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# H I Imaging of LGS 3 and an Apparently Interacting High-Velocity Cloud

## 1 Introduction

The biggest challenge facing studies of high-velocity clouds (HVCs) is that their distances and masses are almost completely unknown. We attack this problem by using the upgraded Arecibo telescope to completely map a large area ($`2.4\text{deg}^2`$) around the Local Group dwarf galaxy LGS 3 and a newly identified HVC. If the HVC and the dwarf galaxy are interacting, as we will argue, then this system presents a unique opportunity to constrain the distance and mass of an HVC.

The H I cloud next to LGS 3 appears to have been first detected by Hulsbosch in 1982 using the Dwingeloo 25 m telescope (Christian & Tully, 1983). Hulsbosch & Wakker (1988) listed the cloud in three entries in their HVC survey, at $`(\mathrm{},b,v_{\mathrm{LSR}}[\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1])=(127\mathrm{°},41\mathrm{°},331)`$, $`(128\mathrm{°},41\mathrm{°},329)`$, and $`(127\mathrm{°},42\mathrm{°},352)`$, all of which they consider to be part of LGS 3, which is located at $`(\mathrm{},b,v_{\mathrm{LSR}}[\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1])=(126\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}75,40\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}89,287)`$. The original H I observations of LGS 3 by Thuan & Martin (1979), made using Arecibo, did not detect the cloud because they were directed at the optical position of the galaxy rather than 30′ away. Christian & Tully (1983) noted the clear velocity gradient across the cloud, but they were unable to draw any conclusions about the nature of the cloud from the 36′-resolution observations. The cloud was also seen in the Leiden/Dwingeloo Survey (LDS) of Galactic Neutral Hydrogen (Hartmann & Burton, 1997) and was found by Blitz & Robishaw (2000) to be substantially larger in both area and H I mass (if at the same distance as the galaxy) than LGS 3 itself. Blitz & Robishaw (2000) further noticed that the velocity of the cloud was different from that of the dwarf galaxy by $`50\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and postulated that the cloud could have been removed from LGS 3 by ram-pressure stripping. However, they also argued that the HVC should have a less negative velocity than the dwarf galaxy in the case of ram-pressure stripping, making this interpretation doubtful.

In §2, we describe our observations and discuss the data reduction. Our analysis of the data is presented along with our map of the HVC and its rotation curve in §3. In §4, we discuss our results and evidence for a possible interaction between the HVC and LGS 3.

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction

The observations were conducted over five nights in 2000 November using the upgraded Arecibo telescope.111The Arecibo Observatory is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, which is operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. We employed the L-band narrow receiver and the 9-level, dual-polarization correlator configuration to yield spectra with a velocity resolution of 0.644$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. At the frequency of H I observations, the telescope has a half-power beam width of 3$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$4, a main beam efficiency of 0.48, and a gain of 7.2 K/Jy (Heiles, 2000).

The data we present in this paper include 3 nights of on-the-fly (OTF) maps, Nyquist sampled in right ascension and declination, and 2 nights of drift scans. The OTF maps cover a 93′ $`\times `$ 93′ region and the drift scans add sensitivity in a 40′ $`\times `$ 40′ area between and including the HVC and LGS 3. The integration time was $``$22 s beam-1 for most of the map and $``$92 s beam-1 in the area covered by the drift scans. We reached rms sensitivity levels at the full velocity resolution of 75 mK beam-1 and 34 mK beam-1 in those regions, respectively.

Each night we observed a single off-source position, which we used to remove the bandpass shape for all of the spectra from that night. Gain calibration was provided by the injection of a known signal into the correlator once per strip. We fitted and removed a linear baseline from each spectrum. We developed a new algorithm to remove spectral standing waves that were present in the data. The drift scans were resampled to match the sampling of the OTF maps, and we then coadded each night’s observations to form a single data cube. The reduction will be described in more detail in a future paper presenting the results of our survey of 27 HVCs and Local Group dwarf galaxies.

## 3 Results

Our map (Figure 1) reveals considerable detail that was not apparent in previous observations. The H I associated with LGS 3 is visible in the upper right (northwest) as the small red blob at $`(\alpha ,\delta )_{2000}=(01^\mathrm{h}03^\mathrm{m}54^\mathrm{s},+21\mathrm{°}53\mathrm{})`$. The emission is marginally resolved spatially and has an intensity-weighted mean LSR velocity of $`287\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. We measure an integrated H I flux of $`2.3\pm 0.5`$ Jy$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, in agreement with the value of $`2.7\pm 0.2`$ Jy$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ measured by Young & Lo (1997). For a distance of 700 kpc,222Three previous authors have measured distances to LGS 3 of very close to 800 kpc: 810 (Lee, 1995); 770 (Aparicio et al., 1997); 830 (Mould, 1997). However, in a recent paper based on HST data, Miller et al. (2001) derive a distance of $`620\pm 20`$ kpc. We adopt an intermediate distance of 700 kpc for all calculations. the H I mass of LGS 3 is $`2.6\times 10^5M_{}`$. The extended emission seen previously (Christian & Tully, 1983; Hulsbosch & Wakker, 1988; Blitz & Robishaw, 2000) now appears as a large, double-lobed H I cloud in the center of the map with a systemic velocity of $`331.3\pm 1.0\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, an integrated flux of $`24\pm 8`$ Jy$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, and a mean linewidth of 24$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. This cloud is completely separate from LGS 3, located 30′ away with a velocity difference of $`45\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. If the cloud is at the distance of LGS 3, it contains 10 times as much H I, making it unlikely that it originated in LGS 3. Therefore, this cloud qualifies as an HVC.

Although LGS 3 and the HVC may not share a common origin, their apparent proximity demands that we investigate the possibility of an interaction betweeen them. To the east of the HVC, at $`(\alpha ,\delta )_{2000}=(01^\mathrm{h}08^\mathrm{m}56^\mathrm{s},+21\mathrm{°}53\mathrm{})`$, a faint vertical strip of H I extends for $``$20′ along the edge of the map. A similar feature is also visible running horizontally in the southwest at $`(\alpha ,\delta )_{2000}=(01^\mathrm{h}05^\mathrm{m}00^\mathrm{s},+21\mathrm{°}13\mathrm{})`$. The symmetrical placement of this gas relative to the line connecting LGS 3 and the HVC is suggestive of a tidal interaction, with the two faint clouds representing leading and trailing tidal arms. We consider this idea further in §4.

The most striking feature of the HVC is the velocity gradient across it. We examined the gradient by averaging spectra perpendicular to the major axis. We fitted a Gaussian profile to the averaged spectrum at each point along the major axis to create a rotation curve, which is displayed in Figure 2a. The rotation curve contains a roughly linear gradient over its central 20′ and then turns over. The turnover and the overall symmetry of the rotation curve suggest that the HVC is a single, rotating, gravitationally-bound object, and is not composed of two physically distinct clouds that happen to coincide along the line of sight. In order to measure a symmetric rotation curve from two separate clouds, they would have to: have the same extent; have the same large aspect ratio; be aligned along their major axes; have their velocity fields vary with radius in just such a way as to mimic the appearance of a single rotating cloud. We consider this, although not impossible, very unlikely. We further point out that if the HVC were composed of two overlapping clouds then the linewidths would be largest at the center of the HVC. Since we observe exactly the opposite, we conclude that the HVC must be a single cloud.

We can therefore use the rotation curve to compare the dynamical mass of the HVC to its luminous mass, which we assume consists only of H I and a cosmic abundance of He, such that $`M_{\mathrm{lum}}=1.3M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}`$. The dynamical mass ($`M_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$) is the mass required to account for the rotational velocity of the HVC at the last measured point (see Figure 2b). The H I mass scales as the square of the distance to the HVC, $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}=5.5\times 10^6(d/\mathrm{Mpc})^2M_{}`$, which is $`2.7\times 10^6M_{}`$ for a distance of 700 kpc. The dynamical mass, however, scales linearly with distance, $`M_{\mathrm{dyn}}=2.8\times 10^7(d/\mathrm{Mpc})M_{}`$, yielding $`2.0\times 10^7M_{}`$ at 700 kpc. (Note that we assume that the rotation is seen edge-on; if this is not the case, then the actual dynamical mass will be larger by a factor of $`1/\mathrm{sin}^2i`$.) Therefore, if the HVC is indeed self-gravitating, as is suggested by its rotation curve, and it is located at the distance of LGS 3, it must be composed mostly of dark matter (82%). Furthermore, if the cloud is assumed to be any closer than LGS 3 (and is self-gravitating), its dynamical-mass-to-luminous-mass ratio ($`M_{\mathrm{dyn}}/M_{\mathrm{lum}}`$) must be even larger; if the cloud is further than LGS 3, it remains dark-matter dominated out to a distance of 1.9 Mpc. Since the darkest known galaxy-sized objects have $`M_{\mathrm{dyn}}/M_{\mathrm{lum}}<100`$ (see Mateo, 1998, and references therein), we can place a firm lower limit on the distance to the HVC of 39 kpc.

## 4 Discussion

Is the HVC indeed interacting with LGS 3? We can approach this question by considering the likelihood that these two objects are completely unrelated. Putman et al. (2002) find that compact HVCs cover $`<`$1% of the southern sky. de Heij, Braun, & Burton (2002) use an automated analysis of the LDS to measure a similar covering fraction for $`\delta >30\mathrm{°}`$. There are indications in the de Heij, Braun, & Burton (2002) catalog of a factor of $``$2 overdensity of compact HVCs within 20° of LGS 3, which is not surprising because M31 and the Local Group barycenter are located in the same direction as LGS 3.

We estimate the probability of a spatial coincidence between a dwarf galaxy and a compact HVC by considering the number of compact HVCs and dwarf galaxies near LGS 3. For example, within 20° of LGS 3 there are 5 dwarf spheroidal galaxies and 14 compact HVCs from the de Heij, Braun, & Burton (2002) catalog. The HVC discussed in this paper is located $``$30′ away from LGS 3, so we take a circle of radius 30′ around each of the nearby dwarfs. Now, the probability that at least one of the compact HVCs lies within one of these circles is $`pN_{\mathrm{CHVC}}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{dwarfs}}/\mathrm{\Omega }_{20}`$, where $`N_{\mathrm{CHVC}}`$ is the number of compact HVCs contained in the region, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{dwarfs}}`$ is the solid angle subtended by the circles around the five dwarf galaxies, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{20}`$ is the solid angle subtended by the region within 20° of LGS 3. This probability is 4.4%. If we increase the region under consideration to within 60° of LGS 3, there are 10 dwarf spheroidals (including the small dwarf irregulars WLM and Pegasus) and 46 compact HVCs, and the probability of a chance coincidence is 3.5%. Including the probability of the velocities coinciding within 50$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ will make the overall probability of such a configuration even lower. However, since these values are not negligibly small, we cannot dismiss the possibility of a chance superposition entirely. Nevertheless, we conclude the HVC is probably at the same distance as LGS 3.

