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The Making of the Standard Model

Steven Weinberg***weinberg@physics.utexas.edu

Theory Group, Physics Department, University of Texas,
Austin, TX, 78712

This is the edited text of a talk given at CERN on September 16, 2003, as part of a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the discovery of neutral currents and the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the $`W`$ and $`Z`$ particles.

I have been asked to review the history of the formation of the Standard Model. It is natural to tell this story as a sequence of brilliant ideas and experiments, but here I will also talk about some of the misunderstandings and false starts that went along with this progress, and why some steps were not taken until long after they became possible. The study of what was not understood by scientists, or was understood wrongly, seems to me often the most interesting part of the history of science. Anyway, it is an aspect of the Standard Model with which I am very familiar, for as you will see in this talk, I shared in many of these misunderstandings.

I’ll begin by taking you back before the Standard Model to the 1950’s. It was a time of frustration and confusion. The success of quantum electrodynamics in the late 1940s had produced a boom in elementary particle theory, and then the market crashed. It was realized that the four-fermion theory of weak interactions had infinities that could not be eliminated by the technique of renormalization, which had worked so brilliantly in electrodynamics. The four-fermion theory was perfectly good as a lowest-order approximation, but when you tried to push it to the next order of perturbation theory you encountered unremovable infinities. The theory of strong interactions had a different problem; there was no difficulty in constructing renormalizable theories of the strong interactions like the original Yukawa theory but, because the strong interactions are strong, perturbation theory was useless, and one could do no practical calculations with these theories. A deeper problem with our understanding of both the weak and the strong interactions was that there was no rationale for any of these theories. The weak interaction theory was simply cobbled together to fit what experimental data was available, and there was no evidence at all for any particular theory of strong interactions.

There began a period of disillusionment with quantum field theory. The community of theoretical physicists tended to split into what at the time were sometimes called, by analogy with atomic wave functions, radial and azimuthal physicists. Radial physicists were concerned with dynamics, particularly the dynamics of the strong interactions. They had little to say about the weak interactions. Some of them tried to proceed just on the basis of general principles, using dispersion relations and Regge pole expansions, and they hoped ultimately for a pure S-matrix theory of the strong interactions, completely divorced from quantum field theory. Weak interactions would somehow take care of themselves later. Azimuthal physicists were more modest. They took it as a working rule that there was no point in trying to understand strong interaction dynamics, and instead they studied the one sort of thing that could be used to make predictions without such understanding — principles of symmetry.

But there was a great obstacle in the understanding of symmetry principles. Many symmetry principles were known, and a large fraction of them were only approximate. That was certainly true of isotopic spin symmetry, which goes back to 1936 . Strangeness conservation was known from the beginning to be violated by the weak interactions . Then in 1956 even the sacred symmetries of space and time, P and PT conservation, were found to be violated by the weak interactions , and CP conservation was found in 1964 to be only approximate . The $`SU(3)`$ symmetry of the “eightfold way” discovered in the early 1960s  was at best only a fair approximation even for the strong interactions. This left us with a fundamental question. Many azimuthal physicists had thought that symmetry principles were an expression of the simplicity of nature at its deepest level. So what are you to make of an approximate symmetry principle? The approximate simplicity of nature?

During this time of confusion and frustration in the 1950s and 1960s there emerged three good ideas. These ideas took a long time to mature, but have become fundamental to today’s elementary particle physics. I am emphasizing here that it took a long time before we realized what these ideas were good for partly because I want to encourage today’s string theorists, who I think also have good ideas that are taking a long time to mature.

The first of the good ideas that I’ll mention is the quark model, proposed in 1964 independently by Gell-Mann and Zweig . The idea that hadrons are made of quarks and antiquarks, used in a naive way, allowed one to make some sense of the growing menu of hadrons. Also, the naive quark model seemed to get experimental support from an experiment done at SLAC in 1968 under the leadership of Friedman, Kendall, and Taylor , which was analogous to the experiment done by Geiger and Marsden in Rutherford’s laboratory in 1911. Geiger and Marsden had found that alpha particles were sometimes scattered by gold atoms at large angles, and Rutherford inferred from this that the mass of the atoms was concentrated in something like a point particle, which became known as the nucleus of the atom. In the same way, the SLAC experiment found that electrons were sometimes scattered from nucleons at large angles, and this was interpreted by Feynman and Bjorken  as indicating that the neutron and proton consisted of point particles. It was natural to identify these “partons” with Gell-Mann and Zweig’s quarks. But of course the mystery about all this was why no one ever saw quarks. Why, for example, did oil drop experiments never reveal third integer charges? I remember Dalitz and Lipkin at various conferences showing all the successful predictions of the naive quark model for hadron systematics, while I sat there remaining stubbornly unconvinced, because everyone knew that quarks had been looked for and not found.

The second of the good ideas that were extant in the 1950s and 1960s was the idea of gauge (or local) symmetry. (Of course electrodynamics was much older, and could have been regarded as based on a $`U(1)`$ gauge symmetry, but that wasn’t the point of view of the theorists who developed quantum electrodynamics in the 1930s.) Yang and Mills  in 1954 constructed a gauge theory based not on the simple one-dimensional group $`U(1)`$ of electrodynamics, but on a three-dimensional group, the group $`SU(2)`$ of isotopic spin conservation, in the hope that this would become a theory of the strong interactions. This was a beautiful theory because the symmetry dictated the form of the interactions. In particular, because the gauge group was non-Abelian (the “charges” do not commute with each other) there was a self-interaction of the gauge bosons, like the self-interactions of gravitons in general relativity. This was just the sort of thing that brings joy to the heart of an elementary particle theorist.

The quantization of non-Abelian gauge theories was studied by a number of other theorists , generally without any idea of applying these theories immediately to known interactions. Some of these theorists developed the theory of the quantization of Yang–Mills theories as a warm-up exercise for the problem they really wanted to solve, the quantization of general relativity. It took a few years before physicists began to apply the Yang–Mills idea to the weak interactions. This was in part because in 1954, as you may recall, the beta decay interactions were known to be a mixture of scalar, tensor, and perhaps pseudoscalar four-fermion interactions. This was the result of a series of wrong experiments, each one of which as soon as it was discovered to be wrong was replaced by another wrong experiment. It wasn’t until 1957–58 that it became generally realized that the weak interactions are in fact a mixture of vector and axial vector interactions , of the sort that would be produced by intermediate vector bosons.

Theories of intermediate vector bosons were then developed by several authors , but generally, except for the papers by Bludman in 1958 and by Salam and Ward in 1964, without reference to non-Abelian local symmetries. (For instance, with the exceptions noted, these papers did not include the quadrilinear interactions among vector bosons characteristic of theories with non-Abelian local symmetries.) I will have more to say about some of these papers later.

From the beginning, the chief obstacle to the application of the Yang–Mills approach to theories of either the weak or the strong interactions was the problem of mass. Gauge symmetry forbids the gauge bosons from having any mass, and it was supposed that any massless gauge bosons would surely have been detected. In all the papers of ref. 12 a mass was put in by hand, but this would destroy the rationale for a gauge theory; the local symmetry principle that motivates such theories would be violated by the insertion of a mass. Obviously also the arbitrary insertion of mass terms makes theories less predictive. Finally, through the work of several authors  in the 1960s, it was realized that non-Abelian gauge theories with mass terms inserted by hand are non-renormalizable, and therefore in this respect do not represent an advance over the original four-fermion weak interaction.

The third of the good ideas that I wished to mention was the idea of spontaneously broken symmetry: there might be symmetries of the Lagrangian that are not symmetries of the vacuum. Physicists came to this idea through two rather different routes.

The first route was founded on a fundamental misunderstanding. Remember that for some time there had been a problem of understanding the known approximate symmetries. Many of us, including myself, were at first under the illusion that if you had an exact symmetry of the field equations of nature which was spontaneously broken then it would appear experimentally as an approximate symmetry. This is quite wrong, but that’s what we thought. (Heisenberg continued to believe this as late as 1975 .) At first this seemed to offer a great hope of understanding the many approximate symmetries, like isotopic spin, the 8-fold way, and so on. Thus it was regarded as a terrible setback in 1961 when Goldstone announced a theorem , proved by Goldstone, Salam and myself  the following year, that for every spontaneously broken symmetry there must be a massless spinless particle. We knew that there were no such massless Goldstone bosons in strong-interaction physics — they would have been obvious many years before — so this seemed to close off the opportunities provided by spontaneous symmetry breaking. Higgs  in 1964 was motivated by this disappointment to try to find a way out of the Goldstone theorem. He recognized that the Goldstone theorem would not apply if the original symmetry was not just a global symmetry like isotopic spin conservation, but a gauge symmetry like the local isotopic spin symmetry of the original Yang–Mills theory. The Goldstone boson then remains in the theory, but it turns into the helicity-zero part of a gauge boson, which thereby gets a mass. At about the same time Englert and Brout  independently discovered the same phenomenon, but with a different motivation: they hoped to go back to the idea of using the Yang–Mills theory to construct a theory of the strong interactions mediated by massive vector bosons. This phenomenon had also been noted earlier by Anderson , in a non-relativistic context.

