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# Nature of the Soft Spectral Component in the X-ray Pulsars SMC X-1 and LMC X-4

## 1 Introduction

The X-ray continuum spectra of accreting pulsars are often described as a broken power-law or a power-law with exponential cutoff. The break in the spectrum is in the range of 10–20 keV and power-law photon index below the break energy is in the range of 0–1 (White, Nagase & Parmar 1995). Some binary X-ray pulsars which are away from the Galactic plane and therefore experience less interstellar absorption, show the presence of a soft component in the spectrum which is often modeled as a black-body and/or thermal bremsstrahlung emission (SMC X-1: Marshall, White, & Becker 1983; Woo et al. 1995; Wojdowski et al. 1998; LMC X-4: Dennerl 1989; Woo et al. 1996; RX J0059.2–7138: Kohno, Yokogawa, & Koyama 2000; 4U 1626–67: Orlandini et al. 1998; Her X-l: McCray et al. 1982, Dal Fiume et al. 1998; Oosterbroek et al. 1997, 2000; Endo, Nagase & Mihara 2000) or an inversely broken power-law (XTE J0111.2–7317: Yokogawa et al. 2000b). The soft component in 4U 1626–67, when modeled as a black-body emission requires the size of emission region to be comparable to that of the neutron star because the intrinsic luminosity of this source is of the order of 1035 erg s-1 (Orlandini et al. 1998). On the other hand, the soft component in Her X-1 can be modeled as a black-body which is reprocessed emission from the innermost part of the accretion disk (Endo et al. 2000). However, for the bright pulsars in the Magellanic Clouds for which the distance is of the order of 50–60 kpc and the luminosity is close to the Eddington limit, the luminosity of the soft excess is about an order of magnitude larger compared to the same of Her X-1. Therefore, a pulsating nature of the soft component that has been observed in some high luminosity X-ray pulsars (LMC X-4 : Woo et al. 1996 and XTE J0111.2–7317 : Yokogawa et al. 2000b) needs to be probed with greater detail.

To investigate the pulse phase dependence of the soft component of accreting X-ray pulsars in detail, we have chosen two luminous X-ray pulsars SMC X-1 and LMC X-4, which are in the Magellanic Clouds and suffer less interstellar absorption. SMC X-1 and LMC X-4 are two bright, eclipsing, accreting, binary X-ray pulsars with spin periods of $``$0.7 and $``$13.5 s and binary periods of $``$3.9 and $``$1.4 day respectively. The companion of SMC X-1 is a B0 supergiant while the companion star of LMC X-4 is of type O7III-V. The binary orbits of both the systems are nearly circular. The orbital period of the two binaries are found to decay with time scale of 3 $`\times `$ 105 yr in SMC X-1 (Wojdowski et al. 1998), and 106 yr in LMC X-4 (Levine, Rappaport & Zojcheski 2000). Another striking similarity between these two sources is a long-period of 50–60 day and 30.5 day respectively, that is known to be quasi-stable in SMC X-1 (Wojdowski et al. 1998) and stable in LMC X-4 (Lang et al. 1981). The long-period is believed to be a result of (quasi) periodic obscuration of the neutron star by a precessing accretion disk, similar to that in Her X-1. Broad band energy-spectra (0.2–37 keV) of these two sources were studied by performing a combined fit to the observations made with ROSAT and GINGA (Woo et al. 1995; 1996). In addition to a cutoff power-law type component in SMC X-1 (photon index of $``$0.93, $`E_\mathrm{C}`$ = 5.6 keV, $`E_\mathrm{F}`$ = 15 keV) and power-law type component in LMC X-4 (photon index of $``$0.67) broad iron emission lines and soft excess were detected. The soft component was modeled as a single black-body component ($`kT_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ = 0.16 keV) in SMC X-1 and as a sum of a low temperature black-body emission ($`kT_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ = 0.03 keV) and a thermal bremsstrahlung emission ($`kT_{\mathrm{TB}}`$ = 0.35 keV) in LMC X-4. Beppo-SAX observations also showed presence of similar soft component (La Barbera et al. 2001). From HEAO-1 observations, the soft X-rays from SMC X-1 were found to be nonpulsating (Marshal et al. 1983). However, the ROSAT and ASCA observations detected clear pulsations with a pulse profile different from the hard component (Wojdowski et al. 1998). Pulse phase resolved spectroscopy of combined ROSAT and GINGA data of LMC X-4 revealed modulation of the thermal bremsstrahlung and iron line emission components with pulse phase (Woo et al. 1996).

We note that the combined fit of the ROSAT and GINGA spectra of these two sources were performed on non-simultaneous observations and the intensity and spectral shape of these sources are known to be variable. We have carried out pulse phase averaged and pulse phase resolved spectral studies in the 0.5–10.0 keV band. In this paper we present the results of our investigation to the nature of the soft excess through pulse profiles in different energy bands and variations of the different spectral components with pulse phase.

## 2 Observations

The observations of SMC X-1 and LMC X-4, presented here were made with the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA). ASCA is equipped with two Solid-state Imaging Spectrometers (SIS) and Gas Imaging Spectrometers (GIS), each at the focal plane of four identical mirrors of typical photon collecting area $``$150 cm2 at 6 keV. The energy resolution is 130 and 500 eV (FWHM) at 6 keV for the SIS and GIS detectors respectively. For more details about ASCA refer to Tanaka, Inoue & Holt (1994).

SMC X-1 was observed twice with ASCA during 1993 April 16–27, and 1995 October 18–19, and it was at the edge of the GIS field of view in an observation of XTE 0111.2–7317 made during 1998 November 18–19 (Yokogawa et al. 2000a; 2000b). The first observation was in the high state of its long-period intensity variation of 50–60 day, while the second one was in the low state. Results from timing, and some spectral analysis of these observations were presented by Wojdowski et al. (1998) and Yokogawa et al. (2000a). For the present study, we have selected the first observation made in 1993 which has the best photon statistics. In this observation, the GIS detectors were operated in normal PH mode with time resolution of 1.953 ms and 15.625 ms for high and medium bit-rate, respectively, while the SIS observations were made with one of the CCD chips, with time resolution of 4 s. Out of eclipse data obtained during the first 60 ks of the observation resulted into 20.5 ks and 18 ks of useful data with each of the GIS and SIS detectors respectively. The GIS and SIS spectra have been used for phase averaged spectroscopy while for phase resolved studies only data from GIS could be used. Wojdowski et al. (1998) determined the pulse periods and other orbital parameters of SMC X-1 from the ASCA observations.

LMC X-4 was observed with ASCA on three occasions, 1994 April 26–27, 1995 November 24–25, and 1996 May 24–25, all during the high state of its 30.5 day long-period. The second observation was carried out mainly during the eclipse. Of the remaining two, we have selected the third observation for the present study, because there were some dips in the first observation with associated spectral changes which makes the analysis more complicated. For analysis of the orbital period decay in LMC X-4, however, both the 1994 and 1996 observations were used. Some preliminary results from some of these observations were reported by Vrtilek et al. (1997). In the 1996 observation, the GIS detectors were operated in normal PH mode in which the time resolution is 62.5 ms and 500 ms at high and medium bit rates respectively. Total exposure of 36 ks was obtained with the GIS, of which 31 ks of observation is outside the eclipse. Observations with the SIS detectors were made with one of the CCD chips. SIS0 was operated in FAST mode with time resolution of 15.625 ms while SIS1 was operated in BRIGHT (imaging) mode which has a time resolution of 4 s. The average total exposure and out of eclipse exposure with the two SIS detectors were 33.5 ks and 28.5 ks respectively. The GIS and SIS1 data outside the eclipse have been used for phase averaged spectroscopy while GIS data obtained only in the high bit rate and SIS0 FAST mode data have been used for timing and pulse phase resolved spectroscopy. The pulse periods of LMC X-4 obtained from these ASCA observations have been reported by Vrtilek et al. (1997).

## 3 Analysis and results

We used the standard data selection criteria of the ASCA guest observer facility. Data from the hot and flickering pixels of the SIS detectors were removed. Charged particle events were removed from the GIS data based on the rise time discrimination method. The count rates and spectra of the source were obtained from circular regions of radius 6$`\mathrm{}`$ for the GIS detectors and 4$`\mathrm{}`$ for the SIS detectors. For SIS, the background spectra were extracted from the whole chip excluding a circular region around the source and for GIS it was collected from regions diametrically opposite to the source location in the field of view.

