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# Mapping the star formation history of Mrk~86∗

## 1 Introduction

The high star formation rate (SFR hereafter) and low neutral gas content deduced for dwarf star-forming galaxies imply consumption time-scales of about 109 yr (Fanelli et al. fanelli (1988); Thuan & Martin thuan81 (1981)), much shorter than the age of the Universe. Searle et al. (searle73 (1973)) suggested that either these objects are truly young systems or they have an intermittent star formation history with short intense star-forming episodes followed by long quiescent phases. Although this question remained unanswered during decades (Thuan thuan83 (1983); Campbell & Terlevich campbell (1984); Loose & Thuan loose85 (1985)), nowadays, most of the studies on dwarf star-forming systems, including Blue Compact Dwarf galaxies (BCD hereafter), have revealed the existence of an evolved underlying population (Kunth et al. kunth88 (1988); Hoffman et al. hoffman (1990); Papaderos et al. 1996b ; Doublier doublier98 (1998); Norton & Salzer norton (1997)).

Therefore, the understanding of the mechanism, or mechanisms, governing this star formation regulation is the stepping stone of the dwarf star-forming galaxies evolution. Moreover, this mechanism constitutes the missing link between the different dwarf star-forming galaxies (Silk et al. silk87 (1987); Burkert burkert (1989); Drinkwater & Hardy drinkwater (1991); Papaderos et al. 1996b ).

There are two different approaches to address these questions. On the one hand, statistical analysis of a sample of these objects will allow the study of the relationships between fundamental parameters and properties of the star-forming dwarf galaxies (Marlowe et al. marlowe95 (1995); Papaderos et al. 1996a , 1996b ). On the other hand, the detailed analysis of individual low-redshift objects with multiple regions of star formation is fundamental to reconstruct their star formation histories. In particular, we can obtain a better understanding of possible effects of merging or some internal process as self-propagation that could originate the spreading of star formation, and the effects of these star-forming events on the future star formation.

Among dwarf galaxies, Blue Compact Dwarf galaxies conform the subpopulation where the star-forming events are most violent. Blue Compact Dwarfs are low-luminosity (MB $``$$``$18m)111For $`H_0`$=75 km s-1 Mpc-1 (Thuan & Martin thuan81 (1981)). galaxies with compact sizes whose spectra are similar to those of low metallicity H ii regions (Searle & Sargent searle72 (1972); Kunth & Sargent kunth86 (1986); Thuan & Martin thuan81 (1981)). Their spectra are characterized by emission lines over a blue continuum which implies the existence of a large fraction of OB stars and an intense star-forming activity.

The Blue Compact Galaxy Mrk~86=NGC~2537 (Shapley & Ames shapley32 (1932); Markarian markarian69 (1969)), also known as Arp 6 (Arp arp66 (1966)), constitutes an excellent laboratory to test the BCD star formation history since its star-forming regions populate all the galaxy. This object is the propotype of the iE galaxies, the most important BCD galaxies subclass, that conform 70 per cent of the BCD galaxies (Thuan & Martin thuan81 (1981); Thuan thuan91 (1991)).

Optical imaging (both broad- and narrow-band) and near infrared images have been obtained to map the different regions and get insight into the star formation history of every region. In addition, we have obtained very high quality spectra with spatial resolution. The spectra of 22 star-forming knots and of free interim were taken with 10 distinct slit positions and orientations and moderate and high spectral resolution.

After briefly introduce the previous results on Mrk~86 in Sect. 2, we will describe the observations and data reduction in Sect. 3. The data analysis is presented in Sect. 4. We describe the evolutionary synthesis models in Sect. 5. In Sect. 6 we give some results. Finally, our conclusions are presented in Sect. 7.

In Gil de Paz et al. (2000a ; Paper II hereafter) we derive the physical properties of the star-forming regions and stellar populations of Mrk~86 comparing our photometric data with the evolutionary synthesis models presented in this paper. Electron densities and temperatures and chemical abundances of the ionized gas in the galaxy star-forming regions will be also obtained. Finally, a global interpretation of the galaxy will be given.

## 2 Mrk 86

Mrk~86 ($`\alpha `$(2000)=08h13m14.56s $`\delta `$(2000)=$`+`$45°59′30.2″)222Center of the outer isophotes as measured in the $`R`$-band (see Sect. 4.1) is a well-known object among BCD galaxies (Loose & Thuan loose85 (1985); Sage et al. sage92 (1992); see Table 1). In the Loose & Thuan (loose85 (1985)) BCD classification, Mrk~86 belongs to the iE class: smooth elliptical Low Surface Brightness (LSB) underlying stellar component on which several knots of star formation are superimposed. The present star formation activity is spread out in several clumps over a relatively large fraction of its entire surface. In fact, Mrk~86 shows the highest ratio of the area covered by star-forming regions to the total projected area of the galaxy within the sample of Papaderos et al. (1996a ).

To this moment Mrk~86 has not been the subject of a single and proof study, inasmuch the large number of published data on it. A collection of the published data is given in Table 1. A more detailed description of the previous observations is given by Gil de Paz et al. (gil1 (1999); GZG hereafter).

### 2.1 Distance

Mrk~86 is a nearby star-forming galaxy. The heliocentric recession velocity is $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$=447 km s-1 (see recession velocities referred to the Local Group in Table 1).

Using the mean blue magnitude of the three brightest blue stars Sharina et al. (sharina (1999)) derived a distance for this object of 6.9 Mpc with an uncertainty of 20 per cent (M. E. Sharina, private communication). We can also estimate the distance to Mrk~86 if we assume that it is gravitationally bounded to the edge-on spiral galaxy UGC~4278 (see Paper II). UGC~4278 has a corrected $`I`$-band absolute magnitude of $``$18.21$`\pm `$0.11 (see Giovanelli et al. giovanelli97 (1997)) with a logarithmic 21 cm line width of 2.220$`\pm `$0.019 (in km s-1). Therefore, with respect to the Giovanelli et al. (giovanelli97 (1997)) Tully-Fisher template, this galaxy shows an offset of 0.66m, which corresponds to a peculiar radial velocity of $``$253 km s-1. Thus, its recesion velocity in the CMB reference frame should be 968 km s-1 ($`v_{\mathrm{}}`$=565 km s-1), which implies a minimum distance for Mrk~86 of 13 Mpc (for $`H_0`$=75 km s-1 Mpc-1 and assuming that the difference in heliocentric velocity is due to orbital motion). The large difference between this value and that given by Sharina et al. (sharina (1999)) suggests that these objects are probably not physically bounded. Thus, since no other distance indicator is available for Mrk~86, we have used the distance measured by Sharina et al. (sharina (1999)) throughout this work. This value leads a projected spatial scale of 33 pc arcsec-1.

## 3 Observations and reduction

### 3.1 Optical imaging

An optical $`B`$-band image was obtained at the 1-m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope (JKT) of Roque de los Muchachos observatory (La Palma, Spain) in 1997 November with a 24 $`\mu `$m 1024$`\times `$1024 pixels Tek#4 CCD (see Table 2). An additional Johnson-$`V`$ image was taken at the 1.52-m spanish telescope at EOCA (Calar Alto, Almería, Spain) in December 1993 with a Tek 1024$`\times `$1024 CCD with pixel size of 19 $`\mu `$m. This observation was broken up into five exposures with a total integration time of 2400 s. Finally, an $`R`$-band image was obtained during service time in November 1998 with the ING wide-field camera (ING-WFC) equipped with four EEV42 2k$`\times `$4k pixels CCD detectors on the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope (La Palma, Spain).

Narrow-band images in the light of \[O iii\]$`\lambda `$5007Å ($`\lambda _0`$ = 5012Å, FWHM = 50Å) and H$`\alpha `$ ($`\lambda _0`$ = 6568Å, FWHM = 95Å) were obtained. In order to subtract the continuum, $`V`$ and $`R`$-band images were used, respectively. The \[O iii\]$`\lambda `$5007Å image was secured for us on December 1993 during service time with a 1280$`\times `$1180 pixels EEV5 CCD attached to the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope. The H$`\alpha `$ image was taken during the same service time observations that the $`R`$-band image in November 1998 using the ING-WFC camera at the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope (La Palma, Spain).

High S/N ratio dome flats and exposures of the sky taken in twilight were obtained in any case. The standard procedure of bias removal, dark-current subtraction, and flat fielding using dome and sky flat-field images was performed using the ESO image processing system MIDAS for the $`V`$ image and IRAF333IRAF is distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, which are operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. for the $`B`$ and $`R`$-band images.

Atmospheric conditions were photometric during the observing runs. $`B`$ and $`V`$ images were flux calibrated observing repeatedly during the nights a set of standard stars, taken from the lists given by Kent (kent (1985)) and Landolt (landolt (1973)). Finally, the $`R`$-band image was flux calibrated using the radial surface brightness profile published by Papaderos et al. (1996a ).

The \[O iii\]$`\lambda `$5007Å and H$`\alpha `$ images flux calibration was performed as follows (see also GZG). The continuum emission was subtracted, using the $`V`$ and $`R`$ images, respectively. Then, we trimmed those regions covered by the slits of the $`b`$(blue) and $`r`$(red) spectra (see Table 2). The $`b`$ and $`r`$ spectra were convolved with the transmission curves of the corresponding narrow-band filters. Then, we compared image counts and fluxes measured in the convolved spectra for several adjacent regions in order to determine the precise location of the slits. Finally, once the regions covered by the slits were precisely defined, we corrected these calibration relations for the sensitivity of the filter at the corresponding wavelength and, in the case of the H$`\alpha `$ flux, for the contribution of the \[N ii\]$`\lambda `$6548Å and \[N ii\]$`\lambda `$6583Å lines. The discrepancies obtained among different spectra were in all cases lower than 10 per cent.

### 3.2 Near-infrared imaging

Near-infrared images (nIR hereafter) of Mrk~86 in $`J`$ ($`\lambda _0`$ = 1.25$`\mu `$m, FWHM = 0.30$`\mu `$m), $`H`$ ($`\lambda _0`$ = 1.65$`\mu `$m, FWHM = 0.28$`\mu `$m) and $`Ks`$ ($`\lambda _0`$ = 2.15$`\mu `$m, FWHM = 0.33$`\mu `$m) were obtained on January 1998 with the Steward Observatory near-infrared camera equipped with a 256$`\times `$256 nicmos3 detector attached to the 2.3-m Bok Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (Arizona, USA). The observational procedure closely follows that of Aragón-Salamanca et al. (aas93 (1993)) and Gil de Paz et al. (2000b ). The total integration time of each subimage was broken up into background-limited sub-exposures to avoid saturation of the detector. Images of adjacent blank areas of the sky were alternated with the target frames for accurate flat-fielding. Comparable amounts of time were spent imaging the source and the sky to ensure adequate monitoring of the sky changes. Individual subexposures of the object were offset several arcseconds to improve the final result.

The reduction process include: (1) bias and dark subtraction of object and sky frames; (2) flat-fielding using normalized sky frames; (3) sky subtraction using sky frames taken before and after each exposure; (4) bad pixel removal; (5) registering of the subimages using fractional pixel shifts and (6) median combining of all individual frames. The reduction was carried out using own IRAF procedures.

