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# Flow to strong coupling in the two-dimensional Hubbard model

## 1 Introduction

The two-dimensional (2D) Hubbard model is a focus of electron correlation theory because of its relevance to high-temperature superconductivity pwa  and other correlation phenomena such as metal-insulator transitions gebhard  and itinerant ferromagnetism vollhardt . Apart from proposed exotic spin-liquid or non-Fermi liquid states pwa ; pwacondmat ; varma  a widely adopted approach is to classify possible ground states of the model in terms of broken symmetries. This can be done for the strong-coupling versions of the Hubbard model by invoking spin-charge separation u1  or large-spin approaches sachdev . But for moderate interaction strengths it is more common to invoke a mean field description of long-range ordered ground states with anomalous expectation values which are bilinear in electron creation and annihilation operators. These theories are either constructed with the bare Hubbard interaction linhirsch ; hofstetter  or with an effective interaction which is postulated or calculated perturbatively, e.g. by one-loop renormalization group (RG) treatments or parquet summations. Typically these treatments are restricted to the weakly correlated case, but often they can give qualitatively satisfactory results such as the antiferromagnetic state at half-filling or a $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-superconducting ground state at a reduced band filling in the 2D Hubbard model zanchi ; halboth ; honerkamp ; honerkamped ; irkhin .

Recently two independent proposals enlarging the variety of potential symmetry-broken states have been made. One possibility was raised by Halboth and Metzner halboth , based on an analysis of the Landau function extracted from a RG flow. They pointed out that the system might become unstable against a Pomeranchuk instability, i.e. a spontaneous deformation of the Fermi Surface (FS) reducing its symmetry from square to orthorhombic. Qualitatively similar results were obtained by Valenzuela and Vozmedianovalenzuela  in a mean-field study of an extended Hubbard model. However with this technique and also with the Wilsonian RG formalism based on an infrared (IR) cutoff used in Ref. halboth  it is difficult to compare the strength of the FS deformation tendencies with other potential singularities, e.g. in the AF or $`d`$-wave superconducting channel. Here we use the recently developed temperature-flow formalism honerkampfm , to analyze these FS deformation tendencies together with other channels in an unbiased way.

A different type of symmetry breaking was considered by Nayak nayak  and Chakravarty et al. chakravarty . They proposed that a $`d`$-density-wave state (closely related to flux phases marston  or orbital antiferromagnets schulz ) forms at a high temperature in the underdoped high-$`T_c`$ cuprates and is responsible for the many anomalous properties like the notorious pseudogap. This proposal has been controversial for a number of reasonsdhlee ; palee , not least because of the absence of experimental evidence that the onset of the pseudogap is accompanied by an actual phase transition rather than a continuous crossover. The onset of a phase with broken translational and time reversal symmetries should cause anomalies in thermodynamic and other properties which have not been observed. Nonetheless it is interesting to investigate whether $`d`$-density-wave tendencies play a significant role in the RG flow to strong coupling.

In this paper we show that in the one-loop RG temperature-flow to strong coupling in the $`t`$-$`t^{}`$ Hubbard model at $`U3t`$ both the FS deformation and $`d`$-density wave tendencies grow. However their growth is weaker than that of $`d`$-wave pairing and AF fluctuations, so that they do not appear as the dominant instabilities of the model. Nonetheless, similar to our findings with a RG IR-flow in Ref. honerkamp , we find a particular density region - the so-called saddle-point regime which occurs when the FS is close to the saddle points of the band dispersion at $`(\pi ,0)`$ and $`(0,\pi )`$ \- where $`d`$-wave pairing, AF, $`d`$-density wave and $`d`$-wave Pomeranchuk fluctuations are intimately related and grow together in the range where the one-loop flow is credible. This contrasts with the behavior for fillings smaller than the van Hove filling where only the $`d`$-wave pairing correlations continue to grow towards lower temperatures, while the others are cut off below some temperature.

The qualitative picture obtained here is a confirmation and extension of the results described in Ref. honerkamp . The main motivation for the present paper is twofold: a) we show that the new temperature-flow RG scheme reproduces the results of the IR-flow RG honerkamp  and yields an even clearer picture; b) we now also include $`d`$-wave FS deformations and $`d`$-density wave tendencies which were not considered in the previous analysis.

In the following we first the describe the calculational scheme and the symmetry-breaking tendencies which are investigated. Then we discuss our numerical results for the case of zero and non-zero values of the next-nearest hopping $`t^{}`$ and conclude with a comparison of our observations to ladder systems, which we argue give some insights into the nature of the strongly coupled state.

## 2 The calculational scheme

The Hamiltonian for the 2D $`t`$-$`t^{}`$ Hubbard model is

$$H=t\underset{\mathrm{n}.\mathrm{n}.,s}{}c_{i,s}^{}c_{j,s}t^{}\underset{\mathrm{n}.\mathrm{n}.\mathrm{n}.,s}{}c_{i,s}^{}c_{j,s}+U\underset{i}{}n_in_i$$

with onsite repulsion $`U`$ and hopping amplitudes $`t`$ and $`t^{}`$ between nearest neighbors (n.n.) and next-nearest neighbors (n.n.n.) on the 2D square lattice. We apply the so-called temperature-flow RG scheme introduced recently honerkampfm  in a $`N`$-patch implementation that covers the full Fermi surface . Similar to the approaches in Refs. zanchi ; halboth ; honerkamp ; salmhofer  the $`T`$-flow scheme is derived from an exact RG equation. However, a low energy IR cutoff is not used, and instead the temperature $`T`$ itself is used as the flow parameter. This new formulation allows an unbiased comparison between AF and FM tendencies, whereas RG schemes with a flowing IR cutoff artificially suppress particle-hole excitations with small wave vectors, e.g. long wavelength density fluctuations. For a detailed discussion of this matter and a derivation of the $`T`$-flow RG equations the reader is referred to Ref. honerkampfm .

The RG formalism yields a hierarchy of differential equations for the one-particle irreducible $`n`$-point vertex functions, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_T^{(n)}`$, as functions of the temperature. Integration of this system of equations gives the temperature-flow. As initial condition we assume that at a high temperature $`T_0`$, the single-particle Green’s function of the system is simply $`G_0(i\omega ,\stackrel{}{k})=[i\omega ϵ(\stackrel{}{k})]^1`$ and the interaction vertex is given by a local repulsion, $`U`$. This is justified if $`T_0`$ is sufficiently large, as wavevector-dependent perturbative corrections to selfenergy and four-point vertex decay at least $`1/T_0`$111A wavevector-independent contribution can be absorbed into the chemical potential $`\mu `$. Flows with fixed particle number instead of fixed $`\mu `$ give qualitatively similar results.. We truncate the infinite system of equations by dropping all vertex functions $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_T^{(n)}`$ with $`n>4`$. In the present treatment we also neglect selfenergy corrections and the frequency dependence of the vertex functions. This restricts the scheme to one–loop equations for the spin-rotation invariant four-point vertex $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_T^{(4)}`$. Starting with weak to moderate interactions, we follow the $`T`$-flow of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_T^{(4)}`$ as $`T`$ decreases.

