format: text

text:
# Theoretical Perspectives on Spintronics and Spin-Polarized Transport

## I Introduction

Spintronics is a new branch of electronics where electron spin (rather than, or, in addition to electron charge) is the active element for information storage and transport . Spintronic devices have the potential to replace and complement various conventional electronic devices with improved performance. In a broader sense, spintronics also includes new fields such as spin-based quantum computation and communication . To determine the feasibility of spintronic devices and more generally of various applications of spin-polarized transport (such as solid-state quantum computing) it is essential to answer questions like how to create and detect spin-polarized carriers, how to maintain their spin polarization and spin coherence, or conversely how the spin polarization and spin coherence are destroyed.

In this paper we will explore the question of how conduction electrons (and holes) lose their spin coherence in view of our recent theoretical investigation of spin decoherence in metals . The conduction-electron spin relaxation time $`T_1`$ (which is the same as the transverse decoherence time $`T_2`$ for electronic systems with nearly spherical Fermi surfaces) also determines the quality of spintronic devices. The longer the conduction electrons remain in a certain spin state (up or down) the longer and more reliably can they store and carry information.

One important realization of spintronic devices is based on hybrid semiconductor structures . In spite of the initial proposal over three decades ago  and numerous experimental efforts, one of the key ingredients, the direct electrical spin injection into non-magnetic semiconductor has only recently been realized . Nevertheless by fabricating a novel class of ferromagnetic semiconductors  based on Mn-doped GaAs, and employing extensive experience with semiconductor technology which dominates traditional electronics, a significant progress is expected. One of the important limitations, however, is the influence of interfaces between the different materials in such hybrid structures. In this context, we will discuss here spin-polarized transport in hybrid semiconductor structures including our proposal to study semiconductor/superconductor structures , which provide a means to measure the degree of spin polarization and to investigate the interfacial scattering.

Quantum computation has been one of the most actively studied areas in general physics in the past few years . The dream of using quantum objects such as electrons as the basic unit of a computer, which is the ultimate of circuit miniaturization, together with the promise of exponential speed-up due to quantum mechanics, has drawn intense interest of scientists from a wide range of specialties. Electron and nuclear spins are the quantum bits (qubits) of some promising proposals for quantum computers (QC) . For these proposals to work, one needs to be able to precisely manipulate the dynamics of these spins, in particular, to rotate single spins and entangle two spins. Here we will focus on several proposals to produce and to detect spin entanglement.

From the early days of nuclear magnetic resonance we know how to manipulate nuclear spins by radio frequency (rf) fields. In particular, rf fields can induce transitions between Zeeman states and even saturate spin population. A recent discovery  claims to do the same with optical fields, for which nuclear spins are normally transparent. Electrons, however, can be spin-polarized by light and transfer the polarization to nuclei through the hyperfine coupling. By a periodic modulation of the electronic spin population, one can resonantly flip nuclear spins: the resulting oscillating hyperfine coupling acts as an effective “rf field.” Efforts to polarize nuclear spins through the hyperfine coupling are not new. In the past it was proposed (and in some cases verified) that a nuclear polarization can arise from saturating spins of conduction electrons by a rf field (Overhauser effect ), or purely electronically by generating hot carriers (Feher effect ). Here we will review some of these proposals and discuss their merits in the current context of spintronics and coherent control of nuclear spin dynamics.

## II Spin decoherence in electronics materials

Conduction electrons lose memory of their spin orientation through collisions with phonons, other electrons, and impurities. The crucial interaction which provides the necessary spin-dependent potential is the spin-orbit interaction. The spin-orbit interaction is a relativistic effect which can have various sources in electronic materials; the two most important sources being the interactions between electrons and impurities, and electrons and (lattice host) ions. The impurity-induced spin-orbit interaction (Overhauser ) is a random-site potential and, as such, it can induce momentum scattering accompanied by spin flip. The ion-induced spin-orbit interaction is a different story. This interaction is nicely periodic and by itself would not lead to any spin relaxation at all. However, the ion-induced spin-orbit interaction becomes a viable source of spin relaxation when combined with a momentum scattering mechanism (impurities or phonons). This was first realized by Elliott : because the periodic lattice potential (that includes a spin-orbit interaction) yields Bloch states which are, in general, not spin eigenstates, even a spin-independent scattering (by impurities or phonons) can induce spin flip . This mechanism of spin relaxation in metals and semiconductors is now called Elliott-Yafet mechanism (Yafet  made a significant contribution to the theory by studying spin-flip electron-phonon interactions). We note that in materials without a center of inversion (like GaAs and many other interesting semiconductors), there are other relevant mechanisms of spin-relaxation. These mechanisms along with recent attempts of modulating spin dynamics in semiconductors are reviewed in .

Spin relaxation times $`T_1`$ in metals are typically nanoseconds (the record, $`T_11\mu `$s, is held by a very pure Na sample at low temperatures ). Spin relaxation is an incredibly long process when compared with momentum relaxation; momentum relaxation times $`\tau `$ are just tens of femtoseconds at room temperature. That electron spins are a promising medium for information storage follows from the large value of the factor $`T_1/\tau `$. A crude estimate of $`T_1`$ is $`T_1\tau /b^2`$, where $`bV_{SO}/E_F`$, with $`V_{SO}`$ denoting an effective strength of the spin-orbit interaction, and $`E_F`$ the Fermi energy. Since $`V_{SO}E_F`$, it follows that $`T_1/\tau 1`$. The temperature ($`T`$) dependence of $`1/T_1`$ is similar to the temperature dependence of resistivity $`\rho `$: At low T (below 20 K) the spin relaxation is dominated by impurity scattering and is temperature independent. At higher temperatures electrons lose spin coherence by colliding with phonons. Above the Debye temperature, where the whole spectrum of phonons is excited and the number of phonons increases linearly with increasing temperature, $`1/T_1T`$, similar to resistivity. In an intrinsic sample (with negligible amount of impurities), $`1/T_1`$ follows the Yafet law , $`1/T_1T^5`$ (again similar to $`\rho `$), which is yet to be seen in experiment. The case of semiconductors  is less clear-cut. Typical magnitudes of $`T_1`$ in semiconductors are nanoseconds too, but $`T_1`$ varies strongly with magnetic field, temperature, doping, and strain. The task of sorting different mechanisms at different regimes is very difficult and remains to be completed .

For how long an electron can travel in a solid-state environment without flipping its spin? Is there a limit on $`T_1`$? In an ideal impurity-free sample, $`T_1`$ would approach infinity as temperature gets to the absolute zero. Thus a recipe to increase $`T_1`$ at low temperatures is to produce very pure samples. But the most interesting region is at room temperature. Here phonons are the limiting factor, not impurities. Since we cannot get rid of phonons, increasing $`T_1`$ means reducing the spin-orbit coupling ($`b^2`$). Typically, the heavier is the atom, the stronger is the spin-orbit coupling. Therefore lighter metals like Na, Cu, or Li have longer $`T_1`$ than heavy metals like Hg or Pb. We do not know how large $`T_1`$ can be at room temperature, but an educated guess would be a microsecond for the materials of current technological interest.

Is there a way to control the spin relaxation rate at least within a few orders of magnitude? To answer this question we need to understand more where the strength of the spin-orbit interaction $`b`$ comes from. We already pointed out that in general $`bV_{SO}/E_F`$. This is indeed what a typical electron on the Fermi surface recognizes as the spin-orbit scattering: an electron with a spin up in the absence of the spin-orbit interaction acquires a spin down amplitude of magnitude $`b`$ when the interaction is turned on. Perturbation theory gives $`bV_{SO}/\mathrm{\Delta }E`$, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ being the typical (vertical) energy difference between neighboring bands. For a general Fermi surface point $`\mathrm{\Delta }EE_F`$ and one recovers $`bV_{SO}/E_F`$. But there can be points on the Fermi surface with $`\mathrm{\Delta }EE_F`$! Such points occur near Brillouin zone boundaries or accidental degeneracy lines. In the former case $`\mathrm{\Delta }EV_GE_F`$, where $`V_G`$ is the $`G`$th Fourier component of the electron-ion interaction ($`G`$ is the reciprocal lattice vector associated with the Brillouin zone boundary); in the latter case $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ approaches zero and degenerate perturbation theory gives $`b1`$. We call the points on the Fermi surface where $`bV_{SO}/E_F`$ spin hot spots . The area of the Fermi surface covered by spin hot spots is not large, so it may seem that on the average these points will not contribute much to spin relaxation. It turns out , however, that despite their small weight, spin hot spots dominate the average $`b^2`$ which is then significantly enhanced (typically by 1 to 4 orders of magnitude). Spin relaxation time $`T_1`$ is correspondingly reduced.

