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# Chandra observations of the bursting X-ray transient SAX J1747.0–2853 during low-level accretion activity

## 1 Introduction

The X-ray transients are a class of X-ray binary systems which occasionally exhibit bright outbursts during which they can display X-ray luminosities of $`10^{36}`$ to $`10^{39}`$ erg s-1. Usually, those sources stay this bright for only a few weeks to at most a few months (see, e.g., Chen, Shrader, & Livio 1997; Bradt et al. 2000), although some can be active for several years. After the bright outbursts, the X-ray transients slowly transit back into quiescence during which they can only be detected in X-rays at a level of $`10^{30}`$ to $`10^{34}`$ erg s-1. The regime in-between quiescence and outburst ($`10^{34}`$ to $`10^{36}`$ erg s-1) has not been studied extensively, partly due to the relatively short time span the sources spent in this regime but also due to the instrument limitations (e.g., lack of sensitivity or observational constraints).

The neutron star sources which have been studied best in this regime are Aql X-1 and the accretion-driven millisecond X-ray pulsar SAX J1808.4–3658. Campana et al. (1998b) used BeppoSAX data to study the decay of Aql X-1 after one of its outbursts. They found a source which decreased steadily in luminosity until it reached quiescent levels. Its spectrum hardened during the decay, although a soft component below a few keV became more prominent. However, unlike most X-ray transients, Aql X-1 also can exhibit long periods of activity at a low level, which either occurs after a bright outbursts or as a stand-alone event (Bradt et al. 2000; $`\stackrel{ˇ}{\mathrm{S}}`$imon 2002). Such long episodes of low-level accretion have been observed for only a few other systems, such as the black-hole system 4U 1630–47 (Kuulkers et al. 1997) or the neutron star systems 4U 1608–52 (Bradt et al. 2000; Wachter et al. 2002) and SAX J1808.4–3658. This latter source was studied intensively by Wijnands et al. (2001) using data obtained with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) during the 2000 outburst of this source. They found a source which was active at a low level (below a few times $`10^{35}`$ erg s-1) for several months. During this period, the source exhibited violent variability on different time scales. Within only a few days, the source decreased from a luminosity of a few times $`10^{35}`$ erg s-1 to $`10^{32}`$ erg s-1 (Wijnands et al. 2002; Wijnands 2002), but a few days later it had increased again to $`10^{35}`$ erg s-1. On several occasions, the source also exhibited strong flaring behavior with a repetition frequency of $`1`$ Hz (van der Klis et al. 2000; Wijnands et al. 2000). The physical mechanisms producing these violent fluctuations are not understood. Presently, it is not known if other transients can display similar behavior at such low luminosities, or if SAX J1808.4–3658 is unique in this sense (e.g., due to its likely higher magnetic field strength compared to the other transients).

Recently, a group of neutron star X-ray transients has been recognized (e.g., Heise et al. 1999; in ’t Zand 2001), which have a rather low peak luminosity (a few times $`10^{36}`$ erg s-1) compared to the bright transient sources (which have peak luminosities above $`10^{37}`$ erg s-1) and relatively short duration (e-folding time of less than a week). Observations of such dim transients are still sparse and it is still unclear if they form a separate sub-class of transients (see the discussion in In ’t Zand 2001). King (2000) argued that they are different from the bright systems and that they are neutron star X-ray binaries which have evolved beyond their minimum orbital periods of $`80`$ minutes and have extremely low-mass companion stars. The above-mentioned millisecond X-ray pulsar is one of these dim X-ray transients and is the best studied example of this possible sub-class of transients. Cumming, Zweibel, & Bildsten (2001) suggested that the low inferred time averaged mass accretion rate for SAX J1808.4–3658 might be related to this source being a millisecond X-ray pulsar. For those systems which have high time averaged accretion rates, the accreted matter will screen the magnetic field, inhibiting the X-ray pulsation mechanism in those systems. This suggests that the other dim neutron star X-ray transients, which presumably have similar low time averaged accretion rate, might also exhibit millisecond X-ray pulsations (e.g., Cumming et al. 2001).

Besides those ’faint X-ray transients’, another, different group of neutron-star X-ray binaries also have been identified which members were only seen during type-I X-ray bursts and with an accretion luminosity typically below $`10^{36}`$ erg s-1, which was undetectable by the instruments used. Cocchi et al. (2001) discussed the possibility that those systems are a separate subclass of neutron star systems which have persistent luminosities of order $`10^{3435}`$ erg s-1 (called the ’low-persistent bursters’). This idea was supported by the detection of the possible group members 1RXS J171824.2–402934 (Kaptein et al. 2000) and SAX J1828.5–1037 (Cornelisse et al. 2002a) at a level of $`10^{3435}`$ erg s-1. Cornelisse et al. (2002a) elaborated on the possibility of this extra sub-class of X-ray bursters and found that their spatial distribution is consistent with the general X-ray burster distribution, but different from that of the above mentioned faint X-ray transients. This suggests that the faint X-ray transients are a different source population than the low-persistent bursters and the bright neutron star X-ray transients. However, Chandra follow-up observations of several potential group members showed that those sources could only be seen at a luminosity below a few times $`10^{32}`$ erg s-1 (Cornelisse et al. 2002b), which are similar to the quiescent luminosities observed for the bright neutron star X-ray transients. This suggests that those low-luminosity persistent sources might be genuine transients but have sub-luminous ($`10^{3435}`$ erg s-1) outbursts episodes, possible with a durations of years (see the discussion in Cornelisse et al. 2002b). Clearly, the behavior of X-ray binaries at luminosities below $`10^{36}`$ erg s-1 is rather complex and our knowledge of the basic observational properties is very limited.

In 1998 March, a new X-ray transients was discovered by In ’t Zand et al. (1998) using observations of the Galactic center region with the Wide Field Cameras (WFC) aboard BeppoSAX. The position of this new source (designated SAX J1747.0–2853) is consistent with that of the transient source GX +0.2,–0.2, which was observed in the 1970’s (Proctor, Skinner, Willmore 1978). From the detection of type-I X-ray bursts (In ’t Zand et al. 1998) is it clear that the compact object in this system is a neutron star because such events are thought to be due to thermonuclear flashes on the surface of such a star. The source was observed with the Narrow Field Instruments (NFI) aboard BeppoSAX on several occasions. Using these NFI observations, both Sidoli et al. (1998) and Natalucci et al. (2000) found a source whose spectrum was consistent with that of the neutron star X-ray binaries when they are at a luminosity of approximately a few times $`10^{36}`$ erg s-1 (e.g., Barret et al. 2000), similar to the luminosity observed for SAX J1747.0–2853. From the observed type-I bursts a distance of $`9`$ kpc was obtained (Natalucci et al. 2000). The last reported detection of the source during this outburst was on 1998 April 15 (Sidoli et al. 1998) after which the source is presumed to have become quiescent again. The low peak luminosity of the source spurred the tentative classification of the source as a faint X-ray transient (Heise et al. 1999).

Markwardt et al. (2000a) reported that in early March 2000, SAX J1747.0–2853 could be detected again using the proportional counter array aboard the RXTE satellite. During this outburst, the source was also detected by ASCA (Murakami et al. 2000) and BeppoSAX (Campana, Israel, & Stella 2000). Here we present Chandra observations performed in July 2001 of the region including SAX J1747.0–2853.

## 2 Observation, analysis, and results

SAX J1747.0–2853 was in the field of view of two observations performed as part of Chandra Galactic Center Survey (GCS; Wang, Gotthelf, & Lang 2002): observations GCS 10 and GCS 11 (see Tab. 1 for more details about those observations). The source was approximately 2.7 and 14.3 located from the nominal pointing direction during respectively the GCS 10 and GCS 11 observation. The ACIS-I instrument was used during these observations in combination with the S2 and S3 chips of the ACIS-S instrument. To limit the telemetry rate only those photons with energy above 1 keV were transmitted to Earth. The data were analysed using the analysis package CIAO, version 2.2.1, and the threads listed on the CIAO web pages111Available at http://asc.harvard.edu/ciao/.