The second of the routes to broken symmetry was the study of the currents of the semi-leptonic weak interactions, the vector and axial-vector currents. In 1958 Goldberger and Treiman  gave a derivation of a relation between the pion decay constant, the axial vector coupling constant of beta decay, and the strong coupling constant. The relation worked better than would be expected from the rather implausible approximations used. It was in order to explain the success of the Goldberger–Treiman relation that several theorists  in the following years developed the idea of a partially conserved axial-vector current, that is, an axial-vector current whose divergence was not zero but was proportional to the pion field. Taken literally, this was a meaningless proposition, because any field operator that had the right quantum numbers, such as the divergence of the axial-vector current, can be called the pion field. Nature does not single out specific operators as the field of this or that particle. This idea was greatly clarified by Nambu  in 1960. He pointed out that in an ideal world, where the axial-vector current was not partially conserved but exactly conserved, the existence of a non-vanishing nucleon mass and axial vector coupling would require the pion to be a particle of zero mass. At sufficiently small momentum transfer this massless pion would dominate the pseudoscalar part of the one-nucleon matrix element of the axial vector current, which leads to the same Goldberger–Treiman result that had previously motivated the notion of partial current conservation. Nambu and Jona-Lasinio  worked out a dynamical model in which the axial–vector current would be exactly conserved, and showed that the spectrum of bound states did indeed include a massless pion.

In this work there was little discussion of spontaneously broken symmetry. In particular, because the work of Nambu and his collaborators  on soft-pion interactions only involved a single soft pion, it was not necessary to identify a particular broken symmetry group. In much of their work it was taken to be a simple $`U(1)`$ symmetry group. Nambu et al. like Gell-Mann et al.  emphasized the properties of the currents of beta decay rather than broken symmetry. Nambu, especially in the paper with Jona-Lasinio, described what he was doing as an analog to the successful theory of superconductivity of Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer . A superconductor is nothing but a place where electromagnetic gauge invariance is spontaneously broken, but you will not find that statement or any mention of spontaneously broken symmetry anywhere in the classic BCS paper. Anderson  did realize the importance of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the theory of superconductivity, but he was almost the only condensed matter physicist who did.

The currents of the semi-leptonic weak interactions remained the preoccupation of Gell-Mann and others, who proposed working with them the way Heisenberg had worked with atomic electric dipole transition matrix elements in his famous 1925 paper on quantum mechanics, that is, by deriving commutation relations for the currents and then saturating them by inserting sums over suitable intermediate states . This was the so-called current algebra program. Among other things, this approach was used by Adler and Weisberger to derive their celebrated formula for the axial-vector coupling constant of beta decay .

Sometime around 1965 we began to understand all these developments and how they were related to each other in a more modern way. It was realized that the strong interactions must have a broken symmetry, $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$, consisting of ordinary isotopic spin transformations plus chiral isotopic spin transformations acting oppositely on the left and right-handed parts of nucleon fields. Contrary to what I and others had thought at first, such a broken symmetry does not look in the laboratory like an ordinary approximate symmetry. If it is an exact symmetry, but spontaneously broken, the symmetry implications are found in precise predictions for the low-energy interactions of the massless Goldstone bosons, which for $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$ would be the pions. Among these “soft pion” formulas is the Goldberger–Treiman relation, which should be read as a formula for the pion-nucleon coupling at zero pion momentum. Of course $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$ is only an approximate symmetry of the strong interactions, so the pion is not a massless particle, but is what (over Goldstone’s objections) I later called a pseudo-Goldstone boson, with an exceptionally small mass.

From this point of view one can calculate things having nothing to do with the electro-weak interactions, nothing to do with the semi-leptonic vector and axial vector currents, but that refer solely to the strong interactions. Starting in 1965, the pion-nucleon scattering lengths were calculated independently by Tomozawa and myself , and I calculated the pion-pion scattering lengths . Because these processes involve more than one soft pion, the results of these calculations depended critically on the $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$ symmetry. This work had a twofold impact. One is that it tended to kill off the S-matrix approach to the strong interactions, because although there was nothing wrong with the S-matrix philosophy, its practical implementation relied on the pion-pion interaction being rather strong at low energy, while these new results showed that it the interaction is in fact quite weak at low energy. This work also tended for a while to reduce interest in what Higgs and Brout and Englert had done, for we no longer wanted to get rid of the nasty Goldstone bosons (as had been hoped particularly by Higgs), because now the pion was recognized as a Goldstone boson, or very nearly.

This brings me to the electroweak theory, as developed by myself , and independently by Salam . Unfortunately Salam is not with us to describe the chain of reasoning that led him to this theory, so I can only speak about my own work. My starting point in 1967 was the old aim, going back to Yang and Mills, of developing a gauge theory of the strong interactions, but now based on the symmetry group that underlies the successful soft-pion predictions, the symmetry group $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$ . I supposed that the vector gauge boson of this theory would be the $`\rho `$-meson, which was an old idea, while the axial-vector gauge boson would be the $`a_1`$ meson, an enhancement in the $`\pi \rho `$ channel which was known to be needed to saturate certain spectral function sum rules, which I had developed a little earlier that year . Taking the $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$ symmetry to be exact but spontaneously broken, I encountered the same result found earlier by Higgs and Brout and Englert; the Goldstone bosons disappeared and the $`a_1`$ meson became massive. But with the isotopic spin subgroup unbroken, then (in accordance with a general result of Kibble ) the $`\rho `$-meson would remain massless. I could of course put in a common mass for the $`a_1`$ and $`\rho `$ by hand, which at first gave encouraging results. The pion now reappeared as a Goldstone boson, and the spontaneous breaking of the symmetry made the $`a_1`$ mass larger than the $`\rho `$ mass by a factor of the square root of two, which was just the ratio that had come out of the spectral function sum rules. For a while I was encouraged, but the theory was really too ugly. It was the same old problem: putting in a $`\rho `$-meson mass or any gauge boson mass by hand destroyed the rationale for the theory and made the theory less predictive, and it also made the theory not renormalizable. So I was very discouraged.

Then it suddenly occurred to me that this was a perfectly good sort of theory, but I was applying it to the wrong kind of interaction. The right place to apply these ideas was not to the strong interactions, but to the weak and electromagnetic interactions. There would be a spontaneously broken gauge symmetry (probably not $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$) leading to massive gauge bosons that would have nothing to do with the $`a_1`$ meson but could rather be identified with the intermediate vector bosons of the weak interactions. There might be some generator of the gauge group that was not spontaneously broken, and the corresponding massless gauge boson would not be the $`\rho `$ meson, but the photon. The gauge symmetry would be exact; there would be no masses put in by hand.

I needed a concrete model to illustrate these general ideas. At that time I didn’t have any faith in the existence of quarks, and so I decided only to look at the leptons, and somewhat arbitrarily I decided to consider only symmetries that acted on just one generation of leptons, separately from antileptons — just the left-handed electron and electron-type neutrino, and the right-handed electron. With those ingredients, the largest gauge group you could possibly have would be $`SU(2)\times U(1)\times U(1)`$. One of the $`U(1)`$s could be taken to be the gauge group of lepton conservation. Now, I knew that lepton number was conserved to a high degree of accuracy, so this $`U(1)`$ symmetry was presumably not spontaneously broken, but I also knew that there was no massless gauge boson associated with lepton number, because according to an old argument of Lee and Yang  it would produce a force that would compete with gravitation. So I decided to exclude this part of the gauge group, leaving just $`SU(2)\times U(1)`$ gauge symmetry. The gauge bosons were then the charged massive particle (and its antiparticle) that had traditionally been called the $`W`$; a neutral massive vector particle that I called the $`Z`$; and the massless photon. The interactions of these gauge bosons with the leptons and with each other were fixed by the gauge symmetry. Afterwards I looked back at the literature on intermediate vector boson theories from the late 1950s and early 1960s, and I found that the global $`SU(2)\times U(1)`$ group structure had already been proposed in 1961 by Glashow . I only learned later of the independent 1964 work of Salam and Ward . I think the reason that the four of us had independently come to the same $`SU(2)\times U(1)`$ group structure is simply because with these fermionic ingredients, just one generation of leptons, there is no other group you can be led to. But now the theory was based on an exact though spontaneously broken gauge symmetry.

The spontaneous breakdown of this symmetry had not only to give mass to the intermediate vector bosons of the weak interactions, it also had to give mass to the electron (and also, in another lepton doublet, to the muon.) The only scalar particles whose vacuum expectation values could give mass to the electron and the muon would have to form $`SU(2)\times U(1)`$ doublets with charges +e and zero. For simplicity, I assumed that these would be the only kind of scalar fields in the theory. That made the theory quite predictive. It allowed the masses of the $`W`$ and the $`Z`$ as well as their couplings to be calculated in terms of a single unknown angle $`\theta `$. Whatever the value of $`\theta `$, the $`W`$ and $`Z`$ masses were predicted to be quite large, large enough to have escaped detection. The same results apply with several scalar doublets. (These predictions by the way could also have been obtained in a “technicolor” theory in which the electroweak gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken by strong forces, as realized twelve years later by Susskind and myself . This is still a possibility, but such technicolor theories have problems, and I’m betting on the original scalar doublet or doublets.)

