text:
# Spin density wave and pseudogap in HTSC cuprates

## I Introduction

The nature of the pseudogap in the electron energy spectra of HTSC cuprates observed in magnetic, neutron, optic etc. measurements remains to be of interest during last decade. This pseudogap appears in the normal state, well before the SC transition and persists to liquid helium temperatures. Its $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave symmetry seems to be attractive for possible d-wave superconductivity (for review, see, e.g. Izyu1 ). Though to account for the formation of this pseudogap it was proposed a number of models considered both the formation of Cooper pairs above $`T_c`$ and the fluctuations of the antiferromagnetic (AF) short-range order (for review, see, e.g. PS ; OOP ) but the nature of the pseudogap is an unresolved problem up to now.

## II Experimental data and results of analysis

### II.1 Evidence for SDW formation from resistive measurements in the normal state

To describe the normal-state behavior of HTSC cuprates there are now proposed two main scattering mechanisms for mobile charge carriers: phonon scattering (for review, see Maks ) and magnetic scattering ones (see, e.g. Ito ), due to interaction of the carriers with AF spin fluctuations.

In present work, it is assumed that total resistivity $`\rho _{tot}`$ in the normal state of HTSC cuprates includes both phonon $`\rho _{ph}`$ and magnetic $`\rho _m`$ contributions. Such decomposition ($`\rho _{tot}=\rho _{ph}+\rho _m`$) is usual for magnetic metals (see, e.g.Vons ), and in M1  it was proposed to use for HTSC cuprates. So determined magnetic contribution $`\rho _m`$ in the whole temperature range of interest may be extracted from the experimental $`\rho (T)`$ dependence by subtracting the phonon term $`\rho _{ph}(T)`$. But the extrapolation of the linear part of $`\rho (T)`$ in paramagnetic (P) region (normal state in HTSC) to $`T=0`$ (that is usually performed for magnetic metals), leads to substantial error in our case. Because of this, the general form of the Bloch-Gruneisen law should be used to subtract $`\rho _{ph}`$

$$\rho _{ph}=\rho _1(\frac{T}{\mathrm{\Theta }_D})^5\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{\Theta }_D/T}{}}\frac{x^5}{(exp(x)1)(1exp(x))}𝑑x,$$
$`(1)`$
here $`\rho _1`$ is the scaling parameter. The magnitude of $`\rho _1`$ may be estimated from the slope of the normal-state region of the experimental $`\rho (T)`$ curve. It must be noted that the slope of this linear region of the curve is here considered as corresponding to the intermediate-temperature linear region ($`0.22T/\mathrm{\Theta }_D0.43`$), given by (1), which is universal for conventional metals Zim .

The $`\rho _{ph}(T)`$ curve corresponding to (1) with the parameters of the $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{7\delta }`$ family of compounds is presented in fig.1a (dashed curve). It is clearly seen from fig.1a that this Bloch-Gruneisen curve intersects the experimental $`\rho (T)`$ dependences just at the ”shoulder” (at $`T=T_k`$) and thus separates the magnetic contribution $`\rho _m`$ to resistivity $`\rho `$ (shaded area in fig.1a) from the phonon one (see, also M1  and references therein).

The temperature dependence of separated from each other magnetic $`\rho _m`$ and phonon $`\rho _{ph}`$ contributions in the total resistivity are presented in the fig.1b and 1c, respectively. From fig.1b it is seen that there are two distinct regions in the $`T`$-dependence of the magnetic contribution $`\rho _m`$. In the normal state ($`T>T_c(0)`$) the magnitude of $`\rho _m`$ is high enough and nearly independent of temperature. On the other hand, at $`T<T_c(0)`$ the magnitude of $`\rho _m`$ gradually approaches zero (sharp drop at $`H=0`$), see fig.1b. This disappearance of magnetic contribution $`\rho _m`$ at low temperatures is, in fact the evidence for the appearance of some magnetic ordering in the system, e.g. in the form of a modulated magnetic structure (cf. with Izyu2 ), say, the spin density wave (SDW) one formed in the system near above $`T_c`$. So, two different magnetic phases exist in the HTSC system at low and high temperatures, respectively, and thus, a decrease of $`\rho _m`$ down to zero with decreasing temperature may be considered as indirect evidence for magnetic (SDW) phase transition.

It was proposed in M1  that such a magnetic (AF SDW) ordering could be realized in the form of stripe structure in the $`CuO_2`$-plane with periodical sequence of parallel charge and spin (with AF arrangement) stripes alternating with each other (see, insert in fig.1b). Namely, such a picture was obtained to that time from both neutron experiments and numerical simulation in the Habbard model (for more details, see Kato ). Nowadays fast and local probes (ARPES, EXAFS, STM) (for details, see Bia ) demonstrate that this stripe structure arises well above $`T_c`$, in the normal state (at $`T150K`$, depending on the family of compounds). Its arising is well correlated with the formation of the pseudogap in the electron energy spectra of HTSC observed in neutron, magnetic, optic etc. experiments (for review, see e.g. PS ; OOP ). This correlation between onset temperatures for both pseudogap and stripes permits to propose a SDW nature of the pseudogap in the HTSC cuprates.

Such a picture is supported by the magnetic phase $`HT`$ diagram for HTSC (see, insert in fig.1c) formed from the data of fig.1a. The abscisses of ”shoulder” points (fig.1a) being plotted at the $`HT`$ plane fall in a straight line (open circles at the lower part of dashed curve 2 in the insert of fig.1c) and being considered as corresponding to the onset of the SC transition ($`T_c^{onset}(H)`$) form, in fact, temperature dependence of the upper critical magnetic field $`H_{c2}(T)`$. On the other hand, the dependence of $`T_k(H)`$ is, in fact, $`T_m^{order}(H)`$ curve ($`\rho _m=0`$), see fig.1b. In this sense, curve 2 and curve 3 (which corresponds to the onset of magnetic phase transition) form the magnetic phase $`HT`$ diagram for the given HTSC system. So, below $`T_k(H)`$ curve the HTSC system appears to be in the coexistence phase: SC and SDW, while above this $`H_{c2}(T)`$ curve the system is in the nonsuperconducting phase of SDW (modulated magnetic structure whose wave number of modulation depends on both $`H`$ and $`T`$ (cf. with Izyu2 )). Above curve 3 the disordered magnetic state is realized in the normal-state region of HTSC cuprates.

### II.2 Evidence for SDW(CDW) origin of the pseudogap in cuprates from direct gap measurements

In the work Klemm  it was presented an evidence that the HTSC pseudogap arises from CDW and/or SDW, and not from thermodynamic fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter phase. Such a conclusion was made on the basis of a detailed analysis of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) experiments, optical reflectivity, nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR), transport and thermodynamic measurements etc. It was noted a striking similarity of the pseudogap regime in HTSC (with onset temperature $`T^{}`$) and in low-$`T_c`$ superconductors (LTSC), the layered $`2HMX_2`$ transition metal dichalcogenides, where M = Ta, Nb and X = S, Se, below their respective incommensurate charge density wave (CDW) transition temperaure $`T_0`$. The CDW in the $`2HMX_2`$ and HTSC pseudogap are considered as arising from instabilities on the saddle bands (for more details, see Klemm ) which are exhibited in the ”normal” state of both classes of materials. On the basis of comparison of ARPES experiments for $`Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+\delta }`$ (BSCCO) and for $`2HTaSe_2`$ (with highly anisotropic CDW) it was proposed that the energy gap observed in ARPES experiments on BSCCO could have been not pure a superconducting gap but that predominantly or combined with the pseudogap arising from CDW/SDW. It is noted the complication of the search for the CDW/SDW appears due to defects and due to the dynamical fluctuations of the CDW/SDW so that inelastic neutron diffraction should be used to probe the dynamic nature of the CDW/SDW. Then, since the charge density wave/spin density wave is inherently dynamic in nature, it makes its direct observation with electron diffraction ordinarily difficult as well.

As for symmetry of the order parameter in HTSC, then this dynamic gap formed by the CDW/SDW mimics the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$\- wave symmetry of the energy gap measured in the SC state. In this connection, it was noted that many of superconducting properties which had been ascribed to $`d_{x^2y^2}`$\- wave superconductivity may actually be due to the competing density wave (CDW/SDW) order parameter which persists to low $`T`$.

Such a conclusion was then supported by recent Josephson junction experiments with using of a novel, promising phase-sensitive methods which measures namely SC order parameter characteristics Li . In that experiment, a very high quality single crystal of BSCCO was cleaved in the $`ab`$-plane and then these two pieces were rotated at a given angle about the $`c`$-axis and annealed. The experiments with such a bicrystal $`c`$-axis twist Josephson junction strongly evident to rule out a $`d_{x^2y^2}`$\- wave component in the superconducting order parameter. Moreover, it was noted that the coexistence of a $`d_{x^2y^2}`$\- wave and $`s`$\- wave order parameters (widely discussed in literature) is incompatible with the crystal symmetry of BSCCO, since these order parameters correspond to different representations of the crystal groups.

## III Discussion

The above picture is in good agreement with the theory of itinerant electron systems with interplay between superconductivity and magnetism Mach . In that theory, the itinerant SDW gap may appear at the Fermi surface only before an SC gap, i.e. in the normal state. This SDW gap is highly anisotropic since it is only formed at symmetric parts of the Fermi surface Mach  (see, fig.2).