### 2.1 The image and position of SAX J1747.0–2853

In Figure 3.3, we show the region containing SAX J1747.0–2853 as observed during observation GCS 10. We clearly detect a bright source in the various error-circles of SAX J1747.0–2853 (although at the edge of the error-circle given by Campana et al. 2000) and in that of GX +0.2,–0.2. This source was also present during the GCS 11 observation (not shown), however, the source was located at the edge of the ACIS-S2 chip and due to the large point spread function (PSF) for sources which are $`14^{}`$ off-axis the source appears very extended and a considerable fraction of the source photons do not fall on the chip. The positional coincidence of our detected source with SAX J1747.0–2853 and GX +0.2,–0.2 makes it likely that our source can be identified with those two transients.

We used the CIAO tool WAVDETECT to obtain the coordinates of SAX J1747.0–2853: R.A = 17h 47m 02.604s and Dec. = –28 52 58.9′′ (J2000.0; with a 1$`\sigma `$ error of $``$0.7 arcseconds; Aldcroft et al. 2000). Although we detected many other sources beside SAX J1747.0–2853, none of them were located in the various error-circles of SAX J1747.0–2853 and GX +0.2,–0.2. Also, none of those near-by sources could conclusively be identified with a star in either the USNO2 (Monet et al. 1996) or the second incremental data release of the 2 Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) catalog. Therefore, we could not improve on our Chandra position of SAX J1747.0–2853. No USNO2 or 2MASS star is visible at the position of SAX J1747.0–2583 (Fig. 3.3), which is not surprising because at the time of those near-infrared observations (1998 July 5), the source was presumed to be in quiescence. In Figure 3.3 we present the $`J`$ and $`K_\mathrm{s}`$ finding charts of SAX J1747.0–2853 obtained from the 2MASS archive.

During the GCS 10 observation, we detected 1740$`\pm `$42 counts (background corrected) from the source, resulting in a count rate of 0.147$`\pm `$0.004 counts s-1. This count rate has not be corrected for pile-up, which is a serious effect for a source this bright (see also section 2.2). The exact count rate during the GCS 11 observation is difficult to estimate because the source falls only partly on the chip222To obtain an accurate correction factor for the number of counts detected and the observed flux of the source, one has to know accurately the PSF for a source this far off-axis, and the exact dither pattern used in order to estimate the total exposure of the source on the chip. Such detailed estimates are beyond the scope of this paper.; the number of counts is $`>757`$ counts resulting in a count rate of $`>0.065`$ counts s-1. SAX J1747.0–2853 is known to exhibit type-I X-ray bursts (In ’t Zand et al. 1998; Sidoli et al. 1998; Natalucci et al. 2000) and, therefore, we made source light curves for both observations. We did not observe any X-ray bursts.

### 2.2 The X-ray spectrum of SAX J1747.0–2853

We have extracted the source spectrum using a circle with a radius of 15′′ on the source position. The Chandra PSF combined with the brightness of the source made such a large extraction region necessary to encompass most of the source photons. The background data were obtained by using an annulus on the same position with an inner radius of 30′′ and an outer one of 60′′. This region was chosen in order to obtain a background which did not contain any source photons. The data were rebinned using the FTOOLS routine grppha into bins with a minimum of 15 counts per bin.

We started out by fitting the obtained spectrum with XSPEC (version 11.1; Arnaud 1996). However, when fitting a power-law model to the data, we obtained a low photon index of $`1`$ and a low column density of $`4\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2, which was inconsistent with that observed during the BeppoSAX/NFI observations of SAX J1747.0–2853 (Sidoli et al. 1998; Natalucci et al. 2000). This strongly suggest that the spectrum is heavily piled-up, resulting in an artificially hard X-ray spectrum. In order to correct for the pile-up, we used the analysis package ISIS, version 0.9.81 (Houck & DeNicola 2000), and the pile-up model available there in (Davis 2001). The resulting fit parameters are listed in Table 2.

To check our results we have also extracted the spectrum of the source using an annulus around the source position of 1.5′′ to 15′′, thus excluding the data which were heavily affected by pile-up. The obtained spectral parameters are in good agreement with those obtained using ISIS (see Tab. 2; note that the errors on the parameters are large due to the much lower number of photons in the spectrum). In our extraction annulus only $``$5% of the source photons are located; we have corrected our obtained flux for this, and this flux is consistent with that we have obtained from fitting the piled-up spectrum in ISIS. We also extracted the source spectrum from observation GCS 11 and fitted it in XSPEC. The extended nature of the source during this observation (due to the large PSF) makes it unlikely that the source suffers from a significant amount of pile-up and no pile-up correction was applied. Again, we obtained similar spectral parameters (Tab. 2). No flux is listed because the correction factor is unknown (see footnote 2).

We used PIMMS333A web version is available at http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Tools/w3pimms.html in order to estimate the pile-up fraction in our spectrum. Using the parameter range found for our GCS 10 spectrum, we obtained a pile-up fraction between 32 and 47 % and a count rate after pile-up of 0.146 to 0.161 counts s-1, which is consistent with our detected count rate of 0.147$`\pm `$0.004 counts s-1.

We have also fitted our spectrum with different spectral models, such as a black-body model. This model resulted in a column density of 3.8$`{}_{0.7}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.8}`$ or 4.4$`{}_{0.8}{}^{+1.0}\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2 and a temperature $`kT`$ of 1.5$`\pm `$0.2 or 1.2$`\pm `$0.2 keV, for observation GCS 10 (using the pile-up model in ISIS) or GCS 11, respectively. The flux obtained for observation GCS 10 is $`1.1\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 (0.5–10 keV; unabsorbed). However, this model gave a rather low column density compared to what has been measured before with BeppoSAX (Sidoli et al. 1998; Natalucci et al. 2000), indicating that this might not be the correct model to fit the data. A cut-off power-law, a thermal comptonization model, or a bremsstrahlung model could also be used to fit the data accurately, however, for simplicity we only list the results of the power-law model.

### 2.3 Long-term behavior

To investigate the long-term behavior of the source, we have plotted the RXTE all sky monitor (ASM; Levine et al. 1996; available at http://xte.mit.edu/ASM\_lc.html) light curve in Figure 3.3. The source was clearly detected during the 2000 outburst (e.g., Markwardt et al. 2000a) and it again showed a re-flare in the summer/fall of 2001. The time of our Chandra observations is indicated in the figure by the arrow. At the time of these observations the ASM data seem to indicate that SAX J1747.0–2853 was detected by this instrument. However, using PIMMS and the spectral results from our Chandra data, the predicted count rate for the ASM is $`0.04`$ counts s-1, which is below the sensitivity of the ASM. This strongly suggest that the activity detected by the ASM in-between the two outbursts is unrelated to SAX J1747.0–2583 and probably it is due to the uncertainties in the fitting process (Levine et al. 1996) and the proximity of SAX J1747.0–2853 near the Galactic center. This is consistent with the low fluxes detected for this source during the Galactic bulge scan program (Markwardt et al. 2000b) of RXTE as judged from the light curve of SAX J1747.0–2853, which is presented by In ’t Zand (2001) in his Figure 4.

Assuming a power-law spectrum with index of 2 and a column density of $`7\times 10^{22}`$ cm-1, 1 ASM count corresponds to an unabsorbed 0.5–10 keV flux of $`9.5\times 10^{10}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. The peak count rate of $`8`$ and $`4`$ counts s-1 during the 2000 and 2001 outburst would results in a flux of $`7.6`$ and $`3.8\times 10^9`$ erg cm-2 s-1, respectively. These fluxes are obtained using 5 day averaged count rates and the ASM dwell data indicates that at certain times the fluxes could be a factor of 2 higher. Furthermore, extra uncertainties are introduced by our assumption of a power-law spectrum for the source, but usually neutron star X-ray transients become softer when they increase in luminosities. Despite these uncertainties, these fluxes are clearly considerably larger (up to two orders of magnitude) than the fluxes we observed during our Chandra observations.

