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# The hard X-ray emission from the complex SNR MSH 15-52 observed by BeppoSAX

## 1 Introduction

The source MSH 15$``$52 (G320.4$``$1.2), associated with the pulsar PSR B1509$``$58, is one of the most studied objects in the wide class of Supernova Remnants (SNR). The morphology of this remnant is quite complex: in the radio band it appears basically spherically symmetric (size $`30^{}`$), typical of shell-like SNR, with bright spots in the NW and SE regions (see e.g. Milne et al. 1993, and references therein). The NW region coincides with the IR and optical nebula RCW 89, where irregular filaments are present, emitting in the $`H_\alpha `$ line (Seward et al. 1983). Caswell et al. (1975) estimated a distance of $`4.2`$ kpc and the classical relationship between the surface brightness at 1 GHz and the linear diameter ($`\mathrm{\Sigma }D`$ relation) yields an age of $`1÷2\times 10^4`$ years (Clark & Caswell 1976). At X-ray energies, diffuse emission is detected from the shell-like remnant with a bright spot coincident with the NW zone. Centered at the pulsar position, a plerion-like structure is also present with size similar to that of the northern region (see e.g. Trussoni et al. 1996, and references therein).

The pulsar has a period of $``$ 150 ms with one of the largest period derivatives, $`1.5\times 10^{12}`$ s s-1, and emits at radio frequencies, in the soft and hard X-ray bands and at $`\gamma `$ energies (see e.g. Trussoni et al. 1990, Kawai et al. 1993, Matz et al. 1994, Greiveldinger et al. 1995, Rots et al. 1998). The spin-down age of $``$ 1700 years, younger than that estimated for the SNR, suggested possible associations with the supernova that exploded in 185 AD (Thorsett 1992). It was debated for a long time whether PSR B1509$``$58 and its surrounding plerion were components of the same system or just aligned along the line of sight. This apparent discrepancy can be reconciled assuming that the supernova exploded in an underdense cavity (Bhattacharya 1990). This possibility has been confirmed by the detailed radio observations of Gaensler et al. (1999).

Concerning the X-ray observations, several timing and spectroscopic data for the pulsar are available from the soft to the hard band. Spectroscopic and morphological data are necessary for the analysis of the properties of the remnant. So far, information on the structure of the remnant are available the in the low energy X-ray band (Einstein and ROSAT), up to 10 keV by the observations of EXOSAT and ASCA and at very high energies (up to 250 keV) by the Ginga and RXTE missions.

In order to better understand the physics of these peculiar objects we observed MSH 15$``$52 and PSR B1509$``$58 with BeppoSAX in February 1998. The instrumentation on board this satellite provides spectroscopic analysis in a very wide X-ray band (0.1–200 keV) with a spatial resolution of $`1.5^{}`$, up to energies of 10 keV. Here we present the results of the observation of the extended nebula, while the data on the pulsar emission are discussed in a separate paper (Cusumano et al. 2001). The main result of the present analysis is the discovery that the hard emission up to about 200 keV very likely originates from the extended nebula and not only from the inner plerion around the pulsar. In Sect. 2 we summarize the main X-ray properties of MSH 15$``$52 as obtained in previous missions, in Sect. 3 we outline the details of the observations and of the procedure for data reduction, in Sect. 4 we present the results of our analysis, while their astrophysical implications are discussed in Sect. 5.

## 2 The X-ray structure of MSH 15$``$52 from previous observations

From the images of the remnant obtained by ROSAT in the soft X-ray band (Fig. 1) we see the complex structure of MSH 15$``$52 (for details see Greiveldinger et al. 1995, Trussoni et al. 1996, Brazier & Becker 1997). Around the pulsar position there is the plerion with quite uniform emission (Southern Nebula) and a cross-like shape, with the longest arms in the SE-NW direction (dimensions $`10^{}\times 6^{}`$). The northern arm merges into the Northern Nebula (coinciding with RCW 89), with dimensions $`9^{}\times 4^{}`$ at a distance of $`7^{}`$ from the pulsar. In the HRI image the Northern Nebula shows an inhomogeneous morphology with several knots of emission (Brazier & Becker 1997). The opposite arm of the Southern Nebula ends in a curved tailed component with emitting blobs in the SE direction. All these structures are embedded in a diffuse and symmetric region, approximately centered at the pulsar position (Central Diffuse Nebula), of radius $`15^{}`$. Outside this region there is a weak emission extended in the SE direction (Southern Extended Nebula) and coincident with the radio source G320.6-1.6 (Milne et al. 1993).

The X-ray flux from the Southern Nebula in the ROSAT band is consistent with a power law spectrum, with photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }2`$ and column density $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ in the range $`7÷9\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2. More complex is the case of the Northern Nebula: its PSPC spectrum fits with a thermal model with $`kT0.4`$ keV but with a column density about two times larger than in the Southern Nebula. However, ASCA observations of the Northern Nebula (Tamura et al. 1996) showed that the emission is consistent with a composite model: a thermal spectrum (in agreement with the PSPC results) plus a power law component, with $`N_\mathrm{H}6\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2 and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }2`$, similarly with the values found by the PSPC for the Southern Nebula. These results may be reasonably interpreted if the two arms in the NW-SE directions are opposite outflows emerging from the pulsar, while the shorter arms in the NE-SE direction could be related to an equatorial torus surrounding the pulsar, as proposed for the Crab Nebula (Hester et al. 1995, Brazier & Becker 1997). Collimated winds accelerated from neutron stars have been proposed also to interpret the X-ray morphology of the Vela SNR (Markwardt & Ögelman 1995), and were recently detected in a Chandra observation of the pulsar in the Crab Nebula (Weisskopf et al. 2000) and in the Vela SNR (Pavlov et al. 2001).

This picture of the remnant is further supported by the detailed radio observations of Gaensler et al. (1999) who suggested a strict interaction of the pulsar with the surrounding remnant. In particular, the X-ray knots detected in the Northern Nebula and in the tail coincide with analogous compact radio structures. These are interpreted as regions where the collimated outflows, originating from the pulsar, strongly interact with the environment. The positions of these radio/X-ray blobs in the Northern Nebula suggest that the direction of the jet axis changes with the time, following a sort of precession path. These radio data strongly support that, in spite of the apparent different ages, MSH 15$``$52 and PSR B1509$``$58 originated in the same event (conversely it is very likely that G320.6$``$016, coincident with the Southern Extended Nebula, is an older SNR along the same line of sight).

In harder X-ray bands, apart from ASCA, we have data only from non imaging instruments. The results from the observations of EXOSAT/ME (up to 11 keV, Trussoni et al. 1990), Ginga (up to 60 keV, Kawai et al. 1993) and RXTE (up to 250 keV, Marsden et al. 1997) confirm that also at these energies the spectrum follows a power law with a photon index $`22.2`$, but the flux is about three times higher than deduced by the PSPC for the Southern Nebula. Furthermore, Marsden et al. (1997) found that a narrow iron line at $`6.7`$ keV significantly improved their fit.

## 3 BeppoSAX observation and data analysis

The BeppoSAX observation of MSH 15$``$52 was performed on 9–11 February 1998 for a total exposure of 31 008 s in the LECS, 82 483 s in the MECS and 34 493 s in the PDS (for details on the BeppoSAX instrumentation see Boella et al. 1997). Standard procedures and selection criteria were applied to the data using the SAXDAS v.2.0.0 package.

A raw image of the remnant as it appears in the MECS (units 2 and 3) integrated over the entire energy band (1.6–10 keV) is shown in Fig. 2. The elongated structure in the SE-NW direction is clearly visible but the limited resolution does not allow one to resolve the minor substructures. It is possible to improve the image quality, up to the MECS spatial resolution, by applying a deconvolution algorithm based on the Lucy (1974) method to each monochromatic image and using the proper local Point Spread Function (PSF). The adopted procedure is described in detail in Maccarone et al. (2001). For each energy channel MECS images were first rebinned to a pixel size of 24 $`\times `$ 24 arcsec to improve the statistics, and then deconvolved with the proper monochromatic PSF. According to Maccarone et al. (2001) we used 300 iterations which guarantee a good convergence at all the energies. Final processed images were then added together in selected energy bands. In this analysis the pulsar contribution has not been eliminated to avoid strong reduction of the statistics.

To perform the spectral analysis of the nebular emission of the Southern Nebula we excluded the contribution from the pulsar. Phase histograms, for each energy channel of the NFIs instruments, have been obtained folding the selected UTC arrival times, converted to the Solar System Barycenter, with the pulsar ephemeris (see Cusumano et al. 2001 for detail). Fig. 3 shows the resulting pulsed profile for the energy band 1.6–10 keV; the nebular emission has been extracted from the off-pulse phase interval (0.77–1.07) where we assume that the pulsar emission is not dominant. Spectral analysis was performed with the XSPEC package (ver. 11.0) after rebinning the counts in order to have at least 20 events in each energy channel. As the source is extended, a suitable auxiliary matrix must be created to correct for the vignetting, that is relevant at distances $`>4^{}`$ from the center of the FOV (Fiore et al. 1999). This can be performed for the MECS data using the SAXDAS effarea command, but the procedure is suitable only for sources with symmetric azimuthal intensity distribution (for details see Molendi 1998, D’Acri et al. 1998). We then produced an ad-hoc matrix computing the vignetting correction according to the asymmetric spatial distribution of MSH 15$``$52. We then verified that using such auxiliary matrix the resulting best fit values of the spectral indices differ from those obtained with the standard matrices by less than $`2\sigma `$ while the normalizations show a discrepancy of $``$ 30%. No analogous procedure is available at the moment for the LECS observations of extended targets, therefore we have not included these data in our analysis.

Spectral fits were first performed separately for the MECS and PDS data and after a combined fit of both data sets was also considered. The spectrum of the background for the MECS has been extracted from blank fields, while the PDS one is simultaneously monitored by rocking the collimator. The uncertainties reported in the following are at 1 standard deviation for one interesting parameter.

## 4 Results

In this section we discuss first the remnant morphology in the intermediate band (1.6–10 keV) as obtained from the deconvolved MECS data, then we address the spectroscopic properties obtained from the MECS and PDS observations.

### 4.1 Morphology

As expected from previous observations (see Sect. 2), the MECS image of this plerionic system shows an extended emission elongated at about the Position Angle $``$20, with a bright point source in the center corresponding to the pulsar position. The deconvolved images in three energy bands are shown in Fig. 4: 1.6–10 keV (upper panel), soft X-ray band 1.6–4 keV (central panel), hard X-ray band 4–10 keV (upper panel).

