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# ENERGETICS OF TeV BLAZARS AND PHYSICAL CONSTRAINTS ON THEIR EMISSION REGIONS

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Blazars comprising of BL Lac objects and optically violent variable quasars are characterized by rapid time variation of the energy flux, large and variable polarization, and featureless continuum spectra (e.g., Urry & Padovani 1995). These characteristics are considered to be the result of beamed emission from relativistic jets seen end-on (e.g., Blandford & Königl 1979). The discovery of strong $`\gamma `$-ray emission from blazars in the GeV band by EGRET on Compton Gamma Ray Observatory is one of the most important issues for active galactic nuclei (AGNs), because more than 60 AGNs detected by EGRET are all blazar type and no identifications as other types of AGNs such as Seyfert galaxies have been reported (Mukherjee et al. 1997) except for a probable detection from the radio galaxy Centaurus A (Hartman et al. 1999). Multi-frequency observations have revealed that broad band continuum spectra of blazars consist of two components; the low energy component from radio to optical/UV band sometimes extending to X-ray band is by synchrotron radiation, while the high energy component from X-ray to $`\gamma `$-ray is due to the inverse Compton scattering of soft photons (e.g., Kubo et al. 1998): various soft photon sources have been proposed ranging from synchrotron photons to photons from accretion disks, either direct or reprocessed (e.g., Sikora, Begelman & Rees 1994; Inoue & Takahara 1996; Dermer & Schlickeiser 1993; Blandford & Levinson 1995; Ghisellini & Madau 1996). One of the most important aspects of multi-frequency observations of blazars is to probe the energetics of relativistic jets. From this point, a few blazars from which TeV $`\gamma `$-rays have been detected (Mrk 421, Mrk 501, PKS 2155–304, and 1ES 2344+514) are especially important, because these TeV blazars are relatively less luminous and pure synchrotron self-Compton model can be best applied.

Up to now, source parameters of TeV blazars have been estimated in a variety of ways (e.g., Bednarek & Protheroe 1997; Tavecchio et al. 1998; Kataoka et al. 2000). With regard to the basic energetics, however, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the energetics of electrons, which should be the central concern for the theoretical understanding of the production and bulk acceleration of relativistic jets. Based on an analytic estimate from TeV blazar observations, one of the present authors argued that relativistic electrons dominate over magnetic fields in energy densities in relativistic jets of blazars (Takahara 1997). The purpose of this study is to estimate the energy densities more quantitatively using a numerical code which self-consistently solves for electron spectra suffering from injection, escape, and radiative cooling and photon spectra with proper account of the Klein-Nishina effects (e.g., Mastichiadis & Kirk 1997; Li & Kusunose 2000). Although recent observations show that even in low activity states $`\gamma `$-ray spectra extend above 1 TeV (e.g., Aharonian et al. 2001), in this paper, we restrict our attention to the quiescent states and treat the $`\gamma `$-rays below 1TeV in the first step neglecting the correction for the absorption of TeV $`\gamma `$-rays due to Cosmic Infra-Red Background (CIB). We shortly discuss CIB absorption effects in §5. In a future research, we will separately examine this issue including the flaring states where $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum clearly extends up to 10 TeV.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In §2, we introduce the synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model, and we describe our numerical treatment for solving the kinetic equations of photons and electrons. We also show the relation between model parameters and typical observables to help the search for the parameter set of the best fit model in numerical calculations. In §3, we discuss the analytic estimation of the ratio of the energy density of relativistic electrons to that of magnetic fields. In §4, we show the numerical results of spectral fitting applied to three TeV blazars, i.e., Mrk 421, Mrk 501, and PKS2155–304. (1ES2344+514 is omitted because less data are available at present.) Finally in §5, we summarize our main results and discuss some related issues.

## 2 ONE-ZONE SSC MODEL

### 2.1 Basic Assumptions

Non-thermal emission from TeV blazars is divided into two components, i.e., low energy synchrotron component extending from radio to X-rays, and high energy inverse Compton component extending from hard X-rays to TeV $`\gamma `$-rays. Here the seed photons of inverse Compton scattering are the synchrotron photons in the same emission region. This SSC model has been very successful in describing the observed multi-frequency spectra (e.g., Jones et al. 1974; Maraschi, Ghisellini, & Celotti 1992).

Further assumptions used in the present work are that (1) emission region is one zone with a characteristic size $`R`$ and is moving at a relativistic speed $`\beta `$ in units of the light speed and that (2) both relativistic electrons and photons are isotropic in the source frame. Beaming (Doppler) factor is given by $`\delta =1/[\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta )]`$, where $`\theta `$ is the angle between the line of sight and the direction of the relativistic jet and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the bulk Lorentz factor of the emission region in the jet. When the observer lies within the angle of $`\theta 1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, we obtain $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\delta `$. The Hubble constant is assumed to be $`75\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$. Throughout this paper we use these approximations.

### 2.2 Numerical Approach

Most of previous calculations are either semi-analytic or done without the inverse Compton process self-consistently. In our numerical code, to obtain the consistent spectra of photons and relativistic electrons, we calculate the kinetic equations of electrons and photons self-consistently including the exact inverse Compton process within the continuous energy loss approximation.

The kinetic equation describing the time evolution of the electron distribution is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{n_\mathrm{e}(\gamma ,t)}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{n_\mathrm{e}(\gamma ,t)}{t_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{esc}}}}={\displaystyle \frac{}{\gamma }}\left[(\dot{\gamma }_{\mathrm{syn}}+\dot{\gamma }_{\mathrm{ssc}})n_\mathrm{e}(\gamma ,t)\right]+𝒬_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{inj}}(\gamma ,t),`$ (1)
where $`\gamma `$ is the electron Lorentz factor and $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ is the electron number density per $`\gamma `$; $`\dot{\gamma }_{\mathrm{syn}}`$ and $`\dot{\gamma }_{\mathrm{ssc}}`$ are the cooling rates of synchrotron and inverse Compton emission, respectively; $`t_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{esc}}`$ is the effective escape time of the electrons, which is identified as the time scale of the adiabatic expansion loss (Mastichiadis & Kirk 1997). For simplicity, in all the following numerical calculations, we set $`t_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{esc}}=3t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$, where $`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}R/c`$. Next we adopt an injection spectrum

$$𝒬_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{inj}}=q_\mathrm{e}\gamma ^se^{\gamma /\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}}\mathrm{for}\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}<\gamma ,$$
(2)
where $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ are, respectively, the maximum and minimum Lorentz factors of the electrons, $`q_\mathrm{e}`$ is the normalization factor, and $`s`$ is the power-law index. As for the injection mechanism, we implicitly assume the first order Fermi acceleration (e.g., Blandford & Eichler 1987). The synchrotron emissivity and absorption coefficient are calculated based on Robinson & Melrose (1984) and Crusius & Schlickeiser (1986). In the calculation of the inverse Compton scattering, we use the exact Klein-Nishina cross section and scattering probability of Jones (1968) and Coppi & Blandford (1990).

The kinetic equation of photons is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ,t)}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{n_{\mathrm{ph}}(ϵ,t)}{t_{\mathrm{ph},\mathrm{esc}}}}=\dot{n}_{\mathrm{IC}}(ϵ,t)+\dot{n}_{\mathrm{syn}}(ϵ,t)`$ (3)
where $`ϵ`$ is the dimensionless photon energy normalized by $`m_\mathrm{e}c^2`$ with $`m_\mathrm{e}`$ being the electron mass, $`n_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ is the photon number density per unit energy $`ϵ`$, $`t_{\mathrm{ph},\mathrm{esc}}`$ is the escape time of photons from the emission region, which is taken as $`t_{\mathrm{ph},\mathrm{esc}}=R/c`$ in the optically thin limit. $`\dot{n}_{\mathrm{IC}}(ϵ,t)`$ and $`\dot{n}_{\mathrm{syn}}(ϵ,t)`$ are the production rate of inverse Compton and synchrotron photons per unit energy $`ϵ`$, respectively.

In order to obtain quiescent state spectra, calculations are done up to $`15t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$, which is long enough to reach a steady state. The physical quantities in the source frame can be converted to those in the observer frame using the relations such as $`ϵ_\mathrm{o}=ϵ_\mathrm{s}\delta /(1+z)`$ and $`dt_\mathrm{o}=dt_\mathrm{s}(1+z)/\delta `$, where subscripts $`\mathrm{o}`$ and $`\mathrm{s}`$ express the quantity in the observer and source frame, respectively, and $`z`$ is the redshift of the source.

In this model, there are seven parameters to be determined by the comparison of predicted and observed photon spectra. They are: $`R`$ the size of the emission region, $`B`$ the magnetic field strength, $`\delta `$ the beaming factor, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ the maximum Lorentz factor, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ the minimum Lorentz factor, $`q_\mathrm{e}`$ the injection rate of electrons, and $`s`$ the power-law index of the injected electron spectrum. Among them, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ is not easily constrained by spectral fitting and it is taken to be 10 in all the numerical calculations. Although $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ hardly affects the radiation spectra, it is important for probing the energy and number densities of relativistic electrons and thus the matter content of the relativistic jets, and it has been a matter of debate (e.g., Reynolds et al. 1996; Wardle et al. 1998; Hirotani et al. 1999). We discuss the effect of changing the value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ in §5.

### 2.3 Analytic Estimate

Before we present numerical results, we describe some analytic estimates which provide useful insight into the physics behind the relationship between the model parameters and typical observables and we later examine quantitatively to what extent simple analytic methods are accurate. Using these relations, we constitute an analytic estimate of model parameters which are then used as a starting set of parameters for numerical calculations.

#### 2.3.1 Relation between the Model Parameters and Observables

Among seven parameters, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ is least constrained and taken to be 10 as was mentioned above. The index $`s`$ is determined by the spectral shape of the synchrotron radiation at low energies; specifically, the energy index $`\alpha `$ between the radio and IR band is used to determine $`s`$ by

$`s=2\alpha +1.`$ (4)
Other five parameters, $`R`$, $`B`$, $`\delta `$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$, and $`q_\mathrm{e}`$ remain to be determined. Basically, the luminosities and typical frequencies of synchrotron and inverse-Compton components give four constraints. Remaining one can be taken to be the break frequency of the synchrotron radiation which corresponds to the break Lorentz factor of electrons, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$, resulting from radiative cooling before escape. In principle, the break feature may appear in the Compton component, too. However, the spectral resolution of the present $`\gamma `$-ray observations is not good enough. Moreover, the Klein-Nishina effect makes the situation complicated. Thus we do not use the break frequency of the Compton component in this paper.

