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# Intrinsic and Cosmological Signatures in Gamma-Ray Burst Time Profiles: Time Dilation

## 1 Introduction

Many of the signatures of the cosmological time dilation and the radiation mechanisms of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are hidden in the temporal and spectral characteristics of GRBs. The subject of this paper is the analysis of the temporal properties of the bursts, and the correlations between intensities and timescales. We use the BATSE Time-to-Spill (TTS) data, which can give much higher time resolution than other forms of BATSE data for most bursts. The advantages and shortcomings of this data, our decomposition of the time profiles into pulses, and the evolution of burst characteristics are described in greater detail in the accompanying paper Lee et al. (2000). What follows is a brief summary. (See also Lee et al. (1996, 1998); Lee (2000).)

Many burst time profiles appear to be composed of a series of discrete, often overlapping, pulses, often with a *fast rise, exponential decay* (FRED) shape (Norris et al., 1996b). The different pulses may represent emission from distinct subevents within the gamma-ray burst source. Therefore, it may be useful to decompose burst time profiles in terms of individual pulses, each of which rises from background to a maximum and then decays back to background levels. We have analyzed gamma-ray burst time profiles by representing them in terms of a finite number of pulses, each of which is described by a small number of parameters.

We have used the phenomological pulse model of Norris et al. (1996b) to decompose gamma-ray burst time profiles into distinct pulses. In this model, each pulse is described by five parameters with the functional form

$$I(t)=A\mathrm{exp}\left(\left|\frac{tt_{\text{max}}}{\sigma _{r,d}}\right|^\nu \right),$$
(1)
where $`t_{\text{max}}`$ is the time at which the pulse attains its maximum, $`\sigma _r`$ and $`\sigma _d`$ are the rise and decay times, respectively, $`A`$ is the pulse amplitude, and $`\nu `$ (the “peakedness”) gives the sharpness or smoothness of the pulse at its peak.

We have developed an interactive pulse-fitting program to perform this pulse decomposition on the BATSE TTS data. and used this program to fit pulses to all gamma-ray bursts in the BATSE 3B catalog (Meegan et al., 1996) up to trigger number 2000 in all of the four BATSE LAD energy channels for which TTS data is available and shows time variation beyond the normal Poisson noise for the background. We fit each channel of each burst separately. We have obtained 574 fits for 211 bursts, with a total of 2465 pulses.

In this paper, we focus on the possibility of distinguishing between intrinsic signatures in the temporal characteristics and those which arise from their cosmological distribution. A prominent example of this is the cosmological time dilation effect, which we expect to see since some, and possibly all, gamma-ray bursts originate at cosmological distances.

All timescales in GRBs will be lengthened by a factor of $`1+z`$ where $`z`$ is the redshift of the burst, as a result of cosmological time dilation (Paczyński, 1992; Piran, 1992). However, this seemingly straightforward test is not simple. First of all, given the great diversity in burst time profiles, it is difficult to decide which timescale is most appropriate for this test. It seems unlikely that any particular timescale is approximately the same in all bursts, so we expect to find time dilation as a statistical effect, rather than for individual bursts.

Secondly, redshifts are known only for a few bursts, so that for the vast majority of bursts we need to use another measure of distance or redshift. Most past analyses have used some measure of apparent GRB brightness for this purpose with the tacit assumption that the corresponding intrinsic brightness is a standard candle or has a very narrow distribution.

The observed apparent brightnesses of bursts are generally measured using either peak fluxes, which give the instantaneous intensity of bursts when they peak, or fluences, which measure the total output of bursts integrated over their entire durations. The brightness measures can also be divided another way, into photon measures and energy measures. Thus, there are several different measures of the apparent brightnesses of bursts. The BATSE burst catalogs give peak photon fluxes and total energy fluences for bursts. The pulse-fitting data presented here can be used to determine count fluxes and count fluences. Most previous work on the evidence for time dilation in burst time profiles has binned the bursts into two or three brightness classes using the peak flux as a measure of brightness, and compared a measure of total burst duration these classes. Use of fluence as a brightness measure has been promoted by Petrosian & Lee (1996a) and Lloyd & Petrosian (1999).

In this paper, we use a number of different timescale and brightness measures. We will describe their correlations using power laws. Although cosmological models generally predict more complex relationships than a simple power law, it would be fruitless to attempt to fit anything more complex than a power law using the pulse-fitting data, which appears to have a large intrinsic scatter. To contrast the cosmological versus the intrinsic signatures, we compare the relations or correlations between strengths and timescales among bursts, which should contain the signatures of cosmological time dilations, with the same correlations among pulses of individual bursts, which can only contain the intrinsic effects. It is likely that some of these correlations are affected by selection effects in our fitting procedures. To investigate the importance of these, we have carried out extensive simulations which are described in the accompanying paper Lee et al. (2000). We use the results of these simulations to test whether or not the correlations we find are properties of the bursts or are products of our procedures. In the next section, we define the various timescales and burst strengths used in this analysis. The correlations relevant to the “time dilation” tests are discussed in Section 3 and the correlations between other quantities within bursts and among bursts are described in Section 4. In Section 5 we discuss the significance of these correlations.

It should be noted that many of the simulated bursts were affected by a truncation that almost never occurred in the actual BATSE TTS data. The TTS data is truncated at $`2^{20}`$ counts or 240 seconds, whichever occurs first. In nearly all of the actual bursts, the 240 second limit is reached first, while in many of the the simulated bursts, the $`2^{20}`$ count limit is reached first. This truncation can shorten the observed time intervals between the first and last pulses in a burst, and between the two highest amplitude pulses in a burst, but not the observed pulse widths or the observed time intervals between consecutive pulses. *Therefore, all discussions of the first two kinds of time intervals in simulated bursts will only consider simulated bursts where no pulses were truncated by the $`2^{20}`$ count limit.*

## 2 Timescales and Intensities

We now describe the characteristics used in our correlation studies and the selection and procedural biases associated with each of them.

### 2.1 Intensities

We use peak count rates and count fluences as measures of burst intensity or strength. For individual pulses, the peak count rate is given by the amplitude $`A`$ and the count fluence by

$$=A_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}I(t)𝑑t=A\frac{\sigma _r+\sigma _d}{\nu }\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1}{\nu }\right).$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the gamma function. For a burst, on the other hand, the peak count rate is $`A_{\text{max}}`$, the largest amplitude of the pulses in the burst, and the total count fluence is $`=_i`$, summed over all pulses.

### 2.2 Time Intervals Between Pulses

The most obvious timescale for individual pulses is the *pulse width*, which is given by

$$T_f=A(\sigma _r+\sigma _d)(\mathrm{ln}f)^{\frac{1}{\nu }}.$$
(3)
where $`f`$ is the fraction of the peak height at which the width is measured. and $`\nu `$ is the “peakedness” parameter. In this paper, we use the case $`f=1/2`$, for which the width is the full width at half maximum (FWHM). We will discuss the correlations between pulse width and intensity measures in the next section. Here we consider some other timescales, namely the *time intervals between pulses*, which may also be characteristic of the gamma-ray production mechanisms. There are several possible choices of time intervals. We’ll examine the *intervals between consecutive pulses* first, which may have the following selection effect: Two pulses with short separations between their peaks may have a large overlap, and thus be identified as only one pulse. This will limit the shortest interval between pulses, introducing a selection bias. On the other hand, when two pulses have a long separation between them, additional smaller pulses may be resolved between them that wouldn’t be resolved if the separation were smaller. This will limit the the longest intervals between consecutive pulses, introducing another selection bias.

Figure 1 shows the distributions of the intervals between the peak times $`t_{\text{max}}`$ of adjacent pulses for the simulations and the fits to simulations. It shows that the fitting procedure identifies pulses with longer separations correctly, but misses most pulses with shorter separations.

Figure 2 shows the time intervals between consecutive pulses for bursts with different numbers of pulses, as derived from our fits to the BATSE data and from the simulations. Note that here and in similar figures to follow, we show only data from channels 2 and 3. In general, channels 1 and 4 show similar behavior, but results from these channels have lower significance because these channels contain fewer pulses. Table 1, columns (a) gives the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients $`r_s`$ between these two quantities, and the probabilities that the observed correlations have occured by chance. These show that pulses tend to be closer together in bursts with more pulses, in both the actual bursts, and in the simulated bursts and in the fits to simulated bursts. One selection effect that may contribute to this result in actual bursts is that more complex bursts may simply be bursts with stronger signal-to-noise ratios, which allows more pulses to be resolved within any given time interval. Our analysis of the simulated bursts and the fits to the simulations show similar results. this result is as expected, since pulse peak times were generated independently of each other and of the number of pulses per burst, so more complex bursts will tend to have more pulses in any given time interval. The correlation is weaker for the fits to simulated bursts than for the original simulated bursts because the fitting procedure tends to miss pulses with shorter separations.

Another time interval, *the interval between the peak times of the first and last pulses* in a burst, might be expected to give a good measure of the *total duration* of the burst. However, the determination of this interval can be greatly affected by whether or not low amplitude pulses can be identified above background. This is essentially the same effect as the sensitivity of the $`T_{90}`$ interval to the signal-to-noise ratios of bursts (Norris, 1996; Lee & Petrosian, 1997).