In addition to predicting the masses and interactions of the $`W`$ and $`Z`$ in terms of a single angle, the electroweak theory made another striking prediction which could not be verified at the time, and still has not been. A single scalar doublet of complex scalar fields can be written in terms of four real fields. Three of the gauge symmetries of $`SU(2)\times U(1)`$ are spontaneously broken, which eliminates the three Goldstone bosons associated with these fields. This leaves over one massive neutral scalar particle, as a real particle that can be observed in the laboratory. This particle, which first made its appearance in the physics literature in 1967 , has so far not made its appearance in the laboratory. Its couplings were already predicted in this paper, but its mass is still unknown. To distinguish this particle from the Goldstone bosons it has come to be called the Higgs boson, and it is now a major target of experimental effort. With several doublets (as in supersymmetry theories) there would be several of these particles, some of them charged.

Both Salam and I guessed that the electroweak theory is renormalizable, because we had started with a theory that was manifestly renormalizable. But the theory with spontaneous symmetry breaking had a new perturbative expansion, and the question was whether or not renormalizability was preserved in the new perturbation theory. We both said that we thought that it was, but didn’t prove it. I can’t answer for Salam, but I can tell you why I didn’t prove it. It was because at that time I disliked the only method by which it could be proved — the method of path integration. There are two alternative approaches to quantization: the old operator method that goes back to the 1920s, and Feynman path-integration . When I learned the path-integration approach in graduate school and subsequent reading, it seemed to me to be no more powerful than the operator formalism, but with a lot more hand-waving. I tried to prove the renormalizability of the electroweak theory using the most convenient gauge that can be introduced in the operator formalism, called unitarity gauge, but I couldn’t do it . I suggested the problem to a student , but he couldn’t do it either, and to this day no one has done it using this gauge. What I didn’t realize was that the path-integral formalism allows the use of gauges that cannot be introduced as a condition on the operators in a quantum field theory, so it gives you a much larger armamentarium of possible gauges in which gauge invariant theories can be formulated.

Although I didn’t understand the potentialities of path integration, Veltman and his student t’Hooft did. In 1971 t’Hooft used path integration to define a gauge in which it was obvious that spontaneously broken non-Abelian gauge theories with only the simplest interactions had a property that is essential to renormalizability, that in all orders of perturbation theory there are only a finite number of infinities . This did not quite prove that the theory was renormalizable, because the Lagrangian is constrained by a spontaneously broken but exact gauge symmetry. In the ‘t Hooft gauge it was obvious that there were only a finite number of infinities, but how could one be sure that they exactly match the parameters of the original theory as constrained by gauge invariance, so that these infinities can be absorbed into a redefinition of the parameters? This was initially proved in 1972 by Lee and Zinn-Justin  and by ’t Hooft and Veltmann , and later in an elegant formalism by Becchi, Rouet, and Stora, and by Tyutin . But I must say that after ’t Hooft’s original 1971 paper, (and, for me, a subsequent related paper by Ben Lee ) most theorists were pretty well convinced that the theory was renormalizable, and at least among theorists there was a tremendous upsurge of interest in this kind of theory.

From today’s perspective, it may seem odd that so much attention was focused on the issue of renormalizability. Like general relativity, the old theory of weak interactions based on four-fermion interactions could have been regarded as an effective quantum field theory , which works perfectly well at sufficiently low energy, and with the introduction of a few additional free parameters even allows the calculation of quantum corrections. The expansion parameter in such theories is the energy divided by some characteristic mass and as long as you work to a given order in the energy you will only need a finite number of coupling types, so that the coupling parameters can absorb all of the infinities. But such theories inevitably lose all predictive power at energies above the characteristic mass. For the four-fermion theory of weak interactions it was clear that the characteristic mass was no greater than about 300 GeV, and as we now know, it is actually of the order of the $`W`$ mass. The importance of the renormalizability of the electroweak theory was not so much that infinities could be removed by renormalization, but rather that the theory had the potentiality of describing weak and electromagnetic interactions at energies much greater than 300 GeV, and perhaps all the way up to the Planck scale. The search for a renormalizable theory of weak interactions was the right strategy but, as it turned out, not for the reasons we originally thought.

These attractive theories of the electroweak theory did not mean that the theory was true — that was a matter for experiment. After the demonstration that the electroweak theory is renormalizable, its experimental consequences began to be taken seriously. The theory predicted the existence of neutral currents, but this was an old story. Suggestions of neutral weak currents can be traced back to 1937 papers of Gamow and Teller, Kemmer, and Wentzel . Neutral currents had appeared in the 1958 paper by Bludman and in all the subsequent papers in ref. 12, including of course those of Glashow and of Salam and Ward. But now there was some idea about their strength. In 1972 I looked at the question of how easy it would be to find semi-leptonic neutral current processes, and I found that although in the electroweak theory they are somewhat weak compared to the ordinary charged-current weak interactions, they were not too weak to be seen . In particular, I pointed out that the ratio of elastic neutrino-proton scattering to the corresponding inelastic charged-current reaction would have a value between .15 and .25, depending on the value of the unknown angle $`\theta `$. A 1970 experiment  had given a value of .12 plus or minus .06 for this ratio, but the experimenters didn’t believe that they were actually seeing neutral currents, so they didn’t claim to have observed a neutral current reaction at a level of roughly 12% of the charged current reaction, and instead quoted this result as an upper bound. The minimum theoretical value 0.15 of this ratio applies for $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta =0.25`$, which is not far from what we now know is the correct value. I suspect that this 1970 experiment had actually observed neutral currents, but you get credit for making discoveries only when you claim that you have made the discovery.

Neutral currents were discovered in 1973 at CERN . I suspect that this will be mentioned later today, so I won’t go into it here. At first the data on neutral current reactions looked like it exactly fit the electroweak theory, but then a series of other experiments gave contrary results. The most severe challenge came in 1976 from two atomic physics experiments  that seemed to show that there was no parity violation in the bismuth atom at the level that would be expected to be produced by neutral current electron-nucleon interactions in the electroweak theory. For most theorists these experiments did not challenge the basic idea that weak interactions arise from a spontaneously broken gauge symmetry, but they threw serious doubt on the specific $`SU(2)\times U(1)`$ implementation of the idea. Many other models were tried during this period, all sharing the property of being terribly ugly. Finally, parity violation in the neutral currents was discovered at the expected level in electron–nucleon scattering at SLAC in 1978 , and after that most physicists took it for granted that the electroweak theory is essentially correct.

The other half of the Standard Model is quantum chromodynamics. By the early 1970s the success of the electroweak theory had restored interest in Yang–Mills theory. In 1973 Gross and Wilczek and Politzer independently discovered that non-Abelian gauge theories have the remarkable property of asymptotic freedom . They used renormalization group methods due to Gell-Mann and Low , which had been revived in 1970 by Callan, Symanzik, Coleman and Jackiw , to define an effective gauge coupling constant as a function of energy, and they showed that in Yang–Mills theories with not too many fermions this coupling goes to zero as the energy goes to infinity. (‘t Hooft had found this result and announced it at a conference in 1972, but he waited to publish this result and work out its implications while he was doing other things, so his result did not attract much attention.) It was already known both from baryon systematics and from the rate of neutral pion decay into two photons that quarks of each flavor u, d, s, etc. must come in three colors , so it was natural to take the gauge symmetry of the strong interactions as an $`SU(3)`$ gauge group acting on the three-valued color quantum number of the quarks. Subsequent work  by Gross and Wilczek and by Georgi and Politzer using the Wilson operator product expansion  showed that the decrease of the strong coupling constant with increasing energy in this theory explained why “partons” had appeared to be weakly coupled in the 1968 Friedman–Kendall–Taylor experiment .

But a big problem remained: what is one to do with the massless $`SU(3)`$ gauge bosons, the gluons? The original papers  of Politzer and Gross and Wilczek suggested that the reason why massless gluons are not observed is that the gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken, just as in the electroweak theory. The gluons could then be assumed to be too heavy to observe. Very soon afterwards a number of authors independently suggested an alternative, that the gauge symmetry is not broken at all, the gluons are in fact massless, but we don’t see them for the same reason that we don’t see the quarks, which is that, as a result of the peculiar infrared properties of non-Abelian gauge theories, color is trapped; color particles like quarks and gluons can never be isolated . This has never been proved. There is now a million dollar prize offered by the Cray Foundation to anyone who succeeds in proving it rigorously, but since it is true I for one am happy to leave the proof to the mathematicians.

