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# Theoretical Models of Polarized Dust Emission from Protostellar Cores

## 1 Introduction

The topology of the magnetic field inside and around protostellar cores can be predicted with models for their formation and evolution. Models of sub–critical cores contracting under the effect of gravity and ambipolar drift, for example, predict a rather uniform magnetic field roughly perpendicular to the core major axis. Such models can be tested if the magnetic field topology is constrained observationally.

Polarization maps of sub–mm thermal dust emission have recently been obtained for a number of protostellar cores and Bok globules (Minchin, Bonifacio & Murray 1996; Glenn, Walker & Young 1999; Greaves et al. 1999; Coppin et al. 2000; Davis et al. 2000; Matthews & Wilson 2000; Vallée, Bastien & Greaves 2000; Ward–Thompson et al. 2000; Henning et al. 2001). Results are still sparse, but are readily used to try to test theoretical models of core formation and evolution (Glenn, Walker & Young 1999; Coppin et al. 2000; Davis et al 2000; Ward–Thompson et al. 2000). Since the interpretation of the observations is hardly unique, it is useful to compute polarization maps of the theoretical models, where the full three–dimensional information is available, and to infer their observable properties. Theoretical polarization maps have been previously computed by Wardle & Königl (1990) for the molecular disk at the Galactic center and by Fiege & Pudritz (2000) for molecular cloud filaments.

In this work we assume that protostellar cores are assembled by super–sonic turbulent flows in molecular clouds. We have shown in a previous work that the formation of cores by turbulent shocks provides an excellent interpretation of the relation between integrated intensity and rms velocity in molecular clouds (Padoan et al. 2001). Alternative interpretations of this newly discovered property of molecular clouds have not been proposed so far. Furthermore, super–sonic turbulence is ubiquitously observed in molecular clouds, and therefore models of core formation and evolution must take into account this turbulent environment self–consistently. We do so by selecting self–gravitating cores from a numerical simulation of super–sonic, super–Alfvénic, self–gravitating magneto–hydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. The simulation is intended to represent a molecular cloud region with size $`L=6.25`$ pc, rms turbulent velocity $`\sigma _v=3.0`$ km/s and average gas density $`n=320`$ cm-3. These are typical values for molecular clouds according to Larson’s relations (Larson 1981). The three selected cores have a mass of $`60`$ M and a maximum gas density $`10^5`$ cm-3.

The polarized thermal dust emission is computed in two ways. In model A it is assumed that dust properties and grain alignment efficiency are uniform; in model B it is assumed that grains are not aligned at visual extinction larger than $`A_{V,0}=3`$ mag, in line with theoretical expectations for grain alignment mechanisms (Lazarian, Goodman & Meyers 1997). Instead of using a specific set of grain properties, we adopt a maximum degree of polarization $`P_{max}=15`$ %. Results are therefore sensitive mainly to the topology of the magnetic field (model A) and to the gas distribution that determines the distribution of $`A_V`$ (model B). A Monte Carlo method is used to compute the distribution of $`A_V`$ in the MHD model.

We find that despite the relatively weak magnetic field averaged over the whole computational box, $`B=3.3`$ $`\mu `$G and $`B^2^{1/2}=7.1`$ $`\mu `$G, the degree of polarization is typically between 1 and 10% (as observed), spanning a range of values almost up to $`P_{max}`$. In protostellar cores (Davis et al. 2000) and Bok globules (Henning et al. 2000), $`P`$ is always found to decrease with increasing sub-mm dust continuum intensity $`I`$. This is consistent with our MHD model only if grains are not aligned above a certain value of the visual extinction, $`A_{V,0}`$ (model B), in agreement with previous results from optical and near–IR polarized absorption of background stars (Goodman et al. 1995; Gerakines et al. 1995; Arce et al. 1998).

We also solve the radiative transfer in the MHD model with a non–LTE Monte Carlo method, to compute spectral maps of the J=1–0 transition of CS. We use these maps to estimate the turbulent velocity dispersion in the same way as in the observations. This turbulent velocity dispersion is used, together with the dispersion in the polarization angle, to infer the magnetic field strength using the Chandrasekhar–Fermi formula (Chandrasekhar & Fermi 1953). It is found that the volume–averaged three dimensional magnetic field strength can be estimated, despite the large dispersion in the polarization angle, if the Chandrasekhar–Fermi formula is used with a coefficient $`f0.4`$.

The polarization properties of turbulent molecular clouds depend on the average magnetic field strength, relative to the kinetic energy of turbulence, as measured by the rms Alfvénic Mach number, $`_a`$, that is the ratio of the rms flow velocity and the Alfvén velocity, (Clemens et al. 2000; Ostriker, Stone & Gammie 2001). A complete statistical study of the polarization properties of turbulent clouds with different values of $`_a`$ will be presented separately, and will be more useful in the future, when a larger number of polarization maps of sub–mm and far–IR dust emission will be available (especially if future satellite missions of the type of M4 (Clemens et al. 2000) will be dedicated to this purpose). In the present work we focus on the properties of a few cores, to provide insight in the interpretation of recent sub–mm observations.

The MHD models are presented in the next section, while in § 3 we describe the method for computing the polarized dust emission. The selection of self–gravitating cores from the synthetic continuum map is discussed in § 4 and the observational results are summarized in § 5. In § 6 the Chandrasekhar–Fermi formula is tested on the selected cores. Results are discussed in § 7, and conclusions are summarized in § 8.

## 2 The MHD Model

We solve the compressible MHD equations:

$$\frac{\mathrm{ln}\rho }{t}+𝐯\mathrm{ln}\rho =𝐯,$$
(1)
$$\frac{𝐯}{t}+𝐯𝐯=\frac{P}{\rho }\mathrm{ln}P+\frac{1}{\rho }𝐣\times 𝐁\mathrm{\Phi }+𝐟,$$
(2)
$$P=\rho T,$$
(3)
$$\frac{𝐁}{t}=\times (𝐯\times 𝐁),$$
(4)
$$𝐣=\times 𝐁,$$
(5)
$$^2\mathrm{\Phi }=C\rho $$
(6)
plus numerical diffusion terms, and with periodic boundary conditions. $`𝐯`$ is the velocity, $`𝐁`$ the magnetic field, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ the gravitational potential, $`𝐟`$ an external random force, $`T`$ the gas temperature and $`T=`$ const is assumed. The isothermal approximation is appropriate for the short cooling time in relatively dense molecular gas (see discussion in Padoan, Zweibel & Nordlund 2000). The constant $`C`$ is given by:

$$C=\frac{4\pi Gl_0^2\rho _0}{v_0^2},$$
(7)
where the velocity is measured in units of $`v_0`$, length in units of $`l_0`$, time in units of $`l_0/v_0`$, and density in units of $`\rho _0`$.

For the purpose of this paper we have run a numerical simulation of super–sonic, super–Alfvénic and self–gravitating MHD turbulence, by solving numerically the equations above, in a $`128^3`$ mesh. The initial density and magnetic fields are uniform; the initial velocity is random, generated in Fourier space with power only on the large scale. We also apply an external random force, to drive the turbulence at a roughly constant rms Mach number of the flow. This force is generated in Fourier space, with power only on small wave numbers ($`1<k<2`$), as the initial velocity.

We let the flow evolve for one dynamical time, defined as $`t_{dyn}=L_0/\sigma _v`$, where $`L`$ is the linear size of the computational box, and $`\sigma _v`$ is the rms flow velocity. A self–gravitating flow is never statistically relaxed. First a number of collapsing and accreting cores is generated, and later the cores begin to merge. The numerical resolution (1283 numerical mesh) allows only the description of the initial phase of the collapse of single cores. Results are progressively inaccurate at later times, when the numerical resolution cannot cope with the exceedingly high density. We therefore interrupt the simulation at a time when most cores are just recently formed and start to collapse, which is about one dynamical time of the large scale.

Periodic boundary conditions and large scale external forcing are justified by the fact that we simulate a region of turbulent flow inside a larger turbulent molecular cloud. The rms Mach number of the flow is $`_s11`$, which corresponds to a linear size $`L_06.25`$ pc, and an average gas density $`<n>320`$ cm-3, using empirical Larson type relations (Larson 1981). The average magnetic field in this model is rather weak, as justified by our previous work (Padoan & Nordlund 1997, 1999), and such that the average magnetic energy is approximately twice the thermal energy. Assuming a kinetic temperature $`T=10`$ K, the rms flow velocity is $`\sigma _v=3.0`$ km/s; the average magnetic field strength is $`B=3.3`$ $`\mu `$G, while $`B^2^{1/2}=7.1`$ $`\mu `$G . Despite this low value of $`B`$, strongly magnetized cores are formed by the process of turbulent fragmentation (the maximum field strength in the simulation is 127.8 $`\mu `$G), due to compressions and stretching in the turbulent flow.

## 3 Polarized Thermal Dust Emission

We compute the polarized thermal dust emission from the MHD model following the formalism in Fiege & Pudritz (2000) (see also Wardle & Königl 1990). As in Fiege & Pudritz (2000) we are interested in the thermal dust emission at sub-mm wavelengths, and therefore the effect of self–absorption (Hildebrand et al. 1999) and scattering (Novak et al. 1989) can be neglected. We further assume that the grain properties are constant222Fiege and Pudritz (2000) consider explicitly the contributions to the polarized emission from several grain species, which is not required here since we do not specify any particular set of grain properties. and the temperature is uniform. With these assumptions, the Stokes parameters $`Q`$ and $`U`$ are proportional to the following integrals along the line of sight:

$$q=\rho \mathrm{cos}2\psi \mathrm{cos}^2\gamma ds,$$
(8)
$$u=\rho \mathrm{sin}2\psi \mathrm{cos}^2\gamma ds,$$
(9)
where $`\rho `$ is the gas density, $`\psi `$ the angle between the projection of $`𝐁`$ on the plane of the sky and the North, $`\gamma `$ the angle between the local $`𝐁`$ vector and the plane of the sky. The polarization angle $`\chi `$ is then given by:

$$\mathrm{tan}2\chi =\frac{u}{q}.$$
(10)
The degree of polarization $`P`$, defined as

$$P=\frac{\sqrt{Q^2+U^2}}{I},$$
(11)
where $`I`$ is the intensity, is given by:

$$P=\alpha \frac{\sqrt{q^2+u^2}}{\mathrm{\Sigma }\alpha \mathrm{\Sigma }_2},$$
(12)
with

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }=\rho 𝑑s,$$
(13)
and

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_2=\frac{1}{2}\rho (\mathrm{cos}^2\gamma 2/3)𝑑s,$$
(14)
The coefficient $`\alpha `$ in equation (12) is defined as

$$\alpha =RF\frac{C_{pol}}{C_{ran}},$$
(15)
where $`R`$, $`F`$, $`C_{pol}`$ and $`C_{ran}`$ are defined by Lee & Draine (1985). $`C_{pol}`$ is the grain polarization cross section, which differs for oblate spheroids,

$$C_{pol}=C_{}C_{},$$
(16)
and prolate spheroids.

