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# The Magnetic Field Structure in W51A

## 1 Introduction

The W51A cloud consists of a complex of Hii regions situated approximately 7-8 kpc away. It is one of the most active and luminous sites of massive star formation in the Galaxy with all the associated signatures: masers (Leppänen et al Leppanen98 (1998); Zhang & Ho Zhang95 (1995); Genzel & Downes Genzel77 (1977)), Hii regions (Scott Scott78 (1978)), bright & dusty cores (Jaffe et al. Jaffe84 (1984); Genzel et al. Genzel82 (1982)) and nearby supernova remnants (Koo & Moon 1997a ; 1997b ). Radio maps show a number of Hii regions, the most luminous being G49.5-0.4 (see e.g. Mehringer Mehringer94 (1994)) which itself is dominated by the sources W51d and W51e. The former is directly associated with its infrared counterpart IRS2 (Goldader & Wynn-Williams Goldader94 (1994)) and while W51e and the infrared source IRS1 are also closely associated, this section of the cloud is more complex. A cluster of compact Hii regions are found to the east of W51e/IRS1, whose radio emission is dominated by the sources W51e2 and e1. The submillimetre emission is more closely associated with this cluster rather than with IRS1 and the peak of emission correlates with the position of W51e2 (Jaffe et al. Jaffe84 (1984)), suggesting that W51e is a more evolved source while W51e1 and e2 are only now undergoing star formation. This is corroborated by the detection of infalling gas associated with W51e2 by Zhang & Ho (Zhang97 (1997)).

Here, we present 850 $`\mu `$m polarimetry of the W51A region revealing the magnetic field structure within it. There are a number of methods which allow for mapping the magnetic field geometry, and each has its own associated problems. By far the most promising method is through polarimetry of emission from dust grains which have been aligned (it is necessarily assumed) by interaction with the local magnetic field. Previous polarimetric observations of W51A show very low polarisation (Kane et al Kane93 (1993)) consistent with a non-detection. However, these measurements were made with large beams ($``$ 30″) within which a significant degree of depolarisation can occur. For instance, Dotson et al. (Dotson00 (2000)) present far-infrared polarimetry for W51A at 100 $`\mu `$m taken with the KAO. Their results show low polarisation at the cores and higher degrees of polarisation in regions with more extended emission. Higher resolution and more sensitive measurements are clearly necessary to detect significant polarisation and to determine any structure in the polarisation pattern (e.g. see Lai et al. Lai01 (2001) and Momose et al. Momose01 (2001)). In their mid-infrared spectropolarimetric atlas of young stellar objects, Smith et al. (Smith00 (2000)) measure 6% and 3% polarisation towards W51d in absorptive and emissive components, respectively, measurements made within 5″ beams.

The importance of magnetic fields in star formation has become increasingly more apparent in recent years as computer models have become more sophisticated (e.g. Ostriker et al. Ostriker01 (2001)). Magnetic fields are believed to play an important regulatory role during cloud collapse and accretion onto the protostar, as well as providing the driving and collimation mechanism for outflows. However, in order to comprehend the magnetic field’s role properly, an empirical understanding of its behaviour is necessary.

In this paper, we present 850 $`\mu `$m polarimetry not only of the dense cores in W51A but also of the surrounding more diffuse emission between these cores. In this fashion we investigate the relation between the magnetic field at the sites of star formation and the cold, expansive envelopes that surround them. By comparing this information with other studies we may also hope to understand what shapes the magnetic field. For instance, are the kinematics of gas and dust, as governed by gravitational collapse and the pressures within Hii regions, dominant, or is the energy density in the magnetic field of sufficient magnitude to control and regulate the dynamics?

## 2 Observations and Reduction

The data for W51A were observed on the night 6 October 2000 on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) situated close to the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The observations were made with the SCUBA camera (Holland et al. scuba (1999)) together with a polarimetry module in the beam mounted on the entrance window of SCUBA. The polarimetry optics consist of a rotating quartz half-wave retarder ahead of a fixed wire-grid analyser (see Greaves et al. scupol (2000) for a full description of the polarimeter). To produce a fully sampled map at 850 $`\mu `$m, 16 offset positions of the array are needed on the sky (Holland et al.). The resultant image is referred to as a “jiggle map”. For these observations of W51A an east-west chop throw of 140″ at 7.8 Hz was used. Complete jiggle maps were taken at specific positions of the half-wave retarder, each separated by 22.5°. This therefore requires 16 jiggle maps to complete one cycle of the retarder. Six such cycles were observed towards W51A.

The SURF (SCUBA User Reduction Facility; Jenness & Lightfoot surf (1998)) data reduction package was used to flatfield, rebin and sky noise correct the SCUBA data. Excessively noisy bolometers were identified from noise measurements conducted on the observing night and “switched-off” so that they take no further part in the data reduction. Sky subtraction with SURF is used for eliminating sky noise in SCUBA data (Jenness et al. jenness98 (1998)). Sky noise can be introduced, for example, by variations in the sky transparancy between the separate positions of the secondary, which make up the jiggle pattern, in a single exposure. To correct for this noise bolometers devoid of any significant flux which can be attributed to point sources, or to extended emission, are chosen. The signal from each jiggle position in these bolometers is then used to calculate and correct for any temporal variation in the sky signal. To preserve the total flux in the map, the mean background signal which is removed in this correction is then added back. Inspection of the final image showed that the weakest signal is an order of magnitude fainter than that of the diffuse emission. This weak signal being $`2\sigma `$ above the sky noise, suggests that conditions were stable enough over the timescale of the chop cycle that sky background was efficiently removed by the chop. The very small, residual sky emission would have to be quite highly polarised to have any effect on our results and conclusions. With the sky noise removed, the data are then rebinned onto a 3.09″ pixel grid, representing half the spacing of the jiggle pattern, to form the final images.

Before rebinning the images and calculating the polarisation, the main lobe instrumental polarisation (IP) is removed from each bolometer using a look-up table of elevation dependent IP values. This software also corrects for the parallactic angle at the time of observations by altering the value of the effective retarder position on the sky. Following Greaves et al. (scupolcomm (2002)) and Matthews et al. (Matthews01 (2001)), contamination due to sideband lobe instrumental polarisation is estimated to be negligible (i.e. within errors) for our data.

The $`I`$, $`Q`$ and $`U`$ Stokes parameters were computed for each cycle of the retarder using the POLPACK polarimetry data reduction software (Berry & Gledhill polpack (1999)). For each cycle, images taken at equivalent positions of the retarder are averaged together (e.g. positions at 0°, 90°, 180° and 270° equivalently measure the same angle on the sky). The result is a stack of four images where each pixel in the stack samples the modulated signal at angles close to 0°, 22.5°, 45° and 67.5° to which the following curve is fitted to extract the Stokes parameters (Sparks & Axon sparks99 (1999)):

$$I^{}=\frac{t}{2}(I+ϵ[Q\mathrm{cos}2\varphi +U\mathrm{sin}2\varphi ])$$
(1)
where $`I^{}`$ is the expected intensity, $`t`$ is the throughput of the wire-grid analyser, $`ϵ`$ is the polarising efficiency of the analyser, and $`\varphi `$ is the effective retarder position angle after correction for the parallactic angle.

After combining the data from the six cycles, the Stokes parameters are binned into $`3\times 3`$ pixel bins (equivalent to 9.3″). Finally, the polarisation is debiassed and thresholded so that only polarisation vectors associated with positive flux ($`I>0`$) and small polarisation error ($`\delta P<0.5\%`$) are included in the final data set. The bulk of our polarisation vectors lie in the 1–3% range which, when the maximum polarisation error of $`\delta P=0.5\%`$ is taken into account, translates to an uncertainty for the position angles of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta 28.6\mathrm{°}/\sigma _P155\mathrm{°}`$.

Finally, flux calibration was performed by multiplying the data by a “flux calibration factor” (FCF) of 414 Jy/beam/Volt. This FCF has been shown to be repeatably accurate to $``$ 10% for all SCUBA calibrations (Jenness et al. 2002). The value used here has been modified to account for the loss of throughput due to the polarimeter (Greaves et al. 2002).

## 3 Results and Discussion

### 3.1 Submillimetre polarimetry

The final results are tabulated in Table 2 and shown in Fig. 1. The greyscale shows the submillimetre emission which is dominated by two bright sources. To the east is the core which was mapped by Jaffe et al. (Jaffe84 (1984)) at 400 $`\mu `$m and is associated with the W51e1 and e2 compact Hii regions (Mehringer Mehringer94 (1994)). The submillimetre core to the north-west is associated with the W51d Hii region and with the IR source IRS2 (Goldader & Wynn-Williams Goldader94 (1994)). Both cores are known sites of maser activity (Genzel & Downes Genzel77 (1977)). Fainter and more extended emission is also seen, occupying the region between the two cores, and an extended arm of emission is seen to reach out to the south-west from IRS2.

Fig. 1 shows polarisation vectors overlaid onto the submillimetre emission. These vectors have been rotated by 90° to depict the column-averaged direction of the magnetic field projected onto the plane of the sky. This field direction towards the W51e1/e2 core is at a position angle of $``$ 100–110°, consistent with recent interferometer polarimetry at 1.3 mm with BIMA (Lai et al. Lai01 (2001)). In an atlas of mid-infrared spectropolarimetry of young stellar objects, Smith et al. (Smith00 (2000)) observed W51d(IRS2) and deconvolved emissive and absorptive components to the spectropolarimetry. The emissive (E-vector) component was at $`36\mathrm{°}\pm 3\mathrm{°}`$ implying a field direction in the hotter regions at or near the Hii region (there is a clear \[NeII\] line in the spectrum) where the 10 $`\mu `$m emission peaks of 126°. The absorptive component of the E-vector, and therefore equivalent to the B-vector, is at a position angle of 136°, a difference of $``$ 40°when compared to our measurement of $``$ 0°. Being absorptive, the dust responsible for the mid-infrared polarisation is also probably largely responsible for the submillimetre emission. This difference in the inferred magnetic field directions is most likely due to structure in the magnetic field being sampled to different optical depths at the two wavelengths (and the different beam sizes to some extent).

