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# The Interaction between the ISM and Star Formation in the Dwarf Starburst Galaxy NGC 4214

## 1 Introduction

Previous studies have shown that molecular gas is hard to study in dwarf galaxies, even in those who are known to be rich in neutral atomic gas (H I), such as dwarf irregulars (dIrrs) and blue compact dwarfs (BCDs). As carbon monoxide (CO) is the second most common molecular species after molecular hydrogen (H2), and the one most easily observed in its cool, unshocked state, it is usually used as a tracer of molecular gas. Relatively few dwarf galaxies have been detected in CO, though many have been observed (e.g., Taylor, Kobulnicky & Skillman 1998, Barone et al. 2000). Dwarf galaxies are set apart from from other H I-rich galaxies by their low metallicity: Recent work suggested that the CO-to-H2 (‘X’) conversion factor is dependent upon the metallicity of the gas, with the conversion factor increasing as metallicity decreases (Arimoto, Sofue & Tsojimoto 1996, Wilson 1995, Verter & Hodge 1995, Rubio et al. 1991). Maloney & Black (1988) argued on theoretical grounds that at low metal abundances, the column density of CO will be lower, and there will be less self shielding from dissociating radiation. This will cause the size of the CO emitting region to shrink, while leaving the H2 unaffected. Norman & Spaans (1997) predict that metallicities starting somewhere between 0.03 to 0.1 of the solar value are necessary before CO will be detectable. Observationally, Taylor et al. (1998) have found no dwarf galaxies with detectable CO emission at metallicities below $``$ 0.15 solar. However, at present there are too few dwarfs with both metallicity measurements and CO observations to determine reliably if there is indeed a cutoff, and where exactly it might take place.

For the few dwarfs which have been detected in CO, following up those single dish detections with high spatial resolution interferometer data has proven enlightening. In some cases, the high resolution of interferometers allow the direct estimate of the total mass of resolved giant molecular clouds in nearby dwarf galaxies independent of the CO intensity, and from this a first determination of the CO–to–H2 conversion factor (e.g., Wilson 1995). A list of dwarf galaxies which have been observed with interferometers to date is compiled in Tab. 1. E.g., Taylor et al. (1999) used the Plateau de Bure interferometer to observe CO (1–0) and (2–1) in the post-starburst dwarf galaxy NGC 1569. They found that the conversion factor was three times higher than in two other dwarf galaxies of the same metallicity (NGC 6822 and IC 10), suggesting that metallicity is not the only influence upon the conversion factor. Motivated by this and other previous studies, we have observed another starburst dwarf galaxy, NGC 4214, at Owens Valley.

NGC 4214 is a nearby dwarf galaxy currently experiencing high levels of massive star formation. Table 2 summarizes some of the properties of NGC 4214. Combining optical, NIR and UV data, Huchra et al. (1983) concluded it went through a burst of star formation a few $`\times 10^7`$ yr ago. NGC 4214 has two main regions of star formation – a large complex of H II regions displaying a shell morphology in the galaxy center, and a smaller southern complex formed mainly of compact knots (MacKenty et al. 2000). From age determinations of the H II regions and their spatial distribution, they argue that some of the younger star formation has been triggered by the interaction of the older H II regions with the surrounding ISM. At a distance of 4.1 Mpc (Leitherer et al. 1996), it is one of the closest starbursting dwarf galaxies, and thus an excellent target for a high resolution study of the molecular ISM. Several groups have made single dish CO observations of NGC 4214 (Tacconi & Young 1985, Thronson et al. 1988, Ohta et al. 1993, Becker et al. 1995, Taylor et al. 1998). While the existence of CO emission away from the center of NGC 4214 can be inferred from the single dish data of Ohta et al. (who, however, fail to detect the central emission peak) and Taylor et al., no analysis of the distribution of the molecular emission and its relation to the major star forming regions of the galaxy has been presented to date. Thronson et al. (1988) have also measured the dust mass in a region about $`4^{}`$ in size using 160 $`\mu `$m data. The H I has been studied by Allsopp (1979) and McIntyre (1998) who find a large extended H I disk and a complex velocity field in the center. Based on the disturbed inner velocity field, Allsopp (1979) argued that NGC 4214 is interacting with NGC 4190, a dIrr with a projected distance of 35 kpc.

In Sec. 2 we describe our CO observations obtained with OVRO. In Sec. 3 we discuss the properties of the CO emitting regions detected by the interferometer, compare them to high–resolution VLA H I imaging as well as optical ground–based and HST imaging of NGC 4214. In Sec. 4 we will discuss the conversion factor, the star formation efficiency, implications on the star formation threshold as derived from our CO and H I data as well as the interplay of the star formation regions on the surrounding ISM in NGC 4214. We summarize our results in Sec. 5.

## 2 OVRO Observations

### 2.1 Observations and Data Reduction

We observed NGC 4214 in the CO(1–0) transition using the OVRO millimeter interferometer in mosaicing mode in C and L configuration. In total, 50 hours were spent on source. The observational details are listed in Table 3. Data were recorded using two correlator setups resulting in a velocity resolution of 5 and 1.3 km s-1 (after online Hanning smoothing) with a total bandwidth of 320 and 80 km s-1, respectively. The absolute flux calibration was determined by observing 3C273, 3C345 and (in some observing periods) Neptune for approximately 20 minutes during each observing run. These calibrators and an additional noise source were used to derive the complex bandpass corrections. The quasar 1156+295, which is close to NGC 4214 on the sky, was used as secondary amplitude and phase calibrator. During the program, its flux decreased from $`4.0`$ Jy (Sep 1999) to $`1.0`$ Jy (June 2000).

The data for each array were edited and calibrated separately with the MMA and the MIRIAD packages. The uv–data were inspected and bad data points due to either interference or shadowing between telescopes were removed, after which the data were calibrated. We Fourier transformed our C and L array observations separately for each pointing to assess their quality; subsequently we combined all data to form a single dataset which was used for mapping. The mosaicing and mapping was performed using the task MOSSDI in MIRIAD, i.e. a joint deconvolution of the entire mosaic was done to obtain the final data cubes. All the results presented in this paper are based on this combined dataset.

We calculated 2 data cubes, one with natural weighting, leading to a resolution of $`6.4^{\prime \prime }\times 5.7^{\prime \prime }`$, and another one with robust weighting (setting the robust parameter to 0, Briggs 1995) with a resolution of $`4.8^{\prime \prime }\times 4.2^{\prime \prime }`$. The final rms noise in our 1.3 km s-1 wide channels is 40 mJy beam-1 (100 mK) and 47 mJy beam-1 (210 mK) for the naturally and robustly weighted cube, respectively. We optimized the cleaning process by defining 3 clean boxes around the prominent emission regions. A summary of the observations can be found in Tab. 3. Channel maps of the data cube are presented as contours in Fig. 5.

### 2.2 Data Reduction

We distinguished CO emission from the noise using the following procedure: The cleaned 1.3 km s-1 data cube was smoothed to a spatial resolution of 9″ $`\times `$ 9″, and a 2$`\sigma `$ (80 mJy beam-1) blanking was applied to the output cube. The resulting cube was searched for CO emission by looking for surviving features which were continuous in at least 3 consecutive channels. This gave a cube containing only the CO emission at a resolution of 9″. This cube was then applied as a mask to the original resolution naturally weighted cube to yield the final blanked data cube. The mask was also applied to the robustly weighted cube, and moment maps were made from the data of both weightings (Fig. 1).

The locations and sizes (FWHM) of the OVRO primary beams comprising our mosaic are shown in Fig. 7. While we cannot be certain to have detected all the CO emission in NGC 4214, we have probably mapped all the strong emission. Our first set of observations included only the center mosaic position, but in those data we still detected both the northwestern and southeastern regions, even though they lay beyond the 40% power radius of the primary beam, therefore if there were any similar CO features just beyond the beam areas shown in Fig. 7, we would have detected them.

It would be interesting to estimate the degree of missing flux due to the lack of short spacings in our interferometric map. This might give some indication of the amount and distribution of diffuse gas in and between the complexes. Unfortunately, there are no single dish observations of the CO distribution in NGC 4214 that are suitable for such a determination. The single dish beam is either very large ($`50^{\prime \prime }55^{\prime \prime }`$) with a pointing center offset from the peak position of any complex, thus partially containing several complexes (Taylor et al. 1998, Thronson et al. 1988, Tacconi & Young 1985), or the observed region is not sufficiently extended and spatially disjunct (Ohta et al. 1993), or the observations were done in a different transition (Becker et al. 1995 for the central complex).

## 3 Results

### 3.1 CO Emitting Regions

As seen in the moment map presented in Fig. 1, there are three regions where we have detected CO emission in NGC 4214 – one at the center of the galaxy, another $``$ 650 pc to the southeast of the center, and the third $``$ 760 pc to the northwest. The southeastern region (SE) has the highest peak in CO emission, and is also the most centrally concentrated. The central region is extended in the east-west direction, with low intensity CO emission that has a diffuse appearance except for the concentration at its western end. The northwestern region (NW) is intermediate between the central and the southeastern ones, both in the degree of central concentration and the intensity of the emission.

