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# Optical and Infrared Spectroscopy of SN 1999ee and SN 1999ex Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, Chile (program ESO 164.H-0376).

## 1 Introduction

The last ten years have witnessed an enormous progress in our knowledge of the optical properties of supernovae (SNe) of all types. However, comparatively little is still known about these objects in near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. Given the rapid technological development of NIR light detection over recent years, in 1999 we started a program to obtain optical and NIR photometry and spectroscopy of nearby SNe ($`z`$$`<`$0.08). So far, the “Supernova Optical and Infrared Survey” (SOIRS) program has gathered high-quality observations for $``$20 SNe. So far we have reported results for the bright Type II SN 1999em (Hamuy et al., 2001). In this paper we report spectroscopic observations of two of the best-observed objects included in our program, the Type Ia SN 1999ee and the Type Ib/c SN 1999ex, both of which exploded in the same galaxy within three weeks.

SN 1999ee was discovered by M. Wischnjewsky on a film taken on 1999 October 7.15 (JD 2451458.65) in the course of the El Roble survey (Maza & Hamuy, 1999). The SN exploded 10 arcsec East and 10 arcsec South of the nucleus of the spiral galaxy IC 5179, a very active star-forming galaxy with a heliocentric redshift of 3,498 km s-1. The optical spectrum taken on 1999 October 9.10 revealed the defining Si II $`\lambda `$6355 feature of the Type Ia class (Maza & Hamuy, 1999). The high expansion velocity of 15,700 km s-1 deduced from this line and the faint apparent magnitude at discovery ($``$17.5) indicated that this object had been found several days before maximum light. At the distance of the host galaxy SN 1999ee offered the promise to reach $`V`$=14.5 about 10 days later, thus proving to be an excellent target for a detailed study of a SN Ia early since explosion, both at optical and IR wavelengths. This discovery occurred at the very beginning of one of the SOIRS follow-up runs, previously scheduled for 1999 October-November, so we decided to give first priority to SN 1999ee. The unique opportunity afforded by SN 1999ee led the ESO Director General to allocate director’s discretionary time to this project in order to secure the best possible data for SN 1999ee. As a result of this effort we obtained a superb dataset of optical/IR photometric and spectroscopic observations of the first 50 days of the evolution of SN 1999ee.

Three weeks after the discovery of SN 1999ee, a second SN exploded in the same galaxy that hosted SN 1999ee. The discovery of SN 1999ex was made by Martin et al. (1999) on 1999 November 9.51 UT (JD 2451492.01) in the course of the PARG Automated Supernova Search at Perth Observatory. They reported that the SN was not visible in a deep exposure taken on 1999 October 25.58 (estimated limiting mag 19), and that the object was slowly brightening. A spectrum taken on 1999 November 14.13 (Hamuy & Phillips, 1999) showed that SN 1999ex had close resemblance to that of the Type Ic SN 1994I taken near maximum light (Filippenko et al., 1995). This led us initially to classify SN 1999ex as a Ic event although we believe that it should be typed as an intermediate Ib/c object (see Sec. 4.2). As soon as this object was discovered we decided to include it in our optical/IR spectroscopic follow-up.

The observations gathered for SNe 1999ee and 1999ex have an unprecedented temporal and wavelength coverage and afford the possibility to carry out a detailed comparison with atmosphere models. In this paper we report the spectroscopic observations of SNe 1999ee and 1999ex and we discuss these results. The spectra presented here are available in electronic form to other researchers (contact M. H. if interested). Optical and IR photometry will be published and discussed in detail elsewhere by Stritzinger et al. (2002) and Krisciunas et al. (2002), respectively.

## 2 Spectroscopic Observations and Reductions

We obtained optical and IR spectra of SNe 1999ee and 1999ex with the ESO NTT/EMMI/SOFI, the Danish 1.5-m/DFOSC equipments at La Silla, and the VLT/ISAAC instrument at Cerro Paranal between 1999 October 9 and 1999 November 28. We also obtained three optical spectra with the CTIO 4-m telescope on 1999 October 9, the CTIO 1.5-m telescope on 1999 October 27, and the Las Campanas Dupont 2.5-m telescope on 1999 October 16. Table 1 gives the journal of the observations.

### 2.1 Optical Spectroscopy

The NTT observations comprised three different setups. We used the blue channel of EMMI equipped with a Tek CCD (1024x1024) and grating 5 (158 lines mm-1) which, in first order, delivered spectra with a dispersion of 3.5 Å pix-1 and a useful wavelength range between 0.330 and 0.525 $`\mu m`$. With the red channel, CCD Tek 2048, and grating 13 (150 lines mm-1) the dispersion was 2.7 Å pix-1 and the spectral coverage included from 0.470 through 1.100 $`\mu m`$ in first order. Since this setup had potential second-order contamination beyond $``$0.6 $`\mu m`$ we decided to take one spectrum with the OG530 filter and a second observation without the filter, in order to provide an overlap with the blue spectrum. Thus, a single-epoch observation comprised three spectra.

The observations with EMMI started with calibrations during day time (bias and dome flat-field exposures). The night began with the observation of a spectrophotometric standard (from the list of Hamuy et al. (1994)) through a wide slit of 10 arcsec, after which we observed the SNe with a slit of 1 arcsec. Before the discovery of SN 1999ex on 1999 November 9 we oriented the slit along the line connecting SN 1999ee and the host galaxy nucleus. On 1999 November 14 and 19, on the other hand, we oriented the slit along the two SNe in order to get simultaneous spectra. Since the airmass of our observations was always below 1.5 we do not expect serious systematic errors in the observed fluxes due to atmospheric refraction. We took two exposures of the SNe per spectral setup, each of the same length (typically 300-600 sec). Immediately following this observation we observed a He-Ar lamp, at the same position of the SNe and before changing the optical setup in order to ensure an accurate wavelength calibration. At the end of the night we observed a second flux standard.

We also used the Danish 1.5-m telescope and the DFOSC instrument at La Silla on five nights, between 1999 October 20 and November 28, in order to improve the temporal coverage of our spectroscopic observations. In all cases we employed a 2K$`\times `$2K LORAL CCD and two different grisms to secure a spectral coverage comparable to that obtained with EMMI. With grism 3 (400 lines mm-1) we covered a useful wavelength range between 0.33 and 0.66 $`\mu m`$ with a dispersion of 2.3 Å pix-1. With grism 5 (300 lines mm-1) we sampled the range between 0.53 and 0.98 $`\mu m`$ at 3.1 Å pix-1. The red setup produced spectra with significant fringing beyond 0.75 $`\mu m`$ which we did not attempt to remove. We observed the SNe with a slit of 2 arcsec. Although we did not rotate the slit along the parallactic angle, we obtained the first four spectra with airmass $`<`$1.1. The last spectrum taken on 1999 November 28, on the other hand, might suffer from atmospheric refraction since we obtained it with an airmass between 1.4-2.0. We took two 1200 sec exposures of the SNe per grism, followed by a He-Ne arc lamp exposure, and spectra of a flux standard with a 5 arcsec slit.

We obtained a spectrum of SN 1999ee on 1999 October 9 (two days after discovery) with the R-C spectrograph of the CTIO 4-m telescope, a 3K$`\times `$1K LORAL CCD, and grating KPGL-2 (316 lines mm-1) in first order. We took one 1800 sec exposure of the SN (through thick cirrus) with a 1.5 arcsec slit oriented along the parallactic angle, a He-Ar lamp exposure, and spectra of three flux standards through a 10 arcsec slit. The resulting SN spectrum had a dispersion of 1.9 Å pix-1 and useful wavelength coverage of 0.33-0.87 $`\mu m`$. Second-order contamination was expected beyond 0.66 $`\mu m`$ since we did not include a blocking filter in the optical path. We obtained another spectrum at CTIO with the 1.5-m telescope and the R-C spectrograph on 1999 October 27. In this case we used a 1200$`\times `$800 LORAL CCD, grating 58 (400 lines mm-1) in second order, a 2 arcsec slit, and a CuSO4 order-blocking filter. The resulting spectrum had a dispersion of 1.1 Å pix-1 and useful wavelength coverage of 0.37-0.50 $`\mu m`$. We obtained six 1200 sec exposures of SN 1999ee at an airmass $`<`$ 1.1, a He-Ar lamp image, and two spectra of flux standards.

We also obtained a spectrum of SN 1999ee on 1999 October 16 with the Las Campanas Dupont 2.5-m telescope and the Wide Field CCD Spectrograph. We used a 2048$`\times `$2048 TEK CCD and a blue grism. The resulting spectrum had a dispersion of 3 Å pix-1 and useful wavelength coverage of 0.36-0.92 $`\mu m`$. Second-order contamination was expected beyond 0.66 $`\mu m`$ since we did not use a blocking filter.

The reductions consisted in subtracting the overscan and bias from every frame. Next, we constructed a normalized flat-field from the quartz-lamp image, duly normalized along the dispersion axis. We proceeded by flat-fielding all of the object frames and extracting 1-D spectra from the 2-D images. We followed the same procedure for the He-Ar frames which we used to derive the wavelength calibration for the SNe. Then we derived a response curve from the two flux stars, which we applied to the SN spectra, in order to get flux calibrated spectra. From the pair of flux-calibrated spectra that we obtained for each spectral setup we removed cosmic rays and obtained a clean spectrum of each SN. The last step consisted in merging the spectra obtained with the different spectroscopic setups. To avoid discontinuities in the combined spectrum we grey-shifted the three spectra relative to each other using the overlap regions. Finally, we computed the synthetic $`V`$-band magnitude from the resulting spectra (following the precepts described in Appendix B of Hamuy et al. (2001)) and we grey-shifted them so that the flux level matched our observed $`V`$ magnitudes. We checked the spectrophotometric quality of the spectra by computing $`BRI`$ synthetic magnitudes and comparing them to the observed $`BRI`$ magnitudes of Stritzinger et al. (2002). Excluding the spectra obtained on 1999 November 14, this test yielded the following mean differences: $`B_{obs}`$-$`B_{syn}`$=-0.05$`\pm `$0.05, $`R_{obs}`$-$`R_{syn}`$=0.00$`\pm `$0.07, and $`I_{obs}`$-$`I_{syn}`$=0.00$`\pm `$0.09, which implies that the relative spectrophotometry at these wavelengths is accurate to 10% or better. The November 14 spectrum, on the other hand, shows $`B`$ fluxes that fall 0.35 mag lower than the photometric $`B`$ magnitudes and $`I`$ fluxes that exceed by 0.2 mag the observed broadband $`I`$ magnitudes, perhaps owing to atmospheric refraction effects.

### 2.2 Infrared Spectroscopy

We obtained five IR spectra with the VLT/Antu telescope at Cerro Paranal, between 1999 October 9 and November 28 (see Table 1). We employed the IR spectro-imager ISAAC (Moorwood, 1997) in low resolution mode (R$``$500), with four different gratings that permitted us to obtain spectra in the $`SZ`$, $`J`$, $`H`$, and $`K`$ bands. We used these gratings in 5th, 4th, 3rd and 2nd order, respectively, which yielded useful data in the spectral ranges 0.984-1.136, 1.109-1.355, 1.415-1.818, and 1.846-2.560 $`\mu m`$. The light detector was a Hawaii-Rockwell 1024x1024 array.

