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# Suppressed 𝜋⁰ Production at Large Transverse Momentum in Central Au+Au Collisions at √𝑠__{𝑁𝑁} = 200 GeV

## Abstract

Transverse momentum spectra of neutral pions in the range 1 $`<p_T<`$ 10 GeV$`/c`$ have been measured at mid-rapidity by the PHENIX experiment at RHIC in Au+Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}`$ = 200 GeV. The $`\pi ^0`$ multiplicity in central reactions is significantly below the yields measured at the same $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}`$ in peripheral Au+Au and $`p+p`$ reactions scaled by the number of nucleon-nucleon collisions. For the most central bin, the suppression factor is $``$2.5 at $`p_T`$ = 2 GeV$`/c`$ and increases to $``$4-5 at $`p_T`$ 4 GeV$`/c`$. At larger $`p_T`$, the suppression remains constant within errors. The deficit is already apparent in semi-peripheral reactions and increases smoothly with centrality.

High energy collisions of heavy ions provide the means to study Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) at energy densities where lattice calculations  predict a transition from hadronic matter to a deconfined, chirally symmetric plasma of quarks and gluons (QGP). The large center-of-mass energies, $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}`$ 200 GeV, available in Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), have resulted in a significant production of high transverse momentum hadrons ($`p_T>`$ 2 GeV$`/c`$) for the first time in heavy-ion physics. High $`p_T`$ particle production in hadronic collisions results from the fragmentation of quarks and gluons emerging from the initial high $`Q^2`$ parton-parton scatterings . Thus, hard processes in nucleus-nucleus ($`AA`$) collisions provide direct information on the early partonic phases of the reaction. In the absence of nuclear medium effects, hard scattering yields in $`AA`$ reactions are expected to scale like an incoherent superposition of nucleon-nucleon ($`NN`$) collisions because of the small probability of hard scattering processes per $`NN`$ collision. In $`AA`$ reactions, the number of $`NN`$ collisions ($`N_{coll}`$) at impact parameter $`b`$ is simply proportional to the geometric nuclear overlap function, $`T_{AA}(b)`$, and can be calculated in an eikonal approach . After scaling by the nuclear geometry, spectra of high $`p_T`$ particles measured in $`AA`$ reactions can be compared to the baseline “vacuum” ($`p+p`$, $`p+\overline{p}`$) and “cold medium” ($`p,d+A`$) data, as well as to perturbative  and “classical”  QCD predictions. Any departure from the expected $`N_{coll}`$-scaled result provides information on the strongly interacting medium in central heavy-ion reactions.

One of the most significant observations from the first RHIC run (Run-1) was the suppressed yield of moderately high $`p_T`$ neutral pions ($`p_T`$ 1.5 - 4.0 GeV$`/c`$) in central Au+Au at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}`$ = 130 GeV with respect to the $`N_{coll}`$-scaled $`p+p`$ and peripheral Au+Au data . This result points to strong medium effects present in central Au+Au and has triggered extensive theoretical studies on its origin . Most of these studies are based on the prediction  that a QGP would induce multiple gluon radiations from the scattered fast partons, effectively leading to a suppression of high $`p_T`$ hadronic fragmentation products (“jet quenching”). Alternative interpretations have been proposed based on initial-state gluon saturation  or final-state hadronic interactions .

This Letter presents $`\pi ^0`$ results obtained by the PHENIX experiment in Au+Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}`$ = 200 GeV and compares them to the $`p+p\pi ^0X`$ data measured in the same experiment at the same center-of-mass energy . During the 2001-2002 RHIC run (Run-2), PHENIX obtained $`\pi ^0`$ data measured in the electromagnetic calorimeter (EMCal). The present analysis uses 30 million minimum bias events, triggered by a coincidence between the Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDC) and the Beam-Beam Counters (BBC), with vertex position $`|z|<`$ 30 cm. In Run-2, the PHENIX EMCal was fully instrumented providing a total solid angle coverage at mid-rapidity of approximately $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta =0.7`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi =\pi `$ and the total collected $`\pi ^0`$ statistics was a factor of $`100`$ larger than in Run-1 . The combination of larger acceptance, high statistics, and the measurement of $`p+p`$ data in the same detector permits a precise study of the high $`p_T`$ $`\pi ^0`$ production mechanisms in $`AA`$ collisions at RHIC.

Neutral pions are reconstructed via their $`\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ decay through an invariant mass analysis of $`\gamma `$ pairs detected in the EMCal  which consists of 6 lead-scintillator (PbSc) and 2 lead-glass Čerenkov (PbGl) sectors. The large radial distance of the calorimeters to the interaction region ($`>`$ 5 m) and their fine granularity ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta \times \mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$ 0.01$`\times `$0.01) keep the tower occupancy low, $`<`$10% even in the highest multiplicity Au+Au events. The energy calibration is obtained from beam tests and, in the case of PbSc, from cosmic rays data and the known minimum ionizing energy peak of charged hadrons traversing the calorimeter. It is then confirmed using the $`\pi ^0`$ mass, as well as the agreement of the calorimeter energy with the measured momentum of identified electrons. The systematic error on the absolute energy scale is less than 1.5%. Photon-like clusters are identified in the EMCal by applying time-of-flight and shower profile cuts . The selected clusters are binned in pair invariant mass $`m_{\gamma \gamma }`$ and $`p_T`$. An additional energy asymmetry cut, $`|E_{\gamma 1}E_{\gamma 2}|/(E_{\gamma 1}+E_{\gamma 2})<`$ 0.7(PbGl), 0.8(PbSc), is applied to the reconstructed pairs. The signal-to-background in peripheral (central) is approximately 20 (5) and 0.5 (0.01) for the highest and lowest $`p_T`$, respectively. The combinatorial background is estimated and subtracted by mixing clusters from different events with similar centrality and vertex, and normalizing the distribution in a region outside the $`\pi ^0`$ mass peak. The $`\pi ^0`$ yield in each $`p_T`$ bin is determined by integrating the subtracted $`m_{\gamma \gamma }`$ distribution in a $`\pm 3\sigma `$ window determined by a $`p_T`$-dependent parameterization of Gaussian fits to the $`\pi ^0`$ peaks.

The raw PbSc and PbGl $`\pi ^0`$ spectra are normalized to one unit of rapidity and full azimuth (this acceptance correction rises quickly with $`p_T`$ up to a $``$1/0.35 pure geometric factor). The spectra are further corrected for (i) the detector response (energy resolution, dead areas), (ii) the reconstruction efficiency (analysis cuts), and (iii) the occupancy effects (cluster overlaps). These corrections are quantified by embedding simulated single $`\pi ^0`$’s from a full PHENIX GEANT  simulation into real events, and analyzing the merged events with the same analysis cuts used to obtain the real yields. Each correction is determined, for each centrality bin, as the ratio of the input (simulated) to the reconstructed $`p_T`$ distribution. The overall yield correction amounts to $``$2.5 with a centrality dependence $``$25%. The losses are dominated by fiducial and asymmetry cuts.

The main sources of systematic errors in the PbSc and PbGl measurements are due to the uncertainties in: (i) the yield extraction, (ii) the yield correction, and (iii) the energy scale. The relative contributions of these effects to the total error differ for the PbSc and PbGl (Table I). The weighted average of the two independent measurements reduces the total error. The nominal energy resolution  is adjusted in the simulation to reproduce the true width of the $`\pi ^0`$ peak observed at each $`p_T`$, smearing the energies with a constant term of 7% for PbSc and $``$9% for PbGl. The shape, position, and width of the $`\pi ^0`$ peak measured in all different centralities are then confirmed to be well reproduced by the embedded data. The final systematic errors on the spectra are at the level of $``$10% at 1 GeV$`/c`$ and $``$17% at the highest $`p_T`$ (Table I). A correction for the true mean value of the $`p_T`$ bin is applied to the steeply falling spectra. No corrections have been applied to account for the contribution of feed-down $`\pi ^0`$’s (mainly coming from $`K_s^0`$ and $`\eta `$ decays) which are $`<`$5% based on HIJING  simulations.

The event centrality is determined by correlating the charge detected in the BBC with the energy measured in the ZDC detectors. A Glauber model Monte Carlo (MC) combined with a simulation of the BBC and ZDC responses  gives an estimate of the associated number of binary collisions ($`N_{coll}`$) and participating nucleons ($`N_{part}`$) in each centrality bin (Table II). The fully corrected and combined PbSc and PbGl $`\pi ^0`$ $`p_T`$ distributions are shown in Fig. 1 for minimum bias and for 9 centrality bins scaled by factors of 10 for clarity.

We quantify the medium effects on high $`p_T`$ production in $`AA`$ collisions with the nuclear modification factor given by the ratio of the measured $`AA`$ invariant yields to the $`NN`$ collision scaled $`p+p`$ invariant yields:

$$R_{AA}(p_T)=\frac{(1/N_{AA}^{evt})d^2N_{AA}^{\pi ^0}/dp_Tdy}{N_{coll}/\sigma _{pp}^{inel}\times d^2\sigma _{pp}^{\pi ^0}/dp_Tdy},$$
(1)
where the $`N_{coll}/\sigma _{pp}^{inel}`$ is just the average Glauber nuclear overlap function, $`T_{AuAu}`$, in the centrality bin under consideration (Table II). $`R_{AA}(p_T)`$ measures the deviation of $`AA`$ data from an incoherent superposition of $`NN`$ collisions. For $`p_T`$ 2 GeV$`/c`$, $`R_{AA}`$ is known to be below unity, since the bulk of particle production is due to soft processes which scale closer to the number of participant nucleons  than to $`N_{coll}`$.

Figure 2 shows $`R_{AA}`$ as a function of $`p_T`$ for $`\pi ^0`$ measured in 0-10% central (closed circles) and 80-92% peripheral (open circles) Au+Au. The PHENIX $`p+p\pi ^0`$ data  is used as the reference in the denominator. The $`R_{AA}`$ values for central collisions are noticeably below unity, as found at 130 GeV , and in contrast to the enhanced high $`p_T`$ $`\pi ^0`$ production ($`R_{AA}>`$1) observed at CERN-SPS energies  and interpreted in terms of initial-state $`p_T`$ broadening effects (“Cronin effect” ). Within errors, peripheral Au+Au collisions behave like a superposition of $`p+p`$ collisions with regard to high $`p_T`$ $`\pi ^0`$ production ($`R_{AA}`$ 1). In central collisions, the suppression is smallest at 2 GeV$`/c`$ and increases to an approximately constant suppression factor of 1/$`R_{AA}`$ 4-5 over the $`p_T`$ range of 4 - 10 GeV$`/c`$, $``$30% above the expectation from $`N_{part}`$ scaling (dotted line in Fig. 2).