Each of the regions can be divided into discrete units (clumps) by considering both spatial and velocity information given in the data cube. To do that, we inspected the high–resolution robust–weighted cubes by looking at ‘movies’ as well as position–velocity (pv) diagrams. The clump decomposition is difficult in the NW and SW regions where many smaller units are blended. Fig. 2 shows a pv diagram of the NW region as an example of how we defined the clumps (the ellipses plotted in this figure are only used to label the clumps). The properties of the identified CO emitting clumps in NGC 4214 are compiled in Table 4. C1–C8 belong to the NW complex, C9 belongs to the central complex, where also some diffuse emission is present (D1) and C10–C14 are the constituents of the SE emission feature in NGC 4214.

For each clump, we derived a total intensity map, measured the diameter defined by the half intensity line and the velocity width: Tab. 4 lists the central coordinates (column 2 and 3), the central velocity of the clump (column 4), the velocity width (FWHM, column 5), the CO flux (column 6) as well as the diameter of the clump (FWHM, column 7) along the cut deconvolved for our beamsize (average of the orthogonal directions). In many cases, only an upper limit for the cloud size could be determined (as given by the size of the robust beam). We also attempted to estimate molecular masses by employing a Galactic X–factor (column 8, see Sec. 4.1) as well as assuming virialization (column 9, but see the discussion in Sec. 4.1).

C1–C14 are likely not Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs). This can be seen in Fig. 3, where we show the size-linewidth relation for GMCs in M33 from Wilson & Scoville (1990), along with GMCs from M33, M31 (Vogel et al. 1987, Wilson & Rudolph 1993), the SMC (Rubio et al. 1993), IC10 (Wilson 1995), NGC 1569 (Taylor et al. 1999) and NGC 6822 (Wilson 1994), and our complexes. The three complexes resolved by the OVRO beam clearly occupy a different region in the plot than GMCs in Local Group galaxies. They have similar linewidths, but are larger in size. The unresolved clouds may be individual GMCs, but their diameters are too small to measure with the synthesized beam of our data.

The clumps we see fall in an area in the size-linewidth space which is in between the Local Group Galaxies and CO complexes in M83 (Rand, Lord & Higdon 1999), also plotted in Fig. 3. Rand et al. argue that their objects are intermediate in size, linewidth, and molecular mass between the largest GMCs known in the Milky Way, and Giant Molecular Associations (GMAs) seen in nearby spiral galaxies (e.g. Rand & Kulkarni 1990). Our resolved objects have smaller diameters compared to the Rand et al. objects – they are probably not GMAs. Also, GMAs tend to have masses of a few $`\times 10^7`$ M, whereas for an assumed Galactic CO-H2 conversion factor, our clumps have masses that are lower by almost two orders of magnitudes.

### 3.2 Comparison to the H I

Starbursting dwarf galaxies tend to be H I rich (e.g. Thuan & Martin 1981, Taylor et al. 1995), and NGC 4214 is no exception. Fig. 4 shows the CO contours from Fig. 1 superposed on the total intensity map of the H I emission (corrected for primary beam attenuation). The high–resolution H I data are combined B, C and D configuration observations from the VLA, with a spatial resolution of 8$`\mathrm{}\times 8\mathrm{}`$ (see also McIntyre 1998). The area we have mapped in CO covers only a small region at the center of NGC 4214. The peak column density of H I in the map is $``$$`\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2, and the overall H I distribution shows a large degree of structure: H I holes and shells, which are common in dwarf galaxies (e.g. Puche et al. 1992, Walter & Brinks 1999), and some indication for spiral structure extending beyond the main optical disk. There is even a hint of a bar in the H I, running roughly position angle 45 (N $``$ W) through the center of the galaxy. It is possible that both the weak spiral features and the bar are consequences of an interaction with the nearby dwarf galaxy NGC 4190. There are a few dwarf galaxies such as Holmberg II (Puche at al. 1992) and DDO 47 (Walter & Brinks 2001) which show similar spiral features in H I only. The underlying process causing transient spiral structure may thus be fairly common.

A global comparison between the H I and CO emission reveals differences between the various CO emitting regions. The NW region of CO emission falls on top of a local maximum in the H I column density, while the SE region, which is brighter and more centrally concentrated, corresponds to a dip in the H I column density near two local peaks. The central CO region is extended enough to cover several local minima and maxima in the H I, though the shape of the H I is elongated east-west, similar to the CO emission. It should be noted here that the strongest molecular emission is not necessarily found where the H I column densities are highest. This finding emphasizes the ‘irregular’ nature of dIrrs.

The CO and H I channel maps are compared in Fig. 5. This representation of the data emphasizes more strongly the location of the SE CO emission in a small H I dip, and the association of the NW CO emission region with a local H I maximum roughly coincident in velocity. There is no clear correlation in the channel maps between CO and H I for the central CO feature. Fig. 6 is a pv-diagram through the three brightest CO peaks and compares the CO and H I velocities and intensities in and near these peaks. For the SE (offset: –0.75) and central peak the CO linewidths are much narrower than the corresponding H I linewidths. In contrast, in the the NW peak (at offset 0.7) the CO linewidth is larger, probably due to substructure in the complex, and approaches the velocity width of the H I to within a factor of $`1.5`$.

### 3.3 Comparison to Stellar Component and Regions of Star Formation

Star formation occurs at densities where the gas is primarily molecular, so it is of interest to compare the molecular gas tracer, CO, to tracers of the stellar component. Because the ISM is readily ionized by the intense UV radiation from young stars in H II regions, H$`\alpha `$ is often used as an indicator of the presence of recent star formation. Fig. 7 compares the CO emission to an H$`\alpha `$ image (courtesy C. Martin). The left panel shows lacy, filamentary structure outside the immediate vicinity of the star forming regions. These are similar to those seen in other dwarf galaxies (e.g. NGC 1569; Hunter et al. 1993, Devost et al. 1997, Martin 1998), and are presumably caused by the energetic by-products of star formation, supernovae and stellar winds.

Two of the three CO complexes are associated directly with the star forming regions (Fig. 7, right). The SE CO clump appears cospatial with a large star forming complex containing several H II regions. The peak of the CO emission here is almost directly on top of one of the H II regions, and the shape of the CO complex with its slight extension in the north-south direction is very similar to that of the H II region. The central CO emission is associated with the largest region of H$`\alpha `$ emission. Unlike the SE complex, the central CO complex is diffuse instead of centrally concentrated, and the peak of the CO emission here is not directly on top of the H$`\alpha `$ emission, but is shifted to the west of it. Lower level CO emission is cospatial with the H$`\alpha `$, however, tracing out the chain of brighter H II regions running east-west in this area. In clear contrast, only very faint H$`\alpha `$ emission is associated with the NW CO complex.

At this point it is interesting to compare the velocities of the molecular gas with the ones of the ionized component (as seen in H$`\alpha `$ spectra). Hartmann et al. (1986) presented the kinematics of a few H II regions within NGC 4214 – four of them correspond to regions where we also detected CO emission (their regions: H25/29, close to our NW CO complex; H36 and H48, towards the central complex; and H55 in the SE complex). In all cases do the systemic CO and H$`\alpha `$ velocities agree well (this is consistent with the results by Maiz–Apellaniz et al. 1999). Only in H25/29 (the weakest of the four H$`\alpha `$ regions) is H$`\alpha `$–emission also present at velocities where no CO–emission is present (around vhel=250–270 km s-1).

Fig. 8 shows the contours of the CO emission superposed on a multi-band optical image created by the Hubble Heritage Team. Here, the quite different optical morphologies of the regions where CO emission is found are evident more dramatically. This composite image was created from different WFPC2 pointings in the F336W (U), F502N (\[O III\]), F555W (V), F656N (H$`\alpha `$), F702N (R), and F814W (I) filters. A detailed discussion of these data is published by MacKenty et al. (2000).

Both Beck, Turner & Kovo (2000) and MacKenty et al. (2000) present high resolution VLA radio continuum images. There is 6 and 20 cm emission associated with the central and SE star forming complexes, but nothing is detected at the location of the NW CO emission (Turner 2000, private comm.). This lack of radio continuum emission indicates that indeed very little star formation is associated with the NW molecular region (C1–C8) and that the presence of only very weak optical emission lines is not due to possible extinction.

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 The CO-H2 Conversion Factor

To determine the conversion factor with a reasonable degree of confidence, a discrete unit of emission, such as a GMC, must be distinguishable in the data, and there must be a method to determine the total mass associated with this feature which is independent of CO intensity. GMCs are often assumed to be gravitationally bound and in virial equilibrium, allowing the use of the virial theorem to determine the total mass. As discussed above, our spatial resolution will not resolve GMC–sized objects at the distance of NGC 4214. For the sake of comparison, we decided to derive virial masses for our clumps anyway – in the discussion that follows we will keep in mind that at least some of them are likely not gravitationally bound objects. In the cases where the complex is not spatially resolved we took the beamsize ($`D90`$ pc) as an upper limit for the actual diameter – then, the virial masses are probably upper limits (but see the discussion below). If the virial mass could be trusted, dividing it by the molecular mass derived using a Galactic CO-H2 conversion factor would yield the actual conversion factor for each feature, in units of the Galactic value. The Galactic conversion factor is taken to be $`2.3\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 (K km s-1)-1 (Strong et al. 1988), with an additional explicit correction for helium (see caption in Table 4). If the recalibrated conversion factor of $`1.6\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 (K km s-1)-1 (Hunter et al. 1997) or the new value advocated by Dame et al. 2001 ($`1.8\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 (K km s-1)-1) is used, all CO based masses are lower by $`30`$%. To facilitate comparison to previous work, the numbers we give refer to the ’standard’ value of Strong et al.