The contour plots of the last two images are also shown in Fig. 5. The contour levels are relative to the mean central intensity measured after subtraction of the contribution from the pulsar. In all these deconvolved images it is possible to recognize the major structures already known from ROSAT (Fig. 1). In particular, the much softer emission from the Northern Nebula is evident, that almost disappears for photon energies higher than 4 keV. In the harder band we notice the dominant central symmetric region, related to the pulsar emission, and the elongated structures towards the Northern Nebula and the tail region, respectively. This confirms the ASCA results (Tamura et al. 1996), that showed a highly asymmetric structure of the MSH 15–52 up to X-ray energies $`>`$ 10 keV. The angular dimensions of the Southern Nebula in the higher energy range are at least $`4^{}\times 8.5^{}`$ (at the 10% level of the nebular central intensity), corresponding to about 5 $`\times `$ 10 pc.

The soft spectrum of the Northern Nebula is also confirmed by the hardness ratio of these two images using pixel size of $`2^{}\times 2^{}`$ to improve the statistics (Fig. 6). The hardest value in the center of the nebula corresponds to the pulsar position, as expected.

We remark finally that due to the smaller FOV of the MECS, from the image we cannot disentangle the presence of the large Central Diffuse Nebula detected in the ROSAT observation.

### 4.2 The spectral properties of the plerionic emission

In the following we first analyze separately the data from the MECS and the PDS and after we present the combined analysis.

#### 4.2.1 MECS data

Due to the complex structure of the remnant, we performed spectral fits to flux measured in the MECS from three different regions. The first two are centered at the pulsar position with radii $`4^{}`$, corresponding to the central region of the Southern Nebula, and $`17^{}`$, to include the extended emission excluding however a sector containing the Northern Nebula; the third region is centered on the Northern Nebula with radius $`3^{}`$. For the first two, events from the off-pulse phase interval are considered, while, for the third one, no phase selection was performed because the pulsar contamination at such a distance was estimated around 3%. Spectral fits were computed for a power-law distribution and the resulting parameter values are reported in Table 1. From the fit to the Southern Nebula emission ($`4^{}`$) we have deduced for the column density $`N_\mathrm{H}=(8.0\pm 1.5)\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2, consistent within 1 $`\sigma `$ with the value deduced from Cusumano et al. (2001), $`9.1\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2, that we have adopted in our analysis. Southern Nebula and Central Diffuse Nebula. The spectral slopes (Table 1) are much steeper than the pulsar one that was found to be equal to $`1.2`$. The flux from the larger area, including also the Central Diffuse Nebula contribution, has a slightly steeper spectral distribution slope, while the 2–10 keV energy flux is approximately two times larger. If we include in this fit also the sector with Northern Nebula, the spectrum is slightly steeper ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.08\pm 0.01`$) with a the total 2–10 keV flux of $`1.2\times 10^{10}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, i.e. $`1.3`$ times higher than in the previous case with the Northern Nebula excluded.

We have searched for possible line emissions at 6.4 and 6.7 keV in the MECS spectrum extracted over the $`17^{}`$ radius region and found no evidence of such features. The 6.7 keV upper limit at 90% confidence level, of 1.2 $`\times `$ 10-4 photons cm-2 s-1, about 30% less than the line flux derived from RXTE data (Marsden et al. 1997), is compatible with the Galactic ridge emission (Koyama et al. 1989). Northern Nebula. It is known from the ASCA data (Tamura et al. 1996) that a thermal and a power-law components contribute to the total flux, with the former that largely prevails below 3 keV. In order to avoid the contamination from thermal photons, we fitted the MECS data for energies $`4`$ keV and found a photon index of 2.10, steeper than that found for Southern Nebula (Table 1). We estimate that this power-law component contributes for $`25\%`$ to the total flux of the remnant in the 2–10 keV band, as expected from the previous results on the Southern Nebula and Central Diffuse Nebula.

#### 4.2.2 PDS data

The power-law fit of the unpulsed high energy flux detected in the PDS gave a poorly constrained photon index and a total flux of $`1.2\times 10^{10}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 in the 20–200 keV energy range (see Table 2). The slope is consistent with the extrapolation of the spectrum at lower energies obtained with the MECS, implying that energy losses do not crucially affect the emitting electrons up to energies of 200 keV. The lack of imaging information and the not enough constrained evaluation of the energy flux do not allow a definite answer to the question concerning the spatial extent of the region emitting at these energies.

#### 4.2.3 Combined MECS and PDS data

A spectral analysis of the combined data sets from the MECS (with extraction radii of $`4^{}`$ and $`17^{}`$) and the PDS can provide information on the size of the region for the hard X-ray emission. Note that now the MECS spectrum obtained with an extraction radius of $`17^{}`$ includes the Northern Nebula contribution. When evaluating these fits, we considered as a free parameter the normalization factor $`f_{\mathrm{ic}}`$ by which the MECS spectrum must be multiplied to match that from PDS. According to the in-flight calibrations with well-known sources, it is expected that $`0.77f_{\mathrm{ic}}0.95`$ (Fiore et al. 1999), but this range applies only for point-like sources, while its value has not been calibrated for significantly extended sources, as in the present case. From the results reported in Table 2, we see that the values of this parameter are very different if the MECS data from the small or large region are considered. However, near the center of the FOV the vignetting effects are not relevant, as confirmed by our tests in Sec. 3, so that the Southern Nebula can be quite reasonably considered point-like in the MECS. Considering now the linear off-axis response of the PDS, if the region of emission of the hard photons is comparable (or smaller) than the Southern Nebula, we can assume again that it is ‘seen’ basically point-like in the detector. Then, considering the hard component as the high energy tail of the emission detected in the MECS, and originating from the inner region of the plerion, we would expect $`f_{\mathrm{ic}}`$ to lie in the range given above, from the fit of the MECS ($`4^{}`$) + PDS spectra. In contrast, we find $`f_{\mathrm{ic}}1.35`$ (see Table 2), higher than the expected point source upper limit: this result implies that the MECS flux must be increased by 35% instead of being reduced about 15%, as in the case of a point source. This discrepancy may be reasonably related to the fact that the region emitting in the 20–200 keV is more extended than the Southern Nebula itself.

## 5 Discussion

The main results of this analysis concern the characteristics of the hard X-ray flux from the remnant: it turns out from the MECS + PDS data that the non-thermal unpulsed emission extends over the range 1.6–200 keV without any evidence of a break in the spectral slope. As far as the spatial emission distribution is concerned, in the range of the MECS it extends, without a strong break in the spectrum, up to $`>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}17}^{}`$ (i.e. $`>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\; 20}`$ pc) from the compact plerion that surrounds the pulsar. Furthermore there are some clues that also the emission up to $`200`$ keV may originate far from the central region.

Before discussing the implications of these data on the structure of MSH 15-52 one has to consider that X-ray and $`\gamma `$-ray emission has been detected from the galactic ridge, where the remnant is located. In the energy range 2–11 keV the average flux (consistent with a thermal continuum with temperature $`9`$ keV) is $`8.0\times 10^8`$ erg cm-2 s-1 sr-1 (Koyama et al. 1986), which is $`20`$ times less than the flux (for arcmin2) detected in the MECS. Regarding the hard range (20–200 keV), a diffuse non-thermal emission from the galactic ridge has been detected, but with a much steeper slope than we obtain in the PDS ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }2.7`$, Skibo et al. 1997). Since no spurious hard source has been found in the field of view of the MECS, it is very reasonable that the hard spectrum is associated with the remnant and originates from a region more extended than the Southern Nebula.

The values of the spectral parameters are basically consistent with those derived, in the same range of energy, from the RXTE observation by Marsden et al. (1997) whose data were fitted by a spectrum with a slightly softer index ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.21`$). However, in contrast with their conclusion, from the above arguments it is reasonable to conclude that the emission does not originate only from the inner plerion. Concerning the Northern Nebula, the slope of the spectrum is consistent with that deduced from ASCA within 1$`\sigma `$, while the flux at 1 keV is $`2`$ times higher. Considering however the statistical errors the lower (in the MECS) and upper limits (in ASCA) of the fluxes differ by a factor $`1.5`$ and $`1.2`$ at 1$`\sigma `$ and 2$`\sigma `$ levels, respectively.

The total luminosity of the remnant in the 2–10 keV energy range is $`2.6\times 10^{35}`$ erg s-1 (distance = 4.2 kpc) to which the Southern and Northern Nebulae contribute by $`40\%`$ and $`25\%`$, respectively. The remaining fraction of $`35\%`$ comes from the extended region which is reasonable to associate with the Central Diffuse Nebula detected from ROSAT in the soft X-ray band. If the whole spectrum does not change up to $``$ 200 keV, the Northern Nebula and the Central Diffuse Nebula should contribute, by comparable amounts, to more than half of the flux detected in the PDS.

Hard X-ray emission is quite common in plerions and shell-like supernova remnants, which means that electrons of very high energy must be present. For the latter objects (like e.g. Cas A and SNR 1006) it is proposed that these particles are created through both the initial shock wave and local stochastic acceleration processes, and also a non thermal bremsstrahlung could be present (Reynolds 1996, Favata et al. 1997). In plerions conversely high energy electrons may originate from the pulsar and further be stochastically accelerated in the shock where the relativistic pulsar wind encounters the inner region of the remnant (Rees & Gunn 1974, Kennel & Coroniti 1984). A classical example of this picture is the Crab Nebula, where the shock should lie at $`0.1`$ pc from the pulsar, however the presence of a jet implies that the interaction of the pulsar outflow with the environment is anisotropic and very complex. We can reasonably imagine that a similar structure exists in the inner region of the Southern Nebula, with emission at high X-ray energies (notice its slightly flatter spectrum). The major problem in our case is the extension of the remnant, with $`60\%`$ of the flux (up to 200 keV) originating several pc away from the inner plerion.

It is extremely difficult to describe the complicated high energy structure of MSH 15$``$52 through a detailed dynamic model of a pulsar relativistic wind interacting with a remnant. However we can try to see whether the radiating particles in the Central Diffuse Nebula may directly originate from the pulsar. In the simplest hypothesis, we can compare the Lorentz factor $`\gamma `$ of an electron which is synchrotron emitting a photon of energy $`E`$ in a magnetic field $`B`$:

$$\gamma 4.5\times 10^8(E_{\mathrm{keV}}/B_{\mu \mathrm{G}})^{1/2},$$
$`(1)`$
($`E_{\mathrm{keV}}=E/1`$ keV and $`B_{\mu \mathrm{G}}=B/10^6`$ G), with that of an electron originating from the outer gap region (Zhang & Cheng 1997, eq. 26):

$$\gamma _{\mathrm{og}}3\times 10^7f^{1/2}(B_{12}R_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}6}}^3/P)^{1/4},$$
$`(2)`$
where $`R_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}6}}`$ is the radius of the pulsar in units of $`10^6`$ cm, $`P`$ is the period in s, $`B_{12}`$ the surface magnetic field in units of $`10^{12}`$ G and $`f`$ a factor $`1`$ that takes into account the volume fraction of the outer gap in the magnetosphere. Assuming as reasonable value for the average nebular magnetic field $`B=10\mu G`$ (Seward et al. 1984) in Eq. 1 and the parameters of PSR B1509$``$58 in Eq. 2 ($`P=0.15`$ s, $`B_{12}=15.5`$ and $`R_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}6}}=1`$), even in the extreme case of $`f=1`$ we find that $`\gamma _{\mathrm{og}}`$ is less by a factor $`5`$ and $``$ 15 than required for the X-ray emission in the extended region at 10 and 100 keV, respectively.

