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# References

LSUHE No. 344-2000

$`Z(2)`$ vortex solution in a field theory

Srinath Cheluvaraja

Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70808

ABSTRACT
We present a finite energy topological $`Z(2)`$ vortex solution in a $`2+1`$ dimensional $`SO(3)`$ gauge field theory minimally coupled to a matrix valued Higgs field. The vortex carries a $`Z(2)`$ magnetic charge and obeys a modulo two addition property. The core of this vortex has a structure similar to that of the Abrikosov vortex appearing in a type II superconductor. The implications of this solution for Wilson loops are quite interesting. In two Euclidean dimensions these vortices are instantons and a dilute gas of such vortices disorders Wilson loops producing an area law behaviour with an exponentially small string tension. In $`2+1`$ dimensions the vortices are loops and they affect the same disordering in the phase having large loops.

PACS numbers:12.38Gc,11.15Ha,05.70Fh,02.70g

Vortices have played an important role in statistical mechanics and field theories. They are global excitations which arise because of the topology of the dynamical variables. Vortices play an important role in driving the phase transition in the two dimensional planar model . They also appear as a result of many body interactions in a Type II superconductor . An example of a vortex solution in a quantum field theory was given in . This solution is the relativistic version of the Abrikosov vortex in the Type II superconductor. These vortices have an additive integer charge associated with them. Vortices were defined for non-abelain gauge theories in . In this definition the vortex has a $`Z(N)`$ charge. The effect of such a vortex is to produce $`Z(N)`$ phase factors for Wilson loops surrounding the vortex. Vortices are just one of the many topological solutions that occur in field theories. Other well known examples of topological solutions are, the ’t Hooft-Polyakov monopole , the instanton , and the skyrmion . These solutions have played an important role in uncovering the non-perturbative effects in quantum field theories. Since they are global effects they have consequences which cannot be seen in the usual perturbative expansion. The ’t Hooft-Polyakov monopole solution was used in  to study the Higgs phase of the Georgi-Glashow model and it was shown it radically alters the naive spectrum of the theory. Instanton solutions have been used with varying success  to understand the long distance properties of $`QCD`$. Skyrmion solutions  also lead to important non-perturbative effects. The vortex solutions considered so far were abelian vortices, they have an integral vortex charge. We present here an example of a $`Z(2)`$ vortex solution and then examine the consequences of this solution for the field theories in which it occurs.

Since we will be interested in vortex solutions we mention some general properties of vortices, first in three and then in four space-time dimensions. In three dimensions a $`Z(2)`$ vortex is said to pierce a two dimensional region (simply connected) $`R`$ if every Wilson loop surrounding this region picks up a phase ($`Z(N)`$ for the group $`SU(N)`$). The effect of this vortex can also be understood as the action of a pure gauge transormation which is not single valued on every closed loop surrounding $`R`$. Because of topological considerations the region $`R`$ cannot be arbitrarily shrunk by regular gauge transformations and this is the region associated with the core of a vortex. If the vortex solution is to have a finite energy the region outside the core must have a zero energy density. The existence of vortex solutions is determined by the first homotopy group, $`\pi _1(H)`$, of the field configurations in the region oustide the vortex ($`H`$ being the field configuration space outside the vortex). The vortex can extend in the dimensions orthogonal to $`R`$ and can either stretch indefinitely, form closed loops, or end in objects( monopoles) which absorb the vortex flux. In four dimensions the above picture gets repeated on every slice in the extra dimension and the vortex line becomes a vortex sheet whose area is the product of the length of the vortex and the duration in time for which the vortex propagates. These vortex sheets can form closed two dimensional surfaces or they can end in monopole loops. A famous example of a vortex solution in a gauge theory is the Nielsen-Olesen vortex which occurs in three dimensional scalar QED . This vortex carries an integral magnetic flux (because $`\pi _1(U(1))=Z`$), and it is a relativistic generalization of the Abrikosov vortex appearing in a Type II superconductor. Apart from the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen vortex there are not many other vortex solutions known. We present here an example of a vortex solution where the vorticity can have only one non-trivial value. This solution occurs in an $`SO(3)`$ invariant gauge theory coupled to a Higgs field.

The field theory under consideration is an $`SO(3)`$ gauge invariant theory minimally coupled to a matrix valued Higgs field $`M`$ in the $`(3,3)`$ representation of $`SO(3)`$. The Lagrangian (in $`2+1`$ space-time dimensions) is given by

$$L=d^2x𝑑\tau \frac{1}{2}tr((D_\mu M)^t(D_\mu M))\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }^\alpha F_{\mu \nu }^\alpha trV((M^tM)).$$
(1)
$`D_\mu M`$ is the covariant derivative and is defined in the usual way as $`D_\mu M=_\mu M+g[A_\mu ,M]`$. The gauge field $`A_\mu `$ can be written in terms of its Lie Algebra valued components as $`A_\mu =A_\mu ^\alpha T^\alpha `$. $`T^\alpha `$ are $`3X3`$ matrices in the Lie algebra of $`SO(3)`$ and satisfy $`[T^\alpha ,T^\beta ]=ϵ^{\alpha \beta \gamma }T^\gamma `$ (note that since we are dealing with $`SO(3)`$ there is no $`i`$ factor). Under local $`SO(3)`$ transformations ($`V(x)`$) the fields transform as

$`MVMV^1`$
$`A_\mu VA_\mu V^1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g}}(_\mu V)V^1.`$
The equations of motion are given by

$`D_\mu F_{\mu \nu \alpha }=gtr((D_\nu M)^t[T_\nu ^\alpha ,M])`$
$`_\mu (D_\mu M)=[A_\mu ,D_\mu M]{\displaystyle \frac{V}{M}}.`$
(There is no summation over the $`\nu `$ index in the rhs of the first equation). We will be interested in classical vortex solutions of these equations of motion. We mimic the approach taken in  to look for these solutions. Outside the core of the vortex we require the fields to have zero energy density so that the solution has a finite energy. A set of such zero energy density configurations outside the core must satisfy

$`D_\mu M=0`$
$`F_{\mu \nu }^\alpha =0`$
$`V(M)=0`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{V}{M}}=0.`$
The last two conditions ensure that the potential energy density (associated with the field M) is zero outside the vortex core and that the field M is always at the minimum of the potential energy (also taken to be zero). A field obeying these conditions is said to be in a Higgs vacuum. A vortex solution is one which winds around in a non-trivial way in some internal space for a closed loop traversal in physical space. It is clear that the existence of such configurations is determined by the structure of the first homotopy group of the Higgs vacuum. The Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen vortex is an example of a realization of a non-trivial element the first Homotopy group of the group $`U(1)`$. The relevant group in our example is $`SO(3)`$. The Higgs vacuum can be chosen in such a way that it consists of elements of SO(3). One choice of Higgs potential that accomplishes this is

$$V(M)=\lambda (M^tMI)^2.$$
(2)
The minimum of this potential is the set of orthogonal matrices

$$M^tM=I.$$
(3)
Any choice of the vacuum $`M`$ satisfying the above condition breaks the $`SO(3)`$ gauge symmetry. However, a specific constant choice of $`M`$, say $`M_s`$, is still invariant under a subgroup of $`SO(3)`$ gauge transformations such that

$$[R,M_s]=0.$$
(4)
Thus there is still an unbroken gauge symmetry corresponding to the $`SO(3)`$ matrices which commute with $`M_s`$. The set of such matrices form a subgroup $`SO(2)`$ of $`SO(3)`$. If the matrix $`M_s`$ is chosen to be

$$M_s=\mathrm{exp}(T^3\alpha )$$
(5)
for some $`\alpha `$, then gauge transformations about the $`T^3`$ axis will leave the vacuum invariant. The field $`A_\mu ^3`$ will be the massless $`SO(2)`$ gauge field. Excitations about $`M_s`$ can be described by a gauge theory (with gauge group $`SO(2)`$) in which there are two oppositely charged massive gauge bosons, one massless boson, and a scalar field. However, we are not interested in the excitations about the conventional Higgs phase. We are looking for global solutions which, even though they belong to the Higgs vacuum, cannot be obtained continuously (to any finite order in perturbation theory) from the conventional Higgs phase. We look for static solutions having zero energy density outside the core of the vortex. We also impose the following conditions

$`A_0^\alpha =0`$
$`A_\mu ^1=A_\mu ^2=0.`$
The first of the above conditions, along with the static condition, implies a zero electric field. In addition to these conditions, only the $`3`$ component (of the Lie algebra) of the gauge field is taken to be non-zero and this is chosen to have the same form as in the A-N-O vortex

$`A_1^3(x)={\displaystyle \frac{y}{gr^2}}`$
$`A_2^3(x)={\displaystyle \frac{x}{gr^2}}.`$
In polar co-ordinates the solution has the form

$`A_\theta ^3={\displaystyle \frac{1}{gr}}`$
$`A_r^3=0.`$
The above solution satisfies $`F_{12}^3=0`$. We note for later reference that any $`A_\theta ^3`$ proportional to $`\frac{1}{r}`$ is also a solution. The field equation for $`M`$ is satisfied if we take $`M`$ to be a independent of $`r`$ and $`M^tM=I`$. This leads to the following equation for $`M`$

$$\frac{1}{r}\frac{M}{\theta }+g[A_\theta ,M]=0.$$
(6)
Since only the $`3`$ component of $`A_\mu `$ is non-zero the above equation reduces to

$$\frac{1}{r}\frac{M}{\theta }+gA_\theta ^3[T^3,M]=0.$$
(7)
The above solution can be solved easily by noting that for small $`\delta \theta `$,

$$M(\theta +\delta \theta )=\mathrm{exp}(T^3\delta \theta )M(\theta )\mathrm{exp}(T^3\delta \theta )$$
(8)
solves Eq. 7 for $`A_\theta ^3=\frac{1}{gr}`$. This leads to the following solution

$$M_0(\theta )=\mathrm{exp}(T^3\theta )M(0)\mathrm{exp}(T^3\theta ).$$
(9)
The gauge field for this solution will be labelled as $`A_{\theta 0}^3`$. However, there is another solution of the form

$$M_1(\theta )=\mathrm{exp}(T^3\frac{\theta }{2})M(0)\mathrm{exp}(T^3\frac{\theta }{2})$$
(10)
that also solves Eq. 7 provided $`A_\theta ^3=\frac{1}{2gr}`$. This gauge field will be labelled as $`A_{\theta 1}^3=\frac{1}{2gr}`$. We will show that the two solutions,$`M_0`$ and $`M_1`$, belong to different elements of the first Homotopy group of $`SO(3)`$ ($`\mathrm{\Pi }_1(SO(3))=Z(2)`$). To see this we need a particular parametrization of the elements of the group $`SO(3)`$. An element of $`SO(3)`$ ($`R`$) can be parametrized as

