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# A Peculiar Flaring Episode of Cygnus X-1

## 1 Introduction

Cygnus X-1 has always been considered as an archetypical black hole candidate (BHC; reviews by Oda 1977, Liang & Nolan 1984, and Tanaka & Lewin 1995). Its observed spectral and temporal X–ray properties have, therefore, often been used to distinguish BHCs from their neutron star counterparts. Though flawed, this approach has resulted in the discovery of many BHCs whose candidacy is subsequently confirmed by dynamical measurements of the mass of the compact object.

Cyg X-1 shows two distinct spectral states: the hard state and the soft state. The source spends most of the time in the hard state where the soft X-ray (2-10 keV) luminosity is relatively low and the power-law X-ray spectrum relatively flat. Once every few years, Cyg X-1 undergoes a transition from the hard state to the soft state. It remains in the soft state for weeks to months before returning to the hard state. During such a spectral state transition, the power-law spectrum “pivots” around 10–20 keV, causing a significant increase in the soft X-ray flux but a decrease in the hard X-ray ($`20`$ keV) (e.g., Zhang et al. 1997). The source has only occasionally been observed in the soft state (Oda 1977; Liang & Nolan 1984; Cui et al. 1997a) and is thus not as well studied as in the hard state. Besides the difference in the spectral properties of the source between the two states, the temporal properties are also quite different. The power density spectrum (PDS) of Cyg X-1 in the hard state can be characterized by a white noise component at low frequencies and a power-law component at high frequencies, with the characteristic “break frequency” in the range of $``$0.04-0.4 Hz (reviews by van der Klis 1995 and Cui 1998). In the soft state, however, the PDS is dominated by “$`1/f`$” noise (Cui et al. 1997a). For both states, the PDS shows additional features at a few Hz (e.g., Belloni & Hasinger 1990; Cui et al. 1997a). Moreover, the X-ray flux of Cyg X-1 is known to vary on all timescales down to at least milliseconds; the X-ray variability seems stronger in the hard state than in the soft state.

Cyg X-1 is also known to experience frequent X-ray flares. While most flares last for less than a day, some can last for weeks to months, during which additional short-duration flares may also occur. Studies have shown that at least some of the major flares are similar to state transitions (Pottschmidt et al. 2001; Feng, Ertmer, & Cui, in preparation). Therefore, the distinction between major flares and state transition can sometimes be quite ambiguous. The X-ray flares of Cyg X-1 are poorly understood due to the lack of high-quality data. In this Letter, we present results from recent observations of Cyg X-1 during a peculiar period of intense flaring activities with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE).

## 2 All-Sky Monitor Observations

Starting in October of 2000, a series of long, intense X-ray flares were observed of Cyg X-1 by the All-Sky Monitor (ASM) aboard RXTE. Fig. 1 (top panel) shows a portion of the ASM light curve of the source for this time period. Three major flares are clearly seen in the light curve. They all reached roughly the same peak flux and lasted for roughly the same length of time (about a month), although their time profiles are quite different. Fig. 1 (middle panel) also shows a time series of the ratio of the count rate in the 3–5 keV band to that in the 1.5–3 keV band. Such a hardness ratio provides a rough measure of the X-ray spectral shape of the source. The results show that the spectrum of Cyg X-1 softens significantly during each of the flares. The minimum value of the hardness ratio is very similar for the first and last flares but seems higher for the middle flare (although the coverage of the later part of the latter is relatively sparse). It is interesting to note that both the peak flux and the minimum hardness ratio reached by the flares are nearly identical to those of the 1996 state transition of Cyg X-1 (Cui et al. 1997a). The question is now whether there are any clear distinctions between a flare that we see here and a canonical state transition of Cyg X-1.

To shed more light on the issue, we examined the correlation between the soft X-ray flux of the source and its spectral hardness, following the work of Wen, Cui, & Bradt (2001). Those authors demonstrated, based mostly on the ASM data, that the flux–hardness correlation is a reliable indicator of the soft state, certainly more reliable than the soft X-ray flux alone. They found that the flux and hardness ratio are strongly correlated for the soft state but are weakly anti-correlated for the hard state (also see Li, Feng, & Chen 1999). The transition between the two states is a gradual and continuous process, as quantified by the correlation coefficient. We adopted the Spearman rank-order method (Press et al. 1992) to investigate correlation between the soft flux and spectral hardness of the source, again following Wen et al. (2001). Briefly, both the rate and hardness-ratio time series (with 90 s time bins, as shown in Fig. 1) were first parameterized with their rank numbers. The light curves were then broken into intervals that contain the same number of data points (18 in our case). Note that the intervals are not necessarily of the same duration due to the presence of coverage gaps. For each interval, a correlation coefficient between the two parameterized light curves was computed. The bottom panel of Fig. 1 shows the evolution of the coefficient throughout the flaring period.

The results show a weak, negative correlation during non-flare intervals, indicating that the source reached the hard state (Wen et al. 2001). The most striking feature is, however, an interval of positive correlation (except for a dip in the middle) during the last flare. Interestingly, the average value of the coefficient for this flare is about the same as that for the 1996 state transition (see Wen et al. 2001). Therefore, the last flare seems quite similar to the 1996 soft state. However, the other two flares behave quite differently. Although roughly the same positive coefficient is achieved at times during the first flare, the fluctuation is quite large. The middle flare seems to be intermediate between the hard and soft states. We speculate that flares and state transitions may differ only in a quantitative sense; the underlying physical process(es) may be common for these seemingly different phenomena. To make progress on these issues, we obtained detailed X-ray properties of the source during the last flare, using data from pointed observations, and compared the properties to those during the 1996 state transition.

## 3 Pointed RXTE Observations

During the flaring period, Cyg X-1 was frequently observed by the large area detectors aboard RXTE, namely, the Proportional Counter Array (PCA), which covers a nominal energy range of 2–60 keV, and the High Energy X-ray Timing Experiment (HEXTE), which covers a nominal energy range of 15–250 keV. The times of the pointed observation are indicated by tick marks in Fig. 1. These observations provided data for us to examine the detailed spectral and timing properties of the source during the last flare and compare them to those observed of the 1996 state transition.

### 3.1 Spectral Analysis and Results

For each observation, we constructed an X-ray spectrum of Cyg X-1 from the PCA and HEXTE data with FTOOLS (v5.0), as well as the calibration files and background models that accompanied this release of the software. To minimize calibration uncertainties associated with the PCA, we only used data from the first xenon layer of each detection unit (which is most accurately calibrated). The trade-off is that we lose spectral coverage at energies above roughly 30 keV. On the other hand, we could rely on the HEXTE data to extend the coverage to higher energies. At low energies ($`5`$ keV), the calibration of the PCA is also relatively uncertain. To be conservative, therefore, we ignored data below about 4.5 keV for spectral analyses.

For technical reasons, not all five detector units of the PCA were turned on for the observations. The number of units in use varied from one observation to the other; so did the specific set of detector units. For a given observation, we used Standard 2 data to produce a spectrum for each detector unit. We then derived a background spectrum for that unit and subtracted it from the observed spectrum to obtain a source spectrum for spectral modeling. Similarly, we constructed an overall spectrum, along with a background spectrum, for each of the two HEXTE clusters. The individual background-subtracted spectra were then modeled jointly in XSPEC (v11.0). We allowed the relative normalizations of the detector units to vary in the fits, to account for any slight difference among the units of each instrument and the known difference between the two instruments. We also added 1% systematic uncertainty to the data.

To facilitate a quantitative comparison between the last flare observed here and the 1996 state transition, we simply adopted the empirical model used by Cui et al. (1997a) to fit the spectra. However, we did not include a disk blackbody component, because, by ignoring data below $``$4.5 keV, we were no longer able to reliably constrain it. The model now consists of a broken power law with a high-energy rollover. In order to achieve acceptable fits, however, we had to also include a Gaussian function in the model to account for residuals between 5–8 keV for all observations. The centroid energy of the Gaussian component varies in the range of 6.3–6.6 keV, which seems to indicate the presence of a Fe K emission line. For the fits we also fixed the hydrogen column density at $`6.2\times 10^{21}\text{ }cm^2`$ (Schulz et al. 2001; Bałucińska & Hasinger 1991), again due to the lack of sensitivity of the RXTE data at low energies. The best-fit parameters are listed in Table 1 for a selected sample of observations that cover the last flare (see Fig. 1 for the times of these observations). The uncertainties shown represent 90% confidence intervals. Fig. 2 illustrates the quality of a representative fit.

The results show clear spectral evolution of the source over the last flare. The spectrum softens progressively as the source flux increases toward the peak of the flare and hardens as the flux decreases from the peak; the two transitional periods seem to mirror each other (although the coverage of the “low-to-high” transition is poorer). At the peak, the parameters of the third and fourth observations are nearly identical to those of the 1996 soft state (see the results of the fourth observation in Table 2 of Cui et al. 1997a). In fact, the spectrum of the source is similarly soft during all observations between (and around) these two selected ones (see Fig. 1 for the times of other observations). Spectrally, this flare is, therefore, very similar to the 1996 state transition. However, one difference is noticeable. During the 1996 episode, the flux-hardness correlation stayed positive throughout the soft state (although the coverage was not very good; Cui et al. 1997b; Wen et al. 2001). During the flare here, even when the flux-hardness correlation is positive (see Fig. 1), the spectrum of the source is at times significantly harder (e.g., comparing the second and fifth observations with the third and fourth observations in Table 1).

### 3.2 Timing analysis and Results

We also proceeded to examine the temporal properties of Cyg X-1 by using data from high timing resolution modes (Single-Bit and Event). For each observation, we rebinned the Event data to $`2^{13}`$ s time bins, which is the resolution of the Single-Bit data, and the combined all the data to cover the entire PCA passing band. We broke the light curve into 128 s segments and carried out a $`2^{20}`$-point Fast Fourier Transformation of each segment to obtain the corresponding power density spectrum (PDS) that is Leahy–normalized (Leahy et al. 1983). The power spectra of all segments were then weighted and coadded to obtain the average PDS, as well as its variances. From the average PDS we subtracted the dead-time corrected power due to Poisson statistical fluctuation (see Zhang et al. 1995 for discussion on dead-time effects). Finally, we divided the resulting PDS by the mean source rate to express Fourier powers in terms of fractional rms amplitudes (van der Klis 1995). The results are presented in Fig. 3 for the same selected observations (as in Table 1).

