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# Large nonzero-moment magnetic strings in antiferromagnetic crystals of the manganite type

## I Introduction

The aim of the present paper***Professor E.L. Nagaev passed away unexpectedly in December 2001, shortly after finishing the initial version of this paper. Present version was prepared for publication by Professor D.I. Khomskii (Groningen University). is to develop a theory of self-trapped charge carrier states for the antiferromagnetic semiconductors of the manganite type, including manganites themselves. They are characterized by the double exchange and by the antiferromagnetic exchange of localized spins with the magnitude $`S`$ exceeding 1/2. In contrast to previous treatments, we consider here the situation where the exchange between localized and itinerant electrons is antiferromagnetic, or rather when they have to be antiparallel due to the Pauli principle.

As is well known, a background antiferromagnetic ordering does not ensure the minimum energy of charge carriers. That is why the charge carriers tend to destroy the antiferromagnetic ordering and replace it by another ordering or by a disordered state, at least in their vicinity. The destruction can be either static or dynamic (we neglect the translational motion of ferrons or magnetic strings discussed below, as their bandwidths are very small and the Anderson localization should take place in real crystals).

The tendency toward the static local destruction of an antiferromagnetic order manifests itself in the formation of the magnetic polarons (ferrons) when a free charge carrier becomes self-trapped by a ferromagnetic microregion permanently existing inside an antiferromagnetic host . Hence their main feature is an excess magnetic moment as compared with the moment of the electron generating the ferron state.

In principle, the ferrons are possible for the systems without the double exchange independently of the sign of the $`sd`$ exchange integral, and in the double exchange systems with the ferromagnetic $`sd`$ exchange. (To shorten notation, we speak below about $`s`$\- and $`d`$-electrons, meaning by $`s`$ the mobile electrons, and by $`d`$ \- the localized ones. In reality the mobile (“$`s`$”) elecrons may also originate from the same $`d`$-shell. Thus, for example, in manganites they are the $`e_g`$-electrons or holes, whereas our “$`d`$”-electrons are the $`t_{2g}`$ ones). The conditions for the existence of free ferrons are rather stringent even at $`T=0`$. For example, the Néel point $`T_N`$ should be not very high. But there are also bound ferrons which correspond to an electron trapped by the donor impurities. As discussed e.g. in , for them the excess magnetization is nonzero for any Néel point though it decreases with increasing $`T_N`$. If a region with the complete ferromagnetic ordering is impossible, then a canted antiferromagnetic ordering arises close to the impurity  (see also references to papers of other authors in review article ).

The tendency toward the dynamic destruction of antiferromagnetic order manifests itself in the formation of magnetic strings (in the pioneering paper  they were called quasioscillators). Strings are traces of wrong spins left on the trajectory of an extra electron or hole when it moves in an antiferromagnetic background in a situation described by the nondegenerate Hubbard model. In this state, a charge carrier moves by interchanging with the neighboring spins, so that as a result the net magnetization does not change, remaining essentially zero. (The formation of such strings and the resulting electron or hole confinement was rediscovered  much later than the first paper  appeared, after the interest to such model was raised by the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity).

For this quasiparticle, oscillations of the magnetic disorder are accompanied by the oscillations of the electron density. This disordering excludes the possibility of the free charge carrier motion, and hence the standard scenario of the ferron formation is impossible here. The existing theory of the strings  is related to the systems described by the Hubbard Hamiltonian that are equivalent to double-exchange systems with the magnetic atom of spin $`S=1/2`$ and the negative (antiferromagnetic) sign of the $`sd`$ exchange integral, which ensures the zero total spin of an atom occupied by an $`s`$-electron . As explained above, unlike ferron, the magnetic string with $`S=1/2`$ does not possess an additional magnetic moment as compared with the moment of the self-trapped electron.

Meanwhile, the case of spins $`S`$ exceeding 1/2 is important for real materials, but was not investigated yet. It can be described by the $`sd`$ model with the antiferromagnetic on-site $`sd`$ exchange. The free motion of the charge carriers is again impossible in this case, and the strings arise, see Fig.1 below. However, as we will show, the strings in such systems differ from the strings in a $`S=1/2`$ magnetic system since they can have an excess magnetic moment. This moment will be concentrated in a region around the equilibrium point, i.e. the core. The central part of this object can be ferromagnetic (ferromagnetic polaron, or ferron), whereas the motion of charge carriers outside this core region occurs in a string-like fashion. Thus, the resulting state may be visualized as a combination of the inner ferron  and outer string  regions.

As will be shown below, the string excess moment exists for arbitrary parameters of the system under consideration. In the crystals with sufficiently low Néel temperatures $`T_N`$, a microregion with the complete ferromagnetic ordering should exist. Hence such a state may be interpreted as a mixed string-ferron state. But for the crystals with sufficiently high $`T_N`$, the complete ferromagnetic ordering should be replaced by the canted antiferromagnetic one (the canted ordering arises since the antiferromagnetic superexchange in the high-$`T_N`$ systems is too strong to be completely suppressed by the ferromagnetic indirect exchange via the bound charge carrier). The existence of the excess magnetic moment at any $`T_N`$ stems from the fact that the string state is a bound state resembling the state of an electron trapped by a donor. The fact that the force in the former case is quasielastic and not the Coulomb is nonessential, as both these forces cause the electron confinement. In other words, the electron localization for the magnetized string is caused not by the arising magnetized region but by the quasielastic force.

The calculations carried out below show, in particular, that such quasiparticles should exist in manganites  when they are antiferromagnetic, and their magnetic moment should be an order of magnitude larger than the moment of a separate Mn3+ ion. (Strictly speaking, our treatment will be carried out for the slightly doped simple two-sublattice antiferromagnet with the $`G`$-type structure, whereas undoped LaMnO3 has the layered $`A`$-type structure. But the general physical mechanism, considered in this paper, should work in this case as well, albeit with some modifications; besides, there exist many other magnetic systems with the $`G`$-type structure which can be doped and which could be described by our model.)

The mobility of the magnetized strings, like that of the conventional ferrons, is too low to affect the conductivity. However, they can produce a significant effect on magnetic properties of the system. As is well known, the existence of the ”ready at hand” large magnetic moments in an antiferromagnetic semiconductor leads to a steep rise in the magnetization under a weak external magnetic field. This effect is often observed experimentally. Certainly, in a nondegenerate semiconductor all these quasiparticles are bound to the donor (acceptor) impurities at $`T0`$. But, at finite temperatures, the ferrons can become free, i.e. become located far from impurities. Just these ferrons contribute to the jump in the magnetization. For this reason, the evaluation of their moments is important for the interpretation of the experimental data.

## II Model

The problem of the energy spectrum in the double exchange systems is treated using the $`sd`$-model as a basis:

$$H_{sd}=ta_{𝐠\sigma }^{}a_{𝐠+𝚫\sigma }A\left(\mathrm{𝐬𝐒}_𝐠\right)_{\sigma \sigma ^{}}a_{𝐠\sigma }^{}a_{𝐠\sigma ^{}}$$

$$\frac{I}{2}𝐒_𝐠𝐒_{𝐠+𝚫},(1)$$

where $`a_{𝐠\sigma }^{},a_{𝐠\sigma }`$ are the $`s`$-electron operators corresponding to the conduction electrons or holes at atom g with spin projection $`\sigma `$,s is the $`s`$-electron spin operator, $`𝐒_𝐠`$ that of the $`d`$-spin of atom g, $`𝚫`$ is the vector connecting the first nearest neighbors. The crystal structure is assumed to be simple cubic. As usually, the inequality $`t|I|S^2`$ must be met as the hopping integral $`t`$ is of the first order of magnitude, and the $`dd`$ exchange integral $`I`$ of the second order in the small $`d`$\- orbit overlapping ($`I`$ should be negative to ensure the antiferromagnetic ordering).

In what follows, the condition of the double exchange $`12t|A|S`$ will be assumed to be met, with the $`sd`$ exchange integral $`A`$ being negative. Under these conditions, in the zero approximation in $`W/AS`$ $`(W=12t)`$ , the charge carrier is fixed at one of the magnetic atoms, their total spin being $`S1/2`$.

It is necessary to establish first when model (1) with $`A<0`$ is realistic. To begin with, in reality, the double exchange takes place when a charge carrier is an extra or deficient electron in the $`d`$-shell of transition metal compounds. According to the Hund rule, the $`dd`$ exchange is ferromagnetic; the same should be true for the exchange between the conduction electron and the rest of the $`d`$-spins, which form the localized spins of the magnetic atoms. According to the Pauli principle, the total spin of the atom, occupied by a conduction electron at a certain moment of time, cannot exceed 5/2. Hence the charge carrier spin is parallel to the total spin of the other atoms only for $`S2`$.