## 3 Discussion

We have detected a bright X-ray source in the various error circles of SAX J1747.0–2853 and in that of GX +0.2,–0.2, making it likely that our source can be identified with those transients. The source had a 0.5–10 keV unabsorbed X-ray flux of $`3.3\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, which for a distance of 9 kpc (Natalucci et al. 2000) results in a 0.5–10 keV luminosity of $`3\times 10^{35}`$ erg s-1. This luminosity is about two orders of magnitude lower than the maximum luminosity observed during the peak of the 2000 and 2001 outbursts (as observed with the RXTE/ASM). These high outburst luminosities are different from the low (a few times $`10^{36}`$ erg s-1; 2–10 keV) luminosity observed for this source during its 1998 outburst (Sidoli et al. 1998; Natalucci et al. 2000). SAX J1747.0–2853 is in this respect similar to several other systems, such as for example the neutron star system Aql X-1 or the black-hole systems XTE J1550–564 and XTE J1859+226. Aql X-1 usually exhibits bright outbursts, but occasionally it exhibits outburst which are one order of magnitude less bright (e.g., Bradt et al. 2000; $`\stackrel{ˇ}{\mathrm{S}}`$imon 2002). XTE J1550–564 exhibited a bright outburst in 1998/1999 (see, e.g., Sobczak et al. 2000) but after that three much weaker outbursts have been observed (Smith et al. 2000; Tomsick et al. 2001a; Swank, Smith, & Markwardt 2002). Similarly, XTE J1859+226 was detected as a bright transient in October 1999 (Wood et al. 1999; Markwardt, Marshall, & Swank 1999), but later it was found to exhibit a small re-flare (Casares et al. 2000; Miller et al. 2000). Clearly, X-ray transients can exhibit a variety of outbursts profiles and can have very bright outbursts followed by very weak ones, or vice versa.

### 3.1 Faint neutron-star X-ray transients

Recently, a group of faint neutron star X-ray transients was recognized (e.g., Heise et al. 1999; in ’t Zand 2001), with outburst peak luminosities of only $`10^{3637}`$ erg s-1 and short e-folding time scales (less than a week), implying a time-averaged accretion rate of only $`10^{11}`$ M yr-1. Based on the characteristics of the 1998 outburst of SAX J1747.0–2853, this source was put into this class of faint transients. However, the later outbursts (especially that in 2000) demonstrate that this source can also exhibit bright outbursts with peak luminosities considerably higher than $`10^{37}`$ erg s-1. In ’t Zand (2001) showed that during the 2000 outburst, the source was active for at least 200 days. Moreover, our Chandra observations of the source were performed $``$500 days after the start of the 2000 outburst and $``$ 50 days before the 2001 re-flare, suggesting that in-between those outburst episodes the source might have been active at similar levels as detected during our Chandra observations (a few times $`10^{35}`$ erg s-1). If indeed true, then the source was active for almost 600 days and possibly even longer (no information is present about the current state of this source). The bright 2000 and 2001 outbursts combined with the possible extended period of accretion are in contrast with the basic properties of the faint X-ray transient group (weak and short outbursts) making the classification of SAX J1747.0–2853 as a faint X-ray transient no longer justified (unless the classification criteria are relaxed).

A similar conclusion can be reached for the neutron star transient in the globular cluster NGC 6440. This source exhibited a faint outburst in 1998 August (In ’t Zand et al. 1999), but it erupted again in 2001 August as a bright transient with a peak flux in excess of a few times $`10^{37}`$ erg s-1 and an outburst duration in excess of 3 months (In ’t Zand et a. 2001). This behavior is remarkably similar to SAX J1747.0–2853 in that a weak, short outburst was also followed by brighter and much longer outbursts. Those similarities between the two systems raises the question if some (maybe all) of the other systems classified as faint transients, can also exhibit bright outbursts, which would cast doubts on whether those systems are indeed fundamentally different from the bright X-ray transients. Such a fundamental difference was suggested by King (2000) who argued that those faint transients are binary neutron star systems which have evolved below the period minimum, have low time-averaged mass accretion rates ($`10^{11}`$ M year-1), have recurrence times of only a few years, and have very low-mass companion stars. The large mass accretion rates inferred for SAX J1747.0–2853 and the transient in NGC 6440 (In ’t Zand et al. 2001) seem to rule-out such a system configuration for these sources. It also makes it less unlikely that they will exhibit millisecond X-ray pulsations because their relatively high inferred accretion rates will bury the magnetic field of the neutron star (Cumming et al. 2001). Note, that the most recent outbursts of NGC 6440 and SAX J1747.0–2853 might be atypical for those sources and generally they might exhibit short and dim outbursts, lowering their time-averaged accretion rate444Similar arguments can also be applied to the normal (i.e., bright) neutron star X-ray transients because of the lack of knowledge about their long-term ($`>1000`$ years) X-ray behavior.. Even if true, the sources still cannot be classified as faint transients (because their outbursts can be very bright and extended). It remains to be determined if a sub-group of faint X-ray transients exists and if they are indeed post-minimum binaries.

### 3.2 Low-level accretion activity

We detected SAX J1747.0–2853 about 2 months before the 2001 outburst peaked (which was around 17 September 2001), demonstrating that the source was actively accreting well before the full outburst happened. It demonstrates that SAX J1747.0–2853 has a complex outburst behavior and it is possible that the source never returned to quiescence ($`<10^{34}`$ erg s-1) after the 2000 outburst and stayed active with typical luminosities of $`10^{35}`$ erg s-1. Such long-active periods at low levels have been observed for different systems (e.g., the neutron star systems Aql X-1 and 4U 1608–52: Bradt et al. 2000; $`\stackrel{ˇ}{\mathrm{S}}`$imon 2002; Wachter et al. 2002; or the black-hole system 4U 1630–47: Kuulkers et al. 1997). The millisecond X-ray pulsar SAX J1808.4–3658 also can exhibit episodes of long lived low-level activity. Wijnands et al. (2001) found that the source was active at a levels up to $`10^{35}`$ erg s-1 for several months during 2000. The source displayed luminosity swings up to three orders of magnitudes on timescales of only a few days. It is unclear from our observations if SAX J1747.0–2853 exhibited similar violent behavior or that it was more stable, similar to what has been observed for the other systems. Our results add to the growing evidence that the behavior of X-ray transients at low luminosity is very complex.

Several other systems have also been detected at similar low luminosities. For example, Kaptein et al. (2000) and Cornelisse et al. (2002a) detected, respectively, 1RXS J1718.2–402934 and SAX J1828.5–1037 at luminosities of $`10^{3435}`$ erg s-1. Cornelisse et al. (2002a) suggested that they are part of the X-ray burst sources which have low persistent luminosities ($`10^{3435}`$ erg s-1) and might form a separate sub-class of neutron-star X-ray binaries. But Chandra observations of several group members showed that they could only be seen at a luminosity of a few times $`10^{32}`$ erg s-1 or less (Cornelisse et al. 2002b). Those low luminosities are similar to the quiescent luminosities observed for the normal neutron star X-ray transients, suggesting that those low-luminosity persistent sources might be genuine transients but could exhibit sub-luminous ($`10^{3435}`$ erg s-1) outbursts episodes, possible with a durations of years (see the discussion in Cornelisse et al. 2002b). Intriguingly, SAX J1747.0–2853 likely displayed also an extended period (several hundreds of days) of low-level accretion in-between the 2000 and 2001 outbursts. The possibility exists that the physical mechanism behind this extended period of low-level activity in SAX J1747.0–2853 is related to the mechanism behind the low-level activity in the low persistent X-ray bursters. If true, it cannot be excluded that also those latter source group might exhibit outbursts (either dim or bright) in the future, similar to what has been observed for SAX J1747.0–2853. Currently, it is unclear if different sub-classes of neutron-star X-ray binaries are really needed to explain the observed differences, or that the underlining mechanisms are related to each other.

The traditional disk instability model to explain outburst light curves of X-ray transients (see Lasota 2001 for an overview) has not yet addressed the issue of the behavior of X-ray transients in this low-luminosity region. The modeling of the behavior of neutron star X-ray binaries in this regime might be complex because of the increasing influence (see Campana et al. 1998a for a discussion) of the magnetic field of the neutron star (if not buried completely by the accreted matter). The lack of our knowledge is partly due to the lack of sensitive observations in this regime. However with current instruments, we can now obtain high quality spectra of X-ray transients when they are decaying into quiescence. SAX J1747.0–2853 was not the target of the Chandra observations reported here, and therefore they were not optimized for the study of this object at the detected brightness level. This resulted in relatively large uncertainties in our spectral parameters which do not allow to make strong conclusions. The spectral fit results are consistent with a constant spectral shape of the source between our observations and that of the BeppoSAX/NFI observations reported by Natalucci et al. (2000) when the source luminosity was approximately one order of magnitude larger. No conclusive spectral softening or hardening was observed, although we cannot exclude such spectral changes either.

