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# A Quadruple Phase Strong Mgii Absorber at 𝑧∼0.9902 Toward PG 1634+706Based in part on observations obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among Caltech, the University of California, and NASA. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. Based in part on observations obtained with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which is operated by the STScI for the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5–26555.

## 1 Introduction

Quasar absorption lines provide a unique and intriguing way to determine the kinematics, chemical composition, and ionization state of gas in intervening galaxies. For most galaxies, a multi–phase interstellar medium (ISM) (i.e. a medium with different densities and temperatures) is likely to exist (McKee & Ostriker, 1977; Giroux, Sutherland, & Shull, 1994). Thus, it follows that any random line of sight passing through a galaxy is likely to encounter several phases of gas.

Strong Mgii absorbers ($`W_r(2796)>0.3`$ Å) are almost always found within an impact parameter of $`35h^1`$ kpc of a luminous galaxy ($`>0.05L^{}`$), where $`L^{}`$ is the Schechter luminosity (Bergeron & Boissé, 1991; Bergeron et al., 1992; Le Brun et al., 1993; Steidel, Dickinson, & Persson, 1994; Steidel, 1995; Steidel et al., 1997). In addition, the strong Civ absorption that is characteristic of most such absorbers is thought (Churchill et al., 1999, 2000) to arise in a corona similar to that surrounding the Milky Way disk (Savage et al., 1997).

We study the $`z=0.9902`$ system along the line of sight to the quasar PG $`1634+706`$ ($`z_{em}=1.335`$). This system is a strong Mgii absorber with at least five blended components and with a deficiency of Civ relative to other systems with similar $`W_r(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$ (Churchill et al., 2000). In a previous study, Charlton et al. (2000) derived constraints on the physical properties of the system, based upon the combination of low–resolution data from the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS) on–board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and high–resolution data from the High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) on the Keck I telescope. At that time, only low–resolution data were available for many key transitions, including low–ionization tracers (Siii and Cii), high–ionization tracers (Siiv and Civ), and the Lyman–series lines. However, the HIRES profiles of Mgi, Mgii, and Feii were used to form a template that was applied to model the low–resolution data.

Based on the FOS and HIRES data, Charlton et al. (2000) came to the following conclusions: (1) The metallicity (expressed in the solar units) of the Mgii phase would be low ($`1.5\mathrm{log}Z1`$) if it was to produce a full Lyman limit break; (2) A broad component ($`40b(\mathrm{H})80`$ km s-1) was needed to fit the Ly$`\alpha `$ profile; (3) An additional broad component also appeared to be needed to produce Civ; (4) Siiv could not fully arise in the inferred low– or high–ionization phases, which suggested the existence of a blend or an additional component.

However, some important issues still remained unresolved: (1) whether the Mgi could be produced in the same clouds as Mgii; (2) whether the ionization conditions vary across the profiles; (3) whether Civ is produced by a single, broad phase or by several separate, narrower clouds; and (4) whether Siiv is affected by a blend and, if not, how is it produced?

The first issue is important because Mgi is under–produced by the Mgii phase in many strong Mgii absorption systems (Churchill, 1997; Churchill, Vogt, & Charlton, 2002). In addition, Mgi absorption is often very strong in the environment where damped Ly$`\alpha `$ absorbers (DLAs) arise and therefore could be used to trace the origin of the strongest Hi absorption. A resolution to the Mgi/Mgii issue in the case of the $`z=0.9902`$ Mgii system could serve as a basis for solving these more general problems.

The third issue is of particular interest because this system is Civ–deficient (Churchill et al., 2000). Most strong Mgii absorbers have comparable strong Civ absorption, which is likely to arise in a corona similar to that surrounding the Milky Way. Although Civ is detected in the low–resolution FOS spectrum, it is relatively weak. Therefore, the additional component suggested by Charlton et al. (2000) may not be analogous to a corona. The Civ profiles could be resolved to determine whether the “corona phase” is absent, or just weak in Civ. Either low metallicity or high–ionization conditions could lead to weak Civ absorption from a corona.

With the release of grating E230M spectra from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on–board the HST, we now have high–resolution coverage of the Lyman series, Siii, Cii, Siiii, Ciii, Siiv, and Civ transitions. In this paper, we present the results from photo–/collisional ionization modeling of the $`z0.9902`$ Mgii system. Combining the newer data with those on the Mgi, Mgii, and Feii from Keck/HIRES, we determine the minimum number of phases required to produce the observed absorption in the many detected chemical transitions. For each phase, we place constraints on physical properties such as densities, temperatures, and sizes of the various environments that give rise to the absorption features displayed in the observed spectral profiles.

In § 2, we briefly describe the data that we use to constrain our models. A summary of our modeling techniques is presented in § 3 and our major results are outlined in § 4. Finally, in § 5, we summarize and give a physical interpretation of the system.

## 2 Data and Analysis

### 2.1 Keck/HIRES

The optical part of the spectrum (with Mgi 2853, Mgii 2796, Mgii 2803 and Feii 2600 covered between 3723 Å and 6186 Å) was obtained from the HIRES on the Keck I telescope on July 4 and 5, 1995 (Vogt et al., 1995). This spectrum has a resolution of $`R=45,000`$ (FWHM $`6.6`$ km s-1) and a signal–to–noise ratio of $`50`$ per three–pixel resolution element (Charlton et al., 2000).

The HIRES spectrum was reduced with the IRAF APEXTRACT package for echelle data and was extracted using the optimal extraction routine of Horne (1986) and Marsh (1989). The wavelengths were calibrated to vacuum using the IRAF task ECIDENTIFY, and shifted to heliocentric velocities. Continuum fitting was based on the formalism of Sembach & Savage (1992).

Voigt profiles were used to simultaneously fit Mgi, Mgii, and Feii, with free parameters redshift, column density and Doppler parameter, $`b`$, for each component. The program MINFIT (Churchill, 1997), using a $`\chi ^2`$ formalism, found the minimum number of components required to fit the system. The Mgi 2853, Mgii $`\lambda \lambda 2796,2803`$ and Feii 2600 transitions, covered by HIRES, are shown in velocity space in Figure 1. Other Feii transitions were also covered, but Feii 2600 has the highest signal–to–noise.

The fitting procedure was summarized in Churchill & Vogt (2001), and described in detail in Churchill (1997). Components are dropped from the fit unless retaining them produces a $`\chi ^2`$ value that is significantly better ($`97`$ % by the F–test). Errors in redshifts, column densities, and Doppler parameters were determined, using the diagonal elements of the covariance matrix, determined from the curvature matrix. Components were rejected if their total fractional errors exceeded $`1.5`$.

### 2.2 HST/FOS

Before the release of the STIS data, low–resolution UV spectra were obtained using the G190H and G270H gratings of HST/FOS. These spectra were presented in Impey et al. (1996) and Bahcall et al. (1996). Since the higher–resolution STIS spectrum covers most of the key transitions for the $`z=0.9902`$ system, we only used the FOS spectra to study the Lyman limit break at $`1830`$ Å, which implies the neutral hydrogen column density $`\mathrm{log}N(\text{H}\text{i})18`$. The data reduction, wavelength calibration, fluxing, and continuum fitting of the FOS spectra were performed as part of the QSO Absorption Line Key Project (Bahcall et al., 1996).

### 2.3 HST/STIS

Two high–resolution ($`R=30,000`$) datasets, with different wavelength coverage, were obtained with HST/STIS and retrieved from the HST data archive. The E230M spectrum, obtained by S. Burles (May and June 2000), has a wavelength coverage of $`1865`$ Å to $`2673`$ Å, and a total exposure time of $`29,000`$ seconds. The E230M spectrum, provided by B. T. Jannuzi (June 2000), has a wavelength coverage of $`2303`$ Å to $`3111`$ Å, and a total exposure time of $`26,435`$ seconds. The Lyman series, Siii, Cii, Siiii, Ciii, Siiv, and Civ are all covered by the E230M STIS spectra. A G230M spectrum, covering 1830 Å to 1870 Å, was also obtained by S. Burles (May 2000), but it did not cover any key transitions for our analysis of the system.

The STIS spectra were reduced using the standard pipeline (Brown et al., 2002). The extracted spectra were averaged between different exposures and the continuum fitting was performed with standard IRAF tasks (Churchill & Vogt, 2001).

The spectra of various transitions are shown in Figure 1. Ly$`\gamma `$ is apparently blended with another feature, based on its asymmetry relative to the other Lyman–series transitions. Ly$`\delta `$ is not shown due to its noisy spectrum and its contamination by a blend. Siii 1190 is blended with Nv 1243 from the $`z=0.9056`$ system. Cii 1335 is contaminated by Siiv 1394 from the $`z=0.9056`$ system, but based on Siiv 1403, the contribution from Siiv 1394 would be negligible. A relatively strong, unidentified feature is apparent to the red of the Cii 1335 profile. Siiii 1207 is blended with Siii 1260 from the $`z=0.9056`$ system. Only Nv 1239 is shown because no absorption is detected in either of the Nv $`\lambda \lambda 1238,1242`$ profiles and Nv 1239 is the stronger of the two. Ovi 1032 is not shown. It is clearly inconsistent with the undetected Ovi 1038.

