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# Density-functionals not based on the electron gas: Local-density approximation for a Luttinger liquid

## Abstract

By shifting the reference system for the local-density approximation (LDA) from the electron gas to other model systems one obtains a new class of density functionals, which by design account for the correlations present in the chosen reference system. This strategy is illustrated by constructing an explicit LDA for the one-dimensional Hubbard model. While the traditional ab initio LDA is based on a Fermi liquid (the electron gas), this one is based on a Luttinger liquid. First applications to inhomogeneous Hubbard models, including one containing a localized impurity, are reported.

Density-functional theory (DFT)  is the basis of almost all of todays electronic-structure theory, and much of materials science and quantum chemistry. Many-body effects enter DFT via the exchange-correlation (xc) functional, which is commonly approximated by the local-density approximation (LDA) . The essence of the LDA is to locally approximate the xc energy of the inhomogeneous system under study by that of the homogeneous electron gas. This electron gas plays the role of a reference system, whose correlations are transfered by the LDA into the DFT description of the inhomogeneous system. The most popular improvement upon the LDA are generalized gradient approximations , whose basic philosophy is to abandon the requirement of homogeneity of the reference system. This system, however, is normally still the interacting electron gas .

In the present paper we propose to explore a different paradigm for the construction of novel density functionals: instead of sticking to the electron gas as a reference system, and abandoning homogeneity, it may sometimes be advantageous to do the reverse: stick to homogeneity (and thus to the LDA) but abandon the electron gas as a reference system. The new reference system is chosen such that it accounts for the correlations present in the inhomogeneous system under study.

The only requirement for the reference system is that in the absence of any spatially varying external potential its xc energy must be known exactly or to a high degree of numerical precision. Besides the electron gas (or Jellium model) there are many other physically interesting model systems that satisfy this criterium. Most notably among these is a large class of low-dimensional models which can be solved exactly by Bethe Ansatz (BA) techniques or bosonisation (in one dimension, e.g., the repulsive and the attractive Hubbard model, the hard-core Fermi and Bose gases, the Heisenberg, the supersymmetric t-J, and the Tomonaga-Luttinger model ). The solutions to these models in the homogeneous case can be used instead of the electron gas to construct LDA functionals that can then be applied to study these models also in inhomogeneous situations. The main advantage offered by a DFT treatment of such models is the gain in simplicity that arises from mapping the inhomogeneous interacting many-body system onto a noninteracting auxiliary system, which is diagonalized much more easily.

Below we implement these ideas for the one-dimensional Hubbard model (1DHM), by constructing an LDA based on the exact Bethe Ansatz solution of Lieb and Wu . A DFT treatment of the Hubbard model has been pioneered by Gunnarsson and Schönhammer in Ref. , but the LDA-type functional they proposed has in practice often led to disapointing results , and was criticized as not being a proper LDA since it was not based on the exact solution of a homogeneous reference system . As a consequence, more complicated approximation schemes, such as self-interaction corrections, are often employed . An attempt to base a proper LDA for the Hubbard model on the BA was made in Ref. , but the formulation of that work has not been widely applied, probably because no explicit expression for the resulting xc functional was provided.

Motivated by our above analysis of the possibility of switching reference systems for the LDA we construct, in the present paper, an explicit and simple BA xc functional and apply it to a variety of inhomogeneous Hubbard models, among them an impurity model for previously unattainable system sizes. This functional, denoted the BA-LDA, has built into it the Luttinger-liquid correlations present in the 1DHM , in the same way in which the conventional LDA has built into it the Fermi-liquid correlations present in the electron gas.

The Hamiltonian for the homogeneous 1DHM is, in standard notation,

$$\widehat{H}=t\underset{ij,\sigma }{}c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{j\sigma }+U\underset{i}{}c_i^{}c_ic_i^{}c_i.$$
(1)
Here $`t`$ is the kinetic energy (in the following taken to be the unit of energy) and $`U`$ the interaction (considered a fixed parameter, characterizing the Hamiltonian). To construct an LDA we first develop a parametrization for the total energy per site, as a function of $`U`$ and $`n`$ (the filling factor, a constant in the homogeneous case). Our parametrization interpolates analytically between three limiting cases in which explicit results can be extracted from the Bethe-Ansatz solution : (i) $`U0`$ and any $`n1`$, (ii) $`U\mathrm{}`$ and any $`n1`$, and (iii) $`n=1`$ and any $`U`$ . The expression

$$e^{BA}(n,U)=\frac{2\beta (U)}{\pi }\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi n}{\beta (U)}\right),$$
(2)
where $`\beta (U)`$ is an ($`n`$ independent) number which is determined for any given value of $`U`$ from

$$\frac{2\beta }{\pi }\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi }{\beta }\right)=4_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\frac{J_0(x)J_1(x)}{x[1+\mathrm{exp}(Ux/2)]},$$
(3)
and $`J_0`$ and $`J_1`$ are zero and first order Bessel functions, recovers all three limits: The right-hand side of Eq. (3) is the exact BA expression for the total energy at half filling. The parameter $`\beta `$ is thus determined such that at $`n=1`$ Eq. (2) becomes exact. On the other hand, Eq. (2) is already of the algebraic form of the exact results for the limits $`U=0`$ and $`U\mathrm{}`$, in which $`\beta =2`$ and $`\beta =1`$, respectively. In these limits the integral in Eq. (3) can be calculated analytically, and one indeed recovers these values for $`\beta (U)`$ .

Eq. (2) with $`\beta (U)`$ determined from (3) is thus exact in the three situations mentioned above. In order to check whether these equations provide a reasonable approximation also between these limits, we have numerically solved the Lieb-Wu integral equations for the full Bethe Ansatz solution  and compared the resulting total and $`xc`$ energies with the one obtained from Eqs. (2) and (3). We find that both agree to within at most a few percent, even for values of the parameters far away from the exact limiting cases. This is illustrated in the inset of Fig. 1.

In order to extract the exchange-correlation energy $`e_{xc}^{BA}(n,U)`$ from the total-energy expression (2), one follows the usual prescription of DFT and subtracts the Hartree energy and the noninteracting kinetic energy. This latter energy is simply given by substituting $`\beta =2`$ in Eq. (2). In the spirit of the usual electron gas LDA we can then construct an LDA for the 1DHM, i.e.,

$$E_{xc}^{BALDA}[n_i;U]=\underset{i}{}e_{xc}^{BA}(n,U)|_{nn_i},$$
(4)
where $`n_i=_\sigma c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{i\sigma }`$. Given this expression for the xc functional, ground-state properties of Hubbard models subject to a wide spectrum of inhomogeneities can be calculated from DFT. Note that in such a calculation Eq. (3) must be solved only once for any given value of $`U`$, i.e., determination of $`\beta `$ takes place outside the self-consistency cycle of DFT.

As a first numerical example we apply the BA-LDA to a finite 1DHM with open boundary conditions, and calculate its ground-state energy as a function of the number of sites $`L`$. In Fig. 1 we compare our results with those obtained from exact (Lanczos) diagonalization of the same system. We see that around $`L=7`$ there is a crossover between exact and approximate data points (separately for even and odd values of $`L`$). After that, the deviation between both sets of data saturates to a value near the intrinsic error of the interpolation (2), indicated by the error bar. As an example for a truly inhomogeneous system we now add an on-site potential $`_{i\sigma }v_ic_{i\sigma }^{}c_{i\sigma }`$ to the Hamiltonian. Our results for a binary potential (with $`v_i=1`$ on the odd sites and $`v_i=+1`$ on the even ones) are displayed and compared with exact diagonalization in Fig. 2.

We have performed similar calculations also for several other values of $`U`$ and other external potentials $`v_i`$. Our conclusions from these calculations are: (i) The accuracy of the BA-LDA total energy is typically of the order of a few percent, and much better than that near crossovers and near the limits at which equation (2) exactly represents the underlying homogeneous reference data ($`U=0`$, $`U\mathrm{}`$, $`n=1`$). (ii) Unlike traditional methods, the quality of the BA-LDA does not deteriorate as $`L`$ increases, and the computational effort associated with it is that of diagonalizing a noninteracting system. Fully self-consistent calculations for systems with tens of thousands of sites are thus possible. This is a unique, and rather desirable, feature of the BA-DFT, as compared to traditional methods.

Interestingly, when one of the site occupation numbers comes very close to $`1`$ (typically within less than $`5\times 10^3`$), the self-consistency cycle associated with the Hubbard model Kohn-Sham equations does not necessarily converge. In the homogeneous case $`n=1`$ (half filling) marks the Mott metal-insulator transition associated with the opening of a gap in the energy spectrum . Whenever in a metallic system one of the site occupation numbers comes close to $`1`$, a local approximation, such as the BA-LDA, thus treats the system at that site as if it were an insulator, in spite of the fact that the metallic (Luttinger liquid) correlations are very different from those of the Mott insulator. The 1DHM thus constitutes a theoretical laboratory in which the band-gap problem of DFT can be studied . Results obtained with the present functional will be reported in a forthcoming publication.