$$R(n,\stackrel{~}{\theta })=\mathrm{exp}(T^\alpha n^\alpha \stackrel{~}{\theta }),$$
(11)
where $`n`$ is a unit vector which takes values on the surface of a two dimensional sphere. $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$ varies in the range $`0\stackrel{~}{\theta }\pi `$. Every $`SO(3)`$ element is parametrized by an axis of rotation $`n`$ and an angle of rotation $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$. The $`SO(3)`$ manifold is thus the solid ball of radius $`\pi `$. Since a rotation around an axis $`n`$ by an angle $`\pi `$ is the same as the rotation around the axis $`n`$ by the same angle $`\pi `$, antipodal points on the surface of the ball are identified. It is this identification that gives a non-trivial topology to the $`SO(3)`$ group. The matrix $`R`$ can be written out as

$$R(n,\stackrel{~}{\theta })=I+(T^\alpha n^\alpha )\mathrm{sin}(\stackrel{~}{\theta })+(T^\alpha n^\alpha )^2(1\mathrm{cos}(\stackrel{~}{\theta })).$$
(12)
(We have used the property $`(T^\alpha )^3=T^\alpha `$, expanded the exponential, and reordered the various terms.) The matrices $`T^\alpha `$ are the antisymmetric $`3X3`$ matrices belonging to the Lie algebra of $`SO(3)`$. Of the two solutions presented earlier, one is topologically trivial, the other is topologically non-trivial and this is the one that will be referred to as the vortex. The solutions presented are just one of a class of many possible solutions. In the above solutions if we choose $`M(0)=\mathrm{exp}T^2\pi `$, it is easy to see that $`M_1(\theta )`$ moves along the equator of the ball and returns to itself whereas $`M_2(\theta )`$ goes to the point diametrically opposite to $`M_0`$. This follows from the property

$$\mathrm{exp}(T^3\theta )\mathrm{exp}(T^2\pi )\mathrm{exp}(T^3\theta )=\mathrm{exp}(T^\alpha n^\alpha \pi )$$
(13)
where $`n^1=\mathrm{sin}\theta n^2=\mathrm{cos}\theta n^3=0`$. The way of visualizing this is that the point on the surface of the ball $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }=\pi ,n^1=n^3=0,n^2=1`$ gets rotated in the equatorial plane of the ball ($`n^1n^2plane`$) by an angle $`\theta `$. In the solution $`M_0`$, the vector $`n`$ rotates by $`2\pi `$ whereas in the solution $`M_1`$ the vector $`n`$ rotates by $`\pi `$, and the two paths belong to different elements of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_1(SO(3))`$. Since opposite points are identified only on the surface of the ball, it is crucial to choose $`M(0)`$ to lie on the surface of the ball in the solution $`M_1(\theta )`$. In $`M_0(\theta )`$ the point $`M(0)`$ can be chosen anywhere, although it has also been chosen to be on the surface of the ball, because this is the solution which is topologically trivial. The two solutions can be transformed into each other by the following singular gauge transformation

$$V_s(\theta )=\mathrm{exp}(T^3\frac{\theta }{2}).$$
(14)
This follows from the relation

$$M_0(\theta )=V_s(\theta )M_1(\theta )V_s^1.$$
(15)
This gauge transformation takes $`A_{\theta 1}^3=\frac{1}{2gr}`$ to $`A_{\theta 0}^3=\frac{1}{gr}`$. The above gauge transformation has a discontinuity on the $`\theta =0`$ axis because

$$V_s(2\pi )=\mathrm{exp}(T^3\pi )V_s(0).$$
(16)
($`TrV_s(2\pi )=1,TrV_s(0)=3`$). An interesting feature is that two topologically non-trivial solutions annihilate each other because

$$A_{\theta 0}=A_{\theta 1}+A_{\theta 1},$$
(17)
or, in terms of the $`M`$ fields,

$$M_1(\theta )^2=I.$$
(18)
Therefore, these vortices have a $`Z(2)`$ magnetic charge. It is worth pointing out that the $`Z(2)`$ magnetic charge that arises here has nothing to do with the original gauge group $`SO(3)`$. Unlike $`SU(2)`$ which has $`Z(2)`$ as its center, the group $`SO(3)`$ has no non-trivial center subgroup. We note that the solution $`M_0(\theta )`$ can be completely gauge transformed away and corresponds to the zero field case (and hence zero energy) case. The above solutions are valid only outside the vortex core; in order to have a finite energy non-singular solution inside the vortex core we must look for solutions which are not singular at the core and which continuously go over to the solutions outside the core. We look for solutions inside the core by writing

$`A_\theta ^3(r)=A_{\theta 1}^3(r)+A_{\theta c}^3(r),`$
$`M(r,\theta )=M_1(\theta )M_c(r).`$
It is assumed above that the angular behaviour of the $`M`$ field inside the vortex core is the same as that outside the core. The only additional piece in $`M`$ is a radial dependence $`M_c(r)`$. The matrix $`M_c(r)`$ is a multiple of the identity and can be moved through the matrix $`M_1(\theta )`$. There is also an additional piece for the gauge field, $`A_{\theta c}`$, which also contributes to the energy density of the vortex. Substituting the above equations in the field equations we get the following differential equations for $`A_{\theta c}`$ and $`M_c(r)`$.

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2M_c(r)}{dr^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{dM_c(r)}{rdr}}=g^2(A_{\theta c})^2(r)([T^3,[T^3,M(0)]]M(0)^1){\displaystyle \frac{d\overline{V}(M)}{dM}}|_{M=M(0)}M(0)^1`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2A_{\theta c}^3}{dr^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}({\displaystyle \frac{A_{\theta c}^3}{r}})=gM_c^2(r)A_{\theta c}^3(r)tr([T^3,M(0)]^t[T^3,M(0)]).`$
$$\frac{d\overline{V}(M)}{dM}|_{M=M(0)}M(0)^1=\lambda (M_c(r)^2I)$$
(19)
The above differential equations have the same form as those of the A-N-O vortex (the matrices can be traced over and yield only some constant factors). Although this is not very surprising, because we are looking at abelian field configurations (only $`A_\mu ^30`$), it is interesting to note that they define the core of a vortex which is quite different from the A-N-O vortex. This difference arises because the abelian group $`SO(2)`$ is now embedded in $`SO(3)`$. The differential equations for the vortex core are quite complicated and cannot be solved analytically. For regions far from the center of the vortex (but still inside the core of the vortex) we can use the following approximate solutions for $`M_c(r)`$ and $`A_{\theta c}(r)`$.

$`A_{\theta c}(r)=(const){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{exp}(\sqrt{8}gr)}{\sqrt{r}}}`$
$`M_c(r)=1\mathrm{exp}(\sqrt{\lambda }r).`$
The implications of such vortex solutions for Wilson loops are quite striking. Unlike the A-N-O vortex, which always contributes a factor of $`+1`$ to the Wilson loop, or the monopole, which produces a phase depending on the solid angle subtended at it by the Wilson loop, the $`Z(2)`$ vortex produces a constant factor of $`1`$ whenever it lies inside the minimal surface spanned by the Wilson loop. This effect can be demonstrated by looking at

$$\mathrm{exp}g_CA_\mu (x)𝑑x^\mu .$$
(20)
If the loop $`C`$ encircles a vortex ( and has a size larger than the core of the vortex) the Wilson loop is either $`\mathrm{exp}2\pi T^3`$ (for $`A_{\theta 0}`$) or $`\mathrm{exp}\pi T^3`$ (for $`A_{\theta 1}`$). The trace of the first quantity is $`3`$ whereas the trace of the second quantity is $`1`$ (see Eq. 11). These vortices have a $`Z(2)`$ magnetic charge and, as far as the Wilson loop is concerned, only their total parity (odd or even number) is physical, their overall number being irrelevant. The energy of the vortex is finite and can be written as

$$E=E_1(\lambda )/g^2,$$
(21)
where $`E_1(\lambda )`$ is a quantity which depends on the parameters in the Higgs potential. The size of the vortex is determined by the parameter $`\lambda `$ ($`\frac{1}{\sqrt{\lambda }}`$). The energy cannot be determined exactly in the absence of an exact solution inside the vortex core. We can also construct approximate multi-vortex solutions by superposing many single vortex solutions and making their mutual separations much larger than their individual sizes.

If we now consider the system in $`2`$ Euclidean dimensions the vortex solutions have finite action and they can be used as a starting point for a semi-classical approximation. This is a well known scheme for approximating the partition function and was brought to its culmination in  where the three-dimensional Georgi-Glashow model was analyzed in the background of ’t Hooft-Polyakov monopoles and shown to be in the confining phase. The semi-classical technique proceeds by expanding the partition function about the classical vortex solution by writing

$`A_\mu (x)=\overline{A}_\mu (x)+a_\mu (x)`$
$`M(x)=\overline{M}(x)m(x).`$
Here we denote $`\overline{A}_\mu `$ and $`\overline{M}(x)`$ as the classical solutions and $`a_\mu (x)`$ and $`m(x)`$ as the quantum fluctuations about the classical solution. The partition function can be expanded as

$$Z=DA_\mu DM(r)\mathrm{exp}(S_c+\frac{\delta ^2S_c}{2\delta a_\mu (x)\delta a_\nu (y)}a_\mu (x)a_\nu (y)+\frac{\delta ^2S_c}{2\delta \overline{M}(x)\delta \overline{M}(y)}tr(m^t(x)m(y))+\mathrm{}).$$
(22)
($`S_c`$ is the action of the vortex solution) The semi-classical method is a good approximation provided we are in the weak coupling regime. If we simply consider the classical solution and ignore the quantum fluctuations the expectation value of the Wilson loop of area $`A`$ becomes

$$\frac{1}{Z}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{n_1=0}{\overset{n}{}}nC_{n_1}\mathrm{exp}(nE_1/(g^2))(1)^{n_1}(\frac{A}{\mathrm{\Omega }})^{n_1}(1\frac{A}{\mathrm{\Omega }})^{nn_1}.$$
(23)
In the above expression, $`(1)^{n_1}`$ is the effect on the Wilson loop if it encloses $`n_1`$ vortices,$`\frac{A}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ is the probability of having a vortex enclosed by the Wilson loop, $`(1\frac{A}{\mathrm{\Omega }})`$ is the probability of the vortex not enclosing the Wilson loop,$`nE_1`$ is the energy associated with $`n`$ vortices with their mutual interactions ignored, $`n`$ is the total number of vortices in the system, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the spatial area of the system. The major approximation made is the neglect of vortex-vortex interactions (also called the dilute gas approximation) and the construction of multi-vortex solutions by superposing single vortex solutions with large mutual separations ($`>>\frac{1}{\sqrt{\lambda }}`$). The sum can be easily evaluated using the properties of the binomial expansion and it becomes