## 3 Methods for Modeling

The goal of the present study was to determine the physical conditions under which the spectra shown in Figure 1 were produced. To begin, we applied a Voigt profile fit to the Mgii transitions to determine the locations, column densities, and Doppler parameters of the components required to reproduce the observed absorption. We assumed that each one of these components was produced by an individual “cloud” and we modeled each one of these clouds with the photoionization code Cloudy, version 90.4 (Ferland 1996).

The clouds were assumed to be constant–density, plane–parallel slabs in photoionization equilibrium. They were ionized by a $`z=1`$ Haardt and Madau (1996) extragalactic background spectrum normalizing with an ionizing photon density of $`\mathrm{log}n_\gamma =5.2`$. Alternative input spectra were also briefly explored, as discussed in § 4.5. To simulate these clouds, the required input parameters were: i) the column density of Mgii, $`N(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$, ii) the metallicity, $`Z`$ (expressed in the units of the solar value), iii) the ionization parameter, $`U`$ (defined as the ratio of the number density of photons capable of ionizing hydrogen, $`n_\gamma `$, to the number density of hydrogen, $`n_H`$), and iv) the abundance pattern. The column density of Mgii was obtained from the Voigt profile fit. Both the metallicity and the ionization parameter were chosen from a range reasonable for interstellar and intergalactic clouds (i.e. $`3\mathrm{log}Z0`$ and $`5\mathrm{log}U0`$), with the initial assumption of a solar abundance pattern. If a simultaneous fit to all transitions was not possible with solar abundances, alternatives were explored.

Once the input parameters were specified, we ran Cloudy to optimize on the column density of a selected species, such as Mgii. During the run, Cloudy used an initial guess of $`N(\text{H}\text{i})`$ and calculated the corresponding $`N(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$. The output $`N(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$ was compared to the value measured from the Voigt profile fit, and the value of $`N(\text{H}\text{i})`$ was adjusted accordingly for the next iteration. This process was repeated until the difference between the output $`N(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$ and the designated one was negligible.

Upon the completion of the final iteration, the following parameters were retrieved for the resulting cloud: the column density of every species with spectral coverage, the size of the cloud, and the temperature. The temperature was used to calculate the thermal component of the Doppler parameter of each ion, according to $`b_{therm}^2=2kT/m`$, where $`m`$ is the atomic weight of the ion. The turbulent component of $`b`$, which is due to the bulk motion of the gas and is the same for all the ions, was calculated from the measured $`b(\mathrm{Mg})`$ using $`b_{turb}^2=b^2(\mathrm{Mg})b_{therm}^2(\mathrm{Mg})`$. Combining the turbulent and thermal components, we obtained the Doppler parameter of all other individual ions.

Cloudy was run for all five Mgii clouds, each time calculating $`N`$ and $`b`$ for each species. A “pure” spectrum was then produced for each transition from the $`N`$ and $`b`$ of all five components. Then, we generated a synthetic spectrum by convolving the “pure” spectrum with the instrumental spread function. Finally, the synthetic spectrum was superimposed on the observed one for comparison.

We experimented with various metallicities and ionization parameters and attempted to obtain a synthetic spectrum that displayed minimal discrepancy with the observed one. A visual comparison of goodness of fit was used to reject models, as illustrated in Charlton et al. (2000) and Rigby et al. (2002). This was adequate to confidently constrain parameters to a relatively narrow range within the very large parameter space. The $`\mathrm{log}U`$ and $`\mathrm{log}Z`$ values given below are accurate to about $`0.1`$ dex. We considered using a quantitative $`\chi ^2`$ approach, but found it to be impractical because a single pixel or group of pixels for a particular transition often dominated the assessment.

We encountered several issues that were unresolvable using a single phase of gas: Mgi was under–produced for any choice of $`U`$; the shape of the Ly$`\alpha `$ profile could not be fit; the velocity centroids of Siiv and Civ were offset from that of Mgii; and the Siiv and Civ transitions could not be fit simultaneously. Additional clouds were included in the Mgii phase to account for the offset Siiv and Civ absorption. The resolution of the other three issues requires the inclusion of independent phases: A colder, denser phase is needed to produce the observed absorption in Mgi. A broad, low–metallicity component is needed to account for the shape of the Ly$`\alpha `$ profile. Finally, a collisionally ionized phase is needed to fit Siiv without over–producing Civ. Each of these phases will be explained in detail in § 4.

## 4 Results

Here we present constraints on each of the four phases required to fit the $`z=0.9902`$ system, beginning with the lowest–ionization phase. Table 1 provides a summary of the cloud properties for all four phases in a plausible model that satisfies all constraints.

### 4.1 Mgi Phase

The five Mgii clouds from the original Voigt profile fit could not produce the observed equivalent width of Mgi, regardless of the choice of ionization parameter. The ratio $`N(\text{Mg}\text{i})`$/$`N(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$ is nearly constant at $`0.01`$ over a large range of ionization parameters, $`U`$, and for the range of metallicity appropriate for this system.

In order to obtain the observed equivalent width ratio $`W_r(2853)/W_r(2796)`$, a difference in the curve of growth between the two transitions was used, as shown in Figure 2. In general, when an absorption profile is unsaturated, its equivalent width, $`W_r`$, increases linearly with its column density, $`N`$ (i.e. on the linear part of curve of growth). However, when the absorption becomes saturated, $`W_r`$ stays almost constant with $`N`$, at a value that depends only on Doppler parameter, $`b`$ (i.e. on the flat part of curve of growth). In Figure 2, our typical $`N(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$ is on the flat part of the curve of growth, while $`N(\text{Mg}\text{i})`$ is on the linear part. Thus, we could produce a larger $`W_r(2853)/W_r(2796)`$ using a smaller $`b`$, in a “Mgi phase”.

A unique Voigt profile fit to Mgi could not be obtained. We assumed five clouds at the same velocities as the broader Mgii cloud components, with a constant Doppler parameter and a constant ionization parameter. The Doppler parameter is constrained to be $`b1`$ km s-1, in order that Mgii is not over–produced by the combination of this Mgi phase and the Mgii cloud phase (see § 4.2). However, the ionization parameter has to be $`\mathrm{log}U8`$ for $`b=1`$ km s-1, in order that Oi is not over–produced. Alternatively, $`\mathrm{log}U7.5`$ if $`b=0.75`$ km s-1 (Oi is on the flat part of the curve of growth). Column densities for a sample model with $`b(\mathrm{Mg})=0.75`$ km s-1 and $`\mathrm{log}U=7.5`$ are listed in Table 1. With $`b(\mathrm{Mg})=0.75`$ km s-1, the temperature is constrained to be lower than $`800`$ K. Cloudy yields an effective temperature close to this value for the clouds in our sample model. An ionization parameter of $`\mathrm{log}U=7.5`$ corresponds to a cloud density of $`n(H)200`$ cm-3. The cloud sizes are quite small, ranging from $`60`$$`160`$ AU.

If the $`b`$ parameter is small, the Mgi phase will have trivial contribution to the overall equivalent width of any high–ionization metal transition. In Figure 3, the dotted lines represent the contribution from the Mgi phase for the model listed in Table 1. The contribution to Mgii is negligible, therefore Mgii has to be entirely produced by the Mgii cloud phase (see § 4.2).

Assuming the five Mgi clouds have the same metallicity, the metallicity of this phase is constrained to be $`\mathrm{log}Z0.8`$, by the Ly$`\alpha `$ profile. At $`\mathrm{log}Z=0.8`$, the Hi column densities of the five Mgi clouds are in the range of $`17.3\mathrm{log}N(\text{H}\text{i})17.7`$, as listed in Table 1, yielding an effective total of $`\mathrm{log}N(\text{H}\text{i})18.1`$. Thus, at this metallicity, the Mgi phase will give rise to the full Lyman limit break detected in the FOS spectrum, which requires $`\mathrm{log}N(\text{H}\text{i})18`$.

### 4.2 Mgii Phase

The column densities and $`b`$ parameters of the five Mgii clouds were obtained from a Voigt profile fit to the residuals in Mgii unaccounted for by the Mgi phase. The five clouds in this phase have considerably larger $`b`$ parameters ($`6b(\mathrm{Mg})15`$ km s-1) than the Mgi clouds, as listed in Table 1.

With the detection of strong Feii in clouds $`\text{Mg}\text{ii}_1`$, $`\text{Mg}\text{ii}_2`$, and $`\text{Mg}\text{ii}_3`$, the ionization parameters of these clouds are constrained by $`N(\text{Fe}\text{ii})`$/$`N(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$. The remaining two clouds ($`\text{Mg}\text{ii}_4`$ and $`\text{Mg}\text{ii}_5`$) must have higher ionization parameters, since Feii is very weak. Siiv was used to determine their ionization states, with the assumption that the Siiv transitions arise in the same phase as Mgii. Thus, the five clouds have ionization parameters of $`\mathrm{log}U3.7`$, $`4.0`$, $`3.5`$, $`3.0`$, and $`2.5`$, respectively, as listed in Table 1.

