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# SPICES II. Optical and Near-Infrared Identifications of Faint X-Ray Sources from Deep Chandra Observations of Lynx1

## 1 Introduction

The launch of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory on 1999 July 23 opened a new era in our study of the X-ray universe. With its revolutionary mirror assembly design, Chandra provides $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$ resolution imaging with $``$ 1″ astrometry over the $`0.110`$ keV range (Weisskopf, O’dell, & van Speybroeck 1996). Furthermore, the deepest Chandra observations to date are $`50`$ times more sensitive than the deepest pre-Chandra observations in the $`0.52`$ keV soft X-ray band (e.g., Hasinger et al. 1998) and more than two orders of magnitude more sensitive than the deepest pre-Chandra observations in the $`210`$ keV hard X-ray band (e.g., Ueda et al. 1999; Fiore et al. 1999). At this resolution and depth, Chandra has resolved $`>90`$ % of the soft X-ray background and $``$ 80% of the hard X-ray background into discrete sources (e.g., Mushotzky et al. 2000; Barger et al. 2001; Giacconi et al. 2001; Hornschemeier et al. 2001; Tozzi et al. 2001). Chandra’s imaging resolution is also well-matched to the typical deep optical/near-infrared imaging resolutions, providing for the first time largely unambiguous identifications of the X-ray hosts. This affords an exciting new opportunity to study X-ray host identifications, thereby aiding our understanding of what powers the X-ray background. In particular, even heavily obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) are expected to be luminous and largely unattenuated in the hard X-ray band: the great hope is that studying the resolved hard X-ray background can provide an unbiased picture of the history of accretion-driven energy production in the Universe.

With the goal of simultaneously studying both the X-ray background and the properties of intracluster media at high redshift, we obtained a deep, 184.7 ks exposure with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS-I) on board Chandra of three spatially-proximate high-redshift galaxy clusters in the Lynx field of the SPICES survey (Eisenhardt et al. 2001, see §4 below). All three clusters were identified in the ROSAT Deep Cluster Survey (RDCS; Rosati et al. 1995, 1998) and reside within a single ACIS-I field. Two are at $`z>1`$, among the most distant X-ray-emitting galaxy clusters known: RX 0848+4453 at $`z=1.27`$ (Stanford et al. 1997) and RX 0849+4452 at $`z=1.26`$ (Rosati et al. 1999). The third cluster is at $`z=0.57`$ (RX 0848+4456; Rosati et al. 1998). At 184.7 ks, our Chandra observation is among the deepest observations of the X-ray sky taken to date. Analysis of the diffuse X-ray emission from the intracluster media of the two $`z>1`$ clusters is presented in Stanford et al. (2001) and suggests little evolution in the X-ray luminosity $``$ temperature ($`L_XT_X`$) relation to $`z1.3`$. Analysis of the diffuse X-ray emission from the $`z=0.570`$ cluster is presented in Holden et al. (2001) and suggests that 10$``$20% of the X-ray emission actually comes from a group at $`z=0.543`$ along the line of sight, showing the importance of detailed and multiwavelength studies of galaxy clusters when using them as probes of cosmological mass functions. Observations of the 153 X-ray point sources are the subject of the remainder of this paper.

To aid in follow-up observations, this manuscript details and provides a catalog of the unresolved X-ray sources we identify from the deep 17′ $`\times `$ 17′ ACIS-I image (§ 2). In § 3 we discuss results from the X-ray data alone, including the hardness ratio and the fraction of the X-ray background which is resolved from these observations. SPICES optical ($`BRIz`$) images cover the central 16′$`\times `$ 16′ of this field and SPICES near-infrared ($`JK_s`$) images cover the central 5$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$6$`\times `$ 5$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$6 of this field: we present the results of our cross-correlation of the optical/near-infrared imaging data with the X-ray catalog in § 4. The 18 redshifts we have obtained for Lynx Chandra sources are also discussed in § 4. Section 5 presents our first spectroscopic results and § 6 highlights some initial results from this work. We summarize our conclusions in § 7. An additional, interesting X-ray source in this field, CXO52, is the subject of Stern et al. (2002). Unless otherwise stated, all magnitudes presented are in the Vega system. Cosmology-dependent parameters are calculated for two models: an Einstein-de Sitter universe consistent with previous work in this field ($`H_0=50h_{50}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=1`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$) and the dark energy universe favored by recent work on high-redshift supernovae and fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background ($`H_0=65\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.35`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.65`$; e.g., Riess et al. 2001).

## 2 X-Ray Data: Observations and Source Detection

### 2.1 Observations and data reduction

ACIS-I observations of the Lynx field were obtained on 2000 May 3 (65 ks; OBS-ID 1708) and 2000 May 4 (125 ks; OBS-ID 927). The aimpoint for the observations was $`\alpha _{\mathrm{J2000}}=08^h48^m54.79^s`$, $`\delta _{\mathrm{J2000}}=`$ +4454′32$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$9 and both exposures were obtained in the faint mode when ACIS was at a temperature of $`120^{}`$ C. The Galactic absorbing column for this field is $`N_H=2\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. The position angle of the observations was 258.45.

The data were reduced and analyzed using the Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations (CIAO) software (release V1.1, see http://asc.harvard.edu/ciao). The Level 1 data were processed using the quantum efficiency uniformity file for $`120^{}`$ C, which corrects the effective area for loss due to charge transfer inefficiency. The correction compensates for the loss of events far from the readout, especially at high energies, and is relevant when fitting the total spectrum in the largest energy range. The data were filtered to include only the standard event grades 0, 2, 3, 4, and 6. All bad columns were removed by eye, as were the columns close to the border of each node, since the grade filtering is not efficient in these columns. We also identified flickering pixels in the images in the chip coordinates: for each chip, we checked photon arrival times for all pixels on which more than two photons were detected. If two or more photons were detected within an interval shorter than 7 seconds, they were considered flickering pixels and excluded from further analysis. As the brightest source (CXO39) has a count rate of only 1 photon every $`100`$ seconds, this procedure should not affect our source catalog. The removal of columns and pixels reduces slightly the effective area of the detector, the result of which has been included when calculating the soft and hard exposure maps.

Time intervals with background rates larger than $`3\sigma `$ over the quiescent value ($`0.30`$ counts s-1 per chip in the $`0.310`$ keV band) were removed. This procedure gave 60.7 ks of effective exposure out of the first observation, and 124 ks out of the second, for a total of 184.7 ks. The two observations are almost coincident on the sky, so that the total coverage is 298 arcmin2. The two event files were merged into a single file, which was used in the reduction and analysis process. The astrometry of the two observations, contiguous in time, was perfectly consistent, as verified by registering the positions of the brightest sources on top of each other. We did not include data from the chips S-2 and S-3 in the following analysis, since the point spread function (PSF) is very broadened ($`15`$ arcsec) and they would add a very little effective area even for high fluxes. Fig. 1 shows the final, combined X-ray data, with a false-color mapping derived from the Chandra energy bands.

### 2.2 Source detection

A soft band from 0.5$``$2 keV and a hard band from 2$``$7 keV were used in the detection process to select a soft and hard source lists, as detailed below. The hard band detection window was cut at 7 keV since above this energy the effective area of Chandra is decreasing, while the instrumental background is rising, giving very inefficient detection of sky photons. X-ray count rates in the above bands were used to calculate X-ray fluxes in a 0.5$``$2 keV soft band and 2$``$10 keV hard band, assuming an average X-ray spectrum.

We ran Source Extractor (Bertin & Arnouts 1996) on the summed 0.5$``$7 keV image binned by a factor of two (one binned pixel corresponds to 0.982″$`\times `$ 0.982″). Since we are far from being background limited, the detection efficiency proved to be much higher for the 0.5$``$7 keV image rather than the soft and hard bands separately. Giacconi et al. (2001) use the same procedure for their analysis of the Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S). Source Extractor parameters were chosen after extensive simulations, and we adopted an internal detection threshold signal-to-noise ($`S/N`$) ratio of 2.4, with a Gaussian filter FWHM of 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$5 and a minimum area of 5 pixels. Since Source Extractor is not tailored to work with a very low background, it gives a wrong estimate of the internal background. To tackle this problem, we built a smoothed map of the background computed from the data themselves in the corresponding band, after the removal of the sources down to a very low threshold. This background map was used as a weight (variance) map to define the detection threshold. This modified detection algorithm is several orders of magnitude faster than the wavelet detection algorithm of Rosati et al. (1995) or the WAVDETECT algorithm in the CIAO software (Freeman et al. 2002).

Table 1 presents the catalog of $`0.57`$ keV point sources identified in the combined image, selected as follows. We first measured the signal-to-noise ($`S/N`$) ratio of all the candidate detections in circular extraction apertures. A radius $`R_S=2.4\times \mathrm{FWHM}_{\mathrm{PSF}}`$ was used, where $`\mathrm{FWHM}_{\mathrm{PSF}}`$ is the modeled PSF full-width at half-maximum, determined as a function of off-axis angle to reproduce the broadening of the PSF. A minimum $`R_S=5\mathrm{}`$ was used in the central regions. Sources with $`S/N>2.1`$ within the extraction area were considered detections. This limit was chosen to proved a census of X-ray sources to faint flux levels, where the choice of Source Extractor parameters has already significantly reduced the number of spurious detections. We stress as a compromise between providing a census of X-ray sources to faint levels and limiting the contamination from false detections. We stress that the condition of having $`S/N>2.1`$ in the extraction area corresponds to a high significance detection – the faintest detected sources have more than 10 counts. These catalogs, obtained from the Source Extractor run and the a-posteriori $`S/N`$ cut, typically include less than five spurious sources as tested with simulations with the Model of AXAF111The Chandra X-ray Observatory was formerly known as AXAF, the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility. Response to X-rays (MARX) software (for a detailed description of the simulations, see Tozzi et al. 2001). After performing this procedure on the soft and hard images separately, we obtained the soft and hard catalogs. A combined catalog was then produced by matching the two. Source counts were measured with simple aperture photometry within $`R_S`$. The background for each source was calculated locally within an annulus of inner radius $`R_S+2\mathrm{}`$ and an outer radius of $`R_S+12\mathrm{}`$. Numerical simulations show that our aperture photometry systematically underestimates the net counts by 4%. For the following analysis, we have applied this aperture correction.

