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# References

## Abstract

Diffractive and refractive magnetospheric scintillations may allow a direct testing of the plasma inside the light cylinder. Unusual electrodynamics of the strongly magnetized electron-positron plasma allow separation of the magnetospheric and interstellar scattering. The most distinctive feature of the magnetospheric scintillations is their independence on frequency. Diffractive scattering due to small scale inhomogeneities produce a scattering angle that may be as large as $`0.1`$ radians, and a typical decorrelation time of $`10^8`$ seconds. Refractive scattering due to large scale inhomogeneities is also possible, with a typical angle of $`10^3`$ radians and a correlation time of the order of $`10^4`$ seconds. Some of the magnetospheric propagation effects may have already been observed.

A number of observational results may possibly be attributed to scattering processes inside pulsar magnetospheres. The most convincing are the results of Sallmen et al. (1999) in which the frequency independent spread and the multiplicity of the Crab giant pulses with large variations in the pulse broadening times. Other observations that can be possibly attributed to magnetospheric propagating effects include an unusual scaling of broadening times for giant pulses (Hankins & Moffett 1998), ”ghosts” images of the Crab pulse and interpulse (Smith & Lyne 1999, Backer 1999), enhanced intensity fluctuations at very high frequencies (Kramer et al. 1997), enhanced scattering of nearby pulsars (Gupta et al. 1994, Rickett et al. 1999), comparatively large size of the Vela pulsar’s radio emission region (Gwinn et al. 1997), absence of mictrostructure with very short time scales (Popov 1999), frequency independent scintillations with bandwidth 4 MHz (Gwinn et al. 1999).

Strong magnetic fields present in pulsar magnetospheres and the unusual electrodynamics of the one-dimensional electron-positron plasma both change the familiar effects of scattering and refraction in plasma. The unusual features of scattering in such plasma may allow separation from the interstellar scattering and will serve as a tool to probe the structure of the magnetosphere itself. Typically, the frequency of the observed radio waves is much less that the cyclotron frequency $`\omega \omega _B`$. For such frequencies the refractive index of strongly magnetized pair plasma for escaping electromagnetic modes is approximately

$$\delta n^21\frac{\gamma _p\omega _p^2}{\omega _B^2}=3\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^4\left(\frac{P}{0.1\mathrm{sec}}\right)^2$$
(1)
Thus, the large Lorentz factor of the moving plasma effectively enhances the wave-plasma interaction on the o pen field lines. Parameter $`\delta `$ is the key to the scattering and diffraction effects in the pulsar magnetosphere. An important fact is that $`\delta `$ does not strongly depend on our assumptions about the density and the streaming Lorentz factors of the plasma.

Parameter $`\delta `$, which determines refractive properties of the medium, is negligible deep inside the pulsar magnetosphere, but increases with the distance from the neutron star as $`r^3`$. Thus, the strongest nonresonant wave-plasma interactions occur in the outer regions of pulsar magnetospheres (near the light cylinder). This allows for a considerable simplification when considering scattering and diffraction effects since one can adopt a ”thin screen” approximation. We assume that emission is generated deep in the pulsar magnetosphere and then scattered in a thin screen located near the light cylinder with a typical thickness $`D0.1R_{LC}`$.

Two types of inhomogeneities that should be present inside the pulsar magnetosphere: small scale inhomogeneities with a typical sizes comparable to tens of skin depth $`c/\omega _p`$ which arise due to the plasma turbulence and large scale inhomogeneities with a typical sizes comparable to light cylinder radius which arise due to temporal and spatial modulation of the outflowing pair plasma. The two types of inhomogeneities will produce qualitatively different effects: small scale inhomogeneities will produce diffractive scattering, while large scale inhomogeneities will produce refractive scattering. As usual, the scale that defines ”small” and ”large” is the Fresnel scale which in this case is equal to $`r_f=\sqrt{R_{LC}\lambda }10^5`$ cm.

Assuming that scattering inside the pulsar magnetosphere is strong, the typical scattering angle can be estimated as

$$\theta _{\mathrm{scat}}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi }{2\pi }\frac{\lambda }{a}=\left(\frac{D}{a}\right)^{1/2}\delta \mathrm{\Delta }n_e.$$
(2)
where $`D0.1R_{LC}`$ is a thickness of the scattering screen, $`a`$ is a typical size of irregularities and $`\mathrm{\Delta }n_e`$ is a relative amplitude of density fluctuations.

A necessary requirement to allow for the separation of scintillations into diffractive and refractive branches is that the scattering should be strong, so that the total phase shift of the wave is much larger than $`\pi `$. For a medium with given size inhomogeneities the scattering is strong for

$$\lambda <\lambda \mathrm{max}=\sqrt{aD}\delta \{\begin{array}{cc}30\mathrm{cm}\hfill & \text{ for }a=a_{\mathrm{min}}\hfill \\ 10^5\mathrm{cm}\hfill & \text{ for }a=a_{\mathrm{max}}\hfill \end{array}$$
(3)
This is a limitation of the wavelength from above: scattering is stronger for shorter wavelengths. This is in sharp contrast to the scattering in the interstellar medium, where the strength of the scattering increases at low frequencies.

For the typical wavelength of observations $`\lambda =30\mathrm{cm}`$, both refractive and diffractive scattering occurs in a strong scattering regime with the total phase change:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi \{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \text{ diffractive}\hfill \\ 100\hfill & \text{ refractive}\hfill \end{array}$$
(4)
Diffractive scattering become weak at longer wavelengths.

Assuming that there are strong density fluctuations, $`\mathrm{\Delta }n_e1`$, present on smallest scales $`aa_{\mathrm{min}}`$ the diffractive scattering angle becomes $`\theta _\mathrm{D}0.1\mathrm{rad}`$. This implies that large angle scattering is possible in the outer regions of pulsar magnetospheres. If this extreme scattering case was realized, the observed profiles are then would be a convolution of the ”initial” window function (determined by the emission conditions at lower radii) with diffractive scattering. Since this is not what is observed, we should collude that strong density fluctuations are not present at very small scales.

On the other hand, strong refractive density fluctuations fluctuation are almost definitely present inside the pulsar magnetosphere. Typical refractive scattering angle is

$$\theta _\mathrm{R}\delta =4\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^3.$$
(5)
Refractive effects will induce ”jitter” in the arrival times of the pulses and a temporal correlation in the intensities with a typical scale $`\tau _R=\theta _\mathrm{R}P=4\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^4\mathrm{sec}`$. Both of these effects will be independent of frequency, and increasing with the period of the pulsar.

Scattering may also affect polarization structure of emission. If two regions in the magnetosphere emit different polarization, scattering may mix the radiation decreasing the degree of polarization. The amount of mixing will be different in the weak scattering regime at frequencies $``$ 1 GHz and strong scattering regime at $``$ 1 GHz. This effect may be responsible for the high frequency depolarization observed in some pulsars (I thank Barney Rickett for pointing out this possibility). Also note, that the real change of the polarization vector of the radiation is impossible in the outer regions of the magnetosphere, beyond the limiting polarization surface.

Another possible effect of propagation inside the pulsar magnetosphere include a reflection from the boundary between the closed and open field lines. Plasma density on the closed field lines may approach a value at which the thermal energy density of plasma reaches magnetic field energy density. For mildly relativistic plasma with thermal velocity of the order of velocity of light the maximum plasma density ($`nB^2/(8\pi mc^2)`$)

Experiments to detect effects of wave propagation inside the pulsar magnetosphere should use high frequencies and concentrate on nearby pulsars with low dispersion measure. Possible experiments will include a search for nondispersive effects such as a time delay (as large as tens of microseconds) in the pulse arrivals, a diffractive decorrelation bandwidth of the order of $`10`$ MHz, and microstructure periodicities (of the order of tens of microseconds) due to refractive scattering. Nearby strong pulsar, like PSR 0950, are best candidate for searches for magnetospheric effects.

The predicted characteristics of the scattering inside the pulsar magnetosphere are

| diffractive scattering angle | $`10^1`$ |
| --- | --- |
| diffractive scattering time | $`10^4\mathrm{sec}`$ |
| diffractive decorrelation time | $`10^8\mathrm{sec}`$ |
| refractive scattering angle | $`10^3`$ |
| refractive decorrelation time | $`10^4\mathrm{sec}`$ |
| arrival time variations | $`10^4\mathrm{sec}`$ |


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# Dynamical calculation of 𝑑^∗ mass and 𝑁𝑁 decay width in the quark delocalization, color screening model

## 1 Introduction

Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is widely accepted as the fundamental theory of the strong interaction. However, the low energy behavior of QCD remains a challenge to understand. Lattice QCD can calculate the structure of simple quark-gluon systems but it remains extremely difficult to calculate complicated systems such as two-hadron interactions and the structure of multiquark systems. Quark models were inspirational in the development of QCD and may play a similar role in understanding the low energy behavior of QCD.

The nonrelativistic constituent quark model has been quite successful in understanding hadron spectroscopy . This model has been extended by many groups to the description of baryon-baryon (B-B) interactions. There is a broad consensus that the repulsive core of the N-N interaction can be attributed to the quark internal structure of the nucleon. In this respect, the repulsive core is quite similar to that of molecular forces originating from the electronic internal structure of atoms. However, the intermediate range attraction of the N-N interaction remains absent in many quark model approaches and a scalar meson exchange has frequently been invoked to remedy this.

Spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking supports the view that Goldstone boson exchanges occur even between constituent quarks. Based on this, recently a phenomenological quark model has been proposed by Glozman et al. . The model gives a rather good description of the baryon spectrum and it has also been applied to NN interactions and dibaryons .But a question remains as to what extent this picture should be used: Should it be used for long range pion exchange only, or extended to intermediate two pion or $`\sigma `$ exchange or even to include short range vector and other heavy meson exchange? At what point should gluon exchange between quarks be replaced? Of course, a great deal of further study is needed to settle such questions definitively.