To sum up, the five typical observables in the observer frame are: $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}`$ the maximum synchrotron frequency, $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{br}}`$ the synchrotron break frequency, $`\nu _{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}`$ the maximum frequency of the SSC component, $`L_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}`$ total synchrotron luminosity, and $`L_{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o}}`$ total SSC luminosity. Schematic pictures of a multi-frequency radiation spectrum and a relativistic electron energy distribution are shown in Figures 1 and 2, respectively. The approximate solution of the electron kinetic equation (1) is

$`n_\mathrm{e}(\gamma )`$ $`=`$ $`q_\mathrm{e}t_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{esc}}\gamma ^s\mathrm{for}\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}\gamma <\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$
$`n_\mathrm{e}(\gamma )`$ $`=`$ $`q_\mathrm{e}t_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{esc}}\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}\gamma ^{s1}\mathrm{for}\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}<\gamma \gamma _{\mathrm{max}}.`$ (5)
provided that $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}<\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$.

Using the standard formula about radiation (e.g., Rybicki & Lightman 1979), we can obtain five relations between the model parameters and observables. Observed synchrotron frequencies from a single electron of Lorentz factor $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ are respectively given by,

$`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{br}}=1.2\times 10^6B\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{1+z}}`$ (6)
and

$`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}=1.2\times 10^6B\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{1+z}}.`$ (7)
The maximum value of the observed SSC energy in the Klein-Nishina regime is

$`h\nu _{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}=C_1\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}m_\mathrm{e}c^2{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{1+z}},`$ (8)
where $`h`$ is the Planck constant and $`C_1<1`$ is a constant representing the uncertainty of the Klein-Nishina effect which typically taken to be 1/3 here. It is to be noted that $`h\nu _{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}`$ is limited by the Klein-Nishina effect unless the beaming factor is extremely large (typically larger than about 100). This is understood as follows. The detection of TeV photons means that $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ is at least greater than $`10^{6.5}/\delta `$. If $`\delta ϵ_{\mathrm{seed},\mathrm{s}}\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}^210^{12}`$ eV and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}>10^{6.5}/\delta `$ are satisfied, we obtain $`ϵ_{\mathrm{seed},\mathrm{o}}<0.1\delta ^2`$ eV, where $`ϵ_{\mathrm{seed},\mathrm{s}}`$ and $`ϵ_{\mathrm{seed},\mathrm{o}}`$ are seed photon energy in the source frame and the observer frame, respectively. This means that the observed seed photon frequency is lower than X-ray band unless $`\delta >100`$.

In the case of $`s<5/2`$, bolometric synchrotron luminosity in the observer frame is given by

$`L_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}=4\pi D_\mathrm{L}^2F_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi R^3}{3}}\delta ^4{\displaystyle _{\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}}^{\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\sigma _\mathrm{T}c\gamma ^2u_\mathrm{B}q_\mathrm{e}t_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{esc}}\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}\gamma ^{s1}𝑑\gamma ,`$ (9)
where $`u_\mathrm{B}`$ is the energy density of magnetic fields, $`D_\mathrm{L}`$ is the luminosity distance, and $`F_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}`$ is the total flux of synchrotron radiation in the observer frame. Note that in the case of $`s>5/2`$, the luminosity from electrons with $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}<\gamma <\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ is larger than that from electrons with $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}<\gamma <\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ and equation (9) is not valid. The bolometric Compton luminosity is written in a similar way, by replacing $`u_\mathrm{B}`$ by the energy density of soft photons and multiplying a suppression factor of $`C_2`$ mentioned below. The energy density of synchrotron photons is given by

$$L_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}=\frac{4\pi R^2}{3}c\delta ^4u_{\mathrm{syn}},$$
(10)
when we set the photon escape time as $`R/c`$. It is important to note that because of the Klein-Nishina suppression only photons with energy less than $`m_\mathrm{e}c^2/\gamma `$ in the source frame contribute to SSC luminosity. Here, we simply denote this suppression factor by $`C_2`$. The ratio of the synchrotron and SSC luminosities is then given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{L_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}}{L_{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o}}}}={\displaystyle \frac{u_\mathrm{B}}{C_2u_{\mathrm{syn}}}}.`$ (11)
The break Lorentz factor is determined by the condition that $`t_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{esc}}`$ is equal to $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{R}{C_3c}}={\displaystyle \frac{3m_\mathrm{e}c}{4(u_\mathrm{B}+C_2u_{\mathrm{syn}})\sigma _\mathrm{T}\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}}},`$ (12)
where we set $`C_3t_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{esc}}=t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$ and assume $`C_3=1/3`$ as has been noted in the previous subsection. This is a different approach from most of the previous work where the time variability constraint $`R\delta ct_{\mathrm{var}}`$ is used. We think it more appropriate to avoid time variability constraint in the case of quiescent states, because the shortest time variability such as 15 minutes TeV flare (Gaidos et al. 1996) might be correlated to local regions such as a shock front (Kirk et al. 1998).

#### 2.3.2 Analytic Estimate of Physical Parameters

In this subsection, we analytically estimate the model parameters using the typical observables of TeV blazars. Observed total flux, typical frequencies, and luminosity distance are scaled as

$`f_{\mathrm{syn}}={\displaystyle \frac{F_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}}{10^{10}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1}},f_{\mathrm{ssc}}={\displaystyle \frac{F_{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o}}}{10^{10}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1}},`$ (13)
$`\nu _{\mathrm{br}}={\displaystyle \frac{\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{br}}}{10^{15}\mathrm{Hz}}},\nu _{\mathrm{max}}={\displaystyle \frac{\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}}{10^{17}\mathrm{Hz}}},\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}={\displaystyle \frac{\nu _{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}}{10^{26}\mathrm{Hz}}}`$ (14)
and

$`d={\displaystyle \frac{D_\mathrm{L}}{100\mathrm{Mpc}}},`$ (15)
respectively. The numerical factors $`C_1`$, $`C_2`$, and $`C_3`$ normalized by 1/3 are denoted by $`c_1`$, $`c_2`$, and $`c_3`$, respectively.

In order to express the model parameters in terms of the observables, first we solve five algebraic equations (6), (7), (8), (11), and (12), to obtain five quantities $`R`$, $`B`$, $`\delta `$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$, and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$, and then by inserting them into Eq. (9), we obtain $`q_\mathrm{e}`$. As a result, we obtain the typical values of parameters for TeV blazars as following:

$`\delta `$ $`=`$ $`8.9f_{\mathrm{syn}}^{1/2}f_{\mathrm{ssc}}^{1/4}\eta ^{1/2}\nu _{\mathrm{br}}^{1/4}\nu _{\mathrm{max}}^{1/4}\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}^{1/2}d^{1/2}c_1^{1/2}c_2^{1/4}c_3^{1/2},`$ (16)
$`B`$ $`=`$ $`0.13f_{\mathrm{syn}}^{1/2}f_{\mathrm{ssc}}^{1/4}\eta ^{1/2}\nu _{\mathrm{br}}^{1/4}\nu _{\mathrm{max}}^{5/4}\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}^{5/2}d^{1/2}(1+z)^1c_1^{5/2}c_2^{1/4}c_3^{1/2}\mathrm{G},`$ (17)
$`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ $`=`$ $`2.7\times 10^4f_{\mathrm{syn}}^{1/2}f_{\mathrm{ssc}}^{1/4}\eta ^{1/2}\nu _{\mathrm{br}}^{1/4}\nu _{\mathrm{max}}^{3/4}\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}^{3/2}d^{1/2}(1+z)c_1^{3/2}c_2^{1/4}c_3^{1/2},`$ (18)
$`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ $`=`$ $`2.7\times 10^5f_{\mathrm{syn}}^{1/2}f_{\mathrm{ssc}}^{1/4}\eta ^{1/2}\nu _{\mathrm{br}}^{1/4}\nu _{\mathrm{max}}^{1/4}\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}^{3/2}d^{1/2}(1+z)c_1^{3/2}c_2^{1/4}c_3^{1/2},`$ (19)
$`R`$ $`=`$ $`9.0\times 10^{15}f_{\mathrm{syn}}^{1/2}f_{\mathrm{ssc}}^{1/4}\eta ^{3/2}\nu _{\mathrm{br}}^{3/4}\nu _{\mathrm{max}}^{7/4}\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}^{7/2}d^{1/2}(1+z)c_1^{7/2}c_2^{1/4}c_3^{3/2}\mathrm{cm},`$ (20)
and

$`q_\mathrm{e}{\displaystyle _{\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}}^{\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}}}\gamma ^{s+1}𝑑\gamma `$ $`=`$ $`0.015f_{\mathrm{syn}}^{1/2}f_{\mathrm{ssc}}^{1/4}\eta ^{7/2}\nu _{\mathrm{br}}^{5/4}\nu _{\mathrm{max}}^{17/4}\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}^{17/2}d^{3/2}(1+z)^3`$ (21)
$`\times c_1^{17/2}c_2^{1/4}c_3^{5/2}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1,`$
where $`\eta =(1+F_{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o}}/F_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}})/2`$. Here we emphasize that these expressions give a complete set of model parameters in terms of the observables and that typical numerical values turn out to be similar to those obtained in various other ways (e.g., Tavecchio et al. 1998; Kataoka et al. 2000). In particular, the obtained size seems to be similar to that based on time variability, which means that the size of the emission region in quiescent states is compatible with that obtained by time variability constraint. It is seen that $`R`$ and $`q_\mathrm{e}`$ have a strong dependence on $`\nu _{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}`$, and that a variation of $`\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}`$ by a factor of 2 leads to a variation of $`R`$, $`B`$, and $`q_\mathrm{e}`$ by a few orders of magnitude. Despite this, quite robust estimate is possible for some of the quantities such as the ratio of the energy density of electrons to that of magnetic fields, as will be shown in the next section.

Although our method is model dependent in that we use a simple model of electron injection, escape, and cooling, this model is quite general and has an advantage of self-consistent treatment of the break Lorentz factor of electrons. If one does not use this relation and tries to proceed based on observables alone, one needs to introduce the electron number density instead of the injection parameter $`q_\mathrm{e}`$ and to use time variability constraint. Most of the previous work adopted such methods and searched for suitable parameters in a two dimensional parameters such as ($`\mathrm{log}B`$, $`\mathrm{log}\delta `$) plane (e.g., Tavecchio et al. 1998; Bednarek & Protheroe 1997; Kataoka et al. 1999) by allowing some degree of uncertainties of time variability constraint.

