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# Faint Scattering Around Pulsars: Probing the Interstellar Medium on Solar System Size Scales

## 1. Introduction

Scattering by density inhomogeneities in the ionized interstellar medium causes multiple rays to interfere, producing frequency structure in the spectra of spatially coherent sources such as pulsars Scheuer (1968); Rickett (1990). The relatively high transverse velocities of most pulsars cause the spectra to change significantly on timescales of minutes to hours. When the spectrum is monitored over time, the resulting two-dimensional array or “dynamic spectrum” is often dominated by a random pattern of scintillation maxima with characteristic bandwidth and timescale Cordes, Weisberg & Boriakoff (1985). On occasion, however, more organized features are present. The best studied of these are periodic fringe patterns in the dynamic spectra due to the interference between two or more discrete bundles of rays or, equivalently, rays arriving from multiple images on the sky (Cordes & Wolszczan, 1986; Wolszczan & Cordes, 1987; Gupta, Bhat, & Rao, 1999; Rickett, Lyne & Gupta, 1997, hereafter RLG).

A less well-studied pattern in pulsar dynamic spectra consists of a crisscross of intensity maxima that are variably spaced perpendicular to the ridge lines of the maxima. Cordes and Wolszczan (1986) drew attention to these “multiple drift rates” in dynamic spectra, building on earlier work (Hewish 1980; Roberts & Ables 1982; Hewish, Wolszczan, & Graham 1985; Cordes, Weisberg, & Boriakoff 1985). Numerous examples of the phenomenon are evident in the dynamic spectra presented by Gupta, Rickett, & Lyne (1994) in their multi-year study of 8 pulsars, but the autocorrelation analysis that they employed is not well suited to its full elucidation. The remarkable episode of “fringing” in the dynamic spectra of PSR B0834+06 that RLG explore is also accompanied at all epochs by this phenomenon.

The central result of our study is to show that this crisscross pattern has a much clearer representation in transform space, where it is seen to be a high-Q phenomenon with a characteristic parabolic curvature. We discuss the constraints that the presence of this pattern places on the image geometry and speculate on the physical structures that might give rise to this scattering geometry.

## 2. Observations and Data Analysis

Our observations were made at the Arecibo Observatory111The Arecibo Observatory is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, which is operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. at 430 MHz. Spectra across a 10 MHz band centered on this frequency were produced by a Fourier-transform-based spectrometer (AOFTM222http://www.naic.edu/~aoftm). RCP and LCP signals were summed in hardware, and spectra with 1024 frequency channels (i.e. 10 kHz frequency resolution) were produced every $``$ 1.6 ms. During later analysis the spectra were synchronously averaged at the pulsar period, calculated using TEMPO Taylor & Weisberg (1989), and summed over 10 s time intervals, creating a cube with axes of time, frequency, and pulsar rotational phase. We used 512 phase bins across the pulsar period. Dynamic spectra were created by producing an ON-pulse spectrum from a window of phase bins centered on the pulse and subtracting an OFF-pulse spectrum to remove the baseline.

We observed 19 pulsars during 1999 January and 11 pulsars during 2000 January. A typical observation lasted one hour; we made 46 and 43 separate observations at the two observing epochs, respectively. Following several previous studies (e.g. Cordes & Wolszczan 1986; RLG) we produced two-dimensional power spectra from the dynamic spectra. These “secondary spectra” form the basis for most of the further analysis reported here. We normalized each secondary spectrum by its maximum and converted the relative power levels into a decibel scale.

Figure Faint Scattering Around Pulsars: Probing the Interstellar Medium on Solar System Size Scales shows dynamic and secondary spectra for PSR B0834+06. The crisscross pattern in the dynamic spectrum shows up in the secondary spectrum as two parabolic features, curving away from the conjugate time axis, that we call “arcs”. These arcs are remarkable for their narrowness and extent. In Figure Faint Scattering Around Pulsars: Probing the Interstellar Medium on Solar System Size Scales we present secondary spectra, averaged over multiple days to improve dynamic range. PSR B0823+26 and PSR B0834+06 showed a persistent arc pattern over both the 1999 and 2000 observing runs. In 2000, PSR B0919+06 showed arcs that were relatively broad and faint and, hence, showed up only upon averaging of $`6`$ secondary spectra. However, we did not see arcs in two high-quality 1999 observations. PSR B1133+16 showed arcs during most of the 1999 and 2000 observations, but several high-quality 2000 observations failed to show them, even though they were made on days adjacent to those on which they were present. PSR B1933+16 did not show the arc pattern in either of two high-quality observations in 1999 or 2000. Time variability of the arcs will be the subject of a separate study.

## 3. Results

We detected arcs in the secondary spectra of pulsars B0823+26, B0834+06, B0919+06, and B1133+16. By using the relationship between fringe frequencies in the secondary spectrum and scattering parameters (e.g. Cordes & Wolszczan 1986; RLG; Gupta, Bhat, & Rao 1999), we can analyze the arcs more quantitatively. Here we summarize a more detailed study that will be reported elsewhere (Cordes et al. 2001). To simplify calculations, these treatments assume that the scattering takes place in a thin screen a distance $`D_s`$ from the pulsar, with the pulsar-observer distance $`D`$. They show that the interference between two points $`𝜽_{1,2}`$ on the image plane (i.e. as seen by an observer) will lead to two-dimensional fringing in the dynamic spectrum with fringe frequencies

$`f_t`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{D}{\lambda D_\mathrm{s}}}\right)(𝜽_2𝜽_1)𝑽_{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}\mathbf{,}\mathbf{}},`$ (1)
$`f_\nu `$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{D}{2cD_\mathrm{s}}}\right)(DD_\mathrm{s})\left(𝜽_2^2𝜽_1^2\right).`$ (2)
Here $`f_t`$ is the conjugate time axis, $`f_\nu `$ is the conjugate frequency axis, and the effective velocity (Cordes & Rickett 1998) is a weighted sum of the velocities of the source, screen and observer,

$`𝑽_{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}\mathbf{,}\mathbf{}}=(1D_\mathrm{s}/D)𝑽_{𝐩}^{}{}_{\mathbf{}}{}^{}+(D_\mathrm{s}/D)𝑽_{\mathrm{𝐨𝐛𝐬}}^{}{}_{\mathbf{}}{}^{}𝑽_{\mathrm{𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧}}^{}{}_{\mathbf{}}{}^{}.`$ (3)
We can introduce the dimensionless variables

$`p`$ $`=`$ $`\left(𝜽_2^2𝜽_1^2\right)=\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2cD_\mathrm{s}}{D(DD_\mathrm{s})}}\right]f_\nu ,`$ (4)
$`q`$ $`=`$ $`(𝜽_2𝜽_1)\widehat{𝑽}_{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}\mathbf{,}\mathbf{}}=\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda D_\mathrm{s}}{DV_{\mathrm{eff},}}}\right]f_t,`$ (5)
where $`\widehat{𝑽}_{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}\mathbf{,}\mathbf{}}`$ is a two-dimensional unit vector for the effective velocity. Since $`p`$ is quadratic in image angles and $`q`$ is linear in image angles, $`p`$ will generally be quadratic in $`q`$. This is essential to explaining the parabolic curvature of the arcs.

If we make the reasonable assumption that the pulsar velocity is much greater than either the velocity of the Earth or the screen, equations (4)–(5) can be simplified to

$`p`$ $`=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2cs}{D(1s)}}\right]f_\nu ,`$ (6)
$`q`$ $`=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda s}{V_{\mathrm{pm}}(1s)}}\right]f_t,`$ (7)
where $`sD_\mathrm{s}/D`$, and we approximate $`V_{\mathrm{eff},}`$ by the measured proper motion speed, $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}=\mu D`$. A parabolic arc ($`p=q^2`$) in the p-q plane then corresponds to a feature in the secondary spectrum of curvature

$`f_\nu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{D}{2c}}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2}{V_{\mathrm{pm}}^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{s}{1s}}\right)f_t^2.`$ (8)
In this model, the curvature of the arcs is determined solely by the screen placement, the pulsar distance, and the pulsar proper motion. Thus, by measuring the curvature of the arcs in the secondary spectrum, we can determine a value for the screen placement that is consistent with the observations and assumed values of $`D`$ and $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$, as in Table 1.

Gupta (1995) used diffractive bandwidth and timescale measurements to determine $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$, the speed of the scintillation pattern past the observer (Cordes and Rickett 1998). Assuming that the scattering is dominated by a thin screen, one can determine the screen placement for which $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ is consistent with $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$. This is determined from Gupta’s $`R_1`$ parameter by $`s_{\mathrm{iss}}=R_1^2/(1+R_1^2)`$. Table 1 shows that the values of $`s_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ agree well with those for $`s_{\mathrm{arc}}`$, calculated with Eq. 8. Although the values of $`s_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ agree well with those for $`s_{\mathrm{arc}}`$, the agreement may be only proportionate because there are significant uncertainties in both the distances and the ISS parameters used by Gupta; also, scattering is likely to receive contributions from the distributed ISM as well as from a screen. In particular, a recent study of B0919+06 (Chatterjee et al. 2001) that compares scintillation velocity estimates, which are epoch dependent, and the parallax and proper motion determined from VLBA observations, finds that a thin screen must be combined with a distributed medium such as that of the Taylor & Cordes (1993) model to bring agreement between the two velocity estimates. At some epochs, the screen evidently causes multiple imaging of the pulsar.

From equation (1) it can be seen that the vertical ($`f_t`$) extent of arc features in the secondary spectrum is related to the angular extent of the scattering image along the effective velocity vector. Table 1 shows the typical angular extent of the filament, $`\theta _{x,\mathrm{typ}}`$, and the corresponding linear size on the screen, $`x_{\mathrm{typ}}`$, inferred from the value of $`f_t`$ for a generic model.

We analyze the distribution of power in the secondary spectrum with a sequence of vertical cuts, as in Figure Faint Scattering Around Pulsars: Probing the Interstellar Medium on Solar System Size Scales. The rapid decline of power above the arcs strongly limits the image geometries that are consistent with the data. In order to exclude power above the arc, points must satisfy $`pq^2`$. Referring to equations (4)–(5), this constraint can be expressed as

$`\theta _2^2\theta _1^2`$ $``$ $`(\theta _{2\mathrm{x}}\theta _{1\mathrm{x}})^2,`$ (9)
where the $`x`$ components are along the effective velocity vector. A single extended image has many image pairs that violate this condition and, hence, will produce a large amount of power above the arcs, inconsistent with the behavior seen. Hence, a multiple image geometry is required to produce the clearly delineated arcs we observe.

