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# Divergence-free WKB method

## Abstract

A new semiclassical approach to linear (L) and nonlinear (NL) one-dimensional Schrödinger equation (SE) is presented. Unlike the usual WKB solution, our solution does not diverge at the classical turning point. For LSE, our zeroth-order solution, when expanded in powers of $`\mathrm{}`$, agrees with the usual WKB solution $`e^{iS/\mathrm{}}/\sqrt{v}`$ up to $`𝒪(\mathrm{}^0)`$, where $`S`$ and $`v`$ are the classical action and the velocity, respectively. For NLSE, our zeroth-order solution includes quantum corrections to the Thomas-Fermi solution, thereby giving a smoothly decaying wave function into the forbidden region.

The WKB method allows us to derive expressions for various quantum-mechanical quantities when the action is much larger than $`\mathrm{}`$, and has been widely used in many subfields of physics and chemistry . Nevertheless, the WKB method has a serious flaw of divergence at the classical turning point, which originates from the fact that the classical trajectry is taken as the zeroth-order solution. Considerable efforts have been devoted to overcome this problem, among other things, the complex method  and the uniform approximation . However, the former method cannot describe the wave function at the turning point, while the latter one requires us to resort to a comparison function  that mimics the original potential and to which an analytic solution is available. This Letter presents a new semiclassical method whose zeroth-order solution is constructed upon a trajectry with quantum corrections such that the aforementioned divergence is absent. Moreover, our method gives a solution to the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) on an equal footing.

We begin by reviewing the WKB method for the one-dimensional linear Schrödinger equation (LSE) $`\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}\frac{d^2\psi }{dx^2}+V\psi =E\psi `$. Rescaling the length and the energy in units of $`l`$ and $`\mathrm{}^2/2ml^2`$, respectively, where $`l`$ is a characteristic length scale of the potential $`V(x)`$, LSE takes the form

$$\psi ^{\prime \prime }+V\psi =E\psi ,$$
(1)
where the prime denotes the differentiation with respect to $`x`$. In Eq. (1), the length $`x`$ and the energies $`E,V`$ are proportional to $`\mathrm{}^0`$ and $`\mathrm{}^2`$, respectively. We introduce the action function $`\phi (x)`$ through $`\psi (x)=e^{\phi (x)}`$ , where the action is measured in units of $`\mathrm{}`$. In terms of $`\phi (x)`$, Eq. (1) takes the form

$$(\phi ^{})^2+(EV)=\phi ^{\prime \prime }.$$
(2)
The zeroth-order WKB solution $`\phi _{\mathrm{WKB},0}^{}`$ , which is obtained by neglecting $`\phi ^{\prime \prime }`$ in Eq. (2), satisfies the following equation:

$$(\phi _{\mathrm{WKB},0}^{})^2+(EV)=0.$$
(3)
The classical turning point $`x^{(\mathrm{c})}`$ is determined by $`V(x^{(\mathrm{c})})=E`$. Incorporating the effect of $`\phi ^{\prime \prime }`$ perturbatively, the WKB solution $`\phi _{\mathrm{WKB}}^{}`$ takes familiar forms as

$$\phi _{\mathrm{WKB}}^{}=\{\begin{array}{cc}\pm i\hfill & \sqrt{EV}\frac{1}{4}\frac{V^{}}{VE}+\mathrm{}(V<E),\hfill \\ \pm \hfill & \sqrt{VE}\frac{1}{4}\frac{V^{}}{VE}+\mathrm{}(V>E).\hfill \end{array}$$
(4)
We note that the WKB solution diverges at $`x^{(\mathrm{c})}`$. This divergence originates from the fact that the classical trajectry is taken as the zeroth-order solution. Our strategy is to incorporate quantum corrections in the zeroth-order solution so as to remove the divergence.

To carry out this program, we differentiate both sides of Eq. (2) with respect to $`x`$, having

$$2\phi ^{}\phi ^{\prime \prime }V^{}=\phi ^{\prime \prime \prime },$$
(5)
and substitute $`\phi ^{\prime \prime }`$ in Eq. (2) into Eq. (5), obtaining

$$(\phi ^{})^3+(EV)\phi ^{}+\frac{1}{2}V^{}=\frac{1}{2}\phi ^{\prime \prime \prime }.$$
(6)
The Schrödinger equation (1) is sufficient for Eq. (6) to hold, but it is not necessary. To show this, we add $`\phi ^{}\phi ^{\prime \prime }`$ to both sides of Eq. (6) and integrate the resulting equation with respect to $`x`$. We then get

$$ge^{2\phi }=(\phi ^{})^2+(EV)+\phi ^{\prime \prime },$$
(7)
where $`g`$ is a constant of integration. Equation (7) can be rewriten as

$$\psi ^{\prime \prime }+V\psi +g\psi ^3=E\psi .$$
(8)
This is nothing but NLSE which includes LSE as a particular case of $`g=0`$. Throughout this Letter, we assume that for NLSE the wave function is normalized to unity $`_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x|\psi (x)|^2=1`$, while for LSE the normalization constant is left arbitrary.

Our zeroth-order solution $`\phi _0^{}`$, which is obtained by neglecting $`\phi ^{\prime \prime \prime }`$ in Eq. (6), satisfies the following cubic equation

$$(\phi _0^{})^3+3p\phi _0^{}+2q=0,$$
(9)
where $`p(EV)/3`$ and $`qV^{}/4`$. Comparing Eqs. (6) and (9) with Eqs. (2) and (3), respectively, we see our method is a natural extension of the WKB method. Equation (9) is the fundamental equation of our new semiclassical method. As we shall see later, the solutions of Eq. (9) lead to divergence-free wave functions.

A root of the determinant of Eq. (9), $`Dp^3+q^2=0`$, determines our turning point $`x=x^{(\mathrm{q})}`$, which includes quantum corrections. In fact, the difference between $`x^{(\mathrm{q})}`$ and $`x^{(\mathrm{c})}`$ may be expanded as

$$x^{(\mathrm{q})}x^{(\mathrm{c})}=\frac{3}{2}\frac{1}{[2V^{}(x^{(\mathrm{c})})]^{1/3}}\left(1+\frac{ϵ}{2}+𝒪(ϵ^2,\delta )\right),$$
(10)
where

$`ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{V^{\prime \prime }(x^{(\mathrm{c})})}{[2V^{}(x^{(\mathrm{c})})]^{4/3}}}\mathrm{and}\delta {\displaystyle \frac{V^{\prime \prime \prime }(x^{(\mathrm{c})})}{[2V^{}(x^{(\mathrm{c})})]^{5/3}}}.`$

We first discuss the zeroth-order solution. In the allowed region, the cubic equation (9) has the following three solutions:

$$\phi _0^{}=\{\begin{array}{ccc}\kappa ,\hfill & & \\ \frac{1}{2}\kappa +ik\phi _+^{},\hfill & & \\ \frac{1}{2}\kappa ik\phi _{}^{},\hfill & & \end{array}$$
(11)
where

$$\{\begin{array}{ccccc}\kappa (x)\hfill & & (q+\sqrt{D})^{1/3}+(q\sqrt{D})^{1/3}\hfill & ,\hfill & \\ k(x)\hfill & \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}\hfill & \left[(q+\sqrt{D})^{1/3}(q\sqrt{D})^{1/3}\right]\hfill & .\hfill & \end{array}$$
(12)
When expanded in powers of $`\mathrm{}`$, Eq. (11) reduces to

$$\phi _0^{}=\{\begin{array}{ccccccccccc}\kappa =\hfill & & & \hfill & \frac{2q}{3p}+𝒪(\mathrm{}^1)=\hfill & & & & \frac{1}{2}\frac{V^{}}{VE}+𝒪(\mathrm{}^1),\hfill & & \\ \phi _+^{}=\hfill & & i\sqrt{3p}\hfill & +\hfill & \frac{q}{3p}+𝒪(\mathrm{}^1)=\hfill & & i\sqrt{EV}\hfill & \hfill & \frac{1}{4}\frac{V^{}}{VE}+𝒪(\mathrm{}^1),\hfill & & \\ \phi _{}^{}=\hfill & \hfill & i\sqrt{3p}\hfill & +\hfill & \frac{q}{3p}+𝒪(\mathrm{}^1)=\hfill & \hfill & i\sqrt{EV}\hfill & \hfill & \frac{1}{4}\frac{V^{}}{VE}+𝒪(\mathrm{}^1).\hfill & & \end{array}$$
(13)
where $`\kappa `$ and $`\phi _\pm ^{}`$, respectively, correspond to the Thomas-Fermi solution  and the WKB solutions (4) up to $`𝒪(\mathrm{}^0)`$. Substituting Eq. (13) into Eq. (7), we obtain

$$g\psi ^2=\{\begin{array}{ccc}EV+\hfill & 𝒪(\mathrm{}^0)\mathrm{for}\phi _0^{}=\kappa ,\hfill & \\ & 𝒪(\mathrm{}^0)\mathrm{for}\phi _0^{}=\phi _+^{},\hfill & \\ & 𝒪(\mathrm{}^0)\mathrm{for}\phi _0^{}=\phi _{}^{}.\hfill & \end{array}$$
(14)
From Eq. (14), it is clear that $`\kappa `$ and $`\phi _\pm ^{}`$ give a solution to NLSE and those to LSE, respectively.

In the forbidden region, the cubic equation (9) has the following three real solutions :

$$\phi _0^{}=\{\begin{array}{ccc}\kappa \hfill & =\hfill & 2\sqrt{p}\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{Arctan}\frac{\sqrt{D}}{|q|}\right),\hfill \\ \chi _+^{}\hfill & =\hfill & 2\sqrt{p}\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{Arctan}\frac{\sqrt{D}}{|q|}+\frac{2\pi }{3}\right),\hfill \\ \chi _{}^{}\hfill & =\hfill & 2\sqrt{p}\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{Arctan}\frac{\sqrt{D}}{|q|}\frac{2\pi }{3}\right),\hfill \end{array}$$
(15)
where the $``$ and $`+`$ signs correspond to $`V^{}>0`$ and $`V^{}<0`$, respectively. When expanded in powers of $`\mathrm{}`$, Eq. (15) reduces to

$$\phi _0^{}=\{\begin{array}{cccccccccc}\kappa =\hfill & \sqrt{3p}\hfill & +\hfill & \frac{q}{3p}+𝒪(\mathrm{}^1)=\hfill & \sqrt{VE}\hfill & \hfill & \frac{1}{4}\frac{V^{}}{VE}+𝒪(\mathrm{}^1),\hfill & & & \\ \chi _+^{}=\hfill & \pm \sqrt{3p}\hfill & +\hfill & \frac{q}{3p}+𝒪(\mathrm{}^1)=\hfill & \pm \sqrt{VE}\hfill & \hfill & \frac{1}{4}\frac{V^{}}{VE}+𝒪(\mathrm{}^1),\hfill & & & \\ \chi _{}^{}=\hfill & & \hfill & \frac{2q}{3p}+𝒪(\mathrm{}^1)=\hfill & & & \frac{1}{2}\frac{V^{}}{VE}+𝒪(\mathrm{}^1),\hfill & & & \end{array}$$
(16)
where $`\kappa `$ and $`\chi _+^{}`$ correspond to the WKB solutions (4) up to $`O(\mathrm{}^0)`$. Substituting Eq. (16) into Eq. (7), we obtain

$$g\psi ^2=\{\begin{array}{cccc}& & 𝒪(\mathrm{}^0)\mathrm{for}\phi _0^{}=\kappa ,\hfill & \\ & & 𝒪(\mathrm{}^0)\mathrm{for}\phi _0^{}=\chi _+^{},\hfill & \\ EV\hfill & +\hfill & 𝒪(\mathrm{}^0)\mathrm{for}\phi _0^{}=\chi _{}^{}.\hfill & \end{array}$$
(17)
To proceed further with our analysis, we shall assume that $`V^{}(x)0(x)`$. Then the wave function must decay to zero as $`x\mathrm{}`$, i.e., $`\underset{x\mathrm{}}{lim}\psi (x)=0`$. Consequently, in the forbidden region, $`\kappa `$ must be chosen as the zeroth-order solution $`\phi _0^{}`$ for both cases of LSE and NLSE. Note that, for NLSE, $`g\psi ^2=𝒪(\mathrm{}^0)`$ in Eq. (17) does not mean that $`g=0`$ but that the wave function is well damped in the forbidden region.

