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# Acceleration by oblique shocks at supernova remnants and cosmic ray spectra around the knee region

## I  Introduction

In recent years, many measurements of the primary spectrum and chemical composition of cosmic rays have been carried out. Some of them are performed directly by balloon-borne experiments up to about 100 TeV. Others are by indirect ground-based experiments ranging from sub-TeV to some 100 EeV. These experiments have mainly been done to study the knee region. Recent reports indicate that the all-particle spectrum of cosmic rays does not present a sudden steepening, but rather a gradual bent near the energy at the knee, $`E_{\mathrm{knee}}=(25)\times 10^{15}`$ eV, from $`E^{(2.62.8)}`$ to $`E^{(3.03.2)}`$ . This value of $`E_{\mathrm{knee}}`$ is smaller than about a factor of 2 compared to those of earlier reports . The chemical composition of cosmic rays below $`E_{\mathrm{knee}}`$ is directly measured and is almost constant in terms of the average logarithmic mass, $`<\mathrm{ln}A>`$. However, the data of $`<\mathrm{ln}A>`$ above $`E_{\mathrm{knee}}`$ fairly scatter, because they are obtained by indirect air shower observations. It is also noted that the value of $`<\mathrm{ln}A>`$ varies depending on the hadronic interaction models assumed in simulations of extensive air showers .

On the other hand, it is generally believed that cosmic rays in the energy range up to $`E_{\mathrm{knee}}`$ are accelerated mostly by a supernova remnant (SNR) shock although there still exist some arguments that the origin of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) is not yet settled . When particles cross the shock front back and forth frequently, they obtain high energies proportional to the shock velocity, which is called the first order Fermi acceleration (for review, see ). This stochastic acceleration and deformation of source spectra due to energy-dependent diffusion from the galaxy can explain the power-law spectrum up to the knee. This scenario predicts that the maximum energy $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$, that particles can achieve by the shock acceleration mechanism, nearly equals $`E_{\mathrm{knee}}`$.

Actually $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is estimated to be $`3Z\times 10^{13}`$ eV  at most, where $`Z`$ is the atomic number, which is nearly two orders lower than $`E_{\mathrm{knee}}`$. However, this value is achieved by parallel shock acceleration where the normal of the shock front is parallel to the direction of the interstellar magnetic field. This is different from nonparallel shocks, where the angle $`\alpha _1`$ between the shock normal and the field direction is not zero. These oblique shocks can accelerate particles much more efficiently . For extremely oblique (quasiperpendicular) shocks, the values of $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ are increased by several orders of magnitude compared to those in parallel collisions. The details will be described in the next section.

In this paper we will explain the knee behavior of the energy spectrum with the acceleration mechanism as caused by oblique shocks. Our model is based on a simple idea as follows . The ejected materials from a supernova explosion expand into the interstellar medium (ISM) driving a shock wave. While the expanding shell sweep up its own mass of the ISM, the shock acceleration may be active. The ejected mass ($`10`$ $`M_{}`$) with large momentum moves out freely at constant velocity $`10^810^9`$ cm/s during the free expansion phase. The shape of the shock front is supposed to be almost spherically symmetric. The directions of the interstellar magnetic field lines will be, over a wide range, nearly random rather than well aligned. It is therefore assumed that the field lines meet the shock front at random angles $`\alpha _1`$, the cosines of which, $`\eta `$, are uniformly distributed. A more detailed discussion will be presented in section III. Since $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is strongly dependent upon $`\eta `$, $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ values extend from $`E_{\mathrm{max}}(\eta =1)E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ in parallel shocks to $`E_{\mathrm{max}}(\eta =\eta _{\mathrm{min}})E_{\mathrm{cut}}`$ in quasiperpendicular ones. The uniform distribution of $`\eta `$ permits that particles with $`E,E_{\mathrm{crit}}<E<E_{\mathrm{cut}}`$, have less chances to reach high energies than those with $`EE_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ .

There is an important question in acceleration at oblique shocks , however, namely that the rate of accelerated particles (injection efficiency) decreases drastically as the shock obliquity increases. On the other hand, the obliquity produces a harder energy spectrum . Since particles with $`E<E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ can be considered to be accelerated at shocks with the whole range of $`\eta `$, we do not apply modifications to the given spectra. For $`E>E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$, both corrections of the injection efficiency and the change of the spectral index are taken into consideration, in addition to the chance probability of having $`\eta `$. Their fluxes decrease and cause a gradual change of spectral indices. In terms of rigidity, $`R_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ and $`R_{\mathrm{cut}}`$, corresponding to $`E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ and $`E_{\mathrm{cut}}`$, are the same irrespective of $`Z`$. The flux of each elemental group starts to bend at different $`E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$. Then the total flux shows a slow change around the knee.

We first choose the spectral indices and absolute fluxes for six nuclear groups at 1 TeV as an assumption so as to fit balloon-borne data. Next, based on our model, we calculate the energy spectrum up to $`10^6`$ TeV for each group and obtain therefrom the total spectrum and energy dependence of the chemical composition directly. These results are compared with recent data of balloon and air shower experiments.

## II The maximum energy

In this section we estimate the maximum energy of particles accelerated by oblique shocks at supernova remnants. If magnetic field lines are not parallel to the shock normal, an electric field is induced in the rest frame of the shock. Particles drift along the shock front gaining energies due to this field. In order to describe the interactions of particles with shocks concisely, the de Hoffmann-Teller frame in which the electric field vanishes globally is widely used . For oblique shocks, reflection at the shock front is more important than diffusion in the downstream region (Kirk & Heavens 1989 ), so that a more rapid acceleration can occur than for parallel shocks. The maximum energies of accelerated particles can be even a few orders of magnitude larger in the case of a quasiperpendicular shock compared to parallel ones.

Suppose a plane shock wave propagating at a non-relativistic speed $`U_1`$ with respect to the upstream medium. The shock normal intersects with the upstream magnetic field $`B_1`$ at an angle $`\alpha _1`$. A schematic view of the shock in the upstream rest frame is shown in Fig. 1. Parameters for the downstream region in its own rest frame, with magnetic field inclination $`\beta _2`$ and shock velocity $`U_2`$, can be expressed in terms of the upstream ones . We assume that the amplitude of the magnetic field perturbations is sufficiently small in the following calculation.

### II.1 The dependence of $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ on magnetic field inclination

There are some energy loss processes significant for the limitation of particle acceleration. For example, ionization, bremsstrahlung, and synchrotron radiation are conceivable. These processes for protons or other nuclei, however, are not so important within the energy range in which we are interested. The time scale of acceleration by oblique shocks at SNRs is regarded as sufficiently small compared to those of such loss processes.

Unless the energy losses of particles are significant, the finite lifetime of the supernova blast wave as a strong shock mainly limits the maximum energy per particle. Effective shock acceleration can occur until the swept up mass reaches the ejected mass $`10`$ $`M_{}`$. The lifetime of the shock $`t_{\mathrm{sh}}`$ is estimated to be about thousand years for ejecta expanding at velocity $`10^8`$ cm/s into a medium of average density 1 proton$`/\mathrm{cm}^3`$. As long as the characteristic length for diffusion is much less than the radius of the shock, the plane approximation is valid. Balancing the acceleration time scale with $`t_{\mathrm{sh}}`$ after Lagage & Cesarsky , we can write down the following expression for $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$,

$$E_{\mathrm{max}}=\frac{R_{\mathrm{sh}}(r1)}{rcx}U_1eB_1Z\left[\mathrm{cos}^2\alpha _1+\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\alpha _1}{x^2}+\frac{r(\mathrm{cos}^2\alpha _1+\frac{r^2}{x^2}\mathrm{sin}^2\alpha _1)}{(\mathrm{cos}^2\alpha _1+r^2\mathrm{sin}^2\alpha _1)^{\frac{3}{2}}}\right]^1,$$
(1)
where $`r`$ is the compression ratio of the shock, i.e. $`r=U_1/U_2`$, and $`x`$ is the square root of the ratio of $`\kappa _{}`$ to $`\kappa _{}:x^2=\kappa _{}/\kappa _{}`$, where the two $`\kappa `$’s are the parallel and normal components of the diffusion coefficient with respect to the magnetic field lines.

Substituting the various constants with plausible values, we obtain $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ as a function of $`\eta (\mathrm{cos}\alpha _1)`$ and $`x`$,

$`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ $`=`$ $`2.51\times 10^{16}[\mathrm{eV}]\left({\displaystyle \frac{B_1}{30\mu \mathrm{G}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{R_{\mathrm{sh}}}{3\mathrm{p}\mathrm{c}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{U_1}{10^7\mathrm{m}/\mathrm{s}}}\right)`$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{Z}{x}}{\displaystyle \frac{r1}{r}}\left\{\eta ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1\eta ^2}{x^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{r[\eta ^2+\frac{r^2}{x^2}(1\eta ^2)]}{[\eta ^2+r^2(1\eta ^2)]^{\frac{3}{2}}}}\right\}^1.`$
The maximum energy for parallel shocks ($`\eta =1`$), $`E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ can be estimated from Eq. (2) in the case of strong shocks ($`r=4`$) with $`x=30`$ and with typical values of $`B_1`$, $`R_{sh}`$ and $`U_1`$,

$$E_{\mathrm{crit}}=1.25Z\times 10^{14}[\mathrm{eV}].$$
(3)
Here we evaluate the numerical value $`2.51\times 10^{16}`$ according to the recent papers. Namely, due to non-linear effects, the maximum energies are enhanced by the factor of $`80/9`$ compared to ordinary values . We will comment on the rather large value of $`B_1`$  in the next subsection. It is noted that the value $`1.25\times 10^{14}`$ in Eq. (3) is larger than the usual ones $`3\times 10^{13}`$.

It is also compared to Berezhko’s values . When an enhancement factor of $`80/9`$ is used, this value is larger by one order of magnitude, $`1\times 10^{15}`$. Even if replacing the parameters of his Eq. (36), where the enhancement factor due to weak shock modification is $`10/3`$ by our typical values mentioned above and after the normalized value of the field 3 mG is corrected to $`3`$ $`\mu `$G , we get $`1.4\times 10^{15}`$. Thus in other words we may say that the value in Eq. (3) is only about ten times larger for field values used in a conventional derivation of $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$. Therefore numerical values in Eqs. (2) and (3) are not inadequate even if $`x`$ has a strong effect.

