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# Skyrme Mean-Field Study of Rotational Bands in Transfermium Isotopes

## 1 Introduction

Effective interactions used in microscopic mean-field models are built from nuclear ingredients such as ground-state properties of selected nuclei and infinite nuclear matter . No information coming from rotational bands of deformed nuclei is a priori implemented in these forces. The variation of the moment of inertia along a band is related to the evolution of pairing correlations with rotation. Such a variation brings other constraints on the structure and the strength of the pairing interaction . Furthermore, properties of bands in odd-mass nuclei are a fingerprint of the quasi-particle excitations on which they are built and, thus, of the single-particle spectra predicted by the effective mean-field interaction. Experimental study of rotational spectra in nuclei far from stability is thus an important tool to test the predictive power of these forces.

The recent experimental results for the Nobelium isotopes 252No and 254No  are in this respect of particular importance. They bring data in a region close to the domain of super-heavy nuclei, where our knowledge of single-particle spectra and of pairing correlations is particularly limited. Since then, further experiments have been proposed or are already underway for other even-even and odd-mass nuclei in this mass region; new results are expected to appear soon. This experimental context has triggered a number of theoretical studies with various mean-field models. Fully self-consistent cranked HFB calculations have been performed for selected nuclei with several interactions: the Gogny force , the Skyrme interactions SLy4 and a density-dependent pairing force  and SkM\* together with a schematic pairing force . The relativistic mean-field model  has also been applied to this domain. Finally, let us quote the large scale microscopic-macroscopic study of Muntian et al. .

In this paper, we present calculations for the rotational bands of some even-even nuclides in the $`A=250`$ mass region and of odd-mass isotopes differing from 252No or 254No by either one neutron or one proton. We also discuss the spectra of quasi-particle states expected for these nuclei.

First, we briefly recall our method and present its main ingredients. We then calculate the spectra and rotational bands of the heaviest isotopes for which there are extensive experimental data. Finally, we calculate spectra and rotational bands of nuclei around the No isotopes.

## 2 The method

We have performed cranked HFB calculations following the method described in ref. . The SLy4 parameterization of the Skyrme interaction  is chosen in the mean-field (particle-hole) channel. In the pairing (particle-particle) channel, we use a zero-range density-dependent force with the strength ($`V=1250`$ MeV fm3) and cutoff (5 MeV) as in our previous study of 252,254No . The Lipkin-Nogami prescription is utilized to prevent a collapse of pairing correlations at high angular momentum. Quasi-particle excitations are calculated fully self-consistently . The effect of core polarization and of the blocking of a pair of states are thus exactly taken into account.

This model has been successfully used to describe super-deformed rotational bands  and super-heavy nuclei . In ref. , we have compared our results with data on rotational bands of 252No and 254No.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Single-particle levels

The single-particle levels of 254No are plotted in figure 1 as a function of the axial quadrupole moment. These energies are eigenvalues of the particle-hole part of the HFB Hamiltonian. They provide a useful link to simpler models.

The proton level density around the Fermi surface is rather low at deformations around $`\beta _2=0.28`$ which is the deformation that we obtain for 254No. In this region, there are numerous deformed shell closures in the proton spectrum: at $`Z=98`$ and 100, below 254No and also at $`Z=104`$, 108, 110. At the same deformation, there are regions of low neutron level density around $`N=150`$ and 152 as well as $`N=162`$.

### 3.2 Quasi-particle states in 251Cf and 249Bk

Before applying our method to nuclei for which experimental data are sparse, let us focus on the spectra of 251Cf and 249Bk which are the heaviest odd-neutron and odd-proton nuclei for which the low energy spectra are rather well known. Figure 2 gives the spectra of these odd nuclei calculated self-consistently from one quasi-particle excitations (1qp) built on an HFB vacuum. All states which are calculated to lie below 1.2 MeV are compared with experiment. Data are from ref.  and references therein for both nuclei and also from ref.  for 251Cf.

The states we have calculated in 251Cf are characterized by a deformation $`\beta _2`$ around 0.26, with the exception of the $`1/2^{}`$ state at 410 keV, which is significantly more deformed ($`\beta _2=0.273`$ using the relation between $`\beta _2`$ and the quadrupole and hexadecapole moments given in ref. ). These values are significantly larger than the fixed $`\beta _2`$ value used by Ćwiok et al.  (0.247) in their calculations based on a Woods-Saxon potential and the Strutinsky prescription. However, a clear conclusion is difficult to draw: in ref. , $`\beta _2`$ is *a priori* fixed to be the same for all levels, whereas in self-consistent mean-field calculations, deformation is optimized level per level. In addition, the 1qp energies given in  are eigenvalues of the HFB Hamiltonian using an average potential, while our 1qp energies are total binding energy differences between self-consistent one quasi-particle states.

The ground state of 251Cf is obtained from the 1qp excitation predominantly based on the first single-particle state above the Fermi level, which has a spin of $`1/2^+`$, in agreement with the data. The first three excited levels correspond to 1qp states based on the single-particle levels just above ($`3/2^+`$ and $`7/2^+`$) or just below ($`9/2^{}`$) the Fermi level. This result is also consistent with experiment, with the largest error on the $`9/2^{}`$ state, too low by almost 300 keV. At higher excitation energies, the energy of the $`11/2^{}`$ state is largely overestimated by our calculation. Other states are predicted with an accuracy of the order of 300 keV. We also obtain a $`7/2^+`$ state at 700 keV. Experimentally, the $`3/2^{}`$ state at 981 keV and the $`7/2^+`$ state at 1078 keV have been interpreted as due to the coupling of the $`7/2^+`$ 1qp excitation with the $`2^{}`$ octupole vibration and the $`0^+`$ pair vibration respectively. These states are thus outside the scope of our calculation. No $`3/2^{}`$ single-particle state is obtained below 1.2 MeV in our calculation. A rather similar spectrum is obtained in ref. , with however a much better energy for the $`11/2^{}`$ state at 370 keV. The RMF results of ref.  are in similar agreement with the data than ours, with, however a less dense spectrum for the two interactions that were tested.

We obtain a spin $`3/2^{}`$ for the ground state of 249Bk. The largest discrepancy with experiment isthe much too high energy for the $`7/2^+`$ state which is experimentally nearly degenerate with the ground state. Our calculation also significantly overestimates the energy of the first $`1/2^+`$ state. All states have a very similar deformation $`\beta _2`$ around 0.255. This value is slightly larger than the fixed 0.243 value used in . The spin obtained in  for the ground state is $`3/2^{}`$, but the $`7/2^+`$ state is excited by only 150 keV. The RMF calculation  is in slightly better agreement with the data than our results, mainly because of a better energy for the $`7/2^+`$ state.

It is tempting to interpret the discrepancies observed between the calculated and experimental spectra in terms of the ordering of the single-particle levels at sphericity. For the neutrons and the 251Cf spectrum, the too low 1qp energy of the $`9/2^{}`$ state above the Fermi level and the too high energy of the $`11/2^{}`$ state below the Fermi level could be corrected by a lowering of the energy of the $`1j15/2^{}`$ sub-shell. This would increase the $`N=164`$ spherical energy gap, and also slightly reduce the deformed gap at $`N=150`$ in favor of an increased $`N=152`$ gap for typical ground state deformations around $`\beta =0.28`$. The fact that the self-consistent models underestimate the $`N=152`$ shell effect is also suggested by the experimental two-neutron separation energies  and $`Q_\alpha `$ values .

The positions of the $`5/2^+`$ and $`7/2^+`$ states in 249Bk would be in better agreement with the data if the $`1i13/2^+`$ shell were lower and if the splitting between the $`3/2^{}`$ and the $`1/2^{}`$ orbitals (labeled as $`[521]3/2^{}`$ and $`[521]1/2`$ Nilsson states) was reduced by closer spherical $`2f7/2^{}`$ and $`2f/5/2^{}`$ shells. A lowering of the energies of the $`1j15/2^{}`$ neutron and $`1i13/2^+`$ proton sub-shells can be achieved by an increase of the spin-orbit strength. However, this is not consistent with analyses showing that most Skyrme interactions overestimate the spin-orbit splitting in heavy nuclei . In any case, to improve the description of the spectra by modifying the effective force requires deeper modifications than just the spin-orbit strength. One must also note that slight shifts of the levels could result from deformation modes not included in our model, like the octupole mode.

Such modifications of the spherical sub-shells would affect the shell gaps for super-heavy nuclei. It would lead to a reduction of the deformed $`Z=110`$ gap and an increase of the $`Z=108`$ gap, in better agreement with the sparse available data. At the same time, the modified $`1i13/2^+`$ and $`2f7/2^{}`$ sub-shells would affect the $`Z=114`$ gap in opposite ways and might not change it quantitatively. Note that most parameterizations of the RMF model predict the proton $`1i13/2^+`$ sub-shell to be below the $`2f7/2^{}`$ state . However, speculations about the magicity of $`Z=114`$ and $`Z=120`$ based solely on the deformed one quasi-particle states in 249Bk is questionable as increasing the charge number polarizes the nuclear density distribution, which feeds back into the single-particle spectra. For example, the spin-orbit splitting of $`2f`$ and $`3p`$ levels nearly vanishes for nuclides with semi-bubble shapes  that are predicted to appear around 292120 .

One must also keep in mind that large changes in the single-particle spectra will also affect other regions of the mass table. In particular, the lower members of the intruder proton $`1i13/2^+`$ and neutron $`1j15/2^{}`$ orbitals are responsible of several super-deformed rotational bands in the $`A=190`$ mass region and cannot be changed by more than one or two hundred keV .

Recently, conversion electron cascades have been measured by Butler et al. . The presence of high K-isomers was conjectured to explain the observed intensities. We have calculated the 2qp-excitations in 254No which can lead to high K-states. Most of them have excitation energies significantly larger than 2.0 MeV. The 2qp $`7^{}`$ state based on $`7/2^+`$ and $`7/2^{}`$ particle states (see figure 1) is the only excitation that our calculation gives below 2.0 MeV, around 1.5 MeV. We have also determined its magnetic moment following the method developed by Hamamoto . This configuration has a very large magnetic moment, around 1.5 W.U., as do several of the more excited configurations. Whether such a result is consistent with the present analysis of the experimental data requires further investigation.

### 3.3 Pu isotopes

Here, we discuss results of our method for the rotational bands of 240Pu and 244Pu for which recent detailed experimental data  have become available. The kinematic ($`J^{(1)}`$) and dynamic ($`J^{(2)}`$) moments of inertia are compared with experiment in figure 3.

