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# The Recent Star Formation History of the M31 Disk

## 1 Introduction

The stellar populations of a galaxy provide a fossil record of the history of star formation activity within that galaxy. In particular, the distribution, colors and luminosities of the upper main sequence and supergiant stars within the galaxy can provide a detailed history of star formation within the galaxy over the past $``$200 Myr. Once this history is deciphered, it reveals the details of global star formation processes within the galaxy, constraining its recent evolution. M31 provides a critical laboratory in which to study these processes in a large spiral disk like the one in our Galaxy. Knowledge of the star formation history (SFH) in the disk as a function of location allows tests for propagation of star formation across spiral arms, searches for coherent patterns of star formation on large scales, and comparisons with structures seen at other wavelengths, to look for correlations with star formation patterns.

The desire to understand how star formation has influenced the evolution of M31 has led to studies too numerous to name (see Hodge, 1992, and references therein). Studies date back to Hubble (1929) who first examined the stars in M31. On the other hand, the ability to decipher the history of star formation among the stellar complexes in the M31 disk has only recently been possible as powerful data analysis tools have become available. Ground-based studies have been limited by photometric accuracy, field size, and angular resolution. Nevertheless, several studies (e.g. Hodge, 1979; Ivanov & Kynchev, 1985; Magnier et al., 1992, 1997b; Mochejska et al., 2000; Massey et al., 2001; Williams, 2003) have put together large photometric samples of M31 stars and have discovered age gradients in the disk (e.g. Ivanov & Kynchev, 1985; Magnier et al., 1997b). Resolved infrared stellar photometry has suggested episodic star formation in some regions of the disk (Kodaira et al., 1999).

In recent years, Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations have much improved our knowledge of the stellar populations contained in the M31 disk. The high angular resolution of HST has allowed deeper photometry than was possible from the ground. The deep, high-resolution imaging has allowed age measurements of many young star clusters in the disk (e.g. Magnier et al., 1997a; Williams & Hodge, 2001b, a). At the same time, studies of the field stars of the disk have put strong constraints on the metallicity distribution and the SFH of many locations within the disk (Ferguson & Johnson, 2001; Sarajedini & Van Duyne, 2001; Williams, 2002; Bellazzini et al., 2003).

Unfortunately, the limited field of view of HST makes it difficult to look for patterns of star formation in the M31 disk on large scales. For this type of study we turn back to data sets from the ground, which are now capable of covering large areas with a high degree of homogeneity and photometric accuracy. In this study I use the M31 data set from the CTIO/KPNO Local Group Survey (Massey et al., 2001) to measure independent distances and mean extinctions in 345 regions of the M31 disk, 106 of which overlap. The SFH of each region is also measured objectively and homogeneously, revealing patterns of star formation in the M31 disk over the past 250 Myr. The distance and extinction measurements provide constraints for future observational work in M31, and the star formation trends provide key insight about the evolution of a spiral disk in the late stages of evolution.

## 2 Data Acquisition and Reduction

The data used for this project were generously supplied by the CTIO/KPNO Local Group Survey (LGS) collaboration (Massey et al., 2001;
http://www.lowell.edu/users/massey/lgsurvey) which is acquiring 1′′ resolution, photometric data with the 8 k $`\times `$ 8 k Mosaic cameras on the 4-m telescopes at KPNO and CTIO, entirely covering ten LG galaxies in $`UBVRI,`$ and narrow-band H$`\alpha `$, \[S II\] ($`\lambda \lambda `$6717, 6731) and \[O III\] ($`\lambda `$5007). The LGS is working on their own, more rigorous, calibration of these data leading toward a complete $`UBVRI`$ catalog of stars. However, for the purposes of this paper, I have simply used photometry from the literature to perform a rough ($``$10%) calibration. The analysis used in this paper is described in full detail, including tests of the photometry routine, tests of the photometric calibration, and tests of the SFH measurement technique, in Williams (2003) (hereafter W3). An incomplete brief summary of these details is supplied here for convenience.

In short, the data consist of 6 fields from the MOSAIC camera on the KPNO 4-meter telescope. These fields cover most of the active portions of the M31 disk. The LGS team is using a total of 10 MOSAIC fields to cover the entire M31 galaxy. Here I analyze 6 of the 10, covering a total area of 1.4 deg2. Much of the central 2 fields will be dominated by the bulge. These data therefore cover 6 of the 8 disk fields, or $``$75% of the M31 disk. The broadband images used were in the Johnson $`B`$ and $`V`$ filters. The dithered frames were stacked and reduced using the DAOPHOT II and ALLSTAR packages (Stetson et al., 1990), and the zero points for each field were determined using published ground based photometry from previous surveys of Mochejska et al. (2001) and Magnier et al. (1992).

The full $`V`$, $`BV`$ color-magnitude diagrams for the 6 fields analyzed in this project are shown in Figure 1. These diagrams show several sequences typical of ground based photometry of the M31 disk performed in previous surveys. The upper main sequence of the M31 disk is seen as a vertical sequence extending upward at $`BV0.1`$. Foreground sequences extend upward from $`BV0.5`$ and $`BV1.5`$, showing the Galactic halo and disk populations respectively.

I objectively dissected each field into subfields referred to as “cells”. Because F1 has fewer stars, being far out in the disk, it was broken into 25 cells, 6.9 $`\times `$ 6.9 (1600 $`\times `$ 1600 pc) in size. All other fields were broken into 64 cells, 4.3 $`\times `$ 4.3 (1000 $`\times `$ 1000 pc) in size. Each of these cells will be specified by their location on the grid by a field name followed by pair of numbers x,y, where x is the number of grid cells right of the left edge of the field and y is the number of grid cells above the bottom of the field. For example, cell F8 1,8 is the cell in the far upper-left corner in field F8.

The resolved stellar photometry from each cell was used to measure the distance, mean extinction and SFH of the cell. In order to obtain a precise understanding of the accuracy of the photometry as a function of color and magnitude, a series of 150,000 artificial star tests were performed in each region analyzed using the method described in W3. In total, over 50 million artificial star measurements were performed on the 6 fields analyzed in order to measure the completeness and photometric accuracy as a function of color, magnitude and position in the field. The results of these tests were crucial for measuring accurate SFHs with correct errors.

The outermost fields were used to obtain a sample of foreground stars as described in W3. This foreground sample was applied to each 4.3 $`\times `$ 4.3 sample in the M31 disk to statistically subtract foreground contaminants as a function of color and magnitude. These foreground-subtracted $`BV`$ photometry samples of resolved stars in the M31 disk were each run through the MATCH (Dolphin, 1997, 2002) routine for measuring the distance, mean extinction and SFH of the region. The software also measures the metallicity distribution of the sample, but extensive tests, described in W3, have shown that these measurements are not reliable for young populations.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Distance and Extinction

The SFH analysis routine provided distance and reddening information for each cell. The distances measured by the routine are plotted in greyscale in Figure 2, where farther distances are darker gray. Optical contours of M31 are overplotted for reference. This plot provides an opportunity to look for a distance gradient from the near edge of the disk to the far edge. If the active part of the disk is $``$40 kpc across, with a mean distance modulus of 24.47 and an inclination angle of 77 degrees the distance modulus of the near side of the disk should be about 0.11 mag less than that of the far side. Because the dust lanes on the western side of the disk appear to be in the foreground of the bulge, this edge is currently believed to be the closer one.

The distance parameter space explored by the measurements was limited to between 24.4 and 24.5 magnitudes, which allowed more reliable SFHs to be measured. This limitation hinders the detection of a distance gradient across the disk; however, such a detection is still possible with precise relative photometry. In the northern half of the disk, the distance measurements are all the same within the errors, revealing that the measurements do not have the precision necessary to detect a gradient across the disk. In the southern half of the disk, it appears that the average distance measures to the southeast of the major axis are systematically slightly higher than to the northwest of the major axis. The difference is not larger than the measured errors, but the pattern suggests that the commonly accepted orientation is correct: the southeastern disk is more distant. When all of these distance measurements are combined, a mean distance measurement of 24.47$`\pm `$0.03 is obtained.

Along with the distance information, the routine outputs the most likely mean extinction to the region, with errors. In Figure 2 the measured extinction values are plotted for 345 cells as a greyscale map, with optical contours of M31 overplotted. Measurements for overlapping regions were averaged. The measured values in the far northwest and southeast corners of the fields should not be trusted because very few ($`<50`$) stars were involved in these measurements. Likewise, cells south of 40:15:00 all contained too few main sequence stars to provide accurate reddening measurements.

An extinction gradient is seen from the inner disk to the outer disk, decreasing outward. In addition, high extinction appears to follow the arm structure, which generally follows the outer contours of the optical disk. These areas also show strong dust emission (e.g. Xu & Helou, 1996; Haas et al., 1998). Because these areas also contain most of the recent star formation (discussed in section 3.2), this extinction pattern suggests that the production of dust in the high density arm environment is more important than the destruction and movement of dust by the UV fluxes and strong winds of massive young stars. As seen in most star forming galaxies and in star forming regions of the Milky Way, dust and star formation generally occur together. While this result is not new, it provides important confirmation that the analysis method is working properly. The one exception to this general rule is OB 78 (J2000 00:40:33.8, 40:44:22), where it appears as though the slightly older age and intensity of the star formation has blown away most of the surrounding gas and dust, as seen in W3.

