text:
# Global emission line trends in spiral galaxies: the reddening and metallicity sequences

## 1 Introduction

The interpretation of integrated spectra of nearby galaxies becomes increasingly important with the profusion of studies of galaxies in clusters (e.g., Caldwell et al., 1993; Dressler et al. 1999; Poggianti et al. 1999; Balogh et al. 1999) and galaxies at large redshifts (e.g., Colless et al. 1990; Hammer et al. 1997; Lilly et al. 1998, Guzman et al. 1998).

Indeed, for the studies of distant galaxies, the spatial resolution obtained with ground based instruments makes any morphological classification difficult, and even from space, morphological studies are bound to be crude. Therefore, most information on distant galaxies will come from photometry or spectroscopy, and the sampled regions will cover a significant part - if not all - of the galaxy surface.

Techniques have been devised to classify galaxies using their spectra only (Morgan & Mayall; 1957, Sodré & Cuevas; 1994, 1997; Connolly et al. 1995; Zaritsky, Kennicutt & Huchra 1994; Folkes et al. 1996; Galaz & de Lapparent 1998; Sodré & Stasińska 1999). It has been shown that the results correlate rather well with the galaxy morphological types. The spectral classification actually presents some advantages even for the study of nearby galaxies: whatever criteria are adopted, they allow an objective and continuous classification of the galaxies, in contrast with the conventional morphological classification which is by nature subjective and provides discrete classes. In addition, any interpretation in terms of stellar content and evolution is directly related with the galaxy spectra, while the link with galaxy morphology is rather elusive.

In a former paper (Sodré & Stasińska 1999, hereinafter SS99), based on the integrated spectra for normal spiral galaxies from the Kennicutt (1992) atlas, we have shown that emission line ratios and equivalent widths are impressively well correlated with the galaxy spectral type obtained from a Principal Component Analysis of the continuum and the absorption features. The correlation is far better with galaxy spectral types than with morphological types. We also found that the extinction derived from the emission line Balmer decrement correlates with the galaxy spectral type, being larger for early type galaxies.

But the sample was small: there were only 15 normal spirals in the Kennicutt (1992) atlas. In the meantime, Jansen et al. (2000a and 2000b) published a comprehensive photometric and spectrophotometric atlas of 200 nearby field galaxies (the Nearby Field Galaxy Survey, hereinafter NFGS). The objects were selected so as to span the full range in galaxy luminosities and morphological types. As in Kennicutt (1992), the integrated galaxy spectra were obtained by drifting a long slit across the galaxy. This considerably richer and more appropriate data base motivated us to revisit the study of SS99, in order to see whether the formerly found trends are confirmed, and to refine their empirical interpretation.

In this paper, we essentially investigate the overall effective extinction and metallicity of spiral galaxies through an empirical analysis of the properties of their global emission lines. We also perform a Principal Component Analysis in order to understand the relation amongst the variables describing the galaxies.

As in SS99, our paper deals only with normal galaxies. Therefore, we have rejected from the NFGS sample all the galaxies with Seyfert nuclei and nuclear starbursts, as well as the galaxies with indication of close interaction or strong peculiarity, as indicated in the appendix of Jansen et al. (2000a). In the following, the expression NFGS sample will refer to the 158 galaxies that have no evident sign of peculiarity.

All the galaxies in our sample are found at redshifts lower than 0.05. Their blue absolute magnitudes range between -22 and -13. For most of the diagrams investigated in this paper, relevant data are available for 100–120 objects.

## 2 Dust extinction

The dust content of galaxies is a controversial subject. While the first comprehensive analysis of this problem (Holmberg 1958, 1975; de Vaucouleurs 1959) have proposed that spiral disks are largely transparent, more recent works have suggested that these disks are opaque or at least far more obscured than previously thought (cf. Valentijn 1990; Disney, Davies & Phillipps, 1989; James & Puxley 1993). So far, there is still no consensus on whether galaxies are optically thick or thin (see Wang & Heckman 1996 or Meurer & Seibert 2001 and references therein). Actually, the galaxy extinction depends not only on the amount of dust and its composition, but also on the distribution of dust relative to the light sources. This point too has been disputed. For instance, some authors suggest a foreground screen dust geometry (Calzetti, Kinney & Storchi-Bergmann 1994, 1996; but see Witt, Thronson & Capuano 1992), while others propose hybrid models, with the dust partially distributed in a foreground screen and partially concentrated in the star forming regions (e.g. Charlot & Fall 2000). Indeed, Charlot & Fall (2000; see also Charlot & Longhetti 2001) present a model for the effects of dust on integrated galaxy spectra that explains several observational properties of starburst galaxies, showing that there is a sequence in the overal dust content of the galaxies. Radial gradients should also play a role, and Giovanelli et al. (1994) and Peletier et al. (1995) propose that the dust distribution presents a strong radial dependence, with considerable obscuration near the centers of galaxies and little at the outer edges (see also Nelson, Zaritsky and Cutri 1998).

In nearby starburst galaxies, there is evidence from bidimensional spectroscopy that stars, gas and dust are decoupled (Maíz-Apellániz et al. 1998) and the attenuation inferred from the H$`\alpha `$/H$`\beta `$ ratio is typically higher than that inferred from the spectral continuum (e.g., Fanelli, O’Connell & Thuan 1988; Calzetti, Kinney & Storchi-Bergmann 1994; Mayya & Prahbu 1996; Calzetti 1997). Recently, Poggianti et al. (1999) and Poggianti & Wu (2000) have shown that the so-called e(a) spectrum can be reproduced assuming that in a current starburst the dust extinction affects the young stellar populations much more than the older stars. This effect has been called selective dust extinction by Poggianti and collaborators, and is a consequence of the fact that a large fraction – but not all – of the dust in galaxies is associated with star formation regions, absorbing a significant fraction of the light emitted by the young stars. We now present an empirical evidence that selective extinction is indeed affecting the integrated spectra of spiral galaxies.

### 2.1 Selective Extinction

Fig. 1 shows the emission line equivalent width of H$`\beta `$, EW(H$`\beta `$), as a function of that of H$`\alpha `$, EW(H$`\alpha `$), for the 110 galaxies from the NFGS sample with available data. The shape of the symbols correspond to different morphological classes, as indicated in the figure caption. As explained by Jansen et al. (2000b), these equivalent widths were extracted from the spectra by placing the limits of the measurement window well inside the absorption trough, thus minimizing the effect of the underlying stellar absorption, which becomes appreciable at small equivalent widths. Following the prescription of Jansen, Franx & Fabricant (2001), we have applied an additional correction for residual absorption (1.5 Å for H$`\alpha `$ and 1 Å for H$`\beta `$).

The correlation between EW(H$`\beta `$) and EW(H$`\alpha `$) is impressively strong and is well represented by a relation of the type

$$EW(\mathrm{H}\beta )=A\times EW(\mathrm{H}\alpha )$$
(1)
where $`A`$ is a constant. Using the ordinary least squares bisector estimation for the fitting (Isobe et al. 1990), we find $`A=0.245\pm 0.007`$. This correlation is even better than the one found by SS99 for the Kennicutt sample. The uncertainties in the emission line equivalent widths may be appreciable for EW(H$`\alpha `$) or EW(H$`\beta `$) smaller than, say, 10 Å but the value of the slope $`A`$ is essentially determined by larger equivalent widths and is not sensitive to these uncertainties. We have performed a non-parametric Kendall’s $`\tau `$ statistical test (Press et al. 1992) to evaluate quantitatively the quality of the fitting, for the whole sample and for the sub-sample with EW(H$`\alpha `$$`>5`$Å and EW(H$`\beta `$$`>10`$Å. The results are presented in Table 1 and reveal that the correlation between EW(H$`\alpha `$) and EW(H$`\beta `$) is indeed highly significant for both samples. For an easy consultation, the results of this test for all the observational diagrams investigated in this study have been summarized in Table 1. In this table we present, for each plot and sample, the number of data points, the value of the non parametric correlation coefficient $`\tau `$, and its two-sided significance level, $`prob`$. Note that small values for $`prob`$ indicates that the correlation or anti-correlation between the variables is significant.

We found that the residuals in the EW(H$`\beta `$) vs EW(H$`\alpha `$) relation are independent of the galaxy ellipticity (therefore inclination) as well as of the galaxy absolute magnitude (and any combination of ellipticity and magnitude). They are also independent of galaxy morphological type.

The correlation shown in Fig. 1 has important implications concerning the nature of the internal reddening of the galaxies, in particular in terms of a link between the effective extinction in the continuum and in the emission lines. Let us write an emission line equivalent width as a ratio between the emission line intensity $`I`$ and the flux $`F_c`$ at the adjacent continuum in the observed spectrum: $`EW=I/F_c`$. The relation between the observed and intrinsic (i.e., extinction corrected) intensities of H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ is

$$\frac{I(\mathrm{H}\alpha )}{I(\mathrm{H}\beta )}=\delta \times 10^{C_l(f(\mathrm{H}\alpha )f(\mathrm{H}\beta ))}$$
(2)
where $`\delta `$ is the intrinsic intensity ratio of these two lines, $`C_l`$ is a measure of the effective extinction at H$`\beta `$ in the region producing the lines, and $`f(\lambda )`$ is a function that gives the wavelength dependence of the extinction. Let $`C_c`$ be a measure of the effective amount of extinction at the wavelength of H$`\beta `$ in the region producing the continuum, so that the observed and intrinsic fluxes (denoted by $`F_c`$ and $`F_c^0`$, respectively) at a given wavelength are related by

$$F_c(\lambda )=F_c^0(\lambda )\times 10^{C_cf(\lambda )}$$
(3)
Eq. 1 implies that the effective extinction at H$`\beta `$ is related to the ratio of the observed continuum fluxes at H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ by

$$C_l=\frac{1}{f(\mathrm{H}\alpha )f(\mathrm{H}\beta )}\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{1}{A\delta }\frac{F_c(\mathrm{H}\alpha )}{F_c(\mathrm{H}\beta )}\right)$$
(4)
and that the difference between the line and continuum effective extinctions is related to the ratio of the intrinsic continuum fluxes by

$$C_lC_c=\frac{1}{f(\mathrm{H}\alpha )f(\mathrm{H}\beta )}\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{1}{A\delta }\frac{F_c^0(\mathrm{H}\alpha )}{F_c^0(\mathrm{H}\beta )}\right)$$
(5)
Since $`F_c^0(\mathrm{H}\alpha )/F_c^0(\mathrm{H}\beta )`$ depends only on the stellar populations of the galaxy, Eq. 5 is indeed an empirical prescription for the relation between selective dust extinction and the galaxy stellar populations.