In both cases, the $`J^{(1)}`$ moment is in close agreement with the data at all rotational frequencies, while $`J^{(2)}`$ is overestimated at high rotational frequencies in a more pronounced way for 240Pu than for 244Pu. In 244Pu, the calculation slightly underestimates the rotational frequency at which the alignment of a proton $`i13/2^+`$ occurs. The same alignment does not occur in 240Pu up to $`J=34`$ $`\mathrm{}`$, both experimentally and theoretically. It has been suggested that this absence is due to octupole correlations  which however are not included in our calculation. Further investigations are necessary to clarify this point.

### 3.4 Quasi-particle states of nuclei around 252,254No

The spectra of four selected odd-mass nuclei around 252,254No are presented on figure 4. All states are obtained by self-consistent 1qp excitation on a HFB vacuum. The experimental data on these nuclei are sparse .

Let us focus first on the two odd-proton nuclei for which there are no data. As expected from the single-particle spectrum of figure 2, the ground state of 251Md has a calculated spin $`1/2^{}`$, with two closely packed $`7/2`$ states of opposite parity around 200 keV. For 255Lr, the three same spins appear at low energy, with a $`7/2^{}`$ ground state and two excited states below 0.5 MeV. Three more states than in 251Md are obtained below 1.0 MeV. This is a consequence of the denser single-particle spectrum above $`Z=104`$. Ćwiok et al.  have obtained similar but less dense spectra, with the same spins for the ground states. The main difference relies in the position of $`9/2^+`$ states. In 255Lr, we obtain a state at an energy around 600 keV higher than in ref. . In 251Md, we do not obtain it below 1.5 MeV. These differences are probably related to the position of the $`i13/2^+`$ sub-shell discussed above.

The ground state of 253No is predicted to be a $`9/2^{}`$ level, in agreement with the tentative experimental assignment . Note that this state arises from the $`i13/2^+`$ sub-shell. A lowering of this sub-shell by more than a few 100 keV will affect the ordering of the 253No first levels. The spectrum that we obtain is in overall good agreement with the results of ref. . In particular and contrary to the spectrum reported in ref. , we do not obtain a $`11/2^{}`$ state at low energy. However, our calculation predicts a $`1/2^+`$ state at 300 keV. We have also calculated the magnetic moments of these states which turn out to be rather large (1 W.U. for the $`9/2^{}`$, 0.25 W.U. for the $`1/2^+`$ and 0.1 W.U. for the $`7/2^+`$). Hence, low lying states of rotational bands build on these excitations will deexcite predominantly via $`M1`$ transitions. The ground state of 255No is a $`1/2^+`$ state, nearly degenerate with a $`3/2^+`$ state. Two other states are predicted to lie below 300 keV, as can be expected from the neutron single-particle spectrum of figure 1.

### 3.5 Rotational bands of nuclei around 252,254No

Calculated moments of inertia for the even-even nuclei with $`Z=100`$–104 and $`N=150`$, 152 are shown in figure 5. Experimental data for 252No are taken from , data for 254No from . The overall behavior of the moments of inertia of the Fm and Rf isotopes is very similar to the one obtained previously in ref.  for 252No and 254No. The predicted alignment for 252No underestimates the data, while for 254No calculations and experiement are in reasonable agreement. The heavy $`N=152`$ isotones 254No and 256Rf have a significantly slower alignment than the other nuclides, with a minimum predicted for 254No. Following our previous discussion on the location of the high $`j`$ states, we observe that an energy decrease for the $`j15/2^{}`$ orbital would result in a faster alignment in 252No and a slower one in 254No, as can be inferred from the quasi-particle energies given on figure 4 in ref. .

The moment of inertia of selected bands in odd-mass nuclei are plotted in figure 6. The odd proton isotopes have rather similar moment of inertia, the $`1/2^{}`$ and $`7/2^{}`$ bands in 251Md behaving in essentially the same way.

## 4 Conclusions

In this work, we have compared our self-consistent mean-field calculations with the heaviest two odd nuclei for which the single-particle spectrum is reasonably known, 251Cf and 249Bk. The qualitative overall agreement is rather good, in spite of some discrepancies for a few states. This gives us confidence in our results for the other, less known, nuclei that we studied in this mass region. In particular, our results may be of some value for experiments intended to explore any of these nuclei. However, one should bear in mind that these states have been calculated with the HFB formalism. There is, therefore, no guarantee that they are orthogonal, especially when corresponding to the same parity and $`K`$ value.

Mean-field models  predict different neutron and proton numbers for spherical, doubly magic super-heavy nuclei. The mass region we have explored is the heaviest one for which one has sufficient experimental knowledge to extract some information relevant to the single particle spectra. However, this information and its consequence on magic numbers cannot be extrapolated without care from 254No to higher masses. For instance, deformation of the density arising from multipole moments higher than the quadrupole one are automatically taken into account in microscopic mean-field calculations. As these higher moments change rapidly with nucleon numbers, substantial modifications in the single-particle spectrum and thus of magic numbers may be expected (see e.g. ref. ).

Another interesting finding is the sensitivity of the calculated spectra of odd nuclides to the precise location of individual orbitals. In these very heavy nuclei, the density of levels is higher than for lower masses. One may thus speculate that a slight modification of the spin-orbit strength could result in some significant changes in excitation spectra in this mass region while remaining of no importance for lighter nuclei. This points to the necessity of a careful analysis of the spin orbit strength in standard fit procedure of effective forces, which is beyond the scope of the present work.

## Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by the PAI-P5-07 of the Belgian Office for Scientific Policy. M. B. acknowledges support through a European Community Marie Curie Fellowship. We thank R.-D. Herzberg, R. V. F. Janssens, T. L. Khoo, W. Nazarewicz, Ch. Theisen for fruitful and inspiring discussions.


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# Can dark energy be decaying?

## 1 Introduction

Observations of the luminosity distance to distant type Ia supernovae  supported by the discovery of CMB angular temperature fluctuations on degree scales  and measurements of the power spectrum of galaxy clustering  convincingly show that our Universe is (approximately) spatially flat, with $`30\%`$ of its critical energy density in non-relativistic matter (cold dark matter (CDM) and baryons) and the remaining $`70\%`$ in a smooth component having a large negative pressure (‘dark energy’). Dark energy is clearly the most abundant form of matter in the Universe (in terms of the effective energy density), yet both its nature and its cosmological origin remain enigmatic at present. It is clear that the observational properties of dark energy (DE) are tantalizingly close to those of a cosmological constant ‘$`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$’, yet dark energy need not be $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ exactly (see reviews ).

An intriguing possibility, carrying far reaching consequences both for the current Universe and its ultimate fate, is that the dark energy may be decaying. The possibility that dark energy could be unstable is in fact suggested by the remarkable qualitative analogy between the presence of dark energy today and the properties of a different type of ‘dark energy’ – the inflaton field – postulated in the inflationary scenario of the early Universe. This analogy works in two ways. On one hand, the fact that a form of matter having a large negative pressure dominates the universe today makes it not unnatural that a similar form of matter (having $`w<0`$) could have dominated the universe in the distant past. On the other hand, since dark energy in the early Universe (the inflaton) was unstable and decayed aeons ago, one might be tempted to ask whether the nature of dark energy observed today will be any different. In this paper we address in detail the possibility that dark energy, like the inflaton which preceded it, may be decaying.

Decaying dark energy (DDE) leads to numerous interesting possibilities including the fact that the current epoch of cosmic acceleration could be a transient which ends after the dark energy density has dropped to sufficiently small values. Such a universe will clearly be very different from the standard $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology. For instance, a DDE universe may not possess horizons which are characteristic of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM as well as tracker-driven quintessence models (see  for a brief review). (Interesting implications for the future of our universe also arise in certain braneworld models, in which the current accelerating regime is a transient between two matter dominated epochs .)

Within the context of quintessence models another interesting (though more speculative) possibility is provided by potentials which are not constrained to be positive but which can become negative for certain values of $`\varphi `$ . These potentials are either bounded from below, in which case $`V(\varphi )`$ has one or more minima at which $`V(\varphi _i)<0`$. (A good example is furnished by the cosine potential which will be examined in detail later in this paper.) Alternatively the potential becomes unbounded, in which case $`V(\varphi )\mathrm{}`$, for some values of $`\varphi `$. Under the influence of a negative potential, DDE steadily decreases and the universe expands at an increasingly slower rate. Finally a stage is reached when the negative DDE density exactly cancels the positive density of dark matter (plus the curvature term, if present). At this point of time the expansion of the universe stops ($`H=0`$) and thereafter the universe begins to collapse ($`H<0`$). This paper examines two general classes of potentials describing decaying dark energy in the light of recent high redshift supernova observations. In the first class $`V(\varphi )=V_0\frac{1}{2}m^2\varphi ^2`$, and we evolve the field equations into the future to determine the time taken for the potential to drop to half its maximum value. The second class of models involves the cosine potential. In both cases we use the agreement between our model and high redshift supernova data in the past, to extrapolate and predict the behaviour of our model universe in the future. As a result, we find the range of model parameters allowed by the supernovae data and determine: (i) the minimum time for the universe to stop accelerating, and, (ii) the minimum time for the universe to collapse in DDE models with negative potentials.

## 2 Decaying Dark Energy

The decaying dark energy (DDE) model which we consider is analogous to successful inflationary models in that it undergoes quasi-homogeneous decay. We model DDE by a scalar field $`\varphi `$ (‘quintessence’) which couples minimally to gravity and has one or more maxima in its potential. Near any one such local maximum (which for convenience we assume is at $`\varphi =0`$) the field can be generically modeled by the potential

$$V(\varphi )=V_0\frac{m^2\varphi ^2}{2},\mathrm{where}m^2|\frac{d^2V}{d\varphi ^2}||_{\varphi =0}.$$
(1)
The modulus of the tachyonic rest-mass $`m`$ will be assumed $`H_0`$ where $`H_0`$ is the Hubble constant (the slow-roll condition, $`mH_0`$, would result in the absence of any noticeable observational effects for ultra-light scalars, making such fields virtually indistinguishable from $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM, at least within the accuracy of present data). It is known from observations that physical properties of dark energy are close to those of a cosmological constant at present. This means that the variation in $`\varphi `$ must be on time scales of order $`H_0^1`$ and not much faster. (In the opposite case the equation of state $`w`$ would vary much too rapidly.) The equation of motion then implies that $`mH_0`$ which suggests that all characteristic time-scales in our problem will be of order $`H_0^1`$ or greater. Therefore, in this model the initial value $`\varphi _0`$ of the scalar field $`\varphi `$ and its change – during the entire process of dark energy decay – are both expected to be of the order of $`G^1`$. (This follows quite simply from the Einstein equation $`m^2\varphi ^2\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}H_0^2/G`$.) However, since cosmology is now a precision science, we can hope to obtain much better quantitative results, beyond these simple qualitative estimates, using current observational data. This is precisely what is done in this paper.

