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# SOLAR FLARE ELECTRON ACCELERATION: COMPARING THEORIES AND OBSERVATIONS

## INTRODUCTION

There are many theories and proposals for the particle acceleration processes involved in flares. Over the past twenty years, however, most have focused on the process of magnetic reconnection. The most popular classes of mechanisms for electrons are acceleration by an electric field parallel to the magnetic field, by shocks and stochastic acceleration by waves (Miller et al., 1997, and references therein). Considering the large number of non-thermal electrons required by thick target emission, the first two processes become questionable for interpreting the observed hard X-ray flux at 15–500 keV. A popular version of stochastic acceleration (second-order Fermi acceleration) is transit-time damping, in which thermal electrons are in quasi-resonance with magnetoacoustic waves (Fisk, 1976; Stix, 1992). After or during these primary processes, accelerated electrons may become unstable to wave generation, escape and may produce beam emissions, such as thin target bremsstrahlung and Type III radio bursts (bump-on-tail instability driving Langmuir waves). They may get trapped in coronal magnetic fields and finally precipitate to produce thick target emission.

For the first time there is a complete scenario that can explain flare electron acceleration by a self-consistent chain of sub-processes (Fig.1). It includes the following four steps: (i) Reconnection triggers the simplification of magnetic field lines to an energetically lower geometry. (ii) In the reconnection jets where most of the free energy is initially released, MHD turbulence develops including magnetoacoustic waves. (iii) These wave are damped by thermal electrons that are accelerated to mostly subrelativistic speed. (iv) The accelerated electron velocity distribution has an enhanced tail in parallel direction and possibly other deviations from a simple maxwellian. Transit-time acceleration has recently been complemented with an investigation on the instability of the accelerated electrons by Paesold & Benz (1999), who demonstrated the Electron Firehose Instability to set in. Its main effect, however, is not energy loss but scattering the electrons into more transverse velocities and hereby allowing further acceleration (Paesold & Benz, 2003). Thus the electrons are expected to drive velocity space instabilities in the course of acceleration. (v) Finally, the electrons escape from the acceleration region and emit secondary emissions by forming a beam, getting trapped, or hitting the chromosphere as a thick target. A schematic representation of this scenario is given in Fig. 1.

Here we ask the question: Which observations support this scenario? In particular, we concentrate on the new observations by the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) and use them to test the sub-processes presented above.

## RECONNECTION AND ENERGY PARTITION

Magnetic reconnection in solar flares is supported by observations of soft X-ray flare emission forming a cusp shape structure. More recently, inflow perpendicular to the magnetic field into the reconnection region has been reported by Yokoyama et al. (2001). The identification of reconnection in the corona was often based on the presence of dense material that became visible in the course of a flare. As the process of reconnection is not predicted to substantially increase the density, the region seems to have been brightened by evaporated material, which then outlined a geometry suggestive of magnetic reconnection. Thus cusp-shaped features have become questionable indicators for reconnection (Grechnev & Nakajima, 2002).

Observations indicative of reconnection jets have been noticed by Shibata et al. (1994), Pohjolainen et al. (2001), Zang, Wang & Liu (2000) and others. Bulk motions of relatively cool material are often seen before the start of the HXR event. Innes et al. (1997) have reported reconnection jets in the quiet Sun having a temperature of a few $`10^5`$K. MHD theory of reconnection predicts equal shares of energy for local heating by electric resistivity and the motion of the plasma ejected from the reconnection region (e.g. Priest & Forbes, 2002). Thus the bulk kinetic energy involved in the jets is a primary form of released energy and is predicted to be an important energy input into the corona.

The initial partitioning of the released energy is not well known, as in reality a considerable fraction of the flare energy is initially transferred into energetic electrons (Neupert, 1968; Brown, 1971; Lin & Hudson, 1976). These ’non-thermal’ electrons carry a large fraction of the energy away from the flare region and deposit it partially in the chromosphere, where plasma is heated to tens of million degrees. The plasma rises into the corona and emits thermal soft X-rays (SXR), as first described by Neupert (1968).

With the new generation of solar instruments in EUV lines, soft and hard X-rays, a more accurate determination of the various forms of energy becomes feasible. Recently, Saint-Hilaire & Benz (2002) have presented an event observed by TRACE at 195 Å and RHESSI (Fig.2). The TRACE observations, showing a blend of relatively cool material in Fe XXII and possibly hot plasma in Fe XXIV, display an ejection that does not leave the Sun, but apparently transfers its kinetic bulk energy into the corona. The ejection is interpreted as a reconnection jet, as it starts simultaneously with the HXR emission. The motion observed is outward. No inward motion is observed that would indicate the other reconnection jet. However, the region below the suspected X-point is small and very bright in EUV so that it would be difficult to notice. RHESSI observed a HXR source close to the place where the downward jet would have been expected. This is also the site of a cusp-shaped structure visible brightly in EUV. Also in this region appears a thermal SXR source as observed by RHESSI below 15 keV. Its temperature is 20.8($`\pm `$0.9) MK (isothermal fit).

The above interpretations suggest that the flare energy initially went into electron acceleration, plasma motion (reconnection jet), and heating of the ejected material. Other forms, such as ion acceleration, are not observable in this flare and are neglected. The kinetic energy of the precipitating electrons is assumed to thermalize in the chromosphere and is estimated from a thick-target model. Their bremsstrahlung radiation is observed in HXR emission exceeding 10 keV. Plasma motion is observed and measured in EUV (TRACE observations). The thermal energy of the ejecta is also estimated from EUV observations. The observed total energy release amounts to 3.7$`\times 10^{30}`$erg. The second line in Fig. 3 displays the primary energy partition and includes the best-estimate percentages as measured by Saint-Hilaire & Benz (2002). The energy in the possible reconnection jet motion is only 3% of the total, thus apparently an order of magnitude less than in the hot plasma. Note that the partitions into the various forms of energy are tentative, particularly for the part that stays in the corona, namely the energy of the bulk motion of a possible reconnection jet and the thermal energy content of the heated material that was in the corona before and after the flare. They must be considered order-of-magnitude estimates, rounded such that each line adds up to 100%.

The secondary forms of energy are listed in the third line of Fig. 3. The thermal energy content of the flare kernel was measured in the 10–15 keV range by a fit to the RHESSI spectrum at low-energy peak time (Fig.2). The thermal energy content can be compared to the thermal radiation emitted by this plasma over the entire event, calculated from the measured flux in the observed band and extrapolated to the entire wavelength range using the observed temperature and emission measure. The radiated energy amounts to only 5% of the thermal energy content (Saint-Hilaire & Benz, 2002). It suggests that most of the thermal energy is lost in other ways, such as by heat conduction and emissions at lower temperature.

The third line of Fig. 3 also includes other forms of energy inferred from the thermal energy content measured at peak soft X-rays (SXR, $`<`$ 15 keV). The other forms have been estimated for nanoflares in the quiet corona by Benz & Krucker (2002), who suggested that (i) the total energy content must be doubled, as roughly the same energy is lost before that peak as afterwards, and that (ii) the expansion of the heated plasma into the corona absorbs about three times as much energy. The rest of the energy deposited by the electron beam heats low temperature plasma in the transition region and chromosphere. For the flares considered here, the energy loss before the peak is less as regular SXR flares are usually asymmetric having a longer decay time; on the other hand flare loops are larger and require more energy for the expansion. As the different partitions between nanoflares and regular flares are within the accuracy of these estimates, we have used here the nanoflare values.

Keeping in mind the large uncertainties given in Fig. 3, we note nevertheless that relatively little of the initial energy in accelerated electrons is observed in soft X-ray emission. Even if this value is corrected for energy that is lost by radiation and conduction before being measured at SXR peak time, and by the energy needed for expansion into the corona, less than 10% of the total flare energy seem to end up in the hot flare plasma of the kernel. The rest, more than 60%, gets apparently lost in the chromosphere and transition region. Thus the conversion of non-thermal energy into hot thermal plasma seems to be less than 20% efficient in the observed flare.

The bottom line of Fig. 3 displays where the energy ends up. Roughly 40% of the released flare energy appears in thermal form of a plasma at coronal temperature. Some of the heated plasma ultimately cools to temperatures below the observing range, where its remaining energy is lost from the point of view of coronal observations. Contrary to ananflares, this remaining energy is realtively small. We estimate it from the ratio of the minimum coronal temperature to the flare temperature, thus about 0.05.

## STOCHASTIC ACCELERATION

Stochastic acceleration can be modeled by a diffusion of the particles in energy $`E`$,

$$\left(\frac{}{t}+v\frac{}{z}\right)f(E,z)=\frac{}{E}\left(DE\left(\frac{}{t}\frac{f(E,z)}{E^{1/2}}\right)\right)+\left(\frac{f}{t}\right)_{\mathrm{coll}}.$$
(1)
A spatial derivative along the magnetic field, assumed to be the $`z`$ direction, is included to account for particle loss. Let us assume for simplicity that the derivative of the electron distribution in energy, $`f(E)`$, can be approximated by a scale length $`L`$ and that the diffusion coefficient, $`D`$, is proportional to the wave energy density $`W`$. In steady state, Eq.(1) takes the form of a Bessel equation, having the solution

$$f(E)=C_1E^{d+1/2}K_d(E),$$
(2)
where $`C_1`$ is a constant and $`K`$ is the Macdonald function of order $`d`$, a combination of Bessel functions (Benz, 1977). The order $`d`$ again is a product of constants, and for $`dd_c`$, a critical value, the solution has approximately the form of a power-law,

$$f(E)f_oE^\delta ,$$
(3)
where

$$f_o\left(WL\right)^{7/8}$$
(4)
and

$$\delta \left(WL\right)^{1/2}.$$
(5)
Eqs. (4) and (5) predict that the number of accelerated electrons and their power-law index anti-correlate. Nevertheless, the above diffusion relation and its solution are general and apply to any type of waves, including magnetoacoustic waves in transit-time acceleration.

The electron energy distribution has been converted into thick target bremsstrahlung flux, $`I_{\mathrm{HXR}}`$ by Brown & Loran (1985). Eliminating $`WL`$ in Eqs.(4) and (5), they find

$$I_{\mathrm{HXR}}=C_2\frac{\left(1/2+1/2[1+4\alpha (\gamma +3/2)]^{1/2}\right)^2}{[(\gamma 1)(\gamma +3/2)]^2}.$$
(6)
where $`C_2`$ is a constant, $`\gamma `$ the power-law index of the observed X-ray spectrum, and $`\alpha `$ is the ratio of the acceleration region size to the mean free path.

Anti-correlation between the power-law spectral index of HXR photons and flux has been noticed since the early times of HXR flare observations. The ’soft-hard-soft’ behavior has been reported Parks & Winkler (1969) and is the most abundant type of flares (see also Dennis, 1985). Moreover, anti-correlation of power-law index and individual flare peaks has been noted in HXR and microwaves (Benz, 1977). RHESSI can observe this property with high time resolution as shown in Fig. 4. The correlation remains excellent when a minimum envelope is subtracted and only the fine time structures are considered.

