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# Jets, winds and bursts from coalescing neutron stars

## 1 Introduction

Double neutron star (NS) binaries, such as the famous PSR1913+16, will eventually coalesce due to angular momentum and energy losses to gravitational radiation, provided that their orbital separation is small enough. When a NS binary coalesces, the rapidly-spinning merged system could be too massive to form a single NS; on the other hand, the total angular momentum is probably too large to be swallowed immediately by a black hole (BH). The expected outcome would then be a spinning BH, orbited by a torus of NS debris, whose accretion can release sufficient gravitational energy, $`10^{52}`$ erg, to power a gamma-ray burst (GRB; Lattimer & Schramm 1976; Paczyński 1986, 1991; Eichler at al. 1989; Narayan, Paczyński & Piran 1992; Mochkovitch et al. 1993; Kluźniak & Lee 1998; Rees 1999; Rosswog et al. 1999; Ruffert & Janka 1999; Salmonson, Wilson & Mathews 2001; Rosswog & Davies 2002). The energy released in the accretion process is expected to be transformed into a fireball, which may provide the driving stress necessary for relativistic expansion (see Piran 1999 and Mészáros 2002 for recent reviews). Possible forms of this outflow include the following. Relativistic particles generated by $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ annihilation – the thermal energy released as neutrinos is reconverted, via collisions, into $`e^\pm `$ pairs and photons. Electromagnetic Poynting flux – as in pulsars, strong magnetic fields anchored in the dense matter convert the rotational energy of the system into a Poynting-dominated outflow. In either case, the duration of the burst is determined by the viscous timescale of the accreting gas, which is substantially longer than the dynamical or orbital timescale, thus providing a simple interpretation for the large difference between the durations of bursts and their fast variability.
These binary encounters are thought to transpire outside star forming regions (Fryer, Woosley & Hartmann 1999) and are not currently thought to be appropriate for long GRBs ($`20`$ s), whose afterglows have been predominantly localised within the optical image of the host galaxy (Bloom, Kulkarni & Djorgovski 2001). However, these calculations are uncertain because they are sensitive to a number of parameters that are not well understood (e.g. distribution of initial separations; see Belczynski et al. 2002). Such models may also be in difficulties producing adequate duration, collimation, and energy (Katz & Canel 1996; Ruffert et al. 1997; Popham, Woosley & Fryer 1999; Ruffert & Janka 1999; Lee & Ramirez-Ruiz 2002), but each of these problems is model-dependent and might be cured by different assumptions regarding the poorly known input physics such as disk viscosity or the jet production mechanism.
In this Letter, we study the neutrino emission produced in the shocked and dissipatively heated merger remnant of a NS binary encounter. Late time slices of three dimensional (3D), high resolution calculations of the last stages of the coalescence are used (Rosswog & Davies 2002; hereafter RD) to investigate the potential of $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ annihilation as a viable source for GRB production, at least for bursts belonging to the short category. Neutrinos could give rise to a relativistic $`e^\pm `$ pair dominated outflow if they annihilate in a region of low enough baryon density. To that effect, high resolution simulations seem to be required, since even a very small amount of baryons polluting the outflow could severely limit the attainable Lorentz factor. Information regarding how much $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ energy and momentum has been injected, its confinement and collimation are at the forefront of our attention. We address all three issues here, along with the type of predictions that would help us to discriminate between this mode of energy extraction and that of strong magnetic fields anchored in the dense matter.

## 2 Numerical Methods

The 3D hydrodynamics simulations of the mergers of binary NS were performed by RD using a smoothed particle hydrodynamics method with up to $`10^6`$ particles. A realistic equation of state for hot, dense nuclear matter has been used, which is based on the tables provided by (Shen et al. 1998a,b) and smoothly extended to the low density regime with a gas consisting of neutrons, alpha particles, photons and $`e^\pm `$ pairs (see RD for details). This allows one to closely follow the thermodynamic evolution of the neutron-rich debris after the merger. Under the conditions encountered in the debris – temperatures of several MeV and densities around $`10^{12}`$ g cm-3 – neutrinos are emitted copiously. Their effect on the cooling and the changes in the composition of the material are taken into account via a detailed multi-flavour neutrino treatment which is described in detail in Rosswog et al. (2002). The results presented here are based on the close analysis of late time segments, typically a time $`t_{\mathrm{sim}}15`$ ms after the start of the merger simulations, where the neutrino luminosities have reached their maximum, stationary level (Rosswog et al. 2002). Since we are interested in the maximum possible effect, we assume the system to maintain this level of emission for as long as 1 s (see §3). We describe results from three representative runs. First, an initially corotating system with twice 1.4 M (run D from RD, referred to in the following as c1.4), which yields the lowest temperatures of all runs; it can therefore be considered as a lower limit on the neutrino luminosities. Second, a system with twice 1.4 M and no initial NS spins (“irrotational”; run C from RD, hereafter i1.4), which we regard as the generic case and finally, an extreme system of twice 2.0 M and no initial spins (run E from RD, hereafter i2.0), which we consider to be an upper limit for the neutrino luminosity.

## 3 $`e^\pm `$Fireballs produced by $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ annihilation

The $`\nu \overline{\nu }e^+e^{}`$ process (which scales with the square of the neutrino luminosity) can tap the thermal energy of the hot debris disk. For this mechanism to be efficient, the neutrinos must both escape before being advected and not being produced too gradually. Typical estimates for coalescing NS suggest a limit of $`10^{51}`$ erg for the neutrino energy dumped into $`e^\pm `$-pairs (Ruffert et al. 1997; Ruffert & Janka 1999; Popham et al. 1999). If the $`e^\pm `$-dominated plasma were collimated into a solid angle $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\nu \overline{\nu }}`$, then of course the apparent “isotropized” energy would be larger by a factor of $`4\pi /\mathrm{\Omega }_{\nu \overline{\nu }}`$.

The presence of a region of very low density along the rotation axis, away from the equatorial plane of the debris must be present when the burst occurs or otherwise prohibitive baryon loading will occur – for instance an energy of $`10^{53}`$ erg deposited into $`e^\pm `$pairs could not accelerate an outflow to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }>100`$ if it had to drag more than $`E/(\mathrm{\Gamma }c^2)510^4M_{}`$ baryons with it.

In Figure 1 we plot the ratio of $`e^\pm `$energy deposition to baryon rest mass energy, $`\eta =Q_{\nu \overline{\nu }}\tau _{\mathrm{inj}}/(\rho c^2)`$, in the region above the poles of the merged remnant. $`\rho `$ denotes the matter density and, for simplicity, an energy injection time, $`\tau _{\mathrm{inj}}=1`$ s, well within the distribution of the short-duration bursts has been assumed. $`\eta `$ can be understood as an indicative of the terminal bulk Lorentz factor, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. The above $`\eta `$ estimates assume, also for simplicity, that the energy deposition rate by $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ annihilation into $`e^\pm `$pairs at $`t_{\mathrm{sim}}`$ is both representative of the subsequent phases and steady for at least one second (this is clearly an upper limit to the total injected energy over the assumed period $`\tau _{\mathrm{inj}}`$). Due to the finite resolution of the simulations the densities along the rotation axis are determined by particles located in the inner parts of the disk. We therefore expect to overestimate the densities along the rotation axis. Given the above assumptions, higher numerical resolution would yield higher values for $`\eta `$. This is supported by calculating these densities for two equivalent runs of different numerical resolution (run A and B of RD). The densities in well-resolved case are lower by approximately one order of magnitude.

The resulting constraints on the injected $`e^\pm `$energy as a function of $`\eta `$ are illustrated in Figure 2. It shows the fast drop of the contained energy as a function of the maximally reachable Lorentz factor. The copiously emitted electron neutrinos and anti-neutrinos dominate the annihilation process by $``$ 95 %, their mean energies $`E`$ are $`10`$ MeV for $`\nu _e`$ and $`15`$ MeV $`\overline{\nu _e}`$. The highest annihilation rates occur in the uninteresting (since extremely baryon-rich) hot inner disk regions. Even in the most optimistic case (i2.0) only $`10^{48}(4\pi /\mathrm{\Omega }_{\nu \overline{\nu }})`$ erg are found able to blow out material near the axis with a Lorentz factor larger than 10 (indeed no SPH-particles are enclosed in this region, but we are limited in our density calculation by the finite resolution). A broad spread in the Lorentz factor will therefore be present in the outflow – close to the rotation axis $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ may be high (i.e. $`10`$); at large angles away from the axis an increasing degree of entrainment will correspond to a decrease in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (see Fig. 1). Even if the outflow is not narrowly collimated, some beaming is expected because the disk geometry (see Fig. 15 RD) channels the energy preferentially along the rotation axis. But unless $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\nu \overline{\nu }}`$ is $`10^110^2`$ this may fail to satisfy the apparent isotropized energies of $`10^{51}`$ erg implied for “short-hard” bursts at a redshift $`z=1`$ (Panaitescu, Kumar & Narayan 2001; Lazzati, Ramirez-Ruiz & Ghisellini 2001).

### 3.1 Beaming and Confinement

When a large amount of energy is suddenly released into a compact region, an opaque “fireball” is created due to the prolific creation of $`e^\pm `$pairs (Cavallo & Rees 1978; Goodman 1986; Paczyński 1986; Shemi & Piran 1990). A diagram similar to Figure 2 can be drawn to illustrate the volume that contains material above a given $`\eta `$ (see Fig. 3). Consider a homogeneous fireball of energy $`E_{\nu \overline{\nu }}`$, total mass $`M_0`$ initially confined to a compact region, whose volume is given by $`V_{\mathrm{cav}}`$. Clearly, since the optical depth $`\tau >1`$, the initial fireball will be an opaque sphere in thermal equilibrium, characterised by a single temperature:

$$T_{\nu \overline{\nu }}10E_{\nu \overline{\nu },48}^{1/4}V_{\mathrm{cav},18}^{1/4}\mathrm{MeV},$$
(1)
where we adopt the convention $`Q=10^xQ_x`$, using cgs units. This radiative sphere expands and cools rapidly until the energy of the photons degrades below the $`e^\pm `$production threshold. When some amount of baryonic matter is mixed with the fireball and the radiation energy dominates the evolution (i.e. $`\eta 1`$), the fluid expands under its own pressure such that its Lorentz factor grows initially linearly with radius, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }r`$, and reaches a final value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\eta `$ (Piran 1999).

