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# Measuring Feedback Using the Intergalactic Medium State and Evolution Inferred from the Soft X-ray Background

## 1 Introduction

A large fraction of the intergalactic medium (IGM) is hot. The cosmic virial theorem predicts that the mean IGM temperature $`>0.2`$ keV (Pen, 1999). It emits X-ray through thermal bremsstrahlung and contributes to the soft (0.5-2 keV) X-ray background (XRB). About $`80`$-$`90\%`$ of the soft XRB has been resolved into point objects such as AGNs (Hasinger et al., 1993). Various sources such as nearby low luminosity AGNs (Halderson et al., 2001), unresolved galactic stars (Kuntz & Snowden, 2001), galactic gas, X-ray sources in external galaxies and the IGM (Pen, 1999; Wu & Xue, 2001; Croft et al., 2001) may contribute a significant fraction to the remaining $`10`$-$`20\%`$. To distinguish those possible components, one can combine the XRB mean flux, auto correlation (Soltan & Hasinger, 1994; Sliwa, Soltan & Freyberg, 2001) and cross correlation with galaxies (Almaini et al., 1997; Refregier, Helfand & Mcmahon, 1997). In §2, we will build analytical models to estimate the IGM contribution to the XRB flux and correlations.

In pure gravitational clustering where the only source of thermal energy is shock heating from collapse, simulations show that the gas correlation function $`\xi _{\mathrm{gas}}`$ follows the dark matter correlation function down to scales where the gas over-density correlation $`\xi _{\mathrm{gas}}10^3`$ (Pen, 1999). Non-gravitational heating (feedback) can rearrange the gas distribution on small scales. By searching for the scale where feedback dominates over gravity, one can robustly measure the strength and history of non-gravitational heating. The IGM XRB is sensitive to small scale gas structures due to the X-ray emissivity dependence on density squared. This makes the IGM XRB a potentially powerful probe for studying feedback from galaxies on the IGM. From the estimation of the IGM XRB flux, Pen (1999); Wu, Fabian & Nulsen (2001); Voit & Bryan (2001) suggested that, if only gravitational heating exists, the soft X-ray emission that the IGM produces would exceed the observational limit. To suppress the IGM clumping and reduce the X-ray emission, a significant amount of non-gravitational injection energy $`1`$ keV/nucleon is required. Croft et al. (2001); Dave et al. (2001); Phillips et al. (2001) argued from simulations that such energy injection is not necessary. In their simulations, a large fraction of baryons (about $`70\%`$) are too cold to contribute significantly to the XRB. Despite the stability problem of cool gas, these findings may indicate a degeneracy between non-gravitational heating and the fraction of IGM contributing to the XRB. The IGM XRB auto correlation function (ACF) and cross correlation function (CCF) with galaxies have different dependences on the IGM thermal state and are capable of breaking this degeneracy. Furthermore, with galaxy photometric redshift data, the redshift resolved IGM X-ray emissivity-galaxy cross correlation and emissivity auto correlation can be extracted. This tells the evolution of the IGM state. In §3, we will forecast the sensitivity of ROSAT all sky survey (Voges et al., 1999) and SDSS333SDSS, http://www.sdss.org/ and test the feasibility to constrain the IGM thermal history from correlations. This estimation depends on the XRB non-Gaussianity since it affects the error analysis. We analyze our $`512^3`$ moving mesh hydro simulation to quantify this effect.

## 2 Analytical models for the IGM XRB

The X-ray emissivity in the band $`E_1h\nu E_2`$ is given by: $`I_X2.4\times 10^{27}c_ZT^{1/2}[\mathrm{exp}(E_1/T)\mathrm{exp}(E_2/T)]n_e^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_{E_1}^{E_2}(T)n_e^2\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Tucker, 1975). $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{E_1}^{E_2}(T)`$ is the cooling coefficient in the energy band $`E_1`$-$`E_2`$. A mean gaunt factor $`1.2`$ is adopted. $`c_ZZ/Z_{\mathrm{}}(4\mathrm{k}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}/T)+1`$ is a fitting formula to result of metal cooling from Raymond, Cox & Smith (1976). We will use $`Z=\frac{1}{4}Z_{\mathrm{}}`$ as the lower plausible limit on the IGM inferred from clusters of galaxies. We choose a flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0.37`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.63`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B=0.04`$, $`\sigma _8=0.9`$, $`h=0.7`$ and $`n=1`$ to calculate the soft XRB statistics. Hereafter, we always consider the comoving emissivity $`I_X^C=I_X/(1+z)^3`$.

The IGM XRB flux $`F_X(\widehat{\theta })=I_X^C(\chi \widehat{\theta })/[4\pi (1+z)^2]𝑑\chi `$. $`\chi `$ is the comoving distance. The mean XRB flux $`\overline{F}_X=\overline{I}_X^C/[4\pi (1+z)^2]𝑑\chi `$. The galaxy surface density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\widehat{\theta })=\frac{dn}{dz}[1+\delta _G(\chi \widehat{\theta })]𝑑z.`$ $`\frac{dn}{dz}`$ is the galaxy redshift distribution and $`\delta _G`$ is the galaxy number over-density. The mean surface density $`\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}=\frac{dn}{dz}𝑑z`$. We define the dimensionless fluctuations $`\mathrm{\Delta }_FF/\overline{F}1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{\Sigma }\mathrm{\Sigma }/\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}1`$. The IGM XRB ACF and CCF with galaxies are defined by $`w_X(\theta )\mathrm{\Delta }_F(\widehat{\theta }_1)\mathrm{\Delta }_F(\widehat{\theta }_2)`$ and $`w_{XG}(\theta )\mathrm{\Delta }_F(\widehat{\theta }_1)\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{\Sigma }(\widehat{\theta }_2)`$, respectively. Here, $`\widehat{\theta }_1\widehat{\theta }_2=\mathrm{cos}\theta `$. $`C^X(l)`$ and $`C^{XG}(l)`$ are the corresponding angular power spectra, respectively.