The magnitude and $`p_T`$ dependence of $`R_{AA}`$ (corresponding to parton fractional momenta $`x2p_T/\sqrt{s}0.020.1`$ at midrapidity), is inconsistent with the expectations of leading-twist “shadowing” effects on the nuclear parton distribution functions alone . Different jet quenching calculations , based on medium-induced radiative energy loss, can reproduce the magnitude of the $`\pi ^0`$ suppression assuming the formation of a hot and dense partonic system. The predicted $`p_T`$ dependence of the quenching, however, varies in the different models. All models that include the Landau-Pomeranchuck-Migdal (LPM) interference effect  predict $`R_{AA}`$ effectively $`\sqrt{p_T}`$ . Such a trend is not compatible with our data over the entire $`p_T`$ range. Analyses which combine LPM jet quenching together with shadowing and initial-state $`p_T`$ broadening generally reproduce the whole $`p_T`$ dependence of the $`\pi ^0`$ suppression , as do recent approaches that take into account detailed balance between parton emission and absorption . However, based solely on the data presented here, we are not able to distinguish between partonic or hadronic  energy loss scenarios.

The centrality dependence of the high $`p_T`$ $`\pi ^0`$ suppression is shown in Fig. 3 as a function of $`N_{part}`$. The suppression is characterized as the ratio of Au+Au over $`p+p`$ yields integrated above 4 GeV/c and normalized using two different scalings. $`R_{AA}`$ (circles) denotes the $`N_{coll}`$ scaling as in Eq. (1), whereas $`R_{AA}^{part}`$ (crosses) indicates $`N_{part}`$ scaling expected in scenarios dominated either by gluon saturation  or by surface emission of the quenched jets . Fig. 3 indicates that the transition from the $`N_{coll}`$ scaling behaviour ($`R_{AA}`$ 1) apparent in the most peripheral region, to the strong suppression seen in central reactions ($`R_{AA}`$ 0.25) is smooth. In addition, although there is no exact participant scaling ($`R_{AA}^{part}>`$ 1 for all centralities), the $`\pi ^0`$ production per participant pair above 4 GeV/c is approximately constant over a wide range of intermediate centralities, in qualitative agreement with a parton saturation model prediction .

In summary, transverse momentum spectra of neutral pions have been measured at mid-rapidity up to $`p_T`$ 10 GeV$`/c`$ for 9 centrality bins of Au+Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}`$ = 200 GeV. The spectral shape and invariant yield for peripheral reactions are consistent with those of $`p+p`$ reactions scaled by the average number of inelastic $`NN`$ collisions. Central yields, on the other hand, are significantly lower than peripheral Au+Au and $`p+p`$ scaled yields, as found at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}`$ = 130 GeV. The observed suppression increases slowly with $`p_T`$ to as much as a factor 4-5 in the 10% most central collisions, remaining constant within errors above $``$4 GeV/$`c`$. The suppression is already apparent in semi-peripheral reactions and increases smoothly with centrality. The magnitude of the deficit can be reproduced by parton energy loss calculations in an opaque medium, but its $`p_T`$ and centrality dependence puts strong constraints on the details of energy loss and the properties of the medium. The role of initial-state effects, including shadowing, $`p_T`$ broadening, and gluon saturation will be studied with data from the recent RHIC run using d+Au, where final-state medium effects such as jet quenching are absent.

We thank the staff of the Collider-Accelerator and Physics Departments at BNL for their vital contributions. We acknowledge support from the Department of Energy and NSF (U.S.A.), MEXT and JSPS (Japan), CNPq and FAPESP (Brazil), NSFC (China), CNRS-IN2P3 and CEA (France), BMBF, DAAD, and AvH (Germany), OTKA (Hungary), DAE and DST (India), ISF (Israel), KRF and CHEP (Korea), RAS, RMAE, and RMS (Russia), VR and KAW (Sweden), U.S. CRDF for the FSU, US-Hungarian NSF-OTKA-MTA, and US-Israel BSF.


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# Single electron-phonon interaction in a suspended quantum dot phonon cavity

## Abstract

An electron-phonon cavity consisting of a quantum dot embedded in a free-standing GaAs/AlGaAs membrane is characterized in Coulomb blockade measurements at low temperatures. We find a complete suppression of single electron tunneling around zero bias leading to the formation of an energy gap in the transport spectrum. The observed effect is induced by the excitation of a localized phonon mode confined in the cavity. This phonon blockade of transport is lifted at magnetic fields where higher electronic states with nonzero angular momentum are brought into resonance with the phonon energy.

When Rolf Landauer discussed the importance of irreversibility and heat generation for classical transistors in 1961 bib:landauer61 , he found that the minimal amount of dissipation required to perform a single bit operation is given by $`k_\mathrm{B}T\mathrm{ln}2`$. In the context of quantum physics the role of dissipation needs to be reconsidered. Even more, along with the discovery of single electron transistors bib:fulton87 ; bib:grabert92  and quantum dots bib:ashoori96 ; bib:kouwenhoven97 , it is nowadays regarded as crucial for the feasibility of quantum computation bib:averin99 ; bib:bennett00 . The next step towards control of dephasing of electronic quantum states is tailoring phonon confinement in quantum dot cavities. The most promising approach to address the physics of dissipation in the ultimate limit of single electrons interacting with individual phonon modes of their host crystal is to embed a low-dimensional electron gas into a suspended phonon cavity as demonstrated in previous work bib:blick00 ; bib:hoehberger02 ; bib:kirschbaum02 . The relevance of the electron-phonon interaction for quantum dot systems was initially explored by Fujisawa et al. bib:fujisawa98  and Qin et al. bib:qin01  and theoretically confirmed by Brandes and Kramer bib:brandes99 .

Already back in 1967, Duke et al. bib:duke67  modelled inelastic tunneling through a barrier, finding that collective phonon modes can be excited by the tunneling electron. According to their calculations characteristic zero bias conductance minima in the tunnel conductance can be attributed to this effect. In recent years, electron back-action on mechanical degrees of freedom has been theoretically discussed by Schwabe et al. bib:schwabe95  and Blencowe bib:blencowe99 . The additional implications of phonon confinement in an electron-phonon cavity were modelled by Debald et al. bib:debald02 , pointing out the possibility to control electron dephasing by tailoring the phonon spectrum.

Here we report on the experimental observation of a new blocking mechanism of single electron transport which is found in such a cavity, evidencing the coherent interplay between single electron tunneling and the excitation of localized phonon modes confined in the cavity as predicted by Duke et al. bib:duke67 . Strikingly similar features which can be attributed to the same effect have been observed for single electrons tunneling onto a C60 molecule by Park et al. bib:park00 ; bib:mceuen02 . The underlying physics of coherently coupling discrete electronic states with discrete phonon modes bears resemblance to cavity QED bib:imamoglu99 .

A phonon cavity containing a suspended single quantum dot is shown in Fig. 1(a). The scanning electron micrograph was taken under an angle of $`65^{}`$ in order to visualize the three-dimensional character of the sample. Depicted in blue is the free-standing $`130`$ nm thick GaAs/AlGaAs membrane containing a confined electron gas which is located $`40`$ nm below the sample surface. The $`400`$ nm thick sacrificial layer of Al0.8Ga0.2As supporting the membrane has been completely removed beneath the displayed part of the sample in Fig. 1(a) creating a spacing between the membrane and the GaAs buffer displayed in grey. The quantum dot is defined in a $`600`$ nm wide bar by two point contacts formed by pairs of symmetric indentations. As a result of edge depletion the cavity has a reduced electronic diameter of about $`450`$ nm bib:kirschbaum02 . The two constrictions are wide enough to allow ballistic transport through the cavity, but can be depleted to form tunneling barriers by a nearby gate electrode. In the case of Fig. 1(a) this task is accomplished by a close-by Hall-bar being employed as an in-plane gate. A schematic top-view of the sample layout is displayed in the inset.

The presented measurements are performed in a dilution refrigerator with a base temperature of $`T_{\mathrm{bath}}=10`$ mK. A negative voltage $`V_\mathrm{g}`$ is applied to the gate electrode (i.e. the Hall-bar in Fig. 1(a)) in order to create tunneling barriers and to vary the electrochemical potential of the dot denoted $`\mu (N+1)=E(N+1)E(N)`$ in the level diagrams of Fig. 1(b) which will be discussed in more detail below. A bias voltage $`V_{\mathrm{sd}}`$ can be applied between the source and drain reservoirs. The differential conductance $`G=dI_{\mathrm{sd}}/dV_{\mathrm{sd}}`$ is recorded with respect to both $`V_\mathrm{g}`$ and $`V_{\mathrm{sd}}`$ showing clear Coulomb diamonds bib:kouwenhoven97  depicted in logarithmic color scale representation in the left part of Fig. 2 (blue: $`0.02\mu `$S, red: $`6\mu `$S). The right part of the figure displays the corresponding line plots at zero bias $`V_{\mathrm{sd}}=0\mu `$V. Figure 2(a) was taken at an electron temperature of $`T_\mathrm{e}=100`$ mK and a perpendicular magnetic field of $`B=500`$ mT where a quasi-continuum of energetically higher states produces a Coulomb blockade diamond known from conventional quantum dots bib:kouwenhoven97 . The charging energy $`E_\mathrm{C}=e^2/2C_\mathrm{\Sigma }=0.56`$ meV corresponds to a dot capacitance of $`C_\mathrm{\Sigma }=140`$ aF from which a dot radius of $`r=160`$ nm and an electron number of about $`480`$ can be deduced. The striking difference as compared to conventional quantum dot measurements is observed for the same temperature but zero magnetic field where we find complete suppression of conductance around zero bias footnote:spinblockade . This is shown exemplarily for three adjacent resonances in Fig. 2(b), both from the gap opening between the diamonds in the color scale plot and from the lineplot showing zero conductance footnote:diamondshape . The resulting blockade of transport can only be overcome by applying a positive or negative source drain bias of $`|V_{\mathrm{sd}}|=100\mu `$V (see also Fig. 3(a) magnifying a single resonance).