Fletcher & Hudson (2002) have related the anti-correlation to the flare geometry, invoking acceleration by a field aligned electric field. Thus the observed anti-correlation is not a unique feature of a particular acceleration mechanism. Nevertheless, we conclude that it is at least consistent with stochastic acceleration.

## VELOCITY SPACE INSTABILITIES AND THE ABSENCE OF COHERENT RADIO EMISSION

Stochastic acceleration of electrons requires waves. Some of the proposed waves, such as Langmuir waves proposed e.g. by Benz (1977) and Kuijpers et al. (1981), would produce strong radio emissions. They were later found to be difficult to excite (e.g. Vlahos & Papadopoulos, 1982) and cannot be reconciled with the absence of strong radio emission in flares (see below). Another possible cause for radio emission are accelerated electrons, reaching a velocity distribution that is unstable to some wave mode. Many such situations, causing intense radio emission, are conceivable. Radio emissions from the acceleration regions of flares may thus be expected at characteristic frequencies, such as the plasma frequency or the electron gyrofrequency and their harmonics, all most likely at decimeter wavelengths.

During flares the total solar radio emission in meter and decimeter waves occasionally brightens up by several orders of magnitude. These radio sources thus outshine the thermal radiation of the rest of the sun and are called bursts. The common characteristic of these emissions is that they are not produced by single electrons as in free-free emission (bremsstrahlung) or synchrotron radiation, but by waves and instabilities in the plasma. The wave introduces an organization in the plasma that allows particles to emit in phase, thus coherently. Coherent emissions are generally very efficient in converting kinetic particle energy into radiation. Thus coherent emissions are bright and indicate the presence of waves in the plasma. The waves that can give rise to escaping radio emissions must be of high frequency, above the local plasma frequency, and are generally excited by some instability. Thus coherent emissions indicate the presence of a cause for instability such as a beam of electrons, magnetically trapped electrons having a loss-cone velocity distribution, a shock, or an unstable current.

First spectral observations were made already in the early 1960s by Young et al.(1961), exploring the spectral region beyond 300 MHz up to 1 GHz. In addition to high-frequency Type III bursts, these observers noted a rich variety of ’Type III-like’ features later termed pulsations and fine structures in Type IV bursts, such as drifting parallel bands or intermediate drift bursts. The decimeter range has been systematically studied only in the 1980s when digitally recording spectrometers became available resolving the fast temporal changes and narrowband spectral structure (Güdel & Benz, 1988). In the 1990s the spectral coverage was extended finally beyond 10 GHz where coherent emissions were found to become weak and rare (Isliker & Benz, 1994; Bruggmann et al. 1990). Today several spectrometers observe in the decimeter range, and the spectral properties of coherent radiations have been well explored in the past decade. These observations have revealed a new field of solar emissions with potential diagnostic value for flare physics and particle acceleration.

Flare related radio emission is indeed observed, but not in every flare, as pointed out already by Simnett & Benz (1986). The existence of flares without radio emissions excludes vigorous electron acceleration and suggests a more gentle extraction of electrons from the thermal population, such as proposed for instance by transit-time acceleration (Fig.1). As noted before, the electron anisotropy caused by preferential acceleration along the magnetic field may be susceptible to the Electron Firehose Instability (Paesold & Benz, 1999). The non-resonant instability drives ion cyclotron waves. These waves have frequencies around the ion gyrofrequency and do not excite radio emission.

However, if electrons are accelerated to high energies, they become resonant with ion cyclotron waves and the Resonant Electron Firehose Instability may occur. Messmer (2002) showed that this instability causes the electrons to diffuse into a horse-shoe distribution which under certain conditions becomes unstable to Langmuir waves. Such waves are known to produce radio emission e.g. by wave-wave coupling (harmonic emission). They may be the cause of narrowband spikes occasionally observed in decimeter radiation of HXR flares. Alternatively, broadband drifting pulsations are sometimes observed in association with HXR flares (Kliem et al. 2000; Kahn et al. 2002).

There are several possible causes for the absence of radio emission: The radiation from the acceleration process may be beamed in a different direction or hidden by absorption, accelerated electrons may not develop an instability, and shocks may not become visible. At present it is not clear what coherent radio emissions originate at the time of HXR emission as a result of the acceleration process. The fact that there is sometimes no decimeter radiation at all, however, is consistent with the ’standard model’ presented in Fig. 1 that can accelerate and isotropize electrons without leaving an observable decimeter radio signature.

## ESCAPING BEAMS AND TRAPPING

As soon as electrons are accelerated, they can produce hard X-ray emission, observable possibly as a loop-top source. Once electrons escape from the acceleration region, a beam distribution builds up in velocity space, unstable to the bump-on-tail distribution of Langmuir waves. In addition, electrons may be reflected on converging magnetic fields building up a loss-cone distribution unstable to upper hybrid waves. Both Langmuir waves and upper hybrid waves cause radio emission.

In a recent study on 11 C-class flares in active region 9830, none showed a loop-top source in RHESSI observations. In 7 events, the Phoenix-2 radio spectrometer recorded radio emission between 100 MHz and 4 GHz, 5 of them Type III radio bursts. Two were associated with decimeter wave emissions of unknown origin (Benz & Grigis, unpublished). Most surprising in our recent investigations is the large range of observed ratios between coherent radio emission and X-ray flux. The range exceeds 9 orders of magnitude from intense groups of meter wave Type III bursts without X-ray counterpart to large HXR events without coherent radio emission at meter and decimeter waves.

Again the absence of radio emission may have several causes. In addition to beaming and absorption, escaping electrons may not form an unstable beam. If the accelerator initially produces a power-law velocity distribution, electrons would need to travel a distance of several times $`v_{te}\tau `$ to become unstable, where $`v_{te}`$ is the mean thermal electron velocity and $`\tau `$ the e-folding acceleration time (Benz, 2002). Similarly, precipitating electrons may not form an unstable loss-cone because trapping can be inefficient if the density on the path is high and the collision rate too large. Alternatively, the electrons could be confined by closed magnetic fields or wave turbulence, such that they cannot propagate out of the acceleration region.

Both radio emission inhibiting reasons given above for electrons escaping the acceleration region apply best to acceleration sites at low altitude. Such a location is supported by observations like Fig. 2, in which no appreciable HXR emission was observed at higher altitudes where most of the plasma motion was observed.

## CONCLUSIONS

Observations at several wavelengths are found generally consistent with a standard flare model that avoids excessive radio emission. The radio emission can be completely absent in some cases. In others cases, such as often observed in the flares associated with interplanetary electron events (SEP), meter wave Type III radio bursts are the dominant emission.

The proposed sequence of processes in a widely considered model, here termed ’standard’, must and can be investigated individually. We find that none of the currently available observations contradict that model. This does not mean that it is proven for all cases. Particularly relevant observations would be the measurement of line emissions and Doppler shifts at very high temperatures expected in the turbulence of reconnection outflows, and the localization of coherent radio emissions.

RHESSI observations yield energy estimates and approximate energy partitions, indicating that the main flare energy first appears in the form of precipitating fast electrons. In a well observed flare, they seem to be released at relatively low altitude. TRACE images show motions suggestive of a reconnection jet, but only in the upward direction. The energy in this bulk motion was estimated to be smaller than the energy in the non-thermal electrons. The observations of one flare need to be corroborated by the study of a larger sample.

E-mail address of A. O. Benz: benz at astro.phys.ethz.ch

Manuscript received 29 November 2002; accepted 20 January 2003.


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# SGR A EAST AND ITS SURROUNDINGS OBSERVED IN X-RAYS

## INTRODUCTION

The Galactic Centre region consists of many complex and interesting structures, which can be observed in a variety of windows encompassing the radio to $`\gamma `$-ray bands (e.g. Mezger et al. 1996). The brightest region in the radio continuum band is named Sgr A, which is resolved into Sgr A West and Sgr A East. Sgr A West includes a super massive black hole Sgr A, of which the mass is (2–3)$`\times 10^6`$ M (e.g. Genzel et al. 2000), as well as a three-arm spiral-like structure orbiting Sgr A (the mini-spiral) and the central dense star cluster (IRS 16 star cluster). Sgr A West is surrounded by Sgr A East in projection. Sgr A East shows an oval shell-like structure in the radio continuum. There is quite good evidence for a physical interaction between Sgr A West and East (e.g. Yusef-Zadeh et al. 2000), although many of the details remain uncertain.

The shell-like structure of Sgr A East suggests it may be a supernova remnant (SNR), SNR 000.0+00.0 (Jones 1974). On the other hand, alternative interpretations have also been proposed, e.g. the remnant of an explosion caused by the central massive black hole Sgr A. In any case, both the origin of Sgr A East and its past evolution remain open questions.

The surface brightness of the diffuse radio non-thermal emission surrounding Sgr A is much brighter than other nearby radio structures. Some of the latter are filamentary and possibly a part of another SNR (e.g. Ho et al. 1985). There are also giant molecular clouds in vicinity of Sgr A, which are probably undergoing some physical interaction with the radio continuum structures (e.g. Coil and Ho 2000). The presence of extended hot plasma as detected in X-ray observations (e.g. Yusef-Zadeh et al. 2000; Koyama et al. 1996) must also play an important role in relation to both the structure and the evolution of Sgr A. Furthermore, the detection of the electron-positron annihilation line, high-energy cosmic ray excess, and a GeV source (Mayer-Hasselwander et al. 1998) from somewhere in the Galactic Centre region, most likely related with Sgr A or Sgr A East, implies highly energetic activity and/or particle acceleration.

The ultimate goal of studies of the Sgr A region is to understand the distribution and state of the matter, the complex nature of the interactions and the dominant emission and absorption processes in operation, as a step towards a better general understanding of the nature of the central regions of galaxies. At the same time, the more specific study of a SNR (candidate) in the Galactic Centre may help us to understand the special interstellar environment and hopefully provide information relating to its evolution and/or formation.

The hard X-ray imaging observations of the Sgr A region were first made with ASCA (Koyama et al. 1996) and traced an extended distribution of X-ray emission originating from a thin thermal plasma. More recently this region has been observed by Chandra/ACIS, at a spatial resolution of 0.5 arcsec (Baganoff et al. 2002; Maeda et al. 2002). Sgr A was, for the first time, resolved in the X-ray band (Baganoff et al. 2002) and, in addition, bright diffuse X-ray emission from Sgr A East detected (Maeda et al. 2002). The X-ray emission associated with Sgr A East fills the inner part of the region defined by a non-thermal radio shell and has a spectrum characteristic of thin thermal emission at a temperature $`kT2`$ keV and a metal abundance $`Z4`$ (Maeda et al. 2002).