If $`S5/2`$, despite the ferromagnetic on-site exchange, the spin of the charge carrier is antiparallel to the total spin of the rest of the $`d`$-electrons. Hence in this case an antiferromagnetic $`sd`$ exchange integral should be chosen in the $`sd`$ model. The same should be done, if the charge carrier is a hole, and $`S5/2`$. Really, if the $`sd`$ Hamiltonian (1) is written in terms of the hole operators, the energy of the hole is opposite in sign to the corresponding electron energy. Thus, the assumption of an negative $`A`$ is justified for $`S`$ not less than 5/2 or not larger than 5/2 if the charge carriers are the electrons or the holes, respectively. In particular, the latter condition is met for the manganites with the hole conductivity and $`S=2`$ for the Mn3+ ions.

It should be noted that in the case of the electrons the negative $`A`$ looses the meaning of the Hund’s exchange integral and reflects only the Pauli principle. But this is nonessential, as quantity $`A`$ enters only in the zeroth approximation in $`W/AS`$ via an additive constant $`A(S+1)/2`$, which can be omitted. The point is that the quantity $`A`$ does not enter the terms of the first approximation in the effective Hamiltonian (2) which describe the double exchange.

This consideration can be readily generalized to the case when the crystal field splits the $`d`$-level so strongly that the gap between the sublevels exceeds the $`sd`$ exchange energy, and all the $`d`$-electrons occupy states inside the lowest sublevel. Then the value of the maximum spin of the entire $`d`$-shell should be replaced by that of the lowest $`d`$-sublevel when considering the problem in a way similar to that just used. If the lowest sublevel is completely filled, the role of the entire $`d`$-shell is played by the upper level.

As mentioned in the Introduction, to simplify the treatment, the magnetic ordering is assumed to be staggered instead of the layered one which is realized in the undoped manganites. Conventional strings in layered antiferromagnetic structures with $`S=1/2`$ were considered in Ref. . It should be pointed out that for $`A>0`$ the charge carrier motion is band-like though at the antiferromagnetic ordering the band is considerably narrower than for the ferromagnetic that. Conventional ferron states are possible in this case .

## III Nonmagnetized magnetic strings

Before carrying out real calculations, we first explain qualitatively the origin and the nature of the string states in our case. Consider an antiferromagnet with the localized spins $`S`$ forming a simple two-sublattice Néel structure, and let us put an extra electron at site $`a`$ with the spin $`S^z=S`$. In the situation considered (e.g. $`S=5/2`$), it would necessarily have spin down — or, more accurately, the total spin of this state will be $`S1/2`$. In our model, only this extra electron (“s”-electron) can move to a neighboring site. But if we consider the resulting situation classically, this extra electron with spin down will not be able to move at all, because at the neighboring sites there already exists spins down (e.g. $`S^z=5/2`$), so that the Pauli principle forbids such motion.

However the situation changes if one takes into account the quantum nature of spins. The state with the total spin $`S_{tot}=S1/2`$ at an initial site $`a`$ is not necessarily that with the localized spin $`S^z=S`$ and the spin of the s-electron $`s^z=1/2`$: it also has another component, with the localized spin $`S^z=S1`$, and $`s^z=+1/2`$,

$$|S_{tot}=(S1),S_{tot}^z=(S1)$$

$$=\alpha |S^z=S,s^z=1/2+\beta |S^z=(S1),s^z=1/2$$

The $`s`$-electron can hop to a neighboring site $`b`$ owing to the second part of this wave function. But then there will be a spin deviation left at the initial site $`a`$: instead of the state with $`S^z=S`$, as in the beginning, now it will have $`S^z=S1`$. This process can be repeated, and as a result the charge carrier will move, but leaving the trace of spin deviations left at its trajectory. This is illustrated in Fig.1.

As we see, this process is quite similar to the one, which leads to a string formation in a nondegenerate Hubbard model , see also . The difference is that in this case, it is not a completely reversed spin which will be left on a trajectory of a charge carrier, but the spin deviation of a large spin $`S`$. But, similar to the case of , one immediately sees that the trace of wrong spins would cost us an energy of the exchange interaction with the neighbors (in two- and three-dimensional systems) proportional to the length of the trajectory, which would finally lead to a confinement of the electron (if one ignores the spin-flip processes and the Trugman trajectories , which give only a small contribution in the case of large spin $`S`$). However, in addition to that, we will show that the string formation in this case can be accompanied also by the formation of the magnetized “core”, so that the resulting object would have a nonzero magnetic moment.

We go now to the mathematical treatment of this problem. First, we consider the case when the magnetic moment of the string is negligibly small. We use the special version of the perturbation theory in $`W/AS`$ developed in Refs. . It makes possible to construct an effective electron-magnetic Hamiltonian $`H_{ef}`$ for the system under consideration, in which the $`d`$-spins are considered as quantum operators. This Hamiltonian is exact to the first order in $`AS/W`$, and no additional approximations (mean field etc.) are used.

To construct the Hamiltonian, an effective spin of magnitude $`S`$ is ascribed to each magnetic atom, independently of its being empty or occupied by an $`s`$-electron. In the lastcase, it formally increases the number of spin degrees of freedom by 1 as compared with their initial real number. But the structure of the effective Hamiltonian ensures vanishing of the contribution from the extra degree of freedom. As for the charge carriers, they are treated as spinless fermions with operators $`c_𝐠^{},c_𝐠`$. This Hamiltonian has the form

$$H_{ef}=\frac{A(S+1)}{2}c_𝐠^{}c_𝐠tF(𝐒_𝐠,𝐒_{𝐠+𝚫})c_𝐠^{}c_{𝐠+𝚫}$$

$$\frac{I}{2}𝐒_𝐠𝐒_{𝐠+𝚫},(2)$$

$$\mathrm{with}(2S+1)F(𝐒_𝐠,𝐒_{𝐠+𝚫})=$$

$$\sqrt{(S+S_𝐠^z)(S+S_{𝐠+𝚫}^z)}+\frac{1}{\sqrt{S+S_𝐠^z}}S_𝐠^+S_{𝐠+𝚫}^{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{S+S_{𝐠+𝚫}^z}}$$

In Eq.(2) small terms of the order of $`IS^2/t`$ describing a change in the $`dd`$ exchange of the atom bearing the charge carrier are omitted. An explicit expression for them is presented in Refs. .

In what follows, the upper and lower bounds for the nonmagnetized string energy will be found which allows to make the string theory more general and more accurate as compared with previous theory for $`S`$ = 1/2. Calculations show that two quite different approaches lead to results which are very close. Hence both these approaches are reliable at the actual values of parameters.

We begin with the carrier located at the central atom $`\mathrm{𝟎}`$ when the ordering is complete antiferromagnetic. This means that the spin projection of each atom is maximum in the local coordinate system, in which the $`z`$-axis coincides with the moment of the sublattice of this atom. As is seen from Eq. (2), only such hole transitions to the neighboring atoms are possible, when at the atom left by the hole, the deviated spin remains with the spin projection $`S1`$ in the local coordinate system. At the next step the second deviated spin arises. and so on. As a result, the motion of the hole along a path beginning with the central atom is accompanied by the deviation of spins from the moments of their sublattices along this path, see Fig. 1.

The wave function of the system is sought in the form, in which the possibility of the $`d`$-spin deviations more than by 1 is ignored as their relative weight is small ($`1/z`$ where $`z`$ is the coordination number):

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_s=\underset{i=0,𝚫_1\mathrm{}𝚫_i}{}X(𝚫_0,𝚫_1,.𝚫_i)c_{𝚫_0+\mathrm{\Delta }_1+\mathrm{}𝚫_i}^{}|0>\times $$

$$\underset{k=0}{\overset{i1}{}}\frac{S_{𝚫_0+𝚫_1+\mathrm{}𝚫_k}^{}}{\sqrt{2S}}\underset{𝐟}{}\delta (S_𝐟^z,S),𝚫_0\mathrm{𝟎}(3)$$

written using the relationship (see, e.g., Ref. )

$$S^{}\delta (S^z,m)=\sqrt{(S+m)(Sm+1)}\delta (S^z,m1).$$

Here $`|0>`$ is the spinless fermion vacuum wave function, $`\delta (S^z,m)`$ is the $`d`$-spin wave function with the spin projection $`m`$ equivalent to the Kronecker symbol $`\delta _{S^z,m}`$. To simplify the form of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_s`$ in Eq. (3), unlike the Hamiltonian (2), the local coordinate system is used for each atom, in which the $`z`$ axis coincides with the moment of the sublattice to which the spin belongs. When one calculates the matrix elements of Hamiltonian (2) with the use of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ (3), one should use the common coordinate system, for example, corresponding to the sublattice I, and then for the atoms of the sublattice II one should change the sign of the $`d`$\- spin projection and replace $`S^{}`$ by $`S^+`$.

