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# Physical changes during Z-track movement in Sco X-1 on the flaring branch

## 1 Introduction

Flaring in Sco X-1 has been known for many years, since it became apparent that it had a quiescent state and an active or flaring state (Canizares et al. 1973; White et al. 1976). In the former, variability was limited, whereas in the flaring state, strong intensity variations are seen on timescale of minutes to hours. The similarity of other sources to Sco X-1 was realized by Mason et al. (1976), and van Paradijs & Lewin (1986) concluded that there was a distinction in Low Mass X-ray Binary sources (LMXB) between low luminosity, bursting sources and the bright sources such as Sco X-1.

Study of sources like Sco X-1 revealed different patterns of correlated hardness-intensity behaviour, leading to the conclusion of Hasinger et al. (1989) that the bright sources can be found on three different branches forming a skewed Z-shape in a hardness-intensity diagram: the Horizontal, Normal and Flaring branches. The Z-track sources are Sco X-1, Cyg X-2, GX 17+2, GX 349+2, GX 340+0 and GX 5-1. These hardness-intensity plots provided a model-independent method demonstrating that strong spectral changes were taking place within the sources, but not revealing the nature of the changes. At the same time it was found that the pattern of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPO) depended on position on the Z-track (van der Klis et al. 1987; Hasinger et al. 1989). Although these changes are suggestive of changes in the neighbourhood of the inner disk and compact object, they do not in themselves reveal the nature of the changes. More recently, evidence has been found that some of the related Atoll sources also move on a Z-track but on longer timescales (Muno et al. 2002); however, van der Klis (2002) has argued that the pattern of timing behaviour on the “Horizontal Branch” in one atoll source 4U 1608-52 is not as expected for a Z-track source. The Z-track and related Atoll sources have been seen generally as low-inclination LMXB sources as distinct from the high-inclination dipping and ADC sources (Frank et al. 1987). However, three of the Z-track sources display X-ray dipping implying high inclination (e.g. Kuulkers et al. 1996).

The nature of the physical changes taking place along the Z-track is not known. Detailed models have been proposed (e.g. Psaltis et al. 1995), but there has been no way of testing the details of, for example, the geometry of such models against observation. However, it was suggested that during movement along the Z-track, a single parameter changes, and it has generally been assumed that this is the mass accretion rate $`\dot{M}`$ as proposed by Hasinger et al. (1989).

Spectral modelling of Sco X-1 was carried out by White et al. (1986) using a two-component model consisting of a blackbody plus a Comptonization term, and it was shown that flaring consisted of increases of the blackbody luminosity. However, different models were then proposed for LMXB which were radically different physically. The Eastern model of Mitsuda et al. (1989) consisted of multi-colour blackbody emission from the accretion disk, plus Comptonized emission of the neutron star. The Western model of White and co-workers (e.g. White et al. 1986) was of a self-Comptonized or generalized thermal type to explain the dominance of Comptonization in LMXB emission, while bright sources required an additional blackbody component (White et al. 1988). The ability of these different forms to fit LMXB spectra has resulted in the nature of the emission remaining controversial to the present.

## 2 The Birmingham emission model

In fact, the dipping LMXB sources displaying dips in X-ray intensity at the orbital period due to absorption in the outer disk (White & Swank 1982; Walter et al. 1982) have held the key to this problem. Spectral models are more strongly constrained by the requirement of having to fit not only the non-dip spectrum, but also several intensity levels during dipping without the source emission parameters changing. Work on the dipping sources led to a model consisting of blackbody emission from the neutron star plus Comptonized emission from an extended accretion disk corona (ADC) (Church & Bałucińska-Church 1995). This model provides very good fits to all of the $``$10 dipping sources (e.g. Church et al. 1997, 1998a, 1998b; Bałucińska-Church et al. 1999, 2000; Smale et al. 2001, 2002; Barnard et al. 2001). It also fits well the Atoll and Z-track sources included in an ASCA survey of LMXB (Church & Bałucińska-Church 2001) showing that the model describes well all classes of LMXB and that a blackbody component is present in all sources to different degrees.

After an initial period of testing the Birmingham model with data from many observations of LMXB, it was realized that use of the model revealed new features relating firstly to the blackbody emission and secondly to the Comptonized emission of the ADC. Firstly, the ASCA survey revealed systematic behaviour of the blackbody luminosity $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$. The factors governing the level of observed thermal emission in LMXB have never been understood: Newtonian theory suggests that 50% of the X-ray emission should originate on the neutron star (or boundary layer). Apart from bright sources, the level is generally much less than 50%. The survey revealed a new empirical relation that the height of the equatorial emitting strip on the neutron star $`h`$ was equal to the height of the inner, radiatively-supported accretion disk $`H`$ (Church & Bałucińska-Church 2001). We do not think that this approximate equality spanning more than 3 decades of luminosity is coincidental, but that it suggests two mechanisms, at least, that actually determine the level of $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$. The first is the process of accretion flow spreading on the surface of the neutron star proposed by Inogamov & Sunyaev (1999) which can explain the equality, since the extent of vertical spreading depends on the mass accretion rate, so that $`h`$ depends on the luminosity, as does $`H`$. A comparison of the ASCA survey results with this theory (Church et al. 2002) was encouraging, with good agreement at low luminosities and agreement within a factor of three at higher luminosities. The other possibility is that material flows advectively, radially from the inner edge of the disk to the neutron star, directly leading to an approximate equality $`h`$ = $`H`$ as observed.

Our observations of the dipping LMXB have provided a significant result on the nature of the Accretion Disk Corona. Spectral fitting shows that this region is clearly extended as this emission component is removed very gradually as dipping progresses, the level only falling to zero when the absorbing region completely overlaps the extended emission region at the centre of a dip (Church et al. 1997). Furthermore, dip ingress times allow direct measurement of the size of the extended emitter when the absorber is known to have larger angular extent than the emitter, i.e. when the intensity falls to zero in dipping in any energy band. By this technique, the radius of the ADC has been measured in a number of dipping sources, and found to be typically $``$50,000 km or 15% of the accretion disk radius (Church 2001). The result is robust and precludes all models with small, central Comptonizing ADC including the Eastern model, since this would have size $`\text{ }<`$100 km, i.e. 1000 times smaller.

## 3 The Birmingham model versus the Eastern model

The controversy over the emission model for LMXB persists to the present, various workers applying the Eastern model, while we have obtained strong evidence that the Birmingham model is correct. The Birmingham model differs from the Western model in that the evidence is for a blackbody component in all sources. In the Eastern model, X-ray emission is assumed to consist of disk blackbody emission plus neutron star emission Comptonized in an inner region. We summarize the evidence for and against each model, which we then discuss in more detail. One aspect of the Eastern model is that it often justified on the grounds of theoretical expectations (e.g. Done et al. 2002), not on observational evidence.

Evidence for the Eastern model:

1. Its ability to fit LMXB spectra

Evidence against the Eastern model:

1. Dip ingress timing proves that the ADC is large
2. Smooth transition of blackbody properties from burst to non-burst emission supports blackbody origin on the neutron star
3. Unphysically small values of inner disk radii $`<<`$ radius of the neutron star when fitting the Eastern model

Evidence for the Birmingham model:

1. Its ability to fit LMXB spectra
2. The undoubted presence of extended Comptonized emission in the spectra of the dipping LMXB
3. Dip ingress timing proves the ADC is extended
4. The consistency of the derived blackbody radius with the radius of the neutron star in all sources up to a maximum value of $``$10 km as in Sco X-1 (the present work)
5. Assuming blackbody origin on the neutron star in the ASCA survey leads to reasonable explanations of the mechanism determining the blackbody luminosity for the first time (Sect. 2).

The measurement of dip ingress times is strong, direct evidence for an extended, flat ADC above the accretion disk many times larger than required by the Eastern model. The only way of avoiding this conclusion would be if the absorbing region in dipping sources on the outer disk had a complex structure that caused gradual removal of point-like ADC emission. However, attempts to model gradual dip ingress in the source XB 1916-053 on this basis showed that the observed dipping could not be reproduced (Życki, private communication 2001).

Secondly, our ASCA survey of LMXB included testing of the Eastern model. Results of spectral fitting a two-component model were presented (Church & Bałucińska-Church 2001), this model consisting of a cut-off power law representation of Comptonization plus disk blackbody. In many cases, the level of this thermal component was such that the radius of the inner disk $`r_\mathrm{i}`$, which is a parameter of the disk blackbody, was less than 0.5 km, and so unphysical as many times less than the neutron star radius of 10 km (Church 2001). The validity of this conclusion was questioned by Done et al. (2002) in their paper based on fitting the Eastern model to the Z-track source Cyg X-2. They argued that the very small $`r_\mathrm{i}`$ were an artifact of using an incorrect Comptonization model, i.e. a cut-off power law. This was based on assuming that the seed photons came from the neutron star or inner disk, and should be modelled by a simple blackbody, having the effect of a low energy cut-off in the Comptonized spectrum, which would fall steeply below 1 keV. Use of a cut-off power law would overestimate the Comptonized emission, and the disk blackbody would be underestimated. They concluded that the Eastern model was probably correct. The argument is however, not correct since the spectrum of the Comptonized emission depends on the size of the ADC. For an ADC extending 15% or more across the disk, the seed photons consist of emission from the inner 15% of the disk, and so have a soft integrated spectrum. The Comptonized spectrum thus continues to rise with approximately power law form at energies below 1 keV to 0.1 or even lower (Church et al. 2002). Thus the argument of Done et al. (2002) is not correct, and the small values of $`r_\mathrm{i}`$ are not an artifact, and such results remain inconsistent with the actual radius of the inner disk. In the present work, we have applied both the Birmingham model and a two-component model in which the Comptonization term has disk blackbody seed photons, and find that the results of the two models are very similar, demonstrating that use of a cut-off power law is valid if the ADC is extended (Sect. 5.4).