In this paper, we report the XMM-Newton results for Sgr A East and its surroundings as derived from both X-ray image and spectral data. XMM-Newton observations benefit from the large effective area and good imaging capability ($``$5 arcsec) of the XMM mirrors as well as good energy resolution of the EPIC CCD detectors ($`\mathrm{\Delta }E/E0.02`$ at 5.9 keV). With this capability, the quality of the spectrum and statistics of the image are remarkable. We adopt the distance of 8.0 kpc to the Galactic Centre throughout this paper (Reid 1993).

## OBSERVATION

The XMM-Newton observation of the Sgr A region was made on 2001 September 4. In this paper, we concentrate on the results from the European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC) on board XMM-Newton. The EPIC instrument consists of two MOS CCDs cameras (MOS1 and MOS2) and one pn CCD camera, which operate simultaneously. The MOS and pn cameras were used in Full Frame and Extended Full Frame mode, respectively, with the medium filter selected. Data reduction and filtering were carried out with the Standard Analysis Software (SAS) Ver.5.4. We accepted pixel patterns of 0–12 (single to quadruple events) for the MOS CCDs but only single events (pattern 0) recorded by the pn system, because of the calibration uncertainties for other pixel patterns in the pn Extended Full Frame mode. The effective exposure times for MOS1, 2 and pn after the background filtering were 22.4 ks, 24.0 ks, and 17.5 ks, respectively.

## X-RAY IMAGES OF SGR A EAST AND ITS SURROUNDINGS

The left panel of Figure 1 shows the X-ray hardness ratio and the 2–9 keV surface brightness measured by the MOS (1+2) cameras within a $`10^{}\times 10^{}`$ field of view centred on Sgr A. The region surrounding Sgr A, the central massive black hole, is the brightest in the image, although Sgr A itself was not spatially resolved. There is a further X-ray emission to the east from Sgr A, elongated nearly parallel to the Galactic plane. The e-folding radius of the core of this extended source is 28′′ in the 2–10 keV band, although the region with significantly enhanced surface brightness (relative to the surroundings) has a major axis dimension of $`200^{\prime \prime }`$.

As shown in Figure 1, the X-ray emitting region is contained within the radio shell and the molecular dust ring, as is also readily apparent from the Chandra observation (Maeda et al. 2002). This suggests the strong correlation between the extended X-ray emission and the radio structure, Sgr A East. Henceforce, we call this X-ray emission Sgr A East.

Figure 1 also shows the hardness image in which the regions to the north and south of Sgr A East in Galactic coordinates appear to exhibit enhanced soft X-ray emission. Alternatively, one might argue that a narrow ($`<3^{}`$ wide) strip along the Galactic plane has a harder spectral form. These two options suggest either the presence of a soft outflow from the Galactic Centre or the preferential absorption of the soft (2–4.5 keV) X-rays along the Galactic plane. However, since the scale height of the molecular clouds in the Galactic Centre region is 5–9 (Tsuboi et al. 1999; Sakano 2000), which corresponds to the full extent of our X-ray picture rather the narrow “absorption” feature identified above and the fact that the soft enhancement is significantly brighter than its adjacent regions, favours the outflow argument. However, we note that the soft emission does not seem to emanate directly from Sgr A, but from the region shifted by a couple of arcminutes east of Sgr A. Further detailed study is beyond the scope of this paper.

In the field of view, we discovered an apparently very hard source, XMM J174540$``$2904.5, $`4^{}`$ south of Sgr A, as indicated in Figure 1. This source was found to be extended and have a non-thermal radio counterpart, which is well-aligned with the X-ray structure (Ho et al. 1985; Sakano et al. 2003). Detailed results on this source are presented elsewhere (Sakano et al. 2003).

Since the X-ray spectrum of Sgr A East shows distinct emission lines (see the next section), we also made line narrow-band images corresponding to the He-like iron (6.7-keV) and sulfur (2.4-keV) lines. In this case the underlying continuum is subtracted using adjacent bandpasses and assuming an averaged spectral shape (Figure 1 right panel). The 6.7-keV line is clearly more concentrated in the core of Sgr A East than the continuum (Figure 1). This implies that the core of Sgr A East is more abundant in iron or higher in temperature, or perhaps a combination of these factors. In contrast, the 2.4-keV line peak is located on Sgr A. These features are quantitatively evaluated by applying spatially-resolved spectral analysis, as described below.

## X-RAY SPECTRA OF SGR A EAST

We accumulated the source spectrum of Sgr A East from a region of radius 100′′ (see Figure 1), but excluding both Sgr A and its immediate surroundings and the region around a bright soft point source. We extracted a background spectrum from a nearby region at nearly the same Galactic latitude so as to minimize the influence of the spatial fluctuation of the background plasma. Figure 2 shows the resulting background-subtracted pn spectra (although the spectral analysis was carried out using simultaneous fits to the MOS 1, MOS 2 and pn spectra). Several strong emission lines at energies corresponding to K$`\alpha `$ lines from highly ionized ions, can be seen. This implies that a significant amount of the emission originates in a hot thin thermal plasma.

From the line ratios of K$`\alpha `$ lines from helium(He)-like and hydrogen(H)-like atoms, we estimated the ionization temperature for each atom. The temperatures are found to be significantly different from element to element; $``$1 keV for sulfur, $``$2 keV for argon and calcium, and $``$4 keV for iron (Table 1). The clear implication is that the plasma has a multi-temperature characteristic (or originates in a combination of processes).

As a first approximation, we applied a two-temperature thin-thermal plasma model (MEKAL) with a common absorption column, allowing the abundances of silicon, sulfur, argon, calcium, and iron in both the plasmas to be free. The abundance of nickel was linked to that of iron. In the best-fitting result (Table 2) there still remains a counts excess below 2 keV.

Then, we examined the possibility that the absorption is patchy. Specifically we assumed that a certain ratio $`1ϵ`$ ($`ϵ`$: a free parameter) of the emission is absorbed by $`7\times 10^{22}`$H cm-2 (fixed) with the remaining fraction subject to absorption by roughly twice the fixed column density (with the higher column density a free parameter of the fit). This resulted in a significantly improved fit (with a probability by the F-test of 99.97 %; (Table 2; Figure 1) and removed the bulk of the systematic trend apparent in the residuals. The Galactic Centre region is known to be full of molecular clouds of various sizes from radio and far infrared observations. A partial absorption model with a large covering fraction (i.e. small fraction for the ‘hole’) may, therefore, be quite realistic. We note that the inclusion of another lower temperature component instead of a partial absorption model is found to give neither good improvements in the fitting nor a realistic soft X-ray luminosity.

The main results of the spectral analysis are that: (i) the temperatures of the two components are $``$1 keV and $``$4 keV, which is fully consistent with the estimate based on the line-ratios; (ii) the lower-temperature component has by an emission measure an order of magnitude larger than the higher-temperature component; (iii) the metal abundances are a few to several tens per cent higher than the solar value on average, although calcium is significantly more abundant ($``$2 solar) than the other elements.

### Spectral variation within Sgr A East

Next, we examine the possible spectral variation within Sgr A East. We extracted spectra from concentric regions of radii of 28′′ (the core region), 28′′–60′′ (the peripheral region) with the centre at the peak of the 6.7-keV line image (Figure 1), and from the outer part with a radius of $`>60^{\prime \prime }`$ (the outer region) with the same centre as defined in the previous sub-section (see Figure 1). We fitted these spectra with the final version of the model described earlier, fixing the covering fraction for the absorption at the best-fitting value. Analysis shows that the iron abundance is significantly higher in the core (Z $`3`$) in comparison to the outer region (Z $`0.5`$). In contrast the abundances of other metals do not vary significantly within Sgr A East.

### Plasma parameters

From the apparent extension of Sgr A East in the hard X-ray band of 28 arcsec in radius, we calculate the total plasma volume $`V`$ to be 1.6$`\times 10^{56}`$ cm3, assuming a spherical shape. The plasma is found to comprise two components and we assume that each component exists separately in the pressure balance with the other. Using the best-fitting parameters for the core region and introducing the total filling factor $`\eta _{\mathrm{tot}}`$, which is the sum of the filling factors of the two components, we estimated the filling factor of $`\eta _\mathrm{L}0.44\eta _{\mathrm{tot}}`$ and $`\eta _\mathrm{H}0.56\eta _{\mathrm{tot}}`$, the density of $`n_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{L}}23\eta _{\mathrm{tot}}^{1/2}`$ and $`n_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{H}}6.5\eta _{\mathrm{tot}}^{1/2}`$, a total energy of $`E1.5\times 10^{49}\eta _{\mathrm{tot}}^{1/2}`$ erg, and a total X-ray emitting mass of 1.8$`\eta _{\mathrm{tot}}^{1/2}`$ M, where the subscriptions of L and H mean the lower- and higher-temperature components, respectively.

## X-RAY SPECTRA OF SGR A\*

According to the results reported by Baganoff et al. (2002) based on the 1999 Chandra observation, the compact X-ray source in Sgr A is typically very faint with a flux $`F_\mathrm{X}1.3\times 10^{13}`$erg s-1 cm-2, whereas the integrated emission from other point sources and diffuse emission within a 10′′-radius region is $`1\times 10^{12}`$erg s-1 cm-2. We did not resolve Sgr A in our XMM data (see the image section). We collected the spectrum from a circular region of radius 24′′, and found the flux to be $`3.4\times 10^{12}`$erg s-1 cm-2. Taking the highly elevated diffuse emission (Baganoff et al. 2002) into account, the integrated flux measured with XMM are fully consistent with the Chandra result. Note the time interval including the Sgr A flare reported by Goldwurm et al. (2003) was not included in our analysis.

We fitted the spectrum with the same model for Sgr A East, with the absorption parameters fixed. Table 2 summarises the result. We obtained temperatures of 0.96 (0.81–1.10) keV and 5.7 (4.8–6.8) keV, sulfur abundance of 1.8 (1.4–2.3), argon abundance of $``$1, and iron abundance of 0.5 (0.4–0.6) solar. As before, the emission measure of the lower-temperature component is about 10 times larger than that of the higher-temperature one. The increase in the higher temperature to $``$6 keV may be due to the contribution from discrete point sources, including Sgr A itself. We note that the iron abundance is found to be significantly lower than Sgr A East, $``$0.5 solar. This low iron-abundance is very similar to the value obtained for the outer region of Sgr A East.

## DISCUSSION

### What is Sgr A East?

The total energy of $`1.5\times 10^{49}\eta _{\mathrm{tot}}`$ erg is smaller than the nominal energy for a SNR ($`10^{51}`$ erg). Since the plasma has already reached ionization equilibrium, this estimate does apply to the full thermal energy in the observable X-ray band. The total energy derived here is consistent with the Chandra measurements reported by Maeda et al. (2002). If Sgr A East has a SNR origin, one SNR can easily account for the observed structure and there is no need to invoke multiple supernovae as suggested by Mezger et al. (1989).

