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# Cosmological constraints from the cluster contribution to the power spectrum of the soft X-ray background. New evidence for a low 𝜎₈

## 1 Introduction

Galaxy clusters are a useful probe of cosmological models. In recent years there has been a wide variety of work based on the study of the population of galaxy clusters as a way to constrain cosmological models. The mass function derived from N-body simulations as well as analytical approaches like the Press-Schechter mass function show a strong dependence of the mass function on the cosmological model. By using the local abundance of clusters, it is possible to set strong constraints on the $`\sigma _8\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ plane.

However, both parameters are degenerate and one needs to go to higher redshifts in order to break this degeneracy. Combining the low redshift mass function with the high redshift mass function it is possible to break the degeneracy in $`\sigma _8\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and determine both parameters (Bahcall & Fan 1998). Nevertheless, a measurement of the mass function (especially at high redshift) is very difficult to achieve since the mass of a cluster cannot be measured directly but requires modelling of the observations. Direct measurement of the mass requires the use of sophisticated techniques such as gravitational lensing (and high quality data) or tracing the mass via the X-ray emission under the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium.

An alternative approach can be devised by transforming masses into temperatures or luminosities and using the equivalent temperature function or luminosity function instead of the mass function. The drawback of this last approach is that in this case a $`TM`$ relation or a $`L_xM`$ relation needs to be assumed. These scaling relations suffer from scatter and they are not yet very well established. Even in the case where these relations are well known, there are still several systematic effects which are difficult to be accounted for. For instance, the luminosity of a cluster depends on the cosmological model since luminosities are obtained from the measured flux times the square of the luminosity distance. In the case of X-rays, the X-ray emission is concentrated in the centre of the cluster (due to the $`n^2`$ dependence with $`n`$ being the electron density) and most of the emission coming from the external parts of the cluster is not detected. In order to compute the total luminosity of the cluster one needs to assume a profile for the electron density and extrapolate the observed emission to the outer parts. When using the mass, temperature, flux or luminosity functions in cosmological studies, a precise knowledge of the selection function of the survey is required since the observed function will be compared with the theoretical one in which the integration of the mass (or temperature, flux, luminosity) starts at a minimum value (as a function of $`z`$) defined by the selection function of the survey. Usually this selection function is inhomogeneous due, e.g., to different exposures in different sky directions. This makes the modelling of the theoretical mass (temperature, flux or luminosity) function very complicated. Also due to the selection function of the survey, the number of clusters observed (i.e, detected above some detection threshold) represents only a small fraction of the population of clusters. This means that cosmological studies based on the mass (temperature, flux of luminosity) function are based only on the tip of the iceberg and therefore subject to large variations due to small number statistics.

In this work we propose the use of the power spectrum as an alternative cosmological test which is less affected by the problems pointed out above. Our attempt is not to measure the power spectrum of galaxy clusters (see for instance Schuecker et al. 2001) but to use the power spectrum of the diffuse X-ray background as an upper limit (see Fabian & Barcons 1992 for a discussion of the X-ray background). This approach has several advantages over previous work.
(i) First, since we use the diffuse power spectrum as an upper limit, we do not need to detect the clusters. The only thing we need to do is to model the X-ray cluster power spectrum and compare it with the measured one. The cluster power spectrum must remain below the one due to the global fluctuations of the diffuse cosmic X-ray background (Barcons & Fabian 1988, Carrera et al. 1997, Barcons et al. 1998, Yamamoto & Sugiyama 1998).
(ii) In modelling the cluster power spectrum we do not need to know the selection function since all the clusters (detected and undetected) will contribute to the power spectrum.
(iii) The previous point has a very interesting feature. We are not only sensitive to the tip of the iceberg but to the whole iceberg itself! This fact has interesting applications in studies like pre-heating (see e.g Voit et al. 2002) which are particularly important in the low-mass regime where clusters are difficult to detect.
(iv) Since we do not need to detect the individual clusters we are not affected by any extrapolation of the measured flux (needed to get the total luminosity or mass) making our results more independent of the assumed profile of the clusters.
(v) The power spectrum is scale dependent. Previous work has used the energy spectrum as an upper limit to constrain the emission from galaxy clusters (see e.g Wu et al. 2001). However, in these studies the measured emission is contaminated by the diffuse emission coming from the Galaxy. This is equivalent to studying just the monopole of the multipole decomposition. On the contrary, the power spectrum can disentangle the diffuse from the point-source emission since the diffuse emission will contribute significantly only to the large scales (low multipoles) while the emission from point-sources will dominate the smaller scales (intermediate-high multipoles).

In the next sections we will describe briefly the power spectrum of RASS diffuse emission (section 2), we will define the model to compute the cluster power spectrum (section 3) and we will constrain the cosmological model (section 4). In section 5 we revise the assumptions made in the previous sections and check how the results change when we change the model. Finally, we discuss our results in section 7 and summarise in section 8. Throughout the paper (unless otherwise stated), the Hubble constant is given as 100 $`h`$ km s-1 Mpc.

## 2 The power spectrum of ROSAT

The use of the spherical harmonics decomposition of the intensity of the X-ray background as a means to measure or constrain cosmological parameters was first proposed by Lahav, Piran & Treyer (1997). The emphasis was mostly on the contribution of the clustering of point sources (mostly AGNs). They focused their analysis on the low multipoles ($`l<10`$). That sort of study has the disadvantage that the physics that leads to the formation and clustering of these exceptional sources is not simple and it is hidden in an unknown bias parameter. Indeed, Treyer et al. (1998) conducted that analysis on the 2-10 keV data from the HEAO-1 A2 experiment and found some interesting constraints on the bias parameter of X-ray sources, but no direct implications on the cosmological parameters themselves. The use of a softer band (but not heavily contaminated by the Galaxy) to constrain the cluster power spectrum and derive cosmological parameters is a much more promising task, as the physics of the cluster formation is much simpler and closer to the Cosmological model.

The harmonic power spectrum of the diffuse $`ROSAT`$ All-Sky Survey (RASS, see Snowden et al. 1997) X-ray background has been computed up to $`l1000`$ in a previous work (Sliwa et al. 2001). In that work the authors computed the power spectrum in different areas (subsamples) of the sky centred in the north pole. They also studied the effects of the data binning in pixels and calculated the error estimates due to limited counting statistics, instrumental background subtraction, and cosmic variance.

On the other hand, the power spectrum of clusters in X-rays has been recently measured using $`ROSAT`$ data (see Schuecker et al. 2001 for an estimation based on the REFLEX survey and Borgani et al. 1999 for an estimation of its Fourier transform, the two point correlation function, from the XBACs cluster sample). That measured cluster power spectrum has been also used to constrain the cosmological model (Schuecker et al. 2002). In that work, the modelling of the observed cluster power spectrum (above certain limiting flux) is a complicated procedure which involves several assumptions (such as the $`L_xM`$ relation which was taken from Reiprich & Böhringer 2002). Results obtained in a different study (Viana et al. 2002) seem to indicate that there could be an inconsistency between the REFLEX luminosity function and the $`L_xM`$ relation obtained by Reiprich & Böhringer (2002).
In this work, instead of detecting clusters and finding the power spectrum from the sample of detected clusters, we will use the RASS power spectrum to set an upper limit on the cosmological model. This approach has several advantages outlined in the previous section. In brief, we recall that the main advantage of this work will be a better control of the systematic errors.

We have re-estimated the power spectrum in an independent way (compared with the estimation of Sliwa et al. 2001). In our process, we have repixelized the RASS data using the package HEALPIX111available at http://www.eso.org/science/healpix. Copyright 1997 by Eric Hivon and Krzysztof M. Gorski. All rights reserved. and computed the power spectrum with the same package. HEALPIX was originally designed to analyse mega-pixel CMB data and is optimised for the computation of the harmonic power spectrum.
The pixel size of the RASS maps is 12 arcmin and the maps are given in different bands. We choose the band R6 which is the one in which the cluster signal is expected to be at its maximum compared to the other components (local bubble, galactic diffuse emission, extragalactic AGN’s). This band is also the best in terms of the instrumental response and background contamination. We repixelise the RASS in HEALPIX using a pixel size of $`13.7`$ arcmin (Nside = 256) and compute the power spectrum with the HEALPIX subroutine anafast. Nside = 256 gives the closest HEALPIX pixelisation to the original ROSAT’s one. Due to the large pixel size, we can compute the power spectrum up to only $`l=500`$. Beyond that point we do not have information about smaller scales. With this pixel size, the effect of the PSF of $`ROSAT`$ becomes negligible and we will not include it in our analysis. However, at smaller scales, the $`ROSAT`$ PSF can have an important effect on the measured power spectrum.
In figure 1 we show the RASS data in the R6 band after repixelisation with HEALPIX. Several features can be observed in the map, the most prominent one being the Galactic plane. The diffuse X-ray maps used in this work have been cleaned of the most prominent point sources (see Snowden et al. 1997). The brightest point sources (Voges et al. 1999, Voges et al. 2000) were removed making use of the full resolution of the PSPC detector ($`1.6^{}\times 1.6^{}`$ pixel size) using a minimum source-excision radius of $`3.5^{}`$. 50000 sources where removed above a threshold of 0.02 cts/s in the R6+R7 band. Below this threshold, there are still many point sources which could contribute to the power spectrum. In the maps, there are are several strips with no data (black bands in figure 1). There are also many pixels with 0 count-rate, specially in the southern hemisphere.

We are interested in computing an estimate of the power spectrum in an area of the sky which is large enough to avoid cosmic variance fluctuations but also that has a low foreground contamination and low noise level. The contamination level is determined basically by the amount of Galactic emission. We should then avoid regions with strong galactic emission. The noise level is determined by the exposure time. We should then concentrate on those regions having low galactic emission and large integration times. We have selected a region with $`b>40^{}`$ and $`l[70^{},250^{}]`$ (totalling $`2400`$ deg2) as the optimal region for our analysis (see figure 1). Several groups have selected also this region for their studies of the X-ray background (Soltan et al. 1996, Miyaji et al. 1996, Kneissl et al. 1996, Sliwa et al. 2001).

In figure 2 we show the power spectrum in different areas of the sky. We have represented the power spectrum in different situations where we exclude (or include) the galactic plane ($`|b|`$ above or below $`40^{}`$). The galaxy contributes on large scales (low $`l`$’s) but also introduces power at intermediate $`l`$’s. The power spectrum calculated in our optimal area is shown as a thick solid line. In this case, no structure due to the Galaxy is seen, suggesting that this area may be dominated by the cosmological signal (galaxy clusters and faint AGNs). The optimal area has also a very low $`N_H`$ column density, typically $`2\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. The absorption of the X-ray flux by this column density is only a few percent in most of the pixels in this area, an effect that can be safely neglected.