### 3.2 Star Formation Histories

The SFH of M31 as a function of position in the disk allows searches for patterns of star formation in the disk on timescales comparable to and shorter than an orbital period, before the structures are lost in the complications of disk dynamics. These measurements provide a first look at the possible discoveries from such studies, although the depth and accuracy limitations of ground-based photometry make strong conclusions difficult to obtain.

Figures 3-8 show three-color images of the 6 fields in M31 analyzed. Overplotted on these images are the SFHs output by MATCH for each cell on the field. The star formation rate for each epoch is shown with red error bars within the cell. The tickmarks on the abscissa and ordinate provide the time period and star formation rate indicated by the red error bars in each cell. The interpretation of these SFHs for each field is given below.

#### 3.2.1 F1

Field F1, shown in Figure 3, was the outermost field analyzed, in order to provide comparisons to the inner disk. Since there are very few young stars in these outer regions, a larger region size of 6.9’ $`\times `$ 6.9’ was used for each measurement. The larger cell sizes degraded the ability to look for star formation patterns, but this sacrifice was necessary in order to obtain results with statistical meaning.

This field shows that most of the recent star formation is limited to the inner disk. A strong decrease in young stars is seen from OB 102 (J2000 00:46:35,41:10:00) outward. A similar effect is seen in the southern disk (F9), discussed below. A rapid increase in star formation is seen about 20 Myr ago in OB 102 (cell F1 4,2) along with an overdensity of stars with ages $`\stackrel{<}{}`$200 Myr, as seen in W3. With this larger picture, a decline in star formation is visible to the southwest of the large OB association, revealing a possible propagation of star formation from the southwest to the current location of OB 102.

#### 3.2.2 F2

Field F2 is shown in Figure 4. Again the SFH around OB 102 is measured; this time with smaller spatial bins. The pattern to the southwest of OB 102, detected in F1, is no longer seen. Apparently, large area sections were needed to detect this pattern; however, most of the youngest stars appear to lie on the eastern side of the OB association, consistent with the pattern seen in F1 (cells F2 3,6, F2 4,6, F2 3,7).

This field also provides the first look at the SFH of the brighter inner disk. Significant activity is visible around OB 54 (J2000 00:44:30,41:51:00) in the northwest spiral arm and OB 49 (J2000 00:45:10,41:47:00) in the northeast spiral arm. This enhanced star formation appears to have been ongoing, though not constant, as far back as the data are sensitive, suggesting that most of the star formation in the disk has occurred in contained regions for several hundred Myr. This result was also found by Bellazzini et al. (2003) and Williams (2002). These age distributions could be caused by propagating episodes of star formation, as discussed in section 4.3.

#### 3.2.3 F3

Field F3, shown in Figure 5, contains several large groupings of hot, blue stars. The pattern seen among these most-recently active regions of the disk appears to be one of prolonged star formation with a recent burst beginning about 20-50 Myr ago. This recent burst explains the large populations of bright stars; however, the enhanced star formation before the bursts, common in many of the arm regions, is puzzling. Interestingly, the SFHs in the arms tend to show a decrease in star formation rate from $``$100 Myr to $``$50 Myr, followed by an increase to the present. The details of this pattern are different for each region, but overall, it looks like these regions are experiencing cycles of star formation on timescales of 10-200 Myr. Such a pattern would be difficult to believe if seen in only one or two arm regions, but when viewed in comparison with the surrounding galaxy, conclusion are more easily drawn.

#### 3.2.4 F4

Field F4, shown in Figure 6, was the innermost field analyzed. This field reaches into the bulge of M31, where the crowding becomes too severe to perform reliable photometry from the ground. This crowding causes the large errors for star formation rates from 20-200 Myr ago in the southwestern-most regions of this field. Overall, the significant recent star formation clearly follows the well-studied spiral arms.

In conjunction with the results from field F3, an interesting pattern emerges around OB 54 (J2000 00:44:30,41:51:00) which lies in cell F3 5,4. In F3 this OB association is well-centered in the cell and we see the strong rise in star formation rate in this region over the past $``$20 Myr, similar to other OB associations in the disk. The cell just north of the OB association appears to have recently increased its star formation as well. This increase is detected in both the F3 and the F2 measurements. At the same time, in F4, where the southern half of the association is measured separately in cells F4 2,7 and F4 3,7, it appears that star formation has recently decreased in the southern half of this association, again suggesting that the star formation is moving generally south to north, consistent with what has been suggested in the southern disk and with the pattern seen around OB 102 (see section 3.2.1). This propagation is again only seen over a small region, and may be revealing the process of episodic star formation in these gas-rich regions.

#### 3.2.5 F8

Field F8, shown in Figure 7, appears to contain most of the recent star formation in M31. This fact is accentuated by the dust spurs that curl off to the west of the main disk. Similar spurs have recently been observed in more active spirals, one of the best examples is M51 (Scoville et al., 2001). These spurs have been well-modeled by dynamical simulations as occurring when differentially rotating gas interacts with spiral arm structures (Kim & Ostriker, 2002). These structures are apparently signals of strong action caused by spiral arms.

Studies of the Cepheids (Magnier et al., 1997b), bright stars (Ivanov & Kynchev, 1985) and star clusters (Williams & Hodge, 2001b) in the region around OB 78 suggest that star formation has been propagating from south to north over the past $``$100 Myr. No age gradient was seen in the smaller sample measured in W3; however, this larger study reveals a ramping down in star formation south of OB 78, a recent ramp up at OB 78, and no strong trends to the north. This pattern of star formation is clearly a detection of the pattern seen in the star clusters, bright stars, and Cepheids. This strong wave of star formation appears to be connected with the interaction of the gas disk with the spiral arms, which also likely created the spur structures seen to the west of the disk.

#### 3.2.6 F9

Field F9, shown in Figure 8, contains very little activity in the outer southwest region. The decreasing number of young stars in the southwestern cells confirms the radial age gradient in the disk. Again the recent drop in star formation rate south of OB 78 is seen. Without the results from F8, the drop would be less obvious since it is only seen in the data point for the most recent epoch. Fortunately, we can attach more significance to this data point because of the results from the overlapping portion of field F8.

## 4 Discussion

In order to interpret the SFH measurement results, several comparisons were performed. Results for overlapping regions were quantitatively compared to test for accuracy. Results for the northern and southern disk were compared to look for evolutionary differences across the galaxy. Results for the arm and interarm regions were compared to look for the effects of propagating spiral density waves. Finally, all of the results were combined to look for large scale patterns in star formation throughout the M31 disk.

### 4.1 Comparison of Overlapping Frames

The independent measurements of similar areas in different fields allowed important checks of the reliability of the measurement technique. There were 106 pairs of cells with centers within 3 of one another. The consistency of the measurements was checked by applying a $`\chi ^2`$ analysis to the SFHs of each pair. These $`\chi ^2`$ measurements were accomplished by squaring the difference between the measured star formation rates of each time bin. The differences were each divided by the sum of the measured square errors of each measurement. These measured square errors were tripled, as experiments performed in W3 show that the errors tend to be underestimated in these measurements. The sum of these differences was finally divided by the number of degrees of freedom (5 for these SFHs) to give a reduced $`\chi ^2`$ for each cell pair. For convenience, this reduced $`\chi ^2`$ statistical comparison is simply called $`\chi ^2`$ for the remainder of the paper. The values obtained for all overlapping fields are provided in Table 1, where column 1 provides the cell pair, column 2 shows the angular distance between the cell centers, column 3 gives the $`\chi ^2`$ comparison, and column 4 provides the $`\chi ^2`$ value if one outlier is removed from the calculation.

The distribution of $`\chi ^2`$ values for the overlapping cells was compared to $`\chi ^2`$ values measured for random cell pairs. The two distributions are shown in Figure 9. The reduced $`\chi ^2`$ values for the overlapping cells clearly peak around a value of 1, while those of random cell pairs are randomly distributed. In total, 23% of random cell pairs had $`\chi ^2`$ $`<`$3 while 64% of overlapping cell pairs have such values. This result suggests that the details of the SFHs for each cell are only reliable at about the 50% level. When combined with results from nearby and overlapping cells, this confidence may be improved, but conclusions should not be drawn based on the details of the SFH of any one cell. The 36% of overlapping pairs that have high $`\chi ^2`$ values suggest that this issue should be investigated in more detail, by comparing the general trends in SFH measured in overlapping cells and investigating the typical causes for high $`\chi ^2`$ values.

