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# A Search for Instantons at HERA

## 1 Introduction

Instantons  are tunnelling phenomena between topologically different vacuum states present in non abelian gauge theories which can not be described by perturbation theory. In the case of QCD, instantons (I) induce hard processes violating chirality. Deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) offers a unique opportunity  to discover processes induced by QCD instantons because a sizeable rate is predicted within “instanton-perturbation theory” , and instanton events exhibit a characteristic final state signature .

At the HERA machine, which collides $`27.5\mathrm{GeV}`$ positrons on $`820\mathrm{GeV}`$ protons, the predicted cross section is large enough to make an experimental observation possible, although the expected signal is still small compared to the standard DIS background. Therefore, finding discriminating observables based on the expected “fire-ball” like topology of I-induced events producing a large number of hadrons and combining these variables to a powerful discriminant is the key ingredient for a successful search analysis.

In contrast to the first pioneering studies which were concentrated on relatively few variables characterizing I-induced events , the analysis by the H1 collaboration  which is presented here uses dedicated variables and optimized cuts.

## 2 Instanton-induced processes in DIS

Instanton processes in DIS are dominantly induced by photon gluon fusion as sketched in figure 1, where a photon emitted by the incoming electron splits into a $`q`$-$`\overline{q}`$-pair. One of these quarks ($`q^{}`$) enters into the I-subprocess. The basic reaction in this subprocess is

$$\gamma ^{}+g\underset{\mathrm{flavours}}{}(\overline{q}_R+q_R)+n_gg$$

where $`q_R`$ ($`\overline{q}_R`$) denote right handed quarks (anti-quarks) and $`g`$ gluons. In every I-induced event, one quark anti-quark pair of all $`n_f`$ kinematically accessible flavours is produced. Charm and bottom quarks can in principle be produced, but their cross section is strongly suppressed. Chirality is violated by these events with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi =2n_f`$. Anti-Instantons also contribute to the cross section in the same manner, but here only left handed quarks are in the final state. The quarks are emitted isotropically together with a mean of $`n_g𝒪(1/\alpha _s)3`$ gluons and fragment into a densely populated band of hadrons with a width of about 1.1 units of $`\eta `$ 333The pseudo-rapidity $`\eta `$ is defined as $`\eta =\mathrm{log}\mathrm{tan}(\theta /2)`$, $`\theta `$ being the polar angle and the proton direction being the positive $`z`$-axis.. They are homogeneously distributed in azimuth. This band together with the relatively hard jet originating from the current quark form the characteristic final state of I-induced events. Since in each I-event a pair of strange quarks is produced, in addition an increase in the amount of strange hadrons is expected in the band region.

The actual number of produced hadrons heavily depends on the squared centre of mass energy $`W_I^2=(q^{}+\xi P)^2`$ of the I-system. It can be expressed in terms of $`Q^2`$ and $`x^{}`$ by $`W_I^2=Q^2(1x^{})/x^{}`$, where $`Q^2`$ is the negative four momentum vector squared of the quark entering the I-subprocess and $`x^{}`$ is a variable describing this process in analogy to the Bjorken scaling variable $`x_{\mathrm{Bj}}`$ in DIS. The instanton cross section can be safely calculated  in “instanton perturbation theory” only for large values of $`Q^2`$ and $`x^{}`$. Towards lower values the cross section calculated perturbatively steeply increases. Matching the instanton size and distance distributions in the QCD vacuum, which are fundamental properties of instantons, to high quality lattice calculations allows to derive lower boundaries $`Q^2>113\mathrm{GeV}^2`$, $`x^{}>0.35`$ above which the perturbative calculations are applicable.

The most recent calculations of the cross section for I-induced events at the HERA collider requires an additional cut on $`Q^2Q^2113\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ to further reduce theoretical uncertainties due to non-planar diagrams, which are not present in the calculation. In the kinematic region defined by the cuts required by the perturbative ansatz $`x^{}>0.35`$, $`Q^2Q^2113\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ and general additional cuts $`x>10^3`$ and $`0.1<y<0.9`$ the cross section at HERA is $`\sigma _{\mathrm{HERA}}^{(I)}=29.2_{8.1}^{+9.9}\mathrm{pb}`$ . The error given is only reflecting the uncertainties of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}`$. The cut $`Q^2>113\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ has not yet been included in the experimental analysis.

## 3 QCD Monte Carlo Generators

The instanton induced processes described above are simulated by the Monte Carlo event generator QCDINS , which works on top of the HERWIG  generator and calculates the matrix element of the hard subprocess. The default implementation of QCDINS is used with $`x^{}>0.35`$, $`Q^2>113\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. After the hard subprocess has been generated, gluons are emitted according to the leading logarithm approximation. The hadronization step describing the transition of the outgoing partons to hadrons is done using cluster fragmentation .

A detailed simulation of the hadronic final state of the background DIS events is provided by the two Monte Carlo event generators RAPGAP  and ARIADNE . Both generators incorporate the $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ matrix elements. The main difference is the treatment of gluon emission where RAPGAP implements the parton shower approach  while ARIADNE employs the colour dipole model . We will therefore refer to RAPGAP as “MEPS” and ARIADNE as “CDM” in the following.

## 4 Event Selection

The data were collected in the year 1997 when the HERA machine collided $`E_e=27.5\mathrm{GeV}`$ positrons with $`E_p=820\mathrm{GeV}`$ protons. The accumulated data sample recorded with the H1 detector amounted to an integrated luminosity of $`15.8\mathrm{pb}^1`$. A detailed description of the H1 detector can be found in .

A scematic view of a simulated QCDINS event in the H1 detector is given in figure 2. For this analysis the important detector components are the backward SpaCal calorimeter which is necessary for the measurement of the scattered positron and the liquid argon (LAr) calorimeter which together with the tracking system measures the particles in the I-band and the current jet. Because the positron is only identified using the backward SpaCal calorimeter polar angles are limited to $`156^{}<\theta _e<176^{}`$ which restricts the analysis to values of $`Q^2<100\mathrm{GeV}^2`$.

## 5 Finding discriminating variables

The most characteristic feature of I-induced events is the densely populated band of hadrons in the laboratory frame due to the isotropic decay of the instanton in its rest system. Therefore the measurement of the energy flow of the hadronic final state is crucial to the identification of I-induced events. The energy flow in the detector is reconstructed combining the calorimetric energy depositions in the LAr and SpaCal calorimeters with the momenta of low momentum tracks ($`p_t<2\mathrm{GeV}`$) in the central jet chamber according to the procedure described in . Also the second striking feature of I-induced events, the current jet, relies on this measurement.

From a theoretical point of view the most interesting observables characteristic to I-induced events are $`x^{}`$ and $`Q^2`$ since they are linked to the instanton size and distance which show a characteristic behaviour. Therefore reconstructing these kinematic variables of the I-subprocess from the hadronic final state is paramount to identifying I-induced events.

The starting point of the reconstruction of the underlying kinematics can either be finding the current jet or reconstructing the expected band of hadrons in the detector. Both ways have been intensively studied  and a preference to identifying the band first was given. The first step is to reconstruct the mean pseudo-rapidity $`\overline{\eta }`$ of the band by finding the $`E_t`$ weighted mean $`\eta `$ of the calorimeter clusters

$$\overline{\eta }=\frac{1}{E_t}\underset{\mathrm{clusters}}{}\eta E_t$$

and define the band by $`\eta _B[\overline{\eta }1.1,\overline{\eta }+1.1]`$. This spread of 1.1 rapidity units of the band is expected from basic theoretical considerations.

The second step is to find the current jet which has roughly an $`E_t`$ of $`5\mathrm{GeV}`$, as can be seen in figure 4. Using the CONE jet algorithm with a cone radius of $`R=\sqrt{(\eta ^2+\varphi ^2)}=0.5`$ allows to identify the jet in about 70% of the cases. The reason for the relatively small cone size is the fact that the correct current jet can also be directed into the I-band and thus a bigger cone radius is prone to pick up more energy from the band while the cone size is still sufficient to find jets and reconstruct their kinematics reliably when they are well separated from the band. If the jet is emitted into the same $`\eta `$ and $`\varphi `$ region as the band, then the clusters belonging to the jet are removed from the band. After the reconstruction of the jet $`Q^2`$ can be calculated and assuming the invariant mass of the band to be the mass $`W_I`$ of the instanton allows to derive $`x^{}`$ (see figure 1).

The tagged band can now also be exploited to calculate properties that should be characteristic to the particles produced by an instanton transition. That is a high isotropy of the outgoing particles, a high number of charged particles which can be seen in the tracking system of the detector and possibly an increased strangeness production.

For this analysis the following three variables have been chosen to characterize the I-induced events: The reconstructed virtuality of the quark entering the I-subprocess $`Q_{\mathrm{rec}}^2`$, the number of charged particles in the $`\eta `$-region of the band $`n_b`$ and the sphericity of all particles except those belonging to the jet, calculated in their centre of mass frame. These variables are shown in figure 3. Because of their potential in discriminating I-induced events from background and due to the good description of the data prior to any cuts these variables are used in a cut procedure to enhance the I-signal over the DIS signal. The distributions are generally described within 5% by the standard DIS Monte Carlo programs except for the tails which are only described within 10% (for the highest multiplicities up to 20%).

Three additional observables have been chosen which are used to monitor the remaining events after the cuts and to see whether they support the I-hypothesis after after discriminating against the DIS background. The variables are the total transverse energy of the band $`E_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{b}}`$, the isotropy variable $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ described below and calculated for the band and the transverse energy of the jet $`E_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{jet}}`$. These variables are described not as well as the first three, but still the description differs by about only 10%.

