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# Mass-loss induced instabilities in fast rotating stars

## 1 Introduction

Although far from complete, the overall picture describing the angular momentum evolution of solar type stars is well established. Despite modest mass-loss rates, $`\dot{M}=10^{14}\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ for the sun, magnetised stellar winds strongly brake the rotation of the star. The decrease of the angular velocity then reacts back on the magnetic field by reducing the efficiency of the dynamo process. This picture cannot be applied as such to early-type stars. First of all, the history of stellar rotation at intermediate and high masses is generally still poorly known; besides, the presence of magnetic fields in early-type stars has not been established, except for some categories of chemically peculiar stars, as well as for a couple of particular cases (Donati et al. 1997; Henrichs et al. 2000). On the other hand, we know that early type stars can experience strong angular momentum losses as stellar winds with very large mass loss rate have been observed ($`\dot{M}10^510^8\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$). In this paper, we investigate how such angular momentum losses will affect the stellar rotation, assuming magnetic fields are not dynamically relevant.

This question has not yet received much attention although it might have important consequences for stellar structure and evolution as well as for the understanding of early-type stars activity. In the context of stellar evolution, the effect of mass-loss on rotation has to be investigated since the rotation strongly influences the stellar structure. However, current models of stellar evolution with rotation do not take this effect into account (Talon et al. 1997, Denissenkov et al. 1999). As explained below, we have been confronted to the same question while investigating the origin of the very strong activity of Herbig Ae/Be stars, a class of pre-main-sequence stars with masses ranging from $`2`$ to $`5\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$.

A significant fraction of these objects is known to possess extended chromospheres, winds, and to show high levels of spectral variability. In addition, the presence of magnetic fields, first suggested by the rotational modulation of certain spectral lines (Catala et al. 1986), has been recently supported by a direct detection at the surface of the Herbig Ae star, HD 104237 (Donati et al. 1997). Detailed estimates of the non-radiative heating in the outer atmosphere of Herbig Ae/Be stars (Catala 1989, Bouret et al. 1998) compared to observational constraints on the available energy sources strongly suggest that the rotation of the star is the only energy source capable of powering such activity (see discussion in F.Lignières et al. 1996). This led Vigneron et al. (1990) to propose a scenario whereby the braking torque exerted by the stellar wind forces turbulent motions in a differentially rotating layer below the stellar surface. Then, by invoking an analogy with stellar convection zones, these turbulent motions could generate a magnetic field which would transfer and dissipate the turbulent kinetic energy into the outer layers of the star.

Unlike Herbig stars, there is at present no observational evidence of non-radiative energy input in the atmosphere of OB stars. Their radiatively-driven winds do not require any additional acceleration mechanism and an eventual non-radiative heating would be very difficult to detect because most lines are saturated. However, they show various forms of spectral variability. Recent observations seem to indicate that these phenomena are not due to an intrinsic variability of the wind but are instead caused by co-rotating features on the stellar surface (Massa et al. 1995). As proposed in the literature (Howarth et al. 1995; Kaper et al. 1996), these corotating features could be due to a magnetic structuration of the wind. Since OB stars rotate fast and possess strong winds, the Vigneron et al. scenario might also explain these phenomena. The recent direct detection of a magnetic field in an early Be star, $`\beta `$ Cep, adds some credit to this hypothesis (Henrichs et al. 2000).

In this paper, we shall investigate the starting assumption of the Vigneron et al. scenario namely that the braking torque of an unmagnetised wind generates strong enough velocity shear to trigger an instability in the subphotospheric layers. This is a crucial step in the scenario since the onset of the instability allows to transfer kinetic energy from rotational motions to turbulent motions.

The possible connection between mass-loss and instability had been already suggested by Schatzman (1981). However, the onset of the instability is not really considered in this study since it is assumed from the start that the wind driven angular momentum losses induce a turbulent flux of angular momentum. Here, we propose a simple model of angular momentum transport by a purely radial mass flux in order to estimate the angular velocity gradients induced by mass loss. Then, the stability of these gradients is studied according to existing stability criteria. Note that, as we neglect latitudinal flows, our model is best regarded as an equatorial model.

In the absence of magnetic fields, the braking effect of a stellar wind is simply due to the fact that matter going away from the rotation axis has to slow down to preserve its angular momentum. Thus, for the star’s surface to be significantly braked, fluid parcels coming from deep layers inside the star have to reach the surface. Since radial velocities induced by mass-loss are very small deep inside the star, this is expected to take a relatively long time, not very different from the mass-loss time scale. By contrast, we shall see that the formation of unstable angular velocity gradients near the surface take place in a very short time, much smaller than the braking time scale.

The paper is organised as follows: first, we estimate the time scale characterising the braking of the stellar surface and relate it to the mass loss time scale (Sect. 2). Then, we show that radial outflows in stellar envelopes generate differential rotation and we estimate the time scale of this process (Sect. 3). The stability of these angular velocity gradients is considered (Sect. 4) and the results are summarised and discussed (Sect. 5).

## 2 Braking of mass-losing stars

Generally speaking, the braking of the star’s surface depends on the mass-loss mechanism and on the efficiency of angular momentum transfer inside the star. In this section, we shall make assumptions regarding these processes in order to estimate the braking time scale. However, before we consider these particular assumptions, it is interesting to show that the simple fact that the star adjusts its hydrostatic structure to its decreasing mass already implies that the star slows down as it loses mass.

Indeed, according to models of pre-main-sequence evolution (Palla & Stahler 1993), a $`2M_{\mathrm{}}`$ pre-main-sequence star losing mass at a rate of the order of $`\dot{M}=10^8\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ will have lost about one percent of its mass when it arrives on the main sequence. Because mass is concentrated in the core of stars, one percent of the total mass corresponds to a significant fraction of the envelope. For pre-main-sequence models of $`2`$ to $`5M_{\mathrm{}}`$, this means that all the matter initially located above the radius $`R_I0.63R_{}`$ is expelled during the pre-main-sequence evolution. But, during this mass-loss process, the star continuously adjusts its structure to its decreasing mass and, from the point of view of stellar structure, the loss of 1 percent of mass has a negligible effect on the stellar radius. Thus, as represented on Fig.1, the sphere containing 99 % of the initial mass must have expanded significantly during its pre-main-sequence evolution. Its moment of inertia has increased and, due to angular momentum conservation, its mean angular velocity has been reduced.

Thus, we conclude that the hydrodynamic adjustment of stars ensures that mass loss is accompanied by a mean braking of the remaining matter. Now, if one wants to estimate the actual braking of the stellar surface, assumptions have to be made on the mass-loss process and on the efficiency of angular momentum transfer inside the star. In order to obtain the order of magnitude of the braking time scale, we assume that mass-loss is isotropic and constant in time and we consider two extreme assumptions regarding the efficiency of angular momentum transfer.

First, we assume that the transfer of angular momentum is only due to radial expansion. Then, angular momentum conservation states that the angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }_I`$ of a fluid parcel located at a radius $`r=R_I`$ will have decreased by $`(R_I/R)^2`$ when it reaches the stellar surface. This occurs when all the matter above $`r=R_I`$ has been expelled so that the decrease of the surface angular velocity can be related to the mass-loss. We used the density structure of a $`2M_{\mathrm{}}`$ pre-main-sequence model (Palla & Stahler 1993) for the following calculation.

Second, we assume that an unspecified transfer mechanism enforces solid body rotation throughout the star so that angular momentum losses are distributed over the whole star and the braking of the stellar surface is less effective. In this case, global angular momentum conservation reads

$$\frac{dJ}{J}=\frac{2}{3}\frac{MR^2}{I}\frac{dM}{M},$$
(1)
where $`J=I\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the total angular momentum. According to stellar structure models of $`2`$ to $`5M_{\mathrm{}}`$ pre-main-sequence stars, the radius of gyration, $`I/MR^2`$ is close to $`0.05`$ so that the angular velocity decrease is approximatively given by

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_f}{\mathrm{\Omega }_i}=\frac{I_i}{I_f}\left(\frac{M_f}{M_i}\right)^{40/3}$$
(2)
To simply relate the braking to the mass-loss, we also assumed that the decrease of the moment of inertia is proportional to the mass decrease, or equivalently that mass-loss induces an uniform density decrease throughout the star. Albeit rough, this assumption is not critical for the conclusion drawn in this section.

Starting with an uniformly rotating star, Fig. 2 presents the braking of the stellar surface as a function of the percentage of mass lost assuming solid body rotation (solid line) and radial expansion (dashed line). This shows that, in the case of solid body rotation, the braking time scale is about ten times smaller than the mass loss time scale, whereas, it is hundred times smaller in the case of radial expansion (the braking time scale is defined as the time required to decrease the surface angular velocity by a factor $`e`$). We therefore conclude that the braking time scale is significantly smaller than the mass-loss time scale although both time scales does not differ by many orders of magnitude.

In the next section, we study the formation of angular velocity gradients in a stellar envelope assuming the transport of angular momentum is only due to a radial mass flux. We shall see that this process generates strong near surface gradients in a time scale smaller by many orders of magnitude than the mass-loss time scale.

## 3 Radial advection of angular momentum across a stellar surface

Non-uniform radial expansion tends to generate differential rotation and this is particularly true across the stellar surface where the steep density increase has to be accompanied by a steep decrease of the radial velocity. To show this let us follow the expansion of two spherical layers located at different depths in the star’s envelope, and rotating at the same rate. After a given time, the outer layer will have travelled a much larger distance than the inner one so that its angular velocity will have decreased more than that of the inner layer. A gradient of angular velocity has then appeared between both layers.

