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# Quelques calculs de la cohomologie de 𝐺𝐿_𝑁(ℤ) et de la K-théorie de ℤ

## 1. La théorie de Voronoï

Soit $`N2`$ un entier. Notons $`C_N`$ l’espace des formes quadratiques définies positives réelles de rang $`N`$. Étant donnée $`hC_N`$, les vecteurs minimaux de $`h`$, c’est-à-dire les vecteurs $`v`$ non nuls de $`\mathrm{}^N`$ tels que $`h\left(v\right)`$ soit minimal, forment un ensemble fini, noté $`m\left(h\right)`$. Une forme $`hC_N`$ est dite parfaite si elle est entièrement caractérisée par son minimum sur $`\mathrm{}^N\left\{0\right\}`$ et par l’ensemble $`m\left(h\right)`$. Désignons par $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ le groupe $`GL_N\left(\mathrm{}\right)`$ ou $`SL_N\left(\mathrm{}\right)`$. Voronoï a démontré  (Thm., p.110) que, modulo l’action de $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ et la multiplication par les réels positifs, il n’y a qu’un nombre fini de formes parfaites.

Notons $`C_N^{}`$ l’espace des formes quadratiques positives réelles sur $`\mathrm{}^N`$ dont le noyau est engendré par un sous-espace vectoriel propre de $`\mathrm{}^N`$. Soient $`X_N^{}`$ le quotient de $`C_N^{}`$ par les homothéties positives, $`\pi :C_N^{}X_N^{}`$ l’application quotient, $`X_N=\pi \left(C_N\right)`$ et $`X_N^{}=X_N^{}X_N`$. Le groupe $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ agit sur $`C_N^{}`$, et sur $`X_N^{}`$, par la formule

$$h\gamma =\gamma ^th\gamma ,\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma },hC_N^{},$$

$`\gamma ^t`$ est la transposée de $`\gamma `$.

A tout vecteur $`v\mathrm{}^N\left\{0\right\}`$ on peut associer une forme $`\widehat{v}C_N^{}`$, définie par $`\widehat{v}\left(x\right)=\left(v|x\right)^2`$. Étant donné un sous-ensemble fini $`B`$ de $`\mathrm{}^N\left\{0\right\}`$, l’enveloppe convexe de $`B`$ est le sous-ensemble de $`X_N^{}`$ image par $`\pi `$ du sous-ensemble

$$\left\{\underset{j}{}\lambda _j\widehat{v}_j,v_jB,\lambda _j0\right\}$$

de $`C_N^{}`$. Lorsque $`h`$ est une forme parfaite, nous désignons par $`\sigma \left(h\right)X_N^{}`$ l’enveloppe convexe de l’ensemble $`m\left(h\right)`$ de ses vecteurs minimaux. Voronoï a montré  (§§8-15) que les cellules $`\sigma \left(h\right)`$ et leurs intersections, quand $`h`$ parcourt l’ensemble des formes parfaites, définissent une décomposition cellulaire de $`X_N^{}`$, compatible avec l’action de $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Nous munissons $`X_N^{}`$ de la CW-structure correspondante. Si $`\tau `$ est une cellule (fermée) de $`X_N^{}`$ et si $`h`$ est une forme parfaite telle que $`\tau \sigma \left(h\right)`$, on note $`m\left(\tau \right)`$ l’ensemble des vecteurs $`v`$ de $`m\left(h\right)`$ tels que $`\widehat{v}`$ soit dans $`\tau `$. La cellule $`\tau `$ est l’enveloppe convexe de $`m\left(\tau \right)`$ et l’on a $`m\left(\tau \right)m\left(\tau ^{}\right)=m\left(\tau \tau ^{}\right)`$.

## 2. Calculs explicites

### 2.1.

Notons $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_n`$, $`0ndim\left(X_N^{}\right)=d\left(N\right)=N\left(N+1\right)/21`$, un ensemble de représentants, modulo l’action de $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, des cellules $`\sigma `$ de dimension $`n`$ dans $`X_N^{}`$ qui rencontrent $`X_N`$ et telles qu’aucun élément du stabilisateur de $`\sigma `$ dans $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ ne change l’orientation de $`\sigma `$. Pour $`N6`$ nous avons déterminé un tel ensemble $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_n`$. En particulier on a le résultat suivant :

###### Proposition 2.1.

Le cardinal de $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_n`$ est zéro sauf dans les cas indiqués dans le tableau ci-dessous :

$$\begin{array}{cccccccccccccccc}& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ n& 6& 7& 8& 9& 10& 11& 12& 13& 14& 15& 16& 17& 18& 19& 20\\ & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ GL_5\left(\mathrm{}\right)& 0& 0& 1& 7& 6& 1& 0& 2& 3& & & & & & \\ & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ GL_6\left(\mathrm{}\right)& 0& 0& 0& 3& 46& 163& 340& 544& 636& 469& 200& 49& 5& 0& 0\\ & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ SL_6\left(\mathrm{}\right)& 3& 10& 18& 43& 169& 460& 815& 1132& 1270& 970& 434& 114& 27& 14& 7\\ \multicolumn{16}{c}{\text{ }}\end{array}$$

### 2.2.

Pour tout entier $`m>1`$ on note $`𝒮_m`$ la classe (de Serre) des groupes abéliens finis $`A`$ tels que tout nombre premier $`p`$ divisant l’ordre de $`A`$ vérifie $`pm`$. Si $`\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }`$ est d’ordre premier $`p`$ on sait que $`pN+1`$. Il en résulte que l’action de $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ sur $`X_N^{}`$ permet de définir un complexe $`V=(V_n,d_n)`$ tel que $`V_n`$ soit isomorphe au module libre engendré par $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_n`$, $`n0`$, et que l’homologie de $`V`$ coïncide, modulo $`𝒮_{N+1}`$, avec l’homologie $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-équivariante de la paire $`(X_N^{},X_N^{})`$ ( VII Prop. 8.1,  Prop. 2.2) :

$$H_n\left(V\right)=H_n^\mathrm{\Gamma }(X_N^{},X_N^{};\mathrm{})\left(\mathrm{mod}𝒮_{N+1}\right).$$

###### Proposition 2.2.

* Si $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{GL}_5\left(\mathrm{}\right)`$, on a, modulo $`𝒮_5`$,

$$H_n(V,\mathrm{})=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{}\hfill & \mathrm{si}n=9,14,\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \mathrm{sinon}.\hfill \end{array}$$
* Si $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{GL}_6\left(\mathrm{}\right)`$, on a, modulo $`𝒮_7`$,

$$H_n(V,\mathrm{})=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{}\hfill & \mathrm{si}n=10,11,15,\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \mathrm{sinon}.\hfill \end{array}$$
* Si $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{SL}_6\left(\mathrm{}\right)`$, on a, modulo $`𝒮_7`$,

$$H_n(V,\mathrm{})=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{}^2\hfill & \mathrm{si}n=15,\hfill \\ \mathrm{}\hfill & \mathrm{si}n=10,11,12,20,\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \mathrm{sinon}.\hfill \end{array}$$

### 2.3.

La preuve des Propositions 2.1 et 2.2 utilise la classification des formes parfaites. Si $`N7`$, le travail de Jaquet  fournit un ensemble $`𝒫`$ de représentants des formes parfaites de rang $`N`$ et, si $`h𝒫`$, la liste $`m\left(h\right)`$ des vecteurs minimaux de $`h`$ et une liste des formes “voisines” de $`h`$ modulo l’action de son stabilisateur $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_h`$, ainsi que leurs représentants dans $`𝒫`$. On en déduit une liste des faces de $`\sigma \left(h\right)`$ modulo $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_h`$.

Pour obtenir un ensemble $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_n`$ comme dans 2.1, on procède comme suit, à l’aide d’un ordinateur. Pour chaque $`h𝒫`$ on calcule les éléments de $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_h`$, et donc la liste $`_{1,h}`$ de toutes ses faces $`\tau `$ de codimension 1 (i.e. les ensembles $`m\left(\tau \right)`$ correspondants). Par récurrence sur l’entier $`n`$, $`1nd\left(N\right)`$, on définit un ensemble $`_{n,h}`$ de cellules de codimension $`n`$ dans $`X_N^{}`$, puis un système de représentants $`𝒞_{n,h}_{n,h}`$ pour l’action de $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ sur $`_{n,h}`$ (cf. 4.3). Par définition, $`_{n+1,h}`$ est l’ensemble des cellules $`\phi \tau `$, $`\phi _{n,h}`$, $`\tau 𝒞_{n,h}`$, qui sont de codimension $`n+1`$ dans $`\sigma \left(h\right)`$. L’ensemble $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_n`$ est alors obtenu en choisissant des représentants modulo $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ de la réunion des $`𝒞_{d\left(N\right)n,h}`$, $`h𝒫`$.

### 2.4.

Pour calculer la différentielle de $`V`$ on procède comme suit. Pour chaque cellule $`\sigma `$ de $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_n`$, $`n0`$, on choisit un ordre sur l’ensemble $`m\left(\sigma \right)`$ de ses vecteurs minimaux. Pour toute cellule $`\tau ^{}\sigma `$ cet ordre fournit un ordre sur $`m\left(\tau ^{}\right)`$ et donc une orientation du sous-espace vectoriel réel $`\mathrm{}\tau ^{}`$ engendré par $`m\left(\tau ^{}\right)`$ dans l’espace vectoriel des matrices symétriques réelles. Si $`\tau ^{}`$ est une face de $`\sigma `$ on obtient une base orientée $`B`$ de $`\mathrm{}\sigma `$ en adjoignant à la suite d’une base positive de $`\mathrm{}\tau ^{}`$ l’élément $`\widehat{v}`$, où $`v`$ est l’élément minimal de $`m\left(\sigma \right)m\left(\tau ^{}\right)`$ (pour l’ordre choisi ci-dessus). Notons $`ϵ(\tau ^{},\sigma )=\pm 1`$ l’orientation de $`B`$ dans $`\mathrm{}\sigma `$.

Si $`\tau \mathrm{\Sigma }_{n1}`$ est équivalente à la face $`\tau ^{}=\tau \gamma `$ de $`\sigma \mathrm{\Sigma }_n`$, on pose $`\eta (\tau ,\tau ^{})=1`$ (resp. $`\eta (\tau ,\tau ^{})=1`$) selon que $`\gamma `$ est compatible (ou non) aux orientations choisies de $`\mathrm{}\tau `$ et $`\mathrm{}\tau ^{}`$. On a alors

$$d_n\left(\sigma \right)=\underset{\tau \mathrm{\Sigma }_{n1}}{}\underset{\tau ^{}}{}\eta (\tau ,\tau ^{})ϵ(\tau ^{},\sigma )\tau ,$$

$`\tau ^{}`$ parcourt l’ensemble des faces de $`\sigma `$ équivalentes à $`\tau `$. On notera que l’identité $`d_{n+1}d_n=0`$, $`n0`$, est un bon test pour vérifier les calculs effectués par l’ordinateur.