If the flow is assumed to be stationary and isentropic, then the fluid velocity will increase as the external pressure of the surrounding medium decreases. When the pressure has halved the flow becomes transonic and the cross-sectional area is minimised. In this way a directed de Laval nozzle can be established. Unlike the static situation envisaged by Blandford & Rees (1974), the $`e^\pm `$injected in this plasma do already have a relativistic outward motion and the flow is then unlikely to be recollimated in a fluid nozzle. Although it will become free and supersonic (indeed relativistic, if it was so initially) since the pressure drop at $`r_{\mathrm{cav}}`$ is very steep. In the simulations, the external pressure is found to vary with distance along the rotation axis as $`p_{\mathrm{ext}}r^4`$. If the pressure drops faster than $`r^2`$ onwards, sound waves will eventually be unable to cross the jet, which will become overpressured with respect to the external medium, and thenceforth expand out over an angle $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$. If the free expansion starts just outside $`r_{\mathrm{cav}}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }2`$, then it will spread over a wide angle (i.e. $`\theta _{\nu \overline{\nu }}30^o`$) and develop into a roughly semi-spherical blast wave. The fireball will then accelerate until the entire energy is converted into kinetic energy at $`\eta r_{\mathrm{cav}}`$. If $`\eta >\eta _b150E_{\nu \overline{\nu },48}^{1/3}r_{\mathrm{cav},6}^{2/3}`$, the fireball continues to be radiation dominated when it becomes optically thin and most of the energy escapes as photons. An observer will detect them with a characteristic thermal peak frequency of $`T_{\mathrm{obs}}T_{\nu \overline{\nu }}`$ (Goodman 1986), which is likely to be outside the BATSE \[20-600\] keV spectral window (see equation 1). Alternatively, if $`\eta <\eta _b`$, the fireball becomes matter dominated, and most of the initial energy is converted into bulk kinetic energy with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\eta <\eta _b`$. The inertia of the swept-up external matter will then decelerate these ejecta significantly by the time it reaches $`r_\mathrm{\Gamma }10^{16}E_{\nu \overline{\nu },48}^{1/3}\eta _1^{2/3}\theta _{\nu \overline{\nu },1}^{2/3}n_{\mathrm{ism},0}^{1/3}`$ cm (Mészáros & Rees 1997). For an approximately smooth distribution of external matter, the bulk Lorentz factor of the fireball decreases as an inverse power of the time ($`t^{3/8}`$). As a consequence, the spectrum softens in time as the synchrotron peak corresponding to the minimum Lorentz factor and magnetic field decreases, leading to the possibility of multi-wavelength afterglow radiation.

### 3.2 Accompanying winds

The neutrinos that are emitted from the inner shock-heated regions of the torus will deposit part of their energy in the outer parts of the thick disk that has formed around the central object (see Fig. 15 of RD). The possibility of such a wind from a NS coalescence has already been realized by Ruffert et al. (1997). Using the typical numbers from our simulations, we find that the neutrinos will drive a mass outflow at a rate (Qian & Woosley 1996):

$$\dot{M}210^2\mathrm{M}_{}/\mathrm{s}L_{\overline{\nu },53}^{5/3}\left(\frac{ϵ_{\overline{\nu }_e}}{15\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}}\right)^{\frac{10}{3}}\left(\frac{R_{\mathrm{em}}}{80\mathrm{k}\mathrm{m}}\right)^{\frac{5}{3}}\left(\frac{2.5M_{}}{M_{\mathrm{em}}}\right)^2,$$

where $`L_{\overline{\nu }_e}`$ is the luminosity in $`\overline{\nu }_e`$-neutrinos, $`ϵ_{\overline{\nu }_e}=\frac{E_{\overline{\nu }_e}^2}{E_{\overline{\nu }_e}}`$, $`R_{\mathrm{em}}`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{em}}`$ are the radius of and the mass inside the neutrino emitting region. This estimate is consistent with those of other authors (Duncan, Shapiro & Wassermann 1986, Woosley 1993). This wind accelerates the blown-off material to its asymptotic velocities of $`10^9`$ cm s-1. A wind of this strength represents a possible danger for the emergence of a highly relativistic jet. The jet can only accelerate to high Lorentz factors if the wind is kept out of the funnel region along the rotation axis via centrifugal forces. However, from the bulged geometry (see Fig. 15 RD) and the assumption that the neutrinos will be emitted preferentially in the direction $`\widehat{n}=\rho /|\rho |`$, we conclude that most of the wind will be still directed away from the jet.

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ annihilation as a viable energy source?

We now want to address the viability of NS-NS binary coalescences as central engines of GRBs. The main form of energy release from the disk we considered is neutrino emission, which produces relativistic jets but fails to produce very energetic bursts. Due to our post-processing approach the interaction between the jet and the matter evolution/neutrino emission is neglected. Not accounting for the evolution of the jet during the energy injection period leads to an overestimation of the energy density in the jet. But even under the most favourable conditions (maximum baryon free volume allowed by the SPH-particle distribution, neglecting a neutrino driven wind that might pollute the funnel region above the poles, see §3, and ignoring the jet evolution) we find typical energies of only $`10^{48}`$ erg, where we have assumed a steady injection lasting for as long as 1 s. Unless the $`e^\pm `$plasma was collimated into a solid angle $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\nu \overline{\nu }}10^2`$ (which is unlikely if the plasma is solely confined by gas pressure; but see Levinson & Eichler 2000 for an alternative mechanism for hydrodynamic collimation), $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ annihilation could only be responsible for a rather weak energy release (which is also likely to be very short, almost impulsive; see Lee & Ramirez-Ruiz 2002) and may therefore fail to produce isotropized energies of $`10^{51}`$ ergs that are estimated for “short-hard” bursts if they are at $`z1`$. Even if this is the case, the $`e^\pm `$deposited by $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ annihilation may be responsible for either precursor emission (thermal and non-thermal) and/or for creating a cavity into which a magnetised jet can subsequently expand (see below). In this latter case, the afterglow, at least over a range of directions, would not arise until the late magnetised ejecta hits the wall of the cavity. One would naturally expect a wide variety of afterglow behaviours arising from the impact of (possibly anisotropic) ejecta on an irregularly shaped cavity.
It is, of course also possible to produce more energetic bursts via $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ annihilation if one is able to increase the temperatures in the appropriate density regimes (i.e. $`10^{11}`$ to $`10^{13}`$ gcm-3). One such possibility would be that the “real” equation of state is much softer than the one used here, leading to higher temperatures and hence more energetic neutrino emission. The neutrino luminosities are sensitive functions of the temperature of the emitting region, the $`\beta `$-reactions are $`T^6`$ and the plasmon decay is $`T^9`$. Higher temperatures would translate into higher neutrino energies $`E_\nu `$, which in turn render the debris more opaque to the neutrinos (the cross-sections scaling $`E_\nu ^2`$). We still, however, expect higher luminosities and hence higher annihilation energies if the temperature is increased. An alternative possibility may arise from general relativistic effects, which are not included in the current 3D hydrodynamics simulation. The tendency of general relativistic effects would be to compactify the matter distribution, and so higher temperatures would be naturally expected. However, in this case the annihilation process would be additionally complicated by effects such as bending of neutrino trajectories and redshifts of the neutrino energies. These effects have been found to partly cancel out one another so that they do not alter the results substantially. For a further discussion of this point we refer to the literature (Salmonson & Wilson 2001, Asano & Fukuyama 2000, Jaroszynski 1993). A third possibility could arise from a very high disk viscosity. In our current simulation no explicit, physical viscosity has been introduced. We measured an equivalent $`\alpha `$-viscosity of the order of $`\alpha _{\mathrm{disk}}410^3`$ (lower values are found in the better resolved central object; see RD). The reason for this low value is a largely improved artificial viscosity scheme and the high resolution. Future investigations including explicit, physical viscosity should clarify this point. The raised possibilities should certainly be kept in mind, but at the present stage they are a matter of speculation.

### 4.2 Delayed BH formation and MHD jets

An alternative way to tap the debris energy is via magnetic fields threading the torus. Even before a BH forms, the merging system might lead to winding up the fields and dissipation before the merger. While the above mechanism can tap the rotational energy available in the debris torus, a BH formed from the coalescence is guaranteed to be rapidly rotating, and being more massive, could contain a larger energy reservoir than the debris itself. A magnetic configuration capable of powering bursts requires fields of a few times $`10^{15}`$ G. A weaker field would extract inadequate power; however, it only takes of order of a second for simple winding to amplify a $`10^{12}`$ G field to $`10^{15}`$ G (Kluźniak & Ruderman 1998). If magnetic fields of comparable strength than those anchored in the torus thread the BH, its rotational energy offers an extra (an possibly even greater) source of energy than in principle can be extracted via the B-Z mechanism (Blandford & Znajek 1977). For a maximally rotating BH, this is 0.29 $`M_{BH}c^2`$ erg, multiplied by some efficiency factor. Even allowing for low total efficiency ($``$ 20%), a jet powered by the B-Z effect would not require any beaming to produce the equivalent of an isotropic energy of $`10^{53.5}`$ erg. The entrained baryonic mass would then only need to be below $`10^4M_{}`$ (which is clearly the case along the rotation axis of the merger remnant) to allow high relativistic expansion speeds.
The masses of the central objects of the merger remnant are $``$ 2.5 M and therefore above the value of $`2.2`$ M that is typically found for cold, non-rotating NS in beta-equilibrium (see e.g. Akmal et al. 1998). Due to the poorly known physics under these extreme conditions (strong field gravity, magnetic fields, ’exotic’ matter in the NS cores) the time scale on which the central object is going to collapse is, however, uncertain. For the generic NS merger case, i1.4, there are no signs of a collapse – at the end of the simulation, the maximum density of the merger remnant has not even reached the central density of a cold, non-rotating single 1.4 M NS. This is mainly due to the stabilising effect of differential rotation. For a discussion of further stabilising effects (some of which are not included in the simulation) we refer to RD. The merger remnant would lose angular momentum on a magnetic dipole radiation time scale