Figure 3 and columns (b) of Table 1 compare the number of pulses in each burst with the time interval between the first and last pulses in each burst. They show that the time intervals between the first and last pulse are greater in bursts with more pulses, both in actual bursts, and in simulated bursts and fits to simulated bursts. In actual bursts, this may result from the selection effect described above; more complex bursts may simply have stronger signal-to-noise ratios, making it easier to identify earlier and later pulses. In the simulated bursts and the fits to simulated bursts, this is also as expected since the peak times of pulses were generated independently of the number of pulses in each burst.

A third time interval, the interval *between the peak times of the two highest amplitude pulses* in a burst, may also represent a characteristic time scale for the entire burst. Determination of this interval should be less affected by the selection effects that we have seen with the intervals between consecutive pulses. However, the identification of the two highest pulses may be affected by whether a particular structure in a burst is identified as a single pulse with large amplitude or as multiple overlapping pulses with smaller amplitudes. The interval between the two highest amplitude pulses should be less influenced by the selection effects in the fitting procedure that affect the interval between the first and last pulses in a burst.

Figure 4 and Table 1, columns (c) show the correlations between the number of pulses in each burst and the time intervals between the two highest amplitude pulses in each burst, both for actual bursts, and for simulated bursts and fits to simulated bursts. It appears that unlike the first two time intervals described above, there is no tendency for the third time interval to be shorter or longer in bursts with more pulses. This suggests that the interval between the two highest pulses in each fit isn’t subject to the signal-to-noise selection effects that affect both the intervals between adjacent pulses and the interval between the first and last pulse in each burst.

The upshot of the above analysis is that the correlations between time intervals and numbers of pulses per burst (or complexity) in the simulated bursts is similar to that of the actual BATSE data, indicating that the simulated data provides a good representation of these aspects of the actual data, and can be used to determine the biases in the data and in the fitting procedure.

## 3 Time Dilation

We now consider the correlations between timescales and intensities among pulses within bursts and among the bursts to determine the presence of time dilation or time stretching and to test if this is due to cosmological redshift of the sources.

### 3.1 Peak Luminosity as a Standard Candle

If we assume that the peak luminosities of bursts are approximately a standard candle, then the correlations between pulse amplitudes and timescales can be used to test time dilation. This corresponds to the amplitudes of the constituent pulses in bursts. It has previously been found that higher amplitude pulses have shorter durations (are narrower), (Davis et al., 1994; Norris et al., 1994; Davis, 1995), but it has been noted that this could be in part or entirely an intrinsic property of bursters. (Norris et al., 1998). A potential problem with using peak flux as a distance measure for bursts observed by BATSE is that data binned to 64 ms have been typically used, so that the peak fluxes of bursts with sharp spikes may be underestimated. (See Lee & Petrosian (1997).) This should be less of a problem with the variable time resolution TTS data, where the time resolution is inversely proportional to the count rate and every spill represents the same number of counts. The pulse-fitting data from actual BATSE bursts shown in the upper panels of Figure 5 clearly shows that higher amplitude pulses tend to be narrower, or have shorter durations. Table 2 gives the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients, which show that pulse amplitudes and pulse widths are inversely correlated in all energy channels. The table also gives fitted power laws for pulse amplitude as a function of pulse width. These were obtained by applying the ordinary least squares (OLS) bisector linear regression algorithm (Isobe et al., 1990; Lee, 2000).

The lower panels of Figure 5 shows the pulse amplitudes versus pulse width for all pulses in all simulated bursts combined, for the initial simulations and for the fits to the simulations. The fitting procedure tends to miss lower amplitude pulses, but doesn’t appear to have strong selection effects in pulse width. However, the fitting procedure introduces an anticorrelation between pulse amplitudes and pulse widths, as shown in the last two rows of Table 2. By design, there is no correlation between pulse width and pulse amplitude in the initial simulation, but there is a negative correlation between pulse width and pulse amplitude in the fits to the simulations. However this correlation appear to be weaker and have far less statistical significance than in the fits to actual BATSE bursts.

It is difficult to draw concrete conclusions from the correlations in the combined set of pulses. To distinguish cosmological from intrinsic correlations, we should compare the correlations among bursts and among pulses within individual bursts.

### 3.2 Cosmological Effects

For testing the first type of correlation, we use the peak fluxes of each of the bursts, *i.e.*, the amplitudes of the highest amplitude pulses, and the widths of the same pulses. These data and their analysis (shown in Figure 6 and columns (a) of Table 3) shows a strong inverse correlation between peak pulse amplitude and pulse width in the actual BATSE bursts, but not in the simulated bursts or the fits to the simulated bursts. This suggests that the correlations observed in the fits to actual bursts observed by BATSE are not caused by selection effects in the fitting procedure, so they may arise from cosmological time dilation, intrinsic properties of the bursters, or selection effects arising from the BATSE triggering criteria.

### 3.3 Intrinsic Effects

A more unambiguous test of the second type of correlation, intrinsic correlations, can come from analysis of pulse widths and amplitudes of pulses within bursts, because correlations between pulse characteristics within bursts cannot be affected by the distances to the sources, and are less likely to be affected by selection effects due to the triggering process. To this end, we have carried out linear least squares fits to the logarithms of the pulse amplitudes and widths in all actual BATSE bursts, and simulated bursts (before and after fitting) which contain more than one pulse. The results are shown in Table 4, which gives the numbers and fractions of fits that show inverse correlations as determined from the Spearman coefficients, and the probabilities that this would occur by chance if there was no actual correlation, using the binomial distribution. It also gives the distributions of power-law indices (slopes), which we denote as $`\alpha `$, in four bins: $`\alpha <1`$, $`1<\alpha <0`$, $`0<\alpha <1`$, and $`\alpha >1`$. (For these bins, the results are identical for three different linear regression methods that are symmetric in the two variables being compared. See Isobe et al. (1990); Lee (2000).) The last column of Table 4 gives the median power law index from the OLS bisector method. For all energy channels, a significant majority of fits show inverse correlations between pulse widths and pulse amplitudes *within* bursts. When we examine the actual BATSE bursts for which the rank correlations have the greatest statistical significance, shown in the upper panels of Figure 7, we find that the vast majority of these show inverse correlations between pulse widths and pulse amplitudes; in the bursts where the correlations are positive, the correlations also tend to be less statistically significant. The pulse amplitudes most often vary as a small negative power of the pulse width. The power law indices are significantly different from those relating pulse amplitude to pulse width for the highest amplitude pulses in each burst (Petrosian et al., 1999). Ramirez-Ruiz & Fenimore (1999) found similar results for the sample of 28 complex bursts fitted by Norris et al. (1996b). As noted by those authors, this anticorrelation could be consistent with internal shock models of GRBs.

Because of the possible far-reaching effects of this result, it is important to ensure that this is not due to a selection or analysis bias. Our simulations can to some degree answer this question. Table 4 also shows that there are no correlations amplitude and pulse width within the simulated bursts. In the fits to the simulations, however, more bursts show a negative correlation between pulse amplitude and pulse width than show a positive correlation. This asymmetry appears to be as large as it is for the fits to actual BATSE data, which would suggest that the observed tendency for higher amplitude pulses within bursts to be narrower arises largely from a selection effect in the pulse-fitting procedure. However, when we compare the fits to actual and simulated bursts for which the rank correlations have the greatest statistical significance, shown in the lower panels of Figure 7, we find a different result. In the simulated data, in the bursts with correlations between pulse widths and pulse amplitudes with higher statistical significance, the fraction that have positive correlations between pulse widths and pulse amplitudes is similar to that in bursts where the rank correlations have weaker statistical significance; the asymmetry doesn’t depend on the statistical significance of the correlations. This is unlike the fits to actual bursts, where almost all of the bursts with the most statistically significant correlations show a negative slope (Petrosian et al., 1999). Therefore, the observed inverse correlations between pulse widths and pulse amplitudes within actual bursts appear to arise in part from intrinsic properties of the sources.

However, some caution is necessary in the interpretation of these results. This is because we find correlations between the errors in the fitted pulse parameters by comparing the parameters used in the simulations with those obtained from the fits to the simulations. For simulated bursts consisting of a single pulse in both the original simulation and in the fit, the identification of pulses between the simulation and the fit is unambiguous and unaffected by the effects of missing pulses. Figure 8 shows that the errors in the fitted pulse amplitudes and the fitted pulse widths tend to have an inverse correlation; when the fitted amplitude is larger than the original amplitude, the fitted width tends to be smaller than the original width, and vice versa. The same effect also appears when we compare the highest amplitude pulses from all bursts, or all pulses matched between the simulations and the fits to the simulations. This selection effect may cause weak inverse correlations between pulse amplitude and pulse width within fits to actual or simulated bursts, so it may be another reason why a large majority of both actual BATSE bursts and fits to simulated bursts show an inverse correlation between pulse amplitude and pulse width within the bursts, as found here and by Ramirez-Ruiz & Fenimore (1999). *However, we conclude that the evidence for intrinsic correlation between pulse amplitude and width is weak and requires further study. Therefore, caution should be exercised in the interpretation of this result, in particular in using it as evidence against the external shock model.*

### 3.4 Other Timescales

Cosmological time dilation must affect all timescales within bursts, not only pulse widths. Some of these timescales may provide a more robust test of cosmological time dilation. This is because use of a pulse width as a burst duration is subject to the following uncertainty. Because of the spectral shift due to cosmological redshift, for the dimmer, hence more distant, bursts, BATSE will be detecting higher energy rest frame photons. gamma-rays were originally produced at higher energies but had redshifted to lower energies when they were detected. Since both burst durations (Fenimore et al., 1995) and pulses (Lee et al., 2000) tend to be shorter at higher energies, this would weaken the correlations between amplitude and width due to time dilation.

