text:
# Galactic Winds: Near and Far

## 1. Introduction

Galactic winds that extend on a scale comparable to the host galaxies are now known to be a common feature both locally and at high redshifts. These winds are significant carriers of mass, momentum, and energies that may impact the formation and evolution of the host galaxies and the surrounding intergalactic medium. Given the scope of this conference, the present review focusses exclusively on starburst-driven winds. AGN-driven galactic winds, perhaps a very important phenomenon in the lives of galaxies with spheroids (Kormendy & Gebhardt 2001), are not discussed here (see, e.g., Veilleux et al. 2002a for a recent review of this topic). Due to space limitations, the emphasis of this review is on the recent ($`>`$ 1998) literature. Readers interested in results from earlier studies may refer to the reviews by Strickland (2002) and Heckman (2002).

First, the basic physics of starburst-driven winds is described briefly in §2. An observational summary of the properties of local winds is given in the preamble to §3. The remainder of §3 describes detailed data on three well-studied cases of local starburst-driven winds, and summarizes the evidence for winds in luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies and distant Lyman break galaxies. This section often emphasizes the importance of using multiwavelength data to draw a complete picture of this complex multi-phase phenomenon. The impact of starburst-driven winds on the host galaxies and their environment is discussed briefly in §4. Here the focus of the discussion is on the existence and properties of the wind fluid and on the size of the “zone of influence” of these winds. A summary is given in §5.

## 2. Basic Physics

The driving force behind starburst-driven winds is the mechanical energy from stellar winds and supernova events (e.g., Chevalier & Clegg 1985). This mechanical energy is quickly thermalized to produce a hot cavity with a temperature $`10^8\mathrm{\Lambda }^1`$ K, where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=M_{\mathrm{t}otal}/M_{\mathrm{e}jecta}1`$ is the mass-loading term. This over-pressured cavity expands through the ambient medium, sweeping this material up in the process to produce a bubble-like structure. The complex interaction between the wind and the ISM of the host galaxy has been the subject of several numerical simulations (e.g., MacLow & McCray 1988; Suchkov et al. 1994, 1996; MacLow & Ferrara 1999; D’Ercole & Brighenti 1999; Strickland & Stevens 2000; Silich & Tenorio-Tagle 2001). If radiative energy losses are negligible (probably a good assumption in some objects; e.g., Heckman et al. 2001), the bubble expands adiabatically through the galaxy ISM with a velocity $`100n_0^{0.2}\dot{E}_{42}^{0.2}t_7^{0.4}`$ km s-1, where $`n_0`$ is the ambient nucleon density in cm-3, $`\dot{E}_{42}`$ is the rate of deposition of mechanical energy in 1042 erg s-1, and $`t_7`$ is the age of the bubble in 107 years (e.g., Weaver et al. 1977).

A powerful starburst may inject enough energy to produce a cavity of hot gas that can burst out of the disk ISM, at which point the dense walls of the bubble start accelerating outward, become Rayleigh-Taylor unstable, and break up into cloudlets and filaments. If halo drag is negligible (probably not a good assumption in general), the wind fluid may reach terminal velocities as high as $``$ 3000 $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^1`$ km s-1, well in excess of the escape velocity of the host galaxy. In contrast, the terminal velocities of clouds accelerated by the wind are more modest, of order $`600\dot{p}_{34}^{0.5}\mathrm{\Omega }_w^{0.5}r_{0,\mathrm{kpc}}N_{\mathrm{cloud},21}^{0.5}`$, where $`\dot{p}_{34}`$ is the wind momentum flux in 1034 dynes, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_W`$ is the solid angle of the wind in steradians, $`r_{0,\mathrm{kpc}}`$ is the initial position of the cloud in kpc, and $`N_{\mathrm{cloud},21}`$ is the column density of the cloud in 1021 cm-2 (Strel’nitskii & Sunyaev 1973; Heckman et al. 2000).

A critical quantity in all of these calculations is the thermalization efficiency, or the percentage of the mechanical energy from the starburst that goes into heating the gas. Unfortunately, this quantity is poorly constrained observationally. Most simulations assume a thermalization efficiency of 100%, i.e. none of the energy injected by the starburst is radiated away. In reality, this efficiency depends critically on the environment, and is likely to be significantly less than 100% in the high-density environment of powerful nuclear starbursts (e.g., Thornton et al. 1998; Strickland & Stevens 2000; Silich, Tenorio-Tagle, & Muñoz-Tuñón 2003). Galactic magnetic fields may also “cushion” the effects of the starburst on the ISM, and reduce the impact of the galactic wind on the host galaxy and its environment (e.g., Tomisaka 1990; Ferrière et al. 1991; Slavin & Cox 1992; Mineshinge et al. 1993; Ferrière 1998).

## 3. Observed Properties of Galactic Winds

A great number of surveys have provided important statistical information on galactic winds in the local universe (e.g., Heckman, Armus, & Miley 1990; Veilleux et al. 1995; Lehnert & Heckman 1995, 1996; Gonzalez Delgado et al. 1998; Heckman et al. 2000, Rupke, Veilleux, & Sanders 2002, 2003, in prep.). Galaxy-scale winds are common among galaxies with global star formation rates per unit area $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}SFR/\pi R_{\mathrm{opt}}^2>0.1`$ M yr-1 kpc-2, where $`R_{\mathrm{opt}}`$ is the optical radius. This general rule-of-thumb also appears to apply to ultra/luminous infrared galaxies (see §3.3) and distant Lyman break galaxies (see §3.4). “Quiescent” galaxies with global star formation rates per unit area below this threshold often show signs of galactic fountaining in the forms of warm, ionized extraplanar material a few kpc above or below the galactic disks (e.g., Miller & Veilleux 2003a, 2003b and references therein). The energy input from stellar winds and supernovae in these objects elevates some of the ISM above the disk plane, but is not sufficient to produce large-scale winds.

This rule-of-thumb is conservative since a number of known wind galaxies, including our own Galaxy (§3.1) and several dwarf galaxies, have $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}<<`$ 0.1 M yr-1 kpc-2 (e.g., Hunter & Gallagher 1990, 1997; Meurer et al. 1992; Marlowe et al. 1995; Kunth et al. 1998; Martin 1998, 1999; see Kunth’s and Martin’s contributions at this conference). The production of detectable winds probably depends not only on the characteristics of the starburst (global and local $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}`$, starburst age), but also on the detailed properties of the ISM in the host galaxies (e.g., see the theoretical blowout criterion of MacLow & McCray 1988).

The winds in actively star-forming galaxies in the local universe show a very broad range of properties, with opening angles of $``$ 0.1 – 0.5 $`\times `$ (4$`\pi `$ sr), radii ranging from $`<`$ 1 kpc to several 10s of kpc, outflow velocities of a few 10s of km s-1 to more than 1000 km s-1 (with clear evidence for a positive correlation with the temperature of the gas phase), total (kinetic and thermal) outflow energies of $``$ 1053 – 1057 ergs or 5 – 20% of the total mechanical energy returned to the ISM by the starburst, and mass outflow rates ranging from $`<`$ 1 M yr-1 to $`>`$ 100 M and scaling roughly with the star formation rates (see §3.3 below).

In the remainder of this section, we discuss a few well-studied cases of galactic winds in the local universe and summarize the evidence for winds in luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies at low and moderate redshifts as well as in distant Lyman break galaxies.

### 3.1. The Milky Way

By far the closest case of a large-scale outflow is the wind in our own Galaxy. Evidence for a dusty bipolar wind extending $``$ 350 pc ($``$ 1) above and below the disk of our Galaxy has recently been reported by Bland-Hawthorn & Cohen (2003) based on data from the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX). The position of the warm dust structure coincides closely with the well-known Galactic Center Lobe detected at radio wavelengths (e.g., Sofue 2000 and references therein). Simple arguments suggest that the energy requirement for this structure is of order $``$ 1055 ergs with a dynamical time scale of $``$ 1 Myr.

Bland-Hawthorn & Cohen (2003) also argue that the North Polar Spur, a thermal X-ray/radio loop that extends from the Galactic plane to $`b=+80^{}`$ (e.g., Sofue 2000), can naturally be explained as an open-ended bipolar wind, when viewed in projection in the near field. This structure extends on a scale of 10 – 20 kpc and implies an energy requirement of $``$ (1 – 30) $`\times `$ 1055 ergs and a dynamical timescale of $``$ 15 Myr, i.e. considerably longer than that of the smaller structure seen in the MSX maps. If confirmed, this may indicate that the Milky Way Galaxy has gone through multiple galactic wind episodes. Bland-Hawthorn & Cohen (2003) point out that the North Polar Spur would escape detection in external galaxies; it is therefore possible that the number of galaxies with large-scale winds has been (severely?) underestimated.

### 3.2. Nearby Starburst Galaxies

Two classic examples of starburst-driven outflows are described in this section to illustrate the wide variety of processes taking place in these objects.

M 82. This archetype starburst galaxy hosts arguably the best studied galactic wind. Some of the strongest evidence for the wind is found at optical wavelengths, where long-slit and Fabry-Perot spectroscopy of the warm ionized filaments above and below the disk shows line splittings of up to $``$ 250 km s-1, corresponding to deprojected velocities of order 525 – 655 km s-1 (e.g., McKeith et al. 1995; Shopbell & Bland-Hawthorn 1998). Combining these velocities with estimates for the ionized masses of the outflowing filamentary complex, the kinetic energy involved in the warm ionized outflow is of order $``$ 2 $`\times `$ 1055 ergs or $``$ 1% of the total mechanical energy input from the starburst. The ionized filaments are found to lie on the surface of cones with relatively narrow opening angles ($``$ 5 – 25) slightly tilted ($``$ 5 – 15) with respect to the spin axis of the galaxy. Deep narrow-band images of M82 have shown that the outflow extends out to at least 12 kpc on one side (e.g., Devine & Bally 1999), coincident with X-ray emitting material seen by $`ROSAT`$ (Lehnert, Heckman, & Weaver 1999) and $`XMM`$-Newton (Stevens, Read, & Bravo-Guerrero 2003). The wind fluid in this object has apparently been detected by both $`CXO`$ (Griffiths et al. 2000) and $`XMM`$-Newton (Stevens et al. 2003). The well-known H I complex around this system (e.g., Yun et al. 1994) may be taking part, and perhaps even focussing, the outflow on scales of a few kpc (Stevens et al. 2003). Recently published high-quality CO maps of this object now indicate that some of the molecular material in this system is also involved in the large-scale outflow (Walter, Weiss, & Scoville 2002; see also Garcia-Burillo et al. 2001). The outflow velocities derived from the CO data ($``$ 100 km s-1 on average) are considerably lower than the velocities of the warm ionized gas, but the mass involved in the molecular outflow is substantially larger ($``$ 3 x 108 M), implying a kinetic energy ($``$ 3 $`\times `$ 1055 ergs) that is comparable if not larger than that involved in the warm ionized filaments. The molecular gas is clearly a very important dynamical component of this outflow.