The nIR images were calibrated observing standard stars from the list from Elias et al. (elias (1982)) during the nights at the same airmasses than the object. We have assumed a color independent correction between the $`Ks`$ and $`K^{}`$ bands ($`K^{}KM`$; $`\lambda _0`$ = 2.12$`\mu `$m, FWHM = 0.34$`\mu `$m; Wainscoat & Cowie wainscoat (1992)). In order to check the validity of this assumption, we convolved the $`Ks`$ and $`K^{}`$ filters response functions with Planck spectral distributions at different temperatures in the range 3000-20000 K, obtaining the fluxes $`F_{Ks}`$ and $`F_K^{}`$. The larger difference in 2.5$`\times `$log($`F_{Ks}`$/$`F_K^{}`$) within this temperature range was 0.025m, small enough to assume this correction to be independent of the spectral energy distribution.

Thus, once the fluxes were transformed to $`K^{}`$-band fluxes, we converted them to the standard $`K`$-band ($`\lambda _0`$ = 2.19$`\mu `$m, FWHM = 0.41$`\mu `$m) applying the standard correction given by Wainscoat & Cowie (wainscoat (1992)), $`K^{}K`$=0.22$`\times `$($`HK`$).

In Fig. 1 we show the Mrk~86 neighborhood in the optical-near-infrared bands studied, including the H$`\alpha `$ and \[O iii\]$`\lambda `$5007Å images. The astrometric calibration was performed using the program PlateAstrom (García-Dabó & Gallego dabo (1999); see also http://www.ucm.es/info/Astrof/opera/opera.html). The bright field star placed at the relative position (60″E,30″N), saturated in the $`V`$ and $`R`$-band images, was artificially removed.

### 3.3 Spectroscopy

Up to 14 optical long-slit spectra at 10 different slit positions were obtained. The 11 medium-low resolution spectra ($`b`$ and $`r`$ spectra; see Table 2) were obtained with the Boller & Chivens spectrograph at the Cassegrain focus of the 2.2-m telescope at the German-Spanish Calar Alto observatory (Almería, Spain) in January 1993. Althought special care was taken to place the slits into position, using offsets from the bright field star at north of the galaxy, there were some lack of precision. The actual positions of the slits (see Fig. 1 of GZG) were determined a posteriori comparing broad-band image spatial cuts with the spatial profiles of the spectra previously convolved with the corresponding filter transmission curves. The detector employed was a 1024$`\times `$1024 Tek#6 CCD with a pixel size of 24 $`\mu `$m. The 600 gr mm-1 grating chosen provided a spectral resolution of 6Å in the light of H$`\alpha `$ and a reciprocal dispersion of 2.6Å/pixel, with a slit width of 2$`\stackrel{}{.}`$65. The final spatial scale was 1$`\stackrel{}{.}`$43/pixel. The spectral coverage was around 2500Å and the grating angle was selected to cover the blue region ($``$3300-5800Å) and red domain ($``$4350-7045Å) in two different exposures which overlapped on the H$`\beta `$ region. The seeing was variable during the observing run with FWHM between 1$`\stackrel{}{.}`$5–2$`\stackrel{}{.}`$5. The low airmasses at which these spectra were obtained ($``$1.2) guarantee that no significant loss of blue light due to atmospheric refraction has ocurred. In addition, three high resolution spectra (7R,8R,9R) were obtained with the IDS spectrograph at the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (La Palma, Spain) in January 1998 with a 1024$`\times `$1024 Tek#3 24 $`\mu `$m CCD (see Table 2). The 1200R grating (1200 gr mm-1) was used with an slit width of 1″, providing a spectral resolution of 0.9Å in the light of H$`\alpha `$ and a reciprocal dispersion of 0.39Å/pixel. The spatial scale was of 0.33″/pixel.

These spectra were reduced using the figaro (January 1993) and IRAF (January 1998) software packages. After bias removal and flat-fielding, the frames were cleaned of cosmic rays. The sky was removed from each frame by subtracting a polynomial fitted to those regions free for object emission. Wavelength calibration was performed by using He-Ar lamps observed inmediately before and after the galaxy integration. The standard stars Hiltner 102 and Hiltner 600 were observed at different airmasses in order to correct for atmospheric extinction and to ensure absolute flux calibration.

Finally, we requested an UV spectrum of Mrk~86 from the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) Final Archive (see Fig. 4). It was originally taken by Alloin and Duflot in January 1983 (see Bonatto et al. bonatto (1999)). The total exposure time of this spectrum, SWP18927, was 24000 s. It was obtained in low dispersion mode with the SWP camera. In the observing spectral range, 1150-1975Å, the resolution power varies between 270-300 (Cassatella et al. cassatella (1985)).

## 4 Analysis

### 4.1 Surface brightness profiles

We have analyzed the surface brightness profile of Mrk~86 in different bands ($`BVRJHK`$; see Fig. 3). These surface brightness profiles have been obtained using the IRAF task ellipse. Background galaxies and foreground stars were interactively masked. We obtained the surface brightness profiles over the original images, excepting in the outer regions of the $`R`$-band profile where a median filter of 5$`\times `$5 pixels (0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$333/pixel) was applied. Due to the contribution of about 60 high surface brightness regions, we only fitted the isophotes with major axis larger than 25″. Using the mean of the isophotal centers measured between 80 and 120″ in the $`R`$-band image we have estimated the galaxy coordinates given in Sect. 2 (see also Fig. 2).

### 4.2 Knot positions and sizes

In order to derive the positions and sizes of the regions in the neighborhood of Mrk~86 we have developed a program called cobra (see Appendix). Briefly, this program selects the image section where the region of interest is placed. Then, the light profiles in both image axes are fitted using a straight line, in order to account for the underlying emission, and two gaussians reproducing the knot emission profile. The center of the knot is estimated as the maximum of this latter component. The positions derived for all these regions are given in Table 3 (columns 3 and 4). They have been numbered in reverse declination order. Most of these regions were identified on the Johnson $`R`$-band image, the deepest of those shown in Fig. 1 (For $`R`$=25.6 the signal-to-noise ratio is 30). However, some regions showed intense H$`\alpha `$ emission, but practically no optical or near-infrared continuum emission (see Table 3). Since more than thirty new objects are identified in this $`R`$-band image relative to the Gunn-$`r`$ image used in GZG, we have introduced a new notation for the knots. In this sense, the regions numbered as #9, #15, #16, #31 and #49 in GZG, now are, respectively, #18, #26, #27, #42 and #70 (see Fig. 2 and Table 3).

The determination of the boundaries of these knots is not an obvious task. Some authors simply locate the position of the knots by using a weighted mean of the pixels surrounding a maximum of intensity and then they use large enough circular apertures to perform the photometry. This simple approach assume circular geometry for the knots, a prerequisite which is not always fulfilled. An autonomous feature, commonly an H ii region, can be also defined as the region which is inside its outermost closed contour (Petrosian et al. petrosian (1997)) or selecting all pixel that are connected above a given threshold using predetermined background and noise properties of the frame (Mazzarella et al. mazzarella (1993)). All these methods, rewieved in Fuentes-Masip (fuentesmasip (1997)), are difficult to apply in overcrowded fields or when there is a very intense and variable background emission. We have applied a new method which, using interactively the cobra code, is able to eliminate the emission of adyacent regions and, specially, the low-frequency contamination. This contamination is quite relevant in this object due to the contribution of the underlying stellar population emission to the surface brightness of the galaxy.

After the underlying emission was subtracted, we estimated the number of pixels above different thresholds (see Appendix for a complete description). From the relation between the number of pixels and the threshold used we determine the physical size of the region at the e-folding of the equivalent two-dimensional gaussian. The contours derived in this way will be not circular (see Fig. 2). This method avoids sistematic effects introduced in the contours and sizes determination due to changes in the underlying emission from one region to another.

The equivalent radii derived are given in Table 3 (column 5). Finally, this procedure allows to take into account the effect of the Point Spread Function (PSF hereafter) over the sizes derived. Thus, applying $`\sigma ^2`$ = $`\sigma _{\mathrm{measured}}^2\sigma _{\mathrm{seeing}}^2`$, we obtain the radii corrected from the PSF effect (see column 6). The e-folding radius of the PSF in the H$`\alpha `$ and $`R`$-band images was $`\sigma _{\mathrm{seeing}}`$=0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$72. The radii at the e2, e3-folding was, respectively, $`\sqrt{2}`$ and $`\sqrt{3}`$ times the e-folding radii derived.

### 4.3 Object classification

We have spectroscopic data for only 22 of the 85 regions detected in the neighborhood of Mrk~86 (see Table 5), 20 of them in the low resolution spectra and two, #18 and #40, in the high resolution ones. All these regions seem to belong to the galaxy, with heliocentric emission-lines velocities within the range 400-540 km s-1 (see GZG). However, the nature of the remaining 65 objects is much more uncertain.

Fortunately, there are many other criteria that provide important clues about the nature of these objects, 1) if the host galaxy and some of these objects show line-emission (e.g., H$`\alpha `$ emission) within the wavelength range covered by a narrow-band filter (FWHM$``$50-100Å) they will probably have similar recession velocities within a range of $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$$``$1000-2000 km s-1; 2) if one of these objects is placed in a high surface brightness region of the galaxy, and it has an extended morphology, it will probably belong to the host galaxy. On the other hand, regions that do not show line emission and 3) are placed in galaxy outer regions, or 4) show point-like morphology, should not be classified as belonging to the host galaxy.

In Table 3 we mark those regions identified spectroscopically as belonging to Mrk~86 with an S letter in column 8. Those regions showing photometric H$`\alpha `$ line-emission are marked with an E letter, and with an N those regions with extended morphology placed at short galactocentric distances. Extended objects placed at large galactocentric distances have been marked with a B (probably background galaxies). Finally, three point-like sources have been classified as F type (probably foreground stars; #4, #61 & #67).

It is worthwhile to check whether these point-like objects without emission lines belong to the galaxy. Their colors (see Sect. 6.2) indicate that objects #4, #61 and #67 are likely old type stars. Column 13 of Table 4 shows the R-band magnitudes of the regions after being subtracted from the galaxy background. Using a distance modulus of 29.2 we derive absolute magnitudes for these stars between 5 and 8 magnitudes too bright to belong to the galaxy. We conclude that objects #4, #61 and #67 are effectively foreground stars. In this work we will study only the S, E and N type objects.

### 4.4 Optical and nIR photometry

Using the contours obtained with cobra, we have measured aperture $`BVRJHK`$ magnitudes and $`BV`$, $`VR`$, $`RJ`$, $`JH`$, $`JK`$ colors for all the regions in Table 4 (columns 2-7 for magnitudes, and 8-12 for colors). These apertures include both knot and underlying stellar population emission. Before measuring these colors we degraded the $`BVRHK`$ images to the worst seeing $`J`$-band image (FWHM$``$1.8″). In addition, we measured integrated magnitudes in $`R`$-band for these regions, subtracted from the underlying emission as determined by cobra (Table 4; column 13). Background subtracted H$`\alpha `$ fluxes were also measured and they are given in Table 4 (column 14). Due to the very bad seeing of the \[O iii\]$`\lambda `$5007Å image we do not include photometric \[O iii\]$`\lambda `$5007Å fluxes in our analysis.

