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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Since 1985 , various experimental techniques have been proposed to detect the nuclear recoils that would be produced by the scattering of WIMP dark matter particles from our galactic halo (for a recent review of experimental searches, see e.g. Ref. ). The goal is to be sensitive to recoil energies down to 10 keV , at event rates well below one per kilogram of detector material per day . For this, the detector response to low-energy nuclear recoils must be well known. Depending on the detection process (ionization, scintillation or heat), this response may differ significantly from that inferred from calibration with electron or gamma-ray sources. A quantity of interest is thus the quenching factor, defined as the ratio of the signal amplitudes induced by a nuclear recoil and an electron of the same energy. This factor depends mainly on the detector material, the energy of the recoil and the detection process, although temperature and alignment effects may play a role (see e.g. Ref. ).

Quenching factor measurements have been made on scintillation detectors such as NaI , CsI , CaF2  and Xe , leading to values ranging from 4 to 30% depending on the recoil nucleus and its energy. The measured quenching factors of ionization detectors such as Si  or Ge  vary between 25 and 40% and appear to follow the recoil energy dependence predicted by the Lindhart theory . More recently, the thermal detection efficiency for recoiling nuclei has been measured for the first time in a TeO2 cryogenic detector, giving a thermal quenching factor slightly above unity.

The purpose of the SICANE facility (SIte de CAlibration NEutron) is the measurement of quenching factors of cryogenic detectors using nuclear recoils induced by monoenergetic neutron beams. The facility has been commissioned with tests using scintillation in a NaI(Tl) crystal and measurements of quenching factors for ionization and heat signals in a germanium cryogenic detector developed by the EDELWEISS collaboration.

## 2 Experimental Procedure

### 2.1 Principle and Motivation

The basic method for the measurement of the quenching factor of a detector is the following. First the detector response to electron recoils is obtained using calibrated $`\gamma `$-ray source. This yields the calibration of the signal amplitude in terms of an electron-equivalent energy, $`E_{ee}`$. In a second step, the detector is exposed to a source producing nuclear recoils with a known kinetic energy $`E_R`$. The quenching factor $`Q`$ is then

$$Q=\frac{E_{ee}}{E_R}$$
(1)
The main difficulty for a precise and efficient measurement is the production of recoils with known $`E_R`$ values.

In the present method, nuclear recoils are produced by neutron scattering. Other methods for producing nuclear recoils exist, such as the implantation of $`\alpha `$-particle sources close to the surface of the detector . When the $`\alpha `$ escapes the detector, the response of the detector to the recoiling daughter can be measured accurately. However this method is not adequate for detectors which response differs according to whether the interaction occurs close to surface or in the bulk of the volume . Another drawback is that the recoiling daughter is often very different from the detector material. Neutron interactions have the advantage of occurring rather uniformly throughout the detector volume. The recoil nuclei thus produced are very similar to those that would be induced by WIMP scattering.

In Ge cryogenic detectors with simultaneous read-out of the heat and ionization signals the recoil energy can be measured event-by-event, independently of the nature of the recoil (electron or nuclear). In this type of detector, it is possible to directly measure the ratio of the ionization and heat quenching values111For clarity, from now on the symbol for ionization or scintillation quenching factors will be $`Q`$, and $`Q^{}`$ will be used to represent heat quenching factors. as a function of recoil energy . If one assumes that the heat quenching factor $`Q^{}`$ is unity222This assumption is reasonable if the detector can be approximated as a close system where all the excitation energy is thermalized within a time scale inferior to that of the read-out of the heat signal and no energy is stored in crystal defects or other long-life processes., these data can be interpreted as ionization quenching measurements. Alternatively, these data can be compared to the available direct measurements of ionization quenching in order to provide a verification of how close to unity are the heat quenching factors . This comparison assumes that the ionization quenching factors do not depend on temperature, as all direct measurements  were performed at liquid nitrogen temperature (77 K) instead of cryogenic temperatures ($``$25 mK).

This method cannot be applied to detectors with a single read-out, or to heat-and-scintillation detectors, as the amount of energy escaping as light is difficult to control. In addition, scintillation yields are known to depend on crystal temperature (see e.g. Ref. ).

Clearly, a method providing nuclear recoils of a known energy is relevant for the calibration of cryogenic detectors. In a non-relativistic elastic neutron scattering, the energy of the recoil nuclei $`E_R`$ is given by

$$E_R(\theta )=E_n\frac{4Mm_n}{(m_n+M)^2}\frac{(1\mathrm{cos}\theta )}{2}$$
(2)
where $`E_n`$ is the incident neutron kinetic energy, $`\theta `$ is the neutron scattering angle in the center-of-mass frame and $`m_n`$ and $`M`$ are the neutron and nucleus masses, respectively. Even with a monoenergetic neutron beam, $`E_R`$ values vary from zero to $`E_R(180^o)`$. In experiments where $`\theta `$ is not measured some information about the quenching factor can be obtained from the maximum $`E_{ee}`$ value observed for a given $`E_n`$, the quenching factor being then equal to $`E_{ee}/E_R(180^o)`$ . A more precise measurement consists in measuring the scattering angle of the neutron . This requires neutron detectors with a small solid angle. However, in order to be efficient the total solid angle for the detection of the scattered neutrons must be as large as possible. This is a crucial point for performing in a reasonable time quenching factor measurements of cryogenic heat detectors, as their response is intrinsically slow.

These precision and efficiency constraints naturally lead to a concept of a large array of neutron detectors. With 48 neutron detectors, SICANE is the largest existing array. With such an extensive array, scattering at different angles can be measured simultaneously, reducing the systematic errors, and improving the diagnostic tools to identify the various background sources.

The basic performance of this array can readily be tested using scattering on a small NaI detector at room temperature, for which scintillation quenching data already exist . For actual measurements on cryogenic detectors, two new potential problems arise. Firstly, the cryostat surrounding the detector represents an important amount of additional material where neutrons may scatter before or after interacting in the detector itself. Secondly, cryogenic detectors are intrinsically slow, and some care must be taken in establishing clean coincidences with the relatively faster array of neutron detectors while retaining a sufficiently high count rate. For the commissioning measurements of an actual cryogenic detector, a Ge heat-and-ionization detector was chosen as the experimental situation for these detectors is rather well controlled (see above), while still awaiting direct measurements of the low temperature behavior of both $`Q`$ and $`Q^{}`$.

### 2.2 Neutron Beams

Up to now, experiments involving these techniques used monoenergetic neutrons produced by deuteron beam interactions on a deuterated target, or by a proton beam interacting on a 7Li target . The neutron emission in these reactions is almost isotropic. This reduces the flux impinging on the target detector, and imposes that the scattered-neutron detector array be very carefully shielded from direct neutrons , putting severe constraints on the spatial extension of the array.

In contrast, reactions with inverse kinematics (heavy ion beam on hydrogenated target) produce a naturally collimated neutron emission . Using endothermal reaction enhances the focusing of the neutron emission in the forward direction. The neutron flux on the detector under study is thus increased while the flux on the surrounding array is reduced. The neutrons are all produced within a small opening angle $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{max}`$ given by:

$$\mathrm{sin}^2\mathrm{\Theta }_{max}=\frac{m_pM_f}{m_nM_i}(1\frac{E_{th}}{E_i})$$
(3)
where Eth is the threshold energy, Ei is the incident kinetic energy, and $`M_i`$, $`m_p`$, $`m_n`$ and $`M_f`$ are the masses of the projectile, the proton, the neutron and the residual nucleus, respectively. In terms of the (negative) $`Q`$-value of the reaction, $`E_{th}`$ is equal to $`Q(M_i+m_p)/m_p`$. At a given angle relative to the beam axis $`\mathrm{\Theta }<\mathrm{\Theta }_{max}`$, there are two monoenergetic neutron groups with energies $`E_{n1}`$ and $`E_{n2}`$ given by:

$`E_{n1,n2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2QM_i}{x(m_p+M_i)}}\{x+\mathrm{cos}^2\mathrm{\Theta }\pm \sqrt{\mathrm{cos}^2\mathrm{\Theta }(x+\mathrm{cos}^2\mathrm{\Theta })}\}`$ (4)
where $`x`$ = $`E_{th}`$ / $`E_i`$, and terms of order $`Q/M_i`$ and $`(m_nm_p)/M_i`$ have been neglected.

The optimization of the neutron beam has been performed in experiments conducted at the tandem accelerator facilities of the Institut de Physique Nucléaire d’Orsay. Beams of 7Li  and 11 have been tested using an oscillating hydrogenated polyethylene target with a thickness of 200 $`\mu `$g$``$cm-2. The beams were pulsed at 2.5 MHz with 5 ns wide bursts.

The contents of the induced neutron beams were studied by measuring the time-of-flight between the beam bursts and the arrival in a NE213 scintillation detector located at an angle of $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ varying from 0 to 25 degrees at a distance of 110 cm away from the hydrogenated target. The time-of-flight spectra recorded at a 11B beam energy of 35 MeV for different values of $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ are shown in Fig. 1. The two neutron groups (labeled $`n_1`$ and $`n_2`$) and the prompt $`\gamma `$ produced in reactions in the hydrogenated target (labeled $`\gamma `$) are clearly seen. The positions of the $`n_1`$ and $`n_2`$ peaks follow the expectation of Eq. 4, as illustrated in Fig. 2, merging together when the maximum value $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{max}=13.1^o`$ is reached. In addition, an important background under the $`n_1`$ and $`n_2`$ peaks is observed in Fig. 1. This continuum remains even beyond the $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{max}`$ value imposed by the kinematics of the inverse (p,n) reaction. It is also present at all beam energies. It is therefore attributed to neutrons induced in fusion reactions on 12C nuclei from the polyethylene target.