Although we have no way to determine the value of $`C_c`$ from the available data, some implications of Eq. 5 may be inferred. First, the difference between $`C_l`$ and $`C_c`$ is essentially dependent on the intrinsic colour of the galaxy and is larger for intrinsically redder galaxies. Second, if $`C_lC_c`$, a lower limit for the intrinsic continuum flux ratio at the wavelengths of H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ is $`F_c^0(\mathrm{H}\alpha )/F_c^0(\mathrm{H}\beta )=A\delta `$. Assuming $`\delta =2.9`$ (the case B recombination value corresponding to a temperature of 9000K), and using the Seaton (1979) extinction law, we find that $`F_c^0(\mathrm{H}\alpha )/F_c^0(\mathrm{H}\beta )`$ in spiral galaxies should be larger than 0.70.

We have used the software PÉGASE.2 (Fioc & Rocca-Volmerange 1997) with a Salpeter IMF and default values to compute this ratio for a few simple model galaxy spectra. For an instantaneous burst 15 Gyr old we obtain $`F_c^0(\mathrm{H}\alpha )/F_c^0(\mathrm{H}\beta )=0.84`$ and Eq. 5 implies $`C_lC_c=0.21`$, whereas for a model with constant star formation rate and same age this ratio is 0.75 and Eq. 5 leads to $`C_lC_c=0.07`$. Additional clues on $`C_c`$ may be obtained from spectral synthesis methods that include explicitly in the analysis the effects of extinction on the spectra (e.g., Cid Fernandes et al. 2001).

### 2.2 The extinction of the nebular light

We obtained $`C_l`$ from the observed H$`\alpha `$/H$`\beta `$ ratio for the 110 normal galaxies of the NFGS sample with available data.

Fig. 2 plots $`C_l`$ as a function of the galaxy color $`(BR)`$. The open symbols correspond to galaxies with EW(H$`\alpha `$)$`<`$ 10 Å or EW(H$`\beta `$)$`<`$ 5 Å for which the value of $`C_l`$ tends to be more uncertain. A very good correlation is seen, with $`C_l`$ larger for redder objects (the correlation coefficient $`\tau `$ shown in Table 1 is larger than 0.6). This behavior is indeed expected from Eq. 4. As already shown by Jansen, Franx & Fabricant (2000), there is a correlation between $`C_l`$ and the galaxy blue absolute magnitude, although the dispersion is much larger than for the color. $`C_l`$ also correlates with the morphological types, decreasing towards later types, confirming the trend found in SS99. The maximum extinction is observed for galaxies Sb, but the variance is large. On the other hand, there is no correlation whatsoever with the galaxy apparent ellipticity, implying that at least part of the obscuring dust is concentrated close to the emitting sources.

We now examine whether there is a relation between $`C_l`$ and the overall metallicity of the galaxies. So far, there have been contradictory claims in this respect. Zaritsky, Kennicutt & Huchra (1994) found no evidence for a systematic dependence between reddening and abundance in a sample of 39 disk galaxies. In their study, the characteristic metallicity of the galaxies was derived from the value of the metallicity indicator (\[O iii\] $`\lambda `$5007,4959 + \[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3726,3729) / H$`\beta `$ (hereinafter $`O_{23}`$) (Pagel et al. 1979, McGaugh 1991) at the isophotal radius, interpolated from the values observed in giant H ii regions. In other contexts, however, it has been suggested that the extinction derived from the Balmer decrement might be related to metallicity. For example, Campbell, Terlevich & Melnick (1986) found a loose correlation between the extinction and the oxygen abundance in a sample of H ii galaxies. Also, invidivual giant H ii regions in spiral galaxies exhibit a decrease of extinction with galactocentric radius (Kennicutt & Garnett 1996; Van Zee et al. 1998a), but this is not a general rule (Martin & Roy, 1992 and references therein).

Fig. 3 shows $`C_l`$ as a function of the usual metallicity indicator $`O_{23}`$. The meaning of the symbols is the same as in Fig. 2. When considering only the filled symbols, there is a weak correlation in the sense that $`O_{23}`$ tends to be smaller for larger values of $`C_l`$. The correlation virtually disappears when including the open symbols, for which the extinction and reddening corrected line ratios tend to be more uncertain. These results are confirmed by Kendall’s $`\tau `$ statistical test; see Table 1. We know that the relation between $`O_{23}`$ and O/H is double valued, with a maximum in $`O_{23}`$ occuring at log O/H + 12 of about 8.2. This is illustrated in Fig. 4, which shows $`O_{23}`$ versus O/H as computed for a sequence of simple constant density models roughly representative of giant H ii regions, using the photoionization code PHOTO described in Stasińska & Leitherer (1996). Because radial abundance gradients are known to exist in spiral galaxies from the study of their bright giant H ii regions (Vilas-Costas & Edmunds, 1992, Zaritsky, Kennicutt & Huchra 1994), it is conceivable that, depending on the abundance gradients and the relative weights of the regions of various abundances in the integrated emission line fluxes, $`O_{23}`$ might not be a a good indicator of the galaxy overall metallicity. It is important to note that metallicity here refers only to the star formation regions. Kobulnicky, Kennicutt & Pizagno (1999) have addressed this problem by simulating the global $`O_{23}`$ of 22 spiral galaxies, integrating the observed values for several bright individual H ii regions over the H$`\alpha `$ radial profiles from CCD images. They found that the oxygen abundance derived from the simulated integrated $`O_{23}`$ was identical, within errors, to the characteristic abundance of galaxies defined by Zaritsky, Kennicutt & Huchra (1994) as the oxygen abundance computed at a certain characteristic galactocentric radius. They concluded that the beam smearing effect from sampling large number of galaxies, even in the presence of strong abundance gradients, has a small effect on characterizing the mean abundances of galaxies. They mention however, that it would be useful to test this conclusion directly using actual integrated spectra of galaxies. Unfortunately, none of the galaxies in their sample belongs to the NFGS sample. Our conclusion, using the NFGS sample is purely empirical, and is that $`O_{23}`$ does not seem to be a useful indicator of metallicity in integrated spectra.

Another indirect empirical metallicity indicator has been proposed more recently (van Zee et al. 1998a), which has the double advantage of not being plagued by the double value problem and of being independent of reddening. This is the \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ ratio. Fig. 5, obtained from the same models as Fig. 4 (these models assume that N/O $`\alpha `$ (O/H)0.5) shows that \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ increases with O/H up log O/H + 12 around 8.8. There are two reasons for such a behaviour. One is that \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ is less dependent on the electron temperature than $`O_{23}`$, so that it is not so much affected by the decrease in electron temperature provoked by an increase in metallicity. The other reason is that N/H increases with O/H. The study of giant H II regions in spiral galaxies (van Zee, Salzer & Haynes 1998b) indicates that at log O/H + 12 $`>`$ 8.5, N/O is proportional to O/H and not to (O/H)0.5, so that the effect is even stronger than in the models shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 6 shows $`C_l`$ as a function of \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ for the normal galaxies in the NFGS sample. There is a very clear correlation! Kendall’s $`\tau `$ is 0.6 and the small value of $`prob`$ indicates that the correlation is highly significant. As a matter of fact, it is even surprising that such a good correlation should exist. Indeed, the \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ ratio obviously strongly depends on the ionization parameter of the H II regions. While giant H II regions seem to follow a very narrow sequence in ionization parameters (McCall, Rybski & Shields 1985; Dopita & Evans 1986; Stasińska, Schaerer & Leitherer 2001), one expects in integrated spectra of spiral galaxies a non negligible contribution from a diffuse medium, possibly ionized by photons leaking out from bona fide giant H II regions. Indeed, about 20 to 50% of the H-Balmer line emission in nearby spiral galaxies arises from this diffuse medium (e.g., Greenawalt, Walterbos & Braun 1997; Collins et al. 2000; Rossa & Dettmar 2000; Zurita, Rozas & Beckman 2000; Rand 2000). The \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ ratios observed in this diffuse medium are typically a factor 2 larger than in the nearby giant H ii regions, which implies that in an integrated spectrum, the effect of the diffuse medium at a given galactocentric distance (and therefore metallicity) is to increase the \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ ratio by about 30% at most. Such an increment is relatively modest compared to the metallicity dependence of this ratio and explains why \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ appears to be such a good indicator of the overall metallicity of spiral galaxies. We should emphasize that, nevertheless, this indicator cannot be easily translated into a value of O/H, in the presence of abundance gradients and integration over the complex interstellar medium of spiral galaxies. For example, the weight of the regions of metallicities around solar is expected to be important, as seen from Fig. 5. One should certainly refrain from using the calibration that has been proposed by van Zee at al. (1998a), which is valid only in the context of giant H ii regions.

Another potential empirical indicator of metallicity of the emission line regions which is independent of the ionization parameter, does not suffer from the double value problem and is less affected by metallicity gradients is \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727 (Dopita et al. 2000). It is however strongly dependent on the reddening correction. Fig. 7 shows $`C_l`$ as a function of \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727 (the open symbols have the same meaning as in Figs. 2, 3 and 6), and here again we clearly see a correlation. It is more dispersed than the $`C_l`$ versus \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ relation, possibly because of errors in the reddening correction. Indeed, the correlation is much better when considering only the filled symbols. This is confirmed by the results of Kendall’s $`\tau `$ test presented in Table 1.