We should at this stage mention that, in principle, decay mechanisms other than those considered in this paper are possible. As an example one should mention bubble-like decay via quantum tunneling in the case when $`V^{\prime \prime }>0`$, or strongly inhomogeneous classical decay in the case of a tachyonic mass large compared to $`H_0`$, however these possibilities must be confronted with observational data other than the high-z supernova data which we wish to consider, and will therefore not be discussed any further by us in this paper. It may also be appropriate to mention that our model of decaying dark energy does not introduce any direct non-gravitational coupling of dark energy to non-relativistic matter. Significant coupling of dark energy to dark matter may lead to large energy transfer from dark energy to dark matter in the process of DDE decay. However this model of DDE, though potentially interesting, lies somewhat beyond the scope of the present paper and we do not consider it any further here. In our case, what we call the DE decay is actually the transition of DE from the potential-dominated regime to a regime in which the potential and kinetic energies of the dark energy field $`\varphi `$ become comparable. 111We also do not consider fields which couple non-minimally to gravity. Such a coupling, if small, would result in an insignificant change in the effective mass parameter $`m`$ for time intervals of the order of $`H_0^1`$ which we consider in this paper. Large couplings would lead to a value of the effective Brans-Dicke parameter $`\omega `$ which violates the lower bounds on this parameter set by Solar system tests of Einstein gravity.

The field equations governing the behaviour of the scalar field as it rolls down its potential in a spatially flat universe are

$`\ddot{\varphi }`$ $`+`$ $`3H\dot{\varphi }+V^{}(\varphi )=0,`$
$`H^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G}{3}}\left(\rho _m+\rho _\varphi \right),`$ (2)
where $`V(\varphi )`$ is given by (1) and

$$\rho _\varphi =V(\varphi )+\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2.$$
(3)
At early times ($`H_0t1`$), the universe was matter-dominated. Assuming $`\rho _m\rho _\varphi `$ in (2) we obtain the following exact solution for $`\varphi (t)`$ during the matter dominated regime:

$$\varphi (t)=\varphi _0\frac{\mathrm{sinh}mt}{mt}.$$
(4)
Eq (4) determines the initial conditions for $`\varphi `$ and $`\dot{\varphi }`$. At very early times ($`mt1`$) the very large damping experienced by the scalar field ensures that it remains close to its initial value at $`\varphi _0`$. One should note that this initial value must be sufficiently small, $`\varphi _0\text{ }\stackrel{<}{}\sqrt{3/8\pi G}`$, in order that DE have sufficiently large negative pressure during the present epoch. This is clearly demonstrated in the next section when we compare this model of dark energy with supernova observations.

Since the point $`\varphi =0,\dot{\varphi }=0`$ is a saddle point for homogeneous solutions of the scalar field equation with the potential (1), there exists a set of non-zero measure of generic solutions which remain sufficiently close to our solution up until the present epoch. (It is sufficient for this purpose that a large initial kinetic energy – if at all it existed – is redshifted by $`z3`$ so that the field settles on the trajectory described by (4) by that redshift. Since the kinetic energy of the scalar field decays as $`a^6`$ during the regime when $`\dot{\varphi }^2m^2\varphi ^2`$ this requirement is easily satisfied in practice.) Of course, one may with good reason ask as to whether our set of initial conditions on $`\{\varphi ,\dot{\varphi }\}`$ is not too small. The answer to this question depends entirely on the (unknown) behaviour of present dark energy at large temperatures and curvatures where the form of the potential (1) need not be valid. For this reason, we will not discuss it any further here. However it should be noted that, generally speaking, the probability of such initial conditions will be strongly enhanced if there are many maxima in the DE potential. This occurs, for instance, in the DE model with $`V(\varphi )=V_0\mathrm{cos}(\varphi /f)+V_1`$  which will be discussed by us later in this paper (in the inflationary context, such a model is called ‘natural inflation’).

In the next section, we numerically integrate the system of equations (2) with the potential (1), and determine the scale factor $`a(t)`$ and the Hubble parameter $`H(z)\dot{a}/a`$ as functions of the initial field displacement $`\varphi _0`$ for specific values of $`m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}`$. Our model is confronted against high redshift type Ia supernova observations through its luminosity distance

$$D_L=c\frac{dz}{H(z)},$$
(5)
which is used to place constraints on the free parameters of the model, namely $`m`$ and $`\varphi _0`$ ($`V_0`$ is not a free parameter since it is uniquely determined by $`m`$, $`\varphi _0`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}`$ and the current value of the Hubble parameter – $`H_0`$).

Having determined the permitted range of parameters values, we shall proceed to determine the future evolution of our model universe. As emphasized in , reliable future predictions are only possible for finite intervals of time. Previous predictions (of the kind ‘our Universe will keep expanding and not encounter a singularity’) had a depth of approximately $`20`$ Gyrs  (see  for similar estimates and  for the braneworld context). It is entirely reasonable to use the form (1) up to the point when $`m^2\varphi ^2=V_0`$. This occurs when the potential has declined to half its maximum value. In the next section we shall determine the minimal period of time for the potential to reach its half-way mark (this time could be referred to as the ‘half-decay time of dark energy’). Note that this estimate is rather robust since it depends upon the fairly general form of the potential near its maximum value given by (1) and not on any other details of dark energy.

In Sec. 3, we also consider a potential which can become negative. The form of this potential is assumed to be :

$$V=V_0\mathrm{cos}\frac{\varphi }{f},f=\frac{\sqrt{V}_0}{m}$$
(6)
where the value of $`f`$ is chosen in such a way that the potential (6) coincides with (1) at small $`\varphi `$. Of course, the hypothesis that $`V`$ may acquire negative values is speculative since it does not follow from any of the current observational data. However, such potentials often arise in supergravity and M-theory models (see, e.g., ). For this potential, we calculate: (i) the minimal extent of the current acceleration epoch, and (ii) the time elapsed before the universe collapses. (We should draw the readers attention to the fact that the collapse of the universe is a generic property of flat cosmological models with negative potentials .) We will not however consider the subsequent period of contraction in any detail since its exact duration strongly depends both upon the behaviour of $`V`$ in the region $`V<0`$ and upon the properties of dark matter at high energies. We end with section 4 which contains a summary of our results and a discussion.

## 3 Methodology and Results

We constrain the parameter space of our cosmology by requiring that our dark energy model provides a good fit to type Ia supernova data. For this purpose we use the 54 SNe Ia from the primary ‘fit C’ of the Supernova Cosmology Project, which includes 16 low redshift Calan-Tololo SNe . Fit C is a subsample of a total of 60 SNe of which six are excluded as outliers: two low redshift SNe due to suspected reddening and four high redshift SNe which are excluded due to atypical light curves. The measured quantity in this data, the bolometric magnitude $`m_B`$, is related to the luminosity distance and therefore the cosmological parameters by the following equation

$$m_B=+5\mathrm{log}_{10}D_L(z;\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}},m,\varphi _0),$$
(7)
where $`D_L=H_0d_L`$ is the Hubble-parameter-free luminosity distance and $`=M_B+255\mathrm{log}_{10}H_0`$ is the Hubble-parameter-free absolute magnitude. We shall assume that the SNe measurements come with uncorrelated Gaussian errors in which case the likelihood function is given by the chi-squared distribution with $`Nn`$ degrees of freedom: $`\mathrm{exp}(\chi ^2/2)`$. (In our case, $`N=54`$ and $`n=3`$).

The $`\chi ^2`$-statistic is defined as

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i=1}{\overset{54}{}}\left(\frac{m_i^{\mathrm{eff}}m(z_i)}{\sigma _{m_i}}\right)^2,$$
(8)
where $`m_i^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is the effective B-band magnitude of the i-th supernova obtained after correcting the observed magnitude at redshift $`z`$ for the supernova width-luminosity relation, $`\sigma _{m_i}`$ is the error in magnitude at redshift $`z`$, and $`m(z_i)`$ is the apparent magnitude of the $`i`$-th supernova in our cosmological model.

For a given value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}`$, the parameters to be estimated in our cosmology are $``$, $`m`$ and $`\varphi _0`$. For all practical purposes, the quantity $``$ is a statistical nuisance parameter, and we marginalize over it (assuming a uniform prior) when we determine $`m,\varphi _0`$. We perform the minimization while evolving the scalar field according to the equations of motion (2). For this purpose, we shall find it convenient to measure the parameter $`m`$ in units of the quantity $`\sqrt{8\pi GV_0/3}`$ and the parameter $`\varphi _0`$ in units of the reduced Planck mass $`\stackrel{~}{M}_P=\sqrt{3/8\pi G}`$. (In these units we constrain the value of $`m`$ using the prior $`m0.1`$. This condition is set to minimize numerical uncertainties and to avoid models which are virtually indistinguishable from $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM).

In Figure 1, we show the confidence levels in the $`m\varphi _0`$ plane for the first potential described by Eq (1). We consider two cosmological models in which the current value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}`$ is $`0.3`$ and $`0.4`$ respectively. (The results for the two cases differ marginally.) We see that an enormous region of parameter space which corresponds to large values of $`m`$ & $`\varphi _0`$ is disallowed in both models. The reason for this is simple, for large values $`m1`$, $`\varphi _01`$, the scalar field potential decreases much too rapidly and the matter density never gets to reach its present value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}=0.3`$ (left panel) or $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}=0.4`$ (left panel). Also, from the confidence levels we see that at higher values of $`m`$ ($`\varphi _0`$), the model provides a good fit to SNe data only if the corresponding value of $`\varphi _0`$ ($`m`$) is very small. (It should be noted that for asymptotically small values of either $`m`$ or $`\varphi _0`$ the DDE model becomes virtually indistinguishable from $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM.) From the value of the $`\chi ^2`$ at best-fit we see that higher values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}`$ seem to be slightly favoured by models of DDE. For $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}=0.3`$, $`\chi _{\mathrm{dof}}^2=1.053`$ for the best-fit model with $`m=0.73,\varphi _0=0.18`$, while $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM (for identical $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}`$) has $`\chi _{\mathrm{dof}}^2=1.054`$. For $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}=0.4`$, $`\chi _{\mathrm{dof}}^2=1.049`$ for the best-fit model $`m=0.81,\varphi _0=0.19`$, while $`\chi _{\mathrm{dof}}^2(\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM})=1.058`$ (for identical $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}`$). For lower values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}`$, $`e.g.`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}=0.2`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM is marginally favoured over the best-fit DDE.

In Figure 2, we examine this potential in greater detail by restricting ourselves to a smaller (and more probable) region in parameter space. In this region we show the lines of constant $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{1/2}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{1/2}`$ is the time taken, as measured from the present epoch, for the potential to drop to half its maximum value: $`V[\varphi (t_0+\mathrm{\Delta }T_{1/2})]=V_0/2`$. We see that, at the $`95.4\%`$ confidence level, the minimum time at which this happens is $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{1/2}8`$ Gyrs (if $`H_070`$ km/sec/Mpc).

