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# Constraining the past X-ray luminosity of AGN in clusters of galaxies: the role of resonant scattering

## 1 Introduction

It is commonly believed that active galactic nuclei (AGN) are powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole. However, a detailed description of this process is still missing. One of the principal obstacles to making progress here is that we know very little from observations about the variability of AGN on timescales longer than a few tens of years.

Nuclear variability on the longest timescales up to the Hubble time is expected to be governed by the supply of gas from galactic scales to the central kpc. Such transport can be triggered by mergers and interactions of galaxies (e.g. Hernquist hernquist89 (1989)). There are reasons to believe that AGN can be strongly variable on timescales much shorter than the Hubble time. For example, Ciotti & Ostriker (cioost97 (1997, 2001)), in a follow-up to Binney & Tabor (bintab95 (1995)), have suggested a mechanism for elliptical galaxies in which an accreting central black hole heats the ambient gas to the point at which the accretion stops, then fueling resumes after the gas has cooled. In this model, strong outbursts during which the AGN luminosity approaches the Eddington critical value can occur every $`10^810^9`$ years. A similar outburst behaviour but on shorter timescales of typically $`10^6`$ years can result from thermal-viscous instability expected to operate in AGN accretion disks (Lin & Shield linshi86 (1986); Mineshige & Shields minshi90 (1990); Siemiginiowska, Czerny & Kostyunin sieetal96 (1996); Burderi, King & Szuszkiewicz buretal98 (1998)). We may also mention tidal disruption of stars by supermassive black holes, which can give rise to rare (every $`10^4`$$`10^5`$ years per galaxy), short (months to years) and bright (sub-Eddington) flares (Rees rees88 (1988)).

Since we are unable to explore directly the long-term variability of galactic nuclei, some indirect methods are in need. A feasible way would be to observe radiation which was emitted in the past by a galactic nucleus and later scattered toward us by the interstellar medium. Since the characteristic size of a galaxy is a few tens kpc, we could see the “echo” of previous AGN activity $`10^5`$ years after the central source turned off. This idea has been put forward by Sunyaev, Markevitch & Pavlinsky (sunetal93 (1993)) in relation to our Galaxy. It was suggested that the diffuse, hard X-ray emission observed today in the direction of giant molecular complexes in the central 100 pc of the Milky Way is scattered radiation emitted by Sgr A in the past. This hypothesis has been confirmed by the detection with the ASCA and Chandra satellites of diffuse emission in the 6.4 keV fluoresence iron line from the Sgr B2 cloud (Koyama et al. koyetal96 (1996); Murakami et al. muretal01 (2001)). Cramphorn & Sunyaev (crasun02 (2002)) have recently elaborated on this problem and derived upper limits on the X-ray luminosity of Sgr A during the past $`10^5`$ years.

It seems natural to extend the above approach to elliptical galaxies and in particular to cluster dominant galaxies. Recent observations with the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes have confirmed previous suggestions that 1) powerful low-redshift ($`z<0.5`$) AGN are found in luminous and preferentially early-type galaxies (Bahcall et al. bahetal97 (1997); Hooper, Impey & Foltz hooetal97 (1997); Boyce et al. boyetal97 (1997); McLure et al. mcletal99 (1999); Schade, Boyle & Letawsky schetal00 (2000)) and 2) they are generally located in cluster environments (McLure & Dunlop mcldun01 (2001)). Since cluster cores typically have sizes $`r_\mathrm{c}100`$ kpc, we could hope to detect radiation emitted by the nucleus (plus possibly by a jet) of a cluster dominant galaxy until a few times $`r_\mathrm{c}/c10^6`$ years ago and scattered by the hot intracluster gas toward us. Up to $`1`$% of the radiation of the central source can be Thomson scattered by free electrons within the gas.

Previous theoretical efforts in this direction have focused on the prospects for detecting scattered (strongly polarized) AGN radiation at radio and optical wavelengths (Sunyaev sunyaev82 (1982); Gilfanov, Sunyaev & Churazov 1987a ; Sholomitskii & Yaskovich shoyas90 (1980); Wise & Sarazin wissar90 (1990, 1992); Sarazin & Wise sarwis93 (1993); Murphy & Chernoff murche93 (1993)). However, it would be particularly interesting to get information on the history of the central source from observations of X-ray scattered radiation, since the bulk of the AGN X-ray emission is believed to originate within a few gravitational radii of the central black hole.

One feasible way to detect the scattered X-rays against the thermal emission of the hot gas would be to perform observations at $`EkT`$, where $`E`$ is the photon energy and $`kT1`$–10 keV is the gas temperature. Indeed, the AGN spectrum is a power-law, $`F_{\mathrm{AGN}}E^\alpha `$ with $`\alpha 1`$, while the plasma bremsstrahlung spectrum is exponentially declining, $`F_{\mathrm{gas}}\mathrm{exp}(E/kT)`$, at $`EkT`$. Unfortunately, the angular resolution and sensitivity of present-day hard X-ray telescopes are not sufficient for mapping clusters of galaxies and detecting scattered AGN radiation. However, the situation may improve dramatically with the advent of grazing incidence X-ray telescopes sensitive up to $`40`$ keV, such as those under consideration for the projected Constellation-X111http://constellation.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/main.html and XEUS222http://astro.esa.int/SA-general/Projects/XEUS/main/
xeus\_main.html missions. Furthermore, given the huge collecting area (several square meters) of these planned telescopes in the standard X-ray band, it should become possible to search for scattered X-rays from distant quasars (at redshifts $`z1`$). Indeed, since the radiation from a quasar gets redshifted on its way to us, a significant gain in the ratio $`F_{\mathrm{AGN}}/F_{\mathrm{gas}}[E(1+z)]^\alpha \mathrm{exp}[E(1+z)/kT]`$ could be achieved already at $`E10`$ keV. Such observations would permit one to constrain the lifetime of quasars and the parameters of the hot gas around them. This possibility is one of the issues discussed in the present paper (particularly in §3.2).

On the observational side, evidence has been accumulated over recent years that AGN are often surrounded by gas atmospheres typical of clusters of galaxies. Early ROSAT observations indicated the presence of luminous extended X-ray emission around several powerful quasars with redshifts out to $`z=0.73`$ (Crawford et al. craetal99 (1999); Hardcastle & Worrall harwor99 (1999)). More recently, the Chandra observatory clearly resolved extended hot gas around several relatively nearby AGN, including 3C295 ($`z=0.461`$, Harris et al. haretal00 (2000)), 3C220.1 ($`z=0.62`$, Worral et al. 2001woretal01 (2001)), 3C123 ($`z=0.2177`$, Hardcastle, Birkinshaw & Worrall haretal01 (2001)), Cyg A ($`z=0.0562`$, Smith et al. smietal02 (2002)), and H1821+643 ($`z=0.297`$, Fang et al. fanetal02 (2002)).

Chandra has also detected luminous extended (to radii $`100`$ kpc) X-ray emission surrounding two high-redshift powerful radio galaxies 3C294 at $`z=1.786`$ (Fabian et al. fabetal01 (2001)) and PKS 1138–262 at $`z=2.156`$ (Carilly et al. caretal02 (2002)). Assuming for these objects that the emission of the central source is isotropic and its X-ray luminosity has been the same in the past as it is now ($``$ a few $`10^{45}`$ erg s-1), we are able to estimate (see §3.2) that the gas surface brightness should be dominated by scattered power-law radiation from the AGN already at $`E10`$ keV.

In this paper we also discuss another possibility of detecting scattered AGN X-ray radiation. We show (in §2 and §3.3) that at least for nearby AGN located in cluster dominant galaxies or in isolated giant elliptical galaxies, one can gain significantly by measuring the scattered surface brightness in resonance X-ray lines rather than in the continuum. Such observations would ideally require high ($``$ a few eV) spectral resolution in order to separate the resonance lines from other lines. The resolution needed together with high sensitivity can be achieved with future high-energy astrophysics observatories such as Astro-E2333http://www.astro.isas.ac.jp/astroe/index-e.html, Constellation-X and XEUS. As an example, we estimate (in §4) the level of constraints it should be possible to derive on the past X-ray luminosity of the nearby M87 and Cyg A active galaxies. Yet better constraints could be obtained by measuring the polarization of the scattered X-ray resonance line radiation (see §5; Sazonov et al. sazetal02 (2002)).

## 2 Advantage of scattered X-ray lines over the scattered continuum

Consider an AGN surrounded by hot ($`T10^7`$ K) gas. The following emission components will contribute to the X-ray surface brightness of the gas:

* First, there is X-ray emission (line plus continuum) of the hot plasma in which collisional ionization and excitation dominate. However, a bright AGN may additionally photoionize the plasma. In our calculations below we fully neglect this effect, although it can be important when the AGN luminosity is very high (quasar-like), as will be discussed in a separate paper (Sazonov & Sunyaev, in preparation).
* Second, there is radiation emitted by the AGN and Thomson scattered by free electrons in the gas. This scattered radiation contributes to the surface brightness in the spectral continuum.
* Finally, AGN photons with energies falling within the cores of X-ray lines of ions of heavy elements can resonantly scatter on these ions, thus contributing to the surface brightness in the lines.

Consider an optically thin volume of gas with electron temperature $`T`$ and number density $`n_\mathrm{e}`$, exposed to an external spectral flux $`F_E(E)`$ (measured in units of erg cm-2 s-1 keV-1).

The plasma continuum spectral emissivity due to bremsstrahlung is given by (e.g. Zombeck zombeck90 (1990))

$`ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}(E)=2.3\times 10^{20}T^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}(E/kT)n_\mathrm{e}^2g_\mathrm{B}(T,E)`$
$`(\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{keV}^1),`$ (1)
where $`g_\mathrm{B}`$ is the corresponding Gaunt factor.

The energy-integrated emissivity in a resonance line by ions of type $`z`$ due to electron collisional excitation of an electron from the ground level $`i`$ to an excited level $`k`$ is given by (e.g. Zombeck zombeck90 (1990))

$`ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}`$ $`=`$ $`2.7\times 10^{15}T^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}(E_{ik}/kT)`$ (2)
$`\times `$ $`n_\mathrm{e}n_z(T)f_{ik}g_{ik}(T)(\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1),`$
where $`n_z`$ is the ion number density, which depends on the gas temperature. The remaining quantities appearing in equation (2), namely $`E_{ik}`$, $`f_{ik}`$ and $`g_{ik}`$, characterize the line itself, denoting its energy, oscillator strength and excitation Gaunt factor, respectively.