A typical IR observation started during daytime by taking calibrations. We began taking flat-field images using an internal source of continuum light. We obtained multiple on and off image pairs with the same slit used during the night (0.6 arcsec). We then took Xe-Ar lamp images (with the lamp on and off) with a narrow slit (0.3 arcsec) in order to map geometric distortions. The observations of the SNe consisted in an ABBAAB cycle, where A is an image of the SNe offset by 70 arcsec along the slit relative to the B image. This technique of nodding the objects along the slit allowed us to use the A image as an on-source observation and the B image as the off-source sky frame, and viceversa. At each position we exposed for 240 sec, conveniently split into two 120-sec images in order to remove cosmic rays and bad pixels from the final spectra. After completing the ABBAAB cycle we immediately obtained a pair of on-off arc lamp exposures without moving the telescope or changing optical elements to ensure an accurate wavelength calibration. We then switched to the next grating and repeated the above object-arc procedure until completing the observations with the four setups. For flux calibration we decided to observe a bright solar-analog star, close in the sky to the SNe in order to minimize variations in the atmospheric absorptions (Maiolino et al., 1996). The selected star was Hip 109508, of spectral type G3V, $`V`$=8.0, $`B`$-$`V`$=0.59, and located only 3 from the SNe. In this case we took two AB pairs for each grating. To avoid saturating the detector, we took the shortest possible exposures (1.77 sec) allowed by the electronics that controlled the detector. Since the minimum time required before offsetting the telescope was $``$60 sec, we took ten exposures at each position which provided an exceedingly good signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) for the flux standard.

Our data reduction procedures were explained in detail by Hamuy et al. (2001), so we include here only a brief summary. After dividing all of the object images by a normalized flat-field, we performed a first-order sky subtraction by subtracting the A images from the B exposures (and viceversa). We then shifted the A-B image relative to the B-A image in the spatial direction until matching the two spectra, and we added the shifted A-B image to the B-A image so that the resulting frame lacked any sky background, except for the pixel-to-pixel fluctuations expected from photon statistics and readout noise. We then extracted 1-D spectra of the objects from the sky-subtracted frames, making sure to subtract residual DC offset and galaxy light from a window adjacent to the object. For flux calibration we adopted the technique described by Maiolino et al. (1996), which consists in dividing the spectrum of interest by a solar-type star to remove the strong telluric IR features, and multiplying the resulting spectrum by the solar spectrum to eliminate the intrinsic features (pseudonoise) introduced by the solar-type star. Before using the solar spectrum we convolved it with a kernel function in order to reproduce the spectral resolution of the solar-analog standard Hip 109508, we shifted it in wavelength according to the radial velocity (68 km s-1) of Hip 109508, and we scaled it down to the equivalent of $`V`$=8.0 which corresponds to the observed magnitude of Hip 109508. This technique worked very well to remove telluric lines. On the other hand, it introduced a small systematic error in the flux calibration of the SN due to departures between the solar spectrum and the actual spectral energy distribution of the solar-analog standard. According to atmosphere models the difference in continuum flux for stars with $`T_{eff}`$=5,500 and 6,000 K (which correspond to spectral types G8V-F9V, Gray & Corbally (1994)) is smaller than 10% in the NIR region. A G3V star like Hip 109508 has nearly the same spectral type of the Sun, so its effective temperature must be close (within $`\pm `$100 K) to that of the adopted solar model. Hence, the flux difference between the solar-analog standard and the adopted spectrum should be less than 10%. The $`BV`$=0.59 color of Hip 109508 suggests little or no reddening so the relative spectrophotometry is probably accurate to 5% or better.

The result of these operations were four spectra covering the $`SZ`$, $`J`$, $`H`$, and $`K`$ bands, which we combined into one final IR spectrum for each SN. Given the significant overlap of the $`SZ`$ and $`J`$ band spectra, we were able to grey-shift the $`J`$ spectrum relative to the $`SZ`$ spectrum. Then we used our broad-band $`JHK`$ magnitudes to grey-shift the individual spectra.

On six occasions we used the NTT/SOFI instrument at La Silla in service observing mode, in order to complement the IR spectroscopic follow-up. We employed a Hawaii-Rockwell 1024x1024 light detector, and the blue and red grisms that permitted us to obtain spectra in the ranges 0.95-1.64 $`\mu m`$ and 1.53-2.52 $`\mu m`$, with resolutions of 7.0 and 10.2 Å, respectively. We obtained the spectra with slit widths between 0.6 and 1 arcsec. We nodded the objects along the slit, after exposing for 150 sec at each position. We completed several pairs of AB observations for the SNe, we took Xe-Ne arc images at the position of the targets, and we observed the flux standard Hip 109508. We reduced these data following the same procedure explained above for ISAAC. The large overlap of 1.53-1.64 $`\mu m`$ between the blue and red spectra allowed us to grey-shift the red spectra relative to blue spectra, except on 1999 October 18 when we were only able to obtain the red spectrum. Finally, we shifted the resulting spectra using the observed $`JHK`$ magnitudes (Krisciunas et al., 2002).

## 3 Results

### 3.1 SN 1999ee

Before analyzing the spectroscopic observations it proves necessary to mention the photometric properties of SN 1999ee. A detailed discussion of the photometric observations can be found in Stritzinger et al. (2002). In brief, the decline rate of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`m_{15}(B)`$=0.94 puts SN 1999ee in the group of slowest-declining SNe Ia. After correcting the observed magnitudes for $`K`$ terms and dust extinction, and assuming a Hubble constant of 63 km s-1 Mpc-1 (Phillips et al., 1999), SN 1999ee had a peak visual magnitude of $`M_V`$=-19.94 (JD 2451469.1). These values lie comfortably well with the peak magnitude-decline rate relation for SNe Ia (Phillips et al., 1999). This analysis reveals that SN 1999ee was a luminous Type Ia event and a very interesting object to check the claim by Li et al. (2001b) that slow-declining events display spectroscopic peculiarities before maximum light.

Figure 1 displays the optical spectra of SN 1999ee in the rest-frame of the SN, after correcting the observed spectra for the 3,498 km s-1 recession velocity of the host galaxy. We also dereddened the spectra assuming a Galactic reddening of $`E(BV)`$=0.02 (Schlegel et al., 1998), and a host galaxy reddening of $`E(BV)`$=0.30 derived from the SN optical colors (Stritzinger et al., 2002) and optical/IR colors (Krisciunas et al., 2002). The strongest telluric lines are indicated with the $``$ symbol. The first spectrum, taken on JD 2451460.56 (9 days before maximum), exhibited a blue continuum and the characteristic P-Cygni profile of the Si II $`\lambda `$6355 line of SNe Ia. Other prominent features in this spectrum were the absorption at $``$3200 Å attributed to Co II, the Ca II H&K $`\lambda \lambda `$3934,3968 blend, Mg II $`\lambda `$4481, the blend of lines attributed to Fe II, Si II, S II around 4550-5050 Å , and the Ca II $`\lambda \lambda `$8498,8542,8662 triplet. The presence of the Na I D $`\lambda \lambda `$5890,5896, Ca II $`\lambda `$3934, and Ca II $`\lambda `$3968 interstellar lines with equivalent widths of 2.3, 0.8, and 0.6 Å, respectively, revealed a non-negligible amount of absorption in the host galaxy, which agrees with the color analysis of SN 1999ee. By maximum light the “W” shaped S II $`\lambda \lambda `$5454,5640 feature was well developed and the Ca lines were significantly stronger. Si II $`\lambda `$4129 was already present although it was quite weak. The Si II $`\lambda `$5972 line also was weak relative to Si II $`\lambda `$6355. Nugent et al. (1995) defined the parameter $``$(Si II) as the relative fluxes of this pair of lines and found a tight correlation with the SN luminosity. In this case we obtained $``$(Si II)=0.23 which corresponds to the value of a luminous SNe Ia, in good concordance with the decline rate of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`m_{15}(B)`$=0.94 and the peak magnitudes derived from the photometric observations. By day 20 the spectrum was much redder. The Si II $`\lambda `$6355 line was very weak, the Ca triplet had a pronounced P-Cygni profile, and the region between 4000-5500 Å was dominated by strong features due to Fe II transitions. The absorption attributed to Na I D $`\lambda \lambda `$5890,5896 was very prominent. Overall, these data showed that SN 1999ee was a genuine Type Ia event with the usual spectral features of other normal SNe Ia, usually known as Branch-normal (Branch et al., 1993).

Figure 2 presents the expansion velocities derived from the absorption minima of Si II $`\lambda `$6355, after correcting for the recession velocity of the host galaxy. Apparently the velocity derived from Si II $`\lambda `$6355 decreased rapidly from 16,000 to 10,000 km s-1 between days -7 and -2, after which the velocity decreased slowly. For comparison we include as solid line the velocities for SN 1990N which was also caught several days before maximum (Leibundgut et al., 1991). Both SNe showed an inflection in the velocity curve. Before maximum, however, the expansion of SN 1999ee was somewhat higher compared to contemporary velocities of SN 1990N. At maximum light and later times, on the other hand, both SNe had similar velocities.

Figure 3 shows the resulting rest-frame IR spectra of SN 1999ee. The first spectrum, taken nine days before maximum, was quite featureless. A weak absorption line could be seen at 10520 Å with a weak emission component that seemed to constitute a P-Cygni profile. This feature was observed for the first time in an early-time spectrum of SN 1994D and was tentatively identified as due to either He I $`\lambda `$10830 or Mg II $`\lambda `$10926 (Meikle et al., 1996). According to the atmosphere models computed by Wheeler et al. (1998), this feature should be due to Mg II since the amount of He in their models is not sufficient to form a line. This implies that the minimum of the Mg absorption had an expansion velocity of 11,100 km s-1. An emission due to Fe III (Rudy et al., 2002) was also present around 12550 Å. There was an indication of a P-Cygni profile with the absorption minimum at 16160 Å and peak emission at 16840 Å . This feature was also present in the SN 1994D spectrum. The theoretical modeling of Wheeler et al. suggests that this line is due to Si II, although it might have a Fe II component (Axelrod, 1980). At longer wavelengths the spectrum is even more featureless except for a small P-Cygni line with a minimum at 19590 Å and peak at 20440 Å . The emission component was also noted in SN 1994D and was attributed to Si III by Wheeler et al.

By maximum light the Mg II $`\lambda `$10926, Fe III, and Si II feature near 16500 Å became more prominent and a peak developed around 18100 Å. One week past maximum the spectrum was dramatically different and became dominated by strong absorption/emission features. The Mg II $`\lambda `$10926 line disappeared and a weak feature at 10000 Å became evident, possibly forming a P-Cygni profile. The most remarkable features were the strong and wide (FWHM $``$ 12,000 km s-1) peaks attributed to blends of Co II, Fe II, and Ni II at 15500 and 17500 Å (Wheeler et al., 1998). Two weeks after maximum these peaks developed even further and new peaks appeared at 19900 and 21000 Å. A series of unidentified absorptions also could be observed in the $`J`$ band at 10400, 10700, and 11100 Å. One month after maximum two additional broad emission peaks became evident at 22500 and 23600 Å which, according to Wheeler et al., are caused by iron-group elements (Co, Ni) as well as intermediate mass elements with appreciable contribution from Si. While the broad emissions appeared to redshift significantly as the SN evolved, the features that we identify as absorptions did not show any appreciable change in velocity.

