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# Vlasov calculations of nuclear ground states

## 1 Introduction

Microscopic Vlasov simulations have been applied in the last two decades or so with varying degree of success to heavy ion collisions (HIC). While collective effects, particles distributions and production have been successfully described, the approach fails when many particles correlations are important such as in fragmentation reactions. This is of course expected since we are dealing with a mean field approach. The method has been applied more recently to metallic cluster collisions and quark dynamics as well . One of the reasons of the success of the Vlasov approach is surely the simplicity of its numerical solution. Furthermore the Vlasov equation (VE) might include some quantum effects as well. In that respect recall that the one body distribution function $`f(𝐫,𝐩,t)`$ entering the VE can be viewed as the Wigner transform (WT) of the one body density matrix $`\rho (𝐫,𝐫^{},t)`$ which fulfills the Time Dependent Hartree Fock (TDHF) equation. In fact it can be easily shown that the VE is the WT of TDHF in the limit of $`\mathrm{}0`$. Thus the two approaches are practically equivalent at large entropies where quantum effects are not important . The numerical simplicity is one of the advantages of the VE over TDHF the other is the possibility of easily including a collision term in the VE. Such a collision term is of course crucial for energetic HIC. On the other hand a serious shortcoming of the VE are the calculations of nuclear ground states. While Hartree Fock (HF) is a quite well developed and accepted method for calculations of nuclear (and other fermionic systems) ground states, there is not so far an accepted method to obtain the ground states self-consistently in the Vlasov approach. This is in part due to the semiclassical nature of the VE which would prefer that the systems in their ground states be solids. In practical calculations of the VE the test particles (tp) method, shortly described below, is used . Initially the tp are randomly distributed in a sphere of radius $`R`$ (the radius of the nucleus) in $`r`$-space and of radius $`P_\mathrm{F}`$ (the Fermi momentum) in $`p`$-space. Such initial conditions are then evolved in time according to the classical equations of motion for particles moving under the influence of a mean field. Because of the Fermi gas initial conditions, the system fulfills initially the requirement that the occupation factor, i.e. the number of identical particles in a cell of size $`2\pi \mathrm{}`$, must be less or equal to one. Such a condition is preserved in time because the VE fulfills the Liouville theorem , i.e. the density in phase space remains constant. While this method could be accepted in collisions of stable nuclei at large beam energies, it can be seriously doubted if applied to exotic nuclei reactions and/or at beam energies close to the Coulomb barrier. It is the purpose of this paper to show that the ground states of nuclei can be also rather well calculated using the Vlasov approach. This will give us the opportunity to extend the calculations to exotic nuclei that are a quite active field now.

The paper is organized as follows. In section 2 we review the Vlasov equation and the test particles method. In section 3 we apply the method to calculate nuclear properties with a local Skyrme potential while section 4 is devoted to calculations employing a momentum dependent force. We stress the important role of the surface and symmetry terms to reproduce some basic features of nuclei. A brief summary is given in section 5.

## 2 The Vlasov Equation

The TDHF equation of motion

$$_t\rho =[H,\rho ]$$
(1)
in the Wigner representation can be written as a series of the form:

$$_tf+\frac{𝐩}{E}_rf_r\overline{U}_pf=F_q[f],$$
(2)
where $`F_q[f]`$ is the quantum corrections term which in the limit $`\mathrm{}0`$ is zero, which is the limit we will consider in this work. The lhs is the Vlasov term and $`\overline{U}(𝐫)`$is the mean field, which we have written in a local form but a generalization to a momentum dependent one is straightforward.

For the purpose of this work we will neglect the collision term in Eq. (2) and note that such term will be essential when dealing with HIC.

Numerically the VE equation (2) is solved by writing the one body distribution function as:

$$f(𝐫,𝐩,t)=\frac{1}{n_{\mathrm{tp}}}\underset{i}{\overset{N}{}}g_r(𝐫𝐫_i(t))g_p(𝐩𝐩_i(t)),$$
(3)
where the $`g_r`$ and $`g_p`$ are sharply peaked distributions (such as delta functions, gaussian or other simple functions), that we shall treat as delta functions. $`N=An_{\mathrm{tp}}`$ is the number of such terms, $`A`$ is the mass number of the nucleus. Actually, $`N`$ is much larger than $`A`$, so that we can say that each nucleon is represented by $`n_{\mathrm{tp}}`$ terms called test particles (tp). The rigorous mean field limit can be obtained for $`n_{\mathrm{tp}}\mathrm{}`$ where the calculations are of course numerically impossible, even though the numerical results converge rather quickly. Inserting Eq. (3) in the Vlasov equation gives the Hamilton equations of motions for the tp:

$`\dot{𝐫}_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝐩_i}{E_i}},`$
$`\dot{𝐩}_i`$ $`=`$ $`_{r_i}U,`$ (4)
for $`i=1,\mathrm{}N`$. The total number of tp used in this work is more than 400000 and the results are numerically stable.