In order to see how $`E_{\mathrm{max}}(\eta )`$ varies with different $`x`$ values, $`x=10,30,100`$ are tested since the value of $`x`$ is considered to lie between 10 and 100. Other parameters are the same as the above ones. Figure 2 shows the $`\eta `$ dependence of $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ for $`Z=1`$: proton. From Eq. (2), the value of $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is proportional to the particle charge $`Z`$. As shown in Fig. 2, the $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ value is strongly dependent on the field inclination $`\eta `$. $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ in quasiperpendicular shocks is larger than that in parallel shocks by two or three orders of magnitude for each value of $`x`$. In the case of $`x=30,E_{\mathrm{cut}}=1.84\times 10^{17}`$ eV is about 1470 times the value $`E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ with $`Z=1`$ in Eq. (3).

### II.2 Magnetic field in the supernova remnants

As we have mentioned above, we take a $`B_1`$-value somewhat larger than the average strength of the interstellar magnetic field of magnitude of microgauss. It is widely known that SNRs are usually accompanied with magnetic fields. The sufficiently strong field is possibly present in the accelerated region around SNR-shocks because of rapid expansion of ejecta into the interstellar medium. There is some possibility  that cosmic ray streams amplify non-linearly magnetic fields up to 1 mG. Recent measurement also suggest that some galactic SNRs possess intense magnetic fields of the order from milligauss to sub-milligauss in the downstream region . These observed values are suppressed by a factor of 5 or so in the upstream, and hence our choice $`B_1=30`$ $`\mu `$G is quite relevant.

There are some investigations related to the magnetic field geometry in SNRs. In young remnants, the ambient field lines are stretched and amplified to be predominantly parallel to the shock normal on account of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities . On the other hand, for older SNRs perpendicular shocks likely originate from the compression of the ambient interstellar field. Observations of synchrotron radiation also support this morphology . The value of $`B_1`$ of our choice and isotropic distribution of $`\eta `$ may be appropriate as far as we are concerned with the whole behavior of cosmic rays.

Here we also comment on another important parameter, $`x`$, which describes field fluctuation. In papers of Jokipii (1987)  and Ellison et al. (1995) , they use $`\xi =\lambda /r_g`$, which simply relates to $`x`$ as $`x^2=\xi ^2+1`$ (In their original papers, they use the notation $`\eta `$ instead of $`\xi `$ but here we use $`\xi `$ in order to distinguish it from our $`\eta (\mathrm{cos}\alpha _1)`$). $`\xi 1`$ corresponds to the Bohm diffusion (strong scattering) limit and $`\xi \mathrm{}`$ when $`\kappa _{}\kappa _{}`$. According to ref. , the $`x`$ value is limited by $`xv/U_1`$, where $`v`$ is the particle velocity, and in quasi-perpendicular shocks $`x\mathrm{tan}\alpha _1`$. Our choices $`x=30`$ and $`\eta _{\mathrm{min}}=1/30`$, which will be adopted later, however, do not satisfy the latter inequality. The fixed $`x`$ value is also used for any $`\eta `$ between $`\eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and 1.

## III Our model

Based on the result that the angular dependence of the maximum energy is quite significant, we propose a simple model. The following three issues are examined: (1) the chance probability of $`\eta `$ occurrence, (2) the dependence of the injection efficiency on $`\eta `$ and (3) the $`\eta `$ dependence of the spectral index.

### III.1 Chance probability of $`\eta `$

The overall morphology of SNR-shocks is considered to be almost spherically symmetric even if the shape of each is somewhat distorted. The ambient disordered magnetic field lines over a wide range intersect the shock normal at various angles. Moreover, as we described in the section II. B, there exist SNRs with various ages whose magnetic fields cross the shock fronts with a wide variety of angles. Since both young and old SNRs are considered as sources of energetic cosmic rays, averaging over the various ages of SNRs and different shapes of their shock fronts, we assume a uniform distribution of $`\eta `$ in our model.

The value of $`\eta `$ is restricted within the range between $`\eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and 1 to satisfy the condition that the shock front should not move at the light velocity or above in the H-T frame. The probability in the width $`d\eta `$ is then

$$f(\eta )d\eta =\frac{d\eta }{1\eta _{\mathrm{min}}}\left(\eta _{\mathrm{min}}\eta 1\right),$$
(4)
where $`\eta _{\mathrm{min}}=U_1/c1/30`$ and $`(1\eta _{\mathrm{min}})^1`$ is the normalization factor. The range where $`0\eta <\eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$ is neglected because it occupies only $`1/30`$ of the whole $`\eta `$ region. Let $``$ be the energy of a particle with $`E_{\mathrm{crit}}E_{\mathrm{cut}}`$. $`E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ and $`E_{\mathrm{cut}}`$ are the maximum energies in parallel ($`\eta =1`$) and extremely oblique (quasiperpendicular: $`\eta =\eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$) shocks, respectively. A particular value of $`\eta `$ corresponds to an unique $``$ since $`E_{\mathrm{max}}(\eta )`$ is a monotonic decreasing function of $`\eta `$ as shown in Fig. 2. Only oblique shocks in the range from the $`\eta `$ to $`\eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$ can then serve to give $``$. The fluxes at $``$ should therefore be reduced by the factor $`(\eta \eta _{\mathrm{min}})/(1\eta _{\mathrm{min}})`$.

### III.2 Injection efficiency

Baring, Ellison and Jones  developed test particle Monte-Carlo simulations with large angle scattering processes (abbreviated as LA). They showed that the efficiency for injecting thermal particles into an acceleration mechanism strongly depends on obliquity and varies inversely with $`\alpha _1`$ ($`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mathrm{Bn1}}`$ in their notation), in the case of high Mach numbers. They also checked the $`\xi `$ ( $``$ our $`x`$) dependence of the injection efficiency, $`ϵ(\eta )`$. When their results are applied to the present case $`x30`$, the injection efficiency relative to $`\eta =1`$ is nearly equal to or less than 0.01 at $`\eta =0.6`$. Namely oblique shocks with $`\eta `$ from $`\eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$ to 0.6 contribute very little to the acceleration of particles.

Naito and Takahara  also attempted test particle simulations in oblique shocks. Instead of directly presenting $`ϵ(\eta )`$, they showed the pitch angle ($`\mu `$) distribution in both cases of LA and pitch-angle scattering (abbreviated as PA) in their figures 3 and 4 , respectively, for $`\eta =1.0,0.75,0.5,0.25`$. Using the number of injected particles for these $`\eta `$ values, we can estimate $`ϵ(\eta )`$ by integrating with respect to $`\mu `$ from $`1`$ to 1 in the downstream, where the $`\mu `$ distribution of their simulation agrees well with the expected one . The relative injection efficiency $`ϵ(\eta )`$ changes little even if the number of accelerated particles in the upstream are added, because the numbers are less than those in the downstream and also the ratios to $`\eta =1.0`$ are similar to those in the upstream.

For LA, $`ϵ(\eta )=1,0.73,0.49,0.26`$, whereas for PA $`ϵ(\eta )=1,0.81,0.59,0.31`$ are evaluated corresponding to $`\eta =1,0.75,0.5,0.25`$, respectively. It is argued  that LA is adequate for $`\frac{\delta B}{B}1`$, while PA is acceptable for $`\frac{\delta B}{B}<0.1`$. In our case, $`(\frac{\delta B}{B})^2\frac{1}{x}=\frac{1}{30}`$ is somehow between LA and PA, and $`ϵ(\eta )`$ is similar in both cases. Therefore, we may simply take,

$$ϵ(\eta )=\eta $$
(5)
The detailed reason why the above two works present very different results on $`ϵ(\eta )`$, is not clear. The input for simulations, however, differs for the two approaches. In Ellison et al. , injected particles are thermal, the energies of accelerated particles are up to about 10 MeV, and $`U_1`$ is slow, say $`5\times 10^5`$ m/s. Ellison has also presented the application to the real SNR . He considered somewhat older objects which are in Sedov phase. On the other hand, in Naito and Takahara , the Lorentz factors of injected particles are fixed at 2, the factors of accelerated particles are followed up to $`10^5`$, and the shock is relativistic: $`U_10.1c`$. In the light of the present treatments or parameters, such as $`U_1=10^7\mathrm{m}/\mathrm{s}`$ and considering that the energies concerned are higher than 1 TeV, we assume Eq. (5) here.

### III.3 Change of spectral indicies

In this subsection, we consider the dependence of the spectral index on obliquity. It has been frequently pointed out that one of the advantages of the first order Fermi acceleration mechanism is that it gives a power-law energy spectrum. Namely one gets for the differential spectrum $`dJ/dE`$, if we take terms of fluid velocities up to first order into account,

$$\frac{dJ}{dE}E^q\left(\mathrm{with}q=\frac{r+2}{r1}\right).$$
(6)
For a strong shock ($`r=4`$), the differential spectral index is $`q=2`$. This index is expected to be modified into the final index $`\gamma `$ which is observed. $`\gamma `$ is somewhat steeper than $`q`$ by considering the energy-dependent leakage from the galaxy . We do not go into detailed discussions of this change in this paper, even though different modifications are used for different nuclear groups in the next subsection.

This dependence of $`q`$ values on $`\eta `$ is examined. This dependence is assumed to apply to $`\gamma `$ in the same form. Although nonlinear back reaction effects of accelerated particles reduce $`q`$ values by about 0.5 at higher energies even in parallel shocks , only the index dependence on $`\eta `$ is considered here. The dependence has been studied in earlier works . Here, we again refer to Naito and Takahara . In ref.  they showed that $`q`$ is practically 2 at $`\eta =1`$, and diminishes as $`\eta `$ decreases except for $`\eta \eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$ being rather independent for the three cases $`\frac{U_1}{c}=0.01,0.03,0.1`$. It is also shown , for $`\frac{U_1}{c}=0.1`$ in the case of LA, $`q`$ is 2.08, slightly larger than 2, at $`\eta =1`$, and almost linearly decreases as $`\eta `$ decreases. Then $`q`$ reaches a minimum of 1.5 at $`\eta 0.15`$. For $`\eta _{\mathrm{min}}<\eta <0.15`$, $`q`$ starts to increase rapidly. While for the PA case, $`q`$ is nearly equal to 2.1 at $`\eta =1`$. As $`\eta `$ decreases, $`q`$ decreases monotonically and reaches 1.0 as $`\eta `$ approaches $`\eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$. In both cases the energy spectra become harder as shocks are more oblique.