The magnitudes and colors shown in Table 4 are measured quantities and they have not been corrected for extinction.

### 4.5 Optical spectroscopy

The relatively small slit width employed in these observations, prevents us from obtaining knot total emission line fluxes. We will derive the emission line ratios in order to characterize the ionized gas properties in the galaxy star-forming regions. In Table 5 we give the line intensities measured in a region of 4$`\stackrel{}{.}`$30$`\times `$2$`\stackrel{}{.}`$65 centered in the maximum of the emission knot section covered by the slit. These line intensities have been corrected for internal extinction when gas color excesses, $`E(BV)_{\mathrm{gas}}`$, were given. The $`E(BV)_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ values have been deduced from the H$`\alpha `$-H$`\beta `$ and H$`\beta `$-H$`\gamma `$ Balmer line ratios measured, and assuming the line ratios predicted for the recombination case-B by Osterbrock (osterbrock (1989)). H$`\beta `$ line intensities have been measured deblending the absorption and emission components using the IRAF-STSDAS ngaussfit task. The line intensities were measured separately in both $`b`$ (blue) and $`r`$ (red) spectra. When the line-ratios measured in both arms, typically \[O iii\]$`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$, matched for a given region, we merged both data sets.

### 4.6 Ultraviolet spectroscopy

The aperture used in the UV spectra taken from the IUE Final Archive (20″$`\times `$10″) was centered in the brightest visual knot (#26) with position angle PA=117$`\mathrm{°}`$. The UV spectra of this knot shows the strong absorption lines of Si iv$`\lambda `$$`\lambda `$1394,1403Å and C iv$`\lambda `$1548Å (see Fig. 4). Although this spectrum has been smoothed, the signal-to-noise ratio prevents us from carrying out a quantitative analysis. However, this spectrum contains valuable information, showing a clear P Cygni profile on the C iv$`\lambda `$1548Å line, typical of the fast and dense winds of O-type supergiants.

## 5 Evolutionary synthesis models

In order to derive the physical properties of the different stellar populations in Mrk~86 we have built a complete set of evolutionary synthesis models based in those developed by Bruzual & Charlot (priv. comm.).

First, we have assumed that the optical-near-infrared spectral energy distribution (SED) in any region of Mrk~86 can be described by a young star-forming burst superimposed on an underlying stellar population. The burst strength parameter, $`b`$, will describe the mass ratio between both stellar populations. Then, using this parameter and the evolution with time of the stellar continuum prediced by the Bruzual & Charlot (priv. comm.) models, we derive the colors and number of Lyman photons emitted for different composite stellar populations, with $`b`$ ranging between 10-4 and 1. We have studied models with metallicities 1/50 Z, 1/5 Z, 2/5 Z, Z and 2 Z, and Scalo (scalo (1986)) IMF with $`M_{\mathrm{low}}`$=0.1 M and $`M_{\mathrm{up}}`$=125 M. The underlying population has been parametrized using the optical-near-infrared colours measured in the outer regions of Mrk~86. We use, $`BV`$=0.69, $`VR`$=0.52, $`RJ`$=1.27, $`JH`$=0.99 and $`RK`$=2.35, as underlying stellar population colors, assuming that no significant color gradients are present (see Fig. 6). In addition, the mass-to-light ratio adopted for this stellar population in the $`K`$-band was 0.87 M/LK,☉ (see Paper II).

Now, following the procedure described by Gil de Paz et al. (2000b ) and Alonso-Herrero et al. (aah96 (1996)) we included the contribution to the total flux and colors arising from the nebular continuum and the most intense emission-lines (i.e., \[O ii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$3726,3729Å, H$`\beta `$, \[O iii\]$`\lambda `$4959Å, \[O iii\]$`\lambda `$5007Å and H$`\alpha `$, etc).

We have assumed, in order to compute the nebular continuum emission, an electron density, $`n_\mathrm{e}`$, of 102 cm-3 and a temperature, $`T_\mathrm{e}`$, of 104 K. In addition, from the analysis of our spectroscopic data (see Paper II), we adopted a $`N[He\text{ii}]/N[H\text{ii}]`$ abundance ratio of 0.12. We have also assumed that the He iii abundance is so low that the emission from recombination to He ii is negligible.

Finally, we have included the contribution of the emission lines to the total flux. The contribution of the H$`\beta `$, H$`\alpha `$, Pa$`\beta `$, Br10-Br19 and Br$`\gamma `$ hydrogen emission lines to the $`BVRJHK`$ bands was obtained assuming the case-B of recombination (Osterbrock osterbrock (1989)) and using the relation given by Brocklehurst (brock (1971)). The contribution of the most intense forbidden lines have been estimated using average \[O ii\]$`\lambda \lambda `$3726,3729/\[O iii\]$`\lambda `$5007 and \[O iii\]$`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ line ratios, as provided by our spectroscopic data. Fortunately, the contribution of all the forbidden lines to the $`B`$ and $`V`$ bands is very small. Using the higher and lower line-ratios measured in the galaxy, this contribution would range between 1 and 8 per cent for the $`B`$-band and 2 and 8 per cent for the $`V`$-band, for a H$`\alpha `$ equivalent width (EW hereafter) of 100Å.

The output of the models will be the optical-near-infrared colors $`BV`$, $`VR`$, $`VJ`$, $`JH`$ and $`JK`$ of the composite stellar population, its H$`\alpha `$ luminosity and equivalent width, and mass-to-light ratio, parametrized as a function of the burst age, burst strength and stellar metallicity ($`t`$,$`b`$,$`Z`$).

The Cousins-$`R`$ magnitudes originally given by the Bruzual & Charlot (priv. comm.) models have been converted to Johnson-$`R`$ magnitudes using the relation given by Fernie (fernie (1983)). However, if we compare the correction predicted by Fernie (fernie (1983)) in the case of very red stars ($`R_CR_J`$$``$0.25m) with that measured by Fukugita et al. (fukugita (1995)) for early-type galaxies, typically of 0.1m –with no correction for extinction applied–, we find differences of about 0.15m. Since the change in $`R_CR_J`$ due to the correction for extinction can not be higher than 0.02m, this difference has to be attributed to a difference in the correction between evolved stellar populations and individual very-red stars. Thus, in the case of the underlying population analysis, we have applied the mean correction given by Fukugita et al. (fukugita (1995)).

## 6 Results

### 6.1 Underlying stellar population

The surface brightness profiles given in Fig. 3 show a clear exponential dominance at regions outer than $``$1.25 kpc. We have obtained the parameters of this exponential component on the deepest $`R`$-band profile yielding a scale, $`\alpha `$, of 0.88$`\pm `$0.02 kpc and an extrapolated central surface brightness, $`\mu _{\mathrm{E},0}`$, of 21.50$`\pm `$0.06 mag arcsec-2. Papaderos et al. (1996a ) obtained quite different values, $`\alpha `$=0.74$`\pm `$0.06 kpc and $`\mu _{\mathrm{E},0}`$=19.42$`\pm `$0.03 mag arcsec-2. This difference is not surprising considering that the $`R`$-band profile given Papaderos et al. (1996a ) only reaches galactocentric distances of 2 kpc.

The color profiles in the galaxy outer regions, where the underlying stellar population dominates the total light profile, are shown in Fig. 6. No significant color gradients are observed at distances larger than 1.2-1.3 kpc, whereas at shorter distances a progressive and swallow blueing is derived. This blueing is probably related with an increment in the light contamination from high surface brightness star-forming regions associated to the plateau component. In Fig. 7 we show the H$`\alpha `$ profile compared with the surface brightness profile in the $`B`$-band of the plateau component (see Papaderos et al. 1996a ). From this figure it is quite clear that the progresive blueing observed at distances shorter than 40″ is due to currently star-forming regions located in the plateau component.

### 6.2 Star-forming regions

In Sect. 4.3 we have classified the regions observed in the Mrk~86 neighborhood as S, E, N, F and B objects (S, spectroscopically confirmed; E, emission-line regions; N, extended and diffuse; F, foreground stars; B background galaxies).

The optical-nIR colors measured for the F objects seem to indicate that the #4, #61 and #67 regions are, respectively, M0-M3, K2-K5 and G7-K0 spectral type foreground stars. Besides, between the B type objects (background galaxies), we find two very red objects, #2 and #3 regions , with $`VK`$ colors of about 5 and 4m, respectively.

Hereafter, we present the results for the study of the S, E and N-type regions. First, we have analyzed their $`R`$-band luminosities in Fig. 8a. We observe that this distribution has a clear maximum at MR=$``$9.5m. This distribution can not be well fitted using any standard power-law luminosity function (see, e.g. Elson & Fall elson (1985), for the LMC star-clusters LF).

In Fig. 8b we show the H$`\alpha `$ luminosity distribution of the galaxy emission-line regions. The H$`\alpha `$ luminosities used were corrected for internal extinction. In those cases were spectroscopic data were not available we used a mean color excess of $`E(BV)_{\mathrm{gas}}`$=0.34m. The distribution obtained is nearly flat in the luminosity range 1037.7-1038.7 erg s-1, with most of the H ii regions showing H$`\alpha `$ luminosities in the range 1036-1039 erg s-1. This luminosity range corresponds to star formation rates between 6$`\times `$10-5 and 0.06 M yr-1 (Gil de Paz et al. 2000b ). The spatial resolution of the H$`\alpha `$ image is about 40 pc. Therefore, the scarcity of H ii regions fainter than 1036 erg s-1 can not be explained as an effect of the spatial resolution (see Kennicutt et al. kennicutt (1989)).

It should be noticed that some of these H$`\alpha `$ emitting regions showing very faint or null continuum emission (#7, #9, #12, #50), seem to be pure gas regions photoionized by distant stellar clusters. These regions are in many cases associated with the rim of expanding bubbles (see Martin martin (1998), GZG).

Now, in Fig. 8c we show the radius distribution measured in the $`R`$-band image (given by the e-folding radius; see Appendix). These radii have been corrected for the PSF contribution (see Sect. 4.2). This distribution shows a maximum at about 1 arc second, that corresponds to a FWHM of about 55 pc.

In Fig. 8d, the $`R`$-band and H$`\alpha `$ luminosities are compared. The lines drawn suggest that these regions have equivalent widths of H$`\alpha `$ ranging between 100-500Å. Since both, H$`\alpha `$ and $`R`$-band fluxes have been measured subtracted from the contribution of the underlying population, these EW(H$`\alpha `$) are pure H ii region equivalent widths. In this figure the symbol size is proportional to the extinction corrected $`BV`$ color, using larger symbols for bluer regions. Finally, we have compared (see Fig. 8e) the knot apparent magnitude and the physical radius, both measured on the $`R`$-band image using the cobra program. If all these star-forming regions were optically thin at these wavelengths and they had similar star densities we would expect the flux to be proportional to the cube of the radius. In Fig. 8e the best fit to the function $`F_RR^3`$ is also shown.