We are now in a position to construct our zeroth-order wave functions to LSE and NLSE. For NLSE, the zeroth-order wave function is

$$\psi _0(x)=N\mathrm{exp}\left(_{x^{(\mathrm{q})}}^x𝑑x^{}\kappa (x^{})\right),$$
(18)
where $`N`$ is a normalization constant. Note that this single solution covers both allowed and forbidden regions.

For LSE, the zeroth-order wave function can be described, in general, as follows

$$\psi _0(x)=\{\begin{array}{cccc}A_+\mathrm{exp}\left(_{x^{(\mathrm{q})}}^x𝑑x^{}\phi _+^{}(x^{})\right)+A_{}\mathrm{exp}\left(_{x^{(\mathrm{q})}}^x𝑑x^{}\phi _{}^{}(x^{})\right)\psi _\mathrm{I}(x)\hfill & (x<x^{(\mathrm{q})}),\hfill & & \\ \mathrm{exp}\left(_{x^{(\mathrm{q})}}^x𝑑x^{}\kappa (x^{})\right)\psi _{\mathrm{II}}(x)\hfill & (x>x^{(\mathrm{q})}).\hfill & & \end{array}$$
(19)
To determine the relation between constants $`A_+`$ and $`A_{}`$, we note that, near $`x^{(\mathrm{c})}`$, LSE (1) reduces to

$$\frac{d^2\psi }{d\xi ^2}+\xi \psi =0,$$
(20)
where $`\xi [V^{}(x^{(\mathrm{c})})]^{1/3}(xx^{(\mathrm{c})})`$. The exact solution of Eq. (20) that satisfies the boundary condition $`\underset{\xi \mathrm{}}{lim}\psi (\xi )=0`$ is the Airy function $`\mathrm{Ai}(\xi )`$ . In the region $`|\xi |1`$, the asymptotic forms of $`\mathrm{Ai}(\xi )`$ are

$$\mathrm{Ai}(\xi )\{\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi }}(\xi )^{1/4}\hfill & \mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{2}{3}(\xi )^{3/2}+\frac{\pi }{4}\right)\hfill & (\xi <0),\hfill \\ \frac{1}{2\sqrt{\pi }}\xi ^{1/4}\hfill & \mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{2}{3}\xi ^{3/2}\right)\hfill & (\xi >0).\hfill \end{array}$$
(21)
On the other hand, for the linear potential, where $`p=[V^{}(x^{(\mathrm{c})})]^{2/3}\xi /3`$ and $`q=V^{}(x^{(\mathrm{c})})/4`$, one can integrate $`\phi _\pm ^{}`$ and $`\kappa `$ in Eq. (19); then the asymptotic behavior of Eq. (19) for $`|\xi |1`$ becomes

$$\psi _0=\{\begin{array}{cc}\psi _\mathrm{I}(2e)^{2/3}2^{1/3}(\xi )^{1/4}\left[A_+\mathrm{exp}\left(i\left(\frac{2}{3}(\xi )^{3/2}+\frac{\pi }{4}\right)\right)+A_{}\mathrm{exp}\left(i\left(\frac{2}{3}(\xi )^{3/2}+\frac{\pi }{4}\right)\right)\right]\hfill & \\ (\xi <0),& \\ \psi _{\mathrm{II}}\frac{1}{2}(2e)^{5/6}2^{1/3}\xi ^{1/4}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{2}{3}\xi ^{3/2}\right)(\xi >0).\hfill & \end{array}$$
(22)
For Eq. (22) to match Eq. (21), we must choose $`A_+/A_{}=1`$. The zeroth-order solution (19) can thus be described as

$$\psi _0(x)=\{\begin{array}{cccc}\psi _\mathrm{I}=A\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2}_{x^{(\mathrm{q})}}^x𝑑x^{}\kappa (x^{})\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(_x^{x^{(\mathrm{q})}}𝑑x^{}k(x^{})\right)\hfill & (x<x_0),\hfill & & \\ \psi _{\mathrm{II}}=\mathrm{exp}\left(_{x^{(\mathrm{q})}}^x𝑑x^{}\kappa (x^{})\right)\hfill & (x>x_0),\hfill & & \end{array}$$
(23)
where $`A2iA_\pm `$. For $`\psi _\mathrm{I}`$ and $`\psi _{\mathrm{II}}`$ and their first derivatives to be continuous at a certain point $`x_0(<x^{(\mathrm{q})})`$, i.e., $`\psi _\mathrm{I}(x_0)=\psi _{\mathrm{II}}(x_0)`$ and $`\psi _\mathrm{I}^{}(x_0)=\psi _{\mathrm{II}}^{}(x_0)`$, $`x_0`$ and $`A`$ must satisfy $`\mathrm{tan}\left(_{x_0}^{x^{(\mathrm{q})}}𝑑xk(x)\right)=\frac{2k(x_0)}{3\kappa (x_0)}`$ and $`A=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{3}{2}_{x_0}^{x^{(\mathrm{q})}}𝑑x\kappa (x)\right)\mathrm{cosec}\left(_{x_0}^{x^{(\mathrm{q})}}𝑑xk(x)\right)`$. These simulutaneous equations can be solved approximately, giving $`x_0=x^{(\mathrm{c})}+𝒪(ϵ)`$ and $`A=(2e)^{3/2}+𝒪(ϵ)`$. For the linear potential $`(ϵ=0)`$, the asymptotic behavior of $`\psi _\mathrm{I}`$ ($`\psi _{\mathrm{II}}`$) in Eq. (22) for $`\xi \mathrm{}`$ ($`+\mathrm{}`$) with $`A_\pm =(2e)^{3/2}/2i`$ exactly agrees with that of $`\mathrm{Ai}(\xi )`$ in Eq. (21) except for an overall factor.

Our zeroth-order wave function (23) vanishes at $`x^{(\mathrm{q})}`$ for any potential, which gives us a new quantization condition (compared with the WKB quantization condition)

$$\{\begin{array}{cccc}\frac{1}{2\pi }𝑑xk(x)\hfill & =\frac{1}{\pi }_{x_\mathrm{L}^{(\mathrm{q})}}^{x_\mathrm{R}^{(\mathrm{q})}}𝑑x\hfill & k(x)=n+1\hfill & \\ & & (\mathrm{Our}\mathrm{method}),\hfill & \\ \frac{1}{2\pi }𝑑xk_{\mathrm{WKB}}(x)\hfill & =\frac{1}{\pi }_{x_\mathrm{L}^{(\mathrm{c})}}^{x_\mathrm{R}^{(\mathrm{c})}}𝑑x\hfill & k_{\mathrm{WKB}}(x)=n+\frac{1}{2}\hfill & \\ & & (\mathrm{the}\mathrm{WKB}\mathrm{method}),\hfill & \end{array}$$
(24)
where $`k(x)`$ is given in Eq. (12), $`k_{\mathrm{WKB}}(x)\sqrt{EV(x)}`$, $`n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$ is the number of nodes of the wave function, and the suffixes L and R denote the left- and right-side turning points, respectively. We note that $`k(x)`$ and $`x^{(\mathrm{q})}`$ include quantum corretions, which accounts for an extra $`1/2`$ in our quantization condition.

We have so far ignored the term $`\phi ^{\prime \prime \prime }/2`$ on the right-hand side of Eq. (6). The effect of this term may be evaluated perturbatively, giving

$$\phi _1^{}=\frac{1}{27}\left[\phi _0^{}(V^{})^2\frac{\left(\phi _0^{}\frac{V^{\prime \prime }}{2V^{}}\right)^2}{\left((\phi _0^{})^2+p\right)^4}+(V^{})^2\frac{\phi _0^{}\frac{V^{\prime \prime }}{2V^{}}}{\left((\phi _0^{})^2+p\right)^3}+\frac{3}{2}V^{\prime \prime }\frac{\phi _0^{}\frac{V^{\prime \prime \prime }}{2V^{\prime \prime }}}{\left((\phi _0^{})^2+p\right)^2}\right].$$
(25)
The first-order wave function $`\psi _1(x)`$ can be constructed by using $`\phi _0^{}+\phi _1^{}`$ instead of $`\phi _0^{}`$.

We finally apply the zeroth-order solution $`\psi _0(x)`$ and the first-order solution $`\psi _1(x)`$ to a linear potential (Figs. 1 and 2), a parabolic potential $`V=x^2`$ with $`E=17`$ (Figs. 3 and 4), and the Morse potential $`V=900[\mathrm{exp}(2x)2\mathrm{exp}(x)]`$ with $`E=(39/2)^2`$ (Fig. 5). We also compare them with the exact solution and the WKB solution or a solution in which the Thomas-Fermi and WKB ones are combined.

As shown in the figures, the zeroth-order wave function $`\psi _0`$ does not diverge at the turning point but the error is discernible around the classical turning point $`x^{(\mathrm{c})}`$. This small discrepancy is drastically improved by using the first-order wave function $`\psi _1`$. The error associated with the zeroth-order solution is estimated to be

$$\mathrm{max}\left|\frac{\psi _0\psi _{\mathrm{exact}}}{\psi _{\mathrm{exact}}}\right|0.0280.36ϵ+𝒪(ϵ^2,\delta ).$$
(26)
Equation (26) implies that our zeroth-order wave functions (18) and (23) are suitable for $`ϵ>0`$ rather than $`ϵ<0`$; when $`ϵ<0`$, the wave function is unstable against a small perturbation.

In conclusion, we proposed a divergence-free semiclassical method that enables us to solve LSE and NLSE on an equall footing. Our zeroth-order solution is constructed upon a trajectry that includes quantum corrections and therefore allows a rapidly converging perturbative expansion of the wave function. Our method may therefore be applied to drastically improving related semiclassical methods such as instantons  and periodic orbital theory . The results of these subjects will be reported elsewhere.

This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Reseach (Grant No. 11216204) by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture of Japan, and by the Toray Science Foundation.


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# Giant negative magnetoresistance in semiconductors doped by multiply charged deep impurities

## Abstract

A giant negative magnetoresistance has been observed in bulk germanium doped with multiply charged deep impurities. Applying a magnetic field the resistance may decrease exponentially at any orientation of the field. A drop of the resistance as much as about 10000% has been measured at 6 T. The effect is attributed to the spin splitting of impurity ground state with a very large g-factor in the order of several tens depending on impurity.

It is surprising that in well investigated transport properties of bulk semiconductors, particularly in the best known material germanium, until now new and previously not observed phenomena can be found. Here we report on a giant negative magnetoresistance in Ge which shows sizable effects already at very small magnetic field strengths. An exponential drop of the resistance with rising magnetic field, which may be more than two orders of magnitudes, occurs in a parallel as well in perpendicular orientation of current and magnetic field.

Negative magnetoresistance has attracted much interest in the last decades due to the large variety of physical phenomena causing a drop of the resistance of semiconductors in an external magnetic fields. One of the striking effects is the low temperature giant negative magnetoresistance observed in disordered structures in magnetic fields with a variable range hoping regime due to quantum interference leading to weak localization . Other important mechanisms of giant negative magnetoresistance in semiconductors are magnetic field controlled metal-insulator transitions, removal of a minigap in a semiconductor superlattice, and magnetic field suppression of spin-disorder scattering . The application of a magnetic field on magnetic perovskites aligns the spins in different magnetic domains thereby lowering the energy barrier for carriers and yielding a colossal negative magnetoresistance. A negative magnetoresistance occurs also in carbon nanotubes which has been shown to exhibit ballistic electron transport, the increase of conductivity has been attributed to a magnetic field induced increase of the density of states in the vicinity of the Fermi level. The giant negative magnetoresistance reported here has only been observed in samples doped with multiply charged impurities and could not be detected in materials with only singly charged impurities.