If we accept the extended nature of the ADC as proven, the difference between the Eastern and Birmingham models reduces to whether the blackbody emission is from the inner disk or the neutron star. To avoid the observed emission being from the neutron star, the Eastern model postulates that this is Comptonized. Direct observational testing is difficult. However, the reasonable agreement between our results and the theory of Inogamov & Sunyaev supports origin on the neutron star. The large measured sizes of the ADC, and the high optical depth of the ADC (Church 2001) suggests that disk blackbody emission will not be seen since all of the hot inner part of the disk is covered by reprocessing corona. There are other arguments in favour of neutron star blackbody emission which we will only mention here: e.g. the blackbody X-ray emission in X-ray bursts decays to the quiescent blackbody component, and there is no doubt that the burst emission is from the surface of the neutron star.

Finally, an argument that has been raised against the Birmingham model is that theoretically the neutron star blackbody should be modified substantially by electron scattering in the atmosphere of the neutron star. We have previously addressed this argument (Bałucińska-Church et al. 2001), making the point that the only evidence for such modification is in a fraction of X-ray bursts (having $`kT`$ $``$3 keV), there being no evidence in non-burst emission, and that theoretically whether modification takes place depends on the electron density which is very poorly known.

Thus there is substantial evidence in favour of the Birmingham model, and it is clearly of interest to test whether this model can provide an explanation of Z-track behaviour, i.e. show what physical changes take place during track movement. It is also plain that this can only be done when the correct model is used. Since the early work on Sco X-1, there has been relatively little spectral fitting work aimed at solving the Z-track problem. In the present paper, we apply the Birmingham model to X-ray spectra of Sco X-1 on the Normal and Flaring Branches using high quality data from Rossi-XTE.

## 4 Observations and data analysis

Numerous observations of Sco X-1 have been made using RXTE (Bradt et al. 1993); we have selected an observation made in two parts on 1998, January 7 and 8, since in the first observation, the source was in a strongly flaring state, but in the second was not flaring. Each observation lasted $``$35 ks. The data presented here were collected with both the proportional counter array (PCA) and the high energy X-ray timing experiment (HEXTE), using the PCA instrument in Standard 2 mode with a time resolution of 16 s. The PCA consists of five Xe proportional counter units (PCU) numbered 0–4, with a combined total effective area of about 6500 cm2 (Jahoda et al. 1996). Examination of the housekeeping data showed that PCU 0, 1, and 2 were reliably on during both observations, and PCU 3 and 4 were off. However, the count rate of the source Sco X-1 was so high that

it was not necessary or desirable to use more than a single PCU, since this would complicate analysis, and so PCU0 data were chosen. These observations took place before the loss of the propane layer in PCU0 which affected the background count rate and channel-energy conversion for this detector. Moreover, it was not necessary to use both anodes, and the left, but not the right, detector was used. Light curves and spectra were extracted as described below, and background subtracted, and deadtime corrected. Spectra were also corrected for pulse pileup necessary at the high count rate of Sco X-1.

Data were also obtained using the HEXTE phoswich detectors, which are sensitive over the energy range 15–200 keV, and data from one of the two clusters: Cluster 1, were selected. The instrument was operated in rocking mode moving in a cycle: on-source, offset by +1.5, on-source and offset by -1.5, spending 16 s in each position, so that the complete cycle occupied 64 s. Deadtime-corrected HEXTE lightcurves and source and background spectra were obtained using the hxtlcurv tool with 32 s time binning.

## 5 Results

### 5.1 The X-ray lightcurves

The PCA light curves and spectra were extracted using the standard RXTE analysis software, ftools 5.2. PCA lightcurves were extracted from the raw data in Standard 2 mode for the top layer of the PCU0 instrument and the left anode. Standard screening was applied to select only data having an offset of the telescope pointing axis from the source less than 0.02, and elevation above the limb of the Earth greater than 10. A total light curve in the band 1.9–18.5 keV was extracted, and background subtraction carried out. The program pcabackest was used to generate background data files corresponding to all PCA Standard 2 mode raw data, which were then used for correction of light curves. The latest background model was applied, specifically, the “bright” model recommended for Epoch 3 of the mission (defined as 1996, April 15 – 1999, March 22), produced in 2002. The light curve was background subtracted, and then deadtime correction carried out using dedicated software applying the prescription provided by the mission specialists. The background-subtracted deadtime-corrected light curve is shown on Fig. 1 This clearly shows strong flaring in the first part of the observation (Jan 7). Individual large flares last several thousand seconds, however, more rapid variability can also be seen in the light curve on timescales of 100–200 seconds. There is also a systematic decrease in intensity which can be seen to continue at the start of the Jan 8 data, after which intensity fluctuations become relatively small compared with the earlier strong flaring.

Light curves were also extracted in a low, a medium and a high energy band, suitably chosen to allow derivation of hardness-intensity diagrams. The energy bands

used were 1.9–4.1 keV (low), 4.1–7.3 keV (medium) and 7.3–18.5 keV (high), which selecting the channel-to-energy conversion appropriate to Epoch 3, correspond to the channel ranges 0–10, 11–19 and 20–50. Fig. 2 (a)–(c) shows the background-subtracted, deadtime-corrected light curves in these bands. A lightcurve was also extracted for standard-mode data from Cluster 1 of the HEXTE instrument with at time resolution of 32 s using the program hxtlcurv; this also carries out background subtraction and deadtime correction, and the latest deadtime coefficients file released in February, 2000, applied. The background subtracted, deadtime corrected lightcurve is shown in Fig. 2d in the total band, effectively $``$18–50 keV in this source. Fig. 2 demonstrates dramatically the high-energy nature of flaring. In the low energy band (Fig. 2 a), the intensity increases by 50%, while in the high band (Fig. 2c), the increase is 100% and in HEXTE (Fig. 2d) the increase is by 250%. The spectra show that most of the HEXTE counts are in the band 20–50 keV.

### 5.2 Hardness ratios

Hardness ratios were formed by dividing the intensities in the 7.3–18.5 keV and 4.1–7.3 keV bands, i.e. the high and medium bands. The variation of the hardness ratio with the summed intensity in the three bands spanning 1.9 to 18.5 keV is shown in Fig. 3 which also shows data selected for spectral analysis (below). The hardness ratio clearly shows two well-defined tracks, corresponding to the Normal and Flaring branches of the Z-track, containing the soft apex between these, but without horizontal track data or the hard apex. Clearly, Sco X-1 underwent a transition between the Flaring Branch and the Normal Branch during the observation. The location of the transition in the overall light curve (Fig. 1) was located by examining each individual data section (separated by data gaps due to SAA passage and Earth occultation). For each section, a hardness-intensity plot was made and overlayed on Fig. 3, allowing the section to be located on either the Flaring or Normal Branch. This revealed that the transition took place at a time of 95 ksec, so that all data before this was on the Flaring Branch, and all data later than this on the Normal Branch. Before the transition, the source oscillates backwards and forwards on the Flaring Branch. However, close inspection of the total light curve (Fig. 1) shows that even on the Normal Branch, several flare-like variations of small amplitude continue, each lasting $``$1000 seconds.

### 5.3 Selection of spectra

Data were next chosen for spectral analysis so as to span each branch with a number of spectra. Firstly, Flaring Branch data were selected by filtering for times less than 95 ksec. Then 9 intensity bands were chosen and the corresponding time intervals containing data in each band determined. These time filters (GTI: Good Time Intervals) were then used to produce light curves and spectra (f1 – f9) for each of the selections. Similarly, 5 bands were chosen for Normal Branch data (n1 –n5). Each selection was tested by overlaying the selected data as a mean value on the hardness-intensity diagram of Fig. 3. It can be seen that the selections used were satisfactory in that the points lie along the centres of the tracks. We have carried out a substantial amount of testing of this procedure, using the present data, and data on other Z-track and atoll sources. As the objective is to reveal the physical changes taking place during track movement, it is important that spectral points lie approximately along the centre of tracks. If this was not the case, spectral fitting results were found to change less systematically, as motion perpendicular to the track as well as parallel was taking place.

For each selection, spectra were extracted for the PCA using Standard 2 data, and corresponding background spectra generated.

Deadtime correction was performed, and finally a correction made for pulse pileup effects using dedicated software, which is a significant correction in the case of Sco X-1. A time constant of 1.80 $`\mu `$sec was used as the best value for high count rates in the left anode detector (Jahoda et al. 1996). The high count rates resulted in the Poisson errors in spectral channels being very small, and so a

systematic error of 2% was applied to each channel instead of the more normal 1%, to avoid obtaining unrealistic values of $`\chi ^2`$. HEXTE spectra were also extracted for each selection using the GTI filters from the PCA in each case using the RXTE-specific Ftool hxtlcurv. Each raw data file from Cluster 1 provided a source and a background spectrum, and the individual spectra were then added.