The four-point vertex $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_T^{(4)}`$ is determined by a coupling function $`V_T(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2,`$ $`\stackrel{}{k}_3)`$ (see Refs. honerkamp ; honerkampfm ; salmhofer ). The numerical implementation follows the work of Zanchi and Schulz zanchi  and was already explained in Refs. honerkamp  and honerkampfm . We define elongated phase space patches around lines leading from the origin of the BZ to the $`(\pm \pi ,\pm \pi )`$-points, and approximate $`V_T(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2,\stackrel{}{k}_3)`$ by a constant for all wave vectors in the same patch. We calculate the RG flow for the discrete subset of interaction vertices with each FS patch represented by a single wave vector and with the initial condition $`V_{T_0}(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2,\stackrel{}{k}_3)U`$. Most calculations were performed using 48 patches. Furthermore we calculate the flow of several static susceptibilities, as described below. In addition we consider the flow of the couplings $`h_c(\stackrel{}{k})`$ of quasiparticles at different positions on the Fermi surface to uniform static charge fields. This allows us to analyze which classes of coupling functions and which susceptibilities become important at low $`T`$. For a large parameter range, we observe a flow to strong coupling, i.e. at sufficiently low temperature some components of the coupling function $`V_T(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2,\stackrel{}{k}_3)`$ become larger than the bandwidth. The approximations mentioned above fail when the couplings are too large. Therefore we stop the flow when the largest coupling exceeds a high value larger than the bandwidth, e.g. $`V_{T,\mathrm{max}}=18t`$. This defines a characteristic temperature $`T^{}`$ of the flow to strong coupling.

## 3 Antiferromagnetic, $`d`$-wave pairing, $`d`$-density waves and $`d`$-wave Pomeranchuk fluctuations

In this section we introduce fermionic coupling terms to order parameters or static external fields corresponding to different symmetry breaking channels. Within the RG treatment described in the previous section, we then calculate the one-loop renormalizations of these coupling terms and thus obtain information on the growth of the corresponding fluctuations in the low-temperature state. A divergence of one of these external couplings signals a crossover to a region with a strong tendency to ordering which could become an actual finite temperature phase transition when coupling in a third spatial direction is added.

First we introduce the $`d`$-wave pairing field $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{s,d\mathrm{sc}}=\mathrm{\Phi }_{s,d\mathrm{sc}}`$, which couples to the electrons via

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{s,d\mathrm{sc}}\underset{\stackrel{}{k}}{}h_{d\mathrm{sc}}(\stackrel{}{k})c_{\stackrel{}{k},s}^{}c_{\stackrel{}{k},s}^{}.$$
(1)
with a coupling constant $`h_{d\mathrm{sc}}(\stackrel{}{k})`$. As initial condition at $`T=T_0`$ we assume a $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ form factor $`h_{d\mathrm{sc}}(\stackrel{}{k})=\left(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y\right)/\sqrt{2}`$. Like the other coupling constants defined below, $`h_{d\mathrm{sc}}`$ will develop a $`\stackrel{}{k}`$-dependence through the perturbative corrections in the course of the temperature flow towards lower $`T`$ and higher harmonics of the same representation of the point group will be admixed. Next we also define a ($`s`$-wave) spin-density wave field $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_{\mathrm{AF}}`$. Due to spin-rotational invariance it is sufficient to consider staggered fields in the spin quantization direction,

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{z,\mathrm{AF}}\underset{\stackrel{}{k}}{}h_{\mathrm{AF}}(\stackrel{}{k})\left(c_{\stackrel{}{k}+\stackrel{}{Q},s}^{}c_{\stackrel{}{k},s}c_{\stackrel{}{k}+\stackrel{}{Q},s}^{}c_{\stackrel{}{k},s}\right).$$
(2)
Here the momentum transfer $`\stackrel{}{Q}=(\pi ,\pi )`$ between created and annihilated particles corresponds to an alternating field acting on the electron spins on n.n. sites. The initial condition at high temperatures is $`h_{\mathrm{AF}}(\stackrel{}{k})=1`$. The proposed Pomeranchuk deformations also have $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ symmetry, the coupling term is given by

$$\underset{\stackrel{}{q}0}{lim}\mathrm{\Phi }_{d\mathrm{P}}\underset{\stackrel{}{k},s}{}h_{d\mathrm{P}}(\stackrel{}{k})c_{\stackrel{}{k}+\stackrel{}{q},s}^{}c_{\stackrel{}{k},s}^{},$$
(3)
with initial condition $`h_{d\mathrm{P}}(\stackrel{}{k})=\left(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y\right)/\sqrt{2}`$ at $`T_0`$. A non-zero $`d`$-wave Pomeranchuk field $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{P}}`$ lifts the degeneracy of the saddle points at $`(\pi ,0)`$ and $`(0,\pi )`$ and breaks the fourfold symmetry of the kinetic energy. The $`d`$-density wave fluctuations couple to particle-hole pairs with momentum transfer $`\stackrel{}{Q}`$,

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{d\mathrm{DW}}\underset{\stackrel{}{k},s}{}h_{d\mathrm{dw}}(\stackrel{}{k})c_{\stackrel{}{k}+\stackrel{}{Q},s}^{}c_{\stackrel{}{k},s}$$
(4)
with initial conditions chosen as

$$h_{d\mathrm{DW}}(\stackrel{}{k})=\left(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y\right)/\sqrt{2}$$

at the initial temperature $`T_0`$. In the one-loop $`T`$-flow RG treatment honerkampfm ; salmhofer  the coupling constants $`h`$ are then renormalized according to

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dT}}h_{d\mathrm{sc}}(\stackrel{}{k})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_L}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{k}^{}}{}}h_{d\mathrm{sc}}(\stackrel{}{k}^{})V_T(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{})`$ (5)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dT}}L_{\mathrm{PP}}(\stackrel{}{k}^{},\stackrel{}{k}^{}),`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dT}}h_{\mathrm{AF}}(\stackrel{}{k})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_L}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{k}^{}}{}}h_{\mathrm{AF}}(\stackrel{}{k}^{})V_T(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{},\stackrel{}{k}^{}+\stackrel{}{Q})`$ (6)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dT}}L_{\mathrm{PH}}(\stackrel{}{k}^{},\stackrel{}{k}^{}+\stackrel{}{Q}),`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dT}}h_{d\mathrm{DW}}(\stackrel{}{k})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_L}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{k}^{}}{}}h_{d\mathrm{DW}}(\stackrel{}{k}^{}){\displaystyle \frac{d}{dT}}L_{\mathrm{PH}}(\stackrel{}{k}^{},\stackrel{}{k}^{}\stackrel{}{Q})`$ (7)
$`\left[V_T(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{},\stackrel{}{k}^{}+\stackrel{}{Q})2V_T(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{},\stackrel{}{k}+\stackrel{}{Q})\right],`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dT}}h_{d\mathrm{P}}(\stackrel{}{k})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_L}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{k}^{}}{}}h_{d\mathrm{P}}(\stackrel{}{k}^{}){\displaystyle \frac{d}{dT}}L_{\mathrm{PH}}(\stackrel{}{k}^{},\stackrel{}{k}^{})`$ (8)
$`\left[V_T(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{},\stackrel{}{k}^{})2V_T(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{},\stackrel{}{k})\right].`$
The expressions on the right hand side are evaluated in absence of the external fields. $`N_L`$ denotes the number of lattice sites and the particle-particle and particle-hole loops are given by

$$L_{\mathrm{PP}}(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{})=T\underset{i\omega _n}{}\frac{1}{i\omega _nϵ_\stackrel{}{k}}\frac{1}{i\omega _nϵ_\stackrel{}{k}^{}}$$

and

$$L_{\mathrm{PH}}(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{})=T\underset{i\omega _n}{}\frac{1}{i\omega _nϵ_\stackrel{}{k}}\frac{1}{i\omega _nϵ_\stackrel{}{k}^{}},$$

where $`i\omega _n`$ denotes the fermionic Matsubara frequencies $`\omega _n=\pi T(2n+1)`$ with $`n=1,2,\mathrm{}`$. The susceptibilities for the various channels are also renormalized by temperature derivatives of bubble diagrams with the corresponding couplings at the vertices. For example for the $`d`$-wave pairing susceptibility we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dT}}\chi _{d\mathrm{sc}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_L}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{k}}{}}h_{d\mathrm{sc}}(\stackrel{}{k})`$ (9)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dT}}L_{\mathrm{PP}}(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k})h_{d\mathrm{sc}}(\stackrel{}{k}).`$
Analogous expressions hold for the other susceptibilities. As initial condition we assume that all susceptibilities are zero at the initial high temperature, $`T_0`$.