### 3.1 SMC X-1

#### 3.1.1 Pulse profile

This observation was made in 1993 April 16–27. Near the end of this observation, the source went into an eclipse and the count rate shows a gradual decrease. The light curve obtained from this observation is shown in Figure 1 for different energy bands. In the present work, we have used data only from the first 60 ks when the source was out of eclipse and the count rate was high.

To create the pulse profiles, and to carry out pulse phase resolved spectroscopy, the photon arrival times were reassigned after solar system barycenter correction and correction for the arrival time delays due to orbital motion. The orbital parameters and the pulse period were taken from Wojdowski et al. (1998). The pulse profile, shown in Figure 2, is single peaked at energies $`<`$ 1.0 keV, with an additional small peak at higher energies. The pulse phases are identical in different energy bands. The pulse fraction is somewhat larger at higher energies.

#### 3.1.2 Phase averaged spectrum

After appropriate background subtraction, pulse phase averaged spectra from the pairs of GIS and SIS detectors were combined and were fitted simultaneously. The relative normalisation of the SIS detectors was allowed to vary and all the other spectral parameters were tied to be the same for SIS and GIS. The energy ranges chosen for spectral fitting are 0.55–10.0 keV for the SIS and 0.7–10.0 keV for the GIS. All the spectral analysis reported in this paper were carried out using the spectral analysis package XSPEC.

The spectra, in addition to a hard power-law component with photon index $``$0.9, also showed iron line and soft excess. We found that to explain the soft excess, a second component is needed. The soft excess can be fitted to either a (a) black-body, (b) bremsstrahlung, (c) soft power-law, or (d) inversely broken power-law. We found that a partial covering model does not fit the spectrum well. In SMC X-1, the hard power-law component is known to have an exponential cutoff at 6 keV with a $`e`$-folding energy of $``$25 keV (Woo et al. 1996). This was also found in the ASCA data and a high energy exponential cutoff component was included. Analytic form of the different models used are as follows:

$`\mathrm{Model}\mathrm{I}:f(E)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\sigma (E)N_\mathrm{H}}\left(f_{\mathrm{PF}}(E)+f_{\mathrm{PL}}(E)f_{\mathrm{cut}}(E)+f_{\mathrm{Fe}}(E)\right),`$
$`\mathrm{Model}\mathrm{II}:f(E)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\sigma (E)N_\mathrm{H}}\left(f_{\mathrm{TB}}(E)+f_{\mathrm{PL}}(E)f_{\mathrm{cut}}(E)+f_{\mathrm{Fe}}(E)\right),`$
$`\mathrm{Model}\mathrm{III}:f(E)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\sigma (E)N_\mathrm{H}}\left(f_{\mathrm{PL}_{\mathrm{BKN}}}(E)f_{\mathrm{cut}}(E)+f_{\mathrm{Fe}}(E)\right),`$
$`\mathrm{Model}\mathrm{IV}:f(E)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\sigma (E)N_\mathrm{H}}\left(f_{\mathrm{PL}_\mathrm{S}}(E)+f_{\mathrm{PL}}(E)f_{\mathrm{cut}}(E)+f_{\mathrm{Fe}}(E)\right),`$
$`f_{\mathrm{PF}}(E)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{I_{\mathrm{PF}}\left(\frac{E}{kT_{\mathrm{PF}}}\right)^2(e1)}{e^{\frac{E}{kT_{\mathrm{PF}}}}1}},f_{\mathrm{TB}}(E)=I_{\mathrm{TB}}{\displaystyle \frac{G(E,kT_{\mathrm{TB}})}{E}}e^{\frac{E}{kT_{\mathrm{TB}}}},`$
$`f_{\mathrm{PL}}(E)`$ $`=`$ $`I_{\mathrm{PL}}E^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1},f_{\mathrm{PL}_\mathrm{S}}(E)=I_{\mathrm{PL}_\mathrm{S}}E^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_2},`$
$`f_{\mathrm{PL}_{\mathrm{BKN}}}(E)`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{\begin{array}{c}I_\mathrm{P}E^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_2}(E<E_\mathrm{b})\hfill \\ I_\mathrm{P}E_\mathrm{b}^{(\mathrm{\Gamma }_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_2)}E^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1}(EE_\mathrm{b};\mathrm{\Gamma }_1<\mathrm{\Gamma }_2)\hfill \end{array}\right\},`$
$`f_{\mathrm{cut}}(E)`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{\begin{array}{c}1(E<E_\mathrm{C})\hfill \\ e^{\frac{EE_\mathrm{C}}{E_\mathrm{F}}}(EE_\mathrm{C})\hfill \end{array}\right\},`$
$`f_{\mathrm{Fe}}(E)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{I_{\mathrm{Fe}}}{\sqrt{2\pi \sigma _{\mathrm{Fe}}^2}}}\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{(EE_{\mathrm{Fe}})^2}{2\sigma _{\mathrm{Fe}}^2}}],`$
where $`E`$ is the incident photon energy, $`\sigma (E)`$ is the photo-electric absorption cross-section (Morrison & McCammon 1983), $`G(E,kT_{\mathrm{TB}})`$ is the Gaunt factor at energy $`E`$ for a plasma of temperature $`kT_{\mathrm{TB}}`$ keV. $`E_\mathrm{C}`$ and $`E_\mathrm{F}`$ are the cutoff energy and the $`e`$-folding energy respectively.

The phase averaged spectrum could be fitted well with all the four models and the parameters obtained for each model are given in Table 1. The photon index ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$) of the hard power-law component is identical in all the four models, $``$0.9. The cutoff energy is found to be 5.5 keV and the e-folding energy above the cut-off is 25 keV. In SMC X-1, a black-body type model for the soft component requires a temperature of 0.18 keV and for a distance of 65 kpc of the SMC, it should have a radius of $``$400 km. The SIS and GIS count rate spectra of SMC X-1 are shown in Figure 3 along with the components of model-I and the residuals. A thermal bremsstrahlung type emission for the soft excess requires a temperature of 0.33 keV and emission measure of $`7\times 10^{61}`$ cm-3. In case of an additional power-law, it has a photon index of 4.8, whereas in inversely broken power-law model, the soft photon index is $``$1.9 and the break energy is $``$1.7 keV. The iron Kα line has an equivalent width of 120 $`\pm `$ 30 eV and it is found to be broad (gaussian $`\sigma `$ = 0.5 keV).

#### 3.1.3 Pulse phase resolved spectrum

To extract the phase resolved spectra, phase filtering was applied withtin the FTOOLS task XSELECT. In this method, the photon arrival time or the center time of each data bin is used to determine which phase bin the photon belongs to. In order to search for variability of the soft component, the phase resolved spectra were fitted with the models I and II which have a thermal component for the soft excess. A pulsating nature of the soft component has been detected in both the models with identical amplitude. Here we discuss only the results obtained with the first model. At first we created four phase resolved spectra consisting the main pulse, sub pulse, and two minima of the pulse profile as shown in the bottom panel of Figure 2. While fitting these four spectra, all the spectral parameters were allowed to vary. The results of this analysis are shown in Figure 4 and Table 2. While the normalisation of the power-law and black-body components are found to have considerable variation (Table 2), variations of the black-body temperature and photon index are within measurement uncertainities. Since we have used GIS data in the energy range 0.7-10.0 keV, the column density values are not well constrained to see any measurable variation (Table 2). We, therefore, fixed most of the spectral parameters to their phase averaged value during the later part of the phase resolved spectroscopy, when we have more phase bins and poorer statistics in each phase bin.

Further, 16 pulse phase resolved spectra were obtained only from the GIS data. The variations of the power-law flux, black-body flux, and the total flux with the pulse phase are shown in Figure 5. It is clearly seen that the strength of the power-law component has a profile similar to the pulse profile. The black-body component shows a nearly sinusoidal intensity variation with the pulse phase. There is also phase difference between the soft and hard pulse profiles. A constant fit to the phase resolved black-body flux gives a reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of 7.2 and a sinusoidal fit improves the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ to 4.0. While a sinusoidal does not represent the variation of the black-body flux very well, poorness of the first fit certainly shows a varying nature of the black-body flux.

