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# Temperature determination via STJ optical spectroscopy

## 1 Introduction

The determination of astrophysical temperatures in the optical usually requires photometric filtering systems or dispersive optics. Recent developments in high-efficiency superconducting detectors, however, have opened the possibility of measuring photon energies directly (Perryman et al. 1993; Peacock et al. 1996). While the energy resolution possible with this technology is presently modest, it has already proven invaluable for studying faint, rapidly varying astrophysical sources such as cataclysmic variables. The study of colour ratio variations in these systems has already yielded significant new insights into the accretion regimes, the logical next step being to derive temperatures for the various system components.

ESA has developed two prototype cameras based on an array of STJ devices, and high time-resolution spectrally-resolved observations of rapidly variable sources such as cataclysmic variables and optical pulsars have been reported (Perryman et al. 1999, Perryman et al. 2001, Bridge et al. 2002a, Steeghs et al. 2002, Bridge et al. 2002b). In addition, we have now demonstrated that we can measure quasar redshifts directly with a precision of $``$ 1% (de Bruijne et al. 2002). The quasar study involved fitting a synthetic model to the observed distribution of photon energies in a given observation, and then adjusting the model redshift until a best-fit was obtained. In this paper we perform a similar study on a small sample of stellar observations. We demonstrate that we can fit black bodies to the data and thereby extract reasonable estimates of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ for objects spanning a range of temperatures between $``$ 3000—15 000 K. Having demonstrated the validity of the method, we then apply it to the specific case of accretion regions in several cataclysmic variable binary systems.

## 2 Observations

### 2.1 The sample

The sample of stellar observations consists of flux standards and scientific targets observed during three campaigns on the 4.2–m William Herschel Telescope on La Palma. Since these observations were conducted for reasons other than this study, the data set is rather inhomogeneous with regards to neutral density filter settings, seeing conditions and S/N. The observations are listed in Table 1. Spectral types are assigned on the basis of the current SIMBAD entry, while $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ values are derived from the literature. The hot white dwarf G191-B2B was used to constrain the instrumental response at high energies and is therefore omitted from the subsequent discussion.

### 2.2 The Instrument

S-Cam2 is ESA’s second STJ camera and was used on the three campaigns during which the observations were made. The instrument was mounted at the Nasmyth focus of the WHT during all the three campaigns. The camera contains a 6 $`\times `$ 6 staggered array of 25 $`\times `$ 25 $`\mu `$m2 (0.6 $`\times `$ 0.6 arcsec2) tantalum junctions. The arrival times of individual photons are recorded with an accuracy of 5 $`\mu `$s, with an energy resolving power $`R`$ $``$ 8. The wavelength response of the instrument is 310–720 nm. The violet cutoff is determined by the atmospheric absorption window, while the red cutoff is caused by the presence of long-wavelength filters designed to reduce thermal noise. Observations were made in conditions ranging from good to poor seeing, and with airmasses in the range 1.05–1.54.

## 3 Data reduction

Although we are dealing with optical spectra, our techniques and tools are those of high-energy astrophysics and we therefore find it more natural to discuss our data in the energy domain. We are typically dealing with photons in the range $``$ 1.5—4 eV, about a thousand times less energetic than soft X-ray energies.

The output from a single S-Cam2 observation consists of a list of photon arrival times, together with the pixel in which each event was recorded and the channel in which the event has been assigned by the pulse height analyser (PHA) electronics. The assigned channel depends linearly on the charge released by each photon when it arrived, which in turn depends linearly on the energy of the photon. The overall relationship between photon energy and channel number is therefore given by $`E_i=GE_p+C`$, where $`E_p`$ is the energy of the incident photon in eV, and where $`G`$ and $`C`$ are the gain (in channels/eV) and offset (in channels) of the relevant pixel. The gain and offset properties of all pixels have been mapped and found to be linear and stable for a given temperature of the detector holder. However small variations in the detector holder temperature and the electronic environment of the array can cause variations in gain of $``$ 1 % during the course of a set of observations. This gain ‘jitter’ cannot be determined independently of the observations and therefore sets a limit on the accuracy with which temperatures can presently be determined.

Data reduction proceeds as follows. We first select the time interval of data which is to be used to generate an output spectrum. If necessary, spatial filtering may also be applied at this stage by selecting and deselecting pixels, e.g., utilising only the pixels which see sky rather than source. For each selected pixel we then adjust the counts in each PHA channel to remove known analogue-to-digital artifacts. This results in a PHA spectrum at the particular gain and offset of that pixel. We then resample this spectrum such that it is on a common gain scale corresponding to a well-behaved reference pixel, and then co-add the contributions from all selected pixels, making an appropriate correction for the small differences in detection efficiency from pixel to pixel. The gain and offset of the reference pixel are assumed to be $`G=42.5`$ channels eV-1, and $`C=2.0`$ channels.

The extracted spectra will also contain a contribution from the sky background which — depending on the source brightness — may need to be removed before model fitting can take place. The sky contribution can be estimated in two ways. If the seeing was good, then the corner pixels of the array may be used to obtain a sky spectrum. The advantage of this approach is that it ensures that the sky brightness is appropriate for the observation in question. The second approach is to use a sky frame obtained close (in time and position) to the observation in question. This approach has the advantage that many pixels are being sampled for the sky, smoothing out variations in gain away from the nominal values. In the case of this study we used corner pixels when the seeing was good, but when this was not the case we relied on sky frames taken as close as possible to the observation. These were not dedicated sky frames, but the results are relatively insensitive to the details of the background subtraction; indeed for most of the objects in our sample the background contribution is small enough to have little effect on the measured temperature.

## 4 Temperature Determinations

### 4.1 Method

We discuss two complimentary approaches to temperature determination. In both cases we compare model spectra with the observed distribution of photon energies, searching for the closest match. The first approach uses synthetic black body spectra (Sect.4.2), while the second uses a library of stellar templates of varying spectral type (Sect.4.3).

In both cases due allowance is made for the finite energy resolution of S-Cam2, the transmissive properties of the atmosphere, telescope optics and detector elements, and the overall quantum efficiency of the detector. We make no allowance for the reddening effects of circumstellar and/or interstellar extinction, although our results suggest that this is not a serious drawback, at least in relation to our current sample of stars. For the model fitting, use is made of the XSPEC spectral analysis package (Arnaud 1996), a well-known tool for X-ray astronomy, but which is equally suited to the analysis of low-energy-resolution optical data. Apart from the data (including target and background files), the two inputs that XSPEC requires are a response matrix and a model spectrum with one or more adjustable parameters. The response matrix specifies the transformation of the model spectrum from infinite energy resolution to the degraded energy resolution of the device, with the folding in of the overall detector efficiency. XSPEC then finds the set of model parameters that result in the lowest value of $`\chi `$2. The package contains a large number of internal models (including a black body) but these were designed for the analysis of satellite data and are not modified for the effects of atmospheric absorption. We therefore supply our own models, adjusted for the mean atmospheric transmission corresponding to the specific airmass of each stellar observation. We created a grid of models spanning temperatures between 1000 and 100 000 K, and then used XSPEC to find the temperature corresponding to the best-fit black body, interpolating between grid values.

### 4.2 Results: black body fits

In Fig. 1 we show the data and model fits for three of our observations, together with the corresponding curves of temperature versus $`\chi `$2. Data channels 61–179 are included in the fits, corresponding to the $`\lambda 310`$$`850`$ nm bandpass of the instrument, plus an additional 10 channels at the red and blue ends to account for the overspill of detected events due to the finite energy resolution.

The models are the input black bodies after modification for atmospheric transmission and convolution with the overall detector response. As is clear from the minima in the adjacent $`\chi ^2`$ versus $`T`$ plots, the fits are not formally acceptable, for which one would expect $`\chi ^2`$ in the range 50–150. Nonetheless there are well-defined minima in the $`\chi ^2`$ versus $`T`$ curves, indicating the validity of the fitting process. These are all stars with literature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ $`<`$ 15 000 K. The two hottest stars in our sample both have $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}>\mathrm{40\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K, and in these cases there is no minimum in the $`\chi ^2`$ versus $`T`$ curve, since for these objects we are only fitting the red tail of the black body curve, which varies only slowly for large increases in temperature.

In Fig. 2 we show the observed versus literature temperatures for the nine stars in our sample. Horizontal error bars on some points indicate published uncertainty in the literature temperatures. Where there are two or more literature values we use a mean value (see Table 1 for notes on literature temperatures and adopted means). The vertical error bars reflect the uncertainty in the gain at the time of the observation, which is typically much larger than the uncertainty introduced solely by the fitting process (but see Sect.5). We estimate the gain uncertainty in the following fashion.