Scatter plots of the polarisation data (Fig. 2) show that the degree of polarisation has a maximum of $``$ 5% and also that the polarisation signal-to-noise, $`\sigma _P`$, ranges up to a maximum value $``$ 20. The top panel of Fig. 2 shows that across the region the polarisation and intensity are generally anti-correlated, a trend seen by others (e.g. Matthews et al. Matthews01 (2001); Davis et al. Davis00 (2000)). A number of physical mechanisms have been attributed to explain this effect. A decrease in grain alignment efficiency as a function of increasing depth into a cloud is often cited as the cause (e.g. Lazarian et al. Lazarian97 (1997)). This is because most known mechanisms of grain alignment are believed to decrease in efficiency at the physical conditions common to cold, dark clouds. On the other hand, small scale field structure induced by field lines being dragged and twisted under the influence of gravitational collapse, for instance, are capable of producing the depolarising effect if the telescope beam is larger than the scale lengths over which these effects occur (e.g. Aitken et al. Aitken97 (1997)). Zhang et al. (Zhang98 (1998)) present evidence which suggest that cores within IRS1 are indeed collapsing and rotating. However, as a caveat to this it should be noted that this trend of low degrees of polarisation for high submillimetre intensities is not universal as can be seen in recent submillimetre polarimetric imaging of the NGC7538 region (Momose et al. Momose01 (2001)) where the degree of polarisation remains relatively high towards the cores.

It is also worth noting that polarisation nulls can be seen to the north-east and south-west of W51e1/e2, at positions lying almost perpendicular to the field direction defined at the core. These null vectors lie at symmetric positions, that is, they are both equispaced and on the same line through the source centre. The data have been checked and there is no apparant systematic reason for these vectors to be lowly polarised apart from the fact that the polarimetry at these positions has low signal-to-noise. A physical reason may be that at these positions the field becomes wound up such that the polarisation drops to very low values ($`P<`$ 0.5%) and the polarised intensity is averaged out within the relatively large JCMT beam. We choose to briefly discuss these features here because simulations do show that such polarisation patterns are possible for pinched and twisted field morphologies (Aitken et al. Aitken01 (2001)) as well as for helical fields (Fiege & Pudritz Fiege00 (2000)), although the latter deals with linear structures and is not really applicable to discrete sources. Furthermore, such ‘submillimetre polarisation nulls’ either side of a bright core have been previously observed towards NGC7538 IRS1 (Momose et al. Momose01 (2001)). In both of these cases, the field pattern appears very much like the familiar polarisation disks seen in scattered light, at near-infrared and optical wavelengths, around sources with optically thick disks (e.g. Lucas & Roche Lucas98 (1998)). Higher spatial resolution observations would clearly help us to understand the physical basis behind these polarisation nulls, as we note that there are nulls present in our data at other positions in the region.

An immediately striking feature of the polarimetry as a whole is that the magnetic field threading the region does not appear uniform in direction or degree of polarisation. It is interesting to note that the polarisation vectors which are positioned central and to the south in Fig. 1 lie closely aligned to the projections of the Galactic plane and the large scale Galactic magnetic field onto the plane of the sky (PA $`20`$°; Matthewson & Ford Mathewson71 (1971)). In their study of water masers in the core of W51e2, Leppänen et al. (Leppanen98 (1998)) found the masers’ proper motions also aligned in this direction. Muson & Liszt (Mufson79 (1979)) find a large scale stream of molecular gas at this same postion angle passing through the centre of the W51A region. Their CO data shows a complex of velocities with the bulk motion at 58 km s-1, the streamer velocity at 70 km s-1 and cold absorbing gas at $``$ 66 km s-1. Koo & Moon (1997b ) determined that 13CO emission is associated with the streamer.

Clearly, this position angle of $``$ 20° bears some significance for this region. Those vectors which closely follow this position angle, may be tracing the large-scale Galactic magnetic field which follows the Galactic plane and may also be dragged and stretched by material in the streamer. The field then becomes disrupted when it encounters the dense, star-forming cores. Towards W51e1/e2 and W51d the field appears perpendicular to this global direction, suggesting that some degree of field dragging and winding-up must have occured during the initial collapse of these cores.

The arm of submillimetre emission which extends to the south-west of W51d also has the field associated with it perpendicular to the Galactic plane and the arm itself. It appears that the collapse to form this elongated structure has occured along the magnetic field lines, but this does not seem probable if those field lines are connected to field lines to the north and to the south of the structure, where the field apparantly joins the Galactic Plane. It could be that the gravitational collapse has dragged the field lines into this pattern.

### 3.2 Comparison with 6 cm and CS J=7-6 emission

We have obtained a 6 cm emission map of the W51A region, downloaded from the NCSA Astronomical Data Image Library. The data were originally acquired at the VLA and published by Mehringer (Mehringer94 (1994)). Also, raw data from a CS J=7-6 raster map of the W51A region were retrieved from the JCMT archive (operated by the CADC) and reduced. Fig. 3 shows contour plots of the 6 cm and CS emissions overlaid onto our submillimetre measurements.

The 6 cm map traces free-free emission from ionised gas and the eastern peak, W51e, coincides with the IRS1 source seen in the infrared. The extended structure of the 6 cm emission seems to correlate with the magnetic field direction quite well. The extended emission as a whole gives the impression of an envelope around the western edge of the submillimetre core and, from the polarisation pattern, the magnetic field appears to be influenced by the presence of this ionised gas. There is an extension to the north-east of W51e which follows the magnetic field lines and may form part of the molecular streamer seen by Mufson & Liszt (Mufson79 (1979)). In all, the 6 cm emission possesses a degree of curvature which may be a consequence of the expansion of the Hii region being impeded by the dense submillimetre core. If one follows the inferred magnetic field direction from the north-east through to the south-west, then one finds that around the location of W51e the field is indeed curved.

Being a density tracer, the integrated intensity map of the CS J=7-6 emission looks very similar to the submillimetre emission. However, the contour map presented in Fig. 3 shows the integrated flux between 59 and 63 km s-1, and at these velocities, a bridge of material between the two cores becomes apparant. Channel maps of the CS data show that there exists a small velocity gradient of $``$ 3 km s-1 across the bridge. This suggests a flow along the bridge and between the two cores, although this evidence may be better interpreted in terms of a rotating structure. Proper dynamical modelling, beyond the aims and scope of this paper, is necessary for a better understanding of this structure.

The relation of the magnetic field with the material responsible for the CS J=7-6 emission is not as clear as for the 6 cm emisssion. The most intriguing feature in the CS emission is clearly the bridge structure between the two cores, a feature not pronounced in the 850 $`\mu `$m emission. From the W51e1/e2 core, the bridge extends to the north-west. Here the magnetic field seems to lie perpendicular to the bridge, although it could easily be more influenced by the molecular streamer in the Galactic Plane (see Sect. 3.1) or the nearby W51e Hii region. Further along, the bridge then curves around to be more latitudinal; the magnetic field fans out and is now parallel with the bridge. If there really is material flow along this structure, then it may be that the magnetic field is being pulled and stretched along the bridge at this position.

### 3.3 An upper limit to the magnetic field strength

As well as the morphology of the magnetic field, it is also important to try and obtain estimates of the magnetic field strength. Methods that have been used in the literature have included the Zeeman effect (e.g. Crutcher Crutcher99 (1999)), which gives an indication of the strength of the field component along the line of sight, and also the method of Chandrasekhar & Fermi (CF (1953)) which gives the strength of the field component along the plane of the sky through measurement of the dispersion of polarisation position angles. The latter method is applicable to our data set but would not return sensible results due to our large beam and also because the large dispersion of position angles we find across our field renders this method futile (see Sect. 6 of Ostriker et al. Ostriker01 (2001)). However, we are able to place quite reliable upper limits to the magnetic field strength through consideration of the Virial Theorem. For a self-gravitating molecular cloud with negligible external pressure the virial equilibrium of that cloud can be written as (McKee et al. McKee93 (1993); Glenn et al. Glenn99 (1999)):

$$\left|\frac{3GM^2}{5R}\right|=2\times 0.27M\mathrm{\Delta }v^2+0.1B^2R^3$$
(2)
For W51e2 we use a mass of 800 M (Zhang et al. Zhang98 (1998)), $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ $``$ 1 km s-1 (Young et al. Young98 (1998)), and a radius for the cloud of $`R3\times 10^{15}`$ m, measured from the 1.3 mm map of Lai et al. (Lai01 (2001)), to obtain a value of $`B_{\mathrm{up}}3.5`$ mG. For W51d we use a mass of 400 M (Zhang et al. Zhang98 (1998)), $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ $``$ 1 km s-1 again, and a radius for the cloud of $`R5\times 10^{15}`$ m, measured from the 2 mm map of Zhang et al. (Zhang98 (1998)), to obtain a value of $`B_{\mathrm{up}}0.6`$ mG.

Since we know that these clouds are in the process of collapse and forming stars, these values form useful upper limits to the value of the magnetic field strength. The value for W51e2 is consistent with values obtained using the method of Chandrasekhar & Fermi ($``$ 1 mG; Lai et al.). Crutcher (Crutcher99 (1999)) presented a statistical analysis of Zeeman measurements from a number of molecular clouds (but not W51) and found line-of-sight field strengths of the order of 0.5 mG for clouds with densities of 105-6 cm-3.

## 4 The Magnetic Field in W51A: Just How Important Is It?

In Sect. 3 above, we describe how the magnetic field follows the curvature of the extended 6 cm emission and is also influenced by the bridge of CS J=7-6 emission between the two submillimetre cores. The apparant curvature of the field and the manner in which the field aligns with the velocity gradient in the CS bridge can be interpreted as evidence that the magnetic field is being shaped by the pressure and dynamics of the gas. Similar magnetic field behaviour has been seen in recent SCUBA polarimetry of NGC 7538 (Momose et al. Momose01 (2001)) where the blue- and red-shifted outflow lobes from IRS11 are observed to have quite a high degree of curvature. The magnetic field inferred from the polarimetry follows the same curvature. However, one would expect that if the field were of sufficient strength, magnetic tension in the field lines would resist such action and return them back into an ordered and linear configuration.

Towards the core of the W51e1/e2 region we find that the magnetic field direction is oriented roughly perpendicular to the long axis of the extended envelope. This is clearly suggestive that the material collapsed along the field lines and then fragmented to form the cores now present. This interpretation is advocated by Lai et al. (Lai01 (2001)) who found a very uniform field direction across the two cores (with the benefit of 3″ resolution from their interferometry data) and interpreted this to mean that the magnetic field plays a dominant role. However, rotational motions have been detected towards the collapsing cores of W51e1 and e2 (Zhang et al. Zhang98 (1998)), and their rotational axes are between 40–90° from that of the magnetic field. This misalignment is evidence that the magnetic field has had no influence in determining the rotational axes for these clumps, evidence that their fragmentation and collapse from the common envelope has been guided according to physical parameters other than the magnetic field.