The above reasoning is not entirely model-free, but relies upon theories of particle acceleration at the outer gap. However we can also draw similar conclusions if we postulate that an alternative process produces very high energy particles around the pulsar magnetosphere or in the inner region of the plerion. In fact a relativistic electron in a mean magnetic field, with a cooling time scale (neglecting other radiative losses) :

$$\tau =\gamma /|\dot{\gamma }|=1.7\times 10^{12}(E_{\mathrm{keV}}B_{\mu \mathrm{G}}^3)^{1/2}\mathrm{s},$$
$`(3)`$
covers a distance:

$$R\kappa c\tau =1.6\times 10^4(E_{\mathrm{keV}}B_{\mu \mathrm{G}}^3)^{1/2}\mathrm{pc},$$
$`(4)`$
where through the factor $`\kappa 1`$ we take into account that the particle cannot follow a pure radial propagation outwards. Practically we can consider $`\kappa R_\mathrm{c}/D`$, i.e. the ratio of the electron gyroradius to the linear size of the remnant. With $`B=10\mu G`$ the maximum distance attained by the particle is $`R50\kappa `$ pc for $`E=100`$ keV photons. Consistently with the extent of the Central Diffuse Nebula, one would require $`\kappa 0.5`$, while the actual value of the electron gyroradius for a 100 keV emitting electron is $`2\times 10^{11}`$ cm, implying a value of $`\kappa <10^8`$.

Then, excluding that the Central Diffuse Nebula is an old SNR on the line of sight and just overlapped and centered on the pulsar, it appears that in this remnant effective reacceleration processes must be effective far from the central plerion.

Coming to the Northern Nebula, the limited imaging capabilities of the MECS do not allow us to check whether this power law emission is related to the jet emerging from the pulsar (as proposed by Tamura et al. 1996) or to some region of local particle acceleration. In the former case in the collimated wind highly relativistic electrons must be present, and we find again the problem of the origin of such particles discussed above. If most of the hard emission is related to local acceleration (e.g. shocks), we could argue that a fraction of high energy particles might diffuse away from the Northern Nebula and contribute to the emission of the Central Diffuse Nebula. The detailed radio images of the Northern Nebula obtained by Gaensler et al. (1998) show discrete highly polarized spots coincident with the X-rays knots detected in the ROSAT/HRI image (Brazier & Becker 1997). These structures, whose emission is consistent with a single power law from radio to X-ray energies, could be interpreted as shocks due to the interaction of a precessing jet with the environment. It is possible to see that the total X-ray emission from these knots is about twice that deduced from the ASCA observations, but more consistent with the MECS results. In conclusion, the physical conditions of the emitting plasma in the Northern Nebula are quite complex, and only detailed observations from the new generation satellites will contribute new insights on this point.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors are grateful to F. Fiore for his information on the analysis of extended images. ET and SM acknowledge financial support from the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana through the grant ASI ARS 99 15. EM acknowledges financial support from the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research through the grant Cofin 99-02-02.


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# 1 The structures of superconductors (A) Copper oxide plane, (B) copper oxide ladder,and (C) 𝐶₆₀ molecule. Ladders of copper and oxygen atoms, as shown in (B), form spontaneously in some compounds.

Perspectives: Superconductivity

The Race to Beat the Cuprates

\[Science 239, 2410 (2001)\]

Elbio Dagotto

Department of Physics and National High Magnetic Field Lab, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.
E-mail: dagotto@magnet.fsu.edu

Superconductors are materials that lose all electrical resistance below a specific temperature, known as the critical temperature ($`T_c`$). Large-scale applications, for example, in superconducting cables, require materials with high (ideally room temperature) $`T_c`$’s, but most superconductors have very low $`T_c`$’s, typically a few kelvin or less. The discovery of a layered copper oxide (cuprate) with a $`T_c`$ of 38 K (see panel A in the first figure) in 1986  raised hopes that high temperature superconductivity might be within reach. By 1993, cuprate $`T_c`$’s of 133 K at ambient pressure had been achieved , but efforts to further increase cuprate $`T_c`$’s have not been fruitful. Two reports by Schön et al.  in the current issue of science –applying a similar technique to two very different materials– drastically alter the perception that planar cuprates are the only route to high temperature superconductivity.

Schön et al. use a field-effect device introduced in previous investigations to transform insulating compounds into metals . On page 2430, they show that copper oxide materials with a ladder structure (panel B in the first figure) can be superconducting , even without the high pressure applied in previous studies of related compounds. Even more spectacularly, they report on page 2432 that the $`T_c`$ of a noncuprate molecular materials, $`C_{60}`$ (panel C in the first figure), known before to superconduct at $`52K`$ upon hole doping , can be raised by hole doping with intercalated CHBr3 to $`117K`$ , not far from the cuprate record. Simple extrapolations suggest that the $`T_c`$ could be increased even further, effectively ending the dominance of cuprates in the high-$`T_c`$ arena.

The idea behind the studies is conceptually simple. Field-effect doping exploits the fact that under a strong, static electric field, charge (electrons or holes) will accumulate at the surface of the material, effectively modifying the electronic density in that region. This is necessary to stabilize superconductors away from nominally insulating compositions. The dielectric portion of the field-effect device must be able to sustain electric fields large enough to induce a sufficient number of holes per atom or molecule for the material under study to become superconducting. In addition, the interface with the studied material must be as perfect as possible. Doping through a field-effect device  avoids imperfections that cause the system to deviate locally from its average properties. Such imperfections are inevitably induced by chemical doping. Disorder has not been seriously considered by most cuprate high-$`T_c`$ theorists, but its important role is slowly emerging. Some phase diagrams of cuprates may have to be redrawn when doping is introduced through a field-effect device .

In ladder cuprates, electrons are more likely to move along the legs of the ladder, rendering the material quasi-one-dimensional. However, the ladder rungs are also very important: They induce an effective attraction between carriers, in this case holes, that leads to superconductivity . Superconductivity in a ladder material was first observed experimentally in 1996, when a $`T_c`$ of $`13K`$ was reported . However, the superconducting state was stabilized with a high pressure of about 3 GPa. Ambient pressure ladder superconductivity, although searched for extensively, was not observed until now.

The previous negative results suggested that high pressure may transform the ladders into anisotropic two-dimensional systems (similar to the planar cuprates) by reducing interatomic distances . However, Schön et al. show that ladders can become superconducting without high pressure, simply by a different doping procedure than previously used. Cuprate superconductivity is thus not unique to two-dimensional structures but exists in ladders as well, with similar copper and oxygen building blocks but a qualitatively different atomic arrangement.

The ladder compounds are conceptually important because they provide the only known superconducting copper oxide without a square lattice. The hypothesis that the ladder compounds are anisotropic two-dimensional systems appears difficult to sustain in view of the discovery reported in . Furthermore, the resistivity at optimal doping (when $`T_c`$ is the highest) is linear with temperature . This behavior, observed also in non-superconducting ladders , was previously believed to be a unique signature of the exotic properties of high-$`T_c`$ planar cuprates.

Crystalline $`C_{60}`$ is normally an insulator, but in 1991, it was shown that electron-doped fullerenes are superconducting . Recently, the $`T_c`$ in these compounds was raised to $`52K`$ by field-effect hole doping, suggesting that $`T_c`$ could be raised further by increasing the intermolecular distance – a quantity that was found to be almost linearly related to $`T_c`$ .

The new results  confirm these expectations. It is widely believed that hole-doped $`C_{60}`$ follows the standard model of superconductivity in which phonons (vibrations of the lattice and molecules) provide the source of attraction between carriers for pair formation and concomitant zero resistance. In fullerenes, high-energy intramolecular phonons are available to mediate the pairing. As the distance between molecules increases, the overlap of electronic wavefunctions decreases. As a result, the electronic bands narrow and the electronic density of states at the Fermi level ($`E_F`$) increases. These effects, supplemented by a substantial electron-phonon coupling ($`\lambda `$), appear to determine to a large extent the high value of the $`T_c`$. Smaller $`C_{36}`$ fullerenes are expected to have a larger $`\lambda `$ than $`C_{60}`$ , suggesting another route to higher $`T_c`$’s.

These arguments are persuasive and likely correct, but possible electronic pairing mechanisms should also be considered. Electron-electron interactions are characterized by an energy scale much larger than that of phonons and are more likely to generate high-$`T_c`$ behavior. Intramolecular pairing of whatever origin – phononic or electronic – may produce the same local effective attraction, usually referred to as “-$`U`$”. Denoting by $`t`$ the amplitude for electron hopping between $`C_{60}`$ molecules, in simple models for superconductivity the reduction of $`t`$ at fixed $`|U|`$ leads to an increase of $`T_c`$ in weak coupling , as in the present experiments , where the hopping is regulated by intercalating small molecules . On the other hand, if $`T_c`$’s of more than 100 K can be achieved in fullerenes with just phonons, then the relevance of phononic mechanisms for cuprates should be reconsidered. Has nature given us only one way to induce high temperature superconductivity, after all?

Superconductivity in field-effect doped materials is effectively two-dimensional, sandwiched between the undoped bulk material and the dielectric oxide. Is this effective lower dimensionality crucial for the high $`T_c`$ obtained? Results for electron-doped fullerenes suggest otherwise — bulk- and field-effect-doped compounds have similar $`T_c`$’s  — but the question is worth investigating. Correlating $`T_c`$ with the electronic density of states at $`E_F`$ would also allow for a more intuitive understanding of the results. The mechanism of increasing the density of states by reducing the bandwidth through the expansion of the lattice seems simplistic but appears to work. In theoretical studies of superconducting cuprates, band narrowing was caused by the antiferromagnetic background in which the holes are immersed. In this context, optimal doping is naturally associated with a peak in the density of states .

Through increasing the $`C_{60}`$ lattice constant by 1%  or improvements of the field-effect device, it may be possible to induce a $`T_c`$ above 133 K, the ambient pressure record for cuprates (see the second figure). However, the work on ladders  shows that cuprates can now also be doped by the field-effect device. An exciting organic vs inorganic race toward room-temperature superconductivity may be about to begin. If so, then field-effect doping will likely play a fundamental role.

REFERENCES

1. J. G. Bednorz and K. A. Mueller, Z. Phys. B64, 189 (1986).

2. A. Schilling et al., Nature 363, 56 (1993).

3. M. Nunez-Regueiro et al., Science 262, 97 (1993).

4. J. H. Schön et al., Science 293, 2430 (2001).

5. J. H. Schön, Ch. Kloc, and B. Batlogg, Science 293, 2432 (2001).

6. J. H. Schön et al., Science 288, 656 (2000).

7. J. H. Schön et al., Nature 408, 549 (2000).

8. J. Burgy et al., cond-mat/0107300, to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett., and references therein.

