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# Advection-Dominated Accretion Onto Weakly-Magnetized White Dwarfs

## 1 Introduction

Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) are binary stars in which a main-sequence donor transfers mass via Roche-lobe overflow onto a White Dwarf (WD). Many CVs are members of the subclass of transient systems called Dwarf Novae (DN). DN regularly experience luminous outbursts during which accretion onto the WD proceeds at a high rate. Most of the time, however, DN are in quiescence, a phase during which the accretion rate onto the WD (and the system luminosity) are much reduced (see Warner 1995 for a review).

DN in quiescence are well known sources of hard X-ray emission, with typical luminosities $`10^{30}10^{32}`$ erg s-1. (Córdova & Mason 1983; Patterson & Raymond 1985a). Spectral fits to the X-ray emission of these sources suggest a Bremsstrahlung origin, from a gas with temperatures $`220`$ keV (Patterson & Raymond 1985a; Eracleous, Halpern & Patterson 1991; Belloni et al. 1991; Yoshida, Inoue & Osaki 1992; Mukai & Shiokawa 1993).

The X-ray emission of quiescent DN has commonly been attributed to their boundary layer (BL), at the interface between the accreting WD and the accretion disk surrounding it. Indeed, the BL can contribute to a large fraction of the total luminosity of a system, typically half of the accretion luminosity in the case of a non-rotating star (see, e.g., Frank, King & Raine 1992). At low accretion rates ($`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^{16}`$ g s-1, such as in quiescent DN), the gas density in the BL is low and the gas is unable to cool. This leads to a hot and optically-thin BL which is a substantial source of hard X-ray emission (Pringle & Savonije 1979; Tylenda 1981; Patterson & Raymond 1985a).

Detailed calculations by Narayan & Popham (1993) show that the optically-thin BLs of accreting WDs are also radially extended (on the order of the WD radius in their models) and that they advect part of the internally dissipated energy as a consequence of their inability to cool. Partial radial pressure support by the hot gas also results in sub-Keplerian rotation profiles in these solutions. These are all properties that optically-thin BLs and Advection-Dominated Accretion Flows (ADAFs; Ichimaru 1977; Rees et al. 1982; Narayan & Yi 1994; 1995; Abramowicz et al. 1995) have in common, and it suggests that an ADAF is a possible outcome of accretion at a low rate onto a weakly-magnetized WD. In particular, if the radially extended BLs of Narayan & Popham (1993) were to extend, not to a stellar radius or so, but to several tens of stellar radii, they would have properties similar to those of ADAFs as they have been previously discussed in the literature (see, e.g., Narayan, Mahadevan & Quataert 1998 for a review).

In this paper, I examine some consequences of the presence of an ADAF around a WD. Advection can play an important role for the overall energy budget and the emission spectrum of the accretion flow. In §2, I state the model assumptions, describe the ADAF models used for the spectral predictions and explore their dependence on various model parameters. In §3, models including a thin disk in the outer regions of the flow are constructed for application to quiescent dwarf novae. Finally, I discuss several implications and important limitations of this work in §4, before summarizing the main results in §5.

## 2 ADAFs around White Dwarfs

In the following, we assume for simplicity that the properties of an ADAF around a WD can be described by simply truncating the ADAF solutions that have developped for the case of accretion onto a BH. As discussed in Appendix A, it is not clear if this assumption is fully valid.

The radius of a typical WD is $`10^3R_s`$, where $`R_s=3\times 10^5(M_{\mathrm{WD}}/M_{})`$ cm is the Schwarzschild radius and $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}`$ is the mass of the WD. At radii $`>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^3R_s`$ in an ADAF, electrons are non-relativistic (implying negligible synchrotron emission) and the flow optical thickness to infinity is $`1`$ (implying negligible Comptonization), so that Bremmstrahlung emission is the only significant cooling mechanism for the flow. At these radii, the ADAF is also essentially one-temperature because Coulomb collisions transfer more efficiently the energy between the ions and the electrons (and the non-relativistic electrons have the same adiabatic index as the protons). Contrary to the case of accretion onto a black hole, this makes the structure of the hot flow in this context independent of the uncertain assumption of preferantial viscous heating of the ions (Quataert & Gruzinov 1999). Note that, in the following, we consider only accretion onto a weakly-magnetized WD, in the sense that the stellar magnetic field is neglected in the description of the accretion flow structure.

### 2.1 Model Specifications

The nature of the interface between the ADAF and the WD surface is important for the emission models presented here. I make two further simplifying assumptions regarding this interface: (1) the angular velocity of the gas in the ADAF nearly matches that of the WD at the stellar surface so that there is no additional shear (nor dissipation) in this region, and (2) the gas carrying the energy advected by the ADAF penetrates deep enough into the optically thick regions of the stellar atmosphere that all this energy is thermalized before being radiated away. The validity of these assumptions and the consequences of relaxing them are discussed in more detail in Appendix A.

With assumption (1), the steady-state energetics of the accretion flow is equivalent to that described in Esin, McClintock & Narayan (1997), except for the effect of the presence of the stellar surface. The rate of energy advection $`L_{\mathrm{adv}}`$ at the stellar surface and an average advection parameter $`f_{\mathrm{adv}}`$ for the flow are obtained from the difference between the local values of the viscous dissipation rate and the radiative cooling rate, summed over the entire radial extent of the hot flow. In cases where the ADAF describes the corona of a thin accretion disk (i.e. with an accretion rate varying with radius; see §3), the energy required to evaporate the gas from the disk to the corona is also taken into account in the energy budget as a sink for the ADAF (see Esin et al. 1997 and §3 for details).

The ADAF models used here for the spectral predictions are similar to the models described in Narayan et al. (1998; see also Quataert & Narayan 1999b), except for the emission from the stellar surface. The reemission of the energy advected by the flow is modeled as a single-temperature blackbody of temperature:

$$T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\left(\frac{L_{\mathrm{adv}}}{4\pi f\sigma R_{\mathrm{WD}}^2}\right)^{1/4},$$
(1)
where $`f`$ is the fraction of the stellar surface that is emitting ($`f=1`$ is assumed in what follows). The interaction of this extra component of the radiation field with the gas in the ADAF is calculated self-consistently (see Menou & McClintock 2000 for details), but is found to be unimportant in all the models presented.

Unless otherwise specified, the values adopted for the ADAF parameters are $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}=0.2`$ (viscosity parameter), $`\beta =6`$ (ratio of gas to magnetic pressure), $`\delta =10^2`$ (fraction of direct electron viscous heating; again, the precise value of this parameter is unimportant for the present models), $`\gamma =1.636`$ (adiabatic index of the fluid, including contributions from the particles, magnetic field and turbulence; see Quataert & Narayan 1999a), $`p=0`$ (no wind) and $`i=60^o`$ (inclination). For the accreting WD, a mass $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}=1.2M_{}`$ and a radius $`R_{\mathrm{WD}}=5\times 10^8cm`$ are generally assumed. Note that accretion rates are often expressed in Eddington units ($`\dot{m}=\dot{M}/\dot{M}_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$, with $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{Edd}}=1.39\times 10^{18}(M_{\mathrm{WD}}/M_{})`$ g s-1). All the models described in this section have ADAFs extending from the surface of the WD up to $`10^4R_s`$. The luminosities predicted by the models are calculated by numerically integrating the spectral energy distributions in the appropriate energy range. X-ray luminosities are given for the $`0.13.5`$ keV band; this corresponds to the energy range covered by the X-ray satellite Einstein, which has collected the most extensive X-ray data set on DN to date (see, e.g., Eracleous et al. 1991).

### 2.2 Emission spectrum

Figure 1 and 2 show the emission spectra of ADAFs around WDs for various values of the model parameters. All these models are characterized by a two-component spectrum. The first component, energetically dominant in the hard X-rays, is the Bremmstrahlung emission of the hot gas in the ADAF. The second component, energetically dominant in the EUV, is the accretion-powered emission from the WD surface. This EUV component dominates the ADAF X-ray emission because of the importance of energy advection: most of the energy dissipated in the flow is radiated at the WD surface. For simplicity, we assume that the X-ray photons emitted by the flow that reach the WD surface are absorbed and reemitted in the EUV component. The energy deposited by these photons at the WD atmosphere is generally negligible compared to the energy advected by the flow. The EUV radiation from the WD surface is found to escape to infinity without significantly interacting with the gas in the ADAF.

Note that the energetics of the EUV and X-ray components in the various models described below can be simply understood as follows. In first approximation, the luminosity of the EUV component from the WD is $`L_{\mathrm{EUV}}\dot{m}`$. The X-ray luminosity of the ADAF, on the other hand, is due to Bremstrahlung emission, which scales as the gas density squared, so that $`L_\mathrm{X}\dot{m}^2/\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}^2`$ (Narayan et al. 1998). The spectral models are characterized, to first order, by the ratio

$$\frac{L_\mathrm{X}}{L_{\mathrm{EUV}}}\dot{m}/\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}^2.$$
(2)
### 2.3 Influence of $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}`$

Figure 1a shows the emission spectra of two ADAF models with a same accretion rate $`\dot{m}=7\times 10^3`$ but values of the viscosity parameter $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}=0.1`$ and $`0.3`$.111In the model with $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}=0.1`$, the value of the parameter $`\beta `$ is 10, while $`\beta =3`$ in the model with $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}=0.3`$. This is to represent the larger viscosity expected when the magnetic pressure in the flow is larger, as suggested by MHD simulations of accretion disks (see Narayan et al. 1998 for details). In the model with $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}=0.1`$, the gas in the ADAF has a smaller radial velocity and a larger density (Narayan & Yi 1994), responsible for the more important X-ray Bremmstrahlung emission than in the model with $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}=0.3`$. The EUV luminosity is very similar in both models because most of the dissipated energy is advected and radiated by the WD photosphere in both cases. In the model with $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}=0.1`$, the advection parameter is $`f_{\mathrm{adv}}=0.437`$ and the X-ray luminosity (0.1-3.5 keV) is $`2\times 10^{31}`$ erg s-1. In the model with $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}=0.3`$, the advection parameter is $`f_{\mathrm{adv}}=0.937`$ and the X-ray luminosity is $`7.5\times 10^{30}`$ erg s-1. In both models, the total EUV luminosity is $`2.5\times 10^{33}`$ erg s-1, at a temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}5.3`$ eV.