Some overlapping cells with high $`\chi ^2`$ values show agreement in general SFH trend. For example, the rather constant rate in F8 7,2 is reproduced in F9 5,5 although the $`\chi ^2`$=6.51 because of discrepancies in early epochs. The increasing rate in F8 7,1 is reproduced in F9 5,4 ($`\chi ^2`$ = 4.57), and the high $`\chi ^2`$ is again caused by discrepancies in early epochs. These early epochs are likely to be less reliable because the measured rates depend heavily on the precise completeness near the magnitude limit of the data.

There is generally good agreement between overlapping cells in regions with large numbers of young stars. For example, in the most active area of F1, around OB 102, the closest overlapping cell pairs, F1 4,2 and F2 3,6 have a $`\chi ^2`$ of 0.40. To the southwest, cell pair F1 5,1 and F2 5,4 have a $`\chi ^2`$ of 0.70. All of the overlapping cells west and south of OB 54 show nice agreement, as exemplified by the striking similarity of the complex history shown for cell pair F3 7,1 and F4 5,4 ($`\chi ^2`$ = 1.55), showing a rapid increase in activity over the past $``$20 Myr for this region. Comparison of the cells F2 8,2 and F3 6,5, which contain the complex region of OB 54, also obtain consistent results ($`\chi ^2`$ = 1.02), showing enhanced activity back to $``$100 Myr and further increased star formation $``$10 Myr ago. In addition, the cells south of OB 78 (F8 5,5 and F9 3,8: $`\chi ^2`$=1.63; F8 5,4 and F9 3,7: $`\chi ^2`$=1.31) show excellent overall agreement, revealing a mean decrease in star formation in this region over the past 20 Myr.

Most poor $`\chi ^2`$ values were due to the results of a single epoch. If $`\chi ^2`$ is calculated after removing a single outlier from each SFH, 92% of the overlapping pairs have $`\chi ^23`$, and only 41% of random pairs match this well. In order to assess whether these single time-bin inconsistencies occurred because the boundaries of overlapping cells were not perfectly aligned, we experimented with aligning overlapping cells. For example, cell F2 7,2 has a somewhat different result than cell F3 5,5 ($`\chi ^2`$ = 3.12). Exactly matching the cell regions improved the consistency of the measurements to $`\chi ^2`$ = 2.20; however, exclusion of the outlying data point at 100 Myr yields $`\chi ^2`$ = 0.76. Apparently, the exact borders of the cells do not strongly affect the consistency of results. The inconsistencies must arise from more subtle differences in the photometry of the overlapping frames. In any case, drastic changes in star formation rate between adjacent epochs within a single cell are rarely observed in overlapping frames. Such changes are responsible for most high $`\chi ^2`$ values, and they should not be trusted unless verified by a consistent measurement in adjacent or overlapping cells. Conclusions cannot be drawn based on star formation rates measured only once for single epochs.

Overall, the comparisons of overlapping cells reveal that SFHs measured within individual cells are reliable at about the 50% level. The independent results for overlapping cells in active regions show agreement ($`\chi ^2<2`$), providing confidence that the measurement technique is stable. The confidence level increases for more recent epochs, cells with greater numbers of bright stars, cells measured independently in separate fields, and groups of cells showing similar star formation patterns. Most overlapping cell pairs with large $`\chi ^2`$ have one highly inconsistent data point. Star formation rates that deviate from general trends within a single SFH are generally not reproduced in overlapping cells, and these deviant points are typically responsible for high $`\chi ^2`$ values in overlapping cell pairs. This problem shows that deviant rates measured for individual epochs within single cells are not reliable.

### 4.2 The Northern and Southern Regions

Overall, the star formation of the northern and southern disks appears to have been quite different over the past $``$200 Myr. Most striking are the higher recent star formation rates measured for the outer regions of the southern disk compared to those of the northern disk. This difference is seen most easily along the major axis, where the star formation rates have been higher in the southwest corner of F8 than in the northeast corner of F3 for the past 100 Myr. The difference is not entirely surprising considering the larger numbers of open clusters observed in the southwestern half of the disk (Hodge, 1979); however, the result is surprising considering the weaker gas emission from the southwestern disk (Devereux et al., 1994) and the smaller number of OB associations in the southwestern half of the disk (van den Bergh, 1964).

In addition, the outer western half of the disk has been more active recently than the outer eastern half. The entire western side of field F8 (cells F8 8,1 - F8 8,6) consistently shows significant star formation over the past 100 Myr, while only 2 of the cells F3 1,2 - F3 1,8 show significant activity over the same period. A similar difference is seen between the northwest disk and southeast disk, where the northwest disk is more active. This difference is unlikely to be attributable to the fact that the western half is closer than the eastern half because the young stars are bright and the extinction is not strong in these outer regions.

Only 2 regions in the disk appear to have been forming stars at a high rate for all 6 epochs. Those areas are the area around OB 54 in the northwest arm and the area around OB 78 in the southern disk. The star formation around OB 78 is certainly the stronger of the two. It is interesting to note that M32 and NGC 205, the nearest galaxies to the M31 disk, lie to the south and northwest of the disk. The differences observed between the northern and southern disk may be due to interaction with M32, which could be strong as seen in the tidal stream recently detected around the southern part of the disk (Ibata et al., 2001) and in models of the M31-M32 interaction (e.g. Byrd, 1978). The higher rates in the northwest could have been caused by interactions with NGC 205 and/or M32. This interpretation is certainly speculative, but the locations of these more active outer disk regions are curiously consistent with such a scenario.

### 4.3 The Arm and Interarm Regions

Our results reveal that the arm and interarm regions of M31 have been quite distinctive for most of the past 250 Myr. While the star formation rate in the arms has been relatively episodic, changing noticeably from epoch to epoch, the interarm regions have been relatively inactive the entire time. This greater amount of star formation in the arms has likely been possible because of the greater gas content of the arm regions. These regions have been observed to have enhanced gas content in many studies (e.g. Brinks & Shane, 1984 (H I); Dame et al., 1993 (CO); and many others).

Only in epoch 4 were the star formation rates of the arm and interarm regions similar. This similarity occurred because the star formation rate in the arms became quite low. In fact, this epoch contained the least amount of star formation of any epoch measured (see Table 2 and Figure 10). The long-lived inactivity in the interarm regions suggests that, if density waves propagated through these regions, the density enhancements were not strong enough to overcome the low ambient gas density and significantly increase star formation. The propagation of star formation through some gas-rich regions is suggested by the global patterns of star formation discussed in the next section. These results suggest that strong star formation activity is not likely to propagate far through the disk because the gas-poor interarm regions do not support significant star formation episodes even under the influence of a density wave passage.

### 4.4 Global Properties of the Recent SFH

Perhaps the most useful application of these results is seen in Figure 10, where the results for the star formation rate during each epoch in each cell have been combined into greyscale maps. In these maps, darker gray areas have higher star formation rates. Each epoch probed by the analysis is shown separately. Results for overlapping regions of cells were averaged to make the best use of the multiple measurements in those cells. Each map is overplotted with an optical contour map of M31 so that it is easy to see the location of the galaxy in these star formation rate maps. An overall assessment of these images is described in Table 2, where the total star formation rate calculated for these regions is shown for each epoch measured. A movie version of Figure 10 is available on the world wide web at http://www.astro.washington.edu/ben/m31\_sfh.gif.

Globally, the images and the table both reveal a decrease in star formation from $``$200 Myr ago to $``$50 Myr ago. The difference lies in the intensity of the star formation in the active regions. Both the northern and southern spiral arms show more intense activity in epochs 1 and 2. Tests of the SFH measurement technique performed and described in W3, suggest that the star formation rate in epoch 1 may be systematically over-estimated in these results because of the dependence of this measurement on photometry near the magnitude limit of the data. However, the measurements for epoch 2 performed well in the same tests. In addition, the decrease in star formation rate does not occur in all of the active regions, decreasing the likelihood that it is the result of systematic errors. For example, the region south of OB 78 (J2000 0:40:00, 41:30:00) does not show this drop. The fact that the strong decrease in the star formation rate between epochs 2 and 3 is likely to be real suggests that significant changes in the global star formation rate can occur on timescales of $``$100 Myr.

Another obvious change seen during these epochs is a steady decrease in star formation in the bulge region. These measurements are not reliable. The rates measured for the bulge region are highly uncertain in the older epochs due to the high crowding in this region (see Figure 6). These large errors allow for higher star formation rates in the earlier epochs.

The details of these maps are best analyzed by blinking through the epochs and watching for areas where the star formation shows evidence for bursts or propagation. This viewing option is available in a movie located on the world wide web at
http://www.astro.washington.edu/ben/m31\_sfh.gif. A description of the differences as seen by such a technique will be discussed. Between epochs 1 and 2, activity in the northeast spiral arm decreased while that in the southeast spiral arm increased. Then, between epochs 2 and 3, the activity of the northeast spiral arm continued to decrease, and the activity in the southeast arm also decreased. Here, a passage of a spiral density wave is suggested in epochs 1, 2 and 3, as star formation left the northeast spiral arm, entered the southeast arm, and then exited the southeast arm.