These results can be compared to recent theoretical models for transport through a molecular single electron transistor coupled to a single vibrational mode bib:boese01 ; bib:zhu02 ; bib:flensberg03 . We have extended these models bib:brandes03  in order to analyze the origin of the observed blockade mechanism. The picture corresponding to the classical limit (strongly overdamped vibration mode) is illustrated in Fig. 1(b): (i) In case of a conventional single electron transistor an electron sequentially tunnels through a non-suspended quantum dot whenever Coulomb blockade can be overcome, i.e. the electrochemical potentials of source, drain, and the dot $`\mu _s`$, $`\mu _d`$ and $`\mu (N+1)`$ are aligned. This situation corresponds to the well-known Mössbauer-effect bib:moessbauer64  in gamma spectroscopy: Recoil-free absorption and emission of gamma-ray photons is enabled for a nucleus being placed in a solid since the crystal takes up the recoil as a whole without entailing an energy loss. In a classical picture this is equivalent to the reflection of a particle at a hard wall with infinite mass. (ii) This behavior changes dramatically for a quantum dot embedded in a suspended phonon cavity a classical analogue of which is given by a particle hitting a trampoline. Due to strong electron-phonon coupling in the cavity bib:debald02  (see below), single electron tunneling induces mechanical displacement of the suspended quantum dot which corresponds to the excitation of a localized cavity phonon of energy $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{ph}}`$. Flensberg has shown bib:flensberg03  that in the strongly overdamped, classical limit (quality factor $`Q=\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{ph}}/\gamma 1`$ for small phonon life time $`\gamma ^1`$), the energy cost of the displacement goes along with a drop of the chemical potential $`\mu (N+1)`$ in the dot, which leads to a blockade of single electron tunneling. The energy gap $`ϵ_0=g\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ then depends on the Franck-Condon coupling constant $`g`$. In the ‘Mössbauer picture’ bib:duke67 , the cavity picks up the ‘recoil’ of the tunneling electron and immediately relaxes to a new ground state for $`Q0`$. On the other hand, $`Q\mathrm{}`$ would correspond to coherent cavity phonons where the Franck-Condon factors yield a series of phonon side-bands $`n\mathrm{\Omega }`$ with weights given by the Poisson distribution $`e^\mathrm{g}g^\mathrm{n}/n!`$ at zero temperature with $`n=0`$ corresponding to elastic tunneling.

To re-establish single electron tunneling, the energy transferred to the cavity can be regained as displayed in part (iii) of Fig. 1(b) where the cavity phonon is reabsorbed exciting a higher lying electronic state $`\mu ^{}(N+1)`$ footnote:ang\_momentum . To this end, the excited cavity phonon mode coherently exchanges energy with the electronic excited states $`\mu ^{}(N+1)`$ which can be understood in terms of (damped) Rabi oscillations bib:brandes03 .

An estimate for the phonon modes and energies confined to the quantum dot cavity is obtained from microscopic calculations bib:debald02  that find van-Hove singularities in the cavity phonon density of states, accompanied by an extreme enhancement of phonon emission at certain phonon energies. The lowest energy where this occurs is $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{ph}}3\mathrm{}c_\mathrm{L}/z=73\mu `$eV for quantized dilatational phonon modes ($`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{ph}}145\mu `$eV for flexural modes) for the sample thickness $`z=130`$ nm and the longitudinal velocity of sound in the $`\left[100\right]`$ direction of bulk GaAs, $`c_\mathrm{L}=4.7710^5`$ cm/s. This prediction for $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{ph}}`$, based on a simple infinite thin-plate model, compares relatively well to the observed energy gap $`ϵ=100\mu `$eV found in our transport data at an electron temperature of $`100`$ mK. At larger temperatures the electrons gain enough energy to overcome phonon blockade when the broadening of the Fermi distribution function in the leads approaches $`4k_\mathrm{B}Tϵ_0`$. This is observed in Fig. 2(c), where clear single electron tunneling resonances are found again at $`T=350`$ mK and $`B=0`$ T. We therefore conclude that quantized cavity phonons are excited within the cavity.

The phonon gap $`ϵ`$ is recorded with a higher resolution in Fig. 3(a) showing the central region of Fig. 2(a) in the same color scale. The conventional shape of the Coulomb diamonds is marked by solid lines. Clearly, the asymmetric shape of the gap can be discerned: The crossing of the two solid lines indicates the position of the missing single electron tunneling conductance peak. The onset of conductance (\*) occurs at a slightly different value of $`V_\mathrm{g}`$ by which the half diamonds are offset as indicated by dotted lines. This offset is also explained by the model developed in Fig. 1(b): At the onset of conductance at $`V_{\mathrm{sd}}=ϵ/e`$ the energy level $`\mu (N+1)`$ only remains in the transport window after the level mismatch when initially being aligned with the upper reservoir. Hence, the initial level position is shifted by $`\delta V_\mathrm{g}=ϵ/2e\alpha `$ (where $`\alpha =C_\mathrm{g}/C_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$) on the gate voltage axis.

Further evidence for phonon blockade is given by tracing the magnetic field dependence of the conductance gap. Energetically higher lying electronic states $`\mu ^{}(N+1)`$ with finite angular momentum $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{}`$ ($`\mathrm{}=1,2,\mathrm{}`$) can be brought into resonance with the cavity phonon by altering the magnetic field such that the excitation energy $`\mu ^{}(N+1,B)\mu (N+1,B=0)=ϵ_0`$, corresponding to the situation displayed in level diagram (iii) of Fig. 1(b). In this case, the higher states offer a broad cross section for the emitted phonons to be reabsorbed, allowing for the excitation of the electron into $`\mu ^{}(N+1)`$ thus enabling it to sustain single electron tunneling. Examples for such resonances can be seen at $`170`$ mT and $`450`$ mT shown in Fig. 3(b) and (d) whereas a non-resonant situation at $`260`$ mT is displayed in Fig. 3(c). Since reabsorption of the phonon only occurs with a finite probability, the height of the conductance peak at zero bias, which is again displayed in the right part of the figure, is reduced compared to the onset of conductance through the original ground state at $`V_{\mathrm{sd}}=ϵ/e`$ marked by the dotted line as described before.

A direct comparison of the magnetic field dependence to transport spectroscopy on the dot is depicted in Fig. 4 where we consider two adjacent resonance peaks $`\alpha `$ (right, c.f. Fig. 3) and $`\beta `$ (left). The conductance traces are recorded for bias voltages from $`0\mu `$V to $`800\mu `$V at $`B=0`$ mT in Fig. 4(a) showing excited states marked by red lines. The zero bias conductance is plotted logarithmically as a function of both gate voltage $`V_\mathrm{g}`$ and magnetic field $`B`$ for $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ in Fig. 4(b) (blue: $`0.02\mu `$S, red: $`0.2\mu `$S) and (c) (blue: $`0.02\mu `$S, red: $`2\mu `$S), respectively. For the right resonance $`\alpha `$ we find excited states (red lines) at energies $`\mu _\alpha ^1=230\mu `$eV, $`\mu _\alpha ^2=440\mu `$eV, and $`\mu _\alpha ^3=740\mu `$eV. These three excited states correspond to three magnetic fields permitting zero bias conductance at $`57`$ mT, $`170`$ mT, and $`400`$ mT. For the left resonance $`\beta `$ we find excited states at energies $`\mu _\beta ^1=380\mu `$eV and $`\mu _\beta ^2=760\mu `$eV matching with two magnetic fields re-enabling zero bias conductance at $`230`$ mT and $`510`$ mT. Above $`500`$ mT conductance fully re-emerges while below it is found only at a set of discrete values as discussed above. These values exactly correspond to multiples $`B=nB_0`$ ($`n=1,3,4,7`$ and $`9`$) of the first resonance in $`\alpha `$ observed at $`B_0=57`$ mT.

The presented measurements demonstrate that for freely suspended quantum dot cavities single electron tunneling gives rise to the excitation of a longitudinal cavity phonon. The resulting energy loss leads to a suppression of linear electron transport and to the formation of a distinct energy gap. This phonon blockade effect can be overcome at bias voltages large enough to bridge the energy gap, or at a sufficiently high bath temperature. A third mechanism circumventing phonon blockade is given by aligning higher lying electronic states with distinct angular momentum such that electronic transport is enabled through these states after reabsorption of the cavity phonon in a process similar to Rabi oscillations. Finally, placing the dot into the whole bulk crystal instead of a free-standing cavity eliminates the blockade effect so that elastic single electron tunneling is restored.

We like to thank Stefan Debald for stimulating discussions. Support from the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft is acknowledged.


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# Influence of the Pauli principle on the dynamics of the Quark-Gluon Plasma

## Abstract

A simple parton cascade model for the ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions is proposed to investigate the Pauli blocking at the transition from hadronic to partonic state, i.e. QGP. A boost invariant study of the Pauli blocking is implemented in the Monte Carlo simulation for the first time. It turns out that the higher reaction energy the stronger the partonic Pauli effect is. It amounts to about ten percent at SPS and RHIC energies but nearly reaches twenty percent at LHC energy. Thus the effect is relevant to the formation and evolution of the quark-gluon plasma.
PACS numbers: 25.75.-q, 12.38.Mh, 24.10.Lx

Pauli blocking plays an important role in nucleus-nucleus collisions at low and intermediate energies because the available phase space volume is quite small cug ; bert ; aich ; aldo ; sa1 . However, in the ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions since the available momentum phase space is huge and more than 95$`\%`$ produced particles are bosons one might despise the role of Pauli effect. Even if the available momentum space in ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collision is really huge, the coordinate space, on the other hand, is strongly contracted at the earliest stage of the collision. Although pions, kaons etc. do not suffer with Pauli effect, their precursors, u, d, and s quarks and their antiquarks, do really have all the influences of Pauli blocking if a Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) is formed and survives long enough in a limited region of phase space. Furthermore, since Pauli blocking is stronger for u and d quarks than s quark, it might benefit the production of strangeness relatively and the strong constrain of strange suppression could be somewhat overturned. Thus it is worth to study the effect of partonic Pauli blocking on the hadronic final state in ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions.