The string wave equation is obtained from Eqs. (2), (3) in the form

$$(EnL)X(𝚫_0,𝚫_1,\mathrm{}𝚫_n)=$$

$$=t_s\underset{𝚫_{n+1}}{}X(𝚫_0,𝚫_1..𝚫_n,𝚫_{n+1}),(4)$$

$$t_s=\frac{t\sqrt{2S}}{2S+1},L=|I|S(z2)$$

where $`L`$ is the change in the $`dd`$ exchange energy due to the spin deviation. Strictly speaking, this expression is valid for $`n>1`$ if the paths are not self-crossing and self- contacting but the number of such paths is very small (just they lead to the motion of the string center over the crystal ). The same equation can be obtained by a direct expansion of the wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_s`$ in the eigenfunctions of the second term of the Hamiltonian (1).

To solve Eq. (4), an effective wave function is introduced for the string by summing over the paths, which lead to the same point:

$$\varphi (𝐟)=\underset{n}{}\varphi _n(𝐟),$$

$$\varphi _n(𝐟)=\underset{𝚫_1\mathrm{}𝚫_n}{}X(𝚫_0,𝚫_1,..𝚫_n)\delta (𝚫_1+\mathrm{}𝚫_n,𝐟),(5)$$

where $`\delta (𝐱,𝐲)`$ is tantamount to the three-dimensional Kronecker symbol.

Multiplying both sides of Eq. (4) by $`\delta (𝚫_1+\mathrm{}𝚫_n,𝐟)`$ and summing over all $`𝚫_𝐢`$ and $`n`$, one obtains:

$$[L\underset{n}{}n\varphi _n(𝐟)E_s\varphi (𝐟)]=t_s\underset{𝚫}{}\varphi (𝐟+𝚫).(6)$$

To obtain the lower bound for the string energy, one should assume that the hole reaches the atom f using the shortest way, i.e. one sets

$$\underset{n}{}n\varphi _n(𝐟)=f\varphi (𝐟)(7)$$

(for the one-dimensional case this equation is exact).

The effective mass approximation is used. For the spherically symmetric potentials the ground state wave function is given by

$$\varphi (r)=\frac{\chi (r)}{r},\chi (0)=0(8)$$

As a consequence of Eqs (7), (8), one arrives at the wave equation for the wave function $`\chi _l`$ corresponding to the lower bound:

$$\left(\frac{1}{2m_s}\frac{d^2}{dr^2}+\frac{L}{a}r6t_sE_s^l\right)\chi _l(r)=0,(9)$$

where $`\mathrm{}=1`$, $`a`$ is the lattice constant, $`z`$ = 6 is the coordination number, $`m_s=1/(2t_sa^2)`$ is the effective mass of the hole bound to the fixed center of the string state and has nothing in common with the motion of the quasiparticle over the crystal.

Eq. (9) can be solved exactly, cf. . The ground state is described by the wave function

$$\varphi _l(r)=\frac{Ai[r/\rho a(E_s^l+6t_s)/\rho L]}{r},$$

$$\rho =(a/2m_sL)^{1/3}=a(t_s/L)^{1/3},(10)$$

where $`Ai(r)`$ is the Airy function, $`\rho `$ is the string radius. According to Eq. (8) the energy should be found using the maximum negative value of zeroes of the Airy function presented in Ref. . Then one obtains the lower bound for the string energy:

$$E_s^l=6t_s+2.3L^{2/3}t_s^{1/3}.(11)$$

This result is again similar to a nondegenerate case ($`S=1/2`$) . For the typical values of the manganite parameters $`t_s`$ about 0.1 eV (the initial band width $`2zt_f`$ = 1.2 eV, $`S`$ = 2) and $`L`$ about 0.01 eV the string radius $`\rho `$ amounts to about 2 lattice constants, and $`E_s^l`$ = - 0.35 eV (this energy is counted from the band center). As is seen from this estimate, the lower bound for the string energy is rather close to the band bottom of a particle with the bandwidth $`2zt_s`$.

To obtain the upper bound for the string energy, it is sufficient to assume that the hole reaches the atom f by random walks. Then for $`n`$ sufficiently large the probability to reach the site $`𝐟`$ after $`n`$ steps is

$$p_n(𝐟)=\frac{1}{(2\pi n)^{3/2}}\mathrm{exp}(\frac{f^2}{2n}).(12)$$

One obtains the following values for the averaged values of $`f`$ and $`f^2`$ from Eq. (12): $`<f>=1.596\sqrt{n},<f^2>=3n`$. Hence, the dispersion is sufficiently small, and to find the upper bound for the string energy $`E_s^u`$, one should solve the following wave equation:

$$(\frac{1}{2m_s}\frac{d^2}{dr^2}+\frac{L}{2.5a^2}r^26t_sE_s^u)\chi _u(r)=0.(13)$$

The solutions of Eq. (13) with the boundary condition (8) are the wave functions of an one-dimensional oscillator with uneven quantum numbers. Hence the ground-state value of this number is 1, and the zero-point energy of a three-dimensional oscillator is not $`\omega /2`$ but $`3\omega /2`$. This yields:

$$E_s^u=6t_s+1.9(t_sL)^{1/2}.(14)$$

For the parameters used above, $`E_s^u=5.2t_s`$. The fact that $`E_s^u`$ and $`E_s^l`$ presented above virtually coincide is a consequence of the fact that, strictly speaking, Eq. (13) is valid for very large $`f`$, i.e., for small $`L/t_s`$, and its value adopted here is not very small. If one takes the $`L`$ value an order of magnitude less, then $`E_s^u`$ exceeds $`E_s^l`$ by 0.1 $`t_s`$. In any case, the approach based on (7) ensures a reasonable accuracy at actual parameter values. The reason for it is the fact that longer paths to the same point correspond to larger energies of the magnetic disordering, and hence their weight is small as compared with the shortest path. The approach based on (7) will be used for investigation of the magnetized strings in the next Section.

## IV Magnetized magnetic strings

Keeping in mind that according to Eq. (4) $`t_s(2S)^{1/2}`$, one sees that the string state disappears in the classical limit $`S\mathrm{}`$. Hence, in this case, the only way to allow at least for some motion of an electron to decrease its kinetic energy, would be by creating the ferron state. But we can combine both these possibilities by making a ferromagnetic microregion in the centre of the string. Consequently, we should treat two problems: the motion of an electron inside a ferromagnetic microregion of radius $`R`$ (to be determined by the minimization of the total energy), and the string-like motion outside this region. The solutions should be matched at the boundary of the ferron.

As is seen from Eq. (2), the effective hopping integral for the ferromagnetic ordering is

$$t_f=\frac{2St}{2S+1},$$

i.e., exceeds $`t_s`$ by a factor of $`\sqrt{2S}`$. Hence, the ferromagnetic region is a potential well for the carrier of a depth

$$U=z(t_ft_s)=z\frac{2St}{2S+1}(1\frac{1}{\sqrt{2S}}).(15)$$

As follows from Eq. (15), the string magnetization is possible only for $`S>1/2`$.

The state of the charge carrier inside the spherical potential well of a radius $`R`$ with a ferromagnetic ordering is found from the equation

$$t_f(z+a^2\mathrm{\Delta })\psi =E_{ms}\psi (r<R)(16)$$

where $`E_{ms}`$ is the magnetized string energy. As for the antiferromagnetic region outside the sphere of the radius $`R`$, the same approximation as in Eq (9) will be made:

$$[t_s(z+a^2\mathrm{\Delta })+\frac{L}{a}(rR)]\psi =E_{ms}\psi ,(r>R).(17)$$

The ground-state solutions of Eqs (16) and (17) are, respectively (Eq (8) is used):

$$\chi =\mathrm{sin}pr,tp^2a^2=(E_{ms}+zt_f),(r<R)(18)$$

$$\chi =Ai(\xi ),$$

$$\xi =(\frac{rR}{a}\frac{U}{L}+\frac{p^2a^2t_f}{L})\left(\frac{L}{t_s}\right)^{1/3}.(19)$$

An equation (boundary condition) describing the matching of the wave functions outside and inside the ferromagnetic region has the form

$$ap\mathrm{cot}(pR)=\frac{L^{1/3}}{t_s^{1/3}}\frac{dAi(\xi )/dr|_{r=R}}{Ai(\xi )|_{r=R}}.(20)$$

To calculate the right-hand side of Eq. (20), the asymptotic expression for $`Ai(\xi )`$ will be used, which is valid at $`\xi \mathrm{}`$:

$$Ai(\xi )=\frac{1}{2|\xi |^{1/4}}\mathrm{exp}(\frac{2|\xi |^{3/2}}{3}).(21)$$

Formally this expression is valid for $`\xi 1`$ but practically is sufficiently accurate beginning with $`\xi =1`$ . Then one can rewrite Eq. (20) in the form

$$ap\mathrm{cot}(pR)=(2S)^{1/4}(Va^2p^2)^{1/2},V=\frac{U}{t_f}.(22)$$

Eq. (22) makes it possible to find $`p`$ as a function of $`R`$ and then to find the $`R`$ value which gives the minimum of the total energy of the system:

$$E_{ms}=6t_f+p^2a^2t_f+\frac{4\pi R^3D}{3a^3},$$

$$D=z|I|S^2=\frac{3LS}{2},(23)$$

where $`D`$ is the $`dd`$ exchange energy spent for formation of the ferromagnetic microregion (per atom). Technically, it is more convenient to fix a $`p`$ value and to find the lowest $`R`$ value for which the Eq. (22) is met.