Spin hot spots are ubiquitous in polyvalent metals. Our theory then predicts that spin relaxation in polyvalent metals proceeds faster than expected (in fact, the significance of the points of accidental degeneracy for spin relaxation in Al was first pointed out by Silsbee and Beuneu ). This is indeed what is observed. Long before the theory was developed, Monod and Beuneu  collected $`T_1(T)`$ for different metals with the expectation to confirm the formula $`1/T_1(T)b^2/\tau (T)`$, with the simple estimate of $`bV_{SO}/E_F`$. This indeed worked for several metals (monovalent alkali and noble metals like Na or Cu), but not for polyvalent Al, Pd, Be, and Mg (these remain the only polyvalent metals measured thus far). Spin relaxation times for the measured polyvalent metals were 2-4 orders of magnitude smaller than expected. The explanation of this unexpected behavior came with the spin-hot-spot model (see the comparison between the measured and calculated $`T_1`$ of Al in ).

In addition to providing a theoretical explanation for the longstanding problem of why electron spins in metals like Al or Mg decay unexpectedly fast, our theory also shows a way of tailoring spin dynamics of conduction electrons. Spin hot spots arise from band structure anomalies which can be shrunk or swollen by band-structure engineering. Strain, for example, can make a Fermi surface cross through Brillouin zone boundaries, thus increasing the hot-spot area and correspondingly $`1/T_1`$. Other possibilities include alloying, applying pressure, changing dimensionality of the system, or doping (if dealing with semiconductors). Any effect that changes the topology of the Fermi surface will have a severe effect on spin relaxation. This prediction remains to be verified experimentally. The important result of Kikkawa and Awschalom  which shows that $`T_1`$ of some III-V and II-VI semiconductors can be significantly (by two orders of magnitude) enhanced by doping, is not a manifestation of spin hot spots, but it is still most probably (directly or not) a band structure effect.

## III Spin-polarized transport in hybrid semiconductor structures

We consider next some aspects of the spin-polarized transport in semiconductors and how the studies of semiconductor/superconductor (Sm/S) hybrid structures can be used to investigate the feasibility of novel spintronic devices. With the prospect of making spintronic devices  which consist of hybrid structures, it is necessary to understand the influence of interfaces between different materials. In the effort to fabricate increasingly smaller devices, it is feasible to attain a ballistic regime, where the carrier mean free path exceeds the relevant system size. Consequently, the scattering from the interfaces plays a dominant role. In a wide variety of semiconductors the main sources of interfacial scattering at the interface with normal metal are arising from the formation of a native Schottky barrier  and the large difference in carrier densities, i.e., Fermi velocity mismatch in the two materials. In the absence of spin-polarized carriers this leads to reduced interfacial transparency and different techniques are employed to suppress the Schottky barrier which can be examined using the low temperature transport measurements in Sm/S structures . For a spin-polarized transport in a non-magnetic semiconductor where the polarized carriers are electrically injected from a ferromagnet or ferromagnetic semiconductor, the situation is more complicated. Magnetically active interface can introduce both potential  and the spin-flip scattering leading to the spin-dependent transmission (spin filtering) across the interface and the change of the degree of carrier spin polarization. The latter possibility has profound effect on spintronic devices as they rely on the controlled and preferably large carrier spin polarization.

While there are alternative ways available to create spin-polarized carriers and spin-polarized transport  in a semiconductor, an important obstacle to develop semiconductor based spintronic devices  was to achieve direct spin injection from a ferromagnet . Previous experiments demonstrating spin injection into the non-magnetic metal  and into superconductor  have created strong impetus to advance studies of spin-polarized transport in the corresponding materials. In the experiment by Hammar et al. , permalloy (Ni0.8Fe0.2,Py) was used as a ferromagnet for the spin injection in two-dimensional electron gas. It was theoretically suggested  that limitations for achieving higher degree of spin polarization are consequences of working in a diffusive regime and the current conversion near the ferromagnet/semiconductor interface. A different approach, which would circumvent such difficulties, was proposed by Tang et al.  who have considered spin injection and detection in a ballistic regime. Subsequent experiments on spin injection in semiconductors have also employed diluted magnetic semiconductors and ferromagnetic semiconductors as sources of spin-polarized carriers . In these cases the effect of reduced interfacial barrier and Fermi velocity mismatch (as compared to the interface of semiconductor with metallic ferromagnet) should facilitate injection of carriers across the interface with a substantial degree of spin polarization. Investigating this point is another reason to perform experiments and theoretical studies focusing on the role of interfacial scattering.

We have proposed  employing spin-polarized transport in Sm/S hybrid structures to address the role of interfacial scattering and detecting the degree of spin polarization. Introducing the S region in the semiconductor structures has a dual purpose. Choosing S as a conventional , spin-singlet metallic superconductor (Al, Sn,..) implies forming of Schottky barrier at the Sm/S interface which we want to investigate and by cooling these materials below the temperature of superconducting transition, $`T_c`$, scattering processes  present exclusively in the superconducting state can serve as a diagnostic tool. At temperatures much lower than $`T_c`$, and at low applied bias voltage the transport is governed by the process of Andreev reflection . Prior to work in , spin-polarized Andreev reflection has been investigated theoretically  and experimentally  only in the context of ferromagnets. In this two-particle process, an incident electron, together with a second electron of the opposite spin (with their total energy $`2E_F`$, slightly above and below $`E_F`$, respectively) are transfered across the interface into the superconductor where they form a Cooper pair. Alternatively, this process can be viewed as an incident electron which at a Sm/S interface is reflected as a hole belonging to the opposite spin subband, back to the Sm region while a Cooper pair is transfered to the superconductor. The probability for Andreev reflection at low bias voltage is thus related to the square of the normal state transmission coefficient and can have stronger dependence on the junction transparency than the ordinary single particle tunneling. For spin-polarized carriers, with different populations in two spin subbands, only a fraction of the incident electrons from the majority subband will have a minority subband partner in order to be Andreev reflected. In the superconducting state, for an applied voltage smaller than the superconducting gap, single particle tunneling is not allowed  in the S region and the modification of the Andreev reflection amplitude by spin polarization or junction transparency will be manifested in transport measurements. To our knowledge, there have not yet been performed experiments on the spin-polarized transport in Sm/S structures. High sensitivity to the degree of spin polarization displayed in the experiments on ferromagnets  (including measurements of the spin-polarization for the first time in some materials), should serve as a strong incentive to examine semiconductors in a similar way. Performing such experiments in semiconductors would enable the use of advanced fabrication techniques, tunable electronic properties (such as carrier density and the Fermi velocity) and well studied band structure needed in the theoretical interpretation.

Introducing superconducting regions in the S/Sm structures is not limited to the diagnostic purpose. They can give rise to new physical phenomena relevant to the device operation. For example, different application of spin-polarized transport in Sm/S structures has been suggested by Kulić and Endres . They consider properties of thin films in the ferromagnetic insulator/superconductor/ferromagnetic insulator (FI/S/FI) configuration which display qualitatively different behavior from the previously studied structures where the FI is replaced by the metallic ferromagnet (F). In such F/S/F systems it is known that there are important proximity effects of extending superconducting order parameter in the non-superconducting material. Consequently, it has been shown  that they give rise to oscillations in $`T_c`$ as a function of the thickness of the superconducting region. In contrast, for FI/S/FI structures it was shown that $`T_c`$ is independent of the thickness of superconducting thin film and can be tuned by changing the angle of magnetization direction lying in the planes of each FI region. It was proposed  that these features and the simpler physical properties compared to the F/S/F systems can be used to implement switches and logic circuits. For example, switching between the normal and superconducting state could be performed by changing the magnetization directions (for a spin singlet superconductor $`T_c`$ depends only on the relative angle between the two magnetization vectors). Here we note that the novel ferromagnetic semiconductors  may be suitable candidates for the FI regions discussed above. With the appropriate Mn doping they would display insulating behavior and effectively suppress proximity effects.

## IV Spin-based solid state quantum computation

For spins in solids to be useful in quantum computing, it is important that one has certain ways to move information regarding these spins. This transfer can be achieved through nearest (fixed) neighbor interactions, such as among nuclear spins; or one can use mobile objects like conduction electrons in semiconductors. While the later approach gives us more freedom in manipulating the system, it is also more susceptible to relaxation caused by transport.

One of the first proposal to use electron spins in solids for the purpose of quantum computing  suggests confining electrons in quantum dots. The spins of trapped electrons serve as qubits, while quantum dots in which they reside serve as tags for each qubit. There is one electron in each quantum dot so that each qubit can be readily identified. The individual electron spins can be easily manipulated by a pulsed local magnetic field. It is conceivable that such field can be produced by local magnetic moments such as a magnetic quantum dot or an STM tip. Furthermore, if the electrons can be moved in the structure to an area away from the rest of the qubits, without losing its identity, the requirement on the magnetic field can be loosened. Such transport of electrons might be achieved through, for example, channels  or STM tips. Controlled exchange interaction between electrons in the nearest neighbor quantum dots can produced desired entanglement between electron spins , while finite magnetic field can be applied to reduce the error rate during this process . It has also been proposed that optical mediated entanglement can be achieved if the quantum dots are placed in a micro-cavity .