Over the duration of the last flare (see Fig. 1), the PDS of the source evolved significantly. The shape of the PDS went from being “flat–topped” at the beginning, which is characteristic of the hard state, to being roughly $`1/f`$ at the peak, which is characteristic of the soft state; it returns to the flat-topped profile at the end, completing a full transition. In between, however, the PDS shows a mixture of the flat–topped component and the $`1/f`$ component, which is characteristic of the transitional periods between the hard and soft states (Cui et al. 1997a; Cui et al. 1997b). There are clearly additional features. For the third and fourth observations, the PDS further steepens at roughly 10 Hz, which was observed in the 1996 soft state (Cui et al. 1997a). For other observations, there is a broad but localized feature centered at a few Hz, again similar to what has been observed during the hard state (e.g., Belloni & Hasinger 1990) and transitional periods in 1996 (Cui et al. 1997a). Fig. 3 also shows the overall variability of the source at different stages of the flare. The fractional rms amplitude shows a decreasing trend toward the peak, although the change is quite small compared to that for transient BHCs during a state transition (van der Klis 1995). We conclude that the flare is also similar to the 1996 state transition in terms of the observed temporal properties of Cyg X-1.

## 4 Summary and Discussion

We observed Cyg X-1 during an unusual period when three consecutive major X-ray flares occurred over a period of about five months. Following each flare, the source did seem to completely return to the hard state before the next one started, as indicated by the flux-hardness correlation. The correlation also indicates that Cyg X-1 entered a sustained period during the last flare that is very similar to the 1996 soft state. This is supported by striking similarities between the observed spectral and temporal properties of the source during that time period and those during the 1996 soft state (although there are some differences). Therefore, we argue that the physical process that is responsible for triggering a flare or a state transition is likely to be the same. The difference between the two types of phenomena seems mostly quantitative. For instance, the soft state lasted only for about a week during the flare, compared to more than two months in the 1996 episode This difference might be due to the difference in the change of physical quantities, such as the fraction of accretion energy dissipated in the disk.

Although only an empirical model was used for spectral studies, the results do clearly reveal the evolution of the source, thanks to the improved coverages of the transitions. It was known previously that a broken power law would be required to model the spectrum of Cyg X-1 at high energies (Ebisawa et al. 1996; Cui et al. 1997a), as opposed to a simple power law for most BHCs (Tanaka & Lewin 1995). Not only did we confirm this in our investigation, we also quantified the evolution of this component throughout the transitions. Moreover, we confirmed the presence of a “settling period” after the low-to-high transition or before the high-to-low transition, as suggested by Cui et al. (1997a), when the soft flux is at the soft-state level but the spectral and timing properties are still intermediate between the hard and soft states. Such a period manifests itself prominently in the PDS shape. Finally, throughout the flare the observed 5–200 keV flux does not vary significantly. This is again consistent with previous results from a study of the 1996 state transition (Zhang et al. 1997).

We conclude that we can perhaps learn a great deal about the origin of rare state transitions of Cyg X-1 from studying more frequently occurring X-ray flares. We have tried to establish a connection between the two types of phenomena in this investigation. The next step will be to carry out, in a more systematic manner, detailed comparisons between a range of X-ray flares and state transitions (Feng, Ertmer, & Cui, in preparation).

This work was supported in part by NASA through grants NAG5-9098 and NAG5-9998.


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# THE EFFECT OF CHANGES IN THE ASCA CALIBRATION ON THE Fe-K LINES IN ACTIVE GALAXIES

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA – Tanaka, Inoue, & Holt 1994) found that the Fe-K fluorescent emission line in Seyfert 1 galaxies is often very broad, and this is generally interpreted as the result of an origin in matter in an accretion disk rotating around a central black hole (see Fabian et al. 2000 and references therein). The line profile is thought to be sculpted by characteristic gravitational and Doppler energy shifts. Currently, study of the Fe-K emission line is the only way to probe matter within a few to tens of gravitational radii of a black hole. Indeed, the broad Fe-K lines provide some of the strongest evidence to date for the existence of black holes.

It has been known since the early days of ASCA that the Fe-K line in AGN is not always tremendously broad (e.g. Ptak 1994) and that the profile comes in a variety of shapes (e.g. Yaqoob & Weaver 1996; Nandra et al. 1997, hereafter N97). It has also been known that Seyfert type 1.9–2.0 galaxies have a predominantly narrow Fe-K line, with FWHM less than $`10,000`$ km/s, probably originating in cold matter far from the black hole (e.g. NGC 2992; Weaver et al. 1996). It was apparent that many Seyfert 1.5–1.9 galaxies likely have composite narrow and broad Fe-K line components (e.g. Weaver et al. 1993, Yaqoob et al. 1995, Weaver et al. 1997, Weaver & Reynolds, 1998). Chandra and XMM have now shown that composite narrow and broad Fe-K lines are common even in Seyfert 1 galaxies and quasars (Yaqoob et al. 2001a, Kaspi et al. 2001, Reeves et al. 2000, Pounds et al. 2001).

Recently Lubiński and Zdziarski (2001; hereafter LZ01) have claimed that the Fe-K lines in AGN are systematically narrower and weaker (smaller equivalent width, or EW) than had previously been thought. They speculated that this result can be attributed to changes in the calibration of the ASCA instruments. However they did not attempt to demonstrate this by isolating calibration effects. The purpose of the present paper is to explicitly demonstrate that changes in the ASCA calibration have not resulted in any significant changes in the width, equivalent width, or shape of the Fe-K lines in AGN. This issue is important to resolve because speculation about the ASCA calibration has brought into question a significant body of ASCA results and has rendered the astronomical community rather confused. We will also give the real explanation of the results of LZ01, which turns out to be a very subtle data analysis issue.

## 2 PRINCIPAL CALIBRATION CHANGES

We shall compare the results of fitting various data sets with two sets of calibration. The first, which we shall call ‘OLD’, is the same, or essentially the same, as that used by N97. The second, which we shall call ‘CURRENT’ is the same as that used by LZ01. The CURRENT calibration files are from the tartarus AGN database111http://tartarus.gsfc.nasa.gov/, except where noted. All of the observations considered by LZ01 were made before radiation damage made a significant impact on the CCDs. Therefore the principal differences between the OLD and CURRENT calibration for these early data are, (1) improvements in the SIS response matrix, (2) multiplicative, energy-dependent corrections for the effective area (the so-called ‘arf filter’), and (3) changes in the X-ray Telescope (XRT) ray-tracing (see Yaqoob et al. 2001b for further details on calibration history). The latter is the only change that can make the OLD and CURRENT calibration have different effects on different observations since the first two are independent of position on the detector and independent of time of the observation (as long as that time is early enough in the mission). Even so, the XRT response is a smooth function of source off-axis angle, and its variation is small from observation to observation, given the limited range of off-axis angles in observations.

We performed simulations of SIS0$`+`$SIS1 spectra in order to isolate calibration effects from data processing differences and statistical effects (the latter by using a very large exposure time of $`10^{10}`$ s). We used the original (OLD) calibration files used by Tanaka et al. (1995) in their analysis of ASCA AO2 data for MCG$``$6$``$30$``$15. First, we used one of the best-fitting relativistic Schwarzschild disk-line models of Tanaka et al. (1995), namely, the model with the Fe-K rest energy fixed at 6.4 keV, continuum power-law index of 1.96, and the radial line-emissivity power-law index, $`q`$, fixed at $`3`$. We then investigated the effect of using CURRENT calibration (from tartarus ) with the spectra that were simulated using the OLD calibration. The line profiles, in the form of ratios of data to power-law models fitted over the 3–4 keV and 8–10 keV bands for each calibration, are compared in Figure 1 (a). Indeed, it can be seen that the CURRENT calibration reduces the red wing of the line. However, spectral fitting of the simulated data with the CURRENT calibration shows that the EW is reduced by only 8%. Note that residuals from the latter fit are never more than 3%. We repeated this excercise with a Gaussian line profile, using parameters which are typical of Seyfert type 1 galaxies with some of the broadest lines. Using the same continuum as above, we simulated a Gaussian with $`\sigma =0.6`$ keV, $`\mathrm{EW}=300`$ eV, centered at 6.4 keV. The line profiles for the OLD and CURRENT calibration are compared in Figure 1 (b). The red side is slightly diminished and the blue side slightly enhanced for the CURRENT calibration relative to OLD. However, spectral fitting reveals that the width ($`\sigma `$) is reduced only by 8%, and the EW only by 3.6%. There is an apparent slight shift in the centroid energy but this is only by 2% and will also depend on the actual width of the line. It is important to note that this apparent shift in the centroid energy is NOT due to changes in the instrumental energy scale, which have been measured to be much less than this. Rather, the apparent shift is due to different weights given to the red and blue sides of the broad Gaussian by the changes in effective area.

These results are of course confirmed for the real data from the ASCA AO2 observation of MCG$``$6$``$30$``$15. Figure 1 (c) shows the Fe-K line profiles (produced in the same way as for the simulated data) for the OLD and CURRENT calibration. Now statistical effects make it very hard to see any difference in the profiles. We fitted the real 3–10 keV SIS0$`+`$SIS1 data with a power-law plus relativistic Schwarzschild disk-line model. The only parameters that were fixed were $`q=3`$, and the rest energy of the line (6.4 keV). We obtained the following (Tanaka et al. 1995 values in parentheses): a disk inclination angle of $`31.6_{2.2}^{+2.1}`$ ($`29.7_{3.9}^{+2.9}`$) degrees, an inner disk radius of $`7.5_{1.1}^{+2.5}`$ ($`7.4_{1.4}^{+3.6}`$) $`r_g`$, an outer disk radius of $`20.9_{6.3}^{+28.5}`$ ($`20.0_{6.4}^{+25.0}`$) $`r_g`$, and an EW of $`344_{74}^{+79}`$ ($`380_{110}^{+100}`$) eV. Yaqoob etal (2001b) also show that a double-Gaussian model for the Fe-K line again gives completely consistent results for the Tanaka et al. (1995) and tartarus data and calibration.

## 3 THE N97 SAMPLE

In the previous section we explained why changes in ASCA calibration should not have a significant impact on the Fe-K line parameters for any of the observations considered by LZ01. Nevertheless, we attempted to discover the origin of the results of LZ01. For this we concentrated on the N97 sub-sample, since these AGN have some of the broadest lines. N97 could not constrain the line width for all observations in their sample and, excluding these, as well as NGC 4151 and NGC 6814 (LZ01 omitted these latter two), we have used fourteen observations of twelve sources to directly compare with N97. These AGN are F9 (AO1), 3C 120 (AO1), NGC 3227 (AO1), NGC 3516 (AO1), Mkn 766 (AO1), IC 4329A (PV), NGC 5548 (PV), Mkn 841 (PV, sequence 70009000), Mkn 509 (AO1), NGC 7469 (AO1, sequence 71028030), MCG $``$6$``$30$``$15 (PV), NGC 3783 (AO1). The latter two sources have two observations each in this sample and we use the same notation, (1) and (2), as in N97 to distinguish them. Note that ‘PV’ refers to the ‘Performance Verification’ phase of ASCA.