As shown in Fig. 3, this background is found to be less important with the 7Li beams, which were therefore selected for the following experiments. The selected 7Li beam energies for the NaI and Ge measurements are 13.7 and 14 MeV, corresponding to $`n_2`$ neutron kinetic energies at $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$=0o of 2.15 and 2.32 MeV and maximum emission angles $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{max}`$ of 11.5o and 13.4o, respectively.

The neutron beam energy resolution is dominated by the energy losses in the target (150 keV over the entire target thickness). The contributions from the Li beam properties themselves and straggling are 14 and 4 keV, respectively. The resulting uncertainty on $`E_n`$ is 59 keV. The calculated neutron flux  is approximately of $`10^5`$ n/s/str for a 7Li beam intensity of 4 nA.

### 2.3 Neutron Detector Array

In the quenching measurements, the NE213 detector at $`\mathrm{\Theta }=0^o`$ is removed, and the detector under study is installed 60 cm away from the polyethylene target. The scattered neutrons are detected in an array of 48 NE213 scintillators located at a distance of 100 cm from the central detector and distributed in four rings corresponding to scattering angles of 45o, 90o, 120o and 165o. Thus, in one experiment the quenching factor is measured at four different values of $`\theta `$, and consequently at four different values of $`E_R`$. The recoil energy values probed in the NaI and Ge experiments are listed in Tables 1 and 3.

The NE213 hexagonal cells have an external diameter of 10 cm and a thickness of 4 cm. A photomultiplier is optically coupled to each cell via a light guide. The support structure of the 48 neutron detectors is shown in Fig. 4. It is made of dural and steel, thin enough to minimize additional neutron scattering. The detector positioning is performed in the following way. First, a laser beam is propagated along the accelerator beam axis, simulating the neutron beam at $`\theta =0^o`$. A rotating mirror is then set at the center of the array. The mirror is then tilted to the desired scattering angle and is rotated around the beam axis. The alignment of each NE213 detector is then adjusted so that the center of its front face is illuminated by the reflected laser beam.

### 2.4 Electronics

The background due to $`\gamma `$ interactions in the NE213 cells is reduced by using the neutron-$`\gamma `$ discrimination capabilities of these detectors. The signal coming from each detector is sent to two charge digitizers, integrating the current during T1=40 ns and T2= 400 ns, respectively. The ratio of the corresponding integrated charges $`q_1`$ and $`q_2`$ provides a good $`\gamma `$/neutron discrimination.

The energy signal $`E_{ee}`$ from the center detector is obtained with standard spectroscopy amplifiers in the cases of scintillation in NaI and ionization in Ge. The much slower heat signals of the Ge cryogenic detector are recorded with a wave form digitizer.

For each event, the following parameters are stored: the $`q_1`$ and $`q_2`$ values for all NE213 cells, as well as their time-of-flight relative to the beam burst, and the energy and time-of-flight measurements of the Ge or NaI(Tl) detector under study. As it will be seen, the time delay between the beam burst and the hit in the neutron detector is a powerful tool to identify true neutron scattering events. This delay $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{13}`$ is the sum of those incurred as the neutron goes i) from the polyethylene target to the center detector ($`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{12}`$) and ii) from that detector to a NE213 cell ($`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{23}`$). With a fast center detector such as NaI, additional reduction of random coincidences may be achieved by a further discrimination on either $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{12}`$ or $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{23}`$

An event is defined as a coincidence between the center detector and at least one of the 48 neutron detectors. Data read-out is triggered by coincidences between any NE213 detector and the center detector within a time window of 1 $`\mu `$s. This width is chosen so as to accommodate the time resolution on the lowest energy signals in the center detectors.

The most delicate aspect of the trigger is to reconcile the speed of the NE213 signal read-out with the slowness of the coincidence decision. The solution adopted here is to initiate the digitization of the NE213 information as soon as any of them pass a certain threshold, and to hold this information until the coincidence decision with the slower Ge detector is issued. If no coincidence arrives, the NE213 electronics is reset. Otherwise, the NE213 data is further held until the end of the Ge heat and ionization read out, 250 ms later.

For the tests with the faster NaI detector, the width of the coincidence with the neutron array can be reduced to 500 ns, and the stand-alone NE213 pre-trigger is not necessary.

### 2.5 Recoil Energy Resolution

The accuracy of the determination of $`E_R`$ on an event-by-event basis depends on the uncertainty on $`E_n`$ and on $`\theta `$. In natural Ge, an additional 2.6% rms fluctuation on $`E_R`$ comes from the difference between the isotope masses.

The energy loss of the 7Li ions in the hydrogenated target leads to a dependence of the neutron kinetic energy on the position of the reaction along the target length. For 2.32 MeV neutrons, the energy spread on $`E_n`$ is $`\pm `$3%, leading to an equivalent spread on $`E_R`$. The main cause of event-by-event fluctuations of $`\theta `$ is the solid angle of the NE213 cells. Their contributions to the r.m.s. width of the $`E_R`$ distribution decreases from 2.5% at 90o to 0.6% at 165o. All these effects taken together contribute to a 4 % r.m.s. event-by-event fluctuation of $`E_R`$. This event-by-event uncertainty is much smaller than the resolution that can be achieved by a time-of-flight measurement over a distance of 1 m. It is also significantly smaller than typical resolutions for the measurement of $`E_{ee}`$ in NaI(Tl) or Ge detectors.

## 3 Monte Carlo Simulations

The experimental precision on $`Q`$ arises from the possibility to select quasi-monoenergetic neutrons and from the simple kinematics of elastic collisions. The determination of $`E_R`$ depends only on the kinematics of the neutron-producing reaction (yielding $`E_n`$) and the accurate positioning of the NE213 cells (yielding $`\theta `$).

To preserve this simplicity, it is important to reduce as much as possible the multiple scattering of neutrons and all sources of beam-correlated signals between the target detector and the NE213 cells. To investigate this, the experiment for the measurement of the heat and ionization quenching factors in Ge has been simulated using the Monte Carlo program GEANT . In these simulations neutrons are produced one by one, thus assuming that the beam current and bunch structure is such that the pile-up of interactions coming from two different neutrons is negligible. In addition to the Ge detector, the simulation takes into account interactions occuring in the material composing 48 NE213 detectors and photomultipliers, the cryostat and the reaction chamber. It also takes into account of the thickness of the hydrogenated target and follows the flight of the neutron from its creation to its detection in one of the NE213 cells. A cut on the time-of-flight similar to the one later applied to the data is also applied to the simulated data.

These simulations take into account the inefficiencies of the NE213 cells due to the experimental energy thresholds and their effect on the detection of the elasticaly and inelasticaly scattered neutrons (energies of 2.2 and 1.6 MeV, respectively: see below).

Predicted rates for elastic and inelastic scattering events, including multiple-scattering events, were derived from these simulations, assuming an integrated flux of 70 neutrons impinging on the Ge detector per second, corresponding to a 7Li beam current of 5 nA. The single rate in the center Ge detector is approximately 10 neutrons per second.

Table 2 lists the Ge-NE213 coincident rates for the different event types described in the following.

Inelastic Neutron Scattering

In addition to elastic scattering, neutrons can have inelastic interaction with Ge nuclei. The end products of such a collision are i) a nuclear recoil with a kinetic energy inferior to that associated with elastic scattering, ii) a scattered neutron with a reduced energy and thus an increased time-of-flight to the NE213 cells, and iii) a $`\gamma `$ emission which may deposit some of its energy in the detector. Given the neutron energy, the most important $`\gamma `$’s to be expected  are the 596 keV transition in 74Ge, 835 keV in 72Ge and 563 keV in 76Ge. The simulation predicts that 82% of these $`\gamma `$ escape detection, leaving only the neutron time-of-flight as a mean to discriminate these events from elastic scatters. The cross-sections for each of these states are of the order of 1 b , compared with an elastic cross-section of the order of 2 b . Given the isotopic abundances in Ge, the 563 keV yield is only a fifth of the 596 keV one.

The recoil energies produced by these inelastic processes are approximately 6 keV inferior to the values for elastic scattering. The differential cross-section of the inelastic process has a pronounced maximum for backward-scattered neutrons, and it is only at these angles that it can result in an appreciable background. At 120o, the coincident rate of inelastic events is approximately half of the elastic rate (Table 2). These two types of events can be identified by their $``$10 ns difference in arrival time in the NE213 cells, and thus can be treated separately.

In the 18% of cases where the $`\gamma `$ is detected, most of the time it will leave only part of its energy via Compton scattering. The resulting distribution of energy deposited in the Ge will be flat, starting at the recoil energy and extending up to $``$500 keV.

Multiple Interaction of a Neutron in Ge

The interaction length of 2.32 MeV neutrons in Ge is approximately 6 cm. Despite the small size of the Ge detector chosen for the experiment (3.1 cm3), incident neutrons have a 20% probability to interact twice or more in the crystal. The corresponding coincident rates are approximately half of the elastic rate (Table 2). It is not reduced by the cut on the time-of-flight of the scattered neutron which is not significantly altered by the successive interactions. However the angle of the outgoing neutron is uncorrelated with the energy deposited in the Ge detector. Some rejection of this background can be thus achieved, as single-scattering neutrons detected at a given angle $`\theta `$ should correspond to a single $`E_{ee}`$ value within experimental resolution, while the corresponding distribution for multiple scatters is a continuum extending approximately from $`E_{ee}`$ to twice $`E_{ee}`$.