One important feature of TDHF is that the density matrix is given by a Slater determinant, i.e. the wave function must be properly antisymmetrized when dealing with fermions. This implies the following property for the density matrix:

$`\rho ^2=\rho ,`$ (5)
which is preserved in time by the TDHF equation of motion. Making the Wigner transform of the last equation in the same limit $`\mathrm{}0`$ gives:

$`\overline{f}^2=\overline{f},`$ (6)
i.e. the occupation density $`\overline{f}`$ must be zero or one. This is a direct consequence of the Pauli principle which states that in a cell of size $`h`$ in phase space there cannot be two identical particles. In our work we will distinguish protons and neutrons with spin up or down, thus we have four types of particles. A consequence of this is that, for instance for $`\alpha `$ particles the Pauli principle does not apply since the particles are non identical. If one distributes randomly the tp in phase space according to the Fermi gas model, the condition given by Eq. (6) is fulfilled and it will be preserved in time by the VE. But the state so obtained is not a state of minimum energy. Notice the analogy to the HF method in that one initially uses a Fermi gas for the wave functions. However a process of minimization is then applyed which finally gives the state of minimum energy. Such a minimization is not usually done for the VE. But this can be easily accomplished as follows. First, for numerical reasons, we put a grid on the available phase space and store the occupation factor in each point of the grid with the initial conditions given by the Fermi gas model. We solve a frictional equation of motion with a constraint due to the occupation factor for each tp ($`f_i`$) as:

$`\dot{𝐫}_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝐩_i}{E_i}}+\mu _0_{r_i}U,`$
$`\dot{𝐩}_i`$ $`=`$ $`_{r_i}U+\mu (f_i){\displaystyle \frac{𝐩_i}{E_i}},`$ (7)
where $`\mu _0`$ is a negative frictional coefficient independent on $`f_i`$, and $`\mu (f_i)`$ is the $`f`$-dependent frictional coefficient. $`\mu (f_i)`$ is positive when $`f_i`$ exceeds 1, while it is negative for $`f_i<1`$. This $`f`$-dependence of $`\mu `$ is to control the local momentum space. The method proposed here has been first introduced in  and refined in the Constrained Molecular Dynamics calculation of Ref..

For illustration we show in Fig. 1 the occupation factor averaged over all the tp versus time for 16O. To show the power of the method we used initially a very large Fermi momentum. Because of that the initial occupation factor is rather small but it increases quickly and stabilizes around 1 after about 200 fm/$`c`$. Results for different nuclei and forces are quite similar to the one illustrated in Fig. 1.

## 3 Local Mean Field

In addition to the Coulomb interaction for protons, a popularly used parametrization of the mean field is given by the Skyrme parametrization:

$`\overline{U}(\rho (𝐫))=a\rho (𝐫)+b\rho ^\gamma (𝐫)+c_s^2\rho +c_a{\displaystyle \frac{(\rho _n\rho _p)^2}{2\rho _0}},`$ (8)
where $`\rho `$,$`\rho _{n,p}`$ are the total, neutron and proton density respectively, $`\rho _0=0.16\mathrm{fm}^3`$. The parameters a,b and n are tuned to have a compressibility of 225 MeV. The canonical values of the parameters entering the surface and symmetry terms are $`c_s=138\mathrm{MeV}\mathrm{fm}^5`$ and $`c_a=32`$ MeV respectively. However, when using a grid in phase space a surface term is spuriously introduced. Because of that we fixed the value of $`c_s=6.9\mathrm{MeV}\mathrm{fm}^5`$ by fitting the binding energy of 16O, i.e. a small nucleus for which the surface is very important while the symmetry energy is negligible. The small value of the surface term coefficient should not surprise, in fact for density calculations in $`r`$-space we use a grid of 1 fm side. This introduces a surface term spuriously. Changing method of solution, for instance gaussians instead of delta function, will give rise to a surface term from the volume part of the mean field. Also in that case one must adjust the surface term to some known property of finite nuclei as we did here.

In Fig. 2 we plot the binding energies versus time for four different systems. The dashed line indicates the value of the binding energy obtained from the Weizsacker formula  whose parameters are fitted to stable nuclei. We stress that all the terms entering the Weizsacker formula are in principle contained in out approach excluding the pairing energy. We see that the BE from systematics are reasonably reproduced by the method.