### 6.3 Central Starburst

Finally, we have studied the region classified by Papaderos et al. (1996a ) as the starburst component (see Fig. 2). This component appears as a bright, extended and not very well defined region in the broad-band $`BVRJHK`$ images (see Fig. 1).

The integrated blue color measured by Papaderos et al. (1996a ) in the galaxy central parts, $`BR`$0.9 (0.93$`\pm `$0.26 in our work), similar to that observed in Scd and Im galaxy types (Fukugita et al. fukugita (1995)), indicates the existence of a young stellar population superimposed on the evolved underlying component. However, the absence of significant gas emission (see the H$`\alpha `$ image in Fig. 1) suggests an intermediate aged dominating population. In Table 6 we give the colors and spectroscopic indexes measured for this region (see Trager et al. trager98 (1998)) at two different slit positions444The spectroscopic indexes have been measured using the reduceme package (Cardiel et al. reduceme (1998)).. The integrated optical-near-infrared colors shown in Table 6 have been measured on the $`R`$-band image using an aperture with radius 4.3″ (1 e-folding), as given by the cobra program. This aperture is marked in Fig. 2 with a thick-lined contour. These colors have not been corrected for extinction. The MR absolute magnitude has been measured subtracted from underlying emission. The spectroscopic indexes have been measured in the integrated spectra of the starburst section covered by the slits #4b and #1b. (see Table 2; see also Fig. 1 of GZG).

In Paper II we will derive the physical properties of this region by comparing the optical-nIR colors obtained with the predictions of our evolutionary synthesis models. In addition, the spectroscopic indexes measured will be compared with those prediced by the Bruzual & Charlot (priv. comm.) evolutionary synthesis models.

## 7 Conclusions

In this paper, the first of two, we have presented the observations and data analysis for the optical-near-infrared study of the Blue Compact Dwarf galaxy Mrk~86. We have taken $`BVRJHK`$, H$`\alpha `$ and \[O iii\]$`\lambda `$5007Å images and long-slit optical spectroscopy for the object. Thus, using all these data,

* we have obtained the underlying population surface brightness and color profiles. The deepest $`R`$-band image yields an exponential profile for this component with extrapolated central surface brigthness of $`\mu _{\mathrm{E},0}`$=21.5 mag arcsec-2 and scale, $`\alpha `$=0.88 kpc. No significant color gradients are observed in this component at distances larger 1.2-1.3 kpc.
* We have cataloged and classified all the regions observed in the neighborhood of the galaxy. If these regions are associated with the galaxy have been classified as S (spectroscopically confirmed), E (confirmed by their photometric H$`\alpha `$ or \[O iii\]$`\lambda `$5007Å emission) or N (diffuse and placed in the galaxy central region) type regions. S and E type objects are accepted to be galactic H ii regions. N objects are, probably, evolved stellar clusters, with negligible Lyman continuum emission. On the other hand, background galaxies and foreground stars are classified as B and F types, respectively.
* We have also described the set of evolutionary synthesis models used in Paper II. These models are based in those developed by Bruzual & Charlot (priv. comm.). They have been obtained for metallicities between 1/50 Z and 2 Z, and burst strength ranging between 10-4 and 1. We have included nebular continuum and recombination and forbidden lines emission. Although the contribution of the forbidden-line fluxes is quite uncertain in those regions where spectroscopic data are not available, the contribution of these lines in the $`RJHK`$ bands is negligible and lower than 8 per cent for the $`BV`$-bands (assuming an EW(H$`\alpha `$)$``$100Å).
* The optical-near-infrared colors, fluxes, emission line intensities of the S, E and N regions have been measured. Optical and near-infrared colors have been measured. The physical properties of the galaxy star-forming regions will be derived in Paper II, comparing these data with the evolutionary synthesis models developed. This comparison will be performed using a method based in the combination of Monte Carlo simulations, a maximum likelihood estimator, a single linkage clustering anaylisis method and the Principal Component Analysis (PCA).
* Finally, we provide optical-near-infrared colors and spectroscopic indexes for the central starburst component.

## 8 Appendix: COBRA program

Due to the large number of star-forming regions in Mrk~86 and the intense and variable underlying emission we developed a program that allowed us to substract this underlying emission and the occasional contamination from neighbor star-forming regions. Then, on the underlying emission subtracted image, we determined the most reliable apertures, sizes, and integrated fluxes for all these regions. This program was written in fortran77 programming language and it was called COBRA (see http://www.ucm.es/info/Astrof/cobra/).

COBRA uses different graphic output devices, including xwindows and Postscript, and makes use of the AMOEBA (Press et al. press (1986)), PGPLOT, FITSIO and BUTTON (Cardiel et al. reduceme (1998); see also Cardiel cardiel99 (1999)) subroutines.

In this Appendix we will describe the procedure followed to estimate the underlying emission and the criteria used to determine the sizes and fluxes of the star-forming regions and stellar clusters in Mrk~86 using the program COBRA.

### 8.1 Light profiles fitting

First, (1) a image section including the region of interest is selected interactively (see the original images in Fig. 10). The size of this section necessarily depends on the spatial scale of the change in the underlying emission and the proximity of neighbor regions. This section must be chosen in such a way that the background emission (underlying and neighbor regions emission) can be reproduced by a line in the $`x`$ and $`y`$ light profiles. Thus, when several relative maxima are placed too close to match this criterion they were studied as a single region.

After cropping the image section selected, (2) the position of the maximum of the region of interest is marked interactively. Then, the light profile along the $`x`$ axis at this position is fitted.

In order to perform this fit three different components are used, a line that reproduced the underlying and neighbor regions contamination and two gaussians that allowed to reproduce the light profile of the region of interest. In principle, any smooth, monotonic light profile can be approximated by a serie of Gaussians (somewhat analogous to the Fourier series), not only the PSF of an image, but also the light profiles of remote stellar clusters or galactic cores (see Bendinelli et al. bendinelli (1990)). Two gaussians are employed in order to reproduce the light profile of these regions because the use of a larger number of components led in some cases to solutions with no physical meaning.

Then, the best fit for the initial light profile using the minimization subroutine AMOEBA is obtained. The AMOEBA subroutine needs an initial set of solutions which can be defined by the 8 parameters of the function to minimize (3 for each gaussian and 2 for the line). These parameters were introduced interactively marking the approximate position of the center and FWHM for each gaussian and two extreme values in the profile for the line. In Fig. 9 we show an example of the positions of the points used to define the set of initial parameters for the fit. Points 1,2,3 and 4,5,6 led to the initial parameters for the two gaussians and points 7,8 for the line. Using this set of parameters, (3) the best-fitting light profile is obtained (see Fig. 9).

Then, from the output of this fit and introducing the new positions of the two gaussian maxima, (4) all the $`x`$ axis profiles are fitted starting from those profiles adjacent to the initial one. The need of using previous results for the subsequent fits constitutes the main reason for starting this fitting procedure at the maximum of the emission region.

Next, (5) the same fitting procedure is applied to the $`y`$ axis profiles. Finally, after the profiles have been fitted in both axis, the underlying emission images reconstructed are averaged and subtracted from the original input image (see several examples in Fig. 10). This background-free image is then used to determine the centers, apertures, sizes and integrated fluxes of the different regions.

### 8.2 Position, sizes and fluxes

The knot center is taken as the maximum of the sum of the two gaussian components. Then, computing the knot surface, $`A_\mathrm{x}`$, above different thresholds, $`I_\mathrm{x}`$, we can estimate the equivalent knot e-folding radius, $`R_{\mathrm{e}\mathrm{folding}}`$, using,

$$R_{\mathrm{e}\mathrm{folding}}=\sqrt{\frac{A_\mathrm{x}}{\pi \mathrm{ln}(\frac{I_{\mathrm{max}}}{I_\mathrm{x}})}}$$
(1)
where $`I_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the knot maximum intensity. In Fig. 11 we show the change in the area $`A_\mathrm{x}`$ for different thresholds as measured in the background subtracted image of the star-forming region #18 (with 1 e-folding radius of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$93). The relatively small change deduced for the e-folding radius with the threshold guarantees the goodness of this size determination procedure.

The e2 and e3-folding radii are then computed as $`\sqrt{2}`$ and $`\sqrt{3}`$ times the e-folding radius. Then, the knot contours are derived at these three radii, i.e. at $`I_{\mathrm{max}}`$/$`I_\mathrm{x}`$=e,e2,e3. The knot total flux is computed as the total flux in the background subtracted image. In order to ensure that most of the knot flux was included we derive the knot growing-curve, finding differences not larger than 20 per cent between total and growing-curve extrapolated flux.

## Acknowledgments

Based on observations at the Jacobus Kapteyn, Isaac Newton and Willian Herschel telescopes operated on the island of La Palma by the Royal Greenwich Observatory in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto Astrofísico de Canarias and from International Ultraviolet Explorer archive at the ESA VILSPA observatory. Based also on observations collected at the German-Spanish Astronomical Center, Calar Alto, Spain, operated by the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPIA), Heidelberg, jointly with the spanish ’Comisión Nacional de Astronomía’.

We are grateful to Carme Jordi and D. Galadí for obtaining the $`V`$-band image. We would like to thank C. Sánchez Contreras and L.F. Miranda for obtaining the high resolution spectra, N. Cardiel for providing the reduceme package and C.E. García Dabó for the PlateAstrom routine. We also thank A. Alonso-Herrero for her help in the acquisition and reduction of the nIR images. We also acknowledge the anonymous referee for several helpful comments. Finally, we thank to C.E. García Dabó and J. Cenarro for stimulating conversations, and M. Sharina for providing a reprint copy of her article. This research has been supported in part by the grants PB93-456 and PB96-0610 from the Spanish ’Programa Sectorial de Promoción del Conocimiento’. A. Gil de Paz acknowledges the receipt of a ’Formación del Profesorado Universitario’ fellowship from the spanish ’Ministerio de Educación y Cultura’.


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# Phase Evolution in a Kondo correlated system

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## Abstract

The coherence and phase evolution of electrons in a mesoscopic system in the Kondo correlated regime were studied. The Kondo effect, in turn, is one of the most fundamental many-body effects where a localized spin interacts with conduction electrons in a conductor. Results were obtained by embedding a quantum dot (QD) in a *double path* electronic interferometer and measuring interference of electron waves. The Phase was found to evolve in a range twice as large as the theoretically predicted one. Moreover, the phase proved to be highly sensitive to the onset of Kondo correlation, thus serving as a new fingerprint of the Kondo effect.