Assuming that the pulse profiles at different narrow energy bands are made of two components, one nearly sinusoidal and the other complex (shown in the top and middle panels of Figure 5), we have estimated the fraction of sinusoidal and complex components in the SMC X-1 pulse profile at different energies. The narrow band pulse profiles were fitted to a composite of two templates (made from the top and middle panels of Figure 5) and the fractions of the two components that give minimum $`\chi ^2`$ was found out. In Figure 6, we compare this with the ratio of the black-body to total flux derived from the best fit spectral model. A resonable agreement between the two provides a consistency for the hypothesis that there are two spectral components with different pulse profiles.

### 3.2 LMC X-4

#### 3.2.1 Orbital period decay

The orbital period of LMC X-4 is known to have a decay time scale of 106 yr. The decay rate of the binary orbit of LMC X-4 has been established with high confidence by combining the earlier known mid-eclipse times with a recent precise measurement with the RXTE (Levine et al. 2000). From the ASCA observations of LMC X-4, we have determined two more mid-eclipse times. Among the four orbital parameters, orbital period, semi-amplitude of the arrival time delay, eccentricity and mid-eclipse time, the later is likely to have maximum variation between observation to observation. This also allows precise measurement of the period change. A small pulse fraction and low count rate of LMC X-4 with ASCA, does not allow us to directly apply the pulse arrival time analysis. We, therefore adopted a different approach to determine the mid-eclipse time.

After the barycentric corrections, the light curves were corrected for delays due to the orbital motion with the known semi-amplitude, orbital period and zero eccentricity of the system for various trial mid-eclipse times around its extrapolated value. The epoch-folding technique was applied on each of these light curves (with time resolution of 62.5 ms) and the maximum $`\chi ^2`$ and the pulse period corresponding to each trial mid-eclipse time was determined. The distribution of maximum $`\chi ^2`$ against the trial mid-eclipse times are shown in Figure 7 for the two ASCA observations in 1994 and 1996. The maximum $`\chi ^2`$ distribution has a gaussian profile around its expected value, the center of which gives the correct mid-eclipse time. The two mid eclipse times obtained are MJD 49468.6859 $`\pm `$ 0.0054 and MJD 50227.8069 $`\pm `$ 0.0016 and the corresponding pulse periods are 13.5075 $`\pm `$ 0.0002 s and 13.5088 $`\pm `$ 0.0001 s respectively. In absence of a clear method of error determination, we have taken the width of the gaussians as the error of the mid-eclipse time, which possibly is an overestiamtion.

The mid-eclipse times determined here are consistent with the orbital evolution history of LMC X-4 with evolution time scale of 106 yr (Levine et al. 2000). The pulse profiles obtained from the GIS detectors are shown in Figure 8 for two different and summed energy bands. The profile is a single peaked sinusoidal in the low energy band of 0.5–1.5 keV and is complex with multiple peaks in the higher energy band of 1.5–10.0 keV. For pulse phase resolved spectroscopy, orbital motion of the neutron star was corrected in the light curve using the known semi-amplitude, eccentricity (Levine et al. 2000) and mid-eclipse time derived from the ASCA data.

#### 3.2.2 Phase averaged spectrum

The four spectral models used for fitting the SMC X-1 spectrum were modified slightly for the LMC X-4 spectrum. The high energy cutoff component was removed. Residuals of the best fit LMC X-4 spectra with the four above mentioned models showed some line like features around 1 and 2 keV. Therefore, while fitting the LMC X-4 spectrum we included two gaussian components.

Similar to SMC X-1, the phase averaged spectrum could be fitted well with all the four models described above and the parameter values for the best fit obtained for each model are given in Table 3. The photon index ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$) of the hard power-law component is identical in all the four models, $``$0.70. A black-body for the soft component requires a temperature of 0.17 keV and for a distance of 55 kpc of the LMC, if the black-body emission region is assumed to be spherical, it should have a radius of $``$300 km. In Figure 9, the SIS and GIS count rate spectra are shown along with the components of model-I in the upper panel, while the residuals to the best fit model are shown in the bottom panel. A thermal bremsstrahlung emission with a temperature of 0.5 keV and emission measure of 5$`\times `$ $`10^{60}`$ cm-3 also fits the soft excess well. If the soft excess is modeled in the form of an additional power-law, it has a photon index of 2.9, whereas an inversely broken power law type spectrum requires a soft photon index of $``$1.9 below a break energy of 1.7 keV. Compared to the broken power-law model, the two power-law model, which has a cross-over energy of 1.5 keV, gives a steeper soft power-law. In addition, there are line-like features at $``$1.0 and $``$1.9 keV which we tentatively identify as iron Lα and $`\mathrm{Si}_{\mathrm{XII}}`$. The width of these two low energy lines were fixed at 0.1 keV during the spectral fit. The iron Kα line is centered at 6.4 keV and is broad (gaussian $`\sigma `$ = 0.65 keV), with an equivalent width of 140 $`\pm `$ 40 eV. The L/K line ratio is model dependent, and is in the range of 2–5.

Woo et al. (1996) and La Barbera et al. (2001) fitted the soft excess in LMC X-4 as thermal bremsstrahlung emission. The temperature and flux of the thermal bremsstrahlung component obtained in Model II is similar to the their measurements, which were also carried out in high state of LMC X-4. Same is true about the flux and equivalent width of the iron emission line. La Barbera et al. (2001) found evidence of two distinct iron emission lines from the Beppo-SAX observation and the 6.1 keV line remains unexplained. However, an independent analysis of the same data (Oosterbroek et al. 2002, private communication) was found to favour a model consisting of a hard power-law, a black body type soft component, an emission line at 0.9 keV and a single iron emission line. The residuals of the best fitted model spectrum from the ROSAT and GINGA data (Figure 5 of Woo et al. 1996) also show the possibility of two weak emission lines at $``$ 1 keV and $``$ 2 keV.

#### 3.2.3 Pulse phase resolved spectrum

Similar to the case with SMC X-1, only four parameters related to the shape and strength of the hard power-law and the soft excess were allowed to vary while all the other spectral parameters were fixed to their phase averaged value.

After the barycentric and orbital motion corrections of the photon arrival times, spectra were extracted from 16 uniformly divided pulse phases. All but the photon index and normalisation of the hard power-law component and temperature and normalisation of the soft component were fixed to their best fit values obtained from the pulse averaged spectrum. Modulations of flux from the hard and the soft components are shown in Figure 10 along with the total flux. The phase resolved spectra show that the power-law component follows the high-energy ($`>`$ 1.5 keV) pulse profile with three peaks and the soft component (either black-body or bremsstrahlung) is consistent to a single peaked sinusoidal modulation similar to the pulse profile in the soft band ($`<`$ 1.5 keV). For the SIS0 spectra in the FAST mode, background subtraction was not done, area discrimination was used to select the source photons, and hot and flickering pixels were not removed whose effect is relatively small in this mode. Due to these effects, the spectral parameters obtained from analysis of the SIS0 data are inaccurate. However, the pulse phase dependence of the spectral components derived from the SIS0 data are still reliable and agrees well with the results obtained from the GIS data.

Though the pulse phase variation of the black-body flux of LMC X-4 is consistent with a sinusoidal nature, a very low pulse fraction in this source and relatively large error bars makes it far from conclusive. Since the pulse profile of LMC X-4 in higher energy band shows several narrow features, a coarse phase bin in LMC X-4 will not show any variation in the high energy band. We, therefore, only show the flux of the black-body component obtained from four equal phase bins in the bottom panel of Figure 10. Since the statistics is poor in LMC X-4, a comparison similar to what is presented in Figure 6 for SMC X-1, could not be made.

## 4 Discussion

The pulse phase averaged spectra of these two accretion powered bright X-ray pulsars obtained with ASCA clearly show the presence of a soft component, which is in excess of the hard power-law component extended to lower energies. The present work is a confirmation of the presence of soft excess in LMC X-4 and SMC X-1. Pulse phase resolved spectroscopy, presented here, clearly show that in SMC X-1, the soft component when fitted by a black-body (or thermal bremsstrahlung) model, exhibits a sinusoidal pulse shape regardless of the complex, sharp profile in hard energy band. The same may also be true for LMC X-4. A dissimilar pulse profile between the low and high energy bands is an indication that the soft component may have a different origin of emission, or at least the geometry of emission is different in different energy ranges. In LMC X-4, La Barbera et al. (2001) also fitted the soft excess as seed photon emission from accretion disk at magnetoshperic radius Comptonized by moderately hot electrons. We have verified that this model can fit the soft excess seen in the ASCA spectra of both SMC X-1 and LMC X-4 with electron temperature of $``$ 1.0 keV and optical depth of 8–10. If the soft photons are produced from the vicinity of the Alfven radius, a modulation of the soft excess at the pulse period is difficult to explain.

