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# 1 Introduction and motivations

## 1 Introduction and motivations

Electron scattering has been used for many years as a clean tool to explore nuclear structure. In the one-photon-exchange approximation, where the incident electron exchanges a photon of momentum $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ and energy $`\omega `$ with the target, the response of atomic nuclei as a function of $`Q^2=|\stackrel{}{q}|^2\omega ^2`$ and $`\omega `$ can nicely be separated because the electromagnetic probe and its interaction are well under control. In addition, in direct one- and two-nucleon emission one may access the single-particle properties of nuclei and nucleon-nucleon (NN) correlations, respectively (see, e.g., Ref. ).

In plane-wave impulse approximation (PWIA), i.e. neglecting final-state interactions (FSI’s) of the ejected particle, the coincidence (e,ep) cross section in the one-photon exchange approximation is factorized  as a product of the (off-shell) electron-nucleon cross section $`\sigma _{\mathrm{eN}}`$ and the nuclear spectral density,

$$S(\stackrel{}{p},E)=\underset{\alpha }{}S_\alpha (E)|\varphi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{p})|^2.$$
(1)
At each removal energy $`E`$ the $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ dependence of $`S(\stackrel{}{p},E)`$ is given by the momentum distribution of the quasi-hole states $`\alpha `$ produced in the target nucleus at that energy and described by the (normalized) overlap functions $`\varphi _\alpha `$ between the target ($`A`$-particle) nucleus ground state and the $`(A1)`$-particle states of the residual nucleus. The spectroscopic factor $`S_\alpha `$ gives the probability that such a quasi-hole state $`\alpha `$ be a pure hole state in the target nucleus. In an independent-particle shell model (IPSM) $`\varphi _\alpha `$ are just the single-particle states of the model, and $`S_\alpha =1`$ $`(0)`$ for occupied (empty) states. In reality, the strength of a quasi-hole state is fragmented over a set of single-particle states due to correlations, and $`0S_\alpha <1`$.

Complications arise in the theoretical treatment when considering FSI’s because such a factorization in the cross section is no longer possible . Still, the shape of the experimental momentum distribution at each excitation energy of the residual nucleus can be described to a high degree of accuracy in a wide range of kinematics in terms of quasi-hole states, and the normalization factor needed to adjust the theoretical result to data is interpreted as the value of the spectroscopic factor extracted from experiment.

Two major findings came out of these studies. First, the valence quasi-hole states $`\varphi _\alpha `$ almost overlap the IPSM functions with only a slight ($`10\%`$) enlargement of their rms radius. Second, a systematic suppression of the single-particle strength of valence states as compared to IPSM has been observed all over the periodic table. A quenching of spectroscopic factors is naturally conceived in nuclear many-body theory in terms of nucleon-nucleon correlations. However, model calculations produce spectroscopic factors $`S_\alpha `$ much larger than those extracted in low-energy (e,ep) data. As an example, for the p-shell holes in 16O a Green-function approach to the spectral density  gives $`S_{p_{1/2}}=0.890`$ and $`S_{p_{3/2}}=0.914`$, while from experiment one has $`S_{p_{1/2}}=0.644`$ and $`S_{p_{3/2}}=0.537`$. In contrast, at higher energy and momentum transfer much larger spectroscopic factors are extracted, i.e. $`S_{p_{1/2}}=0.73`$ and $`S_{p_{3/2}}=0.71`$ in Ref. , and $`S_{p_{1/2}}=0.72`$ and $`S_{p_{3/2}}=0.67`$ in Ref. . This was confirmed in the reanalysis of the 12C(e,ep) data  where at $`Q^20.3`$ GeV2 the s- and p-shell strength has been found quite substantially reduced by the factor $`0.57\pm 0.02`$. In contrast, for $`Q^21`$ GeV2 the same analysis gives a strength approximating the IPSM value. A possible $`Q^2`$ dependence of spectroscopic factors, jumping from values around 0.6–0.7 at low $`Q^2`$ to unity at $`Q^21`$ GeV2, simply means that something is not under control in either experiment or theory or both.

In fact, the most general form of the coincidence cross section in the one-photon-exchange approximation is the contraction of the lepton tensor $`L_{\mu \nu }`$ with the hadron tensor $`W^{\mu \nu }`$. The latter is a bilinear form of the hadron current $`J^\mu `$, i.e.

$$J^\mu =𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{f}|j^\mu (\stackrel{}{r})|\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{i}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}},$$
(2)
where the charge-current operator $`j^\mu (\stackrel{}{r})`$ is responsible for the transition from an initial state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{i}`$ (describing the motion of the ejected nucleon in its initial bound state) to a final state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{f}`$ with the ejectile undergoing FSI’s with the residual nucleus. In the nonrelativistic PWIA approach, the representation of $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{i}`$ is identified with $`[S_\alpha ]^{1/2}\varphi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{r})`$ and $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{f}`$ becomes a plane wave.

In order to get reliable information in a comparison between theory and data all sources of theoretical uncertainties must be under control and treated consistently. Under quasi-free kinematics $`j^\mu (\stackrel{}{r})`$ is reliably approximated by a one-body operator. Ambiguities arising from its off-shell behaviour  have been studied and shown to give a small effect . The relevance of genuine relativistic effects has recently been investigated  in a consistent comparison between nonrelativistic and relativistic calculations within the distorted-wave impulse approximation (DWIA). Significant relativistic effects, especially in the transverse responses, are found already for a proton kinetic energy as low as 100 MeV. As a consequence, a satisfactory description of 16O data at low and high $`Q^2`$ is obtained with (extracted) spectroscopic factors of about 0.7.

Most important is the treatment of FSI’s as much of the quenching of the extracted spectroscopic factor depends on the loss of flux introduced by FSI’s in the observed channel. A systematic analysis of the effects of FSI’s is highly desirable also in view of the debated problem of hadron propagation in the nuclear medium and nuclear transparency. In fact, the role of genuine attenuation of FSI’s with increasing energy must be understood before studying other mechanisms, such as e.g. colour transparency.

Here, great help comes from the measurement of the recoil proton polarization $`P^\mathrm{N}`$ normal to the scattering plane of the polarized incident electrons. Without FSI’s, $`P^\mathrm{N}=0`$. Therefore $`P^\mathrm{N}`$ is a good candidate to look at when studying nuclear transparency, as its $`Q^2`$ dependence reflects the energy dependence of FSI’s. Relativistic DWIA results are indeed sensitive to the model used to simulate FSI’s .

In principle, the absorption of the ejectile is due to the same (energy-dependent) mean field producing the quasi-hole state. The relevant quantity is the self-energy which is obtained from a self-consistent calculation of the nucleon spectral function. In this way it is then possible to analyse data at different values of $`Q^2`$ with the same quasi-hole wave functions and a correspondingly consistent treatment of FSI’s . It is remarkable that with this approach the same spectroscopic factors used to describe the data at low $`Q^2`$ also describe data at high $`Q^2`$. Thus the puzzle on the $`Q^2`$ dependence seems to be solved.

The problem remains to understand quantitatively the quenching of spectroscopic factors with respect to IPSM and to have a handle to discriminate between different contributions to NN correlations, ie. long/short range, central/tensor correlations, etc. (see, e.g., Refs. ). There is accumulating evidence for enhanced (e,ep) transverse strength of non-single particle origin at high missing energies . However, one-nucleon emission is only an indirect tool for such a purpose. It is by now well established that better information on NN correlations can be obtained with exclusive two-nucleon emission. In this paper, a review of the present status of such a type of reactions on complex nuclei is presented with particular attention to recent work improving the treatment of FSI’s .

## 2 Two-nucleon emission

Exclusive two-nucleon emission by an electromagnetic probe has been proposed long time ago  to study NN correlations. Data with real photons are available  confirming the validity of the direct mechanism for low values of the excitation energy of the residual nucleus. Due to the difficulty of measuring exceedingly small cross sections in triple coincidence, only with the advent of high-duty-cycle electron beams a systematic investigation of (e,eNN) reactions has become possible. At present, only a few pioneering measurements have been carried out , but the prospects are very encouraging.

The general theoretical framework involves the two-hole spectral density , whose strength gives the probability of removing two nucleons from the target, leaving the residual nucleus at some excitation energy. Integrating the two-hole spectral density over the energy of the residual nucleus one obtains the two-body density matrix incorporating NN correlations. The triple coincidence cross section is again a contraction between a lepton and a hadron tensor. It contains the two-hole spectral density through bilinear products of hadron currents $`J^\mu `$ of the type (2) suitably adapted to this type of reaction, i.e.

$$J^\mu =𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\psi _\mathrm{f}|j^\mu (\stackrel{}{r})|\psi _\mathrm{i}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}},$$
(3)
where $`|\psi _\mathrm{i}`$ is the two-nucleon overlap function between the ground state of the target and the final state of the residual ($`A2`$) nucleus, and $`|\psi _\mathrm{f}`$ is the scattering wave function of the two ejected nucleons. The nuclear current operator $`j^\mu (\stackrel{}{r})`$ is the sum of a one- and a two-body part. The one-body part consists of the usual charge operator and the convection and spin currents. The two-body part consists of the nonrelativistic meson exchange currents (pionic seagull and pion-in-flight contributions) and intermediate isobar contributions such as the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-isobar.

A consistent treatment of FSI would require a genuine three-body approach for the interaction of the two emitted nucleons and the residual nucleus, which represents a challenging task never addressed up to now in complex nuclei. A crucial assumption adopted in the past was the complete neglect of the mutual interaction between the two outgoing nucleons. Thus FSI is simply described by an attenuated flux of each ejectile due to an optical model potential. This apparently reasonable assumption has to be checked, however. In the next subsections first steps towards a complete description of FSI will be presented and discussed.

Even without FSI the two-hole spectral density is not factorized in the triple coincidence cross section. This makes a difficult task to extract information on correlations from data, and models are required to investigate suitable kinematic conditions where the cross section is particularly sensitive to correlations. A priori one may envisage that two-nucleon knockout is due to one- and two-body currents. Of course, one-body currents are only effective if correlations are present so that the nucleon interacting with the incident electron can be knocked out together with another (correlated) nucleon. In contrast, two-body currents, typically due to meson exchanges and isobar configurations, lead naturally to two-nucleon emission even in an independent-particle shell model.

Two-body currents are mainly transverse and preferentially involve a proton-neutron pair. Thus reactions like ($`\gamma `$,pn) and (e,epn) are particularly sensitive to their effects. In this respect, (e,epp) reactions, where two-body currents play a minor role, are better suited to look for correlations. Resolution of discrete final states has been shown to provide an interesting tool to discriminate between contributions of different mechanisms responsible for two-nucleon emission .