NGC 3079.  An outstanding example of starburst-driven superbubble is present in the edge-on disk galaxy, NGC 3079. High-resolution $`HST`$ H$`\alpha `$ maps of this object show that the bubble is made of four separate bundles of ionized filaments (Cecil et al. 2001). The two-dimensional velocity field of the ionized bubble material derived from Fabry-Perot data (Veilleux et al. 1994) indicates that the ionized bubble material is entrained in a mushroom vortex above the disk with velocities of up to $``$ 1500 km s-1 (Cecil et al. 2001). A recently published X-ray map obtained with the $`CXO`$ (Cecil, Bland-Hawthorn, & Veilleux 2002) reveals excellent spatial correlation between the hot X-ray emitting gas and the warm optical line-emitting material of the bubble, suggesting that the X-rays are being emitted either as upstream, standoff bow shocks or by cooling at cloud/wind conductive interfaces. This good spatial correlation between the hot and warm gas phases appears to be common in galactic winds (Strickland et al. 2000, 2002; Veilleux et al. 2003, and references therein). The total energy involved in the outflow of NGC 3079 appears to be slightly smaller than that in M 82, although it is a lower limit since the total extent of the X-ray emitting material beyond the nuclear bubble of NGC 3079 is not well constrained (Cecil et al. 2002). Contrary to M 82, the hot wind fluid that drives the outflow in NGC 3079 has not yet been detected, and evidence for entrained molecular gas is sparse and controversial (e.g., Irwin & Sofue 1992; Baan & Irwin 1995; Israel et al. 1998; but see Koda et al. 2002).

### 3.3. Luminous and Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies.

Given that the far-infrared energy output of a (dusty) galaxy is a direct measure of its star formation rate, it is not surprising a posteriori to find evidence for large-scale galactic winds in several luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs and ULIRGs; e.g., Heckman et al. 1990; Veilleux et al. 1995). Systematic searches for winds have been carried out in recent years in these objects to look for the unambiguous wind signature of blueshifted absorbing material in front of the continuum source (Heckman et al. 2000; Rupke et al. 2002). The feature of choice to search for outflowing neutral material in galaxies of moderate redshifts ($`z<`$ 0.6) is the Na ID interstellar absorption doublet at 5890, 5896 Å. The wind detection frequency derived from a set of 44 starburst-dominated LIRGs and ULIRGs is high, of order $``$ 70 – 80% (Rupke et al. 2002, 2003 in prep.; also see Rupke’s and Martin’s contributions at this conference). The outflow velocities reach values in excess of 1700 km s-1 (even more extreme velocities are found in some AGN-dominated ULIRGs).

A simple model of a mass-conserving free wind (details of the model are given in Rupke et al. 2002) is used to infer mass outflow rates in the range $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{tot}}`$(H)$`=\mathrm{f}ew120`$ for galaxies hosting a wind. These values of $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{tot}}`$, normalized to the corresponding global star formation rates inferred from infrared luminosities, are in the range $`\eta \dot{M}_{\mathrm{tot}}/\mathrm{SFR}=0.011`$. The parameter $`\eta `$, often called the “mass entrainment efficiency” or “reheating efficiency” shows no dependence on the mass of the host (parameterized by host galaxy kinematics and absolute $`R`$\- and $`K^{}`$-band magnitudes), but there is a possible tendency for $`\eta `$ to decrease with increasing infrared luminosities (i.e. star formation rates). The large molecular gas content in ULIRGs may impede the formation of large-scale winds and reduce $`\eta `$ in these objects. A lower thermalization efficiency (i.e. higher radiative efficiency) in these dense gas-rich systems may also help explain the lower $`\eta `$ (Rupke et al. 2003, in prep.; see Rupke’s contribution at this conference).

### 3.4. Lyman Break Galaxies

Evidence for galactic winds has now been found in a number of z $``$ 3 – 5 galaxies, including an important fraction of Lyman break galaxies (LBGs; e.g., Franx et al. 1997; Pettini et al. 2000, 2002; Frye, Broadhurst, & Benitez 2002; Dawson et al. 2002; Ajiki et al. 2002; Adelberger et al. 2003; Shapley et al. 2003). The best studied wind at high redshift is that of the gravitationally lensed LBG MS 1512-cB58 (Pettini et al. 2000, 2002). An outflow velocity of $``$ 255 km s-1 is derived in this object, based on the positions of the low-ionization absorption lines relative to the rest-frame optical emission lines (Ly$`\alpha `$ is to be avoided for this purpose since resonant scattering and selective dust absorption of the Ly$`\alpha `$ photons may severely distort the profile of this line; e.g., Tenorio-Tagle et al. 1999). The mass-conserving free wind model of Rupke et al. (2002) applied to MS 1512-cB58 (for consistency) results in a mass outflow rate of $``$ 20 $`M_{}`$ yr-1, equivalent to about 50% the star formation rate of this galaxy based on the dust-corrected UV continuum level. Similar outflow velocities are derived in other LBGs (Pettini et al. 2001). The possibly strong impact of these LBG winds on the environment at high $`z`$ is discussed in the next section (§4.2).

## 4. Implications

Starburst-driven winds may have a strong influence on structure formation at high redshifts, on the “porosity” of star-forming galaxies (i.e. the probability for ionizing photons to escape their host galaxies), hence the nature of the extragalactic UV and infrared background, and on the chemical and thermal evolution of galaxies and their environment. Due to space limitations, this review only addresses the last issue.

### 4.1. Heating and Enrichment of the ISM and IGM

Hot Metal-Enriched Gas. Nuclear starbursts inject both mechanical energy and metals in the centers of galaxies. This hot, chemically-enriched material, the driving engine of galactic winds, is eventually deposited on the outskirts of the host galaxies, and contributes to the heating and metal enrichment of galaxy halos and the IGM. Surprisingly little evidence exists for the presence of this enriched wind fluid. This is due to the fact that the wind fluid is tenuous and hot and therefore very hard to detect in the X-rays. The current best evidence for the existence of the wind fluid is found in M 82 (Griffiths et al. 2000; Stevens et al. 2003), NGC 1569 (Martin, Kobulnicky, & Heckman 2002), and possibly the Milky Way (e.g., Koyama et al. 1989; Yamauchi et al. 1990). The ratio of alpha elements to iron appears to be slightly super-solar in the winds of both NGC 1569 and M 82, as expected if the stellar ejecta from SNe II are providing some, but not all of the wind fluid.

Selective Loss of Metals.  The outflow velocities in LIRGs and ULIRGs do not appear to be correlated with the rotation velocity (or equivalently, the escape velocity) of the host galaxy, implying selective loss of metal-enriched gas from shallower potentials (Heckman et al. 2000; Rupke et al. 2002). If confirmed over a broader range of galaxy masses (e.g., Martin 1999; but see the contribution by Martin at this conference for a word of warning), this result may help explain the mass-metallicity relation and radial metallicity gradients in elliptical galaxies and galaxy bulges and disks (e.g., Bender, Burstein, & Faber 1993; Franx & Illingworth 1990; Carollo & Danziger 1994; Zaritsky et al. 1994; Trager et al. 1998). The ejected gas may also contribute to the heating and chemical enrichment of the ICM in galaxy clusters (e.g., Dupke & Arnaud 2001; Finoguenov et al. 2002, and references therein).

Dust Outflows. Galactic winds also act as conveyor belts for the dust in the hosts. The evidence for a large-scale dusty outflow in our own Galaxy has already been mentioned in §3.1 (Bland-Hawthorn & Cohen 2003). Far-infrared maps of external galaxies with known galactic winds show extended dust emission along the galaxy minor axis, suggestive of dust entrainment in the outflow (e.g., Hughes, Gear, & Robson 1994; Alton et al. 1998, 1999; Radovich, Kahanpää, & Lemke 2001). Direct evidence is also found at optical wavelengths in the form of elevated dust filaments in a few galaxies (e.g., NGC 1808, Phillips 1993; NGC 3079, Cecil et al. 2001). A strong correlation between color excesses, $`E(BV)`$, and the equivalent widths of the blueshifted low-ionization lines in star-forming galaxies at low (e.g., Armus, Heckman, & Miley 1989; Veilleux et al. 1995; Heckman et al. 2000; Rupke et al. 2003) and moderate-to-high redshifts (e.g., Rupke et al. 2003; Shapley et al. 2003) provides additional support for the prevalence of dust outflows. Assuming a Galactic dust-to-gas ratio, Heckman et al. (2000) estimate that the dust outflow rate is about 1% of the total mass outflow rate in LIRGs. Dust ejected from galaxies may help feed the reservoir of intergalactic dust (e.g., Coma cluster; Stickel et al. 1998).

### 4.2. Zone of Influence of Winds

The impact of galactic winds on the host galaxies and the environment depends sensitively on the size of the “zone of influence” of these winds, i.e. the region affected either directly (e.g., heating, metals) or indirectly (e.g., ionizing radiation) by these winds. This section summarizes the methods used to estimate this quantity.

Indirect Measurements based on Estimates of the Escape Velocity. The true extent of galactic winds is difficult to determine in practice due to the steeply declining density profile of both the wind material and the host ISM. The zone of influence of galactic winds is therefore often estimated using indirect means which rely on a number of assumptions. A popular method is to use the measured velocity of the outflow and compare it with the local escape velocity derived from some model for the gravitational potential of the host galaxy. If the measured outflow velocity exceeds the predicted escape velocity and if the halo drag is negligible, then the outflowing material is presumed to escape the host galaxy and be deposited in the IGM on scales $`>`$ 50 – 100 kpc. This method was used for instance by Rupke et al. (2002) to estimate the average escape fraction $`f_{\mathrm{esc}}\dot{M}_{\mathrm{esc}}^i/\dot{M}_{\mathrm{tot}}^i`$ and “ejection efficiency” $`\delta \dot{M}_{\mathrm{esc}}^i/\mathrm{SFR}^i`$ for 12 ULIRGs, which were found to be $`0.40.5`$ and $`0.1`$, respectively. These calculations assumed that the host galaxy could be modeled as a singular isothermal sphere truncated at some radius $`r_{\mathrm{max}}`$. Neither the escape fraction nor the ejection efficiency were found to be sensitive to the exact value of $`r_{\mathrm{max}}`$. Other strong cases for escaping material include the “H$`\alpha `$ cap” of M 82 and the $``$ 1500 km s-1 line-emitting material in the superbubble of NGC 3079; both objects were discussed in §3.2.

Note that the outflow velocities measured by Rupke et al. (2002) refer to the neutral component of the outflow, not the hot enriched wind fluid. Unfortunately, direct measurements of the wind velocity are not yet technically possible so one generally relies on the expected terminal velocity of an adiabatic wind at the measured X-ray temperature $`T_X`$ \[$`v_X(5KT_X/\mu )^{0.5}`$, where $`\mu `$ is the mean mass per particle\] to provide a lower limit to the velocity of the wind fluid (this is a lower limit because it only takes into account the thermal energy of this gas and neglects any bulk motion; e.g., Chevalier & Clegg 1985; Martin 1999; Heckman et al. 2000).

Arguably the single most important assumption made to determine the fate of the outflowing gas is that halo drag is negligible. Silich & Tenorio-Tagle (2001) have argued that halo drag may severely limit the extent of the wind and the escape fraction. Drag by a dense halo or a complex of tidal debris may be particularly important in ULIRGs if they are created by galaxy interactions (e.g., Veilleux, Kim, & Sanders 2002b).