From the above considerations, our conclusion is that, indeed, $`C_l`$ correlates with the global metallicity of the emission line regions in spiral galaxies, at variance with the conclusions of Zaritsky, Kennicutt & Huchra (1994). It should be stressed that $`C_l`$ does not necessarily measure the true extinction of the total light emitted in the Balmer lines. In the case of a patchy dust distribution, it measures, so to say, the effective extinction of those regions that are not too strongly obscured, so that the interpretation of our result is by no means straightforward.

## 3 The emission line sequence

In SS99, we showed that, when ordering the normal galaxies from the Kennicutt sample by galaxy spectral type, emission line equivalent widths and emission line ratios from the integrated galaxy spectra formed a very well defined sequence (not necessarily monotonic!). We interpreted this as an evidence for a close link between the high mass end of the stellar populations, which drive the emission lines, and the population of the stars that are responsible for the optical continuum, which determines the galaxy spectral type. The scatter in the properties of individual H ii regions observed in spiral galaxies (Kennicutt & Garnett 1996, Roy & Walsh 1997) is likely to be smoothed out in integrated galaxy spectra if the galaxies are sufficiently massive to contain a large number of H ii regions. The sequence found by SS99 was so impressive, that it calls for further investigation and the NFGS sample is adequately large for such a purpose. Unfortunately, we cannot determine the galaxy spectral type from the published data, since the spectra are not yet publicly available in digital form. As a proxy of the galaxy spectral type, we can use galaxy colours, with the advantage that they are much easier to obtain than spectral types. We found empirically that the best colour to use was the synthetic $`(BR)`$ derived from the galaxy spectra as explained by Jansen et al. (2000b).

### 3.1 Equivalent widths and star formation

In Fig. 8, we show the equivalent widths of H$`\alpha `$, \[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727, \[O iii\] $`\lambda `$5007 and \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584 as a function of $`(BR)`$. The shape of the symbols represent the galaxy morphological types, as in the previous observational diagrams. Clearly, the equivalent widths of H$`\alpha `$, \[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727 and \[O iii\] $`\lambda `$5007 are strongly correlated with $`(BR)`$, being larger for bluer galaxies. However, there seems to be more dispersion than what was suggested by the study of SS99. One possible reason is that the color $`(BR)`$ is not as good a parameter as the spectral type for ranking galaxies. For comparison, we show in Fig. 9 the same equivalent widths but as a function of the galaxy morphological type, $`T`$. The correlations of equivalent widths with $`T`$ are seen to be much weaker than with $`(BR)`$. These conclusions are confirmed by the statistical test summarized in Table 1.

Emission lines, principally H$`\alpha `$ and \[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727, are indicators of current star formation (Barbaro & Poggianti 1997, Kennicutt 1998, Jansen, Franx & Fabricant 2001). The calibration in terms of star formation rates however strongly depends on several factors: star formation law, metallicity, selective dust extinction, etc. Charlot & Longhetti (2001) argue for the necessity of using the \[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727, \[O iii\] $`\lambda `$5007 H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ lines at the same time to better constrain the problem. Qualitatively, though, Fig. 8 (together with Fig. 1) shows that any of these parameters is likely to be a first order ranking indicator of integrated star formation rates in spiral galaxies. This is of course not the case of \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584, whose equivalent width behaves in a completely different manner. Indeed, the strong drop in nitrogen abundance for the bluest (less chemically evolved) galaxies overtakes the effects of increasing present star formation rate and increasing electron temperature.

As shown by Jansen et al. (2000b), equivalent widths are also loosely correlated with galaxy absolute magnitudes, tending to be larger for more luminous galaxies. However, at a given galaxy colour, we found no compelling evidence of brighter galaxies having larger equivalent widths.

### 3.2 Line ratios and metallicity

Fig. 10 shows various emission line ratios as a function of $`(BR)`$. The line ratios have been dereddened using the value of Cl computed above. Since the reddening correction becomes more uncertain for galaxies with small EW(H$`\alpha `$) and EW(H$`\beta `$), as in Figs. 2, 3, 6 & 7 we marked by filled symbols those objects that have EW(H$`\alpha `$)$`>`$ 10 Å and EW(H$`\beta `$)$`>`$ 5 Å and thus the most reliable reddening corrections. Clear trends are seen for \[O iii\] $`\lambda `$5007/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727, \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727 and \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ as a function of $`(BR)`$. As for the equivalent widths, we find the trends much clearer with $`(BR)`$ than with morphological type. For \[O iii\] $`\lambda `$5007/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727 and \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727, which are sensitive to reddening, one can see that the open symbols prolongate the trends defined by the filled symbols, but with much higher dispersion. In the case of $`O_{23}`$, there is a weak trend with $`(BR)`$ when considering only the filled symbols, and practically no trend when considering the entire data set. The statistical significance of these trends are presented in Table 1.

The fact that \[O iii\] $`\lambda `$5007/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727 decreases as the galaxy color gets redder is not necessarily only due to a lowering of the average ionization parameter or the average spectral hardness of the exciting stars (as was suggested by SS99). Indeed, an increase in overall metallicity, by enhancing the temperature drop in the central zones of H ii regions with metallicities larger than solar, also contributes to lower the \[O iii\] $`\lambda `$5007/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727 ratio (see Stasińska, Schaerer & Leitherer 2001). We find no trend of \[S ii\]/H$`\alpha `$ with colour, suggesting that the effect of ionization parameter along the colour sequence may not be overwhelming.

As mentioned in Sect. 2, the $`O_{23}`$ ratio is not the best indicator of metallicity in integrated spectra of galaxies where abundance gradients are known to occur. Being non monotonic with respect to the metallicities of individual H ii regions, when integrated over an entire galaxy it becomes impossible to interpret without additional information on the radial galactic gradients in abundances and star formation rates. In addition, it is strongly dependent on the reddening correction, which becomes uncertain in metal rich galaxies with weak lines.

On the other hand, \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727 is a good indirect indicator of metallicity in extragalactic H ii regions (Dopita et al. 2000) and is expected to be a fair indicator of overall metallicity in integrated galaxy spectra (see above). The trend seen in Fig. 10c is produced by an increase of N/O as galaxy colour gets redder, indirectly indicating an increase in metallicity. As a consequence, the conspicuous trend of \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ increasing with $`(BR)`$ (Fig. 10d), is likely due to an increase in metallicity. As mentioned before, the \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ ratio has the advantage of being reddening independent, and it can be used with confidence even for galaxies with weak emission lines. It clearly indicates that the sequence between metallicity and $`(BR)`$ colour is quite narrow even for galaxies redder than $`(BR)`$=1.2 (which is not apparent when using the strongly reddening-dependent \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727 ratio).

Numerous studies have claimed the existence of a metallicity-luminosity relation in a variety of classes of galaxies: dynamically hot galaxies, i.e. ellipticals, bulges, and dwarf spheroidals, dwarf H ii galaxies, irregular galaxies and spirals (Bender et al. 1993; Vigroux, Stasińska & Comte 1987; Skillman, Kennicutt & Hodge 1989; Richer & McCall 1995; Zaritsky, Kennicutt & Huchra 1994). In Fig. 11, we show the various metallicity indexes, $`O_{23}`$, \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ and \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727 as a function of the total absolute blue magnitude $`M_B`$. We do find a strong correlation between $`M_B`$ and the metallicity indexes \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ and \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727. The correlation of the $`O_{23}`$ index with $`M_B`$ is statistically significant (see Table 1), but at a rather low level. It is interesting to recall that Zaritsky, Kennicutt & Huchra (1994), by using this index to infer the characteristic metallicity of spiral galaxies, did find a trend with galaxy luminosity. But the index actually referred to the observed ratio at a certain galactic radius, and not to the integrated light from the galaxy. Our study has shown how misleading can be the use of $`O_{23}`$ in integrated spectra of galaxies in the presence of abundance gradients. On the other hand, \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ and \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727 show clear trends with galaxy absolute magnitude, confirming that indeed, there is a relation in spiral galaxies between the overall metallicity of the star forming regions and the galaxy luminosity.

## 4 Principal Component Analysis

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a useful tool for the examination of multidimensional data and the identification of underlying variables that may be responsible for the variance in a data set (Murtagh & Heck 1987, Fukunaga 1990). PCA allows to define a new orthonormal reference system in a parameter space, with basis-vectors (the principal components) spanning directions of maximum variance.

Here we apply PCA to a set of variables describing different aspects of the galaxies in the NFGS sample. The 7 variables selected for this exercise are: the blue absolute magnitude $`M_B`$; the color $`(BR)`$; the numerical value of the morphological type $`T`$; the galaxy surface brightness at the effective radius $`\mu _B^e`$; EW(H$`\alpha `$), which is related to the star formation rate; the metallicity indicator \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$; and H$`\alpha `$/H$`\beta `$, related to the emission-line extinction. The number of normal galaxies with complete information that enters in the analysis is 102.

Since the input variables are of different nature, it is appropriate to apply PCA on the correlation matrix, that is, the input variables were transformed: they had their mean value subtracted and, after, they were divided by their standard deviation. Hence the analysis is made on a set of transformed variables with zero mean and unity variance. The result indicates that the first principal component explains alone 48% of the sample variance. The second and third components are responsible for 19% and 12% of the sample variance, respectively.

Although each principal component is a linear combination of all the input variables, it is interesting to verify whether some variables are well correlated with the first components because, in this case, they are responsible for a significant fraction of the sample variance. We have then computed, for each variable and principal component, the non-parametric Kendall’s $`\tau `$ coefficient of rank correlation and the respective probability of absence of correlation between these quantities. We found that the variable that best correlates with the first component is the metallicity indicator \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$; the variables $`(BR)`$, and H$`\alpha `$/H$`\beta `$ also correlate well with the first component; the morphological type is correlated with the first principal component, but to a lesser extent. On the other side, only $`\mu _B^e`$ is strongly correlated with the second principal component. The absolute magnitude correlates best with the third principal component. Hence, this analysis indicates that the variance in the parameter space considered here is produced, in first place, by the metallicity and parameters related to it or to the stellar populations, and, in second place, by the surface brightness, which is related to the dynamical history of the galaxies. The absolute magnitude, related to the mass of the galaxy, surprisingly comes only in the third place.