Numerical calculations were carried out for $`S=2`$. In the range of $`R/a`$ values between 4.81 and 1.08, the solutions of Eq. (22) can be presented approximately in the form

$$ap(R)=\frac{3.4}{0.9+R/a}.(24)$$

As should be the case, keeping in mind that 3.4 is sufficiently close to $`\pi `$, one arrives at the same expression for $`Ra`$ as for the ferron energy found in Refs. . But quite different is the case of $`R`$ comparable to $`a`$. Then the condition for the magnetized string existence differs from that for the ferron existence drastically.

The minimization of the energy (23), (24) with respect to $`R`$ yields an expression for the energy of the $`dd`$ exchange $`D`$ as a function of $`x=R/a`$:

$$\frac{D(x)}{t_f}=\frac{1.84}{(0.9+x)^3x^2}.(25)$$

It shows that a completely ferromagnetic region arises when $`D/t_f<0.27`$. Then $`R=a`$, and the magnetized string energy (23) is lower than the string energy (9) though the difference is small. Energy $`E_{ms}`$ decreases and the size $`R`$ of the ferromagnetic region increases with diminishing ratio $`D/t_f`$. For example, for $`D/t_f`$ = 0.01 energy $`E_{ms}`$ is - 3.45 $`t_f`$ = - 6.9$`t_s`$ and the radius $`R`$ is about 2$`a`$. This magnetized string energy is lower than the lower bound for the nonmagnetized string energy (9) equal to -5.83 $`t_s`$.

Numerical estimates for the manganites can be obtained using the well-known mean field expression for the Néel point $`T_N=D(S+1)/3S`$, its experimental value 140 K and $`t_f`$ is about 0.1 eV. Then one obtains $`R`$ close to $`a`$. This means that a free string-ferron has a magnetic moment close to $`zS`$. In other words, it should be an order of magnitude larger than the moment of a Mn3+ ion. If ratio $`D/t_f`$ is larger than 0.27, formally $`R`$ is less than $`a`$; this means that the magnetized region is rather a canted antiferromagnetic, and not a ferromagnetic one. The situation resembles that for the bound ferrons . But it seems not very actual.

## V Conclusions

Summarizing, we considered in this paper the motion of charge carriers in doped antiferromagnets in case when the localized electrons have total spin $`S>1/2`$ and, due to the Pauli principle, spins of doped electrons or holes are opposite to the localized spins (i.e. when the total spin on a site with an extra electron or hole is $`S1/2`$). We have shown that the motion of charge carriers in this case is possible by forming strings — traces of spin deviations. Such string states by themselves would not have any extra magnetization. However the better state, with lower energy, may be created in this case: the central part of this state will be a ferromagnetic polaron (ferron) or a strongly canted region, and the motion of an electron outside this region proceeds in a string-like fashion. Thus, this state combines the features of both the ferron states  and of the string states . The extra magnetic moment, associated with each charge carrier in this case, could significantly modify magnetic properties of such systems. We believe that the physics described above may be relevant for the low-doped manganites; there may be also other materials belonging to this class.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by Grant No. 01-02-97010 of the Moscow Region Government — Russian Foundation for Basic Research, by Grant INTAS-97-open-30253, and by the agreement with the Russian Ministry of Science and Industry.


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# Properties of a beam splitter entangler with Gaussian input states

## I Introduction

As one of the few quantum devices that may act as the entangler, beam splitters have been extensively studied in its entangler related properties.
In laboratory, coherent states and squeezed states are two practically existing robust states. It is well known that no entanglement is produced if the input states are coherent states. Therefore it is important to know the entanglement property when squeezed states are used as the input. The output entanglement quantity is studied in ref given the squeezed state input. In particular, an explicit formula expressing the output state in the form of two mode squeezed states are given. However, the result there is limited to a type of rather specific case. For example, the beam splitter there is limited to the 50:50 beam splitter, the input squeezed states can only have the real squeezing parameters and so on. In this paper, we shall investigate this problem in a rather general background. We will give an explicit formuly for the entanglement quantity of the output state.
It has been shown in ref that in order to obtain an entangled output state, a necessary condition is that the input state should be non-classical. More generally, it was shown in that an arbitrary multi-mode classical state is still classical after an arbitrary multi-mode rotation transformation. This means, for arbitrary linear optical system including passive devices such as beam splitters, polarizing beam splitters, phase shifters, polarization rotators and so on, the output multi-mode state must be classical( therefore separable) if the input is classical. However However, this is only a necessary condition to obtain the entangled output state, it is not a sufficient condition in general. In certain case one may have interest to kno the exact amount of entanglement in the output state of the beam splitter and how to maximize it through adjusting the parameters in the passive linear optical system. Here we make an explicit calculation with the input of two single mode squeezed states.
Consider a loseless beam splitter(see figure 1 in ref.). We can distinguish the field mode $`a`$ and mode $`b`$ by the different propagating direction. Most generally, the property of a beam splitter operator $`\widehat{B}`$ in Schrodinger picture can be summarized by the following equations(see e.g., ref)

$`\rho _{out}=\widehat{B}\rho _{in}\widehat{B}^1,`$ (1)
$`\widehat{B}^{}=\widehat{B}^1,`$ (2)
$`\widehat{B}\left(\begin{array}{c}\widehat{a}\\ \widehat{b}\end{array}\right)\widehat{B}^1=M_B\left(\begin{array}{c}\widehat{a}\\ \widehat{b}\end{array}\right),`$ (7)
$`M_B=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\varphi _0}& \mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\varphi _1}\\ \mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\varphi _1}& \mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\varphi _0}\end{array}\right)`$ (10)
$`\widehat{B}|00=|00.`$ (11)
Here $`\rho _{in}`$ and $`\rho _{out}`$ are the density operator for the input and output states respectively. Both of them are two mode states including mode $`a`$ and mode $`b`$. The elements in the matrix $`M_B`$ are determined by the beam splitter itself, $`\widehat{a},\widehat{b}`$ are the annihilation operators for mode $`a`$ and mode $`b`$ respective, $`|00`$ is the vacuum state for both mode. Equation (11) is due to the simple fact of no input no output.

## II Inseparability quantity with squeezed states input

Suppose the input states are the squeezed vacuum states in each mode, i.e.

$`\rho _{in}=\widehat{S}_a(\zeta _a)\widehat{S}_b(\zeta _b)|0000|\widehat{S}^{}(\zeta _a)\widehat{S}^{}(\zeta _b),`$ (12)
where

$`\begin{array}{c}\widehat{S}_a(\zeta _a)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2}\zeta _a^{}\widehat{a}^2\frac{1}{2}\zeta _a\widehat{a}^2\right);\hfill \\ \widehat{S}_b(\zeta _b)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2}\zeta _b^{}\widehat{b}^2\frac{1}{2}\zeta _b\widehat{b}^2\right).\hfill \end{array}`$ (15)
They have the following propertis

$`\widehat{S}_a^{}(\zeta _a)\left(\begin{array}{c}a^{}\\ a\end{array}\right)\widehat{S}_a(\zeta _a)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cosh}r_a& e^{i\chi _a}\mathrm{sinh}r_a\\ e^{i\chi _a}\mathrm{sinh}r_a& \mathrm{cosh}r_a\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}b^{}\\ b\end{array}\right);`$ (22)
$`\widehat{S}_b^{}(\zeta _b)\left(\begin{array}{c}b^{}\\ b\end{array}\right)\widehat{S}_b(\zeta _b)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cosh}r_b& e^{i\chi _b}\mathrm{sinh}r_b\\ e^{i\chi _b}\mathrm{sinh}r_b& \mathrm{cosh}r_b\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}b^{}\\ b\end{array}\right),`$ (29)
where $`r_{a,b}=|\zeta _{a,b}|`$ and $`\chi _{a,b}=\mathrm{tanh}^1\zeta _{a,b}/r_{a,b}`$.