## 4 Results for the 2D Hubbard model

Here we describe our numerical results obtained with the $`N`$-patch implementation of the one-loop $`T`$-flow RG scheme with $`N=48`$ patches. For all cases discussed below, the RG flow goes to strong coupling. This means that some components of the coupling function become larger than the perturbative range when the temperature is lowered far enough. We define a characteristic temperature $`T^{}`$ for the flow to strong coupling determined as the temperature when the largest coupling reaches $`V_{\mathrm{max}}=18t`$.

### 4.1 The case $`t^{}=0`$

First let us discuss results for vanishing next-nearest neighbor hopping, $`t^{}=0`$. The flow of the susceptibilities is summarized in Fig. 1.

For the square Fermi surface at half band filling, i.e. $`\mu =0`$, we find that the AF susceptibility is the leading divergent susceptibility, consistent with the expected AF ordered ground state. We also find weaker growing $`d`$-wave pairing and $`d`$-density wave susceptibilities. At $`\mu =0`$, these two channels have exactly the same temperature dependence due to the particle-hole symmetry; $`ϵ(\stackrel{}{k})=ϵ(\stackrel{}{k}+\stackrel{}{Q})`$. For finite doping, i.e. $`\mu 0`$, the flow splits this degeneracy and the $`d`$-wave pairing generally grows more strongly than the $`d`$-density wave channel. As the electron density is further reduced below half-filling, the nesting in the $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ particle-hole channel is increasingly weakened. Correspondingly, at a critical doping that depends on the interaction strength, the growth in the AF and $`d`$-density wave channels get cut off at low $`T`$ and the $`d`$-wave pairing is the only divergent channel that remains. This crossover from the AF dominated flow to the $`d`$-wave pairing dominated instability for $`t^{}=0`$ is very similar to the results of Zanchi and Schulz zanchi  and Halboth and Metzner halboth  who used a $`N`$-patch scheme with flowing IR cutoff. Within the latter schemes it is difficult to compare the flow of small-$`\stackrel{}{q}`$ particle-hole susceptibilities, e.g. Pomeranchuk FS deformations, with the flow of AF or superconducting susceptibilities. There is no such difficulty in the temperature flow scheme. Thus we can directly compare the Pomeranchuk channel with the above-mentioned other tendencies. The main conclusion arising from the data shown in Fig. 1 is that the $`d`$-wave Pomeranchuk tendencies grow somewhat to lower temperatures, but apparently they do not represent the leading instability for the $`t^{}=0`$ Hubbard model with only a local onsite repulsion as in initial interaction.

In this paper we do not give a systematic analysis how the leading instability may change when the initial interaction is varied, e.g. by including a n.n.n. repulsion $`V`$ or a spin exchange coupling $`J`$. This question was addressed by Binz et al. binz  for the half-filled case and $`U0`$. These authors found a $`d`$-density wave regime for sufficiently large positive n.n. Heisenberg coupling $`J`$ between an AF regime at small n.n. repulsion $`V`$ and $`s`$-charge density wave regime at $`4V>U`$. We find a similar crossover between the two latter regimes for $`U0.3t`$. However a RG flow where the $`d`$-density wave susceptibility grows most strongly was only found for a limited parameter region around $`J0.7U`$ and $`4V0.7U`$.

### 4.2 Moderate n.n.n. hopping $`t^{}=0.25t`$

Next we focus on the case of n.n.n. neighbor hopping $`t^{}=0.25t`$ and band fillings $`n<1`$ for which the FS passes close to the saddle points. Upon increasing the particle density through the van Hove filling at which $`\mu `$ lies exactly at the van Hove singularity, i.e. $`\mu =4t^{}`$, the FS starts to intersect the Umklapp surface which connects the $`(\pi ,0)`$ and $`(0,\pi )`$ points with straight lines. As we will show, this gives rise to a remarkable qualitative change in the flow. Two typical shapes of the the non-interacting Fermi surfaces for densities below and above the van Hove filling are shown in Fig. 2.

In Fig. 3 we show the evolution of $`d`$-wave pairing, AF, $`d`$-density wave and $`d`$-wave Pomeranchuk susceptibilities for different values of the chemical potential as the temperature is lowered. In the first upper two plots for which $`\mu <4t^{}`$, we observe that only the $`d`$-wave pairing susceptibility grows rapidly at low temperatures $`TT^{}>0`$. The other susceptibilities reach a maximum at a $`T_{\mathrm{max}}>T^{}`$ and decrease again as $`TT^{}`$. For the next two plots the FS intersects the Umklapp surface close to the saddle points and the flow is qualitatively different: now all four susceptibilities grow as $`TT^{}`$. As described in Ref. honerkamp , the flows of AF and $`d`$-wave pairing susceptibilities are very similar for a broad density region above the saddle point filling and it appears to be implausible that the strong coupling state is a simple symmetry-broken state corresponding to a single type of ordering. More than that, the $`d`$-density wave and $`d`$-wave Pomeranchuk susceptibilities also grow as $`TT^{}`$. But for our parameters these two channels do not constitute the leading instabilities. Nevertheless they seem to be part of a common mechanism arising from the special location of the FS close to saddle points which causes mutual reinforcement of different channels, most prominently AF and $`d`$-wave pairing described in Ref. honerkamp . The main reason for this effect is that the scattering processes connecting the two inequivalent saddle point regions involve particle pairs with small total momentum that scatter with wavevector transfers close to $`(\pi ,\pi )`$. Therefore these scattering processes are strongly driven by both the Cooper and the $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ particle-hole channel and this causes a mutual reinforcement of the fluctuations generated by these channels. Thus it is interesting to speculate that the strong coupling state will embody all these channels as short range correlations, instead of selecting a single ordering channel and suppressing the others. Indeed, as discussed in the concluding section, examples for such ground states are known from ladder systems. Furthermore, other numerical investigations of the doped 2D $`t`$-$`J`$ model showed the existence of $`d`$-density wave correlations in Gutzwiller-projected $`d`$-wave pairing variational wave-functions ivanov  and in the lowest energy $`d`$-wave paired states in exact diagonalization on a 32-site cluster leung .