$$C_{pol}=(C_{}C_{})/2,$$
(17)
where $`C_{}`$ and $`C_{}`$ are the polarization cross sections for electric field parallel and perpendicular to the symmetry axis of the grain. $`C_{ran}`$ is the average cross section for randomly oriented grains,

$$C_{ran}=(2C_{}+C_{})/3.$$
(18)
$`R`$ is the Rayleigh polarization reduction factor due to imperfect grain alignment, and $`F`$ the polarization reduction factor due to the turbulent component of the magnetic field. In our case $`F=1`$ because the three dimensional magnetic field is provided by the MHD model (assuming that no small scale structure is unresolved in the numerical solution). However, in this work we do not attempt to use specific models for the grain cross sections and for the reduction factors, since our aim is to investigate the effect of the magnetic field topology. We therefore adopt a constant value of $`\alpha =0.15`$, which is equivalent to assuming a reasonable value for the maximum degree of polarization, $`P_{max}=15`$%, since

$$P_{max}=\frac{\alpha }{1\alpha /6}.$$
(19)
In Figure 1 we have plotted $`C_{pol}/C_{ran}`$ of astronomical silicate spheroids, for “perfect spinning alignment”, as a function of the “axial ratio”, defined as $`(a+b)/(2c)`$, where $`a`$, $`b`$ and $`c`$ are the long, intermediate and short axis respectively. For prolate spheroids $`b=c`$; for oblate spheroids $`a=b`$. With this definition, the ratio $`C_{pol}/C_{ran}`$ is nearly the same, at given ”axial ratio”, for prolate and oblate spheroids. The astronomical silicate is that discussed by Draine & Lee (1984), as modified by Li & Draine (2001). For wavelengths $`\lambda `$ in the range $`100\mu \mathrm{m}<\lambda <1\mathrm{mm}`$, $`C_{pol}/C_{ran}`$ is almost independent of $`\lambda `$. Figure 1 is computed for $`\lambda =350`$ $`\mu `$m. The adopted value of $`\alpha =0.15`$ would require only moderate deviations from sphericity, provided the degree of alignment $`R`$ is reasonably high. If for example $`R0.33`$, a reasonable value of approximately 1.3 for the axial ratio gives the assumed value of $`\alpha `$.

We have computed polarization maps from the MHD model in two cases. In the first case, or model $`A`$, it is assumed that grains are aligned independently of their visual extinction, $`A_V`$; in the second case, or model $`B`$, it is assumed that grains are not aligned at visual extinction larger than $`A_{V,0}=3`$ mag. The intensity of the radiation field was computed with a Monte Carlo method. Photon packages were sent into the cloud from the background and the scatterings and absorption processes were simulated. In each cell the number of incoming photons was registered and the intensity relative to the background was used to compute the effective values of $`A_V`$. The dust opacity was calculated from the relation between $`N`$(H2) and $`A_V`$ as given by Bohlin, Savage & Drake (1978). The albedo of the grains was 0.5 and the asymmetry factor of the scattering $`g`$=0.6.

The polarization maps are plotted in Figure 2 for both model $`A`$ and in Figure 3 for model $`B`$. The average magnetic field (volume–average over the whole computational box) is oriented in the vertical direction. The length of the polarization vectors is proportional to the degree of polarization, with the longest vector corresponding to $`P=14`$ %. The contour map shows the sub–mm dust continuum intensity $`I`$. Model $`B`$ shows systematically low values of the degree of polarization $`P`$ in the brightest regions, because at $`A_V>3`$ mag the dust contributes to the total flux, but not to the polarized flux ($`P`$ is defined as the ratio of polarized and total flux). This does not happen in model $`A`$, with the exception of one region (core C3).

There is no obvious correlation between $`P`$ and $`I`$ over the entire map, as shown in the scatter plots of Figure 4. $`P`$ spans a range of values 0.3 %$`<P<14`$ %, with $`P=5.6`$ %. Such relatively large values of $`P`$, comparable to typically observed values, are usually found in models of super–Alfvénic turbulence. This is due to the fact that each line of sight is normally dominated by one particular dense filament (or edge–on sheet), where the magnetic field is rather uniform because it is amplified in the directions perpendicular to the shock compression that generates that filament (or sheet). The power spectrum of turbulence contains most of the energy on the largest scales, which constrains the magnetic field tangling, in the sense that the number of correlation lengths of the magnetic field can never be $`1`$ (see the discussion in § 7).

## 4 Self–Gravitating Cores

For our polarization study, we select the brightest cores in the intensity map shown in Figure 2, in a similar way as protostellar cores would be selected from a sub–mm dust continuum map. Since we are interested in relating the observable properties of the cores with their intrinsic three dimensional structure, we have limited our selection to intensity maxima that are also well defined in the three dimensional MHD data–cube. We have excluded the remaining two or three bright cores that are not easily identified in the original three dimensional data–cube, because of the contribution of multiple structures along the line of sight.

We have selected three cores that we call C1, C2 and C3. Their position is shown on the maps in Figures 2 and 3. We have verified, using the MHD data–cube, that the cores C1, C2 and C3 are gravitationally bound (gravitational energy in excess of the kinetic energy of turbulence). While the core C1 is still being assembled by a turbulent shock (this is also indicated by its position as a density peak in a strongly curved segment of a filament), the core C3 is collapsing with a surrounding flow characterized by accretion along numerous filaments converging towards the core. The magnetic field around the core is roughly aligned with these accretion filaments. In the core C1 the magnetic field is roughly aligned with the filament where the core is located (it is amplified in that direction by the shock compression), and is therefore strongly curved inside the core. The core C2 seems to be an intermediate case between C1 and C3.

The collapsing/accreting configuration of the core C3 can be explained as follows. Once a core is formed by a shock as a density peak along a filament (or on a sheet), part of the gas is moving along the filament (or on the sheet) away from the core, because of the pressure gradient. However, as long as the core becomes massive enough, its gravitational force becomes larger than the pressure gradient and the flow along the filament is reversed back into the core. In the simple case of a single shock the collapsing core will be accreting along two filaments (the two sides of the original filament), while in the case of the brightest cores, located at the intersection of a number of shocks, many accreting filaments can be found.

The region of the polarization map around each core is shown in the upper panels of Figure 5 for model $`A`$. The polarization vectors are here plotted for one position every two computational cells, and the largest polarization vectors (found in the core C1) corresponds to $`P11.5`$ %. The respective scatter plots of $`P`$ versus $`I`$ (also for model $`A`$) are shown in the left panels of Figure 6, where the intensity $`I`$ is plotted in linear units, for a more direct comparison with published observational plots. The difference in the $`P`$$`I`$ plot between the cores C1 and C3 is remarkable in model $`A`$. The plot for the core C1 is characterized by a lower envelope with $`P`$ increasing with increasing $`I`$, while the plot for the core C3 shows a very clear upper envelope with $`P`$ decreasing with increasing $`I`$. The excursion of the values of $`P`$ on the envelopes is from approximately 2% to 9% in the first case and from approximately 8% to 2% in the second case. The plot for the core C2 looks like an intermediate case.

Should we conclude that the $`P`$$`I`$ plot is a diagnostic for the time evolution of a core, from an early shock phase to a collapse phase? The integration of the Stokes parameters along different lines of sight shows that the $`P`$$`I`$ plot of the core C3 depends on the direction of the line of sight. Along certain directions $`P`$ and $`I`$ are virtually uncorrelated; along others $`P`$ decreases with increasing $`I`$ because the magnetic field is roughly parallel to the line of sight towards the center of the core, or because of a cancellation effect due to the direction of polarization within material in front of the core. The $`P`$$`I`$ plot is therefore sensitive to the viewing angle, and is not a diagnostic for the evolutionary state of the cores (at least with the present numerical resolution that allows only the description of the very early phase of the core collapse).

The situation is different when grains are assumed to be aligned only at visual extinction below $`A_{V,0}=3`$ mag, as in model $`B`$. The polarization maps of the cores in the case of model B are shown in the lower panels of Figure 5, and the corresponding $`P`$$`I`$ plots in the right panels of Figure 6. The upper envelope in the $`P`$$`I`$ plot, with $`P`$ decreasing with increasing $`I`$, is always found, since at visual extinction above $`A_{V,0}=3`$ mag the dust contributes to the continuum intensity $`I`$, but not to the polarized flux ($`P`$ is defined as the ratio of polarized and total flux –eq. (11)). The direction of polarization is also affected by the lack of alignement of grains at large visual extinction. As an example, the region at the south of the core C2 shows a magnetic field direction roughly parallel to the elongation of the core in model $`A`$, while the magnetic field direction is almost perpendicular to the core elongation in model $`B`$.

Figure 7 shows the $`P`$$`I`$ plots for the core C1 seen from three different orthogonal directions, in model $`A`$ (left panels) and $`B`$ (right panels). These plots show that $`P`$ always decreases with increasing $`I`$ in model $`B`$, independent of the viewing angle.

The histograms of the polarization angle $`\chi `$ in the maps of Figure 5 are plotted in Figure 8. For computing these histograms we have used all the polarization vectors available, that is one per computational cell. Since the maps are made of $`20\times 20`$ pixels, we have used 400 polarization vectors for each histogram, while in Figures 4 and 5 only $`10\times 10=100`$ vectors were used for clarity. The plots in Figure 7 show very broad distributions of $`\chi `$. The values of $`\chi `$ are limited to the interval $`[\pi /2,\pi /2]`$, but the reference direction, or the origin of the interval, can be shifted arbitrarily by an amount between 0 and $`\pi `$. We have done so in order to minimize the dispersion of $`\chi `$, which is obtained by shifting the origin of the angle to the approximate location of the minimum in the histogram. In this way the dispersion $`\sigma _\chi `$ has a robust physical meaning, indipendent of the particular local orientation of the average magnetic field relative to the North. No Gaussian fit of the histogram is attempted, and $`\sigma _\chi `$ is simply defined as

$$\sigma _\chi =(\chi \chi )^2^{1/2}$$
(20)
with the values of $`\chi `$ defined in the interval that minimizes this expression, as explained above. Differences between models $`A`$ and $`B`$ are rather small. Results are listed Table 1. For both models $`A`$ and $`B`$ we find the average value of the rms $`\chi `$ to be $`\sigma _\chi =0.60\pm 0.11`$.

## 5 Observational $`P`$$`I`$ Plots of “Quiescent” Cores

In this work we define as “quiescent” any starless or low mass star forming core. We do not try to model regions of massive star formation, where the enhanced radiation field must have a considerable effect on the grain alignment (Draine & Weingartner 1996, 1997).