Next we check an additional constraint on the transparency of $`\gamma `$-rays against the intrinsic absorption, i.e., the optical depth of a $`\gamma `$-ray photon for pair production should be smaller than unity. For a $`\gamma `$-ray photon of the observed energy $`ϵ_{\gamma ,\mathrm{o}}`$, the observed energy of the target photon $`ϵ_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{o}}`$ is about

$`ϵ_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{o}}={\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{1+z}}ϵ_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{s}}={\displaystyle \frac{4m_\mathrm{e}^2c^4}{ϵ_{\gamma ,\mathrm{o}}}}({\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{1+z}})^2.`$ (22)
We approximate the number density of target photons by

$`n_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{s}}={\displaystyle \frac{3L_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{s}}}{4\pi R^2cϵ_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{s}}}}.`$ (23)
Then, the optical depth is given by (von Montigny et al. 1995):

$`\tau _{\gamma \gamma }(ϵ_\gamma )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{15}{256\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1+z}{\delta ^5}}{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_{\gamma ,\mathrm{o}}L_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{o}}\sigma _\mathrm{T}}{Rm_\mathrm{e}^2c^5}}`$ (24)
$`=`$ $`9.9\times 10^2{\displaystyle \frac{L_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{o}}}{10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1}}{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_{\gamma ,\mathrm{o}}}{\mathrm{TeV}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{R}{10^{16}\mathrm{cm}}}\right)^1({\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{10}})^5(1+z).`$
If we use the typical observables, the optical depth is expressed as

$`\tau _{\gamma \gamma }(ϵ_\gamma )`$ $`=`$ $`9.8\times 10^2{\displaystyle \frac{L_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{o}}}{L_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}}}f_{\mathrm{syn}}^1f_{\mathrm{ssc}}\eta ^1\nu _{\mathrm{br}}^{1/2}\nu _{\mathrm{max}}^{1/2}(1+z)^5c_1c_2^1c_3{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_{\gamma ,\mathrm{o}}}{h\nu _{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}}}.`$ (25)
Thus we find that intrinsic absorption of 0.35 TeV photons is not so large for TeV blazars in quiescent states but it may be important for some cases. In §4, we will show the value for numerical solutions in Tables 1, 2, and 3.

## 3 Energy Density of Relativistic Electrons and Magnetic Field

In this section, following the methods of Takahara (1997), we show that we can analytically estimate the ratio of $`u_\mathrm{B}`$ to $`u_\mathrm{e}`$ fairly robustly. The energy density of relativistic electrons is given by

$`u_\mathrm{e}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}}^{\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}}}\gamma m_\mathrm{e}c^2n_\mathrm{e}(\gamma )𝑑\gamma `$ (26)
$``$ $`q_\mathrm{e}t_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{esc}}m_\mathrm{e}c^2{\displaystyle _{\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}}^{\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}}}\gamma ^{s+1}𝑑\gamma `$
$`=`$ $`1.1\times 10^2f_{\mathrm{ssc}}^{1/2}\eta ^2\nu _{\mathrm{br}}^{1/2}\nu _{\mathrm{max}}^{5/2}\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}^5d(1+z)^2c_1^5c_2^{1/2}c_3^2\times {\displaystyle \frac{_{\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}}^{\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}}\gamma ^{s+1}𝑑\gamma }{_{\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}}^{\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}}\gamma ^{s+1}𝑑\gamma }}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3,`$
in the framework of the previous section. The energy density of magnetic fields is also given by

$`u_\mathrm{B}`$ $`=`$ $`6.3\times 10^4f_{\mathrm{syn}}f_{\mathrm{ssc}}^{1/2}\eta \nu _{\mathrm{br}}^{1/2}\nu _{\mathrm{max}}^{5/2}\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}^5d(1+z)^2c_1^5c_2^{1/2}c_3^1\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3.`$ (27)
Although both energy densities have fairly strong dependence on some observables, the ratio turns out to be as simple as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{u_\mathrm{e}}{u_\mathrm{B}}}`$ $`=`$ $`9c_{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}c_{3}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\mathrm{ssc}}}{f_{\mathrm{syn}}}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{f_{\mathrm{ssc}}}{f_{\mathrm{syn}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{_{\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}}^{\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}}\gamma ^{s+1}𝑑\gamma }{_{\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}}^{\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}}\gamma ^{s+1}𝑑\gamma }}.`$ (28)
Note that the strong dependence on quantities such as $`\nu _{\mathrm{ssc}}`$, $`\nu _{\mathrm{max}}`$, and $`c_1`$ in $`u_\mathrm{e}`$ and $`u_\mathrm{B}`$ are canceled out. In addition, we can derive equation (28) in a more transparent way as follows. The total radiation power is simply given by

$`L_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}+L_{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\pi R^3\delta ^4m_\mathrm{e}c^2q_\mathrm{e}{\displaystyle _{\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}}^{\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}}}\gamma ^{s+1}𝑑\gamma .`$ (29)
Combining equations (10), (11), (26), and (29) we can easily obtain equation (28) (The factor $`9`$ in Eq.(28) comes from the normalization of $`C_2`$ and $`C_3`$.). This analytic estimation is quite useful to understand the relation between the typical observables of TeV blazars and the ratio of $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$. Needless to say, the ratio of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ to $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ is obtained from the observed ratio of $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{br}}`$ to $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}`$ (Eqs. 6 and 7). The ratio of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ to $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ depends on the adopted value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$. When the synchrotron luminosity dominates over the SSC luminosity, $`u_{\mathrm{syn}}u_\mathrm{B}`$ and $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}f_{\mathrm{ssc}}/f_{\mathrm{syn}}1`$. When the SSC luminosity dominates over the synchrotron luminosity, $`u_{\mathrm{syn}}u_\mathrm{B}`$ and $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}f_{\mathrm{ssc}}^2/f_{\mathrm{syn}}^21`$. Hence, as the value of $`f_{\mathrm{ssc}}/f_{\mathrm{syn}}`$ increases, the value of $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ increases. Very roughly, the equi-partition between electrons and magnetic fields corresponds to sources for the SSC luminosity equal to the synchrotron luminosity, if we ignore other numerical factors such as $`c_2`$ and $`c_3`$. According to equation (28), more realistic estimate indicates that when the SSC luminosity is equal to the synchrotron one, $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ takes a value of an order of 10.

Since the above estimate depends on several numerical factors, we should examine carefully these subtleties. As for the value of $`C_2`$, the energy of seed photons for $`\gamma `$-rays of $`ϵ_{\gamma ,\mathrm{o}}`$ TeV is lower than about $`10ϵ_{\gamma ,\mathrm{o}}^1`$ eV for a typical value of $`\delta =10`$. Because of the Klein-Nishina effects, synchrotron photons whose energy is higher than this value is not available to inverse Compton scattering. Thus $`C_2`$ is expected to be less than 0.3. As for $`C_3`$, since electron escape may be identified with the expansion velocity in the downstream region of the shock, 1/3 is also a reasonable guess; higher values approaching 1 requires as rapid escape of electrons as that of photons, which seems to be difficult to realize. The typical ratio of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ to $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ is 10. Even if this ratio is 100, $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ decreases only by a factor of a few when $`s=2`$. An increase in the value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ by a factor of 10 will decrease $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ by a factor of a few for $`s=2`$. Thus, only when both $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ are larger than 100, $`u_\mathrm{B}`$ can be comparable to $`u_\mathrm{e}`$. We should note that since $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ is expected to be comparable with the value of the bulk Lorentz factor in the shock acceleration picture, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}=10`$ is a reasonable choice when the jet material consists of mainly electron-positron pairs or when electrons and ions are separately thermalized for normal plasmas (see §5, for further discussion).

Thus, the only major uncertainty in estimating $`u_\mathrm{B}/u_\mathrm{e}`$ is the electron index $`s`$. In a previous work of Takahara (1997), he examined the case of $`s=2`$, because this is the universal index expected for non-relativistic case (e.g., Blandford & Eichler 1987). In the present work, we allow this value to be less than 2, which better fits the emission spectra.

When $`s`$ is smaller, $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ becomes smaller. In Figure 3 we show the resultant ratio $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ as a function of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ for several values of $`s`$. For simplicity, other parameters are fixed at $`f_{\mathrm{syn}}=1,f_{\mathrm{ssc}}=1,\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=1\times 10^5,\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}=10,c_1=1,c_2=1`$, and $`c_3=1`$. Figure 3 shows that even when $`s`$ is as small as 1.4, $`u_\mathrm{e}`$ is larger than $`u_\mathrm{B}`$, unless $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ is smaller than $`10^3`$. Thus, the conclusion that $`u_\mathrm{e}`$ is about one order of magnitude larger than $`u_\mathrm{B}`$ is fairly robust.

Before we present detailed numerical results, we describe straightforward relations between the energy densities and power carried by relativistic jets. It should be noted that the energy density of $`i`$-th radiation component (the suffix $`i`$ corresponds to synchrotron or SSC), $`u_i`$ is related to the power $`L_i`$ as

$`L_i={\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\pi R^2cu_i\mathrm{\Gamma }^2,`$ (30)
where the factor $`4/3`$ accounts for pressure of relativistic matter and we assume $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1`$. It is worth noting that the observed luminosity is given by

$`L_{\mathrm{i},\mathrm{o}}={\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\pi R^2cu_i\delta ^4`$ (31)
in the observer frame. Hence the actual radiation power is smaller than the observed luminosity by a factor of $`\delta ^2`$ assuming $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\delta `$. Similarly, the Poynting power is given by

$$L_{\mathrm{Poy}}=\frac{4}{3}\pi R^2cu_\mathrm{B}\mathrm{\Gamma }^2$$
(32)
and the kinetic power of relativistic electrons is

$$L_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{kin}}=\frac{4}{3}\pi R^2cu_\mathrm{e}\mathrm{\Gamma }^2.$$
(33)
Thus, the discussion on the ratio $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ is straightforwardly translated into the ratio $`L_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{kin}}/L_{\mathrm{Poy}}`$. It should be stressed that $`L_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{kin}}`$ takes account of only relativistic electrons. In other words, the contribution from thermal electrons which should constitute a reservoir for acceleration and that of protons, either relativistic or cold, are completely neglected. We emphasize that, if we take into account of these components, it is clear that kinetic power is more dominant at least in the emission region of TeV blazars.

## 4 NUMERICAL RESULTS

Here, we present numerical results by solving the kinetic equations and searching for best fitted model parameters for three TeV blazars (Mrk 421, Mrk 501, and PKS 2155–304). The search is made around the parameters determined analytically in the previous section. The observed values are taken from those compiled by Kataoka (2000). In his paper, the multi-frequency observed spectrum is fitted with a polynomial function of the form of $`\mathrm{log}(\nu L_\nu )=a+b\mathrm{log}\nu +c(\mathrm{log}\nu )^2+d(\mathrm{log}\nu )^3`$, where $`a`$, $`b`$, $`c`$, and $`d`$ are the fitting constants (Comastri, Molendi, & Ghisellini 1995). Kataoka (2000) identified $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{br}}`$ and $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}`$ as the frequencies where synchrotron luminosity reaches a half of its peak value; the lower one is identified as $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{br}}`$ and the higher one is identified as $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}`$. In the same way, $`\nu _{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}`$ can be defined. However, since the spectra of high energy $`\gamma `$-rays are not so well covered, we do not put a heavy weight on his determination of $`\nu _{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}`$, but we simply assume $`\nu _{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}=1\times 10^{26}\mathrm{Hz}`$ as a starting point. It should be noted that these observables are not derived from the spectral fitting described in the previous section, but from the polynomial fitting, so that the chosen values of the model parameters above are expected to deviate from our definition by some factor.