We choose the LA model except for $`\eta \eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and assume simply that $`q`$ is proportional to $`\eta `$ such as,

$$q(\eta )=a\eta +b(1<\eta <\eta _{\mathrm{min}}),$$
(7)
where $`a`$ = 0.68, $`b`$ =1.41 and $`\eta _{\mathrm{min}}=\frac{1}{30}`$. This dependence of power indices on obliquity enhances intensities of accelerated particles by oblique shocks. The present choice leads to an underestimate of this enhancement. For the energies of particles $``$ less than $`E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$, the enhancement factor should be unity, because of $`q`$ levelling off by summing up over the whole region of $`\eta `$, i.e. from 1 to $`\eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$.

For $`E_{\mathrm{crit}}<<E_{\mathrm{cut}}`$, there is a one-to-one correspondence of $`\eta `$ to $``$ as mentioned above. Taking into account the injection efficiency given by Eq. (5), we introduce a correction factor

$$\zeta (\eta )=\frac{2}{1\eta _{\mathrm{min}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}_{\eta _{\mathrm{min}}}^\eta \eta ^{}\left(\frac{}{E_{\mathrm{crit}}}\right)^{q(\eta ^{})+q(\eta _\mathrm{a})}𝑑\eta ^{},$$
(8)
where $`\eta _\mathrm{a}=(1+\eta _{\mathrm{min}})/2`$ is the average value of $`\eta `$. The factor $`q(\eta ^{})+q(\eta _\mathrm{a})`$ leads to a deviation of indices between $`1\eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`\eta \eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and hence, $`b`$ in Eq. (7) is cancelled. When $`=E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$, that is to say $`\eta =1`$, $`\zeta (\eta =1)=1`$ due to the normalization factor $`\frac{2}{1\eta _{\mathrm{min}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}`$. The $`\eta `$ dependence of indices compensates partially the injection efficiency but not completely. So $`\zeta (\eta )`$ is less than unity such as for $`\eta _{\mathrm{min}}<\eta <0.8,0.7<\zeta (\eta )<0.8.`$

In addition to $`\zeta (\eta )`$, the chance probability of $`\eta `$ given by Eq. (4) should be combined. Since the probability is independent of $`\zeta (\eta )`$, after integrating Eq. (4) we obtain a final correction factor:

$$g(\eta )=\frac{\eta \eta _{\mathrm{min}}}{1\eta _{\mathrm{min}}}\zeta (\eta )$$
(9)
In Fig. 3, $`\zeta (\eta )`$, $`\frac{\eta \eta _{\mathrm{min}}}{1\eta _{\mathrm{min}}}`$ and $`g(\eta )`$ are sketched as dashed, dotted and solid curves, respectively.

In summary, the differential energy spectra can be expressed as:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dJ}{dE}}`$ $`=`$ $`CE^\gamma (E<E_{\mathrm{crit}})`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`CE^\gamma g(\eta )(E_{\mathrm{crit}}EE_{\mathrm{cut}})`$
$`=`$ $`0(E_{\mathrm{cut}}<E),`$
where $`C`$ and $`\gamma `$ are fixed according to six nuclear groups in the next section. $`E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ is given by Eq. (3) and $`E_{\mathrm{cut}}=1.84Z\times 10^{17}`$ eV. From Eq. (10), one can see that the curve of the flux is differentiable changing from linear to a smooth bent above $`E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ in a log-log diagram.

The velocity of the shock front becomes superluminal in the H-T frame in the region $`0\eta <\eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$, which we have neglected. If particles are accelerated effectively by some other special mechanism, however, we should take this range into consideration.

## IV Results

We calculate differential fluxes of various mass groups. The obtained fluxes are multiplied by $`E^{2.5}`$ in order to clarify the change of the spectral indices. The multiplied flux for each chemical component is normalized to the experimental data at $`E=1`$ TeV, where $`E`$ is the total (mass plus kinetic) energy per particle, to give

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\left[E^{2.5}\frac{dJ}{dE}\right]_{E=1\mathrm{T}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}}=\varphi E^\beta ,$$
(11)
where $`\beta =\gamma 2.5`$. Here we take as an assumption two different types of values of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and $`\beta `$ as shown in Table 1. Parameters with subscript “HEGRA” have been taken from the analysis of the HEGRA air shower experiment  and slightly modified such that the heavy and very heavy nuclei (HVH) parts are separated into $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ of sub-Fe and Fe with the ratio $`0.125`$ to $`1.0`$ and with the same $`\beta `$. The values with suffix “Ours” have been determined so as to fit well various experimental data around $`E=1`$ TeV.

We do not discuss in detail why some different values of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and $`\beta `$ are taken for groups of elements as in Table 1. The most notable difference of these two models is the exponent $`\beta `$ of the Fe spectrum. The resultant all-particle spectrum with “HEGRA” parameters shows a more rapid decrease for high energies. Since $`x(B/\delta B)^2`$ which is estimated to be between 10 and 100, for simplicity, we fix hereafter the value of $`x`$ at about its geometrical mean of $`x=30`$ in the calculation of Eq. (1).

### IV.1 The energy spectra of primary cosmic ray components

In Fig. 4 we plot the calculated spectra of p and He against the kinetic energy $`E_k`$ per nucleon. The theoretical spectra with “Ours” parameters are expressed by solid curves and those with “HEGRA” parameters by dashed ones. The energy spectrum of p starts to bend due to the $`g`$ factor in Eq. (10) at the energy: $`E_{k,\mathrm{crit}}(\mathrm{p})1.25\times 10^5`$ GeV/n. This steepening of the spectral index is visible in the recent data of the Tibet air shower experiment . Here we cite the data of Tibet (2001) labelled proton dominant (PD) model in their paper. But their results from heavy dominant model are almost the same with those from PD. For He, $`E_{k,\mathrm{crit}}(\mathrm{He})=Z(\mathrm{He})/A(\mathrm{He})\times E_{\mathrm{crit}}(\mathrm{p})m_\mathrm{p}6.3\times 10^4`$ GeV/n. JACEE data  seem to be consistent with this $`E_{k,\mathrm{crit}}(\mathrm{He})`$, while RUNJOB’s fluxes  are somewhat lower but their highest $`E_k`$ does not reach $`E_{k,\mathrm{crit}}(\mathrm{He})`$.

We also present spectra of the CNO, middle, and Fe-group in Fig. 5. “middle” corresponds to the NeMgSi-group and the Fe-group to our “sub-Fe” plus “Fe” in Table 1. The two types of curves are defined by the same notation as in Fig. 4. The fluxes of middle and those of Fe-group have been downscaled by factors of 10 and 100 with respect to the original values, respectively. The slow changes of spectral indices of these groups above $`E_{k,\mathrm{crit}}6.3\times 10^4`$ GeV/n for CNO and $`6.2\times 10^4`$ GeV/n for middle are not clearly seen from the data, because it is difficult to obtain such data by direct observations.

For Fe, $`E_{k,\mathrm{crit}}5.8\times 10^4`$ GeV/n, the JACEE point with the highest energy ($`10^5`$ GeV/n) shows a large value but with a large error. On the other hand, the recent Tibet data around $`E_k10^6`$ GeV/n  show that the spectrum is constant or has only a small bent in the diagram of Fig. 5. This favors Ours choice over HEGRA’s.

We plot the theoretical curves of spectra for various nuclear groups with Ours choice of parameters versus the total energy per particle in Fig. 6. One can see that the spectra of lighter nuclei start to bend at lower energies. This is just due to Eqs. (2) and (10). Namely, the changes occur at a fixed rigidity of $`1.25\times 10^5`$ GV as shown in Eq. (3). Summing the fluxes of all these groups, we obtain the flux of all particles which is plotted as “total” in this figure. Since the spectra of each group are smooth (differentiable) as mentioned above, the total spectrum should also be smooth. The knee behavior in our model comes from the $`\eta `$-dependence of $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ due to the oblique shock acceleration expressed in the second line of Eq. (10). This is different from the HEGRA analysis , Biermann , Stanev et al.  and Erlykin and Wolfendale . In the first paper, the knee is explained by introducing an artificial break of slope at a fixed rigidity. The authors of the next two papers, interpret the knee as the superposition of sources from different phases of SNRs. In the last reference, the authors argue that a sudden steepening at the knee and the explosion of a single, recent, nearby supernova is most likely to explain cosmic rays around the knee.

In Fig. 7 the two curves of the total flux, i. e. with Ours (the same as in Fig. 6) and HEGRA choices of parameters, are compared with experimental data. As seen in this figure, Ours curve fits well Tibet  and Akeno data  up to several times $`10^8`$ GeV, while the curve with HEGRA parameters is in good agreement with DICE  and CASA-MIA , in which both $`E`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ are about 30$`\%`$ lower than the Akeno data. The KASCADE experiment presented a preliminary result with a four component assumption (H, He, C, and Fe) . It is shown that the position of the knee depends on rigidity. That is also one of our conclusions. Anyway, the total flux can be explained at least up to $`10^8`$ GeV by the present model. Above that energy, the solid curve falls below the AKENO data. Other sources than SNRs in Galaxy may be needed.

We express the two curves in Fig. 7 in single power laws below and above $`E_{\mathrm{knee}}`$ by using the least square method. For HEGRA and Ours choices $`\gamma =2.713\pm 0.006`$ and $`2.664\pm 0.002`$, respectively, between $`1.5\times 10^5`$ GeV and $`1.5\times 10^6`$ GeV; and $`\gamma =3.248\pm 0.012`$ and $`3.092\pm 0.008`$, respectively, between $`6\times 10^6`$ and $`6\times 10^8`$ GeV are obtained. These values depend on the adopted energy range; but they can be compared with experimental data. For example, Tibet $`\gamma `$  gives $`2.60\pm 0.04`$ below and $`3.00\pm 0.05`$ above $`E_{\mathrm{knee}}`$ and CASA-BLANCA  $`2.72\pm 0.02`$ and $`2.95\pm 0.02`$.