In Fig. 3 we plot the radius versus time for the systems as above. The full lines refer to neutrons and the dashed lines to protons radii respectively. A neutron halo is quite evident for the unstable C, while the proton radius is slightly larger than the neutron one for the Sn nucleus. The Pb nucleus gives similar radii which is due to the competing action of the symmetry and coulomb terms. It also seems that the neutron and protons oscillate with different frequencies. This is especially seen in the C case, which indicates that the protons and neutrons have different compressibilities. We would like to notice also that in the Pb case, due to the strong Coulomb force it is quite difficult to reach a state of minimum energy. Because of the relative small number of tp per nucleon (about 4000), classical fluctuations could lead the system to fission if the minimization procedure is followed for a longer time.

## 4 Momentum Dependent Interaction

It is well known that the nuclear interaction is momentum dependent. Many expression have been proposed, here we use one introduced by C. Gale et al.:

$`\overline{U}(\rho (𝐫),𝐩)=\overline{U}(\rho )+{\displaystyle \frac{2c}{\rho _0}}{\displaystyle d^3p^{}\frac{f(𝐫,𝐩^{})}{1+[|𝐩𝐩^{}|/\mathrm{\Lambda }]}}.`$ (9)
The values of the parameters are given in . Notice, that also in this case the surface term was adjusted to reproduce the binding energy of 16O. It turns out that the value of $`c_s`$ is half of the canonical one.

In Figs. 4 and 5 we plot the BE and radii of the nuclei as in Figs. 2 and 3. Also in this case convergency is rapidly obtained and the BE are in good agreement with the Weizsacker parametrization  (dashed lines). The behavior of the radii is as before with a neutron halo appearing in the 19C case. Also notice the different oscillations for neutron and protons for this exotic nucleus.

## 5 Conclusions

In this paper we have presented a novel approach to get fermion ground states within a Vlasov approach. This approach is the semiclassical counterpart of the HF method. It has some advantages compared to HF in a simpler numerical solution and a much easier extension to collision problems. On the other hand some quantum effects are not included. This is especially important when the mean field is not a smooth function. As in all mean field calculations symmetries are preserved and because of that, with the use of the mean field parametrization of this paper, nuclei are spherical symmetrical. Correlations might break symmetries but these are not contained here. In collision problems one can easily include a two body collision term. The approach might be suited for calculating low energy phenomena such as fusion, deep inelastic, particle production and collective flow at energies up to few hundreds MeV/nucleon.


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# XMM-EPIC observation of MCG-6-30-15: Direct evidence for the extraction of energy from a spinning black hole?

## 1 Introduction

X-ray spectra of Seyfert 1 galaxies commonly show an iron K$`\alpha `$ emission line at $``$6 keV. The line is often extremely broad, with a velocity width of $`>\mathrm{70\hspace{0.17em}000}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Furthermore, the asymmetries in the line profiles are well explained by relativistic effects. Both of these facts suggest that the line is emitted from the surface layers of the accretion disk within a few gravitational radii $`r_\mathrm{g}=GM/c^2`$ of the black hole (BH) itself. It is now widely believed that this spectral feature is a relatively clean probe of the immediate environments of supermassive BHs (see Fabian et al., 2000, and references therein).

One of the best studied broad iron line sources is the nearby bright Seyfert 1 galaxy MCG$``$6-30-15 ($`z=0.008`$). This was the first active galactic nucleus (AGN) for which a relativistic iron line disk profile was measured. In their Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA) observations, Tanaka et al. \[Tanaka et al. 1995\] found that the iron line profile could be explained by emission from an accretion disk around a non-rotating (Schwarzschild) BH. In a detailed reanalysis, however, Iwasawa et al. \[Iwasawa et al. 1996\] found a much broader line during a period of low continuum X-ray flux, the so-called “deep minimum state”. The line becomes so broad that disk models require emission from within $`6r_\mathrm{g}`$, suggesting either a rotating (Kerr) BH, with its marginally stable orbit at $`r_{\mathrm{ms}}<6r_\mathrm{g}`$ (Iwasawa et al., 1996, Dabrowski et al., 1997), or iron fluorescence from material spiraling into the BH at $`<r_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ \[Reynolds & Begelman 1997\]. Such a broad line has later been confirmed, e.g., by Guainazzi et al. (1999) and Lee et al. (1999).

Using the new generation of X-ray satellites such as XMM-Newton with their improved collecting area and X-ray CCD spectral resolution, the Fe line of Seyferts can be studied in greater detail than was possible before. In this Letter, we present data from a 100 ksec XMM-Newton observation of MCG$``$6-30-15.