To estimate the gradient generated by this non-uniform expansion, we write down the angular momentum conservation assuming the transport of angular momentum is only due to a radial flow. Consequently, angular momentum transfers by viscous stresses, meridional circulation, gravity waves or turbulence are neglected all together. Although latitudinal inhomogeneities in the mass-loss mechanism or Eddington-Sweet circulation are expected to induce latitudinal flows, we note that the present assumption would be still justified in the equatorial plane if the meridional circulation is symmetric with respect to the equatorial plane.

In the context of our simplified model, the angular momentum balance reads

$$\frac{}{t}(\omega )+v(r,t)\frac{}{r}(\omega )=0,$$
(3)
where $`\omega `$ is the specific angular momentum and $`v(r,t)`$ is the radial velocity. Up to mass loss rates of the order of $`10^6\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, radial velocities carrying out a time-independent and isotropic mass-loss are much smaller than the local sound speed. Consequently the star is always very close to hydrostatic equilibrium and continuously adjusts its structure to its decreasing mass. This means in particular that the temporal variations of the density near the surface are small, because the effect of mass-loss is distributed over the whole star through hydrostatic equilibrium. Accordingly, temporal variations of the radial velocities are small and we shall neglect them as their inclusion would not modify our conclusions. Then, the radial outflows satisfies

$$4\pi r^2\varrho (r)v(r)=\dot{M},$$
(4)
where $`\varrho (r)`$ is given by stellar structure models.

With the above assumptions, the specific angular momentum evolves like a passive scalar advected in a one dimensional stationary flow $`v(r)`$. The mathematical problem can be readily solved and we will do so in the following for a radial flow corresponding to a $`2M_{\mathrm{}}`$ star with a mass loss rate of $`\dot{M}=10^8\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. But first we derive useful properties by studying the evolution of the angular momentum gradient in the general case.

Except when $`\omega `$ or $`v`$ are uniform in space, advection always modifies the distribution of the conserved quantity. While decelerated flows tend to sharpen $`\omega `$-gradients, accelerated flows smooth them out. To illustrate the process of gradient smoothing in an accelerated flow, the angular momentum evolution of two neighbouring fluid elements $`A`$ and $`B`$ has been represented in Fig.3. Following the motions, the angular momentum gradient between these two points decreases because their separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ increases while the angular momentum difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ is conserved.

This simple sketch can also be used to quantify the gradient decrease. We first note that $`A`$ and $`B`$ travel the distance separating $`r_1+\mathrm{\Delta }r_1`$ from $`r_2`$ in the same time. Thus, the time interval required by A to go from $`r_1`$ to $`r_1+\mathrm{\Delta }r_1`$ is the same as the one used by $`B`$ to go from $`r_2`$ to $`r_2+\mathrm{\Delta }r_2`$. This is expressed by, $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_2/v(r_2)=\mathrm{\Delta }r_1/v(r_1)`$, and then,

$$v(r_1)\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega }{\mathrm{\Delta }r_1}=v(r_2)\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega }{\mathrm{\Delta }r_2}.$$
(5)
Taking the limit of vanishing separation between $`A`$ and $`B`$, we conclude that the product $`v(r)\omega /r`$ is conserved following the motions, a property which can be readily verified by calculating the Lagrangian derivative of $`v\omega /r`$.

This property implies that angular momentum gradients can be completely smoothed out if they are advected in a strongly enough accelerated flow. This is particularly relevant near stellar surfaces where steep density gradients induce steep radial velocity gradients.

To specify this effect we express the conservation of $`v\omega /r`$ for the radial outflow given by Eq. (4). Then, the evolution of the logarithmic gradients of the angular velocity following the flow between radii $`r_1`$ and $`r_2`$ reads

$$\frac{\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{ln}r}(r_2)=2+\frac{\varrho (r_2)}{\varrho (r_1)}\left(\frac{r_2}{r_1}\right)^3\left(\frac{\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{ln}r}(r_1)+2\right),$$
(6)
where the quantity $`\frac{\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{ln}r}+2`$ measures departures from uniform specific angular momentum.

In this expression, $`\varrho (r)r^3`$ decreases almost like $`\varrho (r)`$ in the vicinity of the photosphere since the density decreases considerably over distances small compared to the stellar radius. Then, the above expression shows that any departure from constant specific angular momentum will have decreased by a factor $`e^n`$ after crossing $`n`$ density scale heights. Moreover, initial departures can not be too large otherwise the corresponding differential rotation would be subjected to powerful instabilities. Then, for any realistic values of the initial angular velocity gradients, fluid elements reaching the surface will have an angular velocity gradient close to $`2\mathrm{\Omega }/R`$.

We confirmed the validity of this simple picture by solving the advection problem for the density profile corresponding to the stellar structure model of a pre-main-sequence $`2M_{\mathrm{}}`$ star (Palla & Stahler 1993). Again, the mass-loss rate has been fixed to $`\dot{M}=10^8\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. Starting from a solid body rotation, the evolution of the rotation profile in the vicinity of the stellar surface is presented in Fig.4. The different curves correspond to increasing advection times, $`10^1`$, $`1`$, $`10`$, $`10^2`$, $`10^3`$ and $`10^4`$ years, respectively.

We observe that the evolution is first rapid and then much slower. This is because the evolution starts with the rapid expansion of the outer layers which tends to set-up a profile of uniform specific angular momentum $`\mathrm{\Omega }1/r^2`$. Once this is done, the evolution takes place on much larger time scales as it involves the much slowly expanding inner layers. The gradual set-up of the $`\mathrm{\Omega }1/r^2`$ profile is confirmed by the evolution of the angular velocity logarithmic gradients. As shown on Fig.5, specific angular momentum gradients are rapidly smoothed out in the outer layers while the inner ones become affected after a long time.

We can therefore conclude that starting with any realistic angular velocity profile in a stellar envelope, radial expansion will generate angular velocity gradients very close to $`2\mathrm{\Omega }/R`$ near the surface.

Whether such gradients are actually present in the subphotospheric layers of mass-losing stars depends on how the characteristic time for the formation of these gradients compares with the time scales of other angular momentum transport processes. The angular velocity gradients being produced by radial acceleration, the associated time scale is

$$t_G=\frac{1}{\frac{v}{r}}=\frac{H_\varrho }{v(r)}=\frac{4\pi r^2\varrho (r)H_\varrho }{M}t_\mathrm{M},$$
(7)
where $`H_\varrho `$ is the density scale height and $`t_\mathrm{M}=M/\dot{M}`$ is the mass-loss time scale. Fig.5 shows that no more than one month is necessary to form gradients of the order of $`\mathrm{\Omega }/R`$ for a mass loss rate equal to $`\dot{M}=10^8\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. This time scale is smaller by many orders of magnitude than the mass-loss time scale or the braking time scale. This is because the formation of gradients requires radial displacements corresponding to a density scale height whereas a significant braking requires radial displacements of the order of the stellar radius.

## 4 Stability of the angular velocity gradients

In this section, we investigate whether the differential rotation induced by the radial mass-loss is sufficient to trigger a hydrodynamical instability.

The uniform angular momentum profile being marginally stable with respect to Rayleigh-Taylor instability, we consider its stability with respect to shear instabilities. When, as it is the case here, the vorticity associated with the velocity profile does not possess extrema, the study of shear instabilities is much complicated by the fact that finite amplitude perturbations involving non-linear effects have to be taken into account. Existing stability criteria for such velocity profiles rely on laboratory experiments which shows critical Reynolds numbers above which destabilization occurs. Although the critical Reynolds number depends on the particular flow configuration, its value is generally of order of $`1000`$.

J.P. Zahn (1974) proposed the following instability criterion

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{r}>\left(PrRe^{\mathrm{crit}}\right)^{1/2}\frac{N}{r},$$
(8)
where $`Re^{\mathrm{crit}}`$ is the critical Reynolds number, $`Pr=\nu /\kappa `$ is the Prandtl number comparing the thermal diffusivity $`\kappa `$ to the viscosity $`\nu `$ and $`N`$ is the Brunt-Väisälä frequency which measures the strength of stable stratification in radiative interiors. The combined effect of the stable stratification and the thermal diffusion has been derived on phenomenological grounds. However, the way the criterion depends on this effect has been recently supported in the context of the linear stability theory (Lignières et al. 1999).

Applying the criterion to an uniform angular momentum profile, we find that instability occurs if the rotation period at the surface is smaller than

$$P18.4\frac{g_{\mathrm{}}}{g}\mathrm{days},$$
(9)
where the actual temperature gradient has been taken equal to $`=0.25`$, a typical value for radiative envelopes according to Cox (1968), and the radiative viscosity has been assumed to dominate the molecular one which is true in the envelope of intermediate mass stars. Note also that this expression holds for a mono-atomic completely ionised gas in a chemically homogeneous star. When radiation pressure is taken into account, the upper limit of the rotation period has to be multiplied by $`1/\sqrt{43\beta }`$, where $`\beta `$ is the ratio between the gas pressure and the total pressure. This factor remains very close to one for pre-main-sequence models from $`2`$ to $`5M_{\mathrm{}}`$.

The above instability condition being easily met by early type stars, we conclude that mass-loss tends to impose an unstable differential rotation below the surface of early-type stars.

