text:
# Baryogenesis and the New Cosmology

## I Introduction

The audience for this talk was extremely diverse, ranging from beginning graduate students, through experts in subfields of physics somewhat distinct from the subject matter of my talk, to baryogenesis experts. My strategy therefore was to present an overview of the main issues facing baryogenesis, and only to focus on the more technical aspects of a particular model towards the end of the talk. Much of the review portion of these proceedings draws heavily on my article with Riotto Riotto:1999yt  and the latter parts summarize my recent paper with De Felice and Nasri DeFelice:2002ir .

The problem of the baryon asymmetry of the universe is a classic problem of particle cosmology. Particle physics has taught us that matter and antimatter behave essentially identically, and indeed the interactions between matter and antimatter are the focus of successful terrestrial experiments. On the other hand, cosmology teaches us that the early universe was an extremely hot, and hence energetic, environment in which one would expect equal numbers of baryons and antibaryons to be copiously produced. This early state of the universe stands in stark contrast to what we observe in the universe today. Direct observation shows that the universe around us contains no appreciable primordial antimatter. In addition, the stunning success of big bang nucleosynthesis rests on the requirement that, defining $`n_{b(\overline{b})}`$ to be the number density of (anti)-baryons and $`s`$ to be the entropy density,

$$2.6\times 10^{10}<\eta \frac{n_bn_{\overline{b}}}{s}<6.2\times 10^{10},$$
(1)
(see, for example, Fields:cn ). Very recently this number has been independently determined to be $`\eta =6.1\times 10^{10}_{0.2\times 10^{10}}^{+0.3\times 10^{10}}`$ from precise measurements of the relative heights of the first two microwave background (CMB) acoustic peaks by the WMAP satellite Bennett:2003bz . Thus the natural question arises; as the universe cooled from early times to today, what processes, both particle physics and cosmological, were responsible for the generation of this very specific baryon asymmetry?

The outline of this talk is as follows. In the next section I survey several mechanisms by which the BAU might be generated. In particular I focus on electroweak baryogenesis and discuss why it is, to my mind, a particularly attractive mechanism. In section III I will then describe a model which attempts to unify three seemingly-disparate problems of modern cosmology; the origin of inflation, the generation of the BAU and the nature of dark energy.

## II Our Favorite Models

If we’re going to use a particle physics model to generate the baryon asymmetry of the universe (BAU), what properties must the theory possess? This question was first addressed by Sakharov Sakharov:dj  in 1967, resulting in the following criteria

* Violation of the baryon number ($`B`$) symmetry.
* Violation of the discrete symmetries $`C`$ (charge conjugation) and $`CP`$ (the composition of parity and $`C`$)
* A departure from thermal equilibrium.

Of course, the first of these is obvious - no $`B`$ violation, no baryon production. To understand the second condition, note that, roughly speaking, if $`C`$ and $`CP`$ are conserved, the rate for any process which generates baryons is equal to that for the conjugate process, which produces antibaryons, so no net excess is generated on average. Finally, in thermal equilibrium the number density of a particle species is determined purely by its energy, and since the masses of particle and antiparticle are equal by the CPT theorem, the number density of baryons equals that of antibaryons. We will want to recall this connection between the equilibrium condition and the CPT theorem in the last part of this talk.

Grand Unified baryogenesis (for a review see Langacker:1980js ) was the first implementation of Sakharov’s baryon number generation ideas. There are at least three reasons why this is an attractive mechanism. First, baryon number violation is an unavoidable consequence of Grand Unification. If one wishes to have quarks and leptons transforming in the same representation of a single group, then there necessarily exist processes in which quarks convert to leptons and vice-versa. Hence, baryon number violation is manifest in these theories. Second, it is a simple and natural task to incorporate sufficient amounts of CP-violation into GUTs. Among other possibilities, there exist many possible mixing phases that make this possible. Finally, at such early epochs of cosmic evolution, the relevant processes are naturally out of equilibrium since the relevant timescales are slow compared to the expansion rate of the universe. The simplicity with which the Sakharov criteria are achieved in GUTs makes this mechanism very attractive.

While GUT baryogenesis is attractive, it is not likely that the physics involved will be directly testable in the foreseeable future. While we may gain indirect evidence of grand unification with a particular gauge group, direct confirmation in colliders seems unrealistic. A second problem with GUT scenarios is the issue of erasure of the asymmetry. As we will see, the electroweak theory ensures that there are copious baryon number violating processes between the GUT and electroweak scales. These events violate $`B+L`$ but conserve $`BL`$. Thus, unless a GUT mechanism generates an excess $`BL`$, any baryonic asymetry produced will be equilibrated to zero by anomalous electroweak interactions. While this does not invalidate GUT scenarios, it is a constraint. For example, $`SU(5)`$ will not be suitable for baryogenesis for this reason, while $`SO(10)`$ may be. This makes the idea of baryogenesis through leptogenesis particularly attractive.

Affleck-Dine baryogenesis Affleck:1984fy  is a particularly attractive scenario, and much progress has been made in understanding how this mechanism works. As was the case for electroweak baryogenesis, this scenario has found its most promising implementations Dine:1995uk ; Dine:1995kz  in supersymmetric models, in which the necessary flat directions are abundant. Particularly attractive is the fact that these moduli, carrying the correct quantum numbers, are present even in the MSSM.

The challenges faced by Affleck-Dine models are combinations of those faced by the GUT and electroweak ideas. In particular, it is necessary that $`BL`$ be violated along the relevant directions (except perhaps in the Q-ball implementations Kusenko:1997zq ) and that there exist new physics at scales above the electroweak. If supersymmetry is not found, then it is hard to imagine how the appropriate flat directions can exist in the low energy models.

In recent years, perhaps the most widely studied scenario for generating the baryon number of the universe has been electroweak baryogenesis. The popularity of this idea is tightly bound to its testability. The physics involved is all testable in principle at realistic colliders. Furthermore, the small extensions of the model involved to make baryogenesis successful can be found in supersymmetry, which is an independently attractive idea, although electroweak baryogenesis does not depend on supersymmetry. I will now describe this briefly.

### II.1 Baryon Number Violation in the EW Theory

In the standard electroweak theory baryon number is an exact global symmetry. However, baryon number is violated at the quantum level through nonperturbative processes. These effects are closely related to the nontrivial vacuum structure of the electroweak theory.

At zero temperature, baryon number violating events are exponentially suppressed. This is because there exists a potential barrier between vacua and anomalous processes are thus tunneling events. The relevant barrier height is set by the point of least energy on the barrier. This point is known as the sphaleron Klinkhamer:1984di , and has energy $`E_{sph}10`$ TeV. However, at temperatures above or comparable to the critical temperature of the electroweak phase transition, vacuum transitions over the sphaleron may occur frequently due to thermal activation Kuzmin:1985mm .

### II.2 C and CP Violation in the EW Theory

Fermions in the electroweak theory are chirally coupled to the gauge fields. In terms of the discrete symmetries of the theory, these chiral couplings result in the electroweak theory being maximally C-violating. However, the issue of CP-violation is more complex.

CP is known not to be an exact symmetry of the weak interactions, and is observed experimentally in the neutral Kaon system through $`K_0`$, $`\overline{K}_0`$ mixing. Although at present there is no completely satisfactory theoretical explanation of this, CP violation is a natural feature of the standard electroweak model. The Kobayashi-Maskawa (KM) quark mass mixing matrix contains a single independent phase, a nonzero value for which signals CP violation. While this is encouraging for baryogenesis, it turns out that this particular source of CP violation is not strong enough. The relevant effects are parametrized by a dimensionless constant which is no larger than $`10^{20}`$. This appears to be much too small to account for the observed BAU and so it is usual to turn to extensions of the minimal theory. In particular the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM).

### II.3 The Electroweak Phase Transition

The question of the order of the electroweak phase transition is central to electroweak baryogenesis. Since the equilibrium description of particle phenomena is extremely accurate at electroweak temperatures, baryogenesis cannot occur at such low scales without the aid of phase transitions.

For a continuous transition, the associated departure from equilibrium is insufficient to lead to relevant baryon number production. The order parameter for the electroweak phase transition is $`\phi `$, the modulus of the Higgs field. For a first order transition the extremum at $`\phi =0`$ becomes separated from a second local minimum by an energy barrier. At the critical temperature $`T=T_c`$ both phases are equally favored energetically and at later times the minimum at $`\phi 0`$ becomes the global minimum of the theory. Around $`T_c`$ quantum tunneling occurs and nucleation of bubbles of the true vacuum in the sea of false begins. At a particular temperature below $`T_c`$, bubbles just large enough to grow nucleate. These are termed critical bubbles, and they expand, eventually filling all of space and completing the transition. As the bubble walls pass each point in space, the order parameter changes rapidly, as do the other fields and this leads to a significant departure from thermal equilibrium. Thus, if the phase transition is strongly enough first order it is possible to satisfy the third Sakharov criterion in this way.

There is a further criterion to be satisfied. As the wall passes a point in space, the Higgs fields evolve rapidly and the Higgs VEV changes from $`\varphi =0`$ in the unbroken phase to

$$\varphi =v(T_c)$$
(2)
in the broken phase. Here, $`v(T)`$ is the value of the order parameter at the symmetry breaking global minimum of the finite temperature effective potential. Now, CP violation and the departure from equilibrium occur while the Higgs field is changing. Afterwards, the point is in the true vacuum, baryogenesis has ended, and baryon number violation is exponentially supressed. Since baryogenesis is now over, it is imperative that baryon number violation be negligible at this temperature in the broken phase, otherwise any baryonic excess generated will be equilibrated to zero. Such an effect is known as washout of the asymmetry and the criterion for this not to happen may be written as

$$\frac{v(T_c)}{T_c}1.$$
(3)
Although there are a number of nontrivial steps that lead to this simple criterion, (3) is traditionally used to ensure that the baryon asymmetry survives after the wall has passed. It is necessary that this criterion be satisfied for any electroweak baryogenesis scenario to be successful.

In the minimal standard model, in which experiments at LEP now constrain the Higgs mass to be $`m_H>114.4`$ GeV, it is clear from numerical simulations that (3) is not satisfied. This is therefore a second reason to turn to extensions of the minimal model.

In the MSSM there are two Higgs fields, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$. At one loop, a CP-violating interaction between these fields is induced through supersymmetry breaking. Alternatively, there also exists extra CP-violation through CKM-like effects in the chargino mixing matrix. Thus, there seems to be sufficient CP violation for baryogenesis to succeed.