$$\tau _c10^2\mathrm{s}\left(\frac{M_{\mathrm{CO}}}{2.5M_{}}\right)\left(\frac{10^{16}\mathrm{G}}{B}\right)^2\left(\frac{15\mathrm{km}}{R_{CO}}\right)^4\left(\frac{3000}{s\omega }\right)^2,$$
(2)
which is substantially shorter than the viscous timescale, $`10^9`$ s (Shapiro 2000). Due to the dependence of this timescale on the input quantities, we expect a large range of possible delays between the merger and the subsequent BH formation. This will be mainly determined by the details of the coalescence, unless exotic matter appears already for very low masses, therefore leading to an immediate collapse. Note that with reasonable assumptions even a time scale of weeks is still possible. More prominent time delays could also be expected for mergers of unequal mass NS, or NS with other compact companions. Such events might also lead to repeating episodes of accretion, or to the eventual explosion of the NS which has dropped below the critical mass, all of which would provide a longer lasting energy output. A GRB produced by MHD coupling is likely to go off inside a cavity inflated by the $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ annihilation burst (which may not produce a standard GRB; see §3). Such cavities can be as large as fractions of a parsec, giving rise to a magnetic deceleration shock months after the first $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ annihilation burst.
Much progress has been made in understanding how gamma-rays can arise in fireballs produced by brief events depositing large amounts of energy in a small region, and in deriving the generic properties of the corresponding afterglows. Nonetheless, there still remain a number of mysteries, especially concerning the progenitors of short-duration bursts. As argued above, a wide diversity of behaviours may be the rule, rather than the exception. And if the class of models that we have advocated here turns out to be irrelevant, the trigger of these events has to be even more remarkable and exciting.

## Acknowledgements

We are grateful to M. J. Rees for numerous insightful comments and suggestions. It is a pleasure to thank W. H. Lee and J. Salmonson for discussions and the Leicester supercomputer team S. Poulton, C. Rudge and R. West for their excellent support. The computations reported here were performed using both the UK Astrophysical Fluids Facility (UKAFF) and the University of Leicester Mathematical Modelling Centre’s supercomputer. This work was supported by PPARC, CONACyT, SEP and the ORS foundation.


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# Efficient Immunization Strategies for Computer Networks and Populations

## Abstract

We present an effective immunization strategy for computer networks and populations with broad and, in particular, scale-free degree distributions. The proposed strategy, acquaintance immunization, calls for the immunization of random acquaintances of random nodes (individuals). The strategy requires no knowledge of the node degrees or any other global knowledge, as do targeted immunization strategies. We study analytically the critical threshold for complete immunization. We also study the strategy with respect to the SIR (susceptible-infected-removed) epidemiological model. We show that the immunization threshold is dramatically reduced with the suggested strategy, for all studied cases.

It is well established that random immunization requires immunizing a very large fraction of a computer network, or population, in order to arrest epidemics that spread upon contact between infected nodes (or individuals) AM92 ; MA84 ; HV86 ; WY84 ; AJB00 ; cohen ; PV01 . Many diseases require 80%-100% immunization (for example, Measles requires 95% of the population to be immunized AM92 ). The same is correct for the Internet, where stopping computer viruses requires almost 100% immunization AJB00 ; cohen ; PV01 . On the other hand, targeted immunization of the most highly connected individuals AM92 ; AJB00 ; PV01b ; LM01 ; cal ; cohen2 , while effective, requires global information about the network in question, rendering it impractical in many cases. Here, we develop a mathematical model and propose an effective strategy, based on the immunization of a small fraction of random acquaintances of randomly selected nodes. In this way, the most highly connected nodes are immunized, and the process prevents epidemics with a small finite immunization threshold and without requiring specific knowledge of the network.

Social networks are known to possess a broad distribution of the number of links (contacts), $`k`$, emanating from a node (an individual) strogatz ; bar\_rev ; dor\_rev . Examples are the web of sexual contacts lil , movie-actor networks, science citations and cooperation networks bar\_collab ; new\_pnas  etc. Computer networks, both physical (such as the Internet internet ) and logical (such as the WWW WWW , and e-mail bornholdt  and trust networks amaral ) are also known to posses wide, scale-free, distributions. Studies of percolation on broad-scale networks show that a large fraction $`f_c`$ of the nodes need to be removed (immunized) before the integrity of the network is compromised. This is particularly true for scale-free networks, $`P(k)=ck^\lambda `$ ($`km`$), where $`2<\lambda <3`$ — the case of most known networks strogatz ; bar\_rev ; dor\_rev  — where the percolation threshold $`f_c1`$, and the network remains connected (contagious) even after removal of most of its nodes cohen . In other words, with a random immunization strategy almost all of the nodes need to be immunized before an epidemic is arrested (see Fig. 1).

When the most highly connected nodes are targeted first, removal of just a small fraction of the nodes results in the network’s disintegration AJB00 ; cal ; cohen2 . This has led to the suggestion of targeted immunization of the HUBs (the most highly connected nodes in the network) PV01b ; dezso . However, this approach requires a complete, or at least fairly good knowledge of the degree of each node in the network. Such global information often proves hard to gather, and may not even be well-defined (as in social networks, where the number of social relations depends on subjective judging). The acquaintance immunization strategy proposed herein works at low immunization rates, $`f`$, and obviates the need for global information.

In our approach, we choose a random fraction $`p`$ of the $`N`$ nodes and look for a random acquaintance with whom they are in contact (thus, the strategy is purely local, requiring minimal information about randomly selected nodes and their immediate environs ). The acquaintances, rather than the originally chosen nodes, are the ones immunized. The fraction $`p`$ may be larger than $`1`$ note , for a node might be queried more than once, on average, while the fraction of nodes immunized $`f`$ is always less than or equal to $`1`$.

Suppose we apply the acquaintance strategy on a random fraction $`p`$ of the network. The critical fractions, $`p_c`$ and $`f_c`$, needed to stop the epidemic can be analytically calculated. In each event, the probability that a node with $`k`$ contacts is selected for immunization is $`kP(k)/(Nk)`$ cal ; cohen , where $`k=_kkP(k)`$ denotes the average degree of nodes in the network. This quantifies the known fact that randomly selected acquaintances possess more links than randomly selected nodes feld ; ego . Suppose we follow some branch, starting from a random link of the spanning cluster. In some layer, $`l`$, we have $`n_l(k)`$ nodes of degree $`k`$. In the next layer ($`l+1`$) each of those nodes has $`k1`$ new neighbors (excluding the one through which we arrived). Let us denote the event that a node of degree $`k`$ is susceptible to the disease (not immunized) by $`s_k`$. To find out the number of nodes, $`n_{l+1}(k^{})`$, of degree $`k^{}`$ that are susceptible, we multiply the number of links going out of the $`l`$th layer by the probability of reaching a node of degree $`k^{}`$ by following a link from a susceptible node, $`p(k^{}|k,s_k)`$. Then, we multiply by the probability that this node is also susceptible given both the node and the neighbor’s degrees, and the fact that the neighbor is also susceptible, $`p(s_k^{}|k^{},k,s_k)`$. Since below and at the critical percolation threshold loops are irrelevant cohen , one can ignore them. Therefore,

$$n_{l+1}(k^{})=\underset{k}{}n_l(k)(k1)p(k^{}|k,s_k)p(s_k^{}|k^{},k,s_k).$$
(1)
By using Bayes’ rule:

$$p(k^{}|k,s_k)=\frac{p(s_k|k,k^{})p(k^{}|k)}{p(s_k|k)}.$$
(2)
Assuming that the network is uncorrelated (no degree-degree correlations), the probability of reaching a node with degree $`k^{}`$ via a link, $`\varphi (k^{})p(k^{}|k)=k^{}P(k^{})/k`$, is independent of $`k`$.

A random site (of degree $`k`$) is selected in each step with probability $`1/N`$. The probability of being redirected to a specific acquaintance is $`1/k`$. Thus, the probability that the acquaintance is not selected in one particular attempt, is $`(11/Nk)`$, and in all $`Np`$ vaccination attempts, it is

$$\nu _p(k)\left(1\frac{1}{Nk}\right)^{Np}e^{p/k}.$$
(3)
If the neighbor’s degree is not known, the probability is $`\nu _p\nu _p(k)`$, where the average (and all averages henceforth) is taken with respect to the probability distribution $`\varphi (k)`$. The probability that a node with degree $`k^{}`$ is susceptible is $`p(s_k^{}|k^{})=\mathrm{exp}(p/k)^k^{}`$, if no other information exists on its neighbors. If the degree of one neighbor is known to be $`k^{}`$: $`p(s_k|k,k^{})=e^{p/k^{}}\times e^{p/k}^{k1}`$. Since the fact that a neighbor with known degree is immunized does not provide any further information about a node’s probability of immunization, it follows that $`p(s_k|k,k^{})=p(s_k|k,k^{},s_k^{})`$. Using the above equations one obtains:

$$p(k^{}|k,s_k)=\frac{\varphi (k^{})e^{p/k^{}}}{e^{p/k}}.$$
(4)
Substituting these results in (1) yields:

$$n_{l+1}(k^{})=\nu _p^{k^{}2}\varphi (k^{})e^{p/k^{}}\underset{k}{}n_l(k)(k1)e^{p/k}.$$
(5)
Since the sum in (5) does not depend on $`k^{}`$, it leads to the stable distribution of degree in a layer $`l`$: $`n_l(k)=a_l\nu _p^{k2}\varphi (k)e^{p/k}`$, for some $`a_l`$. Substituting this into (5) yields:

$$n_{l+1}(k^{})=n_l(k^{})\underset{k}{}\varphi (k)(k1)\nu _p^{k2}e^{2p/k}.$$
(6)
Therefore, if the sum is larger than $`1`$ the branching process will continue forever (the percolating phase), while if it is smaller than $`1`$ immunization is sub-critical and the epidemic is arrested. Thus, we obtain a relation for $`p_c`$:

$$\underset{k}{}\frac{P(k)k(k1)}{k}\nu _{p_c}^{k2}e^{2p_c/k}=1.$$
(7)
The fraction of immunized nodes is easily obtained from the fraction of nodes which are not susceptible,

$$f_c=1\underset{k}{}P(k)p(s_k|k)=1\underset{k}{}P(k)\nu _{p_c}^k,$$
(8)
where $`P(k)`$ is the regular distribution, and $`p_c`$ is found numerically using Eq. (7).

