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# 1 Two chiral states in the ground-state spin configurations of antiferromagnetically-coupled three vector spins on a triangle. These chiral states are characterized by the vector chirality.

Spin and Chirality Orderings of Frustrated Magnets — Stacked-Triangular Antiferromagnets and Spin Glasses

Hikaru Kawamura

Department of Earth and Space Science, Faculty of Science,
Osaka University, Toyonaka 560-0043, Japan

ABSTRACT

“Chirality” is a multispin quantity representing the sense or the handedness of the noncollinear spin structures induced by spin frustration. Recent studies have revealed that the chirality often plays an important role in the ordering of certain frustrated magnets. Here I take up two such examples, stacked-triangular antiferromagnets and spin glasses, where the inherent chiral degree of freedom affects underlying physics and might lead to novel ordering phenomena. The first topic is the criticality of the magnetic phase transition of vector (i.e., $`XY`$ or Heisenberg) antiferromagnets on the three-dimensional stacked-triangular lattice. The second topic is the nature of the spin-glass ordering. I will review the recent theoretical and experimental works on these topics, with particular emphasis on the important role played by the chirality.

§1. Introduction

Frustration often gives rise to new interesting phenomena in the magnetic ordering of spin systems. One interesting consequence of spin frustration in vector spin systems might be the possible appearance of “chiral” degrees of freedom. “Chirality” is a multispin quantity representing the sense or the handedness of the noncollinear spin structures induced by spin frustration. While the chirality has long been a familiar concept in the field of molecular chemistry, it was introduced into the field of magnetism first by Villain . Recent studies have revealed that the chirality often plays a very important role in the magnetic ordering of frustrated spin systems.

In this article, I will take up two such examples, stacked-triangular antiferromagnets and spin glasses, where the inherent chiral degree of freedom leads to new interesting phenomena not encountered in unfrustrated magnets. The first topic is the criticality of the magnetic phase transition of vector (i.e., $`XY`$ and Heisenberg) antiferromagnets on the three-dimensional (3D) stacked-triangular lattice. Some time ago, the present author proposed that these frustrated triangular magnets, e.g., CsMnBr3 and VBr2, might exhibit novel critical behavior, possibly lying in a new “chiral” universality class, distinct from the standard Wilson-Fisher universality class . While this prediction have been supported by most of subsequent experiments, other theorists indicated that the transition was weakly first order, and the subject still remains controversial . In this article, I wish to review the present status of the study, and discuss what to be done in the future to further clarify the situation.

The second topic is the nature of the spin-glass ordering. Our present understanding of the nature of the experimentally observed spin-glass (SG) transition and of the SG ordered state still remains unsatisfactory . Although the chirality has rarely been invoked in the standard scenario of the SG ordering, I with to explain here one promising scenario presented some time ago based on the spin-chirality decoupling-recoupling mechanism . In this scenario, chiral-glass order, which is expected to occur in a fully isotropic 3D Heisenberg SG, plays an essential role. I examine some of the consequences of this scenario, particularly in light of the experimental results on canonical SG.

§2. Chirality

Frustration in vector spin systems often gives rise to the noncollinear or noncoplanar spin orderings. Such canted spin structures generally give rise to the nontrivial chiral degrees of freedom. Chirality basically represents the handedness of such noncollinear (noncoplanar) spin structures. Two different types of chiralities have often been discussed in the literature: One is called a vector chirality and the other a scalar chirality.

Chiral states representing the right- and left-handed configurations are illustrated in Fig.1 for an example of three antiferromagnetically coupled XY spins located at each corner of a triangle. The ground-state spin configuration is a well-known $`120^{}`$ spin structure, in which each XY spin on a plane makes an angle equal to $`\pm 120^{}`$ with the neighboring spins. One may define the chirality of the first type, the vector chirality, via a vector product of the two neighboring spins, averaged over three spin pairs, by

$$\kappa =\frac{2}{3\sqrt{3}}\underset{<ij>}{}\left[\stackrel{}{S}_i\times \stackrel{}{S}_j\right]_z.$$

Evidently, the sign of $`\kappa `$ represents each of the two chiral states, i.e., either a right-handed (clockwise) state for $`\kappa >0`$ or a left-handed (counterclockwise) state for $`\kappa <0`$. In the case of XY spins considered here, the chirality $`\kappa `$ is actually a pseudoscalar: It remains invariant under global $`SO(2)`$ proper spin rotations while it changes sign under global $`Z_2`$ spin reflections. Hence, in order to transform one chiral state to the other, one needs to make a global spin reflection. The chiral order is closely related to the spontaneous breaking of a discrete $`Z_2`$ spin-reflection symmetry.

When the spins in Fig.1 are Heisenberg spins with three components, the ground-state spin configuration is again the coplanar $`120^{}`$ spin structure, whereas in contrast to the $`XY`$ case there no longer exists a discrete chiral degeneracy. This is because the apparently right-handed chiral state can now be transformed into the apparently left-handed chiral state via a continuous spin rotation of $`\pi `$ making use of the third dimension of the Heisenberg spin space. In this case, one may define the vector chirality as an axial vector by

$$\stackrel{}{\kappa }=\frac{2}{3\sqrt{3}}\underset{<ij>}{}\stackrel{}{S}_i\times \stackrel{}{S}_j.$$

In the case of three-component Heisenberg spins, there are occasions in which the ordered state spin configuration is noncoplanar rather than coplanar. Such a noncoplanar ordered state is actually realized in a Heisenberg SG. In fact, a noncoplanar state can sustain a discrete chiral degeneracy even in the case of Heisenberg spins, which is characterized by mutually opposite signs of the chirality of the second type, the scalar chirality. It is a pseudoscalar defined for three neighboring spins by,

$$\chi =\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_{i+\delta }\times \stackrel{}{S}_{i+\delta ^{}}.$$

An illustrative example is given in Fig.2.

These chiral degrees of freedom inherent to the noncollinear or noncoplanar spin orderings often deeply affect the ordering of frustrated magnets, leading to novel phenomena not encountered in conventional unfrustrated magnets, as we shall see in the next two sections.

§3. Critical properties of stacked-triangular antiferromagnets

In this section, I wish to deal with the novel critical behavior of XY and Heisenberg antiferromagnets on the 3D stacked-triangular lattice. The stacked-triangular lattice consists of 2D triangular layers stacked in register along the orthogonal direction directly on top of each other. There are several experimental realizations of the stacked-triangular antiferromagnet with nontrivial chiral degree of freedom. Examples are ABX3-type compounds CsMnBr3 and CsVBr3, or vanadium dihalides VCl2 and VBr2, etc. Even Ising-like ABX3-type compounds with an easy-axis-type anisotropy, such as CsNiCl3, CsNiBr3 and CsMnI3, exhibit the chiral critical behavior under external fields higher than a certain critical field.

The ordered-state spin configuration in these chiral stacked-triangular antiferromagnets is a three-sublattice $`120^{}`$ spin structure in each triangular layer. As was illustrated for the case of an isolated triangle, such an ordered state possesses a nontrivial chiral degree of freedom. This leads to the appearance of a new symmetry distinct from that of the standard unfrustrated magnets, and may give rise to magnetic phase transitions of new universality class. Indeed, the present author suggested the possible occurrence of such a new universality class, chiral universality class, on the basis of a symmetry argument , Monte Carlo simulations  and renormalization-group (RG) calculations including the $`ϵ=4d`$ and $`1/n`$ expansions . As usual, we mean here by $`n`$ and $`d`$ the number of spin components and the spatial dimensions, respectively, where the model is now extended to general $`n`$-vector spins on a $`d`$-dimensional stacked-triangular lattice in which the 2D triangular layers are stacked in the remaining $`d2`$ directions in a hypercubic fashion. Theoretical analyses of the critical properties of $`n`$-vector stacked-triangular antiferromagnets performed by various authors, however, lead to often ambiguous, and sometimes mutually conflicting results. Below, I will refer to several points of special interest, leaving other details to the review article .

The RG $`ϵ=4d`$ expansion based on an appropriate Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson Hamiltonian yields a new fixed point associated with the noncollinear criticality, distinct from the standard Wilson-Fisher fixed point. This new fixed point, which we call a chiral fixed point, exists stably in a certain region of the parameter space, at least for sufficiently large $`n`$ meeting the condition, $`n>21.823.4ϵ+7.1ϵ^2+O(ϵ^3)`$ . For $`n`$ smaller than this critical value, the transition is likely to be first order. The $`1/n`$ expansion result is also consistent with the $`ϵ=4d`$ expansion result, yielding a continuous transition with a set of novel critical exponents for any $`2<d<4`$ . The question still remaining is what happens at the physical point, i.e., $`n=2`$ or $`3`$ at $`d=3`$. Two possibilities seem to exist: (i) The critical value $`n_c(d=3)`$ is smaller than, or equal to the physical value $`n=2`$ or 3. If this is the case, a real system exhibits a continuous transition of new chiral universality. (ii) The critical value $`n_c(3)`$ is greater than the physical value $`n=2`$ or 3. If this is the case, a real system exhibits a first-order transition.

The present author originally suggested, partly based on an extrapolation of the low-order $`ϵ`$-expansion result, but mainly based on the Monte Carlo observation, that the case (i) was a rather likely situation . By contrast, some other theorists argued that the case (ii) was more likely: For example, on the basis of the Borel-Padé resummation of the $`ϵ`$-expansion, Antonenko et al estimated the critical value as $`n_c(3)3.39`$ which turned out to be slightly above the physical value $`n=3`$. Thus, the subject still remains controversial.