## 5 Conclusions

We have explored the emission line trends from the integrated spectra of normal spiral galaxies, in order to investigate the relationships between dust extinction, metallicity and some macroscopic properties of spiral galaxies. A similar aim was followed by the study by Zaritsky, Kennicutt & Huchra (1994) on a sample of 39 disk galaxies, which however was not based on integrated spectra of galaxies, but on the study of several giant H ii regions in each galaxy. Our approach, using integrated spectra, is a priori likely to give more robust answers. It also has the advantage of being readily applicable to studies of galaxies at high redshift. We benefited from data from the Nearby Field Galaxy Survey (Jansen et al. 2000a and b), which considerably increased the size of the so far available samples for systematic studies of the global properties of spiral galaxies.

Our main results are the following.

We found that the correlation between EW(H$`\alpha `$) and EW(H$`\beta `$) is extremely strong. This implies that $`C_l`$ -$`C_c`$, the difference between the effective extinction of the stellar and the nebular light, depends only on the intrinsic colours of the galaxies, being larger for redder galaxies.

The nebular extinction as derived from the Balmer decrement is found to correlate essentially with the effective metallicity of the emission line regions. This finding required using an appropriate metallicity indicator. The usual $`O_{23}`$ index does not work for integrated spectra of galaxies, due to strong metallicity gradients. On the other hand, \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\alpha `$ and \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6584/\[O ii\] $`\lambda `$3727 seem to be adequate empirical metallicity indicators, the first one having the advantage of being reddening independent and being applicable also for galaxies with weak emission lines. The calibration of these indicators would require a modelling of the integrated spectra of galaxies, in the vein of the works of Charlot & Longhetti (2001) or Moy, Rocca-Volmerange & Fioc (2001) but including the effects of radial gradients in the metallicity and star formation rates.

We find that the overall metallicity of the emission line regions, as inferred from adequate indicators, is strongly correlated with galaxy colours. The correlation is much stronger than with morphological types. This suggests that in normal spiral galaxies, the global metallicity of the star forming regions and the old stellar populations are closely linked together, while morphological types are influenced by additional factors in the galaxy histories.

In order to better evaluate the relation between the different parameters describing the galaxies, we performed a PCA analysis on a 7-D parameter space. We found that the variance in the considered parameter space is produced, in first place, by the metallicity and parameters linked to the stellar populations, and, in second place, by the surface brightness, which is linked to the dynamical history of the galaxies. The absolute magnitude, related to the mass of the galaxy, comes only in the third place.

The strong empirical evidences provided by this exploratory work bring important constraints that will have to be reproduced by models of spiral galaxy formation and evolution, in order to understand what drives the spiral galaxy sequence.

###### Acknowledgements.

This study would not have been possible without the huge observational work by R. A. Jansen, D. Fabricant, M. Franx & N. Caldwell, and we acknowledge these authors for having made available their results on the Web. We benefited from a financial help from CNRS and CNPq. G.S. warmly acknowledges the IAG and L.S. the DAEC for hospitality. L.S. also acknowledges Fapesp and Pronex for support.


format: text

text:
# Polarized Parton Densities in the Nucleon

## 1 Introduction

Deep inelastic scattering (DIS) of leptons on nucleons has remained the prime source of our understanding of the internal partonic structure of the nucleon and one of the key areas for the testing of perturbative QCD. Decades of experiments on unpolarized targets have led to a rather precise determination of the unpolarized parton densities. Spurred on by the famous EMC experiment  at CERN in 1988, there has been a huge growth of interest in polarized DIS experiments which yield more refined information about the partonic structure. Many experiments have been carried out at SLAC, CERN and DESY. In this talk we present an updated version of our NLO polarized parton densities (PD) determined from the world data  on inclusive polarized DIS. Comparing to our previous analysis :

i) For the axial charges $`g_A`$ and $`a_8`$ their updated values are used:

$$g_A=\mathrm{F}+\mathrm{D}=1.2670\pm 0.0035,\mathrm{a}_8=3\mathrm{F}\mathrm{D}=0.585\pm 0.025.$$
(1)
ii) In our ansatz for the input polarized PD

$$\mathrm{\Delta }f_i(x,Q_0^2)=A_ix^{\alpha _i}f_i^{\mathrm{MRST}}(x,Q_0^2)$$
(2)
we now utilize the MRST’99 set  of unpolarized parton densities $`f_i(x,Q_0^2)`$ instead of the MRST’98 one. In (2) $`A_i,\alpha _i`$ are free parameters (6 parameters in our fit after using the sum rules (1) for the quark polarizations).

iii) The recent SLAC/E155 proton data  are incorporated in the analysis.

iv) The positivity constraints on the polarized PD are discussed.

## 2 Method of Analysis

The spin-dependent structure function of interest, $`g_1^N(x,Q^2)`$, is a linear combination of the asymmetries $`A_{}^N`$ and $`A_{}^N`$ (or the related virtual photon-nucleon asymmetries $`A_{1,2}^N`$) measured with the target polarized longitudinally or perpendicular to the lepton beam, respectively. Neglecting as usual the sub-dominant contributions, $`A_1^N(x,Q^2)`$ can be expressed via the polarized structure function $`g_1^N(x,Q^2)`$ as

$$A_1^N(x,Q^2)(1+\gamma ^2)\frac{g_1^N(x,Q^2)}{F_1^N(x,Q^2)},$$
(3)
where $`F_1^N`$ is the unpolarized structure function and $`\gamma ^2`$ is a kinematic factor.

All details of our approach to the fit of the data are given in . Here we would like to emphasize only that in our approach the NLO QCD predictions have been confronted to the data on the spin asymmetry $`A_1^N(x,Q^2)`$, rather than on the $`g_1^N(x,Q^2)`$. The choice of $`A_1^N`$ should minimize the higher twist contributions which are expected to partly cancel in the ratio (3), allowing use of data at lower $`Q^2`$ (in polarized DIS most of the small $`x`$ experimental data points are at low $`Q^2`$). Indeed, we have found  that if for $`g_1`$ and $`F_1`$ leading-twist QCD expressions are used, the HT corrections $`h(x)`$ to $`A_1(x,Q^2)=A_1^{QCD}(x,Q^2)+h(x)/Q^2`$ are negligible and consistent with zero (see Fig. 1(a)). On other hand, it was shown  that if $`F_2`$ and $`R`$ (instead of $`F_1`$ in Eq. (3)) are taken from experiment (as has been done in many analyses) the higher twist corrections to $`A_1`$ are sizeable and important.

## 3 Results

The results of analysis are presented in the JET scheme . A remarkable property of the JET \[and Adler-Bardeen (AB)\] schemes is that $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }(Q^2)`$, as well as $`\mathrm{\Delta }s(Q^2)`$, are $`Q^\mathit{2}`$ independent quantities. Then, in these schemes it is meaningful to directly interpret $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ as the contribution of the quark spins to the nucleon spin and to compare its value obtained from DIS region with the predictions of the different (constituent, chiral, etc.) quark models at low $`Q^2`$.

As in our previous analysis a very good description of the world data on $`A_1^N`$ and $`g_1^N`$ is achieved (for the best fit $`\chi ^2=155.9`$ for 179 DOF). The

new theoretical curves for $`A_1`$ and $`g_1`$ corresponding to the best fit practically coincide with the old ones. However, if for the polarized PD the Set2 (see below) is used the values of $`A_1`$ at large x increase, in a better agreement with the large x E155/p data.

We have determined from the data two sets of polarized PD: i) Set1 - without any constraints on the polarized PD during the fit, ii) Set2 - fit to the data with imposition of LO positivity constraints determined by the MRST unpolarized densities. All polarized PD of Set1, with the exception of the strange sea density $`\mathrm{\Delta }s(x)`$, are compatible with the LO positivity bounds imposed by the MRST unpolarized PD. However, if one uses the more accurate LO positivity bounds on $`\mathrm{\Delta }s(x)`$ obtained by using the unpolarized strange sea density $`s(x)_{BPZ}`$ (Barone et al. ), the Set1 $`\mathrm{\Delta }s(x)`$ lies in the allowed region. It is important to mention that $`s(x)_{BPZ}`$ is determined with a higher accuracy compared to other global fits. The Set1 PD are found to be within the error bands of the old PD, while the changes of the Set2 $`(\mathrm{\Delta }s+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{s})(x)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }G(x)`$ are larger, especially for the strange sea quarks (see Fig. 1(b) and Fig. 1(c)).

Finally, let us summarize the changes in the quark and gluon polarizations at $`Q^2=1GeV^2`$ which arise from the new analysis:

* $`(𝚫𝐮+𝚫\overline{𝐮})`$ and $`(𝚫𝐝+𝚫\overline{𝐝})`$ practically do not change.
* the magnitude of the $`n=1`$ moment, $`|𝚫𝐬+𝚫\overline{𝐬}|`$, has increased a little:
$`0.06\pm 0.01(\mathrm{𝐨𝐥𝐝})0.07\pm 0.01(\mathrm{𝐒𝐞𝐭𝟏})0.09\pm 0.02(\mathrm{𝐒𝐞𝐭𝟐})`$
* The central value of $`𝚫𝚺`$ has decreased:
$`0.40\pm 0.04(\mathrm{𝐨𝐥𝐝})0.37\pm 0.04(\mathrm{𝐒𝐞𝐭𝟏})0.32\pm 0.05(\mathrm{𝐒𝐞𝐭𝟐})`$
* The axial charge $`𝐚_\mathrm{𝟎}(𝐐^\mathrm{𝟐})=\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}(Q^2)`$ is also decreasing:
$`0.26\pm 0.05(\mathrm{𝐨𝐥𝐝})0.21\pm 0.06(\mathrm{𝐒𝐞𝐭𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐})`$
* For the gluon polarization $`𝚫𝐆`$ we have found that the positive values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ lie in the wide range \[0, 1.5\] if one takes into account the correlations and the sensitivity to the SU(3) flavour symmetry breaking. A negative $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ is still not excluded from the present DIS inclusive data.

