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# X-Ray Wakes in Abell 160

## 1 Introduction

With the advent of satellite-based X-ray astronomy, it was discovered that elliptical galaxies can contain as much interstellar gas as their spiral kin \[for example, see Forman et al. (1979)\]. In the case of ellipticals, however, this interstellar medium (ISM) predominantly takes the form of a hot plasma at a temperature of $`10^7\mathrm{K}`$. The vast majority of elliptical galaxies are found in clusters, which themselves are permeated by very hot gas — the intracluster medium (ICM) — at a temperature of $`10^8\mathrm{K}`$. The existence of these two gaseous phases raises the question of how they interact with each other. The collisional nature of such material means that one might expect ram pressure to strip the ISM from cluster members. But since the ISM is continually replenished by mass loss from stellar winds, planetary nebulae, and supernovae, it is not evident *a priori* that galaxies will be entirely denuded of gas by this process.

Observing the X-ray emission from individual cluster galaxies is quite challenging, since they are viewed against the bright background of the surrounding ICM. Sakelliou & Merrifield (1998) used a deep *ROSAT* observation to detect the X-ray emission from galaxies in the moderately-rich cluster Abell 2634. They showed that the level of galaxy emission is consistent with the expected X-ray binary content of the galaxies, and hence that there is no evidence of surviving ISM in this rich environment.

When one looks in somewhat poorer environments, one does see evidence for surviving interstellar gas, and for the stripping process itself. The best-documented example is M86 in the Virgo Cluster which, when mapped in X-rays, reveals a tail or plume of hot gas apparently being stripped from the galaxy by ram pressure \[Rangarajan et al. (1995), and references therein\]. A similar process appears to be happening to NGC 1404 in the Fornax Cluster, which displays a clear wake of X-ray emission pointing away from the cluster centre (Jones et al. 1997). Evidence for a ‘cooling wake’ formed by gravitational accretion is found in the NGC 5044 group where a soft, linear X-ray feature is seen trailing from NGC 5044 itself (David et al. 1994).

Given the difficulty of detecting such faint wakes against the bright background of the ICM, it is quite possible that this phenomenon is widespread amongst galaxies in poor clusters. This possibility is intriguing, since wakes indicate the direction of motion of galaxies on the plane of the sky, and it has been shown that this information can be combined with radial velocity data to solve for both the distribution of galaxy orbits in a cluster and the form of the gravitational potential (Merrifield 1998). The existing isolated examples do not tell us, however, how common wake formation might be amongst cluster galaxies: although the observed wakes might represent the most blatant examples of widespread on-going ISM stripping, the galaxies in question might have merged with their current host clusters only recently, or be in some other way exceptional.

In order to obtain a more objective measure of the importance of ram pressure stripping in poor clusters, and the frequency with which it produces wakes behind galaxies, we need to look at a well-defined sample of cluster members within a single system. The cluster Abell 160 provides an ideal candidate for such a study. Its richness class of 0 makes it a typical poor system. It lies at a redshift of $`z=0.045`$, and hence at a distance of $`270\mathrm{Mpc}`$,111We adopt a value for the Hubble constant of $`H_0=50\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ throughout this paper. which is sufficiently close to allow galactic-scale structure to be resolved in its X-ray emission and corresponds to a size scale of $`79`$ kpc arcmin-1. Furthermore, its Bautz-Morgan class of III means that it contains quite a number of comparably luminous galaxies, and one might hope to detect ISM emission most readily from such a sample. In addition, its Rood-Sastry classification of C means that its members are concentrated towards the centre of the cluster: galaxies lying in the cluster core, where the ICM density is high, will be most affected by ram pressure stripping. Finally, Pinkney (1995) has obtained positions and redshifts for an almost complete, independently-defined set of galaxies in the field of Abell 160, providing an objective sample of cluster members for this study.

We therefore obtained a deep *ROSAT* HRI X-ray image of Abell 160 in order to investigate ISM stripping in this typical poor cluster. We use a Galactic Hi column density towards A160 of $`4.38\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 (Stark et al. 1992) throughout this paper. In the next section, we present the X-ray observation and the redshift data employed. Section 3 describes an objective method for detecting and quantifying wake features in the X-ray data, and Section 4 presents the results of applying this approach to the Abell 160 data. We conclude in Section 5 with a discussion of the interpretation of the results.

## 2 X-Ray data and Optical Redshifts

Abell 160 was observed with the *ROSAT* HRI in three pointings (1997 January and July, and 1998 January) for a total integration time of 70.4 ksec (see Table 1). The data were reduced with the *ROSAT* Standard Analysis pipeline, with subsequent analysis performed using the IRAF/PROS software package.

Point sources detected in the three X-ray observations were used to examine the registration in relation to the nominal *ROSAT* pointing position. A *Digitized Sky Survey* image of Abell 160 was employed to provide the optical reference frame. The second observation set was shifted $`0.9`$ arcseconds east and $`1.7`$ arcsec south, and the third set was shifted $`0.3`$ arcsec east and $`1.8`$ arcsec south. Registration of all three sets of observations was then within 0.5 arcseconds of the optical reference, tied down to five sources. A greyscale image of the merged X-ray dataset is shown in Figure 1.

The centroid of the diffuse X-ray emission in this image was calculated by interpolating over any bright point sources, and projecting the emission down on to two orthogonal axes. Fitting a Gaussian to each of these one-dimensional distributions then gives a robust estimate for the centroid of the emission. This procedure yielded a location of

$$\begin{array}{c}\alpha _{2000.0}=01^\mathrm{h}13^\mathrm{m}05^\mathrm{s}\\ \delta _{2000.0}=+15^{}29^{}48^{\prime \prime }\end{array}\}\pm 43\mathrm{arcsec},$$

which was adopted as the cluster centre for the subsequent analysis.

Pinkney (1995) obtained redshifts for the 94 brightest galaxies in the field of A160 using the MX multi-object spectrograph on the Steward Observatory 2.3m telescope. Figure 2 shows the resulting velocity distribution. In order to investigate the X-ray properties of normal cluster members, we have excluded the central galaxy since it contains a twin-jet radio source (Pinkney 1995), so its X-ray emission may well contain a significant contribution from the central AGN. There are 91 galaxies within 8,000 km s-1 of the twin-jet source ($`v_{\mathrm{TJ}}=13,173\pm 100`$ km s -1); some of these form a background cluster detected at approximately 18,000 km s-1. After further eliminating galaxies outside the field of view of the HRI, we end up with a sample of 35 cluster members whose X-ray emission we wish to quantify. This subsample, highlighted in Figure 2, has a line-of-sight velocity dispersion of 560 km s-1, directly comparable to other poor clusters. The locations of these galaxies are marked on Figure 1 where the different symbols indicate different subsamples of galaxies based upon optical luminosity, as described in the figure’s caption.

## 3 Detecting Wakes

Having combined the optical cluster member locations with the X-ray data, we now turn to trying to see whether there is X-ray emission associated with any individual galaxy, and whether it takes the form of an X-ray wake. On examining Figure 1, the eye is drawn to a number of cases where there is an enhancement in the X-ray emission near, but offset from, the optical galaxy position — see, for example, the galaxy at RA 1:12:38, Dec 15:28:03. It would be tempting to ascribe these near-coincidences to X-ray wakes. However, it is also clear from Figure 1 that there are many apparent enhancements in the X-ray emission that are totally unrelated to cluster members: some will be from foreground and background point sources, while others are probably substructure or noise associated with the ICM itself. What we need, therefore, is some objective criterion for assessing the probability that any given wake is a true association rather than a chance superposition. Further, even if we cannot unequivocally decide whether some particular feature is real, we need to be able to show that there are too many apparent wakes for all to be coincidences.

The test adopted to meet these requirements is as follows. First, for each galaxy we must seek to detect the most significant wake-like emission that might be associated with it. We must therefore choose a range of radii from the centre of the galaxy in which to search for a wake. Scaling the wakes previously detected in other clusters to the distance of Abell 160, we might expect enhanced X-ray emission at radii $`r<8\mathrm{arcsec}`$, equivalent to a galaxy distance of approximately 10 kpc. We also want, as far as possible, to exclude emission from any faint central AGN component in the galaxy, so we only consider emission from radii $`r>3\mathrm{arcsec}`$. Balsara, Livio & O’Dea (1994) found wake-like structure in high resolution, hydrodynamic simulations with a scalelength of $`2`$ arcseconds at the distance of Coma (see also Stevens, Acreman & Ponman 1999); in the poor environment of Abell 160 we expect wakes to be longer as their formation should be dominated by ISM stripping. We adopt the annulus $`3<r<8\mathrm{arcsec}`$ to search for wakes: counts in annuli with larger inner and outer radii were also performed but did not improve the statistical results described below.

In our chosen annulus, we search for the most significant emission feature by taking a wedge with an opening angle of 45 degrees, rotating about the centre of the galaxy in 10 degree increments, and finding the angle that produces the maximum number of counts in the intersection of the wedge and the annulus. Finally, the contribution to the emission in this wedge from the surrounding ICM is subtracted by calculating an average local background between radii $`25<r<60\mathrm{arcsec}`$, centered on the galaxy and each comparison region at the same cluster radius (see below), to give a brightest wake flux, $`f_{\mathrm{wake}}`$.

To provide a diagnostic as to the nature of this wake, its direction on the plane of the sky, $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, was also recorded. This angle was measured relative to the line joining the galaxy to the cluster centre, so that $`|\mathrm{\Theta }|=0^{}`$ corresponds to a wake pointing directly away from the cluster centre, while $`|\mathrm{\Theta }|=180^{}`$ indicates one pointing directly toward the cluster centre.222Under the assumption of approximately spherical symmetry in the cluster, there is no physical information in the sign of $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$.

Having found this strongest wake feature, we must assess its significance. To do so, we simply repeated the above procedure using $`n_{\mathrm{comp}}=100`$ points for each galaxy at the same projected distance from the cluster centre, but at randomly-selected azimuthal angles. These comparison points were chosen to lie at the same distance from the cluster centre so that the properties of the ICM and the amount of vignetting in the *ROSAT* image were directly comparable to that at the position of the real galaxy. As noted above, counts in ‘background annuli’ were also acquired and all these counts were averaged together in order to obtain a value for the background to be subtracted from the counts in each wedge region. Fewer comparison regions were used for the 12 galaxies closest to the cluster centre, as otherwise the count regions would overlap.