After these preliminary investigations we now consider a case that illustrates the full power of the BA-LDA approach: a localized impurity. For this kind of system traditional approaches face the problem of slow convergence to the thermodynamic limit. Different types of impurities in the Hubbard model have been studied in the literature by various techniques . Here we model the impurity by choosing $`v_I=1`$ at the impurity site and $`v=0`$ everywhere else, so that electrons will be dragged to the impurity site. The density distribution for the 201-site system is displayed in Fig. 3, while the convergence to the thermodynamic limit is illustrated in Fig. 4, which also contains results obtained for a much more attractive impurity with $`v_I=10`$.

The difference between open and periodic boundary conditions becomes small only when the system size $`L`$ exceeds the damping length of the Friedel oscillations originating at the surface in the open case. To bring out clearly the effect of the impurity, regardless of the choice of boundary conditions, we have, in both figures, subtracted the results for the same boundary conditions without the impurity. What remains are the Friedel oscillations originating at the impurity. These oscillations on their own significantly slow down the convergence of the total energy to the thermodynamic limit: Fig. 4 shows that, as expected in the thermodynamic limit, the impurity-added contribution to the total energy scales linearly with the impurity concentration $`1/L`$. The impurity problem thus illustrates an area in which the BA-LDA can be useful, since systems of the size required to approximate the thermodynamic limit to within a percent or better are hard to study with traditional methods, in particular for periodic boundary conditions.

For small systems, where exact diagonalization is possible, we also compared the density distributions obtained from the BA-LDA with the exact ones. Both agree quantitatively. For larger systems one can use the BA-LDA results to study the asymptotic algebraic decay of the oscillations. For the case depicted in Fig. 3 we find, for example, that the oscillations decay as $`1/x^\gamma `$, where $`x`$ is the distance to the impurity site and $`\gamma (U=6)=1.30`$. This exponent is a nonuniversal (interaction-dependent) parameter characteristic for the impurity system. By repeating this calculation for other values of $`U`$ we obtain, e.g., $`\gamma (U=4)=1.25`$, $`\gamma (U=2)=1.20`$, and $`\gamma (U=0)=1.0`$.

For the BA-LDA the limit on the size of the systems which can be treated is much less restraining than for traditional methods, since one must diagonalize only a noninteracting (Kohn-Sham) Hamiltonian. For small systems the accuracy attained is clearly inferior to density-matrix renormalization group  or Quantum Monte Carlo  methods. This situation parallels the one in which DFT finds itself in ab initio calculations: Practical applications of ab initio DFT usually do not lead to high accuracy. Band structures, for example, are more accurately calculated using GW, and properties of small molecules are better obtained from CI. However, these are computationally expensive methods that place great demands on ones resources and are not easily applicable to complex and/or large systems (e.g. molecules with more than a few atoms). The power of ab initio DFT arises from the relative facility with which it is applied to large and complex systems. In the same spirit, DFT using generalized LDA’s may provide a useful alternative to traditional methods for correlated models with a large number of sites. In order to further explore these possibilities, we are currently applying the BA-LDA to the Mott insulating phase of the 1DHM and to a more detailed study of the Friedel oscillations around an impurity. Results will be reported in forthcoming publications.

Acknowledgments This work was supported by FAPESP and CAPES. KC thanks A. J. R. da Silva for valuable discussions.


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# An X-ray, Optical and Radio Search for Supernova Remnants in the Nearby Sculptor Group Sd Galaxy NGC 7793

## 1 Introduction

This paper is the second in a series devoted to the multi-wavelength study of supernova remnants (SNRs) in nearby galaxies. In our previous paper (Pannuti et al., 2000, hereafter referred to as Paper I) we analyzed observations made at the X-ray, optical and radio wavelengths of the nearby Sculptor Group Sd galaxy NGC 300. We sought to determine the X-ray and radio properties of the 28 SNRs identified previously in that galaxy through optical search techniques, namely H$`\alpha `$ and \[S II\] narrow-band imaging (D’Odorico et al., 1980; Blair & Long, 1997, hereafter referred to as BL97), and in addition, we searched for new candidate SNRs at the X-ray and radio wavelengths to complement this prior optical work. Our search yielded sixteen new candidate X-ray and radio SNRs, later reduced to fifteen by the recent work of Read & Pietsch (2001), and the total number of SNRs and candidate SNRs in NGC 300 is now 43. We found very little overlap between the three sets of selected candidates, and we interpret this to indicate that a multiple-wavelength approach is necessary to detect a maximum number of candidate SNRs in a particular galaxy. We also hypothesized that the limited overlap between the selected sets of candidate SNRs indicated selection effects inherent in each type of survey: optical surveys are biased toward the detection of SNRs located in regions of low density and corresponding low optical confusion, while X-ray and radio surveys have the opposite bias and favor the detection of SNRs located in regions of high density.

In this paper, we examine another Sculptor Group Sd galaxy, NGC 7793, and once again we consider observations made at the X-ray, optical and radio wavelengths. Following the paradigm set by our previous work (Paper I), our intent is to determine the X-ray and radio properties of the previously-known optically-identified SNRs as well as search for new candidate SNRs at those two wavelengths. Salient properties of NGC 7793 are listed in Table 1: Puche & Carignan (1988) measured a distance to this galaxy of 3.38 Mpc and classified it as a member of the Sculptor Group of galaxies. Because of its proximity and its low inclination angle of 50 (Tully, 1988), this galaxy makes an excellent choice for the study of galactic properties. These studies include an optical survey for resident SNRs (BL97), analyses of its HI content (Carignan & Puche, 1990), its surface photometry (Carignan, 1985) and its radio continuum properties (Harnett, 1986). Its X-ray properties have also been the subject of X-ray analysis, based on observations performed with the $`\mathrm{𝐸𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑖𝑛}`$ satellite (Fabbiano et al., 1992) and later observations performed with the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑂𝑆𝐴𝑇}`$ satellite (Read & Pietsch, 1999, hereafter referred to as RP99). In Section 2, we describe the observations of this galaxy and data reduction at each wavelength, beginning with the radio (Section 2.1), followed by the optical (Section 2.2) and concluding with the X-ray (Section 2.3). We discuss the multi-wavelength properties of the optically-selected SNRs in Section 3, and then present the new candidate SNRs selected at the radio and X-ray wavelengths in Sections 4 and 5. A discussion of our findings in this work is presented in Section 6 and finally our conclusions are given in Section 7.

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction

### 2.1 Radio Observations and Data Reduction

We observed NGC 7793 with the Very Large Array (VLA) of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO111The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.) at a wavelength of 6 cm (4885 MHz) in the hybrid CnB configuration (northern arm in B array) on 1993 May 22 and at a wavelength of 20 cm (1465 MHz) in the hybrid BnA configuration (northern arm in A array) on 1998 June 13. The greater north-south coverage provided by the extended northern arms in these two arrays make them well-suited for studying such southern galaxies as NGC 300 (Paper I) and NGC 7793 (the present paper). The approximate beam sizes in the final images are $``$ 6$`\mathrm{}`$ at 6 cm (4885 MHz) and $``$ 6$`\mathrm{}`$ at 20 cm (1465 MHz), and the RMS noise measured in each image is 32 $`\mu `$Jy/beam and 60 $`\mu `$Jy/beam at 6 cm and 20 cm, respectively. Details of the VLA observations are provided in Table 2.

Our strategy for observing this galaxy was similar to the one described in Paper I for observing NGC 300. Once again, to minimize bandwidth smearing effects that may limit the field of view when observing in normal continuum mode, we observed NGC 7793 in multichannel line mode with eight channels per intermediate frequency (IF), including the continuum calibrating channel (the zeroth channel), and a channel width of 3.125 MHz. Of the seven spectral channels, the seventh was discarded because its response decreased markedly, and the bandpass correction needed to address this low response was both rather high and a possible source of error. A total band of 37.5 MHz was synthesized after the seventh channel was dropped. The effective observing frequencies for the images made from the remaining six channels were 1.448 GHz and 4.860 GHz at 20 cm and 6 cm, respectively. Data reduction and analysis were performed using the AIPS software package, which is a standard data reduction package provided by the NRAO. The final images were corrected for primary beam attenuation before undertaking flux measurements.

For the analysis of the radio sources in this galaxy, we repeated the procedure described previously in Paper I: again, our primary goal was to find and measure all discrete sources above a minimum 3 $`\sigma `$ detection level at both 6 and 20 cm. Peak positions of the identified sources were determined by fitting single Gaussians to their emission profiles at 20 cm. Routines in AIPS were used to identify the flux density associated with each source: by using annuli that were approximately 1$`\mathrm{}`$ in width, we determined the flux density based on the cumulative flux density minus the average flux density at an outer annulus chosen to represent the background level.

The spectral index $`\alpha `$ of each source (defined by the convention $`S`$ν $``$ New A) was calculated from the measured 6 cm and 20 cm flux densities, denoted as $`S`$6 and $`S`$20, respectively. The uncertainties in each spectral index were determined by propagation of errors. Those radio sources that were coincident with regions of H$`\alpha `$ emission in NGC 7793 and featured non-thermal spectral indices formed the set of radio sources from which the sample of candidate radio SNRs was assembled (as described in Section 4). For our selection criterion, we classified those radio sources with spectral indices $`\alpha `$ $``$ 0.2 as candidate radio SNRs. This criterion is consistent with the previous searches for candidate radio SNRs in the galaxies NGC 300 (Paper I) and NGC 6946 (Lacey et al., 1997). Properties of these sources (positions in J2000.0 coordinates, flux densities at 6 and 20 cm and spectral index $`\alpha `$) are listed in Table 3.