Even though our parton cascade model (see below) is crude in some aspects, the basic assumption is that at each nucleon-nucleon collision the produced particles (mainly pions) are deconfined at least for the time of the reaction, a few fm/c for instance, which is however very short. If a QGP is formed at the maximum compression stage we have then to test for the influence of Pauli principle since all the particles are fermions. In our model the elementary probability of particle production are taken from data sjo1 , thus we expect the model to be reasonable in describing the dynamics of particle production. However, the mean field effects and the dynamics of confinement are neglected and we assume that the quarks recombine simply when the density in phase space is small. The later, however, is a rather reasonable assumption since if the density is very high, the quarks are clearly deconfined. As we will show below, our calculations underestimate the available experimental data nearly a factor of 1.5, thus we expect that we are underestimating the Pauli blocking since it is more severe for larger densities (i.e. higher number of produced partons). More refined models which include the dynamics of the QGP plasma must really take the Pauli blocking into account. Simpler models which deal with hadrons only, should estimate the maximum density in phase space reached. If such density is too large then it is necessary to deal with the structure of the hadrons. From an experimental point of view, since the quarks recombine mainly in pions which are bosons, most of the Pauli blocking effect might be hidden. However, some important informations on the phase space density might be obtained from baryon-baryon coincidence measurement, especially neutrals to avoid the distortions of the long range Coulomb force.

To our knowledge the quantum statistic effect in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions was really implemented in the study of bosonic enhancement of pion transverse momentum bert1  and was also considered formally in the partonic transport equation gei . It should be emphasized that a great effort was made in gei  after the pioneering study boa  in the field of parton cascade model. However, the partonic Pauli blocking effect was not really incorporated in the Monte Carlo simulation of currently active parton cascade models bin ; gyu ; boer ; bass ; zhe . In this letter a simple parton cascade model for ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collision is proposed investigating the effect of Pauli blocking at partonic (initialization) stage on the hadronic final state. The partonic Pauli blocking is implemented boost invariantly for the first time in Monte Carlo simulation. The amount of this Pauli effect is below ten percent at SPS and RHIC energies but reaching nearly twenty percent at LHC energy, due to the increased number of produced partons with increasing beam energy.

The parton cascade model for ultra-relativistic heavy ion collision is generally composed of the parton initial state, the parton evolution, the hadronization, and the hadron evolution. However, the models in boer ; zhe  lack the last two parts at present, for instance. The partonic Pauli blocking, of course, plays a role in the former two parts only. As a first step the proposed simple parton cascade model is used for investigating mainly the Pauli blocking effect in the generation of parton initial state from the hadronic distributions at the highest density stage.

There are two ways of creating the parton initial state. In bin ; gyu ; zhe  the parton initial state was composed of partons from the mini-jets production in nucleus-nucleus collision and the HIJING multiple mini-jet generator wang  was specified in bin ; gyu . The parton initial state in boer ; bass  was created via probability distributions first for the spatial and momentum coordinates of nucleons in colliding nuclei and then for the flavor and spatial and momentum coordinates of partons in nucleons. Our parton cascade model follows the former way, however, the JPCIAE multiple mini-jet generator sa2  is used instead of HIJING.

The JPCIAE multiple mini-jet generator for ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collision is based on PYTHIA sjo1  which is a well known event generator for hadron-hadron collision. In the JPCIAE model the radial position of a nucleon in colliding nucleus A (indicating the atomic number of this nucleus as well) is sampled randomly from Woods-Saxon distribution. Each nucleon is given a beam momentum in z direction and zero initial momenta in x and y directions (fermionic motion is neglected). The Lorentz contraction is taken into account after the initialization of nucleons. A least approaching distance for each colliding nucleon pair along their straight line trajectory is calculated together with its collision time under the requirement that the least approaching distance must be less than or equal to $`\sqrt{\sigma _{tot}/\pi }`$. Here $`\sigma _{tot}`$ refers to the total cross section assumed to be equal to 50 mb for $`Au+Au`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{nn}}`$=130 and 200 GeV and 40 and 100 mb for $`Pb+Pb`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{nn}}`$=17.3 and 5500 GeV pdg , respectively. The nucleon-nucleon collision with the least collision time is then selected from the initial collision (time) list performing the first collision. This nucleon-nucleon collision is modeled by PYTHIA with string fragmentation switched off, thus the produced particles are quark pairs, diquark pairs and gluons. To investigate the partonic Pauli blocking efficiently the diquark (anti-diquark) is split into quarks (antiquarks) and the gluons into quark pair randomly. The produced partons propagate along straight line trajectory similarly to the nucleons. However, the partonic interaction is neglected for the moment, thus partons do not collide and possibly create new partons, which is a possible reason for underestimating the data. After a nucleon-nucleon collision both the particle list and the collision list are updated and the new collision list is still composed of nucleon-nucleon collisions only. The next collision is selected from the new collision list and the processes above are repeated until the collision list is empty.

For each parton $`i`$ among $`N_{new}`$ partons produced in the current nucleon -nucleon collision a judgment must be performed for its Pauli blocking and its unblocking probability, $`p_{unb}(i)`$, is calculated (see below). If the product of unblocking probabilities of $`N_{new}`$ produced partons

$$P_{unb}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_{new}}{}}p_{unb}(i)$$
(1)
satisfies

$$P_{unb}\xi $$
(2)
where $`\xi `$ is a random number, the current nucleon-nucleon collision is blocked and thrown away. Another nucleon-nucleon collision is selected from the collision list and the processes above are repeated.

In the heavy-ion collision at low and intermediate energies the Pauli effect was treated boost uninvariantly cug ; bert ; aich ; aldo ; sa1 . We introduce a method of boost invariant Pauli blocking in Monte Carlo simulation for the first time. To calculate $`p_{unb}(i)`$ we first select the partons with same flavor as parton $`i`$ from both the $`N_{new}`$ partons and the particle list formed before current nucleon-nucleon collision. If the total number of partons picked above is denoted by $`N_{pick}`$ we boost all of $`N_{pick}`$ partons to the rest frame of parton $`i`$ to be consistent with the method of least approaching distance (this boost is not necessary indeed, we have checked that the discrepancy between results from with and without this boost is nearly 1%.). Two three dimensional cubes: one in coordinate space with size $`\mathrm{\Delta }_r`$ and the other in momentum space with size $`\mathrm{\Delta }_p`$, are defined at $`i`$ (as origin). The product of these two cubes, which is an invariant scalar las , is assumed to be $`h^3`$, the consequent values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_r`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_p`$ are 1 fm and 1.24 GeV/c, respectively. If the six dimensional cell spanned between partons $`i`$ and $`j`$ ($`j`$ $`ϵ`$ $`N_{pick}`$), $`|x_{ij}\times y_{ij}\times z_{ij}\times px_j\times py_j\times pz_j|`$ (invariant scalar), is within $`(\mathrm{\Delta }_r\times \mathrm{\Delta }_p)^3`$, i. e. the conditions

$`|x_{ij}|\mathrm{\Delta }_r/2,|y_{ij}|\mathrm{\Delta }_r/2,|z_{ij}|\mathrm{\Delta }_r/2,`$ (3)
$`|px_j|\mathrm{\Delta }_p/2,|py_j|\mathrm{\Delta }_p/2,|pz_j|\mathrm{\Delta }_p/2,`$ (4)
are satisfied simultaneously, the occupation number of parton with flavor as parton $`i`$, $`N_{occu}(i)`$, is added by one. The $`x_{ij}`$ and $`px_j`$ in the above equations, for instance, are the $`x`$ component of the coordinate distance between $`i`$ and $`j`$ and of the momentum of $`j`$ in rest frame of $`i`$ ($`i`$ $`ϵ`$ $`N_{new}`$), respectively. Thus the occupation probability of parton with flavor as parton $`i`$ reads

$$p_{occu}(i)=N_{occu}(i)/g$$
(5)
where $`g`$=6 is the spin and color degeneracies of the quark and/or antiquark with a given flavor (identified as u, d, and s). The unblocking probability of parton $`i`$ is then

$$p_{unb}(i)=1p_{occu}(i).$$
(6)
The above partonic system is then hadronized by JETSET sjo1  after the nucleon-nucleon collision ceased (freeze-out) and the hadronic final state is the consequence. One investigates the partonic Pauli blocking in the generation of the initial parton state and consequently on the hadronic final state by comparing the calculations with partonic Pauli blocking to those without.

In Tab. 1 is given the multiplicity of particles in $`Au+Au`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{nn}}`$=130 and 200 GeV (5$`\%`$ most central) and $`Pb+Pb`$ collisions at 17.3 GeV (5$`\%`$ most central) and 5500 GeV (10$`\%`$ most central) from calculations with and without Pauli blocking. The decreasing percentage of the particle multiplicity in the calculations with Pauli blocking relative to the ones without Pauli blocking is given in the table as well. In the last row the strangeness multiplicity, the sum of all the strange particles in the table, is shown. One sees in Tab. 1 that the partonic Pauli blocking effect is generally below ten percent at SPS and RHIC energies but reaching nearly twenty percent at LHC energy. The higher reaction energy the stronger Pauli effect because of the increasing number of produced quarks and of the competition between the partonic Pauli blocking, which decreases pion production, and the fragmentation, which benefits low $`p_T`$ pions. The partonic Pauli effect is also of benefit to the production of strangeness as seen in $`Pb+Pb`$ collision at LHC energy.

The rapidity (left panel) and transverse momentum (right panel) distributions with and without Pauli blocking for $`Pb+Pb`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{nn}}`$= 5500 GeV are given, respectively, in Fig. 1, 2, and 3 for $`\pi ^+`$, $`k^+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$, for instance. The discrepancy between the two cases is visible, in rapidity distribution especially.

In summary, a simple parton cascade model for ultra-relativistic nucleus -nucleus collisions is proposed studying the partonic Pauli blocking effect in the parton initial state and consequent hadronic final state. A boost invariant study of the Pauli effect is implemented in the Monte Carlo simulation for the first time. It turned out that the amount of this Pauli blocking effect is below ten percent at SPS and RHIC energies but reaching nearly twenty percent at LHC energy, i.e. the higher beam energy the stronger the partonic Pauli effect is. Thus the effect is relevant to the formation and evolution of the quark-gluon plasma. However, the results from our model are a kind of under estimation. Since the charge multiplicity in $`Au+Au`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{nn}}`$=200 and 130 GeV in the calculations with Pauli blocking is, respectively, 3063 and 2562 (including feed-down correction from $`k_s^0`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$) and the multiplicity of $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ in $`Pb+Pb`$ collision at $`\sqrt{s_{nn}}`$=17.3 GeV is, respectively, 416.5 and 429.3 in Tab. 1. They are all less than the corresponding experimental data of 4630$`\pm `$370 bear , 3860$`\pm `$300 bear1 , and 619$`\pm `$17$`\pm `$31 and 639$`\pm `$17$`\pm `$31 afa , respectively. On the other hand, the results of our parton cascade model are not too bad to compare with experimental data, which means that the model is reasonable in its range.