Almost all Monte Carlo (MC) simulations so far made on the $`XY`$ ($`n=2`$) and Heisenberg ($`n=3`$) stacked-triangular antiferromagnets yielded a continuous transition characterized by the set of novel exponents distinct from the standard $`O(n)`$ exponents . We show in Table I various critical exponents and specific-heat amplitude ratio as determined by several MC simulations for the stacked-triangular Heisenberg ($`n=3`$) antiferromagnet. As is clear from Table I, the MC values reported by different authors agree with each other, but are inconsistent with the standard Heisenberg values. They also deviate considerably from the $`O(4)`$ or the mean-field tricritical values suggested in Ref. on the bases of the RG $`ϵ=d2`$ expansion.

Since the simulations are performed for finite lattices, one cannot completely rule out the possibility that an indication of a first-order transition eventually develops for still larger lattices. A signature of such a first-order transition, however, has not been observed up to the linear size $`L=60`$. Thus, the MC results so far obtained are in favor of the chiral-universality scenario. We note in passing that the numerical situation in the $`XY`$ ($`n=2`$) case is also similar to the Heisenberg ($`n=3`$) case: See Ref. for details.

We have included in Table I the chirality exponents of the Heisenberg stacked-triangular antiferromagnet as determined by MC, where $`\beta _\kappa `$ and $`\gamma _\kappa `$ refer to the chiral long-range order and the conjugate chiral susceptibility exponents, respectively. The RG analysis of Ref. indicated that the chirality was a new relevant operator at the chiral fixed point. Although the chirality orders simultaneously with the spin, characterized by the same chiral correlation-length exponent $`\nu _\kappa `$ as the spin correlation-length-exponent $`\nu `$, the chirality carries its own anomalous dimension which is different from the spin anomalous dimension. The chirality has a unique chiral crossover exponent $`\varphi _\kappa =\beta _\kappa +\gamma _\kappa `$, with satisfying the scaling relation $`\alpha +2\beta _\kappa +\gamma _\kappa =2`$. These RG predictions were also supported by the MC results of Ref..

Following the theoretical suggestion of a new chiral universality class, various experiments have also been performed on stacked-triangular antiferromagnets to test the prediction. The critical exponents and the specific-heat amplitude ratio experimentally determined for the $`XY`$ ($`n=2`$) chiral magnets, e.g., CsMnBr3  and CsNiCl3 (CsMnI3) above the critical (multicritical) field , are summarized in Table II. All experiments reported that the transition was continuous. Several theoretical values are also shown for comparison, including the $`n=2`$ chiral values of Ref.. As can be seen from Table II, these experimental values are consistent with each other, and are in favor of the chiral-universality scenario. We note that the experimental situation in the Heisenberg case is also similar to the $`XY`$ case: See Refs. and  for details.

At this point, I wish to add a few comments. First, even when the chiral fixed point is stable with a finite basin of attraction in the parameter space, it is still entirely possible that some systems possessing the full chiral symmetry exhibit a first-order transition. This occurs only if the initial Hamiltonian characterizing the system happens to lie outside the basin of the chiral fixed point. Here the difference between the two classes of systems, one showing a continuous chiral transition and the other a first-order transition, is not of symmetry origin, but arises simply from the nonuniversal details of the microscopic parameters. Possible examples of chiral systems showing a first-order transition might be certain matrix models with the rigid noncollinear structures. Indeed, the initial RG Hamiltonians describing these matrix models are likely to be located in the runaway regime of the RG flow, outside the stability domain of the chiral fixed point . Conversely, this observation means that, even if one finds a few chiral systems exhibiting a first-order transition, it does not immediately exclude the possibility that still another class of systems with the same chiral symmetry exhibit a continuous transition belonging to chiral universality.

Second, the $`ϵ=4d`$ expansion suggests that the critical value of $`n_c(d=3)`$ may lie very close to the physical value $`n=2`$ or 3. If $`n_c(3)`$ lies above the physical value only very slightly, there is no stable fixed point in the strict sense (the chiral fixed point becomes slightly complex-valued). Nevertheless, the associated RG flow behaves for a long period of RG iterations as if there were a stable fixed point. Thus, a “shadow” of the complex-valued chiral fixed point in the real plane attracts the RG flow up to a certain scale, which could be very long, but, eventually, the flow escapes away from such a pseudo-fixed point showing a runaway characteristic of a first-order transition. Physically, this means that the system exhibits a rather well-defined critical behavior governed by the (slightly complex-valued) chiral fixed point for a wide range of temperature, but eventually, the deviation from such a critical behavior sets in for sufficiently close to $`T_c`$, and the system exhibits a weak first-order transition. We emphasize here that, as long as $`n_c(3)`$ lies very close to the physical value, the situation would virtually be indistinguishable for all practical purposes from the case of a truly stable chiral fixed point, in the sense that almost universal novel critical behavior is observed for a variety of chiral systems in a wide temperature range up to very close to $`T_c`$ .

Third, besides the $`ϵ=4d`$ and $`1/n`$ expansions, there is another perturbative RG scheme called the $`ϵ=d2`$ expansion . This method applied to the $`n=3`$ chiral systems yielded a continuous transition characterized by the standard $`O(4)`$ criticality. Meanwhile, as shown above, such an $`O(4)`$ behavior has not been observed either numerically nor experimentally in the magnetic ordering of stacked-triangular antiferromagnets. The possible reason of this failure of the $`ϵ=d2`$ expansion was discussed by several authors . One reason might be that the nonperturbative effects associated with the topological defects, which might play a vitally important role in the phase transition of chiral systems, was completely neglected there . In particular, if the $`n=3`$ chiral system in $`d=2`$ dimensions exhibits a pure topological phase transition at a finite temperature driven by the dissociation of the $`Z_2`$ vortices, as first suggested in Ref. and numerically supported in Refs., the $`ϵ=d2`$ expansion should completely fail even at and near two dimensions. Then, to construct a phase diagram of the chiral system in the entire $`dn`$ plane ($`2d4`$) remains as an open question.

Before concluding this section of stacked-triangular antiferromagnets, I wish to briefly discuss the future problems and challenges, mainly on experimental side.

i) The first obvious direction is to perform high-precision experiments (or numerical simulations) to see whether the chiral transition is either continuous or first order, and to precisely determine the associated critical exponents and amplitude ratio. In particular, if the chiral transition is really of weakly first order, it should eventually show up in high-precision experiments as a finite latent heat or a finite discontinuity in certain physical quantities. In doing this, one has to choose appropriate materials characterized by the full chiral symmetry. Otherwise, a weak but nonzero perturbation of lower symmetry, e.g., the ones arising from the lattice distortion as in the cases of RbMnBr3 and CsCuCl3, would cause a crossover to the non-chiral behavior in a close vicinity of $`T_c`$, irrespective of the eventual stability of the chiral fixed point.

ii) The other direction is to further examine the underlying universality of the novel chiral critical behavior, i.e., to examine the critical properties from one material to the other. If the novel chiral criticality is to be observed in various chiral magnets in common, it should be a good experimental proof that there indeed exists a chiral fixed point behind the phenomena.

iii) Another interesting point, closely related to the point ii) above, is to examine the critical properties of helical magnets (spiral magnets), which is expected to lie in the same universality class as the stacked-triangular antiferromagnets. So far, the critical properties of helimagnets with nontrivial chiral degrees of freedom have been studied almost exclusively for rare-earth metals, Ho, Dy and Tb. However, the situation for rare-earth helimagnets has remained confused for years now . Apparently, there are serious problems associated with the long-range nature of the RKKY interaction, or with the possible contribution of the second length scale arising from the disorder-containing skin part of the sample. One way to avoid these complications might be to make measurements on insulating helimagnets such as VF2 and $`\beta `$MnO2, and I urge experimentalists to try such experiments.

iv) Since the chirality is a quantity characteristic of the novel chiral criticality, a direct experimental observation of the chirality would be very useful. Recently, a significant progress in this direction was made by Plakty et al, who determined by using elaborate experimental technique the critical behavior of the chirality for the stacked-triangular antiferromagnets CsMnBr3 and CsNiCl3 . The determined chirality exponents are compared with the prediction of the chiral universality quite successfully.

We finally note that, while the chiral degrees of freedom inherent to stacked-triangular antiferromagnets and other chiral magnets give rise to the novel critical behavior, quite possibly lying in a new universality class, the chirality itself behaves as a composite operator of the order parameter of the transition, the spin. In other words, the spin and the chirality are not decoupled here, and there is only one diverging length scale in the transition. Under certain circumstances, however, even this property could change, as we shall see in the next section on the SG ordering.

§4. Ordering in spin glasses

Spin glasses are the type of random magnets in which both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions coexist and compete, thereby giving rise to the effects of frustration and quenched randomness. Since the experimental discovery of a sharp transition-like phenomenon in typical SG magnets, particularly in the so-called canonical SG that are dilute metallic alloys such as AuFe and CuMn, their ordering properties have been studied quite extensively both experimentally and theoretically . Nevertheless, the true nature of the SG ordering still remains elusive, and is under hot debate.