## 2 Instrumentation and Data Reduction

Our observation covered most of XMM-Newton’s orbit 108, on 2000 June 11/12, and was simultaneous with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). Here, we report on data from the European Photon Imaging Cameras onboard XMM-Newton (EPIC, Strüder et al., 2001, Turner et al., 2001). To prevent photon pile-up, the EPIC-pn camera was operated in its small window mode (using the medium thick filter to prevent optical light contamination), and the EPIC MOS-1 camera was operated in its timing mode. The MOS-2 camera was operated in full-frame mode to study the field surrounding MCG$``$6-30-15. Although we primarily rely on the pn-data here, the pile-up in the MOS-2 data can be reduced to $`<5\%`$ when using single events only. Therefore, we can use the MOS-2 data to check for the instrument-independency of our results.

As of 2001 August, the official version of the XMM-Newton Science Analysis Software (SAS) only contained a preliminary model for the charge transfer efficiency (CTE) of the pn-chips. Therefore, we used an internal SAS version implementing an improved model for the EPIC-pn CTE (Haberl, priv. comm.). To avoid remaining response matrix uncertainties, we concentrate on the energy range from 0.5 to 11 keV. To produce EPIC-pn source and background spectra, we collected events from two circles of radius 10 pixels on and off the source for those times where the source count rate was below $`14\mathrm{counts}\mathrm{s}^1`$. This upper limit of the count rate is necessary to avoid phases where the core of the MCG$``$6-30-15 point spread function was slightly piled up. The total resulting EPIC integration time was 54 ksec. We checked the background lightcurve for periods of severely increased background, but none were found.

For spectral modeling, response matrices appropriate for the improved CTE model and appropriate for the source position on the EPIC chip were used. Furthermore, we corrected the exposure time in the spectra for the $``$71% livetime of the pn small window mode \[Kuster et al. 1999\] and perform simultaneous fits with single and double events. We estimate that the overall uncertainties in the spectral calibration and flux calibration due to these procedures are at most a few percent.

## 3 The iron line profile and accretion disks fits

Figure 1a shows the ratio of the 0.5–11 keV EPIC-pn data to a spectral model consisting of a pure power-law (fitted in the 2–11 keV band) modified by Galactic absorption ($`N_\mathrm{H}=4.1\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$, using the XSPEC phabs model with cross-sections similar to those described by Wilms, Allen, & McCray, 2000). Below $`2`$ keV, there is significant spectral complexity which is due to a warm absorber (Nandra & Pounds 1994, Reynolds & Fabian 1995, Lee et al. 2001), possibly superposed with a complex of relativistically broadened soft X-ray recombination lines \[Branduardi-Raymont et al. 2001\]. At 3–7 keV, a broad hump in the spectrum suggests the identification with disk reflection signatures and, especially, the broad iron K$`\alpha `$ line.

The putative broad iron line is more apparent once the soft X-ray spectral complexity has been modeled. This is not a trivial exercise since the physical nature of this complexity is still a matter of debate. To start with, we consider a warm absorber scenario (this will be generalized to include soft X-ray relativistic emission lines below). We assume that the continuum consists of a power-law modified by Galactic absorption. We also allow for the possibility of intrinsic neutral absorption in MCG$``$6-30-15 (although the best fitting column density is always consistent with zero). By fitting the high resolution X-ray spectrum from the Reflection Grating Spectrograph (RGS), we construct an empirical warm absorber model (based on Lee et al. 2001) with absorption edges of C v, O vii, O viii, and Ne x (at 392 eV, 740 eV, 870 eV, and 1362 eV, respectively, with best fitting optical depths at threshold of $`\tau =0.34`$, $`0.87`$, $`1.17`$, and $`0.10`$), a Gaussian absorption feature below the O vii and O viii edges to crudely model blended resonance absorption lines, and four moderately broad and weak Gaussian emission features at observed energies of $`0.885`$ keV, $`0.935`$ keV, $`0.995`$ keV, and $`1.06`$ keV, which are merely included to fit the RGS data; we do not attempt to make a physical identification of these features. After applying this empirical model to the data, the soft X-ray residuals are reduced to less than $`10\%`$, and the broad iron line feature is much more obvious (Fig. 1b). The best fit photon index is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.87\pm 0.01`$ (goodness of fit $`\chi ^2/\mathrm{dof}=2625/1719`$, all uncertainties are quoted at the 90% level for one interesting parameter, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=2.71`$).