### 2.4 Influence of $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}`$

Figure 1b shows the emission spectra of two ADAF models, one with a WD of mass $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}=1.2M_{}`$ and radius $`R_{\mathrm{WD}}=5\times 10^8`$ cm as usual, and with $`\dot{m}=7\times 10^3`$; in the second model, the WD has a mass $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}=0.6M_{}`$, a radius $`R_{\mathrm{WD}}=8.5\times 10^8`$ cm, and the accretion rate has been doubled to $`\dot{m}=1.4\times 10^2`$ to allow for a comparison at the same physical accretion rate $`\dot{M}=\dot{m}\dot{M}_{\mathrm{Edd}}10^{16}`$ g s-1. The smaller mass and compactness of the WD in the model with $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}=0.6M_{}`$ are responsible for the reduced and cooler photospheric WD emission, and the softer X-ray emission (because of a smaller range of temperatures in the ADAF; see Fig. 2b). In the model with $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}=1.2M_{}`$, the advection parameter is $`f_{\mathrm{adv}}=0.85`$, the X-ray luminosity (0.1-3.5 keV) is $`1.1\times 10^{31}`$ erg s-1 and the total EUV luminosity is $`2.5\times 10^{33}`$ erg s-1, at a temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}5.3`$ eV. In the model with $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}=0.6M_{}`$, the advection parameter is $`f_{\mathrm{adv}}=0.665`$, the X-ray luminosity is $`7.3\times 10^{30}`$ erg s-1 and the total EUV luminosity is $`7.3\times 10^{32}`$ erg s-1, at a temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}3`$ eV.

### 2.5 Influence of $`\dot{m}`$

Figure 2a shows three models with accretion rates $`\dot{m}=2.1\times 10^2`$, $`\dot{m}=7\times 10^3`$ and $`\dot{m}=3\times 10^3`$. At higher accretion rates, the density in the ADAF is larger and the cooling is more efficient, so that the ratio of EUV to X-ray luminosity is reduced. The advection parameter in these models is $`f_{\mathrm{adv}}=0.63`$, $`0.85`$ and $`0.93`$, respectively. The corresponding X-ray luminosity ($`0.13.5`$ keV) for each model is $`10^{32}`$, $`1.1\times 10^{31}`$ and $`2\times 10^{30}`$ erg s-1, respectively. The corresponding total EUV luminosity for each model is $`7.2\times 10^{33}`$ erg s-1 (effective temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}6.9`$ eV), $`2.5\times 10^{33}`$ erg s-1 ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}5.3`$ eV) and $`10^{33}`$ erg s-1 ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}4.3`$ eV), respectively.

Figure 2b shows that the ion and electron temperatures in the accretion flow are almost independent of the accretion rate $`\dot{m}`$ (contrary to the two-temperature case; see Esin et al. 1997). The difference in the temperature profile for the model with $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}=0.3`$ can be attributed to the smaller value of $`\beta `$, which modifies the relative importance of the gas and magnetic pressure in the flow. The temperature profile does not depend on $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}`$, in the sense that if one were to superpose the temperature profiles of the two models shown in Fig. 1b, they would be nearly indistiguishable. The shorter radial extent of the ADAF in the model with $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}=0.6M_{}`$, however, implies a cooler accretion flow, with a maximum temperature $`\mathrm{log}[T(K)]8.2`$ at the WD surface. The range of gas temperatures in the ADAF (from a few keV to a few tens of keV) depends therefore primarily on the radial extent of the hot flow.

## 3 Models with an Outer Thin Disk

More realistic models for quiescent DN must include the presence of a thin disk in the outer regions of the accretion flow. According to the disk instability model (DIM), this disk is responsible for the outbursts of DN, by storing mass during quiescence and accreting it suddenly during outburst under the action of a thermal-viscous instability (see Cannizzo 1993 for a review of the DIM).

Ignoring the exact structure of the transition region from the disk to the ADAF, I adopt here for simplicity the prescription of Esin et al. (1997). Beyond a transition radius ($`R_{\mathrm{trans}}`$) to be defined, the mass accretion rate in the ADAF (= the disk corona) declines as $`R_{\mathrm{trans}}/R`$ . This corresponds, as one goes in, to a gradual evaporation of the disk material into the corona, up to the point where, inside $`R_{\mathrm{trans}}/R`$, accretion occurs exclusively via the ADAF (Esin et al. 1997).

The disk reflection component and its iron $`K_\alpha `$ fluorescence line are also modeled following Esin et al. (1997). Angle-averaged energy-dependent Green’s functions are used to predict the intensity of the line which depends on the supply of hard X-ray photons from the ADAF irradiating the disk (Lightman & White 1988; George & Fabian 1991). The disk is supposed to contain neutral material with a cosmic abundance of $`3.3\times 10^5`$ iron atoms per hydrogen atom (Morrison & McCammon 1983). The line profile is not modeled in detail here. However, the contribution to the line emission of each disk annulus, at a radius $`R`$ from the WD, is given the proper fractional Doppler width $`\mathrm{sin}i/(2R/R_s)^{1/2}`$ ($`i`$ is the disk inclination to the line of sight) and is added to the continuum emission in the proper energy bin of the computed spectrum. Note that the simple prescription used here for the variation of the accretion rate with radius beyond $`R_{\mathrm{trans}}`$ does not necessarily guarantee that the disk material is neutral everywhere, as expected in the DIM (Wheeler 1996). It is not important for our purpose, however, because we are not interested in the disk emission properties, but instead explore the effect of varying its radial extent on the intensity of the reflection component, assuming that the disk is neutral as the DIM would predict.

### 3.1 The reflection component

Figure 3a shows the spectra predicted for a thin disk + ADAF model, under various assumptions for the accretion rate $`\dot{m}`$ and the disk radial extent. An inclination $`i=60^o`$ is assumed in all four models. The solid line represents the total emission from the accretion flow, including the EUV contribution from the WD surface (dotted) and the contribution from the disk (long-dashed-dotted). The disk reflection component peaks at X-ray frequencies, while the disk intrinsic emission peaks at optical frequencies (again, this component is not supposed to represent the actual emission of a quiescent disk according to the DIM – see above). In all cases, the disk reflection component contributes only to a small fraction of the continuum X-ray flux, as expected. Depending on the geometry of the accretion flow, however, an iron $`K_\alpha `$ emission line is present and is potentially observable on top of the X-ray continuum.

Figure 3a and b show two models with a value of the transition radius $`R_{\mathrm{trans}}=10^4R_s`$ and a disk (+ ADAF-corona) extending up to $`10^5R_s`$ (the precise value of this maximum radius is unimportant for the spectral predictions discussed here). Figure 3c and d show two models with a disk extending further in, down to $`R_{\mathrm{trans}}=10^{3.5}R_s`$. In each case, models for two values of the accretion rate $`\dot{m}`$ are shown.

The luminosity in the iron $`K_\alpha `$ fluorescence line at 6.4 keV measures the amount of photons absorbed by the disk at energies $`>7.1`$ keV, corresponding to the iron K-shell absorption edge seen in each of the reflection components in Fig. 3. Consequently, the line intensity mainly depends on the accretion rate in the ADAF (for the overall X-ray luminosity) and the location of the disk relative to the hottest regions of the flow (to guarantee the absorption by the disk of a large amount of hard enough photons). Fig 2b shows that temperatures above $`10^8`$ K in the ADAF are found only inside $`R10^4R_s`$, so that little or no $`K_\alpha `$ line emission is expected for disks extending beyond this limit. This is confirmed by Fig. 3a and b which show rather weak line emission in the reflection component, and no significant emission on top of the continuum, for two different values of $`\dot{m}`$. On the other hand, Fig. 3c and d (corresponding to $`R_{\mathrm{trans}}=10^{3.5}R_s`$) show stronger iron fluorescence lines, which can be seen on top of the Bremsstrahlung continuum emission from the hot flow. Obviously, the lines would be even stronger if the disk was extending further in. The strength of this line is therefore a probe of the geometry of the accretion flow in the system. For $`i=60^o`$ and $`R=10^{3.5}R_s`$, resolving the width of the iron lines shown in Fig. 3c and d requires a spectral resolution $`92`$, so that the resolving power of order $`200`$ that can be reached with Chandra around 7 keV (with HETG) could allow detailed diagnostics of the line-emitting material if such a line is present and strong enough.

Note that ADAFs around low-mass WDs (say $`<0.5M_{}`$ or so) are not expected to be surrounded by a gas with temperatures much in excess of $`10^8`$ K because of the large size of the compact object (Fig. 2b). DN containing low-mass WDs are therefore not expected to show significant iron fluorescence line emission no matter how extended their disks are.

### 3.2 Explaining the HeII emission lines

A likely origin for the strong HeII $`\lambda 4686`$ emission lines shown by many DN is photoionization of the disk material by very soft X-rays in the energy range 55-280 eV (Patterson & Raymond 1985b). However, there is no direct detection of these irradiating photons by either ROSAT (soft X-rays) or IUE (UV). This led Vrtilek et al. (1994) to propose that these photons could originate from an EUV component, such as blackbody emission with a temperature $`1020`$ eV. This makes the advection-powered EUV emission from a WD surrounded by an ADAF a good candidate for explaining the strength of the HeII emission lines in quiescent DN.

A detailed calculation of the strength of these lines for a given accretion model requires the knowledge of the amount of photons with appropriate energies which are absorbed by the disk. The result of this calculation depends on the the disk geometry (which is not described properly in the present models given the arbitrary profile assumed for $`\dot{m}`$ in the disk) and, more importantly in the present case, on the assumption of exact reemission as a single-temperature blackbody for the advected energy, which has a strongly peaked contribution at low energies in the 0.055-028 keV range (see, e.g., Fig. 1). This means that even a slight deviation from the strict blackbody emission hypothesis could largely influence the predictions for the line strength. Consequently, I use here, instead of a detailed calculation, the simple argument of Patterson & Raymond (1985b; see also Vrtilek et al. 1994) to show that the spectral models of Fig. 3 can account for the observed luminosities of the HeII lines in quiescent DN.

