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# Effect of Beam-Plasma Instabilities on Accretion Disk Flares

## 1 Introduction

The origin of fluctuations in the emission from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and binary X-ray sources is an important and long-standing problem. One frequently considered possibility employs flares in the coronae around accretion disks to produce rapid energy release, particle acceleration and radiation (e.g., Galeev, Rosner & Vaiana galeev (1979); Kuperus & Ionson kuperus (1985); for a review, see Kuijpers kuijpers (1995)). These models usually build upon our understanding of solar flare physics.

A particular model of this type has been proposed by de Vries & Kuijpers (deVries (1992); hereafter dVK), and was specifically applied by them to X-ray variability of AGNs. Their model is an elaboration on typical flare scenarios, in that, as usual, the source of energy is stored in magnetic fields in coronae of accretion disks. They estimate the power released in flares in a radiation pressure dominated corona, which they stress is a different environment from the gas pressure dominated solar corona. They argue this leads to a situation where beams of relativistic electrons are produced in the corona and then lose essentially all of their energy through inverse Compton scattering on UV disk photons before they can stream back to the disk. They further argue that these inverse Compton (IC) photons produce the X-ray variability seen in Seyfert galaxies, and are able to calculate spectral power-densities in reasonable agreement with observations.

However, the dVK model does not take into account other mechanisms that might vitiate some of their key assumptions. We note that dVK briefly argue that, particularly if radiation pressure dominates the energy density in the corona, as is indeed likely around standard thin accretion disks (e.g., Shakura & Sunyaev shakura (1973)) which they assume, energy losses through scattering on plasma waves are unimportant; then the dominant losses will be to IC scattering. However, it is well known that an electron beam-plasma system is often susceptible to the excitation of beam-plasma instabilities which usually have large growth rates (Sturrock sturrock (1964)). Here we argue that when these beam-plasma instabilities (BPIs) are taken into account, the rate of loss of energy by the electrons for the accretion disk coronae conditions suggested by dVK is typically much higher than the rate of gain of energy through direct acceleration by the electric fields, which are presumed to arise in reconnection events. Therefore beams of electrons usually will not reach the high Lorentz factors needed to produce most X-rays by the IC process. In many accretion disk models X-rays are usually produced through IC scattering of soft photons on hot thermal electrons (e.g. Shapiro, Lightman & Eardley shapiro (1976); Liang & Price liang (1977)). In such a situation beam-plasma instabilities are not excited, and only thermal spontaneously excited plasma waves should exist. These will have energy densities less than the thermal energy density of the plasma, which in turn is much less than the radiation energy density. In this case, the argument of dVK would be valid, but, once they assume a beam is present, then beam-plasma instability effects must be included.

## 2 Growth of Beam-Plasma Instabilities

The key assumptions of the dVK model are that: 1) relaxation of magnetic structures efficiently produce relativistic electron beams; 2) the particle beam is a mono-energetic stream of electrons with an initial Lorentz factor $`\gamma _0`$; 3) the ambient radiation is from a quasi-infinite disk and can be considered as uniform and isotropic, with a radiation density $`u_{\mathrm{rad}}`$; 4) the beam is optically thin, so multiple scattering of photons can be ignored. Although (3) is an approximation, it is a reasonable one, and (4) is certainly plausible under many circumstances. But the core of their argument hinges on the ability of the neutral sheet in the reconnection process to quickly accelerate electrons via a direct electric field. During this acceleration process dVK claim the equation for the acceleration of an single electron suffering IC losses is

$$\frac{d\gamma }{dt}=\chi _1\frac{(\gamma ^21)^{1/2}}{\gamma }\chi _2(\gamma ^21),$$
(1)
where, $`\chi _1=eE/m_ec`$ and $`\chi _2=4\sigma _Tu_{rad}/3m_ec`$, with all symbols having their usual meanings. In that the first (positive) term starts out substantially greater in magnitude than the second (negative) one, acceleration will ensue until a limiting Lorentz factor is reached when the two terms balance:

$$\gamma _{\mathrm{}}=2^{1/2}[1+(1+4\chi _1^2/\chi _2^2)^{1/2}]^{1/2}.$$
(2)
The electric field is reasonably taken by dVK to be the Dreicer value, which we take as: $`E_D=6\pi n_pe^3\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Lambda }/(k_BT_e)`$, where $`n_p`$ is the electron density of the ambient plasma, $`\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Lambda }20`$ is the Coulomb logarithm, and all other symbols have their usual meanings. With typical AGN values ($`n_p10^{10}`$ cm-3, $`T_e10^6`$K, and $`T_{rad}10^5`$K) they find $`\gamma _{\mathrm{}}(\chi _1/\chi _2)^{1/2}30`$. They then conclude that the electrons will all reach this terminal Lorentz factor before the acceleration terminates and the electrons then lose their energy against the disk photons providing the background radiation field.

We now show that since a BPI is excited, it will dominate the energy losses for the beam and actually prevent the electrons from reaching the high Lorentz factors calculated by dVK. Under these circumstances there will be very little IC radiation, so that, while a great deal of energy may be released through magnetic reconnection, the bulk of the energy will probably provide heating to the corona (e.g., Liang & Price liang (1977)) but is unlikely to yield the bulk of the X-rays directly through IC emission.

The dominant growth rate of the BPI depends on the relative magnitudes of the bulk velocity of the beam, $`v_b`$, and the mean thermal velocity in the beam, $`v_{Tb}`$; under some conditions, $`v_{Te}`$, the mean thermal velocity of the ambient electrons, also must be taken into account. The standard formula for the BPI growth rate, valid for $`v_b>(n_p/n_b)^{1/3}v_{Tb}`$, is our Case 1 (e.g., Mikhailovskii mikhailovskii (1974))

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{bp}=0.7\left(\frac{n_b}{n_p}\right)^{1/3}\omega _{pe},$$
(3)
where $`n_b`$ is the beam density, $`n_p`$ is the ambient plasma density (here, in the disk corona), and $`\omega _{pe}=5.47\times 10^4n_e^{1/2}`$ is the plasma frequency in terms of the ambient electron number density in cgs units. The frequency at which this mode grows is $`\omega _{pe}(10.4(n_b/n_p)^{1/3})`$.

If the beam starts out very slowly, with $`v_b<(n_p/n_b)^{1/3}v_{Tb}`$, then the “weak” version of the BPI is relevant, and this is our Case 2 (e.g., Benz benz (1993))

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{bp,w}=\left(\frac{n_b}{2n_p}\right)\left(\frac{v_b}{v_{Te}}\right)^2\omega _{pe},$$
(4)
and the frequency at which this dominant mode is excited is $`\omega _{pe}`$. Under the limited circumstances that $`v_{Te}>v_b>v_{Tb}`$, the “hot-electron” Case 3 yields (e.g., Mikhailovskii mikhailovskii (1974)),

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{bp,he}=\left(\frac{n_b}{n_p}\right)^{1/2}\frac{v_{Te}}{v_b}\omega _{pe},$$
(5)
where this dominant mode is at a frequency of $`(v_b/v_{Te})\omega _{pe}`$.

The AGN corona values of dVK for $`n_p=10^{10}`$ cm-3 and $`T=10^6`$ K, which we also believe are reasonable, will be adopted here. There are, however, additional parameters that must be considered now (basically in lieu of the radiation temperature, or $`u_{rad}`$, needed by dVK). First, $`\zeta n_b/n_p`$; for solar flares this value is $`10^6`$$`10^4`$ (Benz benz (1993)); however, we will bear in mind the possibility that this ratio may be higher in this type of radiation dominated plasma. We also need initial values of $`v_b`$ and $`v_{Tb}`$, to determine which of the three Cases defined above should be considered. For us to say that a beam actually exists we must always demand that $`v_b>v_{Tb}`$.

Note that the BPI directly gives the rate of growth of an electric field in the plasma, and the energy loss goes as the square of the field strength. Then we find that when the relativistic effects that arise if the Lorentz factors really could become large are included, the rate of change of energy of electrons in the beam is,

$$\frac{d\gamma }{dt}=\chi _1\frac{(\gamma ^21)^{1/2}}{\gamma }2\alpha \gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }_{bp}(\gamma ),$$
(6)
where $`\alpha W/E=W/\gamma n_bmc^2`$, is the ratio between the wave energy density, $`W`$, and the electron beam energy density, $`E`$. In order to determine $`W`$, knowledge of the saturation mechanisms of the wave field are needed. Often, in order to avoid a detailed discussion of the saturation mechanisms, which tend to operate in multiplicity in a plasma, the condition of equipartition of energy between the waves and the beam particles is used (Treumann & Baumjohann treumann (1997)). In that case $`\alpha `$ is approximated to unity, and we consider this situation first. Case 4, where $`\alpha 1`$, and the saturation occurs earlier by trapping, will then be addressed.

In Eqn. (6) we have ignored the IC term appearing in Eqn. (1), having replaced it with a generic form of the BPI growth rate; the fact that the BPI term is much bigger than the $`\chi _2`$ term for all reasonable circumstances will soon become evident. The dominant dependence of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{bp}`$ upon $`\gamma `$ for the first three cases arises through the replacement: $`n_bn_b/\gamma ^3`$ (e.g., Walsh walsh (1980); Krishan 1999), which effectively modifies $`\zeta `$, which is defined as the density ratio at non-relativistic relative velocities. In Cases (2) and (3) we must also write $`v_b/c=(\gamma ^21)^{1/2}/\gamma `$.

Now, for Cases 1, 2 and 3, respectively, we have:

$$\frac{d\gamma }{dt}=\chi _1\frac{(\gamma ^21)^{1/2}}{\gamma }2A_1,$$
(7)
with $`A_1=0.7\zeta ^{1/3}\omega _{pe}8\times 10^7\zeta _5^{1/3}n_{e,10}^{1/2}`$, where the common notation, $`X_n=X/10^n`$, has been employed so that the physical parameters will be of order unity;

$$\frac{d\gamma }{dt}=\chi _1\frac{(\gamma ^21)^{1/2}}{\gamma }2\frac{(\gamma ^21)}{\gamma ^4}A_2,$$
(8)
with $`A_2=0.5(c/v_{Tb})^2\zeta \omega _{pe}3\times 10^8\eta _{b,2}^2\zeta _5n_{e,10}^{1/2}`$, where we have now defined $`\eta _bv_{Tb}/c0.01`$;

$$\frac{d\gamma }{dt}=\chi _1\frac{(\gamma ^21)^{1/2}}{\gamma }\frac{2\gamma A_3}{(\gamma ^3\gamma )^{1/2}},$$
(9)
with $`A_3=\zeta ^{1/2}(v_{Te}/c)\omega _{pe}2\times 10^5\zeta _5^{1/2}\eta _{e,2}n_{e,10}^{1/2}`$, where now, $`\eta _ev_{Te}/c0.01`$.