A number of recent sub-mm polarization maps of quiescent cores can be used to study the correlation of the degree of polarization $`P`$ and the sub-mm dust continuum intensity $`I`$. Davis et al. (2000) observed the Serpens low mass star forming region, which contains eight cores. Polarization maps of the three cores L1544, L183 and L43 were obtained by Ward–Thompson et al. (2000) and three more cores, CB 26, CB 24 and DC 253-1.6 (CG 30) were mapped by Henning et al. (2001). All these regions were observed at 850 $`\mu `$m, with the SCUBA bolometer array at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. In all of the 14 cores the value of $`P`$ is found to decrease rather steeply with increasing $`I`$. Polarization vectors from the lower intensity regions around the cores are always much larger than the vectors close to the center of the cores.

$`P`$$`I`$ plots are presented both in Davis et al. (2000) and in Henning et al. (2001). They are very similar to the $`P`$$`I`$ plots from our model $`B`$, presented in the previous section. The upper envelope of the plots is defined by values of $`P`$ from 1-2% at the highest $`I`$, to 8-10% at the lowest values of $`I`$. The drop in $`P`$ is roughly consistent with a constant polarized flux, where the polarized flux is defined as $`P\times I`$. This suggests that a significant fraction of the dust emission is from grains that do not contribute significantly to the polarization, presumably unaligned grains.

Model $`A`$ cannot reproduce the same result for all cores, but only in some cases due to the fortuitous orientation of the magnetic field or to a cancellation effect also dependent on the orientation of the core relative to the line of sight. It is possible that a numerical simulation with higher resolution, able to follow the collapse of cores to larger densities, may generate a stronger cancellation effect. The gravitational collapse is expected to drag the lines of force of the magnetic field towards the core center, which could generate a cancellation effect. However, it is not clear how important this effect may be, once diluted over the size of the telescope beam. It is also difficult to imagine it should be independent of orientation, since the average magnetic field before the collapse defines a specific direction.

## 6 Distribution of Polarization Angle and Magnetic Field Strength

In linear transverse oscillations of a line of force (for example Alfvén waves in a uniform medium) the ratio of the lateral and transverse velocities is equal to the deviation of the line of force from a straight line. This deviation of the field from a straight line is measured by the angle $`\chi `$ between the straight line and the local line of force. If the transverse velocity is the Alfvén velocity $`v_a`$, and the lateral velocity is the rms turbulent velocity $`\sigma _v`$, then

$$\sigma _\chi \frac{\sigma _v}{v_a}_a,$$
(21)
where $`_a`$ is the Alfvénic Mach number. This is strictly valid only in linear theory. We can define a coefficient $`f`$ that quantifies the deviation from the prediction of the linear theory:

$$f\frac{v_a^2^{1/2}}{\sigma _v/\sigma _\chi }=\frac{B^2/(4\pi \rho )^{1/2}}{\sigma _v/\sigma _\chi },$$
(22)
where the numerator is the rms Alfvén velocity, averaged inside the volume under study. Equation (21), or equivalently the value $`f=1`$, was first used to derive the magnetic field strength in the Galaxy by Davis (1951) and Chandrasekhar and Fermi (1953). This method was further discussed by Zweibel (1990) and Myers & Goodman (1991). It has also been tested on the results of MHD simulations of sub–Alfvénic turbulence by Ostriker, Stone & Gammie (2001). They find that for small dispersion of the polarization angle ($`\sigma _\chi <0.44`$ radians) the Chandrasekhar–Fermi formula provides a good estimate of the plane of the sky field strength, if a coefficient $`f0.5`$ is used. Similar results are found by Heitsch et al. (2001), using numerical simulations of mildly super–Alfvénic turbulence.

In protostellar cores and Bok globules the dispersion of the polarization angle is sometimes very large, and the Chandrasekhar–Fermi formula is not expected to hold. However, the formula is sometimes applied irrespective of the large value of $`\sigma _\chi `$ (eg Itoh et al. 1999; Davis et al. 2000; Henning et al. 2001). This is perhaps justified by the expectation that the degree of topological complexity of the magnetic field, and so the value of $`\sigma _\chi `$, should be related in some way to the rms Alfvénic Mach number $`_a`$. A full numerical study of the dependence of $`\sigma _\chi `$ on $`_a`$ can be pursued with the MHD turbulence simulations, and will be presented elsewhere. For the purpose of this work we test the Chandrasekhar–Fermi formula on the cores C1, C2 and C3, and provide the values of the corresponding correction factor $`f`$.

The turbulent velocity dispersion in protostellar cores and Bok globules is often estimated using the line width of the CS molecule. It is possible that the bulk of the CS emission come from an envelope around the core, and not from the core interior, where most of the dust emission is generated, at least for the densest cores. This complicates the application of the Chandrasekhar–Fermi formula and its interpretation. For this reason, we have tested the formula by defining the turbulent velocity as given by the CS spectra.

Maps of synthetic spectra of the J=1–0 transition of CS are computed using a non–LTE Monte Carlo radiative transfer code (Juvela 1997, 1998), from the three dimensional density and velocity fields generated in the numerical MHD experiment. The method of computing synthetic spectra was presented in Padoan et al. (1998). We assume a linear size of the computational box $`L=6.25`$ pc, a uniform temperature $`T=10`$ K, an rms turbulent velocity $`\sigma _v=3.0`$ km/s and an average gas density $`n=320`$ cm-3. These values are used to scale the numerical variables into physical units. In the radiative transfer computation the full three dimensional density and velocity fields are used. The radiative transfer is a non–local problem, and so it is solved for the whole three dimensional computational box.

Spectral maps are obtained for the same lines of sight that define the polarization maps. The CS spectral maps that match the polarization maps of Figure 5 are plotted in Figure 9. All the spectra are used to compute the rms velocity $`\sigma _v`$. This is defined as the rms velocity averaged along the spectral profile, without any Gaussian fit:

$$\sigma _v=\left(\frac{(vv)^2T(v)𝑑v}{T(v)𝑑v}\right)^{1/2}$$
(23)
where $`T(v)`$ is the antenna temperature at the velocity channel $`v`$, and the result is averaged over the whole spectral map of each core. The average velocity $`v`$ is defined as

$$v=\frac{vT(v)𝑑v}{T(v)𝑑v}$$
(24)
The values of $`\sigma _v`$ for three orthogonal lines of sight are listed in Table 1. The average value is $`\sigma _v=1.01\pm 0.19`$ km/s.

In order to determine the value of the coefficient $`f`$, we finally need to compute the rms Alfvén velocity in the cores. This is done directly in the three dimensional MHD data cube. Using the values of $`\sigma _\chi `$ computed in the previous section, and the values of $`\sigma _v`$ and rms $`v_a`$ computed here, we can now evaluate the coefficient $`f`$. Results are listed in Table 1. The average value of $`f`$ is found to be $`f=0.40\pm 0.11`$ for both models $`A`$ and $`B`$.

## 7 Discussion

In order to describe the formation of protostellar cores we have simulated the dynamics of molecular cloud turbulence on a relatively large scale ($`6`$ pc). Simulating a large scale is necessary because the boundary and initial conditions of a numerical simulation (and much more of an analytic model) are always idealized in some way. For example, a numerical simulation or an analytic model describing the evolution and collapse of a single protostellar core can hardly be considered as models for the core formation, since the core is obviously formed by the ad hoc setup of the initial conditions. On the other hand, if a larger scale is simulated, the process of core formation is controlled by the gas dynamics on the large scale, and may even be rather insensitive to the specific initial and boundary conditions at the large scale.

In the simulation used for this work the typical size of cores is less than one tenth of the size of the computational box, and so we argue that our periodic boundary conditions do not affect too much the formation and evolution of dense cores. The setup of the initial conditions is also unlikely to affect dramatically the outcome of the simulation, since after one dynamical time the turbulent flow begins to lose memory of its initial conditions. The random external driving force can instead have important effects, in the sense that the flow would develop much more small scale structure if the forcing was done on a small scale, and the number of correlation lengths of the magnetic field, $`N_{corr}`$, could be relatively large. However, that would imply a power spectrum of turbulence peaking on small scales. In contrast, all observational evidence for the power spectrum of turbulence in molecular clouds is consistent with a scale free dynamics (Miesch & Bally 1994; Ossenkopf & Mac Low 2000), with most energy on the largest scale. The large scale driving used in the present simulation, is therefore consistent with the observations. As a consequence, the number of correlation lengths of the magnetic field must be relatively small, $`N_{corr}1`$. This explains the relatively large values of $`P`$ found from our super–Alfvénic simulations, since a significant cancellation effect requires both a weak magnetic field (super–Alfvénic turbulence) and a large number of correlation lengths.

It is well established that the polarized extinction of background stars at optical and near–IR wavelengths does not reveal the magnetic field direction in the dense interiors of molecular clouds, beyond an optical depth $`A_v=12`$ mag (Goodman et al. 1995; Arce et al. 1998). This is generally interpreted as the effect of unaligned grains at large visual extinction, since it can be shown that most alignment mechanisms are ineffective at large optical depth (Lazarian, Goodman & Myers 1997). Wiebe & Watson (2001), on the contrary, suggest that the results of polarization studies of background stars can be explained by a cancellation effect due to the magnetic field tangling along the line of sight. This requires super–Alfvénic turbulence and a large number of correlation lengths of the magnetic field, $`N_{corr}`$. They find that $`N_{corr}10`$ is necessary to explain the observations, and use a numerical MHD simulation by Stone, Ostriker & Gammie (1998) as an example of a theoretical model with $`N_{corr}>10`$. However, as explained in the previous paragraph, there is no observational evidence in favor of a power spectrum of turbulence with a peak at small scale, which is needed to produce a large value of $`N_{corr}`$. The simulation by Stone, Ostriker & Gammie (1998) used by Wiebe and Watson (2001) is performed with a random driving on an intermediate scale, which explains the large value of $`N_{corr}`$, but is certainly not motivated by the observations.

In § 5 we have seen that recent sub-mm polarization maps of quiescent cores always produce $`P`$$`I`$ plots characterized by an upper envelope with $`P`$ decreasing with increasing $`I`$. This result is predicted by our model $`B`$, that is by assuming that grains at visual extinction larger than $`A_{V,0}=3`$ mag are not aligned. It is not reproduced by model $`A`$, where the grain alignment is assumed to be independent of $`A_V`$, because the magnetic field tangling in the cores is insufficient to produce such drop in $`P`$. Although it is still possible that higher resolution simulations following the core collapse to higher densities generate a larger cancellation effect, that remains to be proven. From the present calculations it seems that the reasonable assumptions of model B provide a good interpretation of the observational $`P`$$`I`$ plots. If this interpretation is correct, we can conclude that sub-mm polarization maps cannot probe the magnetic field structure inside quiescent cores, at visual extinction larger than $`A_{V,0}=3`$ mag. The use of such maps to constrain models of protostellar core formation and evolution is therefore questionable, especially if the effect of unaligned grains is not taken carefully into account. Polarization studies of sub-mm dust continuum emission from quiescent cores are therefore not inconsistent with previous results of polarized extinction of background stars at optical and near–IR wavelengths mentioned above.