## Acknowledgments

One of us (D.S.) thanks the Organizers for the financial support of his participation in the Meeting. This research was supported by the UK Royal Society and the JINR-Bulgaria Collaborative Grants, by the RFBR (No 00-02-16696), INTAS 2000 (No 587) and by the Bulgarian National Science Foundation.


text:
# Anisotropic 𝑒⁺𝑒⁻ pressure due to the QED effect in strong magnetic fields and the application to the entropy production in neutrino-driven wind

\[

## Abstract

We study the equation of state of electron in strong magnetic fields which are greater than the critical value $`B_c4.4\times 10^{13}`$ Gauss. We find that such a strong magnetic field induces the anisotropic pressure of electron. We apply the result to the neutrino-driven wind in core-collapse supernovae and find that it can produce large entropy per baryon, $`S400k_B`$. This mechanism might successfully account for the production of the heavy nuclei with mass numbers A = 80 – 250 through the r-process nucleosynthesis.

\]

Recent years strongly magnetized neutron stars ($`B10^{15}`$ Gauss) called “magnetar” have been reported, (see recent compilations ). Their magnitude is much stronger than the critical value $`B_cm_e^2/e4.4\times 10^{13}`$ Gauss if we assume that their spin-down originates from the energy loss of the electromagnetic dipole radiation . Such a strong magnetic field is intriguing in the astrophysical context because unlike the weak magnetic fields, some extraordinary phenomena would be expected from large energy splitting of Landau levels, large refractive indices of photons, photon splitting effect and so on, (see Refs.  and references therein). In this letter, we study the equation of state of electron in strong magnetic fields and show that the electron pressure can become anisotropic. So far, another papers have been published where they have given an application to the anisotropic collapse of the neutron gas . We take a different treatment in this study and show that the anisotropic pressure can generate entropy and that it can have an implication for the r-process nucleosynthesis in the neutrino driven wind in core-collapse supernovae. Such a large entropy production is required for the successful r-process nucleosynthesis in the wind to account for the observational solar abundances .

In quantum electrodynamics (QED), the Lagrangian density of electron is given by

$`=\overline{\psi }\left[i\partial ̸m_e\right]\psi ,`$ (1)
where $`\psi `$ is the four-component Dirac spinor of electron, $`m_e`$ is electron mass, and the slash means the contraction with Dirac’s gamma matrices $`\mathit{}_\mu \gamma ^\mu p_\mu `$. Then, the energy-momentum tensor density is obtained by,

$`\widehat{T}_\nu ^\mu ={\displaystyle \frac{}{(_\mu \psi )}}_\nu \psi \delta _\nu ^\mu ,`$ (2)
where $`\mu ,\nu =0,1,2,3`$ and the metric is $`\eta _{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{diag}(+1,1,1,1)`$. From Euler-Lagrange equation, with Eq. (1) we obtain the equation of motion of the free electron, i.e., free Dirac equation, $`\left[i\partial ̸m_e\right]\psi =0.`$ In a external magnetic field, we know the following prescription to obtain the correct Dirac equation, $`i_\mu iD_\mu =i_\mu eA_\mu `$, where $`e`$ denotes the electromagnetic coupling constant, and $`A^\mu =(A_0,𝑨)`$ is the vector potential. Namely we have $`\left[i\mathit{}m_e\right]\psi =0`$ in the magnetic field. When we choose a vector potential such that $`A^0=A^1=A^3=0`$, and $`A^2=Bx`$, the magnetic field is $`𝑩=(0,0,B)`$, and we obtain the solution,

$`\psi =e^{iEt}\left(\begin{array}{c}\varphi \\ \chi \end{array}\right),`$ (5)
with $`\varphi =e^{i(p_yy+p_zz)}f_n𝜻_\alpha `$ and $`\chi =𝝈(𝒑e𝑨)\varphi /(E+m_e)`$, where $`E`$ is the energy of electron, $`𝒑=(p_x,p_y,p_z)`$ is the momentum of electron, $`\sigma _j`$’s are Pauli matrices ($`j`$ = 1, 2, 3), $`n`$ denotes the index of Landau levels ($`n=0,1,\mathrm{}`$), and $`\alpha `$ denotes the spin index ($`\alpha =1,1`$). The two-component spinors $`𝜻_\alpha `$ are represented by $`𝜻_1`$ = $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1}{0}\right)`$, and $`𝜻_1`$ = $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{0}{1}\right)`$. And, $`f_n=1/\sqrt{2^nn!\sqrt{\pi }}\mathrm{exp}[\xi ^2/2]H_n(\xi )`$, where $`\xi \sqrt{eB}\left(xp_y/(eB)\right)`$, and $`H_n(\xi )`$ is a Hermite polynomial function. Then, the electron energy is expressed by

$`E=\sqrt{m_e^2+p_z^2+eB(2n+1\alpha )}.`$ (6)
From Eq. (6), we see that the magnetic field breaks the equipartition among $`p_x^2`$, $`(p_yeBx)^2`$, and $`p_z^2`$, because the parallel component to the magnetic field $`p_z`$ can have an arbitrary value while the perpendicular components have only quantized values as $`p_x^2=\left(p_yeBx\right)^2=eB(n+1/2)`$, where the expectation value of an operator is defined by $`\widehat{𝒪}\psi ^{}\widehat{𝒪}\psi d^3x/\psi ^{}\psi d^3x`$.

Using the above solution, we obtain each component of the energy-momentum tensor density, $`\widehat{T}_\nu ^\mu =\overline{\psi }\left[i\gamma ^\mu D_\nu \right]\psi `$. Adopting the usual normalization in the quantum field theory, we can integrate $`\widehat{T}_\nu ^\mu `$ and obtain the energy-momentum tensor which is defined by

$`T_\nu ^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{T}_\nu ^\mu d^3x}{\psi ^{}\psi d^3x}}.`$ (7)
It is easy to check that all the off-diagonal components vanish completely. The diagonal components $`T_\nu ^\mu `$ = diag($`E,\stackrel{~}{P}_x,\stackrel{~}{P}_y,\stackrel{~}{P}_z`$) give the anisotropic pressure which should appear in the hydrodynamic equations. They can be read off as

$`\stackrel{~}{P}_x`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{P}_y=(n+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}){\displaystyle \frac{eB}{E}},\stackrel{~}{P}_z={\displaystyle \frac{p_z^2}{E}}.`$ (8)
Hereafter we call them “dynamic pressures”. Compared to the case of a weak magnetic-field limit, we easily see that only the z-component of the dynamic pressure is unchanged. For example, $`\stackrel{~}{P}_z`$ becomes $`E/3`$ in the ultra relativistic limit. However, the perpendicular component (x-, y-component) of the dynamic pressure takes quantized values and is different from the one in the case of a weak magnetic-field limit.

To discuss the dynamic pressure averaged in statistical mechanics, we consider the grand canonical ensemble and introduce the grand potential $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in a unit volume in a strong magnetic filed.

$`\mathrm{\Omega }={\displaystyle \frac{eB}{(2\pi )^2\beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =1,1}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z\mathrm{ln}\left(1+e^{\beta (E\mu )}\right),`$ (9)
where $`\beta =1/(k_BT)`$, $`k_B`$ is Boltzmann’s constant, and $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential of electron. The thermodynamic pressure and the number density of electron are obtained by $`\overline{P}=\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and $`N=\mathrm{\Omega }/\mu `$, respectively. Then, we find that the equation of state is $`\overline{P}=NT`$ even in the strong magnetic field. For the thermodynamic pressure and the number density of positron, we can obtain them only by changing the signature of the chemical potential $`\mu \mu `$ in the case of electron. Using Eq. (8), we can calculate the dynamic pressure averaged in the grand canonical ensemble,

$`P_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{eB}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}S_l{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z\stackrel{~}{P}_i{\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{\beta (E_l\mu )}+1}},`$ (10)
where $`i`$ runs $`x`$, $`y`$, and $`z`$, $`S_l=2\delta _{0l}`$, and $`E_l=\sqrt{m_e^2+p_z^2+2eBl}`$.

Next, we consider the entropy production as a consequence of the anisotropic dynamic pressure and apply it to astrophysical conditions. Here we discuss the r-process nucleosynthesis. It has been a mystery for some time where and how heavy nuclei whose mass number is A = 80 – 250 are produced in the universe. Such heavy elements are supposed to be synthesized via so-called r-process. The currently favored site is a neutrino driven wind in core-collapse supernovae. This is because there are a lot of free neutrons near the surface of neutron star. It has been reported, however, that we need a very high entropy per baryon $`S400k_B`$ for the successful r-process nucleosynthesis  while both numerical simulations and analytical treatments fall short of the requirement by a factor of 2 – 3 . Here we show that we can realize such a high entropy per baryon in the strong magnetic field by way of anisotropic dynamic pressure, and it can be a viable candidate for successful r-process nucleosynthesis.

