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# Serendipitous AGN in the XMM-Newton fields of Markarian 205 and QSO 0130-403

## 1 Introduction

The majority of luminous AGN (Active Galactic Nuclei) are found to be radio-quiet (e.g., Kukula et al. 1998); that is, the radio (5 GHz) to optical (B-band) flux ratio is $``$ 10 (Wilkes & Elvis 1987; Kellerman et al. 1989). The radio emission of radio-quiet QSOs is not non-existent, but is about 100 times less than that of the radio-loud quasars. In general, for a given optical luminosity, the average X-ray emission from radio-quiet AGN is about three times lower than that from radio-loud objects (Zamorani et al. 1981; Worrall et al. 1987). For this reason, they are more difficult to detect at higher redshifts, so the majority of distant AGN studied so far in the X-ray band are radio-loud. One method of increasing the number of high-z radio-quiet objects observed is to make use of the field sources in deep observations taken with a sensitive instrument, such as XMM-Newton. In this paper we present a study of the background field sources from two long XMM-Newton observations; for both fields optical identifications exist, so that the redshift and optical classification of each object are known.

Although unified models exist, claiming that most AGN subclasses can be understood simply through orientation effects (see Antonucci 1993 and references therein), the difference between radio-quiet and radio-loud QSOs (RQQs and RLQs) has yet to be completely explained.

It was once thought that RQQs were only found in spiral galaxies, while the RLQs inhabited ellipticals. However, advances in observing capability now show that as many as 50 per cent of the RQQs discovered may occur in ellipticals (e.g., Véron-Cetty & Woltjer 1990). RLQs, however, are almost exclusively found in bulge-dominated systems; that is, in ellipticals or early-type spirals (Falomo, Kotilainen & Treves 2001).

The Einstein IPC (Imaging Proportional Counter) data showed that radio-quiet and radio-loud objects have different power law slopes over the energy range 0.4–4 keV, with the RQQs being steeper (e.g., Wilkes & Elvis 1987). Follow-up with ROSAT (Brinkmann, Yuan & Siebert 1997; Yuan et al. 1998) confirmed these findings for the soft X-ray band and Ginga (Williams et al. 1992), EXOSAT (Lawson et al. 1992) and ASCA (Reeves et al. 1997; Reeves & Turner 2000 – RT00 hereafter) for the harder X-ray energies. This observed difference in slope ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $``$ 0.3 over 2–10 keV – Lawson et al. 1992; $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $``$ 0.5 in the 0.2–3.5 keV band – Wilkes & Elvis 1987) may be due to an extra, hard X-ray component linked to the radio emission of RLQs; i.e., connected with the radio-jets.

Neither Einstein (Canizares & White 1989; Wilkes & Elvis 1987) nor ROSAT (Yuan et al. 1998) found any indication for excess absorption in radio-quiet QSOs. Yuan et al. (1998) also found that the mean spectral slope of nearby RQQs is consistent with that of more distant (z $`>`$ 2.5) QSOs, implying that X-ray spectral evolution may be unimportant in the radio-quiet objects.

Because of the effective area of its mirrors, XMM-Newton can obtain spectra of fainter objects for a given redshift than could any previous X-ray instrument. This allows us to extend previous surveys of QSOs to include those objects with lower luminosity and to observe a given luminosity at a wider range of redshifts. In this respect, the luminosities of the objects presented in this paper (median value of $``$ 4 $`\times 10^{44}`$ erg s-1) are closer to those of the AGN which make up the cosmic X-ray background. Fig. 1 shows the luminosity distribution of radio-quiet objects surveyed by XMM in this paper compared, with those surveyed by ASCA in RT00.

In Section 2 the data reduction is discussed, with the spectral fitting to the individual objects outlined in Section 3. The highest-flux objects are analysed in 4, while the work on Mrk 205 itself was presented in a separate paper (Reeves et al. 2001). Finally, the results are discussed in Section 5.

## 2 XMM-Newton Observations

The objects in this paper were serendipitously located in the fields of two XMM pointed observations: Mrk 205 and QSO 0130$``$403. The Mrk 205 data are from a calibration observation, in May 2000 (OBS ID 0124110101). There were three separate exposures with both the MOS and PN cameras (Turner et al. 2001; Strüder et al. 2001), each of which lasted for $``$17 ksec, and these were co-added before spectral analysis was performed. QSO 0130$``$403 was observed only once, for $``$37 ksec, in June 2001 (OBS ID0112630201).

The optical identifications and redshifts for the Mrk 205 field are taken from Barcons et al. (2002), henceforth XB02, which also quotes X-ray colours and fluxes. For the QSO 0130$``$403 field, the IDs were taken from the Véron-Véron 2001 catalogue. Hence, the Mrk 205 objects were selected on the basis of their X-ray flux ($`>`$$`\times 10^{14}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 in the 0.5–4.5 keV band; XB02), with all objects down to this flux level and not in a CCD chip-gap included. The objects analysed in the second field were those which had existing optical identifications; all the optically-selected QSOs within the XMM field of view were detected and included in the sample.

In general, one might expect that X-ray-selected targets would show harder spectra than those found through optical observations, simply because soft X-ray sources are not as easy to detect, due to Galactic absorption. Comparing both the slopes over 2–10 (rest frame) and 0.2–10 (observed frame) keV for the objects in the two separate fields, a mean difference of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $`<`$ 0.1 is found. The actual range of photon indices is also very similar for both of the fields, with the vast majority ($``$80 per cent) of the spectral slopes lying between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $``$ 1.6–2.4. The similarity in the distributions of indices implies that there is no obvious problem in combining these two fields.

The data obtained allow individual spectral fitting for the QSOs in these fields. We present these spectra and investigate the sample as a whole, to determine whether there is any evidence for evolution, Compton reflection or excess absorption in the rest frames of the objects. A wide range of redshifts, from z = 0.181 to 3.023, is covered.

The data were reduced with the XMM SAS (Science Analysis Software) version 5.2, using epchain and emchain to generate valid photon lists; further filtering was then performed using xmmselect. Both single and double pixel events (patterns 0–4) were used when extracting the PN spectra, while patterns 0–12 were chosen for the MOS exposures. Each spectrum was extracted using a circular region of 30 arcsec radius, with the same circle then offset from the source to obtain an estimate of the background.

Since the sources were not all close to the centre of the CCDs, arfgen was run within the SAS, to correct for vignetting effects and the encircled energy fraction. Subsequently, CCD redistribution matrices (i.e., .rmf not .rsp) were used. The energy resolution of the PN chips changes as one moves out from the centre, due to charge transfer effects; to take this into account, PN rmfs are provided at intervals of 20 rows, with Y0 being used for rows 1-20 (furthest from the centre) up to Y9 for the central objects. For example, epn$`\mathrm{\_}`$ff20$`\mathrm{\_}`$sdY9$`\mathrm{\_}`$qe.rmf was used with arfgen for a central source (Y9), extracted for patterns 0-4 (sd = singles and doubles) in a full-frame (ff) image. Note that, for pure redistribution matrices, the type of filter (thin, medium or thick) is not included; this becomes part of the ancillary response function (arf) generated. For MOS, the relevant responses were m1$`\mathrm{\_}`$r5$`\mathrm{\_}`$all$`\mathrm{\_}`$15.rmf and m2$`\mathrm{\_}`$r5$`\mathrm{\_}`$all$`\mathrm{\_}`$15.rmf (all meaning the spectra were extracted for patterns 0–12). See http://xmm.vilspa.esa.es/ccf/epic for more details.

After using the ftool command grppha, to provide a minimum of 20 counts per bin, the Xspec v11.0.1 software package was used to analyse the background-subtracted spectra. The value of the Galactic absorption was obtained using the ftool nH, which uses data from Dickey & Lockman (1990). NH was found to be 3 $`\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 for the Mrk 205 field and 1.9 $`\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 for the QSO 0130$``$403 field. H0 was taken to be 50 km s-1 Mpc-1 and q0 to be 0.5. Unless stated otherwise, the errors given are at the 1 $`\sigma `$ level.

Of the 23 AGN analysed in this paper, only two (XMMU J013257.8-401030 and XMMU J013333.8-395554) have actual (upper limit) radio observations, of 0.4 mJy at 5 GHz (Miller, Peacock & Mead 1990). None of the others are detected in the NVSS (NRAO VLA Sky Survey), down to the survey completeness flux limit of about 2.5 mJy. Using this flux limit (and the two actual upper limits), we find that six of the AGN are definitely radio-quiet. Although the remaining seventeen objects could be radio-loud, it is found that (again using the NVSS survey limit) most would only be slightly so, with twelve having R $`<`$ 60.

Statistically, one would expect $``$20 per cent of the BLAGN (with X-ray fluxes above 10-14 erg cm-2 s-1) in an XMM field to be radio loud (based on studies of sources within the XMM observation of the Lockman Hole; private communication, Lehmann 2002); this corresponds to $``$4 objects in a sample of this size. However, as our survey does not go as deep as 10-14 erg cm-2 s-1, it should be expected that this is an upper limit to the number of radio-loud sources.

## 3 Spectral Analysis

As is conventional, the spectrum for each source was first modelled using a simple power law, together with neutral hydrogen absorption fixed at the Galactic value. The majority of sources were seen with both the MOS and PN, although the occasional source would be positioned in one of the chip gaps, or over a bad column. Where both MOS and PN CCDs could be used, joint fits were performed. For sixteen of the QSOs, the single power law model produced a good fit, with $`\chi _\nu ^2`$ $``$ 0.8–1.2. The remaining seven objects showed slightly worse statistics, but the fits were still acceptable.

Table 1 lists the redshift and optical magnitude (from XB02 for the Mrk 205 field and NED – the NASA Extragalactic Database – for the objects around QSO 0130$``$403), count-rate, flux, luminosity and 2–10 keV (QSO rest frame) spectral slope (all derived from our data) for each of the 23 sources. All but three of the objects in this sample are Broad Line AGN (BLAGN). XMMU J122120.5+751616 and XMMU J122206.4+752613 are classified as Narrow Emission Line AGN (NLAGN) by XB02, with XMMU J122258.1+751934 tentatively classified as the same. It should be noted that the optical spectrum for this last object is not of high quality and there is, therefore, some uncertainty in the given redshift of 0.257. It can be seen from the column giving the luminosities that all except two of the objects have a 2–10 keV luminosity of $`>`$1043 erg s-1; they should, therefore, be classified as QSOs, rather than any of the lower-luminosity objects which come under the title of AGN.