Finally, the financial support from NSFC (10135030, and 10075035) in China and INFN and Department of Phys. University of Catania in Italy (where most of the work was performed) are acknowledged.


text:
# X-Ray Flares and Oscillations from the Black Hole Candidate X-Ray Transient XTE J1650–500 at Low Luminosity

## 1. Introduction

X-ray transients provide an opportunity to study accreting compact objects over a large range of luminosities and mass accretion rates. Until recently, most observations of black hole candidate (BHC) X-ray transients occurred when the sources were at very high luminosity ($`10^{36}`$ erg s-1) or very low luminosity ($`10^{32}`$ erg s-1), and much less observing time was devoted to intermediate luminosities (see Chen, Shrader & Livio 1997 for a review of observations of X-ray transients). This situation has improved somewhat through observations with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (Bradt, Rothschild & Swank, 1993) and also with imaging X-ray observatories. Over the past few years, we have been observing BHC transients during outburst decay with RXTE, the Chandra X-ray Observatory (Weisskopf et al., 2002), and also in the radio band (see, e.g., Tomsick & Kaaret 2000; Corbel et al. 2001; Tomsick, Corbel & Kaaret 2001; Kalemci 2002). One motivation for these observations is performing detailed studies of the transitions between the high-soft (or soft) and low-hard (or hard) spectral states (van der Klis, 1995) where significant changes in the X-ray spectral and timing properties occur. While these transitions typically occur at luminosities of about $`10^{36}`$ erg s-1 (Nowak, 1995), our observing program is designed to extend to much lower luminosities as we have recognized that new phenomena associated with intermediate accretion rates may be found by observing in this rather poorly studied luminosity regime.

In the hard state for BHCs, it is likely that the X-ray emission is due to inverse Comptonization of soft photons by energetic electrons, but there is uncertainty about the system geometry and the mechanism for transferring energy to the electrons. One possibility is that the inner edge of the accretion disk recedes from the compact object in the hard state, leaving a hot, quasi-spherical, optically thin region in the inner portion of the accretion disk. Another possibility that implies a different site for hard X-ray production and a different accretion geometry is that the hard X-ray emission is due to a large number of discrete regions above the accretion disk where magnetic reconnection events occur (Galeev, Rosner & Vaiana, 1979). While both of these possibilities describe physical processes that may occur in BHCs, neither provides a complete picture of accreting BHCs as radio observations in the hard state indicate the presence of a powerful compact jet (Fender, 2001). The compact jet has also been suggested as a possible contributor to the X-ray emission via inverse Comptonization or possibly a synchrotron mechanism (Markoff, Falcke & Fender, 2001; Markoff et al., 2003).

The BHC transient XTE J1650–500 was discovered in 2001 September when it was detected in the X-ray band in outburst by the RXTE All-Sky Monitor (ASM, Remillard, 2001). Pointed RXTE observations indicated X-ray spectral and timing properties typical of black hole systems: No X-ray pulsations were detected; the energy spectrum was consistent with a combination of a soft component, likely from the accretion disk, and a power-law component; and band-limited noise and quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) were observed (Markwardt, Swank & Smith, 2001; Revnivtsev & Sunyaev, 2001; Wijnands, Miller & Lewin, 2001). XTE J1650–500 was identified in the optical (Castro-Tirado et al., 2001) and also the radio (Groot, Tingay, Udalski & Miller, 2001), but the radio source was not resolved. XTE J1650–500 was observed in the X-ray band with XMM-Newton and Chandra during its outburst. The XMM-Newton spectrum represents one of the best examples of a smeared and gravitationally red-shifted iron K$`\alpha `$ emission line that has been detected for a stellar mass BHC (Miller et al., 2002). More recently, Homan et al. (2003) reported the detection by RXTE of a 250 Hz QPO, making XTE J1650–500 the sixth BHC where high frequency ($`>`$40 Hz) QPOs have been detected. Finally, optical observations near quiescence indicate a binary orbital period of 5.1 hr and an optical mass function of $`0.64\pm 0.03`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ (Sanchez-Fernandez et al., 2002). The value for the mass function is relatively low for a black hole system and could indicate that the system contains a relatively low mass black hole, has a low binary inclination ($`i<40^{}`$), or both.

During the 2001 X-ray outburst from XTE J1650–500, the source underwent dramatic changes in its X-ray spectral and timing properties. Generally, the changes were not unusual for BHC X-ray transients. The source started off in a hard state, with a hard energy spectrum and a high level of timing noise, made a transition to a soft spectral state, and then made a transition back to the hard state (Kalemci et al., 2003; Homan et al., 2003). Here, we focus on RXTE observations that were made well after the state transition when the source flux was between 10 and 100 times below the transition level. In §2, we describe the observations and our analysis of the data. We present the results of the analysis in §3. The results include the discovery of X-ray oscillations and flares, and we previously reported the oscillations in an IAU Circular (Tomsick et al., 2002). We discuss the results in §4 and summarize our conclusions in §5.

## 2. Observations and Analysis

We obtained 97 RXTE monitoring observations of XTE J1650–500 covering the end of its 2001-2002 outburst. These “Target of Opportunity” observations started on 2001 November 5 (MJD 52,218) and were triggered by the gradual drop in the X-ray flux that was observed by the RXTE/ASM. Of the 97 observations, 15 occurred prior to a 28 day gap caused by pointing restrictions related to the source position relative to the sun. Kalemci et al. (2003) report on timing analysis of these pre-gap observations, during which the 2.8-20 keV source rate was between 69 and 183 s-1 per PCU (Proportional Counter Unit), including counts from the top anode layer only. Here, we focus on the 82 post-gap RXTE observations that were made over a period of 182 days between 2001 December 22 and 2002 June 22. Immediately after the gap, the source rate had dropped to 21 s-1, and for the remaining observations, the source rates averaged over the duration of each observation are shown in Figure 1a. The RXTE observations occurred approximately every 2 days with the exception of the time period between MJD 52,361 and MJD 52,385, during which there was only 1 observation. The exposure times for the 82 post-gap observations were between 384 and 3360 s with an average exposure time of 1516 s per observation. Long time scale ($``$14 day) and large-amplitude X-ray oscillations are apparent in the Figure 1a light curve.

For the light curve shown in Figure 1a and for much of the work described below, we used “Standard 2” PCA (Proportional Counter Array) data with 16 s time resolution and 129 energy channels. We extracted light curves and energy spectra using scripts developed at UC San Diego and the University of Tübingen that incorporate the standard software for RXTE data reduction (FTOOLS v5.2). We used the most recent (2002 February) release of the “Faint Source” model for background subtraction. Obtaining the best possible background subtraction is important for some aspects of this work because of the low source count rate. To achieve this, we used Standard 2 data from the top anode layer only and excluded data from PCU 0, which has a higher background level due to the loss of its propane layer111See http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/users/craigm/pca-bkg/bkg-users.html for a detailed analysis of the background model performance.. The light curve shown in Figure 1a indicates that we obtain high quality background subtraction. For the final 8 observations, we detect little or no flux from XTE J1650–500, and the measured flux levels are consistent with the expected level from the Galactic ridge emission (Valinia & Marshall, 1998) in the PCA field of view for XTE J1650–500. Finally, we note that for some of the results described below, we used a second data mode with 125 $`\mu `$s time resolution that was obtained simultaneously with the 16 s time resolution data.

During 3 of the RXTE observations, we also obtained simultaneous observations with Chandra (on MJD 52,298, MJD 52,309 and MJD 52,335), and these are indicated in Figure 1a. Although we leave a detailed analysis of the Chandra data to a future paper, we refer to these observations in §3.3 and §3.5.

## 3. Results

### 3.1. Discovery of X-Ray Flares

Through an inspection of the 16 s 2.8-20 keV PCA light curves for XTE J1650–500, we found that bright and isolated X-ray flares occurred during several of the RXTE observations. As shown in Figure 2, some of these flares show count rate increases by more than an order of magnitude over the persistent flux and durations near 100 s. Even though these flares are dramatic bursts of X-ray emission, significant variability is present in many of the other 16 s light curves. Thus, to ensure that we find the most extreme flares, we carried out a quantitative search for flares using the 16 s light curves. First, we produced a count rate histogram (i.e., the number of light curve time bins in various count rate ranges vs. count rate) for each observation. Then, we performed a least squares fit to these histograms with a Gaussian function. We obtained three parameters from the fit: The Gaussian mean ($`r_{mean}`$); the width ($`\sigma `$); and the amplitude. For each observation, we calculated $`x=(r_{max}r_{mean})/\sigma `$, where $`r_{max}`$ corresponds to the maximum count rate in the 16 s light curve for that observation. Based on the number of observations and their duration, if the light curves contain only pure Gaussian noise, one expects approximately 1 observation with $`x>4`$ and no observations with $`x>5`$. In fact, for XTE J1650–500, 8 (out of 82) observations have $`x>7`$, indicating the presence of a non-Gaussian component to the variability. It should be noted that, for light curves in general, a large value of $`x`$ does not necessarily indicate the presence of flares because a long-term trend could also produce a large value of $`x`$. However, an inspection of the light curves for the 8 XTE J1650–500 observations with $`x>7`$ indicates that these light curves contain large and rapid increases in flux (i.e., flares). In this work, we focus on the 5 observations that contain the most extreme flares with values of $`x`$ between 10 and 20.

Closer examination of the flares in the 5 observations indicates that the properties of the flare that occurred during the observation on 2002 January 9 (MJD 52,283) are significantly different from those of the other flares. The Jan. 9 flare is extremely hard relative to the other flares. While the peak rate in the 2.8-20 keV band is similar for the flares in all 5 observations, the peak 20-60 keV count rate for the Jan. 9 flare is $`18\pm 1`$ s-1 per PCU compared to non-detections in this energy band with upper limits of 1-2 s-1 per PCU for the other flares. In fact, there is good evidence that the Jan. 9 flare did not originate from any source within the RXTE field-of-view (FOV). Based on the PCA rates observed at the peak of the Jan. 9 flare, a source in the FOV should have been strongly detected with a count rate of approximately 600 s-1 in HEXTE (High-Energy X-ray Timing Experiment), which is the hard X-ray (20-200 keV) instrument that is co-aligned with the PCA on-board RXTE (Rothschild et al., 1998). We examined the HEXTE light curves for the Jan. 9 observation, and did not find any evidence for a count rate increase.