Collisions in the Surrounding Materials

Neutrons can also have multiple interactions, with at least one occurring in the Ge and the other(s) in the materials surrounding the detector. In the SICANE setup these additional interactions occur mainly in the cryostat333The total thickness of the copper cryogenic shields is 4mm. and the chamber containing the hydrogenated target. Once the time-of-flight requirements are applied, the coincidence rate of such events is predicted to be of the order of the elastic rate. However, for half of these events, the energy deposited in Ge is only a few keV and will not pass the trigger requirement. For the other half, the deposited energy is evenly distributed between 0 and $`E_{ee}`$

In order to treat adequately the background of events coming from i) inelastic recoils followed by Compton-scattering, ii) multiple neutron scattering in the Ge itself and ii) multiple scattering in the surrounding material, a smooth background is included in the fits to the observed $`E_{ee}`$ distributions yielding the average value at a given angle and time-of-flight selection.

## 4 Scintillation Quenching Factor of NaI(Tl)

As a first test of the performance of the SICANE facility, it was used for a measurement the scintillation quenching factor of NaI(Tl). Measurements with NaI(Tl) are considerably easier to perform than measurements with Ge. There is no need for a cryostat and in addition the good timing resolution provides an additional test to remove random coincidences: the neutron time-of-flight between the hydrogenated target and the NaI(Tl).

In order to reduce multiple scattering, the NaI(Tl) detector had a small size (25 mm diameter, 25 mm thickness). Its energy response $`E_{ee}`$ for photons was calibrated in the energy range from 60 to 511 keV using 57Co, 241Am and 22Na radioactive sources. With incident neutron energy of 2.1 MeV only sodium recoils are observed at all four scattering angles of $`45^o`$, $`90^o`$, $`120^o`$ and $`165^o`$,

To simulate the experimental conditions for the Ge experiment, the total count rate in the NaI(Tl) detector was limited to 35 Hz, yielding a coincidence count rate of 0.33 Hz. Figure 5 shows recoil energy spectra recorded at different scattering angles after the selections on the neutron identification parameter in the NE213 cells and on the total neutron time-of-flight between the polyethylene target and the NE213. The largest peak observed in each spectrum corresponds to the elastic scattering of neutrons on Na nuclei. The peak around 60 keV, clearly seen at $`\theta `$=45o, is due to inelastic scattering via the first excited state of 127I. The structure below 10 keV evolving at the different angles could be due to neutron elastic scatterings on 127I, producing a peak expected at approximately 6 keV at $`\theta `$=165o, and at even lower energies at other angles. An additional cut on the time-of-flight between the NaI(Tl) and NE213 detectors does not remove a significant number of events. This indicates that the neutron identification and the total time-of-flight are sufficient to select a clean sample of neutron scattering events.

The $`E_R`$ values for Na recoils in elastic scattering for the different scattering angle values and the corresponding quenching factors values are listed in table 1. As shown in Fig. 6, the measured quenching factors are in good agreement with previous results . Although the present measurement is based on a one-day test experiment, the statistical errors are already below the systematic uncertainties. At low recoil energy, the dominant uncertainty is the recoil energy due to the finite solid angle of the NE213 cells. At high recoil energy, the main uncertainty is the $`\gamma `$ energy calibration.

## 5 Ionization and Heat Quenching Factors of a Germanium Bolometer

### 5.1 Detector principle

The EDELWEISS collaboration  searches for WIMP Dark Matter using heat-and-ionization cryogenic germanium detectors, also called bolometers. The energy deposited in the detector produces two signals. First, the electron-hole pairs created by ionization are collected on electrodes implanted or vaporized on the surface of the crystal. Secondly, a thermistance measures the few $`\mu `$K heating of the crystal due to i) the thermalization of the electron or nuclear recoil from the primary interaction, and ii) the Joule energy associated with the migration of the electron-holes due to the applied electric field. Whether the initial recoil is electronic or nuclear, the subsequent Joule heating (or Luke-Neganov effect ) depends only on the strength ionization signal, and thus is not affected by the quenching factor. Correcting for this effect in the presence of a bias $`V_o`$ on the electrodes, the quenching factors associated with the ionization and recoil energy measurements ($`Q`$ and $`Q^{}`$, respectively) are

$`Q`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{E_I}{E_R}}`$ (5)
$`Q^{}`$ $`=`$ $`(1+{\displaystyle \frac{V_o}{V_{pair}}}){\displaystyle \frac{E_H}{E_R}}Q{\displaystyle \frac{V_o}{V_{pair}}}`$ (6)
where $`V_{pair}`$ = 2.96 V is the electron-hole pair creation potential in Ge. $`E_I`$ and $`E_H`$ are respectively the electron-equivalent ionization and heat signal amplitudes, i.e. as calibrated used $`\gamma `$-ray sources. $`E_R`$ is the recoil energy as given by Eq. 2.

### 5.2 Cryostat

For the measurement of its quenching factor, the cryogenic Ge detector is placed inside a dilution refrigerator. A base temperature of 25 mK was achieved, however it was regulated at 35 mK in order to optimize the properties of the heat signal for this measurement. The thicknesses of the different screens of the cryostat were chosen to minimize neutron scattering. Special care was taken to avoid mechanical vibrations. In order to isolate the cryostat from the beam line components and the multidetector array elements, it is maintained at beam height (1.8 m) with a wooden structure mounted on pneumatic insulators. A metallic platform above the cryostat facilitates liquid nitrogen and helium fills and access to the bolometer electronics. The center of the detector is 60 cm away from the polyethylene target.

### 5.3 Detector

The bolometer used in this work is a cylindrical crystal with a 10 mm height and a 20 mm diameter. In this prototype detector  the heat sensor is a NbSi thin film used as an Anderson insulator. The operating potential $`V_o`$ is 6.26 V. To facilitate the detector monitoring, a weak collimated 57Co source is mounted close to it.

Keeping the data rate as high as possible is desirable in this statistics-limited measurement. In this respect, an advantage of NbSi thin film sensors relative to the NTD sensors normally used by the EDELWEISS collaboration (see e.g. Ref. ) is the relatively fast risetime and decay of the heat signal. These time characteristics depend on the temperature of the detector. At 35 mK, the risetime is approximately 1 ms and the decay of the signal has a fast ($``$4 ms) and a slow ($``$40 ms) components. The fast component is due to ballistic phonons and its amplitude depends not only on the deposited energy but also on the interaction point relative to the sensor. The slow component corresponds to thermal phonons and depends only on the deposited energy. It limits the acceptable interaction rate in the detector to approximately 15 Hz.

The electron-equivalent energy resolutions on ionization and heat signals in this experiment are 8 and 41 keV FWHM at 122 keV, respectively.

### 5.4 Ionization quenching factor of Ge

The ionization measurement has a trigger threshold of 17 keV. With a quenching value of approximately 30%, the expected ionization signal associated with neutron scattering in the 90o ring is only 18 keV. Consequently, the NE213 detectors were grouped on the 120o and 165o rings, corresponding to recoil energies of 93 and 123 keV, respectively.

Fig. 7 shows the time-of-flight spectra between the polyethylene target and the neutron detectors. In Fig. 7a, only those events rejected by the n/$`\gamma `$ discrimination variable of the NE213 detectors are displayed. The peaks associated with photons produced either from $`\gamma `$ or neutrons interacting in the Ge detector (labeled $`\gamma \gamma `$ and $`n\gamma `$, respectively) are clearly seen. Accepted events in the 120o and 165o rings are shown in Fig. 7b and c, respectively. The $`\gamma \gamma `$ and $`n\gamma `$ peak are strongly suppressed. Neutrons associated with an elastic interaction in the Ge detector are expected at time-of-flights of 77.1 and 77.4 ns, for the two respective rings. The broad structure from 20 to 40 ns corresponds to neutrons created in the polyethylene target hitting directly a NE213 cell without prior interactions. This implies that the energy deposit in the Ge detector is not related to the neutron in the NE213 cell, and could be related to another particle emitted by another interaction in the polyethylene target in the same beam bunch.

The most important inelastic states expected to be excited are the 563 keV states in 76Ge, 596 keV in 74Ge, and 835 keV in 72Ge. The corresponding time-of-flights are 84.5, 85.1 and 89.7 ns at 120o, respectively, and approximately 0.5 ns later at 165o. An excess of counts is indeed observed at these time-of-flights in Figs. 7b and c, especially at 165o where the simulations predict the largest inelastic yields.

To clearly assess whether these events are indeed due to inelastic scattering, the events are categorized according to 3 intervals of time-of-flight, corresponding to 3 scattering processes: 70 to 80 ns (elastic scattering), 80 to 87 ns (inelastic scattering with Eγ=563 or 596 keV), and 87 to 92 ns (inelastic scattering with Eγ=835 keV). The associated ionization spectra for these three categories at the two angles are shown in Fig. 8. A peak of events at low ionization energy is observed in each category. Its mean energy is largest in the elastic selection, and decreases with increased $`E_\gamma `$. The peak locations are consistent with those calculated (dashed lines) with the expected recoil energy for each event category, assuming a common quenching value of 33.3%. The fact that a flat background is more present in Figs. 8c to f than in Figs. 8a and b provides further support for the identification of inelastic scattering, as this behavior is expected as emitted photon may deposit some of its energy in the Ge detector. However, the relative amount of smooth background may also be partly due to the difference in the signal-to-background for each event category (as seen in Fig. 7).