Among the other X-ray pulsars known to have soft excess, in which pulse phase resolved spectroscopy has also been done, RX J0059.2–7138 (Kohno et al. 2000) and X Per (Coburn et al. 2001) do not show any modulation in the soft component, XTE 0111.2–7317 shows a pulse modulation of soft excess which is approximately in phase with the power-law component (Yokogawa et al. 2000b), and Her X-1 shows a pulse modulation of soft excess which has a different phase of pulse peak compared to the power-law component (Endo et al. 2000). The luminosity in the soft X-ray excess in SMC X-1 and LMC X-4 are 8.4$`\times `$1036 and 7.7$`\times `$1036 erg s-1 respectively, a factor of 7–8 larger compared to that of Her X-1. In Her X-1, the soft excess, which is modeled as a black-body type emission, probably comes from a part of the X-ray irradiated inner accretion disk (Endo et al. 2000). In addition to the soft component, there is also a broad low energy emission line with a pulse shape and phase identical with that of the black-body emission. The total amount of X-ray emission in the soft excess is $`1.1\times 10^{36}`$ erg s-1, which is 10% of the total emission in the ASCA energy band. In comparison with Her X-1, the ratio of the black-body flux to the total flux, is somewhat smaller in SMC X-1 (3.6%) and LMC X-4 (6.4%). In many ways, SMC X-1 and LMC X-4 are quite similar to Her X-1. It is interesting to investigate whether the presence of the soft component and its pulsating nature can be explained in a manner similar to Her X-1.

The soft excess can be a part of the X-ray emission from regions close to the neutron star reprocessed by optically thick surrounding matter in the inner accretion disk. With an assumption that the phase averaged pulsar emission is isotropic, the reprocessing region holds a solid angle that is equal to the fraction of X-ray energy reprocessed ($``$5% in SMC X-1 and LMC X-4). From energy conservation, the radius at which the reprocessing region is situated ($`r_{\mathrm{BB}}`$), presumably the inner accretion disk or Alfven radius, can be calculated from the expression

$$\frac{L_\mathrm{X}}{4\pi r_{\mathrm{BB}}^2}=\sigma T^4,$$

where $`L_X`$ is the total X-ray luminosity and $`T`$ is the temperature of the black-body emission. For SMC X-1 ($`L_\mathrm{X}=2.4\times 10^{38}`$ erg s-1 ) and LMC X-4 ($`L_\mathrm{X}=1.2\times 10^{38}`$ erg s-1), $`r_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ is calculated to be $`12\times 10^7`$ cm and $`9.4\times 10^7`$ cm respectively.

Here, we make a comparison of Alfven radius ($`r_\mathrm{A}`$) in these two pulsars with the same in Her X-1. For a given mass and radius of the neutron star, the inner radius scales as $`r_\mathrm{A}B^{\frac{4}{7}}L_\mathrm{X}^{\frac{2}{7}}`$. In these two pulsars, $`L_\mathrm{X}`$ is larger by about one order of magnitude than that in Her X-1. The magnetic field strength ($`B`$) in SMC X-1 is unknown, but the spectral cutoff energy indicate that $`B`$ is smaller than that in Her X-1 (Makishima et al. 1999). In LMC X-4, a spectral cutoff at 16 keV and a recently discovered cyclotron absorption feature at $``$100 keV with the Beppo-SAX (La Barbera et al. 2001) are in disagreement with the correlation observed in other accretion powered X-ray pulsars. However, considering $`L_\mathrm{X}`$ and $`B`$ (corresponding to the Beppo-SAX measurement of the cyclotron absorption feature), the radius of the inner accretion disk is expected to be smaller in these two pulsars compared to Her X-1. On the contrary, in Her X-1, $`r_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ is found to be $`3.6\times 10^7`$ cm (Endo et al. 2000), somewhat smaller than $`r_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ estimated above for SMC X-1 and LMC X-4. This is one reason we suspect that a black-body type emission cannot satisfactorily explain the soft excess in these two bright X-ray pulsars.

However, absence of convincing direct measurement of the magnetic field strength in these two pulsars result in some ambiguity in the Alfven radius. We also note that X-ray irradiated inner accretion disk can be highly ionised with color temperature higher than the effective temperature. Presence of weak undetected emission lines may also cause the energy spectrum to deviate from a perfect blackbody, and the estimated parameters for the black-body emission region may include large systematic errors. Considering the above factors, we feel that it may still be possible to interpret that the Alfven radius is the emission site of the black-body type soft excess.

Regarding Model II for the spectrum, a large emission measure ($`5\times 10^{61}`$ and $`7\times 10^{60}`$ cm-3 for SMC X-1 and LMC X-4 respectively) required for the soft excess indicates that with a thin thermal condition ($`\tau 1.0`$), the emission region has to be extremely large ($`5\times 10^{12}\mathrm{cm}`$ and $`8\times 10^{11}\mathrm{cm}`$ for SMC X-1 and LMC X-4 respectively). Since the light travel time across such a region is much larger than the pulse periods in consideration, a pulsating soft component can not be produced by such a plasma. Moreover, even at extremely high densities, the cooling time scale of the plasma will be larger than the pulse periods of these pulsars. A pulsating nature of the soft component, therefore, cannot be explained in the thermal bremsstrahlung model also.

The two alternate models for the pulsar spectrum that we have tried here give somewhat satisfactory fit to the observed spectra. An additional soft power-law or an inversely broken shape of the power-law may also arise naturally when the entire emission is from the accretion column. The distribution of temperature and matter density in the accretion column and transparency of radiation of different energy to the magnetic field structure determines the pulse profile and the energy spectrum. The soft component probably arises from upper part of the accretion column while the hard component is from the lower part. The different pulse shape and pulse phases of the soft and hard spectral components in Her X-1 have been compared with the model emission from an accretion mound on the magnetic pole of a neutron star (Burnard, Arons, and Klein 1991). Different types of beaming at different energy bands and at different heights of the accretion column can give rise to the observed energy dependence of the pulse profiles. The high, near-Eddington luminosity of SMC X-1 and LMC X-4, most of which is in the hard power-law component can be explained in a fan beam type emission pattern, in which the X-ray emission is perpendicular to the matter flow in the accretion columns. Observations of these type of bright pulsars in future, with instruments having better energy resolution and sensitivity in the lower energy band may help us to find an exact model of the pulsar spectrum.

## 5 Conclusions

In the present work we have found that these two high luminosity pulsars show pulsations in the entire energy band of 0.5–10.0 keV, with strong energy dependence in the pulse shape. The pulse phase averaged energy spectra definitely show the presence of soft excess in both the sources. If the soft excess is modeled as a separate black-body or thermal bremsstrahlung type component, pulse phase resolved spectroscopy shows that the soft component has a pulsating nature in SMC X-1, which may also be true for LMC X-4. We have found that the pulse profile of the soft component is nearly sinusoidal, significantly different from the sharp, complex profile of the hard power-law component. Due to very high luminosity of these sources, the size of the emission zone required for the soft component is large (radius $``$300–400 km) and we find that it is difficult to explain the pulsations detected at low energies. We have found that alternate models like inversely broken power-law or two different power-law components can also be used to describe the spectra.

We thank R. Sunyaev and A. R. Rao for some useful discussions. This research has made use of data obtained through the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center Online Service, provided by the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. B. Paul was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science through a fellowship during which most of this work was done. FN acknowledges the support by the Japan Science and Technology Corporation under the ACT-JST project.


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# Retrodiction with two-level atoms: atomic previvals

## I Introduction

The rapid development of quantum information theory in recent years has given fresh impetus to the study of retrodictive quantum theory. A retrodictive quantum formalism was first proposed more than 30 years ago, and others have followed . Recently its utility has been extended by the application of Bayes’ theorem  to the conditional probabilities derived using predictive quantum theory . The theory applies to closed systems, and also to open systems in which the system of interest interacts with an unmeasured environment .