To produce a practical electron-spin-based quantum dot QC is going to be an extremely challenging experimental problem. For example, because electrons are identical particles, exchange errors  are always looming whenever two electrons have wavefunction overlaps . Stray electrons (trapped on surface or impurities) can easily cause information loss through this channel. If electronic qubits are not moved around, single qubit operations would require precisely controlled local magnetic fields which should not affect unintended electrons. Similarly, two-qubit operations would require well controlled tuning of the gate voltage between neighboring quantum dots. Electron spins relax much faster (in the order of ns to $`\mu `$s ) than nuclear spins (minutes to hours ), which would invariably decrease the signal-to-noise ratio and require error correction. The above-mentioned problems can be dealt with one by one. For example, swap gate (or square root of swap) is an essential ingredient for two-qubit operations. Thus it would be a big step forward if one can demonstrate the swap action in a double dot, even if the swap efficiency is far less than 100%. In the spirit of converting spin information into transport properties, one approach might be to inject two streams of electrons into the two coupled quantum dots, with one stream fully polarized. By adjusting the speed of injection, one can control the time that electrons remain in the dots, so that it is possible that at the output the originally unpolarized electron stream would acquire some degrees of average spin polarization, which can then be measured.

Electron spins are not the only possible building blocks for proposed spin-based solid state QC. One proposal that has attracted a lot of attention  attempts to combine the extremely long coherence time for nuclear spins and the immense industrial experience with silicon processing to produce a scalable QC. Donor nuclear spins are employed as qubits in this scheme. Donor electrons also play important roles here. Controlled by two types of gates, electrons are used to adjust nuclear resonance frequency for one-qubit operations and to transfer information between donor nuclear spins through electron exchange and hyperfine interaction, crucial for two-qubit operations. The fabrication of regular array of donors may be a daunting task. The additional “layer”of the QC structure (the electrons, as the intermediary) may provide major decoherence channel. However, despite all the problems, the exceedingly long life time of qubits means that the proposal is one of the more promising QC models in the long run.

## V Spin entanglement in solids

Spin entanglement is an essential ingredient for spin-based quantum computer, quantum communication, quantum cryptography, and other applications. It has been theoretically proposed that two-electron spin entanglement can be measured using an ordinary electron beam splitter or through a loop consisted of double-dot in which electrons undergo cotunneling . Another proposal distinguishes singlet and triplet states by detecting their energy difference . The common theme here is to measure transport properties of electrons and infer spin information from transport. Direct spin measurement is not impossible with the current technology (using SQUID), but it is slow and not quite sensitive enough for the purpose of quantum computing.

Due to the many obstacles we mentioned before in the pursuit of creating and detecting controlled spin entanglement in solids, it is useful to separate the two tasks and treat them individually. For example, to test a detecting scheme, it would be ideal if we have a well-established source of entangled electrons, so that we can test the sensitivity and other properties of the detecting scheme. Here we propose to use Cooper pairs as such a source. In many ordinary superconductors, the Cooper pairs are in a singlet state . Our goal is to transfer a Cooper pair from the superconducting region into a non-superconducting region as two spin-entangled electrons (a Cooper pair injection process in analogy to the inverse of previously discussed Andreev reflection). One conceivable scenario is to use heterostructures with discrete energy levels to satisfy energy conservation and to enhance the cross section of the process. If these entangled electrons can be successfully led out of the superconductor and into a normal region through the above procedure, they can then be separated using means such as Stern-Gerlach type of techniques  so that the opposite spin electrons are separated and propagate in two separate channels. We thus obtain a source of two streams of entangled electrons. By controlling the size of the point contact between the superconducting and the normal regions, the arrival-time-correlation between two entangled electrons can be enhanced so that they can produce signatures of a spin singlet state. Indeed, if the Cooper pairs in the superconductor source are triplets (as suspected for quasi-one-dimensional organic superconductors , and for Sr2RuO4 ), signatures of spin triplet state would be present. To have such controlled source of entangled electrons would be important both for testing the entanglement detection schemes and for applications in areas such as quantum communication.

## VI Optical and electronic control of nuclear spin polarization

The recent discovery by Kikkawa and Awschalom  of the optically induced nuclear spin polarization in GaAs gives an impetus to the search for new ways of controlling coherent dynamics of nuclear spins. In the experiment a sample of GaAs held at 5 K was placed in a magnetic field of about 5 T. Short laser pulses (100 fs) of circularly-polarized light with the frequency tuned to the GaAs band gap (1.5 eV) were then shot on the sample (perpendicularly to the applied field) to create a nonequilibrium population of spin-polarized conduction electrons (as a result of the circular light polarization). The electron spins then rotated about the total magnetic field which now consisted of the applied field and whatever field generated by polarized nuclei. By measuring the rotational frequency, the field induced by the polarized nuclei was measured as a function of time. The experiment found that by pumping the electron population with 76 MHz repetition rate laser pulses, the nuclei became polarized. After about 250 seconds of pumping the polarization field was about 0.1 T. It is not clear what exactly is the mechanism behind the nuclear polarization (a simple picture  based on the Overhauser effect  disagrees with the experiment), but there is little doubt that the polarization is nuclear (because of the large relaxation times of order minutes) and that it is induced optically.

An even more fascinating possibility, also studied by Kikkawa and Awschalom , is a dynamical control of the nuclear spins. In the standard nuclear magnetic resonance experiments nuclear spins which rotate about an applied field can be flipped by applying a microwave radiation of the frequency of the spin rotation. This happens because the microwave field has a component of the oscillating magnetic field perpendicular to the applied field. But such a perpendicular oscillating field can be created purely electronically! One just has to create a nonequilibrium population of spin-polarized electrons with the spin orientation perpendicular to the applied field, and repeat this process periodically with the period of the nuclear spin rotation. The hyperfine interaction is then the required oscillating interaction and should be able to resonantly tip nuclear spins. This was indeed observed .

That nuclear spins can be controlled electronically was first suggested by Feher  as early as in the late 50’s. Feher pointed out that nuclear polarization can be induced by the hyperfine interaction if the effective temperature $`T_R`$ characterizing the electronic velocity distribution differs from the electronic spin temperature $`T_S`$ which determines the occupation of electronic Zeeman states. Feher proposed several mechanisms that would lead to $`T_RT_S`$ : hot-electron transport, electron drift in an electric field gradient or in a perpendicular magnetic field, and the injection of electrons whose g-factor differs from the one of the electrons inside the sample. All these methods rely on the fact that spin equilibration proceeds slower than momentum equilibration (see Section II). One practical use of this idea would be a dc-driven maser , in which paramagnetic impurities are polarized electronically to an effective negative temperature. We believe that the Feher effect will be revived by new experiments since it shows how to manipulate nuclear spins purely electronically (without the need of either rf or optical fields) which can be of great interest in the efforts of integrating standard electronics with quantum information processing.


text:
# Electron Acceleration and Time Variability of High Energy Emission from Blazars

## 1 INTRODUCTION

High energy emission from blazars is usually thought to be produced by relativistically moving jets or blobs from the nucleus of galaxies (e.g., Blandford & Rees, 1978; Blandford & Königl, 1979; Maraschi, Ghisellini, & Celotti, 1992; Sikora, Begelman, & Rees, 1994; Inoue & Takahara, 1996). The physical properties of such jets have been probed mostly based on the steady state models of synchrotron radiation and inverse Compton scattering by a nonthermal electron population (SSC model). However, blazars are also characterized by rapid and strong time variability. Recent observations have revealed that the emission exhibits short time variations in X- and gamma-ray bands on timescales from weeks down to half an hour (e.g., Mukherjee et al., 1997; Ulrich, et al., 1997, for review), as fast time variations of Mrk 421 were observed by X-rays and TeV gamma-rays (Gaidos et al., 1996; Takahashi et al., 1996); similar time variations of Mrk 501 were also found by multiwavelength observations (Kataoka et al., 1999). These observations should provide important clues on physical processes in relativistic jets, in particular, on electron acceleration.

To make theoretical inferences, we need to calculate time-dependent emission spectra from a time-dependent electron population. An example of such theoretical models was recently presented by Mastichiadis & Kirk (1997). They solved the kinetic equations of electrons and photons simultaneously, by injecting power-law electrons with an exponential cutoff. They showed various possibilities to explain the time variations observed from Mrk 421, such as the changes in the magnetic field or the maximum Lorentz factor of nonthermal electrons. Although the correlation between X-rays and TeV gamma-rays are important to discuss the SSC model, their estimate of Compton scattering in the Klein-Nishina regime does not necessarily correctly account for the energy change in scatterings, because of a simplified treatment of Compton scattering in the Klein-Nishina regime \[see Mastichiadis & Kirk (1995) for the details of their calculation method\]. Kirk et al. (1998), on the other hand, extended the above model, assuming that an acceleration region and a cooling region are spatially separated; i.e., electrons accelerated in a shock region are transferred to a cooling region where they emit synchrotron photons (they did not include Compton scattering). Their model was intended to explain the time variability of X-rays, by changing acceleration timescale.

Besides the time variations of flare activities explained by Mastichiadis & Kirk (1997) and Kirk et al. (1998), the early stages of acceleration are of great importance. By examining the properties of the time evolutions of photon spectra during acceleration, we may obtain the diagnoses of acceleration mechanisms. The recent development of observations in X-rays (ASCA and Beppo-SAX) to TeV gamma-rays (e.g., Whipple and HEGRA) and future experiments might be used to confirm the diagnoses.

