at least one order of magnitude higher rates to balance the observed luminosity. This discrepancy can be caused by mass loss from the system, which makes the orbital period increase (cf. Soberman, Phinney and van den Heuvel, 1997). So, the mass transfer rate and the mass loss rate rival each other in the orbital period change. Mass loss from AR Pav is indicated by radial velocities of absorption components of hydrogen lines. Already Mayall (1937) revealed a P-Cygni type of hydrogen line profiles on three plates from 1900, 1901 and 1908. Thackeray and Hutchings (1974) measured absorption components of the H$`\gamma `$ and/or H$`\delta `$ line profiles between 1953 and 1972. They determined an average position of these absorptions at -85.2 km s<sup>-1</sup>. Recently, Quiroga et al. (2002) measured radial velocity of the central absorption component of H$`\alpha `$ at -96 km s<sup>-1</sup> on spectra taken between 1988 and 2001. These values are shifted by -17 to -28 km s<sup>-1</sup> relative to the systemic velocity (-68 km s<sup>-1</sup>, Schild et al., 2001; Quiroga et al., 2002) and thus reflect a mass loss from the system. Under such conditions the observed decrease in the orbital period requires a much higher mass transfer than that given by conservative case. Therefore, the mass transfer rate (i.e. the accretion rate) of $`\mathrm{1.7\hspace{0.17em}10}^5M_{}yr^1`$ can be considered only as a lower limit. This fact allow us to estimate the accretor radius $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}>0.1R_{}`$ for $`M_{\mathrm{acc}}=0.751.0M_{}`$ to balance the observed accretion luminosity irrespectively to the accretion disk model. Such the large $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ precludes a white dwarf to be the accreting star in AR Pav.

### 5.2 Roche lobe overflow or a wind accretion?

Observations and the model energy distributions discussed in this paper suggest that the sole energy source in AR Pav is accretion. This view is also supported by the behaviour in its historical, 1889-2001, light curve, in which no large (5 - 7 mag) outbursts as in symbiotic novae have been observed (see Skopal et al., 2001a). In addition, the light curve has characteristic features similar to those observed in CVs (Mayall, 1937; Skopal et al., 2000a), which suggests that the basic principles of mass transfer in AR Pav are similar to those of CVs. These arguments suggest that the red giant in AR Pav fills up (or is close to) its Roche lobe. Contrary, if the giant in AR Pav underfills its Roche lobe, then the mass transfer is via accretion from a stellar wind. However, this cannot be true. If this were the case, there would have been a huge (unrealistic) mass loss via the wind (at least of $`10^3M_{}yr^1`$) to get the accretion rate required to balance the observed luminosity of the hot object. In that case, the wind mass loss would make the orbital period increase, while the observations show that the period decreases. The latter can only be due to the Roche lobe overflow.

Other observational results allow this possibility. For example, the giant’s radius inferred from eclipses, $`R_\mathrm{g}/A=0.30\pm 0.02`$ (Skopal et al., 2000a), is equal to its volume-equivalent Roche radius for the orbital inclination of 70 (Quiroga et al., 2002). The V-shape of the eclipse profile supports this possibility (e.g. Fig. 8 of Skopal et al., 2000a). Further, the 106-day periodic variation with the amplitude of a few $`\times `$0.01 mag observed in the visual light curve (Skopal et al., 2000a) could be understood as a response of the giant’s radius to its mass loss. Generally, after losing an amount of mass, the giant will restore its hydrostatic equilibrium, which leads to variation in difference of the radius of the star and its Roche lobe. In the case of the presence of a deep convective envelope in the giant star, its radius rapidly increases and the star can run into a violent mass loss instability (see Soberman, Phinney and van den Heuvel, 1997; Shore, Livio and van den Heuvel, 1994, for more detail). Such a transient high mass transfer rate from the red giant to the hot component could be responsible for a higher level of the AR Pav activity observed during 1900-01, 1935-36 and 1985-99 (Skopal et al., 2000b).

### 5.3 Boundary layer emission in AR Pav

The nebular component of radiation indicates the presence of a hot ionizing source in AR Pav. In the models with accretion disk the ionizing source is represented by the BL.

The nebular emission has a luminosity $`L_\mathrm{N}500(d/4.9\mathrm{kpc})^2L_{}`$ (= uneclipsed nebula without emission lines), which places strong constraint on the BL luminosity and ionizing capacity. For parameters of the fit shown in Fig. 4 and described in Sect. 4.3.1, $`L_{\mathrm{BL}}(L_{\mathrm{acc}})1200L_{}`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{BL}}\mathrm{51\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K (Table 2). To balance the $`L_\mathrm{N}`$ luminosity, a fraction of the BL emission below 912 Å has to be

$$L_{\mathrm{BL}}(\lambda <912\AA )=\zeta L_{\mathrm{BL}}>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}500}L_{}.$$
(13)
For $`L_{\mathrm{BL}}=1200(d/4.9\mathrm{kpc})^2L_{}`$, Eq. 13 yields the factor $`\zeta >0.42`$, which forces $`T_{\mathrm{BL}}>\mathrm{40\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K (Fig. 2). Thus the BL characterized by these quantities can balance well the observed nebular luminosity, $`L_\mathrm{N}`$.

However, our modeling the SED with the BL (Sect. 4.3.2, Table 2) does not provide satisfactory fit (Figs. 5, 6). This implies that we cannot see the hotter inner parts of the disk and that any radiation generated in the BL is absorbed and diffused in the disk in the direction to the observer, but it is free in directions to the poles to ionize there the circumstellar matter. This situation thus produces two components of radiation of a very different temperature regimes observed in the ultraviolet spectrum: A relatively cool continuum, which was investigated in this paper, and a hot ionizing source seen through the nebular emission.