The experiments have been carried out on Ge:Hg, Ge:Cu, and Ge:Ga. In germanium Hg and Cu are deep acceptors doubly and and triply charged, respectively, whereas Ga is a singly charged shallow acceptor. The binding energies of holes on Hg are 90 meV and 230 meV for detachment of the first and the second hole, respectively. From Cu three holes may be removed with the binding energies 40 meV, 320 meV, and ($`E_g260`$) meV where $`E_g`$ is the energy gap. The hydrogen-like shallow impurity Ga has an ionization energy of about 10 meV. The doping levels were in the range from 1014 to 3x$`10^{15}`$ cm-3. The typical size of the samples was 5 x 3 x 1 mm3. One pair of ohmic contacts were prepared on opposite faces. The samples were fixed in a temperature variable cryostat. The resistance of the samples in the dark has been obtained from the low voltage ohmic range of current-voltage characteristics. A magnetic field $`B`$ up to 6 T could be applied parallel and perpendicular to the current flow by a superconducting magnet.

The conductance, $`\sigma =1/\rho `$, where $`\rho `$ is the sample resistivity, measured at zero magnetic field is shown as a function of the inverse temperature, $`1/T`$, is plotted in the insets of Fig. 1 and 2 for Ge:Hg and Ge:Cu, respectively. At low temperatures the temperature dependencies exhibit a clear Arhenius behaviour determined by the corresponding binding energies. All magnetoresistance measurements have been carried out in these temperature ranges.

In Fig. 1 the resistance of a Ge:Hg sample is shown as a function of the magnetic field $`B`$ normalized by the temperature $`T`$ for various, but for each measurement constant temperatures. At low temperatures (curves 5, 4, and 3) and small magnetic field strengths ($`2`$ T) the resistance drops exponentially with the same slope for different temperatures. At higher field strength the resistance saturates. At higher temperatures (curves 1 and 2 in Fig. 1) the magnetic field dependence gets weaker and finally the negative magnetoresistance changes to positive magnetoresistance. In the case of the perpendicular geometry, the negative magnetoresistance is still present at low temperatures but it is substantially smaller than in the parallel geometry. This is caused by a compensation due to the ordinary positive magnetoresistance in transverse magnetic fields.

The analogous measurements on Ge:Cu are shown in Fig. 2. The results are qualitatively the same with the difference that the slope is here only one third of that of Ge:Hg.

The strength of the negative magnetoresistance is independent on compensation ratio in the investigated range $`N_D/N_A=0.18`$ to $`0.6`$ at low temperatures but gets dependent at higher temperatures where a substantial free carrier density exists in the band. This is shown in Fig. 3 where the resistance as a function of $`B/T`$ at constant $`T`$ for various temperatures and for two compensation ratios is plotted. The inset show the Arhenius plot of the conductivity.

The negative magnetoresistance has only been observed in the dark and in a temperature range where only a small fraction of the impurities were ionized. If the samples were irradiated by visible or infrared light with photon energies larger than the impurity binding energies, the negative photoconductivity vanished. In the case of positive magnetoresistance (at high temperatures) irradiation did not affect the resistance ratio $`\rho _B/\rho _{B=0}`$.

With the singly charged shallow acceptor Ga in germanium only positive magnetoresistance could be detected down to liquid helium temperature.

The observations that a giant negative magnetoresistance occurs only in materials doped with multiply charged impurities and that the resistance decreases exponentially with rising magnetic field in a significant range of temperature and magnetic field strength give a key for a qualitative understanding of the phenomenon. The exponential drop of the resistance indicates a decrease of the impurity binding energy being linear as a function of the magnetic field. The different behaviour of singly and doubly charged impurities showing positive and negative magnetoresistance, respectively, will be discussed on the basis of a comparison with magnetic field dependence of the ionization energy of neutral hydrogen and helium atoms. In both cases the low energy edge of the continuum states does not depend on magnetic field because the Landau diamagnetism ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\epsilon _L=\mathrm{\Delta }\epsilon =\mathrm{}\omega _c/2`$) is compensated by the Pauli spin paramagnetism ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\epsilon _P=\mathrm{\Delta }\epsilon =\mu _BB=\mathrm{}\omega _c/2`$). Here $`\mu _B`$ and $`\omega _c`$ are the Bohr magneton and the cyclotron frequency, respectively. For hydrogen atoms in relatively low magnetic fields the energy of the ground state level, $`E_H(B)`$, goes down due to spin paramagnetism. The diamagnetic contribution is vanishingly small. Thus, the ionization energy of hydrogen atoms linearly increases with rising magnetic field. For helium atoms the situation is just the other way round, the binding energy decreases. The reason is that there are now two electrons with zero total spin on the $`1s`$ shell. Hence, the energy of this pair of electrons is independent of magnetic field strength. After ionization of the first electron, one electron remains on the shell whose ground state energy level goes down in the same way like that of the H- atom. Thus, the ionization energy of the first electron, $`E_{He^0}`$, decreases by the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{i1}`$ and that of the second electron, $`E_{He^+}`$, increases by the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{i2}`$ as a function of the magnetic field. Therefore, $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{i1}=\mathrm{\Delta }E_{i2}=\mathrm{}\omega _c/2`$. The scheme of the energy levels involved in this discussion is sketched in Fig. 4.

This simple picture seems to apply to singly and multiply charged acceptors in semiconductors with rather complicated valence band where free holes are characterized by spin $`3/2`$. For singly charged impurities, as in the case of hydrogen atoms, the ionization energy increases with rising magnetic field due to spin paramagnetism of holes in the ground state. Thus with rising magnetic field strength the density of free holes decreases yielding a freezing–out of free carriers. This is in good agreement to the positive magnetoresistance observed in Ge:Ga. For centers with two holes (doubly charged impurities) the ionization energy of the two–particle ground state can decrease linearly with the magnetic field as in the case of atomic helium. In contrast to the atomic situation, however, the edge of the continuum is not independent of the magnetic field strength and increases the binding energy . Thus, in order to obtain the decrease of the binding energy which results in the observed exponential increase of free carrier concentration, the paramagnetic shift of the second hole $`|\mathrm{\Delta }E_{i2}|`$ must override the shift of the bottom of the valence band $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_0`$ and the ground state shift of the acceptor with two holes.

The analysis of the measurements in the range of exponential decrease of the resistance (low temperatures and $`B`$= 0 - 2 T) using $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{i1}=g\mu _BB`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{i1}`$ is the change of the impurity binding energy, leads to a g-factor $`g=100`$ for Ge:Hg and $`g=48`$ in the case of Ge:Cu (note Ge:Cu is triply charged). Therefore the effect of such a large g-factor overrides any shift of the band edge and the ground state of acceptor with two holes in the magnetic field.

The origin for such giant g-value remains unclear. Calculations based on the effective-mass approximation after  yield a ground state g-factor varying from about $`1`$ for the shallow level ($`E_A\mathrm{\Delta }_{so}`$) to about $`10`$ for deep centers ($`E_A\mathrm{\Delta }_{so}`$). Here $`E_A`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{so}`$ are the acceptor ground state energy and spin-orbit energy splitting, respectively. These theoretical estimations show that the g-value increases with the ground state energy, which is qualitatively in agreement with the experimental data.

The experimentally observed deviation from the exponential drop of the resistance at high magnetic fields and intermediate temperatures (Figs. 1 and 2) is due to a large increase of free carrier concentration which show a positive magnetoresistance. The same effect of free carriers causes the influence of compensation ratio on the magnetoresistance (Fig. 3).

In summary, in contrast to all established mechanisms of negative magnetoresistance, the giant negative magnetoresistance experimentally observed in germanium is due to a large shift of the thermal population of the band in a magnetic field. The exponential decrease of resistance requires a linear splitting of the impurity ground state in the magnetic field with an astonishingly large g-factor. The large magnitude of g-factor needs further investigation in order to explain it.

Financial support by the DFG, the RFFI and the NATO linkage program are gratefully acknowledged. The authors would like to thank M. Kagan for helpful discussions.


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# The Correlated Intensity and Spectral Evolution of Cyg X-1 During State Transitions

## 1 Introduction

Cyg X-1 is identified with a binary system of $`5.6`$-day orbital period which contains an O$`9.7`$ Iab supergiant and a compact object that is believed to be a black hole (Bolton (1972); Webster & Murdin (1972)). Observations indicate that the system usually assumes one of the two states, the hard state and the soft state (Oda (1977); Liang & Nolan (1984); Tanaka & Lewin (1995)). Most of the time, Cyg X-1 stays in the hard state, where its soft X-ray (often $`2`$$`10`$ keV) flux is relatively low and the X-ray spectrum is hard. Every few years, the system undergoes a transition from the hard state to the soft state, during which the soft X-ray flux increases, often by a factor of more than $`4`$, and the X-ray spectrum softens. It remains in the soft state for weeks to months before returning to the hard state. There is a strong anti-correlation between the soft and the hard (e.g., $`>`$ 20 keV) X-ray flux. Consequently, the bolometric X-ray luminosity does not vary significantly (Zhang et al. (1997)). The transition between the two states lasts from less than a day to more than a week.

A number of models have been proposed to explain the spectral evolution of Cyg X-1 during the state transitions. For instance, Ichimaru (1977) suggested that the physical condition of the accreted gas near the disk outer-boundary could drive the disk into either an optically thick state or an optically thin state, which correspond to the soft and hard state respectively. Zhang, Cui, & Chen (1997) argued, based on the effects of black hole rotation, that the state transition of Cyg X-1 may be caused by a temporary reversal of the disk from being retrograde (hard state) to prograde (soft state), which can occur in wind accretion systems (e.g., Matsuda, Inoue, & Sawada, (1987); Ruffert (1997)). In the magnetic flare model (Di Matteo, Celotti, & Fabian (1999)), the soft (hard) state corresponds to a lower (higher) scale height of magnetic flares above the accretion disk. The flares are energized by the reconnection of magnetic flux tubes rising from the accretion disk due to magnetic buoyancy instability. In the soft state, intense flares close to the disk greatly enhance the soft photon field which results in a soft X-ray spectrum. In the hard state, the flare is triggered high above the disk, the system is “photon starved” and thus results in a hard, Comptonized spectrum. In the framework of advection-dominated accretion flows (ADAFs), Esin et al. (1998) argued that the spectral states of Cyg X-1 are uniquely determined by the mass accretion rate . In the hard state,  is relatively low, the inner edge of the thin disk is far away from the black hole and thus the emission from the disk is weak compared to that from the large, optically thin ADAF region. In the soft state, the  is higher, which causes the ADAF region to shrink and the thin disk to extend closer to the black hole. Therefore, at low energies the emission from the disk dominates over that from the smaller ADAF region. More data are needed to distinguish these models.

In this Letter, we report the results from a quantitative study of the correlation between the X-ray flux and the spectral properties of Cyg X-1, on time scales of 90 s to at least 10 days, in both the hard and soft states, as well as during the transition phases.

## 2 Data

The primary data set for this investigation comes from the All-Sky Monitor (ASM) on board the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) (Bradt, Rothschild, & Swank (1993)). The ASM yields the intensities of the sources observed in units of the count rate in three energy bands ($`1.5`$$`3`$, $`3`$$`5`$, and $`5`$$`12`$ keV). The $`1.5`$$`12`$ keV Crab Nebula flux is about $`75`$ c/s. Typically, a source is observed for a 90 s exposure $`15`$ times a day, which provides sufficient coverage for studying phenomena such as the $`90`$ day state transition episode of Cyg X-1. A detailed description of the ASM and the light curves can be found in Levine et al. (1996) and Levine (1998).

We used the ASM observations of Cyg X-1 between 1996 March and 2000 April, which cover the entire 90-day 1996 soft state including its transition phases (Cui et al. 1997a; Zhang et al. 1997) and four years of the hard state. The count rate in the 1.5–12 keV band and two hardness ratios HR1 and HR2 were computed. HR1 is the ratio of the count rate in the $`3`$$`5`$ keV band to that in the $`1.5`$$`3`$ keV band, and HR2 is the ratio in the $`5`$$`12`$ keV band to that in the $`3`$$`5`$ keV band. The hardness ratios provide a rough measure of the X-ray spectral shape of the source.

The higher-quality data from the Proportional Counter Array (PCA) (Jahoda, et al. (1996)) aboard RXTE (with much poorer coverage) were used to verify the ASM results and to study the flux-spectral hardness evolution over a wider energy range. We used 63 PCA observations of Cyg X-1, with exposure times ranging from 700 s to 22 ks (but typically 3 ks), obtained from 1996 March 26 to 1998 April 28, nineteen of which cover the 1996 spectral state transition. To minimize the known effects of calibration uncertainties at higher energies, we limited the spectral analyses to the energy range 2.5–25 keV. Also, since the number of the proportional counter units (PCUs) that were turned on varied from observation to observation, we used data only from PCU 0 which was active during all of the selected observations, in order to facilitate comparison of different observations.