For simplicity, we use the characteristic function for the input state $`\rho _{in}`$ and the output state $`\rho _{out}`$.

$$C_{in}(\xi _a,\xi _b)=\mathrm{tr}\left[\mathrm{exp}\left(\xi _a\widehat{a}\xi _a^{}\widehat{a}^{}+\xi _b\widehat{b}\xi _b^{}\widehat{b}^{}\right)\rho _{in}\right]$$

$`=\mathrm{tr}\{\mathrm{exp}\left[i\sqrt{2}(\xi _a^I\widehat{x}_a+\xi _a^R\widehat{p}_a+\xi _b^I\widehat{x}_b+\xi _b^R\widehat{p}_b)\rho _{in}\right\},`$ (30)
where the parameters $`\xi _{a,b}=\xi _{a,b}^R+i\xi _{a,b}^I`$, $`(\widehat{x}_a,\widehat{p}_a)=N(\widehat{a}^{},\widehat{a})^T`$, $`(\widehat{x}_b,\widehat{p}_b)=N(\widehat{b}^{},\widehat{b})^T`$ and $`N=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 1\\ i& i\end{array}\right)`$. For convenience, we denote $`\widehat{D}(\xi _a,\xi _b)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\xi _a\widehat{a}\xi _a^{}\widehat{a}^{}+\xi _b\widehat{b}\xi _b^{}\widehat{b}^{}\right)`$ In the case of squeezed states input, the characteristic function for the output state is

$$C_{out}(\xi _a,\xi _b)=\mathrm{tr}\left[\widehat{D}(\xi _a,\xi _b)\widehat{B}\widehat{S}_a(\zeta _a)\widehat{S}_b(\zeta _b)|0000|\widehat{S}_a^{}(\zeta _a)\widehat{S}_b^{}(\zeta _b)\widehat{B}^{}\right]$$

$`=\mathrm{tr}\left[\widehat{S}_a^{}(\zeta _a)\widehat{S}_b^{}(\zeta _b)B^{}\widehat{D}(\xi _a,\xi _b)\widehat{B}\widehat{S}_a(\zeta _a)\widehat{S}_b(\zeta _b)|0000|\right].`$ (31)
Suppose the output state of mode a being $`\rho _{oa}`$. The quantity of entanglement for the output state between mode $`a`$ and mode $`b`$ is

$`E(\rho _{oa})=\mathrm{tr}(\rho _{oa}\mathrm{ln}\rho _{oa}).`$ (32)
Using eq(31), we can calculate the characteristic function for the output state in mode $`a`$ explicitly:

$$C_{oa}(\xi _a)=C_{out}(\xi _a,\xi _b=0)=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{cos}^2\theta \left|\xi _a^{}e^{i\varphi _0}\mathrm{cosh}r_a+\xi _ae^{i\varphi _0+i\chi _a}\mathrm{sinh}r_a\right|^2\right]$$

$`\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \left|\xi _ae^{i\varphi _1}\mathrm{cosh}r_b+\xi _a^{}e^{i\varphi _1i\chi _b}\mathrm{sinh}r_b\right|^2\right].`$ (33)
In obtaining the above equation, we have used equation(7,10), equation(22,29) to reduce the part $`\widehat{S}_a^{}(\zeta _a)\widehat{S}_b^{}(\zeta _b)B^{}\widehat{D}(\xi _a,\xi _b)\widehat{B}\widehat{S}_a(\zeta _a)\widehat{S}_b(\zeta _b)`$. The right hand side of equation(33) can be written in the form in $`\xi _R`$ and $`\xi _I`$ where $`\xi _R+i\xi _I=\xi _a`$, i.e.

$`C_{oa}=\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\xi _R,\xi _I)M_{oa}(\xi _R,\xi _I)^T\right].`$ (34)
Here $`M_{oa}`$ is the $`2\times 2`$ covariance matrix as $`M_{oa}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}m_{11}& m_{12}\\ m_{21}& m_{22}\end{array}\right).`$ After calculation we obtain the matrix elements

$`m_{11}=\mathrm{\Sigma }_a\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +\mathrm{\Sigma }_b\mathrm{sin}^2\theta +2x_a\mathrm{cos}^2\theta \mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Delta }_a+2x_b\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Delta }_b;`$ (35)
$`m_{12}=m_{21}=2x_a\mathrm{cos}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Delta }_a+2x_b\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Delta }_b;`$ (36)
and

$`m_{22}=\mathrm{\Sigma }_a\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +\mathrm{\Sigma }_b\mathrm{sin}^2\theta 2x_a\mathrm{cos}^2\theta \mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Delta }_a2x_b\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Delta }_b,`$ (37)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_a=\mathrm{cosh}^2r_a+\mathrm{sinh}^2r_a`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_b=\mathrm{cosh}^2r_b+\mathrm{sinh}^2r_b`$, $`x_a=\mathrm{sinh}r_a\mathrm{cosh}r_a`$, $`x_b=\mathrm{sinh}r_b\mathrm{cosh}r_b`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a=2\varphi _0\chi _a`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b=2\varphi _1\chi _b`$. We can choose an appropriate unitary transformation to $`\rho _{oa}`$ to obtain another density operator $`\rho _{oa}^{}`$ whose characteristic function is

$`C_{oa}^{}(\xi _a)=\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\xi _R,\xi _I)\left(\begin{array}{cc}\delta & 0\\ 0& \delta \end{array}\right)(\xi _R,\xi _I)^T\right]`$ (40)
and

$`\delta =\sqrt{m_{11}m_{22}m_{12}^2}.`$ (41)
We know the Wigner characteristic function for a thermal state $`(1e^\beta )e^{\beta a^{}a}`$ is

$`C_{th}(\xi )=\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\xi _R,\xi _I)\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1+e^\beta }{1e^\beta }& 0\\ 0& \frac{1+e^\beta }{1e^\beta }\end{array}\right)(\xi _R,\xi _I)\right],`$ (44)
This is to say, the state defined by the characteristic function in equation(40) is a thermal state in the form

$`\rho _{oa}^{}=(1e^\beta )e^{\beta a^{}a}`$ (45)
with the parameter $`\beta `$ satisfying

$`e^\beta ={\displaystyle \frac{\delta 1}{\delta +1}}.`$ (46)
Since the trace value does not change under any unitary transformation, the entanglement quantity defined in equation(32) is

$`E(\rho _{oa})=\mathrm{tr}\rho _{ao}^{}\mathrm{ln}\rho _{ao}^{}`$ (47)
For the thermal state defined by equation(45), calculation for the quantity $`\mathrm{tr}\rho _{ao}^{}\mathrm{ln}\rho _{ao}^{}`$ is straightforward. Thus we have the following result for the quantity of entanglement for the output state given the squeezed state input in each mode:

$`E(\rho _{out})=\mathrm{ln}(1e^\beta )+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta e^\beta }{1e^\beta }}=\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\delta +1}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta 1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta 1}{\delta +1}},`$ (48)
with $`\delta `$ being defined by equation(41) and equation(35,36,37). The above equation together with the previous equations for the definition of $`\delta `$ gives a direct calculation formula for the entanglement quantity given the indepedent squeezed state as the input to each mode. This is to say, the maximum value of $`detM_{oa}`$ gives the largest entanglement. In order to maximize the entanglement, we should maxmize the value of $`\delta `$. After calculation we can see that

$`\delta ^2=(\mathrm{\Sigma }_a+\mathrm{\Sigma }_b+\mathrm{sinh}2r_a+\mathrm{sinh}2r_b)(\mathrm{sin}^4\theta +\mathrm{cos}^4\theta )+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_a\mathrm{\Sigma }_b\mathrm{sin}^22\theta 2x_ax_b\mathrm{sin}^22\theta \mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Delta }_b\mathrm{\Delta }_a)`$ (49)
Obviously the following condition is required to maximize the value of $`\delta ^2`$ for the maximum entanglement

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_b\mathrm{\Delta }_a=2(\varphi _1\varphi _0)(\chi _b\chi _a)=(2k+1)\pi ,`$ (50)
where $`k`$ is an arbitrary integer. And we know that, the values of both $`\chi _b\chi _a`$ and $`\varphi _1+\varphi _0`$ are practically detectable and controllable in a beam splitter experiment. This constraint is independent of $`\theta `$ or $`r_a,r_b`$. In particular, taking the special case $`\varphi _0`$ and $`|\mathrm{cos}\theta |=1/2`$ it is just the result given by Kim et al. However, our result is more general than that in ref. Ref. has only given the maximum point in the case of 50:50 beam splitter with $`\varphi _0=0`$. No explicit formula for the quantity of entanglement is given there. Our result is more general in that it can not only be used for the exact amount of entanglement but also to find the maximum point of entanglement for the output state of a beam splitter with arbitrary transmission rate and with arbitrary phase values of $`\varphi _0,\varphi _1,\chi _a`$ and $`\chi _b`$.