The rate (per unit volume) of Thomson scattering of the external radiation, integrated over the scattering angle $`\theta `$, is

$`ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}(E)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8}}{\displaystyle _1^1}d\mathrm{cos}\theta (1+\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )ϵ_{E,\theta ,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}(E,\theta )`$ (3)
$`=`$ $`F_E(E)n_\mathrm{e}\sigma _\mathrm{T}(\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{keV}^1)`$
where $`\sigma _\mathrm{T}=6.65\times 10^{25}`$ is the Thomson scattering cross section. Note that we ignore throughout the Klein–Nishina correction to the scattering cross section as well as the change in the photon energy by scattering, which is justifiable if $`Emc^2`$ and $`kTmc^2`$, where $`mc^2=511`$ keV is the electron rest energy.

The energy-integrated rate of resonant scattering (integrated over the scattering angle) of the external radiation in the line $`ik`$ by ions $`z`$ is

$`ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}^{\mathrm{scat}}`$ $`=`$ $`4.1\times 10^{18}\pi `$ (4)
$`\times `$ $`F_E(E_{ik})n_z(T)r_\mathrm{e}cf_{ik}(\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1),`$
where $`r_\mathrm{e}=2.82\times 10^{13}`$ cm is the classical electron radius, $`c`$ is the speed of light, and the numerical coefficient accounts for the unit transition from Hz to keV.

From equations (1) and (3) we can find the ratio of the Thomson scattering rate to the bremsstrahlung emissivity:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}}{ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}}}(E)`$ $`=`$ $`2.9\times 10^5`$ (5)
$`\times `$ $`F_E(E)T^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}(E/kT)n_\mathrm{e}^1g_\mathrm{B}^1(T,E).`$
The ratio of the resonant scattering rate to the emissivity in the line $`ik`$ is given by a similar expression, which follows from equations (2) and (4),

$`{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}^{\mathrm{scat}}}{ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}}}`$ $`=`$ $`4.1\times 10^5`$ (6)
$`\times `$ $`F_E(E_{ik})T^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}(E_{ik}/kT)n_\mathrm{e}^1g_{ik}^1(T).`$
We can now compare the ratios (6) and (5) for $`E=E_{ik}`$:

$$R\frac{ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}^{\mathrm{scat}}}{ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}}/\frac{ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}}{ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}}=1.4\frac{g_\mathrm{B}(T,E_{ik})}{g_{ik}(T)}.$$
(7)
In the low-temperature limit ($`kTE_{ik}`$), the excitation Gaunt factor $`g_{ik}`$ ranges between 0.1 and 0.25 for most interesting lines; it slowly increases with temperature and reaches 0.2–0.3 at $`kTE_{ik}`$ (e.g. Mewe, Gronenschild & van der Oord mewetal85 (1985)). The bremsstrahlung Gaunt factor also is a weak function of temperature: $`g_\mathrm{B}=(kT/E)^{0.4}`$ when $`EkT`$. Summarizing these facts, we may simply write

$$R6\mathrm{for}kTE_{ik}.$$
(8)
This approximate relation is accurate to within a factor of 3 for all resonance X-ray lines of interest to us. Fig. 1 shows, for several resonance lines, the dependence $`R(T)`$ computed using the MEKAL plasma emission code in combination with other atomic data sources (see §4 for details). In these computations the contribution to $`ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}`$ of unresolved (defined as those with energies within one Doppler width of the resonance energy) satellite lines was taken into account. This effectively leads to a smaller value of $`R`$ compared to the definition (7). However, this reduction is only significant for the 6.70 keV and 6.97 keV K$`\alpha `$ lines or iron when $`kTE_{ik}`$. We should note that the large values ($`R20`$ at $`kTE_{ik}`$) obtained for the iron L-shell lines at 1.13 keV and 1.17 keV may be partly the result of the different values for the oscillation strengths being used in the MEKAL code with which we compute $`ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}`$ and in the list of resonance lines of Verner, Verner & Ferland (veretal96 (1996)) which we use to compute $`ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}^{\mathrm{scat}}`$. We do not attempt in this paper to correct for this and possibly other inconsistencies caused by the simultaneous use of several sources of atomic data. However, we estimate that some of our computational results obtained below (in §4) may contain a relative systematic error of $`2`$.

We point out that $`R`$ is typically several times smaller for intercombination lines than for resonance lines and $`R0`$ for forbidden lines. For this reason we consider only resonance lines throughout.

We have thus found that for a given resonance line with energy $`E_{ik}`$, the relative contribution of scattered external radiation to the volume X-ray emissivity of hot gas is typically larger by a significant factor of the order of 3–10 than for the continuum at $`E_{ik}`$. We also know that for typical cluster temperatures $`kT`$ a few keV the combined surface brightness of the intracluster gas in the resonance X-ray lines with $`E_{ik}kT`$ is comparable to that in the continuum. We therefore arrive at the conclusion that resonance X-ray lines present significant advantage over the continuum for searches of scattered AGN radiation in clusters of galaxies and elliptical galaxies performed at $`EkT`$.

After we have introduced the $`R`$ factor in equation (7) and shown that this factor is only weakly dependent on the resonance line and on gas temperature, we can continue our treatment in parallel for continuum and line emission.

## 3 AGN in the center of a beta-cluster

We shall now consider the following model (see Fig. 2). A supermassive black hole is located in the center of a cluster of galaxies containing hot gas with a beta-law radial density profile (Cavaliere & Fusco-Femiano cavfus76 (1976)):

$$n_\mathrm{e}=n_0(1+r^2/r_\mathrm{c}^2)^{3\beta /2},$$
(9)
where $`n_0`$ is the central electron number density and $`r_\mathrm{c}`$ is the core-radius. The gas temperature $`T`$ and element abundances are constant over the cluster.

At a moment $`t_{\mathrm{on}}=\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (as measured by an earth bound observer) the central source switches on (i.e. becomes an AGN) and at a later moment $`t_{\mathrm{off}}=0`$ it switches off. The AGN emits isotropically X-ray radiation having a power-law spectrum of photon index $`\gamma `$, at a constant luminosity $`L_X`$ in the energy band $`[E_1,E_2]`$:

$$L_X=A_{E_1}^{E_2}E^\gamma E𝑑E=A\frac{E_2^{2\gamma }E_1^{2\gamma }}{2\gamma }.$$
(10)
The spectral flux at a given distance $`r`$ from the AGN is therefore

$$F_E=\frac{(2\gamma )L_X}{4\pi (E_2^{2\gamma }E_1^{2\gamma })r^2}E^{1\gamma }.$$
(11)
Our goal is to find the surface brightness profile of the cluster, including the contribution of scattered AGN radiation, at a given moment of time $`t>t_{\mathrm{on}}`$.

### 3.1 Approximation of isotropic scattering

We shall use throughout this paper the approximation of isotropic scattering. This simplifies the treatment but requires explanation. We know that in reality Thomson scattering occurs according to the Rayleigh phase function $`p(\mathrm{cos}\theta )=3(1+\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )/8`$. In the case of resonant scattering, the phase function depends on the line and generally can be represented as a weighted sum of the Rayleigh phase function and the isotropic function $`p(\mathrm{cos}\theta )=1/2`$ (see e.g. Chandrasekhar chandra50 (1950)). However, for our given geometry of the problem the resulting brightness profiles depend only weakly (typically by less than 10%) on the phase function. For this reason, the approximation of isotropic scattering is quite reasonable.

### 3.2 Continuum radiation

We shall first consider the X-ray spectral continuum, for which the relevant scattering mechanism is Thomson scattering. Since the Thomson optical depths of clusters of galaxies and elliptical galaxies are small, $`\tau _\mathrm{T}0.01`$, we can use the single-scattering approximation and make some analytic estimates.

The continuum (bremsstrahlung) surface brightness of a beta-cluster is described, as a function of projected distance $`\rho `$ from the nucleus, by the well-known formula, which can be obtained by integrating the plasma emission along a given line of sight (i.e. along the coordinate $`z`$ – see Fig. 2) using equations (1) and (9):

$`B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}(r)}{4\pi }}𝑑z`$ (12)
$`=`$ $`2.9\times 10^5{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3\beta 1/2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3\beta )}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_0}{0.01\mathrm{cm}^3}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{r_\mathrm{c}}{100\mathrm{kpc}}}`$
$`\times `$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{kT}{1\mathrm{keV}}}\right)^{1/2}(E/kT)^{0.4}\mathrm{exp}(E/kT)`$
$`\times `$ $`(1+\rho ^2/r_\mathrm{c}^2)^{3\beta +1/2}`$
$`(\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{sr}^1\mathrm{keV}^1),`$
where $`r=(\rho ^2+z^2)^{1/2}`$ and we have adopted $`g_\mathrm{B}(T,E)=(E/kT)^{0.4}`$.

The surface brightness of the Thomson scattered AGN radiation is given by

$$B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}_{z_1}^{z_2}\frac{ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}(r)}{4\pi }𝑑z=\frac{\sigma _\mathrm{T}}{4\pi }_{z_1}^{z_2}F_E(r)n_\mathrm{e}(r)𝑑z,$$
(13)
where we have used equation (3) and our assumption of isotropic scattering.

The time-dependent integration limits $`z_1(t,\rho )`$ and $`z_2(t,\rho )`$ in equation (13) are determined by the loci of scattering sites giving a fixed time delay $`\stackrel{~}{t}`$. If the distance between the emitter and the observer is much larger than the characteristic size of the scattering cloud, which is true in our case, the constant-delay surface is a paraboloid with its focus at the position of the source (see e.g. Sunyaev & Churazov sunchu98 (1998) and references therein to earlier work considering similar light-echo problems):

$$z(\stackrel{~}{t},\rho )=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\rho ^2}{c\stackrel{~}{t}}c\stackrel{~}{t}\right).$$
(14)
Therefore,

$$z_1(t,\rho )=\frac{1}{2}\left[\frac{\rho ^2}{c(t+\mathrm{\Delta })}c(t+\mathrm{\Delta })\right],$$
(15)
$`z_2(t,\rho )=\{\begin{array}{cc}(\rho ^2/ctct)/2\hfill & \mathrm{if}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}<t\hfill \\ \mathrm{}\hfill & \mathrm{if}\mathrm{\Delta }<t<0.\hfill \end{array}`$ (18)
The integration limits in equation (13) depend on the outburst duration $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. We shall first consider two limiting cases for which analytic treatment is possible.

#### 3.2.1 Stationary case

Let the AGN be a persistent source. The limits of the integral $`_{z_1}^{z_2}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}𝑑z`$ are then $`z_1(t,\rho )=\mathrm{}`$ and $`z_2(t,\rho )=\mathrm{}`$, and it is possible, using equation (9) for $`n_\mathrm{e}(r)`$ and equation (11) for $`F_E`$, to express the integral through hypergeometric functions. In the particular interesting case of $`\beta =2/3`$, the scattered surface brightness is

$`B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}(\beta =2/3)=6.0\times 10^5{\displaystyle \frac{L_X}{L_{\mathrm{Edd}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_{\mathrm{BH}}}{10^9M_{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{n_0}{0.01\mathrm{cm}^3}}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{100\mathrm{kpc}}{r_\mathrm{c}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{10^{2\gamma }1}}\left[r_\mathrm{c}/\rho (1+\rho ^2/r_\mathrm{c}^2)^{1/2}\right]E^{1\gamma }`$
$`(\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{sr}^1\mathrm{keV}^1),`$ (19)
where $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ is the mass of the central black hole, $`L_{\mathrm{Edd}}=1.4\times 10^{38}M_{\mathrm{BH}}/M_{}`$ is the corresponding Eddington luminosity, $`L_X`$ is the AGN luminosity in the energy range 1–10 keV, and $`E`$ is measured in keV.