For each PCA observation, we constructed a light curve with 100 s time bins and an energy spectrum for each time bin using FTOOLS (v. 5.0). Each spectrum was then fit with an empirical model using XSPEC (v. 10.0). For the soft state, the model consists of a broken power-law component, an iron line around 6.4 keV and a fixed absorption ($`n_H=5.6\times 10^{21}`$ cm <sup>-2</sup>, e.g., Ebisawa et al. (1996), Cui et al. 1997a ). For the hard state, we replaced the broken power law with a simple power law for the continuum, except for observations near the state transition or a pronounced soft flare in 1997 June. In the latter cases, the broken power law, sometimes an additional blackbody component, is required for obtaining an adequate fit. Variable absorbing column density is also necessary for some of the observations near superior conjunction of the X-ray source. All fits have reduced $`\chi ^2<1.5`$. Note that our main objective here is simply to derive the energy flux of the source and its hardness ratios, as opposed to finding a physical model for the observed spectrum. The flux was calculated in the 2.5–25 keV band, as well as in the 3–5 keV, 5–12 keV, 12–17 keV, and 17–25 keV bands. The energy bands were chosen such that the first two coincide roughly with the two upper ASM bands. Here, we defined the the hardness ratios as the ratios of energy fluxes between the first two (5–12 keV/3–5 keV) and the last two (17–25 keV/12–17 keV) energy bands.

## 3 Analysis and Results

The ASM light curve of Cyg X-1 clearly indicates long term variability on time scales ranging from 90 s to hundreds of days (Fig. 1, see also Fig. 1 in Wen et al. 1999). The rms variation of the light curve with a 90 s exposure in the 1.5–12 keV band is about 35% in the hard state, and 22% in the soft state; both are much larger than the expected uncertainties (7% and 3% respectively) in the data based on counting statistics and systematic uncertainties.

We quantify the correlation between the source count rate and spectral hardness by means of a non-parametric method first proposed by Spearman (the Spearman ranking method; Press et al. (1992)). For each data set, the value of each data point is replaced by the value of its rank among all other data points. That is, for N data points, the smallest value would be replaced with value 1 and the largest with N. If some of the data points have identical values, they were assigned the mean of the ranks they would have if they were to be slightly different. The correlation coefficient $`r_s`$ is defined as

$$r_s=\frac{_i(R_i\overline{R})(S_i\overline{S})}{\sqrt{_i(R_i\overline{R})^2}\sqrt{_i(S_i\overline{S})^2}},$$
(1)
where $`R_i`$ and $`S_i`$ are the assigned ranks for the data points in each of the two data sets. The significance of a non-zero value was tested by computing:

$$t=r_s\sqrt{\frac{N2}{1r_s^2}}$$
(2)
which is distributed approximately as Student’s distribution with $`N2`$ degrees of freedom.

The main advantage of the Spearman-ranking method is that the significance level of the correlation does not depend on the the original probability distribution of the data. Because of this, the significance level of the correlation can be reliably computed even if the number of the data points is small. Despite some loss of information in replacing the original values by ranks, the method is reliable in the sense that when a correlation is demonstrated to be present non-parametrically, it is really there. On the other hand, there exist examples where correlations could be detected parametrically but could not be detected non-parametrically. However, such examples are believed to be very rare in practice (Press et al. (1992)).

We then computed, using eq. 1, the correlation coefficients between the X-ray count rate and the spectral hardness for the ASM and the PCA data. For the ASM data with its original 90 s time bins, we calculated each correlation coefficient over a “correlation interval” for several values that ranged from 1 to 20 days. To explore the correlation relations for variability of different time scales, the calculations were repeated for time bins up to 10 days for the soft state, and up to 100 days for the hard state. In these cases, the correlation intervals were chosen to be 5 to 20 times the time bin size such that the average number of data points per interval is greater than three. For the PCA data (with 100 s time bins), we calculated one correlation coefficient for each observation, due to the limited number of data points. In all our calculations, data segments with less than 3 data points were excluded.

### 3.1 The ASM results

The correlation coefficient $`r_{s1}`$ between the X-ray count rate and the hardness ratio HR1 for a 90 s time bin and 5.6-day correlation intervals is shown in Fig. 1. The results for different correlation intervals are similar. For longer intervals, the correlations become statistically more significant as more data points are involved. The correlation interval of Fig. 1 is the 5.6-day orbital period of Cyg X-1. This allows us to compare the result to the possible contribution from the orbital modulation of X-rays by the stellar winds (Wen et al. (1999)). Both $`r_{s1}`$ and $`r_{s2}`$ (count rate vs HR2) evolve similarly during the state transition.

The ASM count rate and spectral hardness in Fig. 1 are positively correlated in the soft state with an average $`r_{s1}`$ about +$`0.7`$, corresponding to a false alarm possibility $`<10^{30}`$. Significant positive correlation was also found for time bins of 0.1 days, 1 day, 5 days and 10 days. In other words, the positive correlation in the soft state holds for variability on time scales from 90 s up to at least 10 days. In the hard state, the correlation in Fig. 1 turns weak and negative with an average $`r_{s1}`$ about $`0.2`$. Calculations with time bins of 5.6 days (to eliminate the orbital effect), 20 days, and 100 days also show negative correlation. In both states, the coefficient $`r_{s2}`$ behaves similarly but with relatively weaker strength; about 0.5 for the soft state and -0.12 for the hard state for 90-s time bins and 5.6 d correlation intervals.

The evolution of the correlation during the state transition is a gradual one, as shown in Fig. 1. The entire episode of the 1996 state transition can be roughly divided into three distinct phases: (1) a 15–20 day transition phase from the hard state to the soft state, where $`r_{s1}`$ goes from negative to positive, (2) a $``$ 50 day soft state with a steady positive $`r_s`$, and (3) a 15–25 day transition phase back to the hard state. The start time of phase (1) and end time of phase (3) indicated in Fig. 1 were chosen to be the times when the hardness ratios are roughly at the mid-point between the mean levels of the hard and soft states. This yields a $``$ 20 day time scale for phases (1) and (3), similar to what we would get if we were to choose the start (end) time to be when the correlation coefficient just started (ended) its sharp rise (drop). We obtain roughly the same results with smaller time bins (0.1 and 1 day), so the conclusions seem quite robust.

### 3.2 The PCA results

The evolution of the two PCA hardness ratios with the energy flux is shown in Fig. 2. As expected, the energy flux and spectral hardness for $`E<12`$ keV (left panel) is strongly correlated in the soft state (large filled circles) but weakly anti-correlated in the hard state (small filled circles). The evolution of the flux-hardness correlation between the two states is apparent during the transition phases 1 and 3 (defined in Fig. 1) (open circles). These confirm the ASM results.

To investigate possible orbital effects, we separated out the hard state data at phases 0.2–0.8, where phase 0 is defined as superior conjunction of the X-ray source. The results are shown in the inset of Fig. 2. The anti-correlation seems to become less pronounced at low fluxes, indicating the importance of the orbital effects. On the other hand, the overall anti-correlation is still prominent, mostly due to the cluster of data points to the lower right, which come from observations 10-60 days proceeding or following the state transition (labeled with “T”). Interestingly, one group of data points is from observations of Cyg X-1 during a 50-day long soft flare that occurred about one year after the state transition (labeled with “F”). It is also worth noting that within the remaining two data groups the correlation is absent (or very weak).

Data from the higher PCA energy bands ($`E>12`$ keV) show no strong correlations in all states (right panel, Fig. 2). There may be a slight anti-correlation in the hard state data, again mostly due to observations near the state transition and during the soft flare. This is consistent with the fact that, within each state, the general shape of the observed spectrum above $``$12 keV seems insensitive to the change of the flux.

## 4 Discussion

The ASM results show that the transition phases lasted for about 20 days during the 1996 state transition of Cyg X-1, as opposed to $``$ 7 days as indicated by the change in the soft X-ray flux (see Fig. 1). That is, for about 20 days at the beginning and near the end of the state transition episode, the system was in a transitional process even though the soft flux was generally high. A similar conclusion was drawn by Cui et. al (1997a, 1997b) based on the evolution of the power density spectra (PDS). We therefore suggest that the spectral states of Cyg X-1 are better defined by the correlation between the soft X-ray flux and the spectral hardness of the source than by the soft flux alone.

The PCA results confirm our findings based on the ASM data. Furthermore, they reveal that the orbital effects could account for the observed negative correlations on time scales less than 5.6 days, for time periods sufficiently far away from the soft flare or the state transition. This is consistent with the fact that there is a broad absorption-like dip in the orbital light curves obtained from the ASM data, likely caused by absorption and scattering of the X-rays by the stellar wind (e.g., Wen et al. 1999). Our best-fit model ASM orbital light curve and hardness ratios (without noise) would yield $`r_{s1}`$ to be around -0.6 with a 0.1 day time bin in a 5.6 day correlation interval. The observed correlation strength is weaker ( $`r_{s1}0.2`$), probably reduced by noise. On the other hand, the observed positive correlation in the soft state is the opposite to what we would expect from the orbital effect. This is consistent with our previous conclusion (Wen et al. 1999) that orbital modulation is much smaller (if present at all) in the soft state.

Both the ASM and the PCA data indicate the existence of the flux-hardness anti-correlation in the hard state on time scales longer than the $`5.6`$ day orbital period. Moreover, the hard state data near the state transition episode and during the soft flare both contribute to this observed anti-correlation in a similar fashion (Fig. 2). The PCA spectral fitting indicates that these observations also share similar spectral properties, which deviate somewhat from that of typical hard state data (see data section). This seems to lend support to the notion that soft flares are “failed” state transitions. Similar soft flares occur randomly on time scales of months to years in the ASM light curve. We therefore conclude that the anti-correlation in the hard state on time scales longer than the orbital period is intrinsic to the source and is probably related to the mechanism that causes the state transition.

Models employing a simple disk–corona geometry predict that, as the mass accretion rate through the disk increases, the soft X-ray flux increases, which provides more seed photons for the inverse-Comptonization process and thus cools the hot electrons in the corona. This would be manifested observationally as the “pivoting” of the energy spectrum of the source. Such spectral pivoting is known to occur in Cyg X-1 during a state transition (e.g., Liang & Nolan (1984); Zhang et al. (1997)), and the pivoting energy is in the range of 10–20 keV. This may explain the observed flux-hardness anti-correlation at low energies (below the pivoting energy) for the state transition (and perhaps soft flares). The same might also be true for the general long-term evolution of the source in the hard state, if the pivoting phenomenon is universal (but more pronounced during a state transition). Interestingly, this may also explain the apparent lack of correlations around 12–25 keV (Fig. 2), since the pivoting energy is right in this energy range. Clearly, the same scenario cannot be applied to the soft state, where the correlation is observed to be (strongly) positive, unless the pivoting energy has moved to a very low energy (below the ASM pass band). Such a reduction in the pivoting energy is not apparent in our PCA data and is inconsistent with the lack of correlations in the 12–25 keV band. It is, therefore, likely that different physical processes are involved in the soft state (see Zdziarski, Wen, & Paciesas (2000) for a follow-up investigation of possible models).

Li, Feng, & Chen (1999) discovered similar correlations between the count rate and hardness for Cyg X-1, using the PCA data, but on much shorter time scales (0.01–100 s) and with little coverage in the hard state. In their study, they chose two energy bands: 2–6 keV and 13–60 keV, from which the hardness ratio was derived. Such a choice of energy bands unfortunately masks the difference in the correlations between the count rate and the spectral shape above and below 12 keV for the soft state. Using the BATSE data (20-200 keV), on the other hand, Crary et al. (1996) did see a lack of correlation between the 45–140 keV energy flux and the photon index within both data groups of high and low flux, which were presumed to correspond to the hard and soft states, respectively. However, they did not have the necessary soft-X-ray data to see the count rate-hardness correlation that we found. In this regards, our work bridges critical gaps in those two investigations and provides new insight into the overall spectral behavior of this system.

We acknowledge useful discussions with Andrzej Zdziarski and the members of the ASM/RXTE team at MIT. This work was supported in part by NASA through grants NAS5-30612 and NAG5-9098.