One configuration that satisfies Eq. 9, having no detectable power above the arcs, consists of a bright point-like image at the origin (direct line of sight to the pulsar) and a faint secondary image as a filled halo around it. The interference between a point at the origin and any other image point cannot produce power above the arcs because $`𝜽_1=0`$. If the point-like image and halo have flux densities proportional to $`a`$ and $`b`$, respectively, then the point-like source will produce a point-like feature at the origin of the secondary spectrum with power proportional to $`a^2`$ (e.g. Cordes & Wolszczan 1986). The inter-image interference between the point-source and the halo will produce power proportional to $`ab`$. The self-interference between regions of the halo (which will produce power above the arcs) will be proportional to $`b^2`$. Since this is smaller by another factor of $`b/a`$ from the inter-image term, then, for small $`b/a`$, the only detectable power will be a point-source at the origin and power below the arcs.

Although the point-source plus halo model is consistent with the observations, the scattering material in the screen would need to be inhomogeneous enough that the direct image of the pulsar would shine through, but rays slightly off-axis would be scattered. In essence, we would need to be seeing the pulsar through a break in the interstellar “clouds”, consistent with the time-variability of the arcs. On the other hand, there is strong evidence for scattering geometries based on filamentary structures Rickett (1990). However, the self-interference between filaments will lead to features which are inconsistent with our data. Any viable model based on filamentary features in the image plane must somehow hide these self-interference features as well as produce the observed parabolic arcs.

The formalism used here includes only geometric delays, whereas differential dispersive delays may be important in some cases. The fact that the observed arcs conform to the geometric-only formalism implies that at least in some instances the dispersive effects are small. We have examples of secondary spectra that show more complex behavior and will analyze them within the more general framework in a later paper. An extended medium, as opposed to a single screen, also will be explored.

While there are many possibilities for source geometries, it is clear that a multicomponent scattered image is necessary. In future papers, we will apply this method to better understand the structure of the ISM on small spatial scales.

We thank T. Joseph Lazio for helpful discussions, the operators at Arecibo for help with remote observations, and Duncan Lorimer for the development of an excellent remote observing interface. We acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation: grant AST-9618408 to JMC and grant AST-9619493 to DRS.


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# Macroscopic and Local Magnetic Moments in Si-doped CuGeO3 with Neutron and 𝜇SR Studies.

## 1 Introduction

Since the first observation that the inorganic compound CuGeO3 undergoes a spin-Peierls (SP) transition Hase93 , an extensive study of the doped system has been undertaken. Site (Cu1-xMxGeO3) Coad96 ; Hase96 ; Martin97  and bond (CuGe1-xSixO3) doping Regnault95 ; Hirota98  studies have revealed the existence of a new antiferromagnetic phase below the SP ordering temperature TSP. Grenier et al. Grenier98-1  have shown that the temperature concentration(T-x) phase diagram for site and bond doping in CuGeO3 exhibits a similar behaviour. The main features are the reduction of TSP with increasing doping concentration, the suppression of the SP transition at a critical concentration xc, the onset of an AF phase characterised by an ordering temperature TN increasing with x, and decreasing for concentrations larger than xc. The critical concentration xc is of the order of 3% for site doping and about three times smaller for the bond doping scenario.

An inspection of Mg-doped compounds near xc by means of magnetic susceptibility Masuda98  and neutron scattering measurements Nakao99  has provided a more detailed description of the phase diagram for the site-doped SP. The ordering temperature TN and the order parameter $`\mu _{eff}`$ of the antiferromagnetic phase exhibit a discontinuity at xc $``$ 2.7%. The interpretation that has been proposed is that doped CuGeO3 undergoes a first order phase transition at the critical concentration xc that constitutes a compositional phase boundary. A distinction is therefore introduced between a dimerised AF phase (D-AF) below xc , and a uniform AF phase for higher concentration (U-AF). Susceptibility measurements near xc performed by Masuda et al. Masuda00  have revealed the presence of a double peak region, which was interpreted as a coexistence of both D-AF and U-AF phases. In addition they have performed high-resolution synchrotron diffraction on the (3/2 1 3/2) superlattice reflection. For low doping, the X-ray peak profile is resolution limited, indicating the presence of long range order in the lattice dimerisation. In the region of doping which exhibits the double peak in the susceptibility, the superlattice X-ray peak broadens, thus indicating the onset of short range order in the SP phase.

On the other hand, an extensive study of Si-doped compounds with susceptibility measurements was performed by Grenier et al. Grenier98-2 . They have shown that the introduction of Si ions reduces the intensity of the signal attributed to the dimerised phase. Moreover an additional peak appears below TSP, which is interpreted as the onset of an antiferromagnetic ordering at a temperature TN. Above TN, they observe an additional intensity in the susceptibility which is attributed to the freeing of S=1/2 spins near the doping centers. The proportion of the SP signal linearly decreases with increasing doping, whereas the proportion of free spins increases. However, no double peak feature is observed in the susceptibility measurements in the vicinity of the critical doping concentration where the SP phase collapses.

In order to explain the effect of impurities on the SP phase a theoretical model has been proposed by Saito and Fukuyama Saito97 ; Saito99 . A phase Hamiltonian that describes a one-dimensional AF chain coupled with a 3D lattice distorsion field was used. The observation of both SP and AF signatures can be consequently explained by considering a ground state where two long range order parameters coexist with a spatial variation. The lattice dimerisation is minimal near the doping centers, where the staggered magnetisation takes its maximal value. Moreover, the phase transition from D-AF to U-AF is predicted to be of first order if the spin-phonon coupling is small when compared with the interchain interaction. A first experimental evidence of the spatial inhomogeneity for the magnetic moments was seen with muon spin rotation experiments on Si- and Zn-doped CuGeO3 compounds Kojima97 .

In the present work we report a detailed study of the temperature-concentration (T-x) phase diagram of Si-doped CuGeO3 single crystals by means of neutron diffraction as well as zero-field field muon spin rotation ($`\mu `$SR). The different signals observed with the neutrons, namely the AF and SP superlattice peaks, are interpreted in terms of volume fractions via the analysis of the zero-field muon spectra. Finally, the local magnetic moment measured by $`\mu `$SR is compared with the macroscopic order parameter obtained by neutron diffraction.

## 2 Experimental Details

The Si-doped CuGeO3 single crystals have been grown using the floating zone method. The impurity concentration has been determined by means of inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), with an accuracy of about 0.1%. The samples have been characterised by bulk susceptibility measurements which have been published elsewhere Masuda00-2 .

The elastic neutron scattering experiments have been performed on the three-axis spectrometer for cold neutrons TASP, at the neutron spallation source SINQ, on a series of doped CuGe1-xSixO3 crystals (0.7% $`x`$ 3.8%). The incident neutron wave vector was kept fixed at $`k_i`$ = 2.662 Å-1. Higher-order neutrons have been suppressed by using a pyrolitic graphite filter. The samples have been oriented with the ($`0kl`$) zone in the scattering plane, and mounted in an ILL-type cryostat, which achieves a base temperature of 1.5K.

Zero field $`\mu `$SR measurements have been performed on the spectrometers GPS and LTF, at the muon facility of PSI. The polarisation of the incident muon beam was parallel to the a-axis of the sample.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Neutron diffraction

A typical profile of an antiferromagnetic superlattice peak is shown in Fig. 1 for the 0.82% sample. The temperature dependence of the maximum intensity is presented in Fig. 2. In order to confirm the onset of the SP dimerisation in the low doping regime, the reflection (1/2 3 1/2) was also measured. The magnetic intensity has been fitted with the following equation Hase96 :

$$I(T)=N_T^{\mathrm{}}(\frac{T_N^{}T}{T_N^{}})^{2\beta }\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{(T_N^{}T_N)^2}{2\mathrm{\Delta }T_N^2}\right]𝑑T_N^{}+BG$$
(1)
which describes the critical behaviour of the magnetic intensity near the AF transition, weighted with a Gaussian distribution for TN that accounts for inhomogeneities in the sample. N is a normalisation constant, $`\beta `$ the critical exponent and $`BG`$ the nonmagnetic background contribution. The exponent $`\beta `$ remains almost constant over the whole diagram, with an average value of about $`0.20\pm 0.04`$, similar to that observed in Zn-doped crystals Hase96 . The inhomogeneity in the concentration provides a $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_N`$ of about $`0.3\pm 0.05`$K. The temperature dependence of the SP peak shown in Fig. 1 was fitted with a function similar Nakao99  to the one of Eq. 1.

The effective magnetic moments $`\mu _{eff}`$ have been calculated by normalising the magnetic intensity at the saturation value with the nuclear structure factor of the (0 2 1) reflection, and corrected for the magnetic form factor of the free Cu2+ ion ITC . We emphasise that the neutron diffraction technique is a non local probe, and hence does provide a macroscopic order parameter, that is averaged over the whole volume of the sample.

As a next step, selected samples (0.82%, 1.7%, 2.38% and 3.8%) belonging to the series of single crystals measured with neutrons have been investigated by muon spin rotation spectroscopy in the three temperature regions that have been determined with neutron and susceptibility measurements, according to the experimental T-x diagram presented in Fig. 3. The values obtained from the various techniques are found to be in good agreement, indicating that the muon and the neutrons observe a magnetic ordering at the same transition temperature. The observation of the SP dimerisation in susceptibility data for the samples in the low doping regime is also confirmed by neutrons. The discrepancy between both methods is due to the fact that the SP superlattice peak that is measured with neutrons becomes extremely small while approaching the critical concentration. Furthermore, we emphasise that TSP is not observed above x=1.2%.

### 3.2 $`\mu `$SR results

In the paramagnetic phase, the zero-field muon spectra have been fitted with the Kubo-Toyabe function which accounts for the muon depolarisation originating from the nuclear moments (the depolarisation rate is of the order of 0.08 MHz). By lowering the temperature, in the low doping regime, the muon spectrum can be still explained by the same relaxation function, as it was observed for pure CuGeO3 Lappas94 . In the magnetically ordered phase, below TN, the muon depolarisation $`P_\mu (t)`$ in zero field was analysed over the whole doping regime with the following function (see also Kojima97 ):

$`P_\mu (t)`$ $`=`$ $`A_{rlx}\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Delta }t)`$
$`+`$ $`A_{osc}\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Gamma }t)\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \nu t+\varphi ).`$
The first term in Eq. 3.2 describes a non-precessing part of the muon signal, which relaxes at a rate $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, whereas the second term reflects a precessing part of the muon polarisation, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the depolarisation rate and $`\varphi `$ the initial phase shift. The total observed amplitude ($`A_{rlx}+A_{osc}`$) is significantly lower than the total amplitude observed above TN, indicating that part of the muon ensemble is depolarised within the dead time of the spectrometer ($`i.e.`$ a depolarisation rate higher than ca. 150 MHz).