9. E. Dagotto, J. Riera and D. Scalapino, Phys. Rev. B45, 5744 (1992).

10. M. Uehara et al., J. Phys. Soc. Jpn.65, 2764 (1996).

11. T. Nagata et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 1090 (1998).

12. A. F. Hebbard et al., Nature 350, 600 (1991).

13. M. Côté et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 697 (1998).

14. R. Scalettar et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, 1407 (1989).

15. The statement that $`T_c`$ may be increased by increasing the lattice spacing, since the electronic pair binding is an intramolecular property, already appeared in S. Chakravarty, M. Gelfand, and S. Kivelson, Science 254, 970 (1991). See also P. Lammert et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 996 (1995) and references therein. The author apologizes for this omission in the present Science article.

16. A. Nazarenko et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 310 (1995).


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# Hydrodynamical analysis of hadronic spectra in the 130 GeV/nucleon Au+Au collisions

## Abstract

We study one-particle spectra and a two-particle correlation function in the 130 GeV/nucleon Au+Au collisions at RHIC by making use of a hydrodynamical model. We calculate the one-particle hadronic spectra and present the first analysis of Bose-Einstein correlation functions based on the numerical solution of the hydrodynamical equations which takes both longitudinal and transverse expansion into account appropriately. The hydrodynamical model provides excellent agreement with the experimental data in the pseudorapidity and the transverse momentum spectra of charged hadrons, the rapidity dependence of anti-proton to proton ratio, and almost consistent result for the pion Bose-Einstein correlation functions. Our numerical solution with simple freeze-out picture suggests the formation of the quark-gluon plasma with large volume and low net-baryon density.

preprint: WU-HEP-01-4preprint: TWC-01-5

Relativistic heavy ion collisions are very attracting problems which provide us the nature of hot and dense hadronic matter QM2 (January 14-21, 2001). Creation of a new state of the matter, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), and many kinds of new phenomena are expected to be found in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) experiments at BNL of which the collision energy is much higher than any other accelerator. However, the complicated processes during the many-body interactions and multiparticle productions are quite hard to catch clear. Therefore, a simple phenomenological description is indispensable for the better understanding of the phenomena. The aims of this paper are, based on a hydrodynamical model, to draw a simple and clear picture of the space-time evolution of the hot and dense matter produced in the high energy heavy ion collisions at RHIC and to give a possible explanation for the recent experimental results.

We use a (3+1)-dimensional hydrodynamical model Ishii and Muroya (1992) to describe the space-time evolution assuming the local thermal and chemical equilibrium. Several authors have already discussed RHIC results based on hydrodynamical models. Kolb et al. Kolb et al. (2001) discussed anisotropic flow by making use of a (2+1)-dimensional hydrodynamic model in which Bjorken’s ansatz Bjorken (1983) was used for the beam direction. Hence, their discussion is limited only in the midrapidity region. Zschiesche et al. Zschiesche et al.  discussed HBT radii based on a hydrodynamical model with use of the Bjorken’s scaling solution in the collision direction. One of the authors (T.H.) has already reproduced the both the pseudorapidity and the transverse momentum spectra of hadrons by using a full (3+1)-dimensional hydrodynamical model in Ref. Hirano (2002), where main theme of the analysis is also anisotropic flow. In this paper, we focus our discussion on central collisions by assuming the cylindrical symmetry of the system. We calculate the one-particle hadronic spectra and present the first analysis of Bose-Einstein correlation functions based on the numerical solution of the hydrodynamical equations which takes both longitudinal and transverse expansion into account appropriately Ishii and Muroya (1992).

The hydrodynamical equations are given as $`_\mu T^{\mu \nu }(x)=0`$ with the baryon number conservation law $`_\mu n_\text{B}^\mu (x)=0`$. We numerically solve these coupled equations for the perfect fluid by the method described in Ref. Ishii and Muroya (1992). Our numerical solution keeps entropy, energy and net baryon number conserved within 5% of accuracy throughout the calculation with the time step $`\delta \tau =0.01`$ fm/$`c`$. As for an equation of state (EOS), we adopt a bag model EOS in which phase transition of first order takes place Nonaka et al. (2000). The QGP phase is a free gas with a bag constant $`B`$. The gas consists of massless quarks of three flavor and gluons. The hadronic phase is a free resonance gas with an excluded volume correction in which all resonances up to 2 GeV/$`c^2`$ of mass are included. These two phases are connected by the condition of pressure continuity Nonaka et al. (2000).

Putting the initial time as $`\tau =1.0`$ fm/$`c`$, we parameterize the initial energy density distribution and net baryon number distribution as simple gaussian forms (Fig. 1) Ishii and Muroya (1992).111In Ref. Ishii and Muroya (1992), gaussian parameterizations are adopted to temperature and net baryon number distribution. The parameters in the model should be chosen so that calculated single-particle spectra reproduce the experimental results of Au+Au central collisions in the 130 GeV/nucleon at RHIC. The parameter set is summarized in Table. 1. Note that we use Bjorken’s solution Bjorken (1983) $`Y_\text{L}=\eta `$ only as an initial condition for the longitudinal flow velocity. Initial transverse flow is simply neglected. Once the freeze-out hypersurface is fixed, one can calculate the single particle spectra via Cooper-Frye formula Cooper and Frye (1974). We assume that the freeze-out process occurs a specific temperature $`T_\text{f}`$. This condition corresponds to a constant energy density in the present calculation because of small baryonic chemical potential. By virtue of the Lagrangian hydrodynamics, we expect that contributions of the time-like hypersurface are small and the space-like hypersurface dominates the particle emission at freeze-out; we simply put $`k^\mu d\sigma _\mu k^\tau d\sigma _\tau `$.222It is well known that the Cooper-Frye formula has an ambiguity in the treatment of the time-like hypersurface Sinyukov (1989) We take hadrons from decay of resonances into account as well as directly emitted particles from the freeze-out hypersurface. We include decay processes $`\rho 2\pi `$, $`\omega 3\pi `$, $`\eta 3\pi `$, $`K^{}\pi K`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }N\pi `$ Sollfrank et al. (1991); Hirano (2001). The resonances are also assumed to be emitted from the freeze-out hypersurface.

Figure 3 shows pseudorapidity distribution of charged hadrons. Figure 3 shows transverse momentum spectrum of negatively charged hadrons. In both figures, our results well reproduce the experimental data. We display the transverse mass spectra of identified negatively charged hadrons ($`\pi ^{}`$, $`K^{}`$, $`\overline{p}`$) in Fig. 5. All slopes of the spectra are well reproduced by our calculation. For $`K^{}`$ and $`\overline{p}`$, our results fail to reproduce the particle numbers but slopes agree well. In Fig. 5, our result shows excellent agreement with the experimental data of anti-proton to proton ratio as a function of rapidity. However, the absolute numbers of anti-protons was not enough (Fig. 5). Though we here assume the same freeze-out condition for all particle species, the discrepancy may indicate the more complicated mechanism.

From the parameter set in Table. 1, we can see that the energy density is sufficient for the QGP production. However, the energy density, $`ϵ_{\text{max}}=`$ 6.0 GeV/fm3 which corresponds to the temperature of 229 MeV, is only 5% higher than SPS Hirano et al. (b). Large collision energy at RHIC leads to very large volume of the hot matter. Longitudinal extension of the hot matter, $`\sigma _\eta +\eta _0=2.47`$, is about 2.3 times larger than the one of SPS Hirano et al. (b). Initial energy density itself depends strongly on the initial time $`\tau _0`$ which corresponds to the spatial size in the longitudinal direction. Hence, much higher energy density should be obtained if we assume an earlier thermalization time. Furthermore, we do not include the thickness of incident nuclei but use almost flat profile with gaussian smearing for the transverse direction (see Fig. 1). Therefore, maximum energy density of our model is smaller than other models which take the thickness into account Kolb et al. (2001); Zschiesche et al. ; Hirano (2002). The average energy density at $`\eta =0`$ transverse plane in our model is 3.9 GeV/fm3. Total energy of the fluid of our model corresponds to 25290 GeV, 99 % of total collision energy. We display the outputs from the fluid in Table. 2. In the present model, net baryon number is much smaller than total baryon number of incident nuclei. $`\mu _\text{B}`$ means average of the chemical potential on the whole freeze-out hypersurface. $`v_\text{T}`$ is the average transverse velocity of the fluid element in $`|\eta |0.1`$ at the freeze-out. “Lifetimes” of the each phase are also shown in Table. 2. Space-time evolution of the fluid is displayed in Fig. 6. The large area between $`T=160`$ MeV and $`T=158`$ MeV means large space-time volume of the mixed phase.

The two-particle correlation function for chaotic source is calculated through

$$C_2(q^\mu ,K^\mu )=1+\frac{|I(q^\mu ,K^\mu )|^2}{I(0,k_1^\mu )I(0,k_2^\mu )}$$
(1)
where $`K^\mu =(k_1^\mu +k_2^\mu )/2`$, $`q^\mu =k_1^\mu k_2^\mu `$, respectively Shuryak (1973); Hama and Padula (1988). We put

$$I(q^\mu ,K^\mu )=K_\mu 𝑑\sigma ^\mu (x)\sqrt{f(k_1,x)f(k_2,x)}e^{iq_\nu x^\nu },$$
(2)
so that $`I(0,k^\mu )`$ reduces to the Cooper-Frye formula with $`f(k,x)`$ being the Bose-Einstein distribution function. As a first trial, we neglect the contributions from resonance decay for simplicity. Figure 7 shows the projected correlation functions for $`\pi ^{}`$ with $`|Y|0.5`$ and $`0.125<K_\text{T}<0.225`$ GeV/$`c`$. In each correlation function, our results are corrected by a common $`\lambda `$ factor whose value is 0.6. The other origin of the reduction is integration with respect to other components of the relative momenta over the range $`0<q_i<35`$ MeV/$`c`$. Despite the neglection of resonance contribution,333It has been discussed that the hadronic cloud significantly affects the HBT radii Soff et al. (2001). both outward and longitudinal correlation functions show good agreements with the experiment. Finally, we compare pair transverse mass $`M_\text{T}=\sqrt{K_\text{T}^2+m^2}`$ dependence of the HBT radii extracted through the Gaussian fit to the three-dimensional correlation function (Fig. 8). We obtain almost consistent sideward HBT radii but obtained outward and longitudinal HBT radii are larger than experimental data. This tendency is common to the all hydrodynamical calculation Zschiesche et al. ; Heinz and Kolb . However, the difference between our results and data, 1 fm in HBT radii, corresponds to only 5 MeV in the correlation function (Fig. 7). As for $`R_{\text{out}}`$, a naive interpretation of the experimental result is that high $`M_\text{T}`$ pions come from high temperature source and the experimental results indicate short lifetime of the high temperature region. On the other hand, if the freeze-out picture works well, i.e., most of particles are emitted from the 3-dimensional hypersurface, the experimental data suggest very short freeze-out duration or strong opaqueness of the source Heiselberg and Vischer (1998). Though our model naturally shows opaque property due to hydrodynamical flow Morita et al. (2000), the freeze-out time duration, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=\sqrt{t^2t^2}`$ where $`A(x)=d^4xA(x)S(x,K)/d^4xS(x,K)`$ with $`S(x,K)`$ being the source function Chapman et al. (1995), of our model is about 5 $``$ 7 fm/$`c`$ which is longer than the SPS case Morita et al. (2000); Hirano et al. (b). This long time duration of our model leads to the large $`R_{\text{out}}/R_{\text{side}}`$ Rischke and Gyulassy (1996).