Over the 2–10 keV (rest-frame) band, the weighted mean of the photon index for all 23 objects was found to be $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = 1.89 $`\pm `$ 0.04. The dispersion of the slopes from the mean, taking into account the measurement errors, is $`\sigma `$ 0.21 (see Fig 2). Using the more rigorous Maximum Likelihood method (Maccacaro et al. 1988), the dispersion was calculated to be 0.29 $`\pm `$ 0.04. The mean of the 2–10 keV photon index for the RLQs in RT00 is given as 1.66 $`\pm `$ 0.04, while the RQQs had a mean $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of 1.89 $`\pm `$ 0.05. It can be seen that the XMM-observed radio quiet objects in this paper have a mean slope which is in excellent agreement with the higher flux objects measured by ASCA and that the radio-loud ASCA objects have a flatter index ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $``$ 0.2), corroborating the known difference between radio-loud and radio-quiet QSOs found in previous surveys.

### 3.1 Soft Excess and Absorbing Column Density

For each source, a low-energy blackbody component was added, to see if there was a measurable soft excess; however, it was found that, statistically, only one of the sources required this addition: XMMU J122135.5+750914 was better fitted by the inclusion of a blackbody component with kT = 0.152 $`\pm `$ 0.031 keV. The luminosity of the soft excess component was $``$18 per cent that of the power law.

Excess absorption in the QSO rest frame was also investigated, using the zwabs model in Xspec to include a component in addition to the Galactic column density. Only three of the sources in the joint fields showed any improvement in the reduced $`\chi ^2`$, one of which (XMMU J122344.7+751922) then gained an extremely steep ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ 3.5) spectral slope, for an excess absorption of (2.27 $`\pm `$ 1.06) $`\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2. The other two objects, both classed as NLAGN, were XMMU J122206.4+752613, with an improvement in $`\chi ^2`$ of 40, for one degree of freedom, for an additional column density of (6.0 $`\pm `$ 1.0) $`\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 and XMMU J122258.1+751934, showing a decrease in $`\chi ^2`$ of six for one degree of freedom, for NH = (1.28 $`\pm `$ 0.64) $`\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2. All three of these objects are of low luminosity.

Although the higher redshift objects appeared to show larger upper limits for the absorbing column density, it should be noted that this is likely to be related to the shift in energy bandpass. For an object with z = 3, the 0.2–10 keV observed band corresponds to 0.8–40 keV in its rest frame. It is, therefore, obvious that there will be increased difficulty in measuring moderately small absorption related to the softest X-ray photons and, so, a higher upper limit will be found compared to a source of the same flux at a lower redshift.

We also tried fixing the photon index to a typical value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.9`$ (e.g., Nandra & Pounds 1994), to see whether the apparent dispersion in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ could be explained by excess absorption in the QSO rest frame; i.e., to see if any of the flat spectral slopes were due to the objects being obscured. The model comprised a direct, absorbed power law, together with a scattered, unabsorbed component (both with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = 1.9). However, for ten of the objects in the sample, this produced a worse fit than that with no obscuration component and only four sources were significantly better-fitted using this model – the two NLAGN which required the zwabs column density, together with XMMU J122052.0+750529 and XMMU J122135.5+750914. The obscuring columns found for the NLAGN were (2.40 $`\pm `$ 0.57) and (1.75 $`\pm `$ 1.57) $`\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2, while the BLAGN objects required (7.73 $`\pm `$ 4.88) and (17.88 $`\pm `$ 11.85) $`\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2 respectively. The remaining nine objects can be equally well fitted by either a simple power law, or by including the obscured component. It should be noted that the objects with particularly flat spectral indices are all included in this group.

Although, statistically, these nine spectra can be fitted by the inclusion of an obscuring column density, the values for NH are not well constrained and are entirely consistent with zero. This implies that the more complicated model is not required and that these QSO nuclei are not heavily absorbed, consistent with AGN unification schemes where one should observe a direct line to the nucleus in these type-1 AGN. To summarise, there appears to be an intrinsic dispersion in the primary X-ray power law slopes of these background AGN, which cannot be solely caused by line of sight absorption.

In order to try and obtain better statistics for the fits, it was decided to co-add spectra over three redshift ranges – z = 0–1, 1–2 and $`>2`$ – and look at the subsequent continuum shapes. For each grouping, an average background spectrum was produced and the mean redshift calculated. Although co-adding spectra will tend to blur sharp features, such as iron emission lines, this should not be a problem when simply looking at the continuum as a whole.

Only the resulting spectrum for the low-redshift group (mean z = 0.4) required excess absorption, with an additional column density of (2.9 $`\pm `$ 0.9) $`\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = 1.83 $`\pm `$ 0.03. Such a column would be undetectable at higher redshifts, as it would be shifted out of the XMM-Newton bandpass. Even with the better statistics derived from the co-adding of the spectra, there was still no requirement for a blackbody component for either the low- or medium-redshift group, with the luminosity of the soft component being $`<`$6 per cent of the total X-ray luminosity. For the highest-redshift objects, however, a blackbody does improve the fit significantly: a temperature of kT = 0.214 $`\pm `$ 0.043 leads to a reduction in $`\chi ^2`$ of 8, for 2 degrees of freedom ($`>`$90 per cent confidence, using the F-test), with the luminosity of the BB component being almost 15 per cent that of the power law. However, as is discussed in Section 3.3, some of this spectral curvature could be due to reflection.

As an alternative method for identifying curvature due to a soft excess, the lowest-redshift co-added spectrum was fitted with a broken power law, with the break at 2 keV in the rest frame. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ was measured to be 1.86 $`\pm `$ 0.10 below the break and 1.82 $`\pm `$ 0.05 above. Hence, there is little steepening of the spectrum at lower energies, the upper limit being $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }`$$`<`$0.18; this is consistent with the finding above, that any soft excess present in the low redshift objects is only weak.

### 3.2 Spectral Evolution

Fig. 2 shows the 2–10 keV power law indices versus redshift. The dispersion in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is clearly visible, but there is no noticeable trend with z. A basic Spearman-Rank test to the broad-band photon index versus redshift data implied there was no correlation between the values.

Weighted linear regression was then performed, producing a best-fit slope to the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-z graph of 0.14 $`\pm `$ 0.03. However, five measurements have rather small errors and so may be biasing the result; these were, therefore, removed and the statistic recalculated. This gave a value for the gradient of 0.07 $`\pm `$ 0.12, so implying that there is little, or no, correlation between the spectral slope and the redshift for the objects analysed. This lack of correlation is also noted for the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-luminosity data, as would be expected from the tight correlation between LX and redshift.

Values of the two-point optical to X-ray spectral index, $`\alpha _{ox}`$, were measured, where

$$\alpha _{ox}=\frac{log\frac{f_\nu (2keV)}{f_\nu (2500\AA )}}{log\frac{\nu (2keV)}{\nu (2500\AA )}}$$

and the mean calculated to be $``$1.66 $`\pm `$ 0.04. For this sample alone, no correlation was found between $`\alpha _{ox}`$ and redshift. However, previous results from the Bright Quasar Survey (BQS) gave a slightly flatter value of $`\alpha _{ox}`$ = $``$1.56 $`\pm `$ 0.02, for unabsorbed QSOs at low redshift (with z $`<`$ 0.5), while the mean slope found by Chandra for the more distant (z $`>`$ 4) objects is somewhat steeper, at $``$1.78 $`\pm `$ 0.03 (both values from Vignali et al. 2001). Comparing these measurements from the BQS, Chandra and XMM, there is an indication that $`\alpha _{ox}`$ steepens slightly with increasing redshift, with the extreme high redshift QSOs (at z $`>`$ 4) being relatively fainter in the X-ray band, compared to low-z objects. One should be cautious when comparing samples of optically-selected (e.g., BQS) and X-ray-selected objects, since selection biases may lead to complications. However, some studies (e.g., Lamer, Brunner & Staubert 1997) have shown that the differences are not always significant. Likewise, as mentioned in Section 2, the differently-selected fields in this paper show a consistent range of spectral parameters.

### 3.3 Spectral Curvature

AGN, as a group, often show ‘reflection’ features, due to back-irradiation of the accretion disc by the hard X-ray flux (Pounds et al. 1990; Nandra & Pounds 1994), the strength of the features depending on the solid angle subtended by the optically thick, reflecting material. The strongest of these features is often an emission line arising from iron fluorescence, at $``$6.4–6.9 keV, depending on the ionisation state of the material. An absorption edge, located at 7.1 keV (for neutral iron), should also be visible. The individual spectra we obtained show no obvious features around this energy range, possibly because of limited signal-to-noise. The ‘Compton reflection hump’ (which flattens the high energy spectrum) occurs due to the decreasing photo-electric absorption opacity and is expected to peak around 20–40 keV in the rest frame of the object. Because of the high redshift of the objects in this sample, the observed XMM energy band extends to up to 30–40 keV in the rest frame and, so, the spectra might be expected to show evidence of the Compton hump.

Neutral reflection models were tried (pexrav in Xspec; Magdziarz & Zdziarski 1995), fixing the exponential energy cut-off at 100 keV and the disc inclination angle at 30o. The strength of the reflection component is given by R = $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$/2$`\pi `$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the solid angle subtended by the reflector. Upon fitting the AGN individually, only one of the brightest objects, QSO 0130$``$403, showed evidence for reflection, with $`\chi ^2`$ decreasing by 16 for 1 degree of freedom, corresponding to a probability of $`>`$99.99 per cent via an F-test.

A simpler method, more appropriate to the limited data quality, was to try and identify spectral curvature by measuring the photon index over two distinct energy bands (defined as 0.5–3 keV and 3+ keV in the rest frame of the object) and hence determine the difference between the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’-band values. The values of the slope in all energy bands analysed are shown in Table 2. At the foot of each column, the mean value for the photon index in that energy range is given.