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# Reviving Fossil Radio Plasma in Clusters of Galaxies by Adiabatic Compression in Environmental Shock Waves

## 1 Introduction

The radio cocoons of radio galaxies become rapidly undetectable after the central engine of the active galactic nucleus ceases to inject fresh radio plasma, or even earlier (Kaiser et al., 2000, and references therein). Radio plasma consists of relativistic electrons and magnetic fields, which are responsible for the synchrotron radio emission, and possibly relativistic protons and/or a non-relativistic thermal gas component.

Although undetectable, aged radio plasma should still be an important component of the inter-galactic medium (IGM). We investigate the possibility of reviving patches of such fossil radio plasma (also called radio ghosts, Enßlin Enßlin (1999a)) by compression in a shock wave produced in the IGM by the flows of cosmological large-scale structure formation. Such shock waves re-energize the electron population in the fossil radio cocoons, which can lead to observable synchrotron emission. This is probably the mechanism responsible for the, so called, cluster radio relics, which are patches of diffuse, sometimes polarized radio emission typically found at peripheral locations in clusters of galaxies. These cluster radio relics can not be simply relic radio galaxies, as their name suggests. The spectral ages of the electron population are usually too short to admit even the nearest galaxy to have been the parent radio galaxy, which has moved to its present location with a velocity typical for cluster galaxies. Therefore, a recent enhancement of the nonthermal radio output of the cluster relic sources is mandatory.

For reviews on diffuse cluster radio emission (cluster radio relic and halos, which are believed to be distinct phenomena), see Jaffe Jaffe (1992), Feretti & Giovannini Feretti and Giovannini (1996), Enßlin et al. Enßlin et al. (1998), Feretti Feretti (1999), Enßlin Enßlin (1999b), and Giovannini et al. Giovannini et al. (1999).

The connection between the presence of a shock wave and the appearance of the cluster radio relic phenomena was assumed to be due to Fermi-I shock acceleration of electrons, in Enßlin et al. Enßlin et al. (1998) and Roettiger et al. Roettiger et al. (1999). While this process might work within the normal IGM, several arguments favor the possibility that indeed old fossil radio plasma is revived in the case of cluster relic sources:

* Cluster radio relics are extremely rare, whereas shock waves should be very common within clusters of galaxies. The dual requirement of a shock wave and fossil radio plasma, for producing a cluster radio relic, would be an attractive explanation for the rareness of the relics.
* Fossil radio plasma with existing relativistic electron population and fairly strong magnetic field appears to have ideal properties to be brightened up during the shock’s passage.
* The cluster radio relic 1253+375 near the Coma cluster of galaxies appears to be fed with radio plasma by the nearby galaxy NGC 4789 (see Fig 1 and scenario C in Sec. 6).

But, if indeed the fossil radio plasma and not the normal IGM were to become radio luminous at a shock wave, the expected very high sound velocity of that relativistic plasma should forbid the shock in the ambient medium to penetrate into the radio plasma. Thus, shock acceleration is not expected to occur there. Instead, the fossil radio plasma would get adiabatically compressed, and the energy gain of the electrons is expected to be mainly due to adiabatic heating. It is the purpose of this work to demonstrate that this process is sufficient to account for the cluster radio relics.

Sec. 2 and 3 discuss the expected properties of the components of this model: shock waves and fossil radio plasma. In Sec. 4 we give a mathematical formalism to describe the evolution of the radiation spectrum during the history of a radio cocoon. The different phases of this history are described in Sec. 5 and applied to three different scenarios in Sec. 6. The discussion of the merits and potential deficiencies of this model can be found in Sec. 7.

## 2 Structure Formation Shock Waves

The flows of the cosmological large-scale structure formation are predicted to produce frequently shock waves at the boundaries of clusters and filaments of galaxies and during cluster merger Quilis et al. (1998); Miniati et al. (2000b). But only in a few cases cluster merger shock waves could be detected directly as temperature structures in the X-ray emitting cluster gas. The best examples are in Abell 2256 Briel and Henry (1994) and in Abell 1367 Donnelly et al. (1998). The reason for the small X-ray detectability of shock waves is the necessary simultaneous spatial and spectral resolution of the instrument, combined with a sufficiently large collecting area to yield adequate photon statistics from the often peripheral shock waves in clusters. For instance one of the best studied cluster, the Coma cluster, is proposed to contain a shock wave at the location of the diffuse radio source 1253+275 (see Fig. 1; Enßlin et al. Enßlin et al. (1998); this work). The available X-ray map White et al. (1993) shows an extension of the X-ray emitting gas in the direction of this radio source, but the sensitivity is too low to reveal any structure at its location. The feasibility of shock wave detections with new instruments as the XMM experiment is estimated in Tozzi et al. Tozzi et al. (2000). It is interesting to note that at the locations of the two above mentioned X-ray detections of shock waves, cluster radio relics are observed Enßlin et al. (1998). This indicates that these sources are indeed tracers of shock waves. The importance of a detailed understanding of these tracers of shock waves is underscored by the shock wave’s possible roles in intergalactic magnetic field generation Kulsrud et al. (1997); Ryu et al. (1998), cosmic ray acceleration Norman et al. (1995); Kang et al. (1996, 1997); Siemieniec and Ostrowski (2000); Miniati et al. (2000a), gamma ray background production Loeb and Waxman (2000), and in probing the entropic history of the IGM Tozzi et al. (2000).

## 3 Fossil Radio Plasma

In this work it is assumed that the radio plasma in the lobes of radio galaxies remains mostly intact after release, forming the proposed radio fossils or ghosts. This is specified and discussed in the following. Important for the presented model is that the magnetic fields and ultra-relativistic electron population continue to remain within the lobe for up to 2 Gyr. Transport or decay processes of magnetic fields, and relativistic particles populations need to be slower than this time scale.

Clearly, the light radio plasma is subject to buoyancy-induced motions in the cluster gravitational potential. The action of buoyancy is e.g. able to explain the morphology of the eastern radio lobe of M87 Churazov et al. (2000). But since this does not separate the electrons and fields, the fossils would not get disintegrated. Nevertheless, relative motion at a plasma-field interface (e.g. the surface of a buoyant fossil) can produce enhanced mixing Lerche and Parker (1967) due to finite gyro-radius effects of the ions in the embedding gas. This should produce a mixing layer of the order of several gyro-radii of the ions ($`10^{13}\mathrm{}10^{11}`$kpc). But this would soften the magnetic boundary and therefore inhibit the mixing Lerche and Parker (1967). The entrained gas in that boundary layer might be able to propagate into the fossil following the field lines, but the large sizes of the fossils ($`10\mathrm{}10^3`$kpc) would forbid their disintegration due to the gas leakage within the considered time scale. The relativistic particles contained in the old radio plasma have much larger gyro-radii ($`10^9\mathrm{kpc}(E/\mathrm{GeV})(B/\mu \mathrm{G})^1`$) than the external gas particles. Scattering at magnetic irregularities allows the gyro-center of the particle motion to be displaced, leading to cross field diffusion required for particle escape. But even if the combined effect of cross field diffusion and rapid parallel diffusion along disordered field lines is considered (anomalous diffusion), only very special turbulent conditions allow an efficient escape of relativistic particles from radio plasma Enßlin (1999a). Strong turbulence itself is probably more destructive by shredding the magnetized plasma into smaller pieces. But it has been argued Enßlin (1999a); Enßlin and Kaiser (2000) that this should stop on scales where the energy density of the turbulent energy cascade is insufficient to overcome magnetic forces.

From purely an observational viewpoint there already exists good evidence that clouds of synchrotron plasma can survive and retain their identity within the ICM for at least up to $`10^8`$ yr, in the form of relic radio sources showing a relaxed structure but well defined boundaries. These fairly robust age estimates are based on interpreting the observed radio spectral steepening in terms of the inverse Compton losses of the relativisitic electrons against the ubiquitous cosmic microwave background photons (e.g., Komissarov & Gubanov Komissarov and Gubanov (1994); Venturi et al. Venturi et al. (1998); Slee & Roy Slee and Roy (1998)).

Finally, we note that other energy loss mechanisms of the electrons, as Coulomb and Bremsstrahlung losses, are inefficient at the considered energies (1-10 GeV), even if a dense gas component were to exist inside the radio plasma Enßlin and Kaiser (2000). If indeed such a cold gas component were present inside the radio lobe, Parker-type instabilities Parker (1966) might occur, helping to shred the lobe into smaller pieces. Also Rayleigh-Taylor-type instabilities of the surface of the light radio plasma might occur, if not supressed by the tension of the magnetic field lines. But it is questionable if these instabilities allow a microscopic mixing of the environmental gas with the radio plasma, since both phases are still separated by magnetic fields. Further, there is observational evidence that the density of entrained gas cannot be high in radio lobes and in cluster radio relics. Many lobes and relics exhibit radio polarization, which has sometimes values close to the upper limit allowed by synchrotron theory (Harris et al., 1993; Saripalli et al., 1996, e.g.). No intrinsic Faraday rotation, or intrinsic Faraday depolarization is detected in these systems. In the cases of detected depolarization it seems to be consisten with beam depolarization, or the Laing-Garrington effect Garrington et al. (1988), which is external to the source. This argues against a dense thermal plasma component. Nevertheless, we discuss briefly in Sect. 7 some possible implications of strong microscopic mixing for the proposed model.

## 4 The Formalism

The dimensionless momentum of an ultra-relativistic electron $`p=P_\mathrm{e}/(m_\mathrm{e}c)`$ within the radio plasma changes due to synchrotron losses proportional to the magnetic energy density $`u_B`$, inverse Compton (IC) losses proportional to the cosmic microwave background radiation field energy density $`u_C`$, and adiabatic losses or gains connected to the change of the volume $`V`$ of the radio plasma:

$$\frac{dp}{dt}=a_0(u_B+u_C)p^2+\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{V}\frac{dV}{dt}p,$$
(1)
where $`a_0=\frac{4}{3}\sigma _\mathrm{T}/(m_\mathrm{e}c)`$. We do not consider bremsstrahlung and Coulomb losses in view of the very low particle density within the radio plasma. We further assume sufficient pitch angle scattering to keep the electron pitch angle distribution isotropic Jaffe and Perola (1973). After introduction of the compression ratio

$$C(t)=V_0/V(t)$$
(2)
and a temporary change to the variable $`\stackrel{~}{p}(t)=C(t)^{1/3}p(t)`$ Eq. 1 is easily integrable, yielding finally

$$p(p_0,t)=\frac{p_0}{C(t)^{\frac{1}{3}}+p_0/p_{}(t)}.$$
(3)
Here, we defined the characteristic momentum $`p_{}(t)`$, which is given by

$$\frac{1}{p_{}(t)}=a_0_{t_0}^t𝑑t^{}(u_B(t^{})+u_C(t^{}))\left(\frac{C(t^{})}{C(t)}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}.$$
(4)
If the change in volume can be approximated to be a power-law in time,

$$V(t)=V_0\left(\frac{t}{t_0}\right)^b,\mathrm{or}C(t)=\left(\frac{t}{t_0}\right)^b,$$
(5)
which we will assume in the following, an analytic solution to Eq. 1 was already given in Kaiser et al. Kaiser et al. (1997). We assume further the photon energy density to be constant, which is reasonable in our application since it is dominated by the cosmic microwave background, which does not change significantly on the time-scales considered here. Further, we assume that the magnetic field energy density scales as

$$u_B(t)=u_{B,0}(V/V_0)^{4/3}=u_{B,0}(t/t_0)^{4b/3},$$
(6)
as one would expects for an isotropic expansion of the magnetized plasma. These assumptions allow one to evaluate the integral in Eq. 4. We exclude the cases $`b=3`$ and $`b=3/5`$ for simplicity only (they produce logarithms instead of power-law relations), and write the characteristic electron momentum in a compact form:

$$p_{}(t)=\frac{C^{\frac{1}{3}}}{a_0t\left(\frac{C^{5/3}C^{1/b}}{15b/3}u_{B0}+\frac{C^{1/3}C^{1/b}}{1b/3}u_C\right)}$$
(7)
($`C=C(t)`$ for brevity). It is obvious that the synchrotron- and IC- cooling produces a sharp upper cutoff in the electron distribution $`f(p,t)`$ at $`p_{}(t)`$ even if the original distribution $`f_0(p_0)`$ at time $`t_0`$ extended to infinity. The electron density per volume and momentum $`f(p,t)dpdV`$ for $`p<p_{}(t)`$ is given by

$$f(p,t)=f_0(p_0(p,t))\frac{p_0(p,t)}{p}C(t),$$
(8)
where

$$p_0(p,t)=\frac{pC(t)^{\frac{1}{3}}}{1p/p_{}(t)}.$$
(9)
If the original distribution function was a power-law

$$f_0(p_0)=\stackrel{~}{f}_0p_0^{\alpha _\mathrm{e}}$$
(10)
for $`p_{\mathrm{min}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}}<p_0<p_{\mathrm{max}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}}`$ the resulting spectrum is

$$f(p,t)=\stackrel{~}{f}_0C(t)^{\frac{\alpha _\mathrm{e}+2}{3}}p^{\alpha _\mathrm{e}}\left(1p/p_{}(t)\right)^{\alpha _\mathrm{e}2}$$
(11)
for $`p_{\mathrm{min}}(t)=p(p_{\mathrm{min}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}},t)<p<p_{\mathrm{max}}(t)=p(p_{\mathrm{max}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}},t)`$.

