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# A Molecular Gas Bridge between the Taffy Galaxies

## 1 Introduction

Galaxy interactions are major drivers of galaxy evolution. Outside of clusters, most interactions are tidal, in which the relative velocities are similar to or less than the galactic rotation velocities, and can result in morphological changes and/or galaxy merging. The other type of interaction is a direct collision at speeds well beyond galactic rotation velocities such that tidal forces do less damage than the collision itself (Struck 1999). These “direct collisions” are rarer. In a spiral-spiral direct hit, the stars essentially pass right through the disk of the other galaxy because of the low likelihood of stellar collisions. The pressure exerted by gas clouds (column density $`\stackrel{<}{}10^{23}`$protons cm-2) has no effect on the stars (column density $`\stackrel{>}{}10^{34}`$ protons cm-2). The “damage” is mostly caused by collisions of gas clouds in the spiral disks. The direct hits involving gas-rich galaxies are really ISM-ISM collisions, in which gas is dragged from the spiral disks into the space between the two systems. However, because the gas mass is a small fraction of the disk mass in spirals, these collisions tend not to form mergers as the stars pass right through. Tidal interactions can eject gas (and stars) as well but in tidal tails rather than a gaseous bridge.

The interacting pair of galaxies, UGC 12914/5, is one of the best examples of a strong ISM-ISM collision. Condon et al. (1993), hereafter C93, observed the system with the VLA in the Hi line and 6 and 20 cm continuum emission. They found that the bridge between UGC 12914 and UGC 12915 emits strong synchrotron emission, with the magnetic fields being stretched as the galaxies separate, hence their naming the system the Taffy Galaxies. C93 showed that the collision was indeed close to head-on, with the nucleus of UGC 12915 passing through the more massive UGC 12914 slightly North of its center. The disks are counter-rotating and the recession velocities are nearly the same, so that the relative velocities are essentially transverse. Both disks are massive judging from the size of the system and the rotation velocities (260 and 310 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for UGC 12915 and 12914 respectively). C93 estimate that the collision occurred about 20 Myr ago with a transverse velocity of about 600 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Considering the counter-rotation and the transverse velocity, the speed at which clouds collide is some 800 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

In this work we present 12CO and 13CO spectra and an optical slit spectrum of the Taffy system. Recent studies have shown that, as predicted by C93, the synchrotron bridge contains little dust (Jarrett et al. 1999; Zink et al. 2000), presumably because the shocks have destroyed most of the grains. The extremely interesting feature is that huge quantities of molecular gas are present in the bridge region. Smith & Struck (2001) presented a CO spectrum showing CO in the bridge region. For consistency with previous work, we assume a distance to the Taffy galaxies of 60 Mpc, corresponding to H0 = 75 km s-1 Mpc-1.

## 2 Observations

The millimeter-wave observations were carried out with the 30 meter antenna on Pico Veleta, Spain, operated by the Institut de RadioAstronomie Millimétrique (IRAM). The data presented here are from several runs from 1998 to 2001. All data are presented using the main beam temperature scale, appropriate for small sources (see observing details in Zhu et al. (1999) and Braine et al. (2001)). The spatial resolutions (beam size at full width half maximum) are 22$`\mathrm{"}`$ and 11$`\mathrm{"}`$ for respectively the $`J=10`$ and $`J=21`$ transitions of 12CO and 13CO.

In Figure 1, we present an optical image of the UGC 12914/5 system with our CO(1–0) spectra (yellow line) and Hi spectra (black line) from C93 superposed.

In Figure 2, we present our 12CO and 13CO spectra for the giant Hii region in the bridge and for UGC 12915. The 12/13C abundance ratio is expected to be about 60, so the rarer 13CO species can be used to estimate optical depth. The ratio of the 12CO to 13CO line intensities is very different in the two regions shown. In the center of UGC 12915 the ratio is about 15 (19 in the $`J=21`$ transition, a value between the standard 7 – 10 (Sage & Isbell 1991) and the high values observed in the very IR-bright galaxies (Casoli et al. 1992). The optical depth of the CO lines in the bridge is clearly much lower, as the 12CO to 13CO line ratio is about 50 in the (1-0) transition and 13CO(2–1) is undetected, such that the intensity ratio is $`\stackrel{>}{}100`$.

The optical long-slit spectra were taken with the Carelec spectrograph (Lemaître et al. 1990) on the 1.93m telescope of Observatoire de Haute-Provence in November of 2002. The CCD was an EEV 2048$`\times `$1024, with a pixel size of 13.5$`\mu `$, which corresponds to spectral and spatial resolutions of 1.78Å and 0.58” respectively. We obtained a 45-minute spectrum of the pair of galaxies with the slit aligned with the nucleus of UGC 12914 and the giant Hii region as shown in Fig. 1. Spectra of standard stars were obtained on a different night.

The main goal of these observations was to determine how the ionized gas is excited: by young stars from a recent starburst or by shocks. The line ratios indicate that the gas in the nucleus of UGC 12915 and in the giant Hii region are photoionized, and that UGC 12914 is a LINER. The metallicities from Oiii/H$`\beta `$ line ratios are subsolar – $`12+`$log(O/H)$`=`$ 8.5$`\pm 0.2`$ and 8.7$`\pm 0.3`$ for the giant Hii region and the nucleus of UGC 12914 respectively. Figure 3 shows the optical spectra of UGC 12914, UGC 12915, and the giant HII region.

## 3 Gas Masses and the bridge region

Integrating over the entire region observed in CO(1–0) and using a“standard” conversion ratio $`N(\mathrm{H}_2)/I_{\mathrm{CO}}=2\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 per K km s-1 to convert the CO emission into an H2 column density, our estimate of the total gas mass (H + He) in the molecular clouds is $`3.5\times 10^{10}\text{M}\text{}`$. 25% of the CO emission comes from the bridge region, representing more gas than in the whole of the Milky Way! How can so much molecular gas be pulled out of a galactic disk and what does this fact tell us about the ISM?

First, let us address the question of the $`N(\mathrm{H}_2)/I_{\mathrm{CO}}`$ conversion factor. The “standard” factor used in the calculation above, $`N(\mathrm{H}_2)/I_{\mathrm{CO}}=2\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 per K km s-1, is likely overestimated for galactic nuclei and starburst galaxies. While neither UGC 12914 nor UGC 12915 are strong starbursts, UGC 12915 is a strong FIR emitter and its CO emission is rather centrally concentrated. In UGC 12914, the situation is the reverse – most of the CO emission comes from the disk, with CO detected out to distances of 10 – 12 kpc from the center. We tentatively conclude that (a) the true H2 mass of UGC 12915 could be overestimated by up to a factor $`4`$ but (b) the H2 mass of UGC 12914 is unlikely to be grossly overestimated.

How much molecular gas is present in the bridge region? The large amount of molecular gas was not predicted by C93, who expected that ($`a`$) the molecular gas was too dense to be pulled out and ($`b`$) the molecules involved in collisions strong enough to blow a molecular cloud out of a disk would be shock destroyed. Our observations show that this is not the case.

As noted in Sect 2, the optical depth of the CO lines is clearly lower in the bridge because of the high 12/13CO intensity ratio (Fig. 2). As predicted by C93, and attributed to dust destruction, the FIR emission in the bridge region is weak (Zink et al. 2000). Dust mantles contain a lot of carbon and oxygen which, when expelled from the grain, can increase the gas-phase CO abundance. Because the CO emission here is not very optically thick, increasing the CO abundance can increase the intensity of the CO emission per H2 mass. The low optical depth and increase in CO abundance due to grain destruction taken together could decrease the $`N(\mathrm{H}_2)/I_{\mathrm{CO}}`$ ratio by a factor of a few as compared to the “standard” value. A more precise estimate of the molecular gas mass is currently impossible. Nonetheless, even reducing the bridge molecular gas by a factor of four means that the bridge alone contains as much or more H2 as the whole Milky Way!

The geometry of the collision in the Taffy system maximizes the cloud collisions and is probably unusually efficient at drawing gas out of the disks. What kind of collision is capable of bringing some $`10^{10}`$ M of gas out of the disks? Many of the line profiles (Fig. 1) in the bridge region show double Hi peaks. The CO is systematically coincident with the higher velocity HI peak. The low-velocity Hi peak in the bridge with no CO counterpart is presumably the unperturbed Hi belonging to the outer northeastern part of UGC 12914 and located behind the bridge.

One would expect head-on GMC (Giant Molecular Cloud)-GMC collisions at $`800\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ to result in ionization because the kinetic energy dissipated is close to 1 keV/proton. The magnetic field energy is negligible compared to the cloud kinetic energy dissipated in collisions so magnetic fields should not be able to pull the dense gas out of the disks.