The ratio of the scattered surface brightness to the intrinsic surface brightness of the gas in the continuum is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}}{B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}}}(\beta =2/3)=2.3{\displaystyle \frac{L_X}{L_{\mathrm{Edd}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_{\mathrm{BH}}}{10^9M_{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{0.01\mathrm{cm}^3}{n_0}}`$
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{100\mathrm{kpc}}{r_\mathrm{c}}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{kT}{1\mathrm{keV}}}\right)^{0.1}{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{10^{2\gamma }1}}`$
$`\times (1+\rho ^2/r_\mathrm{c}^2)^{3/2}\left[r_\mathrm{c}/\rho (1+\rho ^2/r_\mathrm{c}^2)^{1/2}\right]`$
$`\times E^{1.4\gamma }\mathrm{exp}(E/kT).`$ (20)
We can also write down asymptotic expressions applicable in the limit of $`\rho r_\mathrm{c}`$ for arbitrary values of $`\beta `$:

$`B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}(\rho r_\mathrm{c})=3.2\times 10^5{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3\beta /2+1/2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3\beta /2+1)}}{\displaystyle \frac{L_X}{L_{\mathrm{Edd}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_{\mathrm{BH}}}{10^9M_{}}}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{n_0}{0.01\mathrm{cm}^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{100\mathrm{kpc}}{r_\mathrm{c}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{10^{2\gamma }1}}(\rho /r_\mathrm{c})^{3\beta 1}E^{\gamma 1}`$
$`(\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{sr}^1\mathrm{keV}^1);`$ (21)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}}{B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}}}(\rho r_\mathrm{c})=1.1{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3\beta /2+1/2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(3\beta )}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3\beta /2+1)\mathrm{\Gamma }(3\beta 1/2)}}{\displaystyle \frac{L_X}{L_{\mathrm{Edd}}}}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{M_{\mathrm{BH}}}{10^9M_{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{0.01\mathrm{cm}^3}{n_0}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{100\mathrm{kpc}}{r_\mathrm{c}}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{kT}{1\mathrm{keV}}}\right)^{0.1}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{10^{2\gamma }1}}(\rho /r_\mathrm{c})^{3\beta 2}E^{1.4\gamma }\mathrm{exp}(E/kT).`$ (22)
It can also be shown that within the cluster core, $`B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}\rho ^1`$ and $`B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}/B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}\rho ^1`$ for any $`\beta `$. This can be directly verified for $`\beta =2/3`$ using equation (20).

Fig. 3a demonstrates the dependence of the surface brightness profile of a cluster with a central AGN on the $`\beta `$ parameter. The scattered surface brightness profiles were derived by numerical integration of equation (13). Fig. 4 shows the corresponding plots for the ratio of the scattered surface brightness to the intrinsic surface brightness of the intracluster gas. We see both from Fig. 4 and equation (22) that outside the core region (at $`\rho r_\mathrm{c}`$), the relative contribution of scattered AGN radiation to the surface brightness increases with $`\rho `$ when $`\beta >2/3`$.

The $`\beta =1/3`$ case presented in Figs. 3a and 4 corresponds to cluster cooling flows. Typically, gas density grows $`r^1`$ toward the center of the cooling flow, which roughly corresponds to a beta-model with a small $`r_\mathrm{c}`$, large $`n_0`$ and $`\beta 1/3`$. We then find from equations (12) and (21) that $`B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}\rho ^1`$ and $`B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}\rho ^2`$ (assuming a constant temperature) for cooling flows. Interestingly, the surface brightness profile of scattered AGN radiation within the core of a beta-cluster (see above) is similar ($`\rho ^1`$) to the intrinsic brightness profile of an (isothermal) cooling flow. Of course, a cluster core dominated by scattered emission from a central powerful quasar will have a very different spectrum (power law) than a cooling flow.

The energy dependent factor $`E^{1.4\gamma }\mathrm{exp}(E/kT)`$ appearing in equations (20) and (22) has a minimum (for $`\gamma >1.4`$) at $`E=(\gamma 1.4)kT`$ and increases exponentially when $`EkT`$. The origin of this dependence is obvious: we are comparing the slowly declining (power-law) spectrum of the AGN emission with the exponentially decaying efficiency of collisional radiative mechanisms operating in the intracluster gas. It is clear that for given AGN luminosity and parameters of the gas, a significant gain (in terms of the relative contribution of scattered AGN radiation to the surface brightness) can be achieved by performing observations at $`EkT`$, like in our examples in Figs. 3 and 4. A cautionary note is necessary here. If one wants to constrain the past luminosity of an AGN by mapping its host elliptical galaxy in hard X-rays, a restriction will appear due to a significant contribution to the measured surface brightness from the (unresolved) X-ray binaries of the galaxy. We estimate that in practice it should be very difficult to obtain limits better than $`L_X10^3L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$. Of course, this complication is irrelevant for surface brightness measurements carried out over regions of a galaxy cluster that are almost devoid of point X-ray sources, say at distances $`100`$ kpc from the nucleus of a central dominant galaxy.

#### 3.2.2 The case of a high-redshift AGN

Furthermore, if a powerful quasar is observed at high redshift $`z`$, the relevant factor will be $`[E(1+z)]^{1.4\gamma }\mathrm{exp}[E(1+z)/kT]`$. Consider for example the radio galaxy 3C294 located at $`z=1.786`$, for which a surrounding intracluster medium has recently been revealed with Chandra (Fabian et al. fabetal01 (2001)). Since the total number of counts registered from the source in the 20 ksec Chandra observation was small, $`100`$, of which only $`30`$ are from the central AGN, it is only possible to make rough estimates in this case. Fabian et al. find that the gas temperature is $`5`$ keV, the 2–10 keV rest-frame luminosity of the hot gas is $`2.5\times 10^{44}`$ erg s-1, the corresponding (isotropic) luminosity of the AGN is $`1.1\times 10^{45}`$ erg s-1, the photon index for the AGN emission $`\gamma 2`$ and the radial Thomson depth of the cluster is $`0.004`$.

We can then estimate that the ratio of the flux of scattered AGN radiation to that of thermal bremsstrahlung emission from the gas is only $`1`$% at $`E2`$ keV, $`3`$% at 5 keV, $`30`$% at 10 keV, $`1`$ at 12 keV and $`4`$ at 15 keV. These estimates assume that the central source is isotropic and its luminosity has been the same in the recent past (over $``$ a few $`10^5`$ years), and are made for the total flux from the whole observed X-ray halo (of $`15`$ arcsec, or equivalently $`100`$ kpc radius). We thus see that it is desirable to go to energies above 10 keV in searching for scattered AGN radiation around the 3C294 galaxy. However, photon statistics then becomes a limiting factor. We can roughly estimate that the XEUS observatory with its effective area of $`2`$ m2 at 10 keV and angular resolution of a few arcsec should be able to detect only a total of $`10`$ scattered AGN photons above 10 keV in a 100 ks observation of 3C294. This, combined with much more accurate measurements of the surface brightness of the intracluster gas in the standard X-ray band, could be only about enough to put constraints on the past history of the 3C294 central X-ray luminosity.

Another similar example is the radio galaxy PKS 1138$``$262 at $`z=2.2`$, from which Chandra also has observed luminous extended X-ray emission (Carilly et al. caretal02 (2002)). In this case, the gas X-ray luminosity is similar to that of the 3C294 cluster (unfortunately, the gas temperature is unconstrained), but the inferred 2–10 keV (rest-frame) luminosity of the central source is four times higher, $`4\times 10^{45}`$ erg s-1. Moreover, in this case the gas emission is likely dominated by scattered AGN radiation already at $`E5`$ keV (due to the higher redshift and luminosity), so that a few hundred scattered AGN photons could be detected above 5 keV in a 100 ks XEUS-2 observation of PKS 1138$``$262 (taking into account the larger collecting area of the telescope at lower energies).

We note that photon statistics should be less of a problem for more nearby AGN and quasars such as 3C 273 located at $`z=0.158`$. In fact, it is possible, given the huge X-ray luminosity of 3C 273, $`2\times 10^{46}`$ erg s-1 (e.g. Yaqoob & Serlemitsos yaqser00 (1990)), that a hot intracluster medium surrounding it, if any, will be first observed in scattered rather its own X-ray emission.

#### 3.2.3 Short AGN flare

Suppose now that an AGN experienced an outburst in the past, between $`t_{\mathrm{on}}=\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`t_{\mathrm{off}}=0`$. The “short” here means that the line-of-sight depth of the illuminated (see Fig. 2) zone of the cluster must be much smaller than the characteristic size at a given projection radius. Therefore, one of the following conditions must be fulfilled: $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_\mathrm{c}/c`$ if $`\rho r_\mathrm{c}`$ or $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho /c`$ if $`\rho r_\mathrm{c}`$. Then, as follows from equations (15) and (18),

$$\delta z(t,\rho )z_2z_1\frac{c\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}(1+\rho ^2/c^2t^2),$$
(23)
and $`_{z_1}^{z_2}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}(\rho ,z)𝑑zϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}(\rho ,z_2)\delta z(\rho )`$. We then find in the limit of $`\rho `$, $`ctr_\mathrm{c}`$

$`B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}`$ $`=`$ $`3.2\times 10^5\times 4^{3\beta /2}{\displaystyle \frac{L_X}{L_{\mathrm{Edd}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_{\mathrm{BH}}}{10^9M_{}}}`$ (24)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{n_0}{0.01\mathrm{cm}^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{100\mathrm{kpc}}{r_\mathrm{c}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{10^{2\gamma }1}}`$
$`\times `$ $`(\mathrm{\Delta }/t)(r_\mathrm{c}/ct)^{3\beta +1}(1+\rho ^2/c^2t^2)^{3\beta 1}E^{1\gamma }`$
$`(\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{sr}^1\mathrm{keV}^1);`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}}{B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}}}`$ $`=`$ $`1.2\times 4^{3\beta /2}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3\beta )}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3\beta 1/2)}}{\displaystyle \frac{L_X}{L_{\mathrm{Edd}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_{\mathrm{BH}}}{10^9M_{}}}`$ (25)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{0.01\mathrm{cm}^3}{n_0}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{100\mathrm{kpc}}{r_\mathrm{c}}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{kT}{1\mathrm{keV}}}\right)^{0.1}{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{10^{2\gamma }1}}`$
$`\times `$ $`(\mathrm{\Delta }/t)(ct/r_\mathrm{c})^{3\beta 2}(\rho /ct)^{6\beta 1}(1+\rho ^2/c^2t^2)^{3\beta 1}`$
$`\times `$ $`E^{1.4\gamma }\mathrm{exp}(E/kT).`$
Comparing equations (25) and (22), we see that for a given luminosity $`L_X`$ the contribution of scattered AGN radiation to the surface brightness at $`\rho ct`$ is smaller by a factor of $`\mathrm{\Delta }/t`$ for the flare campared to the stationary case. This happens because in the former case the scattered radiation comes from a gas layer of depth $`\delta zc\mathrm{\Delta }`$ along the line of sight, whereas $`\delta z\rho ct`$ in the latter case.