In this paper, we use a formulation similar to Mastichiadis & Kirk (1997), but with the full Klein-Nishina cross section in the Compton scattering kernel, so that the emission in the TeV range is calculated correctly. We also include a particle acceleration process by considering spatially separated acceleration and cooling regions as in Kirk et al. (1998), although we do not consider the spatial transfer of electrons. We particularly emphasize the detailed study of the properties of electron and photon spectra in the early stage of acceleration.

We describe our model in §2 and present numerical results in §3. Summary of our results is given in §4.

## 2 MODEL

### 2.1 Acceleration and Cooling Regions

We assume that observed photons are emitted from a blob moving relativistically towards us with Doppler factor $`𝒟=[\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\beta _\mathrm{\Gamma }\mu )]^1`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the Lorentz factor of the blob, $`\beta _\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the speed of the blob in units of light speed $`c`$, and $`\mu `$ is the cosine of the angle between the line of sight and the direction of motion of the blob. The blob is a spherical and uniform cloud with radius $`R`$, except that the blob includes an acceleration region which is presumably a shock front. It is assumed that the spatial volume of the acceleration region is small, and that the acceleration region is a slab with thickness $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ defined below. The spectra of electrons and photons in the blob are calculated for the acceleration and cooling regions separately by solving equations described in §2.2.

We assume that the acceleration region (hereafter AR) and the cooling region (hereafter CR) are spatially separated; shocks in the blob are expected to be the site of electron acceleration and electrons cool mainly outside the shock regions. In the AR, electrons are mainly accelerated and cooling is unimportant except for the highest value of $`\gamma `$, while, in the CR, electrons with a nonthermal spectrum are injected from the AR; the escape rate of electrons from the AR is equal to the injection rate of electrons in the CR because of the number conservation. We further assume that acceleration time, $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, and escape time, $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}`$, in the AR are energy independent as given in equation (4) below. With these assumptions, the number spectrum of electrons in the AR is a power law with a power-law index $`2`$, i.e., $`N(\gamma )\gamma ^2`$, which is confirmed analytically (e.g., Kirk et al., 1998). Thus the maximum energy of electrons is determined by the balance of cooling and acceleration. Since we consider $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}R/c`$ (see §3.1), the size of the AR is much smaller than the size of the blob itself.

We use this formulation because $`N(\gamma )\gamma ^2`$ is expected from the theory of shock acceleration (e.g., Druly, 1983; Blandford & Eichler, 1987). We, however, do not solve the spatial transfer of electrons as was done by Kirk et al. (1998). Instead, we simply calculate escaping electrons from the AR and put them into the CR. Although this may be an oversimplified model for realistic situations, the actual geometrical situation of shocks is not well known, either. Strictly speaking, our formulation is valid when ARs and CRs are more or less uniformly distributed in a cloud, but it is expected to be a fair approximation to the case where a single shock propagates in a jet as was studied by Kirk et al. (1998). As for the calculation of photon spectra, photons originating from one region penetrate into the other region but most of the photons originate from the CR since the size of the AR is small. Thus, the electron cooling in the blob is governed either by its own magnetic field or by synchrotron photons stemming from the CR. We treat appropriately this situation in numerical calculations.

### 2.2 Kinetic Equations

The equation describing the time-evolution of the electron number spectrum in the AR is given by

$$\frac{N(\gamma )}{t}=\frac{}{\gamma }\left\{\left[\left(\frac{d\gamma }{dt}\right)_{\mathrm{acc}}\left(\frac{d\gamma }{dt}\right)_{\mathrm{loss}}\right]N(\gamma )\right\}\frac{N(\gamma )}{t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}}+Q(\gamma ),$$
(1)
where $`\gamma `$ is the Lorentz factor of electrons and $`N(\gamma )`$ is the number density of electrons per unit $`\gamma `$. We assume that monochromatic electrons with Lorentz factor $`\gamma _0`$ are injected in the AR, i.e., $`Q(\gamma )=Q_0\delta (\gamma \gamma _0)`$. Electrons are then accelerated and lose energy by synchrotron radiation and Compton scattering; the energy loss rate is denoted by $`(d\gamma /dt)_{\mathrm{loss}}`$. The acceleration term is approximated by

$$\left(\frac{d\gamma }{dt}\right)_{\mathrm{acc}}=\frac{\gamma }{t_{\mathrm{acc}}}.$$
(2)
In the framework of diffusive shock acceleration (e.g., Druly, 1983; Blandford & Eichler, 1987), $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ can be approximated as

$$t_{\mathrm{acc}}=\frac{20\lambda (\gamma )c}{3v_s^2}3.79\times 10^6\left(\frac{0.1\mathrm{G}}{B}\right)\xi \gamma \mathrm{sec},$$
(3)
where $`v_sc`$ is the shock speed, $`B`$ is the magnetic field, and $`\lambda (\gamma )=\gamma m_ec^2\xi /(eB)`$ is the mean free path assumed to be proportional to the electron Larmor radius with $`\xi `$ being a parameter, $`m_e`$ the electron mass, and $`e`$ the electron charge. Although this expression is valid only for test particle approximation in non-relativistic shocks, we rely on this since the basic dependences are not much changed in general cases.

For the convenience of numerical calculations, we assume $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ does not depend on $`\gamma `$:

$$t_{\mathrm{acc}}=3.79\times 10\left(\frac{0.1\mathrm{G}}{B}\right)\left(\frac{\gamma _f}{10^7}\right)\xi \mathrm{sec},$$
(4)
where $`\gamma _f`$ is assumed to be a characteristic Lorentz factor of relativistic electrons and used as a parameter; we set $`\gamma _f=10^7`$ throughout this paper. Although realistic acceleration time for the smaller values of $`\gamma `$ should be correspondingly shorter, we make this choice because we mainly concern about the electrons with the large values of $`\gamma `$. One worry about this choice is the effect on the spectrum of accelerated electrons. We make sure that the resultant spectrum is that expected in diffusive shock acceleration by choosing $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}=t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ in the AR; this assumption of $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}=t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ is the same as used by Mastichiadis & Kirk (1995) in their proton acceleration model.

The electron spectrum in the CR is calculated by equation (1), with $`(d\gamma /dt)_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ dropped. Also $`Q(\gamma )`$ is replaced by the escaping electrons from the AR and $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}`$ is set to be $`2R/c`$. The assumption of $`2R/c`$ in estimating $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}`$ is merely based on that electrons escaping from the blob take longer time than photons, and this point needs further work.

The relevant equation for the time evolution of photons is given by

$$\frac{n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ)}{t}=\dot{n}_\mathrm{C}(ϵ)+\dot{n}_{\mathrm{em}}(ϵ)\dot{n}_{\mathrm{abs}}(ϵ)\frac{n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ)}{t_{\gamma ,\mathrm{esc}}},$$
(5)
where $`n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ)`$ is the photon number density per unit energy $`ϵ`$. Compton scattering is calculated as

$$\dot{n}_\mathrm{C}(ϵ)=n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ)𝑑\gamma N(\gamma )R_\mathrm{C}(ϵ,\gamma )+𝑑ϵ^{}𝑑\gamma P(ϵ;ϵ^{},\gamma )R_\mathrm{C}(ϵ^{},\gamma )n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ^{})N(\gamma ),$$
(6)
using the exact Klein-Nishina cross section. First term of equation (6) denotes the rate that photons with energy $`ϵ`$ are scattered by electrons with the number spectrum $`N(\gamma )`$; $`R_\mathrm{C}`$ is the angle-averaged scattering rate. Second term of equation (6) denotes the spectrum of scattered photons: $`P(ϵ;ϵ^{},\gamma )`$ is the probability that a photon with energy $`ϵ^{}`$ is scattered by an electron with energy $`\gamma `$ to have energy $`ϵ`$. The probability $`P`$ is normalized such that $`P(ϵ;ϵ^{},\gamma )𝑑ϵ=1`$. The details of $`R_\mathrm{C}`$ and $`P`$ are given in Jones (1968) and Blandford & Coppi (1990).

Photon production and self-absorption by synchrotron radiation are included in $`\dot{n}_{\mathrm{em}}(ϵ)`$ and $`\dot{n}_{\mathrm{abs}}(ϵ)`$, respectively. The synchrotron emissivity and absorption coefficient are calculated based on the approximations given in Robinson & Melrose (1984) for mildly relativistic electrons and Crusius & Schlickeiser (1986) for relativistic electrons. External photon sources are not included. The rate of photon escape is estimated as $`n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ)/t_{\gamma ,\mathrm{esc}}`$. We set $`t_{\gamma ,\mathrm{esc}}=R_{\mathrm{acc}}/c`$ and $`R/c`$ in the AR and CR, respectively, because the scattering depth of the blob is much smaller than unity.