A related immunization strategy calls for the immunization of acquaintances referred to by at least $`n`$ nodes. (Above, we specialized to $`n=1`$.) The threshold is lower the larger $`n`$ is, and may justify, under certain circumstances, this somewhat more involved protocol.

The acquaintance immunization strategy is effective for any broad-scale distributed network. Here we give examples for scale-free and bimodal distributions, which are common in many natural networks. We also give an example of an assortatively mixed network (where high degree nodes tend to connect to other high degree nodes assort ). We also discuss the effectiveness of the strategy in conjunction with the SIR epidemiological model.

In Fig. 1, we show the immunization threshold $`f_c`$ needed to stop an epidemic in networks with $`2<\lambda <3.5`$ (this covers all known cases). Plotted are curves for the (inefficient) random strategy, and the strategy advanced here, for the cases of $`n=1`$ and $`2`$. Note that while $`f_c=1`$ for networks with $`2<\lambda <3`$ (e.g. the Internet) it decreases dramatically to values $`f_c0.25`$ with the suggested strategy. The figure also shows the strategy’s effectiveness in case of assortatively mixed networks assort , i.e., in cases where $`p(k^{}|k)`$ does depend on $`k`$, and high degree nodes tend to connect to other high degree nodes, which is the case for many real networks.

Fig. 2 gives similar results for a bimodal distribution (consisting of two Gaussians, where high degree nodes are rare compared to low degree ones). This distribution is also believed to exist for some social networks, in particular, for some networks of sexual contacts. In Fig. 3 geographical effects, where nodes tend to connect to geographically adjacent ones RCBH02 , are also taken into account. The improvement gained by the use of the acquaintance immunization strategy is evident in both cases, as seen in Figs. 2 and 3.

The above considerations hold if full immunization is required. That is, given a static network structure, one wishes to stop any epidemic or virus propagation. However, most real viruses have a finite infection rate, and, therefore, a finite probability of infecting a neighbor of an infected node. The SIR model, widely studied by epidemiologists grass ; sok ; new , assumes that nodes can be susceptible, infected, or removed (i.e. recovered and immunized against further infection or otherwise removed from the network). This epidemiological model can be mapped to a bond percolation model, where the concentration of bonds, $`q=1e^{r\tau }`$, where $`r`$ is the transmissibility of the virus (infection rate over a link) and $`\tau `$ is the infection time. To find the effect of the strategy, given this finite infection probability, the right hand side of Eq. (1) should be multiplied by $`q`$, giving:

$$\underset{k}{}\frac{P(k)k(k1)}{k}\nu _{p_c}^{k2}e^{2p_c/k}=q^1.$$
(9)
instead of Eq. (7). Results for different infection rates and scale-free networks with $`\lambda =2.5`$ and $`\lambda =3.5`$ are shown in Fig. 4. As can be seen in the figure, in the limit $`\tau r\mathrm{}`$ this model leads to the full immunization case of Fig. 1. For lower values of $`r`$, the proposed strategy still gives similar, or even larger, decrease in the immunization threshold.

Various immunization strategies have been proposed, mainly for the case of an already spread disease, and are based on tracing the chain of infection towards the super-spreaders of the disease WY84 . This approach is different from our proposed approach, since it is mainly aimed at stopping an epidemic after the outbreak began. It is also applicable for cases where no immunization exists and only treatment for already infected individuals is possible. Our approach, on the other hand, can be used even before the epidemic starts spreading, since it does not require any knowledge of the chain of infection.

In practice, any population immunization strategy must take into account issues of attempted manipulation. We would expect the suggested strategy to be less sensitive to manipulations than targeted immunization strategies. This is due to its dependence on acquaintance reports, rather than on self-estimates of number of contacts. Since a node’s reported contacts pose a direct threat to the node (and relations), we anticipate that manipulations would be less frequent. Furthermore, we would suggest adding some randomness to the process: for example, reported acquaintances are not immunized, with some small probability (smaller than the random epidemic threshold), while randomly selected individuals are immunized directly, with some low probability. This will have a small impact on the efficiency, while enhancing privacy and rendering manipulations less practical.

In conclusion, we have proposed a novel efficient strategy for immunization, requiring no knowledge of the nodes’ degrees or any other global information. This strategy is efficient for networks of any broad-degree distribution and allows for a low threshold of immunization, even where random immunization requires the entire population to be immunized. We have presented analytical results for the critical immunization fraction in both a static model and the kinetic SIR model.

As a final remark, we note that our approach may be relevant to other networks, such as ecological networks of predator-prey eco ; eco2 , metabolic networks metabolic , networks of cellular proteins cell , and terrorist networks. For terrorist networks, our findings suggest that an efficient way to disintegrate the network, is to focus more on removing individuals whose name is obtained from another member of the network.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to NSF grant PHY-0140094 (DbA) for partial support of this research.


text:
# XMM-Newton observations of MR Vel/RX J0925.7-4758

## 1 Introduction

Supersoft X-ray sources have been discovered by the Einstein satellite and extensively studied by ROSAT. They usually consist of a close binary system in which the accreting component is a very hot white dwarf responsible for the soft thermal-like radiation (van den Heuvel et al. vdh (1992)). At the low spectral resolution of the ROSAT PSPC, the energy distributions look like black bodies with temperatures in the range of 20 to 70 eV. Higher resolution spectra with ASCA (e.g. Ebisawa et al. ebisawa96 (1996)) started to reveal complex structures later emphasized by Chandra and XMM-Newton grating spectroscopy (Paerels et al. pae01 (2001), Bearda et al. bea02 (2002)). Fitting model atmospheres of hot white dwarfs usually imply bolometric luminosities below but close to Eddington. Stable or quasi stable hydrogen burning at the surface of the white dwarf can adequately explain most of the observational features of supersoft X-ray sources (van den Heuvel et al. vdh (1992)). The high accretion rates required by stable thermonuclear burning ($`\dot{\mathrm{M}}`$ $``$ 10-7 M yr-1, Iben iben82 (1982)) can be obtained through thermally unstable Roche lobe overflow when the mass donor star is more massive than the white dwarf. However, this picture is probably not valid for many sources since short periods systems cannot accommodate a massive mass-donor star. In these cases, strong irradiation by the very luminous central source could play a major role in driving the mass transfer mechanism (Van Teeseling & King tee98 (1998)).

Because stable burning allows matter to pile up at the surface of the white dwarf, contrary to novae where most matter is expelled in the runaway event, supersoft sources are considered as possible SN Ia progenitors. A sizeable fraction of SN Ia could occur in these systems when the white dwarf approaches the Chandrasekhar limit (Rappaport et al. rap94 (1994)).

We report in this paper on a long XMM-Newton observation of RX J0925.7-4758 involving the EPIC pn, RGS and OM instruments. RX J0925.7-4758 is one of the few galactic supersoft source known (Motch et al. mhp94 (1994)). It is identified with a V $``$ 17.2 reddened object exhibiting Balmer and high excitation lines of He ii, O vi and C iv. The relatively high interstellar absorption towards the source (NH $``$ 1022 cm-2) only allows observation in the highest energy range (above $``$ 0.4 keV). Among supersoft sources, RX J0925.7-4758 is unusual by its relatively high X-ray temperature and long orbital period of 4.0287 d (Schmidtke & Cowley schmi01 (2001)). Previous X-ray observations have been reported from a number of satellites (ASCA; Ebisawa et al. ebisawa01 (2001), BeppoSAX; Hartmann et al. hh99 (1999) and recently using the HETG on board Chandra; Bearda et al. bea02 (2002)).

## 2 XMM-Newton and optical observations

The XMM-Newton satellite is described in Jansen et al. (jansen (2001)). XMM-Newton observations took place in late December 2000 during two consecutive satellite orbits, thus covering two phase intervals of the binary period half a cycle apart. The original scheduling was done using the ephemeris from Schmidtke et al. (schmi00 (2000)) which assumed a 3.83 d period and was planned to cover photometric phases 0.0 (minimum) and 0.5. With the revised period of 4.0287 d (Schmidtke & Cowley schmi01 (2001)) the actual range of phase covered is slightly shifted towards earlier times. The journal of X-ray observations is listed in Table 1. We also organized quasi-simultaneous optical observations using the Dutch telescope on La Silla during one night. In December, RX J0925.7-4758 was only observable in the last part of the night just after the end of the first XMM-Newton observation.

The EPIC background remained nominal during the two observations apart for the last 2000 s of the second one. EPIC pn data were acquired in the large window mode in order to minimize pile-up problems from this relatively bright source (up to 7 cts/s in EPIC pn). The MOS was left in imaging mode but the source count rate is too high for proper spectral analysis due to severe pile up effects. The OM was used in normal imaging mode and because of the presence of bright stars in the field of view, the UVW1 filter was used. RGS data had to be completely reprocessed from the ODF late October 2001 when good calibrations at high energies eventually became available. All data have been analyzed using SAS version 20010917\_1110.

Optical observations were carried out using the standard CCD camera at the Dutch telescope located on ESO La Silla, Chile. V and B filters were alternated with exposure times of 3 and 5 minutes in the V and B filters respectively. Standard MIDAS procedures were used to correct images for flat-field and bias. Instrumental magnitudes were computed using the Sextractor package (Bertin & Arnouts be96 (1996)) and linked to comparison star 2 in Motch et al. (mhp94 (1994)).

## 3 Source variability

Fig. 1 shows the simultaneous EPIC pn and OM UVW1 and the contemporaneous V band light curve obtained at the Dutch telescope. The EPIC pn light curve displays significant variability at the level of ten percent on various time scales. Some kind of oscillation with a period of $``$ 0.2d is clearly visible as well as faster variability. Not surprisingly considering the high interstellar absorption towards the source (NH $``$ 1022 cm-2) OM UVW1 data are of much lower statistical quality, each point representing an integration over 5000 seconds. There is no compelling evidence for any strong correlations between X-ray and UV flux variations. During the XMM-Newton observations, the mean V and B magnitudes are similar to those usually observed ($`<V>`$ = 17.23 and $`<BV>`$ = 1.88) indicating that RX J0925.7-4758 was not in an especially bright or low optical state. The V level is only $``$ 0.07 mag above the mean value from Schmidtke et al. (schmi00 (2000)), consistent with the observed cycle to cycle intrinsic variability.