According to the T-x diagram shown in Fig. 3, the emergence at low temperature of the precessing signal ($`A_{osc}`$) in zero-field is attributed to the ordering of the Cu2+ moments near the doping centers. In this vein, the frequency $`\nu `$, which is proportional to the magnetic field $`B_\mu `$ at the muon site, mirrors the static ordering of the moments.

The relaxing component in Eq. 3.2 is ascribed to sample regions where no coherent static magnetism is present. However, the similar temperature dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\nu `$ (see Fig. 4 and the inset of Fig. 5) indicates that these regions have reduced dimensions, leading to a detectable influence of the ordered neighbouring regions on the field distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }/\gamma _\mu `$ (where $`\gamma _\mu `$ is the gyromagnetic ratio of the muon) at the muon sites. This supports the idea that there is no macroscopic phase separation in the samples over the whole doping range, similarly to what was observed by Kojima et al. for Si- and Zn-doped CuGeO3 compounds in the low doping regime Kojima97 . Therefore, and similarly to the parameter $`\nu `$, the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ can be taken as a measure of the static ordered moments. Since $`A_{rlx}A_{osc}`$ the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ appears to be better determined than $`\nu `$ and consequently $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ will be utilised in the following discussion as a measure of the static moment.

The doping dependence of the relaxation rate $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, extrapolated at the saturation value, is shown in Fig. 5. The dependence upon Si-doping is almost constant within the precision of the experimental values. $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ exhibits however an increase above x=2.38%. According to the direct relation between $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\nu `$, this behaviour indicates that within the doping range that has been investigated the local magnetic field at the muon sites, and therefore the ordered moment increases only slightly with increasing temperature.

Figure 6 shows the evolution of the the normalised amplitudes $`\widehat{A}_{rlx}`$ (light grey area) and $`\widehat{A}_{osc}`$ (white area), as a function of Si concentration. The amplitudes have been normalised with respect to the total muon asymmetry $`A_{tot}`$, that was determined in the paramagnetic phase. We obtain that the amplitude corresponding to the magnetically ordered phase, $`\widehat{A}_{osc}`$, represents about 10% of $`A_{tot}`$. The relaxing part $`\widehat{A}_{rlx}`$ lies on the other hand between 40% and 60%. The part of $`A_{tot}`$ (dark grey area in Fig. 6) that could not be detected ($``$ 40%) will be discussed below.

In order to compare the local magnetic properties of the doped samples, as provided by the muons, with the macroscopic order parameter measured with neutrons, we use the quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{A}_{osc}`$. In this product, the local magnetic moment (proportional to $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) is hence weighted with the volume fraction ($`\widehat{A}_{osc}`$) of magnetised regions present in the sample.

The dependence of the AF order parameter $`\mu _{eff}`$ as a function of concentration is shown in Fig. 7, as obtained by both neutron diffraction and zero-field $`\mu `$SR methods. $`\mu _{eff}`$ is seen to increase with the doping concentration, reaches a maximum at xc= 1.7%, where the SP signal is not observed anymore (see Fig. 3).

## 4 Discussion

The agreement between neutron and $`\mu `$SR results (see Figs. 3 and 7) allows to associate the precessing signal, referred to Aosc, with the D-AF phase in the low doping regime, and with the U-AF phase in the high doping regime.

The purely relaxing signal, Arlx, is attributed, for $`x`$ 1.23%, to the regions where the lattice dimerisation is maximal. However, for higher doping concentrations, this amplitude does not disappear. It is thought to arise from an increase of static magnetic disorder that is induced by high doping.

As the sum of $`\widehat{A}_{rlx}`$ and $`\widehat{A}_{osc}`$ constitutes not more than 60% of the total muon asymmetry in the whole investigated doping regime, we may attribute the loss of signal to the boundary between the AF regions and the dimerised regions where a rapid spatial variation of the magnetisation gives rise to large field gradient and therefore leads to a depolarisation rate too fast to be observed by the $`\mu `$SR spectrometer. However, the neutrons are sensitive to these boundary regions that contribute to the intensity of the AF peaks.

The $`\mu `$SR measurements have shown on the other hand that the muon signal described by Arlx is influenced by the dipolar fields of the magnetically ordered regions and still undergoes a depolarisation. This is a clear sign that the domains contributing to the purely relaxing muon signal have a limited size. Considering the magnitude of the magnetic moments that are determined by neutron diffraction, 0.1 to 0.4 $`\mu _B`$, the maximal distance over which the muon still sees a dipolar field is estimated to be $``$ 15 Å. By considering an homogeneous distribution of impurities along the spin chains, this distance corresponds to $``$ 5 lattice units in both directions on each side of the muon site. The present measurements confirm the spatial inhomogeneity of the magnetic moments that was predicted theoretically Saito97 ; Saito99 .

The maximum in the order parameter $`\mu _{eff}`$ that was observed by neutron diffraction at xc=1.7% refers to a macroscopic value. In other words, the magnetic moment determined by this technique is averaged over the whole volume of the sample. The results provided by $`\mu `$SR indicate that the volume fraction of the magnetically ordered regions as well as the boundary regions varies upon doping. On the other hand, no anomaly is seen in the local magnetic moment near the critical value xc. We suggest therefore that the variation of the macroscopic AF order parameter upon doping is controlled by a variation in the volume fraction of magnetic domains rather than by a drastic change of the magnetic moments.

## 5 Conclusion

The compilation of information provided by neutron and $`\mu `$SR have provided a detailed insight about the origin of the various magnetic and non magnetic contributions observed in the Si-doped CuGeO3. The $`\mu `$SR results have revealed that the regions that contribute to the antiferromagnetic and lattice dimerisation peaks observed by neutron and susceptibility in the Si-doped CuGeO3 have a typical size of 5 lattice units along the spin chains.

Furthermore, the doping variation of the magnetic moment measured with neutrons could be explained via the evolution of the volume fraction attributed to magnetically ordered regions near the impurity centers.

One of the authors (F.S.) would like to thank the ETH-Council for the supply of a research grant. The U.S. Department of Energy is also acknowledged for financial support (G.S.).


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# Identification of a complete sample of northern ROSAT All-sky Survey X-ray sources

## 1 Introduction

In two earlier papers (Zickgraf et al. 1997a, Appenzeller et al. 1998, hereafter referred to as “Paper I” and “the Catalog”, respectively) we described and presented the optical identification of a complete sample of X-ray sources discovered in the ROSAT All-sky Survey (RASS, Voges et al. 1999). A statistical analysis of these identifications (which in the literature are also referred to as the “RASS Selected Area-North survey”) has been presented by Krautter et al. (1999). Subsamples of the Catalog have been discussed by by Zickgraf et al. (1998b), Mujica et al. (1999), and Appenzeller et al. (2000). The present paper presents a discussion of the Seyfert galaxies and QSOs listed in the Catalog as main optical counterparts of RASS X-ray sources with an Identification Quality Index $`Q=1`$ or $`Q=2`$ (i.e. reliable identification on the basis of our spectra and/or on the basis of reliable literature data). Since the Catalog lists no Seyfert galaxy and only one QSO with $`Q=3`$ (“uncertain identification”) the present paper covers practically all objects of these types in our survey.

Not included in the following discussion are the BL Lac objects (which are discussed elsewhere), the two LINERs, and the 7 AGN for which due the weakness of the lines or inadequate $`S/N`$ no subclass could be assigned in the Catalog. Also omitted are 3 Seyfert galaxies and one QSO which \- although inside the error circle of an X-ray position - were not regarded to be the main source of the observed X-ray radiation since another (in our opinion dominant or more likely optical counterpart was (also) present at the position in question.

As described in Paper I our identifications and classifications were based on low-resolution spectra obtained with a multi-object spectrometer at a 2.1-m telescope. These spectra were exposed to reach a $`S/N`$ suitable for a reliable classification and redshift derivation. Originally there were no plans for a quantitative evaluation of these spectra. However, after photometric calibration the great majority of the spectra turned out to be of sufficient quality to measure the basic properties of the AGN spectra, such as line strengths and line widths. Therefore, we made use of the opportunity provided by these data to derive statistical information on a well defined complete sample of X-ray selected AGN.

Throughout this paper Seyfert 1 galaxies and QSOs will be discussed jointly since - according to our classification criteria - these two classes are distinguished only by being below or above a certain (arbitrarily chosen) luminosity level. Included in this group are all AGN with permitted emission lines (or components of the permitted emission lines) measurably broader than the forbidden lines and/or showing Fe ii emission. Hence Seyfert 1.5-1.9 and NLS1 galaxies (as defined by Véron-Cetty and Véron, 2000, following Osterbrock and Pogge, 1985) are part of our Seyfert 1 and QSO sample. The (relatively few) Seyfert 2s in the Catalog are discussed separately in Section 3.

In order to keep the classification criteria uniform for the whole sample, the \[O iii\]5007Å/H$`\beta `$ flux ratio (which is measurable in only part of our spectra) was not used as a classification criterion to discriminate between Seyfert 1s and 2s (Osterbrock and Pogge, 1985, Laor, 2000). However, in all spectra containing the \[O iii\]/H$`\beta `$ region, the corresponding flux ratio was determined and compared to the critical value 3. While all galaxies classified as Seyfert 1s from their line profiles showed (as expected) \[O iii\]/H$`\beta <3`$, we found (as described in Section 3) 6 objects classified as Seyfert 2s with \[O iii\]/H$`\beta <3`$. Because of this small number the classification of these objects has no influence on the statistical conclusions derived for the Seyfert 1s and QSOs. However, as discussed in Section 3, the much smaller Seyfert 2 sample is affected if the \[O iii\]/H$`\beta `$ flux ratio is used as classification criterion.

Not discussed in the present paper are AGN number counts, $`\mathrm{log}N\mathrm{log}S`$ distributions, and the implications of our data for the unresolved X-ray background, since the corresponding results have already been presented by Krautter et al. (1999) and Miyaji et al. (2000). Instead, the present paper will concentrate on conclusions concerning the AGN physics.