Moreover, taking the sparseness and uncertainties of the observed data into consideration, it is natural to think some range of uncertainties are included in the model parameters, too. Such uncertainties are also investigated in this section. Here, we explain the procedure of searching these parameter sets. The range of uncertainties is different for each model parameter. Among seven model parameters, the index $`s`$ can be regarded as fixed. In contrast, $`R`$ and $`q_\mathrm{e}`$ are expected to have a large uncertainty, while $`\delta `$ is relatively stable. The search for model parameters is made as follows. We first choose a certain value of $`q_\mathrm{e}`$. Then, we adopt a suitable value of $`R`$ so as to reproduce the low energy spectrum of the synchrotron component, whereby some discrepancies will appear at the high energy part of the synchrotron component. Noting that the observed ratio of $`L_{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o}}/L_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}`$ is determined by the combination of $`B^2\delta ^4R^2`$, we can adjust the break feature of the synchrotron spectrum by adopting a suitable combination of $`B`$ and $`\delta `$. A slight adjustment of the value of $`R`$ is also made. Finally, the high energy end of the synchrotron component is adjusted by adopting a suitable $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$. In this step, slight adjustment of the model parameters which are determined in the previous steps is also made. The resultant spectral shape of the SSC component should be compared with observation, while the calculated SSC luminosity should match the observation. This comparison determines whether the chosen parameter set is allowable or not. The whole step is repeated starting from a different value of $`q_\mathrm{e}`$ to find the best fit model parameters and uncertainties. Although this is not a complete survey of the parameter space, we believe that this provides a reasonable estimate of the uncertainties because the most uncertain parameters are $`q_\mathrm{e}`$ and $`R`$.

### 4.1 Best Fit Parameters

#### 4.1.1 Mrk 421

Mrk 421 ($`z=0.031`$) is a well known BL Lac object and the first identified source of TeV gamma-ray emission by Whipple Cherenkov telescope (Punch et al. 1992).

Following Kataoka (2000), the observables of Mrk 421 are chosen as follows; $`\alpha =0.3`$, $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{br}}=2.5\times 10^{14}`$ Hz, $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}=1.6\times 10^{17}`$ Hz, $`\nu _{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}=1.0\times 10^{26}`$ Hz, $`F_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}=8.6\times 10^{10}`$ erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, and $`F_{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o}}=3.4\times 10^{10}`$ erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>. Substituting these observables into the analytic estimate described in §2, we obtain $`\delta =14.3`$, $`R=7.9\times 10^{15}`$ cm, $`B=0.31`$ G, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}=0.69\times 10^4`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=1.8\times 10^5`$, $`q_\mathrm{e}=3.2\times 10^4`$ cm<sup>-3</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, and $`s=1.6`$. Dotted line in Figure 4 shows the predicted spectrum obtained by using these analytic values.

This first set of parameters in fact produces much higher luminosities than observations, which is not surprising as explained above. Then we try to search for the best fit parameters by changing model parameters to match the predictions with observations. Finally, we find a satisfactory set of model parameters as $`\delta =12`$, $`R=2.8\times 10^{16}`$ cm, $`B=0.12`$ G, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=1.5\times 10^5`$, $`q_\mathrm{e}=9.6\times 10^6\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1`$, and $`s=1.6`$. In this fitting procedure, we fix the reference value of $`s`$, because $`s`$ can be determined with little error from the spectral shape of the low energy synchrotron emission. The thick solid curve in Figure 4 shows the predicted spectrum of Mrk 421 calculated from equations (1) and (3) for the best parameter set given above. The corresponding electron energy spectrum is shown by the thick solid curve in Figure 5. The ratio of $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ derived using this self-consistent numerical result is $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}=5`$.

The thin solid curve and the dashed curve in Figures 4 and 5 are for different sets of model parameters to examine the range of uncertainties in the values of the model parameters. The dashed curve is for the case that $`q_\mathrm{e}`$ is 50 times larger than the best fitted value. The thin solid curve is for the case that $`q_\mathrm{e}`$ is 50 times smaller than the best fit value. These two sets of parameters may be regarded as marginally allowed, although the discrepancy in the TeV range is fairly large. The resultant values of the model parameters are tabulated in Table 1. As is seen, for the larger value of $`q_\mathrm{e}`$, the values of $`R`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ become smaller, while the values of $`B`$ and $`\delta `$ become larger. For a smaller value of $`q_\mathrm{e}`$, the reverse is true. Table 1 shows the range of uncertainties for model parameters too. In particular, the ratio of $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ is uncertain by a factor of a few and the dominance of electrons over magnetic field is not changed. The values of $`\delta `$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$, and $`B`$ are uncertain by factors of about 2, 5, and 10, respectively. The size of the emission region is least constrained with an uncertainty by a factor of 30, but covers a reasonable range. These results can be roughly understood by combining equations (6), (7), (9), and (11).

#### 4.1.2 Mrk 501

BL Lac object Mrk 501 ($`z=0.034`$) is also a well known source of TeV $`\gamma `$-rays detected by Whipple Cherenkov telescope (Quinn et al. 1996). Observables of Mrk 501 are chosen as follows (Kataoka 2000); $`\alpha =0.4`$, $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{br}}=6.3\times 10^{13}`$ Hz, $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}=4.0\times 10^{17}`$ Hz, $`\nu _{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}=1.0\times 10^{26}`$ Hz, $`F_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}=3.5\times 10^{10}`$ erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, and $`F_{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o}}=4.5\times 10^{10}`$ erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>. Substituting these values into the analytic estimate, we obtain $`\delta =10.1`$, $`R=3.5\times 10^{15}`$ cm, $`B=0.55`$ G, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}=0.31\times 10^4`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=2.5\times 10^5`$, $`q_\mathrm{e}=2.4\times 10^2`$ cm<sup>-3</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, and $`s=1.8`$.

In a similar way to the case of Mrk 421, we find that a satisfactory fit is obtained for the parameters as $`\delta =11`$, $`R=1.0\times 10^{16}`$ cm, $`B=0.20`$ G, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=2.0\times 10^5`$, $`q_\mathrm{e}=1.7\times 10^3`$ cm<sup>-3</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, and $`s=1.8`$. The thick solid curve in Figure 6 shows the predicted spectrum of Mrk 501 obtained by numerically calculating equations (1) and (3) for the best fit parameter set given above. The corresponding electron energy spectrum is shown by thick solid curves in Figure 7. The ratio of $`u_\mathrm{B}/u_\mathrm{e}`$ derived from this numerical result is $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}=22`$.

As is for Mrk 421, the model predictions for the injection rates 50 times higher and lower than the best fit value are depicted by dashed and thin solid curves in Figures 6 and 7. The numerical values are tabulated in Table 2. Since the trend of uncertainties is the same as for Mrk 421, we do not repeat it here.

#### 4.1.3 PKS 2155–304

TeV emission from PKS 2155–304 ($`z=0.117`$) was detected very recently by Durham Mark 6 Cherenkov telescope (Chadwick et al. 1999). Observables of PKS 2155–304 are chosen as follows (Kataoka 2000); $`\alpha =0.2`$, $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{br}}=4.0\times 10^{14}`$ Hz, $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}=2.0\times 10^{17}`$ Hz, $`\nu _{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}=1.0\times 10^{26}`$ Hz, $`F_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}=1.2\times 10^9`$ erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, and $`F_{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o}}=5.8\times 10^{10}`$ erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>. Substituting these observables into the analytic estimate, we obtain $`\delta =35.5`$, $`R=1.9\times 10^{15}`$ cm, $`B=0.89`$ G, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}=0.34\times 10^4`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=0.76\times 10^5`$, $`q_\mathrm{e}=2.3\times 10^3`$ cm<sup>-3</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, and $`s=1.4`$.

In a similar way to the cases of Mrk 421 and Mrk 501, we find that a satisfactory fit is obtained for the parameter set given by $`\delta =33`$, $`R=9.0\times 10^{15}`$ cm, $`B=0.3`$ G, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=0.5\times 10^5`$, $`q_\mathrm{e}=2.8\times 10^5`$ cm<sup>-3</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, and $`s=1.4`$. The thick solid curve in Figure 8 shows the predicted spectrum of PKS 2155–304 by numerically solving equations (1) and (3) for the best parameter set above. The corresponding electron energy spectrum is shown by the thick solid curve in Figure 9. The ratio of $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ turns out to be $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}=3`$ for this model parameters.

As is for Mrk 421 and Mrk 501, the model predictions for injection rates 50 times higher and lower than the best fit value are depicted by dashed and thin solid curves in Figures 8 and 9. The numerical values are tabulated in Table 3, and the trend of uncertainties is the same as for Mrk 421 and Mrk 501.

## 5 SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION

To summarize, within the framework of the one-zone synchrotron self-Compton model, we determined the numerical values of the physical quantities of TeV blazars Mrk 421, Mrk 501, and PKS 2155–304 in quiescent states. Those values are searched for by solving the kinetic equations of electrons and photons taking proper account of injection, escape, and cooling of electrons and by comparing predicted radiation spectra with observations. The best fitted parameters and uncertainties are estimated. It is shown that the ratio of the energy density of electrons to that of magnetic fields can be determined within a factor of a few and the ratio is about 5, 22, and 3 for Mrk 421, Mrk 501, and PKS 2155–304, respectively. Thus, the emission region of TeV blazars is particle dominated. For other parameters, $`\delta `$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ are also determined within a factor of a few, while the magnetic field strength and the size have an uncertainty of a factor of 10 and 30, respectively. Since these results have important implications for the fundamental understanding of the formation and bulk acceleration of relativistic jets, below we discuss some of the further issues to be explored.

### 5.1 $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ Ratio

First, we discuss the value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ because it is important for determining the $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ ratio. From the theoretical standpoint, in the case of pair plasma jets, we regard it most likely that $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, since the shock first thermalizes a bulk population of particles and then accelerates them from this pool. On the other hand, for the normal electron-proton plasma, there is a wide range of possibilities about $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$. One extreme case is that protons and electrons are separately thermalized, which leads to $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Such a separate thermalization is supposed to be realized for non-relativistic shocks in supernova remnants. The other extreme case is that electrons and protons attain an equilibrium state, which means $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}\frac{m_\mathrm{p}}{m_\mathrm{e}}\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. This picture is conventionally assumed for models of cosmic $`\gamma `$-ray bursts (Sari, Piran, & Narayan 1998). In this case $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}10^4`$ may be realized, although the real value is likely to be between these two values.

From the observational standpoint, it is also difficult to determine $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$. Since the observed synchrotron frequency from an electron with the Lorentz factor $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ is given by

$`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{min}}=1.2\times 10^6B\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{1+z}},`$ (34)
electrons with $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}10`$ and $`10^4`$ emit synchrotron photons of $`10^8`$ and $`10^{14}`$ Hz, respectively, for typical values $`B0.1`$G and $`\delta 10`$. The former is well below the self-absorption frequency and the emission in the low frequency band is dominated by that from more extended regions. Since the latter frequency is well above the self-absorption, we must modify the model such that emission below $`10^{14}`$ Hz is not from X-ray emitting one-zone region but from a separate region.