### 3.3 Future observations

The sub-arcsecond Chandra position of SAX J1747.0–2853 allows for follow up studies at other wavelengths at times when the source is found to be active. Although the high column density of the source will strongly inhibit detection of the source at optical wavelengths, it might be possible to detect the source at (near-)infrared wavelengths. To this order we have presented $`J`$ and $`K_s`$ finding charts of SAX J1747.0–2853 in Figure 3.3. The excellent position of the source might also be useful for follow up X-ray observations with Chandra or XMM-Newton when the source is in quiescence. Quiescent neutron star systems have luminosities in the range of $`10^{32}`$ to $`10^{33}`$ erg s-1, resulting in a flux range of $`10^{14}`$ to $`10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. If the quiescent flux of SAX J1747.0–2853 is dominated by the same thermal component observed in other quiescent neutron star systems (with blackbody temperature of 0.2–0.3 keV; e.g., Bildsten & Rutledge 2002 and references therein), then it is unlikely (due to the large column density) that the source will be detectable within a reasonable amount of time (less than a few tens of kiloseconds) with either Chandra or XMM-Newton. However, if besides the thermal component, also a power-law component above 2 keV is present (as observed for several quiescent systems; e.g., Asai et al. 1996, 1998; Campana et al. 1998b) and it contributes to about half the total flux, than with a few tens of kiloseconds the source might be detectable (similarly to the recent detection of quiescent emission from the neutron star X-ray transient GRO J1744–28, which has a comparable column density; Wijnands & Wang 2002). Due to the sub-arcsecond Chandra position, the quiescent counterpart of SAX J1747.0–2853 can be easily identified. For other transients near the Galactic center region, the positions are usually known only to an accuracy of 1 arcminutes or worse, which increases significantly the probability that if any sources are detected in the error circles of those transients, that they are background AGNs or unrelated Galactic sources which also emit hard X-rays.

RW was supported by NASA through Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship grant number PF9-10010 awarded by CXC, which is operated by SAO for NASA under contract NAS8-39073. WQD is supported by the CXC grant SAO-GO1-2150A. This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. This publication also used the quick-look results provided by the ASM/RXTE team and resources provided through the HEASARC on-line service, provided by the NASA-GSFC. We thank John Houck and the CXC ISIS team for useful discusses about ISIS.


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# Phase diagram of underdoped cuprate superconductors: effect of Cooper-pair phase fluctuations

## I Introduction

For about fifteen years cuprate high-temperature superconductors (HTSC’s) have stimulated significant advances in the theory of highly correlated systems as well as in soft condensed matter theory. Nevertheless, we still do not fully understand the various phases of these materials. Of particular interest is the underdoped regime of hole-doped cuprates, in which the hole density (doping) $`x`$ in the CuO2 planes is lower than required for the maximum superconducting transition temperature $`T_c`$. In this regime the superfluid density $`n_s`$ decreases with decreasing doping and is found to be proportional to $`T_c`$.Uemura  Above $`T_c`$, one finds a strong suppression of the electronic density of states close to the Fermi energy, i.e., a pseudogap, which appears to have the same symmetry as the superconducting gap.TK  Furthermore, there may be fluctuating charge and spin modulations (stripes).strip

It has been recognized early on that the small superfluid density $`n_s`$ leads to a reduced stiffness against fluctuations of the phase of the superconducting order parameter.DI ; Cha ; EK95  Phase fluctuations are additionally enhanced because they are canonically conjugate to charge density fluctuations, which are believed to be suppressed.DI ; EK95  Furthermore, the cuprates consist of weakly coupled two-dimensional (2D) CuO2 planes so that fluctuations are enhanced by the reduced dimensionality. Phase fluctuations might destroy the long-range superconducting order, although there is still a condensate of preformed Cooper pairs. In conventional, bulk superconductors this mechanism is not relevant, since the large superfluid density leads to a typical energy scale of phase fluctuations much higher than the superconducting energy gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, which governs the thermal breaking of Cooper pairs. Thus in conventional superconductors the transition is due to the destruction of the Cooper pairs and $`T_c`$ is proportional to $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.Schbook  On the other hand, the observation that $`T_cn_s`$ in underdoped cupratesUemura  indicates that the phase fluctuations drive the transition in this regime. The Cooper pairs only break up at a crossover around $`T_c^{}>T_c`$. If the feedback of phase fluctuations on the local formation of Cooper pairs is small, $`T_c^{}`$ is approximately given by the transition temperature one would obtain without phase fluctuations. Between $`T_c`$ and $`T_c^{}`$ Cooper pairs exist but the order parameter is not phase coherent.DI ; Cha ; EK95 ; FS ; SGB  Recent thermal-expansion experiments strongly support this picture.Meingast  However, there is no close relation between our $`T_c^{}`$ and the mean-field transition temperature of Ref. Meingast, , which is determined by extrapolation from the low-$`T`$ behavior of the expansivity.

There is a third temperature scale $`T^{}`$ with $`T^{}>T_c^{}`$, below which a pseudogap starts to open up as seen in nuclear magnetic resonance, tunneling, and transport experiments.Ta1 ; Ta2 ; Ta3 ; BT ; TS  It seems unlikely that the pseudogap at these temperatures is due to local superconductivity. Rather, it is thought to be caused by spin fluctuationsSGB  or the onset of stripe inhomogeneities.BE ; Mark  Recent experiments on the Hall effect in GdBa2Cu3O7-δ filmsMatthey  also support the existence of two crossover temperatures $`T_c^{}`$ and $`T^{}`$. In this work we are mostly concerned with the strong pseudogap regime $`T_c<T<T_c^{}`$.

Due to the layered structure of the cuprates, they behave like the 2D XY model except in a narrow critical range around $`T_c`$, where they show three-dimensional (3D) XY critical behavior.Feig79 ; Blt  The standard theory for the 2D XY model, the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) renormalization group theory,BKT ; BDHT79 ; Minn ; KR  should thus describe these materials outside of the narrow critical range.Pier1 ; Frie ; CTlay ; CTflux ; Pier2 ; FATZ  Also, recent transport measurements for a gate-doped cuprateSchoen  with only a single superconducting CuO2 plane show essentially the same doping dependence of $`T_c`$ as found for bulk materials. BKT theory predicts a transition at a temperature $`T_c<T_c^{}`$, due to the unbindung of fluctuating vortex-antivortex pairs in the superconducting order parameter. Gaussian phase fluctuations are less important, since they do not shift $`T_c`$.rem.gauss  In addition, the coupling of the phase to the electromagnetic field causes them to be gapped at the plasma frequency,And  whereas the BKT picture of vortex unbinding remains basically unchanged.BC

In the early days of HTSC’s, BKT theory was envoked to interpret a number of experiments on bulk samples.Stam ; Arte ; Mart ; Yeh ; Frel ; Prad  Recently, two experiments have lent strong additional support to the BKT description: First, Corson et al.Cors  have measured the complex conductivity of underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ and extracted the frequency-dependent phase stiffness from the data. The authors interpret their data in terms of dynamical vortex-pair fluctuationsAHNS ; Minn  and conclude that vortices—and thus a local superconducting condensate—exist up to at least $`100\mathrm{K}`$. We discuss this assertion in Sec. III. Second, Xu et al.Xu  have found signs of vortices at temperatures much higher than $`T_c`$ in underdoped La2-xSrxCuO4 in measurements of the Nernst effect. A recent reanalysis of the dataWang  yields an onset temperature of vortex effects of $`40\mathrm{K}`$ for an extremely underdoped sample ($`x=0.05`$) and of $`90\mathrm{K}`$ for $`x=0.07`$.

So far, we have not said anything about the superconducting pairing mechanism. There is increasing evidence that pairing is mainly due to the exchange of spin fluctuations. The conserving fluctuation-exchange (FLEX) approximationBickers ; Pao ; Monthoux ; DahmTewordt ; Bgroup ; SGB  based on this mechanism describes optimally doped and overdoped cuprates rather well. In particular, the correct doping dependence and order of magnitude of $`T_c`$ are obtained in this regime. On the other hand, the FLEX approximation does not include phase fluctuations and we believe this to be the main reason why it fails to predict the downturn of $`T_c`$ in the underdoped regime. Instead, $`T_c`$ is found to approximatetly saturate for small doping $`x`$. However, the FLEX approximation is able to reproduce two other salient features of underdoped cuprates, namely the decrease of $`n_s`$ and the opening of a weak pseudogap at $`T^{}`$, as we show below.