It is plausible that the lack of the BL emission in the continuum results only from a different real geometry of the accretion disk (probably more extended at its edge) than we adopted in our modeling (Eq. 2). So, if the disk is rather thick in its outer parts, then we can see essentially only its outer edge, which occults the BL at the disk’s center for a high orbital inclination. Such a disk structure was suggested for the first time by Plavec and Hubeny (1994) for interacting binaries in which the accreting star in non-degenerate.

### 5.4 Configuration of the hot object and the eclipse profile

Our models of the observed SED (Sects. 4.1, 4.3.1) suggest that the hot object in AR Pav consists of an accretion disk around a central star embedded in a hot corona. This basic configuration can be independently verified by the eclipse profile, which is a function of wavelength. In the following two sections we therefore explore its two main characteristics – the different eclipse depth and width in the UV/optical/near-IR region on the basis of our model with accretion disk.

#### 5.4.1 Depth of eclipses

Already Hutchings et al. (1983) noted that there is no total eclipse below 3600 Å, and 70% of the hottest continuum (below 1400 Å) is seen even at central eclipse. Recently Schild et al. (2001) demonstrated this behaviour on the ultraviolet IUE light curves.

Generally, the eclipse depth is given by the ratio of fluxes observed in and out of eclipse. In view of our models, it is determined by the ratio of the N+G to all considered components of radiation. In Fig. 7 we compared the modeled eclipse depth according to the solution shown in Fig. 4 and that observed in the light curves (cf. Schild et al., 2001; Andrews, 1974; Menzies et al., 1982). We can see that our model explains well the wavelength-dependent depth of eclipses.

#### 5.4.2 Width of eclipses

Observations show a very broad eclipse profile in the far-UV ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi 0.20.3`$ of the orbital phase, Schild et al., 2001), while in the optical/near-IR the profile is characterized by a narrow core ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi 0.1`$) with shallow wings (Andrews, 1974; Menzies et al., 1982). The hot object in AR Pav consists of basically two components – the extended nebula and the central star with an accretion disk. Let $`f_\mathrm{N}`$ and $`f_{\mathrm{CS}}`$ be the fluxes emitted by a surface element of the projected nebula and the central source, respectively, to the sky. The observed eclipse profile then can be characterized by the ratio $`f_\mathrm{N}/f_{\mathrm{CS}}`$. The case of $`f_\mathrm{N}/f_{\mathrm{CS}}1`$ makes the eclipse profile very broad, because the extended nebula contributes significant emission with respect to that of the small central source. On the other hand, $`f_\mathrm{N}/f_{\mathrm{CS}}1`$ results in a narrow eclipse core determined by the central source, accompanied with shallow wings as the nebula is faint (see also Fig. 4 of Skopal et al., 2001b). In our approximation and for a spherical nebula, it is simple to find that

$$f_\mathrm{N}/f_{\mathrm{CS}}F_\mathrm{N}/F_{\mathrm{CS}},$$
(14)
where $`F_\mathrm{N}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{CS}}`$ are integrated fluxes of the nebula and the central source at a given wavelength. Figure 4 shows that the ratio $`F_\mathrm{N}/F_{\mathrm{CS}}`$ is a function of the wavelength, which thus represents the primary cause of the observed wavelength-dependent eclipse width. Therefore, we plotted this ratio in Fig. 8 according to modeled components of radiation shown in Fig. 4. In the effect of relation (14), Fig. 8 shows that

$$(f_\mathrm{N}/f_{\mathrm{CS}})_{\mathrm{uv}}>(f_\mathrm{N}/f_{\mathrm{CS}})_{\mathrm{opt}},$$
(15)
which answers the question why the eclipses are broader in the ultraviolet than in the optical/near-IR region. A more rigorous approach, in which the parameter $`f_\mathrm{N}/f_{\mathrm{CS}}`$ is treated as a function of the radial distance from the central object, would give a more accurate information about the nebula structure. However, this analysis is beyond the scope of this paper.

## 6 Conclusions

The results of this study may be summarized as follows:

(i) Based on the ultraviolet IUE low-resolution spectra and the broad-band optical and infrared $`UBVRI`$ and $`JHKL`$ photometry, we re-constructed the SED in the AR Pav continuum between 0.12 and 3.4 $`\mu `$m. By this way we revealed a very high luminosity of the hot object in the binary, $`L_\mathrm{h}\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}200}(d/4.9\mathrm{kpc})^2L_{}`$.

(ii) We failed to fit the UV/optical continuum of the hot object by a standard ionization model of symbiotic binaries. This suggests that the configuration of AR Pav differs significantly from the typical configuration of symbiotic binaries during their quiescent phases.

(iii) The UV/optical/IR SED can be fitted by a simple blackbody accretion disk embedded in an extended hot corona ($`T_\mathrm{e}=\mathrm{40\hspace{0.17em}000}\pm `$5 000 K). The standard thin disk model requires a high accretion rate $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{acc}}>2\times 10^4M_{}yr^1`$ onto the central star with a radius $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}2R_{}`$. Any accretion process at $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{acc}}>1.7\times 10^5M_{}yr^1`$ (Sect. 5.1) for $`M_{\mathrm{acc}}=0.751.0M_{}`$ limits the accretor radius to $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}>0.1R_{}`$ to balance the observed accretion luminosity. This result suggests that the accreting star in AR Pav is non-degenerate.