The average conversion factor we find for the few resolved features is compatible with the standard Galactic conversion factor (Tab. 4) given all the uncertainties in deriving these numbers. The mean conversion factor is $`1.2\pm 0.7\times X_{\mathrm{MW}}`$, whether or not only the resolved clouds or all clouds are used for the estimate. This is a lower value than the conversion factor estimated for other dwarf galaxies with similar metallicities in the literature ($`2.7X_{\mathrm{MW}}`$ for the dIrr IC10, $`<2.2X_{\mathrm{MW}}`$ for the dIrr NGC 6822, both in the Local Group, Wilson 1995, and $`6.6X_{\mathrm{MW}}`$ in the post-starburst dwarf galaxy NGC 1569, Taylor et al. 1999).

This result is unexpected at first glance since one would expect the X–factor to be higher in this low metallicity galaxy (as suggested by other studies of low–metallicity dwarfs, see above). We can only speculate here why the results in NGC 4214 are different. We should like to note that the virial masses are strongly affected and possibly even dominated by the resolution (both spatially and kinematically) employed in the observations. E.g., if we use our naturally weighted, 5 km s-1 channel width data (i.e., if we do not resolve the substructure) we derive a virial mass for the NW complex which is several times higher than the mass derived using $`X_{MW}`$. This is due to fact that the dispersion in the NW region is rather large ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$v$`20`$ km s-1) resulting in a much higher X–factor (because of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }v^2`$ dependence of the virial mass) – in other words our result would then be consistent with the values found in other low–metallicity galaxies! It should be also stressed here that deriving cloud properties (and hence virial masses) is not at all an objective process: e.g., different radii have been used by different authors (e.g., diameter defined by the half–intensity line; or by the contour containing 90% of the flux) and the cloud sizes are not always de–convolved for the beamsize. Dividing clumps into sub–clumps is also always subject to to some personal bias.

It should be also noted at this point that convincing arguments have been presented (e.g. Bolatto et al. 1999, Madden et al. 1997) for a cloud structure in dwarf galaxies that significantly differs from what is found in metal-rich giant spirals. In this scenario, small CO cores are embedded in huge molecular envelopes which are devoid of CO. The molecular hydrogen in the envelopes coexists with C I and C II. E.g., Madden et al. argue that in the dwarf irregular IC 10 the total molecular mass may be up to 100 times the mass contained in the CO cores. In this case our CO observations would only trace the cores of the clouds and the derived ‘local’ X–factor would be only valid for the central core of a molecular cloud, where it might indeed be close to the Galactic value, since the conditions in the core region are expected to be similar to those in a Galactic GMC.

Unfortunately, based on the data presented here all this remains subject to speculation. In the case of NGC 4214 the matter might be investigated further by a comprehensive study of the CO, C I, C II, radio continuum and FIR emission, along the lines of the study Madden et al. performed for the (much closer) galaxy IC 10.

Based on our data, we will adopt $`X_{MW}`$ as the conversion factor for NGC 4214 in the following, primarily for convenience. We keep in mind that this number is unfortunately only poorly determined and that our molecular gas mass estimated might be off by a factor of 2 – 3.

### 4.2 Star Formation efficiency

Given the fact that the SE molecular cloud seems not yet to be disrupted by the ongoing burst of star formation (see the discussion in Sec. 4.4), we can try to calculate the star formation efficiency for that region. From Table 3 of MacKenty et al. (2000) we derive a SFR for this region of 0.066 M year-1 (their region II, corrected for ‘medium internal extinction’). For morphological reasons (e.g. the compact and filled appearance of the H II regions, the lack of large cavities and the positional coincidence of exciting star clusters and H$`\alpha `$ emitting knots), star formation presumably only recently started here – we adopted an age of $``$3 Million years (MacKenty et al. 2000). This results in a total stellar mass of $`2.0\times 10^5`$ M produced to date (assuming a constant SF rate). From our Table 4, we derive a molecular mass of $`24\times 10^5`$ M (summing up regions C10–C14 and adopting a Galactic X–factor, see the discussion in Sec. 4.1). The star formation efficiency for the SE region is thus around 8$`\%`$, somewhat higher than what is usually adopted (see also, e.g., Wilson & Matthews 1995 and the discussion in Taylor et al. 1999).

### 4.3 Star formation Threshold

Studies of star forming dwarf galaxies suggest that the gas column density plays an important role in regulating star formation (Skillman et al. 1987, Taylor et al. 1994, Walter et al. 1997, van Zee, Skillman & Salzer 1998, Walter & Brinks 1999). A threshold column density for the onset of star formation is thought to exist, at $`10^{21}`$ cm-2, above which massive star formation can proceed and below which it is suppressed. The physical reason for this threshold may be related to the density needed for the shielding of molecular gas from dissociating radiation (e.g. Skillman 1987), or perhaps to disk instabilities (e.g. Kennicutt 1989). For this kind of analysis, generally some measure of the spatial extent of the star formation activity (such as an H$`\alpha `$ image) is compared to the azimuthally averaged gas surface density (usually based on H I observations), or to the contours of an H I column density map. Because CO is difficult to detect in most dwarf galaxies, the previous studies have tended to ignore the presence of molecular gas entirely, or else to attempt to make a statistical correction by assuming a global H2 to H I ratio (Hunter & Plummer 1996). However, we have high resolution CO and H I data on NGC 4214 covering the star forming regions of the galaxy, so we can treat both the atomic and the molecular gas in the threshold analysis.

We created a total gas column density map by combining the H I and CO moment maps, and using a Galactic CO-H2 conversion factor (see Sec. 4.1). Fig. 9 shows the contours for a column density of 1, 2 and 4 $`\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2 (corrected for an inclination of 30; McIntyre 1997) for the total gas map and the H I map alone, superposed on the H$`\alpha `$ image from Fig. 7. There is hardly any change in the lowest contour, indicating that at densities of $`10^{21}`$ cm-2 the gas is primarily in atomic form. The higher contours, however, show marked changes from H I alone to total gas density, particularly at the location of the SE CO complex. In the total gas map, we see a peak in gas density corresponding to the group of H II regions, whereas if we consider the H I alone, the H$`\alpha `$ emission sits in a local minimum of density, adjacent to two local peaks. The peak gas density in the total gas map at this complex is 6.6 $`\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2. In the central complex the addition of the molecular component also makes a difference, connecting two H I peaks that straddle the center of the star forming complex.

From Fig. 9 it is apparent that there is only very faint H$`\alpha `$ emission associated with the CO emission of the NW complex, suggesting very little star formation. This lack of activity is confirmed by the non-detection of radio continuum emission at the position of the NW complex. The peak (H I plus H2) column density here is 95% that of the SE clump, where we see evidence for vigorous star formation. The column density in the central, very actively star forming region is considerably lower, but this could be explained by the influence of the massive stars upon the ISM in a more evolved star formation region (see next section). A plausible explanation for the lack of star formation in the NW complex is suggested by Fig. 6, the comparison of the CO and H I velocities/linewidths. Here we see that the linewidth in CO in the NW complex is comparable to the H I linewidth, while for the other two complexes CO is much narrower. Perhaps the surface density along the line of sight to the NW complex is high, but the volume density is not. The large linewidth and identifiable substructure in the NW complex suggests a distribution of clouds at different velocities along the line of sight, rather than one dense cloud. It may also be that star formation has simply not started yet in the NW complex in which case another episode of star formation might begin in the near future.

### 4.4 The Effects of the Star Formation Burst on the ISM

Massive stars, the most prominent constituents of star forming regions, input energy into the ISM through mechanisms such as ionizing photons, stellar winds and supernovae, and it is inevitable that they will disrupt the local ISM. In some dwarf galaxies, such as IC 2574, swept out holes in the H I accumulate large quantities of gas on their rims, providing material for a second generation of star formation (Walter et al. 1998, Stewart & Walter 2000). In NGC 4214 there is no evidence for this. There are certainly a number of holes in the H I (Fig. 4) but the star forming regions do not appear along their rims (as is apparent in the supergiant shell in IC 2574). There are several small expanding shells of ionized gas associated with the central star forming region (Martin 1998) and these might later develop H I shells like those seen in IC 2574.