The properties of the Jan. 9 flare are very similar to 3 flares that were detected with RXTE during observations of other sources in 1998. The 1998 events have been attributed to X-rays and gamma-rays produced during solar flares222http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/users/keith/non\_cosmic\_bursts/burst\_doc.html. To check the hypothesis that the Jan. 9 flare has a solar origin and that the other flares we detect during the XTE J1650–500 observations do not, we obtained publicly available X-ray light curves with 5 minute time resolution from one of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-12), which carries the Solar X-ray Imager (SXI). Very bright solar flares were detected with SXI at the time of the 2002 Jan. 9 flare and also at the times of the 1998 events. However, solar flares did not occur at the times of the other XTE J1650–500 flares, and we conclude that the Jan. 9 flare has a solar origin, but the other flares do not. Figure 2 displays PCA light curves with 4 s time resolution for the 4 XTE J1650–500 observations (henceforth, observations a-d) where we detect non-solar flares. We detect 6 flares (labeled 1-6 in Figure 2) in these observations and report on their detailed properties below.

### 3.2. Basic X-Ray Flare Properties

To characterize the flares, we extracted light curves for observations a-d with 1 s time resolution. Although PCA background estimates are only provided with 16 s time resolution, we used an interpolation procedure to background subtract the 1 s light curves. For each flare, we fitted the rise and decay with a function consisting of an exponential plus a constant. In most cases, an exponential does not provide a good description of the light curve if the peak of the flare is included, but acceptable fits are obtained when we include the portion of the light curve up to 85% of the flare peak. For the 12 fits (rises and decays for 6 flares), we obtain reduced $`\chi ^2`$ values between 0.81 and 1.54 with a mean reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of 1.07, typically for 110 degrees of freedom. Table 1 gives the e-folding rise and decay times for the 6 flares and also the flare durations. The durations are calculated using the exponential fits and defining the start of the flare to be the time when the rate rose to 20% above the constant level and the end of the flare to be the time when the rate reached 20% above the constant level during the decay. The results indicate that the flares have rise times of 3-18 s, decay times of 15-98 s, and durations of 62-215 s. For each flare, Table 1 also includes the ratio of the peak 2.8-20 keV count rate in the 4 s light curves to the non-flaring (i.e., persistent) rate in the same band. The non-flaring light curve regions are marked in Figure 2. The peak rates are 5-24 times higher than the persistent rates.

### 3.3. Flare and Non-Flare Energy Spectra

We studied the spectral properties for observations a-d, by producing 2.8-20 keV PCA energy spectra using data from the flare and non-flare times shown in Figure 2. We produced energy spectra for each flare individually and also a combined spectrum with a 464 s integration time. We determined the non-flare times by inspection of the 16 s light curves and included all long, continuous segments where the count rate is relatively constant. We produced spectra for each of the 4 observations, and the exposure times for the non-flare spectra are given in Table 2. For spectral fitting, we used the XSPEC 11.2 software package. Based on fits to PCA energy spectra from observations of the Crab nebula that were contemporaneous with the XTE J1650–500 observations (see Tomsick, Corbel & Kaaret 2001 for a more detailed description of this procedure), we included 0.6% and 0.3% systematic errors for energy bins below and above 8 keV, respectively.

We fitted the 464 s flare spectrum with power-law and blackbody spectral models to determine if the flare emission mechanism is non-thermal or thermal. For these fits, we included interstellar absorption using the “phabs” model and left the column density ($`N_\mathrm{H}`$) as a free parameter. Using the power-law model results in a very good fit with $`\chi ^2/\nu =23/37`$, while the result for the blackbody model is a poor fit with $`\chi ^2/\nu =120/37`$. Thus, it is clear that the flare spectrum is not dominated by a blackbody component. Furthermore, a two-component power-law plus blackbody fit does not provide a significant improvement over the power-law alone, and the upper limit on the blackbody contribution to the two-component fit is 7% of the total 2.8-20 keV flux.

The non-flare spectra are also well-described by a power-law model. However, for observations a and d, positive residuals appear between 6 and 7 keV that may indicate the presence of an iron K$`\alpha `$ emission line. For observation d, where the largest residuals occur, the line is consistent with being narrow and the line energy is $`6.6\pm 0.3`$ keV. The equivalent width (EW) is poorly constrained to be between 200 eV and 1.4 keV (90% confidence). Based on the improvement in the quality of the fit when the line is included in the model, an F-test indicates that the line is required at only the 99.4% level. For the other non-flare observations and for the 464 s flare spectrum the 90% confidence EW upper limits are a few hundred eV or greater – consistent with the EW for observation d. Thus, for the spectral fits described below, we use a model consisting of a power-law and a narrow iron line.

For the flare and non-flare spectra, the power-law plus line spectral fits indicate that the constraints on the column density are poor, and we obtain 90% confidence upper limits on $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ in the range (2-10)$`\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2. Our Chandra spectra (see §2) indicate a column density of about $`N_\mathrm{H}=6\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2, which is consistent with the PCA upper limits, the expected interstellar value (Dickey & Lockman, 1990), and also the values inferred from X-ray and optical observations obtained during outburst (Miller et al. 2002; Augusteijn et al. 2001; A. Castro-Tirado, private communication). We refitted the spectra after fixing $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ to the value we obtained from Chandra, and the results for the combined flare spectrum and the non-flare spectra are given in Table 2. While the combined flare spectrum does have a smaller best fit value for the power-law photon index ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) than the non-flare spectra, it is only marginally harder than the non-flare spectra for observations b and d. However, at $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.59\pm 0.08`$ (90% confidence errors), the flare spectrum is significantly harder than the spectra of the two non-flare observations with the lowest flux, a and c, for which $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.20_{0.26}^{+0.31}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.50_{0.43}^{+0.48}`$, respectively. This indicates that significant softening occurs at low flux levels, but it is not clear if this is related to the flaring behavior. We refitted the combined flare spectrum after subtracting the average non-flare spectrum. This results in a slightly lower (harder) value for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, but the change in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is less than 0.1.

We also fitted the spectra for the individual flares and the values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ obtained are given in Table 1 along with the fluences for each flare. To determine the fluences, we first summed the total number of counts over the duration of the flare and subtracted the contribution from the persistent flux. We determined the start and end times for each flare as described in §3.2. We then used the spectral shape from fitting the individual flares to convert the total counts to a fluence in erg cm-2.

### 3.4. Evolution of X-Ray Flare Properties

Figure 3 shows the light curves for the 6 flares in the hard (6.9-20 keV) and soft (2.8-6.9 keV) X-ray bands. While there are some specific light curve features that appear for only one of the energy bands, the main result is that there is good overall correlation between the soft and hard light curves. We also examined the hardness ratio vs. time using the hard and soft light curves, but the only obvious trend is that the flares are somewhat harder than the persistent emission, which is consistent with the spectral results reported in §3.3. For flare 6 especially, it is apparent that some of the specific light curve features are present for only one of the energy bands. During the rise of flare 6, near time = 400 s, there is an 8 s dip that only appears in the soft band light curve. Also, during the flare 6 decay (time = 465-540 s), oscillations with a $``$20 s time scale are present in the hard band light curve only. In addition, flares 2 and 3 show some evidence for variability in the hard band that is not present in the soft band.

### 3.5. Long Time Scale Oscillations Observed with RXTE and Chandra

Here, we focus on the long time scale and large amplitude X-ray oscillations seen in Figure 1a. To determine the characteristic frequencies of the oscillation and to search for periodicities, we produced a Lomb periodogram (Press et al., 1992) of the time series, and it is shown in Figure 1b. The highest amplitude peak in the periodogram is at a frequency of 0.070 days-1 (14.2 day period), but it is about a factor of 2 below the 3-$`\sigma `$ detection limit for a periodic signal. The fact that there is excess power from 0.06 to 0.09 days-1 suggests the presence of an aperiodic signal, and inspection of the light curve agrees with this conclusion. In Figure 1a, the arrows are spaced by 14.2 days, and while the first 4 peaks are consistent with this period, the agreement does not continue after MJD 52,330.

As the PCA is not an imaging instrument and has a relatively large field-of-view ($`1^{}`$ radius), it is necessary to consider whether another source besides XTE J1650–500 could be responsible for the phenomena detected by the PCA. Thus, it is important that the Chandra observations mentioned in §2 firmly establish that XTE J1650–500 is the source of the oscillations. For all three Chandra observations, a source is strongly detected at the position of the XTE J1650–500 radio counterpart (Groot, Tingay, Udalski & Miller, 2001). The Chandra spectra are well-described by a power-law with interstellar absorption, and by fitting the spectra, we derive 0.5-10 keV fluxes of $`5\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 for the first two observations and $`6\times 10^{12}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 for the third observation. Comparing these fluxes to the PCA count rates shown in Figure 1a indicates that the flux levels measured by Chandra and the PCA are well-correlated. As the Chandra observations prove that XTE J1650–500 was still active when the flares were observed, it is very unlikely that the flares come from another source. Still, we used the SIMBAD database to search for X-ray sources in the PCA FOV, which is a $`1^{}`$ circle centered on the XTE J1650–500 position ($`l=336.70^{},b=3.44^{}`$). We did not find any sources, such as X-ray binaries, that are likely to contribute significantly to the X-ray flux detected by the PCA. Further, the non-thermal flare spectrum rules out the possibility that the flares come from an X-ray burster in the PCA FOV (see §4.5 for more discussion of X-ray bursts).

## 4. Discussion

During RXTE observations of the BHC XTE J1650–500, we have discovered 6 X-ray flares lasting from 62-215 s and peaking at count rate levels between 5 and 24 times the persistent rates. The flares occurred at the end of the first and currently only X-ray outburst that has been detected from this X-ray transient when the persistent flux was a factor of $`10^3`$ below the the peak flux level for the outburst. Although strong X-ray variability is commonly observed for black hole X-ray binaries, the isolated X-ray flares that we observe are unusual. In addition, we find long term aperiodic oscillations with a characteristic time scale of 14.2 days. Below, we discuss the implications of the XTE J1650–500 oscillations and X-ray flares by comparing them to phenomena that have been seen for other sources, including long and short time scale variability in black hole binaries, the X-ray flares that have been detected from Sgr A\*, the super-massive black hole at the center of the Galaxy, and X-ray bursts in neutron star binaries.