The isotropy variable of the band $`\mathrm{\Delta }=(E_{\mathrm{in},\mathrm{b}}E_{\mathrm{out},\mathrm{b}})/E_{\mathrm{in},\mathrm{b}}`$ is defined using the quantities

$$E_{\mathrm{out}}=\underset{\stackrel{}{i}}{\mathrm{min}}\underset{n\mathrm{Hadr}.}{}\left|\stackrel{}{p}_n\stackrel{}{i}\right|E_{\mathrm{in}}=\underset{\stackrel{}{i}}{\mathrm{max}}\underset{n\mathrm{Hadr}.}{}\left|\stackrel{}{p}_n\stackrel{}{i}\right|$$

where $`E_{\mathrm{out}}`$ will be small for a non-isotropic set of hadrons since then there is a direction $`\stackrel{}{i}`$ onto which the projections of the hadron momenta $`\stackrel{}{p}_n`$ is small and $`E_{\mathrm{in}}`$ will be large for the same set of non-isotropically distributed hadrons. Therefore $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is approximately unity for a non-isotropic distribution and vanishes for isotropic distributions.

## 6 Search Strategy and Results

In order to reduce the standard DIS background, several different combinations of cuts into the three observables $`Q_{\mathrm{rec}}^2`$, $`\mathrm{Sph}`$ and $`n_b`$ are studied and evaluated for their ability to separate I-induced events from the background by achieving a high separation power $`S=ϵ_{\mathrm{INS}}/ϵ_{\mathrm{DIS}}`$, where $`ϵ`$ is the fraction of events left after the cuts. 125 different scenarios where surveyed which represent all possible combinations of five different values at which to cut into the three observables. The following cuts are used: $`n_b>5,6,7,8,9`$, $`\mathrm{Sph}>0.4,0.5,0.55,0.6,0.65`$ and for $`Q_{\mathrm{rec}}^2`$: $`95,100,105,110,115<Q_{\mathrm{rec}}^2<200\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. Three different scenarios were singled out according to the following criteria:

The highest instanton efficiency ($`ϵ_{\mathrm{INS}}`$)

High $`ϵ_{\mathrm{INS}}`$ at reasonable background reduction ($`ϵ_{\mathrm{DIS}}`$)

Highest separation power $`S`$ at $`ϵ_{\mathrm{INS}}10\%`$

The values of the cuts chosen in the three scenarios as well as the number of events in the data and the two standard DIS Monte Carlo simulators is shown in table 1. The error on the number of MC events includes systematical and statistical uncertainties. The systematic experimental uncertainties are of an order of 5–10% and the two available standard DIS Monte Carlo models based on leading order QCD matrix elements and implementing different treatments of higher order parton emissions agree with each other within 20%. The number of data events is about 20% larger than predicted by the DIS models. Note that this is about the difference of the prediction of the two Monte Carlo generators and the background estimation is largely unknown in this extreme phase space region. Whether the excess can be explained by instanton induced processes or is simply due to an incomplete implementation of higher order parton emissions or due to another possible deficiency in the description of the DIS background, for example, an incorrect treatment of heavy quarks, remains an open question.

Looking at the three variables after the cuts of scenario C (figure 5) shows that the three variables which were used in the cut scenario would support the I-hypothesis while especially the distribution of $`E_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{b}}`$ and $`E_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{Jet}}`$ disfavour it. In both of these distributions data shows a softer behaviour than the DIS Monte Carlo programs while QCDINS predicts a harder $`E_\mathrm{t}`$ spectrum. Recent theoretical analysis shows, that this might be due to the lack of a cut in $`Q^2>113\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ which suppresses the contribution of non-planar graphs in the I-subprocess and which are not implemented in QCDINS. In fact, Schrempp and Ringwald have shown that it is possible to soften the $`E_\mathrm{t}`$ spectra of the jet and the band while not affecting the other four distributions by a cut against low $`x`$ and thus, by exploiting the strong correlation between $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$ in QCDINS and suppressing the contribution of events at low $`Q^2`$ .

It will therefore be definitely interesting to extend the analysis to high $`Q^2`$ where the theoretical uncertainties in particular on these two variables are smaller. In the following section a possible search strategy is presented.

## 7 A Prospect of a Search at $`Q^2>113\mathrm{GeV}^2`$

Since the expected cross section of I-induced events in the kinematic region ($`x_B>10^3,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.1}<y<0.9,Q^2>113\mathrm{GeV}^2`$) is by approximately two orders of magnitude lower than the DIS cross section $`\sigma _{\mathrm{DIS}}3000\mathrm{pb}`$, it is important to gain the highest possible signal to background ratio. This can be achieved by exploiting observables characterising I-induced processes. To find these observables a large number of promising event variables have to be investigated and the sensitivity to systematic details in the modelling of the hadronic final state has to be tested. This requires a sophisticated and fast discrimination method to find the appropriate combination of event variables. Range Searching allows to define such a powerful discriminant.

### 7.1 A Discriminant Based on Range Searching

Events can be classified as signal or background by estimating their probability density $`\rho `$ at the point of the event in the event-variable phase space, employing a Monte Carlo (MC) generator to sample the densities. In the case of neural networks (NN) this is done by fitting the probability-density with the adjusted weights of the neurons. To circumvent this time consuming procedure the density at each point can be directly estimated by counting the number of background and signal events in a surrounding box $`V`$. Given the ratio

$$\mathrm{}:=\frac{\rho (I)}{\rho (DIS)}=\frac{\mathrm{\#}I(V)}{\mathrm{\#}DIS(V)}$$

the probability of an event to be a signal event is $`D=\mathrm{}/(1+\mathrm{})`$. Compared to NN’s this method also has the advantage of not extrapolating into phase space regions where there are no sample events available. Thus signals from data events outside the region covered by the MC simulation can be avoided. Counting the number of events in the vicinity of a certain point is a problem known as Range Searching.

Range Searching algorithms have been developed which allow a search time $`\mathrm{log}(n)`$, where $`n`$ is the number of points that have to be searched . An algorithm using binary trees to store the events is employed, suitable especially for a large number of events and dimensions (i.e. observables). The MC events are successively filled into the nodes of two binary trees, one for the signal events and one for the background events, where the criterion by which the decision is taken to descend to the left or right of a node is given by the value of one of the event variables (see figure 6). While descending the tree this variable cycles through all considered discriminating variables. After filling, the position of every event in the tree is given by its coordinates in the event variable space. Classification of an event is done by searching in the trees for all background and signal events in the box $`V`$. This is done in the same manner as filling the tree. A more detailed description and the properties of this method can be found in .

### 7.2 Results

Starting with 35 variables based on the hadronic final state the best 12 were chosen by calculating the discriminant with all 2-combinations (pairs) of the initial variables and taking those variables which provide a high separation power $`S=ϵ_{\mathrm{INS}}/ϵ_{\mathrm{DIS}}`$ demanding an efficiency for instantons of $`ϵ_{\mathrm{INS}}=10\%`$. The number of considered variables is further reduced by calculating all 5-combinations and selecting those with the highest separation power and a small systematic variation of the background. The systematic uncertainty was obtained by using four standard DIS-MC simulators which were tuned to data on representative hadronic final state quantities, in the range $`Q^2>100\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ at HERA . The variables forming the best combination is shown in Figure 7. The separation power for $`ϵ_{\mathrm{INS}}=10\%`$ is $`S=126`$. In Figure 8 the shape normalized discriminant $`D`$ is shown for the I-induced and the background events, as well as the distribution for $`D>0.9`$ normalized to a luminosity of $`100\mathrm{pb}^1`$ which is comparable to that already collected by each of the HERA experiments H1 and ZEUS. An event sample can be isolated where half of the events are expected to be due to instantons while the I-efficiency is still 10%.

In addition the reconstruction of $`x^{}`$ and $`Q^{}2`$ was studied before and after a cut on $`D`$. As can be seen from figure 9, a cut on the discriminant at $`D>0.95`$ improves the reconstruction of both variables strongly. The events which were selected by the discriminant are very I-like and therefore the reconstruction based on ideal I-events is successful.

## 8 An Outlook on Proving Chirality Violation

The one property of I-induced events which is not present in standard deep inelastic scattering is chirality violation. Therefore finding events which violate chirality would be a strong hint for I-induced processes.

In every I-induced event chirality is violated by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi =2n_f`$, meaning that all the outgoing quarks are right handed (or all left handed, in the case of anti-instantons). In addition, in every I-induced event a pair of $`s`$-$`\overline{s}`$ quarks is produced. The decay of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ baryons might provide a unique way of measuring the polarization of these strange quarks, provided both quarks form a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$-baryons after hadronization respectively. However, the problem here is that a large fraction of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-baryons contain $`s`$-quarks stemming from fragmentation. So far, no efficient selection mechanism has been found to select $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-pairs containing only strange quarks produced in the hard instanton process. Inferring the polarization of the $`s`$-quark from the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-decay has been well studied in polarized deep inelastic scattering .

An additional problem of such an analysis is the relatively low detector efficiency for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-baryons which is of the order of 25% for a rapidity range of $`|\eta |<1.3`$ for the H1-detector, which leads to only a 6% chance of finding both $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-baryons in an event.

## 9 Conclusions

H1 has conducted a search for I-induced events in the kinematic range of $`x_{\mathrm{Bj}}>10^3`$, $`0.1<y<0.6`$ and $`\theta _{\mathrm{el}}>156^{}`$ using 1997 data. Using a simple cut technique the standard DIS background has been suppressed up to the 0.1% level while retaining 10% of the I-induced events. More events were found in the data than predicted by the DIS Monte Carlo programs. Nevertheless this excess is not conclusive since it is of the order of the difference of the Monte Carlo predictions. While four out of the six distributions that were studied would support the I-hypothesis after these cuts, the $`E_\mathrm{t}`$ spectra of the band and the jet do not favour it. However, recent theoretical analysis has shown that this discrepancy can be explained by the lack of a cut $`Q^2>113\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ which suppresses non-planar graphs not present in the QCDINS Monte Carlo simulator.