We then repeated the N97 3–10 keV power-law plus Gaussian spectral fits using the CURRENT calibration by using the actual spectral and calibration files used by LZ01 (i.e. from tartarus), except for two sources (F9, and NGC 3227) which were not available in the tartarus database at the time. For these, we reduced the data following the methods described in Yaqoob et al. (1998). As will become clear, our conclusions do not depend on these details of data reduction. For convenience we shall take the liberty of referring to all fourteen of these datasets as tartarus spectra and calibration. We used four instruments (SIS,GIS) fitted simultaneously, as did N97 and LZ01. The best-fitting line widths and their mean statistical errors obtained using the CURRENT calibration are plotted against the corresponding N97 values (which are based on the OLD calibration) in Figures 2a and 2b respectively. The corresponding equivalent widths (EW) and mean statistical errors are shown in Figures 2c and 2d. The statistical error shown here is the straight mean of the positive and negative error on each measurement, for a $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$ criterion of 4.7 (this exact value was used by N97 and corresponds to 68% confidence for three parameters).

Figure 2 shows that all the results from tartarus and N97 are consistent except for three observations. These are NGC 3783(1), Mkn841, and NGC 3516, for which the tartarus spectral fits indicate significantly narrower Fe-K lines than N97. In order to investigate how such apparently huge differences in the best-fitting parameters could come about, for these sources we emulated OLD calibration for the tartarus spectra in order to isolate calibration effects and separate them from data reduction and statistical effects. To do this we used old SIS response matrices, as in N97, (s0c1g0234p40e1\_512v0\_8i.rmf, and s1c3g0234p40e1\_512v0\_8i.rmf), disabling the multiplicative effective area factors in ascaarf, and using v1.1 of the XRT response (see Yaqoob et al. 2001b for details on all these files and procedures). First, we compared the SIS Fe-K line profiles with this OLD and CURRENT calibration by fitting a power-law continuum to the 3-4 keV and 8-10 keV band only and computing the ratios of the data to this continuum model. Note that OLD and CURRENT calibration fits were performed separately, since that is how they would be compared in the literature. Figure 1 (d)–(f) shows the results, namely that the line profiles for all three sources are very broad and the difference between OLD and CURRENT calibration is negligible. Yet the formal best-fits from spectral fitting yield disparate results: according to LZ01, these three very broad lines are some of the narrowest. Table 1 shows the single-Gaussian results for each of these three sources and each calibration. We are able to reproduce the results of N97 with the OLD calibration and the results of LZ01 with the CURRENT calibration. How can the broad line profiles in Figure 1 (d)–(f) yield such narrow line widths from fits with the CURRENT calibration? One gets a clue by noticing that, in each source, single-Gaussian models of the line have two minima which are very close in $`\chi ^2`$ space (see Figure 3). In fact, if one correctly accounts for the double minima in $`\chi ^2`$ space, the differences in the widths from the single-Gaussian fits are not statistically significant (see Table 1). Also, it is clear from Figure 1 (d)–(f) that the narrow-line solutions are only modeling the core of a very broad profile. Clearly, regardless of the calibration, a single Gaussian is inadequate to model these line profiles, which are complex. However, since the continuum slope is slightly different for the OLD and CURRENT calibration, the formal best-fit can be nudged from modeling only the broad part or only the narrow core of the line. If we fit these complex lines with a double-Gaussian model we get completely consistent results between the OLD and CURRENT calibration (see Table 1). Moreover, the addition of the second Gaussian is highly statistically significant for each source and each calibration ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$ ranges between 13.7–36.5, for the addition of two free parameters; note that the width of the narrow Gaussian is frozen at 1 eV in these fits since the width is consistent with zero). An important lesson here is that it is erroneous to make statements about instrument calibration, and indeed to make astrophysical inferences, based on a model which does not describe the data. Single-Gaussian spectral fits which only model the narrow core of the line seriously underestimate the line width and equivalent width. Moreover, attempts to relate measurements of the narrow core to relativistic disk models of the line are erroneous since the core of the line very likely does not come from the disk, and the part that does, is not measured with the single-Gaussian, narrow-line fits using the CURRENT calibration. The results of N97, which modeled the broad component in the case of complex lines, are actually a fairer respresentation of the overall width and total equivalent width of the Fe-K lines.

## 4 COMPOSITE LINE PROFILES

We have also constructed and compared the SIS0$`+`$SIS1 composite data/model ratios for two samples, both drawn from N97. The first sample excludes only the observations of NGC 6814, MCG $``$6$``$30$``$15, and NGC 4151 from N97 (leaving seventeen observations). The second sample is comprised of the same fourteen observations which were used in the spectral analysis described above and shown in Figure 2. In all the following, Fe-K profiles were constructed by computing ratios of data to power-law models fitted to individual observations over the 3–4 keV and 8-10 keV bands. Figure 4(a) shows the composite profile for sample 1, using the original data files and calibration from N97 (crosses), with the corresponding composite using tartarus data files and calibration (filled circles). Figure 4(b) shows the composite profile for sample 2, this time using only the tartarus spectral files but first fitted with emulated OLD calibration (crosses), and then compared to fitting with the tartarus (CURRENT) calibration. The OLD calibration was emulated as described above in §2 and 3. Three things are abundantly clear from Figure 4. (1) Calibration differences (and for that matter, data extraction differences) do not have a discernable effect on the composite profiles; (2) all the composites are very broad, with some asymmetry in the red wing, which extends down to $`4`$ keV; (3) inclusion of MCG $``$6$``$30$``$15 in the composite does not bias the composite profiles.

LZ01 found an apparently large difference in the comparison of composite line profiles from N97 and tartarus (see their Figure 2). This difference was exaggerated due to at least two factors. First, they compared a scaled version of the fit to the N97 composite line profile with their own composite data/model ratio. The line profile and data/model ratio are not equivalent, with the former being the latter multipled by the continuum slope. As this is steep, the effect is to de-emphasize the strength of the red wing (and enhance the blue) in the appearance of the ratio. LZ01 used this to support their scientific conclusion, when it is in fact a difference in presentation of the data. Moreover, LZ01 used a slightly different method for calculating the average ratio compared to N97. Before averaging data/model ratios from different sources they must first be rebinned so that they all have the same binning. In this binning process, LZ01 attempted to account for the fact that some input bins overlap more than one output bin since the input bin widths could be larger than the output bin widths. However, they distribute the value in an input bin over the output bins by an amount proportional to the ratio of the width of the output bin to the input bin width. In the case that an input bin boundary falls inside an output bin, it is the fraction of the output bin width that overlaps the input bin that is used. LZ01 explicitly used this method to conserve numbers of photons during the rebinning. However, this method is incorrect since we are dealing with a ratio. Only the error in the ratio should be weighted by the method described above, not the ratio itself. This error in LZ01 causes them to systematically underestimate the data/model ratio in all bins because the output bins will have, most of the time, less than the true data/model ratio, and never more. Also, since the input bin-width distribution could be very different for the different data sets that the average is comprised of, it is even possible that the average ratio is distorted. These errors in LZ01 are the cause of the discrepancies with N97. The ratios shown in our Figure 4 were computed by correct rebinning of the input data/model ratios but we note that this causes only very small differences in the ratio compared to the method of N97 (in which fractional bin overlaps were not treated rigorously).

We reiterate here something that has already been stated in N97. That is, mean line profiles serve only an illustrative purpose and it can be misleading to try and model them since they are obtained by adding sources with different continuum spectra, line shapes, and fluxes. For example, suppose we have a sample in which 50% of the line profiles have a strong red wing and the other 50% have a strong blue wing. From the composite spectrum one would conclude that the average source has a symmetric line profile, when in fact not a single source may possess such a profile. Clearly, analyses which model average profiles presuppose that the individual profiles and continuua are similar, but this need not be true at all.

## 5 CONCLUSIONS

We find that the width, equivalent width, and shape of the Fe-K lines in AGN have not been significantly affected by changes in the ASCA calibration over a period of more than eight years. In particular, the width and equivalent width change by only $`8\%`$ or less. The red wing, in the case of a highly skew Fe-K line profile as in MCG $``$6$``$30$``$15 is reduced by a similar magnitude. In most cases the statistical errors are larger, so the changes in ASCA calibration are inconsequential for almost all ASCA observations. We also compared the sample composite Fe-K line profiles using OLD and CURRENT calibration and find that the differences are still not statistically significant. In some individual cases the Fe-K lines are complex so single-Gaussian models are inadequate for describing the profile and consequently only model a portion of the line. Then, the line width and equivalent width may be seriously understimated, leading to erroneous conclusions about the astrophysics of the line and about instrument calibration. When adequately modeled, we again find no significant difference in the Fe-K line parameters with respect to changes in calibration.

The authors acknowledge support from NASA grants NCC-5447 (TY, UP), NAG5-10769 (TY), and NAG5-7067 (KN). This research made use of the HEASARC online data archive services, supported by NASA/GSFC. It also made use of the tartarus AGN database which is supported by Jane Turner and Kirpal Nandra under NASA grants NAG5-7385 and NAG5-7067. Special thanks to Prof. Y. Tanaka for his inputs and motivation. The authors also wish to thank Koji Mukai, Ken Ebisawa, Keith Arnaud, and other members of the ASCATEAM for their input to this work. They also thank Jane Turner, Ian George, Kim Weaver for helpful discussions and comments. We are grateful to Andrzej Zdziarski, the referee, and Piotr Lubiński, for making suggestions to greatly improve this paper.

## Figure Captions

Figure 1
(a) Isolation, from other effects, of differences between OLD and CURRENT ASCA calibration and their effect on a typical Fe-K relativistic disk line profile. Shown is a simulation of co-added SIS0 plus SIS1 data for the relativistic disk line model for MCG $``$6$``$30$``$15 of Tanaka et al. (1995) described in the text, using OLD calibration (solid line). An extremely large exposure time was used ($`10^{10}s`$) to eliminate statistical effects. The dotted line shows the line profile one would deduce if the simulated data were then fitted in the same way as real data, using the CURRENT calibration instead. (b) As (a) but for a typical broad Gaussian line profile with parameters as described in the text. (c) Effect of changes in the ASCA calibration on the Fe-K line profile using the actual data for MCG $``$6$``$30$``$15 (ASCA AO2). SIS0 and SIS1 are data co-added. See text for details. Crosses correspond to the original Tanaka et al. (1995) data and calibration, and filled circles correspond to tartarus data and calibration. (d), (e), (f) The SIS0+SIS1 Fe-K line profiles for the three data sets which show the largest discrepancies in spectral fitting results between the OLD and CURRENT calibration. Yet the line profiles using the OLD and CURRENT calibration (crosses and filled circles respectively) are virtually identical. All three are very broad and have large equivalent widths (see Table 1 ). The line profiles are complex and cannot be adequately modeled with a single Gaussian. Thus, a single Gaussian only models the core of the line if the CURRENT calibration is used. Consistent results are obtained between OLD and CURRENT calibration when a double-Gauissian model is used (see Table 1 ).