Following Patterson & Raymond (1985b), the luminosity of a system in the HeII $`\lambda 4686`$ lines is estimated as

$$L_{\lambda 4686}=(0.26)(\eta )\left(\frac{2.65\mathrm{eV}}{130\mathrm{eV}}\right)\times L_{0.0550.28}=5.3\times 10^4L_{0.0550.28},$$
(3)
where 0.26 is the fraction of He recombinations resulting in photons at $`\lambda =4686\AA `$, $`\eta =0.1`$ is a geometrical factor corresponding to the fraction of the irradiating source luminosity that is actually absorbed by the disk,222The value $`\eta =0.1`$ used by Patterson & Raymond (1985b) is based on a geometric model of the central X-ray source. The authors quoted an uncertainty of a factor 3 in either direction for $`\eta `$. This same value should be appropriate for the order-of-magnitude estimates made here. $`130`$ eV is an assumed energy for a typical ionizing photon and $`L_{0.0550.28}`$ is the luminosity of the irradiating source (the WD here) in the $`0.0550.28`$ keV energy range. Eq. (3) has been used by Patterson & Raymond (1985b; see also Vrtilek et al. 1994) to argue for the existence of a yet unseen soft source of ionizing photons. Note that because the EUV emission from the WD surface in the energy range 0.055-0.28 keV strongly peaks at low energies in the present models, the typical energy of ionizing photons could reasonably be estimated as being less than $`130`$ eV. This, and possible deviations from a pure blackbody emission, could result in somewhat larger values for $`L_{\lambda 4686}`$ than estimated below.

For the three models shown in Fig. 2a (or, equivalently, the models with the same $`\dot{m}`$ in Fig. 3), the value of $`L_{0.0550.28}`$ are $`1.4\times 10^{33}`$ erg s-1 ($`\dot{m}=2.1\times 10^2`$), $`1.1\times 10^{32}`$ erg s-1 ($`\dot{m}=7\times 10^3`$) and $`10^{31}`$ erg s-1 ($`\dot{m}=3\times 10^3`$). This corresponds, according to Eq. (3), to luminosities $`L_{\lambda 4686}7.4\times 10^{29}`$ erg s-1, $`5.8\times 10^{28}`$ erg s-1 and $`5.3\times 10^{27}`$ erg s-1, respectively. This is within the range of observed values for quiescent DN with accretion rates $`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^{16}`$ g s-1 (Patterson & Raymond 1985b), corresponding to $`\dot{m}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^2`$. The models presented here satisfy the criterion for the postulated missing soft component (Patterson & Raymond 1985b): an emission which provides a luminosity equal or superior to that in the 0.1-3.5 keV range and which is suitable for concentrating a large fraction of the luminosity in the 55-280 eV energy range. Note that for small WD masses, the contribution of the EUV component in the 55-280 eV energy band can be much reduced because $`R_{\mathrm{WD}}`$ is larger and the EUV emission is then softer. This, again, depends critically on the assumption of exact reemission like a single-temperature blackbody.

The success of the proposed accretion models in providing an explanation to both the X-ray emission and the strong HeII $`\lambda 4686`$ emission lines of quiescent DN must be moderated, however, by noting that existing observations indicate that these models cannot be applied to the entire population of quiescent DN (see below).

## 4 Discussion

I have constructed idealized models of Advection-Dominated Accretion Flows (ADAFs) around WDs, for application to quiescent DN. In the more elaborate models, an ADAF is present in the inner regions of the flow, while accretion proceeds via a thin disk (plus a corona, treated as an ADAF here) in the outermost regions. According to the Disk Instability Model (DIM), the thin disk is a reservoir a mass used to power the dwarf nova outbursts (see, e.g., Cannizzo 1993). These models are inspired from the models of Narayan, Barret & McClintock (1997; see also Lasota, Narayan & Yi 1996) for quiescent Black Hole (BH) Soft X-ray Transients. If the presence of such a two-component accretion flow is established in some quiescent DN, it may be possible to interpret the various spectral states of these systems as changes in the geometry of the two-component accretion flow, by analogy with the models for BH transients (see Esin et al. 1997; 1998).

However, the models for quiescent DN differ significantly from those of BH transients for at least two reasons. First, the properties of the ADAF are different here because the radial extent of the hot flow is reduced around a WD (an object much less compact than a stellar-mass BH). As a consequence, the gas in the hot flow is one-temperature (because of efficient Coulomb coupling at lower temperatures) and the property of energy advection is independent of the assumption of preferential heating of the ions by the viscous dissipation (and poor energy exchange between the ions and the electrons) made for two-temperature ADAFs.

Second, and more importantly, while the energy advected by the flow is lost through the event horizon in the BH case, it must be reradiated from the hard surface of the WD in the DN case. Assuming that this energy is thermalized in the WD atmosphere, I have shown that the resulting EUV emission from the WD surface could explain the puzzling strength of HeII $`\lambda 4686`$ emission lines of quiescent DN as due to disk irradiation, while the X-ray properties of the same systems could be explained by the X-ray emission from the ADAF itself. The strong EUV component is not unique to ADAF models but could also be a consequence of substantial energy advection in the BL solutions of Narayan & Popham (1993) if, again, this energy is thermalized before being radiated away. A direct test of the existence of this strong EUV component, as a possible signature of energy advection in the flow surrounding the WD, would be quite valuable.

It may not be easy to discriminate, based on observations, between the BL solutions of Narayan & Popham (1993) and a radially extended ADAF around a WD. They are both sources of hard X-ray emission and energy advection. The BL solutions are characterized by a small radial extent compared to the ADAF models presented here and higher gas densities: $`\rho 10^{10.5}`$ g cm-3 in the model d of Fig. 3, while $`\rho 10^9`$ g cm-3 in a comparable model of Narayan & Popham (1993). The emission spectrum of the BL solutions has not been calculated by Narayan & Popham (1993), but it is clear that the higher densities counterbalance the smaller radial extent for the total X-ray emission. If the ADAFs were much less radially extended than assumed in the proposed models (say a few stellar radii at most), they could not produce X-ray emission at the level observed in quiescent DN because of their low densities.

The proposed models for quiescent DN (with a inner hot flow replacing the traditional thin disk) share some properties with the coronal “siphon flow” model of Meyer & Meyer-Hofmeister (1994). An important difference, however, is the presence in their model of a wind from the hot flow, which is absent in the ADAF models presented here. It has been proposed that ADAFs could have winds (Narayan & Yi 1994; Blandford & Begelman 1999) able to carry away some of the dissipated energy that is not radiated by the flow. This could have consequences for the emission spectrum of a system (in particular a reduction of the EUV component originating at the WD surface) that were not considered here. Interestingly, Meyer & Meyer-Hofmeister (1994) proposed that heat conduction between the hot flow and the cold gas in the disk is responsible for the continuing “evaporation” of the cold disk material into the hot coronal flow. This process could operate equally well in the present context (ADAF + thin disk) and may be responsible for a transition from the BL solutions with a modest radial extent of Narayan & Popham (1993) to a more radially extended ADAF as considered in the present study.

The presence of an inner, extended hot flow in quiescent DN could also influence the outburst properties of these systems, as first emphasized by Meyer & Meyer-Hofmeister (1994; see also Liu, Meyer & Meyer-Hofmeister 1997). These authors pointed out that the presence of this low density region could be responsible for the well-known UV delay of DN (see, e.g., Warner 1995; Mauche 1996), by ensuring that, during the rise to outburst, the disk has to fill in the inner regions of the flow before a substantial amount of mass is accreted onto the WD (Meyer & Meyer-Hofmeister 1994; Liu et al. 1997; Hameury, Lasota & Dubus 1999). An analoguous situation has been suggested for the BH X-ray transient GRO J1655-40 because of a delay of the rise of the X-ray flux relative to the optical flux during the April 1996 outburst of this system (Orosz et al. 1997); this delay has been modeled successfully by Hameury et al. (1997) with a two component, inner ADAF \+ outer thin disk, time-dependent accretion model.

Observations show that some quiescent DN are more likely to harbor an ADAF than others. Of the five DN observed in quiescence by the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (Long 1996; spectral range $`8301860\AA `$), two have shown the expected spectral UV signatures from a WD atmosphere (in particular a broad Ly$`\alpha `$ absorption feature and narrow metal absorption lines): U Gem and VW Hyi. However, the remainning three (WX Hyi, Yz Cnc and SS Cyg) show strong, blue continua with no evidence for the presence of a normal WD atmosphere (broad emission lines and no evidence for the expected Ly$`\alpha `$ absorption feature). These three sources with strong blue excesses are ideal candidates for the presence of an ADAF because a blue UV continuum is expected if the WD atmosphere is heated up to a several $`10,000`$ K by a substantial amount of energy advection in the surrounding hot flow. That two out of the five observed quiescent DN possess the signature expected from a “naked” WD shows the large diversity of these systems and suggest that ADAF models do not apply to the entire DN population. On physical grounds, a spread in the observational properties of quiescent DN could be due, for instance, to differences in the WD rotation rate, the surface magnetic field strength or the radial extent of the hot flow for the various systems. Note that observations during quiescence suggest the existence of an “accretion belt” on the central WD in the DN VW HYi (and perhaps U Gem; see Sion 1999 for a review). This accretion belt, hotter than the rest of the WD surface, is supposedly the result of accretion at a high rate via a disk during DN outbursts (Kippenhahn & Thomas 1978). The presence of such accretion belts and of ADAFs in quiescence are not mutually exclusive.

Similarily, existing X-ray observations put strong constraints on the presence of ADAFs in some quiescent DN. X-ray eclipses during the quiescence of the dwarf novae HT Cas (Wood et al. 1995; Mukai et al. 1997) and OY Car (Pratt et al. 1999) show that the size of the X-ray emitting region is at most comparable to the WD radius, and Szkody et al. (1996) claim that the X-ray emitting region in U Gem during quiescence is small as well. These observations appear inconsistent with the emission from a radially extended ADAF because the bulk of the Bremmstrahlung emission, with an emissivity $`\rho ^2T^{1/2}`$ and for the profiles $`\rho R^{3/2}`$ and $`TR^1`$ in an ADAF, originates from the outermost regions of the flow (see also Quataert & Narayan 1999b). This indicates, again, that ADAF models do not apply to the entire DN population, or perhaps, that if a hot flow is present in these systems, it has a structure different from an ADAF (for instance with a steeper density profile, which is contrary to what is expected for an ADAF with wind; Blandford & Begelman 1999). van Teeseling, Beurmann & Verbunt (1996) claim that the X-ray emitting region in non-magnetic CVs is close to the WD from an anticorrelation of the soft X-ray luminosity and the inclination of several of these sources. This cannot be used to strongly argue against the extended ADAF hypothesis because even a slight deviation from the assumed blackbody-type emission of the advected energy could make this component, originating close to the WD, dominate the soft X-ray flux of the system.

There are other possible consequences of the presence of an ADAF in quiescent DN which have not been considered in any detail here. The presence of such a hot flow during the long phases of quiescence could influence the time-averaged rotation rate of the weakly-magnetized WD. The star accretes from a Keplerian disk during outburst, but could also accrete from a substantially sub-Keplerian flow during quiescence. At late evolutionary stages, the star could therefore spin at an equilibrium rate which is in between the breakup value ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_K(R_{\mathrm{WD}})`$) and the rotation rate of the gas in the ADAF ($`0.20.3\mathrm{\Omega }_K`$), rather than close to the breakup rate if it accretes all the time from a disk.