These 2D correlations are determined by the corresponding 3D correlations such as the emissivity ACF $`\xi _X(r)\delta _X(𝐱)\delta _X(𝐱+𝐫)`$ and emissivity-galaxy CCF $`\xi _{XG}(r)=\delta _X(𝐱)\delta _G(𝐱+𝐫)`$ or their corresponding power spectra $`P_X(k,z)`$ and $`P_{XG}(k,z)`$. $`\delta _XI_X^C/\overline{I}_X^C1`$. At small angular scales we use the Limber’s equation to obtain

$$C^X(l)=\frac{1}{\overline{F}_X^2}_0^{\chi _{\mathrm{re}}}P_X(\frac{l}{\chi },z)\frac{[\overline{I}_X^C(z)]^2}{[4\pi (1+z)^2]^2\chi ^2}𝑑\chi ,$$
(1)
$$C^{XG}(l,z_1,z_2)=\frac{1}{\overline{F}_X\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}_{z_1}^{z_2}P_{XG}(\frac{l}{\chi },z)\frac{\overline{I}_X^C(z)}{4\pi (1+z)^2\chi ^2}\frac{dn}{dz}𝑑z.$$
(2)
Here, $`\chi _{\mathrm{re}}`$ is the comoving distance to the reionization epoch. $`[z_1,z_2]`$ is the redshift range of the galaxy survey adopted.

For these statistics, we can treat the IGM either as a continuum field with a density and temperature distribution or as discrete halos. From these two viewpoints, we build two analytical models: the continuum field model (§2.1) and the halo model (§2.2).

### 2.1 The continuum field model

For the $`[0.5,2]`$ keV X-ray band, we can approximate the gas temperature $`T1`$ keV due to the following arguments. (1) when $`T1`$ keV, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{E_1}^{E_2}(T)`$ decreases exponentially and we would expect that too cold gas does not contribute significantly to the soft XRB. (2) When $`T1`$ keV, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{E_1}^{E_2}(T)`$ drops as $`T^{1/2}`$. Furthermore, gas with $`T1`$ keV is rare. So the contribution from gas with $`T1`$ keV to the soft XRB is small. (3) $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{E_1}^{E_2}(T)`$ peaks at $`T1`$ keV. The density weighted temperature is $`0.4`$ keV (Zhang & Pen, 2001) and the density square weighted (roughly emissivity weighted) temperature $`1`$ keV. So, we expect most contributions to the soft XRB to be from gas with $`T1`$ keV. Around this temperature, the emissivity has only a weak temperature dependence. So, we approximate $`T=1`$ keV and define a X-ray weighted gas fraction $`f_{\mathrm{gas}}^X\sqrt{I_X/[\mathrm{\Lambda }_{E_1}^{E_2}(1\mathrm{keV})n_e^2]}`$. From the above argument we expect $`f_{\mathrm{gas}}^X1`$, but throughout this letter, we treat $`f_{\mathrm{gas}}^X`$ as a free parameter to be determined by observations. At large scales, gas generally follows dark matter. At smaller scales, the gas density fluctuation is suppressed by the gas pressure. This effect can be modeled through a window function $`W_g(r)`$ such that the gas over-density is a convolution of the dark matter density and $`W_g(r)`$. The FWHM of $`W_g(r)`$ is the scale where non-gravitational processes such as feedback begins to dominate over gravity. In Fourier space, the Fourier component of the gas over-density $`\delta _{\mathrm{gas}}(k)=\delta (k)W_{\mathrm{gas}}(k)`$ where $`\delta (k)`$ is the Fourier component of the dark matter over-density. A Gaussian window function $`W_{\mathrm{gas}}(k)=\mathrm{exp}(k^2/k_{\mathrm{gas}}^2)`$ is choose from the literature (Gnedin & Hui, 1998). With the correlation between gas and dark matter, one can calculate the XRB statistics using the knowledge of dark matter density field.

We apply the extension of the hierarchical model (Fry, 1984) in the highly non-linear regime: the hyper-extended perturbation theory (HEPT) (Scoccimarro & Frieman, 1999) to calculate $`P_X`$ and $`P_{XG}`$.

$$P_X(k,z)\frac{1}{\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^4(2\pi )^6}B_4(𝐤_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐤_\mathrm{𝟐},𝐤_\mathrm{𝟑},𝐤_\mathrm{𝟒};z)W_1W_2W_3W_4d^3k_2d^3k_4$$
(3)
$$P_{XG}(k,z)\frac{1}{\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2(2\pi )^3}bB_3(𝐤_1,𝐤_2,𝐤;z)W_1W_2d^3k_1.$$
(4)
Here, $`W_i=W_{\mathrm{gas}}(k_i)`$, $`𝐤_\mathrm{𝟏}+𝐤_\mathrm{𝟐}=𝐤_\mathrm{𝟑}𝐤_\mathrm{𝟒}=𝐤`$. The gas clumping factor $`\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2=P_{\mathrm{gas}}(k)k^2𝑑k/(2\pi ^2)`$ with $`P_{\mathrm{gas}}(k)`$ as the gas density power spectrum. The bispectrum $`B_3P^2(k)`$ and polyspectrum, the dominant term in the expression of $`P_X(k,z)`$, $`B_4P^3(k)`$ terms are calculated from HEPT. Here, $`P(k)`$ is the dark matter density power spectrum. See Zhang & Pen (2001) for more detailed explanation. We consider a flux limited galaxy survey SDSS, take the SDSS galaxy distribution as $`\frac{dn}{dz}=\frac{3z^2}{2(z_m/1.412)^3}\mathrm{exp}[(1.412z/z_m)^{3/2}]`$ (Baugh & Efstathiou, 1993) and adopt $`z_m=0.43`$ as the median redshift of Sloan galaxy photometric redshift distribution (Dodelson et al., 2001). We assume that $`k_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ does not change with redshift and a constant bias model $`\delta _G=b\delta `$ for galaxies.