Since we now have fairly convincing experimental evidences that typical SG magnets exhibit an equilibrium phase transition at a finite temperature, next obvious question is what is the true nature of the experimentally observed SG transition and of the low-temperature SG state. We have not yet reached the full understanding of this question. In theoretical studies of the ordering of SG, e.g., of the critical properties of the SG transition or of the issue of whether the SG state exhibits a spontaneous replica-symmetry breaking (RSB), a simple Ising model with short-range interaction, the so-called Edwards-Anderson (EA) model, has widely been used as a “realistic” SG model. One should bear in mind, however, that the magnetic interactions in many SG materials are nearly isotropic, being rather well described by an isotropic Heisenberg model, in the sense that the magnetic anisotropy is considerably weaker than the exchange interaction. In apparent contrast to experiments, numerical simulations have indicated that the standard SG order occurs only at zero temperature in the 3D Heisenberg SG . Although the magnetic anisotropy inherent to real materials is often invoked to explain this apparent discrepancy with experiments, it still remains puzzling that no detectable sign of Heisenberg-to-Ising crossover has been observed in experiments which is usually expected to occur if the observed finite-temperature transition is caused by the weak magnetic anisotropy.

In this section, I wish to explain one scenario of the experimental SG ordering presented some time ago by the present author, aimed at solving this apparent puzzle. In this scenario, which may be termed as a spin-chirality decoupling-recoupling scenario, a scalar chirality introduced in §2 plays an important role. This scenario consists of two parts: The fist part is “spin-chirality separation” or “decoupling” for the fully isotropic system, and the second part is the “spin-chirality mixing” or “recoupling” due to random magnetic anisotropy.

Recent numerical simulations indicate that, in a fully isotropic Heisenberg SG in 3D, the chirality is “separated” on long length and time scales from the spin, giving rise to a novel chiral-glass ordered phase in which only the scalar chiralities are ordered in a spatially random manner with keeping the spin paramagnetic . In other words, in a 3D isotropic Heisenberg SG, the chiral-glass order precedes the SG order, $`T_{\mathrm{CG}}>T_{\mathrm{SG}}`$, the latter probably taking place only at $`T=T_{\mathrm{SG}}=0`$. Furthermore, a recent numerical simulation has revealed that the nature of the chiral-glass transition and of the chiral-glass ordered state might differ in some essential points from that of the standard Ising SG . First, the critical properties of the chiral-glass transition, characterized by the exponents $`\beta _{\mathrm{CG}}1.1,\gamma _{\mathrm{CG}}1.5,\nu _{\mathrm{CG}}1.2`$ and $`\eta _{\mathrm{CG}}0.8`$ etc., differ from those of the standard 3D Ising spin glass, characterized by the exponents $`\beta 0.55,\gamma 4.0,\nu 1.8`$ and $`\eta 0.35`$, etc . Second, the chiral-glass ordered state is likely to exhibit a novel type of replica-symmetry breaking (RSB) with a one-step-like character, in contrast to the case of the 3D Ising SG.

Of course, the experimentally observed SG transition is associated with the freezing of the spin itself: Experimentally, the scalar chirality has not been directly measurable in SG so far. Since the chiral-glass order expected in a 3D isotropic Heisenberg SG does not accompany the spin order, it cannot immediately be connected with the experimental SG ordering. At this point, we come to the second part of the scenario, “spin-chirality recoupling” or “mixing”. Here, one assumes that the weak random magnetic anisotropy inherent to real SG materials ”mixes” or ”recouples” the spin and the chirality, and the chiral-glass transition, which is hidden in the chiral sector in the absence of magnetic anisotropy, is now ”revealed” in the spin sector. As long as the anisotropy is sufficiently weak, the nature of the SG transition and of the SG ordered state should be governed by that of the chiral-glass transition and of the chiral-glass ordered state in the fully isotropic system. Note that it is not governed by the the SG transition and the SG ordered state of the fully isotropic system, since the spin has been separated from the chirality there.

One can see such a spin-chirality mixing from a simple symmetry argument. The random magnetic anisotropy generally reduces the global symmetry of the Hamiltonian from $`O(3)=Z_2\times SO(3)`$ to only chiral $`Z_2`$ associated with the global spin inversion $`\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_i`$. Note that the spin inversion flips the scalar chirality $`\chi _i\chi _i`$, since $`\chi _i`$ is cubic in spins. As mentioned, in the fully isotropic case, the spin-chirality separation is expected to occur. There, upon renormalization, the Hamiltonian is asymptotically decoupled into the $`Z_2`$-symmetric chiral part and the $`SO(3)`$-symmetric part, where the $`Z_2`$ chiral part is subject to a finite-temperature chiral-glass transition, while the $`SO(3)`$ part remains disordered keeping the Heisenberg spin paramagnetic even in the chiral-glass ordered state. Suppose that a small amount of random magnetic anisotropy is added to the system. While the random magnetic anisotropy energetically breaks the $`SO(3)`$ symmetry, the chiral-glass transition associated with the chiral $`Z_2`$ symmetry would persist essentially unchanged, since the random anisotropy preserves the $`Z_2`$ chiral symmetry and the $`Z_2`$ chiral part has already been separated from the $`SO(3)`$ part. In contrast to the fully isotropic case, once the chiral-glass transition takes place and the $`Z_2`$ symmetry is spontaneously broken, the spin is no longer allowed to remain paramagnetic since the system now does not possess the $`SO(3)`$ symmetry. Thus, the spin is now “forced to order” in the chiral-glass state via the effective coupling between the spin and the chirality generated by the random magnetic anisotropy.

Based on this physical picture, one can derive various interesting predictions for the real Heisenberg-like SG ordering. For example, the SG transition temperature in the presence of random magnetic anisotropy of magnitude $`D`$ is expected to behave for small $`D`$ as

$$T_{\mathrm{SG}}(D)T_{\mathrm{CG}}(0)\left[1+c\left(\frac{D}{k_BT_{\mathrm{CG}}(0)}\right)^2+\mathrm{}\right],$$

where $`T_{\mathrm{CG}}(0)`$ is the chiral-glass transition temperature of the fully isotropic system, and $`c`$ is a numerical constant. Here note that $`T_{\mathrm{CG}}(0)`$ is a quantity of $`O(J)`$, not of $`O(D)`$. Hence, in the $`D0`$ limit, $`T_{\mathrm{SG}}(D)`$ tends to a finite value of $`O(J)`$ essentially in a regular way. The reason why the $`T_{\mathrm{SG}}(D)`$ in the $`D0`$ limit tends to $`T_{\mathrm{CG}}(0)`$ associated with the $`Z_2`$-symmetry breaking, not to $`T_{\mathrm{SG}}(0)(<T_{\mathrm{CG}}(0))`$ associated with the $`SO(3)`$-symmetry breaking, is because the symmetry spontaneously broken at the SG transition under finite $`D`$ is the chiral $`Z_2`$ symmetry (spin-inversion symmetry), not being the continuous $`SO(3)`$ symmetry.

The nonlinear susceptibility for sufficiently weak $`D`$ diverges toward $`T=T_{\mathrm{SG}}(D)`$ as

$$\chi _{nl}(D)D^4t^{\gamma _{\mathrm{CG}}}+[\mathrm{nondiverging}\mathrm{term}],$$

where $`t`$ is a reduced temperature $`t|(TT_{\mathrm{SG}}(D))/T_{\mathrm{SG}}(D)|`$. The susceptibility exponent here is nothing but the chiral-glass exponent in the fully isotropic system $`\gamma =\gamma _{\mathrm{CG}}1.5`$. The above equation indicates that the standard crossover behavior in the exponent does not occur even for weak $`D`$. In contrast, the amplitude of the leading singularity depends on $`D`$, vanishing in the isotropic limit. In this way, the present chirality scenario gives a natural explanation of the abovementioned puzzles about experiments, i.e., why the expected Heisenberg-to-Ising crossover has not been observed experimentally, or why the SG transition occurs at a finite temperature of order $`J`$ even in a nearly isotropic Heisenberg-like SG with weak anisotropy.

According to the present chirality scenario, the critical properties of the SG transition of real Heisenberg-like SG should be the same as those of the chiral-glass transition of an isotropic Heisenberg SG, i.e., $`\beta 1.1,\gamma 1.5,\nu 1.2`$ and $`\eta 0.8`$. These exponent values, though quite different from the values of the 3D Ising SG, happen to be rather close to the experimental values for canonical SG. In Table III, I summarize the SG critical exponents experimentally determined for canonical SG such as AgMn, CuMn etc. One sees that the exponents determined by various authors  come close to each other, yielding the values $`\beta 1`$, $`\gamma 2`$, $`\nu 1.3`$ and $`\eta 0.5`$. In Table III, we also give the corresponding exponent values of the 3D Ising SG determined by recent extensive numerical simulations . Evidently, the experimental values for canonical SG deviate considerably from the 3D Ising values, while they come rather close to the chiral-glass values quoted above, giving some support to the chirality scenario.

It should be noticed that one cannot ascribe the cause of the observed large discrepancy between the experimental and the 3D Ising exponent values to the long-range nature of the RKKY interaction inherent to canonical SG. Although the RKKY interaction is expected to be a relevant perturbation in the spin ordering of 3D Heisenberg SG , a scaling theory suggests that the 3D Heisenberg SG with the RKKY interaction lies just at its lower critical dimension (LCD) . Generally, the system at its LCD is known to exhibit either a zero-temperature transition with an exponentially diverging correlation length, or a finite-temperature Kosterlitz-Thouless-type transition without a finite long-range order but with an exponentially diverging correlation length. In either case, $`\nu `$ should be infinite, which is hardly consistent with the experimental result for canonical SG, $`\nu 1.3`$. Furthermore, the non-Ising exponents close to the ones obtained for canonical SG are also observed in an insulating Heisenberg-like SG with short-range interaction, CdCrInS : See Table III. These observations indicate that the cause of the non-Ising exponents experimentally observed in canonical SG cannot simply be ascribed to the RKKY interaction.