In summary, we present a hydrodynamical-model calculation for the 130 GeV/nucleon Au+Au collisions data from the RHIC experiments. The present numerical solution indicates that the produced quark-gluon plasma in the RHIC has much lower baryon density, slightly higher energy density, and several times larger extension in the longitudinal direction than in the SPS case, if we compare at the same initial time, $`\tau _0=1`$ fm/$`c`$. We present the first analysis of the pion Bose-Einstein correlation data at RHIC based on the hydrodynamical model which takes into account both longitudinal and transverse expansion appropriately. The result is partly consistent with the experimental result but obtained $`R_{\text{out}}`$ and $`R_{\text{long}}`$ are slightly larger than the experimental data. In this work, we concentrate our discussion on the RHIC data. More detailed discussion including the comparison with the SPS data will be given in the forthcoming paper Hirano et al. (b).

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors are much indebted to Professor I. Ohba and Professor H. Nakazato for their fruitful comments. They also would like to thank Dr. H. Nakamura and other members of high energy physics group at Waseda University for helpful discussions. One of the authors (C.N.) would like to acknowledge the financial support by the Soryushi Shogakukai. This work is partially supported by Waseda University Grant for Special Research Projects No.2001A-888 and Waseda University Media Network Center.


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# Untitled Document

Error sensitivity of a Quantum Simulator I:

a first example

G. Strini

Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università

Via Celoria 16 Milano - Italy

Abstract

As the first useful Quantum Computers presumably will be quantum simulators, here the minimum number of qubits necessary for the solution of Schrödinger’s equation in simple test problems is evaluated. From the present preliminary results it appears that it is possible to realize a useful quantum simulator with a register of only 10-15 qubits. The intrinsic sensitivity to some errors appears to be moderate without the need of error correcting methods. At present there is at least some indication that the amplitude errors are more dangerous than phase and decoherence errors. So corrections limited to amplitude errors may be very useful.

1. Introduction

After the pioneering work of Shor on the factorization  at present there is a growing interest in the study of quantum computers (QC) and the related problems of error control due to inaccuracies of the quantum gates, decoherence and so on (for a still useful review see ). As it is by now well known the QC may have an exponential advantage over the classical ones on many problems (for a very incomplete list see ), but due to implementation difficulties the first QC will not have many qubits. So it is almost obvious that the first useful QCs will be quantum simulators and not true numerical computers.

This is the first of a series of papers devoted to the simulation of a quantum computer for the solution of a generic quantum mechanical problem. The point of view is that of an experimentalist wanting to know how many qubits are necessary and what amount of errors it is possible to tolerate. So the present problem is to find the minimum requirements for the setting-up of a useful simulator to solve simple problems.

The simulation of a quantum computer on a classical one was often done in the past , but for very specific problems. Here we study a system of general use to solve standard undergraduate problems in quantum mechanics as can be found in an exercise book . Such a quantum simulator (QS) was simulated on a classical computer. Obviously the efficiency of such a simulation is exponentially slow, so nothing is gained in comparison with a direct solution of the various problems studied. From the experience gained so far, it is fair to say that a simulation of a QS on a classical computer approximately requires a computational power similar to the one necessary for the direct solution on the classical computer, except for the simulation of some errors. The simulation of the various kind of errors is the most uncertain part of this work, because at present there are not sufficient experimental data on the sources of errors in the various implementations of real systems. It was then necessary to start with very simple hypotheses. Various problems were simulated: transmission and reflection of a Gaussian wavepacket on various barriers, unidimensional harmonic and anharmonic oscillators, the solution of the radial equation of the tridimensional harmonic oscillator etc.. Here we report only the results about the unidimensional harmonic oscillator as the results of this simpler case are very similar to those of the other problems studied.

2. Solution of the Schrödinger equation

The algorithm we will use has been described elsewhere  so let us merely show the essential points. The Schrödinger equation:

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{d}{dt}\psi (x;t)=[\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}\frac{d^2}{dx^2}+V(x)]\psi (x;t)[H_0+V(x)]\psi (x;t)$$
(1)
may be easily solved on a QC provided that it is possible to decompose the algorithm in a sequence of unitary operations enough simple and, what is more important, efficiently implementables on a simple quantum computer.

The first step is to decompose the region of interest of the space coordinate in $`2^n`$ intervals of length $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and to represent these intervals in the Hilbert space of a $`n`$ qubits register. This space is the direct product of $`n`$ copies of the space of a single qubit:

$$|i_{n1}|i_{n2}\mathrm{}|i_0=|i$$
(2)
where $`(i_{n1},i_{n2},\mathrm{},i_0)`$ is the binary decomposition of the index $`i`$.

Then, neglecting the simbol $``$, the wavefunction $`\psi (x;t)`$ is represented by the superposition:

$$\psi (x;t)\underset{i=0}{\overset{2^n1}{}}C_i(t)|i=\underset{i_{n1}=0}{\overset{1}{}}\underset{i_{n2}=0}{\overset{1}{}}\mathrm{}\underset{i_0=0}{\overset{1}{}}C_{i_{n1},i_{n2},\mathrm{},i_0}(t)|i_{n1}|i_{n2}\mathrm{}|i_0=$$

$$=\frac{1}{N}\underset{i=0}{\overset{2^n1}{}}\psi (x_i=(i+0.5)\mathrm{\Delta };t)|i$$
(3)
where $`N`$ is a normalization factor as the samples are not normalized. From this representation it is evident the exponential advantage to use a QS instead of a classical computer: a register of $`n`$ qubits can store $`2^n1`$ complex numbers. This exponential advantage is completely lost in the simulation of the QS on a classical computer.

To implement the various operations to solve the (1) it is necessary to extend the Hilbert space of the QS given by the register $`|n`$ with an ancella register $`|m_a`$ of $`m`$ qubits. So the complete Hilbert space of the QS now reads:

$$|m_a|n$$
(4)
For the simulation of some errors of this QS on a classical computer it is necessary to add in the classical simulator the simulation of other qubits $`|l_l`$ to describe unwanted quantum degrees of freedom or a rough representation of the environment. The complete Hilbert space of the classical simulation of the QS thus is:

$$|l_l|m_a|n$$
(5)
and for the classical simulator it is necessary to store $`2^{(l+m+n)}`$ complex numbers. The experience gained shows that the practical limits of the simulation appears to be due more to problems of storage than to computational power.

The Eq.(1) may be formally integrated by propagating the initial wavefunction every timestep $`ϵ`$:

$$\psi (x;t+ϵ)=e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}[H_0+V(x)]ϵ}\psi (x;t)$$
(6)
Using a time interval $`ϵ`$ small enough to neglect terms in $`ϵ^2`$ it is possible to write:

$$e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}[H_0+V(x)]ϵ}e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}H_0ϵ}e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}V(x)ϵ}$$
(7)
These operators are still unitary, simpler than the initial one and efficiently implementable on a QC. As the Fourier transform ($``$) is also easily implemented : by calling $`k`$ the transformed variable, it is possible to write the first operator in the right hand side of (7) as:

$$e^{+\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}(\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}k^2)ϵ}=U$$
(8)
and so in the space representation:

$$e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}H_0ϵ}^1U$$
(9)
The problem is now reduced to the implementation of an operator of the form:

$$e^{if(x)}|x$$
(10)
This is possible using an ancella quantum register $`|m_a`$ by means of the following steps:

$$|0_a|x|f(x)_a|xe^{if(x)}|f(x)_a|x$$
(11)
$$e^{if(x)}|0_a|x|0_ae^{if(x)}|x$$
(12)
The first step is a standard binary representation of the function $`f(x)`$ on the ancella register and may be implemented by means of c-not gates. The second step is the operation $`e^{im}|m_a`$ done on the ancella qubits and so efficiently implemented by means of standard techniques with phase gates giving a phase shift to every qubit proportional to the weight of the qubit. The third step is just the reverse of the first one and immediately implemented by the same array of gates as the first one but applied in the reversed order. It may be useful to note that, in the examples studied, the implementation required hundreds of c-not gates. As the ancella qubits are returned to the standard configuration it is possible to use the same ancella qubits for the kinetic energy and the potential energy computations. The potential energy part of the (7) is implemented in a similar way. In conclusion this algorithm can be implemented with no problems, except for some tricks necessary to minimize the number of the space and ancella qubits.

3. Dimension of the registers

As long as at present qubits are a very expensive resource, the first important problem to be solved is to determine the minimum number of qubits. Here we devote a special care to this problem as it is usually totally neglected.

For the computation are needed $`n`$ qubits to represent $`2^n`$ points of the coordinate space and $`m`$ ancellae qubits are also needed for the computation of the potential and the kinetic energy with the resolution of $`2^m`$ steps. The most simple determination is the number $`n`$ of the $`2^n`$ space points. This problem is common to every numerical representation of functions and is solved in a well known way by referring to the sampling theorem. As this theorem  is of central importance to keep the number of the qubits as small as possible it may be useful to remember some details. This theorem allows to compute the errors in reconstructing a function from its samples. It is enough to remember that the sampled function may be represented as the product of the original function times a train of Dirac delta functions. As long as the transform of a train of Dirac deltas is still a train of Dirac deltas, one gets replicas of the Fourier transform of the original function, shifted in frequency by the interval determined by the sampling frequency. So for a function whose spectrum is limited to a maximum frequency it is enough to sample at a frequency at least the double of this maximum frequency to avoid the superposition of the tails of the spectrum. At a lower sampling frequency there is an error in reconstruction due to tails superposition. This kind of error is referred to as aliasing error. To be concrete in the present problem it was assumed an initial wavefunction with a Gaussian shape. Since the Fourier transform is still a Gaussian so that the spectrum goes to zero very rapidly a surprisingly small number of samples was sufficient helping to keep the space register small.