Under any of these situations we have $`\chi _1=5.2\times 10^1n_{e,10}T_{e,6}^1`$ with our definition of $`E_D`$ (which is slightly larger than that of dVK, thereby only strengthening our argument). For any plausible initial value of $`\gamma 1`$ the different dependences of Eqns. (7–9) upon $`\gamma `$ are not important. What is important is that $`A_1,A_2,A_3\chi _1\chi _2`$; i.e., the energy loss term arising from any form of the BPI completely dominates over the energy gain term from direct electric field acceleration.

We now consider Case 4, where equipartition is not established. Under these circumstances, the growth of the Langmuir waves for the fastest initial beam situation, Case 1, is arrested by the trapping of the beam electrons. In this case, the ratio $`\alpha `$ is eventually given by the saturated value (Melrose melrose (1986); Krishan krishan (1999)), $`\alpha =9/2[n_b/(2n_p\gamma ^3)]^{2/3}`$, and it can be a rather small number that reduces the loss rate significantly. This gives a chance for the situation envisioned by dVK to occur. In addition, $`\alpha `$ initially can start out below the saturation value as it arises from thermal fluctuations, and thus it could allow an initial thermal runaway. The detailed spatial and temporal structure of the reconnection sites will determine if this initial acceleration can play a significant role.

In spite of these uncertainties, we can obtain a reasonable estimate of the influence of BPI in the situation where equipartition is not established. We again consider all three cases discussed above, but we now include electron trapping and assume $`\alpha `$ to take the saturation value. Here the competition between the IC losses represented by $`\chi _2`$ and the BPI losses represented by the Melrose $`\alpha `$ has to be considered carefully.

The inverse Compton term increases with $`\gamma `$ whereas the $`\alpha `$ factor modifying the BPI term decreases with $`\gamma `$. Thus demanding that the BPI term is smaller than the IC term fixes the minimum value of $`\gamma `$ necessary to validate the dVK proposal. A detailed calculation yields the results for the three cases as follows: case (1a), $`\gamma _{min}=54`$; case (2a), $`\gamma _{min}=21`$; case (3a), $`\gamma _{min}=9.16`$. Thus it is clear that only in case (3a), is it likely that the IC term dominates and hence the dVK proposal is valid. This requires rather special conditions for the flare models to work.

This type of runaway acceleration has been observed in the laboratory under specific circumstances which lead to a very weak beam plasma instability. In laboratory experiments, the runaway electrons are observed detached from the main body of the plasma, as for example in a stellarator. If the runaway electrons hit the tungsten aperture, they generate X-rays which can be detected. Provided the conditions are right, the runaway electrons undergo instabilities producing plasma oscillations which then couple to the ions. This principle is applied in the design of some electron tube oscillators (Rose & Clark rose (1961)). Thus the runaway electrons can stably propagate under certain circumstances, but will be affected by a BPI if they do satisfy the conditions for it. These conditions are essentially on the velocity of the beam and its thermal spread, as we have already discussed for the first three cases above.

Often it is found that a regime of strong Langmuir waves is quickly reached and these waves are further subjected to modulational instabilities. Thus, different saturation mechanisms operate at different stages of the development of the instability, depending on beam plasma parameters. However, under the circumstances and parameters proposed by dVK, the damping is severe.

## 3 Discussion and Conclusions

We thus conclude that the mechanism proposed by dVK should not generally work unless much greater densities are possible in the coronae at the same time that the temperatures are lower, since $`\chi _1`$ rises faster with $`n_p`$ than does any form of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{bp}`$, and declines faster with temperature. While denser coronae should be available around the accretion disks in X-ray binaries, the ambient temperatures will also be a good deal higher, so we cannot suggest a physically interesting situation where the BPIs do not dominate. If one could somehow begin with very large $`\gamma `$ values, then the growth rate of the beam-plasma instabilities are reduced. For Case 1 this does not help, and no solutions for large $`\gamma `$ are possible; however, for Cases 2 and 3, the relativistic decreases in the BPI rates are so substantial that high asymptotic $`\gamma `$ values are allowed. This is also true for Case 4, where the saturation reduces the effectiveness of the BPI; however, even then the BPI can prevent much acceleration unless the beam already starts with a substantial value of $`\gamma `$ or has such a low density in comparison to the ambient medium that it could not carry significant power. Moreover, we see no way to achieve these initially high $`\gamma `$ values: that is what the dVK mechanism was supposed to accomplish, but now appears to be incapable of achieving.

Filamentation, which could produce denser beam fragments, could play a role by raising $`\zeta `$ locally. If any analogy can be drawn with solar flares, then the presence of rapid irregularities within the Type 3 radio bursts strongly indicates that the flux tubes are filamentary during the acceleration phase (e.g., Vlahos & Raoult vlahos (1995)). However, this possibility is still insufficient to salvage this mechanism for AGN coronae, since even with $`\zeta 1`$ the ratios of $`A_{1,2,3}/\chi _1>1`$. In Case 4, where saturation is important in principle, the large value of $`\zeta `$ implies that $`\alpha 1`$ too (for initial $`\gamma 1`$) so the loss term still would dominate.

Nonetheless, even with much of the energy going into wave turbulence, as we have argued, significant IC emission can be possible. This is because (as pointed out by the referee) trapping and other nonlinear effects can roughly heat the electrons up to $`kT_ee\varphi `$, with $`\varphi `$ the electrostatic amplitude of the waves. Since the energy gain term (the first on the RHS of Eq. ) is essentially a constant, these ‘thermalized/trapped’ electrons can attain nearly the same energy as in the dVK picture. However this energy will not be in the form of a beam, as argued by dVK, but rather, will be present in an isotropic distribution. Then the IC process still works, and one of the points made by dVK, that much of the energy is lost by IC hard X-rays instead of ‘soft’ X-rays from material evaporated from the disk, can remain valid, as already noted at the end of §1. In order to see if the inverse Compton losses actually dominate, detailed computations of these effects should be undertaken under various circumstances.

It is well known that in the case of the solar corona, the directly accelerated beams should be thermalized within a very short time through BPI (e.g., Sturrock sturrock (1964)). In the standard picture, this produces Langmuir waves which then manifest themselves as various types of radio bursts if non-linear effects or transport from faster to slower electrons within the beam could dominate (e.g., Vlahos & Raoult vlahos (1995)). However, energetic electrons have been observed in satellite measurements in near-earth orbit, and the outstanding question of the maintenance of these beams through their propagation from the sun to the earth has given rise to more complex models involving complex profiles of the electron beams (Vlahos & Raoult vlahos (1995)). Instead of producing X-ray flares via a primary process as proposed by dVK, these secondary processes involving energy input to the plasma could contribute to variability in the radio band.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the anonymous referee for pointing out the incompleteness of our analysis in the original version. This work was supported in part by NASA grant NAG 5-3098 and RPI and Strategic International Initiative funds at GSU.


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# Collisional versus collisionless dark matter

## 1. Introduction

The nature of dark matter is still far from being resolved. Primordial nucleosynthesis and observational data suggest that the baryonic material accounts for just a fraction of the matter density in the universe. Fundamental particles remain the most likely candidate for the dark matter and much effort has been devoted to researching a class of weakly interacting, collisionless dark matter (CDM) (e.g., Davis et al. 1985). However, the hierarchical gravitational collapse of cold collisionless particles leads to dense, singular dark matter halos – a result that is central to several fundamental problems with this model on small scales (e.g. Hogan & Dalcanton 2000 and references within).

It may be possible to solve the current problems with CDM by appealing to extreme astrophysical processes. Alternatively, we can explore other dark matter candidates that behave differently on non-linear scales. One possibility is strongly self interacting dark matter (hereafter SIDM). Originally proposed to suppress small scale power in the standard CDM model (Carlson et al. 1992, Machaceck et al. 1994, de Laix et al. 1995), SIDM was recently revived by Spergel & Steinhardt (1999) to solve some of the outstanding problems with CDM. The behaviour of this component depends on the particles’ collisional cross-section. Large cross-sections imply short mean free paths, so that the dark matter can be described as a fluid that does not cool but can shock heat. Particles with a mean free path of order the scale length of a dark matter halo offers the possibility of conductive heat transfer to the halo cores (Spergel & Steinhardt 1999). In this Letter we contrast the dynamics and structure of “halos within halos” between collisional and collisionless dark matter and compare predictions with current observational constraints.

## 2. Simulating the structure of SIDM halos

In this section we present the first numerical calculations of the structure of dark matter halos in which the particles have a large interaction cross-section. Self interacting dark matter behaves like a collisional gas and its evolution can be simulated using standard computational fluid dynamics techniques. We model the collisional dark matter fluid by approximating its behaviour as an ideal gas where the ratio of specific heats is 5/3. We use the smoothed-particle hydro-dynamics (SPH) code Hydra (Couchman et al. 1995) to follow the hierarchical growth of a massive dark matter halo. For added confidence in the robustness of key results, we perform independent collapse tests using an evolution of the Benz-Navarro SPH code (cf. Gelato & Sommer-Larsen 1999).

Our cosmological initial conditions were adapted from the “cluster comparison” simulation (Frenk et al. 1999), in which a massive dark matter halo forms within a 64 Mpc box of a critical density universe. (We adopt $`H_0=50\text{km}\text{s}^1\text{Mpc}^1`$ throughout.) We carry out two simulations; the first is a CDM plus 10% non-radiative gas and the second run is 100% non-radiative gas ($``$ SIDM). The particle mass is approximately $`8.6\times 10^9M_{}`$ and the effective force resolution is 0.3% of the virial radius of the final cluster $`r_{\mathrm{vir}}=2.7`$ Mpc (see Figure 1).

The CDM run behaves as expected and as characterised by many previous authors (e.g., Barnes & Efstathiou 1987, Frenk et al. 1999). One interesting point to highlight from this and similar simulations is that the gas ends up with a shallower density profile than the dark matter (cf. Figure 2.2). This is due to energy transfer between the two components and the fact that the entropy of the gas can increase through shocks that occur during the gravitational collapse. On large scales the SIDM run is similar to the CDM run although we note that the filaments appear narrower. On non-linear scales the two models behave very differently and we now discuss the salient features in more detail.