## 5 Discussion and conclusion

We have studied the effect of mass-loss on the rotation of stellar envelopes in the simplified context of an unmagnetised spherically symmetric outflow. In the same way as an inhomogeneous distribution of a passive scalar tends to be smoothed out in a expanding flows, the radial gradients of specific angular momentum are smoothed out by radial expansion in stellar envelopes. This process becomes more and more effective as one approaches the surface because expansion becomes stronger and stronger. As shown in Figs 4 and 5, a profile of uniform angular momentum, $`\mathrm{\Omega }1/r^2`$ is rapidly set-up in the outermost layers of the star and then pervades towards the interior on much larger time scales. These time scales being proportional to the mass-loss time scale, they vary very much from stars to stars. For a typical Herbig star ($`\dot{M}=10^8\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$), an angular velocity gradient close to $`2\mathrm{\Omega }/R`$ appears in one month. By contrast, for a solar-type mass-loss rate, $`\dot{M}=10^{14}\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, it would be $`10^6`$ times longer to reach the same level of differential rotation. According to existing stability criteria, the uniform angular momentum profile is subjected to shear instabilities provided the rotation period is shorter than $`18.4g_{\mathrm{}}/g`$ days.

The present one-dimensional model is admittedly not realistic at least because latitudinal variations occur in rotating stars and give rise to a meridional circulation. Nevertheless, as already mentioned, neglecting latitudinal flows may be justified in the equatorial plane. In the following we discuss to which extent the neglected processes can prevent the formation of turbulent differentially rotating layers below the surface of rapidly rotating mass-losing stars. We first consider the angular momentum transport and then the stability problem.

Latitudinal variations could be inherent to the mass-loss mechanism as proposed for radiatively driven wind emitted from fast rotating stars (Owocki & Gayley 1997). Such variations are likely to generate a meridional circulation (Maeder 1999) but, at the latitudes where outflows occur, we still expect radial expansion to play a major role in shaping the angular velocity profile.

The Eddington-Sweet circulation driven by departure from sphericity operates on time scale larger than the Kelvin-Helmholtz time scale of the star. This time scale is of the order of the order of $`10^7`$ years for a $`2M_{\mathrm{}}`$ Herbig stars. Consequently the Eddington-Sweet circulation is unlikely to prevent the formation of the differentially rotating subphotospheric layer for strong mass-loss rate.

Turbulent motions like those generated in thermal convection zones might prevent the formation of the differentially rotating layer. In radiative envelopes however, it is not clear whether turbulent motions (not generated by the mass-loss process) would be vigorous enough.

Strong magnetic fields could in principle prevent the formation of these gradients. Note that this objection is not relevant in the context of the Vigneron et al. scenario where the shear layer is first produced by an unmagnetised wind.

Finally, we also neglected the effect of pre-main-sequence contraction. This is justified because the negative radial velocities associated with the contraction are much smaller than the positive radial velocities induced by mass-loss in the vicinity of the stellar surface.

In what concerns the stability of the uniform angular momentum profile, one has to remind that the stability criterion results from an extrapolation of laboratory experiments results. Despite recent numerical simulations which contradict the validity of this extrapolation for a differential rotation stable with respect to the Rayleigh-Taylor instability (Balbus et al. 1996), analysis of the experimental results reveal that for large values of the Reynolds number the properties of the turbulent flow do not depend on its stability or instability with respect to the Rayleigh-Taylor criterion (Richard & Zahn 1999). The solution of this debate would have to wait numerical simulations with higher resolution or specifically designed laboratory experiments.

The fact that the shear layer is embedded in an expanding flow may also affect the stability because expansion is known to suppress the turbulence. For example, this phenomenon is observed in numerical simulations of turbulent convection near the solar surface (Stein & Nordlund 1998). However, the growth time scale of the instability being of the order of the rotation period ($`1`$ day for Herbig stars), we do not expect the expansion to be rapid enough to suppress shear turbulence.

We conclude that the present model of angular momentum advection by a radial flow supports the assumption made by Vigneron et al. (1990) and F. Lignières et al. (1996) that unmagnetised winds tend to force an unstable differential rotation in the subphotospheric layers of Herbig Ae/Be stars. Note that this work is part of an ongoing effort to assess the viability of the Vigneron et al. scenario. F. Lignières et al (1996) and F.Lignières et al. (1998) have already studied the step further, once turbulent motions are generated at the top of the radiative envelope, their work pointing towards the formation and inwards expansion of a differentially rotating turbulent layer. In addition, three-dimensional numerical simulations are being performed to investigate whether magnetic fields can be generated in such a layer.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are very grateful to F. Palla and S.W. Stahler for making the results of their stellar evolution code available to us.


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# Ab initio Hartree-Fock Born effective charges of LiH, LiF, LiCl, NaF, and NaCl

## I INTRODUCTION

The Born effective charge (also called transverse or dynamic charge) of a crystalline system, defined as the induced polarization due to a unit sublattice displacement , is a fundamental quantity connecting the electrostatic fields of the lattice, to its phononic properties. It contains important information not only about the electronic structure and the bonding properties of the system, but also about the coupling of its longitudinal and transverse optical phonon modes to the external infrared radiation.  In addition, the Born charges also find use in first-principles-based construction of effective Hamiltonians describing phase transitions in ferroelectric materials.  Traditionally, the ab initio computations of Born charges of dielectrics have been performed either within the density-functional linear-response theory, or the density-functional perturbation theory.  At a more phenomenological level, the bond-orbital method of Harrison has been very insightful . Recently, however, a very elegant formalism has been proposed by King-Smith and Vanderbilt,  and Resta,  which formulates the general problem of symmetry breaking induced by the macroscopic polarization (of which the Born charge is a special case) of a crystalline dielectric, in terms of the Berry phase of its wave function. This Berry-phase-based approach to macroscopic polarization of dielectrics has come to be known as the “modern theory of polarization” (MTP) in the current physics literature.  The MTP has been used both within the density-functional theory (DFT) based implementations,  as well as the wave-function-based Hartee-Fock (HF)  formulations, to evaluate a variety of polarization related properties.

DFT-based calculations of macroscopic polarization properties are very efficient, so that, without excessive effort, one can perform ab initio computations on complex compounds. Normally, the ab initio Born charges computed using the DFT-based formulations are within 10% agreement with the experiments for simple zinc-blende semiconductors,  while the disagreement can be worse for more complex systems.  Therefore, it is of interest to systematically explore alternative methods for computing the macroscopic polarization properties of crystalline insulators. For ionic systems, the HF method provides a powerful alternative in that it performs much better than the local-density approximation based schemes.  The other advantage of the HF method is that it can be systematically improved, both by perturbative, as well as nonperturbative methods, to account for many-body effects.  Recently, we have developed a Wannier-function-based ab initio HF approach to compute the ground-state properties of crystalline insulators.  The approach has been successfully applied to compute the ground-state properties of not only three-dimensional crystals,  but also of one-dimensional periodic insulators such as polymers.  In the present paper we extend our approach to the problem of macroscopic polarization of dielectrics, and apply it to obtain benchmark HF values for the Born charges of diatomic ionic systems LiH, LiF, LiCl, NaF and NaCl. Besides their simplicity, the main criteria behind the choice of these materials for the present study were: (a) to the best of our knowledge, no prior benchmark calculations of the Born charges of these materials exist (b) high-quality experimental data has been available for them for a long time.  Thus by comparing the benchmark HF results such as this one, to the corresponding experimental values, one can gauge the applicability of the HF method on a wide variety of systems. When we compare the HF values of the Born charges computed in the present work, with the experimental ones, we find that the agreement is good for LiH, LiF, and NaF, where the agreement between the theory and the experiment is always better than 7%. For NaCl and LiCl, however, the error is 10% and 16%, respectively, suggesting the possibility that the many-body effects may be stronger in these systems.

Since, this is the first application of our Wannier-function-based method to the problem of macroscopic polarization, we also present the associated computational details. The Wannier functions, being very similar in character to the molecular orbitals encountered routinely in quantum chemistry, have the added advantage of being intuitive in character. Indeed, as demonstrated later on, they lead to a pictorial description of the symmetry breaking processes associated with macroscopic polarization of insulators.

Remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In section II we briefly cover the theoretical aspects of the present work. Our numerical results for the Born effective charges of several ionic crystals are presented in section III. Finally, the conclusions are presented in section IV.

## II THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

### A Born Effective Charge

The Born effective charge tensor, $`Z_{\alpha \beta }^{}(i)`$, associated with the atoms of the $`i`$-th sublattice, is defined as

$$Z_{\alpha \beta }^{}(i)=Z_i+(\mathrm{\Omega }/e)\frac{P_\alpha ^{(el)}}{u_{i\beta }}|_{𝐄=\mathrm{𝟎}},$$
(1)
where $`Z_i`$ is the charge associated with the nuclei (or the core) of the sublattice, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the volume of the unit cell, $`e`$ is the electronic charge, and $`P_\alpha ^{(el)}`$ is the $`\alpha `$-th Cartesian component of the electronic part of the macroscopic polarization induced as a result of the displacement of the sublattice in the $`\beta `$-th Cartesian direction, $`u_{i\beta }`$. For small $`\mathrm{\Delta }u_{i\beta }`$, one assumes $`\frac{P_\alpha ^{(el)}}{u_{i\beta }}|_{𝐄=\mathrm{𝟎}}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }P_\alpha ^{(el)}}{\mathrm{\Delta }u_{i\beta }}`$, and computes the change in the polarization $`\mathrm{\Delta }P_\alpha ^{(el)}`$ following Resta’s approach

$$\mathrm{\Delta }𝐏_{el}=𝐏_{el}^{(1)}𝐏_{el}^{(0)}\text{,}$$
(2)
where, $`𝐏_{el}^{(0)}`$ and $`𝐏_{el}^{(1)}`$, respectively, denote the electronic parts of the macroscopic polarization of the system for its initial ($`\lambda =0`$) and final ($`\lambda =1`$) states, where $`\lambda `$ is a parameter characterizing the adiabatic symmetry-breaking transformation of the lattice. Clearly, for the present case, $`\lambda `$ is to be identified with the sublattice displacement $`\mathrm{\Delta }u_{i\beta }`$. For one-electron theories such as the Kohn-Sham theory, or the HF theory, King-Smith and Vanderbilt showed that

$$𝐏_{el}^{(\lambda )}=(fe/\mathrm{\Omega })\underset{n=1}{\overset{M}{}}𝐫\varphi _n^{(\lambda )}(𝐫)^2𝑑𝐫\text{,}$$
(3)
where { $`\varphi _n^{(\lambda )}(𝐫),n=1,\mathrm{},M`$ } represent the $`M`$ occupied Wannier functions of the unit cell for a given value of $`\lambda `$, and $`f`$ is the occupation number of Wannier function ($`f=2`$, for the restricted-Hartree-Fock theory). King-Smith and Vanderbilt  also showed that the r.h.s. of Eq. (3) is proportional to the sum of the Berry phases associated with individual Wannier functions (or bands), thus equating the change in the macroscopic polarization of the solid with the change in the Berry-phase of its wave function during the corresponding adiabatic transformation. In addition, Resta  demonstrated that $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝐏_{el}`$ computed via Eqs. (2) and (3) is invariant under the choice of Wannier functions, even though the individual $`𝐏_{el}^{(\lambda )}`$’s are not. Computation of the Wannier functions for different values of $`\lambda `$ is discussed in the next section.