(iv) Te basic configuration of the hot object – the accretion disk embedded in an extended nebula – allow us to understand the observed wavelength-dependent depth and width of the eclipse profile (Figs. 7, 8): The eclipse width results from that the hot object consists of the two geometrically very different components of radiation (N + AD), the ratio of which is a function of the wavelength. The eclipse depth is given by a different ratio of the uneclipsed (N+G) to the total light throughout the spectrum.

(v) Models with the accretion disk and its BL ($`L_{\mathrm{BL}}L_{\mathrm{AD}}`$) failed to fit the far-UV SED. However, the presence of a very hot region in the system is indirectly indicated through the strong nebular emission. This suggests that the hotter inner parts of the disk with the BL are permanently occulted by the disk material, when viewing the system (nearly) edge-on.

This research has been supported by the Slovak Academy of Science under a grant No. 1157. The author is grateful to Dr. D. Chochol for commenting on the manuscript, Dr. H.M. Schmid for his critical reading of an earlier draft of this paper, and an anonymous referee for several helpful comments.


text:
# References

6 February 2003

hep-ph/0302045

Coherence in Neutrino Interactions
C. Giunti
INFN, Sezione di Torino, and Dipartimento di Fisica Teorica,

Università di Torino, Via P. Giuria 1, I–10125 Torino, Italy

Abstract

The claim in hep-ph/0301231 is refuted in a pedagogical way. It is explicitly shown that extremely relativistic neutrinos produced in pion decay are correctly described by the standard flavor neutrino states which are a coherent superposition of massive neutrino states.

The author of Ref.  wrote:

> If neutrinos are massive, ‘lepton flavor eigenstates’ are absent from the amplitudes of all Standard Model processes.

His argument follows from a faulty calculation of the amplitude in the pion decay process

$$\pi ^{}\mathrm{}^{}+\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}},$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{}=e,\mu `$.

According to the standard theory of neutrino mixing , the antineutrino produced in the process (1) is described by the *coherent superposition of massive antineutrino states*

$$|\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}=\underset{k}{}U_\mathrm{}k|\overline{\nu }_k,$$
(2)
where $`U`$ is the unitary mixing matrix. Sometimes such a state is called “flavor state”, or “flavor eigenstate”, or “lepton flavor eigenstate”. The author of Ref.  claimed that

> the introduction of such ‘lepton flavor eigenstates’ as linear superpositions of neutrino mass eigenstates leads to predictions that are excluded by experiment.

In order to confute the argument presented in Ref. , let us calculate in a correct way the amplitude of the pion decay process (1) in the case of neutrino mixing.

At the first order of perturbation theory, the amplitude of the pion decay process (1) is

$$𝒜_{\pi ^{}\mathrm{}^{}\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}}=\mathrm{}^{},\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}|i\mathrm{d}^4x_\mathrm{I}^{\mathrm{CC}}(x)|\pi ^{},$$
(3)
with the Charged-Current Standard Model weak interaction Hamiltonian

$`_\mathrm{I}^{\mathrm{CC}}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=e,\mu ,\tau }{}}\overline{\mathrm{}}(x)\gamma ^\rho \left(1\gamma _5\right)\nu _{\mathrm{}}(x)J_\rho (x)+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.`$ (4)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=e,\mu ,\tau }{}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\overline{\mathrm{}}(x)\gamma ^\rho \left(1\gamma _5\right)U_\mathrm{}k\nu _k(x)J_\rho (x)+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$
where $`G_F`$ is the Fermi constant and $`J_\rho (x)`$ is the hadronic weak charged current. Notice that we have expressed the Hamiltonian in terms of the neutrino fields $`\nu _k(x)`$ with mass $`m_k`$, that create the corresponding massive antineutrino states $`|\overline{\nu }_k`$ in Eq. (2).

Using Eqs. (2) and (4), the amplitude (3) can be written as

$$𝒜_{\pi ^{}\mathrm{}^{}\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}}=i\frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}\mathrm{d}^4x\underset{k,j}{}U_\mathrm{}k^{}U_\mathrm{}j\mathrm{}^{},\overline{\nu }_k|\overline{\mathrm{}}(x)\gamma ^\rho \left(1\gamma _5\right)\nu _j(x)J_\rho (x)|\pi ^{}.$$
(5)
Notice the presence in Eq. (5) of two elements of the mixing matrix, one coming from the mixing of the states in Eq. (2) and the other coming from the mixing of the fields in Eq. (4). Since only the state $`|\overline{\nu }_k`$ is a quantum of the corresponding massive neutrino field $`\nu _k(x)`$, the matrix element in Eq. (5) is proportional to $`\delta _{kj}`$,

$$\mathrm{}^{},\overline{\nu }_k|\overline{\mathrm{}}(x)\gamma ^\rho \left(1\gamma _5\right)\nu _j(x)J_\rho (x)|\pi ^{}\delta _{kj},$$
(6)
leading to

$$𝒜_{\pi ^{}\mathrm{}^{}\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}}=i\frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}\mathrm{d}^4x\underset{k}{}|U_\mathrm{}k|^2\mathrm{}^{},\overline{\nu }_k|\overline{\mathrm{}}(x)\gamma ^\rho \left(1\gamma _5\right)\nu _k(x)J_\rho (x)|\pi ^{}.$$
(7)
Since the neutrino masses are much smaller than the energy released in the pion decay process (1), the dependence of the matrix elements in Eq. (7) on the corresponding neutrino mass $`m_k`$ can be neglected and the matrix elements can be approximated with the matrix element in the case of massless neutrinos,