Could much of the molecular gas have recombined in the bridge region since the collision? Braine et al. (2001) estimate the H2 formation time to be $`t_{20\%}10^7/n`$ years where $`n`$ is the atomic hydrogen density in atoms cm-3 and $`t_{20\%}`$ is the time for 20% of the Hi to become H2. We can estimate the density by simply taking the hydrogen column density and dividing by the size of the bridge, likely to be similar in depth and in width. Thus, for $`N_\mathrm{H}10^{22}`$ cm-2 and $`d10`$ kpc, we obtain $`n_\mathrm{H}0.3`$ cm-3. Thus, in the time since collision, we do not expect more than 20% of the Hi in the bridge to have recombined into H2 – this is a small fraction of the bridge H2 mass.

However, Harwit et al. (1987) argue that while GMC-GMC collisions result in complete ionization, the cooling time for dense (several $`10^3`$ cm-3) gas from $`10^6`$ to below $`10^4`$ K is less than 100 years. In such a short time the cloud volume cannot increase appreciably so the gas remains dense. The recombination time scale is quite short for such dense gas, provided the photons can escape or be absorbed by dust. If so, then the H2 formation time as described above should also be very short due to the high density. While most H2 was not formed in the bridge, colliding GMCs may have been rapidly ionized only to cool and reform H2 while the galactic disks are still passing through each other. This would result in a H recombination line flash for each cloud collision. Such a mechanism could explain the mass of gas spread over the bridge region. Collisions between diffuse gas clouds will also result in their ionization but at the lower densities the gas will not have time to cool and recombine before cloud dissipation, hindering the formation of the large amounts of H2 observed here.

The other clear case of a recent ISM-ISM collision is the UGC 813/6 system which also has a synchrotron and Hi bridge (Condon et al. 2002). In Stephan’s Quintet, in which NGC 7318b is hitting the compact group at about 800 km s-1, Lisenfeld et al. (2002) have shown that about $`3\times 10^9`$M of H2 is present in the colliding region SQ A, some 20 kpc from the centers of NGC 7318a and b. It seems clear that although the velocities should result in ionization of the neutral gas, ISM-ISM collisions below 1000 km s-1 are extremely efficient at bringing gas out of the galaxies, even from the inner parts.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank J.J. Condon and T. Jarrett for the Hi and radio continuum data.


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# K+-nucleon scattering and exotic S=+1 Baryons

## Abstract

The $`K^+`$-nucleon elastic scattering process has been reexamined in light of recent measurements which have found a narrow exotic S=+1 resonance in their $`KN`$ invariant mass distributions. We have analyzed the existing database in order to consider the effect of a narrow state on fits to $`K^+`$-nucleon observables.

An analysis of isoscalar and isovector contributions to $`K^+`$-nucleon scattering, using $`K^+p`$ and $`K^+d`$ data, was published vpi  by the VPI group in 1992. The interest in this reaction was driven by a search for possible $`Z^{}`$ resonances. At the time of the VPI analysis, only isovector pole parameters had been reported in the Review of Particle Properties rpp  (RPP). Breit-Wigner parameters were available for two isoscalar states. By including $`K^+d`$ elastic scattering and breakup data, an improved study of the isoscalar component was performed. Both isovector and isoscalar poles were reported. However, the inferred widths were of the order of 100 MeV, and could be “explained” as pseudo-resonances whose resonance-like behavior was induced by the opening of channels such as $`K^+\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`K^{}N`$. As a result, these states were removed from the RPP with the statement that “the general prejudice against baryons not made of three quarks and the lack of any experimental activity” precluded any foreseeable progress.

Recent measurements spring ; itep ; jlab ; elsa  from SPring-8, ITEP, Jefferson Lab, and ELSA have dramatically changed the status of $`Z^{}`$ resonances (now denoted as $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ states). Unlike, the broad resonancelike structures seen in previous $`K^+N`$ analyses, these groups have reported very narrow peaks in their $`KN`$ mass distributions. The reported masses have been consistent, clustered around 1540 MeV, with widths less than 25 MeV. These results are in remarkable agreement with a chiral soliton prediction of a $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ state at 1530 MeV, with a width less than 15 MeV dpp .

In order to understand how this state could have eluded previous studies of $`K^+N`$ scattering data, we have reanalyzed this reaction, focusing on the 1540 MeV region. While there are suggestions that this state should be seen in the P01 partial wave, we have scanned for S-, P-, and D-wave ($`S_{01}`$, $`S_{11}`$, $`P_{01}`$, $`P_{03}`$, $`P_{11}`$, $`P_{13}`$, $`D_{03}`$, $`D_{05}`$, $`D_{13}`$, and $`D_{15}`$) structures as well. Width estimates have generally been given as upper limits. For this reason, we have allowed for much lower values. As there have been essentially no new data for this reaction since our last published fit, we have used the 1992 result as a starting point. The fitting strategy and database are fully documented in Ref. vpi . Below, we give only our results from a search for narrow structures.

Narrow resonances were added to the VPI analysis using a product S-matrix approach. The added state was assumed to be an elastic $`KN`$ resonance with an energy-independent width. An additional background S-matrix was also included, $`S_B=(1+iK)/(1iK)`$, with an underlying K-matrix proportional to phase space. Data were then analyzed with resonances covering a grid of mass and width values, in order to see which values were favored azimov  in a particular partial wave. From an initial scan with masses in the range between 1520 and 1560 MeV, with widths from 1 to 10 MeV, one feature was immediately obvious. The addition of states with widths above 5 MeV resulted in an enormous increase in $`\chi ^2`$, often more than doubling the $`\chi ^2`$/data found in a fit from threshold to TLab = 1.1 GeV ($`\chi ^2`$/data = 3198/1746) for isoscalar waves, and threshold to TLab = 2.65 GeV ($`\chi ^2`$/data = 4872/3663) for isovector waves. The effect on $`\chi ^2`$ is illustrated in Fig. 1a for the $`P_{01}`$ partial wave. Similar results were found for other partial waves. This is in agreement with a claim by Nussinov nussinov , based on a lack of pronounced structure in the $`K^+d`$ total cross section. In Ref. nussinov , the conservative estimate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{\Theta }^+}`$ $`<`$ 6 MeV was given. A limit of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{\Theta }^+}`$ $`<`$ 9 MeV was given in the ITEP bubble chamber measurements of Ref. itep .

We found no $`\chi ^2`$ improvement associated with the addition of resonances in the S-, P- and D-waves, unless the inserted structures had widths of order 1 MeV or less. However, for very narrow widths, a lack of data at energies corresponding to the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ was a limiting factor. \[In our search for narrow $`N^{}`$ states in the $`\pi N`$ elastic scattering reaction, we found that it was generally possible to insert keV-width states, without serious effect, if they filled gaps in the database azimov .\] In Fig. 1b, we again plot the change in $`\chi ^2`$ associated with resonances (in the $`P_{01}`$ wave) having widths below 1 MeV. The location of available data is also indicated. Unfortunately, the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ mass, near 1545 MeV, falls in a data gap. As a result, we have little sensitivity to the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$, if its width is much below an MeV. In Fig. 2, we show similar mappings for the $`S_{01}`$ and $`P_{03}`$ partial waves, also for the case of sub-MeV widths. The $`P_{01}`$ plots have the most suggestive dips near the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ mass, but with such sparse data coverage, this cannot be considered as definitive proof. Plots of isovector waves for the widths displayed in Figs. 12 show no regions of negative $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$.

In summary, based upon a reanalysis of the existing $`K^+N`$ database, we find that $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ widths beyond the few-MeV level are excluded, confirming a claim based on total cross section data nussinov . The existence of a $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ in the $`P_{01}`$ state, with a width of an MeV or less, is possible. We see no evidence for a $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{++}`$ in the existing $`K^+p`$ scattering data. As the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ has been seen in both $`K^+n`$ and $`K^0p`$ mass distributions, our assumption of an elastic process in $`KN`$ scattering seems reasonable. However, it appears that a more definitive conclusion will have to await further measurements.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors thank Ya. Azimov, A. Dolgolenko, and W. Roberts for many helpful discussions. This work was supported in part by the U. S. Department of Energy grant DE–FG02–99ER41110, and by Jefferson Lab and the Southeastern Universities Research Association under DOE contract DE–AC05–84ER40150.