Its width $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{SDW}`$ being unusually large for the SC gap, well conforms to that for the SDW gap because of inequality $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{SC}<\mathrm{\Delta }_{SDW}`$ which is peculiar for the coexistence phase in that model (see, fig.3). In such a case, the temperature $`T_c^{onset}`$ (see, fig.1c) may be related to the appearance of the SC gap which begins develop at the Fermi surface only when transition of the HTSC system to a magnetically-ordered state is over. Then, interrelations: $`T_c^{onset}<T_{SDW}^{onset}`$ (see, fig.3) and $`T_c^{onset}=T_m^{order}`$ (see fig.1a) may be a natural consequence of the equality of the magnetic ordering energy $`\epsilon _m^{order}`$ and the condensation pair one $`\epsilon _c^{pair}`$ considered as characteristic for such itinerant electron system with an interplay between SC and magnetism Mach . Note here that namely such a picture was recently reported from elastic neutron scattering experiments Suz  when in La-based cuprate both the SC and static magnetic order appear at the same temperature.

Then, the normal-state behavior of HTSC may be regarded in frames of the theory of itinerant electron magnetism Moriya  (see, also VT ). So, the independence of $`T`$ of a magnetic contribution $`\rho _m`$ in resistivity may be described in terms of so-called temperature-induced localized magnetic moments (LMM) Moriya . Such LMM, when both amplitude and orientation fluctuate in time, arise in the itinerant electron systems because of the saturation of amplitude fluctuations of local spin density (FLSD) above some characteristic temperature $`T^{}`$, where transverse components begin prevail in FLSD spectra. On the other hand, vanishing of magnetic contribution $`\rho _m`$ with decreasing temperature may be considered (in frames of the above theory Moriya ) as a consequence of the disappearance of transverse components in the FLSD spectra of the HTSC magnetic subsystem. In present treatment, this value of $`T^{}`$ may be considered as the onset temperature for the itinerant SDW ($`T_{SDW}^{onset}`$) state.

So, at $`T>T^{}`$ ($`\rho _m=const`$, temperature-induced LMM regime) the magnetoresistance effect is negative in sign (as in paramagnetic state of usual magnets), and the influence of the applied magnetic field is not strong (because of the linearity of the Langevin formulae in this temperature region). On the contrary, at $`T<T^{}`$ (SDW regime), when the amplitude of FLSD is out of saturation, the transverse magnetic field leads to a positive magnetoresistance effect (increase in magnetic contribution $`\rho _m`$). Such an effect is well known in AF magnetic systems and is usually regarded as due to the enhancement of spin fluctuations in the external magnetic field in such systems (see M1 ).

So, because of above, the characteristic temperature $`T^{}=T_{SDW}^{onset}`$, due to the temperature-induced LMM regime, is not practically shifted by the applied magnetic field (cf. with curve 3 in the insert in fig.1c) while the magnitude of the itinerant SDW gap is essentially controlled by the intensity of spin-fluctuation scattering depending on $`H`$ and $`T`$. Namely, such a picture was observed in recent NMR measurements with YBCO Gorny  where it was observed that the normal-state $`(T>T_c)`$ ”onset of pseudogap effects does not shift down in temperature” up to $`H=14.8T`$ (though $`T_c`$ shifts down to 8K). Such behavior in fact excludes SC fluctuations as origin of pseudogap. The absence of any field effect is regarded in Gorny  as indication to a relatively large energy scale (characteristic for the itinerant SDW state rather than for the SC one M2 , see also fig.3) for the pseudogap mechanism.

The magnetic field $`H`$ being applied along the $`c`$-axis essentially determines the temperature behavior of the HTSC system. In the normal state ($`T>T_c^{onset}(H)`$), because of the enhancement of spin fluctuations (see above), it leads to a broadening of resistive transition (due to the broadening of its magnetic (SDW) phase transition part M1 ). In the SC state the dynamical stripe structure give rise to the intrinsic pinning mechanism. Indeed, according to the general theory of SDW (for review, see Izyu2 ; KT ), the formation of incommensurate SDW in the system is accompanied by arising of CDW with wavelength equal to $`\lambda _{CDW}=\lambda _{SDW}/2`$. In its turn, the formation of CDW results in a wave of lattice deformation (distortion) and thus in the formation of dislocation walls in the transverse direction. Such walls provide, as known, an effective pinning potential. Accordingly to above, the equivalent walls are placed at the distance of near $`5nm`$, which value is determined by $`\lambda _{SDW}=5nm`$. This value is also consistent with value of $`2\xi _{ab}=5nm`$ M2  which determines the vortex core scale.

Such a picture is supported by STM measurements Hoog  where it was observed that the vortex core has a complex spatial structure and consists of two regions with a zero SC order parameter. These regions are placed at the distance of a few tens of angstroms, which fact is in well agreement with corresponding distance between equivalent dislocation walls equal to $`\lambda _{SDW}=5nm`$.


format: text

text:
# The Large-Scale Polarization of the Microwave Background and Foreground

## I INTRODUCTION

The recent discovery of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization by the DASI experiment  has opened a new chapter in cosmology – see Figure 1. Although CMB polarization on degree scales and below can sharpen cosmological constraints and provide important cross-checks , the potential for the most dramatic improvements lies on the largest angular scales where it provides a unique probe of the reionization epoch and primordial gravitational waves. For instance, forecasts  indicate that the MAP satellite can measure the reionization optical depth $`\tau `$ seventeen times more accurately using polarization information, and that polarization increases the sensitivity of the Planck satellite to tensor modes by a factor of 25.

Unfortunately, these large scales are also the ones where polarized foreground contamination is likely to be most severe, both because of the red power spectra of diffuse Galactic synchrotron and dust emission and because they require using a large fraction of the sky, including less clean patches. The key challenge in the CMB polarization endeavor will therefore be modeling, quantifying and removing large-scale polarized Galactic foregrounds. This is the topic of the present paper. We will use the POLAR experiment to provide the strongest limits to date on cross-polarized microwave background and foreground fluctuations on large angular scales, and employ polarization sensitive radio surveys to further quantify the polarized synchrotron radiation, which is likely to be the most challenging contaminant in the polarization maps expected from the MAP satellite.

At microwave frequencies, three physical mechanisms are known to cause foreground contamination: synchrotron, free-free and dust emission. When coming from extragalactic objects, this radiation is usually referred to as point source contamination and affects mainly small angular scales. When coming from the Milky Way, this diffuse Galactic emission fluctuates mainly on the large angular scales that are the focus of this paper. Except for free-free emission, all the above mechanisms are known to emit polarized radiation. In the near term, the best measurement of large-scale polarization will probably come from the MAP satellite. At MAP’s frequency range (22-90 GHz), synchrotron radiation is likely to be the dominant polarized foreground . Unfortunately, we still know basically nothing about the polarized contribution of the Galactic synchrotron component at CMB frequencies , since it has only been measured at lower frequencies and extrapolation is complicated by Faraday Rotation. This is in stark contrast to the CMB itself, where the expected polarized power spectra and their dependence on cosmological parameters has been computed from first principles to high accuracy .

Polarization of the Galactic continuum emission was first clearly detected in 1962 . In the succeeding years, polarization measurements of the northern sky were made at frequencies between 240 and 1415 MHz (see  and references therein) with resolutions of only a few degrees. No large-area survey has been published since the compendium of Brouw and Spoelstra  and high-resolution surveys have only begun to be made recently. The first major investigation done after  is that of , who observed a section of the Galactic plane defined by $`49^{}\mathrm{}76^{}`$ and $`|b|15^{}`$, at frequency of 2.7 GHz. The study of  provides the highest resolution insight into the small-scale structure of the Galaxy; however, this only covered a few areas of the sky which were not larger than a degree or so across. Recently, two fully-sampled polarimetric surveys were done at 2.4 GHz  and 1.4 GHz . All of these high-resolution surveys covered only regions near the Galactic plane, so in order to use them for inferences relevant to CMB experiments, they need to be extrapolated both in Galactic latitude and in frequency.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In section Section II, we review the basics of CMB and synchrotron polarization as well as our methods for measuring and modeling it. We present our results in Section III and discuss our conclusions in Section IV.

## II Phenomenology

### A Notation

CMB measurements can be decomposed into three maps ($`T`$,$`E`$,$`B`$), where $`T`$ denotes the unpolarized and ($`E`$,$`B`$) denote the polarized components, respectively. Note that an experiment that is insensitive to polarization does not measure $`T`$ but rather that total (unpolarized plus polarized) intensity; although this distinction has traditionally been neglected for CMB experiments where the polarization fraction is small, it is important both for foregrounds (which can be highly polarized) and for precision CMB experiments. From these three maps we can measure a total of six angular power spectra, here denoted by $`C_ł^T`$, $`C_ł^E`$, $`C_ł^B`$, $`C_ł^X`$, $`C_ł^Y`$ and $`C_ł^Z`$, corresponding to the $`TT`$, $`EE`$, $`BB`$, $`TE`$, $`TB`$ and $`EB`$ correlations*** From here on, we adopt the notation $`TTT`$, $`EEE`$, $`BBB`$, $`TEX`$, $`TBY`$ and $`EBZ`$. , respectively.

