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# The distance and radius of the neutron star PSR B0656+14

## 1 Introduction

The cooling of neutron stars offers a unique diagnostic of the physics of the interior. Because the emergent spectrum is nearly blackbody, the observed flux can be modeled to estimate the temperature, the intervening column of absorbing material, and the ratio of radius to distance. Astrometric measurement of the distance then allows an estimation of the photospheric radius, which is sensitively dependent on the high density equation of state.

PSR B0656+14 is a middle-aged ($`10^5`$ yr old) pulsar, with a spectrum dominated at ultraviolet and soft-X-ray wavelengths by a $`10^6`$ K blackbody component, as expected in standard cooling models. Distance estimates obtained from measurements of radio dispersion in the ionized material between Earth and the pulsar have led to a large estimated stellar radius, $`>20`$ km. Here we show that the parallax of PSR B0656+14, determined using very long baseline interferometry, leads to a factor three reduction in the estimated pulsar distance. We place this result in the context of existing thermal models for the neutron star.

## 2 VLBA Observations & Astrometric Analysis

For many years, pulsar parallax measurements have been just at or beyond experimental limits. The situation has greatly improved with the increased sensitivity available using the NRAO111The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), together with new phase-referencing techniques for measuring and eliminating ionospheric distortion and the ability to gate the VLBA correlator to accept data only during intervals when the pulsar is “on.” In the last three years, parallaxes (and distances) to ten pulsars have been measured with the VLBA (Brisken et al. 2002; Chatterjee et al. 2001).

PSR B0656+14 has a 1.4 GHz flux density of 3.6 mJy, which is too weak to use the ionosphere calibration technique described by Brisken et al. (2002). Instead, the in-beam calibration technique used by Chatterjee et al. (2001) was applied. Very Large Array (VLA) observations were made in the A-configuration at 1.4 GHz to search for potential in-beam calibrators. Three candidates were followed up at 8.4 and 15 GHz to test for compactness. Fortunately one of them, 0658+1410, was compact and bright enough for use as an in-beam calibrator. See Table 1 for a list of calibrators used, their coordinates, and their flux densities.

Five observations of PSR B0656+14, each five hours long, were made over 1.3 yrs with the VLBA. A 32 MHz band centered at 1.6675 GHz was used, resulting in a beam size of $`15\times 6`$ mas. Each observation consisted of sixty 2 minute scans on the field containing the pulsar and in-beam calibrator, each bracketted by observations of J0637+1458, and two 5 minute scans on 3C147 for bandpass calibration. The target field was correlated twice. The first correlation placed the in-beam calibrator at the phase center. The second put the pulsar at the phase center and used the pulsar gate to improve the signal-to-noise.

Considerable effort went into ensuring that each observation was reduced identically. Analysis used the standard AIPS package. After editing the data to remove radio-frequency interference, data from all five epochs were combined to make a single model for each calibrator source using standard techniques. After initial amplitude and bandpass calibration, GPS-based ionosphere calibrations were applied with the task TECOR. J0637+1458 was then fringe fitted (with the model) to determine the delays and rates and to perform a first-order phase calibration, which was followed by phase-and-amplitude self-calibration. Calibration derived from J0637+1458 was interpolated in time and applied to 0658+1410. This source was self-calibrated for phases only, again with a model. The calibrations from both J0637+1458 and 0658+1410 were applied to the pulsar, images were produced, and image-plane Gaussian fitting performed to determine the pulsar position.

Uncertainties are dominated by systematic effects, mainly due to atmospheric and ionospheric refraction. To estimate the size of these effects, imaging was repeated at each epoch with subsets of the data. The measured position varied most with varying time cuts. The scatter in position when varying the time ranges was used to assign error bars. Final single-epoch position uncertainties were 0.8 mas and 0.4 mas in right ascension and declination respectively. The position of B0656+14 at each epoch is shown in Table 2. Note that the absolute positions are accurate only to about 10 mas due to the uncertainty in the true position of the calibrator 0658+1410.

The five measured positions were used to simultaneously fit the parallax, $`\pi `$, proper motion ($`\mu _\alpha \mathrm{cos}(\delta )`$ and $`\mu _\delta `$), and position of PSR B0656+14. These values and the derived distance, transverse velocity, $`v_{}`$, and line-of-sight column density of electrons, $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ are shown in Table 3. Figure 1 shows the parallax fit to the data points. In this plot, the proper motion has been removed from the data to allow the subtle parallax to be seen.

The proper motion measured here differs from that measured by Thompson and Córdova (1994), $`\mu _\alpha \mathrm{cos}\delta =64\pm 11`$ and $`\mu _\delta =28\pm 4`$ mas/yr, by more than $`6\sigma `$. It is in excellent agreement with the HST-derived value, $`\mu _\alpha \mathrm{cos}\delta =42.7\pm 2`$ and $`\mu _\delta =2.1\pm 3`$ mas/yr (Mignani, De Luca, & Caraveo 2000), though somewhat more precise.

## 3 Discussion

### 3.1 Implications for Galactic electron density model

The distance determined from the pulsar dispersion measure (DM) using the Galactic electron distribution model of Taylor and Cordes (1993) is $`760\pm 190`$ pc. Using the electron distribution model of Cordes and Lazio (2002) yields $`669\pm 73`$ pc. Both values are substantially greater than the parallax distance, $`288_{27}^{+33}`$ pc. The discrepancy is not entirely surprising—the galactic electron density is poorly sampled at this $`(l,b)`$ due to a lack of calibration sources near the $`201^{}`$ galactic latitude of PSR B0656+14 (Anderson et al. 1993). Furthermore, the nearest calibration source for the Taylor & Cordes model, PSR B0823+26 at $`l=197^{}`$, is known to have a DM derived distance some 3 times its measured parallax (Gwinn et al. 1986). Nevertheless, the high mean electron density along this path, $`n_e=0.049`$ cm-3, is a reminder that dispersion distances are particularly uncertain in the Solar neighborhood, where lines of sight do not average over many independent regions.

### 3.2 Implications for thermal modeling and the stellar radius

PSR B0656+14 has been extensively studied at optical (Shearer et al. 1997; Kurt et al. 1998; Koptsevich et al. 2001), ultraviolet (Pavlov, Stringfellow, & Córdova 1996; Pavlov, Welty, & Córdova 1997; Edelstein et al. 2000), x-ray (Córdova et al. 1989; Finley, Ögelman, & Kiziloğlu 1992; Anderson et al. 1993; Greiveldinger et al. 1996; Mineo et al. 2002; Marshall & Schulz 2002; Pavlov et al. 2002), and gamma-ray (Ramanamurthy et al. 1996) energies.

A simple model that adequately accounts for observations from the optical through the x-ray bands includes a power law component, identified with non-thermal emission from the active magnetosphere, and two blackbody components: a harder component identified with the heated polar caps, and a softer component identified with emission from the entire photosphere. In general, model fits agree very well. For example, a model based on the EUVE, ROSAT, and ASCA data (Koptsevich et al. 2001) gives $`T_{\mathrm{}}=8.4\pm 0.3\times 10^5`$ K for the temperature of the soft component, while an independent model based on Chandra observations (Marshall & Schulz 2002) gives $`T_{\mathrm{}}=8.0\pm 0.3\times 10^5`$ K, where $`T_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the gravitationally redshifted temperature measured by a distant observer: $`T_{\mathrm{}}=T(12GM/Rc^2)^{1/2}`$. For our distance of 288 pc, the resulting estimates for the radius of the neutron star, $`R_{\mathrm{}}=R(12GM/Rc^2)^{1/2}`$ are 7.8 and 8.5 km, respectively. Including the optical/UV data and forcing a single power-law slope for the non-thermal component across more than four orders of magnitude in energy, Pavlov et al. (2002) find a slightly smaller radius, 6.9 km at 288 pc. Estimates for the radius of the hot polar cap vary from 0.5 to 0.64 km at that distance.

A blackbody radius as small as $`R_{\mathrm{}}=8`$ km would pose serious challenges to standard neutron star models (e.g., Heiselberg & Pandharipande 2000), though it would be acceptable for a low mass strange star (Alcock, Fahri, & Olinto 1986). However, a more likely explanation for this anomalous result is failure of the simple black-body modeling.222There has also been some concern that flux from an apparent pulsar wind nebula that has been barely resolved by Chandra might contaminate the x-ray spectra (Pavlov et al. 2002). Because the estimated luminosity is less than 4% of the bolometric luminosity of the soft thermal component, any systematic effect on the radius estimation is likely to be small, but larger errors might be introduced to the polar cap radius.

In general, realistic atmosphere models tend to shift flux into high energy tails that result in overestimation of the effective temperature and hence underestimation of the stellar radius (see Romani 1987 and Shibanov et al. 1992 for early work on non-magnetic and magnetic atmospheres, respectively, and Zavlin & Pavlov 2002 for a recent review). The largest radii are found with non-magnetic hydrogen or helium atmospheres, while strong magnetic fields suppress the high energy tails and produce intermediate temperature and radius estimates. Our blackbody model radius should therefore most properly be treated as a lower limit to the neutron star radius.

For PSR B0656+14, fits to unmagnetized hydrogen atmospheres (e.g., Marshall & Schulz 2002) produce very large radius estimates: $`156`$ km at our measured distance. This can be regarded as an (unconstraining) upper limit to the radius.

Magnetized atmospheres produce much more reasonable results. Using just the ROSAT data, the magnetic hydrogen models of Shibunov et al. (1993), and a canonical neutron star radius of $`R_{\mathrm{}}=13`$ km, Anderson et al. (1993) estimated the pulsar distance to be $`280_{50}^{+60}`$ pc, in remarkable agreement with our measurement. Scaling from model fits done for the Geminga pulsar, Marshall & Schulz (2002) estimate that the using a magnetized hydrogen atmosphere will increase the radius by a factor 2.3 over a blackbody estimate, resulting in corrected radius estimates of 15.9, 17.9, and 19.7 km for the Pavlov et al. (2002), Koptsevich et al. (2001), and Marshall & Schulz (2002) model fits, respectively. We conclude that within the model uncertainties, any radius $`R_{\mathrm{}}`$ between $`13`$ and $`20`$ km is allowed.

