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# Magnetostrictive behaviour of thin superconducting disks

## I Introduction

During recent years top-seeded growth of bulk Y-Ba2Cu3O$`y`$ and (RE)-Ba2Cu3O$`y`$ (RE = rare earth elements) has developed enormously towards production of large single-grain superconductors with strong flux pinning . An impressive critical current density value of $`J_c=100`$ kA/cm2 at 77 K has now been obtained for bulk (Nd-Sm-Gd)-Ba2Cu3O$`y`$ with 10 mol% of Gd-211. Large-grain superconductors of this type can trap very high magnetic fields in the remanent state, exceeding the field from conventional permanent magnets by an order of magnitude and even more. Therefore, it is today strongly believed that the field-trapping ability of bulk superconductors is useful in many practical applications like magnetic separators, magnetron sputtering systems, motors etc.

A major problem of such bulks is that mechanical fracturing frequently occurs during the magnetic activation process. The strong flux pinning unavoidably leads to large body forces, which during descent of the applied field are tensile. Due to the irreversible nature of the flux dynamics, the resulting stress distribution becomes non-uniform, and can locally reach the tensile strength of the material so that fatal cracking takes place. A systematic study of this problem was first made by Ren et al. , who also made model calculations of the internal stress in a cylindrical superconductor during the field descent after field-cooling. Later the modelling of the magneto-elastic behaviour has been extended considerably by including various geometrical cases and magnetization conditions .

Common to all previous modelling work is that the superconductor is approximated as infinitely long in the direction of the applied field. Today, one sees that single-grain disks with diameters up to 6 cm are grown on routine basis, whereas low-gravity environment has allowed growth of even larger disks - up to 12.7 cm in diameter and 2 cm in thickness.. When the diameter becomes much larger than the thickness the infinitely long cylinder approximation is known to give a poor description of flux and current distributions. A better approximation can then be a very thin sample in perpendicular field, where exact analytical results for flux distribution are also available. They were used to calculate magnetostriction for thin long strips in Ref., but only for the virgin branch. In this work we use the thin disk solution, and find all the stresses and strains for the full magnetization cycle. We present here results of this model and discuss the relationship between the peak applied field and the overall maximum tensile stress occurring in the disk during pulsed field magnetic activation.

## II Magneto-Elastic Problem

Consider a thin superconducting circular disk of radius $`R`$ and thickness $`d`$, where $`dR`$. The superconductor is placed in a magnetic field, $`B_a`$, applied perpendicular to the disk plane, i.e., along the $`z`$-axis. When the local field at the edge exceeds the lower critical field, $`B_{c1}`$, the vortices start to penetrate into the disk. Due to strong demagnetization effects this happens already at $`B_a\sqrt{d/R}B_{c1}`$. The presence of pinning centers will cause the vortices to distribute non-uniformly over the disk volume. According to the critical state model the quasi-stationary flux distribution adjusts irreversibly so that the local current density never exceeds the critical magnitude $`J_c`$. In analyses of this behaviour a common simplification is to ignore the effects of a lower critical field, and also the presence of any reversible magnetization. Under these conditions analytical results for the field and current distributions have been derived for the thin disk geometry.

The force per unit volume acting on the vortices is given by the Lorentz force $`𝐟=𝐉\times 𝐁`$, where $`𝐉`$ and $`𝐁`$ are the local current and flux density, respectively. In quasi-static equilibrium this force is balanced by pinning forces, and hence, $`𝐟`$ also represents the distribution of body forces transmitted onto the crystal lattice in a given magnetized state. The symmetry of the disk geometry implies that the induced current has only an azimuthal component, and the force averaged over the disk thickness points in the radial direction, see Fig. 1.

For the thin disk one can therefore write

$$f(r)=J(r)B(r),$$
(1)
where $`J(r)`$ is the current density averaged over $`d`$, and $`B(r)B_z(z=0)`$ is the flux density in the disk’s center plane.

Exact analytical results for a thin disk in perpendicular field are available only for the Bean model, where $`J_c`$ is assumed field-independent. We adopt this model in the present analysis, and review here only the results needed for the calculations of the magneto-elastic behavior.

Starting with a flux free superconductor the application of a magnetic field, $`B_a`$, will cause penetration of flux into the disk up to the point $`r=a`$, where

$$a=\frac{R}{\mathrm{cosh}(B_a/B_d)}\mathrm{and}B_d=\mu _0J_cd/2.$$
(2)
In the annular vortex-filled region the flux density has the strongly non-linear profile given by

$$\frac{B(r)}{B_d}=\frac{B_a}{B_d}\mathrm{arccosh}(\mathrm{R}/\mathrm{r})+\frac{2}{\pi }_{\mathrm{arcsin}(\mathrm{a}/\mathrm{r})}^{\pi /2}\frac{1\theta \mathrm{cot}\theta }{\sqrt{1(\mathrm{r}/\mathrm{R})^2\mathrm{sin}\theta }}d\theta ,\mathrm{a}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{R}.$$
(3)
The central region $`ra`$ has $`B=0`$, as for the long cylinder.

The shielding current is for a thin disk distributed over the entire area according to

$$J(r)/J_c=\{\begin{array}{cc}1,\hfill & ar<R,\hfill \\ \frac{2}{\pi }\mathrm{arctan}\left(\frac{r}{R}\sqrt{\frac{R^2a^2}{a^2r^2}}\right),\hfill & ra.\hfill \end{array}$$
(4)
Note here that $`J`$ is not proportional to the flux density gradient $`dB/dr`$, thus preventing us from using the relation $`fdr=d(B^2)/2\mu _0`$, which is valid for a long cylinder. Figure 2 (top) shows graphs of the body force distribution, Eq.(1), during virgin magnetization of the disk. Since the current has a constant magnitude where the flux density is non-zero, the force profile has the same shape as the function $`B(r)`$.

When the applied field is reduced after reaching a maximum value $`B_a^{\mathrm{max}}`$, the disk undergoes remagnetization where the front is located at $`r=b`$, with

$$b=\frac{R}{\mathrm{cosh}\left[(B_a^{\mathrm{max}}B_a)/2B_d\right]}.$$
(5)
In the inner region, $`r<b`$, the flux density generated by the maximum field is unchanged, whereas in the outer annulus, $`br<R`$, considerable redistribution of flux is taking place. The current, on the other hand, becomes modified in the entire disk area. During field reduction the disk is therefore divided into three regions, each described by its own set of functions $`J(r)`$, $`B(r)`$ and thereby also $`f(r)`$. One has for:
Region I (outer); $`br<R`$;

$`{\displaystyle \frac{B(r)}{B_d}}={\displaystyle \frac{B_a}{B_d}}+\mathrm{arccosh}(\mathrm{R}/\mathrm{r})+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi }}\left[{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{arcsin}(\widehat{\mathrm{a}}/\mathrm{r})}^{\mathrm{arcsin}(\mathrm{b}/\mathrm{r})}}{\displaystyle \frac{1\theta \mathrm{cot}\theta }{\sqrt{1(\mathrm{r}/\mathrm{R})^2\mathrm{sin}\theta }}}d\theta {\displaystyle _{\mathrm{arcsin}(\mathrm{b}/\mathrm{r})}^{\pi /2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1\theta \mathrm{cot}\theta }{\sqrt{1(\mathrm{r}/\mathrm{R})^2\mathrm{sin}\theta }}}d\theta \right],`$ (6)
$`J(r)/J_c=1.`$ (7)
Region II (middle); $`\widehat{a}r<b`$;

$`{\displaystyle \frac{B(r)}{B_d}}={\displaystyle \frac{B_a^{\mathrm{max}}}{B_d}}\mathrm{arccosh}(\mathrm{R}/\mathrm{r})+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{arcsin}(\widehat{\mathrm{a}}/\mathrm{r})}^{\pi /2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1\theta \mathrm{cot}\theta }{\sqrt{1(\mathrm{r}/\mathrm{R})^2\mathrm{sin}\theta }}}d\theta ,`$ (8)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{J(r)}{J_c}}=1+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\pi }}\mathrm{arctan}\left({\displaystyle \frac{r}{R}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{R^2b^2}{b^2r^2}}}\right)`$ (9)
Region III (inner); $`r<\widehat{a}`$;

$`B(r)=0,`$ (10)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{J(r)}{J_c}}={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi }}\left[2\mathrm{arctan}\left({\displaystyle \frac{r}{R}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{R^2b^2}{b^2r^2}}}\right)\mathrm{arctan}\left({\displaystyle \frac{r}{R}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{R^2\widehat{a}^2}{\widehat{a}^2r^2}}}\right)\right]`$ (11)
Shown in Fig. 2 (bottom) are plots of $`f(r)`$ at various stages of field reduction. A cusped peak in the body force is seen to accompany the remagnetization front at $`r=b`$. After reversing the field sweep the outer part of the disk immediately starts to experience forces that will create tension. When the field has been reduced to zero considerable remanent body forces, a mixture of tensile and compressive forces, remain in the disk.