On the other hand, the estimated mass of 1.8$`\eta _{\mathrm{tot}}^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{M}_{}`$ is sufficiently large to account for a supernova. If there is some amount of unobserved mass, the total mass may be even larger. With an age of 8000 yr of Sgr A East (Mezger et al. 1989), this mass may originate as either the ejecta or swept-up interstellar material. The localisation of the iron abundance enhancement suggests that the mass is predominantly that of the ejecta, and that a type-II SNR with a low-mass progenitor or a type-Ia SNR is the likely scenario for the origin of Sgr A East.

The most remarkable characteristic of Sgr A East is its unusually high temperature of 4 keV. In fact, this temperature is comparable with, or even higher than, the temperatures of young ‘historical’ SNRs, Cas A, Kepler, and Tycho. One possible scenario to explain this high temperature is the shock has interacted with an ambient plasma already preheated to a temperature of several keV. In fact, it is suggested that the Galactic Centre region is filled with the 10 keV plasma (e.g. Koyama et al. 1996), although other interpretations of the observed X-ray spectra are now emerging (e.g. Dogiel et al. 2002).

### Comments on the abundance in the Galactic Centre region

The abundance in the Galactic Centre region is uncertain at present, mainly because of the difficulty of the measurements. The extrapolation of the abundance gradient in the Galactic plane (e.g. McWilliam et al. 1997) points to an abundance higher than solar by a factor of 3 or more. A radio measurement by Mezger et al. (1979) gave an (oxygen) abundance of $``$2 solar. Recent measurements of X-ray reflection nebulae model also give a relatively high (iron) abundance for iron ($`2`$ solar) in the Sgr B2 cloud (Murakami et al. 2001). On the other hand, measurements of the iron abundance in the atmosphere of infrared stars in the Galactic Centre region, which may represent the most precise technique available, give an inconsistent value of $`1`$ solar (Carr et al. 2000; Ramírez et al. 2000).

Our result shows that the iron abundance in the high-temperature interstellar matter is sub-solar in the region around Sgr A. Therefore, it rather favours the smaller abundance, suggested by the near infrared observations. We note that the infrared star (IRS 7) observed by Carr et al. (2000) is located very close (0.2 pc away) to Sgr A, and thus samples basically the same region as the X-ray data.

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are grateful to Dr. R. Willingale, Dr. Y. Maeda and Dr. S. Park for their valuable comments. We thank Dr. R. Saxton, Dr. S. Sembay, Dr. G. Griffiths, and Dr. I. Stewart for their comments and help on the XMM-Newton analysis software. M. S. acknowledges the financial support from JSPS.

E-mail address of M. Sakano mas@star.le.ac.uk


text:
# Role of Initial Data in Higher Dimensional Quasi-Spherical Gravitational Collapse

## Abstract

We study the gravitational collapse in ($`n+2`$)-D quasi-spherical Szekeres space-time (which possess no killing vectors) with dust as the matter distribution. Instead of choosing the radial coordinate ‘$`r`$’ as the initial value for the scale factor $`R`$, we consider a power function of $`r`$ as the initial scale for the radius $`R`$. We examine the influence of initial data on the formation of singularity in gravitational collapse.

Over the last two decades gravitational collapse in spherical space-time (TBL model) has been studied extensively with dust as the matter content \[1-10\]. A general conclusion from these studies is that a central curvature singularity may be naked but its local or global visibility depends on the choice of initial data. If the regular initial density profile falls off rapidly having a maximum value at the centre then it is not possible to have naked singularity above five dimensional space-time \[8-10\].

Also from the recent past, attention has been given to study non-spherical collapse \[11-20\]. Most of these studies deal collapse numerically \[12-15\] with a few analytical works  (for quasi-spherical gravitational collapse, see ref. \[17-20\]). These are mainly concerned with special shape of the gravitating body. The present work examines the role of initial data in the formation of gravitational collapse in ($`n+2`$)-D Szekeres space-time.

The metric ansatz for ($`n+2`$)D Szekeres space-time is

$$ds^2=dt^2e^{2\alpha }dr^2e^{2\beta }\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}dx_i^2$$
(1)
where $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are functions of all the ($`n+2`$) space-time co-ordinates. But if we assume that $`\beta ^{}0`$ then for inhomogeneous dust model the solution is

$$e^\beta =R(t,r)e^{\nu (r,x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)}$$
(2)
$$e^\alpha =\frac{R^{}+R\nu ^{}}{\sqrt{1+f(r)}}$$
(3)
$$e^\nu =A(r)\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}x_i^2+\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}B_i(r)x_i+C(r)$$
(4)
$$\dot{R}^2=f(r)+\frac{F(r)}{R^{n1}}$$
(5)
$$\rho (t,r,x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)=\frac{n}{2}\frac{F^{}+(n+1)F\nu ^{}}{R^n(R^{}+R\nu ^{})}$$
(6)
$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}B_i^24AC=1$$
(7)
where $`A(r),B_i(r)`$ and $`C(r)`$ are arbitrary functions of $`r`$ satisfying (7) and also in the expression (5), $`f(r)`$ and $`F(r)`$ are arbitrary functions of $`r`$ alone.

A shell focusing singularity on a shell of dust occurs when it collapses at or starts expanding from the centre of matter distribution. We shall consider only the central shell focusing singularity (i.e., $`R=0`$ or $`\beta =\mathrm{}`$) for marginally bound case only (i.e., $`f(r)=0`$). Suppose $`t=t_i`$ be the initial hypersurface from which the collapse develops. For initial data we assume that $`R(t_i,r)`$ is a monotone increasing function of $`r`$. So without any loss of generality, it is possible to make an arbitrary relabeling of the dust shells by $`rg(r)`$ such that we can choose

$$R(t_i,r)=R_0r^k,(R_0>0,kareconstants)$$
(8)
Hence solving equation (5) using the initial condition (8) we get

$$R=\left[R_0^{\frac{n+1}{2}}r^{\frac{(n+1)k}{2}}\frac{n+1}{2}\sqrt{F(r)}(tt_i)\right]^{\frac{2}{n+1}}$$
(9)
The regularity of the metric co-efficients on the initial hypersurface restricts $`k1`$. Further for the regularity of the initial density profile

$$\rho _i(r,x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)=\rho (t_i,r,x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)=\frac{n}{2}\frac{F^{}+(n+1)F\nu ^{}}{R_0^{n+1}r^{(n+1)k1}(k+r\nu ^{})}$$
(10)
we can write the following series expansion for $`\rho _i(r)`$, $`F(r)`$ and $`\nu ^{}(r)`$ near $`r=0`$ as

$$\rho _i(r)=\underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\rho _jr^j,$$
(11)
$$F(r)=\underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}F_jr^{(n+1)k+j}$$
(12)
and

$$\nu ^{}(r)=\underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\nu _jr^j,(\nu __1+k0)$$
(13)
Also using equations (11)-(13) in (10) we have the following relations among the different co-efficients

$`\rho _0={\displaystyle \frac{n(n+1)}{2}}F_0R_0^{(n+1)},\rho _1={\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}\left(n+1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k+\nu __1}}\right)F_1R_0^{(n+1)},`$
$`\rho _2={\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}\left[\left(n+1+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{k+\nu __1}}\right)F_2{\displaystyle \frac{F_1\nu __0}{(k+\nu __1)^2}}\right]R_0^{(n+1)},`$
$$\rho _3=\frac{n}{2}\left[\left(n+1+\frac{3}{k+\nu __1}\right)F_3\frac{2F_2\nu __0}{(k+\nu __1)^2}\frac{(k+\nu __1)\nu __1\nu __0^2}{(k+\nu __1)^3}F_1\right]R_0^{(n+1)},$$
(14)
$$\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{},$$

$$OR$$

$`\rho _0={\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{F_1}{\nu _0}}+(n+1)F_0\right]R_0^{(n+1)},\rho _1={\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2F_2}{\nu _0}}+\left\{(n+1){\displaystyle \frac{\nu _1}{\nu _0^2}}\right\}F_1\right]R_0^{(n+1)},`$
$`\rho _2={\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{3F_3}{\nu _0}}+\left\{(n+1){\displaystyle \frac{2\nu _1}{\nu _0^2}}\right\}F_2+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\nu _1^2}{\nu _0^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{\nu _2}{\nu _0^2}}\right)F_1\right]R_0^{(n+1)},`$
$$\rho _3=\frac{n}{2}\left[\frac{4F_4}{\nu _0}+\left\{(n+1)\frac{3\nu _1}{\nu _0^2}\right\}F_3+2\left(\frac{\nu _1^2}{\nu _0^3}\frac{\nu _2}{\nu _0^2}\right)F_2+\left(\frac{2\nu _1\nu _2}{\nu _0^3}\frac{\nu _3}{\nu _0^2}\frac{\nu _1^3}{\nu _0^4}\right)F_1\right]R_0^{(n+1)},$$
(15)
$$\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{},$$

according as $`\nu __1>k`$ or $`\nu __1=k.`$

The singularity curve $`t=t_s(r)`$ for the shell focusing singularity is characterized by

$$R(t_s(r),r)=0$$
(16)
So the time for central shell focusing singularity is given by

$$t_0=t_s(0)=t_i+\frac{2R_0^{\frac{n+1}{2}}}{(n+1)\sqrt{F_0}}$$
(17)
Further, if $`t_{ah}(r)`$ is the instant for the formation of apparent horizon then we have

$$R^{n1}(t_{ah}(r),r)=F(r)$$
(18)
which gives

$`t_{ah}(r)t_0={\displaystyle \frac{R_0^{\frac{n+1}{2}}}{(n+1)F_0^{3/2}}}\left[F_1r+\left(F_2{\displaystyle \frac{3F_1^2}{4F_0}}\right)r^2+\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\right]`$
$$\frac{2}{n+1}F_0^{\frac{1}{n1}}\left[r^{\frac{(n+1)k}{n1}}+\frac{1}{n1}\frac{F_1}{F_0}r^{\frac{(n+1)k}{n1}+1}+\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\right]$$
(19)
The above expression shows the time difference between the formation of trapped surface at a distance $`r`$ and the time of singularity formation at $`r=0`$ (central singularity). Hence the necessary condition that an observer at a distance $`r`$ will observe the central singularity (at least locally) is $`t_{ah}(r)>t_0`$ (for details see Ref. \[6$``$9, 24\]).

From physical consideration it is reasonable to assume that the initial density $`\rho _i(r)`$ is maximum at the centre $`r=0`$. This implies that the first non-vanishing term after $`\rho _0`$ in the series expansion (see eq. (11)) for $`\rho _i(r)`$ should be negative. Further, one may assume that $`\rho _i^{}(r)`$ should vanish at $`r=0`$ but is negative in the neighbouring region or more generally, it may be assumed that $`\rho _i^{}(r)=\rho _i^{\prime \prime }(r)=\mathrm{}=\rho _i^{s1}(r)=0`$ and $`\rho _i^s(r)<0`$ ($`s2`$). Now using the relations (14) or (15) among the co-efficients we have

I. when $`\nu __1>k`$:

Here $`\rho _1<0`$ implies $`F_1<0`$. Also in general, $`\rho _1=\rho _2=\mathrm{}=\rho _{s1}=0`$ and $`\rho _s<0`$ implies $`F_1=F_2=\mathrm{}=F_{s1}=0`$ and $`F_s<0`$ with $`s2`$.

