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# XMM-Newton observation of Kepler’s supernova remnant

## 1 Introduction

The remnants of recent stellar explosions give out a large part of their luminosity in X-rays. The interaction of the high velocity supernova material (ejecta) with the ambient medium gives rise to a forward shock moving into the ambient medium and a reverse shock propagating back into the ejecta (McKee (1974)). Both shocks compress and heat the matter. Thus the X-ray emission arises from two adjacent media, different in composition, density and temperature: the shocked ejecta and the shocked ambient medium.

At an age of nearly 400 years, Kepler is a young supernova remnant (SNR) whose X-ray emission is still dominated by a thermal spectrum characteristic of shocked ejecta. It is about $`200\mathrm{}`$ in angular size. At a distance of about $`4.8\pm 1.4`$ kpc (Reynoso & Goss (1999)), this corresponds to an angular radius of about $`2.3\pm 0.7`$ pc. This shell-type remnant shows a strongly asymmetric brightness distribution in X-rays. Well correlated optical and infrared observations also exhibit an asymmetric emission, with the remnant being notably brighter in the north and northwest with some structures near the center of the remnant (Bandiera & van den Bergh 1991; Douvion et al. 2001). The optical knots in Kepler’s SNR, which have a low expansion velocity (Bandiera & van den Bergh 1991), a high density and nitrogen overabundances (Dennefeld 1982; Blair et al. 1991), are attributed to a circumstellar origin. The measurement in a Balmer-dominated knot of a large \[NII\] line width favors a nonthermal broadening in a cosmic-ray precursor (Sollerman et al. 2003). As for the radio emission, it has the same shell-like morphology as the X-rays with the same north-south brightness asymmetry (Matsui et al. 1984; Dickel et al. 1988). Otherwise, Kepler’s SNR’s type is not clearly established. On one hand, its position above the Galactic plane ($`600`$ pc) and its geometrical similarities with Tycho’s SNR favor a type Ia progenitor (Smith et al. (1989)) whereas, on the other hand, optical and infrared observations which reveal the presence of circumstellar material suggest a type II progenitor. The light-curve does not allow to distinguish between a type I (Baade (1943)) and a type II-L (Doggett & Branch (1985)) classification.

Previous X-ray studies have been made on images and spectra, but always separately. The best images of Kepler’s SNR were obtained with the Einstein HRI (White & Long 1983; Matsui et al. 1984) and ROSAT HRI (Hughes (1999)). The upper limit of the energy range did not exceed 4 keV and no spectro-imaging was available. Spectral studies were more numerous. The SSS on board the Einstein satellite revealed line emission from the He-like species of Si, S and Ar (Becker et al. (1980)). The 1 to 10 keV spectra obtained with the EXOSAT and Ginga observatories have shown a strong iron K$`\alpha `$ emission line at nearly 6.5 keV (Smith et al. (1989); Hatsukade et al. (1990)). ASCA data confirmed these facts with a better energy resolution (Kinugasa & Tsunemi (1999)). From these spectra, several models have been tested coupling non-equilibrium conditions with the hydrodynamic evolution of the SNR (Hughes & Helfand 1985; Decourchelle & Ballet 1994; Rothenflug et al. 1994; Decourchelle et al. 2000).

A more specific model (Borkowski et al. (1994)) was applied following Bandiera’s idea (Bandiera (1987)) in which the progenitor was a massive runaway mass-losing star ejected from the Galactic plane. A specific review on Kepler’s SNR can be found in Decourchelle (2000).

The new generation satellites XMM-Newton and Chandra mark a new era in observing capabilities. Indeed, the onboard technology is made of CCD detectors associated with telescopes allowing combined good spectral and spatial resolution with in addition the capability to collect a large number of photons. Furthermore, both satellites are equipped with slitless gratings giving access to high resolution spectroscopy for point or slightly extended sources particularly around 1 keV (around the Fe L complex). These improvements enable us to analyse thoroughly the spectra of small-scale structures of a SNR as well as to study maps in a given energy band. This kind of work has been done for several SNRs: Cas A (Hughes et al. 2000; Hwang et al. 2000; Bleeker et al. 2001; Gotthelf et al. 2001; Willingale et al. 2002, Willingale et al. 2003), Tycho (Decourchelle et al. 2001; Hwang et al. 2002), the Crab Nebula (Willingale et al. 2001).

Thanks to the EPIC imaging spectrometers of XMM-Newton observatory, it is henceforth possible to carry on studying more precisely Kepler’s SNR. In this paper, we intend to draw up maps of the brightest X-ray emission lines and to lay emphasis on the high energy continuum. Together with this global approach, we present early results coming from a local spectral study of the forward shock.

## 2 Data reduction

Kepler’s SNR was observed on 2001 March 10 using the XMM-Newton EPIC and RGS instruments. The result of the RGS analysis is complicated by the large spatial extent of the source and will be the purpose of a forthcoming paper. Here, we focus only on the photons collected by the EPIC instruments : MOS1, MOS2 and pn. The thick filter has been used to limit the number of low-energy photons and hence pile-up. For the pn camera, we have chosen the large window mode in order to limit the out-of-time events. The obtained data quality is very good (few flares). We have used the Science Analysis System (SAS, version 5.3) for data reduction.

We have discovered in the MOS2 data the presence of a few bright pixels in the central CCD which shift and broaden the spectrum of the whole column (in the readout-out direction) containing these bad pixels. They existed before the launch of XMM-Newton but were never detected. Consequently, we have removed the entire columns RAWX=273, 276, 277 and the column RAWX=383 from RAWY=311 to RAWY=600 in the MOS2 events list.

Because the source is bright, it is necessary to estimate pile-up (Ballet (1999)). The maximum brightness (in cts/frame/pixel) is equal to 0.0086 for MOS and 0.0048 for pn. We can estimate the flux loss and the pile-up rate at the maximum brightness111The result depends on the proportion of X-rays creating a charge pattern with $`i`$ pixels called $`\alpha _i`$ in Ballet (1999). Here $`\alpha _i=[0.708;0.233;0.021;0.038]`$ (from the data, averaged over energy).. The results are shown in Table 1. They show that pile-up is not enough to alter our results, although the true images would show slightly more contrast.

To create light curves, spectra and images, we have selected the single, double, triple and quadruple events (pattern$``$12) for the MOS cameras, and the singles and doubles (pattern$``$4) for the pn camera (with FLAG$`=`$0 for all cameras). The data were cleaned from the few flares using the light curves between 10-12 keV for MOS and 12-14 keV for pn. Then, the exposure time of the observation amounts to 30 ks for each MOS camera and to 27 ks for the pn camera. Although MOS data were corrected for Charge-Transfer Inefficiency (CTI), a spectral shift depending on energy remains (see Table 2). The fitted centroid energies from the EPIC instruments and the ASCA data (Kinugasa & Tsunemi 1999) emphasize that a single additive or multiplicative factor for each data set cannot be found so that the individual lines (e.g., Si K, S K and Fe K) can be made mutually consistent for the various instruments. Moreover, since there are no absolute position for the line blends due to non-equilibrium effects, we cannot re-calibrate these line blends at a reference energy.

Kepler’s SNR is contained within the central CCD of the MOS cameras and spread over 4 CCDs of the pn camera resulting in gaps between each CCD. Below 4 keV, we have only used the MOS data since we have enough statistics to obtain precise images without gaps. Above 4 keV, the MOS data have been combined with the pn’s to remedy the lack of statistics at higher energy but introducing gaps in the images. Note that the spectral analysis has been carried out over 0.3-10 keV and 0.3-12 keV for MOS and pn, respectively.

In this paper, we did not use a local background to be subtracted (in the spectra as well as in the images) since Kepler’s SNR is so bright that the background is contaminated by the wings of the PSF over the entire field of view (FOV). Thus, we have only subtracted a 400 ks astrophysical and instrumental background (D. Lumb et al. 2002) which has been renormalized in the 10-12 keV band for MOS and 12-14 keV band for pn over the full FOV. This background has been obtained using a thin filter which is different from the thick filter of our observation. However, it does not affect the lower energy spectrum because it is more than one order of magnitude below Kepler’s SNR spectrum at 0.3 keV. For the following spectral studies (see Sect.6), we have used the method which consists of calculating a weight for each photon to correct for the vignetting effect. The chosen on-axis response files are m$``$\_thickv9q20t5r6\_all\_15.rsp for MOS and epn\_lw20\_sdY9\_thick.rsp for pn.

The EPIC spectra extracted from the entire remnant are shown in Figure 1. These X-ray spectra are expected to be the combination of at least two optically thin thermal continua plus emission lines coming from highly ionized atoms of the ejecta. The first continuum arises from the shocked ejecta and the second continuum comes from the shocked ambient medium. A nonthermal component (due to synchrotron process or nonthermal bremsstrahlung) may also be present. Chiefly, He $`\alpha `$ features of silicon, sulphur, argon, calcium and the iron K$`\alpha `$ line dominate the EPIC spectra from about 1.4 keV. Below, numerous transitions of the iron L lines are blended with magnesium, neon and oxygen K lines. At first sight, the overall spectrum resembles Tycho’s (Decourchelle et al. 2001). However, it is noteworthy that the Fe L complex and the Fe K line respectively dominate over the Si and the Ca lines, unlike in Tycho.

The emission-line images are formed from these spectra by selecting narrow energy bands. Table 3 gives the energy cuts chosen for these images. The width of the Si K and Fe K energy bands have been optimized (best signal-to-noise ratio) by a method explained in Appendix A.1. We also cleaned the images contaminated by continuum contribution with an interpolation based method which is described in Appendix A.2. Above all, this was done for the Fe K image using the surrounding continuum, which is well represented with an exponential model. The method was also applied to the Si K using a power-law model. However, one should keep in mind that this method is approximate since the base level around the Si K line does not correspond exactly to the continuum level. This method was not applied to the Fe L line owing to the fact that the continuum level is not well known around this line.

The mapped lines are those that have the highest signal-to-noise ratio above the continuum: Si K$`\alpha `$, Fe L and Fe K$`\alpha `$. We do not show maps of fainter lines of S, Ca, and Ar that are present in the integrated spectrum. They are roughly similar to the map of the Si K line emission.

## 3 Emission-line images

Figure 2 (top) shows Fe L and Si K adaptively smoothed images. All adaptive smoothings were made with the asmooth package of the XMM SAS. Figure 2 (bottom) shows their respective deconvolved images to better illustrate the main features of the SNR. Deconvolved images have been constructed using the MOS PSF at 1500 eV (established from the calibration files) and the method is the regularized gradient method with 40 iterations, assuming the noise to be Poisson (Starck et al. (1998)). The FWHM of the PSF is 4.4 arcseconds at 1500 eV.

In young SNRs, we expect to see at least two different emission zones coming on one hand from the shocked ejecta and on the other hand from the shocked ambient medium. The X-ray emission, crudely proportional to the density squared, mainly arises from the shocked ejecta which are usually denser than the ambient medium and enriched in heavy elements. Thus, the brightest emission lines give information on the ejected supernova matter.