We searched for coherent oscillations in each individual observation as well as in the combined data sets using the least square power spectrum method outlined in Lomb (lomb76 (1976)) and Scargle (scargle82 (1982)). Light curves with bin sizes of 10 and 100 seconds (0.5-1.0 keV) do not show any statistically significant pulsations for periods in the range of 30 to 1000 s. There is however a clear power excess at low frequencies on time scales larger than 1000 seconds which can be seen in the detailed light curve (Fig. 2) and in the power spectrum of the combined EPIC pn observations (see Fig. 3). The highest peak in the periodogram of each individual observation as well as in that of the merged EPIC pn light curves is at P $``$ 0.21 d. Its formal statistical significance is high and the modulation is well seen in Fig. 1. Best periods in revolutions 187 and 188 are P = 0.2152 $`\pm `$ 0.0059 d and P = 0.1977 $`\pm `$ 0.0082 d respectively and are therefore consistent with a constant value. The periodogram of the merged EPIC pn data has its highest peak at P = 0.2130 $`\pm `$ 0.009 d. Observations over many more cycles would be needed to be able to measure the stability of this X-ray modulation and especially compare it with that of the 0.23 d quasi-periodicity detected in the optical by Schmidtke et al. (schmi00 (2000)). The mean full amplitude of the best fit sine wave to the 0.2 d modulation is 10.8 %.

## 4 RGS Spectroscopy

### 4.1 Overall spectrum

Thanks to the high throughput of the RGS and long total exposure time ($``$ 120 ks), the spectrum of RX J0925.7-4758 summed over the two observations and the two RGS reveals an unprecedented number of spectral features compared to the Chandra HETG spectrum discussed in Bearda et al. (bea02 (2002)). We show in Fig. 4 the total XMM-Newton spectrum together with tentative line identifications. This spectrum was accumulated using SAS task rgsfluxer and the corresponding reprocessed extractions and response matrices computed for each individual instrument and observation. Spectral bins with large associated errors have been removed from the plot for clarity. All features identified in the Chandra spectrum can be seen in the RGS data. The spectrum is clearly not black body like and exhibits a large number of high excitation iron lines, mostly seen in emission as well as lines of the O viii Lyman series. The conclusions of Bearda et al. (bea02 (2002)) that the structures seen in the Chandra spectrum cannot be reproduced by LTE or NLTE model atmospheres can only be emphasized by our RGS data. Fig. 5 shows the ’best’ fit NLTE white dwarf model atmosphere of Bearda et al. (bea02 (2002)) which has log g = 9 and T = 8.9 105 K. The intensity of the RGS spectrum in the O edge region suggests an absorption of NH = 1.50 1022 cm-2 slightly higher than that assumed by Bearda et al. (bea02 (2002)) for HETGS/MEG data (NH = 1.0 1022 cm-2). However, ignoring this long wavelength region, a better fit is obtained in the 17 to 20 Å range with NH = 1.28 1022 cm-2. Overall, the picture is similar to that drawn from Chandra data, namely that although the shape of the energy distribution seems to be grossly described by the model, strong emission features such as the O viii lines or the Fe xvii lines at $`\lambda `$ 15.015 Å and $`\lambda `$ 15.262 Å are not present in the model atmosphere. We did not investigate further spectral modelling, leaving this study open for future work. The lack of X-ray flux in the RGS and EPIC below $``$ 0.4 keV argues for a strong interstellar absorption consistent with that seen at optical wavelengths (NH $``$ 1022cm-2). Interstellar O edge is well marked at 23.3 Å and there are clear evidences for the presence of Fe-L and Ne edges at 17.54 Å and 14.30 Å respectively, although, part of these structures could also be due to intrinsic spectral features from the hot atmosphere.

In the absence of proper modelling of the emission spectrum it is impossible to derive fundamental parameters such as temperature, density, gravity and luminosity. Also, since most of the lines are suspected to be blended, line profile distortions due to bulk motion for instance are difficult to analyse in details. There seems however to be a clean case of a P Cygni profile in the Lyman $`\alpha `$ O viii line at 18.97 Å, which is relatively free of contaminating lines from other species. As noted by Bearda et al. (bea02 (2002)), other Fe lines have P Cygni - like profiles as well as the probable identification of Lyman $`\beta `$ O viii line at 16.00 Å which is however, suspected of being blended with Fe lines. The blue edge of the mean Ly $`\alpha `$ O viii P Cygni profile shown in Fig. 7 is at velocities close to 2000 km s-1 slightly larger than the 1500 km s-1 derived by Bearda et al. (bea02 (2002)), but much less than that of the transient collimated wind or jet discovered by Motch (m98 (1998)).

### 4.2 Variability with orbital phases and flux level

The RGS 1 and 2 summed spectra for revolutions 187 and 188 are identical within the error bars. Over the 13 to 20 Å range the source appears slightly brighter by $``$ 12 $`\pm `$ 4 % in the last observation. However, the flux increase seems to occur over the whole energy range and the difference RGS spectrum does not show marked features which would give hints towards a change in the physical conditions of the source or of its environment.

The variability seen in the EPIC light curve on time scales larger than 1000 s is also detected in the RGS light curves. We thus tried to see whether marked differences could be found in the line intensities of the low and high flux states in order to shed light on the mechanism giving rise to the small flux variations. For that purpose, we created RGS light curves by selecting events in the area of the $`\beta `$ / x-disp RGS plane where the source lies (see den Herder et al., denherder (2001) for a description of the RGS on board XMM-Newton). For each observation, a summed RGS 1 and 2 light curve was created with 100 sec bins. Two time intervals series corresponding to count rates below and above 0.73 cts/s and 0.61 cts/s for the first and second observations respectively were used to accumulate low and high state RGS spectra with similar exposure times. The last part of the second observation, contaminated by high background has been discarded. SAS task rgsfluxer was then used to add together low and high state spectra of different instruments and observations. Overall the high to low count rate ratio is 1.23. The two spectra shown in Fig. 6 are very similar. The only noticeable differences are a possible higher emissivity at $``$ 13.62 Å (Fe xix?), 16.05 (Fe xviii,O viii ?) and 17.40 Å and lower emissivity at $``$ 14.44 Å, 14.52 Å(Fe xviii ?) in the high flux spectrum. The Lyman $`\alpha `$ O viii P Cygni profile, once corrected for the different flux levels shows some evidence for a flux dependence. Although the terminal velocity remains close to the $``$ 2000 km s-1 seen in the average profile (Fig. 7), the low velocity part of the profile seems more absorbed (or the emission less strong) at low flux. The two RGS individually give similar pictures, albeit with a lower significance.

We applied the same analysis to EPIC pn spectra, using this time EPIC pn count rates to define three flux levels (high, low and medium) with equal corresponding exposure times. The mean EPIC pn count rate of RX J0925.7-4758 is $``$ 6 cts/s, well below the limit of 12 cts/s set for pile-up in the large window mode. In order to minimize any residual effect due to pile-up we restricted our analysis to pn pattern = 0 events. Fig. 8 shows the ratio of the high to low EPIC pn spectra plotted for the merged revolutions 187 and 188 data. Although the NLTE model atmosphere of Bearda et al. (bea02 (2002)) does not satisfactorily fit the EPIC pn spectrum, it provides a better representation than black body spectra and can be used to estimate the expected distortion of the energy distribution if it was only due to photoelectric absorption. In the 0.5-1.0 keV range the high to low ratio of 1.277 can be mimicked by a change from NH = 1.485 1022 to 1.540 1022 cm-2, keeping all other parameters constant. The almost ’grey’ flux variation from 400 to 900 eV is clearly at variance with what would be expected from photoelectric absorption by cold material with changing column density. The high to low flux ratio is significantly larger above $``$ 940 eV. Unfortunately RGS data are not sensitive enough to confirm the EPIC pn behavior. In the absence of overall spectral model, no clear explanation exists yet for this high energy bump. Remaining pile-up effects could account for part or all of the increase. However, results from the diagnostics SAS 5.3 task epatplot suggest that pile-up is not strong enough to account for all of the observed effect.

## 5 Radial velocities

Although we do not have yet any spectral model adequate for representing RGS data, the weakness of the observed spectral changes with either orbital phase or X-ray flux level offers the possibility to search for radial velocity variations, ignoring thus the complications of the unknown underlying physics and taking advantage of the wealth of relatively sharp spectral features. The lack of identified unblended lines from the stellar atmosphere does not allow to compute absolute velocities and furthermore the RGS wavelength calibration may not be known with enough accuracy. However, comparison of the two observations obtained two days apart may allow to reveal radial velocity changes with orbital phase. For that purpose we applied a cross correlation algorithm, frequently used in optical spectroscopy and described in details in Tonry & Davis (tondav79 (1979)). Spectra were created using SAS task rgsfluxer for each instrument and observation. Their wavelength step of 0.0103 Å samples well the instrument FWHM resolution which is $``$ 0.07 Å ($``$ 1200 km s-1) in the 14 - 19 Å range where most of the flux is present. After removing wavelength bins with high associated errors the log $`\lambda `$ spectra were linearly interpolated over a velocity grid with constant steps of 15 km s-1. Absorption edges produced by cold material have much less amplitude and structures than those of emission lines from the hot atmosphere. Therefore, these features which may be partly fixed in velocity should have little influence on the amplitude of global Doppler shifts. In the wavelength range 14.18 Å to 18.55 Å the peak resulting from the cross-correlation of the merged RGS 1 and 2 spectra from revolutions 187 and 188 has a Gaussian shape and its center is displaced by $``$ 170 km s-1 (see Fig. 9, left panel).

In order to estimate the significance of this velocity shift we generated artificial RGS spectra adding to the observed data a random value normally distributed with a sigma equal to the assigned error of the wavelength bin. In this manner we can realistically account for the varying statistical quality over the spectrum. These artificial spectra were cross-correlated applying the same procedure as the real ones and the resulting peak was fitted by a Gaussian. This process was typically repeated between 1,000 and 5,000 times. The distribution of the Gaussian centroids is clearly shifted whatever the wavelength interval used between 14.18 Å and 18.55 Å and independently of the instrument considered, R1 alone, R2 alone or R1 \+ R2 merged (see Fig. 9, right panel). We list in Table 2 the results of the Monte Carlo error calculation for different configurations.