The comparison regions and real data were then sorted by their values of $`f_{\mathrm{wake}}`$, from faintest to brightest, and the rank of the galaxy (i.e. the position of the real data in this ordered list), $`\mathrm{Rank}_{\mathrm{gal}}`$, computed. The statistic

$$k=\frac{\mathrm{Rank}_{\mathrm{gal}}}{n_{\mathrm{comp}}+1}$$
(1)
was then calculated. Clearly, if all the apparent galaxy wakes were spurious, then nothing would differentiate these regions from the comparison regions, and we would expect $`k`$ to be uniformly distributed between 0 and 1. For significant wake features, on the other hand, we would expect the distribution of $`k`$ values to be skewed toward $`k1`$.

As an additional comparison to the X-ray emission around galaxies in Abell 160 we performed the same analysis on 70.4 ksec of ‘blank field’ data, extracted from the *ROSAT* Deep Survey, which encompasses $`1,320`$ ksec of HRI pointings towards the Lockman Hole (see e.g. Hasinger et al. 1998). We searched for wake-like features around 35 random positions across this HRI field, using comparison regions for each ‘galaxy’ as defined above.

## 4 Results

We have applied the above analysis to the confirmed cluster members using IRAF software packages and the merged QP datafile. Figure 3 shows the distribution of the $`k`$ statistic for both the complete sample of 35 galaxies and the subsample of the 15 brightest galaxies. The full sample of A160 galaxies yields a reduced chi-squared value of $`\chi ^2=1.617`$ when fitted by a uniform distribution, which is approximately a $`3\sigma `$ deviation; the probability of obtaining $`\chi ^21.617`$ for 34 degrees of freedom is only $`5.1\times 10^3`$. The full sample has $`k=0.628`$ and the subsample of the 15 brightest galaxies yields $`k=0.741`$; indeed, selecting subsamples of the 20 or so optically brightest galaxies always gives $`k>0.7`$ and the distributions are clearly skewed towards $`k=1`$. This suggests that we have detected significant wake-like excesses in these data.

Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests were performed to compare the $`k`$ statistic results to a uniform distribution. Figure 4 presents these test results for the complete sample of galaxies as well as the brightest 15 subsample. The figure’s annotation gives the values of the K-S statistic, $`d`$, which is simply the greatest distance between the data’s cumulative distribution and that of a uniform distribution, and *prob*, which is a measure of the level of significance of $`d`$. The probability of the detected features arising from chance is less than $`3.5\times 10^4`$ for the bright sample and $`3.8\times 10^3`$ for the entire sample of 35 galaxies. It is clear from Figure 4 that the more luminous galaxies do not follow a uniform distribution in $`k`$-space.

The analysis applied to the Deep Survey ‘blank field’ data yielded a mean value for the $`k`$ statistic of $`k=0.48`$ indicating that the results are uniformly distributed in $`k`$-space and that we do not detect ‘wakes’ in this comparison field. Indeed, assuming a uniform distribution for $`k`$, the fit to the data has a chi-squared value of $`\chi ^2=1.015`$, implying that the values of $`k`$ are uniformly distributed to high precision.

In order to investigate the nature of the wake-like excesses in the A160 data, we now consider the distribution of their directions on the sky. Figure 5 shows the directions of the strongest wake-like features found using the $`k`$ statistic analysis, for all 35 cluster members. The lines on this figure represent the wakes and their lengths are drawn proportional to wake strength.

The azimuthal distributions of the counts found in some of the highest-ranked wakes are shown in Figure 6. The wake profiles show wakes for these galaxies to be statistically significant with a mean net count of $`5`$, corresponding to a mean net X-ray flux of $`1.7\times 10^{15}`$erg cm-2 s-1. The wake fluxes translate into X-ray luminosities in the range $`(12)\times 10^{40}`$erg s-1. Grebenev et al. (1995) used a wavelet transform analysis to study the small-scale X-ray structure of the richness class 2 cluster Abell 1367: they found 16 extended features of which nine were associated with galaxies and had luminosities in the range $`(330)\times 10^{40}`$erg s-1. They concluded that the features could be associated with small galaxy groups, as suggested by Canizares, Fabbiano & Trinchieri (1987), rather than individual galaxies. The wake-like features we have detected have X-ray luminosities of the same order as individual galaxies in Abell 160, and the emission is clearly confined to extensions in specific directions away from the galaxies. Furthermore, the features noted by Canizares, Fabbiano & Trinchieri (1987) have size scales $`1^{}`$, much larger than the expected wake size at the distance of A1367 and so not directly comparable with the current work.

Figure 7 shows the distribution of apparent wake angles as a function of the galaxies’ radii in the cluster, for different strengths of wake as quantified by the $`k`$ statistic. As we might expect, for low values of $`k`$ where the wake is almost certainly a noise feature, the values of $`\left|\mathrm{\Theta }\right|`$ are randomly distributed between $`0^{}`$ and $`180^{}`$. However, for values of $`k>0.7`$, which are unlikely to be attributable to noise, there is only one wake pointed at an angle of $`\left|\mathrm{\Theta }\right|>135^{}`$. If the distribution of wake directions was intrinsically isotropic, the probability of finding only one of the 12 most significant wakes in this range of angles is only 0.01. Given the *a posteriori* nature of this statistical measure, its high formal significance should not be over-interpreted. Nonetheless, there definitely appears to be a deficit of wakes pointing toward the cluster centre.

## 5 Discussion

As a first attempt at an objective determination of the frequency of wakes behind cluster galaxies, we have found significant excesses of X-ray emission apparently offset from their host galaxies. Before exploring the possible astrophysical meaning of such features, we must rule out more prosaic possibilities.

If the X-ray emission were truly centred on the galaxies, we would still detect offset X-ray emission if there were significant positional errors in the optical galaxy locations. The uncertainties on these positions, however, are much less than the radii at which we have detected the wakes, so this possibility can be excluded. Similarly, an overall mismatch between the optical and X-ray reference frames would produce offsets between X-ray and optical locations of coincident sources, but the distribution of apparent offset directions shown in Figure 5 is not consistent with the coherent pattern that one would expect from either an offset or a rotation between the two frames.

We could explain the excess of sources where the X-ray emission lies at larger radii in the cluster than the optical position if the spatial scale of the optical data had been underestimated relative to that of the X-ray data. But both the *ROSAT* and optical data image scales are extremely well calibrated. Further, if such mismatch in magnification were responsible for the effect, one would expect the radial offsets to increase with distance from the field centre, and Figure 7 provides no evidence that the wakes become more radially oriented at large distances from the cluster centre.

A further possibility is that the distorted nature of the X-ray emission could arise from an asymmetry in the *ROSAT* HRI point-spread function (PSF). Such asymmetries are documented \[see, for example, Morse et al. (1995)\], but the observed shape of the HRI PSF actually becomes tangentially extended at large off-axis angles, so one would expect the wakes to be oriented at angles of $`|\mathrm{\Theta }|90^{}`$. The three wakes at very large radii and $`|\mathrm{\Theta }|70120^{}`$ in Figure 7 could well result from this phenomenon, but there is no evidence for any such effect at smaller radii.

We are therefore forced to return to trying to find an astrophysical explanation for the bulk of the observed wakes. As discussed in the introduction, an individual galaxy can emit at X-ray wavelengths due to both its hot ISM component and its contingent of X-ray binaries. Such emission could extend to the radii where we have been searching for wakes, or appear to do so due to the blurring influence of the PSF, so we might expect some wake-like features to appear simply due to this component. Such asymmetric wake features could arise from Poisson noise on intrinsically symmetric emission, or it could reflect a real asymmetry in the emission. For example, the emission from X-ray binaries could be dominated by one or two ultra-luminous sources in the outskirts of a galaxy, leading to an offset in the net X-ray emission. Even the X-ray wake phenomenon that we are seeking to detect can be described as an asymmetric distortion in the normal ISM emission. How, then, are we to distinguish between these possibilities?

Perhaps the best clue as to the nature of the detected asymmetric emission comes from the distribution of the angles at which it is detected, $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$. As we have described above, there is a deficit of wakes pointing toward the cluster centre. It is hard to see how such a systematic effect can be attributed to any of the more random processes such as Poisson noise on a symmetric component, or even the azimuthal distribution of X-ray binaries within the galaxy. It therefore seems highly probable that we are witnessing the more systematic wake phenomenon that we seek. If a wake indicates the direction of motion of the galaxy, then the deficit of detections at large values of $`|\mathrm{\Theta }|`$ implies that the production mechanism becomes ineffective when a galaxy is travelling out from the cluster centre. This conclusion has a simple physical explanation: if a galaxy is travelling on a reasonably eccentric orbit, by conservation of angular momentum it will spend a large fraction of its time close to the orbit’s apocentre. During this period, its velocity is slow and the ICM it encounters is tenuous, so it is able to retain its ISM. In fact, continued mass loss from stellar winds and planetary nebulae means that the amount of gas in its ISM will increase. Ultimately, however, its orbit will carry it inward toward the core of the cluster. At this point, the galaxy is travelling more rapidly, and encounters the higher density gas near the centre of the cluster, so ram pressure stripping becomes more efficient, and a wake of stripped ISM material will be seen behind the infalling galaxy. By the time the galaxy passes the pericentre of its orbit, the ISM will have been stripped away to the extent that the outgoing galaxy does not contain the raw material to create a measurable wake, explaining the lack of detected wakes at large values of $`|\mathrm{\Theta }|`$.

This simple picture seems to fit the data on Abell 160 rather well; a similar scenario was invoked by McHardy (1979) to explain the locations of weak radio sources in clusters. It is also notable that the beautiful wake feature behind NGC 1404 in the Fornax Cluster detected by Jones et al. (1997) is oriented such that it points radially away from the cluster centre. Clearly, though, more deep X-ray observations of clusters are required if we are to confirm the widespread applicability of this scenario.

### Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the referee for helpful comments and suggestions, and to Ian McHardy for several fruitful discussions. ND acknowledges receipt of a PPARC Studentship. This research has made use of data obtained from the Leicester Database and Archive Service at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Leicester University, UK.


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# Theory of 𝜀'/𝜀

## Acknowledgments

My appreciation goes to the Organizers of the $`_{\mathrm{CP}}`$ ’99 Conference for hosting a most enjoyable and stimulating meeting.


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# The effect of the annealing temperature on the local distortion of La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 thin films

## I Introduction

The Double Exchange (DE) mechanism was originally considered to be the main interaction contributing to the colossal magnetoresistance (CMR). In the DE model, if the spins of two neighboring Mn ions are aligned, then an electron will require less energy to hop from one Mn site to another. Consequently, at low temperature, the lattice will have ferromagnetic (FM) order such that the total system (both local and itinerant sub-systems) has the lowest energy. Although the DE model can explain many properties of CMR materials, the magnitude of the MR calculated from the DE model is much smaller than the actual measured MR. Millis et al. suggested that local $`\mathrm{𝐽𝑎ℎ𝑛}\mathrm{𝑇𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑟}`$ distortions also play an important role in CMR materials, and are needed to explain the large magnitude of the MR in these materials.

Both X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS) and pair-distribution function (PDF) analysis of neutron diffraction data, have been done to study the local structure of the CMR materials and an important relationship between the local distortions and magnetism in these materials has been found. These new experiments investigate the local structure of thin films of La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 (LCMO) to understand more about this relationship.

Recent experiments show that the non-fully annealed thin film samples are oxygen deficient; the Curie temperature, Tc, the saturated magnetization, M0, and the resistivity peak temperature, TMI, of the samples increase with increasing the oxygen stoichiometry, while the resistivity of the samples decreases. For the fully annealed thin film sample, Tc and TMI are almost the same as those of the bulk material. It is not yet clear what mechanisms are responsible for suppressing Tc, M0 and TMI in the other samples. Our experiments on transport and magnetization measurements show similar annealing effects with significant changes in the resistivity and the magnetization. They also show that a huge MR occurs for the films, especially for the as-deposited sample at low temperature.

XAFS experiments on these thin film samples allow us to observe the local structure around the Mn sites, primarily the local distortion of the Mn-O bonds. This paper focuses on the $`\mathrm{𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑠}`$ in the local structure of CMR thin films that are induced by annealing at different temperatures. These results may also help us to better understand how annealing modifies other sample properties.

Diffraction studies of LaMnO3 and CaMnO3 have been carried out by several groups. They show that there are three groups of Mn-O bonds in LaMnO3 with different lengths: 1.91, 1.97 and 2.17 Å, while in CaMnO3 all bond lengths nearly the same at 1.90 Å (variation is within 0.01 Å). Our previous work has compared our XAFS data with the diffraction results, and found that the local structure around the Mn site in LCMO CMR samples is very similar to the average structure determined by the diffraction data. More comparison details are shown in reference .

In Sec. II, we provide a brief description of the samples and some experimental details. We present the magnetization and transport property data in Sec. III and our XAFS results in Sec. IV. The conclusions are given in Sec. V.

## II Samples and Experiments

The La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 thin-film samples were deposited on SrTiO3 substrates using PLD; each film is 3000 Å thick. See Ref.  for additional details. The samples we chose for the XAFS studies were: as-deposited at 750 K, annealed at 1000 K and annealed at 1200 K. The annealed samples were held at their respective temperatures for 10 hours in flowing oxygen, and were heated and cooled at 2 K per minute.

The XAFS experiments were done on beamline 10-2 at SSRL using Si $`<`$220$`>`$ monochromator crystals and a 13-element Ge detector to collect Mn $`K_\alpha `$ fluorescence data. The thin film samples were aligned at $``$55.0 with respect to the X-ray beam to make x, y and z axes equivalent, and thus correspond to a powder. This angle comes from the polarization dependence of the photoelectric effect. For each sample, we made four sweeps at each temperature; for two of these sweeps, we rotated the sample by 1.5 in order to determine the position of glitches, which must be removed.

## III Magnetization and Resistivity

The magnetization $`vs`$ temperature data for these thin film samples are shown in Fig. 1. All samples have broad ferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic phase transitions and Tc increases with the annealing temperature. From these measurements, we extract Tc for these samples (see Table I).

The saturated magnetization of the samples increases with annealing temperature. This indicates that at higher annealing temperature, a larger fraction of the sample becomes ferromagnetic in the FM phase at low temperature. Our previous experiments show that the 30% Ca doped LCMO powder sample has a Curie temperature of $``$ 260 K, which is very close to The Tc of the fully annealed thin film sample.

Fig. 2 is a plot of loge of the resistivity $`vs.`$ temperature for all three samples. We show both the data in zero field and at 5.5 Tesla. The resistivity decreases with annealing temperature. At zero field, a large peak is present for the 1000 K annealed sample; the resistivity decreases and the peak moves to higher temperature for the 1200 K annealed sample. There is no metal-to-insulator phase transition for the as-deposited sample; this sample also shows a very large resistivity at low temperature. When the external magnetic field is raised to 5.5 Tesla, the resistivity drops dramatically with magnetic field for the 1000 K and 1200 K annealed samples at temperatures near the resistivity peak, and the resistivity peaks move to higher temperature. For the as-deposited sample, the biggest change in MR occurs at the lowest measuring temperature (70 K). It should also be noted that the peak in resistivity is very close to Tc for the 1200 K annealed sample, but well below Tc (over 10 K difference) for the 1000 K annealed sample.

Fig. 3 shows CMR% (expressed as a percentage) $`vs.`$ temperature data for these samples on a loge scale. Here, we define CMR% to be:

CMR% = 100$``$( R0 \- RH )/RH

where R0 is the resistivity without magnetic field and RH is the resistivity with a 5.5 T field.

The magnetoresistance for these thin films is very large compared to that of the corresponding powder samples. This is especially true for the as-deposited sample at low temperature—the change of magnetoresistance at 70 K is about 3200%. The maximum CMR% is about 1000% for the 1000 K sample and about 250% for the 1200 K sample.

There is a double peak structure for the 1200 K annealed sample clearly visible in Fig. 3. As mentioned earlier, our thin film samples are deposited on SrTiO3 (STO) substrates. When the sample is deposited on STO, some Sr diffuses into the first few hundred Å of the film and changes the stoichiometry of that layer. This Sr diffusion could produce a resistance peak at a lower temperature and may be responsible for this extra peak. We chose to use STO substrates instead of LaAlO3 (LAO) substrates, which have no diffusion problem, because the large La $`L_I`$-edge XAFS from the substrate would interfere with our Mn K edge XAFS data. Our XAFS data are sensitive to this Sr diffusion layer only if we focus on the further neighbors such as Mn-La, Mn-Ca and Mn-Sr. The Mn-O bond distance does not change much between Ca and Sr substitution. Consequently for the Mn-O pair distribution function which is the focus of this paper, we are not very sensitive to Sr in the lower 10% of the film.

## IV XAFS Data Analysis and Discussion

We collected all Mn-$`K`$ edge data in fluorescence mode. First the pre-edge absorption (absorptions from other edges) was removed using the Victoreen formula. Next we extract k$`\chi `$(k) where the photoelectron wave vector k is obtained from k=$`\sqrt{2m_e(EE_0)/h^2}`$ and the XAFS function $`\chi `$(k) is defined as $`\chi `$(k)=$`\mu `$(k)/$`\mu _0`$(k)-1. We fit a 7-knot spline to $`\mu `$(k) (the $`K`$-edge absorption data above the edge) to obtain the background function $`\mu _0`$(k) (embedded atom function). An example of such data is shown in Fig. 4. Next we obtain the r-space data from the Fourier Transform (FT) of k$`\chi `$(k); fits to the data were carried out in r-space. Some details of these fits are shown later in this paper. See references  for additional details.

In Fig. 5, we show the Mn $`K`$-edge Fourier transformed (FT) $`r`$-space data for all three thin-film samples. In this figure, the position of each peak corresponds to an atom pair shifted by a well understood phase shift, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$r; for example, the first peak corresponds to the Mn-O pairs and the second peak, which is near 3 Å, corresponds to the Mn-La (Mn-Ca) pairs. The width, $`\sigma `$, of the pair distribution function is a measure of the local distortions in a shell of neighboring atoms. In XAFS, a large $`\sigma `$ leads to a decrease in the amplitude of the $`r`$-space peak. We obtain some results from these data without having to resort to curve fitting. First, the amplitude of the Mn-O peak (the first peak) decreases with increasing temperature. That means there are increasing distortions in each sample with increasing temperature. Second, for the higher annealing temperature, the amplitude at low temperature increases and the change of the amplitude with temperature for the Mn-O peak is larger than that for the other samples. The amount of distortion removed at low temperature is smaller for the 1000 K annealed sample, while most of the distortion in the as-deposited sample is still present at $`T`$ = 20 K. The amplitude of the r-space data at high temperature (310 K) is almost the same for all three samples; this suggests that the amount of distortion at high temperatures doesn’t change very much with the annealing temperature; however it is still clearly less than the local distortion observed previously in LaMnO3 at 300 K.

Our r-space data were fit using a Gaussian pair distribution function for the Mn-O, Mn-Ca/La and Mn-Mn shells. The pair-distribution width, $`\sigma `$(T), (for Mn-O) was determined from these detailed fits to the data, which were carried out using FEFF6 theoretical functions (See Fig. 6). In the fit, S$`{}_{}{}^{2}{}_{0}{}^{}`$N was fixed at 4.3, where N is the number of nearest neighbors (6 O neighbors), and S$`{}_{}{}^{2}{}_{0}{}^{}`$ is an amplitude reduction factor. k$`\chi `$(k) arrives from single-electron process and is normalized to the step height; S$`{}_{}{}^{2}{}_{0}{}^{}`$ corrects for the fact that the measured step height also includes multi-electron process. There is an absolute uncertainty in S$`{}_{}{}^{2}{}_{0}{}^{}`$ of roughly 10%, however small changes in S$`{}_{}{}^{2}{}_{0}{}^{}`$ move all the curves up or down in Fig. 6 and do not change the shape or relative position.