### 2.2 The halo model

The gas profile in a halo and halo mass-temperature relation determines the X-ray luminosity. The halo mass function and halo-halo correlation enable us to calculate their collective effects to the XRB. Similar methods have been applied to the dark matter correlation (Ma & Fry, 2000) and the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect (Komatsu & Kitayama, 1999).

We adopt the electron number density profile $`n_e=n_0\left[1+(\frac{r^2}{r_c^2})\right]^1`$. The gas core radius $`r_c`$ is analogous to $`k_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ and corresponds to the scale below which feedback significantly changes gravitational clustering. We assume that gas accounts for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B/\mathrm{\Omega }_0=11\%`$ of the halo mass. The gas temperature is determined by the virial theorem through the relation $`\frac{M}{M_8}=\left[\frac{T/\mathrm{keV}}{4.9\mathrm{\Omega }_0^{2/3}\mathrm{\Omega }(z)^{0.283}(1+z)}\right]^{3/2}`$ (Pen, 1998). $`M_8`$ is the mean mass contained in a $`8h^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ sphere today. The distribution of halo comoving number density $`n`$ as a function of halo mass $`M`$ and $`z`$ is given by (Press & Schechter, 1974): $`\frac{dn}{dM}=(\frac{2}{\pi })^{1/2}\frac{\rho _0}{M^2}\frac{\delta _c}{\sigma }|\frac{d\mathrm{ln}\sigma }{d\mathrm{ln}M}|\mathrm{exp}(\frac{\delta _c^2}{2\sigma ^2})`$. Here $`\rho _0`$ is the present mean matter density of the universe. $`\sigma (M,z)`$ is the linear theory rms density fluctuation in a sphere containing mass M at redshift $`z`$. $`\delta _c`$ is the linearly extrapolated over-density at which an object virializes. Its dependence on cosmology is weak and we will adopt the value $`1.686`$, which is the $`\delta _c`$ for a $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1.0`$ CDM universe Eke, Cole & Frenk (1996). Mo & White (1996) related the halo-halo correlation $`P_c(M_1,M_2)`$ with the underlying dark matter correlation $`P(k)`$ by a linear bias: $`P_c(k,M_1,M_2)=P(k)b(M_1)b(M_2)`$. We adopt the NFW profile (Navarro et al., 1996) with a compact parameter $`c=5`$ to calculate the XRB-dark matter cross correlation.

In this model, the variance of the gas density $`\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2_{M_{\mathrm{low}}}^{\mathrm{}}n_0^2r_c^3[\mathrm{tan}^1(r_\mathrm{\Delta }/r_c)\frac{r_\mathrm{\Delta }/r_c}{1+(r_\mathrm{\Delta }/r_c)^2}]\frac{dn}{dM}𝑑M`$. $`r_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the virial radius and we calculate it using the fitting formula of Eke, Cole & Frenk (1996). Defining $`\delta _X(𝐤,M)`$ and $`\delta (𝐤,M)`$ as the Fourier transform of $`I_X^C(𝐫,M)/\overline{I}_X^C`$ and $`\delta (𝐫,M)\rho _{DM}(𝐫,M)/\overline{\rho }_{DM}`$ of each halo, respectively, we obtain

$$P_X(k)=\frac{1}{\overline{I}_X^2}\left(_{M_{\mathrm{low}}}^{\mathrm{}}\delta _X^2(k)\frac{dn}{dM}𝑑M+P(k)\left[_{M_{\mathrm{low}}}^{\mathrm{}}\delta _X(k)\frac{dn}{dM}𝑑Mb(M)\right]^2\right),$$
(5)
$`P_{X\delta }(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{I}_X}}({\displaystyle _{M_{\mathrm{low}}}^{\mathrm{}}}\delta _X(k)\delta (k){\displaystyle \frac{dn}{dM}}dM+`$
$`P(k)\left[{\displaystyle _{M_{\mathrm{low}}}^{\mathrm{}}}\delta _X(k){\displaystyle \frac{dn}{dM}}dMb(M)\right]\left[{\displaystyle _{M_{\mathrm{low}}}^{\mathrm{}}}\delta (k){\displaystyle \frac{dn}{dM}}dMb(M)\right]).`$
The integrals in these equations depend strongly on the halo lower mass limit $`M_{\mathrm{low}}`$, which can not be arbitrarily chosen. A smaller $`M_{\mathrm{low}}`$ will produce a bigger gas clumping factor $`\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2`$ since more gas contributes. It will also produce a smaller $`P_X`$ since gas in less massive halos is more diffuse and contributes a smaller fraction to the correlation than to the mean flux. This behavior contradicts the $`P_X\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2`$ behavior we should expect. Thus $`M_{\mathrm{low}}`$ must be determined independently. Here we adopt the model of Pen (1999). In this model, the energy injection from feedback such as supernovae winds expand the gas and produces a core (radius $`r_1(M)`$) with a constant entropy. Then $`r_1(M)=r_\mathrm{\Delta }(M)`$ sets the value of $`M_{\mathrm{low}}`$. In this model, $`r_10.5r_cT^1M^{2/3}`$. We further assume $`r_c(M_8,z)=r_c(M_8,z=0)/(1+z)`$, which corresponds to a redshift independent $`k_{\mathrm{gas}}`$.