### B Wannier Functions

In principle, any approach which can yield Wannier fucntions of a crystal corresponding to its Bloch orbitals, can be used to compute its Born charge tensor. However, in the present work we have applied a framework, recently developed by us, which directly yields the restricted-Hartree-Fock (RHF) Wannier functions of a crystalline insulator employing an LCAO approach.  In our previous work we showed that one can obtain $`M`$ RHF Wannier functions, $`\{|\alpha ,\alpha =1,M\}`$ occupied by $`2M`$ electrons localized in the reference unit cell $`𝒞`$ by solving the equations

$$(T+U+\underset{\beta }{}(2J_\beta K_\beta )+\underset{k𝒩}{}\underset{\gamma }{}\lambda _\gamma ^k|\gamma (𝐑_k)\gamma (𝐑_k)|)|\alpha =ϵ_\alpha |\alpha \text{,}$$
(4)
where $`T`$ represents the kinetic-energy operator, $`U`$ represents the interaction of the electrons of $`𝒞`$ with the nuclei of the whole of the crystal, while $`J_\beta `$, $`K_\beta `$, respectively, represent the Coulomb and exchange interactions felt by the electrons occupying the $`\beta `$-th Wannier function of $`𝒞`$, due to the rest of the electrons of the infinite system. The first three terms of Eq.(4) constitute the canonical Hartree-Fock operator, while the last term is a projection operator which makes the orbitals localized in $`𝒞`$ orthogonal to those localized in the unit cells in the immediate neighborhood of $`𝒞`$ by means of infinitely high shift parameters $`\lambda _\gamma ^k`$’s. These neighborhood unit cells, whose origins are labeled by lattice vectors $`𝐑_k`$, are collectively referred to as $`𝒩`$. The projection operators along with the shift parameters play the role of a localizing potential in the Fock matrix, and once self-consistency has been achieved, the occupied eigenvectors of Eq.(4) are localized in $`𝒞`$, and are orthogonal to the orbitals of $`𝒩`$—thus making them Wannier functions . As far as the orthogonality of the orbitals of $`𝒞`$ to those contained in unit cells beyond $`𝒩`$ is concerned, it should be automatic for systems with a band gap once $`𝒩`$ has been chosen to be large enough. As in our previous calculations performed on three-dimensional ionic insulators,  we included up to third-nearest-neighbor unit cells in the region $`𝒩`$.

For computing the Born charges, first $`𝐏_{el}^{(0)}`$ is computed from Eq. (3) using the Wannier functions of the unit cell, with all the sublattices of the crystal in their original position corresponding to the case $`\lambda =0`$. Next, the $`i`$-th sublattice is displaced in the Cartesian direction $`\beta `$ by a small amount $`\mathrm{\Delta }u_{i\beta }`$, and $`𝐏_{el}^{(1)}`$ is computed in a manner identical to the previous case, except that the Wannier functions used for the purpose are recomputed for the transformed lattice. Now that we can compute $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝐏_{el}`$ (cf. Eq. (2)), and compute the Born effective charge tensor by substituting it in Eq. (1).

The Wannier functions obtained by solving Eq. (4) are canonical Hartree-Fock solutions for the unit cell $`𝒞`$, and thus will satisfy the spatial symmetries of the unit cell. In appearance they look identical to the molecular orbitals encountered in any quantum-chemical calculation on a finite system, as was discussed in our earlier work.  Therefore, by comparing the spatial appearances of the Wannier functions for the most symmetric case ($`\lambda =0`$), to the broken symmetry one ($`\lambda =1`$), we can obtain a pictorial representation of the polarization process.

## III RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this section we present the results of our calculations of the Born effective charges for LiH, LiF, LiCl, NaF, and NaCl. Because of the cubic nature of the underlying Bravais lattices, the Born charge tensor for these systems has only one independent component. In all the cases, we assumed the corresponding experimental fcc crystal structure, with the anion at $`(0,0,0)`$ position and the cation at $`(a/2,0,0)`$ position, $`a`$ being the lattice constant. The lattice constants used in the calculations were the theoretical ones, obtained by minimizing the total energy per unit cell at the Hartree-Fock level.

The Wannier functions used in the approach were obtained by performing all-electron HF calculations using a computer program developed by us recently.  In order to evaluate the centers of the Wannier functions needed for computing the polarization properties, we added a small subroutine to the existing module. The program is implemented within an LCAO approach, employing Gaussian lobe-type functions.  Lobe-type functions simulate the Cartesian $`p`$ and higher angular momentum orbitals located on a given atomic site, as linear combinations of $`s`$-type functions slightly displaced from the site.  Because of this reason, it is possible, that in our approach we obtain somewhat different numerical values of the Wannier function centers, as compared to the ones computed by equivalent genuine Cartesian basis functions as implemented, e.g., in the CRYSTAL95 program . For these calculations we used the lobe representation of the state-of-the-art contracted Gaussian basis sets developed by the Torino group.  For LiH, the details of the basis set can be obtained in ref. , while for the alkali halides, they are available in ref. . Using these basis sets we had studied NaCl  earlier at the Hartree-Fock level, therefore, optimized lattice constants were already available for them. However, for the remaining systems, we performed fresh Hartree-Fock calculations to obtain the optimized lattice constants. The theoretical lattice constant finally used in these calculations were 4.106 $`\AA `$ (LiH), 4.018 $`\AA `$ (LiF), 4.633 $`\AA `$ (NaF), 5.262 $`\AA `$ (LiCl), and 5.785 $`\AA `$ (NaCl). These are in close agreement with the values 4.102 $`\AA `$ (LiH) , 4.02 $`\AA `$ (LiF) , 4.63 $`\AA `$ (NaF) , 5.28 (LiCl) , and 5.80 $`\AA `$ (NaCl)  reported by the Torino group.

The computed Born effective charges are presented in table I. These results were obtained by translating the sublattices of a given crystal by the amount $`\mathrm{\Delta }u=0.01a`$ in the (100) direction. However, in order to ensure the stability of the results, several calculations were performed with different directions and magnitudes of $`\mathrm{\Delta }u`$, and no significant changes in the results were observed. It was also verified by explicit calculations that the sum total of all the effective charges corresponding to the different atoms of a unit cell was always zero, in agreement with its electrical neutrality. All these reasons give us confidence as to the correctness of our results.

From table I it is obvious that the theoretical Born effective charges obtained for LiH and the alkali halides are quite close to their nominal ionicities. This is in perfect agreement with the intuitive picture of these systems being highly ionic in nature. As far as the comparison of the HF results with the experimental results is concerned, it is very good for LiH, LiF, and NaF. However, for NaCl and LiCl, the disagreement is more than 10%. Similar differences with respect to the experiments were also observed by Yaschenko et al.  who computed the HF Born charge of MgO to be 1.808, while the experimental value for that compound is in the range 1.96—2.02.  One possible reason for the discrepancy between the theoretical and the experimental values of the Born charges could be the missing many-body effects. A qualitative discussion of these many-body effects was given by Harrison, in the context of his “ion-softening theory”.  When, e.g., the anionic sublattice of an alkali halide is translated, the bulk of the contribution to the Born charge—which, for the HF case, we call the mean-field contribution—is due to the electron transfer along the direction of the movement of the anion, and is associated with top-most occupied $`p`$-type Wannier function, as is obvious from Fig. 1. However, according to Harrison , because of the many-body effects, we can have a single (virtual) excitation from the top $`p`$-type occupied Wannier function (the bonding orbital) into the first unoccupied Wannier function (the antibonding orbital) on the nearest-neighbor cations, thereby, modifying the Born charge. This virtual charge fluctuation, in effect, introduces some covalency into the system as compared to the mean-field HF results. In its simple parametrized form, the ion-softening theory of Harrison predicts a uniform value of $`Z^{}=1.16`$, for the alkali halides.  This value of $`Z^{}`$, although reasonable, is clearly at variance with the experimental results which show a clear variation in the $`Z^{}`$ values of different alkali halides. Therefore, it is of interest to borrow the essence of the many-body effects incorporated in the ion-softening theory, and apply it to these systems within a rigorous ab initio formalism, to test its applicability. Indeed, this is what we intend to explore in a future paper.