Another piece of evidence that the HVC is not associated with the Milky Way is its extremely large velocity with respect to the Galactic Standard of Rest (GSR) of $`v_{\mathrm{GSR}}=200\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. An object originally associated with the Galaxy (e.g., in a Galactic fountain) would have difficulty acquiring such a high velocity. This velocity also renders a distance beyond the Local Group implausible.

Could this object be another dwarf galaxy interacting with LGS 3, rather than an HVC? Simon & Blitz (2002) searched most of the compact HVCs in the northern hemisphere and concluded that they do not contain stellar counterparts similar to the known Local Group dwarf galaxies. There is no obvious counterpart to this HVC on the Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey333The Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II) was made by the California Institute of Technology with funds from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Sloan Foundation, the Samuel Oschin Foundation, and the Eastman Kodak Corporation. plates. We used the techniques of Simon & Blitz (2002) to search more carefully and found a very faint low-surface brightness feature nearby. However, follow-up imaging with the Lick 3 m telescope revealed that there is no distant stellar population here. Therefore this cloud, like all other compact HVCs, appears to be a pure gas cloud.

Based on our data, we suggest that the faint features to the east and south of the HVC are remnants of a tidal interaction between the HVC and LGS 3. We now consider the consequences of such a situation. The total mass of LGS 3 (derived from its central velocity dispersion) is $`1.3\times 10^7M_{}`$ (Mateo, 1998). Hence, its tidal field becomes comparable to the surface gravity of the HVC if the HVC orbit has a minimum approach of $``$4 kpc. If the faint features are tidal in origin, the orbit of the HVC is strongly constrained. Since the gravity of LGS 3 is not enough to bind the system—the escape velocity of LGS 3 is $``$19$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, while the relative velocity between LGS 3 and the HVC is $`>`$50$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$—the encounter between them must be a one-time event. The existence of the tidal tails implies that they have already made their closest approach. Given their relative velocity and their projected separation of 5.8 kpc, such an approach would have taken place $`10^8`$ years ago.

## 5 Conclusions

We have presented high-resolution H I observations of a 2.4 deg2 area including the Local Group dwarf galaxy LGS 3 and a previously unresolved cloud of gas adjacent to the galaxy. Our data show that the H I cloud is 30′ away from the galaxy, with a velocity difference of $`45\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, and that they do not appear to be connected. If they are at the same distance, the cloud contains 10 times as much H I and twice as much total mass as LGS 3. Optical imaging of the cloud revealed no stellar counterparts. We therefore argue that the cloud is an HVC, and should not be considered part of the H I component of LGS 3. However, the H I morphology does suggest that an interaction is occurring.

We propose that the faint thin strips of gas on either side of the HVC are tidal arms produced by a close encounter with LGS 3. We note that the probability of a line-of-sight coincidence between the two objects, if they are at different distances, is $``$4%. We therefore suggest that the most likely interpretation of this system is that LGS 3 and the HVC are at the same distance and have recently undergone a tidal interaction.

We also examine the rotation curve of the HVC, which exhibits a linear increase with radius out to 10′ and then begins to decrease. Under the assumption that the HVC is self-gravitating, which is supported by the rotation curve’s symmetry and turnover at large radii, we use the dynamical mass and the H I mass to derive a lower distance limit for the HVC. For $`M_{\mathrm{dyn}}/M_{\mathrm{lum}}`$ to be $`<100`$, the HVC must be at least 39 kpc away if it is self-gravitating. The extremely negative $`v_{\mathrm{GSR}}`$ of the HVC constrains it to be within the Local Group. This HVC is thus unique in that there is evidence that it is both dark-matter dominated and physically associated with an object at a known distance.

We thank Phil Perillat, Karen O’Neil, Mike Nolan, & Arun Venkataraman for their support during our observations and Carl Heiles for his indispensable guidance. This work was supported in part by NSF grant AST 99-81308.


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# Energy Density Functional Approach to Superfluid Nuclei

## Abstract

We show that within the framework of a simple local nuclear energy density functional (EDF), one can describe accurately the one– and two–nucleon separation energies of semi–magic nuclei. While for the normal part of the EDF we use previously suggested parameterizations, for the superfluid part of the EDF we use the simplest possible local form compatible with known nuclear symmetries.

A steady transition is taking place during the last several years from the mean–field description of nuclear properties in terms of effective forces to an energy density functional approach (EDF). A significant role is played in this transition process by the fact that an EDF approach has a strong theoretical underpinning . The effective forces used to derive the EDF are nothing else but a vehicle, since in themselves they have no well–defined physical meaning. For example, the effective Skyrme two–particle interaction is neither a particle–hole nor a particle–particle interaction. The particle–hole interaction (or the Landau parameters) is defined only as the second order functional derivative of the total EDF with respect to various densities, while the particle–particle interaction responsible for the pairing correlations in nuclei has to be supplied independently and with no logical connection to the Skyrme parameters.

We shall not attempt to even mention various mean–field approaches suggested so far, in this respect see Refs. , but we shall concentrate instead on a single aspect of the nuclear EDF, namely its pairing properties. Only recently it became clear that a theoretically consistent local EDF formulation of the nuclear pairing properties is indeed possible . Even though the crucial role of the pairing phenomena in nuclei has been established firmly, it is surprising to realize how poor the quality of our knowledge still is. Phenomenologically, one cannot unambiguously decide whether the pairing correlations in nuclei have a volume or/and a surface character . The isospin character of the nuclear pairing correlations requires further clarification as well. These questions become even sharper in the language of a local EDF.

There is also the largely practical issue of whether one should use a zero–range or a finite–range effective pairing interaction. The only reason for the introduction of a finite–range was to resolve the formal difficulty with divergences in calculating the anomalous densities . The majority of practitioners favor a much simpler approach, which embodies essentially the same physics, the introduction of an explicit energy cut–off. The best example are perhaps the works of the group , which so far is the leader in describing all known nuclear masses. An explicit finite–range of the pairing interaction $`r_0`$ (which can be translated into an energy cut–off $`E_c\mathrm{}^2/mr_0^2`$) and a zero–range with an explicit energy cut–off $`E_c`$ in the final analysis are equivalent. Both approaches, however, are a poor’s man solution to the renormalization problem and reflect simply a lack of understanding of the role of high–momenta in the pairing channel. Neither the energy cut–off $`E_c`$ nor the finite–range of the interaction $`r_0`$ carry any physical information and they are simply means towards getting rid of infinities. The argument that nuclear forces have a finite–range is superfluous, see Refs. , since nuclear pairing phenomena are manifest at small energies and distances of the order of the coherence length, which is larger than nuclear radii.

We shall consider local nuclear EDFs only (which depend on various densities, as opposed to an explicit dependence on the full density matrix), as they proved overwhelmingly successful in describing normal nuclear properties. It is natural to expect that the same should apply to pairing properties. According to the general theorem of Hohenberg and Kohn  for many fermion systems there exists a universal EDF. Unfortunately there are no hints on how to derive such a functional. In the case of nucleons such a functional should satisfy some general constraints: rotational invariance, isospin invariance, time–reversal invariance and conservation of parity. Isospin symmetry is broken by Coulomb interaction, proton–neutron mass difference and charge symmetry breaking forces, the last two leading to rather small effects . In the case of Coulomb interaction mainly the direct term has to be accounted for, as the exchange and correlation Coulomb energies seem to cancel each other to some extent and their combined effect together with the effect of charge symmetry breaking forces is relatively small and responsible mainly for such rather subtle effects as the Nolen–Schiffer anomaly . We shall not consider here the contributions due to Coulomb exchange and charge symmetry breaking energies . Such a structure of the normal nuclear EDF $`_N(𝒓)`$ would be complete in the absence of superfluidity. Since pairing correlations in nuclear systems are known to be of rather small amplitude, we shall consider only a superfluid EDF $`_S(𝒓)`$ of the following structure:

$$_S(𝒓)=g_0(𝒓)|\nu _p(𝒓)+\nu _n(𝒓)|^2+g_1(𝒓)|\nu _p(𝒓)\nu _n(𝒓)|^2,$$

where $`\nu _{p,n}(𝒓)`$ are the $`S=0`$ proton/neutron anomalous densities. There is no firm evidence of pairing in other partial waves except the BCS–like $`s`$–wave in either proton or neutron channels and the evidence for neutron–proton pairing is inconclusive so far. Notice that $`_S(𝒓)`$ is symmetric under the proton–neutron exchange. We assume that the effective couplings $`g_{0,1}(𝒓)`$ might depend on position through the normal densities and that this dependence is consistent with expected symmetries. The density dependence of the effective couplings $`g_{0,1}(𝒓)`$ arises from two different sources. Firstly, the bare coupling constant in the pairing channel could in principle have some intrinsic density dependence and such dependence has been considered by various authors during the years . Secondly, the renormalization of the pairing interaction, as described in our recent work , leads to position dependence as well. The equations for the quasi–particle wave functions $`u_i(𝒓)`$ and $`v_i(𝒓)`$ and related quantities are