In our one-zone model, to attain the conventional equi-partition state of $`u_\mathrm{e}=u_\mathrm{B}`$ by simply changing $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ alone, we need to adopt $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}1.7\times 10^4`$, $`3.2\times 10^4`$, and $`0.5\times 10^4`$ for Mrk 421, Mrk 501, and PKS 2155–304, respectively. It is of some interest that these analytically estimated value is near to $`10^4`$ mentioned above. For $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}10^4`$, the predicted spectra around near infrared and optical bands are difficult to match the observed data in the one-zone model. In this case, whole synchrotron spectra may be reproduced by a superposition of emission from inhomogeneous jets. An example of this kind of modeling is shown in the recent work of Katarzyński, Sol, & Kus (2001) about the broad-band spectra of Mrk 501 in the flaring stage by a one-zone SSC blob in a conical jet. The blob explains X-ray and $`\gamma `$-ray bands, while the jet explains the spectrum from optical to radio band. We note that their $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ ratio for the blob is similar to ours, irrespective of the actual value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$, for this flaring stage of Mrk 501 although they did not explicitly mentioned.

#### 5.1.1 The Case of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}=10^4`$

As discussed above, it is important to examine if the alternative case of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}10^4`$ and $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}1`$ for normal plasma can reproduce the high energy part of the emission spectra in quiescent states.

First, we check the case where $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ is still larger than $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$. The other parameters are fixed as the best fitting ones obtained in the previous section. The numerical results for Mrk 421 are shown in Figures 10 and 11. As is seen in Fig. 10, the low energy part of both synchrotron and inverse Compton emission is short of the observation. In this case, the numerical value of $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ turns out to be 2 and yet the emission region is kinetic power dominated. Hence we can rule out the possibility of $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}<1`$ for $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}<10^4`$.

The second case is $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}>\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ for which we analytically examine the expected trend. When $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}<\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ is satisfied, the electron energy spectrum is given by

$`n_\mathrm{e}(\gamma )`$ $`=`$ $`q_\mathrm{e}t_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{esc}}\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}^{s+1}\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}\gamma ^2\mathrm{for}\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}\gamma <\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$
$`n_\mathrm{e}(\gamma )`$ $`=`$ $`q_\mathrm{e}t_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{esc}}\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}\gamma ^{s1}\mathrm{for}\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}<\gamma \gamma _{\mathrm{max}}.`$ (35)
This regime is called fast cooling by Sari, Piran, & Narayan (1998) in the models of gamma ray bursts. In this case, instead of Eq. (28) we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{u_\mathrm{e}}{u_\mathrm{B}}}=9c_2^1c_3^1\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\mathrm{ssc}}}{f_{\mathrm{syn}}}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{f_{\mathrm{ssc}}}{f_{\mathrm{syn}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}}{\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}^{s1}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}(\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{br}})}{_{\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}}^{\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}}\gamma ^{s+1}𝑑\gamma }}.`$ (36)
Since the combinations of the observables $`\nu _{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}`$, $`\nu _{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{max}}`$, $`L_{\mathrm{syn},\mathrm{o}}`$, and $`L_{\mathrm{ssc},\mathrm{o}}`$ are the same as before, from Eqs. (8), (7), and (11), $`\delta \gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$, $`B\delta \gamma _{\mathrm{max}}^2`$, and $`\delta ^4R^2B^2`$ are not changed. From Eq. (12), $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ is proportional to $`R^1B^2`$ if we neglect Compton cooling. Thus, we obtain $`B\delta \gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$, $`R\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}^3`$, and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}^1`$. From this, we see that stronger cooling, i.e., smaller values of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$, implies smaller magnetic field strength and beaming factor and larger size and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$. This is not a favorable choice of parameters, because their direction of changes is contradictory to the observational facts about strong beaming and rapid time variability. Therefore fast cooling regime is not favored. We thus conclude that our conclusion on kinetic power doninance is fairly robust.

### 5.2 Proton Components

It is interesting to know what constraints on the jet material can be obtained from this analysis. Let us assume that the jet consists of relativistic electrons and cold protons and that there are neither thermal electrons nor relativistic protons. Then, using the electron number density for $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}=10`$ and charge neutrality, the kinetic power of cold protons is estimated to be $`2.4\times 10^{44}`$ erg s<sup>-1</sup>, $`7.8\times 10^{44}`$ erg s<sup>-1</sup>, and $`4.0\times 10^{44}`$ erg s<sup>-1</sup>, for Mrk 421, Mrk 501, and PKS 2155–304, respectively. These values are several to 10 times larger than the kinetic power of electrons. This small ratio of the kinetic power of protons to that of electrons, not withstanding the large mass ratio, is due to a large average Lorentz factor of relativistic electrons. Because the proton kinetic power does not exceed the Eddington luminosity for a representative black hole mass in AGN, we do not make strong argument about jet material in this way alone. Also, in the case for $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}=10^4`$, proton kinetic power is less than that of relativistic electrons. Estimation of the large scale kinetic power of these sources can in principle discriminate between these two possibilities, i.e., proton-electron jets or electron-positron jets. Considering the weakness of the extended radio emission of TeV blazars, the same kind of analysis for GeV blazars seems to be more promising. We will analyze GeV blazars in the future.

### 5.3 Further Comments

We discuss the injection index $`s`$. For TeV blazars studied in this work, $`s`$ is smaller than 2. Some recent work have reported that in Fermi acceleration at ultra-relativistic shocks $`s`$ is larger than 2 (Gallant, Achterberg, and Kirk (1999); Kirk et al. (2000)), different from our adopted values based on observed spectra. This is an interesting open question and future research is awaited.

As for the ratio of the energy densities of the relativistic electrons to the magnetic fields, what is physically more meaningful may be the ratio $`(u_\mathrm{e}+u_{\mathrm{rad}}/C_3)/u_\mathrm{B}`$, because this corresponds to the ratio of the injected kinetic power to the Poynting power, while $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ corresponds to the remaining ratio after radiative cooling. The former ratio becomes 10, 41, and 6 for Mrk 421, Mrk 501, and PKS 2155–304, respectively. Thus, the conclusion does not change much, although somewhat strengthened.

As most of the previous work, we also neglected the correction for the absorption of TeV $`\gamma `$-rays due to CIB. For Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 in quiescent states, this neglect seems safe, if the observed spectra do not much extend over the TeV range. However, for PKS 2155–304 of the redshift of 0.117, the optical depth for 0.35 TeV photons amounts to about 0.5, although the exact value depends on the CIB intensity and spectrum. Thus the intrinsic SSC luminosity of PKS2155–304 should be a little higher than the estimate given in this paper. Consequently, the ratio $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}`$ is somewhat higher than the value obtained above and our conclusion of the kinetic power dominance is strengthened.

Now, we shortly compare our results with previous work of others. Tavecchio et al. (1998) derived values of physical parameters in a similar way to our analytical method. However, in their paper, electron energy distribution is not calculated self-consistently. It means that normalization, index, and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}`$ of relativistic electrons are not derived from solving the cooling and injection processes but obtained only from a fitting of the observed spectrum with double power-law spectrum. Here we examine the case of Mrk 421, because this is the only source for which multi-frequency spectral fitting was done and the number density of the accelerated electrons was estimated by them.

Their best fit parameters for Mrk 421 are $`B=0.15`$ G, $`\delta =25`$, and $`R=2.7\times 10^{15}`$ cm, and their electron energy spectrum is given by $`n_\mathrm{e}(\gamma )=K\gamma ^{n_1}(1+\gamma /\gamma _{\mathrm{br}})^{n_1n_2}`$, with $`n_1=2.2`$, $`n_2=4.5`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{br}}=5.6\times 10^4`$, and $`K=1.7\times 10^5`$. Note that they are significantly different from our values. Their electron spectral index 2.2 is steeper than 1.6 in this work, and it produces a much steeper synchrotron spectrum at low energies. Their estimate of the emission region is more compact and more strongly beamed than ours. Their parameter values correspond to $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}=371`$ for a choice of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}=10`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=10^6`$, and the ratio does not much change for a different choice of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$. Thus, the adopted values by Tavecchio et al. (1998) would mean even more kinetic power dominated states than our results. Major reason for this difference is due to the choice of $`s`$, because replacing $`s=2.2`$ by $`s=1.6`$ leads to $`u_\mathrm{e}/u_\mathrm{B}=19`$.

Although we do not make further comparison with other work, we again emphasize that our method is superior to previous ones in that the break energy of electrons is self-consistently determined and direct spectral fitting is made.

We thank an anonymous referee for useful comments which help us to improve this paper. We are grateful to J. Kataoka for kindly providing us with observational data and for useful discussions. This work is supported in part by a Grand-in-Aid from Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan (11640236, F. T.).


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# CONSTRAINTS ON THE RADIAL MASS DISTRIBUTION OF DARK MATTER HALOS FROM ROTATION CURVES

## 1 Introduction

Rotation curves played an essential role in establishing the need for dark matter halos (Rubin, Thonnard, & Ford 1978; Bosma 1978). Assuming Newtonian gravity holds, dark matter is required in all spirals to explain the asymptotically flat rotation curves observed at large radii. The need for dark matter is less obvious at small radii.

Rotation curves provide strong constraints on the radial shape of the gravitational potential of galaxies. This translates to a constraint on the distribution the various mass components, both luminous and dark. Though the constraint on the potential is strong, there can be degeneracies between the contributions of the various mass components. In particular, the mass of the stellar disk can often be traded off against the mass in dark matter, leaving considerable room for differences of opinion about disk masses and halo distributions.

This disk-halo degeneracy has plagued the field for a good while now. Consequently, there is at present a wide diversity of opinion as to how important the luminous and dark mass are at small radii. These range between two easily identifiable extremes: maximal disks and cuspy halos. In between these is a range occupied by models with stellar mass-to-light ratios which are plausible for the composite stellar populations of spiral galaxies. Which of these various options one prefers is largely a matter of how one weighs the evidence. Dynamicists find much to recommend maximal disks. Cosmologists expect cuspy dark matter halos, for which the disk mass must be minimal. Those who study stellar populations prefer intermediate disk masses.

Ideally, data should dictate some resolution to this difference of opinion. Low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies can play an important role in this. The properties of these objects differ from those of high surface brightness (HSB) galaxies in the sense that the mass discrepancy is more pronounced at all radii. This goes a long way towards breaking the long standing disk-halo degeneracy.