## 3 The cluster power spectrum

We have used the halo model to compute the power spectrum due to galaxy clusters (Cole & Kaiser 1988, Bartlett & Silk 1994, Komatsu & Kitayama 1999, White 2001, Cooray 2002, Komatsu & Seljak 2002). In this model, the power spectrum is due to two main contributions, the two-halo contribution and the single-halo contribution. The first one includes the correlation between clusters and only contributes significantly in the very large scale regime. The single-halo contribution accounts for the individual contribution of each cluster to the power spectrum and dominates at smaller scales.
The large scales (low $`l`$) of the power spectrum in the optimal area may be affected by window effects and cosmic variance (our optimal area is just $`9\%`$ of the sky). Although the power spectrum in the optimal area seems to be free of galactic contamination, it may happen that the galaxy is still contributing in this area. For all these reasons, the low $`l`$ regime should be excluded in our cosmological analysis. We will concentrate only on the intermediate-small scales for which one can consider only the single-halo contribution and neglect the two-halo contribution.
However, we should keep in mind that, as noted in Komatsu & Kitayama (1999), the clustering contribution can amount to $`20\%30\%`$ of the single halo-contribution at degree angular scales ($`l100`$) (see also Lahav et al. 1997 for smaller multipoles). Therefore, by neglecting the two-halo contribution we are being conservative in our assumptions. The real power spectrum of galaxy clusters will be about $`20\%30\%`$ larger than the one considered in this work.

The single-halo contribution is just an integrated effect over redshift of the individual contribution from each cluster.

$$C_l=𝑑z\frac{dV(z)}{dz}𝑑M\frac{dN(M,z)}{dM}p_l(M,z)$$
(1)
where $`dV(z)/dz`$ is the volume element, $`dN(M,z)/dM`$ is the cluster mass function and $`p_l(M,z)`$ is the power spectrum (multipole decomposition) of the X-ray 2D profile of the cluster with mass $`M`$ at redshift $`z`$. In this work we have assumed the Press-Schechter approach for the mass function (Press & Schechter 1974) and we use a numerical fit to the multipole decomposition of the X-ray 2D profile as we will describe in the next subsection.

### 3.1 The multipole decomposition of the X-ray 2D profile

Since the power spectrum of galaxy clusters is proportional to the square of the density profile, it is important to be careful in the selection of this profile and make the safest assumptions about it. The usual approach is to consider a numerical model for the electron density profile (a $`\beta `$-model or a numerical fit to N-body simulations) and compute the flux from the integrated signal of the profile. Then, assume isothermality of the plasma and some relation between the mass of the cluster and its temperature. In this process there are several dangerous steps. Assuming a bremsstrahlung spectrum, the monochromatic volume emissivity of the intra-cluster medium scales as $`j_\nu n^2/\sqrt{T}`$, where $`n`$ is the electron density and $`T`$ its temperature. Then the integrated bolometric luminosity scales as the square of the central density times the square root of the temperature (assuming the cluster is isothermal). The central density has been poorly estimated so far in galaxy clusters and there is a lot of uncertainty in its typical value. If the cluster is assumed to be isothermal and the scaling relation between mass and temperature is taken to be the one predicted by the spherical collapse model, one ends up with a $`L_xT`$ relation which is inconsistent with recent observations. We can conclude that, modelling of the X-ray emission in galaxy clusters from numerical models can be a quite unsafe process. It is more useful to formulate the model in terms of observational quantities rather than theoretical models which fail in explaining the observations.
Basically what we need for our model is just an expression of the form;

$$p_l(M,z)=p_o(M,z)f(l,M,z)$$
(2)
where $`p_o`$ is the normalisation and $`f(l,M,z)`$ contains the angular dependence of the multipole decomposition. To understand why this simple form will suffice, it is useful to think in terms of a single point source. This source will have a constant power spectrum ($`f(l,M,z)=1`$) and a normalisation which is equal to;

$$p_o(M,z)=4\pi |Mean|^2=4\pi \left|\frac{S_T}{4\pi }\right|^2$$
(3)
where $`Mean`$ is the total signal, $`S_T`$, divided by the area of the sky. In the case of a cluster, the situation is similar except that in this case the source will be extended and $`f(l,M,z)`$ will not be constant anymore. In this case, we have to assume a profile for the electron gas. We assumed a $`\beta `$-model (with $`\beta =2/3`$) profile for the electron cluster density. This assumption is supported by a wealth of observational data. We also have truncated the profile at the virial radius defined as $`r_v=pr_c`$ with $`p`$ a fixed parameter ($`p10`$) and $`r_c`$ the core radius.

$$n(r)=\frac{n_o}{1+(r/r_c)^2}$$
(4)
Instead of fixing the central density, $`n_o`$, we will fix the total luminosity so the value of $`n_o`$ will be irrelevant in our model. The only free parameter is the core radius, $`r_c`$. This will be an advantage compared to other works since we can make our model consistent with real observations rather than with simulations.
To compile an expression for the multipole dependence of the 2D profile, we have computed $`f(l,M,z)`$ for different clusters changing the only free parameter, $`r_c`$, and then fitting the result to an analytical form. The best fit we found is;

$$f(l,M,z)=\frac{1}{2}\left(\mathrm{exp}(\xi _{l,r_c})+\mathrm{exp}(\sqrt{\xi _{l,r_c}})\right)$$
(5)
with,

$$\xi _{l,r_c}=l^2r_c^{1.5/(0.815+0.35r_c)}$$
(6)
where the core radius, $`r_c`$, is given in rads (see figure 3).
The mass and redshift dependence of $`f(l,M,z)`$ is in $`r_c`$.

$$r_c=\frac{r_o}{p}M^{1/3}(1+z)$$
(7)
Although we have assumed the expected redshift dependence of the self-similar spherical collapse model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1`$, we will adopt this form for simplicity. As we will show below, the power spectrum of galaxy clusters will be dominated by the low redshift population for which the specific form of the redshift dependence is not very important. The value of $`r_o`$ must be assumed and we should keep in mind that typical core radii for massive clusters are around 100 kpc. We will adopt a value of $`r_o/p=130h^1`$ kpc for a mass of $`M=10^{15}h^1M_{}`$ at redshift 0 and will discuss other values later.
Regarding the normalisation of the profile, $`p_o`$, we only have to determine $`Mean`$, that is, the total signal divided by the area of the sky. To avoid systematic effects due to unrealistic modelling based on simulations, we have parametrised the total signal in terms of observed quantities, like the $`L_xT`$ relation. We used the scaling relations derived in Diego et al. (2001). In that work, the authors made a consistent fit to the mass function, temperature function, X-ray flux function and X-ray luminosity function. In the fit both, the cosmological model, and the cluster scaling relations were considered as free parameters and were fitted to the data. Using the $`L_xT`$ relation we can obtain the total signal (flux) of the cluster, $`S_T`$, from its temperature.

$$S_T=f_c\frac{L_x}{4\pi D_l(z)^2}=f_c\frac{L_oT_{keV}^\alpha (1+z)^\psi }{4\pi D_l(z)^2}$$
(8)
where we use the values of $`L_o`$, $`\alpha `$ and $`\psi `$ obtained in Diego et al. (2001) ($`L_o=1.12\times 10^{42}h^2erg/s`$, $`\alpha =3.2`$ and $`\psi =1`$ for a flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universe). The temperature is obtained using the $`TM`$ relation found in Diego et al. (2001) ($`T_{keV}=9.48M_{15}^{0.75}(1+z)`$). This relation is different from the best fitting function to the observed $`TM`$ relation (see e.g in Nevalainen et al. 2000). However, we will use this relation to be consistent with the above $`L_xT`$ relation and the constraints in Diego et al. (2001). In section 6 we will discuss other (possibly more realistic) alternatives.
We should note that by changing the parameters $`L_o`$, $`\alpha `$ and $`\psi `$ we can include also the uncertainty in the $`TM`$ relation into an uncertainty in the $`L_xT`$ relation. That is, the parameters $`L_o`$, $`\alpha `$ and $`\psi `$ will somehow mimic variations in the parameters of the $`TM`$ relation. This choice is not arbitrary. We could easily model the total luminosity as a function of mass and use the $`L_xM`$ relation as our free-parameter scaling relation. However, we prefer to parametrise our model in terms of the $`L_xT`$ relation since it is observationally better constrained than the $`L_xM`$ relation.
The only free parameters in our model are then the $`L_xT`$ relation and the $`r_c`$ modelling. We will study their effect later.
The factor $`f_c`$ is the conversion factor between $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ to $`10^6\mathrm{cts}/\mathrm{s}\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$ which are the units in which the RASS data are given. We compute this factor with the X-ray package XSPEC (Arnaud 1996). We have assumed a z-bremsstrahlung model and considered only the $`ROSAT`$ PSPC channels of the R6 band (channels 91-131, see Snowden et al. 1997). The $`ROSAT`$ response was modelled using the response matrix file of the detector PSPC-C. Using a Raymond-Smith for the model spectrum with 0.3 solar metallicity in the R6 band does not introduce a significant difference compared to the z-bremsstrahlung. The $`K`$-correction was also included in the factor $`f_c`$. This factor was computed for each temperature and redshift.
As an example, XSPEC predicts a conversion of 1 $`cts/s=8.6\times 10^{12}erg/scm^2`$ in the R6 band (for $`kT=7`$ keV and $`z=0.5`$)

### 3.2 Cosmological dependence of $`C_l`$

The power spectrum shows an important dependence with the cosmological parameters $`\sigma _8`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. In figure 4 we show some examples where we vary the normalisation of the power spectrum, $`\sigma _8`$, the matter density, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and the shape parameter, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. The dependence with $`\sigma _8`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is very important. A change of 0.2 units in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ leads to a change in the power of one order of magnitude. Something similar happens with $`\sigma _8`$ although in this case the change is slightly weaker. The dependence on $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is not so important. In particular, in our region of interest ($`l100`$), $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ does not have a very significant effect on the power spectrum. For this reason we will fix $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ in our analysis to its most favoured value $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0.2`$ (from 2dF, Percival et al. 2001) and we will vary only $`\sigma _8`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$.

### 3.3 Mass and redshift dependence of $`C_l`$

Before comparing the cluster power spectrum with the $`ROSAT`$ data in the R6 band, it is interesting to look in more detail at the way the different cluster populations contribute to the power spectrum. Given a cosmological model, the cluster mass function is just a function of two variables, mass and redshift. We can now examine the cluster population at different mass and redshift intervals to find out which regimes dominate at different scales.

Low redshift clusters will dominate the large scales since at low redshift the clusters appear larger (figure 5). Also, it is difficult to find large clusters at high redshift. They usually appear at low $`z`$. On the contrary, high redshift clusters will dominate the high-$`l`$ regime. At high $`z`$, clusters will appear with small angular scales. Also, the typical mass of a cluster decreases with redshift. However, clusters beyond $`z0.2`$ will contribute only at the very small scales ($`l>2000`$ or scales smaller than $`5\mathrm{arcmin}`$). At scales larger than 5 arcmin, only the clusters below $`z0.2`$ are relevant in the power spectrum. We also show the contribution in the range $`z[0.01,0.05]`$. Many Abell clusters will contribute to this part of the power spectrum (min $`z_{Abell}0.01`$).