At the small scales studied by Lai et al., their reasoning may well hold true but the evidence presented here suggests that the magnetic field in W51A does not play a dominant role in determining where gas flows. Firstly, across the 2′ field-of-view we find a large dispersion of polarisation position angles (see Fig. 1). Recent MHD modelling of a turbulent molecular cloud (Ostriker et al. Ostriker01 (2001)) has shown that, as expected, clouds with weak fields ($`\beta `$ 1, where $`\beta `$ is the ratio of the squares of the sound and Alfvén speeds and parameterises the relative strength of the magnetic field; see Eq. 3) produce polarisation maps with vectors which are less organised and ordered than those with stronger fields ($`\beta `$ 0.01). This is consistent with what we are observing in W51A (see Fig. 23 in Ostriker et al.).

We may analyse this further by investigating the dimensionless parameter, $`\beta `$. This parameter is defined as (Ostriker et al. Ostriker01 (2001)):

$$\beta =\frac{c_\mathrm{s}^2}{v_\mathrm{A}^2}=\frac{c_\mathrm{s}^2}{B_0^2/4\pi \rho }$$
(3)
where $`c_\mathrm{s}`$ is the sound speed, $`v_\mathrm{A}`$ is the Alfvén velocity, $`B_0`$ is the magnetic field strength and $`\rho `$ is the mass density. Using a sound speed of $`c_\mathrm{s}^2=3kT/m`$, we can rewrite the $`\beta `$ parameter as the ratio of the gas to magnetic pressures:

$$\beta =12\pi \frac{nkT}{B_0^2}$$
(4)
where $`n`$ is the particle number density, $`T`$ is the temperature and $`k`$ is Boltzmann’s constant. Taking estimates of density and temperature from the literature we find that $`n4\times 10^510^6`$ cm-3 and $`T2035`$ K (see e.g. Lai et al. Lai01 (2001) and Jaffe et al. Jaffe84 (1984)). We can now write the $`\beta `$ parameter specifically for the W51A region as:

$$\beta 10^8/B_0^2$$
(5)
In their simulations, Ostriker et al. defined a ‘strong field’ condition when $`\beta =0.01`$ which produced well correlated and ordered polarisation maps. This translates to a field strength of $`B_0`$ 1 mG in W51A. Conversely, their weak-field case has $`\beta =1`$ which translates to a field strength of $`B_0`$ 0.1 mG.

We therefore find a consistency between our data, which infers a weak field on large scales, and that of Lai et al., who infer a strong field on smaller scales. The magnetic field has an important role to play in the W51A region as one approaches the dense cores where star formation is active. However, as one moves to the more expansive envelope and to regions between star forming cores, the magnetic field appears weaker and plays a more passive role, allowing itself to be shaped by the pressure forces and dynamics of the gas.

## 5 Conclusions

We present 850 $`\mu `$m polarimetry of the massive star forming region in W51A. The presented data has relatively high polarimetric signal-to-noise, which allows us to infer a magnetic field structure which is not uniform across our 2′ field-of-view.

We have compared our data with a VLA 6 cm emission map as well as with a CS J=7-6 map obtained from the JCMT archive. The comparison shows a correlation between the magnetic field geometry and the ionised and molecular gas. This indicates that the magnetic field is shaped by the gas dynamics and not the reverse, and therefore has a relatively weak magnetic field strength (parameterised by $`\beta 1`$).

However, Lai et al. (Lai01 (2001)) have found from their 1.3 mm interferometer polarimetry that at smaller scales and towards the star forming cores the field lines are regular and ordered, implying that the magnetic field is comparatively strong ($`\beta 0.01`$) and plays a significant role in determining the gas dynamics – although evidence suggests that further fragmentation and collapse probably occurred independent of the magnetic field. Nevertheless, when one looks at larger scales and further comparisons are made between the global field morphology and the gas dynamics, this picture breaks down.

Our data has shown how important it is to attempt to correlate magnetic field structures with the physical conditions of the (ionised and neutral) gas. In this way, one can develop a better understanding of the role magnetic fields play in star formation.

###### Acknowledgements.

The JCMT is operated by the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hilo, Hawaii on behalf of the parent organizations Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council in the United Kingdom, the National Research Council of Canada and The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. The Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC), is operated by the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, National Research Council of Canada. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. The authors would like to thank the NCSA Astronomy Digital Image Library (ADIL) for providing images for this article. We acknowledge the support through software and data analysis facilities provided by the Starlink Project which is run by CCLRC on behalf of PPARC. The authors would like to thank the referee, Dan Clemens, for carefully reading our original manuscript and providing us with useful comments which improved on it.


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# Experimental Nonlocality Proof of Quantum Teleportation and Entanglement Swapping

(March 13, 2024)

## Abstract

Quantum teleportation strikingly underlines the peculiar features of the quantum world. We present an experimental proof of its quantum nature, teleporting an entangled photon with such high quality that the nonlocal quantum correlations with its original partner photon are preserved. This procedure is also known as entanglement swapping. The nonlocality is confirmed by observing a violation of Bell’s inequality by $`4.5`$ standard deviations. Thus, by demonstrating quantum nonlocality for photons that never interacted our results directly confirm the quantum nature of teleportation.

Quantum state teleportation Bennett et al. (1993) allows the transfer of the quantum state from one system to another distant one. This system becomes the new original as it carries all information the original did and the state of the initial particle is erased, as necessitated by the quantum no-cloning theorem Buzek and Hillery (1996). This is achieved via a combination of an entangled state and a classical message.

The most interesting case of quantum teleportation occurs when the teleported state itself is entangled. There the system to be teleported does not even enjoy its own state. This procedure is also known as ”Entanglement Swapping” Żukowski et al. (1993) because (fig. 1) one starts with two pairs of entangled photons 0–1 and 2–3, subjects photons 1 and 2 to a Bell-state measurement by which photons 0 and 3 also become entangled. As suggested by Peres Peres (2000) this even holds if the “entangling” Bell-state measurement is performed after photons 0 and 3 have already been registered. Entanglement swapping was shown Pan et al. (1998) in a previous experiment, yet the low photon-pair visibility prevented a violation of a Bell’s inequality Bell (1964) for photons 0 and 3, which is a definitive test. This is the case, because if significant information about the state of the teleported photon 1 were gained in the teleportation procedure, the measurements on photons 0 and 3 would not violate Bell’s inequality. This fact is substantiated by the quantum no-cloning theorem Buzek and Hillery (1996). Therefore, the violation of Bell’s inequality confirms that the state of photon 1 was even undefined in a fundamental way and Alice could not have played any kind of tricks to make the results look like successful teleportation. The experiment presented here provides now such a definitive proof of the quantum nature of teleportation.

In the present work quantum state teleportation is implemented in terms of polarization states of photons, and hence relies on the entanglement of the polarization of photon pairs prepared in one of the four Bell states, e.g.

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{01}^{}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|H_0|V_1|V_0|H_1).$$
(1)
A schematic overview of our quantum teleportation scheme is given in Fig. 1.

Initially, the system is composed of two independent entangled states and can be written in the following way:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{total}=|\mathrm{\Psi }^{}_{01}|\mathrm{\Psi }^{}_{23}.$$
(2)
Including equation (1) in (2) and rearranging the resulting terms by expressing photon 1 and photon 2 in the basis of Bell states leads to:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{total}=\frac{1}{2}[|\mathrm{\Psi }^+_{03}|\mathrm{\Psi }^+_{12}|\mathrm{\Psi }^{}_{03}|\mathrm{\Psi }^{}_{12}|\mathrm{\Phi }^+_{03}|\mathrm{\Phi }^+_{12}+|\mathrm{\Phi }^{}_{03}|\mathrm{\Phi }^{}_{12}].$$
(3)
Alice subjects photons 1 and 2 to a measurement in a Bell-state analyzer (BSA), and if she finds them in the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }^{}_{12}`$, then photons 0 and 3 measured by Bob, will be in the entangled state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }^{}_{03}`$. If Alice observes any of the other Bell-states for photons 1 and 2, photons 0 and 3 will also be perfectly entangled correspondingly. We stress that photons 0 and 3 will be perfectly entangled for any result of the BSA, and therefore it is not necessary to apply a unitary operation to the teleported photon 3 as in the standard teleportation protocol. But it is certainly necessary for Alice to communicate to Victor her Bell-state measurement result. This will enable him to sort Bob’s data into four subsets, each one representing the results for one of the four maximally entangled Bell-states.

Therefore with suitable polarization measurements on photons 0 and 3, Victor will obtain a violation of Bell’s inequality and confirm successful quantum teleportation for each of the four subsets separately. In our experiment, Alice was restricted to only identifying the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }^{}_{12}`$ due to technical reasons. This reduction of the teleportation efficiency to 25 % does not influence the fidelity. Large disturbance of the fidelity would perturb the teleported entanglement to such a degree, that a violation of Bell’s inequality could no longer be achieved. As explained elsewhere Bouwmeester et al. (2000) teleportation efficiency measures the fraction of cases in which the procedure is successful and the fidelity characterizes the quality of the teleported state in the successful cases. For example, loss of a photon in our case leads outside the two-state Hilbert space used and thus reduces the efficiency and not the fidelity.

It has been shown that using linear optical elements the efficiency of any BSA is limited to maximally 50 % Calsamiglia and Lütkenhaus (2001). A configuration where photons 1 and 2 are brought to interference at a 50:50 beam splitter is able to identify two Bell-states exactly, and the remaining two only together ( demonstrated in Mattle et al. (1996)). Particularly easy to identify is the $`|\mathrm{\Psi }^{}_{12}`$ state, as only in this case the two photons can be detected in separate outputs of the beam splitter.

The setup of our system is shown in Fig. 2. Two separate polarization entangled photon pairs are produced via type-II down conversion Kwiat et al. (1995) pumped by UV laser pulses at a wavelength of 394 nm, a pulse width of $`200`$ fs, a repetition rate of 76 MHz, and an average power of 370 mW. The entangled photons had a wavelength of 788 nm. The registered event rate of photon pairs was about $`2000`$ per second before the Bell-state analyzer (Alice) ant the polarizing beam splitter (Bob). The rate of obtaining a four-fold photon event for the teleportation was about $`0.0065`$ per second. Each single correlation measurement for one setting of the polarizers lasted $`16000`$ seconds. The polarization alignment of the optical fibers performed before each measurement proved to be stable within $`1^{}`$ for 24 h.