The presence of an ADAF in a quiescent DN can be directly tested by the detailed spectroscopic X-ray observations which have become possible with the satellites Chandra and XMM. The continuum emission of the ADAF is characteristic of a gas with temperatures in the range of a few keV to a few tens of keV, depending on the radial extent of the hot flow. The hot gas in the ADAF is also ideally suited for emitting thermal X-ray lines (Narayan & Raymond 1999). The detectability of these lines and their role as possible diagnostics of the hot flow structure (Perna, Raymond & Narayan 2000) are the subject of a separate study (Menou, Perna & Raymond, in preparation).

## 5 Conclusion

Motivated by the analogy between the optically-thin BL solutions of Narayan & Popham (1993) and Advection-Dominated Accretion Flows (ADAFs), I constructed idealized models of ADAFs around WDs, for application to quiescent DN. The critical assumptions made in this work are discussed in detail in Appendix A.

The Bremmstrahlung emission from the ADAF can account for the X-ray emission properties of quiescent DN. In addition, if the energy advected by the flow is thermalized in the WD atmosphere before being radiated away, the strong HeII lines of many quiescent DN could simply result from the photoionization of the disk material by the UV-luminous WD.

The presence of an ADAF in quiescent DN could have several additional interesting implications, such as offering a possible test of the accretion flow geometry by the detection of an iron $`K_\alpha `$ fluorescence line from the X-ray irradiated disk, or providing a possible explanation to the “UV-delay” of DN.

Although existing observational data already show a large diversity in the DN population and indicate that ADAFs are probably not present in all quiescent DN, prospects for testing the ADAF hypothesis in promising DN candidates are good, especially with the recent advent of the powerful X-ray satellites Chandra and XMM-Newton.

## Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Phil Charles, Eric Kuulkers and Tariq Shahbaz for questionning the possible role of ADAFs around WDs, and to Ann Esin, Brad Hansen, Jean-Pierre Lasota, Ramesh Narayan, Bohdan Paczynski, Rosalba Perna, John Raymond and Eliot Quataert for useful discussions. I thank R. Narayan for providing the code that he developed for studying ADAFs around neutron stars. The calculations of the disk reflection component make use of numerical routines developped by A. Esin. Support for this work was provided by NASA through Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship grant number PF9-10006 awarded by the Chandra X-ray Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for NASA under contract NAS8-39073.

## Appendix A Critical Assumptions

The focus of this study is put on the emission spectrum of an ADAF around a WD. In this appendix, I discuss a set of assumptions which are crucial for the results presented. The validity of these assumptions is not proven (nor obvious) and possible consequences of their invalidity are discussed. These assumptions concern the structure of the hot flow surrounding the WD, the nature of the interface between the flow and the WD, and the outcome of the energy advected by the flow when it reaches the WD surface.

### A.1 The Hot Flow and the Interface with the WD

Advection onto a WD differs significantly from accretion onto a BH in that the gas does not have to cross a sonic point but, instead, it must have a radial infall speed reaching zero at the stellar surface. The neglect of this boundary condition, by using ADAF dynamical solutions initially developed for the case of accretion onto a BH (Popham & Gammie 1998), is an important weakness of the present study. This description of the hot flow around the WD therefore assumes a high radial infall speed for the gas (a fraction of its free-fall speed) and a sudden reduction of this speed to zero only in the close vicinity of the WD. Proving this assumption right or wrong by solving the dynamical equations for the flow, with the proper boundary conditions, is beyond the scope of the present work. It is worth noting, however, that this sudden reduction of the radial infall speed of the hot flow at the WD surface is found in the BL solutions of Narayan & Popham (1993).

Another region of the flow that is not described in detail in proposed the models is the interface between the hot flow and the WD, where the sudden reduction of the radial infall speed of the gas occurs. The energetics of this region can be described in the following simple terms. In a thin accretion disk, half of the gravitational potential energy available is radiated away by the disk, while the other half remains in the flow in the form of rotational kinetic energy (Frank et al. 1992). The energy budget is different in an ADAF, with three energy reservoirs: the rotational kinetic energy, the radial (infall) kinetic energy and the thermal kinetic energy of the hot gas (only a small fraction of the available energy is radiated away by the flow).

In the models presented here,

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{ADAF}}`$ $``$ $`0.2\mathrm{\Omega }_K,`$ (A1)
$`v`$ $``$ $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}V_{\mathrm{ff}}\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}R\mathrm{\Omega }_K,`$ (A2)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{ADAF}}`$ is the rotation rate of the ADAF, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_K`$ is the Keplerian rate, $`v`$ is the gas infall speed and $`v_{\mathrm{ff}}`$ is the free-fall speed (see Narayan et al. 1998). This corresponds to rotational and kinetic energies per unit mass

$`E_\varphi `$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(0.2R\mathrm{\Omega }_K\right)^2,`$ (A3)
$`E_\mathrm{r}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}R\mathrm{\Omega }_K\right)^2,`$ (A4)
respectively. These energies are therefore comparable (for $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}=0.2`$), $`2\times 10^2R_{\mathrm{WD}}^2\mathrm{\Omega }_K^2(R_{\mathrm{WD}})`$ per unit mass at the WD surface.

The total gravitational potential energy released per unit mass at the WD surface is

$$E_{\mathrm{pot}}=\frac{GM_{\mathrm{WD}}}{R_{\mathrm{WD}}}=R_{\mathrm{WD}}^2\mathrm{\Omega }_K^2(R_{\mathrm{WD}}),$$
(A5)
so that $`E_\varphi `$ and $`E_\mathrm{r}`$ are small, $`2\times 10^2E_{\mathrm{pot}}`$. The remaining part (i.e. most) of the potential energy is in the form of thermal energy in the hot gas for an ADAF.

For the spectral models presented in this study, $`E_\varphi `$ and $`E_\mathrm{r}`$ have been added to the advected energy ($`E_{\mathrm{pot}}`$) to power the EUV radiation from the WD surface. The models shown in Fig. 2a, for instance, have typical ratios of integrated EUV luminosity to integrated X-ray luminosity of a hundred or more. If the contributions $`E_\varphi `$ and $`E_\mathrm{r}`$ were released in optically-thin regions (at the interface between the ADAF and the WD surface), they could modify the models predictions for the X-ray emission significantly because they have magnitudes comparable to or larger than the Bremsstrahlung emission from the hot flow. Note that the non-zero rotation rate of the WD tends to reduce the importance of $`E_\varphi `$, especially for the values of a few % to a few tens of % of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_K(R_{\mathrm{WD}})`$ reported for the rotation rates of WDs in DN (see, e.g., Sion 1999).

### A.2 The Fate of the Advected Energy

Assuming that the properties of the ADAF surrounding the WD are those discussed above, the fate of the energy advected by the flow when it reaches the WD surface is still left unspecified. It is crucial for the spectral predictions to know if this energy is released in optically-thin or optically-thick regions at the WD surface.

There are two cooling channels for the hot gas carrying the energy: conduction and radiation. I will now show that cooling by radiation seems unlikely to result in the release of this energy in optically-thick regions at the WD surface.

#### A.2.1 Radiation

Let’s assume that the advected energy is indeed released in optically-thick regions at the WD surface. The photospheric temperature of the heated WD can then be estimated via Eq. (1), which yields

$$T_{\mathrm{ph}}=3.1\times 10^4\dot{M}_{16}^{1/4}M_{\mathrm{WD}}^{1/4}R_9^{3/4}\mathrm{K},$$
(A6)
where $`\dot{M}_{16}`$ is the accretion rate onto the WD in units of $`10^{16}`$ g s-1 and $`R_9`$ is the WD radius in units of $`10^9`$ cm. We will assume $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}=1.2M_{}`$ and $`R_9=0.5`$ in what follows. This gives

$$T_{\mathrm{ph}}54,500\mathrm{K},$$
(A7)
for $`\dot{M}_{16}=1`$.

The density of the regions at the WD surface where the infalling of gas in the ADAF is stopped can be estimated by equating the kinetic pressure $`P_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ of the gas in these regions to the ram pressure $`P_{\mathrm{ram}}\rho v^2`$ of the flow, with

$`P_{\mathrm{ram}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{M}}{4\pi R^2}}\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}V_{\mathrm{ff}}`$ (A8)
$``$ $`4.1\times 10^5\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}\dot{M}_{16}M_{\mathrm{WD}}^{1/2}R_9^{5/2}\mathrm{dyne}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (A9)
for the ADAF, where $`V_{\mathrm{ff}}(2GM_{\mathrm{WD}}/R)^{1/2}`$ is the free fall velocity and $`v=\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}V_{\mathrm{ff}}`$ is the radial infall speed in the ADAF (Narayan & Yi 1994).

The corresponding stopping density $`\rho _{\mathrm{stop}}`$ is therefore given by

$$P_{\mathrm{gas}}=\frac{\rho _{\mathrm{stop}}k_\mathrm{B}T_\mathrm{p}}{\mu m_\mathrm{p}}=P_{\mathrm{ram}},$$
(A10)
where I adopt a value $`1/2`$ for the mean molecular weight $`\mu `$, $`k_\mathrm{B}`$ is the Boltzmann constant and $`m_\mathrm{p}`$ is the proton mass. This gives

$`\rho _{\mathrm{stop}}`$ $``$ $`7.9\times 10^8\alpha _{\mathrm{ADAF}}\dot{M}_{16}^{3/4}M_{\mathrm{WD}}^{1/4}R_9^{7/4}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^3`$ (A11)
$`\mathrm{or}`$ $``$ $`5.5\times 10^8\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^3`$ (A12)
for $`\dot{M}_{16}=1`$ ($`M_{\mathrm{WD}}=1.2M_{}`$ and $`R_9=0.5`$). The Rosseland mean opacity (see, e.g., Cox & Tabor 1976) corresponding to $`\rho _{\mathrm{stop}}`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ is

$$\kappa _{\mathrm{stop}}13\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{g}^1.$$
(A13)
Again, if the advected energy is released in optically-thick regions of the WD atmosphere, the value of $`\rho _{\mathrm{stop}}`$ found above should be at least comparable to the density at the photosphere of the heated WD. For a standard Eddington atmosphere in hydrostatic equilibrium, the photospheric density is given by the relation

$$P_{\mathrm{ph}}\frac{2g_{\mathrm{ph}}}{3\kappa },$$
(A14)
where $`P_{\mathrm{ph}}`$, $`g_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ and $`\kappa `$ are the pressure, gravity and opacity at the photosphere, respectively. The density at the WD photosphere is therefore

$$\rho _{\mathrm{ph}}\frac{g_{\mathrm{ph}}\mu m_\mathrm{p}}{\kappa _{\mathrm{stop}}k_\mathrm{B}T_{\mathrm{ph}}}.$$
(A15)
For $`\mu =0.5`$ and a WD with $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}=1.2M_{}`$ and $`R_9=0.5`$, this yields

$$\rho _{\mathrm{ph}}5.4\times 10^6\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^3,$$
(A16)
with a gravity $`g_{\mathrm{ph}}=6.4\times 10^8`$ dyne cm-2.