If Compton reflection is present, then one would expect the higher-energy spectral slope to be flatter, hence subtracting the soft-band $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ from the harder one would lead to a negative value. Simulations were performed, for an object at the mean redshift of our sample (z = 1.4), setting R = 1 (corresponding to reflection from the full 2$`\pi `$ steradians of Compton thick matter); $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ was then measured over the two energy bands defined above (0.5–3 keV and 3+ keV) and the difference in photon index over the two bands was calculated to be $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $``$ $``$0.17. The weighted mean for the difference in the slopes for our actual spectra was found to be $``$0.15 $`\pm `$ 0.06, which corresponds to a reflection component, R, of 0.88 $`\pm `$ 0.35. The spectral shape for the sample as a whole is therefore consistent with reflection from approximately 2$`\pi `$ steradians of optically thick matter, located out of the direct line of sight (such as an accretion disc or molecular torus).

As when investigating the presence of a soft excess and additional absorption, the coadded spectra over three redshift bands were analysed. The photon indices were measured over 0.5–3 keV (rest frame) and 3+ keV energy bands, to compare with the findings above. For the lowest-redshift objects, there was no noticeable change in slope; however, flattenings at the higher-energies of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = $``$0.25 $`\pm `$ 0.18 and $``$0.30 $`\pm `$ 0.09 were calculated for the middle- and high-redshift groups respectively. This prompted the use of pexrav, which indicated the presence of a reflection component (detected at 98 per cent significance), of R $`>`$ 0.9 for the most distant objects; there was little improvement in the fit for the medium-z group. This is consistent with the result obtained from finding the average change in slope between the soft and hard energy bands for the individual spectra.

In Section 3.1, the possibility of a soft excess was discussed. Adding in a blackbody component to the model for the high-z group gave an acceptable fit, although, statistically, not as good as for reflection. It also seems unlikely that there would be a more clearly detectable soft excess at higher redshifts than the lower-z values, which are more sensitive to any excess at the lowest energies. Nonetheless, a model comprising both a blackbody and a reflection component still improved the fit, giving a $`\chi _\nu ^2`$ = 142/144, corresponding to almost 97 per cent confidence for the addition of the reflection component. Thus, there does appear to be an indication of the Compton reflection hump, in the most distant objects.

## 4 High flux objects

Within this sample of AGN are 7 objects with 2–10 keV fluxes of greater than 5 $`\times 10^{14}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. These have spectra with sufficiently good signal-to-noise to allow individual analysis in greater detail.

The central object of the second field, QSO 0130$``$403 (XMMU J013302.0-400628 in the tables), has the highest luminosity, at 8.28 $`\times 10^{45}`$ erg s-1. The QSO was discovered by Smith (1976) on Tololo survey plates and found to be a very blue object, from the optical photometry published by Adam (1985). It has previously been observed in the low-energy X-ray region by the ROSAT PSPC (Position Sensitive Proportional Counter), which gave a value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = 1.69$`{}_{0.60}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.71}`$, when fixing NH to the Galactic value (Bechtold et al. 1994).

When fitting the 2–10 keV rest-frame band, the addition of an ionised Fe emission line, with the line width ($`\sigma `$) set to 0.1 keV, decreased $`\chi ^2`$ by 5 for 2 degrees of freedom, which corresponds to a marginal detection at $`>`$90 per cent. (The width of the line could not be well constrained: $`\sigma `$ = 0.34 $`\pm `$ 0.29). Over the full 0.2–10 keV observed band (corresponding to 0.8–40.2 keV rest frame), the best fit model consists simply of a power law ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = 2.09 $`\pm `$ 0.03) and the emission line, detailed above, at 6.62 $`\pm `$ 0.12 keV, the equivalent width of the line being $``$200 eV in the QSO rest frame ($``$50 eV observed). There is no requirement for additional column density or a soft excess. The spectrum is shown in Figure 3.

As mentioned in section 3.3, there is evidence for neutral reflection in this spectrum, with the 90 per cent confidence range for R being 1.11–3.85; i.e. consistent with reflection from the full 2$`\pi `$ steradians of an accretion disc.

As stated earlier, most of the spectra did not require the presence of a strong soft excess. For each of the high flux objects, a blackbody component was added into the model, with the temperature fixed at 0.1 keV; the 90 per cent upper limit was then calculated for the luminosity over 0.2–10 keV; in general this was found to be $``$10 per cent of the strength of the power law. For a low-luminosity QSO, such as Mrk 205 (Reeves et al. 2001), this is a typical value for the relative strength of the soft excess compared to the power law component; thus, the objects in this sample are consistent with other low-luminosity QSOs, where better signal-to-noise in the spectra allow more detailed analysis of the soft excesses.

All the high-flux spectra (Figure 4) were systematically fitted to search for the presence of iron lines and reflection. With the exception of QSO 0130$``$403, neither iron emission nor the Compton Reflection Hump could be constrained in any of the individual spectra, with 90 per cent upper limits on the equivalent widths of the iron lines lying between 145–650 eV.

It should be noted that two of these bright objects are those classified as Narrow Line AGN by XB02 – XMMU J122206.4+752613 and XMMU J122258.1+751934. These are the only two high-flux objects which have measureable excess absorption; the values, however ($``$ few $`\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2), are not of a large enough magnitude completely to obscure broad-line regions and, hence, to explain the narrow-line classification.

Since Mrk 205 has been presented in an earlier paper, its spectrum has not been re-fitted. However, from Reeves et al. (2001), we find that the spectral slope for Mrk 205 is 1.80 $`\pm `$ 0.04, for the energy band 2.5–10 keV. This includes two Gaussian components: a narrow ($`\sigma `$ = 10 eV) line at E = 6.39 $`\pm `$ 0.02 keV and a broader ($`\sigma `$ = 250$`{}_{130}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+190}`$ eV) one at E = 6.74 $`\pm `$ 0.12 keV. The broad-band spectrum shows a slight soft excess, and is best fitted by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = 1.86 $`\pm `$ 0.02 and a blackbody component with kT = 120 $`\pm `$ 8 eV, together with the two emission lines. It is clear that these values for the slopes are consistent with those for the objects presented in this paper.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 Absorbing Column Density

Our fits to the QSO spectra implied that the RQQs observed have no additional absorption above that due to our own Galaxy. The flatter spectral slopes for some objects could not be explained by obscuration in the AGN; this agrees with the XMM observation of the Lockman Hole (Hasinger et al. 2001; Mainieri et al. 2002), in that our sources are type-1 AGN, while their intrinsically absorbed objects are mainly type-2. One possibility is that we are not reaching a low enough ($`<10^{14}`$ erg cm-2 s-1) flux level to be measuring spectra of these faint, obscured sources, within these two fields.

However, the lack of any absorption above the Galactic value agrees with previous studies of radio-quiet QSOs, e.g., with Einstein (Canizares & White 1989; objects with 0.1$`<`$z$`<`$3.5), ROSAT (Yuan et al. 1998; z$`>`$2) and Ginga (Lawson & Turner 1997; z$`<`$1.4). Indeed the radio-quiet QSOs in this sample appear to remain unabsorbed up to redshifts of z $``$ 3.

Radio-loud objects, on the other hand, do tend to show excess absorption (e.g., Elvis et al. 1994; Brinkmann, Yuan & Siebert 1997; RT00). The data from RT00 show an average column density of 1.29 $`\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2 for radio-loud quasars. For the sample of RQQs in this paper, a mean of 2.96 $`\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2 is found for the upper limits, which is noticeably smaller.

It is known that the low-energy response of the ASCA SIS has been degrading over time (see Yaqoob et al. 2000). The effect of this is an underestimate of the soft X-ray flux, which can show itself as an increase in NH. In order to check that the differences found between the RLQ and RQQ distributions are not instrument-linked, the measured column densities for two objects which have been observed by both XMM and ASCA were compared (ASCA values were taken from RT00; XMM values calculated for own data for PKS 0558$``$504 and taken from Reeves et al. 2001 for Mrk 205). It was found that, within the errors, the instruments agreed; it can, therefore, be assumed that the absorption measured for the RT00 radio-loud sample is not due simply to the ASCA calibration.

Statistical tests were applied to both the radio-quiet objects from this paper and the radio-loud ones from RT00, to determine whether there was evidence for a difference in population. Fig. 5 shows the column densities against redshift for this combined sample, with the ASCA-detected RLQs marked by crosses and the XMM RQQs by circles/arrows.

Due to the overwhelming presence of censored data (that is, upper limit measurements), the ASURV (Astronomy Survival Analysis) software was used (see Feigelson & Nelson 1985). Employing each of the possible two-sample tests, we found that the probability that the RQQs and RLQs are from the same population was very low: $`<`$0.01 per cent. The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test was also performed on the data, leading to a probability of $``$3.4 per cent for the existence of one population only. Other statistical tests were also tried, each method confirming the same result: the radio-quiet QSOs in our sample were found to belong to a different population from the radio-loud objects in RT00 (probability of $`>`$99.99 per cent in general).

Summarising, we find that, although RLQs tend to show excess absorption at high redshifts, RQQs do not, at least up to z $``$ 3. This implies that there is an intrinsic difference in the local environment of the two types of QSO at high redshifts. It must be noted that the situation for radio-quiet QSOs at higher redshifts (z $`>`$ 5) is unclear; deep XMM observations of individual, bright high-redshift QSOs are required to explore this possibility.

### 5.2 Spectral Evolution

The QSOs in this sample all show the same range of continuum photon indices, regardless of luminosity or redshift, over the energy range 2–10 keV. Comparing the slopes over the full 0.2–10 keV range gave the same results.