Deep X-ray and Optical Maps of Local Starbursts. The fundamental limitation in directly measuring the zone of influence of winds is the sensitivity of the instruments. Fortunately, $`CXO`$ and $`XMM`$-Newton now provide powerful tools to better constrain the extent of the hot medium (e.g., M 82, Stevens et al. 2003; NGC 3079, Cecil et al. 2002; NGC 6240, Komossa et al. 2003; Veilleux et al. 2003; NGC 1511, Dahlem et 2003). The reader should refer to the contribution of M. Ehle at this conference for a summary of recent X-ray results (see also Strickland et al. 2003 and references therein).

The present discussion focusses on optical constraints derived from the detection of warm ionized gas on the outskirts of wind hosts. Progress in this area of research has been possible thanks to advances in the fabrication of low-order Fabry-Perot etalons which are used as tunable filters to provide monochromatic images over a large fraction of the field of view of the imager. The central wavelength (3500 Å – 1.0 $`\mu `$m) is tuned to the emission-line feature of interest and the bandwidth (10 – 100 Å) is chosen to minimize the sky background. Continuum and emission-line images are produced nearly simultaneously thanks to a “charge shuffling/frequency switching” mode, where the charges are moved up and down within the detector at the same time as switching between two discrete frequencies with the tunable filter, therefore averaging out temporal variations associated with atmospheric lines and transparency, seeing, instrument and detector instabilities. The narrow-band images are obtained in a straddle mode, where the off-band image is made up of a pair of images that “straddle” the on-band image in wavelength (e.g., $`\lambda _1`$ = 6500 Å and $`\lambda _2`$ = 6625 Å for rest-frame H$`\alpha `$); this greatly improves the accuracy of the continuum removal since it corrects for slopes in the continuum and underlying absorption features.

These techniques have been used with the Taurus Tunable Filter (TTF; Bland-Hawthorn & Jones 1998; Bland-Hawthorn & Kedziora-Chudczer 2003) on the AAT and WHT to produce emission-line images of several “quiescent” disk galaxies (Miller & Veilleux 2003a) and a few starburst galaxies (Veilleux et al. 2003) down to unprecedented emission-line fluxes. Gaseous complexes or filaments larger than $``$ 20 kpc have been discovered or confirmed in a number of wind hosts (e.g., NGC 1482 and NGC 6240; the presence of warm ionized gas at $``$ 12 kpc from the center of M 82 was discussed in §3.2). Multi-line imaging and long-slit spectroscopy of the gas found on large scale reveal line ratios which are generally not H II region-like. Shocks often contribute significantly to the ionization of the outflowing gas on the outskirts of starburst galaxies. As expected from shock models (e.g., Dopita & Sutherland 1995), the importance of shocks over photoionization by OB stars appears to scale with the velocity of the outflowing gas (e.g., NGC 1482, NGC 6240, or ESO484-G036 versus NGC 1705; NGC 3079 is an extreme example of a shock-excited wind nebula; Veilleux et al. 1994), although other factors like the starburst age, star formation rate, and the dynamical state of the outflowing structure (e.g., pre- or post-blowout) must also be important in determining the excitation properties of the gas at these large radii (e.g., Shopbell & Bland-Hawthorn 1998 and Veilleux & Rupke 2002).

Influence of the Wind on Companion Galaxies. Companion galaxies located within the zone of influence of the wind will be affected by the wind ram pressure. Irwin et al. (1987) noticed that the dwarf S0 galaxy NGC 3073 exhibits an elongated H I tail that is remarkably aligned with the nucleus of NGC 3079. Irwin et al. have argued that ram pressure due to the outflowing gas of NGC 3079 is responsible for this tail. If that is the case, the wind of NGC 3079 must extent to at least $``$ 50 kpc. This is the only system known so far where this phenomenon is suspected to take place.

Absorption-Line Studies. Absorption-line spectroscopy of bright background galaxies (e.g., high-$`z`$ quasars, Lyman break galaxies) can provide direct constraints on the zone of influence of galactic winds. Norman et al. (1996) have used this method to estimate the extent of the wind in NGC 520. A strong and possibly complex Mg II, Mg I, and Fe II absorption-line system was found near the systemic velocity of NGC 520 at a distance from the galactic nucleus of 24 $`h^1`$ kpc. A weaker system at a distance of 52 $`h^1`$ kpc is also possibly present. Unfortunately, NGC 520 is undergoing a tidal interaction so the absorption may arise from tidally disrupted gas rather than material in the purported wind. Norman et al. also looked for absorption-line systems associated with the wind of NGC 253, but the proximity of this system to our own Galaxy and to the line of sight to the Magellanic Stream makes the identification of the absorption-line systems ambiguous. No other local wind galaxy has been studied using this technique.

Large absorption-line data sets collected on high-$`z`$ galaxies provide new constraints on the zone of influence of winds in the early universe. Adelberger et al. (2003) have recently presented tantalizing evidence for a deficit of neutral hydrogen clouds within a comoving radius of $``$ 0.5 $`h^1`$ Mpc from $`z3`$ LBGs. The uncertainties are large and the results are significant at less than the $``$ 2$`\sigma `$ level. Adelberger et al. (2003) argue that this deficit, if real, is unlikely to be due solely to the ionizing radiation from LBGs (e.g., Steidel et al. 2001; Giallongo et al. 2002). They favor a scenario in which the winds in LBGs directly influence the surrounding IGM. They also argue that the excess of absorption-line systems with large CIV column densities near LBGs is evidence for chemical enrichment of the IGM by the LBG winds.

## 5. Summary

Tremendous progress has been made over the past five years in understanding the physics and impact of starburst-driven winds in the local and distant universe. We now know that starburst-driven winds are common in galaxies with high star formation rates per unit area, both locally (nearby starbursts, luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies) and at high redshifts (e.g., Lyman break galaxies). There is direct evidence that starburst-driven winds have had a strong influence on the chemical evolution of the host ISM and possibly also that of the IGM: (1) Enriched wind fluid has been detected in a few nearby galaxies. (2) Approximately half of the outflowing material in powerful starburst galaxies (ULIRGs) have velocities in excess of the escape velocities. (3) Deep emission-line maps of local wind galaxies indicate that the zone of influence of the wind often extends beyond $``$ 10 kpc. (4) Recent results on Lyman break galaxies suggest tentatively that the zone of influence of LBG winds may extent out to $``$ 500 $`h^1`$ kpc. Nevertheless, much work remains to be done in this area of research; the next five years promise to be equally exciting as the last five!

#### Acknowledgments.

It is a pleasure to thank S. Aalto for organizing a stimulating conference. Some of the results presented in this paper are part of a long-term effort involving many collaborators, including J. Bland-Hawthorn, G. Cecil, P. L. Shopbell, and R. B. Tully and Maryland graduate students S. T. Miller and D. S. Rupke. This article was written while the author was on sabbatical at the California Institute of Technology and the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; the author thanks both of these institutions for their hospitality. The author acknowledges partial support of this research by a Cottrell Scholarship awarded by the Research Corporation, NASA/LTSA grant NAG 56547, and NSF/CAREER grant AST-9874973.

## References

Adelberger, K. L., et al. 2003, ApJ, 584, 45

Ajiki, M., et al. 2002, ApJ, 576, L25

Alton, P. B., Davies, J. I., & Bianchi, S. 1999, A&A, 343, 51

Alton, P. B., et al. 1998, ApJ, 507, L125

Armus, L., Heckman, T., & Miley, G. 1989, ApJ, 347, 727

Baan, W. A., & Irwin, J. A. 1995, ApJ, 446, 602

Bender, R., Burstein, D., & Faber, S. M. 1993, ApJ, 411, 153

Bland-Hawthorn, J., & Cohen, M. 2003, ApJ, 582, 246

Bland-Hawthorn, J., & Jones, D. H. 1998, PASA, 15, 44

Bland-Hawthorn, J. & Kedziora-Chudczer, L. 2003, PASA, in press (astro-ph/0305032)

Carollo, C. M., & Danziger, I. J. 1994, MNRAS, 270, 523

Cecil, G., Bland-Hawthorn, J., & Veilleux, S. 2002, ApJ, 576, 745

Cecil, G., et al. 2001, ApJ, 555, 338

Chevalier, R. A., & Clegg, A. W. 1985, Nature, 317, 44

Dahlem, M., et al. 2003, A&A, 403, 547

Dawson, S., et al. 2002, ApJ, 570, 92

D’Ercole, A., & Brighenti, F., 1999, MNRAS, 309, 941

Devine, D., & Bally, J. 1999, ApJ, 510, 197

Dopita, M. A., & Sutherland, R. S. 1995, ApJ, 455, 468

Dupke, R. A., & Arnaud, K. A. 2001, ApJ, 548, 141

Ferrière, K. 1998, ApJ, 503, 700

Ferrière, K. M., MacLow, M.-M., & Zweibel, E. G. ApJ, 375, 239

Finoguenov, A., et al. 2002, A&A, 381, 21

Franx, M., & Illingworth, G. 1990, ApJ, 359, L41

Franx, M., et al. 1997, ApJ, 486, L75

Frye, B., Broadhurst, T., & Benitez, N. 2002, ApJ, 568, 558

Garcia-Burillo, S., et al. 2001, ApJ, 563, L27

Giallongo, E., et al. 2002, ApJ, 568, L9

Gonzalez Delgado, R. M., et al. 1998, ApJ, 495, 698

Griffiths, R. E., et al. 2000, Science, 290, 1325

Heckman, T. M. 2002, in ASP Conf. Ser. 254, Extragalactic Gas at Low Redshift, eds. J. Mulchaey and J. Stocke (San Francisco: ASP), 292

Heckman, T. M., Armus, L., & Miley, G. K. 1990, ApJS, 74, 833

Heckman, T. M., et al. 2000, ApJS, 129, 493

—–. 2001, ApJ, 554, 1021

Hughes, D. H., Gear, W. K., & Robson, E. I. 1994, MNRAS, 270, 641

Hunter, D. A., & Gallagher, J. S. III 1990, ApJ, 362, 480

—–. 1997, ApJ, 475, 65

Irwin, J. A., & Sofue, Y. 1992, ApJ, 396, L75

Irwin, J. A, et al. 1987, ApJ, 313, L91

Israel, F. P., et al. 1998, A&A, 336, 433

Koda, J., et al. 2002, ApJ, 573, 105

Komossa, St., et al. 2003, ApJ, 582, L15

Kormendy, J., & Gebhardt, K. 2001, in the 20th Texas Symposium on relativistic astrophysics, Eds. J. Craig Wheeler and Hugo Martel, p.363