$$Lim_n\mathrm{}(1\frac{2A\rho }{n}\mathrm{exp}(\frac{E_1}{g^2}))^n,$$
(24)
giving an exponentially small string tension

$$\sigma =2\rho \mathrm{exp}(\frac{E_1}{g^2}).$$
(25)
($`\rho `$ is the density of vortices in the system). The density of vortices is proportional to $`\mathrm{exp}\frac{E_1(\lambda )}{g^2}`$ and is very small in the weak coupling region. We are thus consistent in using the dilute vortex approximation. The calculation of the quantum fluctuations will require the calculation of determinants of second order differential operators in the background of the vortex solution. Fluctuations of the vortex which are just translations or gauge rotations will lead to zero modes in the determinant. The zero-modes that appear in this integration will correspond to the translational(2) and gauge invariance(3) of the vortex solution. The zero modes can be handled by the collective co-ordinate method and it is well known  that integration over the zero modes gives an additional correction proportional to

$$g^{n_v}$$
(26)
where $`n_v`$ is the number of zero modes. The numerical factor that accompanies this requires a very detailed calculation of the determinant operator and will not be calculated here. We can write the result of the first-order quantum fluctuations as

$$g^5ϵ(\lambda ).$$
(27)
$`ϵ(\lambda )`$ is the result of the calculation of the determinant operator (without the zero modes) in the background of the vortex solution. The effect of this calculation is to renormaize the chemical potential of the vortices to

$$\frac{1}{g^5}ϵ(\lambda )\mathrm{exp}\frac{E_1(\lambda )}{g^2}.$$
(28)
In the $`2+1`$ dimensional field theory the vortices were presented as static solutions but Lorentz boosts of these solutions are also solutions- the vortices form loops which can be thought of as the world-lines of particles carrying a $`Z(2)`$ magnetic charge. The energy of these loops will be proportional to their length (there will also be factors coming from the thickness, $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{\lambda }}`$). Such a dilute vortex gas can either form a entropy dominated vortex condensate with long vortex loops, or a energy dominated phase in which the vortex loops are very small. Now the vortex produces a negative sign for a Wilson loop provided it has a non-trivial linkage with it. Large vortex loops will be necessary if they have to produce the disordering (of of the kind just exhibited in 2 dimensions) of large Wilson loops, and this is only possible in the phase in which the vortices condense. In the phase with small vortices large Wilson loops will not be disordered likewise and only a perimeter law will result. At weak coupling, where the semi-classical method is applicable, the vortex energy is very large and only small vortices are formed. However, at strong coupling the vortex entropy dominates and large vortices will be present.

Acknowledgement: This work was supported in part by United States Department of Energy grant DE-FG 05-91 ER 40617.


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# Strong Correlation to Weak Correlation Phase Transition in Bilayer Quantum Hall Systems

## Abstract

At small layer separations, the ground state of a $`\nu =1`$ bilayer quantum Hall system exhibits spontaneous interlayer phase coherence. The evolution of this state with increasing layer separation $`d`$ has been a matter of controversy. We report on small system exact diagonalization calculations which suggest that a single phase transition, likely of first order, separates incompressible states with strong interlayer correlations from compressible states with weak interlayer correlations. We find a dependence of the phase boundary on $`d`$ and interlayer tunneling amplitude that is in very good agreement with recent experiments.

The ground state of a two-dimensional monolayer electron system at Landau level filling factor $`\nu =1`$ is a single Slater determinant described exactly by Hartree-Fock theory and is a strong ferromagnet with a large gap $`E_g`$ for charged excitations . This elementary property has rich and interesting consequences for the physics of bilayer quantum Hall systems at the same total $`\nu `$, consequences that are readily appreciated when a pseudospin language  is used to describe the layer degree of freedom. When the layer separation $`d`$ goes to zero, interactions between layers are identical to interactions within layers. The pseudospin bilayer Hamiltonian is then identical to the single layer Hamiltonian with spin and its ground state has pseudospin order and a finite charge gap. For infinite layer separation, on the other hand, the bilayer system reduces to two disordered, compressible, uncorrelated $`\nu =1/2`$ systems. This Letter concerns the evolution of bilayer quantum Hall systems between these two extremes.

For small layer separations the difference between interlayer and intralayer interactions breaks the pseudospin-invariance of the Hamiltonian, resulting in an incompressible easy-plane pseudospin ferromagnet. In physical terms the pseudospin order represents spontaneous phase coherence between the electron layers. Several scenarios have been proposed for the evolution of the ground state as the layer separation increases further. In Hartree-Fock theory , spontaneous interlayer coherence is lost if the layer separation exceeds a critical value, and the ground state at large separations consists of weakly correlated Wigner crystals. While possibly instructive, this picture is known to be incorrect at large $`d`$ since half-filled Landau levels do hot have crystalline ground states. Working in the other direction, Bonesteel et al. started  from the composite fermion theory of isolated compressible $`\nu =1/2`$ layers, and concluded that coupling would lead to pairing between composite fermions in opposite layers and also, implicitly, to a charge gap. Since the pseudospin ferromagnet possesses particle-hole rather than particle-particle pairing, however, this picture still implies that at least one phase transition occurs as a function of layer separation. In a numerical diagonalisation study He et al.  predicted, on the basis of the system parameter dependence of overlaps between exact groundstates and two different variational wavefunctions, the existence of two distinct incompressible states separated by a region of compressible states.

Experiments, on the other hand, have tended to be consistent  with the proposal  that a single-phase transition from an incompressible to a compressible states occurs with increasing layer separation at any value of the interlayer tunneling amplitdue. Very recently, in an intriguing new experiment by Spielman et al. . the tunneling conductance across the layers was studied in a sample with extremely small tunneling amplitude. When the ratio of layer separation and magnetic length was lowered (at fixed filling factor) below a critical value, the conductance showed a very pronounced peak around zero bias voltage between the layers, that provides direct evidence  for spontaneous interlayer phase coherence. This is because in the coherent state, the layer index of each electron is uncertain and only in this case can tunneling leave the system in or near its ground state so that there is no orthogonality catastrophe and tunneling can occur at zero voltage.

Since the critical layer separation found by Spielman et al. is close to the one obtained earlier by Murphy et al. for the onset of the quantum Hall effect , experiment demonstrates that for vanishing tunneling amplitude the phase transitions at which pseudospin order and the charge gap are lost are either closely spaced or coincident.

In this Letter we report on small system exact diagonalization calculations which strongly suggest that bilayer quantum Hall systems have a single phase transition, likely of first order, as a function of $`d`$. Our critical layer separation is in very good quantitative agreement with the value measured in Ref. . In the light of the experimental results mentioned above, our calculations imply that the charge gap disappears and long-range phase coherence simultaneously drops sharply to near zero at the phase transition. This result is not entirely unexpected since a simple Landau-Ginzburg analysis indicates that the two order parameters could not vanish simultaneously without fine-tuning, if the transition were continuous. Also the mean-field theory energy gap is proportional to the pseudospin order parameter, suggesting that these two orders are mutually reinforcing and that a first order transition is therefore likely. Finally, we note that, experimentally, the charge gap phase transition is sharp even at finite tunneling between the layers. Since tunneling produces a pseudomagnetic field which couples to the pseudospin order parameter, this is an unusual magnetic transition which does not involve symmetry breaking, a fact which lends further weight to the suggestion that the transition is first order.

We analyse bilayer quantum Hall systems numerically by means of exact diagonalisations of finite systems unsing the spherical geometry. We have verified numerically that the ground state and low-lying excitations are fully spin-polarized and neglect the spin degree of freedom in the present discussion. The Hamiltonian is given by

$$=_{1\mathrm{P}}+_{\mathrm{Coul}},$$
(1)
where $`_{\mathrm{Coul}}`$ represents the usual Coulomb interaction within and between layers, and the single-particle Hamiltonian $`_{1\mathrm{P}}`$ is given by

$$_{1\mathrm{P}}=\frac{1}{2}\underset{m}{}c_{\mu ,m}^+\left[\mathrm{\Delta }_v\tau _{\mu ,\mu ^{}}^z+\mathrm{\Delta }_t\tau _{\mu ,\mu ^{}}^x\right]c_{\mu ^{},m}.$$
(2)
We concentrate here on the tunneling amplitude ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$) tuned phase transition, although bias voltage ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_v`$) dependence is also interesting and often experimentally more convenient. $`\mu ,\mu ^{}\{+,\}`$ run over the layer (or pseudospin) indices and a summation convention is implicit; $`\stackrel{}{\tau }`$ are the pseudospin Pauli matrices. $`m\{N_\varphi /2,\mathrm{},N_\varphi /2\}`$ is the z-projection of the orbital angular momentum of each electron in the lowest Landau level, where $`N_\varphi `$ is the number of flux quanta penetrating the sphere. In the following we denote the pseudospin operators by $`\stackrel{}{T}=(1/2)_mc_{\mu ,m}^+\stackrel{}{\tau }_{\mu ,\mu ^{}}c_{\mu ^{},m}`$. The interlayer separation $`d`$ is measured in units of the magnetic length $`l_B=\sqrt{\mathrm{}c/eB}`$, and all energies are given in units of the Coulomb energy scale $`e^2/ϵl_B`$. We consider the case of zero well width to enable comparison with most previous theoretical investigations), and also systems consisting of two rectangular wells of finite width $`w`$  whose ratio to the center-to-center layer separation $`d`$ is $`w/d=0.65`$. This value corresponds to the sample used in Ref. .

We consider systems with an even electron number $`N`$ which leads to a nondegenerate spatially homogeneous ground state with total angular momentum $`L=0`$. For simplicity, let us first examine the case of vanishing bias voltage, where both $`T^y`$ and $`T^z`$ are strictly zero.

Figure 1 shows the interlayer phase coherence as measured by the expectation value $`T^x`$ along with the fluctuation $`\mathrm{\Delta }T^x=\sqrt{T_{}^{x}{}_{}{}^{2}T^xT^x}`$ as a function of the tunneling gap for a system of twelve electrons, a layer separation of $`d=1.80`$, and zero well width. At $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t=0`$, $`T^x`$ is necessarily zero in a finite system. With increasing tunneling gap, $`T^x`$ grows rapidly reaching a inflection point with a very steep tangent. The differential pseudospin susceptibility, $`\chi =(1/N)T^x/d\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$, is plotted in the inset and shows a very pronounced peak. In the immediate vicinity of this peak, the pseudospin fluctuation $`\mathrm{\Delta }T^x`$ has also a pronounced maximum. In figure 2 the $`\chi `$ is plotted for different numbers of electrons.