A final check of the assignment of the events of Figs. 8c to f to inelastic collisions is to look back at the time-of-flight spectra of the neutron-selected events, but this time separating the events in two samples, according to the recorded ionization signal. Fig. 9a shows the time-of-flight spectra of events with ionization energies clearly associated with the peak observed in Figs. 8a and b, that is, between 25 and 50 keV at 120o and 40 to 65 keV at 165o. Fig. 9b shows the time-of-flight spectra of events outside this ionization energy intervals. As expected, the elastic scattering peak is well suppressed in the second sample.

These tests clearly demonstrate the presence of inelastic scattering events, and indicate that the time-of-flight selection is adequate for identifying them, given the present statistics. This identification is important since the difference in recoil energy between elastic and inelastic scattering events is about 20%. A improper identification of the elastic sample leading to a contamination of inelastic events could have lead to a significant bias in the measurement of the quenching factor. In our case, assigning the elastic value for the recoil energy to all events in the 68 to 92 ns range would have reduced the average Q value measurement by 5%.

It should be noticed that, with sufficient statistics, inelastic events increase the number of recoil energies covered by the measurements, going down to lower values (see Fig. 8).

The quenching values extracted from Fig. 8 data are listed in table 3 and shown on Fig. 10. The statistical precision on the average $`Q`$ value obtained in a one-day experiment is 2%. The results are consistent within statistical uncertainty with published results  and the Lindhard model calculations. No significant systematic shifts are observed between the measurements of Ge(Li) in liquid nitrogen or our measurement of hyperpure Ge at cryogenic temperatures, or between our direct measurement of $`Q`$ and the $`Q/Q^{}`$ measurement of Ref.  in the same temperature range.

### 5.5 Heat quenching factor of Ge

The analysis for the heat quenching follows closely that of the ionization channel. The neutron and time-of-flight selections are identical.

However, in addition to the significantly worse resolution of the heat signal relative to ionization, the slow components of the heat signals are strongly affected by pile-up and microphonics. In order to get a heat-to-ionization ratio of one for events clearly associated with photons (ionization above 100 keV and identification in the NE213 cell), it is necessary to impose that the energy deduced from the slow and fast components agree to within 75 keV. This ensures the integrity of the adjusted pulse shape, at the price of rejecting all surface events with anomalously large fast components. Clearly, the problem of pile-up is a strong limitation for quenching measurements with slow cryogenic detectors.

Given the reduced statistics, a meaningful measurement is only obtained for the total sample, dividing each measured energy by the recoil energy corresponding to the given angle and time-of-flight selection. The resolution does not allow for the identification of those inelastic events where the photon was partly detected. In order to be able to use inelastic events despite this problem, events with ionization quenching values below 20% and above 45% are rejected.

The resulting distribution of heat quenching values is shown in Fig. 11a. A Gaussian fit to the distribution gives an average quenching of 50 $`\pm `$ 3 %. Subtracting the Luke-Neganov effect corresponding to the applied electric field of 6.24 V using our measured average quenching value of 33.3%, we obtain (Fig. 11b) a quenching factor for the nuclear recoil part of the signal of 87 $`\pm `$ 10%. The quoted error is statistical only; the systematic error, mostly due to calibration uncertainties, is of the same order. Within these large errors, the result is consistent with the expected value, which should be very close to 100% .

This one-day experiment clearly illustrates what can be achieved with this technique. The present statistical error would scale with the improvement of resolution in the heat channel. With sufficient energy resolution and statistics, a measurement at the percent level may be possible, if systematic effects such as inelastic scattering are kept under control.

## 6 Conclusion

The commissioning tests of the SICANE array and its setup confirm its high relevance for the calibration of the response of cryogenic detectors to nuclear recoils.

Using inverse reactions to produce a highly collimated neutron beam, no massive shielding of the neutron detectors is necessary, giving more freedom in their spatial setup. Competitive results have been obtained in a short running time (less than a day) for the quenching of scintillation in NaI(Tl) and of ionization in Ge. The array also makes possible a deeper investigation of the effect of inelastic scattering on the measurement.

The powerful diagnostic tools provided by the array (simultaneous measurements at different angles, neutron identification and time-of-flight measurements) are ideally suited for the study of cryogenic detectors. For such measurements, important factors that require proper attention are: i) the slow response of the detector, and how it compares with the single rate in the cryogenic detector and the rate in coincidence with the neutron array; ii) the rate in the neutron detector array due to neutron scattering in the material in the vicinity of the detector and iii) the ability to resolve inelastic and elastic events, either using the energy or the time-of-flight measurements.

In addition, for the first time, it was directly verified that the ionization quenching factor of Ge at 35 mK is very close to that at liquid nitrogen temperature. This is consistent with the fact that the CDMS and EDELWEISS collaborations  obtain $`Q/Q^{}`$ ratios compatible with the $`Q`$ values measured at liquid nitrogen temperature  under the assumption that $`Q^{}`$=1. Conversely, this last hypothesis is verified for the first time in the present work, albeit at a 15% level.

## 7 Acknowledgment

We thank the technical staff of the Tandem accelerator of Orsay, in particular D. Gardes, B. Waast and J.M. Curaudeau for their invaluable help. This work has been partially funded by the EEC-Network program under contract ERBFMRXCT980167.


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# ApJ Letters, in press (scheduled for January 1, 2003) Discovery of a binary AGN in the ultraluminous infrared galaxy NGC 6240 using Chandra

## 1 Introduction

Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) are characterized by their huge luminosity output in the infrared, which is predominantly powered by super-starbursts and/or hidden AGN (e.g., Genzel et al. 1998, Sanders 1999). Many distant SCUBA sources, massive and dusty galaxies, are believed to be ULIRG equivalents at high redshift (e.g., Barger et al. 1998, Lawrence 2001). Local ULIRGs, of which NGC 6240 is regarded a key representative, are therefore important laboratories to study the physics of superwinds driven by the nuclear starbursts, the processes of IGM enrichment, to search for the presence of hidden AGN, and to study the physics of galaxy formation (many ULIRGs are interacting galaxies, believed to be on the verge of forming elliptical galaxies).

NGC 6240 is one of the nearest members of the class of ULIRGs, and has been intensely studied at virtually all wavelengths. The galaxy shows conspicuous loops and tails, and two optical nuclei separated by $``$1.8′′ (Fried & Schulz 1983) which are also detected in the IR and radio band. Recent observations suggest that NGC 6240 is in a relatively early merger state (Tacconi et al. 1999, Tecza et al. 2000, Gerssen et al. 2001). It is expected to finally form an elliptical galaxy. Ground-based optical spectroscopy of NGC 6240 shows LINER-like emission-line ratios.

Given the importance of the question whether an AGN is present, and whether it is the ultimate power-source of the ULIRG NGC 6240, efforts to search for such an AGN were undertaken at all wavelengths (see Sect. 1 of Komossa et al. 1998 for a review). Recent observations include the detection of flaring water-vapor maser emission from NGC 6240 (Nakai, Sato & Yamauchi, 2002), the presence of a high-excitation \[OIV\] infrared emission line (Genzel et al. 1998), and the compactness of the radio cores (Beswick et al. 2001). In X-rays, NGC 6240 exhibits exceptionally luminous extended emission (Schulz et al. 1998, Komossa et al. 1998, Kolaczyk & Dixon 2000) likely powered by superwinds, and an iron-line superposed on hard X-ray emission (Mitsuda et al. 1995, Schulz et al. 1998, Iwasawa & Comastri 1998) extending beyond 10 keV (Vignati et al. 1999, Ikebe et al. 2000), interpreted as arising from an absorbed active nucleus. It is the hard X-ray observations that give the best evidence for the presence of an AGN in NGC 6240.

It remained basically an open question, which of the two nuclei of NGC 6240 is the active one (or whether even both of them are); HST observations (Rafanelli et al. 1997) suggested that the southern nucleus harbors an AGN or a heavily obscured LINER.

The questions regarding the onset of starburst and AGN activity and their evolution in mergers are of fundamental importance for our understanding of AGN/black hole formation and evolution in general. Given the complex nature of the X-ray emission of NGC 6240 with contributions from many components suggested from previous X-ray observations (Schulz et al. 1998, Komossa et al. 1998, Iwasawa & Comastri 1998, Netzer et al. 1998, Vignati et al. 1999, Ikebe et al. 2000), spatially resolved spectroscopy is crucial in order for us to disentangle all contributing components, determine their nature, and derive their physical properties. In this Letter, we report the Chandra discovery that both nuclei of NGC 6240 are active, and we show first results on the remarkably structure-rich extended X-ray emission.

Luminosities were calculated using a Hubble constant of $`H_0=50`$ km s-1 Mpc-1. At a distance of NGC 6240 of 144 Mpc, 1′′ corresponds to 700 pc in the galaxy.

## 2 X-ray observations and data analysis

NGC 6240 was observed as part of the guaranteed time observer program with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS-S) instrument onboard the Chandra X-ray observatory. The observation was carried out on July 29, 2001 with an effective exposure time of 37 ks. The pointing of the telescope was such that the X-ray photons of the target source were registered on the back-illuminated S3 chip of ACIS. The data analysis was prepared using the CIAO2.2 software tool.

Spectra were grouped to have at least 25 photons per bin. Since few photons were detected below 0.5 keV, and since the instrument response is still somewhat uncertain at low energies, we restricted our modeling to photon energies above 0.5 keV.