Fig. 3b shows a sequence of scattered surface brightness profiles that would be measured at different times after a short AGN outburst. We see that distant regions of the cluster reveal no scattered light early on after the flare but become progressively brighter as time goes by and photons of the flare propagate through the gas. The ratio $`B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}/B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}`$ has a maximum at $`\rho _{\mathrm{max}}ct`$, as indicated by equation (25). For example, $`\rho _{\mathrm{max}}=r_\mathrm{c}`$ when $`\beta =2/3`$. Therefore, the zone of largest contribution of scattered AGN radiation propagates outward at an apparent velocity equal to the speed of light. It is important for observations that this zone is broad — $`\delta \rho _{\mathrm{eff}}\rho _{\mathrm{max}}ct`$.

We also notice that the amplitude of the effect is proportional to the product $`L_X\mathrm{\Delta }`$, i.e. to the total energy emitted by the AGN during the flare. Thus, for example, a $`10^5`$-year outburst at $`L_X=0.01L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$ would produce the same scattered surface brightness profile (at $`\rho `$, $`ctr_\mathrm{c}`$) as a $`10^4`$-year flare at $`L_X=0.1L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$.

#### 3.2.4 Switch-off and switch-on scenarios

We next consider a scenario in which the central source was persistently (over a time that is longer than the characteristic light travel time of the cluster) bright in the past until it suddenly turned off. A sequence of resulting scattered surface brightness profiles corresponding to different times after the switch-off ($`t>0`$) is shown in Fig. 3c. One can see that these profiles differ markedly from those corresponding to the flare case (see Fig. 3b). In particular, as time goes by the surface brightness decreases in the central region, while it remains practically unchanged in more distant parts of the cluster still for a long time $`\rho /c`$ after the switch-off. This gives rise to a broad ($`\delta \rho \rho `$) maximum of the scattered/intrinsic brightness ratio, which propagates outward at an apparent speed of light.

Another interesting situation takes place when the central source is bright at the time of observation but it has turned on recently. This “switch-on” case may actually correspond to the observed quasars, which may have been luminous for a time short compared to the light travel time of the gas around them. This situation is depicted in Fig. 3d. One can see that the radial distribution of scattered AGN radiation is effectively truncated at a certain radius $`c(tt_{\mathrm{on}})`$. This gives the possibility to estimate the time during which the quasar has been active.

### 3.3 Resonance lines

The results obtained above can be directly extended to the case of resonance lines provided the intracluster gas is optically thin ($`\tau 1`$) to resonant scattering. We shall consider this limit below and then (in §3.3.1) point out differences that may arise when $`\tau 1`$.

In the absence of external illumination, the equivalent width of a line would be

$`EW_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}𝑑z/{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}(E_{ik})𝑑z`$ (26)
$`=`$ $`1.2\times 10^5{\displaystyle \frac{n_z(T)}{n_\mathrm{e}}}f_{ik}{\displaystyle \frac{g_{ik}(T)}{g_\mathrm{B}(T,E_{ik})}}(\mathrm{keV}),`$
under our assumptions of constant temperature and element abundances.

Resonant scattering of the AGN photons leads to an increase of $`EW`$. At the same time, Thomson scattering of AGN radiation tends to enhance the continuum near the line and thus to decrease its equivalent width. As we know from §2, the first effect is a factor of $`R6`$ larger than the second, hence the net effect of the scattering of AGN emission in the intracluster gas should be increased equivalent widths of the resonance lines. We can then write:

$`EW`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}dz+{\displaystyle _{z_1}^{z_2}}ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}^{\mathrm{scat}}dz)/`$ (27)
$`\left({\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}𝑑z+{\displaystyle _{z_1}^{z_2}}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}𝑑z\right)`$
$`=`$ $`EW_0{\displaystyle \frac{1+R_{z_1}^{z_2}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}𝑑z/_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}𝑑z}{1+_{z_1}^{z_2}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}𝑑z/_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}𝑑z}}.`$
If the contribution of scattered AGN radiation to the surface brightness of the cluster is small, the fractional increase of the equivalent line width will be

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }EW}{EW_0}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{EWEW_0}{EW_0}}`$ (28)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R1}{5}}{\displaystyle \frac{_{z_1}^{z_2}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}(E_{ik})𝑑z}{_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}(E_{ik})𝑑z}}.`$
Using equation (28), one can readily apply all the results of §3.2 to optically thin resonance lines.

It should be emphasized that equation (28) is strictly valid only in the case where both the plasma temperature (which affects the ionization balance and plasma emissivity) and the element abundances are constant along the line of sight corresponding to a given projected distance $`\rho `$. Indeed, only when these conditions are met, $`ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}(r)ϵ_{\mathrm{cont}}(r)`$ and $`ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}^{\mathrm{scat}}(r)ϵ_{\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}(r)`$ – see equations (1)–(4). In the general case, a coefficient somewhat different than $`R1`$ will relate the ratios $`\mathrm{\Delta }EW/EW_0`$ and $`_{z_1}^{z_2}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}𝑑z/_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}ϵ_{E,\mathrm{cont}}𝑑z`$.

We should also remind the reader that we ignore throughout the effect of the AGN on the ionization balance ($`n_z`$) in the intracluster medium. The irradiation of the gas by a very bright central source will first of all alter the equivalent width of the emission line relative to the value predicted by equation (26); it will also affect (however to a smaller degree, because both $`ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}`$ and $`ϵ_{\mathrm{line}}^{\mathrm{scat}}`$ are proportional to $`n_z`$) the ratio $`\mathrm{\Delta }EW/EW_0`$.

#### 3.3.1 Finite depth effects

The intracluster gas may be moderately optically thick in the stronger X-ray lines ($`\tau 1`$, e.g. Gilfanov, Sunyaev & Churazov 1987b ), so the analytic results obtained above will be only approximately valid in that case.

The optical depth at the center of a resonance line along a given direction $`l`$ through the cluster is

$$\tau _0=\sigma _0n_z(r)𝑑l.$$
(29)
At plasma temperatures typical of galaxy clusters ($`kT`$ 1–10 keV), all interesting X-ray lines have nearly Doppler absorption profiles whose width is determined by the velocities of thermal and turbulent motions, because the line natural width is relatively small. Therefore, the cross section at line center is

$$\sigma _0=\frac{\sqrt{\pi }hr_\mathrm{e}cf_{ik}}{\mathrm{\Delta }E_\mathrm{D}}$$
(30)
($`h`$ is Planck’s constant), with the Doppler width being

$`\mathrm{\Delta }E_\mathrm{D}`$ $`=`$ $`E_{ik}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2kT}{Am_\mathrm{p}c^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{V_{\mathrm{turb}}^2}{c^2}}\right)^{1/2}`$ (31)
$`=`$ $`E_{ik}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2kT}{Am_\mathrm{p}c^2}}(1+1.4AM^2)\right]^{1/2},`$
where $`A`$ is the element atomic mass, $`m_\mathrm{p}`$ is the proton mass, $`V_{\mathrm{turb}}`$ is the characteristic turbulent velocity and $`M`$ is the corresponding Mach number. The role of the additional line broadening due to turbulence becomes more important with increasing $`A`$.

Taking into account turbulence line broadening is important for two reasons. First, this phenomenon may cause some resonance lines, which would otherwise have $`\tau 1`$, to become optically thin. Secondly, some satellite lines may fall within the core of the resonance line, thereby effectively reducing the factor $`R`$ defined in equation (7). As was noted in §2, this effect is particularly important for the K$`\alpha `$ lines of H-like and He-like iron at $`kT1`$ keV.

If $`\tau _0`$ is non-negligible, first of all the intrinsic surface brightness profile of the intracluster gas will be distorted due to diffusion of photons from the central region to the outer parts of the cluster. The equivalent line width will be somewhat smaller than predicted by equation (26) at $`\rho r_\mathrm{c}`$, and larger at $`\rho r_\mathrm{c}`$ (Gilfanov et al. 1987b ). Note that this effect takes place already at $`\tau _0<1`$, when only single resonant scattering is important, and becomes more pronounced when $`\tau _0>1`$.

When the optical depth becomes larger than unity, multiple resonant scatterings come into play. In the stationary scenario, the surface brightness profile of scattered AGN emission in a line with $`\tau _01`$ will be flatter in the cluster core compared to a $`1/\rho `$ profile in the $`\tau _01`$ case. Also, the total flux of AGN photons scattered toward us from the core region will be smaller than calculated in the single-scattering approximation by a factor $`\tau _0`$. However, due to the rather similar effects taking place for thermal gas emission (see above), the net correction to the ratio $`EW/EW_0`$ is expected to be fairly small for $`\tau _01`$.

Multiple resonant scatterings also delay the escape of AGN photons from the cluster core. As a result, the time-dependent scattered surface brightness profiles arising in the outburst scenario will be affected.

## 4 Numerical simulations

As a next step, we have performed numerical simulations for two actual clusters. We used a combination of 1) a Monte-Carlo code to play the diffusion of photons (both those emitted by the AGN and by the gas) through multiple resonant scatterings and 2) the MEKAL code (Kaastra kaastra92 (1992)) as implemented in the software package XSPEC v10 (Arnaud arnaud96 (1996)) to calculate plasma emissivity in lines. The line energies and oscillator strengths were taken from the list of strong resonance lines of Verner, Verner & Ferland (verfer96 (1996)) and the solar abundances of elements from Anders & Grevesse (andgre89 (1989)). The ionization fractions were calculated using collisional ionization rate fits from Voronov (voronov97 (1997)), radiative recombination rates from Verner & Ferland (verfer96 (1996)) and dielectronic recombination rates from Aldrovandi & Pequignot (aldpeq73 (1973)), Shull & van Steenberg (shuste82 (1982)) and Arnaud & Rothenflug (arnrot85 (1985)).