We now consider the nature of the hard spectral complexity. While it may be tempting to model the hump-like feature as pure broad iron line emission, this is not a physically consistent model. The equivalent width of this feature (measured relative to the continuum at the iron K$`\alpha `$ rest-frame energy) is $`1`$ keV, and it would be impossible to obtain such a broad iron line without also observing the X-ray continuum photons that have been backscattered from the accretion disk. Consequently, we will not present pure broad iron line models and jump, instead, to more physically motivated spectral models which include both iron line fluorescence and the backscattered “reflection” continuum. Within the framework of such models, the 3–7 keV hump is a combination of iron line fluorescence and backscattered continuum photons (with the Fe K edge responsible for some fraction of the drop in flux at $`7`$ keV).

We construct a spectral model appropriate for the case of reflection from the Keplerian regions of an accretion disk around a near-extremal Kerr black hole ($`a=0.998`$). The inner edge of the X-ray reprocessing region is taken to be the radius of marginal stability, $`r_{\mathrm{ms}}=1.23r_\mathrm{g}`$, and the outer edge is taken to be $`r_{\mathrm{out}}=400r_\mathrm{g}`$. We fix the inclination of the inner disk to be $`i=30^{}`$ (Tanaka et al., 1995) and note that our results below only slightly depend on the value of $`i`$ chosen. We assume that the reflected emission has an emissity profile $`ϵr^\beta `$ and leave $`\beta `$ as a free parameter. The reflection continuum is described using the pexriv model of XSPEC and normalized to the case where the accretion disk intercepts half of the X-ray power-law continuum photons (i.e., $`R=1`$). Both, the iron line profile and the reflection continuum are then relativistically smeared (using the model of Laor, 1991, as the kernel). Here, and throughout the rest of the spectral modeling discussed in this paper, we also include a narrow (unresolved) Gaussian line at 6.4 keV with equivalent width $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{N}}`$ to model the obvious narrow line core. This component presumably originates from distant material such as the putative molecular torus of Seyfert unification schemes, and has recently be seen in several other AGN (e.g., in NGC 5548, Yaqoob et al., 2001, or in Mkn 205, Reeves et al., 2001).

Firstly, we consider the case of a fairly cold accretion disk (rest-frame iron line energy of 6.4 keV, disk ionization parameter $`\xi =1`$, and $`R=1`$). The resulting best fitting parameters are $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.09\pm 0.01`$, $`\beta =3.6\pm 0.1`$, $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{N}}=38`$ eV, and $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{B}}=805`$ eV ($`\chi ^2/\mathrm{dof}=2383/1717`$). However, this model fails to explain the data as well as possessing an unphysically large broad line equivalent width. Significant residuals (up to $`20\%`$) remain in the 3–11 keV band. The pattern of residuals suggest that the model is failing to produce the red-wing of the 3–7 keV hump, and is underestimating the flux in the blueward edge of this feature. A hard tail above 8 keV suggests that we are also underestimating the strength of the high energy reflection continuum. If we allow the relative normalization of the reflection continuum, $`R`$, to be a free parameter, the fit converges to a very large value of $`R`$ ($`R=7.6_{1.3}^{+1.8}`$, also $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.35\pm 0.05`$ and $`\beta =4.4\pm 0.2`$, $`\chi ^2/\mathrm{dof}=2055/1716`$). Despite the slightly better $`\chi ^2`$, large residuals around $``$7 keV remain.

Ionization of the accretion disk surface is another way of increasing the amount of reflection continuum. To model this (with the relative normalization of the reflection continuum fixed to $`R=1`$), we allow the ionization parameter of the disk $`\xi `$, the temperature of the disk $`T`$ and the energy of the iron line $`E`$ to be free parameters ($`E`$ is constrained to lie in the range of allowable Fe-$`\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ energies; 6.40 keV to 6.97 keV). The resulting best fit has $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.00\pm 0.02`$, $`\beta =3.29_{0.11}^{+0.12}`$, $`E=6.40_0^{+0.05}`$ keV, $`\xi =1380_{190}^{+570}`$, $`T>6.0\times 10^5`$ K, $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{N}}=41`$ eV, and $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{B}}=235`$ eV ($`\chi ^2/\mathrm{dof}=2051/1714`$). This leads to a significantly better fit with the higher iron edge/line energies explaining the residual at $`7`$ keV. However, significant residuals still exist in the 3–5 keV range (suggesting that we are still under-predicting the flux in the red-wing of the reflection feature) and above 8 keV.

Detailed examination of this last spectral model shows that features in the soft X-ray band below 1.5 keV determine the best fitting ionization parameter and temperature. Consequently, such fits must be viewed with suspicion — there are a number of physical processes which are not included in this reflection model but which may well contribute to the soft X-ray spectrum (most notably, the recombination line and edge emission from C, N, O, and Ne). It would also not be surprising if our empirical warm absorber model left small soft X-ray residuals which may then be mistakenly fit by ionized reflection models.