One point we would like to emphasize here is that such an approach would qualitatively differentiate between nuclear and molecular forces, which have been known for more than half a century to be similar in many features, the energy and length scale differences notwithstanding . Recently, Anderson has pointed out that it is questionable to attribute the N-N interaction to meson exchange  except for the longest range portion of pion exchange. $`NN`$ partial wave analysis can only justify long range pion exchange but not other, heavier meson exchanges .

In the quark model approaches mentioned above, a two-body confinement potential is usually used. We recognize that this is a highly simplified model assumption. Quark confinement is a nonperturbative property of low energy QCD. There might be important nonperturbative features missed in every two-body confinement potential model. For example, three-gluon exchange between three quarks and three-body instanton interactions do not contribute within a colorless meson or baryon, but do contribute to a multiquark system . There are many other types of quark interactions which result from multigluon exchanges which can not be included in a two body confinement potential. The QCD condensates within a nucleon and between two nucleons might be different. These arguments show that a direct extension of the two body confinement to the multiquark system has not been justified even though it might be a good approximation in the single hadron case. The absence of experimentally observed color Van der Waals forces has been a problem for the two body confinement potential model for a long time. Multiquark systems provide more variations of low energy behavior of QCD and allow for further tests of the phenomenology built into quark models, especially the nature of confinement.

The quark delocalization and color screening model (QDCSM) has been developed in which an unusual confinement parameterization has been introduced. Following the concept of electron delocalization in molecular orbitals, quark delocalization is introduced to enlarge the variational Hilbert space to include various deformed six-quark configurations. The usual pair of three-quark clusters and six-quark, ”bag”, configurations are the two extremes of this space .

With only one adjustable parameter, the color screening constant $`\mu `$, the existing $`NN`$ ($`IJ=01,10,11,00`$), $`N\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ ($`IJ=\frac{1}{2}0,\frac{1}{2}1`$) and $`N\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ ($`IJ=\frac{1}{2}0,\frac{1}{2}1,\frac{3}{2}0,\frac{3}{2}1`$) scattering data have all been fit qualitatively  within this model. A relativistic version of this model has recovered $`{}_{}{}^{4}He`$, $`{}_{}{}^{3}He`$, $`{}_{}{}^{3}H`$ as approximate four- and three-nucleon systems starting from appropriate 12- and 9-quark configurations .

Both the relativistic and the nonrelativistic version give almost the same dibaryon spectrum, reproducing small deuteron binding and the zero energy $`NN`$ $`IJ=10`$ resonance. An $`IJ^P=03^+`$ state, called the $`d^{}`$, was found to be most interesting because of its large binding energy ($``$350 MeV) and small decay width ($``$1 MeV) . This state appears in and has been studied in many models. Kamae and Fujita obtained almost the same large binding . Other models obtained smaller binding .

The experimental situation regarding dibaryons remains unsettled. Precise $`np`$ total cross section measurements provide a stringent limit on the $`NN`$ decay width of any dibaryon in the $`d^{}`$ mass range . Similarly, the $`H`$ particle has been studied in many models and searched for experimentally for more than 20 years without any indication of its existence . There is an $`IJ^P=00^{}`$ state, $`d^{}`$, which seems to have experimental support  but which is hard to accommodate in a six-quark model space . Newer experiments using simple systems have not confirmed the existence of a $`d^{}`$ signal . A high-mass dibaryon state predicted by Lomon et al  finds support from SATURNE $`pp`$ scattering data .

This paper reports further study of the $`d^{}`$ binding and decay width with the aim of providing more reliable information for experimental searches for this dibaryon. The paper is organized as follows: A brief review of the features of the QDCSM appears in Sect. 2. Our calculation method is presented in Sect. 3. Results and discussion are provided in Sect. 4. The last section gives a summary.

## 2 Model Hamiltonian and wave function

The details of the QDCSM can be found in Ref.. Here only the model Hamiltonian and wavefunction used in our calculations are repeated.

The Hamiltonian for the 3-quark system is the same as the usual potential model , and for a 6-quark system, it is assumed to be

$`H_6`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{6}{}}}(m_i+{\displaystyle \frac{p_i^2}{2m_i}})T_{CM}+{\displaystyle \underset{i<j=1}{\overset{6}{}}}\left(V_{ij}^C+V_{ij}^G\right),`$
$`V_{ij}^G`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _s{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{\lambda }_i\stackrel{}{\lambda }_j}{4}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \delta (\stackrel{}{r})}{m_im_j}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i\stackrel{}{\sigma }_j\right)+V_T\right],`$ (1)
$`V_T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4m_im_j}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{3(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i\stackrel{}{r})(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_j\stackrel{}{r})}{r^5}}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i\stackrel{}{\sigma }_j}{r^3}}\right],`$
$`V_{ij}^C`$ $`=`$ $`a_c\stackrel{}{\lambda }_i\stackrel{}{\lambda }_j\{\begin{array}{cc}r^2\hfill & \text{if }i,j\text{ occur in the same baryon orbit},\hfill \\ \frac{1e^{\mu r^2}}{\mu }\hfill & \text{if }i,j\text{ occur in different baryon orbits},\hfill \end{array}`$ (4)
where $`\stackrel{}{r}=\stackrel{}{r_i}\stackrel{}{r_j}`$ and all other symbols have their usual meaning except the confinement potential $`V_{ij}^C`$ which will be explained below.

It is well known that confinement is a nonperturbative QCD effect; in general one does not expect it to be described by a sum of two-body interactions. We model confinement as follows: In our approach, the fractional parentage expansion method is used and the matrix elements of the six-quark Hamiltonian are simplified to a four-body overlap and a two-body matrix element. We assume the following recipe to determine the two body matrix element of confinement: The interaction takes the normal, unscreened form (quadratic in $`r`$) when the interacting quarks always remain in the same baryon orbit $`\varphi `$ (see Eq.(9) below), both before and after interaction; otherwise the interaction takes the screening form (second form shown in the last of Eqs.(1)). Although this has not been demonstrated to be correct, it is more sophisticated than the usual, simple two-body confining interaction, and does include a physically reasonable model of non-local, nonperturbative effects.

Even though we use a two-body interaction form to evaluate the matrix elements, our model is, nonetheless, not a potential model. It is an effective matrix element approach extended from bound states to scattering states. It does reduce to the usual two-body confinement interaction within a single hadron. It also has the usual meaning of a two-body interaction in the asymptotic regime although not in intermediate regions. The main physics introduced is the recognition that the confining interaction between two nucleons might be different from that within a nucleon. In particular, we represent the nonlocal, nonperturbative backflow of color (and pair creation, as seen in lattice studies ) by screening of the confining potential. If this model assumption of the confinement is not a good representation of the physics involved, we would expect that to appear in a disagreement between our calculational results and data. The quality of the fit to B-B scattering data referred to in the introduction shows that there is no obvious contradiction. Our predictions with respect to dibaryon states will provide a further test.

We use the resonating group method (RGM) to carry out a dynamical calculation. Following the nomenclature of Ref., we write the conventional ansatz for the two-cluster wavefunction as

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{6q}=𝒜\underset{L}{}\left[[\mathrm{\Phi }_{B_1}\mathrm{\Psi }_{B_2}]^{[\sigma ]IS}\chi _L(\stackrel{}{R})\right]^J,$$
(5)
where $`[\sigma ]=[222]`$ gives the total color symmetry and all other symbols have their usual meanings. $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{B_i}`$ is the 3-quark cluster wavefunction (after removal of the center of mass motion),

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{B_i}=\left(\frac{2}{3\pi b^2}\right)^{3/4}\left(\frac{2}{4\pi b^2}\right)^{3/4}e^{\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{\lambda }_i^2}{3b^2}+\frac{\stackrel{}{\rho }_i^2}{4b^2}\right)}\eta _{I_iS_i}(B_i)\chi _c(B_i),$$
(6)
where $`\chi _c(B_i)`$ is the internal color wavefunction of the baryon and the Jacobi coordinates are defined as follows,

$`\stackrel{}{\rho }_1`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_2,\stackrel{}{\rho }_2=\stackrel{}{r}_4\stackrel{}{r}_5,`$
$`\stackrel{}{\lambda }_1`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{r}_3{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\stackrel{}{r}_1+\stackrel{}{r}_2),\stackrel{}{\lambda }_2=\stackrel{}{r}_6{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\stackrel{}{r}_4+\stackrel{}{r}_5),`$ (7)
$`\stackrel{}{R}_{B_1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(\stackrel{}{r}_1+\stackrel{}{r}_2+\stackrel{}{r}_3),\stackrel{}{R}_{B_2}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(\stackrel{}{r}_4+\stackrel{}{r}_5+\stackrel{}{r}_6),`$
$`\stackrel{}{R}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{R}_{B_1}\stackrel{}{R}_{B_2},\stackrel{}{R}_C={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\stackrel{}{R}_{B_1}+\stackrel{}{R}_{B_2}).`$
From the variational principle, after variation with respect to the relative motion wavefunction $`\chi (\stackrel{}{R})=_L\chi _L(\stackrel{}{R})`$, one obtains the RGM equation

$$H(\stackrel{}{R},\stackrel{}{R}^{})\chi (\stackrel{}{R}^{})𝑑\stackrel{}{R}^{}=EN(\stackrel{}{R},\stackrel{}{R}^{})\chi (\stackrel{}{R}^{})𝑑\stackrel{}{R}^{},$$
(8)
where $`H(\stackrel{}{R},\stackrel{}{R}^{}),N(\stackrel{}{R},\stackrel{}{R}^{})`$ are Hamiltonian and norm kernels, respectively. Their detailed expressions can be found in Ref..