### 5.4 Spectral fitting results

To establish the upper limit to the usable energy range in each instrument, a source spectrum (source + background) was compared with the background spectrum. This showed that in general PCA data could be used up to $``$22 keV (where the source flux was substantially greater than the background), and HEXTE data could be used up to $``$50 keV. The bands 2.5 – 22 keV and 20–50 keV were firstly applied in spectral fitting. However, inspection of individual spectra sometimes required further channels to be ignored so as to exclude data, for example, above 21 keV in the PCA if the Poisson errors became too large for sensible fitting. An instrument response function was generated for the PCA using pcarsp embodying the latest improvements to the response made in 2002 by the release of Ftools 5.2. Use of the latest response function made a significant difference to spectral fitting results. The appropriate HEXTE response files for Cluster 1 were applied (i.e. the arf file of May 26, 2000 and the rmf file of March 20, 1997). The rmf file was rebinned to a total of 64 channels to match the HEXTE data with the Ftool rbnrmf.

PCA and HEXTE spectra were fitted simultaneously using Xspec allowing a normalization factor for HEXTE with respect to the PCA. Parameter values were chained between the PCA and HEXTE. Because the PCA does not extend below 2.5 keV where the column density is largely defined, the Galactic column density was set to the value $`0.3\times 10^{22}`$ atom cm-2 (Christian & Swank 1997). Simple one-component models were entirely unable to fit the spectra. Fitting a typical spectrum (n1: on the Normal Branch close to the soft apex) gave $`\chi ^2`$/d.o.f. = 7099/60 for an absorbed power law, 6281/60 for an absorbed blackbody, 1340/60 for absorbed bremsstrahlung, and 98/59 for an absorbed cut-off power law, although in the last case, the value of the normalization constant was unacceptable (close to unity).

Next, the two-component model discussed in Sect. 1 was applied, consisting of an absorbed blackbody and a cut-off power law: ab\*(bb + cpl), the blackbody originating on the neutron star, and the Comptonized emission in an extended accretion disk corona. This model gave $`\chi ^2`$/d.o.f. = 92/57 for spectrum n1; however, it was clear from the residuals that a broad iron line was present, so the final model tried was ab\*(bb + cpl + gau), with a Gaussian line added. This model gave $`\chi ^2`$/d.o.f. =41/54, and provided excellent fits to all of the spectra. The line half-width $`\sigma `$ was fixed at 0.8 keV, to avoid the tendency of a broad line in spectral modelling to absorb the neighbouring continuum. A typical fit (spectrum n1) is shown in Fig. 4, and the fitting results for all spectra shown in Table 1.

We also fitted a two-component model consisting of blackbody emission from the neutron star plus the Zdziarski et al. (1996) Comptonization model (the thcompds model in Xspec) with disk blackbody seed photons. This model corresponds approximately to Comptonization in an extended ADC, except that the seed photons are assumed to originate from the complete disk instead of the inner 15%. However, tests have shown that this does not affect the spectrum above 0.1 keV. Spectral fitting results using this model were essentially identical with those shown in Table. 1, with no discernible differences in blackbody parameters for any spectrum, and only minor changes in power law index. This test demonstrates that a cut-off power law representation of Comptonization is valid given the extended nature of the ADC.

Spectral fitting results using the Birmingham model for the blackbody emission component are shown in Fig. 5 as a function of total luminosity in the band 1–30 keV, calculated assuming that the distance of Sco X-1 is 2.8 kpc (Bradshaw et al. 1999). Firstly, the upper panel gives the variation of blackbody temperature with total luminosity. It can be seen that as the source moves along the Flaring Branch to higher intensities, $`kT`$ rises, rather slowly at first, and then faster. In fact, during the first 40% of the flaring movement, the increase in $`kT`$ is small so that the changes are close to being isothermal. However, the luminosity of the blackbody component $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$, obtained from the blackbody flux in the band 1–30 keV, increases all along the Flaring Branch (Table 1), as can be seen in the lower panel. Thus, it is clear that the early stages of flaring are dominated by an increase in blackbody area as the emitting region spreads over the neutron star. This is accompanied by an increase of $`kT`$ to 2.4 keV at the peak of flaring. The central panel shows $`kT`$ as a function of $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$, with a smooth progression of values along the tracks as in the upper panel.

A smooth progression of $`kT`$ values also takes place in movement along the Normal Branch towards the soft apex. It is immediately apparent from the upper panel that the total luminosity decreases as the source moves along the Normal Branch towards the apex. The lower panel shows that $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ as well as $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$ decreases during Normal Branch movement towards the apex, i.e. the luminosity of the Comptonized emission $`L_{\mathrm{CPL}}`$ also decreases. These results suggest that $`\dot{M}`$ may actually decrease on the Normal Branch, contrary to the widely-held view that $`\dot{M}`$ increases continually (see Sect. 6). Of course, it has been known for a long time that the X-ray intensity decreases on the Normal Branch, and this clearly presents a problem for the hypothesis that $`\dot{M}`$ continually increases. One possibility is that the $`\dot{M}`$ inferred from the luminosity is not the total, but only part of it (van der Klis 2000).

Finally, the lower panel shows that the blackbody luminosity bears a remarkably simple relation to the total luminosity, that is close to linear, but not passing through the origin, so that at the soft apex, $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ is about 10% of $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$, this fraction increasing to 30% at the peak of flaring.

Properties of the Comptonized emission are shown in Fig. 6. The normalization (lower panel) increases as flaring progresses. It is interesting that the Comptonization cut-off energy $`E_{\mathrm{CO}}`$ also increases systematically in flaring, implying an increase of electron temperature in the Comptonizing region, i.e. the extended ADC above the accretion disk. This increase was not previously known in studies of flaring. There is also an increase in the power law photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, from $``$1.8 at the soft apex to 2.5 at the peak of flaring; i.e. the Comptonized emission becomes much softer. There is not strong evidence for Normal Branch data being separate from Flaring Branch data, except possibly in the case of the cut-off energy. The decrease of $`E_{\mathrm{CO}}`$ towards the soft apex is supporting evidence that the blackbody luminosity does decrease on the Normal Branch as the apex is approached, assuming that the value of $`E_{\mathrm{CO}}`$, i.e. $`T_\mathrm{e}`$, does depend on $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$.

In Fig. 7, we show the line energy and normalization; the line width $`\sigma `$ had been fixed in the fitting (Sect. 5.4). The line energy appears not to change during Z-track movement; i.e. there is no evidence for change within the errors and the energy is consistent with iron line emission at energy 6.4 keV, i.e. fluorescent iron emission. The tendency of the line energy to be slightly low at $``$6.3 keV may suggest the possible presence of an absorption feature (Parmar et al. 2002). The line normalization however, does change significantly, increasing on the Flaring Branch. This suggests that changes are due to the varying illumination by the neutron star blackbody.

## 6 Discussion

To discuss the changes taking place in the blackbody emission, we must first summarize the evidence we presented in previous papers that the neutron star blackbody emission is not substantially modified by electron scattering and that results from using a simple blackbody model are thus valid. In Sect. 1, we summarized the evidence that the blackbody emission in LMXB originates on the neutron star, not from the inner accretion disk. The present results show a continuous pattern of change in the blackbody $`kT`$ from the non-flaring to the flaring state, and if we accept that X-ray flaring is analogous in high-luminosity sources to X-ray bursting in fainter sources, this is also evidence that the emission originates on the star.

In our study of X-ray flaring in the dipping LMXB X 1624-490 (Bałucińska-Church et al. 2001), we review the evidence for and against possible modification of the neutron star blackbody. It has sometimes been claimed that neutron star blackbody emission should be modified by electron scattering in which case, fitting a simple blackbody could give incorrect results. It was concluded that no substantial modification takes place, as the evidence for modification is limited to a fraction of X-ray bursts in which $`kT`$ rises to apparently super-Eddington values of 3 keV or more. In many bursts, and in non-burst emission there is no evidence for modification. Moreover, whether modification takes place depends strongly on the electron density in the atmosphere of the neutron star which is poorly known.

The present results show that flaring consists of strong changes in the blackbody emission. We can use the spectral fitting results to derive the blackbody emitting area via Stefan’s law: $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ = 4$`\pi `$ $`R_{\mathrm{BB}}^2\sigma T^4`$. In Fig. 8, we show the blackbody radius $`R_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ on which the emitting area depends.

On the Flaring Branch, there is a substantial increase in blackbody radius up to a maximum value, after which the radius decreases. The maximum value is 9.4$`\pm `$0.6 km, consistent with the radius of the neutron star. Fig. 3 shows a break in the flaring branch hardness-intensity diagram such that the flaring becomes harder after this break ($``$ $`2.3\times 10^4`$ count s-1), and it is clear that this break takes place when the emission covers the whole of the neutron star. The value of $`kT`$ increases at first slowly in flaring, then more rapidly. While it has been known for many years that $`kT`$ increases in flaring in sources similar to Sco X-1, the increase of $`R_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ to a maximum value of $``$10 km, has not been known. It may also be that this does not always take place, and is a feature of the source when very bright.