Thus, the chirality scenario turns out to naturally explain not only the origin of the experimentally observed SG exponents, but also the reason why the expected crossover has not been observed experimentally, or why the SG transition occurs at a finite temperature of $`O(J)`$ even in a nearly isotropic Heisenberg-like SG system. In fact, this scenario could also explain some other features where the standard theory met some difficulty, such as the problem of magnetic phase diagram . It also yields some new predictions, e.g., that the SG ordered state of real Heisenberg-like SG should exhibit a peculiar type of one-step-like RSB. Further details of the chirality scenario and its outcome will be given elsewhere .

§5. Concluding remark

A brief review has been given on the two topics in the ordering of frustrated magnets where the chirality plays an important role. One is the criticality of stacked-triangular antiferromagnets and the other is the ordering of spin glasses. In both cases, the chirality gives rise to new interesting phenomena not encountered in standard unfrustrated magnets, such as “chiral universality” or “spin-chirality separation”. While further works are required to settle the issues discussed in this article, it is already clear that frustration indeed offers a unique stage where a variety of new interesting ordering phenomena take place.

The author is particularly indebted to Dr. K. Hukushima for useful discussion and collaboration in a work cited in §4.

Note added to §3: Very recently, Pelissetto, Rossi and Vicari performed a RG loop expansion at $`d=3`$ up to six loops \[A. Pelissetto, P. Rossi and E. Vicari, Phys. Rev. B63, R140414 (2001)\]. By determining the large-order behavior of the series and making a resummation, these authors found a stable chiral fixed point for both cases of $`n=2`$ and 3 characterized by the exponents which were in good agreement with experiments and MC. Note that the result is in sharp contrast to the previous lower-order (three-loops) result where no stable fixed was found.

|  | Kawamura | Bhattacharya | Mailhot | Loison | Heisen- | O(4) | MF tri- |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Ref. |  | et al | et al | et al | berg |  | critical |
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| $`T_c/J`$ | 0.958(4) | 0.9576(2) | 0.9577(2) | - |  |  |  |
| $`\alpha `$ | 0.24(8) | - | - | - | -0.116 | -0.22 | 0.5 |
| $`\beta `$ | 0.30(2) | 0.289(10) | 0.285(11) | 0.28(2) | 0.36 | 0.39 | 0.25 |
| $`\gamma `$ | 1.17(7) | 1.176(20) | 1.185(3) | 1.25(3) | 1.387 | 1.47 | 1 |
| $`\nu `$ | 0.59(2) | 0.585(9) | 0.586(8) | 0.59(1) | 0.705 | 0.74 | 0.5 |
| $`A^+/A^{}`$ | 0.54(20) | - | - | - | 1.36 | - | 0 |
| $`\beta _\kappa `$ | 0.55(4) | - | 0.50(2) | - | - | - | 0.5 |
| $`\gamma _\kappa `$ | 0.72(8) | - | 0.82(4) | - | - | - | 0.5 |
| $`\nu _\kappa `$ | 0.60(3) | - | 0.608(12) | - | - | - | 0.5 |

Table I: Critical exponents, specific-heat amplitude ratio and transition temperature as determined by several MC simulations for the stacked-triangular Heisenberg antiferromagnet with the equal strengths of the inter- and intra-plane couplings $`J`$. The corresponding values of the standard Heisenberg, $`O(4)`$ and mean-field (MF) tricritical universality classes are also shown.

|  | $`\alpha `$ | $`\beta `$ | $`\gamma `$ | $`\nu `$ | $`A^+/A^{}`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CsMnBr3 | 0.39(9) | 0.22(2) | 1.10(5) | 0.57(3) | 0.19(19) |
|  | 0.40(5) | 0.25(1) | 1.01(8) | 0.54(3) | 0.32(20) |
|  |  | 0.24(2) |  |  |  |
| CsNiCl3 | 0.37(8) | 0.243(5) | - | - | 0.30(11) |
| ($`H>H_m`$) | 0.342(5) |  |  |  |  |
| CsMnI3 | 0.34(6) | - | - | - | 0.31(8) |
| ($`H>H_m`$) |  |  |  |  |  |
| XY | -0.008 | 0.35 | 1.316 | 0.669 | 0.99 |
| $`n=2`$ chiral | 0.34(6) | 0.253(10) | 1.13(5) | 0.54(2) | 0.36(20) |
| MF tricritical | 0.5 | 0.25 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 0 |

Table II: Critical exponents and specific-heat amplitude ratio determined by the experiments on several stacked-triangular XY antiferromagnets. The corresponding values given by several theories are also shown.

| type | material | Ref. | $`\beta `$ | $`\gamma `$ | $`\nu `$ | $`\eta `$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| canonical SG | CuMn,AgMn |  | 1.0(1) | 2.2(1) | $``$ 1.4 | $``$ 0.4 |
|  | AgMn |  | 1.0(1) | 2.2(2) | $``$ 1.4 | $``$ 0.4 |
|  | AgMn |  | 0.9(2) | 2.1(1) | $``$ 1.3 | $``$ 0.4 |
|  | CuAlMn |  | $``$ 1.0 | $``$ 1.9 | $``$ 1.3 | $``$ 0.5 |
|  | PdMn |  | 0.90(15) | 2.0(2) | $``$ 1.3 | $``$ 0.4 |
| insulating SG | CdCrInS |  | 0.75(10) | 2.3(4) | $``$ 1.3 | $``$ 0.2 |
| 3D Ising SG | $`\pm J`$ |  | $``$ 0.55 | $``$ 4.0 | 1.7(3) | -0.35(5) |
| (MC) | Gaussian |  | $``$ 0.64 | $``$ 4.7 | 2.0(1.5) | -0.36(6) |
|  | $`\pm J`$ |  | $``$ 0.65 | 4.1(5) | 1.8(2) | -0.26(4) |
| chiral glass |  |  | 1.1(1) | 1.5(3) | $`1.2`$ | $`0.8`$ |

Table III Critical exponents of canonical SG (Heisenberg-like metallic SG) and of Heisenberg-like insulating SG, compared with the corresponding exponents of the 3D short-range Ising SG (EA model) and those of the chiral-glass. Note that the standard scaling relations have been used here to reproduce the full set of exponents from the values reported in the original references.


format: text

text:
# DEUTERON COMPTON SCATTERING IN CHIRAL PERTURBATION THEORY

## 1 Introduction

At sufficiently low energy $`\omega `$ the spin-averaged forward Compton scattering amplitude for any nucleus is, in the nuclear rest frame:

$$T(\omega )=\frac{1}{4\pi }\stackrel{}{ϵ}^{}\stackrel{}{ϵ}\left(\frac{𝒵^2e^2}{AM}+(\alpha +\beta )\omega ^2+\mathrm{}\right),$$
(1)
where $`\stackrel{}{ϵ}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{ϵ}^{}`$ are the polarization vectors of the initial and final-state photons, $`𝒵e`$ is the total charge of the nucleus, $`AM`$ is its total mass, and $`\alpha `$ ($`beta`$) the electric (magnetic) polarizability.

Compton scattering on a deuteron target is an obvious candidate to measure the electromagnetic neutron polarizabilities. In this case, the cross section in the forward direction roughly goes as

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}|_{\theta =0}(f_{Th}(\alpha _p+\alpha _n)\omega ^2)^2.$$
(2)
The sum $`\alpha _p+\alpha _n`$ may then be accessible via its interference with the dominant Thomson term for the proton, $`f_{Th}`$. Coherent scattering the deuteron has been measured at $`E_\gamma =`$ 49 and 69 MeV by the Illinois group . An experiment with tagged photons in the energy range $`E_\gamma =84.2104.5`$ MeV at Saskatoon has recently presented results , while data for $`E_\gamma `$ of about 60 MeV is being analyzed at Lund.

## 2 The $`\chi PT`$ calculation

In this section, we outline how the various contributions are calculated following Ref.. We can separate them into two classes: one-nucleon and two-nucleon mechanisms. One-nucleon diagrams are those which relate directly to contributions to Compton scattering on a single nucleon, while two-nucleon mechanisms contribute only in $`A2`$ nuclei.

Let us consider first the one-nucleon terms; a sample of the relevant diagrams is shown in Fig. 2. The only modification which must be made to the photon-nucleon amplitude for use in Compton scattering on the deuteron is that it must be boosted from the $`\gamma N`$ c.m. frame to the $`\gamma NN`$ c.m. frame.

In principle we cannot hope to extract neutron polarizabilities without a theory for the two-nucleon contributions, shown in Fig. 2. Comparison of diagrams in Figs. 2(e) and 2 shows that the same physics that produces dominant contributions to the polarizabilities generates the dominant two-nucleon contributions.

We calculate the cross section for Compton scattering on the deuteron including the single-scattering and two-nucleon mechanisms described above. The final result is insensitive to details of the deuteron wavefunction, and below we use the energy-independent Bonn OBEPQ wave function. The photon-deuteron $`T`$-matrix is then calculated and the laboratory differential cross section evaluated directly from it:

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }_L}=\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}\left(\frac{E_\gamma ^{}}{E_\gamma }\right)^2\frac{1}{6}\underset{M^{}\lambda ^{}M\lambda }{}|T_{M^{}\lambda ^{}M\lambda }^{\gamma d}|^2,$$
(3)
where $`E_\gamma `$ and $`E_\gamma ^{}`$ are the initial and final photon energy in the laboratory frame respectively. Results are shown in Figs. 4,4,5. They represent the $`\chi PT`$ predictions for Compton scattering on the deuteron .