We note that if we continue to follow the one-loop RG flow for the 2D system which ignores selfenergy corrections, the common growth of the different channels does not continue to arbitrarily low temperatures. Typically a decoupling takes place once the overlap between the channels becomes too small due to the restriction of the relevant scattering processes at low temperatures to thinner and thinner neighborhoods of the Fermi surface. Signs for this are visible for example in the flow of $`d`$-density wave susceptibility in the last plot of Fig. 3. However we are convinced that one should concentrate on the flow down to temperatures where the growing interactions reach values comparable to the bandwidth. This is also the scale where the corrections to the one-loop RG equations such as one- and two-loop selfenergy effects start to become non-negligible honerkamp ; honerkamped . In the saddle point regime described above the decoupling of the different channels only occurs at lower temperatures where the one-loop flow without selfenergy corrections has lost its validity as the couplings are much larger than the bandwidth. Obviously, the density range where this common flow of several channels occurs becomes larger with increasing interaction strengths $`U`$. The reason is that at higher temperature scales a wider shell around the FS participates in the RG flow and the overlaps between the scattering processes driving the individual fluctuations are larger. This is illustrated in Fig. 4, where we plot the flow of the susceptibilities for the same chemical potential but for different initial interactions $`U`$. While for $`U=2.5t`$ the flows of AF, $`d`$-density wave and $`d`$-wave Pomeranchuk susceptibilities go through a maximum before the couplings exceed the bandwidth, for $`U3t`$ their flow grows monotonically over the range where the one-loop flow applies. Thus we expect that there is a nonzero minimal interaction strength above which the coupled saddle point flow determines the ground state properties. For smaller interactions the low energy physics may be dominated by a single channel.

With the new $`T`$-flow RG scheme we again find an anisotropic suppression of the charge compressibility in the saddle point regime, similar to our findings in Ref. honerkamp . This is illustrated in Fig. 5, where we plot the $`T`$-flow of the couplings to external static uniform charge fields, $`h_c(\stackrel{}{k})`$. These quantities are calculated in a way analogous to the Pomeranchuk coupling constants $`h_{d\mathrm{P}}(\stackrel{}{k})`$, with the difference that the $`d`$-wave form factor in Eq. (3) is replaced by unity. In the left plot the density is less than the van Hove filling corresponding to the pure $`d`$-wave regime and the charge couplings $`h_c(\stackrel{}{k})`$ are suppressed uniformly around the FS. Moreover, as shown in the inset, the RG flow of the interactions enhances the charge couplings $`h_c(\stackrel{}{k})`$ with respect to isotropic RPA (random phase approximation) values $`h_c^0`$ calculated without RG flow of the interactions. In the right plot, we show the same quantities for $`\mu =0.95t`$, corresponding to the saddle point regime at band fillings slightly larger than the van Hove value. Here the suppression of the charge couplings is strongest in the FS region close to the saddle points. Furthermore, compared to the RPA values, the charge couplings for this FS region are strongly decreased at low $`T`$ by the RG flow of the interactions, while they increase near to the BZ diagonals. We emphasize that these tendencies are rather weak because we do not let the interactions become too strong. Nevertheless, our findings with the new $`T`$-flow RG scheme are again consistent with the hypothesis of a Fermi surface truncation furukawa ; honerkamp  at the saddle points where the scattering processes grow most strongly, with remaining FS arcs around the BZ diagonals. We believe that the effects observed as tendencies in the weak-coupling approach will be strongly amplified in a full strong coupling description. We add that a similar suppression of the $`\stackrel{}{k}`$-space resolved compressibility at the saddle points is observed within a Landau-Fermi liquid framework frigeri  and was also found in quantum Monte Carlo calculations for the half filled Hubbard model by Otsuka et al. morita .

Lastly we comment on the behavior of the $`T`$-flow RG scheme as the density is increased towards half filling. The saddle points move to larger negative band energies and the coupling between the channels becomes less effective (see middle and right lower plots in Fig. 3). The AF susceptibility grows most strongly at higher $`T`$. At lower temperatures the $`T`$-flow RG scheme exhibits a stronger sensitivity to the imperfect nesting introduced by the n.n.n. hopping term $`t^{}`$ than in the IR-flow RG scheme we used previously honerkamp . This shows up in a saturation of the AF susceptibility flow for weaker initial interactions at low $`T`$ before the couplings have reached values larger than the bandwidth. At half-filling an initial value of $`U3.5t`$ is required to obtain the dominant AF phase found in Ref. honerkamp .

## 5 Conclusions and comparison with the two-leg Hubbard ladder

We have investigated the flow of $`d`$-wave pairing, spin density wave, $`d`$-density wave and $`d`$-wave Pomeranchuk susceptibilities in the two-dimensional Hubbard model near the van Hove filling. For a n.n.n. hopping $`t^{}=0.25t`$ we found two distinct regimes. For densities well away from the van Hove density, only a single susceptibility diverges at low $`T`$. For a range of band fillings $`n<1`$ around, or somewhat above, the van Hove filling, whose width depends on the strength of the initial interaction, several susceptibilities grow together when the interactions flow to strong coupling. In particular, from the interplay between $`d`$-wave pairing and AF tendencies near the saddle points, also described in Ref. honerkamp , we conclude that the strong coupling phase, in the saddle point regions, is not given by a dominance of a single ordering such as superconducting, magnetic or charge ordering. Furthermore we again find tendencies towards incompressibility of the FS Pomeranchuk regions near the saddle points which can be interpreted as indication for a FS truncation. Although the $`d`$-density wave and $`d`$-wave FS deformation modes get enhanced at lower temperatures, but do not represent the leading instabilities for the $`t`$-$`t^{}`$ Hubbard model with weak to moderate repulsive onsite interaction. This renders a spontaneous symmetry breaking in these channels unlikely. Nevertheless there may be significant short ranged correlations of the respective types.

A similar RG flow to strong coupling is also found in the half-filled two-leg Hubbard ladder. This quasi-one-dimensional system has been extensively analyzed both from the weak-coupling perspective balents ; lin ; fisher  and by numerical methods for stronger onsite repulsion noack . Through these studies it became clear that the ground state for all $`U`$ is given by an insulating spin liquid, i.e. spin and charge fluctuations are gapful and decay exponentially. The FS is fully truncated although no symmetry breaking occurs.

The weak-coupling analysis balents ; lin  typically starts with a one-loop RG scheme which selects the relevant couplings. Subsequently the effective Hamiltonian, composed of the kinetic energy and the relevant couplings, is bosonized and the properties of spin and charge excitations can be deduced. Our comparison with the 2D Hubbard model focuses on only this one-loop RG step. In the one-loop g-ology for the half-filled two-leg ladder, one finds seven relevant coupling constants $`g_i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},7`$ which describe scattering processes between the 4 Fermi points, 2 in the even parity band and 2 in the odd band. In the RG flow with decreasing infrared cut-off $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and initial condition $`g_i(\mathrm{\Lambda }_0)=U`$ these couplings constants diverge asymptotically together as

$$g_i(\mathrm{\Lambda })=\frac{g_i^0}{\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{\Lambda }/\mathrm{\Lambda }_c)},$$
(10)
when $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is reduced towards a finite critical scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$. The $`g_i^0`$ reach fixed ratios in the weak interaction limit. Due to the divergence of the coupling functions, the one-loop renormalizations drive several couplings to external fields to infinity. Like in the 2D system several types of fluctuations are driven by common scattering processes and mutually reinforce each other. As mentioned in the last section, in the 2D model we need a finite initial interaction strength $`U`$ to observe the coupled flow of several channels for a reasonably wide parameter region. In contrast with that in the two-leg ladder the mutual reinforcement is present at all energy scales and occurs for arbitrarily weak interactions. More precisely, with the asymptotic flow given by Eq. (10) we find that in the half-filled ladder AF, $`d`$-wave pairing, $`d`$-density wave and spin density wave couplings grow with the same strength222This is also true for the 2D model restricted to the saddle point regions, see Ref. binz . Equivalently, if we write down the effective Hamiltonian of the system close to the critical scale, the effective coupling constants for mean-field decouplings in $`d`$-wave pairing, AF and $`d`$-density wave channel reach the same absolute value in the asymptotic flow very close to the instability. Since the effective densities of states for the three types of mean-field decouplings are the same, their potential ground state energies are degenerate as well. Nonetheless, as we know from the bosonization lin  and numerical studies noack , the ground state does not exhibit (quasi-)long-range order of any type and the superconducting and magnetic correlations which seem to diverge in the one-loop treatment remain strictly short-ranged.