### 2.2 Optical Observations and Data Reduction

NGC 7793 was observed and imaged using an H$`\alpha `$ filter by the 1.5 meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo InterAmerican Observatory (CTIO)222The CTIO is operated by AURA, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation as part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories. on the nights of 1993 December 14-18 and 1994 September 28-October 2. The observational data and its analysis are presented in Ferguson et al. (1996), and the reader is referred to that work for more information.

NGC 7793 was observed as part of a study of the diffuse ionized gas (DIG) found in this galaxy as well as another Sculptor Group galaxy, NGC 247. The DIG was found to account for between 30% and 50% of the diffuse H$`\alpha `$ emission in this galaxy, compared to between 44% and 54% for NGC 300 as found by Hoopes et al. (1996). Greenawalt et al. (1998) have found that the DIG accounts for between 40% and 50% of the H$`\alpha `$ emission from three other galaxies – namely M51, NGC 5195 and M81 – and it appears that generally speaking, the DIG accounts for approximately this fraction of H$`\alpha `$ emission within spiral galaxies. The presence of considerable DIG in NGC 7793 (especially when the DIG accounts for such a high fraction of a galaxy’s diffuse H$`\alpha `$ emission) suggests that extensive star formation is taking place in this galaxy. This current epoch of widespread star formation will certainly produce a population of SNRs that will be detectable by our multi-wavelength survey.

The 28 SNRs found in NGC 7793 by BL97 were detected through narrow-band imaging of this galaxy using H$`\alpha `$ and \[S II\] filters. A particular source was identified as an SNR candidate if the ratio of its fluxes \[S II\]/H$`\alpha `$ exceeded 0.4. We will examine the X-ray and radio properties of these sources in Section 3. For the present work, we will also make use of the catalog of HII regions in this galaxy that was prepared by Hodge (1969), based on observations made using the Palomar 48-inch telescope. In that paper, NGC 7793 was one of twenty galaxies that had its HII region population surveyed and cataloged for future reference purposes. As a result of that survey, 35 HII regions were identified in this galaxy, and we will use this list to identify HII regions that may be associated with SNRs. We note that the survey presented in that paper was biased toward the detection of only the brightest HII regions in NGC 7793, and for that reason numerous faint HII regions were not listed.

### 2.3 X-ray Observations and Data Reduction

We used archived observations of NGC 7793 made with the wide-angle, spectral-resolving Position Sensitive Proportional Counter ($`\mathrm{𝑃𝑆𝑃𝐶}`$) instrument aboard the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑂𝑆𝐴𝑇}`$ satellite (Trümper, 1992). NGC 7793 was observed over two separate epochs with the $`\mathrm{𝑃𝑆𝑃𝐶}`$ instrument: the first epoch was on 1992 December 7 for 13332 seconds and the second was between 1993 May 20 and 1993 May 27 for 10507 seconds. Data from these two observing epochs were combined to produce images corresponding to a total integration time of 23839 seconds. Following the example set by Long et al. (1996) in their study of the X-ray sources in M33 and similar to our previous analysis of X-ray emission from NGC 300 (Paper I), images were prepared at the three energy bands defined as the “total” (0.1-2.4 keV), the “hard” (1.0-2.4 keV) and the “soft” (0.1-1.0 keV) from combining data for the two separate observation epochs.

This $`\mathrm{𝑃𝑆𝑃𝐶}`$ data of NGC 7793 has already been discussed in detail by RP99, and in their analysis 27 sources were identified at a 4$`\sigma `$ detection level or higher in the central 25$`\mathrm{}`$ $`\times `$ 25$`\mathrm{}`$ area of the field of view. Of these 27 sources, seven (denoted as P6, P7, P8, P9, P10, P11 and P13 in their notation) fell within the optical extent of the galaxy. We will concentrate on these particular seven X-ray sources to avoid confusion with X-ray emission from background sources (such as distant AGN’s and quasars), and we present properties of these sources (source numbers, positions, net numbers of counts at the total band, fluxes, hardness ratios and probabilities of variability), as measured by those authors, in Table 4. These fluxes given by RP99 were determined by assuming a 5 keV thermal bremsstrahlung and a hydrogen column density of $`N_H`$ = 1.14 $`\times `$ 1020 cm-2. The hardness ratios correspond to the particular ratio denoted as “HR1” by RP99, which is the ratio defined as (hard counts - soft counts)/(hard counts + soft counts). In the last column, we list optical and radio counterparts to each X-ray source, drawing from the sample of radio sources described in Section 2.1, the optically-identified SNRs found by BL97 and the catalog of HII regions found by Hodge (1969). The HII regions are referred to by their catalog number; $`e.g.,`$ #31 in that catalog is listed as H31. In Figure 1, the X-ray emission in the “total” band from NGC 7793 (as observed by the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑂𝑆𝐴𝑇}`$ $`\mathrm{𝑃𝑆𝑃𝐶}`$) is depicted in contours, with H$`\alpha `$ emission shown in gray-scale.

The population of X-ray sources within the disk of NGC 7793 is expected to be a mixture of X-ray binaries and SNRs, and a spectral analysis can help differentiate between these two classes of sources. Schulz (1999) has found that the spectra of X-ray binaries with low foreground column densities (which is applicable for the present study of sources in NGC 7793) can be best fit with power laws, while in contrast the X-ray spectra of SNRs is best fit using thermal bremsstrahlung models (Hwang et al., 2000). Effects of thermal continuum absorption at radio wavelengths along Galactic lines of sight are discussed by Lacey et al. (2001): those authors discovered such absorption toward the Galactic SNR W49B by an intervening complex of HII regions and analyzed how this absorption affects the observed radio spectrum of the SNR. Searching for variations in the luminosities of the X-ray sources detected in NGC 7793 gives an additional method for classifying these sources as either X-ray binaries or SNRs: X-ray binaries can exhibit a time dependence to their luminosities (as will other classes of variable X-ray sources), while the X-ray emission from SNRs should be nominally time-independent. By considering these differences in X-ray emission characteristics between SNRs and X-ray binaries, we should be able to generally differentiate between sources of these two types. We hasten to add, however, that these distinctions cannot be viewed as absolute ways to classify these sources. For example, Schulz (1999) points out that a combination of a power law model and a thermal bremsstrahlung model is required to optimize fits to the spectra of X-ray binaries, and likewise some SNRs are known to possess components to their X-ray emission which have a power law dependence (Allen et al., 1997). Finally, if the period of the X-ray binary’s emission exceeds the integration time for an X-ray observation of a galaxy, it may appear to be constant in X-ray luminosity and lead to an incorrect classification. Nonetheless, we will still make use of these general differences in the properties of X-ray emission from SNRs and X-ray binaries in order to approximately classify these sources, and we note that more rigorous classifications must await X-ray observations of this galaxy with superior quality.

We point out that at a distance of 3.38 Mpc (Puche & Carignan, 1988), NGC 7793 is considerably more distant than NGC 300, which is located at a distance of 2.1 Mpc (Freedman et al., 1992) and was the subject of our previous study (Paper I). For this reason, while our angular resolution is the same in both of these studies, our spatial resolution of structures in NGC 7793 is reduced. In addition, while only a modest amount of diffuse X-ray emission was found in NGC 300 by Read & Pietsch (2001), such emission was clearly detected in the disk of NGC 7793 by RP99, with a characteristic energy $`\mathrm{𝑘𝑇}`$ of approximately 1 keV. This diffuse emission makes it difficult to clearly associate X-ray emission with point sources found at other wavelengths in this galaxy. We will return to this point in the remaining sections of this paper.

## 3 Multi-Wavelength Properties of the Optically-Selected SNRs in NGC 7793

In our prior study of the optically-identified SNRs in NGC 300, we found that most of the SNRs selected in this manner were weak or undetected in the X-ray and radio (Paper I). We hypothesized that such a result may indicate a selection effect inherent in optical surveys, which are more sensitive to detecting SNRs in regions of lower density in a galaxy. Such SNRs may be weak emitters in the X-ray and radio because of their location within diffuse environments, which are not conducive to high X-ray and radio luminosities. In contrast, SNRs which are powerful sources of X-ray and radio emission are often located in regions of high density (such as HII regions), and precisely because of their location they may be missed by optical surveys, which are subject to considerable confusion from diffuse emission in these regions. It is generally believed that SNRs which are located in regions of low density were parented by low-mass white dwarf progenitor stars as Type Ia supernovae (SNe), while in contrast SNRs which are found in regions of high density (such as spiral arms) were created by high-mass progenitor stars as Type II SNe (Bartunov et al., 1994). However, exceptions have been pointed out for both of these assertions: as examples, we note that an isolated high-mass star may produce a Type II SNe in a region of comparatively low density, and a Type Ia SNe may occur in a spiral arm of a galaxy (a location of enhanced density) given the long lifetimes of white dwarf stars.