Normally we want to predict the future based on our knowledge of the present, so in predictive quantum theory the state of the system at any time between preparation and measurement is the evolved prepared state. Sometimes, however, our knowledge of initial states is not complete. If we know the result of a measurement of the state we can assign a retrodictive state on the basis of the measurement outcome. Each measurement outcome has associated with it a probability operator measure (POM) element. It is possible to prove using Bayes’ theorem  that the retrodictive density operator is simply the normalised POM element . For closed systems this state evolves backwards in time to the preparation time according to the Schrödinger equation, when it collapses on to one of a set of possible initially prepared states. Normally the predictive and retrodictive states assigned to a system at a particular time between preparation and measurement will be different.

For open systems the evolution is more complicated. The simple time-reversal property of closed systems does not apply. In general the system to be measured interacts with another unmeasured system usually called the environment, which is traced out of the problem to give the (nonunitary) evolution of the system of interest. This evolution is governed by a master equation for the system density operator. We have recently derived methods for solving retrodictive problems in open systems based on standard predictive master equation techniques . Furthermore, we have derived a retrodictive master equation which traces the evolution of such systems backwards in time .

These master equation methods have been used to prove that optical amplifiers and attenuators are predictive/retrodictive inverses of one another . Also, retrodiction from measured atomic states, for a two-level atom interacting with an environment which consists of a multimode electromagnetic field, has been studied . This system illustrates various general principles of retrodictive open systems. In particular, if nothing is known about the initial state of the system the retrodictive steady state is usually the no-information state. This is an equally-weighted mixture of all the possible input states. In addition, the retrodictive decay rate depends upon the measurement outcome. There are also properties peculiar to this two-level system. If the atom is illuminated with coherent light retrodictive Rabi oscillations occur, which decay eventually to the no-information state.

In this paper we concentrate in particular on the two-level atom interacting with a single cavity mode of the quantised electromagnetic field. In standard predictive quantum theory, if the evolution of the atomic state is driven by a known coherent field, Rabi oscillations occur both in the atomic population, and in the off-diagonal atomic coherences. The frequency of the oscillations increases with the square root of the number of quanta of energy in the system. For a coherent driving field the number of photons is not completely certain; rather the field is in a weighted superposition of all photon number states. After a short time the different Rabi oscillations for each of the number states within the superposition get out of phase with one another and the oscillations of the whole system collapse. Later, when sufficient time has elapsed so that the oscillations get back into phase, there is a revival of the oscillating atomic population . Here we look at this system from the retrodictive point of view, where we measure the final state of the atom knowing nothing about its initial state. The field is initially in a coherent state, but it is not measured after the interaction. The retrodictive situation is not the time-reverse of the predictive situation because we have different knowledge in the two cases. In the retrodictive situation we know the initial state of the field and the final measured state of the atom, whereas in the predictive case these states are both known at the initial time. This poses an interesting question. Would we retrodict that the retrodictive Rabi oscillations were in phase at times prior to the measurement of the field state, that is, would we retrodict any “previvals”?

The paper is organised as follows. In Section (II) we briefly describe the general features of retrodictive quantum theory, and its application to the two-level atom interacting with an electromagnetic field. We apply this in Section (III) and give results for the retrodictive density matrix and preparation probabilities. Section (IV) contains a summary and discussion of the main results of the paper.

## II Prediction and retrodiction

In this section we provide brief details of retrodictive quantum theory. A fuller account can be found in references  and . Suppose that we have a preparation device which produces output states $`\widehat{\rho }_i^{\text{pred}}`$ with prior probabilities $`P(i)`$, where $`\widehat{\rho }_i^{\text{pred}}`$ is the usual density operator of predictive quantum mechanics. This state can evolve and interact with other systems until it is measured by a measuring device. A general description of a measurement is given by a measurement POM . This is a set of non-negative definite, Hermitian elements $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_j`$ which sum to the unit operator, each element corresponding to a particular measurement outcome. In general there is no requirement that there be the same number of POM elements as there are states which span the system space, but for von Neumann measurement this is so, and the POM elements are simply the projectors of the particular chosen states which span the space. Suppose that preparation takes place at time $`t_\text{p}`$ and measurement at a later time $`t_\text{m}`$. Within this framework the predictive probability that the measurement outcome $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_j`$ is obtained given that the state $`\widehat{\rho }_i^{\text{pred}}`$ was prepared is

$`P(j|i)=\text{Tr}\left(\widehat{\rho }_i^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{m})\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_j\right),`$ (1)
where

$`\widehat{\rho }_i^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{m})=\widehat{U}(\tau )\widehat{\rho }_i^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})\widehat{U}^{}(\tau )`$ (2)
is the evolved initial density operator and

$`\widehat{U}(\tau )=\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{i}{\mathrm{}}}\widehat{H}\tau \right)`$ (3)
is the evolution operator, which operates for the length of time between preparation and measurement, $`\tau =t_\text{m}t_\text{p}`$.

Suppose that instead of calculating the predictive probability $`P(j|i)`$ we wish to calculate the retrodictive conditional probability $`P(i|j)`$ that the state $`\widehat{\rho }_i^{\text{pred}}`$ was prepared, given our measurement result $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_j`$. It is possible to do this by calculating all possible predictive conditional probabilities for the system, and then using Bayes’ theorem. A simpler and more natural approach is to use retrodictive quantum theory, so that the required probability can be written

$`P(i|j)={\displaystyle \frac{\text{Tr}\left[\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_i\widehat{\rho }_j^{\text{retr}}(t_\text{p})\right]}{\text{Tr}\left[\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\widehat{\rho }_j^{\text{retr}}(t_\text{p})\right]}}.`$ (4)
Here the operator $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_i`$ is the preparation device operator, and

$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_i={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}P(i)\widehat{\rho }_i^{\text{pred}},`$ (5)
is the a priori density operator, the sum of each possible preparation density operator weighted by its prior probability of production. $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ is the best description of the state we can give without knowing the outcome of the preparation or measurement. The retrodictive density operator at the preparation time is simply the normalised measurement POM element evolved back from the measurement time to the preparation time,

$`\widehat{\rho }_j^{\text{retr}}(t_\text{p})=\widehat{U}^{}(\tau )\widehat{\rho }_j^{\text{retr}}(t_\text{m})\widehat{U}(\tau ),`$ (6)
with

$`\widehat{\rho }_j^{\text{retr}}(t_\text{m})={\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_j}{\text{Tr}\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_j}}.`$ (7)
The above formulae for the conditional probabilities (eqs. (1) and (4)) apply equally well for open systems, where the system of interest interacts with an unmeasured environment with many degrees of freedom. If this environment causes information to be lost about the system, and the Born-Markov approximation holds, then the the evolved density operators are the solutions of master equations . In eq.(1) the density operator required for such an open system, which for a closed system would be given by eq. (2), is the solution of the usual master equation forwards in time from the preparation time to the measurement time. However, in eq.(4) the solution required instead of eq. (6) is that of the retrodictive master equation, giving the evolution backwards in time from the measurement time to the preparation time. We have recently derived this equation from the general principle that conditional probabilities should be independent of the time of collapse of the wavefunction. In the system considered in the present paper, however, the Born-Markov approximation is not made, and so we must consider the full evolution of the coupled atom-field system.