The value of this photospheric density is two orders of magnitude larger than the value $`\rho _{\mathrm{stop}}`$ derived above, which suggests that the energy advected by the flow will not be released in optically-thick regions at the WD surface if radiative processes act alone.

#### A.2.2 Conduction

This still leaves the possibility that conduction processes efficiently transport the advected energy deep in the WD atmosphere where it is thermalized before being radiated away. The existing literature on similar processes in the context of the post-shock settling regions of WD accretion columns shows that it is difficult to estimate the efficiency of these processes reliably. There are proposed scenarios in which a large amount of the energy carried by the hot gas behind the shock is buried deep into the WD atmosphere (King & Lasota 1979, 1980; Kuijpers & Pringle 1982), but they have been challenged (see, e.g., van Teeseling, Heise & Paerels 1994; Greeley et al. 1999).

The assumption of thermalization of the energy advected by the flow is crucial to the spectral models for quiescent DN presented in this study. If a fair fraction of the advected energy were not thermalized, it would be radiated away as much harder emission from the vicinity of the WD surface. This would probably result in a soft (UV) component (corresponding to a fraction of the hard emission that is reprocessed by the WD atmosphere) comparable in luminosity to the hard (X-ray) component itself. In that case, the strength of the HeII emission lines could not easily be explained as photoionization of the disk material by the central UV source, because it would probably be too weak given the known level of X-ray emission of quiescent DN.


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# Regular and Anomalous Quantum Diffusion in the Fibonacci Kicked Rotator.

## I Introduction

It can be reasonably argued that the quantum kicked rotator  is the oldest, and more thoroughly investigated system in the realm of the so-called quantum chaos. Yet, we pretend in this paper that recourse to this system is still justified, and can provide new dynamical phenomena worth of investigation. Consider in fact the problem of transport in quantum extended systems: for instance, a wave-packet is initially localized on a few states of a quantum lattice, and is then left free to evolve. A deep analysis carried out on model systems  with nearest neighbours interactions has shown that this dynamics is either localized–this is typically the case of random couplings, or, in the case of almost periodic couplings, anomalous (i.e. the diffusion coefficient is either zero or infinity–almost never finite) and intermittent .

It is well known that the kicked rotator for typical values of the parameters is akin to the first example just presented: its quantum dynamics is (eventually) localized in the action lattice. Therefore, it seems to feature a far simpler dynamics than the second class of systems mentioned above, or than its not-too-close relative, the quantum kicked Harper model , in which anomalous diffusion  has been documented. A way to cure this simplicity is offered by an idea profitably employed in spin and few-levels systems : rather than acting upon the system with a periodic impulsive force, we let the sequence of time-intervals between different ”kicks” be almost-periodic. In few-level systems, this idea has lead to interesting spectral properties and dynamical behaviours.

In applying this procedure to the kicked rotator we hope so to combine the complexity of an almost periodic interval sequence and the richness of the infinite Hilbert space of the unperturbed problem, while maintaining at the same time a sufficient simplicity for the theoretical analysis: for this, we elect to investigate the effect of a Fibonacci sequence of unitary evolution operators.

This paper presents the results of a numerical analysis of the system so defined. In previous studies of almost-periodic kicking of the quantum rotator, a linear increase of the energy has been observed , which amounts to regular diffusion. In alternative, power-law increase of energy with a non-unit exponent defines anomalous diffusion. We shall attach special importance to this exponent, which describes the growth of the number of the excited states of the system. Energy is just one of the indicators of the motion of this quantum system. We shall use here a larger set of indicators to describe, in the long time, the growth of the excitation of the system. Each of these quantities will be characterized by a power-law asymptotic behaviour, which in turn will define an associated growth exponent.

This analysis will show that two dynamical regions are present in this system. For large kicking strength the motion is diffusive: the growth exponents are equal to one half, and a proper diffusion coefficient can be defined. To the contrary, when the kick strength is less than a certain threshold, the motion typically features anomalous sub-diffusion: growth exponents still exist, but are smaller than one half. The investigation is further carried on by varying the kick strength: in so doing, a power-law dependence of the growth exponents is observed. It is interesting to note that a similar situation has been found in quasi-crystals in two dimensions : in these systems, for strong hopping amplitude the wave-packet spreading over a two-dimensional lattice is diffusive, while, in the opposite case, spreading is characterized by anomalous sub-diffusion.

This paper is organized as follows: in the next section we define the model. In Sect. III we introduce growth indicators and their power-law exponents to gauge anomalous diffusion in the dynamics of an initially localized wave-packet. The numerical algorithm and the numerically computed long time dynamics of the system are presented in Sect. IV. Finally, we allow a random element in the definition of the dynamical system to verify the robustness of the obtained results, and to support the conjecture that anomalous diffusion in this model is induced by the almost-periodicity of the sequence of unitary operators.

## II The Dynamical System

The basis of our investigation is the quantum kicked rotator : this is the unitary evolution generated in the usual Hilbert space $`L_2(S_{2\pi })`$ by the operators

$$U(k,T)=e^{ik\mathrm{cos}\theta }e^{i\frac{T}{2}\widehat{n}^2}$$
(1)
which depend on the two parameters $`k,T`$ and where the momentum operator is $`\widehat{n}=i_\theta `$. The corresponding classical system is the well known Chirikov standard map , which is obtained letting $`k`$ grow, and $`T`$ go to zero, while keeping their product fixed. This product defines the classical chaos parameter, $`K=kT`$. In the classical case the system becomes globally diffusive for $`K>0.9716\mathrm{}`$.

Now, it is well known that for large values of $`K`$, and typical irrational values of $`\frac{T}{2\pi }`$, classical and quantum dynamics of the kicked rotator are profoundly different: this is the content of the quantum phenomenon of dynamical localization, which has been well described in the literature, and which predicts that the quantum evolution of an initially focused wave-function is almost periodic in time, and localized on the momentum space of the unperturbed system at $`k=0`$ .

In this paper, we study a variation on this theme: while in the usual approach the unitary evolution of eq. (1) is acted repeatedly, at equally spaced times $`t_n=nT`$, in our model the length of the time intervals in between kicks will not be constant. Equivalently, we can say that the operators $`U`$ act now in Fibonacci sequence to produce the full quantum evolution $`𝒰`$:

$$𝒰(t_n)=U(k,\tau _n)U(k,\tau _{n1})\mathrm{}U(k,\tau _1),$$
(2)
where $`t_n=_{j=1}^n\tau _j`$ is time, and where $``$ denotes operator composition. As is immediately observed, operators in eq. (2) are characterised by the same value of the quantum kick amplitude $`k`$, and differ solely by the value of $`T`$. The sequence of values of this latter is determined by letting $`\tau _j`$ to take either one of two possible values, which for convenience we denote by $`A`$ and $`B`$. We choose for $`A`$ and $`B`$ the values

$`A={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\lambda }},B={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\lambda ^2}},`$

where $`\lambda =1.3247\mathrm{}`$ is an algebraic number, that solves the equation $`\lambda ^3\lambda 1=0`$. In a sense, $`A,B`$ is the most irrational couple of numbers.

We line up $`A`$’s and $`B`$’s according to the well known Fibonacci sequence: this is obtained by an accretion rule on the initial finite pieces of the infinite sequence, $`\sigma _1=A`$ and $`\sigma _2=A,B`$. According to this rule, the next finite piece is obtained by joining these two sequences, the first at the end of the second: $`\sigma _3=A,B,A`$. In general,

$$\sigma _{n+1}=\sigma _n\sigma _{n1},$$
(3)
where the symbol $``$ means here joining the right and left sequences in the specified order, so that $`\sigma _4=A,B,A,A,B`$, and so on. It is then easy to see that the length of $`\sigma _n`$ is equal to the $`n`$-th Fibonacci number, $`F_n`$. Eq. (3) expresses a property that will be instrumental in the following to obtain the quantum evolution up to large times.

## III Growth Exponents of an Initially Localized Wave-function

We now let $`\psi (0)`$ be the initial state of the evolution, and we compute the time-dynamics $`\psi (t_n)=𝒰(t_n)\psi (0)`$. Typically, we choose for initial state $`\psi (0)`$ the usual $`e_0`$ momentum basis state of $`L_2(S_{2\pi })`$, the full basis being $`e_n=e^{in\theta }`$, with $`n𝐙`$.

As we have already remarked, the quantum kicked rotator, for typical irrational values of the kicking period $`T`$, displays the phenomenon of quantum localization: action in the system eventually saturates in time, and quantum diffusion stops. On the other hand, for kick sequences with random time intervals after each kick, the increase in momentum is diffusive and never comes to an end . Of particular interest is then to study the kicking sequence defined in the previous section, which is neither periodic, nor random: it belongs to the family of almost-periodic sequences. We shall see that under these circumstances dynamical localization leaves places to a delocalization which shares many characteristics with that taking place in almost-periodic lattice systems.

To study the dynamics of the quantum wave-function, it is convenient to introduce a number of quantities suitable to define its spreading: we shall call them collectively growth indicators. The first obvious choice are moments. Let $`\nu _\alpha (t)`$ be the moment of index $`\alpha `$ of the probability distribution over the lattice $`\{e_n\}`$ given by $`|(e_n,\psi (t))|^2`$, where obviously $`(,)`$ denotes the scalar product in $`L_2(S_{2\pi })`$:

$$\nu _\alpha (t):=\underset{n}{}|(e_n,\psi (t))|^2|n|^\alpha .$$
(4)
For instance, $`\nu _2`$ is the usual second moment–the dispersion–which, in the case of regular diffusion, grows linearly in time. In general, we cannot expect $`\nu _2`$ to behave as $`t`$, but super-diffusive and sub-diffusive growth will be the rule. For this, we also define the growth exponent function $`\beta `$ by the asymptotic relation

$$\nu _\alpha (t)t^{\alpha \beta (\alpha )}\text{for}t\mathrm{},$$
(5)
where the asymptotic behaviour is to be understood in a suitable sense. The function $`\beta (\alpha )`$ is the so-called quantum intermittency function, described at length in .