The energies, $`E`$, and the wavefunctions, $`\chi (\stackrel{}{R})`$, are obtained by solving the RGM equation. In practice, it is not convenient to work with the RGM expressions. We introduce generator coordinates, $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$, to expand the relative motion wavefunction, $`\chi (\stackrel{}{R})`$,

$$\chi (\stackrel{}{R})=\frac{1}{\sqrt{4\pi }}\underset{L}{}\left(\frac{3}{2\pi b^2}\right)^{3/4}\underset{i}{}C_{i,L}e^{\frac{3}{4b^2}(\stackrel{}{R}\stackrel{}{S}_i)^2}Y^L(\widehat{\stackrel{}{S}}_i)𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_{S_i},$$
(9)
After the inclusion of the center of mass motion,

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_C(\stackrel{}{R}_C)=\left(\frac{6}{\pi b^2}\right)^{3/4}e^{\frac{3}{b^2}\stackrel{}{R}_C^2},$$
(10)
the ansatz, Eq.(5), can be rewritten as

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{6q}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒜{\displaystyle \underset{i,L}{}}C_{i,L}{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }_{S_i}}{\sqrt{4\pi }}\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{3}{}}\varphi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{S}_i)\underset{\beta =4}{\overset{6}{}}\varphi _\beta (\stackrel{}{S}_i)}`$ (11)
$`\left[[\eta _{I_1S_1}(B_1)\eta _{I_2S_2}(B_2)]^{IS}Y^L(\widehat{\stackrel{}{S}}_i)\right]^J[\chi _c(B_1)\chi _c(B_2)]^{[\sigma ]}`$
where $`\varphi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{S}_i),\varphi _\beta (\stackrel{}{S}_i)`$ are the single particle orbital wavefunctions with different reference centers,

$`\varphi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{S}_i)`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi b^2}}\right)^{3/4}e^{\frac{1}{2b^2}(\stackrel{}{r}_\alpha \stackrel{}{S}_i/2)^2}`$
$`\varphi _\beta (\stackrel{}{S}_i)`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi b^2}}\right)^{3/4}e^{\frac{1}{2b^2}(\stackrel{}{r}_\beta +\stackrel{}{S}_i/2)^2}.`$ (12)
With the reformulated ansatz, Eq.(11), the RGM equation Eq.(8) becomes an algebraic eigenvalue equation,

$$\underset{j,L}{}C_{j,L}H_{i,j}^{L,L^{}}=E\underset{j}{}C_{j,L^{}}N_{i,j}^L^{}$$
(13)
where $`N_{i,j}^L^{},H_{i,j}^{L,L^{}}`$ are the Eq.(11) wavefunction overlaps and Hamiltonian matrix elements (without the summation over $`L^{}`$), respectively. By solving the generalized eigen problem, we obtain the energies of 6-quark system and corresponding wavefunctions.

In the QDCSM, the single particle orbital wavefunctions are delocalized. To implement this here, we modify Eqs.(12) as follows:

$`\varphi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{S}_i)`$ $``$ $`\psi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{S}_i,ϵ)=\left(\varphi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{S}_i)+ϵ\varphi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{S}_i)\right)/N(ϵ),`$
$`\varphi _\beta (\stackrel{}{S}_i)`$ $``$ $`\psi _\beta (\stackrel{}{S}_i,ϵ)=\left(\varphi _\beta (\stackrel{}{S}_i)+ϵ\varphi _\beta (\stackrel{}{S}_i)\right)/N(ϵ),`$
$`N(ϵ)=\sqrt{1+ϵ^2+2ϵe^{S_i^2/4b^2}}.`$
It is straightforward to extend the method to multichannel coupling. In the multichannel case, the ansatz used is

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{6q}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒜{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{i,L_k}{}}C_{k,i,L_k}{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }_{S_i}}{\sqrt{4\pi }}\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{3}{}}\psi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{S}_i,ϵ)\underset{\beta =4}{\overset{6}{}}\psi _\beta (\stackrel{}{S}_i,ϵ)}`$ (15)
$`\left[[\eta _{I_{1k}S_{1k}}(B_{1k})\eta _{I_{2k}S_{2k}}(B_{2k})]^{IS_k}Y^{L_k}(\widehat{\stackrel{}{S}}_i)\right]^J[\chi _c(B_1)\chi _c(B_2)]^{[\sigma ]}`$
where $`k`$ is the channel index. The eigen equation is similar to Eq.(13), with an additional summation over $`k`$. For example, for $`IJ=03`$, we have $`k=1,2,3,4`$, corresponding to the channels $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }S=3L=0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }S=3L=2`$, $`NNS=1L=2`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }S=1L=2`$.

## 3 Calculation method

To further simplify the calculation of the matrix elements of the six-quark Hamiltonian, the physical bases, Eq.(11), are first expanded in terms of symmetry bases (group chain classification bases). Then the powerful fractional parentage expansion method is used to calculate the matrix elements between symmetry bases of the six-quark system. Finally, the matrix elements between physical bases are obtained by the transformation between the physical bases and symmetry bases. The details can be found in Ref..

The partial width for $`d^{}`$ decay into the $`NN`$ D-wave state is obtained using “Fermi’s Golden Rule”,

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{7}}{\displaystyle \underset{M_{J_i},M_{J_f}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle p^2𝑑p𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }\delta (E_fE_i)|M|^2}`$ (16)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{7}}{\displaystyle \underset{M_{J_i},M_{J_f}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}m_d^{}\sqrt{m_d^{}^24m_N^2}{\displaystyle |M|^2𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }},`$
where $`M`$ denotes the nonrelativistic transition matrix element, and $`M_{J_i}`$ and $`M_{J_f}`$ are the spin projections of the initial and final states.

$$M=d^{}|H_I|[\mathrm{\Psi }_{N_1}\mathrm{\Psi }_{N_2}]^{IS}e^{i\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{R}},$$
(17)
where $`\stackrel{}{R}`$ is as above and $`p=\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{m_d^{}^24m_N^2}`$ is the available relative momentum between the nucleons as determined by the energy conserving $`\delta `$-function in Eq.(16). The interaction Hamiltonian, $`H_I`$, here is $`H_I=V_T`$.

By expanding the plane wave in terms of spherical harmonics, and taking into account angular momentum conservation, the transition matrix element can be put in the form,

$$M=4\pi d^{}|H_I|C_{SM_S,LM_L}^{JM_J}\left[[\mathrm{\Psi }_{N_1}\mathrm{\Psi }_{N_2}]^{IS}Y^L(\widehat{\stackrel{}{R}})(Y^L(\widehat{\stackrel{}{p}}))^{}\right]^Jj_L(pR+\delta _L).$$
(18)
where we have included the phase shift, $`\delta _L`$, induced by the interaction in the spherical Bessel function. Of course, the phase shift is only apparent at large separations.

On the other hand, the relative motion wavefunction between two nucleons can be determined from either the RGM equation or the algebraic equation, Eq.(13). The relative motion wavefunction can be written as

$$\chi _L(\stackrel{}{R})=\sqrt{4\pi }\underset{i}{}C_{iL}\left(\frac{3}{2\pi b^2}\right)^{3/4}e^{\frac{3}{4b^2}(\stackrel{}{R}^2+\stackrel{}{S}_i^2)}i_L(\frac{3}{2b^2}RS_i)Y^L(\widehat{\stackrel{}{R}}),$$
(19)
where $`i_L(z)`$ is the modified spherical Bessel function. If we can match the expansion

$$\underset{i}{}C_{iL}\left(\frac{3}{2\pi b^2}\right)^{3/4}e^{\frac{3}{4b^2}(\stackrel{}{R}^2+\stackrel{}{S}_i^2)}i_L(\frac{3}{2b^2}RS_i)$$
(20)
to the function $`j_L(pR+\delta _L)`$ for the separation in the calculated region, then the wavefunction used in Eq.(18) is just the wavefunction defined in Eq.(11) with an additional factor of $`\sqrt{4\pi }(Y^L(\widehat{\stackrel{}{p}}))^{}`$, which contributes a factor $`4\pi `$ to the decay width after the integration over the angular space, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

We have used a type of box normalization method to calculate the transition matrix element. Because the wavefunction of the initial bound state $`d^{}`$ is compact, its amplitude at large separation ($`R>R_03.3`$ fm) can be safely neglected. By contrast, the final $`NN`$ D-wave state with the same energy as that of the $`d^{}`$ is a scattering state, so it extends over the entire space. However, the transition matrix element depends only on the overlap between the $`d^{}`$ and $`NN`$ D-wave states, so only that part of the wavefunction of the $`NN`$ D-wave with separation less than $`R_0`$ fm can contribute. To determine the wavefunction of the final state $`NN`$ D-wave in this finite range, the RGM equation is used so that the final state interaction is taken into account automatically. By adjusting the box size, the correct internal relative momentum $`NN`$ D-wave state can be obtained to meet the requirement of energy conservation in the decay. Finally, a normalization correction due to the finite range of the wavefunction is needed, which is obtained by matching the expression Eq.(20) with $`j_L(pR+\delta _L)`$. In this way, we are able to address the bound state problem and the scattering state problem on the same footing. For example, the phase shifts of the scattering state can be obtained from the comparison of the calculated wavefunction with the free Bessel function, $`j_L(pR)`$.