Finally, we transformed the net count rate into energy flux in the soft 0.5$``$2 keV band and in the hard 2$``$10 keV band. The conversion factors used were $`(4.52\pm 0.3)\times 10^{12}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{count}^1`$ in the soft band and $`(2.79\pm 0.3)\times 10^{11}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{count}^1`$ in the hard band, assuming an absorbing column of $`2\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 (Galactic value) and a photon index222The number of X-ray photons $`N(E)`$ detected as a function of energy $`E`$ is assumed to follow a power law distribution, $`N(E)dEE^\mathrm{\Gamma }dE`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the photon index. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.4`$. The uncertainties in the conversion factors reflect the range of possible values for the photon index, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.11.8`$. As suggested by the spectral analysis of the stacked spectra, these values are representative of our sample (see below). Since the conversion factors were computed at the aimpoint, where the effective area of Chandra/ACIS is at its maximum, the count rate of each source was corrected for vignetting. Namely, the net count rate was multiplied by the ratio of the exposure map at the aimpoint to the value of the exposure map averaged within the extraction region. Such a correction was done in the soft and hard bands separately.

We detect 132 sources in the 0.5$``$2 keV (soft) X-ray band down to a 2.1$`\sigma `$ limiting flux of $`S_{0.52}1.7\times 10^{16}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ and 111 sources in the 2$``$10 keV (hard) X-ray band down to a 2.1$`\sigma `$ limiting flux of $`S_{210}1.3\times 10^{15}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. Only the point sources are considered here. As mentioned above, the diffuse galaxy cluster emissions are explored by Stanford et al. (2001) and Holden et al. (2001). Of the total catalog of 153 sources, 42 (27%) are detected only in the soft band and 21 (14%) are detected only in the hard band. These results are very similar to the fractions derived by Tozzi et al. (2001) for their 300 ks ACIS map of the CDF-S: referred to the total sample, they find 26% of the sources are detected only in the soft band and 11% of the sources are detected only in the hard band.

Astrometric positions were initially determined from the ACIS-I aspect solution. Following comparison of X-ray source positions to the deep, ground-based imaging discussed in §4, we refined the absolute pointing of the X-ray data with an offset of 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$09 west, 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$35 south, and no rotation. These offsets were determined by matching X-ray sources with greater than 25 total counts ($`0.57`$ keV) to $`17.5<I<22.5`$ sources. The positions presented in Table 2 therefore match the astrometric frame of the SPICES survey.

## 3 X-Ray Data: Results

### 3.1 Resolving the X-ray background

To compute the number counts in the soft and hard bands, we first calculate the sky coverage as a function of the flux. The effective sky coverage of a given flux is defined as the area on the sky where a soft (or hard) source can be detected with a $`S/N>2.1`$ in the extraction region defined above. We have performed extensive simulations with MARX to show this procedure is accurate within a few percent (e.g., see Tozzi et al. 2001). The same procedure has been used for the CDF-S (Giacconi et al. 2001).

In Fig. 2 we present the soft X-ray source counts derived from our observations. For comparison, we also show source counts from the deep ROSAT observations of the Lockman Hole (Hasinger et al. 1998), extrapolation of the source counts to fainter fluxes from fluctuation analysis of the ROSAT data (Hasinger et al. 1993), and recent, deep Chandra soft X-ray source counts from Mushotzky et al. (2000). We find the Chandra results in excellent agreement with ROSAT in the region of overlap $`S_{0.52}>10^{15}`$ $`\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. The Chandra data extend the results to $`2\times 10^{16}`$ $`\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. A maximum-likelihood power-law fit to the soft X-ray $`\mathrm{log}N\mathrm{log}S`$ data finds

$$N(>S_{0.52})=320\pm 80\left(\frac{S_{0.52}}{2\times 10^{15}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1}\right)^{0.82\pm 0.10}.$$

Confidence contours for the slope and the normalization of the soft counts are shown in the upper right corner of Fig. 2, compared with the results of Mushotzky et al. (2000). Note that here we used an average slope to be consistent with the average spectrum of our sample of sources.

In Fig. 3 we present the hard X-ray source counts derived from our observations down to a flux limit of $`2\times 10^{15}`$ $`\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. At bright levels source counts from the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA) and BeppoSAX are shown (Giommi et al. 1998; della Ceca et al. 1999; Ueda et al. 1999). At faint levels we show recent, deep Chandra hard X-ray source counts from Mushotzky et al. (2000). A maximum-likelihood power-law fit to the hard X-ray $`\mathrm{log}N\mathrm{log}S`$ data finds

$$N(>S_{210})=1400\pm 200\left(\frac{S_{210}}{2\times 10^{15}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1}\right)^{1.12\pm 0.17}.$$

Confidence contours are again provided, as per Fig. 2. Our hard-band $`\mathrm{log}N\mathrm{log}S`$ results are consistent with deep observations of the Lockman Hole obtained with the X-Ray Multi-Mirror-Newton satellite (XMM-Newton; Hasinger et al. 2001). Our normalization of the hard-band $`\mathrm{log}N\mathrm{log}S`$ relation is 1$`\sigma `$ higher than the results for the CDF-S who find a normalization to the above relation of $`K_{15}=1150\pm 150`$ where $`N(>S_{210})=K_{15}(S_{210}/2\times 10^{15}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1)^\alpha `$ (Tozzi et al. 2001). In both the soft and the hard X-ray bands, the Lynx-field source counts are slightly lower at each X-ray flux than those determined for SSA13 (Mushotzky et al. 2000). The difference likely reflects cosmic variance due to large scale structure on size scales similar to the Chandra field-of-view. In particular, the SSA13 results analyze only one ACIS chip, thus sampling one-quarter the area of the results discussed here. We note that four of the deepest 16′ $`\times `$ 16′ Chandra fields (CDF-S, HDF-N, the Lockman Hole, and Lynx) find consistent normalizations to the $`\mathrm{log}N\mathrm{log}S`$ relation, while SSA13 and the MS1137 fields give 40% higher normalizations (Tozzi, in preparation)

What fraction of the hard X-ray background is resolved by the deep Lynx Chandra map? Fig. 4 presents the integrated contribution of resolved hard X-ray sources as a function of X-ray flux. In the range $`(1100)\times 10^{15}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$, the integrated hard X-ray flux density in the 2$``$10 keV band is $`(1.21.3\pm 0.1)\times 10^{11}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{deg}^2`$, depending on the assumed average power law ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.61.4`$, respectively). Including the hard-band $`\mathrm{log}N\mathrm{log}S`$ relation derived by della Ceca et al. (1999) for a wider-area, brighter ASCA survey, we find that $`(1.5\pm 0.2)\times 10^{11}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{deg}^2`$ of the hard X-ray background is resolved to a flux limit of $`10^{15}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. As seen in Fig. 4, this is close to the High Energy Astronomy Observatory-1 (HEAO-1) value of $`1.6\times 10^{11}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{deg}^2`$ (Marshall et al. 1980), but $`2040`$% lower than the more recent determinations from BeppoSAX and ASCA (e.g., Vecchi et al. 1999; Ishisaki et al. 1999). For comparison, from the first 300 ks observation of the CDF-S, Tozzi et al. (2001) resolve $`(1.45\pm 0.15)\times 10^{11}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{deg}^2`$ of the hard X-ray background while Mushotzky et al. (2000) resolve $`1.8\times 10^{11}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{deg}^2`$ in their 101 ks observation of SSA13. We conclude that, given the uncertainty on the value of the total background, a fraction between $`20`$% and $`40`$% of the hard X-ray background is still unresolved in our data set.

### 3.2 Hardness ratio

A long-standing problem in X-ray astrophysics has been that the spectral slope of the X-ray background is significantly steeper than the spectral slopes of the first (brightest) soft X-ray sources which were identified. The majority of these bright sources are identified with unobscured AGN (e.g., Schmidt et al. 1998). This problem, the so-called “spectral paradox,” implies that a new population of fainter sources with harder X-ray indices exists: obscured AGN are the likely culprit. Chandra has now identified this population.

Fig. 5 illustrates the hardness ratio $`HR(HS)/(H+S)`$ for the Lynx sample, where $`H`$ and $`S`$ are the net counts in the hard ($`27`$ keV) and soft ($`0.52`$ keV) bands, respectively. The hardness ratio is plotted against the hard X-ray flux. There are 21 sources, corresponding to 14% of the total combined sample, which are detected only in the hard band (plotted at $`HR=1`$) and 42 which are detected only in the soft band (not plotted). A population of hard sources, largely absent at bright fluxes, clearly emerges at faint fluxes. These results are analogous with the ones found in the CDF-S (Giacconi et al. 2001). We note that in the Lynx field there are three bright outliers in the hardness ratio–flux plane, in the upper right corner. These are very absorbed sources ($`10^{22}<N_H<10^{23}`$ cm2). In particular, the brightest one, CXO12, dominates the spectrum of the bright end of our sample, giving an effective $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1.3`$ already for fluxes $`S_{210}10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. CXO12 is identified with the $`z=0.9`$ Type 2 quasar AX J08494+4454 reported by Ohta et al. (1996) and Nakanishi et al. (2000) from ASCA observations of the Lynx field. Of the other two hard, bright X-ray sources which stand out in Fig. 5, only one (CXO36) is within the area imaged optically in the current work. Optical spectra from these other two sources are not discussed in the current work.

Fig. 6 presents the average spectral index of the population, determined from the stacked spectrum of all 154 sources in the combined sample. As a background, we used the stacked spectrum of all the background regions extracted around each source. The resulting photon files were scaled by the ratio of the total area of extraction of the sources and the corresponding area for the background. This procedure guarantees a correct background subtraction despite the non-uniformities of the instrumental background across ACIS-I. The response matrices for the stacked spectra were obtained from the counts-weighted average of the matrices for individual sources. XSPEC, the X-ray spectral fitting package (Arnaud 1996), was used to compute the slope of a power law spectrum with local $`N_H`$ absorption in the energy range $`0.57`$ keV. We excluded bins below $`0.5`$ keV because the calibration is still uncertain below this energy. We obtained a photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of $`1.36\pm 0.04`$ and a column density $`N_H=(2.3\pm 1.4)\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 which is consistent with the Galactic value (errors refer to the 90% confidence level). The results of the spectral fits are shown in Fig. 6. We find an average spectrum for the detected sources is consistent with the average shape of the hard background ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }1.4`$).