Now, the two Higgs fields combine to give one lightest scalar Higgs $`h`$. In addition, there are also light stops $`\stackrel{~}{t}`$ (the superpartners of the top quark) in the theory. These light scalar particles can lead to a strongly first order phase transition if the scalars have masses in the correct region of parameter space. A detailed two loop calculation Carena:2002ss  and lattice results indicate that the allowed region is given by

$`m_h`$ $`120\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ (4)
$`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ $`m_t,`$ (5)
for $`\mathrm{tan}\beta \mathrm{\Phi }_2/\mathrm{\Phi }_1>5`$. In the next few years, experiments at the Tevatron and the LHC should probe this range of Higgs masses and we should know if the MSSM is a good candidate for electroweak baryogenesis.

Thus, the testability of electroweak scenarios also leads to tight constraints, and at present there exists only a small window of parameter space in extensions of the electroweak theory in which baryogenesis is viable.

If the Higgs is found, the second test will come from the search for the lightest stop at the Tevatron collider. If both particles are found, the last crucial test will come from CP-violating effects which may be observable in $`B`$ physics. Moreover, the preferred parameter space leads to values of the branching ratio $`\mathrm{BR}(bs\gamma )`$ different from the Standard Model case. Although the exact value of this branching ratio depends strongly on the value of the $`\mu `$ and $`A_t`$ parameters, the typical difference with respect to the Standard Model prediction is of the order of the present experimental sensitivity and hence in principle testable in the near future. Indeed, for the typical spectrum considered here, due to the light charged Higgs, the branching ratio $`\mathrm{BR}(bs\gamma )`$ is somewhat higher than in the SM case, unless negative values of $`A_t\mu `$ are present.

Having given an overview of baryogenesis and a description of a particularly attractive mechanism, I will turn, in the rest of my talk, to a mechanism I’ve been working on recently - quintessential baryogenesis DeFelice:2002ir .

## III Quintessential Baryogenesis

Rolling scalar fields are a mainstay of modern cosmology. This is perhaps best-illustrated by the inflationary paradigm Guth:1980zm ; Linde:1981mu ; Albrecht:1982wi , in which most implementations involve a scalar field rolling towards the minimum of its potential in such a way that the potential energy of the field is the dominant component of the energy density of the universe. There are, however, many other cosmological instances in which scalar fields are invoked. In fact, it is often felt that cosmologists are prepared to invent a new scalar field every time a new piece of cosmological data comes along.

During the last few years a new consistent picture of the energy budget of the universe has emerged. Large scale structure studies show that matter (both luminous and dark) contributes a fraction of about 0.3 of the critical density, while the position of the first acoustic peak of the cosmic microwave background power spectrum indicates that the total energy density is consistent with criticality. The discrepancy between these two measurements may be reconciled by invoking a negative pressure component which is termed dark energy and leads to the acceleration of the universe. Current limits Melchiorri:2002ux , obtained by combining results from cosmic microwave background experiments with large scale structure data, the Hubble parameter measurement from the Hubble Space Telescope and luminosity measurements of Type Ia supernovae, give $`1.62<w<0.74`$ at the $`95\%`$ confidence level.

It is of course possible that this mystery component is a cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, for which $`w_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$. Alternatively, it has been suggested Wetterich:fm -Caldwell:1997ii  that if the cosmological constant itself is zero, the dark energy component could be due to the dynamics of a rolling scalar field, in a form of late-universe inflation that has become known as quintessence.

It is natural to wonder whether the inflaton and the quintessence field might be one and the same Spokoiny:1993kt , and, in fact, specific models for this have been proposed Spokoiny:1993kt -Dimopoulos:2001ix . In this part of my talk I’ll investigate how we may further limit the proliferation of rolling scalar fields required in modern cosmology by studying how a scalar field responsible both for inflation and for late-time acceleration of the universe might also be responsible for the generation of the baryon asymmetry of the universe. The relationship between early-time acceleration – inflation – and baryogenesis has been explored in some detail (for example see Affleck:1984fy Yokoyama:1986gx -Nanopoulos:2001yu ). Here I consider the opposite regime, that the quintessence field may be associated with the generation of the baryon asymmetry DeFelice:2002ir  (for interesting related studies see Li:2001st ; Feng:2002nb ; Brandenberger:2003kc ).

### III.1 Quintessential Inflation

I’ll use the flat Friedmann, Robertson-Walker (FRW) ansatz for the metric

$$ds^2=dt^2+a(t)^2\left[dr^2+r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_2^2\right].$$
(6)
Here the energy density $`\rho `$ and pressure $`p`$ for a real homogeneous scalar field $`\varphi `$ are given by

$$\rho _\varphi =\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2+V(\varphi ),$$
(7)
$$p_\varphi =\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2V(\varphi ),$$
(8)
respectively, with $`V(\varphi )`$ the potential, and where we have defined the Planck mass by $`GM_\mathrm{p}^2`$. The scalar field itself obeys

$$\ddot{\varphi }+3\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)\dot{\varphi }+\frac{dV(\varphi )}{d\varphi }=0,$$
(9)
with a prime denoting a derivative with respect to $`\varphi `$.

Now, to explain the current data indicating an accelerating universe, it is necessary to have the dominant type of matter at late times be such that $`\ddot{a}>0`$. If this matter is to be $`\varphi `$, then this implies $`\rho _\varphi +3p_\varphi <0`$. Writing $`p_\varphi w_\varphi \rho _\varphi `$ this translates into an equation of state parameter that obeys $`w_\varphi <\frac{1}{3}`$

In the Peebles and Vilenkin model Peebles:1998qn  one uses the potential

$$V(\varphi )=\{\begin{array}{ccc}\lambda (\varphi ^4+M^4)\hfill & ,\hfill & \varphi (\mathrm{},0]\hfill \\ \frac{\lambda M^8}{\varphi ^4+M^4}\hfill & ,\hfill & \varphi (0,\mathrm{}),\hfill \end{array}$$
(10)
We require inflation to occur at early times, and indeed, for this potential, the slow-roll conditions are satisfied for sufficiently large and negative $`\varphi `$.

Inflation ends when the slow-roll conditions are violated and the potential and kinetic energies of the inflaton are comparable with each other. In traditional inflationary models the inflaton then rapidly transfers its energy to other fields either through perturbative effects (reheating) or parametric resonance (preheating). Here, however, there is no such effect, and it is the kinetic energy of the field $`\varphi `$ that is the dominant component of the energy density of the universe immediately after the end of inflation. Following Joyce Joyce:1996cp  we term this behavior kination.

A successful cosmology requires the universe be radiation-dominated at the time of nucleosynthesis, since otherwise the precision predictions of that theory are no longer in agreement with observations. The lack of conventional reheating, the conversion of the potential energy of the inflaton to particle production, in quintessential inflation means that the requisite radiation must be produced another way. In fact, the radiation era in these models is due to the subtle behavior of quantum fields in changing geometries.

At the end of inflation, the FRW line element undergoes an abrupt change from that associated with cosmic expansion (exponential or power-law) to that associated with kination. Massless quantum fields in their vacua in the inflation era are no longer in vacuum in the kination era, corresponding to gravitational particle production. This effect is analogous to Hawking radiation, and has been explored in detail Ford:1986sy -Giovannini:1998bp  in the cosmological context of interest here.

For a significant time subsequent to this, cosmic evolution is much the same as in the standard cosmology, with a matter dominated epoch eventually succeeding the radiation era. Although the scalar field is not important during these times, the density fluctuations seeded by quantum fluctuations in $`\varphi `$ during inflation lead to structure formation and temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation.

Finally, consider this extreme future of the universe, in which the scalar field becomes responsible for quintessence. It is clear that when quintessence begins, the energy density of the field $`\varphi `$ once again becomes dominated by its potential energy density. It is a challenge similar to that for conventional quintessence to ensure that this epoch occurs at the present time and yields the correct ratio of matter to dark energy.

### III.2 Generation of the Baryon Asymmetry

In order for the quintessence field $`\varphi `$ to play a role in baryogenesis, we must consider how $`\varphi `$ couples to other fields. In principle, the inflaton and quintessence field may lie in any sector of the theory, the phenomenologically safest of which would be one in which there are only gravitational strength couplings to other particles. Here I adopt a conservative approach and assume that $`\varphi `$ couples to standard model fields with couplings specified by a dimensionless constant and an energy scale which we shall leave as a free parameter for the moment and later constrain by observations and the condition that our model produce a sufficient baryon asymmetry.

Consider terms in the effective Lagrangian density of the form

$$_{\mathrm{eff}}=\frac{\lambda ^{}}{M}_\mu \varphi J^\mu ,$$
(11)
where $`\lambda ^{}`$ is a coupling constant, $`M<M_\mathrm{p}`$ is the scale of the cutoff in the effective theory and $`J^\mu `$ is the current corresponding to some continuous global symmetry such as baryon number or baryon number minus lepton number. Further, let us assume that $`\varphi `$ is homogeneous. We then obtain

$$_{\mathrm{eff}}=\frac{\lambda ^{}}{M}\dot{\varphi }\mathrm{\Delta }n\mu (t)\mathrm{\Delta }n,$$
(12)
where $`n=J^0`$ is the number density corresponding to the global symmetry and we have defined an effective time-dependent “chemical potential” $`\mu (t)\lambda ^{}\dot{\varphi }/M`$.

Recall that we need to satisfy the Sakharov criteria in order to generate a baryon asymmetry (for reviews see Cohen:1993nk -Trodden:1998ym Riotto:1999yt ). The first of these requires baryon number $`B`$ to be violated. At this stage, to maintain generality, we shall leave the mechanism of baryon number violation unspecified. Further, the standard model is maximally C-violating due to its chiral structure, and the coupling (11) is $`CP`$-odd. In this sense, no explicit $`CP`$-violation is required in this model. The third Sakharov criterion requires a departure from thermal equilibrium if $`CPT`$ is a manifest symmetry. However, the crucial point about baryogenesis in the presence of the rolling scalar field $`\varphi `$ is that $`CPT`$ is broken spontaneously by the explicit value taken by $`\dot{\varphi }0`$. Thus, the particular model of baryogenesis that is important here is spontaneous baryogenesis Cohen:1988kt , which is effective even in thermal equilibrium. Following DeFelice:2002ir , I will refer to this model, in which the rolling scalar responsible for both inflation and dark energy also provides a source for spontaneous baryogenesis as quintessential baryogenesis.

