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# Long-Term RXTE Monitoring of Anomalous X-ray Pulsars

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Anomalous X-ray pulsars are an unusual class of astrophysical objects. There are currently only five confirmed AXPs: 4U 0142+61, 1E 1048.1–5937, 1E 1841–045, RXS J170849.0–400910 (hereafter 1RXS 1708–4009), and 1E 2259.1+586. All five are located in the Galactic plane and two (1E 2259.1+586 and 1E 1841–045) are coincident with supernova remnants. A sixth AXP candidate, AX J1845.0–0258, is also coincident with a supernova remnant (Gaensler et al., 1999).

The observational properties of AXPs (see Israel et al., 2002, for a review) are generally quite different from those of conventional accreting binary X-ray pulsars (see Bildsten et al., 1997, and references therein for a compendium of accreting X-ray pulsar properties). In particular, AXPs have spin periods in the narrow 6–12 s range, while accreting X-ray pulsars have periods that span 0.002–1400 s. AXPs have luminosities in the narrow range $`10^{34}10^{36}`$ erg s-1. By comparison, typical accreting X-ray pulsars are extremely variable, with luminosities spanning a much broader range ($`10^{34}10^{39}`$ erg s-1). AXP spectra are considerably softer than those of the typical accreting pulsar. Accreting pulsar spectra are generally well described as a power law with a cut-off in the 10–20 keV range. AXP spectra, by contrast, are generally characterized by a blackbody spectrum of energy $`kT0.350.6`$ keV, with a hard energy excess that can be characterized by a steep power law of index $`2`$ to $`4`$. The timing properties of AXPs also contrast sharply with those of most accreting pulsars. All of the known AXPs, as we show in this paper, appear to be undergoing steady, prolonged spin-down, though some are more steady than others. By comparison, most accreting pulsars are spinning up (on average), or alternating between spin-up and spin-down, and have poor rotational stability.

Most importantly, the AXPs show no evidence for a binary companion. Specifically, the limits on the X-ray/optical flux ratio in AXPs rule out the presence of massive companions as in the conventional high-mass X-ray binaries (e.g. Mereghetti et al., 1992; Corbet & Mihara, 1997; Israel et al., 1999a). In addition, careful pulse timing of AXPs has failed to detect any evidence for binary motion of the neutron star on time scales of a few minutes to several days (Mereghetti et al., 1998; Wilson et al., 1999). The limits imply that only extremely low-mass companions are allowed in these systems, unless we are observing all AXPs face-on, which is unlikely. Furthermore, mass-transferring low-mass companions are also unlikely because the supernova remnant associations imply youth, and because these systems rarely survive the supernova.

Currently, models for AXPs fall into two distinct categories. One class of models is that AXPs are young, isolated, ultra-magnetized neutron stars or “magnetars” (Thompson & Duncan, 1996; Heyl & Hernquist, 1997). If the spin-down of the pulsar is primarily due to magnetic dipole radiation, then the AXPs have enormous surface magnetic dipolar fields, in the range $`B10^{14}10^{15}`$ G. The identification with magnetars is further strongly motivated by the similarity of the AXP emission to that of the soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) in quiescence. Specifically, the latter have similar pulse periods, are spinning down (Kouveliotou et al., 1998, 1999), and have X-ray spectra that are comparable to, though somewhat harder than, those of the AXPs, at least when not in outburst (Mereghetti et al., 2000; Kulkarni et al., 2001). Independent evidence for the ultra-high magnetic fields exists in SGRs; for example, a $`10^{15}`$ G magnetic field is required to contain the radiation that is seen following major outbursts (Thompson & Duncan, 1995, 1996).

The second category of model proposed to explain AXP emission is that they are accreting from a disk of material leftover from the supernova explosion that created the neutron star (Chatterjee et al., 2000; Alpar, 1999; Marsden et al., 2001). Fall-back disks around neutron stars have been proposed in other contexts (Michel, 1988); here, the AXPs represent a single, short-lived phase in the evolution of a neutron star having magnetic field only slightly larger than those of radio pulsars. In this phase, the neutron star is in a propeller mode in which the inner edge of the accretion radius lies between the magnetospheric and corotation radii. This model, in its original version (Perna et al., 2000), significantly overpredicted the expected optical/IR flux from the fall-back disk (Hulleman et al., 2000a, b; Kaplan et al., 2001). A more recent version includes the effects of a thermal disk instability which may prevent the disk from expanding radially, hence allowing it to remain sufficiently dim to be consistent with the optical/IR limits (Menou et al., 2001). Nevertheless, difficulties remain with the accretion model. In particular, although the noise properties of a fall-back disk are currently unknown, the extremely steady spin down of two AXPs (Kaspi, Chakrabarty & Steinberger 1999) is at odds with that seen in most X-ray pulsars that definitely have accretion disks (but see Baykal et al., 2001). Furthermore, very noisy timing behavior seen in one AXP (1E 1048.1–5937) shows no evidence for correlated flux variations, as are expected in fall-back disk accretion models (Kaspi et al., 2001).

In this paper, we present a variety of observational results from our program of regular monitoring observations of AXPs with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. We make use of dedicated as well as archival monitoring observations spanning several years for three AXPs. Initial results from this program were presented elsewhere (Kaspi et al. 1999, Kaspi, Lackey & Chakrabarty 2000) and focused on the timing properties of 1RXS 1708–4009 and 1E 2259.1+586. Kaspi et al. (2001) and Gotthelf et al. (2001) present results for AXPs 1E 1048.1–5937 and 1E 1841–045, respectively. In this paper, we report for the first time on 4U 0142+61, and update timing results for 1RXS 1708–4009 and 1E 2259.1+586. In addition, we use the same data sets to study pulse morphology variability and energy dependence, as well as the stability of the pulsed flux. Our goal is to clarify important observational properties of AXPs in the hope of offering new, quantitative data for use in testing AXP models.

## 2 OBSERVATIONS

The results presented here were obtained using the Proportional Counter Array (PCA; Jahoda et al., 1996) on board the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The PCA consists of an array of five collimated xenon/methane multi-anode proportional counter units operating in the 2 – 60 keV range, with a total effective area of approximately $`6500\mathrm{cm}^2`$ and a field of view of $`1^\mathrm{o}`$ FWHM. Our observations consist primarily of short snapshots taken on a monthly basis (see Table 1). In addition, we used a handful of archival observations; the exposures in these observations vary from very short ($`T1`$ ks) to very long ($`T2040`$ ks; see Table 1). We used the GoodXenonwithPropane data mode, which records photon arrival times with 1-$`\mu `$s resolution and bins energies into one of 256 channels. Due to the soft spectrum of these sources, we analyzed only events from the top xenon layer of each PCU. Photon arrival times at each epoch were adjusted to the solar system barycenter, and binned with 31.25-ms time resolution.

## 3 ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

### 3.1 Phase Coherent Timing

In the timing analysis, we included only those events having energies in a predetermined range so as to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio of the pulse. The energy cuts used were 2.5 – 9.0 keV for 4U 0142+61 and 1E 2259.1+586 and 2.2 – 5.5 keV for 1RXS 1708–4009. Each binned time series was epoch-folded using the best estimate frequency determined initially from either a periodogram or Fourier transform (though later folding was done using the timing ephemeris determined by maintaining phase coherence; see below). Resulting pulse profiles were cross-correlated in the Fourier domain with a high signal-to-noise template created by adding phase-aligned profiles from previous observations. The templates are shown in Figure 1 along with their respective Fourier transforms in Figure 2. The cross-correlation returns an average pulse time-of-arrival (TOA) for each observation corresponding to a fixed pulse phase. The pulse phase $`\varphi `$ at any time $`t`$ can be expressed as a Taylor expansion,

$$\varphi (t)=\varphi (t_0)+\nu _0(tt_0)+\frac{1}{2}\dot{\nu }_0(tt_0)^2+\frac{1}{6}\ddot{\nu }_0(tt_0)^3+\mathrm{},$$
(1)
where $`\nu 1/P`$ is the pulse frequency, $`\dot{\nu }d\nu /dt`$, etc., and subscript ‘$`0`$’ denotes a parameter evaluated at the reference epoch $`t=t_0`$. The TOAs were fit to the above polynomial using the pulsar timing software package TEMPO111http://pulsar.princeton.edu/tempo. Unambiguous pulse numbering is made possible by obtaining monitoring observations spaced so that the best-fit model parameters have a small enough uncertainty to allow prediction of the phase of the next observation to within $`0.2`$. Typically this requires two closely spaced observations (within a few of hours of each other) followed by one spaced a few days later, and regular monitoring thereafter, as long as phase coherence can be maintained.

To minimize use of telescope time while maximizing precision, our monitoring data consisted of frequent brief snapshots of each pulsar (Table 1). These snapshots suffice to measure TOAs to good precision. However, at each epoch, the period as determined by a Fourier Transform or epoch-folding has typical uncertainty of a few milliseconds. Thus, snapshots can determine spin parameters with high precision only when phase coherence can be maintained.

For 4U 0142+61, we report here for the first time a phase-coherent timing solution that indicates that this AXP has been an extremely stable rotator over 4.4 yr of RXTE monitoring. However, a 2-yr gap in the data precludes unambiguous absolute pulse numbering; we find two equally viable phase-connections that differ by one pulse. Unambiguous phase count can be maintained in 1.3 and 1.4-yr segments at the beginning and end of the 4.4-yr span, respectively. Phase residuals after subtraction of spin-down models that include $`\nu `$ and $`\dot{\nu }`$ only in the first and second segments have RMS of 2.7% and 1% of the pulse period, respectively, and are featureless. The best-fit model parameters for each segment, as well as the two indistinguishable models for the entire 4.4-yr span, are given in Table 2. Timing residuals for solution “A” (see Table 2) are shown in Figure 3; those for solution “B” are qualitatively similar.