One of the great things that came out of this period of the development of the electroweak and the strong interaction theories is an understanding at long last of the old approximate symmetries. It was now understood that these symmetries were approximate because they weren’t fundamental symmetries at all; they were just accidents. Renormalizable quantum chromodynamics must respect strangeness conservation and charge conjugation invariance, and, aside from a non-perturbative effect that I don’t have time to go into, it must also respect parity and time reversal invariance. You cannot introduce any renormalizable interaction into the theory that would violate those symmetries. This would not be true if scalar fields participated in the strong interactions, as in the old Yukawa theory. This result was not only aesthetically pleasing, but crucial, because if there were possible renormalizable interactions that violated, say, strangeness conservation, or parity, then even if you didn’t put such interactions in the theory, higher order weak interactions would generate them at first order in the fine structure constant . There would then be violations of parity and strangeness conservation in the strong interactions at a level of a percent or so, which certainly is not the case.

If one makes the additional assumption that the up, down and strange quark masses are small, then without having to assume anything about their ratios it follows that the theory has an approximate $`SU(3)\times SU(3)`$ symmetry, including not only the eightfold way but also the spontaneously broken chiral $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$ symmetry that had been used to derive theorems for low-energy pions back in the mid 1960s. Furthermore, with an intrinsic $`SU(3)\times SU(3)`$ symmetry breaking due to small up, down and strange quark masses, this symmetry gives rise to the Gell-Mann–Okubo mass formula  and justifies the symmetry-breaking assumptions made in the 1965 derivation of the pion-pion scattering lengths . Finally, it is automatic in such theories that the semi-leptonic currents of the weak interactions must be symmetry currents associated with this $`SU(3)\times SU(3)`$ symmetry. This was a really joyous moment for theorists. Suddenly, after all those years of dealing with approximate symmetries, it all fell into place. They are not fundamental symmetries of nature at all; they are just accidents dictated by the renormalizability of quantum chromodynamics and the gauge origin of the electroweak interactions.

Before closing, I must also say something about two other topics: the problem of strangeness nonconservation in the weak interactions, and the discoveries of the third generation of quarks and leptons and of the $`W`$ and $`Z`$.

The charge exchange semileptonic interactions were long known to violate strangeness conservation, so any charged $`W`$ boson would have to have couplings in which strangeness changes by one unit. It follows that the exchange of pairs of $`W`$s could produce processes like $`K\overline{K}`$ conversion in which strangeness changes by two units. With an ultraviolet cut-off of the order of the $`W`$ mass, the amplitude for such processes would be suppressed by only two factors of the inverse $`W`$ mass, like a first-order weak interaction, in contradiction with the known magnitude of the mass difference of the $`K_1`$ and $`K_2`$. A way out of this difficulty was discovered in 1970 by Glashow, Iliopoulos and Maiani . They found that these strangeness-violating first-order weak interactions would disappear if there were two full doublets of quarks, entering in the same way in the weak interactions. This required a fourth quark, called the charm quark. They also showed that with the fourth quark in the theory, in an $`SU(2)`$ gauge theory the neutral currents would not violate strangeness conservation. In 1972 I showed that the GIM mechanism also works for the $`Z`$ exchange of the $`SU(2)\times U(1)`$ electroweak theory . The introduction of the fourth quark also had the happy consequence, as shown independently by Bouchiat, Iliopoulos, and Meyer and by myself , that the triangle anomalies that would otherwise make the theory not really gauge invariant all cancelled. The $`K_1K_2`$ mass difference was calculated as a function of the charm quark mass by Gaillard and Lee , who used the experimental value of this mass difference to estimate that the mass of the charm quark would be about 1.5 GeV. Further, using the new insight from quantum chromodynamics that the strong coupling is not so strong at energies of this order, Applequist and Politzer in 1974 (just before the discovery of the J/psi) predicted that the charm-anticharm bound state would be rather narrow . This narrow bound state was discovered in 1974 , and immediately not only provided evidence for the existence of a fourth quark, but also gave vivid testimony that quarks are real.

The only thing remaining in the completion of the Standard Model was the discovery of the third generation: the $`\tau `$ lepton  (and the corresponding neutrino) and the bottom  and top  quarks. This provided a new mechanism for CP violation, the complex phase factor in the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix  appearing in the semi-leptonic weak interactions. The fact that the third generation of quarks is only slightly mixed in this matrix with the first and second generations even makes it natural that the CP violation produced in this way should be rather weak. Unfortunately, the explanation of the masses and mixing angles in the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix continues to elude us.

These developments were crowned in 1983 with the discovery  of the $`W`$ and the $`Z`$ intermediate vector bosons. It has proved possible to measure their masses with great precision, which has allowed a stringent comparison of the electroweak theory with experiment. This comparison has even begun to give hints of the properties of the as yet undiscovered scalar particle or particles.

Well, those were great days. The 1960s and 1970s were a time when experimentalists and theorists were really interested in what each other had to say, and made great discoveries through their mutual interchange. We have not seen such great days in elementary particle physics since that time, but I expect that we will see good times return again in a few years, with the beginning of a new generation of experiments at this laboratory.

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# High Resolution X-ray Spectroscopy of G292.0+1.8/MSH 11-54

## 1 INTRODUCTION

G292.0+1.8 (MSH 11-54) belongs to the class of oxygen-rich supernova remnants, which are probably the products of core collapse supernovae of the most massive stars, i.e. a main sequence mass in excess of $`20`$M.111See the review by Vink, these proceedings. It has a size of $`8`$ and its morphology is characterized by a filamentary X-ray structure, and a bar stretching from the central east to the west side. The nature of this bar is unclear, but may have something to do with a structure in the progenitor’s circumstellar medium .

Recently it was discovered that a region of hard X-ray emission, east of the center, harbors a 135 ms radio/X-ray pulsar . This is of special interest as it is likely that G292.0+1.8 is the remnant of a very massive star (30-40 M, ). Such massive stars are thought to give birth to black holes . Surprisingly, there are only a few examples of shell type supernova remnants with pulsar wind nebulae inside.

Chandra observations of G292.0+1.8 have revealed substantial variations in abundances within the remnant , the most prominent X-ray lines being O, Ne, Mg, Si and S.

XMM-Newton observed G292.0+1.8 in August 2002, with a total observation time of $``$28 ks. Here we report on a preliminary analysis of the data with an emphasis on the reflection grating spectrometer (RGS, ) data.

## 2 HIGH RESOLUTION SPECTROSCOPY

The peculiar bar-like feature across the remnant has an advantage for observation by the RGS instrument, as long as the dispersion axis is perpendicular to the bar, as was the case during this observation. As the RGS is a slitless spectrometer, the spectral resolution is degraded by the spatial extent of the observed object. The degradation is approximately 0.12 Å per arcmin. However, the bar is bright with respect to the rest of the remnant and has a width of 1-2 (Fig. 2). The effective spectral resolution in FWHM is therefore $`2`$ Å. The relative spectral resolution increases at longer wavelengths. For shorter wavelengths higher resolution can be obtained by extracting second order spectra.

In order to perform a quantitative analysis of the RGS spectra the response matrix has to be convolved with the spatial profile of the remnant (see ), for which we used the Chandra-ACIS images, which have a higher spatial resolution. The Chandra images were extracted in narrow energy bands in order to obtain the right profile for each element.

As can be seen in Fig. 2, the RGS spectrum reveals line features which are blended when observed with the Chandra or XMM-Newton CCD detectors (c.f. the spectra in ). The Fe XVII lines are of interest as they are weak and have not been resolved previously.

The spectral resolution is of sufficient quality in order to estimate the forbidden over resonant line ratios of the O VII He$`\alpha `$ triplet, which is an important plasma diagnostic . The best fit with an absorption of $`N_\mathrm{H}`$$`=4\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2 gives a G-ratio of $`(f+i/r)=0.460.91`$ (Fig. 3). According to the SPEX non-equilibrium ionization model, the triplet emission indicates a range for $`kT_\mathrm{e}`$ of 0.27 - 0.51 keV (90% confidence).

## 3 A COOL COMPONENT

Previous X-ray studies of G292.0+1.8 typically found that the plasma temperature is $`kT_\mathrm{e}`$= 0.7 keV, although an additional low 0.3 keV temperature component was found in a region near the rim of G292.0+1.8 . However, fitting the RGS spectra with the SPEX non-equilibrium ionization model indicates that in addition to the 0.7 keV plasma component a much cooler component with $`kT_\mathrm{e}`$$`0.3`$ keV has to be present throughout the remnant (see also the previous section). The spectral fits indicate that this component is also considerably more underionized than the 0.7 keV component: $`n_\mathrm{e}t`$$`4\times 10^{10}`$ cm-3s versus $`n_\mathrm{e}t`$$`10^{11}`$ cm-3s. The cool component varies in importance, with the contribution of the cool component to the total emission measure varying from 13% (in the west) to 28% (east). This component is the main source of the O VII emission shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3

## 4 THE KINEMATICS OF G292.0+1.8

In order to get a better idea of the ejected mass, the explosion energy, and the evolutionary phase of the G292.0+1.8, kinematical data are important, as the example of Cas A shows . We are currently working on modeling the line profiles, and directly on the dispersed images in order to obtain kinematical information. This work is still in progress, but our preliminary results indicate that the O VII Ly$`\alpha `$ is coming from a plasma with no great bulk motions ($`v<114`$ km s-1) and no apparent Doppler line broadening ($`\sigma _v<730`$ km s-1, 95% confidence level). However, the Ne X Ly$`\alpha `$ emission, measured using the 2nd order spectra, is best fitted by including line broadening corresponding to $`\sigma _v=8802880`$ km s-1(95% confidence range). Previous studies indicated that most of the Ne is associated with the ejecta, whereas the O emission has a large contribution from shock heated interstellar/circumstellar material. Our results therefore suggests that the blastwave has decelerated considerably, whereas at least some of the ejecta, presumably the material in relatively dense knots, are still moving with a high velocity.