When $`\alpha `$ tends to zero, the moment $`\nu _\alpha `$ tends to the constant $`\nu _0=1`$. Nonetheless, one can define the limit of the function $`\beta `$ for $`\alpha `$ tending to zero, $`\beta (0)`$, a number which also appears in the scaling of the logarithmic moment:

$$\underset{n0}{}|(e_n,\psi (t))|^2\mathrm{log}(|n|)\beta (0)\mathrm{log}(t).$$
(6)
In the quantities (5) and (6 the ordering of the basis is relevant: a function of $`n`$ appears in the summations. We can nonetheless define and compute quantities which do not make reference to this characteristics. The first of these is the entropy:

$$\underset{n}{}|(e_n,\psi (t))|^2\mathrm{log}(|(e_n,\psi (t))|^2)\gamma +\beta _e\mathrm{log}(t),$$
(7)
whose asymptotic behaviour (here and in the following to be understood in the infinite time limit) defines the exponent $`\beta _e`$. In the case of localization, $`\beta _e`$ is null, and $`e^\gamma `$ (the constant contribution in eq. (7)) gives a measure of the localization length. Another basis independent quantity is the inverse participation ratio,

$$\underset{n}{}|(e_n,\psi (t))|^4t^{\beta _p},$$
(8)
with its exponent $`\beta _p`$.

We notice that, in principle, the exponents $`\beta `$ of all the quantities so far defined are different. Yet, when finite, they are all consistent with the fact that the spreading of the wave-packet over the basis takes place in a power-law fashion. This is indeed the case: in fig. (1) we plot the $`\frac{1}{\alpha }`$ power of a set of moments $`\nu _\alpha `$ versus time, in doubly logarithmic scale, together with one over the inverse participation ratio, and with the exponential of the entropy and of the logarithmic moment. It is immediately appreciated that quantum diffusion in this case is regular: these curves are parallel to the reference line $`\sqrt{t}`$, so that all growth exponents are equal to one half.

To render even more evident the fact that we are in the presence of regular diffusion we plot in fig. (2) a snapshot of the wave-packet at a large time, for the same case of fig. (1): The fitting line is a normal distribution.

## IV Detecting anomalous diffusion in large time dynamics

Let us now investigate the effect of varying the kick strength $`k`$: in particular, let us decrease it from the value $`k=10`$ at which we observed regular diffusion. Two difficulties arise when performing this analysis: since we observe a reduced delocalization of the wave-packet, very large time-scale computations are required to say something reliable about the asymptotic behaviour. Secondly, large systematic oscillations in the behaviour of the moments (and of the other quantities) tend to overwhelm and submerge the power-law increase, the more the slower this increase.

Let us first present the cure to the second difficulty: we can introduce a magnetic flux $`\alpha `$ in the evolution (1), which is nothing else than replacing the operator $`\widehat{n}`$ with $`\widehat{n}+\varphi `$: $`\varphi `$ is a real number, so that for $`\varphi =0`$ we obtain the usual kicked system. By performing the evolution with a set of values of $`\varphi `$, and by averaging the results with respect to this sample, we can reduce the systematic fluctuations super-imposed to the leading power-law behaviour. Please observe that the classical dynamics is left invariant by the introduction of this flux.

For the first difficulty, a more complex strategy is required. We can push the evolution to extremely large times by resorting to a matrix algorithm. Let $`𝒰^{F_n}`$ be the unitary evolution operator acting from time zero up to the time of the kick number $`F_n`$, the $`n`$-th Fibonacci number. Then, eq. (3) implies that these operators are simply related by

$$𝒰^{F_{n+1}}=𝒰^{F_{n1}}𝒰^{F_n},$$
(9)
where $``$ is the usual operator multiply, and where the order of operators is essential, as it was in eq. (3). This relation must be initialised by setting

$`𝒰^{F_1}=U(k,A),`$ $`𝒰^{F_2}=U(k,B)U(k,A),`$  (10)
so to produce the full sequence $`\{𝒰^{F_n}\}`$. In fact, the matrix elements of $`U(K,\tau )`$ are explicitly known, and eq. (9) involves then only a matrix-to-matrix multiplication. Of course, the cost of this operation scales as the cube of the size of the matrix, and this is certainly more expensive than the usual evolution effected via a sequence of fast Fourier transforms. Nonetheless, this technique becomes advantageous when dealing with extremely large times, for in $`n`$ steps one reaches up to $`F_n`$ map iterations, and it is well known that Fibonacci numbers are geometrically increasing in $`n`$.

We therefore effect the matrix multiplication for $`n=1,\mathrm{},N`$ and then look at the zeroth coloumn of the resulting operator $`𝒰^{F_N}`$: this is the evoluted of the initial state $`e_0`$. In our numerical experiments, the initial state of the evolution will always be $`e_0`$. Suitable combinations of the columns can provide the evoluted of any arbitrary initial state, if desired.

A question of numerical concern is to be discussed prior to showing the results of these calculations: when dealing with equations (9,10) a finite truncation of the operators involved is necessary. Now, for any practical purpose $`U(k,\tau )`$ is a banded matrix, and we must obviously choose the size of the numerical truncation much larger than the band size. Yet this is not enough: appropriate boundary conditions at the basis edges must be imposed. Two choices are at hand: Dirichlet, and Neumann. In the latter case, we are producing the unitary evolution on the torus, while in the first case we end up with a non-unitary evolution.

Having in mind what we want to obtain (i.e. the evolution of the $`e_0`$ basis state in the full cylinder space) we have adopted Dirichlet conditions, for two reasons. First, when the truncation size is sufficiently large, both Dirichlet and Neumann conditions must produce an excellent approximation of the true $`𝒰^{F_N}e_0`$. Secondly, we can gauge numerically two quantities: the normalization of the zeroth column of $`𝒰^{F_N}`$ (which is a common technique) and its effective dimension–which is less common, but more instructive. In fact, this latter was defined above as the number of components of $`𝒰^{F_N}e_0`$ of magnitude larger than a certain threshold: this quantifies the dimension of the wave-packet after $`F_N`$ kicks, and can be profitably used to control the optimal size of the truncation. It must be added that the effective dimension in itself has physical and mathematical relevance .

In summary, we have been able to reach easily about sixty iterations of the Fibonacci multiplication, eq. (10), which correspond to more than $`10^{12}`$ usual iterations, and this with a basis size of the order of the thousand. Numerical stability, controlled by various techniques, is here the limiting factor.

A set of typical results is shown in fig. (3), where we plot the second moment, $`\nu _2`$, as a function of time, in doubly logarithmic scale, for a set of different values of $`k`$. We clearly see that these values decrease with the latter, but, more important, the slopes of the curves (i.e. the growth exponent $`\beta (2)`$) also decrease with $`k`$. As a consequence, we can safely conclude that quantum diffusion is anomalous in this model for a wide set of parameters .

At this point, a word must be spent about intermittency: this is present when the function $`\beta (\alpha )`$ (see eq. (5)) is not constant. In the case at hand, the variation of $`\beta `$ with $`\alpha `$ is smaller than the uncertainty with which $`\beta `$ is determined, both due to numerical effects, and to the super-imposed oscillations of the moments $`\nu _\alpha `$. We can therefore only conclude that intermittency, if present, is low.

This fact is not totally negative: by averaging over $`\alpha `$, we can define a more reliable growth exponent $`\beta _{av}`$ which is now function only of the kick amplitude $`k`$. This immediately prompts for the study of this dependence. Fig. (4) plots the numerical results obtained by the procedure exposed above. Two regions clearly emerge from the investigation of this picture: for large values of $`k`$ we observe the regular diffusive value $`\beta _{av}=\frac{1}{2}`$. Anomalous diffusion is observed for smaller values of $`k`$: quite interestingly, we find a power-law behaviour of the growth exponent of the form

$$\beta _{av}(k)k^\eta ,$$
(11)
with $`\eta `$ very close to the value $`\frac{2}{3}`$. The transition from anomalous to regular diffusion takes place for $`k>k_c`$: for the set of values we have chosen, this critical value $`k_c`$ is approximately equal to two.

Let us now investigate the origin of anomalous diffusion in this model. When acting on the basis set $`e_n=e^{in\theta }`$ the free evolution $`e^{i\frac{T}{2}_\theta ^2}`$ produces the phase factor $`e^{i\frac{T}{2}n^2}`$. The arithmetic nature of $`T/2\pi `$ is at the root of the spectral properties of the usual kicked rotator. The numerical studies presented so far have been carried on for the most irrational pair $`A`$, $`B`$. We have found similar results for other irrationally related pairs. We are so lead to conclude that the nature of the observed unbounded diffusion lies in the almost-periodic arrangement of in-kicks intervals $`A`$ and $`B`$.

To substantiate this hypothesis we have replaced the phases $`\frac{T}{2}n^2`$ by two sequences of equally distributed pseudo-random numbers, one for the operator $`U(k,A)`$ and one for its companion $`U(k,B)`$. In so doing, we have obtained quite similar results as those reported above. In fig. 4 the exponents $`\beta _{av}`$ for this case are also reported.

## V Conclusions

We have studied the dynamics of a quantum rotator kicked at times generated by the almost periodic Fibonacci sequence. Contrary to that of the usual kicked rotator, this dynamics nevers shows quantum localization. We have introduced and computed various indicators of the spreading of an initially localized wave packet, which have permitted to show that the dynamics features regular diffusion for large values of the kick amplitude ($`k>k_c`$) and anomalous sub-diffusion for small values $`(k<k_c)`$. In this latter range, the exponent of this diffusion appears to follow a power-law behaviour with the kick amplitude, $`\beta _{av}(k)k^{\frac{2}{3}}`$. This relation, although only numerically established, is quite interesting, and deserves in our opinion further investigation.

Similarities and differences between the Fibonacci kicked rotator and other quasi-periodic models are to be noted. We have already observed that anomalous diffusion is typically found in almost periodic, one-dimensional lattice systems. It also appears in the kicked Harper model. To the contrary, the Fibonacci kicked rotator is qualitatively different from the rotator acted upon by equally spaced kicks, with an amplitude $`k`$ which is a quasi-periodic function of time. The case when this function contains $`m`$ incommensurate frequencies has been studied in . It was shown that this model is a dynamical analog of the Anderson localization in a space of effective dimension $`d=m+1`$. In this way the usual kicked rotator ($`m=0`$) corresponds to $`d=1`$, and–of course–is always localized. For $`m=1`$ the excitation is still always localized, but the localization length grows exponentially with $`k`$ , in analogy with the Anderson localization in $`d=2`$. Finally, for $`m>1`$ i.e. $`d>2`$, a transition from localization to diffusive excitation takes place above some critical kick amplitude, in analogy with the Anderson transition for $`d>2`$ . As we see this behaviour drastically differs from the one we find in this paper for the Fibonacci kicked rotator.