It is known that small (mK) variations in the temperature of the detector holder in the S-Cam2 cryogenic system lead to short-term variations in the gain on a timescale of minutes to hours, but the instantaneous gain can presently only be measured directly when observations are not in progress. This is done using an internal calibration source consisting of a red LED which illuminates the whole array. Several LED frames were obtained most nights, with $``$ 10–15 frames per campaign. An analysis of the LED data showed that the gain varied from one LED frame to another with a standard deviation (1 $`\sigma `$) of 0.4 channels eV-1, or $``$ 1 % of the gain. If this gain ‘jitter’ is also applicable to the observation data set, we should expect that $``$ 67 %, or $``$ 6, of our observations, should have gains that lie within 0.4 channels eV-1 of the nominal gain of 42.5 channels eV-1. All else being correct, therefore, $``$ 6 of our observations should have error bars that intersect the diagonal relationship between $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ (literature) and $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ (observed), with $``$ 2–3 outliers. To investigate whether or not this is the case, we therefore regenerated the response matrix for $`\pm `$ 1.0 $`\sigma `$ extreme gain ranges and remeasured the data using the black body fits. The resultant temperatures for the upper and lower gain cases are indicated by the vertical error bars. As is evident from Fig. 2, seven targets have error bars that intersect the diagonal, with only two outliers, one of which has rather an uncertain literature temperature. We therefore conclude that the only significant source of error in our analysis is due to the uncertain gain variations, and that this is entirely consistent with the gain jitter as characterised by the LED frames. Note that for the two hot stars in our sample, the black body fits reach the 100 000 K model limit at the central gain and/or the lower gain limit, and so the error bars are only constrained at the lower temperature range.

### 4.3 Results: stellar template models

The results shown in Fig. 2 suggest that the method works at least as well for cool stars (M-types) as it does for the hotter objects, and that there is no significant source of error beyond the gain uncertainty. Nonetheless, while spectra of hot white dwarfs do indeed resemble black bodies, this is not the case for the line-dominated cooler stars. To investigate whether the use of realistic spectra would improve the determinations, we made use of a library of digital spectra obtained at Kitt Peak National Observatory (Jacoby et al. 1984). The library contains 161 stars with spectral types between M and O. We selected 20 stars of luminosity class V, with spectral types between M5V and 05V. The digital spectra were then used as input models in the spectral fitting process, again folding in atmospheric absorption. In this case we simply selected the template that gave the lowest $`\chi ^2`$ against an observation.

The resultant minimum determines the spectral type of the observation, from which an estimate of the temperature can be made. This is of course a less direct determination of temperature than black body fitting. Given the relatively small number of objects in our template selection, we estimate that the precision of the spectral class assignment is $``$ 2 subclasses. Here we discuss only the non-degenerate stars in our sample. AD Leo and EV Lac are both cool M3.5 flare stars, while Feige 15 is an A0 star. For AD Leo and EV Lac we determine the spectral type to be M5 in both cases, slightly cooler than the true spectral type of M3.5. For Feige 15 we find a spectral type of B6, somewhat hotter than the true value of A0. The results are therefore acceptable within the anticipated error, but show no obvious improvement in comparison with the black body estimates. Improved results might be obtained with a larger set of templates, but for the time being there is no clear disadvantage in using the pure black body models, even for cooler stars.

### 4.4 Spectral distortion due to pile-up

In common with all photon counting detectors, S-Cam2 has a finite response time associated with the arrival of a single photon. If a second photon arrives during this interval, the detection of one or both may be affected. Although a naive consideration might suggest that two photons arriving within a short time would always lead to a higher energy being detected, in practice the detailed properties of the electronic shaping mean that possible outcomes can include not only the assigning of higher energies to one or more events, but also the assigning of lower energies or even the non-detection of an event. The net result is that as count rates increase, recorded spectra suffer increasing distortion, with events being redistributed to both higher and lower energy channels.

The electronics of S-Cam2 are such that only photons arriving on a single pixel within $``$ 200 $`\mu `$s of a preceding photon will be affected by pile-up. Pile-up should therefore be of little consequence for count rates below 500–1000 Hz per pixel, a prediction which has been verified in the laboratory. Since the maximum count rates of our stellar observations are all $`<`$ 800 Hz per pixel, pile-up is not expected to cause significant error in the derived temperatures. To explore this further, we have simulated the electronic response of S-Cam2 to the rapidly varying intensity profile of the Crab pulsar, an object that was observed during several S-Cam campaigns (Perryman et al. 1999). The instantaneous intensity of the Crab pulsar and its background nebula component ranges from $``$ 100 counts s-1 per pixel in the interpulse to $`>`$ 2000 counts s-1 per pixel during the main pulse. Our phase-resolved observations of the Crab were split into three energy bands, corresponding roughly to red ($`R`$), visual ($`V`$) and blue ($`B`$). From these three energy bands we construct two colour ratios: $`V/R`$ and $`B/V`$, and plot them against phase (Fig. 3). Significant variations are apparent, especially in the $`B/V`$ data, but after dividing out the predicted variations due to pile-up, there is no longer any strong evidence for colour changes across the pulse profile. This is consistent with previous studies in the UV-optical-IR band, which have reported either no colour changes (e.g., Carramiñana et al. 2000), or very slight ones (e.g., Eikenberry et al. 1996, Romani et al. 2001). This suggests that the pile-up characteristics of S-Cam2 are well understood, at least in the count rate regime probed by the Crab.

Using the same approach, we have created a synthetic input stellar spectrum and subjected this to simulated pile-up distortion for count rates ranging from 10–3000 counts s-1 per pixel. At each count rate we determine the temperature via the same black body fitting method outlined earlier. We generated ten simulations at each count rate step, measuring the temperatures individually and deriving their mean and variance.

The results, shown in Fig. 4, indicate that pile-up has no significant effect on the measured temperature for count rates below $``$ 250 counts s-1 per pixel, and is modest for count rates $``$ 750 counts s-1 per pixel. Once the count rate exceeds $``$ 1000 counts s-1, however, the distortion becomes severe and pile-up rivals gain uncertainty as the main source of error in temperature determination. Similar conclusions are drawn using a hotter input spectrum. None of the stellar observations discussed in this paper had individual pixel count rates in excess of 700 counts s-1, indicating that pile-up is not the major source of error in our data. In future versions of the instrument, however, where the gain variations are likely to be better constrained, an accurate treatment of pile-up may be necessary in order to extract the most accurate temperature determinations.

## 5 Application of the technique: cataclysmic variable stars

During the course of the three S-Cam2 campaigns we also made a number of observations of eclipsing cataclysmic variables (CVs). Three systems were polars and one a dwarf nova. Reports on the S-Cam2 observations of the polars UZ For, HU Aqr and EP Dra may be found in Perryman et al. (2001), and Bridge et al. (2002a, 2002b). S-Cam2 observations of the dwarf nova IY UMa are reported in Steeghs et al. (2002).

The main difference between these systems is in the accretion process, which is in turn determined by the strength of the magnetic field. In polars the field is sufficiently strong that accretion stream from the secondary becomes magnetically confined in the vicinity of the dwarf. From this point accretion material follows magnetic field lines to the dwarf surface, where accretion occurs through a stand-off shock. In the dwarf novae, the magnetic field is weak or absent, such that accretion is via a disk.

Prior to the eclipse, the dominant source of optical emission is the central accretion region, be it the white dwarf, one or more hotspots on the surface, and/or a bright accretion column. Once this region is occulted by the donor star, however, cooler, fainter components become amenable to study. In the polars these include the rear hemisphere of the donor and the accretion stream itself. In dwarf novae, the disk/stream interaction is seen in addition to the contribution from the secondary. In principle, the stream or disk temperatures can be measured provided the contribution from the secondary is small enough to ignore, or can be subtracted. S-Cam2 is obviously well suited to this kind of study, since the event list data allow spectra to be accumulated across any specified time interval.

### 5.1 Stream temperatures in magnetic CVs: HU Aqr, EP Dra, UZ For

HU Aqr is a polar with a period of $``$ 125 min. S-Cam2 observations of this binary are discussed in detail in Bridge et al. (2002b). Three eclipses were observed, each of which was characterised by a very sharp ingress of the bright accretion region, followed by a more gradual ingress of a component identified with the accretion stream. The eclipse with the best S/N is shown in Fig. 5, where the accretion stream ingress is very well defined. By studying hardness ratios, Bridge et al. concluded that the light from the system became significantly redder once the accretion region was eclipsed, as expected given that the stream is likely to be much cooler than the accretion region. However the error bars on the data were too large to put any strong constraints on the temperature gradient along the stream.

We have now reexamined the HU Aqr data, this time using the temperature fitting technique. In all three eclipses, a spectrum corresponding to the stream was isolated, together with a portion of mid-eclipse data to use for background subtraction. Using the mid-eclipse as a background has the advantage that we are also subtracting any residual light from the donor star, thereby isolating only the stream.

Of the three eclipses observed by S-Cam2, the first two had insufficient S/N (due to seeing, and/or weakness of the feature) to enable the stream to be split into sub-components. The first eclipse yielded $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=6700\pm 600`$ K, while the second yielded $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=6500\pm 500`$ K. The third eclipse could be split into four time-resolved components, as indicated in Fig. 5. These gave — in increasing time order — $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=6600,6600,6700`$ and $`6300`$ K, with an estimated error on each measurement of $`\pm `$ 600 K. The fit to the first segment of stream data is shown in Fig. 6. Clearly there is no evidence for a gradient in temperature along the stream. Using $`UBVR`$ photometry, Harrop-Allin et al. (1999) estimated the stream temperature in HU Aqr to lie in the range 6500–7400 K, with 6500 K being their preferred estimate, in satisfactory agreement with the results reported here. We thus have confidence in extending the technique to other systems.