## 4 Results and discussion

As a test of the model, we first attempted a calculation of the deuteron. The parameters we used in the calculation, which are fixed by baryon properties and $`NN`$ scattering, are

$$m_u=m_d=313\text{MeV},b=0.603\text{fm},a=25.13\text{MeV/fm}\text{2},\alpha _s=1.54,\mu =1.0\text{fm}^2,$$

These parameter values are very similar to those usually appearing in constituent quark models . The single channel and channel coupling calculations do show an attraction between nucleons, but it is insufficient to form a bound state. The mixing of the D-wave into the deuteron state is also too small (less than 1%) to affect the result. The deuteron can be forced to form in the QDCSM by increasing the color screening parameter. However the small radius of the resulting object and negligible D-wave mixing demonstrate that it is not physically correct to do this.

Together with the absence of a long range tail for the $`NN`$ interaction, this serves to emphasize the need for the long range part of one pion exchange (OPE), which is absent from our model. To reproduce the deuteron, which is an extremely extended object, it will be necessary to extend the QDCSM to include OPE. To avoid double counting, a short-distance cutoff of the pion-quark coupling is also required. Preliminary calculations show that the deuteron can be well reproduced in this manner. We will address these issues in a future publication .

The case of the $`d^{}`$ is quite different, however. The small size and the large delocalization of quarks shows that it is a highly compact object. The effect of OPE should be considerably reduced compared to the case of the deuteron. Using the same parameters, a dynamical calculation of the $`d^{}`$ was carried out. These results appear in Table I. We find that the mass of $`d^{}`$ is somewhat larger than that obtained by our earlier adiabatic calculation , mainly because the relative motion energy found is larger than that of the zero-point oscillation energy used in the adiabatic calculation. Although this $`d^{}`$ mass exceeds the $`NN\pi \pi `$ threshold, it should remain a narrow resonance due to the extremely small phase space available .

Table I. Mass and radius of the $`d^{}`$ in the QDCSM.

sc= single channel; cc2 = $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }`$ S-wave + $`NN`$ D-wave; cc4 = full four-channel coupling.

|  | sc | cc2 | cc4 | adiabatic  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| mass (MeV) | 2186 | 2180 | 2176 | 2134 |
| $`\sqrt{<r^2>}`$ (fm) | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 |

We have also calculated the partial decay width of $`d^{}`$ into the $`NN`$ D-wave, using the method introduced in last section. The result is dominated by the stretched ($`m_J=\pm 3`$) states which contribute $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\text{str.}}=1.95`$ MeV each to the sum over spin projections. We find $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=4.32`$ MeV for the total width. This result is similar to that obtained from meson exchange . It should be expected that the total width will be increased by including OPE as discussed above for the deuteron. Although it is generally believed that the tensor interaction due to OPE is much stronger than that from one gluon exchange, we expect this increase will be limited due to the combination of the compactness of the $`d^{}`$ and the required short-distance cutoff of the pion-quark coupling.

## 5 Summary

In the framework of QDCSM, dynamical calculations of the $`d^{}`$ dibaryon and the partial decay width of the $`d^{}`$ into an $`NN`$ D-wave state were carried out. The results include a slight increase in the mass of the $`d^{}`$ over the adiabatic result, rising above the $`NN\pi \pi `$ threshold. However, the small phase space still suggests that the resonance will be narrow and, indeed, the calculated $`d^{}NN`$ D-wave decay width is on the order of a few MeV.

Our calculation of the deuteron shows the predictive power of the QDCSM on the one hand, but on the other, that OPE must be included in the calculation of extended objects (with small delocalization). However, we do not expect that the addition of OPE will have a large effect on the calculation of $`d^{}`$, because of its compactness. Addition of OPE to the QDCSM is underway and preliminary results show that both the D-wave component and the radius of the deuteron are indeed improved. Details will be presented in a forthcoming paper .

The calculated $`d^{}NN`$ D-wave decay width is larger than allowed by the Lisowski  data. However for a state as high as 2.2 GeV, sea quark excitation or the $`NN\pi `$ component may well be important. Inclusion of this component may affect the mass and decay width strongly. In particular, the $`d^{}NN\pi `$ decay width may be significantly increased . We believe that it is still too early to conclude that the $`d^{}`$ has been ruled out by precise $`np`$ total cross section measurements and that further calculations including these complications are needed.

This research is supported by the National Science Foundation of China, the Fok Yingdung Educational Fund, the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province and the U.S. Department of Energy under contract W-7405-ENG-36.


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# Mid-infrared interferometry on spectral lines: I. Instrumentation

## 1 Introduction

The Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI) consists of two 1.65-m telescopes employing heterodyne detection between 9–12 $`\mu `$m using CO2 lasers as local oscillators (LO) (Hale et al. (2000); Lipman (1998)). Observations can be made at a large number of frequency bands in this spectral range by tuning to the various lasing transitions of different CO2 isotopes. The ISI has measured the characteristics (sizes and optical depths) of dust shells around late-type stars (e.g., Danchi et al. (1994)) and angular diameters of the nearest red supergiants (Bester et al. (1996)). In these cases, sensitivity to continuum (dust or photospheric) emission using heterodyne detection is generally less than that theoretically possible using direct (photon-counting) detection techniques, partly because the maximum bandpass is limited by the temporal response of the IR detector, which is about 5 GHz with present detectors ($`\frac{\lambda }{\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda }5000`$).

However for narrow bandpasses, heterodyne receivers are more sensitive than direct detection schemes, which are not background-limited for low flux levels (see more detailed discussion by Monnier  and Haleet al.). Furthermore, extremely high spectral resolution is attainable with heterodyne spectroscopy (e.g., Betz 1977) since the down-converted astronomical signal can be further filtered with conventional radio-frequency (RF) filters. Such high resolution is needed to resolve many molecular lines which form in cool winds around AGB stars ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$v$``$1 km s-1) or in planetary atmospheres. Betz was able to observe transitions of CO2 around Mars and Venus with spectral resolution of $`\frac{\lambda }{\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda }`$6$`\times `$106 (Betz et al. (1976)). Interferometry with this resolution can hence measure the location and distribution of molecules in particular excitation states.

Naturally, the high spectral resolution potential of a heterodyne system can only be realized by using a spectrometer in the RF signal chain following detection, a capability not part of the original ISI design. Although previous systems have been built for high efficiency spectral line work with wide RF bandwidths on single telescopes (e.g., Betz (1977); Goldhaber (1988); Isaak, Harris & Zmuidzinas (1999); Holler (1999)), no system existed that was suitable for interferometry on narrow bands because of the need to correlate signals from two separate telescopes.

This paper will describe the implementation of an inexpensive filterbank system for spectral line observations using the ISI. After a description of the filterbank itself, its performance will be evaluated from laboratory measurements and test observations of astronomical objects. Fluctuations from the turbulent atmosphere and unexpected instrumental drifts required new observing strategies for accurate calibration of the fringe visibility on and off of spectral lines. These techniques are described in detail, including fast bandpass switching for phase-referencing and LO-switching for robust correlator calibration. Lastly, the near-term scientific potential of combining high spectral and spatial resolution at these wavelengths is reviewed.

## 2 The 32-Channel Filterbank

### 2.1 Introduction

In principle, heterodyne spectrosocopy with an RF filterbank is quite simple, even at 27 THz. A CO2 laser in each ISI telescope acts as a local oscillator, with a wavelength of $``$11 $`\mu `$m. Wavefronts from the laser are mixed with light from the sky and the resulting “beat” pattern is detected by a HgCdTe photoconductor with a large output bandwidth ($`\pm \mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$). This process is called “heterodyne” detection and down-converts a $`2\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ bandwidth centered around 27 THz (mid-infrared radiation) into microwave signals between DC and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$. In a double-sideband (DSB) system such as the ISI, frequencies both above and below the local oscillator frequency are converted into the same (microwave) frequency, thus overlapping each other. When observing a spectral line, this has the undesired effect of diluting the line (in one sideband) with uninteresting continuum radiation (from the other sideband), but can still be readily interpreted when multiple spectral features are not overlapping.

Once the signals have been down-converted to microwave (or RF) frequencies, they are amplified by cold FET amplifiers and transmitted through coaxial cables. Tunable RF filters with bandwidths of 60 MHz (and much narrower) have been available for quite some time, and can be used to filter the astrophysical signals. Since the original frequency of the radiation was $``$27 THz, the use of filters with 60 MHz bandwidth corresponds to a spectral resolving power of $`\frac{\lambda }{\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda }=\frac{27\mathrm{THz}}{60\mathrm{MHz}}=4.5\times 10^5`$, fine enough to resolve spectral features arising from doppler shifts as small at $``$0.7 km s-1.

### 2.2 Design Considerations

Being a first generation instrument, the design goals of the ISI filterbank were modest:

* Spectral resolution must be sufficient to resolve narrow absorption lines around AGB stars (a few km/s)
* Full bandpass must be broad enough to encompass both the relevant absorption line and significant bandwidth of continuum ($``$2 GHz)
* Due to high demand for ISI continuum observations, the filterbank system should minimally interfere with standard observing, i.e. should not involve a radically different hardware configuration
* A fast bandpass switching scheme to calibrate atmospheric fluctuations should be implemented
* Cost must be relatively low, – i.e., no digital correlator

Table 1 summarizes the technical features of the completed filterbank system, satisfying all of the above design goals. The desire to minimally impact the current hardware design of the ISI imposed the most severe restrictions on the design. In order to maintain the current RF architecture behind the correlator and to avoid the development of an entirely new data acquisition system, spectroscopic capabilities were added to the ISI by inserting a filterbank system before the correlator and total infrared power detection subsystems. Figure 1 shows a schematic of the major subsystems of the Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI), including the dual 32-channel filterbank. Detailed descriptions of the ISI itself can be found in the instrument paper by Haleet al.(2000) and in recent PhD theses (Lipman (1998); Monnier (1999)).