We have seen earlier that the *intervals between the peak times* of the two highest amplitude pulses in each burst do not appear to increase or decrease with energy, so that cosmological redshift of photon energies should not affect these intervals. As shown in the upper panels of Figure 9 and columns (b) of Table 3, these intervals also show a significant inverse correlation with the amplitudes of the highest amplitude pulses in the actual bursts, so they are shorter for brighter bursts.

Such a trend does not seem to be present in the fits to the simulated data, and is not present in the initial simulated data by design (See Figure 9, lower panels, and bottom two rows of Table 3, columns (b).) The distributions are very similar for the simulated bursts and for the fits to the simulations, although the fits to simulations tend to miss points when both the peak amplitudes and the intervals between the two highest amplitude pulses are small. Therefore, it appears that the correlations observed in the fits to actual bursts observed by BATSE are not caused by selection effects in the fitting procedure, but may arise from cosmological time dilation or from intrinsic properties of the bursts. An early study of time dilation using the intervals between pulses found inconsistent results (Neubauer & Schaefer, 1996), but a number for later studies have found evidence of time dilation (Norris et al., 1996a; Deng & Schaefer, 1998a, b) consistent with our results.

To see if some kind of correlation is present among pulses within bursts, we compare pulse amplitudes with time intervals between pulses within bursts as follows: For each burst time profile consisting of three or more pulses, we order the individual pulses by decreasing pulse amplitude. Then we look for correlations between the amplitude of each pulse and the absolute value of the intervals between it and the pulse with the next lower amplitude. The results are shown in Table 5. There appears to be a more frequent occurrence of inverse correlations than positive correlations between pulse amplitudes and intervals between pulses within bursts in the BATSE data, but this is statistically insignificant in all energy channels except possibly channel 1. This table also shows that the fitting procedure does not introduce any significant bias.

Finally, it should also be noted that the fitted power law indices for highest pulse amplitude versus width of the highest amplitude pulse are smaller than -1, which is inconsistent with purely cosmological effects. For a given variation in the highest pulse amplitude, the corresponding variation in pulse width is too great to be accounted for by only cosmological time dilation. We have also seen that within individual bursts, higher amplitude pulses have a strong tendency to be narrower, which must result from intrinsic properties of the GRB sources themselves. It seems likely that the observed correlation between the highest pulse amplitude and the width of the highest pulses in each burst could result from a combination of cosmological and non-cosmological effects.

One of the possible intrinsic effects that could contribute to the inverse correlations of pulse widths with pulse amplitudes is that the total energy in a burst, or within individual pulses, might tend to fall within a limited range, or might have an upper limit. This would be the case if, for example, the fluence of a burst were a better measure of distance than the peak flux. In the next section, we repeat the above tests using the fluence instead of peak flux as a measure of the strengths of bursts and pulses.

On the other hand, the power law indices for highest pulse amplitude versus the time interval between the peaks of the two highest pulses in each burst may be consistent with the expected results of cosmological time dilation alone. Furthermore, it seems likely that this correlation is less affected by intrinsic properties of bursters or by selection effects than the correlation between the highest pulse amplitude and the width of the same pulse in each burst. For example, if the range of radiated energy in entire bursts or in individual pulses, were limited by the production mechanism, or by selection effects, this would be far less likely to affect intervals between pulses than to affect pulse widths.

### 3.5 Integrated Luminosity as a Standard Candle

Petrosian & Lee (1996a) have suggested that the integrated luminosities of bursts, measured using either energies or photons, are likely to be better standard candles than their peak luminosities. This would be the case if the total energy output of bursters fall in a narrow range of values, and much of the variation in flux results from the broad range of burst durations. Petrosian & Lee (1996b); Lee & Petrosian (1997) have also found that the energy fluences of bursts and their durations show a positive correlation, which is the opposite of what cosmological time dilation should cause. In what follows we carry out similar tests for bursts and for pulses within individual bursts. We shall see that the count fluences of bursts and pulse widths show a positive correlation, while the count fluences of bursts and time intervals between pulses show no correlation, and neither of these effects can arise from cosmological effects. However, determining the significance of some of these correlations is difficult because the simulated bursts were generated with no correlations between pulse width and pulse amplitude, and therefore have a positive correlation between pulse width and pulse count fluence.

In Figure 10, we show that the pulse widths of the highest amplitude pulses have positive correlations with the total count fluences of each fit that appear to be significant in all energy channels except perhaps in channel 3. (See also Table 6, columns (a).) The positive correlation appears somewhat stronger in the fits to simulations than in the simulations. As mentioned above, this makes the interpretation of this result difficult.

Correlations between pulse width and pulse count fluence *within* bursts do not appear to have been studied before. In Table 7, we show the distribution and some moments of the power law index $`\beta `$, which is obtained from linear fits to the logarithms of the fluence and widths of pulses in individual bursts. As evident, a significant majority of fits in all energy channels and in the simulations show strong positive correlations between pulse width and pulse count fluence within individual bursts. (See Table 7 and the upper panels of Figure 11.) Pulse count fluences most often vary as a large positive power of the pulse width. (Because more bursts have $`|\beta |>1`$ than $`|\beta |<1`$, taking the median of the reciprocal of $`\beta `$ is more appropriate.)

The last two rows of Table 7 and the lower panels of Figure 11 show that the correlations in the fits to simulations are similar, though somewhat weaker in the original simulations, so that the observed correlation for the BATSE bursts is probably not a result of the fitting procedure.

Figure 12 shows that there are no significant correlations between the errors in the fitted count fluences and the fitted pulse widths for simulated bursts consisting of a single pulse in both the simulation and the fit. Therefore, the uncorrelated errors in the pulse count fluences and pulse widths would tend to smear out any existing correlations rather than to create correlations, which is what we have seen above.

The relation between the total count fluence and time interval between the two highest amplitude pulses in the actual and simulated bursts are shown in Figure 13 and columns (b) of Table 6.) The two quantities have positive correlations in all energy channels in the actual BATSE bursts, as determined from the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients. However, the correlation is statistically insignificant in all channels, except perhaps in channel 3.

The distributions of the total burst count fluence versus *the intervals between the peak times* of the two highest amplitude pulses in each burst are very similar for the simulated bursts and for the fits to the simulations, although the fits to simulations tend to miss points when the intervals between the two highest amplitude pulses are small. However, columns (b) of Table 6 show no significant correlation for either the simulations or the fits to the simulations. This indicates that any correlation that may be present in the BATSE bursts is intrinsic to the radiative process.

We can also compare the count fluences of individual pulses with the time intervals between pulses within bursts. The results, shown in Table 8, show no statistically significant correlations between these two quantities. The simulations and fits to simulations also show no statistically significant correlations.

In summary, all correlations between *pulse* count fluences and pulse widths are positive, and probably result from the simple fact that pulses of longer duration tend to contain more counts. The correlation between total *burst* count fluence and the width of the highest amplitude pulse in each burst is probably a result of this correlation and the fact that the majority of the total count fluence of a burst is often contained in a single pulse. The cosmological effects have been overwhelmed by other effects.

It is not clear why there appears to be no correlation between total burst count fluence and the interval between the two highest pulses in each burst. One possibility is that most of the observed bursts are sufficiently far away that the count fluence varies very little with luminosity distance. However, this would place many bursts at redshifts of $`z>10`$, which seems unlikely given current evidence.

## 4 Other Correlations

### 4.1 Correlations Between Flux and Fluence

Since the count fluence of a pulse scales as the product of its amplitude and its width, and a factor involving the peakedness $`\nu `$, or equivalently, since the amplitude of a pulse scales as its count fluence divided by its width, again with a factor involving $`\nu `$, various selection effects could cause observed pulse amplitudes and widths to have an inverse correlation or cause observed pulse count fluences and widths to have a positive correlation.

Figure 14 and Table 9 show that there are no strong correlations between the amplitudes of the highest amplitudes pulses and the total count fluences of the BATSE bursts, in any energy channel. This result is somewhat unexpected, because even in the absence of cosmological effects, we would expect both peak flux and total fluence to scale approximately as the inverse square of the luminosity distance to the sources (the effects of the time dilation factor $`1+z`$ are much smaller), and hence to have a positive correlation with each other. The results from our simulations are not helpful because the simulated bursts were also generated with a strong positive correlation between pulse amplitude and pulse count fluence. It appears that selection effects in the pulse-fitting procedure tend to weaken these positive correlations, shown in the last two rows of Table 9, when we compare the simulations with the fits to the simulations. The absence of correlation in the actual bursts may indicate that the intrinsic range of the *effective durations*, *i.e.* the total fluences divided by the peak fluxes (Lee & Petrosian, 1997), is large enough to smear out distance effects expected in the distribution of fluences and peak fluxes. It also suggests that if one of the two brightness measures is a good indicator of distance, then the other cannot be, probably due to selection effects, or due to cosmological evolution of the sources.

However, when we consider the relation for pulses within individual bursts, we find that a significant majority of bursts in all energy channels show a positive correlation between pulse count fluence and amplitude within bursts. (See Table 10.) In every energy channel, the majority of bursts have pulse amplitudes varying as a small positive power $`\gamma `$ of the pulse count fluence within bursts. Most simulated bursts, as expected, show a positive correlation between pulse amplitude and pulse count fluence, but in the fits to the simulations, fewer bursts show a positive correlation. Therefore, the actual correlation in the BATSE bursts may have been weakened by selection effects in the pulse-fitting procedure.