## 5 CONCLUSIONS

We have presented preliminary results of an analysis of XMM-Newton observations of G292.0+1.8. We hope to improve on this analysis in the near future. The tentative conclusions are:

* It is possible to obtain high resolution RGS spectra from a relatively large object as G292.0+1.8, provided that narrow, outstanding features exist in the spatial emission profile along the dispersion axis.
* The RGS spectra of G292.0+1.8 indicate the presence of at least two temperature components, with $`kT_\mathrm{e}`$$``$ 0.7 keV and, somewhat unexpectedly, $`kT_\mathrm{e}`$$``$ 0.3 keV. The coolest component is needed in order to account for the observed O VII line emission.
* No significant line broadening (temperature of the shell) is indicated by the O VIII Ly$`\alpha `$ (0.65 keV) line emission: $`\sigma _E<1.4`$ eV ($`<731`$ km s-1) (95% confidence), but significant line broadening seems to be present for the Ne X Ly$`\alpha `$ emission, corresponding to a velocity dispersion of $`\sigma _v1500`$ km s-1.

This work was supported by NASA’s Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship Award Nr. PF0-10011 issued by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, which is operated by the SAO under NASA contract NAS8-39073. This work is based on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission, funded by its member states and the NASA (USA). SRON is financially supported by NWO, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.


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# The X-ray and radio emission from SN 2002ap: The importance of Compton scattering

## 1 Introduction

The connection between Type Ic supernovae (SNe) and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), as recently highlighted by GRB030329=SN2003dh (Stanek et al., 2003; Hjorth et al., 2003; Kawabata et al., 2003), have made a detailed understanding of this class of SNe especially urgent. The first indication of an association of GRBs with Type Ic SNe was, however, already clear from the observations of GRB980425=SN1998bw (e.g., Iwamoto et al., 2003). Type Ic SNe are believed to be the result of explosions of Wolf-Rayet stars, which have lost their hydrogen and most of their helium envelopes (Nomoto et al., 1994; Woosley, Langer, & Weaver, 1995). Progenitors of this type have strong stellar winds with mass loss rates $`\dot{M}10^5M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ and wind velocities $`v_\mathrm{w}10004000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. The interaction of the non-relativistic supernova ejecta with this wind has long been invoked to explain the radio and X-ray emission observed for this type of SNe (e.g., Chevalier & Fransson, 2003). For the GRBs a relativistic version of the same scenario has been used to explain the properties of the GRB afterglows (e.g., Li & Chevalier, 2003).

Because of its small distance, 7.3 Mpc, SN 2002ap has been subject to observations in several wavelength bands from radio to X-rays. The optical spectrum showed the SN to be a typical Type Ic, with no evidence for hydrogen or helium. Although line blending made it hard to determine velocities accurately, Mazzali et al. (2002) argued that SN 2002ap belongs to the extremely energetic events sometimes referred to as ’hypernovae’, where the prime example is SN 1998bw. The total kinetic energy is, however, sensitive to the fraction of the ejecta at very high velocity, which is not probed by the optical spectra. Radio and X-ray observations are more sensitive to this part of the ejecta, since radiation in these wavelength bands are expected to arise in the shocked, faster moving outer material. Hence, an accurate modeling of the radio and X-ray observations is well motivated.

Radio observations of SN 2002ap with VLA, and modeling of these, have been discussed in Berger, Kulkarni, & Chevalier (2002) (in the following BKC). With the assumption of equipartion between magnetic fields and relativistic electrons, these authors showed that the radio light curves could be explained by a synchrotron self-absorption model, where the radio emitting material expands at $`0.3`$ c. While the fits to the light curves were satisfactory, there are some issues left open by the model. In particular, the implied optical thin synchrotron spectrum is considerably flatter than the observed one. The steeper than expected spectrum could be due to synchrotron cooling. If so, a magnetic field strength much in excess of equipartion is required.

In parallel to this, there has been several papers discussing XMM observations of SN 2002ap (Soria & Kong, 2002; Sutaria, Chandra, Bhatnagar, & Ray, 2003; Soria, Pian, & Mazzali, 2004). These authors have interpreted the X-ray emission as coming from the thermal electrons behind the shock either directly as free-free emission or as inverse Compton scattering of the photospheric SN photons. For such models to work, the shock velocity has to be fairly low ($`10,00020,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at day 6). As we argue in this paper, there is evience from optical line profiles that velocities higher than this are needed. Furthermore, a low shock velocity implies a small size of the radio emission region and, hence, a high brightness temperature.

In this paper we show that a consistent picture of both the radio and X-ray observations can be obtained by a model where inverse Compton cooling of the relativistic electrons by the photospheric photons is important. This explains both the steep radio spectrum, and the X-ray emission as coming from the same region, expanding at a velocity compatible with both optical and radio observations. The inclusion of the X-ray constraint also allows a determination of the ratio between the energy densities in magnetic fields and relativistic electrons.

The paper is organized as follows. In §2 we discuss the constraints on different cooling processes of the relativistic electrons, using simple analytical arguments. In §3 we illustrate this by a detailed model calculation of the observed light curves and radio and X-ray spectra. The implications of this and a comparison with related papers are given in §4. In §5 we summarize our conclusions. We will in the following use a distance of $`D7.3`$ Mpc for M 74 (Sharina, Karachentsev, & Tikhonov, 1996).

## 2 Analytical considerations.

An approximate expression for the optically thin synchrotron luminosity, $`L_\nu `$, emitted at a frequency $`\nu `$ from behind a spherically symmetric, non-relativistic shock with velocity $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}`$ and radius $`R_{\mathrm{sh}}`$ is given by

$$\nu L_\nu \pi R_{\mathrm{sh}}^2v_{\mathrm{sh}}n_{\mathrm{rel}}\left(\frac{\gamma _\nu }{\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}}\right)^{1p}\gamma _\nu mc^2\left(1+\frac{t_{\mathrm{synch}}(\nu )}{t}+\frac{t_{\mathrm{synch}}(\nu )}{t_{\mathrm{other}}(\nu )}\right)^1.$$
(1)
(e.g., Fransson & Björnsson, 1998). The number density of relativistic electrons is denoted by $`n_{\mathrm{rel}}`$ and $`\gamma _\nu `$ is the Lorentz factor of electrons radiating at a typical frequency $`\nu \gamma _\nu ^2B`$, where $`B`$ is the strength of the magnetic field. The energy distribution of the relativistic electrons injected behind the shock is parameterized as $`dn_{\mathrm{rel}}(\gamma )/d\gamma \gamma ^p`$ for $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}\gamma \gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ and zero otherwise. The second bracket on the RHS of equation (1) is the fraction of the injected energy which is radiated away as synchrotron radiation. This is determined by three different time scales: $`t`$ is the dynamical time (i.e., the adiabatic cooling time; roughly, the time since the onset of expansion), $`t_{\mathrm{synch}}(\nu )`$ is the synchrotron cooling time for electrons radiating at a frequency $`\nu `$, and $`t_{\mathrm{other}}(\nu )`$ is the cooling time corresponding to processes other than synchrotron radiation.

The extensive observations of SN 1993J allowed a detailed modeling of the synchrotron radiation produced by the shock. It was shown in Fransson & Björnsson (1998) that behind the shock, the energy densities of relativistic electrons and magnetic field both scaled with the thermal energy density. Furthermore, the shock expanded into a circumstellar medium in which density ($`n_{\mathrm{csm}}`$) varied with radius as $`R^2`$. As a result, $`n_{\mathrm{rel}}B^2n_{\mathrm{csm}}v_{\mathrm{sh}}^2t^2`$. Implicit in these scaling relations is the assumption of no time variation in $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$. However, since the deduced value of $`p`$ was close to two, any variation in $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ (and/or $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$) would only introduce a logarithmic correction. The radio observations of SN 2002ap are such that a detailed modeling is not possible. Hence, in order to limit the scope of our discussion, it will be assumed that the scaling relations obtained for SN 1993J are applicable also for SN 2002ap. This is not a critical assumption; for example, as is shown below, the different scaling relations used by BKC give much the same results. With this background we will now discuss two alternative scenarios, where synchrotron respectively inverse Compton cooling are responsible for the steep radio spectrum.