On scales of a few hundred pc, the ISM shows indications of the effects of the massive stars. The H II regions in the central star forming complex show a shell morphology (Figs. 8 and 9) which suggests that these shells have broken through the dense material surrounding the massive stars. The SE H II regions still show compact, knotlike morphologies, suggesting that a breakout has not yet occurred (MacKenty et al. 2000). If the starburst of the central region preceded the SE one, then the massive stars in the center have been at work dissociating and disrupting the molecular gas for a longer time than in the SE. Thus the CO intensity associated with the shell H II regions is lower and the emission is more diffuse than $`200`$ pc to the west, where the highest CO intensity in the central complex is found, away from the immediate vicinity of any H II region. The brightest CO emission in the galaxy, associated with the H II regions in the SE complex, may represent a pre-disruption stage where the energy input into the ISM from the young stars has not had enough time to affect a large fraction of the molecular gas or the general morphology of the complex and is thus not visible in our 90 pc resolution observations. In summary, NGC 4214 seems to show molecular gas and star formation in 3 distinct stages: high–dispersion molecular gas with hardly any associated star formation in the NW, concentrated molecular gas with very recent star formation in the SE and diffuse molecular gas with an older massive star formation burst in the center.

## 5 Summary and Conclusions

We have mapped the dwarf starburst galaxy NGC 4214 in the 12CO (1–0) transition at the OVRO millimeter array with a linear resolution of $`90`$ pc. This first high-resolution study of the molecular component in this galaxy shows the presence of three molecular complexes which are in very different and distinct evolutionary stages. Both from the properties of the molecular gas and from HST and ground–based optical studies of the H II regions and star clusters, the central region is the most evolved: Here, the molecular complex is highly disrupted, the impact of the massive star formation is largest, and a shell structure is in the process of forming. The star formation episode in the SE complex is more recent; thus, the dense ISM adjacent to the newly formed massive stars is far less disrupted, providing an ideal environment for ongoing, maybe self-propagating star formation proceeding further into the complex. Somewhat surprisingly, massive star formation has not started yet in the NW complex, possibly because the threshold volume density has not been reached in this region.

A comparison with the H I reveals that no clear correlation between the H I and CO surface densities exists. Although the NE and SW regions have almost the same total (H I and H2) gas column density, violent star formation is only taking place in the SW region. This nicely illustrates the irregular nature of these dwarf systems. The H I and H$`\alpha `$ velocities are in good agreement with the CO velocities measured in the three molecular complexes. Assuming a Galactic conversion factor, the star formation efficiency for the SE complex is $`8`$%, similar to the one found for spiral galaxies. This may be taken as an indication that the star formation process itself in dwarf galaxies proceeds in a similar way to that in spirals.

We were able to subdivide the molecular complexes further into 14 sub–complexes. Most of the clumps can not be resolved with our synthesized beam – even the resolved objects are probably not GMCs. Deriving virial masses from these objects is not trivial and is affected by personal bias and the employed velocity and spatial resolution. Our clump analysis is compatible with a Galactic conversion factor for NGC 4214; this is substantially lower than the value found in other dwarf galaxies with similar metallicities so far. However, given the uncertainties in deriving this value we can not rule out the validity of the metallicity–X relation based on our data. We derive a total molecular mass for NGC 4214 of 5.1$`\times 10^6`$ M$`_{_{}}`$.

In summary, our OVRO observations of the molecular gas in the metal–poor dwarf galaxy NGC 4214 reveal an unexpected structural wealth – they serve as a good excuse to map similar low–metallicity dwarf galaxies with interferometers in the future: even though the emission is faint when compared to spiral galaxies, high–resolution observations of the molecular gas can provide important insights to the irregular nature of dwarf galaxies.

We thank C. Martin for providing us with her H$`\alpha `$ image of NGC 4214. FW acknowledges NSF grant AST96–13717. VJM was supported in part by a Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellowship and an Australian Postgraduate Research Award. Support of this work was also provided by a grant from the K.T. and E.L. Norris Foundation. Research with the Owens Valley Radio Telescope, operated by Caltech, is supported by NSF grant AST96–13717. The Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory is operated with the permission of the Metropolitan District Commission, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and with the support of the NSF under grant AST97–25951. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is operated by Associated Universities, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The home of the Hubble Heritage Project is Space Telescope Science Institute which is run by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy for NASA. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The authors also acknowledge the use of NASA’s Astrophysical Data System Abstract Service (ADS), and NASA’s SkyView.

Figure Captions


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# Isoscalar Giant Dipole Resonance and Nuclear Matter Incompressibility Coefficient

## Abstract

We present results of microscopic calculations of the strength function, $`S(E)`$, and $`\alpha `$-particle excitation cross sections $`\sigma (E)`$ for the isoscalar giant dipole resonance (ISGDR). An accurate and a general method to eliminate the contributions of spurious state mixing is presented and used in the calculations. Our results provide a resolution to the long standing problem that the nuclear matter incompressibility coefficient, $`K`$, deduced from $`\sigma (E)`$ data for the ISGDR is significantly smaller than that deduced from data for the isoscalar giant monopole resonance (ISGMR).

Studies of compression modes of nuclei are of particular interest since their strength distributions, $`S(E)`$, are sensitive to the value of the nuclear matter incompressibility coefficient, $`K`$ . Over the last two decades, a significant amount of experimental work was carried out to identify strength distributions of the isoscalar giant monopole resonance (ISGMR) in nuclei . At present, Hartree-Fock (HF) based random-phase-approximation (RPA) calculations for the ISGMR reproduce the experimental data for effective interactions associated with incompressibility $`K=210\pm 20`$ MeV .

The study of the isoscalar giant dipole resonance (ISGDR) is very important since this compression mode provides an independent source of information on $`K`$. Early experimental attempts to identify the ISGDR in 208Pb resulted with a value of $`E_121`$ MeV for the centroid energy . Similar result for $`E_1`$ in 208Pb was obtain in recent experiments . Very recent and more accurate data on the ISGDR obtained for a wide range of nuclei  seems to indicate that the experimental values for $`E_1`$ are smaller than the corresponding HF-RPA results by 3 – 5 MeV.

It was first pointed out in Ref.  that corresponding HF-RPA results for $`E_1`$, obtained with interactions adjusted to reproduce the ISGMR data, are higher than the experimental value by more than 3 MeV and thus this discrepancy between theory and experiment raises doubts concerning the unambiguous extraction of $`K`$ from energies of compression modes (see also Ref. ).

In this work we address this discrepancy between theory and experiment by examining the relation between $`S(E)`$ and the excitation cross section $`\sigma (E)`$ of the ISGDR, obtained by $`\alpha `$-scattering. We emphasize that it is quite common in theoretical work on giant resonance to calculate $`S(E)`$ for a certain scattering operator $`F`$ whereas in the analysis of experimental data of $`\sigma (E)`$ one carries out distorted-wave-Born-approximation (DWBA) calculations with a certain transition potential. Here we present results of accurate microscopic calculations for $`S(E)`$ and for $`\sigma (E)`$ with the folding model (FM) DWBA with transition densities $`\rho _t(𝒓)`$ obtained from HF-RPA calculations. We provide a simple explanation for the discrepancy between theory and experiment concerning the ISGDR and suggest further experiments.

We also present an accurate projection method to eliminate the contributions of the spurious state mixing (SSM) to $`S(E)`$ and $`\rho _t(𝒓)`$ of the ISGDR obtained in HF-RPA calculations for an operator $`F`$. The method, which is based on the replacement of $`F`$ with a properly modified operator $`F_\eta `$ in the calculation of $`S(E)`$ and $`\rho _t(𝒓)`$, is quite general and applicable for any $`F`$ and for any numerical method used in carrying out the RPA calculation, such as configuration space RPA, coordinate space (continuum and discretized) RPA and with and without the addition of smearing. We note that this method was recently used in the continuum RPA calculation of $`S(E)`$ in Ref. . Some preliminary results of our calculation were given in Ref. .

In self-consistent HF-RPA calculation one starts by adopting specific effective nucleon-nucleon interaction, $`V_{12}`$, carries out the HF calculation for the ground state of the nucleus and then solves the RPA equation using the particle-hole (p-h) interaction $`V_{ph}`$ which corresponds to $`V_{12}`$. The RPA Green’s function $`G`$  is obtained from

$$G=G_0(1+V_{ph}G_0)^1,$$
(1)
where $`G_0`$ is the free p-h Green’s function. For

$$F=\underset{i=1}{\overset{A}{}}f(𝒓_i),$$
(2)
the strength function and transition density are given by

$$S(E)=\underset{n}{}\left|0|F|n\right|^2\delta (EE_n)=\frac{1}{\pi }\text{Im}\left[\text{Tr}(fGf)\right],$$
(3)
$$\rho _t(𝒓,E)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{S(E)}}f(𝒓^{})\left[\frac{1}{\pi }\text{Im}G(𝒓^{},𝒓,E)\right]𝑑𝒓^{}.$$
(4)
Note that the definition (4) is consistent with

$$S(E)=\left|\rho _t(𝒓,E)f(𝒓)𝑑𝒓\right|^2.$$
(5)
In fully self-consistent HF-RPA calculations, the spurious state (associated with the center of mass motion) $`T=0`$, $`L=1`$ appears at $`E=0`$ and no SSM in the ISGDR occurs. However, although not always stated in the literature, actual implementations of HF-RPA are not fully self-consistent. One usually makes the following approximations: (i) neglecting the two-body Coulomb and spin-orbit interactions in $`V_{ph}`$, (ii) approximating momentum parts in $`V_{ph}`$, (iii) limiting the p-h space in a discretized calculation by a cut-off energy $`E_{ph}^{max}`$, (iv) introducing a smearing parameter (i.e., a Lorenzian with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/2`$) and (v) some numerical approximations. Although the effect of these approximations on the centroid energies of giant resonances is small (less than 1 MeV), the effect on the ISGDR is quite serious since each of these approximations introduces a SSM in the ISGDR.