In table II we give the detailed contributions of various Wannier functions to the Born effective charges of the alkali halides, when the anionic sublattice is translated. It is clear from the table that the low-lying core-like orbitals basically translate rigidly along with the nuclei. Nonrigid translation is seen mainly for the $`n`$s and $`n`$p Wannier functions of the anion, where $`n`$ defines the top of the valence band. In particular, $`n`$s orbital gains some effective charge at the expense of the $`n`$p orbital. The case of NaF is an exception to this rule where the Na 2p Wannier function makes a significant contribution to the effective charge (-0.216). However, this contribution is due to an accidental near degeneracy of the sodium 2p Wannier function with the 2s Wannier function of fluorine, which leads to their mixture when the HF equations (cf. Eq. (4)) are solved. Because of this reason, some of the Born effective charge associated with the 2s Wannier function of F is transferred to the 2p function of Na (cf. table II). However, this is an instructive example of the nonuniqueness of the individual Wannier functions. But, as should be the case, the total Born charge of fluorine in NaF is free of this ambiguity associated with the individual Wannier functions, in that it has a normal value of -0.956.

It is also instructive to examine the polarization process pictorially, as depicted by Wannier functions. We shall do so for the specific case of NaCl. The 1s and 3p Wannier functions, localized on the Cl<sup>-</sup> site of the unit cell, are plotted along the (100) direction, in Figs. 2 and 1, respectively, both before, and after, the translation of the Cl sublattice. As discussed earlier, on intuitive grounds we would expect the highly localized 1s Wannier function, which is the deepest-lying core orbital, to move rigidly with the nucleus. On the other extreme, we would expect the 3p Wannier function, which forms the top of the valence band, to show significant nonrigid behavior, because of its relatively delocalized character. This is indeed what we observe in Figs. 2 and 1, respectively. Owing to the perfectly cubically-symmetric crystal field that the Cl site sees in the undeformed lattice, one would expect the corresponding 3p Wannier function to exhibit perfect antisymmetry about its center. Once the Cl sublattice is moved along the (100) direction, the crystal symmetry is reduced, and one would expect to see the signatures of the broken symmetry in the 3p Wannier function of Cl. Both these phenomenon are clearly visible in Fig. 1, where, for the undeformed lattice the 3p Wannier function is perfectly antisymmetric about its center, while for the deformed case, it is no longer so, and it shows clear signs of induced polarization due to broken symmetry.

## IV CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, we have applied the Berry-phase-based theory of macroscopic polarization, developed by King-Smith and Vanderbilt , to obtain the benchmark values for the Born effective charges of several ionic compounds at the Hartree-Fock level. In the present work, we have utilized the Wannier functions as the single particle orbitals, and demonstrated that they lead to a pictorial description of the polarization process. As far as our results are concerned, they are in good agreement with the experiments for all the systems except LiCl and NaCl, where the disagreement with the experiments was more than 10%. One of the reasons behind this disagreement could be that the many-body effects in these systems are significant. Although, there have been generalizations of the theory of macroscopic polarization to include many-body effects,  their implementation is not as straightforward as the single particle theory. Recently, we have generalized our Wannier-function-based approach to include many-body effects by systematically enlarging the many-particle ground-state wave function by considering virtual excitations from the space of the occupied Wannier functions to that of the virtual ones.  The approach was demonstrated by computing the correlation contributions to the total energy per unit cell of bulk LiH . In a future paper, we intend to generalize our approach to compute the influence of many-body effects on macroscopic polarization properties as well.

###### Acknowledgements.

I am thankful to Professor R. Resta for clarifying the evaluation of the experimental value of the Born effective charge of MgO reported in an earlier work of his(ref. ).


text:
# Hard X-Ray Spectra of Broad-Line Radio Galaxies from the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer

## 1 Introduction

An important issue in our study of active galactic nuclei (hereafter AGNs) is the as yet unexplained difference between radio loud and radio-quiet objects. All AGNs are thought to be powered by accretion of matter onto a supermassive black hole, presumably via an equatorial accretion disk. From a theoretical perspective, the accretion disk is an essential ingredient for the formation of radio jets, although the exact mechanism is not well known (see the review by Livio 1996). The observational evidence111The most direct observational evidence for the presence of accretion disks in AGNs takes the form of Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines with disk-like profiles in the X-ray spectra of Seyfert galaxies (e.g., Tanaka et al. 1995; Nandra et al. 1997b) and double-peaked H$`\alpha `$ lines in the optical spectra of BLRGs (Eracleous & Halpern 1994). suggests that both radio-loud and radio-quiet AGNs harbor accretion disks, but it is a mystery why well-collimated, powerful, relativistic radio jets only exist in the former class of object. The origin of the difference could lie in the nature of the host galaxy. At low redshifts ($`z<0.5`$) radio-loud AGNs are found only in elliptical galaxies, whereas radio-quiet AGNs can have either elliptical or spiral hosts (Smith et al. 1986; Hutchings, Janson, & Neff 1989; Véron-Cetty & Woltjer 1990; Dunlop et al. 1993; Bahcall et al. 1997; Boyce et al. 1998). This observational trend has led to the suggestion that the interstellar medium of the host galaxy may play an important role in the propagation and collimation of the radio jets on large scales (e.g., Blandford & Levinson 1995; Fabian & Rees 1995). Alternatively, one may seek the fundamental cause of the difference between radio-loud and radio-quiet AGNs in the properties of their accretion flows or the properties of their central black holes. One possibility is that radio-loud AGNs may harbor rapidly spinning black holes, whose energy is extracted electromagnetically via the Blandford & Znajek (1977) mechanism and used to power the radio jets. Rapidly spinning black holes could be associated with elliptical galaxies if both the black hole and the host galaxy result from the merger of two parent galaxies, each with its own nuclear black hole (see Wilson & Colbert 1995). Another possibility is that the inner accretion disks of radio-quiet AGNs are geometrically thin and optically thick throughout (Shakura & Sunyaev 1973) while the inner accretion disks of radio-loud AGNs are ion-supported tori (Rees et al. 1982; known today as advection-dominated accretion flows, or ADAFs, after the work of Narayan & Yi 1994, 1995). Because ADAFs are nearly spherical and parts of the flow are unbound, they can lead to the formation of outflows (e.g., Blandford & Begelman 1999). In either of the above pictures, an additional mechanism may be necessary to collimate the radio jets (see for example, Blandford & Payne 1982; Meier 1999).

If the difference between radio-loud and radio-quiet AGNs is related to differences in their central engines, it would lead to observable differences in their respective X-ray spectra, in particular in the properties (profiles and equivalent width) of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines and in the shape of the continuum. This is because the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines are thought to result from fluorescence of the dense gas in the geometrically thin and optically thick regions of the disk (e.g., George & Fabian 1991; Matt et al 1992). Similarly, the continuum above 10 keV is thought to include a significant contribution from X-ray photons from the “primary” X-ray source, near the center of the disk, which undergo Compton scattering (“reflection”) in the same regions of the disk where the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line is produced (e.g., Lightman & White 1988; George & Fabian 1991; Matt, Perola, & Piro 1991). It is, therefore, extremely interesting that studies of the X-ray spectra of broad-line radio galaxies (BLRGs) by Zdziarski et al. (1995) and Woźniak et al. (1998) found them to be systematically different from those of (radio-quiet) Seyfert galaxies. In particular, these authors found that the signature of Compton reflection, which is very prominent in the spectra of Seyfert galaxies above 10 keV (Pounds et al. 1989; Nandra & Pounds 1994), is weak of absent in the spectra of BLRGs. Moreover, Woźniak et al. (1997) found that the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines of BLRGs are narrower and weaker than those of Seyfert galaxies.

Motivated by the above theoretical considerations and observational results, we have undertaken a systematic study of the X-ray spectra of radio-loud AGNs with ASCA and RXTE in order to characterize their properties. Our main goal is to compare their spectroscopic properties with those of Seyfert galaxies and test the above ideas for the origin of the difference between the two classes. In our re-analysis of archival ASCA spectra of BLRGs and radio-loud quasars (Sambruna, Eracleous, & Mushotzky 1999) we found that the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines of some objects are indeed weaker and narrower than those of Seyferts, in agreement with the findings of Woźniak et al. (1997). In other objects, however, the uncertainties are large enough that we cannot reach firm conclusions, thus we have not been able to confirm this result in general. In this paper we present the results of new observations of four BLRGs with RXTE, aimed at measuring the shape of their hard X-ray continuum and the equivalent width of their Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines. As such, these observations complement our study of the ASCA spectra of these objects. In §2 we describe the observations and data screening. In §3 we present and discuss the light curves and in §4 we compare the observed spectra with models. In §5 we discuss the implications of the results, while in §6 we summarize our conclusions. Throughout this paper we assume a Hubble constant of $`H_0=50\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ and a deceleration parameter of $`q_0=0.5`$.

## 2 Targets, Observations, and Data Screening

Our targets were selected to be among the X-ray brightest BLRGs, since the background in the RXTE instruments is rather high. They are listed in Table 1 along with their basic properties, namely the redshift, the inferred inclination of the radio jet (see Eracleous & Halpern 1998a and references therein), and two different estimates of the column density in the Galactic interstellar medium. The 2–10 keV fluxes are about a few $`\times 10^{11}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$, which makes the targets readily detectable by the RXTE instruments. The observations were carried out with the Proportional Counter Array (PCA; Jahoda et al. 1996) and the High-Energy X-Ray Timing Experiment (HEXTE; Rothschild et al. 1998) on RXTE. Three out of the four objects in our collection (3C 111, Pictor A, and 3C 382) were observed in the spring of 1997 as part of our own guest-observer programs. The fourth object (3C 120) was observed in 1998 February as part of a different program and the data were made public immediately. Although a fair number of observations of 3C 120 exist in the RXTE archive, only the above observation was a long, continuous observation suitable for our purposes. All other observations were intended to monitor the variability of this object; they consist of short snapshots spanning a long temporal baseline. Similarly, the only observations of 3C 390.3 available in the archive are also monitoring observations of this type. Therefore we have not included 3C 390.3 in our sample. A log of the observations is included in Table 2. All of the observations fall within PCA gain epoch 3.