$$\mathrm{}^{},\overline{\nu }_k|\overline{\mathrm{}}(x)\gamma ^\rho \left(1\gamma _5\right)\nu _k(x)J_\rho (x)|\pi ^{}\mathrm{}^{},\overline{\nu }|\overline{\mathrm{}}(x)\gamma ^\rho \left(1\gamma _5\right)\nu (x)J_\rho (x)|\pi ^{},$$
(8)
where $`\nu (x)`$ is a massless neutrino field with antineutrino quanta $`|\overline{\nu }`$. In this case, the matrix elements in Eq. (7) can be extracted from the sum over the mass index $`k`$ and, using the unitarity relation $`_k|U_\mathrm{}k|^2=1`$, one obtains

$$𝒜_{\pi ^{}\mathrm{}^{}\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}}i\frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}\mathrm{d}^4x\mathrm{}^{},\overline{\nu }|\overline{\mathrm{}}(x)\gamma ^\rho \left(1\gamma _5\right)\nu (x)J_\rho (x)|\pi ^{},$$
(9)
which is the amplitude of the pion decay process (1) in the case of massless neutrinos.

Therefore, in the realistic case of extremely relativistic neutrinos the pion decay rate calculated in a correct way using the flavor antineutrino state (2) practically coincides with the standard pion decay rate calculated assuming massless neutrinos. It is pretty obvious that a similar conclusion holds for all weak processes.

Somehow the author of Ref.  missed the quadratic dependence of the amplitude on the elements of the mixing matrix and obtained an absurd result: if $`|U_\mathrm{}k|^2`$ in Eq. (7) were replaced by $`U_\mathrm{}k`$, as sadly happens in Ref. , the amplitude would depend on the elements of the mixing matrix even in the case of massless neutrinos. This is clearly nonsense, because in the case of massless neutrinos there is no mixing. Nevertheless, the author of Ref.  considered it seriously and confronted the resulting decay rate with experimental data. Since the measured ratio of the $`\pi ^{}e^{}+\overline{\nu }_e`$ and $`\pi ^{}\mu ^{}+\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ decay rates is incompatible with the wrong ratio calculated in Ref. , the author of Ref.  erroneously claimed that the neutrino produced in the process (1) is not described by the coherent superposition of massive antineutrino states in Eq. (2).

Having clarified the main mistake in Ref. , some further remarks are in order:

1. The author of Ref.  denies the coherent character of massive neutrino states produced in weak processes, but somewhat manages to get neutrino oscillations (albeit with a wrong phase, see item 3 below). Obviously there is a contradiction: since neutrino oscillations are due to the interference of different massive neutrinos their coherence is required.
2. Ref.  was cited in an improper way in Ref. , in connection with the sentence “the unphysical nature of coherent states of neutrinos of different mass was also discussed in the literature”. On the contrary, in Ref.  it is explicitly written that neutrinos produced in weak interaction processes are described by a (coherent) superposition of massive neutrino states, which in the realistic limit of extremely relativistic neutrinos reduces to the standard expression (2). These flavor neutrino states (called “weak-process states” in Ref. ) were recently calculated in Ref.  in a quantum field theoretical wave packet approach.

In Ref.  it has been shown that the flavor state $`|\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}`$ in Eq. (2) is not a quantum of the field $`\nu _{\mathrm{}}(x)`$, and the field $`\nu _{\mathrm{}}(x)`$ is not quantizable111 In Ref.  it has been implicitly assumed that a flavor neutrino state is a superposition of massive neutrino states, excluding any antineutrino component. If this assumption is relaxed, the flavor fields $`\nu _{\mathrm{}}(x)`$ can be quantized, as shown in Ref. . However, the physical meaning of a superposition of massive neutrino and antineutrino states is unclear to us.  because it does not have a definite mass (different flavor neutrino fields are coupled through the non-diagonal mass term in the Lagrangian). Obviously, this does not mean that a flavor state $`|\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}`$ defined as a coherent superposition of massive antineutrino states is “unphysical”, as claimed in Ref. .
3. The final goal of Ref. is to renew the claim of a factor of two mistake in the standard phase of neutrino oscillations. This claim has been already confuted in Refs. .

In conclusion, we would like to express a note of praise for the electronic archives, which allow a wide diffusion of all kind of ideas that stimulate interesting thinking.


text:
# The Reionization History at High Redshifts II: Estimating the Optical Depth to Thomson Scattering from CMB Polarization

## 1. Introduction

Understanding the reionization of the intergalactic medium is important for cosmology for at least two reasons. How reionization occurred provides crucial data on the first (and possibly second) generation of sources, while Thomson scattering of the photons of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) by free electrons suppresses “primordial” anisotropies in the CMB imprinted at $`z1000`$.

The first sources are not well understood (see Barkana & Loeb 2001 for a recent review), but there are several relevant observational constraints. The observation of quasars at $`z6`$ that show strong HI absorption (Becker et al., 2001) indicates that the universe had at least 1% of the total hydrogen content in neutral form (Fan et al., 2002) at $`z6`$, with this neutral mass fraction rapidly decreasing at lower redshifts (Songaila & Cowie 2002). This is a strong indication that the epoch of reionization ended at $`z6`$. On the other hand, the observed anisotropies of the CMB indicate that the total optical depth to Thomson scattering is not extremely high, suggesting that reionization couldn’t have started at redshifts much higher than about 30 (Spergel et al., 2003).