## III Concluding remark

In summary, we have studied the entanglement quantity for the output state of a beam splitter given squeezed vacuum state as the input state in each mode. Different from the previous result, our result is not limited to the 50:50 result. We don’t know how to obtain the more general result given the general Gaussian state, since so far there is no good entanglement for the impure Gaussian state. It has been shown in ref that nonclassical separable input state can be changed to an entangled state in the output. The inverse of such a process makes examples that even though the input state is nonclassical, the output could be still separable. Some specific examples are given in . The necessary and sufficient condition for an inseparable output state is not given so far. It is possible to obtain the necessary and sufficient condition for inseparability of the output state given the Gaussian input state. We will give this condition explicitly in this paper.However, one may still easily find the criterion on whether the output state is inseparable through inseparability criterion:

$`M_{out}+i\stackrel{~}{\sigma }0,`$ (51)
where M is the correlation matrix of the output state, the $`4\times 4`$ matrix $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }=J_A^TJ_B`$, $`J_A=J_B=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right)`$. A detailed calculation on this is given in ref.
Acknowledgement: I thank Prof Imai for support. I thank Dr Hwang WY, Dr Winter A, Dr Yura H, Dr Matsumoto K,and Dr Tomita A for useful discussions.


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# Discovery of X–rays from Venus with Chandra

## 1 Introduction

The first detection of X–ray emission from a planetary atmosphere came as a surprise, when unexpectedly high background radiation was observed in 1967 during a daytime stellar X–ray survey by a rocket (Grader et al. 1968). This radiation was correctly attributed to X–ray fluorescence of the Earth’s atmosphere. Aikin (1970) estimated that the same process should also cause other planetary atmospheres to glow in X–rays, although the expected flux at Earth orbit would be extremely small and only detectable with sophisticated instrumentation. X–ray fluorescence of the Earth atmosphere, however, became a well–known component of the X–ray background of satellites in low–Earth orbit. Its properties and its impact on observations were studied in detail by Fink et al. (1988) and Snowden & Freyberg (1993).
The detection of unexpectedly bright X–ray emission from comets (Lisse et al. 1996; Dennerl et al. 1997; Mumma et al. 1997) has led to increased interest in X–ray studies of solar system objects. With its carbon and oxygen rich atmosphere, the absence of a strong magnetic field, and its proximity to the Sun, Venus represents a close planetary analog to a comet. Dissociative recombination of O$`{}_{}{}^{+}{}_{2}{}^{}`$ in the Venus ionosphere leads to a hot oxygen exosphere out to over 4000 km (Russell et al. 1985), resembling a cometary coma. To investigate the X–ray properties of Venus, we performed a pioneering observation with the X–ray astronomy satellite Chandra.
Orbiting the Sun at heliocentric distances of 0.718 – 0.728 astronomical units (AU), the angular separation of Venus from the Sun, as seen from Earth, never exceeds 47.8 degrees. While the observing window of imaging X–ray astronomy satellites is usually restricted to solar elongations of at least $`60\mathrm{°}`$, Chandra is the first such satellite which is able to observe as close as $`45\mathrm{°}`$ from the limb of the Sun. Thus, with Chandra an observation of Venus with an imaging X–ray astronomy satellite became possible for the first time. The observation was scheduled to take place around the time of greatest eastern elongation, when Venus was $`47\mathrm{°}`$ away from the Sun. At that time it appeared optically as a very bright (-4.4 mag), approximately half–illuminated crescent with a diameter of $`23\mathrm{}`$ (Table 1).

## 2 Observation and data analysis

Venus is the celestial object with the highest optical surface brightness after the Sun and a highly challenging target for an X–ray observation with Chandra, as the X–ray detectors there (CCDs and microchannel plates) are also sensitive to optical light. Suppression of optical light is achieved by optical blocking filters which, however, must not attenuate the X–rays significantly. The observation was originally planned to use the back–illuminated ACIS–S3 CCD, which has the highest sensitivity to soft (E$`<`$1.4 keV) X–rays, for direct imaging of Venus, utilizing the intrinsic energy resolution for obtaining spectral information. Before the observation was scheduled, however, it turned out that the optical filter on this CCD would not be sufficient for blocking the extremely high optical flux from Venus. Therefore, half of the observation (obsid 583, cf. Table 1) was performed with the front–illuminated CCDs of the ACIS–I array (I1 and I3), which are less sensitive to soft X–rays, but which are also significantly less affected by optical light contamination.

In order to avoid any ambiguity in the X–ray spectrum due to residual optical light, the other half of the observation (obsid 2411 and 2414, cf. Table 1) was performed with the low energy transmission grating (LETG), where the optical and X–ray spectra are completely separated by dispersion. To minimize the risk of telemetry overload, the area around the zero order image (contaminated by optical light) was not transmitted to Earth. The telescope was offset by $`3\stackrel{}{.}25`$ from its nominal aimpoint, to shift the most promising spectral region around the dispersed 0.53 keV O–Kα emission line well into the back–illuminated CCD S3 (Fig. 3). The combination of direct imaging and spectroscopy with the transmission grating made it possible to obtain complementary spatial and spectral information within the available total observing time of 6.5 hours.

At the time of the observation, Venus was moving across the sky with a proper motion of $`2\stackrel{}{.}6`$/hour. As the CCDs were read out every 3.2 s, there was no need for continuous tracking. The spacecraft was oriented such that Venus would move parallel to one side of the CCDs and perpendicular to the dispersion direction in the LETG observation. To keep Venus well inside the $`8\stackrel{}{.}3`$ field of view (FOV) of ACIS–S perpendicular to the dispersion direction, Chandra was repointed at the middle of the LETG / ACIS–S observation (Table 1). For ACIS–I with its larger $`16\stackrel{}{.}9\times 16\stackrel{}{.}9`$ FOV, no repointing during the observation was necessary. As the photons were recorded time–tagged, an individual post–facto transformation into the rest frame of Venus is possible. This was done with the geocentric ephemeris of Venus as computed with the JPL ephemeris calculator.111available at http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eph  Correction for the parallax of Chandra was done with the orbit ephemeris of the delivered data set. For the whole analysis we used events with Chandra standard grades and excluded bright pixels. The fact that all observations were performed with CCDs with intrinsic energy resolution made it possible to suppress the background with high efficiency.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Morphology

In the X–ray image (Fig. 1) the crescent of Venus is clearly resolved and allows detailed comparisons with the optical appearance. An optical image (Fig. 8 e), taken at the same phase angle, shows a sphere which is slightly more than half illuminated, closely resembling the geometric illumination, with the brightness maximum well inside the crescent. In the X–ray image the sphere appears to be less than half illuminated. The most striking difference, however, is the pronounced limb brightening, which is particularly obvious in the surface brightness profiles (Fig. 2 b) and in the smoothed X–ray image (Fig. 8 d). For a quantitative understanding of this brightening we performed a simulation of the appearance of Venus in soft X–rays, based on fluorescent scattering of solar X–ray radiation. This simulation will be described in Sect. 4.

The ACIS–I observation is well suited to investigate the X–ray environment of Venus outside the bright crescent, an area unaffected by optical loading. In Fig. 2 the distribution of photons within a $`200\mathrm{}\times 200\mathrm{}`$ region around Venus is shown, together with the evolution of the surface brightness with increasing distance from Venus, for a soft ($`E=0.2`$ – 1.5 keV) and a hard ($`E=1.5`$ – 10.0 keV) band. In the soft band there is some indication that the surface brightness at $`r=16\stackrel{}{.}5`$ – $`100\mathrm{}`$ decreases with increasing distance from Venus, both at the day- and nightside. The fact that the corresponding distributions in the hard band are flat argues against the possibility that this drop is caused by inhomogeneities in the overall sensitivity. If the drop is not caused by other instrumental effects, e.g., the PSF of the telescope, then this could be evidence for an extended X–ray halo around Venus. This will be discussed further in Sect. 5.

### 3.2 Spectrum

The ACIS–I data clearly show that the X–ray spectrum of Venus is very soft: images accumulated from photons with energies $`E>1.5\text{ keV}`$ show no enhancement at the position of Venus (cf. Fig. 2 b). We determine a $`3\sigma `$ upper limit of $`2.510^4\text{ counts/s}`$ to any flux from Venus in the 1.5 – 2.0 keV energy range. The corresponding value for $`E=2.0`$ – 8.0 keV is $`5.610^4\text{ counts/s}`$. Further spectral analysis of the ACIS–I data is complicated by the presence of optical loading.222Although ACIS–I is equipped with an efficient filter for blocking optical light, the optical brightness of Venus (surface brightness: 1.5 mag per square arcsecond) is so extreme that a small fraction of optical photons succeed in penetrating the filter. These photons deposit charge in the CCD in addition to the X–ray photons, causing a systematic increase of the apparent energy. As a consequence, the spectrum of the photons within the optical extent of Venus ($`r<11\stackrel{}{.}7`$) extends to higher energies than the one accumulated near the outer boundary ($`11\stackrel{}{.}7<r<16\stackrel{}{.}5`$), where only a fraction of photons (projected there by the PSF of the telescope) contributes to optical loading. Despite this contamination, both spectra indicate the presence of a bright emission line near 0.6 keV.