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# Probing the Inflow/Out-flow and Accretion Disk of Cyg X-1 in the High State with HETG/Chandra

## 1 Introduction

Cyg X-1 is a black hole candidate which consists a compact object orbiting a $``$17 M O9.7 I supergiant with a period of 5.6 day (Webster and Murdin 1972; Bolton 1972). The dynamically determined mass of the compact object which exceeds significantly the neutron star upper limit provides evidence of a black hole in Cyg X-1. The companion star almost fills its Roche lobe in Cyg X-1 (Gies and Bolton 1986). Therefore, the configuration of material transferring from the companion to the black hole may be intermediate between Roche-lobe overflow and stellar wind accretion. The X-ray emission of Cyg X-1 is believed to be powered by the accreted stellar wind material from the companion. The X-ray spectrum is composed of soft and hard spectral components (see, e.g., Liang & Nolan 1984, Tanaka & Lewin 1995). Various spectral shapes have been found and classified as the so called, low, intermediate and high spectral states (see, e.g., Oda 1977; Liang & Nolan 1984, and Tanaka & Lewin 1995; Belloni et al. 1996). Primarily, this classification is based on the power-law index obtained by fitting the soft (2 - 10 keV) X-ray spectrum with a single power-law. In the low state, the power-law index is about 1.6. In the intermediate state, the power-law index is around 2.0 and it is about 2.5 in the high state ( see, e.g., Oda 1977; Liang & Nolan 1984, and Tanaka & Lewin 1995; Belloni et al. 1996).

Further studies in timing reveals more differences among the states from the extensive observations of Cyg X-1 with Ginga and RXTE, such as, the various shapes of power density spectrum (PDS) (see, e.g., van der Klis 1995; Belloni et al. 1996; Cui et al. 1997), various spectrum evolutions in both short time scale ($``$1 second) (Feng, Li, & Chen 1999; Li, Feng, & Chen 1999) and long time scales ($``$several hours) (Wen, Cui, & Bradt 2001). Although there is no model which provides a consistent explanation of both the temporal and the spectral properties of the states, the various states have been attributed to different geometric structures and physical properties of the accretion flow (e.g., Esin, McClintock & Narayan 1997) which may be closely related to the accretion rate and determined by the configuration of the mass transfer (e.g., Gies et al. 2003).

Spectroscopy of Cyg X-1 in the various states can greatly enhance the knowledge of the configuration of the mass transfer in the system. Red-shifted absorption lines of highly ionized species have been detected with HETG/Chandra during the low state at orbital phase 0.73 (Schulz et al. 2002), 0.84 (Marshall et al. 2001) and 0.77 (Miller et al. 2002a) and in intermediate states at orbital phase 0.88 (Feng et al. 2003 in preparation). These lines show that there is a highly ionized inflow with a variable configuration. This inflow may play an important role in controlling the spectral state and in triggering the state transition. However, the previous observations of Cyg X-1 with Chandra covered only a limited range of orbital phase (0.73-0.88) and spectral states (the low and intermediate state) which prevents us from obtaining a complete picture of the stellar wind. Spectroscopy of Cyg X-1 in both the high and the low states around orbital phase 0 is particularly interesting because the column density may be enhanced and produce strong absorption lines. Furthermore, comparison of the properties of absorption lines detected in the different states and orbital phases will show the variations in the configuration of mass density and shed light on the mysteries of the spectral state and its transition.

The fluorescent Fe K$`\alpha `$ line may be a powerful way to probe the accretion disk in Cyg X-1 (Fabian et al. 1989). Fe K$`\alpha `$ line emission detected during the low state indicates that there is a cold accretion disk where the iron fluorescent emission line is generated (e.g., Barr, White and Page 1985; Ebisawa et al. 1996; Miller et al. 2002b). The detection of a $``$6.6 keV broad line emission in 1996 during the intermediate state with ASCA (Cui et al. 1998) has been attributed to Fe Kα emission line from the highly ionized inner region of the accretion disk rather than the cold disk of the low state. Additionally, in the high state, the inner edge of the accretion disk may extend down to the last stable orbit. The high resolution obtained with HETG/Chandra in the detection of the possible Fe Kα line emission will constrain the line emission model. In this paper, we present results from the first spectroscopy of Cyg X-1 in the high soft state around orbital phase 0 with HETG/Chandra.

## 2 Observation and Analysis

Monitoring of Cyg X-1 with ASM/RXTE shows that from Sept. 2001 to Oct. 2002 the X-ray flux was 2-4 times higher than $``$20 cts/sec of the low state, as seen in figure 1, indicating that the source might have entered the soft state (Zhang et al. 1997). Furthermore, the hardness ratio $`<`$ 0.6 and positive correlation coefficient between hardness ratio and total count rate were found during the observation occurred, as seen in in figure 1. These are consistent with that Cyg X-1 had entered the high soft state (Wen et al. 2001). A Chandra X-ray Center Director’s Discretionary Time (DDT) observation (ObsID: 3724) proposed to catch Cyg X-1 in the high state occurred from July 30, 2002 17:27:17 to July 31, 2002, 01:52:08 with a simultaneous RXTE observation. PCA/RXTE spectrum of Cyg X-1 was found to be the typical shape of the high state and power density spectrum was in the shape of power-law. All these timing and spectral properties confirmed that Cyg X-1 was in the genuine high soft state during the observation. Also the companion star was closest along our line of sight which is the so called orbital phase 0 based on the ephemeris provided by Gies et al. (2003).

(Figure 1)

The HETG/Chandra observation operated was in continuous-clocking (CC) graded mode in order to eliminate pile-up. To reduce telemetry saturation, a 100 pixel region centered on the zeroth order image was transmitted with a 10% duty cycle. However, because of the very high X-ray flux, the observation still suffered from telemetry saturation and frame-dropping.

In CC mode ACIS reads out the CCD in virtual frames. This ensures that all the on board processing is identical for CC and TE modes. Due to the fact the CCD is clocked differently there is a slight gain difference between these modes. This gain is only used for order sorting, and we have verified the order sorting is still selecting the correct data. For high count rate sources, data are generated faster than the telemetry can handle. If ACIS has processed a frame of data, which represents about 1.5 sec of CC mode data from one CCD and that data will not fit in the telemetry stream, it discards the entire frame. This results in a data gap for that CCD but otherwise has no impact on the data or processing. However, it is important to realize that each CCD will now have a different integration time, which is easily calculated from the “Good Time Intervals” given in the FITS file.

To extract the spectrum of a point source from the grating instrument of HETG/Chandra, it is important to precisely locate the source position on the CCD. We located Cyg X-1’s position on ACIS-S CCD chip S3 in three steps. First, we located the Cyg X-1 position from its zeroth order image. Then, we compared it with the location calculated from the galactic coordinate of Cyg X-1. Finally, we adjusted the source position to make the spectral features in both minus and plus order spectra line up. Based on the source position, we used CIAO 2.2.1 and followed the updated threads provided by CXC to extract the spectrum. The HETG/Chandra spectrum was also extracted with a software developed by us. The spectral features reported here are consistent in both spectra. For a bright X-ray source, such as Cyg X-1, the background detected with HETG/Chandra in 0.7-4 keV region is negligible. The spectrum in this range is analyzed without background subtraction. When we searched for the broad feature near 6.5 keV, we did subtract a background which contributed about 4 percent of the counts in this band. The background was estimated at a given location from ACIS-S energies just above and below the dispersed grating energy for the location.

Before looking for the broad Fe Kα emission line, we examined the HEG spectrum in the range of 4 to 5 keV. It showed that the plus and minus orders do not agree. The data which fall near the edge of S3 are about 10 percent lower than the corresponding data from S2. At a distance about 250 pixels from the S3 edge the two rates roughly agree. This ripple can also be seen in the data from the ACIS calibration source (see Fig. 5 of Townsley et al. 2002) and is weak at small chipy but increases as chipy increases. This ripple is due to a combination of serial and parallel clocking charge transfer inefficiencies.

To correct for this ripple effect, we applied a simple correction factor to our ARF files. From the Mn line calibration source data, at the chipy coordinate where the Cyg X-1 data were taken, we know that the efficiency is about 10 percent lower near the readout and close to full efficiency at the maximum distance (256 pixels). For the model we assumed that the correction was linear between these two points. This correction was applied to all 4 nodes on S3 resulting in a zig-zag correction. When we used the corrected ARF we now find much better agreement between the plus and minus orders.

When we jointly fit Chandra and RXTE spectra in the range between 2.5 to 15 keV, we allowed the RXTE absolute effective area to vary by a constant (independent of energy) amount. It is worth noting that although the RXTE and Chandra data overlap in time, the fact that the Chandra data were continuous, whereas the RXTE data were broken by gaps, means that the data are not from precisely the same time interval. Thus some of the differences could be due to the source variability. Furthermore we added 1.0 percent systematic uncertainty to the RXTE data.