The first serious attempt to correct for the effect of the SSM on $`S(E)`$ and $`\rho _t`$, associated with $`f(𝒓)=f_3(𝒓)=r^3Y_{1M}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$, was presented in Ref. . However, this method is not accurate and leads to strong reduction in the ISGDR strength at low energies. In Refs. , the effect of the SSM on S(E) was ignored and was only considered with regard to the energy weighted sum rule (EWSR) and the derivation of the collective transition density. In a very recent configuration space RPA calculation for the ISGDR  a method for accounting for the SSM was implemented for $`f_3(𝒓)`$. However, the results for $`S(E)`$ and $`\rho _t`$ depends on how the smearing is implemented (not described in the paper).

Let us consider scattering operators, Eq. (2), with

$$f(𝒓)=f(r)Y_{1M}(\mathrm{\Omega }),f_1(𝒓)=rY_{1M}(\mathrm{\Omega }),$$
(6)
and write $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}`$Im$`G`$ as sum of separable terms

$$R(𝒓^{},𝒓,\omega )=\frac{1}{\pi }\text{Im}G(𝒓^{},𝒓,\omega )=\underset{a}{}\rho _a(𝒓)\rho _a(𝒓^{}).$$
(7)
Note that $`\rho _a`$ includes the energy dependence and is written as

$$\rho _a(𝒓)=\rho _{a3}(𝒓)+\rho _{a1}(𝒓),$$
(8)
where $`\rho _{a1}(𝒓)`$ is due to SSM and $`\rho _{a3}`$, associated with the ISGDR, fulfills the center of mass condition (for all $`a`$)

$$f_1\rho _{a3}=f_1(𝒓)\rho _{a3}(𝒓)𝑑𝒓=0.$$
(9)
¿From (7) and (8) we have in an obvious notation

$$R=R_{33}+R_{31}+R_{13}+R_{11},$$
(10)
with $`R_{ij}=\rho _{ai}(𝒓)\rho _{aj}(𝒓^{})`$, and the required $`S(E)`$ and $`\rho _t`$ can be obtained from $`R_{33}`$ using (4) and (5) with $`f`$. Since $`R_{33}`$ is not known we look for a projection operator that projects out $`\rho _{a1}(𝒓)`$,

$$F_\eta =\underset{i=1}{\overset{A}{}}f_\eta (𝒓_i)=F\eta F_1,$$
(11)
with $`f_\eta =f\eta f_1`$. Using (9) and (10) we have

$$S_\eta (E)=f_\eta Rf_\eta =fR_{33}f+2fR_{31}f_\eta +f_\eta R_{11}f_\eta .$$
(12)
Note that $`f_\eta R_{11}f_\eta `$ is minimum for

$$\eta =fR_{11}f_1/f_1R_{11}f_1=f\rho _{a1}f_1\rho _{a1}/f_1\rho _{a1}^2,$$
(13)
and for the last two terms in (12) to vanish we must have

$$f\rho _{a1}=\eta f_1\rho _{a1},\text{for all}a.$$
(14)
The condition (14) holds in case (7) has only one term, such as in a discretized calculation without smearing or in a configuration space calculation, and/or in case all $`\rho _{a1}(𝒓)`$ are proportional to the same transition density, the coherent spurious states transition density

$$\rho _{a1}(𝒓)=\alpha _a\rho _{ss}(𝒓)=\alpha _a\frac{\rho _0}{r}Y_{1M}(\mathrm{\Omega }),$$
(15)
where $`\rho _0`$ is the ground state density of the nucleus. The value of $`\eta `$ associated with $`\rho _{ss}`$ is then given by

$$\eta =f\rho _{ss}/f_1\rho _{ss}.$$
(16)
To determine $`\rho _t`$ for the ISGDR we first use (4), (7), (8), (9) and (14) with $`F_\eta `$ and obtain

$$\rho _\eta (𝒓)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{S_\eta (E)}}c_a[\rho _{a3}(𝒓)+\rho _{a1}(𝒓)],$$
(17)
with $`c_a=f_\eta \rho _{a3}`$. To project out the spurious term from (17) we make use of (9) with $`\rho _{a1}=\alpha _a\rho _{ss}`$ and obtained

$$\rho _t(𝒓)=\rho _\eta (𝒓)\alpha \rho _{ss},\alpha =f_1\rho _\eta /f_1\rho _{ss}.$$
(18)
It is important to emphasize that using $`f_\eta `$ in (5) with $`\rho _t(𝒓)`$ from (18), one obtains the required $`S_\eta (E)`$. This is due to the fact that the averaging process in (17) was carried out using $`F_\eta `$ and not $`F`$. Use of $`F`$ in (4) may produce erroneous results for $`\rho _t(𝒓)`$ in (18) in case there are several terms in (7).

We now limit our discussion to the operator $`F_3=\underset{i=1}{\overset{A}{}}f_3(𝒓_i)`$, where we have for (15)

$$\eta =\frac{5}{3}r^2.$$
(19)
We note that the values of $`\eta `$ obtained for $`\rho _a`$ associated with single p-h transitions in the 1$`\mathrm{}\omega `$ region and the RPA results for the spurious state $`\rho _t`$, differ from that of (19) by less than 20% .

We have carried out numerical calculations for the $`S(E)`$, $`\rho _t(𝒓)`$ and $`\sigma (E)`$ within the FM-DWBA-HF-RPA theory. We used the SL1 Skyrme interaction , which is associated with $`K=230`$ MeV, and carried out HF calculations using a spherical box of $`R25`$ fm. For the RPA calculations we used the Green’s function approach with mesh size $`\mathrm{\Delta }r=0.3`$ fm and p-h maximum energy of $`E_{ph}^{max}=150`$ MeV (we include particle states with principle quantum number up to 12), since it is well-known that in order to extract accurate $`\rho _t(𝒓)`$, $`E_{ph}^{max}`$ should be much larger than the value required ($`E_{ph}^{max}50`$ MeV) to recover EWSR. Since in our calculation we also neglected the two-body coulomb and spin-orbit interactions, the spurious state energies differ from 0 by a few MeV. We therefore renormalized the strength of the $`V_{ph}`$ by a factor (0.99 and 0.974 for 116Sn and 208Pb, respectively), to place the spurious state at E=0.2 MeV. We have included a Lorenzian smearing ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }/2=1`$ MeV) and corrected for the SSM as described above. We carried out the FM-DWBA calculation for $`\sigma (E)`$ using a density dependent Gaussian nucleon-$`\alpha `$ interaction with parameters adjusted to reproduce the elastic cross section, with $`\rho _0`$ and $`\rho _t`$ from HF-RPA, see Ref. .

Using the operator $`f=r^2`$ for the ISGMR we calculated the corresponding $`S(E)`$, for $`E`$ up to 60 MeV. We recover $`100\%`$ of the corresponding EWSR and obtained the values of 17.09 and 14.48 MeV for the centroid energy of the ISGMR in 116Sn and 208Pb, respectively. The corresponding recent experimental values are $`16.07\pm 0.12`$ and $`14.17\pm 0.28`$ MeV, respectively .

In Figure 1, we present the results of the $`ES_3(E)`$ and $`ES_1(E)`$ for 116Sn, obtained by using Eq. (3) with $`f_3`$ and $`f_1`$, respectively. Note that from (9) and (10) $`S_1(E)=f_1R_{11}f_1=f_1\rho _{a1}^2`$ , provides a measure to the contribution of the SSM to $`S_3(E)`$. The large contribution from the Lorenzian tail of the spurious state is clearly seen in the figure. Also shown in Figure 1, is the ratio $`f_3Rf_1/f_1Rf_1`$. At low energy this ratio is very close to $`\eta `$, reflecting the fact that the transition density at the spurious state energy is close to that of Eq. (15) . At higher energies, this ratio exhibits fluctuations due to the nonnegligible terms $`R_{31}`$, Eq. (10).

Figure 2, exhibits the strength functions for the ISGDR in 208Pb obtained from Eqs. (5), (4) and (18). The solid line describes the result obtained using $`f_\eta `$. Note that this result coincides with $`S_\eta (E)`$, which is free of SSM contribution. Similarly, the dashed line describes the erroneous result obtained using $`f_3`$ (it is also different from $`S_3(E)`$). We find that when using $`f_3`$, the excitation strengths obtained for certain states are sensitive to the value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. The result obtained with $`f_3`$ coincides with that obtained with $`f_\eta `$ for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ 0, as expected since in this case Eq. (7) has one term. Thus, in configuration RPA calculation of $`\rho _t`$, one may use $`f_3`$ and correct for the SSM contribution before the smearing process.