As another similarity between the 2D system and the two-leg ladder we mention that also in the ladder the forward scattering amplitudes calculated within the RG scheme exhibit a $`d`$-wave-type structure with different signs for the forward scattering onto the same band and onto the other band. However a shift of the Fermi points induced by the flow of the forward scattering processes was found in a weak-coupling RG treatment only for the case of unequal Fermi velocities in the two bands louis .

Finally we add that in the 2D Hubbard model with $`t^{}<0`$ for band fillings $`n>1`$ corresponding to electron-doped case the situation is different from the hole-doped case described abovehonerkamped . For $`n>1`$ the $`(\pi ,0)`$ and $`(0,\pi )`$ regions of the BZ, that are crucial for the channel coupling leading to the combined flow in the saddle point regime similar to the two-leg ladder flow, are at larger negative band energies and exert only little influence on the low temperature physics. Correspondingly, upon moving away from half filling by increasing $`n>1`$ and suitable parameters, the flow to strong coupling rapidly changes from an AF regime with high $`T^{}`$ to a $`d`$-wave pairing regime with low $`T^{}`$ without the occurrence of an intermediate saddle point regime.

In summary, the results of the recently developed $`T`$-flow one loop RG scheme applied to the $`t`$-$`t^{}`$-$`U`$ Hubbard model in 2D, are qualitatively consistent with those we found earlier using an IR-flow RG scheme. The $`T`$-flow RG scheme has the advantage that the competition with long wavelength instabilities such as a $`d`$-wave FS Pomeranchuk distortion can be analyzed in an unbiased way. Our results show that this susceptibility and also the $`d`$-density wave susceptibility are never the dominant ones in a Hubbard with just an onsite repulsion, $`U`$ although for densities in the saddle point regime they appear as divergent susceptibilities together with those towards $`d`$-wave pairing and AF order. These results agree with the proposal we made earlier honerkamp  regarding the nature of the strong coupling phase that appears at temperature $`TT^{}`$. Based on the close analogy with the one loop RG results for the two leg ladder at half-filling, we proposed that at $`TT^{}`$ a crossover occurs to a strong coupling phase with a FS which is partially truncated in the vicinity of the saddle points by the formation of an insulating spin liquid which in turn is not characterized by any, even quasi, long range order. The remaining FS arcs centered on the BZ diagonals are coupled in the Cooper channel to the insulating spin liquid and this coupling is the origin of a transition to $`d`$-wave superconductivity at a lower $`T<T^{}`$. Note we find that $`T^{}`$ is a strong function of the density and increases from zero with increasing density as the van Hove filling is crossed. This behavior of $`T^{}`$ is, we argue, consistent with the critical density and rising temperature scale found by Tallon and Loram tallon .

Of course our one-loop approach does not yield a controlled theory of the strongly coupled phase below the characteristic temperature $`T^{}`$ and the second step in the weak-coupling analysis of the exemplary ladder systems, the bosonization of the effective Hamiltonian, cannot be performed in the 2D case. Thus we cannot prove the properties of the 2D strong coupling phase for the time being. More powerful methods need to be developed in order to establish the nature of the strong coupling phase at temperatures $`T<T^{}`$, to test our proposal that it is closely analogous to that of the 2-leg ladder and also to examine possible connections to the gauge theories which proceed directly from strong coupling and also predict strong fluctuations coexisting in several channels such as the $`d`$-wave pairing and $`d`$-density wave channels palee .

We thank M. Sigrist, M. Troyer, D. Poilblanc, W. Metzner, and C. Nayak for helpful discussions. C.H. acknowledges support by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) and the Emmy-Noether program of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The numerical calculations were performed on the Asgard Beowulf cluster of ETH Zürich.


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# Is RXJ1856.5-3754 a Quark Star?

## 1 Introduction

The structure and evolution of neutron stars depends on the properties of matter at nuclear and supranuclear densities. Such conditions are not achievable in terrestrial laboratories and the theoretical description of such superdense matter remains uncertain. It has therefore been hoped that neutron stars, and in particular those that are isolated and not complicated by strong accretion or magnetospheric signatures, might provide some empirical insights: observations of their masses, radii and cooling characteristics could, in principle, provide useful constraints for the equation of state (EOS) of dense matter (e.g. Lattimer & Prakash 2001 and references therein).

In a relatively brief period of $`10^6`$-$`10^7`$ yr, a hot, isolated neutron star (INS) born in a supernova explosion can cool, cease pulsar activity and become essentially inactive (see, e.g., the review of Treves et al. 2000). Of the estimated $`10^8`$-$`10^9`$ isolated neutron stars thought to inhabit the Galaxy, only a tiny fraction are therefore expected to be sufficiently young to remain hot and visible in X-rays. One possible mechanism capable of sustaining thermal X-ray emission in an older INS is accretion of material from the ISM. To date, only a handful of these older INS candidates have been found.

The soft X-ray source RX J$`1856.5`$3754 discovered by Walter, Wolk & Neuhäuser (1996) is the brightest, and probably the closest (Kaplan, van Kerkwijk & Anderson 2002) of the INS candidates. It was identified with a very faint ($`V25.6`$) optical counterpart by Walter & Matthews (1997), was found to have an optical flux about a factor of 2-3 higher than that predicted by the Rayleigh-Jeans tail of the $`55`$ eV blackbody spectrum that represents the low resolution ROSAT PSPC spectrum (e.g. Walter et al. 1996; Campana et al. 1997, Pons et al. 2001), and lies in the line-of-sight toward the dark molecular cloud R CrA. However, the exact nature of RX J$`1856.5`$3754 remains unknown—whether it is a fairly young, cooling INS, perhaps undetected as a pulsar because of unfortunate beam alignment, or an older object reheated by ISM accretion.

Very Large Telescope (VLT) observations have recently revealed an H$`\alpha `$ nebula round RX J$`1856.5`$3754 and a blackbody spectrum through the UV-optical range (van Kerkwijk & Kulkarni 2001a,b). Hubble Space Telescope (HST) astrometry was used by Walter (2001) and Kaplan et al. (2002) to estimate a parallax and proper motion, but with conflicting results ($`16.5\pm 2.3`$ mas vs. $`7\pm 2`$ mas). Walter (2001) argued that the proper motion points to the Sco-Cen OB association and an age of $`10^6`$ yr. However, Pons et al. (2001) failed to detect the expected pulsation signature in ROSAT and ASCA data. Modelling X-ray, EUV, UV and optical spectra using the Walter (2001) parallax and assuming a metal-dominated atmosphere resulted in stellar radii too small for current EOS and smaller than the Schwarzschild radius for a canonical $`1.4M_{}`$ star, leading them to conclude that the surface temperature distribution could be inhomogeneous. In contrast, the same atmospheric analysis using the larger distance of Kaplan et al. (2002) would yield a radius consistent with current theory. If the atmosphere is indeed metal-dominated, then line and edge features should be visible in high resolution X-ray spectra.