### 3.2 SN 1999ex

Figure 4 displays the optical spectra of SN 1999ex in the SN rest-frame. The first spectrum, obtained on JD 2451496.62 (one day before $`B`$ maximum), was characterized by a reddish continuum and several broad absorption/emission features due to Ca II H&K $`\lambda \lambda `$3934,3968, Fe II, Mg I, Na I D $`\lambda \lambda `$5890,5896, Si II $`\lambda `$6355, and the Ca triplet with a clear P-Cygni profile. We also found convincing evidence for He I $`\lambda \lambda `$6678,7065 with expansion velocities of 6,000 km s-1 (similar to velocities displayed by the Fe, Mg, Na, Si, and O lines). It is possible that the feature at $``$4400 Å , usually attributed to a blend of Mg II and Fe II, had a contribution due to the He I $`\lambda `$4471. Likewise, the feature at $``$4800 Å could be a blend of Fe II $`\lambda `$4924 and He I $`\lambda `$4921, while the Na I D $`\lambda \lambda `$5890,5896 doublet could have a contribution from He I $`\lambda `$5876. Interstellar lines due to Na I D $`\lambda \lambda `$5890,5896, Ca II $`\lambda `$3934, and Ca II $`\lambda `$3968 were observed in absorption with equivalent widths of 2.8, 1.8, 0.9 Å, at the wavelengths corresponding to the rest-frame of the host galaxy. According to the correlation between equivalent widths and reddening for Galactic stars (Munari & Zwitter, 1997), SN 1999ex was reddened by $`E(BV)`$$``$1.0$`\pm 0.15`$. However, there appears to be a significant departure of SNe from this calibration (Hamuy et al., 2001), so this estimate is very uncertain.

The first spectrum of SN 1999ex bore quite resemblance to that of SN 1994I. Filippenko et al. (1995) argued that SN 1994I was a Type Ic event on the grounds that this object 1) did not show evidence for hydrogen lines (ruling out a Type II event), 2) had a Si II $`\lambda `$6355 line more subtle than in classical SNe Ia, and 3) He I $`\lambda `$5876 was absent or weak (and blended with Na D) (ruling out a Type Ib event). Based on the resemblance between these two spectra, we initially classified SN 1999ex as a Type Ic SN (Hamuy & Phillips, 1999). However, the relatively stronger He lines displayed by SN 1999ex suggest that this object could well be an intermediate case between the Ib and Ic subclasses (we will return to this point in section 4.2). During the following two weeks the SN spectrum evolved slowly and most of the lines became stronger.

Figure 5 displays the IR spectra of SN 1999ex in the SN rest-frame. The most prominent feature in these spectra is the P-Cygni profile of He I $`\lambda `$10830 which was also observed in SN 1994I. The minimum of the absorption yields an expansion velocity of 8,000 km s-1, in good agreement with the values derived from the optical spectra. The other evident feature is the P-Cygni profile due to He I $`\lambda `$20581, with the same expansion velocity. An unidentified absorption at 9970-10045 Å can be clearly seen, which should have a rest wavelength between 10200-10260 Å. A few weak unidentified lines can be seen also in the $`H`$ band.

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 SN 1999ee

Although Type Ia SNe display a large degree of spectroscopic homogeneity, there are several examples of SNe with spectral peculiarities. Different subclasses have been identified including SN 1991T-like objects, Branch-normal SNe, and SN 1991bg-like events (Branch et al., 1993). Recently, the Lick Observatory Supernova Survey (LOSS) produced a SN sample with well-understood selection effects (Li et al., 2001a) which permitted them to assess the intrinsic peculiarity rate of SNe Ia (Li et al., 2001b). This study showed that the sample of nearby SNe Ia comprises 20%, 64%, and 16% of 1991T-like, normal, and 1991bg-like objects, respectively.

Li et al. (2001a) defined a normal SN as one with prominent features due to Si II $`\lambda `$6355, Ca II H&K $`\lambda \lambda `$3934,3968, as well as additional lines of S II, O I, and Mg II around maximum light. The designation SN 1991T in such work is not strictly correct since the prototype of the 1991T class defined by Li et al. (2001b) is SN 1999aa. While SN 1999aa’s main difference relative to normal SNe is just a relative weakness of the Si II $`\lambda `$6355 feature before maximum that becomes almost indistinguishable from normal SNe after peak (see Fig. 5 of Li et al. (2001b)), SN 1991T was a much more extreme event in the sense that the pre-maximum spectrum did not display the Ca II H&K $`\lambda \lambda `$3934,3968 blend shown by Branch-normal SNe, and also because it remained spectroscopically distinct several days after maximum (Phillips et al., 1992). For the sake of clarity, in what follows we refer to the 1991T-like events of Li et al. as 1999aa-like objects. The distinguishing feature of SN 1991bg-like objects is the Ti II absorption around 4100-4000 Å. There are many examples of intermediate class objects, which suggests a continuous spectral sequence among SNe Ia.

Because 1999aa-like events display slow-declining lightcurves ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$m15(B)$``$1.0) and high peak luminosities, and 1991bg-like SNe show fast-decline rates ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$m15(B)$``$1.7) and low peak luminosities, it is interesting to ask if the photometric behavior can be used to predict spectroscopic peculiarities. As a slow-declining ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$m15(B)=0.94) and luminous ($`M_V`$=-19.94) event observed well before maximum light, SN 1999ee provides a good opportunity to investigate whether or not all luminous SNe display spectroscopic peculiarities before peak. To examine this point in detail Figure 6 (top) shows a comparison of the spectrum of SN 1999ee taken 9 days before $`B`$ maximum to that of three other SNe including SN 1999aa with a decline rate of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`m_{15}(B)`$=0.75 (Krisciunas et al., 2000), the Calán/Tololo SN 1992bc with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`m_{15}(B)`$=0.87 (Hamuy et al., 1996), and the normal SN 1990N with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`m_{15}(B)`$=1.07 (Leibundgut et al., 1991; Lira et al., 1998). While SN 1999aa lacked the Si II $`\lambda `$6355 feature compared to the Branch-normal SN 1990N, both SN 1992bc and SN 1999ee displayed strong and well-defined Si features as early as ten days before peak. This shows that not all slow-decliners are spectroscopically peculiar before maximum light. As mentioned above, 1999aa-like events show a normal spectrum at peak brightness, which can be clearly appreciated in the bottom panel of Figure 6 from the spectra of SN 1999aa and SN 1999ee. The fact that the spectral differences displayed by the luminous SNe are only limited to the very first days of evolution suggests that the 1999aa-like and the Branch-normal SNe (represented here by SN 1999ee) are apparently similar explosions and that spectral diversity at early times probably reflects small differences in mixing or other chaotic behaviors rather than fundamental differences in the character of the explosions.

There are a handful of IR spectra published for SNe Ia (Meikle et al., 1996; Bowers et al., 1997; Hernández et al., 2000; Jha et al., 1999; Rudy et al., 2002). Höflich et al. (2002) recently observed SN 1999by and assembled the first continuous sequence of IR spectra for a SN Ia, extending from 3 days before maximum through day +15 after peak. To our knowledge the IR spectra of SN 1999ee – extending from day -9 to +42 – constitute the most complete IR spectroscopic sequence of a SN Ia and its Branch-normal nature makes it an ideal object in which to study the homogeneity of this class of objects at these wavelengths. We proceed now to address this issue from a sample of five SNe Ia encompassing a wide range in decline rates and optical spectroscopic properties. The sample comprises the Branch-normal SN 1999ee, SN 1998bu (Jha et al., 1999; Hernández et al., 2000), and SN 1994D (Meikle et al., 1996), with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`m_{15}(B)`$=0.94,1.01,1.32, respectively (Phillips et al., 1999). 111We include in this comparison two spectra of SN 1998bu obtained by one of us (R.D.B.) with the CTIO 4-m Infrared Spectrograph on 1998 May 16 (3 days before B maximum) and June 3 (15 days after peak). We also include SN 1999by ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`m_{15}(B)`$=1.90) which had optical spectra that showed resemblance to SN 1991bg (Garnavich et al., 2001), and SN 2000cx ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`m_{15}(B)`$=0.93) which shared some of the spectroscopic peculiarities displayed by SN 1999aa-like events (e.g. weak Si II $`\lambda `$6355) before maximum and a “sui generis” post-maximum behavior owing to unusually strong Fe III and weak Fe II lines (Li et al., 2001c).

Figure 7 (top) compares pre-maximum spectra of SN 2000cx, 1999ee, 1994D, and 1999by. The resemblance between the two Branch-normal SNe (1999ee and 1994D) is remarkable. The largest, yet subtle, difference was the Mg II $`\lambda `$10926 feature which was narrower and deeper in SN 1994D. The expansion velocities derived from the absorption minimum was quite similar, $``$10,500 km s-1. Both the Si II and Si III features near 16500 Å and 20000 Å were clearly present on both SNe. With the exception of the high Mg II velocity ($``$20,000 km s-1), SN 2000cx showed a normal featureless spectrum. Since magnesium is destroyed by oxygen burning, it is expected in material which experiences burning at the lowest densities near the surface. The high Mg velocity led Rudy et al. (2002) to conclude that nuclear burning in SN 2000cx extended farther out than in normal SNe, though it is equally likely that in this supernovae a blob containing carbon burning products drifted closer to the surface than in some other SNe Ia. The greater luminosity and slower decline of SN 2000cx argue for greater 56Ni production, and this would manifest itself also in greater excitation in the ejecta. Indeed, SN 2000cx showed an emission feature at 12500 Å attributed to Fe III $`\lambda \lambda `$12786,12920,13003 (Rudy et al., 2002), which was also present in the normal SN 1999ee but at a lower strength, a weaker than normal Si II feature near 16500 Å, and a stronger Si III line around 20000 Å.

SN 1999by showed a pre-maximum spectrum noticeably different than that of normal SNe. The main difference was due to C I and O I lines, which were clearly absent in the spectra of other SNe. Höflich et al. (2002) suggested that nuclear burning in SN 1999by did not extend as far out as in normal SNe Ia. It is possible, however, that the presence of the C I and O I lines was due to a lower excitation evidenced by the smaller 56Ni production, the low luminosity and fast decline of SN 1999by. The spectral differences are particularly evident in the $`J`$ band. The Mg II $`\lambda `$10926 feature was deeper than normal, although its velocity of $``$10,000 km s-1 was similar to that observed in normal SNe. In the $`H`$ band SN 1999by showed a strong broad emission feature due to a blend of Si II and Mg II lines which was also present in the other SNe but with a lower strength, presumably due to a weaker contribution from Mg II. The $`K`$ band spectrum is also bumpier than normal due to Mg II lines.

Around maximum light the Mg II $`\lambda `$10926 feature was present in all three normal SNe (1999ee, 1998bu, and 1994D) with similar strengths and profiles (bottom panel of Figure 7). Meikle et al. (1996) noted that the absorption minimum of the Mg II line did not show a shift in wavelength during the pre-maximum evolution of SN 1994D, as opposed to the optical lines which all redshifted with time as the photosphere receded through the ejecta. We confirmed the absence of any significant Doppler shift in Mg II from SN 1999ee which, according to Wheeler et al. (1998) was due to the fact that the photosphere had already receded below the inner edge of the magnesium layer at this early phase. It is interesting to note the absence in these spectra of the Ca II line near 11500 Å, a feature predicted by the models of Wheeler et al. (1998) that proves to be a useful diagnostic of the location of the transition layer between complete and incomplete silicon burning. The Si II absorption near 16500 Å and the spectral features in the $`K`$ band were visible in the normal SNe 1999ee and 1998bu with a high degree of similarity. The pre-maximum spectral peculiarities of SN 1999by mentioned above were still evident near maximum light.