## 2 Halo Models

The subject of this conference is halo shapes. Ideally, we would like a complete map of the dark matter distribution in galaxies, $`\rho (r,\theta ,\varphi )`$. Unlike many of the other contributions in these proceedings, the data discussed here provide little handle on the distribution in $`\theta `$ and $`\varphi `$. I therefore restrict my comments to the azimuthally averaged $`\rho (r)`$. I will focus on the limits of small and large radii, where the density distribution may be approximated as a power law: $`\rho (r)r^\alpha `$.

There are two basic halo models which are widely considered: those with constant density cores ($`\alpha 0`$) at small radii, and those with cusps ($`\alpha 1`$). The pseudo-isothermal halo, with a constant density core rolling over to $`\alpha =2`$ at large radii has traditionally been used in fitting rotation curves. Cuspy halos are motivated by cosmological simulations in which dark matter halos are found to take a form with a steep central cusp ($`\alpha =1`$: Navarro, Frenk, & White 1997 or $`\alpha =1.5`$: Moore et al. 1999), rolling over to $`\alpha =3`$ at large radii. These models are different in both limits, and data can distinguish between them.

## 3 Large Radii

It is well established (e.g., Sofue & Rubin 2001) that at large radii, rotation curves tend to become flat. That is, $`V`$ constant. This implies $`\alpha 2`$.

This is a remarkable fact, best illustrated by some historical cases where the rotation can be traced to very large radii by 21 cm emission. For example, Fig. 1 shows the case of NGC 2403 (Begeman, Broeils, & Sanders 1991), where the rotation curve is observed to remain flat out to 10 scale lengths. By this point, the luminous mass is totally encompassed, and its contribution to the rotation has fallen far below the observations.

This basic observation remains poorly understood. While a flat rotation curve is generally presumed to be the signature of the dark matter halo, it could well be an indication of new physics (e.g., Milgrom 1983). Even setting this possibility aside, models for dark matter halos do a remarkably poor job of explaining the flatness of rotation curves which motivated them.

The trick is in understanding why rotation curves remain flat for as far as they do. The pseudo-isothermal model was designed to do this, but in practice the disk contribution in HSB galaxies is large enough that the halo contribution is often still rising to the last measured point (Fig. 1). The observed flatness is a fine-tuned combination of falling disk and rising halo. This is even more true for cuspy halos, which do not themselves produce flat rotation curves, as $`\alpha 2`$.

There are enough parameters available to any halo model that it is usually possible to obtain a fit to data. However, the inverse is not true. If one tries to build ab initio disk+halo models, the resulting rotation curves have more curvature than do real galaxies (McGaugh & de Blok 1998). Flat rotation curves do not arise naturally.

## 4 Small Radii

While the strongest constraints at large radii are most commonly obtained from extended 21 cm measurements, those at small radii are provided by data of high spatial resolution. For HSB galaxies, some excellent CO data exist (Sofue & Rubin 2001), while for LSB galaxies (which are notoriously difficult to detect in CO) the best constraints are provided by H$`\alpha `$ data (Swaters, Madore, & Trewhella 2000; McGaugh, Rubin, & de Blok 2001; de Blok & Bosma 2002). These latter have seeing limited ($`1\mathrm{"}`$) resolution, an order of magnitude improvement over early studies of these objects in HI (van der Hulst et al. 1993; de Blok, McGaugh, & van der Hulst 1996).

High resolution observations of the shapes of rotation curves are useful for mapping out the shape of the potential at small radii. There are two issues to which the initial rate of rise of the rotation curve is particularly important: maximal disks and cuspy halos. I will discuss first the issue of disk mass, then the test for halo models (core or cusp).

### 4.1 Disk Masses

The mass of the stars in the disk is of interest in itself, and must be constrained in order to estimate the remaining dark mass. The luminosity and distribution of the stars themselves are well observed; the parameter of merit is the stellar mass-to-light ratio $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$. This can vary over a wide range, from the pathological limit of zero (minimum disk) up to a maximum allowed by the data (maximum disk).

In general, maximum disk works well to explain the shape of the inner rotation curve, especially in HSB galaxies (e.g., Palunas & Williams 2000). A natural inference is that the disk does in fact dominate where its rotation curve matches the observed one well. There is considerable ancillary evidence to support the supposition that disk masses are nearly maximal for HSB galaxies (e.g., Sellwood 1998), including our own Milky Way (Gerhard 2000). Many aspects of the observed dynamics appear to require that the disk contain significant mass, a conservative lower limit being half of the total mass at two scale lengths.

Though maximum disk works well in HSB galaxies, it makes less sense in LSB galaxies. Figure 2 illustrates several possible disk masses for the LSB galaxy F583-1, ranging from $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}=0`$ up to 12 in the $`R`$-band. A reasonable stellar population value of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}^R=1.5M_{}/L_{}`$ makes a small contribution to the total rotation everywhere. If such a stellar population model is anywhere close to the right number, as it appears it must be for consistency with the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation (McGaugh et al. 2000; Bell & de Jong 2001), then the halo dominates this galaxy down to well within 1 kpc.

Considering the dynamical evidence alone, one can certainly contemplate a much higher disk mass. The maximum disk $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}=6.5`$ in this case (de Blok, McGaugh, & Rubin 2001) if one does not allow the disk contribution to exceed the smooth envelope of the data. If one allows a little bit of overshoot and tries to ‘fit’ as much of the data with the disk as possible (e.g., Palunas & Williams 2000), then $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}12`$. Maximum disk is not as well defined a concept in LSB as in HSB galaxies. The required mass-to-light ratios are unreasonably high for stellar populations: this just transfers some of the mass discrepancy from halo to disk. Even with high disk $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$, the halo dominates down to small radii.

### 4.2 Cuspy Halos

Simulations of structure formation in the CDM cosmogony (e.g., Navarro, Frenk, & White 1997; Moore et al. 1999) now resolve the structure of individual dark matter halos. Though there remains some debate over details, there does now appear to be widespread agreement that at small radii CDM halos should have a cuspy distribution ($`\alpha 1`$). This is markedly different from the constant density cores of pseudo-isothermal halos traditionally (and successfully) used in rotation curve fits. A cusp has more dark mass at small radii, which reduces the disk mass which can be simultaneously accommodated. Cuspy halos and maximal disks are mutually incompatible.

The maximum allowance one can make for the cusp is in the limit of zero disk mass. This is obviously an unrealistic extreme: stars do have mass. So does gas, which can be significant in LSB galaxies (Fig. 2). However, allowing for a reasonable amount of baryonic mass limits the room available for a cusp, so as a conservative limit let us explore the case of zero disk.

Using the most recent high resolution H$`\alpha `$ data, we have interrogated the rotation curves of a large sample of LSB galaxies for the cusp slope they prefer (de Blok et al. 2001). The median $`\alpha =0.2`$: much closer to a constant density core than to a cusp. This is in the limit of zero disk mass. As one begins to make allowance for the stars, then the amount of rotation attributable to the dark matter is reduced, further reducing the allowed cusp slope.

There has been considerable controversy over this issue, with much discussion of how beam smearing in 21 cm data might hide a cusp (e.g., van den Bosch & Swaters 2000). The new high resolution H$`\alpha `$ data address this issue directly (de Blok et al. 2001; see also Blais-Oullette et al. 2001; Salucci 2001; Borriello & Salucci 2001; Côté et al. 2000). Fig. 3 shows the cusp slopes derived from H$`\alpha `$ data as a function of physical resolution. Resolution has the opposite effect from what is implied by van den Bosch & Swaters (2000). It is only the data which are poorly resolved which are consistent with a cusp. Such data are also consistent with a constant density core with a modest ($`1`$ kpc) core radius. On the other hand, those objects which are well resolved strongly prefer $`\alpha =0`$ over $`\alpha 1`$. All the data are consistent with $`\alpha =0`$, while none of the best resolved data tolerate a significant cusp.

The inner slope $`\alpha `$ shown in Fig. 3 has been derived in the limit of zero disk mass. Once allowance is made for the stars, the situation for cusps becomes even worse. While there may be very good theoretical reasons to expect cuspy halos, there is no guarantee that reality will be cooperative. The cusp-core problem is genuine.

## 5 Conclusions

Rotation curves provide strong constraints on the radial potential in disk galaxies. This in turn constrains the mass and distribution of the luminous and dark components of these galaxies. Disk masses consistent with those expected for stellar populations are consistent with the dynamical data, provided halos have constant density cores rather than cusps. Cuspy halos require abnormally low stellar mass-to-light ratios, and are strongly at odds with much of the data even in the extreme limit $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}0`$.

## Acknowledgments

I am most grateful to my collaborators, Vera Rubin and Erwin de Blok, for their long, concerted, and ultimately fruitful efforts. I thank Albert Bosma and Jerry Sellwood for their attempts to inject some sanity into the debate over disk masses and cuspy halos. All of us who attended this most entertaining workshop owe a great debt of gratitude to its organizers, especially Priya Natarajan. The work of SSM is supported in part by NSF grant AST9901663.

## References


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# On the Behavior of the Lifshitz Line in Ternary Homopolymer/Diblock-Copolymer Blends

## I Introduction

The Lifshitz point appears in systems with competing tendencies for phase separation into bulk or spatially modulated phases. If the appropriate parameter controlling the relative strength of the two tendencies is varied along the critical line of phase transitions a special multicritical point occurs at which the character of phase separation undergoes a change from bulk phase separation to the phase separation into a spatially modulated phase. The Lifshitz point is known to exist in magnetic systems -, liquid crystals , polyelectrolytes -, oil/water/surfactant mixtures , random block-copolymers -, mixtures of homopolymers and diblock copolymers . First theoretical interest in such systems was generated by the work of Hornreich et al. , who introduced the Lifshitz point and calculated the critical exponents for this class of universality. Most of the theoretical effort since has been concentrated on calculating the values of the exponents via application of various renormalization group techniques .

The aim of the present work is the theoretical description of the behavior of the Lifshitz line with varying temperature. Recent experiments  on symmetric isoplethic A/B/A-B homopolymer/diblock-copolymer mixtures in the vicinity of the Lifshitz conditions revealed many challenging phenomena not accounted for by the existing mean-field theories . In particular, one of the experimental results in clear disagreement with the mean-field prediction is the non-monotonous behavior of the Lifshitz line  with temperature. We will show that the wave vector dependence of the fluctuation corrections is responsible for the experimentally observable shift of the Lifshitz line from its mean-field value. The fluctuation effects will be taken into account within the one-loop renormalization group method.

We will put special emphasis on the comparison between the theoretically predicted behavior of the Lifshitz line and current experimental results . As we will demonstrate a major factor determining the character of this behavior is the value of the lower critical dimension $`d_l`$, a fact which has been little discussed in the literature. It is important to stress that the actual renormalized value of $`d_l`$ is not known at present. Therefore, since the mean field value $`d_l^{mf}=4`$ is close to $`d=3`$ — dimension of space of the considered polymer blends , we will theoretically analyze different types of behavior of the Lifshitz line resulting from different possible values of $`d_l`$ and compare them with the experiment.