For our samples of extragalactic SNRs, however, information about the type of SN that produced each SNR is usually not available. Therefore, our studies of SNRs in other galaxies encompass SNRs produced by both low-mass and high-mass progenitor stars and therefore sample much of the galaxy’s star formation history. We argue that by conducting surveys for SNRs in the X-ray, optical and radio, we can probe regions of galaxies over a wide range of densities and thus detect a maximum number of SNRs in galaxies, including SNRs that have been produced by both types of SNe and progenitor stars.

In our study of the optically-identified SNRs in NGC 7793, we discovered errors in the published positions of these SNRs as given by BL97. We found that while the published right ascension positions for the SNRs located in the eastern half of the galaxy appeared to be reasonably accurate – that is, within the quoted positional errors of $``$ 2$`\mathrm{}`$ (BL97) – the accuracy of the listed right ascension positions declined markedly for the SNRs in the galaxy’s western half. In particular, the accuracy in the published right ascension of the SNRs was considerably beyond the quoted positional errors for the SNRs N7793-S1 through N7793-S12. For N7793-S12, we found a difference of approximately 19$`\mathrm{}`$, and this difference increased gradually as we considered SNRs in turn located toward the galaxy’s western edge, culminating with 37$`\mathrm{}`$ for N7793-S1. We note that the published declination positions were accurate within the quoted positional errors for the entire sample of optically-identified SNRs. To determine the correct right ascension coordinates of the optically-identified SNRs, we measured the positions of the SNRs as seen in our H$`\alpha `$ image based on the images of these sources as presented by BL97, and we give the corrected positions in Table 5. After confirming that we had located the SNRs identified by BL97, we proceeded to analyze their X-ray and radio properties.

Of the 28 SNRs found in NGC 7793 by BL97 using optical methods, only two were detected at another wavelength at the 3 $`\sigma `$ level or higher. N7793-S11 was detected as a non-thermal radio source with flux densities of 0.27$`\pm `$0.06 mJy and 0.42$`\pm `$0.12 mJy at the wavelengths of 6 and 20 cm, respectively, corresponding to a spectral index $`\alpha `$ of 0.4$`\pm `$0.2. No X-ray counterpart was detected for this source, though a search for a counterpart is complicated by the diffuse X-ray emission within the disk of this galaxy. We did find both X-ray and radio counterparts to the source N7793-S26, an SNR which also has a filamentary extension denoted as N7793-S26ext by BL97. For the remainder of this paper, we will refer to both the source N7793-S26 and its filamentary extension N7793-S26ext as N7793-S26. We present a listing of the spectral properties of these two optically-identified SNRs in Table 3, and multi-wavelength images of these two optically-identified SNRs are presented in Figures 2 and 3 respectively.

N7793-S26 is a particularly interesting source, and we will devote some discussion to its properties here. It is readily apparent in optical images that the source’s morphology is that of a long filament, and this morphology is imitated remarkably in the radio, as seen by inspection of the images presented in Figure 3. RP99 first identified the X-ray counterpart to N7793-S26 source (labelled by those authors as P8) and attempted to fit its X-ray spectrum using two models (namely a thermal bremsstrahlung model and a blackbody model). While the goodness of the model fits ($`\chi ^2`$’s of 0.21 and 0.16, respectively) do not strongly favor one model over the other, we do note that the fit parameter for the blackbody model returned an energy value of $`\mathrm{𝑘𝑇}`$ = 0.17$`\pm `$0.05 keV, while the corresponding energy value for the thermal bremsstrahlung model is $`\mathrm{𝑘𝑇}`$ = 0.36$`\pm `$0.25 keV. Both of these energy values are consistent with that expected for the X-ray emission from an SNR. In addition, RP99 also performed a test to search for variability in the emission from the X-ray sources in NGC 7793, and found that the probability of variability in P8’s X-ray emission was only 13%, also consistent with the type of X-ray emission expected from SNRs. We will discuss the variability of X-ray emission from the X-ray sources in NGC 7793 more extensively in Section 5.

As part of their analysis, RP99 examined an NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) 1.4 GHz radio continuum image of NGC 7793, and found a radio counterpart to N7793-S26 to complement the X-ray and optical detections. This three-wavelength detection enhances the likelihood that this source is either a collection of several SNRs or a single large and luminous SNR. No quantification of the radio emission properties (such as flux densities) was given by RP99 for this source, but by examining our 6 and 20 cm images we measure flux densities for the entire structure of 1.24$`\pm `$0.19 mJy and 3.75$`\pm `$0.30 mJy at 6 and 20 cm, respectively, with a corresponding spectral index of $`\alpha `$=0.9$`\pm `$0.2. At the assumed distance of 3.38 Mpc for NGC 7793, the most radio-luminous Galactic SNR, Cas A, would have a flux density of 2.8 mJy at 20 cm, which is about 75% of the observed flux density for N7793-S26 at that same wavelength. Clearly, this is an extremely luminous radio source, and its filament-like morphology with a length of approximately 450 parsecs makes this source even more intriguing.

The unusual properties of this source have led to speculation about its true nature. It is possible that this source was produced by the collective expansion of several SNRs that were created at approximately the same time, therefore indicating that N7793-S26 may be a nascent superbubble structure. Matonick et al. (1997) argue that the maximum attainable size of an SNR expanding into an interstellar medium (ISM) with a mean number particle density of between 0.1 and 1 cm-3 (a typical Galactic value) is approximately 100 parsecs. In addition, based on equipartition calculations where we assume a radius of 225 pc for N7793-S26, consistent with its apparent size, we determine that an energy of at least 1052 ergs is required to maintain this source (Pannuti et al. 2002, in preparation), far greater than the energy yield expected from a single SN. All of this evidence suggests that N7793-S26 was not produced by a single supernova explosion of average energy.

BL97 investigated the nature of N7793-S26 by searching for an interior star cluster within the SNR. The presence of such a cluster would argue in favor of the collective supernova remnant hypothesis. Those authors found no evidence for such an interior star cluster, but their data lacked the precision required to answer this question decisively. Therefore, the true nature of this object has yet to be determined, and it will likely be the subject of further study at multiple wavelengths.

To summarize the results of this section, of the 28 optically-identified SNRs detected in this galaxy by BL97, only two possess counterparts at another wavelength: N7793-S11 in the radio and N7793-S26 in both the X-ray and the radio. Consistent with our previous findings for the SNR population in NGC 300 (Paper I), no X-ray or radio emission has been found from the large majority of the optically-identified SNRs in NGC 7793. The results of our complementary searches for candidate radio and X-ray SNRs are presented in Sections 4 and 5, respectively.

## 4 Properties of the Radio-Selected SNR Candidates

Our radio observations of NGC 7793 have yielded five candidate radio SNRs, to be added to the 28 SNRs previously known through the optical survey conducted by BL97. We present images that depict the multi-wavelength properties of these candidate radio SNRs in Figures 4 through 8, using a similar format to that used for the images of the optically-identified SNRs as shown in Figures 2 and 3. Similar to our search for candidate radio SNRs in NGC 300 (Paper I), these sources have been chosen based on their non-thermal radio emission and their association with regions of H$`\alpha `$ emission in NGC 7793. Extensive optical confusion in these regions may have prevented the prior detection of these sources by optical methods. We find that the radio emission from some of these candidate radio SNRs is confused with diffuse thermal emission from the region of H$`\alpha `$ emission itself. This affects two of our five candidate radio SNRs – namely NGC 7793-R3 and NGC 7793-R4 – and is similar to the situation we encountered in our previous study of candidate radio SNRs in NGC 300. Because of the larger distance to NGC 7793 compared to NGC 300, our survey for candidate radio SNRs has a corresponding reduction in sensitivity, and only the more luminous candidate radio SNRs in this galaxy are detected by our survey.

Following the paradigm set in our analysis of candidate radio SNRs in NGC 300 (Paper I), we have sought coincidences between our sample of radio sources and the list of X-ray sources identified in this galaxy by RP99. We have found one such coincidence: the candidate radio SNR NGC 7793-R3 is coincident with the X-ray source P10 as identified by RP99, with an offset of only $``$ 5$`\mathrm{}`$. This offset is well within the typically-quoted spatial resolution of the $`\mathrm{𝑃𝑆𝑃𝐶}`$ instrument, namely a 90% enclosed energy radius at 1 keV of 27$`\mathrm{}`$ (Hasinger et al., 1992). Both the X-ray source and the radio source correspond to the HII region Hodge 23, as cataloged by Hodge (1969). RP99 used two thermal bremsstrahlung models to fit the spectra of this source, and both of the resultant fits correspond to spectral energy distributions that peak below 1 keV (0.77$`\pm `$0.64 and 0.63$`\pm `$0.52 keV, respectively), consistent with the X-ray spectra expected for an SNR. The luminosity estimates for this source are approximately 1038 ergs sec-1 at the assumed distance to NGC 7793, which is rather large for a single individual SNR. It is very likely that this fit incorporates diffuse emission in the neighborhood of the SNR that was not resolved by the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑂𝑆𝐴𝑇}`$ $`\mathrm{𝑃𝑆𝑃𝐶}`$ observations, or it may be that additional X-ray flux is supplied by other SNRs in the region. We note that a second candidate radio SNR was found in an adjacent region of H$`\alpha `$ emission (NGC 7793-R4 in the HII region Hodge 21), but the offset of this second source is considerable ($``$ 15$`\mathrm{}`$). Higher resolution X-ray observations of this source may lead to a clearer interpretation of its properties.