### 3.3 The next steps

A promising observational approach is to complement the high-energy observations with improved constraints on the flux in the optical and ultraviolet bands. Anderson et al. (1993) found that the blackbody and magnetized hydrogen atmosphere models that each fit the ROSAT data have significantly different predictions in the optical bands: for example, $`B28.7`$ and $`B27.8`$, respectively.

Analysis of the combined integrated photometric data indicate that the spectral energy distribution is predominantly thermal in the ultraviolet, then flattens out and asymptotically approaches a power-law-like form towards the infrared (Koptsevich et al. 2001). The photometry is well fit by a Rayleigh-Jeans plus synchrotron-like power-law model—the former agreeing to first order with the X-ray extrapolations. The power-law, with a best-fit index $`1.5`$, is similar to that observed at hard-x-ray and gamma-ray energies.

In the ultraviolet, comparisons with model predictions are challenging because of the uncertain reddening. In the optical, the challenge has been to detect the thermal contribution beneath the larger non-thermal power-law. The observed $`B`$ magnitude is $`24.85_{0.16}^{+0.19}`$ (Kurt et al. 1998), more than an order of magnitude above the expected thermal contribution.

Of considerable interest, then, has been the detection of optical pulsations. Shearer et al. (1997) reported pulsations based on $`B`$-band observations with a 2-d counting MAMA camera, and Kern (2002) detected pulsations in the $`V`$ band using a phase-binning CCD system. In addition to confirming the magnetospheric origin of the optical radiation, these observations raise the possibility of measuring and removing the non-thermal component. While there are clear differences in the light curve morphologies, both datasets are consistent with the radiation being 100% pulsed. At this time, only upper limits can be placed on any unpulsed thermal emission: in $`B`$, the limit is $`B26.8`$. This is within a factor $`3`$ of the predicted value. Of considerable interest would be extending these observations to $`U`$ band, where the nonthermal flux will be smaller and the predicted thermal flux is a factor four higher.

These observations will be challenging, as will continued improvement in the magnetic atmosphere modeling. But both observations and theory have seen remarkable improvement over the last decade, even when the ultimate limit was the very uncertain pulsar distance. Now the distance to PSR B0656+14 is known to 10%, comparable to the typical uncertainty of individual spectral model fits, and somewhat below the systematic uncertainties in the atmospheric fitting. There is no reason that continued radio observations shouldn’t continue to improve the parallax limit: precision a factor five better has now been achieved for PSR B0950+08. Thus there is every reason to believe that PSR B0656+14 will continue to develop into a fascinating astrophysical laboratory for nuclear physics.

We wish to thank Andrew Lyne for providing us with the pulsar ephemeris that allowed us to gate the VLBA correlator. S.E.T. is supported by the NSF under grant AST-0098343. A.G. is supported by Enterprise Ireland under grant SC/2001/322.


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# Yang-Lee zeroes for an urn model for the separation of sand

## Abstract

We apply the Yang-Lee theory of phase transitions to an urn model of separation of sand. The effective partition function of this nonequilibrium system can be expressed as a polynomial of the size-dependent effective fugacity $`z`$. Numerical calculations show that in the thermodynamic limit, the zeros of the effective partition function are located on the unit circle in the complex $`z`$-plane. In the complex plane of the actual control parameter certain roots converge to the transition point of the model. Thus the Yang-Lee theory can be applied to a wider class of nonequilibrium systems than those considered previously.

I. Introduction.— Nonequilibrium phase transitions have recently attracted increasing theoretical interests. One of the motivations is the idea that some of the concepts of equilibrium phase transitions might apply to nonequilibrium situations as well. In particular, there have been recent investigations revBl  in the applicability of the Yang-Lee theory to nonequilibrium systems. Usually, those systems are modeled in terms of a master equation. Most of the physics is contained in the prescribed transition rates. When varying the control parameters, the system may exhibit a nonequilibrium phase transition in its stationary state. There are very few models for which such transitions can be described analytically. Moreover, it is not obvious to find a nonequilibrium function playing a similar role to the equilibrium partition function and for which the Yang-Lee strategy might be extended. Two families of dynamic models have been discussed so far in the literature revBl .

(i) Most of the works concern driven diffusive systems arndt ; blythe ; jafarpour . These models have a unique steady state, for which one can compute exactly the probability distribution of microstates. The normalization factor, defined as the sum over these probabilities, is shown to play the same role as the partition function in equilibrium systems. It is a polynomial in the control parameter, the latter being a constant transition rate, i.e., a size-independent quantity. The roots of this polynomial in the complex plane of the control parameter accumulate, in the thermodynamic limit, at the transition point. As in the case of equilibrium transitions, the way these zeroes accumulate nearby the real axis informs about the type of transition (first order if the line of zeroes is perpendicular to the real axis, and second order if it forms an angle of $`\pi /4`$ with this axis).

(ii) Other studies have been performed for directed percolation models on a square lattice in $`(1+1)`$ dimensions dammer . It was suggested that survival probability $`P(t)`$ for a finite propagation time $`t`$ might play the role of a partition function in this case, with the occupation probability $`p`$ as the complex control parameter. However, the survival probability, that is actually the order parameter in this problem, does not have the “standard” properties of an equilibrium partition function revBl . Therefore it is not surprising that the distribution of its complex zeroes has a more complicated structure. It was also shown that the minimal distance $`d(t)`$ between the complex zeroes of the survival probability and the critical point $`p_c`$ scales for large $`t`$ as $`t^{1/\nu _{}}`$, where $`\nu _{}`$ is the critical exponent for the temporal correlation length.

The above examples suggest that it is rather straightforward to apply Yang-Lee theory to nonequilibrium phase transitions, at least as long as one can construct the appropriate effective partition function (EPF). However, an implicit assumption of the above approaches is that the EPF can be expressed as a polynomial of a size-independent control parameter. The purpose of our letter is to show, on a simple model, that this should not be necessarily the case. Indeed, our model has an EPF that has a polynomial structure in terms of a size-dependent effective fugacity, and not in terms of some size-independent parameter. The applicability of the Yang-Lee approach to such a case is thus highly questionable. We show that the Yang-Lee strategy for this model still works and thus can be generalized to a wider class of nonequilibrium phase transitions.

This Letter is organized as follows. In Sect. II the model is defined and the EPF is introduced as a polynomial of an effective size-dependent fugacity. In Sect. III, the zeroes of the EPF are numerically studied. They are shown to form a much more complicated structure in the plane of the complex fugacity than in the above discussed examples (i) and (ii). Nevertheless, it is still possible to extract some information about the nature of the phase transition in our model by investigating the zeroes in the complex plane of the control parameter. In particular, a subset of zeroes converges to the transition point. Moreover, the convergence seems to obey standard finite-size dependence arguments. In the Conclusions (Sect. IV), we argue that the behavior of zeroes in our model is an indication of difficulties that might be typical to more general nonequilibrium systems, in particular those where transition rates between microscopic configurations are not constants (i.e., size-independent quantities), but state dependent.

II. The model.— The model we consider was introduced to describe spatial separation of vibrated sand adam  and is a generalisation of Ehrenfest’s urn model ehrenfest . In this model $`N`$ particles are distributed between two urns, the first urn containing $`M`$ particles and the second one $`NM`$. The dynamics is defined as follows. At each time step, one particle is chosen at random in one of the urns. Then, with a probability that depends on the number of particles present in the chosen urn, i.e., with a state-dependent transition rate, this particle moves to the other urn. Correspondingly, the flux $`F(n)`$ of particles leaving a given urn at a certain time depends on the fraction $`n`$ of the total number of particles in the given urn at that moment. This model is thus by construction mean-field like. The master equation for the probability distribution $`p(M,t)`$ that there are $`M`$ particles in a given urn at time $`t`$ writes adam :

$$\begin{array}{c}p(M,t+1)=F\left(\frac{NM+1}{N}\right)p(M1,t)\hfill \\ \hfill +F\left(\frac{M+1}{N}\right)p(M+1,t)\\ \hfill +\left[1F\left(\frac{M}{N}\right)F\left(\frac{NM}{N}\right)\right]p(M,t).\end{array}$$
(1)
Its stationary solution is found to be shim :

$$p_s(M)=\frac{1}{Z_N}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{F\left(\frac{Ni+1}{N}\right)}{F\left(\frac{i}{N}\right)},$$
(2)
where the normalization factor is:

$$Z_N=1+\underset{M=1}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{F\left(\frac{Ni+1}{N}\right)}{F\left(\frac{i}{N}\right)}.$$
(3)
In the spirit of models of type (i), we shall assume that $`Z_N`$ plays the role of an EPF.

This model describes the transition between a symmetric distribution of the particles in the two urns, associated with a single peak of the probability distribution at $`M=N/2`$ (for $`N`$ even), to a symmetry breaking state described by a bimodal distribution with peaks at $`M=N(1/2\pm \epsilon )`$. The order parameter $`\epsilon `$ measures the difference in the occupancy of the two urns. To produce this symmetry breaking it suffices that the flux function $`F(n)`$ has a single hump eggers ; adam . The simplest possible choice for $`F(n)`$ having this property is

$$F(n)=n\mathrm{exp}\left(An\right),$$
(4)
which corresponds to a state-dependent transition rate $`\mathrm{exp}(An)`$. Thus the problem is characterized by a single control parameter $`A`$. In the thermodynamic limit $`N\mathrm{}`$, this symmetry breaking corresponds to a second-order nonequilibrium phase transition. In this limit, the probability distribution becomes $`\delta `$-peaked around the macroscopic stable state, that is determined by the condition that the flux of particles directed from the first urn to the second one equals the flux of particles from the second urn towards the first one, $`F\left(1/2\epsilon \right)=F\left(1/2+\epsilon \right)`$. It follows that in the thermodynamic limit for $`A<A_c=2`$ the stationary state is the symmetric one, while for $`A>A_c=2`$ the equipartition of particles is broken, i.e., a second order nonequilibrium phase transition takes place at $`A=A_c=2`$.