## 3 Results

Fitting the spectrum with a single power-law in 2-10 keV energy range gives a power-law index about 3.2, and although it was not a good fit, it does indicate that Cyg X-1 was in the high state during the observation. A better fit can be obtained by adding either a second power-law or a disk black body. In the residuals of the fitting absorption lines of highly ionized species show up significantly. A broad feature near 6.5 keV is also detected. In this paper we report the broad and asymmetric absorption lines and the broad emission feature. Comprehensive studies of the absorption lines will be reported elsewhere.

(Figure 2)

### 3.1 Asymmetric Absorption Lines

Strong and asymmetric absorption lines are detected in Cyg X-1 during the high state. The line profile is composed of an extended red wing and a less extended blue wing, as seen in figure 2. The red wings of higher ionized species, such as, Mg XII, Si XIV, S XVI, and Fe XXII, are more extended than that of lower ionized species, such as, Mg XI, Si XIII, S XV, and Fe XIX, as shown in figure 2 and table 1. Comparison of the absorption line of Mg XII detected in the different orbital phases and states shows that the bottom of the absorption lines are near zero velocity (see figure 3), whereas those of previous observations in the low and intermediate state are red-shifted. It shows also that an absorption line of the high state has a more extended blue wing than that of the low and intermediate states. During the high state (phase 0) the red wing is more extended than that in the low state (phase 0.74) and that in the intermediate state (phase 0.88), as shown in figure 3.

(Figure 3)

### 3.2 Broad Emission Feature

We first fit the joint RXTE and Chandra spectra to a simple continuum model consisting of two power-laws. This gave a $`\chi ^2`$ of 1573.6 for 835 degree of freedom (dof) and the residuals are plotted in the top panel of figure 4a. We next added three Gaussian, two with negative norms (at 2.62 and 6.67 keV) for the hydrogen-like Si and the He-like Fe lines. The third broad Gaussian was added at about 6.5 keV. The new $`\chi ^2`$ was 1060.8 for 826 dof and the broad line has a central energy of 6.49$`\pm `$0.04 keV and width $`\sigma `$ of 0.51$`\pm `$0.04 keV. If we replace the low energy power-law with a disk blackbody component then $`\chi ^2`$ becomes 1028.4, but the line is now centered at 5.44$`\pm `$0.12 keV with width $`\sigma `$ 1.42$`\pm `$0.07 keV. Errors are 68% confidence range for a single paramenter.

We tried to replace the broad Gaussian with the more physical Laor (1991) component. At no time did the Laor component generate a better $`\chi ^2`$ than the Gaussian and often $`\chi ^2`$ was significantly worse. Thus with the two power-law continuum, the Laor resulted in $`\chi ^2`$ = 1061.7 and for this case the best fitting parameters for the disk had an inner radius of 25 rg (rg=GM/c2), an outer radius of 100 rg and an inclination of 86o. With the disk black body plus power-law continuum, the best $`\chi ^2`$ obtained was 1266.4 for a ”disk” extended from 23.5 to 26 rg and inclination of 86o. For both these models we included the two negative gaussians for the Si and Fe absorption lines. We also note that often the fitting routine would make the negative Fe line broad and positive, effectively discarding Laor and formally, this did result in a better fit. Physically reasonable Laor models tend to be asymmetric and the fitting tended to find non-physical solutions which made the line symmetric. Although an asymmetry could be smeared by the lower resolution of the RXTE spectrum, the higher resolution of the HETG makes it impossible to hide such an asymmetry. Part of the problem is due to the disk blackbody and power-law components being roughly equally important in the 5-6 keV range. Since the disk blackbody spectrum is falling rapidly, the precise nature of the fall is sensitive to assumptions made. Merloni, Fabian and Ross (2000) have shown that self consistent disk models produce more flux at higher energies than the XSPEC diskbb model predicts. Thus the excess seen in 5-7 keV may be partially attributed to the under estimation of the flux at higher energies with the diskbb model.

(Figure 4)

## 4 Discussion

Strong absorption lines of highly ionized species are detected in Cyg X-1 during the high state around orbital phase 0, as seen in figure 3. This suggests that there is a high mass density in the region between the companion and the black hole, as shown in the simulation of high mass binaries (Blondin et al. 1991). Similar species of absorption lines are found during observations in the high, the intermediate, and the low states. The slight change of the ionization state of stellar wind is consistent with the X-ray flux increase by only a factor of 2-4 in the high state from that in the low state, if the photoionization is the dominated ionization process in Cyg X-1. Strong absorption lines of Fe XXV to Fe XVII have been detected, indicating a large range of the ionization state in the wind. The large variation in the ionization state is not surprising since the density of the wind decreases as it moves away from the companion and the irradiation flux depends on the distance to the compact object. This combination results in a large variation in the ionization parameter along the line of sight.

The absorption lines are broad and asymmetric, and consist of an extended red wing and a less extended blue wing. The extended red wing can be attributed to the inflow with a projected radial velocity larger than that of out-flow. The inflow is the region where the angle between the motion direction of the material and our line of sight is larger than 90o. According to the wind structure of the radiatively driven wind model of Castor, Abbott, & Klein (1975), this region is closer to the X-ray source, than the region where the blue wing is generated. The closer to the source the wind is, the higher photoionization parameter and higher ionization degree it should have. Indeed, the red wings of higher ionized species, such as, Si XIV, S XVI, and Fe XXIII, are found to be more extended than that of lower ionized species, such as, Si XII, S XV and Fe XIX, as seen in figure 2 and table 1, consistent with the above picture of mass transfer. As the wind material approaches the X-ray source, its projected radial velocity increases because of the strong gravity around the black hole; in addition the ionization parameter should also increase because the wind receives a higher X-ray flux. This picture is consistent with the existence of the lower (or non) ionized stellar wind at high-latitude (far from the source) where the blueshifted absorption Hα line is produced and has been detected by Gies et al. (2003). The projected radial velocity of blueshifted absorption line of Hα is $``$ 380 km/s which is comparable with that of the blue wing seen in figure 2. The asymmetric distribution of the projected radial velocity implies a focused stellar wind toward the black hole.

The 5.6 day orbital modulation was detected in the X-ray emission of Cyg X-1 during the low state (Holt et al. 1979; Brocksopp et al. 1999; Wen et al. 1999) which is consistent with the distribution of X-ray intensity dips measured with ASM/RXTE (Bałucińska-Church et al. 1999) and PCA/RXTE (Feng & Cui 2002). It suggests enhanced mass density in the region where the companion faces the black hole during the low state. However, no orbital modulation was detected from X-ray flux (2-12 keV) during the high state (Wen et al. 1999). Since the velocity distribution of the stellar wind with high ionization degree has been found to be broader than those in the other states, as seen in figure 3. We think that one possible reason for the lack of orbital modulation is that the stellar wind is highly ionized in a larger region during the high state. Therefore, the column density of cold stellar wind could be lower and produce weaker modulation during the high state which is consistent with the speculation of Wen et al. (1999). Another possibility is that the distribution of the stellar wind in the region where X-ray emission has been attenuated becomes more isotropic from the view point of observer during the high state. If this is true, the difference between the stellar wind in the low and the high states implies that state transitions are triggered by variations in the configuration of the stellar wind. Comparison with a low state HETG observation near phase 0 will help resolve which model is more correct.

Part of the highly ionized stellar wind in Cyg X-1 flows away from the black hole and the other part is accreted by the black hole. There are two possible ways for the accreted material to fall into the horizon of the black hole, i.e., through the corona or the accretion disk. If it is via the disk, the highly ionized stellar wind needs to condense to form the cold disk, for example, via comptonization cooling of low-energy photons (Igumenshchev et al. 1999). As the highly ionized plasma is cooled down to form the cold disk recombination emission lines are expected. However, no recombination line emission has been detected. Therefore, the highly (or fully) ionized stellar wind most likely goes into the horizon mainly via the corona. The existence of the corona during the high state is consistent with the presence of the hard/non-thermal component in Cyg X-1 during the high state, as well as in the low and intermediate states. In studies of the X-ray intensity dips, two types of dips have been found (Feng & Cui 2002). One type (called type A) exhibits strong energy-dependent attenuation of X-ray emission at low energies during a dip, which is characteristic of photoelectric absorption from cold material. The other type (called type B) shows nearly energy-independent attenuation which is consistent with the partial obstruction of the X-ray emission region by dense streams. The dense stream could be cold and neutral which may exist mainly around the equatorial plane and form the disk.

Comparison of the absorption lines observed in different orbital phases shows that the blue wing is more extended at phase 0 than those at other orbital phases. The blue wings may be attributed to the stellar wind flowing away from the source. Less extended blue wings and red shifted absorption lines suggest a focused wind structure. However, the variation may also be attributed to the change of the spectral state, because the absorption lines have been detected not only at different orbital phases but also in different states.