The interferometer must be able to measure not only the flux density of infrared radition incident on both telescopes (i.e., the total IR power), but also the strength of the interference of signals from both telescopes (i.e., the fringe power). By filtering the RF signals from both telescopes with the two filterbank modules before correlation, the infrared (IR) power and fringe signal could be measured in a manner identical to that used for the broadband (continuum) signal. When not performing spectroscopic observations, the filterbank can be switched out of the RF path through a bypass line inside each filterbank module (see figure 2). This strategy has the distinct advantage of not impacting the existing hardware at all, and also does not require any additional RF detection or data acquisition development. However, because the filterbank intercepts the RF signals before correlation, the two modules of the filterbank (one set of 32 filters for each telescope) must be phase-matched. This imposed strict requirements on all the RF components inside the filterbank and contributed significantly to construction complexity and component costs. The other important performance trade-off was that only one filter bandpass can be observed at a time, unlike typical spectrometers where detectors (e.g., RF diodes) are placed behind all filters and read out in parallel, allowing the entire spectral line to be measured at once. This limits the uses of the filterbank, for example making it impractically slow to perform standard spectroscopic observations for a large number of lines.

Figure 2 shows a detailed block diagram of one of the two filterbank modules, with every major component in the RF chain. In order to filter the bandpass, the original RF signal from each telescope is split into 32 frequency bands via a 4-way power splitter followed by four 8-way splitters. This decreases the signal power in each band by 15 dB, and amplification is applied before, during, and after this splitting to keep signal levels high enough that the additional amplifier noise from this part of the signal chain causes no significant decrease to the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In addition, custom frequency equalizers are used to maintain a reasonably flat frequency response throughout each module and within each sub-module. After being split into 32 bands, the RF signals encounter the filters. Thirty-two switches are used to select the desired bandpass (any combination is allowed), after which the signals are recombined through a symmetric combination of four 8-way combiners and a single 4-way combiner. Following recombination, the signal is amplified and any overall bandpass slope removed before finally being re-injected into the ISI system.

In order to make sure that the filterbank puts out as much RF power as it receives (net power gain of 0 dB) independent of the bandpass selected, a variable attenuator and amplifier are used in combination to provide up to 15 dB of relative amplification. This is done so that the laser shot-noise always dominates the measurement noise, and that the final detection diodes are always used at similar power levels.

Onboard memory allows the storage of two separate bandpass selections, which can be switched back and forth rapidly either by a computer-controlled chop signal or one from an external signal generator. This capability allows the measurement of both the narrow absorption line and the broad continuum on alternate chop cycles within an atmospheric coherence time, removing brightness fluctuations as a source of measurement uncertainty. Bandpass selection and gain/attenuator control can be accomplished via manual switching or through a computer interface. Presently, the filterbank bandpass and gain selections are made using a C-language program running on a Sun workstation interfaced with the main ISI control computer.

### 2.3 Performance

Figure 3 shows the transmission of the two filterbank modules of the completed filterbank. An ideal frequency response would be a flat transmission curve inside the allowed bandpass. However, a peak in the transmission occurs at overlapping band edges due to a design flaw in the individual filter bandpasses; see Monnier (1999) for further detail. The net effect of this mismatch is a slight degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio. This occurs because when the RF is finally detected in a diode, the signal adds up coherently as a function of frequency, while the noise adds up incoherently. In order to accurately estimate the effect on the SNR, the phase response of the system must also be characterized. A network analyzer has been used to measure the relative phase delay for RF signals propagating through the two modules of the filterbank. This “differential phase” response appears in figure 4 and shows that the phase is matched to $`\pm `$10$`\mathrm{°}`$ over 80% of the bandpass and is always within 20$`\mathrm{°}`$. Using this information, calculation (based on Eq. (6.36) in Thompson, Moran, & Swenson ) shows that the filterbank gain ripple only decreases the signal-to-noise ratio by $``$10% over most of the bandpass. Further discussion of the SNR degradation as a function of frequency can be found in Monnier (1999).

In order to confirm these calculations, signal-to-noise ratio measurements were made at the telescope while observing a calibration hotbody source (373 K). The results can be found in figure 5. The SNR was measured for a series of bandpass widths throughout the full frequency range. There are two major conclusions that can be drawn from these measurements. First, the signal-to-noise ratio has the expected behavior as a function of bandwidth (SNR$`\sqrt{\mathrm{Bandwidth}}`$). Secondly, the SNR of the filterbank, when extrapolated to the effective bandwidth of normal ISI system ($``$2300 MHz), is $``$10% low (expected SNR$``$500), confirming the theoretical expectation that the gain ripple causes only a modest loss in SNR.

## 3 Observing Methodology

The filterbank observing methodology described in this section allows a precise and accurate relative measurement of the infrared power in two bandpasses. The first, Bandpass 0 (BP0), is usually only a few filters wide (to match the absorption line width) while the second, Bandpass 1 (BP1), is typically much larger (to make an accurate measurement of the continuum). The filterbank switches rapidly between these two bandpasses in order to calibrate signal fluctuations due to seeing and telescope guiding changes. This observing strategy makes the ratio of IR power in BP0 to BP1 insensitive to such sources of fluctuations.

Determining the final calibrated ratio of infrared power in BP0 compared to BP1 requires 4 nested levels of comparison or chopping (sometimes 5), all easily controlled through a combination of hardware and software.

1. The sky signal is chopped at 150 Hz against a cold load to measure the infrared signal from the sky and minimize the effect of low frequency noise in the detection system.
2. The filterbank switches between BP0 and BP1 at 2.0833 Hz in order to calibrate out seeing and guiding changes.
3. The telescope nods 5′′ on either side of the star every 15 seconds to measure the changing thermal background of the atmosphere and telescope optics.
4. The flat spectrum of the hotbody source (373 K) is observed every 5 minutes to measure the overall (frequency-dependent) gain of the ISI system, precisely calibrating the IR power ratios in BP0 to BP1.
5. When using lasing transitions of the 12CO2 molecule, a final calibration is made for telluric absorption of 12CO2. This is done be repeating these IR power ratio measurements on the star but using a nearby transition of the CO2 laser local oscillators, one which has no known molecular line coincidences within the filterbank’s bandpass.

IR total power data taken in the above manner are analyzed using an Interactive Data Language (IDL) reduction package which automatically separates out the various signals and returns a calibrated IR power ratio of BP0 with respect to BP1.

## 4 Spectroscopy Results

As previously emphasized, the lack of multiplexed readouts makes the acquisition of full-bandwidth, high resolution spectra very time consuming. Hence, a series of strategic observations were planned to robustly test the experimental methodology and confirm calibration reliability. A deep and broad CO2 absorption line of the Martian atmosphere and a single NH3 absorption line of IRC +10216 were observed for these purposes, with results described below.

### 4.1 Mars

Deep absorption lines of Mars have previously been measured with a heterodyne spectrometer using a CO2 laser as a local oscillator by Betz (1977). The mid-infrared spectrum of Mars arises from thermal emission of the warm surface, heated by the Sun. Since the atmosphere of Mars is composed largely of 12CO2, deep absorption lines are formed when viewing the surface through this molecular blanket. Mars is roughly as bright as IRC +10216, the brightest stellar mid-infrared source, and its pronounced spectral features present an ideal test case for calibration and checks of observing methodology.

Mars was observed on 1996 November 08 (UT), with the ISI lasers tuned to the P(16) transition of 12C16O2 at 10.55 $`\mu `$m. Combinations of 4 consecutive filters ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu =240`$MHz) were observed across the entire ISI bandwidth to map out the spectral shape of the 12C16O2 P(16) absorption in the atmospheres of Mars and the Earth. In each case, the narrow 4-filter set was compared to the full-bandwidth of the filterbank by frequency switching at 2.0833 Hz ($`\tau `$=480 ms) (see §3) and integrating for $``$5 minutes. Figure 6 (top panel) shows the measured IR power in each of the 4-filter bandpasses relative to the average of the entire continuum. The presence of the Martian CO2 line near 1400 MHz is superimposed on a shallower, broader absorption feature attributed to the telluric absorption. Since the ISI is not able to separate the upper and lower sidebands, the $``$50% double-sideband depth of the Mars absorption line corresponds to nearly 100% absorption in a single sideband. This “folded” spectrum can be decomposed into the two sidebands by use of a model for the spectral shape.

After decomposition, the double-sideband spectrum in figure 6 (top panel) is represented by a superposition of two Gaussian absorption features on a flat continuum. The center of one Gaussian is fixed at 0 MHz to fit telluric absorption, while the other Gaussian center is left free to fit the location of the Mars absorption core. The fitting procedure compensates for the relatively low spectral resolution (240 MHz) by smoothing the candidate double-sideband spectrum before folding and comparing to the data. The result of this fit shown in the bottom panel of figure 6 is in good agreement with expectations. The line center of the Mars line can be predicted based on the relative velocity of Mars with respect to Earth along the our line of sight. NASA ephemerides predict a relative velocity of -14.54 km s-1 on the date of observation. The corresponding Doppler shift is 1378 MHz at 10.55 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$, which is good agreement with the best-fitted center of 1380 MHz.

### 4.2 IRC +10216: NH3 aQ(2,2)

The observation of Mars convincingly demonstrated spectral line observations with the ISI and this filterbank. However, for observation of narrow stellar lines, one must very precisely compensate for the orbital motion of the Earth (doppler shifts due to the Earth’s rotation are slightly less than the resolution of the filterbank and are neglected). Software to predict molecular line doppler shifts which had previously been used for the heterodyne measurements of AGB stars in the 1980s (Goldhaber 1988) was provided by Dr. Betz.