III. Analysis of the zeroes of the EPF.— With such a choice of the flux $`F(n)`$, one may rewrite the normalization factor (3) as:

$$Z_N=\underset{M=0}{\overset{N}{}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{N}{M}\right)z^{M(NM)}.$$
(5)
Here $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{N}{M}\right)=N!/[M!(NM)!]`$ is the binomial coefficient and $`z=\mathrm{exp}\left(A/N\right)`$ is the effective fugacity. One can see that $`Z_N`$ is a polynomial in $`z`$, that is related to the control parameter $`A`$ of the model, but $`z`$ is not a size-independent quantity, and depends on the number of particles $`N`$.

Nevertheless we embark on studying zeroes of the EPF $`Z_N`$. As a first step we find zeroes of Eq. (5), considering $`z`$ as a complex $`N`$-independent variable. The results of our numerical calculations, using Mathematica, for three values of $`N`$ are represented in Fig. 1. Note that the order of the polynomial of Eq. (5) increases rapidly like $`N^2/4`$, and therefore we were not able to perform precise calculations of the roots beyond $`N=71`$.

With increasing $`N`$ these roots approach the unit circle. One can argue that this should indeed be the case. First, let us associate with the EPF (5) the nonequilibrium complex free energy density $`f_N(z)=(1/N)\mathrm{ln}(Z_N)`$. For large $`N`$ and $`|z|>1`$ the EPF is dominated by the central term $`M=N/2`$ and hence $`f_N(|z|>1)(N/4)\mathrm{ln}z`$. Thus we define $`f^{(1)}(z)=(N/4)\mathrm{ln}z`$ as a free energy in the $`|z|>1`$ region. On the other hand, for $`|z|<1`$ the dominant contribution are coming only from the $`M=0`$ and $`M=N`$ terms, and thus $`f_N(|z|<1)1/N`$ which in the thermodynamic limit defines $`f^{(2)}(z)=0`$ for $`|z|<1`$. The above analysis indicates that the model for which Eq. (5) is the EPF with $`z`$ as a control parameter undergoes an abrupt transition at $`|z|=1`$. In the thermodynamic limit $`N\mathrm{}`$, $`f_N`$ exhibits an infinite jump at the transition. To obtain the location of the zeros of $`Z_N`$ in this limit we have to equate real parts of the nonequilibrium complex free energies on both sides of the transition grossmann . Namely, we require that

$$\mathrm{Re}f^{(1)}(z)=\mathrm{Re}f^{(2)}(z).$$
(6)
Using a polar representation $`z=r\mathrm{e}^{i\varphi }`$ we immediately obtain that the only way to satisfy Eq. (6) is to have $`r=1`$. Hence, asymptotically, the zeroes should be located on the unit circle, as confirmed by our numerical calculations.

However, the model with $`z`$ as a control parameter (which has a transition with a jump of the effective free energy density) is quite different from the original urn model with $`A`$ as a control parameter (which has a continuous phase transition). Therefore, in order to infer some information about the phase transition in the urn model we have to analyze the behavior of zeros of Eq. (5) in the complex $`A`$-plane, that can be obtained from the zeroes in the $`z`$-plane using the relation $`A=N\mathrm{ln}(z)`$. Transformation of zeros into the complex $`A`$-plane is shown in Fig. 2.

With increasing $`N`$ the zeroes approach the critical point $`A_c=2`$ with a slope that is close to $`\pi /4`$, and with a vanishing density of zeroes. These numerical observations seem to confirm the second-order nature of the phase transition revBl .

In the following we establish analytically the form of the line of zeroes close to the critical point, and the final result is presented as a continuous line in Fig. 2. As already mentioned, in the thermodynamic limit the EPF is dominated by the stationary state:

$$\begin{array}{c}\left(1/2\epsilon \right)\mathrm{exp}\left[A\left(1/2\epsilon \right)\right]\hfill \\ \hfill =\left(1/2+\epsilon \right)\mathrm{exp}\left[A\left(1/2+\epsilon \right)\right].\end{array}$$
(7)
Below the critical point the leading term of $`Z_N`$ for $`N\mathrm{}`$ is given by the central peak $`M=N/2`$:

$$Z_N\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{N}{N/2}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(A\frac{N}{4}\right),A<A_c=2.$$
(8)
On the other hand, for $`A>A_c`$ there are two leading contributions to $`Z_N`$ coming, respectively, from $`M=N(1/2\epsilon )`$ and $`M=N(1/2+\epsilon )`$, where $`\epsilon `$ is the solution of the macroscopic stationarity condition (7). Therefore:

$$\begin{array}{c}Z_N2\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{N}{N(1/2\epsilon )}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left[AN\left(\frac{1}{4}\epsilon ^2\right)\right],\hfill \\ \hfill A>A_c=2.\end{array}$$
(9)
Correspondingly, the effective free energy density $`f=lim_N\mathrm{}(1/N)\mathrm{ln}(Z_N)`$ grossmann  associated with this EPF is

$`f^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`A/4+\mathrm{ln}2,A<A_c=2,`$ (10a)
$`f^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`A(1/4\epsilon ^2)(1/2\epsilon )\mathrm{ln}(1/2\epsilon )`$ (10b)
$`(1/2+\epsilon )\mathrm{ln}(1/2+\epsilon ),A>A_c=2.`$
Let us now consider the behavior of the EPF and of the effective free energy density as a function of the complex parameter $`A`$. Then the condition (6), $`\mathrm{Re}f^{(1)}=\mathrm{Re}f^{(2)}`$, together with Eq. (7) determine the line of zeroes in the complex $`A`$-plane. Note that now $`\epsilon `$ is a complex variable obtained from the steady-state Eq. (7).

However, Eq. (6) is now too complicated to allow for a complete analysis of the zeroes line in the entire $`A`$-plane. But we are mainly interested in the behavior of this line in the vicinity of the critical point $`A_c=2`$. Therefore, we shall look for a perturbative solution of Eqs. (6) and (7) in the small real parameter $`\alpha =\mathrm{Re}A2`$ around $`A_c`$. An inspection of these equations shows that $`\mathrm{Im}A`$ scales like $`\alpha `$, while both $`\mathrm{Re}\epsilon `$ and $`\mathrm{Im}\epsilon `$ scale like $`\alpha ^{1/2}`$. We are thus led to consider the following developments:

$`A`$ $`=`$ $`(2+\alpha )+i\alpha (a_0+\alpha a_1+\alpha ^2a_2+\mathrm{}),`$ (11a)
$`\epsilon `$ $`=`$ $`\alpha ^{1/2}(x_0+\alpha x_1+\alpha ^2x_2+\mathrm{})`$ (11b)
$`+i\alpha ^{1/2}(y_0+\alpha y_1+\alpha ^2y_2+\mathrm{}).`$
We substitute these expressions in Eqs. (6) and (7), then solve them order by order in $`\alpha `$. This leads to the following parametric expression for the line of zeroes in the $`A`$-plane, in the vicinity of $`A_c=2`$:

$$A=(2+\alpha )+i\alpha \left[1+0.6\alpha +𝒪(\alpha ^2)\right].$$
(12)
The result of this perturbative calculation up to $`𝒪(\alpha ^5)`$ is represented by the continuous line in Fig. 2. Note that, indeed, the slope of this curve at the critical point is $`\pi /4`$, sign of a second-order phase transition. Moreover, one can compute the density of zeroes on this curve in the vicinity of the critical point using the relationship grossmann :

$$2\pi \mu (s)=\left|\frac{}{s}\mathrm{Im}\left(f^{(1)}f^{(2)}\right)\right|,$$
(13)
where $`\mu (s)`$ is the density of zeroes at a distance $`s`$ from the transition point, distance measured along the line of zeroes. This gives in the vicinity of the transition point $`\mu (s)=as+𝒪(s^2)`$, with $`s=\sqrt{2}\alpha `$ and $`a=0.0045(1)`$. The density of zeroes vanishes as a power law towards the transition point on the real axis – i.e., we recovered yet another characteristic of the equilibrium theory for second-order phase transitions.

Up to now, we have shown that the zeroes of the EPF indeed provide information about the location and the type of the phase transition. But, as pointed out dammer  certain critical exponents are also encoded in the behavior of these zeroes. A similar conclusion can be drawn in our model. As shown in Fig. 3, the distance $`|AA_c|`$ between the closest root $`A`$ to $`A_c=2`$ in the complex $`A`$-plane decreases like $`N^{1/2}`$. A simple scaling argument shows dammer  that $`|AA_c|`$ should scale with the system size as $`N^{1/\nu }`$, where $`\nu `$ is the correlation length critical exponent. However, our urn model is structureless and the correlation length does not seem to be a well-defined quantity. Nevertheless, we can implement a definition of the critical exponent $`\nu `$ that is based on the finite-size scaling of moments of the order parameter binder . Since the probability distribution at the critical point for urn models is known shim , using the standard prescription binder  we obtain $`\nu =2`$. Such a value agrees with the finite-size scaling observed in Fig. 3.

IV. Conclusions.— We considered a simple stochastic model with state-dependent transition rates for which the EPF can be computed analytically and that exhibits a nonequilibrium second order phase transition. Our aim was to show that, although it is not a straightforward task to apply the concepts of the Yang-Lee theory, it is a remarkable and non-trivial fact that they still apply when the microscopic transition rates of the model are state-dependent. Indeed, all the other models that have been studied so far allowed for a rather simple transposition of the equilibrium theory. This was essentially due to the existence of some state-independent transition rates, and the possibility to express the EPF as a polynomial of these parameters. Our work therefore opens new perspectives for the study of other nonequilibrium models with phase transitions, indicating that Yang-Lee’s ideas apply to a much wider range of phenomena than those considered up to now.