### IV.2 The energy dependence of chemical composition

Using the results of energy fluxes, we examine how the chemical composition of cosmic ray particles changes with energy. In Fig. 8 the flux ratio of p plus He to all particles is plotted against the energy per particle. Theoretical curves suggest a change with increasing energies from mixed composition to heavy particle dominance. The curve with HEGRA parameters lies almost within the uncertainties of experiments quoted here. The relative abundance of light elements, however, tends to increase again beyond the energy of several times $`10^6`$ GeV from experiments of DICE and HEGRA.

As a commonly used indicator of the composition, we take the average value of the logarithm of the mass number $`A`$, as

$$<\mathrm{ln}A>\frac{{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}f_i(\mathrm{ln}A_i)}{{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}f_i},$$
(12)
where $`f_i`$ is the flux of species $`i`$ which denotes each elemental group as shown in Table 1. Our two curves of $`<\mathrm{ln}A>`$ versus energy $`E`$ are shown and compared with various data in Fig. 9. Both curves monotonically increase with energy, which is naturally confirmed by the present model. The HEGRA parametrization gives lower values than Ours in the whole energy range.

In Fig. 8 experimental data scatter and have large uncertainties especially near and above the knee. A similar trend is seen in Fig. 9. This is due to the fact that ground-based measurements can study the composition only indirectly. The values of $`<\mathrm{ln}A>`$ significantly depends on the experimental observables to be treated and on the hadronic interaction models to be used in simulation processes. Fairly different $`<\mathrm{ln}A>`$ values are reported by various groups. Some authors  say that $`<\mathrm{ln}A>`$ decreases in energy regions higher than the knee. Other authors  show that $`<\mathrm{ln}A>`$ has even a dip near $`E_{\mathrm{knee}}`$. Most of the other data indicate that $`<\mathrm{ln}A>`$ increases with $`E`$. Preliminary results of the KASCADE experiment  show a sharp increase in logarithmic mass above several times of $`10^6`$ GeV. On the other hand, the data extracted from equi-intensity curves depicted by Chacaltaya II  are somewhat closer to Ours. In the present stage we cannot reach a definite conclusion about whether our curves are in good agreement with data or not.

## V Concluding remarks

We consider the acceleration caused by oblique shocks in which outer magnetic field lines cross the shock normal at any angle $`\alpha _1`$. We calculate $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ as a function of $`\eta =\mathrm{cos}\alpha _1`$, where $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the maximum energy that particles can achieve (see Eq. (2)). It is shown that $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ with extreme obliquity is more than 1400 times compared to that with parallel shocks ($`\eta =1`$). In the present model, $`\eta `$ is distributed uniformly and the $`\eta `$ dependence of the injection efficiency and the change of spectral indices are taken in to account. We choose the two parameter sets of power indices and absolute fluxes at $`10^{12}`$ eV for various elemental groups shown in Table 1. Then the spectra and compositions of cosmic rays are calculated up to much higher energies, say $`10^{17}`$ eV. It is shown that $`E_{\mathrm{crit}}=1.25Z\times 10^{14}`$ eV, where spectral curves start to bend over and continue up to $`E_{\mathrm{cut}}1470\times E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$. These results fit the proton spectrum well and explain a smooth knee behavior around $`3\times 10^{14}`$ eV (see Fig. 4).

As to the total flux, both curves in Fig. 7 exhibit a smooth knee behavior. The “HEGRA” choice fits well DICE and CASA-MIA data, while “Ours” choice reproduces well Tibet and Akeno data up to several times $`10^{17}`$ eV. However, since our model is limited by $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$, for energies higher than $`10^{17}`$ eV, more energetic sources of cosmic rays should be necessary. Favorite candidates for the sources of cosmic rays far above the knee may be microquasers, pulsars, active galactic nuclei , gamma-ray bursts (GRBs)  or other hitherto unknown sources.

As for the composition, our value of $`<\mathrm{ln}A>`$ increases with the energy per particle as shown in Fig. 9. Data from various experiments scatter and have large uncertainties, particularly above $`E_{\mathrm{knee}}`$. Thus the situation remains uncertain. Recent results by Fly’s Eye, Haverah Park, and HiRes groups provide some interesting data of composition in the high energy region above $`10^8`$ GeV as summarized in ref. . Data of Haverah Park and HiRes show that light components are abundant towards $`10^9`$ GeV, while a relatively heavy composition is suggested by Fly’s Eye. These may also suggest some other origins apart from SNRs.

In the present paper, we fixed $`x`$, $`B_1`$, $`R_{sh}`$, $`r`$ and $`U_1`$ (i. e. $`\eta _{\mathrm{min}}`$) in Eq. (2) to evaluate the dependence of $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ on $`\eta `$ quantitatively and to obtain numerical values which could be directly compared with data. Generally, there are various shocks at SNRs where these quantities differ considerably depending on their ages, sizes and so on. However, as far as we are concerned with the whole or averaged behavior of cosmic rays which are observed, our choices and fixing of these quantities seem to be appropriate. We neglect the extremely quasi-perpendicular case in which the de-Hoffmann-Teller frame cannot be used. These are problems remaining to be solved.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are indebted to T. Shibata at Aoyama Gakuin University for informing us of RUNJOB’s data. We thank S. Ogio at Tokyo Institute of Technology for presenting the new Chacaltaya data. We are also grateful to T. Naito at Yamanashi Gakuin University for his many useful comments. We would like to thank C. Grupen at Siegen University for carefully reading the manuscript and correcting many mistakes.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In the minimal Standard Model, leptons appear under $`SU(3)_C\times SU(2)_L\times U(1)_Y`$ as left-handed doublets $`(\nu _i,l_i)_L(1,2,1/2)`$ and right-handed singlets $`l_{iR}(1,1,1)`$, but there is no $`\nu _{iR}(1,1,0)`$. Hence any $`m_\nu 0`$ must necessarily come from the effective operator

$$\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}(\nu _i\varphi ^0l_i\varphi ^+)(\nu _j\varphi ^0l_j\varphi ^+),$$
(1)
where $`(\varphi ^+,\varphi ^0)(1,2,1/2)`$ is the usual Higgs scalar doublet. The structure of this operator clearly shows that $`any`$ Majorana neutrino mass is $`seesaw`$ in character, i.e. of the form $`v^2`$ divided by an effective heavy mass, where $`v`$ is the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of $`\varphi ^0`$ as the electroweak gauge symmetry $`SU(2)_L\times U(1)_Y`$ is broken down to $`U(1)_Q`$. Different models of neutrino mass are merely different realizations  of this operator.

## 2 Canonical Seesaw and Higgs Triplet Mechanisms for Neutrino Masses and Leptogenesis

The most famous mechanism for getting a small $`m_\nu `$ is the canonical seesaw  where a heavy singlet neutral fermion $`N`$ is inserted between the two factors of Eq. (1) with a large Majorana mass $`m_N`$. Hence one may read off the neutrino mass as $`m_\nu =f_if_jv^2/m_N`$. An equally $`simple`$ and $`natural`$ mechanism  is to realize Eq. (1) with a heavy Higgs scalar triplet $`(\xi ^{++},\xi ^+,\xi ^0)`$ with couplings $`f_{ij}`$ to 2 lepton doublets and $`\mu `$ to 2 Higgs doublets. The neutrino mass matrix is then given by $`2f_{ij}\mu v^2/m_\xi ^2`$. This may be interpreted also as $`\nu _i\nu _j`$ coupling to the VEV of $`\xi ^0`$ , which shows clearly the important point that it is possible as well as natural for $`\xi ^0`$ to be very much less than $`m_\xi `$.

Both of these two simple neutrino-mass mechanisms are also ideal for leptogenesis. The heavy singlet neutral fermion $`N`$ may decay into $`e^{}\varphi ^+`$ with lepton number $`L=1`$ or $`e^+\varphi ^{}`$ with $`L=1`$. With 2 or more $`N`$’s, the one-loop corrections (involving both vertex and self-energy graphs) allow for CP violation in their interference with the tree graph, and may generate  a lepton asymmetry of the Universe if the decay of the lightest $`N`$ occurs out of thermal equilibrium as the Universe expands and cools. The heavy $`\xi ^{++}`$ may decay into $`e^+e^+`$ with $`L=2`$ or $`\varphi ^+\varphi ^+`$ with $`L=0`$. Again, with 2 or more $`\xi `$’s, the one-loop (self-energy only) graph allows for CP violation and creates  a lepton asymmetry, i.e.

$$|A+iB|^2|A^{}+iB^{}|^2=4\mathrm{I}\mathrm{m}(AB^{}).$$
(2)
## 3 $`R`$ Parity Violating Supersymmetry and Neutrino Masses

I now come to my main topic which is the generation of neutrino masses through $`R`$ parity violation in supersymmetry . The well-known superfield content of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) is given by

$`Q_i=(u_i,d_i)_L(3,2,1/6),u_i^c(3^{},1,2/3),d_i^c(3^{},1,1/3),`$ (3)
$`L_i=(\nu _i,l_i)_L(1,2,1/2),l_i^c(1,1,1);`$ (4)
$`H_1=(h_1^0,h_1^{})(1,2,1/2),H_2=(h_2^+,h_2^0)(1,2,1/2).`$ (5)
Given the above transformations under the standard $`SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)`$ gauge group, the corresponding superpotential should contain in general all gauge-invariant bilinear and trilinear combinations of the superfields. However, to forbid the violation of both baryon number $`B`$ and lepton number $`L`$, each particle is usually assigned a dicrete $`R`$ parity

$$R(1)^{3B+L+2j},$$
(6)
which is assumed to be conserved by the allowed interactions. Hence the MSSM superpotential has only the terms $`H_1H_2`$, $`H_1L_il_j^c`$, $`H_1Q_id_j^c`$, and $`H_2Q_iu_j^c`$. Since the superfield $`\nu _i^c(1,1,0)`$ is absent, $`m_\nu =0`$ in the MSSM as in the minimal Standard Model. Neutrino oscillations  are thus unexplained.

Phenomenologically, it makes sense to require only $`B`$ conservation (to make sure that the proton is stable), but to allow $`L`$ violation (hence $`R`$ parity violation) so that the additional terms $`L_iH_2`$, $`L_iL_jl_k^c`$, and $`L_iQ_jd_k^c`$ may occur. Note that they all have $`\mathrm{\Delta }L=1`$. Neutrino masses are now possible  with Eq. (1) realized in at least 3 ways.