### 2.1 NN correlations

The shape of the angular distribution of the two emitted nucleons mainly reflects the momentum distribution of their c.m. total angular momentum $`L`$ inside the target nucleus . When removing, e.g., two protons from the 16O ground state, the relative $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ wave of the two protons is combined with $`L=0`$ or 2 to give $`0^+`$ or $`2^+`$ states of the residual 14C nucleus, respectively, while the relative $`{}_{}{}^{3}P`$ waves always occur combined with a $`L=1`$ wave function giving rise to $`0^+,1^+,2^+`$ states. Combining the reaction description of Ref.  with the many-body calculation of the two-particle spectral function in 16O of Ref. , in Ref.  the cross section for the $`0^+`$ ground state, and to a lesser extent also for the first $`2^+`$ state of 14C, was shown to receive a major contribution from the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ knockout. Such transitions are therefore most sensitive to short-range correlations. This is indeed the case, as seen in two exploratory studies performed at NIKHEF , and confirmed in Ref. . As the calculations are sensitive to the treatment of correlations, precise data could give important constraints when modelling the off-shell behaviour of the NN potential.

Superparallel kinematics has been preferred at Mainz , with one proton ejected along the virtual photon direction and the other in the opposite direction. In this kinematics only the pure longitudinal (L) and pure transverse (T) structure functions occur in the cross section, and a Rosenbluth L/T separation becomes possible in principle. The effect of two-body currents is further suppressed by looking at the longitudinal structure function that is most sensitive to short-range correlations. The data are still preliminary and require further analysis before a fully reliable comparison with calculations can be done. Nevertheless they show distinctive features predicted by calculations .

Tensor correlations are expected to play a major role in (e,epn) reactions where, however, the proton-neutron pair is ejected by a much more complicated mechanism involving two-body currents. In the superparallel kinematics of the proposed Mainz experiment  with an incident electron energy of 855 MeV, $`\omega =215`$ MeV and $`q=316`$ MeV/$`c`$ the predicted cross sections for (e,epn) are about one order of magnitude larger than the corresponding cross sections for (e,epp) reactions . This enhancement is partly due to meson-exchange currents and partly to tensor correlations. Quite different results are predicted depending on these correlations being included or not. An accurate determination of the two-hole spectral density is thus most desirable in order to disentangle the effects of two-body currents from those of nuclear correlations.

Experimentally, additional and precise information will come from measurements of the recoil polarization of the ejected proton in either (e,epp) or (e,epn). Resolving different final states is a precise filter to disentangle and separately investigate the different processes due to correlations and/or two-body currents. The general formalism is available  and has been extended to study polarization observables also in the case of two nucleons emitted by a real photon .

### 2.2 Final-state interactions

The relevant diagrams for electromagnetic two-nucleon knockout on a complex nucleus are depicted in Fig. 1. In the simplest approach any interaction between the two nucleons and the residual nucleus is neglected and a plane-wave (PW) approximation is assumed for the two outgoing nucleons. In the more sophisticated approach of Ref. , the interaction between each of the outgoing nucleons and the residual nucleus is considered in the distorted-wave (DW) approximation by using a complex phenomenological optical potential $`V^{\mathrm{OP}}`$ for nucleon-nucleus scattering which contains a central, a Coulomb and a spin-orbit term  (see diagram (a) in Fig. 1). Only very recently the mutual NN interaction $`V^{\mathrm{NN}}`$ between the two outgoing nucleons (NN-FSI) has been taken into account  (diagram (b) in Fig. 1). Multiscattering processes like those described by diagrams (c) and (d) of Fig. 1 are still neglected and left for future work. The present treatment of incorporating NN-FSI is denoted as DW-NN. We denote as PW-NN the treatment where only $`V^{\mathrm{NN}}`$ is considered and $`V^{\mathrm{OP}}`$ is switched off.

Denoting by $`|\stackrel{}{q}_i`$ a plane-wave state of the ejectile $`i`$ with momentum $`\stackrel{}{q}_i`$ and by $`|\varphi ^{\mathrm{OP}}(\stackrel{}{q}_i)`$ its state distorted by the optical potential, the corresponding final states in these different approximations are given by

$`|\psi _\mathrm{f}^{\mathrm{PW}}`$ $`=`$ $`|\stackrel{}{q}_1|\stackrel{}{q}_2,`$ (4)
$`|\psi _\mathrm{f}^{\mathrm{DW}}`$ $`=`$ $`|\varphi ^{\mathrm{OP}}(\stackrel{}{q}_1)|\varphi ^{\mathrm{OP}}(\stackrel{}{q}_2),`$ (5)
$`|\psi _\mathrm{f}^{\mathrm{PW}\mathrm{NN}}`$ $`=`$ $`|\stackrel{}{q}_1|\stackrel{}{q}_2+G_0(z)T^{\mathrm{NN}}(z)|\stackrel{}{q}_1|\stackrel{}{q}_2,`$ (6)
where the NN-scattering amplitude $`T^{\mathrm{NN}}`$ is given by

$$T^{\mathrm{NN}}(z)=V^{\mathrm{NN}}+V^{\mathrm{NN}}G_0(z)T^{\mathrm{NN}}(z),$$
(7)
with

$$G_0(z)=\frac{1}{zH_0(1)H_0(2)},$$
(8)
$`H_0(i)`$ denoting the kinetic energy operator for particle $`i`$, and $`z=\stackrel{}{q}_1^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}/(2m)+\stackrel{}{q}_2^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}/(2m)+iϵ`$. The full approach including diagrams (a) and (b) in Fig. 1 gives

$$|\psi _\mathrm{f}^{\mathrm{DW}\mathrm{NN}}=|\varphi ^{\mathrm{OP}}(\stackrel{}{q}_1)|\varphi ^{\mathrm{OP}}(\stackrel{}{q}_2)+G_0(z)T^{\mathrm{NN}}(z)|\stackrel{}{q}_1|\stackrel{}{q}_2.$$
(9)
### 2.3 Results

Results are presented in this section for the specific case of two-nucleon knockout by electron scattering off 16O. Calculations have been done in the same kinematic conditions as in previous experiments performed at Mainz  and NIKHEF , but here only the superparallel kinematic conditions adopted at Mainz  will be discussed. The differential cross sections of the 16O(e,epp) reaction to the $`0^+`$ ground state of 14C and of the 16O(e,epn) reaction to the $`1^+`$ ground state of 14N, calculated with the different approximations (4)-(6) and (9), are displayed in the left and right panels of Fig. 2, respectively.

The inclusion of the optical potential leads, in both reactions, to an overall and substantial reduction of the calculated cross sections (see the difference between the PW and DW results). This effect is well known and it is mainly due to the imaginary part of the optical potential, that accounts for the flux lost to inelastic channels in the nucleon-residual nucleus elastic scattering. The optical potential gives the dominant contribution of FSI’s for recoil-momentum values up to $`p_\mathrm{B}150`$ MeV/$`c`$. At larger values NN-FSI gives an enhancement of the cross section, that increases with $`p_\mathrm{B}`$. In (e,epp) this enhancement goes beyond the PW result and amounts to roughly an order of magnitude for $`p_\mathrm{B}300`$ MeV/$`c`$. In (e,epn) this effect is still sizeable but much weaker. We note that in both cases the contribution of NN-FSI is larger in the DW-NN than in the PW-NN approximation.

In (e,epp) NN-FSI produces a strong enhancement of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-current contribution for all the values of $`p_\mathrm{B}`$ (left panel of Fig. 3). Up to about 100-150 MeV/$`c`$, however, this effect is completely overwhelmed by the dominant contribution of the one-body current, while for larger values of $`p_\mathrm{B}`$, where the one-body current is less important in the cross section, the increase of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-current is responsible for the substantial enhancement in the final result. The effect of NN-FSI on the one-body current is much weaker but anyhow sizeable, and it is responsible for the NN-FSI effect at lower values of $`p_\mathrm{B}`$.

The combined role of FSI and the different partial waves in the initial relative state of the two emitted protons in the 16O(e,epp) reaction is shown in the right panel of Fig. 3. The effect of NN-FSI is more important on the 1S0 initial state and gives in practice almost the full contribution of NN-FSI. The role of NN-FSI on the 3P initial relative states is of special relevance for the transition to the $`1^+`$ excited state of 14C, where only 3P components are present and the 1S0 relative partial wave cannot contribute .

In the NIKHEF kinematics , the effect of NN-FSI is also sizeable, although not as strong as in the superparallel kinematics . Moreover, whereas in the superparallel kinematics the relative effect of NN-FSI increases for decreasing cross section, in the NIKHEF kinematics NN-FSI is maximal when also the cross section is maximal, i.e. when $`\stackrel{}{p}_B0`$ MeV/$`c`$. This result clearly shows that the role of NN-FSI is strongly dependent on the kinematics and no general statement can be drawn with respect to its relevance.

Different effects of NN-FSI on the various components of the current are shown for the (e,epn) reaction in Fig. 4. Also in this case, NN-FSI affects more the two-body than the one-body current. A sizeable enhancement is produced on the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-current, at all the values of $`p_\mathrm{B}`$, and a huge enhancement on the seagull current at large momenta. In contrast, the one-body current is practically unaffected by NN-FSI up to about 150 MeV/$`c`$. A not very large but visible enhancement is produced at larger momenta, where, however, the one-body current gives only a negligible contribution to the final cross section. The role of the pion-in-flight term, in both DW and DW-NN approaches, is practically negligible in the cross section. Thus, a large effect is given by NN-FSI on the seagull and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-current. The sum of the two terms, however, produces a destructive interference that leads to a partial cancellation in the final cross section. The net effect of NN-FSI in Fig. 2 is not large but anyhow non negligible. Moreover, the results for the partial contributions in Fig. 4 indicate that in pn-knockout NN-FSI can be large in particular situations and therefore should in general be included in a careful evaluation.

## 3 Conclusions

The advent of high-energy continuous electron beams coupled to high-resolution spectrometers has opened a new era in the study of basic nuclear properties such as single-particle behaviour and NN correlations by means of one- and two-nucleon emission. In parallel new theoretical approaches have been developed. For one-nucleon knockout relativistic effects have been shown to be most important and to affect the interpretation of data even at moderate energies of the emitted particles. In addition, a consistent treatment of the initial and final states in terms of the same (energy-dependent) Hamiltonian seems to avoid the striking feature coming out of previous analyses of (e,ep) world data with an apparent $`Q^2`$ dependence of the extracted spectroscopic factors. The problem remains, however, concerning the discrepancy between calculated and observed spectroscopic factors. This is clearly tight to NN correlations, their theoretical treatment and the possibility of finding observables sensitive to them.