Firstly, we can consider the ionized reflection fits ignoring all data below 1.5 keV. Refitting the ionized disk model (including the empirical warm absorber) to the 1.5–11 keV band results in a good fit with no clear residuals. The best fitting parameters are: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.94\pm 0.02`$, $`\beta =4.6\pm 0.3`$, $`E=6.95_{0.15}^{+0}`$ keV, $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{N}}=51`$ eV, and $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{B}}=582`$ eV ($`\chi ^2/\mathrm{dof}=1506/1312`$). $`T`$ and $`\xi `$ are unconstrained by the data, while the relative normalization of the reflection continuum is constrained to be $`R<4.7`$. During the fitting $`R`$ is anti-correlated with $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{B}}`$. These quantities are physically consistent with each other (i.e., the iron line has the appropriate strength for that value of $`R`$ and $`\xi `$) when $`R1.5`$$`2`$ (corresponding to $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{B}}300`$$`400`$ eV).

This spectral modelling suggests that the accretion disk may be ionized. Consequently, the K$`\alpha `$ line need not be intrinsically narrow as we have assumed so far, but might be Compton broadened in the hot skin of the accretion disk (note that Compton broadening alone can not explain the large line width; Reynolds & Wilms, 2000). We examine this possibility by relaxing our assumption of a narrow intrinsic line and, instead, model the intrinsic iron line with a Gaussian profile of width $`\sigma `$. Using the 1.5–11 keV data, the best fitting value is $`\sigma =0`$ (with other parameters as above). Even if we force the line to be very broad (e.g., $`\sigma =`$1 keV, at the expense of reducing the goodness of fit by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=13`$), the data still require $`\beta >3.9`$.

The second approach for handling the soft X-ray spectrum is to explicitly model the recombination K-lines of C, N, O and Ne. Qualitatively, this model is the same as the mixed emission-line model of Branduardi-Raymont et al. (2001) with the presence of additional warm absorption. The best fitting parameters are $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.96\pm 0.01`$, $`\beta =4.70_{0.27}^{+0.25}`$, $`E=6.97_{0.10}^{+0}`$ keV, $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{N}}=53`$ eV, $`\xi >130`$ and $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{B}}=546`$ eV ($`\chi ^2/\mathrm{dof}=1907/1704`$). Again, the relative reflection normalization is poorly constrained by these data, but self-consistency is achieved for $`R1.5`$$`2`$ and $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{B}}300`$$`400`$ eV. We conclude that the parameterization of the soft energy spectrum does not qualitatively change the results for the broadened Fe K$`\alpha `$ line.

We note that the pexriv reflection model employed here is also incomplete due to the neglect of Compton smearing of the absorption edges. We do not expect this to seriously comprise our results since the observed smearing is much greater than that expected from Compton effects. However, we will examine these effects using improved models (Ballantyne, Iwasawa & Fabian 2001; Nayakshin & Kallman 2001) in a future publication. Preliminary investigations show our current conclusions to be robust. Finally, to check the dependence of these result on possible remaining calibration uncertainties we used the data from the MOS-2 camera. The best fit parameters we find are consistent to within the error bars, with slight deviations at the Si edge that are a known calibration issue. We conclude that our results are independent of any remaining calibration issues with the EPIC instruments.

To summarize, our physically motivated best-fitting model consists of reflection from an ionized accretion disk that emits H-like iron K$`\alpha `$ fluorescence with a relative reflection fraction of $`R1.5`$$`2`$ and a broad iron line equivalent with of $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{B}}300`$$`400`$ eV. The 2–10 keV flux of $`F_{210}=2.3\times 10^{11}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$ is comparable with the “deep minimum state” found by Iwasawa et al. (1996, $`F_{210}=2.0\times 10^{11}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$). *The most interesting feature of these spectral models is that a very steep emissivity profile $`\beta =4.3`$$`5.0`$ for the iron-line/reflection features is required*. We address the implications of this result in the next section.

Finally, we note that if $`r_{\mathrm{in}}`$ is allowed to vary, the data require $`r_{\mathrm{in}}<2.1r_\mathrm{g}`$ in order to model the red-wing of the 3–8 keV hump. We explicitly note that the data cannot be adequately described by any reflection model with an inner radius of $`r_{\mathrm{in}}=6r_\mathrm{g}`$, the radius of marginal stability around a Schwarzschild black hole. Thus, models in which the X-ray reflection occurs in the Keplerian part of accretion disks around a non-rotating black hole cannot explain these data. In principle, there can be X-ray reflection inside of the radius of marginal stability (Reynolds & Begelman 1997). However, as discussed below, the extremely steep emissivity index $`\beta `$ required by our data is very hard to understand in the context of Schwarzschild geometry.