### 2.1. Density profiles

The final density profile of the most massive SIDM halo is shown next to its collisionless counterpart in Figure 2.2. This halo has more than $`10^5`$ particles within its virial radius. The profile is close to a singular isothermal sphere with slope $`\rho (r)r^2`$, even in the very central region. The hierarchical collapse imparts thermal energy into the particles which leads to a small amount of pressure support, however this is not sufficient to flatten their inner profiles.

To check these results we performed 3D spherical collapses of power-law spheres with zero initial kinetic energy and density profiles $`\rho (r)r^n`$ with $`n=1,0,+1`$. We found consistent results with 100 and 5000 particles, indicating that the singular profile in the cosmological SIDM simulation is *not* purely an artifact of the high-redshift progenitor collapses being inadequately resolved. The collapse with $`n=1`$ leads to a singular spherical isothermal structure. In this case the central particles are not strongly shocked and stay at a low entropy. The $`n=0`$ and $`n=+1`$ collapes generate much higher entropies throughout the system. SIDM particles fall in from larger radii achieving higher velocities and significant thermal energy is generated during the collapse resulting in a pressure supported constant density core. A similar point has been made by Bertschinger (1985). Our cosmological Gaussian flucuations resemble the former collapse which results in singular isothermal structures — what is needed is a mechanism that prevents low entropy material surviving, such as we find in more violent collapses.

### 2.2. Ram pressure truncation and viscous drag

Halos of SIDM suffer ram-pressure truncation and ram-pressure/viscous drag, however dynamical friction is largely suppressed in SIDM models since the bow shocks and the collisional nature of the fluid inhibit the formation of trailing density wakes. A good approximation is to adopt isothermal profiles for the substructure halo (subscript $`s`$) and parent halo (subscript $`p`$) such that $`\rho (r)=v^2/(4\pi Gr^2)`$. The ram pressure, $`\rho (r_p)v_p^2`$, can be equated to the force required to retain a shell of material at radius $`r_s`$ from the centre of the substructure halo $`Fm_sv_s^2/r_s`$. Thus the stripping radius at position $`r_p`$ in the parent halo is $`r_{\mathrm{strip}}=kr_p(v_s/v_p)^2`$ where $`k`$ is a constant of order $`\pi `$. This can be contrasted with the tidal radius of embedded isothermal halos, $`r_{\mathrm{tidal}}=r_p(v_s/v_p)`$. Therefore, substructure halos of SIDM will be stripped to substantially smaller sizes than their CDM counterparts.

It is also interesting to compare the timescale for a substructure halo to sink to the centre of a larger system due to hydro-dynamical drag, $`F_{\mathrm{drag}}=\rho (r_p)v_p^24\pi r_s^2`$. For a circular orbit, $`L=r_pv_p`$, and the rate of specific angular momentum loss, $`dL/dt=r_pF/m_s`$, therefore $`r_p^1dr_p/dt=F/(m_sv_p)`$. As the substructure is dragged deeper into the central potential, its radius decreases as calculated above and we can substitute for $`v_s`$. Thus we find $`dr_p/dt=kv_p`$ such that the drag timescale is simply of order of the crossing time $`t_{\mathrm{drag}}=kr_p/v_p`$. All SIDM substructure halos sink at a similar rate independent of their mass and on a timescale that is typically faster than that due to dynamical friction.

### 2.3. Orbital and velocity bias

These results have fascinating implications for biasing and the survival of substructure within dense environments. In dynamically old objects, such as galaxy halos, there may have been time for most of their substructure to sink to the centre. Any surviving substructure that passes close to the Galactic disk will be stripped to a negligible mass, therefore disk heating is not a problem in SIDM models. Hydro-dynamical destruction may be happening to the Sagittarius dwarf right now: its current SIDM halo radius would be approximately 100 pc. We may also expect that galaxies orbiting through the central regions of rich clusters will have lost most of their dark matter halos. Younger systems, such as galaxy clusters have only had sufficient time to concentrate and bias their “satellites” towards the central regions. SIDM satellites suffer significant velocity bias due to drag: an analysis of the 20 most massive satellites within the largest dark matter halo yields $`\sigma _{_{\mathrm{SIDM}}}/\sigma _{_{\mathrm{CDM}}}=0.85`$.

The orbits of the Milky Way’s satellites with known proper motions are surprisingly circular (e.g., Grebel et al. 1998, van den Bosch et al. 1999), whereas circular orbits are rare in CDM models (Ghigna et al. 1998). We find that the anisotropy parameter for SIDM satellites, $`\beta _{_{\mathrm{SIDM}}}=0.5`$, compared with $`\beta _{_{\mathrm{CDM}}}=0.32`$ (where $`\beta =v_t^2/(v_t^2+v_r^2)`$), which results from the efficient angular momentum loss of satellites at pericentre. SIDM may also account for the “Holmberg–Zaritsky” effect (Holmberg 1969, Zaritsky et al. 1997). The angular momentum of SIDM halos is re-distributed differently than in the CDM halos leading to a rotationally flattened central core. The baryons are most likely to dissipate into this plane that aligns with the large scale filamentary structure. It is material that flows from these cold filaments into the larger halos that spins up the dark matter: satellites infalling along this “special” plane will rapidly sink once they make contact with the SIDM galaxy halos. Furthermore, those satellites sinking in the retrograde direction to the parent halo’s angular momentum will be preferentially destroyed due to the enhanced drag which is $`v^2`$ (cf. Figure 1b).

### 2.4. Halo shapes

The shapes of dark matter halos provide another clear discriminant between SIDM and CDM. The typical ratio of short to long axis for CDM halos is 0.5 with a log-normal distribution (Barnes & Efstathiou 1987). Figure 2.4 shows the ratio of short to long axis, $`c/a`$, and intermediate to long axis, $`b/a`$, as a function of radius for a well resolved halo in the simulation. The virialised part of the halo is rotationally flattened into an oblate shape such that $`ϵ_{\mathrm{max}}0.2`$. This is typical of the other SIDM halos which are generally flattened in the range $`0.0<ϵ<0.2`$. For comparison we also show the shape of the same halo in the collisionless CDM simulation which has a prolate configuration with $`c/ab/a=0.6`$ within $`r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$.

Analyses of polar ring galaxies and X-ray isophotes tend to give flattened dark matter potentials, whereas techniques that use disk flaring and the precession of warps yield spherical mass distributions (Olling & Merrifield 1998). Ultimately, gravitational lensing will resolve this issue, but for now we note that a lensing study of CL0024+1645 constrains the assymetry of the projected mass distribution to be less than 3% (Tyson et al. 1998). With the notion that collisional halos should be spherical, Miralda-Escude (2000) argued that the cluster MS2137-23 rules out SIDM since analysis of its gravitational arcs demonstrates that its mass distribution must be flattened such that $`ϵ>0.1`$ in the central region. At the moment, SIDM and CDM are both consistent with these data.

### 2.5. The extent of halos within halos

The dwarf satellites of the Milky Way have internal velocities of order 10–30 $`\text{km}\text{s}^1`$, that in isolation would extend to 10–30 kpc but are tidally limited according to their orbits within the Milky Way’s potential. Numerical simulations confirm this simple expectation (Ghigna et al. 1998). For example, the dark matter halo surrounding the Carina satellite would be truncated to $`r_{\mathrm{tidal}}(r_{\mathrm{peri}}/50\mathrm{kpc})(v_{_{\mathrm{Carina}}}/v_{_{\mathrm{MW}}})=2.7\mathrm{kpc}`$ at its current position. In an SIDM universe, the halo of Carina would be reduced to a size $`r_{\mathrm{strip}}400\mathrm{pc}`$.

Observations of stars escaping from satellites constrain the extent of their dark matter halos (Moore 1996, Burkert 1997). Tidal streams have recently been spectroscopically confirmed for Carina (Majewski et al. 1999) and are also claimed for Draco and Ursa Minor (Irwin & Hatzidimitriou 1993). These observations imply that the dark matter extends only as far as the optical radii, about 300 parsecs for all of these satellites and much smaller than their expected sizes if they had halos of CDM.

Similarly, the dark matter halos of cluster galaxies are truncated by the global cluster potential and their sizes can be constrained by quantifying their effects on strongly and weakly lensed images of background galaxies. Natarajan et al. (1999) have analysed several of the clusters imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope and claim that the dark matter halos of bright cluster galaxies are severely truncated to between 15–30 kpc. These galaxies have typical internal velocity dispersions of $`150\text{km}\text{s}^1`$ and sample the projected central 500 kpc region of the clusters (else they wouldn’t lie in the HST frames). Thus we expect $`r_{\mathrm{tidal}}`$ 30–60 kpc from gravitational stripping, but $`r_{\mathrm{strip}}`$ 10–30 kpc from maximal collisional stripping.

## 3. Discussion

The properties of dark matter halos of strongly interacting particles are markedly different from their collisionless counterparts. SIDM halos are close to spherical with a modest degree of rotational flattening. Observations of halo shapes cannot currently distinguish between the models examined here; however, future lensing observations will determine if SIDM is a viable dark matter candidate. Halos within halos suffer ram-pressure truncation that decreases their sizes to less than the tidal radius. Current observational data on galactic halos in clusters and satellite galaxies in the Galactic halo are naturally reproduced in SIDM models: the extent of Carina’s halo is an order of magnitude smaller than predicted by CDM. Ram-pressure drag creates significant velocity and orbital bias in the substructure halos which sink on a short timescale—of order the crossing time—independent of their mass. Another positive feature of SIDM is the ability to produce satellite systems on near circular orbits which are very rare in CDM models.

Both CDM and SIDM with a large cross-section fail to reproduce observed rotation curves of dwarf and LSB galaxies. We have seen that the final density profiles are sensitive to the shape of the initial fluctuations: more violent collapses end up with constant density cores. Alternatively, SIDM with a mean free path between kiloparsec and megaparsec scales may solve this problem (Spergel & Steinhardt 1999). In this case, particles could transfer heat to the cold central regions that occur in standard CDM collapses, creating an initial expanding phase with lower central density. It is not obvious that a cold core would be generated and maintained in a hierarchical scenario since the dense mini-halos collapsing at high redshift may form singular isothermal structures. The dense substructure halos would rapidly sink to the centres of the parent halos by hydro-dynamical drag, depositing high density low entropy material and conserving isothermal profiles.