To understand how spontaneous (and hence quintessential) baryogenesis works, note that in thermal equilibrium we have

$$\mathrm{\Delta }n(T;\xi )=\frac{d^3𝐩}{(2\pi )^3}[f(E,\mu )f(E,\mu )],$$
(13)
where $`\xi \mu /T`$ is a parameter and $`f(E,\mu )`$ is the phase-space distribution of the particles of the current $`J^\mu `$, which may be Fermi-Dirac or Bose-Einstein. Thus, for $`\xi <1`$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }n(T;\mu )\frac{gT^3}{6}\xi +𝒪(\xi ^2),$$
(14)
where $`g`$ is the number of degrees of freedom of the field corresponding to $`n`$. Therefore,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }n(T;\mu )\frac{\lambda ^{}g}{6M}T^2\dot{\varphi }.$$
(15)
Now recall that the entropy density is given by

$$s=\frac{2\pi }{45}g_{}T^3,$$
(16)
where $`g_{}`$ is the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom in thermal equilibrium at temperature $`T`$. Whatever the mechanism of baryon number violation, there will exist a temperature $`T_F`$ below which baryon number violating processes due to this mechanism become sufficiently rare that they freeze out. For $`T<T_F`$ these processes can no longer appreciably change the baryon number of the universe. Computing the freeze-out value of the baryon to entropy ratio we then obtain

$$\eta _F\eta (T_F)\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }n}{s}(T_F)0.38\lambda ^{}\left(\frac{g}{g_{}}\right)\frac{\dot{\varphi }(T_F)}{MT_F}.$$
(17)
How the baryon excess evolves after this point depends on the value of $`T_F`$ and on the relevant current in equation (11). If $`T_FT_c^{\mathrm{EW}}100`$ GeV, the critical temperature of the electroweak phase transition, then all baryon number violation ceases at $`T_F`$ and $`\eta (T<T_F)=\eta _F`$. However, if $`T_F>T_c^{\mathrm{EW}}`$, then we must take into account the effects of anomalous electroweak processes at finite temperature. These can be involved in directly generating the baryon asymmetry (electroweak baryogenesis), in reprocessing an asymmetry in other quantum numbers into one in baryon number (for example in leptogenesis) or in diluting the asymmetry created by any baryogenesis mechanism which is effective above the electroweak scale and does not produce a $`BL`$ asymmetry. It is important to realize that, in the context of quintessential inflation, the quantitative effects of these electroweak processes may differ substantially from those in the standard cosmology Joyce:1996cp ; Joyce:1997fc  since in our case, the electroweak phase transition may occur during kination rather than radiation domination.

I have now provided quite a general description of quintessential baryogenesis, appropriate to the level of this talk. While this allows us to demonstrate the generic features of our model, we cannot calculate the magnitude of the actual baryon asymmetry generated without first specifying a mechanism of baryon number violation (and hence a value for $`T_F`$) and a value for the dimensionless combination $`\lambda ^{}M_\mathrm{p}/M`$. Here I’ll provide just one concrete example.

### III.3 Baryon Number Violation Through Non-renormalizable Operators

If there exists baryon number violating physics above the standard model, then this physics will manifest itself in non-renormalizable operators in the standard model. For the purposes of this section we will actually be interested in operators that violate the anomaly-free combination $`BL`$. Consider the effective 4-fermion operator

$$_{BL}=\frac{\stackrel{~}{g}}{M_X^2}\psi _1\psi _2\overline{\psi }_3\overline{\psi }_4,$$
(18)
where $`\psi _i`$ denote standard model fermions. Here $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$ is a dimensionless coupling, obtained after integrating out the $`BL`$ violating effects of a particle of mass $`M_X`$. The rate of baryon number violating processes due to this operator is, as usual, defined by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{BL}(T)=\sigma (T)n(T)v`$, where $`\sigma (T)`$ is the cross-section for $`\psi _1+\psi _2\psi _3+\psi _4`$, $`n(T)`$ is the number density of $`\psi `$ particles, $`v`$ is the relative velocity and $`\mathrm{}`$ denotes a thermal average. For temperatures $`T<M_X`$ we have $`n(T)T^3`$, $`\sigma (T)\stackrel{~}{g}^2T^2/M_X^4`$, and $`v1`$ which yields

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{BL}(T)\frac{\stackrel{~}{g}^2}{M_X^4}T^5.$$
(19)
The high power of the temperature dependence in this rate results from the fact that (18) is an irrelevant operator in the electroweak theory and is crucial for the success of our mechanism. These interactions are in thermal equilibrium in the early universe, but because their rate drops off so quickly with the cosmic expansion they will drop out of equilibrium at the temperature $`T_F`$ defined through

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{BL}(T_F)=H(T_F).$$
(20)
As a definite example, let us take $`\lambda ^{}M_\mathrm{p}/M8`$, which is as large as is allowed by current constraints. In this case we need $`M_X^{\mathrm{PV}}10^{11}`$ GeV, the intermediate scale that appears in some supersymmetric models.

### III.4 Brief Comments on Constraints and Tests

The presence of an extremely light scalar field in the universe has the potential to lead to a number of observable consequences in the laboratory and in cosmology. In the case of quintessence these effects have been analyzed in some detail by Carroll Carroll:1998zi . Particularly strong constraints arise due to couplings of the form

$$_{\mathrm{eff}}^{(1)}\beta _{F\stackrel{~}{F}}\frac{\varphi }{M}F_{\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{F}^{\mu \nu },$$
(21)
where $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{F}^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}ϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }F_{\rho \sigma }`$ are the electromagnetic field strength tensor and its dual respectively. If, as in quintessence models, the field $`\varphi `$ is homogeneous and time varying, then it affects the dispersion relation for electromagnetic waves and leads to a rotation in the direction of polarized light from radio sources Carroll:vb ; Carroll:1991zs . To avoid such bounds, quintessence models usually struggle to have such couplings be as small as possible. In our model however, we are making important use of the coupling (11). If the relevant current is that for baryon number $`J_B^\mu `$, then it can be shown that Carroll’s bound yields $`\lambda ^{}M_\mathrm{p}/M<8`$ . If the relevant current is $`J_{BL}^\mu `$ then the above argument does not apply formally. However, we may still generally expect an analogous coupling to the term $`F^{\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{F}_{\mu \nu }`$ of a similar order.

We have already demonstrated that, for an appropriate scale $`M_X`$, successful quintessential baryogenesis takes place for $`\lambda ^{}<8`$, and so it is possible to generate the observed BAU and to evade existing constraints. If quintessential baryogenesis is correct, then it may be that the relevant coupling $`\lambda ^{}`$ lies just below the existing observational bounds and that future studies of the rotation of polarized light from distant galaxies will reveal the presence of such a term.

## IV Comments and Conclusions

In the first part of this talk I presented a current view of the status of baryogenesis models, focusing on the best-known ones.

In this second part of my talk I extended the approach of Spokoiny Spokoiny:1993kt  and of Peebles and Vilenkin Peebles:1998qn  in exploring the extent to which the dynamics of a single scalar field can be responsible for not only inflation and dark energy domination, but also the baryon asymmetry of the universe. This model is called quintessential baryogenesis DeFelice:2002ir , and is interesting, of course, since the best fit cosmology to all current observational data is one in which the universe undergoes two separate epochs of acceleration.

We have left a number of questions unanswered and will return to them in future work. Perhaps the most pressing issue is one that plagues rolling scalar models of dark energy in general, namely the question of technical naturalness of the potentials involved, and their stability to quantum corrections. However, this is a general issue for quintessence models, and is not specific to our baryogenesis mechanism.

One thing is certain: the existence of the BAU is clear evidence from cosmology of particle physics beyond the standard model. This makes the conundrum of the BAU a fascinating problem for cosmologists and high-energy physicists alike.

## Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Antonio De Felice and Salah Nasri for a very enjoyable collaboration on quintessential baryogenesis. I would like to thank the organizers of the PASCOS-03 conference at the TIFR in Mumbai for their hospitality and for a wonderful conference. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant PHY-0094122.


format: text

text:
# MOND and the fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies

## 1 Introduction

High-surface-brightness (HSB) elliptical galaxies are known to define a “fundamental plane” (FP) when represented in the logarithmic space of their effective radius $`r_e`$, average surface brightness $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ within $`r_e`$, and central stellar velocity dispersion $`\sigma `$ (Dressler et al. (1987); Djorgovski and Davis (1987); Fig. 1). If elliptical galaxies had a constant mass-to-light ratio (M/L), then the physical base for the FP would be obvious because the virial theorem would imply a link between these three quantities. Real galaxies, however, do not follow the plane defined by the virial theorem (Busarello et al. (1997); Levine & Aguilar (1996); Prugniel and Simien (1997)). Finding an explanation for this unexpected behavior has been and still is one of the major puzzle in modern astrophysics. In a nutshell, both possibilities of a systematic change of M/L with luminosity and departure from homology were fully investigated. In order to preserve the narrowness of the FP, the tilt can be explained fine tuning the amount of dark matter to the galaxy luminosity, or fine tuning the departures from homology to the galaxy size (e.g., Ciotti, Lanzoni and Renzini (1996)). Of the two options the former is the most widely accepted, and the tilt ascribed to $`M/LL^{0.25}`$ (e.g., Bender, Burstein, and Faber (1993)).

Whatever the reason for the tilt is, both these possibilities face paramount difficulties as soon as low-surface-brightness (LSB) elliptical galaxies are considered, because these galaxies follows an inverse trend $`M/LL^{0.4}`$ (Dekel and Silk (1986); Peterson and Caldwell (1993)). Thus, it look like any classical picture conceived to explain the tilt of the FP defined by HSB, is deemed to fail with LSB, and vice versa. The goal of this work is to investigate whether a consistent explanation for the tilt of the FP and the opposite behavior of HSB and LSB galaxies can be ascribed to a completely different physical phenomenon.

In 1983 a modification of Newtonian dynamics known as MOND has been proposed as an alternative to non-baryonic dark matter (Milgrom 1983). Milgrom’s proposal states that gravity (or inertia) does not follow the prediction of Newtonian dynamics for acceleration smaller than $`a_0=1.2\times 10^8`$ cm s-2 (Begeman et al., 1991). The true acceleration of gravity $`g`$ being related to the Newtonian acceleration $`g__\mathrm{N}`$ by

$$g__\mathrm{N}=g\mu (g/a_0).$$
(1)
The interpolation function $`\mu (g/a_0)`$ admits the asymptotic behavior $`\mu (g/a_0)=1`$ for $`g>>a_0`$, so to retrieve the Newtonian expression in the strong field regime, and $`\mu (g/a_0)=g/a_0`$ for $`g<<a_0`$. The constant $`a_0`$ is meant to be a new constant of physics. The transition from the Newtonian to the MOND regime occurs for values of acceleration that remain undetected within the solar system where the strong field of the sun (of the order of $`10^4`$ cm s-2 at the distance of Pluto) dominates all dynamical processes. As a consequence, we have no direct proof of the validity of Newton’s law in the low acceleration regimes that are typical in galaxies.