It is interesting to compare our results with frequency measurements made for this pulsar with various X-ray telescopes over the past $``$20 yr. Figure 4 shows these data (taken from Israel et al. 1999b) along with our RXTE ephemeris. The top panel shows $`\nu `$ versus time; the thick solid line is our phase-connected ephemeris (the distinction between A and B is not visible on this plot) over the 4.4-yr span RXTE has monitored it, while the thin line is the extrapolation of our ephemeris backward. The uncertainties are smaller than the thickness of the lines. The bottom panel shows the same data but with the linear and offset trend removed. All but one data point (taken with EXOSAT) agree with the back-extrapolation. That one point suggests that the pulsar may exhibit deviations from a simple spin-down law; these could be due to random noise processes or glitches. Further observations can test this.

For 1RXS 1708–4009, phase coherent timing has been accomplished in the 1.4 yr since the glitch reported by Kaspi et al. (2000). In these data, we find a significant positive $`\ddot{\nu }`$ (see Table 3). This indicates a decay of the negative $`\dot{\nu }`$, expected for long-term glitch recovery, as seen in glitching radio pulsars (e.g. Shemar & Lyne, 1996). Phase residuals after subtraction of the best fit model are shown in Figure 5. We note that the value for $`\dot{\nu }`$ reported in Table 2 is different by $`3.8\sigma `$ from that reported by Kaspi et al. (2000). This is likely due to the unmodeled influence of $`\ddot{\nu }`$ in the earlier, shorter data set.

The rotational stability of 1E 2259.1+586, first reported by Kaspi et al. (1999), has now persisted over 4.5 yr, although the inclusion of $`\ddot{\nu }`$ has been necessary. Phase residuals after subtraction of a simple model that includes only $`\nu `$, $`\dot{\nu }`$ and $`\ddot{\nu }`$ have RMS under 1% of the pulse period (see Table 3, Fig. 5). We note the presence of very low-level systematic trends in the most recent data; their origin is unknown.

### 3.2 Pulse Morphology Changes

To search for pulse profile changes, the profiles were first phase aligned using the templates and the same cross-correlation procedure used for timing. Each data profile ($`D`$) was fit to the template ($`T`$) by adjusting two parameters, $``$ and $`𝒟𝒞`$, to minimize a $`\chi ^2`$ statistic, where

$$\chi _\nu ^2=\frac{1}{N_\varphi 4}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_\varphi }{}}\frac{\left(D_i(T_i𝒟𝒞)\right)^2}{\sigma _{D_i}^2+^2\sigma _{T_i}^2}.$$
(2)
Here $`N_\varphi `$ is the number phase bins, and $`\sigma _D`$ and $`\sigma _T`$ are the errors associated with $`D`$ and $`T`$, respectively. The resulting data profile was subtracted from the template to yield “profile residuals” for each observation.

To search for pulse profile variations, using the optimal $``$ and $`𝒟𝒞`$, we calculated the probability of each $`\chi _\nu ^2`$ statistic given their expected distribution and the number of degrees of freedom ($`\nu =N_\varphi 4`$). The procedure was repeated for each pulsar with $`N_\varphi =8,16,32`$ in order to have sensitivity to a variety of types of pulse profile changes. We have not detected any large pulse profile variations. This justifies our other analysis procedures which assume a fixed profile. However, in a handful of observations, we have found evidence for low-level pulse profile changes, at the $`3\sigma `$ level for all three sources. These are intriguing; however at this level, they require confirmation using longer monitoring observations.

It is difficult to set quantitative upper limits on the amplitude of pulse profile changes to which we were sensitive, as these depend on the shape of the change, and vary depending on the length of the observation. Typically, RMS profile residuals are $``$20% of the pulse peak, although this varied from 4–40%.

Iwasawa et al. (1992) reported a significant change in the pulse morphology of 1E 2259.1+586 in 1.2–14 keV GINGA observations obtained in 1990, such that the leading pulse had amplitude roughly half that of the trailing pulse (compare with Fig. 1C). If correct, this has important implications for the magnetar model, which only predicts such pulse morphology changes in the event of a restructuring of the magnetic field, as might occur following a major SGR-like outburst. Although it is difficult to quantify upper limits on the amplitude of pulse profile changes generally, we have done Monte Carlo simulations to see whether we were sensitive to the same change observed by Iwasawa et al. (1992). In particular, using the original 1990 GINGA pulse profile (kindly supplied to us by B. Paul and F. Nagase) with random Poisson-deviated noise added, we repeated our pulse change morphology analysis as described above. Our simulations show that we would have detected the change with high ($`>`$99%) confidence in 25% of our observations (those with integration times $`\stackrel{>}{_{}}`$10 ks), and with moderate ($`>`$90%) confidence in 45% of our observations (those with integration times of $`\stackrel{>}{_{}}`$7 ks; see Table 1).

### 3.3 Pulse Profile Energy Dependence

AXP spectra are generally best fit by a two-component model consisting of a photoelectrically absorbed blackbody with a hard power-law tail (Israel et al., 1999b). Whether these two components are physically distinct is an open question . To investigate this, we compared the pulse profile morphology in two energy bands, 2–4 keV and 6–8 keV. These were chosen because the 2–4 keV band has a significant blackbody component ($`40\%60\%`$ of total flux, depending on source and model) and the 6–8 keV band is greatly dominated by the power-law component ($`\stackrel{>}{_{}}95\%`$ of total flux). (see Özel et al., 2001)

Figure 7 display the average pulse profiles of 4U 0142+61, 1RXS 1708–4009 and 1E 2259.1+586 in the energy bands 2–4 keV and 6–8 keV. Note that the scaling in these plots was chosen to minimize the $`\chi ^2`$ of the difference between the soft and hard profiles. Thus the only information that these plots convey is the relative amplitudes of the features of the profile. The minimization of the $`\chi ^2`$ statistic (Eq. 2) between profiles in the two energy bands was done in the same manner as for the pulse morphology changes (see §3.2).

Another way of characterizing the pulse morphology as function of energy is to consider the pulse profile harmonic content in different energy bands. Figure 8 displays the power of the $`n^{\text{th}}`$ harmonic ($`A_n`$) in units of total power in the remaining harmonics ($`A_{total}=A_1+A_2+\mathrm{}+A_{\frac{N_\varphi }{2}}`$, where $`N_\varphi `$ is the number of phase bins), versus harmonic number $`n`$, for each source.

From Figure 7 and 8 it is clear that all three of the AXP pulse profiles vary significantly as a function of energy, but to different degrees.

### 3.4 Pulsed Flux Time series

Given the large field-of-view of the PCA, the low count rates for the sources relative to the background, and the fact that, for example, 1E 2259.1+586 is in a supernova remnant, total flux measurements are difficult with our RXTE data. Instead, we have determined the pulsed component of the flux, by using the off-pulse emission as a background estimator.

Data from each observing epoch were folded at the expected pulse period as was done for the timing analysis. However, for the flux analysis, 16 phase bins were used across the pulse. For each phase bin, we maintained a spectral resolution of 128 bins over the PCA range. Given the broad morphologies of the average pulse profile, only one phase bin could be used as a background estimator. The pulse profiles were then phase aligned, so that the same off-pulse bin was used for background in every case. The remaining phase bins were summed, and their spectral bins regrouped using the FTOOL grppha, such that no bin had fewer than 20 counts after background subtraction. Energies below 2 keV and above 10 keV were ignored, leaving 17–21 spectral channels for fitting, depending on the data set. The regrouped, phase-summed data sets, along with the background measurement, were used as input to the X-ray spectral fitting software package XSPEC222http://xspec.gsfc.nasa.gov. Not all PCUs were on during our observations, but this was taken into account when producing response matrices. Response matrices were created using the FTOOLs xtefilt and pcarsp. Because of the limited spectral resolution, fitting a two-component model was not practical, so we used a simple photoelectrically absorbed power-law, at first holding only $`N_H`$ fixed (see Table 4). For all sources we found that the photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ was constant within the uncertainties; we therefore held it fixed at its mean value. To extract a pulsed flux at each observing epoch we refitted each spectrum by varying only the normalization. Uncertainties were measured using the XSPEC command steppar. Our flux time series for 4U 0142+61, 1RXS 1708–4009 and 1E 2259.1+586 are displayed in Figures 9, 10 and 11 respectively. We do not find evidence for any large variability in the pulsed flux. Although the measured $`\chi _\nu ^2`$ statistics for 1E 2259.1+586 and 1RXS 1708–4009 are significantly larger than unity, given that the error bars are statistical only, we cannot rule out unmodeled systematic errors. A long-term flux monitoring campaign with an imaging telescope is obviously desirable.

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 Timing

With our report of successful phase-coherent timing for 4U 0142+61, the detailed long-term timing properties of all known AXPs are becoming clear. As a population, they are generally spinning down steadily and with impressive stability. Indeed, for 1E 2259.1+586, the stability is comparable to that of many radio pulsars: the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_8`$ statistic (defined as the phase deviation due to $`\ddot{\nu }`$ after $`10^8`$ s; see Arzoumanian et al. 1994) is 0.43, consistent with what would be expected for a radio pulsar having a comparable spin-down rate, $``$0.78, given the large scatter in the radio pulsar values. For 4U 0142+61, fitting for $`\ddot{\nu }`$ in either of the two best solutions yields $`|\ddot{\nu }|=(5\pm 1)\times 10^{24}`$ s-3, implying $`\mathrm{\Delta }_8=0.89`$, slightly larger than that expected for a radio pulsar with the same spin-down rate, $`0.42`$, though still comparable given the scatter. For 1RXS 1708–4009, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_8`$ is significantly higher than would be predicted (2 versus 0.2), however this is consistent with glitch recovery.