In our opinion this difference might be due to the fact that in  the kick amplitude $`k`$ is an analytic function of incommensurate phases (frequencies). For this, such a model can be mapped into an effective solid-state hopping model, similar to the Anderson model, with hopping only to a finite number of nearby sites. On the contrary, the almost-periodic sequence of unitary operators of the Fibonacci kicked rotator renders the situation much richer, and gives rise to a transition from regular to anomalous diffusion.

As a matter of facts, the dynamics of the Fibonacci kicked rotator seems more similar to a wave spreading on a two-dimensional quasi-crystal lattice. Indeed, studies of quantum diffusion over an octagonal quasiperiodic tiling have shown a similar transition from anomalous to regular diffusion . However, in spite of this first glance similarity more detailed studies are required to establish a quantitative relation between these models, and to gain a better theoretical understanding of the results presented in this paper.


text:
# SN 1984A and Delayed Detonation Models of Type Ia Supernovae

## 1 Introduction

The current understanding of the progenitor system for SNe Ia features a sub-Chandrasekhar mass C+O white dwarf accreting mass from a companion star until reaching the Chandrasekhar mass, or by merging with another C+O white dwarf and then exploding (for reviews see Livio 2000; Branch et al. 1995, and references therein). Most SNe Ia show a correlation between luminosity and light curve shape, but some SNe Ia show uncorrelated spectral properties (Branch & van den Bergh 1993; Hatano et al. 2000). Events like SN 1984A (Branch 1987; Barbon et al. 1989) and SN 1997bq (Garnavich et al. 2000) show unusually large blue-shifts in the spectra (for more see Hatano et al. 2000). These SNe Ia have otherwise normal properties and the usual spectral features. They only appear different under close inspection. We have modeled SN 1984A using delayed detonation models, in which an initially sub-sonic flame (deflagration) transitions to a super-sonic shock (detonation). We have shown that the parameterized deflagration model, W7 (Nomoto et al. 1984), fits normal SNe Ia quite well (Lentz et al. 2000a). However, we found that delayed detonation models have abnormally large blue-shift velocities in their synthetic spectra. Thus, these delayed detonation models would seem to be ideal for SNe Ia with abnormally high expansion velocities.

## 2 Computational Procedures

### 2.1 PHOENIX

We have used the multi-purpose spectrum synthesis and model atmosphere code PHOENIX 10.8 (see Hauschildt & Baron 1999, and references therein). PHOENIX has been designed to accurately include the various effects of special relativity important in rapidly expanding atmospheres, like supernovae. Ionization by non-thermal electrons from gamma-rays from the nuclear decay of 56Ni that powers the light curves of SNe Ia is taken into account. We have updated the method for calculating the gamma-ray deposition from the single $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-iteration technique of Nugent (1997) (based on the method of Sutherland & Wheeler 1984), to a solution of the spherically symmetric radiative transfer equation for gamma-rays with PHOENIX (Lentz 2000). We used an effective gamma-ray opacity, $`\kappa _\gamma =0.06`$ Ye cm2 g-1 (Colgate et al. 1980). In the models presented here we solve the NLTE rate equations for H I (10 levels/37 transitions), He I–II (19/37, 10/45), C I (228/1387), O I (36/66), Ne I (26/37), Na I (53/142), Mg II (73/340), Si II (93/436), S II (84/444), Ti II (204/2399), Fe II (617/13675), and Co II (255/2725).

### 2.2 CS15DD3

The model CS15DD3 was prepared from the hydrodynamical calculation of Iwamoto et al. (1999) by homologous expansion of the hydro model and by assuming a rise time of 20 days after explosion to maximum light (e.g., Reiss et al. 2000; Aldering et al. 2000). A few layers near $`6000`$ km s-1 having non-monotonic velocities have been re-mapped, while we have included the corresponding density spike from the hydrodynamic interactions. The models, which extend to velocities $`>100,000`$ km s-1, have been truncated at 40,000 km s-1 for the pre-maximum spectra (13, 15, and 17 days after explosion) and for the post-maximum spectrum (28 days after explosion) to save model points to resolve parts of the atmosphere which are relevant to spectral formation. In tests, we have found that the excluded portions of the atmosphere do not affect the spectra. At each epoch, we have fit the luminosity to match the shape and color of the observations, while solving for the energy balance and converged NLTE rate equations.

### 2.3 DD21c

The model DD21c (Höflich et al. 1998) has also been homologously expanded to the epoch of the observations with the same 20 day rise time. The hydrodynamical models have been extended from the largest velocity of $`25,000`$ km s-1 to 30,000 km s-1 using a steep power law and the same composition as the last model layer. Because of the steepness of the power law the extra matter did not affect the spectra in tests. The extension was necessary to provide a better outer structure for the atmosphere to increase numerical stability. We have used the luminosities provided in Höflich et al. (1998) for DD21c without modification or fitting, thus directly including the effects of time-dependence in the SN atmosphere.

## 3 Results

We have plotted the synthetic spectra from DD21c for days 13, 15, 17, and 28 after explosion against the observations from -7, -5, -3, and +8 days relative to maximum light respectively in Figure 1. We use the -7 day spectrum from Wegner & McMahan (1987). The epoch of maximum light and remaining spectra are from Barbon et al. (1989). The spectra fit remarkably well. The excellent agreement of the synthetic spectral color to the observations shows both that the calculated bolometric luminosities in Höflich et al. (1998) are accurate, and that PHOENIX does an excellent job of reproducing time-dependent calculations using the externally calculated bolometric luminosities. The Si II feature near 6000 Å, the defining characteristic of SNe Ia, fits very well in both velocity (wavelength) range and shape. The general fit of the 28 day synthetic spectrum over 4500–5600 Å is quite good, especially since the model is making the transition between optically thick and optically thin and therefore is more difficult to model. The S II feature at 5100–5400 Å is shifted a little to the red in the pre-maximum spectra, indicating that the sulfur in the model should be moving faster to fit SN 1984A. The 4400 Å and 5000 Å Fe II features in the pre-maximum spectra are both too weak, but seem to have the correct velocity. The Ca II H+K feature in the day 13 spectrum is both a bit too weak and too slow. This indicates that higher abundance of calcium may be needed at these extreme velocities. The Ca II H+K feature is also quite sensitive to the model temperature. The velocity extent of the model is large enough to form the observed Ca II H+K line blue-shift.

Our best fits, adjusting the total bolometric luminosity to fit the color, to SN 1984A with CS15DD3 are plotted in Figure 2. Again the fit to the Si II feature at 6000 Å is excellent. The S II in the pre-maximum spectra shows improvement over DD21c, but is a little slow on day 13 and weak on day 17. The 5000 Å Fe II feature fits much better in all synthetic spectra than DD21c, especially in showing the broad, deep-bottomed shape of the feature. The pre-maximum 4400 Å feature again is a bit weak and possibly a bit slow on day 13. The Ca II H+K feature shows the same weak and slow line as DD21c. The day 28 spectrum fits fairly well except for the depth of the 6100 Å Si II feature and the small continuum deficit just blueward of that feature. This model has a continuum optical depth, $`\tau _{5000}=1.7`$, which is quite low.

Comparing our results to those of Figure 8 in Höflich et al. (1998) (HWT98), the general features are the same, but the velocities of the lineshapes in HWT98 appear significantly slower than in our synthetic spectra. Figure 3 displays the 17 day spectrum in a format that facilitates direct comparison with Figure 8 of HWT98. There are differences in the Ca II IR triplet, which is significantly stronger in HWT98, also the silicon ratio (Nugent et al. 1995) is much larger in our calculations. We also find significantly more flux near 4000 Å than do HWT98.

To demonstrate the similarities between the two delayed detonation models and the contrasts to the deflagration model, W7, we have plotted the day 15 spectra for DD21c, CS15DD3, and W7 with the -5 day SN 1984A spectrum in Figure 4. We have also plotted W7 where we have artificially enhanced the metallicity of the unburned C+O layer by a factor of 10 (see Lentz et al. 2000b, where we discussed how progenitor metallicity variation could affect the silicon line), clearly even an extreme value for the metallicity can not be the cause of the high velocities of SN 1984A. We can see that although CS15DD3 is a bit better in the Fe II, S II, and 5700 Å Si II features, the two delayed detonation models are otherwise quite similar. The synthetic W7 spectrum, which has been carefully fit to the ordinary SN Ia SN 1994D (Lentz et al. 2000a), has the right color, but the spectral features are all too slow. To understand these differences, we have plotted the integrated column density for all three models in Figure 5. The delayed detonation models show larger column density for $`v>15,000`$ km s-1, but are like W7 at slower velocities. In W7, the high velocity region is unburned C+O, but in the delayed detonation models it also includes some freshly synthesized intermediate mass elements including calcium, sulfur, and silicon. It is this increased density of intermediate mass elements at high velocities to which we attribute the high blue-shift features in SNe Ia like SN 1984A. We suggest that the variations in $`v_{10}`$(Si II), the blue-shift velocity of the main Si II feature 10 days after maximum light, noted in Hatano et al. (2000) may be due to higher densities in the outermost layers of the supernova.

Figures 6 and 7 compare the silicon and iron number densities of the three models. Clearly, DD21c and CS15DD3 fit the silicon feature well because they both have significant silicon (nearly the same) up to $`v=30,000`$ km s-1. The smoothly rising iron density of CS15DD3 produces a better fit to the Fe II features than does the more complicated profile of DD21c.

## 4 Discussion

We have calculated synthetic spectra from the delayed detonation models, DD21c and CS15DD3, to match the observed spectra of SN 1984A. The synthetic spectra have successfully reproduced the high blue-shift absorption features, and for DD21c, the colors using the provided bolometric luminosities. The extra column density in the intermediate mass elements causes the lines to form with larger blue-shifts. We have previously shown that line formation in this region of W7 is important in a study of C+O metallicity (Lentz et al. 2000b). The variations in line velocities in SNe Ia with otherwise normal spectra are most likely due to the addition of a small amount of mass at high velocity, possibly containing freshly synthesized material. While the delayed detonation models we have used do show the higher line blue-shifts and high-velocity densities, and the deflagration model does not, we do not consider this as *conclusive* evidence that the variation is related to the different explosion mechanism. It may reflect a continuous variation in the ejecta densities at high velocity within a single family of models. A delayed detonation model with less density at high velocities, similar in outer density structure to W7, may fit the normal velocity SNe Ia with the same or better quality than W7. In any case it is clear that there must exist a family of “normal” SNe Ia and that spectral modeling is the way to understand them.