Since the seminal papers on MOND (Milgrom, 1983a; milgrom83b, 1983b, c), a few authors have worked on this subject showing how this simple idea explains many properties of galaxies without the need of non-baryonic dark matter (e.g., Begeman et al., 1991; Milgrom, 1994; Sanders, 1996; McGaugh & de Block, 1998). MOND is also effective in describing the dynamics of galaxy groups and clusters (Milgrom, 1998; Sanders, 1999) and, with some approximations, gravitational lensing (Qin and Zou, 1995; Mortlock and Turner, 2001). For a recent review see Sanders and McGaugh (2002).

Clearly, MOND applies to any stellar structure and therefore its effects should be visible also in elliptical galaxies. In this work, I shall study the FP within the contest of MOND, to see if it is possible to explain both the tilt of the FP and the opposite behavior of LSB and HSB galaxies without the needs to invoke non-baryonic dark matter.

## 2 MOND effects on elliptical galaxies

If gravity deviates from Newtonian prediction in the low acceleration regime typical of galaxies, then the logical implication is that the weaker the field, the bigger the deviation. With this in mind, the Kormendy relation (Fig. 2) assumes a new meaning because in elliptical galaxies $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (or equivalently $`\mu _e`$), is proportional to their internal acceleration of gravity 111 This derive from the assumption that there is no dark matter. In this case the acceleration at the effective radius is $`a=GxM/r_e^2`$, where $`x`$ is the fraction of the total mass within $`r_e`$. After substituting $`M=\tau L`$ and $`L=2\pi r_e^2\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ we have $`a=2\pi Gx\tau \mathrm{\Sigma }\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.. Thus the trends followed by HSB and LSB galaxies in the $`\mu _er_e`$ plane can be seen as trends of their internal gravitational field. The opposite dependence of $`\mu _e`$ on $`r_e`$ observed in HSB and LSB then suggest these galaxies enter into MOND regime in different ways and, as a result, should follow different FP. In order to use MOND to verify if this is the case, the interpolation function $`\mu `$ must be specified. Different but functionally equivalent expression for $`\mu `$ have been used in the literature (Milgrom 1983b, 1984; Sanders, 1996). Currently the most used function, also adopted here, is:

$$\mu (g/a_0)=\frac{g/a_0}{\sqrt{1+(g/a_0)^2}},$$
(2)
which works well in describing galactic rotation curves and has the advantage of being simple. Solving for $`g`$ the true acceleration of gravity reads

$$g=g__\mathrm{N}\left[\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{1+\left(\frac{2a_0}{g__\mathrm{N}}\right)^2}\right]^{1/2}.$$
(3)
This expression allows the calculation of the true gravitational acceleration provided the Newtonian one is known.

Before proceeding to compute $`g__\mathrm{N}`$, it is worth noticing that if $`\tau `$ is the true value of M/L of an object, and $`\tau __\mathrm{N}`$ is the one derived using Newton’s law to convert accelerations to masses, then $`g/g__\mathrm{N}\tau __\mathrm{N}/\tau `$. Indeed, imagine an acceleration $`g`$ is measured at distance $`r`$ from an object of luminosity $`L`$. In MOND we interpret this $`g`$ as due to a mass $`M=gr^2/G[]=\tau L`$, where the term $`[]`$ is the factor $`g/g__\mathrm{N}`$ defined in eq.3. On the other hand, according to Newton’s law we infer a mass $`M__\mathrm{N}=gr^2/G=\tau __\mathrm{N}L`$. Then the ratio $`M__\mathrm{N}/M=\tau __\mathrm{N}/\tau =[]=g/g__\mathrm{N}`$. Thus, any difference between $`g`$ and $`g__\mathrm{N}`$ will appear as a variation of $`\tau `$.

To investigate these effects on elliptical galaxies, I shall take as representative of each galaxy the acceleration of gravity $`g_N`$ at $`r_e`$, computed setting $`\tau `$ from the stellar population typical of the galaxies and replacing the gravitational radius with $`r_e`$. In absence of dark matter both assumptions are valid. The mass within $`r_e`$ is set to be $`x=0.41`$ of the total mass, as appropriate for galaxies following the $`r^{1/4}`$ de Vaucouleurs law (Young, 1976). Under these assumptions, the acceleration of gravity at $`r_e`$ becomes:

$$g__\mathrm{N}=\frac{GMx}{r_e^2}=\frac{1.406\times 10^{11}x\tau L}{r_e^2}\left[cms^2\right],$$
(4)
where the numerical constant is correct for $`\tau `$ and $`L`$ in solar units, and $`r_e`$ in pc. Combining eq. 3 and 4 one can compute $`g/g__\mathrm{N}`$ for all galaxies.

## 3 The mass to light ratio

Before proceeding with the calculation of $`g_N`$, I have to set the value of $`\tau `$. Since I am assuming Newton’s law fails below $`a_0`$, masses derived using any dynamical model based on this law can obviously not be used here.

Stellar evolution theories, which potentially provide the best tools for computing $`\tau `$, give results that critically depend on the adopted initial mass function (IMF) and the low masses cutoff. These parameters are rather uncertain and imply large differences on the derived $`\tau `$. For instance, for a single coeval stellar population, assuming a single-slope Salpeter IMF with slope 2.35, $`\tau `$ changes by a factor 4.5 varying the low masses cutoff from 0.15 to 0.05 M. Note that this problem is only mildly alleviated using a more realistic multi-slope IMF (e.g., Scalo, 1986) at low masses (Renzini and Ciotti, 1993).

An unbiased way to estimate $`\tau `$ relies on the analysis of the stars in the solar neighborhood, where stars of all spectral type in all possible evolutionary phases can be studied in great detail. From Binney and Merrifield (1998), the total mass of stars in $`10^4`$ pc3 is 356M \+ 30M of white dwarfs. For this sample it is found $`\tau =0.7`$.

This sample of stars can be used to estimate $`\tau `$ for any stellar population simply integrating the light over all the relevant spectral types, while maintaining the total mass fixed. This will result in an upper limit to the true $`\tau `$, because more than one generation of stars contributed to it and therefore the number of low mass stars is overrepresented.

In elliptical galaxies the stellar population is composed by stars in: sub-giant branch, red-giant branch, horizontal branch, and main sequence up to spectral type K. In $`10^4`$ pc3 there are 4 red giants of K type and 0.25 of M type populating the giant branch, which have average luminosity of 57 and 120 solar luminosities, respectively. For each star in the giant branch there are $``$ 21 stars in the sub-giant branch and 0.75 in the horizontal branch (Renzini, 1998), which contribute for 5 and 52 $`L_{}`$, respectively. Stars still in the main sequence add another 18 $`L_{}`$. From these considerations it follows that $`\tau =386/4200.9`$. This value is consistent with that derived for globular clusters (Mandushev, Staneva and Spasova, 1991; Renzini and Ciotti, 1993) that have a similar old stellar population. These objects, however, are slightly different form elliptical galaxies because they don’t contain gas and at least a fraction of the less massive stars, which contributes to the mass but not to the luminosity, have probably left the clusters long ago (e.g. Aguilar, Hut and Ostriker, 1988; Smith and Burkert, 2002). So, for globular cluster $`\tau =1`$ should be fairly correct, while here I shall set $`\tau =2`$ for all elliptical galaxies. A fairly conservative assumption that allows for the presence of large amount of gas, particularly relevant in LSB galaxies.

For spiral galaxies, setting $`\tau =1.2`$, that is about twice as big as that observed in the solar neighborhood, allows for plenty of gas and the bulge old stellar population. Finally, for cluster of galaxies I assume a mix of spiral and ellipticals, with $`\tau 1.6`$. I stress that the results reported in this work do not significantly depend on the assumed value of $`\tau `$ in the range 1-2.

## 4 Comparing MOND with observations

I compute here the quantity $`g/g_N`$ and investigate its relation with $`\sigma `$, $`r_e`$, and $`L`$ for a sample of elliptical galaxies.

The representative data set for HSB galaxies is taken from the compilation of Bender, Burstein, and Faber (1993), to which I added data for 6 LSB and 11 dwarfs galaxies (Peterson and Caldwell, 1993), 6 compact ellipticals (Guhathakurta and van der Marel, 2002), and 22 radio galaxies (Bettoni et al., 2001). Throughout the paper, H$`{}_{0}{}^{}=50`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 is used.

The acceleration $`g_N`$ at $`r_e`$ is found comparable to $`a_0`$ for HSB galaxies, while being well below this value in LSB. The effect of MOND on objects characterized by different $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is shown in Fig. 3. It is seen that galaxies follow a continuous sequence implying the mass discrepancy, or in other word the dark matter content, is uniquely defined by $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. I shall show that this fact has important consequences for understanding why objects as different as globular and galaxy clusters may appear to have the same mass discrepancy.

In Fig. 3, HSB and LSB galaxies are no longer distinguishable because the opposite dependence of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ on $`r_e`$ (see Fig. 2) disappears. The different behavior of HSB and LSB become evident when plotting $`g/g__\mathrm{N}`$ versus $`r_e`$ or $`L`$ (Fig. 4 and 5). It is therefore clear that the effect of modified dynamics is to mimic an increase of $`\tau `$ as a function of $`L`$ for HSB galaxies, while doing the opposite for LSB galaxies. Moreover, Fig. 5 shows that with good approximation, and certainly within the spread of the data, the dependence on luminosity is $`\tau L^{0.25}`$ for HSB galaxies, and $`\tau L^{0.3}`$ for LSB galaxies, consistent with the values quoted in the literature (Bender, Burstein, and Faber, 1993; Peterson and Caldwell, 1993).

The striking different behavior of HSB and LSB galaxies can therefore be easily explained by a unique model assuming a modification of Newton’s law. Under this hypothesis the tilt of the FP is not due to a systematic increase/decrease of the dark matter content of galaxies, but it is the effect of the variation of the strength of their internal gravitational field as compared to $`a_0`$.

Another way to investigate the effect of MOND on galaxies is shown in Fig. 6, where the acceleration of gravity from eq. 4, is compared to the acceleration derived using the dynamical mass, $`M_{dyn}=3G\sigma ^2/r_e`$. Though there is significant spread of the data, it is seen that dynamical masses imply no mass discrepancy for acceleration stronger or comparable to $`a_0`$, while a deviation is apparent when the acceleration goes below it, as prescribed by MOND. Note that the stronger discrepancy occurs for LSB galaxies, because they are in deep MOND regime. While observational data and MOND predictions agree reasonably well, to explain this behavior using Newtonian dynamics requires fine tuning of the total amount of dark matter in galaxies of very different type and morphology.