II. when $`\nu __1=k`$:

Here $`\rho _1<0`$ does not imply $`F_1<0`$. Also more generally, $`\rho _1=\rho _2=\mathrm{}=\rho _{s1}=0`$ and $`\rho _s<0`$ may have one possible solution as $`F_1=F_2=\mathrm{}=F_s=0`$ and $`F_{s+1}<0`$ with $`s2`$.

In particular, if we assume the initial density to have a maximum value at $`r=0`$ and falls off rapidly near $`r=0`$ then we have $`\rho _1=0,\rho _2<0`$ near $`r=0`$. Then in case I, we have $`F_1=0,F_2<0`$ while in case II, we may take $`F_1=F_2=0,F_3<0`$ near $`r=0`$.

Therefore in the present problem we have the following possibilities for naked singularity:

($`a`$) If $`F_1<0`$ then naked singularity may appear in any dimension ($`4`$) for $`\nu __1k`$ and $`k1`$.

($`b`$) In general if we choose $`F_1=0,F_2=0,\mathrm{},F_{i1}=0`$ and $`F_i<0`$ ($`i2`$) then for formation of naked singularity, ‘$`n`$’ is restricted by the inequality

$$2n\left[\frac{i+k}{ik}\right]$$
(20)
with $`max(1,\frac{i}{3})k<i`$, $`\nu __1k`$, $`k1`$.

Here $`[x]`$ stands for the greatest integer in $`x`$. From the inequality (20) we note that if ‘$`k`$’ is very close to ‘$`i`$’ (but less than $`i`$ ) then ‘$`n`$’ can take larger values than 2 i.e., naked singularity may appear in much larger dimension compare to the usual four dimension. The following table shows some possible values of $`n`$ for different values of $`i`$ and $`k`$ (with $`k<i`$) from the inequality (20).

TABLE: Some possible values of $`n`$ for different values of $`i`$ and $`k`$.
| $`i`$ | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`k`$ |  |  |  |  |
| $`\frac{3}{2}`$ | $`n=2,3,4,5,6,7`$ | $`n=2,3`$ | $`n=2`$ | $``$ |
| $`\frac{21}{11}`$ | $`2n41`$ | $`n=2,3,4`$ | $`n=2`$ | $``$ |
| $`\frac{35}{12}`$ | $``$ | $`2n71`$ | $`n=2,3,4,5,6`$ | $`n=2,3`$ |

For $`\nu __1>k`$ we have from equation (14) $`F_1=0,F_2<0`$ and hence for naked singularity

$$2n\left[\frac{2+k}{2k}\right]$$

with $`1k<2`$, while for $`\nu __1=k`$ we choose $`F_1=0,F_2=0,F_3<0`$ and so $`n`$ will be restricted by the inequality

$$2n\left[\frac{3+k}{3k}\right]$$

with $`1k<3`$.

We note that for $`k=1`$ the possible values of $`n`$ are 2 and 3 for $`\nu __1>1`$ and $`n=2`$ for $`\nu __1=1`$ i.e., naked singularity is possible only for four and five dimensions which we have shown in earlier works (see ref. \[8-10, 20\]).

Now we shall examine the nature of singularity by studying the outgoing radial null geodesic (ORNG) originated from the central shell focusing singularity. Let us start with the assumption that it is possible to have one or more such geodesics and we choose the form of ORNG in power series as

$$t=t_0+ar^\xi ,$$
(21)
upto leading order near $`r=0`$ in $`t`$-$`r`$ plane with $`a>0,\xi >0`$ as constants. Using equation (16) and (17) the singularity curve can be written as (near $`r=0`$)

$$t_s(r)=t_0\frac{F_mR_0^{\frac{n+1}{2}}}{(n+1)F_0^{3/2}}r^m$$
(22)
where $`m1`$ is an integer and $`F_m`$ is the first non-vanishing term beyond $`F_0`$. As for naked singularity we have $`t<t_s(r)`$ so comparing (22) with (21) for ORNG the restrictions on the two parameters $`\xi `$ and $`a`$ as

$$\xi m\text{and}a<\frac{F_mR_0^{\frac{n+1}{2}}}{(n+1)F_0^{3/2}}$$
(23)
Moreover, from the metric (1) we can write for ORNG

$$\frac{dt}{dr}=R^{}+R\nu ^{}$$
(24)
We shall now examine the feasibility of the null geodesic starting from the singularity with the above restrictions for the following two cases namely, $`\xi >m`$ and $`\xi =m`$.

When $`\xi >m`$ then near $`r=0`$ the solution for $`R`$ in (9) (choosing $`t_i=0`$) simplifies to

$$R=R_0\left(\frac{F_m}{2F_0}\right)^{\frac{2}{n+1}}r^{\frac{2m}{n+1}+k}$$
(25)
Now combining (21) and (25) in equation (24) we get (upto leading order in $`r`$)

$$a\xi r^{\xi 1}=R_0\left(\nu __1+k+\frac{2m}{n+1}\right)\left(\frac{F_m}{2F_0}\right)^{\frac{2}{n+1}}r^{\frac{2m}{n+1}+k1}$$
(26)
which implies

$$\xi =k+\frac{2m}{n+1}\text{and}a=\frac{(\nu __1+\xi )R_0}{\xi }\left(\frac{F_m}{2F_0}\right)^{2/(n+1)}$$
(27)
Now if $`k<m`$ then $`n`$ and $`k`$ are bounded by the same inequalities as in (20) (with $`i=m`$) for the formation of naked singularity while for $`km`$, there will be no upper bound of $`n`$. Furthermore, we note that from equation (27), $`\xi >0`$ and $`a>0`$ as $`\nu __1k`$. Thus we have the same conclusion as before (in case $`(b)`$) and it is possible to have consistent ORNG originated from the singularity.

On the other hand for $`\xi =m`$, we have from equation (24) using the solutions for $`R`$ and $`\nu `$ as before, it is possible to have naked singularity if

$$n=\frac{m+k}{mk},max(1,\frac{m}{3})k<m$$
(28)
and

$$a=\frac{1}{m}\left(\frac{n+1}{2}\sqrt{F_0}a\frac{F_m}{2F_0}R_0^{\frac{n+1}{2}}\right)^{\frac{1n}{1+n}}\left[(\nu __1+m)\frac{F_m}{2F_0}R_0^{\frac{n+1}{2}}+\frac{1}{2}(n+1)(\nu __1+k)\sqrt{F_0}a\right]$$
(29)
Now we shall examine whether the restriction (23) for ‘$`a`$’ is consistent with the expression ‘$`a`$’ in equation (29). In fact equation (29) takes the form

$$2^{\frac{2}{n+1}}bm=\left[(n+1)b\zeta \right]^{\frac{1n}{1+n}}\left[(\nu __1+m)\zeta +(n+1)(\nu __1+k)b\right]$$
(30)
with the transformation

$$a=bF_0^{\frac{1}{n1}},F_m=\frac{\zeta F_0^{\frac{m}{2}+1}}{R_0^{\frac{n+1}{2}}}.$$
(31)
Since equation (30) is a real valued equation of $`b`$, so we must have

$$(n+1)b+\zeta <0,$$

which using (31) gives us the restriction on $`a`$ in equation (23). Hence the geodesic (21) will have consistent solution for ‘$`a`$’ and ‘$`\xi `$’. So the above conclusion regarding the formation of naked singularity is justified. Further, introducing the variable ‘$`\varphi `$’ by the relation

$$\varphi =(n+1)b\zeta $$
(32)
we have seen from equation (30)

$$4k^{n+1}\varphi ^{n1}(\zeta +\varphi )^{n+1}=[2k\zeta (n1)(\nu __1+k)\varphi ]^{n+1}$$
(33)
with the restriction $`0<\varphi <\zeta `$ and ‘$`a`$’ will satisfy the inequality in equation (23).

Further we observe that for $`km`$, $`n`$ can not have any positive integral solution and hence naked singularity is not possible. Also this case (i.e., $`\xi =m`$) has no analogue with our previous result by comparing $`t_{ah}(r)`$ with $`t_0`$. Lastly for any fixed $`m`$, $`k`$ can only take those values within the limits in equation (28) which makes $`n`$, a positive integer($`2`$). It is to be noted that if we consider next order term in the geodesic eq. (21) then it is possible to have a family of ORNG originated from the central singularity (see Ref. ).

Thus the formation of naked singularity strongly depends on the nature of the initial density and also on the choice of the parameter $`k`$ involved in the initial choice of the scale factor $`R`$. Therefore we conclude that formation of naked singularity strongly depends on the choice of initial data for the physical parameters as well as for geometric quantity. For future work, it will be interesting to study the dominance of initial data for physical parameters over that for geometric quantities and vice versa for formation of naked singularity.

Acknowledgement:

One of the authors (U.D) thanks CSIR (Govt. of India) for the award of a Senior Research Fellowship.

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$`[24]`$ U. Debnath and S. Chakraborty, math-ph/0307024.


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# Superconductor-proximity effect in hybrid structures: Fractality versus Chaos

## Abstract

We study the proximity effect of a superconductor to a normal system with fractal spectrum. We find that there is no gap in the excitation spectrum, even in the case where the underlying classical dynamics of the normal system is chaotic. An analytical expression for the distribution of the smallest excitation eigenvalue $`E_1`$ of the hybrid structure is obtained. On small scales it decays algebraically as $`𝒫(E_1)E_1^{D_0}`$, where $`D_0`$ is the fractal dimension of the spectrum of the normal system. Our theoretical predictions are verified by numerical calculations performed for various models.