## 3. Cohomologie des groupes modulaires

Si $`\mathrm{St}_N`$ est le module de Steinberg de $`\mathrm{SL}_{N,\mathrm{}}`$ on a

(3.1)
$$H_n^\mathrm{\Gamma }(X_N^{},X_N^{};\mathrm{})=H_{nN+1}(\mathrm{\Gamma },\mathrm{St}_N)$$

(cf. ). Le théorème de dualité de Borel et Serre  dit que

$$H_m(\mathrm{\Gamma },\mathrm{St}_N)=H^{dm}(\mathrm{\Gamma },\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{}})\left(\mathrm{mod}𝒮_{N+1}\right),$$

$`d=N\left(N1\right)/2`$ est la dimension cohomologique virtuelle de $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ et $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{}}`$ est le $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-module trivial $`\mathrm{}`$ sauf quand $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{GL}_N\left(\mathrm{}\right)`$ et $`N`$ est pair, auquel cas $`\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }`$ agit par multiplication par $`det\left(\gamma \right)`$ sur $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{}}=\mathrm{}`$. Enfin, le lemme de Shapiro montre que, modulo $`𝒮_2`$,

$$H^m(\mathrm{SL}_N\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{})=H^m(\mathrm{GL}_N\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{})H^m(\mathrm{GL}_N\left(\mathrm{}\right),\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{}}).$$

La Proposition 2.2 implique donc le résultat suivant :

###### Théorème 3.1.

* Modulo $`𝒮_5`$ on a

$$H^m(\mathrm{GL}_5\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{})=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{}\hfill & \mathrm{si}m=0,5,\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \mathrm{sinon}.\hfill \end{array}$$
* Modulo $`𝒮_7`$ on a

$$H^m(\mathrm{GL}_6\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{})=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{}\hfill & \mathrm{si}m=0,5,8,\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \mathrm{sinon},\hfill \end{array}$$

et

$$H^m(\mathrm{SL}_6\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{})=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{}^2\hfill & \mathrm{si}m=5,\hfill \\ \mathrm{}\hfill & \mathrm{si}m=0,8,9,10,\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \mathrm{sinon}.\hfill \end{array}$$

## 4. K-théorie des entiers

### 4.1.

Rappelons que $`K_1\left(\mathrm{}\right)=K_2\left(\mathrm{}\right)=\mathrm{}/2`$, $`K_3\left(\mathrm{}\right)=\mathrm{}/48`$ et $`K_4\left(\mathrm{}\right)=0`$ .

###### Théorème 4.1.

On a $`K_5(\mathrm{})=\mathrm{}`$. Par ailleurs, l’ordre de $`K_6(\mathrm{})`$ est une puissance de 3.

Notons $`Q`$ (resp. $`Q_N`$) la catégorie définie par Quillen  à partir des $`\mathrm{}`$-modules libres de rang fini (resp. de rang au plus $`N`$). Si $`BQ`$ est le classifiant de $`Q`$, on a

$$K_m\left(\mathrm{}\right)=\pi _{m+1}BQ,$$

et l’on dispose de suites exactes

(4.1)
$$\mathrm{}H_m(BQ_{N1},\mathrm{})H_m(BQ_N,\mathrm{})H_{mN}(\mathrm{GL}_N\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{St}_N)H_{m1}(BQ_{N1},\mathrm{})\mathrm{}$$

On sait aussi que $`H_0(\mathrm{GL}_N\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{St}_N)=0`$ si $`N1`$.

###### Proposition 4.2.

* Modulo $`𝒮_2`$ on a

$$H_3(\mathrm{GL}_3\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{St}_3)=\mathrm{}$$

et

$$H_1(\mathrm{GL}_5\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{St}_5)=H_2(\mathrm{GL}_4\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{St}_4)=H_4(\mathrm{GL}_2\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{St}_2)=0.$$
* Modulo $`𝒮_3`$ on a

$$H_3(\mathrm{GL}_4\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{St}_4)=\mathrm{}$$

et

$$H_1(\mathrm{GL}_6\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{St}_6)=H_2(\mathrm{GL}_5\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{St}_5)=H_4(\mathrm{GL}_3\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{St}_3)=H_5(\mathrm{GL}_2\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{St}_2)=0.$$

Pour démontrer cette proposition on utilise les résultats du calcul amenant à la Proposition 2.1 et les résultats de , ,  et . D’après (3.1) et  ou , on peut calculer les groupes $`H_m(\mathrm{GL}_N\left(\mathrm{}\right),\mathrm{St}_N)`$ à l’aide d’une suite spectrale dont le terme $`E_1`$ est une somme de groupes d’homologie des stabilisateurs des cellules des $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_n`$. L’analyse de ces groupes conduit à la Proposition 4.2.

### 4.2.

A l’aide de (4.1) et de  on déduit de la Proposition 4.2 que $`H_6(BQ,\mathrm{})=\mathrm{}`$ modulo $`𝒮_2`$ et que $`H_7(BQ,\mathrm{})=\mathrm{}`$ modulo $`𝒮_3`$. Par ailleurs on démontre, en utilisant , que le noyau du morphisme d’Hurewicz

$$K_5\left(\mathrm{}\right)H_6(BQ,\mathrm{})$$

(resp. $`K_6\left(\mathrm{}\right)H_7(BQ,\mathrm{})`$) est dans $`𝒮_2`$ (resp. $`𝒮_3`$). Enfin, on sait que $`K_6\left(\mathrm{}\right)`$ est fini, que $`K_5\left(\mathrm{}\right)`$ est de rang un, et qu’aucun d’eux n’a de la 2-torsion . Le Théorème 4.1 en résulte.

### 4.3.

La plupart des programmes ont été développés en utilisant le logiciel PARI-GP . Nous utilisons aussi les programmes de  pour décider si deux formes de $`C_N^{}`$ sont équivalentes sous l’action de $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Enfin, le logiciel GAP  permet de produire tous les éléments des groupes finis $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_h`$, $`h𝒫`$, à partir de leurs générateurs et de calculer certains de leurs groupes d’homologie.

Les calculs ont été réalisés sur les ordinateurs de l’UMS Médicis, ceux du MPI Bonn, et ceux de l’ACI "Arithmétique des fonctions L".


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# Identification of a 12–17 day timescale in X-ray observations of GRS 1915+105

## 1 Introduction

GRS 1915+105 was discovered in 1992 by the WATCH All-sky X-ray Monitor on board the GRANAT satellite (Castro-Tirado et al., 1992), and lies in the Galactic plane at a distance of 11–12 kpc (Mirabel and Rodríguez, 1994; Fender et al., 1999). The extreme variability of the X-ray flux from its accretion disk, first noticed by Castro-Tirado et al. (1994), coupled with its jet emission (Mirabel and Rodríguez, 1994, 1999; Dhawan et al., 2000; Chaty et al., 2001), makes it an ideal source for the study of accretion physics. At $`14\pm 4`$ solar masses (Greiner et al., 2001, hereafter referred to as G2001), it can thus be considered as a Galactic stellar-mass analogue of a massive extragalactic black hole system such as a quasar, hence the term microquasar. The importance of microquasars as accessible astrophysical laboratories is discussed by Mirabel and Rodríguez (1999); for example, the proportionality of dynamic timescales to mass implies that thousand-year events in a quasar could be studied over minutes in a microquasar (see for example Mirabel et al. (1998)).

Spectral states, quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs), and the rich temporal variability of GRS 1915+105 are the focus of much research (see for example Nayakshin et al. (2000); Belloni et al. (2001); Klein-Wolt et al. (2002); Rodríguez et al. (2002); Ueda et al. (2002); and references therein). Before the measurements by G2001, mass estimates for GRS 1915+105 made use of the temporal and spectral similarity to microquasar GRO J1655-40 (Grove et al., 1998), another Galactic X-ray source with superluminal radio jets (Zhang et al., 1994) together with a binary mass function appropriate for a black hole (Bailyn et al., 1995). The radial velocity measurements performed by G2001 determined a mass of $`14\pm 4`$ solar masses, leading the authors to suggest that the X-ray variability can be accounted for by instabilities in a radiation-pressure-dominated accretion disk near the Eddington limit. The observations of G2001 also constrain the mass of the donor star to $`1.2\pm 0.2`$ solar masses, and its orbital period around the black hole to $`33.5\pm 1.5`$ days.

There is now much evidence for the basic model of a cold, steady outer disk and an unstable, radiation-pressure-dominated inner disk in GRS 1915+105 (see for example Belloni et al. (1997a, b) and references therein). Hence there are two emitting regions to consider: an inner region that empties and refills on timescales of seconds, perhaps due to a rapid local viscous-thermal instability (Lightman and Eardley, 1974; Belloni et al., 1997a; Janiuk et al., 2000); and a steadier outer region varying only over the much longer timescale $`t_{visc}`$ associated with viscous dissipation of bulk plasma flows. We may therefore expect $`t_{visc}`$ to emerge as the longest timescale over which correlation may be present in observations of the total luminosity; a recent study suggests $`t_{visc}10`$ years (Vilhu, 2002).

In this paper we apply the technique of differencing and rescaling to the GRS 1915+105 X-ray data, and show that this implies the existence of a fundamental timescale for the system in the range 12–17 days. The technique of differencing and rescaling was used by She (1991) and She and Orszag (1991) to study a physical model of intermittency in turbulence, and by Mantegna and Stanley (1995) to investigate fluctuations in the value of a financial index. More recently, the method has been used by Greenhough et al. (2002) to compare accreting with non-accreting X-ray sources, and by Hnat et al. (2002) to quantify turbulence in the solar wind. In summary, we first construct a set of differenced series $`Z(t,\tau )`$ from the original series $`y(t)`$, for a range of values of the time-lag $`\tau `$:

$$Z(t,\tau )=y\left(t\right)y\left(t\tau \right).$$
(1)
A set of PDFs is then calculated for the amplitude of the differenced series $`Z`$, one for each value of $`\tau `$, denoted by $`P(Z,\tau )`$. The best-fit slope of $`\mathrm{log}P(0,\tau )`$ against $`\mathrm{log}\tau `$ defines the scaling exponent $`m`$. We then seek a common functional form of these PDFs by rescaling both axes such that

$$ZZ\tau ^m=Z_s\mathrm{and}PP\tau ^m=P_s.$$
(2)
If the separate PDFs for values of $`\tau `$ up to some $`\tau _{max}`$ collapse onto one curve, this implies that the X-ray fluctuations are controlled by a single physical process on timescales below $`\tau _{max}`$.

This technique enables us to test in particular for the joint presence of temporal scaling and non-Gaussianity (Hastings and Sugihara, 1993; Kantz and Schreiber, 1997; Sornette, 2000), which together are strong indications of correlated processes such as turbulence (Bohr et al., 1998). GRS 1915+105 is ideal for this type of statistical analysis in that (i) it remains active on very long time scales, and (ii) this time scale is very well separated from those associated with the inner disk.

## 2 Scaling of GRS 1915+105 X-ray data

### 2.1 Summary of the data

The raw X-ray data, provided by the All-Sky Monitor (ASM) on board the RXTE satellite (Swank et al., 2001), are held at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and can be accessed via their website111http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xte/asm\_products.html. Calibration is undertaken by the ASM/RXTE team and the processed data are freely accessible on their website222http://xte.mit.edu/XTE/asmlc/ASM.html (Bradt et al., 2001), where there are 32,800 observations over the period 1996 February 20 to 2002 April 12, which we plot in Fig. 1.

Each point represents the total X-ray flux (measured by the number of counts during periods that last 90 seconds) integrated over the range 1.3–12.2 keV. The breakdown into three energy bands (1.3–3, 3–5 and 5–12.2 keV) is also available; we have carried out separate analyses of these components, which yield very similar results to those for the total flux which we present here. The source luminosity is sufficiently high to permit the neglect of instrument thresholds, uncertainties, and other sources in the field of view. Sampling intervals between the 90-second X-ray counting periods are distributed with a mean of 94 minutes, and 90% of the intervals are below 193 minutes; the exact observation times are known and therefore we do not assume even sampling in our analysis. When differencing the X-ray intensities to construct $`P(Z,\tau )`$, we exploit the fact that each measured intensity is obtained at a precise time that is stated in the dataset to within 0.1s. We use these sampling times to find intensities that were observed within $`2^{\pm 0.1}\tau `$ of the chosen value of $`\tau `$. While the ASM data is not filtered prior to sampling, and hence the true frequency spectrum is distorted by aliasing, the differencing technique uses only time domain information that accurately represents the true signal at the given times. We do not attempt any kind of interpolation.