## 3 Conclusion

We have calculated the differential cross section for Compton scattering on the deuteron in $`\chi PT`$ up to $`O(Q^3)`$ . We have found:

$``$ Reasonable agreement with the data at 49 MeV. At this energy $`O(Q^3)`$ corrections are not large compared to the leading $`O(Q^2)`$ result.

$``$ Good agreement with the data at 69 MeV. At this energy the convergence appears to be good. This suggests that $`\chi PT`$ at $`O(Q^3)`$ is providing reasonable neutron and two-nucleon contributions.

$``$ A prediction at 95 MeV which is, however, plagued by considerable uncertainties. The cross section comes out somewhat smaller than at lower energies, in particular in the backward directions, although the full $`O(Q^4)`$ amplitude is likely to be somewhat bigger at back angles. It seems that a more stringent test of $`\chi PT`$ at these energies will have to wait for a next-order calculation.

## References


text:
# SCUBA sub-millimeter observations of gamma-ray bursters

## 1 Introduction

The discovery of localized transients in the error boxes of gamma-ray burst (GRB) sources has led to intense multi-wavelength campaigns that have revolutionized our understanding of these sources. For reviews, see Piran (scuba:piran99 (1999)); Van Paradijs et al. (scuba:vanp00 (2000)).

The multi-wavelength emission comes from several components. The “prompt” emission comes from the initial explosion. A reverse shock can give an optical and/or radio flash. The later “afterglow” emission comes from the expanding fireball as it sweeps up the surrounding medium. Finally, the “quiescent” constant emission comes from any underlying host galaxy.

Sub-millimeter observations provide “clean” measures of the source intensity, unaffected by scintillation and extinction. We have been performing Target of Opportunity sub-millimeter observations of GRB counterparts using the Sub-millimetre Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The detailed SCUBA results for the first eight (GRB 970508, 971214, 980326, 980329, 980519, 980703, 981220, and 981226) are described in Smith et al. (scuba:smith99 (1999)). GRB 990123 is discussed in Galama et al. (scuba:gal99nat (1999)). Observations of GRB 990520 were made in mediocre weather (Smith et al. 2000a ). In this paper we present our SCUBA observations of GRB 991208, 991216, 000301C, 000630, 000911, and 000926. The sub-millimeter emission from GRB 010222 that was detected by SCUBA appeared to have unusual properties (Fich et al. scuba:fich01 (2001); Ivison et al. scuba:ivi01 (2001)); these observations will be reported elsewhere after a final sensitive SCUBA observation has been made to determine whether there is an underlying host galaxy.

In the remainder of §1, we outline the motivations for making sub-millimeter observations of the afterglows and host galaxies. In §2 we discuss the technical details of the SCUBA observations, and also the chance probability of detecting quiescent sources that are unrelated to the GRB. In §3 we present the results of our latest observations. In §4 we discuss some of the implications of our results.

### 1.1 SCUBA afterglow program

Both observations (e.g. Galama et al. scuba:galama98 (1998), scuba:gal99nat (1999); Smith et al. scuba:smith99 (1999)) and theories (e.g. Sari et al. scuba:spn98 (1998); Piran scuba:piran99 (1999); Wijers & Galama scuba:wg99 (1999); Granot et al. scuba:gps00 (2000); Sari & Mészáros scuba:sm00 (2000); Chevalier & Li scuba:cl00 (2000); Panaitescu & Kumar scuba:pk00 (2000)) show that the burst afterglow emission often peaks in the sub-millimeter in the days to weeks following the burst. By tracking the evolving emission across the entire spectrum, it is possible to study aspects such as the types of shocks involved, the geometry of the outflow (jet versus spherical), and the geometry of the surrounding medium (uniform versus stellar wind).

Previously, our most interesting result was the detection of a fading sub-millimeter counterpart to GRB 980329 (Smith et al. scuba:smith99 (1999)). While a fading X-ray counterpart (in’t Zand et al. scuba:intz98 (1998)) and a variable, long-lasting radio source VLA J070238.0+385044 (Taylor et al. scuba:tay98 (1998)) were soon found for this burst, it proved to be difficult to find the infrared counterpart (Klose et al. scuba:klose98 (1998); Palazzi et al. scuba:pal98 (1998); Reichart et al. scuba:reich99 (1999)). However, the 850 $`\mu `$m (350 GHz) flux seen by SCUBA was relatively bright, making it similar to GRB 970508. The radio through sub-millimeter spectrum of GRB 980329 was well fit by a power law with a surprisingly steep index of $`\alpha =+0.9`$ (Taylor et al. scuba:tay98 (1998); Smith et al. scuba:smith99 (1999)). However, we could not fully exclude a $`\nu ^{1/3}`$ power law attenuated by synchrotron self-absorption (e.g. Katz scuba:katz94 (1994); Waxman scuba:wax97 (1997)). The 850 $`\mu `$m SCUBA flux decayed rapidly with time. For a power law decay with the flux density $`t^m`$ where $`t`$ was the time since the burst, the best fit power law index was $`m=3.0`$. However, $`m`$ was not tightly constrained: the 90% confidence interval was $`m=1.2`$ to $`m=5.3`$.

### 1.2 SCUBA host galaxy program

It is important to understand the nature of the host galaxies. A popular model for GRBs is that they are due to the explosive deaths of high-mass stars (e.g. Woosley scuba:woosley93 (1993), scuba:woosley00 (2000); Paczyński scuba:pac98 (1998)) and therefore are likely to be found in active star forming regions. SCUBA has recently discovered several dusty star-forming galaxies out to high redshifts (e.g. Smail et al. scuba:smail97 (1997), scuba:smail98 (1998); Hughes et al. scuba:hughes98 (1998); Barger et al. scuba:barger98 (1998)), and it appears that the star formation rate does not drop rapidly beyond $`z1`$ (e.g. Blain et al. scuba:blain99 (1999)). In this scenario, it is plausible that some of the GRBs will be associated with dusty star-forming galaxies.

An alternative model assumes that GRBs are due to the coalescence of two compact objects that were in a binary orbit. In this case, the lifetime of the binary will likely be long, and the active star formation will have died down by the time the burst occurs. Furthermore, the binary system may have obtained a substantial velocity if there was a supernova explosion with a large kick; this would move the system far from its birthplace. Thus GRBs would be less likely to occur in a dusty star-forming galaxy.

If there is a connection between GRBs and dust-enshrouded star formation (Blain & Natarajan scuba:bn00 (2000)), it has been suggested that $`>20`$% of GRB hosts should be brighter than 2 mJy at 850 $`\mu `$m (Ramirez-Ruiz et al. scuba:rtb01 (2001)). Our Target of Opportunity program is designed to look for the afterglow emission of the bursts by making observations separated by days. However, by combining the data from all of our observations of a source we can also look for quiescent sources of this nature.

The expected sub-millimeter emission from warm dust due to massive star formation is somewhat uncertain. In this paper, we will give numerical estimates using (Condon scuba:condon (1992); Carilli & Yun scuba:cy99 (1999)):

$`S_\nu =0.039\xi (z,q_0,\alpha )`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{H_0}{65\mathrm{kms}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1}}\right]^2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\nu }{350\mathrm{GHz}}}\right]^\alpha `$ (1)
$`\times \left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{SFR}(M5M_{\mathrm{}})}{100M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1}}\right]\mathrm{mJy},`$
where $`S_\nu `$ is the sub-millimeter flux density at the frequency $`\nu `$.

SFR is the star formation rate for stars with masses $`5M_{\mathrm{}}`$ in units of $`100M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. An advantage of using the sub-millimeter flux density to estimate the SFR is that there is no need to perform the large (sometimes orders of magnitude) correction for the host galaxy extinction that is required when studying optical lines. Note that other methods of estimating the SFR often quote results using masses between 0.1 and 100 $`M_{\mathrm{}}`$. Our results will be smaller than these by a factor that depends on the initial mass function (IMF). This is currently uncertain for starburst galaxies; for a Salpeter IMF, the factor is $`5`$.

The function $`\xi (z,q_0,\alpha )`$ is given by:

$$\xi (z,q_0,\alpha )=\frac{(1+z)^{1+\alpha }}{z^2\left[1+\frac{z(1q_0)}{(1+2q_0z)^{1/2}+1+q_0z}\right]^2}.$$
(2)
This assumes that the Universe has a geometry described by the Robertson-Walker metric and uses the Friedmann cosmological models. Typically, $`\xi (z,q_0,\alpha )10`$ over a wide range of redshifts, assuming plausible values for $`q_0`$ and $`\alpha `$. In our numerical calculations, we assume $`H_0=65\mathrm{kms}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0.2`$, $`q_0=0.1`$, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_0=0`$.