To determine the quantitative magnetostrictive behaviour a separate analysis of the thin disk elasticity problem is required. For simplicity, we assume that the superconductor is mechanically isotropic, and that the strains are well below the fracture limit allowing linear elasticity theory to be applicable. As mechanical boundary conditions for the disk we choose a free surface, i.e., the normal stresses, $`\sigma _r`$ and $`\sigma _z`$ vanish at the surfaces. Moreover, since the disk is thin one can assume that $`\sigma _z=0`$ throughout the volume, and that the deformation is described by only a radial displacement field, $`u(r)`$. The strain components are then

$$e_r=u^{}(r)\mathrm{and}e_\theta =u/r,$$
(12)
which are related to the non-vanishing stresses $`\sigma _r`$ and $`\sigma _\theta `$ by

$$Ee_r=\sigma _r\nu \sigma _\theta \mathrm{and}Ee_\theta =\sigma _\theta \nu \sigma _r.$$
(13)
Here $`E`$ and $`\nu `$ is the Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio, respectively. The condition of static equilibrium, see Fig. 1, is that

$$\sigma _r^{}(r)+\frac{\sigma _r\sigma _\theta }{r}+f=0,$$
(14)
which in terms of the displacement field is expressed as

$$u^{\prime \prime }+\frac{1}{r}u^{}\frac{1}{r^2}u+\frac{1\nu ^2}{E}f=0,$$
(15)
or

$$\frac{d}{dr}\left[\frac{1}{r}\frac{d(ur)}{dr}\right]=\frac{1\nu ^2}{E}f.$$
(16)
Integrating twice, and using that $`\sigma _r(r=R)=0`$, and $`u(0)=0`$, one obtains

$$u(r)=\frac{1\nu }{2E}r\left[\left(\frac{1\nu }{R^2}+\frac{1+\nu }{r^2}\right)_0^rr^2f𝑑r^{}+_r^R\left(1+\nu +\frac{1\nu }{R^2}r^2\right)f𝑑r^{}\right].$$
(17)
It immediately follows that the external dilatation $`\mathrm{\Delta }R=u(R)`$ is given by

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }R}{R}=\frac{1\nu }{E}\frac{1}{R^2}_0^Rr^2f𝑑r.$$
(18)
The internal strains can be expressed as

$`\begin{array}{c}e_r(r)\hfill \\ e_\theta (r)\hfill \end{array}={\displaystyle \frac{1\nu }{2E}}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{1\nu }{R^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1+\nu }{r^2}}\right){\displaystyle _0^r}r^2f𝑑r^{}+{\displaystyle _r^R}\left(1+\nu +{\displaystyle \frac{1\nu }{R^2}}r^2\right)f𝑑r^{}\right],`$ (21)
with the upper and lower sign corresponding to $`e_r`$ and $`e_\theta `$, respectively. Similarly, the radial stress and the hoop stress are given by

$`\begin{array}{c}\sigma _r(r)\hfill \\ \sigma _\theta (r)\hfill \end{array}={\displaystyle \frac{1\nu }{2}}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{R^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^2}}\right){\displaystyle _0^r}r^2f𝑑r^{}+{\displaystyle _r^R}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+\nu }{1\nu }}+{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{R^2}}\right)f𝑑r^{}\right].`$ (24)
The eqs.(17-24) are exact expressions from which the magneto-elastic response can be calculated once the force distribution $`f(r)`$ is known. One can see immediately that the two strains and the two stresses are equal in the center, i.e., $`e_r(0)=e_\theta (0)`$ and $`\sigma _r(0)=\sigma _\theta (0)`$, independent of the magnetized state. Notice also that the hoop stress at the rim of the disk is proportional to the dilatation, $`\sigma _\theta (R)=E\mathrm{\Delta }R/R`$, as it should according to Eq. (13) and the condition $`\sigma _r(R)=0`$.

## III Results and Discussion

### A Magnetostriction $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R`$

The irreversible behaviour of the magnetostriction, $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R`$, as a function of the applied field, $`B_a`$, is calculated from Eq. (18) using the expressions for $`J(r)`$ and $`B(r)`$ that were listed in the previous section. The result is shown in Fig. 3 (left), where hysteresis loops with three different maximum fields are plotted. The overall shape of the loops is quite similar to that found in the long cylinder case. When the maximum applied field becomes much higher than $`B_d`$ a large part of the loop is well represented by two straight lines forming a cross centered at $`B_a=0`$. Asymptotically, this linear behaviour is described by

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }R}{R}=\frac{1\nu }{E}J_cRB_d\left(\pm \frac{B_a}{3B_d}+7.5710^2\right).$$
(25)
Therefore, the width of large field ($`B_a^{\mathrm{max}}B_d`$) hysteresis loop rapidly approaches

$$(\mathrm{\Delta }R/R)_{}(\mathrm{\Delta }R/R)_{}=2\frac{1\nu }{E}J_cRB_a.$$
(26)
Interestingly, the same simple relation holds also for the long cylinder when $`B_a^{\mathrm{max}}>2B_p`$, where $`B_p=\mu _0J_cR`$ is the full penetration field. The virgin branches of the loops are not included in Fig. 3 since on the chosen scale they are barely resolved.

The corresponding result for thin long strips is given by Eqs. 16-17 of Ref.. For large $`B_a^{\mathrm{max}}`$ it reduces to our Eq. (26), except that the factor $`1\nu `$ is missing. This factor should appear when the stress from the currents on the far edges of the strip is taken into account, as also discussed in Ref..

Dilatation loops found experimentally can deviate from the shown Fig. 3 (left) due to a field dependence of the critical current. If this dependence is rather strong, the loops will narrow down for large fields, as shown in Fig. 3 (right). These curves were calculated assuming an exponential dependence of the critical current, $`J_c(B)=J_c(0)\mathrm{exp}(|B|/2B_d)`$. Flux and current distributions cannot be written down explicitly in case of field-dependent $`J_c`$, however they can be found numerically by solving a set of integral equations given in Ref. . It allows calculation of magnetization loops, as explained in Ref. , where $`M`$ decreases with $`B`$ at large fields in accordance with chosen $`J_c(B)`$ dependence. A similar procedure was used to calculate the dilatation loops of Fig. 3 (right).

### B Stress Distributions

As the applied field increases, the body force points towards the disk centre, leading to stresses that everywhere are compressive (negative). During the ramp up of the field the compressive stress grows monotonically, and always with a spatial distribution where the central unpenetrated region experiences the largest compression. Since these stress values are normally much lower than the compressive strength of the superconductor, we focus here instead on the descending field stage of the magnetic activation process.

As an example, let us consider the case where the maximum applied field has the value $`B_a^{\mathrm{max}}=4B_d`$. When $`B_a`$ starts to decrease, the stress distribution becomes more complex since the body force turns expansive in the outer remagnetized region. The Fig. 4 illustrates how the stresses develop during the field descent. Very soon a peak of tensile (positive) stress appears near the remagntization front, and the peak value grows in height. At an intermediate field the peak tension reaches an overall maximum, which for the radial stress amounts to 0.8$`\sigma _0`$, where $`\sigma _0=B_dJ_cR`$. The maximum hoop stress is slightly smaller. It is during this part of the field descent the disk is most likely to crack, namely the first time the material encounters a stress equal to the tensile strength.

Shown in Fig. 5 is the time evolution of the stresses during one full cycle of the applied field. The curves show the maximum tension occurring in the disk. The parts given zero value correspond to the stages where the stress is everywhere compressive. It becomes evident that the most ’dangerous’ stage of the process is slightly after midway between the maximum field and the remanent state. The tension in the remanent state is roughly twice smaller than the overall maximum value, which we denote as $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{supermax}}`$. The next Figure shows how this $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{supermax}}`$ depends on the maximum applied field in the cycle. The dependence is essentially parabolic, and is well fitted by a simple formula,

$$\frac{\sigma ^{\mathrm{supermax}}}{B_dJ_cR}=0.063\frac{B_a^{\mathrm{max}}}{B_d}+0.035\left(\frac{B_a^{\mathrm{max}}}{B_d}\right)^2$$
(27)
By substituting the following realistic numbers for disk parameters; $`J_c=10`$ kA/cm2, $`d=2`$ cm, $`R=3`$ cm, one obtains dimensional values for the peak tension versus the maximal applied field as shown in the top and right axes of Fig. 6. This graph represents the essence of the present work, and may hopefully serve as a useful guide in practical situations. E.g. it follows that for a disk with tensile strength of 20 MPa, one has to apply a field less than 18 T to avoid cracking during the pulsed-field activation.

The results presented here are obtained in the limit of thin disk in perpendicular field. Combined with the previous results for a long cyliner, they give two extreme cases between which all real samples fall into. Unfortunately, the analytical treatment for samples with finite thickness is not possible, and numerical results are not available. Therefore, we may only hope that the key quantities, like magnetostriction and maximal tensile stress, show a smooth interpolation behavior between the two extreme cases. Additional reason for this hope is a very smooth interpolation behavior for magnetization and the penetration field that have already been calculated numerically for arbitrary thickness. For example, the normalized $`M(H)`$ curves for all thickness/radius ratios differ by not more than 3% from some average $`M(H)`$. It should be mentioned that our magnetostriction plots for long cylinder and thin disk, Fig. 3, also show a remarkable similarity.