Koyama, K., et al. 1989, Nature, 339, 603

Kunth, D., et al. 1998, A&A, 334, 11

Lehnert, M. D., & Heckman, T. M. 1995, ApJS, 97, 89

—–. 1996, ApJ, 462, 651

Lehnert, M. D., Heckman, T. M., & Weaver, K. A. 1999, ApJ, 523, 575

MacLow, M.-M., & Ferrara, A. 1999, ApJ, 513, 142

MacLow, M.-M., & McCray, R. 1988, ApJ, 324, 776

Marlowe, A. T., et al. 1995, ApJ, 438, 285

Martin, C. L. 1998, ApJ, 506, 222

—–. 1999, ApJ, 513, 156

Martin, C. L., Kobulnicky, H. A., & Heckman, T. M. 2002, ApJ, 574, 663

McKeith, C. D., et al. 1995, A&A, 293, 703

Meurer, G. R., et al. 1992, AJ, 103, 60

Miller, S. T., & Veilleux, S. 2003a, ApJS, 148, 000

—–. 2003b, ApJ, 592, 79

Mineshige, S., Shibata, K., & Shapiro, P. 1993, ApJ, 409, 663

Norman, C. A., et al. 1996, ApJ, 472, 73

Pettini, M., et al. 2000, ApJ, 528, 96

—–. 2001, ApJ, 554, 981

—–. 2002, ApJ, 569, 742

Phillips, A. C. 1993, AJ, 105, 486

Radovich, M., Kahanpää, J., & Lemke, D. 2001, A&A, 377, 73

Rupke, D. S, Veilleux, S., & Sanders, D. B. 2002, ApJ, 570, 588

Shapley, A. E., et al. 2003, ApJ, 588, 65

Shopbell, P. L., & Bland-Hawthorn, J. 1998, ApJ, 493, 129

Silich, S. A., & Tenorio-Tagle, G. 2001, ApJ, 552, 91

Silich, S. Tenorio-Tagle, G., Muñoz-Tuñón, C. 2003, ApJ, 590, 791

Slavin, J. D., & Cox, D. P. 1992, ApJ, 392, 131

Sofue, Y. 2000, ApJ, 540, 224

Steidel, C. C., Pettini, M., & Adelberger, K. L. 2001, ApJ, 546, 665

Stevens, I. R., Read, A. M., & Bravo-Guerrero, J. 2003, MNRAS, preprint (astro-ph/0306334)

Stickel, M., et al. 1998, A&A, 329, 55

Strel’nitskii, V. S., & Sunyaev, R. 1973, Soviet Astron., 16, 579

Strickland, D. K. 2002, in ASP Conf. Ser. 253, Chemical Enrichment of the Intracluster and Intergalactic Medium, eds. R. Fusco-Femiano and F. Matteucci (San Francisco: ASP), 387

Strickland, D. K., Ponman, T. J., & Stevens, I. R. 1997, A&A, 320, 378

Strickland, D. K., & Stevens, I. R. 2000, MNRAS, 314, 511

Strickland, D. K., et al. 2000, AJ, 120, 2965

—–. 2002, ApJ, 568, 689

—–. 2003, ApJs, preprint (astro-ph/0306592)

Suchkov, A., et al. 1994, ApJ, 430, 511

Suchkov, A., et al. 1996, ApJ, 463, 528

Tenorio-Tagle, G., et al. 1999, MNRAS, 309, 332

Thornton, K., et al. 1998, ApJ, 500, 95

Tomisaka, K. 1990, ApJ, 361, L5

Trager, S. C., et al. 1998, ApJS, 116, 1

Veilleux, S., Kim, D.-C., & Sanders, D. B. 2002b, ApJS, 143, 315

Veilleux, S., & Rupke, D. S. 2002, ApJ, 565, L63

Veilleux, S., et al. 1994, ApJ, 433, 48

—–. 1995, ApJS, 98, 171

—–. 2002a, RMxAC, 13, 222

—–. 2003, AJ, in press (astro-ph/0308330)

Walter, F., Weiss, A., & Scoville, N. 2002, ApJ, 580, L21

Weaver, R., et al. 1977, ApJ, 218, 377

Yamauchi, S., et al. 1990, ApJ, 365, 532

Yun, M. S., Ho, P. T. P., & Lo, K. Y. 1994, Nature, 372, 530

Zaritsky, D., Kennicutt, R. C. Jr., & Huchra, J. P. 1994, ApJ, 420, 87


format: text

text:
# Structure and Dynamics of Stellar Winds in High-mass X-ray Binaries

## 1 Introduction

In wind-driven high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs), a neutron star or a black hole sweeps up a small fraction of a stellar wind lost by a massive O- or B-type companion star. As matter is accreted onto the compact object, a fraction of the gravitational potential energy is converted into X-rays, which then ionizes and heats the surrounding gas. The wind reprocesses hard X-rays from the compact object, resulting in discrete emission lines and continuum radiation that carries a wealth of information about the physical state of the reprocessing medium. The compact object can, therefore, be used as an illuminating source to probe the structure of the stellar wind and derive the physical parameters that characterize its nature.

In addition to heating and ionizing the stellar wind, the X-ray source is also responsible for dynamically affecting the wind through its intense gravitational field and by destroying ions with strong UV resonance transitions that drive the stellar outflow. These effects, in combination with the orbital motion of the binary system, also produce a “wake” that trails behind the compact object. In low-luminosity HMXBs, however, the degree of stellar wind disruption by the compact object is expected to produce only a minor perturbation to the observed X-ray spectrum. This is especially true when observed during eclipse, since many of the dynamical effects are produced primarily in the vicinity of the compact object.

ASCA observations of several HMXBs have shown that their X-ray spectra exhibit both soft X-ray emission from highly ionized ions and fluorescent lines from cold, less ionized material (Vela X-1 – Nagase et al. 1994; Cen X-3 – Ebisawa et al. 1996; GX301-2 – Saraswat et al. 1996). Although the dominant excitation mechanism (i.e., collisional or photoionization-driven) that is responsible for producing the soft X-ray lines cannot be determined unambiguously from these observations, cascades following recombination seemed to be the most natural candidate given the presence of an intense X-ray continuum radiation field. Subsequently, Liedahl & Paerels (1996) and Kawashima & Kitamoto (1996), for the first time, detected a narrow radiative recombination continuum (RRC) of S XVI in the ASCA spectrum of Cyg X-3, which provided unequivocal evidence that the lines from highly-ionized gas in Cyg X-3, and most likely in all HMXBs, are driven almost exclusively through photoionization.

The first physically-motivated modeling of the X-ray spectrum was presented by Sako et al. (1999) using the same ASCA spectrum of Vela X-1 originally published by Nagase et al. (1994). Sako et al. (1999) have argued that the presence of emission lines from both high-ionized and cold near-neutral material can be understood only if the wind is structurally inhomogeneous, consisting of cool dense clouds embedded in a hot, highly ionized medium. They characterized the wind velocity profile as derived by Castor, Abbott, & Klein (1975; hereafter, CAK),

$$v(r)=v_{\mathrm{}}\left(1\frac{R_{}}{r}\right)^\beta ,$$
(1)
where $`R_{}`$ is the radius of the companion star and $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the terminal velocity and $`\beta `$ is a number that typically lies in the range $`0.51.0`$ (Abbott 1986; Pauldrach, Puls, & Kudritzki 1986). The particle density is, then, uniquely specified everywhere in the wind for an assumed $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$, mass loss rate $`\dot{M}`$, and $`\beta `$ according to,

$$n(r)=\frac{\dot{M}}{4\pi r^2\mu m_pv_{\mathrm{}}}\left(1\frac{R_{}}{r}\right)^\beta .$$
(2)
and, hence, the ionization parameter $`\xi =L_X/(nr^2)`$ is also uniquely determined for a given X-ray luminosity. Here, $`r`$ is measured from the center of the companion star and $`\mu `$ is the average atomic mass unit of the constituent particles ($`\mu 1.3`$ for solar abundances). Using this relatively simple model for the wind dynamics, they were able to infer the velocity structure of the hot medium and the mass-loss rate associated with that component. They also estimated the total mass in the clouds through measurements of fluorescent line intensities, and concluded that the cold fluorescing material contains a large fraction of the total wind mass ($`>90\%`$), while most of the wind volume ($`>95\%`$) is occupied by highly ionized matter. According to this picture, the stellar wind in Vela X-1 is driven by UV radiation from the star that provides a driving force on the clumpy material, while the hot, ionized component is essentially transparent to UV radiation. Subsequently, Wojdowski, Liedahl, & Sako (2001) presented a detailed analysis of the X-ray spectrum of Cen X-3, which is on average more luminous than Vela X-1 by roughly an order of magnitude, and showed that the dense clumps that produce fluorescence lines in Vela X-1-like systems are more highly ionized in Cen X-3. The mass loss rate inferred from H- and He-like ions alone was consistent with those of normal isolated O stars.

While the most general characteristics of stellar winds in HMXBs were revealed using moderate spectral resolution data acquired with ASCA, there are still many outstanding issues that can only be addressed with high resolution spectroscopic data available from Chandra and XMM-Newton. The most significant improvement perhaps is the ability to study the dynamics of the X-ray emitting gas, which cannot be studied with the ASCA detectors, because line shifts and widths due to typical wind velocities of $`1000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ require a spectral resolving power an order of magnitude higher than that of CCDs ($`R`$ of at least $`300`$). Accurate column density measurements are also possible through measurements of line ratios of the He-like triplets and other transitions (Kinkhabwala et al. 2002). In the following sections, we discuss some of the recent advances made with observations of HMXBs with the grating spectrometers on Chandra and XMM-Newton.

## 2 Some General Spectral Properties of Individual Sources

Shown in Figure 2 are the Chandra HETGS spectra of four objects Cen X-3, Cyg X-3, Vela X-1, and GX301-2. As immediately evident from the figure, the general properties of both the continuum and line emission are vastly different among each of the sources. The spectrum of Cen X-3 (1st panel in Figure 2), which is a relatively high-lumonisity system ($`L_X10^{38}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$) containing a pulsar with a O 6-8 III companion, is completely dominated by continuum emission with a relatively low line-of-sight column density of cold material ($`N_\mathrm{H}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}10}^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2`$). The spectrum exhibits very weak absorption lines mostly from H-like ions with column densities of $`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}10}^{16}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. During eclipse, however, the spectrum is dominated almost entirely by line emission as presented by Wojdowski et al. (2003).

In Cyg X-3 (second panel in Figure 2), the emission line equivalent widths are larger (see, Paerels et al. 2000). This suggests that a substantial fraction of the continuum radiation is reprocessed by the wind, which implies that the product of the covering fraction and the column density of highly ionized material ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }\times N_i`$) is higher. Since the X-ray luminosities of Cyg X-3 and of Cen X-3 during these observations were similar, the observed differences in the line spectrum also suggest that the average density of the X-ray emission line regions in Cyg X-3 is higher. This is in qualitative agreement with the high mass-loss rate of the Wolf-Rayet companion and the compacteness of the binary system (van Kerkwijk 1995).

Local anisotropies in the distribution of absorbing material around the X-ray source can also affect the line equivalent widths. In the Vela X-1 spectrum (third panel in Figure 2), the observed continuum is highly absorbed while the lines longward of $`6`$Å have high equivalent widths. This implies that the emission line regions are illuminated by a continuum that is less absorbed than what we observe. In other words, the absorber that covers the continuum source along our line of sight does not block the emission line regions. As in Cen X-3, the spectrum of Vela X-1 during eclipse is also dominated by emission lines produced through photoionization of the extended stellar wind, as shown by Schulz et al. (2002).