In terms of the masses (figure 6), the power spectrum is dominated by intermediate mass clusters (dashed line). The very massive clusters are rare and they do not dominate the power spectrum at any scale. They are big clusters and usually appear at low redshift. As a consequence, they will contribute significantly only to the large scales. On the contrary, intermediate-mass clusters are common in a wider range of redshifts and their integrated signal dominates the signal of the very massive clusters. The intermediate-mass clusters are bright enough to dominate the power spectrum at practically all scales. Finally, the low-mass clusters will contribute only to the very small scales (high $`l`$-s). They are more abundant than the intermediate-mass clusters but the signal is weaker.

Combining the results of figures 5 and 6 we can conclude that the cluster power spectrum up to $`l500`$ will be dominated by the cluster population with $`z<0.2`$ and intermediate masses, $`M[10^{14},10^{15}]h^1M_{}`$. This can be seen more clearly in figure 7 where we present the differential contribution to different multipoles as a function of mass (lower set of curves) and redshift (upper set of curves). For representation purposes, all the power spectra has been normalised to 7 for the redshift case and to 4 for the mass case.

## 4 Constraints on $`\sigma _8\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$

After computing the power spectrum from eqn. 1 for hundreds of models where we change $`\sigma _8`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, we can compare the predicted power spectrum with the observed RASS power spectrum in the R6 band and exclude all the models for which we have more predicted power than the observed one. We show the result in figure 8. The dotted line is a numerical fit to the upper limit.

$$\sigma _8=0.5\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{0.38}$$
(9)
Our limit excludes regions in the $`\sigma _8\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ plane which are within the confidence region of many other methods.

In figure 9 we compare the RASS power spectrum with three models above, on, and below the upper limit curve ($`\sigma _8=0.75,0.8,0.85`$, for $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0.3`$). The range of $`l`$’s which exclude the models above the upper limit are up to $`l200`$ which corresponds to angular scales $`\theta 1^{}`$. At these scales only the nearby clusters (like the Abell clusters) contribute to the power spectrum (see figure 5 and 6). Hence, with this data we are not very sensitive to the population of clusters at moderate and high-redshift. This fact is in agreement with the measured cross-correlation between the angular position of Abell clusters and the intensity of the X-ray background (Soltan et al. 1996). In that work, the authors found that the cross-correlation extends up to several degrees (i.e. the cluster–X-ray background cross-correlation spreads over the range $`l<100`$).
The RASS data still contains some contribution of non-removed point sources which could be contaminating the power spectrum at sub-degree scales. This fact suggests that a study carried out on a smaller region of the sky with a more careful point source removal could render better constraints on the cosmological model. This opens an exciting possibility for future work carried out with $`Chandra`$ and/or especially with XMM-Newton data. XMM-Newton has a higher sensitivity for extended sources and wider field of view than $`Chandra`$. This makes XMM an ideal instrument for wide field X-rays surveys (like the XMM-LSS, Refregier et al. 2002a). However, the analysis of the arcmin-subarcmin scales is beyond the scope of this paper and will be discussed in a subsequent paper.

The constraints derived in this section are robust since they were obtained under a minimum number of assumptions.
However, variations in these assumptions ($`L_xT`$, core radius) can have an important effect on the resulting power spectrum. It is important to study how the upper limits obtained in this section can be affected by varying our assumptions ($`L_xT`$ relation and core radius, $`r_c`$). Although the model we assumed for $`L_xT`$ and core radius was consistent with several optical and X-ray cluster data sets (as shown in Diego et al. 2001), there are some uncertainties in the values of the parameters assumed in the model ($`L_o`$, $`\alpha `$, $`\psi `$ and $`r_c`$). A different set of values for these parameters will render a different upper limit on the $`\sigma _8\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ plane. Our results can be therefore affected by systematic errors due to the wrong election of the parameters of the model. In the next section we will attempt to see how much does our upper limit change when we make different assumptions in our model.

## 5 Systematic effects

The main source of possible systematic error is the normalisation of the assumed $`L_xT`$ relation, $`L_o`$ (eqn. 8). There is still an important uncertainty in this relation and even a break could be present at low temperatures. This break in the scaling has been interpreted as due to preheating phenomena (e.g. Voit & Bryan 2001, Babul et al. 2002). Since the power spectrum of the clusters is proportional to the square of the total signal (eqn. 3). The power spectrum will be therefore very sensitive to the normalisation of the $`L_xT`$ relation ($`L_o`$ in eqn. 8). This is illustrated in figure 10 where we change $`L_o`$ by a factor of two and the power spectrum changes by a factor of four (dotted line) as expected. The dependence of the power spectrum on the scaling exponent, $`\alpha `$, is not as dramatic as in the case of $`L_o`$. When we change $`\alpha `$ between $`\alpha =3.2`$ and $`\alpha =2.7`$ the power spectrum changes from the solid line to the dashed line. Finally, the factor controlling the redshift dependence, $`\psi `$, is not very relevant up to $`l100`$ but at smaller scales ($`l>100`$) it can become important since as we discussed in section 3, at the smallest scales the power spectrum is dominated by the high redshift population.

The previous plot demonstrates that one must be careful in choosing the $`L_xT`$ relation since the results can change significantly.

The second assumption on our model is about the 2D profile. In this case, our only free parameter is the scaling of the core radius, $`r_c`$. We will study the effect of changing the core radius by changing the ratio $`r_o/p`$ in equation 7.

The effect of changing the scaling of core radius is only important at small scales (large $`l`$). This is not surprising since at low $`l`$’s the value of power spectrum is driven only by its normalisation ($`p_o`$ in equation 2). When we change the parameter $`p`$ (ratio between the virial and core radius), we observe that clusters with larger $`p`$ (i.e smaller core radius when $`r_o`$ is fixed) have more power at smaller scales (figure 11). This point is interesting since it shows how our constraints on $`\sigma _8\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ are not very sensitive to the cluster’s profile. The $`L_xT`$ relation will be the main source of uncertainty.

From the previous results we can conclude that due to our uncertainty in the $`L_xT`$ relation and the cluster density profile (parametrised as a function of $`r_c`$) we have an uncertainty in the theoretical power spectrum of clusters of $`1`$ order of magnitude. We will incorporate this uncertainty in our upper limit in the $`\sigma _8\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ plane by rescaling our theoretical model by a factor of 5 in both directions (multiplication and division). By doing this we will have an optimistic and a pessimistic model. The optimistic model will contain 5 times more power than the model assumed in section 4 while the pessimistic one will contain 5 times less power. The difference in power between the optimistic and the pessimistic is then a factor 25. The result is shown in figure 12.

Even in the pessimistic case, the constraints are still important (models like $`\sigma _8=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ can be excluded). As an example, the pessimistic case exclude more or less half of the confidence region obtained from the REFLEX cluster power spectrum (see figure 4 in Schuecker et al. 2002).
It is more interesting to see what happens in the optimistic case. Here, models with $`\sigma _8=0.8`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ would be excluded. This particular model is actually one of the best in fitting several recent data sets (CMB, 2dF, etc). This means that, if the underlying cosmological model is in fact $`\sigma _8=0.8`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, our optimistic case is too optimistic! This opens the possibility of using the diffuse X-ray background as a way to study cluster physics rather than constraining the cosmological model. In the hypothetical scenario where the cosmological model is known, one can use the X-ray power spectrum to constrain the physical parameters of the intra-cluster plasma. If, for the known cosmology, one observes that the theoretical cluster power spectrum exceeds the observed one, this means that the assumptions made on the modelling of the cluster power spectrum were wrong (too optimistic case). One should then reintroduce changes in the model in order not to exceed the observed X-ray power spectrum (pre-heating, electron density profile, evolution of the typical luminosity with redshift, baryon fraction, etc)

## 6 Beyond the cosmological model

The main difference between the constraints obtained in this work and those obtained by other methods (based on galaxy clusters) is that we can have a good control on the systematic errors. Our results are not affected by a changing selection function in the sky, or extrapolation of the observed central cluster 2D profile beyond the noise level.

There are only two key assumptions in our model, the $`L_xT`$ relation and the cluster density profile. At the scales relevant in this work ($`l<100`$) the uncertainty in the cluster density profile is not very important. On the contrary, the main uncertainty comes from our partial knowledge of the $`L_xT`$ relation. Most of the cosmological methods based on galaxy clusters data obtain the best fitting cosmological model assuming that the physics of clusters are well known. If the uncertainties in the cluster physics are not included, then a biased estimate of the best cosmological model may emerge as a result. We are approaching an era where the best cosmological model is quickly converging to a set of preferred values. One can then think the other way around, assuming we know the cosmological model, what can we infer about the physics in clusters ?

### 6.1 Preheating and the $`L_xT`$ relation

In figure 13 we present some of the estimates of the $`L_xT`$ relation used in this work compared to a model including pre-heating (solid line, Babul et al. 2002). All the models represented in the plot make a good fit to the most recent estimations of the $`L_xT`$ relation (see e.g, Markevitch 1998, Allen & Fabian 1998, Helsdon & Ponman 2000 ). The pre-heating model corresponds to an entropy floor of $`kTn_e^{2/3}427\mathrm{keV}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. This pre-heated model gives an excellent match to the observations (see Babul et al. 2002).

The model used in section 4 corresponds to the dashed line. The dotted line and dot-dashed line where used in section 5 to illustrate the change in the cluster power spectrum when the parameters $`L_o`$ and $`\alpha `$ where changed. The main difference between the pre-heated model and the single scaling relation is that at temperatures $`T1`$ keV the pre-heated models predict a larger luminosity than the standard single scaling relations. Clusters with $`T`$ of a few keV correspond to intermediate masses. We have seen that this range of masses dominate the power spectrum so we should expect some kind of dependence on the power spectrum with the amount of entropy in the pre-heated model. As shown in Babul et al (2002), lower entropy floors will produce a larger shift of the relation to higher X-ray luminosities (lower $`\alpha `$) while higher entropy floors will result in a steeper $`L_xT`$ relation (higher $`\alpha `$). At $`kT`$ below 1 keV the situation inverts and the pre-heated model predicts clusters to be less luminous than in the single scaling case. Previous studies based on the intensity of the soft X-ray background suggest that there must be some level of pre-heating on galaxy clusters, for example from AGN heating of the intracluster gas. Otherwise, their contribution to the soft to X-ray background exceeds the derived upper limit (see e.g. Wu et al. 2001).