In Figure 3, we show the confidence levels in the $`m\varphi _0`$ plane for the second potential, described by Eq (6). The results in this case are qualitatively similar to those for the first potential. Here too, a large region of parameter space corresponding to higher values of $`m`$ and $`\varphi _0`$ is disallowed because for these parameter values the matter density never reaches its present day value. Also, at higher values of $`m`$ ($`\varphi _0`$), the model provides a good fit to SNe data only if the complementary parameter $`\varphi _0`$ ($`m`$) is very small. Again, for asymptotically small values of either $`m`$ or $`\varphi _0`$ this decaying dark energy model becomes virtually indistinguishable from $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM. For $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}=0.3`$, we have $`\chi _{\mathrm{dof}}^2=1.050`$ at the best-fit point of $`m=0.74,\varphi _0=0.23`$, and for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}=0.4`$, $`\chi _{\mathrm{dof}}^2=1.047`$ for the best-fit model having $`m=0.79,\varphi _0=0.24`$. As in the previous analysis, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM is marginally preferred over the best-fit DDE for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}<0.3`$.

In Figure 4, we examine the results for this potential more closely by focusing on a smaller region in parameter space. In this region we show the lines of constant $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{end}}`$, which is the time left until the universe ceases to accelerate. (In terms of the deceleration parameter, $`q(t_0+\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{end}})=0`$.) We see that, at the $`95.4\%`$ confidence level, the universe will continue accelerating for at least $`10`$ Gyrs. We also plot the lines of constant $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{coll}}`$, which is the time left until the universe collapses: $`H(t_0+\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{coll}})=0`$. We find that the time to collapse is significantly larger than the time to the end of acceleration. At the $`95.4\%`$ confidence level the lower bound to collapse is given by $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{coll}}18`$ Gyrs for $`m\text{ }\stackrel{<}{}2`$.

In Figure 5 we show the evolution of the deceleration parameter $`q`$ and the matter density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$ for DDE driven by the cosine potential. We see that models allowed by the SNe data show a fairly large spread in the time span during which the universe accelerates. Although the time when the universe starts to accelerate is fairly close for different parameter values, the future epoch when the universe stops accelerating, $`q(t_0+\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{end}})=0`$, varies widely between models. The same can be said for the time when the universe collapses, which also varies significantly between models. Interestingly, for most allowed models, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$ drops to exceedingly small values before the potential becomes sufficiently negative to initiate collapse.

## 4 Discussion and Conclusions

In this paper we have examined the possibility that the dark energy responsible for the acceleration of the universe decays with time. Models of decaying dark energy have recently been proposed in connection with supergravity and M-theory . Our analysis of decaying dark energy is carried out for two potentials. The first, defined in Eq. (1), is a faithful local representation of a potential in the vicinity of its maximum value and therefore describes a very general situation in which the potential responsible for dark energy has one (or more) maxima. (In fact Eq. (1) generically describes a dark energy potential near its maximum value.) We follow the expansion dynamics of the universe as the scalar field rolls down this potential and, for a large region in parameter space, compare the resulting value of the luminosity distance with observations of high redshift type Ia supernovae. Our results show that the decaying dark energy model is consistent with SNe data at reasonably small values of $`m`$ and $`\varphi _0`$. We see that the potential declines to half its maximum value on a time scale not shorter than $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{1/2}0.6H_0^1`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{1/2}8\mathrm{Gyrs}`$ if $`H_0=70\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{Mpc}`$) at the $`95.4\%`$ confidence level.

Next, we extend this analysis to the cosine potential (6) which holds the possibility of becoming negative as the field evolves. The cosine potential has some important new features not shared by ‘tracker’ quintessence potentials. Due to its ability to grow more negative with time, the cosine potential allows for the eventual cancellation between the positive density of dark matter and the negative density of dark energy, because of which the universe collapses at late times. It is important to note that collapse occurs generically even in the case of a spatially flat universe, as pointed out in . Comparing our model universe with supernova observations we determine the time, measured from the present epoch, to when the universe collapses. At the $`95.4\%`$ confidence level, the time to collapse can never be smaller than $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{coll}}1.3H_0^1`$ if $`m\text{ }\stackrel{<}{}2`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{coll}}18\mathrm{Gyrs}`$ for $`H_0=70\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{Mpc}`$).

For both dark energy models (1) & (6) our current accelerating epoch is a transient which ends once the dark energy density falls below a certain critical value. For the cosine potential the time until the acceleration of the universe ends ($`q(t_0+\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{end}})=0`$) is always larger than $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{end}}0.7H_0^1`$, which is about 10 Gyrs if $`H_0=70\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{Mpc}`$ (at the $`95.4\%`$ CL). Thus a DDE universe will continue accelerating for at least 10 Gyrs if $`H_0=70\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{Mpc}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\mathrm{m}}0.3`$. About 8 Gyrs later, this universe will collapse and head towards a ‘big crunch’ singularity.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that the decaying dark energy models discussed in this paper are devoid of horizons, which could be an attractive feature from the viewpoint of string/M-theory .

## 5 Acknowledgements

VS acknowledges support from the ILTP program of cooperation between India and Russia. UA thanks the CSIR for providing support for this work. AS was partially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grant 02-02-16817, and by the Research Program “Astronomy” of the Russian Academy of Sciences. AS also thanks Profs. J. Narlikar and V. Sahni for hospitality during his visit to IUCAA when this project was started.

## References


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# Multiwavelength studies of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC7469. II - X-ray and UV observations with XMM-Newton

## 1 Introduction

The Seyfert 1.2 galaxy NGC 7469 (z=0.0164; de Vaucouleurs et al. devaucouleurs (1991)) was discovered by Forman et al. (forman (1978)) to be an X-ray emitter using the UHURU satellite. Since then it has been extensively studied by numerous X-ray missions and found to have a complex and variable X-ray spectrum. A soft excess over the power-law continuum was first detected using EXOSAT by Barr (barr (1986)) and has subsequently been studied using the Einstein Observatory (Turner et al. turner1991 (1991)), ROSAT (Turner et al. turner1993 (1993) and Brandt et al. brandt (1993)), ASCA (Guainazzi et al. guainazzi (1994)) and most recently BeppoSAX (De Rosa et al. derosa (2002)). Although Barr (barr (1986)) found the soft excess to remain constant whilst the hard band varied, the opposite situation has been observed by Guainazzi et al. (guainazzi (1994)), who saw significant variability in the soft excess but little change in the hard power-law. Reynolds reynolds (1997), however, does not detect a soft excess in the ASCA data.

The most recent work on the X-ray and UV variability of NGC 7469 by Nandra et al. (nandra2000 (2000)), using a $``$ 30 day RXTE observation, found strong spectral variability from one day to another, and suggests that the X-ray power-law index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is correlated with the UV flux, that the broadband X-ray flux is correlated with the level of the UV continuum, and that the UV variability is correlated with the extrapolation of the X-ray power-law to soft X-ray/EUV wavelengths. According to Nandra et al. (nandra2000 (2000)) this implies that the X-ray emission arises from comptonisation of UV photons. The lengths of the time lags between variations in different UV bands observed by HST and IUE (Kriss et al. kriss (2000)) support the idea that at least part of the UV emission of the active nucleus of NGC 7469 originates from the reprocessing of high-energy radiation. Collier et al. (collier (1998)) draw the same conclusion from time lags observed in optical data. The UV variability itself is small on short timescales: Welsh et al. (welsh (1998)) found, using HST, that the variability over the course of an hour is at or below the Poisson noise level. Overall, they saw a 4% change in the UV continuum (1315 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$) flux during their $``$ 11.5 hour observation, and did not observe any time lags between different UV bands. Papadakis et al. (papadakis (2001)), using the same RXTE dataset as Nandra et al. (nandra2000 (2000)), find a frequency-dependent time lag between hard and soft X-rays.

Evidence for hard X-ray reflection in NGC 7469 was discovered by Piro et al. (piro (1990)) using GINGA; a reflection hump was observed as well as an iron fluorescence line at 6.4 keV. ASCA data have indicated the presence of a narrow Fe K$`\alpha `$ line (Guainazzi et al. guainazzi (1994)) or both narrow and broad components (Reynolds reynolds (1997)), or a relativistically broadened discline (Nandra et al. nandra1997 (1997)). The existence of both broad and narrow components to the Fe K$`\alpha `$ emission line has been supported by BeppoSAX data (De Rosa et al. derosa (2002)), which also contain evidence of a reflection hump and a high energy cut-off of the underlying power-law at 150 keV.

Various authors have also searched for signs of a warm absorber in the soft X-ray spectrum. Evidence for this was found in ASCA data by Reynolds (reynolds (1997)), George et al. (george (1998)) and Kriss et al. (kriss (2000)), who fit O vii and O viii edges to the soft X-ray spectrum. More recent data from BeppoSAX (De Rosa et al. derosa (2002)) did not require a warm absorber.

Our $``$ 40 ks XMM-Newton observation of NGC 7469 provides the first high-resolution soft X-ray spectrum of this source and offers the best opportunity yet to look for the spectral signatures of a warm absorber. Since the advent of high resolution astronomical X-ray spectroscopy with XMM-Newton and Chandra, it has been known that the main manifestation of warm absorption in Seyfert X-ray spectra is narrow absorption lines (Kaastra et al. kaastra2000 (2000)), as has long been observed in the UV spectra of AGN. The XMM-Newton observation of NGC 7469 was carried out one year after a UV spectrum of this object was obtained with FUSE (described in a companion paper by Kriss et al. kriss2003 (2003)), and this provides an excellent opportunity to compare the results of the analysis in the two wavebands and to see whether this can take us any further in understanding the circumnuclear environment of NGC 7469.

## 2 Observations and data analysis

NGC 7469 was observed by XMM-Newton, in RGS Consortium Guaranteed Time, on 26th December 2000 for a total of about 40 ks. The observation was carried out in two halves, the first slightly longer than the second, with an approximately 7.5 ks gap between them. The instrument modes and observation durations are listed in Table 1.

The OM (Mason et al. mason (2001)) was operated in Rudi-5 imaging mode during our observation. This gave a series of 30 UVW2 filter (180$``$225 nm) images of the galaxy at 2.3″ angular resolution, which were combined using FTOOLS to form the image in Fig. 1. This image shows UV emission from both NGC 7469 (bottom right) and IC 5283 (top left), 1.3′ away. The UV emission of NGC 7469 is dominated by the active nucleus and central starburst (see e.g. Scoville et al. scoville (2000); these two components are unresolvable with the OM), although the inner spiral arms, about 30″ across, and some much fainter outer arms, up to 60″ in diameter, are also visible. The UV emission in IC 5283 appears more homogeneous, although three distinct sections are visible.

