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# Cold atoms in a high-𝑄 ring-cavity

## Abstract

We report the confinement of large clouds of ultra-cold $`{}_{}{}^{85}Rb`$ atoms in a standing-wave dipole trap formed by the two counter-propagating modes of a high-$`Q`$ ring-cavity. Studying the properties of this trap we demonstrate loading of higher-order transverse cavity modes and excite recoil-induced resonances.

preprint: APS/123-QED

The tremendous progress of ultra-cold atomic physics in the past decades is mainly due to the invention of powerful techniques for trapping and cooling atoms. Besides magnetic traps, optical forces are used to store atoms in tightly focused red-detuned laser beams, in the antinodes of a standing wave formed by two counter-propagating laser beams or even in three-dimensional optical lattices. Spontaneous scattering processes are avoided by tuning the lasers far from resonance. High light intensities are then needed to keep the atom-field coupling strong. Large intensity enhancements are achieved with optical cavities Mosk01 . The coupled system made up of the cavity mode and the atoms exhibits fascinating novel features Ye99 ; Pinske00 ; Sinatra98 . For example, cooling procedures have been proposed Mossberg91 ; Cirac95 ; Horak97 ; Vuletic00 , where the kinetic energy of the atoms is dissipated via the decay of the cavity field to which the atoms are coherently coupled, rather than via spontaneous decay of atomic excitation energy. This bears the advantage that the cooling is only limited by the technical parameter of the cavity decay rate. As the cooling procedure is quite insensitive to the details of the atomic level structure, it should work even for molecules.

In this paper, we study atomic trapping in a high-$`Q`$ ring-cavity with both propagation directions pumped. This kind of cavity is particular in the following sense. The optical dipole force exerted by a standing wave on atoms can be understood in terms of a momentum transfer by coherent redistribution (via Rayleigh scattering) of photons between the counter-propagating laser beams. In multimode configurations, *e.g.* a ring-cavity, the photon redistribution can occur between *different* modes Gangl00b . This implies that the atoms have a noticeable backaction on the optical fields and that the atomic dynamics can be monitored as an intensity Kozuma96 ; Raithel98  or a phase imbalance between the modes. In a ring-cavity, the scattering of a photon between the counter-propagating modes slightly shifts the phase of the standing wave. This shift, being strongly enhanced by a long cavity life time, is sensed by all atoms trapped in the standing wave. Consequently, the simultaneous interaction of the atoms with the two field modes couples the motion of all atoms Hemmerich99 ; Gangl00 , so that in contrast to conventional standing wave dipole traps, the atoms do not move independently of each other.

In a recent article Nagorny03  we have shown that a far-detuned optical lattice can be formed inside a high-$`Q`$ ring-cavity and that heating due to intensity fluctuations can be kept at very low levels despite of the need to maintain a sharp resonance condition by a high-bandwidth servo control. Here we present a setup where we show that the atomic motion can be probed non-destructively and *in-situ* by recoil-induced resonances Courtois94 . There is an important reason to look for methods to study the atomic motion which do not rely on sudden changes of the intra-cavity intensity. This is because the long lifetime of a high-$`Q`$ cavity inhibits the non-adiabatic switch-off of deep cavity dipole traps and thus impedes a straight forward interpretation of time-of-flight (TOF) images to determine the axial temperature.

We fill our ring-cavity dipole trap with 85Rb atoms from a standard magneto-optical trap (MOT) which is loaded from a vapor generated by a rubidium dispenser. Typically, we load $`10^8`$ atoms into the MOT at temperatures around $`140\mu `$K with a vapor pressure of $`3\times 10^9`$ mbar.

The geometry of the ring cavity is shown in Fig. 1. The transmissions $`T_i`$ of the mirrors depend on the (linear) polarization of the light modes. For $`s`$-polarization $`T_0=27\times 10^6`$, $`T_1=T_2=2\times 10^6`$, while for $`p`$-polarization $`T_0=2200\times 10^6`$, $`T_1=T_2=9\times 10^6`$. The experiments presented here are carried out with $`p`$-polarized light and a measured finesse of $`F=2500`$, which corresponds to an intracavity intensity decay rate of $`2\pi \times 1.4`$MHz. However, by simply rotating the polarization of the light injected into the cavity, we can switch to $`s`$-polarization, where we measure using the ring-down method a much higher finesse of $`F=170000`$ corresponding to $`2\pi \times 21`$kHz. The round-trip length of the ring-cavity is $`L=85`$ mm, the beam waists in horizontal and in vertical direction at the location of the MOT are $`w_v=129\mu `$m and $`w_h=124\mu `$m, respectively. This yields a cavity mode-volume of $`V_{mode}=\frac{\pi }{4}Lw_vw_h=1`$ mm3. The intracavity power $`P`$, largely enhanced by the factor $`F/\pi `$ to values around $`10`$W, gives rise to an optical potential with a depth of $`k_B\times 1.4`$ mK at the wavelength $`799`$nm. The radial and axial secular frequencies in the harmonic region close to the center of the trap are $`\omega _{rad}/2\pi =640`$ Hz and $`\omega _{ax}/2\pi =450`$ kHz.

The ring-cavity is driven by a titanium-sapphire (Ti:Sa) laser delivering up to $`2`$W output power into three optical modes separated by $`1.2`$GHz Zimmermann95 . The central mode is filtered by an external confocal Fabry-Perot etalon. The Ti:Sa laser is locked to one of the eigenfrequencies of the ring cavity using the Pound-Drever-Hall locking technique Pound46 ; Drever83  (see Fig. 2). A feedback servo drives a piezo-electric transducer mounted in the Ti:Sa laser cavity, whose frequency response is limited to $`10`$ kHz. Faster fluctuations of the laser frequency are balanced by means of an external double-passed acousto-optic modulator (AOM). The servo bandwidth of $`1`$ MHz is limited by a $`100`$ns time delay in the response of the AOM. The laser frequency is stable enough to yield intensity fluctuations observed in the cavity transmission signal below $`2\%`$ even in the high finesse case.

The dipole trap is permanently operated, because keeping the Ti:Sa laser locked requires a certain amount of light inside the cavity. The standing wave dipole trap is loaded from a spatially overlapping MOT for a period of $`15`$ s. Before switching off the MOT, we apply a $`40`$ ms temporal dark MOT stage Ketterle93  by increasing the detuning of the MOT laser beams to $`90`$MHz and reducing the intensity of the repumping beams. For the conditions given above we typically capture $`3\times 10^7`$ atoms distributed over $`10000`$ antinodes of the standing wave. The temperature of the atomic ensemble is measured using the TOF method. We suddenly switch off the dipole trap and image the shadow that the cloud imprints on a weak probe beam after a period of ballistic expansion. During the expansion, the initial momentum distribution of the cloud evolves into a density distribution, whose radial width yields the temperature of the cloud. Depending on the potential well depth, we obtain temperatures between $`70`$ and $`280`$ $`\mu `$K, corresponding to roughly $`1/5`$ of the well depth. The peak density is typically $`3\times 10^{12}`$ cm-3. The lifetime of the dipole trap measured at $`799`$nm is $`0.5`$ s. A thorough investigation of trap loss processes is presented in a similar system in Ref. Nagorny03 .

With a slight misalignment of the incoupled laser beam, the ring-cavity can be locked to higher-order transverse modes, into which the atoms can settle. Fig. 3 shows absorption pictures of atomic clouds confined in different higher-order transverse modes. Such modes exhibit an enhanced surface-to-volume ratio, which may prove advantageous for forced evaporation.

We perform spectroscopy of recoil-induced resonances (RIR) Guo92 ; Courtois94 ; Meacher94 , *i.e.* we probe 2-photon Raman transitions between two velocity states of the same atom. Two Raman beams $`𝐤_1`$ and $`𝐤_2`$ enclosing a small angle $`\theta =13.1^{}`$ are radiated onto the atomic cloud such that the difference vector $`𝐪=𝐤_1𝐤_2`$ is oriented nearly parallel to the dipole trap symmetry axis $`\widehat{z}`$. The two beams, whose frequencies are $`\omega _1`$ and $`\omega _2`$, give rise to a standing wave with periodicity $`2\pi /q`$ slowly moving in $`\widehat{z}`$ direction with velocity $`v_z=\mathrm{\Delta }\omega /q`$, where $`q=(k_1+k_2)\mathrm{sin}(\theta /2)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega =\omega _1\omega _2`$. The light wave leads to a periodic dipole potential for the atoms which in our experiment has a well depth of $`60`$ $`\mu `$K in units of $`k_B`$. Only atoms satisfying the energy and momentum conservation requirement can undergo Raman transitions, *i.e.* only atoms moving synchronously to the standing wave can scatter light from one beam into the other. This scattering is monitored as an intensity variation in one of the beams. The net rate for scattering from beam 1 into beam 2 may be written as $`W(v_z=\mathrm{\Delta }\omega /q)=\mathrm{}\pi /2\mathrm{\Omega }_R^2N\mathrm{\Pi }/v_z`$, where $`\mathrm{\Pi }(v_z)`$ denotes the Maxwell-Boltzmann momentum distribution, $`N`$ the number of atoms and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_R=\mathrm{\Omega }_1\mathrm{\Omega }_2/2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ with the resonant Rabi-frequencies $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$ for each Raman beam. By varying $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ the derivative of the Maxwell-Boltzmann momentum distribution is scanned from which the temperature can be derived Meacher94 . Trace (a) of Fig. 4 shows such RIR-scans recorded on a cloud $`200`$ $`\mu `$s after being released from the dipole trap. Trace (b) has been calculated assuming a $`100`$ $`\mu `$K cold cloud.