These considerations are not limited to elliptical galaxies. In fact if MOND is the underlying law regulating gravity in the universe, then all stellar systems should be described by MOND. Though a full discussion of this issue goes beyond the scope of the present work, it is worth to add more data to Fig. 6 to see whether other stellar systems different from elliptical galaxies follow the same trend. In Fig. 7 I plot the data from the data for 1050 objects (51 globular clusters, 300 elliptical galaxies, 513 spiral galaxies, 170 galaxy groups and 16 galaxy clusters) from the compilation of Burstein et al. (1997), are plotted. Data cover 7 order of magnitudes in internal acceleration, going from globular clusters which are believed to be dark matter free, to the largest cluster which have $`\tau 100`$. The agreement between MOND and the observed dependence of the mass discrepancy is clear and becomes striking after re-binning the data (Fig. 8), indicating that either the dark-matter content in stellar structure is amazingly well linked to the strength of their internal gravitational field, or that Newton’s law fails below $`a_0`$.

I stress that under the latter explanation, it is clear that objects like globular clusters are baryons dominated not just for a coincidence but because their internal acceleration of gravity is above $`a_0`$. And objects as different as a galaxy cluster and a tiny LSB dwarf galaxy have similarly large $`\tau `$ not for a pure coincidence but because their internal acceleration of gravity is similar.

Finally, I would like to comment on recent result for two globular clusters. Observations of the stellar velocity dispersion of Palomar 13 (Côté et al., 2002) have been interpreted as evidence for large amount of dark matter in this cluster ($`\tau 40`$). Similarly, my collaborators and I have shown that at large radii the velocity dispersion profile of $`\omega `$ Centauri remains flat for accelerations below few times $`a_0`$ (Scarpa, Marconi, and Gilmozzi, 2002), as observed in galaxies. This result was interpreted as evidence of a failure of Newton’s law in the low acceleration limit, while the classical scenario would imply large amount of dark matter surrounding the cluster and therefore large mass discrepancy. I show in Fig. 6 that in both cases the clusters uniforms to MOND prediction further supporting the proposed scenario.

## 5 Conclusion

The most important conclusion of this work is that assuming MOND the tilt of the FP can be explained by the different strength, as compared to $`a_0`$, of the internal gravitational field in galaxies of different type and size. This suffice to show that using Newton’s law of gravity $`\tau `$ is expected to vary systematically with $`r_e`$ or, equivalently, with $`L`$, in a way fully consistent with observations. The opposite behavior of HSB and LSB galaxies, which poses paramount difficulties for Newtonian dynamics, also find a natural explanation in this scenario. The observed systematic deviation extends naturally to other stellar structures over 7 order of magnitude in acceleration, strongly suggesting that a law of physics, rather than dark matter, regulates the behavior of stellar structures in the Universe. It is worth noticing that all this is achieved in MOND without a single free parameter.

Acknowledgments
It is a pleasure to thanks Renato Falomo and Gianni Marconi, for helpful discussion that strongly improved the quality of this work.


text:
# Autocorrelation function of the soft X-ray background produced by warm-hot gas in dark halos

## 1 Introduction

Hydrodynamical simulations of structure formation suggest that most of baryons in the local universe may exist in the form of diffuse warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM) at temperatures of $`T10^5`$$`10^7`$ K (Cen & Ostriker 1999). The WHIM is believed to be associated with groups and poor clusters that are further embedded in large-scale structures. As a result, the gravitationally heated WHIM may manifest itself as large-scale X-ray filamentary structures through thermal bremsstrahlung emission (Scharf et al. 2000; Zappacosta et al. 2002). However, the majority of the baryons may escape direct detection due to the sensitivity limit of current X-ray instruments. A newly proposed approach is to search for the resonant absorption from the WHIM in large-scale filamentary structures (Cen et al. 2001). It seems that strong evidence for the detection of absorption lines associated with the local WHIM has already been discovered (Fang et al. 2002; Nicastro et al. 2002a,b).

It has been realized in recent years that the WHIM may also contribute a non-negligible fraction of the cosmic soft X-ray background (SXRB) (e.g. Pen 1999; Davé et al. 2001; Voit & Bryan 2001a; Bryan & Voit 2001; Croft et al. 2001; Wu & Xue 2001) and therefore, measurements of the strength and power spectrum of the SXRB may allow us to set stringent constraints on both the amount and distribution of the WHIM in the local universe. In fact, a tight limit on the SXRB from diffuse gas, after discrete sources are removed, has been obtained with advanced X-ray detectors such as ROSAT, Chandra and XMM (e.g. McHardy et al. 1998; Hasinger et al. 1998, 2001; Mushotzky et al. 2000; Giacconi et al. 2001, 2002; Tozzi et al. 2001; Hornschemeier et al. 2001; Rosati et al. 2002; Bauer et al. 2002; etc.). In particular, the angular two-point autocorrelation (ACF) and harmonic power spectrum of the SXRB have been measured over a broad angular scale ranging from ten degrees to a few arcminutes (Barcons et al. 1989; Carrera et al. 1991; Soltan 1991; Soltan & Hasinger 1994; Soltan et al. 1996, 1999; Carrera, Fabian, & Barcons 1997; Soltan, Freyberg & Trümper 2001; Śliwa, Soltan & Freyberg 2001; Soltan, Freyberg & Hasinger 2002), in which the signature of the diffuse WHIM has been clearly detected at arcminute scales (Soltan et al. 2001). This is actually comparable with the angular resolution achieved very recently by cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy measurements, in which the excess power relative to primordial anisotropy at arcminute scales is interpreted as the scattering of CMB photons by the hot electrons within clusters, namely, the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect (Dawson et al. 2001; Bond et al. 2002). In a sense, the power spectra of both SXRB and CMB at arcminute scales provide equally important information on the amount and distribution of the WHIM in the universe, although X-ray and SZ signals have very different connections with the WHIM. For example, the diffuse X-ray emission is sensitive to the clumping structures of the WHIM and is also subject to the WHIM enrichment. Moreover, the unresolved SXRB after discrete sources are removed is primarily produced by the WHIM in the local universe. By contrast, SZ signals are rather insensitive to the location of the WHIM. At this point, the SXRB may be more suited for the study of the missing baryons.

The theoretical framework of evaluating the ACF of the SXRB was established many years ago by Barcons & Fabian (1988). Similar technique was simultaneously developed by Cole & Kaiser (1988) for the computation of the SZ power spectrum. Furthermore, an extensive investigation of the harmonic power spectrum of the SXRB has been recently made by Śliwa et al. (2001). Essentially, the ACF or power spectrum of the SXRB can be effectively predicted and compared with observations, provided that the distribution and evolution of the WHIM as well as the cosmological background are specified. However, major uncertainties in such an exercise arise from our poor knowledge of nongravitational processes of the WHIM if we accept the prevailing cosmological model (e.g. the concordance model) and hierarchical theory of structure formation (e.g. the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model). This is because the WHIM is easily disturbed by many complicated physical processes in addition to gravity and thermal pressure, which include (non)gravitational heating, radiative cooling, star formation and energy feedback, magnetic fields, etc. The reliability of our theoretical predictions of the intensity and ACF of the SXRB is closely connected with the question of how well one can handle these non-gravitational mechanisms. Based on the analysis of the SXRB intensity alone, it has been shown that the SXRB produced by the gravitationally heated and bound WHIM in groups and clusters within the standard framework of hierarchical formation of structures vastly exceeds the upper limits set by current X-ray observations, arguing for the presence of nongravitational heating process during the evolution of the WHIM (e.g. Pen 1999; Wu, Fabian & Nulsen 2001; Bryan & Voit 2001; Wu & Xue 2001). On the other hand, it may become possible to use the unresolved SXRB as a probe of the underlying physical processes of the WHIM (Xue & Wu 2003). Yet, there is still no agreement about the significance of nongravitational heating on the SXRB produced by the WHIM (e.g. Croft et al. 2001; Davé et al. 2001; Phillips, Ostriker & Cen 2001). This partially reflects the difficulty in handling the complex processes of the WHIM evolution.

In this study, we will focus on the nongravitational effect of the WHIM on the evaluation of the power spectrum and ACF of the SXRB. Using hydrodynamical simulations without inclusion of nongravitational heating, Croft et al. (2001) attempted to construct the ACF of the SXRB. Their result is in quantitative agreement with the extrapolated ACF of the SXRB measured at scales of $`>20`$ arcminutes by Soltan et al. (1999), which is, however, dominated by AGNs. By contrast, a recent investigation of Zhang & Pen (2002), based purely on analytical models, has shown that the ACF of the SXRB at arcminute scales can be significantly modified by the presence of nongravitational heating process. Further investigation is thus needed to clarify the situation. Recall that there is growing observational evidence for the existence of nongravitational process in groups and clusters, which includes the significant departure of the observed X-ray luminosity - temperature relation of groups and clusters from the prediction of the self-similar model (e.g. Edge & Stewart 1991; David et al. 1993; Wu, Xue & Fang 1999; Helsdon & Ponman 2000; Xue & Wu 2000 and references therein) and the entropy excess in the central cores of groups and clusters (Ponman, Cannon & Navarro 1999; Lloyd-Davies, Ponman & Cannon 2000).

Two prevailing nongravitational scenarios will be considered in the present investigation: preheating and radiative cooling. Both of them tend to suppress the X-ray emission of the WHIM heated by purely gravitational shocks and compression, and become indistinguishable at present in the explanation of the observed X-ray properties of groups and clusters (Voit & Bryan 2001b; Voit et al. 2002; Borgani et al. 2002; Xue & Wu 2003). Nonetheless, it has been argued that radiative cooling alone is probably insufficient to account for the unresolved SXRB (Wu et al. 2001; Xue & Wu 2003), while preheating model or a combined model of cooling and heating may be able to produce an SXRB intensity below the observational limit (Wu et al. 2001; Voit & Bryan 2001b; Xue & Wu 2003). In the present study we will demonstrate how the ACF of the SXRB is affected by preheating and radiative cooling processes. To achieve this, we will employ a simple analytic model to determine the new distribution of the WHIM in dark halos when preheating or radiative cooling is added, as was done by our recent work (Xue & Wu 2003). Incorporating our WHIM models with the distribution and cosmic evolution of dark halo model described by the universal density profile and the Press-Schechter (PS) (Press & Schechter 1974) formalism, we will be able to work out the power spectrum and ACF of the SXRB and discuss the feasibility of measurement. Throughout this paper we assume a flat cosmological model ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM) of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=0.35`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.65`$ and $`h=0.65`$.