Obviously, the most accurate determination is obtained by using the largest wavelength range and the two RGS detectors. However, the measured displacements are all consistent especially those derived from the completely independent RGS 1 and RGS 2 instruments. The revised ephemeris of Schmidtke & Cowley (schmi01 (2001)) and phase of minimum velocity read from their Fig. 4 predict for the He ii $`\lambda `$ 4686 an average velocity difference of $``$ 120 to 140 km s-1 between observations in revolutions 187 ($`\mathrm{\Phi }_{Phot}`$ = 0.818-0.977) and 188 ($`\mathrm{\Phi }_{Phot}`$ = 0.312-0.473). This compares well with the best RGS value of 173 $`\pm `$ 47 km s-1 and gives further evidence that the velocity shift seen in the RGS is real. The sigma of the Gaussian cross correlation peak indicates an average FWHM width of $``$ 3600 km s-1. This width is significantly larger than the intrinsic resolution of the RGS and suggests that line blending and/or wind effects such as seen in the Lyman $`\alpha `$ O viii P Cygni profile affect most of the spectrum.

In order to check these results we fitted with xspec Gaussian profiles on the top of a flat continuum to two of the largest and apparently weakly blended lines at 15.015 Å(Fe xvii) and close to 17.6 Å(Fe xviii). We used the raw background corrected spectra and their corresponding response matrix files to fit the two RGS simultaneously. This method is in principle the most correct one since profile distortions are explicitely taken into account. Note however, that as long as spectral features do not have orbital phase dependent profiles, as it seems to be the case here, the cross correlation method applied to spectra generated by the SAS task rgsfluxer should yield correct results. Xspec fits indicate a mean displacement of 173 $`\pm `$ 73 km s-1 comparable to that resulting from the cross correlation method. Since we only consider here two lines the significance of the velocity shift is expectedly smaller than when using all spectral features together. However, the fact that the shifts derived from xspec are comparable to those computed from the spectra created by rgsfluxer is an independent confirmation of the reality of the velocity difference betweeen the two RGS observations.

## 6 Discussion and Conclusions

XMM-Newton RGS spectra have revealed a wealth of spectral features, some of them being apparently resolved by the RGS. Emission and also maybe absorption lines due to various iron ions are seen as well as Lyman $`\alpha `$ O viii. The RGS spectra confirm all the features seen in the Chandra HETGS by Bearda et al. (bea02 (2002)) and illustrate further the difficulty to correctly model the emission of hot white dwarf atmospheres. Clearly, more sophisticated models including wind effects are required.

The X-ray spectrum of RX J0925.7-4758 display little changes with both X-ray flux level and orbital phase. At the start of the first observation, the X-ray source is receding with maximum positive He ii velocity while two days later the source moves towards us with maximum negative He ii velocities. This means that the geometrical configuration of the system is not very different between the two observations. In the absence of wake material, the column density due to the wind of the mass donor star does not change drastically and this is at first order consistent with the lack of large phase dependence of the RGS spectrum.

Very few lines show evidences for possible intensity related variations and the EPIC pn clearly indicates that absorption by cold material is not the mechanism responsible for the X-ray modulations. Interestingly, the 0.21 d period for X-ray oscillations is very close to the 0.23 d preferred time scale reported by Schmidtke et al. (schmi00 (2000)) in the optical light curve. The full amplitude of sine fit to the soft X-ray flux modulation at 0.21 d is $``$ 11% while that of the optical V band modulation is between two and three times less ($``$ 4% Schmidtke et al. schmi00 (2000)). Since we do not have simultaneous optical V band and X-ray observations we do not know the exact flux ratio nor phasing of the modulations. OM data are not of high enough S/N to reveal a modulation at the level of a few percents. Observations at the Dutch telescope were too short to constrain the amplitude of a contemporaneous 0.2 d optical periodicity. However, such an optical to X-ray amplitude ratio is expected when optical emission is dominated by X-ray heating of the companion star or of the accretion disk (see e.g. Van Paradijs & Mc. Clintock vm94 (1994), Matsuoka et al. ma84 (1984)). A change in the visible emitting area of the accreting white dwarf by the internal rim of the accretion disc could thus explain both the X-ray and optical 0.2 d modulation. Simultaneous X-ray and optical photometric observations may reveal beating effects at the 4 d orbital period and could thus constrain the amount of optical light resulting from X-ray heating of the mass donor star and/or of the accretion disk bulge.

The RGS spectra also confirm the existence of a strong wind clearly affecting the Lyman $`\alpha `$ O viii emission line and probably many other lines. The wind velocity of $``$ 2000 km s-1 is more than two times slower than the velocity of the transient jet detected by Motch (m98 (1998)) at 5200 km s-1 or of that of the candidate receding $`\lambda `$ 6680.3 Å component proposed by Schmidtke et al. (schmi00 (2000)) at 5350 km s-1. In the absence of realistic model atmosphere including wind effects, it is difficult to strictly rule out the presence of weak satellite lines at $`\pm `$ 5200 km s-1 in the RGS spectrum. The autocorrelation of the RGS spectra do show some signal at similar velocity shifts. However, a more likely explanation is the presence of several iron lines with the adequate spacing in wavelength.

Amazingly, the amplitude and direction of the RGS radial velocity changes with orbital phase (173 $`\pm `$ 47 km s-1) is fully compatible with that expected from the He ii $`\lambda `$ 4686 optical line. This observation thus supports the idea that in this system at least, the He ii $`\lambda `$ 4686 velocity represents the orbital motion of the X-ray source. This may be one of the first observation measuring orbital Doppler shifts in high energy spectral features from an X-ray source. Our coverage in orbital phase is not dense enough to derive the amplitude and phasing of the X-ray lines with respect to the optical He ii line. As for the H$`\alpha `$ line, some of the He ii emission may arise from the heated hemisphere of the companion star or from the bulge of the accretion disc. This additional component may reduce the amplitude of the He ii velocity change with respect to KX and add some phase lag. A long RGS observation of RX J0925.7-4758 may thus be able to measure with relatively high accuracy the true orbital velocity of the accreting object. A reliable KX estimate could help constraining the mass ratio and check whether the high mass transfer in RX J0925.7-4758 can be driven by thermally unstable Roche lobe overflow.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank E. Rol for carrying the optical observations at the Dutch telescope on La Silla and E. Janot-Pacheco for helping in the organization of the observations. We are also grateful to the referee for suggesting several improvements and to M.W. Pakull for useful discussions.


text:
# Ferromagnetic Luttinger Liquids

(July 12, 2002)

## Abstract

We study weak itinerant ferromagnetism in one-dimensional Fermi systems using perturbation theory and bosonization. We find that longitudinal spin fluctuations propagate ballistically with velocity $`v_mv_F`$, where $`v_F`$ is the Fermi velocity. This leads to a large anomalous dimension in the spin-channel and strong algebraic singularities in the single-particle spectral function and in the transverse structure factor for momentum transfers $`q2\mathrm{\Delta }/v_F`$, where $`2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the exchange splitting.

Recently several authors presented conductance measurements in ultra low-disorder semiconductor quantum wires and suggested that an unusual feature in the range $`0.50.7\times 2e^2/h`$ of conductance can be explained in terms of spontaneous ferromagnetism Thomas96 ; Reilly02 ; PhysicsToday02 . At first sight this interpretation seems to contradict the Lieb-Mattis theorem Lieb62 , which rules out magnetized ground states for electrons moving on a line, as well as for one-band lattice models in one dimension ($`1d`$) with nearest-neighbor hopping and interactions involving densities. However, there is no fundamental principle that forbids ferromagnetic ground states in quasi $`1d`$ systems with finite width or one-band lattice models in $`1d`$ with more general hoppings. Indeed, numerical studies Daul98  show that the ground state of the $`1d`$ Hubbard model with hopping between nearest and next-nearest neighbors can be ferromagnetic in a substantial range of densities and on-site interactions $`U`$. Clearly, the precise form of the energy dispersion $`ϵ_k`$ plays an important role in stabilizing ferromagnetism Moriya85 ; Mielke93 ; Vollhardt01 . In principle, it should therefore be possible to design metallic systems with ferromagnetic ground states by properly adjusting the hopping integrals between the relevant orbitals. A promising class of $`1d`$ materials where this might be achieved are certain types of organic polymers Arita02 , whose molecular structure can be designed in a controlled manner in the laboratory. Motivated by these new developments, in this work we shall use a combination of perturbation theory and bosonization to derive some physical properties of itinerant ferromagnets in $`1d`$.

Let us briefly consider this problem from a renormalization group (RG) point of view. The usual RG approach to $`1d`$ metals is based on the assumption that their long-wavelength and low-energy properties are determined by wavevectors $`k`$ in the vicinity of the Fermi wavevectors $`\pm k_F`$. Given a general energy dispersion $`ϵ_k`$, it therefore seems reasonable to expand for $`k`$ close to $`k_F`$

$$ϵ_k=ϵ_{k_F}+v_F(kk_F)+\frac{(kk_F)^2}{2m^{}}+\frac{\lambda }{6}(kk_F)^3+\mathrm{},$$
(1)
and similarly for $`kk_F`$. By power counting, the Fermi velocity $`v_F`$ is a marginal coupling, while the inverse effective mass $`1/m^{}`$ and the cubic parameter $`\lambda `$ are irrelevant in the RG sense. In the field-theoretical formulation of the RG Solyom79 , these irrelevant couplings are simply ignored. However, as shown below, the cubic term in Eq. (1) is crucial to stabilize a ferromagnetic ground state in $`1d`$, so that a proper RG treatment of itinerant ferromagnetism should include also the irrelevant couplings associated with band curvature effects. Therefore methods which cannot properly handle these couplings, such as the field-theoretical RG Solyom79  or bosonization, lose much of their power. Nevertheless, as shown below, in certain regimes bosonization is still useful to obtain nonperturbative results for correlation functions.