### 2.2 Results

In Fig. 2(a) we plot the probability of the smallest fluctuations, $`P(0,\tau )`$, as a function of $`\tau `$. The straight lines on the double logarithmic axes indicate that $`P(0,\tau )`$ is a power-law function of $`\tau `$ up to $`\tau 2^{7.5}`$. This corresponds to a timescale of 12 days, since this value of $`\tau `$ represents $`2^{7.5}`$ times the mean sampling interval of 94 minutes. This break in scaling appears to be a robust feature of the data. For example, Fig. 2(b) shows the variance $`\sigma ^2(\tau )`$ of the set of all fluctuations for a given value of $`\tau `$; that is, the variance of the differenced data from which the PDFs $`P(Z,\tau )`$ are calculated. It implies the existence of scaling for $`\tau `$ up to $`2^8`$, corresponding to 17 days. Our key result is that there is a clear break in scaling between the 7.5th and 8th octaves, corresponding to a timescale of 12–17 days. We emphasise that 12–17 days is not a periodicity in the X-ray luminosity but a timescale at which a break in the scaling of its statistical properties is observed. In Figs. 2(a,b) a second scaling region emerges between octaves 7.5 and 10.5. This represents a rather restricted range of timescales, however, and will not be considered further in this paper.

We next use the slope $`m=0.08`$ of the linear fit over the lower range of timescales in Fig. 2(a) to carry out rescaling, as described at Eq. 2, for fluctuations of size $`Z`$. Figure 3(a) shows a collapse onto one curve for $`Z_s<30`$, implying that small fluctuations follow the same scaling, but large fluctuations beyond $`Z_s30`$ clearly do not scale in this way. In Fig. 3(b) we show that the scaling régime indicated in Fig. 3(a) is peaked, long-tailed, and definitely non-Gaussian, which is suggestive of turbulent behaviour (Bohr et al., 1998).

We now show that the small fluctuations that exhibit scaling are continually present, whereas the large fluctuations are not. Figure 4 provides representations of: (a) the full X-ray time-series for GRS 1915+105; (b) the small fluctuations that lie between the dot-dash lines ($`Z_s<30`$) in Fig. 3; and (c) the large fluctuations ($`Z_s>30`$) only. Dots are the data points at which the fluctuations terminate, that is the latter points of the pairs that are differenced to construct $`P(Z,\tau )`$. Thus, for example, in Fig. 4(a) there is a dot for every raw data point, whereas in (b) we plot one dot only for each pair of intensities whose rescaled difference $`Z_s`$ lies between $`Z_s=\pm 30`$. It is clear that the small scaling fluctuations arise from all parts of the time-series, whereas the larger non-scaling fluctuations are sometimes absent (notably for long periods in 1997 and 1998–99).

## 3 Discussion and Conclusions

Using the differencing and rescaling technique, 12–17 days emerges as a resilient timescale in the total X-ray luminosity (1.5–12 keV) of GRS 1915+105, and is shown to originate in only the small luminosity fluctuations. This is consistent with the accepted model of a cold (low emission and variability) outer disk that is stable over (viscous) timescales well above those of the inner disk; only in the outer disk could processes evolve without interruption over periods of days.

It is also intriguing that 17 days is approximately half the binary period ($`33.5\pm 1.5`$ days) of this source. Although this may be coincidental, it is interesting to speculate on its possible physical significance. For example, this result lends some support to an interpretation in terms of tidally-driven waves which we now describe. Lubow et al. (1993) review fluid experiments beginning in the 1970s, in which it was found that a dynamical instability can arise in a fluid whose base state is non-circular; Goodman (1993) originally applied this idea to tidally-distorted accretion disks in close binary systems. The instability is caused by a perturbation in the frame rotating with the binary at angular frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B`$. Trailing waves can couple via the tidal mode to generate a leading wave, which can then reinforce the original disturbance via the tidal distortion. Vishniac and Zhang (1996) use more detailed disk models to confirm Goodman’s findings, and Ryu et al. (1996) show how the instability can become global (for other types of instability see, for example, Caunt and Tagger (2001)).

In the mode with the largest amplitude, the surface density varies slowly with radius and has an angle and time dependence given by $`\mathrm{sin}(2\theta 2\mathrm{\Omega }_Bt)`$ (Lubow et al., 1993). Differential rotation within the disk shears this disturbance into a two-armed spiral shock that co-rotates with the binary; amplification caused by the inwardly-increasing velocity is balanced by dissipation (Blondin, 2000). This tidally-induced shock wave has been shown numerically to be a robust feature of the accretion disks of binary systems (Blondin, 2000, and references therein), and their possible contribution to the light curves of intermediate polars was demonstrated by Murray et al. (1999). There exist, in addition, many observations of spiral shocks in binaries (see for example Baptista et al. (2002) and references therein) and in AGN (Rouan et al. (1998) and references therein, for example). It is plausible that the periodic stirring effect of the rotating shock could drive a turbulent cascade (Goodman, 1993; Bohr et al., 1998) in which plasma is heated by viscous dissipation within vortices covering a range of spatial and temporal scales smaller than those of the driving process, and with non-Gaussian fluctuations. It is this dissipation, spatially integrated across the accretion disk, that drives the X-ray emission. Our observations are consistent with the hypothesis that in the present case of turbulence in a bounded system, the temporal scaling properties – and in particular the upper timescale of 12–17 days – persist in the X-ray signal. With two spiral arms each rotating with a period of $`T_B=2\pi /\mathrm{\Omega }_B`$, one would therefore expect to observe temporal scaling up to $`T_B/2`$ in observations of the total luminosity. For GRS 1915+105, $`T_B/2=(33.5\pm 1.5)/2=17\pm 1`$ days.

Our principal result thus provides quantitative constraints on models for transport and heating in the accretion disk of GRS 1915+105, and our analysis also suggests possible physical mechanisms that may be at work.

## Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Michel Tagger, James Murray, Nick Watkins (for drawing our attention to Blondin (2000)), David Tsiklauri and Bogdan Hnat for helpful suggestions. J. G. acknowledges a CASE Research Studentship from the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council in association with UKAEA. This work was also supported in part by the UK DTI. S. C. gratefully acknowledges support from grant F/00–180/A from the Leverhulme Trust, and G. R. acknowledges a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship. Data provided by the ASM/RXTE teams at MIT and at the RXTE SOF and GOF at NASA’s GSFC.


text:
# The expected thermal precursors of gamma-ray bursts in the internal shock model

## 1 Introduction

The cosmological origin of long duration gamma-ray bursts (hereafter GRBs) has been firmly established since the discovery of their optical counterparts in 1997 (van Paradijs et al. 1997). These late and fading counterparts, the so called afterglows, have now been detected in many bursts, and in different spectral ranges : X-rays, optical and radio bands. The redshift has been mesured for about 20 GRBs from $`z=0.43`$ to $`z=4.5`$. The corresponding isotropic equivalent energy radiated by these GRBs in the gamma-ray range goes from $`\mathrm{5\; 10}^{51}\mathrm{erg}`$ to $`\mathrm{2\; 10}^{54}\mathrm{erg}`$. The beaming factor that has to be taken into account to obtain the real amount of radiated energy can be deduced from afterglow observations (achromatic break in the lightcurve, Rhoads (1999)). Current estimates lead to a total energy radiated in gamma-rays of about $`0.5\mathrm{1\; 10}^{51}\mathrm{erg}`$ (Frail et al. 2001). The most discussed scenario to explain the GRB phenomenon is made of three steps :
Central engine : The source of GRBs must be able to release a very large amount of energy in a few seconds. The two most popular candidates are either the merger of compact objects (neutron star binaries or neutron star– black hole systems (Narayan et al. 1992; Mochkovitch et al. 1993)) or the gravitational collapse of a massive star into a black hole (collapsars/hypernovae (Woosley 1993; Paczynski 1998)). Such events lead to the formation of very similar systems made of a stellar mass black hole surrounded by a thick torus. The collapsar model seems to be favored in the case of long bursts by observational evidences that GRBs are located well inside their host galaxy and often associated to star-forming regions (Paczynski 1998; Djorgovski et al. 2001). The released energy is first injected into an optically thick wind, which is accelerated via an unknown mechanism, probably involving MHD processes (Thompson 1994; Meszaros & Rees 1997; Spruit et al. 2001) and becomes eventually relativistic. The existence of such a relativistic wind has been directly inferred from the observations of radio scintillation in GRB 970508 (Frail et al. 1997) and is also needed to solve the compactness problem and avoid photon-photon annihilation along the line of sight. Average Lorentz factors larger than 100 are required (Baring & Harding 1997; Lithwick & Sari 2001). The next two steps explain how the kinetic energy of this relativistic wind is converted into radiation at large distances from the source, when the wind has become optically thin.
Internal shocks : the production of gamma-rays is usually associated to the formation of shocks within the wind itself (Rees & Meszaros 1994). Such internal shocks can appear if the initial distribution of the Lorentz factor is highly variable, which is very likely considering the unsteady nature of the envisaged sources (MacFadyen & Woosley 1999). This model has been studied in details (Kobayashi et al. 1997; Daigne & Mochkovitch 1998, 2000). The main difficulties which are encountered are a rather low efficiency for the conversion of the wind kinetic energy into gamma-rays (a few percents only) and problems in reproducing with synchrotron emission the slope of the low energy part of the spectrum (Ghisellini et al. 2000). Despite this difficulty, the model can successfully reproduce the main features of the bursts observed by BATSE.
External shock : the relativistic wind is decelerated later by the external medium. This phase of deceleration is probably the best understood of the three steps and reproduces very well the afterglow properties (Wijers et al. 1997). The dynamics of the wind during the deceleration phase is described by the solution of the relativistic Sedov problem (Blandford & McKee 1976) and the observed afterglow is due to synchrotron emission produced by relativistic electrons accelerated behind the strong forward shock propagating in the external medium (Sari et al. 1998).

The work presented in this paper focuses on the prompt emission. The spectrum of this emission as observed by BATSE and Beppo-SAX is non-thermal and is well fitted by the 4-parameter “GRB-function” proposed by Band et al. (1993). This function is made of two smoothly connected power-laws. This non-thermal emission probably originates from the radiation of a population of highly relativistic electrons accelerated behind the shock waves propagating within the wind during the internal shock phase.

Prior to the internal shock phase, the relativistic wind has to become transparent. At this transition, a thermal emission is produced, that could contribute to the observed prompt emission. Parts of the wind can also become opaque at larger radii if internal shocks create pairs in large number. These opaque regions can produce additional thermal components when they become transparent again (Mészáros & Rees 2000). Other thermal contributions can be expected, for example when the jet breaks out at the boundary of the stellar envelope in the collapsar scenario (Ramirez-Ruiz et al. 2002). In this paper, we restrict our analysis to the photospheric thermal component. A similar problem has been studied by Lyutikov & Usov (2000) in the different context of strongly magnetized winds emitted by rapidly rotating pulsars.

The paper is organized as follows : in sect. 2 we obtain the position of the photosphere of a relativistic wind with a highly variable initial distribution of the Lorentz factor, as expected in the internal shock model. We then compute the corresponding photospheric thermal emission in sect. 3 and compare it to the non-thermal emission from the internal shocks in sect. 4. The results are discussed in sect. 5 and the conclusions are summarized in sect. 6.