The comoving quantities are transformed back into the observer’s frame depending on the Doppler factor and the redshift $`z`$; $`ϵ_{\mathrm{obs}}=ϵ𝒟/(1+z)`$, and $`dt_{\mathrm{obs}}=dt(1+z)/𝒟`$

## 3 RESULTS

We first examine the case where the cloud is initially empty and the injection of electrons starts at $`t=0`$. The distribution function of the injected electrons is mono-energetic: Here $`\gamma _0=2`$ is assumed. The strength of magnetic fields is assumed to have the same value both in ARs and in CRs, which is 0.1 G except in §3.4. Other parameters are redshift $`z=0.05`$, Hubble constant $`H_0=75`$ km sec-1 Mpc-1, and Doppler factor $`𝒟=10`$. We also assume that the size of a cloud is measured by the timescale of variability, which is assumed to be $`R/(c𝒟)=5\times 10^4`$ sec in the observer’s frame.

### 3.1 Time Evolution in Early Phase

First we simulate the time evolution from $`t=0`$ to $`R/c`$ to study the evolution in an early stage. We assume $`\xi =5\times 10^2`$ (i.e., $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}1.9\times 10^4`$ sec in the blob frame), and injection duration $`t=0`$$`R/c`$. In the CR, the escape time of electrons is assumed to be $`2R/c`$. The size of the AR is assumed to be $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}=ct_{\mathrm{acc}}/2`$. (Note that, in sections below, when we change the value of $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ is also changed accordingly.) The injection rate of electrons in the AR is $`0.1`$ electrons cm-3 sec-1. The volume of the AR is $`2.1\times 10^{47}`$ cm3 and the total injection rate is $`2.1\times 10^{46}`$ electrons sec-1, assuming that the AR is approximated by a disk with radius $`R`$ and thickness $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$. The total power of electrons amounts to $`5\times 10^{41}`$ ergs sec-1 by acceleration, if the power-law spectrum with an index of 2 is realized between $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$; the minimum and maximum Lorentz factors $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ are tentatively taken to be $`2`$ and $`3\times 10^6`$, respectively.

In Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars, the evolution of the electron number spectrum is shown both for an AR and a CR. It is seen that electrons injected with the Lorentz factor 2 are gradually accelerated and the value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ increases with time, where we take the value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ such that $`N(\gamma )=0`$ for $`\gamma >\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$. The value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ in a steady state is determined by the balance among $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}`$, and cooling time $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}`$ in the AR. Because we assume $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}=t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}`$ in the AR, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ is simply determined by $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ and $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}`$. The value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars is $`4\times 10^6`$. The spectrum reaches almost a steady state within $`R/c`$, which is a power law, $`N(\gamma )\gamma ^2`$; note that $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}2\times 10^4`$ sec and $`R/c=5\times 10^5`$ sec in the comoving frame of the blob for the present model.

In the CR, the effect of electron escape is negligible in the time interval shown in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars, because the simulation is terminated at $`t=R/c`$ while $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}=2R/c`$. Because of radiative cooling, a break $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ appears at around $`3\times 10^5`$. This break moves to lower energy when the evolution is continued until a steady state is attained; $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}10^4`$ at $`t=10R/c`$. There is also a slight deceleration of electrons by cooling, which is shown by curves below $`\gamma =2`$.

The spectral energy distribution (SED) of emission from the CR is shown in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars; the flux and the photon energy are plotted in the observer’s frame. Curves in the figure show the time evolution, with equally spaced time interval for $`t=0R/c`$ by solid curves. They evolve from lower to upper curves. In this stage, the synchrotron radiation dominates, because Compton scattering needs a timescale $`R/c`$ to be effective. SED at $`t=2R/c`$ (dotted curve) and $`10R/c`$ (dashed curve) are also shown in the figure; here electrons are continuously injected until $`t=10R/c`$. As shown by those curves, when the evolution is continued after $`R/c`$, the Compton component continues to increase before reaching a steady state. The peak energy of synchrotron emission initially increases but begins to decrease after about $`0.8R/c`$ because electrons with $`\gamma <\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ continue to accumulate and the value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ decreases while those with $`\gamma >\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ are saturated because of radiative cooling. After $`t=2R/c`$ the effects of electron escape begin to further modify the synchrotron spectrum; the intensity at the high energy part decreases while that at low energy still continues to increase slightly.

For $`t=0R/c`$, light curves in the X-ray range are shown in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars. Hard X-rays become dominant after $`t15t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, where $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}/𝒟2\times 10^3`$ sec in the observer’s frame.

The time evolution of the energy densities of electrons and photons in the CR are shown in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars: The energy densities in the AR are comparable with those in the CR for the parameters we used. In the CR, $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}=2R/c`$ and $`t_{\gamma ,\mathrm{esc}}=R/c`$ are assumed, so that the energy density of electrons is larger than that of photons. As was mentioned above, first the synchrotron photon energy-density rapidly increases and later the Compton photon energy-density (indicated by SSC in the figure) increases. It should be noted that the ratio of the energy densities of the Compton component to the synchrotron component is about 0.7 in the final stage, while the ratio of energy densities of synchrotron photons to magnetic fields is about 9. This is because the energy range of the target photons of Compton scattering is only a part of the synchrotron spectrum due to the Klein-Nishina limit. This result implies that we should be cautious about the estimate of the magnetic field strength from observations; if we simply estimate the magnetic field by multiplying the energy density of synchrotron photons by the ratio of synchrotron luminosity to Compton luminosity, it results in a large overestimation of magnetic field.

The energy injected through the electron acceleration is finally carried away by electrons and photons from the blob. The ratio of the amounts of the energies carried by electrons and photons is about $`1.8:1`$ in a steady state (i.e., $`t10R/c`$). That is, electrons carry more jet power than radiation in this specific model.

The trajectories in the energy-flux vs. photon-index plane are shown for $`t=0`$$`10R/c`$ in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars for various energy bands. Because the value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ decreases due to radiative cooling, the flux of X-rays decreases when $`t`$ $`>`$ a few $`R/c`$. The flux of gamma-rays, on the other hand, continues to increase because of Compton scattering (see Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars).

### 3.2 Dependence on Acceleration Timescale

By changing the value of $`\xi `$, we compare the electron spectrum for different values of the acceleration time, where we keep $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}=t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}`$ in the AR. In Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars, steady-state distributions of electrons for different values of $`\xi `$ are compared. When the acceleration time scale is longer, the value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ is reduced because of radiative cooling in the AR. Consequently, the emission spectrum becomes softer (Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars). It should be noted that because a smaller value of $`\xi `$ leads to a smaller value of $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ in out model, the luminosity from a blob becomes smaller when $`\xi `$ is smaller. The extreme limit of $`\xi =1`$ corresponding to the Böhm limit results in the most efficient Compton luminosity and the highest gamma-ray energy. In this limit, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ is about $`2\times 10^9`$ and the inverse Compton SED shows a steep cut off at $`10^4`$ TeV for $`𝒟=10`$ if electron-positron pair production is neglected. Note that $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ in reality depends on $`\gamma `$, while we assume $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ does not depend on $`\gamma `$ and the above values were calculated assuming $`\gamma _f=10^7`$ in equation (4).

The shape of SED has a significant curvature in the TeV region in our calculations. This curvature is in contrast to the observations of TeV gamma-rays from Mrk 421, which are fitted by a power law (Krennrich et al., 1999). Mrk 501, on the other hand, show a curvature in TeV emission (Catanese et al., 1997), and there are models which explain the curvature by intergalactic absorption (e.g., Konopelko et al., 1999; Krennrich et al., 1999). We, however, do not address these issues in this paper, since we are mainly interested in the temporal behavior of electrons and photons due to electron acceleration in the source.

### 3.3 Dependence on the Injection Rate

The spectral energy distributions of electrons and photons depend on the value of the injection rate $`Q(\gamma )`$ in the AR as well. If the value of $`Q(\gamma )`$ is larger with the fixed values of $`\gamma _0`$, $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}`$, and $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, the accumulation of electrons in the CR increases, resulting in the dominance of the Compton component. An example of SED is shown Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars, where the electron injection rate in the acceleration smaller by a factor 10 than in the model shown in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars, i.e., electrons are injected at the rate of $`0.01`$ electrons cm-3 sec-1. The peak of the synchrotron component decreases by a factor 10 and that of the Compton component decreases by a factor 100.

### 3.4 Dependence on Magnetic Field

When the size of a cloud and the number density of electrons are fixed, the value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ is larger for smaller values of $`B`$, because the synchrotron cooling rate is proportional to $`B^2`$. However, this is not the case in our model, because not only the cooling rate but also $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ depends on B. When $`B`$ is smaller, $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ is larger, which results in the larger size of the AR. Because we fix the particle injection rate per unit volume in the AR, the total number of electrons injected into the CR per unit time is larger by the electron number conservation. As a result, the Compton cooling in the CR becomes stronger and the value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ becomes smaller. However, the increase or decrease of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ actually depends on the combination of synchrotron cooling and Compton cooling. Such dependence on $`B`$ in the CR is shown in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars; SEDs at $`t=10R/c`$ are compared for $`B=0.05`$, $`0.1`$, and $`0.5`$ G with the same values of other parameters as in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars. In the CR, the values of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ are $`8\times 10^6`$, $`4\times 10^6`$, and $`8\times 10^5`$ for $`B=0.05`$, $`0.1`$, and $`0.5`$ G, respectively.