During the last years there was considerable interest for the study of the statistical properties of hybrid normal-superconductor structures. One of the main outcomes of these studies was the prediction that a normal system in the proximity of a superconductor acquires characteristics that are typical of the superconducting state. Specifically, if the underlying classical dynamics of the normal system is chaotic, an energy gap in the quasiparticle density of states emerges above the Fermi energy. The mean value $`E_1`$ of the gap was found MBFB96 ; VBAB01 ; JSB03  to be proportional to the Thouless energy,

$$E_1E_T=G\delta /4\pi =MT\delta /4\pi $$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ indicates an ensemble average, $`M`$ is the number of transverse modes of the point contact between the superconductor and the normal system, $`T`$ is the tunnel probability per mode and $`\delta 1/L^d`$ is the mean level spacing of the $`d`$\- dimensional normal system of linear size $`L`$. The product $`G=MT`$ is the point contact conductance in units of $`2e^2/h`$. As a matter of fact, in a recent publication VBAB01  the statistical fluctuations of the lowest excited state around the mean-field value $`E_1`$ were studied in the framework of the Random Matrix Theory. It was found that the gap distribution is a universal function of the rescaled energy $`x=(E_1E_1)/\mathrm{\Delta }_g`$, in a broad range $`|x|M^{2/3}`$. The width of the gap distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }_gM^{1/3}\delta `$ is parametrically smaller than the gap size $`E_1`$ but bigger than the mean level spacing $`\delta `$ of the normal system. In contrast, normal systems with integrable classical dynamics do not possess any gap near the Fermi energy. Instead, their density of states vanishes linearly near the Fermi level. Thus, it was naturally proposed, that the appearance or not of a gap in the excitation spectrum of a normal system in the proximity with a superconductor can be used in the studies of quantum chaos as a measure for distinguishing classically chaotic systems from integrable ones. Apart from the two extreme cases discussed above, a fairly good understanding of the proximity gap was obtained also for the generic case of systems with mixed classical phase space SB99 . In this case it was found that the excitation gap reduces below the value of fully chaotic systems (1).

The investigation of the proximity gap has recently been extended to quantum systems in the diffusive regime OSF02  where it was found that a similar type of gap appears. The value of $`E_1`$ is given by Eq. (1) provided that we substitute the ballistic conductance $`MT`$ with the appropriate expression $`DL^{2d}`$ for diffusive systems. Here $`D`$ is the classical diffusion coefficient.

Despite all this activity, a significant class of systems was left unexplored. Namely hybrid structures whose normal part has fractal spectra. The latter exhibit energy level statistics that are in strong contrast to the level repulsion predicted by Random Matrix Theory (RMT) P65 . Their level spacing distribution follows inverse power laws $`P(s)s^\beta `$ which is a signature of level clustering. The power $`\beta `$ was found to be related with the fractal dimension of the spectrum $`D_0`$ as $`\beta =1+D_0`$ GKP95 . Realizations of this class are quasi-periodic systems with metal-insulator transition at some critical value of the on-site potential like the Harper model GKP95 ; AA80 , Fibonacci chains GKP95 ; SBGC84 , or quantum systems with chaotic classical limit as the Kicked Harper Model GKP91 ; ACS92 ; ZZSUC86 . Apart of their own interest the analysis of these systems can be illuminating for the understanding of the behavior of high dimensional disordered systems at the metal-insulator transition like the 3$`d`$ Anderson model A58 .

Here, for the first time, we present consequences of the fractal nature of the spectrum of the normal system in the excitation spectrum of the hybrid structure. We consider the normal system connected to the superconductor via point contacts supporting $`M`$ channels and show that there is no gap in the excitation spectrum even in the case where the corresponding classical phase space is chaotic (like in the case of the Kicked Harper model). We derive an analytical expression for the distribution of the minimum excitation eigenvalue $`𝒫(E_1)`$, and show that its behavior is dictated by the fractal dimension $`D_0`$ of the spectrum of the normal part. Thus the nature of the classical dynamics becomes totally irrelevant for these type of systems. Specifically we show that $`𝒫(E_1)`$ generated over different Fermi energies behaves as

$$𝒫(\stackrel{~}{E}_1)=(\frac{1}{D_0}1)(\stackrel{~}{E}_1^{D_0}1)$$
(2)
where $`\stackrel{~}{E}_1=2\frac{E_1}{s_{\mathrm{max}}}`$ and $`s_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the maximum level spacing of the normal system within the energy interval that is used in order to generate statistics. Eq. (2) is the main outcome of our investigation. A consequent result is that the mean $`\stackrel{~}{E}_1`$ is given by

$$\stackrel{~}{E}_1=\frac{1D_0}{2D_0}$$
(3)
One has to note the lack of any dependence on the system size $`L`$ and the number of channels $`M`$ in contrast to Eq.(1). Our theoretical results (2,3) are confirmed by numerical calculations performed for various systems with fractal spectra.

Let us start our analysis with the Kicked Harper (KH) model. The system is defined by the time depended Hamiltonian

$$H=Q\mathrm{cos}(p)+K\mathrm{cos}(\theta )\underset{m}{}\delta (tmT)$$
(4)
where $`p`$ denotes the angular momentum, $`\theta `$ the conjugate angle, while the kick period is $`T`$. Contrary to the standard Harper model (corresponding to the limit $`K0`$) this model for large enough $`K5`$ is classically chaotic.

The quantum mechanics of this system is described by a time evolution operator for one period

$$U=\mathrm{exp}(i\frac{Q}{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{}\widehat{p}))\mathrm{exp}(i\frac{K}{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{cos}(x))$$
(5)
where $`\widehat{p}=id/d\theta `$ is the momentum operator and $`\mathrm{}`$ is an effective Planck constant, which includes the frequency ratio of the unperturbed system and the external driving. For $`K=Q`$ the quasi-energy spectrum is fractal GKP91 ; ACS92  and we always consider cases where $`\mathrm{}/2\pi `$ is strongly irrational. Using a recently proposed recipe JSB03  we can write down the corresponding quantum Andreev map $``$ and find the quasi-energies of the excitation spectrum of the hybrid structure by direct diagonalization of $``$. In all cases considered bellow we have generated more than 3000 values of $`E_1`$ for statistical processing.

Figure 1 shows $`𝒫(E_1)`$ for various system sizes $`L`$ and number of channels $`M`$. For small values of $`E_1`$ the distribution of the minimum excitation eigenvalue displays clearly an inverse power law. Moreover, it is independent of the number of channels and system size in agreement with Eq. (2). In the insets of Fig. 1 we also report our results for the mean value of $`E_1`$ for various system sizes and various numbers of channels. The inverse power law character of the distribution $`𝒫(E_1)`$ forces us to conclude that the probability to find a quasi-energy excitation smaller than $`E_1`$ is high and thus there is no gap in the excitation spectrum (even in a probabilistic sense).

The validity of Eqs. (2,3) can be verified in more cases in the Fibonacci chain model of a one dimensional quasi-crystal where various scaling exponents $`D_0`$ can be obtained. The normal system is described by the tight-binding Hamiltonian:

$$H=\underset{n}{}|nV_nn|+\underset{n}{}\left(|nn+1|+|n+1n|\right)$$
(6)
where $`V_n`$ is the potential at site $`n`$. It only takes the two values $`+V`$ and $`V`$ arranged in a Fibonacci sequence SBGC84 . It was shown that the spectrum is a Cantor set with zero Lebesgue- measure for all $`V>0`$. The sample is in contact with $`M`$ semi-infinite one-dimensional superconductors which are attached in $`M`$ randomly chosen sites. The quasi-energy spectrum of the hybrid structure is calculated by employing the effective Hamiltonian approach MBFB96 . We again find inverse power laws for the distributions $`𝒫(E_1)`$ . Here the exponent depends on the potential strength $`V`$, while Eq. (2) still relates the resulting statistics to the fractal dimension $`D_0^E`$.

In Fig. 2 we report our results for $`𝒫(E_1)`$ for $`V=1.4`$ and various system sizes $`L`$ and number of channels $`M`$. In the insets we also plot the mean value $`E_1`$ of the distribution. Similarly with Fig. 1 we observe that $`𝒫(E_1)`$ and consequently $`E_1`$ are independent of $`L`$ and $`M`$. In Fig. 3 we summarize our results for various $`V`$ values. A nice agreement between our numerical data and the theoretical predictions (2,3) is observed note1 .

The above results call for a theoretical explanation. Our starting point is the observation that the distribution $`𝒫(E_1)`$ rescaled in appropriate way is the same for the normal and the hybrid structure. This assumption is verified in Fig. 4 where we plot the distribution of the minimum excitation level $`\stackrel{~}{E}_1`$ for a representative case where the normal part is a Fibonacci lattice with $`V=1.4`$. The overlap between the resulting distributions of the hybrid structure and of the corresponding normal system is evident. In order to understand this phenomenon one should recall that the eigenstates of the normal system are not extended like typical chaotic eigenstates, but they have fractal structure. As a result, most of the eigenstates have intensities at the boundary with a superconductor which are so small that one can consider that they are practically not affected by the proximity of the system to the superconductor. Thus these eigenstates and the corresponding eigenenergies are solutions of the eigenvalue problem for the hybrid structure as well. We point here that the perturbative assumption used in our argument, was verified numerically in OWKG01 , where it was observed that the effect of the coupling of systems with fractal spectra to external leads is a small perturbation for the most of the eigenstates.

The distribution $`𝒫(E_1)`$ for the normal system can be derived in the following way. We scan the spectrum of the normal system with a set of Fermi energies which have resolution given by $`ϵ`$. Then for fixed $`E_1`$ we count the number of Fermi energies that are in a distance $`E_1`$ with tolerance $`ϵ`$ from the next larger eigenenergy of the normal system. This is given by the number of level spacings which are larger than $`E_1`$ i.e. $`_{E_1}^{s_{\mathrm{max}}}p(s)𝑑s`$ where $`s_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the maximum level spacing and $`p(s)`$ is the level spacing distribution. The normalized gap density in the limit of $`ϵ0`$ is then given by

$$𝒫(E_1)=\frac{_{E_1}^{s_{\mathrm{max}}}p(s)𝑑s}{_0^{s_{\mathrm{max}}}𝑑E_1_{E_1}^{s_{\mathrm{max}}}p(s)𝑑s}$$
(7)
Substituting in the above equation the expression for $`p(s)=s^{(1+D_0)}`$ we eventually get

$$𝒫(\stackrel{~}{E}_1)=(\frac{1}{D_0}1)(\stackrel{~}{E}_1^{D_0}1)$$
(8)
where $`\stackrel{~}{E}_1=\frac{E_1}{s_{\mathrm{max}}}`$ is the rescaled energy gap. Notice that an additional factor $`2`$ should be introduced in the definition of the rescaled energy gap i.e. $`\stackrel{~}{E}_1=2\frac{E_1}{s_{\mathrm{max}}}`$ once we turn to the distribution of the hybrid structure, due to the fact that the excitation levels for the hybrid structure are coming in pairs. In Figs. 1 and 3a we plot with dashed lines the above theoretical prediction. Using Eq. (8) the mean $`E_1`$ and can be easily evaluated leading to Eq. (3).

In conclusion we have studied the statistical properties of the excitation spectrum of a normal system with fractal spectra in the proximity to a superconductor. We have found that the underlying classical dynamics is irrelevant and that the statistical properties of the quasi-spectrum depends only on the fractal nature of the normal system. Such a system can be realized by a two-dimensional electron gas subject to a perpendicular magnetic field and periodic potential in contact with a superconductor 2DEG . It is known that the normal system of this type can be mapped onto the Harper model GKP95 ; AA80 ; note1  possessing fractal spectrum at the critical point.