Based on the radiatively driven wind model (Castor, Abbott, & Klein 1975), the column density viewed from phase 0 is expected to be about two times higher than that viewed from phase 0.77. The column densities in the lines observed at phase 0 in the high state are more than two times of those at phase 0.77, as seen in table 1. This implies stronger stellar wind in the high state which can cause higher accretion rate. However, this interpretation is dependent upon the wind model which may not suitable to apply to Cyg X-1. Again comparison with HETG/Chandra observation of Cyg X-1 around orbital phase 0 in the low state will reveal the difference in stellar wind between the low and high states. Spectroscopy of Cyg X-1 with more complete orbital phase coverage in the low and high states is necessary to probe the structure of the mass transfer between the companion and the black hole in Cyg X-1.

There is a very broad and significant feature in the spectrum near 6.5 keV that can be modeled with a broad Gaussian function. Attempts to model the feature with a Laor function have resulted in worse fits. This is most likely due to the Laor function being asymmetric whereas the residuals seen in figure 4a appear fairly symmetric. The precise shape of this excess depends on the continuum model, with small changes in the continuum resulting in large changes to the excess. Thus we have been unable to use this broad feature to derive physically meaningful parameters. Nevertheless, the appearance of this broad feature in the high state reveals that the spectral evolution in Cyg X-1 is much more complicated than that detected with low resolution detectors. The spectral evolution suggests that the geometric structure and physical properties of the accretion flow may be associated with the spectral state.

We thank Chandra Director Harvey Tananbaum, and all the other members of the Chandra team for their enormous efforts to conduct the DDT observation. We thank all the members of the RXTE team for their enormous efforts to conduct a simultaneous observation with RXTE. We thank helpful discussion with M.C. Weiffkopf, M.K. Joy and K.K. Ghosh. We gratefully acknowledge the support for this work was provided by NASA through Chandra Award Number GO2-3061X and DD2-3018X issued by Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, which is operated by Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of NASA under contract NAS8-39073. This work was also supported in part by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center under contract NCC8-200 and by NASA Long Term Space Astrophysics Program under grants NAG5-7927 and NAG5-8523.


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# Cluster Properties and Particle Production in Relativistic Quantum Mechanics

## Abstract

I formulate a class of relativistic quantum mechanical models that satisfy the cluster property and allow particle production. The models have a finite number of bare-particle degrees of freedom. The class of models include relativistic isobar models and the relativistic Lee model. I discuss elements of the construction that may be relevant to treat the general case of an infinite number of degrees of freedom.

The Cluster property provides the justification for the few-body programs at modern accelerators, such as TJNAF. Accurate measurement and precise calculations of few-body observables are used to obtain a detailed understanding of the dynamics of systems with a manageable number of degrees of freedom. The cluster property constrains the dynamics of many-body systems in terms of the dynamics of the few-body subsystems.

Since the cluster property is trivially realized in non-relativistic quantum mechanics, the cluster property is not a cause of concern for low-energy reactions. For physics on distance scales of less than a Fermi, a relativistic formulation of the quantum theory is essential and the formulation of the cluster property is non-trivial. The requirement that the dynamical unitary representation of the Poincaré group asymptotically factors into tensor products of subsystem representations puts non-linear constraints on the infinitesimal generators which cannot be satisfied without many-body interactions.

The problem of formulating relativistic quantum mechanical models satisfying the cluster property has been solved for $`N`$-particle systems . In these theories the required many-body interactions are generated by the few-body interactions. Models which allow particle production have new difficulties associated directly with particle production because these theories generally have a infinite number of degrees of freedom.

In this work artificial conservation laws are introduced that permit particle production without requiring an infinite number of degrees of freedom. The conservation laws provide a mechanism to separate the difficulties associated with an infinite number of degrees of freedom from the difficulties that arise directly from particle production.

Given the conservation laws it is possible to formulate a large class of relativistic quantum models with a bounded number of bare-particle degrees of freedom  which allow particle production and satisfy the cluster property. Models in this class include the relativistic Lee model, which was previously treated in , and relativistic isobar models.

The models treated in  are characterized by having meaningful few-body problems; few-body interactions are fixed by comparing accurate few-degree-of-freedom calculations to precise experimental measurements. The few-body interactions do not change when the subsystem is embedded in a many-degree-of-freedom system. As in the $`N`$-particle case, the dynamics of proper subsystems in the many-degree-of-freedom problem puts strong dynamical constraints on the resulting dynamics. These constraints generate additional many- body interactions from the few-body interactions.

I formulate dynamical relativistic models  by first constructing a unitary representation of the Poincaré group on the model Hilbert space, which is the orthogonal direct sum of tensor products of bare-particle Hilbert spaces. I use Clebsch-Gordon coefficients of the Poincaré group the decompose the tensor products of irreducible representations into direct integrals of irreducible representations. The dynamics is included by adding to the invariant mass interactions that commute with the spin and the operators that label and transform vectors in each irreducible subspace. This construction, which I call Wigner’s form of dynamics1 leads to a dynamical representation of the Poincaré group. Dirac’s forms of dynamics are realized as special cases associated with specific realizations of the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients.

For more than two degrees of freedom a dynamics based on Wigner’s forms of dynamics fails to satisfy the cluster property, even for models with short-ranged interactions. In these theories the cluster property can be restored by utilizing a generalization of the Mayer cluster expansion based on a partial ordering of subsystems and a $`C^{}`$ algebra of operators whose unitary elements preserve binding energies and $`S`$-matrix elements. This $`C^{}`$ algebra contains unitary elements that map representations of the Poincaré group satisfying the cluster property to representations that violate the cluster property. These operators, which can be constructed explicitly, and generalized cluster expansion methods are used to formulate a recursive construction of a unitary representation of the Poincaré group that clusters into tensor products of subsystem representations.

The number of degrees of freedom in models with production is controlled by introducing fictitious conserved “charges”. These charges replace particle number in the $`N`$-particle case. Clusters are associated with partitions of charges, but different partitions into subsystems are formulated on different subspaces of the Hilbert space, because some bare particles have several “charges” which cannot be separated. This leads to a modification of the formulation of the cluster property. It also leads to a more complex partial ordering on subsystems and requires extensions of the $`C^{}`$ algebra of asymptotic constants. The specific problems that arise in the variable number of particle case are treated in ref. , This paper also contains a detailed treatment of a theory having bare nucleon, pion, delta, and rho meson degrees of freedom.

There number of degrees of freedom is bounded by requiring that the net change of any particle is positive. Allowing zero or negative charges removes the unphysical restrictions on the dynamics at the cost of introducing an infinite number of degrees of freedom.

The resulting models necessarily have many-body interactions which are generated from subsystem interactions. These interactions ensure the factorization of the unitary representation of the Poincaré group into tensor products of subsystem representations when the subsystems are asymptotically separated. These interactions also generate model-dependent many-body contributions to tensor and spinor densities, such as the hadronic current operator. Understanding the role of the many-body contributions to the current is important if lepton scattering is used as a precision probe of hadronic structure on sub-nuclear scales.

Current research is directed at removing the “positive charge” restriction. In order to have a meaningful few-body problem in these theories I choose to describe the theory in terms of physical particle degrees of freedom. I replace the partial ordering on charge by a partial ordering on center-of-momentum energy. While a number of technical problems need to be addressed in order define the dynamics in the general case, the solution to the “positive charge problem” provides useful framework for studying the general problem.


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# Dynamical Creation of Channels for Particle Escape in the Solar Corona

## 1 Introduction

The knowledge of the structure of the coronal magnetic field (see e.g. Lin, Penn and Tomczyk  (2000)) serves as the principal guide in the construction of all modern theories on the origin of the Solar Wind (SW), a stream of high speed charged particles that manages to escape the solar atmosphere. There are two possible modes of escape from the magnetic field: 1) the passive mode in which the particles find a region of open field lines and escape without affecting the ambient field, and 2) the active mode in which the particle flows are strong enough to distort/modify the local magnetic field to create their own escape channels. The former would have been a sufficient solution if the wind emergence was limited to the heliographic polar regions, especially at solar minima when the open field line structures are relatively stable lasting several years. The observational story, however, is very different. Habbal and Woo (2001), for example, have shown (by a careful and systematic comparison of the ULLYSES data with coronal measurements at $`1.15R_{}`$) that the fast solar wind detected by ULLYSES seems to arrive (mostly radially) from all latitudes of the so–called quiet Sun. The passive mode scenario, then, would imply regions of open magnetic flux over a large fraction of the solar surface — an implication that runs counter to observations.