## 2 The QSOs and Seyfert 1 galaxies

### 2.1 General properties

According to Krautter et al. (1999) 228 sources in our Catalog (about 34% of the total) were identified as Seyfert 1s or QSOs. Apart from stars (37%) these objects form the largest subgroup in our sample. In the Catalog we list the X-ray flux $`f_\mathrm{X}`$, the visual magnitude $`V`$, the X-ray/visual index $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$ and the redshift $`z`$. From these data we calculated approximate absolute visual magnitudes $`M_V`$ (assuming $`h=0.75`$, $`q_0`$ = 0.5, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ = 0 and negligible interstellar extinction). The distribution of the resulting $`M_V`$ values is plotted in Fig. 1. The redshift distribution of our Seyfert 1s and QSOs is given in Fig. 2. As shown by the figures, our sample is dominated by moderate-luminosity objects ($`M_V23\pm 3`$) with an average redshift $`<z>`$ = 0.40. Only 8% of our Seyfert 1s and QSOs have redshifts $`>`$ 1.0. Only one QSO (RX J1028.6-0844, $`z`$ = 4.28, cf. Zickgraf et al., 1997b) has a redshift $`>`$ 2.2. The shape of the distributions in Figs. 1 and 2 indicate that our sample provides an essentially complete inventory for the local ($`z0.2`$) AGN population while for higher redshifts only the progressively rarer objects with high (X-ray) luminosity are detected by the RASS.

In Fig. 3 we present the distribution of the X-ray-visual index $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}=\mathrm{log}(f_\mathrm{X}/f_V)`$, which provides a measure for the relative strength of the X-ray and visual emission of an object. For AGN $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$ is approximately linearly related to the $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ox}}`$ index, which is used for the same purpose in part of the literature (see e.g. Stocke et al. 1991). For our ROSAT data we have with good approximation $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ox}}=1.440.39`$$`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$. The accuracy this relation for our data can be estimated from Fig. 4. Our $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$ values are of the same order as those found in other AGN surveys (e.g. Stocke et al., 1991).

Since our sample is X-ray flux-limited, we have to expect a selection effect in the sense that apparently faint objects with low $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$ will not be included in our survey and only very high $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$ objects are observed at the faint end. As shown in Fig. 5, this selection effect is clearly present. However, as shown by Fig. 6, no such effect is conspicuous in our $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$-redshift relation, since (apart from the very bright objects, which are all at small redshifts) there exists no strong correlation between redshift and apparent brightness in our sample. Therefore, the observed $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$ distribution is probably characteristic for the RASS AGN independent of the redshift. (The presence of 3 low-redshift objects with $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}<1.0`$ in Fig. 6 is probably caused by an overestimate of the luminosity of these relatively faint AGN due to a contamination of the photometry by their host galaxy light. Hence, these 3 $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$ values are probably lower limits only).

The characteristic property of Seyfert 1s and QSOs is the presence of broad (BLR) emission lines . While the instrumental resolution (corresponding to about 750 kms-1) did not allow us to resolve the forbidden line profiles, the BLR profiles were usually well resolved and intrinsic line widths $`>`$ 500 kms-1 could normally detected from the broadened profiles. In the Standard Model of AGN the widths of the BLR lines are assumed to be caused by the motions of the line emitting plasma in the potential of the central black hole. Since the distance of the BLRs to the central continuum source can (in principle) be estimated using reverberation techniques, the line widths and their distributions provide important information on the central masses and mass distributions. A direct comparison of all BLR line widths in our sample is complicated by the redshift range of our spectra. In order to allow a direct and unbiased comparison, we, therefore, had to restrict our analysis to a spectral region which is common to at least most of our spectra. Best suited for this purpose turned out to be the region of the H$`\beta `$ line.

Depending on the position of the object in the field and the $`S/N`$ of the spectra this line falls into our observed spectral range for redshifts of about 0 $`<`$ $`z`$ $`<`$ 0.8. For all objects in this range with spectra of of adequate $`S/N`$ we measured the FWHM and FWZI line widths of H$`\beta `$. Since the quality of our spectra is not sufficient to allow a reliable decomposition of the profiles into various components, the FWHM measurements refer to the full line profiles, including broad and narrow components. (The FWZI widths measure the BLR components only, but, due to difficulties defining the continuum level, FWZI values are normally less reliable). The resulting FWHM distribution is plotted in Fig. 7. (The FWZI distribution is broader by about a factor of 2 but qualitatively similar).

The distribution in Fig. 7 shows a relatively large fraction (18% $`\pm `$ 3%) of objects with FWHM $`<`$ 2000 km-1. However, a comparison with the literature indicates that this fraction is not unusual for AGN. Stephens (1989) finds for a small ($`N=42`$) X-ray selected sample 24%. In the optically selected sample of Boroson and Green (1992) the corresponding fraction is 23% $`\pm `$ 5%, which agrees within the error limits well with our X-ray selected sample. If the 6 narrow-line objects with \[O iii\]/H$`\beta <3`$ mentioned above are added to our Seyfert 1 sample, our FWHM $`<`$ 2000 kms-1 fraction increases to 21% $`\pm `$ 3%, providing an even better agreement with Boroson and Green. The fact that Puchnarewicz et al. (1992) find in a sample of 17 Seyfert 1s with ultra-soft X-ray spectra 9 objects (53 %) with H$`\beta `$ FWHM $`<`$ 2000 kms-1 may indicate a relation with the X-ray spectral index. However, because of the limited X-ray spectral information for our objects (see below) this relation cannot be tested with our data. Most of the objects with FWHM $`<`$ 2000 km-1 also have BLR components with larger FWHM. Only three objects classified as Seyfert 1s in our Catalog are NLS1 galaxies without detectable Balmer line components of FWHM $`>`$ 2000 km-1, but with strong Fe ii emission. The presence of many objects with strong narrow Balmer components and weak broad components argues for a smooth transition between the NLS1s and other Seyfert types. (The fact that Engels and Keil (2000) in their analysis of a different sample of X-ray selected AGN find a higher fraction of NLS1s is probably due to different classification or selection criteria).

As shown by Fig. 7, the line widths cover a range exceeding a factor of 10. The broadest H$`\beta `$ line was observed for the object RX J1021.6-0327 = Akn 241 (FWHM = 9600 km-1, FWZI = 17 900 km-1). The spectrum of this object seems to show some other spectral peculiarities, which have to be studied with better $`S/N`$ and higher resolution, however.

According to the AGN Standard Model the line width distribution of the broad lines can be caused (a) by variations of the depth of the gravitational potential of the line forming region or (b) by variations of the orientation of the rotation axis relative to the line of sight to the observer. For disklike rotating emission regions with uniform velocities the theory predicts for (b) a distribution with a minimum at low velocities and a maximum and cutoff at the high velocity limit. The distribution in Fig. 7 is obviously very different, indicating that the line widths variations are probably dominated by intrinsic orbital velocity differences (i.e. variations of the potential) of the BLRs.

Except for the hydrogen and helium lines Fe ii multiplets are normally the most conspicuous emission features in the visual spectra of the Seyfert 1s and QSOs. Their strength is normally measured by the Fe ii index (flux ratio) $`R4570`$ = Fe 4570Å/H$`\beta `$. Unfortunately our spectra were normally not of sufficient quality to measure the Fe ii 4570Å blend directly. On the other hand, for 63 objects it was possible to derive the total strength of the Fe ii (37,38) blends near 4570Å and the Fe ii (48,49) blend near 5300Å. Assuming that the relative strength of the Fe ii multiplets is constant, we converted these measurements to approximate $`R4570`$ values using the well observed (strong-Fe ii) Seyfert 1 galaxy I Zw I (Phillips 1977, Boroson and Green 1992) for calibration. As in other Seyfert 1 samples the great majority (80%) of our $`R4570`$ values fall into the interval 0.1 - 1.0. Our mean $`R4570`$ value 0.7 is somewhat higher than the normally quoted average for Seyfert 1s (0.4, Osterbrock 1977, Bergeron and Kunth, 1984), although this difference is not significant in view of our approximate method and and the size of our sample. Nevertheless, the fact that the average Fe ii emission is certainly not lower in our X-ray selected sample than in normal Seyfert 1 galaxies seems to argue against the result of Lawrence et al. 1997, who (on the basis of a smaller sample) find the Fe ii emission to be anticorrelated to the X-ray emission in Seyferts. As pointed out below, we also found no anticorrelation (or correlation) between $`R4570`$ and and $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$ for our sample.

One object in our sample (RX J0757.0+5832) shows (as already noted in the Catalog) exceptionally strong Fe ii emission ($`R4570`$ 2.05).

### 2.2 Correlations

As pointed out e.g. by Dahari and De Robertis (1988) there are few strong correlations between different AGN properties. Hence it was no surprise that we found (apart from trivial relations, such as between FWHM and FWZI) few correlations in our data. In particular we find no significant correlation between the absolute visual brightness and the H$`\beta `$ line width, although such a correlation seems to be present in other AGN samples (e.g. Miller et al. 1992). Our Fig. 8, showing the observed relation, present essentially a random scatter apart from the fact that the few objects with H$`\beta `$ FWHM $`>`$ 8000 km-1 all have luminosities below $`M_V=22`$, while the most luminous QSOs show moderate line widths. Within the Unified AGN Model this could perhaps be explained assuming that the high-FWHM objects are likely seen edge-on with the central light source partially obscured by a circumnuclear dust torus. However, in this case we may expect to find redder than average $`BV`$ values and different $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$ values for the high line width objects. Since this is not observed, we conclude that the high line width of low-luminosity objects in Fig. 8 is probably not caused by an inclination effect.

In Fig. 9 we plotted the Fe ii emission strength (expressed in $`R4570`$) as a function of the H$`\beta `$ FWHM line widths for all those objects where both these quantities could be measured. Our plot confirms the well known anticorrelation between Fe ii emission and BLR line widths for Seyfert 1s and QSOs (see e.g. Zheng and Keel 1991, Wang et al. 1996, Lawrence et al. 1997). On the other hand, in contrast to Lawrence et al. (1997), we found in our sample no indication of any correlation between the Fe ii emission strength and the X-ray loudness (as expressed by $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$).

As pointed out e.g. by Mushotzky et al. (1993), luminous AGN normally tend to show lower $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$ (or steeper $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ox}}`$) values than low-luminosity objects. As shown in Fig. 10 this correlation is also indicated in our data. However, apart from the large scatter in our data, the relation derived here is probably affected (i.e. weakened) by the selection effect demonstrated in Fig. 4.