The non-deterministic nature of the photon pair production implies an equal probability for producing two photon pairs in separate modes (one photon each in modes 0, 1, 2, 3) or two pairs in the same mode (two photons each in modes 0 and 1 or in modes 2 and 3). The latter can lead to coincidences in Alice’s detectors behind her beam splitter. We exclude these cases by only accepting events where Bob registers a photon each in mode 0 and mode 3. It was shown by Zukowski Zukowski (2000a), that despite these effects of the non-deterministic photon source experiments of our kind still constitute valid demonstrations of nonlocality in quantum teleportation.

The entanglement of the teleported state was characterized by several correlation measurements between photon 0 and 3 to estimate the fidelity of the entanglement. As is customary the fidelity $`F=\mathrm{\Psi }^{}|\rho |\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$ measures the quality of the observed state $`\rho `$ compared to the ideal quantum case $`|\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$. The experimental correlation coefficient $`E_{exp}`$ is related to the ideal one $`E_{QM}`$ via $`E_{exp}=(4F1)/3E_{QM}`$ note . The correlation coefficients are defined as $`E=(N_{++}N_+N_++N_{})/N_{ij}`$, where $`N_{ij}(\varphi _0,\varphi _3)`$ are the coincidences between the $`i`$–channel of the polarizer of photon 0 set at angle $`\varphi _0`$, and the $`j`$–channel of the polarizer of photon 3 set at angle $`\varphi _3`$. The results (Fig. 3) show the high fidelity of the teleported entanglement.

The Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality Clauser et al. (1969) is a variant of Bell’s Inequality, which overcomes the inherent limits of a lossy system using a fair sampling hypothesis. It requires four correlation measurements performed with different analyzer settings. The CHSH inequality has the following form:

$$S=|E(\varphi _0^{},\varphi _3^{})E(\varphi _0^{},\varphi _3^{\prime \prime })|+|E(\varphi _0^{\prime \prime },\varphi _3^{})+E(\varphi _0^{\prime \prime },\varphi _3^{\prime \prime })|2,$$
(4)
$`S`$ being the “Bell parameter”, $`E(\varphi _0,\varphi _3)`$ being the correlation coefficient for polarization measurements where $`\varphi _0`$ is the polarizer setting for photon 0 and $`\varphi _3`$ the setting for photon 3 Aspect et al. (1982). The quantum mechanical prediction for photon pairs in a $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$ state is $`E^{QM}(\varphi _0,\varphi _3)=\mathrm{cos}(2(\varphi _0\varphi _3))`$. The settings $`(\varphi _0^{},\varphi _3^{},\varphi _0^{\prime \prime },\varphi _3^{\prime \prime })=(0^{},22.5^{},45^{},67.5^{})`$ maximize $`S`$ to $`S^{QM}=2\sqrt{2}`$, which clearly violates the limit of 2 and leads to a contradiction between local realistic theories and quantum mechanics Bell (1964). In our experiment, the four correlation coefficients between photon 0 and 3 gave the following results: $`E(0^{},22.5^{})=0.628\pm 0.046`$, $`E(0^{},67.5^{})=+0.677\pm 0.042`$, $`E(45^{},22.5^{})=0.541\pm 0.045`$, and $`E(45^{},67.5^{})=0.575\pm 0.047`$. Hence, $`S=2.421\pm 0.091`$ which clearly violates the classical limit of 2 by $`4.6`$ standard deviations as measured by the statistical error. The differences in the correlation coefficients come from the higher correlation fidelity for analyzer settings closer to $`0^{}`$ and $`90^{}`$, as explained in Fig. 3.

The travel time from the source to the detectors was equal within 2 ns for all photons. Both, Alice’s and Bob’s detectors were located next to each other, but Alice and Bob were separated by about 2.5 m, corresponding to a luminal signaling time of 8 ns between them. Since the time resolution of the detectors is $`<1`$ ns, Alice’s and Bob’s detection events were space like separated for all measurements.

A seemingly paradoxical situation arises — as suggested by Peres Peres (2000) — when Alice’s Bell-state analysis is delayed long after Bob’s measurements. This seems paradoxical, because Alice’s measurement projects photons 0 and 3 into an entangled state after they have been measured. Nevertheless, quantum mechanics predicts the same correlations. Remarkably, Alice is even free to choose the kind of measurement she wants to perform on photons 1 and 2. Instead of a Bell-state measurement she could also measure the polarizations of these photons individually. Thus depending on Alice’s later measurement, Bob’s earlier results either indicate that photons 0 and 3 were entangled or photons 0 and 1 and photons 2 and 3. This means that the physical interpretation of his results depends on Alice’s later decision.

Such a delayed-choice experiment was performed by including two 10 m optical fiber delays for both outputs of the BSA. In this case photons 1 and 2 hit the detectors delayed by about 50 ns. As shown in Fig. 3, the observed fidelity of the entanglement of photon 0 and photon 3 matches the fidelity in the non-delayed case within experimental errors. Therefore, this result indicate that the time ordering of the detection events has no influence on the results and strengthens the argument of A. Peres Peres (2000): this paradox does not arise if the correctness of quantum mechanics is firmly believed.

One might question the “independence” of the photons 1 and 2 which interfere in the BSA, since all photons are produced by down conversion from one and the same UV-laser pulse, and the photons could take on a phase coherence from the UV laser. Note, that the UV mirror was placed $`13`$ cm behind the crystal, which greatly exceeds the pump pulse width of $`60`$ $`\mu `$m. We performed a Mach-Zehnder interference experiment of a laser on the BSA to measure the relative phase drifts due to instabilities of the optical paths. The statistical analysis of the temporal phase variation was done using the Allan variance Allan (1987), which we suggest as an appropriate measure. Accordingly, the phase drifted in a random walk behavior, accumulated a $`1\sigma `$ statistical drift of one wavelength within 400 s, and had a maximum drift of 15 wavelengths during 10 h. In a single measurement which lasted $`16000`$ seconds, any (hypothetical) phase relation between the two photons that interfered in the BSA would have been completely washed out. Therefore the contribution of such a phase relation to the outcome of the experiments can be ruled out.

Our work, besides definitely confirming the quantum nature of teleportation Zukowski (2000b), is an important step for future quantum communication and quantum computation protocols. Entanglement swapping is the essential ingredient in quantum repeaters Briegel et al. (1998), where it can be used to establish entanglement between observers separated by larger distances as were possible using links with individual pairs only.

This work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the “QuComm” IST-FET project of the European Commission.


text:
# Why Do AGN Lighthouses Switch Off?

## 1 Introduction

At high redshift, many galactic nuclei are extremely bright, with luminosities in excess of $`10^{45}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$. These active galactic nuclei (AGN) are believed to be powered by accretion of gas onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at nearly the Eddington rate K99 . The accretion very likely occurs via a Shakura-Sunyaev thin disk SS73 ,NT73 ,P81 ,FKR92 . The Big Blue Bump, which is present in the spectra of all bright AGN, is identified with blackbody emission from the optically thick disk KB99 , while the X-ray emission (roughly 10% of the luminosity) is thought to be produced by an optically thin corona above the disk HM91 ,HM93 . In addition, most AGN have substantial infrared emission, usually the result of dust reprocessing at a relatively large distance from the SMBH. Some AGN also have significant radio emission from relativistic jets.

Most galactic nuclei at low redshift are very different. These nearby nuclei are much less active — sometimes not active at all. The nuclear source in our own Galaxy, Sagittarius A, is a particularly good example of a dim galactic nucleus. Studies of AGN demographics suggest that a significant fraction of (perhaps all?) SMBHs must have gone through an AGN “lighthouse” phase at some early stage in their lives. Why and how did these early lighthouses switch off to become the dormant nuclei we see today?

The reduced activity in nearby galactic nuclei is certainly not because of a lack of SMBHs. Recent observations have provided ample evidence that virtually every galaxy in our local neighborhood has a SMBH Retal98 . The lack of activity must therefore be the result of reduced gas supply. While this is certainly part of the answer, we shall see that it is not the whole story. A second, equally important, reason is that the very mode of accretion is different in dim nuclei: the accretion occurs via a radiatively inefficient mode, such that even what little gas reaches the SMBH produces much less radiated energy per unit accreted mass than in bright AGN. We review below the evidence for this conclusion. Our primary emphasis is on the nearest and best-studied dim SMBH, Sgr A, but we also discuss briefly other dim nuclei. The focus is on the observations and on what we can or cannot tell with confidence from the presently available data.

## 2 Observations of Sgr A

### 2.1 Spectrum

Figure 1 summarizes the available data on the spectrum of Sgr A MDZ96 ,Netal98 ,MF01 ,Betal01a ,Betal01b . Until recently, Sgr A had been firmly detected only in the radio and millimeter bands, where the source has a hard rising spectrum. There are useful upper limits in the submillimeter and infrared bands which indicate that the emission peaks in the submillimeter/far infrared region of the spectrum, with a luminosity of about $`10^{36}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Sgr A may have been detected during one observation at 2.2 $`\mu `$m Getal97 , with a luminosity of $`10^{35}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$, but the detection was not confirmed in other observations. If the source is variable, the lone detection may represent its brightest state. The data point is shown as an upper limit in Fig. 1. In the optical, UV and soft X-ray bands, the source is strongly extincted (visual extinction $`A_V30`$ magnitudes MS96 ) and there are no direct constraints on the spectrum. Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that the emission in these hidden bands is unlikely to exceed that in the submillimeter peak.

Over the years, Sgr A has been observed many times in X-rays Wetal81 ,PT94 ,Getal94 ,Ketal96 . However, because the source is very weak and the field is highly crowded, there was no unambiguous detection until the recent observations of Baganoff et al. Betal01a ,Betal01b  with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The exquisite angular resolution of Chandra allowed Sgr A to be isolated within the crowded field and its flux and spectrum to be measured. Out of a total of 76 ks of observations, extending over two epochs, the source was in a quiescent state (marked Q in Fig. 1) for nearly 70 ks, with a flux of $`2.2\times 10^{33}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and a relatively soft spectrum (photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1.62.8`$ Betal01b ). For a brief period of several ks during the second epoch of observation, the source went into a flare state (F in Fig. 1), during which the flux went up by a factor of a few tens and the spectrum became quite hard ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }0.71.8`$). Integrated over time, the emission in the flare was small compared to the quiescent emission. We therefore take the quiescent data as representative of the average properties of the source. We discuss the flare briefly in §5.3.