## 4 Optical/Near-Infrared Imaging

### 4.1 Summary of survey observations

The Lynx field is one of four fields which comprise SPICES (Eisenhardt et al. 2001). This long-term project was conceived as the next generation analog to the $`I`$-selected Canada-France Redshift Survey (CFRS; Lilly et al. 1996): by studying a sample of $`K`$-selected faint field galaxies over a larger, 100 arcmin2 field, we are attempting to address the history of galaxy formation and evolution out to $`z1.52`$ in a manner which is less-biased by large scale structure and recent star formation. In particular, selecting galaxies at $`2\mu `$m should essentially translate to selecting by mass, thereby providing a powerful discriminant of theories of galaxy assembly (e.g., Kauffmann & Charlot 1998). Four unremarkable but well-studied fields were chosen spread across the sky for efficient follow-up throughout the year. Details of the motivation and imaging observations are presented in Eisenhardt et al. (2001). We briefly summarize the Lynx observations here.

Optical $`BRIz`$ imaging was obtained using the Kitt Peak National Observatory 4 m Mayall telescope with its Prime Focus CCD imager (PFCCD) equipped with a thinned AR coated $`2048\times 2048`$ Tektronics CCD. This configuration gives a 16′$`\times `$ 16′ field of view with 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$47 pix-1. The filters used were a Harris $`B`$-band ($`\lambda _c=4313`$ Å; $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =1069`$ Å), Harris $`R`$-band ($`\lambda _c=6458`$ Å; $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =1472`$ Å), Harris $`I`$-band ($`\lambda _c=8204`$ Å; $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =1821`$ Å), and an RG850 long-pass $`z`$-band filter. For the $`I`$ and $`z`$ imaging, the CCD was operated using “short scan,” where the CCD was mechanically displaced while its charge is shifted in the opposite direction to reduce fringing to very low levels. The combined, processed images reach limiting Vega magnitudes of 26.9 ($`B`$), 25.4 ($`R`$), 24.6 ($`I`$), and 24.2 ($`z`$), where these numbers represent 3$`\sigma `$ limits in 3″ diameter apertures. The corresponding AB magnitude limits are 26.8, 25.6, 25.1, and 24.7, respectively. The seeing for the summed images ranges from 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$2 ($`B`$) to 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$0 ($`z`$). Data reduction followed standard techniques (for details, see Eisenhardt et al. 2001).

Near-infrared $`JK_s`$ imaging was obtained at the KPNO 4 m with its Infrared Imager (IRIM; Fowler et al. 1988) equipped with a Rockwell International NICMOS 3 256 $`\times `$ 256 HeCdTe array giving 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$6 pix-1. Four pointings were obtained to cover a $`5\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}6\times 5\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}6`$ area. The average exposure time in the fully sampled regions of the resulting mosaic was 10.14 ks in $`J`$ ($`\lambda _c=1.14\mu \mathrm{m};\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =0.29\mu \mathrm{m}`$) and 8.49 ks in $`K_s`$ ($`\lambda _c=2.16\mu \mathrm{m};\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =0.33\mu \mathrm{m}`$). The seeing in the mosaics is 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$2 $``$ 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$3. Data reduction followed standard techniques (for details, see Eisenhardt et al. 2001). Calibrations of the optical and near-infrared images onto the Landolt and CIT systems were obtained using observations of Landolt (1992) and UKIRT standard stars (Hawarden et al. 2001), respectively. The $`J`$-band images reach a 3$`\sigma `$ limiting magnitude of 22.9 (Vega) in a 3″ diameter aperture. The corresponding depth for the $`K_s`$ images is $`K_s=21.4`$.

We used Source Extractor (release V2.1.6; Bertin & Arnouts 1996) to create independent catalogs of sources selected from the $`B`$-, $`I`$-, and $`K_s`$-band images. Photometry was generated for 3$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$0 diameter apertures and evaluated in the same apertures for all six coaligned bands.

### 4.2 Optical/near-infrared counterparts

Fig. 7 shows the X-ray-to-optical positional offsets after the X-ray positions have been shifted by 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$09 west and 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$35 south (see §2.2). Based on these results, we matched the optical/near-infrared and X-ray source catalogs using a 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$5 radius aperture for host identification. Table 2 presents the optical/near-infrared properties of the Chandra sources listed in Table 1. As indicated in the table, for some sources, primarily fainter X-ray sources for which the X-ray position is more uncertain, we have used a larger ($`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}52\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}3`$) match radius. Non-detections are listed with an ellipsis (“…”) while sources with bad photometry, due either to source saturation or contamination from the stellar bleed trail of a nearby, bright source, are listed as 99.00. Only those sources within the smaller near-infrared field are tabulated in the near-infrared photometry columns. Sources from Table 1 not within the optical field are not included in Table 2. Only 104 of the X-ray sources are within the optical image field of view. Of these, 80, or 77%, have $`I<24`$ (Vega) identifications. The infrared field of view covers 24 of the X-ray sources, of which 17, or 71%, have $`K_s<20`$ (Vega) identifications. When we restrict ourselves to Chandra sources with signal-to-noise ratios greater than 3, the absolute numbers of X-ray sources in each region drops by $`30`$% but the fraction of sources with $`I`$ and/or $`K_s`$ identifications does not change substantially.

From the SPICES imaging we find that the surface density of sources to $`K_s=20`$ is $``$ 15 arcmin-2, so the probability of a chance coincidence of an X-ray source within 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$5 of a $`K_s20`$ source is $`3`$%. We therefore expect none of the 17 $`K<20`$ identifications to be spurious. The surface density of $`I<24`$ (Vega) sources is $``$ 23.5 arcmin-2 so the probability of a chance juxtaposition of an X-ray source with an $`I24`$ source with our 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$5 match radius is $`5`$%. We therefore expect that up to five of the faint host identifications in Table 2 to be spurious. Note that most of the optical identifications are in fact much brighter than $`I=24`$, and are thus less likely to be spurious.

In Fig. 8 we present color-magnitude diagrams for sources detected in our near-infrared imaging field. X-ray sources are indicated with larger symbols. We see that for a given optical magnitude, the X-ray source hosts tend to be red in optical-to-near-IR color, hugging the so-called red envelope. Several of these sources meet the standard identity criteria of extremely red objects (EROs; e.g., Graham & Dey 1996): one source has $`RK>6`$ and four sources have $`IK>4`$. We know from previous X-ray surveys that many bright, early-type galaxies at moderate redshift are X-ray luminous; Chandra-identified EROs may represent the higher-redshift tail of that population. Indeed, Cowie et al. (2001) suggest that identifying optically-faint, hard X-ray sources may prove an efficient strategy to locate luminous, evolved galaxies at high redshift ($`z\mathrm{}>1.4`$). We note that optically-faint, soft X-ray sources are also occasionally identified with high-redshift, early-type galaxies (e.g., CXO138; § 6.4.2). Highly-obscured sources are also expected to have red colors and may represent some fraction of extremely red X-ray sources. Contrary to that expectation, the $`z=3.70`$ Type II quasar in the CDF-S identified by Norman et al. (2001) is relatively blue in optical-to-near-IR color: $`RK=2.56`$ and $`IK=1.68`$. A smaller subset of the X-ray sources have identifications which have blue optical-to-near-IR colors. These sources tend to be associated with broad-lined, bright quasars.

### 4.3 Hubble Space Telescope morphologies

Thirteen of the Chandra sources in the Lynx field are located in regions for which we have images from the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2; Trauger et al. 1994) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST; Fig. 9). These observations, sampling several independent observing programs, primarily target galaxy clusters in the Lynx field and range from 2 to 10 orbits (4.8 to 27 ks) through the F702W (12 ks; RX J0848+4456 region) and F814W (all other imaging) filters. The observations are described in van Dokkum et al. (2001), Holden et al. (2001), and Wu et al. (in preparation).

Only nine ($`69`$%) of the sources are detected in the HST images, lower than expected for a larger sample given that $`77`$% of the full catalog have $`I<24`$ identifications. This fraction is also lower than the 92% of CDF-S X-ray sources with optical counterparts in the deeper HST/WFPC2 study of Schreier et al. (2001), which reaches a detection limit of $`I=28.2`$. Of the four Lynx non-detections (CXO46, CXO127, CXO135, and CXO136), three are detected in the X-ray with signal-to-noise ratios $`S/N3`$. The nine detections show a range of morphology. CXO42 and CXO49 are unresolved spatially, though both show faint, surrounding diffuse emission. CXO41 also has a very strong core, embedded in extended emission suggestive of a tidal tail or spiral arm. CXO44 and CXO124 also appear to be associated with merging systems, while the remaining sources (CXO52, CXO60, CXO122, and CXO205) are spatially extended. The faint, soft X-ray source CXO205 appears to be associated with an early-type galaxy.

### 4.4 X-ray-to-optical flux ratio

Fig. 10 illustrates the X-ray-to-optical flux ratio of soft and hard X-ray sources. Following Hornschemeier et al. (2001), we plot lines of constant X-ray-to-optical flux ratio using the relation

$$\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{f_x}{f_R}\right)=\mathrm{log}f_x+\frac{R}{2.5}+5.50,$$

derived from the Kron-Cousins $`R`$-band filter transmission function. At bright X-ray fluxes, we plot the results of shallow, wide-area surveys: for soft X-rays, we show AGN from the ROSAT survey reported by Schmidt et al. (1998) and for hard X-rays, we show sources from the ASCA survey reported by Akiyama et al. (2000). At faint X-ray fluxes we show the results of the Chandra Lynx survey reported here and results from the 221.9 ks Chandra study of the Hubble Deep Field North (HDF-N) reported in Hornschemeier et al. (2001). The majority of sources have $`1\mathrm{}<\mathrm{log}(f_x/f_R)\mathrm{}<1`$, which, as we see from the shallow surveys, is typical of AGN. However, at the fainter fluxes probed by Chandra, new populations become apparent.

At faint, soft X-ray fluxes, several sources are seen which are X-ray underluminous for their optical magnitudes. Optical spectroscopy (see §5 and Hornschemeier et al. 2001; Tozzi et al. 2001) reveal many of these sources to be apparently normal galaxies. We discuss these sources further in §6.4. Several Galactic M dwarfs are also identified with $`\mathrm{log}(f_x/f_R)2`$, discussed further in §6.3. We note that one late-type Galactic dwarf has been identified in the Lynx field more than two orders of magnitude brighter in the X-ray bands than the other Galactic X-ray emitters: we discuss this interesting source further in § 6.3.