In conclusion, we solve the magneto-elastic problem and find stress, strain and magnetostriction in a thin disk superconductor for the full cycle of applied field. The maximum tensile stress occurs approximately midway between the maximum field and the remanent state, see Fig. 5, and has quasi-parabolic dependence on the peak field, see Eq. (27). Qualitative behavior of the stress and strain components, and the normalized magnetostriction loop is similar to the case of long cylinder.

### C Acknowledgements

The work was financially supported by the Norwegian Research Council and NorFa.


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# A Relativistic Disk in Sagittarius A*

## 1 Introduction

The compact radio source, Sgr A\*, at the dynamical center of our Milky Way Galaxy, is believed to be associated with a supermassive black hole (Melia & Falcke 2001). Evidence in support of this is quite compelling, especially with the detection of a 3 hour X-ray flare (Baganoff et al. 2001) from the direction of Sgr A\* and the recent monitoring of a star orbiting within light-days of the black hole, which points to a central mass of $`3.7\pm 1.5\times 10^6M_{}`$ (Schödel et al 2002), consistent with an earlier measurements of $`2.6\times 10^6M_{}`$ (Eckart & Genzel 1996; Ghez et al. 1998).

The nature of Sgr A\* thus bears critically on our understanding of black-hole physics. Several mechanisms have been proposed over the past decade to explain its broad band spectrum and polarization, among them Bondi-Hoyle accretion (Melia 1992); a two-temperature, viscous disk (Narayan, Yi & Mahadevan 1995); a relativistic nozzle (Falcke & Markoff 2000) and a recent combination of advection-dominated disk with a nozzle (Yuan, Markoff & Falcke 2002). Over the past decade or so, our group has adopted a theoretically-motivated phenomenological approach (Melia, Liu & Coker 2000, 2001), in which the observations play a crucial role in constraining the theoretical picture.

The detection and confirmation of a mm/Sub-mm bump in Sgr A\*’s spectrum suggests an emission component different from that responsible for the cm radio emission (Zylka, Mezger & Lesch 1992; Falcke et al. 1998). This emission component is also implied by Sgr A\*’s variability. Radio observations show that Sgr A\*’s fluctuation amplitude increases toward high frequency (Zhao & Goss 1993) and there is a spectral break at 3 mm during radio flares (Zhao et al. 2003). Since high-frequency radio emission is produced by relatively more energetic particles, located deeper in the gravitational well of the black hole (Melia, Jokipii & Narayanan 1992), the mm/Sub-mm emitting gas should be very close to the black hole’s event horizon.

The detection of linear polarization in this spectral bump enhances this inference further and sets severe constraints on possible explanations for this component (Aitken et al. 2000). No significant linear polarization has yet been detected at frequencies lower than $`112`$ GHz, though relatively strong circular polarization persists in the cm band (Bower et al. 2002). The flip of the position angle of the polarization vector by about $`90^{}`$ between $`230`$ GHz and $`350`$ GHz favors a scenario where the mm/Sub-mm emission is produced within a small, optically thin, magnetized accretion disk (Melia et al. 2000). No other model so far can explain this linear polarization characteristic (In the empirical model of Agol (2000), the frequency where the position angle flips by $`90^{}`$ is much lower than the frequency corresponding to the spectral peak of the flux density, which is not in line with the observations).

The existence of a small disk is also motivated theoretically. Earlier hydrodynamical simulations suggested that black-hole accretion from stellar winds, as is the case for Sgr A\*, is characterized by a small angular momentum of the captured gas (Coker & Melia 1997). This accreted angular momentum is too small for the gas to settle onto a large disk, as required by the ADAF model (Narayan et al. 1995). The captured angular momentum is instead barely sufficient to circularize the gas just before it falls across the black hole’s event horizon. Detailed MHD simulations have provided an indication of the structure for such a disk (Hawley & Balbus 2002). The fact that the Magneto-Rotational Instability (Balbus & Hawley 1991) can induce a MHD dynamo in the disk provides a straightforward explanation for the mm/Sub-mm bump as the result of synchrotron process. The magnetic field also provides an anomalous viscosity and, given its strength, couples the electrons and ions via reconnection, so that a single temperature fluid is maintained (Melia et al. 2001).

X-ray observations of Sgr A\* have provided additional means of learning about its nature. It turns out that Sgr A\* is an extremely weak X-ray source with a quiescent X-ray luminosity of $`2.2_{0.3}^{+0.4}\times 10^{33}`$ erg s-1 (Baganoff et al. 2001). Interestingly, electrons responsible for the mm/Sub-mm emission also Comptonize the radio photons into the X-ray band. It is notable that the physical conditions required to produce the mm/Sub-mm spectrum can also account for Sgr A\*’s quiescent X-ray emission.

Chandra also detected a strong X-ray flare from the direction of Sgr A\*. The flare lasted about 3 hours and featured a variation on a 10 minute time scale, suggesting an emission region no bigger than $`20r_S`$, where $`r_S=7.7\times 10^{11}`$ cm is the Schwarzschild radius for the $`2.6\times 10^6M_{}`$ supermassive black hole associated with Sgr A\*. The peak flux density for this flare is 50 times higher than that in the quiescent state. Recent X-ray observations have shown that this type of X-ray flare is common to Sgr A\*, occurring about once per day (Baganoff et al. 2003; Goldwurm et al. 2003).

The fact that the flares are very strong, are variable on a 10 minute time scale and have a flat spectrum, pose telling theoretical challenges which, at the same time, also create a valuable opportunity for constraining the physical conditions near the black hole’s event horizon. Our study has shown that an enhancement of the mass accretion rate through the disk can not only account for these flares, but can also induce strong Sub-mm/Far-IR flares that should occur simultaneously with the X-ray flares (Liu & Melia 2002a). Recent observations of Sgr A\*’s mm/Sub-mm variability has indicated that the Sub-mm spectral index increases significantly during radio flares (Zhao et al. 2003), consistent with our prediction. However, radio flares usually last for several days, which is much longer than the duration of an X-ray flare, suggesting more complicated physical processes. Nevertheless, the nondetection of an IR flare (Hornstein et al. 2002) seems to favor this model, where X-ray flares are produced via thermal bremsstrahlung processes, over the nozzle model, in which synchrotron self-Comptonization is introduced to account for the X-ray flare emission (Markoff et al. 2001).

Moreover, the low quiescent X-ray flux also delimits hot gas content around Sgr A\*. When this constraint is combined with the flat radio spectrum, one can show that the cm radio emission from Sgr A\* cannot be produced by a bounded, thermal synchrotron source (Liu & Melia 2001). One possibility is that the radio emission is produced via nonthermal synchrotron processes in the region where the large scale quasi-spherical inflow circularizes to form the small accretion disk responsible for the mm/Sub-mm and X-ray emission. Energetic, nonthermal electrons can in principle be produced by the dissipation of kinetic energy associated with the radial motion of the infalling gas in shocks or magnetic reconnection. Assuming that a fixed fraction of particles is accelerated in this way, one can obtain a good fit to the radio spectrum. The circular polarization properties may then be associated with the turbulent nature of the gas in this region (see, e.g., Beckert & Falcke 2002; Ruszkowski & Begelman 2002).

On the other hand, a 106 day period in Sgr A\* radio variability recently reported by Zhao et al. (2001) appears to be associated with the precession of a small hot disk under the influence of a spinning black hole (Liu & Melia 2002b). The physical characteristics of the disk indicate that it will precess as a rigid-body. However, for the disk to survive longer than the observed period, the net angular momentum flux through the disk must be extremely small, which requires that the inward angular momentum flux associated with the accreting gas must be cancelled almost completely by the outward angular momentum induced by torque associated with the magnetic stresses. A nonzero torque at the inner edge of an accretion disk has been discussed extensively (Krolik 1999; Gammie 1999; Agol & Krolik 2000) during the past few years. Recent MHD simulations have also confirmed several of these theoretical speculations (Hawley & Balbus 2002). Should this picture be correct, it should be noted that a small black hole spin of $`0.1`$ $`M`$, where $`M`$ is the mass of the black hole, would be favored if the nonthermal portion of Sgr A\*’s spectrum is instead powered by energy extracted from the black hole via a Blandford-Znajek type of process. The precession period then requires that the disk has an outer radius of $`30r_S`$, consistent with the general picture described above. The power extracted from the black hole also heats up the gas near the event horizon and unbinds it. The ensuing wind is not unlike the relativistic jets observed in AGNs. Further exploration of this idea may eventually reveal a more refined view of the processes hidden in the central engine of these sources.

## 2 A Relativistic Disk Model for the mm/Sub-mm Emission from Sgr A\*

The model of a hot, magnetized, small accretion disk in Sgr A\* has been developed fully in the paper by Melia et al. (2001) where, prior to the availability of all the observational constraints described above, the inner boundary condition was chosen to have zero torque. In this instance, the temperature at the outer boundary of the Keplerian region is the primary free parameter. The disk structure is determined once one specifies the inner ($`r_i`$) and outer ($`r_o`$) radii, the magnetic ($`\beta _p`$) and viscous ($`\beta _\nu `$) parameters, the mass accretion rate $`\dot{M}`$ and the inclination angle of the disk. The best fit to the mm/Sub-mm polarization and spectral data is shown in Figure 2 (Melia et al. 2000). Note that here a negative percentage means that the position angle of the polarization vector is parallel to the angular momentum vector of the disk, while positive polarization means that the polarization vector flips by $`90^{}`$ with respect to negative polarization. The frequency at which the polarization vector flips is $`3.3\times 10^{11}`$ Hz, which is higher than the peak frequency of the flux density, $`2.1\times 10^{11}`$ Hz. This is a unique feature of our relativistic disk model, that is apparently not yet matched by alternative scenarios (cf. Agol 2002).