To complete this discussion on radio-selected SNRs, we consider background radio sources seen through the disk of NGC 7793 and the potential confusing effects such sources may have on this survey. We repeat two tests to study the possible effects of background source confusion that we first presented in our previous study of NGC 300 (Paper I). First, we use the estimates of Mitchell & Condon (1985) for the number density of background radio sources at 20 cm and determine that approximately four background sources at that wavelength should be detected in random directions through the disk of NGC 7793 at a 3 $`\sigma `$ level of 0.2 mJy or greater. Similarly, a search for position coincidences between “negative” radio sources that are detected at the -3 $`\sigma `$ level with regions of H$`\alpha `$ emission yielded only one such coincidence, which is consistent with the result expected from random superpositions of these background sources with regions of H$`\alpha `$ emission seen in NGC 7793. As we noted with NGC 300, while the criteria for our radio survey for SNRs selects against isolated radio-emitting SNRs, we do detect SNRs located within dense regions of H$`\alpha `$ emission, and therefore we can estimate the number of SNRs missed by optical surveys.

## 5 Properties of the X-ray-Selected SNR Candidates

In order to complete our multi-wavelength search for SNRs in NGC 7793, we will now discuss the X-ray sources previously described in Section 2.3. The X-ray source P8 and its association with the optically-identified SNR N7793-S26 has already been discussed in Section 3. Likewise, the association between the X-ray source P10 and the candidate radio SNR NGC 7793-R3 has already been presented in Section 4. We will now consider the five remaining X-ray sources found within the disk of NGC 7793 by RP99 to determine if any of these remaining sources may be candidate X-ray SNRs. We note that it is possible that an X-ray source seen through the disk of NGC 7793 may actually be a background source unrelated to the foreground galaxy. To address this possible source of confusion, we will only consider those X-ray sources which also possess an optical counterpart within the galaxy to be candidate X-ray SNRs.

As was the case in our study of X-ray sources in NGC 300 (Paper I), we will consider an X-ray source to be a candidate X-ray SNR if it satisfies two criteria: first, the X-ray source must not show convincing evidence for time variability in its X-ray luminosity, and second, it must possess a spectrum which can be optimally fit using a thermal bremsstrahlung model with a characteristic temperature $`\mathrm{𝑘𝑇}`$ of 1 keV or less. To apply the first criterion, we note that while analyzing their X-ray data for this galaxy, RP99 measured the count rates over the two observing epochs for each of the 27 sources detected within the field of the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑂𝑆𝐴𝑇}`$ $`\mathrm{𝑃𝑆𝑃𝐶}`$ observations of NGC 7793. Based on these count rates, RP99 also determined the probability of variability for each source. We reproduce the results of their analysis in Table 4, and note that for the two X-ray sources P9 and P13, RP99 determined a 100% probability of variability. On the basis of that finding, we discard those two sources from consideration as candidate X-ray SNRs. The two X-ray sources which we have already associated with SNRs (P8 and P10) both show only slight evidence for X-ray variability (probabilites of 13% and 7%, respectively). As for the second criterion, we note that the X-ray source P11 was best-fit by RP99 using a power-law model rather than a thermal bremsstrahlung model, and for that reason P11 was not considered a candidate X-ray SNR.

The above analysis leaves two X-ray sources to consider, P6 and P7. Unfortunately, it is not a straightforward matter to determine the true nature of either of these sources. In our previous analysis of X-ray sources in NGC 300 (Paper I), we could isolate the candidate X-ray SNRs on the basis of spectra which, according to the fits produced by Read et al. (1997), appeared to favor one spectral-fitting model (power law or thermal bremsstrahlung) over the other. Inspection of the computed $`\chi ^2`$’s for each model (calculated to evaluate the quality of each fit) shows that neither of the two models is distinctly superior to the other for either of the two sources. Such ambiguity originates from the low count rates registered by each source (1.8$`\pm `$0.4 $`\times `$ 10-3 and 2.4$`\pm `$0.5 $`\times `$ 10-3 counts sec-1 for P6 and P7, respectively), and it prevents the conclusive classification of each source. RP99 argue that these sources may be background objects unrelated to NGC 7793, on the basis of the similarity of their spectra with quasars, the lack of optical counterparts in NGC 7793 for both of these sources, and their possible associations with faint stellar-like objects, with apparent magnitudes $`m`$V of 16 and 18, respectively. The somewhat high likelihood of variability for these sources (41% and 37%, respectively) are also arguments against classifying these sources as candidate X-ray SNRs. Inspection of our own radio images fails to reveal sources at either the 6 or 20 cm wavelengths at the 3$`\sigma `$ level or higher that are associated with P6 or P7. A true understanding of these sources must therefore await additional observations, and we therefore do not consider either of these sources to be new candidate X-ray SNRs. To summarize the results of this section, we have not found any new candidate X-ray SNRs besides the previously discussed X-ray sources P8 and P10.

## 6 Discussion

As a result of our X-ray and radio searches for SNRs in NGC 7793, five new SNRs have been detected, to be added to the list of 28 optically-identified SNRs found in this galaxy by BL97. All five of these SNRs are candidate radio SNRs, and one of them – NGC 7793-R3 – possesses a counterpart in the X-ray. Another candidate radio SNR, NGC 7793-R4, may also be associated with this X-ray source. In Table 6, we present a listing of cross-references for these new SNRs. The surprising lack of overlap in detected SNRs found by the three different search techniques – X-ray, optical and radio – is consistent with our results for NGC 300 (Paper I). A similar result has been found by Lacey & Duric (2001) in the case of the nearby galaxy NGC 6946: those authors found very limited overlap between the sample of candidate radio SNRs presented by Lacey et al. (1997) and the sample of optically-identified SNRs prsented by Matonick & Fesen (1997) in that galaxy. In Figure 9, we present Venn diagrams to depict the amount of intersection seen between selected sets of SNRs in the galaxies NGC 300, NGC 7793 and M33: we have prepared these diagrams for NGC 300 and NGC 7793 based on the results of Paper I and the present work, respectively, while the diagram for M33 has been created based on results from Haberl & Pietsch (2001), Gordon et al. (1998) and Gordon et al. (1999). We note that we have updated the Venn diagrams for both M33 and NGC 300 from Paper I in light of recent work on the X-ray source populations in those two galaxies as presented by Haberl & Pietsch (2001) and Read & Pietsch (2001), respectively. Here we briefly describe the impact of these two recent works on the Venn diagrams: a detailed study of the SNR population in NGC 6946, based on X-ray, optical and radio observations, as well as a statistical study of the properties of candidate radio SNRs in nearby galaxies, will be the subjects of future papers.

In their study of the X-ray population of M33, Haberl & Pietsch (2001) prepared a catalog of X-ray sources in that galaxy based on data from $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑂𝑆𝐴𝑇}`$ $`\mathrm{𝑃𝑆𝑃𝐶}`$ and $`\mathrm{𝐻𝑅𝐼}`$ (High Resolution Imager) observations. A total of 184 sources were detected within 50 arcminutes of the nucleus, an increase in the number of known X-ray sources in this galaxy as detected by Long et al. (1996) by over a factor of three. Haberl & Pietsch (2001) classified sixteen of the 184 sources as SNRs based on their spectral properties, of which eleven are also detected in the optical and radio, two are also detected in the optical but not the radio, and the remaning three are not found at either of the other two wavelengths. Haberl & Pietsch (2001) noted that only thirteen of the 98 SNRs found by Gordon et al. (1998) using optical methods are also detected in the X-ray, and suggested that the optically-identified SNRs that lack X-ray emission are likely expanding into a low density ISM.

Similar to the work presented by Haberl & Pietsch (2001), Read & Pietsch (2001) examined $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑂𝑆𝐴𝑇}`$ $`\mathrm{𝑃𝑆𝑃𝐶}`$ and $`\mathrm{𝐻𝑅𝐼}`$ observations of NGC 300 and, through their analysis, increased the number of $`\mathrm{𝑃𝑆𝑃𝐶}`$ detected sources within the disk of NGC 300 from the fifteen presented by Read et al. (1997) to 26. Read & Pietsch (2001) refuted the classification by Paper I of two X-ray sources as candidate X-ray SNRs, namely the sources denoted as P44 and P56 by Read & Pietsch (2001). P44 was re-classified by those authors as an X-ray binary (thereby calling into doubt its association with the candidate radio SNR R2 as claimed by Paper I) while P56 was classified as a foreground star. Read & Pietsch (2001) identified six candidate X-ray SNRs, three of which (P29, P38 and P49, in their notation) are associated with three optically-identified SNRs cataloged by BL97 (N300-S6, N300-S10 and NGC 300-26, respectively). Using these new results and retaining the association (as argued in Paper I) between the X-ray source denoted as P41 by Read & Pietsch (2001) and the candidate radio SNR R5, we have revised the Venn diagram for NGC 300 accordingly.