### 2.1 Synchrotron radiation as the dominant cooling process

Consider first the case when synchrotron radiation dominates other cooling processes (i.e., $`t_{\mathrm{synch}}<t_{\mathrm{other}}`$). With the use of $`R_{\mathrm{sh}}v_{\mathrm{sh}}t`$, one obtains from equation (1) the time variation of the optically thin synchrotron luminosity

$$L_\nu v_{\mathrm{sh}}^3\gamma _\nu ^{2p}\left(1+\frac{t_{\mathrm{synch}}}{t}\right)^1.$$
(2)
When radiative cooling is not important (i.e., $`t<t_{\mathrm{synch}}`$), this leads to

$`L_\nu `$ $``$ $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}^3B^{(p+1)/2}t`$ (3)
$``$ $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}^3t^{(1p)/2},`$
where $`t_{\mathrm{synch}}B^{3/2}`$ has been used. When synchrotron cooling is important (i.e., $`t>t_{\mathrm{synch}}`$), the corresponding expression for the synchrotron luminosity is

$`L_\nu `$ $``$ $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}^3B^{(p2)/2}`$ (4)
$``$ $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}^3t^{(2p)/2}.`$
The time dependence of $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}`$ in SN 2002ap used by BKC is the one for an ejecta whose structure is thought appropriate for a Ic SN, expanding into a $`n_{\mathrm{csm}}R^2`$ circumstellar medium. The self-similar solution (Chevalier, 1982) then gives $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}t^{1/(n2)}`$, where $`n`$ is the effective power law index of the ejecta density. For the high velocities relevant for SN 2002ap, Matzner & McKee (1999) find $`n=10.18`$ or $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}t^{0.12}`$. The observed optically thin synchrotron flux from SN 2002ap varies, roughly, as $`F_\nu t^{0.8}`$ (BKC). It is seen from equation (3) that this time dependence can be obtained for $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}t^{0.12}`$ and $`p2`$. This is the same conclusion as that reached by BKC, although they used somewhat different scaling relations for the energy densities behind the shock. It is also consistent with an equipartition value for the magnetic field, since such a value implies $`t<t_{\mathrm{synch}}`$. The latter is a necessary requirement for the validity of equation (3). However, this solution predicts an optically thin spectral index $`\beta 0.5`$, where $`L_\nu \nu ^\beta `$. This is not consistent with the observed value $`\beta 0.9`$. This discrepancy is exacerbated by the fact that the spectral range used to determine $`\beta `$ is rather close to where optical depth effects become important. Hence, spectral curvature could make the actual spectral index of the optically thin radiation somewhat larger than the measured value of $`\beta `$.

Short term variations are apparent in the radio light curves. As suggested by BKC, this is likely due to interstellar scattering and scintillation. These variations cause substantial variations in the instantaneous spectral index, which indicates that they are not broad-band. Therefore, a spectral index measured at a given time should be treated with some care. The typical time scale for such flux variations is at most a few hours; hence, the ratio of the fluxes at 4.86 GHz and 8.46 GHz averaged over several days should give a good estimate of the intrinsic optically thin spectral index of SN 2002ap. The value quoted above for the spectral index (i.e., $`\beta 0.9`$) was obtained by averaging over several observing periods and should thus be robust.

An alternative solution would be to assume $`t>t_{\mathrm{synch}}`$ (i.e., synchrotron cooling is important) and $`p2`$, since this gives a value of $`\beta `$ consistent with the observed one. The luminosity is then obtained from equation (4) as $`L_\nu v_{\mathrm{sh}}^3`$, which implies $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}t^{0.27}`$, or $`n6`$. Incidentally, this is the same time dependence of the velocity as determined for the type IIb SN 1993J. However, this scenario has a few not so attractive implications, as can be seen from the following arguments.

The thermal energy density ($`U_{\mathrm{th}}`$) behind a non-relativistic supernova shock wave expanding into the circumstellar progenitor wind, varies with time ($`t_d`$, in days) as

$$U_{\mathrm{th}}=7.6\times 10\frac{\dot{M}_5}{v_{\mathrm{w},3}}t_\mathrm{d}^2\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^3,$$
(5)
where $`\dot{M}_5`$ is the mass loss rate of the progenitor star in units of $`10^5M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ and $`v_{\mathrm{w},3}`$ is its wind velocity in units of $`10^3\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. The synchrotron cooling time for electrons radiating at a frequency $`\nu `$ is

$$t_{\mathrm{synch}}=1.7\times 10^2B^{3/2}\nu _{10}^{1/2}\mathrm{days},$$
(6)
where $`\nu _{10}\nu /10^{10}`$. Furthermore, parameterizing the magnetic field strength as $`B^2/8\pi ϵ_\mathrm{B}U_{\mathrm{th}}`$, the requirement for synchrotron cooling to be important (i.e., $`t_{\mathrm{synch}}<t`$) can be written

$$t<3.0ϵ_\mathrm{B}^{3/2}\nu _{10}\left(\frac{\dot{M}_5}{v_{\mathrm{w},3}}\right)^{3/2}\mathrm{days}.$$
(7)
In the cooling scenario, observations indicate that cooling is still important at $`4.86`$ GHz for $`t=15`$ days (BKC). From equation (7) this implies

$$ϵ_\mathrm{B}\frac{\dot{M}_5}{v_{\mathrm{w},3}}>4.7.$$
(8)
Since physically $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}<1`$, equation (8) shows that cooling due to synchrotron radiation requires a very high mass loss rate. Under such conditions free-free absorption in the circumstellar wind may become important. A realistic estimate of the free-free optical depth, however, necessitates a self-consistent determination of the temperature ahead of the shock (cf. the discussion of SN 1993J in Fransson & Björnsson, 1998). This is not a straightforward exercise and, in addition, the result is rather model dependent (Lundqvist & Fransson, 1988).

However, there is another consequence of the synchrotron cooling scenario that argues against its applicability to SN 2002ap. If cooling is important for electrons radiating at a frequency $`\nu `$, then

$$\nu L_\nu \pi R^2v_{\mathrm{sh}}U_{\mathrm{th}}\frac{ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}}{\mathrm{ln}(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{min}})},$$
(9)
where $`ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$ is the fraction of the thermal energy, which goes into relativistic electrons. The logarithmic factor in equation (9) results from $`p=2`$. With the use of the expression for $`U_{\mathrm{th}}`$, equation (9) can be written

$$ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}\frac{32}{9}\frac{\nu L_\nu \mathrm{ln}(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{min}})}{c^3}\frac{v_\mathrm{w}}{\dot{M}}\left(\frac{c}{v_{\mathrm{sh}}}\right)^3.$$
(10)
The constraint in equation (8) then yields

$$\frac{ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}}{ϵ_\mathrm{B}}<1.5\times 10^8\mathrm{ln}(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{min}})\left(\frac{c}{3v_{\mathrm{sh}}(t_\mathrm{d}=5)}\right)^3,$$
(11)
where the expression in equation (10) has been evaluated at $`t=5`$ days. As discussed in §4, the widths of the observed optical emission lines indicate velocities $`0.1`$ c, which is a lower limit for $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}`$. Hence, equation (11) requires an unprecedented low value of $`ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}/ϵ_\mathrm{B}`$. Although such a situation cannot be excluded, we discuss in the next section a scenario in which cooling is dominated by Compton scattering rather than synchrotron radiation.

### 2.2 Compton scattering as the dominant cooling process

When Compton scattering dominates the cooling (i.e., $`t_{\mathrm{comp}}<\text{min}[t,t_{\mathrm{synch}}]`$, where $`t_{\mathrm{comp}}`$ is the time scale for Compton cooling), the time variation of the optically thin synchrotron radiation is obtained from equation (1) as

$`L_\nu `$ $``$ $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}^3\gamma _\nu ^{2p}{\displaystyle \frac{t_{\mathrm{comp}}}{t_{\mathrm{synch}}}}`$ (12)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{v_{\mathrm{sh}}^3B^{(p+2)/2}}{U_{\mathrm{ph}}}},`$
where $`U_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ is the energy density of photons. Consider first the case when cooling is due to the external photons from the supernova itself; hence, $`U_{\mathrm{ph}}=L_{\mathrm{bol}}/(4\pi R_{\mathrm{sh}}^2c)`$, where $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ is the bolometric luminosity of the supernova. This then implies from equation (12)

$$L_\nu \frac{v_{\mathrm{sh}}^5t^{(p2)/2}}{L_{\mathrm{bol}}}.$$
(13)
When Compton cooling is strong (i.e., $`t_{\mathrm{comp}}t`$), the light curves for the optically thin frequencies are likely to show a minimum close to where the maximum of $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ occurs. In cases where also the optically thick-thin transition is observed, this would give rise to a double peaked structure. The observed time variation of $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ is shown in Figure 1. It is seen that the bolometric luminosity actually peaks during the main radio observing period. Although the observations span a rather limited range in time and, furthermore, are likely to be affected by interstellar scattering and scintillation (BKC), it is noteworthy that no pronounced minimum is apparent in the light curves for the optically thin frequencies. This can be understood if $`t_{\mathrm{comp}}`$ is roughly equal to $`t`$. Before making a more detailed numerical fit to the data, we will show that if $`t_{\mathrm{comp}}t`$ we can obtain a consistent and plausible set of values for $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}`$, $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}`$ and $`ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$.