The power law index $`\alpha `$ is measured between 230 and 850 GHz, and is expected to be $`34`$ based on observations and simple dust models (e.g. Dwek & Werner scuba:dwek81 (1981)). Thus any quiescent dust contribution is very much larger at sub-millimeter than at radio wavelengths. In principle, $`\alpha `$ could be measured by SCUBA. However, in practice the weather is rarely good enough to be able to detect the source at 450 $`\mu `$m. For our GRB numerical calculations, we assume $`\alpha =3.4`$ (which is the value observed for M82). This lies in the middle of the expected range of $`\alpha `$, and for the $`z<2`$ bursts considered here the uncertainty in $`\alpha `$ means that the calculated SFR may be too high or too low by at most 50%. Note that depending on the temperature of the dust, for very large $`z>7`$ the peak of the dust emitting spectrum may be redshifted to a wavelength $`850\mu `$m; in this case, $`\alpha `$ will be much flatter.

As an example, a starburst galaxy with a $`\mathrm{SFR}=300M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, and $`\alpha =3.0`$ (as in Arp 220) would give an 850 $`\mu `$m flux density of $`S_\nu =1.5\mathrm{mJy}`$ at $`z=10`$. Alternatively, a flux density of $`S_\nu =1.5\mathrm{mJy}`$ at 850 $`\mu `$m for an ultraluminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) at $`z=1`$ with $`\alpha =3.4`$ would imply a $`\mathrm{SFR}=360M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$.

SCUBA is therefore capable of detecting ULIRG-type objects throughout the distant universe. The relatively small population of extremely luminous dusty galaxies may dominate the total star formation in the universe at early epochs (Smail et al. scuba:smail00 (2000); Ramirez-Ruiz et al. scuba:rtb01 (2001)). However, this is still quite uncertain; for example, there may be a substantial contribution to the energy output of the SCUBA-bright galaxies from active galactic nuclei. If GRBs are regularly found to be associated with extremely luminous dusty galaxies, this will provide independent evidence that these objects dominate the star formation in the early universe.

In Smith et al. (scuba:smith99 (1999)) we noted that the relatively bright sub-millimeter flux from GRB 980329 could be due in part to an underlying quiescent sub-millimeter source. Unfortunately, the quiescent flux of $`1`$ mJy at 850 $`\mu `$m in this case is too faint to be significantly detected by SCUBA: more sensitive sub-millimeter instruments will be needed to determine whether such a quiescent source is actually present in GRB 980329.

None of the other GRBs presented in our previous papers showed any indication of an underlying quiescent sub-millimeter source. We discuss the SFR limits for these in §4. However, 60 $`\mu `$m Infrared Space Observatory observations suggested a possible far-infrared quiescent counterpart to GRB 970508 (Hanlon et al. scuba:hanlon00 (2000)).

## 2 SCUBA details

SCUBA is the sub-millimeter continuum instrument for the JCMT (for a review see Holland et al. scuba:hol99 (1999)). Our observing, calibration, and reduction techniques are the same as described in detail in Smith et al. (scuba:smith99 (1999)). Here we summarize only the most important features of the instrument, and those aspects that have been modified since our previous observations. We also discuss the chance probability of detecting a quiescent source that is unrelated to the GRB.

### 2.1 SCUBA observing details

SCUBA uses two arrays of bolometers to simultaneously observe the same region of sky, $`2.3\mathrm{}`$ in diameter. The arrays are optimized for operations at 450 and 850 $`\mu `$m. The dedicated photometry pixels for observations at 1100, 1350, and 2000 $`\mu `$m have not been available since the 1999 upgrade.

In 1999 October new wideband filters (450w:850w) were installed. These have improved sensitivities over the ones used previously by SCUBA. New blocking filters with better transmission were also installed in 1999 October. New ribbon cables now allow the refrigerator to run colder: this has reduced the number of noisy pixels and has stabilized the noise on the arrays. This updated set-up was used for all the new observations described here, and has generally resulted in lower rms values than was found in Smith et al. (scuba:smith99 (1999)). A typical integration time of 2 hours gives an rms $`1.5`$ mJy at 850 $`\mu `$m. However, the sensitivity depends significantly on the weather and the elevation of the source; since our ToO observations are done on short notice, sometimes these factors are less than ideal.

Fully sampled maps of the $`2.3\mathrm{}`$ region can be made by “jiggling” the array. However, for all the sources described here, we have only been looking at the well-localized optical or radio transient coordinates by performing deep photometry observations using a single pixel of the arrays. The other bolometers in the arrays are used to perform a good sky noise subtraction.

During an observation the secondary is chopped between the source and sky at 7 Hz. This is done mainly to take out small relative DC drifts between the bolometers, and also to remove any large-scale sky variations. The term “integration time” always refers to the “on+off” time, including the amount of time spent while chopped off-source. An 18 sec integration thus amounts to a 9 sec on-source observation time. A typical measurement consists of 50 integrations of 18 seconds; we refer to this as a “run.” Each observation of a source in general consists of several such runs, with pointing and calibration observations in between.

Based on observed variations of the gain factor and signal levels we estimate typical systematic uncertainties in the absolute flux calibrations of 10% at 850 $`\mu `$m. In general the rms errors of the observations presented here are larger than this uncertainty.

### 2.2 False positives

The pointing accuracy of the JCMT is a few arcsec, and the pointing is checked several times during the night to ensure that it is reliable. The 850 $`\mu `$m bolometric pixel has a diffraction limited resolution of $`14\mathrm{}`$. Thus we can be sure that the target is always well centered in the bolometric pixel.

However, the large beam size combined with the large number of distant galaxies radiating strongly at this wavelength means that in any observation there is a non-negligible chance of detecting a quiescent sub-millimeter source that is completely unrelated to the GRB.

The surface density of sub-millimeter galaxies is still somewhat uncertain (Blain et al. scuba:blain98 (1998); Barger et al. scuba:barger99 (1999)). At 850 $`\mu `$m, the surface density of galaxies with flux densities larger than 4 mJy is estimated to be $`(12.5)\times 10^3\mathrm{deg}^2`$, while the surface density of galaxies with flux densities larger than 1 mJy is $`>10^4\mathrm{deg}^2`$.

Because of the uncertainty in the surface density, and the fact that the sensitivity of the bolometric pixel depends on the off-axis distance of the source, it is difficult to give an accurate determination of the chance probability of detecting a quiescent sub-millimeter source that is completely unrelated to the GRB. However, we estimate that the chance of detecting a random $`4`$ mJy source in any pointing is $`13`$%, while the chance of detecting a random $`1`$ mJy source in any pointing is $`>10`$%.

The rather large chance of a false positive means that it is dangerous to use just the detection of a quiescent sub-millimeter source to claim that this must be the host galaxy to the GRB. For example, we cannot rule out that the 1 mJy source that may have been seen in GRB 980329 is an unrelated source in the JCMT beam. For individual cases, confirmation of the star formation rate is needed from observations at other wavelengths. However, if it is found that many more bursts are associated with quiescent sub-millimeter sources than is expected by chance, this would be good evidence that the majority of these are true associations.

## 3 Results of SCUBA observations

The fact that SCUBA was down during the 1999 upgrade combined with unusually poor weather and a lack of well-localized sources in regions of the sky accessible to SCUBA has unfortunately limited our program over the past couple of years. For completeness, we describe here all of our observations from late 1999 through 2000. Table 1 summarizes the 850 $`\mu `$m results.

### 3.1 GRB 991208

The extremely energetic GRB 991208 was detected 19991208.19 (Hurley et al. 2000a ) by the Ulysses, Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR), and Wind spacecraft of the third Interplanetary Network (IPN).

A radio source was found by the Very Large Array (VLA: Frail scuba:frail99 (1999); Hurley et al. 2000a ). This source had a rising spectral index. A few days after the burst, the source was found to have fluxes of a couple of mJy from 15 to 240 GHz using the Ryle Telescope (Pooley 1999a ), Owens Valley Millimeter Array (Shepherd et al. scuba:shep99 (1999)), and IRAM (Bremer et al. scuba:bremer99 (1999)).

An optical transient was also found (Castro-Tirado et al. scuba:ct99 (1999); Stecklum et al. scuba:stecklum99 (1999)) whose optical flux decayed following a power law $`t^\delta `$ with a steep slope $`\delta =2.3\pm 0.07`$ for the first $`5`$ days, breaking to an even faster $`\delta =3.2\pm 0.2`$ (Castro-Tirado et al. scuba:ct01 (2001)).

A redshift of $`z=0.707`$ was determined for the afterglow (Dodonov et al. scuba:dod99 (1999); Djorgovski et al. scuba:djor99 (1999); Castro-Tirado et al. scuba:ct01 (2001); Sokolov et al. scuba:sok01 (2001)). There was an indication of a supernova or dust echo emission component in the afterglow (Castro-Tirado et al. scuba:ct01 (2001)). A compact $`V=24.6`$ magnitude galaxy was later found at this location (Fruchter et al. scuba:fruchter00 (2000)).

Unfortunately, GRB 991208 was in the morning sky and during a period of very poor weather at Mauna Kea. Our first opportunity to make a (short) observation was not until a week after the burst. Table 1 shows the results of our two observations. They are consistent with the other millimeter results (Galama et al. scuba:gal00 (2000)), though we are unable to determine anything significant about the evolution of the flux.

A SFR of $`(11.5\pm 7.1)M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ was estimated from the emission line fluxes of the host galaxy (Castro-Tirado et al. scuba:ct01 (2001)). The expected quiescent flux density at 850 $`\mu `$m would then be $`S_\nu 0.06\mathrm{mJy}`$, assuming $`\alpha =3.4`$. However, correcting for the internal extinction in the host galaxy leads to significantly higher SFR estimates, $`>156M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ to $`>249M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ (Sokolov et al. scuba:sok01 (2001)). A SFR ($`M5M_{\mathrm{}}`$) of $`250M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ would give a flux density of $`1.2`$ mJy at 850 $`\mu `$m; since we do not detect a quiescent sub-millimeter source with SCUBA, the SFR cannot be significantly higher than this value.