This encourages us to apply the following description. We employ the FLEX approximation to obtain the dynamical phase stiffness $`n_s(\omega )/m^{}`$, where $`n_s(\omega )`$ is the generalization of the superfluid density for finite frequencies. The static density $`n_s(0)`$ starts to deviate from zero at the temperature where Cooper pairs start to form and which we identify with $`T_c^{}`$. Then, phase fluctuations are incorporated by using the phase stiffness from FLEX as the input for BKT theory, which leads to a renormalized $`n_s^R<n_s`$ and predicts a reduced $`T_c`$. Then, we consider the dynamical case $`\omega >0`$ and use dynamical BKT theoryAHNS ; Minn  to find the renormalized phase stiffness $`n_s^R(\omega )/m^{}`$ and compare the results with experiments.Cors

## II Static case

Transport measurements for a gate-doped cuprateSchoen  show that the superconducting properties are determined by a single CuO2 plane. The simplest model believed to contain the relevant strong correlations is the 2D one-band Hubbard model.AndHT  We here start from the Hamiltonian

$$H=\underset{ij\sigma }{}t_{ij}\left(c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{j\sigma }+c_{j\sigma }^{}c_{i\sigma }\right)+U\underset{i}{}n_in_i.$$
(1)
Here, $`c_{i\sigma }^{}`$ creates an electron with spin $`\sigma `$ on site $`i`$, $`U`$ denotes the on-site Coulomb interaction, and $`t_{ij}`$ is the hopping integral. Within a conserving approximation, the one-electron self-energy is given by the functional derivative of a generating functional $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, which is related to the free energy, with respect to the dressed one-electron Green function $`𝒢`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=\delta \mathrm{\Phi }[H]/\delta 𝒢`$.BK  On the other hand, the dressed Green function is given by the usual Dyson equation $`𝒢^1=𝒢_0^1\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ in terms of the unperturbed Green function $`𝒢_0`$ of the kinetic part of $`H`$ alone. These equations determine the dressed Green function.BK

The $`T`$-matrixTewordt  or FLEX approximationBickers ; Pao ; Monthoux ; DahmTewordt ; Bgroup ; SGB  is distinguished by the choice of a particular infinite subset of ladder and bubble diagrams for the generating functional $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. The dressed Green functions are used to calculate the charge and spin susceptibilities. From these a Berk-Schrieffer-typeBerkSchrieffer  pairing interaction is contructed, describing the exchange of charge and spin fluctuations. In a purely electronic pairing theory a self-consistent description is required because the electrons do not only form Cooper pairs but also mediate the pairing interaction. The quasiparticle self-energy components $`X_\nu `$ ($`\nu =0`$, $`3`$, $`1`$) with respect to the Pauli matrices $`\tau _\nu `$ in the Nambu representation,Nambu ; Schbook  i.e., $`X_0=\omega (1Z)`$ (renormalization), $`X_3=\xi `$ (energy shift), and $`X_1=\varphi `$ (gap parameter) are given by

$`X_\nu (𝐤,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤^{}}{}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }\left[P_s(𝐤𝐤^{},\mathrm{\Omega })\pm P_c(𝐤𝐤^{},\mathrm{\Omega })\right]`$ (2)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega ^{}I(\omega ,\mathrm{\Omega },\omega ^{})A_\nu (𝐤^{},\omega ^{}).`$
Here, the plus sign holds for $`X_0`$ and $`X_3`$ and the minus sign for $`X_1`$. The kernel $`I`$ and the spectral functions $`A_\nu `$ are given by

$`I(\omega ,\mathrm{\Omega },\omega ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{f(\omega ^{})+b(\mathrm{\Omega })}{\omega +i\delta \mathrm{\Omega }\omega ^{}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{f(\omega ^{})+b(\mathrm{\Omega })}{\omega +i\delta +\mathrm{\Omega }\omega ^{}}},`$ (3)
$`A_\nu (𝐤,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\text{Im}{\displaystyle \frac{a_\nu (𝐤,\omega )}{D(𝐤,\omega )}},`$ (4)
where $`a_0=\omega Z`$, $`a_3=ϵ_𝐤+\xi `$, $`a_1=\varphi `$, and

$$D=(\omega Z)^2\left[ϵ_𝐤+\xi \right]^2\varphi ^2.$$
(5)
Here, $`f`$ and $`b`$ are the Fermi and Bose distribution function, respectively. We use the bare tight-binding dispersion relation for lattice constant $`a=b=1`$,

$$ϵ_𝐤=2t(2\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y\mu ).$$
(6)
The band filling $`n=1/N_𝐤n_𝐤`$ is determined with the help of the $`𝐤`$-dependent occupation number $`n_𝐤=2_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega f(\omega )N(𝐤,\omega )`$ which is calculated self-consistently. $`n=1`$ corresponds to half filling. The interactions due to spin and charge fluctuations are given by $`P_s=(2\pi )^1U^2\text{Im}(3\chi _s\chi _{s0})`$ with $`\chi _s=\chi _{s0}(1U\chi _{s0})^1`$ and $`P_c=(2\pi )^1U^2\text{Im}(3\chi _c\chi _{c0})`$ with $`\chi _c=\chi _{c0}(1+U\chi _{c0})^1`$. In terms of spectral functions one has

$`\text{Im}\chi _{s0,c0}(𝐪,\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{N}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega ^{}\left[f(\omega ^{})f(\omega ^{}+\omega )\right]`$ (7)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{𝐤}{}}[N(𝐤+𝐪,\omega ^{}+\omega )N(𝐤,\omega ^{})`$
$`\pm A_1(𝐤+𝐪,\omega ^{}+\omega )A_1(𝐤,\omega ^{})].`$
Here, $`N(𝐤,\omega )=A_0(𝐤,\omega )+A_3(𝐤,\omega )`$, and the real parts are calculated with the help of the Kramers-Kronig relation. The substracted terms in $`P_s`$ and $`P_c`$ remove double counting that occurs in second order. The spin fluctuations are found to dominate the pairing interaction. The numerical calculations are performed on a square lattice with $`256\times 256`$ points in the Brillouin zone and with $`200`$ points on the real $`\omega `$ axis up to $`16t`$ with an almost logarithmic mesh. The full momentum and frequency dependence of the quantities is kept. The convolutions in $`𝐤`$ space are carried out using fast Fourier transformation. The superconducting state is found to have $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave symmetry. $`T_c^{}`$ is determined from the linearized gap equation.

A field-theoretical derivation of the effective action of phase fluctuationsKD ; SBL ; rem.fieldth ; FS  shows that the phase stiffness for frequency $`\omega =0`$ is given by the 3D static superfluid density divided by the effective mass, $`n_s(x,T)/m^{}`$. This quantity is given by

$$\frac{n_s}{m^{}}=\frac{2}{\pi e^2}(I_NI_S)$$
(8)
with

$$I_{N,S}=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \sigma _1^{N,S}(\omega ),$$
(9)
where $`\sigma _1^N`$ ($`\sigma _1^S`$) is the real part of the conductivity in the normal (superconducting) state. Here we utilize the $`f`$-sum rule $`_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \sigma _1(\omega )=\pi e^2n/2m^{}`$ where $`n`$ is the 3D electron density. The interpretation of Eq. (8) is that the spectral weight missing from the quasi-particle background in $`\sigma (\omega )`$ for $`T<T_c^{}`$ must be in the superconducting delta-function peak.

$`\sigma (\omega )`$ is calculated in the normal and superconducting states using the Kubo formulaMahan ; Wermbter

$`\sigma (\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2e^2}{\mathrm{}c}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{\omega }}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega ^{}\left[f(\omega ^{})f(\omega ^{}+\omega )\right]`$ (10)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤}{}}(v_{𝐤,x}^2+v_{𝐤,y}^2)[N(𝐤,\omega ^{}+\omega )N(𝐤,\omega ^{})`$
$`+A_1(𝐤,\omega ^{}+\omega )A_1(𝐤,\omega ^{})],`$
where $`v_{𝐤,i}=ϵ_𝐤/k_i`$ are the band velocities within the $`\text{CuO}_2`$ plane and $`c`$ is the $`c`$-axis lattice constant. Vertex corrections are neglected.