It is straightforward to understand these polarization characteristics. At mm wavelengths, the red shift side of the disk becomes optically thin first. At this point, the emission is mostly from the front and back of the black hole, where it is polarized in the direction parallel to the disk’s spin axis due to the influence of the very strong toroidal field within the disk. At Sub-mm frequencies, even the gas to the front and back of the black hole becomes optically thin, and the emission from the blue shifted side of the disk dominates; the polarization vector thus flips by $`90^{}`$. Faraday rotation by the intervening plasma will make the observed flip of the polarization vector different from $`90^{}`$, which can reconcile the slight difference between the theoretical prediction and the observational results. Due to the relatively poor angular resolution of JCMT ($`22\mathrm{"}`$ at 220 GHz), the corresponding error bars are quite big, as can be seen from Figure 2 (Aitken et al. 2000). However, the detection of strong linear polarization is quite obvious. Recent high resolution ($`3.6\mathrm{"}\times 0.9\mathrm{"}`$) BIMA observations have confirmed strong linear polarization at $`220`$ GHz (Bower et al. 2003), adding some confidence to the model.

## 3 X-ray Emission from the Relativistic Disk

Chandra observations indicate that quiescent X-ray emission from Sgr A\* is very weak and soft, with an X-ray luminosity $`2.2_{0.3}^{+0.4}\times 10^{33}`$ erg s-1 and a spectral index $`1.5_{0.7}^{+0.8}`$, which is not consistent with an ADAF (Baganoff et al. 2001). Given the fact that the plasma is so hot in the disk that electrons are relativistic (Melia et al. 2001), one is motivated to investigate the effects of synchrotron self-Comptonization (SSC) in this medium. Radio variability observations and recent theoretical developments (e.g., Liu & Melia 2002b) favor a nonzero stress at the inner edge of the accretion disk. We will henceforth adopt a zero angular momentum flux condition. The radial velocity of the accretion flow is then $`v_r=\beta _\nu \beta _pR_gT/\mu r\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The other equations derived in Melia et al. (2001) are still applicable and we won’t reproduce them here. In Figure 2, we provide the best fit to Sgr A\*’s broadband spectrum. SSC evidently accounts for Sgr A\*’s quiescent X-ray spectrum very well.

However, Sgr A\*’s X-ray emission during a flare is much more complicated than that during quiescence. Although the short variation time scale of 10 minutes is consistent with the flare being induced by an accretion process in the disk, the fact that the X-ray flux density can increase by a factor of $`50`$ suggests dramatic changes in the disk’s structure. Moreover, the hardening of the X-ray spectral index also rules out SSC as the dominant X-ray emitting mechanism during the flare (Liu & Melia 2002a). We note that the hot disk described here is not stable when the mass accretion rate is large. When $`\dot{M}`$ increases, bremsstrahlung cooling becomes more and more important and can be the dominant cooling mechanism. The X-ray flare may in fact be associated with enhanced thermal bremsstrahlung emission.

Figure 3 depicts such a scenario. Here the disk has an outer radius of $`9r_S`$ and we assume that the enhancement of accretion through it can suppress the MHD dynamo. A justification for this is that cooling becomes more efficient with increasing $`\dot{M}`$, and this decreases the gas temperature. We infer that $`\beta _p`$ is thus anti-correlated with $`\dot{M}`$. During the X-ray flare, the gas density can be as high as $`10^{10}`$ cm-3 and the magnetic field reaches $`100`$ Gauss. The corresponding synchrotron cooling time is a few hours, consistent with the general picture outlined above (Petrosian 1985). Recent multi-wavelength observations have indicated that there is no obvious flux change at 3 mm during the X-ray flare (Baganoff et al. 2003). According to our model, the disk is optically thick at 3 mm, so the flux density is not expected to change significantly (see Figure 3).

## 4 The Nature of Radio Emission from Sgr A\*

In Figure 2 we showed a fit to the cm emission from Sgr A\* under the assumption that this radiation is produced via nonthermal synchrotron processes in the circularization zone (the model details can be found in Liu & Melia 2001). The distribution of nonthermal particles is given by $`N(E,r)=1.7\times 10^{11}E^{3.4}n(r),`$ where $`E`$ is the electron energy, and $`n(r)`$ is the electron density at radius $`r`$. Although magnetic reconnection at smaller radii of the disk can also induce particle acceleration (adding to the contribution made by the nonthermal particles in the circularization zone), the fact that the gas temperature is as high as $`10`$ Mev there appears to make the thermal process dominant. Nevertheless, a complete treatment of this problem incorporating particle acceleration via magnetic reconnection is warranted.

We can understand the nonthermal nature of cm radio emission using the following argument. Because quiescent X-ray emission from Sgr A\* is weak (see Figure 2), we can constrain the hot gas content in Sgr A\* via its bremsstrahlung emissivity. If we assume that the gas is bounded, the gas temperature must be lower than its virial value. Combining these two upper limits, one can show that to produce the $`1.36`$ GHz flux from Sgr A\* the magnetic field energy density must be more than ten times bigger than the thermal energy density of the hot gas. Such a configuration is not physical if the magnetic field is intrinsic to the hot gas. Of course, it is also possible that the radio emission is produced by some unbounded plasma, as proposed in the jet model by Markoff and Falcke (2000). Then the origin of the jet becomes the large unknown in the model.

Considering the fact that the disk surface is roughly a constant, we have $`P=\pi r_o^{5/2}r_i^{1/2}[1(r_i/r_o)^{5/2}]/5aM[1(r_i/r_o)^{1/2}].`$ Setting P=106 days, we have $`a/M=0.088(r_i/3r_S)^{1/2}(r_o/30r_S)^{5/2}\{0.69[1(r_i/r_o)^{5/2}]/[1(r_i/r_o)^{1/2}]\}.`$ The precession of a larger structure would require a bigger black hole spin. We note that power extracted via a Blandford-Znajek type of process (Blandford & Znajek 1977) is then given by: $`L1.1\times 10^{34}(B/29\mathrm{G}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{u}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{s})^2(a/0.088M)^2(M/2.6\times 10^6M_{})^2\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1,`$ which is very close to Sgr A\*’s radio luminosity. If this extracted power is responsible for radio emission from Sgr A\*, then the structure of Sgr A\* should be like that depicted in Figure 4.

We thus have the following picture for Sgr A\*. Stellar winds in and around the Galactic center may be captured by the supermassive black hole. The small angular momentum of the captured gas leads to the formation of a small hot accretion disk near the event horizon. Mm/Sub-mm to X-ray emission is mostly produced within the small disk. Before the hot plasma falls into the black hole, however, a certain fraction of the gas is accelerated (nonthermally), either via energy extracted from a spinning black hole, or by energy liberated below the marginal stable orbit. These energetic particles then diffuse to larger radii. The flat radio spectrum is produced by these particles. The precession of the disk around the spin of the black hole can lead to a corresponding modulation of the outflow perceived in projection as well, inducing a periodic variation of the radio flux density.

## 5 Conclusions

Our study has shown that a hot, magnetized, relativistic accretion disk plays an essential role in revealing the nature of Sgr A\*. Future observations of this source at $`690`$ GHz (private communication with J. H. Zhao), combined with current X-ray observations, will help us to understand the interaction between the disk and the black hole, which is believed to be a key element of all AGNs. A comprehensive investigation of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center may eventually help us to unravel the mysterious inner workings of the most powerful engines at the nuclei of active galaxies.

## 6 acknowledgement

S. Liu thanks the organizing committee of the 2002 GC conference for financial assistance. This research was supported by NASA grants NAG5-8239 and NAG5-9205 at Arizona, and by the Center for Space Science and Astrophysics at Stanford.


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# Bell inequalities and incompatible measurements

## 1 introduction

The first part of this paper, section 2, addresses the violation of Bell inequalities, and shows that a classical contextual way of thinking about the experiments is quite possible.

The second part, section 3, shows that more generally than for experiments that violate Bell inequalities, the incompatibility of measurements is a result of a classically remarkable construction: even if an empirically adequate classical noncontextual model of a measured system is not possible, we nonetheless describe the measured system and a number of measurement systems separately, using a quantum state and operators on a Hilbert space to represent them.

Section 3 also argues that the idea of “incompatible measurements” depends on a counterfactual relocation of measurements that are in fact compatible.

## 2 Bell inequalities

The data that comes from an experiment that violates Bell inequalities can be summarized in a table with four columns, two for each arm of the experiment, “$`A`$” and “$`a`$” for one arm and “$`B`$” and “$`b`$” for the other arm (see table 1). Each $`A`$ is an actual measurement result, and each $`a`$ is an actual measurement setting, and similarly for $`B`$ and $`b`$. From these experimental results we can construct statistics, but we’ll do the usual thing of assuming that we’ve taken so many measurements that the statistics can be thought of in an idealized way as probabilities. The experimental data can be summarized as a classical probability distribution $`p(A,a,B,b)`$.