During epochs 1-3, the region around OB 54 (J2000 00:42:50,41:37:00; the northwest spiral arm) was undergoing a similar experience to the southeast arm. This area shows little activity in epoch 1, then it shows a burst of activity covering epochs 2 and 3 before settling down in epoch 4. These findings suggest the passage of a density wave through this region over a similar time period as one passing through the southeast arm, indicating symmetry in these two areas.

In epochs 3 and 4, the disk as a whole went through its weakest period of star formation. While the arms continued to form stars at a lower rate, most of the strong star formation became confined to a few large OB associations (OB 48, OB 49, OB 54, OB 78, OB 102). Then, in epoch 5, activity increased again in both the northeast and southeast arms. The regions southeast and east of OB 78 also began to form more stars, and OB 102 became strongly active.

Finally, from epoch 5 to epoch 6, there were several significant changes in activity. Epochs 5 and 6 were only 8 Myr long and 4 Myr long respectively, meaning that these changes took place on a timescale of $`<`$10 Myr. In this period of time, the star formation rate in the northeast spiral arm increased. This recent increase was also seen in W3. The strong star formation south of OB 78 which pervaded all of the other epochs, finally fell off, likely due to gas depletion. The star formation in this region appears to have moved northward in this epoch, remaining strong in OB 78 and just northward, consistent with the pattern seen in Cepheid ages by Magnier et al. (1997b) and in star cluster ages by Williams & Hodge (2001b). Activity in OB 102 appears to have moved slightly eastward. The area of OB 59 became active again for the first time since epoch 3.

All of these changes seen in the SFH of the M31 disk suggest that some OB associations and spiral arms go through multiple episodes of star formation, likely attributable to the passage of density waves through these gas-rich regions of the disk.

Because the total star formation rate appears to have stayed fairly stable over the past $``$64 Myr, the measurements for epochs 3-6 were averaged in order to measure one precise mean recent star formation rate covering 1.4 deg2 ($``$75%) of the M31 disk. The resulting recent star formation rate is 0.63$`\pm `$0.07 M$`{}_{}{}^{}yr^1`$. Extrapolating this value to the whole disk suggests a total rate of $``$1 M$`{}_{}{}^{}yr^1`$, which is in good agreement with the far infrared luminosity of M31 (Devereux et al., 1994), which provides a current star formation rate of $`\stackrel{<}{}`$1 M$`{}_{}{}^{}yr^1`$ using the conversion technique of Inoue et al. (2000).

## 5 Conclusions

The SFH of most of the M31 stellar disk has been measured back to 250 Myr ago using $`BV`$ photometry of 6 fields taken with the MOSAIC camera on the 4-m telescope at KPNO. The distance, mean extinction, and stellar age distribution were determined independently for each 18.5 arcmin2 portion of the fields (47.3 arcmin2 portions in the outermost field). Reliability of these measurements was assessed based on the consistency of measurements in overlapping areas of the 6 fields and on tests of the measurement technique described in an earlier publication (W3).

The distances of all regions of the disk were consistent within the measured errors; however, the distances measured in the southern half of the disk provide a hint that the disk southeast of the major axis is the more distant, in agreement with the currently accepted orientation. Combining all 345 distance results gives a distance modulus to M31 of 24.47$`\pm `$0.03. This result is biased by the input distance modulus range of 24.4 to 24.5; however, these results constrain the distance to the upper end of the input range. This distance is also identical to several other recent measurements (e.g. Stanek & Garnavich, 1998, and Holland, 1998).

The mean extinction measurements show that the areas of higher extinction tend to follow the spiral arms, with the exception of the area around OB 78, where the dust appears to be depleted. This depletion was seen in W3, who suggested that the dust may have been blown out by the strong winds of large numbers of hot young stars.

The southern disk appears to have been more active in recent epochs than the northern disk, and the outer western disk appears to have been more active in recent epochs than the outer eastern disk. Areas of the disk showing persistent, strong activity appear in areas possibly influenced by interactions with NGC 205 and/or M32.

There is evidence of star formation propagation across some gas-rich regions of the disk. The strongest evidence favors a process of star formation that has been episodic and confined mainly to gas-rich regions of the arms for the past few hundred Myr. If these episodes have been caused by propagating density waves, the waves appear not to have caused episodes of star formation as they passed through gas-poor interarm regions.

Combination of all of the results provides a global SFH for most of the M31 disk for the past 250 Myr. The total star formation rate appears to have decreased by about 50% from $``$250 to $``$50 Myr ago. The lowest global rate then occurred about 25 Myr ago followed by a $``$20% increase over the past $``$20 Myr. Overall, the mean total star formation rate for this 1.4 deg2 ($``$75%) of the M31 disk over the past 64 Myr has been 0.63$`\pm `$0.07 M yr-1. Scaling this value to the rest of the disk provides an estimated star formation rate of $``$1 M yr-1 for the M31 disk.

I thank the LGS for supplying the data used for this project, especially Phil Massey for his work in observing, preparing and providing the images for the photometric measurements. I thank Andrew Dolphin for supplying the software package necessary for the SFH analysis. Support for this work was provided in part by NASA through grant number GO-9087 from the Space Telescope Science Institute and by the Chandra X-ray Center under grant GO2-3103X.


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# The termination shock in a striped pulsar wind

## 1 Introduction

Most of the pulsar spin-down power is carried away by a relativistic, magnetized wind. The pulsar wind injects this energy into the surrounding nebula in the form of relativistic electron-positron pairs and magnetic fields therefore such nebulae, or plerions, emit synchrotron radiation from the radio to the gamma-ray band. The most famous and well studied example of the plerion is the Crab Nebula; the spectrum of this source is measured from about 10 MHz to dozens TeV. According to MHD models (Rees & Gunn 1974; Kennel & Coroniti 1984; Emmering & Chevalier 1987; Begelman & Li 1992), the pulsar wind terminates in a standing shock at a radius defined by the condition that the confining pressure balances the momentum flux of the wind. In the Crab case, the shock radius was estimated to be $`3\times 10^{17}`$ cm in excellent agreement with observations; according to Chandra results (Weisskopf et al. 2000), the radius of the shock in the equatorial plane is $`4\times 10^{17}`$ cm. The observed brightness and the spectral index distributions are generally consistent with the assumption that the relativistic particles are accelerated at the termination shock and then fill in the nebula, spending the acquired energy on synchrotron emission and $`pdV`$ work.

The generic observational feature of plerions is a flat radio spectrum; the spectral flux may be presented as a power law function of the frequency, $`_\nu \nu ^\alpha `$, with the spectral index $`\alpha =00.3`$. At high frequencies the spectrum steepens and the typical spectral slope in the X-ray band is $`\alpha 1`$. The overall spectrum of the Crab may be described as a broken power law with the spectral breaks around $`10^{13}`$ Hz, few$`\times 10^{15}`$ Hz and around 100 keV. The synchrotron lifetime of the radio emitting electrons (and positrons, below by electrons I mean both electrons and positrons) significantly exceeds the plerion age therefore one can not exclude a priori that they were injected at the very early stage of the plerion evolution (Kennel & Coroniti 1984; Atoyan 1999). In this case the overall spectrum depends on history of the nebula. However the spectral break at $`10^{13}`$ Hz may be simply accounted for the synchrotron burn off effect assuming that particles emitting from the radio to the optical bands are injected more or less homogeneously in time with the single power law energy distribution. This view is strongly supported by Gallant & Tuffs (1999, 2002) who found that the infra-red spectral index in the central parts of the Crab is close to that in the radio, and gradually steepens outward. Recent observations of wisps in the radio band (Bietenholz & Kronberg 1992; Bietenholtz, Frail & Hester 2001) suggest unambiguously that the radio emitting electrons are accelerated now in the same region as the ones responsible for the optical to X-ray emission.

If the radio emitting electrons have been injecting into the Crab Nebula till the present time, the injection rate of electrons should be about $`10^{40}10^{41}`$ s-1. It is interesting that the observed pulsed optical emission from the Crab pulsar suggests that about the same amount of electrons is ejected from the pulsar magnetosphere (Shklovsky 1970) so the pulsar does supply the necessary amount of particles. The observed spectral slope in the radio band, $`\alpha =0.26`$, implies the energy distribution of the injected electrons of the form $`N(E)E^{1.5}`$. In this case, most of the particles find themselves at the low energy end of the distribution whereas particles at the upper end of the distribution dominate the energy density of the plasma. Taking into account that no sign of a low frequency cut-off is observed in the Crab spectrum down to about 10 MHz whereas the high frequency break lies in the ultra-violet band (recall that the break at about $`10^{13}`$ Hz is attributed to synchrotron cooling but not to the injected energy distribution), one concludes that the above distribution extends from $`E_{min}100`$ MeV to $`E_{max}10^6`$ MeV. At $`E>E_{max}`$ the distribution becomes steeper; the spectral slope in the X-ray band, $`\alpha =1.1`$, corresponds, with account for the synchrotron burn off effect, to $`N(E)E^{2.2}`$. The distribution further steepens at $`E10^9`$ MeV as it follows from the gamma-ray spectrum of the Nebula. Thus the injected electrons have a very wide energy distribution, their number density being dominated by low energy electrons whereas the plasma energy density being dominated by TeV electrons.