The scan rate must be judiciously chosen Fischer01 . If the scan rate is too slow, the atoms are notably redistributed between the velocity classes while scanning. The above expression shows that the scattering process preferentially occurs towards higher velocities, so that although the momentum transfer is quite small, the cloud is slightly heated under the influence of the Raman beams. If, on the other hand, the scan rate is too fast the signal can be strongly distorted and a ringing type oscillation is observed Note . For an untrapped cloud of atoms first indication of ringing can be observed for scan rates above $`2.1`$ kHz/$`\mu `$s. For trapped atoms, however, ringing is already very pronounced at this rate (Fig. 4c). Ringing is a general feature of resonant phenomena and can be observed for a simple mechanical oscillator as well as in an optical resonator or for standard two level quantum systems. The critical scan rate for ringing is roughly given by the square of the linewidth. For slower scan rates the system can follow adiabatically, *i.e.* the sweep time across the resonance is longer than the inverse linewidth.

In our experiment we observe that the critical scan rate is dramatically reduced if the atoms are trapped in the standing wave dipole trap. A qualitative explanation of this effect is possible by using the following simple picture. For an untrapped cloud of atoms the potential generated by the Raman beams has its principle effect on the atoms near zero detuning. Then, the speed of the potential wave is sufficiently slow for the atoms to react and form a standing wave like density pattern that mirrors the shape of the potential wave. For positive detunings the potential wave starts moving with increasing speed relative to the static atomic distribution and the atoms within the density modulation are subjected to an oscillating dipole force. This force is accompanied by a periodic photon redistribution between the Raman beams which is observed in the experiment. The ringing fades away as the atomic density modulation slowly decays due to thermal drifts of the atoms. For trapped atoms this picture does not seem to apply since the atoms are strongly confined within the antinodes of the resonator dipole trap such that a density pattern can not form. However, if we neglect the weak confinement in radial direction and thus regard a thermal distribution of atoms that can still propagate freely along the valleys of the resonator dipole trap, this is only true if $`𝐪`$ is strictly parallel to the symmetry axis of the dipole trap. With only a slight misalignment of $`𝐪`$ by an angle $`\varphi `$ the atoms can follow the force of the Raman potential by travelling along those valleys. In order to form a density modulation similar to the untrapped case the atoms now have to propagate a distance that is longer by a factor $`f=1/\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$. Similarly, the lifetime of the modulation pattern is enhanced by the same factor since the atoms have to drift over a longer distance with the same thermal velocity. The critical scan rate for ringing is therefore reduced by the factor $`f^2`$. The same situation can be explained from a different perspective. Since the phase speed of the Raman potential along the valleys is enhanced by $`f`$ the atoms that interact with the Raman potential have to move with a velocity given by $`f\mathrm{\Delta }\omega /q`$. The resulting reduction of the linewidth by $`1/f`$ can easily be understood by the fact that for an axially confined atom undergoing a 2-photon Raman transition only the radial momentum component with $`q_r=q/f`$ has to satisfy the momentum conservation requirement. From the data we can estimate the coherence lifetime to be $`100\mu `$s. This compares well to the above described thermal decay of the density distribution if we assume a misalignment angle of $`\varphi =3^{}`$.

A full quantitative description is beyond the scope of this paper, however it is interesting to note that the data can be well described by the dynamics of a degenerate two level quantum system. The lower curve in Fig. 4(d) shows the coherence $`\mathrm{Im}\rho _{12}`$ calculated by numerical integration of two-level Bloch-equations ($`\rho `$ is the density matrix). The resonance occurs at $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega =0`$. At the beginning of the scan, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ is far from resonance, the population of the excited level $`\rho _{22}`$ is just too small and the system does not react to the light field. As soon as $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ passes through the resonance, the coherence $`\rho _{12}`$ is excited and can now be driven by the laser even when $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ is tuned far away. The two levels can be identified with two velocity states that are coupled by the Raman-beams. In the experiment, the thermal distribution causes an inhomogeneous broadening that is accounted for in the simple two level model by introducing an effective decay rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$.

To conclude we introduced our ring-cavity standing wave dipole trap and characterized it by lifetime and by temperature measurements. We have shown that by driving recoil-induced resonances, we can excite and probe the motion of atoms trapped in the ring-cavity field. In the near future we plan to look for the expected feedback of the atomic motion on the standing light wave and for interatomic coupling induced by the standing wave. It is also tempting to explore the predicted new types of cavity cooling in view of their aptitude of cooling below the threshold of quantum degeneracy. Bose-Einstein condensates are very appealing objects in the context of ring-cavity studies. *E.g.* Meystre and coworkers Moore99  have discussed the use of ring-cavities for recycling superradiant light pulses produced by Rayleigh-scattering off condensates Inouye99  and predict for such systems the possibility of mutual coherent quantum control between optical and matter-wave modes.

We acknowledge financial support from the Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.


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# High-Resolution Radio Imaging of Gravitational Lensing Candidates in the 1 Jansky BL Lac Sample

## 1. Introduction

BL Lacertae objects are an extreme type of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), whose hallmark is their “featureless” optical spectra (rest frame $`W_\lambda `$ $`5`$Å for any emission lines present). They are a member of the blazar class of AGN. And like other blazars, their observed properties are thought to due to bulk relativisitic outflows. It is believed that most BL Lacs are low-luminosity, Fanaroff & Riley (1974) class 1 radio galaxies (FR–1s) whose jet axes are oriented roughly towards the observer (Blandford & Rees, 1978). Several pieces of evidence support this hypothesis; e.g., most BL Lacs have giant elliptical host galaxies in rich galaxy regions (Wurtz et al., 1997) consistent with FR–1 hosts, and most have a highly core-dominated radio structure that is consistent with a beamed source (Antonucci & Ulvestad, 1985; Perlman & Stocke, 1994; Urry & Padovani, 1995). However, there is substantial evidence that not all BL Lacs follow this simple picture, especially within the radio-selected “1 Jansky” (1Jy) sample of BL Lacs (Stickel et al., 1991; Rector & Stocke, 2001). In fact, the extended radio power levels for fully one-half of the BL Lacs in the 1Jy sample are too luminous to be FR–1s. These objects also have broad, moderately luminous optical emission lines (log $`L=4143`$ erg s-1), which are typically seen in FR–2s but not in FR–1s. Why FR–2-like sources appear in abundance in the 1Jy BL Lac sample but not in X-ray selected samples (Rector et al., 2000) is as yet unknown, although Rector & Stocke (2001) discuss several possible factors.

One of these factors might be gravitational lensing. Stocke & Rector (1997) find an excess of MgII systems along the sightlines of 1Jy BL Lacs. Ten absorption systems were found in the spectra of 37 BL Lacs; and five of them are very strong ($`W_\lambda `$ $`1`$Å), which is four to five times greater than the number expected based upon quasar sightlines, i.e., 2.5 to 3$`\sigma `$ greater than the expectation value from Steidel & Sargent (1992). This excess suggests a correlation between the presence of absorbing gas along the BL Lac sightline and the relatively featureless spectra of BL Lac objects, as compared to quasars. Such a correlation can be caused by gravitational microlensing of an AGN by stars associated with the absorbing gas, presumably within an intervening foreground galaxy. Ostriker & Vietri (1990) postulated that BL Lacs may simply be microlensed quasars. In their model, a background quasar is microlensed by stars within a foreground giant elliptical galaxy. The microlensing preferentially amplifies the compact nonthermal continuum over the extended emission lines regions, reducing the observed $`W_\lambda `$ of the emission lines. If its continuum is sufficiently boosted by microlensing, a quasar may appear to be a BL Lac object. While it is now clear that the Ostriker & Vietri (1990) model does not explain all BL Lac objects, it may explain some. And indeed, evidence of lensing exists for several BL Lacs, e.g., AO 0235+164 (Stickel, Fried & Kühr, 1988; Webb et al., 2000), MS 0205.7+3509 (Stocke, Wurtz & Perlman, 1995), PKS 0537–441 (Romero, Surpi & Vucetich, 1995), PKS 1413+135 (Perlman et al., 1996), RGB 1745+398 (Nilsson et al., 1999) and three other BL Lacs in an HST snapshot survey of BL Lacs (Scarpa et al., 1999). There is also evidence against the lensing hypothesis for some of these objects, e.g., PKS 0537–441 (Falomo, Melnick & Tanzi, 1992) and MS 0205.7+3509 (Falomo et al., 1997). Further, Narayan & Schneider (1990) discuss several of these sources in a microlensing context where the foreground galaxy has a gravitational potential too shallow to produce multiple images via macrolensing. Thus it is not known how many BL Lacs are lensed, nor how many AGN are classified as BL Lacs as a result of lensing.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to test for microlensing on a case-by-case basis. An intervening MgII absorption system is suggestive, but not conclusive, of lensing. Similarly, optical imaging can, and occasionally does, discover an intervening foreground galaxy which is offset from the BL Lac nucleus, e.g., Heidt et al. (1998); although this too is not conclusive evidence. Further, the characteristic light curve of a single microlensing event is likely to be blended into multiple events, thereby producing a variability signature which is not easily differentiated from an intrinsically variable source, e.g. Takalo et al. (1998); although achromatic variability is a lensing characteristic which may be used to differentiate (Webb et al., 2000). While it is not conclusive evidence of microlensing, the detection of macrolensing (i.e., multiple images) remains the only means to confirm that an object is indeed gravitationally lensed. So, despite the suggestive evidence alone, currently there is only one confirmed case of a lensed BL Lac: the “smallest Einstein ring” source B 0218+357. The ring is very compact; it is unresolved at arcsecond-scale resolutions, but is clearly resolved with the VLA A-array at 8.4 GHz and higher frequencies (O’Dea et al., 1992). This compact radio structure is typical of gravitational lenses; e.g., all the lenses currently known in the Jodrell Bank-VLA astronomical survey have angular separations on the order of a few arcseconds or less (King et al., 1997).