Considering these three Venn diagrams and returning to the argument we presented in Paper I, we feel that the driving effect for such limited intersection is the distance to the galaxy. The sensitivities at all three wavelengths for the surveys in all three galaxies are presented in Table 7: we note that we have updated the sensitivities of the X-ray surveys in M33 and NGC 300 from Paper I in light of the recent work presented by Haberl & Pietsch (2001) and Read & Pietsch (2001), respectively. Because the sensitivities of the surveys for each galaxy are very similar for each wavelength, we argue that distance plays the most dramatic role in determining the likelihood of detecting an SNR.

Furthermore, our results for NGC 7793 represent the third example of a galaxy (following NGC 300 and NGC 6946) where very few of the SNRs found by optical methods are also seen in the X-ray and radio. We interpret this result to suggest that optical surveys favor the detection of SNRs located in regions of lower density, and may therefore select the SNRs produced by Type Ia SNe. In contrast, radio and X-ray surveys for SNRs in a galaxy are biased toward the detection of SNRs located in regions of high density, and therefore may preferentially select the SNRs that were most likely produced by Type II SNe. Therefore, the density of the ambient ISM surrounding an SNR is strongly linked to the spectral characteristics of the SNR. Additional observations and analysis are needed to more thoroughly explore these results.

## 7 Conclusions

We have presented a multi-wavelength search and analysis of the SNR population in NGC 7793. The results and conclusions of this work can be summarized as follows:

1) NGC 7793, a nearby spiral galaxy, has been observed in the X-ray, optical and radio wavelengths to analyze its resident SNR population. This analysis has examined X-ray observations of the galaxy made by the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑂𝑆𝐴𝑇}`$ $`\mathrm{𝑃𝑆𝑃𝐶}`$ instrument, an H$`\alpha `$ image of the galaxy and new 6 and 20 cm observations made with the VLA. We have analyzed both the X-ray and radio spectral properties of the SNRs previously identified in the optical by BL97, and in addition we have searched for new candidate X-ray and radio SNRs.

2) N7793-S26 is the only optically-identified SNR that possesses both X-ray and non-thermal radio emission. The extreme radio luminosity of this object and its large filamentary structure have led to speculation about its creation. A study of the energetics of this SNR suggest that it was created by multiple supernova explosions rather than a single supernova event. One other optically-identified SNR, N7793-S11, possesses non-thermal radio emission but no X-ray emission. Consistent with prior studies of the SNR populations in the galaxies NGC 300 and NGC 6946, X-ray and radio emission from optically-identified SNRs are in general not detected. This lends more support to the hypothesis that searches conducted for SNRs at each wavelength – X-ray, optical and radio – all possess inherent biases. We also find additional evidence that the density of the ambient ISM surrounding an SNR plays a critical role in dictating the SNR’s spectral characteristics.

3) A search for non-thermal radio sources at 6 cm and 20 cm (with a minimum detection level of 3$`\sigma `$) that are close to or within HII regions has yielded five candidate radio SNRs. Of these five sources, one (NGC 7793-R3) possesses an X-ray counterpart at the 3$`\sigma `$ level, namely P10, from the listing of X-ray sources in this galaxy that was prepared by RP99. Another candidate radio SNR, NGC 7793-R4, may also contribute X-ray flux to P10.

4) A search for candidate X-ray SNRs has not revealed any new sources in addition to the SNRs already found through radio and optical surveys. The search for SNRs at this wavelength is complicated by the presence of considerable diffuse X-ray emission throughout the entire disk of this galaxy.

5) The multi-wavelength campaign has added five new candidate SNRs to the 28 previously identified through optical methods. While the number of new detected SNRs is noticeably lower than the number of new SNRs found in our study of NGC 300 as presented in Paper I, we feel that this result is linked to the larger distance to NGC 7793 than NGC 300. Because the X-ray and radio observations of NGC 7793 did not have improved sensitivities to compensate for the increased distance to this galaxy compared to NGC 300, both surveys can only sample more luminous portions of the X-ray and radio SNR population in NGC 7793 compared to NGC 300.

This paper is derived in large part from the Ph.D dissertation of T. G. P., conducted at the University of New Mexico. We thank the referee, Schuyler Van Dyk, for many useful comments and suggestions which have greatly improved this work. T. G. P. acknowledges fruitful discussions with Glenn E. Allen and Miroslav Filipović. This research has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The ROSAT project is supported by the German Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) and the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG). T. G. P. gratefully acknowledges support from both the Chandra X-ray Center High Energy Transmission Grating (HETG) group through grant NAS8-38249 and the NRAO.


text:
# Generalizing the MOND description of rotation curves

## 1 Introduction

The first mathematical descriptions of the effects of gravity, made by Galileo in his study of the free fall of bodies and by Kepler in his study of planetary motions, were purely empirical. Though Newton offered a coherent explanation of what was behind the laws governing gravitational effects, it was only with Einstein’s General Relativity that we had an apparently complete theory of gravity.

However, at the end of the 20th century, a new enigma concerning the motion of ‘celestial bodies’ emerged, in particular, in studying rotation curves of spiral galaxies. While Newton’s law of gravity predicts that the velocity of rotation in the interior of a galaxy should fall with increasing distance from the galactic center if the observed light traces mass, what is observed is the maintenance of a constant velocity with increasing radius, generating flat rotation curves .

Two simple ways of dealing with this problem have been suggested:

1. assuming that there is more mass (i.e., dark matter) in galaxies than is observed;
2. modifying the law of gravity.

While much work has been done in the search for possible particle candidates for dark matter , very little has been done to explore the possibilities of modified gravity laws. Until now, the most popular suggestion for a modified gravitational law has been Modified Newtonian Dynamics, or, MOND . In MOND the acceleration $`a`$ of a body in an external gravitational field is not exactly equal to the acceleration $`g_N`$ obtained from the Newtonian gravitational force. Mathematically, one can write $`a\mu =g_N`$, where $`\mu \left(x\right)`$ is a dimensionless function of the ratio $`xa/a_0`$ of the acceleration $`a`$ to an empirically determined constant $`a_0`$. Only in the limit $`aa_0`$ is Newtonian gravity restored. The strongest objection to MOND is that it does not have a relativistic theory supporting it. For recent articles criticizing MOND, see Scott et al. (2001)  and Aguirre et al. (2001) . For a recent positive review of MOND, see Sanders (2001) .

The objective of this letter is to expand the original MOND proposal by presenting mathematical alternatives for the modified gravitational law. Specifically, we present several alternative mathematical alternative formulations for the dimensionless function $`\mu `$, thus following closer the structure of the pioneering work of MOND by Milgrom . In the next section we present the basics of MOND. Simulated rotation curves for several possible MONDian-like functions are given in Section 3. The final section presents some brief conclusions and perspectives for future work.

## 2 MOND

As discussed in the introduction, the original MOND proposal uses the relation

$$a\mu =g_N,$$
(1)
where $`g_N`$ is the usual Newtonian acceleration and $`\mu \left(x\right)`$ is a function which obeys

$$\mu \left(x\right)=\{\begin{array}{ccc}1\hfill & & \left(x1\right)\hfill \\ x\hfill & & \left(x1\right)\hfill \end{array}.$$
(2)
Therefore, in the limit of large accelerations, $`x1`$, the usual Newtonian gravity law is obtained. In the other extreme, $`x1`$, however, we have

$$a\mu a^2/a_0=g_N=GMr^2.$$
(3)
Thus, using $`a=V^2r^1`$, where $`V`$ is the rotation velocity of the galaxy,

$$V\left(GMa_0\right)^{1/4},$$
(4)
which is a constant, as is observed for large galactic radii.

It is common in the literature (e.g. , ) to use the expression

$$\mu \left(x\right)=x\left(1+x^2\right)^{1/2}.$$
(5)
This formula, proposed by Milgrom , has the advantage of being invertible. With it one can solve eq. (1) analytically for the acceleration $`a`$ and, consequently, for the rotation velocity $`V`$ as a function of the radius $`r`$. However, other functions are also possible, and are discussed in the next section.

## 3 Alternative mathematical formulations of MOND

In his work on the implications of MOND for galaxies , Milgrom used as a model for a spiral galaxy of total mass $`M`$, a disc of mass $`M_d`$ and a central spheroidal bulge of mass $`M_s`$. The fractional masses for the disc and the spherical bulge are $`\alpha _dM_d/M`$ and $`\alpha _sM_s/M=1\alpha _d`$, respectively, so that the total fractional mass $`\gamma M\left(r\right)/M`$ inside a radius $`rsr_d`$ is

$$\gamma \left(s\right)=\alpha _d\gamma _d\left(s\right)+\left(1\alpha _d\right)\gamma _s\left(s\right),$$
(6)
where

$$\gamma _d\left(s\right)=\left(\frac{s^3}{2}\right)\left[I_0\left(\frac{s}{2}\right)K_0\left(\frac{s}{2}\right)I_1\left(\frac{s}{2}\right)K_1\left(\frac{s}{2}\right)\right],$$
(7)
$$\gamma _s\left(s\right)=\frac{\sqrt{8\pi ^3}b^9}{m_t}\gamma (8.5,bs^{1/4}u^{1/4}),$$
(8)
and $`\gamma (a,z)=_0^ze^tt^{a1}𝑑t`$ is the incomplete gamma function. $`b=7.66924944`$ and $`m_t=2.4082\times 10^3`$ are numerical constants. The dimensionless variable $`s=r/r_d=ur/r_s`$ is the ratio of the radius $`r`$ to the characteristic length $`r_d`$. The ratio of $`r_s`$ to $`r_d`$, $`u=r_s/r_d`$, is less than unity. The radii $`r_d`$ and $`r_s`$ are obtained, in practice, by adjusting the luminosity profiles of the spheroidal and disc components, using the empirical law of de Vaucoulers for the spherical bulge and an exponential function for the disc.