The stability of 1E 2259.1+586 is particularly surprising given past reported large deviations from simple spin-down (e.g. Baykal & Swank, 1996). This is in contrast to 1E 1048.1–5937 which also showed apparent deviations from simple spin-down (see, e.g. Oosterbroek et al., 1998; Paul et al., 2000) but which we have verified in RXTE monitoring (Kaspi et al., 2001). As argued by Baykal et al. (2000), it may be a coincidence that 1E 2259.1+586 has shown great rotational stability during our observations only (but see also § 4.4).

The current stability of 1E 2259.1+586 allows for a test of the Melatos (1999) model of radiative precession. In that model, given well-defined but uncertain assumptions about the geometry and location of the magnetic field, a highly magnetized neutron star could deviate from sphericity and exhibit significant precession with period of a few years. This was suggested as an explanation for timing anomalies seen for 1E 2259.1+586 and 1E 1048.1–5937. The current data for 1E 2259.1+586 rule out, with 99% confidence, an amplitude for precession 0.013 times that used by Melatos (1999) to explain the timing anomalies. Radiative precession was also ruled out by RXTE monitoring for 1E 1048.1–5937 (Kaspi et al., 2001). Frequent large glitches in both these sources, as were suggested by Heyl & Hernquist (1999), also have not been confirmed. Also, neither 4U 0142+61 and 1E 1841–045 (Gotthelf et al., 2001) show any evidence for either radiative precession or frequent large glitches.

Overall, however, a striking property of the timing of the AXPs as a whole, apart from the stability, is the diversity of behavior. 1E 2259.1+586 and 4U 0142+61 have shown great stability; 1E 1841–045 shows stability but with considerably more red noise (Gotthelf et al., 2001); 1RXS 1708–4009 has exhibited a glitch with recovery similar to what is observed for radio pulsars; and 1E 1048.1–5937 is less stable than even some known accretors (Kaspi et al., 2001).

Interestingly, there is a correlation between timing stability and $`\dot{\nu }`$ in our data. The sources with by far the smallest $`\dot{\nu }`$’s, 1E 2259.1+586 and 4U 0142+61, are the most stable (at least during our observations), while that with the largest, 1E 1048.1–5937, is the least so. The SGRs, being even less stable (Woods et al., 2000, 2001), have even larger $`\dot{\nu }`$’s, in agreement with this trend. 1E 1841–045 and 1RXS 1708–4009 have timing stabilities and $`\dot{\nu }`$ intermediate between the extremes. One therefore might expect 1E 1841–045 to exhibit a glitch in the near future. If correct, the trend suggests a continuum of timing properties between the AXP and SGR populations, lending additional support to the connection between them. Furthermore, it has long been recognized that radio pulsar timing stability is also correlated with spin-down rate (e.g. Cordes & Helfand, 1980; Arzoumanian et al., 1994). This suggests, in addition, a connection between all three populations, and a continuum of timing behavior that depends on stellar magnetic field. If correct, this provides strong support for the magnetar model.

Marsden & White (2001) noted a correlation between spin-down rate and spectral properties in AXPs. An additional correlation with timing stability could strengthen the argument that the spin properties, emission mechanisms, and internal structure and dynamics are all related in these objects.

### 4.2 Pulse Morphology

The presence of substantial harmonic content in AXP pulse profiles (see Fig. 8) is at odds with models in which the X-ray emission is thermal from the surface of a hot neutron star having conventional magnetic field. As shown by Dedeo et al. (2001), the expected range of ratios of second to first Fourier amplitudes, $`A_2/A_1`$, can be predicted for a neutron star emitting thermal X-rays, as a function of total pulse fraction, for different radially peaked beaming functions, surface hot-spot geometries, and neutron star compactnesses. Low harmonic content is expected primarily because of gravitational light bending, unless there is significant beaming. Given the pulsed fraction of 1E 2259.1+586 (Özel et al., 2001, and references therein), Dedeo et al. (2001) show that the ratio of $`A_2/A_11`$ for all possible geometries and compactnesses, while Figure 8C shows $`A_2/A_1=3.97\pm 0.01`$ in the soft 2–4 keV band. The presence of a significant third harmonic in 1RXS 1708–4009 (Fig. 8B) and even a significant sixth harmonic in 1E 2259.1+586 (Fig. 8C) is similarly problematic. On the other hand, Özel (2001) suggests that, in the magnetar model, when properly accounting for the propagation of X-rays through the neutron star atmosphere, the pulse morphology can be surprisingly non-sinusoidal. In particular, in $`10^{14}10^{15}`$ G magnetic fields, the emission from a surface patch can be highly and non-radially beamed. Furthermore, if the surface distribution itself is non-isotropic, AXP profiles may be reproduceable. Indeed, Özel, Psaltis & Kaspi (2001) show that AXP pulsed fractions and luminosities can only be reproduced, assuming thermal emission from the surface of a magnetar propagating through a hydrogen atmosphere, with a single hot spot. In addition, Thompson, Lyutikov & Kulkarni (2001) argue that AXP pulse profiles can be accounted for even if the surface emission were isotropic, because of resonant scattering off charged particles in the magnetosphere, which has anisotropic optical depth. A detailed comparison of model predictions with observed AXP pulse profiles may prove interesting.

### 4.3 Pulse Morphology Energy Dependence

The energy dependence of the pulse profiles of AXPs can in principle be a strong constraint on the emission model. We have studied this by comparing the morphologies of pulse profiles in two energy bands. The AXPs display a variety of behaviors in this regard. For example, while 1E 1048.1–5937 and 1E 1841–045 show essentially no change in pulse morphology with energy (Kaspi et al., 2001; Gotthelf et al., 2001), 1RXS 1708–4009 shows tremendous variation (Fig. 7B). In no case (except possibly 1RXS 1708–4009) are the profiles in the two energy bands very different, problematic for interpreting AXP two-component spectra as being a result of two independent emission mechanisms (e.g. Perna et al., 2001). Figure 7A shows a possible energy-dependent phase lag, in which the low energy pulse lags the high energy pulse, however, this is not observed in any other AXP.

There is a possible rough trend in which sources with the least harmonic content (1E 1048.1–5937, 1E 1841–045) show the least energy dependence. However the lack of strong pulse morphology evolution with energy in 1E 2259.1+586 compared with 1RXS 1708–4009 does not obviously support this. Another possibly interesting trend is that for the sources in which the ratio of the Fourier amplitudes of the second and first harmonics is large (1E 2259.1+586, 4U 0142+61), the ratio is largest at low energies. This manifests itself in the profile plots as the ratio of peak heights being closer to unity in the hard band than in the soft, which is true of 1RXS 1708–4009 as well.

Whether and how these observations can constrain models remains to be seen. Özel (2001) shows that, when photon propagation through a magnetar atmosphere is properly modeled, the angular dependence of the emission has two components: a narrow pencil beam at small angles with respect to the surface normal, and a broad fan beam at large angles. She shows that the importance and opening angle of the pencil beam increases with increasing photon energy. This may be able explain the observed change in the relative peak amplitudes as a function of photon energy, especially in 1RXS 1708–4009, if part of the pulse is from a fan beam and part from a pencil beam. However detailed pulse profile modeling is required.

### 4.4 Pulsed Flux Time Series

The pulsed fluxes of all known AXPs are roughly constant, with RMS fluctuations of at most $``$20–30% of the mean ($`1\sigma `$) (see Table 4, Kaspi et al. 2001, Gotthelf et al. 2001). Past studies of the flux stability of two AXPs, 1E 2259.1+586 and 1E 1048.1–5937, have suggested that their phase-averaged fluxes are highly variable, with fluctuations possibly as large as a factor of ten (Baykal & Swank, 1996; Oosterbroek et al., 1998). Large flux variations, particularly on time scales under a year and in the absence of torque variations, are unexpected in the magnetar model. This is because in this model, X-rays come from the hot surface where the heat is maintained by the decay of the interior magnetic field. As the thermal conduction time from core to surface is roughly a year (Van Riper et al., 1991), flux variations on shorter time scales are hard to explain in the absence of burst activity as is seen in the SGRs (e.g. Woods et al., 2001).

With the caveat that we measure pulsed flux while other studies measured total flux, it is surprising that we find such flux stability in our observations given past claims. Baykal et al. (2000) argued that the flux stability of 1E 2259.1+586 is a result of its currently being in a quiescent accreting state that is also characterized by timing stability (see also § 4.1). Though we cannot rule this out, we point out that (i) the same coincidence would have to be true of 1E 1048.1–5937 for flux stability, (ii) the pulsed fluxes of 4U 0142+61, 1RXS 1708–4009 and 1E 1841–045 are also stable, and (iii) the pulsed flux of 1E 1048.1–5937 is stable even though it shows unstable timing behavior, which argues that the flux stability is independent of spin-down behavior. We note that our flux measurements, in contrast to past studies, have been made using a single instrument, single bandpass, and analysis method, which eliminates the difficulty in comparing measurements made with different instruments, different spectral ranges, and different analysis methods.

Vasisht et al. (2000) have suggested that the variable X-ray pulsar AX J1845.0–0258 which is at the center of the supernova remnant G29.6+0.1 may also be an AXP. This source has shown variations in its X-ray luminosity by a factor of $``$10 between observations taken 6 yr apart. Given that the pulsed fluxes of all known AXPs are stable, the interpretation of AX J1845.0–0258 as a bona fide AXP is therefore questionable.

## 5 Conclusions

We have presented a variety of observational results for three anomalous X-ray pulsars, 4U 0142+61, 1RXS 1708–4009 and 1E 2259.1+586, obtained using regular monitoring observations and archival observations from the PCA aboard RXTE. Our results, combined with those for 1E 1048.1–5937 and 1E 1841–045 (Kaspi et al., 2001; Gotthelf et al., 2001), provide significantly improved descriptions of AXP X-ray properties that can be used to test models for the nature of these sources.