Anticipating this possibility, and in order to fully utilize the spectroscopic capabilities of Chandra, we performed also spectroscopic observations with the LETG. Fig. 3 a shows what we expected to see in the dispersed first order spectra: images of the Venus crescent in the C–Kα, N–Kα and O–Kα emission lines (the energies were taken from Bearden (1967)). Fig. 3 b shows the observed spectrum. The photons from both LETG observations were transformed into the rest frame of Venus and superimposed. Bright pixels and bright columns were excluded, and the intrinsic energy resolution of ACIS–S was used to suppress the background.333This was done by selecting only events within $`[E_{\mathrm{min}},E_{\mathrm{max}}]`$, with the energy boundaries depending on the displacement $`x`$ from the zero order position: $`E_{\mathrm{min}}=270\text{ eV}+(E277\text{ eV})0.8065`$
$`E_{\mathrm{max}}=350\text{ eV}+(E277\text{ eV})1.0887`$ $`E=1.23910^3\text{ eV}/\lambda [\mathrm{nm}],\lambda /[\mathrm{nm}]=5.60210^3\left|x[\mathrm{}]\right|`$  This spectrum, which is completely uncontaminated by optical light, clearly shows that most of the flux comes from O–Kα fluorescence. As this flux is monochromatic, images of the Venus crescent (illuminated from bottom) show up along the dispersion direction. The intensity profile along this direction is shown in Fig. 3 c.

For the determination of the line energies we proceeded as follows: from the ACIS–I observation, we accumulated all photons with $`E1.5\text{ keV}`$ within a circle of $`r=16\stackrel{}{.}5`$ around Venus along the solar direction, to get the intensity profile perpendicular to the solar direction (Fig. 2a), i.e., along the dispersion axis in the LETG observation (Fig. 3). This profile, which shows a characteristic central dip due to the effect of limb brightening, was then smoothed with a cubic spline function and used as a template for the spectral fit. For each emission line, the position and the normalization of the template were determined as free parameters by $`\chi ^2`$ minimization. The dispersion was expressed in arcseconds, and the width of the template was reduced by 3% (to take the change of the apparent size into account; Tab. 1) and kept fixed. Errors were determined by increasing the minimum $`\chi ^2`$ by 1.0, with the normalization as free parameter. The results, converted into energies, are listed in Tab. 2.

The observed line energies are higher than the values of Bearden (1967), but in all cases the deviation is less than $`1.5\sigma `$. A better agreement, with deviations of less than $`1.0\sigma `$, is achieved with Aikin (1970), who quoted emission energies of 278.4, 392.9, and 526.0 eV for C, N, and O. Recent determinations of the dominant emission line of atomic oxygen (for the 1s2s22p5(3P$`^\text{o}`$) configuration) yielded energies in the range 526.8 – 528.3 eV (McLaughlin & Kirby 1998, and references therein), which is in excellent agreement with the $`527.2_{1.4}^{+1.3}\text{ eV}`$ found in the LETG – S3 spectrum of Venus. If the oxygen atom is embedded in a molecule, this energy is slightly shifted: to 527.3 eV for CO2 (Nordgren et al. 1997), 526.8 eV for O2 (McLaughlin & Kirby 1998), and 525.0 – 526.0 eV for CO (Skytt et al. 1997). These shifts are too small to be discriminated with the currently available spectral resolution, which is mainly limited by the statistical uncertainty due to the low number of detected photons. The situation is similar for carbon and nitrogen, where the following values were recently found: 279.2 eV for CO (Skytt et al. 1997) and 393 – 394 eV for N2 (Nordgren et al. 1997).

Emission line spectra of molecules composed of C, N, and O atoms are characterized by an additional fluorescence line, caused by the $`1s\pi ^{}`$ transition following core excitation. In CO, this line is much more pronounced at the C than at the O fluorescence energy (e.g. Skytt et al. 1997, Figs. 5 and 6). The energies for the $`1s\pi ^{}`$ transition are 287.4 eV for C in CO (Sodhi & Brion 1984), 290.7 eV for C in CO2 (Hitchcock & Ishi 1987), 401.1 eV for N2, 534.2 eV for O in CO (Sodhi & Brion 1984), and 535.4 eV for O in CO2 (McLaren et al. 1987). We do not see such an additional line at N and O. The image of Venus at the energy of carbon, however, appears elongated along the dispersion direction (Fig. 3b), and the spectrum (Fig. 3c) does indicate the presence of a secondary emission line at $`288\pm 4\text{ eV}`$, consistent with the energy of the C $`1s\pi ^{}`$ transition in CO2 and CO.

Table 2 summarizes the number of detected photons in the individual lines together with the derived fluxes. The specified uncertainties are $`1\sigma `$ errors from photon statistics; they do not include uncertainties in the effective areas at $`E<0.6\text{ keV}`$. This could be the reason for the $`1.9\sigma `$ deviation between the two O–Kα fluxes observed with S2 and S3, because both parts of the dispersed spectrum were recorded simultaneously. For C–Kα the number of recorded photons is sufficient for detection, but not high enough for a reliable flux determination. For N–Kα a marginal detection is only possible because the few photons were recorded exactly at the expected position. The fact that no N–Kα photons are detected at the corresponding mirror site may be related to inhomogeneities in the ACIS–S low energy response, in particular close to the CCD borders. The last row in Table 2 contains the values for the direct imaging observation with ACIS–I. Despite the lower energy resolution and the problem with optical loading, it is very likely that most of the flux came from O–Kα. The difference between this flux and the (non–simultaneously obtained) O–Kα fluxes from the LETG observations may be related to the X–ray variability of Venus (Sect. 3.3).

It is interesting to compare the total X–ray flux from Venus with the optical flux. The visual magnitude $`4.4\text{ mag}`$ corresponds to an optical flux of $`f_{\mathrm{opt}}=1.510^3\text{ erg cm}^2\text{ s}^1`$. Adopting a total X–ray flux of $`f_\mathrm{x}=3.010^{13}\text{ erg cm}^2\text{ s}^1`$, we get

$$f_\mathrm{x}/f_{\mathrm{opt}}=L_\mathrm{x}/L_{\mathrm{opt}}=210^{10}$$

Taking into account that the energy of a Kα photon exceeds that of an optical photon by two orders of magnitude, we find that on average there is only one X–ray photon among $`510^{11}`$ photons from Venus. This extremely small fraction of X–ray versus optical flux, combined with the soft X–ray spectrum and the proximity of Venus to the Sun, illustrates the challenge of observing Venus in X–rays. The X–ray flux is emitted in just three narrow emission lines. Outside these lines the $`L_\mathrm{x}/L_{\mathrm{opt}}`$ ratio is even orders of magnitude lower.

### 3.3 Temporal variability

While there is practically no variation of the optical flux from Venus on time scales of hours and less, the X–ray flux shows indications for pronounced variability on time scales of minutes (Fig. 4 c). A Kolmogorov–Smirnov test yields probabilities of only 1% for both the observation with LETG / ACIS–S and ACIS–I that the count rates are just statistical fluctuations around a constant value. As variability of the 1 – 10 keV solar flux by a factor of two on time scales of minutes is not uncommon (e.g. Fig. 4 a), we expect the scattered solar X–rays from Venus to exhibit a similar variability. However, a direct comparison with the solar flux monitored simultaneously with GOES–8 and GOES–10 (Fig. 4 a) and SOHO/SEM (Fig. 4 b) does not show an obvious correlation. This may be related to the fact that solar X–rays are predominantly emitted from localized regions and that Venus saw a solar hemisphere which was rotated by $`48\stackrel{}{.}0`$ (LETG / ACIS–S) and $`46\stackrel{}{.}5`$ (ACIS–I) from the solar hemisphere facing Earth. Differences from the broad band solar X–ray flux (as measured with GOES/SOHO) may also arise due to the fact that the X–ray flux from Venus responds very sensitively to variability of the solar flux in a narrow spectral range just above the K edges. As will be shown in the next section, this is particularly the case for O–Kα: while the C–Kα emission increases by only 7% if the coronal temperature rises by 8%, the O–Kα emission increases by 33%.

## 4 Modeling the X–ray appearance of Venus

Estimates on the X–ray luminosity of Venus due to scattering and fluorescence of solar x–rays have recently been made by Cravens & Maurellis (2001). We are, however, not aware of detailed predictions of how Venus would appear in X–rays. For comparison with the observed image we performed a numerical simulation of fluorescent scattering of solar X–rays in the atmosphere of Venus. We did not consider elastic scattering, as the corresponding luminosity is one order of magnitude below the fluorescence luminosity, according to Cravens & Maurellis (2001), and in agreement with the observed LETG spectrum (Fig. 3 c).