In figure 14 we show how the preheating can change the power spectrum of clusters. The solid line is the non-preheated model used in section 4 but with non-evolving $`L_xT`$ ($`\psi =0`$) (dashed line in figure 13). When we use the pre-heated model of Babul et al. (2002) (solid line in figure 13) we see an increase in the power spectrum by a factor of $`2`$ (dashed line). In the pre-heated model case we also have computed the temperature of the cluster (from its mass) using a numerical fit to the observed $`TM`$ relation (Nevalainen et al. 2000). That fit differs from the best-fitting $`TM`$ function found in Diego et al. (2001). The Nevalainen’s $`TM`$ relation is in perfect agreement with the latest estimate of the $`TM`$ scaling (Shimizu et al. 2002) where the authors find $`kT(\mathrm{keV})=7.7M_{15}^{0.55}`$ ($`M_{15}`$ is expressed in $`10^{15}h^1M_{}`$). It is also in agreement with previous results which suggest that the $`TM`$ scaling relation differ from the expected self-similar behaviour (Mohr et al. 1999). When we use Nevalainen’s $`TM`$ (but keeping the rest of parameters of the model corresponding to the solid line in figure 14) the new power spectrum changes from the solid line to the dotted line.

If we assume that the pre-heating model used above is a good description of the $`L_xT`$ relation, we can extract some surprising conclusions. Our upper limits exclude many of the previous constraints on this parameter (see Refregier et al. 2002b for a recent compilation of constraints on $`\sigma _8`$). From the results compiled in Refregier et al. (2002b), only the recent 2dF$`+`$CMB (Lahav et al. 2001) and galaxy clusters (Seljak 2002) constraints are well inside our upper limits. This can have two interpretations. The first interpretation is that those constraints derived using other methods which are in contradiction with the RASS upper limit on $`\sigma _8`$ need to be revised with respect to the assumptions made in the appropriate analyses. The second interpretation is that we are being too optimistic in our assumptions. The assumed $`L_xT`$ relation is not a good description of the underlying $`L_xT`$ relation in galaxy clusters and we may need to inject more entropy in the clusters in order to make them less luminous (or any other mechanism which decreases the X-ray luminosity). This second interpretation is interesting because it shows us how we can study cluster physics if we know something about the cosmological model.

If we assume that the underlying cosmological model can be described by the parameters $`\sigma _8=0.8`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ (in a flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universe with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0.2`$) then we can ask whether or not the assumed physics ($`L_xT`$ relation) is in agreement with the observations. We can test this by imposing that the theoretical power spectrum must be below the observed one.

### 6.2 $`L_xT`$ and $`TM`$ from $`\sigma _8\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$

Although there is still a very lively debate about the value of $`\sigma _8`$, there is a general consensus in the allowed range for $`\sigma _8`$, $`\sigma _8(0.71.1)`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ with a most favoured value of $`\sigma _80.8`$. The fact that the preheating model considered above is excluding this most favoured value can have a simple interpretation, which is that our assumptions about the luminosities of the clusters are too optimistic. The clusters must be less luminous than we assumed in order to allow the upper limit to stay above the preferred value of $`\sigma _8`$. If we parametrise the luminosity as $`L_x=L_oT^\alpha `$, then we can constrain $`L_o`$ as a function of $`\alpha `$ by just requiring that the cluster power spectrum stays below the measured power spectrum (see figure 16).

Although we have not discussed much about the $`TM`$ relation, it will also play a role in the definition of the upper limit. To get the temperature in the $`L_xT`$ relation we need to assume some form for $`TM`$ relation. Recent observations (Nevalainen et al. 2000), seem to indicate that this relation differs slightly from the self similar scaling relation. However, as in the case of the $`L_xT`$, there is some scattering on the $`TM`$ relation. We have included this uncertainty into our calculations by using two different $`TM`$ relations. In the first case we use the fit to the observed $`T`$ and $`M`$ obtained by Nevalainen et al. (2000), $`T=8.5M_{15}^{0.54}`$ keV and in the second case we use a self-similar form (Evrard et al. 1996), $`T=8.0M_{15}^{2/3}`$ keV. The results on $`L_o`$ and $`\alpha `$ are shown in figure 16.

When we compare the models on the two upper limit curves with the observed $`L_xT`$ relation (figure 17), we find that the models on the upper limits are marginally consistent with the observations. The model with the self-similar $`TM`$ relation produces a constrain which agrees better with the observations.

## 7 Discussion

We have found that in order to explain most of the constraints obtained in $`\sigma _8`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$, we need a rather steep $`L_xT`$ relation. We have changed these relations within the observed limits (and even more, in the case of the parameter $`\alpha `$) and we found that the $`\sigma _8=0.8`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ model can be accommodated only in the most extreme cases. Using the pre-heating model of Babul et al. (2002), our upper limit excludes most of the current constraints in $`\sigma _8`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$.
If $`\sigma _8>0.8`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, we may say that there is an inconsistency between the above preheating model and the upper limit imposed by the RASS diffuse background.

As noted by Voit et al. (2002), the observed $`L_xT`$ relation changes when the luminosities are corrected by cooling flow effects. Our results suggest that cooling flows can be important (specially at low redshift which is the range dominating the power spectrum in this scale). A $`L_xT`$ which is obtained without correcting for cooling flows will be affected by a larger scatter due to the presence of the clusters with cooling flows (they will increase the average luminosity of clusters and therefore the value of $`L_o`$). If cooling flow clusters are not representative of the average population of clusters, they should be excluded from any fit to the $`L_xT`$ relation or corrected their luminosities (and average temperatures) by the effect of the cooling flow in order to get a representative $`L_xT`$ relation (see Fabian et al. 1994 for a discussion on the effect of cooling flows in the $`L_xT`$ relation).

In figure 18 we present one of the extreme cases for which the model $`\sigma _8=0.8`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ is just below the upper limit (solid line). This model corresponds to the values $`L_o=2.3\times 10^{42}h^2\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`\alpha =3`$ and is in the dotted curve of figure 16 (i.e. when we assume the self-similar relation $`T=8.0M_{15}^{2/3}`$ keV). If we compare this extreme case with real observations of the $`L_xT`$ relation, we see that this model still produces a good fit to the data (but we need to assume that $`TM_{15}^{2/3}`$). All the models lying on the right hand side of the solid line overpredict the observed RASS power spectrum for $`\sigma _8=0.8`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$. The pre-heating model of Babul et al. (2002) (bottom dotted line) is marginally consistent with the upper limit above 4 keV but exceeds the upper limit below that temperature. On the other hand, the pre-heated model of Voit & Bryan (2001) is still compatible with the upper limit but is well within the limits. There is little room for additional changes in the $`L_xT`$ and $`TM`$ relation without coming into serious contradictions with the observed relations. As a consequence, our results suggest that it is very difficult to accommodate high $`\sigma _8`$ models ($`\sigma _80.8`$) within our upper limit. Recently, a combined analysis of 2dF plus CMB data has produced new constraints on $`\sigma _8`$ which suggest that $`\sigma _80.7`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_mh=0.21`$ (no tensor model) and $`\sigma _80.6`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_mh=0.16`$ (tensor model) (see Efstathiou et al. 2002). Other recent works also suggest a low value for $`\sigma _8`$ (e.g Allen et al. 2002, Seljak 2002, Bahcall et al. 2002). These values of $`\sigma _8`$ are in very good agreement with our upper limits. If the value of $`\sigma _8`$ is significantly larger than 0.8, (for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$) then, we can conclude that there is a serious contradiction between the X-ray data and the model. If we adopt the realistic position that the inconsistency must be in the model, then, we should revise our assumptions in order to resolve this puzzling situation.
The only assumption we have not checked in our model is that about the mass function. As mentioned in the introduction, the modelling of the cluster power spectrum involves the whole population of clusters. This fact makes the cluster power spectrum a very sensitive probe of the cluster mass function.
This opens the exciting possibility of (assuming the cosmological model is known) constraining the cluster mass function once we know accurately the $`L_xT`$ and $`TM`$ relations and a good estimation of the X-ray background power spectrum is available.

There is an important point which has not been explored in this paper but that we plan to study in a subsequent work. It is the scattering of the $`L_xT`$ relation. Real clusters will show an intrinsic scattering in this relation (clusters with the same temperature may have different luminosities around the average $`L_x`$). Since the power spectrum of clusters is proportional to the square of the multipole decomposition (equations. 1 and 3), those clusters with the same $`T`$ but $`L_x`$ larger than the mean will contribute more to the power spectrum than the clusters with $`L_x`$ lower than the mean (but the same $`T`$). That is, the average effect of the population of clusters with the same $`T`$ (but different $`L_x`$) is not the same as the effect of the population of clusters with the same $`T`$ and average luminosity $`L_x`$ (due to the quadratic dependence of $`C_l`$). This fact may change the results presented in this work and need to be studied in more detail.

## 8 Conclusion

We have shown that the use of the measured X-ray power spectrum as an upper limit produces strong constraints on the cosmological model. The constraints have the advantage of being very robust since they were obtained under a minimum number of assumptions. The uncertainty in the assumptions can be easily incorporated into the model to produce optimistic and pessimistic constraints. Approaches like the one presented in this work are needed to complement the constraints obtained using other methods (see figure 19). To obtain the upper limits on $`\sigma _8\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ presented in this work we do not even need to detect the clusters. The global contribution of all the clusters (above or below the $`3\sigma `$ level) contributes to the power spectrum although we have seen that the cluster population with intermediate masses and $`z<0.2`$ dominates the power spectrum in the range of scales considered in this work.
In this work, we have not considered the clustering contribution (two-halo). This contribution may be of the order of $`20\%30\%`$ at the scales relevant for this work (Lahav et al. 1997, Komatsu & Kitayama 1999). The upper limits presented here will be even more significant if this contribution is incorporated into the analyses.
Due to the point source contamination and large pixel size, the constraints on $`\sigma _8\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ arise in the range $`l<100200`$. However, this fact has an advantage. At low $`l`$’s, the cluster power spectrum is independent of the electron density profile (or the internal structure of the cluster) and only the total luminosity of the clusters matters for modelling the power spectrum. This reduces dramatically the number of assumptions made in the model. One may use this fact to make studies of the physics of the intracluster plasma (like pre-heating) which could constrain the $`L_xT`$ relation.
We found that, in order to accommodate cosmological models like $`\sigma _8=0.8`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ we need to tune the $`TM`$ and the $`L_xM`$ relation to the limits of the observational constraints. This fact suggest that lower $`\sigma _8`$ models are favoured by the upper limit constraint set by the X-ray background.

The approach presented in this work can be extremely useful with higher resolution and better signal to noise data ($`Chandra`$, and particularly XMM-Newton). Although the data in the $`ROSAT`$ R6 band has the brightest point sources removed, the power spectrum still contains some contribution coming from the non-removed point sources and their clustering. Future data from $`Chandra`$ and specially XMM-Newton will allow a better point source subtraction. The constraints obtained from these new data will be much more significant since one can probe smaller scales with a significantly smaller contamination from point sources. In the small scale range, the cluster power spectrum becomes even more sensitive to the physics of the plasma (angular extension of the emission and evolution of the $`L_xT`$ relation). In particular, we have seen that the shape of the power spectrum at small scales (large multipoles) is better described by density profiles having high clumpiness factors ($`p1020`$). A low-contaminated point source power spectrum could lead to dramatic constraints on the $`L_xT`$ relation. These constraints can have serious implications for the physics of the intracluster plasma (pre-heating, cooling flows). These facts make worth extending the analyses presented here to smaller scales with a high sensitivity where the point source removal can be performed to very low fluxes.