At faint, hard X-ray fluxes, a population of sources appears which are X-ray overluminous for their optical magnitudes. They potentially represent an astronomically interesting new population. Unfortunately, most are extremely faint optically and lack spectroscopic identification. Extremely high-redshift ($`z\mathrm{}>5`$) AGN might have bright X-ray fluxes but faint $`R`$-band fluxes due to absorption from the Lyman transitions of hydrogen along our line of sight. Obscured AGN, for which high column density absorption near the central black hole shields both the broad-line region and soft X-ray emission, might also be overluminous in the hard X-ray relative to their optical magnitudes. Several examples of these Type II quasars have now been identified in the deepest Chandra surveys (e.g., Norman et al. 2001; Dawson et al. 2001).

## 5 Spectroscopic Observations

To date, the SPICES survey has obtained spectroscopic redshifts for 219 of the 485 $`K_s<20`$ sources in the Lynx field. This work started in February 1997 and has all been done in multislit mode with the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS; Oke et al. 1995) on the Keck telescopes. Observations typically used the 150 lines mm-1 grating ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{blaze}}=7500`$ Å; $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda _{\mathrm{FWHM}}17`$ Å) and sample the wavelength range 4000 Å to 1$`\mu `$m. Typical slitlet lengths were $``$ 20″ and we performed $``$ 3″ spatial offsets between each 1200 s $`1800`$ s exposure in order to facilitate removal of fringing at long wavelength ($`\lambda \mathrm{}>7200`$ Å). Masks were designed to contain sources of comparable $`I`$-band magnitudes. For the masks containing the brightest sources, two 1200 s exposures were sufficient to obtain redshifts for most sources on the mask. For the masks containing the faintest sources, five 1800 s exposures were not uncommon and some sources have been on multiple faint source masks so that they now have $`\mathrm{}>`$ 10 hr of spectroscopic integration.

Our infrared selection led to the unintentional spectroscopic targeting of a handful of X-ray sources prior to our obtaining the Chandra map. On UT 2000 October 01 we observed a mask dedicated to bright Chandra sources for 2400 s in photometric conditions. In total, we have spectroscopic redshifts for 18 of the Lynx Chandra sources currently. Table 3 summarizes the spectroscopic results and Fig. 11 presents the spectra. Fig. 12 shows the histogram of redshifts for spectroscopically-identified X-ray sources in this field.

All data reductions were performed using IRAF and followed standard slit spectroscopy procedures. We calculated the pixel-to-wavelength transformation using a NeAr lamp spectrum, generally observed immediately subsequent to the science observations (RMS variations of 0.6 Å are typical for the 150 lines mm-1 grating), and employed telluric emission lines to adjust the wavelength zero-point. The spectra on photometric nights were flux-calibrated using observations of standard stars from Massey & Gronwall (1990).

Consistent with previous spectroscopic studies of faint X-ray hosts (e.g., Fiore et al. 2000; Barger et al. 2001; Giacconi et al. 2001), the Lynx Chandra sources are associated with a wide range of astronomical objects. We find two Galactic dwarfs, seven obvious AGN, and nine apparently normal galaxies. Of the galaxies, four are early-type and five show evidence of star formation.

## 6 Discussion

### 6.1 Luminosities and Spectral Classification

Table 3 presents the optical and X-ray luminosities for the sample of sources for which we have spectroscopic redshifts. Luminosities have been calculated for two cosmologies: an Einstein-de Sitter (EdS) universe with $`H_0=50\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, consistent with previous work in this field (e.g., Tozzi et al. 2001) and the dark energy ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$) universe favored by recent supernovae and microwave background observations (e.g., Riess et al. 2001).

We calculate rest-frame $`B`$-band luminosities $`M_B`$ by interpolating rest-frame 4400 Å apparent AB magnitude, $`m_{\mathrm{AB}}(4400)`$, from our broad-band imaging. Magnitudes in the AB system (Oke 1974) are defined by $`m_{\mathrm{AB}}(\lambda )2.5\mathrm{log}f_\nu (\lambda )+23.90`$, where $`f_\nu `$ is measured in $`\mu `$Jy. For the quasar CXO50, our highest-redshift source, we do not have an imaging data point long-ward of rest-frame 4400 Å: for this source we instead assume a standard quasar optical spectral index, $`f_\nu \nu ^{0.5}`$ (e.g., Richstone & Schmidt 1980; Schneider et al. 1992) and interpolate the flux density from the $`I`$-band magnitude. A cosmology-dependent luminosity distance is used to relate apparent magnitude $`m_{\mathrm{AB}}`$ to absolute magnitude $`M_{\mathrm{AB}}`$, and the same optical spectral index is used to calculate the offset between Vega-based $`M_B`$ and AB-system $`M_{\mathrm{AB}}(4400)`$: $`M_B=M_{\mathrm{AB}}(4400)+0.12`$ (e.g., Kennefick, Djorgovski, & de Calvalho 1995). As seen in Table 3, the differences in absolute magnitude are not large between the two cosmologies considered, $`M_B^\mathrm{\Lambda }=M_B^{\mathrm{EdS}}\pm 0.3`$. For the figures below we plot only the Einstein-de Sitter values.

For $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$, the luminosity in the rest frame energy band $`E_1E_2`$, $`L_{E_1E_2}`$, is then related to the flux observed in that same energy band, $`S_{E_1E_2}`$, by

$$L_{E_1E_2}=4\pi \left(\frac{2c}{H_0}\right)^2\frac{(1+z\sqrt{1+z})^2}{(1+z)^{2\mathrm{\Gamma }}}S_{E_1E_2}$$

(e.g., see Hogg 1999), where we adopt an X-ray spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.4`$ for our sample. Fig. 13 plots the X-ray luminosity of our spectroscopic sample against the rest-frame $`B`$-band luminosity, $`M_B`$. Fig. 14 plots X-ray luminosity against redshift for our sample, fortified with the HDF-N Chandra sources from Hornschemeier et al. (2001). We have recalculated their luminosities for our cosmology and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.4`$.

We have classified the optical spectra in three broad categories: AGN, galaxies, and stars, following a scheme similar to that of Schmidt et al. (1998) and Hornschemeier et al. (2001). A description of the categories follows:

* AGN: We classify sources as AGN that have either (1) broadened emission lines (FWHM $`\mathrm{}>1000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) or (2) high-ionization state emission lines such as \[Ne 5\]. Unfortunately the coarse spectral resolution at which many of these data were taken hinders us from separating broad-lined AGN from narrow-lined AGN. Seven of the eighteen sources in the current sample are classified as AGN. They are predominately identified with the most X-ray-luminous sources, $`L_X\mathrm{}>10^{43}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Many are also luminous at optical wavelengths (Fig. 13).
* Emission-Line and Early-Type Galaxies: Extragalactic sources without obvious AGN features in their optical spectra are classified as galaxies, though this does not rule out the presence of an active nucleus. We distinguish between galaxies showing emission lines and early-type galaxies, where the latter have redder continua marked by continuum breaks at 2640 Å (B2640), 2900 Å (B2900), and 4000 Å (D4000). Many of the emission-line galaxies show early-type features as well. Nine of the eighteen sources in the current sample are classified as galaxies. For the lower X-ray luminosity sources, stellar processes such as binaries, winds, and supernovae can produce the X-ray emission. For the higher X-ray luminosity sources, a buried active nucleus is likely present (see §6.4).
* Stars: Two of the eighteen sources in the current sample are classified as low-mass Galactic dwarfs. Hornschemeier et al. (2001) also report two X-ray-emitting M4 dwarfs in the Chandra field encompassing the HDF-N.

### 6.2 Notes on Individual Sources

CXO39 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.573}`$, AGN): This X-ray-luminous ($`L_{0.52}=10^{43.7}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$, $`L_{210}=10^{43.8}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$) source shows many high equivalent width emission features with deconvolved velocity widths FWHM $`2000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. High-ionization species of Ne are also detected. The spectra were taken without an order-blocking filter, making the continuum unreliable long-ward of 7000 Å.

CXO40 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.622}`$, emission-line galaxy): This galaxy shows a spectrum typical of young, star-forming galaxies: emission from \[O 2\] $`\lambda `$3727, the \[O 3\] $`\lambda `$5007 doublet, and absorptions from both CaH$`+`$K and the hydrogen Balmer lines. The X-ray luminosity is approximately an order of magnitude lower than that typical of sources with obvious AGN features in their optical spectra ($`L_{0.52}=10^{42.2}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1,L_{210}=10^{42.4}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$), though this does not rule out some fraction of the X-ray emission deriving from a nuclear supermassive black hole.

CXO41 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{1.329}`$, AGN): This source shows broad Mg 2 $`\lambda `$2800 (FWHM $`2500`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) and \[O 2\] $`\lambda `$3727 emission. The optical spectrum long-ward of 7000 Å is suggestive of a normal star-forming galaxy, a higher redshift analog of CXO40. However, the broad Mg 2 $`\lambda `$2800, high X-ray luminosity ($`L_{210}=10^{43.6}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$), and strong core in the HST image conclusively show that an AGN plays a prominent role in this galaxy.

CXO42 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{1.035}`$, AGN): This source shows broad Mg 2 $`\lambda `$2800 emission (FWHM $`5300`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) and narrow emission lines from high-ionization species of Ne. The \[Ne 5\] $`\lambda \lambda `$3346, 3426 lines are individually unresolved at our coarse spectral resolution (FWHM $`\mathrm{}<1300`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$). No stellar features are seen. We classify the source as an AGN. The HST image shows the source to be unresolved.

CXO44 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.725}`$, emission-line galaxy): The optical spectrum of this source shows weak, spectrally unresolved \[O 2\] $`\lambda `$3727 emission superposed on an early-type galaxy spectrum. No obvious AGN features are evident in the optical spectrum. The galaxy is moderately X-ray luminous ($`L_{0.52}=10^{42.0}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1,L_{210}=10^{42.9}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$). The HST image shows a complicated, merging system, suggestive of merger-induced (nuclear?) activity powering the X-ray emission in this system.