Specifically, with our successful phase-coherent timing of 4U 0142+61, the detailed timing properties of all known AXPs are now established and can be compared. We find a wide variety of timing behaviors, ranging from high stability (in 1E 2259.1+586 and 4U 0142+61), to instabilities so severe that phase-coherent timing is not possible (in 1E 1048.1–5937). We note that timing stability appears correlated with decreasing $`\dot{\nu }`$. If this trend is real, it suggests a continuum of timing properties between the AXP and SGR populations, lending additional support to the connection between them. We note that a correlation between timing instability and spin-down rate has long been recognized among radio pulsars (e.g. Cordes & Helfand, 1980; Arzoumanian et al., 1994), suggesting a connection between all three populations.

We have also used the RXTE data to investigate a variety of other AXP properties. Motivated by a report of a significant change in pulse morphology in 1E 2259.1+586 in 1990 (Iwasawa et al., 1992), we searched for changes in the pulse morphology at each epoch for all targets. We find no significant pulse morphology variations. Typically, we rule out variations in features having amplitude $`\stackrel{>}{_{}}`$20% of the peak amplitude at the $`1\sigma `$ level, although the limit depends on source and integration time.

We have presented high signal-to-noise average pulse profiles for each AXP, and considered them as a function of energy. We show that, as in the timing properties, there is a variety of different behaviors for the energy dependence. Possible trends include a greater energy dependence for pulses profiles having greater harmonic content, and, for the latter sources, relative peak amplitudes tending closer to unity as photon energy increases. Detailed modeling of AXP pulse profiles, in addition to their pulsed fractions and luminosities (Özel et al., 2001) can test models in which the emission is from the surface of a cooling magnetar (Özel, 2001; Ho & Lai, 2001; Zane et al., 2001).

Finally, we use the monitoring and archival data to obtain pulsed flux time series for each source. We have found no large changes in pulsed flux for any source, and have set $`1\sigma `$ upper limits on variations $``$20–30% (depending on the source). This is surprising given previous reports of large (factor of 5–10) total flux variations in 1E 2259.1+586 and 1E 1048.1–5937 (Baykal & Swank, 1996; Oosterbroek et al., 1998). Assuming a constant pulsed fraction, this suggests that more than one of the AXPs happen to be much more quiescent during the RXTE monitoring than in the past.

We are grateful to D. Chakrabarty, M. Lyutikov, M. Muno, F. Özel, D. Psaltis, M.S.E. Roberts and C. Thompson for useful discussions. We also thank B. Paul and F. Nagase for assistance in obtaining the Ginga data. This work was supported in part by a NASA LTSA grant (NAG5-8063) and an NSERC Research Grant (RGPIN228738-00) to VMK, with additional support from a NASA ADP grant (NAG 5-9164). This research has made use of data obtained through the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center Online Service, provided by the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.


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# Study of Semileptonic Decays 𝐵^±→𝜂⁽'⁾𝑙𝜈

## Acknowledgments

We thank G. Cvetic, Hongjoo Kim and Y.J. Kwon for careful reading of the manuscript and their valuable comments. The work of C.S.K. was supported by Grant No. 2000-015-DP0077 of the KRF. Y.Y is supported by the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation and the Israel Science Foundation.


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# Observation of diffractive 𝐽/𝜓 production at the Fermilab Tevatron

## Abstract

We report the first observation of diffractive $`J/\psi (\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ production in $`\overline{p}p`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s}`$=1.8 TeV. Diffractive events are identified by their rapidity gap signature. In a sample of events with two muons of transverse momentum $`p_T^\mu >2`$ GeV/$`c`$ within the pseudorapidity region $`|\eta |<`$1.0, the ratio of diffractive to total $`J/\psi `$ production rates is found to be $`R_{J/\psi }=[1.45\pm 0.25]\%`$. The ratio $`R_{J/\psi }(x)`$ is presented as a function of $`x`$-Bjorken. By combining it with our previously measured corresponding ratio $`R_{jj}(x)`$ for diffractive dijet production, we extract a value of $`0.59\pm 0.15`$ for the gluon fraction of the diffractive structure function of the proton.

The CDF Collaboration

(Submitted to Physical Review Letters)