Figure 2
Comparison of the N97 and tartarus results for the deduced width and equivalent width of the Fe-K lines for 14 observations of 12 AGN, when modeled only with a single Gaussian (top panels). Also shown are the corresponding mean statistical errors of the measurements (bottom panels). The observations are from a sub-sample which is common to both the samples of N97 and LZ01 (see text). The solid lines correspond to the case if the N97 data (OLD calibration) and tartarus data (CURRENT calibration) were to give identical results. The statistical errors are the straight means of the positive and negative errors deduced from a $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=4.7`$ criterion, identical to that used by N97, and corresponds to 68% confidence for three interesting parameters. Filled circles are the direct comparisons for single-Gaussian fits. Open circles, for NGC 3783(1), NGC 3516, Mkn 841, correspond to the second minimum from the single-Gaussian fits with tartarus data (also see Figure 3 ). Table 1 shows that the broad-line widths and equivalent widths using double-Gaussian models are completely consistent for the OLD and CURRENT calibration and correspond to these second minima. The single-Gaussian narrow-line solutions (indicated by arrows) obviously understimate the true width and equivalent width of the lines much more than the broad-line solutions. The actual line profiles for these three cases are shown in Figure 1 and are very broad.

Figure 3 The change in $`\chi ^2`$ as the line width in the single-Gaussian model is varied away from the best-fit with the CURRENT calibration for NGC 3783(1). It can be seen that there are two minima, which correspond to the solutions of LZ01, N97. This indicates that the line is complex and that a single Gaussian is inadequate to model the line, which is very broad (see Figure 1 ).

Figure 4 Average SIS0$`+`$SIS1 Fe-K line profiles in the form ratios of data to power-law models fitted independently to individual observations. (a) Seventeen observations from the N97 sample (excluded are observations of MCG $``$6$``$30$``$15, NGC 4151 and NGC 6814). Crosses are the original N97 data and calibration. Filled circles are the tartarus data and calibration. (b) Isolation of calibration effects for the N97 sub-sample of fourteen observations discussed in this paper. Crosses correspond to emulated OLD calibration, and filled circles correspond to the tartarus (CURRENT) calibration. In both cases the tartarus spectra were used, thus eliminating effects of data extraction and processing.


text:
# The Size of IDV Jet Cores

## 1 Introduction

Intraday Variability (IDV) of flat-spectrum compact Quasar cores and BL Lacs at cm-wavelength has been discovered in 1985 (Heeschen et al., 1987) and is a common phenomenon ($`25\%`$) (Quirrenbach et al., 1992) among these sources. On rare occasions in 0716+714 and 0954+658, correlations with optical variations have been found and the evidence has been reviewed several times (e.g. Wagner S.J., Witzel A., 1995; Krichbaum, this volume). Radio-optical correlations, if real, suggest either fast intrinsic variations or gravitational lensing. From the light travel time argument the apparent brightness temperatures $`T_b`$ are in the range of $`10^{17}`$$`10^{21}`$K and far in excess of the intrinsic inverse Compton (IC) limit of $`10^{12}`$K. The observed superluminal motions of jet components in many of these sources imply $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=5`$$`10`$ and allow for Doppler boosting factors $`𝒟=\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta )\right)^1`$ and time shortening, which are insufficient for reducing the apparent $`T_b`$ down to the IC limit. The required Doppler factors $`𝒟`$ are in the range of 60 up to 1000. Furthermore jets with a surface brightness at the IC limit are radiatively inefficient (Begelman, Rees & Sikora, 1994) and carry most of their energy as bulk motion. This is not supported by the observed power of radio lobes of these sources and raises the energy requirement for the central engine to an uncomfortable level. It is therefore argued (Readhead, 1994; Begelman, this volume) that incoherent synchrotron sources in jets should radiate at the equipartition temperature $`T_E10^{11}`$ K. This enforces Doppler factors which are 2–3 times larger than for the IC limit. Furthermore synchrotron sources at the IC limit with bulk motions of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }>100`$ are dominated by inverse Compton scattering of either AGN photons (Begelman, Rees & Sikora, 1994) or CMB photons at redshifts $`z1`$ and not by the SSC process. The cooling is catastrophic, independent of the brightness temperature, and this explanation must therefore be discarded.

Other more tempting suggestions are the propagation of relativistic thin shocks in the jets (Qian et al., 1991), so that the observed variability timescale is not a measure of the source size, and scintillation induced by the interstellar medium (e.g. Rickett 1990) of otherwise non-variable sources. We will explore both explanations in the following sections.

## 2 Cool Particle Depolarization

The emission of incoherent synchrotron sources with high brightness temperatures is dominated by radiation from the $`\tau =1`$ surface. For intrinsic $`T_b`$’s above the equipartition temperature, the energy of the source is dominated by particles ($`e^{},e^+,p`$) with a strong dependence on $`T_b`$:

$$U_e/U_BT_b^{7+2\alpha },$$

where $`\alpha `$ is the optically thin spectral index of the emission. Above the IC limit any contribution of cold electrons in an $`e^{}/p`$ plasma will depolarize the synchrotron emission. Emission from the $`\tau =1`$ surfaces of flat spectrum radio cores comes predominantly from electrons with constant $`\gamma _{\mathrm{rad}}`$-factor, independent of frequency. We consider power-law distributions of electrons $`N(\gamma )\gamma ^p`$ above a lower cut-off $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$. The degree of linear polarization is likely to be reduced by tangled magnetic fields in a turbulent plasma with a typical wavenumber $`k_0`$ in sources of size $`R`$ (e.g. jet radius). For independent variations of magnetic field orientation in adjacent cells of size $`k_0^1`$ the fractional linear polarization is $`\pi _L(k_0R)^{3/2}`$. Further depolarization inside one cell occurs, if Faraday rotation by electrons around $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ (Jones & O’Dell 1977) depolarizes the radiation within the cell $`\pi _L\tau /\tau _F`$. Here $`\tau _F`$ is the Faraday depth in the cell, which is smaller than the Faraday depth for the whole source by a factor $`(k_0R)^1`$. The fractional linear polarization can then be approximated by

$$\pi _L\frac{\alpha +1}{\alpha +5/3}(k_0R)^{1/2}(\gamma _{\mathrm{rad}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{min}})^p\frac{\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}}{\mathrm{ln}\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}}.$$
(1)
For sources above the IC limit the magnetic field strength must be very low and radiation at GHz-frequencies is emitted by electrons with large $`\gamma _{\mathrm{rad}}`$. The resulting ratio $`\gamma _{\mathrm{rad}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ in Eq.1 becomes large, and the polarization drops below 1% if $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}<10^3`$ at $`T_b=10^{12}`$ K. At the equipartition temperature we still have depolarization if $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}<80`$. The fact that most IDV sources are variable in polarized flux with a mean $`\pi _L1\%`$ requires a cut-off in the electron population close to $`\gamma `$, which dominates the radiation from $`\tau =1`$ surfaces. At $`T_b>10^{13}`$K this requires fine-tuning of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and provides strong constrains for acceleration mechanisms. Any substantial population of cold electrons with $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}1`$ is excluded in polarized sources with $`T_b>10^{10}`$ K. This problem does not arise in pair plasma jets, because Faraday depolarization does not occur there.

## 3 The alignment problem of thin shock propagation

The thickness $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ of a layer of post shock gas behind a relativistic shock, which travels with a shock-Lorenz-factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_S>2`$ for a distance $`z`$ is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }z=\left(1\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_S^24}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_S^21}}\right)z,$$
(2)
assuming that the gas leaves the shock at the sound speed and has an ultra-relativistic equation of state. A gas element that passed through the shock at $`z=0`$ is separated by a distance $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ from the shock, when the shock has travelled a distance $`z`$ in the jet frame. For oblique shocks (as suggested by Spada et al., 1999) the velocity and the thickness of the post shock gas will be larger. The ratio of thickness to the square-root of the surface area is

$$\stackrel{~}{\tau }\mathrm{\Delta }z/(\sqrt{\pi }z\mathrm{sin}\psi )=\left(1\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_S^24}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_S^21}}\right)/(\sqrt{\pi }\mathrm{sin}\psi ),$$
(3)
where it is assumed that the shock travelled at a constant velocity from the tip of a conical jet with half opening angle $`\psi `$. In the following we will assume that the shock travels only $`1/10`$ of that distance. When the shock is viewed face on, the surface area is a factor $`1/\stackrel{~}{\tau }^2`$ larger than inferred from the variability timescale. But this factor is subject to relativistic aberration

$$\tau =𝒟\mathrm{sin}\theta +\mathrm{\Gamma }𝒟\stackrel{~}{\tau }(\mathrm{cos}\theta \beta ),$$
(4)
where $`\beta `$ is the velocity of the post-shock gas and $`\theta `$ the angle between jet and the line of sight. The true observed flux variations can arise from orientation changes of shock and jet

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F_{\mathrm{o}bs}}{F_{\mathrm{i}nt}}=f_1=3𝒟^2\frac{𝒟}{\theta }\tau ^2\mathrm{\Delta }\theta ,$$
(5)
or from inhomogeneities in particle density or magnetic field along the jet (Qian et al., 1991), which are scanned by the shock and travel with the sound speed through the post-shock gas

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F_{\mathrm{o}bs}}{F_{\mathrm{i}nt}}=f_2=𝒟^3(\tau /0.667)^2.$$
(6)
In Fig.1 the Doppler boosting of the flux due to intrinsic variations for a spherical source $`𝒟^3`$ is compared to the flux-boosting factors $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$ for a shock with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_S=6`$ in a jet with $`\psi =2.5^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{p}re}=2.7`$ for the preshocked gas (resulting in a post shock gas with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=12`$). Orientation changes of thin shocks require $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta \theta `$ and consequently $`f_1`$ can not substantially increase the flux variations on short timescales compared to variability in a spherical source. Only if disturbances along the jet are highlighted by the passage of a shock can the flux variations be so rapid and strong that $`f_2`$ exceeds $`10^6`$ which is necessary to bring a source with intrinsic $`T_b10^{12}`$ K up to the observed $`10^{18}`$ K. Nonetheless this cannot provide an explanation for most IDV sources, because it requires a misalignment of the line of sight to the jet direction much smaller than $`1/(3\mathrm{\Gamma })`$, where the plateau of $`𝒟^3`$ starts (see Fig.1). In the specific case shown in Fig.1 the misalignment must be less than $`10^3\mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$, which cannot be reconciled with 25% of core-dominated sources showing IDV. Furthermore scanned perturbations in the jet lead to variable optical depth in the shocked gas and timelags, which are not observed in cross correlations of IDV at different radio frequencies.