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# X-ray image reconstruction from a diffraction pattern alone

## Abstract

A solution to the inversion problem of scattering would offer aberration-free diffraction-limited 3D images without the resolution and depth-of-field limitations of lens-based tomographic systems. Powerful algorithms are increasingly being used to act as lenses to form such images. Current image reconstruction methods, however, require the knowledge of the shape of the object and the low spatial frequencies unavoidably lost in experiments. Diffractive imaging has thus previously been used to increase the resolution of images obtained by other means. We demonstrate experimentally here a new inversion method, which reconstructs the image of the object without the need for any such prior knowledge.

preprint: UCRL-JC-153571

The inversion problem of coherent scattering - the reconstruction of a single-scattering potential from measurements of scattered intensity in the far-field - has occupied physicists for over a century, and arises in fields as varied as optics, astronomy, X-ray crystallography, medical tomographic imaging, holography, electron microscopy and particle scattering generally. A solution to this problem would offer diffraction-limited images of non-periodic objects without the use or need for a lens. The possibility of solving the X-ray phase problem for an isolated object was first suggested by Sayre Sayre:1952  in 1952, who pointed out that Bragg diffraction in crystals undersamples the diffracted intensities Finer:1 ; Sayre:1980 ; Sayre:1998 . The Bragg limitation on sampling is lifted for non-periodic objects, which allow finer sampling of the diffraction pattern. An iterative phase-retrieval method, capable of phasing adequately sampled diffracted intensity first appeared in 1972 Gerchberg:1972 ), followed by important theoretical advances due to Fiddy, Bates and others—see Stark:1987  for a review. The iterative algorithm was greatly improved through the introduction of feedback and compact support (The support is the boundary of the object) by Fienup around 1982 with the hybrid input-output (HIO) algorithm Fienup:1982 , which allowed inversions of optical data Cederquist:1988 ; Kamura:1998 . A significant breakthrough occurred in 1999 with the reconstruction by Miao and coworkers of a two-dimensional non-periodic X-ray image at 0.075 $`\mu `$m resolution from diffraction data and a low-resolution image of the object Miao:1999 . Subsequent work has produced nano-crystal images at sub-micron resolution using hard X-rays Robinson:2001 , and striking tomographic images at higher resolution Miao:2002 , using zone-plate X-ray images to provide the low-resolution data. Images have also been obtained by inversion of experimental coherent electron diffraction patterns Weierstall:2002 , and further laser-light images Spence:2002 . In one proposed application, atomic-resolution images might be obtained by the inversion of X-ray pulses diffracted from single molecules Neutze:2000 . More generally, the possibility of using particles with low radiation damage has stimulated a burst of recent activity Spence:2001 .

The iterative algorithms, such as the HIO algorithm, iterate between real and reciprocal space, applying various a priori constraints in each domain. In diffraction space, the modulus squared of the diffracted wavefield is set equal to the measured diffraction intensities, whereas in real space the transmission function of the object is set to zero outside the known boundary of the object (the support). Other constraints, which have been used, include the known sign of the scattering function and the various symmetries of the scatterer. These constraints may be classified as convex or non-convex, and the theory of Bregman projections can be used to understand their convergence properties Stark:1987 . In theory, and confirmed by simulation, the support mask need not trace the exact boundary of the object (loose support), and zero (transparent) regions of the object inside the support may converge to their correct value without being forced by the mask. However, in practice, a less than perfect estimate of the support often prevents the reconstruction of the correct image Fienup:1987 ) –see also below. Efforts to obtain the support function of the object from the support of the experimentally accessible autocorrelation function have been proposed for special classes of objects using elegant geometrical methods Fienup:1983 ). Methods for inverting Patterson maps to charge densities for crystals and non-periodic objects are reviewed in Buerger Buerger:1959 ). Up until now, no images have been reconstructed from experimental x-ray diffraction patterns of arbitrary objects without a lower-resolution image provided by an optic.

In this article we eliminate the need for this secondary image and demonstrate ultrahigh resolution imaging without the need for a lens. The object support function is determined together with the object itself, without additional spatial information. The procedure builds on the HIO algorithm, in which constraints are iteratively applied in real and reciprocal space, and a feedback parameter is used in real space to damp the application of the support constraint. Feedback allows this algorithm to emerge from local minima of the invariant error metric and thus avoid stagnation. The uniqueness of solutions found by this method has been studied in detail Seldin:1990  (Rare ambiguous solutions have been found in two-dimensions in cases where the spectrum is factorable). Our innovation is the simple but powerful use of the current estimate of the object to determine the support constraint. The first estimate of the support is the support of the autocorrelation function Buerger:1959 . Although this estimate is far from accurate, it is continually updated by thresholding the intensity of a blurred version of the current estimate of the object under reconstruction. Thresholding traces the boundary of the object at a given intensity contour. The blurring acts to smooth out noise, and provides a form of regularization. In turn, through the normal behavior of the HIO algorithm, the improved support constraint gives rise to yet a better estimate of the object. We find that this method is very stable, and converges to the correct support and object for both simulated and experimental x-ray diffraction data. The algorithm also successfully reconstructs complex objects (those that cause large variations in the phase of the exit wavefield in two dimensions), which hitherto have been experimentally difficult to reconstruct Cederquist:1988 ; Kamura:1998 ; Weierstall:2002 . This opens up the possibility of image reconstruction from microdiffraction patterns, where the illumination is tightly focused on the object.

Details of the algorithm are as follows. We start from the autocorrelation function of the object. This real-space map, obtained by Fourier transforming the diffraction pattern, displays all ”interatomic” vectors, with peaks for all vectors between isolated objects, shifted to a common origin. It contains many more peaks than the object, and, even for an acentric object, possesses a center of inversion symmetry. Since the object must fit within the autocorrelation function, our first estimate of the support is a mask obtained from this function using a contour at the 4% intensity level. Both the correct object density and its centro-symmetric inversion fit within this initially centric mask, however inversion symmetry is progressively lost as the algorithm converges. We then apply the HIO algorithm with feedback parameter $`\beta =0.9`$ and the real space support given by the calculated mask. We obtain the part of the diffraction pattern covered by a central beamstop from the transform of the current estimate of the object. Low frequency components are treated as free parameters. Every 20 iterations we convolve the reconstructed image (the absolute value of the reconstructed wavefield) with a Gaussian of width $`\sigma `$ (FWHM = 2.3548 $`\sigma `$ ) to find the new support mask. The mask is then obtained by applying a threshold at 20% of its maximum. The width $`\sigma `$ is set to 3 pixels in the first iteration, and reduced by 1% every 20 iterations down to a minimum of 1.5 pixels. Similarities of the original Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm with the ”solvent flattening” method suggest that this method could be extended to crystallography.

We have tested the method using two-dimensional experimental data as well as two- and three-dimensional sets of simulated data. The experimental soft X-ray transmission diffraction pattern from two clusters of gold balls of 50$`\pm `$5 nm diameter deposited on a silicon nitride window was recorded at the Advanced Light Source at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, using soft x-rays soft x-rays with a wavelength of 2.1 nm Acta:2003 ; Phys:2003 . In Figure 1 we present the experimental diffraction pattern and the sequence of images produced by the algorithm as it converges. As shown in the first step, the algorithm starts with a support mask with perfect inversion symmetry. After a few iterations the symmetry is broken. First, one of the three regions of the mask disappears, and then the support envelope shrinks progressively around the gold ball objects. Finally, a stable solution showing excellent agreement with a scanning electron microscope image of the same object is obtained. The solution also agrees well with a previous reconstruction by a different method Acta:2003 . Note that we would not expect a perfect match between the electron and x-ray images, since image formation processes are different for electrons and x-rays. Repeated computational trials have all shown the same degree of convergence to the correct image or its centro-symmetric inversion. Although after a few hundred iterations the algorithm always converged to the correct image (independent of the initial random choice of phases), as iterations were carried further both the support and the image show arbitrary displacements due to the translational invariance of the solution.

To further assess the validity of the algorithm we have tested it on several sets of simulated diffraction patterns from gold spheres and gray-scale images. The simulations all include noise and the loss of data due to a central beam-stop. They show that the algorithm is successful to the same degree as the standard HIO algorithm with tight support. As examples, we include in Figure 2 the reconstructions of: a grayscale image; a 3D cluster of gold balls (ball diameter of 50$`\pm `$5 nm); and a complex object illuminated by a focused beam. The greyscale image demonstrates that the algorithm does not require any “atomicity” constraint provided by the gold balls. The particular 3D cluster was chosen to have a small number of balls for visualization purposes - the algorithm also works with a much larger number of balls. The third example is of particular interest since it is well known that the reconstruction of complex objects is much more difficult than real objects, but is possible using either disjoint, precisely known or specially shaped supports Fienup:1987 ; Spence:2002 . Complex objects arise in optics and X-ray diffraction in two-dimensions when large phase-shifts occur within the eikonal approximation, or if that approximation fails, in the presence of spatially dependant absorption effects, and in the presence of multiple scattering. The question arises as to whether our new method provides a sufficiently tight support, especially for objects fragmented into separated parts, to allow the inversion of complex objects. Figure 2 (bottom) shows the reconstruction of a cluster of gold balls where each ball is multiplied by a constant random phase shift between 0 and 2$`\pi `$. The cluster is singled-out from neighbouring ones by a focused beam. A perfect match between object and reconstruction is again observed if one takes into account the translation and constant phase invariance in the solution. The result is significant because it relaxes the requirement for plane-wave illumination. The generality of the technique is thus increased because now the focused probe can be used to isolate objects in the image field.