The comparison between the spatial distribution of Fe L and Si K indicates an overall morphological agreement both in the almost spherical diffuse emission and in some of the brightest regions. Indeed, the north-south brightness asymmetry of the ring, the bar, the elbow, the western ear, and the eastern eye are shared by both images. A closer look reveals that some differences exist notably at the eastern ear where there seems to be more Si K than Fe L and at the hand where it is the contrary. We have constructed separately the radial profiles of the northern ($`10^{}`$-$`170^{}`$, from west anti-clockwise) and southern ($`175^{}`$-$`360^{}`$) parts of Kepler’s SNR from the images. These radial profiles (Fig. 3) emphasize the strong contrast between the north (left panel) and the south (right panel). The north emission is exclusively dominated by the northern ring whereas at the south, a large part of the inner emission is due to the eastern eye. We also see that both Fe L and Si K spread out further in the south than in the north. These radial profiles show that the Si K emission peaks at a larger radius than does Fe L: slightly in the north and rather more in the south. It shows that there is no inversion of the Si and Fe layers as detected in Cas A (Hughes et al. 2000; Hwang et al. 2000; Willingale et al. 2002). These clues agree with an onion layer structure (at least for iron and silicon) which would have persisted after the explosion.

The comparison between the Fe L and Fe K emission can give information on the temperature structure inside the remnant and on the ionization timescale. Figures 3 and 4 illustrate that the Fe K emission peaks at a smaller radius than the Fe L emission in the north as well as in the south. This tells us that the inner ejecta should be hotter than the outer ejecta, but not directly by how much. Kinugasa & Tsunemi (1999) have modelled the integrated spectrum of Kepler’s SNR with the ASCA data using two non-equilibrium thermal components with the same abundances for both components but with different temperatures. They found a temperature of $`0.36\pm 0.04`$ keV and $`2.26\pm 0.15`$ keV for the Fe L and Fe K, respectively. Even though the Fe K was underproduced with this two-component model, this provides evidence for a strong temperature gradient (a lower limit temperature ratio of $`6`$) in the shocked ejecta medium turned inwards of the remnant. We note that an ionization effect would work in the opposite direction. The ratio between the Fe K and the Fe L line strengths should increase when going away from the reverse shock as Fe gets more ionized.

The temperature increase inwards must be the result of the remnant’s hydrodynamics. Hydrodynamical models give the profiles of pressure $`P`$ and mass density $`\varrho `$ as a function of the radius. We note that the profile of $`P/\varrho `$ is equivalent to the temperature profile if the mean molecular weight remains constant, *i.e.* if the abundance of the dominant elements does not vary in the remnant. In the following paragraphs, we assume constant elemental composition but we should keep in mind that any variation of the ejecta composition of the dominant species should alter our interpretation.

Models of SNRs evolution depend on the initial outer density profiles in the ejecta and the ambient medium. We first assume that the supernova exploded into a constant density medium. Two simple cases have been under consideration in the framework of spherical models. On one hand, the ejecta density profile may follow a power-law distribution with a constant core (Chevalier (1982)) which is appropriate to a type II classification (Arnett (1988)). In this hypothesis, contrary to the observations, the ejecta are hotter near the contact discontinuity (interface between the shocked ejecta and the shocked ambient medium) than at the reverse shock. On the other hand, an exponential density profile aims to represent a type Ia progenitor (Dwarkadas & Chevalier (1998)). In this latter hypothesis, the shocked ejecta are gradually colder towards the contact discontinuity as is observed, but the temperature profile is much too flat to account for the required two temperatures of the Fe K and Fe L ejecta (temperature ratio of $`6`$). The temperature gradient of the reverse shocked region can be larger when the exponential ejecta density structure is running into a circumstellar medium (Dwarkadas & Chevalier (1998)) and is then compatible with the observations222We note that a power-law ejecta density structure running into a circumstellar medium would also lead to a temperature slope compatible with the observations but with a too low temperature to account for the Fe K line (Decourchelle & Ballet 1994). So this case is rejected and no more considered in the following..

In the remnant of Tycho’s type Ia supernova, the Fe K emission peaks at a smaller radius than the Fe L (Decourchelle et al. 2001; Hwang & Gotthelf 1997) as is observed in Kepler’s SNR. Both remnants share the property of a higher temperature toward the center in the shocked ejecta medium with a temperature ratio of at least $`2`$ (Hwang et al. 1998; Kinugasa & Tsunemi 1999). In the framework of an exponential ejecta profile, this requires an interaction with a circumstellar medium. There is no observational indication for such a circumstellar medium around type Ia supernovae but as discussed in Dwarkadas & Chevalier (1998), it has been proposed that in some binary models of type Ia the mass loss of the companion can modify the environment of the progenitor.

In Kepler’s SNR, there is evidence for the presence of a circumstellar material which has been interpreted in terms of a massive progenitor (Bandiera 1987; Borkowski et al. 1992). If the supernova was a type Ib as suggested by Borkowski et al. (1992) and has a power-law outer density profile, the observed higher temperature inwards the remnant would require that the reverse shock has already entered the central plateau. This condition requires that the ejecta mass $`M_{\mathrm{ej}}`$ is lower than $`3M_{}`$ taking the parameters333$`E_{\mathrm{SN}}(M_{}/M_{\mathrm{ej}})^{2/3}=\mathrm{0.53\hspace{0.33em}10}^{51}`$ ergs and $`\rho _0=0.42`$ amu cm-3 for a power-law index of the initial outer density profile in the ejecta $`n=9`$ and a flat ambient medium. derived from the best fit to the ASCA+XTE data (Decourchelle et al. 2000). If $`M_{\mathrm{ej}}>3M_{}`$, the reverse shock would still be in the power-law envelope, and would give the wrong behavior in Fe K/Fe L.

The condition that the reverse shock has entered in the plateau sets an upper limit on the expansion rate of the SNR. Indeed from the self-similar model of Chevalier (1982), the expansion parameter is $`m=(n3)/n\mathrm{log}R/\mathrm{log}t`$ assuming a power-law density profile of index $`n`$ expanding into a flat ambient medium. At most $`n`$=12 imposes the upper limit $`m=0.75`$ for a flat ambient medium. This value is contradictory with the results of Hughes (1999) who measures a dynamical evolution near free expansion ($`m0.93`$). However, it is consistent with the highest value $`m0.65`$ found from the radio measurement (Dickel et al. 1988).

## 4 High energy continuum

As we see in Figure 5, the 4-6 keV continuum emission globally looks like the emission-line images except in the southeast where there is a clear limb-brightened profile which broadly resembles the 21 cm radio image (Dickel et al. 1988; DeLaney et al. 2002). Radial profiles (Fig. 3) and the three color image (Fig. 6 left panel) indicate that the continuum emission occurs at a larger radius than all the line emission, especially in the southeast. We surmise that the outermost continuum emission is the signature of the blast wave. The north emission is the strongest. The southeastern side (near the eastern ear) defines a ridge of emission dominated by the presence of a few bright features at XMM-Newton spatial resolution. These features seen with XMM-Newton correspond to thin curved shocks observed in the Chandra image. The spectrum of the region A1 (cf. small circle in Fig. 5) will be analysed in Sect. 6. A diffuse emission region exists at the center of Kepler’s SNR toward the eastern eye. The southwestern edge is less pronounced than the other outer rims.

Figure 6 (right panel) shows that the 4-6 keV and 8-10 keV bands correspond well and that the continuum emission essentially arises from an outer ring. It also illustrates how the hardness of the continuum changes all along the remnant and gives locally an indication of the shape of the high energy spectrum. Regions where the continuum is flat (in orange) are found in the north, at the shoulder and in the southeast. It is possible that these regions are responsible for the higher energy emission (up to 20 keV) discovered by RXTE (Decourchelle & Petre (1999)).

The northern part of Kepler’s SNR is the brightest in the silicon and iron maps as well as in the high energy continuum map (see for example Fig. 6, left panel). At first sight, it may be due to a density enhancement in the ambient medium toward the north. Since brightness is proportional to the square of the density, such an enhancement would explain the strong brightness of the northern rim in all the different energy bands that we have selected to construct our images. The southeastern emission (from the shoulder to the southern ring), which is faint in the emission lines, may essentially be due to a low ambient medium density. To check these assumptions, it is possible to map the ratio of the line emission to the underlying continuum, *i.e.* to construct equivalent width maps.

## 5 Equivalent width images

We focus on the Fe K and Si K equivalent width (hereafter EQW) for which it is possible to define an adjacent continuum. The EQW map reveals the ejecta abundances but depends also on the temperature and on the ionization age. Note that it also assumes that the underlying continuum is related to the lines. To construct an EQW image, we have divided the image in the line (background and continuum subtracted) by the underlying continuum (background subtracted) \[see Appendix A.3\].

Figure 7 (left panel) shows the Fe K EQW. What we see is the contrast between the center of the remnant and the exterior. The former is associated with the ejecta (high EQW) and the latter with the forward shock (weak EQW). Hence, this confirms that the iron originates from the ejecta. We note that the Fe K ejecta are mainly found at the shoulder, the eastern eye and below the hand (high EQW). On the other hand, the southeastern region is extremely faint in Fe K (weak EQW) but bright in the high energy continuum.

When focusing our attention in the inner part of the ejecta (in red, Fig. 7, left panel), we see that there is no obvious correlation between the EQW map and the flux in the Fe K ejecta. In particular the northern rim is no longer dominant in brightness. This is an indication that abundance variations are not the cause of the north-south brightness asymmetry and implies some differences in the density of the ambient medium around Kepler’s SNR. This point is consistent with the presence of dense optical knots in the northern ring (Bandiera & van den Bergh (1991)).

Figure 7 (right panel) shows the Si K EQW. The contrast between the center of the remnant and the exterior is less pronounced than in the Fe K EQW. The Si K ejecta are found towards the shoulder, near the southwestern edge, at the crossing ring and at the western ear (in yellow and red).

Firstly, it shows afresh that the Si K ejecta have been dispersed to a higher radius than the Fe K ejecta, notably in the south. Secondly, the northern rim is not strong and confirms again that the north-south brightness asymmetry is not caused by abundance variations. As for the southeastern side of the remnant, it presents a lower contrast than in the Fe K EQW because the Si K extends to a larger radius than the Fe K as shown in the radial profiles (Fig. 3, right panel). While the Si K ejecta emission is present in the western ear, the eastern ear does not show evidence for the presence of ejecta.

The search for prominent interstellar Hi features around Kepler’s SNR has lead to negative result (Reynoso & Goss 1999). Thus, it is likely that the presence of overdensities in the north is circumstellar in origin. This is supported by the detection of slow-moving optical knots ($`200`$ km s-1) there that have nitrogen overabundances higher than the solar value by a factor 4 (Dennefeld 1982; Blair et al. 1991).

## 6 Spectral study of the forward shock

In this section, we intend to characterize the spectrum of the southern regions dominated by strong high energy continuum (4-6 keV and 8-10 keV) and weak EQW of Si K and Fe K. For these regions, we attribute the X-ray emission to the shocked ambient medium located just behind the blast wave. We will not focus in detail on the modelling of the contribution of the shocked ejecta which arises in our spectrum. Note that a detailed study of the forward shock all along the southeast rim would require Chandra spatial resolution.

Here, we will present the first attempt to characterize the spectrum associated with the forward shock in Kepler’s SNR. For this purpose, we have extracted the EPIC spectra (Fig. 8) of the bright region A1 in the southeastern area (see Fig. 5). These spectra have a continuum extending till 10 keV with little line emission (Fig. 8)444We grouped the channels of these spectra until we have a signal-to-noise ratio greater than $`3\sigma `$ in each bin.. Though spatial redistribution of emission from the brightest regions in the north could contaminate the region A1, we find that regions one arcminute from the center of the region A1 contribute only $`5\%`$ of the flux in A1 at 1.5 keV. Moreover, the spectra of other regions along the southeastern rim are qualitatively similar to A1’s.