The superfluid density (phase stiffness) $`n_s/m^{}`$ obtained in this way is shown in Fig. 1 for the three doping values $`x=0.091`$ (underdoped), $`x=0.155`$ (approximately optimally doped), and $`x=0.222`$ (overdoped). The figure also shows fits to the data at given doping level, where we assume the form $`\mathrm{ln}n_s(T)/m^{}a_0+a_1\mathrm{ln}(T_c^{}T)+a_2\mathrm{ln}^2(T_c^{}T)+\mathrm{}`$, i.e., a power-law dependence close to $`T_c^{}`$ with logarithmic corrections. We use the fits to extrapolate to $`T=0`$. The results show that $`T_c^{}`$ depends on $`x`$ only weakly in the underdoped regime but decreases rapidly in the overdoped. We come back to this below. Furthermore, $`n_s/m^{}`$ increases much more slowly below $`T_c^{}`$ in the underdoped regime and extrapolates to a smaller value at $`T=0`$.

We have also calculated $`n_s`$ in units of the total hole density $`n`$, shown in Fig. 2, finding that $`n_s/n`$ is significanly reduced below unity, in agreement with experiments but in contradiction to BCS theory. The reduction is strongest for the underdoped case. Our results show that spin fluctuations can explain most of the observed reduction of $`n_s`$. Also note that $`n_s`$ is linear in temperature for $`T0`$ because of the nodes in the gap. The inset in Fig. 2 shows $`\lambda ^3(0)/\lambda ^3(T)`$, where the penetration depth isSchbook  $`\lambda n_s^{1/2}`$, as a function of $`T_c^{}T`$. The FLEX approximation yields $`\lambda ^3(0)/\lambda ^3(T)T_c^{}T`$. The same power law has been found experimentally by Kamal et al.Kamal  It has been attributed to critical fluctuations starting about $`10\mathrm{K}`$ below the transition temperature,Kamal  since it coincides with the critical exponent expected for the 3D XY model. We here obtain the same power law from the FLEX approximation, which is purely 2D and does not contain critical fluctuations. Instead this rapid increase of $`n_s1/\lambda ^2`$ below $`T_c^{}`$ is due to the selfconsistency, which leads to a more rapid opening of the gap than in BCS theory. We thus conclude that, while critical 3D XY fluctuations are expected in a narrow temperature range,Feig79 ; Blt  they are not the origin of the observed power law on the scale of $`10\mathrm{K}`$.

Now we turn to the renormalization of $`n_s`$ due to phase (vortex) fluctuations. The BKT theory describes the unbinding of thermally created pancake vortex-antivortex pairs.BKT ; Minn  The relevant parameters are the dimensionless stiffness $`K`$ and the core energy $`E_c`$ of vortices. The stiffness is related to $`n_s`$ byrem.EK

$$K(T)=\beta \mathrm{}^2\frac{n_s(T)}{m^{}}\frac{d}{4},$$
(11)
where $`\beta `$ is the inverse temperature and $`d`$ is the average spacing between CuO2 layers. Since we use a 2D model to describe double-layer cuprates, we set $`d`$ to half the height of the unit cell of the typical representative YBa2Cu3O6+y. The stiffness $`K`$ is also a measure of the strength of the vortex-antivortex interaction $`V=2\pi k_BTK\mathrm{ln}(r/r_0)`$. Here, $`r_0`$ is the minimum pair size, i.e., twice the vortex core radius, which is of the order of the in-plane Ginzburg-Landau coherence length $`\xi _{ab}`$. For the core energy we use an approximate result by Blatter et al.,Blt  $`E_c=\pi k_BTK\mathrm{ln}\kappa `$, where $`\kappa `$ is the Ginzburg parameter. Starting from the smallest vortex-antivortex pairs of size $`r_0`$, the pairs are integrated out and their effect is incorporated by an approximate renormalization of $`K`$ and the fugacityrem.y  $`y=e^{\beta E_c}`$. This leads to the Kosterlitz recursion relations

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dl}}`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pi K)y,`$ (12)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dK}{dl}}`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi ^3y^2K^2,`$ (13)
where $`l=\mathrm{ln}(r/r_0)`$ is a logarithmic length scale. For $`T>T_c`$, $`K`$ goes to zero for $`l\mathrm{}`$, so that the interaction is screened at large distances and the largest vortex-antivortex pairs unbind. The unbound vortices destroy the superconducting order and the Meißner effect and lead to dissipation.Mooij  For $`T<T_c`$, $`K`$ approaches a finite value $`K_Rlim_l\mathrm{}K`$ and $`y`$ vanishes in the limit $`l\mathrm{}`$ so that there are exponentially few large pairs and they still feel the logarithmic interaction. Bound pairs reduce $`K`$ and thus $`n_s`$, but do not destroy superconductivity. At $`T_c`$, $`K_R`$ jumps from a universal value of $`2/\pi `$ to zero. The values of $`T_c`$ shown below are obtained by numerically integrating Eqs. (12) and (13) with $`n_s`$ taken from an interpolation between the points in Fig. 1. It turns out that the renormalization of $`K`$ for $`T<T_c`$ is very small so that one obtains $`T_c`$ from the simple criterion

$$K(T_c)=\frac{2}{\pi }\text{or}\frac{n_s(T_c)}{m^{}}=\frac{2}{\pi }\frac{4k_BT_c}{\mathrm{}^2d}$$
(14)
for the unrenormalized stiffness with an error of less than $`1\%`$. Eq. (14) is satisfied at the intersection of the $`n_s(T)/m^{}`$ curves with the dashed straight line in Fig. 1.

From BKT theory we obtain two important quantities: the transition temperature $`T_c`$ and the renormalized stiffness $`K_R`$, which determines the renormalized superfluid density (phase stiffness)

$$\frac{n_s^R}{m^{}}=\frac{4}{\beta \mathrm{}^2d}K_R.$$
(15)
In Fig. 3 we plot the transition temperature $`T_c`$ and the temperature $`T_c^{}`$ where Cooper-pairs form. For decreasing doping $`x`$, $`T_c^{}`$ becomes nearly constant and even decreases for the lowest doping level, consistent with the strong decrease of the onset temperature of vortex effects at even lower doping found by Xu et al.Xu ; Wang  We have also calculated der superconducting gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ extrapolated to $`T=0`$ (not shown). $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is here defined as half the peak-to-peak separation in the density of states. We find approximately $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0T_c^{}`$.

Phase fluctuations lead to a downturn of $`T_c`$ in the underdoped regime. However, this reduction is not as large as experimentally observed and our value $`x0.14`$ for the optimal doping is accordingly smaller than the experimental one of $`x0.16`$.Tallon  We suggest that one origin of this discrepancy is the neglect of the feedback of phase fluctuations on the electronic properties.

Figure 3 also shows the superfluid density $`n_s(0)/m^{}`$ extrapolated to $`T=0`$, scaled such that it approaches $`T_c`$ in the underdoped regime. The density increases approximately linearly with doping except for the most overdoped point, where it turns down again. This behavior agrees well with angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) results of Feng et al.Feng  and with recent $`\mu `$SR experiments of Bernhard et al.Bern  In Ref. Bern,  a maximum in $`n_s`$ at a unique doping value of $`x_{\mathrm{max}}0.19`$ is found for various cuprates, while we obtain $`x_{\mathrm{max}}0.20`$. Our results are consistent with the Uemura scalingUemura  $`T_cn_s(0)`$ in the heavily underdoped regime and with the BCS-like behavior $`T_cT_c^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ in the overdoped limit. $`T_c`$ interpolates smoothly between the extreme cases. We find $`T_c<T_c^{}`$ even for high doping, since $`n_s(T)`$ and $`K(T)`$ continuously go to zero at $`T_c^{}`$ so that Eq. (14) is only satisfied at a temperature $`T_c<T_c^{}`$. The results for the overdoped case may be changed if amplitude fluctuations of the order parameter and their mixing with phase fluctuationsOGZB  are taken into account. Amplitude fluctuations are governed by $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, which becomes smaller than the energy scale of phase fluctuations in the overdoped regime.

The situation is complicated by the Josephson coupling between CuO2 layers. This coupling leads to the appearance of Josephson vortex lines connecting the pancake vortices between the layers.Blt  They induce a linear component in the vortex-antivortex interaction. This contribution becomes relevant at separations larger than $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=d/ϵ`$, where $`ϵ<1`$ is the anisotropy parameter.Blt  $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ acts as a cutoff for the Kosterlitz recursion relations and eventually leads to an increase of $`T_c`$ relative to the BKT result $`T_c^{\mathrm{BKT}}`$ and to the breakdown of 2D theory close to the transition.Blt ; Pier1 ; Frie ; CTlay  The experiments of Corson et al.Cors  also show that the BKT temperature $`T_c^{\mathrm{BKT}}`$ extracted from the data is significantly smaller than the experimental $`T_c`$. Thus $`T_c`$ as calculated here is a lower bound of the true transition temperature.