From the most detailed coronal images available to date e.g., from TRACE (Schrijver et. al.,  (1999)), the diffuse quiet Sun seems to be studded with a gamut of loop–like structures; no open magnetic field lines can be distinguished in these images. Even in the so called coronal holes (low temperature regions originally believed to have open field lines) there is no direct evidence for open magnetic field lines. For example, (Chertok et. al.,  (2002)) recently reported the disappearance/eruption of a ”reasonably large filament located within an extended trans–equatorial CH. The disappearance was accompanied by a number of large–scale dynamic phenomena such as a coronal mass ejection (CME), EUV–emitting structures inside the CH, a soft X–ray arcade, and other effects. These features seem to mean that CH structures need not be so simple and quiet as previously assumed … and can contain local areas of closed large–scale magnetic fields, at least at low altitudes”. The authors also claim that ”consideration of the Yohkoh/SXT and SOHO/EIT data for other periods shows that similar but not so spectacular CH–interior filaments and extended accompanying activity can be found in some other events”. Indication of complicated magnetic topology and fine–scale structuring of corona including CH–s can be found in two–temperature coronal models from SOHO/EIT observations (see e.g. Zhang, White and Kundu  (1999)).

Information about the magnetic field is hard to extract at chromospheric heights because of the low sensitivity and lack of high spatial resolution of the measurements coupled with the inhomogeneity and co–existence of small– and large–scale structures with different temperatures in nearby regions (Aschwanden et. al., 2001a ). In Zhang, White and Kundu  (1999) it was shown that: (i) while the raw EIT images are dominated by the spatial distribution of emission measure in the corona, the temperature maps often emphasize fine structure, which is less visible in the flux images; (ii) the emission measure of the hot component is always found to be at least as large as that of the cool component, meaning that single–temperature models miss most of the coronal plasma to which EIT is sensitive. Also, it was shown that blend of very cool Mg/Si lines with hot Fe xv lines in the EIT 284 $`A^o`$ bandpass induces a false solution for the hot component in CH-s. Thus, such models were found unsatisfactory in CH-s.

Observations seem to suggest, then, that the genesis of the solar wind may lie in the active mode of particle escape. If a given stream of particles were to punch out its own channels of escape in a short–lived, dynamic process, we could certainly explain the emergence of the wind from regions of the solar surface with no observable long–lived (quasi–static) open–field line structures; the flow enters a closed field line region (preferably with weak fields), quickly distorts it, creates a channel, escapes and leaves the field lines to mend themselves. This kind of phenomenon will happen with statistical uniformity over the entire solar surface and the wind would appear to come from the regions permeated by primarily closed field line structures.

In this paper we report preliminary results demonstrating channel creation by sufficiently strong flows in regions of relatively weaker fields (Habbal, Woo and Arnaud  (2001)). We are motivated by the mounting evidence that strong flows are found everywhere — in the sub–coronal (chromosphere) as well as in the coronal regions (see e.g. Schrijver et. al.,  (1999); Winebarger, DeLuca and Golub  (2001); Wilhelm  (2001); Aschwanden et. al., 2001a ; Aschwanden 2001b ; Seaton et. al.,  (2001); Winebarger et. al.,  (2002); Choundhary, Shrivastava and Gosain  (2002) and references therein), and by the growing belief and realization that the plasma flows may complement the abilities of the magnetic field in the creation of the amazing richness observed in the coronal phenomena (Mahajan et. al.,  (2001)). In the latter paper, a short survey of the published data on flow evidence was given. We would repeat here the most representative specimens.

There is an abundance of short-lived (minutes) jets observed at the base of corona (Beckers,  (1972, 1979); Withbroe et. Al.,  (1976); Withbroe,  (1983); Woo and Habbal,  (1999)) ; these jets can play a crucial role in the creation of Coronal structures (including CH-s). “When observed with high spatial resolution, the atmosphere at the base of the corona is found to be dynamic with a large fraction of the surface covered by chromospheric and transition region material moving up and down in structures with characteristic sized of $`1000km`$. Three types of jets (cold, with temperature $`10^4K`$) are observed: the ubiquitous spicules; macrospicules, large spicules best observed in CH-s and high speed jest with velocities of the order of $`400km/s`$”. It should be mentioned that at present the knowledge of spicules is rather poor. “The upward mass flux provided by spicules is approximately 100 times that lost in the solar wind outflow. Hence, most of this mass, if heated to coronal temperatures, must cool and fall back into the chromosphere, with only a small fraction being carried out in SW. However, it is not known what fraction of the mass observed in spicules gets heated to coronal temperatures. There is no direct evidence that significant amounts of spicular material are heated to coronal temperatures, and some limited evidence that most of the mass in spicules remains at lower temperatures” (Withbroe,  (1983)). It is estimated that the energy flux carried by macrospicules is $`210^7erg/cm^2s`$ while the smaller spicules account for fluxes that are an order of magnitude smaller. Assuming that they appear spontaneously in time and space, and knowing from the latest observation that the corona is very diverse and dynamical (with continual appearance/disappearance of bright structures in specific regions, though the corona as a whole shines forever) one could certainly count the up–flows in the macrospicules and large spicules as possible energy and material sources for the coronal structures and the solar wind. At the end we quote from (Schrijver et. al.,  (1999)) on the TRACE observations: ”the EUV observations by TRACE reveal not only material at coronal temperatures moving upward from as low as a few thousand kilometers above the photosphere, but also cool material, no hotter than about $`20000K`$”.

Detailed exploration of the mechanisms which generate the observed flows is beyond the scope of this paper. But, guided by phenomenology, we do give here a few examples: based on the estimates of energy fluxes required to heat the chromosphere and Corona, Goodman (2001) has shown that the mechanism that transports mechanical energy from the convection zone to the chromosphere (to sustain its heating rate) could also supply the energy to heat the corona and accelerate the Solar wind. The heating/acceleration problem is, thus, shifted to the problem of dynamic energization of the chromosphere for which the flows are found to be critical as warranted by the observations made by TRACE: the overdensity of coronal loops, the chromospheric upflows of heated plasma, and the localization of heating function in the lower corona (Aschwanden et. al., 2001a ; Aschwanden 2001b ; Schrijver et. al.,  (1999) and references therein). Catastrophic models of flow production in which the magnetic energy is suddenly converted into bulk kinetic energy (and thermal energy) are rather well–known; various forms of magnetic reconnection (flares, micro and nanoflares) schemes permeate the literature (see e.g. Wilhelm 2001; Christopoilou, Georgakilas and Koutchmy 2001 for chromosphere up–flow generations). A few other mechanism of this genre also exist: Uchida et. Al. (2001) proposed that the major part of the supply of energy and mass to the active regions of the corona may come from a dynamical leakage of magnetic twists produced in the sub-photospheric convection layer; Ohsaki, Shatashvili, Yoshida and Mahajan (2001,2002) have shown how a slowly evolving closed structure (modeled as a Double Beltrami two fluid equilibrium) may experience, under appropriate conditions, a sudden loss of equilibrium with the initial magnetic energy appearing as the mass flow energy. Another mechanism, based on loop interactions and fragmentations and explaining the formation of loop threads, was given in Sakai and Furusawa (2002). More steady mechanism of chromospheric flow generation was given in Mahajan et. al.,  (2002). The dynamic 2D modeling of the same mechanism constitute the subject of a future submission.

The magneto–fluid coupling that will be shown to lead to channel–creation has been the subject of intense theoretical study in the last few years. A simple two–fluid model with arbitrary flows has been explored to reveal the breadth of phenomena made possible by the combined actions of the flow–velocity and the magnetic fields. A remarkable evidence of the magnetofluid coupling “in action” is the recent demonstration that the hot coronal structures could be created from the evolution and re–organization of a relatively cold plasma flow (coming from the sub–coronal region) in the presence of the ambient magnetic field anchored inside the solar surface (Mahajan et. al.,  (1999); Mahajan et. al.,  (2001)). The heating of the structures takes place due to the viscous dissipation of a part of the flow kinetic energy during the process of particle trapping and accumulation; this happens in regions of relatively strong magnetic fields.

In this paper we wish to demonstrate that this very interaction between the flows and the magnetic fields provides the crucial ingredient in the physics of channel creation. What we need in this case are relatively stronger flows pushing their way through regions of relatively weaker fields. The detailed nature of a channel will depend on the initial, and the boundary conditions. Simultaneously with the creation of escape–channels, plasma heating takes place both in the created channels and in their neighborhood. Viscous dissipation, the primary heating mechanism in the model, preferentially heats ions — a feature essential to reproduce what is observed in the open field–line regions (see e.g. Bravo and Stewart  (1997); Tu and Marsch  (1997, 2001)). Although primary heating is an integral part of the model, we will not dwell on it and limit this paper to elucidating the fundamentals of channel–creation. In fact, for simplicity, we will choose equal electron and ion temperatures.