Figure 15 shows an apparent positive correlation between the errors in the fitted pulse amplitudes and fitted count fluences for simulated bursts consisting of a single pulse in both the simulation and the fit. However, the Spearman rank-correlation coefficient shows no significant correlation between the two sets of errors. Therefore, the uncorrelated errors in the pulse amplitudes and pulse count fluences would tend to smear out any existing correlations rather than to create correlations, which is what we have seen above.

### 4.2 Correlations Between Pulse Amplitude and Pulse Asymmetry

It has been reported that when considering the averaged time profiles of bursts, the decay times from the peaks of bursts show an inverse correlation with peak flux, while the rise times to the peaks of bursts show a smaller inverse correlation or no variation at all with peak flux (Stern et al., 1997b, a; Litvak et al., 1998; Stern et al., 1999). Such a result could not come from cosmological time dilation, but would have to be caused by the burst production mechanism itself, or by some selection effect, perhaps resulting from the BATSE trigger criteria, which selects for fast-rising bursts (Higdon & Lingenfelter, 1996), but is independent of burst decay times. It is possible that a similar effect could appear in the individual pulses comprising a burst, as a *positive* correlation between pulse amplitudes and pulse asymmetries as measured by the rise time to decay time ratios. Although there may be selection effects in the pulse-fitting procedure, most of these should affect both rise and decay times similarly, and therefore shouldn’t affect pulse asymmetry ratios.

For bursts consisting of a single pulse, the pulse rise and decay times are of course the rise and decay times for the entire burst. Figure 16 shows pulse asymmetries versus pulse amplitudes for these bursts. There does not seem to be any clear correlations in the actual BATSE bursts, but the range of pulse asymmetry ratios appear to be broader for lower amplitude bursts than for higher amplitude bursts. The latter effect could result from the lower signal-to-noise of lower amplitude pulses. The Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients shown in Table 11, columns (a), comparing pulse amplitudes and pulse asymmetries of single-pulse bursts essentially confirm this impression; the correlations for the actual BATSE bursts are very weak, and have different signs in the different energy channels. In the simulated bursts, there are clearly no correlations in either the initial simulations or in the fits to the simulations.

Although the properties of individual pulses in multiple-pulse bursts may be different from those of the entire bursts, it may still be useful to look for correlations between pulse amplitude and asymmetry for individual pulses in multiple-pulse bursts. For the highest amplitude pulses from each burst, plots of pulse asymmetry versus pulse amplitude are shown in Figure 17, which again show that pulse asymmetries span a larger range of values at lower amplitudes in the actual BATSE bursts. The Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients given in Table 11, columns (b), show a marginally significant inverse correlations in energy channels 1 and 3, a strong inverse correlation in channel 2, and no correlation in channel 4. Again, the simulated bursts show no correlation at all.

Finally, we consider correlations between the amplitudes and asymmetries of pulses within bursts. Table 12 shows characteristics of the distributions of the power law indices $`\delta `$ obtained from fits to these quantities. There do not appear to be statistically significant correlations, except possibly in channel 3.

In summary, there is no clear evidence of any correlations between pulse amplitudes and pulse asymmetry, so that the variations of pulse rise and decay time with pulse amplitude don’t appear to be significantly different.

## 5 Summary and Discussion

In this paper, we use a pulse-fitting procedure to the TTS data from BATSE and determine the amplitudes, rise and decay times, and fluences. We investigate the correlations between all of these parameters of pulses in individual bursts and among different bursts. The former gives a measure of correlations intrinsic to the energy and radiation generation in burst sources, while the latter are also affected by cosmological effects. Simulations are used to determine the biases of the pulse-fitting procedure.

If the peak luminosities of pulses or bursts are approximate standard candles, so that the peak fluxes would be good measures of distance, then we expect to find negative correlations between fluxes and timescales. We do find inverse correlations between the highest pulse amplitude within a burst and two different timescales, the width of the highest amplitude pulse and the time interval between the two highest amplitude pulses. The former correlation, between pulse amplitude and pulse width, which is expected from cosmological time dilation effects, is nevertheless not consistent with purely cosmological effects, but must be at least partially influenced by non-cosmological effects. These non-cosmological effects may include intrinsic properties of the burst sources, or selection effects due to the BATSE triggering procedure, but do not appear to be affected by the pulse-fitting procedure. Our study indicates that the latter correlation, between pulse amplitude and time intervals between pulses, may be less influenced by non-cosmological effects. The inverse correlation observed between pulse amplitude and pulse width within bursts results in part from selection effects in the pulse-fitting procedure, but also appears to result in part from intrinsic properties of the burst sources.

If the total radiated energies of bursts are approximate standard candles, so that the burst fluences would be good measures of distance, then we expect to find negative correlations between fluences and timescales. We find instead a *positive* correlation between the total burst count fluence and the width of the highest amplitude pulse, but no correlation with the time interval between the two highest amplitude pulses. The former correlation indicates that non-cosmological effects are stronger than any cosmological effects. This is supported by the positive correlation between pulse amplitude and pulse count fluence within bursts. However, it is not clear why total burst count fluence and time intervals between pulses show no correlation.

It is natural to expect that the peak flux of bursts and the total count fluence of bursts should both decrease essentially the same way (except for a factor of $`1+z`$) as the distance to the burst sources increase. This would suggest that there should be positive correlations between the peak flux of bursts and the total count fluence of bursts. Strangely, the highest pulse amplitude and the total count fluence of bursts appear to have no statistically significant correlation with each other, implying that the two measures of brightness cannot both be good standard candles; at least one, or more probably both, are poor measures of distance.

There do not appear to be any statistically significant correlations between pulse amplitude and pulse asymmetry, whether the comparison is i) of all pulses in all bursts combined, ii) of only the highest pulse in each burst, iii) of only the single-pulse bursts, or iv) of different pulses within multiple-pulse bursts. This implies that the differences between the variations of pulse rise and decay time with pulse amplitude are statistically insignificant, and both rise times and decay times tend to decrease as pulse amplitude increases.

We thank Jeffrey Scargle and Jay Norris for many useful discussions. This work was supported in part by Department of Energy contract DE–AC03–76SF00515.


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# Hadronization in the Chromodielectric Model

## 1 Introduction

Quantumchromodynamics (QCD) is the widely accepted theory to describe strong interactions between hadrons. This theory shows the well-known behavior of *asymptotic freedom*. Furthermore, lattice calculation show a phase transition from the hadronic world to a system of free moving quarks and gluons, the Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP). Heavy–ion experiments at CERN-SPS, at recently started BNL-RHIC and at the yet to come CERN-LHC with energies of $`\sqrt{s}=20,200,5500`$ A GeV respectively are designed to study the eventually formed QGP. But still there is lack of a dynamical description of both the transitions from hadrons to quarks and gluons and vice versa, derived from first principles from QCD. In this talk I present a classical, molecular-dynamical model, which contains explicitly the phenomenon of confinement and a dynamical mechanism for the formation of hadrons out of large system of quarks and gluons.

## 2 The chromodielectric model (CDM)

We start with the Lagrange–density originally invented by Friedberg and Lee  and intensively studied by several followers .

$``$ $`=`$ $`\overline{q}(i\gamma _\mu D^\mu m)q\frac{1}{4}\kappa (\sigma )F_{\mu \nu }^aF^{\mu \nu a}`$ (1)
$`+(_\mu \sigma )(^\mu \sigma )U(\sigma ).`$
The first term describes quarks, where $`q`$ is a Dirac spinor with color–, spinor– and flavor–indices being suppressed and $`m`$ is a mass–matrix for the different quark–flavor. $`D^\mu =^\mu +igA^\mu `$ is the covariant derivative, describing the minimal coupling to the gauge fields $`A^\mu =\frac{\lambda ^a}{2}A^{\mu a}`$ with coupling constant $`g`$ and $`\lambda ^a,a=1\mathrm{}8`$, being the Gell–Mann matrices.

The second term is the kinetic term for the gauge field in a medium, mediated via a dielectric function $`\kappa (\sigma )`$. The color field tensor is given by $`F_{\mu \nu }^a=_\mu A_\nu ^a_\nu A_\mu ^agf^{abc}A_\mu ^bA_\nu ^c`$, where the $`f^{abc}`$ are the structure constants of SU(3)c and one has $`\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }^aF^{\mu \nu a}=\frac{1}{2}(\stackrel{}{E}^a\stackrel{}{E}^a\stackrel{}{B}^a\stackrel{}{B}^a)`$. $`\stackrel{}{E}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{B}`$ are the color–electric and –magnetic fields.

The last two terms introduce a scalar field $`\sigma `$ with a quartic scalar potential $`U(\sigma )`$. This scalar field is designed to mimic the long-range behavior of non-perturbative QCD and is therefore purely classical. It acts like a medium as in classical electrodynamics but with a dielectric constant $`\kappa (\sigma )<1`$ . The potential $`U(\sigma )`$ is adjusted to have a global minimum at the vacuum expectation value (VEV) $`\sigma =\sigma _v`$ and a local minimum at $`\sigma =0`$. In the absence of color–fields, the scalar field takes on its VEV everywhere.

### 2.1 Confinement mechanism

The mechanism of confinement in the CDM is based on an interplay of the color–fields and the $`\sigma `$–field via the dielectric function $`\kappa (\sigma )`$ and the scalar potential which are shown schematically in fig. 2. From the Lagrangian (1) one gets the equations of motion for the color–field.