CXO49 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{1.017}`$, emission-line galaxy): This source shows a single emission line straddled by a faint, blue continuum. The most likely identification of such a line is \[O 2\] $`\lambda `$3727 (e.g., Stern et al. 2000). The morphology from HST image shows an unresolved source.

CXO50 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{3.093}`$, AGN): This broad-lined AGN is the highest-redshift source in the current sample. It shows the classic features of a broad absorption line quasar (BALQSO). Note that the absorption blue-ward of C 3\] $`\lambda `$1909 is telluric in origin, from the atmospheric A-band.

CXO54 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.569}`$, AGN): This source is similar to CXO41 and CXO42, showing broad Mg 2 $`\lambda `$2800 (FWHM $`6300`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) and narrow \[O 2\] $`\lambda `$3727 emission. The \[O 2\] strength is considerably weaker in this source compared to CXO41. We also detect \[Ne 3\] $`\lambda `$3869 emission from this source. The redshift places this source at the same redshift of the $`z=0.570`$ cluster.

CXO57 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{1.194}`$, AGN): Similar to many of the other galaxies, this source shows broad Mg 2 $`\lambda `$2800 (FWHM $`6600`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) and strong, narrow \[O 2\] $`\lambda `$3727 emission.

CXO63 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.899}`$, AGN): This source shows strong Mg 2 $`\lambda `$2800 and H$`\beta `$ emission of moderate width, FWHM $`2000`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Emission from C 2\] $`\lambda `$2326 and \[Ne 4\] $`\lambda `$2424 are also detected. Again, the spectra were taken without an order-blocking filter, making the continuum unreliable long-ward of 7000 Å.

CXO65 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.747}`$, emission-line galaxy): This source shows an unremarkable galaxy spectrum with a prominent 4000 Å break (D4000) and unresolved \[O 2\] $`\lambda `$3727 emission. No Mg 2 $`\lambda `$2800 emission is detected. The source is moderately X-ray luminous, $`L_{0.52}=10^{42.0}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`L_{210}=10^{42.9}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

CXO66 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.336}`$, emission-line galaxy): This is the least X-ray luminous galaxy in the current spectroscopic sample ($`L_{0.52}=10^{41.1}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1,L_{210}=10^{42.0}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$). The spectrum shows classic early-type galaxy features (i.e., Ca H$`+`$K absorption, D4000, H$`\delta `$ absorption) with weak \[O 2\] $`\lambda `$3727 and \[O 3\] $`\lambda `$5007 emission evident.

CXO72 (M7 V): CXO72 has spectral characteristics intermediate between those of late type dwarfs and giants, suggestive of an intermediate gravity object. The spectral energy distribution between 6500 and 9400 Å and lack of CaH absorption near 6950 Å are suggestive of an M7 III giant, while the strengths of the K 1 doublet near 7700 Å and the Na 1 feature near 8400 Å are more suggestive of an M7 V dwarf. We favor the latter interpretation as it provides a more realistic distance for a low-extinction, high Galactic latitude source: 700 pc, using the Kirkpatrick & McCarthy (1994) optical absolute magnitude tabulation for late-type dwarfs. Unlike the other Galactic dwarf identified in this paper or the two X-ray-emitting dwarfs discussed in Hornschemeier et al. (2001), we detect hard X-rays from CXO72. As seen in Fig. 10, the soft X-ray-to-optical flux ratio is also quite different than the other X-ray dwarfs. Assuming the dwarf interpretation, the corresponding hard X-ray luminosity is $`2\times 10^{29}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$. We discuss this source further in §6.3.

CXO128 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.542}`$, early-type galaxy): This galaxy, detected only in the soft X-ray band, has an early-type spectrum lacking any emission features. The Ca H+K absorption doublet, 4000 Å break (D4000), and G-band are very prominent. The $`I`$-band magnitude is approximately $`L^{}`$ for a $`z0.55`$ giant elliptical galaxy. The redshift of this source is similar to the group at $`z=0.543`$, slightly foreground and south of the $`z=0.570`$ cluster (see Holden et al. 2001).

CXO138 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{1.26}`$, early-type galaxy): This extremely red galaxy ($`RK=6.05`$, $`K=17.90`$) has a spectrum similar to that of the old, dead, and red radio galaxy LBDS53W091 (Dunlop et al. 1996; Spinrad et al. 1997 – shown for comparison in Fig. 11): the optical spectrum is devoid of emission lines and shows continuum breaks at rest-frame 2640 Å (B2640), 2900 Å (B2900), and 4000 Å (D4000). These features are seen in International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) spectra of F-type main-sequence stars (Fanelli et al. 1992), implying this is an old ($`3`$ Gyr) galaxy at high-redshift. The redshift matches that of the two high-redshift clusters targeted by the Chandra observations. The source, detected in the soft X-ray band near our detection limit, has an X-ray luminosity higher than the other spectroscopically non-active galaxies.

CXO139 (M4 V): This M4 dwarf is detected only in the soft band, similar but slightly fainter than the two M4 dwarfs detected in Chandra observations of the field encompassing the HDF-N (Hornschemeier et al. 2001). The X-ray-to-optical flux ratio is similar to those stars. Using optical/near-infrared absolute magnitudes of an M4 V dwarf calculated by Kirkpatrick & McCarthy (1994), we derive a distance of $`420`$ pc for CXO139. The corresponding X-ray luminosity is $`L_{0.52}=6.4\times 10^{27}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Again, this luminosity is similar to the two soft X-ray-emitting M4 dwarfs reported in Hornschemeier et al. (2001). We discuss X-ray emission from Galactic sources further in §6.3.

CXO164 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.750}`$, early-type galaxy): The spectrum of this source is devoid of emission lines and shows absorption from Ca H$`+`$K, a D4000 break, and G-band absorption. The source is detected only in the hard X-ray band, suggesting that the source may harbor an obscured AGN from which no feature is evident in the optical data.

CXO167 ($`z\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.432}`$, early-type galaxy): Similar to CXO164, CXO167 is detected only in the hard X-ray band and shows an early-type galaxy spectrum in the optical devoid of emission lines. The feature near the redshifted \[O 3\] $`\lambda `$5007 line is spurious, the residual from a cosmic ray.

### 6.3 Galactic X-ray sources

Two of the sources in our sample are spectroscopically identified with late-type Galactic dwarfs. Hornschemeier et al. (2001) also find two M4 dwarfs in their survey of the field encompassing the HDF-N. Three of these four sources are very similar: mid-M dwarfs detected only in the soft X-ray band with $`\mathrm{log}(f_X/f_R)2`$. The remaining source, CXO72, is a late-M dwarf, detected out to 7 keV and has $`\mathrm{log}(f_X/f_R)0.51`$. We briefly review X-ray emission from late-type stars followed by a discussion of this intriguing new source.

Phenomenologically, the fraction of stars showing stellar activity is found to increase with lower stellar mass, reaching 100% at spectral type M7, then to decrease such that few objects later than type L5 show activity (Hawley, Gizis, & Reid 1996; Gizis et al. 2000). Physically, the observed activity, seen in the form of elevated H$`\alpha `$ and/or X-ray emission, is believed to result from collisional heating of ions and electrons along magnetic field lines in stellar chromospheres. For typical chromosphere temperatures, such stars are only detected in the soft X-ray band. Stars more massive than $`0.3M_{}`$ have both convective and radiative zones which allow the formation of a stable internal dynamo through the $`\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }`$ mechanism (Parker 1955). More rapidly spinning stars have stronger magnetic fields and thus show enhanced activity. Angular momentum loss from stellar winds causes stars to spin-down as they age, with the more massive stars exhibiting stronger winds and thus spinning down more rapidly. The rise in stellar activity from spectral type K5 to spectral type $``$ M9 thus simply tracks the fraction of stars sufficiently young for their given spectral type and associated spin-down rate that the internal dynamo can power stellar activity. For spectral types M7 – M9, the spin-down rate is apparently longer than the Hubble time. This scenario is supported by the observed correlation between activity and rotation rate in late type stars (e.g., Kraft 1967; Basri 1987).

The soft-X-ray emitting M4 dwarfs detected by Chandra in the deep surveys is consistent with this scenario. Curiously, however, none of these sources show elevated H$`\alpha `$ emission. CXO72 is a more unusual source. As seen in Fig. 10, for its optical $`R`$-band magnitude, this star is much brighter in the soft X-ray than the other Galactic X-ray sources discussed here. Some of the difference is likely due to the redder spectral energy distribution of its later spectral class. However, CXO72 is also detected in the hard X-ray band implying a more energetic energy production mechanism than in the soft-band-only Galactic sources. Rutledge et al. (2000) report the Chandra detection of an X-ray flare from the lithium-bearing M9 brown dwarf LP944$``$40, with soft X-ray emission detected for 1$``$2 hr during a 12.1 hr observation. Unlike that source, the X-ray emission from CXO72 is non-transient (Fig. 15). We posit that CXO72 is most likely associated with a very low mass binary system, among the lowest mass such systems observed, with accretion powering the X-ray emission. Burgasser et al. (2000) recently reported strong H$`\alpha `$ emission from a T dwarf (methane brown dwarf) discovered in the 2MASS survey. They suggest a close \[$`a(420)R_J`$\] interacting binary system with Roche lobe overflow powering the observed emission. Both the H$`\alpha `$ emission in the T dwarf system and the X-ray emission in CXO72 are not seen to temporally vary in brightness, again suggesting that flaring is not the source of observed stellar activity. Alternatively, most of the hard X-rays from CXO72 come from the second observing period (see Fig. 15), suggesting that time-variable phenomena could be involved.

### 6.4 X-Ray Emission from Normal Galaxies

Nine of the X-ray sources discussed here show optical spectra devoid of strong or obvious AGN features. As seen in Fig. 14, these sources tend to lie at low redshift ($`z\mathrm{}<1`$) with $`L_{0.52}\mathrm{}<10^{42}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`L_{210}\mathrm{}<10^{43}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Many of the sources are detected in only one X-ray band. Similar sources are reported in Mushotzky et al. (2000), Barger et al. (2001), Hornschemeier et al. (2001), and Tozzi et al. (2001). We briefly review physical processes which might produce such emission.