It is therefore of high interest to extend the analysis to this range of $`Q^2`$ to reduce the theoretical uncertainties. A first survey of the prospects of such a search was done using the Range Searching method to discriminate between the I-signal and the DIS background. The results are very promising since this method allows to choose combinations of observables with small systematic uncertainties in the final discriminant and a high separation power.

A possibility of measuring the chirality violation of the I-induced events via the decay of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-baryons is in principle possible if an efficient mechanism to select $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-baryons containing only strange quarks from the hard I-process can be found and experimental difficulties can be overcome. In any case such an analysis will require a very large luminosity and an isolated data sample where the contamination from standard DIS processes is low.

## 10 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank A. Ringwald and F. Schrempp for many enlightening and delighting discussions about instantons and for their invaluable tool QCDINS. T. Carli and S. Mikocki I would like to thank for their fruitful collaboration in this hunt for instantons. I am very grateful to Chr. Risler for providing the information on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-identification, and M. zur Nedden and P. Schleper for their careful reading of this paper.


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# Superconductor-insulator quantum phase transition in a single Josephson junction

## I Introduction

Mesoscopic Josephson junctions are well known to exhibit a variety of intriguing phenomena which are of primary importance both from a fundamental point of view, as well as for various applications including quantum-state engineering with electronic devices. Among these are macroscopic quantum tunneling with dissipation, Coulomb blockade, macroscopic quantum coherence, and dissipative quantum phase transitions. Recent progress in nanolithographic techniques allows one to routinely fabricate ultrasmall tunnel junctions with capacitances $`C`$ as low as $`10^{15}10^{16}`$ F, and to perform detailed experimental studies of various features related to the above phenomena.

In the course of these studies it was realized – both theoretically and experimentally – that the observed properties of the system may crucially depend on the nature of the effective electromagnetic environment coupled to a mesoscopic junction. One of the most remarkable consequences of this dependence for Josephson junctions (JJ) is the quantum ($`T=0`$) superconductor-to-insulator phase transition (SIT) driven by dissipation. The latter is controlled, e.g., by the magnitude of the ohmic shunt resistance $`R_S`$ of the external leads. This quantum phase transition was predicted by Schmid  and subsequently studied in Refs.  (see also Refs.  for an extensive review of this and later theoretical activity). Thus, at low temperatures the supercurrent in mesoscopic JJs can be maintained only provided that quantum fluctuations of the Josephson phase are suppressed by dissipation. If dissipation is not strong enough, quantum fluctuations wash out the Josephson effect and no supercurrent can flow across the system. Alternatively, one can interpret this SIT as a destruction of Coulomb blockade for Cooper pairs by quantum fluctuations of the charge in an external resistor $`R_S`$. Experimentally this quantum dissipative phase transition for single resistively shunted JJs was studied in Refs. . The results of these experiments are qualitatively consistent with the above physical picture.

Similar experimental studies have been also performed for JJ arrays and chains. In that case an interplay between short and long-range quantum fluctuations of the superconducting phase in the presence of dissipation yields a nontrivial low-temperature phase diagram. A quantum dissipative phase transition was also discussed in the case of ultra-thin homogeneous superconducting wires.

It is worth to point out that the above physical picture is not restricted to superconducting systems only. For instance, it is well known that the problem of a quantum resistively shunted JJ is equivalent to that of a quantum particle diffusing in a periodic potential coupled to a dissipative environment. In this case, the phase transition from diffusion to localization occurs upon increasing the coupling strength to a dissipative Caldeira-Leggett bath. A formally identical Lagrangian also describes tunneling of electrons in a Luttinger liquid; see, e.g., Ref. . Similar physics was discussed for normal metallic conductors. Thus, even though below we will specifically address the case of a resistively shunted JJ, our results can also be applied in other physical situations.

According to the existing theoretical picture, at $`T=0`$ quantum localization of the Josephson phase should occur as the shunt resistance becomes equal to the quantum resistance unit, $`R_S=R_q=\pi \mathrm{}/2e^26.5`$ k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, independently  of the strength of the Josephson coupling $`E_J`$. In the limit of small Josephson energies (as compared to the effective charging energy of the junction, $`E_C=e^2/2C`$) this conclusion can be justified within a perturbative renormalization group analysis. Such an analysis can then be extended to the limit of large $`E_JE_C`$ by means of a duality transformation between the phase and the charge. Since in both limits one obtains an $`E_J`$-independent phase boundary at $`R_S=R_q`$, it is reasonable to conjecture that its position remains unchanged for all values $`E_J/E_C`$ including the regime of experimental interest $`E_JE_C`$.

Although this conjecture can further be supported by a number of qualitative arguments, as well as by the existence of a self-duality point, the structure of the phase diagram for moderate values $`E_J/E_C`$ still needs to be rigorously verified. Moreover, the results of recent experiments  could be interpreted as contradicting the above conjecture. In these works, the samples with sufficiently large $`E_J/E_C7÷8`$ were found to be superconducting even for shunt resistances $`R_S`$ substantially higher than $`R_q`$. This observation could suggest that the true phase boundary should depend not only on the amount of dissipation in the system, but also on the ratio $`E_J/E_C`$. A similar conclusion could be reached from the results reported in Refs. .

All these developments motivated us to perform an additional theoretical investigation of the dissipative phase transition in a single resistively-shunted superconducting junction, at moderate values of the Josephson coupling energy $`E_JE_C`$. Since in this range there exists no small parameter in the problem, it can hardly be rigorously investigated by analytical methods. Therefore, in this paper we analyze the problem numerically by means of path-integral (PI) Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. This method allows us to quantitatively study the effect of quantum fluctuations of the Josephson phase, depending on the dissipation parameter $`\alpha =R_q/R_S`$ and the ratio $`E_J/E_C`$ in the interesting parameter range.

Our main conclusions can be summarized as follows: (i) Our detailed MC analysis unambiguously supports an earlier conjecture that in the zero temperature limit the superconductor-to-insulator phase transition always occurs at the dimensionless dissipation strength $`\alpha =1`$, independently of the ratio $`E_J/E_C`$, (ii) at nonzero temperatures this phase transition is substituted by a crossover, which position depends on the ratio $`E_J/E_C`$, as well as on temperature $`T`$ and dissipation strength $`\alpha `$, and (iii) at $`T0`$ this crossover line approaches the phase transition line $`\alpha =1`$. These observations allow to fully reconcile the existing theoretical picture of the dissipative phase transition in a single resistively shunted JJ with the experimental results.

## II Quantum dissipative phase transition

We proceed within the standard path integral formulation of the problem outlined in Ref. . The grand partition function of the system “JJ+shunt” can be expressed as a path integral over the Josephson phase $`\varphi `$

$$Z𝒟\varphi \mathrm{exp}(S[\varphi ]/\mathrm{}),$$
(1)
where $`S`$ is the effective action

$`S[\varphi ]={\displaystyle _0^\beta }\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{16E_C}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi }{d\tau }}\right)^2E_J\mathrm{cos}\varphi (\tau )\right]𝑑\tau +`$ (2)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha \mathrm{}}{8\beta ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^\beta }𝑑\tau {\displaystyle _0^\beta }𝑑\tau ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\left[\varphi (\tau )\varphi (\tau ^{})\right]^2}{\mathrm{sin}^2[\pi (\tau \tau ^{})/\beta ]}}`$ (3)
and $`\beta \mathrm{}/k_BT`$. The first and second terms in $`S[\varphi ]`$ account respectively for the charging and Josephson contributions. The third – nonlocal in time – term describes dissipation produced by an ohmic resistor. An additional dissipative contribution to the action, due to tunneling quasiparticles, is usually negligibly small in the interesting limit of energies/temperatures well below the superconducting gap. Hence, in what follows this contribution will be ignored for the sake of simplicity.

MC simulations with this effective action have been carried out by the standard discretization of the quantum paths into $`N`$ imaginary-time slices. In order to maintain the accuracy of the calculation, as the temperature is lowered, the Trotter number $`N`$ has been increased proportionally to the imaginary time $`\beta `$. In our simulations we have taken $`N=4\beta E_C/\mathrm{}`$. This choice was proven to be sufficient in order to reach the necessary convergence of the calculated quantities: Repeating the calculations for some data points with larger $`N`$ did not change our results. We have employed the Metropolis sampling to carry out PI MC simulations at temperatures down to $`k_BT=E_C/125`$. A simulation run consists of successive MC steps, being updated all path-coordinates in each step. For each set of parameters ($`\alpha `$, $`E_J/E_C`$, $`T`$), we generated $`5\times 10^5`$ quantum paths for the calculation of ensemble-averaged values. More details on this kind of MC simulations can be found elsewhere.

In order to quantify the quantum delocalization of the phase we consider the mean-square fluctuations of the quantum paths

$$(\delta \varphi )^2=(\varphi (\tau )\overline{\varphi })^2,$$
(4)
where $`\overline{\varphi }=\beta ^1_0^\beta \varphi (\tau )𝑑\tau `$ is the mean value of the phase for a given path. The quantity (4) was calculated by means of PI MC simulations with the aid of Eqs. (1) and (3).

In Fig. 1(a) we present $`(\delta \varphi )^2`$ as a function of $`\alpha `$ for $`E_J/E_C=2`$. Different symbols correspond to different temperatures; from top to bottom: $`k_BT/E_C`$ = 0.02, 0.05, and 0.11. One observes that the phase delocalization increases as the temperature is lowered. At $`\alpha =1`$ one also observes a change of the slope in the data points. This change becomes more and more pronounced as the temperature is lowered, indicating the expected tendency to a vertical line at $`\alpha <1`$ and $`T0`$. Unfortunately the noise in the calculated values increases as $`T`$ is reduced, especially for $`\alpha <1`$, where one expects an insulating regime ($`\varphi `$ delocalized). For $`\alpha >1`$, however, the quantum paths obtained in the MC simulations are merely confined to a single potential well, and the phase $`\varphi `$ is localized (superconducting regime). A similar picture is found for all other values of $`E_J/E_C`$ at which our simulations have been performed. The results obtained for $`E_J/E_C=0.75`$ are presented in Fig. 1(b) for comparison. In agreement with intuitive expectations, one finds that the phase fluctuations increase with decreasing ratio $`E_J/E_C`$. However, the phase transition point $`\alpha =1`$ remains insensitive to this ratio in all cases.