$`[D_\mu ,\kappa (\sigma )F^{\mu \nu }]`$ $`=`$ $`j^\nu ,`$ (2)
where $`j^\nu =g\overline{q}\gamma ^\nu \lambda ^aq\lambda ^a/2`$ is the color–current of the quarks.111Note that this current is not conserved, due to the color–carrying gluons. In an Abelian approximation the equations for the color–fields reduce to the usual Maxwell–equations $`_\mu (\kappa (\sigma )F^{\mu \nu a})=j^{\nu a}`$. The crucial point of the model is the choice of $`\kappa (\sigma )`$, which is supposed to contain all non–Abelian effects. It is unity in the absence of the $`\sigma `$–field and it vanishes when the scalar field takes on its VEV $`\sigma _v`$. If one considers a color–charge–distribution $`\rho `$ with vanishing total color projections (in the Abelian directions 3 and 8), which we call a white cluster, a color–field is produced due to the Gauss–law $`\stackrel{}{}(\kappa (\sigma )\stackrel{}{E}^a)=\rho ^a`$. The field is only allowed where $`\kappa (\sigma )>0`$ ($`\sigma <\sigma _v`$). To suppress the scalar field costs an energy $`U(0)=B`$, and the vacuum exerts a pressure on the color–field. If the transition from $`\kappa =1`$ to $`\kappa =0`$ is a rapid one, then one is left with a well defined spatial region, where the scalar field nearly vanishes and the color field is non–zero. All color–field–lines start and end on charges inside this volume and therefore there are no Van-der-Waals–like interactions to other white clusters except for very short-ranged $`\sigma `$-effects. For that reason, if eventually two white subclusters form inside the cluster, they can separate from each other.

In addition, if the charge–distribution has a non-vanishing total charge, the field–energy deposited in this configuration is divergent, i. e. those configuration cannot be created.

### 2.2 Model equations

As the confinement mechanism in our model depends solely on the specific choice of the dielectric function $`\kappa (\sigma )`$ and the scalar potential $`U(\sigma )`$, we can neglect the spin–dependences in the quark–Lagrangian. Instead we replace it with a Lagrangian for classical, spinless charged particles that are coupled to the classical color–field.

$`_p`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}m_k\sqrt{1\dot{\stackrel{}{x}}_k}\rho _N(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}_k)j^{\mu a}A_\mu ^a`$ (3)
$`j^{\mu a}`$ $`=`$ $`g{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}q_k^au_k^\mu \rho _N(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}_k)`$ (4)
with the color–charge $`q_k^a`$ and the 4–velocity $`u_k^\mu `$. In our numerical realization we deal with extended particles with a fixed Gaussian distribution

$$\rho _N(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}_k)=\left(2\pi r_0^2\right)^{3/2}e^{(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}_k)^2/(2r_0^2)},$$
(5)
where $`\sqrt{<\stackrel{}{x}^2>}=\sqrt{3}r_0=0.7`$fm is chosen to fit the radius of the nucleon.

The color–current (4) is consistent with the originally derived equations of motion (2) only in an Abelian sub–group of SU(3)c. This is related to the fact, that the gluons in QCD carry color as well, whereas the color–current carried by the gluons vanishes in the Abelian approximation .

To further simplify the numerical realization we neglect the magnetic fields $`\stackrel{}{B}^a`$. This is exact for static problems and for string like yoyo–excitations . The two decoupled sets of Maxwell–equations reduce basically to the Gauss–law for each field. To summarize we now have the following equations of motion for the particles, the (electric) color–field and the $`\sigma `$–field

$`\dot{\stackrel{}{x}}_k`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{p}_k}{E_k}}`$ (6)
$`\dot{\stackrel{}{p}}_k`$ $`=`$ $`q_k^a{\displaystyle d^3x\left(\stackrel{}{}\varphi ^a(\stackrel{}{x})\right)\rho _N(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}_k)}`$ (7)
$`\stackrel{}{}\left(\kappa (\sigma )\stackrel{}{}\varphi ^a(\stackrel{}{x})\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\rho ^a(\stackrel{}{x})`$ (8)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{^2\sigma }{t^2}}+U^{}(\sigma )`$ $`=`$ $`^2\sigma +\frac{1}{2}\kappa ^{}(\sigma )\left(\stackrel{}{}\varphi ^a(\stackrel{}{x})\right)\left(\stackrel{}{}\varphi ^a(\stackrel{}{x})\right),`$ (9)
where the prime denotes differentiation with respect to $`\sigma `$ and $`\varphi ^a(\stackrel{}{x})`$ is the electric potential which satisfies $`\stackrel{}{E}^a=\stackrel{}{}\varphi ^a(\stackrel{}{x})`$, $`a\{3,8\}`$. We choose for the scalar potential $`U(\sigma )=B+a\sigma ^2+b\sigma ^3+c\sigma ^4`$ with $`B=(150\text{MeV})^4`$, $`a=(489.9\text{MeV})^2`$, $`b=15901\text{MeV}`$, $`c=163.1`$ and for the VEV $`\sigma _v=61.1\text{MeV}`$. The dielectric function is $`\kappa (\sigma )=\left(\mathrm{exp}\left(\alpha (\frac{\sigma }{\sigma _v}\beta )\right)+1\right)^1`$, where $`\alpha =7`$ and $`\beta =0.4`$. The coupling constant is chosen to reproduce the string–tension in an $`q\overline{q}`$–configuration and takes on the value $`\alpha _S=g/(4\pi )=2`$.

### 2.3 Classification of particles

In QCD the quarks and gluons are represented as triplet– and octet–states of SU(3)c respectively. In our classical simulation we assign classical charges $`q^a`$ to the quarks. These charges are the diagonal entries of the $`\lambda ^a,a3,8`$. Due to our approximation we neglect the non–Abelian part of the color–fields. Instead we treat these 6 gluon–fields as particles in the same formalism as the quarks except that these particle–gluons carry both a color and an anti-color. The corresponding charges for quarks, anti-quarks and gluons are depicted in fig. 2. E.g. the particle $`r`$ in that scheme is a quark of color *red* and color–charges 1 and $`1/\sqrt{3}`$ with respect to the 3– and the 8–field respectively.

As we have mentioned in section 2.1, the dynamics of our model forces the charged particles into white clusters and the separation into white subclusters is allowed. We regard as hadrons only white clusters which cannot be divided into smaller ones. It turns out, that there is only a finite set of those *irreducible white Clusters* (IWC). The IWCs consist either of a quark and an anti-quark or of three quarks (anti-quarks), both with some gluon admixture, or they consist only of gluons and can therefore easily be interpreted as mesons, baryons and glue-balls respectively.

For the particle masses we use constituent quark masses to fit the low–lying hadronic spectrum. As our model does not depend on isospin, we treat the $`u`$– and the $`d`$–quark as degenerate particles with the same mass. Only the light pion, which is assumed to be a Goldstone–boson of chiral symmetry breaking, does not fit in our constituent-mass–scheme and thus we do not incorporate pions in our model. The quark masses are fixed to be $`m_{u,d}=400`$MeV, $`m_s=550`$MeV and $`m_c=1500`$MeV. Thus the masses of the lowest hadronic states are simply the sum of the quark masses of the IWC. For the gluons we take a mass $`m_g=700`$MeV to reproduce the lightest glueball-mass of 1400MeV.

## 3 Hadronization

To simulate the hadronization out of a QGP, we start with an ensemble of quarks and massive gluons, distributed homogeneously in a sphere of radius $`R=4`$fm in real space and according to a Boltzmann–distribution with initial temperature $`T_0=160`$MeV in momemtum–space. The relative number of different particles is given through the distribution $`N_id_i\mathrm{exp}\left(m_i/T_0\right)\left(\frac{m_iT_0}{2\pi }\right)^{3/2}`$, where $`d_i`$ is a (spin, isospin and color) degeneration factor. The colors are chosen randomly with the constraint of overall color–neutrality. After solving the Gauss–law for the color–fields in the first time step the system is driven by the equations of motion (6). Due to the initial momenta the particles tend to leave the system but are bound due to the formation of color–strings. In this way the particles are reorganized to form in a first step white clusters and finally only IWCs. This scenario is shown in fig. 3. The hadrons have invariant masses $`M_{\text{iwc}}^2=E^2+\stackrel{}{P}^2`$ with particle energies $`E_i`$ and momenta $`\stackrel{}{p_i}`$

$`E`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}E_i+{\displaystyle d^3x\left(\frac{1}{2}\dot{\sigma }^2+\frac{1}{2}(\stackrel{}{}\sigma )^2+U(\sigma )+\frac{1}{2}\kappa (\sigma )\stackrel{}{E}^a\stackrel{}{E}^a\right)}`$ (10)
$`\stackrel{}{P}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\stackrel{}{p}_i{\displaystyle d^3x\dot{\sigma }\stackrel{}{}\sigma }.`$ (11)
The resulting mass distribution is shown in fig. 4. The curves are fits to a Hagedorn distribution $`dn/dmm^{a+3/2}\mathrm{exp}(m(1/T1/T_h))`$ and to an inverse power–law–distribution $`dn/dmm^\tau `$. If we assume $`T_h=160`$MeV and $`a=3`$ or $`a=3/2`$ in the Hagedorn case, we get a hadronic temperature $`T=146`$MeV and $`T=125`$MeV respectively.