Two test observations of IRC +10216, separated by two weeks, were made in Spring of 1997. The observations were separated in time to allow the Earth to move along its orbit enough for a detectable shift in the line position to occur. Furthermore, since the chosen line had been previously observed by Goldhaber (1988),these observations would test whether the line depth has remained constant over the last decade. Both observations employed combinations of two filters which resulted in a spectral resolution of 120 MHz, just small enough to resolve the line as it appeared in Goldhaber ( $`\sigma `$150 MHz). Figure 7 shows the results of these observations from May and June 1997.

Gaussian absorption features, smoothed to the 120 MHz resolution of this observation, were fitted to the data and the line center frequencies determined. Table 2 shows the observed line center locations and the theoretical predictions. The agreement is excellent and justifies interferometric observations in the cores of previously observed lines with confidence in the calculations. The line detection in May was only marginal, but the movement of the absorption core is clear. While poorly determined, the apparent line widths and depths are consistent with the previous measurements of Goldhaber (1988).

### 4.3 Final calibration check

One further set of tests was performed to determine the accuracy of the IR power ratio measurements. The infrared power ratio in two different filterbank bandpasses, denoted by Bandpass 0 and Bandpass 1, was measured in Fall 1998 on 8 separate occasions while observing featureless stellar spectra (i.e, no known line coincidences). The average IR power of the full dataset in Bandpass 0 compared to Bandpass 1 was 0.996$`\pm `$0.005, consistent with unity.

## 5 Interferometry on Spectral Lines: Methodology

Previous sections discussed the methodology of taking infrared power measurements on and off of a spectral line. However to perform interferometry, the fringe signal must be measured on and off the line as well. Measurements of the fringe power ratio on and off a spectral line can be combined with the IR power ratio measurements to yield the visibility ratio on and off the line, according to the formula (Haleet al.2000):

$$\mathrm{Visibility}\mathrm{Ratio}=\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{Fringe}\mathrm{Power}\mathrm{Ratio}}{\mathrm{IR}\mathrm{Power}\mathrm{Ratio}\mathrm{Telescope}1\times \mathrm{IR}\mathrm{Power}\mathrm{Ratio}\mathrm{Telescope}2}}$$
(1)
This section will detail the methodology to obtain a well-calibrated fringe power ratio using the ISI filterbank system.

### 5.1 Frequency switching (bandpass chopping)

As with the IR power ratio, for fringe power measurement the ISI filterbank is preset so that a narrow bandpass is selected to coincide with the core of a molecular absorption feature; this bandpass is referred to as Bandpass 0 (BP0). A broad bandpass away from the absorption core, Bandpass 1 (BP1), is selected as a reference. BP1 is generally much larger than BP0 so that shot noise in the BP0 measurement is the dominant noise term in the ratio of BP0 to BP1. A switching signal, generated and recorded by the real-time computer, is used to chop between these two bandpasses.

The frequency switching rate is adjustable and can be slowed to take advantage of good seeing conditions. In ordinary seeing conditions, a switching period of 240 ms is used, hence each bandpass is observed for blocks of 120 ms at a time. Even during poor atmospheric conditions, this provides for accurate calibration of fringe amplitudes and (relative) phase, allowing shot-noise (in BP0) to dominate the measurement error of the fringe power. For observing nights with excellent seeing, a slower frequency switching rate allows longer coherent integration due to the longer atmospheric coherence time. In these cases, a 480 ms switching period was typically used.

For observations of an absorption line, the local oscillators were tuned to the appropriate lasing transition to bring the target molecular transition into the RF bandpass of the ISI detectors. Frequency switching was initiated and the correlator output voltage recorded (at 500 Hz) for an observation lasting approximately 5 minutes.

### 5.2 Delay line gain correction

As with any interferometer, the ISI uses a variable “delay line” to compensate for the changing geometric delay of the light coming from a source moving across the sky. While an automatic gain control circuit has been implemented in the delay line to keep the average transmission constant as the delay length changes, the spectral shape of the transmission does not remain precisely constant. The frequency-dependent transmission (or “gain”) of the delay line can change by 5-10% over the course of a few minute observation, with a direct dependence on the specific length of delay in place. As can be seen in figure 1, the filterbank is located in the RF chain after the delay line and hence these changes corrupt the desired measurement of the fringe amplitude ratio on and off of the spectral line. On the 4m baseline, which was used for most of the filterbank observations, the delay line changed every 20-60 seconds, depending on the source elevation. The associated spectral changes had to be calibrated in order to achieve accurate calibration of the fringe amplitude ratio of BP0 to BP1.

A real-time module was written and incorporated into the ISI delay line software in the control computer for this purpose. When activated, this code instructs the data acquisition program to record into a file the exact time and settings of the delay line during an observation. After each $``$5-minute measurement, the frequency dependent gain changes of the delay line were immediately calibrated. This was done by observing a known flat continuum source (the ISI hotbody source at 373 K) and measuring the IR power in BP0 and BP1 while cycling through the just-used delay line settings. While this method corrects for variations in the gain amplitude of the delay line, it does not correct possible phase mismatches which, if more than $``$20$`\mathrm{°}`$, cause residual miscalibration in the fringe amplitude in BP0 with respect to BP1. Calibration of this effect is discussed in the next section.

### 5.3 Correlator drifts/LO switching

Extensive engineering observations during Fall 1997 and Spring 1998 revealed that the spectral response of the fringe measurement, or correlator circuitry, showed drifts on the time-scale of 0.5 hr, unrelated to the delay line settings. Despite significant engineering efforts, the source of these variations could not be controlled and one additional calibration procedure was adopted. Observations of a stellar source with a featureless spectrum were required for an absolute calibration of the fringe amplitude ratio on and off of a spectral line (BP0/BP1). After each 5-minute observation on the target spectral region using the appropriate laser LO line, the LOs were adjusted to a neighboring lasing transition and the process repeated. Hence interleaved observations were obtained under identical conditions except for the LO wavelength (which differed by $``$0.015µm). The true ratio of fringe amplitude in BP0 to BP1 is then the BP0/BP1 ratio at the target LO wavelength, divided by the BP0/BP1 ratio at the calibration LO wavelength. This method (“LO switching”), while involving much off-source integration and repeated adjustments of the laser grating in order to change the laser frequency to the alternating transitions, is extremely robust, and has no known systematic biases.

### 5.4 Software for analysis of fringe data

Custom software written in IDL was used to read the recorded correlator voltage and bandpass-switching signals. This software took a power spectrum of each separate (usually 120 ms) block of fringe data for BP0 and BP1. The fringe power was measured around the fringe frequency (100 Hz) and the broadband noise signal was subtracted by sampling symmetric frequency bins $``$20 Hz on either side of the main peak. Careful measurements during the engineering phase of the filterbank commissioning established the noise power spectrum after the correlator circuit to be linear with frequency around 100 Hz to within 0.5%. Data for each delay line setting were then collated and separately calibrated.

The mean and standard deviation of the fringe power in each bandpass and for each delay line setting were then determined by a simple bootstrap analysis (see Monnier  for more detail). In addition, the fringe phase in BP0 can be subtracted from that measured in BP1. The frequency switching was rapid enough to eliminate atmospheric variations, essentially “freezing” the atmosphere, and the relative fringe phase in BP0 with respect to BP1 can hence be properly averaged (in the complex plane), a form of “phase-referencing.” After a total of a few nights of observing time on IRC +10216 using a narrow bandpass of about 180 MHz ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda `$0.00007µm), the visibility amplitude ratio of BP0 to BP1 was measured to a precision of $``$1% and the relative fringe phase to less than a few degrees. The first interferometric results on spectral lines are presented in Paper III of this series.

## 6 Conclusions

An RF filterbank has been constructed and used with the ISI interferometer. The ISI filterbank functions well as a spectrometer, although the data rate is low. The filterbank system was not designed to be an efficient spectrometer, but rather to be an effective first-generation tool to harness the spectral resolving power of the ISI for interferometry. The observations presented here confirm the ability of the ISI to do such work, and an observing methodology for combining interferometric observing with filterbank observation has been outlined. This methodology has been used successfully for observing fringe visibilities on and off of a number of molecular absorption lines. Preliminary results are discussed in Monnier (1999), and a more complete analysis follows in Papers II and III of this series.

This new capability of the ISI has so far been used to measure the location of molecular formation zones for NH3 and SiH4 around the carbon star IRC +10216 and NH3 around the red supergiant VY CMa. However, strong spectral absorption features of these same molecules could also be investigated for IRC +10420, $`o`$ Cet, and NML Cyg, whose line depths and shapes have already been measured (McLaren & Betz (1980); Betz & Goldhaber (1985); Goldhaber (1988)). Measurements of angular diameters of red supergiants and Miras on and off their recently discovered mid-infrared water lines (Jennings & Sada (1998)) is also potentially rewarding. These lines are thought to form in the stellar photosphere and may affect the interpretation of previous angular diameter measurements. The use of high spatial and spectral resolution line observations in between water lines could potentially allow the “true” continuum diameters to be measured, uncorrupted by line blanketing. Lastly, fine structure and recombination lines around some emission-line stars (e.g., MWC 349, Quirrenbach et al. (1997)) can be observed using the CO2 local oscillators, and could make unique measurements of the emitting regions.

While the potential for interesting new results is rich, the non-multiplexed output of this particular filterbank system makes it very difficult to observe new sources in detail when the spectral line profiles have not been previously measured by a multiplexing spectrometer. The lines around some sources ($`o`$ Ceti, for instance) have been observed to change in time, and new spectra are essential for interpreting additional interferometric line data.