We consider the following Hamiltonian describing interacting electrons on a $`1d`$ lattice with length $`L`$,

$$\widehat{H}=\underset{k\sigma }{}ϵ_k\widehat{c}_{k\sigma }^{}\widehat{c}_{k\sigma }^{}+\frac{1}{2L}\underset{q,ij}{}f_{ij}\widehat{\rho }_i(q)\widehat{\rho }_j(q),$$
(2)
where $`\widehat{c}_{k\sigma }^{}`$ and $`\widehat{c}_{k\sigma }^{}`$ are creation and annihilation operators for electrons with momentum $`k`$ and spin $`\sigma `$. The labels $`i`$ and $`j`$ assume values in $`\{n,m\}`$, where $`n`$ corresponds to the charge density $`\widehat{\rho }_n(q)=_{k\sigma }\widehat{c}_{k\sigma }^{}\widehat{c}_{k+q\sigma }^{}`$, and $`m`$ denotes the spin density $`\widehat{\rho }_m(q)=_{k\sigma }\sigma \widehat{c}_{k\sigma }^{}\widehat{c}_{k+q\sigma }^{}`$. To discuss spontaneous symmetry breaking we should start from a spin-rotationally invariant $`\widehat{H}`$, which constrains the bare $`f_{ij}`$ to satisfy $`f_{nm}=f_{mn}=0`$ and precludes any momentum-dependence of $`f_mf_{mm}`$. We also take $`f_nf_{nn}`$ to be momentum-independent footnoteHubbard .

As a first step, we study the ferromagnetic instability within Hartree-Fock theory. Adding and subtracting the counterterm $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma (m)=f_nn+\sigma f_mm`$, where $`n=\widehat{\rho }_n(0)/L`$ is the density and $`m=\widehat{\rho }_m(0)/L`$ is the spin density, we may write $`\widehat{H}=\widehat{H}_0+\widehat{H}_1`$, with

$$\widehat{H}_0\mu \widehat{N}=\underset{k\sigma }{}\xi _{k\sigma }\widehat{c}_{k\sigma }^{}\widehat{c}_{k\sigma }^{}\frac{L}{2}[f_nn^2+f_mm^2],$$
(3)
and $`\widehat{H}_1=(2L)^1_{q,i}f_i\delta \widehat{\rho }_i(q)\delta \widehat{\rho }_i(q).`$ Here $`\xi _{k\sigma }=ϵ_k\mu +\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma (m)`$ is the Hartree-Fock energy, $`\delta \widehat{\rho }_i(q)=\widehat{\rho }_i(q)\delta _{q,0}\widehat{\rho }_i(0)`$, and $`\widehat{N}=\widehat{\rho }_n(0)`$. In the ferromagnetic state the Fermi wavevectors $`k_\sigma `$ and velocities $`v_\sigma `$ are defined by $`ϵ_{k_\sigma }\mu +\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma (m)=0`$ and $`v_\sigma =ϵ_k/k|_{k_\sigma }`$, while in the normal state $`ϵ_{k_F}\mu +\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma (0)=0`$ and $`v_F=ϵ_k/k|_{k_F}`$. Hence $`ϵ_{k_\sigma }ϵ_{k_F}+f_n\delta n=\sigma \mathrm{\Delta }`$ where $`\mathrm{\Delta }=f_mm`$ and $`\delta n=n(m)n(0)`$. For convenience we keep the chemical potential $`\mu `$ constant, so that the density $`n`$ is a function of $`m`$. The two equations $`ϵ_{k_\sigma }ϵ_{k_F}+f_n\delta n=\sigma \mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`\sigma =\pm 1`$, together with the self-consistency conditions $`m=\pi ^1(k_{}k_{})`$ and $`\delta n=\pi ^1(k_{}+k_{}2k_F)`$ fix the four quantities $`k_{}`$, $`k_{}`$, $`\delta n`$, and $`m`$.

Throughout this work we shall assume $`mn`$ (weak ferromagnetism). The low-energy properties are then determined by wavevectors in the vicinity of the Fermi surface, as discussed in the classic work by Dzyaloshinskiĭ and Kondratenko Dzyaloshinskii76 . Hence we may expand $`ϵ_k`$ around $`\pm k_F`$. To leading order, it is sufficient to truncate the expansion at the third order, see Eq. (1). Keeping in mind that $`\pi mk_F`$ and defining $`q_m=\mathrm{\Delta }/v_F`$ we obtain

$`k_\sigma k_F`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma q_m{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _1q_m^2}{2(1+F_0)}}2\sigma Aq_m^3+\mathrm{},`$ (4)
where $`A=\frac{1}{12}(\lambda _2\frac{3\lambda _1^2}{1+F_0})`$, with $`\lambda _1=1/(m^{}v_F)`$, $`\lambda _2=\lambda /v_F`$, and $`F_0=2f_n/\pi v_F`$. The Fermi velocities are

$$v_\sigma /v_F=1+\sigma \lambda _1q_m+\frac{1}{2}\left(\lambda _2\frac{\lambda _1^2}{1+F_0}\right)q_m^2+\mathrm{}.$$
(5)
Substituting Eq. (4) into $`m=\pi ^1(k_{}k_{})`$, it is easy to see that, besides the solution $`m=0`$, there is a nontrivial solution $`\pi m_0=[2(I_01)/(I_0^3A)]^{1/2}`$, provided the radicand is positive. Here $`I_0=2f_m/\pi v_F`$ is the dimensionless Stoner parameter Moriya85 . To see whether the solution $`m_0`$ is stable, we consider the energy change $`\delta \mathrm{\Omega }_0(m)=\mathrm{\Omega }_0(m)\mathrm{\Omega }_0(0)`$ due to a finite value of $`m`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0(m)=\widehat{H}_0\mu \widehat{N}`$. We obtain

$$\delta \mathrm{\Omega }_0(m)=\frac{Lv_F}{4\pi }\left[I_0(I_01)(\pi m)^2+\frac{A}{4}I_0^4(\pi m)^4+\mathrm{}\right].$$
(6)
Obviously, a necessary condition for $`m_0`$ to represent a minimum of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0(m)`$ is $`A0`$. In addition, the square root $`[2(I_01)/(I_0^3A)]^{1/2}`$ is only real if either $`I_0<0`$ or $`I_0>1`$. For consistency, we should also require that $`\pi m_0k_F`$ and that the band-structure is such that the higher order corrections in Eq. (6) are small. For some special form of $`ϵ_k`$ it should be possible to satisfy these conditions even for small negative $`I_0`$ provided $`k_F^2A\pi ^2|I_0|^3`$. Here we shall not further consider this case, but focus instead on the regime close to the Stoner threshold, where $`I_0`$ is slightly larger than unity. The distance from the critical point is then measured by the small parameter $`\delta _02(I_01)/I_0`$. Interestingly, the numerical results of Ref. Daul98,  indeed show a critical $`I_0`$ of order unity for not too large densities, which suggests that even in $`1d`$ the Stoner criterion can be a reasonable estimate for the ferromagnetic instability.

For simplicity we now set $`f_n=f_m=f_0>0`$, corresponding to a repulsive Hubbard on-site interaction footnoteHubbard . Note that close to the phase transition $`I_0=F_0=1+𝒪(\delta _0)`$. Let us first consider the density-density ($`\chi _{nn}`$) and the longitudinal spin-spin ($`\chi _{mm}`$) correlation functions. Within the random-phase approximation (RPA) we obtain

$`\chi _{nn}^{\mathrm{RPA}}(q,i\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`[\chi _{}^0+\chi _{}^04f_0\chi _{}^0\chi _{}^0]/D,`$ (7a)
$`\chi _{mm}^{\mathrm{RPA}}(q,i\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`[\chi _{}^0+\chi _{}^0+4f_0\chi _{}^0\chi _{}^0]/D,`$ (7b)
where $`D(q,i\omega )=14f_0^2\chi _{}^0\chi _{}^0`$, and

$$\chi _{\sigma \sigma ^{}}^0(q,i\omega )=\frac{1}{L}\underset{k}{}\frac{f(\xi _{k+q/2,\sigma ^{}})f(\xi _{kq/2,\sigma })}{\xi _{k+q/2,\sigma ^{}}\xi _{kq/2,\sigma }i\omega }.$$
(8)
Here $`f(E)`$ is the Fermi function. For small $`q`$ and $`\omega `$ we may approximate

$`\chi _{\sigma \sigma }^0(q,i\omega )`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{v_\sigma }{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{(v_\sigma q)^2+\omega ^2}}.`$ (9)
For $`\omega >0`$ the dynamic structure factors $`S_i^{\mathrm{RPA}}(q,\omega )=\pi ^1\mathrm{Im}\chi _{ii}^{\mathrm{RPA}}(q,\omega +i0)`$ can then be written as

$$S_i^{\mathrm{RPA}}(q,\omega )=Z_i|q|\delta (\omega v_i|q|),$$
(10)
with $`Z_n=[\pi \sqrt{1+F_0}]^1`$, $`v_n=v_F\sqrt{1+F_0}`$, and $`Z_m=[\pi \sqrt{\delta _0}]^1`$, $`v_m=v_F\sqrt{\delta _0}`$. Note that $`S_i^{\mathrm{RPA}}(q,\omega )`$ satisfy the sum rules Forster75  $`2lim_{q0}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\omega }{\omega }S_i^{\mathrm{RPA}}(q,\omega )=\chi _i`$, with the compressibility $`\chi _n=[\pi v_F(1+F_0)]^1`$ and the spin susceptibility $`\chi _m=2/(\pi v_F\delta _0)`$. The latter is related to the Hartree-Fock energy (6) via $`\chi _m^1=L^1^2\mathrm{\Omega }_0(m)/m^2|_{m_0}`$. We conclude that longitudinal spin fluctuations in $`1d`$ can propagate ballistically, with velocity $`v_mv_F`$. In contrast, in $`3d`$ itinerant ferromagnets the longitudinal spin mode can decay into particle-hole pairs and is therefore strongly Landau-damped Moriya85 .