The implementation of functions is relatively simple: it is enough to ”write” the values of the function in the binary representation in an ancella register of $`m`$ qubits with a resolution of $`2^m`$ steps. This writing is realized by means of an array of c-not gates (the details will be given elsewhere). A hard task is the evaluation of the number $`m`$ of the ancella qubits necessary for the potential and kinetic energy computations. For this problem unfortunately there is not a theorem similar to the sampling theorem but only a less useful one on the characteristic function of the probability density of the function to be digitized (for a tutorial on these problems see  and cited references). So it was necessary to use some numerical tests.

An unexpected result was that usually the number of the ancella qubits outweights the number of the qubits representing the space coordinate. The most sensitive part of this problem was the computation of the kinetic energy after the Fourier transform of the space wavefunction.

A first trick to keep this number as small as possible is to use wavefunctions smooth in the space coordinates, in order not to have strong components of short wavelength. To have a concrete idea of what is happening, in problems with a simple potential as the harmonic oscillator in the case of an initial Gaussian wavepacket with a spread about 1/50 of the range of the space coordinate, and using only $`n=6`$ qubits, i.e. $`2^6=64`$ points for the space coordinate, the components of the Fourier transform of the wavefunction are populated only in the very lower part of the spectrum. In this case, for the computation of the kinetic energy up to $`m=12`$ ancellae qubits were necessary to reach a sufficient resolution. A second trick to keep this number small was to compute by means of the ancellae the kinetic energy limited to the most populated part of the spectrum and to disregard the rest, hence using the full resolution of $`2^m`$ steps only for the used part of the spectrum. Tipical values used after various tests, were $`n=6`$ space qubits and $`m=7`$ ancella qubits. A total of only 13 qubits was sufficient for most tests.

4. Sensitivity to memory errors

A further problem is the evaluation of the sensitivity of the simulator to errors. In the past various studies of the sensitivity to errors were done on numerical QCs  and quantum computers dedicated to special problems , but here we concentrate on simulators able to solve a generic quantum mechanical problem. It is necessary to define exactly which kind of errors are to be studied and then to give an evaluation of the effect of these errors. The effect of the errors depends on the observable of interest. Here the effect was estimated by computing the fidelity defined by the comparison of the erroneous wavefunction $`|\psi _{err}`$ with the correct one $`|\psi `$ computed using the same system and zero errors.

$$f=|\psi |\psi _{err}|^2$$
(13)
This quantity gives the probability that the erroneous wavefunction will pass a test for the correct one. The first kind of errors studied are the memory errors. These errors are simulated by applying a generic unitary matrix with random parameters to one qubit at a time of the register representing the space coordinate. This matrix:

$$U=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}cos\theta & exp\{i\alpha \}sin\theta & & \\ exp\{i\beta \}sin\theta & exp\{i(\alpha +\beta )cos\theta \}& & \end{array}\right]$$
(14)
is applied at every timestep with random parameters with uniform distribution between plus and minus a given maximum (only a single parameter at a time is different from zero: as the errors are assumed to be small the probability of two or more simultaneous errors is taken to be negligible). To ease the comparison of the effect of different errors the same string of random numbers was used in all the tests. To be more precise, the integration of Schrödinger’s equation was done for 40 timesteps and the error was applied every step between steps 10 and 30.

The dependence of the fidelity on the error parameter, the maximum amplitude of the error and the qubit in error have been explored. In the parametrization used the parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ have an analogous effect so it is enough to study only the effect of the errors described by the $`\alpha `$ and $`\theta `$ parameters. For brevity we refer as $`\alpha ,\beta `$ and $`\theta `$ errors the errors due to the $`U`$ matrix with only the specified parameter different from zero. Also for error $`\theta =0.1`$ radiants we mean a series of $`U`$ matrices with only the parameter $`\theta `$ different from zero and random with uniform distribution beetwen $`\pm 0.1`$ radiants. Similarly for the other parameters. The results show a moderate effect of errors $`\alpha `$ (and so also $`\beta `$), and a strong effect of the $`\theta `$ errors.

The errors are applied from the steps 10 to 30 of the 40 integration, so that the fidelity starts with the value 1, remains in this value until the first application of the error matrix and then decreases randomly to the minimum when the last error is applied. In Table 1 we report this final value of the fidelity resulting from the error matrix applied to the various qubits of the register representing the space coordinate.

Table 1. Final fidelity from $`\alpha `$ and $`\theta `$ errors

$$\begin{array}{cccccc}qubit& \alpha =0.30& \theta =0.05& \theta =0.10& \theta =0.20& \theta =0.30\\ & & & & & \\ 0& 0.90& 0.99& 0.96& 0.83& 0.66\\ 1& 0.90& 0.99& 0.96& 0.85& 0.70\\ 2& 0.90& 0.99& 0.97& 0.89& 0.76\\ 3& 0.83& 0.99& 0.96& 0.86& 0.71\\ 4& 0.96& 0.98& 0.91& 0.69& 0.43\\ 5& 0.98& 0.98& 0.93& 0.75& 0.53\end{array}$$

The first column indicates the qubit acted-on by the error matrix (14). The second column labeled $`(\alpha =0.30)`$ gives the final fidelity obtained with errors of maximum $`0.30`$ radiants on the parameter $`\alpha `$ of the matrix (14). The following 4 columns give the final fidelity for errors with the parameter $`\theta `$ respectively of maximum 0.05, 0.10, 0.20 and 0.30 radiants. By comparing the second and the last column it appears that the average effect of the errors in parameter $`\alpha `$ are almost negligible in comparison with the error in parameter $`\theta `$. It is possible to note an unexpected low sensitivity to $`\theta `$ errors as high as 0.10 radiants, as shown in the $`4^{st}`$ column. Another unexpected result is the low correlation of the fidelity with the number $`n`$ of the qubit in error (of weight $`2^n`$) indicated in the first column.

The figures 1 and 2 give a plot of $`|\psi (x;t)|^2`$ for $`\theta `$ errors in the qubits ”0” and ”5”. It is useful to give a physical interpretation of these errors. This error gives a probability of reversal of the value of the qubit acted-on by the error. Upon indicating with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ the step in the space coordinate, the $`\theta `$ error in the qubit ”0” gives a reshuffling of the wavefunction values in adiacent intervals. A $`\theta `$ error in the qubit ”1” gives an analogous reshuffling for intervals $`2\mathrm{\Delta }`$, and so on for the $`\theta `$ errors in the other qubits of higher weight.

As the wavefunction used is a Gaussian wavepacket there are at least two different regimes depending on the width of the reshuffling interval, namely if it is smaller or greather than the width of the wavepacket. This effect is clearly evident in figure 1 and 2, referring respectively to $`\theta `$ errors in the qubits ”0” and ”5” and so referring to space intervals of lenght $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`32\mathrm{\Delta }`$ respectively.

5. Effect of the leak errors

Other sources of errors are quantum leaks, gate errors and decoherence. Here we limit ourselves to leak errors. The quantum leaks are due to unwanted interactions of the qubits of the working register of the QS with quantum degrees of freedom not involved in the computation. To simulate these errors it is necessary to add some auxiliary qubits $`|l_l`$ to the simulator Hilbert space. So this space now is given by (5).

Here we study the effect of the leak errors due to the interaction of a single qubit of the space register with a single extra quantum degree of freedom described by a single qubit starting in a pure state. So it is possible to represent this interaction by means of a unitary 4x4 matrix applied to a two qubit space given by the qubit supposed to be acted by the error and the leak qubit at the specified times and tracing away the ancella leak qubit at the end of the computation. Also in this case the error matrix is applied every timestep between steps 10 and 30. The error matrix is now 4x4 and so it is in general described by too many parameters to be useful. So in the absence of sufficient experimental data we did select two particular very interesting matrices $`U_1`$ and $`U_2`$ depending from a single parameter given by :

$$U_1=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& cos\theta & 0& sin\theta \\ 0& 0& 1& 0\\ 0& sin\theta & 0& cos\theta \end{array}\right]U_2=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& cos\theta & 0& sin\theta \\ 0& sin\theta & 0& cos\theta \\ 0& 0& 1& 0\end{array}\right]$$
(15)
To have an idea of the reason of the choice of these matrices, it is useful to note that the matrix $`U_1`$, when applied to a system composed of a single qubit and a single ancella qubit gives a pure decoherence. In fact denoting with $`X,Y,Z`$ the parameters of the Poincaré sphere of the density matrix of a single qubit:

$$\rho =\frac{1}{2}\left[\begin{array}{cc}1+Z& XiY\\ X+iY& 1Z\end{array}\right]$$
(16)
the matrix $`U_1`$ applied to a system composed of a single qubit with this density matrix and an ancella qubit in the pure state $`|0`$ after the trace of the ancella qubit gives for the system reduced density matrix the transformation:

$$X^{}=cos\theta XY^{}=cos\theta YZ^{}=Z$$
(17)
and so the coherence $`(XiY)`$ is reduced. The analogous computation with the matrix $`U_2`$ gives:

$$X^{}=cos\theta XY^{}=cos\theta YZ^{}=sin^2\theta +cos^2\theta Z$$
(18)
and so the coherence is reduced and there is also a shift and a factor lower than 1 of the $`Z`$ component of the reduced density matrix representing the population. The fidelity resulting from errors due to the application of the $`U_1`$ and the $`U_2`$ matrices to the various qubits of the space register was computed in a way similar to the preceeding case but with the reduced matrix obtained by tracing away the ancella qubit $`|l_l`$.

Similar to the previous case, the fidelity starts with the value 1 and then randomly decreases to the final value when the last error matrix is applied. The parameter $`\theta `$ is supposed to be random with uniform distribution between plus and minus the maximum value indicated and the error matrices are applied from the timestep 10 to the timestep 30.

Table 2. Final fidelity from leak errors $`U_1`$

$$\begin{array}{cccc}qubit& \theta =0.05& \theta =0.10& \theta =0.30\\ & & & \\ 0& 1.0& 0.99& 0.82\\ 1& 1.0& 0.98& 0.89\\ 2& 1.0& 0.99& 0.79\\ 3& 1.0& 0.99& 0.77\\ 4& 1.0& 1.0& 0.95\\ 5& 1.0& 1.0& 0.93\end{array}$$

Table 3. Final fidelity from leak errors $`U_2`$

$$\begin{array}{cccc}qubit& \theta =0.05& \theta =0.10& \theta =0.30\\ & & & \\ 0& 1.0& 0.98& 0.76\\ 1& 1.0& 0.99& 0.83\\ 2& 1.0& 0.97& 0.82\\ 3& 1.0& 0.94& 0.78\\ 4& 0.99& 0.97& 0.79\\ 5& 1.0& 0.97& 0.66\end{array}$$

In Table 2 we report the final fidelity for leak errors on the various qubits of the register of space coordinate. The first column indicates the qubit acted-on by the leak. The following three columns give the final fidelity for various values of the maximum of the error parameter $`\theta `$ in the matrix $`U_1`$. The Table 3 give the analogous quantity for the matrix $`U_2`$. In both cases there is a low correlation of the fidelity with the weight of the qubit in error.