### 6.1 Single non-equilibrium model

Firstly, we have supposed that the X-ray emission of the region A1 came entirely from the shocked ambient medium. We applied a single non-equilibrium (NEI) model to the region A1 within XSPEC (version 11.1, Arnaud 1996) freezing all the elemental abundances to solar abundances (given by Anders & Grevesse 1989). In addition to the elemental abundances, this NEI model embraces the following parameters: the temperature $`kT`$ and the ionization age $`\tau `$. We define $`\tau `$ as $`_{t_0}^{t_s}n_e𝑑t`$, where $`n_e`$ is the electron density and where $`t_s`$ and $`t_0`$ are respectively the age of the SNR and the time when the gas was shock-heated by the blast wave (setting zero to the explosion date).

With all the elemental abundances held fixed at solar abundances, absorption along the line-of-sight, temperature and ionization age were freely fitted. This results in a poor fit ($`\chi ^2`$= 1287 for 607 dof) which overproduces the lines from intermediate-mass elements (O, Ne, Mg) and underproduces the Si line as shown in Figure 8 (left panel). This shows that at least the Si comes from the ejecta. Figure 8 (left panel) shows also that the centroid energy position of the Si and S lines differs when comparing the model and the data. The best-fit parameters are given in Table 4 (Solar abundances model).

Then, we thawed all the elemental abundances (C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ca, Fe, Ni) except H and He which were frozen to solar abundances. The fit (not shown) is much improved ($`\chi ^2`$= 693 for 596 dof) provided that the abundances of the elements C, N, O, Ne, Ca are close to zero. The best-fit parameters are given in Table 4 (Free abundances model). The Si line, better represented, requires a slightly larger value than solar abundance while the S and the Fe are required to be subsolar. It seems that the Fe is necessary for representing some portion of the low energy spectrum, although we do not have the spectral resolution there with the EPIC instruments to clearly identify individual Fe L lines.

Even though the values of the temperature and the ionization age are reasonable, such a model is not consistent with the composition of the ambient medium. Nevertheless, it shows that the spectrum of the region A1 can be reproduced formally only with a continuum and lines of Si, S and Fe. So, we replaced the continuum arising from the H and He by a second component.

### 6.2 Two components models

We introduce a second component to allow for the different conditions for the lines and for the continuum. On one hand, the lines are attributed to the ejecta and thus we introduce a plasma composed only of Si, S and Fe at low temperature. This constitutes the cold component for which we fixed the Si abundance to solar abundance and we only thawed the S and Fe elements while fixing all the others including H and He to null solar abundances for the cold component (henceforth, what counts is only the abundance ratio with regard to Si). The temperature $`kT_2`$ and the ionization age $`\tau _2`$ were freely fitted. On the other hand, the continuum is attributed to the shocked ambient medium and is associated to a hot temperature plasma. For this hot component, we consider two possibilities: another NEI model or an additive nonthermal component.

#### 6.2.1 Thermal model

In this model, the shocked ejecta are modelled by a first NEI at low temperature and the shocked ambient medium by a second NEI at high temperature. All the elemental abundances were fixed to solar values. The temperature $`kT_1`$ and the ionization age $`\tau _1`$ were freely fitted.

The best-fit parameters are given in Table 5 and show that the temperature is high ($`2.7`$ keV) and the ionization age very low ($`10^8`$ s cm-3) for the shocked ambient medium. This is very similar to what was found in Tycho’s SNR (Hwang et al. 2002). Indeed, in Tycho’s SNR the temperatures of the shocked ambient medium (corresponding to Behind Rim 1,2,3,4 in Hwang et al. 2002) are around 2 keV and the ionization age has an upper limit in the range of a few $`10^8`$ s cm-3.

The parameters derived from our spectral fit give constraints on the density via the emission measure and the ionization age. In the following, we check the consistency between these two estimates.

A mean ionization age $`\widehat{\tau }`$ can be calculated from simple hypotheses made on our extraction region (region A1). For that region, we assume that the integrated volume along the line-of-sight is a cylinder completely filled with shocked ejecta and shocked ambient medium. We define the mean ionization age $`\widehat{\tau }=\xi \widehat{n}_et_s`$ where $`\xi `$ is a parameter depending on the spatial distribution, $`\widehat{n}_e`$ is the mean electron density which depends on the filling factor $`\epsilon `$, *i.e.* the volume fraction occupied by each medium (shocked ejecta and shocked ambient medium) in the region A1, and $`t_s`$ is the age of the SNR. Hence, $`\widehat{\tau }`$ is a function of $`\epsilon `$ and $`\xi `$. In Appendix B, we described in detail how to compute $`\widehat{\tau }`$ and we give general formulae that can be applied to any SNR. Here, we just give a numerical application of the formula (B.2) for the region A1 in Kepler’s SNR.

For the shocked ambient medium, we derive the following mean ionization age:

$$\widehat{\tau }_1=3.7_{0.6}^{+0.9}\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}10}^{10}\xi \epsilon _1^{1/2}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{cm}^3$$
(1)
and for the shocked ejecta:

$$\widehat{\tau }_2=1.5_{0.3}^{+0.6}\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}10}^9\xi \epsilon _2^{1/2}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{cm}^3$$
(2)
Now, we shall compare the ionization age given by Table 5 and the mean ionization age $`\widehat{\tau }`$ in our region both for the shocked ambient medium and the shocked ejecta. The equality between these two estimates must constrain the value of $`\xi \epsilon ^{1/2}`$, *i.e.* essentially the value of the filling factor $`\epsilon `$.

For the shocked ambient medium, the lower limit on $`\widehat{\tau }_1`$ is $`\mathrm{3.1\hspace{0.25em}10}^{10}\xi \epsilon _1^{1/2}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{cm}^3`$ (cf. Eq. 1). Even if $`\epsilon _1=1`$ (*i.e.* the shocked ambient medium fills all the volume of the projected region of A1), we see that the mean ionization age $`\widehat{\tau }_1`$ cannot be lower than $`\mathrm{3.1\hspace{0.25em}10}^{10}\xi `$ s cm-3. Since $`\xi 1/3`$ is a reasonable choice (cf. Table 6 in Appendix B), we see that this lower limit value is inconsistent by two orders of magnitude with the value $`\tau _1=10^8`$ s cm-3 given in Table 5. This demonstrates that the model representing the shocked ambient medium is not consistent. If the shocked ambient medium does not fill the entire volume of the projected region (Case 2 in Appendix B.2), it increases the lower limit on $`\widehat{\tau }_1`$ which is already inconsistent.

Yet, the Chandra image of the 4-6 keV continuum shows that the bulk of the X-ray emission coming from the region A1 arises from filaments corresponding to thin shocks which extend all along the southwest. Then, from a morphological view point, it seems that this X-ray emission arises from a recently shocked ambient medium concentrated in a small fraction of the entire volume of the projected region. In that case (cf. Appendix B.3), Eqs. (15) and (B.2) leads to $`\widehat{\tau }_1=1.6_{0.7}^{+1.0}\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}10}^{10}\epsilon _1^{1/2}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{cm}^3`$. The equality between this mean ionization age and $`\tau _1`$ (cf. Table 5) implies that $`\mathrm{1.5\hspace{0.25em}10}^5\epsilon _1\mathrm{2.0\hspace{0.25em}10}^4`$. We do not know any thermal model that predicts a compression of the shocked ambient medium behind the shock front in such a thin layer, as noted by Vink & Laming (2003) for Cas A. Hence, it is likely that the X-ray emission arising from this filamentary region is nonthermal in origin.

For the shocked ejecta, the equality between $`\widehat{\tau }_2`$ (cf. Eq. 2) and $`\tau _2`$ (cf. Table 5) implies that $`\epsilon _2=\mathrm{2.1\hspace{0.25em}10}^5\xi ^2`$. Thus, these ejecta fill a very small fraction of the volume of the region A1. An upper limit (lower) on $`\epsilon _2`$ is obtained by taking the maximum (minimum) values of $`\widehat{\tau }_2`$ and the minimum (maximum) values of $`\tau _2`$$`\mathrm{1.4\hspace{0.25em}10}^6\xi ^2=\epsilon _2^{}\epsilon _2\epsilon _2^+=\mathrm{1.1\hspace{0.25em}10}^4\xi ^2`$ at a 90% confidence level. These values must be compared to $`\epsilon _{2,\mathrm{Chevalier}}0.08`$ calculated from the self-similar model of Chevalier (1982) of $`n=9`$ (power-law index of the initial outer density profile in the ejecta), and $`s=0`$ (power-law index of the initial ambient medium density profile). In Appendix B.2, Table 6 indicates that other values of $`n`$ and $`s`$ do not change $`\epsilon _{2,\mathrm{Chevalier}}`$ a lot. With $`\xi 1/3`$, we have $`\epsilon _2=\mathrm{2.3\hspace{0.25em}10}^6`$ ($`\epsilon _2^{}=\mathrm{1.6\hspace{0.25em}10}^7`$, $`\epsilon _2^+=\mathrm{1.2\hspace{0.25em}10}^5`$). It is hard to imagine how the ejecta could be so clumpy. With such small volumes, the density would be very high ($`\widehat{n}_e80\mathrm{cm}^3`$) and would induce short cooling timescales ($`150`$ years) leading to observable optical knots in the southeastern region of Kepler’s SNR which does not seem to be the case (Bandiera & van den Bergh 1991; Douvion et al. 2001). Consequently, this model with two NEI components does not lead to a consistent astrophysical model for the spectrum of the region A1.

#### 6.2.2 Nonthermal model

We consider now models for which the emission from the shocked ambient medium is nonthermal. The ejecta component of this model is the same as in the previous model. As for the shocked ambient medium modelling, rather than choosing a simple power-law, we used a synchrotron radiation cutoff model (called SRCUT in XSPEC, see Reynolds & Keohane 1999) which allows us to describe the synchrotron spectrum including the radio data. This nonthermal model embraces the following parameters: the 1 GHz radio flux density $`S_{1\mathrm{GHz}}`$, the radio spectral index $`\alpha `$ and the rolloff frequency $`\nu _r`$ (*i.e.* approximatively the frequency at which the flux has dropped by a factor of 10 from a straight power-law).

To estimate the local radio flux $`S_{1\mathrm{GHz}}`$ at 1 GHz in the region A1, we used the local radio flux at 1.35 GHz in the region A1 which is estimated to $`0.13\mathrm{Jy}`$ from the radio map presented in Dickel et al. (1988). To convert the flux at 1.35 GHz to the value at 1 GHz, we normalized it by the ratio of the total radio flux at 1 GHz of $`19\mathrm{Jy}`$ (Green 2001) with the total radio flux at 1.35 GHz of $`15\mathrm{Jy}`$ (DeLaney et al. 2002), giving $`S_{1\mathrm{GHz}}=0.16\mathrm{Jy}`$.