We are interested in the situation where several phases of cooling characterized by different expansion or contraction rates and durations shaped the electron distribution. We write $`p_1=p(t_1)`$ for the momentum of an electron originally at $`p_0`$ after phase 1, which is characterized by the compression during this phase $`C_{\mathrm{0\hspace{0.17em}1}}=C(t_1)`$ and $`p_{\mathrm{0\hspace{0.17em}1}}=p_{}(t_1)`$, $`p_2`$ for the momentum of the same electron after phase 2, characterized by $`C_{\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}2}}`$ and $`p_{\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}2}}`$, and so on. It is straightforward to show that the final electron momentum $`p_n`$ after $`n`$ such phases can still be written in the form

$$p_n(p_0)=\frac{p_0}{(C_{0n})^{\frac{1}{3}}+p_0/p_{0n}},$$
(12)
where

$$C_{0n}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}C_{i1i}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{V_i1}{V_i}=\frac{V_0}{V_n}$$
(13)
is the compression ratio between original and final configuration and maximal final momentum is given by

$$\frac{1}{p_{0n}}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{(C_{0i1})^{\frac{1}{3}}}{p_{i1i}}.$$
(14)
The effects of the individual cooling phases sum up weighted by $`(C_{0i})^{\frac{1}{3}}`$. Thus, whenever the radio plasma is most extended, cooling is inefficient.

It remains to provide the parameters describing the different phases. Suppose we want to describe a phase $`i`$ where the expansion or compression is described by $`b_i`$, and two of the following three quantities are given: $`\tau _i`$, the time scale of expansion, $`C_{i1i}`$ the compression ratio during the phase, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_i`$ the duration of the phase. Theses quantities are related via

$$C_{i1i}=(1+\mathrm{\Delta }t_i/\tau _i)^{b_i}.$$
(15)
We get

$$p_{i1i}=\frac{C^{\frac{1}{3}}}{a_0t_i\left(\frac{C^{5/3}C^{1/b}}{15b/3}u_{Bi1}+\frac{C^{1/3}C^{1/b}}{1b/3}u_C\right)},$$
(16)
with $`C=C_{i1i}`$ and $`t_i=\tau _i+\mathrm{\Delta }t_i`$ for brevity. The magnetic energy density at the beginning of phase $`i`$ is that of the end of phase phase $`i1`$:

$$u_{Bi1}=u_{B\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}}(C_{0i1})^{4/3}.$$
(17)
The resulting electron spectrum from an initial power-law distribution is

$$f_i(p)=\stackrel{~}{f}_0C_{0i}^{\frac{\alpha _\mathrm{e}+2}{3}}p^{\alpha _\mathrm{e}}\left(1p/p_{0i}\right)^{\alpha _\mathrm{e}2},$$
(18)
for $`p_{\mathrm{min}i}=p_i(p_{\mathrm{min}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}})<p<p_{\mathrm{max}i}=p_i(p_{\mathrm{max}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}})`$ and $`f_i(p)=0`$ otherwise. The synchrotron emission at a given frequency $`\nu `$ is

$$L_{\nu i}=c_3B_iV_i_{p_{\mathrm{min}i}}^{p_{\mathrm{max}i}}𝑑pf_i(p)\stackrel{~}{F}(\nu /\nu _i(p)),$$
(19)
where $`c_3=\sqrt{3}e^3/(4\pi m_\mathrm{e}c^2)`$ and the characteristic frequency is $`\nu _i(p)=3eB_ip^2/(4\pi m_\mathrm{e}c)`$. The dimensionless spectral emissivity of a mono-energetic isotropic electron distribution in isotropically oriented magnetic fields $`\stackrel{~}{F}(x)`$ can be approximated Enßlin et al. (1999):

$$\stackrel{~}{F}(x)\frac{2^{2/3}(\pi /3)^{3/2}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(11/6)}x^{1/3}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{11}{8}x^{7/8}\right).$$
(20)
In reality, after shock passage an originally isotropic ensemble of field lines gets partially aligned with the shock plane. This is also true for the unshocked radio plasma, since its morphology gets significantly flattened during compression (see phase 3 in Sec. 5). This would produce a radio polarization and a luminosity which depends on the viewing angle Enßlin et al. (1998). As long as we are only calculating the total luminosity of the radio cocoon/relic, this can be ignored. But, in case one wants to know the expected flux, one has to correct for the anisotropic emission pattern of the cluster radio relics. Fortunately, the degree of radio polarization can be used to determine the viewing angle with respect to the shock plane Laing (1980); Enßlin et al. (1998).

The upper cutoff in the electron distribution at $`p_{0n}`$ produces a cutoff in the synchrotron spectrum near $`\nu _n=\nu _\mathrm{c}(p_{0n})`$. But since $`\stackrel{~}{F}(x)`$ has a broad maximum even a sharp cutoff in the electron spectrum gives a soft cutoff in the radio, with significant flux above $`\nu _n`$.

## 5 The Model

Between the release from a radio galaxy and the reappearance as a cluster radio relic the radio plasmon undergoes several different phases of expansion and contraction:

Phase 0: Injection. The radio galaxy is active and a large expanding volume is being filled with radio plasma. The expansion of this cocoon is likely to be supersonic (with respect to the outer medium) and therefore $`b_0=9/5`$, if we assume that there is no gas density gradient in the vicinity of the radio galaxy Kaiser and Alexander (1997). We assume that the injection occurred with a time constant of $`\tau =0.15\mathrm{Gyr}`$, which is the typical age of a radio source at the end of nuclear activity (Alexander and Leahy, 1987, for typical ages). The particle population is kept close to a power-law distribution by injection of fresh electrons. We assume a spectral index of $`\alpha _\mathrm{e}=2.5`$ and an upper cutoff at $`p_{\mathrm{max}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}}=10^5`$. The momentum cut-off produces a radio cut-off above $`42\mathrm{GHz}(B/\mu \mathrm{G})`$, but we note that our results are not very sensitive to the choice of this parameter. More realistic electron spectra at the end of phase 0 could be constructed by superimposing the spectra of the electron populations of different ages, as in the models of Kaiser et al. Kaiser et al. (1997). But, for the present purpose of demonstrating that the fossil radio plasma can be revived by compression, our simplified treatment should be sufficiently illustrative.

Phase 1: Expansion. After the central engine of the radio galaxy became inactive, the radio cocoon might still be strongly over-pressured compared to its gaseous environment Begelman and Cioffi (1989). If this is the case a Sedov-like expansion phase exists with $`b_1=6/5`$. Momentum conservation of the expanding shell around the cocoon forces the expansion rates at the end of phase 0 and beginning of phase 1 to be the same, leading to $`\tau _1=b_1/b_0\tau _0=2/3\tau _0`$. The expansion will significantly deviate from $`b_1=6/5`$ at the moment when the internal pressure drops to a value comparable to the environmental pressure. We simplify this behavior by assuming that the expansion is Sedov-like until pressure equilibrium is reached. The radio cocoon probably becomes undetectable during this phase, and therefore becomes a fossil radio cocoon or a so called radio ghost.

Phase 2: Lurking. Pressure equilibrium with the environment is reached, and the volume of the radio plasma remains more or less constant. Thus $`C_{\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}2}}1`$ and $`b0`$. Taking the appropriate limit $`\tau _2\mathrm{}`$ of Eq. 16 gives the well known result

$$p_{\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}2}}=\left[a_0\left(u_{B\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+u_C\right)\mathrm{\Delta }t_2\right]^1.$$
(21)
Due to the previous adiabatic energy losses of the electrons, they reside at low energies during phase 2. Their radiation losses, which strongly depend on the particle energies, are therefore strongly diminished. Additionally, the synchrotron losses are further reduced due to the weaker magnetic field during the expanded state of the radio cocoon. The adiabatic losses are reversible, and will be reversed during the subsequent compression phase, whereas the radiative losses are irreversible. Since the latter are suppressed during this phase, the radio ghost state can be called the energy saving mode of a radio cocoon.

Phase 3: Flashing. The fossil radio plasma gets dragged into a shock wave of cosmic large-scale structure formation, e.g. at the boundary of a cluster of galaxies or in a galaxy cluster merger event. While its thermal environment gets shocked, the radio plasma itself is only compressed adiabatically, due to the much higher internal sound speed. The electron population and the magnetic field gain energy adiabatically, leading to a steep enhancement of the synchrotron emissivity.

This phase has a duration of the order of $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_3=V_2^{1/3}/v_{\mathrm{shock}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}`$ $`0.1\mathrm{}1\mathrm{Mpc}/(300\mathrm{}3000\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s})`$ $`30\mathrm{Myr}\mathrm{}3\mathrm{Gyr}`$. The pre-shock flow velocity in the shock frame, $`v_{\mathrm{shock}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}`$, is related to the pre-shock sound speed $`c_{\mathrm{s}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}=\sqrt{\gamma P_2/(n_\mathrm{e}(m_\mathrm{p}+m_\mathrm{e})/2)}`$ via

$$v_{\mathrm{shock}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}^2=\frac{c_{\mathrm{s}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}^2}{2\gamma }\left(\gamma 1+(\gamma +1)\frac{P_3}{P_2}\right)$$
(22)
Landau and Lifschitz (1966), where $`\gamma =5/3`$ is the adiabatic index of the thermal gas. The compression factor of the relativistic plasma is high, and can be calculated from the assumed pressure jump $`P_3/P_2`$ of the surrounding thermal gas, assuming pressure equilibrium before and after the shock passage:

$$C_{\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}3}}=(P_3/P_2)^{\frac{3}{4}}.$$
(23)
In order to guess the parameters $`b_3`$ and $`\tau _3`$ a rough picture of the compression process is required. The sound speed within the radio plasma should be much higher than even in the post-shock thermal environment, (it could be up to $`c/\sqrt{3}`$, if the plasma is fully relativistic), so that an instantaneous response to environmental changes can be assumed. During the shock passage, the cocoon is exposed to the high thermal pressure of the post-shock gas on its down- and to the ram-pressure of the pre-shock gas on its up-stream side. But, on the remaining surface the cocoon is only subject to the (much lower) up-stream gas pressure. The relativistic plasma will therefore start to expand orthogonal to the gas flow, producing a flattened pancake-like morphology. In order be able to expel the ambient gas sideways additional internal pressure comparable to the ram pressure of the expelled material is needed. This pressure is produced by compression. The process of flattening stops when the ram pressure of the swept-up material at the expanding edges of the pancake is of the order of the ram pressure of the incoming flow. This implies that the ratio of the diameter to the thickness of the expanded cocoon is roughly 4 for a strong shock.

The compression is slow in the beginning, and rapid towards the end when the cocoon is significantly flattened. We mimic this by setting $`b_3=2`$ and a negative $`\tau _3`$, according to Eq. 15. We favor this over the more intuitive choice of a positive $`\tau _3`$ and large negative $`b_3`$, since it describes the process of compression more realistically.

Phase 4: Fading. The radio plasma is in pressure equilibrium with the post-shock medium, which should provide roughly a uniform environment: $`b_4=0`$. The radio emission of the relic now fades away due to the heavy radiation losses.