On the Normal Branch, the blackbody radius decreases slightly as the soft apex is approached, while $`kT`$ falls, and the measured $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$ decreases substantially. The most interesting feature is the implied decrease of $`\dot{M}`$ on the Normal Branch. This is contradictory to the view widely-held that in motion along the Z-track from Horizontal to Flaring Branch, $`\dot{M}`$ increases continuously. This was proposed by Hasinger et al. (1989), who noted that this would however require $`\dot{M}`$ and intensity to be anti-correlated on the Normal Branch; i.e. it is a difficult to explain increasing mass accretion rate but decreasing X-ray intensity. Hertz et al. (1992) showed that the properties of Sco X-1 depend on distance along the Z-track measured from the soft apex, with positive values on the Flaring Branch and negative values on the Normal Branch. Thus, the smooth progression of properties implies dependence on a single parameter, normally assumed to be $`\dot{M}`$. Vrtilek et al. (1990) made ultraviolet line and continuum observations of Cyg X-2 simultaneously with Ginga X-ray observations, and argued that the ultraviolet emission increased along the Z-track supporting the contention that $`\dot{M}`$ increases. However, the label of Flaring Branch had been assigned to data with strong variability due to X-ray dipping which thus may not have been real flaring branch data. Omitting these data from the results would mean that there is no very dramatic correlation of UV emission with track position. However, our results do suggest that $`\dot{M}`$ decreases on the Normal Branch, since the luminosities of both spectral components decrease. Clearly, this possibility is important to the understanding of the Z-track sources.

We next compare these results for $`R_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ with results previously obtained: i) from the ASCA survey of LMXB (Church & Bałucińska-Church 2001), and ii) a study of X-ray flaring in the bright dipping LMXB X 1624-490 Bałucińska-Church et al. 2001). In the ASCA survey, an empirical relation was found between $`h`$, the half-height of the emission region on the neutron star, and $`H`$ the equilibrium height height of the inner radiatively- supported disk. Over more than 3 decades of luminosity covered by the survey sources, it was found that $`h`$ $``$ $`H`$, suggesting possible mechanisms that determine the extent of the blackbody emitting area on the star. Comparison of these results with the model of Inogamov & Sunyaev (1999) was made by Church et al. (2002). However, at the time of the survey, it was clear that the Z-track sources could not be represented by a single point on the $`h`$$`H`$ diagram, and would have to form a track. In Fig. 8 (lower panel), we show the variation of $`h`$ with $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$ for the present data on Sco X-1. This is related to blackbody radius by 4$`\pi `$ $`R_{\mathrm{BB}}^2`$ = 4$`\pi Rh`$, where $`R`$ is the radius of the neutron star assumed to be 10 km, so that $`h`$ = $`R_{\mathrm{BB}}^2/R`$. We also show on this diagram, the half-height of the inner radiatively-supported accretion disk $`H`$, given by the expression $`H`$ = $`3\sigma _\mathrm{T}\dot{M}/8\pi m_\mathrm{p}c`$ (Frank et al. 1992), where $`\sigma _\mathrm{T}`$ is the Thomson cross-section. It can be seen that $`H`$ is substantially larger than the radius of the neutron star for all data in Fig. 8, which would imply that all of the star should be emitting. However, we would not expect an equality $`h`$ = $`H`$ for any of the present data if we assume that $`h`$ cannot be larger than 10 km. It is possible that closer equality between $`h`$ and $`H`$ took place on the Horizontal Branch for which no data are available. Alternatively, it may be that a simple calculation of the radiative disk height is not valid at such high mass accretion rates, since the inner disk may be modified by irradiation by the neutron star.

In the source, X 1624-490, strong flaring also takes place. This is a dipping but not a Z-track source; however strong flaring has been found to take place in this source (Bałucińska-Church et al. 2001) and has recently been discovered in other dipping LMXB such as XB 1254-690 (Smale et al. 2002; Church et al. 2003). These sources are known to have high inclination as dipping is observed, and are bright such that flaring takes place. However, it is not yet clear whether the physical changes taking place in flaring are the same as in Sco X-1 and other Z-track sources which do not have so high inclination. In the case of X 1624-490, it was shown that in the non-flaring source, there was an equality $`h`$ = $`H`$; however, as flaring progressed, the emitting area on the neutron star was strongly reduced falling to 10 times smaller than $`H`$ (Bałucińska-Church et al. 2001). It was suggested that the increase of radiation pressure of the neutron star blackbody emission in flaring had a strong effect on the inner disk, blowing away the top layers and reducing the vertical extent of the disk. This would then be expected to feed back onto the neutron star leading to a reduced emission region height $`h`$, explaining the observed decrease. This effect took place at $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$ $`\text{ }>`$ $`1.2\times 10^{38}`$ erg s-1. In the case of Sco X-1, the smallest luminosity is $`4.5\times 10^{38}`$ erg s-1, substantially larger so it may be the case that radiation pressure effects have taken place before the source got to its starting position in the present data. If a depression in emitting area did take place, it is not unreasonable to expect the area to increase again in flaring.

At the soft apex, $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$ = $`4.5\times 10^{38}`$ erg s-1 which is super-Eddington for a 1.4M$`_{}`$ neutron star for which $`L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$ $``$ $`2\times 10^{38}`$ erg s-1, but depends on opacity and composition (Paczynski 1983). The measured total luminosity at the peak of flaring at $`1.1\times 10^{39}`$ erg s-1 is extremely super-Eddington; however, $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ reaches a level of $`4\times 10^{38}`$ erg s-1 which is more consistent with the Eddington limit. The decrease in blackbody radius after the peak of flaring may thus be related to radiation pressure effects. Sco X-1 is one of a very small number ($``$4) of persistent Galactic low mass neutron star binaries that are, at times, substantially super-Eddington (Grimm et al. 2002; Christian & Swank 1997; Church & Bałucińska-Church 2001). The above results depend of course, on the distance of Sco X-1. The distance to Sco X-1 was not well known, but a distance of 1.5 kpc was consistent with a luminosity of $``$1038 erg s-1 (White et al. 1985). However, Bradshaw et al. (1999) from parallax measurements of the radio emission of Sco X-1 in a series of eight VLBA observations spanning 3 years obtained a parallax of 0.00036$`\pm `$0.00004′′, and a distance of 2.8$`\pm `$0.3 kpc which we have adopted. This has the consequence that the luminosity of Sco X-1 can be several times the Eddington limit.

Finally, we review the changes in the Comptonized emission and iron line emission during track movement. As seen previously, a striking feature is the increase of Comptonization cut-off energy in flaring implying an increase of electron temperature in the Comptonizing region by a factor of two. This is the first time that such heating effects on the ADC plasma due to flaring have been seen. There is also a systematic increase in power law photon index to $``$2.5 at the peak of flaring. The line energy does not change and at $``$6.4 keV implies fluorescent emission. This may originate in the ADC itself, providing the density is high so that the ionization parameter is sufficiently low (see Bałucińska-Church et al. 2001) or possibly in the disk below the ADC. The increase of the line normalization in flaring could be explained either by the effects of illumination of the emission region by the neutron star or by a change of $`\dot{M}`$. These aspects will be further investigated in future work.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was partially supported by Polish KBN grant PBZ-KBN-054/P03/2001


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# Growth of large single crystals of Rare Earth Hexaborides

## I Introduction

Rare earth hexaborides are an interesting class of compounds. The alkaline earth hexaborides have been investigated recently for their extraordinary magnetic properties when doped with La, for instance, giving rise to ferromagnetic behaviour, with a high ordering temperature and a low momentYoung . CeB6, exhibits an extremely interesting and intriguing magnetic phase diagram at low temperatures with both magnetic and quadrupolar orderingEffantin . In order to investigate the magnetic properties in detail using neutron scattering techniques, it is often necessary to conduct experiments on a large volume of the sample. Crystals of the hexaborides grown using Al flux are invariable too small for these measurements. The growth of large crystals of these materials has therefore only been possible by the floating zone technique. In the past this has often been done using R.F power, owing to the very highmelting point of these compoundsOtani1 . Crystals of CaB6 and SrB6 are difficult to obtain directly from the melt by the floating zone method due to their high volatility. LaB6 has been grown successfully by the floating zone method previouslyOtani2  and is probably the best studied member of this class of compounds as regards its crystal growth owing toits extensive applications as an efficient electron emitter. To date the magnetic properties of the Nd and Pr hexaborides have not been extensively studied.Along with the La and Ce compounds, these materials have the advantage of having congruent melting points. This enables the growth of large single crystals of these compounds, without the use of a flux. The hexaborides have melting points around 2500 C, and this temperature varies depending on the boron content in the compoundsOtani1 . An Image furnace equipped with Xenon arc lamps is capable of reaching temperatures of 2800 C and is therefore ideally suited for the crystal growth of these compounds. This paper describes the crystal growth of large, high quality single crystals of the Ce, La, Nd and Pr hexaborides by the floating zone method, using such a furnace.

## II Experimental Procedure

Commercial rare earth hexaboride powders (Cerac, USA, 99.9%) were used as starting materials. For the crystal growth of compounds with enriched 11B isotope, powders of the hexaborides were synthesized starting from the respective rare earth oxides (ROx) and the enriched 11B isotope powder. All the rare earth oxides were of high purity (99.9%) and the 11B isotope powder was 99.5 % enriched (Eagle Picher, USA). The powder mixtures containing a slight excess of boron were mixed well and reacted in vacuum. The resulting powder was ground well and isostatically pressed to produce rods of 6 to 8 mm diameter and 70 mm length. In some cases it was necessary to add a binder such as PVA or PVB to the powder prior to pressing. The rods were then sintered in a flow of argon gas at 1550 C for 1 hour. Prior to argon flow during the sintering process, the furnace was evacuated to give a vacuum of $``$ 10-5 mbar($``$ 10-3 Pa). The sintered rods were then used for the crystal growth.Crystal growth was carried out by the floating zone method using a Xenon arc image furnace 0. This is a four mirror furnace equipped with 3kW Xenon arc lamps and is capable of reaching 2800 C. The crystal growths were done in a flow of argon gas, 6-10 l/min, with the feed and seed rods rotating at 30 rpm. The growth speeds ranged from 10 to 18 mm/h. The crystal boules produced were first examined using X-ray Laue diffraction. Pieces for various measurements were cut from the boule by spark erosion.