By parity, $`C_ł^Y=C_ł^Z=0`$ for scalar CMB fluctuations, but it is nonetheless worthwhile to measure these power spectra as probes of both exotic physics  and foreground contamination. $`C_ł^B=0`$ for scalar CMB fluctuations to first order in perturbation theory  – secondary effects such as gravitational lensing can create $`B`$ polarization even if there are only density perturbations present . In the absence of reionization, $`C_ł^E`$ is typically a couple of orders of magnitude below $`C_ł^T`$ on small scales and approaches zero on the very largest scales.

The cross-power spectrum $`C_ł^X`$ is not well suited for the usual logarithmic power spectrum plot, since it is negative for about half of all $`ł`$-values . A theoretically more convenient quantity is the dimensionless correlation coefficient

$$r_ł^X\frac{C_ł^X}{(C_ł^TC_ł^E)^{1/2}},$$
(1)
plotted on a linear scale in Figure 2 (lower panel), since the Schwarz inequality restricts it to lie in the range $`1r_ł^X1`$ Note that for experiments where CMB polarization is measured with a very low signal-to-noise ratio, $`C_ł^X`$ is a more useful quantity than $`r_ł^X`$. This is because they may be able to place upper and lower limits on $`C_ł^X`$ but can place no meaningful limits on $`r_ł^X`$ unless they can statistically rule out that $`C_ł^E`$ in the denominator of equation (1). . From here on we use $`r_ł`$ as shorthand for $`r_ł^X`$. For more details about $`r_ł`$ and how it depends on cosmological parameters, see section II.b in .

### B Our Knowledge of Synchrotron Emission

The Galactic InterStellar Medium (ISM) is a highly complex medium with many different constituents interacting through a multitude of physical processes. Free electrons spiraling around the Galactic magnetic field lines emit synchrotron radiation , which can be up to 70% linearly polarized (see  for a review).

The power spectrum $`C_ł`$ of synchrotron radiation is normally modeled as a power law in both multipole $`ł`$ and frequency $`\nu `$, which we will parametrize as

$$\delta T_ł^2(\nu )=A\left(\frac{ł}{50}\right)^{\beta +2}\mathrm{with}A\nu ^{2\alpha },$$
(2)
where $`\delta T_ł[ł(ł+1)C_ł/2\pi ]^{1/2}`$. This definition implies that $`C_łł^\beta `$ for $`ł1`$ and that the fluctuation amplitude $`\nu ^\alpha `$. The standard assumption is that the total intensity has $`\alpha 2.8`$ with variations of order $`0.15`$ across the sky Because the spectral index $`\alpha `$ depends on the energy distribution of relativistic electrons , it may vary somewhat across the sky. One also expects a spectral steepening towards higher frequencies, corresponding to a softer electron spectrum (; Fig 5.3 in ). A recent analysis done at 22 MHz  shows that $`\alpha `$ varies slightly over a large frequency range.  .

As to the power spectrum slope $`\beta `$, the 408 MHz Haslam map  suggests $`\beta `$ of order -2.5 to -3.0 down to its resolution limit of $`1^{}`$§§§ Although the interpretation is complicated by striping problems .  . A similar analysis done on the 2.3 GHz Rhodes map of resolution 20  gives $`\beta =2.92\pm 0.07`$  (flattening to $`\beta 2.4`$ at low Galactic latitudes ).

For the polarized synchrotron component, our observational knowledge is, unfortunately, not as complete. To date, there are measurements of the polarized synchrotron power spectrum obtained basically from three different surveys: the Leiden surveys The observations done by Brouw and Spoelstra covered almost 40% of the sky extending to high Galactic latitudes. Using the same instrument, they observed the polarized Galaxy in $`Q`$ and $`U`$ in five frequencies from 408 MHz up to 1.4 GHz and with angular resolutions from 2.3 at 408 MHz up to 0.6 at 1.4GHz. Unfortunately this data was also undersampled, making it difficult to draw inferences about its polarized power spectrum.  , the Parkes 2.4 GHz Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane This survey covers a strip 127 long and at least 10 wide centered in the Galactic plane, with a resolution of FWHM=10.4. It is publically available at http://www.uq.edu.au/$``$roy/.  , and the Medium Galactic Latitude Survey\**\**\** The Medium Galactic Latitude Survey maps the Galactic plane within $`\pm `$20, with a resolution of FWHM=9.35 at 2.4 GHz. This survey is partially available at http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/staff/buyaniker/index.htm.  .

These measurements exhibit a much bluer power spectrum in polarization than in intensity, with $`\beta `$ in the range from 1.4 to 1.8 . These results are usually taken with a grain of salt when it comes to their implications for CMB foreground contamination, for three reasons:

1. Extrapolations are done from low to high galactic latitudes;
2. Extrapolations are done from low to high frequencies; and
3. Much of the available data is undersampled.

The Leiden surveys extend to high Galactic latitudes and up to 1.4 GHz but are unfortunately undersampled, while the Parkes and the Medium Galactic Latitude Surveys only probe regions around the Galactic plane. In the following three sections, we will discuss these three problems in turn.

#### 1 The Latitude Extrapolation Problem

Although only high Galactic latitudes are relevant for CMB work, most of the data used for understanding the polarized CMB foreground contamination is at low Galactic latitudes. Figure 3 shows that whereas the total intensity of the synchrotron emission depends strongly on the Galactic latitude, the polarized component is approximately independent of Galactic latitude — indeed, in the three polarized images, it is difficult to distinguish the galactic plane at all. As noticed long ago by , there is a faint, quasi-uniform polarized component of the Galactic polarized emission in their survey, upon which the emission from other features is superimposed: towards the higher latitudes, this faint component appears similar in both structure and intensity to the correspondent lower latitude emission. This well-know empirical result can be also seen (in a more quantitative way) in the Leiden surveys. Figure 4 shows that in the frequency range between 408 MHz to 1.4 GHz, the Polarization Intensity $`P`$ ($`P`$=$`\sqrt{Q^2+U^2}`$) is basically constant as the Galactic latitude $`|b|`$ increases, whereas the polarization insensitive surveys (such as the 408 MHz Haslam and the 1420 MHz Reich & Reich ) have the bulk of their emission coming from the Galactic plane.

The usual interpretation of this very weak latitude dependence of polarized synchrotron radiation is that the signal is dominated by sources that are nearby compared to the scale height of the Galactic disk, with more distant sources being washed out by Depolarization (to which we return in the next subsection). As a result, having well-sampled polarized maps off the galactic plane at the same frequencies would not be expected to affect our results much, since they would be similar to those in the plane. This issue, however, deserves more work as far as extrapolation to CMB frequencies is concerned: the latitude dependence may well return at higher frequencies as Depolarization becomes less important, thereby revealing structure from more distant parts of the Galactic plane. In this case, extrapolating from an observing region around the Galactic plane to higher latitudes may well result in less small-scale power in the angular distribution.

If we are lucky, many of the complications of extrapolating to higher latitude may largely cancel out the complications of extrapolating to higher frequency, thereby making it easier to quantify the polarized CMB foreground problem. The reason for optimism is the following: at high latitudes (which is all that really matters for CMB research), the foreground signal will be entirely due to nearby emission within the scale height of the thick Galactic disk; and at low frequencies in the Galactic plane (which is where we have really good data), the polarized signal we see may well be dominated by such nearby emission, with emission from more distant regions in the Galactic disk hidden by Depolarization.

#### 2 Faraday Rotation, Depolarization and the Frequency Extrapolation Problem

The plane of a polarized wave may be regarded as the sum of two circularly polarized components of opposite handedness. In an ionized medium with a non-zero magnetic field, these two components propagate with different phase velocities, which will result in a rotation of the plane of polarization of the linearly polarized radiation. This rotation, known as the Faraday Rotation A detailed discussion of the Faraday Rotation & Depolarization effects as well as their importance in astrophysical observations is in given in ., produces a change in polarization angle $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$ of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\theta =0.81\lambda ^2_0^Ln_eB_{}𝑑L=\lambda ^2RM[\mathrm{rad}],$$
(3)
where $`\lambda `$ is the wavelength given in meters and the quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta /\lambda ^2`$ is called the Rotation Measure ($`RM`$ – usually expressed in units of rad m-2). The integral is done over the line of sight from us to the emitting region at a distance $`L`$ in pc, $`n_e`$ is the the free electron density in cm-3 and $`B_{}`$ is the magnetic field parallel to the line of sight in $`\mu `$G.

From equation (3) it is easy to see that observations of this synchrotron radiation in several frequencies allows the determination of Rotation Measures in the diffuse radiation. From the obtained structure in the Rotation Measure on different scales, we can obtain information on the magnetic field parallel to the line of sight, weighted with electron density – an example of this method can be found in . In radio astronomy, Faraday Rotation has become one of the main tools to investigate the interstellar magnetic field (see, e.g. ).