Boller et al. (1996), Laor et al. (1997) Grupe et al. (1999), and others pointed out a correlation between the ROSAT spectral index and the H$`\beta `$ line width for Seyfert galaxies and QSOs. Our relatively large sample of Seyfert galaxies with ROSAT X-ray data provide in principle a possibility to study this correlation. Therefore, we calculated the ROSAT photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ for all our objects. Unfortunately for most of our objects the photon counts turned out to be much too low to derive $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ with an acceptable accuracy. For only 13 objects with good H$`\beta `$ data we were able to determine $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ with a mean error $`<`$ 1.0. These data, plotted in Fig. 11, are consistent with the known anticorrelation between the BLR line widths and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$.

Most of our spectra are not of sufficient quality to detect the weak forbidden high ionization lines (FHILs) or “coronal” lines of the Seyfert spectra. In only 5 objects in our sample the \[Fe x\] lines were strong enough to be visible on our spectra. Interestingly, two of these 5 objects (RX J0707.2+6435 and RX J1218.4+2948) are also among the 3 objects with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }>3.0`$, supporting the existence of a correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the FHIL strength, as proposed by Erkens et al. (1997).

## 3 The Seyfert 2 galaxies

While the Catalog lists 228 Seyfert 1s and QSOs, only 16 Seyfert 2s were identified as a primary optical counterpart of one of the observed X-ray sources. Moreover, our classification criteria for Seyfert 2s (Seyfert spectrum without detectable broad lines or line components and without detectable Fe ii emission) could have resulted in a contamination of the Seyfert 2 sample by Seyfert 1.5-1.9 and NLS1 objects with weak BLR components and weak Fe ii emission (since broad line components and weak Fe ii blends are more strongly affected by a low $`S/N`$ than narrow spectral features covering fewer pixels). Moreover, while (as pointed out in Section 1) the Seyfert 1 sample is practically unaffected by the definitions used, a Seyfert 1 classification based entirely on the \[O iii\]/H$`\beta `$ flux ratio may result in a different Seyfert 2 sample. In order to estimate these potential effects we re-inspected the spectra of all objects classified as Seyfert 2s in our Catalog and derived \[O iii\]/H$`\beta `$ flux ratios and approximate limits for the presence of undetected BLR components and Fe ii blends. In this process we found one case (RX J2218.6+0802) which definitely should have been classified differently. New measurements of the corresponding spectrum resulted in FWHM(H$`\beta `$) = 1520 $`\pm `$ 120 kms-1, FWHM(\[O iii\]) = 878 $`\pm `$ 200 kms-1 (both uncorrected for the instrumental profile) and \[O iii\]/H$`\beta `$ = 2.0. Obviously, this object should have been classified as a NLS1. Five additional objects do not show detectable BLR or Fe ii features but definitely \[O iii\]/H$`\beta `$ $`<`$ 3.0. In a classification based on the \[O iii\]/H$`\beta `$ ratio alone, these objects would also have to be classified as NLS1s. On the other hand, at least 7 of the objects listed in our Catalog as Seyfert 2s have \[O iii\]/H$`\beta `$ $`>`$ 3.0, Balmer BLR contributions $`<`$ 10% and Fe ii $`R4570<`$ 0.2. Hence, we conclude that at least about 50% of the optical counterparts classified as Seyfert 2s in our Catalog are bona fide type 2 objects, independently of the exact classification criteria and a possible contamination with type 1 objects due to the inadequate $`S/N`$ of some of our spectra.

In view of the uncertainties and ambiguities of the Seyfert 2 sample, in the following all statistical results are listed separately for the full original sample of the Catalog (16 objects) followed \[in brackets\] by the corresponding value for the minimal sample of 7 reliable objects. Because of the small size of the samples, the discussion will be restricted to statistical means.

Compared to the Seyfert 1 and QSO sample the most obvious difference is the significantly lower mean luminosity (and correspondingly lower mean redshift) of the Seyfert 2s (reflecting also the scarcity of narrow line QSOs). The visual luminosities of our Seyfert 2s covered the range 18.1 $`<`$ $`M_V`$ $`<`$ 22.8 \[18.1 $`<`$ $`M_V`$ $`<`$ 22.1\] with a median value of $`20.5`$, as compared to $`22.9`$ for the Seyfert 1 and QSO sample. Hence the observed Seyfert 2s have on average only about 1/10 of the visual luminosity of the observed Seyfert 1s and QSOs. The Seyfert 2 redshifts are all below 0.5 with an average of 0.18 \[.22\]. On the other hand, the $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$ distribution of the Seyfert 2s (median value $`<I_{\mathrm{XV}}>=0.53\pm .15[.7\pm .3]`$ is not significantly different from that of the Seyfert 1s and QSOs ($`<I_{\mathrm{XV}}>=0.40\pm .04`$).

For our flux limited sample the (visual and X-ray) Seyfert 2 to 1 luminosity ratio of 1/10 means that the volume in which we observe the Seyfert 2s is only about 3% of that of the Seyfert 1s and QSOs. Since the relative fraction of the Seyfert 2s in our Catalog (\[3 %\] to 7 %) is rather close to this number the Seyfert 2s detected in the RASS, although on average much fainter, are found to have about the same (or slightly larger) space density than the observed Seyfert 1s. Equal space densities of Seyfert 1s and Seyfert 2s have also been estimated for the general AGN population (Simkin et al., 1980, Véron and Véron-Cetty, 1986). In this respect our X-ray selected AGN obviously show the same behavior as the general AGN population.

## 4 Implications for the AGN models

As shown in Fig. 1 the luminosity distribution of the X-ray selected AGN has a FWHM of about 5 mag., corresponding to a factor 100. On the other hand Fig. 3 shows a FWHM of the X-ray/visual flux ratio of only a factor of $``$ 10. This seems to indicate that the basic physical conditions of the X-ray and visual continuum emitting volumes of the AGN are similar and are not strongly dependent on the luminosity. Moreover, the fact that the X-ray selected Seyfert 1s and 2s have similar mean $`I_{\mathrm{XV}}`$ values supports the assumption of a similar physical structure of all Seyfert nuclei and QSOs.

Assuming that the H$`\beta `$ FWZI corresponds to about twice the maximum orbital velocity of the BLR plasma, we obtain for our sample velocities of 1000 $`<v_{\mathrm{orbit}}<9000`$ kms-1. If these values correspond to circular orbits in the potential of a black hole, the observed velocity range can be converted into a radial distance range for the BLRs of $`6\times 10^2<r/R_\mathrm{s}<5\times 10^4`$ (where $`R_\mathrm{s}=2\mathrm{G}M/\mathrm{c}^2`$ is the BH’s Schwarzschild radius). The observed particularly high BLR line widths for some low-luminosity Seyfert 1s and the absence of such high velocities for the more luminous QSOs (Fig. 8) could in this case be explained by the fact that the intense radiation field of the luminous QSOs prevents the existence of relatively cool Balmer line emitting BLR gas at low $`r/R_\mathrm{s}`$ values, while at low luminosities the BLR gas can exist in a large range of distances. Less clear is the interpretation of the NLS1 in this scheme. (For a recent compilation of proposed explanations see Komossa and Janek, 2000). While the assumption of a low central mass being the origin of the absence of broad line components (Boller et al., 1999; Laor, 2000) seems plausible, other explanations cannot be ruled out on the basis of the present data.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Drs. Thomas Boller, Max Camenzind, Stefan Wagner and Ari Laor for critically reading the manuscript and for valuable comments.


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# Status and Current Sensitivity of the CELESTE Experiment

## Introduction

CELESTE, described in detail in the experimental proposal proposal  and in NIM ; berry ; mdnthese , uses the mirrors of a former solar electrical plant at the Themis site in the French Pyrénées. We have been operating since October 1999 with forty, $`54m^2`$ heliostats which direct the Čerenkov light, via secondary optics at the top of a 100 m tall tower, towards PMTs instrumented with flash ADCs. The “standard candle” of TeV astronomy, the Crab nebula, has been our primary target during this initial phase.

## Simulation Results

We have developed a simulation of CELESTE for use with standard air shower generators. During the 1999-2000 Crab observing season we collected 13 hours of data with both CAT and CELESTE which can be used to partially check our simulations. 20% of the CELESTE events, corresponding to $``$30% of CAT events are common, as identified by their arrival time measured with GPS clocks at both experiments. Analysis of the CAT dataset lebohec  results in an excess of 1268 gamma events over a background of 3131 hadrons. The same analysis applied only to the common events gives 418 gammas over 526 hadrons. Thus, a CELESTE trigger doubles the signal to noise ratio in the CAT data, although it does not improve the significance as the data sample is smaller. CAT measures the shower impact parameter with a resolution of $``$5 m. Fig. 1 shows this reconstructed impact parameter for simulated data, and for excess events from the common Crab dataset. The simulations reproduce the data, showing that the effective surface area for CELESTE in the energy region of the common CAT-CELESTE events is understood.

Also shown in Fig. 1 is the energy distribution of simulated events for an input $`E^2`$ differential gamma ray spectrum. At the raw trigger level the energy threshold, defined as the peak differential gamma ray flux, is $``$30 GeV. We have found it necessary to apply a software trigger in order to remove the effects of night sky background differences between the ON source and OFF source control region, increasing our energy threshold to $``$50 GeV. We also require $`>10`$ FADC peaks with an amplitude $`>25`$ digital counts to ensure the shower parameters are measurable.

We have used the simulations to develop our analysis techniques. The FADC peaks are fitted with a function modelled on the single photo-electron pulse shape and the reconstructed charge and timing information is used to derive the parameters of the shower. The homogeneity of the light distribution on the ground provides the best discrimination between hadronic and gamma ray showers. We define a parameter $`\sigma _{grp}`$, calculated by summing the FADC signals from 8 heliostats in 5 groups, corresponding to the hardware analogue sums used to trigger the experiment, then calculating the variance of the amplitude of the 5 pulses and normalising this variance to the mean amplitude. The distribution of $`\sigma _{grp}`$ for real data and for the simulations is shown in Fig. 2. A cut at $`\sigma _{grp}<`$0.25 is expected to reject 80% of the remaining hadronic background and retain 70% of the gammas.