The specific value of $`A_{V,0}=3`$ mag used to compute model $`B`$ is a “conservative” choice. A value of $`A_{V,0}2`$ mag, or even lower, is not ruled out by our study. It is likely that the alignment efficiency of grains begins to decrease significantly at $`A_V=12`$ mag, as suggested by theoretical studies (Lazarian, Goodman & Myers 1997). In this work we show that at values of visual extinction larger then 3 mag grains must be almost completely unaligned.

The MHD simulation used in this work has a limited numerical resolution. A $`128^3`$ numerical mesh has been used and the volume selected around each core contains only $`20^3`$ computational cells. Differences in the polarization maps of the cores between models $`A`$ and $`B`$ (see Figure 5) are equally limited. A much higher numerical resolution could in principle generates even larger differences between the magnetic field orientation in the densest regions of the cores and in their lower density envelopes. The center of the core at $`A_V>3`$ mag, for example, could have collapsed dragging in the magnetic field lines, and this process would be totally invisible in the polarization maps. However, models for the formation and evolution of protostellar cores could be tested with polarization maps of quiescent cores if the comparison were limited to the regions of low visual extinction around the cores.

We have shown in the previous section that the Chandrasekhar–Fermi formula predicts the value of the rms Alfvén speed in the cores, if a correction factor $`f0.4`$ is used, and if the rms turbulent velocity is derived from the line width of the J=1–0 CS transition. The value of $`\sigma _\chi `$ should be appropriately minimized as discussed in the previous section. However, in order to infer a magnetic field strength from an rms Alfvén speed and $`\sigma _\chi `$, the gas density in the cores must be estimated, which introduces a significant uncertainty.

## 8 Conclusions

In this work we have computed dust continuum polarization from protostellar cores, assembled by super–sonic turbulent flows in models of molecular clouds, using numerical simulations of highly super–sonic MHD turbulence. The results are compared with recent polarization maps of quiescent protostellar cores and Bok globules.

The main results of this work are: i) Values of $`P`$ between 1 and 10% (up to almost $`P_{max}`$) are produced by super–Alfvénic turbulence; ii) A steep decrease of $`P`$ with increasing $`I`$, as observed in a number of protostellar cores and Bok globules, is always found in self–gravitating cores selected from the MHD simulation, if grains are not aligned above a certain value of visual extinction $`A_{V,0}`$ (model $`B`$); iii) The same behavior is hard to reproduce if dust grains are aligned independently of $`A_V`$ (model $`A`$); iv) The Chandrasekhar–Fermi formula, corrected by a factor $`f0.4`$, can be used to estimate the average magnetic field strength in the cores.

We conclude that sub–mm polarization maps of quiescent cores are not likely to faithfully map the magnetic field inside the cores at visual extinction larger than $`A_{V,0}3`$ mag. The use of such maps to constrain models of protostellar core formation and evolution is questionable, especially if the effect of unaligned grains is not properly taken into account. This conclusion shows that there is no inconsistency between the results from optical and near–IR polarized absorption of background stars, and the observed polarization of sub-mm dust continuum from quiescent cores. In both cases, grains at large visual extinction appear to be virtually unaligned.

This work was supported by NSF grant AST-9721455. Åke Nordlund acknowledges partial support by the Danish National Research Foundation through its establishment of the Theoretical Astrophysics Center. Mika Juvela acknowledges support by the Academy of Finland Grant no. 1011055.


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# The 2dF QSO Redshift Survey - V. The 10k catalogue

## 1 Introduction

The aim of the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey (2QZ) is to measure redshifts for $`25000`$ optically-selected QSOs with $`b_\mathrm{J}<20.85`$ and $`z<3`$. The spectra have been obtained with the 2-degree Field (2dF) instrument (Lewis, Glazebrook & Taylor 1998) on the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT). The final catalogue will represent a factor $`50`$ increase in the number of QSOs identified in a single homogeneous survey to this magnitude limit (c.f. The Durham/AAT survey; Boyle et al. 1990). The primary science goal of this survey is to obtain an accurate measure of the large-scale structure in the Universe out to high redshifts, $`z<3`$, and large scales, $`<1000`$h-1Mpc, via the study of QSO clustering.

As of January 2001, the survey is over 60 per cent complete. To expedite community access to the 2QZ, we are releasing the catalogue in two stages. This paper describes the first release containing 20590 objects, including 11005 QSOs, for which we have obtained 2dF spectra. The release represents the ‘most complete’ subset of the entire survey observed prior to December 2000 – containing all fields for which we have achieved a spectroscopic completeness of 85 per cent or greater. This catalogue has been used to derive results on the QSO correlation function (Croom et al. 2001, Paper II), the power spectrum (Hoyle et al. 2001, Paper IV) and the composite spectrum (Smith et al. 2001, Paper VI, in preparation). Results on the QSO luminosity function from the 2QZ (Boyle et al. 2000, Paper I) were based on an earlier version of the catalogue comprising $`5000`$ QSOs. When complete the catalogue will contain approximately 48000 objects, including 25000 QSOs. The final catalogue will be released at the end of 2002, one year after the observational phase of the survey is concluded, currently planned for the end of 2001.

This paper describes the first release catalogue, hereinafter the 2QZ 10k catalogue, of the 2QZ. Sections 2 and 3 describe the spectroscopic observations and catalogue format. Section 4 then discusses estimates of the catalogue quality, and presents a new estimate of the QSO luminosity function.

## 2 Spectroscopic Observations

### 2.1 The candidate catalogue

QSO candidates with $`18.25<b_\mathrm{J}<20.85`$ were selected for observation with 2dF from measurements of $`ub_\mathrm{J}r`$ UK Schmidt photographic material. Full details are given in Smith et al. (2001, Paper III). The 2QZ area comprises 30 UKST fields, arranged in two $`75^{}\times 5^{}`$ declination strips centred on $`\delta =30^{}`$ and $`\delta =0^{}`$. The $`\delta =30^{}`$ strip extends from $`\alpha `$ = 21h40 to $`\alpha `$ = 3h15 in the South Galactic Cap and the equatorial strip from $`\alpha `$ = 9h50 to $`\alpha `$ = 14h50 in the North Galactic Cap. When complete, the total survey area will be 740 deg2 allowing for regions of sky excised around bright stars. The 2QZ area forms an exact subset of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS; see Colless 1998) area. 2dF observations of the 2QZ were therefore combined with those of the 2dFGRS. A tiling algorithm devised by the 2dFGRS team was used to determine the positions of individual 2dF field centres in order to obtain near-complete spectroscopic coverage (95 per cent for galaxies, 99 per cent for QSO candidates) for the 2QZ and 2dFGRS targets in the survey area with the minimum number of individual 2dF pointings.

The 2QZ colour selection is designed to be largely complete ($`>90`$ per cent) for QSOs with $`0.3<z<2.2`$. At higher redshifts, $`2.2<z<3.0`$, the photometric completeness of the survey gradually drops, with the highest redshift QSOs in the 2QZ being found at $`z3`$. Paper I provides an estimate of the completeness contours based on $`ub_\mathrm{J}r`$ selection as a function of $`b_\mathrm{J}`$ and $`z`$. The stellar morphological criterion also causes incompleteness at low redshifts. This is more difficult to estimate but it is likely to cause some form of incompleteness up to $`z0.5`$. The photometric errors in the magnitudes have already been discussed extensively in Paper III. They are approximately constant over the magnitude range of the survey $`\sigma (b_\mathrm{J})=\sigma (r)=0.1`$, $`\sigma (u)=0.15`$. Independent CCD sequences have been used to calibrate each UKST field (Boyle, Shanks & Croom 1995; Croom et al. 1999).

### 2.2 2dF observations

Observations of the 2QZ began in October 1997. This initial release is based on 304 individual 2dF fields observed over the period October 1997 to November 2000. The two 2dF spectrographs each contain one 1024$`\times `$1024 Tektronix CCD with $`24\mu `$m pixels and are each fed by 200 optical fibres. 2QZ objects were observed with 2dF using the low resolution 300B gratings, providing a dispersion of 178.8Å mm-1 (4.3Å pixel-1) and a resolution of $`8.6`$Å ($`2`$ pixels FWHM) over the range 3700Å– 7900Å. Each optical fibre has a diameter on the sky of $`2.16^{\prime \prime }`$ at the centre of a field, falling to $`2^{\prime \prime }`$ at the edge of the field. The fibre spectra are projected to $`1.5`$ pixels (FWHM) on the detector and are each separated by $`5`$ pixels. Each field received an approximately 55 minute integration (3 $`\times `$ 1100 sec), combined with a flat-field, used to determine the positions of the fibre spectra on each CCD frame, and a CuArHe arc for wavelength calibration. The fields were observed in a wide variety of seeing conditions (1 arcsec – 2.5 arcsec FWHM) and transparency (details of conditions are included in the data release). Where possible, integration times were adjusted to match conditions. However, the instrumental requirement to observe 2dF fields at the hour angle for which they had been configured limited the opportunity to extend integration times significantly. As a result the quality of data can vary significantly from field to field. We have attempted to minimize the effects of this variation in the 10k release by only including objects from fields where at least 85 per cent of the objects observed yielded a spectroscopic identification.

Data from 2dF was reduced using the pipeline reduction system 2DFDR \[Bailey et al. 2001\]. CCD frames from each spectrograph were reduced separately. Following bias removal, fibre extraction and wavelength calibration, the transmissions of each fibre were normalized using the relative strengths of the night sky lines in each fibre spectrum. Sky subtraction was then done by subtracting a median sky spectrum determined from up to 20 sky-dedicated fibres in each frame (the minimum number of sky fibres used was six per spectrograph).

## 3 The catalogue

### 3.1 Spectroscopic identification

Reduced spectra of QSO candidates were then passed through a non-interactive program AUTOZ (Miller et al. in preparation) to classify individual objects and measure a redshift for those that turned out to be QSOs or galaxies. The $`ub_\mathrm{J}r`$ colour-selection process used to generate the input catalogue has non-negligible contamination (originally estimated to be $`45`$ per cent, see Paper III) from galactic stars (subdwarfs and white dwarfs) and compact emission line galaxies. AUTOZ fits a variety of templates to each observed spectrum. These templates include QSOs, both ‘normal’ and broad absorption line (BAL) QSOs, emission line galaxies and a library of stellar spectra including main sequence types from O to M and DA, DB and DZ white dwarfs. The AUTOZ program uses the fact that data are collected on a large number of different objects (QSOs, galaxies and stars) at once ($`200`$ per spectrograph) to estimate the wavelength dependent sensitivity and noise. These terms are then taken into account when carrying out a $`\chi ^2`$ fit to the templates to derive the best fit model.

In general AUTOZ produces reliable identifications for a wide variety of the objects. However, we have carried out manual checks of all spectra in the survey to identify the small fraction of objects with peculiar or low signal-to-noise (S/N) spectra which AUTOZ had difficulty in identifying correctly. Each member of the 2QZ team independently examined 5000–6000 spectra by eye and corrected any AUTOZ identifications that were clearly in error. As a further double-check, two members of the survey (BJB and SMC) re-examined all spectra to ensure a degree of homogeneity in this re-classification procedure.