## 4 Discussion

Very steep emission profiles are required in all of our good fits to the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line and reflection continuum. Here, we explore the implications of this result, assuming that the reflected flux (including the iron line) from a local patch of the disk is proportional to the X-ray continuum flux (at the iron K-shell edge) irradiating that patch. We will assume that a fixed fraction $`f`$ of the energy released locally in the body of the accretion disk is transported into an accretion disk corona and then radiated in the X-ray band. Studies of such coronae suggest that $`f1`$ in order to produce the observed continua (Haardt & Maraschi 1993, Dove et al. 1997). Thus, while our assumption may not be true in detail, it must be approximately true across a wide range of disk radii.

### 4.1 Accretion disk models

Can standard BH accretion disks models (Novikov & Thorne 1973, Riffert & Herold 1995) explain the observed emissivity profiles? With the assumptions described above, this question reduces to an examination of the radial distribution of energy dissipation in such disk models. For a disk around an $`a=0.998`$ BH, the flux emitted from the disk per unit proper area of the disk, $`(r)`$, peaks at $`r1.6r_\mathrm{g}`$ and then gradually steepens to approach $`(r)r^3`$. At no point does $`(r)`$ become as steep as $`r^{4.5}`$, as required by our iron line observations. This is true for any assumed BH spin. Also, as noted above, the emissivity profile is steeper than accretion disk models even if one accounts for intrinsic broadening of the iron line via Comptonization.

We note that there are two complications that may be relevant to real disks, even though they go beyond the realm of standard disk models. Firstly, magnetic fields might couple material within $`r=r_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ to the rest of the disk, thereby permitting continued energy extraction from this material (Krolik 1999; Agol & Krolik 2000, hereafter AK00). Non-relativistic accretion disk simulations employing pseudo-Newtonian potentials suggest that the stresses and presumably the dissipation remain fairly flat within this region (Hawley & Krolik 2001; Armitage, Reynolds & Chiang 2001). Hence, it would seem that the required emissivities are difficult to achieve through such effects for disks around Schwarzschild holes. Secondly, X-rays produced away from the equatorial plane might be gravitationally focussed into the central regions of the disk. However, using the method of Petrucci & Henri (1997), we find that such effects cannot produce the observed emissivity profile unless the X-ray source is already situated in the very central regions of the disk.

We conclude that the disk has to be irradiated in a more centrally concentrated manner than predicted by current pure-accretion disk models. In other words, we require some additional X-ray source that is both powerful and very centrally concentrated. There is one obvious candidate: X-rays that are associated with the magnetic extraction of BH spin energy.

### 4.2 Magnetic extraction of BH spin energy

Here, we explore the suggestion that the central X-ray source is associated with the extraction of BH spin energy, focusing on scenarios in which the BH spin is extracted via magnetic fields that pierce the (stretched) event horizon \[Blandford & Znajek 1977\]. An alternative class of models in which the magnetic fields do not pierce the horizon will be addressed below. In order to produce the required steep irradiation profile, the X-ray production must occur close to the disk itself with a production rate that is a steeply declining function of radius. Thus, we are led to consider models in which the magnetic field lines connect the rotating event horizon to the accretion disk and/or disk corona. For definiteness, we will consider the canonical near-extremal Kerr BH.

In models in which the magnetic field lines are strongly coupled to the body of the accretion disk, the magnetic field transmits a retarding couple to the BH if the BH rotates faster than the magnetically connected region of the disk where the extracted rotational energy will be deposited. In order to power the observed X-ray source, the field strength close to the BH needs to be $`B10^4\mathrm{G}(M/10^7M_{})^1`$ \[Blandford & Znajek 1977\]. This is not an impossibly high field; the corresponding magnetic pressure is still substantially below the ram pressure of the accretion flow within $`r_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ and so can be confined to the BH region.