UZ For and EP Dra are also eclipsing polars which have been the subject of S-Cam2 observations (Perryman et al. 2001, Bridge et al. 2002a). In both cases a stream is sometimes seen, though it is not as well-defined as in HU Aqr. We used the same approach as above, isolating stream/eclipse regions. In the case of EP Dra we observed clear stream ingresses in three eclipses, yielding $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ values of 5700 K, 7200 K and 6050 K. The uncertainties were also $``$ $`\pm `$ 600 K. In this case there is a possible source of systematic error since certain pixels were somewhat unstable during the observations. Clearly, however, the fits point to the stream having a temperature in the same range as that seen in HU Aqr.

In the case of UZ For there was only one eclipse for which the data quality was sufficiently high to permit the extraction of a stream spectrum. Here, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ was found to be 11 700 K $`\pm `$ 2500 K, significantly higher than for the other two CVs. The fit is shown in Fig. 7. The quoted error includes the uncertainty associated with the model fit, in addition to the uncertain gain (normally our statistics are such that the gain uncertainty is the only significant source of error).

Such a high temperature is not necessarily unreasonable, since the observed temperature of the stream is influenced by a number of processes. The most important are irradiation by X-rays from the white dwarf and magnetic heating in the threading region where material is magnetically confined. The amount of magnetic heating will be related to the amount and density of material in the stream, and is possibly caused by magnetic reconnection or turbulence (Li 1999) or small shocks (Liebert & Stockman 1985; Hameury et al. 1986). The amount of irradiative heating of the stream will be dependent upon the area of the stream presented to the white dwarf. The temperature that we determine is then influenced by the area of this heated stream face presented to the observer.

The larger temperature found for UZ For is therefore probably a consequence of observing a larger area of the heated stream face, and stream material that is heated more in the threading region. The UZ For S-Cam2 observations show evidence for two accretion regions (see Perryman et al. 2001). This means that the field lines along which material accretes are filled above and below the orbital plane. We therefore observe more of the heated face of the stream than in HU Aqr or EP Dra where there is evidence for accretion at only one region on the white dwarf (Bridge et al. 2002a, 2002b). Material is still probably heated in HU Aqr at the threading region, as found by Vrielmann & Schwope (2001) and Harrop-Allin (1999) previously, and this also probably occurs in EP Dra. However, the viewing angle to the stream is such that we do not see as large an area of the heated stream face. Future observations of UZ For will aim to improve the S/N of the stream component.

### 5.2 The temperature of the white dwarf in the non-magnetic CV IY UMa

IY UMa is a non-magnetic CV in which accretion proceeds via a disk. The S-Cam2 observations are discussed in Steeghs et al. (2002). The eclipse morphology is significantly more complex (see Fig. 8, and the discussion in Steeghs et al.). In this case, the geometry precludes easy selection of an accreting region characterised by a single temperature. However it is possible to isolate the spectrum of the white dwarf by extracting the difference between the spectrum of the source immediately before and immediately after the very rapid eclipse of the compact component. Three eclipses were observed by S-Cam2, but the low S/N requires the summing of these extracted spectra prior to model fitting. Using a co-added spectrum, therefore, we obtained $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{16\hspace{0.17em}000}\pm 3000`$ K for the white dwarf in IY UMa (Fig. 9). As in the case of UZ For, the quoted error includes the uncertainty due to the fitting process.

Gänsicke & Koester (1999) list the effective temperatures for the white dwarfs in the 9 dwarf novae for which the white dwarf spectrum had been unequivocally identified in the UV or optical at the time of their paper. Their list does not include IY UMa. Excluding the long-period system U Gem, which lies above the CV period gap and is significantly hotter than those short-period systems below it, the results span the temperature range 14 000–22 000 K, with a mean value of $``$ 17 000 K. The value we have obtained for IY UMa is therefore quite plausible. Sion (1999) presents a more extensive list of non-magnetic white dwarf temperatures, of which 9 are dwarf novae of the same SU UMa type as IY UMa. Of the 9 objects in Sion’s sample, 7 are also found in the Gänsicke & Koester list, but in most cases the quoted temperatures are somewhat different. The temperatures of the Sion sample range from 12 000–18 500 K, with a mean value of 15 600 K. Our value is again consistent with expectations.

## 6 Conclusions and future prospects

In this paper we have outlined a fundamentally new approach to temperature determination using non-dispersive optical spectroscopy. The spectra are modelled with black bodies, modified for atmospheric absorption. For cool stars ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}<\mathrm{15\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K), the derived temperatures are generally within 10% of the literature values. The agreement is less good for hotter stars, but the main sources of error are calibration uncertainties, rather than any intrinsic limitation with the method.

Having demonstrated that the technique works, we have applied it to four cataclysmic binary stars, isolating accretion stream components in three cases and the white dwarf itself in a fourth. The time-tagged photon event list data format of S-Cam2 data makes the isolation of these components relatively straightforward. Where appropriate, the results are compared against literature values and found to be in satisfactory agreement.

Work is now underway on the development of S-Cam3, which will incorporate $`10\times 12`$ pixels, each of which is slightly larger than those used in S-Cam2. The field of view will therefore be much improved, allowing the edges of the frame to be used for background subtraction with no fear of contamination by source counts. In addition, the energy resolving power is likely to be improved by 20–30%, and realtime monitoring of the gain variations will be possible. All these factors should lead to a significant improvement in the quality of the temperature determination possible with the instrument, in addition to other model-fitting problems such as quasar redshift determination.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the other members of the S-Cam2 team for their enthusiastic support throughout the program. In addition, Erik Kuulkers and Danny Steeghs are thanked for useful discussions regarding the CV temperature fitting. The William Herschel Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma by the Isaac Newton Group in the Spanish Observatoria del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. We thank the anonymous referee for useful comments on this manuscript.


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# 1 Topological density 𝑞(𝑥) (left) and Polyakov loop 𝐿(𝑥⃗) (right) of a dyon-dyon pair

HU-EP-02-62
ITEP-LAT/2003-02
January 13, 2003

Evidence for Dyonic Structure
of $`SU(2)`$ Lattice Gauge Fields Below $`T_c`$ 111Work supported by DFG. B. V. M. and A. I. V. acknowledge receiving grants RFBR 02-02-17308 and 01-02-17456, INTAS 00-00111 and the CRDF award RP1-2364-MO-02.

E.–M. Ilgenfritza222Talk presented by E.-M. I. at the 5th International Conference on Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum, Gargnano, Italy, 10-14 Sep 2002, B. V. Martemyanovb, M. Müller–Preusskera, S. Shcheredina and A. I. Veselovb

a Institut für Physik, Humboldt–Universität zu Berlin, D-10115 Berlin, Germany

b ITEP, B. Cheremushkinskaya 25, Moscow, 117259, Russia

## Abstract

We report the observation of calorons with nontrivial holonomy and fractional topological charge objects in cooled lattice samples derived from $`SU(2)`$ equilibrium ensembles at $`T<T_c`$.

Characteristic features of QCD are related to the existence of lumps of topological charge in the vacuum. Usually, they are described as instantons or, at $`T0`$, calorons  and considered to be the agents of chiral symmetry breaking. Recently, this view has been questioned from different sides. At first, an old companion of instantons, the meron picture (see e.g. ) has been revived. One motivation is to deduce confinement from the dissociation of instantons into constituents. The semiclassical picture of instantons has been totally challenged by Horvath et al. . Van Baal et al.  have stressed the existence of more general instanton solutions at $`T0`$, distinguished by nontrivial holonomy boundary conditions. A semiclassical approach to deal with this situation has been outlined for four dimensional $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetric gluodynamics .

The present talk reports on recent lattice evidence  for the existence of dyonic lumps in the confinement phase. They are expected to be constituents of the new caloron solutions and show the required color correlations. The new (KvB) caloron  is a finite-temperature (periodic) solution of the Euclidean field equations. It is selfdual with topological charge $`Q=\pm 1`$. The holonomy at asymptotics is not restricted to trivial values, $`P=\mathrm{exp}\left(i_0^{1/T}A_4𝑑x_4\right)P_{\mathrm{}}\begin{array}{c}\text{/}\\ \hfill \end{array}Z(N_c)`$. Depending on $`P_{\mathrm{}}`$, part of the parameter space corresponds to solutions with action (and topological charge) concentrated in $`N_c`$ well-separated static constituents. One of the constituents is carrying the fermion zero eigenmode required to exist for a $`Q=\pm 1`$ object according to the Atiyah-Singer index theorem.