The rapid growth with increasing system size of the peak in this generically intensive quantity is strong evidence for a ground state phase transition. Analogous findings are obtained for the peak in the pseudospin fluctuation. Thus, the peaks in the susceptibility of the pseudospin and its fluctuation grow very rapidly with increasing system size and signal a quantum phase transition at the critical value of the tunneling gap. At large tunneling the system pseudospin magnetisation is close to its maximum value, while at small (but also finite) tunneling the the system is disordered and the pseudospin magnetisation is strongly reduced by interactions.

The two peaks described above occur at extremely nearby values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$ at a given layer separation $`d`$, and we consider the very tiny differences in their location as a finite-size effect. To estimate the phase diagram of the system we place the phase boundary at the maximum of the quantum fluctuations $`\mathrm{\Delta }T^x`$.

Figure 3 shows the resulting phase boundaries for different system sizes and both cases of well width. At small layer separation the system is in the ordered phase and the fluctuation peak occurs exactly at $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t=0`$. At a critical layer separation $`d_c(\mathrm{\Delta }_t=0,N)`$ the phase boundary moves out rapidly to finite values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$ and intersects the axis $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t=0`$ with an almost horizontal tangent. This is in qualitative agreement with earlier experimental  and theoretical  estimates of the phase diagram.

The critical values $`d_c(\mathrm{\Delta }_t=0,N)`$ form a rapidly converging data sequence and are plotted in figure 4. These finite-size data are accurately and consistently described by an ansatz of the form $`d_c(N)=\alpha +\beta N^\lambda `$ with two fit parameters $`\alpha =d_c(N=\mathrm{})`$, $`\beta `$, and a shift exponent $`\lambda `$. The best fits to both sets of data are obtained for $`\lambda =5.0\pm 0.2`$ leading to a value of $`d_c(N=\mathrm{})=1.30\pm 0.03`$ for zero well width, and $`d_c(N=\mathrm{})=1.81\pm 0.03`$ for $`w/d=0.65`$. The latter value is in excellent agreement with the results of Ref. , where the onset of the tunneling conductance peak is observed at a layer separation of $`d=1.83`$. Thus, our numerical results clearly indicate that the findings of the above tunneling experiments are the signature of a quantum phase transition. The very large value of $`\lambda `$ seems inconsistent with a diverging correlation length and suggests the transition is first order. A first order phase transition would explain the apparent coincidence of the appearance of spontaneous phase coherence and the quantum Hall effect in experiment  We note that our result for the critical layer separation at vanishing tunneling gap agrees reasonably, at zero well width, with the point at which the uniform density phase coherent state first becomes unstable in the Hartree-Fock approximation . At larger $`w`$, however, the Hartree-Fock estimates clearly deviate from the exact diagonalisation result.

In order to further investigate the order of the quantum phase transition, we introduce the ratio

$$\omega _N=\frac{2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }T^x\right)_N^2}{\left(dT^x/d\mathrm{\Delta }_t\right)_N},$$
(3)
where the subscript $`N`$ refers to the system size. As we discuss below, this type of ratio should prove to be a powerful general tool in the analysis of any quantum phase transition. In classical physics this ratio of fluctuation to susceptibility is equal to the thermal energy $`k_BT`$ and vanishes at $`T=0`$. The classical relationship does not apply here since the Hamiltonian fails to commute with its derivative with respect to $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$. There is, however, a closely related zero-temperature relationship with the typical excitation energy $`\omega _N`$ taking over the role of temperature. The fluctuation can be written as

$$\left(\mathrm{\Delta }T^x\right)^2=\underset{n>0}{}|n|T^x|0|^2,$$
(4)
where the sum is performed over all excited states, while for the derivative of the pseudospin magnetisation one finds from linear response theory

$$\frac{dT^x}{d\mathrm{\Delta }_t}=2\underset{n>0}{}\frac{|n|T^x|0|^2}{E_nE_0}.$$
(5)
From these equations we see that $`\omega _N`$ is a harmonic average of excitation energies $`(E_nE_0)`$, weighted by the factors $`|n|T^x|0|^2`$. In particular, $`\omega _N`$ has a vanishing thermodynamic limit if at least one state with a nonvanishing matrix element $`n|T^x|0`$ has an excitation energy $`(E_nE_0)`$ which extrapolates to zero for $`N\mathrm{}`$. Thus, equation (3) defines a characteristic energy scale of the system at the phase boundary. The operator $`T^x`$ naturally enters this expression since it couples to a control parameter driving the phase transition.

For a continuous phase transition one would clearly expect $`\omega _N`$ to vanish at the phase boundary for an infinite system, while a finite limit $`lim_N\mathrm{}\omega _N`$ is indicative of a finite energy scale, i.e. a first order transition. From our finite-size data for $`\omega _N`$ (evaluated at vanishing tunneling and $`d=d_c(N)`$) we conclude that this quantity extrapolates for $`N\mathrm{}`$ to a rather substantial non-zero value of order $`0.05e^2/ϵl_B5`$K for both values of $`w`$ considered here. Along with the arguments and experimental findings given so far, this result strongly suggests that the bilayer quantum Hall system at filling factor $`\nu =1`$ undergoes a single first order phase transition as a function of the ratio of layer separation and magnetic length at all values of the tunneling amplitude. The phase boundary separates a phase with strong interlayer correlation (and a finite gap for charged excitations) from a phase with weak interlayer correlations and vanishing $`E_g`$.

Finally we comment briefly on the influence of a bias voltage between the layers. When applying a bias voltage to the system the vector $`\stackrel{}{T}`$ is tilted out of the $`xy`$-plane with a finite $`z`$-component. In this case we find numerically that the quantum phase transition is again signaled by the longitudinal fluctuation of the pseudospin magnetisation and its susceptibility, and all results concerning the phase boundary are qualitatively the same. First order phase transitions from stronly correlated to weakly correlated states also occur with increasing bias potential. We predict measureable anomalies in the double-layer system capacitance at bias tuned phase transitions.

We acknowledge helpful discussions with S. Sachdev. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under Grant No. SCHL 539/1-1 and by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. DMR-9714055 and DMR-0087133.


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# Comment on “Dispersion-Independent High-Visibility Quantum Interference …”

Recently Atatüre et al. claimed to “recover” high-visibility quantum interference in femtosecond pulse pumped type-II Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion (SPDC) using neither spectral post-selection nor a thin nonlinear crystal . We show in this Comment that the interpretation of experimental data as well as the theory presented in Ref. are incorrect and discuss why such a scheme cannot be used to “recover” high-visibility quantum interference.

Let us first discuss the theory presented in Ref.. Equation (8) is incorrect and, consequently, so is Eq.(10). According to Eq.(10), the coincidence counting rate should have a $`\mathrm{sin}^2(\theta _1+\theta _2)`$ modulation with 100% visibility for arbitrary angles of $`\theta _1`$ and $`\theta _2`$ when $`\tau =0`$. As we shall see in our experiment, this is not so. This is because for arbitrary $`\theta _1`$ and $`\theta _2`$, there should be two more terms,i.e., $`\mathrm{cos}(\pi /4\theta _1)\mathrm{sin}(\pi /4\theta _2)[𝒜(t_1,t_2+\tau )𝒜(t_2+\tau ,t_1)]\mathrm{sin}(\pi /4\theta _1)\mathrm{cos}(\pi /4\theta _2)[𝒜(t_1+\tau ,t_2)𝒜(t_2,t_1+\tau )]`$, which cannot be ignored in Eq.(8). These two terms have no overlap if $`\tau =0`$. This will reduce the visibility of the polarization correlation at arbitrary $`\theta _1`$ and $`\theta _2`$ except at the $`H`$ and $`V`$ settings of the analyzers.

To demonstrate Eq.(10) in Ref. is incorrect, we have performed an experiment which is identical to Fig.1 in Ref. in which the polarization correlation is measured. When $`\theta _1=90^{}(H)`$ or $`0^{}(V)`$ high-visibility modulation is observed as $`\theta _2`$ is varied, see Fig.1(a). This is what Atatüre et al. observed in Ref.. However, at $`\theta _1=45^{}`$, the visibility is immediately reduced to 16% \[Fig.1(b)\].

This means that the “$`X`$-$`Y`$ delay” at $`\tau =0`$ does not “recover” the quantum interference as the authors expected. In fact, one can observe the same interference pattern when the “$`X`$-$`Y`$ delay” is absent. To show this, we removed the “$`X`$-$`Y`$ delay” from the setup, set $`\theta _1=90^{}`$, and varied $`\theta _2`$. The “visibility” is $``$100%, see Fig.1(c). Setting $`\theta _1=45^{}(H)`$ and varying $`\theta _2`$ again, as evident from Fig.1(d), the visibility is as low as 16%. This demonstrates that the “$`X`$-$`Y`$ delay” has no net physical effect when $`\tau =0`$. This also shows that what is observed in Ref. is not quantum interference. It simply shows that the signal is $`V`$-polarized and the idler is $`H`$-polarized.

These data clear show that $`|V|H`$ has not been transformed to $`|X|X|Y|Y`$ as the authors claim \[Eq.(10)\]. In fact, such a “cascaded transformation of the two-photon state” cannot occur unless proper longitudinal

compensation is made first . Therefore, it is obvious that this kind of scheme cannot be used to “recover” quantum interference. We also note that Fig.3 in Ref. might lead to confusion since readers might mistakenly consider it to show space-time interference. In fact, only polarization correlation measurement is observed in Ref. at a fixed angle $`\theta _1=0^{}`$.

It is true that Atatüre et al. made some kind of polarization state transformation of biphotons. Certainly these transformations are related to $`\tau `$ and the pump pulse duration (For a general description of polarization transformation of biphotons, see Ref.). It, however, has nothing to do with the “recovery” of quantum interference as they claim.

In conclusion, we have experimentally and theoretically shown that Atatüre et al.’s claim to be in error. Neither the experimental data nor the correct theory support their claim. Finally, we would like to mention that we have recently developed a new method of generating entangled photon pairs pumped by femtosecond pulses which shows true high-visibility quantum interference .

$`[1]`$ M. Atatüre, A.V. Sergienko, B.E.A. Saleh, and M.C. Teich, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 618 (2000).
$`[2]`$ M.H. Rubin, D.N. Klyshko, Y.H. Shih, and A.V. Sergienko, Phys. Rev. A 50, 5122 (1994).
$`[3]`$ A.V. Burlakov and D.N. Klyshko, JETP Lett. 69, 839 (1999).
$`[4]`$ Y.-H. Kim, S.P. Kulik, and Y.H. Shih, Phys. Rev. A. 62, 011802(R) (2000); `quant-ph/0007067`.