\]

The Kondo effect , a many body phenomenon, first discovered in metals slightly doped with magnetic impurities, has become one of the paradigms of strongly correlated systems. The effect, related to the Anderson model , results from an interaction of magnetic impurities with conduction electrons. In 1988 it was recognized  that the Kondo effect could also take place in a system of a spin polarized quantum dot (QD) , strongly coupled to an electron reservoir, thus forming a *spin singlet*. Indeed the effect was recently observed in a mesoscopic QD by Goldhaber-Gordon et al. , who were able to control in situ many relevant parameters that affect Kondo correlation. Even though the Kondo effect has been studied for some time, one of its most fundamental properties was never experimentally verified: a phase shift $`\pi /2`$ experienced by scattering electrons from the spin singlet . Recently, such a calculation was applied to a Kondo correlated QD with similar predictions . We address this issue experimentally by combining a mesoscopic, Kondo correlated QD with a *double path* Aharonov - Bohm (AB) interferometer . After verifying the coherence, we proceeded to measuring the phase shift the traversing electrons through the dot experience. We find an unexpected behavior of the phase shift, which evolved in a range twice as large as that of the predicted one . Moreover, we show that the phase evolution is extremely sensitive to the onset of Kondo correlation: while the conductance of the QD varies slightly and in a monotonous fashion with such onset, the phase behavior is radically different, serving as a distinct fingerprint of the Kondo effect.

The QD, serving here as a localized spin, is a small, confined, puddle of electrons, with two tunnel barriers coupling it to two electron reservoirs. The electrons in the puddle occupy a discrete ladder of energy levels, with level energy $`\epsilon _d`$, and an average energy separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ between non spin degenerate levels. A capacitively coupled metallic gate (plunger) is used to tune the energy levels in the dot. Resonant tunneling between the two reservoirs (through the tunnel barrier – puddle – tunnel barrier system) takes place and current flows when an energy level is aligned with the Fermi level in the leads. When one of the electronic levels drops below the Fermi level in the leads, it gets occupied and the number of electrons in the dot increases by one. However, due to the small capacitance $`C`$ of the QD and the discreteness of the electronic charge $`e`$, an additional, classical, *charging energy* $`U_C=e^2/2C`$, is needed in order to add a single electron into the dot. Effectively, the peak spacing is $`U_C+\mathrm{\Delta }`$, where typically $`U_C\mathrm{\Delta }`$. At low temperature $`T`$ ($`k_BTU_C`$, with $`k_B`$ the Boltzmann constant), when the Fermi surface in the leads lays in the gap between levels, there is a well-defined number of electrons in the QD and current does not flow. This is the well-known Coulomb Blockade phenomenon, where periodic conductance peaks as a function of plunger voltage are separated by almost zero conductance valleys.

While Coulomb Blockade in QDs is a manifestation of the quantization of the electronic charge, the net spin of a QD is also quantized (in units $`h/2`$, with $`h`$ the Plank constant). Generally, each energy state is spin degenerate, namely, it can host two electrons: one with *spin up* and one with *spin down*. Hence, the QD is *spin polarized* (with nonzero net spin) when it contains an odd number of electrons, thus acting as a ’magnetic impurity’. Furthermore, when the QD is strongly coupled to the leads and the temperature is sufficiently low, a spin singlet can form between the spin polarized dot and opposite spin electrons in the leads. This, so-called, Kondo correlation leads to an enhancement of the conductance of the valley between the spin degenerate peaks. The enhancement can be explained via an intuitive semi-classical approach. While the Coulomb Blockade is a first-order quantum mechanical effect the Kondo effect is a second-order effect, involving two electrons simultaneously. Having the top-most spin-degenerate energy level singly occupied with a spin up electron, this electron can tunnel out to the right lead while another electron, with spin down, simultaneously tunnels in from the left lead. This keeps the number of electrons in the dot constant but leads to a net spin flip in the dot. This process is followed by the return to the dot of the spin up electron in the right lead accompanied by a simultaneous jump of the spin down electron in to the right lead. The final result is a double-spin-flip of the dot and net transfer of a spin down electron from the left lead to the right one - leading to net current transfer . In an alternative view, for a dot well coupled to the leads, the spin up electron’s wavefunction leaks from the dot to the leads, keeping away the spin up electrons in the leads due to the Pauli exclusion principle. The spin down electrons, on the other hand, can get very close to the polarized dot. This can be modeled as an effective attractive potential for the spin down electrons near the dot, leading to the formation of a lower energy spin singlet (Fig. 1A). Due to this attractive potential, which turns out to be most effective for electrons at the Fermi energy, the impinging rate of spin down electrons on the dot increases, leading effectively to an increased current. The *effective transport density of states* develops a sharp peak at the Fermi energy (Fig. 1A), with a width reflecting the binding energy of the singlet. This small binding energy is customarily described by a *Kondo temperature*, $`T_K`$ (some 1 K in our QDs). Hence, the Kondo enhanced valley conductance can be easily quenched by increasing the temperature, applying a finite DC bias across the QD, or reducing the coupling strength between the QD and the leads.

Ubiquitous conductance measurements in QDs have already demonstrated the Kondo effect ; however, they left the issue of coherence and phase evolution in such system open. To address this issue, we adopted our previously developed double-path electron interferometer with an embedded QD in one of its paths  tuned to the Kondo regime (Fig. 1B). In such system, smaller in overall dimensions than the *phase breaking length*, the current collected in the drain depends both on the magnitude, $`t_{QD}`$, and phase, $`\varphi _{QD}`$, of the transmission coefficient of the QD. Since the four base regions collect most of the back-scattered electrons, the net transmission of electrons going from source (S) to drain (D), $`t_{SD}`$, is a coherent sum of the transmissions via the two direct paths (dashed lines in Fig. 1B). With $`t_{ref}`$, $`\varphi _{ref}`$, belonging to the reference arm, $`t_{SD}=t_{ref}+t_{QD}`$ (assuming $`t_{left}=t_{QD}`$). The collected current in the drain, assuming a coherent system, is in turn $`I_{SD}\left|t_{SD}\right|^2=\left|t_{left}\right|^2+\left|t_{QD}\right|^2+2\left|t_{left}\right|\left|t_{QD}\right|cos(\varphi _{ref}\varphi _{QD})`$. Introducing a magnetic flux, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, in the area encompassed by the two paths, changes the relative phase of the reference arm via the AB effect (10),$`\varphi _{ref}\varphi _{ref}+2\pi \mathrm{\Phi }/\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$, with $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0=h/e`$ the *flux quantum*. This leads to an oscillating periodic component in the current as a function of magnetic field $``$ $`cos(\varphi _{ref}\varphi _{QD}+2\pi \mathrm{\Phi }/\mathrm{\Phi }_0)`$. The phase evolution in the QD can then be directly deduced from the phase of the current oscillation in the drain. Such experiments, which have already been carried out with QDs in the Coulomb Blockade regime, lead to surprising results. The measured phase of the QD was found to climb by $`\pi `$ as each resonance swept through the Fermi level in the leads, as expected. In the valley between the peaks, however, the phase experienced an unexpected abrupt $`\pi `$ phase lapse — a phenomenon still not understood.

The double path interferometer is similar to that used in Ref. 11 (Fig. 1B). It is fabricated in a two dimensional electron gas (2DEG), embedded in a GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructure, with sub-micron metallic gates deposited on the surface. The QD is made smaller than usual ($`180nm\times 200nm`$) to allow large energy level spacing, hence allowing strong coupling of the dot to the leads, without overlapping of the energy levels. There are a few tens of electrons in the dot with average level spacing $`\mathrm{\Delta }0.5meV`$ and a charging energy $`U_C1.5meV`$. Another barrier gate was added in order to shut off the reference arm and allow measuring the conductance of the bare QD. Measurements were done in a dilution refrigerator with base temperature $`T_{lattice}`$$`<50mK`$ and an electron temperature $`T_{electron}90mK`$. Current collected in the drain was measured with standard lock-in techniques, with an excitation voltage $`10\mu V`$ at $`7Hz`$, applied between the source and the nearby base contacts. Four different samples, fabricated with different size QDs and in different 2DEG systems, were measured. All produced qualitatively similar results.

A *Kondo-enhanced* valley, confined between a pair of conductance peaks, is usually identified by its higher conductance and its quench either by an increased temperature, or by an applied finite DC bias across the QD, or by reducing the coupling to the leads . Such an identification of the ’Kondo pair’ was performed by measuring the conductance of the QD after pinching off the reference arm with the barrier gate. Four conductance peaks as a function of plunger gate (P) voltage are seen in Figs. 1C and 1D. At the lowest temperature and zero DC bias, the two center conductance peaks border a relatively high valley. These peaks are more closely spaced and have peak heights near the quantum conductance, $`e^2/h`$. As the temperature was increased ($`90\mathrm{}300`$ mK, Fig. 1C) or the DC biased was raised ($`0\mathrm{}\pm 50\mu V`$, Fig. 1D), the central valley conductance decreased, the peak heights decreased, and the peak spacing increased — all characteristic of a Kondo correlated pair . The conductance of the two outer valleys and peaks remained almost unchanged — characteristic of Coulomb Blockaded transport .

Having identified the Kondo pair, we removed the barrier gate voltage and formed the source and drain point contacts, thus allowing two paths interference. The drain current, as a function of the plunger gate voltage, is shown in Fig. 2A. It resembles the conductance of the bare QD (seen in Fig. 1C), but the peaks are shifted by some $`80`$ mV in plunger gate voltage, their shape is distorted, and a large background appears. The obvious reason for the shift is the change in the electrostatic influence of the barrier gate and the two point contacts forming the source and drain. Shape distortion can be accounted for by the interference of the electron waves arriving from both of the interferometer arms. To perform interference, a controlled phase difference between the two direct paths from S to D was then induced by the application of a perpendicular magnetic field via the AB effect. The oscillation observed in the drain current (shown for example in five different points in Fig. 2A and 2B), with period $`3.5`$ mT, immediately suggests coherency of transport in the QD current, when the dot is tuned to peaks or a valley of conductance. The high visibility ($`525\%`$), suggests that transport through the dot is highly coherent . Assuming that the transmission of the reference arm remains unaffected by the plunger gate voltage, each trace of current oscillation (like in Fig. 2B) provides two data points: an average visibility and phase, leading to the magnitude and phase of the transmission coefficient of the QD. The visibility and the phase are shown as a function of plunger gate voltage in Fig. 2C. The visibility mimics quite well the conductance of the QD shown in Fig. 1C, suggesting that the coherent transmission and the total transmission are qualitatively similar in the entire energy range. While phase lapses, similar to those observed in Ref. 11, are observed between non-spin-degenerate levels ( the outer valleys near $`V_P=280`$ mV, $`210`$ mV), the phase in the spin-degenerate levels evolves continuously and monotonously, with no sign of phase lapse. The phase climbs through the spin up peak and saturates at $`\pi `$ in the valley, thereafter it continues and climbs by anohter $`0.5\pi `$ through the spin down peak. In other samples, not shown here, we find the climb through the spin down peak to be also close to $`\pi `$. We believe that the total phase change across a Kondo pair varies from one sample to another because of peaks overlapping depending on their width and spacing. Hence, ideally, the phase seems to evolve by $`\pi `$ into the Kondo valley and by $`2\pi `$ across the two spin degenerate levels. This is in contradiction with the prediction of Gerland et al. , who predicted a $`\pi /2`$ and $`\pi `$ phase change, respectively. It is worth noting that in our device, due to the relatively high temperatures of the electrons, we could not reach the full Kondo enhancement, where the valley conductance reaches $`e^2/h`$ . Still, phase behavior is markedly distinct and different than the Coulomb Blockade regime. We believe it would stay invariant at lowest temperature.