What happened between redshifts 6 and 30 is unknown. There has been extensive modeling and numerical simulation, but without a good understanding of the sources robust conclusions are difficult to draw. Many studies have concluded that reionization should happen fairly rapidly (Cen and McDonald, 2002; Fan et al., 2002), but several recent studies have suggested (Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Cen 2003; Haiman & Holder 2003: hereafter paper I) that reionization is an extended process, perhaps even with multiple epochs of reionization.

In recent work (Kaplinghat et al. 2003; hereafter K03) it was shown that a two-step reionization process could have an observable signature in the large-angle CMB polarization anisotropies that would provide unique information on the process of reionization in this difficult-to-probe redshift range. In this work, we extend these calculations to physically motivated reionization histories provided by semi-analytic models and address the possibility that non-trivial ionization histories can introduce a bias in estimates of the optical depth $`\tau `$ if a simple one-step model is used to fit the data.

The results from WMAP have opened a new window on the dark ages. Several key cosmological parameters have been measured to high precision and WMAP has observed the signature of free electrons at $`z10`$ for the first time (Kogut et al., 2003). Previously, there had been practically no information about the ionization state of the IGM for $`6.3z30`$.

The optical depth to Thomson scattering is an important cosmological parameter. The temperature power spectrum only allows constraints on the normalization of the primordial gravitational potential power spectrum $`P_\varphi `$ in the combination $`P_\varphi e^{2\tau }`$, so a determination of $`\tau `$ allows a determination of the amplitude of potential (and mass) fluctuations. There has been much recent controversy over the amplitude of mass fluctuations on scales of $`8h^1`$ Mpc, $`\sigma _8`$, as summarized in recent parameter estimates (Spergel et al., 2003). Estimates have varied by nearly a factor of two between different methods of determination within the last few years, so precise and accurate CMB estimates would be invaluable. With accurate determinations of $`\sigma _8`$ it should be possible to put strong constraints on the nature of the dark energy (Hu, 2002).

In the next section we describe the models that are used to generate a zoo of ionization histories, while § 3 demonstrates the effects of non-trivial ionization histories on CMB polarization anisotropies and parameter estimation. In § 4 we provide a crude example of how it is possible to reduce any biases induced by an unknown ionization history, and we close with a discussion.

As a fiducial model we assume cosmological parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.29`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.71`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.024`$, $`h=0.72`$ and an initial matter power spectrum $`P(k)k`$ in agreement with recent results from WMAP (Spergel et al., 2003).

## 2. Reionization Models

We employ semi–analytical models of reionization, in order to derive a sample of physically motivated ionization histories. Details of the models are laid out in paper I, and we only briefly review the main framework here. The models assume that the total volume fraction of ionized regions is being driven by ionizing sources located in dark matter halos whose abundance is described by the N–body simulations of Jenkins et al. (2001) We distinguish dark matter halos in three different ranges of virial temperatures, as follows:

| $`100\mathrm{K}`$$``$$`<`$ | $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ | $`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^4\mathrm{K}`$ | (Type II) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`10^4\mathrm{K}`$$``$$`<`$ | $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ | $`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}\times 10^5\mathrm{K}`$ | (Type Ia) |
|  | $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ | $`>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}\times 10^5\mathrm{K}`$ | (Type Ib) |

We will hereafter refer to these three different types of halos as Type II, Type Ia, and Type Ib halos. Each type of halo plays a different role in the reionization history. In short, Type II halos can host the first ionizing sources, but only in the neutral regions of the IGM, and only if $`\mathrm{H}_2`$ molecules are present in sufficient quantity to allow efficient cooling; Type Ia halos can only form new ionizing sources in the neutral IGM regions, but irrespective of the $`\mathrm{H}_2`$ abundance, and Type Ib halos can form ionizing sources regardless of the $`\mathrm{H}_2`$ abundance, and whether they are in the ionized or neutral phase of the IGM.

The contribution of each halo to reionization is quantified by explicitly computing the expansion of the ionized Strömgren region, dictated by the source luminosity and the background IGM density and the clumping factor $`C_{\mathrm{HII}}`$. We allow the three different sources above to have different efficiencies $`ϵ`$ of injecting ionizing radiation into the IGM. Here $`ϵN_\gamma f_{\mathrm{esc}}f_{}`$, where $`f_{}M_{}/(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}M_{\mathrm{halo}}/\mathrm{\Omega }_m)`$ is the fraction of baryons in the halo that turns into stars ($`10\%`$ in normal stars $`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0.01}`$ in Type II halos); $`N_\gamma `$ is the mean number of ionizing photons produced by an atom cycled through stars, averaged over the initial mass function (IMF) of the stars ($`4000`$ for a normal Salpeter IMF, and up to a factor of 20 higher for a population of massive, metal–free stars (Bromm, Kudritzki & Loeb 2001; Schaerer 2002); and $`f_{\mathrm{esc}}`$ is the fraction of these ionizing photons that escapes into the IGM ($`10\%`$ for Types Ia,b halos, and $`1`$ for Type II halos). In our models, we also allow the possibility that radiative feedback effects photo–dissociate $`\mathrm{H}_2`$ molecules below some critical redshift $`z_{\mathrm{uv}}`$, and we self–consistently exclude the Type II and Type Ia halos from forming any ionizing sources inside regions that had already been reionized. We adopt a fixed $`C_{\mathrm{HII}}=10`$ in all models; variations in the clumping factor can be absorbed into changes in the efficiencies with redshift.