Here we present a sensitive, high-resolution imaging study of all of the gravitational lens candidates in the 1Jy BL Lac sample which can be reached by the VLA ($`\delta >20`$°). Nearly all of the BL Lacs in the 1Jy sample have now been mapped at high sensitivity with the VLA A-array at 1.4 GHz (Murphy, Browne & Perley, 1993; Perlman & Stocke, 1994; Cassaro et al., 1999; Rector & Stocke, 2001). Based upon these maps lensing candidates were chosen with the following criteria. First, sources were chosen that have an unusual radio morphology which is suggestive of lensing, i.e., very distorted and very luminous extended radio structure. The BL Lacs S4 0814+425 (Murphy, Browne & Perley, 1993) and PKS 2131–021 (Rector & Stocke, 2001) are examples of objects with compact ($`10`$″) radio structure that, if interpreted as classical “triple” sources, appear to have edge-brightened, FR–2 like lobes but with a compact, wide-angle tail morphology that is very unusual for FR–2s. Alternatively, the morphology of both sources could be explained as Einstein rings that are marginally resolved. Secondly, sources were chosen that are unresolved or marginally resolved (i.e., highly core dominated). Thirdly, we chose objects whose optical spectrum contains a strong MgII absorption system. This latter criterion selects only high-redshift objects because only MgII absorption systems with redshifts $`z0.4`$ can be detected at optical wavelengths. Naturally, B 0218+357 was excluded from the sample since it has already been established to be a lensed system. Seven other objects from the 1Jy BL Lac sample meet one or more of these criteria and were observed in this study (see Table 1). The columns are:  the object name; \[2–3\] the emission and absorption line redshifts;  the 20cm extended radio power (in W Hz-1); and  the 20cm radio core dominance, $`fP_{core}/P_{ext}`$. Values were obtained from Rector & Stocke (2001) and references within.

## 2. Observation and Reduction

We chose to observe with the A-array with a 50 MHz bandwidth to maximize resolution while maintaining good sensitivity to extended, steep-spectrum structure. Each object was observed at two frequencies so that spectral-index maps could be generated. Spectral index maps will show whether an object is a typical core-jet source, in which case the steep-spectrum jets and lobes will be easily differentiated from the flat-spectrum core, or if it is a lensed object with multiple images with the same spectral index. Although not attempted here, polarization-sensitive observations can provide an additional test, as the polarization vectors of a lensed image should be unaffected by the gravitational field of the lens (Dyer & Shaver, 1992). Thus, the lensed images of each source component should also have the same polarization percentage and position angle, once corrected for Faraday rotation due to the different light paths. One caveat for both spectral-index and polarization measurements is that BL Lacs are known to vary both quantities on timescales as short as days. Thus, in principle multiple images of an object could display different spectral indices and polarizations due to the difference in light travel times if the variability is intrinsic and not due to the lens.

Lensing candidates that are resolved at 1.4 GHz and have a largest angular size greater than 5″ were observed at 4.86 GHz (C-band) and 8.46 GHz (X-band) to resolve individual components while maintaining excellent sensitivity to faint extended structure. Smaller sources were observed at 8.46 GHz and 14.94 GHz (U-band) to improve the likelihood of resolving discrete components. The resolution of these maps are ten times greater than maps previously available for these sources.

The seven lensing candidates from the 1Jy BL Lac sample were observed with the VLA A-array on 20 September 1999 and 24 September 1999. Four or five scans of 4–8 minute durations were made for each source at each frequency. Scans were spaced to optimize coverage in the $`(u,v)`$ plane. The resulting maps have sensitivities of roughly 0.1 to 1 mJy beam-1.

Epoch 1995.2 VLA values were used to flux calibrate the maps using multiple observations of 3C 286. Since these sources are highly core-dominated, a point source model was assumed to start the self-calibration process. Phase-only self-calibration in decreasing solution time intervals was used for the first four iterations. Amplitude and phase self-calibration were then used until the maximum dynamic range was achieved, usually requiring only one or two more iterations. The AIPS task IMAGR was used to generate the maps and clean components. Robust weighting (ROBUST = 0.5) was used to achieve a smaller beam FWHM with only a 10–12% increase in noise over natural weighting; see Briggs (1995) for an explanation. The core flux densities were measured by fitting the core with a single Gaussian with the synthesized beam’s parameters. The extended flux was determined by measuring the total flux density with a box enclosing the entire source and then subtracting the core flux density. Throughout this paper we assume $`S\nu ^{+\alpha }`$.

In addition to the radio observations described above, Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based optical data in the literature (Scarpa et al., 2000; Pursimo et al., 2002) were searched for optical counterparts to bright spots in the radio structure. However, no counterparts to the structure observed in the resolved sources were detected. If these are indeed lensed sources, optical counterparts should be present and be sufficiently bright to distort the observed the optical radial profiles of these sources. However, in all cases the objects are unresolved at optical wavelengths.

### 2.1. Summary of Radio Properties

The VLA continuum and spectral index maps are shown in Figures 1 through 8. A summary of the radio properties is given in Table 2. The columns are:  the object name; \[2–3\] the 4.86 GHz VLA core and extended flux densities (mJy); \[4–5\] the 8.46 GHz VLA core and extended flux densities (mJy); and \[6–7\] the 14.94 GHz VLA core and extended flux densities (mJy). The error estimates for extended flux densities are based upon the solid angular extent of the source. For unresolved sources, an upper limit on extended flux is conservatively estimated to be 10$`\sigma `$ because faint extended flux may be spreaded over many beams.

### 2.2. Discussion of Individual Sources

S5 0454+844: This object is unresolved in 8.46 GHz and 14.94 GHz maps to the 0.1 and 0.4 mJy beam-1 level respectively. It is also unresolved in a 1.4 GHz, A-array map to the 0.1 mJy beam-1 (Rector & Stocke, 2001). The unresolved nature of this source is not unexpected due to a redshift lower limit of $`z=1.340`$ that is based upon a MgII absorption system (Stocke & Rector, 1997).

PKS 0735+178: This object has a intervening absorption system at $`z=0.424`$ (Carswell et al., 1974; Rector & Stocke, 2001). The 8.46 GHz and spectral index maps are overlaid in Figure 1. The 14.94 GHz map is shown in Figure 2. The 8.46 GHz map shows an unusual jet-like morphology to the south and west. The spectral index map confirms that PKS 0735+178 consists of a flat-spectrum core ($`\alpha _{14.94}^{8.46}`$ $`=0.24`$) and steep-spectrum ($`\alpha _{14.94}^{8.46}`$ $`1`$) jets, not multiple images of the core.

S4 0814+425: The 1.4 GHz map of this object in Murphy, Browne & Perley (1993) is highly suggestive of a lensed system, with possible multiple images of the core to the northeast and northwest. However, 4.86 GHz and 8.46 GHz maps of this object (Figure 3 and Figure 4) show a jet which originates north of the core and arcs to the northeastern lobe. The spectral index map (Figure 3) confirms that the source consists of a flat-spectrum core ($`\alpha _{8.46}^{4.86}`$ $`=+0.1`$) and steep-spectrum ($`\alpha _{8.46}^{4.86}`$ $`1`$) jets. The morphology of this source is very unusual; however projection effects may be causing an intrinsically straight jet appear to bend dramatically.

PKS 0823+033: This object is unresolved in both the 8.46 GHz and 14.94 GHz maps to the 0.3 and 0.8 mJy beam-1 level respectively. The object is also unresolved in the 1.4 GHz, A-array map in Murphy, Browne & Perley (1993).

PKS 1749+096: This object is unresolved in both the 8.46 GHz and 14.94 GHz maps to the 0.8 and 0.9 mJy beam-1 level respectively. It is also unresolved in a 1.4 GHz, A-array map to the 0.1 mJy beam-1 (Rector & Stocke, 2001). The modest tentative redshift ($`z=0.320`$:) and the fact that the host galaxy is easily observable (Wurtz et al., 1997) make its very high radio core dominance very unusual. However, the observational limits allow that this source could be a typical FR–1 with a somewhat lower extended radio power level (log $`P_{20\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}}24.5`$ W Hz-1).

S4 1749+701: This object was slightly resolved in 1.4 GHz map (Rector & Stocke, 2001). The 8.46 GHz map (Figure 5) shows a halo morphology around the core with a jet-like extension to the southwest. The halo is mostly resolved out of the 14.94 GHz map (Figure 6) however the extension to the southwest is still visible. The spectral index map (Figure 5) shows a a flat-spectrum core ($`\alpha _{14.94}^{8.46}`$ $`=0.2`$) and steep-spectrum ($`\alpha _{14.94}^{8.46}`$ $`1`$) halo, indicating that this halo is not an Einstein ring image of the core.

PKS 2131–021: The 1.4 GHz map of this object in Rector & Stocke (2001) is highly suggestive of a lensed system, with possible multiple images of the core to the east and southeast. However, 4.86 GHz and 8.46 GHz maps of this object (Figures 7 and 8) show a very interesting morphology, with a jet that originates to the south-southeast of the core. The jet appears to be significantly distorted and may be helical. There also appears to be lobes roughly 5″ to the east and southeast of the core. It is not clear how these jets propagate to the lobes, although projection effects may cause a single lobe to appear as the two seen. But significant bending is still required, even with the severe projection effects expected in BL Lacs, to cause both lobes to appear on the same side of the core. The spectral index map (Figure 7) shows no evidence of multiple images of the core; and the jet and lobes have indices ($`\alpha _{8.46}^{4.86}`$ $`1`$) much steeper than the core ($`\alpha _{8.46}^{4.86}`$ $`=+0.06`$). A MERLIN+EVN map of this object shows a jet component 50 mas east-southeast from the core, and multiple components extending to the south out to 350 mas from the core, suggesting a helical motion (Cassaro et al., 2002).