The values of $`\sigma ^2`$ obtained from the fits provide a measure of the distortion of the Mn-O bond. Different contributions to the broadening add in quadrature and hence $`\sigma ^2`$ has the general form:

$`\sigma ^2=\sigma _{static}^2+\sigma _{phonons}^2+\sigma _{othermechanisms}^2`$

At low temperature, $`\sigma ^2`$ is dominated by zero-point motion and some static distortions. For all the manganites, the smallest value for $`\sigma `$ is about 0.04 Å; consequently small variations in bond lengths, such as occurring for CaMnO3 are not directly observed in $`\sigma `$. It is surprising that the net distortion of the substituted CMR samples is about as small as that observed for the more ordered CaMnO3 structure at 20 K.

For each temperature 4 traces are analyzed and averaged. The relative errors shown in Fig. 6 are the root mean square (rms) variation of the fit result at each temperature. For the as-deposited sample, $`\sigma ^2`$ has a very small change with decreasing temperature; there is a larger change for the 1000 K annealed sample, and an even larger temperature dependence for the 1200 K annealed sample. We also find in Fig. 6 that, at 320 K, $`\sigma ^2`$ increases as the annealing temperature is lowered. This indicates that some of the static defects in the as-deposited sample can be removed during the annealing process.

The solid line in Fig. 6 corresponds to the data for the Mn-O bond in CaMnO3, which has a high Debye temperature (950 K); $`\sigma ^2`$ for this sample will be denoted $`\sigma _T^2`$ (The CaMnO3 data we use in this figure are obtained from a powder sample. There might be a difference up to 10% between powder samples and thin film samples since they are in different form and this difference may change the effective value of S$`{}_{}{}^{2}{}_{0}{}^{}`$ for the fit process.)

The difference between $`\sigma _{data}^2`$ and $`\sigma _T^2`$ at low temperature is due to a static distortion $`\sigma _{static}^2`$, which is defined as:

$`\sigma _{static}^2=\sigma _{data}^2(20K)\sigma _T^2(20K).`$

To estimate this quantity, we shift the solid line vertically until it fits the low temperature data for the 1200 K annealed sample This yields the dashed line in Fig. 6, which is defined to be $`\sigma _T^2`$ \+ $`\sigma _{static}^2`$. Although $`\sigma _{static}^2`$ is almost zero for the 1200 K annealed sample, it is large for the other samples. We include it here for the 1200 K annealed sample to clarify its definition. The contribution to $`\sigma _{data}^2`$ above the dashed line is attributed to a polaron distortion, where the full (maximum) polaron distortion, $`\sigma _{FP}^2`$, is defined by:

$`\sigma _{FP}^2=\sigma _{data}^2(300K)\sigma _T^2(300K)\sigma _{static}^2`$

We have found in previous work that a useful parameter is the distortion removed as T drops below Tc, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma ^2`$, which we define below. First, the $`\sigma _T^2`$ curve is shifted vertically (by an amount $`\sigma _{FP}^2`$ \+ $`\sigma _{static}^2`$) such that it fits the high temperature data. This yields the dotted line shown in Fig. 6 which is $`\sigma _T^2`$ \+ $`\sigma _{static}^2`$ \+ $`\sigma _{FP}^2`$. This dotted line represents the expected Debye behavior plus static distortion if no polaron distortion were removed upon cooling. We define $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma ^2`$ as the difference between the dotted line and the data:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma ^2=\sigma _T^2+\sigma _{FP}^2+\sigma _{static}^2\sigma _{data}^2`$

A similar analysis is carried out for the as deposited sample and the 1000 K annealed sample (corresponding curves for $`\sigma _T^2`$ \+ $`\sigma _{static}^2`$ and $`\sigma _T^2`$ \+ $`\sigma _{static}^2`$ \+ $`\sigma _{FP}^2`$ are not shown in Fig. 6). It is also important to point out that the difference between $`\sigma ^2`$ for the 1200 K annealed sample and that of CaMnO3 at 20 K is very small, which suggests that the Mn-O local structure of the fully annealed sample can be as ordered as that of CaMnO3 even though it is a doped sample. The same result was obtained for La1-xCaxMnO3 CMR powder samples (x = 0.2$``$0.5) from our previous experiments. The reason for this phenomena for the thin films can be explained as follows: first, the high temperature annealing process appears to remove most of the static defects such as dislocations and vacancies; second, at very low temperatures, there is almost no difference between the two type of Mn sites in the DE model, the electron moves rapidly from one site to another on a time scale fast compared to the appropriate phonon frequency. Consequently, Jahn-Teller distortions don’t have time to form.

For the as-deposited sample, the large CMR% occurs when there is a large value for $`\sigma ^2`$ at low temperature; this suggests that the distortion in the sample may, in part, be the origin of the unusually large magnetoresistance in thin-film samples. We have recently observed similar results in our study of Ti and Ga doped LCMO powder samples.

In Fig. 7, we plot $`\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma ^2`$ vs $`M/M_0`$. Our previous studies of La1-xCaxMnO3 powder samples showed that there is a linear relationship between $`\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma ^2`$ and the magnetization, which provides evidence that there is a strong connection between the local distortion and magnetism in these materials. The solid squares in Fig. 7 show the linear relationship for a La0.70Ca0.30MnO3 powder sample from our previous work. For the thin film samples, there is a similar connection between local distortion and magnetization. For the 1000 K and 1200 K annealed samples, we find a small deviation from a straight line below M/M0 $``$0.3. Since the error of the data in this range (M/M0 $`<`$ 0.3) is large, it is not clear if this is a real effect or not. The data for the as-deposited sample appear to follow a straight line, but the errors in the difference are too large to draw conclusions. Also, we find that the data for the 1200 K annealed thin-film and the powder sample (both La0.70Ca0.30MnO3) almost overlap each other. This suggests that the local structure of the fully annealed thin-film behaves similarly to that of the corresponding bulk sample.

In order to see the effect of annealing temperature on the local distortion more clearly, we plot the distortion contributions, $`\sigma _{static}^2`$ and $`\sigma _{FP}^2`$, as a function of annealing temperature in Fig. 8. This figure shows that the static distortion decreases with annealing temperature, while the polaron contribution increases with annealing temperature. This suggests that part of the static distortions observed in the as-deposited sample become dynamic, polaron-like, distortions after annealing, for T $`>`$ Tc.

It should be noted that although the magnetization only drops by roughly 50% for the as-deposited sample, the $`\sigma _{FP}^2`$ contribution becomes much smaller ( of order 5%). Consequently, there must be statically distorted regions in the as-deposited sample that are also ferromagnetic. The reduction of the saturated magnetization can arise in several ways. First, because of the inhomogeneous material, small regions may be antiferromagnetic (AF). Second, it has been suggested that the crystal field, particularly in regimes where the inhomogeneity causes a local reduction of the tolerance factor, can result in a low spin Mn (4t2g) configuration with a local 50% decrease in Mn moment. Third, the spins in a small domain may not be exactly parallel. However, to explain the entire decrease in saturated magnetization would require very large canting angles. Fourth, the magnetization vectors of each domain may not be aligned. The number of domain-walls may be important for calculating the resistivity. However, for domains large compared to a unit cell, slightly canted spins within a domain or a lack of alignment of the magnetization of various domains would not lead to a significant decrease in the polaron contribution to the broadening in XAFS. Consequently, the presence of static distortions but essentially no polaron-like contributions in the as-deposited material indicate both a significant fraction of AF material, and the presence of some low spin Mn sites, possibly induced by the disorder (interstitials, vacancies, inhomogeneous Ca concentrations etc.). This disorder must pin the local distortions which would also suppress the electron hopping frequency, thereby reducing the effectiveness of the DE interaction.

All three thin film samples were prepared in the same way, except for the annealing temperature. During the annealing process, part of the static defects in the sample such as vacancies and interstitials can be removed. In addition, the annealing process can also change the amount of oxygen in the sample. The sample is slightly oxygen deficient before the annealing process, and oxygen is incorporated during annealing. The fully annealed sample (1200 K) is expected to be fully stoichiometric ( similar to the corresponding powder sample). It is well documented that samples without sufficient oxygen can have higher resistivities, a lower resistance peak temperature, a lower Tc and a lower saturated magnetization. We have the same trends in our experiments.

Compared to the 1200 K annealed sample, the samples annealed at lower temperatures have a large decrease in $`\sigma _{FP}^2`$ and a large increase in resistivity, while the saturated magnetization changes by less than a factor of two. This suggests that much of the distorted magnetic regions probably do not contribute to the conductivity and that the fraction of conducting material is very low for the as-deposited sample. However, the six order of magnitude increase in resistivity is much larger than the volume reduction of the regions that still have a polaron-like distortion. Consequently, it is likely that percolation also plays a role for transport in the as-deposited sample. Then the magnetic field may play two roles for this sample; it will decrease the resistivity for the conducting pathways that exist at B=0 and may also make some ”marginal” pathways become conducting.

## V Conclusion

From our analysis, we find that the annealing temperature of the thin films affects the local distortion of the materials appreciably. The large change in resistivity and the small change in local structure with temperature for the as-deposited sample suggest that only small regions are contributing to the resistivity and percolation may play a role. We also find that there is still a strong connection between local distortions, resistivity and magnetism in the fully annealed thin-film materials, which behaves much like a powder sample. For the 1000 K annealed sample, the resistivity and MR peaks are well below Tc. In this case (including the as-deposited sample), the local distortions correlate well with the magnetization, but there is no feature in $`\sigma `$ that occurs at the temperature at which the resistivity has a peak.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by NSF grant DMR9705117. The experiments were performed at SSRL, which is operated by the DOE, Division of Chemical Sciences, and by the NIH, Biomedical Resource Technology Program, Division of Research Resources.


text:
# Temporal and Spectral Variabilities of High Energy Emission from Blazars Using Synchrotron Self-Compton Models

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Blazars are a class of flat radio spectrum, core-dominated active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The overall radiation spectra of blazars show two broad peaks in the $`\nu F_\nu `$ space; one is between IR and X-rays, and the other in the $`\gamma `$-ray regime (e.g., von Montigny et al. (1995)). Flares also have been observed at X- and gamma-ray bands by multiwavelength observations of Mrk 421 (e.g., Macomb et al. 1995; Macomb et al. 1996 for erratum; Buckley et al. 1996) and Mrk 501 (Catanese et al. 1997; Pian et al. 1998). The tremendous luminosity and fast time variabilities from blazars have led to the usual arguments that relativistic motion is occurring in the emitting plasma. Moreover, the favored scenario to explain these sources is that we are viewing nearly along the axis of a relativistically outflowing plasma jet that has been ejected from an accreting super massive black hole (e.g., Blandford & Rees (1978)).