In summary, our model has four parameters: the overall efficiencies, $`ϵ_{\mathrm{II}}`$, $`ϵ_{\mathrm{Ia}}`$, $`ϵ_{\mathrm{Ib}}`$, and the redshift $`z_{\mathrm{uv}}`$ at which $`\mathrm{H}_2`$ dissociative feedback sets in. We here use 5 different models that are broadly representative. Three of the models were chosen to have optical depth equal to that measured by the WMAP experiment (Kogut et al., 2003) and two others were chosen to investigate the effects of larger or smaller optical depths. Details of the models can be found in paper I.

Model 1 assumes that for massive halos the stellar IMF is not metal-free (pop II) while minihalos (cooled by $`H_2`$) form metal–free stars that produce $`20`$ times more ionizing photons. In terms of model parameters, this corresponds to $`(ϵ_{\mathrm{HII}},ϵ_{\mathrm{Ia},\mathrm{Ib}})=(200,80)`$. It is assumed that $`H_2`$ starts to be destroyed at $`z_{\mathrm{uv}}=17`$. Model 2 assumes that minihalos do not contribute to reionization (efficient destruction of $`H_2`$) and that the efficiency in larger halos is increased to $`ϵ_{\mathrm{Ia}}4800`$. In Model 3 it is assumed (as in Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Cen 2003) that there is a sharp transition from metal-free to normal stars at $`z=14`$. Model 4 assumes that minihalos are more effective at forming stars than in Model 1, with $`ϵ_{\mathrm{II}}=1400`$ and has molecules being destroyed at $`z_{\mathrm{uv}}25`$. Finally, Model 5 assumes that feedback from star formation becomes efficient at destroying molecules at $`z_{\mathrm{uv}}21`$ but the same efficiencies as Model 1.

The ionization histories in our models are shown in Figure 1. As discussed in depth in paper I, the physics of reionization is rich in features that can naturally lead to distinctive ionization histories. These features can arise because of (1) the different types of coolants in halos with virial temperatures above and below $`10^4`$K, (2) the different response of different halos to radiative feedback on the $`\mathrm{H}_2`$ chemistry, and to photoionization feedback on gas infall, and (3) the different properties of metal–free and normal stellar populations.

In all models, we assume singly-ionized Helium traces ionized hydrogen (i.e., 1.08 free electrons per hydrogen atom for a completely ionized universe). In what follows, discussion of $`x_e`$ ignores Helium (e.g., complete ionization is referred to as $`x_e=1`$), but the factor of 1.08 is included in all calculations.

## 3. Large Angle CMB Polarization Anisotropies

We modified CMBFast111available at http://www.cmbfast.org (Seljak and Zaldarriaga, 1996) to use the ionization histories from the previous section to generate temperature (TT), polarization (EE), and cross anisotropy (TE) power spectra, $`C_T\mathrm{},C_E\mathrm{}`$ and $`C_C\mathrm{}`$ respectively. A similar modification was done by Bruscoli, Ferrara, and Scannapieco (2002) but for an ionization history extracted from a numerical simulation, and by Naselsky and Chiang (2003) using different ionization histories. The ionization histories are shown in Figure 1 and the corresponding power spectra are shown in Figures 2 and 3.

Note in Figure 2 that for larger optical depths, there are secondary bumps in the $`C_{El}`$. These are thoroughly explained in Zaldarriaga (1997). For the $`C_{Cl}`$ (shown in Figure 3) an important difference is that we are correlating quantities which, for each value of $`k`$, have different angular frequencies on the sky. The polarization has angular frequency $`l=k(\eta _0\eta _{ri})`$ (where $`\eta _0`$ and $`\eta _{ri}`$ are the conformal times today and at the onset of reionization) since it is projecting from the epoch of reionization where it was created. The temperature has a correspondingly higher angular frequency since it is projecting from the (further) last-scattering surface. The matched angular frequencies of $`E`$ correlated with $`E`$ lead to secondary peaks in $`C_{El}`$, whereas the mismatched angular frequencies of $`T`$ and $`E`$ wash out the fluctuation power and do not lead to secondary peaks in $`C_{Cl}`$.

As found in K03, for highly sensitive experiments approaching the cosmic-variance limit, almost all the sensitivity to $`\tau `$ comes from $`C_{El}`$. This is because $`C_{El}\tau ^2`$ whereas $`C_{Cl}\tau `$ and because the fractional uncertainty in $`C_{El}`$ is smaller than the fractional uncertainty in $`C_{Cl}`$ in the cosmic variance limit. These fractional uncertainties would be equal in the limit of perfect correlation ($`C_{Cl}=\sqrt{C_{El}C_{Tl}}`$).

We normalize $`P_\mathrm{\Phi }(k=0.05\mathrm{Mpc}^1)e^{2\tau }`$ by requiring that the temperature fluctuation at $`\mathrm{}=150`$ is 150 $`\mu K`$. This choice is arbitrary, but largely irrelevant for our purposes. Varying the ionization history with this product fixed produces no change in the angular power spectra at $`\mathrm{}50`$ (except due to non-linear effects at $`\mathrm{}2000`$). Note that since $`C_T\mathrm{}`$ has been measured well in this range, a higher optical depth requires a larger normalization of $`P_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ in order to agree with the data. As outlined in K03, variations in the fiducial model, such as a slight tilt or a slightly different normalization, will not have a large effect on our conclusions.