The above considerations place severe limits on the pulsar wind parameters and possible mechanisms of the particle acceleration at the termination shock. According to the widespread view, the pulsars emit Poynting-dominated winds however the electro-magnetic energy is efficiently transferred to the plasma flow such that the magnetization parameter $`\sigma `$, defined as the ratio of the Poynting flux to the kinetic energy flux, is already very small when the flow enters the termination shock. The mechanisms of such an energy transfer still remain unclear (the so called $`\sigma `$-problem) however dynamics of the flow in the Nebula suggests that the magnetic pressure is small just beyond the termination shock, which implies that the Poynting flux just upstream the shock is very small (Rees & Gunn 1974; Kundt & Krotscheck 1980; Kennel & Coroniti 1984; Emmering & Chevalier 1987; Begelman & Li 1992). In this case it is kinetic energy of the upstream flow that converts into the energy of accelerated particles when the plasma flow is randomized at the shock. Then the characteristic downstream ”temperature” is about the upstream particle kinetic energy, $`Tmc^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_w`$, so the average particle energy does not vary considerably across the shock. A high energy tail may be formed in the particle energy distribution (the particle acceleration at the relativistic shocks is considered by Hoshino et al. (1992); Gallant & Arons (1994); Bednarz & Ostrowski (1998); Gallant & Achterberg (1999); Kirk et al. (2000); Achterberg et al. (2001)) however this tail merges, at its low energy end, with the quasi-thermal distribution at $`ETmc^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_w`$. Therefore if the pulsar spin-down power, $`L_{sd}`$, is converted into the kinetic energy of the wind, the available upper limit on the low-frequency break in the Crab spectrum suggests that the wind Lorentz-factor, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_w`$, does not exceed few hundred.

On the other hand, the observed flat spectrum may be formed only if the energy per electron in the wind is much larger than $`m_ec^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_w`$. Gallant et al.(2002), modifying the original idea of Hoshino et al. (1992) and Gallant & Arons (1994), suggested that the wind is loaded by ions; in this case the radio emitting electrons are accelerated by resonant absorption of ion cyclotron waves collectively emitted at the shock front. The necessary ion injection rate, $`L_{sd}/(m_pc^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_w)10^{39}`$ s-1, vastly exceeds the fiducial Goldreich-Julian elementary charge loss rate, $`3\times 10^{34}`$ s-1. Although one can not exclude by observations that pulsars emit the required amount of ions, the available pulsar models do not assume an ion outflow with the rate exceeding the Goldreich-Julian charge loss rate (Cheng & Ruderman 1980; Arons 1983).

Here I consider an alternative possibility, which does not imply a radical modification of the basic pulsar model. In the equatorial belt of the wind from an obliquely rotating pulsar magnetosphere, the sign of the magnetic field alternates with the pulsar period forming stripes of opposite magnetic polarity (Michel 1971, 1982; Coroniti 1990; Bogovalov 1999). Observations of X-ray tori around pulsars (Weisskopf et al. 2000; Helfand, Gotthelf & Halpern 2001; Gaensler, Pivovaroff & Garmire 2001; Pavlov et al. 2001; Gaensler et al. 2002; Lu et al. 2002) suggest that it is in the equatorial belt where most of the wind energy is transported; theoretical models (e.g., Bogovalov’s (1999) solution for the oblique split monopole magnetosphere) support this conclusion. Therefore the fate of the striped wind is of special interest. In the striped wind, the Poynting flux converts into the particle energy flux when the oppositely directed magnetic fields annihilate (Coroniti 1990; Lyubarsky & Kirk 2001, henceforth LK; Lyutikov 2002; Kirk & Skjæraasen 2003). Until now this dissipation mechanism was considered only in the unshocked wind. It was found that the flow acceleration in the course of the energy release dilates the dissipation timescale so that the wind may enter the termination shock before the alternating field annihilates completely. In this case driven annihilation of the magnetic field at the shock may provide the energy necessary to form the flat particle distribution. On the other hand, the formed distribution may extend down to low enough energy because the kinetic energy of the flow in the striped wind is lower than the total energy. The aim of this research is to consider properties of the termination shock in the striped wind.

It will be shown that the alternating field completely annihilates at the shock so that the downstream parameters of the flow are the same as if the field has already annihilated upstream the shock. Therefore the available limits on the upstream magnetization parameter, $`\sigma `$, should be attributed not to the total Poynting flux but to the Poynting flux associated with the averaged magnetic field (see also Rees & Gunn 1974; Kundt & Krotscheck 1980). The upstream flow may be Poynting dominated provided most of the Poynting flux is transferred by alternating magnetic field. On the other hand, driven reconnection of the magnetic field within the shock radically alter the particle acceleration process. It follows from both analytical and numerical studies that particles are readily accelerated in the course of the magnetic field reconnection to form the energy distribution with the power-law index $`\beta 1`$ (Romanova & Lovelace 1992; Zenitani & Hoshino 2001; Larrabee, Lovelace & Romanova 2002). Electrons with such a distribution emit synchrotron radiation with a flat spectrum therefore Romanova & Lovelace (1992) and Birk, Crusius-Wätzel & Lesch (2001) suggested that reconnection plays a crucial role in flat spectrum extragalactic radio sources. One can naturally assume that radio emission of plerions is generated by electrons accelerated in the course of reconnection of the alternating magnetic field at the pulsar wind termination shock. Then the steeper high-energy spectrum may be attributed to the Fermi acceleration of particles preaccelerated in the reconnection process. A simple model for the particle acceleration in the shocked striped wind is presented here. It will be shown that the minimal energy of the power law energy distribution may be low in this case, even less then the upstream kinetic energy, whereas the energy density of the plasma will be dominated by high-energy electrons in agreement with the observed spectra of plerions.

The article is organized as follows. Jump conditions for a shock in the striped wind are obtained in Sect. 2. Making use of these jump conditions I demonstrate in sect. 3 that the alternating magnetic field dissipates completely at the pulsar wind termination shock. In sect. 4 I discuss particle acceleration by driven reconnection. Particle acceleration at the shock in the striped wind is analyzed in sect. 5. The obtained results are summarized in sect. 6.

## 2 Jump conditions for the shock in a striped wind

Let us find jump conditions for a shock in a flow with an alternating magnetic field. The plasma upstream the shock is assumed to be cold everywhere with the exception of narrow current sheets separating stripes with opposite magnetic polarity. The pressure balance implies that the magnetic field strength in adjacent stripes differs only by sign but not by the absolute value; on the other hand the width of stripes with opposite polarity may not be the same so that the average magnetic field may be nonzero (Fig. 1). One generally finds jump conditions from the conservation laws and some prescription for the magnetic flux passing the shock. In the standard MHD shock, the magnetic flux is conserved; in the case under consideration one should choose more general prescription to take into account possible annihilation of the magnetic field at the shock.

Outside the shock, the magnetic field is frozen into the plasma, $`𝐄+(1/c)𝐯\times 𝐁=0`$. In the case of interest the magnetic field lies in the plane of the shock. In the frame where the flow velocity is perpendicular to the shock plane $`E=(v/c)B`$. Then the Faraday law may be written as

$$\frac{B}{t}+\frac{1}{c}\frac{}{x}vB=0.$$

Together with the continuity equation

$$\frac{}{t}\mathrm{\Gamma }n+\frac{}{x}\mathrm{\Gamma }nv=0,$$

this implies

$$\frac{B}{n\mathrm{\Gamma }}=b,$$
$`(1)`$
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`n`$ are the Lorentz factor and the proper plasma density, correspondingly, and $`b`$ is a constant for each fluid element. The energy and momentum fluxes are

$$S=w\mathrm{\Gamma }^2v+\frac{EB}{4\pi }c;$$

$$F=w\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(v/c)^2+p+\frac{E^2+B^2}{8\pi };$$

where $`p`$ and $`w`$ are the gas pressure and specific enthalpy, correspondingly. Taking into account the above considerations, one can write

$$S=𝒲v\mathrm{\Gamma }^2;F=𝒲\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(v/c)^2+𝒫,$$
$`(2)`$
where the effective pressure and enthalpy are

$$𝒫=p+\frac{b^2n^2}{8\pi },𝒲=w+\frac{b^2n^2}{4\pi },$$
$`(3)`$
so the flow may be described by the hydrodynamical equations.

In the standard MHD theory, the magnetic flux conserves and the flow is considered as homogeneous both upstream and downstream the shock so that $`b`$ is a global constant. In our case $`b`$ is an alternating function of the lagrangian coordinate however only $`b^2`$ enters the conservation laws therefore the only essential difference from the standard MHD theory is that the modulus $`b`$ may decrease in the shock because of the field annihilation. Let us introduce a parameter

$$\eta =\frac{b_2^2}{b_1^2}$$
$`(4)`$
to measure decreasing in the magnetic flux across the shock. The indexes 1 and 2 are referred to quantities upstream and downstream the shock, correspondingly.