We have compared the behaviour of our algorithm to that of the HIO algorithm. The HIO algorithm requires the support a priori, and as is well known the error in the reconstruction decreases as the support becomes tighter and closer to the actual boundary of the object. This is illustrated in Fig. 3, which shows plots of the reconstruction error, as a function of Poisson noise in the diffraction intensities, for the HIO algorithm with support masks of various degrees of accuracy. The masks for these cases were calculated by convolving the object by Gaussians of various widths (0.5, 5, and 25 pixels) and thresholding at 5% level from the maximum. This corresponds to knowing the shape of the object to a given resolution. It is seen that even for low noise, HIO can achieve a reasonable reconstruction only if the support mask is set to the boundary known at essentially the same resolution to which we are reconstructing the object. The reconstruction error for our algorithm (which does not require a priori knowledge of the support) is also plotted in Figure 3. We expect that the noise level at which our algorithm fails to reconstruct occurs when the noise in real space becomes larger than the threshold used to update the support. At this noise level the estimate of the support will be influenced by the noise, and the algorithm will be unable to converge to the correct boundary. This suggests that the optimum threshold setting depends on the noise level in the data, and we will only be able to reconstruct those parts of the object where the contrast is above the noise. As the support used in the HIO algorithm becomes looser, we observe our algorithm to be much superior, even in the presence of noise. This is because our algorithm always improves upon the support and so makes optimal use of the available information. The only prior knowledge needed is that the object possesses compact support (i.e. is isolated), so that oversampling diffraction conditions can be guaranteed experimentally, and that the contrast of the object is above the noise. By comparison with earlier methods Spence:2001 , no knowledge of the shape of the object is required. There are few adjustable parameters in our algorithm; namely, support resolution, support threshold, and feedback parameter. Additional constraints can be added to strengthen convergence, such as atomicity, positivity and histogram matching Elser:2003 ; Our:1 .

The combination of an apparatus to measure large-angle diffraction patterns with our new method of data analysis forms a new type of diffraction-limited, aberration-free tomographic microscopy. The absence of inefficient optical elements makes more efficient use of damaging radiation, while the reconstruction from a three-dimensional diffraction data set will avoid the current depth-of-field limitation of zone-plate based tomography. The use of focused illumination will allow users to select either one or two-part objects (which may be complex) from a field. The conditions of beam energy and monochromatization used in these preliminary experiments are far from optimum for diffractive imaging and can be greatly improved to reduce recording times by more than two orders of magnitude. We expect this new microscopy to find many applications. Since dose scales inversely as the fourth power of resolution, existing measurements of damage against resolution can be used to show that statistically significant images of single cells should be obtainable by this method at 10 nm resolution in the 0.5-10 $`\mu `$m thickness range under cryomicroscopy conditions. Imaging by harder coherent X-rays of inorganic nanostructures (such as mesoporous materials, aerosols and catalysts) at perhaps 2 nm resolution can be expected. Atomic-resolution diffractive imaging by coherent electron nanodiffraction has now been demonstrated Zuo:2003 . The imaging of dynamical systems, imaging with new radiations for which no lenses exist, and single molecule imaging with X-ray free-electron laser pulses remain to be explored.

###### Acknowledgements.

We acknowledge stimulating discussions with Abraham Szöke. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract No. W-7405-ENG-48 and the Director, Office of Energy Research, Office of Basics Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences Division of the U. S. Department of Energy, under Contract No. DE-AC03-76SF00098. SM acknowledges funding from the National Science Foundation. The Center for Biophotonics, an NSF Science and Technology Center, is managed by the University of California, Davis, under Cooperative Agreement No. PHY0120999.


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# Accessibility of physical states and non-uniqueness of entanglement measure

## 1 Introduction

Accessibility between two physical states by some physical process is crucial in being able to compare the states quantitatively. When there exists an operation that converts one state into another, we can derive an ordering between the two states from the accessibility based on this operation. This ordering (together with a few other natural assumptions) makes it possible to define a quantity that compares the states. However, if it is impossible to convert one state into another in either direction within a given framework, there exists no coherent way to compare those two states.

Uniqueness of a measure that quantifies a certain physical property is strongly related to ordering of states. When all elements in a given set of physical states can be completely ordered, i.e. arbitrary two states can be ordered (total order), we can make at least one consistent measure that quantifies the set. However, if there exists no ordering that works globally, i.e. a certain pair of states cannot be ordered (partial order), then we fail to find a consistent way to ‘align’ all the states. In other words, total order is a necessary condition for a set to be quantified by the unique measure.

One of the most familiar examples in physics that contain partial order is in special theory of relativity. A pair of events in the spacetime that include each other in their light cone (i.e. the interval between the two events is time-like) are accessible because one can affect the other by sending some signal. However, if one is outside of the light cone of the other (i.e. the interval between the two events is space-like), then it is impossible to connect them by any physical operation. Therefore, there exists no unique way of ordering two such states; different orderings are possible by choosing different reference frames. Therefore, the set of events is a partially ordered one, which leads to the well-known non-uniqueness of simultaneity that follows from the principles of special theory of relativity (See Chapter 17 of , for example). Furthermore, in a modern approach to relativity, a fundamental structure of spacetime is modeled as a partially ordered set called a causal set .

An important example of partial order in a purely mathematical context is the theory of majorization , which is a powerful tool for comparing two vectors and deriving various inequalities between operators. For example, majorization brings partial order to probability vectors and leads to useful inequalities of quantities related to entropy in statistical mechanics . An intimate relation between majorization and quantum information theory has also been discovered recently, which we will mention below.

The most beautiful and successful application of the theory of ordering physical states is in thermodynamics, where all equilibrium states are totally ordered under adiabatic processes and quantified by the unique measure of entropy. Given two equilibrium states (A and B), entropy $`S`$ distinguishes between possible and impossible directions of adiabatic processes between the two states; A can access B via an adiabatic process iff $`S(\mathrm{A})S(\mathrm{B})`$. (If the equality holds, B can also access A and so the process becomes reversible.) The uniqueness of entropy was proved by Giles with his axiomatic approach, which was developed to clarify the structure of thermodynamics . Giles’s work is a culmination of the movement towards a more lucid understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, starting with Carathéodory (See reference ). This approach has recently been revisited by Lieb and Yngvason .

It has been shown recently that thermodynamics and theory of pure-state entanglement share the same mathematical structure, Giles’s rigorous set of mathematical axioms. Adiabatic processes in thermodynamics correspond to manipulations of bipartite pure entangled states by local operations and classical communication(LOCC) in the context of quantum information theory . Therefore, bipartite pure entangled states are totally ordered under LOCC in the asymptotic limit, and entropy gives the unique measure in this context as well (known as the von Neumann entropy of entanglement ).

In quantum information theory , quantum entanglement has been a subject of intensive research because it is a new resource in physics as well as an indispensable resource in quantum information processing. As in the case of other physical resources, it is desirable to find a unique measure of entanglement in order to exploit it effectively and efficiently. (For review of entanglement measures see reference .) Contrary to the case of bipartite pure states, the unique measure of entanglement in mixed states has not yet been established. It has been proved that if two entanglement measures coincide in pure states but differ in mixed states, then they impose different orderings . In fact, some entanglement measures proposed so far are different, and it is commonly believed that we need different entanglement measures depending on scenarios.

In this paper, we show that mixed entangled states are partially ordered under an operational notion of asymptotic LOCC convertibility by using the monotonicity of entanglement cost and the fact that positive-partial-transposition (PPT) bound entangled states cannot be converted into negative-partial-transposition (NPT) entangled states by LOCC. Thus, we point out that the partial order structure underlies the non-uniqueness of entanglement measure. This immediately reveals the reason why Giles’s axiom fails in mixed-state entanglement, especially axiom 5, which reads If two states A and B are both accessible from another state C, then A and B are accessible in either direction (or both). This is exactly what distinguishes total order from partial one. We show the partially ordered structure of mixed entangled states by giving a counterexample to axiom 5. (For other natural axioms and details of Giles’s approach, see references .)

The violation of axiom 5 can be seen, for example, in the theory of relativity mentioned above: even if two events A and B are accessible from another event C, the events A and B are not necessarily accessible from each other because one can be outside of the light cone of the other. Another example violating axiom 5 is in entanglement manipulation of bipartite pure states in finite regimes. For example, although both of $`|\varphi _1=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|00+|11)`$ and $`|\varphi _2=\sqrt{\frac{2}{3}}|00+\frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}|11+\frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}|22`$ can be obtained from a maximally entangled state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_3=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}(|00+|11+|22)`$ by LOCC, $`|\varphi _1`$ and $`|\varphi _2`$ cannot be converted into each other by LOCC with certainty. This is a direct consequence of Nielsen’s theorem, which connects entanglement manipulation and majorization mentioned above . In the following, we will say two states A and B are incomparable if they are not accessible from each other.

The rest of this paper is organised as follows. First we present a counterexample, and thus prove the partial order structure of mixed entangled states. Then, we discuss one possible way of recovering total order. Finally, we conclude the paper with future directions.

## 2 Partial order on mixed entangled states

First, let us rigorously define the accessibility in axiom 5 within our context. The asymptotic convertibility under LOCC is defined as follows: a state $`\rho `$ is convertible into a state $`\sigma `$ if and only if for every (arbitrarily small) real number $`ϵ`$, there exists an integer $`n_0`$, and a sequence of LOCC $`L_n`$ such that for any integer $`nn_0`$ we have

$$L_n(\rho ^n)\sigma ^nϵ,$$
(1)
where $`\rho ^n=\rho \rho \mathrm{}\rho `$ represents a tensor product of $`n`$ copies of the state $`\rho `$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ denotes the usual trace norm distance between two mixed quantum states. Loosely speaking, this means that one state can be converted into another if a certain number of copies of the former can arrive at an arbitrarily good approximation of the same number of copies of the latter via LOCC in the asymptotic limit. We will prove that the set of mixed entangled states is a partially ordered one under this definition of accessibility. This is our central result in this paper. While partial order in bipartite pure states in finite regimes can be turned into total order in the asymptotic limit under this accessibility, mixed entangled states still retain partial order structure even in the asymptotic limit. Note that we consider the convertibility between the same number of copies here unlike ordinary argument of transformations between different numbers of copies, e.g. from $`n`$ copies to $`m`$ copies. In the transformations between different numbers of copies, it is no wonder that the transformation is possible at least in one direction if sufficiently many copies of the initial state are prepared. Thus, the partial order structure does not clearly appear in the framework, while it can be easily seen in transformations with the same number of copies as we will show below. It is enough to consider the convertibility between the same number of copies to see whether it is possible or not to compare them because if one state is ‘larger’ than the other, the former should be converted into the latter even in this framework.