$`E_{gs}={\displaystyle d^3r[_N(𝒓)+_S(𝒓)]},`$ (1)
$`_S(𝒓):=\mathrm{\Delta }(𝒓)\nu _c(𝒓)=g_{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}(𝒓)|\nu _c(𝒓)|^2,`$ (2)
$`\{\begin{array}{c}[h(𝒓)\mu ]u_i(𝒓)+\mathrm{\Delta }(𝒓)v_i(𝒓)=E_iu_i(𝒓),\hfill \\ \mathrm{\Delta }^{}(𝒓)u_i(𝒓)[h(𝒓)\mu ]v_i(𝒓)=E_iv_i(𝒓),\hfill \end{array}`$ (5)
$`h(𝒓)=\mathbf{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m(𝒓)}}\mathbf{}+U(𝒓),\mathrm{\Delta }(𝒓):=g_{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}(𝒓)\nu _c(𝒓),`$ (6)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g_{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}(𝒓)}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{g(𝒓)}}{\displaystyle \frac{mk_c(𝒓)}{2\pi ^2\mathrm{}^2}}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{k_F(𝒓)}{2k_c(𝒓)}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{k_c(𝒓)+k_F(𝒓)}{k_c(𝒓)k_F(𝒓)}}\right]`$ (7)
$`\rho _c(𝒓)={\displaystyle \underset{E_i0}{\overset{E_c}{}}}2|v_i(𝒓)|^2,\nu _c(𝒓)={\displaystyle \underset{E_i0}{\overset{E_c}{}}}v_i^{}(𝒓)u_i(𝒓),`$ (8)
$`E_c+\mu ={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2k_c^2(𝒓)}{2m(𝒓)}}+U(𝒓),\mu ={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2k_F^2(𝒓)}{2m(𝒓)}}+U(𝒓).`$ (9)
For the sake of simplicity we do not display the spin and isospin variables. $`k_F(𝒓)`$ is the local Fermi momentum, which could be either real or imaginary, while $`k_c(𝒓)`$ is real . The role of the particle continuum  is taken into account exactly using the technique described in Refs. , the contour integration in the complex energy plane of the Gorkov propagators for the Bogoliubov quasi–particles, in order to evaluate various densities. All calculations have been performed in coordinate representation and all nuclei have been treated as spherical. For reasons we discussed in detail in Refs. , the cut–off energy should be chosen of the order $`E_c=𝒪(ϵ_F)`$. In practice we found that a value $`E_c70`$ MeV for SLy4  and $`E_c55`$ MeV for FaNDF0  is satisfactory and it ensures a convergence of the pairing field $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝒓)`$ with a relative error of $`10^5`$ for density independent bare couplings. Note that the calculation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝒓)`$ alone would require a significantly smaller $`E_c`$ of order 10–15 MeV . The optimal value for $`E_c`$ varies, depending on whether one uses an effective mass close to the bare nucleon mass or a reduced one, as is typical with Skyrme interactions. Even though this explicit cut–off energy $`E_c`$ appears in various places, indeed, no observable shows any dependence on $`E_c`$, when its value it is chosen appropriately. Upon renormalization of the zero–range pairing interaction, the emerging formalism is no more complicated than a simple energy cut–off approach, with the only major bonus however, that there is no energy cut–off dependence of the results. Since the kinetic energy of the system is a diverging quantity of $`E_c`$ and only the total energy is a convergent quantity  it is very important that all densities (normal and anomalous) be evaluated using the same energy cut–off $`E_c`$.

We shall treat even and odd number of particles within the same framework and using the same EDF parameterization, unlike e.g. Refs. . The formalism for evaluating the Gorkov propagators for odd systems is described in great detail in Refs. . For the normal part of the EDF we shall use either the Lyon parameterization of the Skyrme interaction  and or the FaNDF0 suggested by Fayans . Both EDFs reproduce with high accuracy the infinite matter equations of state of Refs. .

We shall present here results only for those nuclei for which we can make comparison with available recommended nuclear masses . We consider at first the tin (38 nuclei) and lead (34 nuclei) isotope chains. We performed a number of calculations of these isotopes essentially from the neutron to the proton drip lines, see Ref.  for some preliminary results. For these nuclei we can test only the sum of the coupling constants, namely $`g(𝒓)=g_0(𝒓)+g_1(𝒓)`$. We have considered a bare coupling $`g(𝒓)=const`$, which corresponds to volume pairing, and also $`g(𝒓)=V_0[1\rho (𝒓)/\rho _c]`$, with parameters chosen to describe roughly one half volume and one half surface pairing, as suggested in particular in Ref. . One–neutron separation energies $`S_n`$ and two–neutron separation energies $`S_{2n}`$ for tin and lead isotopes were computed for constant pairing $`g(𝒓)=const`$, with mean–field computed with either SLy4 interaction  ($`g(𝒓)=250\mathrm{MeV}\mathrm{fm}^3`$) or with Fayans normal nuclear EDF  ($`g(𝒓)=200\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}\mathrm{fm}^3`$). For the case of SLy4 interaction we also show results obtained for the half volume–half surface pairing model ($`V_0=370\mathrm{MeV}\mathrm{fm}^3,\rho _c=0.32\mathrm{fm}^3`$). The search for the appropriate values for $`g(𝒓)`$ was performed only among a finite set of values, e.g. in the case of volume pairing we considered $`g=200,225,250,275`$ and -300 $`\mathrm{MeV}\mathrm{fm}^3`$, see also Ref. .

Table 1. Rms of $`S_{2N}`$ and $`S_N`$ deviations respectively from experiment  (in MeV’s) for several isotope and isotone chains.

| Z or N | $`S_{2N}/S_N`$ | $`S_{2N}/S_N`$ | $`S_{2N}`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| chain | present | Ref.  | Ref.  |
| Z = 20 | 0.82/0.76 | 1.02/0.92 | 0.96 |
| Z = 28 | 0.67/0.50 | 0.66/0.55 | 1.30 |
| Z = 40 | 0.93/0.63 | 0.66/0.63 | 2.21 |
| Z = 50 | 0.29/0.21 | 0.43/0.35 | 0.95 |
| Z = 82 | 0.23/0.37 | 0.58/0.53 | 0.74 |
| N = 50 | 0.37/0.26 | 0.41/0.23 | NA |
| N = 82 | 0.43/0.31 | 0.50/0.56 | NA |
| N = 126 | 0.42/0.23 | 0.88/0.52 | NA |

The agreement between experiment and theory is particularly good for the case of FaNDF0. We relate this result with the fact that the effective mass in FaNDF0 is the bare nucleon mass, unlike the case of SLy4 EDF and in agreement with the global mass fit of Ref. . It is notable that the agreement with experiment is equally good for both tin and lead isotopes with the same value of $`g`$, unlike Refs. . Even though we used the same normal nuclear EDF as in Refs. , our agreement with experiment is notable superior, see Ref. , even though we parameterize the pairing interaction with one parameter only vs. up to five parameters used in these papers.

Since FaNDF0 in conjuction with the bare pairing coupling constant $`g(𝒓)=200\mathrm{MeV}\mathrm{fm}^3`$ apparently provides the best description in case of tin and lead isotopes, further calculations were performed only with this choice of parameters. In Fig. 3 we display the one–proton separation energies $`S_p`$ for three isotone chains (23 nuclei with $`N=50`$, 25 nuclei with $`N=82`$ and 14 nuclei with $`N=126`$) and $`S_n`$ for calcium isotopes (24 nuclei), and for nickel and zirconium isotopes see Ref. , 212 nuclei in total. Since the neutron numbers for these isotone chains are also magic, again, we can test only the same combination of coupling constants $`g(𝒓)=g_0(𝒓)+g_1(𝒓)`$. As we have conjectured at the beginning of this study, one can indeed describe with a single value $`g`$ separately for proton and neutron pairing correlations in both even and odd systems, as opposed to the treatment of Refs. , which slightly violates isospin invariance. In essentially all cases in which we have been able to perform a comparison between our results and those available in literature, our results were either qualitatively superior or, in a few separate cases, as good as any other results. In Table 1 we present rms deviation from experimental (recommended) values  for the two and one nucleon separation energies for several isotope and isotone chains. The size of each set of nuclei in a chain was given by the number of nuclei in Ref. , for which there are experimental values in the unpublished Audi and Wapstra 2001 compilation.

There are a number of theoretical arguments, suggesting that the pairing coupling should be density/position dependent, due to the coupling to surface/particle–hole modes, e.g. Ref. . A similar line of reasoning was presented in the case of dilute systems  and neutron matter  for quite some time. Our results, see Figs. 12, show that $`S_n`$ and $`S_{2n}`$ for tin and lead isotopes are not particularly sensitive to such effects. To some extent this is not a surprise, since pairing correlations are ”built” at distances of the order of the coherence length $`\xi \mathrm{}^2k_F/m\mathrm{\Delta }`$ , see Ref.  for a related instructive example. This apparent low sensitivity of $`S_N`$ and $`S_{2N}`$ to a possible density dependence of the pairing couplings, could in principle be profitably used to describe other observables. From the results of Refs.  one might infer that pairing coupling constants could have a noticeable variation with the isospin composition of a given system, since the magnitude of the induced interactions changes dramatically as the number of fermion species varies. Neither our results, nor previous work has necessitated the introduction of such a dependence however. In our phenomenological approach, based on general symmetry arguments alone and the fact that the pairing correlations are relatively weak in nuclear systems, we restricted the form of the EDF superfluid contribution to the simplest one compatible with known symmetries. We were able to infer that pairing properties of either kind of nucleons can be accounted for with a single constant $`g=g_0+g_1`$. It remains to be seen whether the other (non–perturbative) combination $`g^{}=g_0g_1`$ (never considered by other authors) could ever become relevant.


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# Diffractive Higgs bosons and prompt photons at hadron colliders

## I Introduction

There has recently been much interest diffrHiggs ; PRL-Higgs ; KMR ; Cox ; DeRoeck:2002pr ; Khoze:2002py  in whether the Higgs boson could be easier observed, or even discovered, in diffractive scattering events at hadron colliders, viz. $`p\overline{p}`$ at the Fermilab Tevatron or $`pp`$ at CERN’s future Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The underlying idea is that the lower hadronic activity in such events with large rapidity gaps should improve the possibility to reconstruct the Higgs from its decay products. One crucial issue is whether the cross section for diffractive Higgs production is large enough to give an observable rate. Theoretical predictions based on different models vary by orders of magnitude and it is therefore important to check and constrain these models in various ways.

Another crucial issue is which decay mode of the Higgs that is considered. Although $`H\gamma \gamma `$ (Fig. 1b) has a small branching ratio, its very clear experimental signature with two high-$`p_{}`$ photons makes it interesting and often considered for a Higgs of intermediate mass.

In this note we will address both these crucial issues. Our prediction PRL-Higgs  for the diffractive Higgs cross section is given additional credibility by further experimental checks supporting our soft color interaction (SCI) model. The $`H\gamma \gamma `$ channel is further considered by investigating the background from prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$ production. The process $`gg\gamma \gamma `$ is similar to the dominating Higgs production process $`ggH`$, both involving gluon-gluon fusion into a quark loop (Fig. 1). The experimental observation of prompt photon pairs in rapidity gap events can therefore be used to test the models for diffractive Higgs production. We therefore give predictions on such prompt photon events based on our model.

## II Diffractive hard scattering in the SCI model

The soft color interaction (SCI) model SCI  was developed in an attempt to better understand non-perturbative QCD dynamics and provide a unified description of all final states. The basic assumption is that soft color exchanges give variations in the topology of the confining color string-fields which then hadronize into different final states, e.g. with and without rapidity gaps or leading protons. Also other kinds of experimental results are described in a very economical way with only one new parameter. Particularly noteworthy is the turning of a $`c\overline{c}`$ pair from a color octet state into a singlet state producing charmonium charmonium  in good agreement with observed rates.