It is important to point out, however, that Faraday Rotation can only change the polarization angle and not the polarized intensity $`P`$. The fact that we do see structure in $`P`$ that is not correlated with a counterpart in intensity $`T`$ implies that part of the radiation has been depolarized . A simple visual comparison of the total intensity and polarized maps of the same region in the sky of the Parkes 2.4 GHz survey shows Depolarization at work (see Figure 3): many sources which present an intense total emission do not show a counterpart in the polarized maps; similarly bright regions of extended polarization are not connected with unpolarized sources. A more detailed study of this same survey reached similar conclusions: Giardino et al.  showed that the $`E`$ and $`B`$ power spectra were dominated by changes in the polarization angle rather than by changes in the polarized intensity, suggesting that Faraday Rotation was playing a significant role Although at first glance the images in Figure 3 suggest that the polarized and unpolarized components are uncorrelated,  found that for some patches in their images there is a good correlation between the polarized and total power intensities. Therefore they conclude that a good fraction of the polarized emission seen over the plane was caused by changes in synchrotron emissivity, rather them any Depolarization or Faraday Rotation of the synchrotron background. According to , variations in synchrotron emission can be caused by increases in the density of relativistic electrons (due to SNRs), and/or variations in the magnetic field intensity. It is important to point out that the relative importance of these two mechanisms (Faraday Rotation & Depolarization and changes in the synchrotron emissivity of the source regions) over the Galactic plane region are currently unknown . .

Depending on the frequency and beamwidth used, Depolarization can play an important role in polarization studies of the Galactic radio emission . As discussed by Cortiglioni and Spoelstra , Depolarization can have four causes: 1) differential polarization along the line of sight, 2) differential polarization across the beam, 3) differential Faraday Rotation across the beam, and 4) differential Faraday Rotation and polarization across the bandwidth. If the bandwidth is very narrow, we can neglect item 4; also, if the polarized data has been sufficiently sampled, smoothing it to a largest beam may inform us about items 2 and 3, leaving us with item 1 as the expected main source of Depolarization§§§ In the case of Leiden surveys, item 4 is negligible. Based in previous analysis done over the Galactic loops at 1.4 GHz , Spoelstra  argued that items 2 and 3 have a relatively minor contribution to the Depolarization in those surveys. Leaving, therefore, differential polarization along the line of sight as the main source of Depolarization. .

Because of the complicated interplay of these mechanisms, we should expect both the amplitude and the shape of the polarized synchrotron power spectrum to change with frequency. We will therefore take an empirical approach below and use the available data to map out (for the first time) the two-dimensional region in the $`(\mathrm{},\nu )`$ plane where Faraday Rotation & Depolarization are important.

#### 3 Incomplete Sky Coverage and the Undersampling Problem

For the case of undersampling in the Leiden surveys, some authors have overcome this problem by doing their Fourier analysis over selected patches in the sky where they believe the average grid space in the patch is close to the map’s beam size, so that they can apply a Gaussian smoothing on it – this is well explained and illustrated in . Fortunately, we can eliminate this problem by measuring the power spectra with the matrix-based quadratic estimator technique that has recently been developed for analyzing CMB maps .

Although the undersampling and partial sky coverage results in unavoidable mixing between different angular scales $`ł`$ and polarization types ($`E`$ and $`B`$), this mixing (a.k.a. leakage) is fully quantified by the window functions that our method computes  and can therefore be included in the statistical analysis without approximations. Specifically, we compute the six power spectra ($`T,E,B,X,Y,Z`$) described in Section II A so that the leakage, if any, is minimal.

In  it was argued that susceptibility to systematic errors could be reduced by choosing the “priors” that determine the quadratic estimator method to have vanishing cross-polarizations, $`X=Y=Z=0`$, and it was shown that this simplification came at the price of a very small (percent level) increase in error bars. In Appendix A of , it was shown that this choice has an important added benefit: exploiting a parity symmetry, it eliminates 14 out of the 15 leakages, with only the much discussed  $`EB`$ leakage remaining. In  it was shown that even the remaining $`EB`$ leakage can, in principle, be removed. Unfortunately, this technique cannot be applied here, since it works only for a fully sampled two-dimensional map.

Table 1 – POLAR-DMR Power Spectrum

$`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{eff}}\pm \mathrm{\Delta }ł`$ $`\delta \mathrm{T}^2\pm \sigma [\mu K^2]`$ $`\delta \mathrm{T}[\mu K]^{(a)}`$    $`T`$ 15.6$`\pm `$6.6 487.0$`\pm `$270.6 22.1$`{}_{5.5}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+7.4}`$  $`E`$ 12.6$`\pm `$4.5 -9.9$`\pm `$ 32.0 $`<`$4.7 (7.4)  $`B`$ 12.6$`\pm `$4.5 13.9$`\pm `$ 32.0 $`<`$6.8 (8.8)  $`X`$ 14.0$`\pm `$4.8 -26.0$`\pm `$ 48.5 $`<`$8.7(11.1)  $`Y`$ 14.0$`\pm `$4.8 -0.1$`\pm `$ 48.5 $`<`$7.0 (9.8)  $`Z`$ 11.4$`\pm `$2.9 -50.0$`\pm `$ 31.6 $`<`$6.6(10.7)

(a)Values in parentheses are 2-$`\sigma `$ upper limits. Cross-correlation upper limits refer to $`|X|`$, $`|Y|`$ and $`|Z|`$.

## III Results

### A POLAR Power Spectra

POLAR was a ground-based CMB polarization experiment that operated near Madison, Wisconsin . It used a simple drift-scan strategy, with a 7 FWHM beam at 26–30 GHz, and simultaneously observed the Stokes parameters $`Q`$ and $`U`$ in a ring of declination $`\delta =43^{}`$. Because POLAR was insensitive to the unpolarized CMB component, we cross-correlate their $`Q`$ and $`U`$ data with the $`T`$-data from the $`COBE`$/DMR map .

#### 1 Quadratic Estimator Analysis

We measure the six power spectra described in Section II A using the quadratic estimator method exactly as described in . We computed fiducial power spectra with the CMBFAST software  using cosmological parameters from the concordance model from  (that of  is very similar). Table 1 shows the result of our band-power estimation. The values shown in parentheses in the rightmost column of this table are our 2-$`\sigma `$ upper limits. In these calculations, we used 5 multipole bands of width $`\mathrm{\Delta }ł=6`$ for each of the six polarization types $`(T,E,B,X,Y,Z)`$, thereby going out to $`ł=30`$, and average the measurements together with inverse-variance weighting into a single number for each polarization type to minimize noise.

We used the combined DMR 53+90 GHz data to obtain good sensitivity to the unpolarized component. We perform our analysis using strips of the DMR data of width $`\pm 15^{}`$ around the POLAR declination – we found that further increasing in the width of these disks did not significantly tighten our constraints. Finally, we eliminated sensitivity to offsets by projecting out the mean (monopole) from the $`T`$, $`Q`$ and $`U`$ maps separately.

The detection of unpolarized power is seen to be consistent with that published by the DMR  group. Table 1 shows that we detect no polarization or cross-polarization of any type, obtaining mere upper limits, just as the models predict. The window functions reveal substantial leakage between $`E`$ and $`B`$, so that the limits effectively constrain the average of these two spectra rather than both separately. This large leakage is due to the one-dimensional nature of the POLAR dataset, and can be completely eliminated with a fully sampled two-dimensional map .

Finally, we perform the same analysis described above by replacing the DMR stripe with a similar stripe selected from the 408 MHz Haslam map (which was smoothed to 7 and scaled to 30 GHz using $`\beta _T=`$3). We detected no cross-polarization of any type between POLAR and the Haslam map, obtaining a mere upper limit of $`|X|\mathrm{}<`$11.0$`\mu K`$ (or a 2-$`\sigma `$ upper limit of 15.4$`\mu K`$).

#### 2 Likelihood Analysis

We complement our band-power analysis with a likelihood analysis where we assumed that $`B=0`$. Specifically, we set $`B=Y=Z=0`$ and take each of the remaining power spectra $`(T,E,X)`$ to be constant out to $`ł=30`$.

We first perform a simple 1-dimensional likelihood analysis for the parameter $`E`$ using the POLAR data alone (discarding the DMR information), obtaining the likelihood function in excellent agreement with that published by  – see Figure 5 (right panel, solid black line). A similar 1-dimensional likelihood analysis for the parameter $`T`$ using the DMR data alone produces $`T28\mu `$K, consistent with that of the DMR team  (left panel, solid black line). We then compute the likelihood function including both POLAR and DMR data in the 3-dimensional space spanned by $`(T,E,r_{\mathrm{}})`$ and compute constraints on individual parameters or pairs by marginalizing as in . Once again, we obtain a $`T`$-measurement in complete agreement with that for the DMR team (left panel, solid red line).

Figure 6 shows our constraints in the $`(E,r_{\mathrm{}})`$-plane after marginalizing over $`T`$. It is seen that our constraints on the cross-polarization are weaker than the Schwarz inequality $`|r_{\mathrm{}}|1`$, so in this sense the data has taught us nothing new. The likelihood function is seen to be highly non-Gaussian, so obtaining statistically meaningful confidence limits (which is of course uninteresting in our case, since the constraints are so weak) would involve numerically integrating the likelihood function. Since $`r_ł`$ is expected to oscillate between positive and negative values, using a flat (constant) $`r_ł`$ in the likelihood analysis runs the risk of failing to detect a signal that is actually present in the data, canceling out positive and negative detections at different angular scales. This is not likely to have been a problem in our case, since $`r_ł`$ is uniformly positive in our sensitivity range $`ł=14\pm 5`$ for the concordance model.

Figure 1 compares our results with all other polarization constraints published to date.