### 2.3 Predictions

Two models give consistent predictions for the XRB. More than $`80\%`$ of the contribution to the soft XRB flux is from the IGM at $`z1`$ (fig. 1). The mean X-ray flux $`\overline{F}_X(\frac{\sigma _g^2}{30})10^{12}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{deg}^2`$, which accounts for a significant, if not dominant, fraction of the unresolved XRB. The IGM XRB is homogeneous with a large amplitude (fig. 2) and is sufficient to explain the observed XRB correlations. The point-to-point XRB variance $`W_X(0)10`$ and $`W_{XG}(0)0.3`$. For $`\theta >1^{^{}}`$, we find that $`W_{XG}\theta ^\alpha `$ ($`\alpha 1.1`$). The shape and amplitude of these properties have different dependences on gas parameters. (1) For the shapes, the larger $`k_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ (corresponds to a smaller $`r_c`$ and a larger $`\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2`$), the steeper the correlations. (2) For the amplitudes, $`\overline{F}_X(f_{\mathrm{gas}}^X)^2\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2`$ while $`P_X(k),P_{XG}(k),w_X(0),w_{XG}(0)(f_{\mathrm{gas}}^X)^0\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2`$. Combining correlation data and mean flux data, one can distinguish $`f_{\mathrm{gas}}^X`$ from $`\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2`$. With redshift resolved $`P_X(k,z)`$ or $`P_{XG}(k,z)`$, as can be obtained from XRB observations and galaxy surveys, one can infer $`\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2(z)`$ and then $`k_{\mathrm{gas}}(z)`$ and $`r_c(z)`$ from their relations with $`\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2(z)`$. The interpretation of these quantities depends on processes changing the gas-dark matter correlation such as non-gravitational heating and possibly gravitational shock-heating. Current simulations have difficulties to resolve these small scales where these processes become dominant due to limited simulation mass and spatial resolution. Simulation results about the IGM XRB flux, hot gas fraction, etc. have not converged, so hereafter we focus on the estimation of the effect of feedback through our analytical models and use our hydro simulation to calibrate some XRB statistics. Feedback increases the gas temperature and thus $`f_{\mathrm{gas}}^X`$, the fraction of gas contributing to XRB. But it dilutes the gas and reduces $`\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2`$, resulting in a larger $`r_c`$ or a smaller $`k_{\mathrm{gas}}`$. From Pen’s model, for a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universe, we can estimate $`E_{\mathrm{NG}}(z)`$, the non-gravitational energy injection per nucleon in unit of keV, from the relation $`\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^290\mathrm{\Omega }_0[2\sqrt{E_{NG}}\mathrm{exp}(E_{\mathrm{NG}})+\sqrt{\pi }\mathrm{erfc}(\sqrt{E_{\mathrm{NG}}})]/E_{\mathrm{NG}})`$. $`k_{\mathrm{gas}}(z)`$ (or $`r_c`$) and $`E_{\mathrm{NG}}(z)`$ then tell us the scales at which feedback dominates over gravity and the feedback strength.

## 3 Extracting the IGM state and evolution

X-ray sources and differential extinction of our galaxy make the measurement of the IGM XRB flux and ACF difficult. But the measurement of IGM XRB-galaxy CCF is much more robust. The direct observable in the CCF measurement is $`F_X(\widehat{\theta }_1)\mathrm{\Sigma }_G(\widehat{\theta }_2)`$. We need to estimate the IGM contribution to the above property in order to infer $`w_{XG}^{\mathrm{IGM}}(\theta )`$. (1) Our calculation suggests that the IGM XRB is sufficient to explain the unresolved X-ray flux and the cross correlation with galaxies. (2) Distant AGNs and galactic X-ray sources have almost no correlation with nearby galaxies with $`z1`$. (3) The CCF between galaxies and X-ray sources in extragalactic galaxies or nearby low luminosity AGNs is of the same amplitude of galaxy surface density ACF, which is one order of magnitude lower than the IGM XRB-galaxy CCF. So, even if they contribute a comparable amount to the XRB flux as the IGM, their contribution to the cross correlation is negligible. (4) For a low matter density universe, the CCF caused by the weak lensing of low redshift large scale structures to unresolved high redshift AGNs accounts for at most $`1/3`$ of the correlation (Cooray, 1999). In principle, combining the XRB mean flux, auto correlation and cross correlation measurement, the IGM XRB cross correlation can be determined. We neglect possible systematic errors in such measurements and take the ROSAT all sky survey and SDSS as our targets to estimate the statistical error in the IGM XRB CCF measurement.