The Siiv and Civ profiles are not aligned with the bulk of the absorption seen in Mgi, Mgii, and the other low–ionization transitions. Thus, additional offset clouds with higher ionization parameters are needed. A Voigt profile fit to Siiv yielded two additional clouds ($`\text{Mg}\text{ii}_6`$ and $`\text{Mg}\text{ii}_7`$) at $`v42`$ and $`v55`$km s-1, respectively. Again, column densities and $`b`$ parameters of these two clouds are listed in Table 1. Ionization parameters are constrained to be $`\mathrm{log}U2.5`$ and $`2.7`$, by $`N(\text{Si}\text{iv})`$/$`N(\text{C}\text{iv})`$. This is also consistent with the weak absorption displayed in the red wings of the Mgii and Siii profiles.

A wide range of ionization states ($`4.0\mathrm{log}U2.5`$) is displayed in this Mgii phase, with a tendency for increase in ionization stage from blue to red in the spectrum. Therefore, most of the absorption in both low–ionization transitions, such as Mgii, Feii, Siii, and Cii, and high–ionization transitions, such as Siiii, Ciii, and Civ, is produced in this phase, as shown in Figure 3. However, the substantial under–production of Siiv suggests the existence of an extra component, as discussed in § 4.4.

Assuming that all seven clouds in the Mgii phase have the same metallicity, the metallicity is constrained to be $`\mathrm{log}Z0.65`$ by the Lyman series. However, even at the lower limit of $`\mathrm{log}Z=0.65`$, with $`14.9\mathrm{log}N(\text{H}\text{i})17.1`$, the Mgii phase contributes insignificantly to the observed full Lyman limit break. Alternatively, if the Mgi and Mgii phases are assumed to have the same metallicities, a metallicity of $`\mathrm{log}Z0.8`$ is required by the Ly$`\alpha `$ profile (Figure 4). As mentioned in § 4.1, at this metallicity the five Mgi clouds will give rise to the observed full Lyman limit break (see Table 1).

### 4.3 Broad Hi Phase

The Ly$`\alpha `$ profile is too broad to be fully produced by the Mgi and Mgii clouds, as is shown in Figure 4. However, if the metallicity was decreased to give rise to more Ly$`\alpha `$, the narrower Ly$`\gamma `$ would be over–produced. The curve of growth of the Lyman–series lines (Churchill & Charlton, 1999) allows for a centered, broad component that can resolve this dilemma (i.e. it accounts for the broader, deeper Ly$`\alpha `$ profile, as well as the wing structure in Ly$`\beta `$, without over–producing the narrower Ly$`\gamma `$ profile.)

A Voigt profile fit to Ly$`\alpha `$ yielded the column density and $`b`$ parameter of the broad phase. If $`b(\mathrm{H})70`$ km s-1 and $`N(\text{H}\text{i})10^{15}`$cm-2, we can produce the saturated absorption from $`100`$ to $`+120`$ km s-1, but the wings will be over–produced; if $`b(\mathrm{H})50`$ km s-1 and $`N(\text{H}\text{i})10^{16}`$cm-2, we can produce the range of the saturated absorption, but the wings will be under–produced. The best fit was found to be with $`N(\text{H}\text{i})10^{15.5}`$cm-2 and $`b(\mathrm{H})58`$ km s-1.

In principle, the broad component could be either photoionized or collisionally ionized. In both cases, the metallicity is constrained so as not to over–produce any of the high–ionization transitions (i.e. Civ, Nv and Ovi). The Nv and Ovi are not detected, and Civ is fully produced in the Mgii phase (as required by the structure appearing in the Civ profiles.).

For photoionization, an upper limit of $`\mathrm{log}Z2`$ is placed on the metallicity, regardless of the choice of ionization parameter. Otherwise, either low– or high–ionization transitions would be over–produced. If the metallicity is $`\mathrm{log}Z2.5`$, there will be no constraint on the ionization parameter from the metal transitions. None of them is significantly produced at such a low metallicity. However, a rough upper limit of $`\mathrm{log}U1`$ can be estimated by the requirement of a reasonable cloud size (less than several hundred kpcs). A good fit for this phase was obtained for a model with a metallicity of $`\mathrm{log}Z2.5`$ and an ionization parameter of $`\mathrm{log}U1.5`$, as listed in Table 1. This model gives a cloud $`60`$ kpc in size. The fit to the Lyman series is shown by the dashed–dotted curve in Figure 4.

For collisional ionization with pure thermal broadening (i.e. no bulk motion), the temperature would be $`T10^{5.3}`$ K, using $`b^2=2kT`$/$`m`$ for Hi. At this temperature, the metallicity has to be exceptionally low, $`\mathrm{log}Z3.5`$, in order not to over–produce the high–ionization transitions. If, instead, bulk motion contributes, the $`b`$ parameter will be larger for each metal species than the one given by pure thermal scaling of $`b(\mathrm{H})`$. For example, as the temperature decreases from $`T10^{5.3}`$ K, $`N(\text{C}\text{iv})`$ increases towards a peak at $`T10^{5.0}`$ K. This, together with a larger $`b(\mathrm{C})`$, gives a larger Civ equivalent width when bulk motion is involved. In order not to over–produce Civ, the metallicity has to be even lower than the pure thermal case. A metallicity as low as $`\mathrm{log}Z3.5`$ is unlikely. Therefore, collisional ionization is ruled out for this phase. The broad Hi absorption is more likely to arise in a photoionized cloud, but even then the metallicity is constrained to be quite low ($`\mathrm{log}Z2`$).

### 4.4 Collisional Ionization Phase

The broad, smooth absorption profiles in the Siiv transitions are not consistent with the structure apparent in the Civ profiles. Because Siiv is offset relative to Ly$`\alpha `$, it also cannot be produced by the centered, broad Hi phase. The need to produce Siiv without contributing a substantial amount of absorption to other transitions suggests the existence of a collisionally ionized phase. A Voigt profile fit to the residuals in Siiv yielded a component at $`v17`$km s-1, with $`N(\text{Si}\text{iv})10^{13.5}`$cm-2 and $`b(\mathrm{Si})17`$ km s-1. However, for collisional ionization, Siiv peaks at $`\mathrm{log}T4.8`$ (Sutherland & Dopita, 1993), which corresponds to $`b_{therm}6`$ km s-1. Therefore, bulk motion must also contribute to the overall velocity dispersion. The temperature range was found to be $`10^{4.7}T10^{4.9}`$ K, in order not to over–produce the transitions of higher– and lower–ionization stages. The metallicity of this phase could be set to the same value as the Mgi and Mgii phases, $`\mathrm{log}Z0.8`$, but it is not well constrained. A lower limit of $`\mathrm{log}Z3`$ is placed by the the Lyman–series lines.

### 4.5 Effects of Assumed Input Spectrum

For all the previous results, we have used the $`z=1`$ Haardt and Madau extragalactic background radiation (EBR) spectrum (Haardt & Madau, 1996) as the only source of ionizing photons. Here we consider the likelihood of additional stellar contributions and consider the effect of such alternative spectra in a couple of extreme examples.

At redshift $`z1`$ the extragalactic background radiation is more likely to dominate stellar contributions than it is at other redshifts. At lower redshifts, the amplitude of the Haardt and Madau extragalactic background is lower (by a factor of seven at $`z=0`$ (Haardt & Madau, 1996)). At much higher redshifts, starbursts are common and the amplitude of the EBR from quasars has levelled off.

Unfortunately, in the case of the PG $`1634+459`$ line of sight, we have no information about the colors or morphologies of the host galaxies. Therefore, we cannot rule out a starburst host for the $`z=0.9902`$ absorber. Only an extreme starburst would affect the results, and only within $`6`$ kpc of the center of such a galaxy would the stellar contribution strongly dominate the EBR ($`1`$% of the photon flux of $`10^{54}\mathrm{s}^1`$ would escape the burst region (Hurwitz, Jelinsky, & Dixon, 1997)). We would expect the absorption from the central region of a starburst to be stronger than it is for this $`z=0.9902`$ system (Bond et al., 2001). Furthermore, we would expect to pass through some layers of highly ionized gas, and this absorber is weak in Civ and undetected in Nv and Ovi. Therefore, a strong starburst host galaxy is unlikely, but we still consider here the effect of a couple of modified spectra.

Many different spectral shapes would be possible once we allow a stellar contribution and it is unrealistic to consider them all, so we choose two extreme cases: 1) a $`0.01`$ Gyr instantaneous burst, which is characterized by the edges of Hi, Hei, and Heii; and 2) a $`0.1`$ Gyr instantaneous burst with an extreme Hi edge, but with a relatively flat spectrum above that edge, similar to the Haardt and Madau shape. Both stellar spectra, assuming solar metallicity and a Salpeter IMF, were taken from Bruzual & Charlot (1993). We have run models with the burst contribution set to ten times that of the EBR, at $`1`$ Rydberg. We begin with the model in Table 1 and consider how the addition of the burst would affect our conclusions. In a more realistic model, however, the spectral shape would be a function of position, with the EBR likely to be dominant at some locations, but the solution to that case would be in between the extreme starburst models and a pure Haardt and Madau model.

Stellar contributions from a non-burst model are more likely to dominate the EBR at energies less than $`1`$ Rydberg. This could affect the ionization balance between the neutral and singly ionized transitions. Because of its extreme Lyman limit break (almost a factor of $`1000`$), the $`0.1`$ Gyr instantaneous burst model can also be used to represent the rough effects in this case.