### B The Leiden Power Spectra

#### 1 Basic power spectra

For the Leiden surveys, our analysis was performed using 10 multipole bands of width $`\mathrm{\Delta }ł=10`$ for each of the six polarization types $`(T,E,B,X,Y,Z)`$, thereby going out to $`ł=100`$. We used the Haslam map for the unpolarized component $`T`$, scaled and smoothed to match Leiden’s five different frequencies. A Galactic cut of $`|b|=25^{}`$ was applied in order to match the POLAR observing region. We iterated the QE method once and chose the second prior to be a simple power law model consistent with the original measurement for the $`T`$, $`E`$ and $`B`$ power. The priors for $`X`$, $`Y`$ and $`Z`$ were set as zero.

Figure 7 shows the $`E`$ power spectra (top) and $`r_ł`$ correlation coefficient (bottom) of the Leiden surveys. We find that all power spectra are well approximated by powers laws as in equation (2). The best fit normalizations $`A`$ and slopes $`\beta `$ for $`E`$ and $`B`$ are shown in Table 2. The values of $`\beta `$ are consistent with previous analyses , showing that the slopes get redder as frequency increases.

Table 2 – Normalization & Spectral Index(a)

$`\nu `$ $`A_E`$ $`\beta _E`$ $`A_B`$ $`\beta _B`$    (GHz) $`[mK^2]`$  $`[mK^2]`$   0.408 5.5 -0.5 5.7 -0.4  0.465 5.4 -1.0 5.4 -0.5  0.610 5.1 -1.0 5.1 -0.8  0.820 4.5 -1.5 4.6 -1.8  1.411 3.9 -1.9 3.6 -2.6

(a)All fits are normalized at $`\mathrm{}`$=50, i.e., $`\delta \mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{}}^2=A(\mathrm{}/50)^{\beta +2}`$.

For all Leiden surveys, the $`X`$ and $`Y`$ power spectra are found to be consistent with zero – the 2.4 GHz Parkes survey had a similar finding for $`X`$ . These are not surprising results: if Faraday Rotation makes the polarized and unpolarized components to be uncorrelated (see Figure 3), it is natural to expect that $`X,Y`$=0. However, at the CMB frequencies (where the effects of Faraday Rotation & Depolarization are unimportant) this should not be the case.

To study the frequency dependence, we average the 10 multipole bands of the Leiden power spectrum measurements together into a single band for each polarization type to reduce noise. From these results, we fit the average frequency dependence (for the $`25^{}`$ cut data) as a power law as in equation (2) with slope $`\alpha _E=1.3`$ and $`\alpha _B=1.5`$ for $`E`$ and $`B`$polarization, respectively.

#### 2 Is it $`E`$ or is it $`B`$?

An interesting question about polarized foregrounds is how their fluctuations separate into $`E`$ and $`B`$. Although many authors initially assumed that foregrounds would naturally produce equal amounts of $`E`$ and $`B`$, Zaldarriaga  showed that this need not be the case. There are plausible scenarios where the foreground polarization direction could preferentially be aligned with or perpendicular to the gradient of polarized intensity, thereby producing more $`E`$ than $`B`$. In contrast, it is more difficult to contrive scenarios with more $`B`$ than $`E`$, since they require polarizations preferentially making a 45 angle with the gradient.

Early studies  have indicated that $`EB`$ at 2.4 GHz in the Galactic plane. However, these analyses used Fourier transforms and spin-2 angular harmonic expansions, respectively, without explicitly computing the window functions quantifying the leakage between $`E`$ and $`B`$. This leakage is expected to be important both on the scale of the Parkes stripe thickness and on the pixel scale , and would have the effect of mixing $`E`$ and $`B`$ power, reducing any $`E/B`$ differences that may actually be present. Moreover, no study of the $`E/B`$ ratio has ever been done on the large angular scales ($`ł\mathrm{}<40`$), that are the most important for constraining reionization and inflationary gravitational waves.

We therefore perform a likelihood analysis of the Leiden surveys specifically focusing on this question, and including an exact treatment of the leakage. The likelihood analysis of the data is done with two free parameters corresponding to the overall normalization of the $`E`$ and $`B`$ power spectra, and assuming that they both have the same power law shape given by the slopes $`\beta _E`$ from Table 2. The results are shown in Figure 8. Note that the $`E`$ and $`B`$ amplitudes are consistent with being equal to high accuracy at 408, 465, 610 and 820 MHz. At the highest frequency of 1.4 GHz, however, we see a hint of an $`E`$-excess at the 30% level, but this is only significant at a level of around 95%. This hint is intriguing, since it can in principle be given a natural physical interpretation. It may be that synchrotron polarization has $`E>B`$ at CMB frequencies, and that Faraday Rotation is hiding this underlying asymmetry at low frequencies. If the Faraday effect rotates each polarization angle by a for all practical purposes random amount, this will destroy any intrinsic alignment between the direction of the polarization and the direction of the local intensity gradient and therefore produce equal amounts of $`E`$ and $`B`$ signal.

#### 3 Quantifying the Importance of Faraday Rotation & Depolarization for the CMB

The key challenge for modeling synchrotron polarization as a CMB foreground is to answer the following question: above which frequency are the effects of Faraday Rotation & Depolarization so small that our measurements can be safely extrapolated up to CMB frequencies? From an analysis of the Leiden surveys, Spoelstra  found an upper limit for $`RM`$ of 35 rad m-2. Setting $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta =1`$ rad in equation (3), this suggests that the Faraday Rotation becomes irrelevant somewhere around 2 GHz. However, considering that the determination of $`RM`$ is poor in many parts of these surveys, this 2 GHz value is questionable. Moreover, because of the importance of Depolarization which affects large scales more than small scales, we should expect the answer to depend on the angular scale $`ł`$ considered.

Let us now quantify this empirically. Figure 9 shows the synchrotron power spectra as a function of frequency for a sample of angular scales $`ł`$. Using the fits from Table 2 and Equation (2) suggests that the polarization percentage $`p\delta T_ł^E/\delta T_ł^T`$ saturates to a constant value for $`\nu 1`$ GHz at $`\mathrm{}`$=50, $`\nu 4`$ GHz at $`\mathrm{}`$=14 and $`\nu 10`$ GHz at $`\mathrm{}`$=2. This suggest the following universal behavior In the limit of high frequencies (where Faraday Rotation & Depolarization vanish), we expect the polarization fraction $`p`$ to become frequency independent. It may still depend on angular scale $`ł`$, however. If it does depend on $`ł`$, there is no fundamental reason why it cannot exceed $`100\%`$ on some angular scales (even though the polarization at a given point is by definition $`100\%`$) — imagine, say, a uniform synchrotron-emitting plasma with small-scale variations in the magnetic field direction. However, Figure 7 and Table 2 show that as the frequency increases, the polarized power spectrum gets progressively redder, providing a tantalizing hint of convergence towards the same power spectrum slope as the total intensity compolent. It this is actually what happens in the high frequency limit, then the polarization fraction does indeed become a simple constant. . At high frequencies, where the Faraday Rotation & Depolarization effects are unimportant and the polarized fluctuations simply constitute some constant fraction of the total fluctuations, we can use the same $`\alpha `$ for polarized and total synchrotron radiation in the CMB range. However, moving to the left in Figure 9, one reaches a critical frequency $`\nu _{}`$ below which the Faraday Rotation & Depolarization effects suppress the polarized fluctuations. At this point, the power law changes asymptotes from a steeper (solid lines) to a shallower (dashed lines) power law, and the critical frequency $`\nu _{}`$ in which this effect occurs change with the angular scale $`ł`$. In order words, whether we can safely extrapolate our results up to CMB frequencies depends not only on the frequency but also in the angular scale. For instance, the contamination of the CMB quadrupole from Galactic synchrotron polarization can only be obtained from extrapolations of data at frequencies exceeding $`\nu _{}10`$ GHz, with $`\nu _{}`$ dropping towards smaller angular scales Due to the fact that we are dealing with cross-correlations, the results presented here should not be biased by systematic errors or calibration uncertainties in input data, since they would be uncorrelated betweeen the different surveys used. Spurious offsets will not cause excess noise either, since we removed the zero-point from each survey before calculating the cross-correlations. .

All the information above is summarized in Figure 10, which shows contours of constant polarization percentage $`p=\delta T_ł^E/\delta T_ł^T`$ in the two-dimensional $`(ł,\nu )`$ plane. In other words, this figure can be interpreted as a contour plot of the Depolarization. The Depolarization is seen to be negligible at high frequencies and on tiny scales, gradually increasing towards the lower left corner (towards low frequencies and on large angular scales) where Faraday Rotation & Depolarization effects become important.

This has important implications. For instance, a nice all-sky simulation of synchrotron polarization at CMB frequencies was recently performed assuming that the power spectra of $`\mathrm{cos}2\theta `$ and $`\mathrm{sin}2\theta `$ (where $`\theta `$ is the polarization angle) were frequency independent . Our results indicate that these two power spectra are dominated by Faraday Rotation & Depolarization effects, which implies that the $`E`$ and $`B`$ power should be mostly due to changes in polarization angle $`\theta `$, and not to variations in overall intensity – this precise behavior is also seen by . If Faraday Rotation & Depolarization effects are indeed dominant, then it is not obvious that such frequency extrapolation of the $`\mathrm{cos}2\theta `$ and $`\mathrm{sin}2\theta `$ power spectra are valid.