The long series of images also allowed us to produce a UV lightcurve for the AGN. They were processed using the `omichain` routine under SAS V5.3, and photometry of the active nucleus was performed with GAIA (the Graphical Astronomy and Image Analysis tool produced by the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils, UK) using an aperture of 10″ diameter. Background subtraction was done using counts extracted from an annular region around the source, avoiding the spiral arms, and deadtime and coincidence loss corrections were applied to the count rates. For purposes of comparison with the UV FUSE observation, we also obtained a flux point with the same area aperture as that of FUSE (30″ square): log $`\nu `$ Fν = $``$10.02 $`\pm `$ 0.04 (where $`\nu `$ Fν is in erg cm-2 s-1) at 2120 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$.

The EPIC data were processed under SAS V5.3.3. The pn and MOS spectra were extracted using the `especget` task with source regions of 45″ radius to avoid the extraction region extending beyond the edge of the pn data window. The MOS data were found to be piled up, so only single events were used; for the pn spectra we used both single and double events. An X-ray lightcurve was obtained from the pn data (since the MOS was affected by pile-up) using `xmmselect` with a 45″ source radius. In each case, a background spectrum (or lightcurve) was extracted using the same size region as for the source. Both X-ray and UV lightcurves were analysed using the XRONOS tools, and the EPIC spectra were analysed in XSPEC.

The RGS (den Herder et al. denherder (2001)) spectra were extracted with `rgsproc` under SAS V5.3.3. Background-subtraction is performed with the SAS using regions adjacent to those containing the source in the spatial and spectral domains. Since SAS V5.3.3 automatically corrects the response matrices for effective area differences between RGS1 and RGS2, it was possible to combine the spectra channel by channel. About one tenth of the RGS data was unusable due to calibration problems. The resulting combined RGS spectrum was analysed in SPEX 2.00 (Kaastra et al. 2002a ).

## 3 Lightcurves

The 0.2$``$10 keV EPIC-pn lightcurve of NGC 7469 is shown in Fig. 2; there is an overall $``$ 50% increase in flux over the course of the observation in this band. The fastest significant change, at around 12000 s into the observation, is from 14 counts s-1 to 16 counts s-1 \- a 14% change - in 2 ks. Using light-crossing time arguments, this implies an emitting region of less than or equal to 4 AU.

Fig. 2 also contains the lightcurves in the different X-ray bands (from the pn) and UV (from the OM). It indicates that the source was most variable at soft X-ray energies during our observation, with the 6$``$10 keV lightcurve showing only a gradual increase. The hardness ratio in the bottom panel of Fig. 2 shows that the source gets softer as its flux increases. This is strongly supported by the hardness – intensity plot in Fig. 3; the correlation coefficient for the datapoints is 0.92, with a probability of obtaining this level of correlation from a random distribution of $``$ 10-10. The UV data show no significant variability within the 10% errors (consistent with the Welsh et al. (welsh (1998)) results), whilst the X-ray bands are far more changeable; the least variable band (6$``$10 keV) increased by $``$ 20% over the 45 ks observation, whereas the most variable band (0.2$``$2 keV) increased by 55% in the first 15 ks.

It is clear from these lightcurves that there has been significant spectral variability during this observation, with the spectrum being softer in the second part of the observation than in the first.

## 4 Continuum and Fe Kα line

Since the MOS data were found to be heavily piled-up, the X-ray continuum fitting was done using pn data. The 0.2$``$10 keV pn spectrum for the whole observation was binned to 250 counts per bin, to provide 50 eV bins in the region of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line. The best fit to this spectrum was found to be a power-law plus two blackbodies to represent the soft excess, absorbed by the ISM of our Galaxy, with the Fe K$`\alpha `$ emission line modelled as a single narrow gaussian (the parameters are given in Table 2); however, there were still significant residuals at low energies, and above about 7.5 keV. Comptonisation (*comptt* in Xspec) and reflection (*pexriv* in Xspec and *refl* in SPEX) models were also tried, although the $`\chi `$2 was worse in both cases; our primary aim in modelling the EPIC-pn spectrum is to obtain a good estimate of the shape of the continuum underlying the RGS spectrum, so the (perhaps unphysical) power-law plus two blackbody model is used as a convenient parameterisation.

Because the spectrum becomes softer over the course of the observation (Fig. 2), we have also fitted continua separately to the pn spectra for each of the two parts of the observation (binned by 125 counts per bin, again to provide approximately 50 eV bins in the region of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line). These two spectra are plotted alongside the model fit to the overall pn spectrum in Fig. 4, and Fig. 5 shows their ratio to this model. The parameters of power-law plus two blackbody and gaussian fits (again with absorption due to our Galaxy) to the hard and soft spectra are given in Table 2. Despite the increase in flux in the soft band, the shape of the soft excess does not vary significantly.

To gain better signal-to-noise in the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line, we combined the total pn spectrum with the MOS1 and MOS2 spectra and binned it so as to provide 50 eV bins in the region of interest. Due to the heavy pile-up in the MOS data we could not fit a reliable continuum model to the whole combined spectrum. Instead, we fitted a power-law to the 5$``$8 keV range and used this as the underlying continuum when modelling the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line; the parameters are given in Table 2. The line itself was best fitted by a single marginally resolved gaussian, whose parameters are listed in Table 2. When a second gaussian was added in for Fe K$`\beta `$, with the same $`\sigma `$ as for K$`\alpha `$ and at the expected 14% of the intensity, the reduced $`\chi `$2 worsened slightly to 1.28 for 58 degrees of freedom. The resulting fit is shown in Fig. 6.

## 5 RGS spectrum

### 5.1 Warm absorber modelling

We analysed our RGS data using SPEX 2.00, which contains two photoionised absorber models: *slab* and *xabs*. *Slab* applies line and continuum absorption by individual ions to the spectral continuum, allowing the user to specify the blueshift of the medium and its turbulent velocity. *Xabs* is a grid model of Xstar runs applying absorption by a column of photoionised gas at a range of different ionisation parameters, column densities, and elemental abundances. We define the ionisation parameter $`\xi `$ here as

$$\xi =\frac{L}{nr^2},$$
(1)
where $`L`$ is the source luminosity (in erg s-1), $`n`$ the gas density (in cm-3) and $`r`$ the source distance in cm, so $`\xi `$ has the units erg cm s-1 (Tarter et al. tarter (1969)) which are used throughout this paper.

*Slab* and *xabs* incorporate new calculations, using HULLAC (Bar-Shalom et al. bar (2001)), for absorption due to states of M-shell iron and lower ionisation states of oxygen (O ii$``$O vi). *Slab* is the best tool for detailed measurements of individual ion columns in a spectrum, whereas *xabs* enables the physical parameters and composition of a warm absorber to be investigated directly. A more detailed description of these models is given in Kaastra et al. (2002a ).

### 5.2 Continuum and absorption lines

The RGS data were binned into groups of three channels for the analysis, slightly below the instrument resolution. The spectral continuum was represented by a Galactic absorbed power-law plus two blackbody model, using the power-law slope and blackbody temperatures derived from the pn but allowing the normalisations of the three components to vary. Problems with differences in relative normalisations between the RGS and pn were thus avoided. There is a known 0.1 difference in power-law slope between the RGS and pn; we do not take this into account in our fitting as the blackbody soft excess is by far the most important component over most of the RGS band, although it will probably have a small effect on the normalisations that we fit. We also do not take account of the warm absorber when fitting this continuum, and we discuss the accuracy of this assumption at the end of Sect. 5.3. The parameters of this continuum are given in Table 2, and the RGS spectrum with the continuum overlaid is shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8.

A number of narrow absorption and emission lines, unresolved at the resolution of the RGS, are visible in the RGS spectrum of NGC 7469; no intrinsic absorption edges are seen. The positions of the lines are marked in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8. The statistical significance of these features was assessed by fitting a gaussian to them against a locally fitted continuum; the results of this are plotted in Fig. 9 (bottom) below a plot of the complete RGS spectrum with its power-law and two blackbody continuum model (top). Table 3 gives the identification, rest wavelength, observed wavelength, equivalent width, blueshifted velocity, flux and velocity width (where appropriate) and log $`\xi `$ of maximum abundance of the measured absorption and emission lines. Also given, for comparison, are the rest wavelength, blueshifted velocity, flux, velocity width and log $`\xi `$ of maximum abundance of the broad and narrow O vi observed by FUSE (Kriss et al. kriss2003 (2003)).

As can be seen in Fig. 7, the $`\alpha `$ transitions of O viii, O vii and Ne ix are not as deep as the corresponding $`\beta `$ transitions. This appears to be because the deepest resonance absorption lines can be accompanied by re-emission, as shown by the P-Cygni profile of C vi Ly$`\alpha `$.

The blueshifts of these absorption lines (except O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ and C vi Ly$`\alpha `$, for which the apparent blueshifts are affected by re-emission, and those lines with equivalent widths consistent with zero) are plotted against log $`\xi `$ of maximum abundance for their ionisation state in Fig. 10, which shows that the ions in the absorber originate from a very wide range of ionisation levels. The warm absorber is blueshifted at every level of ionisation; the weighted average of the blueshift of all the absorption lines is $``$800 $`\pm `$ 100 km s-1. Unfortunately, there are not enough measurable ions to be certain as to whether there is any significant variation in blueshift with ionisation level. As a very crude measure, the weighted average of blueshifts from the highest ionisation phase (which appears to cluster around log $`\xi `$ = 1.5) is $``$900 $`\pm `$ 100 km s-1, whilst the weighted average of blueshifts from the lower ionisation gas (log $`\xi `$ from 0.5 downwards) is $``$600 $`\pm `$ 200 km s-1.

If we assume that all of the observed O viii and O vii come from the high-ionisation phase, then we can use the ratio of the absorbed fluxes of O viii Ly$`\beta `$ and the O vii 3$``$1 resonance line to estimate its ionisation parameter (O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ and O vii 2$``$1 (r) are partially filled in by re-emission and so cannot reliably be used for this purpose). Log $`\xi `$ for the high ionisation phase can be estimated in this way to be 1.6 $`{}_{0.4}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.7}`$.

There is no unambiguous evidence for iron absorption or emission in the RGS spectrum of NGC 7469; this is in strong contrast to the warm absorbers of other Seyferts observed so far by XMM-Newton and Chandra (cf NGC 3783 (Kaspi et al. kaspi2000 (2000)), NGC 5548 (Kaastra et al. 2002b )). The apparent lack of iron absorption is probably due to the low overall column of the absorber. If log $`\xi `$ of the high ionisation phase is 1.6, then the *xabs* model in SPEX 2.00 can be used to fit an overall equivalent hydrogen column, assuming a turbulent velocity of 100 km s-1, of (1.5 $`\pm `$ 0.9) x 1020 cm-2. At this column, iron absorption would not be significant at the signal-to-noise of our spectrum. Although the velocity width of the UV absorption was found to be rather lower than what we assume for the X-ray absorber, at 25 km s-1, it actually makes no difference to the column obtained given the resolution and signal-to-noise of the RGS spectrum.