The SCI model SCI  is implemented in the Lund Monte Carlo programs lepto Lepto  for deep inelastic scattering and pythia Pythia  for hadron-hadron collisions. The hard parton level interactions are given by standard perturbative matrix elements and parton showers, which are not altered by the softer non-perturbative effects. The SCI model then applies an explicit mechanism where color-anticolor (corresponding to non-perturbative gluons) can be exchanged between the emerging partons and hadron remnants. The probability for such an exchange cannot be calculated and is therefore taken to be a constant given by a phenomenological parameter $`P`$. These color exchanges modify the color connections between the partons and thereby the color string-field topology, as illustrated in Fig. 2. Standard Lund model hadronization lund  of the string fields then leads to different final states, with gaps in rapidity regions where no string was present. Following the normal factorization theorem, these soft processes do not affect the cross section for the hard scattering process, but only the distribution of hadrons in the final state.

A variation is provided by the generalized area law (GAL) model GAL , which is formulated in terms of interactions between the strings and not the partons. The probability for two strings to interact via a soft color exchange is obtained from the area law in the Lund string model resulting in a dynamically varying interaction probability. The results of this model are in practice very close to those of the SCI model and we will therefore in this short note only consider the SCI model.

Since the SCI model is implemented in Monte Carlo programs which generate complete events with final state particles, one can adopt an experimental approach to classify events depending on the final state, i.e. diffractive or non-diffractive depending on the presence of rapidity gaps or leading (anti)protons. The value of the single parameter $`P`$, regulating the amount of soft color exchanges, is determined from the rate of diffractive deep inelastic events observed in $`ep`$ at HERA. The predictive power of the model lies in the fact that applying it, with the same parameter value ($`P=0.5`$), to $`p\overline{p}`$ gives a good description of all diffractive hard scattering processes observed at the Tevatron, as summarized in Table 1.

The pythia Monte Carlo has here been employed for different hard subprocesses producing jets, $`W`$, $`Z`$, $`c\overline{c}`$ or $`b\overline{b}`$. The overall cross sections are obtained as usual by folding the subprocess cross sections with the parton density distributions (we have used CTEQ CTEQ  as detailed in SCI-TEV ). The SCI model is then applied before hadronization is performed and the events classified. Single diffractive (SD) events are selected using one of two criteria: (1) a leading (anti)proton with $`x_F>0.9`$ or (2) a rapidity gap in the forward or backward region, for example $`2.4<|\eta |<5.9`$ as used by the CDF collaboration. Applying the conditions in both hemispheres results in events with two rapidity gaps, one on each side of the central hard scattering system. These are conventionally labeled DPE after their interpretation as double pomeron exchange in the Regge framework, but we prefer to use this established acronym to denote ‘Double leading Proton Events’ independently of interpretations in terms of any specific model.

For a detailed comparison of the SCI model with results on diffractive hard scattering at the Tevatron see SCI-TEV . Here we want to point out that some of our results were predictions that have recently been verified by new experimental data, as indicated in Table 1.

A process which has drawn much attention recently is the central production of dijets in DPE events, which has been observed at the Tevatron CDF-DPE . The SCI model describes well the cross section and the ratio of these events to single diffractive dijet events (as shown in Table 1), which indicates the breakdown of diffractive factorization CDF-DPE ; SCI-TEV . Also more exclusive quantities, such as transverse energy of the jets or their rapidity distribution are well described SCI-TEV .

In Fig. 3 we show that another new measurement is well described by the SCI model. This dijet mass fraction $`_{jj}`$ is an interesting observable that shows how large fraction of the available energy in the central system of DPE events that goes into the hard scattering system and produces the two jets in the final state. Events with $`_{jj}`$ close to unity would correspond to an exclusive jet production process and the data limits such a contribution to $`\sigma 3.7`$ nb CDF-DPE  just above a model prediction of $`1`$ nb KMR . The observed dijet mass fraction is instead concentrated at smaller values, leaving a substantial energy fraction in the remaining central DPE system, in accordance with the jet production mechanism in the SCI model.

Turning now to Higgs production, we select those hard subprocesses in pythia which produce a Higgs boson. The dominant one is $`ggH`$ via a quark loop as illustrated in Fig. 1a, which accounts for 50% and 70% of the cross section (for $`115<m_H<200`$ GeV) at the Tevatron and LHC, respectively. Other production channels ($`q_i\overline{q}_iH`$, $`q_i\overline{q}_iZH`$, $`q_i\overline{q}_jWH`$, $`q_iq_jq_kq_lH`$ and $`ggq_k\overline{q}_kH`$) contribute, depending both on the Higgs mass and the center of mass energy. Our results in the following are based on these leading order processes, but we note that higher order corrections could give an increase of the Higgs production cross section with an effective $`K`$-factor of order two K-factor .

Applying the same SCI model on the resulting partonic state gives rise to different color string topologies, resulting in different final states after the standard Lund model lund  has been applied for hadronization (Fig. 2). Classifying events as above, depending on rapidity gaps or leading protons, we obtained the results for diffractive Higgs production as shown in detail in PRL-Higgs . We summarize the main results in terms of overall cross sections in Table 2.

At the Tevatron, the cross section for Higgs in DPE events, which would have the least disturbing underlying hadronic activity, is too small to give any produced events. Higgs in single diffractive events are produced, but in small numbers such that only the decay mode $`Hb\overline{b}`$ with the largest branching ratio will give any events to search for.

At LHC, the high energy and luminosity facilitates a study of single diffractive Higgs production, where also the striking $`H\gamma \gamma `$ decay should be observed. Also a few DPE Higgs events may be observed, but these events will not be as clean as naively expected. The available energy is here enough to produce the Higgs and the leading protons as well as an underlying event that will populate forward detector rapidity regions with particles PRL-Higgs . This causes a much lower diffractive cross section when requiring a gap instead of a leading proton at LHC.

## III $`H\gamma \gamma `$ versus prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$

The $`H\gamma \gamma `$ decay mode is of experimental interest due to its clear signature with two photons of high $`p_{}`$ (up to $`m_H/2`$). Its branching ratio is, however, quite low since it proceeds via a higher order loop diagram (Fig. 1b) and is only of interest for an intermediate mass Higgs, below the thresholds for decaying into $`W^+W^{}`$ and $`Z^0Z^0`$. As the Higgs mass increases from $`m_H=115`$ GeV to $`m_H=160`$ GeV, the branching ratio decreases from about $`2\times 10^3`$ to about $`6\times 10^4`$ Higgs-BR . Therefore, this decay mode gives too low rates to be observable in diffractive interactions (Table 2), except for a handful $`H\gamma \gamma `$ in single diffraction at LHC.

Concerning the backgrounds to this Higgs signal, the requirement of the two high-$`p_{}`$ photons to be essentially back-to-back in the transverse plane and isolated, removes the major backgrounds of photons as decay products in jets. The serious, irreducible background is given by the production of a pair of prompt high-$`p_{}`$ photons from the hard processes $`q\overline{q}\gamma \gamma `$ and $`gg\gamma \gamma `$ (Fig. 1cd). As above, we simulate these processes with pythia including the SCI model and obtain the inclusive cross sections, as well as the single diffractive and DPE ones shown in Fig. 4. The Tevatron cross sections for diffractive Higgs and prompt photons with high mass are very suppressed due to kinematics at the edge of phase space, while at the LHC, this kinematic suppression is much less pronounced.

As can be seen, the irreducible prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$ background is larger, in particular at the Tevatron, than the cross section times the branching ratio for $`H\gamma \gamma `$. This applies to inclusive, SD and DPE events when considering a bin width of only $``$1 GeV, corresponding to the width of a Higgs with $`m_H=160`$ GeV and a detector with good energy resolution. For a Higgs of lower mass the width is much smaller, e.g. $``$10 MeV at $`m_H=120`$ GeV, such that the $`H\gamma \gamma `$ signal could in priciple stand out from the background in 10 MeV bins obtained from a detector with extremely high energy resolution. To be realistic, however, we must unfortunately conclude that $`\gamma \gamma `$ is not a straightforward signal for observing the Higgs boson.

On the other hand, the prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$ production has a large enough cross section to be investigated in diffractive events. At the Tevatron, observable rates are predicted for SD events with $`p_{}^\gamma `$ up to $`75`$ GeV, so the model can be tested against data even up to scales of order $`m_H/2`$, but for DPE, $`p_{}^\gamma `$ is only observable up to 15-20 GeV. For large $`p_{}^\gamma `$ the leading order subprocess $`q\overline{q}\gamma \gamma `$ dominates. The higher order process $`gg\gamma \gamma `$ dominates, however, at lower $`p_{}^\gamma `$ where the momentum fraction $`x`$ of the initial partons can be smaller and the large gluon density of the proton increases the cross section. Therefore, in order to test the model for a similar gluon-gluon fusion process with a quark loop as in Higgs production, one should consider $`p_{}^\gamma `$ up to $`15`$ GeV for SD and up to $`20`$ GeV for DPE (Fig. 4b).

Similarly at the LHC, prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$ gives observable rates for SD for $`p_{}^\gamma `$ up to $`100`$ GeV and for DPE up to $`50`$ GeV, i.e. up to the scale of $`m_H/2`$. The process $`gg\gamma \gamma `$ dominates for values of $`p_{}^\gamma `$ below $`60`$ GeV for SD and below $`40`$ GeV for DPE.

Thus, the basic mechanism for producing rapidity gap events with a high mass state from $`gg`$ fusion via a quark loop can be tested already at the Tevatron and further investigated at the LHC.

## IV Concluding discussion

Diffractive Higgs production is currently considered with great interest for forthcoming investigations at the Tevatron and LHC. Different theoretical models predict quite different magnitudes of the cross section, as discussed recently Khoze:2002py ; DeRoeck:2002pr . In this context, diffractive prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$ production can be used as a further testing ground for the models. In particular, the contributing subprocess $`gg\gamma \gamma `$ involves a similar gluon-gluon fusion process via a quark loop as in Higgs production.

Although models based on pomeron exchange can be made to fit diffractive hard scattering data at both HERA and the Tevatron, they have conceptual and theoretical problems as discussed in SCI-TEV ; Brodsky-Hoyer . In particular, it seems improper to regard the pomeron as ‘emitted’ from the proton and having QCD evolution as a separate entity. This problem is avoided in the soft color interaction model which, although not having a firm theoretical basis, can be seen as an effective model for final state interactions as discussed theoretically in Brodsky-Hoyer . This SCI model has, furthermore, strong phenomenological support since it has been very successful in describing and predicting diffractive hard scattering processes both in $`ep`$ collisions at HERA and $`p\overline{p}`$ at the Tevatron SCI-TEV . It should be emphasized that the SCI model describes well the production of dijets in DPE events – a process which has similar dynamics to DPE Higgs and has been advocated DeRoeck:2002pr  as a testing ground for different models aiming at describing diffractive Higgs.