## 3. Discussion and Conclusions

We have presented high-resolution radio continuum and spectral index maps for seven gravitational lensing candidates from the 1Jy BL Lac sample. All of the resolved sources show a flat-spectrum core and steep-spectrum extended radio morphology, as expected for core-jet sources. We note that S4 0814+425 and PKS 2131–021 have very similar, and very unusual, radio morphologies in that both appear to have radio lobes on the same side of the core. This could be caused by an intrinsically bent source seen close to the line of sight, although the required geometry would be rare. If so, these sources should have very high apparent luminosities. This is certainly the case for PKS 2131–021, which has the highest core and extended radio powers of any BL Lac object in the 1Jy sample, discounting uncertain values (Rector & Stocke, 2001). The redshift for S4 0814+425 is currently unknown, although it must be $`z0.5`$ because it is unresolved at optical wavelengths (Pursimo et al., 2002; Urry et. al, 1999); thus it too must have a high apparent radio luminosity. VLBI maps of these sources indicate they are highly core-dominated, supporting the hypothesis they are highly beamed (Gabuzda, Pushkarev & Cawthorne, 2000; Cassaro et al., 2002). Unfortunately, further comparison is impossible without a firm redshift for S4 0814+425.

None of the maps show evidence of an Einstein ring or multiply-imaged components; however it is important to note that a foreground galaxy many not cause macrolensing if it has a low surface mass density (Narayan & Schneider, 1990). Thus, it is possible that a foreground galaxy may cause significant microlensing, brightening the continuum relative to the emission-line regions, without associated macrolensing. The converse is also true (Abraham et al., 1993). Thus, these observations do not rule out the possibility of lensing; but they argue strongly against macrolensing. The resolved sources show highly distorted jets and misaligned lobes. These unusual morphologies support the hypothesis that these BL Lacs are highly beamed sources, with radio morphologies that are highly distorted due to projection effects.


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# Prediction of a surface magnetic moment in 𝛼-uranium

## Abstract

Recently, there has been an increased interest in first-principles calculations of the actinides as well as in finding the new materials which display surface magnetism. We predict the existence of a magnetic moment on the uranium (001) surface by performing density functional calculations for a slab geometry in the generalized gradient and local spin density approximations with included spin orbit coupling. The ferromagnetic phase is energetically favored for all geometries. The calculated total magnetic moment, $`0.65\mu _B`$, is stable on films of different thickness and it should be observable experimentally.

The beginnings of the field of surface magnetism can be traced back to the end of the 1960s with the claims of magnetic dead layers of some transition elements. In subsequent years it has been shown both experimentally and by first-principles calculations that Fe(001), Ni(001) and Cr(001) have considerable enhancement of magnetic moments at the surface with respect to the bulk value, OhnFreWei83 . As a rule one expects the tendency toward magnetism to be increased near metal surfaces, because of the narrowing of the density of states which yields a Stoner enhancement in the susceptibility. This lead to the search for surface magnetism in materials which are nonmagnetic in the bulk. There have been many attempts to find such materials (vanadium, for example), but most of them proved unsuccessful. To our knowledge the only experimentally clear case of a magnetic surface on a nonmagnetic metal is Rh(100), WuGarBeg94 ; GolBarCom99 . In contrast, there are many examples of predicted transition metal monolayers on noble-metal substrates such as: Ti, V, Tc, Ru, and Rh on Ag or Au, AsaBilHan99 .

Uranium would appear to be a possible candidate for surface magnetism since there is a rather large change in density of states from surface to bulk, as pointed out by Hao $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑡}\mathrm{𝑎𝑙}.`$ HaoEriFer93 . Also, a comparatively modest expansion of the lattice leads to a spontaneous moment in the bulk which we have verified, HjeEriJoh93 . In addition, it is near the transition (which occurs beyond plutonium) in which the 5f electrons become localized, Hec01 . We also note that many U alloys are magnetic, indicating the possible presence of a nearby magnetic instability. For example, URhAl KunNovDiv01  and UPtAl AndDivJav01  are ferromagnetic with spin moments of order 1$`\mu _B`$. In these structures the U atoms are in hexagonal planes (which include the transition element) and are separated by planes with no U.

We have explored the possibility for magnetism in uranium within the framework of the density functional theory (DFT). For uranium and the lighter actinides, DFT has been successful at predicting structural properties JonBoeAlb00 ; Sod02 ; YamHas90 . For plutonium (and presumably for the heavier actinides) calculations which go beyond DFT (such as dynamical mean field theory) are required SavKotAbr01 . The calculations have been done using the orthorhombic structure ($`\alpha `$-uranium), Fig.1. This is the stable structure between 43K and 940K. At higher temperatures, it passes through tetragonal and then bcc structures before melting at 1408K. Below 43K the lattice undergoes a charge density wave (CDW) distortion MarLanSma90 . The CDW distortions are only $``$0.027 Å, MarLanSma90 , and were neglected. The orthorhombic structure may be viewed as a distorted bcc structure with the (001) plane similar to bcc (110) and with alternate (110) planes shifted along the $`b`$ axis by $`(1/22y)b`$. A similar transformation was described by Axe $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑡}\mathrm{𝑎𝑙}.`$ in AxeGruLan94 . The bcc structure would have $`y=`$1/4, $`a=a_{bcc}`$, and $`b=c=\sqrt{2}a_{bcc}`$. At the same volume $`a_{bcc}`$=3.405 Å. The orthorhombic structure has $`a=`$2.836 Å, $`b=`$5.866 Å, $`c=`$4.935 Å, and $`y=`$0.1017, BarMueHit63 . It belongs to the non-symmorphic space group Cmcm. We confirmed previous calculations, Sod02 , which show that this structure is lower in energy than bcc by 0.22 eV. We have also found that the bcc structure is mechanically unstable in the sense that the bcc energy is a relative maximum with respect to tetragonal distortions (a phonon calculation would lead to negative frequencies), unpublished . For the calculations reported here we use the unrelaxed experimental geometry.

In this paper we solve the DFT equations using the WIEN2k, BlaSchLui99 , implementation of the full potential linear augmented plane wave (FLAPW) method, WimKraWei81 , in a supercell geometry. To simulate a surface, we varied the length of the vacuum layer until no changes were noticed in energy and density of states and we kept it at 18 Bohr. Our free-standing monolayer calculations were done using 2 atoms per unit cell on a (001) surface, experimental lattice constants, 150 k points in the irreducible Brillouin zone and energy cutoff 12.5 Ry. For the film calculations (1 atom per surface cell), number of k-points varied from 306 for the three-layer film to 153 for the seven-layer film. The muffin tin radius was kept fixed at 2.55 Bohr. For the exchange and correlation we used both the generalized gradient (GGA), PerBurErn96 , and the local spin density approximations (LSDA) for the monolayer and only GGA for the film calculations. In the actinides it is important to include several corrections to the usual scalar relativistic formulation of the FLAPW method. The spin orbit splitting of the 5f level in the isolated atom is 0.82 eV. This is comparable, though smaller than the f bandwidth which is of order 2 eV. Hence it is important to include spin orbit effects explicitly. This was done treating the spin orbit coupling in a second variation, BlaSchLui99 . Our bulk energy bands and density of states are in good agreement with fully relativistic results, YamHas90 . In addition, the semicore 6s and 6p levels have bandwidths in the solid of order 2 eV so it is important to include them in the basis. In the Wien code they are treated by adding local orbitals at the appropriate energies, MadBlaSch01 .

We find that the surface does indeed support a magnetic moment. Our results for a monolayer, presented in Table 1, demonstrate that the ferromagnetic (FM) phase is favored over antiferromagnetic (AFM) and paramagnetic (PM) phases. For the GGA with spin-orbit coupling (SOC) included, it lies 0.23 eV below the PM phase and 0.09 eV below the AFM phase. This result qualitatively does not depend on the exchange-correlation potential and inclusion of SOC. The direction of magnetization in the case with SOC is , perpendicular to the surface. The values of spin and total (orbital moment taken into account) magnetic moments on spheres and in the interstitial region for the FM and AFM phase are given in Table 2. (Interstitial contributions come out as a consequence of the LAPW method’s partitioning of space into atomic spheres and the interstitial region). We can see that the total moments per atom on the uranium monolayer are surprisingly large, 2.01 and 1.75 $`\mu _B`$ in GGA and LSDA, respectively. Total moment per atom is obtained by adding spin and orbital moments from a sphere to the spin interstitial moment. The orbital moments in the interstitial region vanish. We also compare the magnitude of the magnetic moments for the case without SOC. The moments are significantly larger in that case, similar to $`4d`$ and $`5d`$ (Ru, Rt, Pd, Os, Ir, Pt$`\mathrm{}`$) mono and double layers on Ag(001) and Au(001), UjfSzuWei95 .

Magnetic moments are similar in GGA and LSDA approximations. The influence of the type of the exchange and correlation approximation on the calculations of magnetic effects on surfaces is a subject of a discussion. For example, for chromium (001), BilAsaBlu00 , it was found that GGA tends to overestimate magnetic moments in bulk and at surface. However, the use of the LSDA for the description of a magnetic state also gave debatable results (bulk iron, for instance). All results presented further in this work have been obtained using the GGA.