## 4 Refractive Interstellar Scintillation

It is known from pulsar measurements that compact radio sources are subject to scintillation in the ISM of our galaxy. Extragalactic sources flicker (Heeschen 1984) at frequencies $`\nu 1`$ GHz with timescales of several days to weeks and this has been interpreted as a result of strong refractive scattering in the extended ISM of the galactic disk (Blandford, Narayan & Romani, 1986). The transition from strong to weak scattering is expected at about 5 GHz depending on the path length in the disk towards the source. The maximum of the modulation index $`m`$ is $`1`$ for a point source. A 1Jy source with an apparent $`T_b`$ of $`10^{12}`$ K has a size of $`230\mu `$as at $`\lambda 6`$cm and scintillation will be quenched111A gaussian brightness distribution is assume for extended sources in this paper., because the source size is much larger than the angular size of the Fresnel scale in the ISM. For a typical distance of 200 pc to the scattering medium, the expected modulation index is $`m1.7`$%, while a source with $`T_b=10^{13}`$ K will have $`m5`$% with a characteristic timescale of 0.5 days. Therefore any 1Jy source with apparent $`T_b`$ above few $`\times 10^{12}`$ K is expected to scintillate with a timescale comparable to those observed in IDV sources, as has been demonstrated by Rickett et al. (1995) for 0917+624.

The light curves of scintillating sources contain further information, which can be explored via structure functions (SF) (Simonetti, Cordes & Heeschen, 1985):

$$\mathrm{SF}(\tau )=[I(t+\tau )I(t)]^2_t.$$
(7)
The SF extracted from the data can be compared to theoretical expectations. For strong refractive and weak scintillation in an extended medium Coles et al. (1987) gave a closed form for SF’s, which includes three cut-offs for the Fourier transform of the local SF. These are due to the Fresnel scale, the visibility amplitude, which contains the size of the source, and an exponential cut-off in strong scintillation giving rise to the refractive scale. Whichever comes first determines the modulation index and the slope of the SF below the first maximum (see Fig.2). Following Blandford, Narayan & Romani (1986) we assume a Gaussian distribution of ionized matter, keeping in mind that for IDV a much smaller scale height $`H100`$pc is required than the ISM scale height in the galactic disk.

We concentrate on the modulation index derived from the plateau of the SF at large timelags and on the slope for shorter lags. It turns out that in weak scintillation the slope of the SF is either quadratic SF$`(t)t^\alpha `$, $`\alpha =2`$ for steep turbulent spectra $`\beta 4`$ or $`\alpha =\beta 2`$ for $`\beta <4`$.

In strong and quenched scintillation the SF shows a broken power law below the maximum and this slope also depends on the power-law index $`\beta `$ of the turbulent spectrum $`\mathrm{\Phi }(q)=C_N^2q^\beta `$ of density fluctuations in the ISM. For the limiting case $`\beta =4`$ discussed in Blandford, Narayan & Romani (1986), this slope is $`\alpha =1`$ in the quenched and strong case, while for a Kolmogorov-like spectrum $`\beta =11/3`$ the slope is $`\alpha =5/6`$ for strong scattering and $`\alpha =2/3`$ for quenched scintillation. For quenched scintillation, the slope is generally $`\alpha =\beta 3`$.

We have computed theoretical structure functions dominated by quenched scintillation and compared them to the observed data taken at $`\lambda 20`$cm and $`\lambda 6`$cm (Fig.2 and Fig.3). The parameters are the power-law index $`\beta `$, the strength of density fluctuations $`C_N^2`$, the scale height $`H`$ and the velocity of the observer relative to the ISM cloud. From simultaneous fitting of the SF’s at 6 cm and 20 cm we can find plausible parameters and the size of source at these wavelengths. The model parameters are summarised in Table 1. It is clearly visible from Fig.2 and Fig.3 that a steep spectrum is preferred.

In particular the slope $`\alpha 1.3`$ at $`\lambda 20`$cm indicates a steep spectrum $`\beta =4.3`$, when only quenched scintillation is assumed. The turbulent spectrum has to be even steeper because the SF flattens before turning over into the $`\alpha =\beta 2`$ slope dictated by the Fresnel cut-off at smaller timelags. Together with the weak curvature near the plateau for large timelags, this points to the slope $`\beta 4.6`$ of the models S1 and S2.

## 5 Conclusions

Based on IDV observations of several Quasar and BL Lac radio cores with apparent brightness temperatures in the range of $`10^{16}`$$`10^{21}`$ K we investigated the possibility of intrinsic variations due to the propagation of thin relativistic shocks. We find that no source with $`T_b>10^{16}`$ K can be explained by that model without calling for Doppler factors larger than 20 and strong alignment between the jet and the line of sight. The required alignment firmly rules out this hypothesis as an explanation for all IDV sources.

Based on refractive interstellar scintillation IDV can be explained by turbulence in the ISM. The scale size of the ionized gas responsible for IDV is about 100 pc in the case of 0917+624, and scintillation is quenched by the source size, which is larger than the refractive or Fresnel scale in the ISM. A fit to the structure functions at $`\lambda 20`$cm and $`\lambda 6`$cm indicates a steep power law ($`\beta 4.6`$) for $`\mathrm{\Phi }(q)`$ fluctuations. This corresponds to an energy spectrum $`q^{2.6}`$ that is much steeper than both a Kolmogorov spectrum and the $`q^2`$ spectrum for compressible turbulence, but a bit shallower than $`q^3`$ expected for two-dimensional turbulence. The length scale probed in the ISM by these measurements are between $`\mathrm{5\hspace{0.17em}10}^8`$ m and $`\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}10}^9`$ m at the peak of the structure functions. The slope of the turbulent spectrum is derived from structure functions at small timelags and the corresponding spectrum extends an order of magnitude down to smaller spatial scales. Compressible turbulence is not unexpected at these scales, if turbulence is driven by shocks from supernovae or by stellar winds.

Scintillation in 0917+624 is quenched by the source size, which is one parameter of the theoretical fits to the SFs. The required sizes are $`40\mu `$as and $`0.4`$ mas at $`\lambda 6`$cm and $`\lambda 20`$cm respectively. At $`\lambda 6`$cm, the flux of 0917+624 (redshift $`z=1.446`$) is 1.5Jy. Combined with the derived source size this implies $`T_b=10^{14}`$K. Again Doppler factors of about 100 are needed to avoid the IC catastrophe or Doppler factors of 1000 to arrive at equipartition temperature. The sizes derived for 0917+624 from structure function models might be changed, if a degeneracy in the model parameters exists. The most plausible direction is an even closer ISM screen with a higher level of turbulence. In this case the angular Fresnel scale gets larger and larger source sizes are allowed.

## References

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Blandford, R., Narayan, R., Romani, R.W. 1986, ApJ, 301, L53

Coles, W.A., Frehlich, R.G., Rickett, B.J., Codona, J. L. 1987, ApJ, 315, 666

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# A Comparative Study of the Absolute-Magnitude Distributions of Supernovae

## 1 Introduction

The absolute-magnitude distributions of the various supernova (SN) types provide vital information for determining SN rates, for advancing our knowledge of the stellar progenitors and their explosion mechanisms, and for planning future ground- and space-based SN searches. More than a decade ago, Miller & Branch (MB90; 1990) used the Asiago Supernova Catalog (the ASC; Barbon, Cappellaro & Turatto, 1989) to carry out a comparative study of absolute-magnitude distributions. At the end of 1989, the ASC listed only 687 SNe, and many of those were of unknown type. By June, 2001 (updates are available at `http://merlino.pd.astro.it/~supern/`), the number of events in the ASC had increased to 1910. Almost all of the SNe of the 1990’s had been assigned types, and some of the pre-1990 data had been improved. We therefore decided that an updated study of the absolute-magnitude distributions would be timely.

It should be acknowledged that the characteristic uncertainty of the apparent magnitudes listed in the ASC, perhaps 0.2 or 0.3 mag, is not negligible for this purpose. Thanks to the tremendous interest in using SNe Ia as distance indicators for cosmology, studies of the SN Ia absolute-magnitude distribution now can be based on carefully selected samples of events for which both the apparent magnitudes and the relative distances are known to high accuracy (e.g. Hamuy et al., 1996). The absolute-magnitude scatter in these samples can be further reduced in two ways. First, the host galaxy extinction can be taken into account for each SN using the SN’s $`BV`$ color. Next, the fact that some SNe Ia are intrinsically dimmer than others can be accounted for by using a correction to the light-curve width such as the $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{15}`$ parameter (Phillips et al., 1999) or the method of multicolor light-curve shapes (MLCS, Riess et al., 1996). With these corrections the dispersion in $`M_B`$ for SNe Ia can be reduced to 0.11 (Phillips et al., 1999), making them extremely useful as distance indicators for cosmology.

Our present study, which has little to add to our knowledge of the SN Ia absolute-magnitude distribution, is directed more at the absolute-magnitude distributions of the other SN types. As far as the other SN types are concerned, either the number of events for which accurate peak apparent magnitudes have been reported remains small (SNe Ib, Ic, II-L, IIn) or the intrinsic dispersion in the peak absolute magnitude is large (SNe II-P). For these types a study such as this one, based on all available data, can be useful. For comparison with the other types, SNe Ia are included as well.

## 2 Data

Most of the SN types and apparent magnitudes are taken from the ASC (as of June, 2001). Several changes in the spectral types are made after examining spectra available to us. Some additional data (mostly for recent SNe Ia) are included from Perlmutter et al. (1999), Riess et al. (1999), Riess et al. (1998), Leonard et al. (2001), Clocchiatti et al. (2000) Macri et al. (2001), Matheson et al. (2000), van den Bergh (1994), Iwamoto et al. (2000) and Hatano et al. (2001). Magnitudes from Perlmutter et al. include K-corrections. Several changes in the apparent magnitudes are made after examining the Atlas of Light Curves of SNe I by Leibundgut et al. (1991). Where possible we use blue magnitudes. Photographic magnitudes are converted to blue magnitudes using the usual relation $`B=m_{pg}+0.3`$. When necessary we assume that $`B=V=R`$ (except for the K-corrected events). The apparent magnitudes are corrected for Galactic extinction following Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998) with the help of NED111The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration..