## 2 The photosphere of a relativistic wind

### 2.1 Photospheric radius

We do not discuss in this paper the nature of the source which is initially responsible for the energy release leading to the gamma-ray burst. We suppose that a relativistic wind carrying the energy has emerged from the source, with an average Lorentz factor $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}100`$. We assume that the acceleration is complete at a distance $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ from the source where the ultra-relativistic wind is characterized by an energy injection rate $`\dot{E}(t_{\mathrm{inj}})`$ and an initial distribution of Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(t_{\mathrm{inj}})`$. This corresponds to a mass flux $`\dot{M}(t_{\mathrm{inj}})=\dot{E}(t_{\mathrm{inj}})/\mathrm{\Gamma }(t_{\mathrm{inj}})c^2`$, with $`\dot{E}`$ and $`\dot{M}`$ being the isotropic equivalent energy and mass injection rates. This wind production process lasts from $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}=0`$ to $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}=t_\mathrm{w}`$ (all these quantities are defined in the fixed frame of the source).

In this section we are interested in computing when the layer emitted by the source at $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ will become transparent. We assume that the wind is still optically thick at $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, and that it becomes transparent before the internal shock phase and before it is decelerated by the external medium. We can then consider that each layer is evolving with a constant Lorentz factor so that at time $`t`$, the layer emitted at $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ is located at

$$r(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)r_{\mathrm{acc}}+\left(1\frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(t_{\mathrm{inj}})}\right)c(tt_{\mathrm{inj}}).$$
(1)
Let us consider photons emitted at $`t`$ by the layer ejected by the source at $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ (see fig. 1). If they escape from the relativistic wind, these photons will have to cross all the layers emitted from $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}=0`$ to $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}=t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$. Precisely, they cross the layer ejected at $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}`$ after

$$\mathrm{\Delta }t2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{})\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }r}{c},$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ is the spatial separation at the emission time $`t`$ between the layer produced at $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}`$ and the emitting layer produced at time $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$. This distance is the initial separation $`c\left(t_{\mathrm{inj}}t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}\right)`$ plus a correction growing with time due to the difference of Lorentz factor between the two layers :

$`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ $`=`$ $`r(t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{},t)r(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)`$ (3)
$``$ $`\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\left(t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}\right)}}\right)c\left(t_{\mathrm{inj}}t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\left(t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\left(t_{\mathrm{inj}}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\left(t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\left(t_{\mathrm{inj}}\right)}}c\left(tt_{\mathrm{inj}}\right).`$
The first term is very close to the initial separation and the second term is small as long as the process we consider takes place well before the internal shock phase. The photons escape from the wind when they cross the first layer emitted at $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}=0`$ at time

$$t_{\mathrm{esc}}t+2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(0)\left(t_{\mathrm{inj}}+\frac{1}{2}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(0)\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\left(t_{\mathrm{inj}}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(0)\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\left(t_{\mathrm{inj}}\right)}\left(tt_{\mathrm{inj}}\right)\right)$$
(4)
and at radius $`r_{\mathrm{esc}}(t_{\mathrm{inj}};t)=r(t_{\mathrm{inj}};t)+c(t_{\mathrm{esc}}t)`$. The corresponding distance is $`2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(0)`$ times larger than the initial separation between the emitting layer and the front of the wind. The total optical depth for these photons is given by

$$\tau (t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)=_{r(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)}^{r_{\mathrm{esc}}(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)}d\tau (r).$$
(5)
The elementary contribution $`\mathrm{d}\tau (r)`$ to the optical depth is a Lorentz invariant (Abramowicz et al. 1991) and is more easily estimated in the comoving frame of the layer crossed by the photons at $`r`$ :

$$\mathrm{d}\tau (r)=\kappa \rho ^{}\mathrm{d}l^{}(r),$$
(6)
where $`\kappa `$ and $`\rho ^{}`$ are the opacity and the comoving density of the layer. The length $`\mathrm{d}l^{}(r)`$ is computed by a Lorentz transformation from the fixed frame to the comoving frame of the layer. We take into account the fact that when photons cover a distance $`dr`$, the corresponding duration is $`\mathrm{d}t=\mathrm{d}r/c`$ so that

$$\mathrm{d}l^{}(r)=\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\mathrm{d}rv\mathrm{d}t\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left[1\left(1\frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}\right)\right]\mathrm{d}r\frac{\mathrm{d}r}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }}.$$
(7)
The comoving density is given by

$$\rho ^{}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\frac{\dot{M}}{4\pi r^2c}.$$
(8)
Here all the physical quantities like $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, $`\dot{M}`$, etc. have the value corresponding to the layer crossed by the photons at $`r`$, i.e. the layer emitted at $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}`$ solution of (from eq. 2)

$$r=r(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)+2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{})\mathrm{\Delta }r,$$
(9)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ is given by eq. 3. The final expression for the total optical depth is

$$\tau (t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)_{r(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)}^{r_{\mathrm{esc}}(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)}\frac{\kappa \dot{M}}{8\pi \mathrm{\Gamma }^2r^2c}dr.$$
(10)
We define the photospheric radius $`r_{\mathrm{ph}}(t_{\mathrm{inj}})`$ of the layer emitted at $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ by

$$r_{\mathrm{ph}}(t_{\mathrm{inj}})=r(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)\mathrm{with}\tau (t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)=1.$$
(11)
To estimate this radius, we still need to specify the opacity. We consider here the phase when the acceleration is complete. The internal energy has already been almost entirely converted into kinetic energy. Pairs have annihilated and do not contribute to the opacity. Then the optical depth is due to the ambient electrons and the opacity is given by the Thomson opacity $`\kappa =\kappa _\mathrm{T}`$. In the following, when a numerical value is needed, we use $`\kappa =0.2`$ (i.e a number of electrons per nucleon $`Y_e=0.5`$).

### 2.2 The case of a constant Lorentz factor

In the case of an homogeneous wind where $`\dot{E}`$, $`\dot{M}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ are constant, we have

$$\tau (t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)\frac{\kappa \dot{M}t_{\mathrm{inj}}}{4\pi r(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)r_{\mathrm{esc}}(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)}.$$
(12)
There are two limiting cases :

$$\tau (t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)\frac{\kappa \dot{M}t_{\mathrm{inj}}}{4\pi r^2(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)}\mathrm{if}r(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2ct_{\mathrm{inj}}$$
(13)
or

$$\tau (t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)\frac{\kappa \dot{M}}{8\pi c\mathrm{\Gamma }^2r(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)}\mathrm{if}r(t_{\mathrm{inj}},t)2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2ct_{\mathrm{inj}}.$$
(14)
The corresponding photospheric radius of the layer ejected at $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ is given by

$$r_{\mathrm{ph}}(t_{\mathrm{inj}})\left(\frac{\kappa \dot{M}t_{\mathrm{inj}}}{4\pi }\right)^{1/2}\mathrm{if}\frac{\dot{E}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^5t_{\mathrm{inj}}}\frac{16\pi c^4}{\kappa }$$
(15)
or

$$r_{\mathrm{ph}}(t_{\mathrm{inj}})\frac{\kappa \dot{M}}{8\pi c\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}\mathrm{if}\frac{\dot{E}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^5t_{\mathrm{inj}}}\frac{16\pi c^4}{\kappa },$$
(16)
where we have replaced $`\dot{M}`$ by $`\dot{E}/\mathrm{\Gamma }c^2`$. The condition $`\dot{E}/\mathrm{\Gamma }^5t_{\mathrm{inj}}16\pi c^4/\kappa `$ reads

$$\frac{\dot{E}_{52}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^5t_{\mathrm{inj}}}\frac{200}{\kappa _{0.2}},$$
(17)
which is usually true. Here $`\dot{E}_{52}`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ and $`\kappa _{0.2}`$ are respectively $`\dot{E}`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`\kappa `$ in unit of $`10^{52}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$, $`10^2`$ and $`0.2`$. Then, the photospheric radius is the same for all the layers and is given by (eq. 16) :

$$r_{\mathrm{ph}}=\mathrm{3.0\; 10}^{12}\kappa _{0.2}\dot{E}_{52}\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^3\mathrm{cm}.$$
(18)
If we estimate $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ by the saturation radius $`\mathrm{\Gamma }r_0`$ which is predicted in the fireball model, we get

$$r_{\mathrm{acc}}\mathrm{9\; 10}^8\mu _1\mathrm{\Gamma }_2\mathrm{cm}$$
(19)
for a typical initial radius $`r_0`$ taken to be the last stable orbit at three Schwarzschild radii around a non rotating black hole of mass $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}=10\mu _1\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$. It is clear that $`r_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ is much larger than $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ as expected.

### 2.3 The case of a variable Lorentz factor

We now consider the case where the initial distribution of the Lorentz factor is variable. We use the simple model that has been developed by Daigne & Mochkovitch (1998). The wind is made of a collection of “solid” layers ejected regularly on a time scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ with a Lorentz factor, a mass and an energy $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_i`$, $`M_i=\dot{M}_i\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ and $`E_i=\dot{E}_i\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ where $`i=1`$ corresponds to the first layer produced at $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}=0`$. Photons emitted by the layer $`i_0`$ when it is located at $`r_{i_0}`$ travel through a total optical depth

$$\tau (r_{i_0})=\frac{\kappa }{8\pi c^3}\underset{ii_0}{}\frac{\dot{E}_i}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_i^3}\left(\frac{1}{r_i^{\mathrm{in}}}\frac{1}{r_i^{\mathrm{out}}}\right),$$
(20)
where $`r_i^{\mathrm{in}}`$ and $`r_i^{\mathrm{out}}`$ are the radii at which the photons enter and escape the layer $`i`$. We have (from eq. 9)

$$r_i^{\mathrm{in}}2\mathrm{\Gamma }_i^2\left[c\left(i_0i\right)\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{inj}}+\frac{r_{i_0}}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i_0}^2}\right]$$
(21)
and

$$r_i^{\mathrm{out}}r_i^{\mathrm{in}}+2\mathrm{\Gamma }_i^2c\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{inj}}.$$
(22)
In the following, we use the exact formula (20) to compute the optical depth and we solve numerically $`\tau (r_{\mathrm{ph}}^{}{}_{i_0}{}^{})=1`$ to get the photospheric radius of the layer $`i_0`$. An approximate value is obtained under the assumption that the opacity is dominated by the contribution of the layer $`i_0`$ where photons are emitted. We then have :

$$r_{\mathrm{ph}}^{}{}_{i_0}{}^{\mathrm{approx}}\frac{\kappa \dot{E}_{i_0}}{8\pi c^3\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i_0}^3},$$
(23)
for $`r_{\mathrm{ph}}^{}{}_{i_0}{}^{}2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i_0}^2ct_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ (with $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}=(i_01)\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$). This is usually true except for the first layers ($`t_{\mathrm{inj}}0`$).