The leak error is due to the transfer of some of the quantum information on the system to a further quantum degree of freedom. But as the computation of the fidelity is done by neglecting this degree of freedom and calculating the reduced density matrix, part of the quantum information is regained. This effect may explain the (lower than expected) effect of the quantum leak, even with an error as high as the 0.30 radiants of the parameter used in the matrices $`U_1`$ and $`U_2`$.

In figure 3 and 4 we report a plot of $`|\psi (x;t)|^2`$ for the errors due to the matrix $`U_1`$ applied to the space qubit ”0” and ”5” for the error $`\theta =0.1`$ radiants, corresponding to the third column of Table 2. It is possible to note a very small effect of this kind of error. In figure 5 and 6 are reported the analogous results for the matrix $`U_2`$. The matrix $`U_2`$ generates, along with decoherence errors, also population errors. In this case it is possible to distinguish at least two different regimes. This last kind of error gives an effect similar to the $`\theta `$ error from the matrix $`U`$ shown in Table 1 and figure 1 and 2. As in the case of the figure 1, in figure 5 it is evident a granularity due to the reshuffling of the wavefunction values in adjacent space intervals. This granularity changes to a random noise in figure 6 referring to errors in qubit ”5” as in the corresponding $`U`$ case reported in figure 2.

By comparing the results obtained from the matrix $`U_1`$ (decoherence) and those from the matrix $`U_2`$ (decoherence and population), it appears that the last kind of errors is more dangerous.

6. Conclusions and future developments

The first aim of this work was to have reliable data on how many qubits are necessary to implement a QS for the solution of a generic and simple quantum mechanical problem. Susprisingly the number of ancella qubits necessary for the implementation of the various operators outweights the number of the qubits representing the space degree of freedom of the system. But for the simple problems studied here, with some care a total of only 13 qubits proved to be sufficient. Another useful result is that the QS appears to be quite robust against the explored errors: an error of 0.1 radiants on all the parameters indicated gives a fidelity higher than about 0.9. Obviously for other observables and for a different measure of the error this conclusion may be not valid. The fidelity is largely independent from the weight of the qubit in error.

To ease the comparison of the memory errors as defined here with other definitions, it is sufficient to say that the $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ errors are similar to the phase errors and the $`\theta `$ error is similar to the amplitude error. So it is possible to say that in this QS the amplitude errors are more dangerous than the phase errors.

The most important development is to enlarge the single leak qubit to a larger space in order to model the environment. The interaction of a single qubit with the environment has been modeled by various authors; it is known that two ancella qubits are sufficient, but one needs to trace away these qubits at every integration step in order to wash-out any memory of the system taken by the environment. Hence it is necessary to describe the system by means of the density matrix. This does not create any basic problem, but only problems of storage and computational power of the classical computer.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by M.P.I. I would like to thank prof. V.G. Benza for his careful reading of the manuscript and the many useful suggestions.

(\*) E-mail giuliano.strini@mi.infn.it

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Figure captions

Figure 1. Plot of $`|\psi (x;t)|^2`$ obtained with the memory error matrix $`U`$ applied to the qubit ”0” of weight $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The granulosity due to the reshuffling of the wavefunction values at a distance $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is clearly visible.

Figure 2. Plot of $`|\psi (x;t)|^2`$ obtained with the memory error matrix $`U`$ applied to the qubit ”5” of weight $`32\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The reshuffling of the wavefunction values at a distance $`32\mathrm{\Delta }`$ originates a random noise.

Figure 3. Plot of $`|\psi (x;t)|^2`$ obtained with the leak error matrix $`U_1`$ applied to the qubit ”0” of weight $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. This leak originates a decoherence error and a very low noise.

Figure 4. Plot of $`|\psi (x;t)|^2`$ obtained with the leak error matrix $`U_1`$ applied to the qubit ”5” of weight $`32\mathrm{\Delta }`$. As in the preceeding figure 3 this leak originates a decoherence error and a very low noise.

Figure 5. Plot of $`|\psi (x;t)|^2`$ obtained with the leak error matrix $`U_2`$ applied to the qubit ”0” of weight $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. This leak originates a decoherence error and an amplitude error. The amplitude error in the qubit ”0” originates a reshuffling of the wavefunction values at a distance $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and so a granulosity very similar to the one due to memory errors reported in figure 1.

Figure 6. Plot of $`|\psi (x;t)|^2`$ obtained with the leak error matrix $`U_2`$ applied to the qubit ”5” of weight $`32\mathrm{\Delta }`$. This leak originates a decoherence error and an amplitude error. The amplitude error in the qubit ”5” originates a reshuffling of the wavefunction values at a distance $`32\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and so originates a random noise similar to the one due to memory errors reported in figure 2.


text:
# New Constraints on the Nature of Radio Emission in Sagittarius A*

## 1 Introduction

A concentration of $`2.6\times 10^6M_{}`$ dominates the gravitational potential within $`0.015`$ pc of the Galactic center (Genzel et al. 1996; Ghez et al. 1998). The extremely compact, nonthermal radio source, Sgr A\* (Krichbaum et al. 1993; Backer et al. 1993; Krichbaum et al. 1998; Lo et al. 1993), is thought to coincide with this black hole candidate. Its radio spectrum from cm to mm wavelengths is roughly a power-law, $`S_\nu \nu ^a`$, with $`a0.190.34`$. The sharp cut-off at the low frequency end ($`0.5`$ GHz) appears to be due to free-free absorption in the ionized gas along the line-of-sight (Davies et al. 1976). In the mm region, a spectral bump (Zylka et al. 1992; Zylka et al. 1995) has been confirmed by simultaneous $`20`$ cm to $`1`$ mm radio observations (Falcke, et al. 1998), suggesting that a distinct emission component surrounds the event horizon, since the highest frequencies appear to correspond to the smallest spatial scales (Melia, Jokipii & Narayanan 1992; Melia 1992, 1994; Nayaran, Yi & Mahadevan 1995; Falcke et al. 1998; Coker & Melia 2000). The spectrum turns over in the sub-mm range.

Several different scenarios have been introduced (see Melia & Falcke 2001) to account for Sagittarius A\*’s spectrum, ranging from jet emission (Falcke & Markoff 2000) to heavily-advected, large-scale accretion disks (Narayan, Yi & Mahadevan 1995), a picture that in recent years has spawned several other versions, including disks with mass-loss (Blandford & Begelman 1999), and those with significant convection (Narayan, Igumenshchev & Abramowicz 2000). The approach followed by our group (see Melia 1992) has been based on the idea that Sagittarius A\* may be accreting a low specific angular momentum plasma, which radiates inefficiently because its magnetic field is very low (Kowalenko & Melia 1999; Coker & Melia 2000), or is otherwise weakly luminous because the rate at which gas actually reaches the event horizon is smaller than one would infer based on simple Bondi-Hoyle estimates (see, e.g., Quataert & Gruzinov 2000; Melia, Liu & Coker 2000). Large scale 3D hydrodynamic simulations (e.g., Coker & Melia 1997) do show (not surprisingly) that in the absence of an anomalously high viscosity near the Bondi-Hoyle capture radius, the accreted gas has a small, though variable, specific angular momentum $`\lambda cr_S`$, where $`\lambda <40`$ and $`r_S2GM/c^2`$ is the Schwarzschild radius. These values of $`\lambda `$ may be consistent with the specific angular momentum associated either with the thermal motion of the gas or with the orbital velocities.

With such a small value of $`\lambda `$, the infalling gas does not circularize until it reaches a radius $`2\lambda ^2r_S`$, and depending on the physics of magnetic field annihilation, or generation (see, e.g., Hawley et al. 1996), may not become an efficient radiator until it falls to within tens of Schwarzschild radii of the event horizon. Recent radio polarization measurements (Bower et al. 1999; Aitken et al. 2000) seem to support the spectral signature expected for such a low angular momentum gas. In Melia et al. (2000, 2001), we demonstrated that a small Keplerian structure, with a magnetic field dominated by its azimuthal component inferred from earlier magnetohydrodynamic simulations (Brandenburg et al. 1995; Hawley et al. 1996), not only produces the mm bump, but also accounts for these polarization characteristics, especially the $`90^{}`$ flip of the polarization angle near the mm peak (Bromley et al. 2001). However, this inner Keplerian region does not produce the longer-wavelength emission. The radio photons from Sagittarius A\* must be produced at larger radii, in the circularization region where the infalling gas evolves from quasi-spherical accretion toward a settled Keplerian configuration at smaller radii. In this Letter, we report the results of a detailed analysis of this circularization region, and demonstrate how the latest combination of cm, and X-ray data already constrains heavily the nature of its emissivity, and at the same time provides a telling discriminant between two principal mechanisms for producing the high-energy emission in this source.

## 2 Physics of the Circularization Region

Having identified the essential elements of the inner Keplerian structure that correctly account for the mm and sub-mm spectrum and polarization of Sagittarius A\* (Melia et al. 2000, 2001), we here take these physical quantities as inner boundary conditions for the circularization region. The strength of the magnetic field in the inner region is calculated based on the magnetohydrodynamic simulations of Brandenburg et al. (1995) and Hawley et al. (1996). These results are conveniently expressed in terms of two parameters, the ratio of the stress to the magnetic energy density, $`\beta _\nu `$, and the ratio of the magnetic energy density to the thermal pressure, $`\beta _p`$.

Because the specific angular momentum of the infalling gas is assumed to be small, the accretion at large radii can be approximated as quasi-spherical. Thus, to match the Keplerian flow at small radii (typically within the inner $`10r_S`$), the gas kinetic energy associated with the radial motion in the quasi-spherical region must be dissipated into thermal or turbulent energy. The centimeter radio emission is presumably produced as a result of this dissipation. We will assume that the circularization region has a flattened shape, and that its vertical structure is determined by balancing the thermal pressure gradient with the gravitational force in that direction. At the same time, we also assume that $`\lambda `$ is conserved in the circularization region, with the justification that most of it is dissipated once the plasma circularizes. This is clearly only an approximation, and in reality, we expect there to be some angular momentum dissipation as the gas approaches the Keplerian region. Thus, specifying the outer radius of the latter to be $`r_o`$, we have that the azimuthal velocity is given as $`v_\varphi (r)=\sqrt{GMr_o}/r`$.