Figure 9 also shows the POLAR limit of $`E<7.4\mu `$K from Table 1 (lower right corner). Since this limit is centered in $`ł14`$, it can be directly compared with the middle (red) curve. The noticeable gap between the two implies that we get interesting constraints from POLAR on foreground models. No synchrotron polarization is detected even though the Haslam stripe shows substantial synchrotron emission in the POLAR region, so either the synchrotron polarization percentage is small or the synchrotron emission falls even more steeply towards higher frequencies than the plotted curves indicate. A spectral index $`\alpha =2.8`$ (as shown in the plot) is only allowed if the polarization percentage $`p`$ is lower than 10%. If $`p`$=20%, then $`\alpha <3.0`$, and almost complete polarization (about 70% is physically possible) would require $`\alpha <3.4`$, in poor agreement with theoretical and observational indications . In other words, our results suggest a rather low synchrotron polarization percentage at CMB frequencies\**\**\** From the $`COBE`$/DMR-Haslam cross-correlation results , we know that the rms Galactic signal of the synchrotron emission is lower than $`7.1\mu `$K at 53GHz. Note that this value is substantially lower than the one we obtain when extrapolating the $`ł14`$ curve of Figure 9 to the DMR frequencies. This result indicates that $`\alpha <2.8`$ or that there is a deviation from the power law behaviour at frequences above a few GHz. .

## IV Conclusions

CMB polarization and its decomposition into $`E`$ and $`B`$ modes is a topic of growing importance and interest in cosmology. In the era of MAP, a key issue is to estimate the contribution of Galactic foregrounds (more specifically, polarized synchrotron emission) to these modes. We have used the POLAR experiment and radio surveys in order to quantify this contribution at large angular scales.

Using matrix-based quadratic estimator methods, we cross-correlated POLAR with DMR data and obtained upper limits of $`E<7.4\mu K`$ and $`|X|<11.1\mu K`$ at 95% confidence. These upper limits are, unfortunately, to high to place intetesting constrains on reionization models. A similar cross-correlation analysis was performed by replacing the DMR with the Haslam data, obtaining an upper limit of $`|X|\mathrm{}<15.4\mu K`$ at 95% confidence.

We also used our quadratic estimator methods to measure the power spectra from the Leiden surveys, obtaining the following key results:

1. The synchrotron $`E`$\- and $`B`$-contributions are equal to within 10% from 408 to 820 MHz, with a hint of $`E`$-domination at higher frequencies. One interpretation is that $`E>B`$ at CMB frequencies but that Faraday Rotation mixes the two at low frequencies.
2. Faraday Rotation & Depolarization effects depend not only on frequency but also on angular scale – they are important at low frequencies ($`\nu \mathrm{}<10`$ GHz) and on large angular scales.
3. We must take into account Faraday Rotation & Depolarization effects when extrapolating radio survey results from low to high galactic latitudes and from low to high frequencies.
4. We detect no significant synchrotron $`TE`$ cross correlation coefficient ($`|r|\mathrm{}<0.2`$), but Faraday Rotation could have hidden a substantial correlation detectable at CMB frequencies.
5. Combining the POLAR and radio frequency results, and the fact that the $`E`$-polarization of the abundant Haslam signal in the POLAR region is not detected at 30 GHz, suggests that the synchrotron polarization percentage at CMB frequencies is rather low.

Experiments such as MAP and Planck will shed significant new light on synchrotron polarization and allow better quantification of its impact both on these experiments and on ground-based CMB observations.

This work was supported by NSF grants AST-0071213 & AST-0134999 and NASA grants NAG5-9194 & NAG5-11099. MT acknowledges a David and Lucile Packard Foundation fellowship and a Cottrell Scholarship from Research Corporation.


text:
# Jets from subpc to kpc scale

## 1 Introduction

The study of extragalactic jets has been recently renewed by the discovery, made by Chandra, of numerous jets bright in the X-rays at scales $`>`$ kpc, both in FRI and FRII sources (Chartas et al. 2000, Sambruna et al. 2002). While in low-power FRI jets the dominating emission mechanism responsible for X-rays is thought to be synchrotron from very-high energy electrons (e.g. Worrall et al. 2001), in the case of the most powerful sources it is clear that X-rays constitute a second spectral component, likely due to the IC scattering of the CMB photons (Tavecchio et al. 2000a, Celotti et al. 2001), implying that X-ray bright jets are still relativistic (with bulk Lorentz factors $`510`$) at $`100`$ kpc.
At the opposite side of scalelengths, studies of the innermost portion ($`d0.1`$ pc) of jets in AGNs are rather well developed. Our knowledge of these regions of jets is mainly based on blazars, whose Spectral Energy Distribution (extending from radio to $`\gamma `$-rays) is dominated by the relativistic amplified nonthermal continuum produced in a jet closely aligned to the line of sight (e.g. Urry & Padovani 1995). The double humped SED of these sources is well described by synchrotron-IC models (e.g., Ghisellini et al. 1998; Sikora & Madejski 2001).
The possibility to constrain the physical state of the plasma in the jet both at sub-pc and kpc scale offers us the interesting opportunity to shed some light on the evolution of the jet from very small scales, close to the central engine, to the outer regions, where the jet is starting to significantly decelerate. In this work we present a first step, reporting the results obtained for a small group of sources for which good data for both regions are available. These sources are PKS 1510-089, 1641+399, PKS 0521-365 and 3C371. The emission models from the blazar region and the parameters for the first three sources are discussed in Tavecchio et al. (2000b, 2002), while the model for 3C371 is discussed in Tavecchio et al. (in prep). Multiwavelength (Chandra, HST and radio) data for extended jets are discussed in Gambill et al. (in prep 1510-089; 1641+399), Pesce et al. (2001, 3C371) and Birkinshaw et al. (2002, 0521-365). Clearly the X-ray emission for the first two sources is well reproduced by the IC/CMB model, while in the other two jets the dominant contribution is due to synchrotron emission. The detailed modelling of the data will be reported in Tavecchio et al. (in prep). In the following we limit the discussion to the result of the comparison of the most relevant quantities of the jet as inferred in the two regions.

## 2 Results: power and pressure

A fundamental global quantity of jets is the total (particles + magnetic field) power transported by the flow. A first result of our analysis (although strickly valid only in the case of IC/CMB sources, for which all the quantities can be univocally evaluated) is that the power derived at subpc scale is rather close to the power inferred at kpc scale. This results (for the specific case of PKS 1510-089) is presented in Fig. 1a, where we report the power estimated in the core region (horizontal dashed line) and that at the kpc-scale jet expected for different $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ factors, assuming that the emission is produced through IC/CMB (solid line), through SSC (long-dashed line) and assuming equipartition between relativistic electrons and magnetic field (short-dashed line). The intersection between the equipartition and the IC/CMB lines marks the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ factor used in the spectra modelling of the kpc-scale jet emission. Note that for low values of Lorentz factors the power required by the IC/CMB model increases rapidly, due to the large number of electrons required to produce the observed X-ray flux in presence of a rapidly decreasing amount of beamed CMB photons. Note also that an SSC origin of the high energy radiation would require an extremely large value of the power (exceeding $`10^{50}`$ erg/s), as early recognized for the specific case of PKS 0637-752 (Schwartz et al. 2000).
The equality of the jet power estimated at the two scales strongly suggests that the jet experiences very little deceleration, dissipation and entrainment, at least from the core until $`100`$ kpc. Recent numerical simulations seems to confirm these conclusions (Scheck et al. 2002), at least for distances $`<100`$ kpc. Moreover the costancy of the power implies that the central engine does not change its energy output for timescales of the order of $`3\times 10^5`$ yrs.

In our estimates we assumed that most of the power is carried by (cold) protons (assuming the presence of 1 proton per relativistic electron). While the composition of the outer jet is not known, in the blazar region (see e.g. Tavecchio et al. 2000, Ghisellini & Celotti 2002) the necessity of protons is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the power transported by electrons and magnetic field alone are insufficient to explain the total radiation output.
Another interesting suggestion derives considering the internal pressure of the kpc-scale knots inferred with our modelling. We recall that the estimate of the pressure is rather rubust, due to the opportunity to strongly constrain the value of the minimum Lorentz factor of the emitting electrons in the IC/CMB model (Tavecchio et al. 2000a) The derived values are in fact close to $`p10^{11}`$ dyne cm<sup>-2</sup>, suggestively close to the pressure of typical hot gas halos found around FRIs (Worrall et al. 2000, Worrall et al. 2001. Recently Worrall & Birkinshaw (2000) reported an analysis of a sample of B2 radio-galaxies with the HRI of ROSAT. Their fits of the distribution with a King profile is reported in Fig. 1b, (we also report the logaritmic average) together with our pressure estimates. Notably, the expected external gas pressure is of the same order of the pressure inferred in jets, strongly suggesting that the external gas and the jet are in pressure equilibrium.