### 3.5 Termination of Acceleration

It is conceivable that acceleration is terminated by the end of electron injection in the AR due to the change of shock structure, etc., so that plasmas cease to emit hard photons. To exemplify such a situation, we continue the injection and acceleration up to $`t=4R/c`$ with the parameters used in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars and terminate the injection and the acceleration abruptly at $`t=4R/c`$, while the simulation is continued until $`t=7R/c`$. A break of the power-law spectrum of electrons in the AR appears after acceleration is terminated, and the break moves to lower energy with time. The response of the emission spectrum to the termination of acceleration is almost simultaneous in different energy bands as shown by light curves in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars. It is observed that the decay at 0.5 – 2 keV band lags that at 2 – 40 keV, which is characteristic to the models that assume the injection of power-law electrons and a sudden termination of injection. The decay in the keV range and 1 – 10 TeV bands is exponential, because the supply of the electrons producing those photons is turned off. On the other hand, electrons producing GeV photons are still supplied for a while by the cooling of the highest energy electrons which produced 1 – 10 TeV photons.

### 3.6 Flare

Up to now, we have assumed that at the initial stage the cloud is empty and there are no high energy electrons or photons. This is certainly an over simplification. Many flare events have been observed in X- and gamma-ray ranges by ASCA, Whipple, etc. They are overlaid on a steady emission component. As an example of applications of our code, a flare is simulated, i.e., we simply change the value of $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ for a period of time. More specifically, at $`t=0`$ the distributions of electrons and photons are in the steady state which is obtained for the parameters used in §3.1; see the dashed curve in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars for the steady photon energy distribution. The steady state is still continued for $`R/c`$. We then replace $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ by $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}/1.2`$ for $`t=R/c2R/c`$ (about 14 hours in the observer’s frame); after $`t=2R/c`$, the original value of $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ is used. The electron escape time in the AR is also changed keeping $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}=t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$. In Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars, light curves are shown for such a flare. The response of the light curves to the change of $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ (on/off of a flare) is slightly delayed, because of photon production and Compton scattering time. It is also noticed that the change of the light curve at $`110`$ GeV band delays behind X-rays and TeV gamma-rays. This is a result of an interplay of the time evolution of electron and synchrotron photon spectra. It is shown that the light curves of 2 – 10 and 10 – 40 keV proceed that of 0.5 – 2 keV. This behavior is different from that shown in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars, where the initial condition was an empty blob.

The trajectories in the energy flux and photon index are shown in Figure Electron Acceleration and Time Variability  of High Energy Emission from Blazars for $`t=0`$$`10R/c`$. This behavior is qualitatively similar to observed one for Mrk 421 by ASCA (Takahashi et al., 1996). Though the amplitudes of the change in the photon index of 2 – 10 keV and its energy flux are different from those of the observation, these values are dependent on parameters such as $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ and the duration of the flare, etc.

## 4 SUMMARY

Simulations of the time evolution of electron and photon energy distributions were presented as a model of time variations observed by X- and gamma-rays from blazars. By assuming that acceleration and cooling regions in a blob are spatially separated, we calculated the energy spectra of electrons in each regions. Electrons in the acceleration region are accelerated with a characteristic timescale $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ and escape on a timescale $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}`$; here we assumed $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}=t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}`$, so that the electron spectrum in a steady state obeys a power law, $`N(\gamma )\gamma ^2`$, as realized in the standard model of shock acceleration (e.g., Druly, 1983; Blandford & Eichler, 1987). Electrons escaping from the acceleration region are injected into the cooling region where they lose energy by radiation and finally escape from the blob on a timescale assumed to be $`2R/c`$. With these assumptions, we performed the simulations of the time evolutions of electrons and photons for various values of parameters. Although we did not include a specific acceleration mechanism, we took into account the salient features of diffusive shock acceleration, so that we could study the properties of time variation accompanying shock acceleration.

We first presented the results of the time evolution of the spectral energy distribution of radiation associated with the evolution of the electron number spectrum. In the early stage of the evolution, i.e., $`t=0`$$`R/c`$, the synchrotron component dominates the spectrum. The energy flux of soft X-rays starts to rise earlier than that of hard X-rays. Later ($`t>R/c`$), the Compton luminosity gradually increases. At the same time, the peak energy of the synchrotron component decreases because of radiative cooling. It was found that in a steady state, escaping electrons carry more energy than radiation: This result, of course, depends on the values of the parameters used. We also showed the dependence of time evolution on the acceleration timescale, the electron injection rate, and the strength of magnetic fields. The value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ and the ratio of the synchrotron luminosity to the Compton luminosity depend on such parameters.

We next simulated a flare by simply changing the value of $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ for a certain time span. With a shorter acceleration timescale, more energetic electrons are produced and consequently more hard photons are produced. The relation between the energy flux and the photon index during a flare was obtained, which is similar to the one observed from Mrk 421 (Takahashi et al., 1996).

Our formulation provides a method to treat high energy flares including particle acceleration processes, which is beyond usual analyses where nonthermal electron spectra are arbitrarily assumed and only cooling processes are included. Although we have not applied our model to any specific case of flares, it is straightforward to do this using our code. The examples presented here seem to cover a wide range of observed flares. These applications are deferred to future work. On the theoretical side, as proposed by Kirk et al. (1998), electrons accelerated at a shock are transferred outside of the shock and cool radiatively. To include such spatial transfer of electrons, we, in future, need to solve for the structure around acceleration regions.

Recently Chiaberge & Ghisellini (1999) showed observational consequences associated with time variations with timescales shorter than $`R/c`$. When such short timescale variations occur, observed emission is a superposition from various parts of a cloud. Then the time profile of each time variation is not necessarily observed clearly. The model presented in this paper contains the acceleration timescale shorter than $`R/c`$. Thus our model may not directly reflect observed spectra. However, to understand the relation between electron acceleration and time variation of emission, such a study should be useful.

M.K. and F.T. have been partially supported by Scientific Research Grants (M.K.: Nos. 09223219 and 10117215; F.T.: Nos. 09640323, 10117210, and 11640236) from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan.


text:
# Wealth condensation in a simple model of economy

(1 Service de Physique de l’État Condensé, Centre d’études de Saclay,
Orme des Merisiers, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
2 Science & Finance, 109-111 rue Victor Hugo, 92532 Levallois cedex, France;
http://www.science-finance.fr
3 Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure 111UMR 8548: Unité Mixte du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, et de l’École Normale Supérieure.  ,
24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France )

## Abstract

We introduce a simple model of economy, where the time evolution is described by an equation capturing both exchange between individuals and random speculative trading, in such a way that the fundamental symmetry of the economy under an arbitrary change of monetary units is insured. We investigate a mean-field limit of this equation and show that the distribution of wealth is of the Pareto (power-law) type. The Pareto behaviour of the tails of this distribution appears to be robust for finite range models, as shown using both a mapping to the random ‘directed polymer’ problem, as well as numerical simulations. In this context, a transition between an economy dominated by a few individuals from a situation where the wealth is more evenly spread out, is found. An interesting outcome is that the distribution of wealth tends to be very broadly distributed when exchanges are limited, either in amplitude or topologically. Favoring exchanges (and, less surprisingly, increasing taxes) seems to be an efficient way to reduce inequalities.

LPTENS preprint 00/06

Electronic addresses : bouchaud@spec.saclay.cea.fr mezard@physique.ens.fr

It is a well known fact that the individual wealth is a very broadly distributed quantity among the population. Even in developed countries, it is common that $`90\%`$ of the total wealth is owned by only $`5\%`$ of the population. The distribution of wealth is often described by ‘Pareto’-tails, which decay as a power-law for large wealths :

$$𝒫_>(W)\left(\frac{W_0}{W}\right)^\mu ,$$
(1)
where $`𝒫_>(W)`$ is the probability to find an agent with wealth greater than $`W`$, and $`\mu `$ is a certain exponent, of order $`1`$ both for individual wealth or company sizes (see however ).

Here, we want to discuss the appearance of such Pareto tails on the basis of a very general model for the growth and redistribution of wealth, that we discuss in some simple limits. We relate this model to the so-called ‘directed polymer’ problem in the physics literature , for which a large number of results are known, that we translate into the present economical framework. We discuss the influence of simple parameters, such as the connectivity of the exchange network, the role of income or capital taxes and of state redistribution of wealth, on the value of the exponent $`\mu `$. One of the most interesting output of such a model is the generic existence of a phase transition, separating a phase where the total wealth of a very large population is concentrated in the hands of a finite number of individuals (corresponding, as will be discussed below, to the case $`\mu <1`$), from a phase where it is shared by a finite fraction of the population.