## III Results and Discussion

The crystal growth of the Ce, La, Pr and Nd hexaborides is made easy by the fact that all these compounds have congruent melting points. The molten zone was very stable for the entire duration of the growth in all cases and the power needed to melt the rods was around 80-85% of the total output power of the lamps. All the boules obtained were a deep purple to deep bluish purple colour. The as grown boules of the Ce, Nd and Pr hexaborides all had a fine coating of a white speckled crust that was easily removed by an abrasive material, to reveal a shiny surface. This coating was not seen in the LaB6 crystals grown. The only difference in the preparation of the LaB6 crystal was that there was no binder used to make the starting rods. The exact chemical composition of the white ‘crust’ is being studied at the moment. The boules were roughly5 mm in diameter and about 50 to 60 mm long. There was no difference in the growth conditions for the crystals containing the Boron isotope. Figure 1 shows the photographs of the as grown boules of two of the rare earth hexaboride crystals. It is in principle, possible to grow crystals of larger diameter than the ones grown here, for most materials. Normally such a growth would require a higher power to melt the larger diameter starting rods and in the case of the hexaborides the power required would then be close to the maximum power achievable using the Xenon arc lamps.

As the hexaborides are inherently hard materialsOtani1 , they could not be cut using diamond coated blades ona slow speed saw. Spark erosion was used to cut slices from the grown boules for tests and various measurements. The crystals grown were examined using X-ray Laue diffraction to check their quality. Figure 2 shows the X-ray Laue diffraction photograph taken on a crystal of LaB6. The crystals did not need to be seeded. They picked up an orientation along one of the principal axes, often the (100),very quickly even with a polycrystalline seed rod. The first growth was carried out using a polycrystalline rod as a seed and the crystal grown was then used as a seed for subsequent growths.

The size of the crystals that can be grown using the floating zone technique is much larger than those that can be obtained using conventional flux growth. As a comparison, we have also carried out the crystal growth of a few alkaline earth hexaborides using Al as flux (0.2 at.% of Ca/Sr, 99.8 at.% Al). These crystals are much smaller in size, the maximum sizes obtained for CaB6 being 5 mm x 2 mm x $``$ 0.1 mm. Figure 3 shows the photographs of crystals of CaB6 and SrB6 grown using Al flux. The CaB6 crystals form as thin platelets and are fragile. SrB6 crystals grown by the aluminium flux method, are also small and avariety of shapes and sizes are obtained. Most of them form as rods or needles while some form as platelets.An electron micrograph of a small section of a rod shaped crystal of SrB6 is shown in Figure 3. The platelets of SrB6 showed traces of aluminium present on the surface when examined using an electron microscope. As expected, the crystals grown by the floating zone method were free of any contaminants.

## IV Summary and conclusions

Single crystals of the rare earth hexaborides, RB6 for R= La,Ce,Pr and Nd have been grown by the floating zone technique, using a four mirror Xenon arc Image Furnace. All these compounds melt congruently and therefore are easy to grow by this method. The RB6 crystals obtained by this method are much larger than those of CaB6 and SrB6 that were grown from the melt using Al as flux.Preliminary examination with X-rays indicates that the quality of the crystals grown is good. As no flux materials or crucibles are used in the RB6 growth, the crystals obtained are free from any contaminants. Experiments toexamine the magnetic properties of these crystals are currently underway in the laboratory. Neutron scattering studies are planned on the magnetic phases using the large crystals obtained with the enriched 11B isotope.

## V Acknowledgement

This work was supported by a grant from the EPSRC, UK.We wish to thank Martin Davis and Steve York for their assistance in electron microscopy and composition analysis of the crystals.


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# Quantum virial expansion approach to thermodynamics of 4He adsorbates in carbon nanotube materials: Interacting Bose gas in one dimension

## Abstract

I demonstrate that 4He adsorbates in carbon nanotube materials can be treated as one-dimensional interacting gas of spinless bosons for temperatures below 8 K and for coverages such that all the adsorbates are in the groove positions of the carbon nanotube bundles. The effects of adsorbate-adsorbate interactions are studied within the scheme of virial expansion approach. The theoretical predictions for the specific heat of the interacting adsorbed gas are given.

Published in Phys. Rev. B 67, 165426 (2003)

I. INTRODUCTION

The adsorption of gases in nanotube-based materials has been recently a subject of considerable interest and many theoretical and experimental studies focused on this phenomenon have been reported.  The interest in the subject stems partially from the possibility to use these materials as efficient gas containers for hydrogen storage.  Another cause of the interest is that the nanotube materials provide a very specific potential energy environment for the gas atoms and molecules. In particular, the nature of this environment is such that it reduces the effective dimensionality of adsorbates  which at sufficiently low temperatures behave as a one-dimensional (1D) gas. This provides an excellent opportunity to study the interactions in the 1D gas. The problem of $`N`$ particles interacting mutually via binary interaction potentials in one dimension has been thoroughly investigated in the literature and there exist exact quantum and classical solutions for very specific functional forms of the interaction potential.  The aim of this article is to investigate a realistic system in which the adsorbate atoms (molecules) interact with a relatively complicated binary potential that is attractive at large and repulsive at short interadsorbate separations.

The outline of this article is as follows. In Sec. II, the behavior of single atom adsorbed on the surface of a bundle of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) is discussed. The range of temperatures in which the isolated adsorbates exhibit effective one-dimensional behavior is discussed for 4He atoms. In Sec. III the calculation of second virial coefficient for the interacting gas in 1D is briefly outlined. A fully quantal approach is followed as the gas of interest is composed of 4He atoms for which quantum effects are essential. In Sec. IV the specific heat of adsorbed He gas is predicted and the effects of He-He interactions are discussed. The results obtained are compared with those for exactly solvable models  and qualitative agreement is found. The calculation of specific heat in combination with experiments, some of them quite recently reported , is expected to yield an additional insight in the thermodynamics of the adsorbed gas. In Sec. V, the influence of the corrugation of the nanotube (which is neglected in Secs. II, III and IV) and sample inhomogeneities on the thermodynamics of adsorbed gas is thoroughly discussed. Sec. VI concludes the article and summarizes the main results of the present work.

II. BEHAVIOR OF ISOLATED 4He ATOMS ADSORBED ON THE SURFACE OF A BUNDLE OF SWCNT’s

Although there is still an ongoing discussion  concerning the preferable adsorption sites for He atoms in SWCNT’s materials, the experimental information  combined with the theoretical considerations  suggests that individual He atoms are predominantly adsorbed in the groove positions on the SWCNT’s bundle surface. If the number of He atoms adsorbed in the sample is very large, then one can expect that the He atoms will also occupy other positions on the bundle surface. This point will be discussed in Sec. III.

Quantum states of 4He atoms adsorbed in the groove positions of an infinitely long bundle made of (10,10) SWCNT’s have been discussed in Ref. . It was found that the low-energy part of the 4He excitation spectrum exhibits a typical 1D behavior with characteristic $`1/\sqrt{E}`$ singularities present in the density of states, $`g(E)`$. The density of states does not exhibit gaps which is a consequence of the neglect of the corrugation of the carbon nanotube. In this approximation there are no potential barriers for the adsorbate motion along the groove. The severeness of this approximation and its influence on the results to be presented shall be discussed in Sec. V. In Fig. 1, the low-energy part of the 4He density of states per unit length of the groove is presented, which was calculated as described in Ref. , i.e. the three-dimensional Schrödinger equation was numerically solved to yield the complete set of bound states. As can be seen in Fig. 1, all the excitations with energies between -22.7 meV and -18.88 meV pertain to essentially one-dimensional 4He atoms. The excitations in this regime of energies represent the activated, free motion of 4He atoms along the groove characterized by a 1D wave vector $`K_y`$ ($`y`$-axis is oriented along the groove), as discussed in Ref. . The transverse profile (in $`xz`$ plane, perpendicular to the groove direction) of the 4He wave function is the same for all these excitations and can be represented by a narrow, Gaussian-like 2D function (see panel A of Fig. 4 in Ref. ).

At -18.88 meV, another band of states becomes available to the isolated adsorbates. In this band, the transverse profile of the 4He wave function is different from the ground-state profile (see panel B of Fig. 4 in Ref. ). As discussed in Ref. , the population of higher (excited) bands causes transition from the effectively 1D behavior of 4He atoms to 2D, and eventually 3D behavior.