RX J$`1856.5`$3754 was observed in 2000 March for 55ks by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Low Energy Transmission Grating (LETG) and the High Resolution Camera spectroscopic microchannel plate detector array (HRC-S) to look for spectral features and pulsar activity. Within relatively large statistical uncertainties, Burwitz et al. (2001) failed to detect either significant departures from a blackbody spectrum or pulsations in these data. The prospect of important scientific gains from a longer observation prompted, at the request of different researchers, the undertaking of a very recent set of Chandra observations of RX J$`1856.5`$3754 under director’s discretionary time using LETG+HRC-S. A period search using these data by Ransom, Gaensler & Slane (2002) has already placed an upper limit on a pulse fraction of 4.5%. This Letter presents spectroscopic and independent timing analyses of these data.

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction

The observations analysed in this paper Pipeline-processed (CXC software version 6.3.1) photon event lists were reduced and analysed using the CIAO software package version 2.2, and independently using custom IDL111Interactive Data Language, Research Systems Inc. software. Processing included extra pulse-height filtering to reduce background (Wargelin et al., in preparation) and barycentric correction of event times. Dispersed photon events were extracted using the now standard “bow tie” window, and a small circular region (31-pixel radius222Our 31 pixel radius extraction region for the 0th order source corresponds to an encircled energy fraction of about $`(92\pm 3)`$%, which combines with an average deadtime of 0.59% to yield a correction factor for a $`2\pi `$ steradian aperture of 1.09.) was used to extract the 0th order events. We note that an extraneous bright feature (likely a ghost image of a bright off-axis source) appeared on the +1 order outer HRC-S plate which introduces spurious features into the extracted spectrum and background near 110 Å. We applied corrections to extracted event times to ameliorate an HRC electronics problem that assigns time tags for each event to the event that immediately follows. If every event were telemetered to the ground, correct times could be easily reassigned, but because of the high HRC background rate and a telemetry limit of 184 events/sec, only valid events, which make up approximately 45% of the total events in these observations, are recorded in data received on the ground. We have reassigned the time of every valid event to the preceding valid event during ground processing; the event times will then be correct about $`N_{valid}/N_{total}`$ of the time. One can place an upper limit of $`\delta t`$ on the time errors associated with this process, however, simply by excluding events with a time-shift of more than $`\delta t`$; the average timing error of such events will, of course, be less than $`\delta t`$. However, if $`\delta t`$ is too small, too many events get excluded to perform sensitive timing studies. We have adopted a $`\delta t`$ of 2 ms, retaining 20% of the original counts in the corrected data set.

## 3 Count Rates and Timing Analysis

Count rates were derived for each observation segment from event lists filtered to exclude times of high background and telemetry saturation, when the telemetered valid event rate exceeded 184 count s-1, and to exclude high pulse-height events that arise entirely from background. These rates corresponding to 0th order only are listed in Table 1.

The count rates for the different observation segments are statistically consistent, though the 2000 March observation (113) rate of $`0.2195\pm 0.0020`$ count s-1 lies 1.9% and $`1.9\sigma `$ above the rate for the combined 2001 October series rate of $`0.2155\pm 0.0008`$. Such deviations will be obtained by chance about 3% of the time when the count rates do not vary; it is thus more likely attributable to quantum efficiency (QE) variations in the detector on small scales. Indeed, Pons et al. (2001) note two ROSAT HRI observations obtained 3 yr apart that are consistent to 1%. The fluxes corresponding to HRI and PSPC count rates are higher than that obtained from our Chandra data by 20% and 30%, respectively. As remarked by Burwitz et al. (2001), these differences are likely attributable to absolute calibration uncertainties. We have also examined the ASCA SIS observation described Pons et al. (2001) and find fluxes 30-40 % lower than obtained by Chandra for the 20-30 Å range, but in agreement with Chandra shortward of 20 Å. The EUVE DS count rate of Pons et al. (2001) is also consistent with the Chandra observation within allowed uncertainties.

Our search for pulsations used three different techniques, none of which found any evidence for significant variability. In contrast to Ransom et al. (2002), we did not include a deceleration term; this will be discussed below.

We applied the Bayesian method of Gregory & Loredo (1992) to both the time-corrected and uncorrected 0th order event lists. The method tests for variability by comparing the fits of periodic stepwise models to the data with the fit of a constant model. The odds favoring variability (based on eqn. 5.28 of Gregory & Loredo 1992, with a maximum number of steps $`m_{\mathrm{max}}`$ = 12 and limiting angular frequencies $`\omega _{\mathrm{lo}}`$ and $`\omega _{\mathrm{hi}}`$ equal to 10-4 and 103, respectively) were found to be $`1.45\times 10^4`$ for the whole data set and $`3.75\times 10^3`$ for the data filtered on $`\delta t=2`$ ms, both to be compared with an odds value of $`10^2`$ needed for a confident pulsation or variability detection.

Our second method employed an FFT analysis applied to the combined 0th and 1st order events, followed by a likelihood ratio test (LRT) to determine limits on the pulse fraction. The FFT power distribution was consistent with shot noise. For the LRT of a given period, $`P`$, the data were binned into $`N`$ phase bins, giving $`n_i`$ counts in each. The source model was $`y=A+f\mathrm{cos}(\varphi _i+\varphi _0)`$ where $`\varphi _i`$ is the phase of bin $`i`$ and $`\varphi _0`$ is the phase of the pulse and $`f/A`$ is the pulse fraction. The likelihood equations were then solved for $`A`$ and the process applied to $`>500`$ frequencies where the FFT power exceeded a critical level in the frequency range 0.001-50 Hz. By including also the dispersed events we improved the signal-to-noise of the result by a factor of 1.47 compared to using 0th order alone and could obtain a pulse fraction limit lower than the value of 4.5% obtained by Ransom et al. (2002) in their unaccelerated search. A pulse fraction upper limit (99% confidence) of 2.7% was derived applying our likelihood ratio method using all data, including the dispersed events with $`1<\lambda <70`$ Å. Taking only the events limited by $`\delta t<2`$ ms, the pulse fraction limit is 10%.

Thirdly, we computed the Lomb-Scargle periodogram for both the time-corrected and uncorrected photon arrival time differences in the frequency range 0.01-1 Hz for the events in ObsID’s 3380 3381, 3382 and 3399. Again, no significant peaks were present.

The assumption of a negligible deceleration term in our period search restricts the range of periods and dipole magnetic field strengths for which our search is valid. The coherence limit for phase slippage by 10 % over the duration of the 2001 October observations implies that our result is valid for a magnetic field upper limit $`B<2.3\times 10^{13}P^{3/2}`$ G for period $`P`$ s (e.g. Shapiro & Teukolsky 1983). As noted by Ransom et al. (2002), this range would exclude very young and energetic neutron stars, such as the Crab and Vela pulsars, though most of these younger objects are also conspicuously strong radio pulsars. All anomalous X-ray pulsars would lie within our sensitivity limit range. RX J$`1856.5`$3754 is also most unlikely to be an extremely young object based on its modest temperature and luminosity, which are consistent with an object of age $`10^5`$ yr on canonical cooling curves (e.g. Tsuruta 1997).