Following the MOND proposal, we define

$$a=\mu ^{}\left(y\right)g_N,$$
(9)
where $`\mu ^{}`$ is a dimensionless function with a dimensionless argument $`yr\sqrt{a_0G^1M^1(r)}`$, similar to the $`\mu `$ of Milgrom  in eq. (5). This new function $`\mu ^{}\left(y\right)`$ is such that

$$\mu ^{}\left(y\right)=\{\begin{array}{ccc}y\hfill & & \left(y1\right)\hfill \\ 1\hfill & & \left(y1\right)\hfill \end{array}.$$
(10)
We investigate the following functions $`\mu ^{}\left(y\right)`$ which obey the constraints of eq. (10):

$$\{\begin{array}{c}\mu _1^{}=\sqrt{1+y^2}\hfill \\ \mu _2^{}=y\mathrm{coth}y\hfill \\ \mu _3^{}=y\left(1e^y\right)^1\hfill \\ \mu _4^{}=y\left(\mathrm{coth}3y\frac{1}{3y}\right)^1\hfill \end{array}.$$
(11)
The behaviour of each of these functions as a function of $`y`$ can be seen in the expansions

$$\{\begin{array}{c}\begin{array}{cc}\mu _1^{}\hfill & =_{k=0}^{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(n1/2\right)\left(2\sqrt{\pi }n!\right)^1(1)^{n1}y^{2n}\hfill \\ & =1+y^2/2y^4/8+y^4/165y^6/128+\mathrm{}\hfill \end{array}\hfill \\ \begin{array}{ccc}\mu _2^{}\hfill & =1+2y^2_{k=1}^{\mathrm{}}\left(y^2+k^2\pi ^2\right)^1\hfill & \\ & 1+y^2/3y^4/45+2y^6/245+\mathrm{}\hfill & \hfill \left(y<\pi \right)\end{array}\hfill \\ \begin{array}{ccc}\mu _3^{}\hfill & =y_{k=0}^{\mathrm{}}e^{ky}\hfill & \\ & 1+y/2+y^2/12y^4/720+y^6/30240+\mathrm{}\hfill & \hfill \left(y<2\pi \right)\end{array}\hfill \\ \begin{array}{ccc}\mu _4^{}\hfill & =\frac{1}{6}\left[_{k=1}^{\mathrm{}}\left(9y^2+k^2\pi ^2\right)^1\right]^1\hfill & \\ & 1+27y^2/45\left(27y/45\right)^4+\left(27y/45\right)^6+\mathrm{}\hfill & \hfill \left(y1\right)\end{array}\hfill \end{array}.$$
(12)
The functions are plotted in Figure 1.

Using these functions, together with equations (6), (7) and (8), we obtain curves for the dimensionless rotation velocity $`vV\left(r\right)/\left(GMa_0\right)^{1/4}`$ as a function of $`s=r/r_d`$ for different values of $`M`$, $`\alpha _d=M_d/M`$, and $`u=r_s/r_d`$. The curves are shown in Figures 2 and 3.

## 4 Conclusion

Inspection of Figures 2 and 3 shows clearly that all the functions $`\mu ^{}\left(y\right)`$ produce flat rotation curves. This is true not only for the particular values of $`M`$, $`\alpha _d`$, and $`u`$ of the figures, but for the entire range of physically reasonable values for these parameters. Figure 3 shows that a comparison between the curves obtained, using the different $`\mu ^{}`$ functions presented, together with the original Milgrom proposal (eq. (5)), may be useful to distinguish between them, since each curve has a peculiar feature in the region $`0.1<r/r_d4`$.

It would be interesting to test the formulas presented here against observational data, noting that $`\alpha _d`$ and $`u`$ are not free parameters, but are given by the luminosity profiles of the galaxies. The mass $`M`$ and the constant $`a_0`$ are the only free parameters to be adjusted. The study of different galaxies gives a single value for $`a_0`$, the mass $`M`$ and the mass-luminosity ratio, $`M/L`$, of each galaxy. $`\mu `$ and $`\mu ^{}`$ can lead to different relativistic extensions of MOND, important for future studies. For instance, using the expression for the gravitational potential $`\phi \left(r\right)=a\left(r\right)𝑑r`$, valid for purely radial forces, one can naively ascribe a $`\phi \left(r\right)`$ to the modified gravitational laws obtained with $`\mu _1^{}`$, $`\mu _2^{}`$ and $`\mu _3^{}`$, for example,

$$\phi _{\mu _1^{}}\left(r\right)=\frac{GM}{r}\sqrt{1+\frac{r^2a_0}{GM}}+\sqrt{GMa_0}\mathrm{arcsinh}\left(r\sqrt{\frac{a_0}{GM}}\right)+\phi _0,$$
(13)
$$\phi _{\mu _2^{}}\left(r\right)=\frac{GM}{r}+2\sqrt{GMa_0}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{n\pi }\mathrm{arctan}\left(\frac{r}{n\pi }\sqrt{\frac{a_0}{GM}}\right)+\phi _0,$$
(14)
and

$$\phi _{\mu _3^{}}\left(r\right)=\sqrt{GMa_0}\left[\mathrm{ln}\left(r\sqrt{\frac{a_0}{GM}}\right)+\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\mathrm{E}i\left(nr\sqrt{\frac{a_0}{GM}}\right)\right]+\phi _0,$$
(15)
where $`\phi _0`$ is a constant of integration.

Therefore, in the search for a complete theory for MOND, it is important to study alternative MONDian functions. The MONDian functions given in this letter can be seen as a step in this direction.

## Acknowledgements

SSC thanks the Brazilian agency FAPESP for financial support under grant 00/13762-6. Both SSC and RO thank FAPESP for partial support under grant 00/06770-2 and the Brazilian project PRONEX/FINEP (41.96.0908.00) for partial support.


text:
# HIGH PRECISION COSMOLOGY

## 1 Introduction

The widely accepted paradigm for cosmology is the hot Big Bang model. In this framework, the geometry and evolution of the Universe is defined by its matter and energy content through general relativity theory. The Universe is expanding, so that it was hotter and denser at earlier times. The rate of expansion is quantified by the Hubble parameter $`H`$, whose present value $`H_0`$ is parameterized by the quantity $`h`$ as $`H_0=100h`$ km s-1 Mpc-1. The amount of matter and energy in the Universe from different components (baryons, dark matter, radiation, vacuum energy, etc.) is parameterized by the quantities $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{(i)}\rho _{(i)}/\rho _c`$. The critical density, $`\rho _c=1.88\times 10^{29}h^2`$ g cm-3, is defined in such a way that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i\mathrm{\Omega }_{(i)}=1`$ for a Universe with flat geometry (while $`\mathrm{\Omega }<1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }>1`$ for open and closed geometry respectively).

An additional ingredient of the standard cosmological model is inflation, a phase of early superluminal expansion of the Universe required to solve some problems of the Big Bang model. Inflation makes some well-defined predictions. First of all, the geometry of the Universe has to be very close to flat. Second, the structure we observe today in the Universe was produced by gravitational amplification of primordial density perturbations generated during inflation, characterized by having a nearly scale-invariant spectrum and by being Gaussian distributed.

While until recent times the knowledge of the parameters of the cosmological model was plagued by large uncertainties, the situation has now dramatically changed. Cosmology is not a data-starved science anymore. In the past few years, high-quality observations have fueled an impressive progress in our understanding of the Universe. We have entered the epoch of high precision cosmology.

Recent results from observation of the CMB temperature anisotropy have allowed us to constrain most cosmological parameters to unprecedented accuracy, giving for the first time a robust determination of the total energy density (and in turn of the geometry) of the Universe. In addition, a whole set of new observations of the large-scale structure properties of the Universe have put the determination of the mean matter density in the Universe on a firm ground. Finally, measurements of distant Type Ia Supernovae have recently provided evidence that the Universe has just entered a phase of accelerated expansion. In the following I will review the emerging scenario, giving particular emphasis to CMB as a cosmological probe.

## 2 Cosmology with the Cosmic Microwave Background

The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is a snapshot of the infant Universe, when it was just about $`\mathrm{300\hspace{0.25em}000}`$ years old. According to the standard Big Bang model, before that epoch the temperature in the Universe was so high that no neutral atom could stably exist. The Universe was basically a plasma of mainly free electrons and protons, kept in equilibrium with photons by frequent Thomson scattering. Later, the Universe cooled down as a result of the expansion, and neutral atoms began to form. The photons could then decouple from the matter and travel freely, being finally observed today as an almost uniform background. The fact that the CMB was indeed found to have a black-body spectrum (a clear signature of the early period of matter-radiation equilibrium) with an astonishing precision is one of the big successes of the Big Bang model.