For the purposes of this work, it is sufficient to note that the separation between the lowest 1D band and the first excited band is quite large (3.82 meV) which immediately suggest that the higher bands are poorly populated in a significant range of temperatures. The width of this temperature range can be evaluated from the known density of states. The total density of states can be represented as a sum of the lowest band density of states, $`g_0(E)`$ and the density of states representing all other transverse excitations, $`g_a`$,

$$g(E)=g_0(E)+g_a(E).$$
(1)
The lowest band density of states per unit length of the groove is given by

$$g_0(E)=\sqrt{\frac{2m}{\mathrm{}^2}}\frac{1}{2\pi }\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }(EE_\mathrm{\Gamma })}{\sqrt{EE_\mathrm{\Gamma }}},$$
(2)
where the mass of the adsorbate is $`m`$, $`E_\mathrm{\Gamma }=22.7`$ meV is the ground state energy, and $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the Heaviside function. The total number of adsorbates, $`N`$, is given by

$$N=L_{E_\mathrm{\Gamma }}^{\mathrm{}}g(E)f(E,T)𝑑E,$$
(3)
where $`L`$ is the total length of the groove, and the Bose-Einstein distribution function is given by

$$f(E,T)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{E\nu }{k_BT}\right)1}.$$
(4)
Here, $`k_B`$ is the Boltzmann constant, $`T`$ is the temperature and $`\nu `$ is the chemical potential. The number of adsorbates in the lowest band, $`N_0`$, can be calculated as

$$N_0=L_{E_\mathrm{\Gamma }}^{\mathrm{}}g_0(E)f(E,T)𝑑E,$$
(5)
once the chemical potential has been determined from Eq. (3).

In Fig. 2, I plot the ratio $`N_0/N`$ as a function of temperature and for three different linear densities of adsorbates, $`n`$, $`n=N/L`$. From this figure one can conclude that the noninteracting 4He gas can be treated as effectively being 1D for temperatures smaller than about 8 K (13 K) since for these temperatures more than 99 % (95 %) of 4He atoms occupy the lowest energy band.

III. VIRIAL EXPANSION APPROACH TO TREAT THE INTERACTING GAS IN 1D

The approach to be presented here assumes that all the adsorbed atoms are in the groove positions on the bundle surface. Thus, the approach can not be applied to the situations where the number of adsorbates is so large that other positions on the bundle surface become occupied by the adsorbates. One could envisage the situation where a very large number of atoms is adsorbed on the bundle surface. From this phase, one could get to the phase where all the adsorbates are exclusively in the groove positions by desorbing all the atoms which are not in groove positions. These atoms are more weakly bound than those in the grooves and will desorb from the sample at lower temperatures. This fact enables the experimental realization of the 1D phase of interest to this work. Similar arguments can be applied to 1D heavy adsorbate phases studied in Ref. .

The virial expansion approach to treat the imperfect (interacting) quantum gas is well known  and in this section it will be only briefly outlined with reference to a quantum gas in 1D.

The basic idea of the virial expansion approach is to represent the so-called gas spreading pressure, $`\varphi `$, as a power series of the gas density, $`n`$,

$$\beta \varphi =\underset{l=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}B_l(L,\beta )n^l.$$
(6)
Here, $`\beta =1/k_BT`$ and coefficients $`B_l`$ are the virial coefficients. The virial coefficients can be obtained by comparing the expansion of the gas spreading pressure in the power series of fugacity, $`z=\mathrm{exp}(\beta \nu )`$,

$$\beta \varphi =\frac{1}{L}\mathrm{ln}Q(z,\beta ,L)=\underset{l=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}b_l(L,\beta )z^l$$
(7)
with the expansion in Eq. (6). $`b_l`$ is the $`l`$-th cluster integral obtained as the coefficient in the power series expansion of the logarithm of the grand partition function, $`Q`$, in terms of fugacity. Since the grand partition function is given by

$$Q(z,L,\beta )=\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}Z_l(L,\beta )z^l,$$
(8)
where $`Z_l`$ are the quantum partition functions for $`l`$ particles, the formulas for cluster integrals can be obtained by comparing the expansions in Eqs. (7) and (8). The general form of $`b_l`$ is given in Ref. . For the first two cluster integrals one has

$`b_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Z_1}{L}}`$ (9)
$`b_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Z_2\frac{1}{2}Z_1^2}{L}}.`$ (10)
Eliminating $`z`$ from equations (6) and (7) by expressing it in terms of linear density $`n`$, yields the relation between the virial coefficients and cluster integrals. Using Eq. (10), one can obtain the relations between virial coefficients and quantum partition functions. Explicitly, for the first and second virial coefficient one has

$`B_1`$ $`=`$ $`1`$ (11)
$`B_2`$ $`=`$ $`L\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{Z_2}{Z_1^2}}\right),`$ (12)
The quantum expression for the partition function of $`N`$ particles in 1D is

$$Z_N=𝑑y_1\mathrm{}𝑑y_N\underset{\alpha }{}\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha ^{}(y_1,\mathrm{},y_n)\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta H(p_1,\mathrm{},p_N,y_1,\mathrm{},y_N)\right]\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha (y_1,\mathrm{},y_n),$$
(13)
where $`p_i`$ and $`y_i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},N`$ represent 1D momenta and coordinates of the $`N`$ gas particles, respectively. The dynamics of $`N`$ gas particles is described by the hamiltonian, $`H(p_1,\mathrm{},p_N,y_1,\mathrm{},y_N)`$. A complete set of quantum states describing $`N`$ particles is denoted by $`\{\alpha \}`$. The wave functions, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha `$ are assumed to be properly normalized and symmetrized according to the statistics satisfied by the gas particles. It is easy to show  that the partition function for one 1D spinless particle is given by

$$Z_1=\frac{L}{\lambda },$$
(14)
where $`\lambda `$ is the thermal wavelength, $`\lambda =\sqrt{2\pi \mathrm{}^2\beta /m}`$. Since I am going to consider 4He atoms, the consideration of spinless particles will suffice. As shown by the authors of Ref. , the spin degrees of freedom can be considered (if needed) after the spinless problem has been solved. In the problem of spinless particles (anti)symmetrization of the wave function is performed solely in the coordinate space. All expressions which follow do not consider the spin degrees of freedom.

For the calculation of the second virial coefficient, $`B_2`$, given by Eq. (12), one needs to calculate the partition function for two interacting particles. This is an easy task when the corrugation of the nanotubes can be neglected, since in that case the interacting two-body problem can be reduced to free motion of the center of mass and the relative motion representing a particle of reduced mass $`\mu =m/2`$ in an external potential . The motion of the center of mass can be represented by a wave function for the free particle of mass $`2m`$, $`\mathrm{exp}(ik_{cm}Y)/\sqrt{L}`$, where $`k_{cm}`$ is the wave vector of the center of mass motion and $`Y`$ is the center of mass coordinate, $`Y=(y_1+y_2)/2`$. The relative motion can be described by a wave function of relative coordinate, $`y=y_1y_2`$, which is denoted by $`\xi _c(y)`$, and which satisfies 1D Schrödinger equation,

$$\left[\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2\mu }\frac{d^2}{dy^2}+v(|y|)\right]\xi _c(y)=ϵ_c\xi _c(y).$$
(15)
The binary potential representing an interaction between the two gas particles is denoted by $`v(|y|)=v(|y_1y_2|)`$. The set of ”relative” quantum states is denoted by $`\{c\}`$. This set consists of a finite number of bound states denoted by $`\{b\}`$, and the continuum of states which can be numbered according to the wave vector $`k`$ associated with the motion of the particle with reduced mass in the region where the interaction vanishes (large $`y`$). The energy of quantum state $`|c`$ is denoted by $`ϵ_c`$. Relative wave functions behave in the asymptotic regime ($`y\mathrm{}`$) as

$`\xi _k(y)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{L}}}\mathrm{sin}\left[ky+\eta (k)\right],`$ (16)
$`\xi _b(y)`$ $``$ $`0`$ (17)
The 1D phase shifts, which are nonvanishing due to the presence of the interaction potential $`v`$, are denoted by $`\eta (k)`$.

The partition function for the two noninteracting particles \[$`v(|y|)=0`$\] in 1D can be calculated without invoking $`Y`$ and $`y`$ coordinates. Its form results solely from the requirement of the (anti)symmetrization of the total wave function. Explicitly,

$$Z_2^{(0)}=\frac{Z_1^2}{2}\pm \frac{L}{2\sqrt{2}\lambda },$$
(18)
where the upper(lower) sign is for spinless boson(fermion) gas. The second virial coefficient for the noninteracting gas is thus

$$B_2^{(0)}=\frac{\lambda }{2\sqrt{2}}.$$
(19)
The superscripts $`(0)`$ in Eqs. (18) and (19) indicate that the expressions correspond to the noninteracting quantum gas. As often noted in the literature , the finite value of $`B_2^{(0)}`$ coefficient for noninteracting quantum gas reflects the so-called statistical attraction for bosons (negative $`B_2^{(0)}`$) and statistical repulsion for fermions (positive $`B_2^{(0)}`$, see Eq. (6)). The expression for $`B_2^{(0)}`$ should be compared with Eq. (3.15) of Ref.  which pertains to noninteracting gas in two dimensions.

The second virial coefficient can be calculated as

$$B_2=B_2^{(0)}+\lambda \sqrt{2}\underset{c}{}\left[\mathrm{exp}(\beta ϵ_c^{(0)})\mathrm{exp}(\beta ϵ_c)\right],$$
(20)
where $`ϵ_c^{(0)}`$ is the set of ”relative” energies for two noninteracting particles. Eq. (20) has been obtained by performing integration over the center of mass coordinate in the expression for partition function of the two interacting particles, $`Z_2`$ (Eq. (13)).