### 5.3 Emission lines

The most important emission lines in our spectrum are those of C vi Ly$`\alpha `$ (33.736 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$ in the rest frame; rest frame wavelengths used throughout), O vii forbidden (22.101 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$) and intercombination (21.807 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$) lines and O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ (18.969 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$). Table 3 lists the parameters of these lines. They were fitted without taking into account any neighbouring absorption, and thus the blueshifts of the lines may be underpredicted. Although none of the lines were significantly resolved by the RGS, it is possible that their true widths could also be concealed by the absorption.

The third member of the O vii emission triplet, the resonance line, is not unambiguously present. However, we observe O vii 3$``$1 resonance absorption, which means that there must also be absorption from O vii 2$``$1 (r). Because no O vii 2$``$1 (r) absorption is actually observed in the expected position, it must be being filled in by O vii 2$``$1 (r) emission - the O vii (r) emission and absorption, for the 2$``$1 transition, are cancelling each other out. A similar situation exists with O viii, where O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ is far less deep than the corresponding Ly$`\beta `$ or Ly$`\gamma `$ absorption lines, and is being partially filled in by the adjacent O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ emission line.

We can estimate the depth and blueshift of O vii 2$``$1 (r) - and O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ \- absorption lines from fitting the depth and blueshift of lines higher up in the series (applying absorption by O vii and O viii ions using the *slab* model in SPEX). If we also assume that the blueshifts and velocity widths of O vii (r) and O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ emission lines are the same as that of the O vii forbidden emission line, which is the most accurately measured, then we can estimate their fluxes.

The ratio of these fluxes (after Porquet & Dubau porquet (2000)),

$$X_{\mathrm{ion}}=\frac{u}{w},$$
(2)
where u and w are the fluxes of the O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ and O vii (r) emission lines respectively, is indicative of the ionisation parameter of the emitter. Once we have estimated the ionisation parameter of the emitter we can compare it with that of the absorber.

Using *slab* in SPEX 2.00, we fitted absorbing columns of O vii and O viii (again assuming a velocity width of 100 km s-1) to the O vii 3$``$1 (r), O viii Ly$`\beta `$ and O viii Ly$`\gamma `$ absorption lines, obtaining log N$`_{\mathrm{O}\text{vii}}`$ = 16.5 $`{}_{1.9}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.4}`$ and log N$`_{\mathrm{O}\text{viii}}`$ = 17.3 $`\pm `$ 0.3 (where N is in cm-2), at an average blueshift of $``$900 $`\pm `$ 400 km s-1. The ratio of these columns implies a log $`\xi `$ of 2.1 $`{}_{0.5}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+1.6}`$, consistent with the value obtained in Section 5.2 using the straightforward ratio of the fluxes absorbed by O vii 3$``$1 (r) and O viii Ly$`\beta `$.

We applied O vii and O viii absorption with these fitted columns and blueshift to the spectrum using the *slab* model in SPEX. Assuming that the blueshift of the emitter is $``$400 km s-1, and that the emission lines have zero intrinsic width (taking the parameters of O vii (f) as a guide), we modelled the O vii (r) and O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ emission lines with the SPEX gaussian model, and fitted their fluxes. The results of this depend upon whether we are seeing the emission lines through the warm absorber itself: if the warm absorption affects only the continuum and not the emission lines, the intrinsic flux of the emission lines can be a lot lower.

In the case where the warm absorption is only affecting the continuum, and not the emission lines, the ratio of O vii (r) and O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ emission line fluxes implies a log $`\xi `$ of 2.2$`{}_{0.2}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.3}`$. If, on the other hand, the warm absorption is applied to both emission lines and continuum, a log $`\xi `$ of 2.7 $`\pm `$ 0.2 is obtained. Both of these values are consistent with log $`\xi `$ of the high-ionisation phase of the absorber. The fitted fluxes of these lines, their ratios and the derived ionisation parameters are summarised in Table 4.

The signal-to-noise in the O vii emission triplet region (Fig. 11) is not very good; we can, however, use the ratio of the fluxes of the forbidden and intercombination lines to estimate an upper limit to the density of the emitter, after Porquet & Dubau (porquet (2000)). This ratio,

$$R=\frac{f}{i},$$
(3)
(where f and i are the fluxes of the O vii (f) and O vii (i) emission lines respectively) has a value of $``$ 2, giving an upper limit for the density of $``$ 1010 cm-2. In general, great care needs to be taken in using the Porquet & Dubau (porquet (2000)) diagnostic ratios for photoionised plasmas when investigating emission triplets in AGN, as they are sensitive to photoexcitation, which has been found to occur in the warm emitter of NGC 1068 (Kinkhabwala et al. kinkhabwala (2002)).

What effect, then, do the warm absorber and emitter have on the fitting of the overall continuum spectrum with the EPIC-pn? The small number of absorption lines detected and the lack of absorption edges would imply that, when seen at the spectral resolution of the pn, the warm absorber would not have much of an effect on the fitting of the broad-band continuum spectrum. To test this, we used *slab* to apply absorption from O viii, O vii, O v, O iii, N vii, Ne ix and C vi to the pn spectrum (the log ion columns were estimated as 1017.3, 1016.5, 1016.2, 1016.6, 1016.2, 1017.5 and 1017.0 cm-2 respectively), taking into account the differences in normalisation between the RGS and pn, and the absorption from ions not yet included in *slab* (N iv and Ne vii) was modelled with gaussian absorption lines with the parameters given in Table 3. The emission lines were also included with the parameters expected from warm absorber coverage of the continuum only (in the case of O vii (r) and O viii Ly$`\alpha `$) or the measured parameters from Table 3 (for O vii (f), O vii (i) and C vi Ly$`\alpha `$).

We found that the inclusion of warm absorption required an increase of up to $``$ 10% in the overall normalisation of the soft excess in the pn spectrum, and an increase of $``$ 2% in the power-law continuum. This is obviously totally dependent on the model adopted for the warm absorption. A higher signal-to-noise spectrum would allow us to model the warm absorber more accurately and to better gauge its effect on the shape of the overall 0.2$``$10 keV continuum.

## 6 Discussion and conclusions

### 6.1 Lightcurves

The X-ray spectrum of NGC 7469 has a variable soft excess. There is no evidence in our relatively short dataset for a connection between X-ray and UV variability. Whilst there is at least 20% variability in all of the X-ray bands, there is less than 10% variability in the UV.

### 6.2 Continuum and iron K$`\alpha `$ line

We find a Galactic absorbed power-law plus two blackbody model to be a fairly good representation of the pn spectrum, although there are significant residuals at low energies which are probably instrumental in origin. The soft excess represented by the blackbodies is perhaps unlikely - due to its rapid variability - to actually be due to blackbody emission. It is more probable that the soft excess originates from comptonisation, in different parts of a highly dynamic corona at a range of temperatures, of UV flux from an accretion disc below. Our comptonisation model fits (fitting a single comptonised model to the entire soft excess; the number of variables becomes very large when more than one such model is used) are too simplistic to model the spectrum accurately. The shape of the soft excess is likely to be determined by the different populations of energetic electrons in various parts of the corona, as well as the wavelength and spatial distribution of the UV flux originating in the accretion disc. We use the blackbody models here as a convenient parameterisation to produce a correctly shaped continuum to underly the RGS spectrum.

In our highest signal-to-noise spectrum (combined pn and MOS data) the Fe K$`\alpha `$ emission line appears to be marginally resolved and to have a FWHM consistent with that of the O vi and S iv UV emission lines seen in the FUSE spectrum of NGC 7469 (Kriss et al. kriss2003 (2003)); these lines originate in the Broad Line Region. The intrinsic redshifts of these lines are consistent with that measured for Fe K$`\alpha `$. At any rate, the fact that Fe K$`\alpha `$ originates in fluorescence from cool gas might imply that any broadening would be of dynamical rather than thermal origin. The Fe K$`\alpha `$ emission line fitted to only the pn data (avoiding possible broadening from combining data from different instruments), though, is not broadened, and it is quite possible that the apparent width of Fe K$`\alpha `$ seen in the combined spectrum could be due to the presence of a weak Fe xxv line. The higher spectral resolution, in this range, of the recently completed Chandra HETGS observation of NGC 7469 should constrain any broadening of this line much better.

### 6.3 Warm absorber/emitter

NGC 7469 has an outflowing warm absorber with multiple ionisation phases, as demonstrated by the presence of several narrow absorption lines from O, N, C, and Ne in the RGS spectrum. There is no significant edge absorption. Most of the ions we observe come from the highest ionisation phase, which has a log $`\xi `$ of 1.6$`{}_{0.4}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.7}`$, and an average blueshift of $``$1000 $`\pm `$ 500 km s-1 and an overall column of (1.5 $`\pm `$ 0.9) x 1020 cm-2. This low overall column, about two orders of magnitude lower than that in the high-ionisation phase of the very deep warm absorber in NGC 3783 (Blustin et al. blustin2002 (2002)), is probably the reason why there is no unambiguous evidence of iron absorption in the spectrum; any evidence of iron could also be concealed by the low signal-to-noise in the dataset.

We identify four narrow emission lines; the forbidden and intercombination lines from the O vii triplet, O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ and C VI Ly$`\alpha `$. The latter two have P-Cygni profiles and are partially absorbed by the corresponding resonance absorption lines, so their true fluxes and blueshifts, as well as any intrinsic broadening, will be obscured by the neighbouring absorption. Of the other two lines, O vii (f) has the best constrained parameters and is found to have a blueshift of $``$400 $`\pm `$ 200 km s-1 and to be unresolved at the resolution of the RGS. Our main result from the emission lines is that they come from a gas with an ionisation parameter consistent with that of the high-ionisation phase of the warm absorber.

### 6.4 Connection between the UV and X-ray absorbers

A UV spectrum of NGC 7469 was obtained using FUSE a year before our XMM-Newton observation, and is published in a companion paper (Kriss et al. kriss2003 (2003)). It was found that the UV absorber contains two different velocity components.