When possible, we use a Cepheid distance to the parent galaxy or to a member of the same galaxy group as the parent galaxy. The Cepheid distances are obtained from Freedman et al. (2001), Macri et al. (2001), Ferrarese et al. (2000) and Saha et al. (2001a, b). If a Cepheid distance is not available we use distances from the Nearby Galaxies Catalog (NGC; Tully, 1988), which incorporates a Virgocentric infall model to relate galaxy recession velocity and distance. The errors in the relative distances to these events contribute significantly to the absolute-magnitude scatter in our figures. We rescale the distances from the $`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 of the NGC to our choice of $`H_0=60`$.

If a Cepheid distance or an NGC distance is not available then the luminosity distance is calculated Kantowski, Kao & Thomas (2000), provided that the SN parent galaxy has a Galactocentric recession velocity of $`cz>2000`$ km s-1. The luminosity distance is calculated assuming $`H_0=60`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$. Errors in the relative distances to these events should be small. A different choice of $`H_0`$ would simply rescale the absolute magnitudes. Different choices of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ or $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ would change our plots only slightly (at large distances). A few SNe whose parent galaxies have $`cz<2000`$ km s-1 but do not have a measured Cepheid distance and are not listed in the NGC are excluded from the study. The Large Magellanic Cloud, the site of SN 1987A, is assigned a distance modulus of 18.50.

## 3 Overview of Supernova Absolute Magnitudes

In Figure 1, absolute magnitude is plotted against distance modulus for all 297 SNe for which we have an estimate of the apparent magnitude at the time of maximum light; we will refer to these as *maximum-light* SNe. Also shown, at the left side of Figure 1, are estimates by Schaefer (1996) of the absolute magnitudes of six Galactic SNe of the last millennium that occurred within about 4 kpc of the Earth. Schaefer’s estimates actually are of $`M_V`$, rather than $`M_B`$, and his estimates of the distance moduli of these events range from 11.4 to 12.7, off-scale to the left of Figure 1. Figure 2 is like Figure 1, but for the 1078 SNe for which we have only lower limits to the peak absolute brightness because the apparent magnitude at the time of maximum light is unknown; we will refer to these as *limit* SNe. Both figures contain some straight lines to guide the eye. The horizontal line at $`M_B=19.5`$ is regarded as characteristic of normal SNe Ia and we will refer to this as the SN Ia *ridge line*. The horizontal line at $`M_B=15`$ and the vertical lines at $`\mu =30`$ and $`\mu =35`$ will be referred to below. The slanted lines correspond to apparent magnitudes of $`B=16`$ and $`B=25`$. Figure 1 shows that so far most of the maximum-light SNe have had peak apparent magnitudes brighter than $`B=16`$, while Figure 2 shows that most of the limit SNe were fainter than $`B=16`$ at their brightest observation. An indication of the dramatic observational progress that has taken place during the 1990s is that MB90 also plotted the $`B=16`$ line, and only *four* maximum-light SNe were to the right of it. MB90 did not consider the limit SNe.

When viewing Figures 1 and 2 it is helpful to think in terms of several different distance regimes. First come the Galactic SNe, then SN 1987A and SN 1885A in the Local Group. Next come SNe in “nearby galaxies”, say within 10 Mpc ($`\mu 30`$). The interval from $`\mu =30`$ to $`\mu =35`$ ($`cz=6000`$ km s-1, 100 Mpc) includes many SNe of the Local Supercluster, with those of the Virgo cluster being concentrated near $`\mu =31.2`$. From $`\mu =35`$ (or less) to $`\mu 40`$ ($`cz60,000`$ km s-1, $`z0.2`$) is the “Hubble flow”, where luminosity distance depends on $`H_0`$ but only slightly on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. As will be seen below, most of the maximum-light events in the Hubble flow are SNe Ia; this is due to the observational bias in favor of luminous events. Beyond $`\mu 40`$ is the realm of the “high-redshift” SNe where, fortunately for cosmology, the luminosity distance depends significantly on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Here too, most of the events are SNe Ia. At present most of the high-redshift events appear in Figure 2, as limit SNe, but some of these will become maximum-light SNe when their peak apparent magnitudes are eventually reported.

### 3.1 Subluminous Supernovae

SN 1987A stimulated interest in subluminous SNe, e.g., those having $`M_B15`$. The severe observational bias against them is obvious from Figures 1 and 2. Beyond $`\mu =30`$, *none* of the maximum-light SNe are dimmer than $`M_B=15`$. Schaefer (1996) considered two small volume-limited samples of SNe and concluded that a substantial fraction of all SNe are subluminous. One of his samples consisted of the six Galactic SNe that are represented in Figure 1. Two of the six are estimated to have been even less luminous than SN 1987A. Adopting these estimates, Hatano, Fisher & Branch (1997) carried out a Monte Carlo simulation of the visibility of Galactic SNe and concluded that it is quite likely that a significant fraction of the SNe in the Galaxy are “ultra-dim” ($`M_V>13`$).

Schaefer’s other volume-limited sample consisted of SNe in nearby galaxies. In addition to SN 1987A there are four events in Figure 1 that have $`M_B>15`$. SN 1940E (of unknown type) appeared in the dusty, nearly edge-on galaxy NGC 253 and probably was heavily extinguished so it may not have been intrinsically subluminous (Schaefer, 1996). SNe 1923A and 1945B, both in the nearly face-on galaxy M83, do not appear to have been heavily extinguished (Schaefer, 1996). SN 1973R, in NGC 3727, was observed to be quite blue (Patat et al., 1993) and therefore also is unlikely to have been heavily extinguished. It is likely that SNe 1923A (classified II-P only on the basis of its light curve), 1945B (unknown type), and 1973R (Type II-P) were intrinsically subluminous.

In Figure 1, among the Galactic SNe and the SNe in nearby galaxies having $`\mu 30`$, seven of the 31 events are estimated to have had $`M_B>15`$. Even this sample is by no means free of bias against subluminous events, so it appears that the fraction of all SNe that are subluminous is more than (possibly much more than) one fifth. But because the number of such events that have been seen is still so small, this fraction remains very uncertain.

### 3.2 Overluminous Supernovae

The data on maximum-light SNe that were available to MB90 showed no convincing evidence for events that were significantly overluminous with respect to the SN Ia ridge line, but by now it has become clear that overluminous events do exist, outstanding examples being the Type IIn SN 1997cy (Germany et al., 2000; Turatto et al., 2000) at $`M_B20.30`$ and the peculiar Type Ic SN 1999as (Hatano et al., 2001) at $`M_B21.60`$.

In Figure 1, the two brightest SNe are well above the SN Ia ridge line, but the apparent magnitudes (and the types) of both are uncertain. The light curves of SNe 1955B (from Zwicky, 1956) and 1968A (mainly Kaho, 1968) are plotted and compared to a template light curve for SNe Ia by Leibundgut et al. (1991). Whether or not these two events were overluminous depends on the accuracy of the photographic photometry. It is not clear that either of these events were genuinely overluminous.

The peak apparent magnitudes for SN 1920A and SN 1963S given in the ASC would lead to $`M_V=22.2`$ for both. However, the peak magnitudes were obtained by extrapolating well beyond the observations using the SN Ia template light curve (Leibundgut et al., 1991). Since both events are of unknown type, we treat them as limit SNe and use the observations without extrapolation to estimate the brightest apparent magnitudes. For SN 1920A we use $`m_{pg}=12.4`$ (B. E. Schaefer 1999, private communication) and obtain $`M_B=20.40`$, still overluminous. For SN 1963S we use $`m_{pg}=15.00`$ (Haro, 1964) and obtain $`M_B=20.97`$, also overluminous.

In Figure 2, quite a few of the limit SNe have $`M_B<20`$, but undoubtedly this is mainly because limit SNe were not as well observed as maximum-light SNe, so their magnitude errors tend to be larger. In particular, many of the apparent magnitudes of the high-redshift limit SNe are just first estimates that were made at the time of discovery; if and when more accurate apparent magnitudes are reported after the parent-galaxy light has been subtracted, most of them will come down to the SN Ia ridge line (because most of them are SNe Ia). The apparent magnitudes of nine of the most extreme cases in Figure 2, those that have $`M_B21`$ — SN 1999bd and 1961J (Type II); 1988O (Type Ia or Ic; see §4.1); 1984M (unknown type); 1995av and 2000ei (probable Type II); 2000eh and 1999fo (Type Ia); and SN 1971R (unknown type) — are the preliminary estimates reported in the IAU Circulars. We cannot be sure that any of these events really were overluminous, but it would take large magnitude errors to get them below $`M_B=20`$.

At least two events in Figure 2, 1997cy and 1999as, were genuinely overluminous. Most of the others that appear to be overluminous in Figures 1 and 2 probably are spurious. In Figure 1, the fraction of the maximum-light events that have $`M_B20`$ is 0.067 (20 of 297). In Figure 2, the fraction is 0.101 (109 of 1078). In view of the luminosity bias and the tendency of apparent-magnitude errors to make ridge-line events appear to be overluminous, even the 0.067 is a generous upper limit to the true fraction of overluminous SNe. The true fraction probably is much lower than 0.01.

## 4 Absolute-Magnitude Distributions by Supernova Type

For the absolute-magnitude distributions we will consider only SNe that have $`\mu <40`$ ($`D<1Gpc`$, $`cz<60,000`$ km s-1). This restriction is imposed because as Figure 1 shows, beyond $`\mu =40`$ the luminosity bias is so severe that few events are much below the SN Ia ridge line. We need to keep in mind that even the distance-limited sample is strongly affected by luminosity bias — but to the extent that the bias is independent of the SN type, we can obtain some useful comparative results.

Histograms that appear in the following figures refer to absolute magnitudes that have been corrected only for Galactic extinction, not for extinction in the parent galaxy. In addition to considering the distributions of such uncorrected absolute magnitudes, we will also consider “intrinsic” distributions, obtained as follows. Hatano, Branch & Deaton (1998) used a Monte Carlo technique and a simple model of the spatial distributions of SNe and dust in a characteristic SN-producing galaxy to calculate extinction distributions for each SN type, averaged over all galaxy inclinations. Here, for each SN type, we assume for simplicity a Gaussian intrinsic absolute-magnitude distribution, convolve it with the appropriate extinction distribution from Hatano et al., and vary the mean absolute magnitude and dispersion of the intrinsic distribution to obtain the best fit to the uncorrected distribution, as determined by the Kolmogorov-Smirnoff (K-S) test (Press et al., 1996). Because very few highly extinguished SNe make it into observational samples, we use the “extinction-limited subsets” of Hatano et al., which exclude extinctions larger than $`A_B=0.6`$ mag. (Changing this value by $`\pm 0.1`$ mag has very little effect on our results.) This simple statistical procedure makes a rough allowance for the effects of extinction on the absolute-magnitude distributions.