The formula for $`B_2`$ which is convenient for numerical implementation can be obtained by replacing the summation over $`\{c\}`$ in Eq. (20) with two summations, one going over the bound states, $`\{b\}`$, and the other over the continuum states, $`\{k\}`$. One can pass from the sum over states $`\{k\}`$ to the integral over wave vector $`k`$ by introducing the density of states in $`k`$ space, which can be obtained from the 1D phase shifts, $`\eta (k)`$.  I finally obtain

$$B_2(\beta )=B_2^{(0)}(\beta )\lambda \sqrt{2}\underset{b}{}\mathrm{exp}(\beta ϵ_b)\frac{\lambda \sqrt{2}}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\eta (k)}{dk}\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta \frac{\mathrm{}^2k^2}{2\mu }\right)𝑑k,$$
(21)
where the dependence of virial coefficient on the temperature (or $`\beta `$) is emphasized. This formula is very similar to the one obtained for 2D and 3D gas, although the numerical factors (such as $`\sqrt{2}`$) and units of $`B_2`$ (in 1D, $`B_2`$ has units of length since the linear density has units of inverse length) are different, depending on a dimensionality of the problem. It should also be noted that since the problem involves only one dimension, one does not obtain azimuthal quantum numbers which occur in the treatments of interacting gas in 2D and 3D as a consequence of the central symmetry of the binary potential.

The evaluation of Eq. (21) requires the calculation of 1D phase shifts which depend on the binary potential, $`v`$. The interaction between the two He atoms in the otherwise empty space is known to a great precision . However, the effective interaction between the two He atoms positioned in the vicinity of a third polarizable body is different from the free space He-He interaction . In the case of interest to this work, the two He atoms are surrounded by two SWCNT’s and the polarization induced in the SWNCT’s will modify the He-He interaction. While the polarization induced effects on the binary potential can be calculated for atoms physisorbed on crystalline surface , the analogous calculation for the very specific geometry of the nanotube bundle is certainly more difficult. It is interesting to note here, that Vidali and Cole  found that the measurements of specific heat of He overlayers on graphite  can be more accurately reproduced by the effective He-He potential which is 15 % shallower from the free-space He-He potential. They attribute this effect to the screening of He-He interaction by the substrate. The treatment of Vidali and Cole  was also based on quantum virial expansion. In another study, more related to the system considered here, the authors found that the interaction between two He atoms adsorbed in the interstitial channels of SWCNT’s has a well depth which is 28 % shallower with respect to the free-space interaction. The groove adsorption represents a situation which is ”somewhere in between” the adsorption on planar graphite and in SWCNT’s interstitial channels.

In the following calculations, the He-He interaction will be described by free-space potential suggested recently by Janzen and Aziz , but I shall also consider the scaled potential obtained from the free-space interaction by simple multiplication with a factor of 0.785. Thus, the scaled potential has a well depth which is 21.5 % smaller from the well depth of the free-space potential. This number was obtained as a simple arithmetic mean of the well depth reductions found for adsorption on planar graphite and in interstitial channels of SWCNT’s. The assumed reduction of the well depth is quite close to the numerical estimate in Ref.  (24 %). The exact value of the scaling factor used should not be taken too seriously because the substrate induced contributions to the potential cannot be modelled by a simple scaling of the free-space potential. The scaled potential was introduced simply to examine the effects of the details of interaction potential on the thermodynamics of adsorbed gas. Additionally, to obtain the effective potential in 1D, the 3D potential should be averaged over the 2D cross-sections of the adsorbate probability density . However, as the cross-section of the lowest band states is rather small, and in the light of the uncertainties of the substrate mediated forces, such a procedure has not been performed.

SAPT1 potential supports one weakly bound state in 1D, representing a 4He dimer with an energy of $`ϵ_0=0.16\mu `$eV. This state, being so weakly bound, is extremely extended in relative coordinate. . The bound state energy in 1D is significantly smaller from the one obtained by Siddon and Schick in a 2D treatment, which is in accord with existing literature. The scaled SAPT1 potential does not support bound states. The 1D phase shifts and their derivatives with respect to relative wave vector were calculated by numerically solving the Schrödinger equation using the algorithm quite similar to the one described in Ref. .

In Fig. 3, the calculated values of second virial coefficient are presented. The full line corresponds to calculation with the He-He potential suggested in Ref.  (SAPT1), while the dashed line corresponds to calculation using the scaled SAPT1 potential. The behavior of the second virial coefficient with temperature is qualitatively similar to the one obtained for 4He adsorbates on graphite (2D problem) in Ref. . There is, however, one important difference. The ideal gas term, $`B_2^0`$, reflecting the purely quantum effect of gas statistics, decays with temperature as $`\sqrt{1/T}`$ in 1D, and as $`1/T`$ in 2D.. Thus, the approach of second virial coefficient to its classical value as the temperature increases is slower in 1D than in 2D. In the inset of Fig. 3 the derivatives of the phase-shifts, $`d\eta (k)/dk`$ are plotted as a function of relative wave vector $`k`$. Note that the phase-shift derivatives become negative and nearly constant for large relative energies (wave vectors). This is a consequence of a strongly repulsive potential at short distances (hard core). Note also that the phase shifts of the two potentials are very different for small wave vectors, and thus one could expect that the two potentials produce quite different thermodynamical quantities. However, the very different behavior of the phase shifts is a consequence of the fact that the SAPT1 potential supports a weakly bound state whereas the scaled SAPT1 potential does not. Thus, in the evaluation of Eq. (21) one has to properly account for the bound state which exists in the case of SAPT1 potential. This ”extra” term for SAPT1 potential makes the thermodynamical quantities derived from the two potentials quite similar, although the derivatives of the phase shifts are very different. This fact has been discussed for the interacting gas in 2D  in connection with Levinson’s theorem  which relates the phase shift at zero momentum to the number of bound states. It was found  that a proper account of both the continuum and bound states eliminates discontinuities in thermodynamic properties whenever an extra bound state appears with the small change of the parameters of interaction potential. In the present calculation similar effect is found in one dimension.

IV. SPECIFIC HEAT OF ADSORBED 4He GAS

The specific heat of interacting quantum gas can be calculated from the set of virial coefficients . I assume that the dominant contribution to the specific heat comes from the second virial coefficient. Thus, the results are applicable to a restricted range of adsorbate concentrations and temperatures. The range of a validity of this approximation can be estimated from a calculation of higher virial coefficients, which is a difficult task, or from direct comparison with experiments, as has been done for 4He adsorbates on graphite in Refs.  and . Experiments dealing primarily with the specific heat of adsorbates in carbon nanotube materials have not been reported yet and those which detected the signature of the adsorbed gas in the overall specific heat of the sample were focused on the specific heat of clean nanotube materials .

The isosteric specific heat is given as

$$\frac{C}{Nk_B}=\frac{1}{2}n\beta ^2\frac{d^2B_2}{d\beta ^2},$$
(22)
The second term in Eq. (22) can be calculated from Eq. (21) as

$$n\beta ^2\frac{d^2B_2}{d\beta ^2}=n\lambda \sqrt{2}\left[\frac{1}{16}+\frac{S_0+I_0}{4}+\beta \left(S_1+I_1\right)\beta ^2\left(S_2+I_2\right)\right],$$
(23)
where

$$S_n=\underset{b}{}ϵ_b^n\mathrm{exp}(\beta ϵ_b),$$
(24)
and

$$I_n=\frac{1}{\pi }\left(\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2\mu }\right)^n_0^{\mathrm{}}k^{2n}\frac{d\eta (k)}{dk}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\mathrm{}^2k^2\beta }{2\mu }\right)𝑑k.$$
(25)
The expression for the term in Eq. (23) representing a deviation of the specific heat from its ideal value (where the interadsorbate interactions are neglected) is different from the corresponding expression one would obtain in a 2D treatment. The 2D expression does not contain a term proportional to $`\lambda `$ and independent of the interadsorbate interaction potential (1/16 in Eq. (23)). The reason for this is that in 2D, the noninteracting value of $`B_2`$, $`B_2^{(0)}`$ is proportional to $`\beta `$ ($`B_2^{(0)}=\lambda ^2/4`$) , and therefore, its second derivative with respect to $`\beta `$ vanishes. In 1D case, $`B_2^{(0)}\sqrt{\beta }`$ (see Eq. 19) and $`d^2B_2^{(0)}/d\beta ^2\beta ^{3/2}`$. This fact alone suggests that the specific heats of dilute, interacting boson gas in 1D and 2D may be qualitatively different.

In Fig. 4 I plot the quantity $`\beta ^2d^2B_2/d\beta ^2`$. The full (dashed) line represents the calculation with SAPT1 (scaled SAPT1) potential. Obviously, both potentials produce similar deviations. The calculation with scaled SAPT1 potential yields somewhat smaller effects of interactions on the specific heat, which is plausible since the scaled SAPT1 potential is weaker than SAPT1 potential. An important observation is that the deviation of specific heat from its ideal value is negative for 1D boson gas, i.e. the inclusion of interactions reduces the specific heat of the adsorbed 1D gas. For 2D spinless boson gas considered in Ref. , the deviation was found to be positive. The observed difference between 1D and 2D results is a consequence of both the nonvanishing second derivative of the ideal term \[$`B_2^{(0)}(\beta )`$\] with respect to $`\beta `$, and nonexistence of azimuthal degrees of freedom in 1D treatment of the problem.