The results for thick films are given in Table 3. Since the calculated surface moment is stable upon the change in the slab thickness, we have performed calculations for up to seven layers. The constant value of the magnetic moment for the three cases is 0.65$`\mu _B`$. We show in Table 3 the spin and orbital moments in the outermost sphere and in the interstitial region for films of varying thickness. Interstitial moments are constant for the films of different thickness, from which we conclude that they are mostly at the surface. They are given per total calculational cell, so dividing them by two (two surfaces) and adding to the sum of spin and orbital moment, we get the total magnetic moment per atom. The moments diminish rapidly as a function of distance from the surface, so that, for example, for the five-layer film the total moments on the spheres are: 0.46, -0.03, and -0.04$`\mu _B`$. The orbital moments are relatively large. This is consistent with the findings for uranium compounds, KunNovDiv01 . In Table 4 we present the energy differences from the PM to the FM phase for different films.

In order to justify our use of the unrelaxed experimental geometry in this work, we contracted the surface layer of a 5-layer slab. The energy minimum occurs at the contraction of 2.66%. We used the muffin tin radius of 2.35 Bohr and 72 k points in the irreducible Brillouin zone. The spin moment on a sphere of the relaxed structure was reduced slightly to 0.65$`\mu _B`$.

We also calculated the surface energy using the unrelaxed geometry and including the SOC. It was found to be 0.12 eV/Å2. This is in a resonable agreement with the only available experimental result of 0.094eV/Å2 CRC92 . Previous calculations of Kollar et al., KolVitSkr94 , gave 0.16 eV/Å2.

The existence of the surface magnetic moment can be ascribed to the reduction of the coordination number which causes narrowing and enhancing of the density of states at the Fermi level. This increase in the local density of states, $`n_{loc}(E_F)`$, results in fulfilling the Stoner criterion $`n_{loc}(E_F)I>1`$, ($`I`$ is the exchange integral). For reasonable values of I ($``$ 0.2 – 0.4 eV), Jan77 , this change in $`n_{loc}`$ is sufficient to drive the system magnetic, as we observe. This can be seen from the density of states for a paramagnetic 7-layer film and bulk shown in Fig. 2. The local density of states at the Fermi level changes from 2.45 for bulk to 4.01 states/eV for the surface layer. It is even more pronounced for a monolayer, where PM local density of states at Fermi level reaches the value of 11.38 states/eV, Fig. 3. A similar effect of an emerging magnetic moment can be produced by a uniform expansion of the original lattice. For example, we have found that there is a magnetic moment of 0.1$`\mu _B`$ at the volume of 26.5$`\AA ^3`$ ($``$30% increase). The moments increase with the further expansion.

In Fig.3 we show the spin-polarized density of states for a monolayer, which has a very sharp difference between spin up and down states. Figure 4 shows the spin-polarized density of states, for the surface layer of the 7-layer film.

Experimentally, the surface magnetism can be detected in a variety of ways including, for example, spin-polarized photoemission WuGarBeg94 , linear or circular dichroism GolBarCom99  and surface magneto-optic Kerr effect QiuBad99 . Given the size of our computed moments, these effects should be readily observable.

N. S. would like to thank E. Vescovo for many interesting and helpful discussions. Supported by US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886.


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# Using data assimilation in laboratory experiments of geophysical flows

## 1 Introduction : operational issues

An increasing interest in operational oceanography has developed in recent years. A number of pre-operational projects have emerged at the national and international scale, most of them coordinating their activites within the international Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE).

The heart of operational systems consists of three main components : the observation system, the dynamical model and the data assimilation scheme. Thanks to recent advances in satellite and in-situ observations, numerical modelling, assimilation techniques and computer technology, the operational systems have now acquired some degree of maturity. However, there are still a number of issues that must be solved in applications, and validation tests are needed.

The ideal method for validating the overall forecasting system would be to compare results with independent oceanic observations, i.e. observations that are not used in the assimilation process. However, such observations are rare because in-situ surveys are difficult to undertake and extremely expensive, particularly in the deep ocean. Another problem is that, because assimilation is only approximate, forecast errors may be due not only to the model itself, but also to the temporal growth of imperfections in the initial condition. It is therefore difficult to objectively identify the model errors on the one hand and the assimilation errors on the other.

Alternatively, analytical solutions of simple flows with well-defined initial and boundary conditions can be used as a reference to unravel some aspects of the model error components. However, such analytical solutions are limited to some extremely simplified flow configurations.

In this letter, a new, experimental approach to these problems is presented. Laboratory experiments and numerical, shallow water simulations of simple oceanic flows are performed and sequential data assimilation is used as a tool to keep the numerical simulation close to the experimental reality. By contrast with real-scale oceanic measurements, the experimental measurements are available with a high level of precision and resolution. The general methodology is given in Section 2. In Section 3, the example of un unstable vortex in a two-layer, rotating fluid is presented as an illustration of the experimental test-bed. In particular, the behaviour of the model is studied when data assimilation is stopped. The vortex deformation and splitting as predicted by the numerical simulation is then compared to the real flow evolution.

## 2 The Coriolis test-bed

Laboratory experiments are of particular interest as test cases for operational systems, filling the gap between the oversimplified analytical solutions and the full complexity of real oceans. On the one hand, they are much more realistic than any numerical or theoretical “reality”, provided that the experimental facility allows good similarity with the ocean. On the other hand, data are available with much better space and time resolution than actual scale oceanic measurements. Furthermore, a great number of experiments can be performed and compared to one other. Such comparisons are obviously impossible at the real scale because of the ever changing flow conditions in the ocean. The flow parameters can also be easily varied to perform parametric studies.

Thanks to its large size (13 meter diameter), the Coriolis turntable (Grenoble, France) is a unique facility which enables oceanic flows to be reproduced with a good level of similarity (see Fig.1). It is possible to come close to inertial regimes, i.e. with limited effects of viscosity and centrifugal forces. Various experiments can be performed on the turntable in multi-layer stratified salt water, such as experiments on vortices or boundary currents.

Our approach relies on numerical simulation of such laboratory experiments using data assimilation, in a similar way to real-scale ocean forecasting systems. A major difference with the real ocean is that the measured quantity here is the velocity field in several horizontal planes instead of scalar quantities measured only at the surface or along vertical sections. The elevation of the interface between the layers is not measured in the experiments. It is treated as an output of the asssimilation process (see section 3).

The velocity field is measured in horizontal planes using CIV (Correlation Image Velocimetry): particle tracers are illuminated by a horizontal laser sheet and a camera is used to visualize the particle displacements from above, leading, after numerical treatment, to the horizontal velocity field. The rms measurement error in particle displacement is about 0.2 pixels, as determined by Fincham & Delerce (2000), and the errors found in neighboring points are not correlated. The resulting error in velocity about 3% of the maximum velocity.

In parallel with these measurements, numerical simulations are performed. The system is modelled as a multi-layer fluid with hydrostatic approximation for which the variables are the horizontal velocity components $`u(x,y,i)`$ and $`v(x,y,i)`$, and the layer thickness $`h(x,y,i)`$, where $`x`$ and $`y`$ are the horizontal coordinates and $`i`$ is the layer index. The basic shallow-water equations are solved using MICOM (Miami Isopycnic Coordinate Ocean Model, Bleck & Boudra 1986) in its simplest version.

The measured velocity field is assimilated into the simulations at each measurement point using an adaptive version of the Singular Evolutive Extended Kalman (SEEK) filter, a method adapted for oceanographic purposes on the basis of the Kalman filter. Each data assimilation provides a new dynamical state which optimally blends the model prediction and the measured data, in accounting for their respective error. The forecast state vector $`\text{X}^f`$ is replaced by the analysed state vector $`\text{X}^a=\text{X}^f+\text{K}[\text{Y}^o\text{H}\text{X}^f]`$ ,where $`\text{Y}^o`$ is the observed part of the state vector (i.e. the velocity field in the measurement domain), H is the observation operator and K is the Kalman gain defined by $`\text{K}=\text{P}^f\text{H}^T[\text{H}\text{P}^f\text{H}^T+\text{R}]^1`$. Here, $`\text{P}^f`$ and R are the forecast error and observation error covariance matrices respectively. The observation errors are here supposed to be uniform, and the multi-variate correlations between the variables are described as components on Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF’s) computed from the model statistics, providing an estimation of $`\text{P}^f`$. The reader is referred to Pham, Verron & Roubaud (1998) and Brasseur, Ballabrera-Poy & Verron (1999) for mathematical details.

## 3 Example : Baroclinic instability of a two-layer vortex

Among the various experiments performed on the Coriolis turntable, concerning, for example, baroclinic instability and coastal currents, the study of the baroclinic instability of a two-layer vortex is presented in the present letter because it provides a good illustration of the experimental test-bed. This flow problem is of particular interest because simple experiments are feasible as well as numerical simulations, although it is quite a complex non-linear process (e.g. Griffiths and Linden 1981) and plays a crucial role in the variability of the real ocean. The initial conditions are well defined and the lateral boundaries have no significant influence.

A cylinder of radius $`R=`$ 0.5 m is initially introduced in a two-layer fluid across the interface (see Fig. 1). A displacement $`\eta _0`$ of the interface is produced inside the cylinder, and at $`t=0`$ the cylinder is rapidly removed. A radial gravity current is then initiated, which is deviated by the Coriolis force, resulting in the formation of a vortex in the upper layer after damping of inertial oscillations. A vortex of opposite sign is produced in the lower layer, and the resulting vertical shear is a source of baroclinic instability. The main control parameter in this system is $`\gamma =R/R_D`$, where $`R_D`$ is the Rossby deformation radius. The results presented here were obtained with $`\gamma =4`$. The vortex then undergoes baroclinic instability which gives rise to splitting into two new vortices.

The experimental vortex is dynamically similar to an oceanic vortex with a radius of the order of $`100`$ km at mid-latitude (the radius of deformation is typically 25 km). In the experiments, vortex instability takes place in typically 20 rotation periods of the tank, corresponding to about 30 days at mid-latitude (taking the inverse of the Coriolis parameter as the relevant time unit). The ratio of the vertical to the horizontal scales is distorted by a factor of 10 in the experiments. This is not important provided that the hydrostatic approximation is valid.