The ACIS-S background is very low. It was determined in a circular, source-free region north of the central X-ray emission, and was subtracted. In order to carry out the spectral analysis of each nucleus separately, source photons from the northern and southern nucleus were extracted in circular regions of radii 0.8′′ and 0.9′′ respectively, centered at the X-ray positions of the nuclei. Further details on photon extraction areas for other regions of NGC 6240 are given below.

## 3 X-ray morphology

The Chandra image of NGC 6240 reveals a wealth of structure, changing in dependence of energy (Fig. 1). A large part of the X-ray emission of NGC 6240 is extended, confirming previous results from ROSAT (Komossa et al. 1998, Schulz et al. 1998) and a short Chandra HRC-I observation (Lira et al. 2002). The previous observations did not provide any energy information, though.

Several X-ray ‘loops’ and knots are visible that correlate well with the H$`\alpha `$ emission (Keel 1990, Gerssen et al. 2001) of NGC 6240. Apart from the complex central emission, only one X-ray source is detected within the optical confines of NGC 6240. Its spectrum is rather hard. The source could be a background AGN. In particular, the following features stand out in energy images of NGC 6240:

(0.1-3.0) keV: Below 0.5 keV, barely any X-ray photons are detected. This can be traced back to the high absorption toward NGC 6240. Above 0.5 keV, extended, loop-like emission and several knots appear, prominent below 2.5 keV. Of special interest is the ‘blob’ south-west of the southern nucleus, which appears above 1 keV (Fig. 1, Fig. 2). It is the strongest feature between 1.0 and 1.5 keV and is spatially extended. Inspecting HST images (Gerssen et al. 2001), we find it correlates with a region of increased H$`\alpha `$ emission, and may correspond to a more recent superwind outflow than the more widely extended structures. Above 1.5 keV, X-ray emission from the direction of the northern nucleus of NGC 6240 starts to emerge.

(5.0-8.0) keV: The hard X-ray image is dominated by emission from two compact sources (Fig. 2, 3), spatially coincident within the errors with the IR position of the two nuclei of NGC 6240. With a distance of 1.4 arcseconds, the X-ray nuclei are slightly closer together than the optical nuclei (Fig. 2), consistent with the previous interpretation that extinction causes a wavelength-dependent shift in the flux centroids of the nuclei (Schulz et al. 1993). Both nuclei show emission from the neutral iron line. The southern nucleus is more prominent in this line than the northern nucleus. Running a standard source detection routine, both nuclei are detected as sources in the energy interval 5-8 keV with signal/noise ratios of 9.9 (southern nucleus) and 3.5.

We do not detect any X-ray emission from the location of the steep off-nuclear velocity gradient (Bland-Hawthorn, Wilson & Tully 1991, Gerssen et al. 2001), which was recently suggested to be possibly due to a kinematic gradient in a starburst wind. No correlation of X-ray emission with the radio-arm west of the nuclei, described by Colbert et al. (1994) and suggested to be linked to superwind activity, was found. Finally, no X-ray point source was detected from the direction of the supernova SN 2000bg.

## 4 X-ray spectroscopy

### 4.1 Extended emission

Representative of the extended emission, we report here results of spectral fits to the north-eastern-loop extended emission (Fig. 1). Source photons were extracted from an elliptical region centered at RA=16:52:59.3, DEC=02:24:08.1 (ellipse radii: 8.9′′ and 10.6′′, angle=45o). We find that the X-ray spectrum is well described by a MEKAL model (Mewe et al. 1995) with $`kT=0.81\pm 0.05`$ keV and absorption with column density $`N_\mathrm{H}=(3.1\pm 0.4)\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{21}`$ cm-2 ($`\chi _{\mathrm{red}}^2=1.2`$), which exceeds the Galactic value in the direction of NGC 6240, $`N_{\mathrm{Gal}}=\mathrm{5.49\hspace{0.17em}10}^{20}`$ cm-2, and is consistent with optical estimates of the extinction toward the extended optical emission of $`A_\mathrm{v}`$ 1 mag (Thronson et al. 1990). Metal abundances approach 0.1$`\times `$solar.

Secondly, the ‘blob’ south-west of the southern nucleus was fit after extracting its photons from a circular region centered at RA=16:52:58.8, DEC=02:24:1.5. Its spectrum is significantly harder and more heavily absorbed. Spectral fits consisting of a two-component MEKAL model were applied. Among these two components, one was assumed to be the extension of the widely extended soft X-ray emission of NGC 6240 part of which is projected onto the central region of NGC 6240. Explicitly, its parameters were all fixed to those determined for the north-eastern-loop extended X-ray emission (including abundances and the amount of absorption), apart from the normalization that was treated as free parameter. The second, hotter, MEKAL component was added to describe the X-ray emission from the south-western blob itself. The spectrum of the south-western blob is then well described by a MEKAL model with $`kT=2.8\pm 0.8`$ keV and $`N_\mathrm{H}=(7\pm 4)\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{21}`$ cm-2 ($`\chi _{\mathrm{red}}^2=0.95`$). Abundances are not well constrained, but are close to 0.8$`\times `$solar and were thus fixed to that value.

### 4.2 Nuclear emission

Two circular regions centered at the southern and northern nucleus were selected for spectral analysis. The residual soft starburst emission projected onto the nuclei (Fig. 1) was fit by a MEKAL model, its normalization and temperature left free to vary. The derived temperature ($`kT=0.9\pm 0.2`$ keV) is consistent within the errors with that of the north-eastern loop emission. The extinction toward the nuclei estimated from IR observations, $`A_\mathrm{v}^\mathrm{S}`$=5.8 mag and $`A_\mathrm{v}^\mathrm{N}`$=1.6 mag (Tecza et al. 2000), corresponds to absorption column densities of $`N_\mathrm{H}^\mathrm{S}`$ = 1022 cm-2 and $`N_\mathrm{H}^\mathrm{N}`$ = 2.8 1021 cm-2, and is expected to be the minimum amount of absorption along the line of sight towards the nuclei. MERLIN radio observations of neutral hydrogen toward the radio nuclei of NGC 6240 indicate column densities of order $`N_\mathrm{H}^{\mathrm{S},\mathrm{N}}(1.52)\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{22}`$ cm-2 (Beswick et al. 2001).

Both nuclei show very hard X-ray spectra extending out to $``$ 8-9 keV. If the spectra are fit by a single powerlaw, strong residuals around the location of the neutral 6.4 keV iron K$`\alpha `$ line are visible, and further weaker ones around $``$6.95 keV. The energy of the second line is close to H-like iron and K$`\beta `$ of neutral iron. The southern nucleus is brighter in X-rays than the northern nucleus. Its spectrum is well fit by a very flat powerlaw of photon index (defined as in $`FE^{+\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$) $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{x}=0.2\pm 0.3`$, and two narrow iron lines at energies corresponding to neutral and H-like iron (Fig. 4). The emission is dominated by the neutral iron line that is located at a (redshift-corrected) energy $`E`$=6.42$`\pm 0.03`$ keV, with 1.5 10-5 ph cm-2 s-1. The amount of excess absorption is not well constrained. It is of order $`N_\mathrm{H}^\mathrm{S}10^{22}`$ cm-2 and is uncertain by at least a factor 2. The spectrum of the northern nucleus is less hard and less absorbed. It is well described by a powerlaw of photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{x}=0.9\pm 0.2`$, absorbed with $`N_\mathrm{H}^\mathrm{N}=(0.6\pm 0.2)\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{22}`$ cm-2 in addition to the Galactic $`N_{\mathrm{Gal}}`$, and a narrow FeK$`\alpha `$ line of neutral iron (Fig. 4) that is about a factor 3 weaker than in the southern nucleus. The absorption corrected fluxes in the (0.2-10) keV band are $`f_{\mathrm{x},\mathrm{S}}=\mathrm{7.6\hspace{0.17em}10}^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 and $`f_{\mathrm{x},\mathrm{N}}=\mathrm{2.7\hspace{0.17em}10}^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 for southern and northern nucleus, respectively.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 Starburst-related emission

Could the widely extended X-ray emission of NGC 6240 still be powered by photoionization of the active nuclei ? Chandra recently found some cases in which photoionization seems to dominate the ionization of circum-nuclear matter out to large distances ($``$ 2 kpc in case of NGC 1068; Young, Wilson & Shopbell 2001). However, the correlation of X-ray and H$`\alpha `$ emission in combination with the soft, thermal-plasma-like spectrum of the extended emission of NGC 6240 strongly favors starburst-driven superwinds (Heckman, Armus & Miley 1987) as the origin for the bulk of the extended X-ray emission of NGC 6240. According to superwind models of Schulz et al. (1998), a mechanical input power of $`L_{\mathrm{mech}}=\mathrm{3\hspace{0.17em}10}^{43}`$ erg/s (derived from a SN-rate of 3/year) can, within 3 $`10^7`$ yrs, drive a single shell to an extent of $`R`$ 10 kpc within a medium of 0.1 cm-3 particle density. This model reproduces the observed X-ray luminosity of the extended emission of $``$1042 erg/s. A distance of 10 kpc corresponds to the extent of the five-finger structure seen in H$`\alpha `$, coincident with the brightest extended X-ray emission, including a correction for a disk inclined by up to 40o from edge-on.

The ionized iron line observed in addition to the neutral iron line may originate in ‘Cas-A-type’ supernova remnants (e.g., Willingale et al. 2002), or in a near-nuclear ‘warm scatterer’ that is ionized by the AGN (Komossa et al 1998).

The extended soft X-ray component and its link with non-X-ray morphological structures will be further discussed in a follow-up paper (Komossa et al., in prep.). In the following, we concentrate on the core region of NGC 6240.