Then, we froze the 1 GHz radio flux at $`0.16\mathrm{Jy}`$ in XSPEC whereas $`\nu _r`$ and $`\alpha `$ were freely fitted. This results in a better fit ($`\chi ^2=627`$ for 602 dof) than the fit obtained with the previous model with 2 NEI ($`\chi ^2=701`$ for 601 dof). Figure 8 (right panel) shows the best-fit obtained with the SRCUT+NEI model and illustrates the decomposition of the different components. The best-fit parameters are shown in Table 5. The fitted value of the radio spectral index $`\alpha =0.66\pm 0.01`$ can be compared to the global spectral index of $`0.64\pm 0.02`$ (Matsui et al. 1984) found for the entire SNR and to an estimate of the local value of about $`0.70\pm 0.02`$ taken from the spectral index radio map of Kepler’s SNR made by DeLaney et al. (2002). Our value of $`\alpha `$ is between these values and particularly, the derived upper limit of our spectral index $`\alpha =0.67`$ is flatter than DeLaney et al.’s value. We check that fixing the radio flux to 0.16 and the spectral index $`\alpha `$ to 0.70 makes the fit worse ($`\chi ^2=1315`$). The difference between our best fit spectral index and the local (spatially and spectrally) radio index can be understood because we measure the mean slope between the radio and the X-rays. We note that such a curvature of the spectrum (radio index steeper than mean index) is predicted by the non-linear shock acceleration theory (Reynolds & Ellison 1992).

Hence, it is likely that the emission coming from the forward shock is nonthermal in origin. However, like in the model with two NEI components, the model representing the shocked ejecta is still not consistent.

The spectrum of the forward shock in Kepler is similar to that observed by Chandra in Tycho (Hwang et al. 2002) and Cas A (Vink & Laming 2003). Using a different arguments, it was also argued in these papers that a significant part of the spectrum behind the forward shock was consistent with a nonthermal interpretation. For the future, the combination of the Chandra and XMM-Newton data will provide a deeper understanding and stronger constraints on the regions dominated by the forward shock emission.

The maximum electron energy $`E_{max}`$ can be deduced from the rolloff frequency $`\nu _r`$ and the magnetic field $`B`$ (see Reynolds & Keohane 1999). Using Table 5, we get $`E_{\mathrm{max}}\left(\frac{B}{10\mu \mathrm{G}}\right)^{1/2}=65_7^{+12}\mathrm{TeV}`$. A magnetic field of $`B=14\mu `$G (Matsui et al. 1984) gives $`E_{\mathrm{max}}=55_6^{+11}\mathrm{TeV}`$. This local value is consistent with the 50 TeV maximum electron energy found in Reynolds & Keohane (1999) for the full SNR.

### 6.3 Three components models

In the previous nonthermal model (Sect. 6.2.2), the thermal emission from the shocked ambient medium is not modelled but it must be there. It is possible to estimate its density by adding a third component.

We add another NEI model to this NEI+SRCUT model by fixing all the elemental abundances to their solar values. Moreover, the ionization age $`\tau _1`$ and the normalization $`Norm_1`$ of the shocked ambient medium can be computed respectively from (10) and from the normalization formula (11) as a function of the mean H density $`\widehat{n}_\mathrm{H}`$. Here, we assume that $`\xi =1/3`$ and the parameter $`\epsilon _1`$ is fixed to $`\epsilon _{1,\mathrm{Chevalier}}0.3`$, value chosen from the Chevalier (1982) self-similar profiles ($`n=9,s=0`$). Once the shocked gas density $`\widehat{n}_\mathrm{H}`$ is fixed, $`\tau _1(\widehat{n}_\mathrm{H})`$ and $`Norm_1(\widehat{n}_\mathrm{H})`$ are frozen and the data are fitted. We have included in XSPEC an upper limit on the temperature $`T_1`$ given by the relation $`T_s=\frac{3}{16}\frac{\mu }{k}m_\mathrm{H}v_s^2`$ with $`v_s=\frac{n3}{ns}\frac{r_s}{t_s}4550\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$ (cf. Appendix B) and then we set $`T_1T_s=25`$ keV. It was found that the third component does not improve the fit. Then the plot of the $`\chi ^2`$ curve as a function of $`\widehat{n}_\mathrm{H}`$ gives an upper limit on $`\widehat{n}_\mathrm{H}`$, *i.e.* on the shocked ambient medium density. We find $`\widehat{n}_\mathrm{H}0.15`$ cm-3 at a 90% confidence level which indicates that the forward shock propagates in a very tenuous ambient medium in the southeast.

## 7 Conclusion

The XMM-Newton observation has yielded several new results on Kepler’s SNR. Observational facts and their astrophysical interpretations are summarized here:

* The Si K line emission extends to a higher radius than the Fe L line emission, notably in the southern part of the remnant. It indicates that there is no inversion of the Si and Fe layers.
* The Fe K line emission peaks at a smaller radius than the Fe L line emission in the north. It is a clue for a higher temperature inwards the remnant.
* The 4-6 keV and 8-10 keV images show that there are few variations in the hardness of the continuum over the remnant, except in a few features.
* The asymmetry in the Fe K emission-line is not associated with any asymmetry in the Fe K equivalent width map. Hence, the abundance variations do not cause the north-south brightness asymmetry. The strong emission in the north may be due to overdensities in the ambient medium. As for the southeastern region of the remnant, it has a very low equivalent width. The Si K maps lead to the same conclusions.
* The spectrum of the southeastern rim indicates that the emission of the shocked ambient medium is likely to be mostly nonthermal there. If this is true, the H density of the shocked ambient medium in that region must be lower than $`0.15`$ cm-3.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors thank the referee R. Bandiera for helpful comments. G. C.-C. is indebted to J. L. Sauvageot for his great help in data reduction. J. P. H. acknowledges support from NASA XMM grant NAG5-9927. The results presented here are based on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and the USA (NASA).

## Appendix A Optimization methods for images

### A.1 Optimization of the energy bands width

The width of the energy bands has been optimized by the following method : each line and the surrounding continuum are fitted by the following model (in cts/keV):

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN}{dE}}(E)=P_\beta (E)+\underset{G(E)}{\underset{}{B\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{(EE_0)^2}{2\sigma ^2}}\right)}}+R(E)`$ (3)
where $`P_\beta (E)=A\mathrm{exp}(\beta E)\mathrm{or}P_\beta (E)=AE^\beta `$ according to the shape of the continuum. $`R(E)`$ is a reference background (Lumb et al. 2002) which has been renormalized in the 10-12 keV band for MOS and 12-14 keV band for pn. The coefficients $`A,\beta ,B,E_0,\sigma `$ of the model are evaluated by minimizing the Cash statistic (Cash 1979). Thus, the width $`[E_1,E_2]`$ of each band is determined by optimizing the signal to noise ratio:

$$S/N(E_1,E_2)_{E_1}^{E_2}G(E)𝑑E/\left(_{E_1}^{E_2}\frac{dN}{dE}(E)𝑑E\right)^{1/2}$$
(4)
### A.2 Continuum subtraction

We can take advantage of the above method to clean line-images from the continuum contribution.

Our goal is to obtain an image of the continuum ($`I_c`$) which lies under the emission-line in the energy band $`[E_1,E_2]`$ that will be subtracted from the initial emission-line image. For that, we use two continuum bands $`[E_1^{},E_2^{}]`$ and $`[E_1^+,E_2^+]`$ located on either side of the line band. These two bands are chosen so that the continuum is not contamined by nearby lines. Due to the poor statistics, it is not possible to have directly the shape of the continuum in each pixel $`(i,j)`$. So, we first assume that the shape of the continuum remains constant over the SNR.

Then, the underlying continuum image $`I_c`$ in the band $`[E_1,E_2]`$ will be a linear combination of the background-subtracted continuum images $`I_c^{}`$ and $`I_c^+`$ in the bands $`[E_1^{},E_2^{}]`$ and $`[E_1^+,E_2^+]`$, respectively. Formally, $`(i,j)`$:

$$I_c(i,j)=\lambda \alpha _c^{}I_c^{}(i,j)+(1\lambda )\alpha _c^+I_c^+(i,j)$$
(5)
where the normalisation coefficients ($`\alpha _c^{}`$,$`\alpha _c^+`$) and the weight $`\lambda [0,1]`$ are determined from the spectrum integrated over the entire SNR as described below.

We compute once and for all the normalisation coefficients by $`\alpha _c^{}=𝒩_{\beta _0}/𝒟_c^{}\mathrm{and}\alpha _c^+=𝒩_{\beta _0}/𝒟_c^+`$ where $`𝒟_c^{}`$ ($`𝒟_c^+`$) is the measured background-subtracted continuum counts in the band $`[E_1^{},E_2^{}]`$ ($`[E_1^+,E_2^+]`$). The number of counts $`𝒩_\beta `$ in the modelled continuum of slope $`\beta `$ is defined by $`_{E_1}^{E_2}P_\beta (E)𝑑E`$ in the energy band \[$`E_1,E_2`$\] ($`𝒩_\beta ^{}`$ and $`𝒩_\beta ^+`$ in the bands $`[E_1^{},E_2^{}]`$ and $`[E_1^+,E_2^+]`$, respectively). The value $`\beta _0`$ is determined from the adjustement of the entire remnant spectrum in the band $`[E_1^{},E_2^+]`$ as described in Sect. A.1. If the shape of the continuum is the same over the entire SNR then, whatever $`\lambda `$, the underlying continuum is correctly represented by $`I_c`$ defined in Eq. (5).

However, it is possible that the shape of the continuum changes over the SNR. Then, our goal is to choose the weight $`\lambda `$ to be the least sensitive to spectral variations, *i.e.* to variations of $`\beta `$ within the model (3). In each pixel $`(i,j)`$, we suppose that the modelled continuum has a slope $`\beta (i,j)`$ ($`\beta `$ hereafter). Then, in each pixel, the proportions between $`I_c`$, $`I_c^{}`$, $`I_c^+`$ should follow those between $`𝒩_\beta `$, $`𝒩_\beta ^{}`$, $`𝒩_\beta ^+`$. But, from Eq. (5), $`I_c`$ will follow:

$$𝒞_\beta \lambda \alpha _c^{}𝒩_\beta ^{}+(1\lambda )\alpha _c^+𝒩_\beta ^+.$$
(6)
By construction, we have $`𝒞_{\beta _0}=𝒩_{\beta _0}`$ $`\lambda `$, if the spectral model $`P_\beta `$ is a good representation of the data. To ensure that this equality remains true for small spectral variations, we choose the weight $`\lambda `$ such that:

$$\left(d(𝒞_\beta 𝒩_\beta )/d\beta \right)_{\beta =\beta _0}=0$$
(7)
However, the solution $`\lambda `$ of Eq. (7) may give too much weight to the continuum map which has the lower statistics so that statistical fluctuations are amplified. To avoid this effect, we take the value of $`\lambda `$ given by Eq. (7) provided that the variance of Eq. (5) is lower than $`10\%`$ of the variance of the initial emission-line. This is equivalent to:

$$𝒱_c[\lambda \alpha _c^{}]^2N^{}+[(1\lambda )\alpha _c^+]^2N^+0.1N_{\mathrm{line}}$$
(8)
where $`N^{}`$ ($`N^+`$) is the total number of counts (*i.e.* with the background) in the continuum band $`[E_1^{},E_2^{}]`$ ($`[E_1^+,E_2^+]`$) and $`N_{\mathrm{line}}`$ the total number of counts in the line in \[$`E_1,E_2`$\]. If the procedure gives higher variance, then we choose the closest $`\lambda `$ compatible with the constraint on the variance (*i.e.* we give higher weight to the continuum band with better statistics).