The first way is to use the bilinear terms

$$\mu H_1H_2+ϵ_iL_iH_2,$$
(7)
from which a $`7\times 7`$ neutralino-neutrino mass matrix is obtained:

$$_𝒩=\left[\begin{array}{ccccc}M_1& 0& g_1v_1& g_1v_2& g_1u_i\\ 0& M_2& g_2v_1& g_2v_2& g_2u_i\\ g_1v_1& g_2v_1& 0& \mu & 0\\ g_1v_2& g_2v_2& \mu & 0& ϵ_i\\ g_1u_i& g_2u_i& 0& ϵ_i& 0\end{array}\right],$$
(8)
where $`v_{1,2}=h_{1,2}^0/2`$ and $`u_i=\stackrel{~}{\nu }_i/2`$, with $`i=e,\mu ,\tau `$. Note first that both $`ϵ_i`$ and $`u_i`$ are nonzero in general. Note also that even if $`u_i/ϵ_i`$ is not the same for all $`i`$, only one linear combination of the three neutrinos gets a tree-level mass. In terms of the effective operator of Eq. (1), this is a tree-level realization with $`\nu _i`$ mixing with $`\stackrel{~}{h}_1^0`$ (through $`ϵ_i/\mu `$) which then connects with $`h_1^0`$ and a linear combination of the $`SU(2)_Y`$ and $`U(1)_Y`$ gauginos. The latter has a soft supersymmetry breaking Majorana mass and acts just like $`N`$ in generating a small $`m_\nu `$. Specifically,

$$m_{\nu _i}=\frac{(c^2M_1+s^2M_2)g_1^2(v_1ϵ_i+\mu u_i)^2}{s^2M_1M_2\mu ^22g_1^2v_1v_2\mu (c^2M_1+s^2M_2)},$$
(9)
where $`s\mathrm{sin}\theta _W`$ and $`c\mathrm{cos}\theta _W`$.

The second way is to use the trilinear terms, from which neutrino masses are obtained  as one-loop radiative corrections. Note that these occur as the result of supersymmetry breaking and are also suppressed by $`m_d^2`$ or $`m_l^2`$. A typical graph connects $`\nu _i`$ and $`\nu _j`$ through the intermediate states $`(b,\stackrel{~}{b}^c)`$ and $`(b^c,\stackrel{~}{b})`$ which are linked by 2 $`h_1^0`$’s, as required by Eq. (1). Here

$$m_\nu \frac{3\lambda ^2}{16\pi ^2}\frac{Am_b^2}{m_{\stackrel{~}{b}}^2}.$$
(10)
For $`m_\nu 0.05`$ eV, this implies $`\lambda ^{}>10^4`$ for $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}}^2/A>100`$ GeV.

The third way is to recognize the fact that the sneutrino $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ may have a “Majorana” mass term, i.e. $`m^2\stackrel{~}{\nu }\stackrel{~}{\nu }+h.c.`$, in addition to the usual “Dirac” mass term, i.e. $`M^2\stackrel{~}{\nu }^{}\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$. This leads inevitably  to $`m_\nu 0`$, but the effect occurs in two loops and is usually negligible. An interesting exception is in the case of the specific leptogenesis scenario  to be discussed below.

## 4 $`R`$ Parity Violating Supersymmetry and Leptogenesis

As noted earlier, the $`R`$ parity violating interactions have $`\mathrm{\Delta }L=1`$. Furthermore, the particles involved have masses at most equal to the supersymmetry breaking scale, i.e. a few TeV. This means that their $`L`$ violation together with the $`B+L`$ violation by sphalerons  would erase any primordial $`B`$ or $`L`$ asymmetry of the Universe . To avoid such a possibility, one may reduce the relevant Yukawa couplings to less than about $`10^7`$, but a typical minimum value of $`10^4`$ (see previous section) is required for realistic neutrino masses. Hence the existence of the present baryon asymmetry of the Universe is unexplained if neutrino masses originate from these $`\mathrm{\Delta }L=1`$ interactions. This is a generic problem of all models of radiative neutrino masses where the $`L`$ violation can be traced to interactions occuring at energies below $`10^{13}`$ GeV or so.

Once the notion of $`R`$ parity violation is introduced, there are many new terms to be added in the Lagrangian. Some may be responsible for realistic neutrino masses and may even participate in the erasure of any primordial $`B`$ or $`L`$ asymmetry of the Universe, but others may be able to produce a lepton asymmetry  on their own which then gets converted into the present observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe through the sphalerons.

Consider the usual $`4\times 4`$ neutralino mass matrix in the $`(\stackrel{~}{B},\stackrel{~}{W}_3,\stackrel{~}{h}_1^0,\stackrel{~}{h}_2^0)`$ basis:

$$_𝒩=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}M_1& 0& sm_3& sm_4\\ 0& M_2& cm_3& cm_4\\ sm_3& cm_3& 0& \mu \\ sm_4& cm_4& \mu & 0\end{array}\right],$$
(11)
where $`m_3=M_Z\mathrm{cos}\beta `$, $`m_4=M_Z\mathrm{sin}\beta `$, and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =v_2/v_1`$. The above assumes that $`ϵ_i`$ and $`u_i`$ are negligible in Eq. (8), which is a good approximation because neutrino masses are so small. I now choose the special case of

$$m_3,m_4<<M_2<M_1<\mu .$$
(12)
As a result, the two higgsinos $`\stackrel{~}{h}_{1,2}^0`$ form a heavy Dirac particle of mass $`\mu `$ and the other two less heavy Majorana fermion mass eigenstates are

$`\stackrel{~}{B}^{}`$ $``$ $`\stackrel{~}{B}+{\displaystyle \frac{sc\delta r_1}{M_1M_2}}\stackrel{~}{W}_3+\mathrm{},`$ (13)
$`\stackrel{~}{W}_3^{}`$ $``$ $`\stackrel{~}{W}_3{\displaystyle \frac{sc\delta r_2}{M_1M_2}}\stackrel{~}{B}+\mathrm{},`$ (14)
where $`\delta =M_Z^2\mathrm{sin}2\beta /\mu `$, and

$$r_{1,2}=\frac{1+M_{1,2}/\mu \mathrm{sin}2\beta }{1M_{1,2}^2/\mu ^2}.$$
(15)
I now observe that whereas $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ couples to both $`\overline{l}_L\stackrel{~}{l}_L`$ and $`\overline{l}_L^c\stackrel{~}{l}_L^c`$, $`\stackrel{~}{W}_3`$ couples only to $`\overline{l}_L\stackrel{~}{l}_L`$ because $`l_L^c`$ is trivial under $`SU(2)_L`$. On the other hand, $`R`$ parity violation implies that there is $`\stackrel{~}{l}_Lh^{}`$ mixing as well as $`\stackrel{~}{l}_L^ch^+`$ mixing. Therefore, both $`\stackrel{~}{B}^{}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{W}_3^{}`$ decay into $`l^\pm h^{}`$ and may be the seeds of a lepton asymmetry in such a scenario.

Let the $`\stackrel{~}{l}_Lh^{}`$ mixing be very small (which is a consistent assumption for realistic neutrino masses from bilinear $`R`$ parity violation). Then $`\stackrel{~}{W}_3^{}`$ decays only through its $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ component. Hence the decay rate of the LSP (Lightest Supersymmetric Particle), i.e. $`\stackrel{~}{W}_3^{}`$, is very much suppressed, first by $`\delta `$ and then by the $`\stackrel{~}{l}_L^ch^+`$ mixing which will be denoted by $`\xi `$. This construction is aimed at satisfying the out-of-equilibrium condition:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(\stackrel{~}{W}_3^{}l^\pm h^{})<H=1.7\sqrt{g_{}}(T^2/M_{Pl})$$
(16)
at the temperature $`TM_2`$, where $`H`$ is the Hubble expansion rate of the Universe with $`g_{}`$ the effective number of massless degrees of freedom and $`M_{Pl}`$ the Planck mass. This implies

$$\left(\frac{\xi |\delta |r_2}{M_1M_2}\right)^2\frac{1}{M_2}<1.9\times 10^{14}\mathrm{GeV}^1,$$
(17)
where $`g_{}=10^2`$ and $`M_{Pl}=10^{18}`$ GeV.

The lepton asymmetry generated from the decay of $`\stackrel{~}{W}_3^{}`$ has both vertex and self-energy loop contributions from the insertion of $`\stackrel{~}{B}^{}`$. However, the coupling of $`\stackrel{~}{B}^{}`$ to $`l^\pm h^{}`$ is suppressed only by $`\xi `$ and not by $`\delta `$, thus a realistic asymmetry may be established if $`\xi `$ is not too small. Let $`xM_2^2/M_1^2`$, then the decay asymmetry of $`\stackrel{~}{W}_3^{}`$ is given by

$$ϵ=\frac{\alpha \xi ^2}{2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _W}\frac{Im\delta ^2}{|\delta |^2}\frac{\sqrt{x}g(x)}{1x},$$
(18)
where

$$g(x)=1+\frac{2(1x)}{x}\left[\left(\frac{1+x}{x}\right)\mathrm{ln}(1+x)1\right],$$
(19)
and Im$`\delta `$ comes from the relative phase between $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$.

At $`T<M_2`$, a lepton asymmetry may start to appear, but there are also reactions which destroy it: (I) recombination (inverse decay), i.e.

$$l^\pm +h^{}\stackrel{~}{W}_3^{}(\mathrm{weak}),l^\pm +h^{}\stackrel{~}{B}^{}(\mathrm{strong});$$
(20)
(II) scattering, i.e. $`l^\pm +h^{}l^{}+h^\pm `$ with $`\stackrel{~}{W}_3^{}`$ (negligible) and $`\stackrel{~}{B}^{}`$ (weak) as intermediate states; and (III) annihilation, i.e. $`\stackrel{~}{W}+\stackrel{~}{W}W+W`$ which is $`L`$ and $`R`$ conserving (weak). The Boltzmann equations must then be numerically solved to see if a lepton asymmetry ($`ϵ_L=n_B/g_{}n_\gamma `$) of order 10-10 can be generated for a given set of input parameters. The choice of values for $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ is crucial for this purpose, because the inverse decay of $`\stackrel{~}{B}^{}`$ is capable of depleting $`ϵ_L`$ by several orders of magnitude. For example, if $`M_1=3`$ TeV and $`M_2=2`$ TeV, then $`ϵ_L10^{14}`$.