Since the Coulomb Blockade regime can be easily approached by reducing the coupling strength between the QD and the leads, such a procedure was followed with results shown in Fig. 3. As the coupling strength becomes gradually weaker (from Fig. 3A to Fig. 3D), the phase evolves from a continuous increase across the two spin-degenerate levels to a sudden appearance of a small phase lapse in the valley (even though the Kondo correlation was still apparent in that condition), increasing eventually to a full $`\pi `$ phase lapse — distinctive at Coulomb Blockade transport. As suggested before, the narrowing of the peaks, leading to reduced overlapping between them, indeed allowed a greater span of phase change, namely, a full accumulation of $`\pi `$ across each peak.

Similarly, increasing the temperature to an order of $`T_K`$ or applying a bias across the QD to an order of $`k_BT_K`$ destroys Kondo correlation (Fig. 1). Note, however, that as the temperature increases, the visibility tends to decrease because of the shorter dephasing length and phase smearing of the electrons in the interferometer. While the visibility follows the behavior of the conductance shown in Fig. 1C, the phase evolution, changes once again from that of a smooth and monotonic increase at low temperatures to that with a small phase lapse in the valley as temperature increases. Phase lapse reaches a full $`\pi `$ drop at temperature of about $`1`$ K (Fig. 4B). Similarly, the application of a small DC bias across the QD leads to a similar change in the phase evolution, moving from a smooth increase to a phase lapse (Fig. 4D). In both cases Kondo correlation ceases to exist at $`TT_K1`$ K and $`eV_{DC}k_BT_K100\mu eV`$.

The results presented here demonstrate a clear fingerprint of Kondo correlation in a QD with spin degenerate levels. As the correlation is being gradually suppressed, a gradual transition to the familiar behavior of the phase in the Coulomb Blockade regime emerges. The total phase change as the two spin-degenerate levels cross the Fermi energy in the leads is nearly $`2\pi `$ with a phase shift $`\pi `$ in the conduction valley. This does not agree with the prediction by Gerland et al.  of $`\pi `$ and $`\pi /2`$, respectively. Moreover, the phase evolution approaches to be highly sensitive to the onset of Kondo correlation. While the conductance is only a quantitative mark of the effect and has to be verified by changing temperature, voltage or coupling strength, the phase evolution has a distinctive behavior, which abruptly changes as one weakens the Kondo correlation while moving into the Coulomb Blockade regime.

Figure Captions

Figure 1.

Kondo correlated spin singlet, sample description, and characterization of a Kondo pair. (A) Energy diagram of a quantum dot with Kondo correlation. The two spin-degenerate energy levels, $`\epsilon _d`$ and $`\epsilon _d+U_C`$, are strongly coupled to the leads. At low temperature, a spin singlet is formed between the localized electron in the QD and an opposite spin electron in the leads, thus leading to a strong resonance in the *transport density of states* (dashed line) centered at the Fermi level in the leads. (B) A top-view scanning electron micrograph of the electronic double-path interferometer. The device is defined by negatively biased metallic gates (lightly gray areas) deposited on the surface of a GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructure with high mobility electrons $`55`$ nm below the surface (density $`n=3\times 10^{11}cm^2`$, mobility $`\mu =5\times 10^5cm^2V^1s^1`$, measured at $`1.5`$ K). Three different regimes can be identified: source (S), drain (D), and base (B). The source and the drain openings support only one transverse mode, thus producing a planar electronic wavefront in the far field. The base regions collect back-scattered electrons to ensure that only the two forward-propagating paths (broken white lines) reach the collector. A metallic air bridge, formed by special lithographic techniques, is used to deplete the island between the two paths. A quantum dot (area $`180nm\times 200nm`$) is placed in the left arm, with both of its point contacts and the plunger gate (P) individually controlled. Reflectors R, confining the two paths, are used to deflect the electrons toward the drain. A barrier gate is used to cut off the reference (right) arm, in order to tune the bare dot to the Kondo regime. (C) The effect of increasing temperature on the conductance with $`V_{DC}=0\mu V`$ across the QD. As the temperature increases, the *(*Kondo enhancemeant) of the central valley becomes smaller. (D) The effect of DC bias across the QD on the conductance at $`T=90`$ mK. The central valley conductance decreases with increasing DC bias.

Figure 2.

Complex transmission coefficient of the quantum dot in the Kondo regime measured via the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect. (A) Collector current as a function of plunger gate voltage at zero magnetic field. This current is very sensitive to magnetic field due to the AB effect, as shown in (B), when a series of interference patterns in the current collected by the drain (at specific points given in (A)), as a function of magnetic field (shifted vertically), taken at specific positions noted in (A). Trace 3, measured at center of the conductance valley between the Kondo pair, verifies coherency of electron transport in the Kondo valley. (C) Qualitative behavior of the magnitude (shown by the visibility of AB oscillation) and absolute value of the phase of the transmission coefficient of the QD — both obtained from the AB oscillations. Note that the phase evolves continuously through the Kondo pair while there is a phase lapse of $`\pi `$ between the other consecutive peaks.

Figure 3.

Phase lapse is formed as the coupling between the quantum dot and the leads is gradually reduced. When the coupling to the leads is strong (A), the phase evolution is continuous and the total phase change through the spin-degenerate pair is about $`1.5\pi `$. As the coupling gets weaker (from (A) to (D)), and the QD enters the Coulomb Blockade regime, the familiar phase lapse  is recovered and a full phase evolution of $`\pi `$ across each peak emerges. The peak position is shifting due to the influence of voltage applied to the gates that formed the two point contacts of the QD.

Figure 4.

The effect of temperature and an applied DC bias on the phase evolution. (A) Qualitative behavior of the magnitude, and (B) phase evolution of the transmission coefficient as a function of plunger gate voltage, measured with increasing temperature. (C) qualitative behavior of the magnitude, and (D) phase evolution of the transmission coefficient as a function of plunger gate voltage, measured at 90 mK with increasing DC bias between source and base. In both cases, the monotonous phase evolution disappears at some point and a phase lapse is formed in the valley between the Kondo pair, as the QD approaches the Coulomb Blockade regime.


text:
# Systems of linear ordinary differential equations with bounded coefficients may have very oscillating solutions

## Bounds for oscillation of solutions

In  it was shown that a linear ordinary differential equation of order $`n`$ with real analytic coefficients bounded in a neighborhood of the segment $`[1,1]`$, admits an upper bound for the number of isolated zeros for all its solutions.

Actually, the analyticity condition can be relaxed: it is only the boundedness of the coefficients that matters. Probably, the simplest result in this spirit looks as follows. Consider the linear ordinary differential equation

$$y^{(n)}(t)+a_1(t)y^{(n1)}(t)+\mathrm{}+a_n(t)y(t)=0.$$
(1)
with continuous coefficients bounded on $`[\alpha ,\beta ]`$: $`|a_i(t)|C`$ for some $`C1`$.

###### Theorem 1 (see ).

The number of isolated zeros of any solution of the equation (1) on $`[\alpha ,\beta ]`$ cannot exceed $`n1+\frac{n}{\mathrm{ln}2}C|\beta \alpha |`$.

An analog of this result for *systems* of ordinary differential equations (vector fields in space) would concern the number of isolated intersections between integral trajectories of the field and hyperplanes (and, more generally, hypersurfaces). Such result was proved in , see also , for *polynomial* vector fields and algebraic hypersurfaces, and the bound for the number of isolated intersections is given in terms of the *height* (maximal magnitude of coefficients) of the polynomials in the right hand side of the system. Consider a system of polynomial ordinary differential equations of degree $`d`$ in $`^n`$,

$$\dot{x}_i=v_i(t,x),i=1,\mathrm{},n,v_i(t,x)=_{k+|\alpha |d}v_{ik\alpha }t^kx^\alpha ,$$
(2)
and an algebraic hypersurface $`\{P=0\}`$, where $`P=P(t,x)`$ is another polynomial of the same degree.

###### Theorem 2 (see ).

Assume that all coefficients of the system (2) are bounded by some constant $`C`$, $`|v_{ik\alpha }|C`$. Let $`\gamma (t)`$ be an integral curve of this vector field lying entirely in the box $`B_C=\{|t|<C,|x_i|<C\}^{n+1}`$ of the same size $`C`$.

Then the number of isolated intersections between $`\gamma `$ and $`\{P=0\}`$ can be at most $`(2+R)^B`$, where $`B=B(n,d)`$ is an explicit elementary function of $`d`$ and $`n`$ only, growing no faster than $`\mathrm{exp}\mathrm{exp}\mathrm{exp}\mathrm{exp}(4n\mathrm{ln}d+O(1))`$ as $`d,n\mathrm{}`$.

As it was remarked in , this result is nontrivial even for linear systems

$$\dot{x}=A(t)x,x^n,A(t)=_{k=0}^dA_kt^k,$$
(3)
and linear hyperplanes $`\{_1^np_ix_i=0\}`$. In this case the box condition reduces to specifying the interval $`t[C,C]`$ and the height condition means that the norms of the matrix coefficients $`A_k\mathrm{Mat}_{n\times n}()`$ are assumed to be bounded, $`A_kC`$.

###### Corollary 3.

The number of isolated zeros of any component of a solution for the linear system (3) on the interval $`[C,C]`$ admits an explicit upper bound in terms of $`C`$ as above, uniformly over all solutions of this system.

Comparing these two theorems suggests the question whether the polynomiality condition in the second theorem can be relaxed and replaced, say, by the norm $`\mathrm{max}_{i=1,\mathrm{},n,(t,x)B_C}|v_i(t,x)|`$ or, in the case of the linear system (3), by $`\mathrm{max}_{t[C,C]}A(t)`$. We show that *this is impossible*.

## The example

We construct a linear $`2\times 2`$-system (3) that is polynomial of an arbitrarily high degree $`2d`$, but has the coefficient matrix $`A(t)`$ bounded by $`1`$ in the sense of the norm on $`[1,1]`$ in such a way that the number of isolated zeros of its first component is $`d`$ and hence is unbounded in terms of $`\mathrm{max}_{t[C,C]}A(t)`$.

Let $`t_1,\mathrm{},t_d[1,1]`$ be any different real numbers from the interval $`[1,1]`$. Consider a linear differential equation of the first order $`\dot{x}_1=a(t)x_1`$, where $`a(t)=\lambda (tt_1)\mathrm{}(tt_d)`$ and $`\lambda `$ is chosen so small that $`|a(t)|+|\dot{a}(t)+a^2(t)|<1`$ for any $`t[1,1]`$.

Its solution $`\varphi _1=\mathrm{exp}(a(t)𝑑t)`$ has no zeroes at all, but the derivative $`\varphi _2=\dot{\varphi }_1=a(t)\varphi _1`$ has the same zeroes as $`a(t)`$ and satisfies the equation $`\dot{\varphi }_2=(\dot{a}+a^2)\varphi _1`$.