Simulating intermediate mean free paths is relatively straightforward. One technique would be to use the neighbour lists to choose random particles to collide (Burkert 2000). Simulations in progress will demonstrate whether SIDM can reproduce the observed rotation curves of dwarf galaxies. A solution to this problem will naturally resolve the abundance of dark matter substructure in the Galactic halo since substructure with shallow potentials would be easily disrupted.

BM would like to thank Marc Davis for many discussions of the astrophysical consequences of strongly interacting dark matter while a NATO fellow in Berkeley and the Royal Society for support. VQ is a Marie Curie research fellow (grant HPMF-CT-1999-00052). Computations were carried out as part of the Virgo consortium.


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# References

BILEPTON RESONANCE IN ELECTRON-ELECTRON SCATTERING

PAUL H. FRAMPTON

Department of Physics and Astronomy,

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3255

E-mail: frampton@physics.unc.edu

## Abstract

Theoretical backgound for bileptonic gauge bosons is reviewed, both the SU(15) GUT model and the 3-3-1 model. Mass limits on bileptons are discussed coming from $`e^+e^{}`$ scattering, polarized muon decay and muonium-antimuonium conversion. Discovery in $`e^{}e^{}`$ at a linear collider at low energy (100GeV) and high luminosity ($`10^{33}/cm^2/s`$) is emphasised.

Introduction.

It is a stunning historical fact that $`e^{}e^{}`$ collisions have never been studied at a center of mass energy above 1.12 GeV as published in 1971 by Richter et al. There were plans to explore $`e^{}e^{}`$ at DESY but these were abandoned when money ran out.

The three large projects in HEP for the US (and internationally) for the foreseeable future are: NLC, MC and VLHC. Of these the NLC is for the first decade of the twenty-first century; the other two are for the second decade. The NLC is presently a multi- billion dollar project primarily aimed at $`e^+e^{}`$.

A topic of this workshop is: should it have also $`e^{}e^{}`$ capability?

Why has $`e^{}e^{}`$ been so neglected? Firstly $`e^+e^{}`$ is where $`Z^{^{}}`$ can be found - often cited as the most conservative extension of the Standard Model (SM). By contrast $`e^{}e^{}`$ is an exotic, empty channel because it has double electric charge and lepton number $`L=2`$. Surely, $`e^{}e^{}`$ would allow only checks of higher-order quantum electrodynamics. But physics is an experimental science!

$`e^{}e^{}`$ Resonance.

Such a resonance must have $`L=2`$ and $`Q=2`$. It must be a boson. For spin zero a doubly-charged Higgs scalar, the coupling is a free parameter and is generically small. For a spin one gauge boson, the coupling is large and prescribed. Bilepton gauge bosons give a pronounced peak at $`s=M^2`$. But, as our main emphasis here, the resonance tail is detectable at much lower energy.

Bilepton gauge bosons were first suggested in the context of SU(15) grand unification.

First recall that in $`SU(5)`$ grand unification with families each in $`5+\overline{10}`$ the reason for $`B`$ violation is that the second rank tensor $`\overline{10}`$ has indefinite $`B`$ and $`L`$ quantum numbers.

If $`SU(5)`$ had fermions only in the $`5`$ then $`B`$ and $`L`$ would necessarily be conserved perturbatively.

The presence of the $`\overline{10}`$ is what causes the indeterminacy of $`B`$ and $`L`$ and allows mediation of proton decay in the gauge sector.

Since proton decay remains elusive the idea in $`SU(15)`$ is to prohibit it in the gauge sector. The 15 helicity states in each family are assigned to a $`15`$ of $`SU(15)`$. Whereupon each gauge boson has definite $`B`$ and $`L`$ according to which pair of the fundamental fermions it couples.

The first family is assigned to:

$$15=(u_L^R,u_L^G,u_L^B,d_L^R,d_L^G,d_L^B;\overline{u}_L^R,\overline{u}_L^G,\overline{u}_L^B,\overline{d}_L^R,\overline{d}_L^G,\overline{d}_L^B;e_L^+,\nu _{eL},e_L^{})$$

and similarly for the second and third families.

It is clear that all of the 224 gauge bosons of $`SU(15)`$ have definite $`B`$ and $`L`$.

Anomaly cancellation is by mirror fermions - disfavored aesthetically but not phenomenologically.

The pattern of spontaneous symmetry breaking is:

$$SU(15)\stackrel{M_G}{}SU(12)_q\times SU(3)_l$$

$$\stackrel{M_B}{}SU(6)_L\times SU(6)_R\times U(1)_B\times SU(3)_l$$

$$\stackrel{M_A}{}SU(3)_C\times SU(2)_L\times U(1)_Y$$

In the breaking at $`M_A`$ color $`SU(3)_C`$ is embedded in $`SU(6)_L\times SU(6)_R`$ as $`(3+3,1)+(1,\overline{3}+\overline{3})`$.

$`SU(2)_L`$ is embedded in $`SU(6)_L\times SU(3)_l`$ with $`6_L=3(2)_L`$ and $`3_L=2_L+1_L`$

$`U(1)_Y`$ is contained in $`SU(6)_R\times U(1)_B\times SU(3)_l`$ according to:

$$Y=\sqrt{3}\mathrm{\Lambda }+\sqrt{\frac{2}{3}}B+\sqrt{3}𝒴$$

with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`B`$ and $`𝒴`$ generators of $`SU(6)_R`$, $`U(1)_B`$ and $`SU(3)_l`$, respectively, normalized as $`SU(15)`$ matrices with

$$Tr(\mathrm{\Lambda }^a\mathrm{\Lambda }^b)=2\delta ^{ab}.$$

Explicitly, these normalized $`SU(15)`$ generators are

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}\mathrm{diag}(000000,111111,000)$$

$$B=\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}\mathrm{diag}(\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{3},\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{3},000)$$

$$\mathrm{and}𝒴=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}\mathrm{diag}(000000,000000,211)$$

RENORMALIZATION GROUP

$$\mu d\alpha _i(\mu )/d\mu =B_i\alpha _i^2(\mu )$$

with matching conditions, at $`M_A`$:

$$\alpha _{3C}^1(M_A)=\frac{1}{2}\alpha _{6L}^1(M_A)+\frac{1}{2}\alpha _{6R}^1(M_A)$$

$$\alpha _{2L}^1(M_A)=\frac{3}{4}\alpha _{6L}^1(M_A)+\frac{1}{4}\alpha _{3l}^1(M_A)$$

$$\alpha _{1Y}^1(M_A)=\frac{9}{20}\alpha _{6R}^1(M_A)+\frac{1}{10}\alpha _B^1(M_A)+\frac{9}{20}\alpha _{3l}^1(M_A)$$

at $`M_B`$:

$$\alpha _{6L}(M_B)=\alpha _{6R}(M_B)=\alpha _B(M_B)=\alpha _{12q}(M_B)$$

and at $`M_G`$:

$$\alpha _{12q}(M_G)=\alpha _{3l}(M_G)=\alpha _{15}(M_G)$$

The results can be tabulated, as shown in this Table of typical values for the three breaking scales of $`SU(15)`$

| $`M_A(GeV)`$ | $`M_B(GeV)`$ | $`M_G(GeV)`$ |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $`250`$ | $`4.0\times 10^6`$ | $`6.0\times 10^6`$ |
| $`500`$ | $`5.8\times 10^6`$ | $`8.9\times 10^6`$ |
| $`10^3`$ | $`8.3\times 10^6`$ | $`1.3\times 10^7`$ |
| $`2\times 10^3`$ | $`1.2\times 10^7`$ | $`1.9\times 10^7`$ |

There is one input parameter, say $`M_A`$.

$`M_B`$ and $`M_G`$ are outputs.

At low energies ($`M_A`$) the gauge bosons under $`SU(6)_L\times SU(6)_R\times U(1)_B\times SU(3)_l`$ are, with respect to the standard model:

$$35_L=(8,3)_0+(8,1)_0+(1,3)_0$$

$$35_R=2(8,1)_0+(8,1)_{\pm 1}+(1,1)_0+(1,1)_{\pm 1}$$

$$1_B=(1,1)_0$$

$$8_l=(1,3)_0+(1,1)_0+(1,2)_{\pm 3/2}$$

All are interesting but the last-listed $`(1,2)_{\pm 3/2}`$ are the bileptonic gauge bosons which can show up in Moller scattering.

( e.g. $`e^{}e^{}\mu ^{}\mu ^{}`$).

Clearly such bileptons are a general feature

of the embedding

$$SU(2)_LSU(3)$$

and have the electric charges

$`(Y^{},Y^{})`$ (L = +2)

with antiparticles

$`(Y^{++},Y^+)`$ (L = -2).

This feature of $`SU(15)`$ grand unification re-emerges in the $`331`$ model to which we now turn.

$`331`$ is more economic, and anomaly cancellation is more elegant, compared to $`SU(15)`$.

To introduce the 3-3-1 model, the following are motivating factors:

1. Consistency of a gauge theory requires cancellation of all chiral anomalies. Such cancellation occurs for a quark-fermion family and is enough (almost) to fix all charges.

2. This does not explain $`N_f>1`$ but is sufficiently impressive to suggest that $`N_f=3`$ may be explicable by anomaly cancellation in an extension. This requires extended families have non-zero anomaly and not all three families treated similarly.

3. The third family is exceptional because of the top quark mass, and suggests

+1 +1 -2 cancellation.

4. There is such a -2 in the SM as the ratio of quark charges.

5. Extension of $`SU(2)_L`$ to $`SU(3)_L`$ will have the same lepton couplings of the bileptons as in $`SU(15)`$.

For the 3-3-1 model the gauge group is:

$`SU(3)_C\times SU(3)_L\times U(1)_X`$

The first family quarks are assigned to

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}u\\ d\\ D\end{array}\right)_L\overline{u}_L\overline{d}_L\overline{D}_L$$

The triplet is a 3 of $`SU(3)_L`$.

The second family of quarks is assigned similarly:

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}c\\ s\\ S\end{array}\right)_L\overline{c}_L\overline{s}_L\overline{S}_L$$

The third family of quarks is assigned differently:

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}T\\ t\\ b\end{array}\right)_L\overline{T}_L\overline{t}_L\overline{b}_L$$

The triplet in this case is a 3\* of $`SU(3)_L`$.