Intuitively, bipartite mixed states that are most likely to fail axiom 5 are bound entangled states . Since bound entangled states are mixed states from which no entangled pure state can be distilled, if we take one of those, $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$, and a pure entangled state, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}`$, as a pair of possible candidates for a counterexample, the first half of the proof has already been accomplished by definition, i.e. $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ is impossible for all pure states $`\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}`$. So, all we have to do is to disprove the convertibility in the opposite direction.

In order to prove that, we take a particular bound entangled state constructed from an unextendible product basis (UPB) . Suppose both Alice and Bob have three-level quantum systems (qutrits). Consider the following incomplete orthonormal product basis:

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}\hfill |\psi _1& =& \hfill |0& & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0+|1)\hfill \\ \hfill |\psi _2& =& \hfill \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0+|1)& & |2\hfill \\ \hfill |\psi _3& =& \hfill |2& & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|1+|2)\hfill \\ \hfill |\psi _4& =& \hfill (|1+|2)& & |0\hfill \\ \hfill |\psi _5& =& \hfill \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}(|0|1+|2)& & \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}(|0|1+|2).\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
This incomplete orthogonal basis form a UPB, which means that there exists no product state orthogonal to all of the above five states. Consequently, the four-dimensional subspace complementary to this five-dimensional one does not contain any product states. Therefore, with a normalization factor, the projection operator onto this complementary space

$$\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}=\frac{1}{4}\left(I\underset{i=1}{\overset{5}{}}|\psi _i\psi _i|\right)$$
(3)
turns out to be an entangled state. It can also be easily seen that this state satisfies the positive-partial-transposition (PPT) condition because the identity operator and projections onto product states like $`|\psi _i\psi _i|`$ remain positive after partial transposition. Thus, $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ is proved to be a PPT bound entangled state.

The important fact about the state $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ is that its entanglement cost $`E_C(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}})`$ is positive , which is defined as $`E_C(\rho )lim_n\mathrm{}E_f(\rho ^n)/n`$ , where $`E_f(\rho )`$ represents the entanglement of formation of $`\rho `$ . (It is obvious that some amount of entanglement is necessary to construct one copy of a bound entangled state. Until quite recently, however, it was an open question whether the entanglement cost of bound entangled states is also positive .) Owing to this property, one can choose a pure entangled state $`\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}=|\varphi \varphi |`$ such that

$$0<E_C(\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}})<E_C(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}).$$
(4)
For simplicity, we choose $`|\varphi `$ to be an entangled states with Schmidt number two or three, i.e. a 2$`\times `$2 or 3$`\times `$3 system. Since the entanglement cost $`E_C`$ is an entanglement monotone, i.e. it cannot increase under LOCC, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ can never be converted into $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ even asymptotically, i.e. $`\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ is impossible. The monotonicity of entanglement cost $`E_C`$ can be easily derived from the fact that entanglement of formation $`E_F`$ is also an entanglement monotone. Note that the above incomparability holds in the sense of the same number of copies. Otherwise, a sufficiently many copies of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ can always produce a much smaller number of copies of $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ with certainty.

Besides the above fact, note that a maximally entangled state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_3_{\mathrm{AB}}`$ can access both $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}`$. (Although the state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_3_{AB}`$ might not be the most efficient example to produce them, this does not matter here. One can make one copy of either $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ or $`\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ from one copy of $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_3_{\mathrm{AB}}`$ by LOCC.) Therefore, we found a counterexample that two states $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ are not convertible into each other in spite of the fact that both of them can be accessed from the same state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_3_{\mathrm{AB}}`$. This clearly shows that entangled mixed states are partially ordered under LOCC in the asymptotic limit and thus violate axiom 5. (We note that although, in Giles’s axioms, transformations assisted by asymptotically negligible amount of auxiliary states are considered, the undistillable property of bound entanglement remains unchanged even with an assistance of auxiliary entangled states .)

In the above argument, we chose a pure state as $`\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ for simplicity. However, it can be replaced with distillable mixed states $`\chi _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ such that $`0<E_C(\chi _{\mathrm{AB}})<E_C(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}})`$ because PPT bound entangled states cannot be converted into NPT ones by LOCC, i.e. $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}\chi _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ is impossible for all NPT states $`\chi _{\mathrm{AB}}`$. Thus, the above also holds for any such $`\chi _{\mathrm{AB}}`$. (Furthermore, the monotonicity of other entanglement measures can also be used for the above argument instead of entanglement cost.) Generally, it is concluded that any PPT bound entangled state with positive entanglement cost always has incomparable states in the NPT regime. (See figure 1.) These states are the counterexamples to axiom 5, which prevents us from applying Giles’s approach to mixed entangled states within the framework of LOCC convertibility.

Therefore, we have proved that the set of mixed entangled states is a partially ordered one under the operational notion of asymptotic convertibility with LOCC, which underlies the non-uniqueness of entanglement measure. Since there is no operational way to link incomparable states, there exists no way of assigning meaningful amounts of entanglement to them that could determine which state is more entangled. In other words, it is the partial order that allows us to use various entanglement measure known so far without any contradiction. Metaphorically speaking, we have shown a sort of ‘relativity’ of entanglement measure under asymptotic convertibility with LOCC, which means that there exists no absolute entanglement measure at least under LOCC.

## 3 Recovering total order

Next we discuss a possibility of recovering total order from partial order, which might lead to the unique measure of entanglement. Obviously, an extra operation besides LOCC will be necessary to achieve it. One naive way is restoring quantum information discarded into the environment, which can be seen as follows.

First, let us think about how the total order structure of pure entangled states changes into partial one during the formation process of mixed entangled states. Imagine a process of making the state $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ in equation (3) from a maximally entangled state by LOCC. The state can be written as $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}=\frac{1}{4}_{i=6}^9|\psi _i\psi _i|`$, where $`|\psi _i(i=6,\mathrm{},9)`$ is an entangled basis complementary to the UPB in equation (2). One way of making $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ is as follows (it is not necessarily the most efficient way from the viewpoint of the amount of entanglement invested). Alice and Bob first prepare a three-level maximally entangled state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_3_{\mathrm{DB}}`$ between them. Besides this, Alice prepares two qutrits, A, B, and a four-level ancilla C (e.g. two qubits) locally, with which she makes a superposed state $`|\omega _{\mathrm{CAB}^{}}=\frac{1}{2}_{i=6}^9|i_\mathrm{C}|\psi _i_{\mathrm{AB}^{}}`$. By teleporting the system B to Bob with the previously shared entanglement $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_3_{\mathrm{DB}}`$, they succeed in constructing a state $`|\psi _{\mathrm{CAB}}=\frac{1}{2}_{i=6}^9|i_\mathrm{C}|\psi _i_{\mathrm{AB}}`$ between them. This state changes into the mixed state $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ immediately after Alice throws away the system C into the environment.

Generally, the total order structure survives until Alice discards the information because the entire state is just a pure state. Therefore, if she could retrieve the quantum information from the environment, the total order would be recovered as well. Although this may appear impractical if we try to find realistic operations that make it possible to restore quantum information from the environment, it is possible in principle. In fact, we can also imagine some artificial situation, which might be plausible in the context of information processing, where Alice gives the system C to the third party, e.g. Charlie, not to the environment. In this situation, restoring the quantum information is not impractical at all. In other words, if we purify (mathematically) a bipartite mixed state $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ into a pure state $`|\psi _{\mathrm{CAB}}`$ by introducing a local ancilla C at Alice’s side virtually, then all states become pure states and we should recover total order.

With this restoring process, we can tell which state of incomparable states would have more entanglement than the other, if Alice had not lost the quantum information in the formation process. We quantify entanglement of pure states by using entropy of entanglement as usual: if the restored state is $`|\psi _{\mathrm{CAB}}`$, then we define the amount of entanglement $`E(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}})`$ between Alice(CA) and Bob(B) as the von Neumann entropy of Bob’s reduced density matrix $`\mathrm{tr}_{\mathrm{CA}}(|\psi _{\mathrm{CAB}}\psi |)`$. It is shown below that the bound entangled state $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ would have more entanglement than the incomparable state $`\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}=|\varphi \varphi |`$. (The approach here is similar to the definition of entanglement of purification , where the entanglement is minimized over all possible purification in both Alice’s and Bob’s sides. Thus, our quantity is always greater than this.)

It is easily seen that $`E(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}^n)E_f(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}^n)`$ due to the concavity of the von Neumann entropy . Thus, we also have $`lim_n\mathrm{}E(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}^n)/n=E(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}})E_C(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}})=lim_n\mathrm{}E_f(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}^n)/n`$. Note that $`E`$ and $`E_C`$ coincide for pure states. Since we chose $`\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ according to equation (4), $`E`$ of the bound entangled state is always greater than that of the incomparable pure state, i.e. $`E(\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}})=E_C(\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}})<E_C(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}})E(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}})`$. Therefore, any incomparable states with equation (4) satisfy $`E(\sigma _{\mathrm{AB}})<E(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}})`$.

We have considered a simple example of recovering total order by restoring information from the environment. Besides the above case, we can conceive other scenarios with different formation processes. For example, Alice could perform a measurement on the system C and then discard the classical information of the outcome instead of discarding the quantum system directly. In this case, in order to recover total order, she would restore just classical information and generally end up in a different pure state from the original one. A striking example is $`\frac{1}{2}(|00_{\mathrm{AB}}00|+|11_{\mathrm{AB}}11|)`$, which will be recovered to a GHZ state in the former scenario, while it will be recovered to just a separable state in the latter. (In fact, the above quantification of $`E`$ assigns a positive value one to this state. This unpleasant quantification is due to the prescription designed only to compare incomparable states.) Therefore, it is fair to say that recovered total order is highly dependent on how information was lost and retrieved. (See also reference  in a different context of entanglement vs information loss.)

## 4 Discussion and conclusion

It is worth investigating the partial order structure of mixed entangled states in detail. Although it was proved only for bound entangled states, we believe the partial order structure is embedded in distillable states as well. It is also known that there exist distillable states for which entanglement cost is strictly greater than distillable entanglement . Thus, this gap between entanglement cost and distillable entanglement also leads to the same argument as in the case of bound entangled states just proved: suppose $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ is a distillable mixed state such that $`E_D(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}})<E_C(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}})`$. Then, $`\rho _{\mathrm{AB}}`$ is incomparable with a pure state whose entropy of entanglement is sandwiched between $`E_D(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}})`$ and $`E_C(\rho _{\mathrm{AB}})`$. (The monotonicity of distillable entanglement is invoked here instead of the fact that PPT bound entangled states are not accessible to NPT entangled states.) Therefore, it is concluded that the partial order structure lies in distillable states as well.