###### Acknowledgements.

We want to recognize the computer programming of Manfred Bester and Carl Lionberger which was essential for the filterbank to interface with the ISI control system. This work is a part of a long-standing interferometry program at U.C. Berkeley, supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant AST-9221105, AST-9321289, and AST-9731625) and by the Office of Naval Research (OCNR N00014-89-J-1583).


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# Imaging performance of the XMM-Newton X-ray telecopes

## 1 INTRODUCTION

On December 10 1999 the XMM spacecraft was placed in a 48h Earth orbit by the first commercial ARIANE V launcher. XMM, or X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission, is the second cornerstone of the Horizon 2000 science program of the European Space Agency ESA. XMM was designed as a facility class X-ray astronomy observatory to study cosmic X-ray sources spectroscopically with the highest collecting area feasible in the 0.1 - 10 keV band. Over the full band moderate spectral resolving power between 1 and 60 is required and medium resolving power of $``$ 250 was aimed for in the 0.1 - 3 keV band. The high throughput is primarily achieved by a set of 3 imaging, highly nested Wolter type I telescopes. The imaging performance of each of the grazing incidence mirror systems was originally set to be better than 30 arcsec for the half energy width (HEW) of the point spread function (PSF) with a goal of 10 arcsec. In a first attempt the scientific requirements have been put together at a workshop held at Lyngby, Denmark, in June 19851. A detailed analysis of the types of telescopes with which these requirements could be achieved was carried out by the ESA established Telescope Working Group, which also arrived at a first telescope design2,3. Because of launcher volume constraints which became apparent shortly after the publication of the Telescope Working Report the baseline design was slightly modified in March 19874. Since then the design was not changed any more and the actual telescopes and their mirrors, now being in orbit, are of that design. Over ten years in time the design was put into reality, the telescopes were built in industry including Carl Zeiss, Oberkochen in Germany, Kayser-Threde, Munich in Germany and Media Lario, Bosisio Parini in Italy. The development and building of the mirror shells up to the flight mirror modules was accompanied by X-ray tests in the 130 m long X-ray test facility PANTER of the Max-Planck-Institut für extaterrestrische Physik5. The qualification of the mirror modules was performed in EUV light at the Focal-X facility of the Centre Spatial de Liège in Belgium.

After a short description of the telescope design and its critera followed by an outline of the manufacturing process of the mirrors the in-orbit imaging performance of each of the three X-ray telescopes is presented and discussed and confronted with the full X-ray beam calibration measurements taken at the PANTER.

## 2 OPTICS DESIGN

The design of the optics was driven by the requirement of obtaining the highest possible effective collecting area over a wide band of energies up to 10 keV and more with particular emphasis on the region around 7 keV, in which the K lines of the astrophysically important iron appear. Thus, the mirror system has to utilize a very shallow grazing angle of about half a degree in order to provide sufficient reflectivity at high energies. Both, Wolter type and Kirkpatrick-Baez type telescopes can in principle be considered for the optics. The Kirkpatrick-Baez system has however a focal ratio, defined by the ratio of the focal length over the diameter of the optics, which is two times greater than that for a corresponding Wolter type I system. Taking the same focal length a Wolter type I system can therefore make efficient use of a mirror system at the same grazing angle which is a factor of two wider and an increase in collecting area by a factor of four. This factor of four is slightly reduced to a factor of $`\pi `$ since the Kirkpatrick-Baez system builds rectangular whereas the Wolter system has circular mirrors. Because of this major advantage the Telescope Working Group baselined the Wolter type I system for XMM.

In grazing incidence optics the effective area is generally increased by nesting a number of mirrors and thus filling the front aperture as far as possible. The nesting efficiency is determined by the mirror shell thickness and, in case of very low grazing angles for high energy optics, by the minimum radial mirror separation which is required for integration and alignment. In soft X-ray telescopes of moderate grazing angles the separation is of less importance since adjacent shells are ususally comfortably separated anyway to prevent blocking of on-axis rays.

The thinner the mirror shells are and the narrower the shells are spaced the larger is the collecting area. In the past very thin aluminum foils shaped to double cones have been used, for instance for the BBXRT telescopes, the telescopes on ASCA and ASTRO-E. Due to the usage of foils and the very narrow foil placement this type of telescope has the potential of achieving maximal collecting area. There are, however, two major drawbacks which are inherent to foil telescopes. Firstly, the mirror sections are bent into cones, which produce an extended image even for on-axis point-like sources, leaving significantly less tolerances for mirror surface irregularities and mirror mounting. Secondly, foils have been reported to have intrinsic mid-frequency irregularities which limit the angular resolution to something like one arcmin and more. Because of these disadvantages foil telescopes were considered by the Telescope Working Group not to meet the XMM resolution requirements.

Thin-walled mirrors have also been produced by replication techniques and electroforming. Electroformed mirrors have been built up mostly in solid nickel, which, however, suffer from too much mass, and they were therefore initially discarded by the Telescope Working Group. Development work on the mirrors started by producing carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) mirrors by epoxy replication from master mandrels polished to X-ray imaging quality. Advantages of this approach are mirrors of high stiffness with thin walls, implying low mass, and low thermal expansion. Disadvantages are the non-amorphous structure of the CFRP implying the development of unacceptable surface structure (print-through) and sensitivity to humidity (out-gassing or even ”breathing”) thereby changing the surface with environment.

At the time of development start CFRP mirror carriers could be made as thin as 0.5 mm for the smallest diameter shells, which is the thickness baselined for the optics design calculations. The shell thickness is assumed to increase approximately linear with shell diameter to guarantee sufficient stiffness. A minimum radial shell separation of 1 mm was considered to be feasible to handle the integration of the shells in a package. Both the paraboloid section and the hyperboloid section were replicated as a single piece from a single mandrel, which limits the axial length of the total mirror to 60 cm. The length is shared evenly by the paraboloid and the hyperboloid. Although longer mirrors would have provided a larger collecting area they were discarded because they were suspected to be very difficult to be removed from the mandrel. The production of paraboloid and hyperboloid in one piece avoids the problems created by the additional tasks of aligning and mounting if paraboloid and hyperboloid are separate. Given the length constraints imposed by the launcher the focal length was fixed at 7.5 m. The optimum design, which fulfils the collecting area constraints, was found by ray tracing. Gold was considered as baseline for the mirror surface coating; attempts to produce replicated mirrors with an iridium coating, which would have provided somewhat better high energy response, failed because the adhesive forces of iridium on the mandrel surface turned out to be too strong so that patches of the iridum layer tended to stick on the mandrel. The parameters of the optimum design are shown in Table 1. The mirror diameter of the outermost shell is 700 mm. At low energies $`<`$ 2 keV the area could have been increased by adding larger shells. In contrast, the area at 7 keV increases up a mirror diameter of 650 mm but drops for larger diameter shells. Adding more shells to the inner region would increase the higher energy response but at rather low efficiency, which means that the area per shell is significantly less than the area averaged over all shells. The optimum telescope design is therefore defined by a maximum diameter mirror shell of 700 mm and 58 mirror shells in total. It is optimal because it has a 7 keV response which is only marginally lower than maximal. On top it has very good low energy response.

After several years of study, development, building and X-ray testing of CFRP mirrors the angular resolution requirement of 30 arcsec could not be met. Mirrors of $`<`$ 1 arcmin were produced several times but their susceptibility to humidity appeared to be an unsurmountable problem. Inspired by the progress which was made in the production of good electroformed nickel shells in the context of the SAX and JET-X programs, it was decided in 1991/92 by the ESA XMM Project Team in consultation with the XMM Telescope Advisory Group to terminate the CFRP activities and to build the XMM mirrors from electroformed nickel. The original telescope design was kept except that the mirror shells were reduced in wall thickness by about 25% to save mass as much as possible (Table 1 shows the mirror wall thicknesses for the nickel mirrors). Because of the high mass involved with nickel made mirror shells the number of X-ray telescopes was definitely limited to three. The high mass also contributed to the discussion of switching launchers from ARIANE IV to ARIANE V.

The production of nickel shells involves three steps. As for any replication a master mandrel of negative shape is produced for each of the 58 mirror shells. The mandrel is of solid aluminum covered with a thin layer of Kanigen, which is ground and polished to the precise negative shape of the required mirror. The mandrel surface is measured by metrology means, including profilometers of various trace lengths and interferometers. Ray tracing of the metrology data reveals that the XMM mandrels have an angular resolution of $``$ 5 arcsec HEW and an rms surface microroughness of $``$ 0.5 nm. The mandrels are coated with a gold layer about 200 nm thick. Each mandrel is put in an electrolytical bath in which a nickel layer is being built upon the gold surface until the required thickness has been reached. By cooling the nickel shell separates from the mandrel, whereby the gold surface sticks to the electroproduced nickel shell because of the higher adhesion forces. After separation the nickel shells are exclusively supported by 16 strings threaded through 16 tiny holes which are equally spaced around the circumference of the mirror closely below the rim of the paraboloid. After inspection of the surface and measurement of a couple of meridional profiles each mirror is mounted to a spider like support structure by glueing the parabola mirror into small grooves in each of the 16 arms of the spider. This is done with the mirror oriented vertically and under optical control. The spider support structure at the paraboloid front is the only support structure for the entire mirror module. There is no counterpart at the aft of the hyperboloids; they are not constrained or supported mechanically at all. Further details about the production of the XMM telescopes are given in Ref. 6.