The soft X-ray photons of GX301-2 (last panel in Figure 2) suffers extremely high intrinsic attentuation ($`N_H>\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}10}^{23}\mathrm{cm}^2`$). The weaknesses of the soft X-ray lines here suggest that both the line and continuum emission regions are absorbed, most likely by the same material. Also note the differences in the iron K$`\alpha `$ line equivalents widths. The more luminous systems (Cen X-3and Cyg X-3) with $`L_X10^{38}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ show much weaker lines compared to the less luminous systems (Vela X-1 and GX301-2), which have $`L_X10^{37}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

The X-ray light curves differ substantially among the various systems as well. Many sources contain pulsars, which show periodic modulations of with pulsed fractions of $`50`$% and higher. These systems also show flare-like events during which the luminosity variabilies by more than a factor of few on timescales as short as tens of seconds, mostly due to accretion instabilites as well as variable absorption on longer timescales (see Figure 3). On the other hand, there are systems like Cyg X-3, a black hole candidate, which generally exhibits a smooth X-ray light curve. The accretion behavior, therefore, appear to be significantly different from source to source.

## 3 Wind Dynamics

One of the most important improvements made by observations of HMXBs with Chandra and XMM-Newton is the ability to measure velocities down to a fraction of the terminal wind velocity. In many cases, the observed lines are resolved and show complex detailed structure as well as temporal behavior.

### 3.1 Line Profiles and P-Cygni Lines

The observed line profiles come in many different types as shown in Figure 4, and they provide valuable information not only about the dynamical properties of the emission line regions, but they are also sometimes useful for determining the dominant excitation mechanism as well. The top panel shows a pure emission profile as observed in Vela X-1. On the panel below is a P-Cygni line, which shows a broad emission feature with a weak absorption trough towards the blue. The emission component is much stronger than the absorption component, suggesting that recombination is the dominant line formation mechanism, since there is not enough continuum radiation to account for all the observed line photons via resonant fluorescence scattering. In the third panel111Cir X-1 is classified as a LMXB. We, however, show the spectrum here since it is the only LMXB system known that shows strong P-Cygni lines., however, the emission and absorption equivalent widths are comparable, which suggests that the emission component probably comes mostly from scattering of the continuum. This interpretation, however, can be ambiguous since similar profiles can also be generated in a recombination-dominated medium with a small covering fraction, thereby reducing only the emission component. The last panel, finally, shows a pure absorption line profile with very little re-emission. In this case, the absorber, which happens to lie along the observers’ line-of-sight, subtends only a small fraction of the sky as viewed from the X-ray continuum source.

### 3.2 Orbital-phase Variability

Vela X-1 was observed during three different orbital phases centered on $`\varphi =0.0,0.25`$, and $`0.50`$ with the Chandra HETGS and during $`\varphi =0.75`$ with XMM-Newton. The HETGS spectra shown in Figure 5 are easily compared with one another. The RGS spectrum is shown separately for clarity.

A comparison of the observed line spectra at $`\varphi =0.0`$ and $`0.5`$ is particularly interesting. Shown in Figure 6 are the spectra normalized to the peak of the Si XIII forbidden line and overlaid on top of each other. Apart from the velocity shifts (see Figure 7), the spectra look nearly identical with $`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}20}`$% difference in the fluxes of most of the lines. If anything, the $`\varphi =0.5`$ spectrum appears more highly-ionized as the Si XIV Ly$`\alpha `$ line is stronger and the Si near-neutral line complex is weaker. This is in direct contradiction to the spherically-symmetric wind model presented in Sako et al. (1999), who predicted that the differential emission measure distribution at $`\varphi =0.5`$ would be much softer (i.e., lower ionization) than during eclipse due to photoionization of more dense material near the stellar photosphere. The Chandra data instead show that there is a large difference only in the overall *normalization* of the distribution by roughly an order of magnitude with very little difference in the actual *s*hape. However, this is not a surprising result, as disruption of the stellar wind is expected to be most significant near the compact object, where both the gravitational and X-ray radiation field are high. A simple isolated wind model, therefore, are not applicable in these regions.

Geometrically, the fact that the emission line ratios at $`\varphi =0.0`$ and $`0.5`$ are similar implies that the spectrum emitted in the region blocked by the companion during eclipse (a cylinder roughly along the line of centers) is nearly identical to that of the rest of the wind. A smooth wind model characterized by a CAK velocity profile is ruled out for reasons stated above. Several simple models for the clump distribution can be ruled out immediately as well. First of all, a population of identical clumps distributed uniformly throughout the wind cannot explain this behavior, since clumps near the compact object will be more highly ionized. In addition, a distribution of clumps, whose densities are proportional to the surrounding local wind density (i.e., higher density clumps closer to the stellar surface; see Equ. 2), cannot reproduce the data either. In this case, we would expect to detect higher line fluxes from lower ionization species during $`\varphi =0.5`$, contrary to what is observed.

Assuming that the wind in the shadow cone does not emit a significant amount of X-ray line radiation, one expects that most of the wind as seen at $`\varphi =0.0`$ would be moving away from the observer emitting lines shifted towards the red. Similarly, then, lines observed during $`\varphi =0.5`$ should be blueshifted. Qualitatively this appears to be consistent with what is observed in Vela X-1 as shown in Figure 7. Quantitatively, however, they are inconsistent — the measured line shifts and widths are too small. First of all, the average line shifts of $`|v|300400\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ correspond to wind velocities at approximately $`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}20}`$% of the stellar radius from the photosphere, assuming a CAK profile given by Equ. 1 and ignoring projection effects. Second, the lines have widths of $`\sigma <\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}200}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and are only marginally resolved with the Chandra HEG. Finally, since most of the line photons observed during $`\varphi =0.5`$ come from a cylindrical region along the line of centers, the magnitude of the observed velocity shifts should have been larger than that at $`\varphi =0.0`$, because the wind material in this cylinder is moving right towards the observer at $`\varphi =0.5`$. In other words, the observed projected velocity of $`v200\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ is probably close to the true wind velocity of this material. One possibility is that X-ray photoionization inhibits UV driving of the wind and reduces the terminal velocity, in which case the wind is accelerated only up a certain velocity and coasts at a constant velocity (Hatchett & McCray 1977). Another possibility is that most of the emission does, in fact, come from a narrow radius interval near the surface of the companion. In either case, the similarity in the line ratios between the two phases is very difficult to understand.

Similar puzzling behavior has also been observed in a triple star system $`\delta `$ Ori A (O9.5 II + B0.5 III + early B; Miller et al. 2002) as well as in the isolated B0.2 star $`\tau `$ Sco (Cohen et al. 2003), which show X-ray line broadening only on the order of $`\sigma <\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}400}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. These are again a few times smaller than the terminal wind velocity, and are also smaller than those seen, for example, in a younger O4f star $`\zeta `$ Pup (Kahn et al. 2001; Cassinelli et al. 2001).

Miller et al. (2002) also report evidences against a simple spherically-symmetric wind through absorption line measurements in Cyg X-1. Using several orbital-phase resolved spectra of the source obtained with Chandra, they were able to qualitatively infer the mass distribution in the system that led them to conclude that the wind is focused along the line of centers, most likely through gravitational attraction by the compact object.

## 4 Fluorescence Line Spectroscopy

Another very important discovery that resulted from the availability of high resolution data is the detection and identification of K-shell silicon fluorescent lines from a wide range of charge states. Shown in Figure 9 is the HETG spectrum of Vela X-1 observed during $`\varphi =0.5`$. K-shell fluorescent lines from essentially all charge states are detected in this narrow wavelength range, which covers only a few resolution elements of a CCD spectrum. This forest of lines would appear as one narrow (Si XIV) and one broad feature (Si II \- XIII) as seen, for example, in the ASCA spectrum of Vela X-1 (see Sako et al. 1999).

Atomic calculations show that the strong line at $`\lambda =7.12`$ Å is an unresolved blend of K$`\alpha `$ lines from Si II to Si VI (fluorine-like). The first few charge states (Si II and III), however, probably do not exist in the wind of Vela X-1 due to the presence of a strong ionizing UV field from the companion star. From Si VII (oxygen-like) and higher, the K$`\alpha `$ line complex shifts by $`70`$ mÅ per charge state until Si XII (lithium-like), and, therefore, are well-resolved with the Chandra spectrometers.

Although detailed modeling of the Vela X-1 spectrum is still underway (Liedahl et al. 2003), it is already clear that this provides an extremely powerful spectroscopic tool for studying the structure of stellar winds. Since essentially all of the possible charge states are observed, the sum of the ion column densities yield the *a*bsolute total column density through the wind, which is sensitive to the total mass loss rate of the companion star. The column density distribution and the variability with orbital phase also allows us to infer the density spectrum and the clumping properties of the wind.

Finally, we note that accurate elemental abundance measurements are also possible with a well-exposed high-resolution spectrum. As shown in Figure 10, for example, emission lines produced under similar physical conditions (neutral fluorescence, in this case) are detected from multiple elements. Although the properties of the foreground as well as the embedded absorber may be rather complex, abundance ratios of elements with similar atomic number can nevertheless be constrained to within reasonable accuracy ($`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}50}`$%).

## 5 Compton-scattered Iron Line

The spectrum obtained during the PP observation of GX301-2 shows a spectacular broad feature that extends towards the redward side of the iron K$`\alpha `$line, which is identified as a Compton-scattered iron line in a low temperature medium. Compton-scattered iron lines have also been observed in the spectra of several Seyfert galaxies (references) but with much lower statistical significance. The spectrum of GX301-2 shown in Figure 11 contains $`6500`$ iron K$`\alpha `$ counts in the narrow component and $`2000`$ counts in the Compton shoulder.

The shape and flux of the Compton profile is sensitive to the electron column density and temperature of the scattering medium. The profile exhibits a rather sharp drop at $`2\lambda _C`$ from the center of the narrow line, which implies that the temperature cannot be much higher than $`5\mathrm{eV}`$.

A detailed analysis of the spectrum and its temporal variation is presented in Watanabe et al. (2003) using detailed Monte Carlo simulations of the line profile. It is found that the K$`\alpha `$ lines are scattered in the same medium where they are produced. The similarity in the column density inferred from both continuum absorption and the Compton profile suggests that this medium surrounds the X-ray source. The covering fraction of this medium with respect to the neutron star is estimated to be fairly large ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }/4\pi <\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}`$) from the measured equivalent widths of the emission line and the depth of the corresponding K-shell absorption edge.

Compton broadening can, of course, occur not only in emission lines, but in absorption lines as well. As in the emission line case, an intrinsically narrow absorption line produced in a Compton-thick medium will exhibit a broad red wing down to roughly twice the Compton wavelength. This effect might be relevant for understanding the absorption lines observed in Cyg X-1, which show asymmetric wings towards the longer wavelengths (see, bottom panel of Figure 4).