T. Affolder,23 H. Akimoto,45 A. Akopian,37 M. G. Albrow,11 P. Amaral,8 D. Amidei,25 K. Anikeev,24 J. Antos,1 G. Apollinari,11 T. Arisawa,45 A. Artikov,9 T. Asakawa,43 W. Ashmanskas,8 F. Azfar,30 P. Azzi-Bacchetta,31 N. Bacchetta,31 H. Bachacou,23 S. Bailey,16 P. de Barbaro,36 A. Barbaro-Galtieri,23 V. E. Barnes,35 B. A. Barnett,19 S. Baroiant,5 M. Barone,13 G. Bauer,24 F. Bedeschi,33 S. Belforte,42 W. H. Bell,15 G. Bellettini,33 J. Bellinger,46 D. Benjamin,10 J. Bensinger,4 A. Beretvas,11 J. P. Berge,11 J. Berryhill,8 A. Bhatti,37 M. Binkley,11 D. Bisello,31 M. Bishai,11 R. E. Blair,2 C. Blocker,4 K. Bloom,25 B. Blumenfeld,19 S. R. Blusk,36 A. Bocci,37 A. Bodek,36 W. Bokhari,32 G. Bolla,35 Y. Bonushkin,6 K. Borras,37 D. Bortoletto,35 J. Boudreau,34 A. Brandl,27 S. van den Brink,19 C. Bromberg,26 M. Brozovic,10 E. Brubaker,23 N. Bruner,27 E. Buckley-Geer,11 J. Budagov,9 H. S. Budd,36 K. Burkett,16 G. Busetto,31 A. Byon-Wagner,11 K. L. Byrum,2 S. Cabrera,10 P. Calafiura,23 M. Campbell,25 W. Carithers,23 J. Carlson,25 D. Carlsmith,46 W. Caskey,5 A. Castro,3 D. Cauz,42 A. Cerri,33 A. W. Chan,1 P. S. Chang,1 P. T. Chang,1 J. Chapman,25 C. Chen,32 Y. C. Chen,1 M. -T. Cheng,1 M. Chertok,5 G. Chiarelli,33 I. Chirikov-Zorin,9 G. Chlachidze,9 F. Chlebana,11 L. Christofek,18 M. L. Chu,1 Y. S. Chung,36 C. I. Ciobanu,28 A. G. Clark,14 A. Connolly,23 M. E. Convery,37 J. Conway,38 M. Cordelli,13 J. Cranshaw,40 R. Cropp,41 R. Culbertson,11 D. Dagenhart,44 S. D’Auria,15 F. DeJongh,11 S. Dell’Agnello,13 M. Dell’Orso,33 L. Demortier,37 M. Deninno,3 P. F. Derwent,11 T. Devlin,38 J. R. Dittmann,11 A. Dominguez,23 S. Donati,33 J. Done,39 M. D’Onofrio,33 T. Dorigo,16 N. Eddy,18 K. Einsweiler,23 J. E. Elias,11 E. Engels, Jr.,34 R. Erbacher,11 D. Errede,18 S. Errede,18 Q. Fan,36 R. G. Feild,47 J. P. Fernandez,11 C. Ferretti,33 R. D. Field,12 I. Fiori,3 B. Flaugher,11 G. W. Foster,11 M. Franklin,16 J. Freeman,11 J. Friedman,24 Y. Fukui,22 I. Furic,24 S. Galeotti,33 A. Gallas,(∗∗) 16 M. Gallinaro,37 T. Gao,32 M. Garcia-Sciveres,23 A. F. Garfinkel,35 P. Gatti,31 C. Gay,47 D. W. Gerdes,25 P. Giannetti,33 V. Glagolev,9 D. Glenzinski,11 M. Gold,27 J. Goldstein,11 I. Gorelov,27 A. T. Goshaw,10 Y. Gotra,34 K. Goulianos,37 C. Green,35 G. Grim,5 P. Gris,11 L. Groer,38 C. Grosso-Pilcher,8 M. Guenther,35 G. Guillian,25 J. Guimaraes da Costa,16 R. M. Haas,12 C. Haber,23 S. R. Hahn,11 C. Hall,16 T. Handa,17 R. Handler,46 W. Hao,40 F. Happacher,13 K. Hara,43 A. D. Hardman,35 R. M. Harris,11 F. Hartmann,20 K. Hatakeyama,37 J. Hauser,6 J. Heinrich,32 A. Heiss,20 M. Herndon,19 C. Hill,5 K. D. Hoffman,35 C. Holck,32 R. Hollebeek,32 L. Holloway,18 R. Hughes,28 J. Huston,26 J. Huth,16 H. Ikeda,43 J. Incandela,11 G. Introzzi,33 J. Iwai,45 Y. Iwata,17 E. James,25 M. Jones,32 U. Joshi,11 H. Kambara,14 T. Kamon,39 T. Kaneko,43 K. Karr,44 H. Kasha,47 Y. Kato,29 T. A. Keaffaber,35 K. Kelley,24 M. Kelly,25 R. D. Kennedy,11 R. Kephart,11 D. Khazins,10 T. Kikuchi,43 B. Kilminster,36 B. J. Kim,21 D. H. Kim,21 H. S. Kim,18 M. J. Kim,21 S. B. Kim,21 S. H. Kim,43 Y. K. Kim,23 M. Kirby,10 M. Kirk,4 L. Kirsch,4 S. Klimenko,12 P. Koehn,28 K. Kondo,45 J. Konigsberg,12 A. Korn,24 A. Korytov,12 E. Kovacs,2 J. Kroll,32 M. Kruse,10 S. E. Kuhlmann,2 K. Kurino,17 T. Kuwabara,43 A. T. Laasanen,35 N. Lai,8 S. Lami,37 S. Lammel,11 J. Lancaster,10 M. Lancaster,23 R. Lander,5 A. Lath,38 G. Latino,33 T. LeCompte,2 A. M. Lee IV,10 K. Lee,40 S. Leone,33 J. D. Lewis,11 M. Lindgren,6 T. M. Liss,18 J. B. Liu,36 Y. C. Liu,1 D. O. Litvintsev,11 O. Lobban,40 N. Lockyer,32 J. Loken,30 M. Loreti,31 D. Lucchesi,31 P. Lukens,11 S. Lusin,46 L. Lyons,30 J. Lys,23 R. Madrak,16 K. Maeshima,11 P. Maksimovic,16 L. Malferrari,3 M. Mangano,33 M. Mariotti,31 G. Martignon,31 A. Martin,47 J. A. J. Matthews,27 J. Mayer,41 P. Mazzanti,3 K. S. McFarland,36 P. McIntyre,39 E. McKigney,32 M. Menguzzato,31 A. Menzione,33 C. Mesropian,37 A. Meyer,11 T. Miao,11 R. Miller,26 J. S. Miller,25 H. Minato,43 S. Miscetti,13 M. Mishina,22 G. Mitselmakher,12 N. Moggi,3 E. Moore,27 R. Moore,25 Y. Morita,22 T. Moulik,35 M. Mulhearn,24 A. Mukherjee,11 T. Muller,20 A. Munar,33 P. Murat,11 S. Murgia,26 J. Nachtman,6 V. Nagaslaev,40 S. Nahn,47 H. Nakada,43 I. Nakano,17 C. Nelson,11 T. Nelson,11 C. Neu,28 D. Neuberger,20 C. Newman-Holmes,11 C.-Y. P. Ngan,24 H. Niu,4 L. Nodulman,2 A. Nomerotski,12 S. H. Oh,10 Y. D. Oh,21 T. Ohmoto,17 T. Ohsugi,17 R. Oishi,43 T. Okusawa,29 J. Olsen,46 W. Orejudos,23 C. Pagliarone,33 F. Palmonari,33 R. Paoletti,33 V. Papadimitriou,40 D. Partos,4 J. Patrick,11 G. Pauletta,42 M. Paulini,(∗) 23 C. Paus,24 D. Pellett,5 L. Pescara,31 T. J. Phillips,10 G. Piacentino,33 K. T. Pitts,18 A. Pompos,35 L. Pondrom,46 G. Pope,34 M. Popovic,41 F. Prokoshin,9 J. Proudfoot,2 F. Ptohos,13 O. Pukhov,9 G. Punzi,33 A. Rakitine,24 F. Ratnikov,38 D. Reher,23 A. Reichold,30 A. Ribon,31 W. Riegler,16 F. Rimondi,3 L. Ristori,33 M. Riveline,41 W. J. Robertson,10 A. Robinson,41 T. Rodrigo,7 S. Rolli,44 L. Rosenson,24 R. Roser,11 R. Rossin,31 A. Roy,35 A. Ruiz,7 A. Safonov,5 R. St. Denis,15 W. K. Sakumoto,36 D. Saltzberg,6 C. Sanchez,28 A. Sansoni,13 L. Santi,42 H. Sato,43 P. Savard,41 P. Schlabach,11 E. E. Schmidt,11 M. P. Schmidt,47 M. Schmitt,(∗∗) 16 L. Scodellaro,31 A. Scott,6 A. Scribano,33 S. Segler,11 S. Seidel,27 Y. Seiya,43 A. Semenov,9 F. Semeria,3 T. Shah,24 M. D. Shapiro,23 P. F. Shepard,34 T. Shibayama,43 M. Shimojima,43 M. Shochet,8 A. Sidoti,31 J. Siegrist,23 A. Sill,40 P. Sinervo,41 P. Singh,18 A. J. Slaughter,47 K. Sliwa,44 C. Smith,19 F. D. Snider,11 A. Solodsky,37 J. Spalding,11 T. Speer,14 P. Sphicas,24 F. Spinella,33 M. Spiropulu,16 L. Spiegel,11 J. Steele,46 A. Stefanini,33 J. Strologas,18 F. Strumia, 14 D. Stuart,11 K. Sumorok,24 T. Suzuki,43 T. Takano,29 R. Takashima,17 K. Takikawa,43 P. Tamburello,10 M. Tanaka,43 B. Tannenbaum,6 M. Tecchio,25 R. Tesarek,11 P. K. Teng,1 K. Terashi,37 S. Tether,24 A. S. Thompson,15 R. Thurman-Keup,2 P. Tipton,36 S. Tkaczyk,11 D. Toback,39 K. Tollefson,36 A. Tollestrup,11 D. Tonelli,33 H. Toyoda,29 W. Trischuk,41 J. F. de Troconiz,16 J. Tseng,24 N. Turini,33 F. Ukegawa,43 T. Vaiciulis,36 J. Valls,38 S. Vejcik III,11 G. Velev,11 G. Veramendi,23 R. Vidal,11 I. Vila,7 R. Vilar,7 I. Volobouev,23 M. von der Mey,6 D. Vucinic,24 R. G. Wagner,2 R. L. Wagner,11 N. B. Wallace,38 Z. Wan,38 C. Wang,10 M. J. Wang,1 B. Ward,15 S. Waschke,15 T. Watanabe,43 D. Waters,30 T. Watts,38 R. Webb,39 H. Wenzel,20 W. C. Wester III,11 A. B. Wicklund,2 E. Wicklund,11 T. Wilkes,5 H. H. Williams,32 P. Wilson,11 B. L. Winer,28 D. Winn,25 S. Wolbers,11 D. Wolinski,25 J. Wolinski,26 S. Wolinski,25 S. Worm,27 X. Wu,14 J. Wyss,33 W. Yao,23 G. P. Yeh,11 P. Yeh,1 J. Yoh,11 C. Yosef,26 T. Yoshida,29 I. Yu,21 S. Yu,32 Z. Yu,47 A. Zanetti,42 F. Zetti,23 and S. Zucchelli3

1 Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan 11529, Republic of China

2 Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439

3 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, University of Bologna, I-40127 Bologna, Italy

4 Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 02254

5 University of California at Davis, Davis, California 95616

6 University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90024

7 Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria, CSIC-University of Cantabria, 39005 Santander, Spain

8 Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637

9 Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, RU-141980 Dubna, Russia

10 Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708

11 Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510

12 University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611

13 Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, I-00044 Frascati, Italy

14 University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland

15 Glasgow University, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom
16 Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

17 Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima 724, Japan

18 University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801

19 The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218

20 Institut für Experimentelle Kernphysik, Universität Karlsruhe, 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany

21 Center for High Energy Physics: Kyungpook National University, Taegu 702-701; Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742; and SungKyunKwan University, Suwon 440-746; Korea

22 High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305, Japan

23 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720

24 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

25 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109

26 Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824

27 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131

28 The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210

29 Osaka City University, Osaka 588, Japan

30 University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RH, United Kingdom

31 Universita di Padova, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Padova, I-35131 Padova, Italy

32 University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104

33 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, University and Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, I-56100 Pisa, Italy

34 University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260

35 Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907

36 University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627

37 Rockefeller University, New York, New York 10021

38 Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08855

39 Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843

40 Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409

41 Institute of Particle Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto M5S 1A7, Canada

42 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, University of Trieste/ Udine, Italy

43 University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305, Japan

44 Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155

45 Waseda University, Tokyo 169, Japan

46 University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706

47 Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520

(∗) Now at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213

(∗∗) Now at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208

Abstract

In the course of our studies of high energy $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions at the Fermilab Tevatron using the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF), we have observed a class of events incorporating both a hard (high transverse momentum) partonic scattering and the characteristic signature of single diffraction dissociation, namely a leading proton or antiproton and a forward rapidity gap, defined as the absence of particles in a forward pseudorapidity ($`\eta `$ region. The rapidity gap in such “hard diffraction” processes is attributed to the exchange of a Pomeron , which in QCD is a gluon/quark color-singlet construct with the quantum numbers of the vacuum. Experiments on hard diffraction can be used to address the question of whether the Pomeron has a unique, factorizable partonic structure.

In four previous Letters, we reported results from diffractive $`W`$-boson , dijet , and $`b`$-quark  production obtained using the rapidity gap signature, and dijet production in association with a leading antiproton . These results include measurements of the gluon fraction  and of the $`x_{bj}`$ (Bjorken $`x`$) dependence of the diffractive structure function of the antiproton . Comparisons with diffractive deep inelastic scattering data obtained at the DESY $`ep`$ collider HERA revealed a severe breakdown of QCD factorization, expressed mainly as a suppression of a factor of $`10`$ of the overall normalization of the diffractive structure function at the Tevatron. A breakdown of factorization was also observed between the diffractive structure functions measured from dijet production in single diffraction and in double Pomeron exchange at the Tevatron . In this Letter, we report a measurement of diffractive $`J/\psi `$ production in $`\overline{p}p`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=`$1800 GeV, $`p\overline{p}p(\mathrm{or}\overline{p})+J/\psi +X`$, and compare the $`J/\psi `$ diffractive fraction with the results of our previous hard diffraction measurements to further characterize the observed breakdown of factorization.