### 5.2 Emission from the binary AGN

Using Chandra ACIS-S, we found that both nuclei of NGC 6240 are emitters of luminous hard X-ray emission, on which a strong neutral iron K$`\alpha `$ line is superposed. These properties identify both nuclei of NGC 6240 as active. In particular, a strong, neutral Fe K$`\alpha `$ line is not produced in a starburst-superwind, but originates from fluorescence in cold material illuminated by a hard continuum spectrum. For the first time, we can disentangle the contribution to the hard X-ray luminosity from the southern and northern nucleus. The observed (0.1-10) keV, absorption-corrected, fluxes convert to observed X-ray luminosities of the southern and northern nucleus, $`L_{\mathrm{x},\mathrm{S}}=\mathrm{1.9\hspace{0.17em}10}^{42}`$ erg/s, $`L_{\mathrm{x},\mathrm{N}}=\mathrm{0.7\hspace{0.17em}10}^{42}`$ erg/s, respectively.

The intrinsic luminosities are significantly larger, because it has been repeatedly argued that the emission we are seeing in X-rays below 10 keV is scattered emission from the AGN (e.g., Mitsuda et al. 1995, Schulz et al. 1998, Komossa et al. 1998). The intrinsic AGN emission of NGC 6240 only shows up above $``$9-10 keV (Vignati et al. 1999, Ikebe et al. 2000). The strength of the neutral Fe K$`\alpha `$ line in both nuclei suggests a scattering geometry for both AGN. This is also indicated by the flatness of the hard powerlaw spectra (Sect. 4.2).

We find marginal evidence that part of the hard emission is extended by few arcsesonds. 3′′ correspond to $``$2 kpc in NGC 6240. It is interesting to note that this scale is similar to the extent of the hard X-ray emission and iron line of NGC 1068 detected with Chandra (Young, Wilson & Shopbell 2001). Dense cold gas that could provide the scattering agent is abundant in the center region of NGC 6240. Deeper Chandra observations of NGC 6240, still employing the superb imaging spectroscopy capabilities of the ACIS-S detector, will be indispensable for studying the complex central region of NGC 6240 in greater detail; for instance to obtain a high-quality image in the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line.

The presence of supermassive binary black holes, as in NGC 6240, are of importance for our understanding of the formation and evolution of AGN and the formation of elliptical galaxies via mergers.

Ultimately, the binary AGN of NGC 6240 will coalesce to form one nucleus. The final merging of the supermassive black holes is expected to produce a strong gravitational wave signal. In fact, such events are expected to generate the clearest signals detectable with the gravitational wave detector LISA that will be placed in Earth orbit in the near future (e.g., Danzmann 1996).

It is a pleasure to thank Reinhard Genzel for his comments and encouragement, Elisa Costantini for discussions about the Chandra analysis of extended sources, and an anonymous referee for his/her many useful comments and suggestions.


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# UNVEILING THE HIDDEN AGN IN THE MERGING STARBURST SYSTEM ARP 299 (IC 694+NGC 3690)

## 1 Introduction

Studies of active objects at IR and X-ray wavelengths indicate that star-formation and AGN activity may be related (Fadda et al. 2002). The trigger mechanism for both phenomena could be the interaction or the merging of gas-rich galaxies. This generates fast compression of the available gas in the inner galactic regions, causing both the onset of a major starburst and the fueling of a central black hole raising the AGN activity.

However the concomitant AGN and starburst activity is expected to happen in a high-density medium ($`N_H10^{2324}`$cm-2), characterized by high dust extinction of the UV-optical flux and strong photoelectric absorption of the soft X-rays (e.g. Fabian et al. 1998). Thus the study of these active phases in galaxies becomes very difficult; optical and even mid-/far-IR spectroscopy may not be sufficient to disentangle starburst activity from AGN activity, which is actually best probed in the hard ($`E>6`$keV, in order to sample also the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line) X-ray energy band.

To search for hidden AGNs and to shed light on the starburst-AGN connection and its occurrence we have started a systematic and objective investigation in hard ($`E>6`$keV) X-rays of a flux-limited sample of IRAS galaxies. The sample consists of 28 galaxies selected from the IRAS Cataloged Galaxies and Quasars (see http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/) as having $`f_{60\mu \text{m}}>50`$Jy or $`f_{25\mu \text{m}}>10`$Jy. We stress here that no other selection criteria (e.g. established presence of an AGN, luminosities, IR colours, etc.) have been applied to the sample definition.

## 2 The merging starburst system Arp 299

As a part of this research of elusive AGN, we have recently performed an X-ray observation with *Beppo*SAX of the merging starburst system Arp 299 (= IC 694 + NGC 3690) located at D$`=44`$Mpc (z$`=0.011`$; Heckman et al. 1999). Arp 299, a powerful far-IR system ($`L_{43123\mu \text{m}}=2.86\times 10^{11}L_{}`$, dominating the bolometric luminosity), consists of two merging galaxies (NGC 3690 to the west and IC 694 to the east, see Figure 1), plus a compact galaxy lying to the northwest (Hibbard & Yun 1999). The centers of the two merging galaxies are separated by only $`22^{\prime \prime }`$. Following the nomenclature of Winn-Williams et al. (1991), the nucleus of the eastern galaxy (IC 694) is denoted A, while NGC 3690 is resolved into a complex of sources: B1 and B2 to the south, and C and C located $`7^{\prime \prime }`$ to the north of B2.

Both galaxies have been spectroscopically classified as starbursting from optical (Coziol et al. 1998) and mid-/far-IR (Laurent et al. 2000) data; previous observations in the X-ray band seems to support these results (Zezas, Georgantopoulos and Ward 1998, Heckman et al. 1999).

The *Beppo*SAX observations unveil however for the first time the presence of a strongly absorbed AGN in this system (hints of the presence of an obscured AGN in the B1 nucleus of Arp 299 have been also recently inferred from near-IR spectropolarimetry; see R. Maiolino 2002). In Figure 2 we report the ratio between *Beppo*SAX data and the best-fit unabsorbed power-law model. The residuals at $`0.8`$keV suggest the presence of a soft thermal component, which is a characteristic signature in all known starburst galaxy X-ray spectra. A line-like feature at $`6.4`$keV and a big bump in the PDS energy range (10–40 keV) are clearly evident. The simultaneous occurrence of these two characteristics is the distinctive spectral signature of a heavily obscured AGN.

The spectral analysis (reported in Della Ceca et al. 2002) reveals a deeply buried “Compton-thick AGN”, with a column density of $`N_H=2.5\times 10^{24}`$cm-2 and an intrinsic (i.e. unabsorbed) luminosity of $`L_{0.5100\text{keV}}1.9\times 10^{43}`$erg s-1.

The intrinsic X-ray luminosity of the AGN is a factor $``$ 50 less than $`L_{FIR}`$ ($`10^{45}`$erg s-1; the X-ray/optical/IR spectral energy distribution of Arp 299 is reported in Figure 3). Therefore the total FIR luminosity of the system cannot be entirely associated to the AGN, even assuming an AGN UV luminosity a factor $``$10 greater than the X-ray luminosity (as observed in QSOs, e.g. Elvis et al. 1994). This suggests that the bulk of the FIR emission is due to the starburst, in agreement with the results obtained by Laurent et al. (2000) using 5-16$`\mu `$m ISOCAM data.

The spatial resolution of the *Beppo*SAX instruments prevents us from localizing this AGN. To this purpose, X-ray observations from the Chandra and XMM-Newton satellite have been retrieved from the public archive. From a preliminary analysis of the XMM-Newton data a strong line at $`6.4`$ keV is clearly present in NGC 3690 and maybe also in IC 694, suggesting the possible presence of two AGNs.

This work is part of a collaboration with R. Della Ceca, F. Tavecchio, L. Maraschi, P. O. Petrucci, L. Bassani, M. Cappi, M. Dadina, A. Franceschini, G. Malaguti, G. G. C. Palumbo and M. Persic. Partial finantial support from ASI (I/R/073/01) and MIUR (Cofin-00-02-004) is acknowledged.

## References


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# Relativistic Mean Field Approximation in a Density Dependent Parametrization Model at Finite Temperature

## I Introduction and formalism

Understanding the properties of nuclear matter at both, normal and high densities, is of crucial importance in explaining the appearance of neutron stars after the supernova explosion and the formation of transiron elements in nuclear reactions.

One of the most popular relativistic models is the non-linear Walecka model bb ; ring , which can be used in order to obtain different equations of state (EOS) as far as different parameter sets are employed. In this work we investigate the consequences in the EOS when the parametrizations of the well known NL3 model nl3 , which is a good parametrization in describing finite nuclei properties, are changed to the density dependent one proposed in tw . The new parametrization is determined by fitting several nuclear matter bulk properties and also some finite nuclei. Both models were investigated considering two types of proton fractions: fixed ones and those arising when $`\beta `$-equilibrium is incorporated. Some considerations are also done in relation to the TM1 parameter set tm1 . The extension of the density dependent parametrization to finite temperature EOS is also investigated. This extension has been partially studied in ditoro  for symmetric nuclear matter only. In nuclear collisions involving stable or radioactive neutron rich nuclei, in experiments yielding nuclear multifragmentation, in protoneutron stars, among inumerous examples, the resulting matter is known to carry a reasonable amount of isospin asymmetry. Hence, in the present work, a more complete and detailed study is performed in order to account for asymmetric matter as well.