### 4.1. XTE J1650–500 Oscillations

The fact that the $``$14 day X-ray oscillations are an aperiodic phenomenon likely rules out the possibility that they are directly related to disk precession, and they are obviously not orbital since it is now known that XTE J1650–500 has an orbital period of 5.1 hr (Sanchez-Fernandez et al., 2002). However, oscillations have previously been observed in the optical at the ends of outbursts for a number of short orbital period BHC transients as well as dwarf novae (Kuulkers, 1998). The general properties of the optical oscillations can be explained in the framework of disk instability models (DIM) for dwarf novae (Osaki, Shimizu & Tsugawa, 1997; Hameury, Lasota & Warner, 2000) and possibly for X-ray transients (Menou et al., 2000). For DIM, the level of emission increases when the disk becomes hot enough for the hydrogen in the disk to be ionized. This leads to a higher viscosity and an increase in the mass accretion rate onto the compact object. Oscillations can be produced by the propagation of heating and then cooling waves through the disk (Hameury, Lasota & Warner, 2000). For BHC systems, the best examples of these optical oscillations (also called “mini-outbursts”) include GRO J0422+32 (Castro-Tirado et al., 1993; Chevalier & Ilovaisky, 1995), GRS 1009–45 (Bailyn & Orosz, 1995), and, more recently, XTE J1859+226 (Zurita et al., 2002). For XTE J1650–500, optical oscillations occurred contemporaneously with the X-ray oscillations we are reporting in this work (C. Bailyn, private communication). The optical oscillations have similar characteristic time scales of 10-100 days for all 4 sources. While X-ray coverage during optical oscillations was not obtained for GRS 1009–45 and was sparse for GRO J0422+32 and XTE J1859+226, the X-ray observations obtained for the latter 2 sources showed that they were active in the X-ray band during the oscillations (Shrader et al., 1997; Tomsick & Heindl, 2000). Another short orbital period BHC transient, 4U 1543–47, showed large variations in the X-ray band in a poorly sampled light curve obtained at the end of its 1971-1972 outburst (Chen, Shrader & Livio, 1997). Overall, the similarities between the XTE J1650–500 oscillations and those that have been seen for other short orbital period BHC transients suggests that they are related phenomena. If this is the case, our observations of XTE J1650–500 represent the first time that good X-ray coverage has been obtained during a series of mini-outbursts.

### 4.2. XTE J1650–500 X-Ray Flares and BHC Variability

While it is likely that the XTE J1650–500 oscillations are similar to phenomena that have been observed before (mostly in the optical band) for BHCs, it is not clear that the same can be said for the X-ray flares. In certain spectral states, BHC light curves certainly do exhibit a high level of variability, and their X-ray light curves contain flares that have inspired “shot noise” models (Terrell, 1972). However, in these models, it is the combination of a very large number of shots that can lead to the overall variability observed in BHCs, which can be as fast as millisecond time scales. The shots, and also the flares that are typically observed in BHC light curves, have much smaller amplitudes relative to the average flux levels and much shorter time scales than the XTE J1650–500 flares (see Miyamoto et al. 1992 for examples of light curves for other BHCs).

We found one example in the literature of a black hole system that exhibited a series of X-ray flares with some similarities to the XTE J1650–500 flares. V4641 Sgr is an unusual X-ray transient that was discovered in 1999 February by RXTE and BeppoSAX. It is often referred to as a “fast” transient because it had an outburst in 1999 September that only lasted for about a day rather than the typical several months. The source showed extreme X-ray variability when it was bright, and, at the end of its most active period in 1999 September, it exhibited relatively isolated X-ray flares (Wijnands & van der Klis, 2000). Three or four X-ray flares occurred in a 200 s light curve shown in Figure 1c of Wijnands & van der Klis (2000). The X-ray flares had rise times $`<`$10 s, durations of 20-50 s, flux increases by factors of 10-50 over the non-flaring flux, and roughly exponential decays at the ends of the flares. The similarities of the flare parameters and the fact that the flares for both V4641 Sgr and XTE J1650–500 occurred when the non-flaring flux was several orders of magnitude below the peak outburst flux for the respective sources leads us to suggest the possibility that the flares from the two sources could be related.

Although we do not believe that similar X-ray flares have been seen before in BHC sources other than XTE J1650–500 and possibly V4641 Sgr, this could partly be a selection effect. As discussed in §1, BHCs have been most often observed in outburst at high luminosity or in quiescence. From the optical observations of XTE J1650–500 that have been made (Sanchez-Fernandez et al., 2002; Augusteijn, Coe & Groot, 2001; Garcia & Wilkes, 2002), we estimate that the source distance is between 2 and 6 kpc, and here and below we use a fiducial value of 4 kpc for luminosity estimates. Thus, the typical non-flare X-ray flux of $`1.7\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 (2.8-20 keV, unabsorbed) corresponds to an luminosity of $`3\times 10^{34}(d/4\mathrm{kpc})^2`$ erg s-1, which is in a luminosity regime where BHCs have not been as well-studied. Thus, we cannot rule out the possibility that X-ray flares commonly occur for BHCs at intermediate luminosities.

The fact that multiple X-ray flares are detected from XTE J1650–500 during observations a and b, suggests the possibility that XTE J1650–500 entered into a state (or perhaps an accretion regime) that favors flare production. It is interesting that the flares for observations a and b are both separated by 800-900 s, and this time scale may provide a clue about the flare emission mechanism. The observation d light curve also supports the idea that XTE J1650–500 enters into a flaring state since a short flare is seen at the end of that observation (near time = 1850 s). Furthermore, the RXTE observation following observation d (on MJD 52361) is one of the observations for which higher variability was detected, and short flares are also detected during that observation. Finally, a higher level of variability was detected for the RXTE observation that occurred between observations b and c on MJD 52318.

### 4.3. X-Ray Flares and Black Hole Accretion Theory

The XTE J1650–500 X-ray flares demonstrate that physical models for BHC systems must be able to account for the situation where the X-ray flux increases by a factor of up to 24 on a time scale on a time scale of seconds (based on flare 5). While this time scale does not provide a useful model-independent constraint on the size of the emission region because the physical size of the system (i.e., the binary separation) is only a few light-seconds, we have considered whether the flares have implications for certain accretion scenarios. For flares produced by a change in mass accretion rate, the flux is expected to change on the viscous time scale in the X-ray emitting region of the accretion disk. For thin ($`HR`$) and thick ($`HR`$) accretion disks, where $`H`$ is the accretion disk thickness and $`R`$ is the radial distance from the compact object, the viscous time scale is given by $`t_v=\alpha ^1(R/H)^2t_d`$, where $`\alpha `$ is a dimensionless parameter that is proportional to the viscosity and $`t_d`$ is the dynamical time scale (Frank, King & Raine, 1992). The dynamical (i.e., Keplerian) time scale depends on the mass of the compact object, $`M`$, and $`R=rR_S`$ ($`R_S=2GM/c^2`$, where $`G`$ is the gravitational constant and $`c`$ is the speed of light) according to $`t_d=88\mu `$s $`(M/\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}})r^{3/2}`$. Based on the current distribution of black hole masses, it is likely that XTE J1650–500 contains a black hole with a mass of 5-15$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$, and we assume a mass of 10$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$. In the extreme case of $`\alpha =1`$ (Frank, King & Raine, 1992) and a thick accretion disk ($`R=H`$), $`t_v=1`$ s corresponds to $`r=110`$, while a more realistic value of $`\alpha =0.1`$ gives $`r=23`$. Thus, if the flares are due to an increase in the mass accretion rate, they must originate in a region smaller than the inner $``$20-100 $`R_S`$ of the accretion disk. While this does not strongly constrain theoretical models, the possibility of larger hard X-ray emission regions has been previously suggested (e.g., Esin, McClintock & Narayan 1997).

Some theoretical models for accreting black hole systems predict highly variable X-ray emission at low luminosities. Merloni & Fabian (2002) discuss the possibility of a “coronal outflow dominated accretion disk model,” where a geometrically thin and optically thick accretion disk dissipates much of its gravitational energy in a magnetic corona. This is an attractive model since it incorporates angular momentum transport via magnetic fields (Balbus & Hawley, 1991) and also the presence of outflows such as the compact jets that have been observed from accreting black holes at low luminosities (Fender, 2001). In this model, non-thermal X-ray flares can be produced through gradual magnetic field generation that can lead to a brightening of the corona (Merloni & Fabian, 2002). In another model that has been suggested for low luminosity black hole systems, the black hole accretes via a “hot settling flow” (Medvedev & Murray, 2002). Here, the black hole is magnetically coupled to the accretion flow, allowing a rapidly rotating black hole to transfer its angular momentum to the accretion flow as in Blandford & Znajek (1977). Hard X-ray spectra and high variability are expected for this accretion mode. In fact, Medvedev & Murray (2002) specifically predict that XTE J1650–500 may exhibit this behavior based on the spectral determination that it contains a rapidly rotating black hole (Miller et al., 2002).

### 4.4. Comparison between the X-Ray Flares in XTE J1650–500 and Sgr A\*

Here, we consider the possibility that the XTE J1650–500 flares are related to the isolated X-ray flares that have been detected from Sgr A\* (Baganoff et al., 2001; Goldwurm et al., 2003). Such a comparison is interesting because these are both low luminosity BHC or black hole systems, and the overall shapes of the flare light curves and the evolution of the energy spectra are similar in the two cases. For the Sgr A\* flare seen by Chandra in 2000 October, the flux increases by a factor of about 45, and during the 10 ks flare, the X-ray spectrum hardens and is non-thermal (Baganoff et al., 2001). While the results for the 2000 October flare have been reported in the most detail, subsequent Chandra observations of Sgr A\* yielded the detection of several more flares, and these suggest that flux increases by a factor of 5-25, similar to the XTE J1650–500 flares, are probably more typical (Baganoff et al., 2002). While the flare durations and rise times are about a factor of 100 less for XTE J1650–500 (durations of 100 s for XTE J1650–500 compared to 10 ks for Sgr A\* and rise times of 10 s for XTE J1650–500 compared to 1 ks for Sgr A\*), it is notable that that the ratios for the two quantities are approximately the same. For Chandra observations of Sgr A\*, the power-law photon index ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) is $`2.2_{0.7}^{+0.5}`$ during non-flare times and $`1.3_{0.6}^{+0.5}`$ during the 2000 October flare (Baganoff et al., 2001), which is consistent with the spectral evolution we observe for XTE J1650–500.