Consider now the linear system

$$\dot{x}_1=a(t)x_1,\dot{x}_2=(\dot{a}(t)+a(t)^2)x_1.$$

The curve $`\gamma =(\varphi _1(t),\varphi _2(t))`$ is a solution of this system and its second component has $`d`$ zeroes on $`[1,1]`$. The coefficients of the system are bounded by $`1`$ in the supremum norm on the interval $`[1,1]`$. The size of solution is irrelevant since the system is linear (in other words, we can multiply it by a constant so small that it will not leave the box $`B_1`$ for $`|t|1`$). However, choosing $`d`$ sufficiently large, we can obtain any number of zeroes.

###### Remark 1.

The same example also shows that one cannot extend estimates of the Theorem 1 to derivatives of the solution.

Actually, by choosing $`\lambda `$ sufficiently small one can ensure that the coefficients of the constructed system are uniformly small in an arbitrarily chosen *complex* neighborhood of the real segment $`[1,1]`$. This shows that the bounds for oscillation around hyperplanes cannot be achieved in the spirit of  (in terms of the bounds for analytic coefficients in the complex domain) as well.

## Acknowledgment

I am grateful to S. Yakovenko for drawing my attention to this problem and stimulating discussions.


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# The Cold and Hot Gas Content of Fine-Structure E and S0 Galaxies

## 1. Introduction

In the merger hypothesis for elliptical galaxy formation (Toomre & Toomre 1972) spiral galaxies coalesce to produce ellipticals. If this is a common mechanism for the formation of ellipticals, then it requires that the cold gas present in the spiral progenitors (typically $``$109$`10^{10}M_{}`$) be lost or heated, since similar quantities of cold gas are not generally detected in ellipticals (Knapp et al. 1985a; Lees et al. 1991; Roberts et al. 1991). On the other hand, elliptical and S0 (i.e., early-type) galaxies are found to be much more X-ray luminous than spirals at a given blue luminosity $`L_B`$. While there is scatter of two orders of magnitude in the relationship between the X-ray luminosity $`L_X`$ and $`L_B`$, early-type galaxies follow a much steeper relationship than spirals (Fabbiano, Kim & Trinchieri 1992; Beuing et al. 1999). It is therefore of interest to examine the state of the interstellar medium (ISM) in merger remnants to see whether cold gas is being converted into other phases. Early-type galaxies showing morphological or kinematical peculiarities are suggested to be these post-merger objects (Schweizer 1986; Schweizer et al. 1990; Bender & Surma 1992; Schweizer & Seitzer 1992, hereafter SS92).

Ideally, one would like to trace the evolution of the cold, warm, and hot gas phases along a sequence of progressively more evolved merger remnants. This requires an observational characteristic that tracks the time elapsed since merging. To this end, Schweizer et al. (1990) introduced a fine-structure index $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ to quantify the presence of ripples, jets of luminous matter, boxiness of isophotes, etc. Ellipticals and S0 galaxies with larger values of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ were statistically shown to have observational characteristics (colours and spectral-line strengths) consistent with the presence of younger stellar populations, supporting the idea that they represent more recent mergers in which starbursts have occurred (Schweizer et al. 1990; SS92). These galaxies were suggested to be $``$2–10 Gyr old relics of ancient mergers populating the so-called “King Gap” between $`1`$ Gyr old remnants and old ellipticals (I. King, quoted in Toomre 1977).

The X-ray properties of a sequence of ongoing mergers was studied by Read & Ponman (1998). They found that, following early increases in the emission from hot gas, examples of relaxed remnants at $``$1.5 Gyrs after a merger appear relatively devoid of such gas (see also Hibbard et al. 1994). For normal galaxies of early Hubble type, Bregman et al. (1992) noted a striking lack of correlations between the hot and cold interstellar-gas components. Toward later Hubble types they found a general increase of the cold-to-hot gas ratio and interpreted this systematic change as evidence that cold gas is a phenomenon associated with discs, while hot gas is associated with bulge components.

In this paper we examine the cold and hot atomic gas contents of early-type galaxies studied by SS92 and which have also been mapped in the 21cm line of neutral hydrogen (H i) or observed in X-rays with ROSAT and its PSPC detector. By looking for trends with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, we hope to trace the fate of gas as merger remnants evolve. Preliminary work in this area was carried out by Fabbiano & Schweizer (1995) and Mackie & Fabbiano (1997), who showed that three dynamically young ellipticals with fine structure (NGC 3610, 4125 and 4382) are low X-ray emitters. We build upon this earlier work by expanding the number of galaxies with both fine structure and X-ray content quantified, and by including information on the cold atomic gas content as well. Section 2 describes the SS92 sample of galaxies, while § 3 presents a compilation of archival ROSAT observations for galaxies from that sample. In § 4, we examine separately and then together the presence of H i and X-ray emission in the SS92 sample in order to understand whether galaxies with fine structure are King Gap objects, and—if so—what we can learn about the fate of cold gas in disk–disk mergers and the origin of X-ray halos in elliptical galaxies. Finally, § 5 summarizes our conclusions.

## 2. Sample Description

To look at correlations between cold- and hot-gas content and fine structure, we took the sample of SS92. This sample consists of 69 E and S0 galaxies plus the two merger remnants NGC 3921 and NGC 7252. With the exception of the latter two objects, all sample galaxies lie north of $`\delta `$ = $``$20 and at $`|b|>20^{}`$, have apparent magnitudes $`B_\mathrm{T}`$ $``$ 13.5, and have recession velocities $`v_0<4000`$ km s-1. The two merger remnants have $`v_0<6000`$ km s-1. Five of the sample galaxies are members of the Virgo cluster, while all others are either field objects or in loose groups. The absolute magnitudes range between $`M_B`$ = $``$18.4 and $``$21.6, with a median value of $``$20.3 (for $`H_0`$ = 75 km s-1 Mpc-1). The merger remnants NGC 3921 and NGC 7252 were included because of their extremely rich fine structure and evolutionary status as likely proto-ellipticals (Toomre & Toomre 1972; Barnes 1994; Hibbard et al. 1994; Schweizer 1996).

The fine structure of these galaxies was studied by SS92 on CCD images obtained in the $`R`$ passband with the KPNO 0.9 m telescope. For each galaxy a fine-structure index $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ was derived. This index is defined as $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=S+\mathrm{log}(1+n)+J+B+X`$, where $`S`$ is a visual estimate of the strength of the most prominent ripples ($`S`$ = 0–3), $`n`$ is the number of detected ripples ($`n`$ = 0–17), $`J`$ is the number of luminous plumes or “jets” ($`J`$ = 0–4), $`B`$ is a visual estimate of the maximum boxiness of isophotes ($`B`$ = 0–3), and $`X`$ indicates the absence or presence of an X-structure ($`X`$ = 0 or 1). The values of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ for the present sample of galaxies cover the range 0–10.1. The correlation of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ with optical colours and line strengths supports its use as an indicator of ancient mergers (SS92). High sigma systems are unlikely to have formed from minor perturbations or internal instabilities, particularly those with tidal tails or jets indicative of kinematically cold progenitors. By design, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ measures four types of fine structure thought to be caused by mergers and can serve as a rough measure of dynamical youth or rejuvenation (for detailed review, see Schweizer 1998).

## 3. ROSAT Data

For the hot-gas content, we first cross-correlated the SS92 list against the ROSAT PSPC archive (within 20′ of the PSPC field centers), which yielded pointed X-ray observations for 28 of the 71 sample galaxies. X-ray fluxes were obtained from PSPC images using the broadband (0.1–2.4 keV) images from the ROSAT PSPC archive at Leicester university. We visually inspected the images to select source and background regions. We then used a circular aperture of between 1′ and 7′ radius $`R`$ (depending on source extent) to estimate source counts. Background counts in the source detection cell were estimated using either an annulus or offset areas, depending on where other sources lay in the field. To estimate fluxes from these source counts we had to adopt an integrated H i column density ($`N_{\mathrm{HI}}`$) due to our Galaxy. Such column densities were obtained from the data of Stark et al. (1992) using a program written by K. Arnaud. We assumed a thermal-source spectrum of solar metallicity and $`kT=0.5`$ keV (typical of many ellipticals, Brown & Bregman 1998). Using the ROSAT Announcement-of-Opportunity document we could then estimate conversion factors to convert our source counts to fluxes (to within 10%–20%, allowing for a temperatures range of $`0.3<kT<1.0`$ keV). One-sigma errors on fluxes are a combination of Poisson errors on source counts, including background uncertainty, and estimated errors on the conversion factor. These results are presented in Table 1. The galaxies NGC 596 and NGC 4283 were undetected, whence $`3\sigma `$ upper limits are given for the source counts and fluxes in these two cases.

To try to increase the sample size we then looked for galaxies lying within 20′ to 60′ of PSPC pointings and found 14 cases, four of which were either obscured by the PSPC support structure or too close to the edge of the field to be measurable. Of the other ten, nine were non-detections and one (NGC 3065) was detected. The counts for these sources were corrected for vignetting and are given in Table 1 as well.

In addition, we included those sample galaxies that were observed as part of the ROSAT All Sky Survey (Beuing et al. 1999), but were not among the pointed observations. This provided a measure of the X-ray content for an additional 12 galaxies from the SS92 sample, although all but one of these (NGC 5982) are upper limits. The galaxies NGC 3377 and NGC 3379, which have ROSAT HRI (but no PSPC) observations are also listed (from Brown & Bregman 1998).

Table 2 presents data for all sample galaxies with available H i mapping and/or ROSAT X-ray observations. The fine-structure $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ was taken from SS92. The total apparent blue magnitudes ($`B_\mathrm{T}`$) are from de Vaucouleurs et al. (1991, hereafter RC3), and the distances (D) from the nearby-galaxies catalogue by Tully (1988) for galaxies within about 40 Mpc and from optical velocities given in RC3 for more distant galaxies (assuming $`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1). Also listed is the logarithm of the ratio of the X-ray to blue luminosities, the “X-ray excess” $`\mathrm{log}(L_X/L_B)`$, with $`L_X`$ in ergs $`s^1`$ and $`L_B`$ in $`L_B_{}`$.

Several sources appear in both our list of ROSAT PSPC pointed observations and in the ROSAT survey data published by Beuing et al. (1999). As a way of checking the reliability of our measurements from the pointed data we compared our count rates with those of Beuing et al. The results are plotted in Fig. 1. We find that the count rates generally agree to within a factor of two. Where sources are undetected the pointed data provide more stringent upper limits. There are a few detections where the rates differ by just over a factor of two. These are NGC 7626, which has an asymmetric distribution of X-rays and is in the Pegasus I cluster with other X-ray emitting galaxies nearby; NGC 3226, which is very close to the X-ray bright galaxy NGC 3227; and NGC 4203, which lies only 2′ from an apparently unrelated X-ray source of similar brightness. In NGC 3226 and NGC 4203, the extraneous sources lie well within the survey apertures used by Beuing et al. We have attempted to eliminate their counts from our analysis of the pointed data either by using smaller apertures (where this appeared to include all the galaxy counts) or by subtracting the extraneous-source counts from the counts in our galaxy apertures. Survey data were generally obtained with much shorter exposure times than pointed data. The larger point spread functions for the survey data, and for the pointed data beyond the central 20′ radius of the PSPC, also exacerbate the problem of weak source detection. This is why many more galaxies were detected within the central regions of the pointed data (see Table 1). The pointed data clearly show that the larger radii used by Beuing et al. include sources separate from the target galaxy. Figure 2 shows two examples. This effect contributes to the scatter in Fig. 1 and also to the systematically lower rates measured from the pointed data. These rates are less affected by source confusion.