### A.3 Equivalent width image

The interpolation based method can also be used to construct EQW images with some variants.

To build an EQW image, we have divided the image in the line (background and continuum subtracted) by the underlying continuum $`I_c`$ (background subtracted) at $`E_0`$.

Because of such an operation, the statistical fluctuations can be strongly amplified. So, we must insist on the statistical aspect rather than on the spectral aspect. In that case, the parameter $`\lambda `$ of the $`I_c`$ image used for dividing is calculated so that the relative error $`\sqrt{𝒱_c}/𝒩_{\beta _0}`$ (see Sect. A.2) is at most of the same order as the relative error on the initial emission-line spectrum $`1/\sqrt{N_{\mathrm{line}}}`$.

## Appendix B Mean ionization age computation

Here, we present the method used for computing a mean ionization age in the aim to check the value of the ionization age obtained by the spectral fit.

### B.1 General method

We can write the mean ionization age $`\widehat{\tau }`$ as a function of the mean electron density $`\widehat{n}_e`$ which is determined from the observation, the age of the SNR $`t_s`$ and a parameter $`\xi `$ depending on the spatial distribution, so that

$$\widehat{\tau }=\xi \widehat{n}_et_s$$
(9)
We first calculate the mean electron density $`\widehat{n}_e`$ as a function of the mean H density $`\widehat{n}_\mathrm{H}`$ by :

$$\widehat{n}_e=(\underset{i}{}z_iAb_iAb_{,i})\widehat{n}_\mathrm{H}$$
(10)
where $`z_i`$ is the number of electrons lost by the atom $`i`$ (fully or partly ionized), $`Ab_i`$ and $`Ab_{,i}`$ respectively the abundance with respect to solar used by XSPEC and the solar abundance555For solar abundances, $`_iz_iAb_iAb_{,i}1.21`$. of the element $`i`$, $`i`$={H,He,C,N,O,Ne, Mg,Si,S,Ca,Fe,Ni}. Then, from the normalization formula given in XSPEC, we can deduce the mean H density:

$$\widehat{n}_\mathrm{H}=\left(\frac{4\pi D^2}{10^{14}V}\frac{Norm}{_iz_iAb_iAb_{,i}}\right)^{1/2}\mathrm{cm}^3$$
(11)
where $`D`$ is the distance to the source (in cm), $`Norm`$ the normalization value given by XSPEC and $`V`$ the emission volume which projects onto the local extraction region (we shall explain below how to estimate the local volume $`V`$). Hence, $`\widehat{n}_e`$ is calculated with (10) using (11).

If the spatial structure is known (from a model), it is possible to evaluate $`\xi `$. The ionization age should be estimated by averaging over emission measure (see Kaastra & Jansen 1993)

$$\widehat{\tau }=[\tau (r)n_e(r)^2r^2𝑑r]/[n_e(r)^2r^2𝑑r]$$
(12)
and the mean electron density from the emission measure

$$\widehat{n}_e=\left([n_e(r)^2r^2𝑑r]/[r^2𝑑r]\right)^{1/2}.$$
(13)
so that $`\xi =\widehat{\tau }/(\widehat{n}_et_s)`$. For reference, $`\widehat{\tau }`$ and $`\widehat{n}_e`$ can be computed using a self-similar hydrodynamical model (Chevalier 1982). In Eq. (12), $`\tau (r)=_{t_0(r)}^{t_s}n_e(t)𝑑t`$ where $`t_0(r)`$ is the time when a mass element located at the position $`r`$ at $`t_s`$ was shock-heated by the blast wave. In Eqs. (12) and (13), the integration is made over the volume of the considered shell (shocked ejecta or shocked ambient medium). Table 6 gives some values of $`\xi `$ for different values of the power-law index $`n`$ of initial outer density profile in the ejecta and the power-law index $`s`$ of the initial outer density profile for the ambient medium.

### B.2 Volume estimation

Here, we intend to describe how we estimate the emission volume $`V`$ which projects onto the local extraction region. This estimation depends on the local geometry of the SNR but can be treated with a global model depending on the situation encountered.

Two cases should be considered:

The first one corresponds to the situation in which the projected region is contained between the forward shock and the reverse shock radii (respectively $`r_s`$ and $`r_r`$) of the projected shell of the entire SNR.

The second one corresponds to the situation in which the shocked ejecta and the shocked ambient medium partially fill the volume $`V`$ which projects onto the local extraction region.

##### Case 1:

The volume $`V`$ that we integrate along the line-of-sight in the local region is always a cylinder full of shocked ejecta and shocked ambient medium whatever is the position of the reverse shock. So the fact that we use local or global parameters to estimate the volume which projects onto the local extraction region does not matter.

The volume $`V`$ can be computed as a function of the overall volume of the SNR considered as a filled sphere whose radius $`r_s=D\theta _s`$ is given by the position of the forward shock 666For Kepler’s SNR, we set $`\theta _s=120\mathrm{}`$ from the 4-6 keV continuum image by choosing the same coordinates center as in Hughes (1999). This angular radius corresponds to $`r_s=2.8\pm 0.8`$ pc.. We define $`\alpha `$ so that $`V=\alpha \frac{4}{3}\pi (D\theta _s)^3`$. Afterwards, we correct $`V`$ by a filling factor $`\epsilon 1`$ which takes into account the volume fraction filled by the shocked gas (ambient or ejecta).

In this configuration, the mean ionization age using Eqs. (9), (10) and (11) becomes:

$`\widehat{\tau }=\mathrm{9.2\hspace{0.25em}10}^{11}\left({\displaystyle \frac{t_s}{1\mathrm{yr}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\theta _s}{1\mathrm{}}}\right)^{3/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{D}{1\mathrm{kpc}}}\right)^{1/2}`$
$`\times \left(Norm{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}z_iAb_iAb_{,i}\right)^{1/2}{\displaystyle \frac{\xi }{\left(\epsilon \alpha \right)^{1/2}}}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{cm}^3`$ (14)
##### Case 2:

In that case, Eq. (B.2) is still valid but we apply a filling factor $`\epsilon `$ which takes into account the average properties of the SNR.

Table 6 gives some values of filling factors calculated in the framework of the self-similar model of Chevalier (1982) averaged over the remnant. Let $`r_s`$ be the radius of the forward shock, $`r_r`$ the radius of the reverse shock radius and $`r_c`$ the radius of the contact discontinuity. The filling factor of the shocked ambient medium is given by the geometry of the shell and is equal to $`\epsilon _{1,\mathrm{Chevalier}}=(r_s^3r_c^3)/r_s^3`$. On the other side, the filling factor of the shocked ejecta is equal to $`\epsilon _{2,\mathrm{Chevalier}}=(r_c^3r_r^3)/r_s^3`$.

### B.3 Recently shocked gas

The thermal fits (cf. Sect. 6.2.1) result in very small ionization age $`\tau `$. This could happen if the X-ray gas was very recently shocked.

We assume that the speed of the shock $`v_s`$ is constant on the time scale $`\xi t_s`$ where $`t_s`$ is the SNR age. Let $`n_0`$ be the mean ambient density and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ the compression ratio ($`\mathrm{\Omega }>4`$). The amount of shocked ambient medium matter in the region A1 is $`\mathrm{\Omega }n_0\epsilon V`$ where $`V`$ is the volume that we integrate along the line-of-sight in the considered region and $`\epsilon `$ a filling factor (see Sect. B.2). It is also $`Sv_s\xi t_sn_0`$ where $`S`$ is the surface encountered by the shock in the region A1. By taking an upper limit $`S_{\mathrm{max}}`$ on the surface shocked by the blast wave, we obtain a lower limit $`\xi _{\mathrm{min}}`$ on $`\xi `$. With $`S_{\mathrm{max}}=4r_{\mathrm{A1}}r_s`$ where $`r_{\mathrm{A1}}=D\theta _{\mathrm{A1}}`$ is the radius of the projected region A1 and $`r_s`$ the shock radius, we obtain:

$`\xi _{\mathrm{min}}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{4.97\hspace{0.25em}10}^3\left({\displaystyle \frac{D}{1\mathrm{kpc}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\theta _s}{1\mathrm{}}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\theta _{\mathrm{A1}}}{1\mathrm{}}}\right)^1`$ (15)
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{t_s}{1\mathrm{yr}}}\right)^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{v_s}{1\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}}}\right)^1\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }\epsilon `$
This equation shows that $`\xi `$ is geometrically related to the filling factor $`\epsilon `$ (cf. Sect. B.2)777Using Kepler’s SNR parameters in the region A1 $`D=4.8\pm 1.4\mathrm{kpc}`$, $`\theta _s=120\mathrm{}`$, $`\theta _{\mathrm{A1}}=14\mathrm{}`$, $`t_s=400\mathrm{yr}`$, $`v_s=4550\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$, $`\alpha =0.008`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }=4`$ leads to the lower limit $`\xi _{\mathrm{min}}0.43\epsilon \pm 0.13`$.. A small value of $`\xi `$ implies a very small filling factor especially as we took a rough upper limit on the surface $`S`$.


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# A note on mean curvature, Maslov class and symplectic area of Lagrangian immersions

## 1. Introduction

Let $`(M,\omega )`$ be a Kähler-Einstein manifold whose Ricci curvature is a multiple of the metric by a real number $`\lambda `$. Hence the Kähler form $`\omega `$ and the first Chern class $`c_1(M)`$ are related by $`c_1(M)=\lambda [\omega ]`$. Let $`L`$ be an immersed Lagrangian submanifold of $`M`$ and let $`\sigma _L`$ be the mean curvature form of $`L`$ (which is a closed 1-form on $`L`$). Let $`F:\mathrm{\Sigma }M`$ be a smooth map from a compact connected surface to $`M`$ whose boundary $`F`$ is contained in $`L`$. Let $`\mu (F)`$ be the Maslov class of $`F`$ and $`\omega (F)`$ its symplectic area. The goal of this note is to prove the following simple relation between these quantities:

(1)
$$\mu (F)2\lambda \omega (F)=\frac{\sigma _L(F)}{\pi }.$$

This relation was given in \[M\] for $`^n`$ and in \[Ar\] for Calabi-Yau manifolds. Dazord \[D\] showed that the differential of the mean curvature form is the Ricci form, so in the Kähler-Einstein case $`\sigma _L`$ is closed. Y.G. Oh \[Oh2\] investigated the symplectic area in the case that the mean curvature form is exact.

In the case $`\lambda >0`$, Lagrangian submanifolds for which the left-hand side vanishes on all disks $`F`$ are called monotone in the symplectic geometry literature, cf. \[Oh1\]. An immediate consequence of (1) is that in Kähler-Einstein manifolds with positive scalar curvature, minimal Lagrangian immersions are monotone.