### 2.4 Example : a single pulse burst

We consider the case of a relativistic wind ejected during $`t_\mathrm{w}=10\mathrm{s}`$ with a constant energy injection rate $`\dot{E}=10^{52}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$ and an initial distribution of Lorentz factor represented in fig. 2. Such a simple initial distribution has already been considered in Daigne & Mochkovitch (1998, 2000) and leads to a typical single pulse burst. We use $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{inj}}=\mathrm{2\; 10}^3\mathrm{s}`$ so that the wind is made of $`5000`$ layers. For each layer $`i`$ we compute the photospheric radius $`r_{\mathrm{ph}}^{}{}_{i}{}^{}`$ and the radius $`r_{\mathrm{esc}}^{}{}_{i}{}^{}`$ where the photons emitted at the photosphere escape from the relativistic wind. The result is plotted in fig 3 as a function of the mass coordinate $`M_i`$. Notice that except for the front of the wind, the approximate value of $`r_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ given by eq. 23 works extremely well. An interesting result is that the deepest layers in the wind become transparent before the layers located at the front. This is due to the fact that photons emitted by these layers cross the front at larger radii when the density has already strongly decreased (one can see that $`r_{\mathrm{esc}}`$ for these layers is larger than at the front).
The photospheric radius goes from $`\mathrm{4.7\; 10}^{10}\mathrm{cm}`$ to $`\mathrm{3.0\; 10}^{12}\mathrm{cm}`$. We can check now that this is well before the internal shocks form or the deceleration of the wind by the external medium becomes efficient. The typical radius of the internal shocks is given by

$$r_{\mathrm{IS}}f\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^2ct_{\mathrm{var}},$$
(24)
where $`t_{\mathrm{var}}`$ is the characteristic time scale for the variations of the Lorentz factor and $`f`$ is a numerical factor depending on the details of the initial distribution of the Lorentz factor ($`f`$ will be smaller for high contrasts of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$). For a typical average Lorentz factor $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}100`$ we have

$$r_{\mathrm{IS}}\mathrm{3\; 10}^{14}f\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_2^2t_{\mathrm{var}}\mathrm{cm}$$
(25)
and we immediately see that except for very small values of $`f`$ or very short time scales $`t_{\mathrm{var}}`$, the typical radius of the internal shocks is larger than the photospheric radius. The deceleration of the wind by the external medium occurs even further away, except in very dense wind environments.

## 3 Time profile and spectrum of the photospheric emission

### 3.1 Photospheric luminosity

In the framework of the fireball model, the temperature and luminosity of a layer at its photospheric radius $`r_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ are given (in the fixed frame) by (see e.g. Piran (1999))

$$kT_{\mathrm{ph}}kT^0\left(\frac{r_{\mathrm{ph}}}{r_{\mathrm{acc}}}\right)^{2/3}$$
(26)
and

$$L_{\mathrm{ph}}\dot{E}\left(\frac{r_{\mathrm{ph}}}{r_{\mathrm{acc}}}\right)^{2/3}$$
(27)
(in this section we omit the index $`i`$. Everything applies to each layer). The radius $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ is the saturation radius defined by eq. 19 and the initial blackbody temperature of the layer is (Mészáros & Rees 2000)

$$kT^01.3\dot{E}_{52}^{1/4}\mu _1^{1/2}\mathrm{MeV}.$$
(28)
Deviations from the predictions of the standard fireball model are however possible. The central engine of gamma-ray bursts is still poorly understood and the acceleration mechanism not clearly identified. A large fraction of the energy released by the source may be for instance initially stored under magnetic form (Spruit et al. 2001). In this case, the wind is not as hot as in the standard fireball model and the photospheric luminosity is also smaller. An extreme case would be the magnetic acceleration of a cold wind where the photospheric temperature and luminosity are negligible.

Whatever the physics of this early phase may be, it should necessarily have the two following properties in common with the standard fireball model :

* The acceleration mechanism must have a good efficiency. The observed isotropic equivalent gamma-ray luminosity $`L_\gamma `$ is indeed very high. To account for it, the internal shock model requires a isotropic equivalent kinetic energy flux

$$\dot{E}_{52}=\frac{L_{\gamma }^{}{}_{51}{}^{}}{f_{\gamma }^{}{}_{0.1}{}^{}},$$
(29)
where $`L_{\gamma }^{}{}_{51}{}^{}`$ is the observed isotropic equivalent gamma-ray luminosity in unit of $`10^{51}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$ and $`f_{\gamma }^{}{}_{0.1}{}^{}`$ is the efficiency for the conversion of kinetic energy into gamma-rays in unit of $`0.1`$. As this kinetic energy flux is already very high, we cannot expect the source to release much more energy. Therefore the need for an efficient acceleration is unavoidable. This means that beyond $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, the energy flux is completely dominated by the kinetic energy flux, like beyond the saturation radius in the standard fireball model. The main difference may probably be the value of $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ compared to the standard saturation radius $`\mathrm{\Gamma }r_0`$.
* Beyond $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ the wind experiences a phase of adiabatic cooling due to spherical expansion. An efficient acceleration indeed implies that the wind is still optically thick at $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$. In this case $`kT_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ and $`L_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ decrease as $`r^{2/3}`$ beyond $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ like in the sandard fireball model. Only the initial value of the temperature and the internal energy density at the end of the acceleration phase can be different from those of the standard fireball model.

To account for our poor knowledge of the physical process responsible for the acceleration of the wind, we define $`\lambda `$ as the fraction of the energy which is initially injected under internal energy form. In the standard fireball model $`\lambda =1`$ whereas $`0\lambda 1`$ in the other possible cases. With this definition we have

$$kT_{\mathrm{ph}}\lambda ^{1/4}kT^0\left(\frac{r_{\mathrm{ph}}}{r_{\mathrm{acc}}}\right)^{2/3}$$
(30)
and

$$L_{\mathrm{ph}}\lambda \dot{E}\left(\frac{r_{\mathrm{ph}}}{r_{\mathrm{acc}}}\right)^{2/3}.$$
(31)
The acceleration radius $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ may differ from the saturation radius given by eq. 19. However, we will show below that the relevant quantity to estimate the photospheric emission is the ratio $`L_{\mathrm{ph}}/kT_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ which does not depend on $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, as long as the photospheric radius is large compared to $`r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$.

### 3.2 Spectrum, count rate and arrival time of the photospheric emission

We suppose that the photosphere radiates as a blackbody at temperature $`kT_{\mathrm{ph}}`$. This is clearly a simplifying assumption as scattering processes may play an important role when the opacity is $`\tau 1`$. However, we believe that the possible deviations from a pure blackbody will not change our main conclusions. We also neglect corrections in the spectrum due to angular effects affecting photons originating from different regions of the emitting shell. We then consider that the emitted photons have a Planck distribution which is in the source frame :

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}n^{\mathrm{ph}}(E)}{\mathrm{d}E\mathrm{d}t}=\frac{1}{_{\mathrm{Planck}}}\frac{L_{\mathrm{ph}}}{\left(kT_{\mathrm{ph}}\right)^4}\frac{E^2}{\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{E}{kT_{\mathrm{ph}}}\right)1},$$
(32)
where $`_{\mathrm{Planck}}=_0^+\mathrm{}\frac{x^3}{\mathrm{exp}x1}𝑑x=\frac{\pi ^4}{15}`$. Taking into account the redshift $`z`$ of the source, the observer will detect a photon flux at energy $`E`$ (observer frame) which is given by

$$C^{\mathrm{ph}}(E)=\frac{1}{_{\mathrm{Planck}}}\frac{L_{\mathrm{ph}}}{4\pi D_\mathrm{L}^2}\left(\frac{1+z}{kT_{\mathrm{ph}}}\right)^4\frac{E^2}{\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{(1+z)E}{kT_{\mathrm{ph}}}\right)1},$$
(33)
where $`D_\mathrm{L}`$ is the luminosity distance at redshift $`z`$. The corresponding count rate in the energy band $`[E_1;E_2]`$ is

$$C_{12}^{\mathrm{ph}}=\frac{L_{\mathrm{ph}}}{4\pi D_\mathrm{L}^2}\frac{1+z}{kT_{\mathrm{ph}}}\frac{_{12}^{\mathrm{ph}}}{_{\mathrm{Planck}}},$$
(34)
where $`_{12}^{\mathrm{ph}}=_{x_1}^{x_2}\frac{x^2}{\mathrm{exp}x1}𝑑x`$ and $`x_{1,2}=(1+z)E_{1,2}/kT_{\mathrm{ph}}`$. It is interesting to notice that the ratio $`L_{\mathrm{ph}}/kT_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ depends neither on the shell radius nor on the saturation radius :

$$\frac{L_{\mathrm{ph}}}{kT_{\mathrm{ph}}}\mathrm{5.0\; 10}^{57}\lambda ^{3/4}\dot{E}_{52}^{3/4}\mu _1^{1/2}\mathrm{ph}/\mathrm{s}.$$
(35)
Then the count rate in the energy band $`[E_1;E_2]`$ is given by

$$C_{12}^{\mathrm{ph}}4.0\frac{1+z}{D_{28}^2}\lambda ^{3/4}\dot{E}_{52}^{3/4}\mu _1^{1/2}\frac{_{12}^{\mathrm{ph}}}{_{\mathrm{Planck}}}\mathrm{ph}/\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{s},$$
(36)
where $`D_{28}`$ is the luminosity distance $`D_\mathrm{L}`$ in unit of $`10^{28}\mathrm{cm}`$. The emitted photons will be detected at the arrival time $`t_\mathrm{a}`$ (relatively to a signal travelling at the speed of light) :

$$t_\mathrm{a}=t_{\mathrm{ph}}\frac{r_{\mathrm{ph}}}{c},$$
(37)
where $`t_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ is the time when the layer reaches the radius $`r_{\mathrm{ph}}`$. We get

$$t_\mathrm{a}t_{\mathrm{inj}}+\frac{r_{\mathrm{ph}}}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2c}.$$
(38)
With the approximate value of $`r_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ given by eq. 23, we have

$$t_\mathrm{a}^{\mathrm{approx}}t_{\mathrm{inj}}+\frac{\kappa \dot{E}}{8\pi c^4\mathrm{\Gamma }^5}.$$
(39)
We already checked in the previous section that the second term is negligible compared to $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$. Then $`t_\mathrm{a}t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$. The spreading of arrival times over a duration $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_\mathrm{a}r_{\mathrm{ph}}/2c\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$ due to the curvature of the emitting surface is also negligible for the same reason (of course these estimations of $`t_\mathrm{a}`$ have to be multiplied by $`1+z`$ in the observer frame to account for the redshift). The fact that $`t_\mathrm{a}(1+z)t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ shows that the time profile of the photospheric emission, if observed, would provide a detailed direct information about the initial distribution of Lorentz factor in the wind.

### 3.3 Example : a single pulse burst

We consider the same distribution of the Lorentz factor and injected power as in sec. 2.4 and we now compute the thermal emission of the photosphere for a standard fireball ($`\lambda =1`$). Fig. 3 shows the luminosity and the temperature at the photosphere as a function of the arrival time of photons. We did not use the approximations given by Eqs. 2627 which are strictly valid only for $`r_{\mathrm{ph}}r_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ but we used the exact solution of the fireball equations (see e.g. Piran (1999)). We adopted a redshift $`z=1`$. Fig. 4 shows the corresponding integrated spectrum of the photospheric emission and the time profile in two energy bands : $`3.5`$$`8.5\mathrm{keV}`$ which is one of the X-ray bands of Beppo-SAX and $`50`$$`300\mathrm{keV}`$ which is the 2+3 gamma-ray band of BATSE. The photospheric emission of the “slow” part ($`t_{\mathrm{inj}}=04\mathrm{s}`$ and $`t_\mathrm{a}(1+z)t_{\mathrm{inj}}=08\mathrm{s}`$) has a temperature $`kT_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ increasing from $`4.2`$ to $`94\mathrm{keV}`$. It initially produces a pulse only visible in the X-ray band ($`t_\mathrm{a}03\mathrm{s}`$). Then, the count rate rises in the gamma-ray band, reaches a maximum at $`5\mathrm{s}`$ when $`kT_{\mathrm{ph}}48\mathrm{keV}`$ and starts to decrease (although the temperature is still increasing) because the peak energy ($`3.92kT_{\mathrm{ph}}`$) becomes larger than $`300\mathrm{keV}`$. The rapid part ($`t_{\mathrm{inj}}=410\mathrm{s}`$ and $`t_\mathrm{a}(1+z)t_{\mathrm{inj}}=820\mathrm{s}`$) has a constant temperature of $`94\mathrm{keV}`$, so that the count rate is constant and mainly visible in the gamma-ray range.