The ROSAT all sky survey (RASS) covers the whole sky ($`f_{\mathrm{sky}}^{\mathrm{RASS}}1`$) in the $`0.1`$-$`2.4`$ soft X-ray band in $`t=1.03\times 10^7`$ s. At the energy bands below $`0.5`$ keV, the galactic emission and absorption are strong and at bands $`>1`$ keV, only a fraction of the sky can be used. So, we choose the band $`0.5`$-$`1`$ keV for our analysis. A factor of $`4`$ decrease in the photon count rate is expected due to the choice of this band instead of the whole RASS band444The factor of $`4`$ is communicated to us by the referee Andrzej Soltan.. One full field view of RASS has a $`1`$ degree radius and only within the central $`10`$-$`15`$ arc-min radius is the resolution better than $`3`$ arc-min. Since we need high resolution to probe the IGM state, we will focus on these central regions. Since the separation of two successive scans is smaller than $`10`$ arc-min, these high resolution regions cover almost the whole sky. But the number of photons received in these regions is about $`1/36`$-$`1/16`$th of the total number of photons received. We adopt the conservative fraction $`1/36`$ for our following estimation. The SDSS covers $`f_{\mathrm{sky}}^{\mathrm{SDSS}}1/4`$ fraction of the sky and will detect about $`N_G=5\times 10^7`$ galaxies. We estimate the error in the power spectrum $`C_l`$ measurement. The error in the IGM XRB-galaxy power spectrum is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }C_l^{XG}=\sqrt{\frac{(\eta (l)+1)[C_l^{XG}]^2+(C_l^X+C_N^X)\times (C_l^G+C_N^G)}{(2l+1)\mathrm{\Delta }lf_{\mathrm{sky}}^{\mathrm{SDSS}}}}.$$
(7)
$`C^G`$ is the power spectrum of the galaxy surface density. $`C_N^G(l)=4\pi f_{\mathrm{sky}}^{\mathrm{SDSS}}/N_G`$ is the Poisson noise of the galaxy number count. $`C_N^X(l)=4\pi f_{\mathrm{sky}}^{\mathrm{RASS}}(\overline{F}_N/\overline{F}_X)^2/N_N+4\pi f_{\mathrm{sky}}^{\mathrm{RASS}}/N_X`$, where the first term is the Poisson noise of the RASS background and the second term is the Poisson noise of the IGM XRB signal. $`N_N`$ and $`N_X`$ are the total numbers of photons that the RASS received in the band $`0.5`$-$`1`$ keV from background noise and the IGM, respectively. We adopt $`\overline{F}_N(0.1`$-$`2.4`$ keV$`)5\times 10^{12}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{deg}^2`$ (Fig. 3, Voges et al. (1999)). $`\mathrm{\Delta }l`$ is the bin width and $`f_{\mathrm{sky}}^{\mathrm{SDSS}}`$ reflects the cosmic variance. The strong non-Gaussianity of the XRB affects its error analysis. One could in practice estimate $`\eta (l)`$, the non-Gaussianity of the XRB-galaxy cross correlation power spectrum (for Gaussian case, $`\eta =0`$) from our models. For simplicity, we will adopt the result from our $`512^3`$ moving mesh hydro (MMH) simulation (Zhang, Pen & Wang, 2002). The parameters we adopted in our $`512^3`$ simulation are $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0.37`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.63`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B=0.05`$, $`h=0.7`$, $`\sigma _8=1.0`$, power spectrum index $`n=1`$, box size $`L=100h^1`$ Mpc and smallest grid spacing $`40h^1`$ kpc. Though the cosmology adopted in this simulation is not identical to the fiducial cosmology we adopt in this paper, it should yield a rough estimate of the XRB non-Gaussianity. During this adiabatic simulation we store 2D projection of the X-ray flux through the 3D box at every light crossing time through the box. The projections are made alternatively in the x, y, z directions to minimize the repetition of the same structures in the projection. Our 2D maps are stored on $`2048^2`$ grids. After the simulation, we stack the XRB sectional maps separated by the width of simulation box, randomly choosing the center of each section and randomly rotating and flipping each section. The periodic boundary condition guarantees that there are no discontinuities in any of the maps. We then add these sections onto a map of constant angular size. Using different random seeds for the alignments and rotations, we make $`40`$ maps of width $`1.32`$ degrees by integrating from zero to $`z=3`$ (Fig. 3). Using the same set of random seeds, we make $`40`$ maps of intergalactic gas surface density to measure the XRB-galaxy cross correlation assuming that galaxy number density traces the gas distribution. We then measure the fluctuations of the cross correlation power spectra of these maps to obtain the XRB-galaxy cross correlation power spectrum non-Gaussianity, namely, $`\eta (l)`$ (figure 4). The details of this simulation are described in Zhang, Pen & Wang (2002). The error is dominated by this non-Gaussian cosmic variance at large angular scales and by noise at small angular scales (fig. 5). $`C^{XG}(l)`$ can be measured to a better than $`10\%`$ accuracy for $`800<l<5000`$. If we cross correlate galaxies at redshift bin $`[z_i\mathrm{\Delta }z/2,z_i+\mathrm{\Delta }z/2]`$ with the XRB and if $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ is sufficiently small, $`C^{XG}(l,z_i\mathrm{\Delta }z/2,z_i+\mathrm{\Delta }z/2)P_{XG}(\frac{l}{\chi (z_i)},z_i)\chi ^2(z_i)/\mathrm{\Delta }\chi `$ (eqn. 2). This equation enables one to infer the redshift resolved $`P_{XG}(k,z)`$. The error in the $`P_{XG}(k,z)`$ estimation is given by eqn. (7) with all $`C_l`$ being replaced by $`C_l(z_i\mathrm{\Delta }z/2,z_i+\mathrm{\Delta }z/2)`$ except for $`C_N^X`$, where $`\overline{F}_N`$ should remain unchanged due to the absence of redshift information. We choose $`\mathrm{\Delta }z=0.1`$. $`P_{XG}(k,z)`$ can be extracted up to $`z0.6`$ and the error around the peak of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{XG}^2(k)\frac{k^3}{2\pi ^2}P_{XG}(k)`$ is $`20\%`$ (Fig. 5). Around this peak the dominant source of errors is noise and the effect of non-Gaussianity is negligible, the uncertainty of the $`\eta (l)`$ estimation does not affect the accuracy of $`P_{XG}(k,z)`$ around its peak and the subsequent $`\sigma ^2(z)`$ extraction. The cross correlation coefficient $`r(k,z)P_{XG}(k,z)/\sqrt{P_X(k,z)P_G(k,z)}`$ has a weak dependence on $`z`$ and enables one to infer the redshift dependence of $`P_X(k,z)`$ from the measurement of $`P_{XG}`$ and $`P_G`$. Given this redshift dependence, one can invert the observable two-dimensional angular power spectrum $`C^X(l)`$ to a three-dimensional power spectrum $`P_X(k,z)`$.