All this gives a high credibility to our predictions for diffractive Higgs PRL-Higgs  and prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$ presented in this note.

Based on the SCI model, we find that the rate of diffractive Higgs events at the Tevatron will be too low to be useful. Some single diffractive Higgs events should be produced, but they can only be accessed through the $`Hb\overline{b}`$ decay channel which does not provide a clear signal in view of the large QCD background and non-trivial experimental $`b\overline{b}`$ reconstruction. The Higgs must, therefore, be primarily searched for in inclusive events with their more complex underlying event. The situation is quite different at LHC. Here single diffractive Higgs production can be investigated, including a few events with the striking $`H\gamma \gamma `$ decay mode, and a few DPE events with a Higgs should also be produced. Diffractive events are, however, not so clean at the LHC since the large available energy produces underlying event activity extending to larger forward rapidities making observable gaps less abundant. Therefore, a much larger sample of diffractive Higgs events would be obtained by very forward ‘Roman pot’-type proton tagging detectors.

We furthermore find that the $`H\gamma \gamma `$ signal in all cases has a smaller cross section than the irreducible background of prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$ production. As discussed above, the latter process is interesting in its own right and our model gives observably large cross sections both at the Tevatron and LHC, such that prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$ event samples should be obtained inclusively as well as in single diffraction and DPE. A one to two orders of magnitude larger cross section for prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$ in DPE was predicted in Cox  based on a pomeron model, but the uncertainty was considered large due to the poorly constrained Reggeon exchanges. Thus, the investigation of diffractive prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$ production at the Tevatron is essential to test the models for diffractive hard scattering and obtain safer predictions for diffractive Higgs production at the LHC.


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# X-Ray Emission from the Jets of XTE J1550–564

## 1 Introduction

Jets are a ubiquitous facet of accretion in systems ranging from young stellar objects, to Galactic X-ray binaries, to active galactic nuclei. Many important questions regarding jet formation and propagation remain unanswered and new data will likely be required to resolve them. Observations of systems within the Galaxy hold the great advantage that their evolution is rapid. Processes requiring millions of years in AGN can unfold in a few years for stellar-mass scale systems, so that the dynamics can be studied directly.

Corbel et al. (2002a, b) recently discovered a large-scale, relativistic radio and X-ray emitting jet from the X-ray transient XTE J1550–564. The source is a Galactic black hole candidate and the mass of the compact object is constrained to be $`812M_{}`$ (Orosz et al., 2002). A superluminal jet ejection event had been previously observed from this source in the radio in September 1998 (Hannikainen et al., 2001) during a very bright X-ray outburst (Sobczak et al., 1999). Detection of the large-scale radio jet to the west of XTE J1550–564 led to a re-analysis of archival Chandra data and discovery of an X-ray jet to the east of XTE J1550–564 (Corbel et al., 2002b; Tomsick et al., 2002). This X-ray jet exhibits proper motion directly away from XTE J1550–564. Based on the angular separations and the measured proper motion, the most likely epoch of origin of these large-scale jets is near the major X-ray outburst which peaked on 20 Sept 1998 (Sobczak et al., 1999) and we adopt this date as the origin of the currently observed jets (Corbel et al., 2002b).

Discovery of the large-scale radio jet also led to new observations of XTE J1550–564 made with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (Weisskopf et al., 2002) which are described here. The sub-arcsecond resolution of Chandra delivered by the High-Resolution Mirror Assembly (van Speybroeck et al., 1997) has allowed us to detect and resolve X-ray emission from the western jet. In addition, we have again detected the eastern jet. In the following, §2 presents the new observation and source detections, §3 contains our results on the spectrum, morphology, motion, and variability of the eastern jet, §4 describes our new data on the western jet, and §5 includes a few comments on the implications of these results.

## 2 Observations and Source Detection

XTE J1550–564 was observed on 11 March 2002 and on 19 June 2002 with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO; Weisskopf et al. 2002) using the the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer spectroscopy array (ACIS-S; Bautz et al. 1998) using Director’s Discretionary Time in response to a Target of Opportunity request based on the discovery of the western radio jet (Corbel et al., 2002a) and a follow-up request made after discovery of X-ray emission from the western jet. For the March observation (ObsID 3448), a total of 26118 s of useful exposure were obtained with the ACIS-S operated in a 1/4 subarray mode with only the S3 chip read out to minimize pile-up for XTE J1550–564 which was in the decay phase of a recent X-ray outburst and expected to be relatively bright during the observation. The roll angle of $`68\mathrm{°}`$ placed the short axis of the field of view in the subarray mode nearly along the jet axis, but the useful field of view along that axis, $`120\mathrm{}`$, was still adequate to image both jets. For the June observation (ObsID 3672), a total exposure of 18025 s was obtained with the ACIS-S operated in the full array mode with 6 ACIS chips read out.

The data were subjected to the standard data processing (ASCDS version 6.6.0 using CALDB version 2.12) and then customary event processing and filtering procedures, from the Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations software package (CIAO) v2.2.1, were applied to produce a level-2 event list. Light curves including all valid events on the S3 chip were constructed to search for times of high background. In both observations, the count rate appears uniform with no obvious flares.

Images of the region around XTE J1550–564 extended $`120\mathrm{}`$ along the jet axis and $`60\mathrm{}`$ perpendicular to the jet axis were constructed using photons in the energy band 0.3–7 keV. We searched for sources using wavdetect (Freeman et al., 2002), the wavelet-based source detection routine in CIAO. Four sources were detected at significances greater than $`4\sigma `$. One source is coincident with XTE J1550–564 and two others lie along the jet axis. The western jet was detected in both March and June, while the eastern jet was detected only in March. The fourth source, at RA = 15h50m53$`\mathrm{}`$.05, DEC = -56$`\mathrm{°}`$29$`\mathrm{}`$02$`\mathrm{}`$.0 (J2000), does not lie along the jet axis and is identified with a relatively nearby K/M dwarf present in optical images of the field. A portion of the March image along the jet axis and containing XTE J1550–564 and its two jets is shown in Fig. 1.

We adjusted the astrometry of each image so that the position of the source coincident with XTE J1550–564 matches the accurately measured radio position. A shift of $`0.76\mathrm{}`$ was required for the March observation and a shift of $`0.22\mathrm{}`$ for June. Both shifts are within the absolute astrometric accuracy of Chandra. The statistical error on the source positions is less than $`0.22\mathrm{}`$ ($`1\sigma `$) in all cases and less than $`0.1\mathrm{}`$ for XTE J1550–564. However, care must be taken in comparing positions of the jet sources due to their finite extent as discussed below.

We defined source regions using ellipses with radii 4 times the radius of 50% encircled energy calculated from the observed photons for each source by wavdetect. The diameter of the ellipse for XTE J1550–564 is $`3.9\mathrm{}`$ which is consistent with that expected for an on-axis point source (8 times the $`0.5\mathrm{}`$ half power radius for ACIS-I). We extracted counts for each source region and a corresponding background region. The exposure was calculated for a monochromatic beam of 1.5 keV. The exposure over the regions including XTE J1550–564 and the western jet is uniform to within 2%. The region including the eastern jet lies over a CCD node boundary and the exposure is up to 15% lower. We translated the count rates to photon fluxes using the exposure, then to energy fluxes in the 0.3-7 keV band assuming a powerlaw spectrum with a photon index of 1.8 and a column density equal to the total Galactic column in the direction of XTE J1550–564 which we take to be $`N_H=9.0\times 10^{21}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ based on radio measurements of the Hi column density (Dickey & Lockman, 1990) along the line of sight. This $`N_H`$ value is consistent with the one measured by high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy of XTE J1550–564 by Miller et al. (2002). The properties of the three sources along the jet axis are listed in Table 1.

Below, we also include results from archival Chandra data. Observations with two dimensional imaging are available for June 9, August 21, and September 11 of 2000. These data and the analysis of the eastern jet are described in Tomsick et al. (2002). Each observation is brief with an exposure of no more than 5200 s. The June 2000 observation had a grating in place, while the others did not.

## 3 Western Jet

### 3.1 Spectrum

We extracted a spectrum for the western jet from the March observation using CIAO tools and applied the recent correction for the low energy quantum efficiency degradation of the ACIS. We fitted the spectrum using XSPEC, see Fig. 2. The spectrum is adequately fit with a powerlaw model with absorption by material with solar abundances. With the equivalent Hydrogen absorption column density fixed to $`N_\mathrm{H}=9.0\times 10^{21}\mathrm{cm}^2`$, the best fit photon index is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.77`$ and the allowed range at 90% confidence is 1.61 to 1.93 ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=2.7`$ for one parameter). The absorbed flux is $`(1.9\pm 0.1)\times 10^{13}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the 0.3-8 keV band and unabsorbed flux would then be $`3.4\times 10^{13}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the same band.

Allowing the absorption column density to vary leads to an allowed range of $`N_\mathrm{H}=(7.914.7)\times 10^{21}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ at 90% confidence ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=4.6`$ for two parameters) and a corresponding range of 1.58–2.37 for the photon index. The best fit values are $`N_\mathrm{H}=10.9\times 10^{21}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.00`$. The allowed $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ range includes the Galactic Hi value. We cannot exclude extra absorption using the X-ray data.

For the June observation, the spectrum is, again, adequately fit with a powerlaw model with absorption. With $`N_\mathrm{H}=9.0\times 10^{21}\mathrm{cm}^2`$, the best fit photon index is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.77`$ and the allowed range at 90% confidence is 1.52 to 2.02. The spectrum in June appears consistent with that measured in March. The absorbed flux is $`(1.6\pm 0.1)\times 10^{13}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the 0.3-8 keV band and the unabsorbed flux is $`2.9\times 10^{13}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the same band.

Since there is no evidence of spectral variability, we fitted the two data sets simultaneously to obtain better constraints on the fit parameters. With $`N_\mathrm{H}=9.0\times 10^{21}\mathrm{cm}^2`$, the best fit photon index is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.77`$ and the allowed range at 90% confidence is 1.64 to 1.90. Allowing the absorption column density to vary leads to $`N_\mathrm{H}=(9.9_{2.2}^{+2.9})\times 10^{21}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.87\pm 0.31`$ at 90% confidence ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=4.6`$ for two parameters).

In addition to the non-thermal powerlaw model, we also fit the combined data with the mekal model which is appropriate for thermal emission from hot diffuse gas. With $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ fixed to the Galactic value, an adequate fit was obtained with $`kT=5.6_{1.1}^{+2.2}\mathrm{keV}`$. A simple thermal bremsstrahlung model gives a similar temperature range, $`kT=6.1_{1.5}^{+2.5}\mathrm{keV}`$. No prominent line emission is observed. However, the limits on the equivalent width are not strongly constraining (varying from 100 eV to 1.3 keV at 90% confidence ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=2.7`$) for a narrow line with energy in the range 3–7 keV).