The PCA data were screened to exclude events recorded when the pointing offset was greater than 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$02, when the Earth elevation angle was less than 10°, or when the electron rate was greater than 0.1. Events recorded within 30 minutes of passage though the South-Atlantic Anomaly were also excluded. After screening, time-averaged spectra were extracted by accumulating events recorded in the top layer of each Proportional Counter Unit (PCU) since these include about 90% of the source photons and only about 50% of the internal instrument background. In the case of 3C 111 and 3C 382 we extracted light curves and spectra from all five PCUs. In the case of 3C 120 and Pictor A, PCUs 3 and 4 were turned off part of the time, therefore the spectra from these two PCUs and PCUs 0, 1, and 2 were accumulated separately and then added together. Light curves corresponding to the energy range 3.6–11.6 keV (PCA channels 6–27), were also extracted for all objects and rectified over the time intervals when one or more of the PCUs were not turned on. The PCA background spectrum and light curve were determined using the `L7_240` model developed at the RXTE Guest-Observer Facility (GOF) and implemented by the program `pcabackest v.2.1b`. This model is appropriate for “faint” sources, i.e., those producing count rates less than 40 s-1 PCU-1. All of the above tasks were carried out using the `FTOOLS v.4.2` software package and with the help of the `rex` script provided by the RXTE GOF, which also produces response matrices and effective area curves appropriate for the time of the observation. The net exposure times after data screening, as well as the total source and background count rates, are given in Table 2.

The HEXTE data were also screened to exclude events recorded when the pointing offset was greater than 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$02, when the Earth elevation angle was less than 10°. The background in the two HEXTE clusters is measured during each observation by rocking the instrument slowly on and off source. Therefore, source and background photons are included in the same data set and are separated into source and background spectra according to the time they were recorded. After screening we extracted source and background spectra from each of the two HEXTE clusters and corrected them for the dead-time effect, which can be significant because of the high background rate. As with the PCA data, the HEXTE data were screened and reduced using the `FTOOLS v.4.2` software package. The exposure times and count rates in HEXTE/cluster 0 are given in Table 2 for reference. In Figure 1 we show the on-source and background spectra from the PCA and HEXTE/cluster 0, using 3C 111 as an example. This figure illustrates that the background makes the dominant contribution to the HEXTE count rate. In the case of the PCA, the background contributes approximately the same count rate as the source, and its relative contribution increases with energy. At energies above 30 keV the background dominates the count rate in the PCA.

## 3 Light Curves and Time Variability

In Figure 2 we show the light curves of the four targets. For each object we plot the net count rate (after background subtraction) as well as the the background count rate vs time, for reference. The mean background count rate is generally comparable to the net source count rate, although the background level varies dramatically over the course of an observation. A visual inspection of the object light curves shows no obviously significant variability. To quantify this result we searched the light curves for variability using two complementary methods:

1. We compared the variance (i.e., the r.m.s. dispersion about the mean) with the average uncertainty of points in the light curve. This method is sensitive to fluctuations in the count rate that exceed the noise level on time scales comparable to the width of the bins in the light curve (the bin width in the light curves of Figure 2 is 640 s). We found no large fluctuations in any of the light curves, save for two instances of poor background subtraction (in Pictor A and 3C 382). We have also computed the “excess variance”, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{rms}}^2`$, following Nandra et al. (1997a), with the following results: $`(3.1\pm 0.1)\times 10^4\mathrm{s}^2`$ for 3C 111, $`(1.23\pm 0.01)\times 10^3\mathrm{s}^2`$ for 3C 120, $`(8.3\pm 0.6)\times 10^4\mathrm{s}^2`$ for Pictor A, and $`(6.1\pm 0.4)\times 10^4\mathrm{s}^2`$ for 3C 382. Since their luminosities are $`L_\mathrm{x}`$(2–10 keV)$`10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$, these objects fall on the extrapolation of the $`\sigma _{\mathrm{rms}}^2`$$`L_\mathrm{x}`$ trend for Seyfert galaxies, found by Nandra et al. (1997a). It is noteworthy, however, that the excess variance is small enough at this luminosity that it is comparable to that of LINERs and other very low-luminosity AGNs (Ptak et al. 1998).
2. We fitted each light curve with a polynomial to find the lowest order that gives an acceptable fit. This method detects small, relatively slow variations in the light curve on time scales somewhat shorter than the length of the observations. We found that 3C 111, Pictor A, and 3C 382 show small secular variations on the order of a few percent relative to the mean while 3C 120 shows relatively slow variations with excursions of $`\pm 6`$% from the mean. For reference, we note that previous observations of 3C 120 with ASCA have shown it to be variable at the 20% level (Grandi et al. 1997).

The above results are not surprising since BLRGs are generally known not to be highly variable on short time scales, although they can vary substantially on time scales of several days (see for example the soft X-ray light curve of 3C 390.3 presented by Leighly & O’Brien 1997). We will return to the issue of variability in our later discussion of our overall findings.

## 4 Model Fits to the Observed Spectra

### 4.1 The Continuum Shape

The shape of the continuum was determined by fitting models to the observed spectra with the help of the `XSPEC v.10.0` software package (Arnaud 1996). We used PCA response matrices and effective area curves created specifically for the individual observations by the program `pcarsp v.2.37`, taking into account the evolution of the detector properties. All the spectra from individual PCUs were added together and the individual response matrices and effective area were combined accordingly. In fitting the HEXTE spectra we used the response matrices and effective area curves created on 1997 March 20. The spectra from the two HEXTE clusters were not combined. All spectra were rebinned so that each bin contained enough counts for the $`\chi ^2`$ test to be valid. The PCA spectra were truncated at low energies at 4 keV and at high energies at either 20 or 30 keV depending on the signal-to-noise ratio. In the case of the HEXTE spectra we retained the energy channels between 20 and 100 keV.

We compared the spectra with models consisting of a continuum component and a Gaussian line, modified by interstellar photoelectric absorption. We adopted the absorbing column densities measured by ASCA (listed in Table 1), which we held fixed throughout the fitting process. These column densities are comparable to or greater than the Galactic column densities inferred from H I 21 cm observations (see Table 1). The photoelectric absorption cross-sections used were those of Morrison & McCammon (1983). We tried three different models for the continuum shape: a simple power law, a broken power law, and a power law plus its Compton reflection from dense, neutral matter. The Compton reflection model is meant to describe the effects of Compton scattering of photons from an X-ray source associated with the inner parts of the accretion disk in the gas that makes up the disk proper (e.g., Lightman & White 1988; George & Fabian 1991). The spectrum of reflected X-rays was computed as a function of disk inclination using the transfer functions of Magdziarz & Zdziarski (1995)222The Compton reflection calculation is carried out by the pexrav+ model routine in XSPEC+. The free parameters of this model, in addition to the spectral index of the primary power law and the inclination angle of the disk, are the folding (i.e., upper cut-off) energy of the primary X-ray spectrum, the solid angle subtended by the disk to the central X-ray source, and the abundances of iron and other heavy elements. In our fits the inclination angles were constrained to lie within the limits inferred from the radio properties of each object (see Table 1), and the folding energy of the primary X-ray spectrum was constrained to be greater than 100 keV since all objects are detected by HEXTE up to that energy. The broken power law model is effectively a parameterization of the Compton reflection model: we included it in our suite of continuum models because it serves as an additional verification of the possible departure of the continuum shape from a simple power law. Although the broken power law and Compton reflection models have different shapes in detail, the difference is not discernible at the signal-to-noise ratio of the available HEXTE spectra.

The results of fitting the above models to the observed spectra are summarized in Table 3. The fits yield 2–10 keV unabsorbed fluxes for the target objects in the range 2–6$`\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 and corresponding luminosities in the range 1–5$`\times 10^{44}`$ erg s-1, as listed in Table 3. Spectra with models superposed, are shown in Figures 3 and 4. We find that the spectra of two objects, 3C 111 and Pictor A, are described quite well by a simple power law throughout the observed energy range (4–100 keV), as shown in Figure 3. A broken power law model produces a slightly better fit but the improvement is not statistically significant in view of the additional free parameters (the F-test gives chance improvement probabilities of 0.35 and 0.29 respectively). Similarly, the Compton reflection model does not produce a significantly improved fit either.333In fact, the Compton reflection fit results in a higher value of $`\chi ^2`$ than the broken power law, even though it has more free parameters. In the case of the other two objects, 3C 120 and 3C 382, we find that a simple power law does not provide an adequate description of the continuum shape (see Figure 3); a broken power law or a Compton reflection model is required by the data (the F-test gives chance improvement probabilities for the Compton reflection model of $`5\times 10^5`$ and $`5\times 10^3`$, respectively). Fits of power-law plus Compton reflection models to the spectra of these two objects are shown in Figure 4. Finally, we note that all of the BLRGs in our collection were also observed with SAX and detected at high energies up to 50 keV (Padovani et al. 1999; Grandi et al. 1999a,b). The SAX spectra yield very similar results to what we obtain here, namely very similar spectral indices and Compton reflection strengths.