Exclusive experiments with direct two-nucleon emission by an electromagnetic probe have been suggested long time ago as good candidates to study correlations. In electron scattering they require triple coincidences with three spectrometers. This is now possible and the first experiments have been performed. By an appropriate selection of the kinematic conditions and specific nuclear transitions, it has been shown that data are sensitive to nuclear correlations. In turn, these strictly depend on the NN potential. Therefore, two-nucleon emission is a promising field deserving further investigation both experimentally and theoretically in order to solve a longstanding problem in nuclear physics.

In particular, FSI’s must be carefully treated. A consistent evaluation of FSI’s would require a genuine three-body approach, for the two nucleons and the residual nucleus, by summing up an infinite series of contributions in the NN-scattering amplitude and in the interaction of the two nucleons with the residual nucleus (Fig. 1). So far, only the major contribution of FSI’s, due to the interaction of each of the two outgoing nucleons with the residual nucleus, was taken into account in the different models. The guess was that the mutual interaction between the two outgoing nucleons (NN-FSI) could be neglected since they are mainly ejected back to back.

Results have been presented here with a first estimate of the role of NN-FSI in the case of the 16O(e,epp) and 16O(e,epn) reactions. In general, the optical potential gives an overall and substantial reduction of the calculated cross sections. This important effect represents the main contribution of FSI’s and can never be neglected. In most of the situations considered here, NN-FSI gives an enhancement of the cross section. The effect is in general non negligible, it depends strongly on the kinematics , on the type of reaction , and on the final state of the residual nucleus . NN-FSI affects in a different way the various terms of the nuclear current, usually more the two-body than the one-body terms, and is sensitive to the various theoretical ingredients of the calculation. This makes it difficult to make predictions about the role of NN-FSI in a particular situation. In general each specific situation should be individually investigated.

Extension of the same NN-FSI approach to real-photon-induced reactions will be presented elsewhere . The solution of the full three-body problem of the final state is in progress.

Acknowledgements

This work has partly been performed under the contract HPRN-CT-2000-00130 of the European Commission. Moreover, it has been supported by the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 443).


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# The Phoenix Deep Survey: X-ray properties of faint radio sources

## 1 Introduction

Deep X-ray surveys with the Chandra observatory (Brandt et al. 2001a; Mushotzky et. al. 2000) have demonstrated beyond any doubt the appearance of ‘normal’ (i.e. non-AGN dominated) star-forming galaxies at faint flux limits, $`f(0.52\mathrm{keV})10^{16}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (Brandt et al. 2001b; Hornschemeier et al. 2002a; Alexander et al. 2002; Bauer et al. 2002). These systems are detected in increasing numbers with decreasing X-ray flux and are likely to outnumber AGNs below $`f(0.52\mathrm{keV})10^{17}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (Hornschemeier et al. 2002b; Ranalli, Comastri & Setti 2003). The steeply increasing X-ray source counts of star-forming galaxies also suggest evolution. Our knowledge on this key issue, however, remains sparse. Theoretical models predict moderate to strong X-ray evolution for these systems at $`z<1`$ (Ghosh & White 2001) but a tight observational constraint remains to be obtained. Brandt et al. (2001b) studied the mean X-ray properties of bright spirals at $`z0.5`$ using the 500 ks Chandra exposure of the HDF-North. They find that the mean X-ray luminosity of their sample is elevated compared to local spirals suggesting evolution consistent with the Ghosh & White (2001) models. Differences between the $`L_B`$ distribution of their sample and that of local spirals, however, may also be responsible for the observed increase. Hornschemeier et al. (2002a) used stacking analysis to investigate the mean properties of $`z1`$ spirals in the Chandra Deep Field North. They found evidence for an increase in the mean $`L_X/L_B`$ ratio compared to local star-forming systems. Statistical uncertainties, however, did not allow firm conclusions to be drawn.

Clearly these studies, although of key significance for understanding the X-ray properties of star-forming galaxies at moderate to high redshifts, cannot strongly constrain their evolution. To address this issue a number of observational challenges need to be resolved. Firstly, distant starbursts are X-ray faint and therefore their detection even with the Chandra and the XMM-Newton observatories is difficult. More importantly compiling starburst galaxy samples with well defined selection criteria over a wide redshift range is not trivial.

The aim of this paper is to address these issues to provide a direct observational constraint on the X-ray evolution of star-forming galaxies. We combine data from an ultra-deep and homogeneous radio (1.4 GHz) survey (the Phoenix Deep Survey; Hopkins et al. 2003) to the limit $`S_{1.4}=80\mu \mathrm{Jy}`$ ($`5\sigma `$) with a single deep (50 ks) XMM-Newton pointing covering an area of 30 arcmin diameter. Compared to previous studies this dataset, the Phoenix/XMM survey, has the advantage of deep wide area $`\mu `$Jy radio observations. Such observations have been shown to be efficient in identifying actively star-forming galaxies to $`z1`$ with small contamination by AGNs (10–20 per cent; Georgakakis et al. 1999; Barger 2002; Bauer et al. 2002; Chapman et al. 2003). Also, the insensitivity of radio wavelengths to dust obscuration suggests that deep radio surveys are unique for compiling starburst samples to $`z1`$ with uniform selection criteria free from dust induced biases. A minor drawback of radio selection is that it may underestimate the SF activity in low luminosity galaxies ($`0.01L_{}`$; Condon et al. 1992; Bell 2003; Chapman et al. 2003). These systems are believed to substantially contribute to the star-formation rate density in the local universe (e.g. Wilson et al. 2002). Keeping this caveat in mind, the Phoenix/XMM survey still offers an excellent opportunity to explore the X-ray evolution of star-forming galaxies.

Section 2 presents the multiwavelength data available for the Phoenix Deep Survey, section 3 describes the X-ray data while section 4 details the sample used in the present study. The stacking technique is outlined in section 5, and the results are presented in section 6. Section 7 argues against AGN contamination of the present radio selected sample while our results are discussed in section 8. Finally, section 9 summarises our conclusions. For comparison with previous studies throughout this paper we adopt $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{o}=65\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ and $`q_o=0.5`$ but we also give results for the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ and $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{o}=65\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ cosmology.

## 2 The Phoenix Deep Survey

The Phoenix Deep Survey (PDS) is an on-going program aiming to study the nature and the evolution of sub-mJy and $`\mu `$Jy radio galaxies. The radio observations were carried out at the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) at 1.4 GHz during several campaigns between 1994 and 2001 in the 6A, 6B and 6C array configurations. The data cover a 4.56 square degree area centered at RA(J2000)=$`01^\mathrm{h}11^\mathrm{m}13^\mathrm{s}`$ Dec.(J2000)=$`45\mathrm{°}45\mathrm{}00\mathrm{}`$. A detailed description of the radio observations, data reduction and source detection are discussed by Hopkins et al. (1998, 1999, 2003). The observational strategy adopted resulted in a radio map that is highly homogeneous within the central $`1\mathrm{deg}`$ radius. Nevertheless, the $`1\sigma `$ rms noise increases from $`12\mu \mathrm{Jy}`$ at the most sensitive region to about $`90\mu \mathrm{Jy}`$ close to the field edge. The final catalogue consists of a total of 2058 radio sources to a limit of 60 $`\mu `$Jy ($`5\sigma `$; Hopkins et al. 2003).

Follow-up optical photometric observations of the entire PDS in the $`V`$ and $`R`$-bands were obtained at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) during two observing runs in 1994 and 1995 September. A detailed description of these observations including data reduction, photometric calibration, source extraction and optical identification are presented by Georgakakis et al. (1999). In brief, this dataset is complete to $`R=22.0`$ mag and allows optical identification of about 50 per cent of the radio sample. An on-going spectroscopic program aiming to obtain spectral information for the optically identified sources is underway using the 2dF facility at the AAT. At present redshifts and spectral classifications are available for over 300 sources brighter than $`R=21.5`$ mag. This optical magnitude limit is the only selection applied to the radio sample for follow-up spectroscopy. Part of this large dataset is presented by Georgakakis et al. (1999). Galaxies are grouped on the basis of spectral features and diagnostic emission-line ratios into (i) systems exhibiting absorption-line features only, (ii) star-forming galaxies, (iii) narrow emission line Seyfert 2s, (iv) broad line Seyfert 1s and (v) “unclassified” objects. The latter have at least one narrow emission line identified in their optical spectra (allowing redshift determination) but the poor S/N ratio, or the small number of emission lines within the observable window, or the presence of instrumental features contaminating emission lines prevented a reliable spectral classification (Georgakakis et al. 1999).

A new set of high quality deep multiwavelength $`UBVRI`$ photometric data has recently been obtained for a subregion of the PDS partly overlapping with the Phoenix/XMM field using the Wide Field Imager at the AAT ($`BVRI`$-bands) and the ESO 2.2 m ($`U`$-band) telescopes complete to $`I24`$ and $`U22.5`$ mag respectively. Near-infrared (NIR) photometric observations ($`J`$ and $`K`$-bands) complete to $`K18`$ mag have also been obtained for the 30 arcmin diameter area of the Phoenix/XMM survey using OSIRIS at the CTIO 1.5 m telescope. The UV, optical and NIR data will be presented in a series of forthcoming papers.

## 3 The X-ray data

A subregion of the PDS centered at RA(J2000)=$`01^\mathrm{h}12^\mathrm{m}52^\mathrm{s}`$; Dec.(J2000)=$`45^{}33^{}10.0^{\prime \prime }`$ was surveyed by the XMM-Newton on 2002 May 5. The observation consists of a single pointing with an exposure time of $`50`$ ks. The EPIC (European Photon Imaging Camera; Strüder et al. 2001; Turner et al. 2001) cameras were operated in full frame mode with the medium filter applied.

The XXM-Newton data have been analysed using the Science Analysis Software (SAS 5.3). Event files for the PN and the two MOS detectors have been produced using the epchain and emchain tasks of SAS respectively. The event files were screened for high particle background periods by rejecting times with 0.5–10 keV count rates higher than 20 and 6 cts/100s for the PN and the two MOS cameras respectively. The adopted count rates are a trade off between maximum effective exposure time and low particle background contamination. Higher thresholds do not significantly increase the exposure time while lower thresholds severely reduce the effective exposure time. The PN and MOS good time intervals are 39444 and 41273 s respectively. The difference between the PN and the MOS exposure times is due to varying start and end times of the detectors. Only events corresponding to patterns 0–4 for the PN and 0–12 for two MOS cameras have been kept. To increase the signal–to–noise ratio and to reach fainter fluxes the PN and the MOS event files have been combined into a single event list using the merge task of SAS.