The basic idea of our model is to write a stochastic dynamical equation for the wealth $`W_i(t)`$ of the $`i^{th}`$ agent at time $`t`$, that takes into account the exchange of wealth between individuals through trading, and is consistent with the basic symmetry of the problem under a change of monetary units. Since the unit of money is arbitrary, one indeed expects that the equation governing the evolution of wealth should be invariant when all $`W_i`$’s are multiplied by a common (arbitrary) factor. The evolution equation that we consider is therefore the following:

$$\frac{dW_i}{dt}=\eta _i(t)W_i+\underset{j(i)}{}J_{ij}W_j\underset{j(i)}{}J_{ji}W_i,$$
(2)
where $`\eta _i(t)`$ is a gaussian random variable of mean $`m`$ and variance $`2\sigma ^2`$, which describes the spontaneous growth or decrease of wealth due to investment in stock markets, housing, etc., while the terms involving the (assymmetric) matrix $`J_{ij}`$ describe the amount of wealth that agent $`j`$ spends buying the production of agent $`i`$ (and vice-versa). It is indeed reasonable to think that the amount of money earned or spent by each economical agent is proportional to its wealth. This makes equation (2) invariant under the scale transformation $`W_i\lambda W_i`$. Technically the above stochastic differential equation is interpreted in the Stratonovich sense .

The simplest model one can think of is the case where all agents exchange with all others at the same rate, i.e $`J_{ij}J/N`$ for all $`ij`$. Here, $`N`$ is the total number of agents, and the scaling $`J/N`$ is needed to make the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$ well defined. In this case, the equation for $`W_i(t)`$ becomes:

$$\frac{dW_i}{dt}=\eta _i(t)W_i+J(\overline{W}W_i),$$
(3)
where $`\overline{W}=N^1_iW_i`$ is the average overall wealth. This is a ‘mean-field’ model since all agents feel the very same influence of their environment. By formally integrating this linear equation and summing over $`i`$, one finds that the average wealth becomes deterministic in the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$:

$$\overline{W}(t)=\overline{W}(0)\mathrm{exp}((m+\sigma ^2)t).$$
(4)
It is useful to rewrite eq. (3) in terms of the normalised wealths $`w_iW_i/\overline{W}`$. This leads to:

$$\frac{dw_i}{dt}=(\eta _i(t)m\sigma ^2)w_i+J(1w_i),$$
(5)
to which one can associate the following Fokker-Planck equation for the evolution of the density of wealth $`P(w,t)`$:

$$\frac{P}{t}=\frac{[J(w1)+\sigma ^2w]P}{w}+\sigma ^2\frac{}{w}\left[w\frac{wP}{w}\right].$$
(6)
The equilibrium, long time solution of this equation is easily shown to be:

$$P_{eq}(w)=𝒵\frac{\mathrm{exp}\frac{\mu 1}{w}}{w^{1+\mu }}\mu 1+\frac{J}{\sigma ^2},$$
(7)
where $`𝒵=(\mu 1)^\mu /\mathrm{\Gamma }[\mu ]`$ is the normalisation factor. One can check that $`w1`$, as it should.

Therefore, one finds in this model that the distribution of wealth exhibits a Pareto power-law tail for large $`w`$’s. In agreement with intuition, the exponent $`\mu `$ grows (corresponding to a narrower distribution), when exchange between agents is more active (i.e. when $`J`$ increases), and also when the success in individual investment strategies is more narrowly distributed (i.e. when $`\sigma ^2`$ decreases).

One can actually also define the above model in discrete time, by writing:

$$W_i(t+\tau )=\left[J\tau \overline{W}+(1J\tau )W_i\right]e^{V(i,t)}$$
(8)
where $`V`$ is an arbitrary random variable of mean $`m\tau `$ and variance $`2\sigma ^2\tau `$, and $`J\tau <1`$. In this setting, this amounts to study the so-called Kesten variable  for which the asymptotic distribution again has a power-law tail, with an exponent $`\mu `$ found to be the solution of:

$$(1J\tau )^\mu e^{\mu V}=e^V^\mu .$$
(9)
Therefore, this model leads to power-law tails for a very large class of distributions of $`V`$, such that the solution of the above equation is non trivial (that is if the distribution of $`V`$ decays at least as fast as an exponential). Is is easy to check that $`\mu `$ is always greater than one and tends to $`\mu =1+J/\sigma ^2`$ in the limit $`\tau 0`$. Let us notice that a somewhat similar discrete model was studied in  in the context of a generalized Lotka-Volterra equation. However that model has an additional term (the origin of which is unclear in an economic context) which breaks the symmetry under wealth rescaling, and as a consequence the Pareto tail is truncated for large wealths.

In this model, the exponent $`\mu `$ is always found to be larger than one. In such a regime, if one plots the partial wealth $`S_n=_{i=1}^nw_i`$ as a function of $`n`$, one finds an approximate straight line of slope $`1/N`$, with rather small fluctuations (see Fig. 1). This means that the wealth is not too unevenly distributed within the population. On the other hand, the situation when $`\mu <1`$, which we shall encounter below in some more realistic models, corresponds to a radically different situation (see Fig. 2). In this case, the partial wealth $`S_n`$ has, for large $`N`$, a devil staircase structure, with a few individuals getting hold of a finite fraction of the total wealth. A quantitative way to measure this ‘wealth condensation’ is to consider the so-called inverse participation ratio $`Y_2`$ defined as:

$$Y_2=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}w_i^2.$$
(10)
If all the $`w_i`$’s are of order $`1/N`$ then $`Y_21/N`$ and tends to zero for large $`N`$. On the other hand, if at least one $`w_i`$ remains finite when $`N\mathrm{}`$, then $`Y_2`$ will also be finite. The average value of $`Y_2`$ can easily be computed and is given by: $`Y_2=1\mu `$ for $`\mu <1`$ and zero for all $`\mu >1`$ . $`Y_2`$ is therefore a convenient order parameter which quantifies the degree of wealth condensation.

It is interesting to discuss several extensions of the above model. First, one can easily include, within this framework, the effect of taxes. Income tax means that a certain fraction $`\varphi _I`$ of the income $`dW_i/dt`$ is taken away from agent $`i`$. Therefore, there is a term $`\varphi _IdW_i/dt`$ appearing in the right-hand side of Eq. (2). Capital tax means that there is a fraction $`\varphi _C`$ of the wealth which is substracted per unit time from the wealth balance, Eq. (2). If a fraction $`f_I`$ of the income tax and $`f_C`$ of the capital tax are evenly redistributed to all, then this translates into a term $`+f_I\varphi _Id\overline{W}/dt+f_C\varphi _C\overline{W}`$ in the right-hand side of the wealth balance, which now reads:

$$\frac{dW_i}{dt}=\eta _i(t)W_i+J(\overline{W}W_i)\varphi _I\frac{dW_i}{dt}\varphi _CW_i+f_I\varphi _I\frac{d\overline{W}}{dt}+f_C\varphi _C\overline{W}$$
(11)
All these terms can be treated exactly within the above mean-field model allowing for a detailed discussion of their respective roles. The rate of exponential growth of the average wealth $`\overline{W}(t)`$ becomes equal to:

$$\gamma \frac{m+\sigma ^2/(1+\varphi _I)\varphi _C(1f_C)}{1+\varphi _I(1f_I)}.$$
(12)
The Pareto tail exponent $`\mu `$ is now given by:

$$\mu 1=\frac{J(1+\varphi _I)}{\sigma ^2}+\frac{1+\varphi _I}{\sigma ^2(1+\varphi _I(1f_I))}\left[\varphi _If_I(m+\frac{\sigma ^2}{1+\varphi _I})+\varphi _C(f_C+\varphi _I(f_Cf_I))\right].$$
(13)
This equation is quite interesting. It shows that income taxes tend to reduce the inequalities of wealth (i.e., lead to an increase of $`\mu `$), even more so if part of this tax is redistributed. On the other hand, quite surprisingly, capital tax, if used simultaneously to income tax and not redistributed, leads to a decrease of $`\mu `$, i.e. to a wider distribution of wealth. Only if a fraction $`f_C>f_I\varphi _I/(1+\varphi _I)`$ is redistributed will the capital tax be a truly social tax. Note that in the above equation, we have implicitly assumed that the growth rate $`\gamma `$ is positive. In this case, one can check that $`\mu `$ is always greater than $`1+(J+\varphi _Cf_C)(1+\varphi _I)/\sigma ^2`$, which is larger than one.

Another point worth discussing is the relaxation time associated to the Fokker-Planck equation (6). By changing variables as $`w=\xi ^2`$ and $`P(w)=\xi ^3Q(\xi )`$, one can map the above Fokker-Plank equation to the one studied in , which one can solve exactly. For large time differences $`T`$, one finds that the correlation function of the $`w`$’s behaves as:

$$w(t+T)w(t)w(t)^2\mathrm{exp}((\mu 1)\sigma ^2T)\mu >2$$
(14)
and

$$w(t+T)w(t)w(t)^2\frac{1}{(\sigma ^2T)^{3/2}}\mathrm{exp}(\mu ^2\sigma ^2T/4)\mu <2$$
(15)
This shows that the relaxation time is, for $`\mu <2`$, given by $`4/\mu ^2\sigma ^2`$. Therefore, rich people become poor (and vice versa) on a finite time scale in this model. A reasonable order of magnitude for $`\sigma `$ is $`10\%`$ per $`\sqrt{\text{year}}`$. In order to get $`\mu 11`$, one therefore has to choose $`J0.01`$ per year, i.e. $`1\%`$ of the total wealth of an individual is used in exchanges. \[This $`J`$ value looks rather small, but in fact we shall see below that a more realistic (non-mean field model) allows to increase $`J`$ while keeeping $`\mu `$ fixed\]. In this case, the relaxation time in this model is of the order of $`100`$ years.