Canizares & White (1989) also find no evidence for a $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-z dependence from the Einstein data, up to a maximum energy of 4 keV. Likewise, Yuan et al. (1998) found that the spectral slopes of distant (z $`>`$ 2.5) RQQs were consistent (within the errors) with those of nearby objects; ROSAT covered the energy range 0.1–2.4 keV. The ASCA data in RT00 also showed no significant correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and redshift, over a similar energy range to that of XMM. The independence of spectral slope and redshift is also observed in the higher energy band (E$``$2 keV) of radio-loud objects \[e.g., comparison between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ from EXOSAT data (Lawson et al. 1992) and Ginga (Williams et al. 1992)\]. There also appears to be no evolution with redshift of the extreme-ultraviolet spectral slope, for either RL or RQQs (Telfer et al. 2002).

The link between the different regions of the spectral energy distributions of AGN is, as yet, uncertain, with no complete theory having been generally accepted. The observed lack of correlation between slope and redshift may suggest, however, that the luminosity of these QSOs is simply scaling as the black hole mass – i.e. $`\dot{M}`$ remains constant with respect to the Eddington value, as the overall spectral energy distribution remains unchanged. Different values of the accretion rate could then be responsible for some of the dispersion of the spectral slopes that is observed (e.g., Liu, Mineshige & Shibata 2002). Alternatively, the spread of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ may be due to different disc-corona geometries (Czerny & Elvis 1987; Fabian et al. 2002). It should be noted that this dispersion in slope is also observed in the low-luminosity Seyferts, as well as QSOs: Narrow Line Seyfert 1 galaxies tend to have softer spectra than the corresponding broader line objects; this may be explained if these objects are accreting at a greater fraction of the Eddington rate, when compared to the broad line AGN (Pounds, Done & Osborne 1995).

### 5.3 Spectral Curvature

For the signal-to-noise of the data presented here, it is not possible to make a conclusive statement on the presence or absence of reflection in the individual QSOs in this sample. However, the spectral hardening (where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }=0.2`$) that appears to exist for the sample as a whole above 3 keV, is consistent with reflection from 2$`\pi `$ steradians of optically thick matter, located out of the line of sight.

Past studies (e.g., with ASCA, RT00) have noted that the strength of the neutral Compton reflection hump, and the associated iron K$`\alpha `$ line, is considerably lower in the higher-redshift QSOs, than that expected in Seyfert 1 galaxies at low redshift (e.g., Nandra & Pounds 1994). However, the QSO spectra previously obtained above z = 2 by ASCA were dominated by core-dominated radio-loud quasars, where a contribution from the relativistic jet could weaken any apparent reflection features. This does not appear to be the case for the radio-quiet AGN found in this sample; the average co-added spectra of these AGN above z = 2 appears to indicate the presence of a reflection component with R $``$ 1, the first time this has been observed for high-redshift QSOs. Such a reflection component could naturally arise from X-rays scattering off optically thick material, such as the inner accretion disc, subtending $`2\pi `$ steradians to the X-ray source. Another possible contribution is by reflection off a distant molecular torus, predicted from AGN unification schemes. We note here that such a component may account for the ‘narrow’ iron K$`\alpha `$ lines observed by XMM-Newton and Chandra in bright, nearby AGN (e.g., Kaspi et al. 2001; O’Brien et al. 2001a).

Finally we note the possibility that the reflection may occur from an ionised disc (e.g., Reeves et al. 1997; Eracleous & Halpern 1998; Grandi et al. 2001; Ballantyne, Ross & Fabian 2002). However, the data in this paper show only one significant iron line, located near 6.6 keV; this tentatively suggests that the reprocessing material might be more strongly ionised in some of the higher luminosity AGN, as is observed for instance in the XMM-Newton spectrum of Mrk 205 (Reeves et al. 2001). Such an ionised disc could also explain some of the observed spectral curvature (e.g., O’Brien et al. 2001b; Pounds et al. 2001).

## 6 Conclusions

Analysing 23 radio-quiet QSOs, with a mean redshift of 1.40 and 2–10 keV luminosity of 9.66 $`\times 10^{44}`$ erg s-1, we have found the following:

* The 2–10 keV spectral slopes measured for this sample show a significant scatter. However there is no obvious trend with redshift, so it can be concluded that there is no evidence for X-ray spectral evolution of QSOs with redshift or luminosity
* The mean value for $`\alpha _{ox}`$ is measured to be $``$1.66 $`\pm `$ 0.04. Within the sample there is no correlation with redshift, although comparison with both lower and higher redshift samples indicates a slight steepening as z increases.
* The dispersion in photon index is intrinsic; that is, it is not related to obscuration, as is thought to be the case for the faint sources constituting X-ray background.
* No excess absorption in the rest frame of the radio-quiet QSOs is found. This is in contrast to the additional NH measured by past studies in high-z radio-loud quasars and suggests an intrinsic difference could exist in the local environments of the two classes of QSO.
* Considering the sample as a whole, the spectral slope appears to flatten at higher energies (above 3 keV). This indicates the presence of a reflection component from material subtending a solid angle of 2$`\pi `$ steradians to the X-ray source. This matter could arise from either the inner accretion disc or a distant ($`>`$1 pc) molecular torus.

## 7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The work in this paper is based on observations with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission, with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA and NASA. The authors would like to thank the EPIC Consortium for all their work during the calibration phase, and the SOC and SSC teams for making the observation and analysis possible. Thanks also go to Xavier Barcons and the AXIS team for the data on the QSOs in the field of Mrk 205, together with the anonymous referee, for very helpful comments. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administation. For the survival statistics, the ASURV v1.1 (Astronomy Survival Analysis) software was utilised (Feigelson & Nelson 1985). Support from a PPARC studentship and the Leverhulme Trust is acknowledged by KLP and JNR respectively.


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# The microlensing signatures of photospheric starspots

## 1 Introduction

Recently gravitational microlensing has been developed as a tool to probe the distribution and nature of dark matter in the Milky Way (see Paczyński 1996 for a detailed review), with several hundred candidate events detected to date.

In the past few years, several authors have established that analysis of microlensing events can, in principle, provide much useful information about the star being lensed, in the particular case where the star has significant angular extent. Such ‘finite source effects’ were considered initially for a uniform circular disk (see e.g. Bontz 1979; Nemiroff and Wickramasinghe 1994; Gould 1994, 1995; Witt and Mao 1994; Peng 1997 ). These calculations demonstrated that the finite extent of the source would produce a deviation from the standard lightcurve for a point source, allowing estimation of the source radius and hence the Einstein radius of the lens. Heyrovský and Loeb (1997) extended this treatment to the microlensing of a uniform elliptical source.

The microlensing signature of a non-uniform disk (due to, for example, limb darkening) was considered by Valls-Gabaud (1994), Witt (1995), Bogdanov and Cherepashchuk (1995, 1996) and Simmons, Newsam and Willis (1995) and Simmons, Willis and Newsam (1995), who showed that the microlensed lightcurves would display a chromatic signature as the lens effectively sees a star of different radius at different wavelengths. Further studies of the chromatic signature of extended sources followed in, e.g. Gould and Welch (1996), Valls-Gabaud (1996), Sasselov (1997) and Valls-Gabaud (1998). These authors discussed the possibility of using microlensing to constrain stellar atmosphere models by determining the radial surface brightness profile of the lensed star as a function of wavelength. Hendry et al. (1998) investigated a non-parametric approach to inverting the radial surface brightness profile from multi-colour lightcurves, using the Backus-Gilbert method (see also Gray and Coleman 2002).

The calculations of Simmons, Newsam and Willis (1995) were carried out for a grey model atmosphere with a linear limb darkening law; this simple model was improved in Valls-Gabaud (1998) to incorporate linear, quadratic and logarithmic limb darkening laws, with coefficients calculated for the Johnson wavebands $`U`$ to $`K`$. More recently Heyrovský, Sasselov and Loeb (2000) have used one particular model atmosphere for a red giant star to explore the efficacy of high-precision photometric and spectroscopic microlensing data as a detailed probe of red giant atmosphere models.

The study of stellar atmospheres is one of several specific astrophysical applications of extended source events which have been discussed in recent literature. Others include the measurement of stellar rotation (e.g. Maoz and Gould 1994), diagnosis of stellar winds (Ignace and Hendry 1999), and detection of extra-solar planets (Gaudi and Gould 1997).

A subject which has received comparatively little attention to date is the microlensing signatures of *non-radial* surface brightness profiles on the source disk - as would result from e.g. the presence of photospheric starspots. Sasselov (1997) presented light curves for a simple model of a cool circular spot on the photosphere of a red giant star. This treatment was extended in Heyrovský and Sasselov (2000), hereafter HS00, to consider the signatures of hot and cool circular spots as a function of spot position, lens impact parameter, stellar radius and spot area. The authors presented maps of “spot detectability”, adopting a change in the microlensed flux of 2% as the criterion for detectable features in that particular model atmosphere of a red giant. Han et al. (2000) extended this analysis for the case of caustic crossings produced by a binary lens, but did not consider the effects of limb darkening nor used model atmospheres.

The stellar atmosphere model adopted in HS00 – based on those developed in Heyrovský, Sasselov and Loeb (2000) – included the effects of limb darkening, which – as one would expect – suppresses the signature of a hot or cool feature close to the stellar limb. The numerical procedure adopted both by HS00 and Han et al. (2000), however, ignored geometrical foreshortening which would result in a circular spot appearing as an ellipse in projection, as the spot is displaced from the centre of the disk.

In Bryce, Hendry and Valls-Gabaud (2002) we improved the geometrical treatment of HS00 and Han et al. (2000) by introducing an accurate model of the effects of foreshortening for a circular spot plus an exploration of the effects of limb darkening within the spots themselves as opposed to the uniform spots in these two papers. Here we extend the analysis of that paper to include a more comprehensive exploration of the effects of non-radial surface brightness variations as a function of source, spot and lens parameters. In particular we extend our model atmospheres calculations to incorporate the recent ‘Next Generation’ (NextGen) atmosphere models of Hauschildt et al. (1999a,b), which include a more comprehensive treatment of spherical geometry and the effects of molecular opacity in the outer atmospheres of cool giants.

The *gravitational imaging* of stellar photospheres is a potentially very useful tool for stellar astrophysics. The atmospheres of cool giants are relatively poorly understood – not least because of their highly evolved and thus theoretically complex nature. Fundamental issues such as their typical rotation speeds remain uncertain, and in fact spectroscopic observations of microlensing events have already been proposed as a useful diagnostic of red giant rotation (Gould 1997).