Images in celestial coordinates with pixel size of 4.35 arcsec have been extracted in the spectral bands 0.5–8 keV (total), 0.5–2 keV (soft) and 2–8 keV (hard) for the merged event file. Events with energies below 0.5 or above 8 keV are not used here because of the reduced XMM-Newton effective area at these energies. Also, below 0.5 keV the background is elevated due to the Galactic X-ray emission component (Lumb et al. 2002). Therefore, photons with energies $`<0.5`$ and $`>8`$ keV primarily increase the background and do not improve the signal–to–noise ratio of the final image. Exposure maps accounting for vignetting, CCD gaps and bad pixels have been constructed for each spectral band.

Source detection was independently performed in the total (0.5–8 keV), soft (0.5–2 keV) and hard (2–8 keV) band images using the ewavelet task of SAS with a significance threshold of $`4\sigma `$. A byproduct of the source extraction algorithm is the construction of background maps for each spectral band. We detect 137, 128 and 88 X-ray sources in the 0.5-8, 0.5–2 2–8 keV spectral bands respectively. The $`4\sigma `$ limiting fluxes in these spectral bands are $`f(0.58\mathrm{keV})10^{15}`$, $`f(0.52\mathrm{keV})9\times 10^{16}`$ and $`f(28\mathrm{keV})2\times 10^{15}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$. A small number of X-ray faint sources are only detected in either the soft (total of 11) or the hard (total of 9) bands and are missed from the total band due to the elevated background. A detailed analysis of the nature of the X-ray sources detected in the Phoenix/XMM survey will be presented in a forthcoming paper (Georgakakis et al. in preparation). To convert counts to flux the Energy Conversion Factors (ECF) of individual detectors are calculated assuming a power law spectrum with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.0`$ (e.g. Bauer et al. 2002) and Galactic absorption $`N_H=2\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ appropriate for the PDS. The mean ECF for the mosaic of all three detectors is estimated by weighting the ECFs of individual detectors by the respective exposure time. For the encircled energy correction, accounting for the energy fraction outside the aperture within which source counts are accumulated, we adopt the calibration performed by Ghizzardi (2001a, 2001b). These studies use both PN and MOS observations of point sources to formulate the XMM-Newton PSF for different energies and off-axis angles. In particular, a King profile is fit to the data with parameters that are a function of both energy and off-axis angle. The encircled energy correction for the merged PN+MOS image is estimated by weighting the corrections of individual detectors by the respective exposure time. In any rate the difference between the PN and MOS encircled energy corrections found by Ghizzardi (2001a, 2001b) is negligible.

## 4 The radio sample

A total of 204 radio sources lie within the 30 arcmin diameter region covered by the Phoenix/XMM survey. This field lies within the most homogeneously covered region of the PDS but is offset from the most sensitive area of the radio map by about 0.30 deg. Therefore, the completeness limit of the radio observations in that 30 arcmin diameter region is $`80\mu \mathrm{Jy}`$ ($`5\sigma `$). A total of 82 out of the 204 radio sources have optical counterparts brighter than $`R=21.5`$ mag. Of the 82 sources with $`R<21.5`$ mag a subsample of 31 have spectroscopic data and secure redshifts. The spectroscopic sample comprises 7 absorption-line systems likely to be E/S0, 10 star-forming galaxies, 1 broad-line AGN, 1 Seyfert-2 and 12 “unclassified” narrow emission line sources. As discussed in section 2, the latter group of galaxies have poorly constrained optical spectral properties and their nature (AGN, star-formation) remains uncertain. In the next section we discuss evidence suggesting that although some of these sources are expected to be AGNs, many (especially at $`z<0.4`$) are likely to be starbursts.

For the remaining radio sources with $`R<21.5`$ mag and no spectroscopic information (total of 61) we exploit the existing broad-band data ($`UBVRIJK`$) to estimate photometric redshifts using the hyper-z code (Bolzonella, Miralles & Pelló 2000). The hyper-z program determines the photometric redshift of a given object by fitting a set of template Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) to the observed photometric data through a standard $`\chi ^2`$ minimisation technique. The template rest-frame SEDs used here are the observed mean spectra of four different galaxy types (E/S0, Sbc, Scd, Im) from Coleman, Wu & Weedman (1980) extended in the UV and IR regions using the spectral synthesis models of Bruzual & Charlot (1993) with parameters selected to match the observed spectra.

Figure 1 compares the photometric and spectroscopic redshift estimates of the 31 objects with available spectroscopic observations. The agreement is good with $`(z_{phot}z_{spec})/z_{spec}0.09`$. Moreover, Figure 1 shows there is a fair agreement between the observed spectral classification (emission, absorption line) and the galaxy type of the best fit SED (ellipticals, spirals, irregulars). Figure 2, plots the photometric and spectroscopic redshift distributions of the $`R<21.5`$ radio sample. It is clear that the agreement between the two distributions is good suggesting that the photometric redshift estimates are reliable.

We find that the majority of the sub-mJy sources are best fit by late-type SEDs in agreement with previous studies suggesting that the faint radio population is dominated by star-forming spirals. We find 65 systems with spiral/irregular type SEDs and 17 radio sources with elliptical best fit SEDs with redshifts in the range 0.05–2.0 and 0.05–0.6 respectively. The present radio selected sample also includes one broad-line AGN at $`z1.9`$ that is assigned an irregular galaxy SED and a photometric redshift of $`1.7`$. Despite the agreement, the galaxy SEDs used here are not suitable to either estimate QSO photometric redshifts or to identify such sources within the sample. In the absence of optical spectroscopy distant QSOs can be identified by their unresolved optical light profile. A total of 7 radio sources have optical counterparts that are unresolved in the $`R`$-band images and are excluded from the analysis as QSO candidates. In summary out of 82 radio sources with $`R<21.5`$ 65 have spiral/irregular SEDs and 17 have E/S0 SEDs. Of the 65 sources with spiral/irregular SEDs a total of 3 have unresolved optical light profiles and 1 is a spectroscopically confirmed QSO. Of the 17 sources with E/S0 SEDs a total of 4 have unresolved optical light profiles.

## 5 Stacking procedure

Stacking methods have been extensively used in X-ray astronomy to study the mean properties (e.g. flux, luminosity, hardness ratios) of well defined samples of sources that are otherwise too faint at X-ray wavelengths to be individually detected (e.g. Nandra et al. 2002).

In practice, the X-ray counts (source–plus–background) at the position of each galaxy in the sample are added excluding X-ray detected galaxies. The expected background contribution is estimated by summing the counts from regions around each source. Assuming Poisson statistics for the counts a significance level is estimated for the summed signal.

To determine the size of the region within which the source–plus–background counts are extracted we adopt the empirical method described by Nandra et al. (2002). Tests are performed in which the radius of the circular aperture within which the source–plus–background counts are summed varies (from one trial to the next) between 6–18 arcsec. We find that a radius of 10 arcsec maximises the significance of the stacked signal and hence this optimal extraction radius is adopted for the analysis that follows. This extraction radius is about 2.5 times the on-axis HWHM of the XMM-Newton PSF (Hasinger et al. 2001). To assess the significance of the stacked signal we estimate the background from (i) the smooth background maps produced by the ewavelet task of SAS using 20 arcsec annuli centered on the sample galaxies and (ii) the science images by taking the average of 60 10 arcsec apertures randomly positioned within annular regions centered on the positions of the sample galaxies with inner and outer radii of 20 and 100 arcsec respectively. In the latter method regions close to X-ray sources ($`<40`$ arcsec) are excluded to avoid contamination from X-ray detections in the background estimation. We find that the significance of the stacked signal does not depend on the background estimation method. For simplicity we use the background maps to estimate the mean background. We note that the size of the background aperture does not modify our results.

To further assess the confidence level of the stacked signal we perform extensive simulations: mock catalogs are constructed by randomising the positions of the radio sample avoiding areas close to X-ray sources ($`<40`$ arcsec). Each of the mock catalogs has the same number of sources as the real radio catalog. We then apply the stacking analysis to the mock catalogs and estimate the significance of the stacked signal in the same way as in the real catalog. This is then repeated 10 000 times to get the distribution of the detection significances for the mock catalogs. This provides an estimate of the probability of getting a statistically significant stacked signal by chance. The detection confidence levels estimated from the simulations are in excellent agreement with those based on Poisson statistics

In practice we have excluded from the stacking analysis galaxies that are identified with X-ray sources detected by the ewavelet task to the $`4\sigma `$ significance level. Such a low detection threshold is essential to study the mean properties of X-ray weak sources, the signal of which would otherwise be diluted by brighter ones. We find 9 radio sources with X-ray counterparts within 8 arcsec off the radio position: 4 of them have narrow emission-line spectra, while the rest have no spectroscopic information but their broad band colours suggest spiral galaxy SEDs. Most of these X-ray detected radio sources have hard X-ray spectra and X-ray luminosities of $`10^{43}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ suggesting AGN activity rather than star-formation. A detailed study of these radio sources will be presented in a forthcoming paper.

Moreover, counts associated with the wings of the PSF of bright X-ray sources might erroneously increase the stacking signal significance. Therefore, to avoid contamination of the stacking signal from nearby X-ray sources we have excluded from the analysis a total of 12 radio galaxies that lie close (i.e. 8–40 arcsec) to X-ray detections. A total of 21 radio sources, either lying close to (12 objects; 8–40 arcsec) or being associated with (9 objects; $`<8`$ arcsec) X-ray detections, have thus been excluded.

The aim of the present paper is to explore the mean properties of star-forming sub-mJy radio galaxies. Our sample is restricted to sub-mJy sources with $`S_{1.4}>80\mu `$Jy (the flux density limit of the radio catalogue) and spiral galaxy SEDs that are not associated with or do not lie close to X-ray sources. Further, in the analysis that follows we use only radio sources with redshift $`z<0.8`$, since at higher redshifts the present sample with $`R<21.5`$ becomes highly incomplete. We also exclude distant AGNs as explained above. The final sample used in the stacking analysis comprises 34 radio galaxies that fulfill the above criteria.

## 6 Results

The sub-mJy radio sources used in the stacking analysis are split into two independent redshift bins $`z=0.00.3`$ and $`z=0.30.8`$ with median redshifts of 0.240 and 0.445 respectively, selected to have similar numbers of sources. The stacking analysis has also been performed on the subsample of radio sources with available optical spectroscopy and diagnostic line ratios typical of star-formation activity. For this subsample we only consider star-forming sources with $`z<0.3`$. At this redshift range the $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ emission-line lies within the observable window of the spectroscopic observations allowing reliable classification on the basis of diagnostic emission-line ratios. The stacking analysis of this subsample will allow us to investigate whether Seyfert-2s that remain unidentified due to the absence of optical spectroscopy for many radio sources can significantly bias our conclusions.