Monte Carlo configurations taken from confined and unconfined ensembles, respectively, have been ”cooled” (by gradual minimization of action). We wanted to show  that nearly classical configurations of KvB type really pop up as background fields starting from the confinement phase. In fact, this happens at temperature close to $`T_c`$. In contrast, the deconfined phase does not support topologically nontrivial background fields. Monitoring the relaxation $`\frac{dA}{d\tau }\frac{S}{A}`$, cooling was stopped triggered by the gradient becoming minimal within some window of action, and snapshots of configurations were taken. On plateaux at moderate multiples of $`S_{inst}=2\pi ^2`$, the multi-lump structure is still comprehensible and can be analysed as described in the following. Figs. 1 \- 3 show different portraits of the same selfdual dyon-dyon pair obtained by cooling under periodic gluonic boundary conditions with $`S2\pi ^2`$. Almost static dyons are localizable by peaks of the topological density $`q(x)>0`$ and the Polyakov loop $`L(\stackrel{}{x})\pm 1`$.

A complementary view is given by the spectrum of the (non-Hermitean) Wilson fermion Dirac operator. Real eigenvalues refer to a fermionic zero mode which, depending on periodic (p.b.c.) or antiperiodic (a.b.c.) fermion boundary conditions in time, is localized at one or the other constituent. Cooled configurations like this can be well fitted by the shape functions of analytic KvB solutions. Nonstatic $`Q=1`$ caloron configurations can also be classified according to the KvB solutions. Unexpectedly, also dyon-antidyon pairs (with opposite topological charge but same sign Polyakov loop) have been detected in the same window of action and found to be almost stable. In this case a pair of almost-real modes exists, similar to those of an instanton-antiinstanton pair. The saddle point configurations in higher windows of action (and their cascade decay under cooling) can be interpreted in terms of such dyonic constituents.

Further details can be found in Ref.. Corroborating the point of view dealt with here, fermionic results concerning uncooled configurations of $`SU(3)`$ gluodynamics have been reported  after the conference.


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# Magnon Heat Transport in doped La₂CuO₄

## Abstract

We present results of the thermal conductivity of $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ and $`\mathrm{La}_{1.8}\mathrm{Eu}_{0.2}\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ single-crystals which represent model systems for the two-dimensional spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a square lattice. We find large anisotropies of the thermal conductivity which are explained in terms of two-dimensional heat conduction by magnons within the CuO2 planes. Non-magnetic Zn substituted for Cu gradually suppresses this magnon thermal conductivity $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$. A semiclassical analysis of $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ is shown to yield a magnon mean free path which scales linearly with the reciprocal concentration of Zn-ions.

Apart from their intimate relation to the physics of the copper-oxide high-temperature superconductors low dimensional quantum magnets are at the center of many novel phenomena. Among them are magnetic contributions to the thermal conductivity $`\kappa `$ of an unprecedentedly large magnitude, which have been discovered recently in the quasi one-dimensional (1D) spin ladder compound $`(\mathrm{Sr},\mathrm{Ca},\mathrm{La})_{14}\mathrm{Cu}_{24}\mathrm{O}_{41}`$ Hess et al. (2001); Sologubenko et al. (2000a). Similar findings of large and quasi 1D magnetic heat conduction have been reported also for cuprate spin-chain compounds Sologubenko et al. (2000b); Sologubenko et al. (2001). In this context it has become a key issue whether thermal transport due to magnetic degrees of freedom in certain classes of spin models may be intrinsically quasi-ballistic, i.e., dissipationless, thereby leading to high magnetic thermal conductivities $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ Zotos et al. (1997); Alvarez and Gros (2002). Of particular interest is the mean free path $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ of the heat-current carrying magnetic excitations. Based on a kinetic approach it has been shown recently Hess et al. (2001), that $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ for the spin ladder compound is of the order of 3000 Å . Direct microscopic evaluation of the mean free path is an open issue yet, with conflicting conclusions published Alvarez and Gros (2002).

In this letter we turn to two-dimensional (2D) quantum magnets by investigating the thermal conductivity of $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ which realizes the spin-1/2 Heisenberg-antiferromagnet on the square lattice. The magnetic structure consists of Cu2+-ions in CuO2-planes extending along the crystallographic $`a`$\- and $`b`$-directions. A strong antiferromagnetic intraplanar exchange coupling $`J/k_B1550`$ K Hayden et al. (1991) is present whereas the interplanar exchange $`J_{}`$ is negligible ($`J_{}/J10^5`$) Thio et al. (1988).

Our primary focus will be on a broad peak at high temperatures ($`T`$) in $`\kappa (T)`$ which we observe if measured by a thermal current parallel to the CuO2-planes, but which is absent for the perpendicular direction. This is consistent with previous results obtained in Ref. Nakamura et al. (1991). Several attempts to explain this peak have been made, e.g. scattering processes of acoustic phonons with soft optical phonons Cohn et al. (1995) or magnons Morelli et al. (1989). It has been speculated also, that the high-$`T`$-maximum could be related to heat carried by magnetic excitations Nakamura et al. (1991). However, its origin has never been elucidated unambiguously. Here, and employing the effects of doping by various types of impurities we provide clear evidence in favor of the anisotropic heat conduction to be due to 2D magnons indeed. We extract the mean free path from our data using an approach similar to that for the case of $`(\mathrm{Sr},\mathrm{Ca},\mathrm{La})_{14}\mathrm{Cu}_{24}\mathrm{O}_{41}`$ Hess et al. (2001). It will be shown that $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ does not only scale linearly with the reciprocal concentration of magnetic impurities which are generated by Zn-ions, but moreover, that it is roughly equal to the mean unidirectional distance between these ions.

We have measured $`\kappa `$ of $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ and $`\mathrm{La}_{1.8}\mathrm{Eu}_{0.2}\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ single crystals as well as $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{Cu}_{1\mathrm{z}}\mathrm{Zn}_\mathrm{z}\mathrm{O}_4`$ ($`z=0`$, 0.005, 0.008, 0.01, 0.02, 0.05) polycrystals as a function of $`T`$. Stoichiometric oxygen contents were achieved by annealing in high vacuum ($`p<10^4`$ mbar) for 1-3 hours at 800 C. The preparation of the samples Hücker and Büchner (2002) and the experimental method Hess et al. (2001) have been described elsewhere.

In the lower panel of Fig. 1 we present the thermal conductivity of single crystalline $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ if measured parallel ($`\kappa _{ab}`$) and perpendicular ($`\kappa _c`$) to the CuO2-planes as a function of $`T`$. The pronounced anisotropy of $`\kappa `$ strongly resembles that of spin ladder compounds Hess et al. (2001): $`\kappa _c`$ exhibits a $`T`$-dependence which is typical for insulating crystalline materials with pure phononic thermal conductivity $`\kappa _{\mathrm{ph}}`$. In contrast to this, the low-$`T`$ peak of $`\kappa _{ab}`$ is followed by a minimum around 80 K and a strong increase of $`\kappa _{ab}`$ which eventually develops into a broad peak around 300 K that clearly exceeds the low-$`T`$ peak.

Several conventional mechanisms which may be invoked to explain this unusual $`T`$-dependence and the resulting anisotropy can be dismissed. First, we can exclude effects of radiative heat transport since the optical properties of $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ are almost isotropic in the relevant energy-range below $`\mathrm{h}\nu 0.1`$ eV Uchida et al. (1991). Second, electronic contributions to the thermal current can be excluded since the material is insulating. Therefore, phononic heat transport is expected to dominate. However, and third, a scenario solely based on thermal conduction by acoustic phonons is very unlikely since an increase of scattering usually causes a negative slope of $`\kappa (T)`$ for intermediate and higher $`T`$, in contrast to our observation. Hence, either an unusual scattering process acts on the acoustic phonons or an additional contribution apart from the conventional phononic background must be present for $`\kappa _{ab}`$.

We now turn to the upper panel of Fig. 1 where $`\kappa _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\kappa _c(T)`$ of $`\mathrm{La}_{1.8}\mathrm{Eu}_{0.2}\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ are shown. Both curves strongly resemble our findings for $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$, yet exhibiting obvious differences: the low $`T`$-peaks of $`\kappa _{ab}`$ and $`\kappa _c`$ are slightly larger and more sharply shaped than in the case of $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$. Furthermore, a step-like anomaly is present at $`T_{LT}135`$ K. Above $`T_{LT}`$ $`\kappa _c`$ remains almost constant and stays below the value for the undoped case, while $`\kappa _{ab}`$ also exhibits a high-$`T`$ maximum at $`T270`$ K which is even larger than in $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$.

The difference between $`\kappa _c`$ of Eu-doped and of pure $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ can be attributed to a difference in phononic heat conduction. Upon doping $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ with Eu, enhanced scattering of phonons reduces $`\kappa _c`$ for $`T>T_{LT}`$, where both compounds have the same structure. The anomaly at $`T_{LT}`$ ($`\mathrm{La}_{1.8}\mathrm{Eu}_{0.2}\mathrm{CuO}_4`$) signals the transition to a new structural phase for $`T<T_{LT}`$ where $`\kappa _{\mathrm{ph}}`$ is enhanced. The structural peculiarities of rare earth doped cuprates are well known Büchner et al. (1994). Their influence on $`\kappa _{\mathrm{ph}}`$ will be discussed in detail in a forthcoming paper Hess et al. (to be published).