In view of the condition $`c_1(M)=\lambda [\omega ]`$, the left-hand side of (1) depends only on the boundary of $`F`$. Thus if the map $`H_1(L;)H_1(M;)`$ is trivial it defines a cohomology class $`\delta _LH^1(L;)`$ via $`\delta _L(\gamma ):=\mu (F)2\lambda \omega (F)`$ for some 2-cycle $`F`$ with $`F=\gamma `$. It follows that in this case the cohomology class of the mean curvature form $`\sigma _L`$ is invariant under symplectomorphisms of $`M`$. This generalizes Oh’s observation \[Oh2\] that the cohomology class is invariant under Hamiltonian deformations. One consequence is the following:

Let $`(M,\omega )`$ be a Kähler manifold with $`c_1(M)=\lambda [\omega ]H_2(M;)`$. Let $`L`$ be an immersed Lagrangian submanifold of $`M`$ such that the map $`H_1(L;)H_1(M;)`$ is trivial and $`\delta _L0`$. Suppose there is a Kähler-Einstein metric $`\omega _{KE}`$ in the same cohomology class as $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi :(M,\omega )(M,\omega _{KE})`$ is a symplectomorphism (e.g. the one provided by Moser’s theorem). Then $`\varphi (L)`$ is Lagrangian but not minimal.

Note that for $`\lambda 0`$ most Lagrangian submanifolds $`L`$ with nontrivial first Betti number such that $`H_1(L)H_1(M)`$ vanishes have $`\delta _L0`$: For any such $`L`$, pick a normal vector field $`v`$ to $`L`$ such that $`i_v\omega `$ is closed on $`L`$ and non-trivial cohomologically. Then small time variations of $`L`$ through $`v`$ produce Lagrangian submanifolds with nontrivial $`\delta _L`$.

## 2. Notation

We first recall the definition of the Maslov index that is suitable for our purposes. Let $`V`$ be a Hermitian vector space of complex dimension $`n`$. Let $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n,0)}V`$ be the (one-dimensional) space of holomorphic $`(n,0)`$-forms on $`V`$ and set

$$K^2(V):=\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n,0)}V\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n,0)}V.$$

Let $`L`$ be a Lagrangian subspace of $`V`$. We can associate to $`L`$ an element $`\kappa (L)`$ in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n,0)}V`$ of unit length which restricts to a real volume form on $`L`$. This element is unique up to sign and therefore defines a unique element of unit length

$$\kappa ^2(L):=\kappa (L)\kappa (L)K^2(V).$$

Thus we get a map $`\kappa ^2`$ from the Grassmanian $`Gr_{\mathrm{Lag}}(V)`$ of Lagrangian planes to the unit circle in $`K^2(V)`$. This map induces a homomorphism $`\kappa _{}^2`$ of fundamental groups

$$\kappa _{}^2:\pi _1(Gr_{\mathrm{Lag}}(V)).$$

To understand the map $`\kappa _{}^2`$, let $`L`$ be a Lagrangian subspace and let $`v_1,\mathrm{},v_n`$ be an orthonormal basis for $`L`$. For $`0t1`$ consider the subspace

$$L_t=span\{v_1,\mathrm{},v_{n1},e^{\pi it}v_n\}.$$

This loop $`\{L_t\}`$ is the standard generator of $`\pi _1(Gr_{\mathrm{Lag}}(V))`$. The induced elements in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n,0)}V`$ are related by $`\kappa (L_t)=\pm e^{\pi it}\kappa (L)`$, so $`\kappa ^2(L_t)=e^{2\pi it}\kappa ^2(L)`$ and $`\kappa _{}^2(\{L_t\})=1`$. Thus we see that the homomorphism $`\kappa _{}^2`$ is related to the Maslov index $`\mu `$ (as defined, e.g., in \[ALP\]) by

$$\kappa _{}^2=\mu :\pi _1(Gr_{\mathrm{Lag}}(V)).$$

Now let $`(M,\omega )`$ be a symplectic manifold of dimension $`2n`$. Pick a compatible almost complex structure $`J`$ on $`M`$ and let $`K(M)`$ be the canonical bundle of $`M`$, i.e., $`K(M):=\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n,0)}T^{}M`$ is the bundle of $`(n,0)`$-forms on $`M`$. Note that $`c_1(K(M))=c_1(M)`$. Let $`K^2(M):=K(M)K(M)`$ be the square of the canonical bundle.
Let $`L`$ be an immersed Lagrangian submanifold of $`M`$. For any point $`lL`$ there is an element of unit length $`\kappa (l)`$ of $`K(M)`$ over $`l`$, unique up to sign, which restricts to a real volume form on the tangent space $`T_lL`$. The squares of these elements give rise to a section of unit length

$$\kappa _L^2:LK^2(M).$$

Now let $`F:\mathrm{\Sigma }M`$ be a smooth map with boundary $`F`$ on $`L`$. The symplectic area of $`F`$ is

$$\omega (F)=_\mathrm{\Sigma }F^{}\omega .$$

This defines a map from the relative second homology group to $``$,

$$[\omega ]:H_2(M,L;).$$

To define the Maslov class $`\mu (F)`$, choose a unitary frame for the tangent bundle $`TM`$ along $`F`$. Consider the dual frame and wedge all its elements. Thus we get a unit length section $`\kappa _F`$ of $`K(M)`$ over $`F`$. Now on the boundary $`F=F(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ we also have the section $`\kappa _L^2`$ defined above. We can uniquely write

$$\kappa _L^2=e^{i\theta }\kappa _F^2$$

for a function $`e^{i\theta }:\mathrm{\Sigma }S^1`$ to the unit circle. The Maslov class $`\mu (F)`$ is minus its winding number,

$$\mu (F):=\frac{1}{2\pi }_F𝑑\theta .$$

This defines a map

$$\mu :H_2(M,L;).$$

In view of the discussion above, this definition agrees with the usual definition of the Maslov class, cf. \[ALP\].

Now suppose that $`c_1(M)=\lambda [\omega ]H_2(M;)`$. It is well-known that if $`F`$ is trivial in $`H_1(L;)`$, then $`F`$ represents an element in $`[F]H_2(M;)`$ and

$$\mu (F)=2c_1(M)([F])=2\lambda \omega (F).$$

So in this case $`\mu (F)2\lambda \omega (F)`$ depends only on the boundary $`FH_1(L;)`$. If, moreover, the map $`H_1(L;)H_1(M;)`$ is trivial, this expression defines a cohomology class $`\delta _LH^1(L;)`$ via

$$\delta _L(\gamma ):=\mu (F)2\lambda \omega (F)$$

for some 2-cycle $`F`$ with $`F=\gamma `$.

## 3. proof

Now assume that $`(M,\omega )`$ is Kähler-Einstein, i.e., $`M`$ carries a Kähler metric whose Ricci curvature is a multiple of the metric by a constant $`\lambda `$. This is equivalent to saying that the curvature form of the canonical bundle $`K(M)`$ equals $`\frac{2\pi }{i}\lambda \omega `$. We denote the connections on $`K(M)`$ and $`K^2(M)`$ (induced by the Levi-Civita connection) by $``$.
Let $`L`$ be an immersed Lagrangian submanifold of $`M`$ and let $`\kappa _L^2`$ be the canonical section of $`K^2(M)`$ over $`L`$ as above. The section $`\kappa _L^2`$ defines a connection 1-form $`\xi _L`$ for $`K^2(M)`$ over $`L`$ by the condition $`\kappa _L^2=\xi _L\kappa _L^2`$. Since $`\kappa _L^2`$ has constant length $`1`$, $`\xi _L`$ is an imaginary valued 1-form on $`L`$. From the Einstein condition and the fact that $`L`$ is Lagrangian we get $`d(i\xi _L)=4\pi \lambda \omega |_L=0`$, so the form $`i\xi _L`$ is closed.
Let $`H`$ be the trace of the second fundamental form of $`L`$ (the mean curvature vector field of $`L`$). Thus $`H`$ is a section of the normal bundle to $`L`$ in $`M`$ and we have a corresponding 1-form $`\sigma _L:=i_H\omega `$ on $`L`$. The following fact goes back to \[Oh2\] (see also \[Gold1\] for a proof):

$$\sigma _L=i\xi _L/2.$$

(Here the factor $`1/2`$ is due to the fact that $`\xi _L`$ is a connection 1-form for $`K^2(M)`$ rather than $`K(M)`$.) Thus $`\sigma _L`$ is a closed 1-form on $`L`$, called the mean curvature form on $`L`$.

Having explained all the terms in formula (1), we now turn to its proof. Let $`F:\mathrm{\Sigma }M`$ be a smooth map from a compact surface with boundary on $`L`$. Define the section $`\kappa _F`$ of $`K(M)`$ over $`F`$ as above, using a unitary trivialization of $`TM`$ over $`F`$. Let $`\xi _F`$ be the connection 1-form along $`F`$ defined by $`\kappa _F^2=\xi _F\kappa _F^2`$. The Einstein condition tells us that $`d(i\xi _F)=4\pi \lambda F^{}\omega `$. Thus by Stokes’ theorem,

$$2\lambda \omega (F)=_F\frac{i\xi _F}{2\pi }.$$

Recall that along $`F`$ we have $`\kappa _L^2=e^{i\theta }\kappa _F^2`$ for a function $`e^{i\theta }:\mathrm{\Sigma }S^1`$, and the Maslov class is given by

$$\mu (F)=\frac{1}{2\pi }_F𝑑\theta .$$

The connection 1-forms $`\xi _F`$ and $`\xi _L`$ are related by

$$\xi _L=\xi _F+id\theta .$$

Thus

$$\frac{\sigma _L(F)}{\pi }=_F\frac{i\xi _L}{2\pi }=_F\frac{i\xi _F}{2\pi }_F\frac{d\theta }{2\pi }=\mu (F)2\lambda \omega (F).$$


text:
# Direct Confirmation of Two Pattern Speeds in the Double Barred Galaxy NGC 29501

## 1 Introduction

Large-scale bars are present in some $`2/3`$ of all disk galaxies (Knapen et al 2000; Eskridge et al. 2000). Secondary stellar bars within large-scale bars are also common, occurring in about $`1/3`$ of barred galaxies (Laine et al. 2002; Erwin & Sparke 2002). Interest in secondary stellar bars is motivated by the hypothesis that they are a mechanism for driving gas to small radii to feed the supermassive black holes powering active galactic nuclei (e.g. Regan & Mulchaey 1999). However, the efficiency of such transport is uncertain because of the complete lack of knowledge of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$, the pattern speeds of the primary and secondary bars. Whereas a number of pattern speeds of large-scale bars have been measured (see Aguerri et al. 2003, hereafter ADC03 and references therein), no such measurements in nested systems have been performed yet. The presence of nested bars with different pattern speeds has been inferred largely on the basis of their apparently random relative orientations (Buta & Crocker 1993). The possibility that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}>\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}`$ is supported by the simulations of Rautiainen et al. (2002), which showed that secondary bars can naturally form and survive for more than few rotation periods in pure stellar disks. The morphological characteristics of these systems are suggestive of stars in the secondary bars oscillating about the loop orbits studied by Maciejewski & Sparke (2000) for models with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}>\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}`$. However, simulations have also found other possibilities (Friedli & Martinet 1993), including cases where two stellar bars counter-rotate (Sellwood & Merritt 1994; Friedli 1996).