The stacking results for the above subsamples in both the soft and the hard bands are presented in Table 1. The X-ray flux in this table is estimated from the raw net counts after correcting individual galaxies for (i) the effect of vignetting estimated from the corresponding exposure map and (ii) the energy fraction outside the adopted aperture of 10 arcsec using the encircled energy corrections recently derived by Ghizzardi (2001a, 2001b) for both the PN and the MOS detectors (see section 3). The counts–to–flux conversion factor has been derived assuming a power-law with spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.0`$ and Galactic absorption (see section 3). The X-ray luminosities in Table 1 are estimated using the X-ray flux derived from the stacking analysis and the median redshift of each subsample also listed in this table. The k-correction is estimated for a power-law with spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.0`$. Both the X-ray flux and luminosity are corrected for Galactic photoelectric absorption ($`N_H=2\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$) but not for intrinsic absorption. The $`L_B`$ and $`L_{1.4}`$ in Table 1 are the medians of the rest frame luminosities of individual galaxies. The $`B`$-band k-correction for a given radio source is derived from the best fit SED estimated by hyper-z. At 1.4 GHz we assume a power law SED of the form $`f_\nu \nu ^{0.8}`$ to calculate the k-correction and to estimate the rest frame $`L_{1.4}`$ of individual radio sources.

In the soft-band a statistically significant signal is obtained for all the subsamples in Table 1. Stacking of the hard band counts, gives a marginally significant signal for the high redshift subsample at the $`2.6\sigma `$ confidence level. For the whole sample the hard band stacked signal is significant at the $`1.9\sigma `$ level but this is primarily due to high-$`z`$ rather than low-$`z`$ sources. The marginally significant hard band signal of the $`z=0.30.8`$ sub-sample may be due to contamination by few AGNs that lie just below the detection threshold. This is further discussed below. Alternatively this may suggest hardening of the mean X-ray properties of radio sources at higher redshifts and/or at higher radio powers. It is thus possible that the present high-$`z`$ radio subsample has X-ray spectral properties different to those of the low-$`z`$ one. Deeper X-ray data are required to provide stronger constraints on the X-ray spectral properties of the $`z=0.30.8`$ radio sources.

For the 2–8 keV band $`3\sigma `$ upper limits are estimated for the stacked signal assuming Poisson statistics. Also, spectroscopically confirmed star-forming radio sources exhibit a statistically significant stacked signal and have 0.5–2 keV X-ray flux and luminosity similar to that obtained for the $`z=0.00.3`$ subsample spanning a similar redshift range. This suggests that powerful AGNs do not significantly bias our results at least for the $`z=0.00.3`$ redshift bin.

Comparison of the estimated soft-band count rates with the hard-band upper limits can constrain the spectral properties of the sub-mJy radio sources with spiral galaxy SEDs. For the $`z=0.00.3`$ redshift bin the observed count rates at the median redshift $`z=0.240`$ translate to an upper limit of $`N_H4\times 10^{21}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ assuming a power law with spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.7`$. This increases to $`N_H8\times 10^{21}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2`$. By constraining the column density to the Galactic value of $`N_H=2\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ a lower limit to the spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }>1.3`$ is inferred. These constraints, although not very tight, are consistent with the spectral properties of nearby star-forming spirals (e.g. Fabbiano 1989). For the $`z=0.30.8`$ subsample, the observed count rates translate to an upper limit of $`N_H1\times 10^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ assuming a spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.7`$. This will increase to $`N_H=2\times 10^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2`$. Keeping the column density constant at the Galactic value $`N_H2\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ we find a lower limit to the spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }>0.8`$. If the marginally significant hard band count rate is taken at face value, however, we estimate a hydrogen column density of $`N_H1\times 10^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }2.0`$). This column density may indicate either low-luminosity AGN (LLAGN) activity or heavily obscured AGN/star-formation for the $`z=0.30.8`$ subsample. Using the empirical relation between X-ray absorption and optical extinction of Gorenstein (1975) the above column density translates to $`E(BV)1.4`$. Leech et al. (1988) obtained optical spectra for high Galactic latitude IRAS sources (both starbursts and AGNs) and found a mean $`E(BV)1.3`$ comparable to the reddening estimated here. Veilleux et al. (1995) used high quality nuclear optical spectra of luminous IRAS sources. For the sub-sample classified H II galaxies they estimate a mean $`E(BV)1`$ which is somewhat lower than the value estimated here.

We also investigate the possibility that the observed stacked signal is primarily due to a few bright X-ray sources below the detection threshold. This is important especially if some of these sources are AGNs and thus not representative of the star-forming galaxy population studied in this paper. We explore this issue by assigning detection significances to individual radio sources and then excluding sources above a given threshold. The detection significance is calculated by the ratio of net source counts to the square root of the background estimated as described in section 5.

For the whole ($`z=0.00.8`$) sample a significant 0.5–2 keV signal is still obtained after removing sources above $`3\sigma `$ (total of 3). These sources have relatively low X-ray–to–optical luminosity ratios $`\mathrm{log}L_X/L_B2`$, typical of starbursts. Clearly, deeper X-ray observations are required to further address this issue.

For the 2–8 keV band all sources have hard band detection significances below the $`3\sigma `$ level. Removing the 3 higher significance sources ($`>1.7\sigma `$) reduces the confidence level of the hard band stacked signal to $`1\sigma `$ for both the $`z=0.00.8`$ and $`z=0.30.8`$ subsamples respectively. Therefore, it is possible that contamination by few obscured AGNs is responsible for the apparent hardening of the mean X-ray spectral properties of the high-$`z`$ sub-sample.

We note that for flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ cosmology ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$) the luminosities estimated in Table 1 will increase by $`24`$ and $`40`$ per cent for the $`z=0.00.3`$ and $`z=0.30.8`$ subsamples respectively

## 7 AGN contamination

The aim of the present paper is to explore the mean properties of star-forming sub-mJy radio galaxies and we have attempted to exclude sources that show evidence for strong AGN activity from the sample used in the stacking analysis. We argue that the AGN contamination of the present radio selected sample is small:

* Radio selection at $`\mu `$Jy flux densities has been shown to be efficient in finding actively star-forming systems to $`z1`$. Only $`1020`$ per cent of the faint radio population are believed to be AGNs (Georgakakis et al. 1999; Barger et al. 2002; Bauer et al. 2002; Chapman et al. 2003).
* A total of 7 radio sources with optical counterparts exhibiting unresolved light profiles in the $`R`$-band, likely to be distant QSOs, have been identified and excluded from the sample.
* Within the spectroscopic sample only 5 out of the 31 radio sources with spectroscopic observations show evidence for Seyfert-1 or 2 type activity. One of these sources is a distant ($`z1.9`$) QSO, another source is classified Seyfert-2 on the basis of diagnostic optical emission line ratios and the remaining three belong to the group of spectroscopically “unclassified” sources (see section 2). These three sources have X-ray counterparts with X-ray spectral properties indicative of AGN activity (e.g. hard X-ray spectra, X-ray luminosities in excess of $`10^{42}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$). All of these sources have been excluded from the stacking analysis.
* For the group of spectroscopically “unclassified” radio sources (see section 2) without X-ray counterparts to the sensitivity limit of the existing observations (total of 9) we can constrain their nature by estimating upper limits to their $`L_X/L_B`$ and $`L_X`$. For sources with $`z<0.4`$ (4 out of 9) we find $`\mathrm{log}f_X/f_{opt}<2`$ and $`L_X(0.52\mathrm{keV})<2\times 10^{41}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ consistent with star-formation rather than AGN activity. For sources with $`z>0.4`$ (5 out of 9) the estimated upper limits are not as stringent: most of these sources typically have $`\mathrm{log}f_X/f_{opt}<1.2`$ and $`L_X(0.52\mathrm{keV})<5\times 10^{41}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$. These limits exclude the possibility of powerful AGNs and suggest starbursts, obscured AGNs or LLAGNs. In the case of obscured AGNs the soft 0.5–2 keV band X-ray emission from the AGN is expected to be heavily obscured. The X-ray emission in the 0.5–2 keV spectral band is thus likely to be dominated by stellar processes (e.g. NGC 6240; Vignati et al. 1999). Deeper X-ray observations are required to elucidate the detailed nature of these sources. Nevertheless, the $`z<0.4`$ sub-sample for which our observations can put tight constraints is dominated by star-formation.
* In Table 1 we estimate mean X-ray–to–optical luminosity ratios of $`\mathrm{log}L_X/L_B2.4`$ and –2.0 for the 0.240 and 0.445 redshift subsamples respectively. These ratios although elevated compared to those found for optically selected spiral galaxy samples (Hornschemeier et al. 2002a; Georgakakis et al. 2003) are typical of actively star-forming galaxies rather than AGN dominated systems (Alexander et al. 2002). Moreover, the 0.5–2 keV X-ray luminosities in the two redshift bins are $`5\times 10^{40}`$ and $`1.5\times 10^{41}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ respectively. These luminosities are intermediate to Milky Way type spirals ($`10^{40}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$; Warwick et al. 2002) and luminous starbursts like NGC 3256 ($`10^{42}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$; Moran, Lehnert & Helfand 1999).
* The estimated mean X-ray flux ($`f_X(0.52\mathrm{keV})=5.9\times 10^{16}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$) and luminosity ($`L_X(0.52\mathrm{keV})=5.0\times 10^{40}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$) of spectroscopically confirmed $`z<0.3`$ star-forming radio sources (see Table 1) are similar to those obtained for the all $`z<0.3`$ radio sources with spiral SEDs ($`f_X(0.52\mathrm{keV})=3.1\times 10^{16}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$; $`L_X(0.52\mathrm{keV})=4.8\times 10^{40}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$) . Hence, any contribution from AGNs/QSOs at least for the $`z=0.00.3`$ subsample is minimal.
* The mean X-ray and radio luminosities of the faint radio sources studied here are consistent with the $`L_XL_{1.4}`$ correlation of local star-forming galaxies. This is discussed in detail in the next section.

The evidence above suggest that the detected stacked X-ray signal is consistent with star-formation activity. However, despite our effort to minimise the AGN contamination we cannot exclude the possibility of a small fraction of low-luminosity or obscured AGNs within our radio selected sample.