A little closer to experiment would be two tables of data, “$`A`$”, “$`a`$”, and “$`t_A`$” for one arm (where $`t_A`$ is the time at which we observe $`A`$ and $`a`$) and “$`B`$”, “$`b`$”, and “$`t_B`$” for the other arm (see table 1). To construct a table with just $`A,a,B,`$ and $`b`$, we look for times $`t_A`$ and $`t_B`$ that match within some tolerance, and put the corresponding values of $`A,a,B,`$ and $`b`$ into our summary table.

To keep things simple, we’ll have to idealize again: $`a`$ can take one of only two values, $`a_1`$ or $`a_2`$; and $`b`$ can take one of only two values, $`b_1`$ or $`b_2`$. From the table of $`A`$, $`a`$, $`B`$, and $`b`$, which is a completely classical description of the experimental results, we can select data that corresponds to each of four possible cases, $`(a=a_1,b=b_1)`$, $`(a=a_1,b=b_2)`$, $`(a=a_2,b=b_1)`$, and $`(a=a_2,b=b_2)`$, giving us four tables of actual data (see table 2), which in an idealized description can be represented by four probability distributions, $`p(A_1,B_1)`$, $`p(A_1,B_2)`$, $`p(A_2,B_1)`$, and $`p(A_2,B_2)`$.

Now it’s a simple fact that we can’t always construct a probability distribution $`p(A_1,A_2,B_1,B_2)`$ that has $`p(A_1,B_1)`$, $`p(A_1,B_2)`$, $`p(A_2,B_1)`$, and $`p(A_2,B_2)`$ as marginal probability distributions, when these have been constructed by selection from our table of values of $`A`$, $`a`$, $`B`$, and $`b`$. This is often held to make a classical description of the world impossible.

More careful accounts don’t say that. Here, it’s obvious that we’ve got a perfectly good classical description, $`p(A,a,B,b)`$, and the fact that we can’t describe everything using a probability distribution like $`p(A_1,A_2,B_1,B_2)`$ may be awkward, but it’s not impossible. The technical difference between these two probability distributions is that $`p(A_1,A_2,B_1,B_2)`$ is a “non-contextual” description, whereas $`p(A,a,B,b)`$ is a “contextual” description, because by including “$`a`$” and “$`b`$” we include information about the measurement apparatus. Modern Physics usually insists that a contextual description is not OK, but all we have to do to let us think classically is to make sure that any description of a Bell experiment is constructed to have $`p(A,a,B,b)`$ as a marginal probability distribution, not $`p(A_1,A_2,B_1,B_2)`$ (which cannot be empirically adequate). In other words, we have to remember that the experimental apparatus will often have to be part of the model. This shouldn’t worry us, because classical physics always took the view that we ignore the experimental apparatus if we can, but if it isn’t good enough to do that then we *do* also have to model the experimental apparatus.

What about *nonlocality*? Despite everything that’s been written about nonlocality, it’s largely irrelevant: it’s contextuality that’s the main issue. It’s an experimental fact so far that we can’t send messages faster than light: $`p(A,a,B,b)`$, in particular, is part of that experimental fact (satisfying $`p(A|a,b)=p(A|a)`$ and $`p(B|a,b)=p(B|b)`$, which together ensure the necessary statistical independence). A classical description of the world doesn’t have to send messages faster than light, and mustn’t allow messages to be sent faster than light, in models of existing experiments.

Nonetheless, there is a classical point of view from which the experimental data $`p(A,a,B,b)`$ does look strange. If we think there are classical *particles*, for which there is an essentially unavoidable idea that they are separate from one another, we will tend to get ourselves into the difficulties that are usually associated with Bell inequalities (although there are what may be called exotic loopholes). If we instead think in terms of classical *fields*, and make sure there is no idea of separable particles, we won’t get ourselves in those difficulties (in particular, see “The derivation of Bell inequalities for beables”). A classical theory will have to be a classical statistical theory, and for a classical statistical theory to be good enough, it will have to be a classical statistical field theory, just as for a quantum theory to be good enough it has to be a quantum field theory. Quantum theory has a great advantage here, because there are many interesting experiments where a quantum field theory model can be reduced quite effectively to a model that uses two or three quantum particles, or even a finite dimensional Hilbert space, whereas for the same situation a classical statistical field theory model can’t be reduced to as simple a model in terms of classical particles — wave dynamics and interactions with measurement devices remain important.

## 3 Incompatible measurements

Two assumptions are generally made in physical experiments. Firstly, successive runs of an experimental apparatus are separated by sufficient time for the results to be statistically independent. Secondly, if several apparatuses are used, they are separated by sufficient distance for the results to be statistically independent. It is generally held to be a requirement of any physical theory that the second assumption is satisfiable, which is codified for quantum field theory as the cluster decomposition principle. The first assumption has been taken to be problematic in the foundations of classical statistical mechanics, where it has been an aim to discover conditions on which it can be proved that an ensemble of a single system considered at different times is equivalent to an ensemble of many systems in different places. In practice, we seek to ensure that a number of runs of a single experimental apparatus are empirically equivalent to having available to us a large number of experimental apparatuses at quite large space-like separations from each other.

Assume here, therefore, that we carry out an experiment using a set of experimental apparatuses at quite large space-like separations from each other. The measurements we make of these experimental apparatuses can be tabulated (just as we tabulated the results of an experiment that violates Bell inequalities in section 2), and we can again select results from the table conditional on the measurement settings to give many tables, which we take to be represented in quantum theory by noncommutative operators.

From a quantum field theoretical point of view, however, in a description of the many experimental apparatuses that is as close as possible to experimental detail, all the measurements correspond to mutually compatible operators because they are measurements associated with regions of space-time that are at space-like separation. The concept of incompatible observables depends on the idea that actually measured compatible observables associated with space-like separated regions (or with time-like separated regions that are far enough apart) would not have been compatible if they had been measured in the same region. The measurements are incompatible only if we take them to have been carried out in a single space-time region, when in fact they clearly have not been. Although such a concept is mathematically very useful, we do not have to take it to be fundamental.

Quantum field theory is more empirically adequate than quantum particle theory, and we usually agree that a quantum field theory reduces to a quantum particle theory in a suitable approximation, so our discussion will be framed here in terms of quantum field theory. A quantum field theoretical description of the whole set of experimental apparatuses is very underdetermined by the measurements we make, simply because they are all compatible measurements, as well as because we make only a finite number of measurements. The set of candidate quantum field states that describe the whole set of experimental apparatuses in fact must include quantum field states that have a representation as a non-negative Wigner function (again just because the measurements we make are mutually compatible; examples of Wigner functions for quantum field states can be found in “A relativistic variant of the Wigner function”). A representation of a quantum field state as a non-negative Wigner function can be regarded as a classical state. Consequently, a classical contextual description of any experiment is entirely possible (that is, an empirically adequate classical description of the measurement systems and the measured systems together is possible whenever an empirically adequate quantum field description of the measurement systems and the measured systems together is possible).

To obtain a quantum field state that is acted on by a number of incompatible observables as an alternative description of the whole set of experimental apparatus, we have to identify a class of measurements that will be termed “measurement settings” and a distinct class of measurements that will be termed “measurement results”, as we did in section 2, to allow us to construct a table of measurement results for each measurement setting. Although this separation is possible and very useful, it is also arbitrary, an arbitrariness corresponding to the notorious “Heisenberg cut”, and in general the separation ignores the classical impossibility of a noncontextual model.

A detailed description of a measured system without considering its interactions with a measurement system is not generally possible in classical physics. We are of course very happy when a description of a measured system alone is adequate, since reduced complexity is welcome, but classical physics never required that this must be possible. We can present the possibility of classical description without considering the whole of a measurement apparatus as the possibility of constructing an empirically adequate quantum state that has a representation as a non-negative Wigner function.

In quantum theory, we seek to describe the interaction between a single preparation device and many different measurement devices in a unified way.

* If we think classically and noncontextually, the preparation device prepares the same classical field (or particle) state independently of what measurement device is used. This is generally not empirically adequate.
* If we think quantum theoretically, the preparation device prepares the same quantum state independently of what measurement device is used, even if an empirically adequate classical noncontextual model is not possible. This has been found to be empirically more adequate — but we do have to consider the measurement device explicitly if we want very great detail (for example, it may be significant that the measurement device is not at absolute zero temperature; all non-ideal properties will have to be considered eventually).
* If we think classically and contextually, the preparation device does not prepare the same classical field state independently of what measurement device is used. Although it is a shame to lose the effectiveness of quantum theory for cases where we can adequately think of a quantum state being independent of measurement devices, it may also be theoretically preferable to represent all the interactions of the preparation device with the many different measurement devices in a unified way.

From the Copenhagen interpretation’s point of view, all description of experiments is given in classical terms. We can only follow the Copenhagen interpretation in its construction of a quantum state, however, if we make a distinction between measurement settings and measurement results that is in general not classically motivated. Although we can usefully make this distinction, other approaches may also be useful, and more detailed classical description of experiments is one possibility.