The blueshift of UV component #1 ($``$569 km s-1) makes it the best match for the high-ionisation phase of our X-ray warm absorber (which has a weighted average blueshift of $``$900 $`\pm `$ 100 km s-1), taking into account the systematic wavelength uncertainty of about 100 km s-1. No transitions of O vi are visible in the RGS spectrum - its column must be somewhere lower than that of O vii at $`\pm `$ 1016.5 cm-2. In fact, the O vi columns of $``$ 8 x 1014 cm-2, observed by FUSE, are far too low to be observable in our RGS spectrum. However, it is shown by Kriss et al. (kriss2003 (2003)) that the columns of O viii and O vii observed in the RGS spectrum, and the columns of O vi and H i observed in the FUSE spectrum, are all consistent with a photoionised warm absorber model with U = 6.0 and an equivalent Hydrogen column of 3.5 x 1020 cm-2. U is defined here as the ratio of ionising photons in the Lyman continuum to the electron density; for the best-fit FUSE continuum model, $`\xi `$ = 24.05 x U and so U = 6.0 corresponds to log $`\xi `$ of 2.2. By way of comparison, the ratio of the O viii and O vii absorbing columns fitted to the RGS spectrum corresponds to log $`\xi `$ = 2.1$`{}_{0.5}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+1.6}`$, with an overall Hydrogen column of (4 $`\pm `$ 2) x 1020 cm-2.

UV component #2 has a modelled overall column of 3.8 x 1018 cm-2 and U = 0.2 (log $`\xi `$ = 0.68). The systemic velocity of this phase is $``$1898 km s-1; we do not observe any ions at this blueshift and ionisation level in the RGS spectrum (see Fig. 10), which is unsurprising at this low overall column.

Our conclusions are, then, that the high-ionisation X-ray warm absorber is probably consistent with component #1 of the UV warm absorber, and that there is no detected X-ray counterpart to UV component #2 - and no detected UV counterpart to the lower-ionisation X-ray absorption. Following the conclusions of Kriss et al. (kriss2003 (2003)) on the spatial locations of the two UV absorbers, this would place the high-ionisation X-ray warm absorber (which we equate with UV #1) inside the BLR as part of, perhaps, an accretion disc wind. The wide range of ionisation parameters observed in the X-ray absorber is also consistent with a thermally driven outflow at a larger radius, as described by Krolik & Kriss (krolik (2001)).

The overall picture of the circumnuclear environment is as follows: closest to the central engine is highly-ionised X-ray and UV absorbing gas, outflowing at about 600 km s-1, and outside this is the Broad Line Region, producing the broad emission lines seen in the UV and optical spectra. The soft X-ray emission lines could also originate from here. Further out still, there is UV absorbing gas, with a much lower overall column in our line of sight than the first absorber, that is flowing towards us at about 1900 km s-1.

Taking the Wandel et al. (wandel (1999)) reverberation measurement of the distance of the BLR from the central engine, $``$ 1016 cm, and assuming log $`\xi `$ of 2 for the innermost absorber and a 1$``$1000 Ryd AGN luminosity of $``$ 1044 erg s-1 (derived from the RGS continuum model), we can estimate a *lower* limit of 1010 cm-3 for the density of this absorber. The ratio of the fluxes of the O vii (f) and O vii (i) gives a strict *upper* limit to the density of whichever phase produces the soft X-ray emission lines of $``$ 1010 cm-3. We have shown that the ionisation state of the high-ionisation (innermost) warm absorber is consistent with that of the emitter; if we were to infer that they do originate in the same body of gas, then we could place the warm absorber/emitter coincident with the BLR. Using the overall equivalent Hydrogen column of the absorber, 4 x 1020 cm-2, and the estimated density of 1010 cm-3, we obtain an approximate depth for the absorber of 400 000 km. The small size of this, in comparison with the distance from the central engine, would imply a sheet-like or low filling factor structure.

Are the properties of the X-ray emission lines consistent with those of the UV lines from the BLR? Unfortunately, the intrinsic widths and blueshifts measured for the X-ray emission lines are affected by adjacent absorption, which makes the comparison difficult. The width and blueshift of O vii (f), which is the strongest line and is least affected by absorption, are most similar to those of the narrow O vi UV lines (Table 3). If X-ray emission lines are formed at the distance of the Narrow Line Region, then either they are not spatially consistent with the high-$`\xi `$ warm absorber, or the high-$`\xi `$ absorber is actually located this far out and the covering factor arguments placing it within the BLR were not correct.

We know much less about the low-ionisation phases of the X-ray warm absorber, as we detect far fewer ions from this regime. It is, however, clear that log $`\xi `$ could range down as far as -2. If we assumed that the low-ionisation X-ray absorber was spatially coincident with the high-ionisation phase, then for a range in log $`\xi `$ of -2 to 2 there would be a four magnitude range in density. Assuming the high-$`\xi `$ absorber to be at the distance of the BLR, the density would range from that of the high-ionisation line-emitting plasma at 1010 cm-3 down to a much denser low-ionisation absorber at densities up to perhaps 1014 cm-3. If, on the other hand, the low $`\xi `$ gas was assumed to have the same density as the high-ionisation absorber, it could be located up to a hundred times further out from the nucleus. Since the UV absorber may show evidence of changing outflow velocity with distance from the nucleus, and the blueshifts of the high and low $`\xi `$ X-ray emitter seem to be comparable, there may be cause to prefer the interpretation involving a clumpy X-ray absorbing gas with a wide density range. Fig. 12 summarises this picture of the circumnuclear environment of the AGN in NGC 7469.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work is based on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and the USA (NASA). The MSSL authors acknowledge the support of PPARC. EB was supported by the Yigal-Alon Fellowship and by the GIF Foundation under grant #2028-1093.7/2001. SRON is supported financially by NWO, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.


text:
# Low-loss criterion and effective area considerations for photonic crystal fibers

## 1 Introduction

Since the first results on photonic crystal fibers  (PCF) many exciting phenomena have been reported (for recent reviews see e.g. Refs. ). All-silica PCFs with a triangular air-hole cladding (see inset of Fig. 1) have a big technological potential due to their endlessly single-mode properties  combined with (in principle) unlimited large effective areas . However, it is well-known that scattering losses and confinement losses may put an important limit to the effective areas that can be realized . In this paper we present very general results for the influence of longitudinal perturbations of the fiber axis on the loss and discuss how it correlates with the effective area $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and air-hole diameter. We also discuss important sources for the longitudinal perturbations and argue that macro-bending is not the only limiting factor in achieving low-loss fibers with large effective areas.

## 2 Elastic scattering from the fundamental mode to the cladding

The general phenomena of mode coupling from the fundamental mode to the cladding, which leads to attenuation of the light guided by the fiber, may be treated as an elastic scattering process. For single-mode fibers the scattering rate out of the mode can be expressed by a Fermi’s golden rule expression (see e.g. Ref. )

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }\underset{m}{}\left|W_m(\mathrm{\Delta }\beta _m)\right|^2\delta (\omega (\beta )\omega (\beta _m)),$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\beta _m=\beta \beta _m`$ is the transferred momentum with $`\{\beta _1,\beta _2,\mathrm{}\}`$ being cladding modes, i.e. modes not tightly confined to the core. Here, $`W_m(\mathrm{\Delta }\beta _m)`$ is the matrix element between the unperturbed guided mode and the $`m`$th cladding mode for a given coupling mechanism. Scattering by longitudinal perturbations such as macro-bending, micro-bending, Bragg gratings, or dielectric imperfections are examples of elastic scattering processes covered by Eq. (1). In Eq. (1) a complete and orthogonal set of eigenmodes is assumed which is strictly speaking only fulfilled in the limit of vanishing absorption and confinement loss. However, also for the practical situation with weak absorption and confinement loss the analysis to follow is still quantitative correct as long as we for $`\beta =\beta ^{}+i\beta ^{\prime \prime }`$ have that $`\beta ^{\prime \prime }\beta ^{}`$.

For the continuum of cladding modes there is a lower bound $`\beta _{\mathrm{cl}}`$ on their propagation constants, i.e. $`\beta _m\beta _{\mathrm{cl}}`$. For a homogeneous cladding material of index $`n_{\mathrm{cl}}`$ one would typically have $`\beta _{\mathrm{cl}}=n_{\mathrm{cl}}k`$ and in a micro-structured cladding one can in a similar way define a fundamental space-filling mode  with propagation constant $`\beta _{\mathrm{cl}}`$. In Eq. (1) the finite $`\mathrm{\Delta }\beta \beta \beta _{\mathrm{cl}}`$ thus cuts off the effects of long-length-scale non-uniformities. From the corresponding coupling length (or beat length)

$$z_c=2\pi /\mathrm{\Delta }\beta $$
(2)
and the characteristic length scale of a specific perturbation, $`L_n`$, a generalized low-loss criterion can thus be formulated  where losses will be significant only if

$$\lambda /n_{\mathrm{eff}}L_nz_c.$$
(3)
Otherwise, if $`L_n<\lambda /n_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, the rapid-varying perturbation is effectively reduced by the averaging over the wavelength, or if $`L_n>z_c`$ the perturbation is sufficiently slow to act as an adiabatic tapering-like process. As emphasized in Ref.  the criterion in Eq. (3) does not quantify loss, but it gives a correct parametric dependence of loss for various loss mechanisms. In order to quantify loss accurately one would need to know the matrix elements in Eq. (1) for the full set of cladding modes and for all the scattering mechanisms at action. In this work we will rather use the criterion in Eq. (3) to gain more general insight in the susceptibility of PCFs to longitudinal non-uniformities.

Recently, Eq. (3) was used to identify improved large-mode area PCF designs  and for analysis of micro-bending induced scattering loss . The formalism has also been used in a study of structural long-period gratings in PCFs with $`L_n`$ being the period of the gratings . Below we discuss three important scattering mechanisms in more detail.

### 2.1 Macro-bending losses

For macro-bending loss it can be shown that

$$L_n^{\mathrm{macro}}\left[2R/\sqrt{\beta ^2\beta _{\mathrm{cl}}^2}\right]^{1/2}$$
(4)
where $`R`$ is the bending radius. A critical bend-radius $`R_c`$ can then be introduced from $`z_cL_n`$;

$$R_c\sqrt{\beta ^2\beta _{\mathrm{cl}}^2}/(\beta \beta _{\mathrm{cl}})^2$$
(5)
where we have omitted a numerical prefactor. While this expression may seem too simplistic we find that it fully accounts for our experimental data.

For PCFs the wavelength dependence of $`\beta `$ and $`\beta _{\mathrm{cl}}`$ (see e.g. Ref. ) gives rise to both a long-wavelength bend-edge (as in standard fibers) and also a short-wavelength bend-edge . For the short-wavelength bend-edge Eqs. (3) and (4) can be used to show that $`R_c\lambda ^2`$  which has been confirmed experimentally for a particular fiber design .

### 2.2 Micro-bending losses

Micro-bending may be thought of as small and arbitrarily spaced bends of the fiber axis caused by external or frozen-in mechanical deformations. Typically, the power spectra of the deformations are very broadband, but because of the stiffness of the fiber there is an effective cut-off such that the fiber is only susceptible to deformations with periods, $`L_n^{\mathrm{micro}}`$, limited by

$$L_n^{\mathrm{micro}}>r(\pi E_f/E_c)^{1/4}.$$
(6)
Here, $`r`$ is the fiber radius and $`E_f`$ and $`E_c`$ are the Young’s moduli of the fiber material and the coating material, respectively. The cut-off given above relies on a simplified model, but essentially states that it is hard to mechanically deform the fiber with a period shorter than the fiber diameter itself.