We start from the lagrangian density of the relativistic non-linear model, adapted in order to accommodate the NL3, TM1 forces and the density dependent meson-nucleon coupling constants tw :

$``$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }\left[\gamma _\mu \left(i^\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega \omega ^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }{2}}\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }^\mu \right)(M\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma \sigma )\right]\psi `$ (1)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(_\mu \sigma ^\mu \sigma m_\sigma ^2\sigma ^2){\displaystyle \frac{1}{3!}}\kappa \sigma ^3{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4!}}\lambda \sigma ^4`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\omega _{\mu \nu }\omega ^{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\omega ^2\omega _\mu \omega ^\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4!}}\xi \mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega ^4(\omega _\mu \omega ^\mu )^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\stackrel{}{\rho }_{\mu \nu }\stackrel{}{\rho }^{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\rho ^2\stackrel{}{\rho }_\mu \stackrel{}{\rho }^\mu ,`$
where $`\sigma `$, $`\omega ^\mu `$ and $`\stackrel{}{\rho ^\mu }`$ are the scalar-isoscalar, vector-isoscalar and vector-isovector meson fields respectively, $`\omega _{\mu \nu }=_\mu \omega _\nu _\nu \omega _\mu `$, and $`\stackrel{}{\rho }_{\mu \nu }=_\mu \stackrel{}{\rho }_\nu _\nu \stackrel{}{\rho }_\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho (\stackrel{}{\rho }_\mu \times \stackrel{}{\rho }_\nu )`$. Besides this, $`M`$ is the nucleon mass, $`m_\sigma `$, $`m_\omega `$, $`m_\rho `$ are the masses of the mesons and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma `$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega `$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho `$ are the nucleon-meson coupling constants. $`\kappa `$, $`\lambda `$ and $`\xi `$ are the self-interacting scalar and vector coupling constants. In this work we investigate the differences arising from three parameter sets, namely NL3 nl3 , TM1 tm1  and TW tw . In the first two cases, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma `$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega `$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho `$ are the usual $`g_\sigma `$, $`g_\omega `$ and $`g_\rho `$. In the second case, the density dependent coupling constants are adjusted in order to reproduce some of the nuclear matter bulk properties, using the parametrization given in tw . Other possibilities for these parameters are also found in the literature ditoro . In the TW parametrization the meson self-coupling constants $`\kappa `$, $`\lambda `$ and $`\xi `$ are zero. The nuclear matter bulk properties described by these three parameter sets are displayed in table 1.

From the Euler-Lagrange equations we obtain the field equations of motion in the mean field approximation for infinite matter, where the meson fields are replaced by their expectation values. In this approximation, the expectation value of the $`\sigma `$, $`\omega `$ and $`\rho `$ meson fields are called $`\varphi _0`$, $`V_0`$ and $`b_0`$ respectively. The coupled equations read

$`m_\sigma ^2\varphi _0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\kappa \varphi _0^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3!}}\lambda \varphi _0^3\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma \rho _s`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (2)
$`m_\omega ^2V_0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3!}}\xi \mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega ^4V_0^3\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega \rho `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (3)
$`m_\rho ^2b_0{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }{2}}\rho _3`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (4)
$`\left[i\gamma ^\mu _\mu \gamma _0\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega V_0+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }{2}}\tau _3b_0+\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^R\right)M^{}\right]\psi `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (5)
where the rearrangement term $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^R`$ is given by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^R=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega }{\rho }\rho V_0+\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }{\rho }\rho _3\frac{b_0}{2}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma }{\rho }\rho _s\varphi _0,$$
(6)
and the scalar and baryonic densities are defined as

$`\rho _s`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }\psi ,`$ (7)
$`\rho `$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }\gamma ^0\psi ,`$ (8)
$`\rho _3`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }\gamma ^0\tau _3\psi .`$ (9)
In the following discussion we consider nuclear matter in the the mean-field approximation only for the TW parameter set. Due to translational and rotational invariance the lagrangian density reduces to

$`_{MFT}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }\left[i\gamma _\mu ^\mu \gamma _0\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega V_0\gamma _0{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }{2}}\tau _3b_0(M\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma \varphi _0)\right]\psi `$ (10)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\sigma ^2\varphi _0^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\omega ^2V_0^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\rho ^2b_0^2.`$
The conserved energy-momentum tensor can be derived in the usual fashion sw :

$$𝒯_{MFT}^{\mu \nu }=\overline{\psi }i\gamma ^\mu ^\nu \psi g^{\mu \nu }\left[\frac{1}{2}m_\sigma ^2\varphi _0^2\frac{1}{2}m_\omega ^2V_0^2\frac{1}{2}m_\rho ^2b_0^2\overline{\psi }\gamma _0\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^R\psi \right].$$
(11)
Note that the rearrangement term included above and defined in eq.(6) assures the energy-momentum conservation, i.e., $`_\mu 𝒯^{\mu \nu }=0`$. From the energy-momentum tensor one easily obtains the hamiltonian operator:

$`_{MFT}={\displaystyle d^3x𝒯_{MFT}^{00}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^3x\psi ^{}\left(i\stackrel{}{\alpha }+\beta M^{}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega V_0+\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }{2}\tau _3b_0\right)\psi }`$ (12)
$`+V\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\sigma ^2\varphi _0^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\omega ^2V_0^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\rho ^2b_0^2\right),`$
where $`M^{}=M\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma \varphi `$ and $`V`$ is the volume of the system. In the above equation the rearrangement term cancels out. Notice that as a consequence, the energy density does not carry the rearrangement term either and can be written in the semi-classical Thomas-Fermi approximation as

$``$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \underset{i=p,n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\text{d}^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\sqrt{𝐩^2+M_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}\left(f_{i+}+f_i\right)}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega V_0\rho +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }{2}}b_0\rho _3`$ (13)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{m_\sigma ^2}{2}}\varphi _0^2{\displaystyle \frac{m_\omega ^2}{2}}V_0^2{\displaystyle \frac{m_\rho ^2}{2}}b_0^2.`$
Note that for the NL3 parametrization, the term $`\kappa \varphi _0^3/6+\lambda \varphi _0^4/24`$ also appears in the energy density equation and for the TM1 these two terms come together with $`\xi \mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega ^4V_0^4/24`$. Following the notation in mp , the thermodynamic potential can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=T𝒮\mu _p\rho _p\mu _n\rho _n,$$
(14)
where $`𝒮`$ is the entropy density of a classical Fermi gas, $`T`$ is the temperature, $`\mu _p`$ ($`\mu _n`$) is the proton (neutron) chemical potential and $`\rho _p`$ and $`\rho _n`$ are respectively the proton and neutron densities, calculated in such a way that $`\rho =\rho _p+\rho _n`$. We have

$$\rho _i=2\frac{\text{d}^3p}{(2\pi )^3}(f_{i+}f_i),i=p,n,$$
(15)
where the distribution functions $`f_{i+}`$ and $`f_i`$ for particles and anti-particles have to be derived in order to make the thermodynamic potential stationary for a system in equilibrium. After straightforward substitutions, eq.(14) becomes

$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \underset{i=p,n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\sqrt{𝐩^2+M_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}(f_{i+}+f_i)}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega V_0\rho +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }{2}}b_0\rho _3+{\displaystyle \frac{m_\sigma ^2}{2}}\varphi _0^2{\displaystyle \frac{m_\omega ^2}{2}}V_0^2{\displaystyle \frac{m_\rho ^2}{2}}b_0^2`$ (16)
$`+2T{\displaystyle \underset{i=p,n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\left(f_{i+}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{f_{i+}}{1f_{i+}}\right)+\mathrm{ln}(1f_{i+})+f_i\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{f_i}{1f_i}\right)+\mathrm{ln}(1f_i)\right)}`$
$`2{\displaystyle \underset{i=p,n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\mu _i(f_{i+}f_i)}.`$
For a complete demonstration of the above shown expressions obtained in a Thomas-Fermi approximation for the non-linear Walecka model, please refer to mp . At this point, eq.(16) is minimized in terms of the distribution functions for fixed meson fields, i.e.,

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{f_{i+}}|_{f_i,f_{j\pm },\varphi _0,V_0,b_0}=0ij.$$
(17)
For the proton distribution function, the above calculation yields

$$E^{}(𝐩)+\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^R\mu _p+\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega V_0+\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }{2}b_0=T\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{f_{p+}}{1f_{p+}}\right),$$
(18)
where $`E^{}(𝐩)=\sqrt{𝐩^2+M_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}`$. Similar equations, with some sign differences are obtained for the anti-proton, neutron and anti-neutron distribution functions. The effective chemical potentials are then defined as

$`\mu _p^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _p\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega V_0{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }{2}}b_0\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^R,`$
$`\mu _n^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _n\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega V_0+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }{2}}b_0\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^R`$ (19)
and the following equations for the distribution functions can be written:

$$f_{i\pm }=\frac{1}{1+\mathrm{exp}[(E^{}(𝐩)\mu _i^{})/T]},i=p,n.$$
(20)
In the above calculation we have used

$$\rho _s=2\underset{i=p,n}{}\frac{\text{d}^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{M^{}}{E^{}(𝐩)}\left(f_{i+}+f_i\right),$$

and $`\rho _3=\rho _p\rho _n`$. The proton fraction is defined as $`Y_p=\rho _p/\rho `$.