Despite the increase of scattering of phonons due to Eu-impurities in $`\mathrm{La}_{1.8}\mathrm{Eu}_{0.2}\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ the high-temperature peak of $`\kappa _{ab}`$ is of larger magnitude than in $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$. This excludes the peak to stem from the previously mentioned heat transport by acoustic phonons. The high-$`T`$ peaks in $`\kappa _{ab}`$ of both compounds therefore must originate from a different heat transport channel. In principle, two different kinds of excitation could generate such an additional heat current. One possibility is heat transport by dispersive optical phonons, the other one is thermal current carried by magnetic excitations. Magnetic heat transport is the most likely explanation, since the magnetism is truly two-dimensional and the refore could explain the observed anisotropy. This is not true for dispersive optical phonons, which certainly are present in this material, but are found along all crystal axes Pintschovius et al. (1991).

This result is corroborated by the strong suppression of the high-$`T`$ peak in hole-doped $`\mathrm{La}_{2\mathrm{x}}\mathrm{Sr}_\mathrm{x}\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ Nakamura et al. (1991), even at a very low Sr-content of $`x0.01`$ Hess et al. (to be published). On the one hand such an effect of doping is not to be expected in the case of a high-$`T`$ peak originating from optical phonons, since the lattice impurities induced by the Sr-ions are similar to the Eu-impurities discussed above. On the other hand the strong frustration of antiferromagnetism upon doping of mobile holes (cf. Ref. Hücker and Büchner (2002) and references therein) would provide for a satisfying explanation for the suppression of a peak of magnetic origin. Note in this context that Eu-doping leaves the CuO2-planes and therefore the magnetism almost unaffected. Hence we conclude, that the high-$`T`$ peak of $`\kappa _{ab}`$ originates from magnetic excitations which propagate only within the CuO2-planes. $`\kappa _{ab}`$ therefore consists of a usual phonon background and a magnon contribution $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ while $`\kappa _c`$ is purely phononic.

Upon applying a magnetic field of 8 T no significant changes of $`\kappa `$ were detected. This is, however, consistent with a magnetic origin of the high-$`T`$ peak since the corresponding Zeeman-energy is orders of magnitude smaller than the magnetic exchange coupling $`J`$.

In order to extract $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ from $`\kappa _{ab}`$ we make use of the anisotropy of $`\kappa `$ assuming that the phononic part $`\kappa _{ab,\mathrm{ph}}`$ of $`\kappa _{ab}`$ is roughly proportional to $`\kappa _c`$ which is justified by only weakly anisotropic elastic constants Pintschovius et al. (1991). Since the magnetic contributions roughly follow a $`T^2`$-law (see below) they are expected to be negligible in the range of the low-$`T`$ peak. Therefore, for $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ as well as for $`\mathrm{La}_{1.8}\mathrm{Eu}_{0.2}\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ a reasonable estimate of $`\kappa _{ab,\mathrm{ph}}`$ is achieved by scaling the corresponding data for $`\kappa _c`$ such as to match its low-$`T`$ peaks with that of $`\kappa _{ab}`$. In Fig. 1 the data thus obtained for $`\kappa _{ab,\mathrm{ph}}`$ of both compounds are represented by dashed lines. $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ was extracted by subtracting $`\kappa _{ab,\mathrm{ph}}`$ from $`\kappa _{ab}`$ (open squares in Fig. 1). This procedure involves significant uncertainties only at low $`T`$ where $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}\kappa _{ab,\mathrm{ph}}`$. At intermediate and higher $`T`$ the relative uncertainties are smaller and rather concern the magnitude of $`\kappa _{ab,\mathrm{ph}}`$ than its slope. Therefore we assume that in this $`T`$-range the difference between the extracted and the true $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ is roughly constant.

Following standard linearized Boltzmann-theory we have $`\varkappa ^i=\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}v_𝐤l_𝐤ϵ_𝐤\frac{d}{dT}n_𝐤𝑑𝐤`$ for the 2D thermal conductivity of a single magnon dispersion branch (labelled by $`i`$), where $`v_𝐤`$, $`l_𝐤`$, $`ϵ_𝐤`$ and $`n_𝐤`$ denote velocity, mean free path, energy and Bose-function of a magnon. Note that $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}^i`$ of a three-dimensional ensemble of planes, as realized in $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$, is given by $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}^i=\frac{2}{c}\varkappa ^i`$, where $`c=13.2`$ Å is the lattice constant of $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ perpendicular to the planes. Then the total $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ results from summing up $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}^i`$ of each magnon branch.

In order to calculate $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}^i`$ we approximate the magnon dispersion relation $`ϵ_𝐤`$ of the two branches $`i=1,2`$ with the 2D-isotropic expression $`ϵ_𝐤=ϵ_k=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }_i^2+(\mathrm{}v_0k)^2}`$, which describes the dispersion observed experimentally Keimer et al. (1993); Coldea et al. (2001) for small values of $`k`$. Here, $`v_0`$ is the spin wave velocity while $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$ denote the spin gaps of each magnon branch. For clarity, we define the characteristic temperature $`\mathrm{\Theta }_M=(\mathrm{}v_0\sqrt{\pi })/(ak_B)`$ where $`a=3.8`$ Å is the lattice constant of the CuO2-planes note1 . Assuming a momentum independent mean free path, i.e. $`l_𝐤l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$, we obtain for each magnon branch:

$$\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}^i=\frac{v_0k_Bl_{\mathrm{mag}}}{2a^2c}\frac{T^2}{\mathrm{\Theta }_M^2}\underset{x_{0,\mathrm{i}}}{\overset{x_{\mathrm{max}}}{}}x^2\sqrt{x^2x_{0,\mathrm{i}}^2}\frac{dn(x)}{dx}𝑑x.$$
(1)
Here, the integral is dimensionless but temperature dependent via $`x_{0,i}=\mathrm{\Delta }_i/(k_BT)`$ and $`x_{\mathrm{max}}`$. The upper boundary $`x_{\mathrm{max}}`$, however, may be set to infinity without affecting the fit at temperatures $`T300`$ K. Since from neutron scattering experiments $`v_01.28710^5`$ m/s Hayden et al. (1991) as well as $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1/k_B26`$ K and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2/k_B58`$ K Keimer et al. (1993) are well known quantities, $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ is the only unknown parameter in Eq. 1. Assuming $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ to be $`T`$-independent at low $`T`$, we can use Eq. 1 in order to check the $`T`$-dependence of our experimental $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$, which for $`T\mathrm{\Delta }_{1,2}`$ should roughly be $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}T^2`$, as the integral is only weakly $`T`$-dependent in this $`T`$-range. Furthermore, $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ can be extracted from the data. For $`T250`$ K interactions between the magnons become important Keimer et al. (1992) which requires a renormalization of the spin wave parameters and therefore we restrict the application of Eq. 1 with constant $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ to $`T250`$ K.

Fitting Eq. (1) to the experimental data we allow for an additive shift of the $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$-curve which yields a further free parameter apart from $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ and accounts for the aforementioned uncertainties in the magnitude of $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ note2 . For both compounds satisfactory fits were obtained at intermediate $`T`$-ranges. These are listed in Table 1, together with the resulting values for $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$. The fitting curves are represented by solid lines in Fig. 1. While the slight deviations between the fitted and experimental data towards low $`T`$ are due to the uncertainties in $`\kappa _{ab,\mathrm{ph}}`$ in this range, the deviations at high $`T`$ can be understood in terms of the $`T`$-dependence of $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ due to enhanced magnon-magnon scattering.

The data are consistent with a constant $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ for $`T`$ both, within the fit interval and below, indicating that in this range $`T`$-dependent scattering processes like magnon-magnon scattering or even magnon-phonon scattering may be discarded. Therefore, relevant processes seem to be sample-boundary scattering or scattering at static magnetic defects. For $`\mathrm{La}_{1.8}\mathrm{Eu}_{0.2}\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ and $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ we find $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}1160`$ Å and $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}560`$ Å, respectively. Since these values are far too small to correspond to the crystal dimensions, magnon-defect scattering is the most likely candidate. This conclusion is consistent with the fact that $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ and $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ are quantitatively different for $`\mathrm{La}_{1.8}\mathrm{Eu}_{0.2}\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ and $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$: since the magnetic properties of both compounds are expected to be identical in essence, unequal $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ can arise only due to a difference in densities of the magnetic defects that restrict $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$.