The first law of thermodynamics is represented by, $`T\frac{DS}{Dt}=\frac{D}{Dt}U+\overline{P}\frac{D}{Dt}\left[1/(\rho /m_N)\right]`$, where $`S`$ is the entropy per baryon, $`T`$ is the temperature, $`m_N`$ is the nucleon mass, $`t`$ is the time, $`Uϵm_N`$ is the internal energy per baryon ($`ϵ`$ : specific internal energy), and $`\rho `$ is the energy density of the matter. $`\frac{D}{Dt}_0+v_j_j`$ means the Lagrangian time derivative, where $`v_j`$ is the velocity of the fluid ($`j=1,2,3`$). Hereafter the repeated suffix means the summation. $`\overline{P}`$ is the thermodynamic pressure which is given by the grand potential as $`\overline{P}=\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The continuity equation $`\frac{D}{Dt}\rho =\rho _jv_j`$ is transformed into $`\frac{D}{Dt}\left(1/\rho \right)=1/\rho _jv_j`$. The Euler’s equation of motion, $`_0(\rho v_i)+_j(\rho v_jv_i)=_jP_{ij}`$ with the continuity equation is integrated as $`\frac{D}{Dt}\left(|𝒗|^2/2\right)=v_i_jP_{ij}/\rho `$, where $`P_{ij}`$ is the stress tensor of the dynamic pressure (= $`\mathrm{diag}(P_x,P_y,P_Z)`$ ) which corresponds to the spatial parts of the energy-momentum tensor. The equation of the energy conservation, $`_0[\rho (|𝒗|^2/2+U/m_N)]+_i[\rho (|𝒗|^2/2+U/m_N)v_iP_{ij}v_j]=0`$ is transformed into $`\frac{D}{Dt}\left(|𝒗|^2/2+U/m_N\right)=1/\rho _i\left(P_{ij}v_j\right)`$. From the above equations, we obtain the time-evolution equation of the entropy,

$`T{\displaystyle \frac{DS}{Dt}}={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{P}P_i}{\rho /m_N}}_iv_i.`$ (11)
Here we emphasize that the pressure in showing up the equation of motion is not the thermodynamic pressure $`\overline{P}`$ but the ensemble averaged stress tensor $`P_{ij}`$. This is understood as follows. The hydrodynamic equation can be obtained from the Boltzmann equation by integrating over the momentum. The Boltzmann equation, on the other hand, can be obtained from the Green function by the so-called gradient expansion as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{f}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\left[p^ieA^i(𝒙)\right]}{m_e}}{\displaystyle \frac{f}{x^i}}+{\displaystyle \frac{e\left[p^jeA^j(𝒙)\right]}{m_e}}{\displaystyle \frac{A^j(𝒙)}{x^i}}{\displaystyle \frac{f}{p^i}}`$ (13)
$`=0,`$
in the current case, where $`f`$ is the distribution function , (see also ). Assuming a local thermal equilibrium and integrating Eq. (13) after multiplying $`[𝒑e𝑨]`$, we obtain the magneto-hydrodynamic equations with the stress tensor given by Eq. (10).

To apply the above formulation to the neutrino-driven wind in core-collapse supernovae, we adopt a simple analytic wind solution without a magnetic field which is employed in Ref.  where a steady state flow and spherical symmetry are assumed. The dynamic equations are given by

$`\dot{M}`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi r^2\rho v,`$ (14)
$`v{\displaystyle \frac{dv}{dr}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{dP}{dr}}{\displaystyle \frac{GM}{r^2}},`$ (15)
$`\dot{q}`$ $`=`$ $`v\left({\displaystyle \frac{dϵ}{dr}}{\displaystyle \frac{P}{\rho ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\rho }{dr}}\right),`$ (16)
where $`\dot{M}`$ is the constant mass-outflow rate in the ejecta, $`r`$ is the radial coordinate from the center of the neutron star, $`v`$ is the radial outflow velocity, $`P`$ is the total thermodynamic pressure, $`G`$ is the Newton’s gravitational constant, and $`M`$ is the mass of the neutron star. The neutrino heating rate of nucleons is represented by $`\dot{q}=\dot{q}_{\nu N}+\dot{q}_{\nu e}\dot{q}_{eN}`$, where $`\dot{q}_{\nu N}`$ is a neutrino absorption rate on free nucleons ($`\nu +Ne+N^{}`$), $`\dot{q}_{\nu e}`$ is a elastic scattering rate off background electrons ($`\nu +e\nu +e`$), and $`\dot{q}_{eN}`$ is an electron absorption rate on free nucleons ($`e+N\nu +N^{}`$. At the temperature $`T0.5\mathrm{MeV}`$, the thermal bath is constituted of $`\gamma ,e^+e^{}`$ and nucleons. Then, the thermodynamic pressure and the specific internal energy are represented by $`P=11\pi ^2T^4/180+\rho T/m_N`$ and $`ϵ=11\pi ^2T^4/(60\rho )+3T/(2m_N)`$, respectively. On the other hand, at the temperature $`T0.5\mathrm{MeV}`$ we assume $`\dot{q}`$=0 because electrons and positrons disappear, and free nucleons are bound into $`\alpha `$-particles or heavier nuclei.

To solve the above set of dynamic equations, we should give both the boundary and initial conditions. Here we assume that the radius of the neutron star $`R_0`$ is equal to the neutrino sphere $`R_\nu `$. Then, we give the boundary and initial conditions there as $`M=1.4M_{}`$, $`R_0=R_\nu =10`$ km, and $`\rho =10^{10}\mathrm{g}/\mathrm{cm}^3`$. The initial velocity is chosen so that $`\dot{M}`$ does not become more than the critical value $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ because the wind should be subsonic, e.g., $`\dot{M}=𝒪(10^6)M_{}\mathrm{erg}/s`$ . We also assume that the neutrino luminosities are identical for all the neutrino species, i.e., $`L_\nu =3.6\times 10^{51}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$ and take as a mean energy of each neutrino species $`ϵ_{\nu _e}=12\mathrm{MeV}`$, $`ϵ_{\overline{\nu }_e}=22\mathrm{MeV}`$, and $`ϵ_{\nu _\tau }=34\mathrm{MeV}`$. As for the initial temperature, from the analytical treatments we estimate $`T_i3\mathrm{MeV}`$ for the present parameters . In addition, we fix a value of $`Y_e`$ to the final one which is estimated by $`Y_{e,f}0.43`$ in these parameters  through the whole period in which the radial coordinate evolves from $`R_0`$ to the radius of the outer boundary ($`10^4`$ km) because the dynamics is not sensitive to $`Y_e`$ very much.

In Fig. 1, we plot the evolutions of the physical quantities as a function of the radial coordinate $`r`$. Because we are now interested in the entropy, it is sufficient to investigate them until $`r100\mathrm{km}`$ which corresponds to the temperature $`T0.5\mathrm{MeV}`$. Here we refer to the entropy in this model as $`S_{\mathrm{STD}}`$ because this is a standard case in a weak magnetic-field limit.

To investigate the entropy production in strong magnetic fields, we integrate Eq. (11) using the wind solution of the above set of dynamic equations. We see from Eq. (11) that the wind parallel to $`𝑩`$ does not generate extra entropy. Therefore, we consider a case in which the wind flows along the x- or y-axis and use the radial coordinate $`r`$ instead of x or y. Then, we can simplify Eq. (11) into one dimensional form and obtain the total increment of the entropy in a strong magnetic field as

$`\mathrm{\Delta }S={\displaystyle \frac{P_z^eP_x^e}{\rho T/m_N}\frac{dv}{dr}𝑑t},`$ (17)
where the dynamic electron-positron pressure is defined by the summation, $`P_i^e=P_i^e^{}+P_i^{e^+}`$, which are presented in Eq. (10) as $`P_i^e^{}=P_i(\mu =\mu _e)`$ and $`P_i^{e^+}=P_i(\mu =\mu _e)`$. Note that $`P_z^e`$ is exactly equal to $`\overline{P^e}`$ which is the thermodynamic pressure appearing in the equation of state, that is, $`\overline{P^e}=N_eT`$ obtained from the grand potential in Eq. (9), where $`N_eN_e^{}+N_{e^+}`$. The number densities of electron and positron should satisfy the following condition of the chemical equilibrium with proton, $`N_e^{}N_{e^+}=N_p`$ by which the chemical potential of electron $`\mu _e`$ is actually determined. In addition, note that Eq. (17) gives the positive increment of the entropy in the wind solution.

Now we compute the cases of strong magnetic fields in which $`\sqrt{eB}Tm_e`$. Then, it is expected that there exists large anisotropy of the dynamic pressure. For simplicity, it would be adequate for us to consider only the ground state and the next one in the Landau levels (n = 0, 1) because of the Boltzmann suppression of the Fermi distribution. In Fig. 2 we plot the evolution of the entropy in a strong magnetic field. Here we assume that the configuration of the magnetic filed is represented by $`B=B_0(r/R_0)^m`$, with $`B_0`$ the magnitude of the magnetic field at the surface of the neutron star (= $`5\times 10^{16}`$ Gauss). The index $`m=3`$ corresponds to the dipole magnetic field. From the figure we find that the anisotropic dynamic pressure can produce the extra entropy $`\mathrm{\Delta }S/k_B`$ which is much larger than the standard value. In Fig. 3 we plot the extra entropy production as a function of the magnetic field at the surface of the neutron star. From the figure, we can see that if the magnetic field is $`B(46)\times 10^{16}`$ Gauss, we have a large entropy which is required for the successful r-process nucleosynthesis.

In this study we have investigated the equation of state of electron in strong magnetic fields $`BB_c`$ ($`4.4\times 10^{13}`$ Gauss) and found that it induces the anisotropic dynamic pressure of electron. We have applied the anisotropic dynamic pressure to the r-process nucleosynthesis in core-collapse supernovae. As a result, we obtain a large entropy $`S400k_B`$ for $`B(46)\times 10^{16}`$ Gauss. This mechanism of the entropy production might successfully give an account of the observational solar abundances of the heavy nuclei through the r-process nucleosynthesis in the magnetized neutrino wind. Though in this letter we have assumed for simplicity that the magnetic field would not influence the dynamics of the wind, we definitely need more consistent magneto-hydrodynamic models of the wind. That will be discussed in a separate paper .


text:
# Chandra observations of the pulsar wind nebula in SNR G0.9+0.1

## 1. Introduction

When a pulsar’s relativistic wind is sufficiently confined, a synchrotron-emitting pulsar wind nebula (PWN) is produced (Gaensler (2001)). Because of the short synchrotron lifetimes of high-energy electrons, X-ray emission from a PWN directly traces the current energetics of the pulsar. The spectral and morphological characteristics of an X-ray PWN can thus reveal the structure and composition of the pulsar wind, and possibly also the orientation of the pulsar’s spin axis and/or velocity vector. For a PWN in which no pulsar has yet been detected, this nebular emission is our only insight into the location and energetics of the central source.