Finally, our results can be of interest for the quantum optics community with respect to studies of reflection of light by a dielectric medium in front of a phase-conjugation mirror PBB97 . This problem is the optics analogue of Andreev reflection note2 . A wave incident at frequency $`\omega _0+\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ is retro-reflected at frequency $`\omega _0\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ where $`\omega _0`$ is the pumped frequency of the phase-conjugation mirror. The analogue of $`\omega _0`$ and of the frequency shifts $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ are the Fermi energy $`E_F`$ and the excitation energies $`E`$ respectively. The latter were shown here to be controlled by the fractal dimension $`D_0`$. Keeping in mind the above analogies it is reasonable to conjecture that $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ is controlled as well by $`D_0`$ in quasi-periodic optical structures like e.g. in Fibonacci quasicrystals Negro03 . Thus controlling $`D_0`$ we can tune $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ which was predicted in PBB97  to affect drastically the reflected intensity from a phase conjugation mirror for a certain parameter range.

It is our pleasure to thank J. Cserti, R. Fleischmann, C. Lambert and H. Schomerus, for useful discussions. T.K. acknowledges the officers of the $`5^{\mathrm{th}}`$A Artillery Unit for their support. This research was supported by a grant from the GIF, the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development.


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# A Neighboring Dwarf Irregular Galaxy Hidden by the Milky Way

## 1 Introduction

A complete census of nearby galaxies is hampered by the presence of our own Milky Way, whose dust and gas creates a “zone of avoidance” (ZOA) in the distribution of galaxies on the plane of the sky. Yet an accurate knowledge of the mass distribution within our neighborhood is essential if we are to understand the dynamical evolution of the Local Group from kinematic studies (e.g., Peebles et al. 2001). In addition, the discovery of previously unknown nearby galaxies will further efforts to understand the local velocity field (see Kraan-Korteweg 1986 and Karachentsev et al. 2002) as well as providing additional examples for studying the resolved stellar content of nearby systems (cf. Mateo 1998, Massey 2003).

Kerr & Henning (1987) demonstrated the power of single-dish H I surveys in searching for hidden galaxies. Such observations provide not only the two-dimensional location of galaxies on the plane of the sky, but also the redshift. Furthermore, the width of the 21-cm line gives some indication of the mass. “Shallow” surveys are now complete in both the north (Henning et al. 1998, Rivers, Henning, & Kraan-Korteweg 1999, Rivers 2000) and the south (Henning et al. 2000), with more sensitive searches in progress. Although no massive Local Group galaxies have been found lurking behind the Galactic disk, the northern survey did reveal a previously unknown spiral galaxy (“Dwingeloo 1”) at 3 Mpc (Kraan-Korteweg et al. 1994), a likely member of the IC 342/Maffei Group.

Here we report on follow-up observations of a galaxy that is nearly half that distance. In their survey of H I sources in the southern ZOA, Henning et al. (2000) lists object HIZSS 3 as having a heliocentric radial velocity of only 299 km s-1. Improved data (presented below) yield a velocity of 280 km s-1. Given its location relative to the solar apex, this translates to a velocity with respect to the Local Group of 134 km s-1 (following Courteau & van den Bergh 1999) implying a distance of only 1.8 Mpc ($`H_o`$=75 km s-1 Mpc-1) in the absence of any peculiar velocities. Thus, this is one of the nearest galaxies known, similar in distance to the well-known Sextans A, Sextans B, and GR 8 galaxies, nearby but slightly beyond the zero-velocity envelope that defines the Local Group (Mateo 1998, van den Bergh 2000). Its location less than 0.1 degrees from the Galactic plane has made prior optical identification unlikely; nothing but foreground stars is seen on the Palomar Sky Survey prints or in the 2MASS images at this position. There is no object listed within 5 arcmin of this position in the Extended Source Catalog (Jarrett et al. 2000) of the 2MASS survey.

The properties of this object (summarized in Table 1) are strongly suggestive of a dwarf irregular (dIm) galaxy. The H I velocity width at 20% peak intensity determined by Henning et al. (2000) is 85 km s-1, a value which is typical for dwarf irregulars (Hunter 1997; see her Fig. 5). In addition, new observations (described below) yield an H I diameter of 6 arcminutes. At a distance of 1.8 Mpc, this would correspond to a diameter of 3 kpc, a value which is also typical for dwarf irregulars (Hunter 1997, Fig. 4).

## 2 New Observations

### 2.1 VLA

The galaxy was originally discovered at 21-cm by the Dwingeloo Obscured Galaxies Survey of the northern ZOA ($`30^{}\mathrm{}220^{}`$, $`|b|`$ $``$ 5; Henning et al. 1998, Rivers, Henning, & Kraan-Korteweg 1999, Rivers 2000), and it was also detected by the H I Parkes Zone of Avoidance Shallow Survey of the southern ZOA ($`212^{}\mathrm{}36^{}`$, $`|b|`$ $``$ 5; Henning et al. 2000). The galaxy, at galactic coordinates $`\mathrm{}=218^{}`$, $`b=0.1^{}`$ lies in a region of overlap between the two surveys. The basic H I parameters were first published as part of the latter catalog, hence the HIZSS moniker.

H I synthesis data were obtained with the VLA111The VLA is operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. in 1999 as part of follow-up observations for the Dwingeloo project (Rivers 2000). A 30-minute observation was made in the compact D-array, and the maps were created using natural weighting of the visibilities. This produced an angular resolution, as measured by the half-power major and minor axes of the synthesized beam, of 66 $`\times `$ 47 arcsec. The velocity resolution obtained was 10 km s-1. Summing all channels containing H I emission produced the H I total intensity map presented as Fig. 1. Taking the estimated distance of 1.8 Mpc and the total integrated flux from these interferometric observations, measured within an H I column density of 1 M pc-2, of 24.9 Jy km s-1, the H I mass of this galaxy would be $`1.9\times 10^7`$ M. The flux recovered with the single-dish Parkes survey was slightly higher: 32.1 Jy km s-1 (Henning et al. 2000), thus yielding a somewhat higher estimated H I mass, $`2.5\times 10^7`$ M. (The slightly higher value is not unexpected, since the Parkes measurement was not cut off at the 1 M pc-2 column density level.) More accurate determination of the distance will be required to pin down its exact mass, although this at the low end of what is observed for late-type dwarfs (Swaters 1999). The H I diameter measured to the 1 M pc-2 level is 6 arcmin, corresponding to 3 kpc. The velocity field, shown in Fig. 2, indicates fairly uniform rotation. The velocity width measured at 20% of the peak flux density from these observations is 91 km s-1, consistent with the value of 85 km s-1 from the Parkes observations, and also consistent with HIZSS 3’s being a low-mass dIm galaxy.

The peak of the H I distribution is at $`\alpha _{\mathrm{J2000}}=7^\mathrm{h}00^\mathrm{m}29.3^\mathrm{s}`$, $`\delta _{\mathrm{J2000}}=04^{}12^{}30\mathrm{"}`$, with a heliocentric velocity of 280 km s-1.

### 2.2 Optical Identification

We expected difficulties in the optical identification due to the low galactic latitude and high foreground extinction: Henning et al. (2000) estimate $`A_B=4.7`$ mags based upon the DIRBE/IRAS extinction maps (Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis 1998); i.e., $`E(BV)=1.1`$ mags. At the time we began our search for an optical counterpart (April 2003) the object was observable only for the first hour or so of the night.

Direct images were taken centered on the center of the VLA map with Lowell Observatory’s 1.1-m Hall telescope using a SITe 2048$`\times `$2048 CCD on UT 8 and 9 April 2003. The CCD was binned $`2\times 2`$ for a scale of 1.13 arcsec pixel-1. The field of view was 19.4 arcmin by 19.4 arcmin.

Broad-band BVRI images obtained on the first night failed to show anything other than the expanded swarm of foreground galactic stars. However, an H$`\alpha `$ exposure on the second night clearly showed an extended object about 70 arcsec from the peak of the H I distribution. In Fig. 3 we compare the H$`\alpha `$ image with an $`R`$-band exposure. The H$`\alpha `$ image (Fig. 3a) is the sum of four 15-minute integrations, while the R-band exposure (Fig. 3b) is the sum of 15 1-minute exposures, taken in this way to minimize saturation. The seeing on each frame was approximately 3 arcsecs, due in large part to the high airmass ($`1.8`$) of the observations. We also show in Fig. 3c the residual image obtained by subtracting the scaled R-band exposure from the H$`\alpha `$ exposure after sky has been removed from each.

The H$`\alpha `$ source is located at $`\alpha _{2000}=7^\mathrm{h}00^\mathrm{m}24.57^\mathrm{s}`$, $`\delta _{2000}=04^{}13^{}13.7\mathrm{"}`$. This places it within a partially-resolved secondary peak in the H I distribution evident in Fig. 1. We’ve marked the location of the H$`\alpha `$ source with an “X” in Fig. 1. The H$`\alpha `$ source is extended principally NW to SE, covering about 12 arcsecs. At a distance of 1.8 Mpc, this corresponds to a diameter of $``$100 pc, typical of the ionization region (Strömgren sphere) of a late O-type star (Spitzer 1968, with ne=10 cm-3) were it ionization-bounded. More likely the region is density bounded (as is the case with an older, evolved H II region), and the size is consistent with the smallest first-ranked H II regions in irregular galaxies (see Table 2 of Youngblood & Hunter 1999). Thus it may contain a modest population of OB stars. The bulge in the H I contours suggest a partially-resolved H I cloud, and hence a likely home for star formation.

We were able to calibrate the H$`\alpha `$ image by observing several spectrophotometric standards and by knowing the filter characteristics. The H$`\alpha `$ flux corresponds to $`2.2\times 10^{14}`$ ergs cm-2 s-1. If $`E(BV)=1.1`$ mags, then $`A_{\mathrm{H}\alpha }=2.8`$ mags (Savage & Mathis 1979), and at a distance of 1.8 Mpc the H$`\alpha `$ luminosity would be $`1.4\times 10^{38}`$ ergs s-1. This value is quite reasonable for the luminosity of the brightest H II regions within dwarf irregular galaxies (Youngblood & Hunter 1999), and is 14 times the H$`\alpha `$ luminosity of the Orion nebula (Kennicutt 1984). No other H$`\alpha `$ sources were found, either by blinking the frames or by examining a continuum-subtracted version of the H$`\alpha `$ image.