## 8 Discussion

### 8.1 X-ray properties of the faint radio population

The sub-mJy and $`\mu `$Jy radio population is believed to comprise a large fraction of starburst galaxies out to $`z1`$ (Benn et al. 1993; Hopkins et al. 1998; Georgakakis et al. 1999; Chapman et al. 2003). The enhanced SFR in these systems results in increased radio emission due to both thermal emission and synchrotron radiation in supernovae remnants. Moreover, studies of local star-forming and spiral galaxies demonstrate that these systems are also powerful X-ray emitters (Fabbiano 1989; Read, Ponman & Strickland 1997; Dahlem, Weaver & Heckman 1998; Read & Ponman 2001) with luminosities that in some cases exceed $`10^{42}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (e.g. NGC 3265; Moran et al. 1999). The X-ray emission in these galaxies originates from a combination of evolved stellar point sources (X-ray binaries) and diffuse hot ($`T18\times 10^6`$ K) gas heated by supernovae shocks (Read, Ponman & Strickland 1997; Read & Ponman 2001). Since the physical processes giving rise to both the X-ray and the radio emission have the same origin, i.e. enhanced SFR, a correlation should be expected between the X-ray and radio luminosities of star-forming galaxies and sub-mJy radio sources.

Shapley, Fabbiano & Eskridge (2001) compiled a large sample of local spirals with X-ray data from the Einstein observatory and multiwavelength observations. They find a highly significant correlation between the X-ray and radio luminosities suggesting an association between X-ray emission and star-formation activity. However, although Shapley et al. (2001) exclude AGN dominated systems from the analysis, their sample may be contaminated by LLAGNs. Ranalli et al. (2003) used the atlas of optical nuclear spectra of Ho et al. (1997) to compile a carefully selected sample of nearby star-forming galaxies with available X-ray and radio data. The advantage of their sample is that the high quality nuclear spectra of Ho et al. (1997) provide reliable spectral classification of the central source (star-formation/AGN) thus, minimising the contamination from LLAGN. Moreover, use of ASCA and BeppoSAX X-ray data allow Ranalli et al. (2003) to extend their study of star-forming galaxies to hard X-rays (2–10 keV). These authors report a tight correlation between radio power (1.4 GHz) and X-ray luminosity in both the 0.5–2 and the 2–10 keV spectral bands.

Bauer et al. (2002) investigated the association between faint X-ray and radio source populations detected in the 1 Ms Chandra Deep Field North (CDF-N). They found that the majority of X-ray sources with narrow emission-line spectra also have $`\mu `$Jy radio counterparts and are likely to be dominated by star-formation activity. Also, for the star-forming galaxy subsample they find an $`L_XL_{1.4}`$ relation similar to that obtained by Shapley et al. (2001) for local non-AGN spirals. They argue that the evidence above suggests that the local $`L_XL_{1.4}`$ can be extended to intermediate and high redshifts and that the X-ray emission of narrow emission line X-ray sources is associated with star-formation activity.

Figure 3 plots 1.4 GHz radio power against 0.5–2 keV X-ray luminosity for both the Shapley et al. (2001) local spirals and the Bauer et al. (2002) distant sub-mJy radio sources with narrow emission line spectra. To transform the X-ray luminosities of the above samples to the 0.5–2 keV band used in the present study we assume a power-law model with a spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.0`$. At radio wavelengths a power-law spectral energy distribution of the form $`f_\nu \nu ^{0.8}`$ appropriate for star-forming galaxies is adopted to convert the 4.85 GHz radio flux density of Shapley et al. (2001) to 1.4 GHz. Also shown in Figure 3 are the stacking analysis results of the PDS sub-mJy radio sources in the $`z=0.00.3`$ and $`z=0.30.8`$ redshift bins. It is clear that there is excellent agreement between the mean X-ray and 1.4 GHz luminosities derived here and the $`L_XL_{1.4}`$ relation of Bauer et al. (2002) and Ranalli et al. (2003) for star-forming galaxies. This suggests that the present sample of sub-mJy radio sources to $`z0.5`$ is dominated by starburst rather than AGN activity. Indeed, AGN dominated systems as well as LLAGNs have X-ray–to–radio luminosity ratios elevated compared to those of star-forming galaxies (Brinkmann et al. 2000; Alexander et al. 2002; Ranalli et al. 2003).

To further investigate the nature of the faint radio sources we use their X-ray–to–optical luminosity ratios. Figure 4 plots the mean $`L_X/L_B`$ ratio of the present sample against redshift in comparison with optically selected ‘normal’ spirals. It is clear that faint radio sources have elevated $`L_X/L_B`$ ratios by a factor of 2–10 compared to optically selected spiral galaxy samples. This is partly due to the enhanced mean $`L_B`$ of the present sample in combination with the non-linear correlation between optical and X-ray luminosities $`L_XL_B^{1.5}`$ reported by Shapley et al. (2001). Accounting for the differences in the mean $`L_B`$ of radio and optically selected samples will decrease our $`L_X/L_B`$ estimates by about 0.2 in log space. The corrected $`L_X/L_B`$ ratios are still somewhat elevated compared to those of Georgakakis et al. (2003) and Hornschemeier et al. (2002a) samples. This may suggest elevated star-formation activity in the radio selected sample. Nevertheless, the apparent difference is not statistically significant. Indeed, within the errors the $`L_X/L_B`$ ratio is roughly constant with redshift suggesting that the $`L_X`$ of star-forming galaxies evolves with redshift in the same rate as $`L_B`$.

Moreover, the difference in the $`L_X/L_B`$ between low and high-$`z`$ radio selected sub-samples, although not very significant, may suggest enhanced galaxy activity with increasing redshift or radio power. Also shown in this Figure 4 are the $`L_X/L_B`$ ratios of individual CDF-N narrow-emission line radio sources with X-ray counterparts (Bauer et al. 2002). We use the $`I`$-band magnitudes given by Bauer et al. (2002) to estimate rest-frame $`B`$-band luminosity using the SED of Sbc type galaxies. There is good agreement between the $`L_X/L_B`$ of the CDF-N X-ray detected radio sources and our stacking analysis results.

Finally, the analysis above suggests that sub-mJy spiral galaxies have X-ray properties similar to those of X-ray detected narrow emission-line galaxies. Indeed, many of these sources also appear to reside in disc galaxies with blue optical colours and enhanced X-ray emission relative to the optical (McHardy et al. 1998), while their optical spectra and X-ray properties suggest a mix of star-forming galaxies and obscured AGNs. Therefore, sub-mJy galaxies and at least a fraction of the X-ray selected narrow emission-line galaxies are drawn from the same parent population. This is in agreement with Bauer et al. (2002) who find a large overlap between the faint X-ray and radio selected populations especially for the sources with narrow emission line spectra. They argue that these galaxies are most likely normal and starburst spirals in the redshift range $`z0.31.3`$.

### 8.2 X-ray emissivity of sub-mJy galaxies

The emissivity of galaxy samples selected at various wavelengths (UV, optical, radio) over a range of redshifts is one of the most powerful and widely used evolutionary tests (e.g. Lilly et al. 1996; Connolly et al. 1997).

The X-ray emissivity, $`j_X`$, of star-forming systems has been estimated locally by Georgantopoulos, Basilakos & Plionis (1999). They convolved the local optical luminosity function of the Ho et al. (1995) sample with the corresponding $`L_XL_B`$ relation based on Einstein data. The Ho et al. sample has the advantage of high S/N nuclear optical spectra and hence, reliable spectral classifications (Ho et al. 1997) necessary to study the properties of star-forming systems. Recently, Georgakakis et al. (2003) compiled a sample of ‘normal’ spirals from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and used stacking analysis to estimate their $`j_X`$ at $`z0.1`$. The Phoenix/XMM survey provides the opportunity to extend these results to higher redshifts, assuming that the present sample of sub-mJy sources is indeed dominated by star-formation activity.

For the $`j_X`$ determination, we first need to estimate the effective cosmological volume probed by the present radio selected sample corrected for optical and radio selection biases (e.g. $`R<21.5`$ mag, $`S_{1.4}>80\mu \mathrm{Jy}`$) using the standard $`1/V_{max}`$ formalism (e.g. Lilly et al. 1996; Mobasher et al. 1999). We also account for radio catalogue incompleteness due to (i) the varying sensitivity of the radio observations across the field (weighting correction) and (ii) extended low surface brightness radio sources with total flux density above the survey limit that can be missed by the detection algorithm (resolution correction). These biases as well as methods to correct for them are fully described by Hopkins et al. (1998). We note that the rms noise level of the radio observations is relatively uniform over the area of the Phoenix/XMM field and the resulting weighting correction is small. Finally in estimating $`j_X`$ we also assume that the sub-mJy radio sources have constant $`L_X/L_{1.4}`$ ratio as indicated in Figure 3.

We estimate soft-band 0.5–2 keV emissivities of $`(1.3\pm 0.3)\times 10^{38}`$ and $`(0.9\pm 0.1)\times 10^{38}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$ for the late-type sub-mJy radio sources in the redshift bins $`z=0.00.3`$ and $`z=0.30.8`$ respectively. We note that the $`j_X`$ estimate of the $`z=0.30.8`$ subsample is a lower limit. This is mainly due to the fraction of sub-mJy radio sources in the $`z=0.30.8`$ redshift range and optical magnitudes fainter than $`R=21.5`$. Future optical observations reaching fainter magnitude limits will help address this issue. Moreover, radio sources at a given redshift with radio luminosity fainter than the survey limit are missed in the $`j_X`$ calculation. We estimate the magnitude of this effect using the evolving radio luminosity function of Rowan-Robinson et al. (1993) that has been shown to reproduce the observed radio source counts below 1 mJy (Hopkins et al. 1998). We find this bias to be small for the $`z=0.00.3`$ redshift bin: correcting for the radio sources fainter than the survey limit increases $`j_X`$ by less than about 10 per cent. However, for the $`z=0.30.8`$ bin this effect is larger, $`30`$ per cent. For flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ cosmology ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$) the $`j_X`$ estimated here will decrease by $`10`$ and $`30`$ per cent for the $`z=0.00.3`$ and $`z=0.30.8`$ subsamples respectively

Figure 5 plots the X-ray emissivity of the sub-mJy radio sources against redshift in comparison with that of local star-forming galaxies (Georgantopoulos et al. 1999; scaled to the 0.5–2 keV band) and $`z0.1`$ 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey spirals (Georgakakis et al. 2003). It is clear that the $`j_X`$ in Figure 5 increases from the local Universe to $`z0.3`$, suggesting evolution. At higher redshifts, as already mentioned, the present study cannot further constrain the $`j_X`$ evolution, although with deeper optical observations of the Phoenix/XMM field this issue may be addressed. At redshifts $`z>0.3`$ we provide additional constraints on the X-ray evolution of star-forming galaxies using the sub-sample of narrow emission line radio sources with X-ray counterparts in the CDF-N presented by Bauer et al. (2002). These authors argue that the properties of these radio galaxies are consistent with star-formation activity dominating their X-ray emission. In the $`j_X`$ calculation we consider sources in the redshift range $`0.4<z<0.5`$ with $`S_{1.4}>50\mu \mathrm{Jy}`$ (i.e. the $`5\sigma `$ radio completeness limit) and $`f_X(0.58\mathrm{keV})>1\times 10^{16}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (X-ray detection limit). Only 4 sources in the Bauer et al. (2002) sample satisfy these criteria and therefore the estimated $`j_X`$ plotted in Figure 5 suffers from large uncertainties. Despite the small number statistics the $`j_X`$ of the CDF-N X-ray detected radio sources at $`z0.5`$ is elevated compared to both local spirals and $`z0.3`$ radio sources. The significance level of this result is low but it is interesting that to the first approximation the $`j_X`$ of X-ray detected radio sources is in broad agreement with the stacking analysis results presented here.