The sources are classified into six categories:

| QSO | Spectrum with one or more broad ($`>1000`$km s-1) |
| --- | --- |
|  | emission lines. |
| NELG | Galaxy spectrum with one or more narrow |
|  | ($`<1000`$km s-1) emission lines. |
| gal | Galaxy spectrum with no emission lines. |
| star | Galactic star spectrum. |
| cont | High S/N spectrum (S/N$`>10`$) with no |
|  | identifiable emission or absorption features. |
| ?? | Unclassifiable spectrum due to low S/N. |

The quality of the identification and redshift estimation is divided into three levels of confidence:

* Quality 1: High quality identification or redshift
* Quality 2: Low quality identification or redshift
* Quality 3: No classification or redshift assignment

A quality flag is assigned independently to both the identification and redshift of an object. Approximately 6 per cent of objects were found to have low quality identifications (quality 2), these objects appear in the final catalogue with a ‘?’ against their identification (apart from objects identified as cont, which all have quality 2 identifications).

For each 2dF pointing we calculate a spectroscopic completeness, being the ratio of objects observed in the field with quality 1 or quality 2 identifications to the total number of spectroscopically observed objects. Stars are likely to dominate the unidentified population, at least for low levels of incompleteness. This is because their weak spectral features make them very difficult to identify from low S/N spectra. In contrast, QSOs with broad emission lines should be amongst the easiest class of objects to identify from low S/N spectra. To establish the spectroscopic incompleteness level at which we also begin to lose significant numbers of QSOs, we compared the normalized QSO number-magnitude relation obtained from fields with greater than 95 per cent completeness to those from fields with completenesses in the range 90 – 95 per cent, 85 – 90 per cent, 80 – 85 per cent and 75 – 80 per cent. Using a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, we found that the $`N(m)`$ showed a significant difference (at the 99 per cent confidence level) for fields with lower than 85 per cent completeness.

We therefore chose to include only those fields with spectroscopic completenesses of 85 per cent or greater in this initial release. This corresponds to 233 2dF fields. The coverage provided by these fields is indicated in Fig. 1 (taken from Paper II). Note that many areas of sky have not yet received their full complement of 2dF pointings in the adaptive tiling strategy. As a result, the current survey exhibits a spatially-dependent observational incompleteness. Hence, although these fields have 85 per cent or greater identification rate, there remains a still larger fraction of incompleteness due to sources which have yet to be observed. The 2QZ coverage map shown in Fig. 1 (released in digital form as a survey product) can be used to account for this. This coverage map is produced by calculating the ratio of spectroscopically observed objects to input catalogue objects in each region defined by the intersection of 2dF pointings. This distribution is then pixelized using $`1\times 1`$ arcminute pixels to produce a final observational completeness map.

We also check whether there is any variation in the catalogue over the area of one 2dF field. In Fig. 2 we plot the mean difference ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$mag) between the catalogue $`b_\mathrm{J}`$ magnitude and a $`b_\mathrm{J}`$-band magnitude estimated from the spectroscopic data averaged over all the 2dF fields in the 10k catalogue (note that the averaging is carried out in flux, not magnitude). This is only a relative difference as the zero-points of the spectroscopic magnitudes are derived from the mean differences in each 2dF field. A positive $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$mag indicates a spectroscopic magnitude which is fainter than the catalogue magnitude. We see that there is deficit of flux at the edge of the field (particularly on the left side). This is probably due to residual errors that has not been completely accounted for by the 2dF astrometric model. This should not significantly affect the spatial distribution of QSOs in our sample for two reasons. First, the tiling algorithm used to place the fields produces significant overlap so that any effect in a 2dF field area will be blurred out. Second, if we measure the identification rate as a function of field position, the only significant variation is at radii $`>0.7^{}`$. On scales smaller than this the mean completeness is $`95`$ per cent. At the extreme edges of the field, radii $`>0.9^{}`$, the mean completeness only drops to $`87`$ per cent. This variation in completeness, internal to 2dF fields is of the same order as the variations in completeness between 2dF fields.

### 3.2 10k catalogue description

Based on the criteria defined above, the initial release of the 2QZ catalogue contains entries for 20590 objects, including 11005 QSOs. The composition of the 10k catalogue as a function of spectroscopic class is given in Table 1. As defined by the fraction of objects with quality 1 or 2 classifications, the mean overall spectroscopic completeness of the catalogue is 93 per cent. The effective area of the survey (after correction for the observational incompleteness) is 289.6 deg2. The distribution of sources as a function of $`b_\mathrm{J}`$ magnitude is shown in Fig. 3a. QSOs dominate the source counts at all but the brightest magnitudes. The QSOs show a smooth redshift distribution over the full range of the survey, $`0.1<z<3.0`$, with a maximum at the 2QZ median redshift $`z1.5`$ (Fig. 3b).

The released catalogue is available as an ASCII file from http://www.2dfquasar.org. The catalogue format is given in Table 2. The first part of a catalogue entry contains details from the input catalogue, such as position and magnitude. We note in particular that sources which had only upper limits (i.e. non-detections) on the $`r`$ plates are also included in the catalogue and have a listed $`b_\mathrm{J}r`$ colour. In this case the colour term is $`(b_\mathrm{J}r_{\mathrm{lim}})10`$, the $`10`$ being used to differentiate upper limits from normal colours (objects with real $`r`$-band detections have colours in the range $`1.4<b_\mathrm{J}r<3.4`$, while upper limits have $`b_\mathrm{J}r<9.8`$). The input catalogue information is followed by details of observations and identifications. In a number of cases ($`1200`$ objects, $`5\%`$ of the catalogue) we have two observations for a source. These are useful to assess the quality of the final catalogue (see below). The identification and redshift that we adopt is that with the lowest quality value (where the quality value is identification quality$`\times 10`$ \+ redshift quality), and if there are equal quality values, the highest S/N. In all cases the final adopted ID is listed as observation #1, with the lower quality observation being listed as observation #2. Finally we also include cross-matches to selected other databases. Where a 2QZ source matches the position (to within $`6^{\prime \prime }`$) of a previously known QSO/AGN in the catalogue of Véron-Cetty & Véron (2000) we include the previously known redshift. We also include radio fluxes at 1.4GHz from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS; Condon et al. 1998) and X-ray fluxes from the ROSAT All Sky Survey (RASS; Voges et al. 1999; Voges et al. 2000), converting from RASS counts per second to flux (in erg s-1cm-2) by multiplying by $`5.6\times 10^{12}`$. Lastly we include an estimate of the galactic reddening $`E(BV)`$ to each source taken from the work of Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998).

We do not distinguish between different narrow-emission-line galaxy classifications (e.g. LINER, Seyferts) in the catalogue. Also, the spectral coverage provided by 2dF limits our ability to detect broad MgII $`\lambda 2798`$ emission until $`z>0.35`$. In some QSOs with $`0.35<z<0.5`$, broad MgII is clearly detected with no corresponding broad H$`\beta `$ seen. Thus at lower redshifts, $`0.15<z<0.35`$, some objects classified as NELGs on the basis of a narrow H$`\beta `$ line may exhibit broad MgII below the blue limit of the 2dF spectral window. For QSOs with $`z>1.6`$, AUTOZ fits both ‘normal’ and BAL QSO templates. Objects identified as BALs are indicated by ‘QSO(BAL)’ in the identification column. However, due to the varied nature of BAL QSOs, this will not be a comprehensive list of BALs. A more detailed search for BALs has not yet been applied.

Within the objects we classify as stars, in the main we only give classifications for white dwarfs (WDs). We do not attempt spectral classification of main sequence stars. The $`1000`$ WDs are mostly DAs with strong broad hydrogen Balmer absorption lines. At low S/N these can be confused with A stars. Only detailed fitting of the temperature and gravity of these stars can easily resolve this issue, and this is beyond the scope of the present paper. As well as DAs we also find a number of DB and DO WDs which are dominated by neutral and singly ionized helium respectively. A small number of DZs are also found, with broad calcium H and K absorption. The only other stellar types we classify are 6 emission line stars with strong hydrogen Balmer emission which we classify as CV (cataclysmic variable) and WD + M dwarf binary systems which are denoted as DA/M. We note that our code has been designed primarily to simply identify an object as a star (and therefore not a QSO), and that a more detailed analysis would no doubt provide more accurate classifications. The above classifications are denoted within the catalogue in parentheses after the main star identification \[e.g. star(DB), star(CV)\].

To allow others to carry out more detailed spectral analysis of both QSOs and other sources, spectra for all objects in the 2QZ 10k catalogue are provided as a primary data product in this release. This includes objects for which no identification could be made. Many of these are low S/N spectra, but objects also remained unclassified for a number of other reasons. Occasionally a damaged fibre will produce fringing which shows up as a strong oscillation as a function of wavelength, rendering the underlying spectrum unusable. Also badly subtracted night sky emission (and in some cases moonlight) can sometimes seriously affect our ability to identify an object. The spectra are available in FITS format from the same location as the catalogue. Fig. 4 shows some example spectra from the 10k catalogue. Figs. 4a and b are randomly selected QSO spectra. Figs. 4c-f show a range of peculiar spectra. Fig. 4c shows narrow emission lines implying a redshift of $`z=0.350`$ and broad emission lines suggesting a redshift of $`z=2.111`$. This appears to be a superposition of a QSO and a NELG, and as such is a potential gravitational lens. Fig. 4d shows the spectrum of a starburst + QSO, a less extreme version of the post-starburst object found in the cross-matching of the 2QZ and the NVSS by Brotherton et al. (1999). Fig. 4e is a rare carbon (DQ) white dwarf and Fig. 4f is a white dwarf-M dwarf binary system.

## 4 Catalogue Quality

### 4.1 Identification

The overlap between the 2dF pointing has resulted in a number of objects in the 2QZ catalogue for which we have two independent 2dF observations. By comparing the identification/redshift estimate for different observations we can obtain an estimate of the reliability of the identification and accuracy of the redshift determination. For the 1019 objects with quality 1 or 2 identifications and more than one 2dF observations in fields included in the 10k catalogue, we find 87 whose identifications differ between the observations (excluding the 5 objects whose identification changed from QSO to NELG but with the same redshift). This corresponds to a mis-identification rate of 8.5 per cent. If we restrict our attention to those objects with quality 1 identifications for both observations, this mis-identification rate drops to 3.8 per cent (34 objects with different classifications out of 889 objects).

The mis-identification rate amongst class 2 identifications is higher. If we directly compare the identifications for those objects with a quality 2 identification from both observations, we find 8 objects with different identifications from a total sample of 22 objects; equivalent to a mis-classification rate of 36 per cent. Comparison between quality 1 observations and quality 2 observations gives similar results. Of the 108 objects given an identification quality of 1 in one observation and a quality of 2 in the other, 45 (42 per cent) changed their identification in the subsequent higher quality observation. Thus the reliability of quality 2 identifications is approximately 60 per cent.