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# THE ORIGIN OF THE X-RAY AND ULTRAVIOLET EMISSION IN NGC 7469

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) emit most of their bolometric luminosity in the “big blue bump” (BBB), which dominates the optical, ultraviolet (UV) and Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) emission, unless the regions which produce these components are obscured. A further ubiquitous property of AGN is hard X-ray emission, which is spectrally distinct from the big blue bump and energetically significant. With the exception of strong radio emission, which is only observed in a small fraction of AGN, all other components of the AGN spectrum can typically be accounted for by some kind of “reprocessing”, by which we mean passive absorption and re-radiation, without significant additional energy input. Thus the BBB and X-ray continua can be considered the “primary” emissions of AGN and determining their origin holds the key to our understanding of the central engine of active galaxies.

The evidence for black holes in AGN is now extremely strong (e.g. Miyoshi et al. 1995; Tanaka et al. 1995) but the fueling and emission mechanism are still not well known. The probable presence of angular momentum lead naturally to the hypothesis of an optically-thick accretion disk around the black hole (e.g. Lynden-Bell 1969) which radiates the BBB (Shields 1979; Malkan & Sargent 1982). A disk geometry can also account for some optical line profiles (e.g. Chen, Halpern & Filippenko 1989; Eracleous & Halpern 1994) and explain the profiles of the broad, redshifted iron lines (e.g., Fabian et al. 1995; Nandra et al. 1997). Accretion disk models are not free from problems, however. A significant difficulty is the presence of extremely rapid, wavelength independent variations in flux (e.g. Clavel et al. 1991; Peterson et al. 1991). Standard disks should show time lags between optical and UV bands as instabilities propagate through them, but these lags should be much longer than the observed upper limits (e.g. Courvoisier & Clavel 1991; Krolik et al. 1991; Molendi, Maraschi & Stella 1992).

X-ray illumination of the disk may offer a way of explaining these rapid, wavelength-independent variations of the optical/UV continuum. Guilbert & Rees (1988) were first to suggest that dense, optically thick material could reprocess and thermalize the X-ray emission of AGN, re-emitting the radiation in the BBB. If that material were the accretion disk, variations in the reprocessed flux could occur on the order of the light-travel time, which is compatible with the observations. An apparent time lag of $`1`$ d between the short-wavelength UV and optical variations in NGC 7469 (Wanders et al. 1997; Collier et al. 1998; Peterson et al. 1998; Kriss et al. 2000) offers further support for this hypothesis. X-ray fluorescence and Compton scattering in the disk then account for the iron lines and hard tails observed in the X-ray spectra (Nandra & Pounds 1994).

The illuminating hard X-ray emission is a separate component not predicted by standard disk models and requires another emission mechanism. Currently-popular thinking is that the X-rays arise from a “corona” which Compton up-scatters softer “seed” photons (e.g. Sunyaev & Titarchuk 1980), presumably from the optical/UV where there is an abundant photon field. Such models reproduce the broadband characteristics of the X-ray spectrum (e.g. Haardt & Maraschi 1991, 1993), especially if the corona is patchy (Stern et al. 1995). A patchy, flaring corona is also suggested by the variability of the iron K$`\alpha `$ lines (Iwasawa et al. 1996, 1999; Nandra et al. 1999). A high energy cutoff at $`200`$ keV observed in some sources argues for a thermal distribution of upscattering particles (Zdziarski et al. 1994; Gondek et al. 1996).

A reasonably coherent picture of the central regions of AGN can thus be constructed where an accretion disk surrounds a supermassive black hole, with active flaring regions above the disk. The BBB photons produced from the thermal emission of the disk are Compton-up-scattered in the flaring regions, producing the X-ray continuum. This continuum then illuminates the disk, producing more (and rapidly variable) optical/UV emission via reprocessing, the iron line via fluorescence, and the reflection hump from Compton downscattering.

In the simplest such picture, the UV and X-ray variations should be strongly correlated as they are tied together by two mechanisms, the upscattering of the UV photons producing the X-rays, and the reprocessing of the X-rays into UV. Any time lags between the two bands should be very small, being just the light travel time between the regions, and their sense would indicate which of the two mechanisms were the dominant one. Some early observations did indeed suggest a link between the UV and X-ray bands (Clavel et al. 1992; Edelson et al. 1996) and between the UV and EUV (Marshall et al. 1997) consistent with reprocessing. More recent observations have shown a relationship between the EUV and X-rays, supporting Comptonization (Chiang et al. 2000; Uttley et al. 2000). Nandra et al. (1998; hereafter N98), however, have presented a $`1`$ month, near-continuous RXTE monitoring campaign on NGC 7469, with simultaneous UV data from IUE (Wanders et al. 1997). N98 found a poor correlation between the 2-10 keV X-rays and short wavelength (1315 Å) UV at zero lag, with strong X-ray variations on short timescales but none in the UV. The maxima in the UV emission appeared to lag the X-ray peaks by about 4d, but the minima were near-simultaneous. These effects are difficult to explain in the context of the relatively-simple and observationally attractive picture of the central engine outlined above.

The NGC 7469 observations have apparently left both reprocessing and Comptonization models at a dead end, at least for that source. Similar behavior has been observed in NGC 3516, with a poor zero-lag correlation between the 2-10 keV X-rays and the optical flux observed both on short ($``$ day) and long ($``$ month) time scales (Edelson et al. 2000; Maoz, Edelson & Nandra 2000). This invites extrapolation to AGN as a class, and leaves contradictory and conflicting evidence as to the existence of the accretion disk, the importance of reprocessing and the origin of the X-rays. Here we present a spectral analysis of the RXTE data for NGC 7469 which, when compared to the X-ray and UV continuum data, appears to resolve these conflicts and contradictions. After describing the observations and analysis technique briefly in Section 2, we discuss the RXTE spectral properties of NGC 7469 in Section 3. In Section 4 we discuss time variability of the spectrum and the correlations between the X-ray spectral properties and in Section 5 discussion the correlations of those properties with the UV. In section 6 we discuss the results.

## 2 OBSERVATIONS

Many of the details of the RXTE observations are described in N98. The primary difference between their data reduction and ours is in the employment of the new background model, known as the “L7+activation” model. This provides a reduction in the systematic errors, allowing spectral analysis. We applied the standard selection criteria in the “rex” RXTE processing script. These excluded periods where the earth elevation angle was less than 10 degree, where the offset between the pointing position and the source was greater than 0.02 degree, a 30 minute period after passage through the SAA and times where anomalous electron flares occurred. We restricted our analysis to the three PCU’s which were operating throughout the observation for reasons of uniformity and simplicity.

Even with the new model, the background-subtraction is unreliable at high energies for relatively weak sources such as NGC 7469. We have therefore restricted our analysis to the 2-20 keV band, and consider the possibility of systematic errors in subtraction in our analysis. We calculated response matrices using PCARSP v2.37. We calculated matrices for several different times of the observation, but found no statistically significant difference between the derived spectra. We have therefore employed a single matrix for the entire observation, calculated for a spectrum in the middle of the observational period.

The standard software estimates the error in the net (source minus background) rate by combining the errors in the total rate with those of the simulated background. The background estimation software calculates errors on the simulated background spectrum assuming Poisson statistics appropriate for the period simulated. In practice this is a considerable overestimate of the statistical error on the background spectrum, which is estimated using a large amount of data. Indeed, the statistical error in the background estimation should typically be negligible compared to the error on the total rate. We have therefore assumed zero error on the estimated background, and calculate the error in the background-subtracted count rate based only on the error in total rate. This is obviously not strictly correct and will result in an underestimate of the statistical errors which may become apparent in a very long integration. More importantly, it also ignores any systematic error. Later, we discuss in detail whether systematic errors in the background subtraction are likely to affect our results.

In many cases below we have estimated X-ray power-law fluxes in bands either broader than or far removed from the observed RXTE (2-20 keV) band. In such cases the error on the flux is dominated by the uncertainty in the extrapolated spectral model. In order to determine the flux values and uncertainties we have therefore searched through the parameter space defined by the 68 per cent confidence contours for the spectral parameters, determining the minimum and maximum fluxes consistent with the data at this confidence level. From these we adopt the mean of the maximum and minimum values as our flux estimate, and the error to be half the difference between the maximum and minimum.

The IUE observations used here are described in Wanders et al. (1997) and we have used the modified light curve derived by Kriss et al. (2000) for all plots and correlations, which improves over the original Wanders et al. light curve by taking account of low contrast line features. In calculating UV fluxes for comparison with derived X-ray spectral properties, we have taken an average of the (typically 3-5) IUE spectra taken during the X-ray integrations. For the error bar on the UV points, we adopt the larger of the dispersion of the individual IUE points, and the propagated Kriss et al. errors.

## 3 Integrated X-ray spectrum

The Ginga data first showed the presence of an iron K$`\alpha `$ line and reflection hump in NGC 7469 (Piro et al. 1990; Nandra & Pounds 1994). ASCA confirmed the presence of the line, but a controversy remains as to whether the line is broad or not, with Guainazzi et al. (1994) finding no evidence for significant width and Nandra et al. (1997) finding marginal evidence. This issue is largely irrelevant for RXTE, however, which has much poorer spectral response than the ASCA SIS. We therefore fitted the spectrum of NGC 7469, integrated over the entire 30 day period, with a model consisting of a power law, a gaussian to represent the iron K$`\alpha `$ line and a reflection component (pexrav; Magdziarz & Zdziarski 1995). In the reflection model, we assume no high-energy cutoff in the incident power law, and that the reflection is from an optically thick slab inclined to our line of sight with an inclination, $`i`$, corresponding to $`\mathrm{cos}i=0.95`$, the lowest inclination allowed in the model.

The spectral fits to a simple power law and this more complex model are shown in Fig. 1. In these fits we fixed the absorption column at the Galactic value, derived from 21 cm measurements of $`4.9\times 10^{20}`$ cm (Elvis, Lockman & Wilkes 1989). The RXTE data are insensitive to column densities $`<`$ few $`\times 10^{21}`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^2`$, for which there is no evidence from the ASCA or ROSAT spectra, which extend to lower energies (Brandt et al. 1993; Guainazzi et al. 1994). Although we did find a formal improvement when the column was allowed to be free ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$=30), this is due to a very small deviation ($`2`$ per cent) in the very lowest energy bin. We therefore consider the apparent absorption to be due to small systematic effects in the calibration and/or background subtraction.