In Fig. 2 we show the average mean-square displacement $`(\delta \varphi )^2`$ versus $`\alpha `$ for several values of the ratio $`E_J/E_C`$ at a temperature low as compared to the charging energy: $`k_BT=0.02E_C`$. Values of $`E_J/E_C`$ increase from top to bottom: 0.2, 0.5, 1, and 2. As expected, for a given dissipation strength $`\alpha `$, the phase becomes “more localized” as the ratio $`E_J/E_C`$ increases, since the effective potential barrier for the phase increases as well. Fig. 2 also demonstrates that stronger suppression of the phase fluctuations $`(\delta \varphi )^2`$ is always obtained when the dissipation strength $`\alpha `$ increases for a given value of $`E_J/E_C`$. Again in all cases we observe that the change of the slope in the data points for $`(\delta \varphi )^2`$ occurs exactly at $`\alpha =1`$, indicating the existence of the phase transition at this point.

Further information can be obtained by investigating the dependence of $`(\delta \varphi )^2`$ on temperature. As expected, in our simulations we observe that for all values of $`E_J/E_C`$ and $`\alpha `$, the quantum delocalization of $`\varphi `$ increases as the temperature is lowered. In Fig. 3(a) we have plotted the temperature dependence of $`(\delta \varphi )^2`$ for $`E_J/E_C=2`$. Different symbols represent several $`\alpha `$ values, which increase from top ($`\alpha `$ = 0) to bottom ($`\alpha `$ = 1.2). At low $`T`$ ($`E_C10k_BT`$), for all values of $`\alpha `$ one finds that $`(\delta \varphi )^2`$ follows a power-law dependence on temperature, as shown by the dashed lines in Fig. 3(a). In particular, in the dissipationless limit $`\alpha `$ = 0, it is reasonable to expect the quantum paths to be in a diffusive regime, so that $`(\delta \varphi )^2\beta `$. This is indeed confirmed by our calculations. In the presence of dissipation the phase diffusion slows down, as indicated by a decrease in the slope of the dashed lines in Fig. 3(a). From this plot we find $`(\delta \varphi )^2\beta ^\gamma `$, with an exponent $`\gamma `$ smaller than unity for $`\alpha >0`$. Again, the localization phase transition at $`\alpha =1`$ is clearly observable in Fig. 3(a), since essentially no diffusion of the phase takes place at $`\alpha 1`$ and sufficiently large $`\beta `$. Someting similar occurs for other ratios $`E_J/E_C`$, as shown in Fig. 3(b) for $`E_J/E_C=0.75`$. The main difference with the previous case is that the low-temperature regime $`(\delta \varphi )^2\beta ^\gamma `$ is reached at lower $`T`$ ($`E_C30k_BT`$).

In order to find the parameter $`\gamma `$, for each $`\alpha `$ we numerically evaluated the logarithmic derivative $`d\mathrm{ln}(\delta \varphi )^2/d\mathrm{ln}\beta \gamma `$. The values $`\gamma `$ obtained in this way are shown in Fig. 4 as a function of $`\alpha `$ for $`E_J/E_C`$ = 2. These results clearly indicate a linear dependence of $`\gamma `$ on $`\alpha `$ of the form $`\gamma =1\alpha `$. Thus, from our numerical analysis we can conclude that at sufficiently low temperatures and $`\alpha <1`$ the phase diffusion is described by the formula

$$(\delta \varphi )^2\beta ^{1\alpha }.$$
(5)
This dependence turns out to apply for all values $`E_J/E_C`$ used in our simulations. From a linear fit to our data points in Fig. 4 we find the transition point at $`\alpha =1.02\pm 0.04`$.

The prefactor in Eq. (5) depends on both $`E_J`$ and $`E_C`$. In the limit $`E_JE_C`$, one can demonstrate with the aid of the instanton technique  that this prefactor is proportional to $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{1\alpha }`$, where

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=16\left(\frac{E_JE_C}{\pi }\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{E_J}{2E_C}\right)^{1/4}\mathrm{exp}\left(\sqrt{8E_J/E_C}\right)$$
(6)
is the bandwidth without dissipation. For $`E_JE_C`$ this equation does not apply anymore, but the qualitative trend remains the same: For a given value of $`E_C`$ the prefactor increases monotonously with decreasing $`E_J`$; cf. Figs. 3(a) and 3(b).

To conclude this part of our analysis we emphasize again that – even though we present here our numerical results for the energy ratios $`E_J/E_C`$ = 2 and 0.75 – similar behavior is observed for other values of the Josephson coupling energy. In particular, we have performed detailed MC simulations also for $`E_J/E_C`$ = 0.25 and 3, and found essentially the same behavior as the one discussed above. In all cases, from our numerical data we obtained unambiguous indications of the quantum localization phase transition at $`\alpha =1`$.

## III Effect of temperature

Now let us see how the above physical picture is modified at nonzero $`T`$. Since any experiment is performed at a finite temperature, it is important to find out if the SIT can be observed under such conditions.

To begin with, we recall the argument  according to which superconductivity in Josephson junctions can be observed even for $`\alpha <1`$, provided that the phase diffusion is slow enough, in the sense that the characteristic delocalization time $`\tau _{\mathrm{del}}`$ for the phase $`\varphi `$ exceeds the time of experiment. This situation can easily be achieved in the limit of very large $`E_JE_C`$. In that case the time $`\tau _{\mathrm{del}}`$ is exponentially large, and no delocalization effects can be detected in a real experiment. This argument imposes serious limitations on the observation of a SIT for sufficiently large values of $`E_J`$ even at $`T0`$. In Ref.  this argument was extended taking into account the accuracy of the voltage measurements. The authors  argued that for their experiment $`1/\tau _{\mathrm{del}}`$ should be compared with the quantity $`eV_{\mathrm{min}}`$ rather than with the typical experimental time, where $`V_{\mathrm{min}}`$ is the minimum voltage detectable in the experiment. They also noticed that further limitations can occur due to temperature effects.

To explore the latter possibility we first notice that according to our result (5), at any nonzero temperature quantum fluctuations do not spread the phase $`\varphi `$ to infinity even for $`\alpha <1`$. The phase does not simply have “enough time” to diffuse, and $`(\delta \varphi )^2`$ remains finite though increasing with the inverse temperature $`\beta `$. Thus, at nonzero $`T`$ and not very small $`E_J`$ one might expect to observe a nonvanishing supercurrent even at small dissipation. This conclusion might appear paradoxical. One can argue that, if quantum fluctuations of the phase yield suppression of superconductivity already at $`T=0`$ (and $`\alpha <1`$), at nonzero temperatures this suppression can only increase further, because of an additional effect of thermal fluctuations.

In order to understand why this conclusion might not be quite correct, it is instructive to analyze the behavior of the (quasi-)charge variable canonically conjugate to the Josephson phase $`\varphi `$. As discussed above, at $`T=0`$ and $`\alpha <1`$ the quasicharge is localized, i.e. Cooper pairs cannot tunnel across the junction due to Coulomb blockade and, hence, the junction behaves as an insulator. At nonzero $`T`$ this behavior persists as long as the temperature remains much smaller than the effective Coulomb gap for Cooper pairs. At $`E_JE_C`$ this Coulomb gap is large ($`E_C`$), while in the opposite limit $`E_JE_C`$ it turns out to be exponentially small:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_r=\mathrm{\Delta }\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\mathrm{}\omega _p}\right)^{\alpha /(1\alpha )}.$$
(7)
Here $`\omega _p=\sqrt{8E_JE_C}/\mathrm{}`$ is the plasma frequency and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ was defined in Eq. (6). If the temperature becomes higher than the gap (7), $`k_BT\mathrm{\Delta }_r`$, Coulomb blockade for Cooper pairs (and, hence, the insulating behavior) is destroyed. This implies that the quasicharge $`Q`$ gets strongly delocalized due to thermal effects. Because of the uncertainty relation

$$\delta Q\delta \varphi e,$$
(8)
delocalization of $`Q`$ in turn restricts fluctuations of the canonically conjugate variable – the Josephson phase $`\varphi `$ – and as a result of that the superconducting behavior can be partially restored. The same scenario can be reformulated in the phase space. One just needs to compare the typical inverse time during which the phase diffuses at a distance $`2\pi `$ with temperature. In the limit $`E_JE_C`$ this inverse time $`\mathrm{}/\tau _{\mathrm{del}}\mathrm{\Delta }_r`$, and we arrive exactly at the same condition $`k_BT\mathrm{\Delta }_r`$ for the crossover line between “insulating” and “superconducting” phases. Within logarithmic accuracy this crossover line agrees with the one found in Ref. .

Although the above consideration appears to be sufficient at high Josephson energies ($`E_JE_C`$), no quantitative conclusion can yet be drawn for moderate couplings $`E_JE_C`$. In order to study this parameter range one can apply a simple variational ansatz, which leads to the self-consistency equations

$`D`$ $`=`$ $`E_J\mathrm{exp}(\varphi ^2_{\mathrm{tr}}/2)`$ (9)
$`\varphi ^2_{\mathrm{tr}}`$ $`=`$ $`k_BT{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}[C(\omega _n/2e)^2+\alpha |\omega _n|/2\pi +D]^1,`$ (10)
where $`\omega _n=2\pi n/\beta `$ are the Matsubara frequencies. At $`T=0`$ these equations have a nonzero solution for $`D`$ (which corresponds to superconductivity) only at $`\alpha >1`$, whereas at nonzero temperature one can get a positive solution $`D>0`$ also for $`\alpha <1`$. By resolving these self-consistency equations at different $`T`$, one can qualitatively describe the above crossover for moderate values of $`E_J`$.