One can express the downstream parameters via the upstream ones making use of the conservation of the particle, energy and momentum fluxes across the shock. Radiation losses may be safely neglected at the shock width scale. In the striped wind, one should take the fluxes averaged over the wave period. Let us assume, for the sake of simplicity, that the current sheets between the stripes are so narrow that one can neglect the contribution of the plasma within the sheets into the conserving fluxes. Outside the sheets, the magnetic field and plasma density are constant across a stripe and the adjacent stripes are differ only by the sign of the magnetic field and by the width. Taking into account that the energy and momentum fluxes are proportional to the magnetic field squared, one can write the conservation laws like in the case of homogeneous magnetic field:

$$v_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_1n_1=v_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2n_2;$$
$`(5)`$
$$𝒲_1v_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^2=𝒲_2v_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^2;$$
$`(6)`$
$$𝒲_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^2(v_1/c)^2+𝒫_1=𝒲_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^2(v_2/c)^2+𝒫_2.$$
$`(7)`$
The only formal difference from the case of the standard MHD shock is in the additional parameter $`\eta 1`$; in the standard shock $`\eta =1`$.

One can resolve the above equations as follows. The plasma downstream the shock is relativistically hot, $`w_2=4p_2`$, therefore one can easily eliminate $`w`$ and $`p`$ from Eq.(3) and express $`𝒫_2`$ via $`𝒲_2`$ and $`n_2`$. Substituting the obtained relation into Eq.(7), one then eliminates $`𝒲_2`$ making use of Eq.(6) and eliminates $`n_2`$ making use of Eq.(5). Taking into account that the plasma upstream the shock is cold, $`p_1=0`$ and $`w_1=nm_ec^2`$, one gets the resulting equation for the downstream velocity in the form

$$\left(1+\frac{1}{\sigma }\right)\left(v_1v_2\frac{c^2}{4v_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^2}\right)\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^2v_1}{c^2}+\frac{1}{2}$$

$$=\frac{\eta }{4}\frac{v_1^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^2}{v_2^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^2}\frac{v_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_1}{4\sigma v_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2},$$
$`(8)`$
where

$$\sigma =\frac{b_1^2n_1}{4\pi m_ec^2}$$
$`(9)`$
is the magnetization parameter. This equation is exact. In case $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^2\mathrm{Max}(\sigma ,1)`$ one can take $`v_1=c`$. Then Eq.(8) reduces to

$$(3v_2c)\left(1+\frac{1}{\sigma }\right)=\frac{\eta c}{v_2}(c+v_2).$$

Now the downstream parameters may be found explicitly:

$$v_2=\frac{c}{6}\left(1+\chi +\sqrt{1+14\chi +\chi ^2}\right);$$
$`(10)`$
$$n_2=n_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_1\frac{\sqrt{2[178\chi \chi ^2(1+\chi )\sqrt{1+14\chi +\chi ^2}]}}{1+\chi +\sqrt{1+14\chi +\chi ^2}};$$
$`(11)`$
$$\frac{T_2}{m_ec^2}=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1(1+\sigma )}{12\sqrt{2}}\sqrt{178\chi \chi ^2(1+\chi )\sqrt{1+14\chi +\chi ^2}}$$

$$\times \left(1\frac{6\chi }{1+\chi +\sqrt{1+14\chi +\chi ^2}}\right);$$
$`(12)`$
where

$$\chi =\frac{\eta \sigma }{1+\sigma }.$$
$`(13)`$
At $`\eta =1`$ one recovers the downstream parameters for the relativistic MHD shock in the homogeneous medium (Kennel & Coroniti 1984; Appl & Camenzind 1988). In this case the quantity $`\chi `$ is the ratio of the upstream Poynting flux to the total energy flux. In a striped wind, $`\chi `$ is determined by the Poynting flux corresponding to the magnetic flux passed the shock. It will be shown in the next section that the alternating magnetic field annihilates completely at the pulsar wind termination shock; then $`\chi `$ is simply the ratio of the Poynting flux associated with the average magnetic field, $`B_1^2v/4\pi `$, to the total energy flux. At the equator of the flow the average field is zero, $`\alpha =0`$, therefore one gets $`v_2=c/3`$ like at the nonmagnetized relativistic shock. When the average magnetic flux is large, $`\sigma 1`$, $`\eta 1`$, the downstream flow is relativistic with the Lorentz factor

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_2=\sqrt{\frac{\sigma }{1+(1\eta )\sigma }}.$$
$`(14)`$
## 3 The termination shock in a striped pulsar wind

In a striped wind, the magnetic field forms toroidal stripes of opposite polarity, separated by current sheets (Michel 1971, 1982; Bogovalov 1999). Such a structure arises in the equatorial belt of the pulsar wind and may be considered as an entropy wave propagating through the wind. Usov (1975) and Michel (1982) noticed that the waves must decay at large distances, since the current required to sustain them falls off as $`r^1`$ whereas the density of available charge carriers in the wind decreases as $`r^2`$. Hence the alternating magnetic fields should eventually annihilate. It was shown in LK that the distance beyond which the available charge carriers are unable to maintain the necessary current exceeds the radius of the standing shock where the wind terminates so that only some fraction of the magnetic energy is converted into the particle energy before the plasma reaches this shock front. This fraction depends on the magnetic field reconnection rate. A lower limit may be obtained assuming that the dissipation keeps the width of the current sheet to be equal to the particle Larmor radius, which is roughly the same condition as that the current velocity is equal to the speed of light (Corontiti 1990; Michel 1994; LK). Then about 10% of the Poynting flux dissipates before the wind reaches the termination shock. At higher reconnection rate the fraction of the dissipated energy is larger; assuming that the reconnection velocity is as high as the sound velocity one can find that the alternating field annihilates completely before the flow enters the termination shock (Kirk & Skjæraasen 2003). Here I adopt the slow reconnection model by LK to estimate the flow parameters just upstream the termination shock.

Neglecting the dependence of the wind parameters on latitude, one can express them only via the pulsar spin-down power, $`L_{sd}`$, and the total amount of the ejected electrons, $`\dot{N}`$. LK used instead the ratio of the gyro-frequency at the light cylinder to the angular velocity of the neutron star and the so called multiplicity coefficient arising in the models of the pair production in pulsar magnetospheres. These parameters may be expressed via $`L_{sd}`$ and $`\dot{N}`$ taking into account that the magnetic field at the light cylinder is estimated as $`B_L=\sqrt{L_{sd}/(cR_l)}`$, where $`R_l=cP/2\pi `$ is the light cylinder radius, $`P`$ the pulsar period.

The characteristic distance beyond which the available charge carriers are unable to maintain the necessary current (Eq.(14) in LK) may be written as

$$R_{max}=\frac{\pi }{2}\sqrt{\frac{e^2L_{sd}}{m_e^2c^5}}R_l,$$
$`(15)`$
where $`e`$ is the electron charge. For the Crab $`R_{max}=1.9\times 10^{19}`$ cm. Note that the dimensionless parameter $`\widehat{L}`$ used by Kirk & Skjæraasen (2003) is proportional to $`(R_{max}/R_l)^2`$. In the Poynting dominated flows, dissipation of even a small fraction of the Poynting flux implies significant acceleration of the flow. While the dissipated energy is small, the Lorentz factor of the wind (Eq.(30) in LK) may be estimated as

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_w=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{max}\sqrt{\frac{R}{R_{max}}},$$
$`(16)`$
where

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{max}=\frac{L_{sd}}{m_ec^2\dot{N}}$$
$`(17)`$
is the Lorentz factor attained by the wind if all the spin-down power is converted into the kinetic energy of the plasma. Note that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_w/\mathrm{\Gamma }_{max}`$ is the fraction of the spin-down power transferred to the plasma therefore the magnetization parameter of the wind may be written as

$$\sigma =\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{max}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_w}1.$$
$`(18)`$
The current sheet width is conveniently measured by a fraction $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of a wavelength $`2\pi R_l`$ occupied by the two current sheets; Eq.(31) in LK may be written as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{1}{6}\sqrt{\frac{R}{R_{max}}}.$$
$`(19)`$
In the Crab, the termination shock is observed at the distance $`4\times 10^{17}`$ cm (Weisskopf et al. 2000) therefore just upstream the shock $`\sigma =13`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0.024`$; $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_w=4.4\times 10^3/\dot{N}_{40}`$, where $`\dot{N}_{40}=\dot{N}/(10^{40}\mathrm{s}^1)`$.