### 2.3 Scattering by dielectric imperfections

While macro and microbending induced deformations can be considered extrinsic sources, dielectric imperfections act as an intrinsic source which is present even when the fiber is not perturbed from the outside. Index variations of the silica, surface roughness at the air-silica interfaces, strain, and spatial variations in fiber diameter and air-hole diameters are examples of dielectric imperfections. From a fabrication point of view the goal is to limit index fluctuations i) to the sub-wavelength scale where e.g. Rayleigh scattering is a weak source of loss compared to the other mechanisms treated here and/or ii) to a long-scale adiabatic behavior, see Eq. (3). As demonstrated recently it is possible to limit scattering by dielectric imperfections significantly by careful fabrication of the PCF .

## 3 The effective area

The spatial extension of the mode is of great importance to several applications. For non-linear applications one would like to have a very confined mode (transverse extension comparable to the wavelength) whereas for high-power applications one would typically prefer a large mode (transverse extension much larger than the wavelength) to avoid non-linear effects and material damage. In order to quantify the transverse extension we consider the effective area

$$A_{\mathrm{eff}}=\left[𝑑𝒓_{}I(𝒓_{})\right]^2\left[𝑑𝒓_{}I^2(𝒓_{})\right]^1,$$
(7)
where $`I(𝒓_{})`$ is the transverse intensity distribution of the fundamental mode. For a Gaussian mode of width $`w`$ Eq. (7) gives $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}=\pi w^2`$ and the intensity distribution in this type of PCF can be considered close to Gaussian .

## 4 Numerical results

The fully-vectorial eigenmodes of Maxwell’s equations are computed with periodic boundary conditions in a planewave basis . This approach provides the eigenmodes on a discrete lattice and the integrals in Eq. (7) are then obtained by sums over lattice sites inside the super-cell. For the dielectric function we use $`\epsilon =1`$ for the air holes and $`\epsilon =(1.444)^2=2.085`$ for the silica. Ignoring the frequency dependence of the latter the wave equation becomes scale-invariant  and all the results to be presented can thus be scaled to the desired value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

In Fig. 1 we show the coupling length, Eq. (2), as a function of wavelength for different air-hole diameters. In general the coupling length decreases with increasing air-hole diameter indicating less scattering loss for increasing air-hole diameter. For $`d/\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.3`$ the coupling length has a minimum at $`\lambda /\mathrm{\Lambda }0.5`$. This minimum shifts toward higher wavelengths when increasing the hole diameter. For the endlessly single-mode limit $`d/\mathrm{\Lambda }0.45`$ (see Ref.  for a discussion of the particular value of this number) the minimum is at $`\lambda /\mathrm{\Lambda }0.8`$. The occurrence of a minimum also indicates both a short wavelength and long wavelength loss edge as has been reported for macro-bending loss . The position of the minimum confirms the results of Ref.  where to a first approximation minimum bend-loss was found to occur at $`\lambda \mathrm{\Lambda }/2`$. The general picture is that when moving away from this minimum toward the large-mode area regime ($`\lambda \mathrm{\Lambda }`$) or the small-core (nonlinear) regime ($`\lambda \mathrm{\Lambda }`$) the PCF becomes more susceptible to longitudinal non-uniformities. It is interesting to note that the recently reported PCF ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }4.2\mu \mathrm{m}`$ and $`d/\mathrm{\Lambda }0.44`$) by Farr et al.  showed record-low loss at $`\lambda =1550\mathrm{nm}`$. Comparing to Fig. 1 the coupling length at the corresponding value $`\lambda /\mathrm{\Lambda }0.4`$ is not very different from its minimum value (note the logarithmic scale) which indicates a close-to-minimal susceptibility to longitudinal non-uniformities for that fiber.

Calculating the effective area, Eq. (7), as a function of wavelength  and combining the data with that of Fig. 1 we get the plot of effective area versus coupling length shown in Fig. 2. For the short-wavelength limit ($`\lambda \mathrm{\Lambda }`$) we in general find that the coupling length increases with increasing effective area, i.e. for increasing effective area the PCF in general becomes more sensitive to scattering.

## 5 Experiments

In order to experimentally quantify the different loss mechanisms described above we consider a PCF with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }10\mu \mathrm{m}`$ and $`d/\mathrm{\Lambda }0.5`$, see inset of Fig. 4.

The macro bending losses of the fiber was characterized in a similar way to the first work on endlessly single-mode photonic crystal fibers . The fiber was coiled one and a quarter turn on seven dorns with different radii, and for each dorn the transmission spectrum was measured using a white light source and an optical spectrum analyzer. For all radii the launch of the light into the fiber was kept fixed, and the spectra were finally normalized with a reference spectrum obtained from the same piece of fiber kept straight. The spectra are shown in Fig. 3.

The transmission spectra show a steep cut-off, which increases in wavelength as the bending radius decreases. For each radius we have measured the wavelengths corresponding to a 5 dB, 10 dB, and 15 dB transmission drop through the fiber, and as can be seen from Fig. 3 the three cut-off conditions occur within a very narrow wavelength range. In Fig. 4, the cut-off wavelengths are plotted as a function of $`R^{1/2}`$, and in agreement with previous observations  a linear relationship is clearly observed, yielding a fit of (dashed line)

$$\lambda _c(1135\pm 10nm)\times R_c^{1/2}[\mathrm{cm}]$$
(8)
for the particular fiber considered. The solid line shows Eq. (5) with the numerical prefactor adjusted to $`\alpha 1.8`$, i.e. $`R_c(\lambda )\alpha \times R_c(\lambda )`$. Thus, not only does our analysis predict the correct parametric behavior as in Ref.  but a numerical prefactor of the order unity in Eq. (5) is also confirmed.

Finally, in Fig. 5, the spectral attenuation is shown for the same fiber wound on three different spool radii of 5.4 cm, 8 cm, and 16 cm. Since the fiber length is 100 m much smaller loss levels may be measured - typically with a precision of 0.001 dB/m. Also shown in Fig. 5 are the critical wavelengths for macro bending losses, calculated using the fitted relation above.

### 5.1 Discussion

The measurements show that in a wavelength range of some hundred nanometers above the critical wavelength for macrobending losses the attenuation in the fiber is significant. E.g. for a radius of 16 cm, the critical wavelength is 284 nm, but up to 620 nm the attenuation is still larger than 0.1 dB/m. This level is much larger than what would be expected theoretically from the tail of the macro bending edge , but it is still dependent on the bending radius. Hence, the losses in this region are not due to material losses or scattering on point defects (as can be checked by OTDR measurements) but are attributed to micro-bending losses. Micro-bending studies as in Ref.  confirm this. As the fiber is spooled on smaller diameters it is expected that the deformation spectrum experienced by the fiber will have contributions from shorter periods, which causes the microbending losses to extend to longer wavelengths where the beat length is shorter. Furthermore, the spectra coincide for wavelengths above $``$ 1200 nm, which may be related to the range where the fiber is no longer susceptible to external deformations. Indeed, the wavelength of 1200 nm corresponds to a beat length of $``$ 1 mm, which is in reasonable agreement with Eq. (6). It should be pointed out that Eq. (6) is based on a very simple model of the mechanical deformation, which actually overestimates the susceptibility to external deformations because the so-called buffer effect of the coating is not taken into account .

In fact the findings described above are very analogous to the properties found for standard fibers, only the wavelength dependence is reversed. Previously it was shown that the micro-bending sensitivity of standard fibers increases as the so-called MAC value increases . The MAC values is defined as $`\mathrm{MFD}^2/\lambda _{\mathrm{cut}\mathrm{off}}`$, which essentially is a numerical factor times the mode area divided by the index step between the core and the cladding. Since the index step is constant for a standard solid glass fiber and the mode area increases for increasing wavelengths, the MAC value also increases for increasing wavelength. However, for the type of PCFs described here, the mode area is practically constant but the effective index step decreases for decreasing wavelength, which implies an increasing MAC value for decreasing wavelength.

## 6 Conclusion

In this paper we have studied, both theoretically and experimentally, the loss mechanisms due to longitudinal perturbations of all-silica photonic crystal fibers with a triangular cladding structure. In the endlessly single-mode limit, the coupling length $`z_c`$ between the fundamental mode and the first cladding mode has been calculated for a range of hole sizes, and $`z_c`$ has been related to both the effective area, the critical radius for macrobending, and the sensitivity to microbending. It is found that a minimum coupling length exists, where the fiber is least susceptible to longitudinal perturbations. The position of the minimum is dependent on the hole size and varies from $`\lambda /\mathrm{\Lambda }0.5`$ for $`d/\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.3`$ to $`\lambda /\mathrm{\Lambda }0.8`$ for $`d/\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.45`$, while the minimum value of $`z_c`$ decreases by almost an order of magnitude from $`d/\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.3`$ to $`d/\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.45`$. In general $`z_c`$ increases for increasing $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}/\lambda ^2`$, giving rise to a macrobending edge for short wavelengths as well as a wavelength range where the fiber is potentially susceptible to microbends on a length scale of several fiber diameters, which may easily be experienced in a practical fiber device or cable. Both the macro- and microbending losses are demonstrated experimentally, and a very good agreement with the calculated coupling lengths are found.

The results reported here allow for a comparison between single-mode fibers in the conventional all-glass technology and the endlessly single-mode photonic crystal fibers, where especially two points should be stressed. First of all, the low loss criterion formulated in Ref.  based on the coupling length between the fundamental mode and the cladding also holds for photonic crystal fibers. In practice however, the wavelength scale is reversed compared to standard fibers, so both macro and microbending losses are experienced at short wavelengths. Secondly, it has previously been concluded that the limiting factor for achieving large mode areas in endlessly single-moded PCFs is the macrobending losses , however the results shown here demonstrate that the sensitivity to microbending may be a serious limiting factor too. The microbending losses may be minimized e.g. by choosing the largest hole sizes for single-mode operation, a larger outer diameter of the fiber, or by improving the fiber production process to avoid frozen-in perturbations, but at present the lower limit is not well-known. Eventually, when microbending losses have been reduced to a minimum, it seems feasible to guide single-mode light at 400 nm with a MFD of 10 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ and bending radii down to 80 mm. A similar step-index fiber with a cut-off at 400 nm, would require a well-controlled index step of the order $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=3\times 10^4`$, which requires a very accurate control of the dopant levels in the preform and limited dopant-diffusion during fiber pulling. While this is very difficult the same effective index step can be realized in PCFs with relative ease through control of air hole-sizes.

## Acknowledgments

We acknowledge useful discussions with M. D. Nielsen (Crystal Fibre A/S and Research Center COM, Technical University of Denmark).

## References