The velocity field is measured in each layer every 11 s, which is half the observed period of inertial oscillations. Since we are interested in the slow balanced dynamics, we eliminate the residual inertial oscillations by averaging two successive fields for data assimilation. The velocity data obtained are assimilated in the numerical model at each grid point in the measurement domain (2.5 m $`\times `$ 2.5 m). In the numerical simulations, the system is modelled as a two-layer fluid with a standard biharmonic dissipation term and the simulation domain is 5 m wide (i.e. twice as large as the measurement domain) in order to avoid spurious confinement by boundaries. The simulations are performed using 1002 or 2002 grid points in each layer.

A good fit is then obtained between the model and the experimental data, as shown in Fig. 2. The irregular shape of the vortex, the position of its center and the presence of residual currents in its vicinity are well represented. The elongation of the vortex and the formation of two new, smaller vortices are also well reproduced. Data assimilation provides us with an indirect measurement of the interface depth, also shown in Fig. 2. No significant inertio-gravity wave is excited in the simulation after data assimilation is performed, showing that the interface position is well determined, without any spurious imbalance effect.

The initial development of baroclinic instability is well described by the growth of mode two (calulated using a polar Fourier decomposition of the radial velocity field along a circle of radius R). Excellent agreement between the model and the observation is obtained when data assimilation is performed, as shown in Fig. 3. The growth of this mode is considerably delayed in the model without data assimilation, as the initial perturbation is smaller than in the experiments.

The rms distance between the forecast and measured velocity fields is plotted in Fig. 4. After a few assimilation cycles, this distance remains of the order of 0.6 mm.s-1, close to the experimental errors (3% of the maximum velocity, i.e. about 0.5 mm.s-1). Similar agreement is obtained in both layers.

The state vector obtained at a given time can be used as an initial condition to test the free model. To do so, we stop the assimilation at time $`t=75s`$ and measure the growth of the rms distance between the laboratory experiments and the free model run with this new initial state, as shown in Fig. 4. This growth can be due either to the amplification of small initial errors, or to limitations of the dynamical model. It is actually possible to show that the sensitivity to the initial condition is not the dominant effect, as observed in Fig. 5. It is clear in this figure that the divergence of the model from the experimental reality is not sensitive, over the short term, to small variations in the initial condition. The model diverges from reality on a timescale of around 3000s, which is about 30 times the typical advection timescale of the flow $`2R/U100s`$ (where $`U1`$ cm.s-1 is the order of magnitude of the velocity within the flow). The model error is therefore about $`1/30`$ of the dominant advective term. This error is actually small but seems to be systematic.

The results are similar when 1002 or 2002 numerical grid points are used in each layer (see Fig. 4, 5 and 6). The effect of dissipation and friction was also investigated in various test runs. The rms distance to observations obtained in the most representative of these test runs is plotted in Fig. 4. The results show that the model errors persist when the numerical viscosity coefficient is changed or when an Ekman friction term is added in the momentum equation. We notice that, in all cases, vortex splitting occurs faster than in the experimental reality (Fig. 6). It is therefore likely that the basic simplifying assumptions of the hydrostatic, two-layer shallow-water formulation, rather than resolution, dissipation or friction problems, are responsible for the limitations of the model. For instance, the interface between the layers may have a finite thickness in reality, leading to effects that cannot be reproduced in the two-layer simulation. Also, the hydrostatic approximation may slightly enhance the growth of baroclinic instability, as shown in the theoretical study of non-hydrostatic effects by Stone (1971).

In the last stage of our testing procedure, we perform assimilation using only upper layer data and check how the behavior of the lower layer is reconstructed. The results are shown in Fig. 6. Although some local discrepancies are observed in the bottom layer compared to the measured velocity field, the global flow field is well reproduced.

## 4 Conclusion

The results reported in the present letter illustrate the interest of an experimental test-bed for operational oceanography :

(i) Thanks to data assimilation, a complete description of the experimental flow fields is obtained, including the non-measured variables. Any physical quantity can then be calculated. Data assimilation can thus be used as a complementary tool for experimental investigation and physical analysis of the flow. For instance, potential vorticity anomalies can be calculated, providing quantities which are generally impossible to measure but which are crucial to a better understanding of the physics of the baroclinic instability.

(ii) The obtained flow field can be used as an initial condition to test the numerical model. The divergence of the numerical model from reality is, in principle, caused either by the sensitivity of system evolution to the initial condition, or by the model error itself. We have checked that, in our test cases sensitivity to weak variations in the initial condition is not the dominant effect. This makes it possible to quantify the systematic forecast errors. Thus, even weak model errors can be detected, of the order of 1/30 of the dominant inertial term in the present case. Such a weak model limitation would be probably much more difficult to detect in complex oceanic applications. Test runs were performed to show that these model errors are not caused by resolution, dissipation or friction problems. The most probable sources of error are the hydrostatic approximation or the two-layer formulation of the equations. Further work is needed to test this hypothesis.

(iii) The accuracy of the assimilation scheme can also be analysed in detail. The present study shows, for instance, how the assimilation scheme is able to reconstruct the velocity field of the lower layer from observation of the upper layer. This is clearly of practical interest because vertical extrapolation of the measured surface quantities is a great challenge in oceanography (see for instance Hurlburt 1986).

Many other tests can of course be performed with the available data using various dynamical models and/or assimilation schemes. Possible improvement by non-hydrostatic models would be of particular interest. The study of other processes is in progress, involving the instability of boundary currents, gravity currents on a slope and current/topography interaction. The measurements obtained from these experiments are available to other researchers on the Coriolis web site (www.coriolis-legi.org) as a data base to test numerical models and assimilation schemes.

This study has been sponsored by EPSHOM, contract Nr. 9228. We acknowledge the kind support of Y. Morel for the implementation of the MICOM model, and of J.M. Brankart, P. Brasseur and C.E. Testut for the implementation of the SEEK assimilation scheme.


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# XMM-Newton Spectroscopy of Four Bright ULXs in the Antennae Galaxies (NGC 4038/4039)

## 1. Introduction

ULXs are off-nuclear point-like X-ray sources in nearby normal galaxies (Fabbiano & Trinchieri 1987, Fabbiano 1989). The X-ray flux variability observed in many ULXs (see, e.g., La Parola et al. 2001, Kubota et al. 2001) signifies that the class is likely dominated by accreting compact objects. The high luminosities measured from ULXs by definition exceeds the Eddington luminosity for a neutron star accreting isotropically; many exceed (sometimes by a factor of 10 or more) the Eddington luminosity expected for a $`10M_{}`$ black hole.

Theoretical models for ULXs suggest that these sources may be stellar-mass sources with relativistically-beamed emission (Koerding, Falcke, & Markoff 2002), stellar-mass sources with anisotropic emission (King et al. 2001), or intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). Observations with Chandra and XMM-Newton — and especially multi-wavelength observing schemes — are beginning to reveal that no single model for ULXs may describe the entire class. Rather, the class may include examples of each possibility described above (see recent reviews by King 2003, Fabbiano & White 2003 and Miller & Colbert 2003). NGC 5408 X-1 may be an example of a stellar mass source with relativistically-beamed emission (Kaaret et al. 2003); it is also possible that the spectrum can be described in part with a cool disk, which would indicate an IMBH. Many of the ULXs in the Antennae (there are 9 sources with $`L_X10^{39}`$ erg/s for a distance of 19 Mpc; Fabbiano, Zezas, & Murray 2001) may be stellar-mass sources with anisotropic emission, because their average distances from the nearest star clusters suggest run-away binaries and tend to exclude very massive systems, although capture of a companion from a primordial IMBH cannot be excluded (Zezas & Fabbiano 2002). Finally, sources with high luminosities but low disk temperatures may be IMBHs; NGC 1313 X-1 and X-2 (Miller et al. 2003a) may be examples.

At present, the anisotropic emission model (King et al. 2001) may be the most compelling description for many ULXs. It is motivated in part by the unusually large number of ULXs resolved in the Antennae with Chandra, that suggest a link with the actively forming stellar population. This conclusion is supported by the association of large numbers of ULXs with active star-forming galaxies (e.g. NGC 3256, Lira et al. 2001; NGC 4485/90 Roberts et al. 2002; NGC 1068, Smith & Wilson 2003). However, the King et al. (2001) scenario may not be able to describe sources at the highest end of the ULX luminosity distribution (e.g., the sources with cool accretion disks mentioned above; see also Strohmayer & Mushotzky 2003).

In this paper we report the result of XMM-Newton observations of the Antennae, which provide for the first time high-quality medium-resolution X-ray spectra of four bright ULXs in this merger system. These data can be used to constrain the emission model, as it was done in the case of the discovery of low-temperature components in the NGC 1313 ULXs (Miller et al. 2003). The spatial resolution of XMM-Newton is approximately ten times more coarse than that of Chandra, so that robust spectra can only be obtained from the brightest sources in targets with crowded fields like the Antennae. The procedure used to reduce our data and extract spectra is described in Section 2. In Section 3, we present the results of fitting simple spectral models to four bright ULXs. Finally, in Section 4, we discuss our results and their impact on our understanding of ULXs within the context of models for their nature and anomalous luminosity.

## 2. Data Reduction and Analysis

The Antennae (NGC 4038/4039) were observed with XMM-Newton for 40.9 ksec on 8 January 2002, starting at 22:03:37 (UT). We used only the EPIC data for this analysis. The EPIC MOS-1 and MOS-2 cameras were operated in “PrimeFullWindow” mode and the EPIC-pn camera was operated in “PrimeFullWindowExtended” mode. The “medium” optical blocking filter was used for for all three cameras..