### 4.1 Type Ia

SNe Ia are plotted in Figure 3. Here, because of the relatively large amount of data available, SNe Ia whose apparent magnitudes were designated as uncertain in the ASC are treated as limit SNe. (For the other types discussed below, the number of events is smaller and/or the absolute-magnitude dispersion is large, so we accept those having uncertain apparent magnitudes as maximum-light SNe.)

In Figure 3, the maximum light SNe Ia do show a fairly high degree of concentration to the ridge line at $`M_B=19.5`$, as expected. The scatter among the maximum-light events is due to a combination of intrinsically subluminous SNe 1991bg-like events, extinction in the parent galaxies, and errors in the apparent magnitudes and relative distances.

Some of the most extreme SN Ia are labeled in Figure 3. As mentioned above, the apparent magnitude of the very bright limit events SN 1988O, 1999fo and 2000eh are uncertain. Also, although 1988O is listed as a Type Ia in the ASC, from the published spectra (Stathakis & Sadler, 1994) it is hard to exclude Type Ic. The five low–luminosity events that are labeled in Figure 3 include SNe 1991bg and 1957A, both of which are known to have been spectroscopically peculiar and intrinsically subluminous. SN 1986G is known to have been both spectroscopically peculiar and highly extinguished by dust in its parent galaxy. SNe 1996ai (Riess et al., 1999) and 1999cl (Krisciunas et al., 2000) are thought to have been highly extinguished in their parent galaxies.

The histogram in Figure 4 shows the uncorrected $`M_B`$ distribution for the 111 spectroscopically normal maximum–light SNe Ia that have $`\mu 40`$. (If the spectroscopically low-luminosity events were included the distribution could not be represented by a gaussian.) Note that the distribution falls off steeply on the bright side, as expected if SNe Ia are thermonuclear disruptions of Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarfs (or mergers of two white dwarfs) because Type Ia light curves are powered by the radioactive decay of 56Ni and its daughter 56Co and there is a hard upper limit to the amount of 56Ni that one (or two) exploding white dwarfs can eject. (This is a reason to suspect that SN 1988O was a Type Ic rather than a Type Ia.) The uncorrected distribution has a mean absolute magnitude of $`\overline{M}_B=19.16\pm 0.07`$, with a dispersion about the mean of $`\sigma =0.76`$. The solid curve, the gaussian intrinsic distribution obtained as described above, has $`\overline{M}_B=19.46,\sigma =0.56`$. The extinction correction has made the mean absolute magnitude brighter by 0.3 mag., and produced a moderate reduction in the dispersion. The dashed curve is the convolution of the intrinsic distribution with the adopted extinction distribution; this is to be compared with the uncorrected distribution of the histogram. The K-S confidence level that the convolved distribution is consistent with the uncorrected distribution is 89%.

### 4.2 Types Ib and Ic

Figures 5 and 6 are like Figures 3 and 4, but for SNe Ibc (SNe Ib and Ic considered together because of the small amount of data available). In Figure 5, five maximum light SNe Ibc are significantly brighter than the others. The peculiar Type Ic SN 1998bw, well known for its possible connection to GRB980425, and the Type Ib SN 1954A are well observed. The peculiar Type Ib SN 1991D is listed as a limit in the ASC, but we have changed it to a maximum-light SN (S. Benetti et al., in preparation). For the Type Ib SN 1992ar we have used the average of two apparent magnitudes estimated by Clocchiatti et al. (2000) using two different template light curves for SNe Ic. The apparent magnitude of the Type Ic SN 1999cq is from Matheson et al. (2000).

The extremely bright limit event SN 1999as was discussed above. The apparent magnitudes of the other other bright limits, SNe 1999bz and 1993P (both Type Ic), are uncertain.

The uncorrected distribution of the 18 maximum-light SNe Ibc has $`\overline{M}_B=17.92\pm 0.30`$, $`\sigma =1.29`$, and the intrinsic distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=18.04`$, $`\sigma =1.39`$. The K-S confidence level is 96% but the test tends to give overly high confidence levels when the sample size is small.

Figure 5 raises the suspicion that there may be two separate luminosity groups of SNe Ibc, one perhaps tightly clustered near $`M_B19`$ and another with a wider range at $`M_B17`$. We will refer to these two groups as *bright* and *normal*. Because of this we have decided to consider a double peak distribution as well as the single peak distribution. The double peak distribution is given by:

$$f(x)=f_0\left(w\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{(xx_1)^2}{2\sigma _1^2}\right]+\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{(xx_2)^2}{2\sigma _2^2}\right]\right).$$
(1)
Here, $`x_1`$ and $`\sigma _1`$ are the mean absolute magnitude and dispersion, respectively, for the bright peak. The dim peak is similarly determined by $`x_2`$ and $`\sigma _2`$. The fifth parameter is the weighting factor, $`w`$. ($`f_0`$ is the normalization constant.) All five of these parameters are varied to get the best fit.

Figure 7 is like Figure 6 but for a double peak distribution consisting of 5 bright and 13 normal SNe Ibc. For the normal group, the uncorrected distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=17.23\pm 0.17`$, $`\sigma =0.62`$ and the intrinsic distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=17.61`$, $`\sigma =0.74`$. For the bright group, the uncorrected distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=19.72\pm 0.24`$, $`\sigma =0.54`$ and the intrinsic distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=20.26`$, $`\sigma =0.33`$. The weight parameter for the intrinsic distribution is $`w=0.28`$. The K-S confidence level approaches unity for these small samples.

The hydrogen-poor progenitors of SNe Ibc have small radii so the light curves of SNe Ibc are powered by the radioactive decay of 56Ni. Since the rise times to maximum light of SNe Ibc and SNe Ia are similar, the ratio of the ejected masses of 56Ni in SNe Ia and SNe Ibc is approximately given by the ratio of their peak luminosities. Using $`M_B=19.46`$ for SNe Ia and $`M_B=18.04`$ for SNe Ibc would give a ratio of nickel masses of 3.70, e.g., if the characteristic nickel mass of SNe Ia is 0.6 $`M_{}`$ then that of SNe Ibc would be 0.16 $`M_{}`$. However, SNe Ibc are redder than SNe Ia at maximum light and a smaller proportion of their luminosity goes into the B band (cf. MB90), therefore the 0.16 $`M_{}`$ may be an underestimate of the average value. The nickel mass determined from the tail of the light curve for SN 1994I was 0.07 $`M_{}`$ (Young, Baron & Branch, 1995). Nickel masses for SNe Ibc may be strongly dependent on the nature of the progenitor.

### 4.3 Type II-L

SNe II-L are shown in Figures 8 and 9. For the whole sample of 16 maximum-light SNe II-L the uncorrected distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=17.80\pm 0.22`$, $`\sigma =0.88`$ and the intrinsic distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=18.03`$, $`\sigma =0.90`$. The K-S confidence level is 91%.

All four of the bright SNe II-L — SNe 1961F, 1979C, 1980K, and 1985L — were well observed. As has been discussed by Young & Branch (1989), Gaskell (1992) and Patat et al. (1994) the available data suggest that it may be appropriate to divide SNe II-L into two luminosity groups; which, again, we refer to as bright and normal. When we do this, with only 4 events in the bright group and 12 in the normal group, we obtain Figure 10. For the normal group, the uncorrected distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=17.36\pm 0.12`$, $`\sigma =0.43`$, and the intrinsic distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=17.56`$, $`\sigma =0.38`$. For the bright group, the uncorrected distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=19.12\pm 0.12`$, $`\sigma =0.23`$, and the intrinsic distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=19.27`$, $`\sigma =0.51`$. The weight parameter for the intrinsic distribution is $`w=0.43`$. For these small samples the confidence level, again, approaches unity.

If, as is commonly assumed, the progenitors of SNe II-L are red supergiants that have lost much but not nearly all of their hydrogen envelopes, then the peak luminosities of SNe II-L depend primarily on the radius of the progenitor star and in some cases perhaps also on the strength of the circumstellar interaction, but not on the amount of ejected 56Ni. If this is correct, then the similarity of the luminosities of the bright group of SNe II-L and the luminosities of normal SNe Ia ($`\overline{M}_B=19.27`$ and $`19.46`$ respectively), as well as the similarities of the bright and normal SNe II-L with the two possible groups of SNe Ibc, must be coincidental.

### 4.4 Type II-P

SNe II-P are shown in Figures 11 and 12. The uncorrected distribution of the 29 maximum-light SNe II-P has $`\overline{M}_B=16.61\pm 0.23`$, $`\sigma =1.23`$. The intrinsic distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=17.00`$, $`\sigma =1.12`$ with a K-S confidence level approaching unity.

The progenitors of SNe II-P are red supergiants that have retained large hydrogen masses. The large dispersion in the luminosities of SNe II-P is primarily due to a wide range in the radii of the progenitor stars (Young, 1994).

### 4.5 Type IIn

Figures 13 and 14 show SNe IIn. The brightest maximum-light event, SN 1983K, is listed as a Type II-P in the ASC but we have treated it as a Type IIn in view of the narrow lines in its spectra (Niemela, Ruiz & Phillips, 1985). None of the maximum-light SNe IIn are extremely bright or dim. However, among the limit SNe there are four that are brighter than $`M_B=20`$. SN 1997cy, discussed above, was genuinely overluminous, while the apparent magnitudes of the other three (SNe 1990S, 1995aa and 1999Z) are uncertain.

The uncorrected distribution of the 8 maximum-light SNe IIn has $`\overline{M}_B=18.78\pm 0.31`$, $`\sigma =0.92`$, and the intrinsic distribution has $`\overline{M}_B=19.15`$, $`\sigma =0.92`$. The K-S confidence level approaches unity. SNe IIn are on average more luminous than other SNe II because of circumstellar interaction.

## 5 Summary

At least 7 of 31 SNe in our Galaxy and in galaxies within 10 Mpc appear to have been subluminous ($`M_B15`$). Considering that even in this sample there is an observational bias against them, it appears that more (perhaps much more) than one fifth of all SNe are subluminous, but because the number of such events seen so far is small, this fraction remains very uncertain.

Only 20 of 297 extragalactic maximum-light SNe appear to be overluminous ($`M_B<20`$). Considering the strong observational bias in favor of them, and that observational errors produce spuriously overluminous events, it is safe to conclude that the fraction of all SNe that are overluminous must be much lower than 0.01.