Also shown in Fig. 2 is the distribution of the angle, $`\theta `$, between the shower axis and the direction to the source reconstructed using two points: the shower impact parameter at ground level, defined by the barycentre of the charge distribution over the heliostats, and the position of the shower core relative to the pointing direction at the mean altitude of maximum emission for gamma showers in the CELESTE energy range (11 km above the altitude of the experiment). The latter point is calculated by fitting a sphere to the measured arrival time of the Čerenkov wavefront at each heliostat. The small field of view of CELESTE (10 mrad fullwidth) reduces the observable differences between hadron and gamma showers; however, a cut at $`\theta <`$7 mrad is expected to reject $`20\%`$ of the remaining protons for $`10\%`$ of the gammas. The effect of the analysis cuts on the energy distribution of the gamma showers is shown in Fig. 1.

## CELESTE observations of the Crab Nebula

The Crab Nebula, as a strong steady source of VHE gamma rays wee89 , is the obvious first target for CELESTE. We have collected 11.5h of ON source and corresponding OFF source data with all heliostats tracking a point 11 km above the altitude of the experiment. Fig. 3 shows the distribution of $`\theta `$ after all cuts, with an excess of events at small $`\theta `$ as expected. Table 1 shows the events remaining at each stage of the analysis. The final significance of the result is 5.7 $`\sigma `$

We have calculated the normalisation factor to an assumed $`\mathrm{E}^2`$ differential spectrum from the measured gamma ray rate, giving $`d\mathrm{\Phi }/d\mathrm{E}=`$

$$(2.5\pm 0.5_{stat}\pm 1.2_{syst})\times 10^8/\mathrm{E}^2\mathrm{photons}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{GeV}^1\mathrm{s}^1$$

The CELESTE measurement is shown in Fig. 3 along with the results from other experiments. This is a preliminary estimate, as we are still quantifying systematic errors in various areas of the analysis, particularly in the comparison between the predicted and observed efficiency of analysis cuts.

We have also made some observations of the Crab using different tracking methods. A short (2h 10m) exposure using a double pointing method, wherein half of the heliostats point at 11 km altitude and the other half point at 25 km, appears to double our sensitivity by allowing us to sample a greater part of the shower.

## Conclusions

The CELESTE experiment has detected the Crab nebula with high significance (5.7 $`\sigma `$). Simulations have been used to develop our analysis procedure and also to estimate our energy threshold to be $`30`$ GeV at the raw trigger level and $`50`$ GeV after the analysis cuts. CELESTE will be upgrading to 54 heliostats shortly. This, in combination with improvements to the electronics and the double pointing strategy should greatly improve our sensitivity for the next Crab season.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Non-commutative Yang-Mills (NCYM) theories arise as certain limits of closed string theories, in the presence of D-branes and background B-field. Recently these theories have attracted a lot of attention , partly because non-commutative geometry naturally arises in string theory  and partly because string theory simplifies considerably in the limit of large non-commutativity  allowing a detailed study of a number of important issues.

One question of intrinsic interest in any gauge theory is the issue of the construction of local gauge-invariant operators since these form a complete set of observables of the theory. This question has been addressed in several recent works. In  a set of gauge-invariant operators in NCYM theories was constructed, and these were further studied from different perspectives in . Roughly speaking, these gauge-invariant observables can be written as Fourier transforms of open Wilson lines. In the operator formalism they are given by the following expression

$`W_k[C]=Tr\left(Pexp\{i{\displaystyle _C}𝑑\sigma _\sigma y^\mu (\sigma )A_\mu (\widehat{x}+y(\sigma ))\}e^{ik.\widehat{x}}\right),`$ (1.1)
where

$`[\widehat{x}^\mu ,\widehat{x}^\nu ]=i\theta ^{\mu \nu },`$ (1.2)
and the trace in (1.1) is over both the gauge group as well as the operator Hilbert space. These open Wilson lines are gauge-invariant in NCYM theories, unlike in ordinary YM theories, provided the straight line joining the end points of the path $`C`$, given by $`y^\mu (\sigma )`$, is fixed to be the vector

$`l^\mu =k_\mu \theta ^{\mu \nu }.`$ (1.3)
The path $`C`$ is otherwise completely arbitrary. When $`k`$ vanishes, the two ends of the path $`C`$ must meet and we have a closed Wilson loop.

Recently, multi-point correlation functions of the Wilson line operators have been computed in NCYM theory by Gross, Hashimoto and Itzhaki . These authors have found a universal exponential suppression of the normalized correlators at high momenta, reminiscent of the behaviour of form factors in high energy fixed angle scattering of string theory. There are other hints of relation between NCYM theory and string theory. It has, in fact, been suggested that $`4`$-dimensional $`𝒩=4`$ NCSYM is dual to superstring theory in appropriate backgrounds with the non-commutativity scale as its string scale .

In this paper we provide further evidence of this string connection of NCYM theory. We study the behaviour of closed Wilson loops in NCSYM using the dual supergravity description  111Other examples that discuss non-commutative AdS/CFT correspondence are . In our investigation, we postulate that the Wilson loops are located at the length scale $`R`$ in the fifth radial coordinate where the warp factor peaks. It is certainly very diferent from the standard procedure of ordinary $`AdS`$/CFT correspondence. In that case the Wilson loops are located at the infinity of the fifth coordinate where the warp factor diverges.

Let us recall why such a choice is reasonable in ordinary field theory. The fifth coordinate has been often interpreted as the renormalization scale. In such an interpretation, we need to rescale the warp factor by $`\alpha ^2`$ if we change the length scale by $`\alpha `$. Such a logic leads to the conclusion that the local theory can only be located at where the warp factor diverges. In NCYM case, the warp factor in noncommutative dimensions has a maximum at the length scale $`R`$ in the fifth radial coordinate. It seems that all we can do to approach the bare theory is put the Wilson loops at the minimum length scale $`R`$. The warp factor can also be interpreted as the effective string tension. It is reassuring to find that the effective string tension is equal to noncommutativity scale in our choice.

The organization of this paper is as follows. We investigate the behaviour of closed Wilson loops in Sec.2. We find that while sufficiently large Wilson loops show a Coulomb law behaviour, as confirmed earlier in , there is a crossover to an area law behaviour for small loops. The crossover is controlled by the scale that enters the supergravity solution, which is much larger than the non-commutativity scale. However, the string tension, which can be read off from the area law, is controlled by the noncommutativity scale. We end with a summary and discussion of our results in Sec.3.

## 2 NCSYM Wilson loops in dual supergravity

In this section we will first summarize the supergravity solution which is dual to NCSYM theory . We will then discuss calculation of Wilson loop averages using this solution.

### 2.1 Background solution

The space-time directions of the NCSYM theory are labeled by $`x_0,x_1,x_2`$ and $`x_3`$. The only non-zero B field component is in the space directions $`x_2,x_3`$, resulting in non-commutativity only in these directions. We give below only the string metric and B field, since the other fields will not be relevant for the calculations that follow.

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha ^{}\sqrt{\lambda }\left[u^2(dx_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+dx_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})+u^2h(dx_{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+dx_{3}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})+{\displaystyle \frac{du^2}{u^2}}+d\mathrm{\Omega }_{5}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\right],`$ (2.1)
$`h^1`$ $`=`$ $`1+u^4R^4,\lambda =4\pi gN,R^4=\lambda \theta ^2,`$ (2.2)
$`B_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha ^{}\sqrt{\lambda }R^2u^4h.`$ (2.3)
Here $`\theta =\theta ^{23}`$, the latter being as defined in (1.2). The metric reduces to the standard AdS solution for $`uR<<1`$. The scale $`R`$ that enters here is different from the non-commutativity scale defined by $`\theta `$ and, in fact, is much larger than the latter because the ’t Hooft coupling $`\lambda `$ must be large for a consistent supergravity solution. The fact that the effects of non-commutativity persist at scales much larger than that defined by $`\theta `$ has been interpreted in the literature  as renormalization of the non-commutativity scale due to strong coupling effects. However, as we shall see below, the scale $`R`$ is perhaps more correctly interpreted as the scale which controls the crossover behaviour of Wilson loops from Coulomb to area law.

### 2.2 Wilson loop averages

In the partially non-commuting case described by the supergravity solution (2.1-2.3) there can be three distinct kinds of Wilson loops. Those that lie entirely in the commuting $`x_0x_1`$ plane, those that lie entirely in the non-commuting $`x_2x_3`$ plane, and those that lie in mixed commuting and non-commuting directions. Wilson loops of the first kind always lead to Coulomb law, just like the AdS/CFT case involving ordinary $`4`$-dimensional SYM theory. Wilson loops of the second and third kind show a more interesting behaviour and it is these type of loops that we will now consider.

In the case of ordinary $`4`$-dimensional SYM theory in the strong coupling limit, Wilson loop averages are postulated to be given by minimizing the relevant Nambu-Goto area action . In the present case of NCSYM theory, there is also a non-zero B field and, for the generic Wilson loop, the B field term also contributes in the string action. Thus, the relevant action to consider here is the area action together with the B field term:

$`S={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau 𝑑\sigma \left[\sqrt{\mathrm{det}g}+B_{\mu \nu }_\tau x^\mu _\sigma x^\nu \right]},`$ (2.4)
where

$`g_{\alpha \beta }=G_{\mu \nu }_\alpha x^\mu _\beta x^\nu ,\alpha ,\beta =\tau ,\sigma `$ (2.5)
is the induced metric on the world-sheet. As in , we will consider the string configuration

$`x_0=\tau ,x_3=\sigma ,x_2=v\tau ,u=u(\sigma ).`$ (2.6)
Thus, the string is moving in the $`x_2`$ direction with velocity $`v`$. As a result, on any $`4`$-dimensional fixed $`u`$ slice, the contour of the loop is not along coordinate directions. The loops are, however, rectangular with either one time-like and one space-like direction or both directions space-like, depending on what we want. Thus, from the above string configuration we can either get mixed loops with one commuting and one non-commuting direction, or the space-like loops lying entirely in the non-commuting $`x_2x_3`$ plane.