### 4.1 M87/Virgo

One of the most promising targets in the sky for observations of the discussed effect is M87. This is a giant elliptical galaxy located near the center of the nearest ($`17`$ Mpc – $`1`$ arcmin corresponds to 5 kpc) rich cluster of galaxies Virgo. M87 hosts a central black hole of mass $`3\times 10^9M_{}`$ (Macchetto et al. macetal97 (1997); Marconi et al. maretal97 (1997)), which is the largest reliably measured black hole mass. The corresponding Eddington luminosity $`L_{\mathrm{Edd}}=4\times 10^{47}`$ erg/s.

M87 demonstrates AGN activity. In particular, observations at different energy bands reveal an unresolved nucleus and a one-sided jet. The combined bolometric luminosity of the nucleus and jet is $`10^{42}`$ erg s-1 (e.g. Biretta, Stern & Harris biretal91 (1991)), or $`10^6`$ of the Eddington luminosity. This is an amazingly small value given the fact that the nucleus is located in the center of a dense cooling flow. The average power input in the form of relativistic plasma from the jet into a large-scale radio halo around M87 is estimated (Owen, Eilek & Kassim oweetal00 (2000)) to have been $`10^{44}`$ erg s-1 over the past $`10^8`$ years, which is still a small fraction of the Eddington luminosity.

Both the nucleus and the jet (whose brightest knot is at a distance of $`1`$ kpc from the nucleus) have recently been observed in X-rays with the XMM-Newton (Böhringer et al. bohetal01 (2001)) and Chandra (Wilson & Yang wilyan02 (2002)) satellites. The X-ray spectrum is power-law with values for the photon index ranging between 2 and 2.9 for the nucleus and different knots in the jet. The inferred X-ray (1–10 keV) luminosities of the nucleus and the jet are $`3\times 10^{40}`$ and $`8\times 10^{40}`$ erg, respectively (Böhringer et al. bohetal01 (2001)).

In our simulations, we modeled the distribution of intracluster gas around M87 based on the results of recent analyses of the XMM observations by Böhringer et al. (bohetal01 (2001)), Finoguenov et al. (finetal02 (2002)) and Matsushita et al. (matetal02 (2002)). We assumed the distribution of gas to be spherically symmetric around M87 and restricted our consideration to the central region with a radius of 250 kpc. The electron density radial profile was represented by a sum of two beta-models (9) with the following parameters: $`n_0=0.13`$ cm-3, $`r_\mathrm{c}=1.7`$ kpc, $`\beta =0.42`$ and $`n_0=0.011`$ cm-3, $`r_\mathrm{c}=22`$ kpc, $`\beta =0.47`$. We adopted a constant temperature $`kT=1`$ keV within the central 1 kpc, the dependence $`kT=1.5(r/5\mathrm{kpc})^{0.22}`$ keV between 1 and 50 kpc, and a constant $`kT=2.5`$ keV at larger radii. The last value approximately corresponds to temperatures measured with ASCA (Shibata et al. shietal01 (2001)) in different parts of the Virgo cluster within $`300`$ kpc from M87. The element abundances were taken to be constant at $`r<10`$ kpc, with $`A(\mathrm{O})=0.4`$, $`A(\mathrm{Si})=1.0`$, $`A(\mathrm{S})=1.0`$, $`A(\mathrm{Ar})=1.0`$ and $`A(\mathrm{Fe})=0.8`$ (in units of solar abundances), then gradually declining to $`A(\mathrm{O})=0.4`$, $`A(\mathrm{Si})=0.6`$, $`A(\mathrm{S})=0.6`$, $`A(\mathrm{Ar})=0.6`$ and $`A(\mathrm{Fe})=0.4`$ at $`r=40`$ kpc, and constant thereafter.

Table 1 lists resonance X-ray and extreme UV lines that we estimate to be the strongest emission lines of the M87 gas. All of these lines have substantial optical depths from the center to the boundary of the gas cloud, assuming negligible turbulence.

Using equation (22), we can estimate for the stationary scenario the contribution of scattered AGN radiation to the surface brightness of M87/Virgo in the X-ray continuum:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}}{B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}}}`$ $`=`$ $`4\times 10^2{\displaystyle \frac{L_X}{L_{\mathrm{Edd}}}}E^{0.6}\mathrm{exp}(E/1.5\mathrm{keV})`$ (32)
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{1.7\mathrm{kpc}}}\right)^{0.7},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1.7}\mathrm{kpc}\rho 22\mathrm{kpc};`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}}{B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}}}`$ $`=`$ $`40{\displaystyle \frac{L_X}{L_{\mathrm{Edd}}}}E^{0.6}\mathrm{exp}(E/2\mathrm{keV})`$ (33)
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{22\mathrm{kpc}}}\right)^{0.6},\rho 22\mathrm{kpc}.`$
Here we have assumed constant temperatures of $`kT=1.5`$ keV and $`kT=2`$ keV for equations (32) and (33), respectively, and $`\gamma =2`$.

The corresponding dependences for the equivalent width of a resonance line with $`\tau _01`$ can be found from equations (32) and (33) as $`\mathrm{\Delta }EW/EW_0=(R1)B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}(E_{ik})/B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}(E_{ik})`$ (assuming constant element abundances for a given $`\rho `$).

Now we proceed to discussing the results of our computations, which do not use the assumption of small optical depth.

#### 4.1.1 Switch-off scenario

We first consider a scenario in which M87 was bright in the past for a long time (at least $``$ a million years) until it suddenly turned off (actually switched to its present low-luminosity state) at $`t_{\mathrm{off}}=0`$. We have plotted in Figs. 5a and 5b for two resonance lines the computed contribution of scattered radiation from the AGN to the surface brightness as a function of projected radius as would be measured by observers living in various epochs $`t>0`$ after the switch-off. Also shown are the corresponding profiles for the continuum emission near the lines. The relative contribution of scattered AGN emission is a factor of $`R6`$ (with a scatter of $`3`$ between the lines) larger for the lines than for the continuum, in agreement with the result of §2. We adopted $`L_X=0.01L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$ for our examples. Since the discussed effect is proportional to $`L_X`$, the results can be easily recomputed for any AGN luminosity.

Fig. 6 compares the surface brightness profiles of scattered AGN radiation and thermal emission in the iron 6.7 keV line, which has the largest equivalent width in our sample. It is essential that photon statistics is not expected to impose strong restrictions on the prospects of detecting scattered AGN radiation from the Virgo cluster out to $`1`$ Mpc from M87 with the next generation of X-ray spectrometers.

The finite depth effects that were discussed in §3.3.1 play in the M87 case only a minor role for the X-ray lines, because for them $`\tau _0<3`$ (see Table 1). Fig. 7 compares two cases, $`M=0`$ (no turbulence) and $`M=0.5`$ (significant turbulence), for the iron 1.13 keV line. The increased turbulence leads to a decrease from $`\tau _0=3.2`$ to $`\tau _0=0.7`$. We see that the relative contribution of scattered AGN emission to the surface brightness in the central $`10`$ kpc is several times larger in the former (optically-thick) case, except for the early moments. This increase is mainly due to the delayed escape of photons.

We can now address the principal question of our study: what constraints can X-ray observations place on the past luminosity of the M87 central source? Suppose that it is possible in an experiment to map the distribution of the equivalent width of a particular line over M87/Virgo with $`\delta =10`$% accuracy, which we consider a realistic value (see the discussion in §5). Should then the relative contribution of scattered AGN emission exceed $`\delta `$ at least at some projected radius (i.e. at least at the maximum of $`EW/EW_0`$ in Fig. 5), it will be possible to estimate the past AGN luminosity. The resulting dependence of the minimum detectable past luminosity of M87 on time after the switch-off is plotted in Fig. 8a.

We see that in order to have a 10% contribution of scattered radiation from the AGN whose luminosity in the past was $`L_X=10^4L_{\mathrm{Edd}}=4\times 10^{43}`$ erg s-1 (i.e. several hundred times higher than the combined X-ray luminosity of the nucleus and jet now), we should be not later than $`3\times 10^4`$ years after the switch-off and look with X-ray telescopes into the M87 core region ($`\rho 10`$ kpc $`2`$ arcmin in the plane of the sky), as is clear from Fig. 5. If the luminosity in the past was higher, $`L_X=10^3L_{\mathrm{Edd}}=4\times 10^{44}`$ erg s-1, we must live not later than $`2\times 10^5`$ years after the switch-off and look further out (at $`\rho 50200`$ kpc $`20`$ arcmin from the AGN). The nearly flat ($`t^{0.6}`$) shape of the curves in Fig. 8a, which have been truncated at $`t=3\times 10^5`$ years to mimimize the effects of the finite size of our model gas cloud, suggests that if the X-ray luminosity of M87 was $``$ a few $`10^3L_{\mathrm{Edd}}10^{45}`$ erg s-1 in the past, the maximum allowed elapsed time would only be restricted by the extent of the gas in the Virgo cluster ($`1`$ Mpc), the effective area of the detector and the field of view of the telescope.

We may therefore conclude that it should be possible with future X-ray spectrometers to measure or obtain fairly tight limits on the past X-ray luminosity of the central source in M87. For comparison, we can use the available data of XMM-Newton observations of the M87/Virgo core to derive some weaker limits already now. Böhringer et al. (bohetal01 (2001)) have analyzed X-ray spectra taken from a sequence of rings centered on the M87 nucleus. The most distant ring has an outer radius $`r_{\mathrm{out}}60`$ kpc, and the innermost circle has $`r_{\mathrm{in}}1.25`$ kpc. Except for the spectrum of the central circle to which the direct emission from the AGN contributes, the individual spectra correspond to optically thin thermal emission from the gas. The quality of the spectra is apparently good up to $`7`$ keV. We can therefore suggest that the surface brightness of scattered AGN radiation (having a power-law spectrum) does not exceed the actually measured surface brightness in the X-ray continuum at 7 keV nowhere between $`\rho =1.25`$ kpc and 60 kpc. From this condition we can find an upper limit on the past X-ray luminosity of M87 as a function of time after the switch-off, similarly as we derived the limits presented in Fig. 8a based on the resonance line computations. However, in the previous case we did not impose any limitations on the projected radius and we adopted a value $`\delta =10`$%, rather than $`\delta =100`$% to be used now. The resulting dependence is shown in Fig. 9.

We see that the current limits based on the spectral continuum data are rather weak. For example, the average X-ray luminosity of the M87 AGN over a long period of $`10^5`$ years ending $`5\times 10^4`$ years ago was not higher than $`5\times 10^3L_{\mathrm{Edd}}=2\times 10^{45}`$ erg s-1. By comparing Fig. 9 with Fig. 8a, we see that the current limits could be improved by at least an order of magnitude by means of fine X-ray spectroscopy. Alternatively, much tighter limits could be obtained by measuring the surface brightness of M87/Virgo in the hard X-ray continuum. To illustrate this possibility, we have repeated our analysis for $`E=20`$ keV – see the result in Fig. 9. Going from $`E=7`$ keV to 20 keV (again assuming a $`\delta =100`$% scattered contribution relative to the bremsstralung emission) leads to a factor of $`200`$ (!) stronger limits.