Finally, in Fig. 5, I plot the specific heat of the interacting 4He gas adsorbed in grooves of SWCNT bundles for three different linear densities. The full (dashed) lines represent the calculation with SAPT1 (scaled SAPT1) potential. Obviously, for denser gas, the specific heat is more strongly influenced by the interactions, and deviates more from the ideal (noninteracting) 1D value (compare with Fig. 6 of Ref. ). It can also be inferred from Fig. 5 that the description of thermodynamics of the adsorbed gas in terms of second virial coefficient only breaks down at very low temperatures where such an approach yields negative specific heat. These temperatures can be considered as the lower limits for the application of the present approach. For higher densities, the lower temperature limits obviously increase, in agreement with Eq. (22), and the presented virial expansion approach breaks down at higher temperatures. Note that the upper temperature for which the specific heat was calculated is 6 K. Above that temperature the higher bands start to contribute to the specific heat as discussed in Sec. II and Ref. . Although the number of particles in higher bands is very small at 6 K (see Fig. 1), the derivative of internal energy with respect to temperature (specific heat) is very sensitive even to very small occupations of the higher bands and this causes the increase of the specific heat observed for a very dilute gas.

It is now of interest to compare the obtained results with those of exactly solvable 1D many-particle models. In particular, for the gas of bosons in one dimension interacting via repulsive $`\delta `$-function potential, Lieb and Liniger have demonstrated that the that the energy spectrum of such a gas is identical with the spectrum of noninteracting Fermi gas. The same was found in the model of Girardeau for 1D bosons interacting with the binary hard-core potentials of finite radius. The Fermi energy, $`E_F`$ of the corresponding 1D Fermi gas is given as

$$E_F=\frac{\mathrm{}^2k_F^2}{2m}=\frac{\mathrm{}^2\pi ^2}{2m}n^2,$$
(26)
where $`k_F=\pi N/L=\pi n`$ is the Fermi wave vector. This mapping (interacting Bose gas - noninteracting Fermi gas) allows us to easily predict the specific heat of the impenetrable 1D Bose gas. Thus, at temperatures much smaller than the Fermi temperature, $`T_F=E_F/k_B`$,

$$C_V(TT_F)T,$$
(27)
while at temperatures much larger than the Fermi temperature, specific heat reduces to its classical equipartition value,

$$\frac{C_V(TT_F)}{Nk_B}\frac{1}{2}.$$
(28)
The linear temperature dependence of specific heat \[Eq. (27)\] can be also interpreted as a signature of long-wavelength compression waves of the 1D Bose gas (sound), and is thus also expected in a gas of 1D bosons interacting with more complex forces. This is a collective effect and is obviously outside of the scope of the second order virial expansion, treating only the two-body collisions. On the other hand, the classical equipartition value of specific heat \[Eq. (28)\] is obtained also by the present approach at high temperatures \[Eq. (22) and Fig. 4\]. The temperature separating the two characteristic behaviors in Eqs. (27) and (28) is roughly given by the Fermi temperature of the equivalent noninteracting Fermi gas, which is proportional to the square of linear density \[Eq.(26)\]. Thus, for denser Bose gases, the interval of temperatures in which the specific heat is significantly smaller than 1/2 is larger. This is again in agreement with the results presented in Fig. 5.

V. THE EFFECT OF THE CORRUGATION OF CARBON NANOTUBE AND SAMPLE INHOMOGENEITIES

The results presented in this article are based on an idealized representation of the SWCNT materials. In particular, it is assumed that SWCNT bundles are infinitely long, straight and smooth which is certainly not the case in real materials and the bundles wiggle on large length scales. The discreteness of the nanotube results in the corrugation of the potential experienced by adsorbates which is not accounted for in the present approach. The influence of the corrugation of the potential confining the He atom to the interstitial channel of the bundle composed of (10,10) carbon nanotubes was studied in Ref. . A model potential was used which enabled an easy examination of effects induced by the potential details. Substantial effect of the corrugation on the density of states of single He atom was predicted. In particular, for the lowest band of states, a mass enhancement factor of 2.37 was calculated. Another study  predicted a mass enhancement factor of 1.3. A large difference between these factors predicted by the two studies can be attributed to the larger separation of the tubes (by 0.1 Å) adopted in Ref.  with respect to Ref. . For comparison, the mass enhancement factor for 4He adsorbed on graphite was found to be only 1.06.  For an interstitial channel surrounded by three (17,0) nanotubes, the authors of Ref.  found that a change in the intertube separation by 0.1 Å changes the effective mass of 4He by a factor of two!

It is quite remarkable that a small change in the intertube separation results in a very large change of the band structure of adsorbates. A similar sensitivity of the adsorbate bound states on the interaction potential was found in Ref.  for the groove adsorption. The details of the interaction potential are ”magnified” in the spatially restricted regions of the interstitial channel and the groove, and the band structure of adsorbates is much more affected by the potential details when compared with the adsorption on planar graphite. Thus, in order to assess the effect of the corrugation on the calculations presented in this article, one would need to know the intertube separation distance to a precision better than at least 0.05 Å. Note that the groove region is at the surface of the bundle where the relaxation effects can be expected and the separation between the tubes surrounding the groove needs not to be the same as the separation between the two tubes in the interior of the bundle. Additionally, one would have to know the He - single tube potential with a great accuracy. Even then, the calculation of the corrugation of the potential would require knowledge of the alignment of the two tubes surrounding the groove. It is very likely that this arrangement is not the same for all the grooves on the bundle surface. Furthermore, if the two tubes surrounding a groove are not of the same symmetry, the corrugations of the two tubes are not necessarily commensurate and the total potential for the groove adsorption can not be written as a Fourier series.

All the mentioned complications are not present for the adsorption on planar graphite. In that case, a fairly reliable potential can be constructed  and written as a 2D Fouries series. However, even the inclusion of periodic corrugation in the formalism of quantum virial expansion is not straightforward. The basic reason for this is that the two body Schrödinger equation in the textured potential background no longer separates into the two equations describing the motion of the center of mass and the relative motion. For the adsorption of He on graphite, Guo and Bruch  devised a perturbation treatment in which the two-body cluster integral is written as an expansion in powers of the Fourier amplitudes of the atom-substrate potential. They also presented the results for the second virial coefficient in which the corrugation effects were treated up to the second order of the perturbation series. Another study dealing with the problem  started from the tight-binding Hamiltonian and He atoms localized on particular adsorption sites. A series of approximations and simplifications was needed to obtain the formula for the second virial coefficient which is amenable to evaluation.

It is clear from the discussion in this section that a reliable calculation of the second virial coefficient with the effects of the corrugation included is not possible at present, mainly because the relevant potential is not known with sufficient precision. Additionally, aperiodic corrugation has not been treated in the literature in this context. However, a simple estimate of the corrugation effects is possible if we represent the adsorbate as a particle with the effective mass. Such a representation of the corrugation effects is adequate for excitations with small velocity i.e. for the states located around the center of the 1D Brillouin zone. The mass enhancement for the groove adsorption can be expected to be somewhere in between 1.06 (planar graphite) and 2.37 (interstitial channel). The quantity $`\beta ^2d^2B_2/d\beta ^2`$ was calculated using the Eqs. (23), (24) and (25), the scaled SAPT1 potential, and the effective He mass equal to $`M^{}=1.3M_{He}`$=5.2 amu. At $`T=`$1K (5K), its value was found to be -1.69 Å(-0.52 Å). This should be compared with the values obtained in Fig. 4. In particular, at $`T=`$1K (5K) the values obtained using the free mass of 4He are -1.92 Å(-0.77 Å). Thus, the reflection of the corrugation effects on the specific heat can be significant, but the overall trends, at least in the model of renormalized mass, are the same. For strongly corrugated potentials, it may be more sensible to use the band width for the characterization of the effects of corrugation rather than the curvature of dispersion curves at small wave vectors.

The influence of other bundles on the atoms adsorbed in a groove of a particular bundle is neglected. This approximation obviously breaks down if two bundles touch each other. At these points, the adsorbates move in a potential very much influenced by both bundles in question, which may be significantly different from the potential of a single, infinitely long and straight bundle I used in the calculations. For the adsorption of 4He on graphite, it was argued  that the presence of long-range inhomogeneities in the graphite may act as a trap and induce the Bose-Einstein condensation of the adsorbed gas. The same experiments were later explained in terms of the virial expansion approach  by assuming a perfect graphite substrate. Nevertheless, a possible substantial influence of the sample inhomogeneities on the thermodynamics of the adsorbed gas cannot be a priori ruled out. This is expected to be more important at low temperatures where the adsorbate thermal wavelength is large and the long range order of the sample may influence the adsorbate gas thermodynamics. It is hoped that the low-temperature measurements of the specific heat may give answers to these questions.

VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

4He gas adsorbed in the grooves of single wall carbon nanotube bundles has been treated as an interacting Bose gas in one dimension. It was found that this approximation should be very accurate for all temperatures below 8 K. The interactions in the adsorbed gas are treated via the quantum virial expansion approach and the second virial coefficient for the interacting gas was calculated. This information was used to calculate the specific heat of adsorbed 4He gas which was shown to be substantially influenced by interadsorbate interactions already at relatively low adsorbate linear densities (0.033 1/Å). A qualitative agreement between the results obtained in this article and those of exactly solvable 1D models is demonstrated.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is a pleasure to thank D. Jurman for stimulating discussions concerning exactly solvable 1D many-particle models and for suggesting Ref. .