Within the Thomas-Fermi approach the pressure becomes

$`P`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=p,n}{}}{\displaystyle \text{d}p\frac{𝐩^4}{\sqrt{𝐩^2+M_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}}\left(f_{i+}+f_i\right)}{\displaystyle \frac{m_\sigma ^2}{2}}\varphi _0^2\left(1+2{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_s}{\rho }}\right)`$ (21)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{m_\omega ^2}{2}}V_0^2\left(1+2{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega }{\rho }}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{m_\rho ^2}{2}}b_0^2\left(1+2{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }{\rho }}\right).`$
In the NL3 model, the term $`\kappa \varphi _0^3/6\lambda \varphi _0^4/24`$ is also present in (21) and in the TM1 model these terms are also accompanied by $`\xi \mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega ^4V_0^4/24`$. It is also important to stress that the thermodynamical consistency which requires the equality of the pressure calculated from the thermodynamical definition and from the energy-momentum tensor, discussed in flw , is also obeyed by the temperature dependent TW model.

Another quantity of interest is the nuclear bulk symmetry energy discussed in lkb . It is usually defined as

$$_{sym}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{^2}{\delta ^2}|_{\delta =0},$$
(22)
with $`\delta =\rho _3/\rho `$ and which can be analytically rewritten as

$$_{sym}=\left(\frac{k_F^2}{6E^{}(𝐩)}+\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho ^2}{8m_\rho ^2}\right)\rho ,$$
(23)
where

$$k_{Fp}=k_F(1+\delta )^{1/3},k_{Fn}=k_F(1\delta )^{1/3},$$

with $`k_F=(1.5\pi ^2\rho )^{1/3}`$. The value and behavior of the symmetry energy at densities larger than nuclear saturation density are still not well established. This quantity is important in studies involving neutron stars and radioactive nuclei. In general, relativistic and non-relativistic models give different predictions for the symmetry energy. A comparison between the symmetry energies coming from the NL3 and the TW models is also discussed in the present work.

## II Considering $`\beta `$-stability

At this point, we introduce the ideas of $`\beta `$ stability and charge neutrality. In an ideal system of protons, neutrons, electrons and muons in equilibrium, the particle levels are filled in such a way that the $`\beta `$ decays are forbidden. In order to study the conditions of $`\beta `$ equilibrium, one has to incorporate leptonic degrees of freedom in the lagrangian density of equation (1), obtaining for the new lagrangian the following expression:

$$_{lb}=+_{leptons},$$
(24)
where

$$_{leptons}=\underset{l}{}\overline{\psi }_l\left(i\gamma _\mu ^\mu m_l\right)\psi _l,$$
(25)
$``$ is given in eq. (1) and $`l`$ describes the two lightest leptons, i.e., the electron and the muon, whose masses are respectively $`m_e=0.511`$ MeV and $`m_\mu =106.55`$ MeV. The expressions for the energy density $`_{lb}`$ and the pressure $`P_{lb}`$ are also modified by the leptons, reading:

$$_{lb}=+2\underset{l}{}\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\sqrt{𝐩^2+m_l^2}(f_{l+}+f_l)$$
(26)
with

$$f_{l\pm }=\frac{1}{1+\mathrm{exp}[(ϵ\mu _l)/T]},l=e,\mu ,$$
(27)
where $`\mu _l`$ being the chemical potentials for leptons of type $`l`$, $`ϵ=\sqrt{𝐩^2+m_l^2}`$ and

$$P_{lb}=P+\frac{1}{3\pi ^2}\underset{l}{}\frac{𝐩^4dp}{\sqrt{𝐩^2+m_l^2}}(f_{l+}+f_l)$$
(28)
where $``$ and $`P`$ are given by eqs. (13) and (21) respectively.

Notice that the leptons are considered as a gas of non-interacting relativistic particles, in such a way that the minimization of the thermodynamic potential is not altered by their presence. The already mentioned requirement of charge neutrality yields

$$\rho _p=\rho _e+\rho _\mu ,$$
(29)
where the electron and muon densities can be read off from equation (15) by substituting $`i`$ by $`l`$. From the condition of chemical equilibrium in the weak processes, obtained from the minimization of the Gibbs potential with the conditions of baryon number and electric charge conservation, one is left with the following relations between the chemical potentials

$`\mu _p`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _n\mu _e,`$ (30)
$`\mu _\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\mu _e.`$ (31)
Common definitions for the lepton fractions are $`Y_l=\rho _l/\rho `$, although the lepton densities are not part of the baryon density. Some consequences of the imposition of $`\beta `$ stability in relativistic models are discussed in em .

## III Results and Conclusions

In figure 1 we show the zero temperature EOS for different proton fractions and two of the parameter sets used in this work, i.e., NL3 and TW. The TW parametrization makes the EOS softer not only for symmetric nuclear matter ($`Y_p=0.5`$), as discussed in tw , but also for all other proton fraction possibilities. The same is true if $`\beta `$ stability is imposed. In figure 2 the EOS is plotted for $`T=10`$ MeV and again, a behavior similar to that of figure 1 is observed. Notice, however, that the minima of all curves are shifted upwards and that the curves for $`Y_p=0`$, which do not exhibit minima for $`T=0`$ acquire them once the temperature increases.

In figure 3 we show the EOS for neutron matter ($`Y_p=0`$) at different temperatures, namely, $`T=0`$, $`T=10`$ MeV, $`T=50`$ MeV and $`T=100`$ MeV. At very low densities the inclination of the curves vary substancially from low to high temperatures. This is because in this region of low densities, the thermal energy $`kT`$ is an appreciable fraction of the Fermy energy $`ϵ_F`$, making the effects of the temperature, in particular the particle-antiparticle creation, more dramatic in this regime than at high densities, were $`ϵ_F`$ is greater. In figure 4 the EOS is plotted, this time for symmetric nuclear matter. One can see the change in the minumum from a negative to a positive value, which becomes very large for high temperatures. Once can also notice that the minima of all curves are slightly shifted to higer densities.

From the analysis of figures 1-2 we conclude that the TW parametrization is softer than the NL3 one. This can be explained looking for the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ parametrizations in the limit of $`\rho /\rho _{sat}1`$. In this limit we have

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_i(\rho )`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a_ib_i}{c_i}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_i(\rho _{sat})0.7\mathrm{\Gamma }_i(\rho _{sat}),i=\sigma ,\omega `$ (32)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho (\rho )`$ $``$ $`0.`$ (33)
At such high densities, the system interacts mainly trough the exchange of the meson $`\omega `$, once the scalar meson $`\sigma `$ saturates as $`m^{}0`$. The $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega `$ coupling constant of the NL3 model is the same as at the saturation density, while equation (32) says that, in this limit, the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega `$ coupling constant for the TW parametrization is lower than the value at the saturation point. TW is thus less repulsive at high densities than NL3, which makes its EOS softer. This fact has important consequences, for example when modeling neutron stars. A soft EOS provides a neutron star with a total mass lower than the value obtained with a stiff EOS.

We have also checked that the TW parametrization provides an EOS softer than the one obtained with the TM1 force tm1 ; toki  and closer to the relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock (RBHF) EOS bm , as can be seen in figures 5 and 6 for $`T=0`$ and $`T=50`$ MeV and symmetric nuclear matter. The same is true for other proton fractions. The RBHF theory produces well the nuclear matter saturation based on the nucleon-nucleon interaction determined by scattering experiments. The TM1 parametrization includes a non-linear $`\omega `$ term and hence works with one extra parameter which is also adjusted in order to reproduce nuclear matter bulk properties. We then conclude that the TW parameter set is a very useful force in the studies involving EOS at high densities.

In figure 7 the symmetry energy is displayed for NL3 and TW for pure neutron matter and symmetric nuclear matter. Different proton fractions give rise to slightly different curves because of the difference in Fermi momenta and in the effective mass, which enters in $`E^{}(𝐩)`$. According to lkb  the symmetry energy at normal nuclear matter density is found to lay in between 27 and 36 MeV in the mass formula calculations, in the range of 28 to 38 MeV in non-relativistic models and in between 35 and 42 MeV in relativistic models. Notice that at the saturation point, the value for the TW parametrization (32 MeV) is somewhat lower than for the NL3, remains in the accepted range of validity and is closer to the predictions of non-relativistic models. Moreover, the curves obtained for the TW model present a much smaller symmetry energy at larger densities and also a smoother behavior as compared with the curves arising from the NL3 model, which gives a more linear tendency to the curve. This result can be explained looking at equation (33), which tell us that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho `$ goes to zero at high densities, consequently so does its contribution in equation (23). On the opposite, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho `$ in the NL3 parametrization is constant as a function of density.

We have finally studied the particle composition once $`\beta `$ stability is imposed. In figures 8 and 9 the particle composition obtained at $`T=0`$ respectively for NL3 and TW are shown. In figure 10 we show the proton and neutron composition for NL3 and TW at $`T=0`$ MeV and TW at $`T=10`$ MeV. One can see that if the temperature does not increase much, the particle composition for a fixed parameter set remains basically the same. Nevertheless, it changes substancially from NL3 to TW. In particular, at high densities, we can see that TW is less isospin-symmetric than NL3. This is due, again, to the result (33), which says that, for TW, the $`\rho `$-nucleon interaction is suppressed at high densities. It is precisely this interaction which drives the systems to a more isospin-symmetric configuration at high densities, as we can see in figure (8) for NL3, where this interaction survives in this limit.

An extension of this work in order to study liquid-gas phase transition and consequent droplet formation is currently under investigation.

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was partially supported by CNPq - Brazil. One of the authors (D.P.M.) would like to thank Dr. Constança Providência for very useful suggestions and productive discussions related to this work.


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# Operational indistinguishabilty of doubly special relativities from special relativity

## References