## 6 The Scenarios

We follow the evolution of a cocoon of radio plasma for three different scenarios (A, B, and C) and calculate the resulting radio emission. These scenarios are envisioned to illustrate plausible situations, rather than try to reproduce precise parameters for some known cluster radio relics. Scenario A and B are chosen to represent extreme cases: In A, the relic is located at the center of a galaxy cluster, while in B, its location is near the cluster boundary, i.e., in the proximity of the accretion shock wave. In both scenarios the duration of phase 2 was chosen to be so long that the shocked radio plasma could be barely observed as a weak ultra-steep spectrum source. Since these scenarios are rather extreme, we demonstrate with scenario C that a shorter phase 2 can result in a moderately steepened spectrum of the cluster radio relic.

For the cases A and B, we assume the initial cocoon (at the end of phase 0) to contain magnetic fields, relativistic electrons and protons with energies of $`E_{\mathrm{B}/\mathrm{e}/\mathrm{p}}=10^{60}\mathrm{erg}`$ each, and $`E_{\mathrm{B}/\mathrm{e}/\mathrm{p}}=10^{58}\mathrm{erg}`$ in case C. The three components produce a relativistic isotropic pressure of

$$P_{\mathrm{cocoon}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}}=\frac{E_\mathrm{e}+E_\mathrm{p}+E_B}{3V_0}.$$
(24)
We assume a spectral index of $`\alpha _\mathrm{e}=2.5`$ and a rather high cutoff in the electron spectrum at $`p_{\mathrm{max}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}}=10^5`$, which has no significant influence on the conclusions. The lower cutoff is $`p_{\mathrm{min}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}}=10`$ in scenarios A and B, and $`p_{\mathrm{min}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}}=100`$ in C. The lower cutoffs only affect the normalizations of the radio fluxes, not the spectral shapes.

The different scenarios are described below in detail. The parameters for the different scenarios are listed in Tab. 1 and the resulting radio spectra at the end of the different phases are shown in Fig 2, 3, and 4.

Scenario A: The Cocoon at the Cluster Center. The pre-merger cluster is assumed to have an electron density of $`n_\mathrm{e}=0.310^3\mathrm{cm}^3`$ and a temperature of $`kT=3\mathrm{keV}`$ at the location of the radio galaxy. Due to the high environmental pressure, we assume the internal pressure of the cocoon to be only twice the external pressure, and use Eq. 24 to obtain the initial volume $`V_0`$. Due to the strong synchrotron energy losses in this scenario, phase 2 can not last much longer than $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_2=0.1\mathrm{Gyr}`$, otherwise the revived fossil radio cocoon would not emit within the observable radio frequency range. We assume that the shock wave of a cluster merger event increases the internal pressure by $`P_3/P_2=12`$ during the phase 3. This corresponds to a moderate shock with shock compression factor of 2.8, whereas strong non-relativistic shocks can have a compression factor of 4. A moderate shock is expected, since both merging clusters are expected to have temperatures of several keV and therefore sound velocities comparable to the merger velocity.

As can be seen in Fig. 2 the compression caused by the merger shock wave gives rise to a burst of low frequency emission, but practically no high frequency emission. This is due to the rapid decay of the upper end of the electron spectrum during phase 3, which essentially wipes out the adiabatic energy gains of these electrons. The source decays on a time-scale of a few tens of Myr, mostly due to the heavy synchrotron losses. If the radio cocoon is located in a more peripheral region of the cluster, where the density, the pressure and therefore the magnetic field strength inside the cocoon is much lower, these losses are also much milder. This lengthens the time scale over which the radiatively cooling synchrotron plasma can still be revived by the next passing shock, and thus rendered radio detectable. We, therefore, expect the radio relic phenomena to be found preferentially at larger cluster radii, and less often near the cluster center (although projection can help some relics to appear near the cluster core). The best environment to find cluster radio relics is, therefore, near the edges of the clusters.

Scenario B: The Cocoon at the Cluster Boundary. The radio cocoon is assumed here to be born outside the cluster, in an environment of a dense galaxy filament, or a group of galaxies, say, with $`n_\mathrm{e}=0.310^5\mathrm{cm}^3`$ and $`kT=0.3\mathrm{keV}`$. The freshly injected radio plasma might be over-pressured by a factor of 100, leading to a short expansion phase. After this, the electrons within the expanded Mpc sized cocoon suffer mostly the IC-losses, allowing revival of the radio plasma even $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_2=1\mathrm{Gyr}`$ later. This can happen when the cocoon along with the ambient medium is crossed by the accretion shock of a cluster of galaxies, which might entail a pressure jump as large as $`P_3/P_2=100`$, in order to heat the infalling cool gas to the cluster virial temperature of up to $`10\mathrm{keV}`$.

Scenario B can explain the steep and bent radio spectrum of the cluster radio relic 0038-096 in Abell 85. An eye-fit to the radio spectrum (Fig. 5) shows that the maximal electron momentum in this case is $`p_{}=10^4(B/\mu \mathrm{G})^{1/2}`$. The magnetic field strength of the cluster relic was estimated from the minimum energy argument to be $`B1\mu `$G Feretti and Giovannini (1996) and from the detection of excess X-ray emission at the location of the relic, which implies a field strength of $`B=0.95\pm 0.10\mu `$G Bagchi et al. (1998) if this emission refers to the IC scattered cosmic microwave background photons, otherwise a higher field strength. Using $`B=1\mu `$G and $`p_{}=10^4`$ and assuming a uniform environment without expansion and compression, an age of $`0.2\mathrm{Gyr}`$ would result (Komissarov and Gubanov, 1994, and see Eq. 21). But scenario B demonstrates that the radio plasma can be as old as $`2\mathrm{Gyr}`$. This resolves the problem of the apparent cooling time of the electrons being too short for any nearby galaxy to have ejected the plasma and then moved to its present location with a typical velocity of a cluster member. For the long duration of phase 2 the resulting spectrum is fairly steep in the observable radio range. But this need not to be the case for a scenario with a shorter fossil phase.

Scenario C: The Smoking Gun. In order to substantiate the last statement, we choose a set of parameters for scenario C which produces a cluster radio relic with relative flat, nearly unbent radio spectrum, like the relic 1253+275 at the boundary of the Coma cluster of galaxies (Giovannini et al., 1991, and see Fig. 1). There, the probable source of the radio plasma is visible: it is the galaxy NGC 4789, which is located upstream of the relic, and which seems to be on an ascending orbit after a cluster core passage Enßlin et al. (1998). Its narrow angle tailed radio outflow – the smoke of the gun NGC 4789 – seems to be bent and dragged by the infalling matter (falling into Coma’s gravitational potential) to the location of the relic. There, it brightens up and exhibits a steep but straight spectrum with a slope of $`1.18`$. For details of the spectrum and the geometry, see Giovannini et al. Giovannini et al. (1991) and Enßlin et al. Enßlin et al. (1998).

We follow a blob of the radio plasma, which might have been injected with an overpressure of a factor 10 into the infalling gas stream with possibly $`n_\mathrm{e}=0.310^5\mathrm{cm}^3`$ and $`kT=0.6\mathrm{keV}`$. The inflow of the plasma and the compression at the cluster accretion shock wave might have taken a few hundreds of Myr. We assume a pressure jump of only $`P_3/P_2=40`$ at the shock wave, not higher, in order to allow the temperature of the post-shock gas to stay below the average cluster temperature of 8.2 keV Briel et al. (1992). As can be seen in Fig. 4, the radio spectrum below 1 GHz stays practically unbent for a couple of tens of Myr after the shock passage.

## 7 Discussion

We have argued here that adiabatic compression in cluster shocks can revive fossil radio plasma to radio detection, even up to 2 Gyr after its release from the parent radio galaxy. The computed radio spectra provide a good match to the observed spectra of cluster radio relics. Hence, this is a promising model for the regions of diffuse radio emission found in clusters of galaxies. Below, we summarize some merits and potential shortcoming of this model:

Pros:

* The observed connection of cluster radio relics to shock waves arises naturally in this model.
* The presence of the radio galaxy NGC 4789 and the morphological connection of its radio tails to the relic 1253+275 seems to be the smoking gun of cluster radio relic formation by compression of fossil radio plasma.
* The expected very high sound speed within radio plasma should virtually forbid shock waves of the ambient medium to penetrate into radio cocoons. This renders adiabatic compression as a more plausible means of reviving the fossil plasma.
* Cluster radio relics are rare. Not only a shock wave and fossil radio plasma have to be present in this model, in order to produce a cluster radio relic, but also the fossil radio plasma can not grow too old (of the order of 0.1 Gyr in the center of clusters and 1 Gyr at their boundaries). Otherwise the high energy end of the electron population would suffer too severe a depletion for the adiabatic gains during the compression to be able to shift them to radio emitting energies. Since fossil radio plasma should be very common Enßlin and Kaiser (2000), this helps to explain the observed rarity of cluster radio relics.
* The observed tendency of relics to appear at peripheral positions in clusters follows in this model from the much shorter lifetimes of the radio emission and, consequently, much shorter ages which the revive-able fossil radio cocoons can have in the center of clusters, owing to the stronger synchrotron losses occurring there.

Contras:

* If the radio plasma has a high mass load, due to undetectable cool gas, it should get shocked, ensuing Fermi-I shock acceleration to produce the observed radio emitting electron population Enßlin et al. (1998). Still, the adiabatic gains of the relativistic particles are inescapable, although restricted in this case due to the limited compression factor of a shock wave.
* In the case when the fossil radio plasma is supported by a very hot, non-relativistic gas component, both adiabatic and shock acceleration are ineffective. The first due to the lower compressibility of a non-relativistic equation of state, while the second due to the inability of environmental shock waves to penetrate into the plasma. The fact that we do observe cluster radio relics tells us that this situation does not necessarily arise (or, alternatively, cluster radio relics are not related to radio ghosts).
* The giant cluster radio relic 2006-56 in Abell 3667 shows a rim of flat radio emission (spectral index around 0.5) at its sharp outer edge Röttgering et al. (1997). This could be understood in a Fermi-I shock acceleration model due to the different ages of the electrons found at different distances from the energizing shock wave Enßlin et al. (1998). There are two possibilities to explain the observation of a flat spectrum rim within the adiabatic compression model: (a) there is a high mass load in the radio plasma, allowing the shock wave to successively compress the plasma, which should also produce a spatially different electron population, and (b) the apparent rim of a flat spectral index is an artifact arising from an unmatched coverage of the Fourier space in the radio interferometric observations at the two frequencies used.

We conclude that the model presented here provides a fairly natural and promising explanation for the phenomenon of cluster radio relics. This model predicts the existence of a population of diffuse, ultra-steep, very low frequency radio sources inside and possibly also outside of clusters of galaxies, due to the age dependence of the upper frequency cutoff of radio emission arising from the revivable fossil radio plasma. The ongoing rapid improvements in the sensitivities at low radio frequencies (Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope: (GMRT), Low Frequency Array (LOFAR)) may therefore open a new window on cosmological structure formation by detecting shock waves marked by such relic radio sources.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to acknowledge Christian Kaiser and Peter Biermann for discussions and comments on the manuscript. We also thank Joydeep Bagchi, Vincent Pislar and Gastao Lima Neto for the compiled radio spectrum of 0038-096 and Gabriele Giovannini, Luigina Feretti, and Carlo Stanghellini for the radio data of 1253+275. We thank the anonymous referee for stimulating comments. TAE thanks for the friendly hospitality at the National Center for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) in Pune, where this work was initiated. He further thanks the DFG and the SOC of the IAU 199 conference for additional travel support.


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# Integrable hierarchies from BRST-anti-BRST gauge-fixing

## 1 Introduction

An important class of theories, including topological field theories (as in ), reparametrization invariant models , even the (pseudo-) classical mechanics - in BRST-anti-BRST formulation are confronted to a common problem: the so-called zero-Hamiltonian, which is also hoped to establish the corresponding connections between them. In all of these cases, inequivalent theories are generated when using different gauge-fixing “fermions” which can not be continuously deformed one into the other.