Under the assumption that the faint radio population is indeed dominated by star-formation activity, the observed increase in $`j_X`$ at least to $`z0.3`$ suggests an evolutionary rate of the form $`(1+z)^3`$ broadly consistent with the Peak-M models of Ghosh & White (2001). This set of models is also in agreement with the stacking analysis results of $`z0.5`$ spirals of Brandt et al. (2001b).

Assuming that the faint radio population is dominated by star-formation activity (as the present study indicates) the increase in $`j_X`$ with redshift is attributed to the evolution of the global star-formation rate. Using the empirical relation $`\mathrm{SFR}=2.2\times 10^{40}\times \mathrm{L}_\mathrm{X}(0.52\mathrm{keV})\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ (Ranalli et al. 2003) we estimate a SFR density of $`0.029\pm 0.007\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{yr}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$ for the $`z=0.00.3`$ redshift bin at a median redshift of 0.240 in good agreement with previous studies selecting star-forming galaxies at UV, optical or radio wavelengths. This is demonstrated in Figure 6, showing the SFR density as a function of redshift.

## 9 Conclusions

In this paper we apply stacking analysis to study the mean X-ray properties of sub-mJy radio galaxies using a 50 ks XMM-Newton pointing overlapping with a subregion of a deep and homogeneous radio survey reaching $`\mu `$Jy sensitivities (Phoenix Deep Survey). Multiwavelength UV, optical and NIR photometric data are available for this field allowing photometric redshifts and spectral types (i.e. ellipticals, spirals) to be estimated for all radio sources brighter than $`R=21.5`$ mag (total of 82).

The subsample of $`R<21.5`$ mag faint radio sources with spiral galaxy SEDs (total of 34, after excluding AGN dominated sources) is segregated into two redshift bins with a median of $`z=0.240`$ and 0.455 respectively. Stacking analysis is used to study the mean X-ray properties of the sources in each redshift subsample. In the 0.5–2 keV soft band a statistically significant signal is obtained for both the low and the high-$`z`$ subsamples. Stacking of the hard band counts yields a marginally significant signal ($`2.6\sigma `$) for the $`z=0.455`$ subsample only.

We argue that the AGN contamination of our sample is minimal on the basis of the following arguments:

1. Radio selection at $`\mu `$Jy flux densities has been shown to be efficient in finding actively star-forming systems to $`z1`$. Only $`1020`$ per cent of the faint radio population are believed to be AGNs.
2. Radio sources with optical counterparts exhibiting unresolved optical light profile, likely to be distant QSOs, have been identified and excluded from the sample.
3. Radio sources having X-ray counterparts with X-ray properties suggesting AGN activity have been excluded from the stacking analysis. Similarly, faint radio sources with optical spectral features (e.g. diagnostic emission line ratios, broad optical lines) typical of AGNs have also been excluded from the stacking sample.
4. The mean X-ray properties of spectroscopically confirmed star-forming radio sources at $`z<0.3`$ are similar to those obtained for the whole sample of $`z<0.3`$ radio sources with spiral galaxy SEDs.
5. The mean X-ray and radio luminosities of the faint radio sources studied here are consistent with the $`L_XL_{1.4}`$ correlation of local star-forming galaxies.
6. The mean X-ray luminosity and X-ray–to–optical flux ratio of the present faint radio sample are consistent with star-formation rather than AGN activity.

Although the evidence above suggests that the observed X-ray emission is dominated by star-formation activity we cannot exclude the possibility of contamination of the present sample by a small number of low-luminosity or heavily obscured AGN. Our main conclusions are summarised below:

* The mean $`L_X/L_B`$ ratio of the faint radio population studied here is elevated compared to optically selected spirals in the redshift range $`0<z<1`$. Differences in the $`L_B`$ distributions of the samples can partly compensate for this effect. Elevated star-formation activity in the radio selected sample may also be responsible for the increased $`L_X/L_B`$.
* There is some evidence of increasing $`L_X/L_B`$ with increasing redshift or $`L_{1.4}`$ for the sub-mJy galaxies. Although the uncertainties hamper a secure interpretation this may suggest that more energetic systems (in terms of X-ray–to–optical flux ratio) are also more powerful radio emitters.
* We find strong evidence for enhanced X-ray emissivity of sub-mJy sources to $`z0.3`$ compared to local H II galaxies and $`z0.1`$ spirals. This increase is consistent with X-ray evolution of the form $`(1+z)^3`$. If the present sample of faint radio sources to $`z0.3`$ is indeed dominated by star-formation then this is the first direct evidence for evolution of these systems at X-ray wavelengths. At $`z>0.3`$ incompleteness affects our results and the present data cannot be used to constrain the evolution in this regime.
* Using an empirical X-ray luminosity to SFR conversion factor we estimate a global SFR density of of $`0.029\pm 0.007\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{yr}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$ at $`z0.3`$. This is found to be in fair agreement with previous studies.

## 10 Acknowledgments

We thank the anonymous referee for constructive comments. This work is jointly funded by the European Union and the Greek Government in the framework of the programme “Promotion of Excellence in Technological Development and Research”, project “X-ray Astrophysics with ESA’s mission XMM”. AMH acknowledges support provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF-01140.01-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute. JA gratefully acknowledges the support from the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT, Portugal) through the fellowship BPD-5535-2001 and the research grant POCTI-FNU-43805-2001.


text:
# Xenon Clusters in Intense VUV Laser Fields

## Abstract

A simple model is developed that quantitatively describes intense interactions of a VUV laser pulse with a xenon cluster. We find good agreement with a recent experiment \[H. Wabnitz et al., Nature 420, 482 (2002)\]. In particular, the large number of VUV photons absorbed per atom—at intensities significantly below $`10^{16}`$ W/cm2—is now understood.

Little is known about laser–cluster interactions at UV or higher photon energies. The destructive impact of laser pulses with a peak intensity of almost $`10^{19}`$ W/cm2 at a wavelength of $`248`$ nm was demonstrated by McPherson et al. McTh94 . However, intense laser fields at even higher photon energies have not been accessible until very recently. In 2000, the first lasing—in a free-electron laser (FEL)—at $`\lambda =109`$ nm was reported AnAu00 . The FEL is part of the TESLA Test Facility (TTF) in Hamburg, Germany. One of the major objectives of the TTF is the development of the technology for an ultrabright x-ray laser MaTs01 . The new VUV laser source has already displayed its capability for exploring interesting physics: Motivated by the outstanding properties of the radiation generated by the TTF FEL, documented in Ref. AyBa02 , researchers in Hamburg exposed xenon atoms and clusters to the intense VUV laser pulses WaBi02 .

Each laser pulse had a duration of about $`100`$ fs and consisted of $`12.7`$-eV photons. The highest intensity in the experiment was about $`7\times 10^{13}`$ W/cm2 MoPr03 . Under these conditions, isolated Xe atoms are found to be only singly ionized. This observation is compatible with one-photon absorption, as the ionization threshold of Xe is $`12.1`$ eV BrVe01 . Multiphoton processes apparently are of no relevance. Clusters of $`1000`$ atoms or more, on the other hand, behave in a strikingly different way: They absorb at least $`30`$ VUV photons per atom. The clusters are completely destroyed, and ion charge states of up to $`8+`$ can be detected.

It is the purpose of this Letter to elucidate the physics underlying the experimental observations. We show that the high efficiency of VUV photon absorption in xenon clusters is due to inverse bremsstrahlung SeHa73 ; KrWa73 ; ShYa75  in combination with atomic-structure and plasma-screening effects. Nonlinear optical processes do not play a role.

Considering the relatively low intensity of the TTF FEL, the experimental findings are rather surprising. Producing similarly pronounced ionization and fragmentation phenomena in noble gas clusters using near-infrared lasers requires pulse intensities of $`10^{16}`$ W/cm2 or higher HuDi98 . Under these circumstances, the clusters are turned into microplasmas, and x-ray emission DiDo95  and highly energetic electrons ShDi96  and ions LeDo98  can be observed.

The high intensity at long wavelengths serves two purposes DiDo96 ; RoSc97 ; LaJo99 ; SiRo02 . On one hand, even though a noble gas atom cannot be ionized by single near-infrared photons, some of the valence electrons can tunnel through, or even escape over the potential barrier generated by the ionic core and the strong quasistatic electric field of the laser. On the other hand, the average kinetic energy, or ponderomotive potential, of an electron oscillating in the laser field can easily be of the order of $`1`$ keV. This energy can be released in collisional ionization, i.e., ($`e,2e`$) type reactions. Moreover, in energetic electron–ion collisions a substantial number of photons can be absorbed from the laser field. This heating mechanism is referred to as inverse bremsstrahlung (IBS).

At VUV photon energies, however, the ponderomotive potential is only on the order of $`10`$ meV. Indeed, numerical simulations and estimates in Ref. WaBi02 , which are based on methods developed in the context of low-frequency lasers DiDo96 ; LaJo99 , predict the absorption of only a few photons per atom. This differs from the experimental result by more than an order of magnitude.

The photoionization cross section of neutral Xe at $`\mathrm{}\omega =12.7`$ eV is roughly $`50`$ Mb Sams66 . Hence, a pulse with an intensity of $`10^{13}`$ W/cm2 ionizes all atoms in a cluster within $`10`$ fs. The resulting plasma bears some similarity to a metal: The plasma electrons can move freely, but because of the high atomic density there is a high probability for electron–ion and electron–electron collisions. Free electrons cannot absorb photons; neither can photons be absorbed in electron–electron collisions ShYa75 .