## 9 Acknowledgements

This research has been supported by a Marie Curie Fellowship of the European Community programme Improving the Human Research Potential and Socio-Economic knowledge under contract number HPMF-CT-2000-00967. XB acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology under project AYA2000-1690. The authors would like to thank Wayne Hu, Greg Bryan and Francisco Carrera for fruitful discussions. We also thank A. Melchiorri for providing the plot with the confidence levels derived from CMB.


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# GRBs in Pulsar Wind Bubbles: Observational implications

## 1. Introduction

Despite the large progress in GRB research over the last few years, the identity of their progenitors is still perhaps the most interesting open question. GRB Progenitor models are divided into two main categories: (i) a merger of two compact stars, (ii) the death of a massive star. Short GRBs (lasting $`\stackrel{<}{}2`$s) are usually attributed to the category (i), while long GRBs are attributed to category (ii), which includes the failed SN (Woosley 1993) or hypernova (Pacyński 1998) models, and the supranova model (Vietri & Stella 1998), where a massive star explodes in a SN leaving behind a supra-massive neutron star (SMNS) which after a time delay, $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}`$, loses its rotational energy and collapses to a black hole (BH), triggering the GRB. All these models have the same final stage (large accretion rate onto a newly formed BH) and a similar energy budget ($`\stackrel{<}{}10^{54}\mathrm{ergs}`$).

This work concentrates on the supranova model, focusing on its possible observational signatures. The original motivation for this model was to provide a relatively baryon clean environment for the GRB jet. As it turned out, it also seemed to naturally accommodate the later detection of iron lines in several X-ray afterglows (Lazzati, Campana, & Ghisellini 1999; Piro et al. 2000; Vietri et al. 2001). Recently, it has been suggested that the most natural mechanism by which the SMNS can lose its rotational energy is through a strong pulsar type wind, between the SN and the GRB events, which creates a pulsar wind bubble (PWB), also referred to as a plerion (Königl & Granot 2002, KG hereafter; Inoue, Guetta & Pacini 2002). Here we report the main results of Guetta & Granot (2002a, GG hereafter), and refer the reader to this work for more details.

The most important parameter that determines the behavior of the system is the time delay, $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}`$, between the SN and GRB events. The value of $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}`$ is set by the timescale on which the SMNS loses its rotational energy due to magnetic dipole radiation (see Eq. 2 of GG) and depends mainly on the strength of the SMNS magnetic field; it can ranges anywhere between weeks to years. Another important parameter is the Lorentz factor, $`\gamma _w`$, of the pulsar wind, emanating from the SMNS, which is expected to be in the range $`10^410^7`$ (KG). An important difference between our analysis and previous works (KG; Inoue, Guetta & Pacini 2002) is that we allow for a proton component in the pulsar wind, that carries a significant fraction of its energy. In the standard model, the external medium is composed of cold protons and electrons (in equal numbers), and has a density profile that scales with the distance from the source as $`r^k`$, where $`k=0`$ for an ISM and $`k=2`$ for a stellar wind. In our scenario, the external medium is made up of hot protons and cold $`e^\pm `$ pairs, where there are $`10^3`$ times more pairs than protons. Nevertheless, the protons hold most of the energy in the PWB due to their large internal energy, which also dominates the effective density that is responsible for the deceleration of the afterglow shock. The value of $`k`$ for our model ranges between $`k=0`$, that is similar to an ISM, and $`k=1`$, that is intermediate between an ISM and a stellar wind (KG).

## 2. The Behavior of the System for Different Time Delays

In this section we go over the main observational signatures of the PWB model, following the different regimes in $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}`$ (for the detailed calculations on how these results are derived we refer the reader to GG):

1. For extremely small values of $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}<t_{\mathrm{col}}=R_{}/\beta _bc0.9R_{,13}\beta _{b,1}^1\mathrm{hr}`$, where $`R_{}=10^{13}R_{,13}\mathrm{cm}`$ is the radius of the progenitor star (before it explodes in a SN), the stellar envelope does not have enough time to increase its radius considerably before the GRB goes off, and the supranova model reduces to the collapsar model. In this respect, the collapsar model may be seen as a special case of the supranova model.

2. If $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}<t_\tau 0.4\mathrm{yr}`$, the SNR shell is optically thick to Thomson scattering, and the radiation from the plerion, the prompt GRB and the afterglow cannot escape and reach the observer. If the SNR shell is clumpy (possibly due to the Rayleigh-Taylor instability, see §2 of GG), then the Thomson optical depth in the under-dense regions within the SNR shell may decrease below unity at $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}`$ somewhat smaller than $`t_\tau `$, enabling some of the radiation to escape. The only signatures that we expect for this range of $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}`$ are the neutrino emission due to p-p collisions or photo-meson interactions, and high energy photons above $`0.5(t_{\mathrm{sd}}/t_\tau )^2`$MeV (Guetta & Granot 2002b and Granot & Guetta 2002b).

3. For $`t_\tau <t_{\mathrm{sd}}<t_{\mathrm{Fe}}1\mathrm{yr}`$ the SNR shell has a Thomson optical depth smaller than unity, but the optical depth for the iron line features is still $`\stackrel{>}{}1`$ so that detectable X-ray line features, like the iron lines observed in several afterglows, can be produced. In this range of $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}`$ we expect a very large effective density ($`10^5\mathrm{cm}^3`$) and electron number density ($`10^3\mathrm{cm}^3`$). This effects the afterglow emission in a number of different ways: i) The self absorption frequency of the afterglow is typically above the radio, implying no detectable radio afterglow, while radio afterglows were detected for GRBs 970508, 970828, and 991216, where the iron line feature for the latest of these three is the most significant detection to date ($`4\sigma `$, Piro et al. 2000). We also typically expect the self absorption frequency of the plerion emission to be above the radio in this case, so that the radio emission from the plerion should not be detectable, and possibly confused with that of the afterglow. ii) A short jet break time $`t_j`$ and a relatively short non-relativistic transition time $`t_{\mathrm{NR}}`$ are implied, as both scale linearly with $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}`$ and are in the right range inferred from observations

4. Finally, for $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}>t_{\mathrm{Fe}}`$, we expect no iron lines. When $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}`$ is between $`2\mathrm{yr}`$ and $`20\mathrm{yr}`$ the radio emission of the plerion may be detectable for $`\gamma _w\stackrel{<}{}10^5`$. The lack of detection of such a radio emission excludes values of $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}`$ in this range, if indeed $`\gamma _w\stackrel{<}{}10^5`$, as is needed to obtain reasonable values for the break frequencies of the afterglow (see Fig.1 of GG and the relevant discussion there).

## 3. High energy emission

An interesting new ingredient of the PWB model, is that the GRB and its afterglow occur inside a photon rich plerionic environment. These photons can be upscattered by the relativistic electrons behind the afterglow shock, producing a high energy emission (external Compton, EC). Fig. 2 of GG and Fig. 1 of Granot & Guetta (2002a) show that the EC emission can account for the high energy emission detected by EGRET for GRB 940217 (Hurley et al. 1994), and is consistent with the flux level and moderate time decay observed in this case.

## 4. Conclusions

In this work we have presented the main results obtained in GG and Granot & Guetta (2002a) regarding the observational implications for GRBs that occur inside pulsar wind bubbles (PWBs), as expected in the supranova model. We find that a simple spherical model cannot produce the iron line features observed in several afterglows together with the other, more conventional, features of the afterglow emission from these bursts. However, if the iron lines are not real, then a simple spherical model can explain all other observations for $`t_{\mathrm{sd}}\stackrel{>}{}20`$yr. The latter is required in order to explain typical afterglow observations and the lack of direct detection of the plerion emission in the radio during the afterglow.

If the iron line detections are real, then in the context of the PWB model, this requires deviations from a simple spherical geometry. The most straightforward variation of the simple model is a PWB that is elongated along its polar axis. Such a geometry may arise naturally within the context of this model (KG; GG). With an elongated geometry, the PWB model can account for all the observed features in the afterglow, and it offers a number of advantages in comparison to other models: i) It provides a relatively baryon clean environment for the GRB jet, which is required in order to produce a highly relativistic outflow. This arises as the initial SN expels most of the stellar envelope to a large distance from the site of the GRB, and the strong pulsar wind effectively sweeps up the remaining baryonic matter. ii) An important advantage of this model is that it can naturally explain the large values of $`ϵ_B`$ and $`ϵ_e`$ that are inferred from fits to afterglow data (KG), thanks to the large magnetic fields in the PWB and the large relative number of electron-positron pairs. This is in contrast with standard environment that is usually assumed to be either an ISM or the stellar wind of a massive progenitor, that consists of protons and electrons in equal numbers. In this case, the pre-existing magnetic field, that is amplified due to the compression of the fluid in the shock, is too small to explain the values inferred from afterglow observations, and further magnetic field amplification or generation at the shock is required. iii) All the detections of GRB afterglows to date are for the long duration sub-class of GRBs (with a duration $`\stackrel{>}{}2\mathrm{s}`$), that are believed to arise from a massive star progenitor, which according to the collapsar model should imply a stellar wind environment ($`k=2`$). However, a homogeneous external medium ($`k=0`$) provides a better fit to the observational data for most GRB afterglows. This apparent contradiction is naturally explained in the context of the PWB model, where $`k`$ ranges between $`0`$ and $`1`$, while we still have a massive star progenitor.

Another advantage of the PWB model is its capability of explaining the high energy emission observed in some GRBs. We find that the high energy emission during the early afterglow at photon energies $`\stackrel{>}{}100`$keV is dominated by the EC component. We predict that such a high energy emission may be detected in a large fraction of GRBs with the upcoming mission GLAST.

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Granot, J., & Guetta, D. 2002a, (astro-ph/0211136)

Granot, J., & Guetta, D. 2002b, submitted to Phys.Rev.Lett (astro-ph/0211433)

Guetta, D., & Granot, J. 2002a, MNRAS in press (astro-ph/0208156) (GG)

Guetta, D., & Granot, J. 2002b, submitted to Phys.Rev.Lett (astro-ph/0212045)

Hurley, K., et al. 1994, Nature, 372, 652

Inoue, S., Guetta, D., & Pacini, F. 2003 ApJ, 583, 379

Königl, A., & Granot, J. 2002 ApJ, 574, 134 (KG)

Lazzati, D., Campana, S., & Ghisellini, G. 1999, MNRAS, 304, L31

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# A note on a theorem of Xiao Gang

## 1. Introduction

In 1985 in \[X1\] Xiao Gang proved that the bicanonical image of a (minimal) surface of general type $`S`$ is not a surface (i.e., the bicanonical system is composed of a pencil) if and only if $`K_S^2=1`$, $`p_g(S)=0`$, i.e., if and only if $`p_2(S)=2`$.