Figure 8 compares the post-maximum spectra available to us. Two weeks after peak the two normal SNe 1999ee and 1998bu displayed an impressive spectral homogeneity with strong peaks and valleys at 15000-17000 Å and 22000-26000 Å due to Fe II, Co II, Ni II, and Si II. The presence of Fe II, Co II, Ni II, and Si II is due to the ionization dropping predominantly to these ions, which happen to have strong lines in the near IR. The spectral differences of the fast-decliner SN 1999by persisted at this epoch. While its $`J`$ spectrum had contributions from Ca II lines (Höflich et al., 2002) that were absent in SNe 1999ee and 1998bu, the broad emission around 15000-17000 Å was weaker than normal. At later epochs, the spectra of SNe 1999ee and 1998bu became much more complicated, yet their similarity remained remarkable.

As a result of this observational campaign we obtained the most complete optical/IR observations of a Type Ia SN, with an unprecedented wavelength and temporal coverage beginning nine days before maximum light. Moreover, since we were able to obtain the IR spectra within one or two days from the optical spectra, it was possible to combine these observations, as shown in Figure 9. This exercise revealed the excellent agreement between the optical and IR fluxes, a result that proved possible by synthesizing broad-band magnitudes and adjusting the flux scales according to the observed magnitudes. This optical/IR sequence shows that, while the pre-maximum optical spectrum was dominated by strong P-Cygni profiles of intermediate mass elements like Ca II, Si II, Mg II, S II, the IR was characterized by a smooth, almost featureless continuum. By maximum light, on the other hand, the IR spectrum was already dominated by broad features, and one week later the IR flux was mostly powered by emission lines of iron group elements like Co II, Fe II, and Ni II (freshly synthesized in the innermost layers of the ejecta) that were particularly prominent in the $`H`$ and $`K`$ bands. At the same time a dramatic flux dip around 12000 Å began to develop. Previous spectroscopic observations have already revealed this $`J`$-band deficit in other SNe Ia (Bowers et al., 1997), which is responsible for the red $`JH`$ color displayed by SNe Ia after maximum light (Elias et al., 1985).

This spectral sequence lends support to the suggestion by Spyromilio, Pinto, & Eastman (1994) and Pinto & Eastman (2000) that the “photosphere” recedes rapidly to the center of the supernova in the IR while at optical wavelengths the greater opacity arising from the higher spectral density of lines keeps the photosphere at higher velocities. Emission at longer wavelengths increases after maximum light due to a shift in ionization to more-neutral species which have greater emissivity in the near IR. In this model, the $`J`$-band deficit is due to the relative absence of lines (and hence opacity) in the 12000 Å region rather than increasing opacity. Likewise, the secondary maxima exhibited by the $`JHK`$ lightcurves $``$30 days after $`B`$ maximum (Elias et al., 1981, 1985; Jha et al., 1999; Hernández et al., 2000; Krisciunas et al., 2000) are due to the increasing release of energy through lower-optical depth IR transitions. The prominent post-maximum emission features displayed by SN 1999ee in the $`H`$ and $`K`$ bands lend support to this picture.

### 4.2 SN 1999ex

SNe are classified according to their spectral features near maximum light (Filippenko, 1997). Type II SNe are characterized by prominent hydrogen features and are believed to arise from the core collapse of massive ($`>`$ 8-10 M) stars. The common feature in all Type I SNe is the lack of hydrogen spectral lines. The strong Si II $`\lambda `$6355 is the defining feature of SNe Ia. Their occurrence in all type of stellar environments has led to the general consensus that the progenitors of SNe Ia are white dwarfs that undergo thermonuclear disruption after a period of mass transfer from binary companions. The proximity of SNe Ib and Ic to massive star formation regions (Van Dyk et al., 1996), on the other hand, provides evidence that these objects result from the core collapse of massive stars. The lack of hydrogen in their spectra is attributed to the loss of their outer hydrogen envelopes by stellar winds or mass transfer to binary companions. There is growing evidence for a close physical connection between SNe II and SNe Ib from the observations of SNe 1987K, 1993J, and 1996cb, which evolved from SNe II at early epochs to SNe Ib at later times (Filippenko, 1988; Filippenko et al., 1993; Qiu et al., 1999). The distinguishing difference between Type Ib and Ic SNe are the optical He I lines, which are conspicuous in SNe Ib and weak or absent in SNe Ic. It is still a matter of debate whether SNe Ic constitute an extreme case of SNe Ib or a completely separate class of objects. The apparent absence of He in the spectra of SNe Ic motivated the idea that the progenitors of these objects could be nearly bare C+O cores of massive stars (Wheeler & Harkness, 1990) that loose most of their helium by binary transfer or strong stellar winds. However, Woosley et al. (1995) showed that helium stars could be the progenitors of both SNe Ib and SNe Ic. They showed that the presence or absence of He I lines in the spectrum is determined primarily by the amount of mixing, not the amount of helium present – greater mixing of radioactive material increases the excitation of helium leading to stronger lines.

Significant effort has been put over recent years into determining the presence of helium in the spectra of SNe Ic in order to better understand the nature of these objects. A detailed inspection of the spectra of the Type Ic SN 1994I led Filippenko et al. (1995) to conclude that weak He I lines were probably present in the optical region and that He I $`\lambda `$10830 was very prominent, although its Doppler shift implied an unusually high expansion velocity $``$16,600 km s-1. Clocchiatti et al. (1996) confirmed these observations and found evidence that He I $`\lambda `$5876 was also present in SN 1994I with a blueshift of $``$17,800 km s-1. They also reported high velocity He I $`\lambda `$5876 in the spectra of the three best-observed Type Ic SNe (1983V, 1987M, and 1988L), which led them to conclude that most, and probably all, SNe Ic show evidence for optical He I lines. This conclusion, however, was recently questioned by Millard et al. (1999) and Baron et al. (1999) by means of spectral synthesis models which showed that the IR feature near 10250 Å could be accounted with lines of C I and Si I. Moreover, Baron et al. (1999) argued that the feature attributed to He I $`\lambda `$5876 in the spectrum of SN 1994I could be a blend of other species. Evidently, there is no consensus yet about the presence or absence of He in the spectra of SNe Ic.

Recently Matheson et al. (2001) compiled and analyzed a large collection of spectra of SNe Ib and Ic. This study showed no compelling evidence for He in the spectra of SNe Ic and no gradual transition from the Ib to the Ic class, which supported the idea that these objects are produced by different progenitors.

Our optical spectra of SN 1999ex show evidence for He I absorptions of moderate strength in the optical region, thus suggesting the existence of an intermediate Ib/c case. To illustrate this point in Figures 10 and 11 we show a comparison between SN 1999ex, the best-observed Type Ic SN 1994I, and the prototypes of the Ib (SN 1984L) and Ic class (SN 1987M). The near-maximum spectra (top panel of Figure 10) reveal a gradual increase in the strength of all He lines (indicated with tick marks) from the Ic to the Ib class. In the bottom panel of Figure 10 (one week past maximum) it is possible to see that, even though the spectra of the Type Ic SNe 1994I and 1987M are quite similar, SN 1994I shows deeper troughs at the wavelengths of the He I lines, especially at 4471, 4921, and 5876 Å. The spectrum of SN 1994I obtained two weeks past maximum (Figure 11) is particularly interesting as it provides good evidence that the He I $`\lambda `$5876 line was indeed present in the spectrum of SN 1994I with a higher expansion velocity than the Na I D $`\lambda `$5893 doublet. This was also noted by Filippenko et al. (1995) who quoted an expansion velocity of $``$16,600 km s-1 for the He line (see also Clocchiatti et al. (1996) for a detailed discussion). Overall, Figures 10-11 reveal that there is a smooth spectroscopic sequence ranging from the He deficient Type Ic SNe 1987M and 1994I, the Type Ib/c SN 1999ex, and the Type Ib SN 1984L that is characterized by strong optical He lines. We conclude therefore that SN 1999ex provides first evidence for a link between the Ib and Ic classes and that there is a continuous sequence of SNe Ib and Ic objects.

Special attention must be paid to the IR feature near 11,000 Å which was very prominent in SNe 1999ex and 1994I. As mentioned above the definitive identity of this feature in SN 1994I is still uncertain: it could be accounted with lines of C I and Si I (Millard et al., 1999; Baron et al., 1999) or with high velocity He I $`\lambda `$10830 (Filippenko et al., 1995; Clocchiatti et al., 1996). If the feature in SN 1999ex was He I $`\lambda `$10830 it would imply a moderate velocity of 6,000-8,000 km s-1, which matches very well the velocities derived from the Fe, Na and Si lines. The presence of the He I $`\lambda `$20581 with the same expansion velocity (see Figure 5) suggests that the IR feature in SN 1999ex was indeed due to He I $`\lambda `$10830. Altogether our IR spectra of SN 1999ex provide unambiguous proof that He was present in the atmosphere of this intermediate Ib/c object. A detailed atmosphere model could be very useful at placing limits on the He mass in the ejecta of SN 1999ex and constraining the nature of its progenitor. As suggested by Clocchiatti et al. (1996) the presence of highly blueshifted He I $`\lambda `$5876 in SN 1994I suggests that the IR feature was also due to He I $`\lambda `$10830. If so, the difference in He velocities between SNe 1994I and 1999ex might prove an interesting clue to the underlying physics of the atmospheres of this class of objects. Further optical/IR spectroscopy and photometry will lead us to better understanding the atmospheres of SNe Ib and Ic.

Finally, given that the IR spectra were obtained within one day from the optical spectra, we were able to combine these observations. Figure 12 shows the resulting spectra and the excellent agreement between the optical and IR fluxes. Note the prominent He I $`\lambda `$$`\lambda `$10830,20581 features.

### 4.3 Maximum-light optical/IR spectra of SNe

In the course of the SOIRS program we obtained high-quality spectroscopy of the Type II SN 1999em (Hamuy et al., 2001). Figure 13 compares maximum-light spectra of the Type II SN 1999em, the Type Ib/c SN 1999ex, and the Type Ia SN 1999ee. This figure permits one to compare the different characters of the main classes of SNe, all the way from 3,000 to 25,000 Å. The Type II is distinguished by prominent hydrogen Balmer and Paschen lines. It also shows the P-Cygni profile of the He I $`\lambda `$10830 transition. The Type Ib/c is characterized by the strong He I $`\lambda \lambda `$10830,20581 lines in the IR, the He I $`\lambda `$5876 line in the optical, and other lines in the optical due to singly ionized Ca, Fe, Mg, Si and neutral Na and O. It is interesting to note that, while both the Type II and the Type Ib/c show strong He I $`\lambda `$10830, only the Type Ib/c shows a significant He I $`\lambda `$20581 feature. Finally, the Type Ia at the bottom of this figure is characterized by the strong Si II $`\lambda `$6355 and other intermediate-mass elements, and the absence of hydrogen and helium.

## 5 Conclusions

The observations obtained for SN 1999ee constitute the most complete spectral and temporal coverage ever achieved for a SN Ia. Its Branch-normal character makes it an ideal reference for comparative studies of SNe Ia.

Before maximum light SN 1999ee displayed a normal spectrum with a strong Si II $`\lambda `$6355 absorption, thus showing that not all slow-declining SNe are spectroscopically peculiar at these evolutionary phases. We conclude that the photometric properties of luminous SNe Ia cannot be used to predict spectroscopic peculiarities.

From a comparison of the IR spectra of SN 1999ee and other SNe Ia that encompass a wide range in decline rates we find that there is a remarkable homogeneity among the Branch-normal SNe Ia during their first 60 days of evolution. Although the slow-decliner luminous SN 2000cx showed a premaximum featureless IR spectrum similar to that of normal SNe, the Mg II $`\lambda 10926`$ line was characterized by a high expansion velocity. The fast-decliner subluminous SN 1999by was noticeably different than the other SNe at all epochs. This study reveals that the spectroscopic peculiarities displayed by SN 1991bg-like objects at optical wavelengths are also present in the IR.

The fortunate occurrence of SN 1999ex within three weeks and in the same galaxy that hosted SN 1999ee permitted us to obtain optical and IR spectroscopy of a Ib/c event. SN 1999ex was characterized for the lack of hydrogen lines, weak optical He I lines, and strong He I $`\lambda `$10830,20581, thus providing an example of an intermediate case between pure Ib and Ic SNe. We conclude therefore that SN 1999ex provides first clear evidence for a link between the Ib and Ic classes and that there is a continuous spectroscopic sequence ranging from the He deficient SNe Ic to the SNe Ib which are characterized by strong optical He I lines.

M. H. is very grateful to Las Campanas and Cerro Calán observatories for allocating an office and providing generous operational support to the SOIRS program during 1999-2000. M. H. and J. M. thank the ESO, CTIO, and Las Campanas visitor support staffs for their assistance in the course of our observing runs, and the Director General of ESO for allocating Director’s discretionary telescope time to this project. We are very grateful to A. Filippenko, P. Höflich, S. Jha, D. Leonard, W. Li, P. Meikle, R. Rudy, and J. Spyromilio, for making us available their spectra of SNe 1984L, 1987M, 1994D, 1994I, 1999by, 1998bu, and 2000cx. Support for this work was provided by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF-01139.01-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555. J.M. acknowledges support from FONDECYT grant 1980172. This research has made use of 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. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France.


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# Three Type I X-ray bursts from Cyg X-2: Application of Analytical Models for Neutron Star Mass and Radius Determination

## 1 Introduction

The strong energy outbursts in the atmospheres of neutron stars in low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) systems are commonly referred to as X-ray bursts. Soon after their discovery by Grindlay & Heise (1975), X-ray bursts were separated into two classes: in Type I and Type II bursts. Type I bursts are currently considered to be due to thermonuclear explosions on a neutron star (NS) surface, and Type II bursts are believed to result from the instability of the gravitational energy release in the accretion flow (see Lewin et al. 1993). Very strong Type I bursts (hereafter bursts, unless otherwise stated) can exhibit radial atmospheric expansion. After the burst’s peak, when the luminosity falls below the Eddington limit, the atmosphere quickly contracts back to the NS surface.

Titarchuk (1994a) (hereafter T94) and Shaposhnikov & Titarchuk (2002) (hereafter ST02) developed the analytical theory of spectral formation during the expansion and contraction stages of the burst. Two cases have to be considered separately when the Eddington ratio $`l=L/L_{\mathrm{Edd}}1`$ and when $`l<0.9`$ (i.e., before and after the “touchdown” of the extended atmosphere). In the former case, the radiation pressure has substantial influence on the NS atmosphere dynamics, while in the latter one can utilize the hydrostatic equilibrium approximation. The T94 theory can be used to derive distances to X-ray burst sources from which only burst luminosities below the Eddington limit are observed. Haberl & Titarchuk (1995) (hereafter HT95) applied the T94 theory to 4U 1705-44 and they found a distance $`7.4\pm 1`$ kpc, assuming similar NS mass-radius relation for 4U 1705-44 and 4U 1820-30. HT95 presented constraints on the NS mass-radius relationship in X-ray burst source 4U 1820-30. We extend this methodology by deriving the temperature of the burning zone and applying the theory of spectral formation during the expansion stage to the observational spectra obtained at the peaks of bursts. We show that when the mass-radius contours obtained by applying this theory to observations are combined with the Eddington limit constrains for peak flux, we obtain separate NS mass and NS radius values.

Most X-ray bursts are observed in LMXB sources whose color-color diagrams cause them to be classified as atoll sources. However, the two Z-sources GX 17+2 and Cyg X-2 are exceptions to this rule. The observational data of X-ray missions prior to RXTE suffered from poor statistical and time resolution properties and thus could not resolve the nature of burst-like events detected from these sources. The first incontestable evidence of a Type I burst from Cyg X-2 was reported by Smale (1998) (hereafter S98). The analysis provided by S98 indicates that the burst color temperature increases with the transition to the contraction stage and it goes down during a burst decay. In this Letter we concentrate our efforts on the study of the spectral properties of the bursts from the source Cyg X-2. We have surveyed the RXTE public data archive and find more than 20 burst events where the count rate increased by a factor of three on a time scale of $`12`$ seconds. Temporal analysis of this set of bursts for which appropriate data configurations are available shows that for only three bursts (including the burst reported by S98) can the photospheric radius expansion be well established. As long as no other burst can be qualified as a Type I, we summarize the results provided by the three bursts with radial expansion. In §2 we present the results of the analytical models for X-ray spectral formation in the burst atmospheres along with the methodology which we implement in our data analysis. §3 describes the observational data and reduction procedure. §4 contains a report of our results, which is followed by discussion and conclusions in §5.

## 2 Models for a spectral formation during expansion and contraction stages

T94 presented analytical approximations for the solution of the radiative transfer problem during the burst, covering a wide range of values for the Eddington ratio $`l`$. In a case of the hydrostatic equilibrium atmosphere ($`l<0.9`$) the density profile is exponential. The solution for the color factor $`T_h`$ as a function of the luminosity $`l`$, the helium abundance $`Y_{He}`$, and the gravitational acceleration $`g`$ is obtained in the form (T94)

$$T_h=T/T_{eff}=1.32K(l,Y_{He},g)\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{4/5},$$
(1)
where

$$K(l,Y_{He},g)=l^{3/20}(15Y_{He}/8)^{2/15}(1Y_{He}/2)^{1/60}(1l)^{2/15}g_{14}^{1/60},$$

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}=0.14\mathrm{ln}(8a)+0.1\mathrm{exp}(5.5a)+0.6,a=K^{15/2}(l,Y_{He},g)\mathrm{and}g_{14}=g/10^{14}\mathrm{cm}\mathrm{s}^2.$$

The radiative transfer equation in the $`l1`$ case also admits a semi-analytical treatment, which is presented in detail in ST02. Here we present the final results, obtained for the color factor $`T_h`$ and color temperature $`kT`$

$$T_h=0.37m^{0.174}r_6^{0.28}T_{b,9}^{0.64}(2Y_{He})^{0.074},$$
(2)
$$kT=0.76m^{0.42}r_6^{0.78}T_{b,9}^{0.64}(2Y_{He})^{0.324}\mathrm{keV},$$
(3)
where $`r_6`$ is the NS radius in units of $`10^6`$ cm, $`m=M_{NS}/M_{}`$ is the NS mass in units of the solar mass, and $`T_{b,9}`$ is the temperature at the bottom of the burst atmosphere in units of $`10^9`$ K. With these expressions in hand (Eqs. 1-3), we apply our formalism to PCA burst data. The outcome of the fitting procedure implemented to X-ray burst data are the color temperature of radiation $`kT_{\mathrm{}}`$ and the bolometric flux $`F_b`$ with corresponding statistical errors. Subscripts $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`b`$ denote the fact that these values are detected by a distant observer. Renormalization to the real condition at the photospheric surface should account for both dilution and gravitational redshift. The dilution is described by the relation $`L_{\mathrm{}}=4\pi d^2\xi _bF_b,`$ where $`\xi _b`$ is the anisotropy factor determined by the emission anisotropy of the burst. The local luminosity $`L`$ and temperature $`kT`$ are connected with those observed at infinity by

$$L_{\mathrm{}}=L/(z+1)^2,\mathrm{and}kT_{\mathrm{}}=kT/(z+1),$$
(4)
where the redshift factor is $`(z+1)=(12GM_{NS}/R_{NS}c^2)^{1/2}=(10.297m/r_6)^{1/2}`$.

From the definition of the effective temperature and color factor we can write

$$4\pi R_{NS}^2\sigma T_{eff}^4=4\pi R_{NS}^2\sigma \left(T/T_h\right)^4=L.$$
(5)
After the atmospheric “touchdown” occurs (or when no substantial photospheric expansion occurs) we rewrite $`L`$ as $`lL_{Edd}`$, where

$$L_{\mathrm{Edd}}=4\pi cGM_{NS}(z+1)/\kappa _0(2Y_{He})=L_{\mathrm{Edd},\mathrm{}}(z+1),$$
(6)
with $`\kappa _0=0.2`$ cm2g-1. Substituting this into (5), after introducing the general relativistic corrections in (4), we obtain

$$r_6^2=19.5(T_h/kT_{\mathrm{}})^4lm/(2Y_{He})(z+1)^3.$$
(7)
The dimensionless luminosity $`l`$ measured by a local observer can be expressed in terms of observed fluxes and gravitational redshift as

$$l=L/L_{\mathrm{Edd}}=F_b(z+1)/F_{b,\mathrm{Edd}},$$
(8)
where $`F_{b,\mathrm{Edd}}L_{\mathrm{Edd},\mathrm{}}/(4\pi d^2\xi _b)`$ is the observed burst peak bolometric flux (we neglect the relativistic corrections in evaluating $`F_{b,\mathrm{Edd}}`$). Using the above expression for $`F_{b,\mathrm{Edd}}`$ and Eq. (6) for $`L_{\mathrm{Edd},\mathrm{}}`$, we can rewrite this equation as

$$l=0.476\xi _bd_{10}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}F_{b,8}(2Y_{He})(z+1)/m,$$
(9)
where $`d_{10}=d/10`$ kpc, and $`F_{b,8}=F_b/10^8`$erg cm-2 s-1. Because $`T_h`$ and $`z+1`$ are dependent of $`r_6`$ we can find $`r_6`$ as a numerical solution of equation (7) for a particular set of the parameters $`m`$ and $`Y_{He}`$. Furthermore, we can determine the NS mass $`m`$ using the Eddington limit (6), provided that the distance to the source is known. Finally, we are able to test the conditions at the burning zone during the expansion stage by virtue of relation (3).

## 3 Observations

The Z-source Cyg X-2 has been observed extensively by the proportional array counter (PCA) onboard RXTE throughout the mission. We reviewed the entire Cyg X-2 archived data set in an attempt to locate thermonuclear bursts. When a burst was found we determined what EDS (Experimental Data System) configuration was used for that observation. We then choose those bursts for which the EDS configuration was well suited to our analysis. Among the more than 20 burst-like events, we choose three for our analysis: Burst 1 was detected on March 27, 1996 (ObsId:10066-01-01-00, S98), burst 2 was detected on August 10, 1998(ObsId: 20046-01-05), and burst 3 was detected on September 12, 1998 (obsID: 30046-01-01-00). The first two bursts can be classified confidently as Type I X-ray bursts. The nature of burst 3 is uncertain, as we discuss below. During these observations, four additional EDS modes were utilized along with two standard modes: binned mode (0-35 PCA channels in 16 energy bins, 2 ms time resolution), event mode (36-255 PCA channels in 64 bins, 125 $`\mu s`$ time resolution), and two single-bit modes with 125 $`\mu s`$ time resolution, covering the 0-13 and 14-35 PCA energy channels correspondingly. Burst 1 was observed during PCA gain epoch 2, while burst 2 and 3 were observed during PCA gain epoch 3 resulting in a different instrumental response for across the PCA channels. For our temporal burst analysis we are particularly interested in binned and event modes. For the data reduction we use the procedure adopted by Smale (1998), in that we extract a sequence of 0.5 second spectral slices during each burst. Then we extract the spectra of persistent emission prior to each burst. The time duration for the persistent emission spectra is determined by the requirement that the persistent flux does not undergo substantial systematic changes during the interval. All spectra produced are dead-time corrected according to RXTE Data Reduction Recipes.

## 4 Data analysis and results

The best fits for persistent flux background spectra were obtained using the XSPEC comptt+bbody model (Titarchuk 1994b). Best fit parameters for bursts 1, 2, and 3 respectively are: soft photon temperature $`=1.09\pm 0.06,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.04}\pm 0.02,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.04}\pm 0.05`$ keV, plasma temperature $`=3.1\pm 0.1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4.2}_{0.6}^{+1.2},3.0\pm 0.2`$ keV, plasma optical depth $`=4.7\pm 0.3,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2.16}_{0.6}^{+0.45},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3.9}\pm 0.4`$, black body temperature $`=0.56\pm 0.03,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.47}\pm 0.03,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.47}\pm 0.05`$ keV. For each burst we fit each half-second spectral slices over the energy range 2.8-30 keV. using the black-body model which best describes the background subtracted burst emission. To obtain the burst emission we subtract the persistent component as given by analysis of preburst data. The radiated energy from the burst can affect the persistent flux both in magnitude and its spectral properties causing systematic trends in our results. Specifically, if burst results in an increase of the persistent component, our analytical approach will result in slight overestimation of the NS radius.111 At this point we cannot refine the method of persistent emission subtraction due to the quality of data and the fact that no theoretical model for interaction of burst and persistent energy flux has been developed. The best fit values of the color temperatures $`kT`$, the reduced $`\chi _{red}^2`$ values of the blackbody spectral fits to the data, accompanied by the luminosities $`l`$ and the inferred NS radii, are plotted on Figure 1. The typical behavior of a thermonuclear runaway process is most pronounced in the first burst: after a quick rise, the color temperature gradually hardens from 1 keV up to 2 keV and then decreases during decay phase. The situation is less obvious for burst 3, where the temperature stays rather high throughout the decay. We speculate that the persistent emission is affected by the burst itself. In fact, the photons generated by the bursts can be intercepted by the accretion disk and reflected. This results in apparent anisotropy of the burst radiation \[see Lapidus, Sunyaev & Titarchuk (1985), Popham & Sunyaev (2001) for details\].

The second burst has a peak flux, approximately 25% higher than that of the other two bursts. This discrepancy can be again explained by considering disk reflection and/or dynamical evolution of the NS - accretion disk geometry 222The area of emitting NS surface exposed to observer can change during bursts with radial expansion. A strong indication that this may occur has recently been found by the authors in X-ray bursts from 4U 1728-34. We will discuss this point in a forthcoming paper. . The anisotropy effect can be accounted for in our analysis by the inclusion of the anisotropy coefficient in equation (9). Unfortunately, the limited signal$``$to$``$noise of the Cyg X-2 data during the burst decay part does not allow us to make any further conclusions on this issue. To ensure consistency with the observed peak fluxes, we set the anisotropy parameter constant to 0.8 for the second burst, while we keep it at unity for the first and the third bursts.

Combining equations (1), (7) and (9) we obtain an equation relating the NS mass and radius to quantities we can obtain from the observations:

$$r_6^2=9.28\xi _bd_{10}^2F_{b,8}(T_h/kT_{\mathrm{}})^4(10.297m/r_6).$$
(10)
We solve equation (10) for each pair of values $`kT_{\mathrm{}}`$, $`F_{b,8}`$ and a given set of parameters $`Y_{He}`$ and $`m`$ to obtain the radius of the emitting surface $`r_6`$ and Eddington ratio $`l`$. It should be noted that a solution exists in the narrow parameter space for $`r_6`$, $`m`$ and $`Y_{He}`$ only. In Figure 1 the values of the inferred characteristics are shown along with a plot of color temperatures, obtained using blackbody fits to the data. After the luminosity peak the photospheric radius drops quickly, while $`l`$ remains close to unity. After about 4 seconds the photosphere reaches “touchdown”, the radius levels off at constant value and the Eddington ratio drops rapidly. Because the thickness of the atmosphere (scale height $`HkT/mg10^2`$ cm) is negligible with respect to the neutron star radius $`R_{NS}`$, we assume the photospheric radius, $`R_{ph}`$ after “touchdown”, is equal to the $`R_{NS}`$. Then for a particular distance we determine the NS mass assuming the Eddington luminosity at the peak of the burst. Figure 2 shows two contours for distances of 9 and 11 kpc and cosmic elemental abundance along with the $`R`$, $`\pi `$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ equations of state for neutron star matter from Baym & Pethick (1979). The points with error bars on mass and radii present NS mass-radius determination. For an assumed distance of 11 kpc we obtain the canonical values for the neutron star parameters: mass = $`1.44\pm 0.06`$, radius = $`9.0\pm 0.5`$ km, while assuming 9 kpc the results are less realistic: mass = $`0.97\pm 0.04`$, radius = $`7.7\pm 0.4`$ km (quoted errors on the NS mass includes only the statistical error on the burst peak flux). The lack of convergence is the reason why the contour for $`d=9`$ kpc ends at $`m=1.4`$. If we demand that our model yields $`m1.4`$ and $`Y_{He}0.3`$ then our results favor the soft, specifically $`R`$ and $`\pi `$, equations of states for neutron stars. Using formula (3) we estimate the burning zone temperature at the maximum expansion is within the range $`(46)10^8`$ K.

## 5 Discussion and Conclusions

In light of the recently discovered millisecond variability in the X-ray flux from a number of LMXBs, the task of independent determination of masses and radii of neutron stars in these systems becomes very important. Kilohertz Quasi-periodic oscillations (QPO) are seen in the power-density spectrum of many LMXBs as twin peaks with frequencies within the range of 500-1200 Hz. A number of models were put forward to explain these high-frequency patterns. First, and most obvious, was the suggestion of an interaction between Keplerian frequency at neutron star surface (or last stable orbit) and the frequency of the neutron star rotation \[beat-frequency model (BFM): Alpar & Shaham (1985); Miller Lamb & Psaltis (1998)\]. Despite some discrepancies between the model predictions and the observational results, \[the peak separation is not constant when the twin QPO frequencies vary with time (see e.g. van der Klis 2000)\], the beat-frequency model became fashionable and has been applied to infer information on the neutron star masses Zhang et al. (1997). Because of general relativistic (GR) effects, no stable particle motion is allowed for a circular orbit radius less than $`R_{isco}=6GM/c^2=8.9m`$ km. The corresponding frequency of the orbital motion (assumed close to the QPO frequency) is $`\nu _{isco}2210/m`$ Hz. The NS masses in the LMXB exhibiting kHz QPO phenomena should be equal to or even exceed two solar masses if the highest observed kHz QPO is interpreted as the frequency of the innermost stable orbit. For Cyg X-2 the corresponding values are 1005 Hz for the maximum QPO frequency (Wijnands & van der Klis, 1998) and consequently $`2.2M_{}`$ is the NS inferred mass, clearly too high. Our analysis of the burst spectra, which takes into account all corrections due to the GR and electron scattering effects, are in disagreement with the mass-radius constraints obtained using the kHz QPO frequencies values evaluated within the BFM frameworks.

It is worth noting that in a recent study of optical and UV lightcurves of Cyg X-2 by Orosc & Kuulkers (1999) who elaborate independent constraints on the NS mass in Cyg X-2, they find $`M_{NS}=1.78\pm 0.23M_{}`$, consistent with our mass determination above 333There remains the problem of the too small distance estimates of $`d_{10}=0.72\pm 0.11`$ obtained by Orosz & Kuulkers (1999). But this can be explained as the uncertainty in the luminosity estimate for Cyg X-2 optical counterpart, caused by an unknown disk contribution. We should emphasize that the X-ray radiation detected from a type I burst is directly related to the physical processes (thermonuclear explosions, photon transport) which take place in the NS atmosphere. Consequently it carries with it direct information regarding the main NS characteristics (mass, radius) and the distance to the source..

Sco X-1 and Cyg X-2 have many similar features in terms of their timing and spectral properties and they have almost the same upper limit for the bolometric flux (see Bradshaw, Fomalont & Geldzahler, 1999). Thus we expect that the similar mass-radius values inferred for Cyg-2 (mass = $`1.44\pm 0.06`$, radius = $`9.0\pm 0.5`$ km) should also be applied to Sco X-1.

The authors are grateful to Menas Kafatos for support of this work and to the referee for fruitful suggestions. We acknowledge the thorough analysis and editing of the paper by Michael Wolff.


text:
# Statistical nature of cluster emission in nuclear liquid phase

## I Introduction

Hot excited nuclei with moderate temperature can be formed by the collisions between heavy ions at low-intermediate energy and they finally de-excite by the different decay modes, such as the light particle evaporation and the emission of multiple intermediate mass fragment ($`IMF`$), $`ie.`$ multifragmentation. Even though extensive studies on multifragmentation have been carried out experimentally and theoretically, it is still an open question to clarify definitely whether the multifragmentation is statistical or dynamical, sequential or simultaneous. Among such efforts, Moretto $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑡}\mathrm{𝑎𝑙}.`$ found that there exists the resilient reducibility and thermal scaling in multiple fragment emission process, which seems to show one a possible interpretation picture to look and understand the multifragmentation. Originally, they observed that the experimental Z-integrated fragment multiplicity distributions $`P_n^m`$ are binomially distributed, $`ie.`$

$$P_n^m(p)=\frac{m!}{n!(mn)!}p^n(1p)^{mn},$$
(1)
in each transverse energy ($`E_t`$) window, where $`n`$ is the number of emitted fragments and $`m`$ is interpreted as the number of times the system tries to emit a fragment. The probability of emitting $`n`$ fragments can be reduced to a single-particle emission probability $`p`$ which gives linear Arrhenius plots ($`ie.`$ excitation functions) when $`ln(1/p)`$ is plotted vs 1/$`\sqrt{(E_t)}`$. By assuming a linear relationship between $`\sqrt{(E_t)}`$ and temperature $`T`$, they proposed that the linearity of the observed $`ln(1/p)`$ vs 1/$`\sqrt{(E_t)}`$ can be interpreted as a thermal scaling of the multifragment process More ; Tso ; More97 . In this case, these linear Arrhenius plots suggest that $`p`$ has the Boltzman form $`pexp^{B/T}`$ with a common fragment barrier $`B`$. However, since the binomial decomposition has been performed on the $`Z`$-integrated multiplicities, typically associated with $`3Z20`$, the Arrhenius plot generated with the resulting one fragment probability $`p`$ is an average over a range of $`Z`$ values. Some comments and criticisms on the above binomial distribution and the thermal scaling were also raised Tsang ; Toke ; Wieloch ; Botvina . One paper, that of Tsang and Danielewicz Tsang , found that the assumption of $`T\sqrt{(E_t)}`$ may be only valid for compound nuclei formed at low-to-moderate temperatures and it will be broke down for the intermediate energy heavy ion collisions such as 40Ar + 197Au at E/A = 37 to 110 MeV due to the mid-rapidity particle emission from the overlap region of projectile and target as well as the delay emission from projectile-like and target-like residues. In this case the above interpretation of thermal scaling is not vaild in the point of experimental view. Moreover, they found that the fit with the binomial distribution can be replaced by the Poisson distribution in the constraint of charge conservation. As a consequence, the reducibility of fragment emission to bionomial distributions does not imply the fundamental significance for the parameters of $`m`$ and $`p`$ thereby extracted. If $`p`$ is not an elementary emission probability, then the Arrhenius law will fail also.

Later, instead of analyzing for $`Z`$-integrated multiplicities, Beaulieu and Moretto $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑡}\mathrm{𝑎𝑙}.`$ analyzed the behavior of individual fragment species of a given $`Z`$ for higher resolution experimental data and noticed that the $`n`$-fragment multiplicities $`P(n)`$ obey a nearly Poisson distribution,

$$P(n)=\frac{<n>^ne^{<n>}}{n!},$$
(2)
where $`n`$ is the number of fragments of a given Z and the average value $`<n>`$ is a function of the total transverse energy $`E_t`$, and were thus reducible to a single-fragment probability proportional to the average value $`<n>`$ for each $`Z`$ Beau ; More99 . Similarly the $`<n>`$ is found to be proportional to $`exp^{B/T}`$ providing that $`T\sqrt{E_t}`$, $`ie.`$ there exists also a thermal scaling law. More recently, Elliott and Moretto $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑡}\mathrm{𝑎𝑙}.`$ discovered that the common features of Poissonian reducibility and thermal scaling can also be revealed in percolation and the Fisher droplet model Elliott ; Elliott02 .

In the present work, we would like to make a theoretical reexamination on the Poissonian reducibility and its thermal scaling rather than the bionomial reducibility and its thermal scaling. Unlike in experiment, we will adopt the true temperature to check the Poisson reducibility and thermal scaling in the frameworks of the isospin dependent lattice gas model (I-LGM) Jpan95 ; Jpan96  and followed by the isospin dependent classical molecular dynamics (I-CMD) of Das Gupta and Pan Jpan98 . Of course, we should keep in mind that the assumption of $`\sqrt{(E_t)}T`$ in experiments may be only valid for compound nuclei formed at low-to-moderate temperatures, but fail in the experimental data at higher temperatures Tsang . In this context, we checked the relationship between $`\sqrt{(E_t)}`$ and $`T`$ in the models and found that the assumption of $`\sqrt{(E_t)}T`$ is valid at low-to-moderate temperatures where we will study in the following section. By investigating the variances and average multiplicities of cluster multiplicity distributions as a function of temperature, we will illustrate that the Poissonian reducibility and its thermal scaling is valid for fragment emission in the nuclear liquid phase in the framework of the above thermal equilibrium models. It may indicate of a statistical nature of cluster emission.

The paper is organized as follows. Firstly, we introduce the models of I-LGM and I-CMD in Sec. II; In Sec.III, the results and discussions are presented. We first show some results to support that there exists a Poisson reducility in the cluster production away from the liquid gas phase transition by investigating the ratio of the dispersion of multiplicity distribution to its mean value and the Poisson fit to the multiplicity distribution of individual clusters. Second we plot the Arrhenius-type plots and find the thermal scaling is valid in the nuclear liquid phase. Further we extract the ”emission barrier” sorted by the different mass number, or light isotope, or charge number in I-LGM and I-CMD and use the formula embodied with the contributions of the surface energy and Coulomb interaction to make a systematic fit. The dependences of the model, the source size, Coulomb interaction and ”freeze-out” density are presented. Finally, a conclusion is reached in Sec. IV.

## II Descrpition of Models

Orginally, the lattice gas model was developed to describe the liquid-gas phase transition for atomic system by Lee and Yang Yang52 . The same model has already been applied to nuclear physics for isospin symmetrical systems in the grand canonical ensemble Biro86  with a sampling of the canonical ensemble Jpan95 ; Jpan96 ; Jpan98 ; Mull97 ; Camp97 ; Gulm98 ; Carmona98 ; Ma99 , and also for isospin asymmetrical nuclear matter in the mean field approximation Sray97 . In this work, we will adpot the lattice gas model which was developed by Das Gupta $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑡}\mathrm{𝑎𝑙}.`$ Jpan95 ; Jpan96 . In addition, a classical molecular dynamical model of Das Gupta $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑡}\mathrm{𝑎𝑙}.`$ Jpan98  is also used to compare with the results of lattice gas model. For completeness of the paper, here we make a brief description for the models.

In the lattice gas model, $`A`$ (= $`N+Z`$) nucleons with an occupation number $`s_i`$ which is defined $`s_i`$ = 1 (-1) for a proton (neutron) or $`s_i`$ = 0 for a vacancy, are placed on the $`L`$ sites of lattice. Nucleons in the nearest neighboring sites have interaction with an energy $`ϵ_{s_is_j}`$. The hamiltonian is written as

$$E=\underset{i=1}{\overset{A}{}}\frac{P_i^2}{2m}\underset{i<j}{}ϵ_{s_is_j}s_is_j,$$
(3)
where $`P_i`$ is the momentum of the nucleon and $`m`$ is its mass. The interaction constant $`ϵ_{s_is_j}`$ is chosen to be isospin dependent and be fixed to reproduce the binding energy of the nuclei Jpan98 :

$`ϵ_{nn}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_{pp}=0.MeV,`$
$`ϵ_{pn}`$ $`=`$ $`5.33MeV.`$ (4)
Three-dimension cubic lattice with $`L`$ sites is used which results in $`\rho _f`$ = $`\frac{A}{L}\rho _0`$ of an assumed freeze-out density of disassembling system, in which $`\rho _0`$ is the normal nuclear density. The disassembly of the system is to be calculated at $`\rho _f`$, beyond which nucleons are too far apart to interact. Nucleons are put into lattice by Monte Carlo Metropolis sampling. Once the nucleons have been placed we also ascribe to each of them a momentum by Monte Carlo samplings of Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution.

Once this is done the I-LGM immediately gives the cluster distribution using the rule that two nucleons are part of the same cluster if

$$P_r^2/2\mu ϵ_{s_is_j}s_is_j<0,$$
(5)
where $`P_r`$ is the relative momentum of two nucleons and $`\mu `$ is their reduced mass. This prescription is evidenced to be similar to the Coniglio-Klein’s prescription Coni80  in condensed matter physics and be valid in I-LGM Camp97 ; Jpan96 ; Jpan95 ; Gulm98 . To calculate clusters using I-CMD we propagate the particles from the initial configuration for a long time under the influence of the chosen force. The form of the force is chosen to be also isospin dependent in order to compare with the results of I-LGM. The potential for unlike nucleons is

$`v_{\mathrm{np}}(r)({\displaystyle \frac{r}{r_0}}<a)`$ $`=`$ $`A\left[B({\displaystyle \frac{r_0}{r}})^p({\displaystyle \frac{r_0}{r}})^q\right]exp({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\frac{r}{r_0}a}}),`$
$`v_{\mathrm{np}}(r)({\displaystyle \frac{r}{r_0}}>a)`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (6)
In the above, $`r_0=1.842fm`$ is the distance between the centers of two adjacent cubes. The parameters of the potentials are $`p`$ = 2, $`q`$ = 1, $`a`$ = 1.3, $`B`$ = 0.924, and $`A`$ = 1966 MeV. With these parameters the potential is minimum at $`r_0`$ with the value -5.33 MeV, is zero when the nucleons are more than 1.3$`r_0`$ apart and becomes stronger repulsive when $`r`$ is significantly less than $`r_0`$. The potential for like nucleons is written as

$`v_{\mathrm{pp}}(r)(r<r_0)`$ $`=`$ $`v_{\mathrm{np}}(r)v_{\mathrm{np}}(r_0),`$
$`v_{\mathrm{pp}}(r)(r>r_0)`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (7)
This means there is a repulsive core which goes to zero at $`r_0`$ and is zero afterwards. It is consistent with the fact that we do not put two like nucleons in the same cube. The system evolves for a long time from the initial configuration obtained by the lattice gas model under the influence of the above potential. At asymptotic times the clusters are easily recognized. The cluster distribution and the quantities based on it in the two models can now be compared. In the case of proton-proton interactions, the Coulomb interaction can also be added separately and compared with the cases where the Coulomb effects are ignored.

## III Results and Discussions

In this paper we choose the medium size nuclei 129Xe as a main example to analyze the behavior of individual fragment emission during nuclear disassembly with the helps of I-LGM and I-CMD. In addition, the systems with $`A_{sys}`$ = 80 ($`Z_{sys}`$ = 33) and 274 ($`Z_{sys}`$ = 114) are also studied to investigate the possible source size dependence. In most case, $`\rho _f`$ is chosen to be about 0.38 $`\rho _0`$, since the experimental data can be best fitted by $`\rho _f`$ between 0.3$`\rho _0`$ and 0.4$`\rho _0`$ in the previous LGM calculations Jpan95 ; Beau96 , which corresponds to $`7^3`$ cubic lattice is used for Xe, $`6^3`$ for $`A_{sys}`$ = 80 and $`9^3`$ for $`A_{sys}`$ = 274 . In the condition of the fixed freeze-out density, the only input parameter of the models is the temperature $`T`$. In the I-LGM case, $`\rho _f`$ can be thought as the freeze-out density but in the I-CMD case $`\rho _f`$ is, strictly speaking, not a freeze-out density but merely defines the starting point for time evolution. However since classical evolution of a many particle system is entirely deterministic, the initialization does have in it all the information of the asymptotic cluster distribution, we will continue to call $`\rho _f`$ as the freeze-out density. 1000 events are simulated for each $`T`$ which ensures enough statistics.

### III.1 Poissonian Reducibility

One of the basic characters of the Poisson distribution Eq.(2) is the ratio $`\sigma _{n_i}^2/<n_i>1`$ where $`\sigma _{n_i}^2`$ is the variance of the multiplicity distribution and $`<n_i>`$ is the mean value of the multiplicity distribution. The first step we are showing is this ratio. We obtain these ratios for clusters classified with different masses ($`A`$), light isotopes ($`ISO`$) and atomic numbers ($`Z`$) for the disassembly of $`{}_{}{}^{129}Xe`$ as a function of temperature in the framework of I-LGM and I-CMD with Coulomb in Fig. 1. Obviously, most of the ratios are close to one, which indicates that basically these cluster production obeys the Poisson distributions, $`ie.`$ a cluster is formed independently from one another. Of course, we also notice that the values of protons are almost lower than the unique, $`ie.`$ it is narrower than the Poisson distribution. This could be due to protons can be easily produced by an ”evaporation”-like mechanism in the models, $`ie.`$ protons can be easily separated from some unstable multi-nucleon clusters. In this case, this kind of proton production is obviously related to the parent cluster and then a narrower distribution of mixed protons could reveal. On the contrary, some points are slightly larger than 1 and this behavior becomes obvious in the mediate temperature range, which could be related to the onset of phase transition in such moderate thermal excitation Ma99 , where the large critical fluctuation Ma01  makes the Poisson reducibility broke-down .

Besides the above Poisson condition is basically sustained, the excitation function of the average multiplicity of $`n`$-multiple individual cluster emission can be well fited with the Poisson distribution. For some examples, Fig. 2 shows the quality of the Poisson fits to the average multiplicity of $`n`$-multiple individual cluster emission in the different temperature for $`{}_{}{}^{129}Xe`$ in the I-LGM case. In each panel of this figure, we first plot the probability of $`n`$-multiple emission species ( P($`n`$) ) as a function of temperature (as shown by the open symbols), and then we connect the Poisson probabilities in the different temperature as lines in terms of Eq.(2) due to we know $`n`$ and its average value $`<n>`$ over all $`n`$-multiple emission in each temperature (as shown by the lines). Obviously, these Poisson fits are quite good for almost $`Z2`$ over the entire range of $`T`$. The similar good Poisson fit is overall obtained in the cases of I-CMD. As a consequence, we think that Poissonian reducibility is valid in the thermal-equilibrium lattice gas model or molecular dynamics, which illustrates that the cluster production is almost independent each other in the studied models.

### III.2 Thermal Scaling

Naturally, we want to know if there exists a thermal scaling law in the thermal-equilibrium LGM and CMD models. To this end, the temperature dependence of the mean yield ($`<n>`$)of individual clusters is investigated. In order to compare a recent well-known thermal Arrhenius-type plot in nuclear multifragmentation phenomenon More97 ; Tsang , we plot $`ln<n>`$ versus $`1/T`$. Fig. 3 gives a family of these plots for the disassembly of $`{}_{}{}^{129}Xe`$ within the framework of I-LGM (left panels) and I-CMD with Coulomb interaction (right panels). Again, as Fig. 1, the clusters are classified according to their masses (upper panels), the light isotopes (the middle panels) and the charge numbers (the lower panels). For all the panels, the obtained Arrhenius plots are linear for the lower $`T`$ side, and their slopes generally increase with increasing $`A`$ or $`Z`$ value. Generally, the thermal scaling is expected when the yields, for a fixed nucleon number system, are dominated by fragment binding. This is the case when the temperatures are low compared to the binding energy per particle. At these temperatures, one can anticipate one large fragment surrounded by many small clusters. However, contrary tendency reveals in the high $`T`$ side where $`ln<n>`$ increases with $`1/T`$, $`ie.`$ decreases with increasing $`T`$. In this case, nuclear Arrhenius plots of $`<n>`$ with $`1/T`$ are not valid but the Poissonian reducibility still remains (see Fig. 2). This behavior of $`<n>`$ at higher $`T`$ is related to the branch of the fall of the multiplicity of $`IMF`$ ($`N_{IMF}`$) with $`T`$ where the disassembling system is in vaporization Ogil ; Tsang93 ; Ma95  and hence only the lightest clusters are dominated and the heavier clusters become fewer and fewer with increasing $`T`$. The temperature where the Arrenhius-type plot begins to deviate from the linearity just indicates the onset of transition from the Fermi liquid phase to gas phase in I-LGM and I-CMD Ma99 . In other words, the Arrenhius law looks valid only below the critical phase transition point, $`ie.`$ in the nuclear liquid phase. Recognizing this phenomenon, in the following sections we only focus on the branch of lower temperature ($`ie.`$ the liquid phase) where the thermal scaling exists to discuss the Arrhenius law and their slopes.

### III.3 ”Emission Barriers”

#### III.3.1 Model dependence

From Fig. 3 the slope parameter can be directly extracted in the lower $`T`$ side as a function of $`Z`$ or $`A`$. In Ref. Beau  Moretto $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑡}\mathrm{𝑎𝑙}.`$ has interpreted these slope parameters as ”emission barriers” of specific individual fragments. Fig. 4 gives the emission barrier of individual fragments with different $`A`$, $`ISO`$ and $`Z`$ in the framework of I-LGM, I-CMD with/without Coulomb interaction. The error bar in the figure represents the error in the extraction of the slope parameter. The first indication from this figure is that the emission barrier in the I-LGM case is the nearly same as the I-CMD case without Coulomb force, which supports that I-LGM is equivalent to I-CMD without Coulomb interaction rather well when the nuclear potential parameter is moderately chosen, but I-LGM is a quick model to analyze the behavior of nuclear dissociations. The inclusion of long-range Coulomb interaction makes the emission barrier of individual fragments much lower since the repulsion of Coulomb force reduces the attractive role of potential and hence make clusters escape easily. The second indication is that the emission barriers increase with $`A`$ ($`Z`$) at low $`A`$ ($`Z`$) values and tend to be saturated at high $`A`$ ($`Z`$) ones. Similar experimental results have been observed for individual fragments with different $`Z`$ in Ref.Beau  or different $`A`$ in Ref.Elliott . However, the middle panel of Fig. 4 shows that bare dependence of emission barrier of $`ISO`$ on $`A`$ in the fixed atomic number Z, which indicates that the Z dependence of barrier is perhaps more intrinsic and the A dependence is basically due to the average effect over the species with the same A but different Z.

#### III.3.2 Source size and Coulomb interaction dependence

On the origin of these barrier, the surface energy and Coulomb energy would play the roles. If the cluster emission is mainly controlled by its surface energy, it would suggest barriers proportional to $`Z^{2/3}(A^{2/3})`$. In the case of I-LGM and I-CMD without Coulomb, we can try to fit the barrier for the particles with different mass number by

$$B_{Coul.off}=c_1\times A_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{2/3},$$
(8)
or for the particles with different charge number by

$$B_{Coul.off}=c_1\times ((A/Z)_{fit}Z_i)^{2/3},$$
(9)
where $`(A/Z)_{fit}`$ is a fit coefficient of A/Z for emitted particles, and $`A_i`$ ($`Z_i`$) is the mass (charge) of particle. $`c_1`$ is the fit constant for surface energy term. The solid line in the Fig. 4a is a function of Eq.(8) with $`c_1`$ = 8.469 and the solid line in the Fig. 4c is a function of Eq.(9) with $`c_1`$ = 8.469 and $`(A/Z)_{fit}`$ = 1.866. These excellent fits imply that the surface energy play a major role in controlling the cluster emission when the long range Coulomb force is not considered. However for the cluster emission with the Coulomb field, we can assumed that the barrier is mainly constituted by the surface energy term and an additional Coulomb term as

$$B_{Coul.on}=c_2\times A_i^{2/3}\frac{1.44\times A_i/(A/Z)_{fit}\times Z_{res}}{r_{Coul}(A_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{1/3}+((A/Z)_{fit}Z_{res})^{1/3})}$$
(10)
for the particles classified with different mass number, or

$$B_{Coul.on}=c_2\times ((A/Z)_{fit}Z_i)^{2/3}\frac{1.44\times Z_i\times Z_{res}}{r_{Coul}((Z_i(A/Z)_{fit})^{1/3}+(Z_{res}(A/Z)_{fit})^{1/3})}$$
(11)
for the particles classified with different charge number, where $`c_2`$ is a fit constant for surface term and $`r_{Coul}`$ is chosen to be 1.22 fm. $`Z_{res}`$ is a fitted average charge number of the residue. $`(A/Z)_{fit}`$ is chosen to be 1.866, as taken from the fits for I-LGM. The overall fits for $`A`$ and $`Z`$ dependent barrier in the case of I-CMD with Coulomb force give $`c_2`$ = 12.921 and $`Z_{res}`$ $``$ 41 with the dot-dashed line in Fig.4a and 4c. The excellent fit supports that the Coulomb energy plays another important role in the cluster emission.

In the case of I-LGM and I-CMD without Coulomb, one would expect the barrier for each $`Z`$ ($`A`$) to be nearly independent of the system studied if only the surface energy is substantial to the emission barrier. The left panel of the Fig. 5 shows the results for $`B_A`$, $`B_{ISO}`$ and $`B_Z`$ for three different systems in the I-LGM case. The same freeze-out density of 0.38$`\rho _0`$ and the same $`N/Z`$ is chosen for the systems of $`A_{sys}`$ = 80 and $`A_{sys}`$ = 274. Actually, it appears to have no obvious dependence of emission barrier on source size as expected for the role of surface energy. The solid line in the figure is the same as in Fig. 4. However, when the long-range Coulomb interaction is considered, the emission barrier reveals a source size dependence. The right panel of Fig. 5 gives the emission barriers $`B_A`$, $`B_{ISO}`$ and $`B_Z`$ in the case of I-CMD with Coulomb force. It looks that the barrier increase with the decreasing of charge of system, which can be explained with the Eq. (10) and (11) where the decreasing of the residue $`Z_{res}`$ will result in the decreasing of the Coulomb barrier and hence the increasing of the emission barrier. The lines represent the fits with the Eq.(10) and (11) for three different mass systems.

#### III.3.3 ”Freeze-out” density dependence

In the above calculations, the freeze-out density of systems is fixed at $``$ 0.38$`\rho _0`$. Considering the freeze-out density is an important debating variable in the latter stage of heavy ion collisions, here we will discuss the possible influence of freeze-out density on the emission barrier of clusters. The calculations at the freeze-out density of 0.177$`\rho _0`$ and 0.597$`\rho _0`$ for $`{}_{}{}^{129}Xe`$, corresponding to $`9^3`$ and $`6^3`$ cubic lattices respectively, are supplemented to compare. Fig. 6 gives the results of $`B_A`$, $`B_{ISO}`$ and $`B_Z`$ at different density. It looks that there are no obvious freeze-out density dependence in the both cases of I-LGM and I-CMD. This is also consistent with that assumption that the surface energy is the dominant role in controlling the cluster emission.

## IV Conclusion

In conclusion, the Poisson reducibility and thermal scaling of the emitted clusters is explored in the lattice gas model and molecular dynamical model. It indicates of a statistical nature of such cluster emission. The Poisson reducibility illustrates that the clusters are produced independently each other and stochastic. But near the liquid gas phase transition, the large fluctuation breaks down the Poisson reducibility. The thermal scaling is existed when the temperatures are low compared to the binding energy per particle. At these temperatures, one can anticipate one large fragment surrounded by many small clusters, $`ie.`$ the nuclei is in the liquid phase. The calculations looks qualitatively consistent with the recent experimental observation of Poisson reducibility and thermal scaling by Moretto/Wozniak’s group even though the system studied is different and the temperature was supposed to be proportional to the total transverse energy in their experiments. This also supports somehow that the lattice gas model and classical molecular dynamics is a useful tool to simulate the nuclear disassembly.

Further, based on the Arrhenius law in the liquid phase, we extracted the emission barrier for clusters with the different mass, light isotope mass and charge number. Also, the systematic fits with the formula embodied with the surface energy and Coulomb interaction were performed and the overall good fits were reached. The results suggest that the cluster emission is mainly controlled by both the surface energy and the Coulomb interaction. In the framework of the lattice gas model and molecular dynamics model without the Coulomb interaction, the emission barrier relies on the cluster charge with the $`Z^{2/3}`$ ($`A^{2/3}`$) law and it does not depend on the source size and freeze-out density, which indicates that the surface energy play a basic dominant role to control the cluster emission. However, in the framework of molecular dynamics model with the Coulomb force, the emission barrier will decrease strongly according to the Eq.(10) and (11) and it decreases with the increasing of the source size, illustrating that the Coulomb interaction also play another weighty role to control the cluster emission.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank Prof. B. Tamain, Prof. S. Das Gupta, Prof W.Q. Shen and Dr. J.C. Pan for helps. We also appreciate for some enlightening comments from the previous referees. This work was supported in part by the NSFC for Distinguished Young Scholar under Grant No. 19725521 and NSFC Grant No. 10135030, and the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China under Contract No. G200077400. It was also supported partly by the IN2P3-CNRS Foundation of France.