## 6 Future Work

High resolution spectroscopic data obtained with the grating spectrometers onboard Chandra and XMM-Newton have provided a dynamical view of the ionized stellar wind in HMXBs. It is clear, however, that much work remains to be done. In particular, detailed physical modeling of each of the individual sources is likely required to understand the wide variety of phenomenology observed in the data. Radiative transfer effects coupled with the wind dynamics may be relevant for interpreting the orbital phase variability of the line spectra seen in some sources. Other purely spectroscopic issues, such as the properties of the Si K fluorescent lines and the Compton recoil spectrum, must be studied in more detail to fully exploit the diagnostic capabilities of high resolution X-ray spectroscopy. Despite the different excitation mechanisms that dominate in HMXB systems and isolated OB stars, comparative studies of their X-ray spectra, particularly between similar spectral types, will be helpful for understanding the wind dynamics and how they are affected by the presence of the orbiting X-ray source. Although additional data will also certainly be helpful for understanding some of the questions raised with the present data, exploratory modeling will likely provide new insight into the physical nature and geometry of the circumsource media in HMXB systems.

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

MS was supported by NASA through Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship Award Number PF1-20016 issued by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and behalf of NASA under contract NAS8-39073. Work at LLNL was performed under the auspices of the U. S. Deparment of Energy by the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract No. W-7405-Eng-48. SW is grateful for the support by research fellowships of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for young Scientists.


text:
# Measuring geometric phases of scattering states in nanoscale electronic devices

## Abstract

We show how a new quantum property, a geometric phase, associated with scattering states can be exhibited in nanoscale electronic devices. We propose an experiment to use interference to directly measure the effect of the new geometric phase. The setup involves a double path interferometer, adapted from that used to measure the phase evolution of electrons as they traverse a quantum dot (QD). Gate voltages on the QD could be varied cyclically and adiabatically, in a manner similar to that used to observe quantum adiabatic charge pumping. The interference due to the geometric phase results in oscillations in the current collected in the drain when a small bias across the device is applied. We illustrate the effect with examples of geometric phases resulting from both Abelian and non-Abelian gauge potentials.

Nanoscale electronic devices can exhibit distinct quantum features such as interference schuster ; ji , entanglement bena , discrete charge kastner , the Aharonov-Bohm effect yacoby , and Berry’s phase berry . The effect of Berry’s phases associated with both Abelian and non-Abelian gauge potentials has found possible applications in quantum computation jones ; zanardi . In systems with discrete energy levels, Berry’s phase makes use of the adiabatic theorem schiff  and requires that the frequency of variation of parameters be much less than the energy level spacing. Berry’s phase has been demonstrated in a variety of microscopic sw89  as well as mesoscopic systems fazio .

A natural question arises as to whether or not there is a geometric phase accompanying a scattering state in a cyclic and adiabatic variation of external parameters which characterize an open system with a continuous energy spectrum. An important example of such scattering states are those present in a nanoscale electronic device coupled to electrical leads. This question has been addressed recently in the context of quantum adiabatic pumping of charge and spin in nanoscale electronic devices zhou1 . The latter is subject to intense study b98 , motivated by the experimental realization reported in the works of Marcus and co-workers switkes ; marcus . It was found that quantum adiabatic scattering provides another setting in which both Abelian and non-Abelian gauge potentials arise naturally. It was noticed that two gauge potentials may be defined in terms of the row and column vectors of instantaneous (frozen) scattering matrix, respectively. They are connected with each other via a time-reversal operation. Indeed, the scattering states associated with Hamiltonian accumulate geometric phases defined by the row vectors whereas the scattering states associated with the time-reversed Hamiltonian accumulate geometric phases defined by the column vectors. The connection between the geometric phases for the time-reversed scattering states and quantum adiabatic pumping was clarified in Ref.zhou1 . In fact, the same non-Abelian gauge field as that found by Moody et al. msw86  for a diatomic molecule also appears in an open system describing the tunneling from a scanning tunneling microscopic tip through a single magnetic spin zhou1 . However, it remains open how to experimentally observe the geometric phase for a scattering state itself.

In this Letter, we describe the general theory characterizing geometric phases for scattering states associated to a Hamiltonian with a continuous energy spectrum. A possible experimental setup utilizing nanoscale electronic devices is proposed to directly measure the effect of the geometric phases in an interference experiment. The experimental setup is similar to that used to measure the phase evolution of electrons as they traverse a QD, with some adaptation to accommodate the adiabatic variation of external parameters, e.g., gate voltages. It turns out that the geometric phase manifests itself in oscillations in the current collected in the drain when a small bias across the device is applied.

Consider an open quantum mechanical system characterized by the Hamiltonian $`H(t)`$ with a continuous energy spectrum, which undergoes an adiabatic evolution. By “adiabatic” we mean that the time particles “dwell” inside the scattering region is much shorter than the adiabatic period. Then the system is well described by the frozen instantaneous scattering matrix $`S(t)`$ thirring ; avron , which is a $`2N\times 2N`$ matrix, with $`N`$ the number of channels (such as spin) for the incoming and outgoing waves. Define vectors $`𝐧_\alpha =(S_{\alpha 1},\mathrm{},S_{\alpha ,2N})(\alpha =1,\mathrm{},N)`$ in terms of the rows of the scattering matrix. These vectors are orthonormal and so constitutes a smooth set of local bases. As the system undergoes an adiabatic and cyclic evolution and returns to the initial configuration, the interplay between the adiabatic (dynamic) evolution and the global geometric property implies that the row vectors $`𝐧_\alpha `$ acquire a geometric phase,

$$U=\mathrm{P}\mathrm{exp}(i\underset{\nu }{}A_\nu dV_\nu ),$$
(1)
where P denotes path ordering, $`A_{\alpha \beta \nu }=i𝐧_\beta ^{}_\nu 𝐧_\alpha `$ ($`_\nu /V_\nu `$) is the gauge potential, and $`V_\nu `$ are independent slowly varying external parameters. Here we emphasize that, unlike Berry’s phases, the causality condition plays an essential role, which states that scattered waves appear only after the incident wave hits the scatterer. Under the gauge transformation which mixes up scattering states from different channels $`𝐧_\alpha ^{}=_\beta \omega _{\alpha \beta }𝐧_\beta `$, the gauge potential defined by $`A=_\nu A_\nu dV_\nu `$ transforms as

$$A^{}=id\omega \omega ^1+\omega A\omega ^1.$$
(2)
That is, $`A`$ describes $`U(N)`$ gauge potentials arising from the superposition of different channel scattering states. As a special case, the Abelian gauge group $`U(1)`$ originates from the fact that the absolute phase is not observable in quantum mechanics. The adiabatic variation of the scattering potential $`V(x,t)`$ induces a local gauge transformation $`𝐧^{}=\mathrm{exp}(i\phi )𝐧`$ due to the time dependence of the phase $`\phi `$ in quantum mechanics.

Let us now turn to a specific proposal as to how to experimentally observe the effect of the geometric phase, in a mesoscopic electronic device. We emphasize that the theory presented here is not restricted to mesoscopic physics, but to any system described by scattering states with continuous energy spectrum. We also emphasize that, although (for reasons of concreteness) we consider a specific potential for a quantum dot, the general idea applies to scattering states in general. Consider a QD modeled by a potential $`V(x)`$ with $`x`$ denoting the coordinate (see Fig. 1A). For reasons of simplicity, we choose the potential $`V(x)`$ as $`0`$ for $`|x|a`$, $`V_1`$ for $`a<x<b`$, $`V_2`$ for $`|x|b`$, and $`V_3`$ for $`b<x<a`$. For a QD of size 800 nm (see Fig. 1), the energy level spacing is of the order of 4.5 meV. The Coulomb energy, assuming a dielectric constant of 10, is of the order of 0.08 meV. Thus, the dimension of the QD is such that the Coulomb energy is much less than the separation between the resonances and can be ignored. Also the spin-dependent scattering inside the QD is ignored. Then the instantaneous $`2\times 2`$ scattering matrix $`S(t)`$ for the QD is determined from the solution of the Schrödinger equation $`((\mathrm{}^2/2m)^2/x^2+V(x)E)\psi =0`$. Let $`r_{QD}`$ and $`t_{QD}`$ denote, respectively, the reflection and transmission coefficients of the QD for the left incident electron, and $`r_{QD}^{}`$ and $`t_{QD}^{}`$ denote, respectively, the reflection and transmission coefficients of the QD for the right incident electron, which are functions of the parameters of the QD. If the potential is mirror symmetric, i.e., $`V_1=V_3`$, then $`t_{QD}=t_{QD}^{}`$ and $`r_{QD}=r_{QD}^{}`$ and the geometric phase is trivial. Therefore, to observe a nontrivial geometric phase it is necessary to break the mirror symmetry of the potential. This implies that we have to choose $`V_1V_3`$.

Suppose we periodically and adiabatically vary independent external parameters $`V_1`$, $`V_2`$, and $`V_3`$. For instance, we can choose to adiabatically change $`V_1`$ and $`V_2`$ with $`V_3`$ kept constant, i.e., $`V_1=V_1^0+\mathrm{\Delta }V_1\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }t,V_2=V_2^0+\mathrm{\Delta }V_2[\mathrm{sin}(\delta +\mathrm{\Omega }t)\mathrm{sin}\delta ],V_3=V_3^0,(\mathrm{\Delta }V_{1,2}V_{1,2}^0)`$, with $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ being the slow frequency characterizing the adiabaticity and $`\delta `$ the phase difference. (The presence of an extra term $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_2\mathrm{sin}\delta `$ is only to ensure that the initial state is the same for all different contours.) In our case, this may be achieved by controlling the gate voltages such that the dwell time $`\tau _d`$ during which electrons scatter off the QD is much shorter than the period $`T=2\pi /\mathrm{\Omega }`$ during which the system completes the whole adiabatic cyclic process. In such a limit, electrons well-defined in the incident energy $`E`$ are scattered at a well-defined time $`t`$ as measured at large time scale by the adiabatic cycle period $`T`$, consistent with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. That is, it makes sense to speak of the instantaneous scattering matrix for electrons with a given incident energy. Then, in addition to the dynamic phase, the scattered waves accumulate a geometric phase factor $`e^{i\gamma }`$ during one cycle with $`\gamma `$ given using Eq.(1) for the $`U(1)`$ case. Now $`𝐧`$ denotes the row vector of the scattering matrix $`S`$, i.e., $`𝐧=(r_{QD},t_{QD})`$, so that

$$\gamma =r_{QD}^{}𝑑r_{QD}+t_{QD}^{}dt_{QD}=A_1𝑑V_1+A_2dV_2+A_3dV_3,$$
(3)
since $`r_{QD}`$ and $`t_{QD}`$ depend on any variables which vary during the cycle. Here we assume all $`V`$’s are changing with time. However, if any of them is kept constant the corresponding term disappear. In this case, the gauge transformation, Eq.(2), becomes

$$A^{}=Ad\phi .$$
(4)
The curvature defined by $`dA`$ is gauge invariant, which allows us to rewrite $`\gamma `$ in the form $`\gamma =𝑑A`$ using Stokes’ theorem, where the integral is over the area encircled by the contour. This implies the gauge invariance of the geometric phase. For the specific case when the variation is very small $`\gamma `$ is simply proportional to the area swept out in the parameter space. The geometric phase is plotted in Fig. 1B as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_1`$, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_2=0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_3`$ kept constant at $`V_3^0/10`$, and $`\delta =\pi /2`$. As we see, $`\gamma `$ behaves linearly as $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_1`$ changes, resulting from the fact that energy-dependent resonances on the QD are robust for the variation of $`V_1`$. However, the slope sensitively depends on whether we are on or off resonance. Similarly, we plot the phase $`\gamma `$ in Figs. 1C and 1D as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_2`$ when $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_1`$ is kept constant at $`V_1^0/10`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_3=0`$, with the incident energy $`E`$ being off and on a resonance at the initial state, respectively. The oscillating behavior indicates that $`\gamma `$ is quite sensitive to the presence of the resonant levels inside the contour in the parameter space $`\{V_1,V_2\}`$, as displayed in the insets in Figs. 1B-D. A jump occurs in the geometric phase if the contour encircles a new transmission resonance.