At the center of the supernova remnant (SNR) G0.9+0.1 is one of the many PWNe in which no pulsar has yet been seen. This PWN was first identified by its radio emission (Helfand & Becker (1987)), but has recently been detected in X-rays using BeppoSAX (Mereghetti, Sidoli, & Israel (1998); Sidoli et al. (2000)). In these observations, X-ray emission from the PWN has a power-law spectrum with photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.0\pm 0.3`$ (where $`NE^\mathrm{\Gamma }`$), with an unabsorbed flux density $`f_x=6.6_{0.8}^{+1.3}\times 10^{12}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 in the energy range 2–10 keV. The inferred column density is very high, $`N_H=(1.1\pm 0.2)\times 10^{23}`$ cm-2, accounting for the lack of any X-ray emission from the surrounding SNR and suggesting an approximate distance $``$10 kpc. The size of the SNR shell then implies an age $`\tau =17`$ kyr (Mereghetti, Sidoli, & Israel (1998)). From the X-ray luminosity of the PWN, Sidoli et al. (2000) estimate that the central pulsar has a spin-down luminosity $`\dot{E}1.5\times 10^{37}`$ erg s-1, and a spin-period $`P`$ 80–190 ms.

We here present higher resolution observations of this source with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. This experiment had two aims: to study the morphology of the PWN and to search for emission from the central pulsar.

## 2. Observations and Analysis

Observations of G0.9+0.1 were made with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) aboard Chandra. ACIS is an array of ten 1024$`\times `$1024-pixel CCDs fabricated by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and is the result of a collaboration between MIT and PSU. These X-ray sensitive devices have large detection efficiency (10–90%) and moderate energy resolution ($`E/\mathrm{\Delta }E1050`$) over a 0.2–10.0 keV passband. The CCDs have a scale of $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}492`$ per pixel, well-matched to the on-axis point-spread function (FWHM $`1^{\prime \prime }`$). The instrument and its calibration are described in detail by Burke et al. (1997) and Bautz et al. (1998).

A single exposure of length 35 ks was made on 2000 Oct 27 in the standard “Timed Exposure” mode, with the aim-point located at the center of the back-illuminated S3 chip. Data were first processed by the Chandra Science Center (ASCDS version number R4CU5UPD11.1), and were subsequently analyzed with CIAO v2.1. A brief interval of high background was rejected, resulting in a usable exposure time of 34 741 seconds. Counts received from energies below 0.5 keV or above 8.0 keV were dominated by background; data meeting these criteria were excluded from subsequent analysis.

X-ray emission from the bright star HD 161507 was detected at the western edge of the S3 chip. The X-ray position measured for this source agrees with the optical position given in the TYCHO Reference Catalogue (Hog et al. (1998)) to better than $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$ in each coordinate.

## 3. Results

In Figure 1 we compare a broad-band (0.5–8.0 keV) image of SNR G0.9+0.1 to a radio image formed from a re-analysis of the Very Large Array (VLA) observations described by Helfand & Becker (1987). Other than point sources distributed throughout the field, the only emission seen in the Chandra data is an extended X-ray source coincident with the central radio PWN. The brightest part of the X-ray nebula is approximately $`1^{}\times 1^{}`$ in extent, and lies within the eastern half of the radio PWN. Fainter X-ray emission is seen to the north, south and west, the full extent of the X-ray nebula corresponding well to that seen in the radio. No X-ray emission can be seen corresponding to the radio shell of diameter $`7^{}8^{}`$ which surrounds the central nebula.

Figure 2 shows the brighter parts of the X-ray nebula at higher resolution. This region shows a definite axisymmetry, with the reflection axis running at an angle of $`165^{}`$ (measured counterclockwise from north). Four main features are seen in this region:

1. Near the center of this region, a bright elliptical clump of emission, of dimensions $`5^{\prime \prime }\times 8^{\prime \prime }`$. The right panel of Figure 2 shows a higher-resolution image of this source, showing a bright region along the southwestern edge of this clump.

2. $`10^{\prime \prime }`$ to the south of this clump, an unresolved source of signal-to-noise $`4\sigma `$. The position of this source is (J2000) RA $`17^\mathrm{h}47^\mathrm{m}22\stackrel{\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{.}}8`$, Dec $`28^{}09^{}15\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$, with approximate uncertainties of $`\pm 0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$ in each coordinate. In further discussion, we refer to this source as CXOU J174722.8–280915.

3. Running east-west across the nebula, a semi-circular arc of radius $`25^{\prime \prime }30^{\prime \prime }`$ which is bisected by the symmetry axis.

4. In the southern half of the nebula, an elongated jet-like feature of length $`35^{\prime \prime }40^{\prime \prime }`$ which lies along the symmetry axis.

After applying a background correction, $`2332\pm 66`$ counts were extracted for the overall nebula, corresponding to a count-rate of $`67.1\pm 1.9`$ cts ks-1. Fitting a power-law spectrum to these data implies an absorbing hydrogen column $`N_H=(1.6\pm 0.2)\times 10^{23}`$ cm-2, a photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.3\pm 0.4`$ and an unabsorbed flux density in the range 2–10 keV of $`f_x=(9.6_{1.5}^{+1.7})\times 10^{12}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 (all uncertainties $`\pm 1\sigma `$). For this fit we find $`\chi ^2=123`$ for 138 degrees of freedom.

We lack sufficient counts to perform accurate spectral fits to sub-regions of the nebula. To look for spectral variations, we define the hardness ratio $`H`$ to be the ratio of incident counts at energies 5–8 keV to those with energies 3–5 keV (less than 5% of counts from the nebula originate at energies below 3 keV). The corresponding count-rates and values of $`H`$ for the different components are given in Table 1.

The excess of photons along the southwestern edge of the bright central clump suggests the possible presence of an embedded point source. In order to constrain the flux of such a source, we generated a simulated point source at the position of the peak count-rate in the clump, at coordinates (J2000) RA $`17^\mathrm{h}47^\mathrm{m}22\stackrel{\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{.}}9`$, Dec $`28^{}09^{}05\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}6`$. We then multiplied this point source by a scaling factor, and subtracted the result from the image. By steadily increasing the scaling factor until the residual image showed a significant deficit at the position of the simulated point source, we can put an upper limit of $``$55 counts on the contribution from such a source, corresponding to a maximum count-rate of 1.6 cts ks-1. This brightness enhancement is only seen at high energies; for the 11 photons falling at the peak position within the clump, the hardness ratio is $`H=4.5_{3.4}^{+24.3}`$ (where uncertainties are at 90% confidence, and have been derived using the prescription of Gehrels 1986).

## 4. Discussion

The overall morphology of the X-ray nebula matches that of the radio nebula, making it certain that we have detected X-ray emission from the PWN associated with G0.9+0.1. Our spectral fit to the overall nebula is comparable to that obtained by Sidoli et al. (2000), although with values of $`N_H`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`f_x`$ all 1–2$`\sigma `$ higher than for the BeppoSAX data. The region of brightest X-ray emission (shown in the right panel of Fig 2) is offset from the central peak of the radio PWN by $`30^{\prime \prime }`$ to the north-east. This presumably reflects a change in the nebular conditions on a time-scale intermediate between the X-ray and radio synchrotron lifetimes. Specifically, this offset is most likely due either to motion of the pulsar away from its birth site or to interaction between the PWN and the SNR reverse shock (Chevalier (1998)).

The hardness ratios listed in Table 1 provide no evidence for any significant spectral variations in the PWN; the “jet” feature has a higher hardness ratio than the rest of the PWN, but only at the $`1\sigma `$ level. As a point of reference, we find empirically that for the region of the CCD which we are considering, a power-law spectrum with absorbing column $`N_H=1.5\times 10^{23}`$ cm-2 and hardness ratio $`H`$ has a photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }4.85H`$. The values of $`H`$ for all components are therefore consistent with the mean photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.3`$ inferred from spectral fitting.

We are unable to derive an upper limit on the flux for the shell component of the SNR: the shell (as delineated by its radio morphology) fills the entire CCD, so that a background correction is not possible. However, given the high absorbing column measured towards the PWN, it is unlikely that any thermal emission from the SNR shell is detectable. This can be demonstrated by considering the young ($``$2000 yr) and X-ray bright ($`L_x`$ \[1–10 keV\] $`3\times 10^{35}`$ erg s-1) SNR G27.4+0.0 (Kes 73), which has an X-ray spectrum approximated by thermal bremsstrahlung at a temperature $`kT=0.8`$ keV (Gotthelf & Vasisht (1997)). If we assume this same spectrum for the shell of G0.9+0.1, then at a distance of 10 kpc and for a foreground column $`N_H1.5\times 10^{23}`$ cm-2, the expected count-rate for the S3 CCD is $`31`$ cts ks-1 in the energy range 0.5–8 keV. Thus even if the shell is as bright as that for G27.4+0.0, we expect it to produce only $``$1000 counts spread over the entire CCD. This would not be detectable when compared to the 20 000–30 000 background counts accumulated over the same area.

### 4.1. A Central Pulsar?

X-ray observations of PWNe often reveal the pulsar itself, in the form of a centrally-located point source. In the case of G0.9+0.1, there are two possible locations for such a source — the unresolved source CXOU J174722.8–280915, and a possible point source embedded in the clump $`10^{\prime \prime }`$ to the north of this.