We thank K. Hatano and D. Casebeer for converting the published observations to electronic format, and P. Höflich and K. Nomoto for providing the explosion models in electronic format. We thank the anonymous referee for suggestions which considerably improved the presentation of this paper. This work was supported in part by NSF grant AST-9731450, NASA grant NAG5-3505, and an IBM SUR grant to the University of Oklahoma; and by NSF grant AST-9720704, NASA ATP grant NAG 5-8425, and LTSA grant NAG 5-3619 to the University of Georgia. PHH was supported in part by the Pôle Scientifique de Modélisation Numérique at ENS-Lyon. Some of the calculations presented in this paper were performed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), supported by the NSF, and at the National Energy Research Supercomputer Center (NERSC), supported by the U.S. DOE. We thank both these institutions for a generous allocation of computer time.


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# Methods for the Nonperturbative Approximation of Form Factors and Scattering Amplitudes1footnote 11footnote 1To appear in the proceedings of the 7th Conference on the Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics, Québec City, May 22-28, 2000.

## Introduction

To benefit from the recent progress on the calculation of field-theoretic bound states in light-cone quantization jhiller:review ; jhiller:PV , we explore methods by which form factors and scattering amplitudes can be extracted nonperturbatively. In the case of form factors, this is relatively straightforward; well-known formulas jhiller:Drell  yield the form factors as overlap integrals of Fock-state wave functions. For scattering amplitudes, the way is less certain. One possible method jhiller:QCD00  is discussed briefly here. Others have been considered by Kröger jhiller:Kroger , Ji and Surya jhiller:JiSurya , and Fuda jhiller:Fuda .

The formulations given are in terms of light-cone coordinates jhiller:Dirac ; jhiller:review , where $`x^+t+z`$ plays the role of time and the conjugate variable $`p^{}Ep_z`$ is the light-cone energy. The light-cone three-momentum is $`\underset{¯}{p}=(p^+E+p_z,𝐩_{})`$. An eigenstate $`|P,\sigma `$ of the light-cone Hamiltonian operators $`𝒫^\pm `$, $`𝒫_{}`$ and helicity $`\sigma `$ is written as a Fock-state expansion

$$|P,\sigma =\underset{n}{}[dx][d^2k_{}]\psi _{P,\sigma }^{(n)}(x,𝐤_{})|n:\underset{¯}{p}_i,$$
(1)
with

$$[dx][d^2k_{}]=\delta (1\underset{i}{}x_i)\underset{i}{}\frac{dx_i}{\sqrt{x_i}}16\pi ^3\delta (\underset{i}{}𝐤_i)\underset{i}{}\frac{d^2k_i}{16\pi ^3}$$
(2)
and where the $`\psi ^{(n)}`$ are wave functions for $`n`$ particles, $`x_ip_i^+/P^+`$ are longitudinal momentum fractions, and $`𝐤_i=𝐩_ix_i𝐏_{}`$ are relative transverse momenta. Use of light-cone coordinates brings several advantages, including boost invariance of the wave functions.

The eigenvalue problem $`𝒫|P,\sigma =P|P,\sigma `$ for fixed $`\sigma `$ determines the wave functions as solutions of a coupled set of integral equations. A method frequently applied to these equations is discrete light-cone quantization (DLCQ) jhiller:PauliBrodsky ; jhiller:review , which approximates the integrals by the trapezoidal rule and computes the wave functions on an equally spaced momentum grid. Any bound-state property can then, in principle, be calculated from these wave functions. The grid is parameterized by a longitudinal resolution $`K`$ and transverse resolution $`N_{}`$, such that longitudinal momentum fractions are multiples of $`1/K`$ and transverse momenta have as many as $`2N_{}+1`$ values in each direction. The value of $`N_{}`$ is associated with a cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ on the invariant mass of each constituent and with the choice of transverse momentum scale $`\pi /L_{}`$.

## Form factors

For a spin-$`1/2`$ fermion, the two form factors can be obtained from matrix elements of the plus component of the electromagnetic current $`J`$

$`F_1(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}P+Q,\sigma |J^+(0)/P^+|P,\sigma ,`$ (3)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{Q_xiQ_y}{2M}}\right)F_2(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\sigma }}P+Q,\sigma |J^+(0)/P^+|P,\sigma .`$ (4)
These can be reduced to overlap integrals jhiller:Drell

$$F_1(Q^2)=\underset{n}{}\underset{j}{}e_j[dx][d^2k_{}]\psi _{P+Q,1/2}^{(n)}(x,𝐤_{}^{})\psi _{P,1/2}^{(n)}(x,𝐤_{}),$$
(5)
$$\left(\frac{Q_xiQ_y}{2M}\right)F_2(Q^2)=\underset{n}{}\underset{j}{}e_j[dx][d^2k_{}]\psi _{P+Q,1/2}^{(n)}(x,𝐤_{}^{})\psi _{P,1/2}^{(n)}(x,𝐤_{}),$$
(6)
in the frame where the photon momentum $`Q`$ is written $`(0,2QP/P^+,𝐐_{})`$ and

$$𝐤_i^{}=\{\begin{array}{cc}𝐤_ix_i𝐐_{},\hfill & ij\hfill \\ 𝐤_j+(1x_j)𝐐_{},\hfill & i=j.\hfill \end{array}$$
(7)
For the model studied by Brodsky, Hiller, and McCartor jhiller:PV , an explicit calculation of $`F_1`$ has been done jhiller:FormFactor . In this model, a bare fermion acts as a source and sink for bosons of mass $`\mu `$. The lowest massive eigenstate is a fermion dressed by a boson cloud. The theory is regulated by a Pauli–Villars boson jhiller:PauliVillars  with an imaginary coupling, and renormalized by fits of physical quantities to “data.” Because no spin-flip interactions are included, $`F_2`$ is zero. Results for $`F_1`$ are shown in Fig. 1. The large-momentum-transfer value of $`F_1`$ is the bare fermion probability and therefore is not zero.

## Scattering amplitudes

The center-of-mass cross section for two-body scattering ($`A+BC+D`$) is jhiller:Peskin

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{cm}}=\frac{1}{2E_A2E_Bv_{\mathrm{rel}}}\frac{|\stackrel{}{p}_C||_{fi}|^2}{16\pi ^2E_{\mathrm{cm}}},$$
(8)
where $`_{fi}`$ is the invariant amplitude obtained from the $`S`$ matrix

$$S_{fi}=f|i+(2\pi )^4\delta ^{(4)}(p_fp_i)i_{fi}=\delta _{CD,AB}2\pi i\delta (s_{AB}s_{CD})T_{\mathrm{LC}fi},$$
(9)
with $`s_{AB}=\frac{m_A^2+p_A^2}{p_A^+/P^+}+\frac{m_B^2+p_B^2}{p_B^+/P^+}`$. The $`T`$ matrix for scattering of composites is given by jhiller:QCD00 ; jhiller:Wick

$$T_{\mathrm{LC}fi}=P^+T_{fi}=C|V_D^{}\frac{1}{s_{AB}+iϵH_{\mathrm{LC}}}V_B|A+C|DV_B|A.$$
(10)
Here $`|A`$ and $`|C`$ are composite-particle eigenstates of the light-cone Hamiltonian $`H_{\mathrm{LC}}`$, and the operator $`V_B`$ is defined by

$$V_B=[H_{\mathrm{LC}},B^{}]\frac{m_B^2+p_B^2}{p_B^+/P^+}B^{},$$
(11)
with $`B^{}`$ the creation operator for the $`B`$ particle, i.e. $`|B=B^{}|0`$. This construction generalizes one presented some time ago by Wick jhiller:Wick . Details can be found in Ref. jhiller:QCD00 . Given numerical solutions for the composite-particle eigenstates, obtained with DLCQ, the most difficult remaining task is the estimation of the matrix element of $`(s+iϵH_{\mathrm{LC}})^1`$. For this type of matrix element, the recursion method of Haydock jhiller:Haydock  has worked well. A nonrelativistic application is described in jhiller:QCD00 ; an application to the field-theoretic model studied in jhiller:PV  is in progress.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute through grants of computing time and by the Department of Energy, contract DE-FG02-98ER41087.


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# Coherent Tunneling in Fe-8 Molecular Nanomagnets: Response to the Comment by Bellessa (arXiv:cond-mat/0006441)

All statements of Bellessa’s Comment  are false.

To begin with, the EPL  that has been commented upon by Dr. Bellessa was published not by “Chudnovsky and Tejada” but by Del Barco, Vernier, Hernandez, Tejada, Chudnovsky, Molins, and Bellessa. The Fe-8 sample was synthesized in Barcelona where the whole experiment was planned and all structural and magnetic characterization: chemical, infrared, X-ray, magnetic, etc. (see the EPL for details) were performed. Figure 1 shows the magnetization curves measured in Barcelona. Only the final measurement of the ac-susceptibility, performed by Enrique del Barco of the University of Barcelona and Nicolas Vernier of Orsay, used facilities of the laboratory of Dr. Bellessa. The analysis and the interpretation of the data have been performed in Barcelona. The text of the paper has been agreed upon by all authors including Dr. Bellessa, as his E-mail to Dr. Tejada indicates .

The question of presenting the data in terms of tunneling or EPR is the one of semantics. Dr. Bellessa has published almost identical data on a similar system, Mn-12, which he interpreted as tunneling, not EPR . The idea of that experiment was “borrowed” (without our knowledge) from our EPL before it was published.

The method of orienting superparamagnetic powder by solidifying it in epoxy in high field is well known and has been repeatedly tested in experiment. This is how regular steps due to resonant spin tunneling in Mn-12 were first observed . The method works due to the anisotropy of the magnetic susceptibility of superparamagnetic particles and has little to do with the interaction between Fe-8 ions as is incorrectly “suspected” by Dr. Bellessa. Everything in his Comment about the effect of the misalignment of the Fe-8 powder is contained in our EPL . The curves in Fig.1, which differ from the ones in the Comment, correspond to about 35% misalignment of easy axes, which is stated in our EPL. Fig. 1 of the Comment was measured by Dr. Bellessa many months later and (assuming the measurement was correct) must be attributed to the well-known aging of the oriented powder sample.