## 2 Model

The physical model investigated for channel creation is a simplified two–fluid model. The results presented here are obtained from a 2 dimensional (2D) simulation code reported in (Mahajan et. al.,  (2001)). We use quasi–neutrality — electron and proton number densities are nearly equal: $`n_en_i=n`$ ($`𝐣=0`$) but allow the electron and the proton flow velocities to be different. Neglecting electron inertia, these are $`V_i`$ and $`V_e=\left(Vj/en\right)`$, respectively. We assign equal temperatures to the electron and the protons so that the kinetic pressure $`p`$ is given by: $`p=p_i+p_e2nT,T=TiTe`$. The analysis can be readily extended later to the more realistic case of different temperatures for different species (see e.g. McKenzie, Sukhorukova and Axword  (1998)). We are aware of several studies of the solar wind problem using multi–fluid, multi–dimensional descriptions (see e.g. Tu and Marsch  (1997, 2001); Hollweg  (1999) and references therein) that even include the self–consistent effects of MHD waves on minority ions. We however, believe, that essential features of the primary flow–based physics of escape channels can be captured with our basic model.

The dimensionless two-fluid equations describing the flow-field interaction processes can be read from Mahajan et. al.,  (1999):

$$\frac{}{t}𝐕+\left(𝐕\right)𝐕=\frac{1}{n}\times 𝐛\times 𝐛\beta \frac{1}{n}\left(nT\right)+\left(\frac{r_A}{r}\right)+\nu _i(n,T)\left(^2𝐕+\frac{1}{3}\left(𝐕\right)\right),$$
(1)
$$\frac{}{t}𝐛\times \left(𝐕\frac{\alpha }{n}\times 𝐛\right)\times 𝐛=\alpha \beta \left(\frac{1}{n}\right)\times \left(nT\right),$$
(2)
$$𝐛=0,$$
(3)
$$\frac{}{t}n+n𝐕=0,$$
(4)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}n{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}\left(2T\right)+\left(𝐪_i+𝐪_e\right)`$ $`=`$ $`2nT𝐕+2\beta ^1\nu _i(n,T)n\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{V_k}{x_l}}+{\displaystyle \frac{V_l}{x_k}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\left(𝐕\right)^2\right]`$ (5)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{2}}\alpha \left(\times 𝐛\right)T{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{n}}\left(\times 𝐛\right)\left(nT\right)+E_HE_R.`$
where the notation is standard with the following normalizations: the density $`n`$ to $`n_0`$ at some appropriate distance from the solar surface, the magnetic field to the ambient field strength at the same distance, and velocities to the Alfvén velocity $`V_{A0}`$. The parameters $`r_{A0}=GM_{}/V_{A0}^2R_{}=2\beta _0/r_{c0},\alpha _0=\lambda _{i0}/R_{},\beta _0=c_{s0}^2/V_{A0}^2`$ are defined with $`n_0,T_0,B_0`$. Here $`c_{s0}`$ is a sound speed, $`R_{}`$ is the solar radius, $`r_c=GM_{}/2c_{s0}^2R_{}`$, $`\lambda _{i0}=c/\omega _{i0}`$ is the collisonless skin depth, $`\nu _i(n,T)`$ is ion kinematic viscosity and $`q_e`$ and $`q_i`$ are electron and ion dimensionless heat flux densities, $`E_H`$ is the local mechanical heating function and $`E_R`$ is the total radiative loss. We note that the full viscosity tensor relevant to a magnetized plasma is rather cumbersome, and we do not display it here. Just to have a feel for the importance of spatial variation in viscous dissipation, we display its relatively simple symmetric form. It is to be clearly understood that this version is meant only for theoretical elucidation and not for detailed simulation. We notice that even for incompressible and currentless flows, heat can be generated from the viscous dissipation of the flow vorticity. For such a simple system, the rate of kinetic energy dissipation turns out to be

$$\left[\frac{d}{dt}\left(\frac{m_i𝐕^2}{2}\right)\right]_{\mathrm{visc}}=m_in\nu _i\left(\frac{1}{2}\left(\times 𝐕\right)^2+\frac{2}{3}\left(𝐕\right)^2\right).$$
(6)
What are the conditions for the dissipation rate to be large enough for effective plasma heating? This and the related question of the requirements on the radial energy fluxes for the flow–based mechanisms to be meaningful (for coronal heating and generation of the solar wind) were examined in Mahajan et. al.,  (2001). The flow requirements were found to be quite consistent with the latest observational data. It was, however, shown that in the absence of “anomalous viscosity”, the only way to enhance the dissipation rates (to the observed values) through viscosity is to create spatial gradients of the velocity field that are on a scale much shorter than that of the structure length (defined by the smooth part of the magnetic field). Thus, the viability of this two–fluid approach depends wholly on the existence of mechanisms that induce short–scale velocity fields. Theoretical foundations taking into account the fundamental role of Hall term and numerical simulations (without Hall term) showed that the short–scale velocity fields are, indeed, self–consistently generated in the two–fluid system.

## 3 Deformation of closed field lines

A high–speed flow in or near the transition region (TR) must overcome both gravity and the magnetic field to emerge as the solar wind. Overcoming gravity, by itself, imposes a stiff lower bound on the flow velocity. Negotiating the magnetic field is even harder; preliminary studies show that flows with reasonable TR densities and velocities $`400km/sec`$ can not destroy or deform closed magnetic fields structures sufficiently to meet escaping conditions. Estimates based on the observed magnetic field strengths show that even in weak field regions ($`\left(15\right)G`$) flows must be rather strong to punch holes in the structure. If the up–flow creation and acceleration mechanisms were operative somewhere below the hot corona, the flow–magnetic field interaction could lead to conditions more favorable to particle–escape.

We want to remind the reader that there is an implicit assumption in this paper that the short-lived processes like flares, CME in inner corona (explained by catastrophe models) are characteristic for the active Sun and can not give continuous material and energy supply to relatively permanent particle escape process from all over the solar surface during its entire cycle (including quiescent period).

As mentioned earlier the creation of flows is a major subject beyond the scope of this paper. For some of the recent theoretical work on chromospheric–TR acceleration/flow–generation, the reader may consult: (Tu and Marsch  (1997, 2001); Hollweg  (1999); Ofman and Davila,  (2001); Granmer, Field and Kohl  (1999); Granmer et. al.,  (1998)) for most promising SW acceleration and heating models based on high–frequency Alfvén waves, and (Ohsaki et. al.,  (2002); Mahajan et. al.,  (2002)) based on magneto–fluid coupling.

Some of the recent observational findings on the solar wind are also highly revealing. Doschek et,al,  (2001), analyzing SUMER measurements (SOHO) on the polar CHs, found that the non–thermal motions sometimes, but not always, increase slightly with height above the limb. Based on the Doppler shift measurements of Warren, Mariska & Wilhelm,  (1997) using SUMER coronal hole and quiet Sun Spectra, they speculate that this may be a manifestation of the fast Solar wind. They also report that ”Cooler plasma may be trapped in closed structures and not participate in the flow, or the flow may not begin in open structures until the temperature reaches values near $`610^5K`$”. At the same time IPS observation (EISCAT and VLBA systems of radio wave telescopes) carried out specifically for measuring the fast SW speed as near to the Sun as possible deduced average speeds $`800km/s`$ with very large scattering within heliocentric distances $`210r_{}`$ (Ofman et. al.,  (1997); Grall et. al.,  (1996))

In the light of the preceding discussion, we shall simply assume that high speed flows are already there below the coronal base where they begin to nteract with the closed field regions; they provide the initial conditions in our numerical work. We shall also, justifiably, assume that the processes that generate the primary flows and the primary solar magnetic fields are independent (say at $`t=0`$). Simulation of two distinct representative problems will be presented: 1) the flow interacting with a single structure providing the simplest example of field–deformation, and 2) the flow passing through a multiple structure region creating escape–channels under specific conditions.

The numerical code to solve (1-5) was constructed in 2D flat geometry (x,z) using the 2D version of Lax–Wendroff numerical scheme (Richtmyer and Morton 1967) alongwith applying the Flux–Corrected–Transport procedure (Richtmyer and Morton,  (1967)). Equation (2) was replaced with its equivalent for the y–component of the vector potential which automatically ensures the divergence-free property of the magnetic field. The equation of heat conduction was treated separately by Alternate Direction Implicit method with iterations (Zalesak,  (1979)). Transport coefficients for heat conduction and viscosity were taken from Braginski, 1965. We were quite careful in choosing the radiation loss term ($`E_{Br}`$ denotes Bremsstrahlung radiation), $`E_R=2E_{Br}=21.6910^{25}n^2T^2Z^3erg/cm^3s`$, with $`Z=1`$ ; The choice was based on the results of Rosner, Tucker and Vaiana,  (1978); Cox and Tucker,  (1969); Potasch,  (1965); Tucker and Koren,  (1971); McWhirter, Thonemann and Wilson,  (1975) (Mahajan et. al.,  (2001)). And since we have a built–in heating mechanism no external heating source $`E_H`$ was invoked though we believe that in the escaping channels one can later add secondary events like wave generation for additional acceleration mechanisms. A numerical mesh of $`200\times 150`$ points was used for computation.