Detecting photospheric spots in ways different from, e.g., rotationally induced photometric modulation or Doppler imaging could bring considerable insight on their properties. For instance it is not clear what the covering factor could be, particularly if many spots are present which bias the determination of unspotted surface properties. In Doppler imaging analyses the temperature of the spots is usually cooler than the photosphere of the stars under study, typically by 600 – 1200 K, but this may be at least in part due to selection effects. There is an interplay between spot area and temperature which microlensing could perhaps remove. Although Doppler imaging has revealed irregularly-shaped spots, there are still many uncertainties in the precise interpretation of such maps.

The precise role of, e.g., convection in the outer atmospheres of red giants is also unclear. Semi-regular variables, such as $`\alpha `$ Orionis, undergo brightness changes of about one-half magnitude on a timescale of years; this variability has been associated with the intermittent appearance of large convection cells on the photosphere. HST observations of $`\alpha `$ Orionis do indeed reveal evidence of a single unresolved bright area on the photosphere (Gilliland and Dupree 1996) although subsequent spectroscopic observations suggest that its origin may be due not to convection but rather to “an outwardly propagating shock wave” (Uitenbroek, Dupree and Gilliland 1998).

The study of starspots is clearly, therefore, an important aspect of gravitational stellar imaging. Moreover, microlensing provides a unique opportunity for probing such features on the surface of (most probably) slowly rotating red giants, which are completely unsuitable candidates for the powerful Doppler Imaging technique (see e.g. Strassmeier and Linsky, 1996, and references therein).

Finally, we also note that when stars are resolved by a lens, the probability of planet detection may be reduced since the effect of the finite source is to smear out, and thus suppress, the planetary signature (see for instance Vermaak, 2000, for a recent analysis). Photospheric starspots could mimic such features, and hence provide an unexpected noise background for planet detection via microlensing, although the time of observation of the features and their chromatic signature should generally provide a suitable means of discriminating between spots and planets.

The structure of this paper is as follows. In §2 we discuss the Next Generation stellar atmosphere models used in our calculations, in §3 we discuss our model for the microlensing of an extended source and in §4 we provide some informative examples of the lightcurves produced by spotted stars and explore the “detectability” of starspots as a function of e.g. size, position and temperature. In §5 we present our conclusions. Appendix A describes in detail our geometrical treatment of a circular spot.

## 2 NextGen model atmospheres

Computations of stellar surface brightness profiles have been carried out for several decades but until very recently were based on an approximate treatment whereby the Planck function was used to compute central intensities, $`I_0`$, for different wavebands, and the intensity, $`I(\mu )`$, as a function of (the cosine of) emergent angle, $`\mu `$, was then given by a simple parametric model, such as the linear model, namely:

$$I(\mu )=I_0\left[1c_1(1\mu )\right]$$
(1)
The coefficient $`c_1`$ depends on the temperature, gravity and chemical composition of the source and on the wavelength of observation. Although several improvements have been made in recent years (see Valls-Gabaud, 1998, for further references) it is clear that some of the underlying hypotheses are not realistic.

The recent ‘Next Generation’ stellar atmosphere models, computed by Hauschildt and collaborators (1999a,b), considerably improve upon these simplistic models in several important respects. The calculations are carried out assuming spherical geometry for giant stars, and the intensity profiles are computed directly – without assuming a Planck law or a parametric model for the dependence on emergent angle. Moreover, the intensity calculations are based on a huge library of atomic and molecular lines, with about $`2\times 10^8`$ molecular lines contributing to a typical giant atmosphere model at $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=3000`$ K.

The dramatic difference in the dependence of limb darkening on emergent angle between the traditional models and NextGen models is illustrated in Figure 1. This figure shows the intensity profiles for a giant star of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=4250`$K and $`\mathrm{log}g=0.5`$, in four Johnson colour bands: $`V`$, $`R`$, $`I`$ and $`K`$. The solid curve shows the NextGen profiles, while the dashed, dash-dotted and dotted curves denote the linear, logarithmic and square root models respectively. We can see from this figure that there is a sudden decrease in the intensity of the NextGen models as one approaches the limb of the star – i.e. at $`\mu 0.2`$. This feature arises from the adoption of spherical geometry and the improved modelling of molecular scattering in the outer atmosphere of the star, and is clearly an effect which one would expect to be highly relevant to stellar atmospheres probed by microlensing, but is completely absent from the earlier parametric models (e.g. Kurucz, 1994) which predict significant intensity all the way to $`\mu =0`$.

This strong limb feature was detected during the recent EROS 2000–BUL–5 event, where a NextGen model was able to fit the $`H\alpha `$ equivalent width variation across the photosphere of a K giant (Albrow et al. 2001b), improving the earlier calculations by Valls–Gabaud (1996, 1998). Accordingly the results presented in this paper are calculated using NextGen atmosphere models rather than parameterised limb darkening laws.

## 3 Microlensing of an extended spotted source

The majority of candidate microlensing events are well fitted by a point source, point lens model. The characteristic scale for microlensing is usually taken to be the Einstein radius of the lens, defined as

$$R_E=\sqrt{\frac{4GM}{c^2}\frac{(D_SD_L)D_L}{D_S}}$$
(2)
Here $`M`$, $`D_S`$, $`D_L`$ are the lens mass, the distance to source and the distance to lens respectively. The angular Einstein radius, $`\theta _E`$, is

$$\theta _E=\frac{R_E}{D_L}=\sqrt{\frac{4GM}{c^2}\frac{(D_SD_L)}{D_LD_S}}$$
(3)
In the case of a point source being lensed by a point mass the amplification, $`A`$, of the source depends only on the projected angular separation, $`u`$ of the lens and source.

$$A(u)=\frac{u^2+2}{u\sqrt{u^2+4}}$$
(4)
and hence is independent of wavelength.

However when the angular stellar radius is comparable to the angular Einstein radius of the lens (i.e. an extended source) the integrated, lensed flux from the stellar disk is then given by

$$F(u)=_{s=0}^R_{\theta =0}^{2\pi }I(s,\theta )A(u)s𝑑s𝑑\theta $$
(5)
where the source angular radius, $`R`$, and angular separation, $`u`$, are measured in units of $`\theta _E`$. The amplification factor, $`A(u)`$, is simply the point source, point lens amplification given by Equation 4.

For the background, unspotted photosphere we assume that $`I_{}(s,\theta )=I_{}(s)`$ – i.e. the surface brightness profile is radially symmetric, and these values are then taken from the NextGen model atmospheres, for the appropriate waveband under examination and the effective temperature and $`\mathrm{log}g`$ of the source being modelled.

Our procedure for integrating the flux difference due to starspots is very similar to the above, except that the appropriate temperature at which we evaluate the surface brightness now varies as a function of the polar angle, $`\theta `$. Thus

$$\mathrm{\Delta }F(u)=_𝒜\left[I_{\mathrm{sp}}(s,\theta )I_{}(s)\right]A(u)s𝑑s𝑑\theta $$
(6)
where $`𝒜`$ is the projected area of the disk covered by spots. We may apply Eq. 6 for the case of several starspots by simply adding together the contribution, $`\mathrm{\Delta }F(u)_i`$, from each spot – provided only that none of the spots overlaps with any other. Furthermore we also apply the NextGen limb darkening to the spots modelled, i.e. spots close to the limb will not be as bright as spots of the same effective temperature in the centre of the photosphere. The key problem is, then, a purely geometrical one: to determine the $`(s,\theta )`$ coordinates marking the boundary of the area covered by each starspot at any given time. A similar problem was dealt with by Dorren (1987), but we describe our method fully in Appendix A. The only physical simplification we have made is to assume that the effective gravity within each spot is the same as the gravity in the photosphere. (It would be computationally straightforward – but prohibitively time-consuming – to allow for variations in effective gravity within each spot). Although there is as yet no direct observational evidence to support this assumption (Donati, private communication) we can show that it is reasonable by the following physical argument. Assuming that the growth of spots is regulated by horizontal pressure gradients created by the evaporation of magnetic flux tubes, Gray (1992) quotes the approximate relation, $`g_{\mathrm{spot}}^{0.6}P_{\mathrm{spot}}=\mathrm{constant}`$, between the spot effective gravity and pressure – i.e. the larger the spot pressure, the lower its effective gravity. Relating $`P_{\mathrm{spot}}`$ to the stellar magnetic field and inserting typical values for a solar-type star with $`\mathrm{log}g=4.5`$, one finds $`\mathrm{log}g_{\mathrm{spot}}3.6`$. For giant stars, with a smaller magnetic field, the difference in $`\mathrm{log}g`$ should be smaller than about 0.2 dex, and so the small effect of varying effective gravity within the spot can be neglected.

## 4 Results

### 4.1 Illustrative examples

Figures 2 to 5 present illustrative lightcurves for several different configurations of star, lens and spots. In each of these figures we have assumed that the angular radius of the source is equal to the angular Einstein radius of the lens. While this choice of stellar radius is observationally unrealistic and produces low amplification events, for illustrative purposes it has the advantage of producing spot features on the lightcurves which are clearly distinguishable by eye. We will consider somewhat more realistic values of the ratio of stellar radius to Einstein radius later in this section. Lightcurves were computed from the NextGen models in the $`U`$ to $`K`$ bands; however for clarity only 4 bands are shown in the following figures. The $`V`$, $`R`$, $`I`$ and $`K`$ bands are represented by a continuous, a dashed, a dotted and dashed-dotted line respectively.