In summary, we proved the partial order structure of mixed entangled states under the operational notion of asymptotic convertibility with LOCC, which makes it possible to understand the non-uniqueness of entanglement measure based on a very general argument on physical accessibility. The origin of the partial order is likely to be closely related to information loss. An important future direction is finding out exactly how the thermodynamical structure of pure states breaks down when mixedness appears in entanglement.

FM appreciates the warmth and hospitality of the quantum information group at Imperial College London. MFS acknowledges the support of CNPq. VV is supported by European Community, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Hewlett-Packard and Elsag Spa.

## References


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# The Host Galaxies of Narrow-Line Seyfert 1s: Evidence for Bar-Driven Fueling

## 1 Introduction

Seyfert galaxies are relatively nearby ($`z`$ 0.1), moderate-luminosity ($`L_{bol}`$ $`=`$ 1043 – 1045 erg s-1) active galaxies. The large-scale morphologies of these galaxies typically resemble those of normal (i.e., inactive) spiral galaxies, although there are some examples of peculiar or interacting systems (De Robertis, Hayhoe, & Yee 1998). Optical and UV spectra of their nuclei are characterized by strong atomic emission lines. Based on the widths of these lines, Seyfert galaxies are generally divided into two types (Khachikian & Weedman 1974): Type 1s possess broad permitted lines with full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) typically $`>`$ 1000 km s-1 and narrow forbidden lines with FWHM $`\stackrel{<}{}`$ 500 km s-1, while the spectra of Type 2s show narrow permitted and forbidden lines. Those Seyferts that show both broad and narrow components in their permitted lines are classified as intermediate types, ranging from 1.2 to 1.9 (Osterbrock, 1977; 1981).

Osterbrock & Pogge (1985) discovered a class of active galactic nuclei (AGN) with relatively narrow (FWHM $`<`$ 2000 km s-1) permitted lines, like Seyfert 2 galaxies, but with emission-ratios that indicate the presence of a high-density region, like the broad-line region (BLR) in Seyfert 1 galaxies. They dubbed these objects “Narrow-Line Seyfert 1s” (NLS1s). As discussed by Mathur (2000a, 2000b), NLS1s possess a number of interesting spectral properties. They show strong Fe II and weak \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007 emission relative to H$`\beta `$, which puts them at one extreme of eigenvector 1 of Boroson & Green (1992), which was determined from principal component analysis of a large sample of low-redshift quasars and Seyfert galaxies. Compared to broad-line Seyfert 1s (BLS1s), the X-ray continua of NLS1s are characterized by steep slopes and rapid variability, particularly in the soft ($``$ 1 keV) band (Boller, Brandt, & Fink 1996; Brandt, Mathur, & Elvis 1997). Wills et al. (1999) found unsually high N V $`\lambda `$1240/ C IV $`\lambda `$1550 flux ratios in NLS1s, which may be indicative of high nitrogen abundances, as would result from metal enrichment due to a recent burst of star formation (see also Shemmer & Netzer 2002). The mid-IR brightness of a number of NLS1s provides further evidence of recent or current star formation (Moran, Halpern, & Helfand 1996).

There are several models to explain the unusual properties of NLS1s, and in particular the narrowness of their line profiles. Wandel & Peterson (1999) suggested that the BLRs may be relatively farther away from the central continuum source in NLS1s, due to over-ionization of the gas close to the active nucleus. However, based on estimates of the BLR sizes from reverberation mapping, Peterson et al. (2000) argue this cannot generally be the case. Another possibility is that the BLR is flattened and viewed roughly face-on, with narrow line profiles as a result, although Peterson et al. found no compelling evidence for such a preferred viewing angle unless the narrow emission-line regions are mis-aligned with the accretion-disk/black hole systems in these objects.

The current widely-accepted paradigm is that, while AGN in general are powered by accretion of material onto a supermassive central black hole, NLS1s possess black holes of relatively modest mass ($``$ 107 M), that are accreting matter at or above their Eddington limits (Pounds, Done, & Osborne 1995). This view is supported by recent observational results that indicate that NLS1s possess significantly smaller black-hole mass to bulge mass ratios than their broad-line counterparts (Mathur, Kuraszkiewicz, & Czerny 2001; Wandel 2002). In this scenario, the narrow line widths are simply due to clouds in motion around the small-mass black hole, while the steep soft X-ray continuum is the high-energy tail of the “Big Blue Bump”, which is presumably emission from the accretion disk that peaks in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV). NLS1s could therefore be analogous to the “strong soft” states of galactic black holes at high accretion rates (Pounds et al. 1995). Due to the high accretion rates, the disks in NLS1s are likely much hotter than those in BLS1s, and hence the emission is peaked at higher energies. Wang & Netzer (2003) showed that high-accretion rates result in an extremely thin disk which emits a double-peaked continuum, with a peak in the EUV/soft X-ray due to the disk itself, and a high energy peak due to a hot corona. Based on this model, they suggest that most of the 54 NLS1s in the Véron-Cetty, Véron, & Gonçalves (2001) sample are super-Eddington accretors. Assuming that NLS1s are high-rate accretors, and considering the other evidence of extreme activity, Mathur (2000a, 2000b) suggested that NLS1s are in an early phase of activity and may be the low-redshift analogs of high-$`z`$ QSOs (however, see Constantin & Shields 2003).

In order to fuel Seyfert galaxies and other AGN, material must be transported from the host galaxy into the inner nucleus, requiring some means by which the material loses angular momentum. One possibility is interactions or mergers with other nearby galaxies (Toomre & Toomre 1972; Adams 1977). However recent studies indicate that Seyfert galaxies do not have more close companions than do normal galaxies, and, furthermore, a substantial fraction of Seyfert galaxies show no evidence for recent mergers (De Robertis, Yee, & Hayhoe 1998, and references therein).

Another process for fueling AGN that has received considerable attention is gas inflow along a stellar bar (Simkin, Su, & Schwarz 1980). Theoretical studies show that the gas can lose its angular momentum after encountering the gravitational potential of a bar and be transported inward (Shlosman, Begelman, & Frank 1989). However, most observational studies in this area have found similar fractions of bars for Seyferts and normal galaxies (Heckman 1980; Simkin et al. 1980; Ho, Filippenko, & Sargent 1997; Mulchaey, Regan, & Kundu 1997; Mulchaey & Regan 1997), although Knappen, Shlosman, & Peletier (2000) found a slightly higher percentage of IR bars in Seyferts (80%) compared to normal galaxies (60%). Interestingly, the percentages of Seyfert or normal galaxies that have bars vary substantially among these studies, from $``$30% to $``$80%. These discrepancies are probably due to the sample selection (e.g., luminous vs. average spirals), wave band (IR observations tend to reveal more bars than optical images, Mulchaey & Regan 1997), and identification criteria (e.g., whether or not to include weak bars). Nevertheless, well-defined samples that use consistent criteria nearly always find equal percentages of bars in Seyfert and normal galaxies (with the exception noted above). Since there is strong evidence that most normal galaxies contain inactive supermassive black holes (Kormendy & Richstone 1995), the above finding indicates that while bars may be important for driving gas into the inner regions, there are other factors that contribute to the presence of nuclear activity.

Dynamical models indicate that a bar potential can drive material to within $``$1 kpc from the AGN, at which point the transport will be halted at the Inner Lindblad Resonance and the infalling gas will form a disk (Shlosman, et al. 1989). If global nonaxisymmetrical instabilities are present, a secondary, gaseous bar can develop at small distances from the nucleus ($`\stackrel{<}{}`$1 kpc), and provide a means to drive the gas in towards the active nucleus (Shlosman, et al. 1989; Heller & Shlosman 1994). In fact, Maiolino et al. (2000) found evidence for gas motion along a secondary bar in the nucleus of the Seyfert 2 Circinus Galaxy. However, it appears that secondary gas bars are fairly rare among Seyfert galaxies. The most efficient way to detect these bars is through the extinction or reddening caused by their embedded dust. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) IR and optical images indicate that only 10 – 20% of Seyfert galaxies show nuclear (at distances $`\stackrel{<}{}`$1 kpc from the nucleus) dust bars (Regan & Mulchaey 1999; Martini & Pogge 1999; Pogge & Martini 2002). Instead, the HST images reveal that most ($``$80%) Seyfert galaxies show nuclear dust spirals (Regan & Mulchaey 1999; Pogge & Martini 2002; Martini et al. 2003). Although these structures are common to both barred and unbarred Seyferts, all of the “grand design” nuclear spirals (so-called by their resemblance to the large scale spiral structure of the same name) are found in barred galaxies (Martini et al. 2003). The grand design spirals appear to connect to dust lanes on the leading edge of the large-scale stellar bars, suggesting a connection to shock fronts in the bars. However, Martini et al. (2003) find that dust spirals in Seyfert galaxies are not statistically more numerous than those in normal galaxies. Thus, it is unclear exactly how the dust spirals fuel the AGN and what mechanism(s) actually control the onset of nuclear activity.

If the high accretion-rate paradigm for NLS1s is correct, it suggests that the fueling of the AGN is more efficient in these Seyferts than in their BLS1 counterparts. If so, perhaps there is a connection between large-scale properties and the high accretion rates in NLS1s. Krongold, Dultzin-Hacyan, and Marziani (2001) examined host galaxies and environments, and found no statistical difference between the frequency of companion galaxies in NLS1s and BLS1s. Another possibility is a difference in their large-scale morphologies. In this paper, we provide evidence that, stellar bars are much more common in NLS1s than BLS1s. These large-scale bars, which typically begin at $``$1 kpc from the nucleus and extend to 5 – 10 kpc, represent an efficient means for transporting large amounts of gas to the inner regions, which can presumably support the high accretion rates in the nuclei of NLS1s.