In contrast the iron line and reflection hump represent much larger deviations, both in percentage and $`\chi ^2`$ senses. The inclusion of the iron line reduces $`\chi ^2`$ by 1600 compared to a power law, and the Compton reflection further reduces it by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$=330. These are obviously highly significant reductions in a statistical sense. The deviations due to the iron line and reflection hump are of order 10 per cent (Fig. 1). The fit is not formally acceptable with $`\chi ^2`$=144.7/41 d.o.f., which is rejected at very high confidence. The residuals below about 15 keV are $`<3`$ per cent, however, and could be due to the above-mentioned systematic errors. Another possible reason for the poor fit is that, as we show below, NGC 7469 undergoes substantial spectral variation during the observation. The combination of several, dissimilar spectra would result in integrated data which were difficult to fit. We have not therefore sought a more complex model, and adopt the power law, gaussian and reflection fit as our test model in investigating the spectral variability below. The parameters from the integrated fit were a spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.92\pm 0.02`$, line energy $`E_{K\alpha }=6.42\pm 0.03`$ keV and line flux $`F_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }=5.1\pm 0.3\times 10^5`$ ph cm-2 s-1, corresponding to an equivalent width, EW = $`150\pm 10`$ eV. The line equivalent width is consistent with that seen by ASCA (Guainazzi et al. 1994; Nandra et al. 1997). The mean 2-10 keV flux of $`F_{210}=3.28\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 corresponds to a 2-10 keV luminosity of $`4.1\times 10^{43}`$ erg s-1.

The reflection normalization at 1 keV is $`A_{ref}=5.1_{0.8}^{+1.0}\times 10^3`$ ph cm-2 s-1 keV-1. The value of $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ corresponds to the normalization of the illuminating power law, assuming 2$`\pi `$ coverage. We define the reflection fraction $`R`$ to be the ratio of $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ to the observed normalization of the power law. In other words, $`R`$ is the ratio of the strength of the reflection component to that expected from a face-on slab subtending 2$`\pi `$ solid angle. For our data we find $`R=0.48_{0.08}^{+0.09}`$. On the face if it, this suggests that the solid angle subtended by the reflector is closer to $`\pi `$. There are, however, numerous reasons why the reflection fraction $`R`$ might be lower than unity. First, the inclination might be higher than assumed (a face-on disk maximizes the reflection component), with projection effects reducing the strength of the reflection. If the assumed solid angle, spectral shape, and power law illumination are correct, we can therefore derive an inclination of $`\mathrm{cos}i=0.32_{0.06}^{+0.07}`$, corresponding to $`i=71\mathrm{°}\pm 4`$.

Another possibility is that there is a cutoff in the primary spectrum, which reduces the number of high energy photons able to be down-scattered into the reflection hump. In this case we constrain the cutoff energy $`E_\mathrm{c}=53_7^{+10}`$ keV, lower than is typical for Seyfert galaxies (Madejski et al. 1995; Gondek et al. 1996), but similar to, e.g., NGC 4151 (Maisack et al. 1993; Zdziarski, Johnson & Magdziarz 1996). The introduction of an exponential cutoff into the spectrum provides a significantly better fit ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$=42). Given the uncertainties in the background modeling at the highest energies we consider this to be inconclusive, particularly as the HEXTE spectrum of this source appears to show a significant detection up to $`70`$ keV (R. Rothschild, priv. comm.). BeppoSAX also found no evidence for such a cutoff, with a lower limit $`E_\mathrm{c}>230`$ keV (Matt 2000; De Rosa et al. 2000). A final possibility is that the X-ray power law is anisotropic (cf. Ghisellini et al. 1991), with the X-rays beamed such that a factor $`R`$ less flux travels towards the disk than reaches the observer directly.

## 4 Time-resolved spectral analysis

The values derived from the integrated spectrum are largely consistent with those found in the Ginga observations of NGC 7469 (Piro et al. 1990) and are rather typical of Seyfert 1 galaxies as a whole (Nandra & Pounds 1994). The real interest in our observation lies in any variations. In the simplest reflection picture, we would expect the line flux $`F_{K\alpha }`$ and the reflection flux $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ to be closely coupled to the continuum flux, and to each other. To investigate this we have divided our observation into 30 segments of approximately one day duration. These segments have exposure times ranging from about 13 to 21 ks (Table 1) which are sufficient to detect and constrain both the reflected flux and iron line. We fitted each of these spectra with a model consisting of a power law without high energy cutoff, a gaussian with energy fixed at the value for neutral iron of 6.4 keV and reflection component with free normalization $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$. The results are shown in Table 1.

### 4.1 Light Curves

The light curves of $`F_{210}`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, $`F_{K\alpha }`$ and $`A_{ref}`$ are shown in Figure 2. The bottom three panels show the UV continuum light curve at 1315Å, which we designate $`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$, and two other derived parameters which we discuss below. The top panel shows that $`F_{210}`$ varies by $`50`$ per cent during the observation (N98). The photon index, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is also clearly variable, with $`\chi ^2`$=58.6/29 d.o.f against a constant hypothesis (significant at $`>99.9`$ per cent confidence), but is not simply related to the flux (see below). The iron line flux is consistent with a constant ($`\chi ^2`$=13.4/29 d.o.f), but the best fit values show trends similar to that of the continuum flux. The reflection flux is again formally consistent with a constant ($`\chi ^2`$=21.0/29 d.o.f), but appears to show trends similar to that of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$.

A more sensitive way of detecting variations in the parameters is to use the F-test. We have repeated the fits to the daily spectra, but this time fixing each of the parameters ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, $`F_{K\alpha }`$, $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$) at their mean values (1.91, $`5.1\times 10^5`$, $`5\times 10^3`$). We then compute the F-statistic by comparing the total $`\chi ^2`$ of these fits to the $`\chi ^2`$ when all parameters were free. We derived F values of 5.38, 1.28 and 2.08 for 30 additional parameters, implying highly significant changes in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`A_{ref}`$ ($`>99`$ per cent confidence) but only marginal changes in $`F_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$. Nonetheless, we do believe there are variations in $`F_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$ based on its correlation with the continuum. We now explore the correlations between these X-ray parameters.

### 4.2 X-ray/X-ray Correlations

The results of linear (Pearson) and rank (Spearman) correlations between the various X-ray parameters, assuming no time lags, are given in Table 2. The parameters are plotted against each other in Fig. 3. Two positive correlations have apparent significances of $`>99`$ per cent confidence, $`F_{210}`$ vs. $`F_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ vs. $`A_{ref}`$. A marginal ($`95`$ per cent) anti–correlation is seen between $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$.

As discussed by Welsh (1999) and Maoz et al. (2000), cross-correlation of light curves which have a “red noise’ character can result in spuriously high values of the correlation coefficient due to the fact that adjacent points in the light curve are highly correlated. This could cause us to overestimate the significance of the correlations we observe, due to the fact the the effective number of independent data points in the correlation is less than the actual number of data points. We have tested this in the case of the $`F_{210}`$ vs. $`F_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$ correlation by simulating a number of light curves with “red noise” power spectra (i.e. where the variability power scales as $`f^\alpha `$, where f is the frequency). We adopt a value for the power law index of $`\alpha =1.3`$, the best-fit value for a fit to the 2-10 keV power-density spectrum presented by N98. As we have no a priori information regarding the statistical characteristics of the line light curve, we have correlated the simulated continuum light curves with the real light curve of $`F_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$ (Fig. 2). In 140 trials of 30 points, in no case did we find either a Pearson or Spearman correlation coefficient as high as that observed with the real data. The maximum values obtained were r=0.52 (Pearson) and r=0.51 (Spearman) compared to the r=0.54/0.52 found. We therefore conclude that the correlation between $`F_{210}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$ is unlikely to arise by chance coincidence.

The correlation we observe between the line and continuum fluxes indicates that the line emission comes from very close to the central regions, consistent with current thinking about the line origin (e.g. Tanaka et al. 1995; Nandra et al. 1997). Ideally, we would use such data to perform “reverberation mapping” of the inner accretion disk, similar to that which has been performed in the optical/UV (e.g. Blandford & McKee, 1982; Peterson 1993). With our current sampling and data quality this is not possible, but as these are arguably the best data obtained thus far for such a purpose, we have calculated the interpolation cross correlation function (Gaskell & Peterson 1987; White & Peterson 1994) between the line and continuum (Fig 6). The data are not of sufficient quality to place limits on the lag using the methods of, e.g. Peterson et al. (1998). Nonetheless, the fact that a significant correlation is observed is indicative that the line arises from within a few light days of the continuum source.

It is apparent from Fig. 2 that both $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ are uncorrelated with the 2-10 keV continuum flux, confirmed by Fig. 3. Earlier observations, mostly with poorer data quality and sampling, had shown a tendency for a correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the X-ray flux (e.g. Turner 1987; Matsuoka et al. 1990; Leighly et al. 1996). As we shall show below, our data show that the situation may be more complex than a simple correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and X-ray flux. Indeed the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ light curve of NGC 7469 is reminiscent of the ultraviolet emission of NGC 7469 which we also plot in the Fig. 2, along with two other quantities derived from the X-ray spectra. We explore these further below.

The lack of correlation between $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ and the $`F_{210}`$, or $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$ is difficult to explain in the standard picture in which both arise from the same, small region (e.g. George & Fabian 1991; Matt, Perola & Piro 1991). We have reason, however, to believe that the derived values of $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ may not be truly representative of the strength of the reflection component.

A high correlation coefficient is obtained for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ vs. $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ (Table 1; see also Zdziarski, Lubinski & Smith 1999), but great caution must be exercised when attempting to correlate spectral parameters which were derived from a single fit with a low spectral resolution detector. This is because the parameters are often correlated in the fit, and thus a particular value of one might lead statistically and systematically to a certain value of another (see also Matt 2000). We discuss this further in Appendix A, where we have performed simulations which show that a combination of statistical and systematic errors can account for the observed correlation. We therefore assign no statistical confidence to the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$/$`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ correlation and make no explicit interpretation of it. We further assign no significance to the lack of correlations between $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ and $`F_{210}`$ or $`F_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$.

## 5 X-ray/UV correlations

Fig. 5 shows a number of X-ray spectral parameters and fluxes plotted against the UV continuum flux (Wanders et al. 1997; Kriss et al. 2000). Correlation coefficients are shown in Table 2. There is a clear correlation between $`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$ and the X-ray spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. We also find a marginal correlation between the UV continuum and reflection component, $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$, but this is most likely to be an artifact of the (real) correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$, combined with the (possibly spurious) correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ (see Appendix A). We have again performed simulations to test whether the $`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$$`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ correlation is due to chance coincidence when dealing with red noise light curves. This time we adopt an index $`\alpha =1.9`$ for the simulated light curves (the best-fit value for the $`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$ PDS of N98) and correlated them with the real $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ light curve. Once again, with 140 trials, we failed to find a correlation coefficient as significant as that which we obtained. Here we found maximum values of 0.69/0.69 (linear/rank) compared to 0.81/0.89 observed.