Two scenarios which work are

$`(\mathrm{A})`$ $`M_2=3.5\mathrm{TeV},M_1=6\mathrm{TeV},\mu =10\mathrm{TeV},`$ (21)
$`\xi =5\times 10^3,\mathrm{sin}2\beta =0.10,m_h=200\mathrm{GeV};`$
$`(\mathrm{B})`$ $`M_2=2\mathrm{TeV},M_1=5\mathrm{TeV},\mu =7.5\mathrm{TeV},`$ (22)
$`\xi =5\times 10^3,\mathrm{sin}2\beta =0.05,m_h=200\mathrm{GeV}.`$
Hence realistic leptogenesis is possible if $`\xi 10^3`$ can be obtained. This is actually not so easy because the origin of $`\stackrel{~}{l}_L^ch^+`$ mixing in $`R`$ parity violation is usually the term $`H_1\stackrel{~}{L}\stackrel{~}{l}^c`$, which is very small because $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ has to be very small. To obtain $`\xi 10^3`$, it is necessary to add the nonholomorphic  term $`H_2^{}H_1\stackrel{~}{l}^c`$ which is generally unconstrained. In the presence of this new term, the sneutrino $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ also gets a “Majorana” mass of order 100 MeV, which then allows $`m_\nu `$ to be of order 10-3 eV in 2 loops.

## 5 Conclusion

$``$ In supersymmetry with $`L`$ violation (hence $`R`$ parity violation), realistic neutrino masses are obtained at 0, 1, and 2 loops.

$``$ Successful leptogenesis is possible in a specific scenario:

(1) LSP is mostly $`\stackrel{~}{W}_3`$,

(2) gaugino masses $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ have a relative phase,

(3) $`\stackrel{~}{l}_Lh^{}`$ mixing is negligible,

(4) $`\stackrel{~}{l}_Rh^{}`$ mixing is $`𝒪(10^3)`$ from the nonholomorphic $`H_2^{}H_1\stackrel{~}{l}^c`$ term.

## Acknowledgments

I thank Hans Klapdor and the other organizers of Dark 2000 for their great hospitality at Heidelberg. This work was supported in part by the U. S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG03-94ER40837.


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# Magnetic Extraction of Spin Energy from a Black Hole

## I Background

Adding angular momentum to a black hole while keeping its mass fixed decreases its surface area:

$$A=8\pi M^2\left[1+\sqrt{1a_{}^2}\right],$$
(1)
where, as usual, $`M`$ is the black hole mass, $`a_{}a/M`$ is its dimensionless spin parameter with $`a`$ the specific angular momentum, and all quantities are in relativistic units (i.e., $`G=c=1`$, so that, for example, the unit of length is $`r_g=GM/c^2`$). Hawking and Ellis jhk:he73  showed that $`A`$ cannot decrease; consequently, no matter what happens, a black hole of surface area $`A`$ cannot ever have a mass less than $`(A/16\pi )^{1/2}`$, its “irreducible mass” $`M_i`$. However, if $`a_{}>0`$, $`M>M_i`$. Therefore, reducing $`a_{}`$ can make $`M`$ smaller; that is, braking a black hole’s spin can make it lose energy. In principle, this energy can be delivered in usable form to the outside world. If $`a_{}=1`$, the energy potentially tappable is $`(11/\sqrt{2})M0.293M`$. Comparing this quantity to the amount of energy released in the course of accretion (generally estimated as $`0.1M`$), we see that there is potentially as much energy stored in black hole spin as can be released in ordinary accretion.

The first proposal of a specific mechanism to extract this energy was due to Penrose jhk:p69 . His scheme made use of the fact that particles inside the ergosphere can achieve negative total energy (i.e., including their rest-mass energy) if their orbital frequencies are small enough ($`\mathrm{\Omega }<a^1(1r/2M)`$). However, Bardeen et al. jhk:b72  pointed out that it would be very difficult to accomplish this task by particle-particle events because there is an extremely large velocity difference between positive and negative energy orbits.

Since Penrose’s initial suggestion, a number of other ideas have been proposed. The unifying theme of all these proposals is to couple the black hole’s spin to external matter by magnetic forces. In some sense, they are non-local realizations of the Penrose process that make use of electromagnetic effects to convey negative energy into the hole, whether by injecting it with negative energy wave modes or negative energy particles.

Because the first such scheme was proposed by Blandford & Znajek jhk:bz77 , there has been a tendency in the literature to refer to them all generically as the “Blandford-Znajek” mechanism. Although all of them share the fundamental idea of magnetic couplings, and so in that sense are different versions of the same basic idea, there are now enough variations on the theme to make a clearer categorization useful. It is the object of this paper to present such a categorization, along with some comments about these variations’ relative standing.

## II The Rate of Rotational Energy Change

Before embarking on this discussion it is worthwhile to pause a moment to discuss several points of principle in order to clarify our language. First of all, let us list the ways by which black holes can gain or lose angular momentum (we will omit mechanisms involving singular events such as the initial creation of the black hole or a merger with a comparable mass object). One way is through the action of its own gravitational field: matter orbiting with an angular momentum vector oriented obliquely to the angular momentum of a black hole feels a torque. Here we will ignore this effect, assuming that any nearby matter orbits in the plane normal to the black hole spin. A second way is through matter crossing the event horizon bearing angular momentum. The third and final mechanism is through capture of photons with orbital angular momentum.

Next, let us consider what is required in order to identify the source of energy for a given event. It is occasionally assumed (e.g., in jhk:lop98 ) that all energy lost from stably-orbiting matter in an accretion disk is drawn from gravitational potential energy lost by accreting matter, with none coming from the spin of the black hole. However, this distinction—made locally—can be problematic because the shape of the gravitational potential depends on the black hole spin. To take an extreme example, when $`a_{}=a/M>0.943`$, the marginally stable orbit falls inside the ergosphere; in that case, part of the orbital kinetic energy of the disk material is due to the rotation of the black hole. If there are other ways of coupling the rotation of the black hole to the disk (see below), the identity of the source of energy at any particular location can become even fuzzier.

Although the local energy source can be ill-defined, it is always possible to make this distinction globally. All that is necessary is to compute the fluxes of angular momentum and energy across the black hole’s event horizon.

However, even for this distinction one must be careful about definitions. For example, if matter accretes with exactly the specific angular momentum $`\widehat{L}_{ms}M`$ of the marginally stable orbit and the angular momentum of captured photons is neglected, the spin parameter $`a_{}`$ always increases toward unity; when captured radiation is included in the accounting, $`a_{}`$ reaches equilibrium at $`0.998`$ jhk:t74 . If the accreting matter arrives at the hole with a fraction $`1_{ms}`$ of $`\widehat{L}_{ms}M`$, we may regard the spin as being tapped because the hole’s rotational energy is less than it would have been if only the usual amount of energy (i.e. the binding energy at the marginally stable orbit) had been released.

One might also choose to impose the stronger condition that the hole is being “spun down” if $`a_{}`$ actually decreases. Dividing the angular momentum fluxes into those depending on accretion of rest-mass and those depending on photon capture (photon capture also includes capture of electromagnetic waves), we find that the rate of change of $`a_{}`$ is

$$\frac{da_{}}{dt}=\frac{\dot{M}_o}{M}\left[\left(1_{ms}\right)\widehat{L}_{ms}2a_{}(1\eta )\right]+\frac{\dot{M}_\gamma }{M}\left[𝒥_\gamma 2a_{}\right],$$
(2)
where $`\dot{M}_o`$ is the rate of rest-mass accretion, $`\eta `$ is the fraction of rest-mass energy lost before matter arrives at the black hole, $`\dot{M}_\gamma `$ is the rate at which the black hole mass changes due to photon accretion, and $`𝒥_\gamma M`$ is the mean angular momentum per photon. Note that $`\dot{M}_\gamma `$ depends on the energy of photons as measured at infinity; that can be quite different from the locally-measured photon energy. If photons are unimportant, whether $`a_{}`$ increases or decreases depends on the balance between the angular momentum brought into the black hole $`(1_{ms})\widehat{L}_{ms}`$ and the angular momentum required to maintain the same ratio of spin to mass, $`2a_{}(1\eta )`$.

It is apparent from equation 2 that $`a_{}`$ can fall even while the angular momentum $`a`$ increases: the rate of change of $`a`$ is the same as for $`a_{}`$ but without the two terms $`a_{}`$. Moreover, as equation 2 also shows, $`a_{}`$ might remain constant even while $`M`$ increases. If that is so, the total rotational energy still increases. This fact suggests a still stronger definition–that the actual rotational energy $`MM_i`$ decreases. Writing this criterion in terms of its component quantities, we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d(MM_i)}{dt}}=`$ $`\dot{M}_o\left\{\left(1\eta \right)\left[1m_i{\displaystyle \frac{a_{}^2}{2m_i(1a_{}^2)^{1/2}}}\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{a_{}\widehat{L}_{ms}(1_{ms})}{4m_i(1a_{}^2)^{1/2}}}\right\}`$ (3)
$`+\dot{M}_\gamma \left[1m_i{\displaystyle \frac{a_{}^2}{2m_i(1a_{}^2)^{1/2}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{a_{}𝒥_\gamma }{4m_i(1a_{}^2)^{1/2}}}\right],`$
where $`m_iM_i/M`$.

Thus, we see that the vague term “spindown” can connote any of several distinguishable results: diminishing $`a_{}`$, $`a`$, or $`MM_i`$. Because rotation contributes only a small amount to the total energy of the black hole when $`a_{}`$ is small, the different criteria are very similar for $`a_{}<0.8`$; for larger values of $`a_{}`$, the difference becomes more significant. When considering stored-energy reservoirs, the last definition is the most precise.

## III The Original Blandford-Znajek Mechanism

As remarked above, the first plausible mechanism for removing black hole spin energy was proposed by Blandford & Znajek jhk:bz77 . They imagined that as a black hole accretes, it would inevitably trap some net magnetic flux due to accreted field lines with connections to infinity. There would then be an approximately time-steady magnetic field configuration with field lines embedded in the hole’s event horizon, even while their far ends close at very large distance from the black hole. The enforced rotation of space-time due to the black hole spin would then drive an MHD wind. In their initial formulation, the field structure was supposed to be force-free everywhere, i.e. there was so little plasma attached to these field lines that $`B^2/4\pi \rho c^2`$ everywhere. Phinney jhk:p83  extended this picture to include a small, but finite, plasma rest-mass density so that MHD wave group speeds would remain (slightly) less than $`c`$. Even in this modification, there is so little inertia outside the event horizon of the black hole that the orbital motion of nearby plasma has little effect on the rotation rate of magnetic field lines; only the distant region where the energy is delivered is considered to have any significant inertia.