In Figures 2 to 5 three panels are shown. The left hand panel shows the stellar disk, illustrating the position and size of the starspots and the trajectory (indicated by an arrow) of the lens during the event (in fact all four cases are for a lens impact parameter, $`u_0=0`$). The middle panel indicates the (absolute value of the) change, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$, in apparent magnitude as a function of time, as given by the formula

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m=\left|2.5\mathrm{log}_{10}\left(\frac{F_{\mathrm{LSP}}}{F_{\mathrm{USP}}}\right)\right|$$
(7)
where $`F_{\mathrm{LSP}}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{USP}}`$ denote the flux from the lensed, spotted star and unlensed spotted star respectively. (Note that, since the effect of lensing is – of course – to amplify the unlensed flux, the sign of the change in apparent magnitude is alwys negative). Similarly the right hand panel shows the change, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_\mathrm{S}`$ in apparent magnitude resulting specifically from the presence of the spot(s), as given by the formula

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_\mathrm{S}=2.5\mathrm{log}_{10}\left(\frac{F_{\mathrm{LSP}}}{F_{\mathrm{LSF}}}\right)$$
(8)
where $`F_{\mathrm{LSF}}`$ denotes the lensed flux from the spot-free star. (Note that $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_\mathrm{S}`$ may be either positive or negative).

While the middle panel indicates the time evolution in observed apparent magnitude of the stellar disk plus spot(s) during the microlensing event, it is difficult to isolate from this panel the contribution to the lightcurve of the spots themselves. Thus, although the final panel indicates a flux ratio which would not be directly observable, it nevertheless makes clear the residual magnitude change between the observed flux from a spotted source and the *predicted* flux from an event with identical stellar and lens parameters (i.e. stellar radius, atmospheric limb darkening, lens impact parameter etc) but *without* the non-radial surface brightness variations due to the presence of spots.

Note that $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_\mathrm{S}`$ as defined by Equation 8 would give a wavelength dependent non-zero offset, even in the absence of lensing. This arises because the integrated unlensed flux from the spotted star would, in any case, introduce a magnitude change when compared to the unspotted star. Thus we can think of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_\mathrm{S}`$ as composed of two contributions;

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_S=\mathrm{\Delta }m_{SL}2.5\mathrm{log}_{10}\left(\frac{F_{USP}}{F_{USF}}\right)$$
(9)
where $`F_{\mathrm{USF}}`$ denotes the unlensed flux from the spot-free star. Hence $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{SL}}`$ can be regarded as the magnitude change due to the *lensing* of the spots, while the second term represents the non-zero offset discussed above. Although we are, of course, primarily interested in $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{SL}}`$, it is useful to include the non-zero offset in the right hand panels of Figures 2 to 5 as it adds to the clarity of the lightcurve deviations.

Figure 2 illustrates the $`V`$, $`R`$, $`I`$ and $`K`$ lightcurves produced by the transit of a lens across the disk of a $`5000`$ K dwarf star and five $`4200`$ K circular spots of radius $`10^{}`$. These spot parameters are motivated by, and are broadly consistent with, the results of stellar maps derived from Doppler imaging studies of active dwarfs (see e.g. Strassmeier and Linsky, 1996, and references therein). It can be seen that the two cool spots very close to the lens trajectory are the only features which contribute significantly to the lightcurve. The central spot produces a noticeable ‘dip’ in the central portion of the lightcurve, although the feature becomes less prominent at longer wavelengths and is barely detectable in the $`K`$ band. This is not surprising as the contrast in limb darkening between $`5000`$ K and $`4200`$ K diminishes at longer wavelengths. The spot close to the right hand limb of the star produces a signal of slightly smaller amplitude – although with a similar dependence on wavelength – which is due in part to the geometrical foreshortening clearly visible in the left hand panel.

Note also that the position of this spot, in the ‘wings’ of the light curve, renders it very difficult to isolate in the middle panel, although its presence is obvious in the right hand panel.

Figure 3 shows the same lens trajectory and configuration of five spots as in Figure 2, but now with a temperature of $`4800`$ K on a $`4000`$ K giant star. Here the spot radius and temperature difference is motivated by the HST observations of $`\alpha `$ Orionis (Gilliland and Dupree 1996). Once again, only the two spots which lie very close to the lens trajectory are ‘imaged’ by the lens, producing a peak in the lightcurves, which diminishes in amplitude at longer wavelengths. Note from the right hand panel that the unlensed offset between different wavebands and the peak magnitude change due to lensing are both somewhat larger than in Figure 2; i.e. the unlensed (and lensed) contrast of hotspots is greater than that of cool spots. This is not surprising, since what is important is the (log) ratio of spotted to unspotted flux; this translates to a larger magnitude change for the hot spot than for the cool spot, although the temperature difference has the same absolute value in both examples.

The lensing signature of multiple spots is also interesting, particularly if spots are restricted to a given latitudinal band. Figures 4 and 5 show a $`4000`$ K giant star with a large group of $`4800`$ K, $`10^{}`$ radius spots filling a $`40^{}`$ band in latitude, straddling the equator. In Figure 4 the inclination of the source star is $`90^{}`$, so that the lens trajectory intersects the spot bands. We can see from the middle and right hand panels that the spots produce a complex pattern, with a series of ‘bumps’ each one of which is roughly identifiable with an individual spot. The amplitude of each feature, however, varies with spot longitude – due to foreshortening and limb darkening – and also diminishes considerably with increasing wavelength as before.

Another interesting feature is apparent in the right hand panel of Figure 4. We can see in the wings of the light curve that even in the absence of lensing the presence of the large band of spots produces, as one might expect, a substantial magnitude offset which is also strongly wavelength dependent (more than 0.5 mag. at $`V`$, reducing to less than 0.2 mag. at $`K`$). In the central part of the lightcurve, as the lens transits the star and crosses the band of spots, the flux in each waveband is amplified due to lensing. Moreover the effect of the lensing is also to increase very slightly the differential magnitude offset in the central part of the light curve, compared with the offset in the wings. However, this differential effect is slightly smaller between the series of ’bumps’ (when the lens is passing through a ’gap’ in the band of spots – e.g. at $`t=t_0`$) than it is at the peaks of the bumps (when the lens is at its closest to one or more of the spots in the band). Thus, the increase in flux due to the presence of the spots (which is augmented by the lens but which would be apparent even if there were no lensing) is slightly diluted when the lens is amplifying the flux from the background star more than the spots themselves.

This interplay between the amplified flux from the spots and the background star is more clearly seen in the corresponding panels of Figure 5, which shows the microlensing light curves of the same band of spots, but now on a star of inclination $`60^{}`$. Again we see a wavelength-dependent magnitude offset even when there is no lensing, due to the presence of the hot spots. Shortly after the stellar transit begins there is a small ’spike’ in the light curves, as the lens passes very close to one of the spots. Thereafter, however, there is a large dip around the central part of each light curve, which also slightly reduces the differential magnitude offset between the wavebands. This is because, during this time, the flux is dominated by the amplified contribution from the region of the star very close to the lens, which – as can be seen from the left hand panel of Figure 5 – is spot free. Thus we see that even when the lens does *not* pass directly over a spotted region, the presence of spots elsewhere on the star still results in a clearly detectable microlensing signature in the lightcurve as a whole.

The systematic deviations from the unspotted light curves illustrated in Figures 2 to 5 highlight a potential pitfall of estimating stellar and lens parameters from discretely sampled data. In Figure 3, for example, the peak produced by the central spot feature could – if sampled with poor time resolution – lead to the estimation of a stellar radius which was systematically smaller than the true radius. In this respect, in addition to the obvious benefit of increasing the time resolution of observations, multiwavength photometry can also be effective in breaking the apparent degeneracy between a spotted star and a spot-free star of smaller radius. This is because the effect of the starspot is considerably reduced at longer wavelengths. Similar remarks apply to the case of the cool spots on Figure 2, although since the amplitude at a given wavelength of the spot feature is somewhat smaller for cool spots, the (positive) systematic bias in the estimated stellar radius would be less significant than the (negative) bias obtained from higher amplification hotspots.

### 4.2 Investigating spot detectability

We next carried out an extensive investigation of spot detectability as a function of spot radius and position and lens impact parameter. These calculations were performed for the somewhat more realistic case of a star with angular radius $`R_{}=0.1\theta _E`$. This value is comparable to – albeit slightly larger than – the estimated stellar radius for MACHO 95-30 (Alcock et al. 1997), and is similar to the value adopted in the calculations of HS00. There could, of course, be some merit in considering sources of smaller angular radius since MACHO 95-30 represents the largest source star detected to date. Moreover, a smaller source star would also yield a larger microlensing signature. However, given the reduced probability of a point lens transit for such a star – together with the greatly reduced likelihood of intensive photometric monitoring during that transit – we adopt $`R_{}=0.1\theta _E`$ as a reasonable compromise between considering a star with unrealistically large angular radius and a star with unrealistically low probability of being observed undergoing a point lens transit. (See also Section 5 below).

Figure 6 presents $`V`$ band contour maps of spot detectability for a range of spot and lens parameters. In all cases, the background stellar temperature and spot temperature were taken to be $`4000`$ K and $`4800`$ K respectively. Rows from top to bottom correspond to lens trajectories with impact parameter, $`u_0=0.0,0.4,0.8`$ and $`1.2`$, respectively, normalised to the source radius. Columns from left to right correspond to spots of radius $`3^{},6^{},9^{}`$ and $`12^{}`$ respectively.

We assume for each light curve that a total of 80 equally spaced observations were made during $`t_E`$, i.e. the time taken for the lens to move 1 angular Einstein radius. (Hence, for example $`t_E=40`$ days would imply a sampling rate of two observations per day).

The contours shown denote the contribution to the change in magnitude arising specifically from the lensing of the spot, defined as $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{SL}}`$ in Equation 9 above. The darkest level shown denotes a peak magnitude change of at least 0.1 mag.(i.e. at least one observation for which $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{SL}}0.1`$); the lightest level denotes a peak change of 0.01 mag.

It is clear from these contour maps that, as one might expect, the detectability of starspots is improved greatly in regions where the spot lies close to the trajectory of the lens.

Nevertheless, at least for the larger spots, a substantial fraction of the stellar surface would give a detectable signature if a starspot were present at that location. For a spot of radius $`12^{}`$ and a lens impact parameter $`u_0=0`$, for example, we can see from the top right panel of Figure 6 that the spot would provide a magnitude change of 0.1 mag. or greater over about 30% of the visible disk of the star. We can compare that with the area covered by the spot itself as a fraction of the area of the visible hemisphere, that is $`\mathrm{sin}^2\delta `$, so in this case about 4.3%. Hence microlensing is very efficient at detecting spots under these conditions.