For the $`0.01`$ Gyr model, due to the softer spectrum (because of the edges of helium), the Civ is under–produced compared to the pure Haardt and Madau case. For the same reason, for the clouds optimized on Siiv, the lower–ionization transitions are found to be over–produced compared to Siiv. With this spectral shape, we cannot produce even the weak, observed Civ. In principle, this could relate to why this system is Civ–deficient, but in practice it is difficult to understand how such a strong stellar flux could affect a large enough region to reduce the high–ionization absorption at all velocities. The metallicity that we would infer for the $`0.01`$ Gyr model would be quite similar (within $`0.1`$ dex) to that for the pure Haardt and Madau case.

For the $`0.1`$ Gyr model, there are relatively fewer ionizing photons just above the Hi edge, and so more hydrogen remains neutral. This gives rise to a stronger Ly$`\alpha `$ line. To match the observed Ly$`\alpha `$ profile, the metallicity would have to be increased, but only by $`0.3`$ dex. Due to the similar shape to the Haardt and Madau spectrum above the edge, the ionization conditions are not very different for metal–line transitions. Slightly more Civ is produced in the $`0.1`$ Gyr model, but this would require an ionization parameter adjustment of only $`0.1`$ dex. It is also important to note that for neither burst model is our conclusion altered about the need for an additional Mgi phase. However, the $`0.1`$ Gyr burst model does give rise to a larger amount of Oi in the Mgi clouds, which would somewhat change constraints on the cloud densities and sizes.

## 5 Summary and Discussion

Based upon modeling of high–resolution HST/STIS and Keck/HIRES absorption profiles of the $`z=0.9902`$ strong Mgii absorber toward PG $`1634+706`$, we derived the physical conditions of the phases of gas encountered along the line of sight. Here, we summarize the physical conditions (densities, temperatures, size of structures) that characterize each of the phases. These properties indicate relationships between the gas phases and various structures in the Milky Way, as well as in other galaxies in the local universe.

### 5.1 Mgii Clouds

Seven blended components with $`b`$ parameters ranging from $`4`$$`15`$ km s-1 provide a consistent fit to the Mgii $`\lambda \lambda 2796,2803`$ profiles, which extend over $`75`$ km s-1 in velocity. Under the assumption of a Haardt and Madau ionizing spectrum, these photoionized clouds have densities of $`0.002`$$`0.1`$ cm-3 (corresponding to $`4.0\mathrm{log}U2.5`$), with a gradual decrease from blue to red, and temperatures of $`10,000`$ K. Civ was also fully produced in this phase. We infer a metallicity of $`\mathrm{log}Z0.8`$, assuming that these clouds have the same metallicity as those of a separate Mgi phase. The cloud sizes/thicknesses range from parsecs to hundreds of parsecs, as listed in Table 1.

The physical conditions in this phase are similar to those in the warm, ionized inter-cloud medium of the Milky Way (McKee & Ostriker, 1977). They are also similar to most other Mgii clouds in strong Mgii absorbers (Churchill et al., 2000). The similarity with the Milky Way disk ISM and the connection between strong Mgii absorbers and the majority of $`L^{}`$ galaxies suggests that the Mgii absorption comes from the warm ISM of a spiral disk. However, strong Mgii absorption can also come from early–type galaxies (Churchill, Steidel, & Vogt, 1996). In fact, Churchill et al. (2000) found that the three Civ–deficient Mgii absorbers in their sample had among the reddest $`BK`$ colors and the highest luminosities. The similarity of the low–ionization gas properties between “classic” strong Mgii absorbers and Civ–deficient Mgii absorbers would then suggest that early–type galaxies house regions with an ISM similar to that in spirals.

### 5.2 Pockets of Mgi

Perhaps the most interesting and surprising result of our modeling was our inference of the existence of a cold phase ($`T<1000`$ K). It consists of dense ($`n(\mathrm{H})200`$ cm-3) pockets that give rise to the bulk of the Mgi absorption in the form of very narrow ($`b<1`$ km s-1) components. This phase also gives rise to the observed full Lyman limit break if $`\mathrm{log}Z=0.8`$ for all the clouds. These “Mgi pockets” are quite small, only $`100`$ AU.

From many different techniques, there is conclusive evidence for the existence of small–scale structure in the Milky Way ISM down to scales of $`100`$ AU and lower. The techniques include high–resolution absorption studies toward globular clusters and binary stars (eg. Andrews, Meyer, & Lauroesch (2001), Meyer & Lauroesch (1999), Watson & Meyer (1996), and Meyer & Blades (1996)) and Hi 21-cm absorption studies toward extragalactic sources and high–velocity pulsars (eg. Faison et al. (1998) and Frail et al. (1994)). The highest–resolution absorption studies yielded small $`b`$ parameters, $`1`$$`2`$ km s-1, for some of the features (Andrews, Meyer, & Lauroesch, 2001), consistent with our proposed Mgi pockets.

The observed small, high–density structures have been difficult to reconcile with the idea that the ISM is in pressure balance. Their pressures are two orders of magnitude larger than the pressure of the warm, ionized inter-cloud medium. In the context of this $`z=0.9902`$ system, the pressure of these Mgi pockets would be inconsistent with pressure confinement by the Mgii clouds.

There have been several efforts to reconcile the issue of pressure balance in the interstellar medium. Elmegreen (1997) has investigated a fractal structure model, driven by turbulence, that leads to significant clumping on small scales. Heiles (1997) has considered modifications of the standard cooling paradigms as well as alternative geometries. Walker & Wardle (1998) investigated the idea that the small clouds are self–gravitating. Regardless of the mechanism of formation and stability of these small structures, it is clear that they are pervasive in the disk of the Milky Way. Therefore, it is not surprising that we would see them in absorption through other galaxies such as this one probed by the PG $`1634+706`$ line of sight. We should note, however, that since there is no definite theory for their existence, our assumption that these clouds are in equilibrium may only be an approximation to a more complex physical situation.

A clue about the spatial arrangement of the cold and warm absorbing gas in the $`z=0.9902`$ system comes from the relative sizes we have derived from the photoionization models. The sizes of the Mgi pockets are $`10^3`$$`10^5`$ times smaller than those of the Mgii clouds, yet we find several of them along this line of sight. This suggests a sheet–like structure such that the covering factor is large, or perhaps a fractal structure as proposed by Elmegreen (1997). In addition, depending on the geometry, such small Mgi clouds could only partially cover the quasar beam, a phenomenon generally associated with absorbing clouds intrinsic to the quasar (e.g. Barlow & Sargent (1997), Hamann et al. (1997), Ganguly et al. (1999), and de Kool, Korista, & Arav (2002)). The quasar continuum source beam size would be $`10`$$`100`$ Schwarszchild radii at the distance of the quasar, $`20`$$`200`$ AU for a $`10^8`$ $`M_{}`$ black hole.

In fact, the large $`W(\text{Mg}\text{i})/W(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$ ratio that led to our proposal of the existence of the Mgi cloud phase is common in strong Mgii systems. In about half the strong Mgii clouds, a simultaneous Voigt profile fit to the Mgi and Mgii profiles yielded $`N(\text{Mg}\text{i})/N(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$ larger than could be reconciled with a single–phase photoionization model (Churchill, 1997; Churchill, Vogt, & Charlton, 2002). Also, Rauch et al. (2002) found a large Mgi column density for the strong Mgii system at $`z=0.5656`$ toward Q $`2237+0305`$, and found that it implied either an extremely large density, or a large $`N(\text{H}\text{i})`$. They favored the latter, suggesting that this is a strong Lyman limit or damped Ly$`\alpha `$ system. Our results here imply that the former solution, of high–density pockets, is also reasonable.

The existence of these tiny “Mgi pockets” may also provide a hint about the nature of damped Ly$`\alpha `$ absorbers, especially those at relatively low redshifts. Unlike strong Mgii absorbers, which almost always have a $`L>0.05L^{}`$ galaxy within $`40h^1`$ kpc (Bergeron & Boissé, 1991; Bergeron et al., 1992; Le Brun et al., 1993; Steidel, Dickinson, & Persson, 1994; Steidel, 1995; Steidel et al., 1997), DLAs have a variety of types of galaxy hosts (Rao & Turnshek, 2000), including dwarfs and low- surface-brightness galaxies (LSBGs) (Steidel et al., 1997; Turnshek et al., 2001; Kulkarni et al., 2001; Bowen et al., 2001; Bouché et al., 2001). If the strongest Hi absorption (the DLAs) occurs in a continuous medium in the central region of a galaxy, it seems difficult to explain why Lyman limit absorption ($`17.2<\mathrm{log}N(\text{H}\text{i})<20.3`$) would not occur in a relatively large annulus surrounding the central regions of dwarfs and LSBGs. However, if the DLA is produced in small, high–density pockets of material, it is plausible that the surrounding regions could be evacuated of gas in galaxies with small potential wells. Thus, dwarfs and LSBGs could give rise to DLA absorption but not to a significant fraction of ordinary Lyman limit systems.