Similarly, because the accretion rate is taken to be negligible, the change in the black hole’s rotational energy is due solely to the term proportional to $`\dot{M}_\gamma `$ in equation 3; i.e., negative angular momentum and energy are brought to the black hole by zero rest-mass electromagnetic waves, not by ordinary matter.

These processes may also be visualized in terms of their associated electric fields. Suppose that the magnetic field is stationary with respect to a distant observer. Matter just outside the black hole is compelled to rotate with the hole, so in the matter’s frame there is an electric field perpendicular to both the field and the rotational velocity whose magnitude is proportional to the velocity mismatch between the field frame and the matter frame. This field drives a current from one field-line to another through the resistance of the horizon; the current then flows out along the new field-line until somewhere far from the black hole it crosses back to its original field-line and closes the circuit. When the resistance at infinity $`R_l`$ is comparable to the resistance in the horizon $`R_h`$, energy is dissipated in the distant “resistor” at a rate $`cr_g^2B_h^2`$, where $`B_h`$ is the magnitude of the field at the event horizon. This impedance matching is equivalent to the condition that all the work done by the horizon forcing the field to rotate reaches infinity.

In the usual formulation, the magnetic field is taken to be time-independent and force-free everywhere between the black hole and a distant, but localized, “load”. A corollary to the assumption that the load is localized is that ideal MHD and flux-freezing apply everywhere between the black hole and the load. The force-free assumption then assures that wherever the field and the plasma move in lock-step the field controls the rotation rate. Given those assumptions, matching the current through the horizon to the current through the load determines the rotation rate of the flux-lines linked by the current loop:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_F=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_hR_l+\mathrm{\Omega }_lR_h}{R_h+R_l},$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_h`$ is the rotation rate of the black hole and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_l`$ the rotation rate of the load jhk:b90 . The load’s rotation rate is determined by a balance between whatever forces (gravitational, magnetic, $`\mathrm{}`$) act upon it.

When thinking in terms of the equivalent circuit, it is important to distinguish true dissipative resistance from effective resistance (this distinction is closely related to the distinction between ordinary and radiation resistance). For example, if the field-lines at infinity pass through plasma with high conductivity, the major part of the energy transmitted to infinity can be in the form of bulk work; i.e., the distant matter can be accelerated coherently. By contrast, ordinary resistance produces heat. The impedance matching referred to earlier refers to the total load at infinity, not solely the dissipative part.

Because $`B_h`$ depends on the history of past accretion onto the black hole, specifically the total amount of net magnetic flux accreted, it is unclear how large $`B_h`$ should be. Because there is resistance in the horizon, the field must be supported by currents somewhere in the vicinity of the black hole. Rees et al. jhk:r82  suggested that they might be located in a “fossil” accretion disk so that they might not be any farther from the horizon than a distance $`r_g`$. Rees et al. then argued that the field could not be any larger than $`(r_{ms}/r_g)^2`$ times the pressure in the fossil disk, or there would be no dynamical equilibrium. Another way to set the scale is to suppose that there is a small amount of accretion, and estimate $`B_h`$ as comparable to the field strength in the nearby accretion disk; if, as seems likely from recent numerical simulations jhk:b96 ; jhk:s96 , $`B^2<8\pi p`$, this estimate yields a result somewhat smaller than the previous one jhk:ga97 . Combining the more conservative estimate with the assumption of good impedance matching, the expected luminosity is

$$L_{BZ}\dot{M}_oc^2(v_{orb,ms}/c)(r_{ms}/h_{ms})(r_g/r_{ms})^2,$$
(5)
where everything with subscript $`ms`$ is evaluated at the marginally stable orbit.

There are several issues regarding this mechanism that remain incompletely understood. Punsly & Coroniti jhk:pc90a  raised the question of whether the black hole event horizon and plasma far from the black hole could be in causal contact. They argued that, although the plasma density is taken to be negligible in the usual formulation of the Blandford-Znajek mechanism, it cannot be literally zero. There would then be some accretion onto the black hole, and the fast magnetosonic speed would be (slightly) less than $`c`$. If so, there would inevitably be a surface surrounding the event horizon within which the inward velocity of the plasma would be greater than the fast magnetosonic speed, and no signal carrying energy or information could propagate outward across that surface. Punsly jhk:p96  further argued that, because of severe gravitational redshifting, electromagnetic waves (in this case, the fast magnetosonic mode) can carry only tiny amounts of energy away from the event horizon. The significance of these criticisms is still unclear.

Further questions may also be raised about this form of the Blandford-Znajek scenario: Must the black hole necessarily accumulate a net flux? Perhaps all field lines suffer enough reconnection in the course of accretion that only closed loops are brought to the black hole. If this is the case, the field loops would close near the black hole, not far away. Would the mechanism still work if the plasma is not magnetically-dominated everywhere between the black hole and the load? Field lines passing through the accretion disk, for example, will surely have substantial inertia attached. Similarly, the load region (presumably near the Alfvenic surface of the wind where $`B^2/4\pi \rho v^2`$) might not be too far from the black hole even if the field lines close at much greater distance. One immediate consequence of non-force-free behavior would be to change equation 4 to involve a mean value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_l`$ weighted inversely by the local resistance between the magnetic flux surfaces. Two other consequences would be more serious, however. Significant plasma inertia would cause the magnetosonic speed to fall well below $`c`$, so that the inner magnetosonic surface would likely move well outside the event horizon. Plasma inertia would also slow the approach to stationarity and possibly disrupt it altogether. In that case, the whole time-steady picture—a fixed magnetosonic surface, well-defined field rotation rates, a steady-state lumped-parameter electrical circuit analog—would be undercut.

Differing answers to these questions may be regarded as the basis for the variations on this scheme that have been suggested. Alternatively, they may be used as the structure of a classification scheme. We will organize the remainder of this paper along those lines, dividing schemes according to their answers to three questions:

$``$ Does the innermost part of the magnetic field run through the event horizon or through plasma in the ergosphere?

$``$ Do the field loops close nearby (e.g., in the disk) or far away?

$``$ Is there anywhere in the system other than the horizon and a localized load where plasma inertia matters?

Labelled by this scheme, the original Blandford-Znajek mechanism is one in which the field lines run through the event horizon and out to infinity, and the field is force-free everywhere except in the event horizon and the load.

## IV Field Lines Anchored Outside the Horizon, Closed at Infinity, and Force-Free

The first alternative was invented by Punsly and Coroniti jhk:pc90a ; jhk:pc90b  and elaborated by Punsly (1996). It has also been recently discussed by Li jhk:l00b . They suggested that a better means to extract the rotational energy of the black hole might be a magneto-centrifugal wind anchored in plasma orbiting in the ergosphere, but well away from the event horizon (see also jhk:o92  for a similar idea). This device would finesse the possible causality problem of field lines tied to the event horizon, but would be otherwise quite similar to the original Blandford-Znajek idea: the field lines extend to infinity, the structure is supposed at least roughly time-steady, and the plasma inertia is required to be low enough as to satisfy the condition of magnetic domination everywhere but possibly in the distant load.

Preliminary numerical simulations of a version of this idea exist jhk:ksk98 . In these simulations, the initial magnetic field was taken to have uniform intensity and to be directed parallel to the rotation axis. Although the Alfven speed is relatively small in the equatorial plane, it is $`c`$ everywhere outside the disk. As a result, magnetic braking of orbiting material is very strong, leading to dramatic infall, shocks, and a (transient?) jet that is pressure-driven along the axis but magnetically-propelled at larger radius. Just as for the classic Blandford-Znajek mechanism, the characteristic luminosity scale is $`|\stackrel{}{B}|^2r_g^2c`$, but the coefficient could be considerably less than unity. Based on this point of view, Meier et al. jhk:m97  and Meier jhk:m99  have also sugested that the relative strength of the magnetic field at the base of the jet could explain the morphological contrast between FR1 and FR2 radio galaxies.

## V Field Lines Anchored in the Horizon, Closed in the Disk, and Force-Free

In the original Blandford-Znajek scheme, the field lines are anchored in the event horizon, but extend to infinity. It is also possible that some or all the field lines threading the horizon could instead close by passing through the disk. Because the material in the disk will arrive at the black hole in an infall time, the details of such a structure must be transitory. However, by the same token, if the loops close well outside the inner edge of the disk, the characteristic duration of this structure would be $`\alpha ^1(r/h)^2`$ dynamical times, where $`\alpha `$ is the usual ratio of $`r`$$`\varphi `$ stress to local pressure and $`h`$ is the disk thickness. Particularly in a thin disk, this could be a relatively long time.

For this reason, some discussions of this scheme have assumed a time-steady situation and its corollary, field lines with a fixed rotation frequency (e.g., jhk:l00a ; but see jhk:g00  for an intrinsically non-steady version). In this case, because the resistance of disk plasma is so much less than $`R_h`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_F`$ for all field-lines must be very nearly the rotational frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_d`$ of the disk matter they thread. To estimate the offset, we observe that the $`\stackrel{}{J}\times \stackrel{}{B}`$ force can be written in two equivalent ways. Most often, this force is evaluated by using Ampère’s Law (neglecting the displacement current) to write $`\stackrel{}{J}=(c/4\pi )\times \stackrel{}{B}`$. However, one can also use Ohm’s Law to compute the current, i.e. set $`\stackrel{}{J}=\sigma (\stackrel{}{E}+\stackrel{}{v}/c\times \stackrel{}{B})`$. Identifying the field-line velocity with the $`\stackrel{}{E}\times \stackrel{}{B}`$ drift speed jhk:j75 , we can then equate the two forms and find

$$|\mathrm{\Omega }_F\mathrm{\Omega }_d|\frac{c^2}{8\pi hr\sigma }$$
(6)
where $`h`$ is the disk thickness and $`r`$ is the radial coordinate of the place the field-lines pass through. If resistivity in accretion disks is due to electron-ion Coulomb collisions, $`\sigma 10^{14}`$ s<sup>-1</sup>; even if particle-wave scattering or turbulence magnifies the effective collision rate, $`|\mathrm{\Omega }_F\mathrm{\Omega }_d|\mathrm{\Omega }_d`$.