When in the end of the 80’s it was finally proven that $`|2K_S|`$ is base point free, whenever $`p_g1`$, the part of this theorem concerning surfaces with $`p_g1`$ became trivial.

The aim of this note is to give a brief new proof of this theorem of Xiao Gang, using several results which by now are standard techniques of surface theory.

### Notations and conventions

A surface is an algebraic projective surface over $``$. No distinction is made between line bundles and divisors on a smooth variety, and additive and multiplicative notation are used interchangeably. Linear equivalence is denoted by $``$ and numerical equivalence by $``$. Given a linear system $`|D|`$ on a surface, the corresponding rational map is denoted by $`\phi _D`$, and $`|D|`$ is composed of a pencil if dim Im $`\phi _D=1`$. The remaining notation is standard in algebraic geometry.

### Acknowledgements

This work was written during a stay of the author at the institute “Simon Stoilow” of the Romanian Academy, under the program Eurrommat. Thanks are due to the Institute for the wonderful hospitality and the good organization found there.

## 2. Preliminaries

Here we list the results which will be needed in the sequel.

###### Proposition 2.1 (\[X2\], Théorème 2.2).

Let $`S`$ be a minimal surface of general type with $`p_g(S)=0`$. If $`S`$ has a genus $`2`$ fibration $`f:S^1`$, then $`K_S^22`$.

We will need also:

###### Proposition 2.2 (\[Be1\], Corollaire 5.8).

A minimal surface of general type $`S`$ satisfying $`q(S)=0`$ and $`K_S^22\chi (𝒪_S)`$ has no irregular étale covers.

###### Theorem 2.3 (De Franchis, \[DF\], cf. \[CC\], \[MP\]).

Let $`S`$ be a smooth surface with $`p_g(S)=q(S)=0`$ and $`\pi :YS`$ a smooth double cover with $`q(Y)>0`$. Then:

1. the Albanese map of $`Y`$ is a fibration $`\alpha :YB`$ over a curve $`B\mathrm{Alb}S`$;
2. there exist a fibration $`g:S^1`$ and a degree $`2`$ map $`p:B^1`$ such that $`p\alpha =g\pi `$.

Finally we recall:

###### Theorem 2.4.

The bicanonical system $`|2K_S|`$ of a minimal surface of general type $`S`$ is base point free, if $`p_g(S)1`$ or $`K_S^25`$.

This result is due to the work of several authors. For the corresponding references see the survey paper \[Ci\].

## 3. The proof of Xiao Gang’s theorem

The theorem will follow from Theorem 2.4 and the following:

###### Theorem 3.1.

Let $`S`$ be a minimal surface of general type with $`p_g=0`$. Then $`|2K_S|`$ is not composed of a pencil if and only if $`K_S^2>1`$.

###### Proof.

Since $`\chi (𝒪_S)=1`$, one has $`h^0(S,2K_S)=K_S^2+1`$ and therefore, if $`K_S^2=1`$, $`|2K_S|`$ is a pencil.

Suppose now that $`K_S^2>1`$ and that $`|2K_S|`$ is composed of a pencil with general fibre $`F`$. Since $`q=0`$, $`|F|`$ is a rational pencil and so $`2K_SdF+Z`$, where $`d=K_S^2`$ and $`Z`$ is an effective divisor possibly zero.

Now, because $`K_S`$ is nef, we have $`2K_S^2dK_SF+K_SZdK_SF`$ and therefore $`K_SF2`$. The index theorem yields $`K_S^2F^2(K_SF)^2`$ where if equality holds then for some $`a,b`$, $`aK_SbF`$. Also by the adjunction formula $`K_SF`$ and $`F^2`$ have the same parity. By the assumption $`K_S^2>1`$, one obtains the following the numerical possibilities:

i) $`K_SF=2`$, $`F^2=2`$ and $`K_SF`$;

ii) $`K_SF=2`$, $`F^2=0`$.

Now case i) does not occur. Suppose otherwise. Then $`2K_S2F`$ and so $`\eta :=K_SF`$ is a 2-torsion divisor. The étale double cover $`p:YS`$ associated to $`\eta `$ satisfies $`\chi (𝒪_Y)=2`$ and $`p_g(Y)=h^0(S,K_S)+h^0(S,K_S+\eta )=h^0(S,K_S)+h^0(S,F)=2`$. So $`Y`$ is irregular. This is a contradiction to proposition 2.2, and case i) is excluded.

For case ii) notice that, anyway, $`K_S^2=2`$, because in this case the pencil $`|F|`$ is a genus $`2`$ fibration and therefore $`K_S^22`$, by proposition 2.1.

Then one has $`2K_S2F+Z`$, where $`Z>0`$ is such that $`K_SZ=0`$, and so every irreducible curve in $`Z`$ is a $`2`$curve. The effective divisor $`Z`$ can be decomposed as $`Z=2Z_0+Z_1`$ where $`Z_0,Z_1`$ are effective divisors, and $`Z_1`$ is reduced.

If $`Z_1=0`$, then $`\eta :=K_SFZ_0`$ is a 2-torsion divisor and the same argument as above leads again to a contradiction.

Suppose now that $`Z_10`$. Since $`Z_1=2(K_SFZ_0)`$, $`\theta Z_1`$ is even for any irreducible component $`\theta `$ of $`Z_1`$. On the other hand the dual graph of the configuration of curves in $`Z_1`$ is a union of trees and thus, because $`Z_1`$ is reduced, necessarily $`Z_1`$ is a disjoint union of $`p`$ irreducible $`2`$curves. So $`Z_1`$ is a smooth divisor and we can consider the double cover $`p:Y^{}S`$ branched on $`Z_1`$ and defined by the relation $`Z_1=2(K_SFZ_0)`$.

The standard double cover formulas yield

$`\chi (𝒪_Y^{})=2\chi (𝒪_S)+\frac{1}{2}(K_SFZ_0)(2K_SFZ_0)=2\frac{p}{4}`$ ; $`K_Y^{}^2=2(2K_SFZ_0)^2=4p`$ ; $`p_g(Y^{})=h^0(S,𝒪_S(2K_SFZ_0))+h^0(S,𝒪_S(K_S))=2.`$

Since the surface $`Y^{}`$ is of course of general type, the only possibility is that $`p=4`$ ($`\chi (𝒪_Y^{})=1`$). Now $`p_g(Y^{})=2`$ yields $`q(Y^{})=2`$ and thus, by De Franchis theorem 2.3, $`Y^{}`$ is not of Albanese general type.

On the other hand, the minimal model $`Y`$ of $`Y^{}`$ is obtained by contracting the four exceptional curves which are the inverse images of the four components of $`Z_1`$ and as such satisfies $`K_Y^2=4`$. If we denote by $`f`$ the genus of a general fibre of the Albanese pencil of $`Y`$, we have then a contradiction to Arakelov’s inequality $`K_Y^28(f1)(q(Y)1)`$ (see, e.g., \[Be2\]).

So also this case does not occur and the theorem is proven. ∎

Remark. Very recently Meng Chen and E.Viehweg also found a different proof of Xiao’s theorem, which uses vanishing theorems for $``$divisors (see \[CV\]).

| Margarida Mendes Lopes |
| --- |
| CMAF |
| Universidade de Lisboa |
| Av. Prof. Gama Pinto, 2 |
| 1649-003 Lisboa, PORTUGAL |
| mmlopes@ptmat.ptmat.fc.ul.pt |


text:
# Accretion Flow Along a Dipolar Field: Application to Intermediate Polars

## 1. Introduction

In magnetic cataclysmic variables (mCVs), the accretion flow near the white dwarf is channeled by the magnetic field. The flow is initially supersonic but becomes subsonic near the white-dwarf surface, and an accretion shock is formed. The shock heats the accreting material to temperatures of $`10^710^8`$ K. The shock-heated material is ionized and emits bremsstrahlung X-rays and cyclotron optical/IR radiation (Lamb & Masters 1979). The height of the shock above the white-dwarf surface is determined by the cooling processes. It had been believed that the height is small ($`10^510^6`$ cm, see Wickramasinghe & Meggitt 1985), and therefore the shock-heated emission region could be treated as a stack of thin pancake-like plasmas on the white-dwarf surface. More recent studies showed that for some mCV parameters the shock height can be comparable to the white-dwarf radius when the effects of gravity along the flow are considered (see e.g. Cropper et al. 1999). The latter studies predicted X-ray spectra in good agreement with the grating spectra of mCVs obtained by XMM-Newton and Chandra (see e.g. Cropper et al. 2002).

Most existing hydrodynamic calculations of the post-shock accretion flow in mCVs assume a simple geometry, such as a semi-infinite slab or a cylinder (Aizu 1973; Chavelier & Imamura 1982; Wu, Chanmugam & Shaviv 1994; Cropper, Ramsay & Wu 1998). These simple geometries are good approximations, provided that the shock height is small and the flow is azimuthal symmetric and aligned close to the polar axis. For accretion flows in intermediate polars, these two conditions are not always satisfied, and hence, the effect of the magnetic-field geometry needs to be investigated in order to obtain accurate velocity and temperature profiles of the accretion flow.

Here, we present a hydrodynamic formulation in terms of a curvi-linear coordinate system natural to channeled flows in dipole magnetic fields. We solve the hydrodynamic equations and determine the velocity, density and temperature structures of the post-shock region. The results are compared with those of Cropper et al. (1999), in which a azimuthal cylindrical accretion column is assumed.

## 2. Formulation

We assume the accreting material is an ideal gas, with a pressure $`P`$, density $`\rho `$ and temperature $`T`$, related by $`P=\rho k_\mathrm{B}T/\mu m_\mathrm{H}`$, where $`k_\mathrm{B}`$ is the Boltzmann constant, $`m_\mathrm{H}`$ is the hydrogen mass, and $`\mu `$ is the mean molecular weight. In stationary accretion, the hydrodynamic equations governing the flow are

$`(\rho \text{v})`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`(\text{v})\text{v}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}P`$ $`=`$ $`\text{g},`$
$`(\text{v})P{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma P}{\rho }}(\text{v})\rho `$ $`=`$ $`(\gamma 1)\mathrm{\Lambda },`$
where $`𝐯`$ is the velocity of the flow, $`\gamma `$ is the adiabatic index of the gas, g is the gravitational acceleration, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the effective cooling function. (See Wu (2000) and references therein for the hydrodynamic formulation of accretion flow in mCVs.)