FIG. 1. Energy weighted strength functions for ISGDR in 116Sn, obtained from Eq. (3) for the scattering operators $`f_3`$ (thick line) and $`f_1`$ (thin line) with $`\eta =\frac{5}{3}r^2=35.6`$ fm2. Also shown is the ratio $`f_3Rf_1/f_1Rf_1`$ (dashed line).

FIG. 2. Strength functions for the ISGDR in 208Pb obtained from Eqs. (4), (18) and (5), using $`f_3`$ (dashed line) and $`f_\eta =f_3\eta f_1`$ (solid line), with $`\eta =52.1`$ fm2.

Our results for the ISGDR, $`S_\eta (E)`$, indicate two main components with the low energy component containing close to 30% of the EWSR (for $`E`$ up to 23 and 19 MeV for 116Sn and 208Pb, respectively), in agreement with the experimental observation . Similar results were obtained for other nuclei and in other calculations

In Figure 3 we present results of microscopic calculations of the excitation cross section of the ISGDR in 116Sn by 240 MeV $`\alpha `$-particle, carried out within the FM-DWBA. The dashed lines are obtained using $`\rho _{coll}(r)`$ of the ISGDR . It is seen from the upper panel that the use of $`\rho _{coll}`$ increases the EWSR by at least 10% and

FIG. 3. The ISGDR in 116Sn. The middle panel: maximun double differential cross section obtained from $`\rho _t`$ (RPA). The lower panel: maximun cross section obtained with $`\rho _{coll}`$ (dashed line) and $`\rho _t`$ (solid line) normalised to 100% of the EWSR. Upper panel: The solid and dashed lines are the ratios of the middle panel curve with the solid and dashed lines of the lower panel, respectively.

may shift the centroid energy by a few percent. An important result of our calculation is that the maximum cross section for the ISGDR drops below the current experimental sensitivity of 2 mb/sr/MeV for excitation energy above 35 MeV (30 MeV for 208Pb), which contains about 20% of the EWSR. This missing strength leads to a reduction of more than 2.5 MeV in the ISGDR energy and thus explains the discrepancy between theory and experiment. More sensitive experiments and/or with higher $`\alpha `$-particle energy are thus needed.

In summary, we described and applied an accurate and general method to eliminate the SSM contributions from $`S(E)`$ and $`\rho _t`$. Our results indicate: (i) Existence of non-negligible ISGDR strength at low energy and (ii) Accurate determination of the relation between $`S(E)`$ and $`\sigma (E)`$ resolves the long standing problem of the conflicting results obtained for $`K`$, deduced from experimental data $`\sigma (E)`$ for the ISGDR and data for the ISGMR.

We thank Professors A. Arima and I. Hamamoto for interesting discussions. This work was supported in part by the US Department of Energy under grant no. DOE-FG03-93ER40773.


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# A possible black hole binary in Mkn 501

## Introduction

Binary black hole systems (BBHS) are expected to be a common phenomenon in the universe. For, in hierarchical clustering scenarios, giant elliptical galaxies (e.g. the host galaxy of Mkn 501) are thought to be products of mergers between spiral galaxies. Since the brightest galaxies generally seem to contain massive black holes (BH) in their nuclei, a BBHS should be a natural consequence, e.g. begelman80 , merritt99 . In the specific case of the gamma-ray blazar Mkn 501 at $`z=0.034`$, the existence of such a putative BBHS has been repeatedly invoked as a possible explanation of the observed misalignment between pc and kpc-jet conway95  or as a reason for the special evolution of its X-ray SED villata99 . The periodicity of $`P_{\mathrm{obs}}23`$ days, recently observed in the X-ray and $`\gamma `$-ray band of Mkn 501 (kranich99 , nishikawa99 ; see Fig. 1) may add another piece of evidence on such an internal configuration. Here we show, that this periodicity may be interpreted as being basically caused by the orbital motion of the relativistic jet emerging from the less massive BH in a close binary system rieger00 .

## Modelling

Assuming that the periodicity observed in the flaring state in Mkn 501 is associated with a relativistically moving feature in the jet (e.g. blob, shock, knot) the flux modulation by Doppler boosting is given by the simple formula

$$S_\nu ^{obs}=\delta (t)^{3+\alpha }S_\nu ,$$

where $`\alpha `$ is the spectral flux index. For a source region following a helical path (see Fig. 2) the Doppler factor $`\delta (t)`$, and thus the observed flux, is a periodical function of time and may be written as

$$\delta (t)=\frac{\sqrt{1(v_z^2+\mathrm{\Omega }_k^2R^2)/c^2}}{1(v_z\mathrm{cos}i\mathrm{\Omega }_kR\mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }_kt)/c},$$

where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_k`$ is the keplerian orbital frequency, $`R`$ the centre-of-mass distance, $`i`$ the jet inclination angle, $`c`$ the velocity of light and $`v_z`$ the outflow velocity.

Due to the relativistic motion of the source region the observed period appears strongly shortened

$$P_{\mathrm{obs}}=(1+z)(1\frac{v_z}{c}\mathrm{cos}i)P_k.$$

Thus, for an observed period of $`P_{\mathrm{obs}}=23`$ days, typical inclination angles $`i1/\mathrm{\Gamma }_b`$ and bulk Lorentz factors $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_b=1015`$, e.g. mannheim96 ; spada99 , we have an intrinsic orbital period $`P_k=(614)\mathrm{yrs}`$. Using the definition of the keplerian orbital frequency, one may also derive an equation for the required binary mass ratio rieger00

$`{\displaystyle \frac{M}{(m+M)^{2/3}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{P_{\mathrm{obs}}^{1/3}}{(2\pi [1+z]G)^{1/3}}}{\displaystyle \frac{c}{\mathrm{sin}i}}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{f^{1/(3+\alpha )}1}{f^{1/(3+\alpha )}+1}}(1{\displaystyle \frac{v_z}{c}}\mathrm{cos}i)^{2/3},`$
with $`m`$, $`M`$ the mass of the smaller/larger BH, respectively, $`G`$ the gravitational constant and $`f8`$ the observed TeV flux ratio between maximum and minimum.
Applying an additional constraint by assuming that the current binary separation $`d`$ roughly corresponds to the separation at which gravitational radiation becomes dominant, we may set an upper limit on the allowed binary masses (note that for a more precise estimate the gravitational time scale $`\tau _{\mathrm{grav}}`$ in rieger00  should be multiplied by a factor of $`4`$ and accordingly, the rhs of Eq. (10) by $`0.25^{0.25}`$, thus enhancing the allowed upper limit for $`m`$ by roughly a factor of $`3`$). These upper limits are calculated for the relevant inclination angles and two different spectral indices in Tab. 1, where $`P_K`$ denotes the intrinsic orbital period, $`\tau _\mathrm{l}=\tau _{\mathrm{grav}}/4`$ the gravitational lifetime and $`P_p`$ the period of gravitomagnetic jet precession. The calculation has been performed assuming a.) that the dynamical timescale for (Eddington) gas accretion is of the order of the salpeter time scale, i.e $`t_{\mathrm{gas}}t_\mathrm{s}5\times 10^7`$ yrs (note that for $`t_{\mathrm{gas}}>t_\mathrm{s}`$ the upper limit for $`m`$ can be reduced) and b.) that the spectral index $`\alpha =1.2`$ (in bracket: $`\alpha =1.7`$). The above mentioned constraint may be related to the key aspect that BL Lacs are less luminous radio galaxies with rather little signs of cosmological evolution bade98 . They may thus correspond to the final evolutionary stage of BBHSs with decreased mass accretion rates villata99 .

## Conclusions

The results indicate that a BBHS in Mkn 501 may not be improbable since 1.) it might represent a natural explanation for the observed periodicity; 2.) the putative binary black hole interpretation is supported by galaxy merger evolution; 3.) the derived masses are in line with such expectations from merger scenarios, i.e. a secondary mass of $`m10^7M_{}`$ appear to be in agreement with the concept that the galaxy swallowed in the merger process was a (minor) spiral galaxy; 4.) its expected separation is similar to that suggested in a simple unification scenario for BL Lacs and FSRQs villata99  ; 5.) its precessional period of $`10^4`$ yrs would agree with the driving frequency found by Conway & Wrobel conway95  in order to explain the misalignment of the radio jet on pc and kpc-scale.
We have also checked for consistency with several observations (e.g. VLBI and X-ray (RXTE) data) and discussed the implications elsewhere rieger00 . To be sure, the presented model is rather simplified because small changes, for example, in the maximum electron Lorentz factor or the magnetic field along the trajectory of the emission region may further add to flux variations. However, the general signature according to which a rotating jet in a BBHS may cause a periodical flux modulation remains robust. Generally, if the binary hypothesis is correct, the observable period in Mkn 501 should remain similar during different outburst phases unless there is evidence for a change in the general jet properties (i.e. in the bulk Lorentz factor or inclination angle).

Acknowledgement: K.M. acknowledges financial support from a Heisenberg-Fellowship and F.M.R. from DFG Ma 1545/2-2.