To compute the rate at which black hole rotational energy is tapped, one must next estimate the total resistive load due to the disk. The energy per unit volume dissipated by true electrical resistance is the characteristic rate of dissipation for turbulent magnetic field in the disk, $`(B^2/8\pi )\mathrm{\Omega }`$, times a very small factor $`c^2/(v_{orb}\sigma h)`$. On the other hand, if $`B_rB_\varphi 0`$, the rotational work done by the field is likely to be much larger. The problem is that the field structure within the disk is very much not force-free, so the usual simplifications invoked to estimate power output in the Blandford-Znajek mechanism don’t apply. As a result, detailed calculations are necessary to evaluate the true load—and therefore the power that is actually generated—in this model.

## VI Field Lines Anchored in Plunging Plasma, Closed in the Disk, and Not Force-Free

In contrast to the previous two pictures, let us now consider the consequences of a disk whose material is actually accreting. Within it, the growth of the magneto-rotational instability to nonlinear amplitude creates strong MHD turbulence. When plasma follows circular orbits whose frequency declines outward, the shear automatically biases the turbulence so that $`B_rB_\varphi <0`$ and angular momentum is carried outward, thereby permitting accretion jhk:bh98 .

When material leaves the marginally stable orbit and plunges inward, its high electrical conductivity assures that it carries magnetic flux along. Whether or not there is any net magnetic flux threading the black hole’s event horizon, most magnetic field lines in the plunging plasma are closed relatively close by, for the MHD turbulence in the disk should lead to much reconnection. The question now arises as to whether these field lines, threading plasma plunging along unstable orbits through the ergosphere, can exert enough stress to tap the black hole’s rotational energy at an interesting rate.

Novikov & Thorne jhk:nt73  argued that in a time-steady, axi-symmetric disk the stress $`T_{r\varphi }`$ should approach zero at the marginally stable orbit because the inertia of material in the plunging region inside $`r_{ms}`$ would be too small to exert any significant stress. If this were the case, this version of the Blandford-Znajek mechanism (and the previous one!) would be unimportant. However, as remarked in jhk:t74 ; jhk:pt74 , it is possible for magnetic forces to be significant even in the absence of substantial inertia. If so, $`T_{r\varphi }`$ need not go to zero at $`r_{ms}`$.

In fact, the same MHD processes that account for angular momentum transport in the disk proper are likely to apply in the neighborhood of $`r_{ms}`$. The existence of the magneto-rotational instability depends only on the disk shear; it is therefore just as strong in the vicinity of $`r_{ms}`$ as it is farther out in the disk. There is also no particular reason why MHD turbulence should damp more quickly in the inner disk than the outer. We may therefore expect the amplitude of MHD turbulence (normalized to the disk pressure) to remain roughly constant as $`rr_{ms}`$. Because the shear is still strong, we can likewise expect $`T_{r\varphi }/Tr(T)`$ to not change dramatically in this region. In fact, if anything, the ratio of magnetic stress to pressure is likely to rise near $`r_{ms}`$ because the pressure begins to decline as the inflow velocity rises, whereas we can expect the magnetic field strength to vary more slowly. It therefore appears that there is no local mechanism to enforce the decline in $`T_{r\varphi }`$ demanded by the Novikov-Thorne model.

If this is the case, flux-freezing through the plunging region can lead to magnetic forces becoming comparable to gravity in a roughly time-steady and axi-symmetric accretion flow when $`v_rv_\varphi `$ jhk:k99 . $`T_{r\varphi }`$ at $`r_{ms}`$ large enough to significantly alter the accretion efficiency follows as a corollary jhk:g99 ; in a time-steady, axi-symmetric state, the additional dissipation per unit area in the disk falls roughly as $`r^{7/2}`$ at $`rr_{ms}`$ jhk:ak00 .

Recent simulations by Hawley & Krolik jhk:hk00  (3-d non-relativistic MHD in the pseudo-Newtonian Pacyński-Wiita potential) support these arguments (but see also jhk:arc00 ). They find that the inner regions of disks become highly turbulent and non-steady, but that the azimuthally-averaged and vertically-integrated magnetic stress is essentially flat from the innermost part of the disk proper through the marginally stable orbit and well into the plunging region. One might therefore expect the accretion efficiency to be somewhat greater than the one predicted on the basis of zero-stress at $`r_{ms}`$ even without black hole rotation.

Black hole rotation (and its attendant frame-dragging) may enhance this supplemental energy release because it is mediated by magnetic torques jhk:g99 . In other words, when the black hole rotates, this mechanism is very similar to the previous one, but transfers the inner field “anchor” to plunging plasma and does not require either force-free field structure or time-steadiness.

As for any mechanism proposed to tap black hole spin, “spindown” must be defined carefully. If the weakest of the three criteria is used, any increase in the accretion efficiency above the nominal is associated with a diminution of the black hole’s rotational energy, for it means that the accreting matter enters the hole with smaller angular momentum than it might otherwise have. If the constant $`a_{}`$ criterion is used and captured radiation is ignored, spindown occurs when the efficiency is greater than

$$\eta _{eq}=1\frac{\sqrt{13/r_{ms}+2a_{}/r_{ms}^{3/2}}}{1a_{}/r_{ms}^{3/2}},$$
(7)
jhk:ak00 . For $`0a_{}<0.95`$, $`\eta _{eq}0.3`$ – 0.35. Captured radiation diminishes $`\eta _{eq}`$ by $`0.1`$ for $`a_{}>0.99`$. The contrast between this criterion and the strongest one (in which the rotational energy actually declines) is illustrated in Figure 1. Although a genuine evaluation of how large this effect might be requires numerical MHD simulations, simplified (simplistic?) analytic estimates indicate that even this criterion might be met when $`a_{}>0.6`$ jhk:g99 .

Because the spindown luminosity in this mechanism is intimately tied to accretion, its natural luminosity scale is the accretion luminosity scale, $`\dot{M}_oc^2`$. However, effects such as mass clumping or magnetic reconnection could diminish it, possibly by sizable factors.

## VII Field Loops Anchored in the Ergosphere, Closed inside the Marginally Stable Orbit, and Not Force-Free

If, like the magnetic field on the horizon, the field strength in the plunging region is comparable to its value in the disk, it could in principle drive a substantial magneto-centrifugal wind. Unlike most MHD wind models, this one would be very far from time-steady, for the character of the field in this region changes in a free-fall time. In a time-steady wind, field lines must extend to infinity, for fluid elements have been travelling outward, carrying their magnetic flux with them, for effectively forever. By contrast, when the wind is highly variable, there is no requirement for any continuity in field structure between fluid elements expelled long ago and those just entering the wind today.

Nonetheless, the same dynamics that drive time-steady winds should also apply in this context. In fact, circumstances might be more propitious toward wind creation in this region than in the disk, for the Alfven speed should be rather higher due to the similar strength magnetic field and the much smaller inertia (cf. the simulations reported in jhk:m99 ). Local fluctuations in the angular momentum of plunging fluid elements could lead to shocks in this region, and strong local heating. Just as for the Blandford-Znajek mechanism, the characteristic luminosity scale is $`|\stackrel{}{B}|^2r_g^2c`$, but the coefficient could be considerably less than unity.

## VIII Disk Winds

Finally, it is useful as a standard of comparison to contrast these variations on the Blandford-Znajek mechanism with magneto-centrifugal winds launched from an accretion disk. Indeed, Livio et al. jhk:lop98  claimed that the black hole spin energy reservoir would always be relatively unimportant because electromagnetic energy loss from the accretion disk would always exceed that from the black hole itself through the Blandford-Znajek mechanism. Their argument (an elaboration of one in jhk:bz77 ) hinged on a simple order-of-magnitude comparison: They estimated that the luminosity of a disk-driven wind would be generically $`O(10)cr_g^2B_{pd}B_{td}`$, where $`B_{(p,t)d}`$ are the poloidal and toroidal magnetic field components in the disk and the factor $`O(10)`$ accounts for the fact that the surface area of the disk is rather larger than the surface area of the black hole. Supposing that all currents supporting magnetic fields are found in the disk, they then estimated $`B_h<B_{pd}`$, so that the disk luminosity would always be greater than the Blandford-Znajek luminosity.

However, this luminosity estimate is based on the implicit assumption that the $`r`$-$`\varphi `$ component of the Maxwell stress in the disk wind has a vertical scale height comparable to the disk radius, not the (gas density-determined) disk thickness. This is a very strong assumption. At the moment, there is no way to rigorously evaluate its quality, but there are a few suggestive results in hand already from simulations jhk:ms00 ; jhk:hk00 . Both of these indicate that the magnetic stresses decline vertically more slowly than does the gas density, but the scale height ratio is only a factor of two or three. If later work confirms these tentative results, the estimated magnetic wind luminosity of the disk would be greatly reduced. Mechanisms that derive their energy from the spin of the black hole, but do not put the energy into winds, would then rise in relative importance.

## IX Conclusions

Virtually every idea anyone has suggested about how to extract spin energy from black holes involves magnetic fields anchored in the black hole’s ergosphere in one way or another. At the same time, the variations possible among these ideas (whether the field lines close at infinity or in the disk, whether they are anchored in the horizon or farther away, $`\mathrm{}`$) raise different questions and different opportunities. In discussions of these ideas, it is therefore important to distinguish carefully between them, for questions and criticisms raised about one version do not necessarily apply to the others. It has been the aim of this short paper to provide a convenient framework for making these distinctions, and to assess (in a necessarily subjective fashion) their current standing.

In order for further progress to be made, it is apparent that (at least) three key questions must be answered:

1.) Is it possible for energy and angular momentum to be carried away from a black hole when the field lines are anchored only in the horizon?

2.) Do black holes accumulate net magnetic flux (so that field loops close far away from the black hole and the structure changes on very long timescales) or does enough reconnection accompany accretion that field loops all close nearby, and the structure changes on the infall timescale?

3.) Can one think of the field as being force-free everywhere but in a small load, or is the plasma inertia qualitatively important?

###### Acknowledgements.

I am happy to acknowledge stimulating and instructive conversations with Eric Agol, Roger Blandford, Doug Eardley, and Ethan Vishniac. This work was partially supported by NSF Grant AST-9616922.