#### 6.4.1 Actively Star-Forming Galaxies

With a typical $`L_X/L_{\mathrm{bol}}10^7`$ thought to derive from shocks developing in unsteady wind outflows (Pallavicini et al. 1987), isolated late-type stars are not prodigious X-ray emitters. However, a galaxy with a significant young stellar population will produce soft and hard X-rays from several astrophysical mechanisms, primarily associated with the beginning and end stages of massive star evolution (e.g., see Helfand & Moran 2001). Pre-main sequence stars will emit X-rays in their T Tauri phase (e.g., Koyama et al. 1996). Shocks and hot gas associated with stellar winds, galactic winds, and supernovae will also produce X-ray emission, though the dominant source of hard X-ray emission in a starburst galaxy will be accretion-driven from high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs).

From a sample of major Local Group Galaxies and Galactic OB stars within 3 kpc of the Sun, Helfand & Moran (2001) infer a specific $`210`$ keV X-ray luminosity per O star of $`220\times 10^{34}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Using the models of Leitherer, Carmelle, & Heckman (1995) we can then relate hard X-ray luminosity to the galaxy star formation rate, $`SFR`$. For a Salpeter initial mass function (IMF) with slope 2.35, an upper mass cutoff 100 $`M_{}`$, and solar metallicity, the models of Leitherer et al. (1995) show that a region producing $`1M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ for at least $`10^7`$ yr will have $`2.5\times 10^4`$ O stars. Therefore,

$$SFR=220\times 10^{40}L_{210}M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1,$$

where the hard X-ray luminosity $`L_{210}`$ is measured in $`\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

All of the galaxies in our sample showing evidence of star formation (i.e., sources classified as emission-line galaxies) are indeed detected in the hard X-ray band, with $`L_{210}10^{42}10^{43}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$, implying a wide range of possible star formation rates. However, \[O 2\] $`\lambda `$3727 luminosity, $`L_{[OII]}`$, also provides a crude estimate of star formation rate (Kennicutt 1992):

$$SFR5\times 10^{41}L_{[OII]}M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1,$$

where $`L_{[OII]}`$ is measured in units of $`\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$. For our sample of emission-line galaxies, the SFR derived from the X-ray luminosity is typically more than three orders of magnitude greater than that derived from the \[O 2\] $`\lambda `$3727 luminosity. The implication is that a buried AGN is likely producing much of the X-ray emission (see §6.4.3) though dust-enshrouded star formation cannot be ruled out.

#### 6.4.2 Early-Type Galaxies

The Einstein Observatory found that some early-type galaxies are powerful X-ray emitters, with X-ray luminosities correlated with optical luminosities (Forman, Jones, & Tucker 1985), albeit it with a significant dispersion ($`L_XL_B^{1.73.0}`$; e.g., Brown & Bregman 1998). For the X-ray luminous galaxies, hot ($`10^7`$ K) interstellar gas lost by stars during normal stellar evolution is thought responsible for producing the X-ray emission. The gas thermalizes in the galactic potential well and then cools as it flows to the center of the galaxy. The X-ray spectra of these galaxies are dominated by thermal emission at $`kT0.8`$ keV. It is thought that the X-ray-faint galaxies have lost much of their interstellar gas through galactic winds or from ram pressure stripping by ambient intercluster or intergroup gas. These X-ray-faint galaxies show a harder X-ray spectral component, $`510`$ keV (Matsumoto et al. 1997), with a very soft ($`0.2`$ keV) component. Recent Chandra observations of the X-ray-faint elliptical galaxy NGC 4697 resolves most of the soft and hard X-ray emission into point sources, the majority of which are low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs; Sarazin, Irwin, & Bregman 2000).

In Fig. 13 we plot rest-frame $`0.52`$ keV luminosity, $`L_{0.52}`$, against rest-frame $`B`$-band absolute magnitude, $`M_B`$, for the spectroscopically-observed Chandra sources from our survey. We also plot 34 early-type galaxies observed by ROSAT by Brown & Bregman (1998). Their sample comprises the 34 optically-brightest, early-type galaxies from the optically-selected, flux-limited sample of Faber et al. (1989), excluding sources with $`|b|<20^{}`$, dwarfs, and M87, known to contain an X-ray bright AGN. Only two sources in our sample classified as early-type galaxies — CXO128 and CXO138 — are detected in the soft X-ray band. Both reside within portions of the $`L_{0.52}M_B`$ plot (Fig. 13) consistent with the early-type galaxies studied by Brown & Bregman (1998). Several of the sources classified as having emission-line galaxy spectra also have soft X-ray luminosities consistent with the bright early-type sample. The soft X-ray luminosities for these sources can presumably be explained by hot gas and stellar sources. On the other hand, sources CXO164 and CXO167 are both classified as early-type galaxies from their optical spectra but are detected only in the hard X-ray band. The X-ray emission in these two sources presumably is powered by a buried AGN. Interestingly, the two soft-band-only early-type galaxies are at redshifts where the Lynx field has known clusters while the two hard-band-only early-type galaxies are at redshifts lacking large-scale structure in the Lynx field.

#### 6.4.3 Obscured AGN

Unification models of AGN invoke orientation as one of the dominant parameters that affect the observed optical properties of an active nucleus. For each broad-lined quasar whose optical emission is Doppler-boosted along our line of sight, a population of misdirected quasars should exist whose AGN optical emission is severely attenuated. Norman et al. (2001) report a clear example of one such source, where the optical spectrum shows strong, narrow-lined emission. The well-studied high-redshift radio galaxies (HzRGs) are the radio-loud component of this population: they also typically only exhibit narrow emission lines (e.g., McCarthy 1993; Stern et al. 1999). Presumably the more centrally-condensed broad-lined region (BLR) of these sources has been obscured while the spatially-extended narrow-lined region (NLR) has not been. These spatial scales are consistent with reverberation mapping studies of AGN. For a less luminous active nucleus, the stellar emission from the galaxy might dominate the optical spectral energy distribution, providing an optical spectrum devoid of AGN features. The effects of obscuration decrease at high energies, allowing X-ray detection of obscured AGN in apparently normal galaxies.

### 6.5 Comparison to X-Ray Quiet Galaxies

How do the X-ray-emitting galaxies compare to other galaxy populations? In Fig. 16 we show the $`K`$-band brightness of sources from our survey plotted against spectroscopic redshift. High-redshift radio galaxies from several radio surveys are also plotted (see De Breuck et al. 2001, and references therein). At each redshift, HzRGs are the most luminous galaxies known at observed 2$`\mu `$m (e.g., see Fig. 10 in De Breuck et al. 2001). Since 2$`\mu `$m samples stellar emission from the low-mass stars which dominate the baryon content of a galaxy, this is interpreted as HzRGs being the most massive systems at each cosmic epoch (e.g., Dey 1999, and references therein). In Fig. 16 we also plot 219 redshifts from our followup of $`K_s<20`$ sources in the Lynx field of SPICES. As we can see from this figure, the Chandra sources are among the brighter 2$`\mu `$m sources at each redshift, though they are not as luminous as the HzRGs identified from larger area surveys.

## 7 Conclusions

We present first results from our deep, 184.7 ks Chandra map of the Lynx field. This is the third-deepest X-ray field observed thus far by Chandra, exceeded in depth only by the megasecond campaigns in the HDF-N and CDF-S (Hornschemeier et al. 2001; Tozzi et al. 2001). We present a catalog of all 153 unresolved field X-ray sources detected in this survey which will provide essential information on the sources responsible for the soft ($`0.52`$ keV) and hard ($`210`$ keV) X-ray backgrounds. We discuss basic results from the X-ray data alone, showing the fainter X-ray sources predominantly have steeper X-ray spectra. We also present multiband optical and near-IR ($`BRIzJK_s`$) identifications for the $`66`$% of Lynx Chandra sources which are within the area studied by SPICES, the $`K`$-selected imaging and redshift survey we are pursuing (see Eisenhardt et al. 2001). We find $`40`$% of the spectroscopically-studied subsample are identified with galaxies showing obvious AGN features (i.e., broad lines and high-ionization emission), $`50`$% are identified with galaxies showing no obvious AGN features, and 2 ($`10`$%) of the sources are identified with late-type Galactic dwarfs. One Galactic source, CXO72, is unusual, having an M7 spectral classification and an unusually hard X-ray spectrum. We discuss this sparse spectroscopic sample in relation to other recently reported deep Chandra fields and briefly review X-ray emission from sources not showing obvious AGN features in their optical spectra. We conclude indirectly that many such sources in our survey must indeed harbor an obscured AGN. The catalogs presented here will prove useful for more complete spectroscopic followup allowing direct comparison to models of the X-ray background and studies of the fraction of massive galaxies harboring active, enshrouded nuclei.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are indebted to numerous colleagues for stimulating conversation and insight regarding this work. In particular, we thank John Gizis, Davy Kirkpatrick, John Stauffer, Jim Liebert, and Bob Rutledge for their input regarding CXO72, the hard X-ray-emitting, late-type Galactic dwarf. We also thank Fiona Harrison, Peter Mao, David Helfand, and Ed Moran for contributing discussion regarding the whole breadth of this project. We thank Roberto della Ceca for providing us with the hard-band $`\mathrm{log}N\mathrm{log}S`$ results from ASCA. The authors wish to extend special thanks to those of Hawaiian ancestry on whose sacred mountain we are privileged to be guests. Without their generous hospitality, many of the observations presented herein would not have been possible. The work of DS and PE were carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. The work of SD was supported by IGPP/LLNL University Collaborative Research Program grant #02$``$AP$``$015, and was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract No. W$``$7405$``$Eng$``$48. AD’s research is supported by NOAO which is operated by AURA under cooperative agreement with the NSF. This work has been supported by the following grants: NSF grant AST 95$``$28536 (HS) and NSF CAREER grant AST 9875448 (RE).


text:
# Search for diffuse neutrino flux from astrophysical sources with MACRO

## 1 Neutrino astronomy: overview and motivation

Neutrinos with energies larger than $`1`$ GeV are expected from a wide class of galactic and extragalactic astrophysical sources. Neutrino production requires the existence of hadronic processes and it is generally described in the picture of the beam dump model : high energy protons accelerated close to compact objects by shock waves or plasma turbulence interact with photons or target matter surrounding the source, producing pions. Neutrinos of electron and muon flavors originate from decays of charged pions, as well from subsequent muon decays. In the same hadronic chains, high energy $`\gamma `$-rays are expected to be produced through neutral pion decays. Like $`\gamma `$-rays, neutrinos can travel undeflected through the Universe. Neutrinos however are much less absorbed than photons and thus make a more powerful probe for astronomy searches. Many of the candidate sources of neutrinos (binary systems, supernovae remnants, AGNs, GRBs, etc) have already been recognized as gamma rays emitters at energies higher than 1 TeV: this provides an important hint for neutrino astronomy, even though the observed $`\gamma `$-ray energies are not high enough to exclude the electromagnetic production mechanisms, such as synchrotron or inverse Compton processes. In this scenario, the detection of high energy neutrinos would open a new field of research, complementary to $`\gamma `$-ray astronomy.