The data used in this analysis were collected during 1994-95 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 80 pb-1. The technique we use to extract the diffractive signal is identical to that used in our previous studies. In a data sample satisfying selection requirements for $`J/\psi `$ decaying into $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$, we look for events with a rapidity gap in either of the two forward regions of the detector covering the pseudorapidity range $`2.4<|\eta |<5.9`$. We define a rapidity gap as the absence of hits in the beam-beam counters (BBC), which cover the region 3.2$`<|\eta |<`$5.9, and the absence of calorimeter towers with energy above 1.5 GeV within $`2.4<|\eta |<4.2`$. The size of the calorimeter towers in this region is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta \times \mathrm{\Delta }\varphi =0.1\times 5^{}`$.

The detector components relevant to $`J/\psi `$ selection are the silicon vertex detector (SVX), the vertex time projection chamber (VTX), the central tracking chamber (CTC), the central electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters surrounding the CTC, and the central muon detectors. The $`J/\psi `$ acceptance is limited by the muon detectors, which cover the region $`|\eta |<1.0`$. The SVX provides spatial measurements in the $`r`$-$`\varphi `$ plane with a track impact parameter resolution of $`[13+(40\mathrm{GeV}/c)/p_T]\mu `$m. The VTX is used primarily to measure the longitudinal position $`z`$ of an event’s primary vertex, and the CTC provides momentum analysis for charged particles. The combined CTC/SVX transverse momentum resolution for charged particles is $`\sigma _{p_T}/p_T=0.0009p_T0.0066`$, where $`p_T`$ is in GeV/$`c`$. Details of the CDF detector components can be found in Ref. .

A three-level dimuon trigger system was used to select events with a pair of muon candidates . At Level 1, the dimuon trigger selection required the presence of two radially aligned pairs of time-correlated hits in the muon chambers. Level 2 required that each pair of muon chamber hits match a track in the CTC found by the Central Fast Track (CFT) processor, which performed a partial reconstruction of all CTC tracks and determined the $`p_T`$ with a momentum resolution of $`\sigma _{p_T}/p_T^2=0.035(\mathrm{GeV}/c)^1`$. At Level 3, performed in software, events were required to contain two oppositely charged muon candidates with an invariant mass within $`300`$ MeV$`/c^2`$ of the $`J/\psi `$ mass of $`3096.9`$ MeV$`/c^2`$ .

In addition to the $`J/\psi `$ selection requirements used in previous CDF analyses , the following two requirements were imposed on the data: first, since the BBC information is used to tag rapidity gaps, only data for which there was no BBC coincidence requirement in the trigger were considered; and second, since additional interactions in the same beam-beam crossing would most likely spoil a diffractive rapidity gap, only events with one reconstructed primary vertex were retained. In order to ensure that reconstructed muons were found in the kinematic region where the trigger is highly efficient, a minimum transverse momentum of $`2`$ GeV/$`c`$ was required for each muon candidate. For a precise vertex measurement, both muons were required to be reconstructed in the SVX detector. The dimuon invariant mass distribution for events passing the above requirements is shown in Figure 1a. The signal region, defined as the dimuon mass range of $`3.05M_{\mu ^+\mu ^{}}<3.15`$ GeV/$`c^2`$, contains 18910 events.

There are three sources of dimuons in the above $`J/\psi `$ candidate event sample: (a) $`J/\psi `$’s directly produced in $`p\overline{p}`$ collisions, or resulting from decays of intermediate states which are sufficiently short-lived ($`e.g.`$ from $`\chi _c`$ decays) so that their measured decay vertex cannot be distinguished from the primary event vertex; (b) $`J/\psi `$’s from $`B`$-hadron decays, and (c) background from processes for which the dimuon invariant mass falls accidentally in the $`J/\psi `$ signal mass window; the latter includes dimuons from Drell-Yan production, double semileptonic $`b`$-decays, meson decays-in-flight, and residual hadrons that penetrate the calorimeter and are misidentified as muons. The first two sources contribute to the $`J/\psi `$ invariant mass peak, while the last comprises the background under the peak. The fraction of background events in the signal region is evaluated by fitting the dimuon mass distribution with a sum of a Gaussian and a linear function. The fit yields a background fraction of $`(6.5\pm 0.1)\%`$ within the signal region.

The fraction of $`J/\psi `$’s from $`B`$-hadron decays can be determined by fitting the proper decay length distribution, $`c\tau `$, using the appropriate function for each of the three dimuon components described above. However, because we do not fully reconstruct $`B`$ decays, we use an approximation to $`c\tau `$ described in  and referred to as pseudo-$`c\tau `$. In the signal region, the fraction of background events is fixed at the value of $`0.065`$, obtained from the dimuon mass fit, and the pseudo-$`c\tau `$ distribution is fitted using for the background a parametrization derived from the sidebands and appropriate parametrizations for the prompt and $`B`$ decay dimuon components . The pseudo-$`c\tau `$ distribution for the signal region is shown in Fig. 1b with the fit result superimposed. The fraction of $`J/\psi `$ mesons from $`B`$-hadron decays obtained from the fit is $`(16.8\pm 0.4)\%`$. The vertical line at $`100\mu `$m separates two regions: a “long-lived” region dominated by $`B`$ decays, and a “short-lived” region mostly due to prompt $`J/\psi `$ mesons. The short-lived region contains 15824 events, which are used in the analysis below. By numerically integrating the fitted $`B`$ decay component in this region, the $`B`$-hadron decay contamination is found to be $`3.3\%`$.

As in our previous rapidity gap studies , the diffractive signal is evaluated by considering the number of BBC hits, $`N_{\mathrm{BBC}}`$, versus the number of the adjacent forward calorimeter towers with energy above 1.5 GeV, $`N_{\mathrm{CAL}}`$. Figure 2a shows the correlation between $`N_{\mathrm{BBC}}`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{CAL}}`$. The multiplicity in this figure is for the side of the detector with the lower BBC hit multiplicity. The (0,0) bin, $`N_{\mathrm{BBC}}=N_{\mathrm{CAL}}=0`$, contains 92 events. The excess of events in this bin is attributed to diffractive production. The non-diffractive content of the (0,0) bin is evaluated from the diagonal of Fig. 2a with $`N_{\mathrm{BBC}}=N_{\mathrm{CAL}}`$, shown in Fig. 2b. The non-$`J/\psi `$ background in each bin of this plot, estimated by fitting the dimuon mass distribution to the sum of a Gaussian and a constant function, was subtracted from the number of $`J/\psi `$ candidates prior to plotting, yielding $`87.4\pm 9.7`$ $`J/\psi `$ events in the (0,0) bin. An extrapolation to bin (0,0) of a linear fit to the data of bins (2,2) to (12,12) yields $`19.9\pm 3.9`$ non-diffractive events. The events in the (0,0) bin will be referred to as “diffractive”. Figures 2c and 2d show the $`J/\psi `$ transverse momentum and pseudorapidity distribution, respectively, for the diffractive and total event samples. In Fig. 2d the sign of the $`J/\psi `$ pseudorapidity for events with a gap at positive $`\eta `$ is reversed, so that the gap appears always on the left.

The number of diffractive events in the (0,0) bin must be corrected for the efficiency of requiring a single reconstructed primary vertex, $`\epsilon _{1\mathrm{v}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{x}}^{\mathrm{SD}}`$, as well as for random BBC and forward calorimeter occupancy. The single-vertex requirement, which is used to reject events due to multiple interactions, also rejects single interaction events with extra vertices due to track reconstruction ambiguities. Removing the single-vertex requirement yields 15.4 more diffractive $`J/\psi `$ events, resulting in $`\epsilon _{1\mathrm{v}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{x}}^{\mathrm{SD}}=0.85`$. For non-diffractive events, the efficiency of the single-vertex requirement, $`\epsilon _{1\mathrm{v}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{x}}^{\mathrm{ND}}`$, was evaluated by comparing the ratio of single-vertex to all events with the ratio expected from the instantaneous luminosity. This comparison yielded $`\epsilon _{1\mathrm{v}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{x}}^{\mathrm{ND}}=0.56\pm 0.04`$. Finally, from a study of a sample of events with no reconstructed primary vertex collected in random beam-beam crossings, the combined BBC and forward calorimeter occupancy was measured to be $`0.20\pm 0.06`$.

After correcting the data for the efficiency of the single-vertex requirement and for the forward detector occupancy, we obtain a diffractive to total $`J/\psi `$ production ratio of $`R_{J/\psi }^{\mathrm{gap}}=(0.42\pm 0.07)\%`$. This ratio is based on diffractive events satisfying our rapidity gap definition. Therefore, it must be corrected for the rapidity gap acceptance, $`\epsilon ^{gap}`$, defined as the ratio of events in bin (0,0) to the total number of diffractive events satisfying the same $`J/\psi `$ requirements and produced within a specified range of $`\xi `$, where $`\xi `$ is the fractional momentum loss of the leading (anti)proton. The gap acceptance for $`\xi <0.1`$ was calculated using the POMPYT Monte Carlo generator  followed by a detector simulation. For a Pomeron structure function of the form $`\beta f(\beta )=1/\beta `$ , where $`\beta `$ is the fraction of the momentum of the Pomeron carried by a parton, $`\epsilon ^{gap}`$ was found to be $`0.29`$. Dividing $`R_{J/\psi }^{\mathrm{gap}}`$ by $`\epsilon ^{gap}`$ yields a diffractive to total production ratio of $`R_{J/\psi }=(1.45\pm 0.25)\%`$.