The X quantum numbers of the triplets are equal to the electric charges of the cental members. That is, for the three families of quarks, $`X=\frac{1}{3},\frac{1}{3},+\frac{2}{3}`$.

The leptons are assigned to 3\*’s as follows:

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}e^+\\ \nu _e\\ e^{}\end{array}\right)_L\left(\begin{array}{c}\mu ^+\\ \nu _\mu \\ \mu ^{}\end{array}\right)_L\left(\begin{array}{c}\tau ^+\\ \nu _\tau \\ \tau ^{}\end{array}\right)_L$$

These three antitriplets have $`X=0`$.

Let us see how anomalies cancel. Recall that anomaly cancellation is crucial in many situations of model-building beyond the standard model e.g. chiral color and in string theory.

The color anomaly $`(3_L)^3`$ cancels because QCD is vectorlike.

The anomaly $`(3_L)^3`$ is non-trivial. Taking $`N_C`$ colors and $`N_l`$ light neutrinos the anomaly cancels only if $`N_C=N_l=3`$.

The remaining anomalies

$`(3_C)^2X,(3_L)^2X,X^3,X(T_{\mu \nu })^2`$

also all cancel.

In particular, each family has a non-zero anomaly for $`X^3`$, $`(3_L)^2X`$ and $`(3_L)^3`$; in each case the anomalies cancel proportionately to $`+1+12`$, as anticipated in the earlier discussion.

To break the symmetry requires several Higgs multiplets.

First an $`X=+1`$ triplet $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ with VEV $`<\mathrm{\Phi }>=(0,0,U)`$ breaks 331 to 321 and gives masses to the D, S and T quarks as well as the gauge bosons $`Z^{}`$ and $`Y`$. The scale $`U`$ sets the scale for the new physics.

Electroweak symmetry breaking requires two further triplets $`\varphi `$ and $`\varphi ^{}`$ with $`X=0`$ and $`X=1`$ respectively. Their VEVs give mass to d, s, t and to u, c, b respectively. The first VEV also gives a family-antisymmetric contribution to the charged leptons. To obtain a general mass matrix for charged leptons necessitates adding a sextet with $`X=0`$.

THE NEW PHYSICS SCALE U

There is a lower bound from precision electroweak data:

$`ZZ^{}`$ mixing dictates $`M(Z^{})>300GeV`$.

FCNC limits give a similar bound. For FCNC it is crucial that the third family be the one treated asymmetrically. Otherwise the FCNC disagree with experiment.

UPPER BOUND ON U:

A bound on $`U`$ arises because the embedding of 321 in 331 requires $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta <1/4`$ because for $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta =1/4`$ the coupling $`g_X`$ diverges. This fixes $`U<3TeV`$ using $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta (M_Z)=0.231`$. Hence $`M(Y)`$ cannot be higher than 1.5 TeV.

LEP data:

The highest precision high-energy data is from LEP. It gives $`M(Y)>120GeV`$.

The best lower bounds come from low energy experiments:

(1) Polarized muon decay:

$`M(Y^\pm )>230`$ GeV.

(2) Muonium-Antimuonium conversion:

$`M(Y^{\pm \pm })>850GeV`$.

Just to recapitulate some of the points made at the beginning:

$`e^{}e^{}`$ collisions have never been studied above c.o.m. energy 1.12 GeV. An NLC should have $`e^{}e^{}`$ capability.

Accomplishment of $`e^{}e^{}`$ Collisions at NLC.

In the post-SSC era it is desirable to avoid a third comma in the cost C, i.e. $`C<\$1B`$.

How can this be achieved?

The cost of an NLC is roughly linear in the energy.

A 500GeV NLC was costed last year at $7.9B, although I have been told informally that that cost might be lowered below $5B. Thus 100GeV could be below $1B?

Therefore the first fundable step could focus on luminosity rather than energy and be a 100GeV machine with luminosity $`10^{33}`$. This is sufficiently above LEP to give a Giga-Z and allows an opportunity to do new machine physics.

Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank Clemens Heusch for organizing a pleasant meeting and the US Department of Energy for support under Grant No. DE-FG01-97ER41036.

References

Note Added

In a recent work \[P.H. Frampton and A. Rasin, UNC Report IFP-781-UNC (February 2000)\] we have updated the cross-section estimates for $`e^{}e^{}\mu ^{}\mu ^{}`$ in  which used the $`SU(15)`$ model. In the simpler 331-model the cross-section is about one order of magnitude higher than the results in .


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# The Extreme Compact Starburst in MRK 273

## 1 Introduction

Luminous infrared galaxies are the most numerous sources with luminosities $``$ 1011 L in the nearby universe (Sanders and Mirabel 1996). The bulk of the luminosity from these sources is infrared emission from warm dust. A critical question concerning these sources is whether the dust is heated by an active nucleus, or a starburst? Recent studies using near IR spectroscopy suggest that the dominant dust heating mechanism in most luminous infrared galaxies (80$`\%`$) is star formation (Genzel et al. 1998), although AGN heating may become significant for the highest luminosity sources ($``$ 1012.3 L; Veilleux et al. 1999). This question has taken on new significance due to the recent discovery of a population of luminous infrared galaxies at high redshift seen in deep sub-millimeter and millimeter imaging surveys. If these high $`z`$ sources are starbursts, then they may dominate the cosmic star formation rate at $`z>2`$ (Smail, Ivison, and Blain 1997, Barger et al. 1998, Hughes et al. 1998, Blain et al. 1999, Eales et al. 1999, Bertoldi et al. 1999).

The most direct evidence to date of a dominant starburst in a luminous infrared galaxy is the discovery of a population of radio supernovae in the nuclear regions of Arp 220 by Smith et al. (1998) using high resolution imaging at 1.4 GHz. Radio observations are unique in this regard, since they are unobscured by dust and allow for imaging with mas resolution. We have begun a program of imaging the radio continuum emission and HI 21cm absorption in luminous infrared galaxies using the Very Long Baseline Array and the Very Large Array at resolutions ranging from 1 to 100 mas. Results on the Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 231 have been presented in Carilli, Wrobel, and Ulvestad (1998), Taylor et al. (1999), and Ulvestad, Carilli, and Wrobel (1998). Those data revealed the presence of an AGN driven radio-jet source on pc-scales at the center of a (possibly star forming) gas disk with a diameter of a few hundred pc, with about half the radio continuum emission coming from the disk.

In this letter we present the results on Mrk 273 at z = 0.0377. Mrk 273 has an infrared luminosity of $`\mathrm{L}_{\mathrm{FIR}}=1.3\times 10^{12}\mathrm{L}_{}`$ (as defined in Condon 1992), where we assume Ho = 75 km s-1 Mpc-1. The optical galaxy has been classifed as a Seyfert 2, LINER, and both (Baan et al. 1998, Colina, Arribas, and Borne 1999, Goldader et al. 1995), and it has a disturbed morphology on kpc-scales, with tidal tails indicating a merger event within the last 108 years (Knapen et al. 1998). Near IR spectroscopy reveals strong PAH features indicative of a starburst, but also high ionization lines indicative of an AGN (Genzel et al. 1998, Lutz et al. 1998). The X-ray emission also presents a mixed picture, with evidence for a highly absorbed hard component, but possible Fe L emission at 0.8 keV indicating cool (0.4 keV) gas (Iwasawa 1999). Broad absorption in the HI 21cm line and OH megamaser emission have also been detected in Mrk 273 (Baan, Haschick, and Schmelz 1985, Schmelz, Baan, and Haschick 1988).

The nuclear regions in Mrk 273 on sub-arcsecond scales are complex, with a double nucleus on a scale of 2′′ seen in the near IR (Knapen et al. 1998, Majewski et al. 1993, Armus et al. 1990), and in the radio continuum (Ulvestad and Wilson 1984, Condon et al. 1991, Knapen et al. 1998, Coles et al. 1999). The most peculiar aspect of Mrk 273 is that only one of the nuclei (the northern source) is seen in both the radio continuum and the near IR. The southeast nucleus is detected in the radio continuum, but is very faint in the near IR, although there may be a faint blue ‘star cluster’ at this position (Scoville et al. 2000). The southwest nucleus is seen in the near IR, but shows only very weak, extended radio continuum emission (Knapen et al. 1998). High resolution near IR imaging with the HST shows that both the north and southwest IR peaks are redder than the surrounding galaxy, and that the northern nucleus is redder than the southwestern nucleus (Scoville et al. 2000).

Imaging of CO emission from Mrk 273 shows a peak at the northern nucleus, with faint extended emission on scales of a few arcseconds (Downes and Solomon 1998). Downes and Solomon derive a molecular gas mass of $`1\times 10^9`$ M for the northern nucleus, and find that the CO is most likely in a disk with size $`<0.6^{\prime \prime }`$. From these data they conclude that the northern nucleus of Mrk 273 is an extreme compact starburst, with an IR luminosity of $`6\times 10^{11}`$ L emitted from a region $`<`$ 400 pc in diameter. This conclusion is supported by the 0.2′′ resolution images of the HI 21cm absorption presented in Coles et al. (1999), which reveal a velocity gradient along the major axis of the northern nucleus.

In this letter we present high resolution imaging (10 mas to 50 mas) of the HI 21cm absorption and radio continuum emission from Mrk 273. These data confirm the existence of a rotating gas disk with a diameter of 350 pc, and reveal a population of compact sources, possibly composed of luminous radio supernovae and/or nested radio supernova remnants.

## 2 Observations

Observations of Mrk 273 were made on May 31 and June 6, 1999 with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), including the phased Very Large Array (VLA) as an element in the very long baseline array. The pass band was centered at the frequency of the neutral hydrogen 21cm line at a heliocentric redshift of: z = 0.0377, or cz = 11300 km s-1. The total bandwidth was 16 MHz, using two orthogonal polarizations, 256 spectral channels, and 2 bit correlation. The total on-source observing time was 13.4 hrs.

Data reduction was performed using the Astronomical Image Processing System (AIPS) and AIPS++. Standard a priori gain calibration was performed using the measured gains and system temperatures of each antenna. The compact radio source J1337+550 was observed every 5 minutes, and this source was used to determine the initial fringe rates and delays. The source 3C 345 was used to calibrate the frequency dependent gains (band pass calibration). The source J1400+621 was used to check the absolute gain calibration. The results showed agreement of observed and expected flux densities to within 3$`\%`$.