### 3.2 GRB 991216

The extremely bright GRB 991216 was detected 19991216.67 by BATSE on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO) (Kippen et al. scuba:kpg99 (1999); Kippen scuba:kip99 (1999)), and by Ulysses, NEAR, and the Satellite per Astronomia a Raggi X (BeppoSAX) (Hurley & Feroci scuba:hf99 (1999); Hurley et al. scuba:hck99 (1999)). Scans of the GRB error box using the Proportional Counter Array (PCA) on the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) discovered a previously unknown fading X-ray source (Takeshima et al. scuba:tak99 (1999)). This source was accurately located by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO) (Piro et al. scuba:piro99 (1999)).

The X-ray transient location was consistent with that of a fading optical source (Uglesich et al. scuba:ug99 (1999)), whose optical power law decay of $`\delta 1.21.5`$ was flatter than the X-ray decay of $`1.6`$ (Garnavich et al. 2000a ; Halpern et al. scuba:halp00 (2000)). Detections of both redshifted iron features (Piro et al. scuba:pgg00 (2000)) and optical absorption lines (Vreeswijk et al. scuba:vrees99 (1999)) indicated that the burst was at $`z=1.0`$. An irregularly shaped $`R=26.9`$ magnitude galaxy was later found at this location (Vreeswijk et al. scuba:vrees00 (2000)).

A variable radio afterglow was also found soon after the burst (Taylor & Berger scuba:tb99 (1999); Rol et al. scuba:rol99 (1999)). Surprisingly, the radio decay started within 1.5 days of the burst, and the radio power law decay index was less steep than in both the optical and X-ray bands (Frail et al. scuba:frail00 (2000)). While a $`1.1\pm 0.25`$ mJy source at 15 GHz was seen 1.33 days after the burst by the Ryle Telescope (Pooley 1999b ), this was not detected in later Ryle observations, nor was it detected at 99.9 GHz by Owens Valley (Frail et al. scuba:frail00 (2000)).

Unfortunately, as with GRB 991208, the weather at Mauna Kea was very poor during this period. Our SCUBA results are listed in Table 1. Our upper limits are consistent with the lack of a detection by Owens Valley. We find no evidence for a quiescent dusty host galaxy for GRB 991216. Combining all our 850 $`\mu `$m runs, the rms value of 1.2 mJy implies a SFR ($`M5M_{\mathrm{}}`$) $`<290M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, assuming $`\alpha =3.4`$.

### 3.3 GRB 000301C

The short or intermediate duration ($`2\mathrm{s}`$ in the $`>25\mathrm{keV}`$ energy range) GRB 000301C was detected 20000301.41 by the All Sky Monitor (ASM) on RXTE, by Ulysses, and by NEAR (Smith et al. 2000b ; Jensen et al. scuba:jfg01 (2001)).

An optical counterpart was soon found in the burst error box (e.g. Fynbo et al. 2000a ; Jensen et al. scuba:jfg01 (2001)). The light curve of this relatively bright optical source was well sampled, and it was found that it had a complex behavior, with significant fluctuations superimposed on the overall decay (e.g. Masetti et al. scuba:mas00 (2000); Berger et al. 2000a ). These variations might be due to refreshing of the shock in the fireball (Dai & Lu scuba:dl01 (2001)), or they may be due to inhomogeneities in the ambient medium that the fireball is expanding into (Berger et al. 2000a ). The achromatic fluctuations have also been explained as a micro-lensing event due to a $`0.5M_{\mathrm{}}`$ lens located half way to the burst (Garnavich et al. 2000b ; but see also Panaitescu scuba:pan01 (2001)): the peak magnification of $`2`$ occurred 3.8 days after the burst.

Detections of a Lyman alpha break (Smette et al. scuba:smette01 (2001)) and weak optical absorption lines (Castro et al. 2000a ; Feng et al. scuba:fww00 (2000); Jensen et al. scuba:jfg01 (2001)) indicated that the burst was at $`z=2.04`$. A faint, extended, $`R=28`$ magnitude object was tentatively suggested to be the host galaxy (Fruchter & Vreeswijk scuba:fv01 (2001)).

At the location of the optical transient, a radio and millimeter source was found by the VLA, Ryle, Owens Valley, and IRAM (Berger et al. 2000a ). Our SCUBA results are listed in Table 1. Unfortunately, our observations on the first day had to be terminated early, resulting in a large rms.

The SCUBA results for the second day are somewhat confusing. While it appeared that a source was present, one of our six runs had a rather negative result. There is some indication that the atmosphere was a little unstable: there were a couple of deviations in the opacity monitored by the Caltech Sub-millimeter Observatory. However, the JCMT was probably looking in a completely different direction at the time. In Table 1, we have conservatively chosen to show the result that uses all of our data, including the negative outlier. If we drop the negative run and combine with the data from the first day, we instead get a “best” result of $`3.3\pm 1.2`$ mJy around the time of the peak magnification in the lensing scenario. This is consistent with the other multi-wavelength results that showed that the broad-band spectrum was peaking in the sub-millimeter at this time (Berger et al. 2000a ).

Our long SCUBA observations on the third day gave a lower rms, but did not result in a detection of the source at the level suggested from the previous day. This is fully consistent with the results at other wavelengths, that showed that the achromatic fluctuation had subsided. However, given the weak significance of our results, we caution against over-interpreting the possible transient magnification of the 850 $`\mu `$m flux.

Combining the data from all three days gives a flux density of $`1.9\pm 0.7`$ mJy. The rms is the lowest value we have obtained for any burst to date. In this case, the flux is consistent with coming entirely from the afterglow. Thus there is no evidence for a quiescent dusty host galaxy for GRB 000301C. Using the 850 $`\mu `$m rms value implies a SFR ($`M5M_{\mathrm{}}`$) $`<175M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, assuming $`\alpha =3.4`$. Thus the optical faintness of the host galaxy is unlikely to be explained as due to dust absorption in the host; this is consistent with the low extinction derived from the optical properties of the afterglow.

### 3.4 GRB 000630

GRB 000630 was detected 20000630.02 by Ulysses, Wind, NEAR, and BeppoSAX (Hurley et al. 2000b ). An unknown radio source was found inside the GRB error box (Berger & Frail scuba:bf00 (2000)). However, a faint fading optical source was also found in the error box at a different location (Jensen et al. scuba:jfp00 (2000); Fynbo et al. 2001a ). A faint quiescent object was found at this optical location (Kaplan et al. scuba:kek01 (2001)).

Only one SCUBA observation was attempted on this burst, on July 2, with the radio source as the target. The weather was very poor, and no source was detected with an rms of 2 mJy at 850 $`\mu `$m. Since the optical source was the more likely counterpart, we have not included this result in Table 1.

### 3.5 GRB 000911

The long GRB 000911 was detected 20000911.30 by Ulysses, NEAR, and Wind (Hurley et al. 2000c ). A new radio and optical source was found inside the GRB error box (Berger et al. 2000b ).

The optical power law decay was $`\delta 1.5`$ (Price et al. scuba:pggd00 (2000); Lazzati et al. scuba:laz00 (2000)). In the simple adiabatic piston model, a fireball produced by a one time impulsive injection of energy in which only the forward blast wave efficiently accelerates particles predicts a power law spectrum $`S_\nu \nu ^\beta `$ with energy spectral index $`\beta =2\delta /3`$ (Wijers et al. scuba:wij97 (1997)). For GRB 000911, this would imply $`\beta 1.0`$. While the measured broad-band optical spectrum had a steeper $`\beta 1.5`$ (Lazzati et al. scuba:laz00 (2000); Covino et al. scuba:cov00 (2000)), correcting for Galactic extinction brings the spectrum closer to that of the simple fireball model.

The SCUBA results from our first two observations on the radio-optical counterpart are listed in Table 1. These were originally reported in Smith & Tilanus (scuba:st00 (2000)). We did not detect the source at 850 $`\mu `$m. A third SCUBA observation that was listed in Smith & Tilanus (scuba:st00 (2000)) was made on the incorrect coordinates given in Price et al. (scuba:pgg00 (2000): see Price scuba:price00 (2000)), and is not included here.

It is currently difficult to meaningfully compare our SCUBA limits with the results of the afterglow emission at other wavelengths. Simply scaling from the radio data using our fit for GRB 980329 would have led to a higher 850 $`\mu `$m flux than we observed. However, the GRB 000911 radio data still needs to be corrected for possible interstellar scintillation effects. Similarly, extrapolating the optical spectrum would also have predicted a higher 850 $`\mu `$m flux than we observed, although the final extinction corrections need to be incorporated. It does appear, however, that the SCUBA results will ultimately imply there are at least two breaks in the spectrum between $`10^{11}`$ and $`10^{13}`$ Hz, as is seen in other afterglows.

Combining all the SCUBA data gives an rms of 0.9 mJy. Thus there is no evidence for a quiescent dusty host for GRB 000911. There has also not yet been any indication of a host galaxy in the optical observations. Since no redshift has been reported so far, we are unable to put an accurate limit on the SFR, although it is likely to be $`<200M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. As for GRB 000301C, the optical faintness of the host galaxy is unlikely to be explained as due to dust absorption in the host.