## 4 Conclusion

Although quantum theory is very useful, it rests on a counterfactual assumption: we can carry out incompatible measurements. Although it is very effective to counterfactually relocate actual, compatible measurements (or very nearly compatible measurements if they are at large time-like separation) to a common region of space-time, where they are, from the point of view of quantum theory, incompatible, we are not justified in taking quantum theory with more than counterfactual seriousness.

Also problematic is the separation of measurement devices from measured systems, which quantum theory can do in its terms, even when classical separation is not possible. Although this is very effective when it can be done, it may be theoretically preferable to represent all the interactions of measurement devices with measured systems in a unified way.


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# Unusual profile variations in pulsar PSR J1022+1001 – Evidence for magnetospheric “return currents”?

## 1 Introduction

The great success of pulsar timing and its numerous exciting applications, e.g. in the study of gravitational physics (e.g. Taylor 1994), is often only possible due to the high precision which is obtained during pulse time-of-arrival (TOA) measurements. The procedure for obtaining TOAs involves cross-correlating the observed time-tagged pulse profile with a high signal-to-noise standard pulse profile (template) that is typically generated iteratively using earlier observations. The implicit assumption is made that the average pulse profile remains stable over a long time and small frequency ranges. This assumption is usually well justified. In particular, a few minutes of observation for millisecond pulsars (MSPs) leads to the integration of several tens of thousand of single pulses, that is far beyond the usual time scale of a few hundred to thousand pulses necessary to obtain a stable pulse profile (e.g. Helfand et al. 1975). Until recently, only two fast rotating pulsars were known to exhibit slow profile changes. These were PSR B1913+16 (Weisberg et al. 1989, Kramer 1998) and PSR B1534+12 (Arzoumanian 1995, Stairs et al. 2000) which both show profile changes on secular time scales due to gravitational spin-orbit coupling.

This understanding that average profiles of MSPs are perfectly stable, changed considerably with the observations of the 16-ms pulsar PSR J1022+1001 (Camilo 1994) made with the Effelsberg radio telescope (Kramer et al. 1999a, hereafter K99). This pulsar in a 7.8-d binary orbit with a heavy CO white dwarf exhibits a characteristic double-peaked average profile. The reported pulse shape changes are most easily recognized by an alteration of the ratio of the two component amplitudes. This, of course, results in large TOA variations when the pulsar is timed with a single standard template. Using an adaptive template however, K99 were able to obtain a timing accuracy that is comparable to other, ordinary millisecond pulsars. The detailed analysis by K99 furthermore showed that, out of the two prominent components, only the leading, weakly polarised component seems to undergo changes in intensity and structure, while the trailing, highly polarised component remained stable, and arrived “on time”.

While this different behaviour of the two components points to an effect intrinsic to the pulsar magnetosphere, K99 also looked for possible relationships of the profile changes to other effects, such as time of day, parallactic angle, or even seasonal changes. None of these, however, shows any correlation with the profile changes, and in fact, a typical timescale for the pulse shape variations could not be identified. An explanation for this appears to come from a totally unexpected result obtained by K99.

Observations by K99 revealed that PSR J1022+1001 does not only show profile variations as a function of time, but also on a narrow range of radio frequency! As K99 measured, the average profile at 1400 MHz changes its shape on a typical frequency scale of about 8 MHz. Moreover, the modulation of the leading component resembles closely to what one expect from interstellar scintillation, where the bright “scintils” correspond to the flaring up of the leading component. While this variation of the average profile as a function of narrow frequency range points again to processes in the pulsar magnetosphere, it indeed explains why no typical time scales for the profile changes have been discovered yet; depending on the temporal intensity maximum within the observing band, determined by the ordinary interstellar scintillation, and the actual profile-frequency pattern, different pulse profiles can be observed with different timescales.

Meanwhile, profile variations have also been reported for the millisecond pulsars PSR B1821$``$24 (Backer & Sallmen 1997), and PSR J1730$``$2304 (K99), while significant changes in the polarisation states have been identified for PSR J2145$``$0750 (Xilouris et al. 1998, Sallmen 1998, Stairs et al. 1999). None of these sources has been studied carefully for profile changes over a narrow frequency range, since peak flux densities are usually smaller than for PSR J1022+1001.

In this work we concentrate on PSR J1022+1001 in order to study the extraordinary narrow frequency band profile variation in more detail. We report observations of this pulsar made with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) at four different centre frequencies, i.e. at 1380, 840, 382 and 328 MHz. These observations were motivated by the work of Lyutikov & Parikh (2000) and Lyutikov (2001) who picked up the comments made by K99 and suggested that the profile variations could indeed be caused by scattering of emission near the light cylinder. In this case, it is obviously important to study the narrow-band profile changes at various radio frequencies.

We also propose in this paper that the observed polarisation properties of this pulsar are closely related to the instabilities that we see in one of the components. As we will demonstrate, there is a striking similarity between the observed average polarisation position angle as a function of pulse longitude and the predictions of Hibschman & Arons (2001), who discuss the possible effect of aberration and polar cap current flows on the observed polarisation position angle curve. If this is true, then our results become the first ever evidence for return currents in the pulsar magnetosphere.

After describing our observing set-up and procedures (Sect. 2), we describe the observed characteristics of pulse profile variation (Sect. 34). This includes discussion on their long term and short term behaviour, and their possible relation to classical “mode-changing”. In Sect. 5, we describe the observed polarisation properties of this pulsar and possible explanations. This is followed by discussion and conclusions from this investiation.

## 2 Observations

Observations were made in March to April 2001 with the pulsar backend, PuMa, at the WSRT. The WSRT is an east-west array, with fourteen equatorially mounted 25-m dishes. We have chosen this telescope for its frequency agility combined with a powerful state-of-the-art pulsar data acquisition system, and in particular we have chosen it for its equatorial mount.

Even if only Stokes-I (total intensity) is recorded, there is in principle a chance that severe polarisation cross-coupling effects between signals from the two dipoles can affect the strength and shape of the pulse profile. For instance, cross coupling can reduce the observed total power of a randomly polarised signal by a certain fraction, independent of the absolute orientation of the dipoles to the plane of the sky. For a completely linearly polarised signal, the observed signal strength can vary as a function of the absolute dipole orientation with respect to the direction of linear polarisation of the signal. When a partially linearly polarised source drifts in the plane of the sky during the observation, the direction of linear polarisation of the source signal incident on the antenna feeds changes for alt-azimuth mounted telescopes. For a telescope system with severe cross-coupling errors, this may introduce some time-dependence of the observed profile structure, as a function of parallactic angle. As K99 demonstrate, this dependence is not observed in the previous Effelsberg observations of PSR J1022+1001, but cannot be fully excluded for the Arecibo observations also studied by K99. Therefore, in order to exclude any such instrumental effect, we choose to observe this pulsar with the WSRT. With the WSRT being an equatorially mounted telescope, the position angle of a linearly polarised astronomical source remains constant with respect to the orientation of the dipole as the source moves in the plane of the sky during the observations. Any aforementioned effect with the potential to alter the observed shape of the profile can therefore be excluded.

We used the WSRT at four different frequencies as detailed in Table 1. For each observation, the delays between the dishes were compensated and the signals were added “in phase” to construct an equivalent 94-m single dish having an aperture sensitivity of about 1.2 K Jy-1. The frontends in all used bands consisted of two orthogonal linear dipoles. In the WSRT signal pipeline, the maximum allowed bandwidth at any given band per polarisation channel is 80 MHz. In the intermediate frequency signal path, this 80 MHz is divided into eight 10 MHz bands (whose individual centre frequencies can be configured independently within the allowed frequency range of the front end). For our 1380 MHz and 840 MHz observations, we chose a contiguous frequency band of 1340–1420 MHz and 800–880 MHz, respectively.

Signals from each of the 10 MHz bands were Nyquist-sampled and Fourier transformed to synthesize a filterbank of some specified number of spectral channels. Finally, after some averaging, the 2-bit (4 level) power samples were recorded in all the frequency channels. The final effective sampling interval in each observation is given in Table 1.

We compensated for the interstellar dispersion in each of these observed data sequence by assuming a dispersion measure of 10.246 pc cm-3 (K99).

## 3 Average profile evolution over large frequency range

Average pulse profiles of pulsars are known to exhibit systematic changes as a function of radio frequency. There are a number of extensive studies in the literature which concentrate on this very issue (e.g. Rankin 1983; Hankins & Rickett 1986; Lyne & Manchester 1988, Kramer et al. 1994; Moffett & Hankins 1996; Mitra & Rankin 2002). A typical profile evolution would exhibit a narrowing of the pulse width at higher frequencies, while at the same time the outer profile components become stronger relative to the central components. The most common understanding of frequency-dependent systematic change is on the basis of the so called radius-to-frequency mapping where radio emission of higher frequencies are emitted closer to the neutron star than that of lower frequencies (e.g. Ruderman & Sutherland 1975). Mitra & Rankin (2002) give a recent complete summary of our understanding of these effects.

Kramer et al. (1999b) showed that this picture of “typical” profile evolution cannot be applied to millisecond pulsars. In fact, they pointed out that in most cases, profile evolution with frequency is minimal for millisecond pulsars and that the profile width hardly ever changes. They argue that the small size of a millisecond pulsar magnetosphere does not allow a large stratification in emission height and that in this case, the emission virtually comes from a single location in the magnetosphere.