## III Retrodiction for the coupled atom-field system

Here we apply the retrodictive formalism to a coupled system consisting of a two-level atom and a single cavity mode of an electromagnetic field. The interaction between an atom with upper level $`|e`$ and lower level $`|g`$, and an electromagnetic field is governed by the Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian . In the interaction picture this is

$`\widehat{H}={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}}\widehat{\sigma }_3i\mathrm{}\lambda \left(\widehat{\sigma }_+\widehat{a}\widehat{a}^{}\widehat{\sigma }_{}\right),`$ (8)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the detuning between the atomic frequency and the light, $`\widehat{\sigma }_3=|ee||gg|`$ is the atomic inversion operator, $`\widehat{\sigma }_+=|eg|`$ and $`\widehat{\sigma }_{}=|ge|`$ are the atomic raising and lowering operators, $`\widehat{a}^{}`$ and $`\widehat{a}`$ are the creation and annihilation operators for the single mode field, and $`\lambda `$ is the coupling constant. The rotating wave approximation, which has been made in deriving this Hamiltonian, ensures that whenever a photon is lost from the field the atomic state must change from $`|g`$ to $`|e`$. In the standard predictive picture of quantum mechanics a coupled atom-field system evolves forwards in time according to this Hamiltonian from a preparation time $`t_\text{p}`$ to a measurement time $`t_\text{m}`$. After this has happened the coupled density operator for the whole system is

$`\widehat{\rho }_{\text{af}}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{m})=\widehat{U}(\tau )\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})\widehat{\rho }_\text{f}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})\widehat{U}^{}(\tau ),`$ (9)
where $`\widehat{\rho }_{\text{af}}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{m})`$ is the coupled density operator for the atom-field system at the measurement time, $`\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})`$ and $`\widehat{\rho }_\text{f}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})`$ are the uncoupled atom and field density operators at the preparation time. $`\widehat{U}(\tau )`$ is the evolution operator for the coupled system, given by eq.(3) with Hamiltonian given by eq. (8). If the field is unmeasured the atomic state is simply found by tracing over field states and vice versa,

$`\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{m})`$ $`=`$ $`\text{Tr}_\text{f}\left[\widehat{U}(\tau )\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})\widehat{\rho }_\text{f}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})\widehat{U}^{}(\tau )\right],`$ (10)
$`\widehat{\rho }_\text{f}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{m})`$ $`=`$ $`\text{Tr}_\text{a}\left[\widehat{U}(\tau )\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})\widehat{\rho }_\text{f}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})\widehat{U}^{}(\tau )\right].`$ (11)
Alternatively, we can condition the field by measuring the atom, or the atom by measuring the field. This is done using the POM element corresponding to the measurement outcome. Thus the conditioned atomic and field states immediately after the measurement are

$`\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{m})`$ $``$ $`\text{Tr}_\text{f}\left[\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\text{f}\widehat{U}(\tau )\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}(t_\text{p})\widehat{\rho }_\text{f}(t_\text{p})\widehat{U}^{}(\tau )\right],`$ (12)
$`\widehat{\rho }_\text{f}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{m})`$ $``$ $`\text{Tr}_\text{a}\left[\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\text{a}\widehat{U}(\tau )\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}(t_\text{p})\widehat{\rho }_\text{f}(t_\text{p})\widehat{U}^{}(\tau )\right],`$ (13)
where $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{\text{a(f)}}`$ is the POM element corresponding to the outcome of the measurement performed on the atom (field).

The retrodictive picture differs from above in that the state of the system is assigned on the basis of the measurement outcome. Thus if the measurement POM elements for the atom and the field are $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\text{a}(t_\text{m})`$ and $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\text{f}(t_\text{m})`$, the coupled initial density operator corresponding to equation (9) is

$`\widehat{\rho }_{\text{af}}^{\text{retr}}(t_\text{p})`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{U}^{}(\tau )\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}^{\text{retr}}(t_\text{m})\widehat{\rho }_\text{f}^{\text{retr}}(t_\text{m})\widehat{U}(\tau )`$ (14)
$``$ $`\widehat{U}^{}(\tau )\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\text{a}(t_\text{m})\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\text{f}(t_\text{m})\widehat{U}(\tau ).`$ (15)
The atom or the field will in general have been prepared in one of a set of initial states, and this state conditions the coupled density operator similarly to equations (12) and (13), to give retrodictive density operators for the atom and field respectively

$`\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}^{\text{retr}}(t_\text{p})`$ $``$ $`\text{Tr}_\text{f}\left[\widehat{\rho }_\text{f}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})\widehat{U}^{}(\tau )\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\text{a}(t_\text{m})\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\text{f}(t_\text{m})\widehat{U}(\tau )\right],`$ (16)
$`\widehat{\rho }_\text{f}^{\text{retr}}(t_\text{p})`$ $``$ $`\text{Tr}_\text{a}\left[\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})\widehat{U}^{}(\tau )\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\text{a}(t_\text{m})\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\text{f}(t_\text{m})\widehat{U}(\tau )\right],`$ (17)
where the constant of proportionality is determined by normalisation. If there is no information at all about the preparation of the initial states then $`\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})`$ and $`\widehat{\rho }_\text{f}^{\text{pred}}(t_\text{p})`$ become proportional to the unit operators for the atom and the field.

## IV Retrodiction of the atomic state: collapses and previvals

Here we consider a particular situation in which retrodiction is a useful tool for finding atomic states at an earlier time. We assume that the initial atomic state is completely unknown, but the initial field is in a known coherent state. A measurement is made of the atomic state, and this result is used as a basis for retrodicting the atomic state at the preparation time. The retrodictive atomic density operator is given by equation (16). For ease of calculation we assume that the atomic state is measured to be in one of a pair of orthogonal states which span the two-level atomic basis, for example, the excited or ground state. We can calculate quantities based on other assumed bases using results for this one. The associated atomic POM element has unit trace and so the retrodictive atomic density operator immediately prior to measurement is simply the measurement POM element itself. Initially the field is in a coherent state, but the final state is unmeasured so the field measurement POM element is simply the unit operator for the field . Thus equation (16) gives the initial retrodictive atomic density operator as

$`\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}^{\text{retr}}(t_\text{p})\alpha |\widehat{U}^{}(\tau )\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\text{a}(t_\text{m})\widehat{1}_\text{f}\widehat{U}(\tau )|\alpha ,`$ (18)
where $`|\alpha `$ is the coherent field state and $`\widehat{1}_\text{f}`$ is the unit state. It is relatively straightforward to compute the density matrix elements,

$`l|\widehat{\rho }_\text{a}^{\text{retr}}(t_\text{p})|m\alpha |l|\widehat{U}^{}(\tau )\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\text{a}(t_\text{m})\widehat{1}_\text{f}\widehat{U}(\tau )|m|\alpha ,`$ (19)
where $`l`$ or $`m`$ can be either the ground or excited states, or one of any other pair of orthogonal states which span the two-level atomic basis. In fact $`\widehat{U}(\tau )|m|\alpha `$ is simply the state that the atomic state $`|m`$ would have evolved into after a time $`\tau `$ in the predictive formalism. This allows us to use the well-known solution to the Jaynes-Cummings model ,

$`\widehat{U}(\tau )|j|\alpha ={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left[c_{g,n}(\tau )|g|n+c_{e,n}(\tau )|e|n\right],`$ (20)
where the states $`|n`$ are the photon number states and the ground and excited state amplitudes depend upon the coherent state expansion coefficients in the number state basis. The amplitudes are found to be

$`c_{g,n}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`c_{g,n}(0)\left[\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }(n)\tau }{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{\Delta }}{\mathrm{\Omega }(n)}}\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }(n)\tau }{2}}\right]`$ (21)
$`+`$ $`c_{e,n1}(0){\displaystyle \frac{2\lambda n^{1/2}}{\mathrm{\Omega }(n)}}\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }(n)\tau }{2}},`$ (22)
$`c_{e,n1}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`c_{e,n1}(0)\left[\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }(n)\tau }{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{\Delta }}{\mathrm{\Omega }(n)}}\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }(n)\tau }{2}}\right]`$ (23)
$``$ $`c_{g,n}(0){\displaystyle \frac{2\lambda n^{1/2}}{\mathrm{\Omega }(n)}}\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }(n)\tau }{2}},`$ (24)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }(n)=(\mathrm{\Delta }^2+4\lambda ^2n)^{1/2}`$ is the Rabi frequency, and $`c_{g,n}(0)`$ and $`c_{e,n}(0)`$ are the initial amplitudes, given by

$`c_{g,n}(0)`$ $`=`$ $`a_nc_g(0)`$ (25)
$`c_{e,n}(0)`$ $`=`$ $`a_nc_e(0).`$ (26)
These initial values are proportional to the number state expansion coefficients of the coherent state,

$`a_n=\mathrm{exp}(|\alpha |^2/2){\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^n}{\sqrt{n}}}.`$ (27)
We can use these formulae to calculate retrodictive matrix elements and probabilities, given that the atom was measured to be in a particular state. The calculations are relatively straightforward, and details are omitted.