It is interesting to note, however, that even for the case of $`u_0=0.12\theta _E`$ (i.e. impact parameter slightly greater than the stellar radius) one still finds that approximately $`40`$ % of the stellar disk yields a magnitude change in excess of 0.01 mag (compared with the 4% area covered by each spot). Although such a signal would clearly be difficult to detect, its residuals are comparable to the accuracy levels achieved by the best current photometry in microlensing follow up surveys.

The furthest left column of Figure 6 (spot radius of $`3^{}`$) shows, as expected, the smallest ‘detectable’ regions of the photosphere. Indeed, for $`u_0=0.12\theta _E`$ it can be seen that no detectable signal would be obtained. Note also the discrete features in the top left panel (and in a few other panels) which arise because of the small size of the spots and the discrete nature of the the temporal sampling. With more intensive time coverage these features would become more smooth.

It should be stressed, of course, that the contour maps shown in Figure 6 assume that one can predict accurately the unspotted lightcurve – i.e. one can accurately estimate the source radius and lens impact parameter from the lightcurves as a whole. Uncertainty in those parameters would generally impair the sensitivity of the lightcurves to the presence of spots by reducing the detectability area of the contour maps. A detailed investigation of the impact of ‘global’ parameter errors on the estimation of linear limb darkening coefficients from analysis of event OGLE-99-BUL-23 was carried out by Albrow et al. (2001a), and a similar statistical analysis would be important in the context of starspots when confronting real microlensing data. Global parameter errors would clearly have the most damaging effect for small spots, and indeed might ‘wash out’ completely the signature of $`3^{}`$ spots in the leftmost column of Figure 6. In those regions where the spot signature exceeds 0.1 mag., however, spots would still be easily detectable by current folow up surveys, even allowing for uncertainties in the global parameters.

### 4.3 The feasibility of gravitational imaging

We have seen in the previous section that high time resolution observations during a transit event can place useful constraints on the existence or otherwise of spots on particular regions of the photosphere. The question remains as to whether one can constrain the detailed structure of spot features from such observations.

Figure 7 shows a comparison between the light curves produced by the event illustrated in Figure 3 and a similar event, with the same stellar and lens parameters, but in which the spots have additional temperature structure – specifically a central ‘umbra’ of temperature $`5600`$ K and radius $`5^{}`$ surrounded by a cooler ‘penumbra’ of temperature $`4800`$ K (the same temperature as the uniform spots of Figure 3). The right hand panel of Figure 7 shows the difference, in the amplification between the two scenarios, given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }A=\left(\frac{F_{\mathrm{LSP}}}{F_{\mathrm{USP}}}\right)_{\mathrm{struc}}\left(\frac{F_{\mathrm{LSP}}}{F_{\mathrm{USP}}}\right)_{\mathrm{no}\mathrm{struc}}$$
(10)
It is evident from Figure 7 that the effect of the spot structure is small, with a peak deviation from the uniform temperature case of only $`\mathrm{\Delta }A0.02`$, which corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Delta }m0.01`$ mag. Clearly, then the detection of temperature structure, given the accuracy of current photometry, would be very difficult. A more serious difficulty, however, is presented by the severe ill-posedness of the problem: since spots need not in general be circular it is likely that the specific photometric signature of temperature structure within a circular spot could be closely approximated by a non-circular spot of uniform temperature. In essence, one cannot effectively constrain the 2 dimensional structure of a given spot feature from only a 1 dimensional microlensing light curve. Similar remarks clearly apply to the photosphere as a whole, where groups of (arbitarily shaped) individual spots could mimic the signature of a single, larger, spot and vice versa.

Possible rotation of the source star (which is certainly an area of some interest in the study of red giants and supergiants) is another potential source of degeneracy in the signatures of starspots. Depending on the orientation of the rotation axis with respect to the lens trajectory, a small rotation of the source during the transit of a spot of radius, say, $`10^{}`$ might broaden or narrow the spot signature in the light curve by an amount equivalent to a change in the spot radius of about $`1^{}`$. Clearly the magnitude of the effect depends on the star’s rotation period and the lens timescale, but the main point is that – without a precise model for the shape and size of the spot feature – one cannot accurately constrain the rotation period from the spot signature. It is interesting to consider whether the use of multicolour lightcurves might at least partially break the degeneracy between models of spot structure and/or stellar rotation. The practical limitation here, however, is the fact that at longer wavelengths spot signatures are considerably supressed and are less sensitive to surface temperature and other stellar parameters. In future work, we will, nevertheless, investigate optimal methods for combining multicolour data to constrain atmosphere and spot models in this manner.

## 5 Discussion

The results presented in Section 4 clearly show that the impact of non-uniform surface brightness profiles on the microlensing light curves of point caustic events is, in principle, detectable with current observational precision. There are several important caveats, however.

Firstly, as discussed in Section 4.3, the degenerate nature of the microlensing light curve, which is a convolution over the stellar disk, renders the task of constraining the precise number, position, shape, size and temperature contrast of starspot(s) an ill-posed problem. Notwithstanding these limitations, however, Figure 6 shows that – for a transit or near transit event – a significant fraction of the photosphere will yield an observable magnitude change due to the presence of even a single spot, provided it has sufficient area and temperature contrast. (In fact, since the important quantity in determining the size of the spot signature is the ratio of spotted to unspotted flux, changing the spot temperature contrast is a more important factor than changing the spot area – at least in the wavebands considered here; for the idealised case of black-body radiation and ignoring limb darkening, the spot flux will be proportional to the product of the area and the fourth power of the temperature).

Thus it is clear that the *failure* to detect a significant deviation from the light curve signature expected for an unspotted source does indeed allow one to place robust limits on the fraction of the stellar disk (i.e. the ‘filling factor’) which could be covered by starspots.

Of course the crucial issue here is not simply the presence or otherwise of spot features, but also one’s ability to detect them.

As we discussed in Section 4.2, an important consideration here is the question of how well determined are the ‘global’ parameters of the event – i.e. the lens minimum impact parameter and the source radius which determine the predicted spot-free lightcurve. These can, in principle, still be determined from the overall light curve shape, and indeed the use of multicolour observations – which we have shown can be an important diagnostic of the properties of the spots – can also improve the accuracy with which the global parameters are determined. However, any significant uncertainty in the global parameters would weaken the constraints on the spot features since the predicted spot-free light curve would be less well determined. A rigorous statistical treatment of the impact of errors in the global parameters would be a crucial step before robust limits on the properties of spots could be inferred from real microlensing data.

The main practical limitation, however, to the use of point lens events as probes of stellar surface features is simply the trajectory of the lens. Spots which lie in regions of the disk far from the lens path will not be readily detected under any circumstance. Even regions lying very close to the lens trajectory, however, would require excellent photometry and high temporal sampling, in order to detect smaller features. In the illustrative example of Figure 6 – for which we assumed a sampling rate of e.g. approximately twice per day for an event with timescale $`t_E=40`$ days – spots smaller than $`3^{}`$ in radius were undetectable even with a minimum detection criterion of having only one observation with $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_\mathrm{s}0.1`$ mag. Clearly a statistically convincing detection might require several consecutive data points with $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_\mathrm{s}`$ greater than some chosen threshold. This could be achieved either through having larger spots (as is indeed the case for the other columns of Figure 6) or by increasing the temporal sampling. While the latter is, of course, always desirable, telescope logistics dictate that – without prior warning that a transit is about to occur – a sampling rate greater than about twice per day is not realistic. Transits of a point mass lens are rare and even for high amplification events, difficult to predict from the pre-transit lightcurve. A more ‘observationally friendly’ scenario is the transit of an extended source by the caustic structure produced by a binary lens. This is because in such a high amplification microlensing event it becomes necessary to treat every source as an extended source and hence the source’s surface brightness profile can be investigated. Furthermore the intial transit ‘into’ the structure acts as a alert, allowing intensive observations of the second crossing ‘out of’ the structure to be planned. Such ‘alert response’ photometry is currently being carried out with the aim of detecting low-mass companions but clearly has scope to image stellar atmospheres, allowing the detection or otherwise of photospheric starspots. Gravitational imaging by non-point lens objects will be addressed in a forthcoming paper.

## Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank John Simmons and Rico Ignace for many useful discussions, and the referee, Penny Sackett, for a number of helpful suggestions. HMB acknowledges a PPARC studentship.

## Appendix A Starspot geometry and integration limits

### A.1 Coordinate systems

We calculate the integrated flux from the star, in both the lensed and unlensed case, in terms of an integral over the projected stellar disk. There are three coordinate systems relevant to this calculation:

1. $`(\alpha ^{},\varphi ^{})`$ : spherical polar coordinates on the surface of the star, with the stellar equator defining $`\varphi ^{}=0`$, and with $`\alpha ^{}`$ measured counter-clockwise from the direction which is co-planar with the star’s rotation axis and the line of sight (as shown in Fig. A1).
2. $`(\alpha ,\varphi )`$ : spherical polar coordinates on the surface of the star, but with polar axis $`(\varphi =\frac{\pi }{2})`$ defined as the projection of the star’s rotation axis on the plane of the sky and with azimuthal angle, $`\alpha `$, measured counter-clockwise from the line of sight (as shown in Fig. A2).
3. $`(s,\theta )`$ : projected circular polar coordinates on the stellar disk (i.e. the plane of the sky), with $`\theta `$ measured counter-clockwise from the $`y`$-axis (see below).