To explore questions of bias in $`\tau `$ we see how well purely phenomenological models with one or two sharp transitions can be used to fit our physical models (1)-(5). For measurement uncertainties we assume Gaussian, white detector noise and ignore beam effects. We calculate the likelihood of the phenomenological models, given one of the physical models as the “data”, denoted now with a $`d`$ superscript (see K03):

$`\overline{\chi }^22\mathrm{ln}={\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{}}(2\mathrm{}+1)f_{sky}[\mathrm{ln}([C_E\mathrm{}+w^1]C_T\mathrm{}C_C\mathrm{}^2)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{[C_E\mathrm{}+w^1]C_T\mathrm{}^d+C_T\mathrm{}C_E\mathrm{}^d2C_C\mathrm{}C_C\mathrm{}^d}{[C_E\mathrm{}+w^1]C_T\mathrm{}C_C\mathrm{}^2}}].`$ (1)
In the above, $`f_{sky}`$ is the fraction of sky coverage (which we take to be unity), and $`w`$ is the weight per unit solid angle for polarization measurements. We have assumed that for our purposes we can ignore detector noise in the measurement of the temperature power spectrum. Note that we have included the effects of all the data, i.e., EE, TT, and TE correlations are all implicitly taken into account. We have not included possible effects of foregrounds. For WMAP, we assume $`w=2\times 10^{14}`$, roughly the expected two-year two channel sensitivity (allowing other frequencies to be used for foreground removal) while for Planck we assume $`w=1.67\times 10^{16}`$, corresponding roughly to one year and two frequencies. We adopt these values as representative of the expected performance of the instruments, but should be viewed as order of magnitude estimates. For an ideal cosmic variance limited experiment $`w^1=0`$. We require that $`C_T\mathrm{}>0.01w^1`$ in the fiducial model to be included in the likelihood calculation to suppress contributions from points with low signal-to-noise.

For simplicity, we only include terms up to $`\mathrm{}=50`$. There is practically no information in higher multipoles, although there is likely to be some signature at $`\mathrm{}2000`$ from non-linear effects, which could be important. We minimize this function by adjusting the transition redshift, $`z_{tr}`$, of a model with sudden reionization and calculate the difference in $`\overline{\chi }^2`$ of this best-fit sudden model relative to the true model. The true model is thus $`\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{\chi }^2/2)`$ more likely than the most likely phenomenological model. For Gaussian statistics, our estimator $`\overline{\chi }^2`$ is equal to the usual $`\chi ^2`$ statistic, so a rough estimate of the number of “sigmas” is $`\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{\chi }^2}`$. Large values of this misfit statistic indicate that the true model is a much better fit than the model being considered while small values indicate a model that is virtually indistinguishable from the input model. The best fitting sudden models are indicated in Table 1, along with the difference in $`\overline{\chi }^2`$ and the optical depth of both the best fit and the input model. The first two columns indicate model number (see Figure 1) and true optical depth. Columns 3-5 show results of fitting a single sharp reionization assuming cosmic variance error bars and indicate the best fit single reionization redshift, best fit optical depth, and difference in $`\overline{\chi }^2`$ relative to true model. Columns 5, 6 and 7 show best fit single transition redshift, optical depth and misfit statistic assuming WMAP noise levels, while the last three columns show the same parameters assuming Planck noise levels.

For some of the models the misfit is very large, in one case a shift in the misfit statistic of more than 100 (roughly “10 $`\sigma `$”) for a cosmic variance limited experiment. This confirms that there is significantly more information in the large angle polarization signal than simply the optical depth, as shown in K03. For the most basic reionization signal the misfit is just above the “3 $`\sigma `$” level for cosmic variance limits, indicating that if reionization happens fairly quickly the exact nature of the transition is unimportant and the dominant effect on the CMB signal will be only that of the optical depth. This corresponds to the case studied by Bruscoli, Ferrara, and Scannapieco (2002), although even for this case our results are slightly less pessimistic. Part of this is due to the higher optical depth of our fiducial model, providing more signal.

From the point of view of parameter estimation, it is striking that the best fit sharp transition can provide a biased estimate of the optical depth, especially compared to the statistical uncertainties. For the assumed sensitivity of WMAP the statistical uncertainty $`\delta \tau `$ should be $`0.02`$, for Planck $`\delta \tau 0.005`$ and for cosmic variance errors $`\delta \tau 0.0020.003`$. For the more exotic ionization histories the optical depth can be seen to be significantly biased for cosmic variance level measurements, with the direction and the magnitude of the bias sensitive to the details of the ionization history. Using the incorrect ionization history for model fitting introduces a systematic error in the value of $`\tau `$ with a direction and magnitude that depends on the details of $`x_e(z)`$. As seen in models 3 and 4, offsets between the true and derived optical depths could easily be $``$0.01 for Planck. Determination of the optical depth, and thus the matter power spectrum amplitude, will be limited by a lack of understanding of the nature of the reionization process. For WMAP, it appears that the derived optical depth assuming a single sharp transition will not be highly biased for any of the reionization models that we consider, given that the estimated uncertainty in $`\tau `$ is $`0.03`$ (K03).