Since the distribution of the CMB photons reflects that of matter at the time of decoupling, any inhomogeneities in the matter density (needed to seed structure formation by gravitational instability) must leave an imprint as fluctuations of the CMB temperature. The presence of these CMB temperature anisotropies was first detected by NASA’s COBE satellite in the early 90’s. The fact that the level of anisotropy is very small (about a part in one thousand, corresponding to temperature fluctuations of some tens of $`\mu K`$) simplifies the task of making theoretical prediction of the anisotropy pattern, since linear perturbation theory can be applied.

The bulk of the cosmological information encoded in the anisotropy pattern is concentrated at angular scales smaller than about 1 degree on the sky, corresponding to perturbations that were inside the horizon (i.e. in causal contact) before decoupling. On these scales, physical processes in the early Universe were able to leave their imprint on the CMB. For this reason, over the last decade a large number of ground-based and balloon-borne experiments performed observations of the fine-structure pattern of the anisotropy.

The observed temperature fluctuation in a given direction of the sky can be expanded in spherical harmonics:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T}{T}(\theta ,\varphi )=\underset{lm}{}a_{lm}Y_{lm}(\theta ,\varphi ).$$
(1)
The coefficients $`C_l|a_{lm}|^2`$ define the angular power spectrum of the CMB anisotropy111The symbol $``$ represents an average over the statistical ensemble. Since we can only observe one realization of the ensemble — our own sky — we can at best build an un-biased estimate of $`C_l`$ from the observations. This is: $`C_l\frac{1}{(2l+1)}_{m=l}^l|a_{lm}|^2`$.. Because the Universe is isotropic on average, the $`C_l`$’s do not depend on the azimuthal index $`m`$. If the primordial density fluctuations are Gaussian distributed, the angular power spectrum $`C_l`$ fully characterizes the statistics of the temperature anisotropy pattern. The power spectrum is then the main CMB observable. Since each $`l`$ is related to an angular scale $`\theta `$ on the sky given approximately by $`l\pi /\theta `$, the power spectrum at high $`l`$’s probes sub-horizon angular scales at the time of decoupling and carries the imprint of physical processes which occurred in the early Universe. Conversely, low $`l`$’s probe the primordial shape of the power spectrum222Of course, neglecting secondary processes which may alter the CMB photon distribution after decoupling..

The way the shape of the CMB angular power spectrum depends on cosmology can be understood by simple physical considerations. Let us consider a density fluctuation of given physical scale in the baryon-photon fluid. Let us suppose that the physical scale of the fluctuation is smaller than the horizon size at decoupling, so that the inner region of the fluctuation is in causal contact. The amplitude of perturbation in the baryon component tends to be amplified by gravitational collapse. However, the radiation pressure provided by the photons prevents the collapse from happening. These competing mechanisms sets up harmonic oscillations in the amplitude of the perturbation. Since the amount of resistance to compression is quantified by the sound velocity in the fluid, this oscillations are called acoustic. When the photons decouple from matter, perturbations having different physical scale are caught in a different stage of oscillation and then have a different amplitude. The CMB photons we receive today carry this phase information as fluctuations in their temperature at different angular scales. This reflects in a series of harmonic acoustic peaks in the CMB angular power spectrum.

For a given initial distribution of density perturbations in the early Universe, the height of the acoustic peaks is mostly affected by the amount of matter in the Universe. If we enhance the baryon content of the Universe, keeping fixed all the other components, the compression stage of the fluid is more effective, increasing the amplitude of fluctuations at decoupling. Then, the relative height of the peaks in the CMB power spectrum represents a good indicator of the density of baryonic matter in the Universe. On the other hand, the position of the peaks depends on the way a certain physical scale at decoupling is mapped into an angular dimension on the sky. This is quantified, in a given cosmological model, by the so called angular diameter distance relation. This relation mainly depends on the geometry of the Universe: in an open Universe, a certain physical scale at decoupling is seen today under a smaller angle than in a flat Universe. So, the position of the peaks in the CMB angular power spectrum is a good indicator of the geometrical properties of the Universe. The dependence of the CMB angular power spectrum on the geometry of the Universe and on the baryon density is shown in Figure 1.

## 3 Constraints on Cosmological Parameters from the CMB

The quality of CMB observations has considerably improved in recent times. The balloon-borne observations carried on by the BOOMERanG and MAXIMA teams (from Antarctica and from Texas, respectively) have produced the first images of the fine-scale pattern of CMB temperature anisotropy. The CMB map from BOOMERanG covers a 1800 square degrees patch of the southern sky. MAXIMA mapped a 124 square degrees patch of the northern sky. More recently, the DASI team released new maps over 32 sky fields of 3.4 degrees in diameter, obtained using ground-based interferometry from Antarctica. The kind of spatial features observed by these three independent experiments in different sky regions looks quite similar (see Figure 2).

From these observations, estimates of the CMB angular power spectrum have been obtained over a large range of multipoles ($`20l1200`$; see Figure 3). The power spectra measured by BOOMERanG, MAXIMA and DASI are in remarkable agreement and show unambiguously the presence of a sharp peak in the region $`180l220`$, as well as evidence of excess power at higher $`l`$’s, consistent with the presence of a second and third peak.

Likelihood analyses of these power spectrum measurements have been performed by each team to set constraints on the value of cosmological parameters. They agree about the fact that the CMB data strongly favor a Universe with flat geometry, and with scale-invariant primordial density fluctuations: the inflationary scenario brilliantly passed two important tests. Furthermore, the baryon density derived from the CMB is in striking agreement with the value resulting from comparing the measured primordial light elements abundances with the big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) predictions: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.020\pm 0.002`$. This is an important indication of the self-consistency of our cosmological model, since the CMB and BBN values for the baryon density are obtained using entirely different methodology and observations.

## 4 The Concordance Model

The success of the CMB in giving us a reliable estimate of the total energy density of the Universe leaves us with the problem of finding out which is the contribution from different components to the critical density. Measuring the mean mass density of the Universe with traditional cosmological observations has always been a difficult task. Large enough samples have to be observed in order to be representative of the whole Universe. Furthermore, the distribution of matter cannot be directly deduced from that of light. However, the matter density is currently constrained by a number of independent and consistent observations (baryon-to-total mass ratio in clusters of galaxies, peculiar velocities and bulk flows, redshift surveys) to be roughly 1/3 of the total energy density ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.33\pm 0.04`$). Where does the rest of critical density comes from?

Observations of distant type Ia supernovae recently allowed to probe the classic Hubble diagram up to very high redshifts. The surprising result was that, contrarily to expectations, the Universe is speeding up rather than slowing down. The fact that we are now entering a phase of cosmic acceleration has been explained with the presence of a smooth, negative-pressure component, which has been named dark energy. The best candidate for dark energy is a cosmological constant, or vacuum energy, i.e. the vacuum expectation value of some fundamental scalar field.

Cosmological models with flat geometry but different amount of vacuum energy have almost the same angular diameter distance relation. This makes the CMB angular power spectrum basically unable to distinguish which fraction of the critical density is provided by matter and which by the vacuum energy. However, when we look at the constraints in the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$$`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ plane coming from the CMB, the observation of large-scale structure (LSS) and type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) an interesting picture emerges (see Figure 4). The CMB and the LSS suggest that 2/3 of the critical density must be provided by vacuum energy. The CMB and the SN Ia get to the same conclusion. The three constraints taken together identify a concordance region in the parameter space where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M1/3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }2/3`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }_M+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$. The fact that three independent and different kinds of observation, each probing a different epoch of the cosmic evolution and different physical processes, have converged to give a coherent picture is a big success of cosmology.

## 5 Future Prospects

While a consistent and reliable picture of the Universe is emerging, there are still open questions. One of the most puzzling aspects is the nature of the dark energy which seems to be the main contribution to the density of the Universe. The vacuum energy estimated from quantum field theory (as vacuum expectation value of some fundamental quantum field) is $`10^{122}`$ to $`10^{55}`$ times larger than the observed one, which leads to an extreme fine-tuning problem. Furthermore, vacuum energy is dominating the cosmic expansion right now, which seems to make the present epoch a very special one in the evolution of the Universe (coincidence problem). This problems are mitigated in the so-called quintessence models, where the scalar field responsible for the vacuum energy contribution is evolving through an equation that admits tracking solutions: large set of initial conditions result in the same vacuum energy at present. Attempts to use current CMB data to investigate the nature of dark energy have recently been made.

Future CMB missions from space will shed more light on this and other open problems. The NASA’s MAP mission333http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/ is currently operating and will soon produce full sky maps of the CMB sky at high angular resolution. In 2007 the ESA’s Planck satellite444http://astro.estec.esa.nl/Planck will measure CMB temperature and polarization over the full sky with unprecedented angular resolution and instrumental sensitivity, reaching the theoretical limit in the power spectrum measurement over a large range of multipoles ($`2l3000`$). This observations, together with other sources of information (most notably further supernovae measurements from space such as those expected from the SNAP satellite555http://snap.lbl.gov and redshift surveys such as SDSS666http://www.sdss.org) will further strengthen our understanding of the Universe.

## 6 Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank the organizers for the invitation and for the enjoyable and stimulating environment.