We consider the case where the atom is known to have been prepared either in the excited state or the ground state with equal a priori probabilities. The appropriate preparation device operators in (4) are $`|ee|/2`$ and $`|gg|/2`$. Figure 1 shows a typical plot of the retrodictive conditional probability, in this case the probability that the atom was prepared in the ground state given that it was measured in the excited state. It shows retrodictive Rabi oscillations which collapse as the elapsed time before the measurement increases. If the preparation time was long enough before the measurement time the oscillations are seen to revive, just as in the predictive case. The characteristic revival time is the same as the predictive one. Thus “previvals” or “earlier revivals” in the preparation probability do exist.

Given that both the collapse time and the revival time are identical for the predictive and retrodictive evolutions one might think that the retrodictive evolution is simply the time-reverse of the predictive evolution. This is not the case, as is shown in figure 2, which depicts the evolution for a weaker coherent state. Here we compare predictive and retrodictive evolutions. Figure 2(a) shows the retrodictive conditional probability that the ground state was prepared given that the atom has been measured in the excited state. This can be compared with figures 2(b) and 2(c). These show, respectively, the predictive conditional probabilities that (b) the atom is measured in its ground state given that the excited state was prepared, and (c) the atom is measured in its excited state given that the ground state was prepared. The retrodictive evolution is clearly the time-reverse of neither of these two predictive evolutions .

This point can be illustrated more dramatically by considering other measured states. For example, for a high-amplitude coherent state, after (predictive) Rabi oscillations collapse, at a time $`\tau =\pi /(2\mathrm{\Omega }(\overline{n}))`$ the state of the system approximately factorises into uncoupled atomic and field states . No matter what the initial prepared atomic state, after this period, which is half the revival time, the atom is prepared by the system in the state

$`|={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(|ge^{i\varphi }|e\right),`$ (28)
where $`\varphi `$ is the phase of the coherent state amplitude $`\alpha `$ . The predictive evolution of the state then consists of the revival of the Rabi oscillations.

On the other hand, if we measure the atom in this superposition state and try to retrodict the prepared state, the evolution is completely different. This is illustrated by figure 3, which is a plot of the excited state preparation probability. For a short delay there are Rabi oscillations which collapse, leaving a slow oscillation whose period is associated with the revival time of the system. If the delay is equal to half the revival time then the excited state probability passes through the value $`1/2`$. The atomic density operator becomes

$`\widehat{\rho }^{\text{retr}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2\mathrm{\Omega }(\overline{n})}}\right)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[|ee|+|gg|\right],`$ (29)
the no-information state. We say that the atomic state is unretrodictable at this time. The reason for this is simply that our measurement of the atom only provides information about the field at this time.

## V Conclusions

In this paper we have analysed the two-level atom interacting with a single-mode electromagnetic field in a coherent state from a retrodictive point of view. This system shows predictive collapses and revivals in the atomic state probabilities . We have demonstrated the existence of retrodictive collapses and previvals of the Rabi oscillations in the atomic state probabilities. This follows on from our previous work which demonstrated the existence of retrodictive Rabi oscillations .

We have shown that the retrodictive and predictive evolutions are different. The differences are most marked when either of two particular criteria are satisfied. Firstly, when the mean number of photons is low, for all measured atomic states, it becomes easy to differentiate between the predictive and retrodictive evolutions. Secondly, for high mean photon number, if the measured state is that to which all prepared states decay after a particular time then the retrodictive evolution takes on a strange character. There is a low-frequency retrodictive oscillation in the atomic state probability with a period equal to twice the revival time. Furthermore, when the time between preparation and measurement is equal to half the revival time the retrodictive state is unretrodictable. The probability that any one of a pair of states which span the atomic space was prepared will then be one half.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors would like to thank the United Kingdom Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Australian Research Council for financial support. SMB thanks the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Scottish Office Executive Education and Lifelong Learning Department for the award of a Support Research Fellowship.

## Figure Captions

Figure 1: A plot of the retrodictive conditional probability that the atom was prepared in the ground state given a later measurement in the excited state as a function of the normalised difference between preparation and measurement times $`\lambda \tau `$. Parameters: detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$ and coherent state amplitude $`\alpha =5`$.

Figure 2: (a) Same plot as figure 1, but with coherent state amplitude $`\alpha =1.4`$. (b) A plot of the predictive conditional probability that the atom was measured in the ground state given that it was prepared in the excited state as a function of $`\lambda \tau `$. Parameters are as for (a). (c) A plot of the predictive conditional probability that the atom was measured in the excited state given that it was prepared in the ground state as a function of $`\lambda \tau `$. Parameters are as for (a).

Figure 3: A plot of the retrodictive conditional probability that the atom was prepared in the excited state given a later measurement in the superposition state $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|ge^{i\varphi }|e\right)`$ as a function of $`\tau `$. The parameters are as in figure 1.


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# Decay of an ultracold fermionic lithium gas near a Feshbach resonance

\[

## Abstract

We studied the magnetic field dependence of the inelastic decay of an ultracold, optically trapped fermionic 6Li gas of different spin compositions. The spin mixture of the two lowest hyperfine states showed two decay resonances at $`550`$G and $`680`$G, consistent with the predicted Feshbach resonances for elastic s-wave collisions. The observed lifetimes of several hundred milliseconds are much longer than the expected time for Cooper pair formation and the phase transition to superfluidity in the vicinity of the Feshbach resonance.

\]

Interactions between atoms can be strongly modified by tuning magnetic fields to Feshbach resonances where a molecular state has the same energy as the colliding atoms. This mechanism has been used to dramatically alter the properties of ultracold bosonic gases . For degenerate Fermi gases, such control over the interaction strength is crucial in the search for a superfluid phase transition. For dilute Fermi gases, the predicted phase transition occurs at temperatures that are experimentally not accessible , unless the scattering length is resonantly enhanced. In this case, as was pointed out by , the transition temperature can be comparable to the temperatures achieved in current experiments .

Promising candidates for an experimental observation of fermionic superfluidity are 6Li and 40K. For an optically trapped mixture of two spin states of 40K, a Feshbach resonance has been observed by measuring the thermalization time of the gas . For an optically trapped spin mixture of the two lowest Zeeman states of 6Li, a wide s-wave Feshbach resonance has been predicted first by . Experiments with 6Li have so far only observed a magnetic field dependence of the elastic cross section far away from the predicted resonance . Near Feshbach resonances, the enhancement of the scattering length is usually accompanied by enhanced inelastic collisions which lead to rapid trap loss. This signature was used to identify Feshbach resonances in bosonic gases . However, inelastic losses have also posed a severe limitation for experiments near Feshbach resonances, in particular at high atomic densities. The superfluid phase transition for fermions will only be observable if the time for the formation of Cooper pairs is shorter than the decay time of the gas. For fermions, inelastic decay in the s-wave channel can be suppressed due to the Pauli exclusion principle. However, even in the zero-temperature limit the kinetic energy of the cloud is of the order of the Fermi energy. Therefore, inelastic collisions for higher partial waves are expected to limit the lifetime of the gas.

This letter is the first report on the study of inelastic collisions in a fermionic system near Feshbach resonances. We have observed resonant magnetic field dependent inelastic decay of an ultracold, optically trapped spin mixture of 6Li.

The ultracold lithium samples were prepared by sympathetic cooling of 6Li by 23Na as described previously . The remaining 23Na atoms were removed from the magnetic trap by rf induced spin-flips to untrapped states. This typically produced $`3\times 10^5`$ lithium atoms in the $`|1/2,1/2`$ state at a temperature of $`400`$nK, equal to half the Fermi temperature. The atoms were transferred into an optical trap formed by a single far detuned beam with up to $`1`$W of power at $`1064`$nm. The beam had a $`14\mu `$m waist and was aligned horizontally along the symmetry axis of the magnetic trap. This generated a $`175\mu `$K deep trapping potential, with $`12`$kHz radial and $`200`$Hz axial trapping frequencies. Prior to the transfer, the cloud was adiabatically decompressed in the radial direction during $`1`$s to improve the spatial overlap with the optical trap. After this stage, the trap frequencies in the magnetic trap were $`149`$Hz radially and $`26`$Hz axially. We then adiabatically ramped up the power of the optical trap over $`500`$ms. Subsequently, the magnetic trapping fields were ramped down in $`100`$ms, leaving a $`1.5`$G guiding field along the trap axis. After the transfer, the cloud contained $`3\times 10^5`$ atoms at $`3\times 10^{13}`$cm-3 peak density and $`22\mu `$K temperature, close to the $`21\mu `$K Fermi temperature. We attribute the rise in temperature relative to the Fermi temperature to residual excitations during the transfer into the optical trap. (We often observed axial oscillations of the cloud after the transfer.)