### 3.2 Morphology and Motion

The X-ray counterpart of the western jet appears extended. Fig. 3 shows the X-ray images from both Chandra observations with radio contours obtained from observations made on 29 January 2002 using the Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) (Corbel et al., 2002b) superimposed on the 11 March 2002 Chandra data. The ATCA image of the compact source XTE J1550–564 appears extended along a NW-SE axis due to partial synthesis caused by the limited parallactic angle coverage with the linear ATCA array. However, in addition to the extent caused by partial synthesis, there is a true, physical extent to the western radio jet. The peak of the jet emission is towards the west (away from XTE J1550–564) and there is lower intensity emission extending to the east, back towards XTE J1550–564. The morphology of the X-ray source closely matches that of the radio source.

We define the jet axis using the positions of the X-ray sources corresponding to XTE J1550–564 and the western jet, as reported in Table 1. The resulting position angle is $`85.9\mathrm{°}\pm 1.3\mathrm{°}`$ in good agreement with the position angle of $`86.1\mathrm{°}\pm 0.8\mathrm{°}`$ reported for the superluminal jets (D. Hannikainen, private communication) and with the position angle of $`85.8\mathrm{°}\pm 1.0\mathrm{°}`$ reported for the radio western jet (Corbel et al., 2002b). To determine if the jet tails lie along the jet axis, we calculated the average azimuthal angle for events between $`2\mathrm{}`$ and $`6\mathrm{}`$ from the western jet position and within $`\pm 40\mathrm{°}`$ in azimuth of a vector pointing back to XTE J1550–564. The average azimuthal angle is $`2.2\mathrm{°}\pm 1.9\mathrm{°}`$ for the March data and $`7.4\mathrm{°}\pm 3.2\mathrm{°}`$ for the June data. The tail of the western jet appears aligned with the jet axis in the March data, but may be slightly skewed to the South in the June data. However, the skew is only marginally statistically significant and may be affected by uncertainty in the true position of the jet peak, discussed below.

To study the morphology and motion of the X-ray jet, we decomposed the image along axes parallel and perpendicular to the jet axis (as defined above). We calculated the displacement of each X-ray event parallel and perpendicular to this axis. Fig. 4 shows the profile of X-ray counts along the jet axis from the two observations. All photons with energies in the range 0.3–7 keV and within $`2\mathrm{}`$ of the jet axis in the perpendicular direction are included. In the March data, both jets are clearly present. In the June data, there is no strong source at the location of the eastern jet, but there may be some diffuse emission above the background level. The western jet appears to have moved away from XTE J1550–564.

For the March observation, the peak of the X-ray emission of the western jet is displaced by $`0.6\mathrm{}`$ (along the jet axis and away from XTE J1550–564) from the position reported in Table 1 which is the centroid over the region containing 50% of the encircled energy (Freeman et al., 2002). Hence, caution is warranted when comparing the jet position to positions found in other observations.

To measure the relative position of the western jet in the March and June observations, we used a Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test to permit comparison of unbinned position data. We used the position along the jet axis for each event calculated above. We added an offset, in the range $`1\mathrm{}`$ to $`+1\mathrm{}`$, to the June event positions and then compared the offset positions with the March event positions within $`\pm 8\mathrm{}`$ of the western jet peak. The best match occurred for an offset of $`0.52\mathrm{}`$. Given this offset, the KS test gives a 61% probability that the two samples are drawn from the same parent distribution. To evaluate the uncertainty in the offset, we integrated the KS-test probability distribution as a function of offset and found the offsets corresponding to 5% and 95% of the full integral (i.e. the 90% confidence interval). These are $`0.39\mathrm{}`$ and $`0.60\mathrm{}`$. The hypothesis that the two distributions are the same with zero offset is rejected at the level of $`5\times 10^{13}`$. The western jet moved by $`0.52\mathrm{}\pm 0.13\mathrm{}`$ between the March and June observations.

The morphology of the western jet does not appear to have changed, even though it moved. Fig. 5 shows the western jet profiles along the jet axis from the March and June observations, with the June data shifted by $`0.52\mathrm{}`$ and scaled so that the peaks match. As noted above, a KS test is consistent with the two profiles being the same.

The figure also shows the data for XTE J1550–564 itself from the March observation, rescaled and displaced to match the peak at western jet. From its time variability, we know that the X-ray emission from XTE J1550–564 must arise from what is effectively a point source for the angular resolution of Chandra. Hence, we use XTE J1550–564 as a calibration of the point spread function for the observation to determine the spatial extent of the emission from the western jet. This procedure accounts for any aspect jitter during the observation and also for any source extent induced by scattering of the X-rays in the interstellar medium between us and the source. The spectrum of XTE J1550–564 during the March observation is quite similar to that found for the western jet, so effects due to the energy dependence of the Chandra point spread function should be negligible. Both sources are sufficiently close to the aimpoint so that the degradation of the Chandra point spread function off axis should also be negligible.

Comparison of the rescaled profile of XTE J1550–564 with the profile of the X-ray emission from the western jet in the March observation shows that the western jet is extended. The leading edge of the X-ray source (the edge away from XTE J1550–564) is approximately consistent with the profile of a point source. The trailing edge is clearly extended. The full width of the source at half maximum is $`1.2\mathrm{}`$ and the full width at 10% of maximum intensity is $`5\mathrm{}`$.

Fig. 6 shows the distribution of X-ray counts perpendicular to the displacement axis for the western jet and XTE J1550–564 in the March data. We used X-rays with energies in the range 0.3–7 keV and with displacements along the jet axis of up to $`\pm 5\mathrm{}`$ from the respective source position as reported in Table 1. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test shows that the two distributions are inconsistent at the 97% confidence level ($`2.2\sigma `$). The western jet may be slightly extended perpendicular to the jet axis, but the evidence is weak. Deconvolving, assuming that the physical width adds in quadrature with the instrumental width, we place an upper limit of $`0.8\mathrm{}`$ (FWHM) on the extent of the X-ray western jet perpendicular to the jet axis. The perpendicular distribution of the western jet found from the June data is consistent with that in the March data. The X-ray western jet is clearly much more extended along the jet axis than perpendicular to it.

### 3.3 Variability

To investigate the variability of the X-ray western jet, we examined archival Chandra data on XTE J1550–564 from June, August, and September 2000. Using a large region extending $`\pm 4\mathrm{}`$ perpendicular to the jet axis and covering the full extent of the western jet beginning $`11\mathrm{}`$ from XTE J1550–564 and extending $`2\mathrm{}`$ beyond its position in 2002, we find no evidence for X-ray emission from the western jet in any of the archival observations with upper limits ($`2\sigma `$) on the ACIS counting rate which are fractions of 0.10-0.16 of the counting rate in our March 2002 data. Combining the August and September 2000 observations, in which the ACIS was not partially blocked by a grating, we find 6 counts in a total exposure of 9557 s. Given a mean of 6, the 90% confidence upper bound from a Poisson distribution is 9 counts leading to a 90% confidence upper bound on the count rate from the western jet of 0.00094 c/s. This is 6% of the rate in the March 2002 observation, corresponding to an upper bound on the absorbed flux (assuming identical spectral parameters) of $`1.1\times 10^{14}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the 0.3–8 keV band. This analysis assumes that none of the counts are due to background. Performing a background subtraction would reduce this limit.

During 2002, the flux decayed between March and June. Using the two flux measurements to calculate the $`1/e`$-folding time for an exponential decay, we find $`327\pm 95\mathrm{days}`$. However, two data points are insufficient to determine the shape of light curve decay.

## 4 Eastern Jet

The new Chandra observations add one additional detection to the results presented in Tomsick et al. (2002). The source contains far fewer counts than the western jet and so we concentrate on the position and flux of the source.

The proper motion of the eastern jet is shown in Fig. 7. The figure includes the three data points from Tomsick et al. (2002) and our new data point for 11 March 2002. Tomsick et al. (2002) showed that the apparent velocity of the eastern jet in 2000 was lower than the minimum velocity allowed during the superluminal ejection (Hannikainen et al., 2001), thus indicating that the eastern jet has decelerated. The March 2002 point is inconsistent with an extrapolation of the velocity measured from the 2000 data and indicates that this deceleration has continued.

We fit the proper motion data with a model in which the jet has a deceleration proportional to its velocity relative to the X-ray binary (which we assume to be roughly at rest relative to the interstellar medium). The velocity profile is then a decaying exponential and the observed position evolution is modified by light travel delays. Our model has three fitted parameters: the initial jet speed divided by the speed of light $`\beta _0`$, the time scale ($`1/e`$-folding time) for the velocity decay $`\tau `$, and the jet angle relative to the line of sight $`\theta `$. The assumed source distance affects the fitted parameters. For a source distance of 4 kpc, we find an adequate fit (shown in Fig. 7) with $`\beta _0=0.94`$, $`\tau =1030\mathrm{days}`$, and $`\theta =62\mathrm{°}`$. For source distances larger than 5.1 kpc, the best fit initial speed is larger than the speed of light. However, we do not consider this a constraint on the distance as the model is rather ad hoc. For a distance of 3 kpc, the best fit is $`\beta _0=0.82`$, $`\tau =960\mathrm{days}`$, and $`\theta =50\mathrm{°}`$. Both of these fits are consistent with the lower bound on the initial jet speed from the VLBI observations (Hannikainen et al., 2001).

Fig. 8 shows the time variation of the X-ray flux of the eastern jet. The first three points are from Tomsick et al. (2002). For consistency with that analysis, we found the fluxes for the March 2002 data using a circular extraction region of $`4\mathrm{}`$ radius centered on the wavdetect position and with an annulus with an inner radius of $`5\mathrm{}`$ and an outer radius of $`18\mathrm{}`$ for background estimation. We used a powerlaw model with photon index fixed to 1.8 and an absorption column density fixed to $`9\times 10^{21}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ and corrected for the degradation in the low energy quantum efficiency of the ACIS. The absorbed flux in the 0.3-8 keV band was $`(1.1\pm 0.3)\times 10^{14}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. For June, no source was detected by wavdetect at the location of the western jet. We extracted counts from a circular region $`4\mathrm{}`$ radius centered at the position found in March. This region is sufficiently large to include most of the diffuse emission apparent in Fig. 4. With spectral parameters fixed as above, the absorbed flux in the 0.3-8 keV band is $`(3\pm 2)\times 10^{15}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. We interpret this number as an upper limit on the jet flux in June.