The idea that DLAs come from small pockets is supported by other observations. Lane (2000) have resolved narrow components ($`2`$$`3`$ km s-1) in an Hi 21-cm absorption profile of the DLA at $`z=0.0912`$ toward B 0738+313. With some thermal scaling, it would be expected that the associated Mgi components would be even narrower, consistent with what we have found in our $`z=0.9902`$ absorber. Furthermore, the DLAs with larger Mgi equivalent widths tend to be the ones with many components in their 21-cm absorption profiles (Rao 2002; private communication), and many of these components are also quite narrow (Lane, 2000). Finally, the high–ionization absorption associated with DLAs is similar to that of classic strong Mgii absorbers, as if it is due to parts of the galaxy that are unrelated to the DLA region (Churchill et al., 2000). DLAs could simply be small concentrations of gas that exist in large numbers in many kinds of environments. Our strong Mgii absorber at $`z=0.9902`$ could be a less extreme (in its $`N(\text{H}\text{i})`$) and more common version of the same sort of structure.

### 5.3 Alternatives to Separate Mgi and Mgii Phases

In our favored model, the Mgii phase (with $`6<b(\mathrm{Mg})<15`$ km s-1) severely underproduces Mgi, while the Mgi phase (with $`b0.75`$ km s-1) produces only negligible Mgii. This might suggest that there would be an alternative model with intermediate $`b`$ values so that Mgi and Mgii can be produced in the same clouds. However, we find that this is not the case. Although, with a smaller value of $`b`$ the observed equivalent width ratio of Mgi to Mgii can be matched, the fit to Mgii is unsatisfactory (too deep and too narrow).

Alternatively, we could relax our assumption that the Mgii profile is fit with the minimum number of component clouds that produce an adequate fit to the data. A larger number of clouds could be used, with smaller $`b`$ values (perhaps $`2`$$`3`$ km s-1). It would seem that we could increase the number of clouds (thus decreasing the maximum $`N(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$ for a cloud) so that Mgii is no longer on the flat part of its curve of growth. With Mgii on the linear part of its curve of growth, $`W(\text{Mg}\text{i})/W(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$ would be increased. In fact, this is not an acceptable solution for this system. As the number of clouds is increased, there is a competing effect that reduces $`W(\text{Mg}\text{i})/W(\text{Mg}\text{ii})`$. Increased blending of the superimposed clouds affects the Mgi more significantly than the Mgii. This effect dominates so that we are unable to find a model with many moderate $`b`$ clouds to fit the data.

We conclude that a two–phase model, with separate phases producing the Mgi and Mgii absorption, is the simplest suitable model that can fit both the Mgi and Mgii profiles and those of other intermediate ionization transitions.

### 5.4 Broad Hi phase

A broad Hi component, with $`b60`$ km s-1 was proposed to produce a self–consistent fit to the Ly$`\alpha `$, Ly$`\beta `$, and Ly$`\gamma `$ profiles. In order that this component does not over–produce any of the high–ionization metal–line transitions, it must have a low metallicity, $`\mathrm{log}Z2`$. It is consistent with a photoionization model, but the ionization parameter is poorly constrained (since this phase does not give rise to metals). The size of this cloud is therefore also poorly constrained. If $`\mathrm{log}U=2.5`$ the size would be $`60`$ kpc.

In most other strong Mgii absorbers, the Civ absorption is too strong, and the components too broad, for it to arise in the same phase as the Mgii (Churchill et al., 2000). These absorbers also typically require an additional phase to self–consistently fit the Lyman series, and it is possible to produce both the high–ionization absorption and the additional Hi absorption with the same phase. The need for a broad, high–ionization phase is especially evident in cases like the “double” strong Mgii absorber at $`z=0.9276`$ toward PG $`1206+459`$, in which Civ, Nv, and Ovi absorption are all very strong (Churchill & Charlton, 1999; Ding et al., 2002). Such strong, broad, high–ionization absorption also characterizes the corona that surrounds the disk of the Milky Way (Savage et al., 1997, 2000).

The broad Hi phase of the $`z=0.9902`$ absorber resembles the Hi component of the broad phases proposed for those other strong Mgii absorbers. However, in this case no high–ionization metal–line absorption is produced by the broad phase, which led us to the conclusion that it has very low metallicity. With such a low metallicity $`\mathrm{log}Z2`$ as compared to its Mgii clouds ($`\mathrm{log}Z0.8`$), it seems unlikely that this system is analogous to the Milky Way corona. In fact, the low metallicity is more suggestive to a halo structure. The $`b`$ parameter of $`60`$ km s-1 could also be consistent with such an interpretation.

This leads back to why the system is “Civ–deficient” (and Nv and Ovi–deficient as well). It is more likely that this absorber is produced by a galaxy without a significant corona. The alternative, a low–metallicity corona, is less likely since a relatively high metallicity ($`Z0.8`$ for the Mgi and Mgii phases) would be indicated for the disk that would produce the corona. An early–type galaxy would be consistent with this interpretation, but is certainly not a unique solution. It may be only a coincidence that the broad Hi component in this Civ–deficient absorber resembles those needed to fit the Lyman series in most other strong Mgii absorbers.

### 5.5 Collisionally Ionized Phase

Another unusual feature of the $`z=0.9902`$ system is the relatively strong, smooth Siiv profile, fit with $`b17`$ km s-1. Since the cloud structure apparent in the Civ profile matches the Mgii clouds, we infer collisional ionization with a temperature close to the peak for Siiv production, $`T60,000`$ K.

It is interesting to note that a similar situation was found in the case of the $`z=1.04`$ multi–cloud weak Mgii absorber along this same quasar line of sight (Zonak et al., 2002). In that case, the Siiii profile was smooth and featureless, and also much stronger than expected from photoionization models of the other phases inferred for that system. In that case, a somewhat smaller temperature of $`40,000`$ K provided an adequate fit.

The temperatures of these additional, collisionally ionized phases place them on an efficient part of the cooling curve, so they would have to be quite common to be detected during a relatively brief interval. However, it is reasonable to think that cooling layers heated by supernovae shocks could provide an appropriate environment. More complex models than pure collisional ionization have been considered to explain the ratios of high–ionization metal–line transitions in the Milky Way disk (Savage et al., 1997). Certainly, more complex processes than pure collisional ionization could be involved in this case as well. If strong, smooth profiles for one particular transition are commonly found in strong Mgii absorbers, they could be compared in more detail to supernova models and used to track the evolution of the ensemble of supernovae remnants in the universe.


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# X-ray Variability and Emission Process of the Radio Jet in M87

## 1 Introduction

Although there is general agreement that X-ray emission from radio jets arises from non-thermal processes, both synchrotron emission and inverse Compton (IC) emission are indicated for different, and occasionally the same, radio features (Celotti et al. 2001, Marshall et al. 2001, Sambruna et al. 2001). Here we present strong evidence that synchrotron emission is responsible for the X-ray emission from the M87 jet and demonstrate a reasonable combination of source parameters for HST-1, the jet feature lying 0.8′′ from the nucleus.

We take the distance to M87 to be 16 Mpc so that one arcsec = 77pc. We use the normal convention for spectral index: flux density, S $`\nu ^\alpha `$.

## 2 Data Processing and Results

We used a 1/8th subarray on the back illuminated ACIS-S3 chip with 0.4s readout to mitigate pileup; the same configuration used for a 12ks archival observation of 2000Jul. A ’standard’ reduction system, based on the CIAO threads, was developed to ensure that each dataset was processed identically. We believe that the key to reliable photometry for closely spaced features is to remove the pixel randomization and re-grid to 1/10th pixel. This process recovers the true resolution of the Chandra Observatory. The event files were then binned and filtered into three energy bands: soft = 0.2-0.75keV; medium = 0.75-2 keV; and hard = 2-6 keV. The bands were chosen to minimize the change in effective area across each band, although this was not possible for the soft band. We then created corresponding exposure maps and divided the images by these to obtain flux maps. By testing on a fixed area of hot cluster gas, we recovered the quantum efficiency (QE) degradation of the ACIS CCD. Multiplying each band map by h$`\nu `$ of the mean energy plus the correction factor for QE, we obtained flux maps comparable to the 2000 observation.

The basic results for the core and HST-1 are shown in fig. 1 and strong intensity variability can be seen. Using small circular apertures for the core, knot A, and HST-1, we obtained the relative fluxes shown in figure 2. HST-1 increased by a factor of two in the last 116 days covered by our observations. The light travel time for this interval is 0.1pc which may be compared with our inherent resolution of order 0.3′′ or 23pc at the distance of M87.

## 3 HST-1

We take our variability data of HST-1 to support the synchrotron emission model since when the flux is decreasing, there is a larger percentage drop in the hard band than in the medium or soft bands, and the flux decrease is consistent with halflives of order a year rather than a value of order 10,000 years corresponding to the low energy electrons which would produce inverse Compton (IC) X-rays.

We used a single power law to fit the optical (Perlman et al. 2001) and X-ray flux densities of HST-1 from $`\nu _1=10^9`$ Hz to $`\nu _2=10^{18}`$ Hz with $`\alpha `$ = 0.68. With this spectrum, we then derived synchrotron parameters based on the usual equipartition assumptions (Pacholczyk, 1970) for two alternative source sizes: r=0.3′′ and a radius corresponding to the light travel time of 116 days. For each choice, we examined parameters for beaming factors, $`\delta `$ ranging from 1 to 16. For those parameters requiring a value of the bulk relativistic velocity, we assumed $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\delta `$.