Neutrinos coming from a source propagate through the Earth, occasionally producing upward-going muons by charged-current interactions with the matter surrounding the detector. The detection probability grows with the energy due to the increase of both neutrino-nucleon cross sections and muon range, so that the effective detector mass results from the convolution of the detector area with the muon path-length.

Underwater/ice neutrino detectors like Baikal  and AMANDA , as well as underground experiments like MACRO , IMB , Baksan  and Superkamiokande , surveyed the sky in order to search for point source of astrophysical neutrinos. At the present their effective area is not large enough to measure the expected flux but they set experimental upper limits that guide and constrain theoretical models. Next generation neutrino telescopes like ANTARES , Icecube , NEMO  and NESTOR , with effective areas ranging from $`0.1`$ to 1 Km2, are expected to provide the sensitivity required for observing astrophysical sources. A detailed review dealing with physics goals and detection techniques in the field of neutrino astronomy can be found in .

The results of a search for point-like sources was recently presented by the MACRO collaboration in . Here we show the results of a search for a diffuse neutrino flux from unresolved sources, by looking for an excess of high energy upward-going events. A preliminary study of the sensitivity of the MACRO detector to high-energy muons is in . In sec. 2 we discuss the capability of the MACRO detector as a neutrino telescope. In particular, since most of events induced by astrophysical neutrinos are expected in the 0.1-100 TeV energy range, the response of scintillation counters was accurately studied for high energy events, using the scintillator calibrations. In sec 3 we show that the energy released in the scintillation counters by crossing muons is the most important information for the selection of events induced by astrophysical neutrinos. We describe the analysis cuts on the events from a simulated signal, and in sec. 4 on the events from the expected background. The main background source are upward-going muons induced from atmospheric neutrinos. The GEANT-based  simulation tool used by MACRO  was modified to correctly handling the propagation of very high energy muons in the rock surrounding the detector , and the detector response for events with high energy releases. In sec. 5 we present the results of the analysis of the real data sample, and we give the upper limit for the diffuse neutrino flux from unresolved sources. This upper limit is compared with some theoretical predictions and with upper limits from other experiments.

## 2 MACRO as a neutrino telescope

MACRO, located at the Gran Sasso Laboratories (Italy), was a large area multipurpose underground detector, in the shape of a rectangular box whose global dimensions were $`76.6\times 12.0\times 9.3`$ m3 . The lower half of the apparatus was filled with rock absorber alternating with streamer tube planes for particle tracking. Liquid scintillator layers, placed at the bottom, the center, the top and all around the detector provided time information for discriminating the direction of incoming particles. The horizontal streamer tube planes were equipped with pick-up strips providing stereo read-out of the detector hits. The large acceptance ($``$ 104 m2 sr for an isotropic flux), the good shielding of the site (the rate of cosmic ray muons is $``$ 10-6 times the surface rate), the fast timing (time resolution $`0.5`$ ns) and the good pointing capability (intrinsic angular resolution $`1^o`$) made MACRO suitable for working as a neutrino telescope.

### 2.1 Scintillator response and photomultiplier saturation

The energy deposited in a MACRO scintillation counter by a throughgoing particle is reconstructed by the ERP (Energy Reconstruction Processor) system according to the procedure described in .

The ERP circuit uses a twelve-bit ADC that makes an accurate integration of the photomultiplier pulse. This is applied to both the raw signal and a 10$`\times `$ attenuated version; the latter was used when the non attenuated ADC saturates, i.e. for fast magnetic monopole searches  and in this analysis. The ERP provides also time of flight from two TDCs readout. The ERP ADCs and TDCs were calibrated weekly with delayed LED signals and variable-intensity laser pulses. The ADCs energy calibrations assume a linear relationship between the number of attenuated ADC counts and the light hitting the phototube $`L`$:

$$L=G(ADCp)$$
(1)
where $`G`$ and $`p`$ are the gain factor and the pedestal of each scintillation counter, respectively. This hypothesis is valid for most of the analyses based on MACRO data.

The present analysis deals with signals greatly exceeding the average energy released in the detector by downward-going cosmic ray muons and atmospheric neutrino-induced events. If the energy released in a counter exceeds 4$`÷`$5 times the level of that released by minimum ionizing cosmic ray muons ($`34`$ MeV for one vertical track crossing a horizontal scintillation counter), the phototube response is not linear anymore . The effect of photomultiplier saturation can be taken into account by including in eq. 1 the next-to-leading order terms. By following the approach described in , eq. 1 becomes:

$$L=G(ADCp)+𝒬(ADCp)^2+𝒯(ADCp)^3+(ADCp)^4$$
(2)
the constants $`𝒬`$, $`𝒯`$, $``$ represent the second-, the third-, and the fourth-order corrections. These parameters were determined (one set for each MACRO scintillation counter) by fitting the laser light yield $`L`$ versus the ERP $`(ADCp)`$ value with a fourth degree polynomial. $`G`$ and $`p`$ are fixed at the value given by the standard ERP energy calibration.

In Fig. 1 (upper panel), the linear and the non-linear response regions are shown for one of the horizontal counters. The empty circles represent the mean values of the gaussian distributed ADC response for a fixed light level. The dashed curve shows the fourth-order fit done by taking into account the statistical errors.

The standard energy reconstruction is reliable below few times the MIP (Minimum Ionizing Particle) level. This analysis searches for events with a large energy release, above a certain threshold. For this reason, we used the correction given in eq. 2, which makes the energy reconstruction reliable above 3 MIP and up to $``$ 15 MIP ($`i.e.500`$ MeV in a single counter). Above this value, the energy reconstruction may be affected by a large error because of the saturation. The fit constants $`𝒬`$, $`𝒯`$, $``$ and the parameters $`G`$ and $`p`$ of eq. 2 were supposed independent on the time. This approximation is verified within 10% accuracy for the constants $`G`$ and $`p`$ measured with the standard calibration procedures. For the purpose of our analysis, a reconstructed energy $`500`$ MeV will be considered as an indication of a large energy release.

The lower panel of Fig. 1 shows the distribution of the total energy released in the scintillators by a sample of 80000 real events collected by MACRO (downward-going cosmic ray muons). In particular, the solid line is obtained using eq. 2, whereas the dashed line is obtained using the standard calibrations (eq. 1). The corrections act only at large values of released energy $`E_{Rel}`$, while around the distribution maximum their effect is negligible. Ignoring the photomultiplier non-linearity leads to a systematic underestimate of the reconstructed energy loss for a small fraction of high energy events. This is in agreement with what it is expected from the curve given on the upper panel of Fig. 1 in the saturation region: a fixed ADC value corresponds to a value of the reconstructed energy higher than in the case of the linear response approximation.

## 3 Monte Carlo simulation of the AGN signal

This analysis aims to select a sample of very high energy upward-going muons, since at neutrino energies above some tens of TeV the predicted neutrino fluxes from astrophysical sources start to rise above the atmospheric neutrino background. In our simulation of the AGN signal in MACRO we used as input the model by Stecker et al.  for the photo-pion production of neutrinos in AGN core.

Because high energy neutrino absorption from the Earth is an important effect, the neutrino propagation through the Earth was done by solving the kinetic equation for the transport of neutrinos in dense media. This approach is suggested in , where the neutrino absorption and the contribution of neutrino-nucleon neutral-current interactions were properly taken into account. The deep inelastic cross sections were calculated using the set of parton density functions CTEQ3-DIS . The new version of parton density functions by CTEQ group  does not produce significant changes for our calculation. The neutrino-induced muon propagation in the rock outside the detector was evaluated using the analytical formulas given in .

Then, following the analytical distributions, we simulated a sample of 13305 upward-going muons on the surface of a volume containing the detector plus 2 meter-wide layer of surrounding rock. The rock was included to take into account the effect of electromagnetic showers induced by the muons in the detector. In this volume, the transport of muons was done with the tool developed in , which correctly propagate very high energy muons up to the PeV energies. This software package replaced in our simulation the default transport modules implemented in the GEANT  package.

By normalizing to the expected event rate from the model by Stecker et al. (4.45 events/year on the surface of this box) our simulated sample is equivalent to $`T_{eq}=2988.5`$ years. 7547/13305 simulated muons reach the active detector and hit at least one scintillation counter in two different layers of the MACRO detector. This was the minimum requirement to define an ”event”.

We adopt the following notation: taking as a reference the upper counter which measures the time $`T_1`$, the time of flight $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=T_2T_1`$ is positive if the particle travels downward and it is negative if the particle travels upwards. Two or more adjacent scintillator hits within a time window of 2 ns and on the same detector layer, at a maximum distance of 1 m, form a scintillator cluster. Any association between a cluster and a single hit placed on different layers, as well as between two different clusters on different layers defines a scintillator track. The scintillator track length is the geometrical distance between the positions of the center of each cluster. If a cluster contains more than one counter, its center is calculated by averaging the hit positions weighted with the released energy. For each scintillator track, the quantity $`1/\beta =c\mathrm{\Delta }T/L`$ ($`L`$ is the track length and $`c`$ the speed of light) in our convention is around +1 for downward-going particles and -1 in the opposite case.

Fig. 2 (left) shows the correlation between the reconstructed total energy released in the scintillator $`E_{Rel}`$, with the muon initial energy $`E_{Initial}`$. By initial energy we mean the energy of the muons when they enter the detector. Each simulated event is represented with a point in the scatter plot.