### 3.6 GRB 000926

GRB 000926 was detected 20000926.99 by Ulysses, Wind and NEAR (Hurley et al. 2000d ). BeppoSAX and CXO observations located a fading X-ray counterpart in the burst error box that had a very steep power law decay (Piro scuba:piro00 (2000); Piro & Antonelli scuba:pa00 (2000); Garmire et al. scuba:gar00 (2000)).

Consistent with the location of this X-ray source, a bright new optical and radio counterpart was found (Gorosabel et al. scuba:gccg00 (2000); Dall et al. scuba:dall00 (2000); Frail & Berger scuba:fb00 (2000); Fynbo et al. 2001b ). The optical decay showed a sharp achromatic steepening with time (e.g. Fynbo et al. 2000b , 2001b ; Rol et al. scuba:rol00 (2000); Price et al. scuba:phg01 (2001)). An $`R25`$ magnitude compact knot of emission was found at this location, which may be the host galaxy (Harrison et al. scuba:hgb01 (2001)). A redshift of $`z=2.04`$ was determined using the optical absorption lines in the afterglow spectrum (Fynbo et al. 2000c ; Castro et al. 2000b ).

Unfortunately, GRB 000926 was in the afternoon sky during a period of poor weather at Mauna Kea. Only one long SCUBA observation was performed, in very marginal weather. The result is listed in Table 1. While the result was tantalizing, it was not possible to obtain a confirmation. Extrapolating from the $`0.5`$ mJy flux density at 8.46 GHz (Frail & Berger scuba:fb00 (2000)), the 850 $`\mu `$m flux density would be expected to be $`1.7`$ mJy using a $`S_\nu \nu ^{1/3}`$ spectrum, or $`14`$ mJy for $`S_\nu \nu ^{0.9}`$ (as in GRB 980329; see §1.1). Thus the SCUBA flux is consistent with coming from the afterglow.

The SFR was estimated to be $`14M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ without including extinction in the host galaxy, and $`24M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ with extinction (Fynbo et al. 2001b ). Using the extinction corrected value, the expected quiescent flux density at 850 $`\mu `$m would then be $`<0.1\mathrm{mJy}`$, assuming $`\alpha =3.4`$. Thus we would not expect to significantly detect a quiescent sub-millimeter source using SCUBA.

## 4 Discussion

With the possible exception of GRB 980329, for all of the bursts that were observed by SCUBA between 1997 and 2000, any sub-millimeter emission is consistent with coming from the afterglow: we did not conclusively detect quiescent sub-millimeter counterparts for any of these sources.

Unfortunately, the redshift remains uncertain for GRB 980329. If we assume that there is a 1 mJy 850 $`\mu `$m quiescent source present, then we obtain a SFR ($`M5M_{\mathrm{}}`$) of $`240M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ if $`z=1`$ (using $`\alpha =3.4`$), or $`160M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ if $`z=5`$ (Fruchter scuba:fruchter99 (1999)). However, since the chance of detecting a random $`1`$ mJy source in any pointing is $`>10`$%, we cannot rule out that the 1 mJy quiescent emission that may have been seen in GRB 980329 is from an unrelated source in the JCMT beam.

Table 2 summarizes the SFR limits for the other bursts that have had secure counterpart determinations and that had rms values less than 2 mJy measured by SCUBA. For those bursts with reasonably reliable redshift determinations, the SFR limit has been estimated. Our sample spans a wide range of redshifts. No redshifts have so far been reported for GRB 980519 or GRB 000911; however, since the SFR calculations are fairly insensitive to $`z`$, these are likely to have similar SFR limits to the other bursts in Table 2.

Radio observations of GRB 980703 that were made years after the burst indicated the presence of a persistent radio source (Berger et al. scuba:berger01 (2001)). If this radio emission is related to star formation, the inferred SFR ($`M5M_{\mathrm{}}`$) was estimated to be $`90M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. Table 2 shows that our 850 $`\mu `$m SCUBA limit is consistent with this result. Our 450 $`\mu `$m rms of 20 mJy for GRB 980703 places a slightly higher limit of SFR ($`M5M_{\mathrm{}}`$) $`<550M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$.

The fact that we are not consistently detecting bright sub-millimeter sources with SCUBA naturally leads to questions regarding the connection between GRBs and dust-enshrouded star formation. If GRBs are due to the explosions of high-mass stars, this may indicate that the relatively small population of extremely luminous dusty galaxies does not dominate the total star formation in the universe at early epochs. Instead, the GRBs may be predominantly tracing slightly lower luminosity galaxies with SFR ($`M5M_{\mathrm{}}`$) $`10100M_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{yr}^1`$.

We caution that our sample of bursts is still rather small. We also note that there may be an important selection effect in the bursts studied so far. Since the current GRB error boxes are large, we have to wait for the determination of a counterpart at other wavelengths before proceeding with our observations. If a bright optical afterglow is found, this suggests that the absorption local to the source is not too high, and so it may not be too surprising if we do not see a quiescent sub-millimeter source. Better candidates are those in which a radio transient is found, but little or no optical emission is seen, such as for GRB 980329. However, optical transients were found for the 6 new bursts studied in this paper.

This situation should improve significantly with the bursts localized by HETE-2 and Swift. HETE-2 should provide a few bursts each year with positions accurate to $`\pm 10\mathrm{}`$. For these, we will be able to immediately use SCUBA in the photometry mode on these locations, even if no counterpart is found at other wavelengths. Thus we will be able to look for prompt, afterglow, and quiescent sources that may be hard to detect otherwise if the redshift is large. Sub-millimeter observations performed within a day of the burst can potentially discriminate between different afterglow models (Panaitescu & Kumar scuba:pk00 (2000); Livio & Waxman scuba:lw00 (2000)). It is also exciting that HETE-2 will be able to localize bursts that last less than 1 second: these may have different progenitors and counterpart behaviors from the objects studied to date (Kouveliotou et al. scuba:kouv93 (1993)).

Observations of new bursts are continuing to produce surprises, and there is much left to learn about GRB afterglows and host galaxies. To obtain a complete picture of their nature will require the careful study of many bursts to expand our sample. Sub-millimeter observations with a $``$ mJy sensitivity are a key component to the multi-wavelength coverage. To this end, our program of Target of Opportunity observations using SCUBA is ongoing.

###### Acknowledgements.

The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope is operated by The Joint Astronomy Centre on behalf of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, and the National Research Council of Canada. We thank the JCMT Director Ian Robson for authorizing the ToO observations, and Graeme Watt, Gerald Moriarty-Schieven, Michiel Reuland, Elese Archibald, Tim Pickering, Nick Jessop, Iain Coulson, and the dedicated efforts of the JCMT telescope operators for their valuable assistance with the observations and reductions. We thank Andrew Fruchter and the referee for some helpful suggestions. We are grateful to Scott Barthelmy and Paul Butterworth of The GRB Coordinates Network (GCN), and to the other ground-based observers for the rapid dissemination of their burst results. This work was supported by NASA grants NAG 5-3824 and 5-9904 at Rice University.


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# Optical and near-infrared observations of Anomalous X-ray Pulsars

## 1. Introduction

Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXP) are mysterious objects. We do not understand the energy source that is responsible for their X-ray emission; unlike young Crab-like pulsars their spin-down energy is insufficient and unlike binary X-ray pulsars there is no sign of binary companions from which they could accrete. In the two models most often considered AXP are either isolated neutron stars accreting from a fossil disk, formed out of supernova debris (e.g. Chatterjee, Hernquist & Narayan 2000) or after a common envelope phase (van Paradijs, Taam & van den Heuvel 1995), or magnetars, neutron stars with an ultrahigh magnetic field ($`B>10^{14}`$ Gauss, Thompson & Duncan 1996).

Keck data of 4U 0142+61, the X-ray brightest AXP, revealed a faint $`R=24.99\pm 0.07`$ source within the 3.9 arcsec radius Einstein error circle111(C. Kouveliotou (priv. comm.) informed us that the source is also within the smaller Chandra error circle. See also the contribution by Juett et al. in these proceedings., that has peculiar optical colours, $`VR=0.63\pm 0.11`$, $`RI=1.15\pm 0.09`$ (Hulleman et al. 2000). By comparing Keck images from 1994 and 1999 we found its brightness to be constant to within 0.2 mag ($`2\sigma `$) in R and its proper motion to be less than 0.03 arcsec per year (again $`2\sigma `$).

## 2. Recent results

### 2.1. The spectral energy distribution of AXP 4U 0142+61

We have extended our data set of 4U 0142+61 with photometry in the optical B band and the near-infrared K band. The source is brighter than expected in K ($`K=19.6`$, Fig. 1), but it is not detected in the B band. None of the currently available models can explain the observed optical emission (Fig. 2), although we note that no model for the optical emission from a magnetar is currently available.

### 2.2. A possible second AXP counterpart.

Recently a subarcsecond position has been derived for AXP 1E 2259+586 using Chandra data (Hulleman et al. 2001). Within the error circle we find a faint near-infrared source ($`K_\mathrm{s}=21.7\pm 0.2`$). It is not detected in the J, I and R bands. We set limits of 23.8, 25.6 and 26.4 mag in J, I and R respectively. Finally, we note that the near-infrared to X-ray flux ratio is similar for both AXPs.

#### Acknowledgments.

I would like to thank Marten van Kerkwijk and Shri Kulkarni for useful comments.

## References

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