## 2 Halo approach to the ACF of the SXRB

In terms of thermal bremsstrahlung, the X-ray surface brightness of a halo of mass $`M`$ at redshift $`z`$ is

$$I(z,M,𝜽)=\frac{1}{4\pi (1+z)^4}ϵ(R,Z)𝑑\chi ,$$
(1)
where $`ϵ`$ is the emissivity that is calculated using the Raymond-Smith (1977) code at the soft X-ray energy band 0.5-2.0 keV for an evolving metallicity model of $`Z=0.3Z_{}(t/t_0)`$, $`t_0`$ is the present age of the universe, $`R`$ is the radius from the halo center and $`R=\sqrt{D_\mathrm{A}^2\theta ^2+\chi ^2}`$, $`D_\mathrm{A}`$ is the angular diameter distance to the halo, and the integral is performed along the line-of-sight $`\chi `$. The Fourier transform of the X-ray surface brightness distribution $`I(z,M,𝜽)`$ in the case of spherical symmetry for the distribution of the WHIM in a halo is

$$I_{\mathrm{}}(z,M)=2\pi I(z,M,\theta )J_0(\mathrm{}\theta )\theta 𝑑\theta ,$$
(2)
where $`J_0`$ is the cylindrical Bessel function. The distribution and evolution of halo population are described by the PS theory:

$$\frac{d^2N}{dVdM}=\sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi }}\frac{\overline{\rho }}{M}\frac{\delta _\mathrm{c}}{\sigma ^2}\frac{d\sigma }{dM}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\delta _\mathrm{c}^2}{2\sigma ^2}\right),$$
(3)
where $`\overline{\rho }`$ is the mean cosmic density, $`\delta _\mathrm{c}`$ is the linear over-density of perturbations that collapsed and virialized at redshift $`z`$, $`\sigma `$ is the linear theory variance of the mass density fluctuation in sphere of mass $`M=4\pi \overline{\rho }R^3/3`$. We parameterize the power spectrum of fluctuation $`P(k)k^nT^2(k)`$ and take the fit given by Bardeen et al. (1986) for the transfer function of adiabatic CDM model $`T(k)`$. The primordial power spectrum is assumed to be the Harrison-Zel’dovich case $`n=1`$. The mass variance for a given $`P(k)`$ is simply

$$\sigma ^2(M)=\frac{1}{2\pi ^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}k^2P(k)W^2(kR)𝑑k,$$
(4)
in which $`W(x)=3(\mathrm{sin}xx\mathrm{cos}x)/x^3`$ is the Fourier representation of the window function. The amplitude in the power spectrum is determined using the rms fluctuation on an $`8`$ $`h^1`$ Mpc scale, $`\sigma _8`$, which will be assumed to be $`\sigma _8=0.9`$.

The power spectrum of the SXRB can be separated into the Poisson term, which arises from the correlation within a single halo

$$P^\mathrm{p}(\mathrm{})=𝑑z\frac{dV}{d\mathrm{\Omega }dz}𝑑M\frac{d^2N}{dMdV}[I_{\mathrm{}}(z,M)]^2,$$
(5)
and the clustering term, which arises from the correlation between two different halos

$$P^\mathrm{c}(\mathrm{})=𝑑z\frac{dV}{d\mathrm{\Omega }dz}P^m(\mathrm{}/\overline{r},z)\left[𝑑M\frac{d^2N}{dMdV}b(M,z)I_{\mathrm{}}(z,M)\right]^2,$$
(6)
where we have introduced the halo-halo biasing $`b(M,z)`$ relative to linear matter power spectrum such that the power spectrum of halo $`M_1`$ and halo $`M_2`$ can be approximated by $`P^{\mathrm{hh}}(z,M_1,M_2,k)=b(z,M_1)b(z,M_2)P^\mathrm{m}(z,k)`$, the small-angle approximation has also been assumed so that $`k\mathrm{}/\overline{r}`$, $`\overline{r}`$ is the comoving distance, and $`dV/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ denotes the comoving volume per steradian. We calculate $`b(z,M)`$ in terms of the prescription of Mo & White (1996). Finally, the angular two-point ACF of the SXRB is simply

$$\omega (\theta )=\frac{1}{2\pi \overline{I}^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}\left[P^\mathrm{p}(\mathrm{})+P^\mathrm{c}(\mathrm{})\right]J_0(\mathrm{}\theta )\mathrm{}𝑑\mathrm{}.$$
(7)
The mean SXRB intensity $`\overline{I}`$ is given by

$$\overline{I}=𝑑z\frac{dV}{d\mathrm{\Omega }dz}𝑑M\frac{d^2N}{dMdV}\left[\frac{L_\mathrm{X}(z,M)}{4\pi D_\mathrm{L}^2(z)}\right],$$
(8)
where $`L_\mathrm{X}`$ is the total soft X-ray luminosity of a halo of mass $`M`$ at redshift $`z`$, and $`D_\mathrm{L}`$ is the luminosity distance.

## 3 WHIM models

A set of analytic models for the WHIM distribution in dark halos have been derived by Xue & Wu (2003). Here we choose three models corresponding to three typical physical processes of the WHIM: (1)Self-similar model: The WHIM simply follows the dark matter distribution, in which no radiative cooling and no extra heating are added to the WHIM; (2)Preheating model: An extra, constant energy budget is added to the WHIM for all halos; And (3)cooling model: Radiative cooling of the WHIM is included. We briefly summarize the properties of the three models below.

### 3.1 Dark halos

We begin with the underlying dark matter profile in a halo of mass $`M`$ at redshift $`z`$. We adopt the universal density profile suggested by numerical simulations (Navarro, Frenk & White 1997; NFW)

$$\rho _{\mathrm{DM}}(r)=\frac{\delta _{\mathrm{ch}}\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}}{(r/r_\mathrm{s})(1+r/r_\mathrm{s})^2},$$
(9)
where $`\delta _{\mathrm{ch}}`$ and $`r_\mathrm{s}`$ are the characteristic density and length of the halo, respectively, which can be fixed through the so-called concentration parameter $`c=r_{\mathrm{vir}}/r_\mathrm{s}`$ using the empirical fitting formula found by numerical simulations (Bullock et al. 2001)

$$c=\frac{10}{1+z}\left(\frac{M}{2.1\times 10^{13}M_{}}\right)^{0.14}.$$
(10)
The influence of the $`c`$ scatter on the ACF of the SXRB will not be considered in this study, which roughly reflects the effect of different formation time of dark halos. The virial mass $`M`$ is defined as

$$M=\frac{4}{3}\pi r_{\mathrm{vir}}^3\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}\rho _{\mathrm{crit}},$$
(11)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}`$ denotes the overdensity parameter and for a flat, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmological model, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}=18\pi ^2+82[\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}(z)1]39[\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}(z)1]^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}(z)=\mathrm{\Omega }_M(1+z)^3/E^2`$ and $`E^2=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}(1+z)^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Finally, we specify the virial temperature of a dark halo in terms of the cosmic virial theorem (Bryan and Norman 1998):

$$kT=1.39\mathrm{keV}f_\mathrm{T}\left(\frac{M}{10^{15}M_{}}\right)^{2/3}\left(h^2E^2\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}\right)^{1/3}.$$
(12)
We will take the normalization factor to be $`f_\mathrm{T}=0.8`$ below.

### 3.2 Self-similar model

We assume that the WHIM particles in halos simply follow the dark matter distribution:

$$n_\mathrm{e}(r)=\frac{f_\mathrm{b}}{\mu _\mathrm{e}m_\mathrm{p}}\rho _{\mathrm{DM}}(r),$$
(13)
where $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ is the number density of electrons, $`f_\mathrm{b}`$ is the universal baryon fraction, and $`\mu _\mathrm{e}=1.13`$ is the mean electron weight. We further assume that the WHIM is isothermal with temperature $`T=T_{\mathrm{vir}}`$. Consequently, the X-ray surface brightness profile $`I(z,M,\theta )`$ can be straightforwardly obtained. To avoid the divergence of $`I(z,M,\theta )`$ towards the centers of the halos, the NFW profile is replaced by a flat core for the central regions of radius $`0.01r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$. Adopting a temperature profile given by the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium alters the result only slightly. It is well known that this model yields a significant overestimate of the SXRB intensity. Here we use this model as a reference point.

### 3.3 Preheating model

We employ a phenomenological approach to constructing the preheating model by simply raising the entropy $`S^0(r)`$ of the WHIM in the self-similar model to a certain level regardless of whatever the energy sources would be:

$$S(r)=\mathrm{\Delta }S+S^0(r).$$
(14)
We fix the constant entropy floor $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ using the observed X-ray luminosity and entropy distributions of groups and clusters. It turns out that a constant floor of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=120`$ keV cm2 reproduces nicely both the X-ray luminosity - temperature relation and central entropy measurement of groups and clusters (Xue & Wu 2003). The new distribution of the WHIM with preheating can be obtained by combining the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium

$$\frac{1}{\mu m_\mathrm{p}n_\mathrm{e}(r)}\frac{d[n_\mathrm{e}(r)kT(r)]}{dr}=\frac{GM_{\mathrm{DM}}(r)}{r^2}$$
(15)
and the new entropy profile $`S(r)=kT(r)/n_\mathrm{e}^{2/3}(r)`$. The latter acts as the equation of state for the preheated WHIM.

### 3.4 Cooling model

Radiative cooling is completely governed by the conservation of energy:

$$\frac{3}{2}n_\mathrm{t}kT=ϵ(n_\mathrm{e},T,Z)t_\mathrm{c},$$
(16)
where $`n_\mathrm{t}`$ is the total number density of the WHIM. Setting the cooling time $`t_\mathrm{c}`$ to equal the cosmic age at the halo redshift gives the cooling radius $`r_{\mathrm{cool}}`$ and total mass $`M_{\mathrm{cool}}`$ of the cooled material. Following the prescription of Voit & Bryan (2001b) and Wu & Xue (2002a), we can find the distribution of the remaining WHIM after cooling by solving the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium under the conservation of total baryonic mass and entropy. Two uncertainties in this model arise from the metallicity $`Z`$ and the cooling time $`t_\mathrm{c}`$. Note that $`t_\mathrm{c}`$ has a cosmological dependence if $`t_\mathrm{c}`$ is set to equal the age of the universe.

## 4 Results

Figure 1a - 1c show the ACFs of the SXRB over angular scales from $`0.01^{}`$ to $`1^{}`$ predicted by our self-similar model, preheating model and cooling model, respectively. A glimpse of these plots reveals that overall features of the resulting ACFs look quite similar for all three models: The ACFs of the SXRB are dominated by the Poisson distribution of the WHIM halos, and the contribution of halo clustering is essentially negligible. Moreover, the ACFs of the SXRB are governed by nearby halos within redshift $`z0.2`$. In other words, if the local population of groups and poor clusters can be properly removed in the measurement of the SXRB, the ACF amplitude will be significantly reduced especially at large angular separations $`\theta >0.1^{}`$ where the halo clustering becomes the dominant component. Yet, there is a remarkable difference between the ACF predicted by the self-similar model and those by preheating and cooling models. Namely, the ACF power in the self-similar model arises primarily from poor groups in mass range between $`10^{13}`$ and $`10^{14}`$ M, while more massive groups and poor clusters ($`10^{14}`$-$`10^{15}`$ M) play a prominent role in the ACFs of the SXRB for preheating and cooling models. This is because either the WHIM cannot be trapped in low-mass halos in the scenario of preheating or most of the WHIM in low-mass halos was converted into the cooled materials in radiative cooling model.