## 4 Comparison with the emission from the internal shocks

### 4.1 Time profile and spectrum of the emission from the internal shocks

We now estimate the count rate due to the emission of the internal shocks. Their luminosity can be written as $`L_{\mathrm{IS}}f_\gamma \dot{E}`$, with $`f_\gamma f_\mathrm{d}\alpha _\mathrm{e}`$. The efficiency $`f_\mathrm{d}`$ of the dissipation process is the fraction of kinetic energy which is converted into internal energy behind the shocks; $`\alpha _\mathrm{e}`$ is the fraction of the internal energy which is injected into relativistic electrons, which then radiate to produce the gamma-ray burst, with a radiative efficiency $`f_{\mathrm{rad}}`$ which is assumed to be very close to $`1`$. We do not discuss here the details of the radiative processes and we simply assume that the emitted photons have a spectral distribution given by the “GRB-function” (Band et al. 1993) :

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}n^{\mathrm{IS}}(E)}{\mathrm{d}E\mathrm{d}t}=\frac{1}{_{\mathrm{Band}}}\frac{L_{\mathrm{IS}}}{E_\mathrm{p}^2}\left(\frac{E}{E_\mathrm{p}}\right).$$
(40)
The peak energy $`E_\mathrm{p}`$ is defined as the maximum of $`E^2\mathrm{d}n^{\mathrm{IS}}(E)/\mathrm{d}E/\mathrm{d}t`$ and is measured here in the source frame, so that the peak energy in the observer frame is $`E_\mathrm{p}/(1+z)`$. The function $`(x)`$ has two parameters, the low and high energy slopes $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ and is given by

$$(x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}x^\alpha \mathrm{exp}\left(\left(2+\alpha \right)x\right)\hfill & \mathrm{if}x\frac{\alpha \beta }{2+\alpha }\hfill \\ x^\beta \left(\frac{\alpha \beta }{2+\alpha }\right)^{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta \alpha \right)\hfill & \mathrm{otherwise}\hfill \end{array}$$
(41)
The integral $`_{\mathrm{Band}}=_0^+\mathrm{}x(x)𝑑x`$ depends only on $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ which we assume to be constant during the whole burst. The observed photon flux at energy $`E`$ is given by

$$C^{\mathrm{IS}}(E)=\frac{1}{_{\mathrm{Band}}}\frac{L_{\mathrm{IS}}}{4\pi D_\mathrm{L}^2}\left(\frac{1+z}{E_\mathrm{p}}\right)^2\left(\frac{(1+z)E}{E_\mathrm{p}}\right)$$
(42)
and the corresponding count rate in the energy band $`[E_1;E_2]`$ is

$$C_{12}^{\mathrm{IS}}=2.5\frac{1+z}{D_{28}^2}f_{\gamma }^{}{}_{0.1}{}^{}\dot{E}_{52}\left(\frac{E_\mathrm{p}}{200\mathrm{keV}}\right)^1\frac{_{12}^{\mathrm{IS}}}{_{\mathrm{Band}}}\mathrm{ph}/\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{s},$$
(43)
where $`_{12}^{\mathrm{IS}}=_{x_1}^{x_2}(x)𝑑x`$ with $`x_{1,2}=(1+z)E_{1,2}/E_\mathrm{p}`$.

### 4.2 Comparison with the photospheric emission

We now define $`R_{12}`$ as the ratio of the count rate due to the photospheric emission over the count rate due to the internal shocks :

$$R_{12}=1.6\lambda ^{3/4}f_{\gamma }^{}{}_{0.1}{}^{1}\dot{E}_{52}^{1/4}\mu _1^{1/2}\frac{E_\mathrm{p}}{200\mathrm{keV}}\frac{_{\mathrm{Band}}_{12}^{\mathrm{ph}}}{_{\mathrm{Planck}}_{12}^{\mathrm{IS}}}.$$
(44)
Fig. 5 shows the value of $`R_{12}`$ for two energy bands (X- and gamma-rays) as a function of $`E_\mathrm{p}`$ assuming different values of the photospheric temperature $`kT_{\mathrm{ph}}`$. We have adopted $`\alpha =1.0`$ and $`\beta =2.25`$ which are the typical slopes observed in GRBs (Preece et al. 2000). It is clear that the photospheric emission will show up in a given band ($`R_{12}0.1`$) when the observed temperature $`kT_{\mathrm{ph}}/(1+z)`$ of the photosphere crosses this band. These results show that with the prediction of the standard fireball model for the photospheric temperature and luminosity, it is very difficult to prevent the photospheric emission from being easily detectable<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1Notice that $`E_\mathrm{p}`$ is defined as the peak energy of the non-thermal emission of the internal shocks and is of course no more the peak energy of the total observed spectrum when the photospheric emission is dominant. either in the X-ray or gamma-ray range. The presence of a bright thermal component is not supported by the observations : the gamma-ray burst prompt emission, as seen by BATSE, is clearly non-thermal. Concerning the X-ray emission, especially at the beginning of the burst, more observations with better spectroscopic capabilities than Beppo-SAX will be necessary to check wether a thermal component is present or not.

### 4.3 Example : a single pulse burst

We have computed the emission of the internal shocks in the single pulse burst considered in secs. 2.4 and 3.3 using the simple model developped by Daigne & Mochkovitch (1998). The result is shown in fig. 4. The equipartition parameters have been chosen so that the peak energy of the emission from the internal shocks is $`200\mathrm{keV}`$. As the photosphere reaches a temperature $`kT_{\mathrm{ph}}/(1+z)`$ as high as $`94\mathrm{keV}`$, the study made in the previous subsection predicts that the photospheric emission should be easily detectable, which is clearly visible in fig. 4.

To recover a burst which is dominated by the non-thermal emission of the internal shocks in the gamma-ray range, eq. 44 indicates that either $`f_\gamma `$ must increase or $`\lambda `$ must decrease. The first solution is then to have more efficient internal shocks. In the example presented in fig. 4, the efficiency is low : $`f_\gamma 0.02`$. As there are many uncertainities in the radiative processes leading to the observed gamma-ray emission, one could hope that $`f_\gamma `$ is indeed very close to $`f_\mathrm{d}`$, the fraction of kinetic energy dissipated in internal shocks. However, the efficiency $`f_\mathrm{d}`$ will never exceed a few $`10^1`$. Therefore, even in the ideal case where $`f_\gamma f_\mathrm{d}`$, one cannot expect to have $`f_\gamma `$ larger than $`0.3`$$`0.4`$. We have checked that this is not enough to avoid a easily detectable photospheric emission.

The only remaining solution is then to assume that the photosphere is less hot and luminous than what is predicted in the standard fireball model, i.e. to decrease the value of $`\lambda `$ in eqs. 3031. To have a spectrum entirely dominated by the non-thermal component we have to adopt $`\lambda 0.01`$, which means that less than 1 percent of the energy initially released by the source is injected under internal energy form into a “standard” fireball. Such a situation is shown in fig. 6 where we have computed the photospheric emission of the single pulse burst with $`\lambda =0.01`$. It is impossible to detect the thermal emission of the photosphere neither in the gamma-ray profile nor in the global spectrum. However, in the X-ray range, one can notice that during 2 seconds before the internal shock emission starts, there is a thermal precursor whose intensity is about 8 percents of the intensity at maximum in the main pulse.

We have finally considered the effect of pair creation during the internal shock phase. The optical depth for pair creation is given by (Mészáros & Rees 2000) :

$$\tau _\pm \frac{\alpha _\pm L_{\mathrm{IS}}\sigma _\mathrm{T}}{4\pi r(m_\mathrm{e}c^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }^3c},$$
(45)
where $`\alpha _\pm `$ is the fraction of the energy radiated in photons above the pair creation threshold. Our internal shock model allows the computation of $`\tau _\pm `$ at each shock radius. For the example considered here, $`\tau _\pm `$ never exceeds $`\mathrm{6\; 10}^2`$. For larger $`\dot{E}`$ and / or smaller Lorentz factors (in this case, if $`\dot{E}`$ is increased by a factor of $`20`$ or if all Lorentz factors are divided by $`2`$), $`\tau _\pm `$ increases and pair creation can become important, especially for shocks occuring at small radii. We do not compute in this paper the detailed internal shock spectrum for this case where an additional thermal component can be expected.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 X-ray thermal precursors

In the GRBs observed by BeppoSAX the X-ray and gamma-ray emission usually start simultaneously or the gamma-ray emission starts earlier. Usually, no evidence is found for a thermal component in the spectrum (Frontera et al. 2000). Then, the prompt X-ray emission is probably due to the internal shocks like in the gamma-ray range. This implies that the photospheric emission must be present in these bursts only at a very low level, i.e. $`\lambda 1`$ as explained in the previous section. However, in at least one case – GRB 990712 – evidence was found in the spectrum for the presence during the burst of a weak thermal component of temperature 1.3 keV (Frontera et al. 2001). In complement, a X-ray precursor activity has been detected in a few GRBs by GINGA (Murakami et al. 1991) and WATCH/GRANAT (Sazonov et al. 1998). In the observations carried out with the GRB detector onboard the GINGA satellite, X-ray precursors were detected between 1.5 and 10 keV in about one third of the GRBs. The spectrum of these X-ray precursors could be approximated by a black-body with temperatures between 1 and 2 keV. The WATCH catalog also includes several GRBs with X-ray precursors detected between 8 and 20 keV. As can be seen in the time profiles of these bursts (Sazonov et al. 1998), the X-ray precursor usually has a duration which is about 20-50% of the duration of the whole burst and its count rate in the 8-20 keV band reaches about 10-40% of the maximum count rate in the same band during the GRB.

As the study of the GINGA data shows evidence for a thermal origin, one can wonder whether these X-ray precursors are associated to the photospheric emission. This could be possible if the two following conditions are satisfied :
Condition (1) The ratio of the photospheric over internal shock count rate as defined by eq. 44 must be small in the gamma-ray range but greater than a few 10% in the X-ray range. The region of the $`kT_{\mathrm{ph}}/(1+z)`$$`\lambda /f_\gamma `$ plane where such a condition can be achieved (using the energy bands of the WATCH experiment) is shown in fig. 7. We find that (i) the photospheric temperature $`kT_{\mathrm{ph}}/(1+z)`$ must lie in the X-ray band, which is easily obtained if $`\lambda 0.1`$. (ii) the ratio $`\lambda /f_\gamma `$ must be above a minimal value which is typically about $`0.1`$ and decreases when the peak energy $`E_\mathrm{p}`$ increases.
Condition (2) As no activity (thermal or non thermal) is detected in the gamma-ray band during the X-ray precursor, the internal shock emission must start at the end of the precursor. We have shown in sec. 3.2 that the arrival time of the photons emitted by the layer ejected by the source at $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ when it becomes transparent can be approximated by $`t_\mathrm{a}t_{\mathrm{inj}}`$. The arrival time of photons emitted by the internal shocks due to the collisions between two layers emitted at $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}`$ and $`t_{\mathrm{inj}}>t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}`$ (with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(t_{\mathrm{inj}})>\mathrm{\Gamma }(t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{})`$) is

$$t_\mathrm{a}t_{\mathrm{inj}}+\frac{t_{\mathrm{inj}}t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{}}{\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }(t_{\mathrm{inj}})/\mathrm{\Gamma }(t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{})\right)^21}.$$
(46)
The only possibility to increase the delay between the beginning of the photospheric emission and the beginning of the internal shock emission is then to impose that the variability of the initial distribution of the Lorentz factor in the relativitic wind is initially low ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }(t_{\mathrm{inj}})/\mathrm{\Gamma }(t_{\mathrm{inj}}^{})1`$) and increases during the wind production by the source.