The mass of the SMBH at the center of our Galaxy has been measured to be $`2.6\times 10^6M_{}`$ EG97 ,Ghetal98 ,Getal00 ,Ghetal00 , which means that the Eddington luminosity of Sgr A is $`L_{Edd}=3\times 10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$. On the scale of $`L_{Edd}`$, the peak emission in the submillimeter is $`L_{submm}10^{8.5}L_{Edd}`$. The luminosity in the infrared is even less, $`L_{IR}<10^{9.5}L_{Edd}`$, and the quiescent X-ray luminosity is a pitiful $`L_X10^{11}L_{Edd}`$. Thus, Sgr A is an extremely dim galactic nucleus. Indeed, it is the dimmest nucleus for which we have useful data, which explains why this source plays such a central role in all discussions of dim galactic nuclei.

### 2.2 Bondi Accretion Rate

In a famous paper, Bondi B52  discussed the problem of spherical hydrodynamical accretion onto a black hole (BH) of mass $`M`$ immersed in a uniform medium of density $`\rho _0`$ and sound speed $`c_{s,0}`$. He showed that the sphere of influence of the BH extends out to the gravitational capture radius $`R_c=GM/c_{s,0}^2`$. Gas external to $`R_c`$ is only mildly perturbed by the BH, whereas any gas that falls within $`R_c`$ is gravitationally captured by the BH and free-falls down to the center. The radial velocity in the free-fall zone is

$$v_R(2GM/R)^{1/2}c_{s,0}(R/R_c)^{1/2},$$
(1)
and so the mass accretion rate onto the BH is approximately (see Bondi’s original article or ST83  for exact results)

$$\dot{M}_{Bondi}4\pi R_c^2\rho _0c_{s,0}.$$
(2)
Bondi’s model applies strictly to a uniform infinitely extended medium. However, even if the external medium is not truly uniform, the above formula for $`\dot{M}_{Bondi}`$ is still valid, provided we use for $`\rho _0`$ the density near the capture radius $`R_c`$.

Until recently, the Bondi accretion rate in Sgr A could be estimated only indirectly, by estimating what fraction of the winds ejected by surrounding stars is captured by the SMBH (see CM97 ,QNR99 ). The estimate had large uncertainties. Chandra has changed the situation dramatically by directly imaging hot X-ray-emitting thermal gas in the vicinity of the capture radius of the SMBH Betal01a . The observations show that there is extended $`1`$ keV gas with a number density $`n_030\mathrm{cm}^3`$ over an area in the sky of about 10 arcsec around Sgr A. In addition, there is $`2`$ keV gas with $`n_0100\mathrm{cm}^3`$ spread over about an arcsec around the source (and clearly resolved by Chandra Betal01a ). The capture radius of Sgr A for keV gas is about 1 arcsec (for a BH mass of $`2.6\times 10^6M_{}`$ and a distance of 8.5 kpc), so the 2 keV emission presumably comes from gas that has just been captured by the BH and been mildly heated by compression. Thus, Chandra provides a direct measurement of the properties of the gas ($`n_0`$ and $`c_{s,0}`$) right at the capture radius. Using this, one can obtain a reliable estimate of the Bondi accretion rate Betal01a :

$$\dot{M}_{Bondi}(0.31)\times 10^5M_{}\mathrm{yr}^13\times 10^{20}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{s}^110^4\dot{M}_{Edd},$$
(3)
where we have formally assumed a radiative efficiency of 10% in the definition of the Eddington accretion rate, i.e. $`\dot{M}_{Edd}L_{Edd}/0.1c^2`$.

## 3 There is No Thin Disk in Sgr A

Could Sgr A have a Shakura-Sunyaev thin disk? In the most straightforward version of this model, mass would flow onto the disk at the Bondi rate $`\dot{M}_{Bondi}`$ estimated in (3) and would flow steadily through the disk onto the SMBH. The model would predict a luminosity $`L_{disk}0.1\dot{M}_{Bondi}c^210^{40.5}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$, with the bulk of the emission appearing in the near infrared and optical bands. Figure 2 shows model spectra corresponding to a thin disk with three choices of $`\dot{M}`$: $`(10^6,10^7,10^8)\times \dot{M}_{Edd}`$. Even models with such low accretion rates, which are far lower than $`\dot{M}_{Bondi}`$, are ruled out by the infrared limits.

One way of trying to save the thin disk model is to assume that gas flows in at the Bondi rate at $`R_c`$, but then condenses onto a cold “dead” disk where it sits without accreting onto the BH. This would require the disk to be in a very quiet state with an extremely low viscosity. This is not unreasonable — for instance, cataclysmic variables and soft X-ray transient binaries have quiescent states in which the gas accretes onto the central mass at a much lower rate than the rate at which gas is fed on the outside by mass transfer from the companion star. In the case of Sgr A, however, such a model runs into difficulties because the inflowing gas would produce a fair amount of luminosity in the infrared, and possibly also X-rays, as it crashes onto the thin disk and loses its thermal and kinetic energy FM97 . For example, cataclysmic variables and X-ray transients in quiescence have optical and UV emission from the “hot spot” where the incoming gas stream hits the disk, even though the disk itself may be hardly accreting. The lack of any evidence for thermalization radiation from the inflowing gas rules out the thin disk model quite strongly in Sgr A. In the opinion of this author, any variant of the model that succeeds in getting round this constraint is likely to be very contrived. We will therefore take it as given that there is no thin disk in Sgr A.

As an aside, we note that the above argument does not apply if the accretion occurs via an advection-dominated accretion flow (see §§5.1,5.2) instead of a thin disk (despite claims to the contrary MF01 ). The reason is that in the case of an advective flow, there is no free-falling Bondi-like zone. At the capture radius the gas directly makes a transition to a subsonic rotating accretion flow, and there is no supersonic zone or shock. (In addition, even if there were a shock it is not clear that the hot gas would radiate very much, as it is advection-dominated.)

Returning to the discussion on thin disk models, the essence of the argument against the presence of a thin disk in Sgr A is the fact that the accretion luminosity $`L_{acc}`$ is very low,

$$L_{acc}0.1\dot{M}_{Bondi}c^2,$$
(4)
whereas a thin disk, being radiatively efficient, will normally have $`L_{acc}0.1\dot{M}_{Bondi}c^2`$. If Sgr A does not have a thin disk, then what kind of a flow does it have? Whatever the flow is, the data tell us that it has to be radiatively highly inefficient. Radiatively inefficient gas will be hot, because the energy has nowhere to go except into thermal energy. The gas will also be quasi-spherical rather than thin. We now turn to a consideration of models with these properties.

## 4 Bondi Model

### 4.1 Spherical Accretion

The most famous example of a radiatively inefficient accretion flow is Bondi spherical accretion B52 . The radial velocity of the accreting gas and the mass accretion rate in this model are given by (1) and (2) above. From these, the density profile is easily obtained: $`\rho \rho _0(R/R_c)^{3/2}`$, where $`\rho _0`$ is the density of the external medium.

Bondi originally assumed that the accreting gas is neither heated nor cooled. This assumption is not valid if the gas is magnetized. As Shvartsman S71  first argued, any magnetic field frozen in the gas is amplified as $`BR^2`$, and so the magnetic energy density grows as $`R^4`$. The gas energy density, however, varies only as $`R^{5/2}`$, which means that even if the gas starts off with a sub-equipartition strength $`B`$, the field quickly grows to equipartition strength at some radius. Inside this radius, the field will reconnect so as to maintain rough equipartition. The reconnection will heat the gas M75 , and as a result, the thermal energy will come roughly into equipartition with the magnetic energy. Since there is negligible cooling, the sum of the thermal, magnetic and kinetic energies should equal the potential energy of the gas. It is then easy to show that the temperature of the gas will vary roughly as

$$T10^{12}(R/R_S)^1\mathrm{K},c_sc(R/R_S)^{1/2},$$
(5)
where $`R_S=7.7\times 10^{11}(M/2.6\times 10^6M_{})\mathrm{cm}`$ is the Schwarzschild radius of the accreting BH.

The heating of the gas leads to convection; we discuss this topic in §7.1.

### 4.2 Bondi Models of Sgr A

Given the above profiles of density and temperature, it is straightforward to calculate the spectrum of a Bondi accretion flow. The primary emission mechanisms are synchrotron and bremsstrahlung, plus Comptonization of each. The solid line in Fig. 3 shows the predicted spectrum of Sgr A if accretion occurs via a Bondi flow. We have normalized the density of the model such that, at $`R=R_c`$, the density is equal to $`\rho _0`$ as measured by Chandra. The model clearly predicts far too much flux all across the spectrum. The reason is the very high temperature of the electrons, especially close to the BH (see eq 5). The hot electrons radiate synchro-Compton emission very efficiently.

A Bondi model for Sgr A was proposed by Melia M92 ,M94  many years ago and pursued in detail by his group. This work was the first to propose that a hot accretion flow emitting synchrotron and bremsstrahlung radiation could explain the strange properties of Sgr A.

The published models of Melia fit the observed spectrum quite well, which is rather surprising considering that we find the Bondi model to overpredict the luminosity by many orders of magnitude (solid line in Fig. 3). More surprising still, the Melia models used an accretion rate 100 times larger than the one used here in Fig. 3, and yet agreed with the observations. One reason for the large discrepancy is an error (at least in the early work) in the computation of the synchrotron spectrum (see MNY96 ). Another reason could be that Compton-scattering was not included in some of the models. It is also possible that the models did not correctly include heating due to magnetic dissipation. Strong heating is generic to any spherical flow that falls over many decades of radius (§4.1). The heating can be avoided if the magnetic field is extraordinarily weak in the external medium so that the field does not grow to equipartition strength even at the BH horizon, but this is very unlikely. Alternatively, heating would be weak if the field reconnects while it is still well below equipartition, as proposed in some models KM99 . But this requires the reconnection to proceed at much faster than the Alfven speed, which seems unlikely (e.g., LV99a ,LV99b ).

The electrons in a Bondi model of Sgr A are too luminous because they are too hot. This suggests a possible fix: make the accreting plasma two-temperature, with the electrons much cooler than the protons. Two-temperature models of spherical flows were developed in detail by Shapiro and co-workers for accretion flows onto neutron stars SS75  and BHs SLE76 . If one assumes that ions and electrons couple only via Coulomb collisions — a not unreasonable assumption — then at the low density of the accretion flow in Sgr A, the plasma would automatically develop a two-temperature structure.

To illustrate how strong an effect the electron temperature has on the spectrum, we consider an artificial problem in which we modify the electron temperature profile in the Bondi flow such that it is capped at $`10^{10}`$ K. The model predicts the spectrum shown by the dotted line in Fig. 3 (the dashed line is the contribution due to bremsstrahlung and synchrotron alone, without Comptonization). This model is clearly in much better agreement with the observations than the one-temperature model (solid line). We thus conclude that any successful model of Sgr A is likely to involve a two-temperature plasma.