We compare in Figure 2 the ACFs of the SXRB predicted by our three WHIM models. In addition to their difference in amplitude, the ACFs in preheating and cooling models become shallower in shape than the ACF in the self-similar model. This arises from the fact that both preheating and radiative cooling tend to flatten the radial profiles of the WHIM inside dark halos, and the effect is more remarkable for low-mass halos (e.g. Balogh, Babul & Patton 1999; Babul et al. 2002; Wu & Xue 2002a,b; Voit et al. 2002), which is consistent with the result of Zhang & Pen (2002) that the more an extra energy is added to the WHIM, the shallower the ACF of the SXRB would be. Yet, the most efficient way of distinguishing different WHIM models is perhaps to work directly with the power spectrum of the SXRB produced by the WHIM. To see this, we have also illustrated in Fig. 2 the SXRB power spectra predicted by the three WHIM models. Indeed, the inclusion of nongravitational processes (preheating or cooling) results in a dramatic change in the SXRB power spectrum, with the peak location moving from $`3\times 10^4`$ for self-similar model to $`3`$-$`5\times 10^3`$ for preheating and cooling scenarios. Apparently, this is because X-ray emission is sensitive to the dense WHIM in the central cores of dark halos, while both preheating and cooling yield a flattening of the WHIM distribution in halos. As a result, the SXRB power spectrum is peaked toward smaller $`\mathrm{}`$ in the presence of nongravitational processes as compared with the prediction of the self-similar model. Future measurement of the SXRB power spectrum by diffuse WHIM at 1-10 arcminute scales should allow us to place stringent constraints on the spatial distribution and physical processes of the WHIM. Recall that the SZ power spectrum at $`\mathrm{}<10^4`$ is rather insensitive to the physical processes of the WHIM.

We now compare our predictions with the existing results of X-ray observations, hydrodynamical simulations and other theoretical work. Figure 3 shows our model predictions with and without ‘local’ population within $`z=0.2`$, along with the observationally determined ACFs of the SXRB by Soltan et al. (2001) and the numerically simulated result by Croft et al. (2001) without inclusion of preheating. However, a direct comparison of our theoretically expected ACFs with these observational and simulated data is inappropriate because the latter have included contributions from both point sources like AGNs and extended sources such as galaxies, groups and clusters. A reasonable comparison can be made only if the major component of the SXRB, i.e. AGNs, is properly removed. In addition, the ACF constructed by Soltan et al. (2001) has excluded the pointings centered at local extended sources. This also complicates our comparison with theoretical predictions because the inclusion of nearby clusters can change the predicted ACF substantially. In a word, the current measurements of the SXRB ACF still do not facilitate a meaningful comparison with theoretical expectation. For a preheating model, we can indeed compare our prediction with a similar theoretical investigation by Zhang & Pen (2002). It appears that the two results are roughly consistent with each other except at very large angular separations.

## 5 Discussion and conclusions

Using a halo approach to the abundance and evolution of dark halos and a phenomenological approach to including nongravitational heating and radiative cooling for the WHIM, we have calculated the power spectra and ACFs of the SXRB produced by diffuse WHIM associated with dark halos. Because both nongravitational heating and radiative cooling tend to produce a flattening of the WHIM distribution in halos, the resulting ACFs of the SXRB thus become shallower in shape as compared with the one given by the self-similar model. In particular, the corresponding SXRB power spectra exhibit a signature that differs dramatically from the one in the self-similar model, with the peak location moving from $`3\times 10^4`$ for the self-similar model to $`(3`$-$`5)\times 10^3`$ for preheating and cooling models. Therefore, measurement of the SXRB power spectrum can be used as an effective tool for the probe of different physical processes of the WHIM at various scales. Unfortunately, the current measurement based on ROSAT observations is still unable to facilitate such an investigation because the available ACF of the SXRB is primarily produced by AGNs (Soltan et al. 2001). One possible way is to subtract the AGN component from the SXRB power spectrum using the 3D spatial correlation function of the AGNs that can be constructed separately. Yet, this may also introduce large uncertainties.

One of our initial goals in the present investigation is to study the feasibility of searching for the missing baryons from measurement of the power spectra and ACFs of the SXRB. If the missing baryons are the WHIM associated with groups and poor clusters that are further embedded in large-scale structures as shown by hydrodynamical simulations (Cen & Ostriker 1999; Davé et al. 2001), a comparison of the theoretically predicted power spectrum, ACF or total intensity of the SXRB and the X-ray observed quantities should allow us to set useful constraints on the content and distribution of the missing baryons. Indeed, in the more realistic case of where nongravitational effect is taken into account, the major contribution to the SXRB comes from local groups and poor clusters with masses ranging from $`10^{14}`$ to $`10^{15}M_{}`$ (see Fig.1b and Fig.1c), and the effect of very massive clusters of $`M>10^{15}M_{}`$ and low-mass halos below $`10^{14}M_{}`$ is actually negligible. In other words, the SXRB, after AGNs are removed, is dominated by the baryons in the form of the WHIM and within groups and poor clusters. Of course, our present analytic models of the WHIM are still too simplistic, in the sense that a considerable fraction of the WHIM may reside outside of less massive dark halos like groups and poor clusters due to nongravitational processes such as preheating and/or radiative cooling. The inclusion of the WHIM outside the virial radii of dark halos in an analytic treatment is somewhat difficult because hydrostatic equilibrium may break down even if the NFW profile can be extrapolated to large radii. One of the possibilities of extracting information about the WHIM residing outside of virial radii is to subtract the contribution of the WHIM within virial radii from the observed SXRB in conjunction with theoretical modeling as we have done in this study.

Another approach to improving current work is to cross-correlate the SXRB and the SZ sky, which may allow us to acquire additional knowledge of the distribution and evolution of the WHIM. Recall that X-ray emission and SZ signals have very different dependence on both the radial distribution of the WHIM in halos and the spatial locations of halos themselves. In fact, cross-correlations between the SXRB and other sources (galaxies, clusters, CMB, radio sources, IRAS sources, etc.) have been extensively explored in literature. A combination of these cross-correlation and auto-correlation analyses of the SXRB may eventually constitute a powerful tool of unveiling the amount and distribution of the missing baryons in the local universe.

Useful discussion with Peng-Jie Zhang, Ue-Li Pen and Asantha Cooray and valuable suggestions by an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged. We thank the hospitality of the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, where part of this research was made. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China, under Grant No. 10233040, and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, under Grant No. NKBRSF G19990754.


text:
# Chiral and Antichiral Order in Bent-Core Liquid Crystals

(March 18, 2003)

## Abstract

Recent experiments have found a bent-core liquid crystal in which the layer chirality alternates from layer to layer, giving a racemic or “antichiral” material, even though the molecules are uniformly chiral. To explain this effect, we map the liquid crystal onto an Ising model, analogous to a model for chiral order in polymers. We calculate the phase diagram for this model, and show that it has a second-order phase transition between antichiral order and homogeneous chiral order. We discuss how this transition can be studied by further chemical synthesis or by doping experiments.

Many types of soft condensed matter exhibit chiral order on the macroscopic length scale. In some materials, macroscopic chiral order is a direct consequence of molecular chirality. For example, in cholesteric liquid crystals, the packing of neighboring chiral molecules leads to a large-scale helical twist of the molecular orientation degennes93 ; harris99 ; kamien01 . However, in other materials, the relationship between molecular chirality and macroscopic chiral order is more complex. Some liquid crystals develop chiral order through a spontaneous symmetry-breaking transition, although they are composed of achiral molecules selinger93 ; pang94 . Likewise, some polymers amplify slight chiral perturbations to give highly ordered helical chains green99 . In recent experiments, Nakata *et al.* have found a novel relationship between molecular chirality and macroscopic chiral order in a bent-core liquid crystal nakata01 . This material forms a smectic phase with layers of alternating right- and left-handed chirality, which we call “antichiral” order, in spite of the fact that it is composed of uniformly chiral molecules, i.e. 100% of a single enantiomer. In this paper, we develop a theory to explain how antichiral order can occur in systems of chiral molecules. We predict a phase diagram with a second-order transition between antichiral order and homogeneous chiral order, and discuss how this phase diagram can be explored in further experiments on bent-core liquid crystals.

Bent-core liquid crystals have been studied extensively since the initial investigation by Niori *et al.* niori96 . The main reason for this wide interest is that bent-core liquid crystals can develop spontaneous chiral order within the layers of a smectic phase. The geometry of this ordering, as determined by Link *et al.* link97 , is shown in Fig. 1(a). Within each smectic layer, the molecules can have two types of orientational order: tilt order (represented by a tilt of the molecular director $`\widehat{𝐧}`$ with respect to the layer normal $`\widehat{𝐳}`$) and polar order (represented by ordering of the molecular polarization vector $`\widehat{𝐛}`$). The combination of tilt order and polar order gives the layer a chiral structure. Geometrically, we can see that the structure characterized by $`\widehat{𝐧}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐛}`$ is the mirror image of the structure characterized by $`\widehat{𝐧}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐛}`$. Mathematically, we can represent the magnitude and sign of the chiral order by the order parameter $`\chi =2[(\widehat{𝐳}\times \widehat{𝐧})\widehat{𝐛}](\widehat{𝐳}\widehat{𝐧})`$ xu01 . The mirror-image structure has the opposite value of $`\chi `$.

Bent-core liquid crystals can have different types of order from layer to layer. As shown in Fig. 1(b-c), adjacent smectic layers can be synclinic (same tilt) or anticlinic (opposite tilt). Likewise, adjacent layers can be ferroelectric (same $`\widehat{𝐛}`$) or antiferroelectric (opposite $`\widehat{𝐛}`$). If layers are synclinic and ferroelectric, or if they are anticlinic and antiferroelectric, then they have the same layer chirality $`\chi `$. In this case, the bulk liquid crystal is homogeneously chiral. By contrast, if layers are synclinic and antiferroelectric, or if they are anticlinic and ferroelectric, then they have the opposite layer chirality $`\chi `$. In that case, the bulk liquid crystal has an alternating chiral structure. This alternating structure has been called a “racemic” structure by Link *et al.* link97 . However, we propose the more specific term “antichiral” to emphasize that there is a rigid alternation between right- and left-handed layers, rather than just a 50/50 statistical distribution of right- and left-handed domains. The term “antichiral” has been used to describe the packing of right- and left-handed helices in crystals of polypropylene lotz96 , and our usage is consistent with that literature.