Condition (1) is easily achieved if the initial fraction of the energy released by the source under internal energy form is low. For instance, in fig. 6, one clearly sees a X-ray precursor lasting for about 10% of the total duration with an intensity of about 8% of the intensity at maximum (in the X-ray band). On the other hand, some of the precursors observed by GINGA and WATCH/GRANAT have longer durations. This is where condition (2), which is probably a stronger constraint, is important.

We propose the following interpretation for the presence or absence of a precursor : it is necessary to have $`\lambda 1`$ in order to suppress a too strong thermal gamma-ray emission from the photosphere. This naturally leads to a prompt thermal X-ray activity, which then could be very frequent in GRBs. However this activity is too weak to be easily detected when it occurs simultaneously to the bright non-thermal emission from the internal shocks. It is only when it appears as a precursor activity that it can be clearly identified. This can happen if by chance the relativistic wind is initially produced with a smooth distribution so that the internal shock activity is delayed. The expected features of such precursors are very close to the properties of the X-ray precursors observed by GINGA and WATCH/GRANAT.

To check the validity of this interpretation one clearly needs more precise detections of the X-ray prompt emission of GRBs and especially a better characterization of the spectral properties of the X-ray precursors. If a black-body spectrum can be identified without any ambiguity, the corresponding temperature will be measured, which would constrain the $`\lambda `$ parameter.

### 5.2 The optical photospheric emission

To recover a dominant non-thermal gamma-ray emission we need $`\lambda `$ to be of a few percents or less. The corresponding Planck spectrum then peaks in the X-ray band : for instance, the burst considered in sec. 4.3 has a photospheric temperature in the range $`kT_{\mathrm{ph}}2`$$`100\mathrm{keV}`$ for $`\lambda =1`$ and $`kT_{\mathrm{ph}}0.6`$$`30\mathrm{keV}`$ for $`\lambda =0.01`$. It is interesting to estimate what is the photospheric emission for even lower values of $`\lambda `$ and if it could be dominant in the optical and produce a prompt optical flash comparable to that observed in GRB 990123 (Akerlof et al. 1999).

It is very unlikely that the photospheric emission peaks in the V band, because the photospheric temperature scales as $`\lambda ^{1/4}`$. To decrease $`kT_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ from $`100\mathrm{keV}`$ to $`1\mathrm{eV}`$, a very unrealistic value of $`\lambda =(10^5)^4=10^{20}`$ is required ! The V band then always lies in the Rayleigh-Jeans part of the photospheric spectrum where $`\frac{dn^{\mathrm{ph}}}{dEdt}E`$. GRB 990123 has an averaged spectrum which is well reproduced by the Band function with the following parameters : $`\alpha =0.6`$, $`\beta =3.11`$, $`E_\mathrm{p}=720\mathrm{keV}`$ and photon flux $`\mathrm{1.93\; 10}^3\mathrm{ph}/\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{keV}`$ at $`1\mathrm{MeV}`$ (Briggs et al. 1999). The redshift of the source is $`z=1.6`$. The corresponding internal shock luminosity is $`L_{\mathrm{IS}}=f_\gamma \dot{E}\mathrm{8.6\; 10}^{52}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$. If we now assume that the internal shocks have no other contribution in the optical range than that given by the Band spectrum, their flux in the V band ($`0.55\mu \mathrm{m}`$) is $`F_\mathrm{V}^{\mathrm{IS}}\mathrm{4.9\; 10}^2\mathrm{mJy}`$, which is much too low to explain the optical flash reaching magnitude $`m_\mathrm{V}9`$ (i.e. $`F_\mathrm{V}0.92\mathrm{Jy}`$ ) observed by ROTSE. In the Rayleigh-Jeans regime, the corresponding flux due to the thermal photospheric emission is even lower :

$$F_\mathrm{V}^{\mathrm{ph}}\mathrm{2.3\; 10}^5\left(\frac{\lambda }{f_\gamma }\right)^{3/4}\mu _1^{1/2}\left(\frac{kT_{\mathrm{ph}}}{1\mathrm{keV}}\right)^2\mathrm{mJy}.$$
(47)
We then find that the photospheric optical emission is much too weak to explain the ROTSE observations. This result is mainly due to the fact that the photospheric luminosity decreases much faster with $`\lambda `$ than the temperature.

## 6 Conclusions

In the framework of the internal shock model for gamma-ray bursts, we have computed in a detailed way the photospheric emission of an ultra-relativistic wind with a variable initial distribution of the Lorentz factor. We have compared the obtained spectrum and time profile to the non-thermal contribution of the internal shocks. Our main results are the following :
(1) The photosphere in the standard fireball model is too hot and luminous. In the standard fireball model where the initial temperature of the fireball is about 1 MeV, the internal energy is still large when the wind becomes transparent and the photosphere is therefore hot and luminous. The consequence is that the photospheric thermal component in the X-ray/gamma-ray range is in most cases at least as bright as the non-thermal component due to the internal shocks (even if the internal shock efficiency is high). This is in contradiction with the observations of BATSE and Beppo-SAX showing non-thermal spectra.
(2) MHD winds are favored. Results in much better agreement with the observations are obtained when it is assumed that only a small fraction $`\lambda `$ of the energy released by the source is initially injected under internal energy form in a fireball. Most of the energy could for instance be initially under magnetic form, a large fraction of the Poynting flux being eventually converted into kinetic energy at large distances. For a typical internal shock efficiency of a few percents, values of $`\lambda 0.01`$ are required, which means that not more than 1% of the energy is initially deposited in the ejected matter (whose initial temperature is then of about a few hundreds keV).
(3) X-ray thermal precursors can be obtained. A consequence of this strong assumption is that moderately low $`\lambda `$ ($`\lambda `$ a few percents) lead to the presence of thermal X-ray precursors if the distribution of the Lorentz factor is not too variable in the initial phase of wind production. The characteristics of these precursors (spectral range, duration, intensity) are very comparable to the X-ray precursor activity observed in several GRBs by GINGA and WATCH/GRANAT.
(4) The optical photospheric emission is very weak. For very small $`\lambda `$ values, the photospheric emission can be shifted to even lower energies. However, we have shown that it also becomes much too weak to explain the prompt optical emission observed by ROTSE in GRB 990123.

A good test of the results presented in this paper would be the detection of X-ray precursors by an instrument with good spectral capabilities, so that a thermal origin could be firmly established. A determination of the photospheric temperature would put an interesting constraint on the $`\lambda /f_\gamma `$ ratio and then on the wind acceleration mechanism. Moreover, if the photospheric thermal emission could be clearly detected (for instance in the soft X-ray range), it would provide a direct information about the initial distribution of the Lorentz factor in the wind before the internal shocks start.

## Acknoledgments

F.D. acknowledges financial support from a postdoctoral fellowship from the French Spatial Agency (CNES).


text:
# Experimental investigation of continuous variable quantum teleportation

## Abstract

We report the experimental demonstration of quantum teleportation of the quadrature amplitudes of a light field. Our experiment was stably locked for long periods, and was analyzed in terms of fidelity, $``$; and with signal transfer, $`T_q=T^++T^{}`$, and noise correlation, $`V_q=V_{\mathrm{in}|\mathrm{out}}^+V_{\mathrm{in}|\mathrm{out}}^{}`$. We observed an optimum fidelity of $`0.64\pm 0.02`$, $`T_q=1.06\pm 0.02`$ and $`V_q=0.96\pm 0.10`$. We discuss the significance of both $`T_q>1`$ and $`V_q<1`$ and their relation to the teleportation no-cloning limit.

Quantum teleportation Bennett93  is a key quantum information technology both in terms of communicating Nielsen00  and processing Gottesman99  quantum information. Experimental demonstrations of teleportation have so far fallen into three main categories: teleportation of photon states Photons ; of ensemble properties in liquid NMR Nielsen98 ; and of optical field states Furusawa98 . An important feature of the technique used in the optical field state experiment of Furusawa et al. Furusawa98  is its high efficiency. This results in the ability to faithfully teleport arbitrary input states continuously. This is due to the in principle ability to perform the required joint measurements exactly and the technical maturity of optical field detection. In contrast, the efficiency of single photon experiments is presently restricted in principle due to the inability to identify all four Bell states, and also in practice by the low efficiency of single photon production and detection.

Since the Furusawa et al. experiment there have been many proposals for how quantum teleportation may be repeated using different systems Ralph98 ; Leuchs99 ; Peng99 ; applied to different input states Polkinghorne99 ; Ide02 ; generalized to multi-party situations Loock00 ; and more comprehensively characterized Ralph99 ; Grosshans01 . In spite of the considerable interest, to date no new experiment has been performed Zhang .

This paper reports the quantum teleportation of the quadrature amplitudes of a light beam. Our scheme has a number of notable differences to the previously published experiment. The input and output states are both analyzed by the same homodyne detector, allowing a more consistent evaluation of their properties. Our experiment is based on a Nd:YAG laser that produces two squeezed beams in two independently pumped optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs). We use a more compact configuration for Alice’s measurements. Finally, the encoding and decoding of the input and output signals using a total of 4 independent modulators. This allows us to completely span the phase space of the input state.

We analyze our results using the fidelity, $``$, between the input and output states, and also with signal transfer ($`T_q`$) and noise correlation ($`V_q`$) in a manner analogous to QND analysis Ralph98  (which we refer to as the T-V measure henceforth). This enables us to give a more detailed characterization of the performance of our teleporter.

Teleportation is usually described as the disembodied transportation of an unknown quantum state from one place (Alice) to another (Bob). In our experiment, as in ref. Furusawa98 , the teleported states are modulation sidebands of a bright optical beam. The teleportation process can be described using the field annihilation operator, $`\widehat{a}=(\widehat{X}^++i\widehat{X}^{})/2`$, where $`\widehat{X}^\pm =2\alpha ^\pm +\delta \widehat{X}^\pm `$ are the amplitude (+) and phase (-) quadratures of the field, $`\alpha ^\pm =\widehat{X}^\pm /2`$ are the real and imaginary parts of the coherent amplitudes, and $`\delta \widehat{X}^\pm `$ are the quadrature noise operators. Throughout this paper the variances of these noise operators are $`V^\pm =\delta \widehat{X}_{}^{\pm }{}_{}{}^{2}`$. The fidelity can be evaluated from the overlap of the input (in) and output (out) states, and for Gaussian states is given by

$$=2e^{(k^++k^{})}\sqrt{\frac{V_{\mathrm{in}}^+V_{\mathrm{in}}^{}}{(V_{\mathrm{in}}^++V_{\mathrm{out}}^+)(V_{\mathrm{in}}^{}+V_{\mathrm{out}}^{})}}$$
(1)
where $`k^\pm =\alpha _{\mathrm{in}}^{\pm }{}_{}{}^{2}(1g^\pm )^2/(V_{\mathrm{in}}^\pm +V_{\mathrm{out}}^\pm )`$, and $`g^\pm =\alpha _{\mathrm{out}}^\pm /\alpha _{\mathrm{in}}^\pm `$ are the teleportation gains. For a sufficiently broad set of coherent states, the best average fidelity at unity gain achievable without entanglement is $`_{\mathrm{class}}=0.5`$. Another interesting limit is at $`=2/3`$. This limit guarantees that Bob has the best copy of the input state and is commonly referred to as the no-cloning limit Grosshans01 . Ideal teleportation would result in $`=1`$.