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# Ideally Efficient Irreversible Molecular Gears

## Abstract

Typical man-made locomotive devices use reversible gears, as cranks, for transforming reciprocating motion into directed one. Such gears are holonomic and have the transduction efficiency of unity. On the other hand, a typical gear of molecular motors is a ratchet rectifier, which is irreversible. We discuss what properties of rectifier mostly influence the transduction efficiency and show that an apliance which locks under backwards force can achieve the energetic efficiency of unity, without approaching reversibility. A prototype device based on ratchet principle is discussed.

PACS No:  05.40.-a; 05.70.Ln; 87.10.+e

Man-made engines powering our cars, trains and ships, and molecular motors powering cells and subcell units are energy transducer designed to transform chemical energy, stored in form of fuel and oxygen, into mechanical work. Both can be considered as consisting of the working unit(s) and of a gear. A gear is used in order to transform the oscillatory motion of a piston (or a kinesin molecule) $`x(t)`$ into a continuous directed motion $`X(t)vt`$, or into continuous rotation $`\phi (t)\omega t`$. A typical gear used for technical applications is a crank-and-shaft mechanism. This gear is reversible, since the continuous rotation of the crank’s axle causes the oscillatory piston’s motion. The relation between $`x`$ and $`\phi `$ corresponds to a periodic, locally invertible function. The transformation of oscillations into directed motion implies symmetry breaking, determining the direction of motion. Cranks use spontaneous symmetry breaking: here both rotation directions are possible; the actual one is determined by initial conditions. The onset of motion is hard: too small oscillations can not be transformed into a continuous rotation. Moreover, the holonomic nature of gearing transformation implies synchronization of working units, if several of them are used. Molecular motors, on the other hand, use rectifiers (such as a ratchet-and-pawl system) in which the spatial symmetry is lacking from the very beginning. Rectifiers are irreversible gears, as clearly illustrated by usual electric appliance: A diode rectifier transforms an alternating current into direct one, but, being fed with a direct current, it does not produce an alternating one, but only heat. Rectification has significant advantages compared to holonomic gearing. Thus, the soft onset of the motion allows for easy control at small velocities, and the asynchronous mode of operation is of great virtue in nanoscale cellular systems, since the synchronization of molecular-level reaction events (having stochastic, Poissonian character) is a problematic task. This property is often referred to as the ability to rectify noise .

The quality of a gear can be characterized by its energetic efficiency, i.e. by a quotient between the input energy and useful work performed, so that the question of energetics of gearing got recently much attention  within different theoretical frameworks. The energetic efficiency of a holonomic gear is unity, and the Second law of thermodynamics implies that the energetic efficiency of any other isothermal gear can not exceed this limit. On the other hand, typical efficiencies of prototype ratchets (as a rocked system of Refs.  transporting particles against constant outer potential due to the work of additive oscillating field) in quasistatic regime (guaranteeing the no-loss condition for typical thermodynamic appliances, Ref.) are so poor, that one wonders, why didn’t the Nature look for anther mechanism to do the work. The exception is one of the systems (”system b”)) discussed in Ref. which is essentially a synchronized, quasiequilibrium motor. In what follows we analyze in detail the thermodynamics of rectification and show that prototypical ratchet devices lack an important property of effective rectifiers, namely the backward locking (known from the common experience with the macroscopic ratchet-and-pawl mechanism). As we proceed to show, an ideal rectifier can perform as good as a crank, and moreover a minor variation of a simple ratchet rectifier can produce a gear whose performance is not too far from the ideal one.

Let us discuss the work produced by an isothermal system under changes of outer conditions. The mean energy of the system is given by $`E=_ie_ip_i`$, where $`e_i`$ is the energy of a (micro)state $`i`$ and $`p_i`$ is a corresponding probability (occupation number). The energy change is then given by

$$dE=\underset{i}{}de_ip_i+\underset{i}{}e_idp_i.$$
(1)
In quasiequilibrium Eq.(1) corresponds to the form $`dE=\delta A+\delta Q`$ of the First Law of thermodynamics. Out of equilibrium, the first term still corresponds to the work of outer forces, but the second one shows some new, typically nonequilibrium, aspects.

Let us discuss a case when $`i`$ can be parametrized by continuous phase space coordinates $`𝐫=(𝐱,\dot{𝐱})`$. In an overdamped situation (typical for biological systems) the kinetic degrees of freedom decouple from spatial ones, $`p(𝐫)=p(𝐱)p(\dot{𝐱})`$, with$`p(\dot{𝐱})`$ being equilibrium Maxwell distribution, see Ref. . Thus we can fully concentrate on the coordinate space of the system. The energy changes due to the redistribution of occupation probabilities during time $`dt`$ can be expressed as:

$$\underset{i}{}e_idp_i=dt_Ve(𝐫)\frac{dp(𝐫)}{dt}𝑑𝐫=dt\left[_V𝐣(𝐱)gra𝑑U(𝐱)𝑑V_{dV}U(𝐱)𝐣(𝐱)𝑑\sigma \right]$$
(2)
where the continuity equation $`dp(𝐱)/dt+div𝐣(𝐱)=0`$ in coordinate space is used. Here $`d\sigma `$ denotes the surface element of the system’s outer boundary. The first term represents the heat absorbed from the bath per unit time and is equal to the Joule heat taken with an opposite sign. The second, surface term describes the work (produced within the system’s volume) of the currents, which are generated outside of the system. The energy balance in the system reads: $`dE/dt=P_F+P_I+q,`$ where $`P_F`$ is the power of outer forces, $`P_I`$ is the power of outer currents, and $`q`$ is the heat absorbed by a system from the heat bath per unit time. For a device acting periodically or under stochastic force with zero mean $`\overline{dE/dt}=0`$, so that $`\overline{P_F}+\overline{P_I}+\overline{q}=0`$. Depending on the particular arrangement, the input work and the useful work of a gear can be differently distributed between $`P_F`$ and $`P_I`$. On the other hand the mean heat is always dissipated, $`\overline{q}<0.`$

As an example let us consider a typical electrical arrangement consisting of an outer a.c. source of voltage $`U_F(t)`$, of a rectifier, and of an accumulator (maintaining a constant voltage $`\mathrm{\Delta }U`$) switched in series, see the insert in Fig.1. If a thermodynamic appliance achieves ideal efficiency, it typically achieves it in quasistatic regime, since a finite-velocity mode of operation is inevitably connected with losses, Ref.. Confining ourselves to a quasistatic situation, we can describe a rectifier by a Volt-Amper characteristics (load-current characteristic, LCC) $`I(t)=I(U(t))`$: The state of the whole system is characterized by the current $`I(t)`$ being the function of $`U`$, the potential difference at the rectifier. The useful work (charging the battery) is produced by the outer currents flowing against the batterie’s voltage, so that its value per unit time is $`P=P_I=\mathrm{\Delta }UI(t)`$, and the Joule heat $`Q=q=U(t)I(t)`$ is uselessly dissipated. The energy balance discussed before corresponds to a Kirchhoff’s law $`U(t)=U_F(t)+\mathrm{\Delta }U`$. The efficiency of a rectifying device is given by: $`\eta =\overline{P}/\overline{P_F}=\overline{P}/(\overline{P}+\overline{Q})`$. Hence,

$$\eta =\overline{I(t)}\mathrm{\Delta }U/\overline{I(t)U_F(t)}.$$
(3)
Note that Eq.(3) is valid for any one-dimensional rectifying device where the energy input takes place through the work of the outer forces, the useful work is produced against the constant field (by pumping particles uphill) and the Joule heat is dissipated, cf. Refs. . We get:

$$\eta =\overline{I(\mathrm{\Delta }U+U_F(t))}\mathrm{\Delta }U/\overline{I(\mathrm{\Delta }U+U_F(t))U_F(t)}$$
(4)
Applying Eq.(4) to a system rectifying sinusoidal outer field $`U_F(t)=U_0\mathrm{sin}\omega t`$ one gets after the change of variable $`x=\mathrm{sin}\omega t`$:

$$\eta =\frac{_1^1𝑑x\xi I\left(U_0(x+\xi )\right)/\sqrt{1x^2}}{_1^1𝑑xxI\left(U_0(x+\xi )\right)/\sqrt{1x^2}},$$
(5)
where $`\xi =\mathrm{\Delta }U/U_0`$. In order to understand what property of the system is important for achieving high efficiencies let us discuss a hypothetical appliance with a piecewise-linear LCC

$$I(U)=\{\begin{array}{cc}g_+U\hfill & \text{for }U>0\hfill \\ g_{}U\hfill & \text{for }U<0\hfill \end{array},$$
(6)
for which Eq.(5) can easily be evaluated analytically. The behavior of $`\eta `$ for $`U_0=0`$ as a function of the outer potential $`\mathrm{\Delta }U`$ is shown in Fig.1 for different values of the backward conductivity $`g_{}`$. The larger is the backward resistance, the larger maximal efficiency is achieved. For $`g_{}0`$ the maximal efficiency of a gear tends to 1, and is attained for $`\mathrm{\Delta }U=U_0`$. In this case the rectifier is always switched in its backward direction (locked) so that the stalling case is essentially a no-current one. Thus, if for an irreversible mode of operation, the stalling condition corresponds to vanishing of the currents, the losses are suppressed and the ideal efficiency is reached. This finding can be compared with the results of Ref., where the Carnot efficiency is achieved by a heat engine built of the two ideal diode rectifiers at different temperatures.