Although the origin of these multiwavelength spectra is still under debate, several models on the radiative processes have been put forth, in particular, models of Compton scattering of synchrotron photons or external photons have been developed in recent years (e.g., Bloom & Marscher 1996; Inoue & Takahara 1996; Ghisellini & Madau 1996; Dermer, Sturner, & Schlickeiser 1997; Mastichiadis & Kirk 1997; Sikora et al. 1997; Böttcher, Mause, & Schlickeiser 1997; Georganopoulos & Marscher 1998; Ghisellini et al. 1998). Most of these calculations are either semi-analytic, or for steady state situations, or not including the Compton scattering process self-consistently. The main purpose of this paper is to improve upon this situation. The physics of how energy is dissipated into relativistic particles is, unfortunately, not well understood (see, however, Romanova & Lovelace (1997)) and will not be treated fully in this paper.

Among various blazar models, synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) models have received a fair amount of attention, by virtue of its simplicity and its possible predictive power. In these models, it is proposed that the nonthermal synchrotron emission forms the radio-through-X-ray continuum, and that the Compton scattering of these (soft) synchrotron photons by the same nonthermal electrons produces the gamma rays ($``$ GeV – TeVs). In this paper, we focus on the so-called homogeneous SSC model where a spherical blob of uniform relativistic plasma is postulated. Even with such a greatly simplified picture, a number of parameters have to be invoked, whose interplay gives rise to a rich dynamic behavior of the observed radiation. Of particular interest is the correlated variabilities in X-ray and $`\gamma `$-ray fluxes, since they represent the tail of nonthermal electrons which have the shortest cooling timescale. Although the generic multiwavelength spectra from radio to TeV can be fitted by a steady state model with fixed parameters (e.g, Kataoka et al. 1999), time-dependent calculations almost always offer stronger constraints. Furthermore, when the self-Compton component contains a comparable or even larger fraction of the radiative energy than the synchrotron component, the whole problem becomes inherently nonlinear and both components need to be calculated simultaneously and self-consistently. This naturally leads to the need of solving coupled, time-dependent, nonlinear particle and photon kinetic-equations. Moreover, by examining the energy-dependence of flare data at gamma-ray energies, one could potentially discriminate between SSC and external Compton-scattering origins of the seed photons (Dermer 1998).

The simplest model for time variability of blazars (Mastichiadis & Kirk 1997; hereafter MK97) assumes that electrons obeying a power-law distribution are injected uniformly throughout a relativistically moving blob over an extended period of time, and that electrons cool by both synchrotron radiation and Compton scattering. The blob is assumed not to accelerate or decelerate, and the energy loss by Compton scattering of photons impinging from outside the blob is assumed to be small in comparison with the synchrotron self-Compton loss. MK97 reproduced the qualitative behavior of the energy-dependent lags and the hysteresis diagrams (Takahashi et al. 1996). Much of the work presented here follows closely to the previous study by MK97, but we are using a completely different kinetic code which will be discussed in later sections. Kirk, Rieger, & Mastichiadis (1998) further modeled the evolution of synchrotron emission, calculating acceleration and cooling regions separately, though Compton scattering was not included.

In this paper we present a detailed study of the time-evolution of an electron-photon plasma (the positive particles could be either protons or positrons) by solving the kinetic equations numerically. We briefly describe our model in §2 and show numerical results in §3. Summary is given in §4.

## 2 MODEL

We assume that observed photons are emitted from a blob moving relativistically towards us with a Doppler factor $`𝒟=[\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\beta _\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{cos}\theta )]^1`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the Lorentz factor of the blob, $`\beta _\mathrm{\Gamma }c`$ is the velocity with $`c`$ being the light speed, and $`\theta `$ is the angle between the direction of blob motion and the line of sight. The blob is a spherical and uniform cloud with radius $`R`$. Relativistic electrons are injected into the blob and produce high energy emission. Electrons and photons are uniformly distributed throughout the blob. The most important physical processes for electrons include synchrotron radiation and Compton scattering. The spectra of electrons and photons in the blob are calculated by solving the kinetic equations described below (see also Coppi & Blandford (1990)).

The kinetic equation describing the time-evolution of electron distribution $`n(\gamma )`$ is given by

$$\frac{n}{t}=\frac{}{\gamma }\left[\left(\frac{d\gamma }{dt}\right)_{\mathrm{loss}}n\right]+\frac{1}{2}\frac{^2}{\gamma ^2}(D_en)\frac{n}{t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}}+Q(\gamma ),$$
(1)
where $`n`$ is the electron number density per $`\gamma `$, $`\gamma `$ is the electron Lorentz factor, and $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}`$ is the time for electrons to escape from the blob. The term $`(d\gamma /dt)_{\mathrm{loss}}`$ represents various electron energy loss processes, such as synchrotron and Compton scattering; their corresponding energy diffusion is given as $`D_e`$. We also include the synchrotron “boiler” effect (Ghisellini et al. 1988) and other processes such as Coulomb collisions, though they are not important in the present study. Pair-production and annihilation are not treated in the present code, though they tend to be less important too. In our code, the particle equation is actually discretized in the momentum space so that thermal particles and their processes can be handled accurately. This is less important for AGN jet parameters but will be very useful for modeling the emissions from stellar-mass black hole systems. Note that equation (1) assumes a continuous electron energy loss (i.e., Fokker-Planck type). This assumption does not account for the situation when there is a significant energy loss in a single Compton scattering which is important in the Klein-Nishina regime. This discrete nature of the Compton energy loss is, however, included in the photon kinetic equation, i.e., equations (2) and (3). We have checked the accuracy of the continuous approximation of the Compton energy loss in equation (1) in view of energy conservation. Our numerical tests show that the total energy is conserved with the accuracy better than 5 per cent after 10 $`R/c`$, when the SSC component is dominant and the scatterings occur frequently in the Klein-Nishina regime.

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

$$\frac{n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ)}{t}=\dot{n}_\mathrm{C}(ϵ)+\dot{n}_{\mathrm{em}}(ϵ)\dot{n}_{\mathrm{abs}}(ϵ)\frac{n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ)}{t_{\mathrm{ph},\mathrm{esc}}},$$
(2)
where $`n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ)`$ is the photon number spectrum per unit volume per unit energy $`ϵ`$. Compton scattering is calculated as

$$\dot{n}_\mathrm{C}(ϵ)=n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ)𝑑\gamma n(\gamma )R_\mathrm{C}(ϵ,\gamma )+𝑑ϵ^{}𝑑\gamma P(ϵ;ϵ^{},\gamma )R_\mathrm{C}(ϵ^{},\gamma )n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ^{})n(\gamma ).$$
(3)
First term of the right hand side of equation (3) denotes the rate that photons with energy $`ϵ`$ are scattered by electrons with number spectrum $`n(\gamma )`$ per unit volume per unit $`\gamma `$; $`R_\mathrm{C}`$ is the angle-averaged scattering rate. Second term of equation (3) denotes the spectrum of scattered photons: $`P(ϵ;ϵ^{},\gamma )`$ is the probability that a photon with energy $`ϵ^{}`$ is scattered off by an electron with $`\gamma `$ 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 the appendix A of Coppi & Blandford (1990). We use the exact Klein-Nishina cross section in the calculations of Compton scattering. 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 the absorption coefficient are calculated using the approximations given in Robinson and Melrose (1984) for transrelativistic electrons and Crusius and Schlickeiser (1986) for relativistic electrons. External photon sources such as disk photons can be included, though they are not considered here. The rate of photon escape is estimated as $`n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ)/t_{\mathrm{ph},\mathrm{esc}}`$. Since we are in the optically thin limit, we set $`t_{\mathrm{ph},\mathrm{esc}}=R/c`$, which is a good approximation. The photon spectra from solving equation (2) has been extensively compared with those from Monte-Carlo simulations and we have found very good agreement between them (Kusunose, Coppi, & Li 1999).

The comoving quantities are transformed back into the observer’s frame using $`ϵ_{\mathrm{obs}}=ϵ𝒟/(1+z)`$ and $`dt_{\mathrm{obs}}=dt(1+z)/𝒟`$, where $`z`$ is the redshift of the source.

We assume that electrons are injected obeying a power law in energy:

$$Q(\gamma ,t)=Q_0(t)\gamma ^p$$

with $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}\gamma \gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$. The total energetics of the electrons can be represented by a compactness parameter which is proportional to $`L/R`$, where $`L`$ is the source luminosity. We do not consider specific acceleration mechanisms in this paper. Thus particles are just being injected into the blob over a finite time. We emphasize that in order to be consistent with the basic assumption of spatial homogeneity, we require the injection time $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ to be longer than $`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}=R/c`$. In effect, we can not probe variabilities shorter than $`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$ in the comoving frame. Other physical effects such as adiabatic loss via expansion might play an important role but is not considered here. It is unfortunate that we need such a large number of parameters to proceed with the calculations, and this is the main reason we opt not to add further complications such as acceleration.

## 3 RESULTS

The dynamic behavior of the emission spectra is controlled by several timescales, namely, the cooling time $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}`$, the dynamic time $`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$, the injection duration $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$, and the escape time $`t_{\mathrm{esc}}`$. The causality argument requires that $`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}t_{\mathrm{inj}},t_{\mathrm{esc}}`$, whereas $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}`$ can be smaller than $`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$. For SSC models, both synchrotron and Compton processes contribute to the electron cooling, so $`1/t_{\mathrm{cool}}=1/t_{\mathrm{syn}}+1/t_{\mathrm{ssc}}`$, where $`t_{\mathrm{syn}}=\gamma /|\dot{\gamma }_{\mathrm{syn}}|`$ and $`t_{\mathrm{ssc}}=\gamma /|\dot{\gamma }_{\mathrm{ssc}}|`$.