We now consider some possible interpretations of the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$/$`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$ correlation. The first is that the UV flux is simply an extrapolation of the X-ray power law to 1315Å. We have tested this by performing such an extrapolation, and the derived values $`F_{\mathrm{UVextrap}}`$ are plotted in Fig. 2 and against $`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$ in Fig. 5. We indeed see a correlation between the two, but $`F_{\mathrm{UVextrap}}`$ is a factor $`3`$ less than the observed flux. One explanation for this is that the extrapolated (and variable) X-ray component lies on top of a stronger uncorrelated component (perhaps the disk flux), in this case having a flux of $`3\times 10^{15}`$ erg cm-2 Å-1. The addition of such a component to the extrapolated X-ray flux almost reproduces the observed UV light curve, but the amplitude of variation of the real light curve is greater than the extrapolated one. Furthermore, in the general case (though not necessarily in NGC 7469), the UV shows a flatter spectral slope than the X-rays. We conclude that a simple extrapolation of the X-ray spectrum is unlikely to be the origin of the UV flux.

Nonetheless we note with great interest that if the soft X-ray/EUV flux of NGC 7469 is a simple extrapolation of the harder X-ray power law we measure with RXTE, the soft X-rays and UV would be highly correlated. Such a correlation could revive reprocessing models for the UV, as long as the reprocessing was primarily of soft X-rays. The best way of establishing the connection between the soft X-ray and UV is of course to correlate them directly. Our RXTE data have a lower threshold of $`2`$ keV and are therefore not ideal for this purpose. We have, however, attempted this in a comparative way by correlating the RXTE 2-4 keV and 7-12 keV fluxes (which have similar signal-to-nose ratios) with $`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$. We did find a higher correlation coefficient ($`r=0.34`$ for a Pearson correlation) for the soft X-rays than for the hard ($`r=0.07`$). The soft X-ray correlation is not significant, however, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions from this analysis. Our conclusion of a soft X-ray/UV correlation therefore relies on the model-dependent assumption that the hard X-ray power law extrapolates to lower energies. While we note that, if there are additional soft X-ray emission components, this may not be valid the ASCA and ROSAT data both indicate that a single component dominates the emission over the whole X-ray band. We therefore offer below an interpretation of the correlation between the extrapolated soft X-ray flux and $`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$.

Another reason why the UV flux and X-ray spectral index could be related is if the X-rays arise from Comptonization of the UV photons in a corona. When the UV flux increases, this should cool the corona resulting in a softer Comptonized spectrum. This was one of the possibilities that the UV/X-ray variability campaign was designed to test, and in such a scenario we expect a correlation between the X-ray and UV fluxes. In the presence of spectral variability, however, as we observe here, it is not clear whether a given narrow-band (e.g. 2-10 keV) flux should show the correlation. In the Comptonization process energy is added to the seed photons by the corona, which eventually emerge at some X-ray energy. For a cool corona, more photons would emerge at low energies, while a hotter one would have relatively more hard X-ray photons. Regardless of the properties of the corona, however, we should expect each UV photon up-scattered to result in one emerging X-ray photon. We would therefore expect a correlation between the UV flux and the broad band X-ray photon flux. We plot the 0.1-100 keV photon flux, $`Q_{0.1100}`$ in Figs 2 and 5 also. It can be seen that this is also correlated with the UV flux (and also with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{UVextrap}}`$), and this again supports the Comptonization model.

Confirming the results of N98, we find no significant correlation between $`F_{210}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$. We neither find any relationship between $`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$.

## 6 DISCUSSION

Spectral analysis of the RXTE data during the 30 day simultaneous campaign with IUE has revealed further important information regarding the X-ray and UV emission in AGN. A significant correlation is observed between the 2-10 keV X-ray flux and the flux of the iron K$`\alpha `$ line. The other significant correlation observed within the X-rays is between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the strength of the reflection component, similar to that seen by Zdziarski et al. (1999) when comparing the properties of a heterogeneous sample of AGN. In our RXTE data, such a correlation can be produced spuriously, however, by a combination of statistical and systematic effects, and we assign no confidence to it or the (most likely secondary) correlation between $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ and the UV flux (Appendix A). We do find a significant correlation between the X-ray spectral index and the UV flux of NGC 7469. We also find that the broad-band X-ray photon flux is well correlated with the UV, as is the X-ray power law flux extrapolated back into the EUV/soft X-ray band. We now discuss these results and what they tell us about the nature of the emission mechanisms and reprocessing region in NGC 7469.

### 6.1 Origin of the X-ray continuum

Our data strongly support the idea that the X-rays in NGC 7469 are produced by Compton upscattering of UV photons. We account for the changing spectral slope by hypothesizing that an increase in the UV seed photons cools the Comptonizing corona and producing a soft X-ray power law slope (e.g. Haardt, Maraschi & Ghisselini 1994; Zdziarski et al. 1999). We also observed a correlation between the broad-band X-ray photon flux and and the observed UV flux. This is also expected in Comptonization models, where an increase in the UV photon field should provide a corresponding increase in the number of X-ray photons which eventually emerge from the corona. The behavior of NGC 7469 in this respect is similar to that observed in the state changes of galactic black-hole candidates (GBHC; e.g. Ebisawa, Titarchuk & Chakrabati 1996; Gierlinski et al. 1999), which show a steeper hard X-ray slope in the “high” state, where the soft X-ray flux is dominant.

### 6.2 Origin of the UV continuum

As we have mentioned above, a possible connection could exist between the X-ray and UV fluxes if the latter is simply an extrapolation of the X-ray spectrum. This might be the case if a broadband continuum were generated by synchrotron or synchrotron-self-Compton emission, as is thought to be the case in blazars. Such a model has an immediate attraction, as it can explain rapid, wavelength-independent variations in the UV without the problems associated with an accretion disk. In its simplest form, we can rule out this model as the extrapolated X-ray spectrum under-predicts the UV flux by a large factor. A further refinement of this idea is to introduce an additional, near-constant component to the UV. This could arise, for example, from the accretion disk and when added to the extrapolated flux could account for the emission. We again find this unlikely as then the amplitude of variability of the extrapolated flux is less than that observed. A further difficulty for this model is that the 2-10 keV X-rays show very rapid variations which are not observed in the UV (N98; see also Welsh et al. 1998). This is hard to account for if they both represent the same component.

Indeed, our data strongly suggest that the UV emission - or at least the variable part of the UV - arises from reprocessing of soft X-ray and/or EUV photons. N98 had concluded that reprocessing was unlikely, based on the fact that $`F_{210}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$ were poorly correlated at zero lag. Reprocessing models do indeed predict a correlation between the X-rays and UV but our spectral data have shown that the lack of a correlation in the case of NGC 7469 may have been do to the fact that we were observing a variable X-ray spectrum over a limited bandpass. In the Compton reflection/reprocessing scenario, two mechanisms can heat the reprocessing medium: absorption of soft X-rays, or Compton scattering of hard X-rays. The assumption of N98 was that the 2-10 keV X-ray flux was a good measure of these mechanisms. The spectral data have shown that this is not necessarily the case and, in particular, if the heating of the reprocessor is dominated by absorption of soft X-ray and EUV photons, we find our data to be entirely consistent with the reprocessing scenario. Soft X-ray absorption is a more efficient heating process than Compton scattering, as the cross sections are large below $`10`$ keV, and the photons deposit all of their energy when absorbed, compared to only a fraction $`E/m_\mathrm{e}c^2`$ for scattering, where $`E`$ is the photon energy.

Scattering can dominate the heating, however, in cases either where the reprocessor is highly ionized - reducing the absorption cross-section for soft X-rays - or if the intrinsic spectrum is very flat such that the hard X-rays are energetically dominant. In either scenario, even with a variable spectrum, one would expect the medium/hard X-rays ($`>10`$ keV) to dominate the reprocessing. In NGC 7469 we see a range of spectral indices $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1.72.0`$. Assuming an X-ray spectrum extending between 0.1 and 100 keV and a near-neutral reprocessor, we would expect soft X-ray absorption to dominate in the soft state (i.e. when the UV flux is high) but to have more equal contributions in the harder state (i.e. where the UV flux is weak). For the soft state, which has $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.0`$, the 0.1-10 keV flux (which can be absorbed) is a factor $`2`$ greater than 10-100 keV flux (which is more likely to scatter). In the harder state, with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.7`$, they are comparable. This accounts for the fact that N98 observed the minima in $`F_{210}`$ and $`F_{UV}`$ simultaneously, as at those times $`F_{210}`$ is a good representation of the heating flux. At high UV fluxes (and therefore steep X-ray slopes), however, soft X-ray heating dominates, and $`F_{210}`$ is not a good representation of the heating. This accounts for the lack of simultaneity between the maxima in $`F_{210}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{UV}}`$ noted by N98.

N98 estimated the luminosity available for reprocessing, showing that it was just sufficient to account for the UV flux at the shortest (observed) wavelength of 1315Å. The luminosity was not, however, sufficient to account for the whole of the optical/UV continuum. In practice, the reprocessing only needs to account (and in some geometries should only account) for the variable part of the optical/UV emissions. To estimate the luminosity of the variable component, we have created a “difference” spectrum of the variations by subtracting the approximate maximum and minimum fluxes of NGC 7469 in the optical/UV (Collier et al. 1998; Kriss et al. 2000). The observational data cover the wavelength range 1315Å-6850Å. We then fitted this difference spectrum with a power law, and integrated it from 912Å- 10,000Å, obtaining a peak-to-peak variable flux of $`4.3\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. The difference between the estimated X-ray fluxes in the 0.1-10 keV band at these times was $`4.1\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 (we crudely assume the X–rays above 10 keV are scattered, rather than absorbed). These are obviously comparable, although a fair comparison would require knowledge of the geometry and ionization of the reprocessor. We conclude, however, that soft X-ray reprocessing is an energetically plausible source of the variable UV emission.

### 6.3 Nature of the reprocessing regions

The observed correlation between $`F_{210}`$ and $`F_{K\alpha }`$ does not suffer from the complexities mentioned above, as the 2-10 keV flux should closely follow the $`710`$ keV flux which excites the emission line. Although we established a significant correlation at zero lag, we were unable to set limits on the lag due to very low signal-to-noise ratio in the line. The observed correlation implies that at least some part of the line comes from very close to the central source. This supports current thinking that the line arises due to X-ray illumination of the inner accretion disk, based on the line profiles (e.g. Tanaka et al. 1995; Nandra et al. 1997). There is no high signal-to-noise ratio profile of the iron K$`\alpha `$ line in NGC 7469, so there remains controversy as to whether it exhibits the characteristic, broad profile of an accretion disk. Our variability data are certainly consistent with there being a constant component to the line from material further away from the nucleus, such as the optical BLR (e.g. Holt et al. 1980) or the molecular torus envisaged in Seyfert 1/2 unification schemes (e.g. Ghisellini, Haardt & Matt 1993; Krolik, Madau & Zycki 1993).

Because of the potential systematic effects mentioned in appendix A, we can draw no conclusion about the origin or location of the reflection component. The two simplest cases have the reflection arising in the accretion disk, in which case it should be well correlated with the hard X-ray flux and the iron line, or the molecular torus, when it would remain roughly constant in strength and shape during the period of our observation. Neither is suggested by the data if taken at face value, but we await future data with better sensitivity and smaller systematic errors before drawing any conclusion.