The feedback of phase fluctuations on the electrons is not included in our approach. We expect the phase fluctuations in this regime to lead to pair breaking.FS  However, simulations of the XY model suggest that this feedback is rather weak.Monien  Neglecting the feedback, the electronic spectral function shows the unrenormalized superconducting gap for $`T_c<T<T_c^{}`$. Since there is no superconducting order in this regime, we identify this gap with the (strong) pseudogap, which thus is automatically $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave-like and of the same magnitude as the superconducting gap for $`T<T_c`$. Thus in this picture the pseudogap is due to local Cooper pair formation in the absence of long-range phase coherence. Pair breaking due to phase fluctuations should partly fill in this gap.

Figure 4 shows $`T_c`$, $`T_c^{}`$, and $`T^{}`$ on a different temperature scale. $`T^{}`$ is the highest temperature where a weak pseudogap is obtained from FLEX, i.e., where the density of states at the Fermi energy starts to be suppressed. The inset shows this suppression for $`x=0.155`$. The temperature $`T^{}`$ becomes much larger than $`T_c`$ in the underdoped regime, in agreement with experiments.TS

To conclude this section, we discuss the effect of a normal-state pseudogap due to a mechanism other than incoherent Cooper pairing. Let us assume a suppression of the density of states close to the Fermi surface in the normal state, e.g., due to the formation of a charge-density wave.DMT  This decreases the number of holes available for pairing and should thus reduce $`T_c`$. To check this, we have performed FLEX calculations with a pseudogap of the form $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤=\mathrm{\Delta }_0(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y)`$ included in the normal-state dispersion. The doping-dependent amplitude $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is chosen in accordance with ARPES experiments by Marshall et al.PG1  and by Ding et al.PG2  The results are shown by the open squares in Fig. 5. The curve merges with the $`T_c^{}`$ curve without pseudogap (open circles) at $`x=0.155`$, since here the pseudogap is experimentally found to vanish.PG1 ; PG2  It is apparent that $`T_c^{}`$ is indeed strongly reduced in the underdoped regime. Thus this density-of-states effect is a possible alternative explanation for the observed downturn of $`T_c`$.

Next, we consider phase fluctuations in the presence of a normal-state pseudogap. The $`T_c`$ values naively obtained from BKT theory for this case are shown in Fig. 5 as the solid squares. Phase fluctuations reduce $`T_c`$ even more, in particular for $`x=0.122`$. This is due to the fact that the phase stiffness $`n_s/m^{}`$ increases much more slowly below $`T_c^{}`$ in the presence of a pseudogap, as shown in the inset of Fig. 5, even if $`T_c^{}`$ is only slightly reduced. The small stiffness makes phase fluctuations more effective. However, in this picture the reduction of $`T_c`$ is probably overestimated: Above, we have explained the pseudogap as resulting from incoherent Cooper pairing. This contribution to the pseudogap must not be incorporated into the normal-state dispersion to avoid double counting. This would increase the result for $`T_c`$. It is clearly important to develop a theory that incorporates phase fluctuations, spin fluctuations, and possibly the charge-density wave on the same microscopic level. However, the inclusion of vortex fluctuations in a FLEX-type theory on equal footing with spin fluctuations would be a formidable task.FS

## III Dynamical case

In this section, we calculate the dynamical phase stiffness, which is the quantity obtained by Corson et al.Cors  We first note that the superfluid density can also be obtained from the imaginary part of the conductivity,

$$\frac{n_s}{m^{}}=\frac{1}{e^2}\underset{\omega 0}{lim}\omega \sigma _2^S(\omega ),$$
(16)
as can be shown with the help of Kramers-Kronig relations. We have recalculated $`n_s/m^{}`$ in this way and find identical results compared to Eq. (8).

The phase stiffness has also been obtained at nonzero frequencies using field-theoretical methods.KD ; SBL ; rem.fieldth ; FS  For small wave vector $`𝐪0`$,

$$\frac{n_s(\omega )}{m^{}}=\frac{1}{e^2}\omega \sigma _2^S(\omega ).$$
(17)
The imaginary part $`\sigma _2^S(\omega )`$ of the dynamical conductivity is obtained from the FLEX approximation for the dynamical current-current correlation function using the Kubo formula.Mahan  For $`\omega >0`$ one should not interpret $`n_s(\omega )`$ as a density. Note also that $`n_s^{1/2}(\omega )`$ is no longer proportional to the penetration depth of a magnetic field—for $`\omega >0`$ there is also a contribution from the real part of the conductivity, i.e., the normal skin effect.

The resulting phase stiffness $`n_s(\omega )/m^{}`$ is shown in Fig. 6 for $`x=0.122`$ (underdoped) at various temperatures. At higher doping the results (not shown) are similar, only the typical frequency scale, which turns out to be the low-temperature superconducting gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, is reduced. We find a finite phase stiffness at $`\omega >0`$ even for $`TT_c^{}`$. At first glance this is surprising, since the phase is not well-defined for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$. Indeed, using a Ward identity one can show that the Gaussian part of the phase action vanishes for $`TT_c^{}`$.CTWard  However, the phase action contains a contribution from the time derivative of the phase besides the stiffness term. While the total action vanishes, each term on its own does not. Thus the stiffness is finite but has no physical significance for $`TT_c^{}`$.

Even slightly below $`T_c^{}`$, $`n_s(\omega =0)/m^{}`$ obtains a significant finite value, leading to the Meißner effect, and there is a considerable redistribution of weight from energies roughly above twice the low-temperature maximum gap, $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, to energies below $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$. This redistribution increases with decreasing temperature. Also, a peak develops slightly below $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ followed by a dip around $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, this structure being most pronounced in the underdoped case. Since $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is smaller in the overdoped regime, $`n_s(\omega )/m^{}`$ changes more rapidly for small $`\omega `$ in this case. It is of course not surprising that $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is the characteristic frequency of changes in $`n_s(\omega )/m^{}`$ related to the formation of Cooper pairs.

We now turn to the question of how phase fluctuations affect the dynamical phase stiffness $`n_s(\omega )/m^{}`$. This requires a dynamical generalization of BKT theory, which was first developed by Ambegaokar et al.AHNS ; Minn  Here, we start from a heuristic argument for the dynamical screening of the vortex interaction:AHNS  An applied electromagnetic field exerts a force on the vortices mainly by inducing a superflow, which leads to a Lorentz force on the flux carried by the vortices. On the other hand, moving a vortex leads to dissipation in its core and thus to a finite diffusion constant $`D_v`$,BS  which impedes its motion. If one assumes a rotating field of frequency $`\omega `$, small vortex-antivortex pairs will rotate to stay aligned with the field. Large pairs, on the other hand, will not be able to follow the rotation and thus become ineffective for the screening. A pair can follow the field if its component vortex and antivortex can move a distance $`2\pi r`$ during one period $`T_\omega =2\pi /\omega `$. During this time a vortex can move a distance of about the diffusion length $`\sqrt{D_vT_\omega }=\sqrt{2\pi D_v/\omega }`$, so that the critical scale for the pair size is

$$r_\omega \sqrt{\frac{D_v}{2\pi \omega }}.$$
(18)
Only vortex-antivortex pairs of size $`rr_\omega `$ contribute to the screening. Hence, we cut off the renormalization flows at this length scale. To avoid an unphysical kink in $`n_s^R(\omega )/m^{}`$ we use the smooth cutoff $`\overline{r}^2=r_\omega ^2+r_0^2`$.