One notable exception to this distinctive millisecond pulsar behaviour is again PSR J1022+1001, whose magnetosphere is however considerably larger due to its relatively long spin-period of 16 ms. Kramer et al. (1999b) presented a number of multi-frequency profiles for this pulsar, showing a remarkable frequency evolution. We improve their summary here with additional profiles obtained from our observations which are aligned by eye (see Fig. 1).

The profiles shown are grand averages over all available observing time and bandwidth (80 MHz in our case), which finally averages out the effects which we will discuss in more detail in the following section. Nevertheless, the profile evolution of this set of the grand averages of PSR J1022+1002 is quite exceptional, and not easy to explain.

At 328 MHz, the leading component is stronger. However, both components stay almost equal in strength at 380 MHz and 430 MHz, after which the trailing component becomes stronger. At 840 MHz the height of the leading component is only about 60% of the trailing component. Above this frequency, the relative strength of the leading component increases, and at the highest frequency (4848 MHz), the trailing component is almost non-existent though still detectable. This unusual behaviour is summarised very nicely in Fig. 2, where we have plotted a function of the component amplitudes $`h_1`$ (leading) and $`h_2`$ (trailing), defined as $`R(h_1h_2)/(h_1+h_2)`$. $`R`$ has values between $`+1`$ and $`1`$ depending on the relative strength of the leading and trailing component. The plot of $`R`$ looks strikingly systematic in its behaviour. Curiously, there is a minimum at radio frequency of about 800 MHz. This strange behaviour of $`R`$ with frequency clearly shows that the two components exhibit entirely different frequency scalings. The profile is hardly evolving over the frequency interval from 600 to 800 MHz and at very high frequencies. The profile evolves fastest at frequencies around 500 MHz, 1400 MHz and very low frequencies.

This frequency evolution is unusual when compared to both normal pulsars (e.g. Mitra & Rankin 2002) and millisecond pulsars (Kramer et al. 1999b). It is obviously impossible to describe the flux density spectrum of both components by a simple power law across all frequencies. These results confirm the unusual spectral properties of both components which are superposed on the profile variations at a single frequency.

## 4 Profile Instabilities

As K99 show, the leading component of the profile shows instabilities, although the trailing component is very stable. In the following sections, we study this in detail, both as a function of radio frequency and time.

### 4.1 Narrow-band variations

In order to study the profile variations over a narrow frequency range, we folded the de-dispersed time series in each frequency channel at the period of the pulsar to generate average pulse profiles. An average pulse profile was produced for every specified interval of time (typically 8 min) in each frequency channel. Each time interval was long enough to have several tens of thousands of rotation periods, so that we can expect that fluctuations of the individual pulses as known for normal pulsars (Helfand et al. 1975) are averaged out.

Unfortunately, the pulsar was very weak during our observations at 328 MHz and 382 MHz. However, our observations at 840 MHz and 1380 MHz were strong enough for us to investigate the phenomenon that we will describe below.

Fig. 3 shows the contour plot using the 1380 MHz data set of average pulse profiles as a function of radio frequency. The two vertical trails of contours correspond to the two components of the average pulse profile. This plot corresponds to a time interval of 8 min ($``$ 30,000 individual pulses). Although the original observation had 512 frequency channels across the 80 MHz bandwidth, after de-dispersion, due to signal-to-noise ratio considerations, we have added 32 adjacent channels, so that the band is represented by only 16 channels. For clarity, the average pulse profiles in all the frequency channels are normalised in such a way that the height of the stable trailing component is unity (right-side vertical contour strip). However, the leading component, as the contours (as well as the five inserted plots) show, is unstable. The five inserted average profiles (from bottom to top) correspond to frequency channels 1, 5, 9, 13 and 16, respectively. Contour levels have been plotted in steps of root mean square error (Eqn. 1). The observed profile variations are perfectly consistent with the results presented by K99 using a different telescope with different polarisation feeds, different hardware, and in particular with a different telescope mount.

It is important to appreciate that this instability of the leading component is not due to interstellar scintillation, for it affects both the components equally. Since we have normalised the height of the trailing component to unity, the relative variation seen in the leading component must be independent of interstellar scintillation effects and intrinsic to the pulsar magnetosphere.

### 4.2 Instabilities as a function of time

In order to study the profile changes as a function of time in more detail, we divided, as described above, our total observation time length into small segments of approximately 8 minutes in length, in each of the 16 frequency channels. With this set of profiles, normalized again to the trailing component, variations were also seen as a function of time. In Fig. 4 we show average profiles of these 8 minute segments stacked from bottom to top, in four different frequency channels (each of 5 MHz width). We also show the relative height of the first component with respect to the second ($`h_1/h_2`$), and the statistical significance of this value with respect to the minimum value of ($`h_1/h_2`$) in the data set ($`=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0.77}`$) in square brackets. These significance values have been calculated with the error in the amplitude ratio, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$, which is calculated as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }q=\mathrm{\Delta }h\sqrt{1+q^2}\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Delta }h$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }h`$ is the error in component amplitude, taken to be one off-pulse RMS. From Fig. 4 it is clear that the observed profile variations are statistically significant.

Having shown that the profile variations occur both in time and narrow range of frequency, we now attempt to demonstrate the variation in both dimensions of the parameters simultaneously. Fig. 5 shows the gray scale (and contour) plot of this variation as a function of time (in X-axis) and radio frequency (in Y-axis). With a “pixel” size of 8 min$`\times `$5 MHz, we again measure the ratio of the amplitudes of the leading and trailing components in each of the average profiles relative to its long-term average, and plot this number in a gray scale plot. The additionally drawn contours are chosen in steps of root mean square error, as computed again from Eqn. 1. The solid and dashed line contours indicate amplitudes of the leading component being larger or smaller than the amplitude of the long-term average, respectively. The two panels (top & bottom) of Fig.5 corresponds to our 1380 MHz and 840 MHz observations. As we can see in the top panel where the pulsar was bright, there are 6 contour levels, indicating that the fluctuations are statistically significant.

### 4.3 Time scales, frequency scales and the distribution of height ratios

Our previous analysis and that of K99 suggests the lack of a systematic trend in the variations as a function of time or frequency. In order to investigate in more detail as to whether there is a preferred quasi-periodicity or any preferred time or frequency scale, we computed histograms from observed changes in frequency and time. The results are summarised in Fig. 6. We computed these variations by measuring the half-maximum points of the ratio variations along frequency and time axes in Fig. 5. That is, for the left panel in 6, frequency scale for each time pixel was measured, and for the right panel, time scale for each frequency channel was measured. It is clear that no clear tendency is observed. We also computed two-dimensional auto-correlation functions of the data shown in Fig. 5 with similar results.

Even though it is not possible to derive characteristic frequency or time scale, it is important to emphasize that the observed profile variations are highly significant. Both Fig. 4 & 5 show variations relative to high signal-to-noise templates which can be detected with high significance. Hence, the gray scale plots must not be mistaken for “noisy maps”. The appearance is merely a different representation of the fact that typical time or frequency scales cannot be identified.

Having discussed the time scales and frequency scales, we also give in Fig. 7 the distribution of component height ratios. These component ratios were computed from the short-term 8 minute average profiles in each of the 5 MHz frequency channels. One of the possibilities for the observed profile variations is classical “mode-changing” (Backer 1970), which is well known among the normal pulsar population. Usually, if the mode-changing time scale is much shorter than the averaging time, averaging of several thousands of pulses is enough to get a stable profile even with the classical mode change. In the case of PSR J1022+1001, even after taking 8 minutes average (30,000 pulses), we still see variation. In order for mode-changing to have an effect on profile variation, then the time scale of these modes needs to be of the order of several minutes (less than 8 minutes).

As described by Kramer et al. (1999a), timing measurements obtained with the help of “adaptive” template (by gaussian component fitting method) gives the best timing residuals, and indicates that the variation that we see is much smoother than what one would expect from a strictly bimodal distribution. Nevertheless, from our data set alone we cannot rule out a case of classical mode-changing, e.g. where the strength of the primary mode dominates over a weaker, less probable secondary mode. However, the narrow-band profile variations as a function of frequency observed here and by Kramer et al. (1999a) cannot be explained by mode-changing.

## 5 Polarisation properties

In addition to the unusual instability in the pulse profile, PSR J1022+1001 has unusual polarisation properties. We have given in Fig. 8 the observed average linear polarisation position angle. This figure is a reproduction of Fig. 9 of K99 (refer to K99 for details on observing set-up.) In the top panel, we show the total intensity as well as the linearly and circularly polarised intensities. The PA curve is rather peculiar as it shows a step at about 35 deg longitude and a “notch” at about 50 deg longitude.