Before closing this section, we note that the spherical accretion model, while good for developing insight into the properties of hot flows, is unlikely to describe real accretion flows since it ignores the angular momentum of the accreting gas. In almost any accretion flow, the gas is likely to possess sufficient angular momentum that it would hit the centrifugal barrier at some radius $`R_{cb}`$ before it can fall into the BH. Inside $`R_{cb}`$, accretion is possible only if there is some agency to transfer angular momentum outward; we will call this agency “viscosity” though it is probably magnetic stresses BH98 . Some authors have proposed models in which they invoke a Bondi flow from the capture radius $`R_c`$ down to $`R_{cb}`$, and they then introduce a thin disk or some other kind of rotating solution from $`R_{cb}`$ down to the marginally stable orbit (e.g., M94 ,MLC00 ). The problem with any such model is that there is nowhere for the angular momentum to go. A viscous rotating flow can accrete only if it can get rid of angular momentum to the outside, but angular momentum cannot be transported across supersonic zones such as a Bondi flow P77 ,PN92 . Therefore, if the supersonically infalling gas in a Bondi-like flow is arrested by centrifugal forces, then whatever rotating structure forms at the center must extend out at least to the capture radius in order to be able to transfer angular momentum to the outside. Many models of Sgr A in the literature fail to satisfy this simple consistency condition. (The ADAF model discussed next does satisfy the condition.)

## 5 Advection-Dominated Accretion Flow (ADAF) Model

### 5.1 The ADAF Model

The thin accretion disk is a radiatively efficient model in which all the energy released through viscous dissipation is radiated away. One could describe it as a cooling-dominated accretion flow. An “advection-dominated accretion flow” (ADAF) is one in which most of the heat energy released by viscosity and compression is retained in the gas and advected to the center, and only a very small fraction of the energy is radiated.

Technically, any radiatively inefficient accretion flow, including the Bondi flow, is advection-dominated. However, the term ADAF is conventionally applied only to a particular class of quasi-spherical models that include rotation, viscosity and a two-temperature plasma I77 ,Retal82 ,NY94 ,NY95a ,NY95b , Aetal95 Cetal95 . We will follow this convention here.

The reason ADAFs are advection-dominated is that the accreting gas has a low density (because of the low mass accretion rate) and the thermal structure of the plasma is two-temperature. Because of the low density, very little of the heat energy in the ions gets transferred to the electrons through Coulomb collisions SLE76 ,NY95b , T01 . Since the ions hardly radiate at all, they retain their thermal energy and advect essentially all of it to the center. The ion temperature thus scales essentially as in (5) and becomes of order $`10^{12}`$ K near the BH. The electrons do radiate some of their energy. They also have a different equation of state once they become relativistic (at small radii). For both reasons, they are cooler than the ions, and do not get much hotter than $`\mathrm{few}\times 10^{10}`$ K near the BH. The lower temperature makes the electrons less efficient radiators than in the one-temperature Bondi model shown in Fig. 3. Indeed, at sufficiently low $`\dot{M}`$ (as in Sgr A), the electrons become radiatively quite inefficient, though not as inefficient as the ions, and advect a large part of their energy. In this regime, the overall radiative efficiency of the accretion flow can be very low.

Most ADAF models in the literature assume that the ions and electrons have thermal energy distributions, which is reasonable under many conditions MQ97 . A few papers have considered the effects of nonthermal particles, e.g., MNK97 ,M99 ,OPN00 .

Because the gas in an ADAF has angular momentum, accretion is driven by viscosity (not just gravity as in the Bondi flow). The radial velocity of the gas then scales roughly as $`v_R\alpha (GM/R)^{1/2}`$ NY94 , where $`\alpha `$ is the usual dimensionless viscosity parameter SS73 ,FKR92 . The velocity is thus lower than in a Bondi flow by a factor $`\alpha `$, whose typical value is $`0.1`$. The lower radial velocity means that, for a given ambient density in the external medium, $`\dot{M}_{ADAF}`$ in an ADAF is lower than $`\dot{M}_{Bondi}`$ in a Bondi flow by a factor $`\alpha 0.1`$.

The ADAF solution is allowed only for relatively low values of $`\dot{M}`$, less than a few per cent of the Eddington rate for $`\alpha 0.1`$ Retal82 ,NY95b ,EMN97  (but see Yetal00 ). This makes the solution a natural choice for modeling low-luminosity accretion flows. Unlike other hot accretion flow solutions SLE76 ,P78 , the ADAF does not suffer from any serious thermal or viscous instability KAC96 ,Ketal97 ,WL96 ,W97 .

The reader is referred to the following reviews for more details of the ADAF model and its application to dim accretion sources: NMQ98 ,Ketal98 ,Q01 ,NGM01 .

### 5.2 ADAF Models of Sgr A

ADAF models of Sgr A have been described in a number of papers in the literature NYM95 ,MMK97 ,Netal98 ,M98 ,M99 ,OPN00 ,M00 . These studies have shown that it is possible to explain both the very low luminosity of Sgr A and its spectrum without invoking an unreasonably low mass accretion rate. The above studies were done before the recent Chandra observations, when there was only a rough estimate of the mass accretion rate. Here we present some new results using the Chandra measurement of the density and temperature of the external medium.

Figure 4 shows spectra corresponding to three ADAF models of Sgr A. The models assume $`\alpha =0.1`$ (the results are not sensitive to the precise value) and take the magnetic pressure in the gas to be a tenth of the total pressure. The density profile is matched to the ambient density of the external medium at the capture radius; more precisely, the models have been adjusted so that the predicted bremsstrahlung emission agrees with the spatially resolved X-ray flux measured by Chandra. Because we have used a boundary condition on the density, these ADAF models have a lower mass accretion rate, $`\dot{M}_{ADAF}10^6M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, than the Bondi models described in §4.2. This is to be expected since the radial velocity in an ADAF is lower by a factor $`\alpha `$ than in a Bondi flow. Note that, because we allow the ADAF to extend all the way out to the capture radius, there is no Bondi-like segment in the accretion flow. The external gas directly makes a transition to the ADAF. The flow is subsonic all the way down to a sonic radius close to the BH, and there is viscous coupling between the accretion flow and the external medium. This allows angular momentum to be expelled from the system to the outside.

The three models shown in Fig. 4 differ in the value of a parameter $`\delta `$, which measures the fraction of the viscous energy that goes into the electrons. Early ADAF models assumed that nearly all the viscous heat goes into the ions and that $`\delta `$ is very small, say $`0.01`$. The solid curve in Fig. 4 shows the spectrum for this choice of $`\delta `$. The spectrum was calculated by the methods described in Netal98 . We see that the calculated spectrum is generally consistent with the data, though the X-ray spectrum may be a little too hard Betal01a .

Is it reasonable to assume that electrons receive such a small fraction of the viscous heat energy Ph81 ? Several authors have investigated this question BL97 ,Q98 ,G98 ,QG99 ,B99 . In brief, while it appears that negligible electron heating is possible under some conditions, under other conditions electrons are expected to receive a good fraction (few tenths) of the energy. The short-dashed curve in Fig. 4 shows the predicted spectrum for a model with $`\delta =0.3`$. It is reassuring that this model, which uses a “reasonable” value of $`\delta `$, is again in pretty good agreement with the data. In fact, the model predicts a somewhat softer X-ray spectrum than the $`\delta =0.01`$ model (because part of the emission is now due to Comptonization), which agrees better with the Chandra data.

The dotted line in Fig. 4 corresponds to the contributions from synchrotron and bremsstrahlung emission alone for the $`\delta =0.01`$ model. The synchrotron peak on the left nicely fits the radio/mm data, and cuts off where it should in order to satisfy the infrared upper limits. This emission comes from fairly small radii in the flow (few to few tens of $`R_S`$). The bremsstrahlung peak on the right explains the quiescent X-ray emission in Sgr A and is almost entirely from large radii $`R_c10^5R_S`$, which corresponds to an angular scale of order an arcsec. The rest of the emission in the spectrum is from Compton scattering, which fills in the region between the synchrotron and bremsstrahlung peaks. The Compton emission comes primarily from radii inside $`100R_S`$. It is very reassuring that the model does not produce too much Compton emission in X-rays, since the Compton emission would be spatially unresolved, whereas Chandra has clearly shown that at least 50% of the observed X-ray emission in quiescence is resolved. Overall, we conclude that an ADAF model with $`\delta <0.3`$ is consistent with all the presently available data on Sgr A. Note that, since Chandra has fixed the accretion rate, and since the results are insensitive to $`\alpha `$ and the details of the magnetic field strength, the model is almost parameter-free. The only parameter that has been adjusted is $`\delta `$, and even this parameter has a reasonably wide range of allowed values.

As an aside, we note that the argument we made in §3 (second paragraph) against the presence of a “dead” thin disk in Sgr A does not apply to the ADAF model. Since the ADAF extends all the way out to the capture radius, there is no supersonically infalling region, and therefore there is no shock where the infalling gas may thermalize and radiate the incoming kinetic energy. Another point is that the ADAF model does not require the incoming gas to have a high specific angular momentum. As discussed in §4.2, so long as there is sufficient angular momentum to prevent the gas from falling into the BH directly, a rotating viscous ADAF will grow to the size of the capture radius. Only then can angular momentum be transported out into the ambient medium. For the same reason, the CDAF solution discussed in §7 again has to extend out to the capture radius. In that case, it is not only angular momentum that needs to be transported to the outside, but also a great deal of energy.

Figure 5 shows the profiles of the ion and electron temperatures in the ADAF models discussed above. These profiles have been calculated self-consistently (see Netal98 ), with separate energy equations for the ions and the electrons NKMK97 , and assuming that the two specias couple only via Coulomb collisions. Notice how a two-temperature structure develops naturally in this model, so that the electrons do not get any hotter than few$`\times 10^{10}`$ K. As already discussed in §4, this is the kind of electron temperature needed to fit the spectral data. The brightness temperature of Sgr A at mm wavelengths is also measured to be of this order Detal01 .

### 5.3 The Flare in Sgr A

The long-dashed curve in Fig. 4 shows the spectrum of a model with $`\delta =1`$, with all the viscous heat assumed to go into the electrons. The electrons are hotter in this model than in the other two models. Correspondingly, both the synchrotron peak and the Compton-scattering component are significantly stronger. The bremsstrahlung emission is not affected since it is emitted from large radii, where $`\delta `$ has very little effect on the temperature (Fig. 5).