We fit both an exponential decay and a powerlaw decay to the flux data. The powerlaw decay provides a slightly better fit, but both fits are acceptable. The index of the powerlaw decay is $`3.7\pm 0.7`$. The $`1/e`$-folding time of the exponential decay is $`260\pm 50\mathrm{days}`$. The extrapolated flux at the origin of the jet for the exponential decay would be $`(1.3\pm 0.5)\times 10^{12}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the 0.3-8 keV band. This is a small fraction of the X-ray fluxes measured during the 1998 outburst. Hence, the available X-ray data are not inconsistent with an exponential decline of flux since the origin of the eastern X-ray jet.

## 5 Discussion

The discovery of extended radio and X-ray emission from XTE J1550–564 (Corbel et al. 2002b, Tomsick et al. 2002, and the results reported here) represents the first detection of large scale relativistic jets from a Galactic black hole candidate in both radio and X-rays. These large scale jets appear to arise from a relatively brief jet injection episode (Corbel et al., 2002b) and, therefore, offer a unique opportunity to study the large-scale evolution of an impulsive jet event.

In the following, we assume that both jets were created in a single injection episode in September 1998. The assumption is motivated by the detection of superluminal jets (Hannikainen et al., 2001) following an extremely large X-ray flare in September 1998 and the absence of any other X-ray flare of similar magnitude in continual X-ray monitoring from 1996 to 2002 (Corbel et al., 2002b). The eastern jet appears to be the approaching jet based on its larger current separation from XTE J1550–564 (Corbel et al., 2002b). The distance to XTE J1550–564 is constrained from optical observations to be in the range 2.8–7.6 kpc with a favored value of 5.3 kpc (Orosz et al., 2002).

We detected X-ray emission from the western jet on 11 March 2002 (MJD 52344) at a separation of $`23\mathrm{}`$ from the black hole candidate implying a projected physical separation of $`0.59\mathrm{pc}(d/5.3\mathrm{kpc})=1.8\times 10^{18}\mathrm{cm}(d/5.3\mathrm{kpc})`$ and a mean projected speed of $`18.1\pm 0.4\mathrm{mas}/\mathrm{day}`$ or $`0.55c(d/5.3\mathrm{kpc})`$. From the motion of the jet between 11 March and 19 June, we calculate an average speed at that epoch of $`5.2\pm 1.3\mathrm{mas}/\mathrm{day}`$ or $`(0.16\pm 0.04)c(d/5.3\mathrm{kpc})`$. This is significantly less than the average speed from 1998 to 2002 and indicates that the jet has decelerated. Our detection of motion in the western jet argues against it having reached a termination. The jet appear to have a relativistic bulk velocity.

The angular size of the X-ray emission perpendicular to the jet axis in the western jet is quite small, $`<0.8\mathrm{}`$ (FWHM), placing an upper bound on the jet half opening angle of $`1.0\mathrm{°}`$. The opening angle is small, similar to the half opening angles of Fanaroff-Riley class II (FR-II; Fanaroff & Riley 1974) sources which are less than $`3\mathrm{°}`$ (Muxlow & Garrington, 1991). The angular size of the western X-ray jet perpendicular to the jet axis limits the expansion velocity to less than $`0.01c(d/5.3\mathrm{kpc})`$. At the same epoch, the eastern jet has a projected physical separation of $`0.75\mathrm{pc}(d/5.3\mathrm{kpc})`$.

For comparison with the properties of the western jet, we review the properties of the eastern jet at the same angular separation. From the linear fit in Tomsick et al. (2002), we find that the eastern jet passed through a separation of $`23\mathrm{}`$ on MJD $`51785\pm 16`$. Fortuitously, this is consistent with the times of the 21 August 2000, and 11 September 2000 Chandra observations (the separations from both of those observations are consistent with $`23\mathrm{}`$). As discussed in Tomsick et al. (2002), the high proper motion of the eastern jet when at a separation of $`23\mathrm{}`$ argues strongly against it having reached a termination at that point. The continued motion of the eastern jet to larger separations demonstrated here reinforces this argument. At a separation of $`23\mathrm{}`$, the apparent speed of the eastern jet was $`21.2\pm 7.2\mathrm{mas}/\mathrm{day}`$ and the absorbed flux was $`(7.2\pm 1.0)\times 10^{14}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the 0.3-8 keV band. The western (receding) jet flux at the same separation was a factor of $`2.6\pm 0.4`$ higher than the eastern (approaching) jet flux.

The X-ray data provide measurements of the local apparent speed at equal angular separations from the origin for the approaching and receding jets. If the jets are symmetric, in terms of their velocity profiles, then it would be possible to use relativistic kinematics (Mirabel & Rodríguez, 1999) to constrain the jet true speed $`\beta `$, inclination to the line of sight $`\theta `$, and distance $`d`$. We find that $`\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta =0.61\pm 0.13`$ and that $`d=(12.6\pm 4.4)\mathrm{tan}\theta \mathrm{kpc}`$ under the assumption that the jet propagation is symmetric. This would imply that the inclination angle $`\theta 61\mathrm{°}`$ and that the jet speed $`\beta 0.48`$ (allowing for the uncertainty in $`\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta `$).

However, the fact that the western (receding) jet is brighter than the eastern (approaching) jet argues against symmetric jet propagation. For symmetric jet propagation, the ratio of observed flux densities measured at equal separations from the core for a twin pair of optically-thin isotropically emitting jets is

$$\frac{S_a}{S_r}=\left(\frac{1+\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta }{1\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta }\right)^{k\alpha }$$
(1)
where $`S_a`$ is the approaching flux density, $`S_r`$ is the receding flux density, $`\beta `$ is the jet speed divided by the speed of light, $`\theta `$ is jet inclination angle, $`\alpha `$ is the spectral index of the emission defined so $`S_\nu \nu ^\alpha `$, and $`k`$ is a parameter which is 2 for a continuous jet and 3 for discrete condensations (Mirabel & Rodríguez, 1999). If the exponent $`k\alpha >0`$, then the approaching jet must be always be brighter than the receding jet measured at the same angular separation from the core. Given the photon index quoted above (allowing the absorption to vary) and allowing a continuous jet, the minimum allowed value for the exponent is 2.6 which is well above zero. Hence, the observed brightness ratio $`S_a/S_r=0.38\pm 0.05`$ is inconsistent with symmetric jet propagation. However, because the X-ray jet detections occurred well after the initial jet ejection, we cannot independently constrain the jet ejection, which may have been symmetric.

Large intrinsic asymmetries have been observed in the radio for the jets from the microquasar GRO J1655–40 (Hjellming & Rupen, 1995). Which of the two jets was brighter differed from day to day, while the kinematics of the jet propagation appeared symmetric. Asymmetries of similar magnitude could explain the ratio of X-ray fluxes from the jets of XTE J1550–564 if the jet inclination angle is high. In this case, the X-ray emissivity of the western jet would need to be low early on, to be consistent with the non-detection in 2000, and then increase sharply at later times, to be consistent with the flux measured in 2002. Such an X-ray emissivity profile could be produced by, e.g., internal shocks produced by a faster plasmon overtaking a slower one. This would require re-acceleration of particles in the jet long after its initial ejection.

Alternatively, the emission from the jets could be produced by shocks arising from interactions of the jets with the interstellar medium (ISM). The jets appear to be moving with speeds much greater than the sound speed of the ISM. In this case, the supersonic motion of the jet should produce a shock wave. The shock will be strongest at the head of the head and weaken around the sides of the jet (De Young, 2002). This morphology matches that observed for the eastern jet. In this case, the asymmetry between the two jets may reflect non-uniformity in the ISM. If the western jet is propagating into a denser medium, it would be brighter and would have decelerated more than the eastern jet. Interaction of a relativistic plasmon with the ISM appears to consistently describe all of the available data on the large scale jets of XTE J1550–564.

Continued observation of the jets of XTE J1550–564 offers an exciting opportunity to study the dynamics of relativistic jets on time scales inaccessible for AGN jets. New, deep observations of XTE J1550–564 will allow us to study the deceleration and evolution of the morphology, flux, and spectrum of the western jet. This may help determine whether the observed jets are due to the internal interactions of relativistic plasmons or due to external interactions with the ISM. A deep observation may also permit a new detection of the eastern jet which would further constraint its deceleration and decay. Finally, continued monitoring may eventually show the termination of the jets.

We thank Harvey Tananbaum for granting the DDT observations, Joy Nichols for exceptionally rapid processing of the data, and the CXC team for successfully executing the observation. PK thanks Heino Falcke, Dan Harris, and David De Young for useful discussions and acknowledges partial support from NASA grant NAG5-7405 and Chandra grant number G01-2034X. RW was supported by NASA through Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship grant number PF9-10010 awarded by CXC, which is operated by SAO for NASA under contract NAS8-39073.


text:
# References

TUM/T39-02-19
ECT\*-02-26

A Note on Asymptotic
Freedom at High Temperatures\*)\*)\*)Work supported in part by BMBF, GSI and by the European Commission under contract HPMT-CT-2001-00370.

R.A. Schneider

Physik-Department, Technische Universität München, 85747 Garching, Germany
ECT\*, Villa Tambosi, 38050 Villazzano (Trento), Italy

## Abstract

This short note considers, within the external field approach outlined in , the role of the lowest lying gluon Landau mode in QCD in the high temperature limit. Its influence on a temperature- and field-dependent running coupling constant is examined. The thermal imaginary part of the mode is temperature-independent in our approach and exactly cancels the well-known zero temperature imaginary part, thus rendering the Savvidy vacuum stable. Combining the real part of the mode with the contributions from the higher lying Landau modes and the vacuum contribution, a field-independent coupling $`\alpha _s(T)`$ is obtained. It can be interpreted as the ordinary zero temperature running coupling constant with average thermal momenta $`k2\pi T`$ for gluons and $`k\pi T`$ for quarks.