We consider a coordinate system ($`u`$, $`w`$, $`\phi `$), in which the orthogonal unit vectors $`\widehat{u}`$, $`\widehat{w}`$ and $`\widehat{\phi }`$ are defined as follows: $`\widehat{u}`$ is on the equi-potential surface of the field at a fixed azimuthal angle, $`\widehat{w}`$ is along the magnetic field line, and $`\widehat{\phi }`$ is the same as that for the azimuthal coordinate in the spherical coordinate system (see Fig. 1, left panel). The metrics of the coordinate system, $`h_1`$, $`h_2`$ and $`h_3`$, are given by

$`h_1`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{u}}\right)^2+\left({\displaystyle \frac{y}{u}}\right)^2+\left({\displaystyle \frac{z}{u}}\right)^2},`$
$`h_2`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{w}}\right)^2+\left({\displaystyle \frac{y}{w}}\right)^2+\left({\displaystyle \frac{z}{w}}\right)^2},`$
$`h_3`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{\phi }}\right)^2+\left({\displaystyle \frac{y}{\phi }}\right)^2+\left({\displaystyle \frac{z}{\phi }}\right)^2},`$
where ($`x,y,z`$) is the Cartesian coordinate system. We may then express the hydrodynamic equations in terms of ($`u,w,\phi `$).

We integrate the mass continuity equation directly and obtain $`h_1h_3\rho v=C`$, where $`C`$ is a constant. Substituting this into the other two hydrodynamic equations yields

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\xi }{w}}`$ $`=`$ $`h_2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{g_w}{v}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{h_2}}(\xi v)\right],`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{v}{w}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{h_2}{\gamma (\xi v)v}}\right)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma 1}{C}}h_1h_3\mathrm{\Lambda }+{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{h_2}}(\xi v)vg_w\right].`$
Here, $`\xi v+(P/\rho v)`$, $`g_w`$ is the gravitational acceleration projected on $`\widehat{w}`$ (Fig. 1, right panel), and the function $`(u,w)=\mathrm{ln}(h_1h_3)/w`$, describes the change of cross-section area of the flow-flux tube.

Our cooling function $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ consists of two parts, one for bremsstrahlung cooling and another for cyclotron cooling. We adopt the composite cooling function of Wu (1994) and Wu et al. (1994) (see also Cropper et al. 1998). As cyclotron cooling is practically unimportant in intermediate polars, we simply set the efficiency parameter $`ϵ_\mathrm{s}=0`$, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=A\rho ^2(P/\rho )^{1/2}`$, where the constant $`A=3.9\times 10^{16}`$ in c.g.s. units. We assume a cold stationary wall for the lower boundary condition as in Chevalier & Imamura (1982) and Wu et al. (1994). For the upper boundary condition a strong adiabatic shock is considered, but with this coordinate system its location must be determined self-consistently. Detailed treatment of the upper boundary condition will be presented in Canalle et al. (2003). With the cooling function and the boundary conditions defined, we can now integrate the hydrodynamic equations along the field lines numerically and obtain the velocity, density and temperature profiles of the flow.

## 3. Results and Discussion

In all calculations, unless otherwise stated, the white-dwarf mass $`M_{\mathrm{wd}}=1\mathrm{M}_{}`$ and the specific mass accretion rate $`\dot{m}=2.0\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. The white-dwarf radius, $`R_{\mathrm{wd}}`$, is determined by the Nauenberg (1972) mass-radius relation.

For comparison we also calculate the velocity, temperature and density profiles of a flow with an azimuthal symmetric cylindrical accretion column using the formulation in Cropper et al. (1999). The two main differences in the two formulations are that for flows channeled strictly by dipolar magnetic fields the cross section of the flow-flux tube decreases with distance to the white-dwarf surface and that the gravitational acceleration varies in strength and direction along the flow. As shown in Figure 1 (right panel), for the parameters assumed the gravitational accelerations are smaller for the flows along field lines with foot point co-latitudes $`\theta `$ farther away from the pole. With the parameters assumed in Figure 1, the value of $`g_w/|𝐠|`$ at the shock is about 0.985 for $`\theta =18^{}`$: the value can be much smaller for larger $`\theta `$ and also for parameters which yield shock heights significantly above the white-dwarf surface. Figure 2 shows the $`\rho v`$ profiles for various $`\theta `$. For small $`\theta `$, the profiles are similar, but when $`\theta `$ is substantially large the deviation becomes significant: compare the profiles of $`\theta =12^{}`$ and $`18^{}`$ with those of smaller $`\theta `$.

Figure 3 shows the velocity profiles of the flows. The shape of the profiles for the flows are quite similar regardless of the differences between the values of $`\theta `$. However, the shock heights are different, and hence the shock temperatures are different accordingly. Interestingly, the profiles are quite different to those of the cylindrical accretion column (Cropper et al. 1999). In particular, the latter yield a smaller shock height, thus a hotter and more compact post-shock emission region. This will affect the properties of the optical/IR cyclotron radiation as they are emitted mainly from the hotter part of post-shock region. The effects on the bremsstrahlung X-ray continuum may be less affected as it is emitted from the cooler bottom of the post-shock region.

Figure 4 shows the temperature profiles for systems with various white-dwarf masses. Both the flows in cylindrical columns and flows confined by dipolar fields show that the shock temperatures increases with the white-dwarf mass. For white-dwarf with masse $`\stackrel{<}{}`$0.7 M, the profiles for the two cases are similar, with the model with cylindrical columns giving slightly higher temperatures. However, when the white-dwarf mass is sufficiently large ($`1.0`$ M), the differences between the two cases becomes obvious. Also, the model with cylindrical columns tends to over predict the gas temperatures. The difference between the two cases can be explained qualitatively as follows. Larger white-dwarf masses result in higher shock temperatures and hence larger shock heights above the white-dwarf surface. When the shock height becomes too large, the cylindrical accretion column is not a very good approximation, and the variation in the gravitational acceleration along the flow becomes significant. The field geometry has stronger effects on the accretion onto massive white dwarfs than low-mass white dwarfs. Therefore, when modelling the X-rays and optical/IR radiations from the shock-heated accreting gas in the systems with massive white dwarfs, one must consider the effects due to the field geometry.

These finding may explain the finding of Cropper et al (1999) and Ramsay (2000) who found that the mass of the white dwarf in mCVs were biased towards higher masses compared to isolated white dwarfs when they fitted X-ray spectra with the cylindrical formulation. Work is currently in progress to implement the affect of the field geometry and determine how it will affect the resulting white dwarf masses.

In summary, we present a hydrodynamic formulation using a curvi-linear coordinate system defined by the dipole field configuration. We use this formulation to calculate the velocity, density and temperature profiles of the accretion flows in mCVs. We have shown that effects of field geometry are important for mCVs with high-mass white dwarfs. Our formulation improves the calculations of temperature and density structures of post-shock emission region in mCVs, in particular, the intermediate polars, and thereby predict more accurately the X-ray and optical/IR emission from these systems.

## References

Aizu, K. 1973, Prog. Theor. Phys., 49, 1184

Canalle, J. B. G., et al. 2003, MNRAS, to be submitted

Chevalier, R. A., & Imamura, J. N. 1982, ApJ, 261, 543

Cropper, M., Ramsay, G., & Wu, K. 1998, MNRAS, 293, 222

Cropper, M., Wu, K., Ramsay, G., & Kocabiyik, A. 1999, MNRAS, 306, 684

Cropper, M. et al, 2002, Trans. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lon. A, 360, 1951

Lamb, D. Q., & Masters, A. R. 1979, ApJ, 234, L117

Nauenberg, M. 1972, ApJ, 175, 417

Ramsay, G., 2000, MNRAS, 314, 403

Wickramasinghe, D. T., & Meggitt, S. M. A. 1985, MNRAS, 214, 605

Wu, K. 1994, Proc. Astron. Soc. Australia, 11, 61

Wu, K. 2000, Space Sci. Rev., 93, 611

Wu, K., Chanmugam, G., & Shaviv, G. 1994, ApJ, 426, 664

Acknowledgments

JBGC acknowledges the financial support from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq) and to the State University of R io de Janeiro (UERJ) for the leave of one year inside the program PROCAD to take part in this research.


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# A Luttinger Liquid in a Box

## Abstract

We study a Luttinger Liquid in a finite one-dimensional wire with box-like boundary conditions by considering the local distribution of the single particle spectral weight. This corresponds to the experimental probability of extracting a single electron at a given place and energy, which can be interpreted as the square of an electron wave-function. For the non-interacting case, this is given by a standing wave at the Fermi wave-vector. In the presence of interactions, however, the wave-functions obtain additional structure with a sharp depletion near the edges and modulations throughout the wire. In the spinful case, these modulations correspond to the separate spin- and charge-like excitations in the system.

The problem of a particle in a one-dimensional box is a classic example in almost any quantum mechanics text-book since it gives a pedagogical introduction to the concept of energy quantization and provides a complete visualization of the corresponding wave-functions. It is however only recently that this problem has gained true experimental relevance due to the progress in constructing smaller and more refined structures to confine electrons in dots and wires. It is for example now possible to resolve the electron wave functions in a finite piece of carbon nanotube by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) experiments venema ; lemay ; nanotube . Most experimental realizations of one-dimensional electron boxes contain many electrons in a Fermi sea, but it is possible to study a single particle excitation on top of such a ground state configuration and classify the possible energy levels and wave-functions.

However, electron-electron interactions may produce interesting effects in such one-dimensional many-body systems and systematically change the shape of the electron wave-functions. In fact single particle excitations are no longer the eigenstates of an interacting Hamiltonian, but of course it is still interesting to determine the probability of extracting or inserting individual electrons at a given position and energy. This local probability density can be interpreted as the square of the electron wave-function. We therefore study the fundamental problem of single particle excitations in a many body interacting Fermion system confined to a one-dimensional box using the Luttinger Liquid formalism.

We find that the classic example of a box provides again a good visualization of the effect of interactions on the wave-function and the energy quantization. In particular, in addition to the expected rapid Fermi wave-vector oscillations in the wave-function we can recognize long wavelength modulations, which correspond to the underlying boson-like excitations in the Luttinger Liquid. For repulsive interactions the wave-functions are sharply depleted at the edges with a characteristic power-law. Analytic expressions for the wave-functions of the first few levels are presented.

The Luttinger Liquid formalism is a well-established tool to describe interacting electrons confined to one dimension haldane ; senechal . In a linearized region around the Fermi points the Fermion field can be expanded in terms of left- and right-movers

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)e^{ik_Fx}\psi _R(x,t)+e^{ik_Fx}\psi _L(x,t).$$
(1)
The Fourier modes of the left- and right-moving Fermion density are then represented by bosonic creation and annihilation operators, which effectively act by “shifting” Fermions $`m`$ steps up or down the spectrum. In the presence of interactions it is then possible to solve the model by a Bogoliubov transformation which mixes the left- and right-moving bosons. This transformation can be described by a single “Luttinger Liquid parameter” $`g`$, which gives the hyperbolic cosine $`\alpha `$ and sine $`\beta `$ of the Bogoliubov transformation

$$\alpha =\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{1}{g}+g\right),\beta =\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{1}{g}g\right).$$
(2)
Here $`g<1`$ for repulsive backscattering interactions and $`g=1`$ for no interactions. Forward scattering does not affect this parameter, but rescales the effective Fermi-velocity.