Alternatively, quantum teleportation can be defined as the transfer of quantum information between Alice and Bob. This more general definition includes cases for which only the useful quantum features of a system have been transferred. In such cases a demonstrably quantum result may be obtained even though other features of the state, for example the state amplitude, have been distorted sufficiently to degrade fidelity. In the absence of entanglement, strict limits are placed on both the accuracy of measurement and reconstruction of an unknown state. These are the so-called two quantum duties. In contrast to fidelity, they can be expressed in an input state independent manner that is invariant under local symplectic operations.

Bob’s reconstruction is limited by the generalized uncertainty principle of Alice’s measurement $`V_M^+V_M^{}1`$ aut88 , where $`V_M^\pm `$ are the measurement penalties which holds for simultaneous measurements of conjugate quadrature amplitudes. In the absence of entanglement, this places a strict limit on Bob’s reconstruction accuracy. The limit can be expressed in terms of quadrature signal transfer coefficients Ralph98 , $`T^\pm =\mathrm{SNR}_{\mathrm{out}}^\pm /\mathrm{SNR}_{\mathrm{in}}^\pm `$ as

$$T_q=T^++T^{}T^+T^{}\left(1\frac{1}{V_{\mathrm{in}}^+V_{\mathrm{in}}^{}}\right)1$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{SNR}^\pm =\alpha ^\pm /V^\pm `$ are the signal-to-noise ratios. For minimum uncertainty input states ($`V_{\mathrm{in}}^+V_{\mathrm{in}}^{}=1`$), this expression reduces to $`T_q=T^++T^{}`$ .

Bob’s reconstruction must be carried out on an optical field, the fluctuations of which obey the uncertainty principle. In the absence of entanglement, these intrinsic fluctuations remain present on any reconstructed field. Thus the amplitude and phase conditional variances, $`V_{\mathrm{in}|\mathrm{out}}^\pm =V_{\mathrm{out}}^\pm |\delta \widehat{X}_{\mathrm{in}}^\pm \delta \widehat{X}_{\mathrm{out}}^\pm |^2/V_{\mathrm{in}}^\pm `$, which measure the noise added during the teleportation process, must satisfy $`V_{\mathrm{in}|\mathrm{out}}^+V_{\mathrm{in}|\mathrm{out}}^{}1`$. This can be written in terms of the quadrature variances of the input and output states and the teleportation gain as

$$V_q=(V_{\mathrm{out}}^+g_{}^{+}{}_{}{}^{2}V_{\mathrm{in}}^+)(V_{\mathrm{out}}^{}g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}V_{\mathrm{in}}^{})1$$
(3)
It should be noted that $`(V_{\mathrm{in}|\mathrm{out}}^++V_{\mathrm{in}|\mathrm{out}}^{})2`$ has also been proposed for the conditional variance limit. For cases where both quadratures are symmetric, as considered previously Ralph98 ; Polkinghorne99 , both limits are equivalent. The product limit, however, is significantly more immune to asymmetry in the teleportation gain and is therefore preferred. The criteria of eqs. (2) and (3) enable teleportation results to be represented on a T-V graph similar to those used to characterise quantum non-demolition experiments Grangier98 .

Both the $`T_q`$ and $`V_q`$ limits have independent physical significance. If Bob passes the $`T_q`$ limit, this forbids any others parties from doing so, therefore ensuring that the transfer of information to Bob is greater than to any other party. This is an ‘information cloning’ limit that is particularly relevant in light of recent proposals for quantum cryptography Grosshans02 . Furthermore, if Bob passes the $`T_q`$ limit at unity gain ($`g^\pm =1`$), then Bob has beaten the no-cloning limit and has $`2/3`$. Surpassing the $`V_q`$ limit is a necessary pre-requisite for reconstruction of non-classical features of the input state such as squeezing. The T-V measure coincides with the teleportation no-cloning limit at unity gain when both $`T_q=V_q=1`$. Clearly it is desirable that the $`T_q`$ and $`V_q`$ limits are simultaneously exceeded. Perfect reconstruction of the input state would result in $`T_q=2`$ and $`V_q=0`$.

The laser source for our experiment was a 1.5 W monolithic non-planar ring Nd:YAG laser at 1064nm. Its output was split into two roughly equal power beams. One beam was mode-matched into a MgO:LiNbO3 frequency doubler producing 370 mW of 532 nm light. The other beam was passed through a high finesse ring cavity to reduce spectral noise. This spectrally cleaned beam, which was quantum noise limited above $`6`$ MHz, was then used to generate the signal for teleportation; to seed a pair of MgO:LiNbO3 OPAs; and to provide local oscillator beams.

Our experimental setup to generate entanglement and perform teleportation is shown in Fig. 1. We produced the entanglement by combining a pair of amplitude squeezed beams with a $`\pi /2`$ phase shift on a 50/50 beam splitter Ou92 . The squeezed beams were produced by the two OPAs, each pumped with half of the 532 nm light Bowen02 . We characterized the entanglement with the inseparability measure proposed by Duan et al. Duan ; and obtained the result $`((\widehat{X}_a^+\widehat{X}_b^+)^2+(\widehat{X}_a^{}+X_b^{})^2)/2=0.44\pm 0.02`$, where subscripts $`a`$ and $`b`$ label the two entangled beams; this result is well below the inseparability limit of unity. In our situation this value becomes equivalent to the average of the squeezed variances of the two OPAs. This corresponds to $`3.6`$ dB of squeezing on each beams. Taking account of $`16\%`$ loss in post-entanglement optics, we infer $`4.8`$ dB of squeezing at the output of each OPA.

The teleportation experiment (Fig. 1) consisted of three parts: measurement (Alice), reconstruction (Bob), and generation and verification (Victor). At the generation stage, a beam was independently phase and amplitude modulated at 8.4 MHz. Alice then took one of the entangled beams and combined it on a 50/50 beamsplitter with the input state with $`\pi /2`$ phase shift. The intensities of these two beams were balanced so that the sum (difference) of the photocurrents obtained through detection of the two beamsplitter outputs provided a measure of the amplitude (phase) quadrature of the input state combined with the entangled beam. These photocurrents were sent electronically to Bob. Bob used them to modulate an independent laser beam that was then combined with the second entangled beam on a 98/2 beam splitter. One output of this beam splitter was Bob’s reconstructed output state.

By using removable mirrors, Victor could measure the Wigner functions of both the input and output states. Assuming Gaussian states, Victor need only measure the two quadratures to fully characterize the input state. We achieved these measurements in a locked homodyne detector. It is interesting to note that imperfections such as inefficiency and low local oscillator power actually improve the results obtained by Victor. In our analysis, we corrected for these effects.

Active control of the entire experiment required 10 locking loops and 4 temperature control loops. They ensured that the mode cleaner, frequency doubler, 2 OPA cavities, phases of the OPA pump beams, Alice and Bob phases, Victor homodyne detection, and the relative phase between the squeezed beams were all stably locked.

A sample of the data obtained from our teleporter is shown in Fig. 2. Parts (a) and (b) show the noise of the output state as a function of time. The complete system maintained lock for long periods. The data in (c) and (d) show the measurement of the two quadratures over a 100 kHz bandwidth. Over this range the noise floor of the system was constant. The signal-to-noise-ratio was therefore found by comparing the peak height at 8.4 MHz to the noise at 8.35 and 8.45 MHz. Every set of teleportation data consisted of four spectra, such as those shown in Fig. 2 (c) and (d), as well as a quantum noise calibration (not shown). Also drawn in each part of Fig. 2 are lines corresponding to the classical limit (solid line @ 4.8 dB) and the no-cloning limit (dashed line @ 3 dB). For this data set, the noise floor of both quadratures lies convincingly below the classical limit and approaches very close to the no-cloning limit. Note that these limits are those calculated for an ideal lossless teleporter. The fidelity obtained for this data was $`=0.64\pm 0.02`$.

Fig. 3(d) shows the area of phase space that our experiment has probed. All points shown here satisfied $`>0.5`$. For the most part, our input states had non-zero coherent amplitude components, thereby allowing verification of the gains of both quadratures. One of the features of fidelity is a strong dependence on gain and signal size. For example, in the limit of a vacuum input state, the fidelity criterion will actually be satisfied perfectly by a classical teleporter (i.e. one with the entangled state replaced by two coherent states) with zero gain. The fidelity criterion therefore requires proof that the gain of a teleportation event is unity. A subset of our data is shown in Fig. 3 (a) and (b). Each diagram plots fidelity as a function of teleportation gain for results with identical input states. The solid curves show the best possible performance of our system, based on our entanglement, detection efficiency, dark noise, and assuming equal gain on each quadrature. Both plots demonstrate that the highest fidelity occurs for gain less than unity. The increased fidelity is less obvious in (b) where the signal is approximately twice as large as that in (a). For small signals it is therefore crucial to ensure unity gain. Obtaining the correct gain setting is actually one of the more troublesome experimental details. To illustrate this point, we have plotted the dashed curves on (a) and (b) for a teleporter with asymmetric quadrature gains. Such asymmetry was not unusual in our system, and explains the variability of the results shown in Fig. 3(a). A summary of all our fidelity results is shown in Fig. 3(c) as a function of deviation from unity gain.

Analyzing teleportation results on a T-V graph has several advantages when compared to fidelity. The T-V graph is two dimensional, and therefore conveys more information about the teleportation process. It tracks the quantum correlation and signal transfer in non-unity gain situations. In particular, it identifies two particularly interesting regimes that are not evident when using fidelity: the situations where the output state has minimum noise (minimum $`V_q`$), and when the input signals were transferred to the output state optimally (maximum $`T_q`$). Our T-V results are shown in Fig. 4. The classical limit curve shows the ideal achievable result as a function of gain if the entanglement was replaced with two coherent states. The unity gain curve shows the locus of points obtained at unity teleportation gain with increasing entanglement. Finally, a theoretical curve (as a function of gain) is shown for our experimental parameters. By varying our experimental conditions, particularly the gain, we have mapped out some portion of the T-V graph.

Perhaps the most striking feature of these results are the points with $`T_q>1`$, the best of which has $`T_q=1.06\pm 0.03`$. Since only one party may have $`T_q>1`$, this shows that Bob has maximal information about the input signal and we have broken the information cloning limit. The lowest observed conditional variance product was $`V_q=0.96\pm 0.10`$. This point also had $`T_q=1.04\pm 0.03`$. This is the first observation of both $`T_q>1`$ and $`V_q<1`$, and with unity gain this would imply breaking of the no-cloning limit for teleportation. This particular point, however, had a fidelity of $`0.63\pm 0.03`$. The main reason for this low fidelity is asymmetric gain, the amplitude gain was $`g^+=0.92\pm 0.08`$ while the phase gain was $`g^{}=1.12\pm 0.08`$. Such gain errors have a dramatic impact on the measured fidelity because the output state then has a different classical amplitude ($`\alpha ^\pm `$) to the input, a difference in the classical properties of the input and output states to which fidelity is very sensitive.

In conclusion, we have performed stably locked quantum teleportation of an optical field. The best fidelity we directly observed was $`=0.64\pm 0.02`$. The maximum two quadrature signal transfer for our apparatus was $`T_q=1.06\pm 0.03`$. We also observed a conditional variance product of $`V_q=0.96\pm 0.10`$ coincident with $`T_q=1.04\pm 0.03`$. This is the first observation of both $`T_q>1`$ and $`V_q<1`$. At unity gain this would ensure violation of the no-cloning limit for teleportation. The asymmetry in our gain, however, prevented a direct measurement of $`>0.67`$, thereby leaving the no-cloning limit as a tantalising prospect for future experiments.

We thank the Australian Research Council for financial support and the Alexander von Humboldt foundation for support of R. Schnabel. This work is a part of EU QIPC Project, No. IST-1999-13071 (QUICOV).