If a bent-core liquid crystal is composed of achiral molecules, the right- and left-handed layer structures are exact mirror images of each other, and hence they have the same free energy. For that reason, they should occur equally often. By contrast, if a bent-core liquid crystal is composed of chiral molecules, the molecular chirality breaks the symmetry between right- and left-handed layer chirality. In other words, the right- and left-handed layers become diastereomers rather than enantiomers. Hence, they do not have the same free energy, so one structure is energetically preferred compared to the other. Indeed, adding a low concentration of a chiral dopant to an achiral bent-core liquid crystal converts most of the liquid crystal to a homogeneously chiral state of a single handedness link97 . However, Nakata *et al.* made a surprising discovery: In experiments on well-aligned domains of the chiral bent-core liquid crystal 8OPIMB6\*, they found a smectic phase that was both anticlinic and ferroelectric nakata01 . This result was consistent with earlier studies of unaligned cells of the same material gorecka00 . This combination of tilt and polar order implies that the smectic layers are antichiral. Hence, the phase has alternating right- and left-handed layers, even though the chirality of the molecules must favor one sense of the layer chirality.

The experiment of Nakata *et al.* leads to an important theoretical issue: What is the relationship between molecular chirality and macroscopic chiral order in a bent-core liquid crystal? In particular, how can the macroscopic order be antichiral when the molecules are uniformly chiral? The macroscopic chiral order should respond in some way to the molecular chirality. We would like to develop a theory for this relationship.

To address this issue, we map the system of bent-core liquid crystals onto the antiferromagnetic Ising model in a uniform magnetic field lavis99 . The Hamiltonian is

$$H=+J\underset{i}{}\sigma _i\sigma _{i+1}h\underset{i}{}\sigma _i.$$
(1)
In this mapping, the Ising spin $`\sigma _i`$ represents the chiral order $`2[(\widehat{𝐳}\times \widehat{𝐧})\widehat{𝐛}](\widehat{𝐳}\widehat{𝐧})`$ of layer $`i`$. Hence, $`\sigma _i=+1`$ corresponds to an ideal right-handed layer and $`\sigma _i=1`$ to an ideal left-handed layer. A fractional value of $`\sigma _i`$ corresponds either to reduced uniform chiral order in the layer (e.g. a reduced value of the tilt) or to an average over coexisting regions of different chiral order. The Ising field $`h`$ represents the uniform chirality of the molecules, which favors one sense of the layer chirality. The Ising exchange constant $`J`$ represents the interaction between adjacent layers. This constant is positive, so that the layer interfaces tend to be antichiral (e.g. anticlinic and ferroelectric). This preference for antichirality presumably arises from steric interactions between molecular tails at the layer interfaces.

There is a competition between the two terms in the Hamiltonian: the $`h`$ term favors homogeneous chiral order, with the handedness favored by the sign of $`h`$, while the $`J`$ term favors an alternation from layer to layer. Hence, we need to solve the model to determine whether the layers are homogeneous or alternating for particular values of $`h`$ and $`J`$.

To solve this model, we use mean-field theory. We suppose that each layer responds to the mean field due to the adjacent layers at the temperature $`T`$. We look for a solution with alternating layers

$$\sigma _i=\{\begin{array}{cc}\chi _1\hfill & \text{if }i\text{ is odd,}\hfill \\ \chi _2\hfill & \text{if }i\text{ is even.}\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
In that case, the mean-field equations become

$`\chi _1`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{tanh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2J\chi _2+h}{k_BT}}\right),`$ (3a)
$`\chi _2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{tanh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2J\chi _1+h}{k_BT}}\right).`$ (3b)
These equations must be solved self-consistently to obtain $`\chi _1`$ and $`\chi _2`$ as functions of $`h/k_BT`$ and $`J/k_BT`$.

The numerical solution of the mean-field equations is shown in Fig. 2. When the molecular chirality $`h=0`$, the layer order parameters $`\chi _1`$ and $`\chi _2`$ have equal and opposite values, indicating that odd and even layers are mirror images of each other. In that case, the system has perfect antichiral order. As $`h`$ increases, the positive order parameter $`\chi _1`$ becomes slightly larger, and the negative order parameter $`\chi _2`$ becomes less negative. Still, there is an alternation between odd and even layers with right- and left-handed chiral order, and hence the system is still antichiral. This alternating layer structure persists up to a critical value of $`h`$, where there is a second-order transition to homogeneously chiral layers, with the same value of $`\chi `$. Beyond that transition, the chiral order parameter of the layers increases smoothly as a function of $`h`$.

A three-dimensional plot of $`\chi _1`$ and $`\chi _2`$ as functions of $`h/k_BT`$ and $`J/k_BT`$ is presented in Fig. 3. This plot shows that the antichiral state is favored for large $`J`$ and small $`h`$, while the homogeneously chiral state is favored for large $`h`$ and small $`J`$. Moreover, the plot shows that the second-order transition can be driven by varying the molecular chirality $`h`$, the interlayer interaction $`J`$, or the temperature $`T`$. Increasing $`J`$ breaks the symmetry between the layers, while increasing $`h`$ or $`T`$ restores the symmetry. Thus, the transition shown in Fig. 2 for varying $`h`$ is continuously connected to the standard Ising antiferromagnetic transition for varying $`T`$ at $`h=0`$.

In Figs. 2 and 3, we see that the critical value of $`h`$ for the chiral-antichiral transition depends on $`J`$. As $`J`$ increases, the alternating layer structure persists to higher values of $`h`$. To find the critical value $`h_c`$ as a function of $`J`$, we look for a solution of the mean-field equations (3) with the layer order parameters $`\chi _{1,2}=\chi _c\pm \delta \chi `$. As we approach the transition, we have $`\delta \chi 0`$, and hence the mean-field equations require

$`\chi _c`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{tanh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2J\chi _c+h}{k_BT}}\right),`$ (4a)
$`\delta \chi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2J\delta \chi }{k_BT}}\text{sech}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{2J\chi _c+h}{k_BT}}\right).`$ (4b)
The solution of these equations is

$`\chi _c`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{k_BT}{2J}}},`$ (5a)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{h_c}{k_BT}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2J}{k_BT}}\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{k_BT}{2J}}}+\mathrm{tanh}^1\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{k_BT}{2J}}}.`$ (5b)
Equation (5b) gives the phase boundary between the antichiral state and the homogeneously chiral state. This boundary is plotted in the phase diagram of Fig. 4.

So far, the experiments of Nakata *et al.* nakata01  have studied the antichiral state in the single chiral bent-core liquid crystal 8OPIMB6\*. In this compound, the chiral centers are located near the ends of the flexible hydrocarbon chains, far from the bent core of the molecule. For that reason, the chiral centers should only have a small effect on the relative energies of the right- and left-handed layer structures. In other words, for these molecules, the parameter $`h`$ should be low. By contrast, the parameter $`J`$ arises from the interfacial energy of adjacent smectic layers, which tend to be anticlinic and ferroelectric, and hence $`J`$ should be substantial. The regime of small $`h`$ and large $`J`$ is consistent with the antichiral state in the theoretical phase diagram.

To map out the rest of the phase diagram, future experiments will need to vary $`h`$ and $`J`$. The molecular chirality parameter $`h`$ can be changed either through chemical synthesis or through doping experiments. For the synthetic approach, one would prepare molecules analogous to 8OPIMB6\*, but with the chiral centers closer to the bent core. By synthesizing a series of molecules with the chiral centers in different positions, one could gradually increase $`h`$. Alternatively, one could dope 8OPIMB6\* with varying concentrations of a chiral dopant—perhaps another bent-core liquid crystal that forms a homogeneously chiral state. Increasing the dopant concentration should gradually increase $`h`$. The doping approach should actually increase $`h`$ in a more quantitatively controllable way than the synthetic route, as long as the compounds do not phase separate. In either case, we would expect to see a transition from the antichiral state to the homogeneously chiral state as $`h`$ increases.

Changing the interlayer interaction $`J`$ will require changes in the layer interfaces. In particular, to explore the theoretical phase diagram, one will need to reduce the energetic preference for anticlinic and ferroelectric packing of adjacent layers. Hence, one should partially decouple the layers. This might be done by doping 8OPIMB6\* with molecules that segregate into the interstices between the layers (analogous to the nanophase segregation seen in simulations by Maiti *et al.* maiti02 ). The parameter $`J`$ would then be a continuously decreasing function of dopant concentration. We would expect to see a transition from antichiral to homogeneously chiral as more dopant is added and the layers become more decoupled.

As a final point, our predictions for bent-core liquid crystals can be compared with chiral ordering in polymers. There have been several experimental and theoretical studies of chiral ordering in polyisocyanates green99 . In these materials, steric constraints force the polymer main chain to have a helical structure, which can be either right- or left-handed. The handedness of the helix is determined by slight chiral perturbations, such as chiral centers in the monomers. For example, copolymers of right- and left-handed units have been called “majority-rule” copolymers, because they follow whichever chiral units are in the majority. Likewise, copolymers of chiral and achiral units have been called “sergeants-and-soldiers” copolymers, because the achiral “soldiers” follow the helical sense selected by the chiral “sergeants.” This chiral ordering has been explained theoretically by a mapping onto the Ising model selinger96 ; selinger97 .

In both polyisocyanates and bent-core liquid crystals, the chiral order of the large-scale structure is a complex collective phenomenon. In both cases, a theory based on the Ising model can explain the nonlinear relationship between molecular chirality and macroscopic chiral order. However, there is one important difference between polyisocyanates and bent-core liquid crystals. In polyisocyanates, the interaction between neighboring units along the polymer favors *uniform* helicity. For that reason, polyisocyanates respond sensitively to slight chiral perturbations. By contrast, in the bent-core liquid crystal 8OPIMB6\*, the interaction between adjacent smectic layers favors *alternating* layer chirality. Hence, these materials resist uniform chiral order, and respond insensitively to molecular chirality. For that reason, they might be called a “sergeants-and-students” system.

In conclusion, we have developed a theory for antichiral order in bent-core liquid crystals. This theory explains the surprising experimental discovery that antichiral order can occur even in systems of uniformly chiral molecules. It predicts a phase diagram for the antichiral state and the homogeneously chiral state, which can be explored in future experiments.

We thank D. R. Link and M. Nakata for helpful discussions. This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research and the Naval Research Laboratory.