In the following analyses, we will divide our results into two major parts, based on whether $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}`$ is longer or shorter than $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$. In the limit of $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}t_{\mathrm{inj}}t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$, where $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}`$ is evaluated using the highest particle energy, the injected particle distribution does not change appreciably during the injection process. We call this the injection-dominated limit. On the other hand, if $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}t_{\mathrm{dyn}}t_{\mathrm{cool}}`$, then particles will be sufficiently cooled while the injection still occurs, and emissions are from a cooled particle distribution rather than from the injected one. We call this the cooling-dominated limit. Consequently, we expect rapid variations in both fluxes and spectra in the latter case and relatively slow spectral variations in the former case.

The primary purpose of this paper is to understand the dynamics of SSC model. We thus have chosen a broad range of parameters rather than try to fit any specific source spectrum, but we certainly use parameters thought to be applicable to those sources (Mrk 421 in particular) to guide our calculations.

### 3.1 Long Cooling Time Limit

We show that, in this limit, a set of SSC model parameters can be uniquely determined from the observable quantities. We use observations of Mrk 421 as an example and further discuss their implications for multiwavelength observations.

#### 3.1.1 A Unique Solution

Let $``$ represent the energy (in ergs) injected in nonthermal electrons, which we assume can be described as $`N_e(\gamma )=N_0\gamma ^p`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}\gamma \gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$. Then $`N_0=(2p)/[m_ec^2(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}^{2p}\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}^{2p})]`$ (for $`p2`$). In the limit of long cooling time, we can use the injected electron distribution to calculate the synchrotron and SSC fluxes. Thus, for the peak energies of synchrotron and SSC, we have

$$𝒟\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}^2B\nu _{\mathrm{syn}}/2.8\times 10^6=\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{syn}},$$
(4)
$$𝒟\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}/1.236\times 10^{20}=\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{ssc}},$$
(5)
where $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn}}`$ and $`\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}`$ are the synchrotron and $`\gamma `$-ray peaks in Hz, respectively, and $`B`$ is magnetic fields in Gauss. The numerical normalization factors are easily obtainable using the standard expressions for the peak synchrotron energy and inverse Compton peak energy in the KN limit. For Mrk 421, we have $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{syn}}1.72\times 10^{11}`$ ($`2`$ keV) and $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{ssc}}10^7`$ ($`5`$ TeV). From equations (4) and (5), we get

$$B=𝒟\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{syn}}/\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{ssc}}^2.$$
(6)
The relative ratio $`\eta `$ of SSC to synchrotron fluxes for Mrk 421 is close to 1. This ratio can be approximately represented by the ratio of the comoving-frame synchrotron photon energy-density, $`U_{\mathrm{syn}}=L_{\mathrm{syn}}/(4\pi R^2c𝒟^4)`$, to the magnetic field energy-density, $`U_B=B^2/(8\pi )`$. But the exact value of $`\eta `$ could be quite different from this estimate owing to several factors: the end point effect at the peak of both synchrotron and SSC fluxes, 111For $`p<3`$, the peak of $`\nu L_\nu `$ is at $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn}}\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}^2B`$, but its flux is smaller than that obtained using the $`\delta `$function approximation to the scattering cross section. To be consistent with our numerical code results which have used the exact synchrotron emissivity formulations, we have introduced a reduction factor of $`f_{\mathrm{syn}}(<1)`$ in our simplified analytic estimates for the peak synchrotron flux (see also equation (10). Note that this reduction only applies to the end points of emissivity. For energies much smaller than $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn}}`$, the $`\delta `$function approximation is quite accurate. the KN effect of Compton scattering for producing TeV emission, and the fact that the electron distribution will be slightly cooled even though the cooling timescale is long. It is very difficult to get an exact analytic value to account for all these effects, so we introduce a correction factor $`f_c`$ in calculating $`\eta `$. Thus, we have

$$\eta =f_c\frac{U_{\mathrm{syn}}}{U_B}\mathrm{or}L_{\mathrm{syn}}𝒟^44\pi R^2cU_B(\eta /f_c).$$
(7)
Furthermore, since all blazar sources are observed to be highly variable, an additional constraint has usually been proposed that

$$R𝒟ct_{\mathrm{var}},$$
(8)
where $`t_{\mathrm{var}}`$ is defined as a variability timescale in the observer’s frame.

Combining all the equations given above, we have 4 equations for 4 independent variables (i.e., $`𝒟,B,\gamma _{\mathrm{max}},`$ and $`R`$). The supplemental information include $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{syn}},\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{ssc}},L_{\mathrm{syn}}`$, $`\eta `$, and $`t_{\mathrm{var}}`$, with a somewhat variable factor $`f_c`$. Thus we can uniquely determine a solution set for all the parameters. The Doppler factor from this solution (denoted by a subscript ‘$`s`$’) can be expressed as

$$𝒟_s22.2\left(\frac{L_{\mathrm{syn}}}{6\times 10^{44}}\right)^{\frac{1}{8}}\left(\frac{\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{ssc}}}{10^7}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(\frac{\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{syn}}}{1.7\times 10^{11}}\right)^{\frac{1}{4}}\left(\frac{t_{\mathrm{var}}}{10^4}\right)^{\frac{1}{4}}\left(\frac{f_c}{0.4}\right)^{\frac{1}{8}}\left(\frac{\eta }{1.0}\right)^{\frac{1}{8}}.$$
(9)
The peak luminosity ($`L_{\mathrm{syn}}`$) of the synchrotron component in the observer’s frame can be estimated using $`\nu L_\nu `$ at $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn}}`$ (again taking into account the end-point effects),

$$L_{\mathrm{syn}}𝒟^4f_{\mathrm{syn}}\frac{2(2p)}{3}\sigma _\mathrm{T}cU_B\frac{}{m_ec^2}\gamma _{\mathrm{max}},$$
(10)
where $`\sigma _\mathrm{T}`$ is the Thomson cross section, $`f_{\mathrm{syn}}(<1)`$ represents the reduction of synchrotron flux at the end point, $`𝒟^4`$ is due to the Doppler boosting. Observationally, $`L_{\mathrm{syn}}`$ at $`2`$ keV is $`6\times 10^{44}`$ ergs s-1 with a luminosity distance of $`3.8\times 10^{26}`$ cm ($`z=0.0308`$) for a $`q_0=1/2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ cosmology. Here, $`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 is assumed. Also, fitting of Mrk 421’s synchrotron spectrum suggests $`p1.65`$ (MK97). From this, we can determine the rest of the parameters for this unique solution (again denoted by a subscript ‘s’)

$`B_s`$ $`=`$ $`𝒟_s\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{syn}}/\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{ssc}}^20.038\mathrm{G},`$ (11)
$`\gamma _{\mathrm{max},s}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }_{\mathrm{ssc}}/𝒟_s4.5\times 10^5,`$ (12)
$`R_s`$ $`=`$ $`ct_{\mathrm{var}}𝒟_s6.5\times 10^{15}\mathrm{cm},`$ (13)
$`_s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1.55\times 10^9}{(2p)f_{\mathrm{syn}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{L_{\mathrm{syn}}}{\gamma _{\mathrm{max},s}B_s^2𝒟_s^4}}4.1\times 10^{46}\mathrm{ergs},`$ (14)
where we have used $`p=1.65`$ and $`f_{\mathrm{syn}}=0.4`$. 222The fact that $`f_c`$ and $`f_{\mathrm{syn}}`$ are both chosen as $`0.4`$ is a coincidence. The evaluation of $`f_c`$ involves end-point effects from both synchrotron and Compton scattering, whereas $`f_{\mathrm{syn}}`$ is only concerned with synchrotron. The value $`0.4`$ is obtained by comparing the analytic estimates with the exact numerical calculations. More importantly, we can check our original assumption that cooling time is long compared to $`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}=R/c`$. This is obviously satisfied since $`t_{\mathrm{syn}}(6\pi m_ec/\sigma _\mathrm{T})/(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}B^2)1.2\times 10^6`$ sec, which is much longer than $`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}2.2\times 10^5`$ sec.

Using the above derived parameters, we solve equations (1) and (2) simultaneously and follow the evolution until $`20t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$. A total energy of $``$ is injected in nonthermal electrons over a comoving timescale of $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}=2t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$. In these calculations electrons are not allowed to escape. Figure 1 shows the time evolution of electron and photon distributions as the system evolves. Note that the time for synchrotron and SSC components to reach their peak fluxes is different, and that it happens after the electron injection has stopped. To qualitatively understand this, we can write the photon kinetic equation symbolically as

$$\frac{n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ)}{t}=\mathrm{Production}(ϵ)\mathrm{Escape}(ϵ).$$
(15)
Thus, the photon flux at energy $`ϵ`$ will increase if the production rate is larger than the escape and decrease if escape is quicker. This determines when the peak of photon flux at certain energy is reached. Using photon flux at keV as an example, the production of these photons still continues even when the electron injection stops because the cooling timescale is much longer than $`R/c`$. Eventually as electrons cool, they can no longer produce keV synchrotron emissions, the flux at keV starts to decline.

Figure 2 shows the light curves at different energy bands expected from this injection event. Since the cooling time is rather long, only the energy bands corresponding to the tail of electron distributions show short time variabilities due to that electron injection is turned on and off; whereas other energy bands show a long plateau, representing a balance between the photon production and escape. A clear prediction from this is that there should be very little spectral evolution except at the peaks of synchrotron and SSC. All these are commensurate with the dynamics of electron cooling.

In order to further differentiate the role of synchrotron versus Compton cooling on electrons, we plot the ratio of $`|\dot{\gamma }_{\mathrm{ssc}}/\dot{\gamma }_{\mathrm{syn}}|`$ as a function of electron energies at different times in Figure 3. It is clear that SSC cooling becomes more important than synchrotron cooling when the photon energy density builds up within the system as time proceeds. After reaching the peak, the SSC cooling starts to decrease as the photon energy density decreases. The dependence of this ratio on the electron energy is partly due to the KN effect. This figure clearly indicates that one can not ignore SSC cooling in estimating certain parameters and that the evolution is very nonlinear, thus a self-consistent numerical calculation is required for fitting the data more accurately.