We have explored the multidimensional space defined by the free parameters of the Compton reflection model to find the range of acceptable parameter values. We found that the folding energy of the primary X-ray spectrum is not constrained very well by the observed spectra. Thus our initial physical restriction of $`E_{\mathrm{fold}}>100`$ keV is the only constraint on the folding energy of the primary power-law spectrum. Only in the case of 3C 120 (the brightest object, with the longest exposure time) are we able to derive a somewhat better constraint from the data of $`E_{\mathrm{fold}}>300`$ keV. We are particularly interested in the solid angle subtended by the reflector to the primary X-ray source, which is a diagnostic of the geometry and structure of the accretion flow. This parameter determines the absolute strength of the reflected component. In practice, however, it is not straightforward to constrain the reflector solid angle because the inclination angle of the disk and the iron abundance affect the observed strength of this component, through projection and photoelectric absorption above the Fe K edge at 7.1 keV (see, for example, George & Fabian 1991; Reynolds, Fabian, & Inoue 1995), respectively. Moreover, the folding energy of the primary X-ray spectrum also affects the determination of the reflector solid angle because it controls the number of energetic photons available for Compton downscattering. We have, therefore, examined the effect of each of the above parameters on our derived values of the reflector solid angle by searching the inclination angle - solid angle ($`\mathrm{cos}i`$$`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi `$) plane for regions with acceptable fits for different assumed values of the folding energy and iron abundance. In other words, we have taken 2-dimensional slices of the 4-dimensional parameter space defined by the solid angle, inclination angle, folding energy, and iron abundance. In Figure 5 we show the 90% confidence contours in the $`\mathrm{cos}i`$$`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi `$ plane for a Solar iron abundance and three different assumed values of the folding energy ($`E_{\mathrm{fold}}=100`$, 300, and 600 keV). The same results are also summarized in Table 3. The strength of the Compton reflection component, as parameterized by $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi `$ is systematically lower than what is found in Seyferts observed with either Ginga or RXTE. In particular, we find that $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi 0.5`$, while in Seyferts $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi 0.8`$, with a dispersion of 0.2 (Nandra & Pounds 1994; see also Weaver, Krolik, & Pier 1998 and Lee et al. 1998, 1999 for results from RXTE observations). 3C 382 is the only case where the measured value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi `$ is consistent, within uncertainties, with what is found in Seyferts. Pictor A represents the opposite extreme where only an upper limit of $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi <0.3`$ can be obtained. In the case of 3C 111, the detection of a Compton reflection hump should be regarded as only marginal since (a) it is only detected at the 90% confidence level and is consistent with zero at the 99% confidence level for $`E_{\mathrm{fold}}=300,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}600}`$ keV, and (b) the probability of chance improvement of using the Compton-reflection model compared to the power-law model is 0.39 according to the F-test. In the case of 3C 111 and 3C 382 our results are consistent with what Nandra & Pounds (1994) and Woźniak et al. (1998) report based on Ginga observations. The iron abundance does not affect the above conclusions at all. We find that the confidence contours in the $`\mathrm{cos}i`$$`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi `$ plane are nearly identical for iron abundances ranging from one quarter to twice the Solar value. We illustrate this result in Figure 6 using 3C 111 as an example. This issue is relevant to the strength of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines whose measurements we report in the next section.

### 4.2 The Fe K$`\alpha `$ Line

To study the properties of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line we modeled its profile as a Gaussian of energy dispersion, $`\sigma `$, and intensity, $`I_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$. Because of the low energy resolution of the PCA, more sophisticated models for the line profile are not warranted. For each object we used the best-fitting continuum model and we ignored the HEXTE spectra since they do not extend to energies below 20 keV. After checking that the line centroid energies were consistent with the value for “cold” Fe, we fixed them to the nominal value based on the redshift of each object. We scanned the $`I_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$$`\sigma `$ plane for regions where the fit was acceptable, allowing the continuum parameters to vary freely. We found that variations in the continuum parameters were negligible throughout this plane, which we attribute to the fact that the continuum is well constrained over a wide range of energies. As a result the intensity of the line can be converted to an equivalent width ($`EW`$) via a simple scaling. We, therefore, present the outcome of the parameter search in the form of confidence contours in the $`EW`$$`FWHM`$444$`FWHM`$ is the full velocity width of the line at half maximum. plane, which we display in Figure 7. These results are also summarized in Table 3. The lines are unresolved in all cases, with upper limits on the $`FWHM`$ ranging from 44,000 to 70,000 km s-1 (at 90% confidence). The $`EW`$s range from 60 to 90 eV with uncertainties around 30–50% (at 90% confidence).

In the case of 3C 111 and Pictor A, the results obtained here are consistent with the results of ASCA and SAX observations in which the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line was either marginally detected (3C 111; Reynolds et al. 1998; Eracleous & Halpern 1998b) or not detected at all (Pictor A; Eracleous & Halpern 1998a; Padovani et al. 1999). In Figure 7 we overlay the ASCA upper limits on the RXTE confidence contours for reference. In the case of 3C 120 and 3C 382 there is a significant discrepancy between the parameters determined from the ASCA spectra and those we determine here: the lines appear to be much broader and much stronger in the ASCA spectra than in the RXTE spectra. In particular, Grandi et al. (1997) find that the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line of 3C 120 has $`FWHM=91,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`EW=380`$ eV while Reynolds (1997) finds that the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line of 3C 382 has $`FWHM=197,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`EW=950`$ eV. These velocity widths seem uncomfortably large, as pointed out by the authors themselves. In view of the jet inclination angles the line widths imply that some of the line-emitting gas moves faster than light. We suspect that the discrepancy is due to incorrect determination of the continuum in the ASCA spectra (see Woźniak et al. 1998 and the discussion by Sambruna et al. 1999). This may be related to the fact that the sensitivity of the ASCA SIS, the instrument most commonly used to measure the lines, is extremely low at $`E>8`$ keV. Another possible cause for this discrepancy is calibration uncertainties in the ASCA SIS below 1 keV, which affect the detection of a soft excess, hence the determination of the spectral index. In fact, Woźniak et al. (1998) find that if the continuum in the ASCA spectra of 3C 120 and 3C 382 is modeled as a broken power law (to account for a soft soft excess) the measured $`FWHM`$ and $`EW`$ of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line become considerably smaller and consistent with our findings. It also noteworthy, however, that Woźniak et al. (1998) have almost certainly underestimated the $`EW`$ of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line of 3C 120 since they assumed the line to be unresolved. We have also been investigating the cause of this discrepancy through simultaneous ASCA and RXTE observations of 3C 382, the results of which we will report in a forthcoming paper.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 Comparison With Seyfert 1 Galaxies

To search for systematic differences between BLRGs and Seyfert 1 galaxies, we compare the X-ray spectral properties of the two classes of objects using the results of our observations. In particular we compare the photon indices, the strength of the Compton reflection hump (parameterized by $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi `$), and the $`EW`$ of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line. We use the collection of Seyfert galaxies observed with Ginga (Nandra & Pounds 1994) as a comparison sample since the Ginga LAC has a broad enough bandpass to allow a measurement of the Compton reflection hump. We also use the collection of Seyfert galaxies observed by ASCA (Nandra et al. 1997b) as an additional comparison sample for the $`EW`$ of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line since the uncertainties in the determination of the $`EW`$ from the Ginga spectra are relatively large. In Figure 8 we show the distribution of the above parameters (spectral index, $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi `$, and Fe K$`\alpha `$ $`EW`$) among Seyfert 1 galaxies with the values for the 4 BLRGs observed by RXTE superposed as filled bins for comparison. A visual inspection of the histograms shows that the spectral indices of BLRGs and Seyfert 1s are fairly similar but the Compton reflection humps and Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines of BLRGs are considerably weaker than those of Seyfert 1s. Application of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test shows that the distributions of Compton-reflection strengths and Fe K$`\alpha `$ $`EW`$s are indeed significantly different between Seyferts and BLRGs (chance probabilities of 2% for the former and 4% for the latter; if the ASCA $`EW`$ measurements are used instead of the Ginga measurements, the chance probability is 3%). In the case of the spectral indices the KS test gives a 41% probability that the spectral indices of Seyferts and BLRGs were drawn from the same parent population. Sambruna et al. (1999) reach a similar conclusion based on the larger sample of BLRGs observed by ASCA. To investigate whether the weakness of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines of BLRGs is a consequence of the X-ray Baldwin effect (Nandra et al. 1997c) we also plot the BLRGs observed by RXTE in the $`EW`$-$`L_\mathrm{X}`$ diagram shown in Figure 9. This figure shows clearly that the BLRGs have weaker lines than Seyfert 1s of comparable X-ray luminosity, supporting the outcome of the KS test presented above. These results are in agreement with the conclusions of Woźniak et al. (1998) and Sambruna et al. (1999), who found that radio-loud AGNs in general, and BLRGs in particular have weaker Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines and Compton reflection humps than their radio-quiet counterparts. They are also supported by the results of SAX observations by Padovani et al. (1999) and Grandi et al. (1998,1999). This raises the question of the origin of the observed differences, which we discuss below.

### 5.2 Interpretation

Possible causes of the systematic differences between radio-loud and radio-quiet AGNs were discussed by Woźniak et al. (1998) and by Eracleous & Halpern (1998a). Woźniak et al. (1998) favored a scenario in which the Fe K$`\alpha `$ is produced in the obscuring torus invoked in the unification schemes for type 1 and type 2 AGNs. A column density in the reprocessing medium of $`N_\mathrm{H}10^{23}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ was found to reproduce the equivalent width of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line. In this picture the reflection hump is still due to Compton scattering in the accretion disk. However the continuum is postulated to to be beamed away from the disk so that the illumination of the disk is ineffective with the result that Compton reflection and line emission from the disk made a relatively small contribution to the observed spectrum of BLRGs. Eracleous & Halpern (1998a) concluded that there were two equally viable explanations for the weakness of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line in the ASCA spectra of Pictor A and 3C 111: either the iron abundance in BLRGs is low (it need only be lower by a factor of 2 compared to Seyferts), or the solid angle subtended by the reprocessor to the primary X-ray source is about a factor of 2 smaller in BLRGs than in Seyferts. Another possibility worth examining is that the disks of BLRGs are in a higher ionization state than those of Seyfert galaxies. In such a case, photons emerging from the disk will be Compton scattered by electrons in the ionized skin of the disk, with the result that both the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line and the Fe K edge are smeared out (Ross, Fabian, & Brandt 1996; Ross, Fabian, & Young 1999) and appear weaker. Finally, we mention one more possible explanation: X-rays with a featureless spectrum from the jets of BLRGs “dilute” the X-ray spectrum from the central engine, which is otherwise similar to that of Seyferts. This possibility was dismissed by both Woźniak et al. (1998) and by Eracleous & Halpern (1998a), but we re-examine it here in the light of the latest observational results. We evaluate the merits and applicability of these scenarios below.