This crossover can be studied quantitatively by PI MC simulations, using the effective action given above in Eq. (3). With this purpose we have evaluated numerically the correlation function $`\varphi (\tau )\varphi (0)`$ for different values of $`E_J/E_C`$, dissipation strength $`\alpha `$, and temperature $`T`$. After Fourier transformation, this correlation function is directly related to the “Matsubara resistance” $`\stackrel{~}{R}(\omega _n)=|\omega _n|\varphi \varphi _{\omega _n}/4e^2`$, which yields the system resistance after analytic continuation to real frequencies. This numerical analytic continuation is a separate complicated problem, which will not be discussed here. Fortunately, however, this procedure is not needed in order to establish the position of the crossover line.

Let us express the above correlation function in the form

$$|\omega _n|\varphi \varphi _{\omega _n}=\frac{|\omega _n|}{C(\omega _n/2e)^2+\alpha |\omega _n|/2\pi +\stackrel{~}{E}_J},$$
(11)
where $`\stackrel{~}{E}_J`$ is the effective (renormalized) Josephson coupling energy. It is easy to see that in the low-frequency limit the behavior of the correlation function (11) is totally different, depending on whether $`\stackrel{~}{E}_J`$ remains nonzero (superconductivity) or is fully suppressed by quantum fluctuations (insulating regime). In the first case, for sufficiently low frequencies the function (11) should inevitably decrease with $`\omega _n`$, while in the second case this function should increase and saturate at a finite value $`2\pi /\alpha `$ in the limit $`\omega _n0`$. Thus, by studying the behavior of the function (11) it is possible to determine numerically from the PI MC simulations the position of the crossover line at different temperatures.

In Fig. 5 we present our MC results for the function $`|n|\varphi \varphi _{\omega _n}`$ at $`E_J=2E_C`$, $`k_BT=E_C/20`$, and different values of $`\alpha `$. One observes that for sufficiently small $`n`$ this function increases with decreasing $`n`$ for $`\alpha =0.6`$ (upper curve), saturates for $`\alpha =0.7`$, and decreases monotonously for $`\alpha 0.8`$ (three lower curves). Thus, by studying the small-$`n`$ behavior of this function for different $`\alpha `$ values and $`E_J/E_C`$ ratios, we arrive at the crossover line for the temperature $`k_BT=E_C/20`$. Other temperatures are treated analogously.

The resulting crossover lines are presented in Fig. 6 for two temperatures: $`k_BT=E_C/5`$ and $`E_C/20`$. In full agreement with the above qualitative considerations, one observes that the position of the superconductor-insulator crossover line is shifted towards larger values $`E_J/E_C`$ as the temperature is lowered. The same trend is observed for all other temperatures used in our simulations. Combining these results with those discussed in the previous section, one arrives at the conclusion that the crossover line should approach the phase transition line $`\alpha =1`$ in the limit $`T0`$. We would also like to point out that the position of the crossover line obtained within our MC analysis is fully consistent with that found experimentally in Refs. . It appears, therefore, that deviations from the theoretical prediction for the phase boundary $`\alpha =1`$ observed in these experiments can be attributed to finite-temperature effects.

In summary, the results of our MC simulations unambiguously demonstrate that the quantum ($`T=0`$) superconductor-insulator phase transition in resistively shunted Josephson junctions occurs at the value of the shunt resistance $`R_S=R_q`$, irrespective of the ratio $`E_J/E_C`$. For $`\alpha <1`$, quantum diffusion of the Josephson phase $`\varphi `$ yields a simple scaling dependence $`(\delta \varphi )^2T^{\alpha 1}`$. Finite-temperature effects turn the phase transition into a crossover, which position depends on the ratio $`E_J/E_C`$, as well as on the dissipation strength $`\alpha `$, and on temperature. Our results are fully consistent with recent experimental findings.

###### Acknowledgements.

It is a pleasure to thank P.J. Hakonen and M.A. Paalanen for providing us with the results of their work  prior to its publication and for stimulating discussions. This work is part of the CFN (Center for Functional Nanostructures) supported by DFG (German Science Foundation). C.P.H. acknowledges partial support by CICYT (Spain) under Contract No. BFM2000-1318. A.D.Z. acknowledges partial support by ULTI-III of the EU (HPRI-1999-CT-00050) and the hospitality of the Low Temperature Laboratory of the Helsinki University of Technology, where a part of this work has been performed.


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# Chandra Analysis of Abell 496

## 1. Introduction

The detection of emission lines in the X-ray spectra of clusters shows the presence of heavy elements in the ICM. This fact alone shows that the ICM cannot be completely primordial. A significant part of the gas has been contaminated by supernovae enriched material, most likely ejected from cluster galaxies. Competing metal enrichment mechanisms, such as protogalactic winds, ram pressure stripping, etc., are powered by different SN Types. Therefore, their relative importance can be assessed if the spatial distribution of SN Type contamination is known.

The latter can be obtained through spatially resolved X-ray spectroscopy (e.g. Mushotzky et al. 1996). Since SN Ia and II explosions produce different amounts of different elements, the SN Ia/II contamination fraction in the ICM can be determined through the X-ray measurements of individual elemental abundances (e.g. O, Si, S, Fe, Ni) and their ratios. For example, SNe Ia produce roughly five times less Si than Fe (by mass) and SNe II produce in average $``$ 30% more Si than Fe. X-ray spectroscopic determinations of Si and Fe abundances can then be used to determine the fraction of the elements in the ICM that came from SN Ia and II, and also the spatial variation of this fraction within the cluster.

Using arguments based on the energetics of the intracluster gas, White (1991) has shown that protogalactic winds significantly pollute the ICM with heavy elements. Early Einstein FPCS spectroscopy (Canizares et al. 1982) and more recent ASCA spectroscopy (Mushotzky & Loewenstein 1997; Mushotzky et al. 1996) showed that global intracluster metal abundance ratios are consistent with ejecta from Type II supernovae, which supports the protogalactic wind model for ICM metal enrichment.

However, more recently, ASCA spatially resolved spectra of some nearby cool (T $`<`$ 5keV) clusters and groups indicates a significant SN Ia contamination within the cluster’s central regions (e.g. Dupke & Arnaud 2001; Dupke & White 2000; Finoguenov et al. 2000; Allen et al. 2000), which suggests that a combination of ram-pressure stripping & SN Ia secondary winds may be also effective in injecting metals into the ICM.

Abell 496 is a typical, bright, nearby (z$``$0.03), well-behaved cooling flow cluster. In a Ginga + Einstein analysis, White et al. (1994) detected a central abundance enhancement in this cluster. This central abundance enhancement was corroborated by ASCA (e.g. Dupke & White 2000), SAX (Irwin & Bregman 2001) and XMM (Tamura et al 2001). Furthermore, Dupke & White (2000) also detected radial gradients of abundance ratios, which showed that the gas in the central regions had been significantly contaminated by SN Ia ejecta. Our Chandra observations of the central regions of A496 allow us to expand the measurements of abundance and abundance ratios to smaller spatial scales (down to $`<`$1) and also to obtain well-constrained abundances of elements that have high SN-Type discriminatory power such as Oxygen.

## 2. Data Reduction

We used Ciao 2.1 with caldb 2.3. The data was screened as prescribed in the Threads page111asc.harvard.edu/ciao2.1/documents\_threads.html, complemented by the extended source reduction procedures by J. McDowell222asc.harvard.edu/ciao/wrkshp\_ps.html with the response tools developed by A. Vikhlinin333http://hea-www.harvard.edu/j̃cm/asc/dist/av/av103.tar. Approximately 70% of the data was seriously affected by background flares and was not used in this analysis. Both blank-sky444hea-www.harvard.edu/m̃axim/axaf/acisbg/ and local (from the S1 chip) backgrounds were tried. The latter was found to minimize flare contamination effects better. Thermal emission models mekal & Vmekal (individual abundances are free to vary) were used within XSPEC 11 to fit X-ray spectra. An isobaric cooling flow model Cflow, was used for the spectral fittings of the inner regions where the minimum temperature was either frozen at 0.1 keV or let free to vary. Some spurious spectral features were seen around 2 keV and are probably related to background correction uncertainties. Here we only show here the results of the well-constrained abundance distributions of O and Fe (Fig 2).

## 3. Results and Discussion

Fig 2 shows the radial distribution of temperature and abundances in the central 5 of the cluster. A negative temperature gradient is clearly seen, consistent with the presence of a cooling flow. There are indications that the minimum gas temperature of the cool gas component is $``$1 keV. The spectral fits when the elemental abundances were let free to vary (Vmekal) were significantly better than those where the abundances are tied to the solar ratios (large circles with brighter errorbars). This is most likely due to abundance ratios being strongly non-solar within the central regions. The best-fit values of this model (added to a cooling flow component in the central regions) are indicated by the solid plots.

Previous results obtained with ASCA by the authors are displayed by the dashed lines (90% confidence limits) for the inner (0-2) and outer (3-12) regions obtained with the same spectral models as those used here. There was a significant improvement ($`>`$99.9% confidence in the F-test) when the minimum temperature (Tmin) in the cooling flow model was let free to vary. The best-fit Tmin was found to be 1$`\pm `$0.2 keV. The Fe abundance gradient is confirmed. The gradient is apparently present even at very small scales (within 2), where the Fe abundance in the very center is found to be as high as $``$0.7 solar. The Oxygen abundance shows a significant radial enhancement, rising from $``$0.15 solar in the central 30′′ to $``$0.7 solar at $`>`$2, which is consistent with previous ASCA results, but marginally consistent with recent XMM analysis of this cluster (Tamura et a. 2001).