Let us now turn to another question: how to build an appliance based on a ratchet principle, whose efficiency tends to unity under idealized conditions. We confine ourselves to a quasistatically operating systems as only candidates for potentially ideal performance. The rocked one-dimensional ratchet performs badly, because its nonlinearity is too weak. The LCC of a ratchet rectifier can be obtained by using an adiabatic solution, Refs. , and leads to practically linear behavior at larger voltages of both signs, showing thus no locking behavior. As we have seen, locking is important for achieving high efficiencies. We also note that the phase space of a genuine ratchet-and-pawl appliance (showing locking) is at least two-dimensional .

Many typical ratchet appliances, discussed in the literature, can be considered as special cases of a generic two-dimensional ratchet model with two impenetrable saw-tooth boundaries in a homogeneous outer field (see Fig.1a) which we call an oblique rectifier. Standard one-dimensional models correspond to the case when only a narrow current channel between the boundaries is present. The system works as a rocked ratchet if only the $`x`$component of the field oscillates, and as a flashing appliance when only the $`y`$-component changes. The weakness of corresponding nonlinearities is connected with the fact that the number of the particles in a current channel does not depend on the field. On the other hand, the system with broad channel in an oblique field can reach very high efficiencies due to locking.

Note that an oblique rectifier in homogeneous outer field $`𝐅`$ can be described by a LCC: In homogeneous field one has $`Q=\mathrm{𝐣𝐅}𝑑V=𝐅𝐣𝑑y𝑑x`$. Due to conservation $`𝐣𝑑y=I`$ so that $`Q=I𝐅𝑑x=IU`$, where $`U`$ is the potential difference between the leftmost and the rightmost cross-sections of system. On the other hand, $`P=I\mathrm{\Delta }U`$ per definition.

In what follows we don’t attempt to discuss in detail the LCC of a generic oblique appliance, and present only a qualitative discussion. In an oblique field the appliance can effectively be considered as consisting of the effective current channel and the trapping pockets. Fig.2b) shows a cartoon corresponding to this strongly simplified picture. The current flowing through the channel is proportional to the $`x`$-component of the outer field $`F`$ and to the concentration $`n(F)`$ of particles in the channel, $`I=\mu SFn(F)`$. Here $`S`$ is the channel’s cross-section and $`\mu `$ is the particles’ mobility. The concentrations of the particles in a channel and at the opening of the neck connecting it with the pocket are equal; the particle’s concentration in the pocket (having the typical energetic depth $`\mathrm{\Delta }u=Fd,`$ where $`d`$ is the distance form the neck to the pocket’s body) is $`n_p(F)=n\mathrm{exp}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }u/kT\right)`$. Since the overall number of particles per rectifying unit is field-independent, one has $`n(F)\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_c+\mathrm{\Omega }_p\mathrm{exp}\left(Fd/kT\right)\right]=n_0(\mathrm{\Omega }_c+\mathrm{\Omega }_p)`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ are the volumes of the channel and the pocket, respectively and $`n_0`$ is the concentration in the absence of the outer field. From this the form of the LCC follows as:

$$I(U)=\frac{g_0U}{1+a\mathrm{exp}(U/U_T)}.$$
(7)
Here $`g_0=\mu n_0S(1+\mathrm{\Omega }_p/\mathrm{\Omega }_c)/l`$ is the zero-field conductivity, $`U_T=kT/d`$ is the characteristic field and $`a=\mathrm{\Omega }_p/\mathrm{\Omega }_c`$. For strong positive fields the behavior of the appliance is linear. For strong negative fields, the particles get trapped in pockets, and the current through the appliance decays exponentially. Thus the generic locking behavior shows up. Numerical evaluation of Eq.(5) using the LCC Eq.(7) leads to results shown in Fig.3. Here we plot $`\eta (\mathrm{\Delta }U)`$ as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }U/U_0`$, for the fixed values of $`g_0=a=U_T=1`$ and for the values of $`U_0`$ equal to 1, 3, 10 and 30. We note that the maximal efficiency grows with $`U_0`$ (for $`U_0=30`$ maximal value of efficiency exceeds 90%), and the position of this maximum shifts to the left, i.e. to the values $`\mathrm{\Delta }U`$ approaching $`U_0`$. The reason for the growth of efficiency is the fact that typical reverse differential resistance grows exponentially with $`U`$, and in the limit of strong outer fields tends to the ideal limit of 1.

In summary, irreversible gears have considerable advantages when compared with reversible ones. They allow for an asynchronous mode of operation, of great virtue for biological systems, since distinct reaction events can hardly be synchronized on molecular level. We have shown that irreversibility does not put any limits on the efficiency of energy transduction, i.e. that an ideal rectifying appliance can reach the efficiency of 1. The property important for the effective rectification is locking under backwards load. We show that small modifications of a generic ratchet system (an oblique rectifying appliance) lead to systems whose efficiency tends to this idealistic limit.

The author is indebted to Prof. A. Blumen and Prof. J. Klafter for fruitful discussions. Financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through the SFB 428 and by the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie is gratefully acknowledged.

Figure Captions

Fig.1. The efficiency of a rectifier with LCC, Eq(6) switched according to a scheme shown as an insert. The battery is charged when $`\mathrm{\Delta }U<0`$. The fat line corresponds to an ideal appliance with $`g_{}=0`$. Three other curves correspond to $`g_{}=10^4`$, $`10^3`$ and $`10^2`$, respectively.

Fig.2. a) The oblique rectifying appliance, see text for details. When the outer field is strong enough the particles get trapped between the saw-teeth. The trapping potential is proportional to the outer field $`F`$. b) The cartoon of the appliance in fig. a), used in our considerations: this simplified version consists of the current channel and the pockets, where the particles get trapped if the outer field shows in reverse direction.

Fig.3. Efficiency of a trapping rectifier as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }U/U_0`$ at different values of outer field amplitude $`U_0.`$ Note that at larger fields the maximal efficiency tends to unity due to locking.


text:
# Post-glitch RXTE-PCA observations of the Vela pulsar

## 1 Introduction

We present observations of the Vela pulsar with the Proportional Counter Array (PCA), on the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). Our observations cover two distinct time-spans. The first part is very close to the glitch on 1996 October 13.394 UT (Flanagan glidate (1996)). It consists of three observations at one, four and nine days after the glitch. We analyzed these sets of data separately. The second series of observations were obtained in January 1997. All data sets of January 1997 were analyzed together. The exact dates of observations are given in Table 1.

We first performed spectral analysis of our data, calculated time averaged flux for different observations and put upper limits for the flux change. Then, by using radio ephemerides, we detected the pulsations in the data, and investigated the changes in pulse shape and pulse fraction. Finally, we compared our results with the theoretical expectations of change in flux which might arise because of glitch induced energy dissipation in the neutron star.

Time averaged spectrum analysis is explained in section 2. The detected pulse shapes are presented in section 3. In section 4 we discuss the implications of our results.

## 2 Time Averaged Spectrum Analysis

The observation time-spans, and total integration times are given in Table 1 together with calculated model parameters, and flux values. The analysis is carried out using FTOOLS 4.1.1 and XSPEC v10. Only the data coming from the first xenon layer was chosen to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. The time intervals in which one or more of the five Proportional Counting Units (PCUs) are off, the elevation angle is less than 10 degrees, or pointing offset is greater than 0.02 degrees were not included in the analysis, as recommended in the “Screening” section of “ABC of XTE” (RXTE GOF abcxte (1998)). The background used is synthetic and is generated by the background estimator pcabackest. The background models are based on rate of very large events, spacecraft activation, and cosmic X-ray emission. More information on background models can be found in (Jahoda jaho (1996)). We have used the 2.2.1\_v80 version of response matrices. Although the matrices are not equally good for each PCU, to have good statistics, we combined data coming from every PCU, contrary to the recommendation by Remillard (remi\_resp (1997)).

A comparison of background with the data led us to ignore the channels above 68, which approximately corresponds to the energy 25.7 keV (see Fig. 1.). The systematic errors were chosen to make the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ equal to unity in XSPEC. To have reasonable systematic errors we also had to ignore channels 0-7. The maximum energy for the seventh channel is 2.90 keV.

The hydrogen column density model used by XSPEC is valid for the energies 0.03-10 keV. Although this covers the ROSAT energy band (0.5-2.4 keV), major portion of our spectrum (2.90-25.7 keV) falls outside this range. Therefore, we adopted the hydrogen column density $`4\times 10^{20}\text{atoms}/\text{cm}^2`$ obtained in a ROSAT observation of the Vela pulsar (Ögelman et al. vel\_og (1993)), since at lower energies the spectral resolution of ROSAT is much better than RXTE/PCA detectors’ resolution.

Figures 2 and 3 are plots of the energy spectrum along with fitted models and residuals. The model parameters are given in Table 1. The quoted errors are for three sigma confidence levels. The calculated flux for each observation along with an upper and a lower limit are given in Table 1. The upper (lower) limits for the flux are calculated by setting the index of the power-law to the lower (upper) limits given by XSPEC, leaving the normalization of the power-law spectrum as the only free parameter, and refitting the spectrum.

We have also searched for a blackbody component to the spectrum in addition to power-law, but this resulted in temperatures $`10`$ times larger than what has been found by Ögelman et al. (vel\_og (1993)), for all observations. Although the addition of a blackbody component improves the fit, the resulting temperature suggests that this is not physical but merely a result of an increase in the number of variables. This idea is supported by the fact that adding a bremsstrahlung component to power-law or changing the power-law to a broken power-law gives a fit as good as a power-law blackbody combination.

## 3 Timing Analysis

The data analyzed consists of two parts. The earlier data sets extend between one and ten days after the glitch, where the post-glitch exponential relaxation of the pulse period prevails. The second data set, about three months after the glitch, does not display this rapid variation of the pulse frequency.