## II Perturbative calculation of the shift of the Lifshitz line

We start from the conventional expansion of the Landau free energy functional

$$H[\psi (𝐪)]=\frac{1}{2}_𝐪\psi (𝐪)G_0^1(𝐪)\psi (𝐪)+\frac{\lambda }{4!}_{𝐪_1}_{𝐪_2}_{𝐪_3}\psi (𝐪_1)\psi (𝐪_2)\psi (𝐪_3)\psi (𝐪_1𝐪_2𝐪_3)$$
(1)
in powers of the Fourier transform of the order parameter. In particular, for the ternary mixtures under consideration the natural order parameter is the deviation (from the volume averaged) of the concentration of $`a`$ (or $`b`$, since the system is symmetric) monomers. The parameters of the Hamiltonian (1) for the polymer system can be obtained from coarse-graining of the corresponding microscopic Hamiltonian . In particular, near the Lifshitz line (to be defined later) the bare correlation function $`G_0^1(q)`$ can be written as follows:

$$G_0^1(q)=\tau +c_1(\varphi )q^2+c_2q^4$$
(2)
with $`\tau (TT_c)/T`$ being the reduced temperature. For the considered ternary mixtures the coefficient $`c_1(\varphi )`$ depends on the concentration of diblock-copolymer $`\varphi `$  and changes the sign with the variation of $`\varphi `$. Within the mean-field theory the Lifshitz point is defined by the two conditions: $`\tau =0`$ and $`c_1(\varphi _{MFLP})=0`$. More generally, we can introduce the mean-field Lifshitz line as the locus of points in parameter space $`(\varphi ,\tau )`$ at which the quadratic term vanishes: $`c_1(\varphi _{MFLL}(\tau ))=0`$. The Lifshitz line (LL) is easily determined experimentally by considering the position of the peak of the static scattering curve . If we begin increasing the concentration of diblock at constant temperature the LL is determined by the diblock concentration at which the peak in the scattering curve first shifts off the zero wave vector. A noteworthy feature of the considered polymeric system is that the temperature $`T`$ enters the Hamiltonian (1) only via the Flory-Huggins parameter, hence the coefficient $`c_1(\varphi )`$ turns out to be independent of temperature , so that the mean-field position of the LL $`\varphi _{MFLL}`$ is also temperature independent and is determined solely by the ratio of the molecular weights of the polymers comprising the mixture. This mean-field prediction was not confirmed experimentally. Instead of being constant, the position of the LL was found to vary with temperature, more precisely, it exhibited a non-monotonous behavior, which shows that fluctuations should be taken into account. This is hardly surprising because at the LL, when $`c_1(\varphi )`$ vanishes, the fluctuation corrections in fact become the only input into the renormalized counterpart of $`c_1`$ and thus always play a role.

Let us consider the renormalized correlation function. Note, that since our goal is to calculate the deviation of the LL, the renormalized quadratic term vanishes:

$`G^1(q)`$ $`=`$ $`\tau _r+l_1(\varphi ,\tau )q^2+c_2q^4`$ (3)
$`l_1(\varphi ,\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`c_1(\varphi )+\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )=0`$ (4)
The shift of the LL (which is temperature dependent due to fluctuation corrections) is denoted by $`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )`$. Within the approximation we use in this paper $`c_2`$ will not be renormalized. The renormalized parameter $`l_1`$ can be found by considering the Dyson equation:

$`G^1(q)`$ $`=`$ $`G_0^1(q)\mathrm{\Sigma }(q),`$ (5)
$`\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)`$ $`=`$ $`D_1(q)+D_2(q).`$ (6)
We consider in the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)`$ only the one and two-loop diagrams:

$`D_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{n+2}{6}}\lambda {\displaystyle _𝐪}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\tau +c_2q^4}}`$ (7)
$`D_2(q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2}{6}}{\displaystyle _{𝐪_1}}{\displaystyle _{𝐪_2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{[\tau +c_2q_1^4][\tau +c_2q_2^4][\tau +c_2(𝐪_1+𝐪_2+𝐪)^4]}}`$ (8)
For generality and ease of comparison with known results we have introduced $`n`$ — the number of components of the order parameter. Note, that for the polymer blends , whose description is the goal of our work, due to the incompressibility condition the order parameter is a scalar, i.e. $`n=1`$, as is indeed clear from the Hamiltonian (1). The $`D_1`$ diagram is $`q`$-independent and is therefore of no relevance to the renormalization of $`c_1`$. The first correction to it is given by $`D_2(q)`$. Calculation of $`D_2(q)`$ is performed easier in the real space. For the experimentally relevant case $`d=3`$ we use the $`r`$-space representation of the correlation function

$$G(r)=\frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{\mathrm{exp}(iqr)}{\tau +c_2q^4}=\frac{\xi }{4\pi c_2}\frac{1}{r/\xi }\mathrm{exp}(r/(\xi \sqrt{2}))\mathrm{sin}\left(r/(\xi \sqrt{2})\right)$$
(9)
to rewrite the expression for $`D_2(q)`$ in terms of $`G(r)`$ as follows:

$$D_2(q)=\frac{\lambda ^2}{6}e^{iqr}G^3(r)d^3r$$
(10)
where $`\xi =(c_2/\tau )^{1/4}`$ is the mean-field correlation length. In fact we need only the quadratic term of the diagram in powers of $`q`$, which is readily calculated:

$$D_2^{(2)}(q)=b\frac{\lambda ^2\xi ^8}{c_2^3}q^2$$
(11)
where $`b\mathrm{0.109\; 10}^4`$ is a constant. As it is clear from the Dyson equation (5) this result gives in fact the shift of the LL:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )=B\frac{\lambda ^2\xi ^8}{c_2^3}$$
(12)
Note, that we have obtained the expression (12) within the perturbation theory and therefore it is not valid in the regime of strong fluctuations. However, the scaling behavior of $`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )`$ in the regime of strong fluctuations can be obtained from (12) by replacing $`\lambda `$ with the effective coupling constant $`\lambda _r`$, and understanding under $`\xi `$ the true correlation length, thus

$$\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )B\frac{\lambda _r^2(\tau )\xi ^8(\tau )}{c_2^3}.$$
(13)
This formula immediately allows some conclusions about the qualitative behavior of the LL.

First of all, we observe that the correction is positive, which means that on the LL $`c_1(\varphi )<0`$, i.e. fluctuations shift the LL into the $`q_{}0`$ region of the mean-field theory. For the homopolymer/diblock copolymer blend that means that LL shifts to greater concentration of diblock, which is in agrement with experiments . Next consider the dependence on temperature. We have two regimes here: perturbative (small correlation lengths, at high temperatures) and scaling (low temperatures, large $`\xi `$). In the perturbative regime where the input of fluctuations is small, $`\lambda `$ remains practically non-renormalized, so that with lowering temperature $`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )`$ should increase simply due to the increase of $`\xi `$. In the scaling regime the main effect (as will be shown below) comes from the renormalization of the coupling constant $`\lambda _r`$. In fact in this regime we can obtain the scaling dependence of the correction from the considerations of dimensionality: demanding that the $`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )q^2`$ term of the Hamiltonian (3) have the same dimensionality in $`\xi `$ as the $`c_2q^4`$ term of the correlation function. If $`c_2`$ is not renormalized (as is our case), then

$$\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )\xi ^2$$
(14)
As we can see, in the scaling regime the correction decreases with increasing $`\xi `$ (i.e. decreasing temperature). Combined with the conclusion made above about the increase of $`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )`$ in the perturbative regime we come to conclusion that $`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )`$ exhibits a non-monotonous behavior as a function of $`\tau `$. This behavior is a manifestation of the crossover between the regimes of small and strong fluctuations.

## III Renormalization group study of the Lifshitz line

To describe $`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )`$ quantitatively we have to obtain expressions for $`\lambda _r(\tau )`$ and $`\xi (\tau )`$ in both the perturbative and scaling regimes. For this purpose we shall employ a renormalization group technique to the first order in $`\epsilon `$ (one-loop RG). Note, that within this method the parameter $`c_2`$ does not renormalize. The renormalization of temperature is described by the one-loop diagram (7):

$$D_1=D_1^a+D_1^{}=\frac{n+2}{6}\lambda _𝐪\frac{1}{c_2(𝐪^2)^2}+\frac{n+2}{6}\tau \lambda _𝐪\frac{1}{c_2(𝐪^2)^2(\tau +c_2(𝐪^2)^2)},$$
(15)
The above expression is conventionally split into two parts responsible for additive and multiplicative renormalization of temperature. For dimensions $`d>4`$ a cutoff at the upper limit in integration over $`q`$ in the first term is assumed. These two terms give the critical dimensions of the Lifshitz class of universality. The lower critical dimension $`d_l`$ is defined as the dimension when the first term logarithmically diverges at small $`q`$. The upper critical dimension $`d_u`$ is the dimension at which the second term logarithmically diverges at small $`q`$ for zero temperature. A cutoff at the lower limit of integration over $`𝐪`$ is implied in Equation (15). For the isotropic Lifshitz class of universality we obtain: $`d_l^{mf}=4`$ and $`d_u^{mf}=8`$. The real experimental system corresponds to $`d=3`$ so that we come to conclusion that we are situated below $`d_l^{mf}`$. This means that the $`D_1^a`$ term diverges at small $`q`$, i.e. for large correlation lengths and thus no phase transition of the second order is possible at a finite temperature. However, this value for the lower critical dimension is only the mean-field one. Fluctuations renormalize the value of the lower critical dimension. The calculation of the renormalized lower critical dimension is a formidable task, so that the true renormalized value of $`d_l`$ for the experimental system is actually unknown. Therefore, we will consider below several possibilities.

Going back to renormalization of $`\tau `$ by substituting (15) into the Dyson equation we obtain:

$`\tau _r`$ $`=`$ $`\tau _aZ_2(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{min}})`$ (16)
$`\tau _a`$ $`=`$ $`\tau D_1^aZ_2(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{min}})^1,`$ (17)
where for purposes of clarity we introduced the temperature with additive term $`\tau _a`$ as well as renormalized temperature $`\tau _r`$. The quantity $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{min}}`$ in Equation (16-17) is the lower cutoff imposed in Equation (15) in integration over the momentum $`𝐪`$. The RG treatment is based on the following perturbative expression:

$$\tau _r=\tau _a\left(1\frac{n+2}{6}\lambda _𝐪\frac{1}{c_2(𝐪^2)^2(\tau +c_2(𝐪^2)^2)}+\mathrm{}\right)$$
(18)
Likewise considering the fluctuation correction to $`\lambda `$ for its renormalized counterpart $`\lambda _r`$ we obtain:

$$\lambda _r=\lambda \left(1\frac{n+8}{6}\lambda _𝐪\frac{1}{(\tau +c_2(𝐪^2)^2)^2}+\mathrm{}\right)$$
(19)
These two equations are the starting point to derive the differential equations of the renormalization group for $`\tau _r`$ and $`\lambda _r`$. To do this we introduce a running cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ at the lower limit of the integrals in (18)-(19), differentiate both parts of these equations with respect to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and replace in the rhs the bare quantities $`\tau `$ and $`\lambda `$ through the effective ones. Thus we obtain:

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }\frac{\mathrm{ln}\tau _r}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}=\frac{n+2}{6}g$$
(20)
$$\mathrm{\Lambda }\frac{}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}g=\epsilon g+\frac{n+8}{6}g^2$$
(21)
where the effective dimensionless coupling constant is defined as follows $`g=\overline{\lambda }_r\mathrm{\Lambda }^\epsilon `$ with $`\epsilon =8d`$, and $`\overline{\lambda }=\lambda K_d/c_2^2`$, $`K_d=S_d/(2\pi )^d`$, $`S_d`$ being the surface of a unit $`d`$-dimensional sphere. As can be seen from (21) the fixed point of the effective coupling constant, $`g=\overline{\lambda }_r\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{min}}^\epsilon `$, is $`g^{}=\frac{6}{n+8}\epsilon `$.