If a ring within the disk of width $`\delta r`$ is connected to the event horizon with magnetic flux $`\delta \mathrm{\Psi }`$, then the power dumped into the ring is (setting $`GM_{\mathrm{BH}}=c=1`$)

$$\delta P=\frac{(\delta \mathrm{\Psi })^2\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{D}(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{H}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{D})}{4\pi ^2\delta r(dZ_{\mathrm{BH}}/dr)},$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{D}(r)=(r^{3/2}+a)^1`$ is the angular velocity of the accretion disk, and the angular velocity of the event horizon is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{H}=0.479`$ (Li 2000). The BH resistance, $`Z_{\mathrm{BH}}`$, is a function of disk radius, $`r`$, defined by a map from the BH horizon to the accretion disk along the magnetic field lines. Viscous forces then transport this energy outwards by some distance before it is dissipated and radiated. AK01 and Li (2000) examine this process in detail and compute the radial dependence of the energy dissipation when the magnetic field connects to the accretion disk at one particular radius. We can use the formulae of AK01 (also see Li 2000) as the Green’s function for computing the more general case.

It is beyond the scope of this letter to address the detailed distribution of the hole-threading magnetic field across the disk surface, $`B(r)`$, or the nature of $`Z_{\mathrm{BH}}(r)`$. If all of the extracted spin energy is dumped into a ring at $`r=r_{\mathrm{ms}}`$, the emissivity is very steep ($`\beta >6`$) within $`r<1.8r_\mathrm{g}`$ and gradually flattens to $`r^{3.5}`$ at large radius \[Li 2000\]. More generally, the spin energy will be deposited into a range of radii, flattening this profile. We will assume $`dZ_{\mathrm{BH}}/drr^\nu `$ and $`d\mathrm{\Psi }/drr^\mu `$ ($`\mu =2`$ corresponds to a dipole field for $`r1`$). For $`\nu =1`$ and $`\mu =2`$, $`r^3`$ at $`r=2r_\mathrm{g}`$ and is flatter inside that radius. To produce emission profiles as extreme as those required by our data (i.e., $`\beta 4.5`$ at $`r1.5r_\mathrm{g}`$), field configurations as concentrated as $`\mu 3`$–4 (with some dependence on $`\nu `$). Such conditions could be achieved, for example, if the field were “pinned” onto the black hole by the ram pressure of the accretion flow.

We note that the models addressed by AK00 do not employ the Blandford-Znajek effect but, instead, magnetically torque the disk via coupling to matter deep within the plunging region. For parameters relevant to our discussion, the extra energy source is provided by the black hole spin via the Penrose effect occuring within the radius of marginal stability (but outside of the stretched horizon). In this case, all of the extra torque is provided at the inner edge of the disk (rather than across a range of radii as addressed above) and so a steep emissivity profile is a natural outcome.

Finally, we note that the large self-consistent value of $`R1.52`$ may have its origin in General Relativity. Some fraction $`f_{\mathrm{ret}}<0.5`$ of the upwardly directed disk emission will be bent by the strong gravity and strike the disk again, (“returning radiation”, Cunningham 1975, Speith, Riffert & Ruder 1995, AK00) further enhancing $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha ,\mathrm{B}}`$. This can enhance the relative amount of reflection by up to a factor of 2. Further computations are required to assess the effect of returning radiation on the emissivity profile in a self-consistent manner.

## 5 Conclusions

We have presented XMM-Newton-EPIC observations of MCG$``$6-30-15 containing a spectral feature that is best described as an extremely broad and redshifted X-ray reflection feature. Both on the basis of the extreme spectrum and the source flux, it seems likely that we have caught MCG$``$6-30-15 in the peculiar “deep minumum” state first noted by ASCA (Iwasawa et al. 1996). The extreme nature of the line profile leads us to conclude that it originates from the centralmost parts of the accretion disk. Standard accretion disk models cannot produce an emissivity profile which is centrally concentrated enough to produce the observed feature. It also seems unlikely that gravitational focussing of the continuum X-rays or magnetic coupling of the plunging region to the rest of the disk can ameliorate this conclusion. Therefore, we suggest that, during the deep minimum state, X-rays associated with the magnetic extraction of the spin energy of the black hole are dominating the emission, producing a sufficiently compact source to explain our observations. Our results thus confirm the suggestion of Iwasawa et al. (1996) and Dabrowski et al. (1997) that MCG$``$6-30-15 possesses a rapidly rotating black hole.

In a forthcoming paper, we will present a more detailed analysis of our observation, including simultaneous fits with the RXTE PCA, a study of the time dependence of the reflection features and the X-ray continuum, and fits using a larger and more detailed set of continuum and reflection models.

## acknowledgments

We thank A.C. Fabian, F.W. Haberl, J.H. Krolik, and M. Kuster for useful conversations, and the referee, Chris Done, for her very prompt reply and useful comments. We acknowledge support from DLR grant 50 OX 0002 (JW, RS, EK), Hubble Fellowship grant HF-01113.01-98A (CSR), and NSF grant AST 98-76887 (CSR, MCB). This work is based on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and the USA (NASA).