In the BRST Lagrangian action, the gauge-fixing term can be written as $`s_1\psi `$ or, when the anti-BRST symmetry is taken into account, as $`s_1s_2B`$. However, if one starts with the BRST-anti-BRST path-integral - of the (-pseudo)classical mechanics, the function $`B`$ is exactly the original Hamiltonian $`H`$ of the system and it entirely determines its time-evolution, i.e. the equations of motion $`\dot{\varphi }^a=\omega ^{ab}_bH`$ (with $`a=1,2n`$).

In this paper, we will find the answer to a new question, which is also common to the set of interrelated models mentioned above: is the BRST framework able to give a criterion to separate the integrable and non-integrable models? For the beginning, we will address the Liouville complete integrability and we will obtain the condition for a bi-Hamiltonian structure to exist. The recursion operator, the compatibility of the Poisson brackets and the entire integrable hierarchy are then constructed, using the Hamiltonian BRST-anti-BRST formalism. Moreover, the quantization stage for the integrable models becomes systematic and eliminates the well known difficulties of the very a few documented attempts .

In section 2, the bi-Hamiltonian structure is derived as a consequence of the simultaneous deformations of the anti-BRST charge $`\overline{Q}`$ and “gauge-fixing function” $`H(\varphi )`$ which leave the effective Hamiltonian invariant. As a result, the recursion operator, the conserved functionals, the associated hierarchies and an explicit example are given in the section 3. The paper concludes (section 4) with a cohomological interpretation, a discussion of the quantization stage and possible extensions of the method to a “multi-level” Hamiltonian formalism or to the constrained classical Hamiltonians.

## 2 Gauge-fixing and bi-Hamiltonian structures

The usual invariance of the path integral at gauge-fixing changes is not recovered in the BRST formulation of the classical mechanics, where an abelian gauge theory is obtained, the phase space coordinates $`\varphi `$ being left completely arbitrary, and the Hamilton’s equation are obtained by the choice of $`\psi `$.

However, since $`\psi =\{H,\overline{Q}\}`$, a complementary problem has to be solved: is it possible to find simultaneous deformations of both $`H`$ and $`\overline{Q}`$, such that the same effective Hamiltonian $`H_{eff}=\{Q,\{\overline{Q},H\}\}`$ and the same symmetry algebra are generated.

If the deformation exists ($`\{Q,\psi _1\psi \}=0`$), we will show that a bi-Hamiltonian structure is obtained. On the opposite, if the theory is “anomalous”, in this extended sense, the system is not integrable.

The general results of - are the starting point of our analysis, but the procedure proposed here may be applied to any theory where the effective Hamiltonian is written as a BRST-anti-BRST invariant or at least cancels on the surface defined by the equations of motion.

It is useful to remark that, due to the structure of the extended algebra $`Q,\overline{Q},K,\overline{K},Q_g`$, to the explicit expression of the gauge-fixing term, and to the condition that $`\psi _1\psi `$ must be BRST-exact, the deformation of the anti-BRST charge is given, in a first order, by:

$$\overline{Q}_1=\overline{Q}+\delta \overline{Q}$$
(1)
where the BRST-exact deformation may be expressed as:

$$\delta \overline{Q}=\{\overline{K}_1,Q\}$$
(2)
with the definition:

$$\overline{K}_1=𝒫_a\omega _1^{ab}𝒫_b$$
(3)
In order to obtain the same $`H_{eff}`$ for the “dressed” bicomplex,to preserve its character and to keep the conservation of the new BRST and anti-BRST charges, the following conditions should be satisfied:

$$\{\overline{Q}_1,\overline{Q}_1\}=0;\{Q_1,Q_1\}=0;\{\overline{Q}_1,Q_1\}=0$$
(4)
$$\{\overline{Q}_1,H_{eff}\}=\{Q_1,H_{eff}\}=0;\{\overline{Q}_1,H_1\}=\{\overline{Q},H\}$$
(5)
The computation of the new $`Q_1`$ as $`\{K_1,\overline{Q}_1\}`$ leads to the expected $`Q_1=Q`$, while the explicit form of $`\delta \overline{Q}`$ in (2) becomes:

$$\delta \overline{Q}=𝒫_b\lambda _a\left(\omega _1\omega \right)^{ab}$$
(6)
A straightforward calculation of the conditions (4), (5) enforces that:

$$\omega _1^{ab}_bH=\omega ^{ab}_bH_1$$
(7)
and the compatibility of the two Poisson brackets:

$$\underset{\{abc\}}{}\left(\omega ^{am}_m\omega _1^{bc}+\omega _1^{am}_m\omega ^{bc}\right)=0$$
(8)
which are exactly the conditions for a bi-Hamiltonian structure to exist:

$$J\delta H_1=J_1\delta H$$
(9)
It is also a matter of direct calculation to verify that the enlarged symmetry algebra defined by $`Q,\overline{Q}_1,K,K_1,\overline{K}_1,Q_g`$ is not broken.

Several consequences of this analysis should be mentioned:

i)if one acts only on the original Hamiltonian and leaves the Poisson structure, and thus the anti-BRST charge, undeformed, our previous conditions degenerate to imposing that $`H_1\left(\varphi \right)`$ are anti-BRST invariants and the action is modified by a trivial term. On the other hand, the enlarged symmetry is preserved only if the BRST bracket of $`H`$ and $`H_1`$ is zero, and $`H_1`$ is a trivial integral of motion.

ii)if we perform only a deformation of the symplectic tensor and keep the $`H`$ unmodified, our condition becomes:

$$𝒫_a\omega _1^{ab}_bH=0$$
(10)
which may be interpreted as:

$$\{\overline{Q}_1,H\}=0$$
(11)
such that $`H`$ is an anti-BRST invariant of a different theory, defined by the symplectic tensor $`\omega _1`$. Again, the (non) conservation of the enlarged algebra would lead us to compatibility of the Poisson brackets, or to an anomalous regime.

iii) the deformation of the anti-BRST symmetry by a non-trivial BRST-exact term will preserve the bicomplex character of the “dressed”  $`(M,s_1,s_2^{})`$ bicomplex, only if the system is completely integrable, according to (7).

## 3 Integrable hierarchies

Once the integrability and bi- structure are given an interpretation in the BRST-anti-BRST framework, one can derive the complete description of such a system, the recursion operator and the associated hierarchy. The celebrated involution property is recovered:

$$\{H,H_1\}_\omega =\{H,H_1\}_{\omega _1}=0$$
(12)
for the BRST observables associated to the first deformed bicomplex, due to:

$$\{H,H_1\}_{Q,\overline{Q}_1}=\{H,H_1\}_{Q,\overline{Q}}=0$$
(13)
with the Q-brackets defined in .

The same equation (7) gives the recursion operator defined by $`T=\omega ^1\omega _1`$, with vanishing torsion when considered as a tensor field, which yields :

$$_aH_1=T^{ab}_bH$$
(14)
or:

$$J\delta H_{n+1}=J_1\delta H_n$$
(15)
such that an infinite set of “deformed” models can be associated to the original one by the following procedure:

$$H_{eff}^n=\{Q,\{\overline{Q},H_n\}\}=\{Q,\psi ^n\}$$
(16)
where:

$$\psi ^n=\{\overline{Q},H_n\}$$
(17)
due to:

$$\psi ^n=𝒫_a\omega ^{ab}\left(T^n\right)^{bc}_cH=𝒫_a\omega ^{ab}_cH_n$$
(18)
with:

$$\overline{Q}=𝒫_a\lambda _b\omega ^{ba}\frac{1}{2}𝒫_a𝒫_bC^c_c\omega ^{ba}()^{ϵ_bϵ_c}$$
(19)
However, the intriguing result recently proved for the KdV hierarchy  and concerning the infinite number of symplectic structures finds here an interpretation and an algorithmic construction, based on the hierarchy of bicomplexes:

$$\psi ^n=\{\overline{Q}_n,H\}$$
(20)
with:

$$\overline{Q}_n=\overline{Q}T^n$$
(21)
and:

$$\{\varphi ^a,\varphi ^b\}_{Q,\overline{Q}_n}=\omega _n^{ab}$$
(22)
The classical Poincare invariants corresponding to the solutions of $`Q\rho =0`$ and $`\overline{Q}\rho =0`$ (if one uses the operator formulation . ) are indeed invariant under the Hamiltonian flow $`H_{eff}K^p=0`$, where $`K^p`$ are the fundamental BRST-invariant observables.

In conclusion, the interpretation of the integrable hierarchies in terms of BRST-anti-BRST formalism is able to provide a criterion for the existence of the bi-Hamiltonian structure and to describe the set of models as deformations of a given initial theory, defined by $`Q,\overline{Q}`$ and the recursion operator that connects the tower of gauge-fixing “fermions”.

We will exemplify the proposed formalism, starting from a very well known “gauge-fixing functional” for $`n=1`$ ($`\varphi ^1,\varphi ^2`$):

$$H=\varphi _{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{2}+\varphi _{}^{2}{}_{}{}^{2}$$
(23)
and a closed two-form $`\mathrm{\Omega }=d\varphi ^ad\varphi ^b\omega _{ab}`$ with:

$$\omega ^{12}=\omega ^{21}=\frac{1}{\mathrm{}}S$$
(24)
where $`S`$ is the Schroedinger operator and one identifies $`p=\varphi ^1`$ and $`q=\varphi ^2`$ as the Darboux coordinates $`p\left(x\right)=Im\phi \left(x\right)`$, $`q\left(x\right)=Re\phi \left(x\right)`$.

Then the recursion operator exists, $`\left(T^1\right)^{11}=\left(T^1\right)^{22}=S`$, and for the infinite set of non- anomalous deformations we will derive the corresponding integrable hierarchy:

i) for n=1

$$\psi ^1=𝒫_a\omega _1^{ab}_cH$$
(25)
will generate the equations of motion $`\dot{\varphi }^a=\{\varphi ^a,H_{eff}^1\}`$ for a=1,2, which is the first equation in the so-called Schroedinger hierarchy:

$$\dot{\phi }=iS\phi $$
(26)
ii) for n=2, the next level is recovered, giving the equation:

$$\dot{\phi }=iS^2\phi $$
(27)
The higher levels can be constructed then, recursively. On the opposite, if one chooses to work with the operator $`\left(T_{nonlin}^1\right)`$  , the nonlinear Schroedinger hierarchy is generated as follows:

$$\dot{\phi }=_x\phi $$
(28)
for n=1, while:

$$\dot{\phi }=i\left(_{xx}\phi +|\phi |^2\phi \right)$$
(29)
at n=2, and the iterations may continue. On the opposite, if one chooses the operator $`T_K=_{xx}+\frac{2}{3}\varphi +\frac{1}{3}\varphi _xD^1`$ (), the KdV hierarchy is obtained.

Consequently, the method based on the BRST-anti-BRST formulation does not provide more then the integrability criterion and the systematic generation of higher levels once the recursion operator is known. However, our analysis may be refined, based on purely cohomological arguments, such that to provide the detailed calculation of the second Poisson bracket involved in the deformed anti-BRST charge.

## 4 Conclusions

The integrability conditions were derived in this paper for classical mechanics and models with effective Hamiltonians of the type $`s_1s_2H`$. The bi-Hamiltonian structure was found as a consequence of the existence of a deformation of the gauge-fixing functional and of the anti-BRST charge that leave the effective Hamiltonian unchanged. This in turn allowed us to derive an infinite set of models associated to the chain of “anomalous” deformations and the corresponding conserved functionals.

The present method can be further extended to a “multi-level” Hamiltonian formalism, which would require new conjugate variables associated to $`\chi ^a=\omega ^{ab}_bH`$, and higher-level gauge-fixing terms:

$$\psi ^{multil}=𝒫_a^{(n)}\chi ^{a(n)}$$
(30)
providing a different approach to the integrability conditions. The treatment of constrained classical systems and specially of the ones which are characterised by second-class constraints will be much more complex, but related to this approach, by exploiting the ideas developed in  .

A more detailed cohomological study, involving the general structure of a non-trivial BRST-invariant term in (2), could lead us to the construction of the anti-BRST charge deformation and provide a method to calculate $`\omega _1`$ and the recursion operator.

The main advantage of the BRST formalism is that it may offer an unambiguous and systematic quantization method for the bi-Hamiltonian systems, starting with the construction of a non-degenerate anti-bracket associated to both Poisson brackets, in an extended version of the bracket-antibracket correspondence  .