The ratio $`R_{J/\psi }`$ is larger than the corresponding ratio for diffractive $`b`$-quark production, $`R_{\overline{b}b}=(0.62\pm 0.25)\%`$ , by a factor of $`2.34\pm 0.35`$. As both $`J/\psi `$ and $`b`$-quark production are mainly sensitive to the gluon content of the Pomeron, we examine whether the difference in the two ratios could be attributed to the different average $`x_{bj}`$ values of the two measurements. Given the $`x_{bj}^{0.45}`$ dependence of the diffractive structure function measured in dijet production , the double ratio $`R_{\overline{b}b}^{J/\psi }R_{J/\psi }/R_{\overline{b}b}`$ is expected to be equal to $`(x_{bj}^{J/\psi }/x_{bj}^{\overline{b}b})^{0.45}`$. Since in these measurements we consider only central $`J/\psi `$ or $`b`$-quark production, the ratio $`x_{bj}^{J/\psi }/x_{bj}^{\overline{b}b}`$ is approximately proportional to the ratio of the corresponding average $`p_T`$ value for each process, which is $`6`$ GeV/$`c`$ for the $`J/\psi `$ (see Fig. 2c) and $`36`$ GeV/$`c`$ for the $`b`$-quark (about three times the average $`p_T`$ of the $`b`$-decay electron ). The expected value for $`R_{\overline{b}b}^{J/\psi }`$ is then $`(6/36)^{0.45}=2.2`$, in agreement with the measured value of $`2.34\pm 0.35`$.

For a more direct study of the diffractive structure function, we restricted our analysis to events in which at least one jet was reconstructed. A jet is defined as a cluster of calorimeter towers within a cone size of $`\mathrm{\Delta }R(\mathrm{\Delta }\eta ^2+\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi ^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}=0.7`$ with a seed tower of $`E_T>1`$ GeV. Since our diffractive $`J/\psi `$ events have a rapidity gap in the region $`2.4|\eta |5.9`$, the core of the reconstructed jet for both diffractive and non-diffractive events is restricted to the region $`|\eta |<1.7`$. The number of events passing this requirement is 8732.

Figure 3 shows distributions for the $`J/\psi +jet`$ event sample: (a) is the diagonal $`(N_{\mathrm{CAL}},N_{\mathrm{BBC}})`$ distribution, equivalent to that of Fig. 1b, (b) the corrected $`\xi _{p,\overline{p}}`$ distribution for the (anti)proton on the side of the gap, evaluated using calorimeter and BBC information in a procedure described in Ref. , (c) the $`J/\psi `$ transverse momentum, and (d) the azimuthal angle difference, $`\varphi =|\varphi _{J/\psi }\varphi _{jet}|`$, between the $`J/\psi `$ and the highest $`E_T`$ jet.

The $`x_{bj}`$ of the parton in the (anti)proton participating in $`J/\psi `$ production is evaluated using the equation $`x_{bj}^\pm =p_T^{J/\psi }(e^{\pm \eta _{J/\psi }}+e^{\pm \eta _{jet}})/\sqrt{s}`$, where the + ($``$) sign stands for $`p(\overline{p})`$. In leading order QCD calculations, the ratio of diffractive to non-diffractive production is equal to the ratio of the corresponding structure functions. For $`J/\psi `$ production, the ratio $`R_{J/\psi }(x)`$ per unit $`\xi `$ was evaluated for the events in the region $`0.01<\xi <0.03`$ (see Fig. 3b) and is plotted in Fig. 4 along with the same ratio for dijet production, $`R_{jj}(x)`$, obtained from Ref. . The structure function relevant to dijet production is $`F_{jj}(x)g(x)+\frac{4}{9}q(x)`$ , where $`g(x)`$ and $`q(x)`$ are the gluon and quark densities in the proton and $`\frac{4}{9}`$ is a color factor. For $`J/\psi `$ production, which is dominated by $`gg`$ interactions, $`R_{J/\psi }(x)g^D(x)/g(x)`$. The ratio of $`R_{jj}(x)`$ to $`R_{J/\psi }(x)`$ is given by

$$R_{J/\psi }^{jj}(x)\frac{R_{jj}(x)}{R_{J/\psi }(x)}=\frac{1+\frac{4}{9}\frac{q^D(x)}{g^D(x)}}{1+\frac{4}{9}\frac{q(x)}{g(x)}}$$
(1)
where the superscript $`D`$ is used to label the diffractive parton densities. Evaluating this ratio of ratios by integrating the $`x_{bj}`$ distributions for $`R_{jj}`$ and $`R_{J/\psi }`$ in the region $`0.004x0.01`$ (kinematic boundaries for full acceptance) yields $`[R_{jj}(x)/R_{J/\psi }(x)]_{\mathrm{exp}}=1.17\pm 0.27(\mathrm{stat})`$. Using this value in Eq. 1 and the ratio of $`q(x)/g(x)=0.274`$ at $`x=0.0063`$ and $`Q=6`$ GeV calculated from the proton GRV98LO parton distribution functions , the gluon fraction of the diffractive structure function of the (anti)proton is found to be $`f_g^D=0.59\pm 0.14(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.06(\mathrm{syst})`$, where the systematic uncertainty includes in quadrature the uncertainties of all correction factors. This gluon fraction is consistent with the value $`0.54\pm 0.15`$ obtained by combining the results of diffractive $`W`$, dijet, and $`b`$-quark production .

We thank the Fermilab staff and the technical staffs of the participating institutions for their vital contributions. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and National Science Foundation; the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare; the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; the National Science Council of the Republic of China; the Swiss National Science Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Bundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung, Germany; the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KoSEF); the Korea Research Foundation; the Comision Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologia, Spain; the Max Kade Foundation; and the Ministry of Education, Science and Research of the Federal State Nordrhein-Westfalen of Germany.


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# Experimental evidence of the spin selection rule in KLL Auger transition

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## Abstract

With on- and off- resonant excitation photons, spin-resolved Auger electron spectra of epitaxial CrO2 thin films show an experimental evidence of the spin-selective KLL Auger decay. The on-resonance O KLL Auger electrons are found to be highly spin-polarized, while the off-resonance ones with almost zero spin polarization. These results lead to conclude that the two-hole final state in KLL Auger decay is a spin-singlet. Applications to spin-resolved absorption spectroscopy are discussed.

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Spin-resolved core-level spectroscopy has been shown very effective to unravel the spin-dependent electronic structure of materials. For instance, the Zhang-Rice spin-singlet in high temperature superconductors (HTSC) has been experimentally confirmed using spin-resolved resonant photoemission techniques. Magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) in x-ray absorption and spin-resolved Auger spectroscopies are another two examples. These two techniques have drawn much attention to the exploring local element-specific magnetic properties of materials. For instance, MCD has been widely used because of its unique feature of obtaining the information on element-specific magnetic spin and orbital moments.

Being a finger-print technique, Auger electron spectroscopy is very powerful and widely used for chemical analysis of thin films and surfaces. With the analysis of the spin polarization of Auger electrons from magnetic materials, the traditional Auger spectroscopy can be extended to spin-polarized Auger spectroscopy for exploring magnetic thin films and surfaces. It has been demonstrated that the spin polarization of core-valence-valence (CVV) Auger electrons is a direct manifestation of the local spin polarization of the valence electrons. Auger transition contains valuable information on the electron correlations and the core-hole screening by valence electrons. It has been shown that an important spin-dependent interaction, or exchange correlation, exists in the final state of the LMM Auger transition in $`3d`$ itinerant ferromagnets such as Fe. The exchange correlation in LMM Auger transition results in that the probability the spins of the two holes in the Auger final state being parallel is comparable to that of being antiparallel. On the other hand, several theoretical works have shown that the spin triplet in the KLL Auger transition is forbidden, and only the spin-singlet is allowed. To our knowledge, at present, no direct experimental results are available to show this spin selection rule of KLL Auger transition.

In this paper, we report a direct experimental evidence of the exchange correlations in KLL Auger decay With on- and off- the O K-edge-resonant (1s$``$2p) excitation, the dramatic difference in the spin polarization shows that the exchange correlation effect prevents the two-hole Auger final state from being a spin-triplet. This exchange correlation effect in KLL Auger decay leads to a very important application to spin-resolved x-ray absorption of magnetic oxides in which oxygen plays an important role in magnetism via superexchange or double exchange interactions.

The spin resolved Auger spectroscopy measurements were carried out at the elliptically polarized undulator (EPU) beamline of the Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (SRRC), Taiwan. The light polarization can be adjusted to be circularly polarized or linearly polarized with the electric vector of the light either in the horizontal or the vertical plane, with taking the advantage of the EPU. The spin-resolved Auger electrons were collected at the normal emission of epitaxial CrO2 films at the remnant state at temperature of 80$`\mathrm{K}`$. A commercial hemispherical energy analyzer was used to energetically analyze Auger electrons; a micro-Mott spin detector adapted to the energy analyzer was used for spin analysis. The instrumental asymmetry of the spin-detector was eliminated by reversing the magnetization of the sample.

Epitaxial CrO2 films were grown on TiO2(100) substrates using the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique. The substrates were ultrasonically cleaned with acetone, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, 10% hydrofluoric acid and distilled water subsequently before air-drying. The deposition was performed at 400$`{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{C}`$ by using CrO3 as the precursor. The film thickness was estimated to be around 2000Å. The CrO2 films were characterized as epitaxy by x-ray diffraction. Fig.1(a) displays the normal $`\theta 2\theta `$ scan in the vicinity of the (200) peak of the film and the substrate. The FWHM of the rocking curve of the CrO2 (200) peak is 0.2, showing good quality of the crystalline thin films. The magnetic properties were examined using magnetic optical Kerr effect (MOKE) measurements of the films. As shown in Fig. 1(b), the MOKE measurements indicate that the magnetic easy axis of the films is along  direction, that the magnetic properties of CrO2 films are the same as those of bulk CrO2, consistent with the results of previous epitaxial CrO2 thin films. Ex-situ soft x-ray polarization-dependent absorption measurements of CrO2 samples were performed in an ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) chamber without further treatments of annealing or sputtering.