Note that the spectra given in Figure 1 is not intended to be an accurate fit to the observed spectra from Mrk 421. In fact, the TeV spectrum of Mrk 421 is known to be roughly a power law (Krennrich et al. (1999)), but the generic spectrum in TeV obtained here has a clear curvature, due to the fact that the Compton scattering is in the KN regime. Nevertheless, this exercise allows us to establish a parameter space where a reasonable fit to the actual spectrum might be obtainable, and it has the nice feature that the electron energy distribution retains the injected form without much softening, which greatly simplifies the analysis.

#### 3.1.2 Parameter Variations on the Unique Solution

In this subsection, we explore how sensitive the above results are to parameter variations. The parameter we want to emphasize is the ratio $`\eta `$ of the SSC component to the synchrotron component. From equations (6) and (9), and holding other parameters unchanged, we can see that

$$\eta 𝒟^8B^8,$$
(16)
which implies that a small change in magnetic field and/or Doppler factor could result in a large variation in $`\eta `$. Figure 4 shows this effect when $`B`$ is being varied. The general trend from equation (16) is indeed confirmed, i.e., smaller/larger $`B`$ (versus $`B_s`$) gives much larger/smaller $`\eta `$. For $`B<B_s`$, the variation amplitude in $`\eta `$ does not exactly follow equation (16). We attribute this discrepancy mostly to variation in $`f_c`$ because both $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ and synchrotron photon energy in comoving frame are varying for different $`B`$. Additionally, when $`\eta >1`$ (SSC cooling is more important than synchrotron cooling), electron distribution is subject to stronger cooling. This is evident in its rapid spectral variation in the middle panel of Figure 4. For larger $`B`$ which results in $`\eta <1`$, equation (16) is mostly confirmed. Note that the Doppler factor $`𝒟`$, using equation (6), is now getting uncomfortably large.

To conclude, in the limit that the cooling time of the highest energy electrons is longer than the dynamic timescale on which injection occurs, we can most likely find a unique set of parameters that roughly satisfy the observational constraints. The most important prediction is that even though the fluxes of the synchrotron and SSC peaks can vary by a large factor ($`>10`$) in a short time whose time histories look like “pulses”, the duration of emission at other wave bands (such as GeV, MeV, eV) can be considerably longer by at least a factor of $`4`$, which is commensurate with long electron cooling time at those energies.

This parameter space has some interesting implications for interpreting multiwavelength data from blazar monitoring campaigns. Using keV and eV bands as an example (similar arguments can be made for TeV and GeV bands too), since the lifetimes for keV-producing and eV-producing electrons are different, there is really no reason to expect their light curves to track each other and to have the same rise and fall patterns or timescales. Furthermore, when there are multiple injections occurring over a timescale shorter than the lifetime of keV-producing electrons but longer than the lifetime of eV-producing electrons, fluxes at keV could vary rapidly to reflect the multiple injections. Fluxes at eV, however, might only show a continuous increase with no obvious decline because of the accumulation of eV-producing electrons from multiple injections (see also §3.2.5).

### 3.2 Short Cooling Time Limit

In this subsection we explore the limit where $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}})<t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$, i.e., electrons are efficiently being cooled while they are injected into the system. All the runs in this section have size $`R=1.5\times 10^{16}`$ cm which gives a comoving dynamic timescale $`R/c=5\times 10^5`$ sec, particle’s $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}=10`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=10^6`$, and index $`p=2`$. The Doppler factor is chosen as 10 and magnetic field $`B=0.1`$ G, though most of the conclusions depend weakly on $`𝒟`$ and $`B`$ in this section. The particularly attractive feature of this limit is that it is possible to achieve short time variabilities for many wave bands, contrary to the case shown in Figure 2 from the previous section.

One serious problem in comparing the theoretical results with the actual observations is that most observations need to accumulate over certain time interval (to collect enough photons) and different integration times are needed for different energy bands. So, in order to make a direct comparison with the observations, properly averaged fluxes are needed, rather than the prompt flux we have presented above. This inevitably introduces many more additional parameters in determining how photons at different energy bands are sampled. To avoid these complications, as before, we will continue to present the prompt flux results, leaving the problem of integrated fluxes to future studies on detailed spectral fitting of particular sources.

To quantify the relative importance of SSC versus synchrotron, the previous expression for $`\eta `$ has to be modified. To recapitulate, the comoving synchrotron photon energy-density is $`U_{\mathrm{syn}}[m_ec^2/(4\pi R^2c)]_{\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}}^{\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}}N_e(\gamma )|\dot{\gamma }|𝑑\gamma `$, where the electron energy loss-rate through synchrotron radiation is given by $`\dot{\gamma }=[4\sigma _\mathrm{T}/(3m_ec)]U_B\gamma ^2`$. Thus, we get

$$\eta =f_c\frac{U_{\mathrm{syn}}}{U_B}=f_c\frac{\sigma _\mathrm{T}}{3\pi R^2}\frac{}{m_ec^2}\frac{2p}{3p}\frac{\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}^{3p}\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}^{3p}}{\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}^{2p}\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}^{2p}}f_c\frac{\sigma _\mathrm{T}}{3\pi R^2}\frac{}{m_ec^2}\frac{\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}}{\mathrm{ln}(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{min}})},$$
(17)
where the last expression applies to the case $`p=2`$. On the other hand, if $`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}>t_{\mathrm{cool}}`$, a cooled electron distribution has to be used when calculating the synchrotron photon energy-density. A very rough estimate of the electron break energy $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$, beyond which cooling dominates can be given as

$$\frac{6\pi m_ec}{\sigma _\mathrm{T}}\frac{1}{\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}B^2}\mathrm{max}(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t_{\mathrm{dyn}}).$$

The cooled electron distribution has the original index $`p`$ between $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$, and roughly $`p1`$ between $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$. Since the number density of electron at high energy end is very small for $`p>1`$, the previous expression for $`N_0`$3.1.1) still applies. Then we can derive another expression for $`\eta `$ as

$$\eta _c=f_c\frac{\sigma _\mathrm{T}}{3\pi R^2}\frac{}{m_ec^2}\left[\left(\frac{2p}{3p}\right)\frac{\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}^{3p}}{\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}^{2p}}+1\right]f_c\frac{\sigma _\mathrm{T}}{3\pi R^2}\frac{}{m_ec^2}\left[\frac{\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}+\mathrm{ln}(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{br}})}{\mathrm{ln}(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{min}})}\right],$$
(18)
where again, the last expression applies to the case $`p=2`$. Note that this ratio $`\eta _c`$ depends on $`B`$ through $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$. Using the same parameters given previously, we find that equations (17) and (18) give $`\eta _c(\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{max}})\eta `$. In other words, in order to reach the same relative ratio between synchrotron and SSC, more energy is needed (by a factor of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ for $`p=2`$) if electrons are cooled efficiently during injection.

#### 3.2.1 Dynamics of a Single Injection

In this subsection we concentrate on the dynamics of a single injection event lasting $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ and its corresponding evolution of electron and photon distributions. The idea is to mimic individual flaring events in blazars and gain some basic knowledge of how synchrotron and SSC components are dynamically linked. To simplify the calculations and analysis, we choose 6 total injection energies with a factor of 10 increase from $`10^{44}`$ ergs to $`10^{49}`$ ergs. These energies in nonthermal electrons are injected over a comoving timescale of $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}=2t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$. We solve equations (1) and (2) simultaneously and follow the evolution until $`10t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$. Electrons are not allowed to escape. With these parameters, $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}})`$ is much smaller than $`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$, so electrons are appreciably cooled during injection.

Figure 5 shows the $`\nu F_\nu `$ spectra of these 6 injections taken at $`t=t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ and with fluxes divided by $`/10^{44}`$. It is evident that synchrotron is the dominant cooling process for $`10^{47}`$ cases, whereas SSC becomes the dominant cooling process as the photon energy density builds up in the $`10^{48}`$ and $`10^{49}`$ cases. In fact, electron cooling is so significant in the $`10^{49}`$ case that the maximum synchrotron flux is reduced by almost a factor of 10 compared to other lower injection energy cases, and its SSC peak energy is also much softer than others.

As given in equation (18), the ratio of SSC to synchrotron is roughly proportional to $``$. Thus as $``$ increases, so is this ratio. This is shown as the (almost) linear increase in the SSC peaks of Figure 5. So we conclude that so long as the peak in SSC is less than synchrotron, the magnitude of increase in SSC peak will be the square of the magnitude of increase in synchrotron peak. When the SSC component becomes comparable to synchrotron component, the system becomes highly nonlinear, the estimate of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ based on pure synchrotron cooling is no longer valid, even though equation (18) probably still applies as long as a cooled electron distribution is used.

A further point regarding the relative ratio of SSC versus synchrotron components is that the initial $`10`$ GeV – TeV production via SSC is in the KN regime, which reduces the SSC flux. This implies that an even larger $``$ is needed than those given in equation (18). Observations of Mrk 421 and 501 seem to indicate roughly the same heights of synchrotron and SSC peaks. Thus, in modeling the time-dependent (or even steady state) emissions from these objects, a full KN cross section has to be used, as was done here in our code.

#### 3.2.2 Dynamics and Light Curves

We now study in detail the full time evolution of three injection cases: $`=10^{44},5\times 10^{47},`$ and $`10^{49}`$ ergs. They are shown in Figures 6, 7, and 8, where the time-evolution of electron distributions and photon spectra are presented. Figures 9, 10, and 11 show the corresponding light curves of different photon energies for the above three injection cases. To qualitatively understand the light curves, we refer to equation (15) again. The peak of the light curves is reached when the production and escape are balanced, which depends on whether particle distribution has softened enough. Furthermore, once the production at certain photon energy has stopped, the pure escape process will produce an exponential decay. Since the photon escape timescale is $`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}=R/c`$, one could get an estimate of the size by fitting the decline portion of the light curves. This can be done using Figures 9, 10, and 11 where fluxes have been plotted in logarithm. The straight lines give a clear representation of photon escape, especially when it shows up in several energy bands, thus this might be a useful method in analyzing the real blazar data.