At the termination shock, the flow sharply decelerates so the plasma is compressed. The proper density grows $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1/\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ times. According to Eqs.(10) and (13), the less $`\eta `$ (i.e. the larger fraction of the magnetic flux dissipates at the shock) the less the downstream velocity so one can place a lower limit on the compression factor assuming $`\eta =1`$. In this case $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2=\sqrt{\sigma }`$; substituting the estimated above parameters of the Crab wind, one gets $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1/\mathrm{\Gamma }_2=\mathrm{\Gamma }_w/\sqrt{\sigma }1000`$. Such a huge compression factor implies significant heating of the plasma, especially within the current sheets. Let us show that after such a compression the particle Larmor radius should exceed the wavelength so that the alternating magnetic field dissipates completely within the shock.

The downstream temperature, which determines the Larmor radius, depends on the fraction of the alternating magnetic field annihilated at the shock. Let us first assume that this fraction remains small so that the structure sketched in Fig. 1 preserves downstream the shock. The width of the current sheet in the wind frame cannot be less than the particle Larmor radius,

$$\delta =T/eB^{},$$
$`(20)`$
where $`T`$ is the plasma temperature within the sheet and $`B^{}`$ the magnetic field in the wind frame of reference. The wavelength in the wind frame is $`2\pi R_l\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ therefore the minimum fraction of the wavelength occupied by the two current sheets is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=T/(\pi R_l\mathrm{\Gamma }eB^{}).$$

The temperature obeys the condition of the hydrostatic equilibrium of the plasma in the sheet, $`n_hT=B^2/8\pi `$, where $`n_h`$ is the number density of the plasma in the sheet. The magnetic field is frozen into the plasma outside the sheet therefore $`B^{}n_c`$, where $`n_c`$ is the plasma number density outside the sheet. Now one can write (see Eq.(17) in LK)

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{n_h}{n_c}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }},$$

The left-hand side of this relation is the fraction of particles carried in the sheet; of course this fraction should be less than unity. In the unshocked wind $`n_h/n_c=3`$ (LK); with the above estimate for the upstream $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, one obtains that upstream the shock this fraction is about 0.1. It was demonstrated above that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ decreases about 1000 times when the flow passes the shock, therefore downstream the shock $`\mathrm{\Delta }n_h/n_c100`$, which is impossible. This means that contrary to the initial assumption, the fraction of the magnetic field dissipated within the shock is not small and $`\eta `$ defined by Eq.(4) is not close to unity.

In this case $`\chi `$ (Eq.(13)) is also not close to unity and then, according to Eqs.(10) and (12), the downstream flow is non- or mildly relativistic, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_21`$, whereas the downstream temperature is about the particle kinetic energy upstream the shock, $`T_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_w\sigma m_ec^2`$. With the above estimates for the upstream Lorentz factor and magnetization parameter, one can easily see that the Larmor radius downstream the shock, $`r_L=T/eB10^{12}/(B_4\dot{N}_{40})`$ cm, vastly exceeds the wavelength, $`\lambda =2\pi R_l=10^9`$ cm, therefore the alternating magnetic field should completely annihilate at the shock.

This means that the parameter $`\chi `$ should be determined as the ratio of the Poynting flux associated with the average magnetic field, $`cB^2/4\pi `$, to the total energy flux. Therefore the downstream parameters are independent of whether the alternating magnetic field dissipated upstream the shock or just at the shock. The available upper limits on the magnetization parameter in the pulsar wind (Kennel & Coroniti 1984; Emmering & Chevalier 1987; Begelman & Li 1992) was found from the standard MHD shock conditions applied to the downstream parameters estimated from the analysis of the plasma dynamics in the nebula downstream the shock. In the case of the striped wind these upper limits should be attributed not to the total Poynting flux but to the Poynting flux associated with the average magnetic field (see also Rees & Gunn 1974; Kundt & Krotscheck 1980). The upstream flow may be Poynting dominated provided most of the electromagnetic energy is carried by the alternating magnetic field, which annihilates at the termination shock.

## 4 Particle acceleration by driven reconnection

The particle acceleration by driven reconnection may be qualitatively described as follows. Let us consider a box with two stripes of the oppositely directed magnetic field and a current sheet between them (Fig. 2). When the box is compressed, the electric field $`𝐄=(1/c)𝐯\times 𝐁`$ arises, which has the same sign in the domains of opposite magnetic polarity. Close enough to the zero line of the magnetic field, particles may move freely along this line and gain energy from the electric field. Of course the real picture should be much more complicated than the presented one-dimensional sketch. The magnetic reconnection might proceed in separate X-points but in average the process remains one-dimensional because the released energy is confined to a layer around the field reversal.

Acceleration of relativistic electrons close to an X-point was considered by Romanova & Lovelace (1992); Zenitani & Hoshino (2001), Larrabee et al.(2002) who found a power-law particle distribution with the slope $`\beta 1`$. Reconnection in a long current sheet at a time-scale large enough that particles pass many X-points has not been considered yet. Let us assume that a power-law distribution is formed in this case also and estimate the maximal energy particles attain when the magnetic field annihilates completely.

Let the particle energy distribution within the current sheet be $`N(\gamma )=K\gamma ^\beta `$ at $`1\gamma \gamma _m`$ with $`\beta 12`$. At such a distribution function, the particle density is dominated by low energy electrons,

$$n_h=\frac{K}{\beta 1},$$
$`(21)`$
whereas the energy density is dominated by high-energy electrons,

$$\epsilon =\frac{m_ec^2K}{2\beta }\gamma _m^{2\beta }.$$
$`(22)`$
Let us assume that the power law index $`\beta `$ remains fixed in the course of compression and only $`K`$ and $`\gamma _m`$ vary. One can find these variations considering particles and energy balance within the box.

The particle balance is written as

$$n_h\delta +n_c(l\delta )=n_{h0}\delta _0+n_{c0}(l_0\delta _0),$$
$`(23)`$
where $`\delta `$ is the sheet width, $`l`$ the box width, $`n_h`$ and $`n_c`$ the particle number densities in the sheet and outside it, correspondingly, and the index 0 is referred to the initial state. The energy balance implies that the variation of the total energy within the box is equal to the work done on the box by the outer pressure ($`=B^2/8\pi `$):

$$d\left[\epsilon \delta +(l\delta )\frac{B^2}{8\pi }\right]=\frac{B^2}{8\pi }dl,$$

where $`\epsilon `$ is the plasma energy density in the sheet. Taking into account that the magnetic field is frozen into the cold plasma,

$$B=bn_c,$$
$`(24)`$
and that the plasma pressure in the sheet, $`p=\epsilon /3`$, is counterbalanced by the magnetic pressure,

$$\frac{\epsilon }{3}=\frac{B^2}{8\pi },$$
$`(25)`$
one can write the energy balance equation in the form

$$(l+2\delta )\frac{dn_c}{dl}+n_c\frac{d\delta }{dl}+n_c=0.$$
$`(26)`$
Let us assume that the sheet width is equal to the maximal Larmor radius

$$\delta =\frac{m_ec^2\gamma _m}{eB}.$$

The maximal Lorentz factor, $`\gamma _m`$, is found from Eqs. (21), (22), (24) and (25) as

$$\gamma _m=\left(\frac{3(2\beta )}{8\pi (\beta 1)}\frac{b^2n_c^2}{m_ec^2n_h}\right)^{1/(2\beta )}.$$
$`(27)`$
Now one can write

$$\delta =\delta _0\left(\frac{n_c}{n_{c0}}\right)^{\beta /(2\beta )}\left(\frac{n_{h0}}{n_h}\right)^{1/(2\beta )}.$$
$`(28)`$
In order to find the plasma parameters in the course of compression one should solve Eqs.(23), (26) and (28) for $`\delta (l)`$, $`n_c(l)`$, $`n_h(l)`$ from $`l=l_0`$ to smaller $`l`$. The magnetic field dissipates completely when the sheet width becomes comparable with the box width, $`\delta l`$. At the last stage, one is unable to separate unambiguously the total plasma volume onto a hot current sheet and a cold magnetized plasma therefore the presented equations may be only used to estimate roughly the final plasma parameters. Taking this into account, one can simplify the problem even more and solve these equations in the limit $`\delta l`$, when they are formally applicable, and take the limit $`\delta =l`$ in the obtained solutions.

Let us introduce the dimensionless variable $`\mathrm{\Delta }\delta /l`$. In the zeroth order in small $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, both Eq.(23) and Eq.(26) reduce to the same equation

$$n_cl=n_{c0}l_0,$$
$`(29)`$
so the system is nearly degenerate. In order to find the second equation, one should expand Eqs.(23) and (26) to the first order in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and eliminate the zeroth order term. Introducing one more dimensionless variable $`Yn_h/n_c`$, one gets

$$\mathrm{\Delta }l\frac{dY}{dl}+(Y2)l\frac{d\mathrm{\Delta }}{dl}+\mathrm{\Delta }=0.$$
$`(30)`$
Transforming Eq.(28) to the dimensionless variables $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`Y`$ and substituting $`n_c`$ from Eq.(29), one obtains

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}=\left(\frac{Y_0l_0}{Yl}\right)^{1/(2\beta )}.$$
$`(31)`$
Now one can eliminate $`l`$ from Eqs.(30) and (31) to get finally

$$(Y1)\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{Y}\frac{dY}{d\mathrm{\Delta }}+Y+\beta 4=0.$$
$`(32)`$
The solution to this equation is

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}\right)^{4\beta }=\frac{Y_0}{Y}\left(\frac{Y_0+\beta 4}{Y+\beta 4}\right)^{3\beta }.$$

At $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ (but still $`\mathrm{\Delta }1`$) $`Y`$ goes to a constant, $`Y=4\beta `$, independently of the initial conditions. Taking into account that in the pulsar wind $`Y=3`$ (LK), one can take for estimates $`Y=Y_0=3`$.