Fig. 3 shows the radial distribution of the O/Fe ratio and the correspondent SN Ia contamination (using SN yields of Nomoto et al. 1997a, b). The errors are 1-$`\sigma `$, and the confidence limits showed (dashed) for the bottom plot correspond to the SN Ia Fe mass fraction determined with ASCA from an ensemble of abundance ratios including O, Si, Ne, Fe and Ni).

The nature of the gradients in the radial distribution O (positive) and Fe (negative) implies on a positive gradient of the O/Fe abundance ratio. This gradient can be associated to a gradient of SN Type responsible for the gas enrichment. For comparison the O/Fe ratio for ”pure” SNe Ia is 0.03 and for SNe II is 3.8. The O/Fe ratio in the ICM of A496 varies from $``$0.2 in the very center (implying that the $`>`$ 90 % of the metals come from SN Ia) to $``$2.2 at $`>`$2, where an even mix of SN Ia and II contribution is implied. Fig.4 (left) shows a “SN Ia” map of the cluster. The map is obtained by dividing images taken within the FeL energy range by the O energy range image. The continuum is subtracted by selecting similar images within nearby frequencies. It can be seen that SN Ia distribution is enhanced towards the center.

The results above are consistent with the double wind scenario for ICM metal enrichment proposed by Dupke & White (2000). A vigorous protogalactic winds that injects metals produced by SN II uniformly into the ICM followed by a secondary, less energetic SN Ia dominated wind, which is partially suppressed at the cluster’s center due to the high ambient intracluster gas density at the bottom of the clusters gravitational potential.

Multiple X-ray filaments can be seen in the central region of A496 (Fig4, right). In particular a bright filament is detected extending from the nucleus to the East. The X-ray filament extension is $``$20′′ ($``$19 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc). Radio emission (VLA 1.4 GHz) of the region around the cD, MCG 02-12-039 is slightly extended towards the direction of the X-ray filament. There are optical emission filaments in the central regions of A496 (Fabian et al. 1981). However, the optical data is not spatially resolved enough for a fine comparison. The X-ray central structures are seen mostly at the medium energy range (0.8-1.5 keV). A more detailed discussion about the morphological structures in A496 will be made in a future work (Dupke & White 2001).

## References

Allen, S. W. et al. 2000, MNRAS, 322, 589

Canizares, C. et al. 1982, ApJ, 262, 33

Dupke, R. & Arnaud, K. 2001, ApJ, 548, 141

Dupke, R. & White, R. III 2000, ApJ, 537, 123

Dupke, R. & White, R. III 2001, in preparation

Fabian, A. et al 1981, MNRAS, 196, 35

Finoguenov, A et al. 2000, ApJ, 544, 188

Irwin, J. & Bregman, J. 2001, ApJ, 546, 150

Mushotzky, R. F. et al. 1996, ApJ, 466, 686

Mushotzky, R. F. & Loewenstein, M. 1997, ApJ, 481, L63

Nomoto, K. et al. 1997a, Nuclear Physics A, Vol. A621, 467c

Nomoto, K. et al. 1997b, Nuclear Physics A, Vol. A616, 79

Tamura, T. et al. 2001, AA, accepted (astro-ph/0109387)

White, R. E. III 1991, ApJ, 367, 69


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# UTHEP-451UTCCP-P-116 Maximum entropy analysis of hadron spectral functions and excited states in quenched lattice QCDTalk presented by T. Yamazaki

## 1 Introduction

The spectral function $`f(\omega )`$ of hadrons includes information such as masses and decay constants for various bound states and the continuum spectrum for multi-particle states. Recently the maximum entropy method  (MEM) has been employed in order to extract the spectral function from lattice QCD data .

In this article we apply the MEM to the quenched lattice QCD data for pseudoscalar(PS) and vector(V) mesons previously calculated at $`\beta =`$ 5.90, 6.10, 6.25, and 6.47 . We present the corresponding spectral functions for the case of a point source, and check the reliability of the MEM by comparing the masses and decay constants from the spectral function with those from the exponential fit. We then extract the masses and decay constants for the first excited state in the continuum limit. For details we refer to ref. .

## 2 Maximum entropy method

In the MEM the spectral function is determined by maximizing the quantity P\[$`F|DH`$\], which is the conditional probability of the spectral function $`F`$ for a given data $`D`$ and all prior knowledge $`H`$ such as $`f(\omega )0`$. By Bayes’s theorem this probability is replaced with $`\mathrm{P}[D|FH]\mathrm{P}[F|H],`$ where P\[$`D|FH`$\] is proportional to exp$`(\chi ^2/2)`$ with $`\chi ^2`$ the standard chi-squared, and P\[$`F|H`$\] to exp$`(\alpha S(f))`$ with $`\alpha `$ a real positive parameter. Here the entropy $`S(f)`$  is defined by $`f(\omega )`$ and a positive function called model. Combining these two factors, we can determine the most probable spectral function as the solution of the equation $`Q_\alpha /f=0`$, where $`Q_\alpha =\alpha S(f)\chi ^2/2`$. Finally the result is averaged over $`\alpha `$ with a weight factor P\[$`\alpha |DH`$\].

## 3 Results

In Fig. 1 a typical result for the spectral functions of $`\rho `$ meson is presented at $`\beta =`$ 5.90 and 6.47 for three different values of $`m_\pi /m_\rho `$. The parameters of the MEM analysis are compiled in ref. . At each $`\beta `$ one observes, as expected, that the peaks move to smaller $`\omega a`$ as quark mass decreases. As $`\beta `$ increases, the peaks of the ground and the first excited state also move to smaller $`\omega a`$ as expected. In addition the number of peaks increases, since higher excited states appear below the cutoff $`\pi /a`$ at larger $`\beta `$. While the peak of the ground state is very narrow, the peaks for the higher states have larger widths, the reason for which is not understood at present.

### 3.1 Mass

The mass of a state is determined from the position of the peak in the spectral function. To check the reliability of this analysis, the masses of the ground and the first excited state obtained in this way are compared with those from the double exponential fit of propagators for the point and smeared sources. At $`\beta =5.90`$ for $`\rho `$ meson, the two results for the ground state agree, and those for the first excited state are consistent within errors, as seen in Fig. 2.

The first excited state masses for pseudoscalar and vector mesons in the chiral limit at each $`\beta `$ are extrapolated to the continuum limit in Fig. 3. The error for the vector meson at $`\beta =5.90`$ is smaller than that obtained by the exponential fit(open square), and our result is consistent with that of ref. (open triangle). In the continuum limit we obtain $`m_{\pi _1}=660(590)`$ MeV and $`m_{\rho _1}=1540(570)`$ MeV, which are consistent with the experimental values, though the errors are large.

### 3.2 Decay constant

The decay constant is related to the area of the peak in the spectral function , i.e., $`f_\pi ^22m_q_{peak}𝑑\omega f_{\mathrm{P}S}(\omega )/m_\pi ^3`$ for pseudoscalar meson and $`f_\rho ^2_{peak}𝑑\omega f_\mathrm{V}(\omega )/m_\rho ^3`$ for vector meson.

As shown in Fig. 4, the ground state decay constants for both mesons in the chiral limit are consistent with the results obtained by the exponential fit at each $`\beta `$ and in the continuum limit.

The decay constants are determined also for the first excited state. For the excited $`\pi `$ meson the decay constant vanishes in the chiral limit, since $`f_{\pi _1}m_q/m_{\pi _1}^2`$ by definition. On the other hand, in Fig. 5, the decay constant for $`\rho `$ meson is finite in this limit, and we obtain $`f_{\rho _1}=0.085(36)`$ in the continuum limit.

### 3.3 Unphysical state

We observe in Fig. 1 that there is a peak at $`\omega a2`$ almost independent of $`\beta `$. A similar peak is also present in the pseudoscalar channel. Apparently the masses of these states in physical units diverge in the continuum limit, as seen in Fig. 6. Here we interpret these states as bound states of two fermion doublers : In free theory the mass of a two doublers system, each with a spatial momentum $`\pi a`$, is $`2\times \mathrm{log}(3)2.2`$, which is interestingly close to $`\omega a2`$. The difference may be ascribed to its binding energy. We note that the bound state of a physical quark and a doubler can not appear at zero spatial momentum.

## 4 Conclusion

We have applied the maximum entropy method to our precision quenched lattice QCD data  to extract the spectral functions for pseudoscalar and vector mesons. The masses and the decay constants extracted from the spectral functions for the ground state are consistent with the ones determined by the exponential fit, while those for the first excited state are new. In future it will be interesting to apply the MEM analysis to full QCD, QCD at finite temperature and a study of decay and scattering.

This work is supported in part by Grants-in-Aid of the Ministry of Education (Nos. 10640246, 10640248, 11640250, 11640294, 12014202, 12304011, 12640253, 12740133, and 13640260 ).


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# Transient Absorption Features in GRBs and Their Implications for GRB Progenitors

## 1 Introduction

Recently, Amati et al. (2000) have reported the detection of a transient absorption feature, consistent with a redshifted Fe K edge at the redshift of the burst, $`z=0.86`$ (see Lazzati et al. (2001)), in the prompt X-ray emission from GRB 990705. This is the second time (after GRB 980329; Frontera et al. (2000)) that X-ray spectroscopy during the prompt phase of a GRB revealed evidence for excess soft X-ray absorption above the Galactic hydrogen column, and the first time that evidence for a time dependence of such absorption has been found. (Here, we do not consider the possible absorption features detected by Ginga in a few cases \[see, e.g., Yoshida et al. (1992)\] at higher energies which were inconsistent with being due to photoelectric absorption or other atomic processes.) The transient nature of the absorption feature was rather significant: The absorption edge was detected at the $`12\sigma `$ level in observing interval B (with its depth being consistent with the less significant detection in interval A), while there was $`<2\sigma `$ evidence for such an absorption edge in observing interval D (and all following intervals), when the upper limit on its depth was inconsistent with the value measured during interval B at the $`5\sigma `$ level. This has been interpreted as evidence for photoionization of the absorber by the prompt burst emission (Amati et al., 2000; Böttcher et al., 2001a, b). In contrast to the non-transient excess absorption in GRB 980329 (Frontera et al., 2000), which does not yield very specific information about the location of the absorbing material, the transient nature of an X-ray absorption feature allows rather detailed diagnostics of the relevant physical time scales and the geometry of the GRB environment.