Our computed values of $`\mathrm{log}(L_X/L_B)`$ agree with published results within the errors for NGC 3610 and NGC 4125, both also measured from ROSAT pointed observations by Fabbiano & Schweizer (1995).

## 4. Gas Phase versus Fine Structure

Table 2 shows the compilation of optical, radio, and X-ray data for the sample galaxies for which these data are available. In this table, we list all galaxies from SS92 with either H i mapping observations or ROSAT observations or both, arranged in order of decreasing $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. This allows us to investigate how the cold- and hot-gas contents of E and S0 galaxies vary with fine structure.

For the cold-gas content, we used our own data (Hibbard & Sansom 2000) and results from a program to map the H i in a sample of peculiar ellipticals, kindly communicated by J. van Gorkom and D. Schiminovich (cf. Schiminovich et al. 1994, 1995, 1997; van Gorkom & Schiminovich 1997). We also correlated the SS92 sample against the compilation of H i mapping observations by Martin (1998). Detection limits were calculated by taking the quoted 3$`\sigma `$ noise limits and adopting a velocity width of $`\mathrm{\Delta }v=42`$ km s-1. While total H i line widths may be much wider than this, it is our experience that individual tidal features have relatively narrow line widths and that this smaller limit is appropriate for the detection of tidal H i. We define an “H i excess” as $`\mathrm{log}(M_{\mathrm{HI}}/L_B)`$, with the H i mass $`M_{\mathrm{HI}}`$ in solar masses and $`L_B`$ in solar luminosities. This allows us to compare the cold- and hot-gas contents in a similar way.

Figure 3 shows the X-ray excess plotted against the fine-structure index for the ROSAT PSPC pointed data. Circles indicate H i detections. From this figure we find a trend for the X-ray excess to anticorrelate with fine structure. Including only X-ray detections, the Pearson correlation coefficient is $`r=0.47`$, indicating a clear anticorrelation. The X-ray excess is large only in early-type galaxies with low levels of fine structure. Conversely, all galaxies with high fine-structure index are X-ray weak.

To investigate this anticorrelation further we looked at how the vertical scatter in the $`L_X`$$`L_B`$ relation varies with fine structure. From ROSAT survey data the mean $`L_X`$$`L_B`$ relation found for early-type galaxies by Beuing et al. (1999, esp. Fig. 8) was

$$\mathrm{log}(L_X/\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1)=2.23\mathrm{log}(L_B/L_B_{})+17.02$$

(i.e. $`L_XL_B^{2.23}`$). We used this relation to compute residuals $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}(L_X)`$ against the mean value of $`\mathrm{log}(L_X)`$ at any given $`\mathrm{log}(L_B)`$ and plotted these residuals versus the fine-structure $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Figure 4 shows the result. There is again an anticorrelation, similar in strength ($`r=0.44`$) to the anticorrelation of X-ray excess with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Early-type galaxies with high fine-structure index all lie below the mean $`L_X`$$`L_B`$ relation, indicating that they are hot-gas deficient.

Galaxies with detected H i are shown as circles in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4. From these figures we see no trend of H i detection probability with X-ray excess or with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. H i detections appear in all types of galaxies plotted. The two merger remnants have H i detected in tidal tails (see Table 2). The galaxy with the highest $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is the $``$0.5–0.7 Gyr old merger remnant NGC 7252, which has $`5\times 10^9M_{}`$ of H i in its tidal tails, yet a dearth of H i at its center (Hibbard et al. 1994). Table 2 shows that there are a few other E and S0 galaxies with high fine-structure content ($`3<\mathrm{\Sigma }<8`$) that feature H i in tidal tails or outside the galaxy. From Table 2 all instances of H i in rings or disks occur in galaxies of lower $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. These galaxies cover a range of X-ray excesses. Therefore we see a weak trend of H i morphology (but not of detection probability) with fine structure.

In Fig. 5 we plot both the X-ray excess and the measured H i excess versus the fine-structure index. Data from all the galaxies listed in Table 2 are included in this plot, with data points coded by galaxy type. Data points representing ellipticals and S0 galaxies from the sample of SS92 are drawn as filled and open squares, respectively. The merger remnants NGC 7252 and NGC 3921 are represented by filled circles. Galaxies with AGNs (from Véron-Cetty & Véron 1996) are plotted as plus signs. Apart from the Seyfert galaxy NGC 3998, which has the highest X-ray excess of our sample, the other four galaxies with AGNs (NGC 2768, 3032, 4278, 5273) and three LINERS (NGC 1052, 3226, 4036) are not extreme cases. Therefore, the effect of X-ray emission from active nuclei appears to be relatively small in these plots.

The top plot shows no clear trend of atomic gas with increasing $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ . In fact the ellipticals and S0s with the highest $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ lie much lower in this plot than the two merger remnants, indicating a dearth of H i . This is contrary to the naive expectation that recent merger remnants might have copious amounts of tidally ejected H i present in their outer regions, gas that then gradually falls back into the remnant’s body (Hibbard & Mihos 1995). We address this issue in more detail in Hibbard & Sansom (2000) where we discuss the possibilities that some high-$`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ systems may not be recent ($`<`$ few Gyr old) merger remnants of gas-rich galaxies; H i tidal tails may not survive for more than a few gigayears, or the survivability of tidal H i may depend on other factors.

In the two lower panels of Fig. 5 we plot $`\mathrm{log}(L_X/L_B)`$ against both $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`\mathrm{log}(M_{\mathrm{HI}}/L_B)`$. The plot of X-ray excess against neutral-gas excess shows no discernible trend—there are X-ray luminous galaxies both with large amounts of H i and with stringent limits on H i. This shows that there exists no clear relationship between the cold and hot gas phases for this sample of galaxies. The lack of H i and the low X-ray excess measured in relaxed, early-type galaxies with high $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (see Table 2) imply a distinct lack of cold and hot gas in these suspected late merger remnants. Yet, gas is expected to have fallen back in from the tidal tails. If these galaxies are the ancient remnants of disk-disk mergers then it is not clear where the cold gas formerly associated with the progenitors is now. It may have been ionized by the star formation associated with the merger, efficiently formed into stars, cooled to molecular form, or lost from the system. In major mergers a fair amount of the gas is known to turn into stars, partially via the central-disk phenomenon (Schweizer 1998, esp. § 5.3). In future work we will investigate the molecular-gas content of this sample to check if they have unusually large quantities of molecular gas when compared to early-type galaxies as a class (Roberts et al. 1991).

We also looked for environmental effects on the X-ray excess of the sample galaxies. We find no correlations between the X-ray excess and Tully’s (1988) local-galaxy-density parameter $`\rho `$. Most of the galaxies in this sample are field objects or members of small groups. Five galaxies are Virgo Cluster members (marked by a ‘V’ in Table 2). These five galaxies cover a range of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and X-ray excess. They are not all X-ray luminous. Therefore we find no evidence for any environmental effect on the X-ray excess or its anticorrelation with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ in this sample.

Figure 5 shows that there are no clear trends between the hot- and cold-gas contents of these galaxies. However, there is a clear anticorrelation between the X-ray excess and the amount of fine structure. As the lower left panel of Fig. 5 shows, there is a remarkable lack of galaxies with high $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and large X-ray excess. We find that the ROSAT survey data of Beuing et al. also display this trend. This anticorrelation was discovered for two high fine structure galaxies by Fabbiano & Schweizer (1995), further quantified by Mackie & Fabbiano (1997), and is discussed by Schweizer (1998, esp. p. 198). Peculiar E and S0 galaxies with high fine-structure content tend to be X-ray weak, consistent with X-ray emission from stellar sources alone. For example, $`\mathrm{log}(L_X/L_B)`$ is 29.54 (in the 0.5–2 keV band) for the bulge of M31, with nearly equal contributions from the hard and soft emission from low-mass X-ray binaries (Irwin & Sarazin 1998). The anticorrelation between fine structure and X-ray excess found in this work supports the suggestion made by Fabbiano & Schweizer (1995) that merger remnants are X-ray weak. These authors suggest that a merger-induced starburst drives a galactic superwind, which clears the remnant of most hot gas. After the starburst subsides, the hot gas is gradually replenished by stellar mass-loss (Sandage 1957; Faber & Gallagher 1976; Forman et al. 1985; Sarazin 1997) and perhaps to some small extent also by the thermalization of returning tidal debris (Hibbard & van Gorkom 1996), although the $`\mathrm{log}(L_X/L_B)`$ vs $`\mathrm{log}(M_{\mathrm{HI}}/L_B)`$ plot argues against the latter being the primary source of X-ray halos.

This suggests either that the time scale for creating hot halos in early-type galaxies is long (a few Gyr), regardless of the cold-gas content of the progenitors, or that E/S0 galaxies made in different ways have different X-ray properties, with merger remnants forming a distinguishable, X-ray underluminous class. The range of $`\mathrm{log}(L_X/L_B)`$ values in Fig. 3 suggests that the long time scale for halo production is more likely: we do not see a dichotomy of behaviour but, rather, a gradual change of X-ray excess with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ .

## 5. Summary

We have searched for correlations between the cold-gas content, hot-gas content, and fine-structure index $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ of early-type galaxies.

We find no correlation of H i content or H i detection probability with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. In particular we do not observe any tendency for high-$`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ systems to have large amounts of tidal H i. Also, the H i content does not correlate with the hot-gas content as measured by the X-ray excess.

However, we do observe an anticorrelation between $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and X-ray excess. We find that E and S0 galaxies with high fine-structure content—thought to be remnants of ancient mergers (“King Gap galaxies”)—have low X-ray luminosities. This indicates that these galaxies, when compared to early-type galaxies with little or no fine structure, are deficient in hot gas. During mergers, X-ray emission from hot gas is seen to rise (with evidence for outflows) and then fall after a relatively short time (Read & Ponman 1998). This and the current results are consistent with hot halos forming in early-type galaxies over a time scale of several Gyrs. Hence, such halos tend to appear after the morphological disturbances from past mergers have faded away. If one excludes galaxies with AGNs, only normal E and S0 galaxies with low levels of fine structure (i.e., relaxed systems) are strong X-ray emitters, with emission well in excess of the contribution expected from stars.

We thank Jacqueline van Gorkom and David Schiminovich for permission to refer to their results ahead of publication, and Keith Arnaud for the use of his code for hydrogen column densities. This research has made use of data obtained from the Leicester Database and Archive Service at the department of Physics and Astronomy, Leicester University, UK. One of us (F.S.) gratefully acknowledges partial support from NSF through Grants AST 95-29263 and AST 99-00742.