Recent first-principles calculations and contact measurements have concluded that CrO2 is a half-metallic ferromagnet in which one spin channel is conductive, but the other spin channel is insulating. The unoccupied states of CrO2, therefore, is fully spin-polarized. Recent LSAD+U calculations has concluded that there is a strong hybridization between O 2p and Cr 3d. Fig. 2(a) depicts the O 1s absorption of CrO2 with the E vector of the light perpendicular to the magnetic easy axis. The exceptionally large intensity in the O 1s absorption leads to the experimental confirmation of the strong hybridization between O 2p and Cr 3d. The de-excitation of the O 1s absorption final state is dominated by an Auger decay, leaving a two-hole final state. The Auger electron intensity is, therefore, a manifestation of the O 1s absorption cross section.

Fig 2(b) shows a series of Auger spectra excited by photons with energies around the O 1s absorption peak, and 40.6 eV above the peak energy. The Auger electron intensity is resonant at h$`\upsilon `$=529.6 eV where the Auger intensity is $``$ 50 times of the valence intensity. With the excitation photons tuned on the resonance, the spin polarization of the O 1s core hole resembles that of the O 2p hole since spin is conserved in a photo-excitation process. The spin polarization of the Auger electrons depends on the spin of the O 1s hole and on the exchange correlation in the two-hole Auger final state. For the spin-triplet Auger two-hole final state, the spin of Auger electron is parallel to that of the 1s core hole. For the spin-singlet Auger two-hole final state, the spin of Auger electron, on the other hand, is antiparallel to that of the 1s core hole.

The cross section of KLL Auger transition $`\sigma _{_{Auger}}`$ can be approximately written as

$$\sigma _{_{Auger}}\left|e^{i𝐤𝐫_\mathrm{𝟏}}1\left|\frac{1}{\left|𝐫_1𝐫_2\right|}\right|p__1p__2\right|^2,$$
(1)
where p1 and p2 are the two 2p states involved in the Auger decay, r1,2 and k are the position vectors and the wave vector of the Auger electrons, respectively. As a result of the Auger decay, the electron at r1 is emitted to be the Auger electron, and that at r2 falls into the 1s state. When both of the two 2p states are at the same orbital, say 2px1 and 2px2, the initial state of the Auger decay can be written as $`|(x__1x__2)\chi _s,`$ in which $`\chi _s`$ stands for the spin singlet. For the 2p states at different orbitals, say 2px1 and 2py2, the Auger initial states are $`|(x__1y__2x__2y__1)\chi _t,`$ and $`|(x__1y__2+x__2y__1)\chi _s,`$ for the spin triplet $`\chi _t`$ and the spin singlet $`\chi _s`$, respectively. Taking into account the spin part and the symmetry requirement, the matrix element for the spin triplet state can expressed as:

$$(e^{i𝐤𝐫_\mathrm{𝟏}}e^{i𝐤𝐫_\mathrm{𝟐}})\chi _t\left|\frac{1}{𝐫_{12}}\right|(x__1y__2x__2y__1)\chi _t,$$
(2)
where r$`_{_{12}}`$= $`\left|𝐫_1𝐫_2\right|`$, and the matrix element for the spin singlet state can be written as:

$$(e^{i𝐤𝐫_\mathrm{𝟏}}+e^{i𝐤𝐫_\mathrm{𝟐}})\chi _s\left|\frac{1}{𝐫_{12}}\right|(x__1x__2)\chi _s,$$
(3)
and

$$(e^{i𝐤𝐫_\mathrm{𝟏}}+e^{i𝐤𝐫_\mathrm{𝟐}})\chi _s\left|\frac{1}{𝐫_{12}}\right|(x__1y__2+x__2y__1)\chi _s,$$
(4)
when the Auger transition occurs at the same and the different orbitals, respectively. It is straight forward to prove that the matrix element of the triplet state vanishes as a result of the rational and the inversion symmetry of $`\frac{1}{𝐫_{12}}`$. Therefore only the spin singlets are allowed in KLL Auger decay, consistent with the results of previous theoretical works.

Since the spin triplet of the two-hole final state in KLL Auger transition is forbidden, the intensity of the spin-up and spin-down Auger electrons with energy E can be approximately expressed by a convolution of the spin-resolved density of state (DOS):

$$I_{()}=M_{}D_{()}(ϵ^{})D_{()}(ϵ)\delta (Eϵϵ^{}U)𝑑ϵ𝑑ϵ^{},$$
(5)
where $`M_{}`$ and $`U`$ are the Auger matrix element for the spin singlet of the two-hole Auger final sate and the Coulomb interaction energy between the two holes, respectively, $`D_{()}(ϵ^{})`$ and $`D_{()}(ϵ)`$ refer to as the spin-up (spin-down) electrons emitted to be Auger electrons and those falling into the initial core hole, respectively. On the resonance excitation of a material with 100% spin-polarized unoccupied states, the initial $`1s`$ core hole is completely spin-polarized, and the KLL Auger electrons, therefore, are 100% spin-polarized with the sign opposite to that of the states above the Fermi level.

To verify the spin selection rule in KLL Auger decay discussed earlier, we have performed on-and off-resonance spin-resolved Auger spectroscopy measurements of CrO2 thin films. As shown in Fig. 3(a), the Auger electrons excited by the photons being tuned at the O 1s$`2p`$ resonance are highly spin-polarized. Although the polarization of the lowest major structure of the conduction band in a half-metallic material are expected be 100%, the spin polarization of the absorption of may be reduced due to the electron correlation effects present in the system. In such a system, the concept of density of states as defined in effective one-particle theories loses its meaning as a basis for a quantitative understanding of excitation spectra, i.e. density of states are then quite different from spectral weights. It has been very recently shown that strong electron-electron correlations set the maximal spin-polarization of the lowest-energy O 1$`s`$ absorption peak of CrO2 to be 50%. In the following, we use a configuration-interaction cluster model to briefly explain this calculation. On the resonance, the absorption is then given by the transition from the ground state, which is a linear combination of O($`2p^6`$)Cr($`3d^2`$) and O($`2p^5`$)Cr($`3d^3`$) states of $`{}_{}{}^{3}T_{1}^{}`$ symmetry, to the lowest XAS final state which is given by O($`\underset{¯}{1s}2p^6`$)Cr($`3d^3`$) of $`{}_{}{}^{4}A_{2}^{}`$ symmetry, where $`\underset{¯}{1s}`$ denotes the core hole. With CrO2 in the ferromagnetic state, the $`3d^2`$ ($`{}_{}{}^{3}T_{1}^{}`$) ground state has the quantum numbers $`S=1`$ and $`S_z=1`$. The $`3d^3`$ ($`{}_{}{}^{4}A_{2}^{}`$) electron addition state, however, can have the quantum numbers $`S=3/2`$, $`S_z=3/2`$ and $`S=3/2`$, $`S_z=1/2`$, depending on whether a spin-up or a spin-down electron is added, respectively. The fractional parentage for the one-electron addition has a ratio of 3:1, so that the spin-polarization for the $`{}_{}{}^{4}A_{2}^{}`$ peak is expected to be $`\frac{31}{3+1}`$ = 50%, which is very close to the measured value.

With the existence of the electron correlation effects in CrO2, it is crucial to assure the validity of the spin selection rule and that the reduction in the spin polarization is indeed caused by the fractional parentage effect. According to Eq. 5, the spin-up and the spin-down Auger electrons excited by off-resonance photons are almost with equal intensity, unlike the LMM Auger transition of a ferromagnet where both the spin-triplet and the spin- singlet are allowed in the Auger final state. It has been found that spin polarization of the off-resonance Fe LMM Auger electrons is significant, $``$ 27%. In contrast, Fig. 3(b) shows that the spin-up and the spin-down KLL Auger electrons excited by the photon energy being tuned at off-resonance, e.g. 570 eV, are equally populated, since the initially created 1s hole is nearly non-spin-polarized. The zero spin polarization of the O KLL Auger electrons supports that the spin-triplet in KLL Auger transition is forbidden.

The spin-resolved Auger spectra with the excitation photons being tuned on and off the resonance unambiguously show that the spin-triplet in KLL Auger transition is forbidden. This spin selection rule provides us a powerful means for spin-resolved O 1s absorption spectroscopy. With the spin selection rule, the spin-resolved O 1s absorption spectroscopy can be achieved by monitoring the spin resolved Auger electrons which are emitted at a constant kinetic energy, i.e. the Constant-Final-State (CFS) mode. The spin character of the O 2p states above the Fermi level can be revealed by using spin-resolved O 1s XAS. This spin resolved technique is complementary to the MCD in O K-edge absorption, which is predominately resulted from the O 2p-projected orbital magnetization. The spin-resolved O $`1s`$ absorption spectroscopy is a very powerful technique to study magnetic oxides in which the O 2p and the 3d of transition metals are strongly hybridized, leading to their interesting magnetic and electrical properties.

In conclusion, the two-hole final state in KLL Auger transition has been shown to be a spin-singlet as a consequence of the parity symmetry. The results of spin-resolved Auger electron spectroscopy on half-metallic CrO2 thin films with the photon energy being tuned on and off the O 1s$``$2p resonance have revealed that the on-resonance O KLL Auger electrons are highly spin polarized and the off-resonance ones are with spin polarization close to zero. These results lead to conclude that the spin triplet state 3P of the two-hole state in KLL Auger decay is forbidden, while the spin singlet states 1S and 1D are allowed. With this spin selection rule, the spin-resolved of XAS in partial Auger electron yield mode can be achieved. The spin-resolved XAS will be an effective technique to unravel the spin feature of the unoccupied electronic states in magnetic oxides.

The authors would like to acknowledge G. A. Sawatzky for sharing his unpublished lecture note. We also would like to thank the SRRC staff for their technical help. C.C. Wu is supported by the postdoctoral fellowship from the Academia Sinica, Taiwan.