It is interesting that the model with $`\delta =1`$ fits both the X-ray flux and the X-ray spectral slope of the flare state of Sgr A. Moreover, the spectrum passes through the 2.2 $`\mu `$m upper limit. As discussed in §2.1, this limit corresponds to a claimed detection of Sgr A. Could it be that Sgr A underwent a flare during that particular observation?

It is certainly a coincidence that the $`\delta =1`$ model fits the flare data so well, all the more so since the models are not very reliable in this limit. However, the result does show that any minor perturbation that heats up the electrons at small radii by as little as a factor of 2 will produce a spectrum similar to that seen in the flare. Such a temperature change could be caused by many effects. Apart from an increase in $`\delta `$, other possibilities are (i) a sudden enhancement in the coupling between ions and electrons, (ii) a major reconnection event, or (iii) a sudden injection of a population of nonthermal electrons.

### 5.4 Does Sgr A Have an Event Horizon?

Even allowing for the fact that the accretion rate in an ADAF model is smaller than in the Bondi model by a factor $`\alpha `$, Sgr A is still highly underluminous: $`L_{acc}0.1\dot{M}_{ADAF}c^2`$. Energy advection is the reason why the radiative efficiency of the accretion flow is so low. But advection alone is not enough, because we still have to decide what happens to the advected energy when it finally reaches the center. In the models shown in Fig. 4, it was assumed that the mass at the center is a BH which swallows the advected energy.

What would happen if the object were not a BH? If the object had a hard surface, then the advected energy would be radiated when the hot gas hit the surface (because the density would go up and the radiative efficiency would increase suddenly), and the predicted spectrum would disagree violently with the data Netal98 ,MQN99 . Figure 6 shows some results. The various curves correspond to ADAF models in which the object in the center is postulated to have a hard surface with radius equal to $`10^{0.5},10^1,10^{1.5},10^2,10^{2.5},10^3`$ Schwarzschild radii. Notice that all the models are ruled out by the infrared limits.

We thus conclude that, if the ADAF model is the correct description of the accretion flow in Sgr A, then the central object must be a black hole with an event horizon. The same is true even if the accretion proceeds via a Bondi flow.

## 6 Other Dim Galactic Nuclei

### 6.1 Nuclei of Giant Ellipticals

It has long been recognized that the nuclei of nearby giant elliptical galaxies are unusually dim FC88 , with $`L_{acc}0.1\dot{M}_{Bondi}c^2`$. Soon after the successful application of the two-temperature ADAF model to Sgr A NYM95 , it was proposed that the same model would also solve the riddle of dim elliptical nuclei FR95 ,Retal96 ,M97 , DMF97 .

Until recently, $`\dot{M}_{Bondi}`$ in the giant ellipticals was estimated indirectly by modeling the X-ray cooling flow in the central regions of the galaxy and extrapolating the model to the nucleus. However, the Chandra X-ray Observatory has improved matters significantly by providing in a few ellipticals direct images of hot X-ray emitting gas close to the capture radius of the SMBH. Good quality data are presently available for NGC 1399, NGC 4472, NGC 4636 Letal01  and NGC 6166 DMetal01 . From these observations, reliable estimates of $`\dot{M}_{Bondi}`$ have been obtained, and we are now in a position to state with great confidence that $`L_{acc}`$ is indeed very much less than $`0.1\dot{M}_{Bondi}c^2`$ in all these galactic nuclei.

In fact, $`L_{acc}`$ is so low and $`\dot{M}_{Bondi}`$ is so large that even a two-temperature ADAF model with $`\dot{M}_{ADAF}=\dot{M}_{Bondi}`$ cannot satisfy the X-ray constraints Letal01 . This is shown for NGC 1399 by the dashed line in Fig. 7. The predicted spectrum is far too bright in X-rays compared to the Chandra upper limit. However, as explained earlier, it is not correct to set $`\dot{M}_{ADAF}=\dot{M}_{Bondi}`$. Rather, one must match the density of the ADAF model to the ambient density of the external medium at $`R=R_c`$ and solve consistently for $`\dot{M}_{ADAF}`$. When this is done, one obtains a lower value of $`\dot{M}_{ADAF}`$, and correspondingly a significantly dimmer source. The solid line in Fig. 7 shows the spectrum thus obtained for NGC 1399 (using $`\alpha =0.1`$, but the results are not very sensitive to this choice). The model is consistent with the X-ray data. Similar results are obtained for other nuclei for which there is Chandra data.

The matching of the ADAF solution to the external medium was done somewhat approximately here. Ideally, one should obtain a consistent solution of the viscous accretion equations, extending from the external medium/cooling flow through the capture radius down to the BH. The analogous problem for spherical accretion has been solved QN00 , but the viscous problem is yet to be analysed.

### 6.2 LINERs

Low-Ionization Nuclear Emission Region (LINER) galaxies, and more generally low luminosity AGN (LLAGN), have unusual spectral properties H99 . It has been proposed that the observations could be understood if accretion proceeds via an ADAF in these galactic nuclei Letal96 ,Qetal99 . A feature of the proposed models is that the accretion flow consists of two zones: an outer thin disk that extends from some large radius down to a transition radius $`R_{tr}`$ and an inner ADAF that extends from $`R_{tr}`$ to the BH horizon.

There is some direct evidence for such a geometry of the accretion flow in NGC 4258 GNB99 , M81 and NGC 4579 Qetal99 . M81 and NGC 4579, in particular, lack the Big Blue Bump that is seen in AGN. Instead, they have a red bump, which can be fitted only with a truncated disk Qetal99 . Furthermore, the absence of short time scale variability Petal98  and unusually strong radio emission UH01  in LLAGN appear to confirm the presence of radiatively inefficient accretion in these galactic nuclei.

### 6.3 Transition From Thin Disk to ADAF

So far in this article, we have discussed three kinds of accretion flows. First, we briefly mentioned bright AGN, with accretion luminosities of say $`L_{acc}0.11L_{Edd}`$. We said that these objects have Shakura-Sunyaev thin accretion disks. Next, at the other extreme, we discussed Sgr A, with $`L_{acc}10^{8.5}L_{Edd}`$. We said that this source might have an ADAF extending from the capture radius at $`R10^5R_S`$ down to the BH. Finally, in the previous subsection, we discussed intermediate cases like M81, with $`L_{acc}10^410^5L_{Edd}`$. We argued that the accretion occurs via a thin disk at large radii ($`R>R_{tr}10^2R_S`$ Qetal99 ) and vai an ADAF at smaller radii ($`R<R_{tr}`$).

The pattern suggested by the above facts is very reminiscent of a paradigm that was developed for BH X-ray binaries N96 ,EMN97 ,Eetal98 . The key idea is that the geometry of the accretion flow is determined primarily by the Eddington-scaled mass accretion rate $`\dot{m}=\dot{M}/\dot{M}_{Edd}`$. For $`\dot{m}`$ greater than a critical value $`\dot{m}_{crit}0.010.1`$, the accretion occurs via a radiatively efficient thin disk, with perhaps a hot corona. At these accretion rates, the ADAF solution is not allowed NY95b  because the gas density is too high to permit a radiatively inefficient flow. Once $`\dot{m}`$ falls below $`\dot{m}_{crit}`$, an ADAF is allowed at small radii and the thin disk develops a small hole in the inner regions where the cold gas switches to a hot ADAF. The range of radius over which an ADAF is allowed increases as $`\dot{m}`$ decreases NY95b , and correspondingy the hole in the thin disk also becomes larger. For an extremely low accretion rate, e.g., $`\dot{m}10^5`$ in Sgr A, the hole is so large that the outer thin disk disappears altogether and the accretion occurs via a pure ADAF over a wide range of radius. Such flows are radiatively extremely inefficient. This paradigm is in qualitative agreement with a variety of observations, e.g., Eetal01 , though undoubtedly there are parameters other than $`\dot{m}`$ that also affect the geometry of the flow.

An important question is: how does the cold gas in a thin disk switch to a hot quasi-spherical ADAF? A number of papers have been written on this “evaporation” process MM94 ,H96 ,DT98 ,Letal99 ,RC00 , CRZ00 ,MLM00 ,SD01 , and there is some qualitative understanding of the relevant physics. However, there is no reliable quantitative model yet that can calculate the dependence of the transition radius $`R_{tr}`$ on the accretion rate $`\dot{m}`$.

## 7 Other Possibilities

### 7.1 Bondi Accretion With Magnetic Fields

Recently, the first three-dimensional numerical simulations of spherical accretion with magnetic fields were reported IN01 . The results turned out to be unexpected. The density profile of a magnetized spherical flow was found to differ significantly from the $`R^{3/2}`$ behavior predicted by the Bondi model (§4), and the mass accretion rate was found to be much less than the value given in (2). The reason for the discrepancy is as follows IN01 .

As already noted in §4, when magnetic fields are frozen into the inflowing gas, the fields are amplified, causing them to reconnect, and the energy released thereby heats up the gas. Since the gas radiates very little of its energy, the entropy of the gas increases inward. The negative radial entropy gradient causes the gas to be convectively unstable, so violent convection is set up. Figure 8 shows velocity streamlines in the meridional plane from one of the numerical simulations. Notice how turbulent the flow is, and how different it is from the purely radial streamlines of Bondi’s hydrodynamic model. In this convective flow, the outward energy flux due to convection dominates the physics at large radii. As a result, the global structure of the flow is strongly affected and the mass accretion rate onto the BH is much reduced from the Bondi rate.

An analytical model of spherical accretion with convection has been developed IN01 . The model predicts that the density should vary as $`\rho R^{1/2}`$ rather than the Bondi scaling of $`\rho R^{3/2}`$. The scaling drops out naturally just from the assumption that the convective energy flux dominates over other fluxes. Because of the modified scaling, the accretion rate onto the BH is much reduced from the Bondi rate (2):

$$\dot{M}_{MHD}(R_S/R_c)\dot{M}_{Bondi}.$$
(6)
The numerical simulations do not have sufficient dynamic range, nor have they been run long enough, to unequivocally confirm this result. What is clear from the simulations, however, is that magnetic fields can modify even such a long-cherished paradigm as the Bondi model.

As discussed in §4.2, the Bondi model is unlikely to be relevant for real accretion flows because it ignores the angular momentum of the gas. It might therefore appear that the above results are not of practical importance. However, as we discuss next, convection causes similarly large effects even in rotating viscous flows. (Historically, the rotating flows were studied first.)

### 7.2 Convection-dominated Accretion Flow (CDAF)

An ADAF has two unusual properties that strongly influence the global structure of the flow.