#### 4.1.2 Flare scenario

Suppose now that some time ago M87 experienced an outburst that was short compared to the characteristic light crossing time of the gas cloud, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }10^6`$ years. Some analytic estimates for this case were obtained in §3.2.3. Figs. 5c and 5d show the computed time evolution of the scattered/thermal brightness ratio profile for the Fe XXV K$`\alpha `$ line for outburst durations $`\mathrm{\Delta }=10^5`$ years and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=2\times 10^4`$ years, respectively, and an AGN luminosity $`L_X=0.01L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$. Note that for $`t\mathrm{\Delta }`$ the scattered surface brightness profile depends on the product $`L_X\mathrm{\Delta }`$, rather than on $`L_X`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ separately.

Figs. 8b and 8c show the minimum detectable (for 10% scattered contribution) AGN outburst luminosity as a function of elapsed time for the two considered scenarios. These dependences should be compared with Fig. 8a representing the switch-off scenario. We see that until a certain moment $`t_{\mathrm{crit}}\mathrm{\Delta }`$ the minimum detectable luminosity is only a little smaller in the flare case than in the switch-off case. This is expected, because the characteristic line-of-sight depth of the illuminated volume at $`t=t_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ is about the same, $`\delta \rho ct_{\mathrm{crit}}`$, in both cases. Only at $`t\mathrm{\Delta }`$, does the minimum detectable luminosity become much larger (by a factor of $`\mathrm{\Delta }/t`$) for short outbursts. This directly follows from comparison of equations (22) and (25).

Fig. 9 shows upper limits for the same outburst scenarios but obtained using the XMM-Newton data on the X-ray continuum emission from M87/Virgo.

### 4.2 Cygnus A

Our second example is Cyg A. This is a well-known nearby ($`z=0.0562`$, i.e. about 20 times more distant than M87 – 1 arcmin approximately corresponds to 100 kpc) powerful radio galaxy. Cyg A has recently been observed with the Chandra satellite, and detailed information was obtained on the morphology of X-ray emission from the galaxy (Young et al. youetal02 (2002)) as well on the intracluster gas surrounding it (Smith et al. smietal02 (2002)).

In the Chandra and quasi-simultaneous RXTE observations (Young et al. youetal02 (2002)), hard (up to 100 keV), spatially unresolved X-ray emission was detected from the position of the radio and infrared nucleus of Cyg A. The energy spectrum of this radiation is power law with photon index $`\gamma =1.5`$, heavily absorbed below a few keV. The inferred unabsorbed 1–10 keV luminosity of the nucleus $`L_X5\times 10^{44}`$ erg s-1. This is four orders of magnitude more than the X-ray luminosity of the M87 nucleus.

The Chandra observations clearly reveal an intracluster medium. The gas has complex structure within the central $`100`$ kpc, which apparently is the result of an interaction with the relativistic material produced by AGN activity. In contrast, the morphology of the gas is simple at larger radii ($`100`$ kpc), namely the gas appears to be spherical within at least 700 kpc of the nucleus, and nearly isothermal with $`kT78`$ keV. The total luminosity of the intracluster gas is $`10^{45}`$ erg s-1, which is comparable to the X-ray luminosity of the central AGN and is a typical value for rich clusters of galaxies.

Given the above observational facts, we can estimate the contribution of scattered emission from the AGN to the X-ray surface brightness outside the central 100 kpc of the Cyg A cluster. Due to the highly irregular distribution of gas in the innermost region of Cyg A, our simulations will not be aimed at this zone. Based on these considerations and the results of Smith et al. (smietal02 (2002)), we model the radial distribution of gas density by a beta-model with $`n_0=0.05`$ cm-3, $`r_\mathrm{c}=30`$ kpc and $`\beta =0.5`$. The temperature is assumed to be constant, $`kT=5`$ keV, within the central $`50`$ kpc and also at $`r>150`$ kpc, $`kT=7.5`$ keV. The abundance of iron is taken to be 0.35 solar. Our model cloud of gas has an outer boundary at $`r=1`$ Mpc.

Table 2 lists the strongest emission lines of the Cyg A cluster, as implied by our model. The Chandra and RXTE data do reveal two strong lines, one near 6.7 keV (Fe K$`\alpha `$) and another near 7.9 keV (Fe K$`\beta `$ plus possibly Ni K$`\alpha `$). It appears (see Fig. 7 in Smith et al. smietal02 (2002)) that the measured (with moderate energy resolution) spectra also do not contradict the presence of a strong line at the position of Fe Ly$`\alpha `$ (6.97 keV).

We can estimate from equation (22) the stationary contribution of scattered AGN radiation to the surface brightness of the Cyg A cluster in the X-ray continuum:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}^{\mathrm{scat}}}{B_{E,\mathrm{cont}}}}`$ $`=`$ $`2\times 10^3{\displaystyle \frac{L_X}{5\times 10^{44}\mathrm{ergs}^1}}E^{0.1}\mathrm{exp}(E/7.5\mathrm{keV})`$ (34)
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{30\mathrm{kpc}}}\right)^{0.5},`$
where we have normalized the X-ray luminosity of the Cyg A nucleus to its present-day value and used $`\gamma =1.5`$.

Fig. 10 shows a computed Cyg A radial profile of the scattered/thermal surface brightness ratio for the iron 6.7 keV line, assuming that the AGN X-ray luminosity has remained for a few million years the same as it is now (the stationary scenario). We see that scattered AGN emission contributes of the order of 1% at $`\rho 200`$ kpc. It then follows that the Cyg A luminosity should have been an order of magnitude higher in the past (i.e. $`L_X5\times 10^{45}`$ erg s-1) for scattered AGN radiation to contribute $`10`$% to the strong X-ray lines observed from the intracluster gas (see Fig. 11).

We can also use the available Chandra data on the X-ray continuum emission from the Cyg A cluster to find upper limits on the past X-ray luminosity of its central source. We adopt the following parameters for this analysis: $`E=8`$ keV – the maximum photon energy at which thermal bremsstrahlung emission is still detected, and $`\rho _{\mathrm{min}}=10^2`$ kpc and $`\rho _{\mathrm{max}}=6\times 10^2`$ kpc – the boundaries of the region that is well explored with Chandra. We plot the resulting upper limits in Fig. 11b. We see that the current constraints are very weak because of the high temperature ($`7`$ keV) of the intracluster gas. For comparison (see Fig. 11b), arcminute-resolution observations of the Cyg A cluster at $`E40`$ keV could provide limits on its past luminosity similar to those obtainable by mapping the cluster in resonance lines (see Fig. 11a).

## 5 Discussion and conclusions

The main results of this paper are as follows.

* We have demonstrated that there are two viable observational strategies for constraining the past X-ray luminosity of galactic nuclei with the next generation of X-ray telescopes. One is to search for scattered AGN radiation in the spectral continuum at high energies $`EkT(1+z)`$, and the other is to perform imaging in bright resonance X-ray lines. The first approach appears to be particularly promising for studying distant (at $`z0.5`$) powerful quasars and their environments (§3.2).
* We have shown that the relative contribution of scattered radiation is typically larger by a significant factor of 3–10 in a resonance line than in the neighboring continuum (§2).
* We have estimated the level of constraints that could be derived from future observations on the past X-ray luminosity of the nearby M87 and Cyg A active galaxies (§4). The upper limits imposed by the available XMM-Newton and Chandra X-ray continuum data are typically 1–2 orders of magnitude weaker.

Although we have been mostly discussing clusters of galaxies and their central dominant galaxies, the same method can also be applied to groups of galaxies and isolated giant elliptical galaxies, which also are large reservoirs of hot ionized gas capable of scattering AGN radiation. The main advantage of clusters is the larger extent of intracluster gas, which enables studying previous galactic activity on longer timescales (up to a few times $`10^6`$ years for the richest clusters) than in the case of groups of galaxies and early-type galaxies (up to a few times $`10^5`$ years). On the other hand, the latter two classes of object have their own advantage that typical gas temperatures for them are $`kT1`$ keV and the factor $`\mathrm{exp}(E/kT)`$ becomes significant already in the standard X-ray band ($`<10`$ keV). In particular, one can use the K$`\alpha `$ line of He-like iron at 6.7 keV. Indeed, the corresponding ions (Fe XXV) are still abundant at such low temperatures, but collisional excitation of the ions leading to emission in the line is already inefficient.

Although we have only considered the case where the AGN is an isotropic source, in reality angular anisotropy at some level is expected. Therefore, the contribution of scattered emission from the AGN to the surface brightness may be larger or smaller in some regions than predicted assuming source isotropy. We refer the reader to the papers by Gilfanov et al. (1987a ) and Wise & Sarazin (wissar92 (1992)) for a detailed discussion of scattered surface brightness profiles that may arise in the case of beamed source emission.

In the discussion of our simulations for the M87 and Cyg A galaxies and their associated clusters of galaxies we used a fiducial value of 10% as the minimum detectable contribution of scattered AGN emission to a resonance line. We realize that significant efforts will be required to achieve this or better detection level experimentally. One difficulty is that the measured surface brightness is the integral of emission (thermal plus scattered) along a given line of sight, and there may be present gas with different temperatures and element abundances along this line of sight. Both types of variations will have an effect on the equivalent line width. In principle it should be possible to determine and subtract the underlying temperature and abundance radial trends from a careful analysis of the spectral-imaging data. The remaining uncertainties are expected to be largest for cluster central regions, where both the gas temperature and element abundances vary significantly, for example in the M87 case. On the other hand, this problem is not expected to be severe outside cluster cores. For example, in the Cyg A cluster the gas appears to be nearly isotropic outside the central $`200`$ kpc (see Smith et al. smietal02 (2002)), whereas the equivalent width of the 6.7 keV iron emission line changes by only $`10`$% when the gas temperature varies by $`0.5`$ keV around $`kT7.5`$ keV. Therefore, achieving the 10% detection level appears realistic.

It is clear that the potential of the method can be fully realized only when it is possible to resolve the interesting resonance lines from neighbouring lines. Indeed, lines other than resonance lines can contribute significantly to the intrinsic emission of the gas, but little to the scattered AGN emission. Moreover, it is desirable that all important lines in blends be resolved, such as the permitted, intercombination and forbidden lines in the complex around the 6.7 keV (Fe XXV K$`\alpha `$) line. Even a small contribution of scattered emission from the AGN could then be made manifest by comparing the surface brightness profiles measured in these lines. We are therefore looking forward to future high-energy astrophysics missions such as Astro-E2, Constellation-X and XEUS that will provide the required energy resolution ($``$ a few eV).