Let us now consider spinless Fermions in a one-dimensional box of length $`L`$ with fixed boundary conditions $`\mathrm{\Psi }(0)=\mathrm{\Psi }(L)=0`$. After bosonization the Fermion fields become exponentials of the boson operators in a linearized region around the Fermi points

$`\psi _R(x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi a}}}e^{i\sqrt{4\pi }(\alpha \varphi _R(x,t)\beta \varphi _L(x,t))}`$ (3)
$`\psi _L(x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi a}}}e^{i\sqrt{4\pi }(\alpha \varphi _L(x,t)\beta \varphi _R(x,t))},`$ (4)
where $`a`$ is a short-distance cutoff parameter. The fixed boundary condition therefore relates the left- and right-moving boson fields $`\varphi _R(x,t)=\varphi _L(x,t)+\varphi _0`$ and determines the mode expansion in terms of ordinary boson creation and annihilation operators and zero modesgogolin ; mattsson

$$\varphi _L(x,t)=\frac{\varphi _0+\stackrel{~}{\varphi _0}}{2}+Q\frac{x+vt}{2L}+\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{\sqrt{4\pi m}}\left(e^{i\frac{m\pi }{L}(x+vt)}a_m+e^{i\frac{m\pi }{L}(x+vt)}a_m^{}\right)$$
(5)
where $`[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_0,Q]=i`$ and $`\varphi _0=\frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{2g}`$. The eigenvalues of the zero modes $`Q=(nn_0\frac{1}{2})\sqrt{\pi }/g`$ are quantized with the number of electrons $`n`$, where $`n_0=\frac{k_FL}{\pi }`$ corresponds to the number of electrons in the ground state.

The Hamiltonian is given by $`H=\frac{\pi v}{L}_mma_m^{}a_m+\frac{v}{2L}Q^2`$, where $`v`$ is the renormalized Fermi velocity. We see that the last term in $`H`$ resembles a “charging” energy proportional to the square of the excess number of Fermions, but this will not affect our calculations since we always consider single particle excitations with exactly one additional Fermion $`n=n_0+1`$. In general there may also be an additional capacitative energy with a corresponding single particle charging energy $`E_0`$.

The boson excitations become highly degenerate with increasing energy levels which are always quantized $`\omega _m=m\frac{\pi v}{L}`$. However, we are interested in the corresponding Fermion wave-function of a single particle excitation on the ground state $`\omega _m|x=\omega _m|\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(x)|0`$. The probability density $`\rho (\omega _m,x)`$ is given by the sum of the corresponding degenerate wave-functions $`\omega _m|x`$ squared

$$\rho (\omega _m,x)\underset{\lambda }{}\left|\omega _m,\lambda |\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(x)|0\right|^2$$
(6)
This is the local density of states which gives the experimental probability of tunneling an electron into the system at energy $`\omega _m`$ and position $`x`$. This spectral density can be readily evaluated for an equally-spaced spectrum by the Fourier transformation of the Fermion Green’s function

$$\rho (\omega _m,x)=\frac{v}{2L}_0^{2L/v}𝑑te^{i\omega _mt}\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(x,0).$$
(7)
After defining a “mixed wave” $`\chi _m(x)=\alpha e^{im\frac{\pi x}{L}}+\beta e^{im\frac{\pi x}{L}}`$, we find

$`\psi _L(x,t)\psi _L^{}(x,0)`$ $`=`$ $`c\left(\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi x}{L}}\right)^{2\alpha \beta }\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{ik\frac{\pi vt}{L}}}{k}}|\chi _k(x)|^2\right]`$ (8)
$`\psi _R(x,t)\psi _L^{}(x,0)`$ $`=`$ $`c\left(\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi x}{L}}\right)^{2\alpha \beta }\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{ik\frac{\pi vt}{L}}}{k}}\chi _k^2(x)\right].`$ (9)
Here $`c=\frac{4^{2\alpha \beta }}{L}\left(\frac{2\pi a}{L}\right)^{2\beta ^2}`$ is a non-universal cutoff-dependent renormalization parameter which sets the units in our calculations and suppresses the spectral weight in the presence of interactions. These correlation functions can be simplified to powerlaws of sine-functions gogolin ; mattsson ; boundary  but the form above avoids any singularities in the integral of Eq. (7) since for a given level $`\omega _m`$ we can truncate the sum in the exponential by $`km`$. For the first few levels we are even able to evaluate $`\rho `$ analytically

$`\rho (\omega _1,x)`$ $`=`$ $`c\left(\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi x}{L}}\right)^{2\alpha \beta }2\mathrm{I}\mathrm{m}^2\left[\chi _1(x)e^{ik_Fx}\right]`$
$`\rho (\omega _2,x)`$ $`=`$ $`c\left(\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi x}{L}}\right)^{2\alpha \beta }\left(\mathrm{Im}^2\left[\chi _1^2(x)e^{ik_Fx}\right]+\mathrm{Im}^2\left[\chi _2(x)e^{ik_Fx}\right]\right)`$ (10)
$`\rho (\omega _3,x)`$ $`=`$ $`c\left(\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi x}{L}}\right)^{2\alpha \beta }\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\mathrm{Im}^2\left[\chi _1^3(x)e^{ik_Fx}\right]+\mathrm{Im}^2\left[\chi _1(x)\chi _2(x)e^{ik_Fx}\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\mathrm{Im}^2\left[\chi _3(x)e^{ik_Fx}\right]\right)`$
The probability density shows an oscillation of $`2k_Fx`$ with modulations according to the mixing of left- and right-moving components in $`\chi _m`$. As can be seen in Fig. 1, the amplitude of the modulations increases with the interaction strength (smaller $`g`$) and the envelope shows a depletion near the edges with a characteristic powerlaw $`x^{2\alpha \beta }`$ in agreement with the notion of a boundary exponent gogolin ; mattsson ; boundary ; kane . In the limit of small level spacing $`L\mathrm{}`$ we recover the known Luttinger Liquid powerlaw behavior of the integrated density of states $`\rho (\omega )\omega ^{2\beta ^2}`$ (last panel of Fig. 1). In Fig. 2 we see that the modulations of level $`\omega _m`$ always have $`m`$ “nodes” and $`m+1`$ maxima with roughly equal spacing and height resembling a standing wave with a small wave-vector $`\omega _m/v`$, corresponding to the density waves from the boson excitations relative to the Fermi-energy. It is also instructive to consider the non-interacting limit $`g=1`$, for which we always recover a normalized standing wave of wave-vector $`2(k_F+\omega _m/v)`$ without any modulations or depletion, even though a general single Fermion excitation still corresponds to a superposition of degenerate many-boson states (and vice versa).

It is now interesting to explore this modulation pattern for the spinful case where we expect separate spin- and charge-like excitations. In this case the electron field with spin $`\sigma =\pm `$ is expressed in terms of spin and charge boson operators with two Luttinger Liquid parameters $`g_s`$ and $`g_c`$

$$\psi _{R,\sigma }(x)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi a}}e^{i\sqrt{2\pi }(\alpha _c\varphi _{R,c}\beta _c\varphi _{L,c})}e^{i\sigma \sqrt{2\pi }(\alpha _s\varphi _{R,s}\beta _s\varphi _{L,s})}$$
(11)
and the analogous expression for $`\psi _{L,\sigma }`$. The mode expansions for the spin and charge bosons are the same as in Eq. (5), and the Hamiltonian is also given by the a simple sum $`H=_{\nu =c,s}\left(_{m_\nu }\frac{v_\nu \pi }{L}m_\nu a_{m_\nu }^{}a_{m_\nu }+\frac{v_\nu Q_\nu ^2}{2L}\right)`$.

Therefore, the spin and charge excitations are decoupled except for the quantization conditions on the zero modes $`Q_s=\frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{\sqrt{2}g_s}l`$, $`Q_c=\frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{\sqrt{2}g_c}\left(n1\frac{2k_FL}{\pi }\right)`$ that $`[l,n]`$ must be either both even or both odd ( in our case). For the non-interacting case, spin- and charge-excitations are exactly degenerate, but now the excitations are classified by the product space of two evenly spaced boson spectra with different energy spacing $`v_s<v_c`$. The partition function and the electron Green s function factorize. Therefore, the wave-functions are products of spin- and charge-modulations which are similar to the ones shown in Fig. 2 and Eq. (10), except that the mixed wave is rescaled $`\chi _{m,\nu }(x)=\frac{\alpha _\nu }{\sqrt{2}}e^{im\frac{\pi x}{L}}+\frac{\beta _\nu }{\sqrt{2}}e^{im\frac{\pi x}{L}},\nu =s,c`$ and the overall factor is given by $`\left(\mathrm{sin}\frac{\pi x}{L}\right)^{\alpha _s\beta _s}\left(\mathrm{sin}\frac{\pi x}{L}\right)^{\alpha _c\beta _c}`$.

In Fig. 3 we show the square of the wave-functions at the lowest energies in a spinful interacting electron system with $`g_s=0.7,g_c=0.6`$, and $`v_c=2.3v_s`$. Due to the different velocities, the degeneracy is lifted and many more levels appear as the energy is increased \[see also Fig. 4 in Ref. mattsson \]. Each level is classified by a spin and a charge quantum number $`m_s`$ and $`m_c`$, which is reflected by the corresponding number of nodes and maxima in the wave-functions. For example the level $`m_s=4,m_c=1`$ shows a superposition of two charge maxima and five weaker spin maxima. In Fig. 3 we have chosen values of $`g_s=0.7`$ and $`g_c=0.6`$, which emphasizes the locations of both spin and charge modulations, but in systems where the interactions are mostly spin-independent $`g_s`$ is likely to be much closer to unity and the spin modulations are less pronounced. Nonetheless, the level structure due to $`v_s<v_c`$ as well as the charge modulations are likely to be observable when classifying Luttinger Liquid systems in real space with STM experiments.

The integrated weight of the individual levels decreases with increasing energy, but the total (averaged) density of states increases with the known powerlaw $`\rho (\omega )\omega ^{\beta _s^2+\beta _c^2}`$. The superstructures survive even in the continuum limit and give rise to the observed slow oscillations with wave-vectors $`\omega /v_c`$ and $`\omega /v_s`$ near the edge of a semi-infinite Luttinger Liquid mattsson ; boundary ; stm ; meden . In the non-interacting limit $`g_s=g_c=1`$ we recover again standing waves with a fixed wave-vector without any modulations, and remarkably all the many degenerate spin and charge boson states at each energy level exactly sum up to an integrated normalized spectral weight of unity.

In conclusion we have shown that the single particle wave-functions of interacting Fermions in a box can be used to visualize the true nature of the underlying boson excitations. Given the rapid progress in STM imaging and nano-structured materials this may soon be observable when classifying different kinds of potential Luttinger Liquid systems.

This research was supported in part by the Swedish Research Council and INFM.