The detailed results of these models will be given in Harris et al. (2003), but here we summarize the results by noting that for the large source size of 0.3′′, values of the halflife, $`\tau _{\frac{1}{2}}`$, for the highest energy electrons are greater than a year for all values of $`\delta <`$ 16. Since large $`\delta `$’s require very small angles of the jet axis to the line of sight (l.o.s.), the data support the smaller diameter alternatives.

For models with the source size given by the light travel time, small values of $`\delta `$ have values of $`\tau _{\frac{1}{2}}`$ too small to match our data and large values of $`\delta `$ predict $`\tau _{\frac{1}{2}}`$ significantly larger than a year. The parameters that best fit the data are provided by $`\delta `$ = 4. For this model, the characteristic angle to the l.o.s. is 14, consistent with canonical values from radio considerations; a magnetic field strength of 1 mG; and a total energy requirement (field plus particles) of 1048 ergs. In the jet frame, the time required to double the intensity (and thus double the total energy reservoir) is $`4\times 10^7`$s, which translates into a very modest ’drain’ on jet power of $`<10^{41}`$ erg s-1 The photon energy density in the jet frame is dominated by the synchrotron spectrum, but is of order 5% of the magnetic field energy density.

Since synchrotron self-Compton models under predict the observed X-ray emission by a large factor and IC/CMB models require unreasonable values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and angles to the l.o.s. (Harris & Krawczynski, 2002), the “modest beaming” synchrotron model appears to be the model of choice.

Colleagues for this project are J. Biretta, W. Junor, E. Perlman, W. Sparks, & A. Wilson; they will be co-authors of a longer paper (Harris et al., 2003). We thank O. Stohlman for assistance in the data reduction. This work was supported by NASA contract NAS8-39073 and grant GO2-3144X.


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# Bosonic stimulation of cold 1s excitons into a harmonic potential minimum in Cu2O

(17 December, 2002)

## Abstract

Density distribution of cold exciton clouds generated into a strain-induced potential well by two-photon excitation in Cu2O is studied at 2 K. We find that an anomalous spike, which can be interpreted as accumulation of the excitons into the ground state, emerges at the potential minimum. The accumulation can be due to stimulated scattering of cold excitons, mediated by acoustic phonon emission. Possibility of the formation of the thermodynamic Bose-Einstein condensate of paraexcitons has been discussed. PACS numbers: 71.35.Lk, 78.35.-y

Before the first realization of atomic Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in 1995 cornell , excitons in semiconductors were thought to be one of the most favorable candidates for realizing BEC Book . It has long been believed that excitons in Cu2O is the best system to pursue such a phase transition in a three-dimensional system, because of their long lifetime derived from the dipole forbidden gap; the orthoexcitons couple with photons only via quadrupole interaction, and paraexcitons are basically inactive for optical transitions, thereby leading to a long lifetime.

However, the long lifetime of the excitons in Cu2O allows them to expand in free crystals, and means that their recombination rate is low. The former reduces the exciton density against the BEC, and the latter makes it difficult to monitor exciton densities by optical means. In order to overcome these unfavorable situations, we employed inhomogeneous strain that creates potential wells and accelerates the direct recombination rate. We have been studying kinetics of a cold exciton system in a potential well, by using two-photon excitation. In this regime, orthoexcitons are created near the local momentum zero PRB1 ; PRB2 . In this communication, we report on a novel phenomenon showing stimulated scattering of excitons; this can be mediated by acoustic phonon emission.

A natural Cu2O crystal cut into a 3 mm-cube was pushed against a glass lens of curvature $`R=7.78`$ mm to create harmonic potential wells (see the inset of Fig. 1). Solid lines in Fig. 1 show calculated potential shapes for the four lowest exciton states in Cu2O, i.e. upper-, middle- and lower-branch orthoexcitons and paraexcitons. It is evident that middle- and lower-branch orthoexcitons as well as the paraexcitons become trapped states while the upper-branch orthoexcitons form an untrapped state. The trapping potential shapes are approximately harmonic around the center of the wells. An infrared laser beam from a color-center laser (Solar, LF151) pumped by a Q-switched YAG laser (SantaFe Laser, C-140) was used to inject orthoexcitons into a potential well. The repetition rate and the duration of the laser light were 400 Hz and 12 ns, respectively. The two-photon excitation energy of the laser light was tuned slightly below the orthoexciton resonance under zero stress, so that middle- and lower-branch orthoexcitons were generated into the trap 111 The two-photon excitation of paraexcitons is basically possible, but is not practical to generate a high-density gas of excitons PRB2 .. The luminescence was viewed along the stress axis through a prism mounted below the crystal. A $`\times `$20 magnified image of the luminous cloud was detected by an ICCD camera system (LaVision, Picostar HR12) after being passed through a filter which cuts off the infrared scattering light. By inserting a spectrometer before the ICCD camera system, we confirmed that luminescence light consists of intrinsic free-exciton recombination luminescence. The spatial resolution of the optical system was higher than 10 $`\mu `$m.

Figure 2 shows time-resolved profile of the exciton clouds at different times, $`t`$, after the incidence of the laser light. The gate width was set at 4 ns, and respective profiles were extracted from luminescence images averaged over 4000 laser shots. Parts (a) and (b) show growing and decaying of the exciton density, with time interval of 2 ns. Three major peaks are seen in a range between $`y=200`$ $`\mu `$m and $`y=400`$ $`\mu `$m. The intensity of the side peaks was almost proportional to the temporal profile of the laser pulse, and to the square of the power density of the laser light. On the other hand, the central peak shows rapid growth even after the maximum of the incident laser intensity at $`t=6`$ ns, and has nonlinear dependence on the incident power density. The width of the central peak was 7.7 $`\mu `$m, much narrower than that of side peaks.

In order to understand the origin of the side peaks and of the anomalous spike in between, the spatial profile at $`t=10`$ ns is superimposed to the potential shapes in Fig. 1. The position of the baseline represents the two-photon excitation energy, measured from the orthoexciton resonance under zero stress, 2032.78 meV. Resonance creation of orthoexcitons occurs in selected regions where the two-photon excitation energy coincides with the local exciton energy; structures marked L, M and L’, M’ are due to the resonance with lower- and middle-branch orthoexcitons at a rim of the trap. On the other hand, emergence of the sharp spike, C, at the center of the well cannot be explained by resonance to any orthoexciton branches. This difference, from the case for side peaks, is consistent with the above features, i.e. nonlinearity and the delay in the growing process for the central spike, C.

The position of the center of the well for middle-branch orthoexcitons is almost the same as that for paraexcitons. Therefore, judging from its position, the origin of the spike can be middle-branch orthoexcitons, paraexcitons, or both. Unfortunately, however, we could not obtain spectrally resolved data in the present experiment, because of the weakness of the signal. Dashed arrows in Fig. 1 show a possible mechanism for the emergence of the spike: the orthoexciton-paraexciton downconversion occurs in the injection spot at a rim (the arrow labeled 1), and then paraexcitons at the rim are scattered into the center of the well (the arrow labeled 2). The energy transfer necessary for this scattering process is inferred to be 0.6 meV, in agreement with the energy position where the acoustic (LA)-phonon dispersion crosses the exciton dispersion. Therefore, the scattering can be mediated by acoustic phonon emission. In fact, we found that the central spike appears only when the laser beam traverses the center of the well, and when the two-photon excitation energy is set at $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=5.03\pm `$ 0.25 meV. Considering the timescale of the downconversion rate, 3 ns WeinerYu , and the energy transfer, 1.0 meV or more, necessary for the scattering of orthoexcitons from the rim to their potential minimum, condensation of the middle-branch orthoexcitons is not likely. To conclude, the spike marked C is most likely to be due to paraexcitons accumulated in the ground state at the center of the potential well.

The role of the acoustic phonon in the accumulation of the condensate has been discussed in Refs. OMSchmitt ; ASchmitt . The building time has been estimated as a few nanoseconds. The observed delay is in quantitative agreement with this prediction, provided that the central spike is due to a condensate. Using the measured size of the central spike, the phase-space density of paraexcitons was estimated as $`1`$. A more detailed measurement of the building time of the spike deserves future study. Confirmation with higher spectral resolution, which enables measurements of the size of the ground-state wavefunction, is in progress.

We would like to thank Mr. T. Ueda (Mrubun Co.) and Prof. M. Kuwata-Gonokami (Univ. Tokyo) for their kind arrangement for using the ICCD camera system, and Mr. T. Nishi and Mr. T. Mizuno (Marubun Co.) for their technical support. This work was partially supported by The Mitsubishi foundation and the grant-in-aid for scientific research from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Japan.