Unlike most of the point sources seen elsewhere in the field, CXOU J174722.8–280915 is only seen at energies above 3 keV, indicating that it is highly absorbed. We can thus rule out the possibility that CXOU J174722.8–280915 is a foreground star. We next consider the possibility that CXOU J174722.8–280915 is a background AGN. Adopting a power-law spectrum of photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.2`$ (Mushotzky et al. (2000)) and an absorbing column $`N_H2\times 10^{23}`$ cm-2 through the entire Galaxy, the count-rate measured for CXOU J174722.8–280915 corresponds to an unabsorbed 2–10 keV flux density of $`6\times 10^{14}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. There are approximately 20–50 background sources per square degree of this flux density or greater (Mushotzky et al. (2000); Tozzi et al. (2001)); the probability of one such source falling within the boundaries of the X-ray PWN by chance is $`(614)\times 10^3`$. We thus think it likely that CXOU J174722.8–280915 is associated with the PWN and SNR.

If CXOU J174722.8–280915 is a young central pulsar, we expect X-ray emission from it to correspond either to non-thermal emission from the magnetosphere or to modified blackbody emission from the neutron star surface (e.g. Becker & Trümper (1997)). We first consider a blackbody spectrum: a neutron star of age $`10^310^4`$ yr is expected to have a surface temperature $`kT0.1`$ keV (e.g. van Riper, Link, & Epstein (1995)), which for $`N_H=1.5\times 10^{23}`$ cm-2 corresponds to $`H=2\times 10^8`$, clearly in disagreement with the observed value $`H=0.54_{0.37}^{+1.05}`$. Invoking an extremely high temperature $`kT=1`$ keV gives $`H=0.4`$, but requires a very small emitting area (inferred blackbody radius of 70 m) in order to match the observed count-rate. Alternatively, if we assume a power-law spectrum for the emission from CXOU J174722.8–280915, then for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.5`$ (typical for magnetospheric emission; Becker & Trümper (1997)) and $`N_H=1.5\times 10^{23}`$ cm-2, we expect a hardness ratio $`H=0.67`$, in good agreement with the value in Table 1. From the limited spectral information available, we therefore conclude that the X-rays from CXOU J174722.8–280915 are most likely non-thermal in origin. For a distance $`10d_{10}`$ kpc, the isotropic unabsorbed luminosity for the source is then $`6\times 10^{32}d_{10}^2`$ erg s-1 in the energy range 2–10 keV.

The possibility that the pulsar is embedded in the clump $`10^{\prime \prime }`$ to the north of CXOU J174722.8–280915 must also be considered, especially given the fact that the brightest part of the clump has an unusually hard spectrum. While magnetospheric emission from an embedded pulsar ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.5`$) should indeed have a harder spectrum than the surrounding nebula ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.3`$), the expected hardness ratio at this position is $`0.49<H<0.61`$ for the upper limit on the point-source count rate which we determined in §3. This is significantly lower than the value $`H=4.5_{3.4}^{+24.3}`$ determined at the brightest point in the clump, suggesting that this bright region is not an embedded point source but rather represents unresolved structure and/or statistical fluctuations within this region.

In summary, CXOU J174722.8–280915 provides the only clear evidence for a hard point source within the PWN, and we therefore consider this source to be the best candidate for emission from a central pulsar. In this case, we expect its X-ray emission to be strongly pulsed at the pulsar spin-period; unfortunately our data lack the time-resolution and sensitivity to test this hypothesis. The X-ray luminosity of CXOU J174722.8–280915 is $`0.5`$% of the total X-ray luminosity of the PWN in the energy range 2–10 keV, which is somewhat lower than the ratio of magnetospheric pulsar emission to surrounding nebular emission seen in PWNe whose pulsars have been identified (Becker & Trümper (1997)).

### 4.2. Nebular Morphology

The X-ray morphology of the PWN is strikingly axisymmetric. This symmetry axis presumably reflects the orientation of its associated pulsar, and likely indicates either the direction of the pulsar’s motion or the orientation of the pulsar spin axis.

In the former case, the pulsar’s projected direction of motion is presumably in the direction $`15^{}`$ west of north, and the semi-circular arc represents a bow-shock produced where the pulsar wind comes into pressure equilibrium with surrounding material. However, it is then difficult to understand the jet-like feature extending to the south of CXOU J174722.8–280915. The radio/X-ray spectrum of the PWN shows a steepening at a frequency $`\nu _b10^{11}10^{12}`$ Hz (Sidoli et al. (2000)); if this spectral break results from synchrotron cooling, then electrons emitting at a frequency $`\nu =\nu _b`$ must have a radiative lifetime $`t_r\tau =17`$ kyr. Since $`t_r\nu ^{1/2}`$, electrons emitting at 5 keV must have a synchrotron lifetime $`t_r(310)\times 10^4\tau 0.37`$ yr. Even for an extreme velocity $`V2000`$ km s-1, the pulsar can only travel $`<1`$% of the length of the jet-like feature in this short time. The jet-like feature therefore cannot correspond to a wake of synchrotron-emitting particles, and has no clear explanation within the bow-shock interpretation. Furthermore, we expect the bow-shock morphology to be clearly apparent at radio wavelengths, as is seen for the PWNe around other high velocity pulsars (e.g. Frail et al. (1996); Olbert et al. (2001)). However, it is clear from Figure 1 that in this case the radio emission is amorphous and clearly extends well to the north of the X-ray arc. We therefore think a bow-shock to be an unlikely interpretation of the data.

The alternative is that the X-ray nebula’s symmetry axis corresponds to the pulsar spin-axis. Such a possibility has been proposed for the PWNe associated with the Crab and Vela pulsars (Hester et al. (1995); Helfand, Gotthelf, & Halpern (2001)), and possibly also for PSRs B1509–58 and B0540–69 (Brazier & Becker (1997); Gotthelf & Wang (2000)). In all these cases, it has been argued that the pulsar’s X-ray PWN has two main components: a torus representing the region where an equatorially-concentrated wind terminates and shocks, and a pair of jets running perpendicular to this torus which correspond to a collimated wind directed along the pulsar spin-axis.

At the available sensitivity and resolution, it is reasonable to propose that the X-ray PWN within SNR G0.9+0.1 has a similar underlying morphology: the semi-circular arc can be interpreted as half of an equatorial torus, while the elongated feature running along the symmetry axis would then be a polar jet. In this interpretation the pulsar is expected to lie at the center of the arc and along the jet; the fact that CXOU J174722.8–280915 sits at this position supports the argument that this point source is indeed the pulsar.

If the torus is circular when viewed along the polar axis, its ratio of projected minor to major axes of $`0.75`$ (as measured from the left panel of Fig 2) implies an inclination of the pulsar spin axis to the line-of-sight of $`\theta 40^{}`$. The radius of the torus is then $`R1.2d_{10}`$ pc and the length of the jet is $`L2.5d_{10}`$ pc. The absence of the other half of the torus and of a counter-jet, as are seen also for the PWN around the Vela pulsar (Helfand, Gotthelf, & Halpern (2001)), can be accounted for by Doppler boosting: for wind speeds $`>c/3`$ (Kennel & Coroniti (1984)) and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.3`$, the approaching components of the jet (torus) will be boosted to a brightness a factor $`r>6`$ ($`r>4`$) over receding material. The observed ratios of surface brightness of the jet and arc compared to any counter-jet and counter-arc, respectively, are both $`r5`$, consistent with this interpretation. The light-travel time along the jet is $`8d_{10}`$ yr. Provided that $`d_{10}1`$ and that the outflow velocity is close to $`c`$, this is consistent with the upper end of the range of synchrotron-emitting lifetimes inferred above.

The scale of features seen in this PWN is considerably larger than for the nebulae around the Crab ($`R0.4`$ pc, $`L0.6`$ pc; Hester et al. (1995)) or Vela ($`R0.03`$ pc, $`L0.01`$ pc; Helfand, Gotthelf, & Halpern (2001))111The jet we refer to in the case of the Vela pulsar is the $`10^{\prime \prime }`$-long feature aligned with the pulsar spin axis. A much longer “jet” has been reported by Markwardt & Ögelman (1995), but does not form part of the axisymmetric morphology of the inner X-ray nebula. pulsars, but are comparable to that of the X-ray PWN surrounding PSR B1509–58, ($`R1.5`$ pc, $`L>7`$ pc; Brazier & Becker (1997); Tamura et al. (1996)). In this latter case, the large extent of the PWN is thought to be due to the low density environment ($`n0.01`$ cm-3; Bhattacharya (1990); Gaensler et al. (1999)). A similarly low density for G0.9+0.1 is consistent with its faint radio shell.

The bright clump seen to the north of CXOU J174722.8–280915 cannot be explained within the context of a “torus + jets” geometry. The clump is clearly a discrete structure superimposed on the fainter nebular background, and is not a geometric effect resulting from overlapping emission from torus and jet components. The fact that the clump is offset slightly to the east of the symmetry axis, and is elongated along a different axis to that of the PWN, suggests that it is not part of the overall axisymmetric structure; it may represent an intermediate-latitude feature where the pulsar wind is shocked or compressed. Such compact features may be highly time-variable, as has been seen in optical and X-ray observations of the Crab and Vela PWNe respectively (Hester (2001); Pavlov et al. (2001)).

Regardless of any detailed interpretation for the nebular morphology seen here, the data demonstrate that the flow of energy away from the central pulsar in SNR G0.9+0.1 is distinctly anisotropic, and add support to the hypothesis that axial/equatorial wind morphologies are generic amongst the pulsar population. It is clear that the high spatial resolution now available in X-rays with Chandra can play an important role in determining how young pulsars deposit their energy into their environments.

We are grateful to Mark Bautz and the ACIS Team for inviting us to work on this project, and thank Fred Baganoff, Dave Pooley and Pat Slane for useful discussions. B.M.G. acknowledges the support of NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF-01107.01-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute. M.J.P. acknowledges the support of NASA contracts NAS8-37716 and NAS8-38252.