A model-independent method for measuring pattern speeds is the Tremaine-Weinberg method (Tremaine & Weinberg 1984, TW hereafter). This gives the pattern speed $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of a single bar as

$$𝒳\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{sin}i=𝒱,$$
(1)
where $`𝒳`$ and $`𝒱`$ are luminosity-weighted average position and line-of-sight velocity measured parallel to the major axis of the galaxy disk, and $`i`$ is the disk inclination. Long-slit spectra parallel to the disk major-axis can measure all the quantities needed by Eqn. 1 provided that the galaxy is free of extinction. If several parallel slits at different offsets $`Y`$ relative to the major axis are available for a galaxy, $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{sin}i`$ can be obtained as the slope of a plot of $`𝒱`$ versus $`𝒳`$. In a double barred galaxy (hereafter S2B), for a slit passing through both bars, Eqn. 1 is modified to

$$(𝒳_\mathrm{p}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}+𝒳_\mathrm{s}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s})\mathrm{sin}i=𝒱$$
(2)
provided the two bars are rigidly rotating through each other, i.e. that the total surface density is described by $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(R,\varphi )=\mathrm{\Sigma }_p(R,\varphi \mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}t)+\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(R,\varphi \mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}t)`$. Eqn. 2 is then a consequence of the linearity of the continuity equation. Eqn. 2 can be solved for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$ by first measuring $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}`$ as in Eqn. 1 with slits which avoid the secondary bar, and then modeling to obtain $`𝒳_\mathrm{s}`$ from the observed $`𝒳=𝒳_\mathrm{s}+𝒳_\mathrm{p}`$. However, the two bars are not likely to rotate rigidly through each other when $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$ (Louis & Gerhard 1988; Maciejewski & Sparke 2000; Rautiainen et al. 2002), requiring additional modeling to obtain $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$. Nonetheless, when $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$, Eqn. 2 reduces to Eqn. 1 and is satisfied exactly. Thus testing whether $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}`$ does not require any assumptions.

## 2 NGC 2950

An ideal target for this purpose is the S2B NGC 2950, which is a large ($`2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}7\times 1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}8`$ \[de Vaucouleurs et al. 1991, hereafter RC3\]) and bright ($`B_T=11.84`$ \[RC3\]) early-type barred galaxy. NGC 2950 is classified RSB0(r) and its total absolute magnitude is $`M_{B_T}^0=20.03`$ (RC3) adopting a distance of 23.3 Mpc (Tully 1988). The presence of a secondary stellar bar has been discussed extensively by Wozniak et al. (1995), Friedli et al. (1996), and Erwin & Sparke (2002) on the basis of ground-based and Hubble Space Telescope images in both optical and near-infrared bandpasses. The secondary bar of NGC 2950 is typical of those in the samples of Laine et al. (2002) and of Erwin & Sparke (2002). NGC 2950 meets all the requirements for the TW analysis: it has an intermediate inclination, both bars have intermediate position angles (hereafter PA) between the major and minor axes of the disk and no evidence of spirals, patchy dust or significant companions.

## 3 Surface photometry

The photometric observations of NGC 2950 were carried out at the 1-m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope on December 27-28, 2000. We took multiple exposures in the Harris $`B`$ (4 $`\times `$ 1200 s), $`V`$ (3 $`\times `$ 480 s), and $`I`$ (18 $`\times `$ 150 s) bandpasses using the SITe2 $`2048\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2048}`$ CCD. This camera has a scale of $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}33`$ pixel-1, yielding an unvignetted field of view of $`10^{}\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{}`$. The seeing FWHM was $`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$. The data reduction has been carried out using standard IRAF tasks as in Debattista et al. (2002, hereafter DCA02). Images were bias subtracted, flatfielded, cleaned of cosmic rays, and corrected of bad pixels. The sky-background level was removed by fitting a second-order polynomial to the regions free of sources. Photometric calibration, using standard stars, included corrections for atmospheric and Galactic extinction, and for color as in DCA02.

The radial profiles of surface brightness, ellipticity and PA were obtained by fitting elliptical isophotes with the IRAF task ELLIPSE. We first fitted ellipses allowing their centers to vary to test for patchy dust obscuration. We found no evidence of a varying center within the errors of the fits, and similar PA and ellipticity profiles for all bandpasses. Thus we concluded that there is little or uniform obscuration, as required for the TW method. The ellipse fits were then repeated with the ellipse center fixed; the resulting photometric profiles are plotted in Fig. 1. We interpreted the local maximum in ellipticity at $`r3^{\prime \prime }`$ and the corresponding twist and stationary value in PA as the photometric signatures of the presence of a misaligned secondary bar inside the primary bar. This is confirmed by the analysis of $`BI`$ and $`VI`$ color maps and unsharp mask of the original frames; in all we find no evidence of other small-scale structures such as nuclear rings or disks, spiral arms, star-forming regions, dust lanes and/or dust patches, in agreement with previous results (Wozniak et al. 1995; Friedli et al. 1996; Erwin & Sparke 2003). In particular, the structural details unveiled by the unsharp mask of the WFPC2/F814W image of the nucleus of NGC 2950 (Erwin & Sparke 2003) are unlike those typical of nuclear stellar disks (Pizzella et al. 2002). The PAs of the primary ($`\mathrm{PA}_\mathrm{p}=152\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}6\pm 0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4`$) and secondary bar ($`\mathrm{PA}_\mathrm{s}=91\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1\pm 0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}3`$) were measured in the $`I`$band image at $`r3^{\prime \prime }`$ and $`r23^{\prime \prime }`$, at the two peaks in the ellipticity profile (Fig. 1). The lengths of the primary ($`a_\mathrm{p}=34\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}3\pm 2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1`$) and secondary bar ($`a_\mathrm{s}=4\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5\pm 1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$) were measured using three independent methods based on Fourier amplitudes (Aguerri et al. 2000), Fourier and ellipse phases (DCA02), and a decomposition of the surface brightness profiles (Prieto et al. 2001). The inclination ($`i=45\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}6\pm 1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$) and PA of the disk ($`\mathrm{PA}_\mathrm{d}=116\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1\pm 1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$) were determined by averaging the values measured between $`65^{\prime \prime }`$ and $`100^{\prime \prime }`$ in the $`I`$band profile (Fig. 1).

## 4 Long-slit spectroscopy

The spectroscopic observations of NGC 2950 were carried out at the 3.6-m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo on December 18, 2001 (run 1), March 20-22, 2002 (run 2), and March 9-11, 2003 (run 3). The Low Resolution Spectrograph mounted the HR-V grism No. 6 with 600 $`\mathrm{grooves}\mathrm{mm}^1`$ and the $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}7\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1`$ slit. The detector was the Loral CCD with $`2048\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2048}`$ pixels of $`15\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}15}`$ $`\mu `$m2. The wavelength range from 4660 to 6820 Å was covered with a reciprocal dispersion of 1.054 Å pixel-1 and a spatial scale of 0.275 arcsec pixel-1. We obtained 4 spectra with the slit along the disk major axis (run 2 and 3), and 11 offset spectra with the slit parallel to it ($`Y=3\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1,+1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5,+2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}8,\pm 10\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1`$ in run 1, $`Y=\pm 5\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1,\pm 13\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4`$ in run 2, and $`Y=2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5,+3\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$ in run 3, Fig. 2). The exposure times were $`2\times 60`$ min and $`2\times 45`$ min for the major-axis spectra obtained in run 2 and 3, respectively, and 45 min for all the offset spectra. Comparison lamp exposures before and/or after each object integration ensured accurate wavelength calibrations. Spectra of G and K giant stars served as kinematical templates. The seeing FWHM was $`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}2`$ in run 1, $`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$ in run 2, and $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}9`$ in run 3. Using standard MIDAS routines, all the spectra were bias subtracted, flatfield corrected, cleaned of cosmic rays, corrected for bad pixels and wavelength calibrated as in DCA02. The accuracy of the wavelength rebinning ($`2`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) was checked by measuring wavelengths of the brightest night-sky emission lines. The instrumental resolution was 3.10 Å (FWHM) corresponding to $`\sigma _{\mathrm{𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡}}80`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at 5170 Å. The major-axis spectra obtained in the same run were co-added using the center of the stellar continuum as reference. In all the spectra the contribution of the sky was determined by interpolating along the outermost $`20^{\prime \prime }`$ at the edges of the slit and then subtracted.

## 5 Pattern speeds of the primary bar and secondary bar

To measure $`𝒱`$ for each slit (Fig. 3a), we first collapsed each two-dimensional spectrum along its spatial direction in the wavelength range between 5060 and 5490 Å, obtaining a one-dimensional spectrum. The value of $`𝒱`$ was then derived by fitting the resulting spectrum with the convolution of the spectrum of the K1III star HR 4699 and a Gaussian line-of-sight velocity profile by means of the Fourier Correlation Quotient method (Bender 1990, hereafter FCQ) as done in ADC03. We estimated uncertainties by Monte Carlo simulations with photon, read-out and sky noise. To compute $`𝒳`$ for each slit (Fig. 3b), we extracted the luminosity profiles from the $`V`$band image along the position of the slit after convolving the image to the seeing of the spectrum. The $`V`$band profiles match very well the profiles obtained by collapsing the spectra along the wavelength direction, confirming that the slits were placed as intended. We used the $`V`$band profiles to compute $`𝒳`$ because they are less noisy than those extracted from the spectra, particularly at large radii. We obtained $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}`$ from the values of $`𝒳`$ and $`𝒱`$ for the slits at $`|Y|3\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1`$ and at $`Y=0^{\prime \prime }`$ (the latter constrain only the zero point). Since the slits at $`|Y|3\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1`$ do not cross the secondary bar, we assume $`𝒳=𝒳_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`𝒱=𝒱_\mathrm{p}`$ for them and obtain $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}\mathrm{sin}i`$ with a straight line fit. This gives $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}=11.2\pm 2.4`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ arcsec-1 ($`99.2\pm 21.2`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ kpc-1, Fig. 3c) The value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}`$ does not change within errors ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}=10.9\pm 2.4`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ arcsec-1) when we exclude the slits at $`Y=3\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1,+3\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$, confirming that they are not much affected by the secondary bar (Fig. 2).

We used the FCQ to measure the line-of-sight velocity and velocity dispersion profiles of the stellar component along the major axis (Fig. 4). All the major-axis spectra were co-added after being convolved to the same seeing. We derived the circular velocity in the disk region, $`V_c=356_{49}^{+61}`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, after a standard correction for the asymmetric drift as in ADC03. Thus the corotation radius of the primary bar is $`D_\mathrm{p}=V_c/\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}=32\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4_{6.2}^{+8.7}`$ and the ratio $`_\mathrm{p}D_\mathrm{p}/a_\mathrm{p}`$ of the corotation radius to the bar semimajor axis is $`_\mathrm{p}=1.0_{0.2}^{+0.3}`$ (error intervals on $`D_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`_\mathrm{p}`$ are $`68\%`$ confidence level and were measured with Monte Carlo simulations as in ADC03). We conclude that, within the errors, the primary bar of NGC 2950 is consistent with all previous measurements of $``$ in SB0 galaxies (ADC03), which gives us confidence in our assumption that the signals in the outer slits are generated by the primary bar only.