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# Disappearance of Spurious States in Analog Associative Memories

## I Introduction

Autoassociative networks are useful models of one of the basic operations of cortical networks. ‘Hebbian’ plasticity on recurrent connections, e.g. in the higher level areas of sensory cortex and in the hippocampus, is the crucial ingredient for autoassociation to work, with real neurons . Neural network models, although very simplified and abstract, allow a comprehensive analysis, indicating whether associative memory retrieval can proceed safely, or whether it must face dynamical hurdles, such as ‘spurious’ local minima in a free-energy landscape. The dynamics of such networks, in the simplest models, is governed by a number $`p`$ of dynamical attractors, each of which corresponds to a distribution of neural activity, i.e. a pattern, which represents a long term memory. Memory is stored by superimposed synaptic weight changes, and the basic operation proceeds by supplying the network with an external signal that acts as a cue, correlated, perhaps only weakly, with a pattern, and which leads through attractor dynamics to the retrieval of the full pattern.

How smoothly can such an operation proceed, and how wide are the basins of attraction of the $`p`$ memory states? Clearly, these issues depend critically on whether other attractors exist, that could hinder or obstruct retrieval As a crude example, if the cue is correlated with the image of a mule, the net may be able to retrieve either a horse or a donkey, if no ”mixed” attractor exist. If instead the encoding procedure has, unintentionally, created a spurious attractor for the mule itself, the network will likely be stuck in such a mixed memory state. In a slightly more complicated model endowed with some topographic mapping of visual space, a horse cue and a donkey cue might be presented simultaneously in neighbouring positions. If they are too close in visual space and spurious attractors exist, this topographic map might retrieve two mules next to each other. Returning to nets without spatial structure and considering for simplicity only symmetric mixtures of patterns embedded with equal strengths, there are obviously $`p(p1)/2`$ 2-mixtures, $`p(p1)(p2)/6`$ 3-mixtures, and so on. Do they correspond to stable attractors, and as such do they influence the network dynamics?

In addition, connectionist modelers have proposed to describe in terms of spurious states certain psychiatric dysfunctions . Speech disorders in schizophrenic patients, for instance, might arise from the existence of a large number of spurious states, that obstruct the retrieval of correct patterns .

In their seminal investigation of the Hopfield model , Amit, Gutfreund and Sompolinsky found that while symmetric mixtures of an even number of patterns are unstable, odd mixtures and the spin glass phase can be stable, in a certain region of phase space . In the Hopfield model, though, neurons are modelled as binary units, and correspondingly each distribution of activity, in particular each memory pattern, is a binary vector. Either or both of these aspects might be essential in producing the additional minima in the free-energy landscape. Real neurons behave very differently from binary units in many respects, a basic one being that their spiking activity, once filtered with a short time-kernel , is better approximated by an analog variable. Threshold-linear units reproduce this graded nature of neural response, yet still allow for a simple and complete statistical mechanics analysis of autoassociative network models . With threshold-linear units, the memory patterns encoded in the synaptic weights can still be taken to be binary vectors, but can also be taken to be drawn from a distribution with several discrete activity values, or from a continuous distribution . Exponential distributions, in particular, can be argued to be not far from experimentally observed spike count distributions .

The question of mixture states in analog nets was first addressed in , arguing that the multiple local minima of the spin glass phase are fewer in number in an associative net of units with more continuous (sigmoid) transfer function. Later it was found, considering threshold-linear units, that are both realistic and amenable to analytical treatment , that the region of stability of the spin glass phase is severely restricted with such units , again indicative of a general smoothing of the free-energy landscape with analog variables. Although these analyses provide a good starting point, they are not complete in the sense that they did not show what will happen to $`n`$-mixture states with $`n`$ small (the ones relevant to models of schizophrenia), and what is the effect of different coding schemes, that is pattern distributions. Here, we consider instead symmetric $`n`$-mixtures, with $`n=2,3,\mathrm{}`$, and we consider non-binary memory vectors. Also, from the biological point of view, it is important to study nets with diluted (incomplete) connectivity, which are much more realistic descriptions of cortical  and hippocampal networks , where the probabiliy of a recurrent connection between any two units may be of the order of a few percent.

In this manuscript we show that symmetric mixture states give rise to dynamical attractors only in very restricted circumstances, in associative networks of threshold-linear units, both with full and diluted connectivity. We have analysed the validity of this statement in different coding schemes, and did not find any stable mixture state at all, when memory patterns are not binary. Essentially, we conclude that this type of spurious states are a pathological feature of the simplified binary models considered in the initial studies.

## II threshold linear model

We use a model very similar to that analysed in . We consider a fully connected network of $`N`$ units, taken to model excitatory neurons. The level of activity of unit $`i`$ is a dynamical variable $`V_i0`$, which corresponds to the short time averaged firing rate of the neuron. Units are connected to each other through symmetric weights. The specific covariance ’Hebbian’ learning rule we consider prescribes that the synaptic weight between units $`i`$ and $`j`$ be given as

$$J_{ij}=\frac{1}{Na^2}\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{p}{}}\left(\eta _i^\mu a\right)\left(\eta _i^\mu a\right),$$
(1)
where $`\eta _i^\mu `$ represents the activity of unit $`i`$ in pattern $`\mu `$. Each $`\eta _i^\mu `$ is taken to be a quenched variable, drawn independently from a distribution $`p(\eta )`$, with the constraints $`\eta 0`$, $`\eta _\eta =\eta ^2_\eta =a`$. As in one of the first extensions of the Hopfield model , we thus allow for the mean activity $`a`$ of the patterns to differ from the value $`a=1/2`$ of the original model .

The model further assumes that the input to unit $`i`$ takes the form

$$h_i=\underset{ji}{}J_{ij}^cV_i+\underset{\nu }{}s^\nu \frac{\left(\eta _i^\nu a\right)}{a}+b\left(\frac{1}{N}\underset{j}{}V_j\right),$$
(2)
where the first term enables the memories encoded in the weights to determine the dynamics; the second term allows for external signals $`s^\nu `$ to cue the retrieval of one or several patterns; and the third term is unrelated to the memory patterns, but is designed to regulate the activity of the newtork, so that at any moment in time $`\frac{1}{N}_iV_i=\frac{1}{N}_iV_i^2=a`$. The activity of each unit is determined by its input through a threshold-linear function

$$V_i=g(h_iT_{thr})\mathrm{\Theta }(h_iT_{thr})$$
(3)
where $`T_{thr}`$ is a threshold below which the input elicits no output, $`g`$ is a gain parameter, and $`\mathrm{\Theta }(\mathrm{})`$ the Heaviside step function. Units are updated, for example, sequentially in random order, possibly subject to fast noise. The exact details of the updating rule and of the noise are not specified further, here, because they do not affect the steady states of the dynamics, and we take the noise level $`T`$ to be vanishingly small, $`T0`$. Discussions about the biological plausibility of this model for networks of pyramidal cells can be found in , and will not be repeated here.

Subject to the above dynamics, the network evolves towards one of a set of attractor states. In a given attractor the network may still wander among a variety of configurations, but it reaches a stationary probability distribution of being in any particular configuration. The average of any quantity over such ‘annealed’ probability distribution is denoted by $``$ (whereas $`_\eta `$ denotes the average over the quenched distribution $`p(\eta )`$ ). To analyse such a model one can introduce, as in  the order parameters:

$`x`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}v_i`$ (4)
$`x^\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Na}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}\eta _i^\sigma v_ix`$ (5)
$`y_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}V_i^2`$ (6)
$`y_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}V_i^2.`$ (7)
where $`x`$ is simply the mean activity of the network, and $`x^\sigma `$,the subtracted, or specific, overlap of the current state of the network with each of the stored patterns. Two further parameters,

$`\psi `$ $`=`$ $`(y_0y_1)T_0/T`$ (8)
$`\rho `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{py_1}{[N(1\psi )^2]}},`$ (9)
can be defined as a function of $`y_0`$ and $`y_1`$, and play a particularly useful role in the analysis in the limit we consider, $`T0`$, when one configuration dominates the annealed average, and $`y_1y_0+O(T)`$. The characteristic noise scale of the system is $`T_0(1a)/a`$ , and we define the storage load $`\alpha p/N`$. In the limit $`N0,T0`$, the system is thus characterized by the parameters $`a`$ (mean pattern activity, which also parametrizes the coding sparseness  in the sense that decreasing $`a`$ makes the code sparser), $`\alpha `$ (storage load), $`g`$ (gain) and $`T_{thr}`$ (threshold).