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# Exact solution of the nuclear pairing problem

## Abstract

In many applications to finite Fermi-systems, the pairing problem has to be treated exactly. We suggest a numerical method of exact solution based on SU(2) quasispin algebras and demonstrate its simplicity and practicality. We show that the treatment of binding energies with the use of the exact pairing and uncorrelated monopole contribution of other residual interactions can serve as an effective alternative to the full shell-model diagonalization in spherical nuclei. A self-consistent combination of the exactly treated pairing and Hartree-Fock method is discussed. Results for Sn isotopes indicate a good agreement with experimental data.

Pairing correlations play an essential role in nuclear structure properties including binding energies, odd-even effects, single-particle occupancies, excitation spectra, electromagnetic and beta-decay probabilities, transfer reaction amplitudes, low-lying collective modes, level densities, and moments of inertia . The revival of interest in pairing correlations is related to studies of nuclei far from stability and predictions of exotic pairing modes . Metallic clusters, organic molecules and Fullerenes are other examples of finite Fermi systems with possibilities for pairing correlations of the superconducting type .

The conventional description of pairing usually employs the classical BCS approach  used in theory of superconductivity. This approximate solution has a very good accuracy for large systems and becomes exact in the asymptotic limit . The shortcomings of the BCS approximation for small systems are well known, see for example  and references therein. The major drawback of the BCS is the violation of particle number conservation, which gives rise to deviations from the exact solution for small systems. Various ideas have been suggested to correct this deficiency, such as the number projection mean-field methods , coherent state approach , stochastic number projection , statistical descriptions , treatments of residual parts of the Hamiltonian in the random phase approximation , and recurrence relation methods . These methods have found only a limited number of practical applications; for some approaches the obtained results did not manifest the desired accuracy whereas other methods are limited by practical complications. BCS-like approximate theories have a number of other deficiencies when applied to small systems . In particular, in the region of weak pairing the BCS has a sharp phase transition from the paired condensate to the normal state with no pairing (trivial or zero gap solution), whereas exact solutions exhibit the existence of exponentially decreasing pairing correlations all the way down to the zero pairing strength. This difficulty makes the BCS method unreliable for applications to weakly bound nuclei and calls for improvements and extensions such as BCS+RPA . There are also serious problems related to the correct description of pairing in excited states.

The exact pairing (EP) method presented in this work allows one to solve exactly the general pairing Hamiltonian

$$H=\underset{jm}{}ϵ_ja_{jm}^{}a_{jm}+\frac{1}{4}\underset{j,j^{}}{}G_{jj^{}}\underset{m,m^{}}{}a_{jm}^{}\stackrel{~}{a}_{jm}^{}\stackrel{~}{a}_{j^{}m^{}}a_{j^{}m^{}},\stackrel{~}{a}_{jm}(1)^{jm}a_{jm},$$
(1)
where $`\{ϵ_j\}`$ is the set of single-particle energies, diagonal $`G_{jj}`$ are pairing energies, and $`G_{jj^{}}=G_{j^{}j}`$ for $`jj^{}`$ are pair transfer matrix elements, ($`j^{}j`$). The practical usefulness of the EP algorithm comes from the facts that it is exact, fast and allows a straightforward extension for an approximate treatment of other components of residual interactions. Some realistic examples are presented in this work to emphasize these points. As a result, it becomes unnecessary to use complex approximate methods, such as BCS and all those associated with it, when exact results that are free of all problems discussed above can be obtained with an almost equal or even smaller effort.

A number of methods for treating the pairing problem exactly have been previously proposed. The Richardson method, described in the series of papers , provides a formally exact way for solving the pairing Hamiltonian. This method reduces the large-scale diagonalization of a many-body Hamiltonian in a truncated Hilbert space to a set of coupled equations with a dimension equal to the number of valence particles. Recently, exact solutions have been approached by introducing sophisticated mathematical tools such as infinite-dimensional algebras . Such formally exact solutions have a certain merit from a mathematical point of view and for developing and understanding approximate calculations. However, due to their complexity they are not very useful in solving practical problems in nuclear physics.

The natural way of solving the pairing problem is related to the direct Fock-space diagonalization. For deformed nuclei with the doubly degenerate single-particle orbitals this approach supplemented by the appropriate use of symmetries and truncations was already shown to be quite effective . Our goal is to combine the exact treatment of pairing with the approximate inclusion of other parts of the residual interaction. Here the framework of the rotationally invariant shell model is the most convenient, especially because it allows us to fully utilize the well known ideas (see for example ), based on the existence of quasispin symmetry in paired systems first studied in the 1940’s by Racah . In the context of the shell model similar ideas were utilized in . We use the quasispin algebra for each subset of degenerate single-particle levels. The fact that Racah’s degenerate model is analytically solvable comes purely from this algebraic feature. The spherical shell model with its m-degeneracies is a perfect arena for applying this method and therefore we will use notations associated with the case of spherical symmetry and j-j coupling. This certainly does not limit the generality of approach.

The Hamiltonian Eq. (1) can be rewritten as

$$H=\underset{j}{}ϵ_j\mathrm{\Omega }_j+2\underset{j}{}ϵ_jL_j^z+\underset{jj^{}}{}G_{jj^{}}L_j^+L_j^{}^{},$$
(2)
by introducing the partial quasispin operators $`L_j^+`$, $`L_j^{}`$ and $`L_j^z`$ for each $`j`$-level as follows

$$L_j^{}=\frac{1}{2}\underset{m}{}\stackrel{~}{a}_{jm}a_{jm},L_j^+=\left(L_j^{}\right)^{}=\frac{1}{2}\underset{m}{}a_{jm}^{}\stackrel{~}{a}_{jm}^{},$$
(3)
$$L_j^z=\frac{1}{2}\underset{m}{}\left(a_{jm}^{}a_{jm}\frac{1}{2}\right)=\frac{1}{2}(N_j\mathrm{\Omega }_j),$$
(4)
where $`N_j`$ is the particle number operator and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_j=(2j+1)/2`$ is the pair degeneracy of a given single-particle level $`j.`$ It can be shown directly from the definitions of $`L_J^+`$, $`L_j^{}`$ and $`L_j^z`$ that they form an SU(2) algebra of angular momentum,

$$[L_j^+,L_j^{}^{}]=2\delta _{jj^{}}L_j^z,[L_j^z,L_j^{}^+]=\delta _{jj^{}}L_j^+,[L_j^z,L_j^{}^{}]=\delta _{jj^{}}L_j^{}.$$
(5)
Expressed in terms of quasispins, the Hamiltonian in (2) makes the pairing problem equivalent to the problem of interacting spins in a magnetic field, a generalized form of the Zeeman effect . It is clear that every square of the partial quasispin $`𝐋_j^2=L_j^+L_j^{}L_j^z+(L_j^z)^2`$ commutes with the Hamiltonian making $`L_j`$, corresponding to the eigenvalue $`L_j(L_j+1)`$ of $`𝐋_j^2`$, a good quantum number in the pairing problem. This brings in the major simplification of the problem. The maximum value that $`L_j`$ can take is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_j/2,`$ which happens for a fully paired subshell, such as, for example, the completely occupied subshell case where $`N_j=2\mathrm{\Omega }_j`$, $`L_j^z=L_j=\mathrm{\Omega }_j/2.`$ Lower values of the quasispin quantum number correspond to the Pauli blocking of a part of the pair space $`\mathrm{\Omega }_j`$ by $`s_j`$ unpaired particles. This reduces the allowed space to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_js_j.`$ The number $`s_j`$ can be called the seniority of a given $`j`$-shell. Being related to the quasispin, $`s_j`$ are conserved by the pairing interaction (2). Introducing the partial seniority $`s_j`$ and partial occupancy $`N_j`$ by means of

$$L_j=\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{\Omega }_js_j)L_j^z=\frac{1}{2}(N_j\mathrm{\Omega }),$$
(6)
we will use $`|s_j,N_j`$ instead of the SU(2) notation $`|L_j,L_j^z.`$

The quasispin projections $`L_j^z,`$ or the partial occupancies $`N_j,`$ are not conserved because of the pair transfer term $`G_{jj^{}}`$ (pair vibration). The usual constraints on angular momentum $`0|L_j^z|L_j`$ lead to $`s_jN_j2\mathrm{\Omega }_js_j`$ and $`s_j\mathrm{\Omega }_j`$ that have obvious interpretations. Furthermore, since both $`L_j`$ and $`L_j^z`$ must be simultaneously either integers or half-integers, $`s_j`$ is of the same parity as $`N_j,`$ confirming that particles are transfered only in pairs. Finally, there is a given total number of particles in the system $`N=_jN_j,`$ and one can introduce the total seniority $`s=_js_j.`$ Both quantities are conserved by the Hamiltonian and must be of the same parity.