Let us now escape from the mean-field model considered above and describe more realistic situations, where the number of economic neighbours to a given individual is finite. We will first assume that the matrix $`J_{ij}`$ is still symmetrical, and is either equal to $`J`$ (if $`i`$ and $`j`$ trade), or equal to $`0`$. A reasonable first assumption is that the graph describing the connectivity of the population is completely random, i.e. that two points are neighbours with probability $`c/N`$ and disconnected with probability $`1c/N`$. In such a graph, the average number of neighbours is equal to $`c`$. We thus scale $`\widehat{J}=J/c`$ in order to compare results with various connectivities (and insure a smooth large connectivity limit). We have performed some numerical simulations of Eq. (2) for $`c=4`$ and have found that the wealth distribution still has a power-law tail, with an exponent $`\mu `$ which only depends on the ratio $`J/\sigma ^2`$. This is expected since a rescaling of time by a factor $`\alpha `$ can be absorbed by changing $`J`$ into $`\alpha J`$ and $`\sigma `$ into $`\sqrt{\alpha }\sigma `$; therefore, long time (equilibrium) properties can only depend on the ratio $`J/\sigma ^2`$. As shown in Fig. 3, the exponent $`\mu `$ can now be smaller than one for sufficiently small values of $`J/\sigma ^2`$. In this model, one therefore expects wealth condensation when the exchange rate is too small. Note that we have also computed numerically the quantity $`Y_2`$ and found very good agreement with the theoretical value $`1\mu `$ determined from the slope of the histogram of the $`w_i`$’s.

From the physical point of view, the class of models which we consider here belong to the general family of directed polymers in random media. The two cases we have considered so far correspond respectively to a polymer on a fully connected lattice, and a polymer on a random lattice. A variant of this model can be solved exactly using the method of Derrida and Spohn  for the so-called directed polymer problem on a tree. In this variant one assumes that at each time step $`\tau `$ the connectivity matrix is completely changed and chosen anew using the same probabilities as above. Each agent $`i`$ chooses at random exactly $`c`$ new neighbours $`\mathrm{}(i,t)`$, the wealth evolution equation becomes

$$W_i(t+\tau )=\left[\frac{J\tau }{c}\underset{\mathrm{}=1}{\overset{c}{}}W_{\mathrm{}(i,t)}+(1J\tau )W_i(t)\right]e^{V(i,t)}$$
(16)
where $`V`$ is a gaussian random variable of mean zero and variance $`2\sigma ^2\tau `$. One can then write a closed equation for the evolution of the wealth distribution . In this case, the wealth condensation phenomenon takes place whenever $`\sigma ^2\tau +J\tau \mathrm{ln}(J\tau /c)+(1J\tau )\mathrm{ln}(1J\tau )>0`$. For $`J\tau 1`$ the transition occurs for $`\sigma ^2=\sigma _c^2=J(1+\mathrm{ln}(c/J\tau ))`$.

For $`\sigma >\sigma _c`$, one finds that $`\mu `$ is given by:

$$\mu \frac{\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{c}{\sigma ^2\tau }\right)}{\mathrm{ln}(c/J\tau )}$$
(17)
and is less than one, signalling the onset of a phase where wealth is condensed on a finite number of individuals. This precisely corresponds to the glassy phase in the directed polymer language. The above formula shows that $`\mu `$ depends only weakly on $`\sigma `$ or $`J`$, in qualitative agreement with our numerical result for the continuous time model (see Fig. 3). Note that in the limit $`c\mathrm{}`$, $`\sigma _c\mathrm{}`$ and the glassy phase disappears, in agreement with the results above, obtained directly on the mean-field model. Note also that in the limit $`\tau 0`$, where the reshuffling of the neighbours becomes very fast, wealth diffusion within the population becomes extremely efficient and, as expected, the transition again disappears. Finally, in the simple case where $`J\tau =1`$ (each agent trading all of his wealth at each time step), the critical value is $`\sigma _c^2\tau =\mathrm{ln}c`$ and the exponent $`\mu `$ in the condensed phase is simply $`\mu =\sigma _c/\sigma `$, and $`\mu =\sigma ^2/\sigma _c^2`$ for $`\mu >1`$ (see ).

Let us note, en passant, that the model considered by Derrida and Spohn has another interesting interpretation if the $`W_i`$’s describe the wealth of companies. The growth of a company takes place either from internal growth (leading to a term $`\eta _i(t)W_i`$ much as above), but also from merging with another company. If the merging process between two companies is completely random and takes place at a rate $`\lambda `$ per unit time, then the model is exactly the same as the one considered in Section 3 of  (see in particular their Eq. (3.2)).

Although not very realistic, one could also think that the individuals are located on the nodes of a d-dimensional hypercubic lattice, trading with their neighbours up to a finite distance. In this case, one knows that for $`d>2`$ there exists again a phase transition between a ‘social’ economy where $`\mu >1`$ and a rich dominated phase $`\mu <1`$. On the other hand, for $`d2`$, and for large populations, one is always in the extreme case where $`\mu 0`$ at large times. In the case $`d=1`$, i.e. operators organized along a chain-like structure, one can actually compute exactly the distribution of wealth by transposing the results of . One finds for example that the ratio of the maximum wealth to the typical (e.g. median) wealth behaves as $`\mathrm{exp}\sqrt{N}`$, where $`N`$ is the size of the population, instead of $`N^{1/\mu }`$ in the case of a Pareto distribution with $`\mu >0`$. The conclusion of the above results is that the distribution of wealth tends to be very broadly distributed when exchanges are limited, either in amplitude (i.e. $`J`$ too small compared to $`\sigma ^2`$) or topologically (as in the above chain structure). Favoring exchanges (in particular with distant neighbours) seems to be an efficient way to reduce inequalities.

Let us now discuss in a cursory way the extension of this model to the case where the matrix $`J_{ij}`$ has a non trivial structure. One can always write:

$$J_{ij}=D_{ij}\mathrm{exp}\frac{F_{ij}}{2}J_{ji}=D_{ij}\mathrm{exp}+\frac{F_{ij}}{2},$$
(18)
where $`D_{ij}`$ is a symmetric matrix describing the frequency of trading between $`i`$ and $`j`$. $`F_{ij}`$ is a local bias: it describes by how much the amount of trading from $`i`$ to $`j`$ exceeds that from $`j`$ to $`i`$. In the absence of the speculative term $`\eta _iW_i`$, Eq. (2) is actually a Master equation describing the random motion of a particle subject to local forces $`F_{ij}`$, where $`J_{ij}`$ is the hopping rate between site $`j`$ and site $`i`$. This problem has also been much studied . One can in general decompose the force $`F_{ij}`$ into a potential part $`U_iU_j`$ and a non potential part. For a purely potential problem, the stationary solution of Eq. (2) with $`\eta _i0`$ is the well known Bolzmann weight:

$$W_{i,eq}=\frac{1}{Z}\mathrm{exp}(U_i)Z=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\mathrm{exp}(U_i).$$
(19)
The statistics of the $`W_i`$ therefore reflects that of the potential $`U_i`$; in particular, large wealths correspond to deep potential wells. Pareto tails correspond to the case where the extreme values of the potential obey the Gumbel distribution, which decays exponentially for large (negative) potentials .

The general case where $`\eta _i`$ is non zero and/or $`F_{ij}`$ contains a non potential part is largely unknown, and worth investigating. A classification of the cases where the Pareto tails survive the introduction of a non trivial bias field $`F_{ij}`$ would be very interesting. Partial results in the context of population dynamics have been obtained recently in . The case where the $`i`$’s are on the nodes of a $`d`$ dimensional lattice should be amenable to a renormalisation group analysis along the lines of , with interesting results for $`d2`$. Work in this direction is underway .

In conclusion, we have discussed a very simple model of economy, where the time evolution is described by an equation capturing, at the simplest level, exchange between individuals and random speculative trading in such a way that the fundamental symmetry of the economy under an arbitrary change of monetary units is obeyed. Although our model is not intended to be fully realistic, the family of equations given by Eq. (2) is extremely rich, and leads to interesting generic predictions. We have investigated in details a mean-field limit of this equation and showed that the distribution of wealth is of the Pareto type. The Pareto behaviour of the tails of this distribution appears to be robust for more general connectivity matrices, as a mapping to the directed polymer problem shows. In this context, a transition between an economy governed by a few individuals from a situation where the wealth is more evenly spread out, is found. The important conclusion of the above model is that the distribution of wealth tends to be very broadly distributed when exchanges are limited. Favoring exchanges (and, less surprisingly, increasing taxes) seems to be an efficient way to reduce inequalities.

Acknowledgments: We want to thank D.S. Fisher, I. Giardina and D. Nelson for interesting discussions. MM thanks the SPhT (CEA-Saclay) for its hospitality.