From these measurements, the feedback history can be extracted. The redshift averaged $`r_c`$ could be determined with a $`10\%`$ accuracy (fig. 5). $`\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2(z)P_{XG}(z)`$ could be determined with $`20\%`$ accuracy for $`z0.5`$ (fig. 5). Since $`\frac{\delta \sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2}{\sigma _{\mathrm{gas}}^2}\frac{\delta k_{\mathrm{gas}}}{k_{\mathrm{gas}}}\frac{\delta r_c}{r_c}\frac{\delta E_{\mathrm{NG}}}{E_{\mathrm{NG}}}`$, the feedback amount $`E_{\mathrm{NG}}`$ and the scale $`k_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ or $`r_c`$, at which feedback dominates over gravity, can in principle be extracted with a comparable accuracy. Its calibration would require simulations with feedback, which are currently being studied.

Our estimation shows the sensitivity of the XRB statistics to the gas profile. In our estimates, the gas profile is taken as a free function and the gas fraction is taken to be the same for each halo. In practice, feedback changes both the gas profile and the gas fraction. This complication does not affect our estimation of the feasibility to extract the gas state from XRB observations, since it only depends on the sensitivity of the XRB statistics to the gas profile. But it does affect the interpretation of the data, for example, the relation between the XRB statistics and the amount of feedback. A further investigation of this issue requires a detailed study of the gas profile and its evolution when feedback presents. We are currently carrying out a self-consistent calculation of the effect of the feedback on the XRB, the thermal Sunyaev Zel’dovich effect and the cluster $`L_X`$-$`T`$ relation and will check it in hydro simulations 555Zhang, Pengjie & Pen, Ue-Li, 2003, in preparation.

## 4 Conclusion

We probed the feasibility to extract the IGM state and evolution from the combination of XRB surveys such as RASS and galaxy surveys such as SDSS. To do that, we first built two analytical models, the continuum field model and the halo model to calculate the statistics of the IGM XRB. The two models give consistent results on the IGM XRB flux and correlations. We found that the IGM may contribute a significant, if not dominant, fraction to the unresolved soft XRB flux, its auto correlation and cross correlation with galaxies. Since these statistics have different dependences on gas parameters such as the hot gas fraction and gas clumping factor, we suggest that by combining the XRB flux and correlation observations, hot gas fraction and hot gas clumping factor could be extracted simultaneously. At small scales, non-gravitational heating such as feedback from galaxies dominates over gravity. This changes the gas power spectrum and leaves signatures in the IGM XRB statistics and allows its extraction from XRB observations. From our models and the hydro simulation calibrated error estimation, we estimated that RASS+SDSS would constrain the gas clumping factor to a better than $`20\%`$ accuracy up to $`z0.5`$. The amount of feedback and the scales where feedback dominates over gravity can be extracted with a comparable accuracy.

Acknowledgments: We thank Andrzej Soltan and Wolfgang Voges for detailed discussions of the RASS.


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# Classical heisenberg antiferromagnet away from the pyrochlore lattice limit: entropic versus energetic selection

## I Introduction

In recent years, there has been a great interest in the study of fully frustrated Heisenberg antiferromagnets (HAF), both from the experimental and theoretical point of viewRamirez ; Diep94 . These systems often show unconventional ground-states, noncollinear, incommensurateFerey86  or disorderedBooth00 . In these systems, the classical Mean Field (MF) description indicates a macroscopic ground-state degeneracy and no long range order is predicted. This property is directly related to the extensive number of degrees of freedom that still fluctuate at low temperatureMoessner98 . Nevertheless, in many cases, thermal or quantum fluctuations give rise to an entropic selection within the ground state manifold, known as “order by disorder”Villain80 . This phenomenon may induce a selection of a subset of the continuous degenerate ground states as it does for the kagomé antiferromagnetChalker92 , and sometimes can even select a particular ground state as it is the case for the face centered cubic (fcc) antiferromagnetHenley87 .

Among these systems, the 3D pyrochlore lattice is of particular interest since it does not display such “order by disorder” and remains disordered down to zero temperatureVillain80 ; Reimers92 ; Moessner98 . It consists in a three dimensional arrangement of corner-sharing tetrahedra (see Fig. 1). All magnetic compounds which cristallize in the pyrochlore structure exhibit unusual magnetic properties. A few order at well defined Néel temperature Ferey86  while many of them behave as spin glasses despite the high degree of stoichiometryBooth00 .

In the Heisenberg antiferromagnetic $`S=1/2`$ quantum case, the pyrochlore lattice exhibits no magnetic transition even at T=0K, and behaves as a spin-liquid. The spin-spin correlation length never exceeds the inter atomic distance and it is expected that there is a continuum of singlet states within the singlet-triplet gapCanals98 . For classical Heisenberg spins, Monte Carlo simulations have shown that the pyrochlore HAF also behaves as a spin-liquid, with short ranged spin correlations both in space and timeReimers92 ; Moessner98 , which allows for its description to take into account only the tetrahedral unit cellMoessner99 . The exactly solvable infinite-component spin vector model on the pyrochlore lattice also does not order down to zero temperatureCanals01 . Classical models providing much informations close to the characteristics obtained in the quantum case, it indicates that the low-energy physics in the pyrochlore structure is mainly related to the geometry of the lattice.