However, electron–ion collisions can extract energy from the laser field via IBS. Since we are considering relatively moderate intensities and rather short wavelengths, it is legitimate to treat this process perturbatively. Using second-order perturbation theory (first order in electron–ion and electron–photon coupling, respectively) and assuming a cluster of infinite spatial extension but constant atomic density, one can derive a quantum-mechanical formula for the heating rate per plasma electron. In our implementation of the IBS heating rate, we avoided making use of the classical limit $`\mathrm{}0`$, which is often taken in the weak-field case (see, for example, Ref. SeHa73 ), but which is inappropriate for VUV photons. We exploit, however, the fact that due to numerous collisions with ions and electrons all directionality imprinted on the plasma electrons by the linear polarization of the VUV laser field is lost and thermal equilibrium among the plasma electrons is maintained. Finally, the plasma electrons are assumed to form a nondegenerate gas, and at each point in time all electrons experience the same laser electric field. Taking the thermodynamic limit and simultaneously utilizing the electric-dipole approximation for the entire system is reasonable for a cluster with a radius of $`100`$ Å or so, comprising many thousands of atoms.

Let all atoms in the cluster be singly ionized (we treat the combined effect of photoionization and IBS later), and let the atomic density be that of liquid xenon. To a first approximation, the plasma electrons are scattered by point-like ions of charge $`+1`$. Additionally, the plasma electrons can screen the ionic field. Using a Debye-shielded Coulomb potential Stur94 , we calculated the number of VUV photons absorbed per atom via IBS, a plasma electron having an average initial kinetic energy of $`0.01`$ hartree. (Screening due to ions as well as ionic motion during the laser pulse are neglected throughout.) The result, as a function of time, is shown in Fig. 1. Our data are based on a Gaussian laser pulse, centered at $`t=0`$ with a FWHM of $`100`$ fs. The peak intensity is $`7.3\times 10^{13}`$ W/cm2. After the pulse is over, each plasma electron has absorbed only a single photon, which is clearly in disagreement with experiment, but analogous to the estimate quoted in Ref. WaBi02 .

The problem is the ionic scattering potential. In the dense plasma, the electrons experience more than just a simple Coulomb field. A more realistic treatment of the atomic potential is needed. We use the form

$$V_i(r)=\frac{1}{r}\left\{i+[Zi]\mathrm{exp}(\alpha _ir)\right\}\mathrm{exp}(r/\lambda _D),$$
(1)
where $`i`$ is the ionic charge state, $`Z=54`$ the nuclear charge, and $`\lambda _D`$ the Debye length. The parameter $`\alpha _i`$ controls the transition from the exterior of the ion to its interior, where a colliding electron experiences an effective charge higher than $`i`$. We adjust $`\alpha _1`$ in such a way that the binding energy of a $`5p`$ electron in the potential $`V_1(r)`$ (for $`\lambda _D\mathrm{}`$) equals the ionization potential of neutral Xe. That the resulting potential is useful for quantitative predictions can be illustrated by calculating the photoionization cross section: At $`12.7`$ eV, we find agreement with experiment to within $`10`$%. (Both the binding energy and the photoionization cross section are calculated by numerically diagonalizing the one-electron Hamiltonian based on $`V_1(r)`$.) If we now suppose that a plasma electron scattered by Xe+ experiences the same potential, $`V_1(r)`$, then the number of absorbed VUV photons per atom turns out to be about $`30`$. This is illustrated in Fig. 1. The mechanism of IBS is, thus, indeed capable of explaining the huge amount of VUV laser energy deposited in a large xenon cluster.

So far we have restricted ourselves to a preformed plasma interacting with a laser pulse. In order to arrive at a more complete picture, we need to follow the time evolution of photoionization and collisional heating. Since we anticipate plasma screening effects to lower the ionization thresholds, our treatment is not restricted to single photoionization. We formulate a set of coupled rate equations for the time-dependent probabilities $`n_i(t)`$ ($`i0`$) of finding Xei+ in the cluster:

$`\dot{n}_0(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma _1(t)j_{\mathrm{ph}}(t)n_0(t)`$
$`\dot{n}_1(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma _1(t)j_{\mathrm{ph}}(t)n_0(t)\sigma _2(t)j_{\mathrm{ph}}(t)n_1(t)`$
$`\mathrm{}`$
Here, $`j_{\mathrm{ph}}(t)`$ is the photon flux. These rate equations require knowledge of the photoionization cross sections $`\sigma _{i+1}(t)`$ of the Xei+ species embedded in the Debye plasma. Taking the double HaPe87 , triple MaBa87 , and quadruple GrDi83  ionization thresholds from the literature, we can determine, in addition and in analogy to $`\alpha _1`$, the parameters $`\alpha _2`$, $`\alpha _3`$, and $`\alpha _4`$ (see Eq. (1)). (In so doing, we imply that the various $`5p`$ levels have—at least approximately—the same energy.) With this information, the photoionization cross sections of Xe, Xe+, Xe++, and Xe3+ can be calculated as a function of time. Note that the Debye length in Eq. (1) is time-dependent, for it is a function of the temperature and density of the plasma electrons.

The rate equations governing the populations $`n_i(t)`$ are complemented by a rate equation that describes heating of the plasma electrons:

$$\dot{}_{\mathrm{kin}}(t)=\frac{3}{2}q(t)\dot{T}(t)+\underset{i}{}\epsilon _i(t)\sigma _i(t)j_{\mathrm{ph}}(t)n_{i1}(t),$$
(3)
where $`q(t)`$ is the average number of plasma electrons per atom, T(t) the electron temperature (in units of energy), and $`_{\mathrm{kin}}(t)=\frac{3}{2}q(t)T(t)`$. $`\epsilon _i(t)`$ denotes the kinetic energy of a photoelectron leaving Xei+ behind. Two contributions are taken into account in Eq. (3): the collisional heating rate due to IBS ($`\dot{T}(t)`$) and the kinetic energy of photoelectrons newly added to the plasma. This rate equation also depends on the neutral and ionic populations as well as the respective photoionization cross sections.

Starting with a cluster of neutral atoms in their ground state, we numerically integrate the entire set of coupled rate equations (Eqs. (Xenon Clusters in Intense VUV Laser Fields) and (3)). For laser pulse parameters identical to the ones employed for Fig. 1, the probabilities $`n_i(t)`$ shown in Fig. 2 are obtained. As expected, the neutral population is completely depleted after just $`10`$ fs or so. It is more interesting to observe that singly ionized xenon also vanishes on the same timescale. Due to plasma screening, the production of Xe++ becomes energetically accessible. Higher ionic charge states, however, cannot be generated by direct photoionization.

According to Fig. 2, all xenon atoms are doubly ionized before the laser pulse even reaches its maximum. Therefore, each atom contributes two electrons to the plasma, which results in enhanced energy absorption: Almost $`70`$ photons per atom are taken from the VUV laser field at a peak intensity of $`7.3\times 10^{13}`$ W/cm2, as can be seen in Fig. 3. Also shown in that figure are the corresponding data for lower laser intensities. Clearly, reduced intensities lead to a smaller number of plasma electrons and to less collisional heating. On the log–log scale of Fig. 3, the effect may appear to be dramatic. However, the relationship between the number of absorbed photons and the peak intensity of the laser pulse is really a linear one. The solid line in Fig. 3 represents a linear fit to the data.

There is no optical nonlinearity involved. In fact, our model of photoionization and IBS does not contain true multiphoton physics. Nevertheless, at high intensity, many photons are absorbed by each plasma electron. But this does not happen in a single step. Each plasma electron is scattered many times and can absorb only a single photon during a collision with an ion.

Up to this point, we have ignored collisional ionization. This effect can be incorporated a posteriori by noticing that electron–ion collisions facilitate a thermal equilibrium among the plasma electrons and the ions. Thus, the electron gas is cooled, and energy is transferred to the ions. In order to quantify this picture, the first eight ionization potentials of xenon are needed. To this end, we made use of the complete-active-space self-consistent-field code implemented in the ab initio package MOLPRO WeKn85 ; KnWe85  and of the effective core potential by LaJohn et al. JoCh87 . Our first four ionization potentials are in agreement with experiment BrVe01 ; HaPe87 ; MaBa87 ; GrDi83  at a level of a few percent. We assign a similar accuracy to our calculation of the energies required to turn a neutral xenon atom into even more highly charged ions: $`156`$ eV for Xe5+, $`220`$ eV for Xe6+, $`310`$ eV for Xe7+, and $`414`$ eV for Xe8+. (It is justified to use unscreened ionization potentials at the end of the laser pulse, in view of the fact that at high intensities the electron kinetic energies are rather high and at low intensities there are just a few electrons that could contribute to shielding.)

From the solution of our coupled rate equations, we determine the total laser energy stored in the electrons and ions. This energy is then redistributed assuming: a Boltzmann distribution for the ionic charge states; thermal kinetic energies for electrons and ions; the existence of a common temperature. A statistical weight is introduced for each ionic charge state by simply counting the number of ways the valence electrons can be distributed over the $`5p`$ spin orbitals (Xe, …, Xe5+; the $`5s`$ level being doubly occupied) or over the $`5s`$ spin orbitals (Xe6+, Xe7+). A single state is assigned to Xe8+. (Other electronic states of the Xei+ are neglected.) The ionic populations resulting from this procedure are plotted in Fig. 4, together with experimental data taken from Ref. WaBi02 . Considering the simplicity of our approach, it is amazing how well the experimental Xei+ populations for various laser intensities can be reproduced. We learn from Fig. 4 that the experimental signal, obtained after fragmentation of the clusters, basically reflects the thermal ionic distribution in the plasma.

In this Letter, we have demonstrated that some of the concepts familiar from low-frequency laser–cluster physics can be transferred to higher photon energies. However, this transfer requires a more detailed description of atoms in plasmas than previously anticipated. Similar care is therefore necessary when evaluating the potential of future x-ray lasers for imaging of single molecules NeWo00 . If not all physically relevant processes are taken into account, for example interatomic electron-correlation phenomena following core-hole relaxation SaCe03 , then the degree of damage caused in a large biomolecule, for instance, can be easily underestimated.

We believe that the theoretical description presented here provides insight into the nature of intense laser–cluster interactions at VUV wavelengths. Yet we anticipate that, in this new laser regime of higher photon energies, many more surprises are likely to emerge.

###### Acknowledgements.

R.S. gratefully acknowledges financial support by the Emmy Noether program of the German Research Foundation (DFG). This work was supported in part by the Department of Energy, Office of Science.