Finally, we would like to note that the constraints on the past AGN X-ray luminosity could be further improved by means of X-ray polarimetry, especially if it became possible to measure polarization in X-ray resonance lines. The radiation of a central source gets strongly polarized upon scattering in a beta-cluster (with a typical resulting degree of polarization $`P60`$%, Sunyaev 1982), whereas the intrinsic emission of the intracluster gas in X-ray resonance lines is also polarized but to a much lesser degree ($`P10`$%, Sazonov et al. 2002). Thus, even a few per cent contribution of scattered AGN radiation to the surface brightness in a resonance line would be manifest in polarimetric observations.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the referee, Luca Ciotti, for comments that helped to improve the presentation of the paper. SS acknowledges support from a Peter Gruber Foundation Fellowship. RS as a Gordon Moore Scholar thanks Caltech for hospitality during the completion of this paper. This research was partially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (projects 00-02-16681 and 00-15-96649) and by the program of the Russian Academy of Sciences ”Astronomy (Nonstationary astronomical objects)”.


text:
# Light bottom squark and gluino confront electroweak precision measurements

## Abstract

We address the compatibility of a light sbottom (mass $`25.5\mathrm{GeV}`$) and a light gluino (mass $`1216\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$) with electroweak precision measurements. Such light particles have been suggested to explain the observed excess in the $`b`$ quark production cross section at the Tevatron. The electroweak observables may be affected by the sbottom and gluino through the SUSY-QCD corrections to the $`Zbb`$ vertex. We examine, in addition to the SUSY-QCD corrections, the electroweak corrections to the gauge boson propagators from the stop which are allowed to be light from the SU(2)L symmetry. We find that this scenario is strongly disfavored from electroweak precision measurements unless the heavier sbottom mass eigenstate is lighter than $`180\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ and the left-right mixing in the stop sector is sufficiently large. This implies that one of the stops should be lighter than about $`98\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$.

preprint: OCHA-PP-190

Looking for signatures of supersymmetry (SUSY) at collider experiments is one of the most important tasks of high energy physics. However, $`e^+e^{}`$ collider experiments at the energy frontier have not found any evidence of physics beyond the standard model (SM). The LEP1 and SLC experiments at the $`Z`$ pole tested and validated the SM at the quantum level, and the LEP2 experiments showed us that electroweak processes beyond the $`Z`$ pole are also consistent with the SM predictions lepton-photon . These experiments increased the lower mass bound of the superparticles lep2susy . On the other hand, it has been reported that the production cross section for bottom quarks measured at the Tevatron exceeds the prediction of perturbative QCD by about a factor of two tevatron excess . Although it is conceivable that the next-to-leading order correction in QCD could resolve the discrepancy, it is also possible to interpret the measured excess as a signal of low energy supersymmetry. Berger et al. Berger:2000mp  proposed that this excess may be explained if the lighter mass eigenstate of the bottom squarks is very light ($`25.5\mathrm{GeV}`$) and the gluino mass is also small ($`1216\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$). Possible signals of this scenario at the Tevatron run-II experiments were examined in Refs. Berger:2000mp ; Leibovich:2002qp . It was shown that the co-existence of a light sbottom and gluino satisfies the constraints from color and charge breaking Dedes:2000nv . In the context of $`R`$-parity conserving SUSY, this scenario would require another neutral SUSY particle to be even lighter than the sbottom, to which the sbottom subsequently decays. Assuming that the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) is the lightest neutralino, this R parity conserving interpretation is severely disfavoured by the Tevatron run-I measurement of the cross-section for bottom quark pair production plus missing energy Berger:2000mp . Therefore the scenario of a very light sbottom implicitly demands $`R`$-parity violating interactions in its decay.

In this letter, we study constraints on the above scenario from electroweak precision measurements, i.e., $`Z`$-pole observables from LEP1 and SLC, and the $`W`$-boson mass from LEP2 and Tevatron. The SUSY-QCD contributions to some electroweak observables due to the co-existence of a light sbottom and gluino have been studied by Cao et al.  Cao:2001rz . They showed that the SUSY-QCD corrections to the $`Zbb`$ vertex from these light particles could be cancelled by the heavier sbottom contributions. In order to be compatible with the $`R_b`$ data, they found that the heavier sbottom mass should be smaller than 125GeV at the 2$`\sigma `$ level (195GeV at the 3$`\sigma `$ level). However, since the left-handed stop $`\stackrel{~}{t}_L`$ forms a SU(2)L doublet with the left-handed sbottom $`\stackrel{~}{b}_L`$, one of the stop mass eigenstates can be relatively light when the heavy sbottom is lighter than about $`200\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$, so that the radiative corrections to the gauge boson propagators might be sizable Carena:2000ka . Therefore we examine the supersymmetric contributions to the electroweak observables taking into account both the SUSY-QCD and the electroweak corrections based on the formalism in Ref. Cho:1999km .

The sfermion mass matrix is given by

$`M_{\stackrel{~}{f}}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}m_{\stackrel{~}{f}_L}^2& m_f(A_{\mathrm{eff}}^f)^{}\\ m_fA_{\mathrm{eff}}^f& m_{\stackrel{~}{f}_R}^2\end{array}\right),`$ (1c)
$`m_{\stackrel{~}{f}_L}^2`$ $`=`$ $`m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}}^2+m_Z^2\mathrm{cos}2\beta (I_{3f}Q_fs_W^2)+m_f^2,`$ (1d)
$`m_{\stackrel{~}{f}_R}^2`$ $`=`$ $`m_{\stackrel{~}{U}}^2+m_Z^2\mathrm{cos}2\beta Q_fs_W^2+m_f^2,`$ (1e)
where $`s_W\mathrm{sin}\theta _W`$ is the weak mixing angle. The suffix $`f`$ represents the sfermion species and the indices $`\alpha =L,R`$ stand for their chirality. The soft SUSY breaking masses for SU(2)L doublet and singlet are given by $`m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}}`$ and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{U}}`$, respectively. The symbols $`I_{3f}`$ and $`Q_f`$ denote the third component of the weak-isospin and the electric charge of a sfermion $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$, respectively. The angle $`\beta `$ is defined as $`\mathrm{tan}\beta H_u/H_d`$, where $`H_u(H_d)`$ is the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field with hypercharge $`Y=1/2(1/2)`$. The parameter $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^f`$ in (1c) is defined as follows:

$`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^f`$ $``$ $`A_t\mu \mathrm{cot}\beta (\text{for }f=t),`$ (2a)
$``$ $`A_b\mu \mathrm{tan}\beta (\text{for }f=b),`$ (2b)
where $`\mu `$ represents the higgsino mass parameter, and $`A_f`$ is a scalar trilinear coupling. In what follows $`\mu `$ and $`A_f`$ always appear in unison, and so we adopt $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^f`$ as an input parameter. The mass eigenstates and mixing angle are then given as

$`U_{\stackrel{~}{f}}^{}M_{\stackrel{~}{f}}^2U_{\stackrel{~}{f}}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{diag}(m_{\stackrel{~}{f}_1}^2,m_{\stackrel{~}{f}_2}^2),(m_{\stackrel{~}{f}_1}<m_{\stackrel{~}{f}_2}),`$ (3a)
$`U_{\stackrel{~}{f}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{cos}\theta _{\stackrel{~}{f}}& \hfill \mathrm{sin}\theta _{\stackrel{~}{f}}\\ \hfill \mathrm{sin}\theta _{\stackrel{~}{f}}& \hfill \mathrm{cos}\theta _{\stackrel{~}{f}}\end{array}\right).`$ (3d)
If a light sfermion mass $`m_{\stackrel{~}{f}_1}`$ is less than half the $`Z`$-boson mass, then the decay $`Z\stackrel{~}{f}_1\stackrel{~}{f}_1`$ is possible at the LEP experiments. The interaction Lagrangian for $`Z\stackrel{~}{f}_i\stackrel{~}{f}_j`$ is given by

$``$ $`=`$ $`ig_Z\{(I_{3f}Q_fs_W^2)(U_f)_{1i}^{}(U_f)_{1j}`$ (4)
$`Q_fs_W^2(U_f)_{2i}^{}(U_f)_{2j}\}\stackrel{~}{f}^{}_i\stackrel{}{}_\mu \stackrel{~}{f}_jZ^\mu ,`$
where $`A\stackrel{}{}_\mu BA(_\mu B)(_\mu A)B`$. It can be seen from Eq.(4) that a light sfermion with $`m_{\stackrel{~}{f}_1}m_Z/2`$ can be consistent with the LEP experiments if $`I_{3f}\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _fQ_fs_W^20`$.

The supersymmetric particles affect the electroweak observables radiatively through the oblique corrections which are parametrized by $`S_Z,T_Z,m_W`$, and the $`Zff`$ vertex corrections $`g_\lambda ^f`$ Cho:1999km , where $`f`$ stands for the quark/lepton species and $`\lambda =L`$ or $`R`$ stands for their chirality. The parameters $`S_Z`$ and $`T_Z`$ Cho:1999km  are related to the $`S`$\- and $`T`$-parameters stu90 ; hhkm94  as follows:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }S_Z`$ $`=`$ $`S_Z0.972=\mathrm{\Delta }S+\mathrm{\Delta }R0.064x_\alpha +0.67{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{\delta }_G}{\alpha }},`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }T_Z`$ $`=`$ $`T_Z2.62=\mathrm{\Delta }T+1.49\mathrm{\Delta }R{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{\delta }_G}{\alpha }},`$ (5b)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_Z`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_Z`$ measure the shifts from the reference SM prediction point, $`(S_Z,T_Z)=(0.972,2.62)`$ at $`m_t=175\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V},m_{H_{\mathrm{SM}}}=100\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V},\alpha _s(m_Z)=0.118`$ and $`1/\alpha (m_Z^2)=128.90`$. The $`R`$-parameter, which accounts for the difference between $`T`$ and $`T_Z`$, represents the running effect of the $`Z`$-boson propagator corrections between $`q^2=m_Z^2`$ and $`q^2=0`$ Cho:1999km . The parameter $`x_\alpha \left(1/\alpha (m_Z^2)128.90\right)/0.09`$ allows us to take into account improvements in the hadronic uncertainty of the QED coupling $`\alpha (m_Z^2)`$. $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{\delta }_G`$ denotes any new physics contribution to the muon lifetime which has to be included in the oblique parameters because the Fermi coupling $`G_F`$ is used as an input in our formalism Cho:1999km ; hhkm94 . The third oblique parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_W=m_W80.402(\mathrm{GeV})`$ is given as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S,\mathrm{\Delta }T,\mathrm{\Delta }U,x_\alpha `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{\delta }_G`$ Cho:1999km . The explicit formulae of the oblique parameters and the vertex corrections $`\mathrm{\Delta }g_\lambda ^f`$ in the minimal SUSY-SM (MSSM) can be found in Ref. Cho:1999km .