An interesting aspect of the problem is to study how this disordered classical ground-state resists to perturbations as it could enlarge its observation in real compounds. It has been shown that ordering is very easily induced either by including further neighbour interactionReimers91 ; Harris92  or easy plane anisotropyBramwell94 ; Moessner98  or lattice deformationsTerao96 . The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of coupling the spins of the pyrochlore net to the remaining nearest-neighbor (n.n) spins in the fcc net via standard classical Monte Carlo (MC) calculations. The question is wether the system will select an ordered state when switching on this coupling or maintain disorder as in the pyrochlore HAF. As obtained in previous works, an energetic comparison of all magnetic phases at the MF level already lifts the degeneracy and strongly supports that any deviations from the pyrochlore limit will drive the system to an ordered state (sec. II). But strikingly, it is shown that thermal fluctuations do not select the expected mean field ground state but prefer a collinear phase which is more stable from the entropic point of view (sec. III).

## II From the pyrochlore lattice to the fcc lattice : the $`JJ^{}`$ model

In both fcc and pyrochlore lattices, the classical energy is minimized by any configuration for which the total spin of each elementary tetrahedron in the lattice is zero. The main difference in the ground-states of these two lattices comes from the fact that in the fcc net the ordering at one tetrahedron will select a unique global ordering, while in the pyrochlore net, since the tetrahedra are more sparsely connected, there remains an extensive number of degrees of freedomMoessner98 . In the fcc HAF, the MF ground-states are degenerate along the $`\pi /a(1,q,0)`$ direction in reciprocal space. Thermal fluctuations break this degeneracy and select the collinear ordered phase $`𝐪_0=(\pi /a,0,0)`$Henley87 . These results have been confirmed by standard Monte Carlo simulationsMinor88  which show evidence for a first order phase transition. In the pure pyrochlore HAF, the MF ground-states are degenerate throughout the entire Brillouin zone. Numerical works have shown that no long-range order occurs at nonzero termperature in that case, even in a regime where the temperature is below the energy scale set by interactionReimers92 ; Moessner98 . In between these two limits, we have considered the $`JJ^{}`$ fcc HAF, where $`J`$ couples the n.n. spins on a pyrochlore net and $`J^{}`$ the remainder n.n. spins on the underlying fcc net (see Fig. 2).

This leads to the following classical Heisenberg hamiltonian :

$$H=J\underset{<ij>}{}𝐒_i.𝐒_jJ^{}\underset{<i^{}j^{}>}{}𝐒_i^{}.𝐒_j^{}J^{}\underset{<ii^{}>}{}𝐒_i.𝐒_i^{}$$
(1)
where $`𝐒_i`$ is a vector spin of unit length occupying the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ fcc lattice site, $`i`$ and $`i^{}`$ design sites on two pyrochlore nets shifted by $`(2a,0,0)`$ respectively and the sums $`<>`$ run over n.n. pairs. We have limited our study to the antiferromagnetic case, i.e. all negative interactions. $`J=J^{}<0`$ corresponds to the fcc HAF and $`J^{}=0`$, $`J<0`$ leads to the pyrochlore HAF. The cubic lattice constant is $`2a`$.

We have first studied the MF ground-states degeneracy for small $`\alpha =J^{}/J`$. One way to do so is to compute the Fourier transform of the interactions on the lattice, $`J_𝐪`$. The ground-state (if unique) then corresponds to the highest eigenvalue $`\lambda _{max}(𝐪_1)`$ of $`J_𝐪`$ and is described by the propagation vector $`𝐪_1`$Bertaut63 . For the $`JJ^{}`$ model, $`J_𝐪`$ is a $`8\times 8`$ matrix that has already been calculalted by Reimers et al.Reimers91 .

For $`0<\alpha <\alpha _c0.21`$, we have reported the largest eigenvalue $`\lambda _{max}(𝐪)/|J|`$ along the high symmetry axis of the fcc Brillouin zone on figure 3.

The degeneracy is completely lifted and $`\lambda _{max}(𝐪)`$ has an absolute maximum $`𝐪_1`$ along the $`(0,q,q)`$ direction, selecting an incommensurate phase of wave vector $`𝐪_1`$. Within the MF approximation the $`JJ^{}`$ model selects an ordered phase for $`0<\alpha <\alpha _c`$.

For $`\alpha \alpha _c`$, the situation is very similar to the fcc case. The MF degeneracy is lifted except on lines along $`\pi /a(1,q,0)`$ direction : the system remains disordered in that case.

We have reported in figure 4 the MF energy difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }E/|J|`$ between the two ground states: the $`𝐪_1`$ incommensurate state and the $`\pi /a(1,q,0)`$ states (including the $`𝐪_0`$ collinear state) as a funtion of $`\alpha `$. We see that $`\mathrm{\Delta }E/|J`$ is much lower than the energy scale set by the interaction ($`\mathrm{\Delta }E/|J|\alpha /100`$). Thus the degeneracy is very slighty lifted for $`\alpha <\alpha _c`$ : the highest branch is almost flat over the whole Brillouin zone and very similar to the pyrochlore one.

If we add thermal fluctuations on these MF ground-states, it is not clear what will happen. They can either select a particular state, the $`𝐪_1`$ noncollinear state (energetic selection) or a collinear state (entropic selection) or induce disorder.

## III Monte Carlo results

We have performed standard MC simulations using the sample sizes of $`N=8646912`$ spins with periodic boundary conditions, over a temperature range extending down to $`T/|J|=10^4`$. We started from both random and ordered initial configurations. In each run, up to $`10^7`$ MC steps per spin have been discarded for equilibrating and up to $`2\times 10^7`$ MC steps per spins have been used for averaging. We have checked that our simulations reproduce the Monte-Carlo results for the pyrochlore netMoessner98  and those for the fcc netMinor88 . In order to determine unambigously whether the $`JJ^{}`$ fcc HAF order or not, we have measured more specifically the specific heat per spin and a correlation function which quantify the collinearity of spins.