Having described how the geometric phase appears for the scattering state using a QD, we now consider how to measure it experimentally. The experimental setup we propose is the double path interferometer (see Fig. 1A), which previously was used to measure the phase evolution of electrons as they traverse a QD ji ; schuster . The measurement proceeds as follows. The system is prepared in some scattering state with incident energy $`E`$ for certain initial values of the external parameters $`V_1`$, $`V_2`$ and $`V_3`$, which are controllable by adjusting the Fermi level in the leads and the attached gate voltages, respectively. Then, the gate voltages are varied in a cyclic manner and sufficiently slowly that the system always remains in the instantaneous scattering state at any later instant $`t`$. Electrons in the reference path and QD-path interfere and is observed as oscillations in the current collected in the drain in the linear response regime, i.e., in the presence of a small bias across the QD. A crucial feature of the device here, in contrast to the experimental setups used to observe adiabatic pumping currents switkes , is that the reflected electrons are allowed to escape from the interferometer between the source and the drain, thus violating current conservation. This prevents multiple scattering processes which dominate quantum adiabatic pumping as current conservation requires. It is this feature that makes it possible to capture the effect of the geometric phases for scattering states.

The device we suggested above involves quantum interferometry of geometric phases in a mesoscopic open system. This is similar to the Aharonov-Bohm effect, which leads to an oscillating periodic component in the current as a function of magnetic field applied ji ; schuster ; yacoby . However, instead of the flux produced by the external magnetic field, here the geometric phase results from the gauge field induced by the adiabatic dynamics of the QD. The total device transmission $`𝒯`$ resulting from the two-path interference after one period $`T`$ takes the form

$$𝒯=|t_{ref}|^2+|t_{QD}|^2+2|t_{ref}||t_{QD}|\mathrm{cos}(\gamma +\phi _{12}).$$
(5)
Here $`t_{ref}`$ denotes the transmission coefficient for the reference path, and $`\phi _{12}`$ is the phase difference between the two transmission coefficients $`t_{ref}`$ and $`t_{QD}`$, which only depends on the initial scattering state. In fact, Eq.(5) is gauge invariant, as it should be, and holds at any instant $`t`$ as long as $`t_{ref},t_{QD}`$ and $`\gamma `$ take the instantaneous values, because the transmission $`𝒯`$ describes the current collected in the drain and so is observable. However, we emphasize that only for the whole period $`T`$, is $`\gamma `$ gauge invariant and therefore observable. One may recognize that the transmission $`𝒯`$ in Eq.(5) takes the same form as that at the initial instant, except for the involvement of the geometric phase $`\gamma `$ in the last term. Indeed, the first and second terms just provide a background solely determined by the initial state, i.e., it does not depend on which adiabatic cycle we choose. This is in contrast to the geometric phase $`\gamma `$ which does depend on contours the system traverses in the parameter space. $`\phi _{12}`$ also changes during the cycle, but is periodic in $`T`$. For different choices of the phase difference $`\delta `$ corresponding to different shapes of the adiabatic cycles, the transmission $`𝒯`$ varies considerably in the entire energy range. ¿From the experimental data for the interferometer reported by Schuster et al. schuster , one may estimate that the background term $`|t_{ref}|^2+|t_{QD}|^2`$ is approximately $`1.05`$ and the oscillating amplitude $`2|t_{ref}||t_{QD}|`$ is approximately $`0.05`$. Hence, for such a device the deviation coming from the presence of $`\gamma `$ would be approximately $`0.1`$. Thus, even at a relatively low visibility the effect from the scattering geometric phase should be observable. Fig. 1 and Eq.(5) imply that the effect of the geometric phase $`\gamma `$ on the transmission $`𝒯`$ is observable. An important issue is that the dwell time $`\tau _d`$ is longer when the QD is on resonance, so the frequency of the adiabatic variation, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, should be sufficiently slow to ensure the adiabaticity parameter $`ϵ\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _d`$ to be very small. We believe that current technology is sufficient to control the adiabatic dynamics to observe the effect of the geometric phase.

Now we explain how to modify the interference setup to observe the geometric phase associated with the true non-Abelian gauge field which occurs in the context of adiabatic spin pumping. The geometric (matrix) phase $`U`$, from Eq.(1), is a $`2\times 2`$ matrix and results from the true non-Abelian gauge potential, which is the time-reversed counterpart of that studied in quantum spin pumping zhou1 . Adopting the same notations as those there, one sees that the non-Abelian gauge potential takes the same form as Eq.(8) in Ref. zhou1 , with $`\varphi `$ replaced by $`\varphi `$. For a contour when $`\varphi `$ varies from 0 to $`2\pi `$ with some fixed $`\theta `$, we have $`U=\mathrm{exp}\{i\pi [1\mathrm{cos}(\delta _1\delta _2)]\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \sigma ^3/2\}`$. In this case, the non-Abelian character of the potential is lost zee . To observe the effect of the non-Abelian gauge field, it is necessary to choose a contour which varies both $`\theta `$ and $`\varphi `$. The noncommutativity of the matrix form of the gauge potential presents some difficulties to explicitly calculate the (matrix) phase $`U`$. However, one may use the non-Abelian version of Stokes’ theorem bralic  to evaluate $`U`$. Alternatively, in numerical calculations, we can perform a straightforward expansion of the path ordered exponential, Eq.(1). The effect of the geometric phase is seen from the gauge invariant transmission

$$𝒯=\mathrm{Tr}|t_{ref}+Ut_{SI}|^2,$$
(6)
with $`t_{ref}`$ and $`t_{SI}`$ being the $`2\times 2`$ transmission coefficient matrices for the reference and spin-dependent interaction paths, respectively. The interference pattern of the two paths is changed due to the geometric phase.

Note that the relative intensity of the two paths for the interferometer cannot be calculated theoretically, therefore we choose one specific value for the relative intensity. Unlike in the Abelian case, the non-Abelian geometric phase, $`U`$, is gauge dependent. Therefore we focus on the transmission. In Fig. 2 we plot transmission resulting from Eq.(6) as a function of $`k/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ for a contour which is a spherical rectangle. The parameters $`k,J,`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ are defined in Ref. zhou1, . The solid line presents results when the geometric phase is absent. After inclusion of the geometric phase the transmission changes significantly in both amplitude and shape. Especially, the two peaks at the resonances $`k/\mathrm{\Gamma }=\pm J/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ shift due to an energy splitting coming from the geometric phase $`U`$, i.e., during the adiabatic change the system moves out of resonance.

In summary, we developed a theory to describe geometric phases for scattering states, and generalized it to the spin-dependent case. We have also proposed an experimental setup to directly observe the effect from the scattering geometric phase. The effect should be large enough to be detected in an open interferometer, and observed as oscillations in the current across the device.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council. U. Lundin acknowledges the support from the Swedish foundation for international cooperation in research and higher education (STINT). We thank Silvio Dahmen, Mark Gould and Jon Links for proof-reading the manuscript and discussions.


text:
# Neutron scattering study of the effects of dopant disorder on the superconductivity and magnetic order in stage-4 La2CuO4+y

## Abstract

We report neutron scattering measurements of the structure and magnetism of stage-4 La2CuO4+y with $`T_c42`$ K. Our diffraction results on a single crystal sample demonstrate that the excess oxygen dopants form a three-dimensional ordered superlattice within the interstitial regions of the crystal. The oxygen superlattice becomes disordered above $`T330`$ K, and a fast rate of cooling can freeze-in the disordered-oxygen state. Hence, by controlling the cooling rate, the degree of dopant disorder in our La2CuO4+y crystal can be varied. We find that a higher degree of quenched disorder reduces $`T_c`$ by $`5`$ K relative to the ordered-oxygen state. At the same time, the quenched disorder enhances the spin density wave order in a manner analogous to the effects of an applied magnetic field.

One of the central topics of research on highly correlated electron systems is the interplay between the competing phases which exist at low temperatures. Often, small changes in the microscopic parameters lead to drastic changes in the macroscopic properties. In the field of high-Tc superconductivity, there has been much recent discussion about the different types of order that may compete with the superconducting state. Examples of these possible orders include: antiferromagnetism, spin-stripes, charge-stripes, $`d`$-density wave order, staggered flux phases, and circulating-current phases, among others. This discussion has been very productive because many of the proposed theories have predictions which can be directly tested by experiments, often with scattering techniques. For example, in the La2CuO4 family of materials, neutron scattering experiments have revealed that spin-density wave (SDW) order competes with the superconductivity.Tranquada ; Ichikawa ; Lee ; Khaykovich ; Lake  Recent work investigating the effects of applied magnetic fields indicates that these two order parameters coexist at the microscopic level even though they are repulsively coupled.Khaykovich ; Lake ; Demler ; Zhang  There is increasing evidence which suggests that stripe phases (static or dynamic) exist in several of the cuprate superconductors, including YBa2Cu3O6+xMook ; Stock  and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+xDavis ; Kapitulnik .

In order to make further progress, it is important to determine whether the experimentally observed order parameters are intrinsic to the CuO2 plane, or whether they arise due to subtle aspects of the materials’ crystal structure or degree of disorder. Recent work on YBa2Cu3O6+x has highlighted the importance of oxygen ordering within the chain layers in producing optimal superconducting properties and robust magnetism.Bonn ; Stock  We have studied the effects of dopant disorder on the superconductivity and SDW order in the single-layer copper-oxide superconductor La2CuO4+y. The excess oxygen dopants fill interstitial regions of the lattice and are mobile at high temperatures. We find that the oxygen dopants form an ordered lattice at low temperature, and we have developed a method to control the degree of dopant disorder. Hence, we can investigate the role of disorder in the phase diagram of this cuprate superconductor, and we have applied this new tool to probe the relationship between the competing phase of the cuprates.

Our earlier studies have shown that the oxygen doped La2CuO4+y material has a staged structure, which differentiates it from the related La2-xSrxCuO4 material.Wells  The evidence for staging behavior comes from a modulation of the octahedral tilt pattern along the c-axis. This results in superlattice diffraction peaks displaced by a wavevector (0,0,$`\mathrm{\Delta }_L`$) from the $`Bmab`$ superlattice positions. If the modulation has a period of $`n`$ unit cells, then the $`L`$-component of the wavevector has magnitude $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/n`$ (and the structure is called stage-$`n`$). We note, however, these peaks only provide information regarding the octahedral tilt arrangement and, thus, are only indirect evidence that the distribution of oxygen dopants is modulated. In principle, the excess oxygens themselves also contribute to the total scattering cross section. Hence, we have searched for superlattice peaks which would be associated with a 3D lattice of ordered oxygen dopants in a stage-4 crystal of La2CuO4+y.