## 4 Spectral Analysis and Model Parameter Estimation

Spectral analysis in the form of model parameter estimation was undertaken using the CIAO/Sherpa fitting engine and independently using specially-written IDL software. Cursory inspection of the spectrum leads immediately to the conclusion that there are no obvious features indicative of absorption lines or edges. We found that blackbody models represent the high resolution spectra well, in agreement with earlier studies. We modelled +1 and $`1`$ orders both separately and simultaneously, and added together; results from these different approaches were statistically indistinguishable. Representative results of model fits and residuals are illustrated in Figure 1. Two sets of best-fit parameters were obtained from independent analyses that invoked (1) the existing first and higher order CXC calibration333Version dated 2000 October 31; http://asc.harvard.edu/cal/Links/Letg/User and (2) the same first order effective area with higher orders modified slightly to improve model fits to sources with power law spectra (Marshall et al., in preparation). Both sets are consistent with the results of Burwitz et al. (2001) based on the 2000 March observation alone. Parameters and $`1\sigma `$ statistical uncertainties for best-fit models were: (1) $`T=61.2\pm 0.3`$ eV; $`N_H=(1.10\pm 0.02)\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2; X-ray luminosity $`(2.96\pm 0.03)\times 10^{31}D_{100}^2`$ erg s-1, where $`D_{100}`$ is the distance in units of 100 pc; (2) $`T=61.1\pm 0.3`$ eV; $`N_H=(0.81\pm 0.02)\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2; X-ray luminosity $`(3.16\pm 0.03)\times 10^{31}D_{100}^2`$ erg s-1. Parameters producing minima in the $`\chi ^2`$ test statistic were not sensitive to the exact binning adopted, though of course the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ values were: values ranged from 0.94 for data binned to a signal-to-noise ratio of $`S/N=10`$, to 1.7 for $`S/N=30`$. The latter value is dominated by residual effective area calibration uncertainties. To investigate the effects of these uncertainties, which are estimated to be about 15% absolutely, a first order polynomial term was included in the source model to mimic an effective area lower by 15% at 20Å and higher by 15% at 100 Å, and vice-versa. Such a slope skews the blackbody curve and leads systematically to higher or lower temperature solutions by about 1 eV—clearly the true temperature uncertainty is driven by this uncertainty in the effective area. Allowing for this uncertainty, we adopt a final temperature of $`61.2\pm 1.0`$—in agreement with, but much more tightly constrained than, the ROSAT temperatures derived by Burwitz et al. (2001; $`63\pm 3`$ eV) and Pons et al. (2002; $`55.3\pm 5.5`$). We note that a temperature of 61 eV results in an optical flux only 10% higher than that from a 55 eV blackbody, so that the discrepency between the observed optical flux and that predicted by the hot blackbody noted by Walter & Matthews (1997) and Pons et al. (2002) remains essentially unchanged.

Blackbody models were found by both Pons et al. (2001) and Burwitz et al. (2001) to represent observed spectra better than sophisticated model atmospheres, though a uniform temperature blackbody model was formally excluded in X-ray-EUV-UV-optical modelling in the former work. However, additional cooler components were found to contribute at most only a few percent to the observed ROSAT PSPC X-ray flux. We have ruled out the significant presence of additional thermal and non-thermal emission components by trial of models combining two blackbodies, and a blackbody component with arbitrary power laws: in both cases the additional components were completely unconstrained and resulted in no improvement in the goodness of fit. The $`3\sigma `$ upper limit to power law flux is $`5.2\times 10^{28}D_{100}^2`$ erg s-1keV-1 at 1 keV. Our blackbody models from methods (1) and (2) correspond formally to a radius over distance ratio (angular size) of $`R_{\mathrm{}}/D_{100}=4.12\pm 0.68`$ km/100pc, where $`R_{\mathrm{}}=R/\sqrt{12GM/Rc^2}`$ is the “radiation radius” corresponding to the true radius $`R`$ for a star of mass $`M`$, and the quoted uncertainty represents the combined temperature determination uncertainty ($`\pm 1`$ eV) and the (dominant) absolute effective area uncertainty of the LETG+HRC-S combination ($`\pm 15`$% ).

In all model comparisons for binning at $`S/N>10`$ the residual differences between the observed counts and the best-fit model show systematic departures from normal statistical deviations (Figure 1). Broad deviations are characterised by a general overprediction of observed counts for $`\lambda <30`$ Å and in the region 75-100 Å which is dominated by higher order flux, underprediction by an average of $`10`$ % for the range 25-38 Å, and deviations around the instrumental C K edge region 40-44 Å. The latter results from a residual calibration error in the HRC-S UV/Ion shield. Other deviations could arise either as a result of impropriety of a blackbody model for RX J$`1856.5`$3754, or through calibration errors which are currently estimated to be $`15`$% over broad spectral ranges and less over narrower ranges (Drake et al., in preparation). An apparent edge at 60 Å and flux excess in the range 60-70 Å arises because of one of the HRC-S plate gap boundaries coincides with small residual QE differences between positive and relative negative order outer plates.

In the case of narrow line or edge features, in different combinations of spectral order, data reduction method and binning size, we identify possible structure in residuals at 26.5, 27.6, 34.4, 32.4, and 35.9 Å (emission like features), and at 28.2, 39.1, and 86.5 Å (absorption like features), that might be tempting to attribute to the source. However, we cannot exclude the possibility that any are chance fluctuations at the 1% level. The issue is complicated by possible calibration uncertainties on smaller scales, believed to be at a level of about 5% or less, that should be largely smoothed out by dither. We have also used a 60ks observation (ObsID 331) of PKS $`2155`$304, currently thought to be a featureless continuum in the spectral range we are concerned with here (Marshall et al., in preparation), as a flat field source to aid in feature identification. This spectrum comprises about eight times the number of first order counts of the combined RX J$`1856.5`$3754 data. Moreover, we have imposed a constraint that features must appear in both positive and negative orders in the RX J$`1856.5`$3754 spectrum. We examined deviations from the model on scales up to 3 Å and find only the expected normal distribution of residuals after allowing for smooth departures resulting from calibration. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test applied to deviations on different scales also revealed no evidence for significant features these scales. In summary, all significant deviations in the residuals that have been found can reasonably be explained by instrumental effects. Equivalent width upper limits were derived by applying counting statistics to a convolution of the spectrum with a triangular kernel (Figure 2).

## 5 Interstellar Medium Absorption

The distance of 62 pc derived by Walter (2001) seems at odds with the neutral H column density, $`N_H`$, of $`10^{20}`$ cm-2 derived from the Chandra spectra: measured $`N_H`$ values for objects at this distance based on different techniques are typically in the range $`10^{18}`$-$`10^{19}`$ cm-2 (e.g. Fruscione et al. 1994). Walter (2001) indeed remarked on this, citing reddening values $`E_{BV}`$ of up to 0.1 derived by Knude & Høg (1998) in support of the distance. However, these reddening values show considerable scatter at low reddening and are based only on a relatively coarse attribution of spectral type to the stars considered.