The XMM-Newton reduction and analysis suite SAS version 5.3.3 was used to filter the standard pipeline event lists, detect sources within the field, and make spectra and responses. After filtering against soft proton flares, the net “good time” for each camera was 22.6 ksec, 25.6 ksec, and 25.7 ksec for the pn, MOS-1, and MOS-2 cameras, respectively.

The ULX population in the Antennae is concentrated near the center of the interacting galaxies, which is a region with a dense source population. By relying upon the Chandra source detections, we determined that many sources are blended or too close to other bright sources to reliably extract a spectrum. Fortunately, at least four ULXs are well-separated from others, and/or bright enough that counts within a reasonable extraction region should be strongly dominated by the bright source. These sources are X-11, X-16, X-37, and X-44 (as numbered and identified by Zezas et al. 2002a) and are shown in Figure 1.

We used circular regions centered on the known Chandra positions to extract source counts for these ULXs. The recipes described in the MPE “cookbook” were used to filter the event lists. These parameters were chosen as follows: we set “FLAG=0” to reject events from bad pixels and events too close to the CCD chip edges; patterns 0-4 were selected for the pn camera, and patterns 0-12 for the MOS-1 and MOS-2 cameras; finally, the pn spectral channels were grouped by a factor of 5 and the MOS-1 and MOS-2 channels by a factor of 15.

For X-11, X-16, and X-44, source counts were extracted within a 12” radius; due to the proximity of a nearby source a 9” extraction radius was used for X-37. Flux from source X-13 — a transient soft source (Fabbiano et al. 2003b) — might contaminate the flux extracted from X-11. However, no soft emission component is required to describe the spectra of X-11 (see Section 3), so it is likely that X-13 was in a low flux state. Background spectra were not extracted for two reasons. First, for XMM-Newton, approximately 40% of the on-axis point source encircled energy lies between radii of 15 and 50 arcseconds. Extracting a background spectrum in an annulus for subtraction from the source spectrum would primarily act to subtract source counts. Second, the central region of the Antennae galaxies is a crowded field; adjacent regions may include emission from point sources that are weaker than the brightest ULXs and prevent measurement of a true (diffuse) background.

Observations with Chandra suggest that the diffuse background near to the brightest ULXs should be less than 1% of the source counts, however, and so should not significantly affect fits to the source spectra. Moreover, sources resolved with Chandra that are nearby to the four brightest ULXs considered in this work were previously found to generally be one to two orders of magnitude fainter than the ULXs (Zezas et al. 2002a). Given the fall-off in encircled energy noted above, flux from nearby point sources is likely to be less than 5% of the flux in the ULX extraction regions. See Section 3, however, for a brief discussion of the observed local background, which is more complex than these simple estimates would indcate. Response files were generated for each spectrum from each camera using the SAS tools “rmfgen” and “arfgen”. Prior to fitting, the spectra were grouped to require at least 10 counts per bin to ensure the validity of $`\chi ^2`$ statistics. Grouping to require more counts per bin did not significantly change the fit results.

The ULX light curves (in the 0.3–10.0 keV band, with 1.0 ksec bins) are well-described by a constant flux level. We therefore considered only the time-averaged spectra from each ULX. Model spectra were fit to the data using XSPEC version 11.2 (Arnaud 1996). The pn, MOS-1, and MOS-2 spectra of each source were fit jointly, allowing an overall normalizing constant to account for small differences in the broad-band flux calibration of the cameras. Values obtained for the constant indicate that at the time of observation, the pn and MOS-1 flux calibrations differ by less than 5%. The MOS-2 flux calibration differed by less than 5% from the MOS-1 camera, but may have differed from the pn at the 10% level. Systematic errors were not added to the spectra prior to fitting. Models were fit to the EPIC spectra in the 0.3–10.0 keV band. Errors quoted in this work are at the 90% confidence level for one interesting paramter. Using the SAS tool “epatplot” and the HEASARC tool “PIMMS” we found that the effects of photon pile-up were negligible in this observation.

## 3. Results

An examination of the individual spectra did not reveal compelling evidence for emission or absorption lines; where a possible feature is seen in one spectrum (pn, MOS-1, or MOS-2), in each case there is no feature evident in the other spectra. This strongly suggests that any narrow deviations from a continuum spectrum are statistical fluctuations. We therefore restricted our modeling to continuum components. For each model, the “phabs” model in XSPEC was used to describe the equivalent neutral hydrogen column density along our line of sight. We fixed the lower bound of the equivalent neutral hydrogen column density to the Galactic value ($`N_H=4.0\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$, Dickey & Lockman 1990). The results of fits with a number of simple models are listed in Table 1, and the results are described in detail below.

Prior fits to a number of ULX spectra (not sources within the Antennae) obtained with ASCA with the multicolor disk (MCD) blackbody model (Mitsuda et al. 1984) suggested that hot accretion disks may be a fundamental accretion flow structure in ULXs (Makishima et al. 2000). Fits to X-11, X-16, X-37, and X-44 yielded high disk color temperatures ($`1.0\mathrm{keV}<kT<1.7\mathrm{keV}`$), similar to prior ASCA results. However, this model does not yield an acceptable fit to any of the spectra. Other single-component models and two-component models are strongly preferred statistically (see below). This may suggest that X-11, X-16, X-37, and X-44 may be different from ULXs such as Dwingeloo X-1 (see Makishima et al. 2000). It is possible, however, that the apparent differences are partially due to the better sensitivity of XMM-Newton.

Significantly better fits are obtained when the spectra are fit with either a power-law or thermal Bremsstrahlung model. In systems accreting at high rates, most of the flux phenomenologically described as a power-law likely arises from the Compton-upscattering of relatively cool disk photons in an optically-thin corona (see, e.g., Titarchuk 1994). A thermal Bremsstrahlung spectrum is consistent with expectations for an optically-thick, geometrically thick disk which may have a significant advective component (see, e.g., Ebisuzaki et al. 2001, Begelman 2002). Statistically acceptable fits to the spectra of X-11 and X-16 are obtained with either continuum model (see Table 1). The spectra of X-37 are not acceptably described with either model. A bremsstrahlung model is a better description of the spectra from X-44 than a power-law model. The fits to X-11, X-16, X-37, and X-44 with a power-law model and associated data/model ratios are shown in Figures 2–5. The best-fit models for the spectra from each ULX are shown in Figure 6.

The addition of a simple blackbody component to a power-law yielded cool temperatures and marginal statistical improvements to the fits. However, disk temperatures certainly fall off with radius (see, e.g., Frank, King, & Raine 2002), and are more properly modeled as a series of blackbody annuli as approximated by the MCD model. A single blackbody component might reasonably approximate a neutron star surface; however, the luminosities inferred in these sources are two orders of magnitude above the Eddington limit for a neutron star, which is the basis for the the often-made assumption that ULXs harbor accreting black holes.

Similarly, the addition of a low-temperature diffuse thermal emission component (e.g., a MEKAL plasma) to a power-law gives marginal statistical improvement when fitting the ULX spectra. However, this model is likely not justified. Observations of black hole binaries in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds do not reveal evidence of optically-thin thermal emission local to the systems through plasma emission line spectra. It is particularly interesting to note that such spectra have not been revealed even in systems with high mass (O or B type) companions, given the emerging links between ULXs and star-formation (for reviews, see Fabbiano & White 2003 and Miller & Colbert 2003). Observations of Cygnus X-1 (O9.7 Iab companion, Gies & Bolton 1982) with the Chandra High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer have revealed a rich absorption spectrum in all states (Schulz et al. 2002, Marshall et al. 2002, Miller et al. 2003b, Feng et al. 2003). LMC X-1 (O7 III companion, Cowley et al. 1995) is often observed at luminosities exceeding $`10^{39}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Wilms et al. 2001), but even Chandra/HETGS spectra have failed to reveal emission lines from an optically-thin plasma (Cui et al. 2002). Moreover, the diffuse emission in the Antennae which can be described in terms of optically-thin thermal models (Fabbiano et al. 2003a) is expected to be two orders of magnitude less than the flux from a ULX.

Finally, we considered a model consisting of MCD and power-law components. This simple model is often applied to stellar-mass black hole binaries in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds. Moreover, as noted above, it has a stronger physical motivation than simple blackbody plus power-law or optically-thin thermal emission plus power-law models. The MCD plus power-law model permits an interesting comparison to recent ULX spectral results in which MCD color temperatures 5–10 times lower than commonly-measured in stellar-mass black holes may imply IMBHs since $`TM_{BH}^{1/4}`$ in the MCD model (Miller et al. 2003; see also Kaaret et al. 2003). While this model is not required to describe the spectra of X-11 or X-16, it provides a marginally better fit, and represents a statistically better fit to X-37 at the $`3.5\sigma `$ level of confidence based on an F-test. However, this two component model provides no improvement for X-44. In each case, the color temperature obtained is consistent with a cool disk (the range of temperatures obtained is $`0.11\mathrm{keV}<kT<0.21\mathrm{keV}`$). The power-law component represents a significant fraction of the 0.3–10.0 keV flux in this model. This may suggest that the gas in any optically-thin accretion flow geometry is very hot; if so, it is unlikely that the potentially cool thermal emission we have characterized with a disk model is actually due to local illumination of diffuse gas. This two-component model is the best description of the spectra of X-37; for this source we measure $`kT=0.13\pm 0.02`$ keV.