Our experiments were carried out on a floating-zone grown crystal which was electrochemically oxidized to produce superconducting La2CuO4+y with $`y0.12`$ and $`T_c42`$ K. (The sample in this paper is the same as “Sample 1” in the work by Khaykovich et.al.Khaykovich ) Elastic neutron scattering measurements were performed using the SPINS spectrometer at the NIST Center for Neutron Research in Gaithersburg, MD. Cold neutrons with incident energy of 5 meV were selected with a pyrolytic graphite monochromator, and collimation sequence of $`3240sample20blank`$ was chosen. A cryogenically cooled Be filter was used to remove higher energy contamination from the neutron beam.

For the structural studies, the sample iss initially mounted in the (0$`K`$$`L`$) scattering zone. At low temperatures, we find peaks displaced from the fundamental nuclear Bragg positions by ($`\pm \mathrm{\Delta }_H`$, $`\pm \mathrm{\Delta }_K`$, $`\pm \mathrm{\Delta }_L`$). For example, near the (0,0,6) nuclear Bragg peak, a weak superlattice peak is observed at (0.09, 0.24, 5.5) at $`T=9`$ K as shown in Figure 1(A). Here, the $`H`$-direction is along the wide vertical resolution direction, and the value for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_H`$ is deduced to be $`0.09(2)a^{}`$ via scans of the spectrometer $`\chi `$ angle. The components of the modulation wavevector in the scattering zone are $`\mathrm{\Delta }_K=0.24(1)b^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_L=0.50(2)c^{}`$. Eight peaks are observed near the (0, 0, 6) Bragg position at ($`\pm 0.09`$, $`\pm 0.24`$, $`6\pm 0.50`$) with approximately equal intensities. We have found similar peaks in a stage-6 sample, with the only difference being that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_L\frac{1}{3}`$. We note that Radaelli et al. Radaelli\_93  had previously observed similar peaks at slightly different locations in a sample which had a similar doping level as our stage-6 sample.

Since these new peaks are characterized by a wave vector displaced from the fundamental Bragg positions, this implies a new periodicity imposed on the simple repetition of the orthorhombic unit cell. A natural explanation for these peaks is that they originate from scattering from the interstitial oxygens themselves, which order into a 3D superstructure spanning many La2CuO4 unit cells. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }_L=0.50(1)`$ component of the modulation wave vector, within error, equals $`2/n`$ where $`n=4.0`$ is the staging number for this crystal. Thus, the ordered oxygen lattice has 1/2 of the periodicity of the tilt modulation. This is exactly what is expected for our staging modelWells  where there are two dominant layers of oxygen interstitials per staging unit cell. We have confirmed that similar superlattice peaks exist near other fundamental positions including (2,0,0), (0,2,0), and (0,0,2). In addition, a weak peak is observed with double the modulation wavevector at ($`2\mathrm{\Delta }_H`$, $`2+2\mathrm{\Delta }_K`$, $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_L`$) which corresponds to the second higher harmonic position. No intensity is observed at positions corresponding to stage-2 oxygen ordered peaks at ($`\pm \mathrm{\Delta }_H`$, $`\pm \mathrm{\Delta }_K`$, $`1`$). Due to the limited number of observed superlattice peaks, a complete structural model cannot be refined.

If the peak depicted by the open symbols in Fig. 1(A) is indeed attributable to an ordered lattice of oxygen dopants, then it should be possible to probe directly the effects of disordering the lattice thermally by heating the sample to elevated temperatures. Neutron diffraction measurements have been carried out at higher temperatures to identify the temperature above which the ordered lattice of interstitial oxygens melts. As shown in the figure, the diffraction peaks disappear when the temperature is increased above 330 K. The inset of the figure shows the temperature dependence. If the sample is cooled from 350 K to 9 K in less than 2 hours, the intensity of the peak does not recover. Hence, we have thermally disordered the oxygen lattice and quenched-in the disorder. The time scale for the excess oxygens to reorder is on the order of a few days at 300 K; we have confirmed that the oxygen order peaks are recovered after annealing the sample for one week at room temperature.

Figure 1(B) depicts scans through the staging superlattice peaks along the $`L`$-direction through the Bmab position. The filled circle data points are taken at $`T=9`$ K in the state with the ordered oxygen lattice. The large peaks symmetrically displaced by $`\mathrm{\Delta }_L=\pm \frac{1}{4}`$ from the center position of the scan indicate that the sample is predominately stage-4. The peaks displaced by $`\mathrm{\Delta }_L=\pm \frac{1}{2}`$ might appear to result from a stage-2 component. However, these peaks most likely result from scattering from the distortions of the octahedra near the dominant layers of the oxygen intercalants. When the crystal is quenched from above 330 K (producing the disordered-oxygen state) these peaks lose more than 50% of their intensity, depicted by the open circle data points. On the other hand, the stage-4 peaks gain additional integrated intensity. We note that in measurements on a different stage-4 crystal, the peaks at $`\mathrm{\Delta }_L=\pm \frac{1}{2}`$ disappear entirely when the oxygens are disordered. This implies that these samples are, in fact, pure stage-4 and that higher order peaks previously interpreted as arising from stage-2 material reflect the ordered oxygen superlattice in a stage-4 structure.

This brings us to the question of the interplay between the oxygen ordering and the superconductivity. A different piece of a stage-4 sample with $`T_c`$ $`42`$ K was placed in a SQUID magnetometer and put through a heating process similar to that described for the neutron scattering measurements. In each cycle, the sample was slowly heated to the target temperature, annealed at the target temperature for one hour, and then zero field cooled to 5 K. The low temperature shielding signal was then measured in an applied field of 50 G. The results are shown in Fig.2. The sample was not removed from the SQUID between cycles. Weighing the sample before and after the combined SQUID measurements confirmed the absence of any weight loss. There is a distinct change in the superconducting transition temperature between the 320 K anneal and the 330 K anneal. For the measured curves, $`T_c`$ midpoint decreases from 37.8(2) K before the annealing cycles to 32.8(2) K after the annealing cycles, with the most rapid decrease occurring between annealing temperatures of 320 K and 330 K. The annealing temperature range which affects $`T_c`$ exactly matches the temperature at which the order-disorder transition occurs for the oxygen lattice. This clearly demonstrates that the ordering of the oxygen intercalant lattice in La2CuO4+y is responsible for its optimal $`T_c`$.

In order to probe the effects of dopant disorder on the SDW, we performed magnetic neutron diffraction measurements before and after disordering the oxygen lattice. First, the SDW peaks were measured in the state with ordered oxygen dopants with the crystal mounted in the (HK0) zone. The results are depicted by the open circle data points in Fig. 3. Next, the sample was mounted in the (0KL) zone in order to monitor the destruction of the ordered oxygen lattice as described previously. The sample was then remounted in the (HK0) zone and quenched to 10 K within 4 hours of disordering the oxygens. The SDW peaks were measured again, with the oxygen dopants now in the disordered state. The configuration of the spectrometer was not altered between measurements of the SDW peaks (ie, the collimations, spectrometer alignment, and shielding were untouched). Hence the intensities of the SDW peaks before and after disordering the oxygen lattice may be directly compared with each other. As a check, we confirmed that the (200) nuclear Bragg peaks had the same intensity (within 2%) before and after annealing at 350 K. On the other hand, the intensity of the SDW peaks was significantly increased as shown by the filled circle data points in Fig. 3. Hence, we find that increasing the degree of dopant disorder increases the SDW order parameter. However, the positions and widths of the peaks remain the same.

The temperature dependence of the SDW order parameter in both the ordered-oxygen state and the disordered-oxygen state is shown in Fig. 4(A). The primary effect of increasing the degree of dopant disorder is to increase the intensity of the SDW peaks. The onset temperature for the SDW order does not change within the errors, remaining at $`T_M42`$ K. For comparison, we plot the temperature dependence of the SDW in an applied magnetic field of 7.5 T in Fig. 4(B).Khaykovich  The data have been normalized to allow for a direct comparison of intensities between the two panels. Remarkably, the effects of applying a 7.5 T field and disordering the oxygen lattice are nearly identical. A field of 5 Tesla reduces $`T_c`$ in our sample by $`10`$ K,Khaykovich  and, as reported above, increasing the degree of dopant disorder reduces $`T_c`$ by about 5 K. These reductions in $`T_c`$ are comparable, as are the enhancements of the SDW intensity. In the generalized Landau theory of Demler et al.Demler , the superconducting order parameter and the SDW order parameter are repulsively coupled and coexist at the microscopic level. By suppressing the superconducting order parameter, the magnitude of the SDW order parameter should increase, which is consistent with the totality of our observations.

The exact mechanism leading to the enhanced $`T_c`$ in the ordered-oxygen state is unclear. Oxygen ordering has also been observed to enhance superconductivity in other cuprate superconductors, such as YBa2Cu3O6+x Schleger\_95  and Tl2Ba2CuO6+δ Sieburger\_91 . For these materials, this enhancement results at least in part from charge transfer to the CuO2 planes caused by changes in the valence of cations in other layers (such as Cu1+/2+ in the chain layers of YBa2Cu3O6+x). Such a mechanism cannot explain the effect in La2CuO4+y which does not have multivalent cations outside of the CuO2 layers. Hence, the enhanced $`T_c`$ is almost certainly related to the ordering of the oxygen intercalants. We note that macroscopic phase separation does not occur in stage-4 La2CuO4+y, and that the hole density is as uniform as that in La2-xSrxCuO4 with $`x0.14`$. As discussed in our previous work, the scaling of $`\chi (T)`$ and the 63Cu NQR frequency and 1/$`T_1`$ behavior in our crystals with $`T_c`$ $`42`$ K are consistent with a single hole concentration.Lee ; Khaykovich  In samples with lower oxygen concentrations (with $`T_c32`$), it has been well documented that rapid quenching from room temperature to below $`T_c`$, on the time scale of a few tens of seconds, can reduce the superconducting $`T_c`$ compared to that attained on slow cooling.Chou\_96  As mentioned above, we have found that a stage-6 crystal also possesses an ordered oxygen lattice at low temperatures (which becomes disordered above $`210`$ K), and it is likely that destruction of the oxygen order is responsible for the shift in $`T_c`$.

In summary, we have found that the staging behavior observed in La2CuO4+y is associated with a three-dimensional ordering of the excess oxygen dopants. Our results indicate that the high $`T_c`$ of stage-4 La2CuO4+y is correlated with the ordering of the oxygen dopants. Increasing the degree of disorder enhances the SDW order parameter in a manner similar to the effect of applying modest magnetic fields. These results further support the idea that superconductivity and SDW order coexist and compete.

We gratefully acknowledge B. Khaykovich, T. Imai, and Y.J. Uemura for valuable discussions. The work at MIT was supported by the MRSEC Program of the National Science Foundation under Award No. DMR 9808941. The work at SPINS is based upon activities supported by the National Science Foundation under Agreement No DMR 9986442. Research at Toronto is supported by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Current address: Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford CA 94305.