## 3 Conclusions

The results discussed above seems to point toward a simple scenario for the dynamical evolution of the jet from inner to the outer regions. Clearly the pressure in the blazar jet is larger than any possible confining gas. This means that, after the dissipation region, the jet expands freely until the internal pressure (gas and/or magnetic) reaches the pressure of the (supposed) hot gas of the galactic halo. At this point a reconfinement shock forms (the jet is highly supersonic), particle are accelerated, and the jet starts to decelerate (Sanders 1983, Komissarov 1994). This scenario seems to account for the typical distance at which knots form and also provide a reliable mechanism for the production of relativistic particles. A even more interesting result is that the expected pressure decay along the jet seems to be consistent with the simple profiles predicted for a free, conical expanding jet (Blandford & Koenigl 1979). A similar scenario has been recently proposed to explain the dynamics of the jet in the FRI radio galaxy 3C31 by Laing & Bridle (2002). The results discussed here are based on a very small group of sources: future studies along these lines could further support this scenario, providing important clues on the dynamics of relativistic jets.


text:
# GRB afterglow light curves from uniform and non-uniform jets

## 1 Introduction

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are known as an explosive phenomenon occurring at cosmological distances, emitting large amount of energy mostly in the gamma-ray range (see, e.g. Piran 1999; Cheng & Lu 2001 for a review). Observations show that some of GRBs are emitting an extremely large energy with $`E_\gamma 10^{52}`$ ergs if emission is isotropic. For example, GRB990123, the most energetic GRB event detected so far, has an isotropic gamma-ray energy of $`3.4\times 10^{54}`$ ergs, which corresponds to the rest-mass energy of $`1.9M_{}`$ (Kulkarni et al. 1999). Such a crisis of extreme large energy forced some people to think that the GRB emission must be highly collimated in order to reduce the total energy.

The second reason for GRB emission being jet-like comes from the fact that there are sharp breaks in the light curves of some GRBs’ afterglows, such as GRB990123 (Kulkarni et al. 1999; Castro-Tirado et al. 1999) and GRB990510 (Harrison et al. 1999; Stanek et al. 1999), etc.. These observed breaks have generally been interpreted as evidence for collimation of the GRB ejecta, since Rhoads (1999) and Sari et al. (1999) have pointed out that the lateral expansion of the relativistic jet can produce a sharp break in the afterglow light curve.

However, in the current afterglow jet models, it is generally assumed that the jet is uniform, and the line-of-sight is just along the jet axis. It is obvious that these assumptions are usually not true, since some GRB models predict that the jet may be non-uniform, within which the energy per unit solid angle decreases away from the jet axis, such as $`ϵ\theta ^k`$ (e.g. MacFadyen et al. 2001), and the probability that the line-of-sight just crosses the jet axis is near zero. So it is very important to investigate the situation that the jet is non-uniform and is seen by observers at a wide range of viewing angles from the jet axis. Some authors have already considered the situation of anisotropic jets (Meszaros, Rees & Wijers 1998; Salmonson 2001; Dai & Gou 2001; Zhang & Meszaros 2002; Rossi, Lazzati & Rees 2002). In this paper, we give a detailed calculation of the emission from anisotropic jets, including the effect of equal-arrival-time surface. In the next section we discuss the dynamical evolution of the jet, in section 3 we calculate the emission from uniform jet for different viewing angle, in section 4 we calculate the emission features from non-uniform jet, and finally we present some discussions and conclusions.

## 2 Dynamical evolution of the jet

Now we consider an adiabatic relativistic jet expanding in the surrounding medium. For energy conservation, the evolution equation is

$$\gamma ^2\mathrm{\Delta }Nm_pc^2=ϵ\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }$$
(1)
where $`\gamma `$ is the bulk Lorentz factor, $`\mathrm{\Delta }N=\frac{1}{3}nr^3\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the particle numbers swept by the jet within a solid angle $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`n`$ is the surrounding medium density, and $`ϵ`$ is the energy per unit solid angle.

It is well known that for relativistic blast waves, the received photons at time $`T`$ are not emitted at the same time. A photon that is located at radius $`r`$ and is emitted with an angle $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ from the line-of-sight will reach the observer at time $`T=r(1\beta \mu )/(\beta c)`$, where $`\mu =\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }`$. Then we can obtain the jet evolution

$$\gamma =(\frac{3ϵ}{n})^{1/2}(m_pc^2)^{1/2}(\frac{\beta cT}{1\beta \mu })^{3/2}$$
(2)
We see that the jet Lorentz factor evolution is dependent on the angle $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, for different values of $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ the relation between $`\gamma `$ and $`T`$ are different. Here we neglect the sideways expansion of the jet since this process is very unclear. For relativistic jet,

$$\gamma (1\beta \mu )^{3/2}3.4\times 10^5(\frac{ϵ_{54}}{n_1})^{1/2}T_{day}^{3/2}$$
(3)
where $`ϵ_{54}`$ is the energy in units of $`10^{54}`$ ergs, $`n_1`$ is the surrounding density in units of 1 atom $`cm^3`$, and $`T_{day}`$ is the observed time in units of 1 day. In the case of $`\gamma 1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }1`$, we have

$$\gamma (1+\gamma ^2\mathrm{\Theta }^2)^{3/8}=18.6(\frac{ϵ_{54}}{n_1})^{1/8}T_{day}^{3/8}$$
(4)
This equation can be solved numerically, and by fitting the numerical results, we obtain the analytical solution

$$\gamma =\{\begin{array}{cc}10^{1.27}(\frac{ϵ_{54}}{n_1})^{1/8}T_{day}^{3/8},\hfill & \mathrm{for}\gamma \mathrm{\Theta }1\hfill \\ 10^{5.08}(\frac{ϵ_{54}}{n_1})^{1/2}T_{day}^{3/2}\mathrm{\Theta }^3,\hfill & \mathrm{for}\gamma \mathrm{\Theta }>1\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)
It is obvious that the usual solution $`\gamma T^{3/8}`$ is valid only when $`\mathrm{\Theta }\gamma ^1`$, while when $`\mathrm{\Theta }>\gamma ^1`$ the relation becomes $`\gamma T^{3/2}`$.

## 3 emission from uniform jet

Emission features from uniform jet has been discussed by many authors, and it is widely believed that there is a sharp break in the GRB afterglow light curve corresponds to the time $`\gamma \theta _j^1`$, where $`\theta _j`$ is the jet half-opening angle. However, this is true only when the observer line-of-sight just crosses the jet axis, and in fact this probability is very small. So here we calculate the jet emission for various viewing angles.

We follow our previous paper (Wei & Lu 2000) to calculate the emission flux from the jet. We assume that the line-of-sight is along $`z`$-axis, the symmetry axis of the jet is in the $`yz`$ plane, $`\theta _v`$ is the angle between the line-of-sight and the symmetry axis, and the radiation is isotropic in the comoving frame of the ejecta. In order to see more clearly, let us establish an auxiliary coordinate system ($`x^{},y^{},z^{}`$) with the $`z^{}`$-axis along the symmetry axis of the cone and the $`x^{}`$ parallel the $`x`$-axis. Then the position within the cone is specified by its angular spherical coordinates $`\theta `$ and $`\varphi `$ ($`0\theta \theta _j`$, $`0\varphi 2\pi `$). It can be shown that the angle $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ between a direction ($`\theta ,\varphi `$) within the cone, and the line-of-sight satisfies $`cos\mathrm{\Theta }=cos\theta _vcos\theta sin\theta _vsin\theta sin\varphi `$. Then the observed flux is

$$F_\nu =_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi _0^{\theta _j}sin\theta 𝑑\theta D^3I^{}(\nu D^1)\frac{r^2}{d^2}$$
(6)
where $`D=[\gamma (1\beta cos\mathrm{\Theta })]^1`$ is the Doppler factor, $`\beta =(1\gamma ^2)^{1/2}`$, $`\nu =D\nu ^{}`$, $`I^{}(\nu ^{})`$ is the specific intensity of synchrotron radiation at $`\nu ^{}`$, and $`d`$ is the distance of the burst source. Here the quantities with primes are measured in the comoving frame.

It is generally believed that the electrons have been accelerated by the shock to a power law distribution $`n_e(\gamma _e)\gamma _e^p`$ for $`\gamma _{min}\gamma _e\gamma _{max}`$, and consider the synchrotron radiation of these electrons, we can obtain the observed flux

$$F_\nu T^3\nu ^{\frac{p1}{2}}_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi _0^{\theta _j}sin\theta 𝑑\theta f(\gamma )(1\beta \mu )^{\frac{p+11}{2}}$$
(7)
where $`T`$ is the time measured in the observer frame, $`f(\gamma )=\gamma ^{(p+7)/2}(\gamma 1)^{(p+1)/4}y(\gamma )^{(p+5)/4}\gamma _{min}^{p1}\beta ^3`$, $`y(\gamma )=\frac{\widehat{\gamma }\gamma +1}{\widehat{\gamma }1}`$, $`\widehat{\gamma }`$ is just the ratio of specific heats, $`\gamma _{min}=\xi _e(\gamma 1)\frac{m_p}{m_e}\frac{p2}{p1}`$, $`m_p(m_e)`$ is the mass of proton (electron). In the relativistic case, we have

$$F_\nu T^3\nu ^{\frac{p1}{2}}_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi _0^{\theta _j}sin\theta 𝑑\theta \gamma ^{p3}(1\beta \mu )^{\frac{p+11}{2}}$$
(8)
Combining the jet evolution results (eq. (2)), finally we obtain the observed flux

$$F_\nu T^{\frac{3}{2}p+\frac{15}{2}}\nu ^{\frac{p1}{2}}_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi _0^{\theta _j}sin\theta 𝑑\theta ϵ^{\frac{p3}{2}}(1\beta \mu )^{p10}$$
(9)
This is the basic equation for our calculation. Here we take $`\theta _j=0.1`$, $`p=2.5`$ and $`n_1=1`$ throughout this paper.