In order to check our analysis quantitatively it would be desirable to measure the density of static magnetic defects of our crystals. In lack of such methods we have performed measurements of $`\kappa `$ on samples with a well defined density of magnetic defects. Such defects can be induced in $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ by substituting a small amount of Cu2+-ions by non-magnetic Zn2+-ions. Representative results on our polycrystalline samples of $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{Cu}_{1\mathrm{z}}\mathrm{Zn}_\mathrm{z}\mathrm{O}_4`$ are presented in Fig. 2. As is expected for doping of static structural and magnetic defects, the Zn-impurities lead to a gradual suppression of both, the phonon as well as the magnon contribution to $`\kappa `$ notesrzn . Due to the polycrystalline nature of our samples anisotropic information on $`\kappa `$ is averaged over. We therefore estimate the phonon contributions $`\kappa _{\mathrm{ph}}^{\mathrm{poly}}`$ by fitting $`\kappa `$ right of its maximum by $`\kappa _{\mathrm{ph}}=\alpha /T+\beta `$ and by extrapolating this fit towards high $`T`$ (solid lines in Fig. 2). In turn, $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}^{\mathrm{poly}}`$ on the polycrystals is obtained by $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}^{\mathrm{poly}}=\kappa \kappa _{\mathrm{ph}}`$.

Note, that the measured $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}^{\mathrm{poly}}`$ is smaller than the intrinsic $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ of these compounds by the factor of 2/3 due to averaging over all three components of the $`\kappa `$ tensor note3 . As shown in Fig. 3, $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}=(3/2)\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}^{\mathrm{poly}}`$ systematically decreases with increasing Zn-content as it is expected for static defects. Analyzing these data we proceed analogous to the undoped case by using Eq. 1. However, we neglect a slight reduction of the spin wave velocity Brenig and Kampf (1991) and changes of the spin gaps induced by the Zn-ions. These effects lead to corrections smaller than the experimental error. The fits are represented by the solid lines in Fig. 3, the resulting $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ and the fit intervals are reproduced in Table 1. For typical transport experiments it is expected that the mean free path of the quasi-particles is proportional to the reciprocal defect concentration, i.e., to $`1/z`$. We therefore plot $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ as a function of $`1/z`$ in the inset of Fig. 3. The linear scaling between $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ and $`1/z`$ is clearly confirmed. From a linear fit including the origin (solid line) we find that $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}0.74a/z`$. Since $`1/z`$ is equal to the mean unidirectional distance of Zn-ions, i.e. static magnetic defects, $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ gives a direct measure of these distances note4 . Therefore, this result confirms the above quantitative analysis of $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ of the single crystals based on Eq. 1.

In conclusion, both, qualitatively as well as quantitatively our results strongly suggest, that the high-$`T`$ peak observed in $`\kappa _{ab}`$ of doped and undoped $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ arises due to magnon heat transport which is confined to the CuO2-planes. We note, that in general a large $`\kappa _{\mathrm{mag}}`$ is rarely observed at high $`T`$ and requires a unique synergy of magnon-phonon coupling Sanders and Walton (1977), large $`l_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ and high spin wave velocity $`v_0`$. Its realization in $`\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ may lead to future use of magnetic heat transport as a tool to study the interactions of magnetic excitations with other quasiparticles like holes or phonons.

We acknowledge support by the DFG through SP1073.


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# 1 Motivations and Model

## 1 Motivations and Model

The mystery of the Dark Energy / Cosmological Constant persists despite great efforts of particle physicists and cosmologists to find a convincing solution. Since the famous article by S. Weinberg, it is well known that candidate models should not only explain the smallness of the Cosmological Constant, if it is somehow related to Quantum Gravity, but also what is called the coincidence problem i.e. why does Dark Energy become dominant quite late in the history of the Universe? Models inspired by String Theory like 4-form gauge models can describe the smallness of the Dark Energy but not the coincidence problem. Anthropical models explain the latter problem but it is very difficult to find a natural and convincing particle physics model for them. The same problem somehow exists for the alternative to a Cosmological Constant i.e. for Quintessence Models. Even if tracker solutions make the model not very sensitive to the initial conditions, some fine tuning of the slope of the potential is necessary. It is also an open question if both inflation and quintessence behavior can be explained by the same field and if not, what is their relation and which type of particle physics can provide both of them specially in a natural way.
Here we suggest an alternative to a primordial quintessence field. There are at least two motivations for the existence of a Decaying Dark Matter (DDM). If R-parity in SUSY models is not strictly conserved, the LSP which is one of the best candidates of DM can decay to Standard Model particles. Violation of this symmetry is one of the many ways for providing neutrinos with very small mass and large mixing angle. Another motivation is the search for sources of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs). In this case, DDM must be composed of ultra heavy particles with $`M_{dm}10^{22}10^{25}eV`$. In a recent work we have shown that the lifetime of UHDM (Ultra Heavy Dark Matter) can be relatively short, i.e. $`\tau 10100\tau _0`$ where $`\tau _0`$ is the age of the Universe (astro-ph/0001137).
If a very small fraction of the mass of primary DDM particles changes to a scalar field with proper self interaction potential, the gradual condensation of this field at late time behaves like a quintessential matter. The advantage of this model to others is that late time yield of this type of energy and its correlation with the amount of Dark Matter comes up naturally and the dominance of one with respect to the other at each epoch is automatically explained.
In the present work we only study the plausibility of this model. We postpone a more detailed study to elsewhere. The natural choice of cosmological parameters for this model is an initial $`\rho _{dm}(t_0)\rho _c(t_0)\rho _{hot}(t_0)`$ where $`t_0`$ is an early time in the history of the Universe. For the result presented here we consider it to be the time of decoupling of CMB photons; $`\rho _{hot}=\rho _\gamma +\rho _\nu `$. The remnants of the decay else than quintessence field mainly consist of very energetic particles which will contribute to the yield of Hot Dark Matter. There is strict constraint on the amount of the latter from cosmological observations and the model must be consistent with observations. However, one should not forget that massive particles like proton/ant-proton and even electrons become colder with the expansion of the Universe and at some point they are not any more considered as hot. In fact it can be shown that the whole effect on the equation of state of the Universe is the reduction of the effective $`w_q`$ of the Cosmological Constant or a quintessence matter  (astro-ph/0002400).
We summarize our preliminary results in two following figures. The first figure shows $`\chi ^2`$ of the fit of Quintessence Models on the publicly available Super-Novae Ia data. Models with $`w_q<1`$ fit the data better than $`w_q1`$.

The second figure shows the evolution of density of various types of matter from decoupling of CMB photons to today for a typical selection of parameters. In one hand it shows that it is possible to obtain the present “equivalent” value of cosmological parameters without fine tuning of the suggested model. Another conclusion is that the appearance of cosmological parameters as measured in the local Universe is very recent i.e. the measurement of cosmological parameters at high redshift permits to distinguish between this model and other quintessence models.

## 2 Discussion and Perspectives

It is evident that the model presented here can not be believed before investigating many issues. The first and one of the most important ones is the condensation of the scalar field. One should determine the mass and the form of the potential and find the region of the parameter space that in a natural way can lead to a late condensation. The other issue is that the value of $`w_q`$ for this type of matter can not be constant. This can affect the evolution of halos, star formation rate, ionization of IGM etc. and can be used to verify the model.


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# The high frequency power spectrum of Markarian 766

## 1 Introduction

X-ray variability appears to be ubiquitous in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). The rapid and seemingly random fluctuations in the X-ray luminosity of Seyfert galaxies provided early support for the standard black hole/accretion disc model (e.g. Rees 1984) by implying compact emission regions and high luminosity densities (Fabian 1979; McHardy 1989).

The long ($`3`$ day), uninterrupted observations possible with EXOSAT allowed the power spectral density (PSD) of Seyfert 1 galaxies to be measured for the first time (Lawrence & Papadakis 1993; Green, McHardy & Lehto 1993). The PSD represents the average of the (squared) amplitude of variations as a function of temporal frequency (see van der Klis 1989). The EXOSAT observations showed that the PSDs of Seyfert 1s above $`10^5`$ Hz could be approximated by a power-law ($`𝒫(f)f^\alpha `$ where $`𝒫(f)`$ is the power at frequency $`f`$ and $`\alpha `$ is the PSD slope) rising steeply at low frequencies with a slope $`\alpha >1`$ (so-called “red noise” spectra; Press 1978). It was noted early on (e.g. Lawrence et al. 1987; McHardy 1989) that this red noise variability of Seyferts is similar to that observed in Galactic Black Hole Candidates (GBHCs; van der Klis 1995), perhaps suggesting that the same physical processes operate in these sources that differ in black hole mass by factors of $`>10^5`$.

The steep slopes of the EXOSAT PSDs mean that at lower frequencies the PSD must flatten in order for the integrated power to converge. Indeed, breaks in the PSDs of Seyfert galaxies have recently been detected (Edelson & Nandra 1999; Uttley, McHardy & Papadakis 2002; Vaughan, Fabian & Nandra 2003; Markowitz et al. 2003). The position of these breaks represent “characteristic timescales” in the aperiodic variability of Seyfert 1s, and interestingly they appear to scale linearly with the mass of the central black hole (Markowitz et al. 2003). The PSDs of GBHCs usually show at least two breaks (Nowak et al. 1999; Lin et al. 2000), and it is becoming increasingly apparent that the PSDs of Seyfert galaxies (and their timing properties in general) are very similar to those of GBHCs except shifted to longer timescales according to the black hole mass (Vaughan et al. 2003; Markowitz et al. 2003).