The time scale for Compton cooling is given by

$$t_{\mathrm{comp}}=6.6\frac{B^{1/2}}{\nu _{10}^{1/2}U_{\mathrm{ph}}}\mathrm{days}.$$
(14)
With the use of

$$U_{\mathrm{ph}}=4.0\times 10^1\frac{L_{\mathrm{bol},42}}{t_d^2}\left(\frac{v_{\mathrm{sh}}}{c}\right)^2\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^3,$$
(15)
the condition $`t_{\mathrm{comp}}t`$ results in

$$L_{\mathrm{bol},42}10B^{1/2}\left(\frac{3v_{\mathrm{sh}}}{c}\right)^2,$$
(16)
where $`L_{\mathrm{bol},42}L_{\mathrm{bol}}/10^{42}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Furthermore, $`\nu _{10}=1`$ and $`t=6`$ days have been used. As an illustration we show in Figure 1 the ratio of the Compton cooling time scale to the adiabatic time scale for the specific model in §3 with $`\dot{M}=10^5M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, $`v_\mathrm{w}=1000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}(t_\mathrm{d}=10)=70,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, and $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}=10^3`$. For other values $`t_{\mathrm{comp}}(ϵ_\mathrm{B}\dot{M}/v_\mathrm{w})^{1/4}v_{\mathrm{sh}}^2t^{3/2}L_{\mathrm{bol}}^1\nu _{10}^{1/2}`$.

An X-ray flux was detected from SN 2002ap by XMM-Newton on 2002, Feb 3 ($`t6`$ days) (Soria & Kong, 2002; Sutaria, Chandra, Bhatnagar, & Ray, 2003; Soria, Pian, & Mazzali, 2004). Due to the weak signal neither the total flux nor the spectral shape could be well determined. The uncertainty in the high energy flux is affected by the subtraction of the flux from a strong, nearby source with a hard spectrum, while at low energy the inability to constrain absorption in excess of the galactic value makes the observed flux a lower limit to the intrinsic one. The observations can be fitted either with a thermal or a power law spectrum. In the latter case, the deduced spectral index is consistent with that observed in the radio. It is therefore likely that the X-ray flux is the Compton scattered optical radiation from the supernova. If this is the case, independent estimates of the energy densities in magnetic fields ($`U_\mathrm{B}`$) and relativistic electrons ($`U_{\mathrm{rel}}`$) can be obtained. Since $`p2`$

$$\frac{F_{\mathrm{radio}}}{F_\mathrm{X}}\frac{U_\mathrm{B}}{U_{\mathrm{ph}}},$$
(17)
where $`F_{\mathrm{radio}}\nu F_\nu `$ is the monochromatic optically thin synchrotron flux and $`F_\mathrm{X}`$ is the corresponding X-ray flux. As it turns out, the deduced value of $`B`$ is such that the same electrons, roughly, are producing both the radio and X-ray fluxes. Hence, equation (17) is not sensitive to the exact value of $`p`$. Assuming no intrinsic absorption and a power law spectrum with a spectral index consistent with that in the radio give at $`t6`$ days a monochromatic X-ray flux $`F_\mathrm{X}(3.0\pm 0.5)\times 10^{15}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. At the same time, $`F_{\mathrm{radio}}2.0\times 10^{17}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ and one finds from equation (17)

$$U_\mathrm{B}6\times 10^4L_{\mathrm{bol},42}\left(\frac{3v_{\mathrm{sh}}}{c}\right)^2\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^3.$$
(18)
If now $`t_{\mathrm{comp}}t`$, equations (16) and (18) lead to $`U_\mathrm{B}6\times 10^3B^{1/2}`$; hence, $`B0.3\mathrm{G}`$ and $`U_\mathrm{B}3\times 10^3\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^3`$. Together with the observed value $`L_{\mathrm{bol},42}1.6`$ at $`t6`$ days, this implies $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}/c0.2`$.

With a supernova distance $`7.3`$ Mpc, the observed X-ray flux corresponds to a monochromatic X-ray luminosity $`L_\mathrm{X}1.9\times 10^{37}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$, from which the energy density in relativistic electrons is obtained as (cf. eq. )

$$U_{\mathrm{rel}}\frac{4L_\mathrm{X}\mathrm{ln}(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{min}})}{\pi v_{\mathrm{sh}}^3t^2},$$
(19)
where, again, the logarithmic factor is due to $`p2.0`$. Furthermore, equation (19) assumes $`t_{\mathrm{comp}}t`$ so that, roughly, half of the injected energy emerges as X-ray flux and that, in turn, half of this is emitted through the forward shock (the other half being absorbed by the supernova ejecta). Hence, at $`t=6`$ days, $`U_{\mathrm{rel}}1\times 10^4(3v_{\mathrm{sh}}/c)^3\mathrm{ln}(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{min}})\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^3`$. With the use of $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}/c0.2`$, this leads to $`U_{\mathrm{rel}}5\times 10^4\mathrm{ln}(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{min}})\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^3`$.

Since the unknown values of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ enter only logarithmically in $`U_{\mathrm{rel}}`$, this shows that in the Compton cooling scenario for SN 2002ap, where the relativistic electrons cool on the external photons from the supernova itself, $`U_\mathrm{B}U_{\mathrm{rel}}`$, i.e., there is rough equipartition between the energy densities in magnetic fields and relativistic electrons. However, both of these energy densities are considerably smaller than that in thermal particles $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}(ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}})1\times 10^3(\dot{M}_5/v_{\mathrm{w},3})^1`$, unless the mass loss rate of the progenitor is small. The actual values of $`U_\mathrm{B}`$ and $`U_{\mathrm{rel}}`$ deduced above are roughly the same as those derived by BKC using radio data alone (in particular, the observed value of the synchrotron self-absorption frequency) and assuming equipartition. The fact that these two independent methods to determine the energy densities in magnetic fields and relativistic electrons give the same value lends support to the Compton cooling scenario. This is further strengthened by the determination of the shock velocity, for which both methods give approximately the same value.

Internally produced synchrotron photons are unlikely to contribute to the cooling as can be seen from the following argument. When cooling is important and $`p2.0`$, the energy density of synchrotron photons is $`U_{\mathrm{ph}}U_\mathrm{B}(v_{\mathrm{sh}}/c)(ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}/ϵ_\mathrm{B})^{1/2}`$. The condition corresponding to equation (8) then becomes $`ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}(\dot{M}_5/v_{\mathrm{w},3})>4.7(v_{\mathrm{sh}}/c)^{4/3}(ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}/ϵ_\mathrm{B})^{1/3}`$. Since $`ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}/ϵ_\mathrm{B}>1`$ is necessary for Compton scattering to dominate synchrotron radiation, this requires an even higher mass loss rate than the synchrotron cooling scenario.

## 3 A model fit to the radio and X-ray radiation of SN 2002ap

The estimates above show that Compton cooling can provide a natural scenario for SN 2002ap. A more detailed model fit to the observations is therefore warranted. We have for this purpose used the numerical model in Fransson & Björnsson (1998), which solves the radiative transfer equation for the synchrotron radiation, including self-absorption, together with the kinetic equation for the electron distribution, including synchrotron, Compton and Coulomb losses. The latter is unimportant for SN 2002ap. As discussed above, we assume that a constant fraction, $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}`$, of the thermal energy behind the shock goes into magnetic fields and a fraction, $`ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$, into relativistic electrons. The other important input parameters are $`p`$, $`\dot{M}/v_\mathrm{w}`$, and $`n`$, the ejecta density power law index (specifying the shock velocity, see above). Finally, the bolometric luminosity, $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$, determines the Compton cooling. For $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ we use the bolometric light curve determined by Mazzali et al. (2002), Yoshii et al. (2003), and Pandey et al. (2003). Because free-free absorption is unimportant in the cases we consider, and the synchrotron self-absorption is determined by $`B`$, $`n_{\mathrm{rel}}`$ and $`R`$ only, $`\dot{M}/v_\mathrm{w}`$ always enters in the combination $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}\dot{M}/v_\mathrm{w}`$ and $`ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}\dot{M}/v_\mathrm{w}`$, reducing the number of free parameters by one, but also preventing us from determining $`\dot{M}/v_\mathrm{w}`$ separately.

Using this model, we have varied the parameters to give a best fit of the radio light curves together with the XMM flux at 6 days, taken from Sutaria, Chandra, Bhatnagar, & Ray (2003). In Figure 1 we show the resulting light curves and in Figure 2 the full spectrum at 6 days, together with the VLA and XMM observations. In this figure we have also added the luminosity from the supernova photosphere. The latter can on day 6 be well approximated as a black-body with temperature of $`5000`$ K and a total luminosity of $`1.6\times 10^{42}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Pandey et al., 2003). As input electron spectrum we use $`p=2.1`$, and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}=1`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=5\times 10^3`$. The latter is only important for the upper energy limit of the gamma-ray flux from inverse Compton.