In order to reduce the background due to atmospheric neutrino-induced muons (see next section), we select the Very High Energy (VHE) muons from the AGN simulated signal by imposing more and more stringent conditions, the effects of which are illustrated in Fig. 2(right). The light shaded histogram corresponds to events for which there is at least one scintillator with energy release greater than 500 MeV; the histogram with the dark shaded area corresponds to events with at least two scintillators, each one with energy release greater than 500 MeV, and distance between the hits smaller than 1 m; the histogram with the black shaded area corresponds to events with a further scintillator in a different detector layer and with energy release greater than 500 MeV. The darker points on Fig. 2 (left) represent the subsample of events, which survived all the cuts described above. Hereafter we will refer to the last condition as $`E_{cut}`$. In Fig. 2(right) the principal maximum of the light shaded distribution is due to the muons which lose energy through standard ionization. The second “bump” is populated by higher energy muons, with large energy release in the scintillators through radiative processes. The value of $`E_{Rel}`$= 500 MeV was chosen after the calibration procedure described in sec. 2.

To discriminate the direction of the incoming events an algorithm based on the time-of-flight technique was developed. The algorithm calculates the mean time associated with each scintillator layer involved in the event. We required a reconstructed upward-going flight direction between at least two different scintillator layers. This condition for selecting upward-going events was called $`D1_{cut}`$.

Many $`scintillatortracks`$ (associations between any two $`scintillatorclusters`$) are present in a showering event. Thus, a more selective cut for discriminating the upward direction, can be imposed using all the $`scintillatortracks`$ in the event. We required that the ratio between the number of tracks with positive $`1/\beta `$ value (downward-going) and negative $`1/\beta `$ (upward-going) is less than 0.4 (cut $`D2_{cut}`$). The value of the ratio was optimized using a Monte Carlo study on a simulated sample of $`10^6`$ downward-going muons: no downward-going muons survived the energy cut $`E_{cut}`$ combined with the direction cut $`D_{cut}`$, defined as $`D1_{cut}`$ \+ $`D2_{cut}`$. After the cuts $`E_{cut}`$ \+ $`D_{cut}`$, 438/13305 simulated VHE neutrino-induced muons (signal) survived.

Fig. 3 shows the distribution of the simulated cosine of muon zenith angle $`\theta _{sim}`$. The solid histogram refers to the overall sample of simulated events; the dashed histogram represents the sample selected after the $`E_{cut}`$ \+ $`D_{cut}`$. The $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{sim}`$ dependence of the muon flux is a consequence of high-energy neutrino absorption of the Earth . Even assuming an isotropic neutrino flux  as input model, the zenith angular distribution of muons reaching the detector shows a strong suppression at $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{sim}0.8`$ due to the hard discontinuity of the Earth density profile in correspondence of the massive nucleus.

Fig.4 shows the selection efficiency of the analysis cuts $`E_{cut}`$ \+ $`D_{cut}`$, when applied to the simulated sample of events from AGNs. In the left plot such efficiency is shown as a function of the cosine of muon zenith angle $`\theta _{zen}`$, while the right one represents the dependence on the muon initial energy.

The energy cut $`E_{cut}`$ and the flight direction cut $`D_{cut}`$ were not completely efficient to reject atmospheric multiple muons and nearly horizontal high-energy cosmic ray muons. These events generate large showers in the apparatus, with a large number of scintillator tracks. Thus, a final cut was defined in order to improve the capability of selecting upward-going events against the background of downward-going showering events. For each event, we define as: itot, the number of scintillator tracks whose length is greater than 2.5 m; iup, the number of scintillator tracks for which $`1.251/\beta 0.75`$; idown, the number of scintillator tracks for which $`0.751/\beta 1.25`$. The final cut (called $`S_{cut}`$: $`itot>11`$ and $`iup/itot>0.3`$ and $`idown/iup<0.1`$) selects upward-going events for events with a large number of $`scintillatortracks`$. This cut was tuned to reject Monte Carlo simulated background events and the large sample of multiple muons and nearly horizontal high-energy cosmic ray muons in the real data. After this last cut, 247/13305 simulated VHE signal events survived.

## 4 The background of atmospheric neutrinos

The background from atmospheric neutrinos was estimated with the Monte Carlo program developed for the study of the atmospheric neutrino-induced upward-going muon flux in MACRO. It uses the Bartol neutrino flux , the Morfin and Tung parton density functions  for the calculation of the DIS $`\nu N`$ cross sections, and the Lohmann et al.  muon energy loss for the propagation of induced muons through matter. The theoretical uncertainty on the expected event rate in MACRO for atmospheric neutrinos is $``$ 17%, mainly due to the uncertainty on the neutrino flux. Further details can be found in .

Fig. 5 (left) shows the distribution of the muon initial energy (i.e. muon energy when entering the detector) for the atmospheric neutrino simulated sample (dashed line) and for the AGN sample (solid line). The events surviving the analysis cuts $`E_{cut}`$ \+ $`D_{cut}`$ are also shown (light shaded histogram for the atmospheric sample, dark shaded histogram for the AGN sample). The Fig. 5 (right) shows the distribution of the reconstructed energy released in the scintillator counters, with the same notation of the previous plot. The two distributions (atmospheric neutrino background and AGN signal) have been normalized to the same equivalent time of the AGN sample. A small number of background events survive the analysis cuts $`E_{cut}`$ \+ $`D_{cut}`$. Because of the Monte Carlo generation statistics, the error bars (not shown) of the light shaded histograms, are at the level of 50% for each energy bin.

As a final remark, it should be noticed that the simulation of the atmospheric neutrino background does not take into account the isotropic contribution of neutrinos from semileptonic decays of charmed hadrons, usually called ”prompt neutrinos”. For neutrino energies above 10 TeV  this contribution should begin to dominate over the conventional pion and kaon decay induced neutrino flux. Actually, mainly due to the lack of precise information about high energy charm inclusive cross sections, the expected fluxes of prompt neutrinos, as well as the energy above which they start to dominate, fluctuate on a very wide range. Even by assuming one of the highest prompt neutrino flux prediction given in , the contribution to the signal has been estimated as few percent of the conventional atmospheric neutrino background (at least in the energy range in which this analysis is sensitive).

In Fig. 7 the contribution from prompt neutrinos, according to the maximum (PNmax) and the minimum (PNmin) predictions given in , are shown, together with the flux of conventional atmospheric neutrino and the diffuse fluxes of neutrinos from AGNs and GRBs according to some predictions.

## 5 Data analysis and results

The data used for this analysis were collected in the period from April 1994 to December 2000 (5.8 years, including efficiencies). After imposing the energy cut, $`E_{cut}`$, and the flight direction cut, $`D_{cut}`$, 97 real events survive.
Three events were rejected due to the action of a cut on the quality of the data. This quality cut (applied in all MACRO analysis which uses the ERP TDCs) requires that the two TDCs, which have a different dynamic range, on each ERP channel must agree. This inefficiency, calculated from different analysis, affect 2% of the data sample .

As expected, a large contamination from multiple muons and near horizontal events is found. Those background events were rejected with the cut $`S_{cut}`$; after applying this cut, only two events survive. Fig. 6 shows the distribution of the quantity $`1/\beta `$ for one of the two selected event. The $`1/\beta `$ for the scintillator tracks fulfilling the conditions on geometrical length and on timing quality are shown as the shaded histogram.

An attempt to reconstruct the direction of both events has been performed by combining scintillator counters with streamer tubes tracking information. Because of the strong showering activity, the result is affected by a too high uncertainty for any directional astronomy study.

The simulated AGN signal events have been processed with the same analysis chain as the real data; they are reduced by a factor (2%) which takes into account the above ERP inefficiency, not explicitly reproduced in the simulation of the detector response. 242/13305 simulated upward-going muons from diffuse AGNs survived all cuts. These events correspond to 0.54 for 5.8 years live time. For the atmospheric neutrino background, 1.1 events are expected in the same running period. The results are summarized in Table 1. The MACRO display of the two real events is shown in Fig. 8.

### 5.1 The upper limit

The data show no evidence of possible excess due to a diffuse neutrino flux from AGNs within the framework of the model . Our result was used to set a muon flux upper limit $`F_\mu ^L`$ which was calculated at 90$`\%`$ confidence level:

$$F_\mu ^L=\frac{\mathrm{Upper}\mathrm{limit}(90\%c.l.)}{ϵ\times Area(\mathrm{\Omega })𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }\times T_l}$$
(3)
The calculation of the numerator is based on the observation of 2 events when the expected background is 1.1 events, according to the recent approach of Feldman and Cousins . $`ϵ`$ is the fraction of simulated AGN events which survive the analysis cuts; $`Area(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is the geometrical area seen by the diffuse flux as a function of the solid angle $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (the integral extends to the lower Earth hemisphere) and $`T_l=5.8`$ years is the considered MACRO live time. With these values the muon flux upper limit becomes:

$$\overline{)F_\mu ^L(90\%c.l.)=(1.7\pm 0.2)\times 10^{14}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{sr}^1}$$
(4)
This limit can be finally converted into a (differential) neutrino flux upper limit. In order to compare our results with the upper limits given by other experiments, it is convenient to assume a power law spectrum with spectral index 2 for the initial neutrino flux. We have then weighted the number of surviving events with the ratio between this spectrum and the spectrum calculated by Stecker et al.. With these hypotheses, the neutrino flux upper limit from this analysis is $`E^2F_\nu ^L=`$ $`(4.1\pm 0.4)`$ $`\times 10^6\mathrm{GeV}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{sr}^1`$. Actually, this value must be considered carefully because it is affected by model assumptions (initial spectrum, neutrino cross sections and muon energy losses). Here, it has been estimated for comparison purposes.

Fig. 7 shows some theoretical predictions of neutrino fluxes from astrophysical sources (AGNs and GRBs) in comparison with upper limits obtained by current experiments. A list of them with references and energy range of sensitivity is given in Table 2.

## 6 Conclusions

We presented the results of a search for a diffuse neutrino flux from unresolved astrophysical sources by analyzing a sample of high energy events collected by MACRO. We tested the detector response at high energy taking special care for the reliability of the scintillation counter response to high-energy particles. We used the reconstructed energy released in the scintillators to select a sample of high energy events. Two high energy upward-going candidates have been found in 5.8 y of effective running time. This number is compatible with the expected atmospheric neutrino background (1.1 events). The analyzed data have been used to set a muon and neutrino flux upper limit comparable with the results given by other experiments.

## 7 Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the director and of the staff of the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso and the invaluable assistance of the technical staff of the Institutions participating in the experiment. We thank the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. National Science Foundation for their generous support of the MACRO experiment. We thank INFN, ICTP (Trieste), WorldLab and NATO for providing fellowships and grants (FAI) for non Italian citizens.