After application of the delay and rate solutions, and band pass calibration, a continuum data set for Mrk 273 was generated by averaging off-line channels. This continuum data set was then used for the hybrid imaging process, which involves iterative imaging and self-calibration of the antenna-based complex gains (Walker 1985). The final iteration involved both phase and amplitude calibration with a 3 minute averaging time for phases and 15 minutes for amplitudes. The self-calibration solutions were applied to the spectral line data set. The spectral line data were then analyzed at various spatial and spectral resolutions by tapering the visibility data, and by smoothing in frequency. The continuum emission was subtracted from the spectral line visibility data using UVLIN. Images of the line and continuum data were deconvolved using the Clark ‘CLEAN’ algorithm as implemented in IMAGR. For the radio continuum images we also employed the multi-resolution CLEAN algorithm as implemented in AIPS++ (Holdaway and Cornwell 1999). Results were consistent for all image reconstruction algorithms, and we present the naturally weighted Clark CLEAN continuum images in the analysis below. The full resolution of the naturally weighted images is 10 mas. We also present images at 50 mas resolution made using a Gaussian taper of the visibilities.

## 3 Results and Analysis

The 1.368 GHz continuum image of Mrk 273 at 50 mas resolution is displayed in Figure 1. The image shows that the northern nucleus is extended, with a major axis of 0.5′′ and a minor axis of 0.3′′. The region shows two peaks separated by 0.11′′. We designate the western peak N1 and the eastern peak N2. These two peaks can also be seen in near IR images of Mrk 273 (Knapen et al. 1998). The total flux density from this region is 86$`\pm `$9 mJy. The southeastern source, which we designate SE, is also extended over about 0.3′′, with a total flux density of 40$`\pm `$4 mJy.

Figure 2 shows the 1.368 GHz continuum images of the northern and southeastern nuclei of Mrk 273 at 10 mas resolution. The northern source is highly resolved, consisting of a diffuse component extending over 0.5′′, punctuated by a number of compact sources. Table 1 lists the positions and surface brightnesses at 10 mas resolution of the six sources with surface brightnesses $``$ 0.5 mJy beam-1. Positions are relative to the peak surface brightness, corresponding to N1. The nominal position of N1 in Figure 2 is (J2000): $`13^h44^m42.119^s`$, $`55^o53^{}13.48^{\prime \prime }`$, based on phase-referencing observations using the celestial calibrator J1337+550 with a 5 minute cycle time. Note that the minimum error in the absolute astrometry is 12 mas, as set by the uncertainty in the calibrator source position (see Wilkinson et al. 1998 and references therein). The true error after phase transfer is likely to be significantly higher than this (Fomalont 1995, Beasley and Conway 1995).

Given the incomplete Fourier spacing coverage for VLBI imaging, in particular for short spacings, it is possible that the CLEAN algorithm has generated spurious point sources when trying to deconvolve extended emission regions. Conversely, we cannot rule-out the possibility that the extended emission is composed of mostly faint point sources. The use of multiresolution CLEAN mitigates these problems, and the sources listed in Table 1 all reproduce with essentially the same surface brightnesses for images made with the Clark CLEAN, multi-resolution CLEAN, and for images made with different visibility weighting schemes. The brightness temperatures of these sources are all $`3\times 10^6`$ K, indicating non-thermal emission. The southeastern nucleus is also resolved, with high surface brightness emission occuring over a scale of 50 mas. We set a 4$`\sigma `$ limit of 0.14 mJy to any compact radio source associated with the southwestern peak (large cross in Figure 1) seen at near IR wavelengths (Knapen et al. 1998).

Spectra of the HI 21cm absorption toward SE, and N1 and N2, at 50 mas resolution are shown in Figure 3. The spectrum of SE shows a double peaked profile, with the two lines separated by 400 km s-1, each with a Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM) of about 280 km s-1. There is marginal evidence that each component has velocity sub-structure, but the SNR of these data are insufficient to make a firm conclusion on this point. The peak optical depth of each line is about 0.12$`\pm `$0.02, and the implied HI column density in each component is then: N(HI) = 6.4$`\pm `$1.1 $`\times `$1019 $`\times `$ $`T_s`$ cm-2, where $`T_s`$ is the HI spin temperature in K.

An interesting comparison is made with the MERLIN absorption spectra at 0.2′′ resolution toward the SE component (Coles et al. 1999). At this resolution, MERLIN detects 19 mJy of continuum emission, and shows a 3 mJy absorption line at about 11200 km s-1, and weaker absorption of about 1 mJy at 11400 km s-1. The VLBA data show a peak continuum surface brightness of 10 mJy beam-1 at 50 mas resolution, and absorption line depths of 1 mJy at both velocities. This suggests that the absorption at 11200 km s-1 is due to extended gas covering both the compact and extended continuum emitting regions, while the 11400 km s-1 absorption is due to a small cloud ($``$ 40 pc) covering only the high surface brightness continuum emission. Assuming 11200 km s-1 indicates the systemic velocity of the gas at that location in the galaxy disk (Coles et al. 1999), then the higher velocity system would be infalling at 200 km s-1.

The spectrum of N2 shows a relatively narrow absorption line, with a FWHM = 160 km s-1, a peak optical depth of 0.59$`\pm `$0.06, and an HI column density of $`1.8\pm 0.2\times 10^{20}`$ $`\times `$ $`T_s`$ cm-2. The spectrum of N1 shows a broad, flat absorption profile with FWHM = 540 km s-1, with optical depths ranging from 0.1 and 0.4$`\pm `$0.04 across the line profile. Again, there is marginal evidence for a few narrower, higher optical depth components. The total HI column density is $`1.8\pm 0.3\times 10^{20}\times T_s`$ cm-2. The velocity range of the HI absorption toward N1 is comparable to that seen for the OH megamaser emission (Baan, Haschick, and Schmeltz 1985, Stavely-Smith et al. 1987).

Figure 4 shows the position-velocity (P-V) diagram for the HI 21cm absorption along the major axis of the northern nucleus. There is a velocity gradient from east to west of about 450 km s-1 across 300 mas, plus an apparent flattening of the velocity distribution to larger radii. The P-V distribution is confused somewhat by the broad absorption seen toward N1 (at position –90 mas in Figure 4). The east-west velocity gradient of the HI absorption across the northern source is consistent with results from MERLIN HI 21cm imaging at 0.2′′ resolution (Coles et al. 1999), and with the velocity field derived from CO emission observations at 0.6′′ resolution (Downes and Solomon 1998).

## 4 Discussion

The most significant result from our high resolution radio continuum imaging of Mrk 273 is that the emission from the northern nucleus extends over a region of $`0.3^{\prime \prime }\times 0.5^{\prime \prime }`$ (220$`\times `$370 pc), punctuated by a number of compact sources with flux densities between 0.5 and 3 mJy. This morphology resembles those of the starburst nuclei of NGC 253 and M82 (Ulvestad and Antonnuci 1997, Muxlow et al. 1994), on a similar spatial scale. However, the total radio luminosity is an order magnitude larger in Mrk 273. The physical conditions in this region are extreme, with a minimum pressure of 10-9 dynes cm-2, and corresponding magnetic fields of 100 $`\mu `$G.

The 1.4 GHz radio continuum emission from nuclear starburst galaxies is thought to be primarily synchrotron radiation from relativistic electrons spiraling in interstellar magnetic fields, with the electrons being accelerated in supernova remnant shocks (Condon 1992, Duric 1988). The compact sources are then individual supernovae or supernova remnants, while the diffuse emission is thought to be from electrons that have diffused away from the supernova remnant shocks. Our high resolution images provide strong support for the hypothesis of Downes and Solomon (1998) that the northern nucleus of Mrk 273 is an extreme compact starburst, with a massive star formation rate of 60 M year-1, as derived from the radio continuum luminosity (Condon 1992), and occuring in a region of only 370 pc diameter. From their detailed analysis of the CO emission from Mrk 273, Downes and Solomon (1998) propose that the star formation occurs in a disk with scale height of 21 pc and a total gas mass of $`1\times 10^9`$ M.

The nature of the weak, compact radio continuum sources in Mrk 273 is not clear, but given the similarity in morphology with the starburst nuclei in M82 and NGC 253, it is likely that these sources are a combination of nested supernova remnants and/or luminous radio supernovae. These sources have radio spectral luminosities $`10^{28}`$ ergs s-1 Hz-1 at 1.4 GHz, which is an order of magnitude higher than the brightest radio supernovae remnants seen in M82 (Muxlow et al. 1994), and are comparable in luminousity to the rare class of extreme luminosity radio supernovae characterized by SNe 1986J (Rupen et al. 1987) and 1979C (Weiler and Sramek 1988). A substantial population of such luminous supernovae has been discovered in the starburst nucleus of Arp 220 by Smith et al. (1998), who suggest that the high luminosities of those supernovae may indicate a denser local environment relative to typical supernovae, by a factor 3 or so (Chevalier 1984). If the compact sources in Mrk 273 are nested supernova remnants, then it would require 10 or more of the most luminous M82-type supernova remnants in regions less than 7 pc in size. Future high resolution imaging of Mrk 273 is required to clarify the nature of these compact sources.

It is possible that the brightest of the compact sources, coincident with N1, indicates the presence of a weak radio AGN. Supporting evidence for this conclusion is the broad HI absorption line observed toward N1. This component contributes only 3.8$`\%`$ to the total radio luminosity at 1.4 GHz of the northern nuclear regions.

From flattening of the radio spectrum between 1.6 and 5 GHz, Knapen et al. (1998) suggested that there may be a dominant, synchrotron self-absorbed radio-loud AGN in the northern nucleus of Mrk 273. The images presented herein clearly preclude this hypothesis. We feel a more likely explanation for the low frequency flattening is free-free absorption. We are currently analyzing images with sub-arcsecond resolution between 327 MHz and 22 GHz in order to determine the origin of this low frequency flattening.

The gas disk hypothesis for the northern nucleus of Mrk 273 is supported by the observed velocity gradient in the HI 21cm absorption along the major axis. The rotational velocity at a radius of 220 pc is 280 km s-1, assuming an inclination angle of 53o. Assuming Keplerian rotation, the enclosed mass inside this radius is then 2$`\times `$109 M, comparable to the molecular gas mass observed on this scale.