A more quantitative measure of the quality of the spectrum (although not necessarily the reliability of the identification) is the signal-to-noise. If we restrict our comparison to objects where both spectra have a S/N$`>5`$ per pixel, we find a overall mis-classification rate of 1.7 per cent (6 objects out of 359).

### 4.2 Redshift accuracy

We can also obtain an estimate of the reliability of the redshift determination from these repeat observations. For all quality 1 and 2 QSO, NELG or galaxy identifications there are 21 cases (out of 602 objects) where the redshift estimate differs by more than 5 per cent between the different observations. The comparison between the redshifts obtained from the different observations is shown in Figure 5. All objects with significantly different redshifts are classified as QSOs; in most cases the difference in the redshift estimate is caused by the incorrect identification of a single emission line seen in the QSO spectrum. In total there are 518 QSOs with two observations, thus the reliability rate for QSO redshifts is 97 per cent and effectively 100 per cent for NELGs and galaxies.

Excluding objects with incorrect redshifts due to the mis-identification of emission lines, the rms difference between the redshift measurements is $`0.005`$.

We also compared our identifications with those objects which had been previously classified as QSOs. Based on positional matches with QSOs in the Véron-Cetty & Véron (2000) catalogue, we found that 331 objects in the 2QZ 10k catalogue had been previously identified as QSOs. These objects are flagged in the released catalogue (see Table 2). Of these, 305 were confirmed as QSOs by 2QZ. However, 33 QSOs were found to have redshifts which disagreed significantly between the 2QZ and previous estimates. Visual inspection of the 2QZ spectrum revealed that, in all but one case, the 2QZ redshift was secure (i.e. two or more strong emission lines correctly identified). The remaining 29 objects were not classified as QSOs in the 2QZ, these identifications included 7 stars (2 white dwarfs), 4 star?s, 3 NELGs, 1 cont, 1 cont?, 1 QSO? and 13 with unclassifiable spectra. Visual inspection of the quality 1 spectra confirmed the 2dF classification in all cases.

In summary, the comparison between independent observations of over 1000 objects in the 2QZ release (approximately 5 per cent of the catalogue) reveals the overall reliability of the identifications is over 90 per cent. For quality 1 classifications this figure is close to 97 per cent; for quality 2 classifications the reliability is approximately 60 per cent. The redshift reliability for QSOs is 97 per cent with an rms error in the redshift measurement of $`\sigma (z)=0.005`$.

### 4.3 The 10k luminosity function

For completeness, we have also repeated the analysis of Paper I to derive a luminosity function (LF) of the QSOs in the 10k catalogue, including objects from the Large Bright Quasar Survey (LBQS; Hewett, Foltz & Chaffee 1995) at bright magnitudes. In total, 9633 QSOs with $`M_B<23`$ and $`0.3<z<2.3`$ (8743 from the 2QZ and 890 from the LBQS) were used to obtain the binned LF for an Einstein-de Sitter universe ($`H_0=50`$km s$`^1`$Mpc-1) which is shown in Fig. 6.

We also fit to this data set a two-power-law LF and pure luminosity evolution models with polynomial evolution in $`L^{}`$ such that $`L^{}(z)10^{k_1z+k_2z^2}`$. The best-fit model has $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{}=0.2\times 10^{15}`$Mpc$`^3`$mag-1, $`\alpha =3.28`$, $`\beta =1.08`$, $`M_\mathrm{B}^{}=21.45`$, $`k_1=1.41`$ and $`k_2=0.29`$ (see Paper I). However, even this best-fit model is formally rejected at high significance ($`>99`$ per cent confidence) by the 2QZ data. A comparison between 2QZ data set used in the LF anlaysis and the best fit model is shown in Fig 7. This illustrates that while the overall fit of the model to the data set is good, the cause of the disagreement is a sharp peak in the redshift distribution of 2QZ QSOs at $`z1.5`$ which cannot be matched by the evolution model. This is likely to be caused by systematic variations in our ability determine a QSO redshift. $`z1.5`$ corresponds to the redshift where the CIV emission line moves into the observable wavelength range of 2dF. This strong emission line will increase the probability of obtaining a good quality identification and redshift.

The new measurement of the QSO LF demonstrates that studies such as these are now limited by the systematic errors, rather than Poisson errors from small numbers of objects. When the completed catalogue is released, we will provide independent measurements of these systematic effects, which can be derived from measurements of the efficiency of our automated classification code. We note that a preliminary estimate of completeness as a function of $`b_\mathrm{J}`$ and redshift (used here and in Paper I) will be available electronically as part of the data release.

## 5 Data access

The 2QZ 10k catalogue and associated data products are available from http://www.2dfquasar.org along with basic tools to access and interrogate the catalogue. A CD-ROM containing the same data and tools is also available. Any authors using the 2QZ 10k catalogue should include the following acknowledgement: ‘The 2dF QSO Redshift Survey (2QZ) was compiled by the 2QZ survey team from observations made with the 2-degree Field on the Anglo-Australian Telescope’.

## Acknowledgements

The 2QZ was based on observations made with the Anglo-Australian Telescope and the UK Schmidt Telescope. NL was supported by a PPARC studentship during the course of this work.

This paper has been produced using the Blackwell Scientific Publications macros.


text:
# Evidence for Two Superconducting Gaps in MgB2

## Abstract

We have measured the Raman spectra of polycrystalline MgB2 from 25 $`cm^1`$ to 1200 $`cm^1`$. When the temperature was decreased below the superconducting transition temperature $`T_c`$, we observed a superconductivity-induced redistribution in the electronic Raman continuum. Two pair-breaking peaks appear in the spectra, suggesting the presence of two superconducting gaps. Furthermore, we have analyzed the measured spectra using a quasi two-dimensional model in which two s-wave superconducting gaps open on two sheets of Fermi surface. For the gap values we have obtained $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1=22cm^1`$ (2.7 meV) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2=50cm^1`$ (6.2 meV). Our results suggest that a conventional phonon-mediated pairing mechanism occurs in the planar boron $`\sigma `$ bands and is responsible for the superconductivity of MgB2.

PACS: 74.25.Gz, 74.25.Jb, 74.70.Ad, 78.30.Er

The recent discovery  of superconductivity in MgB2 at temperatures below 39K has generated a great deal of interest . The electronic band structure of MgB2 has been calculated by a number of groups who have arrived at a consistent picture for the Fermi surface . It appears that the carriers involved in superconductivity are associated with the planar boron $`\sigma `$ orbitals that give rise to a Fermi surface consisting of two approximately cylindrical sheets. Carriers in the $`\sigma `$ bands are predicted to be strongly coupled to phonons that involve an appropriate motion of the boron atoms. Conventional superconductivity with an s-wave gap, or multiple gaps , has been predicted, and the unusually high $`T_c`$ = 40K is obtained with intermediate coupling strength . On the other hand, the experimental results are quite inconsistent, have yielded conflicting evidence in some cases, and have not provided confirmation for the theoretical predictions. In particular, the magnitude of the superconducting gap ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) has been measured with techniques including NMR, tunneling, high-resolution photoemission spectroscopy, scanning tunneling spectroscopy, IR reflectivity and specific heat measurements and the results vary from 2 to 8 meV . The discrepancies between these results and the lack of knowledge about the k-dependence of the superconducting gap have become a major difficulty in understanding the nature of the superconducting mechanism of MgB2.

Raman spectroscopy is an effective technique for studying the superconducting gap in superconductors . Typically, at temperatures below $`T_c`$, a superconductivity-induced renormalization in the Raman spectrum occurs as a result of the opening of the superconducting gap. In particular, the intensity of the electronic Raman continuum is depleted at low frequencies because of the lack of available electronic states below the gap. Moreover, scattering from electronic excitations across the gap usually results in the appearance of a pair-breaking peak and the peak frequency is a measure of the size of the gap ($`2\mathrm{\Delta }`$). When the gap is anisotropic, its k-dependence can be determined by investigating the polarization dependence of the Raman spectra below $`T_c`$, as different scattering geometries essentially probe different portions of the Fermi surface . In fact, Raman spectroscopy has been successfully used in the studies of the superconducting gap in both conventional  and high-$`T_c`$ superconductors .

In order to determine the magnitude and k-dependence of the superconducting gap in MgB2, we have carried out an experimental investigation of MgB2 using Raman spectroscopy. We observed two pair-breaking peaks in the low-temperature spectra, which indicates the existance of two superconducting gaps. Moreover, to determine the gap energies and gain insight into the superconducting mechanism, we have analyzed the experimental data using a quasi two-dimensional model. The results are consistent with expectations based on the calculated band structure. In this letter, we report the results of our investigation and discuss their physical significance.

Polycrystalline MgB2 samples used in this study were prepared by the rapid reaction of stoichiometric quantities of powdered amorphous boron (B) and magnesium (Mg). The samples show very clean powder x-ray diffraction patterns with all major MgB2 peaks the same as those observed by Nagamatsu $`et`$ $`al`$ . The critical temperature as determined by resistivity and susceptibility measurements is $`T_c=38.75K`$ and the resistive transition width is $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_c=0.23K`$ ($`1090\%`$). The fine structure of the samples was examined with a scanning electron microscope and the size of the crystal grains was found to range from 0.15 $`\mu m`$ to 0.3 $`\mu m`$.

The Raman spectra were obtained in a quasi backscattering geometry using the 514.5 nm line of an Ar-ion laser, which was focused onto the sample with a cylindrical lens to provide an incident intensity of about $`1W/cm^2`$. In particular, the incident laser power was 0.2 mW and the size of the sampling spot was about $`40\mu m\times 600\mu m`$. By examining the temperature and laser power dependence of the spectra, the laser heating effect was estimated to be $`5\pm 3K`$. The temperatures reported in this paper are the ambient temperatures without any correction. Two polarization configurations were used in the Raman measurements, VV and HV, where VV (HV) represents the scattering geometry in which the polarization direction of the incident light is vertical (horizontal), and the polarization direction of the scattered light is always vertical.

Fig 1 shows the VV and HV Raman spectra of MgB2 measured at 15 and 45K. All the spectra presented in this paper have been divided by the Bose factor (considering the laser heating effect, a 5K correction has been added to the temperature in the Bose factor). The intensity levels of the spectra have been normalized using their integrated intensity in the frequency region of interest. Clearly, there are no well-defined phonon lines in either the VV or HV spectra. Instead, a broad maximum centered at about 620 $`cm^1`$ appears in both scattering geometries, and changes slightly when the temperature is cooled below $`T_c`$. This broad feature can be interpreted as due to phonon contributions throughout the Brillouin zone. The frequency range of this feature is consistent with theoretical calculations of the phonon energies  as well as the result of neutron scattering measurements of the density of states of phonons . As we know, in disordered materials phonons away from the Brillouin zone center can become Raman active . In this case the phonon density of states is reflected in the Raman spectra. In fact, the broadness of this feature and the similarity between the shapes of the polarized (VV) and depolarized (HV) spectra, as well as the intensity ratio of the VV and HV spectra, are very similar to what has been observed in amorphous materials . However, since the X-ray diffraction patterns clearly show typical sharp lines of powdered crystals, our samples are unlikely amorphous. Moreover, considering the possibility of heterogeneity, we examined spectra from different sampling areas but did not find any significant difference. Therefore, we believe that the samples are reasonably homogenous but strongly disordered.