If color temperatures of $`kT0.51.0`$ keV may be taken as typical of stellar-mass black holes near to or above $`L_X/L_{Edd.}0.1`$, then color temperatures in the $`kT0.110.21`$ keV range may indicate black holes with masses in the range of $`30M_{}M_{BH}6800M_{}`$ in these ULXs. The two-component MCD plus power-law model provides the best fit to X-37; for this source, black hole masses in the range $`120M_{}M_{BH}7000M_{}`$ (90% confidence, including uncertainties in $`kT_{X37}`$ and stellar-mass black hole disk color temperatures in the range $`0.5\mathrm{keV}kT1.0\mathrm{keV}`$) may be suggested. It is worth noting, however, that the model used represents only a $`3.5\sigma `$ improvement to the spectra of X-37, far less than the $`8\sigma `$ improvement over single-component fits to NGC 1313 X-1 ($`kT_{NGC1313X1}=0.15_{0.04}^{+0.02}`$ keV; Miller et al. 2003).

Given the impact that cool soft components can have on models for the nature of a given ULX, it is worth carefully re-examining the question of local background contamination. The Antennae are known to have a complex, spatially variable diffuse emission component (Fabbiano et al. 2004). To investigate this more fully and to test our assumptions regarding background contamination (see Section 2), we extracted a number of local background regions inside of, along, and outside of the core ring of emission seen in Figure 1. Outside of this ring and in some locations within the ring, the total background (in counts per area) is only 3–8% of the flux in our source extraction regions. In other locations – particularly at points along the inner edge of the ring – the background can be as high as 20–30% of flux in our source extraction regions. The intensity and spectrum of the local background varies considerably, consistent with Fabbiano et al. (2004). In view of the complex diffuse background, the possibility of a cool disk component in X-37 must be regarded more cautiously than in cases like NGC 1313 X-1 and X-2.

## 4. Discussion

We have analyzed the XMM-Newton/EPIC spectra of four bright ULX sources (X-11, X-16, X-37, and X-44; as numbered by Zezas et al. 2002a). The spectra of two sources (X-16, X-11) can be well described by a single power-law ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{X11}=1.48`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{X16}=1.9`$). One of the other sources (X-44) is best described by a thermal bremsstrahlung model ($`kT=3.7`$ keV) while the fourth source (X-37) may require two spectral components: a power-law ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{X37}=2.0`$) and a MCD model ($`kT_{X37}=0.13`$ keV). Here we comment on the implications of these results for the nature of these sources and the general ULX population.

The coadded spectrum of the ULXs detected in the first Chandra observations of the Antennae was well represented by a composite MCD/power-law model with a temperature of 1.13 keV (Zezas et al. 2002b), while similar fits of the XMM-Newton spectra give temperatures in the $`0.10.2`$ keV range. This difference is most probably due to the fact that the Chandra results are for the coadded spectra of 18 sources, while here we study the detailed spectra of individual sources. In fact a comparison with the individual Chandra spectral fits for these sources (Zezas et al. 2002b) shows that the photon indices from the Chandra power-law fits are slightly flatter, but consistent within the $`2\sigma `$ level, with those derived from the XMM-Newton fits. Similarly, the values of $`N_H`$ from the Chandra fits are slightly higher than those derived from the XMM-Newton fits, but again consistent within the $`2\sigma `$ level. The discrepancy in $`N_H`$ may be due to the fact that the degradation of the Chandra/ACIS quantum efficiency was not taken into account by Zezas et al. (2002b). We note that no flux variability above the $`3\sigma `$ level has been detected between the two observations.

The thermal bremsstrahlung model that best describes the spectrum of X-44 is broadly consistent with expectations for a “slim” disk around a stellar-mass black hole (Watarai, Mizuno, & Mineshige 2001), or perhaps a thin disk radiating above the Eddington limit due to photon bubble instabilities (Begelman 2002). Additional sensitive observations of X-44 may be able to confirm or reject these disk models by determining if the spectrum we have measured is typical.

The spectra of the other ULXs are even more difficult to parse. The power-law indices measured from X-11, X-16, and X-37 are well within the range commonly observed in Galactic stellar-mass black holes (for reviews, see, Tanaka & Lewin 1995 and McClintock & Remillard 2003). If these sources were “microblazars” (e.g., Kording, Falcke, & Markoff 2002), in which a jet axis coinciding with the line of sight might boost the flux through beaming, the same beaming should act to create a significantly harder power-law spectrum. In addition, beaming should tend to create strong short-timescale flux variations, which are also not seen in these sources. While very sensitive optical and radio limits are needed to more definitively rule-out a microblazar interpretation (and, this is complicated greatly by the distance of the Antennae galaxies), the X-ray properties of these sources are certainly inconsistent with a microblazar scenario.

Another possibility is that X-11, X-16, and X-37 are stellar-mass black holes in the “very high” state (see the reviews mentioned previously; see also Kubota, Done, & Makishima 2002). Certainly, if ULXs behave like Galactic stellar-mass black holes, it is reasonable to expect that this state holds at the luminosities observed. Whereas Cygnus X-1 gets softer when it brightens in the soft X-ray band (below 10 keV), X-11 and X-16 have been observed to get harder when they get brighter (Fabbiano et al. 2003b); this is sometimes referred to as microquasar-like variability since the very high state is spectrally harder than the high/soft state. However, at high accretion rates a hot disk component ($`kT1`$ keV, or higher) is always important, even in cases where the power-law component appears to dominate (e.g., Zycki, Done, & Smith 1999). The spectra of X-11, X-16, and X-37 cannot be described by fits consisting only of hot MCD components. Moreover, as noted previously, when MCD plus power-law models are fit to the spectra, cool disks temperatures are measured. Identifying X-11, X-16, and X-37 as stellar-mass black holes in a very high state similar to that defined in Galactic systems is therefore very problematic.

The $`kT=0.13\pm 0.02`$ keV disk component in the spectrum of X-37 — if due to a standard disk around an IMBH — implies a mass in the $`1207000M_{}`$ range. Similar temperatures have been measured in the spectra of NGC 1313 X-1 and NGC 1313 X-2 (Miller et al. 2003a), and NGC 5408 X-1 (Kaaret et al. 2003). As noted in Section 3, however, it is possible that the complex, spatially variable diffuse emission in the Antennae has contaminated the spectrum of X-37; part of the soft component may be background flux. The spatial resolution afforded by XMM-Newton makes it unlikely that future observations with XMM-Newton will determine the nature of the apparent soft component in X-37 with greater certainty. Analysis of new, long Chandra observations, or future Chandra observations, may be able to make such a determination.

A comparison of the Chandra position of X-37 and the positions of its nearby star-clusters shows that that there are no star-clusters down to $`m_V=23mag`$ within a radius of 1.7” (Zezas et al. 2002b), which translates to a physical distance of 156 pc ($`d=19.0`$ Mpc). Following Zezas et al. (2002b), if this separation is due to a supernova kick to the system, and assuming that a) conservation of momentum, b) the same mechanism imparting kicks to neutron star systems is active here, and c) the X-ray binary becomes active in the end of the donor’s main sequence lifetime, we can set an upper limit to its mass of $`6M_{}`$ if the compact object has a mass of $`120M_{}`$; this corresponds to a star of spectral type B5 or later. However, the large mass ratio between the putative IMBH and the donor makes this type of system prone to transient behavior. Therefore, if this object is an IMBH, then there may be a large population of such systems throughout the Antennae (relatively few may be observed at any given moment, depending upon their duty cycles).

King and Pounds (2003) have proposed a model wherein the cool thermal emission revealed in some ULXs may be due to an optically-thick, quasi-spherical outflow originating approximately 100 Schwarzschild radii from a stellar-mass black hole accreting at a rate close to the Eddington limit. As noted previously, when stellar-mass black holes are near peak luminosity, they are found in the very high state. A number of hallmark features of the very high state clearly reveal the inner disk, and are plainly inconsistent with an optically-thick outflow obscuring the innermost accretion environment (for a recent review, see McClintock & Remillard 2003). First, a hot thermal accretion disk component ($`kT1`$ keV, or above) is always observed in the very high state. Second, high frequency ($`\mathrm{few}\times 100`$ Hz) quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) — which are connected to the Keplerian orbital frequency in the inner disk, to resonances in the inner disk in a Kerr spacetime, or both — are preferentially found in the very high state (some are also found in the intermediate state, which is likely a lower-flux version of the very high state). Third, broad, relativistic Fe K$`\alpha `$ emission lines due to hard X-ray emission irradiating the inner disk are preferentially revealed in the very high state. The model suggested by King & Pounds (2003) also requires any hard X-ray emission to originate in shocks outside of the optically-thick outflow. This is again inconsistent with observations. High frequency QPOs (and, lower frequency QPOs) are a higher fraction of the rms noise at higher energy, suggesting a fundamental connection between inner disk frequencies and the hard X-ray emitting region. Relativistic Fe K$`\alpha `$ emission lines also require the source of hard X-ray emission to be very central in the accretion flow. Fourth, the photon index of the power-law components often observed in bright ULXs is harder than is generally found in the very high state of Galactic black holes (where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }2.4`$ is common, McClintock & Remillard 2003, Roberts et al. 2004). Finally, high inclination “dipping” X-ray binaries clearly require that the hard component in these systems be fairly compact and central. Clearly, if the King & Pounds (2003) model is to hold, the source state required cannot be like those already observed in Galactic black holes in their highest flux phases.

In summary, the spectra we have obtained do not allow for definitive conclusions regarding the nature of the four brightest ULXs in the Antennae galaxies. However, the spectra are of sufficient quality to imply that the ULXs in the Antennae may not all have a common nature. These results provide further evidence that models for the ULX phenomenon based on a single source population may not be sufficient to describe the entire class.

J.M.M. acknowledges support from the NSF through its Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellowship Program. We thank the anonymous referee for helpful suggestions. This work is based on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and the US (NASA). This work made use of the High Energy Astrophysics Archive Research Center (HEASARC), operated for NASA by GSFC.