The diffusion constant of vortices is not easy to calculate accurately. In the absence of pinning, the theory of Bardeen and StephenBS  yields

$$D_v^0=\frac{2\pi c^2\xi _{ab}^2\rho _nk_BT}{\varphi _0^2\stackrel{~}{d}},$$
(19)
where $`c`$ is the speed of light, $`\xi _{ab}r_0/2`$ is the coherence length, $`\rho _n`$ is the normal-state resistivity, $`\varphi _0=hc/2e`$ is the superconducting flux quantum, and $`\stackrel{~}{d}`$ is an effective layer thickness. In the renormalization the quantity $`D_v^0/r_0^2`$ enters, which according to Eq. (19) is linear in temperature. In the presence of a high density of weak pinning centers the diffusion constant becomesFish80  $`D_v=D_v^0\mathrm{exp}(E_p/k_BT)`$, where $`E_p`$ is the pinning energy. Matters are complicated by the observation that $`E_p`$ depends on temperature. Rogers et al.Roge92  find $`E_p(T)E_p^0(1T/T_c^{})`$ with $`E_p^0/k_B1200\mathrm{K}`$ for Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ. Absorbing the constant term in the exponent into the prefactor, the result for the diffusion constant in natural units is

$$\frac{D_v}{r_0^2}C_v\frac{k_BT}{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{E_p^0}{k_BT}\right),$$
(20)
where $`C_v`$ is a dimensionless constant. However, such a large value of $`E_p^0`$ would lead to a sharp, step-like dependence of $`n_s(\omega )/m^{}`$ on temperature, in contradiction to the smooth behavior shown in Fig. 4 of Ref. Cors, . In view of these difficulties we treat $`D_v/r_0^2`$ as a constant parameter and discuss the dependence on $`D_v`$ below.

To find the effect of phase (vortex) fluctuations on the phase stiffness, the recursion relations (12) and (13) are now integrated numerically up to the cutoff $`\overline{l}=\mathrm{ln}(\overline{r}/r_0)`$, which depends on $`D_v/r_0^2`$. The resulting renormalized phase stiffness $`n_s^R(\omega )/m^{}`$ for constant $`D_v/r_0^2=10^{17}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`x=0.122`$ is plotted in Fig. 7. Other values of $`D_v`$ give similar results. Of course, faster vortex diffusion shifts the features at given temperature to higher frequencies. The dashed lines denote the unrenormalized stiffness, i.e., the same data as in Fig. 6, albeit on an expanded frequency scale. The highest frequency used in Ref. Cors,  ($`600\mathrm{GHz}`$) corresponds to $`\omega /t0.01`$, also indicated in Fig. 7.

For $`T<T_c`$ (the upper six curves) the static renormalization has been found to be small, see Sec. II. The renormalization at finite $`\omega `$ is even weaker so that the renormalized stiffness is in practice identical to the unrenormalized one, which has only a weak frequency dependence for low $`\omega `$, in agreement with Ref. Cors, .

When $`T`$ is increased above $`T_c`$ (the lower five curves in Fig. 7), a strong renormalization of the stiffness due to phase fluctuations sets in starting at very low frequencies. The Meißner effect is thus destroyed for all $`T>T_c`$ by the comparatively slow vortex diffusion. With increasing temperature the onset of renormalization shifts to higher frequencies. At frequencies above this onset, the vortices cannot follow the field and thus do not affect the response, as discussed above. The onset frequencies are always much smaller than $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$. The features at the energy scale $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ shown in Fig. 6, which are due to Cooper-pair formation, are unaffected by phase fluctuations and show no anomality at $`T_c`$. They vanish only at $`T_c^{}`$.

Finally, in Fig. 8 we plot the renormalized $`n_s^R(\omega )/m^{}`$ for $`x=0.122`$ as a function of temperature for various frequencies. This graph should be compared to Figs. 2 and 4 of Ref. Cors, —note that the quantity $`T_\theta `$ given there is proportional to $`n_s^R/m^{}`$. We note that Corson et al.Cors  assume a thermally activated density of free vortices, $`n_f\mathrm{exp}(E_f/T)`$, for $`T`$ not too close to the BKT transition temperature, and a temperature-independent diffusion constant.rem.Cors  Here, we instead integrate the recursion relations (12) and (13) explicitly up to the dynamical length scale $`\overline{r}`$ so that we do not have to make an assumption on $`n_f`$. One sees that even at $`f=600\mathrm{GHz}`$ the broadened BKT transition is still much narrower than found by Corson et al.Cors  From Eqs. (19) and (20) it is clear that the diffusion constant $`D_v/r_0^2`$ increases with temperature. In the presence of pinning it increases rapidly around $`k_BTE_p^0`$. Since a larger diffusion constant, i.e., more mobile vortices, leads to stronger renormalization, the transition in Fig. 8 would become even sharper if $`D_v/r_0^2`$ were an increasing function of temperature.

Our results show that dynamical BKT theory together with Bardeen-Stephen theory for vortex diffusion and natural assumptions on pinning does not agree quantitatively with the experimental results.Cors  We conclude that the finite size effect apparent in the experimental data is not only due to the finite diffusion length. Another possible source is the interlayer Josephson coupling, which leads to the apperance of the Josephson length $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ as an additional length scale, as discussed above.Blt  This length scale leads to a cutoff of the recursion relations at $`l\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda }/r_0)`$, which becomes small close to $`T_c^{}`$ due to the divergence of $`r_0\xi _{ab}`$ (neglecting the feedback of phase fluctuations on the quasiparticles). This broadens the transition but cannot easily explain the observed frequency dependence. On the other hand, the experimental observation that the curves for various frequenciesCors  start to coincide where the phase stiffness agrees with the universal jump criterion (14) supports an interpretation in terms of vortex fluctuations. We suggest that a better description of the interplay of vortex dynamics and interlayer coupling is required to understand the data.

Note, the origin of the discrepancy may also lie in the FLEX results for $`n_s(\omega )/m^{}`$, which do not include all effects of temperature-dependent scattering on the conductivity $`\sigma `$,Scharn  and in the omission of the feedback of phase fluctuations on the electronic properties. Another effect neglected here is the possible coupling to a charge-density wave perhaps taking the form of dynamical stripes.

## IV Summary and conclusions

In the present paper we have obtained the characteristic energy scales of hole-doped cuprate superconductors from a theory that includes both spin and Cooper-pair phase fluctuations. The former are described by the FLEX approximation, whereas the latter are included by means of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) theory, taking the FLEX results as input. Phase fluctuations mainly take the form of vortex fluctuations, since Gaussian phase flucuations have a large energy gap. Vortices lead to the renormalization of the phase stiffness $`n_s(\omega )/m^{}`$ to $`n_s^R(\omega )/m^{}`$. The stiffness at $`T0`$ shows a maximum at a doping level of $`x0.2`$, in good agreement with experiments.Bern  At the transition temperature $`T_c`$ the renormalized static phase stiffness $`n_s^R(\omega =0)/m^{}`$ vanishes, leading to the disappearance of the Meißner effect. The ideal conductivity is also destroyed by free vortices. $`T_c`$ is significantly reduced compared to the transition temperature $`T_c^{}`$ that would result from spin fluctuations alone. The $`T_c`$ determined from spin and phase (vortex) fluctuations is in much better agreement with experiments in the underdoped regime and shows a maximum at optimum doping. Still, our approach does not explain the full reduction of $`T_c`$. We believe that a further reduction of $`T_c`$ results from (a) the breaking of Cooper pairs by scattering with phase fluctuations and (b) other instabilities that reduce the density of states in the normal state, for example a charge-density wave. Since the latter effect also suppresses $`n_s/m^{}`$, phase fluctuations can become even more effective and reduce $`T_c`$ further. It would be desirable to include the pair-breaking effect of phase fluctuations and the possible formation of a charge-density wave on the same microscopic level as the spin fluctuations.FS

For $`T_c<T<T_c^{}`$, where phase-coherent superconductivity is absent, phase fluctuations lead to a strong renormalization of $`n_s/m^{}`$ at frequencies much smaller than $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$. Our results show the same trends as found in conductivity measurements.Cors  However, a three-dimensional description of vortex dynamics might be required to obtain a more quantitative agreement. Local formation of Cooper pairs still takes place in this regime. This leads to a strong pseudogap of the same magnitude $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ and symmetry as the superconducting gap below $`T_c`$. We also find a frequency dependence of $`n_S^R(\omega )/m^{}`$ at higher frequencies, $`\omega \mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, that is very similar to the superconducting phase. These features vanish only around $`T_c^{}`$. Finally, for $`T_c^{}<T<T^{}`$ there is a weak suppression in the density of states at the Fermi energy. Our results reproduce several of the main features common to all hole-doped cuprate superconductors. We conclude that the exchange of spin fluctuations, modified by strong superconducting phase (vortex) fluctuations in the underdoped regime, is the main mechanism of superconductivity in cuprates.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank I. Eremin, H. Kleinert, F. Schäfer, and D. Straub for helpful discussions.