We have split the PA curve at the positions of the step and the notch into two separate parts, indicated by filled and open circles, respectively. Most remarkably, both resulting parts of the PA curve can be described by standard Radhakrishnan–Cooke (RC) models (Radhakrishnan & Cooke 1969) which only differ in their $`\beta `$ value, i.e. angle of closest approach between the magnetic axis and the line of sight. Indeed, with $`|\beta |`$s of $`1.5^{}`$ and $`4.5^{}`$, respectively, both RC models have the same $`\alpha `$ value (angle between the rotation and the magnetic axis) of $`50^{}`$ although this value is not very well constrained. The PA data intermediate between the two PA curves, indicated by “star” symbols, were ignored for the fit. An RC-model has also been fitted to PSR J1022+1001 by Xilouris et al. (1998) and Stairs et al. (1999), both attempting to fit the whole PA curve, but essentially ignoring most of the region designated by filled symbols in Fig. 8. Consistent with our results, at 1410 MHz Xilouris et al. (1998) derive values of $`\alpha =53.2^{}`$ and $`|\beta |=7.3^{}`$, while Stairs et al. (1999) obtain at 610 MHz $`|\beta |=4.9^{}\pm 1.8^{}`$ and at 1410 MHz $`|\beta |=7.1^{}\pm 0.3^{}`$.

One of the possible interpretations for this very interesting PA curve is to view these two parts as being caused by two polarisation emission modes (which may not be orthogonal) that arise from two different altitudes in the magnetosphere. In a cylindrical geometry, the inferred value of $`\beta `$ (and $`\alpha `$) for the two modes cannot be different, even if they are emitted from two different altitudes. However, as the emission altitudes of radio emission from MSPs are likely to be a good fraction of the light cylinder radius (Kramer et al. 1998), two effects may become important: aberration of the pulsar beam in a forward direction (i.e., earlier arrival times), and bending of the emission beam due to a sweep-back of the magnetic field lines near the light cylinder (i.e., later arrival times). Typically, aberration is the more prominent effect, in particular for fast rotating MSPs, unless the emission is originating from close to the light cylinder (e.g. Phillips 1992, Kramer et al. 1997). As the net result, if the emission corresponding to the two modes arises from two different altitudes, the derived values of $`\beta `$ for the two modes could be different. The radiation associated with each component would then propagate through different parts of the pulsar magnetosphere. Depending on relative height and the different viewing geometries, described by the determined $`\beta `$-values, the leading component could hence be subject to (different) propagation effects which may then affect its apparent stability.

The intermediate PA-values (“star” symbols) could be explained by an incoherent addition of the two modes which are not orthogonal, as it has been observed for other pulsars before (e.g. McKinnon 2003). Curiously, this happens at longitudes which exactly coincide with the unstable leading component of the profile. We note that the idea that polarisation modes may be emitted from different heights is not new. McKinnon & Stinebring (1998; 2000) showed that the average pulse profiles corresponding to two orthogonal polarisation modes are different in their widths, indeed suggesting that modes are emitted at separate altitudes. This effect has been further explored and modelled by Rankin & Ramachandran (2003) with a large sample of pulsars.

Another independent explanation for this peculiar PA behaviour, which may be more plausible, is derived from the work by Hibschman & Arons (2001). Following ideas first developed by Blaskiewicz et al. (1991), they examine the effect of aberration on the RC model curve, but also include polar cap current flows in their calculations. As they summarise, the current flow tends to shift the PA curve upwards (in Fig. 8), while aberration tends to shift the PA value in the opposite direction, causing also a phase shift of the whole PA curve. Most importantly, they also consider the possible effect of a return current in the pulsar magnetosphere. They argue that if our line-of-sight happens to penetrate a layer of this return current, this would appear as “jumps” in the PA curves at the corresponding pulse longitude values. In fact, Fig. 5 of Hibschman & Arons 2001 (reproduced here in Fig. 9) shows very remarkable similarity to our measured PA curve shown in Fig. 8. Their theoretical curve computed for an assumed set of parameters of $`\alpha =30`$ deg, $`\beta =5`$ deg and an emission height of 10% of the light cylinder radius, shows both a step as well as a notch, similar to what is actually observed for PSR J1022+1001.

Given this striking similarity between this theoretical prediction and our actual observed data, we are tempted to conclude that the discrete jumps that we see in the position angle are not related to orthogonal modes, but due to the return current layer as suggested by Hibschman & Arons (2001). If this is true, this is the first ever observational evidence for a return current in a pulsar magnetosphere.

The discrete jumps caused by the return current may be, as the authors indicate, frequency-dependent, depending on the nature of radius-to-frequency mapping, and the total height of the emission region. Under these assumptions, in order derive definitive conclusions about the nature of the return current layer, one needs to study all the characteristics of the PA jumps, including their frequency dependence. We are currently undertaking such a detailed study, and the results will be presented in a following publication (Kramer, Ramachandran, Stairs & Athanasiadis, in prep.). Preliminary fits of the Hibschman & Arons model to our PA data suggest an emission height of 40% of the light cylinder radius and a current of about 75% of the Goldreich-Julian value, although further studies are needed to confirm these values.

As one can see, the unstable leading component in the pulse profile directly corresponds to the region bracketed by the discrete PA jumps at longitudes $`35`$ deg and $`50`$ deg (Fig. 8), which, in the above model, mark the longitudes of the return current layer. We propose here that the instability in the component strength is therefore due to the illuminated return current layer in the pulsar magnetosphere. Hibschman & Arons (2001) point out that although the return current layer is not normally thought of as a site of emission, it may be visible either through direct emission or through refraction or scattering of radiation of normal pulsar emission. While the physical reason for the instability of the component itself is not clear, the fact that the component appears at the same location as the discrete jump of the PA curve, and the similarity to the theoretical predictions of Hibschman & Arons (2001) may not be just a coincidence.

## 6 Discussion and Conclusions

Our observations were conducted with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT). In all our observing bands, WSRT has a dual-linear dipoles. The telescope is equatorially mounted, and hence the relative orientation of the direction of linear polarisation of the source remains the same, irrespective of the position of the source in the sky. This helps us in eliminating time-dependent profile variations due to possible residual cross-coupling effects. Moreover, as K99 showed (Fig. 9; see also Sallmen 1998 and Stairs et al. 1999), the degree of polarisation of the leading component is significantly less than that of the trailing component. If there is any spurious instrumental effect related to polarisation cross-coupling, we would expect more variations in the trailing component - in contrast to what we observe.

Therefore, without doubts we have confirmed the profile variations observed in PSR J1022+1001 as a function of time and, in particular, radio frequency. These variations are highly significant, as we have shown in Figs. 3 & 5. As for K99, this behaviour has been clearly observed in the 1340–1420 MHz band and is, for the first time, also clearly detected in at least another frequency band, i.e. 800–880 MHz. Due to signal-to-noise constraints, it was not possible to confirm these variations also with our 328 and 382-MHz frequency observations.

Even though Fig. 4 & 5 are reminiscent of an interstellar scintillation pattern, the relative variation of component amplitudes eliminates the possibility of a propagation effect outside the pulsar magnetosphere, as scintillation must affect both the components equally.

The observed profile changes does not seem to be consistent with profile mode-change, which is well known for the ordinary long period pulsar population. A smoothly distributed component ratios (Fig. 7) and their narrow band variations seem to rule out this possibility.

Lyutikov & Parikh (2000) and Lyutikov (2001) discuss the existence of a scattering and diffracting screen close to the light cylinder of fast rotating pulsars. While their estimates of the diffractive scales can vary within order of magnitude, they note that if the scattering is due to turbulence inside the pulsar magnetosphere it should be independent of frequency. Due to the apparent range of frequency scales suggested by Fig. 6 and 7, both at 840 and 1400 MHz, it is difficult to test this prediction, although the profile variations shown in Fig. 6 appear similar at the first glance. However, the frequency scalings may be different for other types of scattering (Lyutikov, private communication) and it seems difficult to either confirm or reject the scattering screen model.

It is clear from Fig. 2 that the spectral properties of the unstable leading component are very different from that of the stable trailing component. Although the reason for this striking dissimilarity is unclear, it may well be related to the nature of the return current layer.

If our conclusions are correct, one would expect that this effect should also be visible for other pulsars. However, it is important to realize that for the involved aberration effect to become significant, relatively large emission heights are required, i.e. typically 10% of the light cylinder radius or more. For normal, slowly rotating pulsars, estimates for emission altitudes are usually much lower (e.g. Blaskiewicz et al. 1991, Phillips 1992, Kramer et al. 1997). However, for MSPs the emission appears to originate at larger fractions of the light cylinder radius (Kramer et al. 1998), so that these objects are indeed those where one would expect to observe the described effects at first. Indeed, a large fraction of MSPs is known to exhibit PA curves which are significantly different from what is expected for a classic RC curve (Xilouris et al. 1998, Stairs et al. 1999). A detailed study of MSP polarimetry data is part of the study currently underway (Kramer et al. in prep.)

## 7 Summary

With new multi-frequency data, we have demonstrated that the peculiar profile variations of PSR J1022+1001 over time and a narrow range of frequency can be observed at widely spaced radio frequencies. We propose two alternative models which are capable of explaining this interesting phenomenon. If the model currently favoured by the data is correct, our study would be the first ever observational evidence for a return current in a pulsar magnetosphere. If confirmed, future detailed studies will then allow measurements of basic properties of the plasma flow in the magnetosphere for the very first time.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Jon Arons, D. C. Backer, A. G. Lyne, G. Smith and I. Stairs for all the discussions and critical comments. We also thank our referee, Simon Johnston, for his critical comments that have helped improve the manuscript.