Although the phenomenology of the flares in Sgr A\* and XTE J1650–500 have similarities, we must also consider the differences between these systems. Beyond the fact that the mass of the Sgr A\* black hole is $`2.6\times 10^6`$$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ (Eckart & Genzel, 1997) compared to the likely $``$10$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ black hole in XTE J1650–500, the flares we observe for XTE J1650–500 occur when the persistent Eddington-scaled luminosity is much higher than for Sgr A\*. For a distance of 4 kpc and a compact object mass of 10$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$, the persistent flux of $`10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 for XTE J1650–500 (see Table 2) gives $`L_x/L_{Edd}=2\times 10^5`$. For Sgr A\*, the persistent X-ray luminosity is $`2.2\times 10^{33}`$ erg s-1 (Baganoff et al., 2001), indicating $`L_x/L_{Edd}=5\times 10^{12}`$. Even if we consider the bolometric luminosity of $``$$`10^{37}`$ erg s-1 for Sgr A\* (Narayan et al., 1998), $`L/L_{Edd}=2\times 10^8`$, which is three orders of magnitude lower than XTE J1650–500. Thus, we consider the possibility that the flares in the two systems are related with the caveat that their accretion properties are likely to be significantly different.

If the flares are produced by similar processes, the fact that the flare time scales are longer for Sgr A\* than for XTE J1650–500 is not surprising given the much larger black hole mass for Sgr A\*. However, it is not obvious why the time scales would be different by only a factor of 100. For example, dynamical and viscous time scales at the same accretion disk radius, $`r=R/R_S`$, are proportional to the black hole mass. Thus, if the flares were produced by an increase in the mass accretion rate, the viscous time scale would be relevant (Liu & Melia, 2002), and a difference in time scale by a factor of $`3\times 10^5`$ would be predicted. Baganoff et al. (2001) discuss the possibility that the Sgr A\* flare emission could have a synchrotron or a synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) mechanism. This could occur if electrons were accelerated in magnetically active regions of an accretion flow (perhaps due to magnetic reconnection events). In these cases, the flare durations may be related to the synchrotron or SSC cooling time scales, which are proportional to $`\gamma ^1B^2`$ (Begelman, Blandford & Rees, 1984), where $`\gamma `$ is the Lorentz factor for the X-ray producing electrons and $`B`$ is the magnetic field strength. The fact that the flare X-ray spectra are similar for Sgr A\* and XTE J1650–500 may suggest that $`\gamma `$ is not extremely different for the two systems, but, if $`B`$ was an order of magnitude larger in the XTE J1650–500 emission region, then the predicted time scale would be a factor of 100 lower for this system, as observed. However, the calculations of di Matteo, Celotti & Fabian (1997) suggest that the difference in magnetic field strength should be much greater than an order of magnitude. Finally, jet-based models have been suggested to explain the Sgr A\* flares (Markoff et al., 2001). In these models, the X-ray emission has a synchrotron or SSC mechanism, but the electrons are continuously shock accelerated so that the cooling time scales do not relate to the predicted flare duration in a simple way. More work is required to determine if any of these models can explain the time scale ratio of 100 between the XTE J1650–500 and Sgr A\* flares.

### 4.5. X-Ray Flares and X-Ray Bursts

Accreting low magnetic field neutron stars exhibit type I X-ray bursts due to thermonuclear instabilities that result from accretion onto the neutron star surface (Lewin, van Paradijs & Taam, 1995). While XTE J1650–500 is a BHC and is not expected to produce type I X-ray bursts, the flare rise times, the decay times, and the ratio between the peak X-ray flux and the persistent flux are all typical of type I X-ray bursts (Lewin, van Paradijs & Taam, 1995). Even though the light curve shapes for the flares are typical of type I X-ray bursts, the spectral evolution is not. The emission mechanism for type I X-ray bursts is thermal, and X-ray bursts have energy spectra that are dominated by a blackbody component. As shown in §3.3, the possibility that the XTE J1650–500 X-ray flares have a significant blackbody component is strongly ruled out.

Although type II X-ray bursts are not as well understood and have only been detected from two sources to date, it is notable that some of the XTE J1650–500 flare light curves have properties similar to type II bursts. For flare 6, the variability leading up to the flare (time = 0-300 s in Figure 2), the dip right before the flare (time near 360 s), and the oscillations during the decay have similarities to the light curves of type II bursts (Lewin, van Paradijs & Taam, 1995; Lewin et al., 1996). However, like type I bursts, type II bursts also exhibit thermal spectra (Lewin, van Paradijs & Taam, 1995; Marshall et al., 2001) in contrast to the XTE J1650–500 flares. If XTE J1650–500 contains a black hole, then our conclusion that the X-ray flares are not type I or type II X-ray bursts indicates that X-ray bursts should not be taken as evidence for a neutron star in the system unless it can be shown that the burst energy spectrum is dominated by a blackbody component. This conclusion may have implications for estimates of the numbers of neutron star binaries in the Galaxy if a fraction of the putative X-ray bursters without high quality burst spectra actually contain black holes.

While the energy spectrum provides strong evidence against the XTE J1650–500 X-ray flares being X-ray bursts, we note that this possibility is also disfavored from luminosity considerations. Typically, peak X-ray burst luminosities are between $`0.1L_{Edd}`$ and $`L_{Edd}`$. However, the flux at the peak of the XTE J1650–500 outburst is about 100 times higher than the peak of the strongest X-ray flare, indicating that if the X-ray flares are close to $`L_{Edd}`$, then the source was super-Eddington for most of the outburst, which seems implausible. In addition, given the observed flux, a peak X-ray flare luminosity of $`0.1L_{Edd}`$ implies a distance between 28 kpc and 89 kpc for compact object masses between 1$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ and 10$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$, and these large distances are ruled-out by the optical detections of the source near quiescence. However, these luminosity arguments may not be absolute proof against X-ray bursts because there are some unusual cases where bursts in other systems have been classified as type I X-ray bursts even though they are significantly sub-Eddington (e.g., Gotthelf & Kulkarni 1997; Garcia & Grindlay 1987). On the other hand, for the examples in the two preceding references, it has not been clearly demonstrated that non-thermal burst energy spectra are ruled out.

## 5. Summary and Conclusions

In this work, we report on RXTE observations of the BHC transient XTE J1650–500 made at the end of its first, and currently only, outburst. By observing at low luminosities, we found new or previously poorly studied X-ray phenomena, including bright $``$100 s X-ray flares and long time scale oscillations of the X-ray flux. Over several months, the X-ray light curve shows strong aperiodic oscillations with a characteristic time scale of 14.2 days during which the X-ray flux varies by an order of magnitude. We argue that the oscillations are probably related to the optical oscillations (also called “mini-outbursts”) that have been observed for other short orbital period BHC transients such as GRO J0422+32, GRS 1009–45, and XTE J1859+226. If this is the case, our observations represent the first time that good X-ray coverage has been obtained during a series of mini-outbursts.

A uniform analysis of the 16 s RXTE light curves leads to the detection of 6 X-ray flares in 4 observations with durations between 62 and 215 s and peak fluxes that are 5-24 times higher than the persistent flux. The flare energy spectra are non-thermal, being well-described by a power-law with a photon index of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.59\pm 0.08`$ (90% confidence errors). The upper limit on a blackbody contribution to the flare is 7% of the 2.8-20 keV flux. The flares are isolated events that occur when the persistent luminosity is low, near $`3\times 10^{34}(d/4\mathrm{kpc})^2`$ erg s-1 (2.8-20 keV), making them unusual, if not unique, for BHCs. The XTE J1650–500 X-ray flares demonstrate that physical models for BHC systems must be able to account for the situation where the X-ray flux increases by a factor of up to 24 on a time scale of seconds (based on flare 5). We briefly discuss two theoretical models for accreting black holes that predict highly variable X-ray emission at low luminosities (Merloni & Fabian, 2002; Medvedev & Murray, 2002).

We also compare the XTE J1650–500 flares to the X-ray flares that have recently been observed from Sgr A\* by Chandra and XMM-Newton as these are both accreting black holes or BHCs that exhibited isolated X-ray flares during periods of low persistent luminosity (although we note that $`L_x/L_{Edd}`$ and bolometric $`L/L_{Edd}`$ are considerably lower for Sgr A\*). The increases in flux and spectral evolution for the flares in the two systems are comparable, while the time scales (rise time and duration) are about 100 times faster for XTE J1650–500. Given the factor of $``$$`3\times 10^5`$ difference in compact object mass between the two systems (assuming that XTE J1650–500 contains a 10$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ black hole), it is not surprising that the time scales are faster for XTE J1650–500. However, the simplest physical models suggest that the time scale difference should be considerably larger. Overall, we cannot rule out the possibility that the flares in the two systems are related, and more work is required on this topic.

Finally, we note that some of the XTE J1650–500 flares have light curves with similarities to type I X-ray bursts that are seen in neutron star systems, including rise times of seconds and exponential decays with e-folding times of tens of seconds. However, the non-thermal energy spectra for the flares are in contrast to the spectra of type I (and also type II) X-ray bursts, which are dominated by blackbody emission. Thus, the XTE J1650–500 flares indicate that X-ray bursts should not be taken as evidence for the presence of a neutron star in a given system unless the presence of a blackbody component can be demonstrated.

We would like to thank C. Bailyn for sharing results from optical observations of XTE J1650–500 ahead of publication. JAT acknowledges useful discussions with J. Miller, R. Hynes, A. Castro-Tirado, W. Yu, and F. Baganoff. SC acknowledges S. Markoff for stimulating discussions. We acknowledge useful comments and suggestions from an anonymous referee. The SIMBAD database and also information from the Space Environment Center, Boulder, CO, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), US Dept. of Commerce were used in preparing this paper. We would like to thank all scientists who contributed to the Tübingen Timing Tools. JAT acknowledges partial support from NASA grant NAG5-10886 and Chandra award number GO2-3056X issued by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of NASA under contract NAS8-39073. PK acknowledges partial support from NASA grant NAG5-7405. EK was partially supported by TÜBİTAK.