## 2 Sample and Analysis

Our sample contains primarily the HST broad-band images of Seyfert 1 galaxies obtained by Malkan, Gorjian, & Tam (1998). This is a uniform sample of 91 Seyfert 1 galaxies at z $``$ 0.035 observed with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) through the F606W filter (centered near 6000 Å). Single exposures of duration 500 s were obtained with nearly all the Seyfert nuclei located on the planetary camera (PC) chip, yielding a spatial resolution of 0$`^{\prime \prime }.`$1. The number of NLS1s in this sample is small (13); to increase that number, we searched the HST archives for NLS1s in the Véron-Cetty et al. (2001) sample that have WFPC2 broad-band optical images. We found 6 additional NLS1s, which extend to higher redshifts (up to z $`=`$ 0.084); the effects of including them to make a larger, more heterogeneous sample (in terms of redshift) will be discussed.

We retrieved all of the WFPC2 images from the HST archives, to display a larger field of view (37′′ x 37′′, the projected size of the PC) than the images published (mostly 9′′ x 9′′) in Malkan et al. (1998). The Malkan et al. sample consists of single images of each Seyfert galaxy, and we removed only point-like cosmic-ray hits using automated routines. The remaining galaxies had multiple images, and we removed both point-like and glancing hits through intercomparison of the images. In practice, residual or remaining cosmic ray hits, saturation of the nuclei, or other defects were easily recognized in these images and had little effect on our assessment of the large-scale morphology of the host galaxies.

To ensure objectivity, we scrambled the order of the HST images and the three coauthors independently classified their morphologies without knowledge of Seyfert 1 subclass (NLS1 or BLS1) or the name of the galaxy. We classified the galaxies into one of 6 major groups: S (spiral), SB (spiral with a noticeable bar), E (elliptical), I (irregular), P (point-souce, only the active nucleus is visible), or ? (uncertain) (note that we did not attempt to assign Hubble subclasses). For each galaxy, at least two of the three independent classifications agreed (in most cases all three agreed), and we adopted the majority view.

A large majority of the galaxies in the sample are at redshifts z $`=`$ 0.01 – 0.035, which yield projected distances of 7 – 25 kpc across the PC for H0 $`=`$ 75 km s-1 Mpc-1. In the Malkan sample, there are 11 out of 91 galaxies at smaller redshifts, extending down to z $`=`$ 0.002 (1.4 kpc across the PC). For these galaxies in particular, we also examined the full WFPC2 images to assess their large-scale morphologies (each WF chip has a field of view of 1$`^{}.`$3 x 1$`^{}.`$3). The six additional galaxies from Véron-Cetty et al. (2001) have redshifts up to 0.084, corresponding to 60 kpc across the PC.

In Table 1, we give the results of our classifications. The galaxies are first listed in the same order as in Malkan et al. (1998), and are followed by the six additional NLS1 galaxies from Véron-Cetty et al. (2001). We also list the redshifts, our morphological classifications (“CKG”), and those based on the same images from Malkan et al. (“MGT”), which include Hubble subclasses. The classes of Seyfert nuclei (BLS1 or NLS1) are based on the listings in the catalog of Véron-Cetty & Véron (2001); the BLS1s include Seyferts from types 1 to 1.9. In the last two columns, we give measurements of the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the broad component of H$`\beta `$ (or in a few cases, H$`\alpha `$), and the references that these measurements were obtained from. Note that 35 Seyfert galaxies in the sample have previously been classified as NLS1s or BLS1s on the basis of their optical spectra, but measurements of the FWHMs of the broad lines have not been published.

We note that our general morphological classes agree well with those of Malkan et al. Of the 91 galaxies, there are only 11 discrepancies, and of the 74 galaxies that we both identified as spirals, there is disagreement on the presence or absence of a bar in only 6 galaxies (5 BLS1s, 1 NLS1). To illustrate our classifications, we show the HST images of the NLS1s in our sample in Figures 1 and 2. NGC 4051 is not shown, since at its very low redshift (z $`=`$ 0.0023) the PC only spans 1.6 x 1.6 kpc. Examination of the Palomar Sky Survey and other ground-based images (Tully et al. 1996) shows a strong bar that can be seen extending into the larger WFPC2 frame.

## 3 Results

We consider the 92 Seyfert galaxies in Table 1 with definite morphological classifications (i.e., ignoring the “P” and “?” classes). From this group, we have classified 91% as spirals, and of the spirals, we have classified 33% of the spirals as barred. The latter is consistent with percentages from studies that have identified strong bars in optical images of both active and normal spiral galaxies (Mulchaey et al. 1997; Malkan et al. 1998; see also §1).

However, it is obvious from Table 1 that most of the NLS1 galaxies are barred spirals, and most of the BLS1 galaxies are normal spirals. Quantitatively, if we consider the 84 spirals in this sample, then 65% (11/17) of the NLS1 spirals have bars, whereas only 25% (17/67) of the BLS1 spirals have bars. If we consider only the Malkan et al. sample, then 64% (7/11) of the NLS1 spirals have bars, which is essentially identical to the result for the full sample. If we use Malkan et al.’s (1998) classifications, then 30% (20/67) of the BLS1 spirals show bars and 55% (6/11) of the NLS1 spirals show bars.

To further characterize the trend of bars in NLS1 galaxies, Figure 3 shows histograms of the fraction of spirals that have bars as a function of the FWHM (H$`\beta `$) on a log scale. The shaded regions show a clear trend of decreasing fraction of bars with increasing FWHM for the entire sample. The trend continues through the three bins associated with NLS1s (FWHM $`<`$ 2000 km s-1) to the first bin for the BLS1s. The fraction levels out thereafter, and is essentially constant for all BLS1s regardless of FHWM. Interestingly, the four NLS1 spirals in the full sample with the smallest FWHM (600 – 1000 km s-1) all show bars.

The hatched region in Figure 3 shows that the same trend occurs for the more uniform Malkan et al. subsample; there is only a slightly lower fraction of bars in NLS1s with widths in the range 1000 – 2000 km s-1 compared to the full sample. It is clear from Table 1 that the number of NLS1s in each bin is quite small (as low as 3) for this subsample, and a larger, more uniform sample of images for both BLS1s and NLS1s would be helpful for testing this trend.

## 4 Discussion

Our analysis of HST/WFPC2 images reveals that stellar bars are more common in NLS1s, particularly those with very narrow H$`\beta `$ profiles, compared to BLS1s. This suggests a link between the high fueling rates that can be provided by the bars and the high accretion rates commonly associated with NLS1s. These large-scale stellar bars often extend down to 1 kpc from the nuclei of these galaxies. Inside a radius of $``$1 kpc, nuclear dust spirals, and in a few cases dust bars, are likely to be directly responsible for transporting fuel to the active nucleus. However, the exact connection between large-scale bars, inner dust spirals and bars, and accretion rates in the nucleus is unclear. We outline one possible scenario below.

Based on a variety of evidence, it has been suggested that NLS1s are in an early stage of activity (Mathur 2000a, 2000b). If so, the presence of bars suggests the following evolutionary sequence for galaxies that become active. 1) Initially, the galaxy is a normal spiral, albeit with a small black hole mass MBH ($`<`$ 107 M). Although studies of nearby inactive galaxies find few with MBH this small (Magorrian et al. 1998; Merritt & Ferrarese 2001; Kormendy & Gebhardt 2001), Wandel (2002) suggested that the sample derived from stellar dynamics is biased towards detecting higher mass MBH, since detecting smaller mass sources requires higher spatial resolution, which is only possible in the most nearby galaxies. Hence there may be a large, undetected population of small MBH in inactive galaxies. 2) Due to either a tidal disruption or simply an asymmetrical distribution of mass in the inner disk of the galaxy, a stellar bar forms within a few x 108 yrs (Combes & Elmegreen 1993). The presence of a bar can efficiently drive gas into the inner nucleus (Friedli & Benz 1993), which can be detected in the form of inner dust spirals or bars. 3) At this point, the galaxy starts the NLS1 phase, powered by a small central black hole accreting at close to its Eddington limit. Within 108 yrs, the bar can trigger star formation (Hunt & Malkan 1999, and references therein), which suggests that the evidence for active star formation in NLS1s may also be related to the presence of a bar. Dynamical models indicate that once $``$ 5% of the mass of the disk is redistributed into the inner nucleus, the bar will be destroyed (Freidli & Benz 1993; Norman et al. 1996). Although models predict that this will take a few x 109 yrs, they do not typically include the effects of asymmterical mass distribution in the inner nucleus, which may shorten the lifetime of the bar (Norman et al. 1996). 4) At this stage, MBH will have increased sufficiently (several to ten times its initial mass) such that the galaxy appears as a BLS1. Since BLS1s are substantially sub-Eddington, the fueling rate must also have decreased significantly. There are a number of possible explanations for this, including the weakening of the bar, the diminished reserve of fuel in the inner disk, or the effect of the energized AGN itself, which can drive mass outflow (see Crenshaw, Kraemer, & George 2003). Interestingly, Hunt & Malkan (1999) find evidence that Seyferts show outer stellar rings more often than inactive galaxies. Outer rings take $``$ several x 109 yrs to form, and are likely to outlast the stellar bars. Hence, the rings may be a remnant of the earlier, bar-driven phase of what are now BLS1s.

Testing the above scenario, and determining the physical connection between large-scale bars and fueling of active nuclei, could be accomplished with more extensive HST images of the nuclear regions in NLS1s. The fueling flow can be traced via deep optical and IR images of the dust lanes, and possibly narrow-band images of the low-ionization emission. Narrow-band observations of the high-ionization outflowing gas could be used to determine the geometry of infall versus outflow. Finally, UV images could be used to look for evidence of circumnuclear starbursts and explore their connection to AGN activity.

This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This research has also made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service. Some of the data presented in this paper were obtained from the Multimission Archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute (MAST). Support for MAST for non-HST data is provided by the NASA Office of Space Science via grant NAG5-7584 and by other grants and contracts.