Overall, these data support the idea that the dominant energy source in the northern nuclear region in Mrk 273 is a starburst and not an AGN. However, the presence of an AGN somewhere in the inner 2′′ of Mrk 273 is still suggested, based on the high ionization near IR lines (Genzel et al. 1998), the (possible) hard X-ray component (Iwasawa 1999), and the Seyfert II optical spectrum, although Condon et al. (1991) argue that a Seyfert II spectrum is not necessarily a conclusive AGN indicator. It is possible that the AGN is located at either the SE radio nucleus, or the SW near IR nucleus.

The SE radio nucleus presents a number of peculiarities, the most important of which is the weakness of the near IR emission (Knapen et al. 1998, Scoville et al. 2000). Knapen et al. (1998) suggested that this source may simply be the chance projection of a background radio source. However, the probability of a chance projection of a 40 mJy source within 1′′ of the northern nucleus is only $`4\times 10^7`$ (Langston et al. 1990, Richards et al. 1999). This low probability, and the fact that we see evidence for gas infall into the SE nucleus in the HI 21cm absorption images, effectively preclude the background source hypothesis. The radio morphology is consistent with an amorphous jet, or a very compact starburst, although the lack of CO emission from this region argues for an AGN. One possible cause for the lack of near IR emission is that the active region is still obscured at 2.2 $`\mu `$m. The HI 21cm absorption column density is 6.4$`\pm `$1.1 $`\times `$1022 $`\times `$ ($`\frac{\mathrm{T}_\mathrm{s}}{10^3\mathrm{K}}`$) cm-2, while the absorption column derived from the hard X-ray spectrum may be as large as $`4\times 10^{23}`$ cm-2, depending on the X-ray powerlaw index. Using the HI 21cm column leads to Av = $`40\times (\frac{\mathrm{T}_\mathrm{s}}{10^3\mathrm{K}})`$, assuming a Galactic dust-to-gas ratio. This is comparable the extinction responsible for the obscuration in the near IR of the AGN in the powerful radio galaxy Cygnus A (Ward 1996). Imaging at wavelengths of 10 $`\mu `$m or longer, with sub-arcsecond resolution, is required to address this interesting question.

We do not detect any high surface brightness radio emission associated with the SW near IR nucleus. This could simply mean that this region harbours a radio quiet AGN. An alternative posibility is that this is a star forming region in which the star formation is very recent, commencing less than 106 years ago, such that a substantial population of radio supernovae and supernova remnants have not yet had time to develop.

We thank J. Wrobel, J. Ulvestad, and K. Menten for useful discussions and comments. This research made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Data Base (NED) which is operated by the Jet propulsion Lab, Caltech, under contract with NASA. The VLA and VLBA are operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. CLC acknowledges support from the Alexander von Humboldt Society, and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.

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Figure Captions

Figure 1 – An image of Mrk 273 at 1.368 GHz at 50 mas (37 pc) resolution.The contour levels are a geometric progression in the square root of two, hence every two contours implies a factor two rise in surface brightness. The first contour level is 0.25 mJy beam-1. The peak surface brightness is 10 mJy beam-1 and the off-source rms is 85$`\mu `$Jy beam-1. The reference position (0,0) corresponds to (J2000): $`13^h44^m42.142^s`$, $`55^o53^{}13.15^{\prime \prime }`$, based on phase-referencing observations using the celestial calibrator J1337+550 with a 5 minute cycle time. The cross in the SW corner indicates the position of the SW near IR nucleus.

Figure 2a – An image of the northern nuclear regions of Mrk 273 at 1.368 GHz at 10 mas (7.3 pc) resolution. The contours are linear with an increment of 0.1 mJy beam-1, starting at 0.1 mJy beam-1. The peak surface brightness is 3.05 mJy beam-1 and the off-source rms is 36 $`\mu `$Jy beam-1.

Figure 2b – The same as Figure 2A, but now for the southeastern nuclear regions. The peak surface brightness is 1.35 mJy beam-1.

Figure 3 – The HI 21cm absorption spectra toward Mrk 273 from images at 50 mas resolution. Figure 3a is the spectrum of N1. The peak surface brightness of 7.8 mJy beam-1 has been subtracted. Figure 3b is the spectrum of N2. The peak surface brightness of 6.7 mJy beam-1 has been subtracted. Both these spectra have a velocity resolution of 29 km s-1. Figure 3c is the spectrum of SE at a velocity resolution of 58 km s-1. The peak surface brightness of 10 mJy beam-1 has been subtracted. The zero point on the velocity scale corresponds to a heliocentric velocity of 11300 km s-1 in all spectra.

Figure 4 – The position-velocity plot for the HI 21cm absorption across the major axis of the northern nucleus of Mrk 273 at a spatial resolution of 50 mas (37 pc) and a velocity resolution of 60 km s-1. The contour levels (in absoption) are: 0.4, 0.8, 1.2, 1.6, 2.0, 2.4, 2.8 mJy beam-1. The position of continuum component N1 corresponds to –90 mas, while N2 corresponds to +20 mas. The zero point on the velocity scale corresponds to a heliocentric velocity of 11300 km s-1 in all spectra.


text:
# Coupling to spin fluctuations from conductivity scattering rates

## Abstract

A recent analysis of optical conductivity data which has provided evidence for coupling of the charge carriers to the $`41`$meV spin resonance seen in the superconducting state of optimally doped YBa2Cu3O6.95 (Y123), is extended to other systems. We find that the corresponding spin resonance is considerably broader in Tl2Sr2CuO8+δ (Tl2201) and YBa2Cu4O8 (Y124) than it is in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ (Bi2212) and there is no resonance in overdoped Tl2201 with $`T_c=23`$K. The effective charge-spin spectral density is temperature dependent and contains feedback effects that further stabilize superconductivity as $`T`$ is reduced.

For a conventional electron-phonon system an isotropic, on the Fermi surface, spectral density can be introduced which is essentially temperature independent below $`T_c`$. This spectral density, $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$, can be determined from tunneling data in the superconducting state and has been used with great success to understand the deviations from BCS universal laws observed in many conventional superconductors . In principle, information on $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ can also be obtained through inversion of optical data although, to our knowledge, this has only been accomplished for Pb.

Recently Marsiglio et al. introduced a dimensionless function $`W(\omega )`$ which is defined as the second derivative of the normal state optical scattering rate $`\tau ^1(\omega )=(\mathrm{\Omega }_p^2/4\pi )\mathrm{}\mathrm{e}\sigma _N^1(\omega )`$ multiplied by frequency $`\omega `$. Here $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ is the plasma frequency and $`\sigma _N(\omega )`$ the normal state optical conductivity. Specifically,

$$W(\omega )=\frac{1}{2\pi }\frac{d^2}{d\omega ^2}\left[\frac{\omega }{\tau (\omega )}\right]$$
(1)
which follows directly from experiment, provided the data on $`\sigma _N(\omega )`$ is sufficiently accurate that a meaningful second derivative can be taken, possibly after smoothing. Marsiglio et al. made the very important observation that within the phonon range $`W(\omega )\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ at least for those spectral densities studied. Beyond the phonon range $`W(\omega )`$ can be negative but this does not distract from the fact that $`W(\omega )`$ can be used to get the shape and magnitude of $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$. Application of Eq. (1) to the normal state conductivity of K3C60 gave an $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ (provided negative regions in $`W(\omega )`$ are simply ignored) in excellent agreement with incoherent inelastic neutron scattering data on the phonon frequency distribution $`F(\omega )`$ and gave sufficient coupling strength to obtain the measured value of $`T_c`$. This leaves little doubt that K3C60 is an $`s`$-wave, electron-phonon superconductor, even though correlation effects are likely to be quite important.

More recently Carbotte et al. have extended the method of Ref. 3 to spin fluctuation exchange systems and to the superconducting state with $`d`$-wave symmetry. The charge carriers are coupled to the spin fluctuations through the spin susceptibility which is strongly peaked at $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ in the two dimensional Brillouin zone of the CuO2 plane of the high $`T_c`$ oxides. In this case the momentum dependence of the interaction is very important and cannot be pinned to the Fermi surface and there are cold and hot spots. Nevertheless, the resulting in-plane infrared conductivity is isotropic for tetragonal systems and Eq. (1) can still be applied and the resulting $`W(\omega )`$ interpreted as an effective spectral density for the electron-spin fluctuation exchange interaction. In contrast to the electron-phonon case this effective interaction resides in the system of electrons and, due to correlation effects, can be temperature dependent. In particular, it can undergo major changes when the electrons condense into the superconducting state. Such feedback effects are generic to any electronic mechanism. They have been studied theoretically within a Hubbard model by Dahm and Tewordt who also review the work of others.

Optical conductivity calculations for a $`d`$-wave superconductor within a spin fluctuation mechanism by Carbotte et al. established, that $`W(\omega )`$ of Eq. (1) still gives a good approximation to the spectral density $`I^2\chi (\omega )`$ provided it is divided by two and shifted by the gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$. Calculations of $`W(\omega )`$ from the data of Basov et al. in optimally doped Y123, revealed strong coupling of the charge carriers to the $`41`$meV spin resonance seen below $`T_c`$ in spin polarized inelastic neutron scattering experiments. The coupling to this resonance was found to be large enough to stabilize the observed superconducting state. For underdoped Y123 the spin resonance remains in the optics even above $`T_c`$ up to a pseudogap temperature, in agreement with the neutron work by Dai et al. A quantitative analysis is not attempted in this case however, because of the added complications of the pseudogap.

Here we extend our previous work to other materials and, in contrast to what was done in Ref. 6 we proceed here without any reference to neutron data. In Fig. 1 we show results for the coupling to the spin resonance in Y124 ($`T_c=82`$K, solid line), Tl2201 ($`T_c=90`$K, dashed line), and Bi2212 ($`T_c=90`$K, dotted line) derived from optical data measured at $`T=10`$K. These results were obtained from a direct application of Eq. (1) to the optical data of Puchkov et al. Shifting by the gap which is determined by the method discussed in detail later on, the resonances are at 38, 43, and $`46`$meV respectively with a considerably larger width in the first two than in Bi2212. On the other hand, the spin resonance in Bi2212 was observed by Fong et al. at $`43`$meV using neutron scattering. No neutron data exist, to our knowledge, for Y124 and Tl2201 and, therefore, our results represent a falsifiable prediction. Another prediction that we develop later is that, overdoped Tl2201 ($`T_c=23`$K) will show no resonance.