#### 3.2.3 Spectral Variations

The flux changes depicted in the above subsection are accompanied by large spectral variations too as shown in Figures 6, 7, and 8. These curves contain a wealth of information, some of which are rather parameter dependent. Nevertheless, we can draw some general conclusions:

(1) Since the cooling time at $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the shortest timescale in our system, the electron distribution at high energy end is always substantially softened. Furthermore, the production of photons $`>`$ tens of GeV is always in the KN regime using SSC model. Both effects make the TeV spectrum very soft, with a large curvature. \[Additional effects such as intrinsic absorption at the source or intergalactic absorption by infrared background can cause further curvature (e.g., Coppi & Aharonian 1999).\] This curvature is not consistent with the TeV spectra we have seen from Mrk 421 (Krennrich et al. (1999)), but it is perhaps consistent with the observations of Mrk 501 where a curvature in the Compton component is clearly seen (Djannati-Atai et al. (1999)).

(2) The “hysteresis” in the relation of photon energy flux and spectral index was first pointed out by Takahashi et al. (1996) at the keV band. In Figures 12, 13, and 14, we show the evolution of photon index as a function of energy flux in the observer’s frame. Clockwise rotation is always seen at 1 GeV, regardless of whether synchrotron or SSC cooling dominates. Clockwise rotation is found at 2 keV for the case where synchrotron losses dominate the electron cooling ($`=10^{44}`$ ergs). We find that this clockwise rotation at 2 keV is true for all cases with injection energy less than $`10^{48}`$ ergs (with the above injection form). This is mostly related to the fact that if we can associate 2 keV with the synchrotron peak, the spectrum always softens when its flux is decreasing because the electrons that can produce 2 keV photons have diminished. When the injection energy is large, the SSC loss is dominant ($`=10^{49}`$ ergs), the hysteresis diagrams rotate in the opposite sense at 2 keV. The hardening at later time is actually due to the fact that 2 keV flux is now from the first generation of SSC, not synchrotron anymore. Different behaviors of the hysteresis, however, are found at 100 keV: counter-clockwise for $`=10^{44}`$ ergs and clockwise for $`=10^{49}`$ ergs. Given these large variations and their sensitivity of various parameters, it is difficult to use these “hysteresis” diagrams to draw firm conclusions.

(3) If observations show a synchrotron peak in 1 – 10 keV band, one should be very careful with fitting the spectrum in the 100 keV energy band (such as OSSE and BeppoSAX), since it is right in the region where synchrotron and SSC meet. There is a very large and rapid spectral evolution during the flare (e.g., Figure 13).

(4) In the rising part of the $`\nu F_\nu `$ spectra, such as 1 – 10 eV and MeV – GeV, the spectral index variation is much slower than the keV and TeV energy bands even though their fluxes vary by a large factor (e.g., Figures 12, 13, and 14).

(5) To further quantify the spectral evolution, we plot the peak energies of synchrotron and SSC components in $`\nu F_\nu `$ as a function of time in Figure 15 for the case with $`=5\times 10^{47}`$ ergs. An important part is the early softening stage, where the synchrotron peak energy decreases as $`\gamma ^2`$ whereas the SSC peak energy goes down first as $`\gamma `$ because the scattering is in the KN regime. This effect might be observable with the current keV and TeV observational capabilities. Such a “correlated” evolution in peak energies might provide a definitive test of SSC.

(6) As shown in Figure 5, when the SSC cooling becomes comparable to or dominant over the synchrotron cooling, the synchrotron peak becomes broader than those dominated by synchrotron cooling only.

Some of the above conclusions might be testable using the current data collected on blazars, and some might require much higher quality data.

#### 3.2.4 Time-Dependent Injection

In this subsection we show how different injection profiles change the light curves in a single injection event. Different from the previous subsection where a constant injection is used (box-shaped injection), we calculate another case with a linearly increasing injection rate (triangle-shaped injection), i.e., $`Q(\gamma )=Q_0\gamma ^2t/t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$ for $`0t2t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$, and $`Q(\gamma )=0`$ for $`t>2t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$. The time evolution is followed until $`t=10t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$ and electrons are allowed to escape with $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}=5t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$. We use the same number of particles and same amount of total injected energy in both box- and triangle-shaped injections; the injected energy is $`5\times 10^{47}`$ ergs per $`2t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$ in the blob frame. In Figure 16, we compare their light curves at 1 keV. The light curve for the box-shaped injection is asymmetric, because more electrons are injected at an early stage than in the triangle injection. On the other hand, the light curve from triangle injection shape is almost symmetric. In both cases, light curves decay exponentially after the end of the injection.

#### 3.2.5 Multiple Injections

We now move to study other injection profiles, which are done by artificially turning the electron source term on and off. This is admittedly quite artificial. The purpose is to understand whether there are any generic features associated with these multiple injections, which might aid us on modeling the multiple flares often observed from blazars. In all the following runs, we allow electrons to escape with $`t_{e,\mathrm{esc}}=5t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$. Other parameters are the same as the single injection case.

Successive flares can be produced by repeated injections of nonthermal electrons. As an example of this picture, we present light curves for two repeated injection cases of nonthermal electrons. The top panels of Figures 17 and 18 show the injection profiles, which consist of two triangle injections separated by a long ($`8t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$) and a short ($`2t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$) intervals (in the comoving frame), respectively. In both cases $`5\times 10^{47}`$ ergs are injected in each “flare” with a triangle-shaped time profile. The lower panels of Figures 17 and 18 show the expected light curves calculated by our code. The shape of the light curves from each injection is very similar to that in Figure 16 where a single injection is involved (i.e., quasi-symmetric). The peak fluxes of light curves in multiple injections are, however, affected by the separation time of two flares. When the separation interval is longer than the electron escape time ($`5t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$), the light curves can almost be regarded as a simple sequence of two separate single injections. But when the separation interval is shorter than the electron escape time, multiwavelength light curves become rather complicated. The main physical reason behind this complication is the dynamic accumulation of both photons and relativistic electrons. First of all, 1 eV and 1 keV emissions are from synchrotron and others are from SSC. All the SSC emissions have second peak higher than the first one, this is due to the increase both in soft photon energy density and in the number of electrons which are not completely cooled yet when the second injection occurs. This accumulation of electrons also accounts for the increase in 1 eV synchrotron flux. The 1 keV emissions, however, show a lower flux in the second peak, this is because the relativistic electrons from the second injection are subject to a much stronger cooling due to the enhanced photon energy density from the first injection. In addition to the flux differences, there are obvious delays in reaching the peak fluxes for different wavelengths with respect to the synchrotron and SSC peaks, though 1 keV and 1 TeV fluxes track each other rather well.

As demonstrated in these figures, the slow response and relatively small amplitude variations at the photon energies other than the synchrotron and SSC peaks argue against the usual belief of closely correlated variations in multiwavelength observations. Only the emissions from the tail of the electron energy distribution can be reliably used as diagnostics for separate injections. Still, extra caution is obviously needed when relating the energy contained in nonthermal particles versus the observed fluxes.

## 4 SUMMARY AND DISCUSSIONS

Using a homogeneous synchrotron self-Compton model, we have calculated the time evolution of emission spectra and electron energy distributions when nonthermal electrons are uniformly injected into a relativistically moving plasma blob with constant velocity. We have found that:

(1) When the luminosities of the synchrotron and SSC peaks are comparable, the electron cooling by inverse Compton scattering is not negligible and the system is inherently nonlinear and dynamic. One has to solve the time-dependent, coupled electron and photon kinetic-equations self-consistently. Furthermore, since observations are most sensitive to the peak fluxes of synchrotron and SSC components, accurate treatments of synchrotron emissivity due to the end point effects and inverse Compton scattering in the KN regime are quite essential.

(2) When the cooling time at the maximum particle energy is longer than the injection timescale ($`R/c`$), the light curve of emissions corresponding to the tail of the electron distribution can have short, large amplitude variations but emissions at other wavelengths show considerably longer and smaller amplitude changes. Additionally, spectral evolution is also rather slow. All these features are simply caused by the long cooling time of electrons.

(3) When cooling time at the maximum particle energy is shorter than the dynamic timescale, strong spectral evolutions are observed for both synchrotron and SSC components and short duration flares are obtained in most energy bands.

(4) Generally, the prompt TeV spectrum is curved due to the KN effect and the fact that TeV-production electrons are usually in a cooled distribution. This consideration does not take into account the possible infrared background attenuation of the TeVs, which might cause further curvature in the TeV spectrum. On the other hand, most current TeV observations require an accumulation time probably much longer than the dynamic timescale of the blob, so that it might still be possible to obtain a quasi power-law TeV spectrum by averaging over an evolving spectrum. Further study is needed to address this issue.

(5) We recommend plotting the light curves in a fashion that is logarithmic flux versus linear time. The goal is to look for exponential decays at specific energy bands, which might give direct measurements of the size of the system, as indicated in Figures 911.

(6) One has to be cautious about the common belief that light curves in different energy bands should track each other. The electrons responsible for producing specific energy photons might have quite different lifetimes, especially when multiple and closely spaced injections are involved. This complication also applies to the leading/lagging analysis for different photon energy bands.

(7) When high time-resolution spectroscopy is available both in keV and TeV bands, one should be able to prove whether TeV production is via SSC process by comparing the rates of spectral softening as done in Figure 15.

The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the radiative signatures in a purely cooling and dynamic system, thus providing a bridge between observations and the detailed but largely unknown physics of particle energization processes. Since we did not address the particle acceleration problem here, in this sense, some of the conclusions drawn above are certainly subject to revisions as our understanding of energy flow in AGNs improves.

In conclusion, we have found that solving time-dependent, coupled electron and photon kinetic-equations provides an easy and efficient way of comparing multiwavelength, time-dependent observations with some simplified SSC models. It has the advantage of naturally combining the spectral and temporal evolutions in a dynamic system, which is very useful when more and more high quality data become available.

We thank C. Dermer for useful discussions and the anonymous referee for the helpful comments. H.L. gratefully acknowledges the support of an Oppenheimer Fellowship, and his research is supported by the Department of Energy, under contract W-7405-ENG-36. M.K. thanks F. Takahara for stimulating discussions and his research was partially supported by Scientific Research Grants (09223219, 10117215) from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan.