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# MASS AND LIGHT IN THE UNIVERSEThis article is based on the third (Wilson, Kaiser, & Luppino, 2001, Ap.J., 556, 601) in a series of papers describing results from an ongoing project whose principle aim is to investigate the cosmic shear pattern caused by gravitational lensing from the large-scale structure of the Universe.

## 1 Mass Surface Density Predictions from Luminous Matter and from Lensing

Our analysis differed from other approaches in that we used $`VI`$ color and $`I`$ magnitude to reliably select bright early type galaxies at redshifts $`0.1<z<0.9`$. We generated predictions of the dimensional mass surface density $`\kappa `$ (where $`\kappa =\mathrm{\Sigma }/\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{crit}}`$, the physical mass per unit area in units of the critical surface density) from $`I`$-band galaxy luminosity, assuming a constant $`M/L_B`$. The implicit assumption is that optical early type galaxy luminosity is an unbiased tracer of the mass. We adopted a redshift distribution for the faint source galaxies (needed to calculate $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{crit}}`$) based on spectroscopic redshifts from Len Cowie’s (ongoing) Hawaii galaxy survey. The upper left panel of Fig. 1 shows the resulting surface mass density $`\kappa `$-from-light “map” for one of the six fields.

From galaxy shear estimates we also constructed 2D mass surface density reconstructions *directly*. The upper left panel of Fig. 2 shows the surface density map inferred from lensing for the same field. For comparison, the upper right panel shows the typical (high) level of noise.

In view of the difficulty of measuring mass directly from the maps, and since we have a large area containing many structures, we attempted to better reveal the signal by cross-correlating light and mass. We therefore cross-correlated the luminosity associated with foreground galaxies with the mass inferred from the background galaxy shear estimates. Our aim was firstly to test the hypothesis of a constant mass-to-light ratio which is independent of scale, and also to determine the value of $`M/L_B`$, the constant of proportionality between mass and light.

## 2 Mass-Light Cross-Correlation, Inferred Mass Density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{m0}`$, and Conclusions

Cross-correlation of the measured mass surface density with that predicted from the early type galaxy distribution showed a strong peak at zero lag (significant at the $`5.2\sigma `$ level) as shown in the lower left panel of Fig. 2. That early type galaxy luminosity and total mass show such a strong correlation is our central result. The correlation strength at zero lag implies a $`M/L_B300\pm 75hM_{}/L_{}`$ for a flat ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.3,\mathrm{\Omega }_{\lambda 0}=0.7`$) lambda cosmology and $`M/L_B400\pm 100hM_{}/L_{}`$ for Einstein-de Sitter.

In order to determine if $`M/L`$ ratio varies with scale, we then azimuthally averaged the cross- and auto-correlation functions. The cross- and auto- correlation functions had very similar profiles. We concluded that the profiles are consistent with early type galaxies tracing mass on scales of $`45\mathrm{}`$ ($`200h^1\mathrm{kpc}`$ at $`z=0.5`$). We sub-divided our bright early type galaxies by redshift (same as Fig. 1) and obtained similar conclusions.

We then calculated $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{m0}`$ using $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{m0}=\rho _E/\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}`$ and $`\rho _E=(M/L)_E_E=(M/L)_E\varphi _EL_E\mathrm{\Gamma }(\alpha _E+2)`$ where $`_E`$ is the measured $`B`$-band luminosity density of the universe for early type galaxies. We concluded that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{m0}0.10\pm 0.02`$ ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{m0}0.13\pm 0.03`$ for Einstein-de Sitter) of closure density.

The global density parameter we obtain appears low compared to other estimates. This is not because our early type $`M/L_B`$ value is low but because we do not assign the same $`M/L_B`$ to late types as to early types. In the scenario we propose, late types are assumed to have very similar luminosities to early types. The difference is that late types have much less mass associated with them and hence their $`M/L_B`$ ratio is much lower. The analysis in this paper assumes that they have negligible $`M/L_B`$ compared to early types.

In summary, we found that the majority of mass in the Universe is associated with early type galaxies. On scales of $`200h^1\mathrm{kpc}`$ (the smoothing scale at $`z=0.5`$) it appears that their light traces the underlying mass distribution with a constant $`M/L_B=300400\pm 100hM_{}/L_{}`$, depending on cosmology. As with several other recent results our data argues against an $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{m0}=1`$ universe.


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# A Chandra observation of the X-ray environment and jet of 3C 31

## 1 Introduction

The radio emission from low-luminosity radio galaxies \[class I of Fanaroff & Riley (1974), hereafter FRI\] is often dominated by bright jets which may extend for many hundreds of kpc on both sides of the central active nucleus. A number of arguments, including observations of superluminal motion in some sources, lead to the conclusion that the jet material moves at relativistic bulk speeds on parsec scales. At large distances from the galaxy, however, the diffuse, relaxed appearance of the jets, their large opening angles, and their brightness symmetry across the nucleus (together with other indicators) suggest that they are trans-sonic or subsonic flows with sub-relativistic speeds. The jets must therefore decelerate on intermediate scales.

There is now a good deal of direct evidence, both from studies of Doppler beaming of individual objects (e.g. Hardcastle et al. 1997; Laing & Bridle 2002a) and samples (Laing et al. 1999) and from independent indicators of source orientation such as depolarization (Morganti et al. 1997) that this deceleration largely happens on scales of $`1`$$`10`$ kpc from the nucleus, corresponding to scales of a few arcseconds at the typical distances of well-studied objects. A plausible mechanism for deceleration is mass loading by the entrainment of thermal material, either by injection from stellar winds within the volume that is traversed by the jet (e.g., Bowman, Leahy & Kommissarov 1996) or by ingestion from the galactic atmosphere across a turbulent boundary layer at the edges of the jet (e.g., Bicknell 1984). All models in which the jet decelerates rapidly by mass loading require the presence of an external pressure gradient to prevent disruption of the jet.

3C 31 is a nearby twin-jet FRI radio galaxy ($`z=0.0169`$), hosted by the D galaxy NGC 383, a member of the optical chain Arp 331. 3C 31’s bright pair of jets was among the first to be studied in detail at radio frequencies (e.g. Burch 1977; Fomalont et al. 1980). An optical counterpart to the brighter northern jet, first discovered by Butcher, van Breugel & Miley (1980), was not seen in later observations by Keel (1988) and Fraix-Burnet (1991) but appears to be real (Croston et al. in preparation). Recent high-quality radio imaging with the Very Large Array (VLA) allowed Laing & Bridle (2002a) to make detailed models of the velocity field in the jets within 30 arcsec of the nucleus, on the assumption that the jets are intrinsically symmetrical and anti-parallel, so that apparent differences between the brightness and polarization structures arise entirely from differences in Doppler beaming and aberration between approaching and receding flows. They inferred the angle to the line of sight to be $`52\mathrm{°}`$ with an uncertainty of a few degrees, and found that the jets decelerate from on-axis speeds of $`v/c0.9`$ at 1 kpc from the nucleus to $`v/c0.22`$ at 12 kpc along the jet, with slower speeds at the jet edges.

In order for the flaring and recollimation observed in 3C 31 to occur over distances of 1 – 4 kpc, there must be a substantial pressure gradient on this scale. This can only be provided by gas in the hot, X-ray emitting phase. X-ray emission associated with 3C 31 has previously been observed with Einstein (Fabbiano et al. 1984) and with the ROSAT PSPC and HRI (Trussoni et al. 1997; Komossa & Böhringer 1999; Canosa et al. 1999; Hardcastle & Worrall 1999). Extended X-ray emission from the rich host group of NGC 383 has been seen on arcminute scales, and is well modelled as a thermal plasma with a temperature $`1.5\pm 0.1`$ keV. Komossa & Böhringer fitted it with a $`\beta `$ model with $`\beta =0.38`$ and core radius 154 arcsec. In addition, all the elliptical galaxies in the chain, including NGC 383 itself, are X-ray sources. Komossa & Böhringer carried out a spectral fit to the PSPC observations of NGC 383 and obtained good fits with a combination of a power law (from the active nucleus) and weaker thermal emission with $`kT0.6`$ keV (from unresolved hot gas centred on the galaxy). However, the spatial resolution of the ROSAT PSPC, or even the HRI, was insufficient to resolve thermal emission on scales matched to the region of strong deceleration in the jet or to separate it from non-thermal X-ray emission associated with the active galaxy.

In this paper we present a deep Chandra observation of the nuclear regions of 3C 31, taken with the aim of accurately constraining the pressure gradient in the inner few arcseconds. We also discuss a newly discovered X-ray jet in 3C 31, and the X-ray emission from the galaxies in the Arp 331 chain and the background source 1E 0104+3153. A companion paper (Laing & Bridle 2002b) presents an analysis of the dynamics of the jets in 3C 31 using the kinematic model of Laing & Bridle (2002a), the external density and pressure distributions from our Chandra observations, and a conservation-law approach based on that of Bicknell (1994). There it is shown that the jets can indeed be decelerated by mass injection and recollimated by the external pressure gradient, and the variations of internal pressure and density along them are inferred.

Throughout the paper we use a cosmology with $`H_0=70`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 and $`q_0=0`$, so the linear scale is 340 pc arcsec-1 at the redshift of the host galaxy.

## 2 The observations

We observed 3C 31 for 44410 s with the Chandra ACIS-S on 2000 November 6th. 3C 31 was positioned near the aim point on the back-illuminated S3 CCD. There were no high-background intervals or aspect excursions during the observation, so no temporal filtering of the data was required. We reprocessed the observation using ciao version 2.1 to generate a new level 2 events file containing events with the standard set of event grades but with the 0.5-pixel randomization removed.

Fig. 1 shows an image of the inner regions of 3C 31, made from all events with energies between 0.5 and 7.0 keV. (Throughout the paper, images and spectral fits use the events in this energy range.) Extended emission on scales of the host galaxy, and an X-ray core and jet, are detected. Their spectral and spatial properties are discussed in the following sections. Spectra were extracted and corresponding response matrices constructed using ciao, and model fitting was carried out in xspec. In all cases the extracted spectra were grouped so that each fitting bin had $`>20`$ counts. Errors quoted throughout are the $`1\sigma `$ value for one interesting parameter, unless otherwise stated. All power-law indices are the energy index or spectral index, $`\alpha `$, defined in the sense that the flux density $`S\nu ^\alpha `$.

## 3 The X-ray core

In an extraction circle with radius 1.5 arcsec centred on the X-ray nucleus of 3C 31, using a source-centred background annulus with radii between 2 and 5 arcsec (excluding jet emission), there are $`835\pm 33`$ net counts. The spectrum of this emission is very poorly fitted either with a single power-law model ($`\chi ^2/n=84/32`$, $`\alpha =1.6\pm 0.2`$, $`N_H=(1.8\pm 0.4)\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2) or with a thermal (mekal) model ($`\chi ^2/n=90/31`$, $`kT=0.98\pm 0.11`$, $`N_H=(1.4\pm 0.3)\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2, abundance 0.04). It is better fitted ($`\chi ^2/n=22/30`$) with a combination of the two: fixing the absorbing column for the thermal component at the Galactic value ($`5.53\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2) and the abundance to 0.2 solar (see section 7), the best-fitting power-law model has an intrinsic absorbing column at the redshift of the galaxy of $`(1.5_{1.4}^{+2.2})\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2 and a power-law index of $`0.52_{0.16}^{+0.29}`$, while the thermal component has $`kT=0.66\pm 0.04`$ keV and contributes $`55\pm 10`$ per cent of the observed emission at 1 keV, or $`450\pm 80`$ net counts. The unabsorbed 1-keV flux density of the power-law component of the core in this model is $`9\pm 2`$ nJy. The radio-to-X-ray spectral index, $`\alpha _{\mathrm{RX}}`$, between the arcsecond-scale nuclear radio emission (using the 8.4-GHz flux density of 91 mJy) and the power-law component of the core X-ray emission is $`0.94\pm 0.01`$, which is similar to the values for the B2 radio sources observed by Worrall et al. (2001).

When we use an extraction region matched to that of Canosa et al. (1999), who determined a flux density of 64 nJy for the nuclear region of the source from ROSAT HRI data, we find that the Chandra X-ray flux in the ROSAT band is consistent. There is thus no evidence for X-ray variability of 3C 31’s nucleus, though this is a weak constraint; variability at the level of tens of per cent in the net count rate would not have been detectable given the ROSAT uncertainties, so that the non-thermal component of the core could have varied by $`50`$ per cent between the ROSAT and Chandra observations. The larger ROSAT flux density quoted by Canosa et al. includes emission from the thermal component of the core, from the X-ray jet (Section 4) and from the extended thermal emission around 3C 31 (Section 7).

The lack of strong absorption of the power-law component of 3C 31 (there is no more absorption than would be expected given the observed dust features in Hubble Space Telescope images) is consistent with the results we have obtained for other FRI radio galaxies (Worrall et al. 2001, Hardcastle et al. 2001). These results imply that the line of sight to the nuclear power-law component in these objects does not intersect the kind of ‘torus’ inferred from observations of some FRII radio sources (e.g., Ueno et al. 1994). Similar considerations apply to the nuclear optical emission observed from the host galaxies of FR I sources (Chiaberge et al. 1999, Hardcastle & Worrall 2000). Two possibilities can be envisaged: a) the nuclear optical and X-ray emission originates mainly in the jet on scales larger than the torus, and is therefore not absorbed; or b) there is no torus, in which case some or all of the observed X-ray emission could originate in the active nucleus itself (from the accretion disc and environs). We have argued elsewhere (e.g., Canosa et al. 1999; Hardcastle & Worrall 2000) for the former possibility, based on the observed correlation between radio and X-ray core emission, which suggests that the nuclear soft X-ray emission originates in the jets, presumably on pc- to 100-pc scales.

However, we note that infra-red observations have led Whysong & Antonucci (2001) and Perlman et al. (2001) to infer that there is no torus (or, more generally, no heavily absorbed nuclear component above a certain bolometric luminosity) in one FRI radio galaxy, M87. Most Chandra observations of FRI sources do not show any evidence for a heavily absorbed nuclear X-ray component, although Birkinshaw et al. (in preparation) will report on a detection of an absorbed nuclear component in NGC 4261. X-ray observations are therefore consistent with the absence of a torus in some sources, in turn implying that we cannot rule out the possibility of a contribution from the active nucleus to the observed nuclear X-ray emission in 3C 31. (Jet-related X-rays must still dominate in a substantial fraction of the FR I population to explain the observed radio/X-ray correlation.) If the X-rays from 3C 31’s nucleus do originate in the small-scale jet, then their flat spectrum is most consistent with an inverse-Compton model, as predicted by Hardcastle & Worrall (2000). However, the other Chandra evidence on this point is inconsistent: M87 (Wilson & Yang 2002), 3C 66B (Hardcastle et al. 2001) and the three objects studied by Worrall et al. (2001) have all exhibited steeper nuclear spectra, $`\alpha 1`$, though in some cases the errors were large. We defer detailed discussion of the radio to X-ray nuclear spectra of FRI sources to a future paper.

Using the default Chandra astrometry, the core centroid is displaced by about 0.13 arcsec north of the accurately known radio core position. This offset is within the known uncertainty in Chandra source positions, so we have corrected the X-ray positions to remove the displacement. However, since there is a substantial contribution to the X-ray counts in the nuclear region from thermal emission which may not be centred on the active nucleus, the accuracy of the alignment between the radio and X-ray frames is probably no better than about 0.05 arcsec.

## 4 The X-ray jet

X-ray emission is clearly detected from the brighter, northern radio jet of 3C 31, extending about 8 arcsec from the nucleus. Fig. 1 shows that most of this emission corresponds to the well-collimated inner region of the jet at radio wavelengths, with the peak intensity in the X-ray emission occurring where the radio emission begins to brighten and decollimate. A rectangular region (6.5 arcsec by 1.7 arcsec) around the jet but avoiding the core, with background taken from adjacent identical rectangles, contains $`368\pm 35`$ net counts. A power-law model of the spectrum, assuming Galactic absorption, gives a good fit to the data ($`\chi ^2/n=7.3/13`$) with $`\alpha =1.09\pm 0.16`$. The improvement in the fit produced by allowing the absorbing column to vary is not significant on an F-test. The spectrum can also be fitted adequately ($`\chi ^2=11.5/13`$) with a thermal model with $`kT=2.3_{0.3}^{+0.7}`$ keV, Galactic absorption and a (fixed) abundance of 0.2 solar. On the preferred power-law model, the unabsorbed flux density of the jet at 1 keV is $`7.3\pm 0.5`$ nJy.

Two X-ray jets in FRIs, in the nearby objects M87 (Harris et al. 1997) and Centaurus A (Turner et al. 1997) were known before the launch of Chandra, but Chandra observations have resulted in the detection of a number of new FRI X-ray jets, including those in B2 0206+35 and B2 0755+37 (Worrall, Birkinshaw & Hardcastle 2001) and 3C 66B (Hardcastle, Birkinshaw & Worrall 2001). In the latter paper we argued that the X-ray emission from all known FRI X-ray jets was consistent with being synchrotron emission from the high-energy tail of the electron population responsible for the radio emission. The radio-to-X-ray ratio and X-ray spectral index of 3C 31’s jet are very similar to those observed in other sources, suggesting that a synchrotron model can be applied to 3C 31 as well. The steep spectrum of the X-ray emission would not be expected in an inverse-Compton model for the jet emission, and for magnetic fields close to equipartition standard inverse-Compton models (where the scattered photon population is the synchrotron photons or the CMB) underestimate the observed X-ray flux density by three to four orders of magnitude. The well-constrained jet speeds and angle to the line of sight (Laing & Bridle 2002a) mean that beamed inverse-Compton models (e.g. Tavecchio et al. 2000) do not apply here. As we argued in the case of 3C 66B, light from the hidden BL Lac object in the core of the AGN probably dominates the photon density in the jet. In this case, we could produce the observed X-ray flux density (but not the spectrum) if the hidden BL Lac (whose spectrum is modelled here as a simple power law from radio through to optical) had an effective flux density, as seen from the jet direction, of about 1000 Jy in the radio. This is very large, and requires high beaming Lorentz factors ($`7`$) in the presumed BL Lac nuclear jet, at $`52\mathrm{°}`$ to the line of sight, in order not to over-produce the observed radio core emission. For more plausible values of the hidden BL Lac flux density, substantial departures from equipartition are still required to produce the observed X-ray emission by the inverse-Compton mechanism, and the departures become even larger if the expected relativistic motion of the jet away from the nucleus is incorporated in the models. Because of this, and of the steep X-ray spectrum, we favour a synchrotron model for the X-ray emission from the jet.

The 3C 31 jet’s optical properties are less well known than in M87 and 3C 66B. As discussed in Section 1, several studies have failed to detect any optical emission at all, while Butcher et al. (1980) claimed a significant detection. Large uncertainties arise because of the central dust lane and the bright rim of stellar emission around it (Martel et al. 1999), which unfortunately cross the brightest part of the radio jet. Most recently, Croston et al. (in prep.) have measured a flux density for the optical emission outside this rim structure. If we scale up their flux to match our X-ray extraction region, using the ratio of radio flux densities inside and outside the X-ray region to account for the optical emission obscured by the dust lane and its rim, we obtain net flux densities in the $`R`$ and $`B`$ bands of $`2.0\pm 0.8`$ and $`1.2\pm 0.3`$ $`\mu `$Jy respectively, although this scaling procedure assumes that there is no variation in radio-optical spectral index along the jet. As Fig. 2 shows, the uncertainties in the optical flux lead to uncertainties in the best-fitting synchrotron model: if we adopt the value of Butcher et al. (1980) we can fit a model which is quite similar to that seen in M87 and 3C 66B, in which the spectrum breaks from its radio value of $`\alpha =0.55`$ somewhere in the infra-red by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =0.63`$, whereas if we use the values of Croston et al. we require a smaller spectral break ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =0.35`$) which occurs at much lower frequency in order to accommodate the X-ray, optical and radio data.

Although the SED is currently uncertain, a synchrotron model of some sort is certainly viable for 3C 31. Given the very short synchrotron lifetimes of the X-ray emitting electrons, such a model requires in situ acceleration of at least the high-energy electron population. One possible source of energy for particle acceleration, at least in the outer regions of the X-ray jet, is the strong bulk jet deceleration inferred by Laing & Bridle (2002a).

As Fig. 1 shows, both the X-ray and radio emission from the jet are comparatively smooth, with little sign of the knotty structure seen in M87 or 3C 66B. However, there is a clear X-ray peak at just over 2 arcsec from the core, containing about 100 counts in total, which lies in the region where the jet’s radio flux increases steeply as a function of distance from the core. The knot can be seen in the X-ray profile along the jet shown in Fig. 3 and is associated with the well-collimated inner region defined by Laing & Bridle (2002a). In 3C 66B, Centaurus A and M87 (Hardcastle et al. 2001; Kraft et al. 2002; Wilson & Yang 2002) unexpectedly strong X-ray emission is seen from the radio-weak inner parts of the jet, and it seems plausible that we are seeing a similar phenomenon in 3C 31. In the case of 3C 66B, we argued that a difference in the particle acceleration process (or conceivably a different emission mechanism) was required in the inner jet. (This sort of offset between radio and X-ray peaks is expected in a nuclear inverse-Compton model, but such models are not favoured here for the reasons discussed earlier.) The flow in the inner 3 arcsec of the jet is inferred by Laing & Bridle (2002a) to have a fast component ($`v/c`$ 0.8 – 0.9) together with much slower material, although the transverse velocity profile is unresolved; there are therefore at least two possible components of the jet from which this excess X-ray emission could originate. It is tempting to relate the excess in some way to the reconfinement shock at which the internal pressure of the jet falls below the pressure of the external medium, which, as discussed by Laing & Bridle (2002b), is expected to occur somewhere in this region. But in the absence of a detailed model for the velocity structure in this faint part of the jet we cannot give a definitive explanation for this component.

It is important to note that optical and X-ray jet emission is also associated with the flaring region defined by Laing & Bridle (2002a), between 2.5 and 8.2 arcsec from the nucleus, where deceleration is inferred to start. No X-ray emission is detected from the outer region ($`>8.2`$ arcsec from the nucleus). In the flaring region, the radio-to-X-ray ratio appears constant within the errors. There is no evidence for a spectral difference between the inner X-ray jet ($`<2.5`$ arcsec) and the outer jet ($`>2.5`$ arcsec), though the errors are large. Nor is there any radio spectral difference between the flaring region of the jet and the rest. Transverse profiles taken across the inner and flaring regions (Fig. 4) also show little difference between them; there is no strong evidence that either of the regions is more centrally peaked in the X-ray than in the radio.

No X-ray emission is detected from the counterjet. The radio jet-to-counterjet ratio, $`R_{\mathrm{radio}}`$, is $`10`$ in the inner 6 arcsec, so we might have expected to see $`40`$ counts from the counterjet if the ratio were the same in the X-ray. In a relativistic beaming model for the synchrotron radiation, however, the steeper spectrum of the X-ray emission gives rise to a greater K-correction, so that the X-ray and radio jet-counterjet ratios should not be the same. The predicted $`R_\mathrm{X}`$ is $`R_{\mathrm{radio}}^{(2+\alpha _\mathrm{X})/(2+\alpha _{\mathrm{radio}})}`$, or about 16, leading to a prediction of about 25 X-ray counts in the X-ray counterjet. Our $`3\sigma `$ upper limit on X-ray counts from the the counterjet region is about 30 counts. The jet-to-counterjet ratio in the X-ray is therefore consistent with relativistic beaming of an intrinsically identical synchrotron X-ray jet and counterjet; there is no evidence for an intrinsic difference between the X-ray emission on the jet and counterjet sides.

## 5 The chain galaxies

All the bright galaxies of the Arp 331 chain, including NGC 383’s companion galaxy NGC 382, are detected in the Chandra observation (Fig. 5). We have extracted spectra for each object using 12-arcsec source circles centred on the galaxy, with background taken from annuli between 12 and 15 arcsec; we use matched source regions to facilitate comparisons between sources. The resulting count rates and spectral fits are tabulated in Table 1. We tried to fit a power-law with Galactic absorption or a mekal model with Galactic absorption and abundance 0.2 solar to each spectrum. If neither model gave a satisfactory fit we allowed the absorbing column or the abundance to vary, or fitted a model combining thermal and power-law components. We tabulate only satisfactory fits, with $`\chi ^2/n2`$.

Although the luminosities derived for the companion objects are somewhat model-dependent, they are in broad agreement with the ROSAT-derived values of Trussoni et al. (1997) and Komossa & Böhringer (1999). The luminosities are all in the general range expected for isolated coronae of early-type galaxies (Forman, Jones & Tucker 1985) but several of the spectra are either best fitted with non-thermal models or have a non-thermal component. This may indicate a contribution from discrete X-ray sources, such as binaries, in these galaxies, though the required luminosities ($`10^{41}`$ ergs s-1) are rather higher than expected for normal binary numbers. In the case of NGC 383 the non-thermal component is attributed to the AGN (Section 3).

## 6 1E 0104+3153

The Einstein source 1E 0104+3153 lies 16.6 arcmin to the SW of 3C 31, and is detected on the back-illuminated ACIS-S1 chip. The X-ray source is close on the sky both to a $`z=2.2`$ broad absorption-line (BAL) quasar and to a $`z=0.11`$ elliptical galaxy in a group (Stocke et al. 1984; Fig. 6) and so the origin of the X-ray emission is not clear. Komossa & Böhringer (1999) obtained a more accurate position for the X-ray source with the ROSAT HRI, but could not resolve the ambiguity in the identification. At this distance off-axis, the Chandra PSF is broad, with a half-energy radius of $`15`$ arcsec. The spatial resolution of Chandra therefore does not allow us to identify the X-ray source; in fact, the Chandra position of the source centroid, at (J2000) RA $`01^\mathrm{h}06^\mathrm{m}58\stackrel{s}{.}737`$, Dec. $`+32\mathrm{°}09^{}25\stackrel{}{.}15`$, lies in between the optical positions of the BAL object and the galaxy, which are RA $`01^\mathrm{h}06^\mathrm{m}58\stackrel{s}{.}756`$, Dec. $`+32\mathrm{°}09^{}18\stackrel{}{.}03`$ and RA $`01^\mathrm{h}06^\mathrm{m}58\stackrel{s}{.}978`$, Dec. $`+32\mathrm{°}09^{}28\stackrel{}{.}02`$ respectively (Stocke et al. 1984), at 7 and 4 arcsec away from the centroid. The source looks more extended than two nearby bright sources on the same chip, which would tend to favour an identification with the emission from the $`z=0.11`$ group. The large number of counts in the Chandra observation, $`1834\pm 82`$ in a 1-arcmin source circle with background between 1 arcmin and 75 arcsec, allow us to make a good determination of the source spectrum. A power-law model with absorption fixed to the Galactic value gives a poor fit ($`\chi ^2/n=93/47`$, $`\alpha =0.7`$). With excess absorption the fit is significantly improved ($`\chi ^2/n=80/46`$, $`N_H=2\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2, $`\alpha =1.3\pm 0.2`$), but there are still clear residuals at around 1 keV. The data are also consistent with a mekal model at the redshift of the elliptical galaxy, with Galactic absorption and fixed abundance 0.35; in this case we obtain $`kT=2.5\pm 0.3`$ keV, with $`\chi ^2/n=56/47`$. However, the best fits to the data are obtained with a combination of a mekal model at $`z=0.11`$ and an absorbed power-law; we obtain $`\chi ^2/n=39/44`$ with Galactic absorption, a temperature $`kT=1.8\pm 0.1`$ keV for the thermal component, and for the absorbed power law a column of $`(6\pm 4)\times 10^{23}`$ cm-2 at the redshift of the quasar and $`\alpha =1.9\pm 1.3`$. In this model (Fig. 7), the thermal plasma from the group contributes almost all the soft X-ray emission, while the BAL power-law contributes to the high-energy tail, giving rise to $`10`$ per cent of the total counts between 0.5 and 5 keV. Such a high column density is not unexpected for a BAL object (e.g., Green et al. 1995) and the unabsorbed rest-frame 2–10 keV flux would be $`4\times 10^{13}`$ ergs cm-2, leading to a luminosity of $`2\times 10^{46}`$ ergs s-1, not implausible for a quasar. The temperature of the thermal component is consistent with that measured by Komossa & Böhringer, and its luminosity in our extraction region, assuming $`z=0.11`$, is $`10^{43}`$ ergs s-1, which is consistent with the temperature-luminosity relation for groups (e.g., Worrall & Birkinshaw 2000). The statistics of the X-ray observation, given the large Chandra PSF at this off-axis radius, are not good enough to distinguish a significant offset between the centroids of the X-ray source in the soft and hard bands, so we cannot be certain that the quasar contributes to the hard emission. But, given the extended appearance of the source and the lack of X-ray variability reported by Komossa & Böhringer (1999), we suggest that the Chandra-band X-ray emission from this source is dominated by the hot gas in the $`z=0.11`$ group.

## 7 The extended emission

The arcmin-scale extended emission discussed by Trussoni et al. (1997) and Komossa & Böhringer (1999) is visible in our data mainly as an increased background around 3C 31. However, there is also a clear extended halo around the core and jet of 3C 31 (Fig. 1), which is detectable by eye out to about 30 arcsec from the nucleus, though the bulk of the counts lie within 10 arcsec. The 0.4–5.0 keV luminosity of this component within 30 arcsec (10 kpc) is around 1041 ergs s-1, so that it is comparable to the galaxy-scale gas components seen with Chandra around other FRI radio galaxies (Worrall et al. 2001).

To characterize the extended emission spatially we used software based on the funtools package to extract a radial profile directly from the 0.5–7.0 keV events dataset. The profile was centred on the nucleus, and excluded all detected background point sources, as well as the pie slice between position angles of 320 and 360 degrees (to avoid contamination from jet emission). The radial profile extended out to 110 arcsec from the core, with background being taken between 110 and 130 arcsec; the size of the radial-profile region was restricted by the requirement that it lie only on the S3 chip. Small changes in the Chandra PSF on these angular scales do not significantly affect our analysis. Exposure correction was applied to the radial-profile data using an exposure map calculated at the peak energy of the dataset, 0.83 keV, as described in the ciao 2.1 ‘science threads’. The resulting radial profile (Fig. 8) was fitted with a model consisting of a point source (we use the PSF parametrization of Worrall et al. 2001), a free $`\beta `$ model, and a $`\beta `$ model with $`\beta =0.38`$ and core radius 154 arcsec, corresponding to the fit of Komossa & Böhringer (1999) to the PSPC data. \[We choose to follow Komossa & Böhringer rather than Trussoni et al. (1997) because the former authors used an improved exposure correction in the PSPC analysis (Feretti, private communication).\] Small changes in the Chandra PSF over the off-axis distances involved do not significantly affect our analysis. The best-fitting parameters of the free $`\beta `$ model were $`\beta =0.73\pm 0.07`$, $`r_c=3.6\pm 0.7`$ arcsec (errors are $`1\sigma `$ for 2 interesting parameters), with $`\chi ^2/n=58.37/55`$. The unresolved core component contained $`761\pm 10`$ counts and the central normalization of the inner $`\beta `$ model was $`33\pm 3`$ counts arcsec-2, while the larger $`\beta `$ model had a central normalization of $`0.25\pm 0.02`$ counts arcsec-2.

The central count density of the $`\beta `$ model means that we would expect to see no more than around 200 counts from extended thermal emission in the 1.5-arcsec extraction radius around the core discussed in section 3, whereas the spectral fits to the core implied that there was nearly twice this amount of thermal emission. These facts can be reconciled if we hypothesize that there is an unresolved, dense component of thermal emission close to the active nucleus. This additional component, if present, does not affect the dynamical analysis of Laing & Bridle (2002b), which starts at a distance of 2.5 arcsec from the nucleus, and so we neglect it in what follows.

We initially fitted a single thermal model to the spectrum of the extended emission between 2.5 and 15 arcsec, using as background an annulus between 20 and 30 arcsec from the core and excluding the quadrant containing the jet. This region contains $`820\pm 37`$ net counts. Its spectrum is adequately fitted using a mekal model with Galactic absorption and free abundance, as shown in Table 2. The temperature of $`0.75\pm 0.04`$ keV is in good agreement, within the errors, with the temperature of $`0.6`$ keV estimated for the small-scale thermal component by Komossa & Böhringer (1999).

However, when we divided this region into three smaller annuli, we found significant differences between the temperatures of the three regions (Table 2). There appears to be good evidence for a temperature gradient in this small-scale thermal emission, although the best-fitting abundances are consistent. Assuming that there is no abundance gradient, we then used the $`\beta `$ model fit to carry out a simple deprojection of the three annuli, fitting three temperatures to the inner annulus, two to the middle annulus and one to the outer annulus, and scaling the emission measures of the extra components in the inner annuli suitably to take account of the spatial variation as parametrized by the $`\beta `$ model. We obtained good fits with an abundance of $`0.19\pm 0.04`$ and deprojected temperatures as tabulated in Table 2. We adopt these temperatures, together with the temperature $`kT=1.5\pm 0.1`$ keV obtained from the ROSAT data at larger radii by Komossa & Böhringer (1999), to parametrize the temperature gradient in the thermal emission, fitting a model of the form

$$kT(r)=\{\begin{array}{cc}kT_0+cr\hfill & r<r_m\hfill \\ kT_L\hfill & r>r_m\hfill \end{array}$$

where we take $`kT_L=1.5`$ keV. For $`r`$ in arcsec, the best-fitting values are $`c=0.047\pm 0.015`$ keV arcsec-1 and $`kT_0=0.42\pm 0.11`$ keV (since the slope and intercept are strongly correlated, the errors are $`1\sigma `$ for two interesting parameters). For the best-fitting values we infer $`r_m=22.8`$ arcsec.

The relationship between volume-weighted emission measure and Chandra counts in the 0.5–7.0 keV energy band is not a strong function of temperature at temperatures around 1 keV, though it is quite sensitive to abundance. Since we see no evidence for an abundance gradient, we can safely assume that there is no strong radial dependence of the count density on spectral parameters; it therefore simply traces the density of X-ray-emitting gas, and the analysis of Birkinshaw & Worrall (1993) applies. Making the approximation that the count density as a function of radius can be written as the sum of the count densities from the two $`\beta `$ models involved, we use the results of Birkinshaw & Worrall to determine the proton density and, by using the observed temperatures, the pressure as a function of radius in the small-scale X-ray-emitting gas. In Fig. 9 we plot the inferred density and pressure. We tabulate the properties of the two $`\beta `$ models in Table 3.

Fig. 10 shows the inferred cooling time, calculated using the mekal model to take account of the fact that line cooling is important at these temperatures. At $`r=0`$ the cooling time is only $`5\times 10^7`$ years, and it is less than the Hubble time for $`r35`$ arcsec (12 kpc). The unresolved thermal component discussed above would be expected to have an even shorter cooling time. The central regions of the thermal environment of 3C 31 are therefore expected to be cooling significantly, an expectation which is qualitatively consistent with the observed decrease in temperature with decreasing radius. Short cooling times are often inferred on kpc scales in elliptical galaxies, but it is interesting that the cooling times we derive for 3C 31 mean that the central, compact, high-pressure component, which Laing & Bridle (2002b) argue is required to give the radio jet its observed structure, is transient on time-scales comparable to the lifetime of a radio source (and also to its own sound-crossing time). Generalizing the model of Laing & Bridle to other twin-jet sources, we might expect that their host galaxies would also contain dense central gas with a short cooling time. The causal nature of the relationship between the presence of this gas component and the the existence of a well-collimated jet is not clear – for example, we do not know whether there is a class of elliptical galaxies without a central hot-gas component in which jets form but are not recollimated and so do not give rise to strong radio emission. It is also not clear whether (or by what mechanism) the radio source can inject energy into the cooling gas and so maintain the high pressure gradient required for recollimation, though we note that the bolometric X-ray luminosity of the component represented by the smaller $`\beta `$ model is a small fraction ($`10^3`$) of the jet energy flux estimated by Laing & Bridle (2002b), so that the jet has energy to spare for such a mechanism. High-quality observations of more FRI radio sources, as well as of radio-quiet ellipticals, are required to answer these questions.

## 8 Conclusion

We have used Chandra to observe the X-ray emission from the nucleus and the jet of 3C 31, and from hot gas in the inner regions of its group environment, as well as making X-ray detections of the other galaxies in the Arp 331 chain and of the nearby source 1E 0104+3153.

The non-thermal component of the X-ray core of 3C 31 is well modelled as a weakly absorbed power law, with no evidence for a more heavily absorbed hard component. We have argued that this implies that the X-ray emission originates outside any nuclear absorbing material. The power-law spectrum of 3C 31’s core is relatively flat, and may be consistent with an inverse-Compton origin for the X-ray emission.

The X-ray flux density and spectrum of the jet of 3C 31 are well constrained. Because of its steep spectrum and because (in spite of uncertainties in the optical flux density) we can construct models which connect the radio and optical data smoothly to the X-ray, we attribute the X-ray emission from the jet to the synchrotron process. We know of no FRI radio source with a bright radio jet which does not have an X-ray jet, plausibly of synchrotron origin, when imaged deeply in the X-ray. It may be that the required high-energy, in situ particle acceleration is universal in these objects. The inner part of 3C 31’s jet has a higher ratio of X-ray to radio emission than the rest of the jet. This is seen in a number of other sources (e.g., 3C 66B, Hardcastle et al. 2001; Cen A, Kraft et al. 2002) and may indicate a difference in the particle acceleration mechanism in this region.

Our observations have resolved for the first time the regions of 3C 31’s hot-gas atmosphere where the radio jets are known to flare and decelerate (Laing & Bridle 2002a). There is significant evidence for a temperature gradient as well as a strong emissivity gradient as a function of radius. We have determined the density and pressure in this region as a function of radius, and have shown that the cooling time of this central hot-gas component is short. A companion paper (Laing & Bridle 2002b) discusses the use of the density and temperature profiles to constrain the physical parameters of the jets.

Our luminosity measurements for the other galaxies of the Arp 331 chain are consistent with those of other workers, and in most cases the observed luminosities and spectra are best explained as originating in small-scale thermal emission associated with the galaxy. In the background source 1E 0104+3153, whose origin has long been uncertain, we infer, from the spatial and spectral properties of the X-ray source, that almost all the soft X-ray emission originates in the $`z=0.11`$ group rather than the known BAL quasar close to the X-ray centroid. The quasar may contribute to the observed hard X-rays given a plausible intrinsic absorbing column.

## Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Judith Croston for providing optical flux densities for the 3C 31 jet region in advance of publication.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.


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# Problems with the Pulsation Mode Selection Mechanism in the Lower Instability Strip (Observations and Theory)

## 1. Introduction

Delta Scuti star models predict pulsational instability in many radial and nonradial modes. The observed number of low-degree modes is much lower than the predicted number. The problem of mode selection is most severe for post-main-sequence $`\delta `$ Scuti stars, which comprise about 40 percent of the observed $`\delta `$ Scuti stars. The theoretical frequency spectrum of unstable modes is very dense. Most modes are of mixed character: they behave like p-modes in the envelope and like g-modes in the interior. For example, for a model of 4 CVn we predict 554 unstable modes of $`\mathrm{}`$ = 0 to 2: 6 for $`\mathrm{}`$ = 0, 168 for $`\mathrm{}`$ = 1, and 380 for $`\mathrm{}`$ = 2. However, only 18 (and an additional 16 combination frequencies) were observed (Breger et al., 1999). This is demonstrated in Fig. 1. The problem for other $`\delta `$ Scuti stars, such as BI CMi, is similar.

Consequently, either the theoretical predictions or the observational techniques are imperfect. On the observational side, only modes with photometric amplitudes in excess of 0.5 mmag are observed. However, this does not solve the dilemma, since the problem could then be rephrased to why only some favored modes are excited to observable amplitudes, which usually are much higher than the observational limit.

A number of different scenarios ranging from chaotic mode selection to energy transfer between the modes through nonlinear mode coupling can be invoked to explain the disagreement. Some of these hypotheses are very promising and are amenable to observational tests:

## 2. Scenario: random mode selection

Here the selection of the star’s observationally visible modes from the multitudes of possible modes is random. A consequence of this scenario is that we will not be able to make use of nonradial-mode frequencies for seismic probing.

This hypotheses leads to several observational predictions: (i) there are no regular frequency patterns of the photometrically visisble modes and, (ii) there is no similarity of the frequencies of the visible modes from star to star with similar masses, temperature and ages.

## 3. Scenario: temporary growth of randomly selected modes to observable amplitudes by mode interaction

In this scenario, most or all of the predicted modes are indeed unstable, but with amplitudes too small to observe photometrically. However, due to mode interaction, power is transferred between the modes. A few modes can temporarily grow to high amplitudes and are observed. After several years, which represent the typical growth cycle of $`\delta `$ Scuti stars, these modes will decay again.

The hypothesis is supported by the fact that $`\delta `$ Scuti stars show time-variable amplitudes as well as linear mode combinations of the modes with high amplitudes. The amplitude variability may be so large that over a decade the star may look like a completely different star (e.g. compare the power spectra of 4 CVn during the 1966-1970, 1974-1978, 1983-1984 and 1996-1997 time periods). However, a detailed investigation of the data shows that modes do not disappear to be replaced by others, but are still present at millimag amplitudes. This argues against the hypothesis, at least on time scales of decades.

## 4. Scenario: trapped envelope modes

In this scenario, the mode selection mechanism is related to modes trapped in the envelope (Dziembowski & Królikowska, 1990). It may be easier to excite these modes with lower kinetic energy to a given amplitude on the surface. Such a mode selection rule would be very simple and the computations rely only on linear theory. However, the strong proof must come from the nonlinear theory.

Fig. 2 illustrates the complexity of the oscillation frequency spectrum for a model of 4 CVn, which oscillates with at least 18 frequencies in the range 4.7 - 9.7 c/d. The parameters of the model are within the range allowed by observational data: 2.4 $`M_{}`$, $`\mathrm{log}L/L_{}=1.76`$,

$`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=6800K`$, $`\mathrm{log}g=3.32`$, $`V_{\mathrm{rot}}=82`$ km/s. The chemical composition $`X=0.70`$, $`Z=0.02`$ was assumed. The ordinate gives the oscillation kinetic energy, which is evaluated assuming the same radial displacement at the surface for each mode. The high density of the oscillation spectrum of nonradial modes is caused by very large values of the Brunt-Väisälä frequency in the deep interior. This diagram is similar to one given by Dziembowski (1997), with the observational mode identification and selected rotational splitting added.

The most trapped modes are analogs of pure acoustic modes. It can be seen that the trapping is much more effective for dipole ($`\mathrm{}=1`$) than for quadrupole modes ($`\mathrm{}=2`$). The trapping effect for $`\mathrm{}=2`$ modes is especially weak at low frequencies and may not apply here. Therefore, the selection rule might work for only $`\mathrm{}=1`$ modes (see also Dziembowski & Królikowska, 1990).

The observed spacing between identified $`\mathrm{}=1`$ modes is about 1.2 c/d, corresponding to the theoretical spacing between trapped $`\mathrm{}=1`$ modes. Also, the rotational splitting for the trapped $`\mathrm{}=1`$ and also for $`\mathrm{}=2`$ modes is similar to the observed splitting for identified modes. Note, however, that the conditions for the excitation of modes of different azimuthal order $`m`$ may differ. Therefore, only some components of multiplets may be excited to observed amplitudes.

For the model considered the theoretical frequencies of the best trapped modes of $`\mathrm{}=1`$ fit the identified observed frequencies quite well. However, we still consider this model to be only an illustrative one. To fit theoretical and observed frequencies quantitatively, we must also take the effect of the rotational coupling of modes of different $`\mathrm{}`$ values into account. Due to this effect, close modes with the same $`m`$ and whose $`\mathrm{}`$ degrees differ by 2, are pushed away in frequency. This was demonstrated for a model of XX Pyx (Pamyatnykh et al. 1998).

In evolved $`\delta `$ Scuti models the trapping of nonradial modes in the envelope can be more effective than in RR Lyrae models. For example, for the most-trapped modes of $`\mathrm{}=1`$ in 4 CVn up to 67 percent of kinetic energy can be contributed by the envelope – in comparison with less than 20 percent in the RR Lyrae variables (see Dziembowski & Cassisi, 1999).

It was shown that there is a high probability of a resonant excitation of nonradial modes in radially pulsating RR Lyrae star models (see Nowakowski, these proceedings and references therein). Very recently, nonradial modes were detected in these stars (see Kovács, these proceedings and references therein). The theoretical frequency spectra of evolved $`\delta `$ Scuti stars are similar to those of RR Lyrae stars, so resonances may be important for these stars too.

## References

Breger, M., Handler, G., Garrido, R., et al. 1999, A&A, 349, 225

Dziembowski, W.A. 1997, in Sounding solar and stellar interiors, eds.J. Provost & F.-X. Schmieder, (Kluwer, Dordrecht), 317

Dziembowski, W.A. & Cassisi, S. 1999, Acta Astron., 49, 371

Dziembowski, W. & Królikowska, M. 1990, Acta Astron., 40, 19

Pamyatnykh, A.A., Dziembowski, W.A., Handler, G., & Pikall, H. 1998, A&A, 333, 141


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# Temperature dependent resistivity of spin-split subbands in GaAs 2D hole system

\[

## Abstract

We calculate the temperature dependent resistivity in spin-split subbands induced by the inversion asymmetry of the confining potential in GaAs 2D hole systems. By considering both temperature dependent multisubband screening of impurity disorder and hole-hole scattering we find that the strength of the metallic behavior depends on the symmetry of the confining potential (i.e., spin-splitting) over a large range of hole density. At low density above the metal-insulator transition we find that effective disorder reduces the enhancement of the metallic behavior induced by spin-splitting. Our theory is in good qualitative agreement with existing experiments.

PACS Number : 73.40.Qv, 71.30.+h, 73.50.Bk, 72.80.Ey

\]

The observation of an apparent “metallic” behavior in low density two dimensional (2D) electron or hole semiconductor systems has attracted a great deal of recent attention  because of the long-standing belief that all 2D (disordered) electronic systems (at least in the noninteracting limit) are insulators (i.e., infinite zero temperature resistance in the thermodynamic limit). Although the experimental situation is controversial (to say the least) because the “metallicity” of the 2D system must invariably be inferred from an extrapolation (to zero temperature) of finite temperature (usually $`T100mK`$) data, there is broad agreement on a number of intriguing and manifestly interesting features of the observed 2D resistivity, $`\rho (T,n)`$, as a function of temperature ($`T`$) and 2D free carrier density ($`n`$), that require theoretical understanding irrespective of whether there is a true $`T=0`$ 2D metal or not.

One of the most striking experimental anomalies in this subject is the strong temperature dependence of the resistivity of this effective 2D conducting phase at low carrier densities and in the relatively modest temperature range of $`0.1K4K`$ where the measured resistivity may change by as much as a factor of three whereas the corresponding resistivity change in this temperature range (the so-called Bloch-Grüneisen behavior) for a real 3D metal (e.g., Cu, Al) is miniscule (less than $`1\%`$). In fact, very weak temperature dependence of resistivity is also observed in 2D electron systems at higher densities, but at lower densities (and in relatively clean samples) $`\rho (T)`$ shows strikingly strong temperature dependence, not found in any known metallic systems. This very strong dependence of $`\rho (T,n)`$ on $`T`$ at low $`n`$, specifically in 2D p-GaAs hole systems, is the subject matter of this paper.

There have been two alternate concrete physical mechanisms proposed in the literature to explain the strong temperature dependence of $`\rho (T,n)`$ in the 2D “metallic” systems. One mechanism  is the possible temperature dependence of effective impurity disorder in the system, arising, for example, from the temperature dependence of finite wave vector 2D screening which could be very strong at low carrier densities. This mechanism  is quite universal in the sense that all 2D carrier systems should manifest some aspects of temperature dependent screening since random (unintentional) charged impurities (and often, particularly in modulation doped 2D systems, remote dopants as well) are invariably present in semiconductors. We have earlier shown through detailed transport calculations that the temperature dependent disorder scattering could in fact provide a reasonable semi-quantitative explanation for the observed temperature dependence of 2D resistivity behavior in n-Si MOSFETs, p-SiGe, and p-GaAs 2D systems. The second mechanism for the temperature dependence of resistivity, which applies essentially only to 2D p-GaAs hole systems in a quantitatively significant manner, has been discussed extensively by the Princeton group and others . This manifestly non-universal mechanism involves a temperature dependent transport mechanism arising from intersubband hole scattering between two spin-split hole bands, which are present in the GaAs valence band. The magnitude of this effect should therefore correlate with the valence band spin-splitting as has been demonstrated experimentally. This proposal has been somewhat controversial, and there are experimental claims (and counter-claims) for nonexistence (and the existence) of this spin-splitting induced intersubband scattering mechanism. It is obvious that both of these physical mechanisms must be simultaneously operational in the p-GaAs system because scattering by random charged impurities and valence band spin-splitting are both unavoidably present in real 2D GaAs hole structures. What is therefore required is a (technically highly demanding) theory which includes both mechanisms on an equal footing, and in this paper we provide such a theory which, as we describe below, qualitatively explains all of the observed features of the temperature dependent $`\rho (T,n)`$ of 2D GaAs hole systems. Our work convincingly shows that in order to understand the 2D GaAs hole data comprehensively a theory such as ours including both mechanisms equivalently is necessary although one mechanism or the other may very well be dominant in specific experimental p-GaAs systems depending on the details of disorder and spin-splitting (which would vary from sample to sample), thus resolving the existing controversy of whether spin-splitting is a relevant mechanism in 2D “metallic” behavior or not. In all our discussions in this paper, consistent with the accepted (but, not quite rigorous) terminology in this subject, the word 2D “metal” or “metallic” behavior will only mean a strong temperature dependence of $`\rho (T)`$ at a fixed density (above the so-called metal-insulator transition “critical” density), with $`d\rho /dT`$ being positive at low temperatures.

The valence band holes in GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructures have large spin-orbit interaction due to the inversion asymmetry of the zincblende crystal structure and the real space asymmetry induced by the confining potential, producing substantial zero-magnetic-field spin-splitting . The lack of inversion symmetry in the p-GaAs system can lift the spin degeneracy and produce two groups of spin-split 2D subbands of holes with different band dispersions and transport properties. Recently, Papadakis et al.  have experimentally studied the relationship between the 2D metallic behavior and the spin-splitting of the p-GaAS quantum well systems by tuning the symmetry of the well confinement potential while keeping the total hole density constant. They find that over a large range of densities (in a regime where the samples exhibit metallic behavior) the symmetry of the quantum well plays an important role in the sense that the temperature dependence of $`\rho (T)`$ seems to correlate with the (well asymmetry tuned) spin-splitting. At high hole densities, far above the critical density for the apparent metal-insulator transition (MIT), the metallic behavior is very pronounced as the spin-splitting becomes large, and the two spin-split subbands are occupied with unequal densities. This enhancement of the metallic behavior is induced by the temperature dependent intersubband hole-hole scattering because at constant total density the intersubband scattering becomes stronger as the spin-splitting increases. Thus, the temperature dependent hole-hole scattering may, by itself, give rise to the apparent metallic behavior in the spin-split situation, at least for large carrier densities. In low density samples , however, the spin-splitting becomes much smaller, and the change of the resistivity with temperature arising from intersubband hole-hole scattering is suppressed even in the presence of large asymmetry in the confining potential. Strong metallic behavior of $`\rho (T)`$ at low densities cannot therefore be explained solely by spin-splitting effects. This indicates that additional scattering mechanisms other than hole-hole scattering are required to explain the metallic behavior at low densities. Hamilton et al. claim, based on the interpretation of their own 2D GaAs hole data, that in the low density systems the metallic behavior is determined not by the spin-splitting induced intersubband carrier-carrier scattering, but by the magnitude of the low temperature resistivity, that is, by the effective disorder in the system.

In this paper we investigate the 2D hole metallic behavior observed in p-type GaAs systems including both disorder and spin-splitting effects. This system forms two spin-split hole subbands (without any band offset) with very different effective masses. Our goal is to calculate the temperature dependent resistivity in the spin-split two subband system. We use the Boltzmann transport equation approach to calculate the low temperature ohmic resistivity of the two subband system taking into account the single particle relaxation times of each subband (as arising from charged impurity scattering), $`\tau _i`$, and the hole-hole intersubband scattering between the two groups of holes, $`\tau _{hh}`$, which relaxes the relative momentum of the two carriers  and therefore contributes to the net resistivity of the two subband system. We calculate the single particle relaxation times $`\tau _i`$ from a multisubband transport theory taking into account the long range Coulombic scattering by random static charged impurity centers invariably present in semiconductor structures. Since screening plays a crucial role in the temperature dependence of resistivity  we consider both hole-impurity and hole-hole Coulomb interactions being screened on an equal footing by the 2D hole gas in the random phase approximation (RPA) using a multisubband screening formalism. In the multisubband system screening is enhanced since all subbands contribute. The screening effect can, in the RPA, be included in terms of a matrix dielectric formalism , $`ϵ_{ij,i^{}j^{}}(q)=\delta _{ij}\delta _{i^{}j^{}}v(q)\mathrm{\Pi }_{ij}(q)F_{ij,i^{}j^{}}(q)`$, where $`i,j`$ are the band indices, $`v(q)=2\pi e^2/(\kappa q)`$ with the background lattice dielectric constant of the sample $`\kappa `$, $`F_{ij,i^{}j^{}}(q)`$ is the subband form factor determined by the quantum confinement potential, and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{ij}(q)`$ are the polarizabilities corresponding to the two spin-split ($`i,j=1,2`$) subbands. Since suppression of screening by disorder scattering may be important (particularly at low densities) we include collisional broadening in the screening function through the Dingle temperature approximation.

We assume that the spin-split subbands have parabolic energy bands with spin degeneracy $`g_s=1`$ (in each band) and isotropic Fermi surfaces with effective masses $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$. In our model the hole population of each subband, for a fixed total density $`n=n_1+n_2`$, is determined by the effective mass ratio, i.e., $`n_1/n_2=m_1/m_2`$, where $`m_i`$, $`n_i`$ are the effective mass and population density for each group of carriers. Since there are two groups of holes we need to consider intersubband hole-hole scattering, which contributes to resistivity in addition to hole scattering by charged impurities. In particular, hole-hole scattering plays an important role when the carriers in each band have different masses and densities. In a two-subband system the resistivity without intersubband hole-hole scattering is given by $`\rho (T)=1/\left[\sigma _1(T)+\sigma _2(T)\right]`$, where $`\sigma _i=n_ie^2\tau _i/m_i`$ is the individual conductivity of the $`i`$th subband. These $`\tau _i`$ can be calculated by using the usual Boltzmann transport equation, which becomes a set of coupled transport equations for distribution functions associated with each subband.

The resistivity in the presence of hole-hole intersubband scattering of the two-band system is given by

$$\rho (T)=\frac{\frac{n_2}{n_1}\sigma _1+\frac{n_1}{n_2}\sigma _2+\sigma }{\frac{n^2}{n_1n_2}\sigma _1\sigma _2+(\sigma _1+\sigma _2)\sigma },$$
(1)
where $`\sigma _i`$ is the conductivity associated with the $`i`$th subband with the scattering times $`\tau _i`$, and $`\sigma =e^2n\tau _{hh}m/m_1m_2`$ is the conductivity associated solely with hole-hole scattering with an average mass given by $`m=(m_1n_1+m_2n_2)/n`$ and a hole-hole relaxation time ($`\tau _{hh}`$) for the relative momentum of the two spin-split carrier systems. We now note an important feature of our spin-split two subband system: Spin in each subband is conserved and therefore, Coulomb scattering, being spin independent, cannot cause real intersubband scattering (which would change the spin index of the scattered carrier). Thus, only intra-subband transitions contribute to the intersubband hole-hole relaxation time, and we find

$$\frac{1}{\tau _{hh}}=\frac{2g_s^4(k_BT)^2}{3(2\pi )^2}mn\frac{m_1m_2}{n_1n_2}I(p),$$
(2)
where $`g_s=1`$ is the subband degeneracy and $`I(p)=p/(2\pi )_0^\pi 𝑑\theta \mathrm{sin}\theta W(q)[f(p)]^2`$, where $`f(p)=(1+p^2+2p\mathrm{cos}\theta )^{1/2}`$ with $`p=(n_1/n_2)^{1/2}`$ and $`q=(4\pi /g_s)\sqrt{n_1n_2}\mathrm{sin}(\theta )/f(p)`$, and the collisional probability $`W(q)=2\pi \left|v(q)/\epsilon (q)\right|^2`$. In long wavelength Thomas-Fermi screening approximation (TFA) we have $`W_{TFA}(q)=(2\pi )^3/[g_s(m_1+m_2)]^2`$ in our 2D system. In the absence of any real hole transitions from one subband to the other the RPA dielectric function is given by $`ϵ(q)=1v(q)[\mathrm{\Pi }_{11}(q)+\mathrm{\Pi }_{22}(q)]`$. The hole-hole scattering time $`\tau _{hh}`$ is symmetric with respect to the interchange of indices 1 and 2. Note that $`\tau _{hh}^1T^2`$ while $`\tau _i^1T`$ for $`T/T_F1`$ but the two asymptotic regimes need not coincide (additionally, the Dingle temperature suppresses temperature dependence for $`TT_D`$), and therefore the net temperature dependence could be quite complex. When $`\tau _{hh}\tau _i`$, which happens at very low temperatures, the total conductivity becomes the sum of the conductivities of each subband. When hole-hole scattering is very strong (or impurity scattering very weak), $`\tau _{hh}\tau _i`$, Eq. (1) become $`\rho (T)=(n_2^2\sigma _1+n_1^2\sigma _1)/(n^2\sigma _1\sigma _2)`$. Thus, in these two limits $`\tau _{hh}`$ makes negligible contribution to the system resistivity. The resistivity has a linear temperature dependence in these limits (provided $`TT_F`$, and Dingle temperature effects are negligible). When $`\tau _{hh}\tau _i`$ the temperature dependence of the resistivity is strongly affected by hole-hole scattering and becomes (for $`T<T_F`$) $`\rho _T=\rho _0+aT+bT^2`$, where $`\rho _0=\rho (T=0)`$ and $`a,b`$ are positive density dependent constants. Our numerical calculation shows $`a>b`$ when $`\tau _i>\tau _{hh}`$ and $`a<b`$ when $`\tau _i<\tau _{hh}`$.

In Fig. 1 we show the calculated hole-hole scattering time as a function of the density ratio $`r=n_2/n_1`$ for fixed total densities, $`n=n_1+n_2=2.5\times 10^{10}cm^2`$, $`1.2\times 10^{11}cm^2`$. Inset shows schematically the spin-split energy subbands with different effective masses. We use a fixed effective mass $`m_2=0.3m_e`$ throughout this paper and create unequal population of the subbands (spin-splitting) by tuning $`m_1>m_2`$. (Since Eq. (2) is symmetric with respect to the interchange of indices 1 and 2 we show the results for $`n_2/n_1<1`$). Fig. 1 shows that the scattering time of RPA is different from that of TFA when the density difference is small. Since most experimental situations  correspond to $`0.5<n_2/n_1<1`$ the use of the proper screening function (i.e. RPA) is crucial (and long wavelength delta function scattering of TFA is inadequate), especially at low densities where the spin-splitting is very small. Fig. 1 also shows that at a given density and temperature the hole-hole scattering time increases as the population difference of the two bands increases, and the inverse scattering time $`\tau _{hh}^1`$ diverges logarithmically as $`r1`$. (This follows analytically from Eq. (2) also.) The scattering time has strong density dependence at a fixed temperature: the scattering time decreases as the density decreases.

The effect of changing the confining potential is shown in Figs. 2 and 3, where we show the calculated fractional change in the resistivity $`\rho (T)/\rho (0)`$ as a function of temperature. In Fig. 2 the results for a high density sample $`n=1.2\times 10^{11}cm^2`$ are given. The density ratio $`r`$ decides the strength of the spin-splitting. (Smaller $`r`$ indicates larger spin-splitting.) For $`n_1=n_2`$ the fractional change in the resistivity shows a linear $`T`$ dependence and is determined entirely by the mobilities of each band. In this case we have exactly the same results as the single band model with $`g_s=2`$ and $`n=n_1+n_2`$. When we tune

$`m_1`$ (keeping $`m_2`$ constant) the two subbands have unequal densities, $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=n_1n_2=n(1r)/(1+r)`$. As $`r`$ decreases the relative magnitude of the resistivity increases with temperature. Thus, the strength of the “metallicity” is enhanced when the two spin-split subbands have more unequal populations (i.e., larger spin splitting). This shows that hole-hole carrier scattering enhances the metallic behavior, particularly at high densities. (We get similar results for other high density samples.)

In Fig. 3 we show the results for a low density system, $`n=2.5\times 10^{10}cm^2`$. At this density experiment  shows that the lowest temperature resistivity, $`\rho _0`$, is an order of magnitude larger than that at $`n=1.2\times 10^{11}cm^2`$. In addition, $`\rho _0`$ increases by about $`100\%`$ with increasing back gate bias even though the total carrier density is constant. (Note that in the high density samples $`\rho _0`$ increases by $`40\%`$ with the same increase of the gate bias.) We believe that in low density systems the effective disorder becomes larger when the confining potential becomes asymmetric (due to the back gate bias). The important role of disorder in the 2D metallic behavior under a back gate bias has also recently been emphasized in Si inversion layer experiments . To incorporate  the disorder induced collisional broadening corrections we introduce the Dingle temperature $`T_D`$ in the screening function. The pure RPA ($`T_D=0`$) case completely neglects collisional broadening effects on screening. The effect of the Dingle temperature is to increase the zero temperature resistivity (by suppressing screening for $`TT_D`$) as the splitting becomes large. Fig. 3 shows that the temperature dependence of the resistivity is strongly enhanced when we consider a fixed Dingle temperature and hole-hole scattering. Without hole-hole scattering (and with a fixed Dingle temperature) the spin-split system still has a stronger metallic behavior than the corresponding one subband spin degenerate system ($`r=1`$), but

the strength of the temperature dependence is reduced compared to the results with hole-hole scattering \[Fig. 3(a)\]. When we vary the Dingle temperature (i.e., increase the level broadening) the metallic behavior without hole-hole scattering decreases as the spin-splitting increases (Fig. 3(b)), which is precisely what is found experimentally . Thus, without introducing the hole-hole scattering we can obtain qualitative agreement with experimental results for lower density samples including only disorder and temperature dependent screening.

It is unclear whether our model including only spin-splitting induced hole-hole scattering and screening induced temperature dependent disorder scattering can entirely quantitatively describe the metallic behavior observed in low density 2D hole systems. But it is clear that our zeroth order model should be an essential part of any theory in this subject. We have established beyond any reasonable doubt that both spin-splitting induced hole-hole scattering and temperature dependent screening play important roles in the observed “metallicity” of 2D p-GaAs systems.

This work is supported by the U.S.-ONR the NSF, and DARPA.


text:
# High-Resolution X-ray imaging and spectroscopy of SNR N 103B

## 1 Introduction

The young supernova remnant (SNR) N 103B (also known as SNR 0509-69) is the fourth brightest X-ray remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). It was first identified as a supernova remnant by Mathewson and Clarke (mathewson (1983)) based on the non-thermal nature of its radio spectrum and the relative emission-line strengths of S ii and H$`\alpha `$. Due to its small size (3 pc), Hughes et al. (hughes (1995)) estimated the age of SNR N 103B to be about 1500 yrs. Recent Chandra data (Lewis et al. lewisa (2001)) show that the remnant is much brighter on the western limb than towards the East, this is most likely because of density contrasts between East and West. The radio and X-ray brightness variations are correlated on large scales, but do not overlap on finer spatial scales (Hughes hughes01 (2001)). In the analysis of the moderate resolution CCD ASCA spectrum of SNR N 103B, Hughes et al. (hughes (1995)) found strong emission lines from Si, S, Ar, Ca, and Fe, while no emission from O, Ne, or Mg was required in order to fit the ASCA spectrum. Hughes et al. (hughes (1995)) thus concluded that SNR N 103B is the result of a Type Ia supernova. However, its proximity to the star cluster NGC 1850 and the H II region DEM 84 suggest that SNR N 103B has an early-type progenitor (Chu & Kennicutt chu (1988)), providing contradictory evidence for the nature of the progenitor.

In this work, we present the X-ray spectra of SNR N 103B measured by the XMM-Newton suite of scientific instruments, i.e. the Reflection Grating Spectrometers (RGS) and the European Photon Imaging Cameras (EPIC). Particularly, we exploit the high dispersion of the RGS and its unique capability to resolve line emission from extended sources to investigate the nature of the hot plasma in SNR N 103B in unprecedented detail and to shed new light on its progenitor. The large effective area of the EPIC cameras at high energies also allows us to study the important Fe-K emission. All these are complemented by the sharp images produced with the high angular resolution of the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) on board Chandra, which reveal the temperature dependent morphology of SNR N 103B.

## 2 Observation and Data Reduction

SNR N 103B was observed by XMM-Newton on 7 August 2000. The effective exposure times and filters used on the different instruments are summarised in table 1. The RGS data were processed using custom software that is identical in function to the RGS branch of the Science Analysis System (SAS), which was described briefly by Rasmussen et al. (andy (2001)). It includes pixel by pixel CCD event offset subtraction using median diagnostic frames, position dependent CTI correction, and correction of dispersion angles imparted by aspect drift.

We chose this analysis path since our response matrix generator features support for extended targets, and details in the angular distribution of SNR N 103B were included in the response matrices. A single, broad-band archival ROSAT HRI image was used, along with mean spacecraft aspect and our spectral extraction angular width, to predict the monochromatic response in the readout channel space. This modelling approach breaks down as soon as the target’s morphology depends strongly on wavelength. However, it still permits accurate measurement of total line intensities and significant velocity distributions that distort line profiles in the RGS. In the case of SNR N 103B, wavelength dependent variations in morphology appear on scales comparable to the XMM-Newton mirror point spread function (PSF), and our modelling approach remains reasonable for the purposes described. However, we do still expect to observe small ($``$20 mÅ) wavelength shifts for some lines due to variations in the remnant’s morphology.

The raw EPIC data were initially processed with the XMM-Newton SAS. This involved the subtraction of hot, dead, or flickering pixels, as well as removal of events due to electronic noise. The spectrum was extracted from a circular region with a radius of 1.5′. Background subtraction for EPIC was done using an exposure of the Lockman hole, with similar data selections and the same extraction region as for the SNR, scaling according to the exposure time. Periods of high particle background were rejected based upon the $`1012`$ keV count rate for the entire field of view.

In order to support our spectral analysis of the entire remnant with spatially resolved information on the morphology, we also used archival Chandra data of SNR N 103B, which was observed with the back-illuminated ACIS-S3 chip on 4 December 1999 (see also Lewis et al. lewisa (2001)). The cleaned event list was taken from the public Chandra archive. Narrow band images were extracted with energy selections made according to the nominal energy column, which provides a good energy estimate of each recorded photon.

## 3 Data Analysis

### 3.1 XMM-Newton Spectra

The RGS spectrum of SNR N 103B is shown in figure 1. The spectrum is dominated by emission lines from highly ionised species of O, Ne, Mg, Si, & Fe. No emission longward of 23 Å is detected. This can probably be attributed to line-of-sight absorption towards the LMC rather than to the absence of N and C species, which could have been readily detected by the RGS. An important point to note is that we clearly detect O, Ne, and Mg lines. The O vii and O viii lines are particularly strong. These features were not detected in the CCD spectrum of SNR N 103B obtained with ASCA (Hughes et al hughes (1995)), nor in a more recent CCD measurement with Chandra ACIS (Lewis et al. lewisa (2001)). In order to observe shorter wavelengths than provided by the RGS we also employ the EPIC-MOS CCD spectrum, which is presented in figure 2. Emission lines from He-like S, Ar, Ca, as well as an Fe-K blend at 6.5 keV are clearly observed.

The spectral analysis was performed using the SRON SPEX package (Kaastra et al. kaastra (1996)), which contains the MEKAL atomic database (Mewe et al. mewe (1995)) for thermal emission. Both Coronal Ionisation Equilibrium (CIE) and non-equilibrium ionisation (NEI) models are available in SPEX. Our model for the X-ray emission of SNR N 103B consists of several plasma components. For each component, we fit for the volume emission measure ($`n_\mathrm{e}n_\mathrm{H}V`$), the electron temperature ($`T_\mathrm{e}`$), the elemental abundances, the redshift of the source, and the Hydrogenic column density $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ of neutral absorbing gas along the line of sight. In NEI models, the ionisation age ($`n_\mathrm{e}t`$) (Kaastra & Jansen net (1993)) is also a free parameter. Here, $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ is the electron density, $`n_\mathrm{H}`$ is the hydrogen density, $`V`$ is the volume of emitting gas and $`t`$ is the time since the material has been shocked and heated to its current temperature. A distance of 51 kpc to the LMC is assumed (Feast et al. feast (2002)).

In the following, we describe the procedure used to fit the total spectrum emitted by the whole remnant. The entire procedure was carried out for both CIE and NEI scenarios for comparison. We fitted the RGS spectrum first, since it has the most details and therefore is most constraining. Two plasma components are sufficient for obtaining a good fit to the RGS spectrum. Assuming that most of the X-ray emission is due to gas with more or less similar composition, we coupled the elemental abundances in the two components. This also minimises the number of free variables in our fit, which makes it more robust.

It is clear from the EPIC spectrum that SNR N 103B also has a hot component that is hard for the RGS to distinguish. In order to model this component, we fit the CCD spectrum of EPIC with three plasma components. We coupled the elemental abundances of O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ar & Ca of the third component to those of the two cooler components. The Fe abundance, however, is left free since we cannot fit the Fe-L and Fe-K with the same abundance value. The electron temperature, ionisation age and abundances of the two cooler components are fixed at the values obtained by the RGS fit. We note, however, that the hot component is not very sensitive to the other two components even when all three components are fitted simultaneously. In principle, the EPIC spectra could be fitted well with only two plasma components, i.e., without the relatively cold one. This explains why previous CCD observations did not detect the low-temperature component, which is dominated by O emission. It is only because of the spectral resolution of the RGS and its sensitivity to soft X-rays ($`>`$ 20 Å) that we are able to resolve the O vii emission and hence need a cool or under-ionised component in the model. Finally, for consistency and in order to obtain the ultimate fit, we return to the RGS spectrum and refit it with three components. The hot component, which is constrained by the EPIC, but hardly produces line emission in the RGS spectrum is fixed at its EPIC values. The final parameters obtained for the three components are presented in Table 2 for both the CIE and NEI cases. We obtain a best-fit column density of $`N_\mathrm{H}=(2.5\pm 0.7)\times 10^{25}`$ m-2. We also obtain a redshift of 340$`\pm `$70 km s-1, which is consistent with the radial velocity of the LMC ($`v_{\text{LMC}}=278`$ km s-1). The significance of NEI as well as the elemental abundances resulting from the fits are discussed below in §4.

The best-fit spectral NEI model for SNR N 103B is compared with the EPIC-MOS and RGS spectra in figures 2 and 3, respectively. The CIE model fits the data nearly as well. The overall fit to the data is very good. For the most part, the fit residuals are consistent within instrumental calibration uncertainties. However, some small discrepancies remain in the fit. The most prominent discrepancy is the missing flux in the model for the 2p–3s lines of Fe xvii at $``$17 Å. This is a well known problem and has been observed in many coronal sources and in the laboratory. Therefore, it probably has nothing to do with NEI effects, although in principle NEI could enhance the 17 Å lines with respect to the 15 Å lines by means of inner-shell ionisation of Fe XVI. Doron & Behar (doron (2002)) suggest a model that could rectify the standard collisional-excitation line powers in MEKAL and in APEC (Smith et al. apec (2001)). They show that including resonant excitation as well as recombination and ionisation processes (in CIE) from neighbouring ions in the models considerably enhances the 2p-3s lines and consequently produces the observed line ratios. Most of the other discrepancies in figure 3 have local asymmetrical profiles, which are a result of a combination of the following: (i) difference between the broadband spatial profile used in the response and the actual spatial profiles of individual emission lines, (ii) slight errors in model or data wavelengths, (iii) slight errors in the line spread function which does not account for the real asymmetrical profile of the RGS line shapes. The first of these sources of errors (i.e. the spatial profile used) should, however, dominate. There is also a slight overestimation of the continuum (in the range 18–23 Å) in the models, which is most likely due to uncertainties in the background subtraction. These inconsistencies between data and models are small and do not affect the conclusions drawn in this paper.

### 3.2 Chandra Images

In figure 4 we present three narrow-band images obtained with the ACIS camera. The images are produced in the energy ranges of 0.5–0.7, 0.7–1.0, and 3.0–6.8 keV. The first image (0.5–0.7 keV) is essentially an image of O-K emission (O VII and O VIII). The second image (0.7–1.0 keV) represents predominantly Fe-L emission and the third image (3–6.8 keV) reflects the morphology of Ar-K, Ca-K, and Fe-K lines, as well as some continuum. We have also separated this high-energy band into its various sub-component images (Ar, Ca, and Fe). However, within the statistics available for these images, all their morphologies appear to be fairly similar. The three images in figure 4 correspond roughly to the three plasma components described in Table 1, in respective order. For short, we will henceforth refer to these three energy bands (and their respective plasma components) simply as the O-K, Fe-L, and Fe-K bands (components).

All three images in figure 4 show the same asymmetry, where the western hemisphere is much brighter than the eastern hemisphere. Aside from that, they are quite different in morphology. The O-K emission is concentrated in the northwest, while the Fe-L emission is more evenly distributed along the western rim of the remnant. The Fe-K image reveals a bright emission spot located at the southwestern rim. We also created a continuum subtracted, deconvolved, XMM-Newton Fe-K (i.e 6.3–6.8 keV) image (see van der Heyden et al. kurt (2002) for details). The XMM-Newton Fe-K image (figure 5) also shows a bright emission spot located at the southwestern rim, but extends further inward than seen in the Chandra 3–6.8 keV image. However, while the statistics are of the XMM-Newton image is superior the ability to extract more information on the morphology of the remnant is hampered by the lower spatial resolution of the XMM cameras.

A more subtle difference between the emission in the three different bands is their radial distribution. In order to obtain a further insight into the radial distribution, we plotted the normalised radial profiles in counts per second in the three bands. These profiles in counts per pixel are presented in figure 6. Each profile is normalised separately to the average count rate measured in its energy range within a radius of 17.5″. Despite the differences in azimuthal distribution, it can be seen that the (normalised) brightness of all three components is surprisingly similar; peaking at approximately 4″, 7″, and 10″. The Fe-L component (dashed curve) lies slightly (0.5″), but consistently inside the other two components. Normalising the radial profiles to their peak values does not alter this conclusion.

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 Ionisation equilibrium

As demonstrated by the fitting results in Table 2, the RGS spectrum can be described similarly well by either a set of NEI or CIE plasma components, giving $`\chi ^2`$/d.o.f. of 1790/902 and 1810/899, respectively, for the two methods. Moreover, both models yield very similar spectra. In terms of emission measure, the X-ray spectrum of SNR N 103B is dominated by the Fe-L component (2). This emission component is represented by an electron temperature of $`kT_\mathrm{e}=0.65`$ keV in both models. The NEI model yields a very high ionisation age ($`n_\mathrm{e}t2.5\times 10^{18}`$ m-3s) for this component, which is sufficiently high for the plasma to be in or very close to equilibrium (see Mewe mewe2 (2002)).

For the weaker and cooler O-K component (1), which produces the O VII and most of the O VIII emission, the two methods actually give very different temperature and emission measure values. In CIE conditions, these O ions form at a relatively low temperature (0.2 keV in the best-fit CIE model). In the case of NEI, on the other hand, this component is much hotter (0.55 keV), but still ionising (net$``$2.3$`\times `$1016 m-3 s). Both models reproduce the observed line intensities equally well. Note that the very large errors associated with the temperature (-0.32 keV) and ionisation time (+1e17 m3s) in the NEI model are due to the fact that the fitting routing finds another minimum at $``$0.2 keV in the case of equilibrium ionisation, as expected. A comparison of the best-fit models for the O VII lines in both approaches is shown in figure 7. The differences between the NEI and CIE fits can be seen to be small, which implies that the data do not decidedly favour one scenario over the other. This CIE/NEI ambiguity in the O VII lines was recognised before in the analysis of the RGS spectrum of the LMC remnant N132D (Behar et al. ehud (2001)). It should be noted that the ambiguity of NEI/CIE in the O-K component (1) does not affect the fits for the other components at all, i.e., we get the same parameters for components 2 and 3, regardless of whether component 1 is in NEI or CIE.

The most outstanding evidence for NEI conditions emerges from the hot Fe-K component (3), which is responsible for the Fe-K feature measured at 6.5 keV, as displayed in figure 8. An attempt to model this feature as a CIE He-like Fe line (restframe energy 6.7 keV) requires that it be redshifted by $`4100`$ km s-1 with respect to the LMC systemic velocity. Such a large redshift is not observed for the Ar-K nor the Ca-K lines, which arise from the same component as Fe-K and overlap spatially. This makes the large redshift interpretation unlikely. An alternative and more plausible explanation for the spectral position of the Fe-K complex would be a relatively low ionisation age of $`n_\mathrm{e}t5.3\times 10^{16}`$ m-3s for the hot component, as obtained by our NEI fit (see Table 2) without any additional redshift. This NEI component predicts a distribution of Fe charge states that peaks between Fe xix and Fe xxiv. This component also contributes most of the flux in the Ar and Ca lines and provides good fits to these lines.

### 4.2 Density, age, and dynamics

The electron density can be calculated from the emission measure ($`n_\mathrm{e}n_\mathrm{H}V`$) if we know the volume of the emitting region. For simplicity, we generally assume the emitting volume to be a thick spherical shell. Based on the emission maps provided in figure 4 and on the radial profiles shown in figure 6, the shell is taken to have a radius of $`R`$ = 15″ and to be $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$ = R/10 = 1.5″ thick (Lozinskaya lozinskaya (1992)). At a distance of 51 kpc, it gives a volume of $`V=1.7\times 10^{51}\times f`$ m3, where $`f`$ is a volume filling factor. This is a very crude estimate of the volume, but it is sufficient for our order-of-magnitude estimates that follow.

For the dominant Fe-L component (2), which seems to cover most of the western hemisphere (see figure 4), we assume a half filled shell or $`f`$ = 0.5, which gives an electron density of $`n_\mathrm{e}25\times 10^6`$ m-3. Using this density and the ionisation age ($`n_\mathrm{e}t`$) from Table 2, we get for the time since the Fe-L gas was shocked: $`t`$ 3000 yrs. This time is considerably longer than the previously assumed age of the remnant (1500 yrs), however, the age derived from the ionisation time assumes constant density and does not take into account the expansion of the shell.

Since the Fe-K component is concentrated in the southwestern region of the remnant (see figure 4), we estimate the filling factor to be $`f`$ = 0.25. This gives an electron density of $`8\times 10^6`$ m-3, which in turn yields an age of $``$200 yrs. This is a relatively short time and is particularly in contrast with the derived age of the Fe-L component. For component 1, the bulk of the O-K emission is located towards the NW rim of the remnant. We again assume a filling factor of $`f=0.25`$. This yields electron densities of 7.$`1\times 10^6`$ and $`10.6\times 10^6`$ m-3 for the NEI and CIE models, respectively. If the NEI model is preferred, its ionisation time would then also imply a time of about 100 yrs since shock heating. Note the comparable ages of the O-K and Fe-K components. On the other hand, the different locations (figure 4) and vastly different temperatures of these two components strongly suggest that they may not be dynamically connected.

Indeed, each of the three spectral components can be identified spatially. As discussed earlier and as seen in figure 4, the various spectral components show substantial variation in morphology. Given our spectral analysis and due to the fact that roughly comparable densities are obtained for all of these components, it is most likely that these variations are due to gradients in temperature and ionisation ages. The different locations and temperatures of the three components suggest that they are probably unrelated dynamically. Despite these morphological differences the azimuthal average emission profiles show a remarkable similarity. Even more surprising is that, compared to the Fe L component, the coolest (O vii/O viii) and the hottest component peak at a larger radius, extend further out, and seem to be the most recently shocked components. This would suggest that these components are associated with material recently shocked by the blast wave, whereas the Fe L component may be plasma heated by the reverse shock. However, the overabundance of Ar, Ca and Fe K suggests that, at least the hot component consists of ejecta material. Note that this confusing situation is corroborated by Lewis et al. (lewisb (2002)), who, based on imaging spectroscopy with Chandra, show that these elements have radially outward increasing abundance gradients. Both the abundance gradient and the radial emission profiles of the three components do not fit the standard description of young supernova remnants, in which there is an outer, hot, shocked ISM component, and a cooler shock ejecta component.

### 4.3 Elemental abundances and type of progenitor

As mentioned previously, SNR N 103B was designated to be the result of a Type Ia SN on the basis of the lack of O, Ne, and Mg emission in the ASCA spectrum (Hughes et al. hughes (1995)). The RGS however, is able to resolve prominent O, Ne, and Mg emission. Incidentally, the derived abundances are insensitive to the type of model we use (NEI or CIE). This strongly suggests that SNR N 103B could in fact be the result of a core collapse SN. To investigate this further, we compare the abundance yields as obtained from fits to the RGS spectra to those predicted by theory for Type Ia and Type II nucleosynthesis models. We also compare these abundances to the average LMC values to verify that the observed X-rays do not originate from shocked LMC ISM. All LMC abundance values are taken from Hughes et al. (hughes2 (1998)) except for those of Ar and Ca, which are from Russell & Dopita (russell (1992)) as these values are not supplied by Hughes et al. (hughes2 (1998)). We use the relative abundances because they are more consistent among the various models than the absolute abundances (see Hwang et al. hwang (2000)). The calculated abundances for the Type Ia models, the classical W7 and delayed detonation (WDD2) model, are taken from Nomoto et al. (nomoto (1997)), while the Type II models for 12 and 20 $`M_{}`$ zero-age main-sequence progenitors are taken from Woosley & Weaver (woosley (1995)). The ratio comparisons are given in Table 3. The Fe-L abundance is derived from the $`kT_\mathrm{e}=0.65`$ keV component, while the Fe-K is from the $`kT_\mathrm{e}=3.5`$ keV component. All abundances are normalised to Si and relative to solar ratios (Anders & Grevese anders (1989)).

The derived abundance ratios measured for SNR N 103B do not compare well with those of the LMC. While some elements are underabundant by a factor of a few (Ne, Mg, Fe), others are grossly overabundant (S, Ar, Ca). The absolute abundances (not shown) are also larger than those of the LMC, indicating that the observed emission is by and large due to shocked ejecta. Furthermore, the measured abundance ratios compare much better with the type II models than with the type Ia models. Particularly, our abundance ratios for O/Si, Ne/Si, and Mg/Si are almost an order of magnitude larger than those predicted for a type Ia explosion, while the Fe/Si ratio is about a factor of 3 lower than predicted by the W7 model and slightly lower than predicted by the WDD2 model.

Next, we check if the total Fe and O masses are consistent with a Type Ia SN. According to our volume estimates for the Fe-L and Fe-K components (2 and 3) in the previous section, their emission comes from volumes of $`V`$ = 0.85 and 1.2 $`\times 10^{51}`$ m3, respectively. Using these volumes along with the derived EM and Fe abundance, we calculate an Fe mass of 0.02 $`M_{}`$ (for $`f=0.5`$) from Fe-L and 0.013 M from Fe-K, giving a total Fe mass of 0.033 M. Similarly, we use the volume estimates made in section 4.2, the emission measure and abundances of components 1 & 2 and 2 & 3 to calculate the total O and Si masses respectively. We obtain a total O mass of 0.27 M and Si mass of 0.032 M. In table 4 we compare the estimated O, Si and Fe masses to model predicted yields for type Ia and type II SNe. The estimated masses are not in exact agreement with any of the models, but compare better to the type II than type Ia models. In particular, the Fe mass estimate is only a factor 2-3 smaller than predicted by the core collapse models, while being more than an order of magnitude smaller than can be expected for a type Ia SN. The mass increases only with the square root of the filling factor (or by $`\sqrt{V}`$), so it is unlikely that our simple volume estimates could cause the order of magnitude discrepancy between our Fe mass estimate and that expected from the Type Ia models.

## 5 Summary & conclusions

The high resolution XMM-Newton emission-line spectra of SNR N 103B can be fitted well with three plasma components. The dominant component (Fe-L) is already in equilibrium and can be represented by a $`kT_\mathrm{e}=0.65`$ keV CIE model. The fact that 0.65 keV gas has equilibrated, together with its volume estimate, provides an approximate lower limit to the age of SNR N 103B, which is found to be 3000 yrs, twice as old as previously estimated. A separate component is needed to explain the O-K emission and here we find difficulty to distinguish between a relatively cool medium ($`kT_\mathrm{e}=0.2`$ keV) in equilibrium or hotter ($`kT_\mathrm{e}=0.55`$ keV) ionising gas. Both scenarios produce essentially the same spectrum for O VII. The Fe-K emission can be represented by a hot $`kT_\mathrm{e}=3.5`$ keV NEI component with a relatively low ionisation age of $`n_\mathrm{e}t5.3\times 10^{16}`$ m-3s, implying recent shock heating ($`200`$ yrs). The description of the X-ray emission from SNR N 103B in terms of this three-component model is strongly supported by the different morphologies revealed with the Chandra images in three corresponding energy bands. The O-K component is concentrated in the northwest, the Fe-L component extends along the western rim of the remnant, and the hottest component (Fe-K) peaks at a bright knot in the southwest. The O-K and Fe-K components lie, at least partially, outside of the Fe-L component, which could imply that the Fe-L component was shocked earlier, whereas the O-K and Fe-K regions were shocked only recently. However, the different locations and different temperatures of the three components suggest that they are probably unrelated dynamically.

The RGS spectrum unambiguously reveals emission from species of O, Ne and Mg. The presence of these lines and the abundance measurements they provide suggest that SNR N 103B might actually be the result of a type II SN and not a type Ia as previously thought. Also, the total O mass is higher than predicted by a type Ia SNe, while the total Fe mass is much lower than would be expected if SNR N 103B was the result of a type Ia SN.

###### Acknowledgements.

The results presented are based on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and the USA. JV acknowledges support in the form of the NASA Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship grant nr. PF0-10011, awarded by the Chandra X-ray Center. SRON is supported financially by NWO.