This letter presents an analysis of the X-ray continuum variability of the bright Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 766 (aka. NGC 4253; $`z=0.012929`$) using a long XMM-Newton observation. XMM-Newton offers the possibility to improve upon the high frequency PSDs provided by EXOSAT, having as it does a similarly long orbit but greatly increased throughput and a wider bandpass. The rest of this paper is organised as follows. Section 2 describes the basic data reduction procedures, Section 3 details the results of the PSD analysis and Section 4 describes the cross spectral results. Finally the implications of these are discussed in section 5.

## 2 Data reduction

Mrk 766 was observed by XMM-Newton (Jansen et al. 2001) over the period 2001 May 20 – 2001 May 21 (rev. 265), during which all instruments were operating nominally. The present analysis is restricted to the data from the European Photon Imaging Cameras (EPIC). Other aspects of this observation are discussed in Mason et al. (2002). The EPIC pn camera (Strüder et al. 2001) was operated in small-window mode, as was the MOS2 camera (Turner et al. 2001), and MOS1 was operated in timing mode. Here only data from pn are used as these have the highest signal-to-noise ratio and are free from photon pile-up.

Extraction of science products from the Observation Data Files (ODFs) followed standard procedures using the XMM-Newton Science Analysis System v5.3.3 (SAS). The EPIC data were processed using the standard SAS processing chains, source data were extracted from a circular region of radius 35 arcsec from the processed pn image. Only events corresponding to patterns 0–4 (single and double pixel events) were used for the pn analysis. Background events were extracted from regions in the small window least effected by source photons. These showed the background to be relatively low and stable throughout the first 105 ksec of the observation. During the final $`15`$ ksec the background rate increased dramatically. The much stronger (and highly variable) background level during this part of the observation contributed a significant amount of non-source variability, and so only the first 105 ksec of the light curve are used for the variability analysis presented here.

Light curves were extracted from the EPIC pn data in four different energy bands: 0.2–10.0 keV (full band), 0.2-0.7 keV (soft band), 0.7-2.0 keV (medium band) and 2.0-10.0 keV (hard band). These were corrected for telemetry drop outs (less than 1 per cent of the total time), background subtracted and binned to 100 s time resolution. The errors on the light curves were calculated by propagating the Poisson noise. The light curves were not corrected for the $`71`$ per cent “live time” of the pn camera (Strüder et al. 2001), which is only a scaling factor. The full band light curve is shown in Fig. 1. The average source (background subtracted) and background count rates are shown in Table 1 along with the fractional excess rms variability amplitude of the source ($`F_{\mathrm{var}}`$; Edelson et al. 2002) in each energy band.

## 3 Power spectral analysis

The analysis presented here followed very closely that applied by Vaughan et al. (2003) to XMM-Newton light curves of the bright Seyfert 1 galaxy MCG–6-30-15. The periodogram of the contiguous (100 s binned) light curve was calculated using the standard Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). The periodogram was then binned using the method of Papadakis & Lawrence (1993), using $`N=15`$ periodogram points per bin, to produce a consistent PSD estimate with Gaussian error bars The periodogram was normalised to “(rms/mean)2 Hz-1” units as defined by van der Klis (1997). The binned periodogram is shown in Fig. 2 and appears steep at low frequencies (due to the red noise variability of the source) and flattens at high frequencies due to the variability introduced by the Poisson noise (which has a flat, “white” power spectrum).

The periodogram was fitted using the Monte Carlo procedure described in Vaughan et al. (2003) (similar to that discussed by Uttley et al. 2002) in order to derive parameters of the PSD of Mrk 766. For each trial PSD model 500 simulated light curves were generated (using the algorithm of Timmer & König 1995). The simulated light curves were generated from a PSD model that extended down to much lower frequencies than the measured periodogram, and each simulated light curve was a factor $`50`$ longer than the observed light curve. This allows for variability power on timescales longer than the observed light curve and thereby accounts for any effect this might have on the observed periodogram (“red noise leak” – see Uttley et al. 2002 and Vaughan et al. 2003). A section of each long simulated light curve was re-sampled to match the sampling of the observed light curve. Periodograms were then calculated for each of the 500 simulated datasets (and binned exactly as the real data were) and the 500 binned periodograms averaged to produce an average periodogram. This average represents the PSD model after being distorted by the light curve sampling (“folded” through the response of the observation). The constant Poisson noise component is then added (at the level expected for Poisson noise) and the folded model is compared to the data by measuring the $`\chi ^2`$ of the fit. Further details of the procedure are given in Vaughan et al. (2003).

Fitting the data with a power-law PSD model gave a poor fit to the data ($`\chi ^2=80.8`$ for $`33`$ degrees for freedom $`dof`$, rejected at $`>99.9`$ per cent confidence) with a best-fitting power-law slope of $`\alpha =1.95`$. The steep slope seen from these XMM-Newton data requires that the PSD flatten at lower frequencies (as observed in other Seyfert 1 galaxies; Uttley et al. 2002; Vaughan et al. 2003; Markowitz et al. 2003) for the total integrated power to be finite. The poor fit of the single power-law model further suggests that the power spectral break may occur within (or close to) the frequency range probed by this XMM-Newton observation.

In order to test this hypothesis a broken power-law PSD model was fitted to the data. The PSD was assumed to break from a slope of $`\alpha _{\mathrm{low}}=1`$ at low frequencies to a steeper slope. The free parameters of the model were the PSD normalisation, the break frequency ($`f_{\mathrm{br}}`$) and the high frequency slope ($`\alpha _{\mathrm{hi}}`$). As shown in Fig. 3, this model provided a reasonable fit to the data ($`\chi ^2=43.2/32dof`$ with a rejection probability of $`91.5`$ per cent), much better than the unbroken power-law ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=37.6`$ improvement for one additional parameter). The slightly high rejection probability may be indicating that a broken power-law is only an approximation to the true underlying PSD. The best-fitting parameters are as follows: $`\alpha _{\mathrm{hi}}=2.8_{0.4}^{+0.2}`$ and break frequency of $`f_{\mathrm{br}}=5_3^{+1}\times 10^4`$ Hz. (The errors represent $`90`$ per cent confidence limits calculated using a $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=2.7`$ criterion.)

The PSD slope below the break is not well-constrained with these XMM-Newton data. An alternative model, in which the power-law breaks from $`\alpha _{\mathrm{low}}=0`$ to a steeper slope was also compared to the data. The best-fitting high frequency slope was $`\alpha _{\mathrm{hi}}=2.4_{0.2}^{+0.3}`$ and the break frequency was $`1.6\pm 0.8\times 10^4`$ Hz, giving $`\chi ^2=48.1/32dof`$ (rejected at $`96.6`$ per cent), slightly worse than the model assuming a break from $`\alpha _{\mathrm{low}}=1`$. Thus it is not possible to constrain in detail the shape of break in Mrk 766, but the broken power-law models did provide a significant improvement over the single power-law model. As a low frequency slope of $`1`$ fitted the data slightly better, and seems more likely in other Seyfert galaxies (Uttley et al. 2002; Markowitz et al. 2003), this model is used throughout the rest of this paper to describe the PSD of Mrk 766.

Energy dependence of the high frequency PSD, with the PSD slope being flatter at higher energies, has previously been seen in the Seyfert 1 galaxies NGC 7469 (Nandra & Papadakis 2001), MCG–6-30-15 (Vaughan et al. 2003) and NGC 4051 (Papadakis & Lawrence 1995; McHardy et al. 2003). In order to test for any such variation in the PSD as a function of energy the above analysis was repeated on the light curves extracted in the three energy sub-bands. The results are shown in Table 2. The high frequency slopes are formally consistent with one another although the hardest band does show the flattest best-fitting slope (this is also the case when the data were fitted with the PSD model assuming $`\alpha _{\mathrm{low}}=0`$ below the break). This hints that Mrk 766 may show the energy dependence seen in other Seyferts, and in particular adds to the evidence provided by XMM-Newton (see Vaughan et al. 2003 and McHardy et al. 2003) that the PSDs of Seyferts are energy-dependent even at soft X-ray energies (the energy dependence in NGC 7469 could only be examined above 2 keV, the same is true for most GBHCs).

## 4 Cross spectral analysis

The cross spectrum is related to the PSD (sometimes known as the auto spectrum). It offers a comparison of two simultaneous light curves (e.g. from different energy bands) as a function of temporal frequency. The cross spectrum can be used to derive the coherence ($`\gamma ^2(f)`$) of two light curves (a measure of how well correlated the variations in the two light curves are) and time delays between the light curves (see Vaughan & Nowak 1997 and Nowak et al. 1999 for an explanation of these properties in terms of GBHC observations and Papadakis, Nandra & Kazanas 2001 and Vaughan et al. 2003 for an application to Seyfert galaxies).

The coherence of Mrk 766 was measured using the recipe given by Vaughan & Nowak (1997). The periodograms of the two light curves and their cross periodogram were computed and binned by $`N=15`$ consecutive frequencies per bin The coherence and its uncertainty were then calculated using equation 8 of Vaughan & Nowak (1997). (Vaughan et al. 2003 have shown that uncertainty estimates calculated in this way are accurate for data very similar to those examined here.)