The initial solar magnetic field, following Mahajan et. al.,  (2001), was modelled as a 2D arcade with circular field lines in the $`x`$$`z`$ plane (see first plot of Fig. 1b for the contours of the vector potential, or the flux function). The field attains its maximum value $`B_{\mathrm{max}}\left(x_o,z=0\right)`$ at $`x_0`$ at the center of the arcade, and is a decreasing function of the height $`z`$ (radial direction).

Note that the 2D Cartesian nature of our code does not allow us to explore large distances from the surface due to interference with the boundaries. Although we present here only the symmetric cases, the simulation of asymmetric situations is straightforward.

### 3.1 Deformation of single closed field structure

We first study the dynamics of a spatially localized flow (taken to be initially a Gaussian as motivated by observations - e.g. jets, spicules) entering an arcade–like single closed field line structure. Two palpably distinct scenerios emerge:

1) When the flow is strong ($`\left|𝐕_0\right|_{max}600km/sec,n_010^8cm^3`$) and its peak is located in the central region of the arcade magnetic field structure, the original field ($`B_{0max}=5G`$) shown in (Fig.1a) is seriously deformed (see Fig.1b representing the evolution of the arcade-like magnetic structure deformation process for three time–frames: $`t=0;768,1749sec`$), and its central region is transformed to one with more or less parallel field lines. The local channel, however, does not go all the way but may extend to a respectable height. The resulting plasmoid–type configuration, though, may not lead to the particle escape. In all such cases one finds that narrower the flow pulse, the sharper the shear created, and stronger the flow, the faster is the deformation process.

2) When several flow pulses arrive simultaneously towards a single arcade structure, they may create, in the central region, sheared narrow sub-regions with opposite polarity . The magnetic “well” displayed in Fig.2 (Fig.2b, again, displays the deformation process for three time–frames: $`t=0;768,1749sec`$), for instance, was formed by two identical pulses (see Fig.2a, $`\left|𝐕_\mathrm{𝟎}\right|_{max}600km/sec,n_010^8cm^3`$) located symmetrically on the opposite sides of the arcade-center with ($`B_{0max}=5G`$).

In carrying out the simulations an important assumption was made, namely, the diffusion time of magnetic field is longer than the duration of the interaction process (it would require the plasma temperature to be at least a few $`eV`$–s.)

In both of the above cases, the flows were not able to punch escape–channels although the ambient field was quite thoroughly deformed. This is true even when we put somewhat larger but realistic amount of energy in the flows; the flow cannot overcome the magnetic field in a direct “collision’.

Note that we are not discussing here a possible pathway for the creation of cold prominences; we believe that a 3D dynamical picture is essential for the study of such events. In addition, this paper deals only with relatively strong flows since the weaker flows are expected to be trapped in the structure and will, perhaps, create hot and bright areas near the TR–coronal interface without any serious deformation of field–lines Mahajan et. al.,  (2001).

### 3.2 Deformation of neighboring closed field structures – Channels for particle escape

We have just seen that the direct attempt by a relatively strong flow to force its way through a moderate–strength single magnetic field structure resulted in complete failure; the field is highly distorted but does not quite yield. We must, therefore, look for other magnetic field configurations (prevalent in the corona) which might be more cooperative. Recent literature is extremely helpful in this quest. It has been suggested in Habbal, Woo and Arnaud  (2001) that the coexistence of strong– and weak–field components observed in the quiet–Sun photospheric field (Lin (1995) and Lin & Rimmale (1999)), and supported by theoretical investigations of the solar dynamo (e.g., Cattaneo 1999), has a counterpart in the corona. Through this study it was shown that the observed predominance of the radial component of the quiet coronal magnetic field is defined, again, by the weak–field component.

Coupling these observations with the models of high–speed up–flow generation in the chromosphere and corona, it seems rather reasonable to study the passage of a strong flow through multi–arcade magnetic field structures. Although it is only the 3D simulations that can reproduce most of the observational features of the channel escape process, we believe that the current 2D code is sufficient to prove or disprove the principal point, that is, whether an escape–channel can be created.

We describe two representative case studies: 1) the flows interacting with two neighboring arcade–structures, and 2) the flows interacting with four neighboring arcades. For optimum effect we locate the maxima of the flow pulses in the weak–field region in between the neighboring arcades. For this study, the arcade structure is taken to be symmetric. It must be stressed that inhomogeneous initial conditions do lead to different evolutions, but channel creation remains a common feature.

The fate of the two–arcade structure when invaded in the middle (weak Field regions ($`B_{0max}=3G`$)) by a fast flow ($`\left|𝐕_\mathrm{𝟎}\right|_{max}900km/sec,n_0=210^7cm^3`$) is shown in Fig.3. The flow is able to stretch and drastically deform the structure and, in a reasonably short time ($`50min`$), create a channel for escape (see the last time–frame of Fig.3b). The channel itself is practically cold for distances of a few $`R_{}`$. The neighboring regions are comparably hotter: at the coronal base (created in this dynamical process), one can distinguish rather hot ($`T10^6K`$) areas where a part of the flow was trapped and thermalized (the heating source and process, described in Mahajan et. al.,  (2001) and discussed in the introduction, is due to the effective viscous dissipation of the short scale shocks created in the velocity field). Note, that if the simulation were done in cylindrical $`(r,\varphi )`$ geometry, we could see the widening of the channel with increasing $`r`$. We would also add here that if the short scales created in the velocity fields due to Hall term and vorticity effects, and secondary processes like wave generation in the channel were also taken into account one could get hotter channels of escape. We are refining as well as modifying our model to incorporate these processes.

One of the more interesting consequences of the channel–creation dynamics is displayed in (Fig.4) —there is a sharp decrease in density (Fig.4(a)) along the channel (after the usual shock front area due to the interaction of flow with background plasma) with a clearly distinguishable ballistic deceleration of the flow (Fig.4(b)). At heights $`2R_{}`$ from the Sun’s surface the flow speed ($`800km/sec`$) has only marginally decreased ; the fast flow expends a negligible fraction of its energy in creating a channel for its escape; the escaping flow is almost as fast as the entering flow.

The response of a 4-arcade structure to the onslaught of the flow is rather inhomogeneous and complicated; several channels are created in the region of the flow (Fig.5). The central channel seems a bit pressed due to combined interactions (Fig.5(c))- but this could be just an artifact of the Cartesian geometry used here. In the dynamical evolution of this system, there is a ballistic deceleration of the flow in each one of the channels; the deceleration is faster in the central channel (see Fig.5(c)). One can also see that, at longer times, the three structures will be permeated by flows. This picture could be seen as a possible depiction of the complex and very diverse dynamical structure of the recently observed Coronal Holes.

One word of caution is necessary : for all our runs, we assumed that the flows were, initially, constant in time. We understand that up–flows from the chromosphere or TR have finite life times; the channel creation process, therefore, will last only for the time dictated by the duration and other characteristics of the impinging flow–pulse.

We now list several other omissions of this preliminary study: Anisotropies of velocities and temperature (source of wave generation and instabilities), ionization, multi–species dynamics, flux emergence etc. are not included. Either of these could influence the channel–creation dynamics. We, however, believe that our simple model has adequately shown that sufficiently strong flows are capable of engineering their escape (self–induced transparency) from a variety of closed field line structures prevalent in the solar atmosphere.

## 4 Conclusions

By suggesting and investigating an active pathway by which strong flows can create temporary channels (with practically radial open field lines) through which they can escape the combination of gravity and ambient magnetic fields, this paper advances a possible resolution of the observational dilemma — that the Solar wind seems to originate (more or less uniformly) from the entire solar surface believed to be studded with closed field line structures. The intense re–arrangement of the magnetic field lines needed for the formation of escape channels is a consequence of the magneto–fluid coupling — the ability of a strong flow to deform and distort the field lines. During this highly dynamical phase, viscous dissipation leads to heating (preferentially of ions) of what would eventually become the solar wind.

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Authors thank Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy, where this work was started. The work of SMM was supported by US DOE contract DE–FG03–96ER–54366. The work of KIN was supported by grant 02–02–16199a from the Russia Fund of Fundamental Research (RFFR). The work of NLS was supported by ISTC grant Project G-663.