If the observed absorption feature is due to photoelectric absorption at the Fe K edge, then it is natural to try to interpret the duration of the occurrence of this feature as the photoionization time scale, assuming that the absorbing material is not dense enough for recombination to be efficient. The expected X-ray absorption signatures of such a scenario had been investigated previously by Böttcher et al. (1999) who had concluded that such features are either transient on the prompt GRB time scale, or remain virtually unchanged throughout the prompt and afterglow phase. However, the application of this idea to the specific case of GRB 990705 by Böttcher et al. (2001a) revealed that either an implausibly large amount of iron, concentrated very close to the GRB, would be required, or the iron would have to be distributed very anisotropically around the burst source.

As an alternative, Böttcher et al. (2001a, b) have investigated an environment containing small, dense clumps of iron-enriched material. In such an environment, photoionization can be balanced by rapid recombination, and the duration of the absorption feature can be identified with the Compton heating time scale of the absorber by the prompt GRB emission, or with the sweep-up time scale of the absorbing material by the relativistic blastwave responsible for the GRB and afterglow emission. This scenario can produce the observed absorption feature in GRB 990705 with a reasonable amount of iron, quasi-isotropically distributed around the GRB source, but required that the clumps containing this material be very dense and exhibit a rather extreme degree of clumping.

Finally, Lazzati et al. (2001) have suggested that the absorption feature could be a blue-shifted resonance scattering feature in an inhomogeneous high-velocity outflow. This requires that the absorbing material has a systematic average outflow velocity of $`v_00.13`$ c and a velocity dispersion $`\mathrm{\Delta }vv_0`$. While this scenario can slightly reduce the required amount of iron and degree of clumping, it requires a kinetic energy of $`10^{53}(\mathrm{\Omega }/4\pi )`$ ergs in the directed outflow, which has to be ejected several months prior to the GRB.

The parameter estimates resulting from all three of these basic scenarios are summarized in Table 1. Those estimates are rather generic and independent of specific progenitor scenarios. In this paper, we are tying parameter estimates pertaining to the transient absorption feature in GRB 990705 to specific GRB progenitor models. This is done by deducing constraints on the supernova explosion which is likely to have happened prior to the GRB, ejecting the material responsible for the transient absorption feature. In §2 we briefly review the viable GRB progenitor models which are generally capable of producing a significant concentration of high-Z material close to the GRB prior to the actual GRB event. The degree of clumping of matter ejected in supernova explosions will be discussed in §3. Model-specific estimates of the parameters pertaining to the pre-ejected material will be calculated in §4. We will discuss the implications of our results in §5.

## 2 GRB models with pre-GRB supernovae

With most long-duration GRB progenitors it is hard to produce a sizable amount of iron within 1 pc of the GRB engine. For most collapsar progenitors the only source of iron prior to collapse would be in the massive star’s wind. Unless these stars are extremely metal rich, the total mass in iron in these winds will be much less than 0.1 $`M_{}`$. Unfortunately, metal rich massive stars lose too much mass to winds and will probably not form collapsars (Fryer, 2001).

The evolutionary scenario of He-merger GRBs provides a more likely, although still rare, source of iron within $`1`$ pc of the GRB engine. Recall that the formation process of a He-merger GRB requires a binary system whose primary evolves to collapse and produces a compact remnant. Normal supernova explosions eject from 0.002-0.3 $`M_{}`$ of 56Ni (Turatto et al., 1998; Schmidt et al., 1994) into the region surrounding the binary system and this 56Ni ultimately decays into iron. It is possible that the primary produces an abnormal supernova like supernova 1998bw which then may eject as much as a solar mass of 56Ni or more (Sollerman et al., 2000; Germany et al., 2000). When the primary remnant eventually merges with its companion, a GRB is formed, exploding into this iron rich region.

The difficulty lies in limiting the iron to a region within $`1`$ pc of the binary system until the merger occurs and a GRB is produced (see the values of $`x`$ in Tab. 1). Because the 56Ni is produced in the inner layers of an exploding supernova and a large fraction of 56Ni is ejected at low velocities ($``$ 1000 km s-1). Although these velocities are relatively low, it takes only 1000 yr for this ejecta to travel 1 pc. Even if a sizable amount of 56Ni is ejected with lower velocities, winds from the companion star (which tend to be massive for most He-merger GRBs) will blow the 56Ni away from the binary at roughly 1000 km s-1 and it is difficult to increase the maximum allowed time delay between primary supernova and GRB outburst (to be consistent with the previous parameter estimates for the absorber in GRB 990705) by less than 1000 yr.

With the standard formation scenario of He-merger GRBs, such small delays between supernova explosion and GRB outburst require that the secondary star evolve off the main sequence a scant 1000 yr after the primary supernova explosion. This would require extreme fine tuning of the masses of the two stars and the likelihood of such an occurrence would be less than 0.01 %.

However, an alternate formation scenario may be more plausible. If the secondary evolves off the main sequence before the primary explosion, a common envelope phase will occur where two helium cores tighten their orbits as they inspiral within a hydrogen common envelope. Typically, after the hydrogen envelope is ejected, it leaves behind two tightly orbiting helium cores. When the primary’s helium core collapses, the system may be disrupted by neutron star kicks, it may remain bound, or the neutron star may be placed in such a close orbit that it quickly merges (within 1000 yr) with its helium star companion. The latter case, where the neutron star merges with its helium companion, produces a He-merger GRB surrounded by the iron ejecta of the primary’s supernova. Using the binary population synthesis code developed in Fryer, Burrows, & Benz (1998), we have calculated the rate of these quick He-merger GRBs for a range of population synthesis parameters. The fraction of quick mergers lies somewhere between 0.5-2.5 %. For most of the double helium cores which actually form He-merger GRBs, there is typically a delay of 10-100 years from the supernova explosion to the GRB outburst.

SN - GRB delays significantly below $`10`$ yrs could occur in the supranova model of Vietri & Stella (1998), where the supernova explosion of a fast rotating, massive star leaves behind a rapidly spinning, supra-massive neutron star which implodes several months to several years later to form a GRB. The time delay between the SN and the GRB will then be determined by the spin-down time, which can be estimated as $`t_{sd}10(j/0.6)\omega _4^4B_{12}^2`$ yr, where $`j`$ is the dimensionless angular momentum of the neutron star, $`\omega _4`$ is its angular velocity in units of $`10^4`$ s-1, and its surface magnetic field is $`B=10^{12}B_{12}`$ G. Detailed simulations of collapsing neutron stars (Ruffert, Janka, & Schaefer, 1996; Fryer & Woosley, 1998) seem to indicate that, in contrast to Vietri & Stella’s original suggestion, this process ejects a rather large amount of baryonic material and has too little energy to produce a GRB. However, strong beaming of a relativistic outflow along the rotational axis may overcome the latter problem so that we will consider the supranova model as a conceivable alternative in this paper, although more detailed simulations are needed in order to address the concerns mentioned above.

## 3 Clumping of ejecta

Supernova 1987A surprised astronomers by giving strong evidence that the 56Ni ejected in the explosion was mixed into the outer layers of the star (Dotani et al., 1987; Itoh et al., 1987; Sunyaev et al., 1987; Matz et al., 1988). This 56Ni fragmented into high velocity “bullets” (Spyromilio et al., 1988) which could potentially be the clumps necessary to explain the absorption feature in GRB 990705. It is believed that Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities which arise when the shock moves through the composition layers of the star produce this mixing and lead to clumps of 56Ni on size scales from 1 to 5 degrees (see Herant & Woosley (1994), Kifonidis et al. (2000) and references therein). Spatially resolved spectroscopy of Galactic SNRs by the Chandra X-ray Observatory (e.g., Hughes et al. (2000); Hwang, Holt, & Petre (2000)) confirmed the tendency of element mixing and clumping of the high-z material into dense blobs in SNRs.

This is in agreement with detailed 3D hydrodynamic simulations of SN explosions as described in detail in Fryer, Hungerford, & Warren (2001). Fig. 1 illustrates an example of the slightly asymmetric supernova explosion of a $`15M_{}`$ star. The figure shows the distribution of the ejecta, color-coded by the average atomic weight, 1 yr after the SN explosion. It shows that most of the heavy elements are concentrated in dense clumps of angular size scale $`1`$ – a few degrees, and are concentrated around $`\overline{x}5\times 10^{15}`$ cm at that time.

In the following, we will use the results the parameters of the supernova ejecta derived from this example to estimate the expected spatial distribution and, consequently, the expected time-dependent absorption features produced in pre-GRB supernova ejecta in the He-merger and the supranova scenarios. For this purpose, we assume that the metal-rich, dense clumps are not decelerating significantly, so that their distance from the center of the explosion scales linearly with the SN-GRB time delay $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$. Different GRB progenitor models will then differ primarily by $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ and by the amount of mass in the clumpy ejecta, $`M_{\mathrm{cl}}`$, which might be correlated with the mass of the progenitor. We are thus interested in the location of model systems in the $`M_{\mathrm{cl}}`$-$`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ plane which are capable of reproducing the absorption feature seen in GRB 990705.

As mentioned above, the directed velocity of clumps containing an overabundance of heavy elements, might be $`v_0\stackrel{<}{}10^9`$ cm s-1. According to the analysis of Lazzati et al. (2001), this would produce too narrow an absorption feature at a too low centroid energy, if the dominant absorption mechanism were resonance scattering out of the line of sight by hydrogen-like iron. For this reason, we will concentrate in the following on photoelectric absorption as the dominant absorption mechanism.