The resulting coherence functions (Fig. 4) show that, particularly between the soft and hard bands, the coherence is significantly below unity at all frequencies. This means that either the relation between soft and hard bands is non-linear or that a fraction ($`1\gamma ^2(f)`$) of the hard band variance cannot be accounted for by variations in the soft band. The apparently poor (linear) correlation between variations in different bands is confirmed by an analysis of the cross correlation function, estimated using the Discrete Correlation Function (DCF; Edelson & Krolik 1988). The DCF for the soft versus hard band light curves reaches a peak (at zero time delay) of only 0.65. It should be noted that the reduced coherence is not an artifact of Poisson noise in the data as the recipe of Vaughan & Nowak (1997) correctly accounts for this. The low coherence means it is not possible to reliably search for time delays between the different bands.

The hardness ratios were calculated to further examine the relationship between variations in different energy sub-bands (Fig. 5). The hardness ratios are significantly variable but show little correlation with the total source flux. There is a slight trend for the 0.7–2.0/2.0–10.0 keV ratio to soften as the source brightens (as has been seen in other Seyfert 1s) but the ratios show a great deal of scatter (much larger than expected from the size of the error bars) not obviously associated with changes in the full band flux. This complements the coherence analysis and shows the the relationships between energy sub-bands are complex.

## 5 Discussion

The shape of the high frequency power spectrum of Mrk 766 is consistent with a power-law that breaks from a flat slope ($`\alpha _{\mathrm{low}}1`$) to a steep slope ($`\alpha _{\mathrm{hi}}>2`$) at a frequency $`5\times 10^4`$ Hz. There is no evidence for discrete features such as quasi-periodic oscillations (previously claimed by Boller et al. 2001, but see also Benlloch et al. 2001). Similar broken power-law PSDs have been observed in other Seyfert 1s (Uttley et al. 2002; Vaughan et al. 2003; Markowitz et al. 2003; McHardy et al. 2003). This shape for the high frequency PSD is similar to that of GBHCs (Nowak et al. 1999; Lin et al. 2000). Not only is the shape the same but the amplitudes are similar. The power (in $`f𝒫(f)`$ units) measured at the break frequency is $`0.01`$ in the 2–10 keV band, which compares with the power at the high frequency break in Cyg X-1 of $`0.02`$ (Belloni & Hasinger 1990). This strongly supports the idea that the variability mechanisms, and perhaps the X-ray emission processes in general, are the same in AGN and GBHCs.

In the best studied GBHC, Cygnus X-1 in its low/hard state, the PSD breaks from $`\alpha 1`$ to a steeper slope at $`3`$ Hz (Belloni & Hasinger 1990; Nowak et al. 1999). In its high/soft state the position of the high frequency break increases to $`10`$ Hz (Churazov & Gilfanov & Revnivtsev 2001). It is not clear which of these states is closer to the behaviour of Seyferts. The corresponding break frequency in Mrk 766 is a factor of $`6\times 10^3`$ or $`2\times 10^4`$ times higher than that seen in Cyg X-1, depending on whether the low/hard or high/soft state is used for comparison. Assuming a $`10`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$mass black hole in Cyg X-1 (Hererro et al. 1995), and further assuming that the characteristic break timescale scales linearly with black hole mass (see Markowitz et al. 2003) yields estimates for the mass of the black hole in Mrk 766 of $`6\times 10^4`$ or $`2\times 10^5`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$(comparing with low/hard and high/soft state PSDs respectively). These estimates are unusually low compared to the masses expected for Seyfert nuclei (e.g. Wandel, Peterson & Malkan 1999). Indeed, Wandel (2002) estimated the mass of Mrk 766 to be $`10^7`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$ based on its luminosity and optical broad-line properties.

The highest mass estimate consistent with a linear scaling of timescales, obtained using the 90 per cent lower limit on the break frequency in Mrk 766 and scaling by the break seen in the high/soft state in Cyg X-1, is $`5\times 10^5`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$. The (unabsorbed $`0.210`$ keV) X-ray luminosity of Mrk 766 is $`3\times 10^{43}`$ erg s-1 (assuming $`H_0=70`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 and $`q_0=0.5`$). Taking a fairly conservative estimate of the bolometric luminosity of $`10^{44}`$ erg s-1 and the highest black hole mass estimate suggests Mrk 766 is radiating at $`1.5L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$. Of course, this depends on there being a linear scaling between the break timescales in Cyg X-1 and those of Seyfert 1s. If this is the case the implication seems to be that Mrk 766 is accreting above the Eddington limit.

A further point is that if the slope of the low frequency PSD is significantly different from the assumed $`\alpha _{\mathrm{low}}=1`$ then the break frequency could be lower (fitting a model assuming $`\alpha _{\mathrm{low}}=0`$ gave $`f_{\mathrm{br}}=1.6\pm 0.8\times 10^4`$ Hz). Comparing this to the low-frequency break in Cyg X-1 (the break from $`\alpha 0`$ to $`\alpha 1`$ in the low/hard state) gives an even lower black hole mass estimate (see the discussion in Uttley et al. 2002). However, the fact that the high frequency PSD is steep ($`2.3`$ in the hardest band) suggests a slope of $`1`$ below the break is more likely, by comparison with the PSD of Cyg X-1.

It is perhaps worth noting that Mrk 766 has previously been classified a Narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1), a class of AGN often suggested to be accreting close to the Eddington limit (Boller, Brandt & Fink 1996). The PSDs of other NLS1s also seem to show break frequencies somewhat higher than found in “normal” Seyfert 1s (Ark 564: Pounds et al. 2001; Papadakis et al. 2002; NGC 4051: McHardy et al. 2003). This is consistent with the idea that NLS1s harbour lower mass black holes accreting at a higher rate (relative to Eddington) compared to the normal Seyfert population.

It remains plausible that the mass-timescale relation is not perfectly linear. The most important physical timescales associated with accretion flows (e.g. section 5.8 of Frank, King & Raine 1985) derive from a distance and a speed over which some physical process operates (such as viscosity). If the salient distance (such as the radius of the innermost edge of the accretion disc) is approximately the same in units of the gravitational radius ($`r_\mathrm{g}=GM/c^2`$) between Cyg X-1 and AGN then the timescales should (to first order) scale linearly with black hole mass. However, if the relevant distance is not constant then this linear scaling can break down. For example, the innermost stable circular orbit around a black hole depends on its dimensionless spin parameter ($`a/M`$), with a spinning black hole allowing a steady accretion disc to extend to smaller radii (in gravitational units). If Mrk 766 has a higher spin parameter than Cyg X-1 one would perhaps expect the accretion disc to extend to smaller $`r_\mathrm{g}`$ and the physical timescales to be somewhat smaller than the linear expectation. Such a situation would allow the black hole mass of Mrk 766 to be higher by a factor of a few (compared to the linear assumption) and thereby allow for a sub-Eddington accretion rate. An independent estimate of the mass of Mrk 766 (from e.g. reverberation mapping or gas kinematic studies) would help clarify this issue.

The variations in different energy bands show a coherence well below unity at all frequencies examined. A loss of coherence at high frequencies has also been observed in MCG–6-30-15 (Vaughan et al. 2003), but at the lowest frequencies probed the coherence was much higher than observed in Mrk 766. On longer timescales the variations in NGC 7469 were consistent with unity coherence (Papadakis et al. 2001). In Cyg X-1 the coherence is known to be high (near unity) over a wide range in frequencies but falls significantly below unity at high frequencies (Nowak et al. 1999). The reduced coherence means the relationship between variations in different energy bands cannot be described by a single (linear) transfer function.

If the X-rays are produced by inverse-Compton scattering in a hot corona, as is often thought (e.g. Haardt & Maraschi 1991), then the low coherence implies rapid changes in the coronal properties and/or multiple independent emission sites. As discussed by Nowak & Vaughan (1996), a static Comptonising corona should produce unity coherence. Rapid changes in the properties (e.g. size, temperature, optical depth) of the X-ray emitting region could cause changes in the transfer function (relating soft to hard flux) on the timescales probed and so reduce the coherence. Alternatively the low coherence may mean there is more than one transfer function operating simultaneously, which could be physically realised if the X-ray emission is produced at several independent sites.

XMM-Newton has opened the door on high frequency timing studies of AGN, a door that has remained largely closed since the end of the EXOSAT mission. Future work must establish whether the high frequency power and cross spectral properties observed in the handful of Seyfert 1s with XMM-Newton long-looks (see also Vaughan et al. 2003 and McHardy et al. 2003) are universal or whether different objects show different characteristics (perhaps as GBHCs show distinct states).

## Acknowledgements

Based on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and the USA (NASA). We thank Phil Uttley for many insightful discussions on the details of PSD estimation and Iossif Papadakis for a swift and useful referee’s report. SV thanks PPARC for financial support. ACF thanks the Royal Society for support.