The location and size of the H$`\alpha `$ source is certainly suggestive of being part of HIZSS 3. However, we were concerned that this could instead be a foreground planetary nebula. To settle this matter, we obtained a spectrum of the H$`\alpha `$ source using the KPNO 2.1-m telescope and GoldCam spectrometer on 17 April 2003. We used a 600 line mm-1 grating (No. 35) centered at $`\lambda 5700`$, giving us coverage from $`\lambda 45007000`$ at 1.24Å pixel-1. A GG400 filter was used to block out any second-order light. The slit of the spectrograph was rotated to a position angle of 45, near the parallactic angle, and perpendicular to the major extension. The slit width was set to 100$`\mu `$m (1.3 arcsec) and provided 3.3Å resolution. The object was centered by a blind offset from a nearby star, and the exposure was hand-guided. Conditions were marginal, and only one full 1200 s exposure was obtained before the cirrus thickened; nevertheless, H$`\alpha `$ emission was strongly present at the predicted location, with a signal level of 1500 e-. (A second exposure, terminated by clouds, showed emission at the same place.) A comparison He-Ne-Ar exposure was made both before and after the exposure. The spectrophotometric standard star Feige 34 was observed (through clouds) to provide relative flux calibration. The nebular spectrum was extracted using an exposure of the offset star to serve as a reference for the 2-dimensional mapping of the spectrum on the chip.

The spectrum is shown in Fig. 4. H$`\alpha `$ is strong, and a weak feature may be \[OIII\] $`\lambda 5007`$. The heliocentric radial velocity of H$`\alpha `$ is measured to be 335$`\pm `$ 15 km s-1. This is in substantial agreement with the heliocentric 21-cm velocity map, which suggests a velocity of 300 km s-1 at that position (cf. Figs. 1 and 2), and confirms that the object we’ve identified in our H$`\alpha `$ image is associated with HIZSS 3. The fact that the values for the diameter and luminosities of the H II region are quite reasonable gives gives additional support to our interpretation.

## 3 Discussion

Most recent discoveries of nearby galaxies have been of dwarf spheroid systems which are not presently active in forming stars. The presence of substantial gas in HIZSS 3, as well as a modest-size H II region, suggests that this is a dwarf irregular (dIm). As such, it is possibly the nearest dIm to be discovered in the past 25 years; i.e., since LGC 3 was found by Kowal, Lo, & Sargent (1978), and SagDIG was found by Cesarsky et al. (1977) and Longmore et al. (1978). Both of these are well-established to be Local Group members. (For more on the growth of our knowledge of the Local Group, see van den Bergh 2000.)

However, the properties of HIZSS 3 are most strongly reminiscent of those of another nearby dIm, GR 8. This galaxy was first cataloged by Reaves (1956) in a survey of dwarf galaxies seen towards Virgo, but Hodge (1967) found it was a much nearer object, possibly even in the Local Group. GR8’s optical appearance is dominated by a few bright H II regions, the largest of which has a diameter of 175 pc (Youngblood & Hunter 1999), somewhat greater than the 100 pc found for our H$`\alpha `$ source. Carignan, Beaulieu, & Freeman (1990) find an H I diameter for GR 8 of about 2 kpc, about two-thirds of what we find for HIZSS 3. (We have adjusted these value to the 2.2 Mpc distance to GR 8 recommended by van den Bergh 2000, based upon newer distance measurements by Tolstoy et al. 1995 and Dohm-Palmer et al. 1998 using a Cepheid and the tip of the red giant branch, respectively.)

Could HIZSS 3 be a member of the Local Group? We have adopted a tentative distance to the galaxy of 1.8 Mpc based upon its radial velocity with respect to the Local Group centroid (LGC) of 134 km s-1, where we have adopted the solution for the solar apex and solar motion (with respect to the LGC) from Courteau & van den Bergh (1999)222Note that equation (6) in Courteau & van den Bergh (1999) is incorrect, and actually gives the correction to the LGC corresponding to the solution of Yahil, Tammann, & Sandage (1977). The equation for the Courteau & van den Bergh (1999) solution should read: $`V_{LGC}=V_{\mathrm{helio}}48\mathrm{cos}l\mathrm{cos}b+302\mathrm{sin}l\mathrm{cos}b16\mathrm{sin}b`$. This may be compared to Sandage’s (1986) solution using more limited data. Sandage’s solution is expressed in terms of the motion of the LSR, but transformed to the sun’s motion corresponds to a velocity of 296 km s-1 towards $`(l,b)=(95.0^{},4.2^{})`$. Thus $`V_{LGC}=V_{\mathrm{helio}}26\mathrm{cos}l\mathrm{cos}b+296\mathrm{sin}l\mathrm{cos}b22\mathrm{sin}b`$. Adopting his solution for HIZSS 3 would lead to a velocity relative to the LGC of 120 km s-1, and hence a distance of 1.6 Mpc. and used a value for the Hubble constant $`H_o=75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1. Such a distance would place it well beyond the zero-velocity boundary of the Local Group. However, this relies upon the assumption that the HIZSS 3 has no peculiar velocity. In general, the velocities of nearby galaxies will be affected by the presence of their neighbors. However, the galaxies of the Local Group do show only modest peculiar motions. Yahil, Tammann, & Sandage (1977), Sandage (1986), and Courteau & van den Bergh (1999), among others, have all found similar solutions for the velocities of the sun with respect to the Local Group as a whole by minimizing the velocity residuals of well-established Local Group members. In Fig. 5 we show the heliocentric radial velocities of Local Group members (filled circles) and that of nearby non-members (open circles) as a function of $`\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, where $`\theta `$ is the angle from the solar apex. The solution found by Courteau & van den Bergh (1999) is shown by the solid line, and corresponds to a motion of the sun of 306 km s-1 towards $`(l,b)=(99^{},3^{})`$. The 1$`\sigma `$ scatter about this solution is 61 km s-1, shown by the dashed lines. HIZSS 3 lies 134 km s-1 above the solid line, i.e., 2.1$`\sigma `$ from the mean relationship. Most of the galaxies above the $`+61`$ (1$`\sigma `$) dashed lines are non-members (NGC 3109, Sex A, Sex B, GR 8), but not all: Leo I, in particular, is in a very similar location in this diagram. Measurements of the tip of the red giant branch (Lee et al. 1993) however firmly establish the distance of this galaxy as 270 kpc, about one-tenth one would infer from just its velocity. (The galaxy’s peculiar velocity is due to its proximity to the Milky Way.) While we don’t expect that HIZSS 3 to be equally close, as that would be inconsistent with both the properties of the H II region and the 21-cm width relative to the H I flux, its membership in the Local Group can not be ruled out on the basis of the current data. We conclude that HIZSS 3 is unlikely to be a member of the Local Group based upon its velocity, but emphasize the need for a better distance estimate.

Van den Bergh (2000) discusses galaxies on the outer fringes of the Local Group, and argues that Sextans A, Sextans B, NGC 3109, and Antlia form the nearest external group of galaxies beyond the Local Group (see also van den Bergh 1999). HIZSS 3 may be at a similar distance and does fall similarly above the LG relation in Fig. 5. However, HIZSS 3 is located 46-49 from these galaxies, or about 1 Mpc away in linear space. This is about twice as far as the separation between Sextans A and NGC 3109. We do not know very much about the characteristics of such small groups, and it seems conceivable, but unlikely, that HIZSS 3 is native to this group. The identification of other nearby galaxies in this region would be illuminating.

Followup observations of HIZSS 3 are planned for the next observing season. Of key interest will be the detection of its resolved stellar population, identification of other H II regions (if any), and the determination of nebular chemical abundances. (Spectroscopy of the nebula potentially will lead to an improved reddening estimate.) Measurements of an accurate distance would best be determined in the infrared from the tip of the red giant branch, as finding Cepheids (which vary most in the blue) will be greatly hindered by foreground extinction.

We are thankful to Deidre Hunter for useful discussions, and for helpful correspondence with Sidney van den Bergh. We also thank Andrew Rivers for the VLA images, which originally appeared in his Ph. D. thesis. The Kitt Peak director, Richard Green, kindly allowed us to make use of the first hour of an engineering night on the 2.1-m to obtain our optical spectrum, and we gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Jim DeVeny and Ed Eastburn in obtaining that observation. PM’s role in this project was supported by the National Science Foundation through grant AST0093060.


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# Wavelets in Momentum-Space Scattering Calculations

## Abstract

We demonstrate that wavelet bases have features that make them advantageous for solving momentum-space scattering integral equations. Using the example of two nucleons interacting with the Malfliet-Tjon V interaction, we show it is possible to reduce the size of the matrix representation of the Lippmann-Scwhinger equation by 96% with a loss of accuracy of only a few parts in a million. We also demonstrate that wavelet methods provide an accurate means for treating the singularities that appear in the scattering integral equations.

We show that the use of Daubechies’  wavelet bases for solving momentum-space scattering integral equations  leads to sparse matrices which simplify the numerical solution. The method is tested on nucleon-nucleon scattering with a Malfliet-Tjon V  potential. The results of the test calculations indicate that a significant reduction in computational size can be achieved for realistic few-body scattering calculations.

The motivation for this work is that accurate relativistic few-body calculations are important for the few-body program at TJNAF. These calculations are naturally formulated in momentum-space because of the need to include momentum-dependent Wigner and/or Melosh rotations, and the nonlinear relation between mass and energy in relativistic theories. The computational disadvantage of momentum-space scattering integral equations is that the kernels are represented by large dense matrices and the computation of the matrix elements involves singular integrals. Our work indicates that if the solutions of the integral equations are represented as expansions in a wavelet basis then the resulting kernel can be expressed as the sum of a sparse matrix and a matrix with small norm. Setting the small matrix to zero leads to an accurate approximation. The density of the non-zero matrix elements of the sparse matrix representation of the s-wave Malfliet-Tjon V K-matrix kernel is illustrated in the two-dimensional plot in fig 1.

The Daubechies wavelets have many features of a spline basis; the basis functions have compact support and finite linear combinations of the basis functions can (pointwise) locally represent polynomials. Unlike the spline basis, the wavelet basis functions are orthonormal, and there is an automatic method for determining the most important basis elements for a given calculation. The wavelet basis functions also have natural quadrature rules that lead to efficient methods for calculating kernel matrix elements. There is a robust wavelet-based method to accurately and efficiently compute the singular integrals that arise in momentum space-scattering calculations.

While wavelets are used extensively in signal processing, they have not been used as much in numerical analysis. Part of the reason for this is that the wavelet basis is related by a simple orthogonal transformation to the solution of a linear renormalization group equation. The solution of this equation, which is called the scaling function, has a fractal structure, having structure on all scales. This fractal structure also appears in the wavelet basis functions and limits the applicability of numerical methods which assume that functions are smooth on a sufficiently small scale. The structure of the Daubechies wavelet and scaling function of order three are shown in fig 2.

Nevertheless, we show that the renormalization group equation provides a robust tool for developing alternative methods of numerical computation which overcome all of the difficulties that result from the fractal structure .

Our calculation of the $`K`$-matrix for a Malfliet-Tjon interaction has the property that if the smallest 96% of the matrix elements in the kernel of the numerical representation of the Lippmann-Schwinger equation are set to zero, the mean square error is only a few parts in a million. This allows for the replacement of the kernel matrix by a sparse matrix. We have also developed methods to limit the amount of storage necessary to transform the original equation to this sparse-matrix representation. These preliminary results strongly suggest that wavelet methods have many advantages for the numerical treatment of momentum space scattering equations.