Finding a pulsation in the latter was straightforward. By using the Princeton ephemerides distributed with FTOOLS the pulse shape shown in Fig. 4(e) is obtained. This is a histogram of counts versus twice the phase, which is divided into 22 intervals. The histogram includes all photons detected in the first layer and in channels 8-68 inclusive. No filtering was done for elevation, offset or number of PCUs. Since background is synthetic it is not subtracted either.

Finding a pulse for earlier observations, which are very close to the glitch, proved to be difficult. There are two sets of ephemerides in the Princeton database that are relevant to these observations, and an additional one was provided by Claire Flanagan (private communication). The first two give the frequency, frequency derivative, and frequency second derivative, while the third one gives only frequency and frequency derivative. The time-spans covered by these ephemerides and the three observations in the earlier set are shown in Fig. 5. The reference epoch of the ephemerides are roughly 50370.7, 50372.0, and 50379.0 for Flanagan and Princeton ephemerides one and two, respectively. None of the ephemerides by itself gives a pulse for any of the three observations. Furthermore the ephemerides give different results for overlapping portions.

We therefore tried to combine the ephemerides. We interpolated the values of frequency and frequency derivative by making a second order polynomial fit to the values given in the ephemerides. This yielded to the expressions:

$`f`$ $`=`$ $`.2975280743\times 10^{18}t^2`$ (1)
$`.16020626525\times 10^{10}t+11.1962177095,`$
$`\dot{f}`$ $`=`$ $`.242915\times 10^{23}t^2`$ (2)
$`+.242121\times 10^{17}t.1622\times 10^{10}.`$
The epoch for these expressions is the same Flanagan’s ephemeris. By using these values and not taking the higher derivatives into account, we calculated the phase for the arrival time of each photon. This method yielded reasonable pulse shapes for the first and second observation (see Fig. 4 (a) and (b) ), but failed for the third one. The reference epoch of the second Princeton ephemeris is very near to the third observation, nevertheless the use of the ephemeris which represents an extended time-span of rapidly varying periods, fails to give a pulse shape by itself. We therefore tried another approach. We combined the frequencies, frequency derivatives, and frequency second derivatives given in the two Princeton ephemerides, made a fifth order polynomial fit, and threw away the fourth and fifth order terms. In this way we reduced the contribution of the second ephemeris. The final expression for frequency is:

$`f`$ $`=`$ $`9.68274932\times 10^{25}t^3+0.8\times 10^{18}t^2`$ (3)
$`1.59821\times 10^{11}t+11.1962159427143.`$
The epoch for this expression is the same as first Princeton ephemeris. The pulse shapes obtained for the second and third observations by this method are given in Fig. 4 (c) and (d).

## 4 Conclusions and Discussion

### 4.1 Time Averaged Spectrum

The power-law spectrum observed is in agreement with expectations deduced from previous observations of Vela at higher and lower energies(Ögelman et al. vel\_og (1993), Kanbach et al. kanbach (1994), Strickman et al. strick96 (1996), Kuiper et al. kuiper (1998) ). At this part of spectrum (2-20 keV), the contribution of the pulsar is very small compared to the contribution of the compact nebula surrounding it. As a result the pulse shapes have a very high DC level, as can be seen in Fig. 4.

The slightly higher residuals near 6 keV and lower residuals near 4 keV are not characteristics of observed sources, but are artifacts of PCA. This effect, which is a result of the L edge of Xenon, is reduced by the version of response matrices in use, but not completely removed.

Our main conclusion from the analysis is that the spectrum does not change from early post-glitch to late observations. It is a power-law with an index around 2 for all of the observations. The power-law index does not change significantly among the observations. The highest value calculated for the index is 2.107 and the lowest value is 2.009. This corresponds to a change of 5%, which is a fractional upper limit for the change of power-index during the observations.

The upper and lower limits of the flux calculated by the comparison explained in section 2 and presented in Table 1 are well within the range of systematic errors. We therefore adopt the systematic errors as the upper limits to any variation in flux.

There is seemingly a jump in the flux between 2-20 keV, from the first to the second observation. This observation is only four days away from the glitch. The pre-glitch temperature of the surface of the Vela pulsar is thought to be around 0.15 keV(Ögelman et al. vel\_og (1993)). Theoretical models (Van Riper et al.nsth1 (1991); Umeda et al.nsth2 (1993); Hirano et al. nsth3 (1997)) predict an increase at most by a factor of 8, which brings the temperature to 1.2 keV. Attempts to find a blackbody component in this observation did not give significantly different results from other observations. This suggests that the observed flux changes may have little or nothing to do with changes in surface temperature.

Another possible interpretation is that there is an error in the analysis of this particular observation, possibly arising from the calculation of synthetic background. Vela is a faint source for PCA. An improved model in the estimation of background for faint sources has been released by the PCA Team in 1998. This model has been used throughout the calculations. There may be further improvements on the background models that could change the calculated flux. The presented flux is calculated by using the spectrum model, rather than by direct observation. Apart from this observation there is no apparent change in flux or count rate.

Treating the calculated fluxes as very high upper bounds to the Wien tail of possible blackbody radiation from the neutron star surface could in principle be used to rule out some of the models for the post-glitch thermal emission from the neutron stars. In practice this does not work since the surface temperature range of the Vela pulsar is far below the RXTE-PCA energies.

### 4.2 Timing Analysis and Pulse Shapes

The epoch of the second ephemeris taken from the Princeton database, 50379.0 MJD, is pretty close to the third observation (see Fig. 5), but using the ephemeris alone for the observation does not give a pulse shape. This may be due to the existence of two distinct decay time scales of Vela, 3 days and 30 days, which were observed in all previous glitches and fall within the ranges of ephemeris (Alpar et al. Alpar93 (1993)). Our data is not good enough to determine any exponential decay time scales.

In view of the rapidly varying period at those epochs, the pulse shapes of the first part of the observations were obtained by a careful interpolation amounting to the construction of an ephemeris that can represent the rapid changes in the pulsar’s timing parameters in this postglitch epoch. The phase difference of the two observed peaks in these shapes is the same as the phase difference in the second set of observations (in January 1997). This gives us some confidence in the resultant pulse shapes.

The pulse shapes obtained are not reliable for drawing conclusions on the changes of pulse shape or pulsed fraction, since both of these factors are sensitively dependent on ephemeris. This is best seen by comparing Fig. 4 (b) and (c). They belong to the same set of data but have obvious differences both in the pulse shape and pulsed fraction.

### 4.3 Possible Future Work

Extracting the contribution of the compact nebula from the spectrum may help to delineate effects of temperature changes on the neutron star surface. Although the pulsations are detected, they are not reliable enough to justify taking the off-peak photon counts as background to the peak photon counts to remove the effects coming from the DC signal. The field of view of the PCA detector is one degree (RXTE GOF PCA (1996)), consequently the compact nebula surrounding the Vela pulsar has a significant contribution to the observed spectrum. The images showing the emission from the pulsar and the sources around it, in particular the compact nebula, can be found in Markwardt (craig\_neb (1998)), Frail et al. (ogel2 (1997)), Harnden et al. (1985 (1985)), and Willmore et al. (willmore (1992)).

When we divided the data from the second part of observations into smaller time intervals we have observed that the pulse shape begins to disappear for data strings covering less than 30000 seconds. The exposure time of the data sets we used in this work are below 10000 seconds. This explains the uncertainty in pulse shapes and fractions. Future target of opportunity observation of the Vela pulsar by RXTE need to be allocated more observation time, and should contain observations made approximately 20 days after the glitch, since this is about the time that the surface temperature will reach its maximum according to theoretical models. Also, more detailed ephemerides fitting the post-glitch behavior of the pulsar is necessary to make deductions on changes in pulse shape.

Finally we note that the question of glitch associated energy dissipation in the Vela pulsar has been addressed also with ROSAT observations. Comparison of observations at epochs before and after the glitch has not yielded stringent constraints on the glitch related energy dissipation (Seward et al. ROSAT (1999)).

While this work was in preparation another analysis of RXTE/PCA observations of the Vela pulsar was published by Strickman et al. (strick2 (1999)). They have also detected a pulsed emission and a power-law spectrum. Our analysis differs from theirs in two ways. Their phase-resolved spectra are obtained by taking “off-pulse” photons as background to “on-pulse” photons, whereas we calculated only time averaged spectra. Another difference is that these authors used data coming from only the first xenon layer for energies below 8 keV, but included data coming from the other two layers for higher energies. In our analysis we used photons detected only in the first xenon layer. As a result of these differences, their power-law index is smaller than the value that we found.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Claire Flanagan for providing the ephemeris, Sally K. Goff for helping the preparation of the manuscript, and an anonymous referee for useful comments. Some calculations in this paper were performed on the “tasman” computer at METU Computer Center which was made available by Çağrı Çöltekin. This analysis was made possible with the help and documentation provided by RXTE-PCA team, for which we thank the members of the team, in particular Keith Jahoda. M.A.G., A.B., M.A.A. and H.B.Ö. acknowledge support from the Scientific and Technical Research council of Turkey, TÜBİTAK, under grant TBAG-Ü 18. M.A.G. also acknowledges a scholarship provided by TÜBİTAK, and partial support from National Science Foundation (DMR 91-20000) through the Science and Technology Center for Superconductivity. M.A.A. also acknowledges support from the Turkish Academy of Sciences.