Notice that the second equation is independent of $`\tau `$, therefore we solve it first and then substitute the result $`g(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ into the first one. Thus we obtain the solution of the differential equations (20)-(21):

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\tau _r}{\tau _a}}`$ $`=`$ $`Z_2(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{min}})=\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{n+8}{6}}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\lambda }}{\epsilon }}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{min}}^\epsilon \right)^{\frac{n+2}{n+8}}`$ (22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _r}{\lambda }}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{n+8}{6}}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\lambda }}{\epsilon }}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{min}}^\epsilon \right)^1`$ (23)
Equation (22) for $`\tau _r`$ allows us to obtain the critical exponent of the correlation length: $`\nu =\frac{1}{4}\left(1+\frac{n+2}{n+8}\epsilon \right)`$, which is a well-known result . Note, that in this system $`\tau _r`$ is expressed via the temperature with additive shift (RG generalization of Equation (17)):

$$\tau _a=\tau +\frac{n+2}{6}_𝐪\frac{\lambda _r(q)}{Z_2(q)c_2q^4}$$
(24)
Taking into account the renormalization of the coupling constant $`\lambda _r`$ and the propagator in the expression of the shift of the critical temperature can be found by considering the higher-order corrections to the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)`$. It is clear that the infrared behavior of these corrections is controlled by the momentum $`q`$, which is the argument of the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)`$. This demands to write $`\lambda _r(q)`$ and $`Z_2(q)`$ under the integral in (24) as functions of the external momentum $`q`$. The relation (24) makes the one-loop RG scheme for renormalization of $`\tau _r`$ and $`\lambda _r`$ complete. Now, using the relation between $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`\xi `$ (see below) we can obtain from Equation (22) $`\xi (\tau )`$, which substituted into (23) will give $`\lambda _r(\tau )`$. The two dependences substituted in turn into the formula for $`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1`$ (13) will give our final result — the deviation of the LL from the mean-field value as a function of temperature. In order to find relation between the cutoff wave vector $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{min}}`$ and the correlation length $`\xi `$, one should find the perturbative limit of the RG formulae (22) or (23) and demand it to be equal to the corresponding diagrams (18) or (19). Thus it is straightforward to obtain: $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{min}}=\xi ^1`$. Using this relation and introducing reduced variables we can rewrite Equation (22)–(24) as follows:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\tau }_r}{\stackrel{~}{\tau }_a}}`$ $``$ $`Z_2(\xi )=\left(1+\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\xi ^\epsilon \right)^{\frac{n+2}{n+8}},\stackrel{~}{\tau }_a=\stackrel{~}{\tau }+a{\displaystyle _{\xi ^1}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_r(q)}{Z_2(q)q^4}}q^{d1}𝑑q`$ (25)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_r}{\stackrel{~}{\lambda }}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1+\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\xi ^\epsilon \right)^1`$ (26)
where the reduced variables are: $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\frac{n+8}{6}\frac{\overline{\lambda }}{\epsilon }`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }\frac{\tau }{c_2}`$, and the constant $`a\frac{n+2}{n+8}\epsilon `$. However the relation $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{min}}=\xi ^1`$ is asymptotically correct only in the vicinity of the upper critical dimension $`d_u=8`$ and we do not expect it to hold for the considered experimental situation $`d=3`$. Therefore, we only know that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{min}}\xi ^1`$ with the prefactor being unknown. In this situation the constants $`a`$ and a new constant $`f`$ (defined via $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }f\lambda /c_2^2`$) become essentially fit parameters of the theory. The expression for $`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )`$ in reduced variables reads:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\tau )}{c_2bf^2}=\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_r^2(\stackrel{~}{\tau })\xi ^8(\stackrel{~}{\tau })$$
(27)
Before solving the system let us make some further comments on the Equation (22)-(24), in particular discuss the issue of the lower critical dimension. To that end we should consider the scaling of the term responsible for additive renormalization:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\tau a_{\xi ^1}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\lambda _r(q)}{Z_2(q)l_2(q)q^4}q^{d1}𝑑q\xi ^{1/\nu }$$
(28)
If $`d>d_l`$ then this integral converges on small $`q`$ and this addition to temperature can be neglected in the RG calculations as it is does not depend on the correlation length. Note, however that experimentally this correction is still relevant. Since the values of the fluctuation shift of temperature are different in the Ising and Lifshitz classes of universality the temperature of the LP is shifted to lower values then the transition temperature of the Ising class of universality. The situation of the lower critical dimension corresponds to logarithmic divergence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau `$, i.e. $`1/\nu =0`$. If $`d<d_l`$ then the correction diverges at $`\xi \mathrm{}`$, which precludes the phase transition at finite temperatures, the transition temperature goes to zero. According to Equation (28) we can consider the exponent $`\nu `$ in this case to be formally negative. As we have mentioned above the renormalized value of $`d_l`$ is not presently known, so we will consider the two possibilities: $`d>d_l`$ and $`d<d_l`$. Therefore, it does not make sense to use the exponent $`\nu `$ obtained to order $`\epsilon `$, since we do not expect it to be correct for $`d=3`$. On the contrary, using the scaling relations (supposed to be correct even for negative $`\nu `$) we will express the exponents in the equation for $`\xi (\stackrel{~}{\tau })`$ (25) via the exponent $`\nu `$ (generally the exponent $`\eta `$ is also necessary, however it is zero in the one-loop approximation). Thus, we arrive at the equation

$$\left(\stackrel{~}{\tau }+a\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{\xi ^1}^{\mathrm{}}\left(1+\stackrel{~}{\lambda }q^\epsilon \right)^{1+\left(41/\nu \right)/\epsilon }\frac{q^{d1}dq}{q^4}\right)^1=\xi ^4\left(1+\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\xi ^\epsilon \right)^{\left(41/\nu \right)/\epsilon }$$
(29)
Its solution $`\xi (\stackrel{~}{\tau })`$ substituted into (26) gives $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_r(\stackrel{~}{\tau })`$ and thus we can obtain the shift of the LL $`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\stackrel{~}{\tau })`$ according to (27).

The results of numerical evaluation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\stackrel{~}{\tau })`$ according to Equation (27-29) are plotted in Figure 1. We have considered two cases: $`d>d_l`$, $`\nu =1`$ — solid line ($`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }=1`$, $`a=2`$); $`d<d_l`$, $`\nu =1`$ — two dashed curves ($`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }=1`$ for both curves; $`a=0.5,a=2`$). If $`d>d_l`$ then for all values of parameters $`a`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ the LL has the qualitative form as the curve plotted in Figure 1: with decreasing temperature $`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1(\stackrel{~}{\tau })`$ initially increases (due to increase of $`\xi `$ as explained above), then for large fluctuations decreases (due to decrease of the renormalized coupling constant $`\lambda _r`$) and the LL ends at a Lifshitz point. Note that the LP occurs at the negative temperatures $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }`$ due to the finite shift of transition temperature discussed above. For $`d<d_l`$ the situation is more complex. At large values of $`a`$ ($`a=2`$ curve of Figure 1) the LL goes to $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }\mathrm{}`$, so that no Lifshitz point exists (we may say it is shifted to $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }=\mathrm{}`$). As can be seen from Figure 1 in other respects the LL of this case is qualitatively the same as in the case $`d>d_l`$. At small values of $`a`$ ($`a=0.5`$ curve of Figure 1) two solutions of Equation (29) exist at large temperatures (the one corresponding to greater $`\xi `$ is plotted with the dot curve in Figure 1) and no solution at small temperatures. Thus in this case the LL ends in a point at which the correlation length is finite, which indicates that this is a point of the phase transition of the first order. It is not clear however, whether this case represents physical features or is an artifact of approximations of the theory.

Comparing obtained results with the experimental data of Schwahn et al.  we observe that the experimental LL has the same qualitative shape. We would like to stress that the present study predicts that the Lifshitz line approaches its mean-field counterpart for high and deep temperatures, the prediction which is also in agreement with experimental behavior of the Lifshitz line found in . However, on the basis of the current data of Ref.  it is not clear which of three cases concerning the value of the lower critical dimension of the system which we have discussed above, actually takes place.

Summarizing, we have calculated the deviation of the LL from the mean-field behavior by taking into account the first fluctuational correction to the $`c_1`$ coefficient. The renormalized properties are calculated within the one-loop renormalization group. Our calculations are carried out in the immediate vicinity of the Lifshitz line, so that no crossover to either Ising or Brazovsky universality class is considered. The obtained behavior of the LL qualitatively agrees with that observed in the scattering experiments on ternary homopolymer/diblock-copolymer systems. The approach we have presented in the present article is based on the Landau-Ginzburg expansion of the free energy with phenomenological parameters $`\lambda `$, $`c_1`$, $`c_2`$. Of course, this fact restricts a complete quantitative comparison with experiment. However, we point out that despite this the agreement of the behavior of the computed Lifshitz line at high and low temperatures with experimental one is a strong support of the validity of our approach. The major reason for the uncertainty in the complete quantitative comparison with the experiment is due to unknown values of the critical exponents of the Lifshitz universality class. Depending on the value of the lower critical dimension in the renormalized theory the LP exists or it is shifted to infinitely small temperatures. More experiments are needed to determine which of the possibilities actually takes place, which would amount to experimental determination of the lower critical dimension of the system. We hope that this work will stimulate such investigations.

The authors acknowledge stimulating discussions with E. Straube, I. Erukhimovich, and D. Schwahn. A. K. acknowledges support of the Graduirtenkolleg “Polymerwissenschaften”.

## Figure Caption

Figure 1. The shift of the Lifshitz line$`\mathrm{\Delta }c_1`$ as a function of temperature $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }`$. Solid curve: $`d>d_l`$, dash curves: $`d<d_l`$. For all curves $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }=1`$.