## 4. Toward Unbiased Optical Depth Estimates

There is information in the shape of the large angle polarization power spectra, so it is informative to see what can be gleaned. In Figure 4 we show the results of an analysis similar to that of K03. We used a simple two-step model, where it is assumed that a transition from partial ionization to full ionization occurred at $`z=6.3`$ and that a transition from nearly zero to an intermediate (constant) ionization fraction, $`x_e`$, occurred at $`z=z_e`$. We examine two fiducial models, one with $`z_e=25`$ and the other with $`z_e=16`$, with $`x_e`$ values chosen so that both have $`\tau =0.148`$. We then investigate the accuracy with which $`\tau `$ and $`z_e`$ can be recovered assuming noise levels typical for WMAP or expected for Planck by once again taking the fiducial model as the data and evaluating the likelihood (Eq. 1) as a function of the two parameters of the model. Figure 4 displays contours of constant likelihood for the three experimental cases. At noise levels appropriate for WMAP it will be very difficult to differentiate between different models that yield the same optical depth (as pointed out in K03 and verified by Kogut et al. 2003), but Planck would be able to determine the onset of partial reionization quite well and a cosmic variance limited experiment would be able to determine this onset very precisely. There will therefore likely be suggestions in the data itself pointing to better models for measuring $`\tau `$.

In the previous section, we saw that the largest biases arise in the cases where the misfit statistic is also large. Therefore when the measured $`\tau `$ is highly biased the quality of fit will probably also be bad, indicating a possibly contaminated result. We now investigate whether a slightly more complicated fitting form for the ionization history can lead to better estimates of the optical depth. As a simple example of a path to a possibly less biased estimate of the optical depth, we fit models with a two-step reionization process, where the ionization history is characterized by a redshift of first ionization $`z_{early}`$, when the ionized fraction went quickly from effectively zero to $`x_e`$, and a second redshift, $`z_{late}`$ when the ionized fraction went quickly to unity. To ensure stability in the numerical implementation we have jumps in the ionization fraction take place over a range in redshift of $`\mathrm{\Delta }z=1`$ centered on the nominal redshift of the transition and interpolated in $`log(z)`$. For each ionization model from the previous section, we vary the three ionization parameters to find the values that minimize the misfit statistic, assuming cosmic variance errors only.

Table 2 shows the derived optical depths from fitting a two-step model. Column 2 indicates the true optical depth, the third column indicates redshift at which $`x_e=1`$ and the fourth column shows redshift at which $`x_e`$ changes from effectively zero at higher redshift to the value shown in column 5. The fifth column shows optical depth of this best fit model, while the sixth column shows the difference in $`2ln`$ of this best fit relative to the true model. The final column shows the uncertainty in the determination of $`\tau `$ when the extra parameters are allowed in the fit. This uncertainty was determined from the smallest and largest values of $`\tau `$ found in models with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{\chi }^2<1`$.

As can be seen in Table 2, in this case the misfit statistics are much lower and the optical depth estimates are much less biased. In most cases the estimated values of $`\tau `$ are now biased at levels near or below the cosmic variance statistical errors, indicating that imperfect knowledge of the ionization history is not a fundamental limit to a good measure of $`\tau `$. In model 4 our two-step model may not be adequate, in that the bias in $`\tau `$ is comparable to the statistical uncertainty. If the measured optical depth is very high ($`0.2`$) some care will be required to obtain a precise and accurate estimate of the amplitude of the matter power spectrum. Note that the reduction in bias has come with the cost of statistical errors in $`\tau `$ increasing by a factor of $`2`$.

In general, ionization histories with widely separated (in redshift) episodes of ionization seem most prone to biased estimates of $`\tau `$. We have not provided an exhaustive exploration of the possible parameter space of ionization histories, so it is still possible that reionization histories exist with larger biases and/or there are cases where a two-step reionization history does little to improve estimates of $`\tau `$.

It is likely that there is a more physical parameterization of the ionization history that can both minimize biases in parameter estimates and provide insight into the first generation of sources. If the optical depth is measured to be higher than 0.1, as hinted by recent WMAP results, it will be important to find a good parameterization.

## 5. Discussion

We have shown that large angle polarization measurements could be very useful for shedding light on the end of the dark ages, a topic addressed in further detail in paper I. Conversely, it appears that at least a rudimentary understanding of the dark ages, beyond a simple optical depth to some characteristic redshift, will be required to be able to measure the amplitude of primordial fluctuations to very high accuracy. Particularly if CMB measurements suggest that the optical depth is high ($`0.2`$), there is a real danger of mis-estimating the true optical depth by a significant amount ($`>0.01`$). In the near term, it appears that estimates of the optical depth based on the WMAP satellite will not be heavily biased at the level of the expected precision of 0.03 (K03). Therefore, the derived values of $`\sigma _8`$ in recent work are robust ( within the statistical uncertainties) to the choice of ionization history that is used to do the fit. This is unlikely to be the case for the next generation of instruments, given the apparently high optical depth measured by WMAP.

Allowing even a moderately more complex ionization history allows much of the bias to be removed, at the expense of larger uncertainties. Uncertainty in the ionization history appears to provide a floor of $`0.005`$ on how well we can measure the optical depth to Thomson scattering from CMB polarization observations.

Foreground contamination of large angle measurements is currently unknown for polarization experiments. With its extensive frequency coverage, Planck will be an exquisite instrument for characterizing and assessing the importance of astronomical sources of polarization. We believe we have been fairly conservative in our estimates of how many frequencies will be available for CMB measurement.

CMB polarization measurements provide a unique complement to absorption studies. While hydrogen absorption studies are sensitive to the fraction of neutral hydrogen, CMB polarization is sensitive to the fraction of ionized hydrogen. The signature of partial ionization at $`z15`$ will be very difficult to detect using absorption studies, so it will be extremely useful to have a complementary tool.

We are grateful to Wayne Hu, Avi Loeb, and Matias Zaldarriaga for useful discussions. GPH is supported by the W.M. Keck foundation. LK and MK were supported by NASA grant NAG5-11098. We thank Uros Seljak and Matias Zaldarriaga for the use of their CMBFast code.