In order to reproduce the decrease in the optically thin parts of the light curves, the best fit model has $`n=10`$, in agreement with the expected density structure for the progenitor of an Ic SN (Matzner & McKee, 1999). This is also consistent with hydrodynamical models of Type Ic supernovae, where the power law index varies between $`n=8`$ and $`n=13`$ for ejecta velocities above $`25,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Iwamoto et al., 2000).The expansion velocity we find is $`70,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at 10 days, somewhat lower than deduced by BKC. As discussed in §2.2, the requirement that inverse Compton scattering should reproduce both the X-ray flux and the synchrotron radio spectrum, sets the value of $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}/ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$ as well as $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}\dot{M}/v_\mathrm{w}`$, and we find that $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}/ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}0.2`$ and $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}\dot{M}/v_\mathrm{w}1\times 10^{11}M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1/\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Note that $`ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$ is roughly proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}(\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{min}})`$. Since the values of both $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}`$ are unknown, this introduces an uncertainty in the value of $`ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$; for example, using $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}=\gamma _{\mathrm{abs}}`$, where $`\gamma _{\mathrm{abs}}`$ is the Lorentz factor of the electrons radiating at the synchrotron self-absorption frequency, yields $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}/ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}1`$. As anticipated in §2.2, inverse Compton cooling of the electrons is important, leading to a steepening of the electron spectrum and a spectral flux $`F_\nu \nu ^{0.9}`$, in agreement with observations (BKC). The importance of Compton cooling for the calculated light curves can be seen especially at high frequencies, where the cooling time is comparable to the dynamical time (cf. Fig. 1). For these a depression is apparent at the time of maximum Compton cooling at $`10`$ days.

## 4 Discussion

In order to derive the main parameters characterizing an observed synchrotron source of unknown size, one often has to invoke the assumption of equipartition between energies in relativistic electrons and magnetic field (i.e., $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$). The independent determination of these quantities requires either that radiative cooling is important within the observed frequency range, or that the Compton scattered radiation is observed. In the latter case, the scattered radiation can be the synchrotron photons themself or come from a known external source of photons.

We have shown in this paper that the radio, optical and X-ray observations of SN 2002ap can be understood in a scenario, wherein the relativistic electrons cool by inverse Compton scattering on the photospheric supernova photons and thereby giving rise to the X-ray emission. Since both radiative cooling and the Compton scattered emission are observed, not only can a value for $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}/ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$ be derived but, in addition, an internal consistency check of the model can be made; for example, the value of the synchrotron self-absorption frequency can be predicted. The Compton cooling scenario implies rough equipartition conditions in SN 2002ap. Furthermore, the actual value deduced for $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}`$ ($`ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$) is close to the one derived by BKC from the observed values of the synchrotron self-absorption frequency and flux assuming equipartition. This shows that the model self-consistently predicts the frequency of the synchrotron self-absorption, as was illustrated in §3.

There is, however, one underlying assumption; namely, a spherically symmetric source. It is seen in §2.2 that the only place where the assumption of a spherically symmetric source geometry enters is in the derivation of the energy density of relativistic electrons from the observed X-ray luminosity (cf. eq. ). Deviations from spherical symmetry, for example a jet structure, would then have to be compensated for by an increased energy density of relativistic electrons. Since the deduced values of $`B`$ and $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}`$ are not affected (cf. eqs.  and), this results in an increased synchrotron self-absorption frequency. Due to the short term flux variations, which are likely caused by interstellar scattering and scintillation, the limits of the allowed variations of the predicted self-absorption frequency are hard to evaluate precisely. From the early observations at the lowest frequency (1.43 GHz), when the radiation at this frequency was optically thick, it seems unlikely that the observed self-absorption frequency has been underestimated by more than a factor two. Since synchrotron self-absorption frequency scales with energy density of relativistic electrons as $`ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}^{2/(p+4)}`$, the value of $`ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$ can be increased at most by a factor ten. Hence, the solid angle of a jet has to cover at least 10 % of the sky. This conclusion is similar to the one reached by Totani (2003), using a different line of reasoning.

BKC argue that the observed XMM flux can be described as an extrapolation of the synchrotron flux. This is apparently based on the assumption that the radio spectral index is close to $`\beta 0.5`$, which is needed to explain the light curves in the absence of cooling. The resulting spectral break in the optical frequency range due to synchrotron cooling in an equipartition magnetic field would give rise to an X-ray flux and spectral index in approximate agreement with those observed. However, as discussed in §2.2, the observed spectral index in the radio is $`\beta 0.9`$, which is similar to that in the X-ray range, making this scenario untenable.

Sutaria, Chandra, Bhatnagar, & Ray (2003) explain the X-ray flux as a result of thermal inverse Compton scattering by the thermal electrons behind the shock (see Fransson, 1982). In order to have sufficient electron optical depth, they need to have the X-ray emitting region moving with a velocity $`16,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. A similar low velocity of the forward shock is needed in the model by Soria, Pian, & Mazzali (2004). They argue that the X-ray emission is free-free emission from the reverse shock. There are several features of these models which make them less attractive. In the thermal inverse Compton scattering model, the spectral index is very sensitive both to shock temperature and optical depth. The low shock temperature in the free-free model requires a density structure of the ejecta corresponding to $`n40`$ at velocities $`10,00020,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, which is quite different from that thought appropriate fora Ic SN, $`n10`$ (Iwamoto et al., 2000; Matzner & McKee, 1999), in this velocity range.

In addition to these model specific problems, there are two rather model independent arguments against any model invoking such low shock velocities. First, the line emission observed in SN 2002ap should set a lower limit to the velocity of the forward shock. Due to line blending, accurate velocities were hard to measure in SN 2002ap. However, it seems clear that velocities of at least $`0.1\mathrm{c}`$ are indicated. Mazzali et al. (2002) find in their first spectrum at 2 days a photospheric velocity of 30,000 km/s, and at 3.5 days 20,500 km/s. It is important to note that this is the velocity where the continuum is becoming optically thick and, therfore, provides a lower limit to the velocity of the line emitting regions. This is confirmed by the observations of Foley et al. (2003), which show that the P-Cygni profile of the O I $`\lambda 7774`$ line on day 15 extends at least to $`24,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, where it becomes blended with other lines. This, in turn, should be a conservative lower limit to the shock velocity and, hence, calls in question the consistency of the proposed models.

Another issue for low velocity models is the incorporation of the observed radio emission. Assuming the radio emission to come from behind the forward and/or the reverse shock, implies a brightness temperature which scales, roughly, as $`v_{\mathrm{sh}}^2`$. The low shock velocities argued for in the above two models result in brightness temperatures about a factor 10 larger than the Compton limit. This, in turn, would produce an X-ray flux much in excess to that observed.

The rough equipartion between the energies in relativistic electrons and magnetic fields found for SN 2002ap is in sharp contrast to the conditions in SN 1993J for which $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}/ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}1`$ was deduced by Fransson & Björnsson (1998). Unfortunately, these are the only two SNe for which an independent estimate of $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}/ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$ has been possible to make. In this context it is interesting to note that for the afterglows of GRBs the deduced values of $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}/ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$ exhibit a large range (e.g., Panaitescu & Kumar, 2002). However, there is a clear tendency for this ratio to be smaller, or for some afterglows much smaller, than unity. Although the conditions for both magnetic field generation and particle acceleration may differ considerably between relativistic and non-relativistic shocks, a plausible cause for the substantial difference in the value of $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}/ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}`$ behind the non-relativistic shocks in SN 1993J and SN 2002ap is harder to find.

## 5 Conclusions

We have shown that in SN 2002ap inverse Compton scattering of the photospheric photons is important for those relativistic electrons producing the radio emission. The scattering cools the relativistic electrons, and gives rise to an X-ray flux which matches the observed flux level as well as the spectral index. The value for the shock velocity, $`70,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, is in rough agreement with BKC. The deduced energy densities in magnetic fields and relativistic electrons are close to equipartition. However, without a priori knowledge of what fraction of the total injected energy density these quantities correspond to, no estimate can be made of the mass loss rate of the progenitor star. From the radio and X-ray observations the mass loss rate can be constrained to $`\dot{M}1\times 10^8(v_\mathrm{w}/1000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1)ϵ_\mathrm{B}^1\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. BKC assumed $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}=ϵ_{\mathrm{rel}}=0.1`$, which would imply $`\dot{M}1\times 10^7(v_\mathrm{w}/1000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1)\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$; this is very low for a Wolf-Rayet star. Turning this argument around, a typical Wolf-Rayet mass loss rate of $`\dot{M}10^5M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ and wind velocity of $`2000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, would imply $`ϵ_\mathrm{B}2\times 10^3`$.

An important conclusion from this paper is that any self-consistent model of the radio and X-ray flux observed from SN 2002ap needs to include effects due to the photospheric emission. It is likely that in any SNe, for which the synchrotron emission from behind the shock becomes transparent not too long after the photospheric emission has reached its maximum, inverse Compton scattering can be an important factor shaping the radio and/or X-ray spectrum. Another outcome of our analysis is that the time variation of the radio emission allows a determination of the density structure of the ejecta. It is reassuring that the result is close to what is expected theoretically.

This research was supported by grants from the Swedish Science Research Council. We are grateful for the comments and suggestions provided by Roger Chevalier.