For each representation given by the set of quantum numbers $`\{s_j\},`$ one can construct basis states $`|\{s_j\},\{N_j\}`$ going through all permutations of $`N`$ fermions allowed by above constraints. Finally, a Hamiltonian matrix can be constructed in this basis using standard properties of the angular momentum operators

$$L^\pm |L,L_z=\sqrt{(LL_z)(L\pm L_z+1)}|L,L\pm 1.$$
(7)
Diagonal elements become

$$\{s_j\},\{N_j\}|H|\{s_j\},\{N_j\}=\underset{j}{}\left(ϵ_jN_j+\frac{G_{jj}}{4}(N_js_j)(2\mathrm{\Omega }_js_jN_j+2)\right),$$
(8)
and off-diagonal elements that transfer pairs are

$$\{s_j\},\mathrm{}N_j+2,\mathrm{}N_j^{}2,\mathrm{}|H|\{s_j\},\mathrm{}N_j,\mathrm{}N_j^{},\mathrm{}$$

$$=\frac{G_{jj^{}}}{4}\sqrt{(N_j^{}s_j^{})(2\mathrm{\Omega }_j^{}s_j^{}N_j^{}+2)(2\mathrm{\Omega }_js_jN_j)(N_js_j+2)}.$$
(9)
Diagonalization of this matrix for each representation, a given set of partial seniorities $`\{s_j\},`$ is the final step in the solution. The largest Hamiltonian matrix in partial seniority basis, which corresponds to the lowest allowed total seniority, has a dimension much lower than the total fermionic many-body space. Even for the set of valence orbits encountered in heavy nuclei it does not exceed several thousands. As seen from the above discussion, the Hamiltonian matrix is very sparse.

Each state of a non-zero seniority is degenerate since $`s_j`$ unpaired particles are untouched by the Hamiltonian and are free to move within a given $`j`$-shell, provided that they all remain unpaired. The number of these fermionic degrees of freedom for each $`j`$ is $`C(2\mathrm{\Omega }_j,s_j)C(2\mathrm{\Omega }_j,s_j2)`$ where $`C(m,n)=m!/(n!(mn)!)`$ is a binomial coefficient. The total degeneracy of each state in the $`\{s_j\}`$ seniority class is

$$\underset{j}{}\left[C(2\mathrm{\Omega }_j,s_j)C(2\mathrm{\Omega }_j,s_j2)\right].$$
(10)
The resulting degenerate states that carry seniority quantum numbers can be further classified according to other symmetry groups of the Hamiltonian such as angular momentum. All total seniority zero states have spin zero. For non-zero seniorities, one first has to determine allowed angular momenta for a given subshell $`j`$ with $`s_j`$ unpaired particles and then make all possible couplings of subshells to a total spin.

To illustrate the practical application of this algorithm, we show below examples involving chains of Ca and Sn isotopes. The Ca isotopes occupy the fp shell with the model space consisting of four levels $`f_{7/2},p_{3/2},f_{5/2},`$ and $`p_{1/2}.`$ This amounts to a total neutron capacity of 20. The pair transfer matrix elements are taken from the FPD6 interaction . The results in Fig. 1(b) are obtained with single-particle energies appropriate for the above-mentioned $`j`$-levels in 48Ca: -9.9, -5.1, -1.6, and -3.1 MeV, respectively. Fig. 1(b) shows the correlation energies in the Ca isotopes, defined as

$$E_{\mathrm{corr}}=E\underset{j}{}ϵ_j\overline{N_j}\underset{j}{}\frac{G_{jj}}{2\mathrm{\Omega }_j1}\frac{\overline{N_j}(\overline{N_j}1)}{2},$$
(11)
where $`E`$ is the energy of the ground state and $`\overline{N_j}`$ is the (noninteger) expectation value of the ground state occupancy of the $`j`$-level, found as a result of the EP calculation. It is known  that in a system with a discrete single-particle spectrum the nontrivial BCS solution exists only at a sufficiently strong pairing interaction which can overcome the single-particle level spacings. In contrast to that, in macroscopic Fermi-systems the nontrivial Cooper phenomenon exists at any strength of the attractive pairing interaction. The fact of inadequacy of the BCS approximation for weak pairing was pointed out by many authors, for example . Near the 48Ca shell closure there is a 4.8 MeV gap between $`f_{7/2}`$ and higher single-particle orbitals, and as it can be seen from Fig. 1(b), BCS can no longer support the pairing condensate. It gives instead a normal Fermi-gas solution with zero pairing energy, whereas in reality the EP solution demonstrates significant pairing effects with almost 2 MeV condensation energy.

In most of the real cases the pure pairing interaction ($`J=0,T=1`$) is strongly modified by residual interactions in other channels. A significant part of the remaining correlations in spherical nuclei can be treated by including only monopole (diagonal) part

$$\underset{j}{}\overline{V}_{jj}\frac{N_j(N_j1)}{2}+\underset{jj^{}}{}\overline{V}_{jj^{}}N_jN_j^{},$$
(12)
where

$$\overline{V}_{jj^{}}=\frac{1+\delta _{jj^{}}}{2\mathrm{\Omega }_j(2\mathrm{\Omega }_j^{}\delta _{jj^{}})}\underset{J0}{}(2J+1)J;jj^{}|V|J;jj^{}$$
(13)
is the monopole-monopole part of the total interaction $`V`$ written in eq. (13) in terms of the diagonal matrix elements for the pairs $`[jj^{}]_J`$. Pairing $`J=0;jj|V|J=0;j^{}j^{}=G_{jj^{}}\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }_j\mathrm{\Omega }_j^{}}`$ is not included in the sum since it is treated exactly by EP and its monopole term is present in Eq. (8). One-neutron separation energies shown in Fig. 1(a) were calculated with this EP plus monopole method, using the FPD6 interaction and single-particle energies for 41Ca. These results agree very well with experimentally observed separation energies, shown on the figure with diamonds. Ground state energies, obtained with this method for Ca isotopes differ from those from the exact shell model diagonalization, using the total FPD6  interaction, by less than 0.5 MeV; certainly the EP plus monopole results are exact for full and empty shells and for one-particle or one-hole cases.

For the second example of application we show in Fig. 2(b) the results for the Sn isotopes. The model space here consists of five single-particle levels $`h_{11/2},d_{3/2},s_{1/2},g_{7/2},`$ and $`d_{5/2},`$ which can accommodate up to 32 neutrons. We will be interested in the evolution of neutron separation and correlation energies along the chain of the isotpes rather than in the specific spectra which were studied earlier with a number of approximate methods, for example , and can be considered in the future with our exact approach. The pairing matrix elements were obtained from the $`G`$-matrix derived from the recent CD-Bonn  nucleon-nucleon interaction with 132Sn as a closed shell, where the $`\widehat{Q}`$-box method includes all non-folded diagrams up to the third order in the interaction and sums up the folded diagrams to infinite order . The most complex case is 116Sn (half-filled shell) with 601,080,390 many-body states of which 272,828 are of spin zero, so that even with the use of the angular momentum projection the problem remains difficult for direct diagonalization. There are only 420 independent seniority sets in the seniority basis. The largest matrix, $`s=0,`$ has a dimension of $`110,`$ the diagonalization of which is a trivial problem. Solution of the pairing problem for 116Sn with the algorithm discussed above is therefore simple and extremely fast.

The correlation energies obtained with the above $`G`$-matrix and single-hole energies -9.76, -8.98, -7.33, -7.66, and -7.57 MeV, based on the data for the 131Sn isotope , are shown in Fig. 2(b). A reduction of pairing also happens between $`g_{7/2},d_{5/2}`$ and the rest of the single-particle orbitals $`h_{11/2},d_{3/2},s_{1/2},`$ but here BCS is just weakened which results only in relatively small suppression of correlation energy. A related application of EP is shown in Fig. 2(a) where one-neutron separation energies are calculated for the Sn isotopes, including those beyond 132Sn. These energies were obtained from the fully self-consistent spherically symmetric solution of Hartree-Fock (HF) equations, using the SKX interaction , with the EP solution based on the above $`G`$-matrix at each HF iteration. The HF+EP method works as follows. An initial guess for the HF potential is used to obtain a set of spherical single-particle energies and densities for all of the occupied and valence orbitals. The single-particle enegies for the valence space plus a fixed set of two-body matrix elements are used in the EP method to obtain the pairing correlation energy and the valence single-particle occupation numbers. The initial set of single-particle densities plus the pairing occupation factors are used to obtain a new potential with the Skyrme hamiltonian. This proceedure is iterated until convergence (typically 60 iterations). The total energy is the sum of the Skyrme HF energy and the pairing correlation energy Eq. (11). The plot 2(a) exhibits an odd-even staggering that can only be attributed to pairing. The agreement between experiment and theory is excellent given that no parameters have been adjusted for these particular data.

The EP algorithm presented here in our view has a good future as a tool for different calculations related to pairing. It is exact, fast and reliable which makes it perfect for pure shell model calculations with pairing, fast estimates of binding energies and spectroscopic factors, for the use as a basis for treatment of other interactions, iterative HF calculations and many other tasks.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, grants No. 9605207 and 0070911. The schematic model was studied with E. Keller in the framework of the REU program at MSU . The authors thank S. Pratt for motivating discussions and G. Bertsch, A. Klein, M. Mostovoy, and D. Mulhall for useful comments. M. Hjorth-Jensen kindly provided the renormalized $`G`$-matrix for the 132Sn region.