Figures A1 and A2 illustrate these coordinate systems and their associated Cartesian coordinate axes. Thus, we define the $`x`$-axis to be the line of sight, the $`z`$-axis to be the projection of the star’s rotation axis onto the plane of the sky, and the $`y`$-axis to be the direction which completes a right-handed coordinate system. It is then easy to see that the $`y`$-axis and $`y^{}`$-axis are identical, and the $`x^{}`$-axis and $`z^{}`$-axis are obtained from the $`x`$-axis and $`z`$-axis by a rotation of $`(\frac{\pi }{2}i)`$ about the $`y`$-axis, where $`i`$ is the inclination of the star. In summary, for a star of radius, $`R`$, and a general point $`(x,y,z)`$ on the stellar surface

$`x`$ $`=`$ $`R\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi =R(\mathrm{cos}\alpha ^{}\mathrm{cos}\varphi ^{}\mathrm{sin}i+\mathrm{sin}\varphi ^{}\mathrm{cos}i)`$
$`y`$ $`=`$ $`R\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi =R\mathrm{sin}\alpha ^{}\mathrm{cos}\varphi ^{}`$
$`z`$ $`=`$ $`R\mathrm{sin}\varphi =R(\mathrm{sin}\varphi ^{}\mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{cos}\alpha ^{}\mathrm{cos}\varphi ^{}\mathrm{cos}i)`$ (11)
where all coordinates are expressed in units of the angular Einstein radius (AER) of the lens.

Consider now the path of a point lens, as seen in projection on the sky. Figure 10 shows the lens trajectory and the position of the lens at some general point, $`L`$, and at time, $`t`$. Here, $`u`$ denotes the impact parameter of the lens and $`u_0`$ denotes the impact parameter at the time of closest approach, $`t_0`$, when the lens has position angle $`\theta _0`$, as shown. Let $`t_E`$ denote the time for the lens to move $`1\theta _E`$. The coordinates $`(y_\mathrm{L},z_\mathrm{L})`$, of the lens at position, $`L`$, are

$`y_\mathrm{L}`$ $`=`$ $`u_0\mathrm{cos}\theta _0{\displaystyle \frac{(tt_0)}{t_E}}\mathrm{sin}\theta _0`$
$`z_\mathrm{L}`$ $`=`$ $`u_0\mathrm{sin}\theta _0+{\displaystyle \frac{(tt_0)}{t_E}}\mathrm{cos}\theta _0`$ (12)
The projected separation, $`u`$, of the lens from an arbitrary point, $`(y,z)=(s\mathrm{cos}\theta ,s\mathrm{sin}\theta )`$, on the stellar disk is

$$u=\left[(y_\mathrm{L}s\mathrm{cos}\theta )^2+(z_\mathrm{L}s\mathrm{sin}\theta )^2\right]^{1/2}$$
(13)
### A.2 Defining the boundary of a circular starspot

We consider circular starspots – i.e. the locus of points defining the boundary of a spot is a small circle of angular radius $`\delta `$, say. We suppose that each starspot maintains constant radius, temperature and latitude (in the stellar-based coordinate system) throughout the microlensing event, but that its longitude changes if the star is rotating.

Let $`(\alpha _{p}^{}{}_{}{}^{},\varphi _{p}^{}{}_{}{}^{})`$ denote the (stellar-based) coordinates of the centre of the starspot. If the star is not rotating, these coordinates remain fixed; if the star is rotating with period, $`P`$, and the spot centre transits at time, $`t_0`$, then

$$\alpha _{p}^{}{}_{}{}^{}=\frac{2\pi }{P}(tt_0)$$
(14)
We can easily obtain from eqs. 11 the projected circular polar coordinates, $`(s_p,\theta _p)`$, of $`P`$ in the observer-based coordinate system. The circumference of the spot describes a planar circle of radius $`R\mathrm{sin}\delta `$. The centre, $`C`$, of this circle lies inside the star, i.e.

$`x_c`$ $`=`$ $`R\mathrm{cos}\delta \mathrm{cos}\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}\varphi _c`$
$`y_c`$ $`=`$ $`R\mathrm{cos}\delta \mathrm{sin}\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}\varphi _c=s_c\mathrm{cos}\theta _c`$
$`z_c`$ $`=`$ $`R\mathrm{cos}\delta \mathrm{sin}\varphi _c=s_c\mathrm{sin}\theta _c`$ (15)
Note that $`s_c=s_p\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ and $`\theta _c=\theta _p`$.

Thus, when seen in projection the centre, $`C`$, of the planar circle defining the spot boundary is not coincident with the centre, $`P`$, of the spot on the surface of the star, but does lie along the same radial vector joining $`P`$ to the centre of the stellar disk.

Consider a general point $`(x,y,z)`$ on the circumference of the spot. We have

$$(xx_c)^2+(yy_c)^2+(zz_c)^2=R^2\mathrm{sin}^2\delta $$
(16)
and

$$x^2+y^2+z^2=R^2$$
(17)
Combining eqs. 16 and 17 gives, after some manipulation

$$xx_c+yy_c+zz_c=R^2\mathrm{cos}^2\delta $$
(18)
which, as expected, defines a plane perpendicular to the position vector $`(x_c,y_c,z_c)`$.

### A.3 Spot visibility conditions

Consider a unit vector in the direction of the spot centre, $`C`$. i.e.

$$\widehat{n}_c=(\mathrm{cos}\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}\varphi _c,\mathrm{sin}\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}\varphi _c,\mathrm{sin}\varphi _c)$$
(19)
Let $`\eta `$ be the angle between the line of sight and $`\widehat{n}_c`$. Then $`\mathrm{cos}\eta =\mathrm{cos}\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}\varphi _c`$. A spot will be fully visible provided $`\eta \frac{\pi }{2}\delta `$, i.e.

$$\mathrm{cos}\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}\varphi _c\mathrm{sin}\delta $$
(20)
Similarly the spot will be fully invisible provided

$$\mathrm{cos}\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}\varphi _c\mathrm{sin}\delta $$
(21)
and partially visible when

$$\mathrm{sin}\delta \mathrm{cos}\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}\varphi _c\mathrm{sin}\delta $$
(22)
### A.4 Spot centred on the limb of the star

Suppose first that $`x_p=0`$. It is straightforward to show that the spot circumference appears in projection as a straight line perpendicular to the radius vector to $`(y_c,z_c)`$ and the integration limits are

$$\theta _c\delta \theta \theta _c+\delta \frac{R\mathrm{cos}\delta }{\mathrm{cos}(\theta \theta _c)}sR$$
(23)
### A.5 Fully visible spot

Suppose now that $`x_c0`$. For a fully visible spot, at any time the projected spot will appear as an ellipse centred on $`(y_c,z_c)`$. The semi-major axis is perpendicular to the radius vector to $`(y_c,z_c)`$ and some straightforward algebra shows that it has length $`l_1=R\mathrm{sin}\delta `$. To determine the semi-minor axis we require to solve for the value(s) of $`s`$ at which the spot projection intersects the radius vector through $`(y_c,z_c)`$. Clearly, at the points of intersection we have

$$y=s\mathrm{cos}\theta _cz=s\mathrm{sin}\theta _c$$
(24)
From eq. 18 it follows that

$$x=\frac{R^2\mathrm{cos}^2\delta yy_czz_c}{x_c}$$
(25)
Combining eqs. 17 and 25 gives

$$(R^2\mathrm{cos}^2\delta yy_czz_c)^2+y^2x_c^2+z^2x_c^2=R^2x_c^2$$
(26)
which, substituting from eqs. 15 and 24, may be reduced to the quadratic equation in $`s`$

$$R^2\mathrm{cos}^2\delta 2s_cs+s^2R^2\mathrm{cos}^2\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}^2\varphi _c=0$$
(27)
This has determinant, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, which some algebra reduces to

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=4R^2\mathrm{cos}^2\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}^2\varphi _c\mathrm{sin}\delta $$
(28)
Hence eq. 27 has roots

$$s=s_c\pm R\mathrm{cos}\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}\varphi _c\mathrm{sin}\delta $$
(29)
from which we see immediately that the projected spot ellipse has semi-minor axis $`l_2=R\mathrm{cos}\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}\varphi _c\mathrm{sin}\delta `$.

We can parametrise a general point inside this ellipse as

$$y_E=\omega l_1\mathrm{cos}\theta _Ez_E=\omega l_2\mathrm{sin}\theta _E$$
(30)
Where $`0\omega 1`$ and $`0\theta _E2\pi `$. The coordinates $`(y_E,z_E)`$ are related to $`(y,z)`$ via

$`y`$ $`=`$ $`y_E\mathrm{sin}\theta _c+z_E\mathrm{cos}\theta _c+s_c\mathrm{cos}\theta _c`$
$`z`$ $`=`$ $`z_E\mathrm{sin}\theta _cy_E\mathrm{cos}\theta _c+s_c\mathrm{sin}\theta _c`$ (31)
The integral in eq. 17 may then be expressed in terms of $`\omega `$ and $`\theta _E`$, viz

$$\mathrm{\Delta }F=l_1l_2_{\theta _E=0}^{2\pi }_{\omega =0}^1\left[I_{\mathrm{sp}}(s,\theta )I_{}(s)\right]A(d)\omega 𝑑\omega 𝑑\theta _E$$
(32)
### A.6 Partially visible spot

The case where a spot is only partially visible is slightly more complicated. Consider the intersection of the projected spot ellipse with a circle of radius $`s`$ on the stellar disk and centered on $`O`$. Putting $`y=s\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, $`z=s\mathrm{sin}\theta `$, $`y_c=s_c\mathrm{cos}\theta _c`$, $`z_c=s_c\mathrm{sin}\theta _c`$ and substituting in eq. 18, gives, after some further reduction

$$\mathrm{cos}(\theta \theta _c)=\frac{R^2\mathrm{cos}^2\delta x_c\sqrt{R^2s^2}}{ss_c}$$
(33)
or, writing in terms of $`\alpha _c`$ and $`\varphi _c`$,

$$\theta =\theta _c\pm \mathrm{cos}^1\left[\frac{R\mathrm{cos}\delta \mathrm{cos}\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}\varphi _c\sqrt{R^2s^2}}{s(\mathrm{sin}^2\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}^2\varphi _c+\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi _c)^{1/2}}\right]$$
(34)
Thus, for a partially visible spot we integrate eq. 17 using the limits

$$s_cR\mathrm{cos}\alpha _c\mathrm{cos}\varphi _c\mathrm{sin}\delta sR$$
(35)
for $`s`$ and using eq. 34 to define the corresponding limits of $`\theta `$.