## 4 Absorption features from pre-GRB supernova ejecta

As motivated above, we assume that most of the iron is concentrated in metal-rich clumps on angular scales of $`\theta _{\mathrm{cl}}\theta _{\mathrm{cl},0}`$ degrees, with $`\theta _{\mathrm{cl},0}1`$ – 5, within which the average atomic weight $`\overline{A}40\overline{A}_{40}`$ may exceed $`\overline{A}_{40}1`$. Those clumps are filling a fraction $`f=1f_2`$ % of the volume within a typical size scale of $`x_{\mathrm{max}}=10^{16}`$ cm 1 yr after the supernova explosion. As a function of the time delay $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=1t_y`$ yr, between the SN explosion and the GRB, the spatial distribution of clumps will extend out to $`x_{\mathrm{max}}10^{16}t_y`$ cm. Assuming that most of the clumps will be concentrated around $`\overline{x}x_{\mathrm{max}}/2`$, this yields a typical size scale of such clumps as $`r_{\mathrm{cl}}9\times 10^{13}t_y\theta _{\mathrm{cl},0}\mathrm{cm}`$. For a total supernova ejecta mass concentrated in clumps, $`M_{\mathrm{cl}}=m_{\mathrm{cl}}M_{}`$, we then find the average density of nuclei in the clumped ejecta to be

$$n_{\mathrm{cl}}2.9\times 10^{10}\frac{m_{\mathrm{cl}}}{\overline{A}_{40}f_2t_y^3}\mathrm{cm}^3.$$
(1)
We would then expect to have $`N_{\mathrm{cl}}^{\mathrm{l}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{s}.}0.6f_2/\theta _{\mathrm{cl},0}`$ clouds located by chance along the line of sight towards the observer. If $`N_{\mathrm{cl}}^{\mathrm{l}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{s}.}>1`$, we would thus expect to have several clouds overlapping along the line of sight, while for $`N_{\mathrm{cl}}^{\mathrm{l}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{s}.}<1`$, this number would correspond to the probability $`P_{\mathrm{cl}}^{\mathrm{l}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{s}.}`$ of one cloud being located along the line of sight. The initial depth of the iron K absorption edge of clouds along the line of sight (assuming that we have at least 1 cloud located within the line of sight) will add up to

$$\tau _{\mathrm{Fe},\mathrm{cl}}\{\begin{array}{cc}6.5\frac{m_{\mathrm{cl}}X_1^{\mathrm{Fe}}}{\overline{A}_{40}t_y^2}\hfill & \text{if }N_{\mathrm{cl}}^{\mathrm{l}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{s}.}1\text{,}\hfill \\ & \\ 11\frac{m_{\mathrm{cl}}X_1^{\mathrm{Fe}}\theta _{\mathrm{cl},0}}{\overline{A}_{40}f_2t_y^2}\hfill & \text{else}\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
The observation of $`\tau _{\mathrm{Fe},\mathrm{cl}}1.6`$ during the first $`13`$ s of GRB 990705 can be used to put parameter constraints on the progenitor of this GRB. Assuming that $`P_{\mathrm{cl}}^{\mathrm{l}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{s}.}1`$, this yields

$$m_{\mathrm{cl}}=16t_y^2\frac{P_{\mathrm{cl}}^{\mathrm{l}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{s}.}\overline{A}_{40}}{X_{\mathrm{Fe}}}.$$
(3)
This relation is plotted for various ratios $`P_{\mathrm{cl}}^{\mathrm{l}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{s}.}/X_{\mathrm{Fe}}`$ and $`\overline{A}_{40}=1`$ by the solid curves in Fig. 2.

Normalizing the spectrum and luminosity of the ionizing radiation to the observed spectrum of GRB 990705 during the first $`20`$ sec, we find a time scale (in the cosmological rest frame of the GRB) for complete ionization of initially neutral iron of $`t_{\mathrm{ion}}(z)2.5\times 10^4t_y^2h_{70}^2\mathrm{s}`$. For comparison, the recombination time scale can be estimated to $`t_{\mathrm{rec}}(z)9.1\times 10^2T_3^{3/4}\overline{A}_{40}f_2t_y^3/[(Z_{\mathrm{eff}}/10)^2m_{\mathrm{cl}}]\mathrm{s}`$, where $`T_3`$ is the average electron temperature in the clumps in units of $`10^3`$ K, and $`Z_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is the average effective ion charge of iron ions in the clumps.

If recombination is inefficient, then the expression for the ionization time scale allows an estimate of the time delay $`t_y`$ from $`t_{\mathrm{ion}}(z)6`$ s. We find

$$t_y=63h_{70}\left(\frac{t_{\mathrm{ion}}[z]}{\mathrm{s}}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(4)
This relation is shown for $`t_{\mathrm{ion}}=6`$ s (which might be the appropriate time-scale, in the cosmological rest frame of GRB 990705, of the occurrence of the absorption feature) and $`h_{70}=1`$ by the long-dashed vertical line in Fig. 2.

If we require recombination to compete successfully with photoionization, then a comparison of the respective time scales yields

$$m_{\mathrm{cl}}364\frac{T_3^{3/4}\overline{A}_{40}f_2}{(Z_{\mathrm{eff}}/10)^2}t_y.$$
(5)
The most conservative limit can be found if we consider recombination from fully ionized iron, i.e. $`Z_{\mathrm{eff}}=26`$, in which case we find $`m_{\mathrm{cl}}54f_2t_y`$ for $`\overline{A}_{40}=T_3=1`$. This relation is indicated by the shaded regions in the upper-left corner of Fig. 2 for $`f_2=1`$ and $`f_2=0.1`$, respectively. If recombination is successfully competing with photoionization, then the decline of the Fe K absorption edge in GRB 990705 could be due to Compton heating of the electrons in the clouds. The Compton heating time scale in the clouds can be estimated through $`t_h(z)3.8\times 10^3t_y^2h_{70}^2T_3^{0.1}\mathrm{s}`$, which leads to

$$t_y=16\left(\frac{t_h[z]}{\mathrm{s}}\right)^{1/2}h_{70}^1.$$
(6)
Using $`h_{70}=1`$ and $`t_h=6`$ s, this relation is plotted by the dot-dashed vertical line in Fig. 2.

Alternatively, the disappearance of the absorption feature could be due to sweeping-up of the absorber by the relativistic blast wave associated with the GRB. Assuming that during the prompt GRB phase the relativistic blast wave is in the coasting phase, moving at a constant bulk Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=10^3\mathrm{\Gamma }_3`$, we find for the sweep-up time: $`t_{sw}(z)x/(2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2c)8\times 10^2t_y/\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^2`$ s which, when set equal to the $`6`$ s time scale of the absorption feature, yields

$$t_y72\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^2$$
(7)
For $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=100`$, 300, and $`10^3`$, this is plotted by the dotted vertical lines in Fig. 2.

## 5 Discussion

The transient absorption feature in GRB 990705 places stringent constraints on the GRB progenitor parameters. In Fig. 2, allowed parameter constellations have to be located in two regions: a) close to the vertical line $`t_{\mathrm{ion}}=6`$ s, or b) in the shaded region in the upper-left portion of the graph. Case a) corresponds to a pure photoionization scenario, in which recombination in the absorber is inefficient; case b) corresponds to a balance of ionization and recombination. At the same time, ejecta masses significantly exceeding $`10M_{}`$ may be ruled out. Also, any solution far left of the vertical line corresponding to $`t_{sw}(\mathrm{\Gamma }_3=0.1)=6`$ s are implausible since this region of parameter space would require $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0100`$, in which case $`\gamma \gamma `$ opacity effects might become significant. Solutions near the lower right corner of the diagram would require a very strong iron overabundance w.r.t. the standard solar-system value, and a small covering fraction of the absorber, implying a small chance probability of having an absorbing cloud in the line of sight to the observer.

This leaves only a very limited region of parameter space to explain the absorption feature in GRB 990705. The solution at $`\mathrm{\Delta }t150`$ yr, corresponding to the no-recombination case, is in principle accessible to the quick He-merger scenario, but requires an ejecta mass of $`M_{\mathrm{cl}}\stackrel{>}{}10M_{}`$, a large iron overabundance, and a small covering fraction, $`P_{\mathrm{cl}}^{\mathrm{l}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{s}.}/X_{\mathrm{Fe}}\stackrel{<}{}10^3`$. This small chance probability factors in with the already small probability of $`0.5`$ – 2.5 % of quick He-mergers among the total number of expected He-merger GRBs to yield a total probability of $`1`$ % of observing an absorption feature as seen in GRB 990705. Consequently, if similar absorption features will be detected (e.g., by the Swift satellite, currently scheduled for launch in 2003) in other GRBs, this may be a strong indication that at least this type of GRBs might not be related to collapsars or He-mergers.

The second allowed region of parameter space is located at time delays of $`\mathrm{\Delta }t1`$ yr and ejecta masses of $`10M_{}`$. Here, the observed characteristics of the absorption feature in GRB 990705 can be achieved with rather unspectacular values of $`P_{\mathrm{cl}}^{\mathrm{l}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{s}.}/X_{\mathrm{Fe}}1`$. The only current GRB model which could produce this combination of pre-GRB supernova ejecta and time delay, seems to be the supranova model (Vietri & Stella, 1998). However, it is unclear whether the problems mentioned in Section 2 (i.e., the rather large baryon contamination and small available energy resulting from realistic simulations of such a scenario) can be overcome with strong beaming of the GRB ejecta. More detailed simulations of the supranova model are needed to clarify these issues.

The work of MB is supported by NASA through Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship grant PF 9-10007 awarded by the Chandra X-ray Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for NASA under contract NAS 8-39073. C.L.F. is supported by a Feynman Fellowship at LANL. The work of CD is supported by the Office of Naval Research.