Next, let us calculate the transverse spin-spin correlation function $`\chi _{}(q,i\omega )`$ within the ladder approximation shown in Fig. 1, which yields

$$\chi _{}^{\mathrm{LAD}}(q,i\omega )=[\chi _{}^0(q,i\omega )^12f_0]^1.$$
(11)
For $`|q|q_m`$ and $`|\omega |\mathrm{\Delta }`$ we may expand

$$\chi _{}^0(q,i\omega )\frac{m_0}{2\mathrm{\Delta }}\left[1+\frac{i\omega }{2\mathrm{\Delta }}Bq^2\right],$$
(12)
with the nonuniversal constant footnoteB  $`B=\frac{1}{12}[\lambda _2\lambda _1^2]`$. Note that $`BA>0`$.

Using $`\mathrm{\Delta }=f_0m_0`$ we obtain

$$\chi _{}^{\mathrm{LAD}}(q,i\omega )=\frac{m_0}{i\omega bq^2},$$
(13)
where $`b=2\mathrm{\Delta }B`$ is the spin wave stiffness. This implies a $`\delta `$-function peak in the dynamic structure factor, $`S_{}(q,\omega )=m_0\delta (\omega bq^2)`$, which exhausts the sum rule $`_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\omega }{\omega }S_{}(q,\omega )=m_0/bq^2`$. The existence of well-defined transverse spin waves in the symmetry broken phase follows from general hydrodynamic arguments Forster75 . However, in $`1d`$ it may well be that interactions lead to anomalous damping of spin waves and a breakdown of hydrodynamics. This problem deserves further attention.

Because the ferromagnetic instability is triggered by interactions with zero momentum transfer, we expect that at low energies the relevant interaction is dominated by forward scattering. Moreover, for $`m=0`$ it is known that repulsive backscattering interactions are marginally irrelevant Solyom79 . We assume that this remains true in the ferromagnetic state and expect that this assumption can be verified using RG methods. Note also that weak ferromagnetism in $`3d`$ can be understood within the framework of Fermi liquid theory Dzyaloshinskii76 , so that it is natural to expect that Luttinger liquid theory is the corresponding low-energy theory in $`1d`$, at least if the characteristic magnetic wavevector $`q_m`$ is small compared with $`k_F`$.

The leading long-distance behavior of correlation functions can then be obtained from a generalized Tomonaga-Luttinger model, where the energy dispersion is linearized around the Fermi points $`\pm k_\sigma `$. Introducing a bandwidth cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ such that $`q_m\mathrm{\Lambda }k_F`$ and defining field operators $`\widehat{\psi }_\sigma ^\alpha (q)=\sqrt{L}\widehat{c}_{\alpha k_\sigma +q,\sigma }`$, where $`\alpha =\pm 1`$ labels the Fermi points, the kinetic energy is represented by $`_{\alpha \sigma }_\mathrm{\Lambda }^\mathrm{\Lambda }\frac{dq}{2\pi }\alpha v_\sigma q\widehat{\psi }_\sigma ^\alpha (q)\widehat{\psi }_\sigma ^\alpha (q)`$. The interaction is formally identical with Eq. (2), but with an implicit momentum transfer cutoff $`1/r_0k_F`$ and the density operators now given by $`\widehat{\rho }_n(q)=_{\alpha \sigma }_\mathrm{\Lambda }^\mathrm{\Lambda }\frac{dq^{}}{2\pi }\widehat{\psi }_\sigma ^\alpha (q^{})\widehat{\psi }_\sigma ^\alpha (q^{}+q)`$, and similarly for the spin-density operator $`\widehat{\rho }_m(q)`$. Moreover, the bare couplings $`f_{ij}`$ in Eq. (2) should be replaced by renormalized low-energy couplings $`g_{ij}`$, which characterize the Luttinger liquid fixed point Penc93 . Note that for $`m0`$ the renormalized interaction is not spin-rotationally invariant, so that in general $`g_{nm}0`$. However, for $`mn`$ we expect that the generic behavior of correlation functions (with the possible exception of $`\chi _{}(q,\omega )`$ in the spin wave regime $`|q|q_m`$) can be correctly obtained for the special case $`g_{nm}=0`$ and $`g_{nn}=g_{mm}g>0`$.

Given the effective low-energy theory, the closed loop theorem Dzyaloshinskii73  guarantees that all corrections to the RPA for the density-density and longitudinal spin-spin correlation functions cancel for small $`q`$ and $`\omega `$. Hence Eqs. (7a) and (7b) are asymptotically exact if we replace the bare quantities $`f_0`$, $`I_0`$ and $`\delta _0`$ by the corresponding renormalized quantities $`g`$, $`I`$ and $`\delta `$. In particular, the existence of a propagating longitudinal spin mode with velocity $`v_m=v_F\sqrt{\delta }v_F`$ is a robust result, and not an artifact of the RPA.

Due to the linearized energy dispersion and the irrelevance of scattering processes with large momentum transfers, the single-particle Green function $`G_\sigma (x,\tau )`$ can be calculated exactly using bosonization in real space and imaginary time. For $`\mathrm{max}\{|x|,v_i|\tau |\}r_0`$ we obtain

$`G_\sigma (x,\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi i}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{r_0^2}{x^2+v_n^2\tau ^2}}\right]^{\eta _n/2}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{r_0^2}{x^2+v_m^2\tau ^2}}\right]^{\eta _m/2}`$ (14)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{i\alpha k_\sigma x}}{[\alpha x+iv_n\tau ]^{1/2}[\alpha x+iv_m\tau ]^{1/2}}}.`$
Here $`\eta _i=\frac{1}{4}(K_i+K_i^12)`$, with $`K_n=[I+1]^{1/2}`$ and $`K_m=[2(I1)]^{1/2}`$. Note that the anomalous dimension $`\eta _m`$ of the spin channel diverges for $`I1`$. This singularity is also found directly from the universal Luttinger liquid relation Schulz90  $`\chi _i=2K_i/\pi v_i`$ together with the above RPA results for $`\chi _m`$ and $`v_m`$. We note that an analogous scenario has recently been found for the charge channel of the $`1d`$ $`t`$-$`J`$ model in the vicinity of the phase separation instability Nakamura97 .

Finally, let us consider the transverse spin-spin correlation function $`\chi _{}(x,\tau )`$, which, due to the linearized energy dispersion, can also be calculated for large $`x`$ and $`\tau `$ by bosonization. Following Ref. Bartosch99,  we obtain for $`\mathrm{max}\{|x|,v_m|\tau |\}r_0`$

$$\chi _{}(x,\tau )=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}\left[\frac{r_0^2}{x^2+v_m^2\tau ^2}\right]^{2\eta _m}\underset{\alpha }{}\frac{e^{i\alpha (k_{}k_{})x}}{[\alpha x+iv_m\tau ]^2}.$$
(15)
The leading diagrams taken into account in Eq. (15) are shown in Fig. 2;

they contain the ladder diagrams of Fig. 1 as a subset, but include in addition self-energy corrections, screening bubbles, and complicated vertex corrections. It is important to realize that Eq. (15) can only be used to obtain the Fourier transform $`\chi _{}(q,i\omega )=𝑑x𝑑\tau e^{i(qx\omega \tau )}\chi _{}(x,\tau )`$ for wavevectors close to $`\pm (k_{}k_{})`$, i.e. for $`|q(k_{}k_{})|q_m`$. In the spin wave regime $`|q|q_m`$ the transverse spin-spin correlation function cannot be calculated using abelian bosonization with linearized energy dispersion, because (i) the ladder approximation suggests that the spin wave dispersion depends on the nonlinear terms of the energy dispersion, and (ii) the existence of spin waves follows from the spontaneous breaking of spin-rotational invariance, so that their dispersion cannot be obtained using a method which explicitly violates this symmetry. On the other hand, for $`|q(k_{}k_{})|q_m`$ the Fourier transform of Eq. (15) yields an accurate approximation for the transverse dynamic structure factor $`S_{}(q,\omega )`$. For $`\omega >0`$ we obtain

$`S_{}(q,\omega )=`$ $`C_m\mathrm{\Theta }(\omega v_m||q|k_{}+k_{}|)`$
$`\times [\omega v_m(|q|k_{}+k_{})]^{2\eta _m1}`$
$`\times [\omega +v_m(|q|k_{}+k_{})]^{2\eta _m+1},`$ (16)
with $`C_m=[4\pi v_m\mathrm{\Gamma }(2\eta _m)\mathrm{\Gamma }(2+2\eta _m)]^1(r_0/v_m)^{4\eta _m}`$. The region where $`S_{}(q,\omega )`$ is finite represents the $`1d`$ Stoner continuum. The complete picture of low-energy spin excitations is depicted in Fig. 3 and is qualitatively quite similar to its $`3d`$ counterpart Moriya85 .

However, in $`1d`$ there is no Landau damping and the structure factor shows anomalous scaling associated with broken spin-rotational symmetry of a Luttinger liquid phase.

For an outlook from a renormalization-group perspective, we note that while the ferromagnetic ground state is stabilized by nonlinear terms in the energy dispersion close to the Fermi points, the flow of the corresponding irrelevant couplings is not accessible within the usual field-theoretical RG Solyom79 . However, using modern formulations of the RG Kopietz01  based on Wilson’s idea of eliminating degrees of freedom and rescaling, it should be possible to examine the subtle role played by irrelevant couplings in stabilizing a ferromagnetic ground state in $`1d`$.

In conclusion, we presented the effective low-energy theory of weakly ferromagnetic Luttinger liquids. Many of their properties only depend on the effective Stoner parameter $`I`$, i.e., on the distance $`\delta =2(I1)/I1`$ from the ferromagnetic instability. Neutron scattering experiments should be able to test our predictions for spin-spin correlation functions. Furthermore the propagating longitudinal mode with small velocity $`v_m\delta ^{1/2}`$ and large residue $`Z_m\delta ^{1/2}`$ dominates some thermodynamic quantities, for example through the divergence of the uniform spin susceptibility, $`\chi _mZ_m/v_m\delta ^1`$. The discussed features of the weakly ferromagnetic regime should be accessible in specially designed organic polymers Arita02 , for which the effective Stoner parameter $`I`$ can be controlled by adjusting the density via external gate voltages. Our predictions are also relevant to semiconductor quantum wires which are believed to show spontaneous ferromagnetism Thomas96 ; Reilly02 ; PhysicsToday02 .

This work was supported by the DFG via Forschergruppe FOR 412, Project No. KO 1442/5-1.