For the string configuration (2.6) the action (2.4) is

$`S={\displaystyle \frac{T\sqrt{\lambda }}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑\sigma \left[\sqrt{(1v^2h)(u_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+u^4h)}+vR^2u^4h\right]},`$ (2.7)
where $`u^{}=_\sigma u`$. At an extremum of this action the quantity

$$u^4h\left(\frac{\sqrt{1v^2h}}{\sqrt{u_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+u^4h}}+vR^2\right)$$

is independent of $`\sigma `$. This gives the solution

$`u^{}={\displaystyle \frac{bu^2\sqrt{u^4u_0^4}}{u_0^2(b+cu^4/u_0^4)}},`$ (2.8)
where the constants $`b`$ and $`c`$ are given by

$`b`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{1v^2h_0}+vR^2u_0^2\sqrt{h_0},`$ (2.9)
$`c`$ $`=`$ $`R^4u_0^4\sqrt{1v^2h_0}vR^2u_0^2\sqrt{h_0}.`$ (2.10)
The constant $`u_0`$ is the turning point in $`u`$ where $`u^{}`$ vanishes and $`h_0`$ is the value of $`h`$ at $`u=u_0`$. From the solution (2.8) we obtain

$`x_3(u)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{bu_0}}{\displaystyle _1^{u/u_0}}𝑑y{\displaystyle \frac{b+cy^4}{y^2\sqrt{y^41}}}.`$ (2.11)
For $`v=0`$, $`b=1`$ and $`c=R^4u_0^4`$. This is the case considered in . In this case $`x_3(u)`$ grows linearly with $`u`$ at large values. However, for the special value $`v=R^2u_0^2`$, $`c`$ vanishes  and then $`x_3`$ remains finite as $`u`$ becomes large.

We will work here with generic values of $`v`$. This is because from the viewpoint of supergravity calculations, $`x_3(u)`$ has no direct physical significance. The physical quantity is $`x_3(u)/uR`$, which measures proper distances along this direction at large $`u`$, and this remains finite as $`u\mathrm{}`$. In fact, at large $`u`$ the metric in (2.1) has the scaling isometry

$`x_{0,1}\beta ^1x_{0,1},x_{2,3}\beta x_{2,3},u\beta u.`$ (2.12)
This also shows that $`x_3(u)`$ has no direct physical relevance at large $`u`$. However, the physical quantity $`x_3(u)/uR`$ is invariant under the above scaling isometry.

Another way of saying the same thing is the following. Let us take the boundary to be the $`4`$-dimensinal slice of the metric (2.1) at $`u=\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The metric on this $`4`$-dimensional slice is given by

$`ds_4^2=\alpha ^{}\sqrt{\lambda }\left[\mathrm{\Lambda }^2(dx_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+dx_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{(1+R^4\mathrm{\Lambda }^4)}}(dx_{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+dx_{3}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})\right].`$ (2.13)
For finite coordinate distances in the non-commuting directions, proper distances in these directions become very small, even smaller than string scale, at large $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Since we are neglecting stringy corrections in the present semiclassical analysis, we cannot trust results obtained in this case. However, for coordinate distances growing linearly with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, proper distances remain finite at large $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and so the present approximation is reliable. This suggests that we should consider Wilson loops which have a large horizontal length. An alternative possibility is that the “boundary” might be located at a finite value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. As we shall see in the following, there are actually strong reasons for considering the latter possibility.

### 2.3 Rectangular Wilson loops with a time-like direction

Let us now consider the case of rectangular Wilson loops with a time-like direction. At any constant $`u`$ slice, the length of the loop in the time-like direction equals $`\sqrt{1v^2h}`$. For this to be real and non-zero, we require $`(1v^2h)>0`$. This is satisfied for all values of $`u`$ if we take $`|v|<1`$. In this subsection we will restrict ourselves to this range of values of $`v`$ 222The value $`v=1`$ is singular in the sense that the action vanishes on the classical solution..

Now, let $`L`$ be the length between the two ends of the string in the $`x_3`$ direction on the $`4`$-dimensinal slice at $`u=\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. From the solution (2.8) we get,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{L}{2}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{bu_0}}{\displaystyle _1^{\mathrm{\Lambda }/u_0}}𝑑y{\displaystyle \frac{b+cy^4}{y^2\sqrt{y^41}}},`$ (2.14)
and the action evaluated on the solution is

$`S={\displaystyle \frac{T\sqrt{\lambda }}{\pi }}(b+c)u_0\sqrt{h_0}{\displaystyle _1^{\mathrm{\Lambda }/u_0}}𝑑y{\displaystyle \frac{y^2}{\sqrt{y^41}}}.`$ (2.15)
We should mention that for $`|v|<1`$ while $`b`$ is always positive, $`c`$ is positive only for $`v<R^2u_0^2`$ and changes sign for $`v>R^2u_0^2`$. If $`Ru_0<1`$, this is within the range of values of $`v`$ being considered here. In this case the denominator in (2.8) vanishes at $`u=|b/c|^{\frac{1}{4}}`$. Beyond this point the string bends back and crosses itself at some larger value of $`u`$. It would be interesting to understand the physics of such self-intersecting surfaces. Here we will avoid such configurations by restricting ourselves to $`v<R^2u_0^2`$ for $`Ru_0<1`$. If $`Ru_0>1`$, these configurations do not occur because of the restriction to $`|v|<1`$.

Let us now analyse the expressions (2.14) and (2.15). Two different cases arise which we will now discuss in turn.

case(i):$`u_0<<\mathrm{\Lambda }`$

In this case (2.14) and (2.15) give

$`{\displaystyle \frac{L}{2}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{bu_0}}\left[c{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{u_0}}+(bc){\displaystyle \frac{\pi \sqrt{2\pi }}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\frac{1}{4})^2}}+\mathrm{}\right],`$ (2.16)
$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{T\sqrt{\lambda }}{\pi }}(b+c)u_0\sqrt{h_0}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{u_0}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \sqrt{2\pi }}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\frac{1}{4})^2}}+\mathrm{}\right].`$ (2.17)
The dots in these expressions refer to terms that are suppressed by powers of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Now, if the location $`u=\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ of the boundary is held fixed, then for an appropriately small value of $`Ru_0`$ ($`<<1`$) the second term in (2.16) can be made much larger than the first term. To be concrete, let us take $`v=0`$. Then, $`b=1`$ and $`c=R^4u_0^4`$. The expression for $`L`$ then becomes

$`{\displaystyle \frac{L}{2}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{u_0}}\left[R^4u_0^3\mathrm{\Lambda }+(1R^4u_0^4){\displaystyle \frac{\pi \sqrt{2\pi }}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\frac{1}{4})^2}}+\mathrm{}\right].`$ (2.18)
We see that the second term dominates for $`Ru_0<<(R\mathrm{\Lambda })^{1/3}`$. In this case, after subtracting the W-boson mass contibution, we recover the Coulomb interaction familiar from AdS/CFT duality of ordinary SYM theory:

$`S{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ^2\sqrt{\lambda }}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\frac{1}{4})^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{L}}`$ (2.19)
This is as expected since loops with large values of $`L`$ should not see the effects of non-commutativity.

An interesting aspect of the expression (2.18) for $`L`$ is that it attains a minimum value as a function of $`u_0`$. This happens at $`Ru_0(R\mathrm{\Lambda })^{1/3}`$ for which $`LR(R\mathrm{\Lambda })^{1/3}`$. For values of $`L`$ above this minimum, there are two different values of $`u_0`$ for the same value of $`L`$. This is a problem since we expect a Wilson loop with a definite value of $`L`$ to exhibit a unique physical behaviour 333For large values of $`u_0`$, the Wilson loop satisfies an area law as can easily be deduced from (2.16) and (2.17).. If the boundary is placed at large $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, then a way out of this problem is to choose the branch corresponding to the smaller value of $`u_0`$ as physical. This is because this branch is continuously connected to the limit in which the expected ordinary AdS/CFT behaviour is obtained.

There is, however, another possibility, namely there may be a barrier, $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$. In fact, we do find such a barrier for the purely space-like Wilson loops in the next subsection. If we do place the boundary at $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$, then according to the formula (2.18) the minimum value of $`L`$ is attained when $`Ru_0R\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$. We still have the Coulomb law (2.19) for $`Ru_0<<1`$. However, when $`u_0\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ the approximation under which (2.16) and (2.17) were calculated breaks down and so we must proceed differently. This is what we do in case(ii) below. Before proceeding to that case, however, we mention that the metric in (2.13) gives proper distances of order string scale when coordinate distances in the non-commuting directions are of order the non-commutativity scale if $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$. For $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }>>1`$ coordinate distances much larger than the non-commutativity scale are needed to get proper distances of order the string scale. We believe that this observation provides an important clue to having the possible barrier $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$.

case(ii):$`u_0\underset{}{<}\mathrm{\Lambda }`$

As we have discussed above, this case becomes relevant only if there is a barrier $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$. A natural choice is to take $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$ since at this point the metric in the non-commuting directions has a maximum and so this $`4`$-dimensional slice can accommodate the maximum number of degrees of freedom. Also, this choice of “boundary” is consistent with the standard AdS/CFT correspondence since $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ goes to infinity in the commuting limit $`R0`$. As mentioned above, with the “boundary” at $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$ we still get Coulomb law behaviour for $`Ru_0<<1`$. However, for values of $`u_0`$ close to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=R^1`$ the behaviour is different. In this case we may evaluate the integrals (2.14) and (2.15) in powers of $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }/u_01)`$. We then get,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{L}{2}}={\displaystyle \frac{b+c}{bu_0}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{u_0}}1}+\mathrm{},`$ (2.20)
and

$`S={\displaystyle \frac{T\sqrt{\lambda }}{\pi }}(b+c)u_0\sqrt{h_0}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{u_0}}1}+\mathrm{}`$ (2.21)
where the dots refer to terms higher order in powers of $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }/u_01)`$. Let us, for the sake of definiteness, again take $`v=0`$. Then, from (2.20) and (2.21) we get

$`S{\displaystyle \frac{TL}{2\sqrt{2}\pi \theta }},`$ (2.22)
where we have used $`Ru_01`$ 444Note, however, that $`u_0`$ cannot get too close to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, otherwise $`L`$ will become too small for the present analysis to be reliable. An analysis of the expected sigma-model corrections to the leading semiclassical result shows that this restricts $`L`$ to be much larger than the non-commutativity scale. This translates into the restriction $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }/u_01)>>1/\sqrt{\lambda }`$. Since $`\lambda `$ is large this condition is easily satisfied.. We see that in this case there is a crossover to area law. The tension is controlled by the non-commutativity parameter.

In summary, then, the picture that has emerged, for the mixed type of loops that we have considered in this subsection, is that there is a crossover from Coulomb type of behaviour for large Wilson loops to area law for small Wilson loops, provided the “boundary” is placed at $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$. The tension involved in the area law is determined by the non-commutativity scale, while the scale involved in the crossover itself is quite likely the scale that enters the dual supergravity solution.