As shown in Fig 1, when the temperature is decreased below $`T_c`$, a superconductivity-induced redistribution occurs in the low frequency region ($`\omega <280cm^1`$) of the spectra. To investigate this redistribution more closely, we have subtracted the 45K spectra from the 15K spectra and plotted the results in Fig 2. Clearly two peaks appear at frequencies of about 50 and 105 $`cm^1`$. These peaks are identified as pair-breaking peaks  which originate from electronic excitations across the superconducting gap. The frequency of a pair-breaking peak is a measure of the binding energy of the Cooper pairs, which is two times the gap value (2$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$). The presence of two pair-breaking peaks in the spectra suggests two superconducting gaps in MgB2.

A careful comparison between the VV and HV spectra in Fig 2 reveals that the shape of the spectrum is independent of polarization configuration. Such polarization independence can be interpreted as the consequence of several possible reasons, such as the disorder of the material and the isotropy of the superconducting gap. In the following data analysis, we will focus on the VV spectrum and ignore the polarization dependence of the Raman tensor.

According to Klein and Dierker , in the small wave vector limit ($`q0`$), the photon cross section for Raman scattering from pairs of superconducting quasiparticles at zero temperature is given by

$$\frac{d^2R}{d\omega d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{4Nr_0^2}{\omega }<\frac{\gamma (𝐤)^2\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤)^2}{\sqrt{\omega ^24\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤)^2}}>$$
(1)
where N is the density of states for one spin, $`r_0`$ is the Thomson radius, $`\gamma (𝐤)`$ is the polarization-dependent Raman vertex, and the brackets denote an average over the Fermi surface (FS) with the restriction $`\omega ^2>4\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤)^2`$. Kortus $`et`$ $`al`$  have calculated the electronic band structure and mapped out the FS of MgB2. We are particularly interested in the two sheets of cylindrical FS from the planar boron $`\sigma `$ bands near the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ point. For a given $`k_z`$, since these surfaces are isotropic in the $`k_xk_y`$ plane, we simply assume that two isotropic s-wave gaps ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$) open on these two sheets of FS. Then, equation (1) becomes,

$$\frac{d^2R}{d\omega d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\{\begin{array}{ccc}0& & \omega <2\mathrm{\Delta }_1\\ \frac{S_1^2\mathrm{\Delta }_1^2}{\omega \sqrt{\omega ^24\mathrm{\Delta }_1^2}}& & 2\mathrm{\Delta }_2>\omega >2\mathrm{\Delta }_1\\ \frac{S_1^2\mathrm{\Delta }_1^2}{\omega \sqrt{\omega ^24\mathrm{\Delta }_1^2}}+\frac{S_2^2\mathrm{\Delta }_2^2}{\omega \sqrt{\omega ^24\mathrm{\Delta }_2^2}}& & \omega >2\mathrm{\Delta }_2\end{array}$$
(2)
where $`S_1`$ ($`S_2`$) is proportional to the area of the first (second) sheet of the FS. As shown in the inset of Fig 2, the calculated spectrum using equation (2) qualitatively agrees with the measured spectra, i.e., two peaks at $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$ and $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$ and a vertical slope at $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$. To achieve a more detailed agreement, we would need to take into account the slight dispersion along the $`k_z`$ direction  and the coupling effect between the two $`\sigma `$ bands . As an approximation, we simply convolute the calculated spectrum with a Gaussian function whose HWHM is 7 $`cm^1`$ for contributions from $`S_1`$ and 3.5 $`cm^1`$ for those from $`S_2`$. As shown in Fig 2, this yields a reasonably good fit with the experimental data. The parameters obtained from the best fit to the VV spectrum are: $`S_1`$=125, $`S_2`$=42, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$=22$`cm^1`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$=50$`cm^1`$. After multiplying by an intensity scaling factor of 0.52, the same parameters also yield a good fit to the HV experimental data (see Fig 2).

Ideally, for isotropic s-wave gaps, there should be a complete depletion  in the low temperature Raman spectra at frequencies below the smaller gap because of the lack of available electronic states. As shown in the inset of Fig 2, the Raman scattering intensity at frequencies below ($`2\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$) should be zero and the spectrum has a vertical slope at $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$ . However, such a depletion can not be seen in the spectra shown in Fig 1. In fact, the scattering intensity at low frequencies is not zero in any of the spectra. Apparently the low-frequency spectra include significant contributions of scattering from excitations other than the superconducting quasiparticles. Such excitations could arise from normal electrons in the $`\pi `$ bands, or could be due to the presence of normal state material in the samples. To remove these unwanted contributions from the spectra, we subtracted the 45K spectra from the 15K spectra. The results, more accurately representing the scattering spectra from superconducting quasiparticles, are shown in Fig 2. A nearly vertical slope appears slightly below $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$, which is a feature expected for isotropic s-wave gaps .

Fig 3 shows the temperature dependence of the electronic Raman spectrum measured in HV scattering geometry. Apparently the two pair-breaking peaks are absent at temperatures above Tc. When the temperature is decreased below Tc, the spectra gradually gain weight in the low frequency region and the two pair beaking peaks are well developed at 15K. Recently Bouquet et al  reported specific heat data which can be fit to a two-gap model. Also, after the submission of this paper, F. Giubileo et al  (scanning tunneling) and P. Szabo $`et`$ $`al`$  (point-contact spectroscopy) reported experimental data showing two superconducting gaps with approximately the same gap values as we have obtained. These data indicate that the two gaps open simultaneously at Tc and their temperature dependence agrees with BCS theory, which is consistent with our results.

In summary, we have measured the Raman spectra of polycrystalline MgB2. A broad maximum centered at 620 $`cm^1`$ arises from phonon scattering throughout the Brillouin zone and suggests that the samples are strongly disordered. When the temperature is decreased below $`T_c`$, a superconductivity-induced redistribution in the electronic Raman spectrum occurs as a result of the opening of the superconducting gaps. The appearance of two pair-breaking peaks indicates the existence of two superconducting gaps in MgB2. Furthermore, we have analyzed the experimental data using a quasi two-dimensional model based on the theoretical calculations of Kortus $`et`$ $`al`$ . The results suggest that two s-wave gaps open on two sheets of the Fermi surface from the planar boron $`\sigma `$ bands near the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ point with gap values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$=22$`cm^1`$ (2.7 meV) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$=50$`cm^1`$ (6.2 meV) respectively, i.e., 2$`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$/$`k_BT_c`$=1.6 and 2$`\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$/$`k_BT_c`$=3.7. Note that the values of the two gaps embrace a range covering most of the results of the reported gap measurements . The result of our data analysis suggests that both gaps are conventional s-wave gaps and a BCS phonon-mediated pairing mechanism occurring in the planar boron $`\sigma `$ bands is responsible for the superconductivity of MgB2.

The financial support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada is gratefully acknowledged.


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# Millikelvin magnetic relaxation measurements of 𝛼-Fe2O3 antiferromagnetic particles

## Abstract

In this paper we report magnetic relaxation data for antiferromagnetic $`\alpha `$-Fe2O3 particles of 5 nm mean diameter in the temperature range 0.1 K to 25 K. The average spin value of these particles $`S124`$ and the uniaxial anisotropy constant $`D1.6\times 10^2`$ K have been estimated from the experimental values of the blocking temperature and anisotropy field. The observed plateau in the magnetic viscosity from 3 K down to 100 mK agrees with the occurrence of spin tunneling from the ground state $`S_Z=S`$. However, the scaling $`M`$ vs $`T\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0t)`$ is broken below 5 K, suggesting the occurrence of tunneling from excited states below this temperature.

Abstract

The search for candidates to study the quantum oscillations of spin between opposite orientations is of major interest today for both basic and applied purposes. There are two areas in which this is extremely important: the study of the spin quantum coherence in mesoscopic systems , and the assessment of magnetic units as hardware for quantum computation .

The rate of magnetic relaxation of a single domain particle associated to thermal fluctuations is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\nu \mathrm{exp}(U/T)`$ where $`U`$ is the energy barrier and $`\nu `$ is the attempt frequency. In the case of ensembles of small particles with a distribution of volumes, the magnetization depends on time, in the case of thermal relaxation, only through the combination $`T\mathrm{ln}(\nu t)`$. The occurrence of magnetic relaxation in a fine particle system at temperatures where thermal fluctuations vanish has been explained in terms of quantum tunneling . Most of the experiments carried out in magnetic systems have been performed at temperatures above 1 K and using ferro and ferrimagnetic particulate systems with interaction between particles . There are also interesting measurements of ferrimagnetic and ferromagnetic single particles . In this paper we show data of relaxation experiments down to mK for a system of independent antiferromagnetic particles with a narrow size distribution.

$`\alpha `$-Fe2O3 is an antiferromagnet ($`T_N`$ = 960K) which undergoes a spin-flip transition at the Morin temperature, $`T_M`$ = 263K. Below $`T_M`$ it is an uniaxial antiferromagnet with the spins aligned along the trigonal (111) axis, whereas above $`T_M`$ is a canted antiferromagnet with the spins perpendicular to (111), except for a slight canting (0.13) from the basal plane, which results in a small net magnetic moment. There is, however, another contribution to the net spin of these particles. This is associated with the number of non-compensated spins expected from the randomness of the surface core. The Morin temperature reduces as the particle size decreases tending to vanish for particles smaller than about 8nm . The antiferromagnetic $`\alpha `$-Fe2O3 particles were prepared from precursor FeOOH particles following the route proposed by Zysler et al. . X-ray powder diffraction pattern shows the hematite structure corundum type of the particles. Morphological characterization of the particles was made by using both a commercial light dispersion equipment before drying the solution and a 200 keV transmission electron microscopy. The particles show a platelet shape . The size distribution is centered at 5 nm and comprised between 3 and 7 nm. ESR measurements were made at the X-band (9.4 GHz) at temperatures down to 2 K. No single ion resonance line appears in the spectrum; that is, our sample is free of paramagnetic impurities.

Magnetization measurements down to 1.8 K were performed by using a Quantum Design SQUID magnetometer. The very low temperature magnetic measurements were carried out by using a top loading 3He-4He dilution refrigerator (Oxford Kelvinox) which has incorporated a 5 T superconductor magnet. The sample is inside the liquid mixture and its temperature may be varied between 50 mK and 1.2 K. The magnetic moment of the sample is registered using a superconductor gradiometer by the extraction method. This gradiometer is coupled through a superconducting transformer to a Quantum Design dc SQUID which is placed near the 1 K pot. The temperature of the dc SQUID is kept constant as it is thermally linked to the 1 K pot. The dc SQUID has also been shielded from the magnetic field created by the superconductor magnet and the magnetometer has been calibrated by using pure paramagnetic samples.