To extract more information from optical data we need to consider a more specific mechanism, namely spin fluctuation exchange. At the simplest level in the normal state, we describe the corresponding spectral density by a two parameter form

$$I^2\chi (\omega )=I^2\frac{\omega \omega _{SF}}{\omega ^2+\omega _{SF}^2},$$
(2)
where $`I^2`$ is the coupling between spin excitations and the charge carriers and $`\omega _{SF}`$ sets the energy scale for the spin fluctuations. Both parameters can be derived from a fit to the normal state optical scattering rates as a function of frequency. A fit for Tl2201 ($`T_c=90`$K) is shown in the top frame of Fig. 2. The fit to the $`T=300`$K data with $`\omega _{SF}=100`$meV and a high energy cutoff at $`400`$meV is excellent and lowering $`\omega _{SF}`$ to $`30`$meV does not give an acceptable fit. The formalism we use to relate spectral density to conductivity is standard and $`\sigma _N(\omega )`$ follows from a knowledge of the self energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$. As a check on the accuracy of the inversion procedure embodied in Eq. (1), we show in the central frame of Fig. 2 our results for the function $`W(\omega )`$ obtained from our theoretical normal state optical scattering rate $`\tau ^1(\omega )`$ based on our input spectral density $`I^2\chi (\omega )`$ given in Eq. (2) and shown as the grayed squares. We see, that at $`T=10`$K the inversion matches almost perfectly the input spectral density except for small wiggles in the inverted curve (solid line). This excellent agreement between $`W(\omega )`$ and $`I^2\chi (\omega )`$ is not limited to simple, smooth forms. In the bottom frame of Fig. 2 we show results obtained for a structured spectrum, namely a spectrum which is proportional to the one used by Schachinger and Carbotte to analyze the optical properties of superconducting Tl2201. Except for some oscillations at higher frequencies the normal state $`W(\omega )`$ (solid curve) is close to the input spectral function $`I^2\chi (\omega )`$ (grayed squares).

Normal state conductivity data is not available at low temperatures in the high $`T_c`$ oxides and it is necessary to devise an inversion technique which applies in the superconducting state. Also, the spectral density can depend on temperature and on the state of the system. This requires a formalism which relates the spectral density $`I^2\chi (\omega )`$ to the superconducting state conductivity. This was provided in the work of Schachinger et al. who calculated the conductivity of a $`d`$-wave superconductor within an Eliashberg formalism. As previously stated, using this formalism Carbotte et al. established that in this case $`W(\omega )/2`$ agrees fairly well with $`I^2\chi (\omega )`$ provided it is shifted by the gap amplitude $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$. This is shown clearly in Fig. 3 which is similar to the bottom frame of Fig. 2 except that now the superconducting state conductivity has been employed and the material is Bi2212 with $`T_c=90`$K rather than Tl2201. The grayed squares are the input spectral density shifted by the theoretical gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=28`$meV and the dashed line are the results for the inversion $`W(\omega )/2`$ vs. $`\omega `$ based on the calculated $`\sigma _S(\omega )`$. A simple $`d`$-wave gap model was used, and a parameter $`g`$ introduced giving the relative weight of the spin fluctuation spectral density in the gap channel as compared to its value in the renormalization channel. Details can be found in Ref. 12. For Bi2212, $`g=0.725`$, gives the measured value of $`T_c`$ when the normal state spectral density of Eq. (2) is used in the linearized self energy equations at $`T=T_c=90`$K. This value of $`g`$, which is considerably less than one, could be interpreted as an indication that a second, subdominant scattering mechanism (for example phonons) is also operative. The theoretical gap, on the other hand, is calculated from the solution of the $`d`$-wave Eliashberg equations for a temperature $`T=10`$K and is defined as the peak in the quasiparticle density of states. It is to be noted that this gap is a bit smaller than the gap of $`31`$meV suggested from the inversion data of Fig. 1 for Bi2212 (dotted line) using the experimentally observed position of the resonance peak at $`43`$meV. Nevertheless, the agreement is excellent and the theoretical value of $`28`$meV is within the experimentally observed range.

The agreement between $`W(\omega )/2`$ and $`I^2\chi (\omega )`$ in the top frame of Fig. 3 as to size and shape of the main peak is excellent. However, a negative piece is introduced in $`W(\omega )`$ right above the spin resonance peak which is not part of the spectral density. Nevertheless, at higher energies, $`W(\omega )/2`$ does recover and shows long tails extending to several $`100`$meV although they are underestimated. Additional evidence for the existence of this high energy background is found from our fit to the normal state data shown in the bottom frame of Fig. 3. The grayed lines give the optical scattering rate in Bi2212 at $`T=300`$K. The dashed curve is the fit to this data (solid line) and gives a normal state spin fluctuation frequency $`\omega _{SF}=100`$meV in Eq. (2) and an area under $`I^2\chi (\omega )`$ of $`95`$meV. From application of Eq. (1) to the superconducting state data we have already established the existence of coupling of charge carriers to a resonance peak as seen in Fig. 1 which gives its size and position in energy and this is reproduced as the solid curve in the top frame of Fig. 3. To get the superconducting state spectral density (grayed squares of the top frame in Fig. 3) the low frequency part of the normal state response is replaced by the resonant peak.

There is no known sum rule on the spectral weight $`I^2\chi (\omega )`$ and we find that the area under this function increases from $`95`$meV in the normal state to $`115`$meV in the superconducting state. The increase is due to the appearance of the spin resonance. Part of this spectral weight could come from a transfer from higher energies but our resolution at such energies is not sufficient to confirm this. In the bottom frame of Fig. 3 we show the fit to the superconducting state optical scattering rate obtained from our model $`I^2\chi (\omega )`$. The agreement is very good and since no new parameters were introduced to obtain the black dashed curve which agrees remarkably well with the black solid curve in the region $`0\omega 250`$meV, this is taken to be a strong consistency check on our work.

We extend our analysis to the material Y124 $`(T_c=81\mathrm{K})`$ where we predict from Fig. 1 a spin resonance to exist at $`38`$meV. Moreover, this spin resonance is much broader than the one observed in Bi2212 of Y123. Results are presented in Fig. 4. The top frame of this figure demonstrates the agreement between $`W(\omega )/2`$ and $`I^2\chi (\omega )`$ which was shifted by the theoretical gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=24`$meV which is another prediction of our calculations as, to our knowledge, no experimental data exist for this material. The bottom frame of Fig. 4 presents our comparison between experimental and theoretical optical scattering rates. As in the case of Bi2212 the normal state scattering rate (grayed lines) at $`T=300`$K gives evidence for the existence of a high energy background as the experimental data (solid line) are best fit by a spin fluctuation spectrum of the type described by Eq. (2) with $`\omega _{SF}=80`$meV and a high energy cutoff of $`400`$meV (dashed line). The black lines compare the theoretical results (dashed line) to experiment (solid line) in the superconducting state at $`T=10`$K. The signature of the spin resonance, the sharp rise in $`\tau ^1(\omega )`$ starting around $`50`$meV is correctly reproduced by theory. For $`\omega >120`$meV the experimental scattering rate shows only a weak energy dependence and the theoretical prediction starts to deviate from experiment. This is in contrast to our results for Bi2212 (bottom frame of Fig. 3) and Tl2201 and could be related to the fact that the Y124 sample used by Puchkov et al. was slightly underdoped, a situation not covered by our theory.

To conclude, we obtained theoretical gap amplitudes $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=24,26,`$ and $`28`$meV for Y124, Tl2201, and Bi2212 respectively. Experimental values are in the range of $`30`$meV for Bi2212 and $`28`$meV for Tl2201. The theoretical values correspond to ratios $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_0/k_BT_c`$ of 6.8, 6.7, and 7.2, much larger than the BCS value of $`4.3`$, and proves that feedback effects, not present in BCS, stabilize the superconducting state as $`T`$ is reduced (a result also supported by the theoretical study of Dahm and Tewordt).

Next we consider the case of overdoped Tl2201 with $`T_c=23`$K. The data of Puchkov et al. are reproduced as the solid curves of Fig. 5. The grayed curves are at $`T=300`$K in the normal state and the black curves apply to the superconducting state at $`T=10`$K. Nowhere is there a large rapid rise in the $`T=10K`$ curve at an energy which would correspond to the sum of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ plus some resonant frequency. This is in striking contrast to the sharp rise seen in Bi2212 and Y124 (bottom frame of Figs. 3 and 4 solid curves). For this overdoped sample no spin resonance forms. In fact, a fit of Eq. (2) with $`\omega _{SF}=300`$meV to the $`T=300`$K data which gives the grayed dashed curve in good agreement with the data (grayed, solid line) also gives the black dashed curve when used in a superconducting state calculation. The agreement with the solid black curve is quite good. No adjustment of any kind was made. Finally, we note in passing that $`\tau ^1(\omega )`$ stays finite (but very small) in the limit $`\omega 0`$ in all calculations presented here.

Optical conductivity data in Bi2212, Y124, and Tl2201 indicate that in the superconducting state the charge carriers are strongly coupled to a spin resonance which forms only in this state. No such resonance is seen in overdoped Tl2201 with $`T_c=23`$K. These results confirm that the coupling to the spin resonance first seen in optimally doped Y123 is a general feature of several, but not all the high $`T_c`$ oxides. The feature that corresponds to the resonance is an sharp rise in the optical scattering rate at a frequency equal to the sum of the gap plus the spin resonance frequency. Inversion of the optical data gives information on the absolute strength of the coupling between charge carriers and the spin resonance, and on its width. The resonance is found to be considerably broader in Tl2201 and Y124 than it is in Bi2212. In the systems considered here, at $`T_c`$, there is only coupling to the background spin fluctuations which extend to high energies. Below $`T_c`$ a spin resonance forms at low $`\omega `$ and this leads to increased coupling to the spin degrees of freedom which further stabilizes the superconducting state. This feedback effect leads to a ratio of twice the gap to $`T_c`$ of order 6-8, much larger than the value predicted in weak coupling BCS for a $`d`$-wave gap $`(4.3)`$. Overdoped Tl2201 with $`T_c=23`$K provides an example for which no spin resonance forms below $`T_c`$, and this system has optical properties close to those expected for a Fermi liquid.

Research supported in part by NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) and by CIAR (Canadian Institute for Advanced Research). We thank D.N. Basov for continued interest in this work and discussions.