For uniform jet, the energy per unit solid angle $`ϵ`$ is independent of $`\theta `$, $`\varphi `$, we take $`ϵ_{54}=1`$. Then using equations (2) and (9), we can calculate the jet emission for different viewing angles. Fig.1 gives our numerical results. From Fig.1 we see that the afterglow light curves for different viewing angles are somewhat different: in general, there are two breaks in the light curve, the first one corresponds to the time at which $`\gamma (\theta _j\theta _v)^1`$, and the second one corresponds to the time when $`\gamma (\theta _j+\theta _v)^1`$. This is quite different from the previous results, which think there is one break occurred at $`\gamma \theta _j^1`$.

## 4 Emission from non-uniform jet

Uniform jet is only a special case, in general we expect the jet is non-uniform, for instance, the collapsar model predicted that the jet is non-uniform, within which the energy per unit solid angle decreases away from the jet axis (e.g. MacFadyen et al. 2001). Here we suppose the energy per unit solid angle has the form

$$ϵ=\{\begin{array}{cc}ϵ_0\hfill & \mathrm{for}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}0}\theta \theta _c\hfill \\ ϵ_0(\frac{\theta }{\theta _c})^k\hfill & \mathrm{for}\theta _c\theta \theta _j\hfill \end{array}$$
(10)
where $`\theta _c`$ is introduced to avoid a divergence at $`\theta =0`$. For arbitrary viewing angle $`\theta _v`$, the situation is very complicated, so first we consider the case $`\theta _v=0`$, since this can give an analytical analysis.

In the case of $`\theta _v=0`$, we have $`\mu =\mathrm{cos}\theta `$. It should be noted that there is an interesting phenomenon, the values of $`\gamma \theta `$ increase with the angle $`\theta `$, i.e. there is a characteristic angle $`\theta _{}`$, at which the value $`\gamma _{}\theta _{}=1`$, when $`\theta <\theta _{}`$ the value $`\gamma \theta <1`$, and when $`\theta >\theta _{}`$ the value $`\gamma \theta >1`$. It is obvious that the main contribution of emission comes from the region $`\theta \theta _{}`$, so $`\theta _{}`$ is an important quantity. It can be shown that when $`TT_11.7(\frac{ϵ_{0,54}}{n_1})^{1/3}(\frac{\theta _c}{0.02})^{8/3}`$ hours, the value $`\theta _{}=10^{1.27}(\frac{ϵ_{0,54}}{n_1})^{1/8}T_{day}^{3/8}\theta _c`$, and when $`TT_25.2\times (0.2)^{k/3}(\frac{ϵ_{0,54}}{n_1})^{1/3}(\frac{\theta _c}{0.02})^{k/3}(\frac{\theta _j}{0.1})^{(8k)/3}`$ days, the value $`\theta _{}=10^{1.27\times 8/(8k)}(\frac{ϵ_{0,54}}{n_1})^{1/(8k)}\theta _c^{k/(8k)}T_{day}^{3/(8k)}\theta _j`$.

Taking equation (5) and the approximate expression $`1\beta \mu (2\gamma ^2)^1`$ for $`\theta <\theta _{}`$, or $`1\beta \mu \frac{1}{2}\theta ^2`$ for $`\theta >\theta _{}`$, we can get the analytical results: (1) when $`TT_1`$, the observed flux $`F_\nu T^{3(p1)/4}`$; (2) when $`T_1TT_2`$, the flux $`F_\nu T^{\frac{3(2p+k2)}{8k}}`$ for $`k<\frac{8}{p+4}`$, or $`F_\nu T^{3p/4}`$ for $`k>\frac{8}{p+4}`$; (3) when $`T>T_2`$, the flux $`F_\nu T^{3p/4}`$. From this result we see that, for smaller value of $`k`$, the transition of the afterglow light curve index from $`\frac{3(p1)}{4}`$ to $`\frac{3p}{4}`$ is gradual and smooth with a timescale of about $`T_2`$, while for larger values of $`k`$, the transition is rapid with a timescale of about $`T_1`$.

In order to verify the above results, we also make a numerical calculation for the case $`\theta _v=0`$. Fig.2 gives our results. It is obvious that the numerical results are consistent with the analytical results, for larger value of $`k`$, the steepening of the light curve is more rapidly. We suggest this may explain some afterglow light curves which decay rapidly and have no breaks, since for larger value of $`k`$ the transition time ($`T_1`$) is earlier than our first observation time.

However, it should be noted that the appearance of the early break in the light curve (corresponding to the time when $`\gamma \theta _c^1`$) is due to the assumed energy distribution function (equation (10)), and the sharpness of this break is primarily dependent on the discontinuity in slope of $`ϵ`$ for the idealized model of equation (10) at $`\theta =\theta _c`$. It is obvious that for a realistic energy distribution, the transition of $`ϵ`$ from roughly constant for $`\theta <\theta _c`$ to $`ϵ\theta ^k`$ for $`\theta >\theta _c`$ should be smooth. Therefore this break may be washed out by a realistic energy distribution.

For the general case $`\theta _v0`$, we calculate the afterglow light curves numerically using equations (2), (9) and (10), the results are given in Fig.3 - Fig.6. From these figures we see that the afterglow light curves are dependent on the values of $`\theta _v`$, $`\theta _c`$ and $`k`$. When $`\theta _v`$ is near $`\theta _c`$ and $`k`$ is small, then the light curve is similar to the case of $`\theta _v=0`$, except the flux is somewhat lower. However, if the viewing angle $`\theta _v`$ is larger than $`\theta _c`$ and $`k`$ is not very small, then there will be a prominent flattening in the afterglow light curve, which is quite different from the case of uniform jet, and after the flattening a very sharp break will be occurred around the time $`\gamma (\theta _v+\theta _c)^1`$. If the viewing angle $`\theta _v`$ is larger than the jet half-opening angle $`\theta _j`$, then the flux will first increase with time until the Lorentz factor is about $`\gamma (\theta _v\theta _j)^1`$, thereafter the flux begin to decay with time.

## 5 Discussion and conclusion

In this paper we calculate the GRB afterglow light curves from relativistic jets in more details, assuming that the jet may be uniform or non-uniform, and the observer locate at arbitrary angle with respect to the jet axis. We have shown that there are several distinct features of our jet emission compared with previous jet model.

In previous analysis, it is generally assumed that the jet is uniform and the line-of-sight is just along the jet axis, in this case the afterglow light curves have a break at the time $`\gamma \theta _j^1`$. However, if the viewing angle $`\theta _v0`$, we have shown that there should be two breaks in the light curve, the first one corresponds to the time at which $`\gamma (\theta _j\theta _v)^1`$, and the second one corresponds to the time when $`\gamma (\theta _j+\theta _v)^1`$, although these transitions are very smoothly.

If the jet is not uniform, within which the energy distribution is given by eq.(10), then the calculation is more complicated. In the case of $`\theta _v=0`$, we can give an analytical result, for $`k<8/(p+4)`$(where $`p`$ is the spectral index of electron energy distribution) there should be two breaks in the light curve correspond to $`\gamma \theta _c^1`$ and $`\gamma \theta _j^1`$ respectively, while for $`k>8/(p+4)`$ there should be only one break corresponds to $`\gamma \theta _c^1`$, after that the flux decays as $`F_\nu T^{3p/4}`$. We argue that this may explain some rapidly fading afterglows whose light curves have no breaks, since the time $`T_1`$, at which $`\gamma \theta _c^1`$, is usually earlier than our first observation time.

If the jet is non-uniform and the viewing angle $`\theta _v0`$, only numerical results can be given. We have shown that in this case the shape of afterglow light curve is dependent on the values of $`\theta _v`$, $`\theta _c`$ and $`k`$. When $`\theta _v`$ is near $`\theta _c`$ and $`k`$ is small, then the light curve is similar to the case of $`\theta _v=0`$, except the flux is somewhat lower. However, if the viewing angle $`\theta _v`$ is larger than $`\theta _c`$ and $`k`$ is not small, then there will be a prominent flattening in the afterglow light curve, which is quite different from the case of uniform jet, and after the flattening a very sharp break will be occurred around the time $`\gamma (\theta _v+\theta _c)^1`$. We think this is a main difference between the uniform and non-uniform jet, and we can identify whether the jet is uniform or not by this feature.

It is not very difficult to understand why sometimes there is a flattening in the light curve. It is well known that, for a relativistic blast wave with Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1`$, the observer can only observe a solid angle around $`\theta _v`$ with a half opening angle of order $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$, the contribution from other components can be neglected, so when the blast wave decelerates, the observer can see larger components. For the case of non-uniform jet and $`\theta _v>\theta _c`$, the energy at $`\theta =\theta _v`$ is much smaller than that of smaller $`\theta `$, so when $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ decreases, the observer can observe more region with larger energy (smaller $`\theta `$), so there will be a flattening in the light curve.

We would point out that, in our calculation we have neglected the sideways expansion of the jet since this process is too complicated. However, we know that, in fact this process is an important issue in determining the shape of a light curve, since it will likely significantly change the shape of the light curve for both the uniform and non-uniform jets. So we suggest that for a more realistic calculation the sideways expansion should be taken into account.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are very grateful to J.D. Salmonson for several important comments that improved this paper. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (grants 10073022 and 10225314) and the National 973 Project on Fundamental Researches of China (NKBRSF G19990754).