If the variable UV emission does indeed arise from reprocessing of soft X-ray and EUV photons, as seems likely, we can make some inferences regarding the reprocessing region. The fact that no rapid variability is observed in the UV, while the X-rays show large-amplitude flares on short time scales (N98) indicates that the UV comes from a region more extended than the X-rays. Light-travel effects could then smear the fast variations. Berkley, Kazanas & Ozik (2000) have attempted to model the X-ray/UV variations of NGC 7469 taking into account the smearing by an accretion disk. They were unable to smooth out the fast X-ray variations in such a way as to reproduce the UV light curve. This may also provide difficulties for the soft X-ray-UV reprocessing model proposed here, although the Berkley et al. calculations would have to be repeated in the light of the spectral variations we observe here. It should also be noted that we have not actually observed rapid soft X-ray/EUV variations, merely inferred them from the presence of harder X-ray variability. If the rapid flares in the X-ray light curve seen by N98 had hard spectra (e.g. if they were absorbed), they might not have a measurable effect on the UV light curve.

It is apparent from the spectral energy distribution of N98 that the overall energetics of NGC 7469 cannot be dominated by reprocessed X-rays. In particular, the starburst and other galactic emission make a large contribution in the IR and optical (Genzel et al. 1995). It also seems likely that there is a relatively–steady contribution to the UV emission, perhaps intrinsic thermal emission from the accretion disk. These should also act as a seed source for the X-rays and one could envisage either UV emission mechanism being dominant at any given time in a single source, or when comparing different sources. It appears that in NGC 7469, at least at the epoch observed, the two mechanisms made rather similar contributions to the short-wavelength UV flux.

### 6.4 Origin of the variability

A significant problem for standard accretion disk models has been their inability to reproduce the observed rapid variations in the optical/UV, which show at most small time lags at different wavelengths (Clavel et al. 1991). This is not a problem for reprocessing models, as variations can occur as fast as the light travel time (e.g. Clavel et al. 1992). Our data show that reprocessing in a standard accretion disk can account for the observed UV variability data in NGC 7469, as long as the dominant heating process is absorption of soft X-rays. Thus variations in the soft X-ray flux could drive the UV variations.

As we now also have strong evidence, however, that the X-rays are produced by Compton upscattering of UV photons, the inverse could hold \- in other words that UV variations drive those in the X-rays. Establishing which requires measurement of a time lag between the variations, which we have been unable to constrain. In practice, however, it seems likely that a “feedback” mechanism operates, with each band driving the other to some degree (Haardt & Maraschi 1993).

Such a “feedback” mechanism cannot obviously account for the rapid variations seen in $`F_{210}`$. Also, although we believe we have identified the radiation process which produces the X-rays (i.e. thermal Comptonization), the mechanism by which the X-ray corona is heated remains mysterious. Presumably that mechanism could induce intrinsic (and potentially rapid) X-ray variability, as noted by N98. There are very few specific models for heating the X-ray corona. Hot accretion disk/ADAF models (Shapiro, Lightman & Eardley 1976; Narayan & Yi 1994) heat the accreting gas to X-ray temperatures naturally, but would also require a standard disk to co-exist with the hotter flow to provide the optical/UV photon field and the reprocessing medium (e.g. Lasota et al. 1996; Gammie, Narayan & Blandford 1999). A serious problem for ADAFs is that the variability timescale is expected to be longer than that observed. For reasonable black hole masses of $`10^{78}`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$, the sound-crossing time is of order 10-100ks (Ptak et al. 1998). N98 observed large-amplitude changes on time scales at the lower end of this range, making an ADAF unlikely. It has also been suggested that flaring regions heated by magnetic reconnection might be the source of the X-ray scattering plasma (e.g. Nayakshin & Melia, 1997; Poutanen & Fabian 1999). Such regions might be highly chaotic and unstable, and could produce rapid intrinsic variability. We hope our new results will encourage a more quantitative comparison of these models with the available data.

### 6.5 Comparison with other campaigns

There has been some discussion (e.g. N98; Edelson et al. 2000) about the apparent discrepancies between multi-waveband variability campaigns for Seyfert galaxies. Some have found significant correlations (e.g. Clavel et al. 1992; Edelson et al. 1996), while others have apparently shown weak, complex or null relations (e.g. Done et al. 1990; Marshall et al. 1997; N98; Maoz et al. 2000; Edelson et al. 2000). Our data have shown that, before a complete picture of the multi-waveband variability can emerge, one must consider the X-ray spectral properties. Such considerations could easily account for the apparently discrepant behavior between objects, and the apparent complexities observed in individual sources. In the presence of X-ray spectral variability, the source of reprocessing photons can change between the hard and soft X-ray bands. If the reprocessing picture outlined above is correct, the interband relationships could vary in complexity, depending sensitively on the exact spectral shape in the X–rays and the ionization state of the reprocessor, both of which can be variable. Roughly speaking, we expect objects with flat X-ray spectra ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }2.0`$) to show a good correlation between the hard X-ray and UV variability, as Compton downscattering dominates the heating. If the X-ray spectrum is steeper, photoelectric heating will dominate, and we then predict that the soft X-rays should correlate with the UV. Of course, if there is a high energy cutoff in the X-ray spectrum this would reduce the importance of Compton heating, as substantial ionization of the reprocessor would to photoelectric absorption. Presumably spectral changes due to the radiation processes could occur in the UV and optical too, making it all the more dangerous to make inferences from narrow-band observations.

To take some specific examples, we note that in NGC 4151 (Edelson et al. 1996), the best-sampled multi-wavelength campaign before the current dataset was obtained, a correlation was observed between the soft X-rays and the UV, just as we infer here. NGC 4151 has a relatively flat X-ray spectrum (Yaqoob & Warwick 1991), but also exhibits a cutoff in the primary spectrum at a relatively low energy ($`50`$ keV; Maisack et al. 1993; Zdziarski et al. 1996), which may reduce the importance of Compton heating.

NGC 3516 has been the subject of two major recent campaigns. The first covered long time scales, where Maoz et al. (2000) showed a poor zero-lag correlation between the X-ray and optical, with no clear relationship at any lag. There was possible evidence for the optical leading the X-ray by $`100`$ d in the early part of the observation, but this broke down in the later stages. The Maoz et al. data could be explained by X-ray spectral variability, which is clearly observed in NGC 3516 on long time scales. For example, Nandra et al. (1999) noted a spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.5`$ in a 1997 ASCA observation, which can be compared to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.9`$ for observations made in 1994-1995 (Nandra et al. 1997). The campaign of Edelson et al. (2000) covered only a $`3`$ d period but was sampled very intensively with RXTE and HST. The X–ray data showed variations much larger in amplitude than those in the optical, which can be accounted for by the light-travel smoothing we suggest for NGC 7469. On the other hand the optical did show small but significant rapid variations, which showed no obvious relation to the 2-10 keV X-ray variations. The amplitude of those variations was extremely small, however, so they could merely represent variations (intrinsic or via reprocessing) in the innermost part of the disk. In the case of both long and short-term variations, an examination of the RXTE spectral data for NGC 3516 could be most revealing.

In NGC 5548, Clavel et al. (1992) noted a correlation between the 2-10 keV X-rays and the UV, albeit with few points and poor sampling. Marshall et al. (1997) showed that the EUV and UV variations were also well correlated, consistent with photoelectric reprocessing being a dominant effect. Completing the picture, Chiang et al. (2000) show that the EUV variations are well correlated with those in the 2-10 keV band. These workers also show a correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the 2-10 keV flux, and therefore presumably with the EUV/UV fluxes as well. This behavior is entirely consistent with what we observe in NGC 7469, and our model for that behavior.

We are grateful to the RXTE GOF and PCA instrument teams for their help and support in the data analysis. KN is supported by NASA grant NAG5-7067 to the Universities Space Research Association. BMP acknowledges support by NASA LTSA grant NAG5-8397 to Ohio State University.

## Appendix A The apparent correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$

As stated in the main text, parameters derived in a single spectral fit can be correlated due to the presence of statistical errors. This is of particular concern in the case of the correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`A_{ref}`$, which are highly correlated in the spectral fits. To illustrate this further we plot in Fig. 7 confidence contours of the two parameters for three of the spectra, which are elongated in the direction of the correlation.

We have performed simulations to verify whether the observed correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ is an artifact of the analysis. First, we constructed 30 simulated spectra (i.e the number of daily segments) with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ covering the observed ranges ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.72.0`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}=0.0020.010`$). The count rate was set at the mean value ($`10`$ ct s-1) and the exposure time at the mean for the daily segments. The 30 simulated spectra were then fit with the same model as the real data and the correlation coefficient calculated. We repeated this 100 times. The mean linear correlation coefficient was found to be $`r=0.12`$ with a standard deviation of 0.10. The maximum value obtained was 0.32. These can be compared with the value derived from our data of $`r=0.75`$. Very similar results were obtained for the rank correlation coefficient. This shows that purely statistical effects are highly unlikely to reproduce the observed correlation.

The spectral fits in Table 1 are made under the assumption that the observed power law slope is the same as that which illuminates the material responsible for the Compton reflection. In our case, as $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is variable, so is the shape of the reflection component. If, in fact, the shape (and flux) of the Compton reflection is constant, then our fitting could result in an apparently-variable $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$, which is correlated with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Physically, this might be expected in a case where the reflecting material had a large physical extend, in which case the medium would respond to the “mean” $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ rather than the instantaneous value obtained in one of our one day snapshots. Simulations confirm that this can produce an apparent correlation between the parameters. If we make artificial spectra with a constant reflection component with illuminating $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.92`$ (the mean value), then we find a clear correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ when fitting with variable-$`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ model. Typical correlation coefficients are $`r0.7`$, similar to that observed.

An analogous situation is when there are systematic errors in the background subtraction - particularly a systematic underestimate. These can also cause an apparent correlation between the parameters. We have simulated such an effect by making simulated spectra with the parameters actually derived from the individual daily segments, but before fitting, artificially modifying the background spectrum so that it underestimates the flux at high energies. In particular we changed the PCA background spectrum such that the error had a roughly power-law form, which rose from zero at low energies to a maximum value of $`3`$ per cent at 20 keV. This represents a $`30`$ per cent error in the source-minus-background spectrum at these energies. Repeating the 30-spectrum simulation 100 times, we obtained correlation coefficients in the range 0.7-0.8, again similar to the observed value of 0.75.

We conclude that the observed (and apparently highly significant) correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ observed in our spectral fits could easily be due either to a reflection component with constant shape and flux, or to a systematic under-subtraction of the background.