For the temperature profile, we assume that a fixed fraction of the gravitational potential energy is dissipated into thermal energy and that this fraction is fixed by the value of the gas temperature $`T(r_o)`$ at $`r_o`$. In that case, $`T(r)=(GM/r0.5v_\varphi ^2)f_t/\alpha R_g`$, where $`f_t=2.0T(r_o)\alpha R_gr_o/GM`$, $`R_g`$ is the gas constant, and $`\alpha 3.04.5`$ is only weakly dependent on the gas temperature (Coker & Melia 2000). The exact value of $`f_t`$ is determined by the partition of energy in the turbulent accretion flow, which depends on how dissipation drives the large scale turbulent motion, how effectively the energy is transported to small scales and converted into thermal energy, and then radiation. Unfortunately, all these processes are not well understood. Based on the equipartition argument, we know $`f_t`$ is smaller than one. Together with the above expression for $`v_\varphi (r)`$, this then fixes the kinetic viscosity $`\mu =\beta _\mu Hc_s`$, where $`H=\sqrt{2R_gTr^3/GM}`$ is the scale height of the circularization region, $`c_s=\sqrt{2R_gT}`$ is the isothermal sound speed and $`\beta _\mu =(2/3)\beta _p\beta _\nu `$. It follows that $`\mu (r)\rho (r)H(r)`$ is a constant in this region, and this uniquely determines the radial profile. When fitting Sgr A\*’s radio spectrum below, we shall find that only the circularization region’s outer radius remains as an adjustable parameter.

One of the key results we report here is that the radio emission from Sagittarius A\* cannot be produced via thermal synchrotron processes within a bounded accretion flow. This is rather easy to show, and is based on the fact that with the temperature limited from above by its virial value, the required radio emission can be produced by thermal synchrotron only with a strong magnetic field, whose energy density must be 15 times larger than its equipartition value to avoid excessive X-ray emission via thermal bremsstrahlung process. Attempts to produce the observed radio spectrum with a more reasonable equipartition magnetic field result in high electron number densities, which in turn violate the observed X-ray flux (Baganoff et al. 2001).

To see this in detail, we have for a fully ionized bounded gas that $`T(r)<1.8\times 10^{12}r_S/r`$ K, where $`r_S=7.7\times 10^{11}`$ cm for the Schwarzschild radius of Sgr A\*. The thermal emission from the circularization region is black-body limited, so that to produce a $`0.53`$ Jy radio flux density at $`1.36`$ GHz with a thermal source at the Galactic center, we need $`T(r)(r/r_S)^2>3.4\times 10^{15}`$ K, where $`r`$ is a characteristic radius in the emitter. Combining this with the virial temperature limit, we have $`r>1900r_S`$. The corresponding temperature limit is $`10^9`$ K. Now, to suppress the bremsstrahlung X-ray emission from a gas with temperature $`10^9`$ K below the observed value, the ratio of the cyclo-synchrotron emissivity at $`1.36`$ GHz to the bremsstrahlung emissivity at $`10^{18}`$ Hz must be larger than the ratio of the observed flux densities, since part of the radio emission is self-absorbed. We can estimate the bremsstrahlung emissivity at $`10^{18}`$ Hz as $`ϵ_b=6.0\times 10^{42}n^2`$ ergs s-1 Hz-1 cm-3 (Melia 1992), and the cyclo-synchrotron emissivity at $`1.36`$ GHz as $`ϵ_s=4.2\times 10^{17}nM(x)`$, where $`M(x)=0.1746e^{1.8899x^{1/3}}/x^{1/6}`$ when $`x`$ is much bigger than 1 and $`x=1.1\times 10^4/B`$ (Mahadevan et al. 1996). If the magnetic field is in equipartition (a conservative upper limit), then $`B^2=1.0\times 10^5n`$, and from $`ϵ_b<2.8\times 10^8ϵ_s`$, we get that $`B`$ must be larger than $`8.1`$ G. However, the electron number density is then $`n>6.6\times 10^6`$ cm-3, and for a source size of $`1,900r_S`$ at the Galactic center, the X-ray flux density at $`10^{18}`$ Hz produced via thermal bremsstrahlung will be $`3.9\times 10^5`$ Jy, which exceeds the observed limit.

We conclude from this that the thermal radiative efficiency of a bounded accretion flow is not sufficient to account for the cm-wavelength spectral component of Sgr A\*. We ask, therefore, whether this long wavelength emission may be due to nonthermal particles produced by the gas in transition. The possible contribution of a nonthermal particle component in the accretion flow of Sgr A\* was introduced by Markoff, Melia, & Sarcevic (1997), primarily to explore whether the EGRET $`\gamma `$-ray source 2EG J1746-2852 could be due to interactions among the decay products resulting from relativistic $`pp`$ scatterings. Within the context of the ADAF model, Mahadevan (1998) introduced the idea of accounting for the cm radio spectrum with a power-law electron distribution also produced via $`pp`$ scatterings, but the predicted X-ray spectral index in this picture is not consistent with that observed. An alternative scenario, involving a static, quasi-monoenergetic electron distribution which may be produced by magnetic field reconnection, was considered by Duschl & Lesch (1994).

But relativistic electrons can also be produced by direct shock acceleration, and with our expectation that shocks may be present in the supersonic flow of the turbulent circularization region, it is reasonable to assess the merits of such a power-law distribution to account for Sgr A\*’s radio spectrum, while at the same time not violating (or perhaps even simultaneously explaining) its X-ray spectrum as well. An important departure of this work from the earlier attempts at carrying out this fit is the much lower accretion rate we are adopting here, which significantly changes the interplay between the radio and X-ray emissivities. We will see below, in fact, that depending on the efficiency of converting gravitational energy to thermal energy, the X-rays can be produced either via self-Comptonization in the Keplerian region or via synchrotron emission by the power-law electrons in the circularization region. This is clearly highly relevant to future coordinated multi-wavelength observations, which should be able to distinguish between these two possible manifestations of the high-energy radiation.

However, even a cursory inspection of the data will immediately show that the nonthermal electrons must have a rather steep spectral index. Strong shock acceleration usually produces a power-law with an index of $`2.0`$, much smaller than our best fit value (see below). There are several reasons that can account for this. First, it is well known that the shock compression ratio $`p_c`$, which determines the spectral index according to $`p=(p_c+2)/(p_c1)`$, can be reduced significantly in a strongly magnetized plasma (Kirk et al. 2000; Ballard & Heavens 1991). In our model, we have a magnetic field which is strong enough to decrease the compression ratio well below $`2.5`$, which can therefore yield a power-law spectral index larger than $`3.0`$. Second, the circularization region may be turbulent, with a very irregular magnetic field. Kirk et al. (1996, 1997) have demonstrated that braided magnetic fields can increase the power-law spectral index even further, to $`(p_c+3.5)/(p_c1)`$. Third, Duffy et al. (1995) noticed in their simulations that the accelerated ions can lead to the creation of a weaker subshock and an upstream precursor, whose effect also leads to a reduction of the compression ratio and a steeper spectral index. An additional factor that may be relevant here is that with rapid cooling (we will see below that in some cases the nonthermal particles cool well before reaching the inner Keplerian region) the steady-state distribution function is characterized by a spectral index $`p+1`$ (Laan 1963; Markoff et al. 1999). Even so, turbulent shock acceleration is not well understood, so we must necessarily treat the spectral index and the number density of nonthermal particles as free parameters. For simplicity, we will assume that the former is the same throughout the circularization region, and that the ratio of the power-law electron number density to the total electron number density in the flow is constant. We shall see that the combination of cm, mm, and X-ray data do not leave much flexibility in the possible values of these quantities. In fact, our best fits (see Figs. 1 & 2) require an approximate equipartition between the thermal and nonthermal particle distributions in the circularization region.

## 3 Results and Discussion

Our two best fit models are shown in Figures 1 (model 1) and 2 (model 2). The flattened gas distribution has an inclination angle of $`45^{}`$ to the line of sight, and the circularization region extends out to $`1,000r_S`$. The radio spectrum results from the superposition of power-law synchrotron emission components at different radii, with the lowest frequency part produced in the large, diluted outer segments, and the high frequency portion resulting from emission in the smaller, dense inner zone. The overall spectrum is relatively flat from $`1`$ GHz to $`50`$ GHz. From Figure 1, it is clear that the thermal emission from this region is negligible by comparison. The radiation below $`1`$ GHz, which is produced at radii beyond $`500r_S`$, is mostly absorbed by the ionized gas along the line-of-sight (Davies et al. 1976). This type of fit to the radio spectrum therefore requires a circularization region extending beyond $`500r_S`$, but the upper limit to this radius is not well-defined. To fit the observed spectrum below $`1`$ GHz, we assume that the absorbing gas has a temperature of $`10^4`$ K, and we use the free-free optical depth given by Walker et al. (2000).

Model 1 has a relatively low efficiency of converting gravitational to thermal energy. The temperature in the accreting gas stays relatively low, increasing from $`2\times 10^8`$ K at $`1,000r_S`$, to its maximum value of $`1\times 10^{11}`$ K at the inner edge of the Keplerian structure. From Figure 1, it is evident that the electrons are not energetic enough to up-scatter radio photons into the X-ray band. So for this situation, the power-law electrons in the circularization region are producing the X-rays directly via optically-thin synchrotron emission. The predicted X-ray spectral index $`a`$ is therefore $`(p1)/2`$, where $`p`$ (the particle spectral index) is fixed by the relative strength of the radio to X-ray flux densities. Our best fit for the radio and X-ray components requires a value $`a=1.05`$, which falls within the Chandra-measured range of $`0.75`$ to $`3.0`$ (Baganoff et al. 2001). In this case, we expect there to be strongly correlated variability between the cm-radio emission and that at X-ray energies (since both are produced within the circularization region), while the mm bump would not be as strongly correlated with the X-rays.

Model 2 has a much higher efficiency of energy conversion, and almost all of the dissipated gravitational energy goes into thermal energy. The inner Keplerian region has a temperature of $`1.03.0\times 10^{11}`$ K, which is high enough to produce strong sub-mm and infrared emission, and the electrons can up-scatter some of them into the X-ray band. In this case, we would expect to see a strong correlated variability between the mm radio bump and the X-rays. However, in order to suppress the X-ray emission in the circularization region, the power-law electrons must have an index larger than $`3.2`$.

Whether or not self-Comptonization dominates the high-energy emission can be determined with future coordinated multi-wavelength observations. If the cm-radio photons and the X-rays are produced by a single power-law, the particle spectral index must then be $`3.1`$ (model 1). However, if the X-rays are due mostly to self-Comptonization from the inner Keplerian region, this index must be larger than $`3.2`$ (model 2). An alternative prescription that can also avoid producing too many X-rays and infrared radiation is to introduce a cutoff in the particle energy. The required limit on the Lorentz factor is then $`\gamma _e<100`$, which may result from particle acceleration due to magnetic reconnection or hydromagnetic wave turbulence (Litvinenko, 2000). Finally, it can also be shown that the electrons producing the optical emission have a lifetime shorter than $`15`$ minutes. This is much shorter than the advection time scale of $`20`$ hours through the zone, so the nonthermal particles advected into the Keplerian region contribute little to the overall emission there.

Acknowledgments This research was partially supported by NASA under grants NAG5-8239 and NAG5-9205, and has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service. FM is very grateful to the University of Melbourne for its support (through a Miegunyah Fellowship).