An unbiaised way to look for fluctuations induced order is to measure heat capacity, since it is very sensitive to the presence of zero modes (modes whose energy is independent of displacement to second order at all wave vectors)Chalker92 ; Moessner98 . From the classical equipartition theory, quadratic modes contribute a factor $`T^{1/2}`$ to the partition function Z, while quartic modes contibute a factor $`T^{1/4}`$ : at low temperature, the behavior is thus dominated by fluctuations around the ground-states with the largest number of zero modes. These zero modes leave a signature in the heat capacity (since they contribute to $`k_B/4`$ instead of $`k_B/2`$ for the quadratic modes) that can be checked with Monte Carlo simulations.

In the n.n. pyrochlore HAF, fluctuations around the collinear states lead to one zero mode per tetrahedron resulting in a heat capacity per spin $`C=3k_B/4`$ in absence of order (instead of $`C=5k_B/8`$ if a collinear state is selected). This value has already been checked by Monte Carlo calculationsReimers92 ; Moessner98 . In the fcc n.n. HAF, fluctuations select the collinear state and since it contains only degeneration lines, the heat capacity per spin is simply equal to $`C=k_B`$ in that case.

As the heat capacity derived from energy fluctuations by MC simulations is rather noisy at low temperatures, we have estimated the heat capacity directly from the slope of the asymptotic internal energy at low temperatures.

The obtained results are reported in Table 1 and clearly show that for $`\alpha 0.01`$, thermal fluctuations select an ordered state at zero temperature. To show more directly whether the system selects the collinear ordering or not, we have calculated a parameter that measures the collinearityMoessner98  :

$$P(r_{i,j})=\frac{3}{2}\left(\begin{array}{c}<(𝐒_i.𝐒_j)^2>\frac{1}{3}\end{array}\right)$$
(2)
where $`r_{i,j}`$ is the distance between $`i`$ and $`j`$ sites. So P=1 for collinear spins and P=0 in the high temperature limit. This parameter is represented in figure 5 as a function of the separation r (in units of n.n. distances) at $`T/|J|=5\times 10^4`$ for different values of $`\alpha `$. We find that as soon as $`\alpha 0.01`$, the collinearity parameter is of long range, and close to 1, contrary to the pyrochlore limit which shows a correlation for $`r<2`$ only. We can note that the order parameter $`P(r\mathrm{})`$ is rather lower than 1 despite the low-temperature taken, as for the XY model on the pyrochlore antiferromagnetMoessner98 .

Figure 6 shows the temperature dependence of the collinearity parameter for neighbouring spins $`r=1`$. As soon as $`\alpha 0.01`$, the spins become collinear in the low temperature limit, by contrast with the pyrochlore case which has a small but finite correlation length. We have reported in figure 7 the critical temperature as a function of $`|J^{}|`$ for $`J^{}0`$. It is of the order of $`|J^{}|/2`$. We have checked that these results do not depend on the initial configuration choosen, by starting from collinear and random states. And the sizes considered are large enough since no marked finite-size effects are observed.

We have checked the low temperature phase starting from collinear and random states. We found the $`𝐪_0`$ collinear state for $`\alpha 0.01`$. Let’s notice that starting from a random configuration, stacking faults set in at low temperatures in MC calculations, as it is usual in fully frustrated systemsMinor88 . At $`T/|J|=5\times 10^4`$ and for $`\alpha =0.01`$ and $`N=6912`$, we found two collinear blocks (of $`𝐪_0`$ type) of around $`N/2`$ spins and two non collinear walls of few hundred spins. For $`\alpha \alpha _c`$, we observe an order by disorder effect very similar to the fcc HAF : thermal fluctuations induces the collinear magnetic order $`𝐪_0`$ via an entropic selection. For $`0<\alpha <\alpha _c`$, the low temperature state selected by thermal fluctuations is not the $`𝐪_1`$ incommensurate state selected at the MF level, neither a state with a MF energy close to the $`𝐪_1`$ state and commensurate with the periodic boudary conditions we have taken, but the collinear state $`𝐪_0`$ whose wave vector is far from $`𝐪_1`$ in the Brillouin zone. Even for $`\alpha 0.1`$, where the MF energy difference between these two ground states becomes greater ($`\mathrm{\Delta }E/|J|10^3`$, see Fig. 4) than the lowest temperature we have considered $`T/|J|=5\times 10^4`$, the system still selects the collinear state. The entropic selection always overcomes the energetic one in that case.

## IV Conclusion

We have studied in this paper the effect of small deviations from the pyrochlore n.n. HAF to the fcc one via standard MC simulations. As soon as we switch on $`J^{}`$ ($`\alpha =J^{}/J0.01`$), correlation functions are long-ranged in space and the specific heat at zero temperature does not indicate the presence of zero modes. The $`JJ^{}`$ HAF selects the $`𝐪_0=(\pi /a,0,0)`$ collinear state at low-temperature and ordering occurs at finite temperature. For small $`\alpha `$, thermal fluctuations do not select the MF ground-states at low temperatures but the collinear state. The entropic selection prevails over the energetic one. This is the first case, to our knowledge, where such a phenomenon is pointed out. The pyrochlore lattice thus remains the only 3D example known with classical Heisenberg spins remaining disordered at all temperatures.

###### Acknowledgements.

One of us (C.P.) wishes to thanks Professor H.T. Diep for helpful discussions and Professor G. Guentherodt for hospitality at the 2. Physikalisches Institut, Aachen. This work was supported in part by the DFG through SFB341. ’Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Modélisation’ is associated with CNRS (ESA 8089).