## III Mean field solutions and their stability

We calculate the free energy using the replica trick, for symmetric $`n`$-mixture states (where $`n`$ overlaps take the same non-zero value, and the rest are zero) elicited by external signals $`s^1=\mathrm{}=s^n=s`$. These signals can be purely transient, so that at steady state $`s=0`$, but we consider a non-zero steady value for the sake of generality. We look for symmetric states, characterized by non-zero $`\widehat{x}^1=\mathrm{}=\widehat{x}^n=\widehat{x}`$. The saddle point equations reduce to :

$`x`$ $`=`$ $`g^{}{\displaystyle _{h>T_thr}}Dz(hT_{thr})`$ (10)
$`x^\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`g^{}({\displaystyle \frac{\eta ^\sigma }{a}}1){\displaystyle _{h>T_thr}}Dz(hT_{thr})`$ (11)
$`\psi `$ $`=`$ $`T_0g^{}{\displaystyle _{h>T_thr}}Dz`$ (12)
$`y_0`$ $`=`$ $`(g^{})^2{\displaystyle _{h>T_thr}}Dz(hT_{thr})^2`$ (13)
$`\rho ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha y_0}{(1\psi )^2}},h_2={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha T_0}{2(1\psi )}},g^{}={\displaystyle \frac{g}{12gh_2}}`$ (14)
where now the input to each unit can be expresed as:

$$h=b(x)\underset{\sigma }{}x^\sigma +\underset{\sigma }{}\frac{\eta ^\sigma }{a}(x^\sigma +s^\sigma )zT_0\rho $$
(15)
and the free energy reads:

$`f=`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g^{}}{2}}{\displaystyle _{h>T_thr}}Dz(hT_{thr})^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma }{}}(x^\sigma )^2`$
$`+`$ $`xb(x)B(x)+{\displaystyle \frac{T_0}{2}}\psi \rho ^2`$
If one defines new parameters $`v=(\widehat{x}+s)/(T_0\rho )`$ (the specific signal-to-noise ratio) and $`w=[b(x)n\widehat{x}T_{thr}]/(T_0\rho )`$ (a sort of uniform field-to-noise ratio), it is easy to show that the mean field equations can be reduced to :

$`E_1(w,v)`$ $`=`$ $`(A_1+\delta A_2)^2\alpha A_3=0`$ (16)
$`E_2(w,v)`$ $`=`$ $`(A_1+\delta A_2)({\displaystyle \frac{1}{gT_0(1+\delta )}}A_2)\alpha A_2=0`$ (17)
where

$`A_1(w,v)`$ $`=`$ $`A_2(w,v){\displaystyle ^+}Dz_\eta `$ (18)
$`A_2(w,v)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{nvT_0}}({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{a}}n){\displaystyle ^+}Dz(w+v{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{a}}z)_\eta `$ (19)
$`A_3(w,v)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle ^+}Dz(w+v{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{a}}z)^2_\eta ,`$ (20)
with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=_{\sigma =1}^n\eta ^\sigma `$and $`\delta =s/\widehat{x}`$. In the equations above, $`Dz=\frac{dz}{\sqrt{2\pi }}e^{z^2/2}`$ and the subscript $`+`$ indicates that the $`z`$-average has to be carried out only in the range where $`w+v\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{a}z>0`$. In the following we take $`\delta =0`$. Thus symmetric $`n`$-mixture attractors exist if we can find stable solutions of Eqs.16, 17.

To analyze the stability of the extrema of the free energy, one has to study the hessian matrix

$$H_{\mu \nu }=\delta _{\mu \nu }(\frac{\eta ^\mu }{a}1)(\frac{\eta ^\nu }{a}1)^+Dz_\eta $$
(21)
around the saddle point.

In general, for $`n`$-mixture states, there are three types of eigenvalues:

1. a non-degenerate eigenvalue, which decides the stability against a uniform increase in the amplitude of the $`n`$ patterns that contribute to the thermodynamic state (i.e. the ’condensed’ patterns), while the other overlaps remain zero. It is (for $`\mu \nu `$)

$$\lambda _1=1((\frac{\eta ^\mu }{a}1)^2+n(\frac{\eta ^\mu }{a}1)(\frac{\eta ^\nu }{a}1))^+Dz_\eta $$
(22)
2. an eigenvalue of degeneracy $`n1`$, associated with any direction which tends to change the relative amplitude of the non-zero overlaps. It is (again for $`\mu \nu `$)

$$\lambda _2=1((\frac{\eta ^\mu }{a}1)^2(\frac{\eta ^\mu }{a}1)(\frac{\eta ^\nu }{a}1))^+Dz_\eta $$
(23)
3. the third eigenvalue, with degeneracy $`pn`$, measures the stability against the appearance of additional overlaps.

$$\lambda _3=1T_0^+Dz_\eta .$$
(24)
## IV Different coding schemes

In order to proceed further, we restrict the analysis to a number of specific coding schemes, i.e., to different choices for the distribution $`p(\eta )`$. We consider

$`p(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`a\delta (\eta 1)+(1a)\delta (\eta ),\mathrm{binary}`$ (25)
$`p(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a}{3}}\delta (\eta {\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}})+a\delta (\eta {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}})+(1{\displaystyle \frac{4a}{3}})\delta (\eta ),\mathrm{ternary}`$ (26)
$`p(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`4ae^{2\eta }+(12a)\delta (\eta ),\mathrm{exponential}.`$ (27)
For small values of the load $`\alpha `$ (and hence of the quenched noise $`\rho `$), Eq.17 describes an hyperbole, whose center depends on the value of $`g`$. Eq.16 instead, for small values of $`\alpha `$, is a closed curve in the quartant $`w<0,v>0`$, so that with an appropriate choice of $`g`$ the two curves intersect at two points. As $`\alpha `$ grows, the region $`E_1(v,w)>0`$ shrinks in size, until at a certain value of $`\alpha `$, which depends only on $`a,n`$ and the coding scheme, it reduces to a point and then disappears.

We have investigated not just the existence but also the stability of solutions for symmetric 2- and 3-mixture states. The solutions behave exactly in the same manner in these two cases: for small values of $`a`$ both intersections discussed above are unstable, in the sense that both $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$ are negative. This finding is confirmed by computer simulation, in which one of the overlaps tends to grow, reaching the corresponding attractor, whereas the other one (or the other two in the case of 3-mixtures) tend to zero. Increasing the value of the sparsity parameter, one finds different results with binary coding and with other types of coding.

Let us consider binary coding first. After a range of $`a`$-values with only one unstable eigenvalues ($`\lambda _1`$ or $`\lambda _2`$), one finds a range where genuinely stable solutions can be found. Thus the retrieval of mixture patterns is possible for binary coding, as can be seen in the simulations shown in Fig.1.

The exact stability region in the $`(\alpha ,a)`$ plane differs for 2-mixtures and 3-mixtures. In both cases, it is delimited to the right by the ‘critical load’ $`\alpha _c(a,n)`$, i.e. the value at which the island with $`E_1(v,w)>0`$ shrinks to zero, and to the left by the load $`\alpha `$ beyond which no intersection with both $`\lambda _1>0`$ and $`\lambda _2>0`$ can be found. Fig.2 illustrates these stability regions, compared with the critical load for the pure attractor states, as in .

For ternary and exponential coding, the solutions of the saddle point equations remain unstable even for very high values of the sparsity parameter $`a`$. Again, this was verified by computer simulations. Fig.3 illustrates the different situation occurring with ternary and binary coding, by considering a very low load and a sparsity value for which stable solutions for 3-mixtures are easily found in the binary case. Note that the ‘critical load’ for 3-mixtures would be considerably higher with ternary patterns (not shown); the fact is that at each position of the intersection, either $`\lambda _1`$ or $`\lambda _2`$ or both turn out to be negative. This complex behaviour of eigenvalues will be discussed elsewhere in more detail.

## V diluted case

We have also extended the analysis to a highly diluted network . In this case the number of patterns that can be stored scales with the number $`C`$ of connections each unit receives, rather than with the number of units $`N`$. One then redefines the load parameter as $`\alpha p/C`$. The essential difference introduced by the sparse (i.e. diluted) connectivity is that noise has less of an opportunity to reverberate along closed loops. In fact the signal, which during retrieval is simply contributed by the ‘condensed’ patterns, propagates coherently and proportionally to $`C`$, independently of the density of feedback loops in the network. The fluctuations in the overlaps with the undecondensed patterns, which as $`T0`$ represent the sole source of noise, propagate coherently along feedback loops, giving rise to the amplifying factor $`1/(1\psi )`$ of the fully connected case. For a given load (fixed $`\alpha `$), diluted connectivity reduces therefore the influence of this ‘static’ noise, and performance is better than in the fully connected case with $`N1=C`$. In particular with the extreme dilution, that is, if the condition $`\frac{c}{Ln(N)}0`$ is satisfied, one can neglect correlations among the $`C`$ inputs to a given unit , and the mean field equations become :

$`E_1(w,v)`$ $`=`$ $`(A_2+\delta A_2)^2\alpha A_3=0`$ (28)
$`E_2(w,v)`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{1}{gT_0(1+\delta )}}A_2)=0.`$ (29)
Examining again the stability matrix, we find that the mixture solutions, that were present with binary coding and large values of $`a`$, still survive. By the token, the results for ternary and exponential coding are not affected, in the sense that no stable solutions can be found even in the highly diluted case.

## VI conclusion

The conclusion is that the existence of stable mixture states in a restricted region of the parameter space should be regarded as almost a pathological feature, resulting from binary coding. If one considers mixture states as spurious states, to be avoided, then one notes that the introduction of analog variables, a more realistic description of neural activity, goes a long way towards disposing of spurious states, just as it almost eliminated the spin glass phase . The remaining region of stability of spurious states is definitely eliminated by non-binary coding schemes, that further contribute to smooth the free-energy landscape. This result casts doubts upon e.g. models of schizophrenia that are based on the existence of spurious attractors.

These results may well have implications in domains outside computational neuroscience. The smoothness of the free-energy landscape is a crucial features of many interacting systems used to map optimization problems, such as the travelling salesman or the graph matching problem . Optimization generally fails if the dynamics gets stuck into local minima. Our result indicates that undesired local minima may be eliminated by a combination of analog variables and coding schemes, which may in some cases be manipulated while mapping the problem at hand onto a dynamical system.