The photometric and kinematic integrals measured with the innermost slits ($`|Y|2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}8`$) include a contribution from the secondary bar. In particular, $`|𝒱||𝒱_\mathrm{p}|`$ for the slits at $`Y=2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5,+2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}8`$ if we extrapolate $`𝒱_\mathrm{p}`$ from large $`|Y|`$. A straight line fit to $`𝒳`$ and $`𝒱`$ for the slits at $`|Y|2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}8`$ has a slope ($`=63.7\pm 7.1`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ arcsec-1, Fig. 3c) which is different at better than $`99\%`$ confidence level from the slope ($`=8.0\pm 1.7`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ arcsec-1, Fig. 3c) of the straight line fit for the primary bar. This may be because $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$; however, to justify this conclusion, we needed to exclude the possibility of a systematic error due to PA errors, which $`𝒳`$ and $`𝒱`$ are quite sensitive to (Debattista 2003). We tested whether the difference in the slopes of the straight line fits may be due to only PA errors when $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$ by building a model of a S2B galaxy with a single pattern speed from an $`N`$body simulation of a SB0 galaxy described in Debattista (2003). We rotated particles by 90, rescaled their phase space coordinates by a factor of 0.2, and added them back to the original galaxy with various primary to secondary mass ratios to approximately match NGC 2950. After projecting this system as in NGC 2950, we proceeded to measure $`𝒳`$ and $`𝒱`$ for slits misaligned with the major axis. Even when PA errors reached $`\pm 5^{}`$, we were not able to produce a system which approaches the behavior of our observations. In particular, we were not able to produce a system in which the slopes of the integrals plotted versus $`|Y|`$ are larger for $`𝒱`$ and smaller for $`𝒳`$ in the region of the secondary bar than in the region of the main bar, as we observed in NGC 2950 (Fig. 3a,b). We therefore concluded that the signatures we observed could not be an artifact of any PA misalignments on two bars rotating with a single pattern speed. Our results, therefore, lead us to conclude, directly and for the first time, that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}`$.

However, estimating $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$ is model dependent; we illustrate this by considering two extreme cases. First, we assumed that the secondary bar dominates at $`|Y|2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}8`$, and used Eqn. 1 with $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ replaced by $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$ to find $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{s},1}=89.2\pm 9.9`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ arcsec-1 (Fig. 3c). In the second case, we rewrote Eqn. 2 as $`𝒳_\mathrm{s}(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p})\mathrm{sin}i=𝒱\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}𝒳\mathrm{sin}i.`$ The observed quantities are $`𝒳`$ and $`𝒱`$, while $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}`$ was measured above. To obtain $`𝒳_\mathrm{s}`$, first we derived the values of $`𝒳_\mathrm{p}`$ in the region of the nuclear bar by fitting a straight line to the $`𝒳`$ values at $`|Y|10\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1`$ (fits extending to smaller $`|Y|`$ give larger $`|\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}|`$), and obtained $`𝒳_\mathrm{s}=𝒳𝒳_\mathrm{p}`$. Then plotting $`(𝒱\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p}𝒳\mathrm{sin}i)`$ versus $`𝒳_\mathrm{s}`$, we obtain $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{p})\mathrm{sin}i`$ as the slope of the best fitting line; the result is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{s},2}=21.2\pm 6.2`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ arcsec-1, i.e. secondary bar counter-rotating relative to the primary. (Note that the range from $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{s},1}`$ to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{s},2}`$ passes smoothly through $`\pm \mathrm{}`$, i.e. a vertical line.)

## 6 Conclusions

We showed that the primary bar in NGC 2950 is rapidly rotating. If this is the norm in S2B galaxies, then it guarantees that primary bars are efficient at funnelling gas down to the radius of influence of secondary bars. In Fig. 4, we plot the lines of slope $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{s},1}\mathrm{sin}i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{s},2}\mathrm{sin}i`$. The range of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$ is large enough that it must include the case where $`_\mathrm{s}1`$. However, it also includes the case where $`_\mathrm{s}2`$, which hydrodynamical simulations find leads to inefficient gas transport (Maciejewski et al. 2002).

We suggest two avenues for fruitful future work. First, since the two bars cannot be in exact solid body rotation (Louis & Gerhard 1988; Maciejewski & Sparke 2000; Rautiainen et al. 2002), a more accurate measurement of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$ will require careful modeling and comparison with simulations to account for such effects. Second, it may be that secondary bars oscillate about an orientation perpendicular to the primary bar, possibly accounting for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}<0`$. This can be tested by repeating our measurements on a sample of S2B galaxies. Nonetheless, we can confidently conclude that in NGC 2950 the two bars must have different pattern speeds, with the secondary bar having a larger pattern speed.


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# Probing X-ray Emitting Plasma with High Resolution Chandra and XMM-Newton Spectra

## 1. X-ray spectral probes of astrophysical systems at high resolution

High resolution X-ray spectroscopy provides a powerful new tool for advancing our understanding of the physical environments of energetic astrophysical systems. As demonstrated with Chandra and XMM spectral studies, the scientific impact is far reaching, encompassing studies of stars, supernova remnants (SNR), X-ray binaries (XRBs), active galactic nuclei (AGN), clusters, and the interstellar and intergalactic medium (respectively ISM and IGM). To give a flavor for some of the newly X-ray discovered spectral features and their relevance to spectral modeling and calculations, I will draw mostly on examples from observations of AGN and XRBs with which I have been involved. See Paerels & Kahn (2003) for a complete review of Chandra and XMM results.

### 1.1. Narrow emission and absorption lines

Narrow (i.e. barely resolved) emission and absorption lines are nearly ubiquitous in the astrophysical sources seen at high resolution. From the lines strengths alone, we can deduce much about the conditions of the plasma, which range from the “X-ray cold” where fluorescent emission and photoionzation prevail to the “X-ray hot” where collisional ionization dominates. From the view of atomic calculations and spectral modeling, the parameterization of the emitters and absorbers are at an advanced state as demonstrated by high resolution spectral studies of the photoionized plasma in Seyfert galaxies (e.g., Sako et al. 2000; Ogle et al. 2000; Branduardi-Raymont et al. 2001; Collinge et al. 2001; Lee et al. 2001, 2002a; Kaspi et al. 2000, 2001, 2002; Brinkman et al. 2002; Kinkhabwala et al. 2002; Blustin et al. 2003; Sako et al. 2003). Specific features which demonstrate the power of high resolution spectroscopy come from the detection of high order (low oscillator strength) resonance absorption lines (i.e. higher than Lyman $`\gamma `$) which are the mark of high optical depth clouds (e.g., Lee et al. 2001; Kaspi et al. 2002). Commonly used atomic codes include 111http://www.nublado.org/Cloudy: Ferland et al. (1998), 222http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/xstar/xstar.htmlXSTAR: Kallman & Bautista (2001) and 333http://xmm.astro.columbia.edu/research.htmlphotoion: Kinkhabwala et al. (2003).

Strong evidence for non-equilibrium collisionally ionized plasma can be seen in SNRs observed with Chandra and XMM . One of the best examples is 1E 0102.2-7219 where spectral-line images reveal progressive ionizations in the remnant attributed to a reverse shock (Flanagan et al. 2003b; and Fig. 5 of Flanagan et al. 2003a).

### 1.2. P-Cygni Profiles, Line Variability, Doppler Shifts, and Spatial-Spectral Doppler mapping

Outflows have been seen in many different forms in Chandra and XMM spectra. Key spectroscopic signatures include (1) Doppler-shifted absorption and/or emission lines which provide information on the kinematics and geometry of the outflow, (2) P-Cygni profiles (red-shifted/rest-frame emission from material out of the line-of-sight, accompanied by blue-shifted absorption lines from the foreground, line-of-sight part of the wind) as seen in both X-ray binaries (e.g. Circinus X1: Brandt & Schulz 2000; Schulz & Brandt 2002) and AGN (e.g. NGC 3783: Kaspi et al. 2001, 2002), and (3) more subtle variability effects (e.g. the micro-quasar GRS 1915+105: Lee et al. 2002b). Of these, the most remarkable are those which show relativistic velocities (e.g. the BHC SS 433 where $`v_{\mathrm{jet}}0.27c`$, Marshall, Canizares & Schulz 2002), and more recently also seen in QSOs and Narrow line Seyfert galaxies. From the X-ray measurements of these lines and shifts, a great deal can be learned about the X-ray portion of the flow. For example, based on the line broadening, information about the flow opening angle can be deduced while density diagnostics using observed He-like lines can provide important limits on the mass flow rate. For some of the brighter SNRs, spatial-spectral Doppler mapping can be used to reveal the 3-D structure of the SNR (e.g. 1E 0102, Fig 6 of Flanagan et al. 2003a) – see Dewey (2002) for technique; for Cassiopeia A, see Willingale et al. (2002).

### 1.3. Inner Shell lines

‘Low’ ionization (in the X-ray sense) lines such as O iii-vi or Fe vi-xvii are typically only seen in other wave-bands (e.g. UV), but photoexcitation of the ion’s inner shell electron followed by auto-ionization causes resonance lines to appear in the X-ray band. These lines have been detected in the X-ray spectra of AGN : (1) the broad structure between $`15.517`$ Å ($`0.720.8`$ keV) known as the ‘unresolved transition array’ (UTA) of inner-shell 2p-3d resonance absorption lines in weakly ionized M-shell Fe vi-xii (for calculations, see Behar, Sako & Kahn 2001) was first detected in the Seyfert galaxy IRAS 13349+2438 (Sako et al. 2001) and since seen in NGC 3783 (Kaspi et al. 2002), (2) similarly, the K-L resonance absorption (inner shell 1s-2p transition) of Li-like oxygen (for calculations, see Pradhan 2000) was also first discovered in a Seyfert galaxy (MCG$``$6-30-15: Lee et al. 2001). Since then, lower ionization oxygen lines have also been seen in this source (Sako et al. 2003; Lee et al. in prep.), and inner shell lines of Si vii-xii and S xii-xiv have been reported in NGC 3783 (Kaspi et al. 2002). Low ionization oxygen lines have also been detected in the X-ray binaries and attributed to the line-of-sight ISM or that intrinsic to the source (e.g., Paerels et al. 2001; Takei et al. 2002; Juett, Schulz & Chakrabarty 2003) .

For highly extincted extragalactic sources where a UV spectrum cannot be seen, the inner shell lines can eventually provide a powerful alternative for studying the “lukewarm” part of the partially ionized gas in the AGN environment (i.e. the warm absorber). For ISM studies, these lines provide an important diagnostic for the abundance distributions in our local Universe.

### 1.4. Edge Structure (XAFS) and Shifts

Photoelectric edges are seen as prominent spectral features in X-ray spectra of sources with significant absorption, from which we can deduce the optical depth and hydrogen column of the absorbing medium. However, based on the edge discontinuity alone, we cannot distinguish between gas versus dust phase absorption. In some cases, dust has been inferred as the source of an Fe L photoelectric edge at $`17.7`$ Å ($`0.7`$ keV) (e.g., Lee et al. 2001, 2002a). However, the most direct probe of dust is if the X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS), which probes material in solid form can be extracted from high resolution data of bright highly absorbed XRBs. Tentative detections of these features have been reported in the Chandra spectrum of GRS 1915+105 (Lee et al. 2002b).

## 2. Concluding Thoughts

The wealth of high resolution Chandra and XMM-Newton spectra accumulated over the course of the last $``$ four years has provided us with a very rich laboratory for probing the details of astrophysical plasma. While the atomic physics calculations appear to be well suited to model the high resolution X-ray data in hand, much of the detailed modeling has been parametric. Our next step should be to take the wealth of atomic and satellite data and connect it to the detailed models of the astrophysical sources themselves.

#### Acknowledgments.

I thank Claude Canizares for his generosity & insightful discussions. I also thank the MIT CXC & HETGS members. I am grateful for the financial support of the Chandra fellowship grant PF2–30023, issued by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center which is operated by SAO for NASA under contract NAS8–39073.