The results of our comparative study of the absolute-magnitude distributions of SNe in the distance-limited sample ($`\mu <40`$) are summarized in Table 1. The main differences between our results and those of MB90 are that (1) it has become clear that overluminous SNe ($`M_B20`$) exist; (2) the absolute-magnitude dispersion of SNe Ibc has increased due to the discovery of some rather luminous events; and (3) we present results for SNe IIn, which on average are the most luminous type of core–collapse SNe.

Even though the SN discovery rate increased dramatically in the 1990’s, the numbers of subluminous events, overluminous events, SNe II-L, SNe Ibc, and SNe IIn for which apparent magnitudes at maximum light are available are still small — this is especially so if SNe II-L and Ibc should be divided into two luminosity groups. Except for SNe Ia and II-P, the study of SN absolute-magnitude distributions remains data starved. Systematic programs of discovery and observation of events in the Hubble flow, such as the Nearby Supernova Factory (Aldering et al., 2001) underway at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, should substantially improve the situation during the coming years.


text:
# 1 (a) 𝑀 versus temperature for 2 million nodes and various 𝑚, for 250≤𝑡≤500 (shorter times 𝑡 were used far below 𝑇_𝑐). (For 𝑚=1 even 60 million nodes were simulated.) (b) Effective 𝑇_𝑐 versus 𝑚+𝑁 for 𝑚=5 and various 𝑁, averaged over up to 1000 samples.

Ferromagnetic Phase Transition in Barabási-Albert Networks

Agata Aleksiejuk\*, Janusz A. Hołyst\* and Dietrich Stauffer

Institute for Theoretical Physics, Cologne University, D-50923 Köln, Euroland

* Permanently at: Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, Koszykowa 75, PL-00–662 Warsaw, Poland

Abstract: Ising spins put onto a Barabási-Albert scale-free network show an effective phase transition from ferromagnetism to paramagnetism upon heating, with an effective critical temperature increasing as the logarithm of the system size. Starting with all spins up and upon equilibration pinning the few most-connected spins down nucleates the phase with most of the spins down.

Keywords: Monte Carlo simulation, connectivity, Curie temperature, nucleation, mean field approximation, sociophysics.

Networks with more complicated connectivities than periodic lattices have been investigated in detail recently. For example, the Barabási-Albert network  is grown such that the probability of a new site to be connected to one of the already existing sites is proportional to the number of the previous connections to this already existing site: The rich get richer. Similar networks have been investigated  to check if destruction of a few computers will split the percolating cluster of the internet (i.e. the set of all computers in the world connected directly or indirectly with each other). Networks exist also in social models where vertices are individuals or organizations, and links correspond to social relationships between them . However, as far as we know, all studies of the scale-free Barabási-Albert networks considered only the topology and no interactions between linked vertices.

Here we investigate the ordering phenomenon in this Barabási-Albert network, if Ising spins are put onto the sites (vertices) of the network. We assume ferromagnetic coupling between linked spins and positive temperature $`T`$ of the system. Such a magnet would show paramagnetism if the whole network is still connected but only weakly such that thermal fluctuations destroy the spontaneous magnetization. (Bose-Einstein condensation on similar networks was already studied before , as was the Ising model on small-world networks , and other Ising models are in preparation .) In the social example one could identify exp($`\mathrm{const}/T`$) with the probability that members of the same social group are not convinced to share the same opinion. (Spin variables $`S_i=\pm 1`$ then correspond to two possible opinions of the group members on the same subject.)

Thus we create a Barabási-Albert network of $`N`$ sites added to an initial core of $`m`$ fully connected sites. Each of the $`N`$ new nodes is connected to $`m`$ randomly selected previous nodes. (We allow more than one connection to the same site for the later added nodes; mostly we take $`m=5`$.) Then we freeze this network structure, put an Ising spin $`S_i=\pm 1`$ onto every site, with all spins up initially. Then with the standard heat bath Monte Carlo algorithm spins search for thermal equilibrium at temperature $`T`$ (all temperatures are given in units of coupling constant over Boltzmann constant). Fig.1a shows the resulting magnetization (averaged over the last half of 500 sweeps through the network) versus temperature; it seems to decrease exponentially with increasing temperature, until due to finite-size effects it oscillates about zero. This effective Curie temperature $`T_c(N)`$ is fitted in Fig.1b onto 2.6 ln$`(N)3`$ for $`5N5,000,000`$.

Figure 2 shows that in the ferromagnetic region the spins with few neigbours flip up and down while those with many neighbours point up most of the time.

Analogous to the appearance and spreading of new opinions in society  we now try to flip the spontaneous magnetization for $`T<T_c`$ by forcing the most-connected spin permanently down; then we pin in the same way the second-most-connected spin, and so on, all in time intervals of 50 iterations. We see that in general removal of the few leading spins having hundreds of neighbours is sufficient to flip the magnetization. (Since we do not apply any magnetic field and have no fixed boundary conditions, we expect the flipping of the magnetization to be a nucleation event, which would happen even if we flip only one randomly selected spin provided we wait long enough.) Fig.3 shows the magnetization versus time averaged over 100 samples. Higher temperatures require fewer leading spins to be pinned.

Now we present a simple mean field theory for some of these effects. Let us consider the BA network with the characteristic constant $`m`$ and the corresponding Ising model with the ferromagnetic coupling constant $`J=1`$. The probability that a node has a degree $`k`$ is given by $`P(k)Ak^3`$ when $`km`$ and $`P(k)=0`$ when $`k<m`$. For large networks $`(N\mathrm{})`$ the normalization constant equals $`A2m^2`$. In the mean field approximation (MFA) we can simplify interactions among each group of spins with a fixed value of $`k`$ by the effective field $`kM`$ where $`M`$ is the mean magnetization (per one spin). It follows that

$$M=P(k)\mathrm{tanh}(\beta Mk)𝑑k$$

($`\beta =1/T`$). This is a transcendental algebraic equation for $`M(T)`$. It is easy to find analytically the critical temperature $`T_c`$ that corresponds to the case when lhs and rhs are tangent at $`M=0`$ . Differentiating both sides over $`M`$ and putting $`M=0`$ we get $`1=A_m^{\mathrm{}}\beta k^2𝑑k`$; thus $`T_c=2m.`$ The result can be written as $`T_c=<k>2m=`$ the mean degree of the node. This is the typical MFA result. Fig.1 shows it to be correct in order of magnitude and in its increase with increasing $`m`$. But the MFA does not describe the logarithmic size effect on $`T_c(N)`$, due perhaps to exponentially rare and small regions of densely connected spins .

Knowing the mean magnetization $`M(T)`$ one can calculate the correlation $`\mu (k)`$ of local magnetization to the spin degree $`k`$. In fact in MFA we can write $`\mu (k)=\mathrm{tanh}[\beta kM(\beta )].`$ It follows that for all temperatures $`T<T_c`$ this dependence is a universal function of $`u=\beta kM(\beta )`$. This prediction is consistent with figure 2.

The effect of pinning of the most important spins (Fig. 3) can be also described analytically and it follows that there occurs a discontinuous phase transition from the ”spin up” phase to the ”spin down” phase by a well defined critical number of pinned spins.

Pinning one spin of degree $`k`$ to the state $`S=1`$ is equivalent in MFA to lowering the mean magnetization by $`\mu (k)/N`$ and introducing to the system the external magnetic field of the magnitude $`J=1`$ that is oriented ”down”. This field is felt only by $`k`$ other spins thus its mean value for the whole system equals $`b(k)=k/N`$. If we pin $`j`$ of the most connected spins then it means that we pin all spins of the degree $`k>\kappa `$ where

$$j=NA_\kappa ^{\mathrm{}}k^3𝑑k.$$

It follows that we decrease the mean magnetization (per one spin) by

$$\delta M(j)=A_\kappa ^{\mathrm{}}(\mu (k)+1)k^3𝑑k\frac{2j}{N}$$

where we have assumed that all pinned spins were completely ordered before pinning, $`\mu (k)=1`$. The effective internal field $`B(j)`$ acting in the system from the pinned spins can be calculated as

$$B(j)=A_\kappa ^{\mathrm{}}\mu (k)k^2𝑑k2m\sqrt{j/N}.$$

It is important to stress that $`\delta M1/N`$ but $`B(j)\sqrt{1/N}`$ and this internal field causes much larger decrease of magnetization $`\mathrm{\Delta }M`$ than the direct effect of pinning. For small $`j`$ we have $`\mathrm{\Delta }M(j)=\chi B(j)`$ where $`\chi `$ is the system initial susceptibility. In MFA it can be calculated as the mean value of the derivative of local magnetization $`\mu (k)`$ over the field $`B(j)`$ and it equals to

$$\chi =\frac{2m^2}{T}_m^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk}{k^3\mathrm{cosh}^2(\beta Mk)}.$$

The last integral cannot be calculated analytically. Pinning several spins means influencing the system by a large internal field $`B(j)`$ that can even cause a flip of the total magnetization. The value for the minimal flipping field $`B^{}`$ can be obtained from the equation

$$M^{}=A_m^{\mathrm{}}k^3\mathrm{tanh}[\beta (M^{}k+B^{})]𝑑k$$

and the corresponding tangency relation at the critical point $`M^{}`$:

$$1=\beta A_m^{\mathrm{}}k^2\mathrm{cosh}^2[\beta (M^{}k+B^{})]𝑑k.$$

The above equations form imply conditions for $`B^{}`$ and $`M^{}`$. After some algebra one can find the following relation between $`B^{}`$ and $`M^{}`$:

$$B^{}=mM^{}+T\mathrm{artanh}(M^{}/2).$$

Combining the last result with the relation for $`B(j)`$ we get the following equation for the minimal number $`j^{}`$ of pinned spins needed to invert the system magnetization:

$$\sqrt{\frac{j^{}}{N}}=\frac{M^{}}{2}\frac{T}{2m}\mathrm{artanh}\frac{M^{}}{2}(M^{}/2)(1T/T_c)$$

where the last approximation is valid only for the small $`M^{}=0.03\mathrm{}0.1`$ of Fig.3 and we used the above $`T_c=2m`$. This prediction $`j^{}/N10^4\mathrm{}10^3`$ agrees reasonably with our simulations.

In summary, we combined the Ising model with the Barabási-Albert network and found that depending on the convincing power one either has a majority opinion or two equally widespread opposing opinions, i.e. a Curie point.

We thank DAAD and the special grant of Warsaw University of Technology to support the visit to Cologne University, the Jülich supercomputer center for time on their Cray-T3E, and A.L. Barabási for information about similar work.