### 2.4 Rectangular Wilson loops with both directions non-commuting

Rectangular Wilson loops with both directions non-commuting (and so space-like) are obtained for negative values of $`(1v^2h)`$. These are possible only for $`|v|>1`$. Actually, for such values of $`v`$, $`(v^2h1)`$ vanishes for $`Ru=(v^21)^{\frac{1}{4}}`$. This value is large for large values of $`|v|`$, and in the limit can be pushed to infinity. We will take this limit in the following. Now, for positive values of $`(v^2h1)`$, the first term in the action (2.7) becomes imaginary and what we have done effectively amounts to a Euclidean continuation, the Euclidean action being

$`S_E={\displaystyle \frac{T\sqrt{\lambda }}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑\sigma \left[\sqrt{(v^2h1)(u_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+u^4h)}ivR^2u^4h\right]}.`$ (2.23)
Taking the large $`v`$ limit and writing $`vTL_2`$, the action becomes

$`S_E={\displaystyle \frac{L_2\sqrt{\lambda }}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑\sigma \left[\sqrt{h(u_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+u^4h)}iR^2u^4h\right]}.`$ (2.24)
One could also have obtained the above action by starting from the Euclidean version of the action in (2.4) and choosing the string configuration $`x_2=\tau ,x_3=\sigma ,u=u(\sigma ),x_0=x_1=0`$. This action also appears in the dual description of rectangular Wilson loops in two mutually non-commuting directions in the fully non-commuting Euclidean NCSYM theory .

The Euclidean action (2.24) is complex because of the contribution of the B field. This gives rise to a phase in the path integral which measures the magnetic flux passing through the string world-sheet. In the following we will ignore this contribution to the action and work only with the real part. Some a posteriori justification for this will be given at the end.

At an extremum of the real part of the above action the quantity

$$u^4h\frac{\sqrt{h}}{\sqrt{u_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+u^4h}}$$

is independent of $`\sigma `$. This gives the solution

$`u^{}={\displaystyle \frac{u^2h^{3/2}}{u_0^2}}\sqrt{u^4u_0^4}\sqrt{1R^8u_0^4u^4}.`$ (2.25)
We see that $`u^{}=0`$ at $`u=u_0,1/R^2u_0`$. This reflects the symmetry of the background metric under $`u1/R^2u`$ in the non-commuting directions. Because of this symmetry, it is sufficient for us to restrict ourselves to $`Ru_01`$. Then, we see from (2.25) that starting from $`u=u_0`$, the string turns back at $`u=1/R^2u_0`$. It never goes all the way to infinitely large $`u`$, though for very small values of $`Ru_0`$ it does go through a very large region.

Let us now consider the contour of the Wilson loop at a $`4`$-dimensional constant $`u`$ slice at $`u=\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. As in the case of $`u_0`$, because of the symmetry $`u1/R^2u`$, it is sufficient to restrict to $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$. In fact, in the following we will take $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$. Now, the length, $`L_3`$, between the two ends of the string on this slice can be obtained from (2.25) and is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{L_3}{2}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{u_0}}{\displaystyle _1^{\mathrm{\Lambda }/u_0}}𝑑y{\displaystyle \frac{(1+R^4u_0^4y^4)^{3/2}}{y^2\sqrt{(y^41)(1R^8u_0^8y^4)}}}.`$ (2.26)
The action evaluated on the solution is given by

$`S_E={\displaystyle \frac{L_2\sqrt{\lambda }}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{u_0}{h_0}}{\displaystyle _1^{\mathrm{\Lambda }/u_0}}𝑑y{\displaystyle \frac{y^2}{\sqrt{(1+R^4u_0^4y^4)(y^41)(1R^8u_0^8y^4)}}}.`$ (2.27)
We now discuss the two cases that arise.

case(i):$`u_0<<\mathrm{\Lambda }`$

It is clear from the expressions in (2.25) and (2.26) that in this case we can ignore the explicit dependence of the integrands on $`u_0`$. Thus, in this case one recovers the usual AdS/CFT results, except for one difference. In the case of ordinary AdS/CFT, the perimeter term is large because it is proportional to a large cut-off. Here, on the other hand, the perimeter term is finite because the cut-off cannot be larger than $`R^1`$. We will make important use of this observation in the concluding section.

case(ii):$`u_0\underset{}{<}\mathrm{\Lambda }`$

For $`Ru_0\underset{}{<}1`$, we need to keep the explicit dependence on $`u_0`$ in the integrands of (2.25) and (2.26). The integrals can be done by expanding in powers of $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }/u_01)`$. We get,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{L_3}{2}}`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{2}R[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}\mathrm{sin}^1(1{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{\delta }})+\mathrm{}],`$ (2.28)
$`S_E`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{L_2\sqrt{\lambda }}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}R}}[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}\mathrm{sin}^1(1{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{\delta }})+\mathrm{}],`$ (2.29)
where $`ϵ\mathrm{\Lambda }/u_01,\delta 1Ru_0`$ and the dots refer to terms higher order in $`ϵ`$ and $`\delta `$. Thus, we may write

$`S_E{\displaystyle \frac{L_2L_3}{4\pi \theta }}.`$ (2.30)
So in this case we find area law. As before, the tension is determined purely by the non-commutativity scale. Note that the tension computed from (2.30) is identical to that computed from (2.21). This is because of the extra metric factor of $`1/\sqrt{2}`$ in the proper length at $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$. Note also that $`L_3`$ given by (2.29) is of order $`R`$. For smaller values of $`L_3`$ we need to take the other solution for which $`u^{}=0`$ and the loop is spanned by a straight surface at $`R\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$.

To summarize, then, Wilson loops lying entirely in the non-commuting plane show a crossover from Coulomb type of behaviour to area law as the loop size decreases through the length scale $`R`$ which characterizes the supergravity solution.

Finally, we will now provide some justification for neglecting the contribution of the B field term in the action. One can check from the solution (2.25) that the magnitude of this term relative to the action (2.27) is $`R^2u_0^2h_0`$. So it is suppressed for $`Ru_0<<1`$. For $`Ru_0\underset{}{<}1`$, $`u`$ is essentially constant and obviously the largest weight in the functional integral is for the world-sheet with minimal area, which is essentially a straight surface on the slice at $`\mathrm{\Lambda }1/R`$. We expect that quantum fluctuations around this solution are suppressed, but we have not checked that. It is relevant to add here that the B field term is actually absent for Wilson loops lying in mutually commuting directions in the fully non-commuting Euclidean NCSYM theory.

## 3 Summary and concluding remarks

We have performed a detailed analysis of Wilson loops in NCSYM theory in the strong coupling region using the conjectured dual supergravity description. We have seen that the Wilson loops exhibit a crossover from Coulomb type of behaviour for large Wilson loops, which essentially do not see any non-commutativity, to area law for small Wilson loops, for which non-commutativity is strong. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of our investigations is the likely existence of a length scale in NCSYM theory, where the crossover from Coulomb behaviour to area law takes place. The string tension that emerges from the area law is determined by the non-commutativity scale. However, the crossover scale itself is probably much larger than this. As we have seen, the crossover scale is likely to be the scale $`R`$ that enters the dual supergravity description.

Our conclusions are based on the choice of the $`4`$-dimensional slice of the dual metric at $`uR^1`$ as the location of the “boundary”. The standard choice of the location of the “boundary” at large $`u`$ gives Coulomb behaviour for Wilson loops of arbitrary size. In the case of commuting SYM theory, Coulomb behaviour at all scales is guaranteed by conformal symmetry. In the case of the NCSYM theory, there is no such symmetry. Therefore, in this case it is legitimate to find the area law, at least for those loops whose size is of order the non-commutativity scale, since one would expect non-commutativity effects to show up for such loops. Moreover, in the fully non-commuting case (in which all the four coordinates are non-commuting), the large $`u`$ region shrinks to a point, so it is hard to imagine how all the degrees of freedom of the system can be located there. Our choice of the location of the “boundary” predicts interesting nonperturbative behavior of NCYM, while being compatible with the expectation that large loops should behave like in the commutative SYM theory.

We stress here that our choice of putting the “boundary” at the length scale $`R`$ is not an ad-hoc choice. In ordinary field theory, we can probe arbitrarily short distance scale by colliding particles with very high momenta. So any short distance cut-off must be removed in field theory. In NCYM, the situation is completely different. The counterpart to a local operator with definite momentum is a Wilson line in NCYM. In , the high energy limit of two point functions of the Wilson lines is investigated. Through their work, the average distance between the Wilson lines can be estimated as $`(\lambda |\theta k|/|k|)^{1/2}`$ in the weak coupling region. It is the mimimum distance which can be probed by physical observables in the theory. In the uniformly large momentum region, it is $`O(\sqrt{\lambda \theta })`$. It may imply that the mimimum distance scale is indeed $`R`$ in the strong coupling region if we adopt the standard replacement rule $`\lambda \sqrt{\lambda }`$. Therefore we argue that our proposal is consistent with the existence of mimimum distance of $`R`$ in NCYM at strong coupling.

In fact this investigation was partly motivated by the high energy behavior of the multi-point correlators of Wilson lines. The results we have obtained here are consistent with it. The comparison may be made between the normalized Wilson line correlators in NCYM and our geometric prediction. It may make sense to consider the normalized Wilson line operators $`W(C)/<W(C)W^{}(C)>^{1/2}`$ since it is free from the short distance divergences. One can argue that in the extreme ultraviolet region, for generic momenta, the three-point and higher correlators should be related to large Wilson loops lying entirely in the non-commuting plane, with the length scale involved of order $`|k\theta |`$. Given this, we can make predictions for the extreme ultraviolet behaviour of correlation functions, using the results we have obtained here. The Wilson loop correlators typically have a very large area since the length scale involved is $`|k\theta |`$. So these should exhibit Coulomb behaviour. The Coulomb behaviour is now actually dominated by the finite perimeter term we found in case(i) of subsection 2.4. So, this would predict a perimeter suppression for three-point and higher correlators relative to the two-point function , which is qualitatively the result obtained in .

We therefore see the relevance of our proposal to the high energy behavior of the correlation functions of the Wilson lines in NCYM. Finally, we mention that one can derive Schwinger-Dyson equations  for NCSYM theories within the context of matrix models . It would be interesting to obtain the behaviour we have found here for Wilson loops as solutions to these equations.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank Satoshi Iso for discussions. One of us (AD) would also like to thank Spenta Wadia for discussions.