We studied inelastic decay for three different spin compositions of the cloud. The lithium atoms were either trapped purely in the lowest ($`|1`$), or the second to lowest ($`|2`$) energy state, or in a $`50\%50\%`$ mixture of these two Zeeman states. At low magnetic fields, the states $`|1`$ and $`|2`$ correspond to the $`|F,m_F=|1/2,+1/2`$ and $`|1/2,1/2`$ states, respectively. A full transfer $`|1/2,1/2|1/2,+1/2`$ was done at low magnetic field by applying a $`1`$s rf-driven adiabatic passage between the two states, which was $`>95\%`$ complete. The spin mixture was produced by a faster, non-adiabatic rf-sweep of $`200`$ms duration. The population of the states was analyzed by applying a $`7`$G/cm magnetic field gradient along the trap axis with a $`6.5`$G offset field in the center, and reducing the strength of the optical confinement. This resulted in full spatial separation of the two spin states in the optical trap. Resonant absorption imaging was used to determine the atom number in each of the spin states. Using a full transfer we compared the absorption cross sections for circularly polarized light for the two spin states and found a ratio of $`1:1.2`$. Taking this into consideration, we were able to control the relative population of the spin states by rf-sweeps with an accuracy of $`\pm 4\%`$.

In order to study the decay of the cloud near the Feshbach resonance, predicted to occur at about $`800`$G , we applied magnetic fields up to $`900`$G using the anti-bias coils of the cloverleaf magnetic trap . The magnetic field strength was calibrated in two independent ways to $`2\%`$ accuracy. For calibration of magnetic fields up to $`100`$G, we loaded 23Na into the optical trap and drove rf transitions to magnetically untrapped states. Resonances were observed by measuring the remaining atom number after recapture into the magnetic trap. As a second method at about $`700`$G, we used direct absorption imaging of 6Li in the optical trap in the presence of higher magnetic fields. The magnetic field values were then derived from the frequency shifts of the observed resonances from the lithium D2 line. We also verified that drifts of the magnetic field during the pulses, occurring from thermal expansion of the coils due to the high current load, were negligible.

We measured the magnetic field dependence of the decay by measuring the atom number at two different times, $`50`$ms and $`500`$ms after switching on the magnetic field within about $`4`$ms. For measuring the remaining atom number, the magnetic field was rapidly switched off within $`100\mu `$s, and the cloud was probed by absorption imaging at low magnetic field. Normalizing the number at long time to the number at short time made the measurement less sensitive to atom number drifts and initial losses from the optical trap. These losses can occur due to the sloshing motion of the cloud and due to initial evaporation.

For the cloud purely in state $`|2`$, we observed no significant decay over the entire range of magnetic fields, as can be seen in Figure 1, a). This also confirmed that during the measurement interval, one-body decay (e.g. due to collisions with particles from the background gas) was negligible.

The surviving fraction of the mixture is shown in Figure 1, c). No significant decay was observed at low magnetic fields. At higher magnetic field, we found two decay resonances. A strong resonance occurred at $`680`$G with considerable losses over a range of approximately $`100`$G. At even higher magnetic fields, the decay persisted at a weaker but constant level. In a more detailed scan, shown in Figure 1, d), a second, much weaker and narrower resonance was found at $`550`$G, with an

approximate width of $`20`$G. The weaker resonance became more pronounced after $`2`$s of dwell time in the magnetic field, whereas the stronger resonance showed “saturation” broadening.

We also measured the time evolution of the atom number at the two resonances. For a two-body (three-body) process the loss rate of atoms $`\dot{N}`$ is proportional to $`N^2`$ ($`N^3`$), where N is the number of trapped atoms. The decay curves at $`680`$G are shown in Figure 2. At both resonances we found that the values for $`1/N`$ showed a linear dependence on time, characteristic for a two-body process. In order to test for three-body decay we plotted the same data as $`1/N^2`$. The nonlinear behaviour is not compatible with a simple three-body decay process.

Another experimental observation is the almost complete disappearance of the mixed cloud in Figure 1, d). A resonantly enhanced three-body process would involve two atoms of opposite spin colliding, and a third in either of the spin states. Starting with a $`50\%50\%`$ mixture, the decay would stop when all atoms in state $`|1`$ (or in state $`|2`$) are used up. Therefore, three-body decay can only be consistent with the observation of complete disappearance, if the decay rate does not depend on the spin state of the third particle. In case of strongly different rates for the two spin orientations, the surviving fraction could not drop below $`25\%`$.

With the observation of two resonances and the position of the strongest decay of the main resonance deviating from the theoretical prediction , the question arises whether the observed decay of the spin mixture can be interpreted as a signature of the Feshbach resonance for elastic s-wave collisions. After the submission of this paper new improved theoretical calculations exhibited a second narrow Feshbach resonance for elastic collisions in the s-wave channel at $`550`$G , in good agreement with the position of the narrow decay resonance. The predicted magnetic field for the main resonance is $`860`$G. However, due to the huge width of the resonance it seems possible that the decay observed at $`680`$G is related to this s-wave resonance.

The measured decay curves suggest a two-body type of decay. Due to the Pauli exclusion principle dipolar relaxation is not possible in the s-wave channel . Dipolar relaxation in the p-wave channel is possible, as even in the zero-temperature limit the kinetic energy of the cloud is of the order of the Fermi energy, and collisions in the p-wave channel do not completely freeze out. However, no occurrences of resonances in the dipolar decay are theoretically predicted .

Therefore, it is most likely that the observed decay is a signature of the Feshbach resonances for the elastic collisions, resulting in enhanced three-body decay. At present no exact theoretical description for the three-body decay mechanism of fermions near a Feshbach resonance is available. Three-body decay is not supported by the measured decay curves. However, one possibility is that

the decay curve is affected by a change in temperature. An accurate measurement of the temperature was difficult due to technical reasons and a low signal to noise ratio, as the absorption signal drops significantly during the decay. If the sample had cooled down during the decay (e.g. due to an energy dependence of the loss rate) it could speed up the decay in a way that three-body loss results in a decay curve similar to a curve for two-body losses at constant temperature. Another possibility for the deviation from a three-body decay curve would be heating due to three-body recombination followed by trap loss due to evaporation, or other processes involving secondary collisions . It should be noted that the observed resonances do not resemble the predicted magnetic field dependence for elastic collisions . Therefore, our decay data cannot be explained by elastic collisions leading to evaporation.

We also observed resonant decay at $`680`$G of a cloud purely in state $`|1`$, as shown in Figure 1, b). The fact that this resonance is at the same magnetic field as for the mixture suggests that the observed loss is due to a contamination of the cloud with atoms in state $`|2`$. For three-body of decay, our measured $`>95\%`$ purity of the preparation of state $`|1`$ allows for a maximum of $`15\%`$ decay of the cloud, compared to the measured $`21`$%. Further measurements are needed to investigate whether there is an enhancement of losses by secondary collisions, or whether there is a decay mechanism for atoms purely in state $`|1`$.

In conclusion, we observed two decay resonances for the 6Li spin mixture and one resonance in the lowest spin state. Comparing our observations with recent theoretical calculations which exhibit two s-wave Feshbach resonances suggests that the observed decay is a signature of those resonances. Even on resonance, the observed decay happened on a time scale longer than the trap oscillation time, the time for elastic collisions, and the expected sub-millisecond time needed for the formation of Cooper pairs . Therefore, the 6Li system is well suited for the study of an interacting Fermi gas in the vicinity of an elastic Feshbach resonance, in particular for the search for the phase transition to a superfluid state.

This research was supported by NSF, ONR, ARO, NASA, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. C. H. S. acknowledges the support of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.

Note added: After the submission of this paper several groups reported related results. Measurements of the elastic cross section near the zero crossing associated with the Feshbach resonance have recently been performed by . Inelastic decay of 6Li fermionic clouds near the Feshbach resonance was recently also observed in the groups of J. E. Thomas , and C. Salomon, and for 40K in the group of D. S. Jin.