The electroweak data which we use in our study consists of 17 $`Z`$-pole observables and the $`W`$-boson mass lepton-photon . The $`Z`$-pole observables include 8 line-shape parameters $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_Z,\sigma _h^0,R_{\mathrm{}},A_{\mathrm{FB}}^{0,\mathrm{}}(\mathrm{}=e,\mu ,\tau )`$, two asymmetries from the $`\tau `$-polarization data ($`A_\tau `$, $`A_e`$), the decay rates and the asymmetries of $`b`$\- and $`c`$-quarks ($`R_b,R_c,A_{\mathrm{FB}}^{0,b},A_{\mathrm{FB}}^{0,c}`$) and the asymmetries measured at SLC $`(A_{\mathrm{LR}}^0,A_b,A_c)`$. Taking into account the $`m_t`$ data from the Tevatronmtop , $`\alpha _s(m_Z)`$Groom:in  and $`\alpha (m_Z^2)`$BP01 111 Although there are many estimates of $`\alpha (m_Z^2)`$ in various methods, we adopt Ref. BP01  because it is used as a default value of $`\alpha (m_Z^2)`$ by the LEP electroweak working group. , we find that the best fit of the SM parameters $`(m_t(\mathrm{GeV}),m_{H_{\mathrm{SM}}}(\mathrm{GeV}),\alpha (m_Z^2),\alpha _s(m_Z))=(176.4,93,128.92,0.118)`$ gives $`\chi ^2=25.3`$ with $`17(=214)`$ degrees of freedom.

Let us examine the supersymmetric contributions to the electroweak observables in the scenario of a light sbottom and gluino, which provides a SUSY explanation of the observed excess in the measured $`b`$-quark cross section at the Tevatron. As mentioned earlier, our analysis includes the stops in addition to the sbottoms and gluino because of the SU(2)L symmetry. The other superparticles, such as the squarks of the first two generations and the uncolored particles, are assumed to decouple from the electroweak processes because they are irrelevant to the excess. The impact of their contribution on the electroweak measurements will be discussed later.

As a typical example, we set the mass of the light sbottom and gluino at $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_1}=5\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}=16\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$, respectively. The left-right mixing angle of sbottoms $`\theta _{\stackrel{~}{b}}`$ is fixed at $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\stackrel{~}{b}}=0.38`$ so that the pair production of a light sbottom from $`Z`$-boson decay is suppressed. We use $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =3`$ throughout our study since our results are not altered significantly for $`\mathrm{tan}\beta >3`$. This is explained by the fact that $`\beta `$ only appears in the sfermion mass matrix as $`\mathrm{cos}2\beta `$ (see (1d), (1e)), and so the $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$-dependence is not important numerically. The free parameters in our study are the heavier sbottom mass $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}`$, the SUSY breaking mass for the right-handed stop $`m_{\stackrel{~}{U}}`$, and the parameter $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t`$ in the stop mass matrix. In the following analysis, the SM parameters $`(m_t,m_{H_{\mathrm{SM}}},\alpha (m_Z^2),\alpha _s(m_Z))`$ are fixed at their best fit points in order to show explicitly the decoupling limit of the supersymmetric corrections at large SUSY mass.

In Fig. 1 we show total $`\chi ^2`$ as a function of $`\stackrel{~}{b}_2`$ due to the supersymmetric contributions to the oblique parameters. The SUSY-QCD corrections to the $`Zbb`$ vertex will be included later. The four curves correspond to $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t=0`$GeV (solid), 100GeV (dotted), 200GeV (dashed) and 300GeV (long-dashed). The SUSY breaking mass $`m_{\stackrel{~}{U}}`$ is chosen in the range $`50\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}<m_{\stackrel{~}{U}}<500\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ in order to minimize $`\chi _{\mathrm{tot}}^2`$ at each point of $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}`$. The horizontal line denotes the total $`\chi ^2`$ at the SM best fit point ($`\chi ^2`$=25.3). For convenience, let us introduce $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$ as the difference between $`\chi _{\mathrm{tot}}^2`$ of the MSSM and the SM,

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2\chi _{\mathrm{tot}}^2(\mathrm{MSSM})\chi _{\mathrm{tot}}^2(\mathrm{SM}).`$ (6)
We can see that the MSSM fit to the electroweak data strongly depends on the left-right mixing of stops which is parametrized by $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t`$. We find that $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t=0\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ gives $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^230`$ for $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}200\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^210`$ for $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}400\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$. On the other hand, when $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t=300\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$, we find $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^20`$ for $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}200\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$. There are three oblique parameters $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_Z,\mathrm{\Delta }T_Z`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_W`$ in our formalism. A model independent analysis ch:02  shows that $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_Z`$ is most severely constrained from the electroweak data. It has been shown that $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_Z`$ is very sensitive to squark contributions while $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_Z`$ is not Cho:1999km . Furthermore, since the squark contributions to $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$ are generally small Cho:1999km , the results shown in the figure approximately reflect the contributions to $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$. It should be noticed that the left-handed squarks contribute to $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ while the right-handed squarks do not, since $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ is defined in terms of vacuum polarization amplitudes of the SU(2)L gauge bosons stu90 ; hhkm94 . Therefore, when the left-right mixing of stops vanishes ($`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t=0\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$), the stop contributions to the oblique parameters are maximized. When $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t`$ increases, the left-handed component of the stop in the lighter mass eigenstate decreases, so that the net contributions to $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ are reduced. This explains the $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t`$ dependence in Fig. 1 qualitatively.

We note that, in our analysis, we increase $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}`$ by keeping $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_1}`$ at $`5\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$. The contributions from the heavy sbottom and the stops diminish with the increase of $`\stackrel{~}{b}_2`$ mass while those from the light sbottom are maintained. This is the origin of the deviation of the total $`\chi ^2`$ from the SM $`\chi ^2`$ at large $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}`$ in Fig. 1.

Next, we examine the SUSY-QCD corrections to the $`Zbb`$ vertex in addition to the oblique corrections for completeness. In Fig. 2 we show total $`\chi ^2`$ as a function of the heavier sbottom mass $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}`$ taking into account both corrections. The curve indicated as “SUSY-QCD” is obtained by dropping the oblique corrections. The total $`\chi ^2`$ from the SUSY-QCD correction increases when the mass of $`\stackrel{~}{b}_2`$ is heavier. For example, $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}=100\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ leads to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^27`$ while $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}=400\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ leads to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^270`$. The SUSY-QCD corrections to the $`Zbb`$ vertex are given by the 1-loop diagrams mediated by $`\stackrel{~}{b}_1`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$, and those by $`\stackrel{~}{b}_2`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$. The contributions from $`(\stackrel{~}{b}_1,\stackrel{~}{g})`$ and $`(\stackrel{~}{b}_2,\stackrel{~}{g})`$ interfere destructively Cao:2001rz . Therefore the SUSY-QCD corrections partially cancel when $`\stackrel{~}{b}_2`$ is relatively light. However this cancellation tends to weaken with increasing $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}`$, because $`\stackrel{~}{b}_2`$ decouples from the $`Zbb`$ diagrams.

The other curves in Fig. 2 are now easily understood as the superposition of curves obtained from the oblique corrections onto the curve from the SUSY-QCD corrections. Let us recall that the oblique corrections make the fit worse for small $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}`$ unless $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t`$ is sufficiently large (see Fig. 1), while the SUSY-QCD corrections lead to large $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$ when $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}`$ is large. From Fig. 2 we find $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^225`$ for any value of $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}`$ when $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t200\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$. Therefore, the light sbottom scenario is disfavored at $`5\sigma `$ level unless $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}180\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t300\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$. This implies that the lighter stop mass eigenstate is $`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}98\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$. The LEP2 experiments give a lower mass bound on the stop of $`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}96\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ at 95% CL lep2susy . The allowed parameter region is quite narrow and should be covered at the Tevatron run-II experiments. Throughout our study, the SM parameters $`(m_t,\alpha (m_Z^2),\alpha _s(m_Z))`$ are fixed at their best fit points within the SM. We note that our result does not change significantly even if they are taken to be free parameters, because of external constraints on them mtop ; Groom:in ; BP01 .

To summarize, we have examined constraints on the scenario of a light sbottom and gluino with $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}=25.5\mathrm{GeV}`$ and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}=1216\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ from electroweak precision measurements. This scenario has been proposed as a SUSY interpretation of the observed excess in the bottom quark production cross section at the Tevatron. These particles affect the electroweak observables through the SUSY-QCD corrections to the $`Zbb`$ vertex. In addition to the SUSY-QCD corrections, we also take into account the electroweak corrections to the gauge boson propagators from the stops and sbottoms because of the SU(2)L symmetry. The electroweak corrections to the oblique parameters make the fit to the data significantly worse when the left-right mixing of the stops is weak ($`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t200\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$). The SUSY-QCD corrections are rather suppressed when the mass of $`\stackrel{~}{b}_2`$ is relatively light owing to the cancellation between the contributions from $`\stackrel{~}{b}_1`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{b}_2`$. From both corrections, we find that the parameter space of the light sbottom scenario is strongly constrained from the electroweak data. The scenario is disfavored at the $`5\sigma `$ level unless $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}180\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t300\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ are satisfied. The constraints on $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_2}`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^t`$ implies $`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}98\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$, which should be covered by the Tevatron run-II experiments.

It is worth commenting on contributions to the electroweak observables from the other superparticles which are disregarded in our analysis. It is known that contributions to the electroweak observables from the squarks (except for stops and sbottoms), sleptons and the MSSM Higgs bosons are generally small when their masses are above the direct search limits Cho:1999km . It is also known that their contributions do not improve the fit to the data and increase the total $`\chi ^2`$. Thus the constraints on the light sbottom scenario will be stronger if they are included in our study. An exception is the oblique corrections from charginos. It has been shown that the fit may be improved slightly through the oblique corrections if the chargino mass is as light as its lower mass bound from the direct search Cho:1999km . However, since the expected improvement is at most about one unit of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$, our conclusion does not change even if it is taken into account.

The light sbottom scenario implicitly demands $`R`$-parity violation in order to prevent the sbottom being the LSP. The electroweak precision measurements may be affected by the $`R`$-parity violating interactions in the decay $`Zf\overline{f}`$, which we did not include in our study. Constraints on the $`R`$-parity violating couplings from electroweak measurements have been examined in Ref. Lebedev:1999vc , and were found to be less significant numerically. Therefore our results are largely unaffected by the presence of such couplings.

###### Acknowledgements.

The author would like to thank N. Oshimo for discussions and comments. He is also grateful to A. Akeroyd for his careful reading of the manuscript. This work is supported in part by the Grant-in-Aid for Science Research, Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Japan (No.13740149).