Now one can estimate the compression factor, $`kl_0/l`$, necessary for the magnetic field to dissipate completely. Substituting $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$ into Eq.(31), one gets

$$k=\mathrm{\Delta }_0^{\beta 2}.$$
$`(33)`$
Substituting $`n_c=kn_{c0}`$ into Eq.(27) yields an estimate for the maximal Lorentz factor attained when the magnetic field dissipates completely

$$\gamma _m=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}\left(\frac{(2\beta )}{2(\beta 1)}\sigma \right)^{1/(2\beta )},$$
$`(34)`$
where $`\sigma =b^2n_{c0}/(4\pi m_ec^2)`$ is the initial magnetization parameter. It follows from Eqs.(16), (18) and (19) that in the wind upstream the shock $`\mathrm{\Delta }1/\sigma `$ therefore the particles may be accelerated up to large energies, $`\gamma _m1`$, even at a moderately large $`\sigma `$.

## 5 Particle acceleration at the termination shock in a striped wind

At the termination shock, the flow is compressed and the energy of the alternating magnetic field is released. Close to the equator of the flow, the average magnetic field is small and nearly all the Poynting flux is transferred to the particles. It was shown in sect. 2 that the downstream velocity is non-relativistic in this case, therefore the proper density of the plasma increases $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_w`$ times where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_w`$ is the wind Lorentz factor upstream the shock. For typical parameters (see sect. 3) this compression factor significantly exceeds that given by Eq. (33); this confirms the conclusion that the alternating magnetic field annihilates completely at the termination shock.

The flow is decelerated in the shock by the pressure of the hot downstream plasma and magnetic field. In the collisionless shock the deceleration scale is about the Larmor radius of those particles, which make a major contribution to the downstream pressure. These particles penetrate upstream by their Larmour radius and exert, via the magnetic field, the decelerating force on the upstream flow. In the standard MHD shock, the downstream temperature is about the particle kinetic energy in the upstream flow therefore the upstream particles penetrate about all the shock width immediately after they enter the shock. So there is only one characteristic spatial scale in this case, namely that of the Larmor radius corresponding to the upstream kinetic energy. In the shock in the striped wind, the particles gain energy from the annihilating magnetic field so that the downstream pressure is determined by particles with the energy significantly exceeding the upstream kinetic energy. The Larmor radius of these particles significantly exceeds not only the Larmor radius corresponding to the kinetic energy in the upstream flow but even the strip width. Therefore the width of such a shock, or the deceleration scale, exceeds all ”internal” scales in the upstream flow and hence the the field annihilation proceeds locally in the proper frame like in the plasma smoothly compressed by an external force. Only when the alternating field dissipates completely, the particle Larmor radius, calculated with account of both thermal and kinetic energy, becomes comparable with the shock width and the flow decelerates further on like in the standard shock. So one can roughly separate the shock into two zones. In the first zone, the flow is decelerated and compressed by the pressure of high energy particles entering from the second zone. The magnetic field dissipates in the first zone roughly according to the simple picture outlined in Sect. 4. The plasma heated by the field annihilation in the first zone enters the second one therefore the second zone resembles the standard shock with a hot upstream plasma.

The compression factor, $`k`$, necessary for the magnetic field to dissipate completely was estimated in the previous section. The continuity equation in the relativistic flow, $`n\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡}`$, implies that the flow Lorentz factor at the end of the field dissipation stage is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_d\mathrm{\Gamma }_w/k`$. Adopting the outlined in the previous section picture of the particle acceleration by driven reconnection, one concludes that a power-law particle distribution is formed at this stage. In the proper plasma frame moving with the Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_d`$, this distribution extends from $`\gamma 1`$ up to $`\gamma \gamma _m`$. Now the alternating field is already dissipated and the flow decelerates further on, from $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Gamma }_d`$ down to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1`$, like in the standard MHD shock. Applying the particle and energy flux conservation, $`n\mathrm{\Gamma }v=\mathrm{𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡}`$ and $`\epsilon \mathrm{\Gamma }^2v=\mathrm{𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡}`$, one finds the maximal energy in the particle distribution downstream the shock, $`\gamma _{max}\mathrm{\Gamma }_d\gamma _m`$. The upper limit on the minimal energy may be estimated from the condition that the energy of the most of particles is simply randomized but does not changes considerably; then $`\gamma _{min}\mathrm{\Gamma }_d`$. Making use of Eqs.(33) and (34), one gets

$$\gamma _{min}\mathrm{\Delta }^{2\beta }\mathrm{\Gamma }_w;$$
$`(35)`$
$$\gamma _{max}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_w}{\mathrm{\Delta }^{\beta 1}}\left(\frac{2\beta }{2(\beta 1)}\sigma \right)^{1/(2\beta )}.$$
$`(36)`$
Substituting $`\beta =1.5`$ and parameters of the Crab pulsar wind upstream the termination shock (see sect.3), one gets $`\gamma _{min}600`$; $`\gamma _{max}10^6`$, which is roughly compatible with the parameters inferred from the observed spectrum.

These simple estimates show that particle acceleration at the shock in a striped wind may form such a particle distribution that the energy of most of the particles is significantly less than the upstream particle kinetic energy whereas the plasma energy density is dominated by a relatively small amount of high energy particles. These high energy particles may be accelerated further on by the 1-st order Fermi mechanism thus forming a high energy tail at $`\gamma >\gamma _{max}`$. Recent investigations (Bednarz & Ostrowski (1998); Gallant & Achterberg (1999); Kirk et al. (2000); Achterberg et al. (2001)) have shown that in ultra-relativistic shocks, the tail is formed with the power-law index $`\beta =2.22.3`$ compatible with the observed X-ray spectra of the Crab and other plerions. So the observed broken power-law spectrum with a flat low frequency part may be attributed to the particle acceleration at the termination shock in a striped pulsar wind.

## 6 Conclusions

The observed spectra of plerions from the radio to the gamma-ray band imply a very wide electron energy distribution, from less than few hundreds MeV to $`10^{16}`$ eV. Most of electrons are accumulated at the low-energy end of this distribution. Although the synchrotron life time of these electrons exceeds the plerion age, there is strong evidence to suggest that they are accelerated now together with high energy electrons responsible for the hard radiation from the nebula (Bietenholz & Kronberg 1992; Gallant & Tuffs 1999, 2002; Bietenholtz et al. 2001). The observed flat radio spectrum implies that the acceleration mechanism transfers most of the available energy to a small fraction of particles and retains most of particles at relatively low energy.

It is proposed in this article that the flat energy distribution is formed in the course of the particle acceleration by driven reconnection of the alternating magnetic field at the pulsar wind termination shock. It is widely believed that just upstream the termination shock the magnetic energy is negligible as compared with the plasma kinetic energy because plasma dynamics in the nebula implies small magnetization downstream the shock (Rees & Gunn 1974; Kennel & Coroniti 1984; Emmering & Chevalier 1987; Begelman & Li 1992). However the plasma magnetization and dynamics depend only on the average upstream magnetic field so the upstream flow may be Poynting dominated provided most of the magnetic energy is associated with the alternating magnetic field. In this case the average particle energy grows significantly at the shock where the magnetic field annihilates. Therefore the particle distribution with the power-law index $`\beta <2`$ is formed readily.

The proposed mechanism may also explain why no low-frequency cutoff is observed in the Crab radio spectrum. At the kinetic energy dominated shocks, the power-law tail is formed only at the energies exceeding the downstream temperature, which is about the particle kinetic energy upstream the shock. Therefore if the Crab pulsar wind were kinetic energy dominated, only rather low Lorentz factor of the wind would be compatible with the radio data, which would imply extremely highly mass loaded wind. In the striped wind, most of the energy is contained in the magnetic field therefore the wind Lorentz factor is lower than in the kinetic energy dominated wind. Moreover the presented here simple model of the shock in a striped wind predicts that in this case the downstream temperature may be considerably less than the upstream particle kinetic energy. Therefore the lack of the low-frequency turnover in the observed plerion spectra may be naturally explained within the scope of the proposed model. Of course the outlined here qualitative picture of the particle acceleration in plerions may be considered only as preliminary; it may be justified only by numerical simulations of the shock in a striped wind.

## Acknowledgments

I am grateful to David Eichler for stimulating discussions.