From an X-ray optical point of view the telescope is complemented by an X-ray baffle, which does not eliminate but significantly reduces X-ray straylight from sources outside the field of view. Sources outside the field of view can reach the sensitive area of the focal plane detectors by single reflection from the rear end of the hyperbola. Less highly nested telescopes like those on the Einstein, ROSAT and Chandra observatories employ radial vanes with one set inside and one set in front of each mirror to eliminate singly reflected rays. For XMM an external multi-stage baffle has been conceived7, which basically consists of a set of concentric cylinders, one for each mirror shell, placed in front of the mirror system. Each ring has an annular width slightly smaller than the corresponding mirror wall thickness and a cylindrical height characteristic for each mirror by which the singly reflected rays are blocked. The implementation of such a system would have eliminated the straylight completely. But because of the mechanical complexity together with the limited space available the design was simplified to two parallel annular plane sieve plates of equal thickness. Each plate consists of 58 rings and 16 radial struts. The plates are mounted co-axial to and co-aligned with the front aperture cross section of the 58 mirror shells. The off-set of the two sieve plates from the front of the mirror system is 385 mm and 439 mm, respectively8. The efficiency of the sieve plate system has been ray traced and demonstrated to reduce the straylight level by a factor of 5 to 10 depending on the position in the focal plane.

A complete overview of the telescope with all its subsystems including the mirror door, the entrance optical baffle, the electron deflector and additional support structure is given in Ref. 6.

## 3 X-RAY CALIBRATION ON GROUND

During Phase C/D of the XMM program five X-ray mirror modules have been built three of which have been selected for flight, i.e. FM2, FM3 and FM4. FM1 and FM5 have been kept as spares, numbering of the modules is in chronological order of production. X-ray testing and final X-ray calibration including measurement of the PSF both on-axis and off-axis for a few energies between 0.28 keV and 8.05 keV and the effective area as well as the vignetting function for a series of energies covering the range from 0.28 up to 17 keV has been performed in MPE’s PANTER test facility between April 1997 (FM1) and July 1998 (FM4). FM5 was tested in 1999 but it has not been completed to the extent to serve as flight spare, whereas FM1 actually is fully functional for flight. MPE’s PANTER originally built for the development and calibration of the ROSAT X-ray telescope was modified and partially rebuilt in 1992/93 to cope with the size of the XMM telescopes and quality assurance requirements. In simple terms, the facility consists of a 130 m long vacuum pipe of 1 m diameter. At the one end a micro-focus characteristic X-ray line source is installed and the use of various anti-cathode materials provides the required coverage of the energy band. The bremsstrahlung component can be used as a continuum source as well. The X-ray source has a diameter of about 1 mm. At the other end a huge cylindrical vacuum tank 12 m long and 3.5 m in diameter houses the X-ray telescope to be tested. The typical distance between source and mirror module midplane, i.e. the paraboloid hyperboloid intersection, is about 124 m. With a focal length of 7.5 m the image of the X-ray source is produced at a distance of 7.97 m measured from the mirror module midplane. Given these distances the angular size of the X-ray source is about 1 arcsec, which means that structures of the mirror surface finer than this cannot be resolved.

Here we report about the measurements with the entire aperture of the mirror module illuminated, implying a beam divergence between 8.5 arcmin and 19.5 arcmin full width between the innermost and outermost mirror shells. The divergence of the illuminating beam implies that the rays reflected off the frontal one third of the parabolas are not reflected from the hyperbolas. Therefore the surface of this section of the parabolas is not imaged and does not contribute to the PSF. Furthermore the corresponding reflection loci on parabola and hyperbola differ from those for parallel beam illumination. Images have been recorded with both a position sensitive proportional counter (PSPC) which is a copy of the PSPCs flown on-board of ROSAT9 and an X-ray CCD provided by the X-ray astronomy group of the University of Leicester in the UK. Whereas the PSPC is well suited to measure effective area and the wings of the telescope point spread function the CCD with it significantly better spatial resolution has been used to assess the details of the PSF out to angular distances of about 125 arcsec limited by the linear size of the CCD. The PSPC has a larger field of view and the PSF can be traced out to angular distances of about 1000 arcsec. The comparision of the CCD and the PSPC encircled energy functions show that the CCD images out to 125 arcsec contain 97% of the total flux at 1.5 keV and 93% at 8.05 keV, respectively. The results have been reported in Ref. 10,11,12 and a summary is given in Ref. 6.

## 4 THE POINT SPREAD FUNCTION IN ORBIT

On January 19 2000 the X-ray telescope FM2 saw ”First Light” of the X-ray sky13 followed by FM3 and FM4 two days later. Two different X-ray cameras are used to record the X-ray images. In the focal plane of FM2 a novel type of X-ray CCD based on pn-technology is used (FM2/pn)14 whereas FM3 and FM4 each are equipped with a more conventional CCD based on MOS-technology (FM3/MOS1 and FM4/MOS2). Unlike FM2, FM3 and FM4 each carry a reflection grating spectrometer (RGS)15 by which about half of the X-ray beam is diverted from MOS1 and MOS2. At a press conference on February 9 2000 the ”First Light” results were presented and the new name of the mission XMM-Newton was announced. After ”First Light” the imaging performance of the three telescopes was of immediate interest and additional observations were made during the commissioning phase of XMM-Newton until March 8. Sources studied include the sources of the ”First Light Field” to the Large Magellanic Cloud and the point sources EXO 0748-67, LMC X-3, PSR 0540-69 and PKS 0558-504. A first analysis shows that the observations, except for LMC X-3 at high energies, taken in full frame mode of the CCDs, i.e. the entire field of view is read out from the CCD at once, are not useful for the assessment of the PSF because the data suffer from ”pile-up”13,14, i.e. there is more than one count per pixel per read-out frame, which happens predominantly in the center of the image with the intensity underestimated there. In ”small window mode” the observational field is reduced and the CCD read-out time is shorter such that the effect of ”pile-up” is reduced accordingly. For this mode the PSF analyis could be done for the last two sources mentioned above. But the radial extent of the PSF is limited accordingly. The PSFs taken on ground can therefore only be compared with the in-orbit results out to the angular distance imposed by the ”small window” size. The wings of the PSFs are not accessible with these early measurements. Likewise, the encircled energy functions, i.e. the radially integrated PSFs, have been normalized to the value measured on ground at the angular distance corresponding to the ”small window” size.

A major difference between the conditions on ground and in orbit is the type of detector used in the focal plane, in particular its pixel size. The CCD used on ground had a pixel size of 27 $`\mu `$m equivalent to 0.65 arcsec. The CCDs used in orbit have a pixel size of 40 $`\mu `$m for the MOSs and 150 $`\mu `$m for the pn, which relates to 1.1 arcsec and 4.1 arcsec, respectively. In particular the pn-CCD pixel size appears too large to resolve the core of the PSF.

The in-orbit imaging performance of the telescopes is presented in terms of contour lines, describing the surface brightness across the image (Figure 1), the PSF and the encircled energy function (Figure 2) for FM3/MOS1 at 1.5 keV. Figure 3 and Figure 4 show the corresponding data for FM4/MOS2 at 1.5 keV as well. The in-orbit results are compared with the equivalent set of data measured at PANTER. The agreement between on ground and in-orbit measurements is striking. It is noted that the contour line plots have been produced using a smoothing algorithm including the adjacent three pixels in either direction, which tends to increase the width of the core of the PSF. For the determination of the FWHM of the PSF the unsmoothed contours have been used giving the FWHM values listed in Table 2. Figure 5 shows the encircled energy function for FM2/pn at 1.5 keV for the source PSR 0540-69 and the encircled energy function for LMC X-3 for an energy band of (8 $`\pm 1`$) keV. The corresponding ground calibration measurements are not shown but the results are identical within very small excursions with the in-orbit performance. Because of the comparatively large pixel size of the pn-CCD details of the core of the PSF are not accessible in orbit and the FWHM of the PSF of FM2 cannot be determined. The PSF of FM2 is undersampled by the pn-CCD.

Table 2 summarizes the results in terms of characteristic numbers like FHMW and HEW (half energy width of the encircled energy function).

## 5 CONCLUSIONS

Providing that the PSFs of the three X-ray telescopes on board of XMM-Newton have not developed significantly bright wings outside of about 1 arcmin radius from ground to early orbit the following conclusions can be drawn.

* From the contour lines and the FWHM of the PSFs and the agreement with the ground calibration measurements it follows that all three focal plane cameras are in focus.
* The PSFs in orbit are basically identical with those measured on ground; the core of FM2 cannot be resolved in orbit because of the large pn-CCD pixel size.
* The encircled energy functions of FM2, FM3 and FM4 measured in orbit at 1.5 keV agree with those measured on ground, at least out to an angular radius of about 40 arcsec. At 8 keV the FM2 shows the same encircled energy function in orbit as measured on ground.

Beyond this direct comparison further conclusions can be drawn which are related to the mechanical integrity of the telescopes and the X-ray calibration test set-up.

* The X-ray telescopes have not changed their shape during storage on ground or by launch loads.
* The focal plane instrumentation was correctly installed at the required position and no significant movement occurred during launch.
* The mounting and fixture of the mirrors in just one spider support structure at the parabolas’ front is sufficient to maintain the mirrors’ performance.
* Effects of gravity which would potentially distort the mirrors during horizontal X-ray testing in the MPE PANTER test facility are not apparent concluded from the comparison of the ground measurements with the in-orbit results of the PSF.
* The divergence of the X-ray beam in the PANTER test geometry does not limit the assessment of the PSF. Interestingly the non-illumination of the first third of the parabolas’ sections does not change the PSF of the XMM-Newton telescopes. This means that the angular distortions along the meridian lines of the parabola mirrors imposed by the mounting at their front ends are not significantly larger than along the remainder of the meridian lines towards the hyperbolas’ exits.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The provision of the pn-CCD and MOS-CCD in orbit data of XMM-Newton by the EPIC team led by the Principal Investigator Martin Turner of the Leicester University, UK is acknowledged.

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