We have estimated $`N_H`$ and the mean local neutral hydrogen number density, $`n_H`$, in the line-of-sight toward RX J$`1856.5`$3754 as a function of distance by spatial interpolation in the measurements compiled by Fruscione et al. (1994) and Diplas & Savage (1994) using a technique developed by P. Jelinsky (unpublished). We illustrate this in Figure 3, together with the allowed distance ranges from Walter (2001) and Kaplan et al. (2002). The value of $`N_H`$ estimated in this way at a distance of 60pc is an order of magnitude lower than the X-ray measurement, but is in good agreement with the distance of 140pc derived by the latter authors. This distance would place RX J$`1856.5`$3754 on the outskirts of the R CrA cloud using the cloud distance of Knude & Høg (1998) of $`170`$pc and within the cloud using the canonical cloud distance of $`130`$ pc. In either case, RX J$`1856.5`$3754 would likely lie in a region of relatively high ISM density ($`1`$-10 cm-3). While these estimates of $`N_H`$ are crude and will smooth out any small-scale ISM inhomogeneities, the larger distance is easier to reconcile with the measured column. The cloud distance of Knude & Høg (1998) then represents an upper limit to the distance of RX J$`1856.5`$3754.

## 6 Discussion

Our results, combined with the recent analysis of Ransom et al. (2002), demonstrate a lack of pulsed features above a level of 2.7 % (unaccelerated search; 4.5% from the accelerated search of Ransom et al.) and no unequivocal detection of spectral features. This dearth of indices with which to restrict parameter space precludes an obvious answer to the problem of the nature and origin of RX J$`1856.5`$3754.

The apparent lack of electron or proton resonance cyclotron absorption suggests that magnetic field strengths in the ranges (1-$`7)\times 10^{10}`$ and (0.2-$`1.3)\times 10^{14}`$ G are less likely, as discussed by Paerels et al. (2001) for RXJ 0720.4$``$3125 and by Burwitz et al. (2001), but, as emphasised by the latter, should not be excluded owing to possible difficulties in detecting the absorption features. Indeed, neutron stars with different levels of magnetic field up to $`10^{15}`$ G have now been observed with high resolution X-ray spectrometers and none have so far shown absorption features that are intrinsic to the stellar photosphere (e.g. RXJ 0720.4$``$3125—Paerels et al. 2001; PSR 0656+14—Marshall & Schulz 2002; Vela—Pavlov et al. 2001; and 4U 0142+61—Juett et al. 2002).

Our derived angular size based on modelling of the LETGS spectra, $`R_{\mathrm{}}/D_{100}=4.12\pm 0.68`$ km/100pc, is consistent with that of Burwitz et al. (2001), though the revised allowed distance range of 111-200 pc (Kaplan et al. 2002), together with the distance upper limit constraint based on the R CrA cloud, $`D_{100}1.70`$, now implies a radiation radius in the range $`R_{\mathrm{}}=3.8`$-8.2 km. The high end of this range, corresponding to the largest allowed distance, is still inconsistent with current “normal” NS equations of state ($`R_{\mathrm{}}12`$ km; e.g. Lattimer & Prakash 2000), as well as with those with extreme softening, such as kaon condensate models.

Pons et al. (2001) find that heavy element-dominated atmosphere models provide a plausible match to the low resolution ROSAT PSPC spectra and UV and optical fluxes of RX J$`1856.5`$3754, while Kaplan et al. (2002) alleviate conflicts with standard EOS through their revised distance. The heavy element models yield larger radii by virtue of having cooler effective temperatures than blackbody spectra with similar energy distributions. However, Burwitz et al. (2001) argued against such uniform temperature heavy element-dominated atmosphere solutions based on a lack of the expected spectral line features. The apparently featureless but much higher quality LETGS spectra presented here strengthen these conclusions.

An alternative favoured by Pons et al. (2001), Burwitz et al. (2001) and Ransom et al. (2002) is a non-uniform temperature model—that we are only seeing a localised hot region on the surface of a cooler star. The latter authors argue that the gravitational smearing effects described by Psaltis, Özel, & DeDeo (2000) account for a lack of observed pulsations. However, the pulse fraction expectations of Psaltis et al. (2000) indicate X-ray pulse fraction levels below our 2.7 % limit would be seen only $`10`$-15 % of the time.

Pulsation would also be expected for a young ($`10^6`$yr), cooling INS with a strong magnetic field. The alternative—that RX J$`1856.5`$3754 is an older object re-heated by ISM accretion—has been dismissed by Kaplan et al. (2002) and van Kerkwijk & Kulkarni (2001a), largely based on a Bondi-Hoyle accretion rate for the space velocity of Walter (2001) and Kaplan et al. (2002) that would be much too low to explain the observed luminosity, and on a possibly strong, accretion-inhibiting magnetic field (Pons et al. 2001). Nevertheless, RX J$`1856.5`$3754 appears to be in the outskirts of the R CrA cloud and, based on its HST-derived velocity vector, has likely passed through more dense regions than it now resides in. Finding one of only a handful of INS candidates in such a region by chance is very unlikely, yet it is just such dense ISM regions that are expected to power accretion-heated INSs. Based on the large velocity, however, accretion could only be significant if the Bondi-Hoyle formalism were to be inapplicable for RX J$`1856.5`$3754. While we tentatively ascribe the $`2`$% change in observed 0th order count rate in the 19 months separating the two observation sets to detector effects, such variability could be accommodated by an accretion model as the star passed through ISM density fluctuations on $``$AU scales.

The lack of spectral features is also consistent with a pure hydrogen atmosphere model that is expected to result from modest accretion, whereby heavier elements undergo rapid gravitational settling. Pons et al. (2001) argue that standard pure H models overpredict the optical flux of RX J$`1856.5`$3754 by a factor of 30 and that the magnetic accreting models of Zane, Turolla & Treves (2000), while capable of reproducing the observed X-ray to optical flux ratio, would need to be two orders of magnitude brighter and an order of magnitude hotter than observed. However, different accretion scenarios and atmospheric models might bear examination in light of the otherwise coincidental location of RX J$`1856.5`$3754.

The slightly unfavourable odds of a non-uniform temperature model failing to show signs of pulsation leads us to consider a third possibility. Taken at face value, the distance, $`N_H`$, and lack of spectral and temporal features and pulsations favour a more compact object than current NS models permit, but one that is allowed for in strange quark matter solutions (e.g. Lattimer & Prakash 2000). There now exists a body of evidence from heavy-ion collision experiments supporting the viability of a quark-gluon plasma (Heinz 2001), and the possible existence of “strange stars” (e.g. Alcock et al. 1986) is perhaps not as speculative as it once was. As noted by Pons et al. (2001), such an object would be expected to have a thermal spectrum as we observe. Such a suggestion is not unprecedented and there now exists a small handful of objects whose apparent compactness could be explained if they are composed of quark matter (e.g. Cheng et al. 1998; Li et al. 1995; Xu et al. 1999). Of the existing quark star candidates, RX J$`1856.5`$3754 arguably presents the strongest and most direct case. If this case survives future scrutiny, then the likelihood of such an object being the brightest and closest of the current few INS candidates would add some support to speculation that such a state of matter is a common product of supernovae explosions, or a common phase or endpoint in the evolution of a neutron star (e.g. Alcock et al. 1986; Kapoor & Shukre 2001; Xu, Zhang & Qiao 2001).

We extend warm thanks to Pete Ratzlaff for invaluable assistance and “wonder scripts” developed at short notice. We also thank members of the CfA HEAD for useful comments and corrections that enabled us to improve the manuscript. The SAO authors were supported by NASA contract NAS8-39073 to the Chandra X-ray Center during the course of this research. HLM was supported by NASA contract SAO SV1-61010.