First, the gas has a positive Bernoulli parameter (sum of potential energy, kinetic energy and enthalpy), which means that the gas is technically not bound to the BH and is liable to flow out of the system NY94 ,NY95a ,NKH97 . If the outflow is strong enough, then the amount of mass reaching the BH could be a great deal less than the mass supplied on the outside BB99 ,B00  (but see ALI00 ,TD00 ). In such an “advection-dominated inflow outflow solution” (ADIOS), the density profile can be strongly modified: instead of $`\rho R^{3/2}`$ as in a standard ADAF, one could have $`\rho R^{3/2+p}`$, with $`0<p<1`$ BB99 . The limit $`p=0`$ corresponds to the standard ADAF model described in §5.

Second, because viscous dissipation in an ADAF adds heat energy to the accreting gas, and since there is negligible cooling, the entropy of the gas increases inward (see the analogous discussion in §7.1). As a result, the gas in an ADAF is convectively unstable BM82 ,NY94 ,NY95a . The effect of this convection has been studied via numerical hydrodynamic simulations ICA96 ,IA99 ,SPB99 ,IA00 . As in the case of the magnetic Bondi flow, convection alters the density profile to $`\rho R^{1/2}`$ and causes the mass accretion rate onto the BH to be reduced drastically compared to the standard ADAF model SPB99 . The physics of these “convection-dominated accretion flows” (CDAFs) is fairly well understood NIA00 ,QG00 ,IAN00 . Convection introduces a strong flow of energy outward, just as in the magnetized Bondi problem. In addition, it also introduces a flow of angular momentum inward (i.e. opposite to the direction of viscous transport), as anticipated in some previous work RG92 ,KNL95 ,SB96 . All of this leads to novel and quite interesting properties NIA00 ,QG00 . Analysis of the global structure of CDAFs indicates that the gas switches from a convection-dominated state to a more traditional ADAF-like state for radii less than about $`50R_S`$ Aetal01 .

Preliminary work has been done on the effect of magnetic fields on rotating advection-dominated flows Ma99 ,H00 ,MHM00 ,SP01 ,MMM01 ,HBS01 . Depending on the initial configuration of the magnetic field, the dynamical properties of the flow appear to be quite distinct. For a predominantly “vertical” initial field, there are strong jets Ma99 , whereas for a toroidal initial field there are only weak outflows MHM00 . Regardless, convection seems to be present in both cases, and some studies MMM01  find quite good agreement between numerical MHD simulations and analytical work on hydrodynamical CDAFs. Others, however, claim that there are large differences (see especially B01  where it is argued that convection in a differentially rotating magnetized medium behaves very differently from the unmagnetized case).

Work in this area is very important and needs to be pursued vigorously. The reason is that pure hydrodynamical simulations are ultimately limited by the fact that they invoke an artificial viscosity (parameterised via $`\alpha `$) to transport angular momentum. If the shear stress is generated by the magneto-rotational instability BH98 , as universally believed, then it is obviously much better to carry out full MHD simulations so that the magnetic shear stress and the associated “viscosity” are computed self-consistently.

The variability properties of MHD flows have been investigated Ketal00 ,Metal01 . It is clear that magnetic flares associated with reconnection events occurring over a wide range of scales can give broad-band fluctuations as well as occasional strong outbursts (as in the Sgr A flare).

### 7.3 ADIOS/CDAF Models of Sgr A

Spectral calculations with the ADIOS model using different values of the parameter $`p`$ (which measures the strength of the outflow) are described in QN99 . The results are as follows. Consider a sequence of models in which $`p`$ is varied while keeping the density at the outer boundary and all other model parameters fixed. With increasing $`p`$, the density and the temperature of the gas near the BH decrease. This causes the synchrotron emission and the Compton emission to drop, without affecting the bremsstrahlung emission (which comes from the outside). The good agreement between the ADAF model and the data in Fig. 4 would then be lost. However, if the parameter $`p`$ as well as the electron heating parameter $`\delta `$ (§5.1) are both increased simultaneously, then one can recover a good fit with the observations QN99 . According to Fig. 4, a standard ADAF model ($`p=0`$) with $`\delta 0.3`$ gives a good fit to the data. By increasing $`p`$ and $`\delta `$ simultaneously, larger values of $`p`$ are also likely to give acceptable results.

Although the CDAF model has very different physics than the ADIOS model, nevertheless, as far as spectral calculations are concerned, it behaves very much like an ADIOS model with $`p=1`$. Spectra corresponding to CDAF models have been presented in the literature BNQ01 , but no results are available specifically for Sgr A. It is possible that even with $`\delta =1`$, i.e. with all the viscous energy going into the electrons, the spectrum may still be deficient in the radio/mm band relative to the data. The X-ray spectrum might also be a little too soft. These are not necessarily bad, but they imply that one would need to include additional components in the model, or additional physics, to explain the observations. In the former category would be jet models such as those described below, and in the latter category would be models that include nonthermal electrons.

Although the theoretical motivations behind the ADIOS and CDAF models are strong, there is as yet no unambiguous observational evidence for these models in astrophysical sources. If a claimed detection Aetal00  of linear polarization of Sgr A in mm waves is confirmed (but see BWFB01 ), it would strongly suggest that the density of gas close to the BH is much less than that predicted by the ADAF model QG00b ,A00 . An ADIOS model with a largish value of $`p`$ or a CDAF model (which is equivalent to $`p=1`$) would then be indicated. The discovery of radio variability with a possible 106 day cycle ZBG01  independently suggests the presence of a turbulent CDAF. However, none of these indications is particularly robust at this time.

### 7.4 Jets, Other Components

In the discussion so far, it has been tacitly assumed that the accretion flow is the source of all the observed radiation. In bright AGN, it is known that radio emission is usually associated with relativistic jets. Since Sgr A is brightest in radio and mm waves, it is not unreasonable to suppose that some of the observed radiation at these wavelengths originates in a jet, or some other component that is external to the accretion flow. Models of this kind have been developed by several groups (see MF01  for a review).

In the context of jet models, we note that a pure accretion model with an ADAF does a pretty good job of explaining the data on Sgr A (Fig. 4). As explained in §5.2, the model has almost no free parameters, since the accretion rate is fixed by the Chandra observations. If Sgr A does have an ADAF, then there is very little room for additional emission from a jet.

On the other hand, if the accretion flow corresponds to an ADIOS or a CDAF, then the accretion flow might produce very little radio or mm emission, especially if $`\delta `$ is small. In this case, almost all the radio and mm emission could be from something other than the accretion flow. Jet models then become attractive (but see YMF01 ).

Note that most of the quiescent X-ray emission in Sgr A is spatially resolved Betal01a . Therefore, jet models of the quiescent emission need to ensure that they do not predict too much emission in X-rays, since the jet emission is expected to be unresolved. During the X-ray flare in Sgr A, all the observed excess emission was point-like and so this emission could in principle be entirely from a jet.

Successful disk-plus-jet models have been developed for Sgr A in which synchro-Compton emission from a compact nozzle region of a jet produces the observed radiation FMB93 ,F96 ,FB99 ,FM00 . The “disk” in these models is unlikely to be a standard thin disk for the reasons discussed in §3. Indeed, recent work suggests that a jet-plus-ADAF model is able to combine many of the attractive features of both models YMF01 . A jet also provides a convincing explanation for the flare in Sgr A Maetal01 .

One interesting result is that the electron energy distribution in Sgr A has to be nearly mono-energetic in order to fit the sharp cutoff of the spectrum in the infrared DL94 ,BD97 . This is a somewhat curious result, since jets in bright AGN almost always have power-law energy distributions. If the relativistic electrons in jets are accelerated via shocks, there must be something very different about the shock in very low-luminosity systems like Sgr A.

## 8 Summary and Conclusions

The Chandra X-ray Observatory has eliminated a major uncertainty that has hampered our understanding of dim galactic nuclei. Thanks to Chandra’s excellent angular resolution, we now have direct measurements of the density and temperature of ambient gas close to the gravitational capture radius of the SMBHs in Sgr A and a few nearby galactic nuclei. This information allows us to estimate for these nuclei the Bondi mass accretion rate $`\dot{M}_{Bondi}`$, as well as the accretion rate in an advection-dominated accretion flow $`\dot{M}_{ADAF}`$. With the uncertainty in $`\dot{M}`$ removed, we are now in a position to answer the question posed in the title of this article. The answer consists of three parts:

* In all the dim galactic nuclei for which Chandra has provided a direct estimate of $`\dot{M}_{Bondi}`$, the accretion rate is found to be well below the Eddington rate. This is in contrast to bright AGN which are believed to accrete at close to the Eddington rate. Thus, the first, and obvious, reason why AGN switch off is that the gas supply to the SMBH is reduced, presumably because most of the gas has been converted into stars.
* Even after allowing for the reduced $`\dot{M}`$, the objects studied are still anomalously dim: $`L_{acc}0.1\dot{M}_{Bondi}c^2`$. Therefore, we can state with great confidence that the accretion must proceed via a radiatively inefficient mode. A two-temperature ADAF model fits the available data quite well (Fig. 4), with almost no adjustable parameters (only $`\delta `$ needs to be adjusted, and even it is loosely constrained: §5.2). In this model, there is not much room for additional emission from a jet. A Bondi model can also be made to fit the data, provided the accreting gas is taken to be two-temperature (§4.2). However, the neglect of angular momentum of the gas is a serious weakness of the model. Both the ADAF and Bondi models work only if the central object has an event horizon (§5.4). Independently of these results, one can state with high confidence that there is no Shakura-Sunyaev thin disk in Sgr A (§3).
* Outflows and convection may be important, in which case the mass accretion rate onto the BH may be significantly less than the mass supply on the outside, i.e. $`\dot{M}_{BH}M_{Bondi},\dot{M}_{ADAF}`$ (see the discussion of ADIOS/CDAF models in §§7.1–7.3). There is as yet no compelling observational evidence for these models, but there are strong theoretical reasons for favoring them. If the accretion flows in Sgr A and other dim nuclei are of the ADIOS or CDAF type, then the accretion flow may be very dim in radio/mm, and the observed emission in these bands may come from a relativistic jet or some other component external to the accretion flow.

Thus, it appears that three different effects all conspire to make nearby galactic nuclei extraodinarily dim: there is less gas available, the gas accretes via a radiatively inefficient mode, and (perhaps) less gas reaches the BH than is available for accretion.

*Acknowledgements:* The author thanks Shin Mineshige and Eliot Quataert for useful comments on the manuscript and the W.M. Keck Foundation for support as a Keck Visiting Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. This research was supported by NSF grant AST-9820686.