1. Continuum beamed away from the accretion disk resulting in weak Fe K$`\alpha `$ emission and Compton reflection from it; additional Fe K$`\alpha `$ emission from obscuring torus: This explanation requires mild beaming by a sub-relativistic outflow, so that the X-ray beam has an opening angle that is just right to illuminate the obscuring torus effectively, while it it illuminates the accretion disk only “mildly” so that the strength of the Compton reflection hump from the disk is suppressed. This scenario suffers from the following drawbacks, which make it untenable:

1. It is contrary to observational evidence showing that the jets of BLRGs are highly relativistic. In particular, such jets are thought to have bulk Lorentz factors of $`\gamma =(1\beta ^2)^{1/2}10`$ (Padovani & Urry 1992; Ghisellini et al. 1993, 1998), which implies that their emission is tightly focused in a cone of opening angle $`\psi 1/\gamma 6^{}`$. This means that neither the accretion disk nor the obscuring torus can be illuminated by the primary X-ray source, if this is associated with a jet. Postulating that the X-ray continuum is beamed away from the disk without being associated with the jet is an ad hoc solution with no clear physical foundation. In fact, Reynolds & Fabian (1997) consider beaming of the X-ray continuum produced in a disk corona and conclude that the beamed emission is directed in large part towards the disk. The result is that the $`EW`$ of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line is enhanced.
    2. If the accretion disk is responsible for producing a Compton reflection hump, then it should also be producing Fe K$`\alpha `$ emission, which should be added to the emission from the obscuring torus. If this were the case, the Fe K$`\alpha `$ $`EW`$ should have been disproportionately large compared to the strength of the Compton reflection hump, since it would include contributions from two different sources. The observations, however, show that both the strength of the Compton reflection hump and the $`EW`$ of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line are weaker by about the same factor compared to Seyfert galaxies.
    3. Part of the motivation of Woźniak et al. (1998) for associating the source of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line with the obscuring torus was their claimed lack of correlated variations of the continuum and line intensities in 3C 390.3. This conclusion is not justified by their data, however, because of the large uncertainties in the line intensity: a factor of 2 at 68% confidence (see their Figure 7). Since the continuum variations span a range of a factor of 2, it is next to impossible to find correlated variations in the line intensities when the error bars are as large as they are.

Independently of the above arguments, this interpretation can be tested observationally using the profiles of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines. If the lines are produced in the accretion disk, their profiles should be considerably broader than if they are produced in the obscuring torus, with very distinct asymmetries caused by Doppler and gravitational redshift.
2. Low Iron Abundance: A low iron abundance would have a very clear observational consequence: it would make the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines weaker but at the same time it would make the Compton reflection humps stronger by reducing the opacity above the Fe K edge (George & Fabian 1991; Reynolds, Fabian, & Inoue 1995). The RXTE spectra presented here contradict this interpretation since both the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines and the Compton reflection humps are weak. We have specifically tested the hypothesis that the iron abundance is low with negative results (see §4.1 and Figure 6). Based on these findings we conclude that a low iron abundance is not a viable interpretation.
3. Small solid angle subtended by the reprocessor to the primary X-ray source: The weakness of both the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line and the Compton reflection hump can be explained if the reprocessing medium subtends a relatively small solid angle to the primary X-ray source. In the case of Seyfert galaxies, the primary X-ray source is thought to make up a hot corona overlaying the disk proper, which serves as the reprocessor. In such a picture the reprocessor covers half the sky as seen from the primary X-ray source, i.e., the solid angle is $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi =1`$, in reasonable agreement with the observed X-ray spectra of Seyfert galaxies. In the case of BLRGs, on the other hand, the RXTE spectra indicate that $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi 0.5`$. This can be explained in a picture where the primary X-ray source is a quasi-spherical ion torus (or ADAF) occupying the inner disk and the reprocessor is the geometrically thin, optically thick outer disk. The solid angle subtended by the outer disk to the ion torus is $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi <0.5`$ on geometrical grounds (Chen & Halpern 1989; Zdziarski, Lubiński & Smith 1999), in agreement with our findings. This is our preferred interpretation over all the others we consider here and has the following additional attractive features: (a) the association of ion tori with BLRGs is appealing because these structures offer a way of producing radio jets as we have mentioned in §1, and (b) such an accretion disk structure also explains the double-peaked profiles of the Balmer lines in some of these objects (Pictor A, 3C 382, and 3C 390.3; Chen & Halpern 1989; Eracleous & Halpern 1994; Halpern & Eracleous 1994). The profiles of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines offer a way of testing this scenario further: if the lines do indeed originate in the outer parts of the accretion disk at radii $`R100R_\mathrm{g}`$ (where $`R_\mathrm{g}GM/c^2`$ is the gravitational radius, with $`M`$ the mass of the black hole), then their profiles should be narrower than those observed in Seyfert galaxies, although still skewed, asymmetric, and possibly double-peaked.
4. Smearing by Compton scattering in an ionized accretion disk: If the disk is photoionized so that the ionization parameter reaches values of $`\xi >10^4`$, photons emerging from the disk will be Compton scattered by hot electrons in the disk atmosphere. This process will smear out of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line and the Compton reflection and make them appear weaker (see Ross et al. 1996, 1999). We consider this an unlikely explanation for our results because the observed spectra lack the distinct signature of this process. Namely, at $`\xi >10^3`$, the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines is considerably broadened by Compton scattering while at $`\xi >10^4`$, the line centroid shifts to energies greater than 6.7 keV because most of the iron atoms are highly ionized. Neither of these effects is observed in either the RXTE PCA spectra presented here or in published ASCA spectra.
5. Dilution of the X-ray spectrum of the central engine by beamed emission from the jet: At first glance this is a plausible interpretation since a flux from the jet comparable to the flux from the central engine would provide the necessary dilution. This hypothesis does not withstand close scrutiny, however, for the following reasons: (a) as shown by Woźniak et al. (1998) the spectra of BLRGs cannot be described as the sum of two power-law components, which should have been possible if they included comparable contributions from the jet and the central engine, (b) the light curves of our targets (§3 and Figure 2) do not show a great deal of variability on time scales up to a few days, contrary to what is observed in blazars; 3C 120 shows the largest variability amplitude, consistent with the small inclination angle of the jet to the line of sight (Table 1), which make the contribution of the jet to the observed X-ray emission rather significant, (c) the X-ray spectral indices of BLRGs are systematically different from those of blazars, which are typically around 1.4 to 1.5 (Kubo et al. 1998), and (d) 3C 120 is the object where dilution of the observed spectrum by emission from the jet is expected to be most severe because of the very small inclination angle; nevertheless both an Fe K$`\alpha `$ line and a Compton reflection hump are detected, when they should have been undetectable.

## 6 Conclusions and Future Prospects

Our study of the hard X-ray spectra of 4 BLRGs observed with RXTE has shown them to be systematically different from those of Seyfert galaxies. In particular, the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines and Compton reflection humps in the spectra of BLRGs are at least a factor of 2 weaker than those observed in the spectra of Seyfert galaxies. This result is consistent with the conclusions of previous studies and is supported by the results of SAX observations of the same targets. After examining several possible explanations for this difference, we conclude that the most likely one is that the solid angle subtended by the source of these spectral features to the primary X-ray source is a factor of 2 smaller in BLRGs than in Seyferts. Since this reprocessing medium is thought to be the accretion disk, we interpret this difference as the result of a difference in the accretion disk structure between BLRGs and Seyferts. More specifically, we argue that if the inner accretion disks of BLRGs have the form of an ion-supported torus (or an ADAF) that irradiates the outer disk, then the observed differences can be explained. We find this explanation particularly appealing because ADAFs offer a possible way of producing the radio jets in these objects and because such a disk structure can also account for the double-peaked Balmer line profiles observed in these objects.

This interpretation, as well as some of the other scenarios we have considered, can be tested further by studying the profiles of of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines. Unfortunately, such a test has not been possible so far using spectra from ASCA, because of their low signal-to-noise ratio. It will be possible, however, to carry out the test using spectra from upcoming observatories such as XMM and Astro-E. Correlated variations of the intensity of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line and the strength of the X-ray continuum afford an additional observational test of these ideas. The light travel time between the ion torus and the outer accretion disk is $`\tau _{\mathrm{}}1.7(R/300R_\mathrm{g})(M/10^8M_{})`$ days, which means that one may expect lags of this order between line and continuum variations. If, on the other hand, the line is produced very close to the center of the disk, the lags should be considerably shorter, while if the line is produced in the obscuring torus, the lags should be on the order of several years. Monitoring campaigns with RXTE may provide the data needed for such a test.

We are grateful to Karen Leighly and Niel Brandt for useful discussions and we thank the anonymous referee for thoughtful comments. This work was supported by NASA through grants NAG5–7733 and NAG5–8369. During the early stages of this project M.E. was based at the University of California, Berkeley, and was supported by a Hubble Fellowship (grant HF-01068.01-94A from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under contract NAS 5–2655). R.M.S. also acknowledges support from NASA contract NAS–38252.