In , we have calculated an effective charge $`\alpha _s^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ in QCD, extending the approach of refs. to finite temperature. Instead of a loop expansion of the gluon self-energy, the thermal energy shift

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E(T,H)=\frac{1}{2}\left[4\pi \chi (H,T)\right]VH^2E(T)_{\mathrm{vac}},$$
(1)
of the perturbed thermal vacuum (the “Savvidy” vacuum) to order $`\alpha _s`$, after applying an external static chromomagnetic field $`H`$, was evaluated at temperatures $`T\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$. Identifying $`2eH`$ with the scale $`k^2`$ at which the system is probed, as at $`T=0`$ ($`e`$ is the product of the strong coupling constant $`g`$ times the charge number $`q`$ that involves the structure constants of SU($`N_c`$)), we have investigated the high temperature limit

$$\frac{eH}{T^2}\delta ^21.$$
(2)
Note that condition (2) is equivalent to the hard thermal loop (HTL) approximation in thermal perturbation theory at the one-loop level, where the external momentum $`k`$ that flows into a loop is taken to be ’soft’ as compared to the ’hard’ internal thermal scale $`T`$, i.e. $`k^0,|\stackrel{}{k}|T`$. Subsequently, we have extracted a temperature- and momentum-dependent dielectric permittivity $`ϵ(k,T)`$ by use of the relation

$$\alpha _s^{\mathrm{eff}}(k,T)\frac{\alpha _s}{ϵ(k,T)}=\frac{\alpha _s}{14\pi \chi (k,T)}.$$
(3)
Here, $`\chi (k,T)=\chi _g+\chi _q`$ is the sum of gluon and quark magnetic susceptibilities. An expression similar to (1) exists at zero temperature and has to be added to (1) in order to obtain the total result, so $`\chi _{\mathrm{total}}=\chi _0(k,\mathrm{\Lambda })+\chi (k,T)`$, where the zero temperature susceptibility $`\chi _0(k,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ has been calculated in . $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ corresponds to a zero temperature scale that characterises the “medium” and is ultimately identified with the renormalisation reference point of the coupling.
For the gluonic energy difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_g(T)`$, the result reads for a gluon of charge $`q`$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_g(T,H)=VT^4\left\{\frac{\delta ^2}{6}\frac{5\delta ^4}{48\pi ^2}\left[\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{\delta ^2}{16\pi ^2}\right)+2\gamma +\frac{11}{5}\mathrm{log}3\frac{13}{10}\right]\right\}.$$
(4)
With eqs.(1) and (3), the $`\delta ^2/6`$ term leads to a Landau pole in the infrared, as also found in more sophisticated renormalisation group analyses of the running coupling at finite temperature. This feature is unphysical since it would signal antiscreening of colour over large distances, which is in contrast to expectations from asymptotic freedom and lattice calculations . In this short note, we show that the Landau pole vanishes with the inclusion of the lowest lying gluonic Landau mode in eq.(4) and, furthermore, that all dependence on $`H`$ drops out when $`\chi (H,T)`$ is combined with the zero temperature result. In addition, the imaginary part of that Landau mode exactly cancels the zero temperature imaginary part of $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ as found in , rendering the vacuum stable, in contrast to previous approaches.
The calculation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_g(T)`$ involves a sum over all Landau levels

$$E_{n,k_3,s_3}=\sqrt{k_3^2+2eH\left(n+1/2+s_3\right)},$$
(5)
weighted by the corresponding thermal occupation probabilities $`[\mathrm{exp}(E_{n,k_3,s_3}/T)1]^1`$. Here, $`n`$ labels the mode, $`k_3`$ is the 3-component of the momentum and $`s_3=\pm 1`$, the $`z`$-component of the spin of the transverse gluons. As is well-known, the lowest lying Landau level (LLL) with $`n=0`$ and $`s_3=1`$ acquires an imaginary part for small $`k_3`$ already at zero temperature . This tachyonic instability signals that the constant field $`H`$ will decay to some new, unspecified vacuum state, maybe accompanied by the formation of a chromomagnetic condensate. In previous approaches, this feature persisted even at high temperatures , despite asymptotic freedom, but could be avoided by the ad hoc introduction of some thermal electric ($`m_egT`$)  or magnetic gluon mass ($`m_mg^2T`$) . The influence of the LLL on the high-temperature physics was at best inconclusive. In , we have therefore discarded the contribution of the LLL in obtaining (4). In the following, we will include in eq.(4) the explicit expression for the LLL, which reads

$$E_{\mathrm{LLL}}=VT^4\left(\frac{\delta ^2}{\pi ^2}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑x\frac{\sqrt{x^2\delta ^2}}{\mathrm{exp}(\sqrt{x^2\delta ^2})1}\right).$$
(6)
An expansion of the integral in small $`\delta `$ (though not a power series) for positive $`x^2+\delta ^2`$ exists as

$$\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑x\frac{\sqrt{x^2+\delta ^2}}{\mathrm{exp}(\sqrt{x^2+\delta ^2})1}=\frac{\pi ^2}{6}+\frac{\delta ^2}{4}\left[\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{\delta }{4\pi }\right)+\gamma +\frac{1}{2}\right]+𝒪(\delta ^6),$$

where $`\gamma =0.5772\mathrm{}`$, the Euler-Mascheroni constant. As long as $`\delta `$ is small in (6), we can analytically continue the expansion to imaginary values of $`\delta `$. To obtain its correct sign, the usual Feynman $`ϵ`$-prescription has to be applied, as done at $`T=0`$ : $`\delta ^2\delta ^2iϵ`$, which leads to $`\sqrt{\delta ^2}i\sqrt{\delta ^2}`$. The only imaginary part at finite temperature then arises from the complex logarithm:

$$E_{\mathrm{LLL}}VT^4\left\{\frac{\delta ^2}{6}\frac{\delta ^4}{8\pi ^2}\left[\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{\delta ^2}{16\pi ^2}\right)+2\gamma +1\right]+i\left(\frac{\delta ^4}{8\pi }\right)\right\}.$$

Obviously, the positive sign of the imaginary part would indicate a blow-up of the configuration, not a decay, which is unphysical. However, when re-writing $`\delta `$, the imaginary part

$$\text{Im}E_{\mathrm{LLL}}=\text{Im}[\mathrm{\Delta }E(T)]=+V\frac{(eH)^2}{8\pi }$$
(7)
becomes independent of temperature. At zero temperature, the imaginary part of the energy difference is calculated to be Im$`[\mathrm{\Delta }E_0]=V(eH)^2/(8\pi )`$ , which is exactly the opposite of eq.(7). Taking both contributions into account, the total imaginary part of the energy difference hence vanishes, which renders the Savvidy high temperature vacuum stable. This result has been long sought after, but previous approaches  always found a remaining imaginary part of the form Im$`[\mathrm{\Delta }E(T)]=VT^4[\delta ^3/(2\pi )]`$. All contributions of order $`\delta ^3`$ in $`\mathrm{\Delta }E(T)`$ cancel, however, within our approach when all contributions up to order $`g^2`$ are consistently taken into account. In addition, whereas terms proportional to the squared charge $`e^2`$ do not depend on the direction of the external field $`H`$ in colour space, terms not quadratic in the coupling, like $`\delta ^3e^{3/2}`$, are not group-invariant and do depend on the specific colour choice of the magnetic field , a result that is probably unphysical.
Combining now the real part of $`E_{\mathrm{LLL}}`$ with the sum over all higher lying Landau modes, eq.(4), we find that the troublesome $`\delta ^2/6`$ term is exactly cancelled by Re$`E_{\mathrm{LLL}}`$ which henceforth eliminates the Landau pole in the infrared. Furthermore, the logarithms combine such as to yield, after summing over the colour charges $`q^2`$ of the adjoint representation,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_g=\frac{1}{2}VH^2\left[g^2\frac{11N_c}{48\pi ^2}\mathrm{log}\left(𝒜_g\frac{2eH}{T^2}\right)\right]$$

with $`𝒜_g=\mathrm{exp}(2\gamma +\mathrm{log}31/22)/(32\pi ^2)`$. The expression in square brackets already stands for $`4\pi \chi _g(H,T)`$. Together with the quark contribution $`\chi _q(H,T)`$ from ,

$$4\pi \chi (H,T)=g^2\frac{11N_c}{48\pi ^2}\mathrm{log}\left(𝒜_g\frac{2eH}{T^2}\right)g^2\frac{2N_f}{48\pi ^2}\mathrm{log}\left(𝒜_f\frac{2eH}{T^2}\right)$$

($`𝒜_f=\mathrm{exp}(2\gamma 1)/\pi ^2`$), which looks deceptively similar to the running coupling at $`T=0`$. Indeed, consistently taking into account the zero temperature QCD susceptibility $`\chi _0(H,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ , as mentioned above, we arrive at the final expression

$$\alpha _s^{\mathrm{eff}}(H,T,\mathrm{\Lambda })=\alpha _s^{\mathrm{eff}}(T,\mathrm{\Lambda })=\frac{\alpha _s(\mathrm{\Lambda })}{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mathrm{\Lambda })}{12\pi }}\left[11N_c\mathrm{log}\left({\displaystyle \frac{[\overline{𝒜}_g2\pi T]^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\right)2N_f\mathrm{log}\left({\displaystyle \frac{[\overline{𝒜}_f\pi T]^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\right)\right]},$$
(8)
with $`\overline{𝒜}_g=\mathrm{exp}(\gamma 1/2\mathrm{log}(3/8)+1/44)0.938`$ and $`\overline{𝒜}_f=\mathrm{exp}(\gamma +1/2)0.926`$. Eq.(8) looks very similar to what was already found in the QED case in : all field (or momentum) dependence in $`\alpha _s^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ has dropped out. It is just the one-loop running coupling constant at zero temperature, where the loop particles carry some average thermal momentum $`k=𝒪(T)`$, as originally put forward in . However, we are now in a position to refine that result: coming from the lowest Matsubara frequencies, quarks propagating in a thermal loop should have $`\pi T`$ as momentum, whereas the lowest non-vanishing bosonic frequency is $`2\pi T`$ – and these values are indeed very close to the numbers appearing in the logarithms of (8) in front of $`T`$. Note that this result arises only when one consistently sums up all terms to order $`g^2`$. Amusingly, the HTL expressions for (3) can be recovered from eq.(1) in a cruder approximation omitting $`𝒪(g)`$ contributions to the single Landau levels and the density of states . Extending the calculation to finite quark chemical potential will shed more light on the connection between the presented approach and HTL perturbation theory.
We have therefore been able to show for the first time in a self-contained calculation that, for long wavelength modes, the running coupling at finite temperature becomes very simple, as has been expected for long on a phenomenological basis : it follows from the zero temperature renormalisation group equations, with the momentum scale replaced by a suitable thermal scale that seems to be set by the lowest, non-zero Matsubara frequencies and is then, of course, different for quarks and gluons. This distinction of thermal momentum scales for fermions and bosons is a new outcome of our calculation. The same formal result $`\alpha ^{\mathrm{eff}}=\alpha (k\pi T)`$ was already found in QED , supporting the setup of the calculation. All collective medium effects over large distances $`R1/T`$ at the one-loop level can therefore be subsumed in a running coupling constant that does not depend on $`R`$. In addition, the thermal imaginary part of the LLL is exactly cancelled by its well-known zero temperature counterpart within our approach, which eliminates the instability of the Savvidy vacuum, a welcome feature.