In Figure 1 we show the low field ($`H=300`$ Oe) magnetization measurements down to 1.8K. The zero field cooled magnetisation, ZFC, is mainly due to the fraction of particles that behave superparamagnetically at a given $`T`$, while the field cooled magnetisation, FC, corresponds to the equilibrium value. The inset of Figure 1 shows the FC data obtained with the dilution refrigerator down to the lowest temperature ($`T=100`$ mK). The data for both ZFC and FC above 4 K are in agreement with those reported by Bødker et al.  from magnetic and Mössbauer measurements performed in the Kelvin regime on particles of 16 nm average size. The blocking temperature for our particles is, however, larger than that estimated for the particles of Bødker et al.  which may be due to the increase of the surface anisotropy when reducing the size of the particles.

The zero field cooled magnetisation at a given temperature, field and time is given by

$$M(T,H,t)=\frac{m_0^2H}{2T}_0^{V_B(T,t)}𝑑Vf(V)V^2$$
(1)
where $`m_0`$ is the magnetic moment per unit volume of the material of the particle, $`f(V)`$ is the volume distribution of the particles, $`V_B(T,t)=\frac{k_BT}{K}\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0t)`$ is the blocking volume at a given temperature $`T`$ and time $`t`$, $`\nu _0`$ is the attempt frequency and $`K`$ is the magnetic anisotropy energy density. At $`T>T_B`$, the average blocking temperature, the integral of equation (1) becomes constant because the moments of most of the particles are unblocked. That is, above the blocking temperature the ZFC magnetisation should follow the $`1/T`$ superparamagnetic Curie law, as it is experimentally observed.

At $`TT_B`$, the ZFC magnetisation depends on the volume distribution function because the fraction of superparamagnetic particles contributing to the magnetic signal decreases when the temperature decreases. Below 1 K, however, the ZFC magnetisation increases when temperature decreases, with a $`1/T`$ dependence down to the lowest temperature of 100 mK. This behaviour can not be due to paramagnetic impurities, since their presence should be detected by EPR measurements, which is not the case. This result can be explained by equation (1) if the relaxation volume $`V_B`$ does not depend on temperature below 1 K. That is, in presence of quantum relaxation, the temperature in the definition of $`V_B`$ is replaced by the temperature, $`T_c`$, of the crossover from the classical to the quantum regime. At $`T<T_c`$, quantum transitions, independently of the volume distribution, result in the ZFC curve proportional to $`1/T`$. It may be concluded, therefore, that there is a fraction of particles whose magnetic moments never get blocked due to quantum tunneling effects.

The FC data split from the ZFC data at $`T=T_{max}`$ as they correspond to the equilibrium magnetisation at each temperature. For temperatures lower than 5 K the FC data grow with temperature following a Curie law until the lowest temperature of 100 mK. The Curie-Weiss temperature, $`\theta _C`$, deduced from the extrapolation to zero temperature of the FC data measured below 1K (see inset in figure 1) is $`\theta _C2`$ mK, suggesting a very weak interaction between the magnetic particles . Using the temperature variation of the called isothermal remanent magnetization, $`M_{TRM}=2M_{ZFC}M_{FC}`$  we have deduced the volume distribution of particles, see dashed lines in figure 2.

All isothermal magnetisation curves, for $`T>T_B`$, are well fitted by Boltzmann’s statistics and follow a $`H/T`$ scaling when considering the random distribution of easy axis and the temperature variation of the magnetic moment of the particles. Below $`T_B`$, the $`M(H)`$ curves show hysteresis. Below 1 K the cycles close at $`H`$ 3 T, which roughly represents the highest particle anisotropy field $`H_{an}`$. The continuous increase of both coercitivity and anisotropy field when reducing the temperature below the blocking, suggest that the Morin transition does not take place in these small particles .

Magnetic relaxation measurements were performed down to 100mK. In order to make easier the comparison of the data obtained above (Quantum Design SQUID magnetometer) and below (dilution refrigerator) to 1.6K, we have followed the same procedure in all the temperature range, from 100mK to 30K. At each temperature, a high magnetic field, $`H=`$ 4T, is applied and after one hour it was switched off. The variation of the total magnetisation with time was recorded for a few hours. The $`\mathrm{ln}(t)`$ relaxation was observed for all temperatures below the blocking temperature. Figure 2 shows the relaxation data plotted as $`M(t)`$ vs $`T\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0t)`$. The relaxation data collected above 5 K assemble nicely into the universal curve expected in the case of purely thermal relaxation . The best fit of this scaling is obtained using $`\nu _0=10^8`$ Hz. Below 5 K, see inset of figure 3, there is a systematic departure from the universal curve, suggesting that non thermal relaxation phenomena are occurring at these low temperatures until the lowest temperature $`T=100`$ mK. The derivative, $`dM/d[T\mathrm{ln}(t/\tau )]`$, of the master curve in the thermal regime represents the volume/barrier height distribution (see solid lines in Figure 2). It can be then concluded from both the relaxation measurements and the low field magnetisation data, that the peak at 5 nm in the distribution of particle sizes is in good agreement with the data from electron microscopy and light scattering. Moreover, we also conclude that we do not have particles with a size smaller than 2 nm.

The magnetic viscosity, $`S`$, which is independent from the initial and final states, is

$$S=\frac{1}{M_0M_{eq}}\frac{dM}{d\mathrm{ln}t}\frac{TV_Bf(V_B)}{K}T^2,$$
(2)
and its values have been deduced, see Figure 4, from the $`M(t)`$ data. As equation (3) reads, the viscosity should go to zero as temperature decreases if only thermal relaxation is considered. On the other hand, the viscosity values between 3 K and 100 mK remain constant suggesting the occurrence of quantum relaxation phenomena. It has also been deduced from magnetic relaxations at different fields that the magnetic viscosity monotonically decreases as a function of the magnetic field, see inset of figure 4, reflecting the existence of a maximum relaxation at zero field. This could be due to resonant spin tunneling between matching spin levels .

Note that the distribution function $`f(V)V^2`$, would mimic the plateau in the viscosity, but it would result also in a constant ZFC magnetisation and the preservation of the $`M`$ vs $`T\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0t)`$ scaling in all the temperature range, in disagreement with the experimental findings. The existence of canted spins in a surface layer in a spin-glass-like phase has also been proposed to explain the low temperature magnetic properties of some ferri- and antiferromagnetic particles . Surface spins have multiple configurations for any orientation of the core magnetisation, and the distribution of energy barriers should be $`f(E)\frac{1}{E}`$. This could explain the constancy of the viscosity at temperature $`T<3`$ K, but it cannot explain the rest of our low temperature experimental findings.

Let us discuss our results in the frame of the discrete spin level structure existing in the two potential wells of the magnetic anisotropy. The spin Hamiltonian of these nanosized antiferromagnetic particles with a platelet shape may be written, as a first approximation, in terms of the dominant uniaxial anisotropy term, $`DS_z^2`$, and the Zeeman term due to the interaction of the net spin, $`S`$, of the particles with the external magnetic field

$$H=DS_z^2+H^{}g\mu _BSH.$$
(3)
Due to the size distribution and the non uniform shape of particles we expect to have a distribution of values for $`D`$ and $`S`$. $`H^{}`$ stands for other anisotropy terms. The symmetry-violating terms in the spin Hamiltonian of equation (4) inducing tunneling are those associated with the transverse component of both the magnetic field and magnetic anisotropy. The values of $`D`$ and $`S`$ in equation (4) represent the mean values for all particles. Taking into account that: a) The average barrier height, $`UDS^2`$, is proportional to the average blocking temperature, $`T_B`$ 12K, $`U=T_B\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0t)=`$ 248K, where $`\nu _0=10^8`$Hz and $`t`$ 10 sec is the experimental time window, and b) the anisotropy field, $`H_{an}=2DS3`$ T, is the field value that eliminates the barrier height between the two spin orientations, we have estimated $`S=124`$ and $`D1.6\times 10^2`$ K. Writing the relevant barrier height as $`U=KV`$, we find that $`K8\times 10^5`$ erg/cm3.

The temperature, $`T_c`$, of the crossover from quantum to thermal superparamagnetism  may be roughly estimated from $`T_c\mu _B(H_{}H_{ex})^{1/2}`$, where $`H_{}`$ 3T and $`H_{ex}`$ is the exchange field which may be estimated from the Néel temperature, $`T_N=960`$ K. We have got $`T_c5`$ K.

The first term of equation (4) distributes the spin levels in the two wells of the magnetic anisotropy separated by the energy barrier $`U`$. The spin level, $`m=S_Z`$, contributing to the magnetic signal at each temperature $`T`$, and for fields much smaller than $`H_{an}`$, satisfies $`D(S^2m^2)20T`$, that is at $`TT_B`$ the contributing levels are those near the top of the barrier, $`m=0`$, while at $`TT_B`$ only the ground state $`m=S`$ contributes to the magnetisation relaxation. This explains why at temperatures just below the blocking the relaxation is purely thermal. At lower temperatures, however, the thermal relaxation above the barriers competes with quantum tunneling from the excited states. The fact that the scaling $`M`$ vs $`T\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0t)`$ is broken below 5 K should correspond, therefore, to the occurrence of tunneling effects from the above mentioned levels. The plateau in the viscosity below 3 K should reflect the quantum tunneling process from the ground state $`S_Z=S`$, in agreement with the fact that at these low temperatures only the level $`S_Z=S`$ is populated. Moreover, the very low temperature ZFC and FC magnetisation curves obey the $`1/T`$ Curie law suggesting that the inverse of the tunneling frequency matches the experimental window time and the particles are ”seen” superparamagnetically on our resolution time.

In conclusion, we have presented magnetic relaxation data on antiferromagnetic $`\alpha `$-Fe2O3 in the milikelvin range, for which the most plausible interpretation is the occurrence of spin tunneling . The decrease of the viscosity when magnetic field increases agrees well with the discrete level structure in the two wells.

FIGURE CAPTIONS

Figure 1. ZFC and FC magnetization curves. The inset shows the linear dependendence of 1/$`M_{FC}`$ on temperature in the millikelvin regime. The extrapolation of these data to zero temperature gives $`\theta _c`$ 0 mK.

Figure 2. Size distribution of $`\alpha `$-Fe2O3 particles deduced from the ZFC and FC curves using equation (2) (dashed line) and from the $`M`$ vs. $`T\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0t)`$ plot (continuous line).

Figure 3. Magnetization of $`\alpha `$-Fe2O3 particles versus $`T\mathrm{ln}(\nu _0t)`$. The best fit has been achieved using $`\nu _0=10^8sec^1`$.

Figure 4. The temperature dependence of the magnetic viscosity S for the $`\alpha `$-Fe2O3 particles. The inset shows the variation of S with field at $`T`$ = 3 K.