The ingredients to the model are the composition and density structure of the Venus atmosphere, the photoabsorption cross sections and fluorescence efficiencies of the major atmospheric constituents, and the incident solar spectrum.

### 4.1 Venus atmosphere

We adopted the Venus model atmosphere from Seiff (1983), where the density in the lower and middle atmosphere, i.e., between the surface and a height of 100 km, is tabulated in steps of 2 km for different latitudes, while for the upper atmosphere, between 100 km and 180 km, it is tabulated in steps of 4 km for two solar zenith angles sza (subsolar: $`\text{sza}<50^{}`$ and antisolar: $`\text{sza}>120^{}`$). For $`50^{}\text{sza}120^{}`$ we interpolated the density exponentially. In order to calculate the number density of C, N, and O atoms, we used the following values for the composition of the atmosphere: 65.2% oxygen, 32.6% carbon and 2.2% nitrogen. As the main constituents, C and O, are contained in CO2, we assumed this composition to be homogeneous throughout the atmosphere.

### 4.2 Photoabsorption cross sections

The values for the photoabsorption cross sections were taken from Reilman & Manson (1979). We supplemented them with data from Chantler (1995) at energies close to the K edges. From these values and the C, N, and O contributions listed above, we computed the effective photoabsorption cross section of the Venus atmosphere (Fig. 5 a). This, together with the atmospheric density structure, yielded the optical depth of the Venus atmosphere, as seen from outside (Fig. 6).

There is quite some discrepancy in the literature about the K–shell binding energies in C, N, and O atoms. These energies are affected by the outer electrons and thus depend on whether the element is in an atomic, molecular, or solid state. The values 283.8, 401.6, 532.0 eV for C, N, O, which Chantler (1995) computed for isolated atoms, are in good agreement with the values 283.84, 400, and 531.7 eV found by Henke et al. (1982) and used by, e.g., Morrison & McCammon (1983). However, Gould & Jung (1991) found significantly higher K–threshold energies for isolated C, N, and O atoms: 297.37 eV, 412.36 eV, and 546.02 eV. According to Snowden & Freyberg (1993), the values 400 eV and 532 eV of Henke et al. (1982) refer to molecular nitrogen and oxygen, while Ma et al. (1991) quote an ionization potential of 409.938 eV for N2 (and 296.080 eV for C in CO). A compilation by Sevier (1979) lists calculated values of 296.94 eV for atomic carbon, 410.7 eV and 411.88 eV for atomic nitrogen, 411.2 eV for N2, 545.37 eV for atomic oxygen, and 542.2 eV for O2. An accurate treatment of the K–edge is further complicated by the presence of considerable fine–structure: detailed calculations of the inner–shell photoabsorption of oxygen by McLaughlin & Kirby (1998) show that already the atomic state contains an impressive amount of resonance structure around the K–edge.

In order to estimate the consequences of all these uncertainties, we ran our simulation also with the following, alternative set of K–edge energies: $`E_{K_\mathrm{C}}=296.1\text{ eV},E_{K_\mathrm{N}}=409.9\text{ eV},E_{K_\mathrm{O}}=544.0\text{ eV}.`$ In both cases we assumed that the energy will be emitted at 279.2, 393.5 and 527.3 eV, according to recent determinations and in agreement with the observed LETG spectrum (Sect. 3.2). We found no significant differences in the results (Tab. 3).

### 4.3 Solar radiation

The solar spectra for 2001 January 10 and 13 were derived from SOLAR 2000 (Tobiska et al. 2000).444available at http://SpaceWx.com/ These spectra, best estimate daily average values, do not differ much between both dates. To improve the coverage towards energies $`E>100\text{ eV}`$, we computed synthetic spectra with the model of Mewe et al. (1985) and aligned them with the SOLAR 2000 spectra in the range 50 – 500 eV, by adjusting the temperature and intensity. We derived a coronal temperature of $`120\pm 10\text{ eV}`$. The spectrum, scaled to the heliocentric distance of Venus, is shown in Fig. 5 b (upper curve), with a bin size of 1 eV, which we used in order to preserve the spectral details.

### 4.4 Model grid

The high dynamic range in the optical depth of the Venus atmosphere (Fig. 6) requires a model with high spatial resolution. For the simulation we choose a right–handed coordinate system $`(x,y,z)`$ with the center of Venus at (0,0,0) and the Sun at $`(0,0,+\mathrm{})`$. We sample the irradiated part of the Venus atmosphere with a grid of volume elements of size $`s_x=s_y=s_zs_g=1\text{ km}`$.

Fig. 6 shows that the atmosphere becomes optically thick for X–rays with $`E<5\text{ keV}`$ already at heights above 100 km. This means that solar X–rays do not reach the atmosphere below 100 km, where the density shows some latitudinal dependence. Above 100 km, however, the density of the model atmosphere depends only on the height and the solar zenith angle. This simplifies the calculation: instead of computing the solar irradiation of the volume elements $`V(x_i,y_j,z_k)`$, it is only necessary to do this for volume elements $`V(r_{ij},z_k)`$, with $`r_{ij}=(x_i^2+y_j^2)^{1/2}`$.

The whole information about the irradiation of the atmosphere can thus be computed and stored in volume elements $`V_{ik}=V(r_i,z_{k_i})`$, $`i=1..n`$ and $`k_i=1..m_i`$, with

$$n=\mathrm{int}[R_\mathrm{v}/s_g]\text{for}r_iR_\mathrm{v}\text{and}$$

$$m_i=\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{int}\left[\frac{1}{s_g}\left(\left(R_\mathrm{v}^2r_i^2\right)^{1/2}\left(r_\mathrm{v}^2r_i^2\right)^{1/2}\right)\right]\text{ for }r_ir_\mathrm{v}\hfill \\ \mathrm{int}\left[\frac{2}{s_g}\left(R_\mathrm{v}^2r_i^2\right)^{1/2}\right]\text{for }r_\mathrm{v}<r_iR_\mathrm{v}\hfill \end{array}$$

Here $`r_\mathrm{v}=6052.0\text{ km}`$ is the radius of Venus, $`h_\mathrm{v}=180\text{ km}`$ is the height of the model atmosphere, and $`R_\mathrm{v}=r_\mathrm{v}+h_\mathrm{v}`$.

With this grid the calculation is performed in two steps: in the first step the solar radiation absorbed in each volume element is calculated and stored. In the second step an image of Venus is accumulated for a particular phase angle by integrating the emission and subsequent absorption of the corresponding volume elements along the line of sight.

### 4.5 Simulation

The first step is performed by propagating the irradiation for each column $`i`$ from the top of the atmosphere along the $`z`$ direction, i.e., away from the Sun. For the center of the corresponding volume element $`V_{ik}`$, the mass densitity is calculated from the height above the surface and the solar zenith angle, by exponential interpolation of the nearest tabulated grid points in the Venus model atmosphere, and converted into a number density $`n_{ik}`$ of the sum of C, N, and O atoms. From the column densities

$$\rho _{\mathrm{},ik}=n_{ik}s_gf_{\mathrm{}},\text{with }\mathrm{}=\mathrm{C},\mathrm{N},\mathrm{O}$$

and $`f_\mathrm{C}=0.326`$, $`f_\mathrm{N}=0.022`$, $`f_\mathrm{O}=0.652`$, the optical depths $`\tau _{\mathrm{},ik}(E)`$ are computed

$$\tau _{\mathrm{},ik}(E)=\rho _{\mathrm{},ik}\sigma _{\mathrm{}}(E),\tau _{ik}(E)=\underset{\mathrm{}=1}{\overset{3}{}}\tau _{\mathrm{},ik}(E)$$

to derive the attenuated solar spectrum $`f_{ik}^{\mathrm{sun}}(E)`$ :

$$f_{ik}^{\mathrm{sun}}(E)=\{\begin{array}{cc}f^{\mathrm{Sun}}(E)\hfill & \text{for}k=m_i\\ f_{i,k+1}^{\mathrm{sun}}(E)e^{\tau _{i,k+1}(E)}\hfill & \text{for}0<k<m_i\hfill \end{array}$$

and the flux $`f_{\mathrm{},ik}^{\mathrm{abs}}(E)`$ of absorbed photons which interact with K electrons:

$$f_{\mathrm{},ik}^{\mathrm{abs}}(E)=f_{ik}^{\mathrm{sun}}(E)\{\begin{array}{cc}0& \text{for}E<E_K_{\mathrm{}}\hfill \\ 1e^{\tau _{\mathrm{},ik}(E)}& \text{for}EE_K_{\mathrm{}}\hfill \end{array}$$

Here $`f^{\mathrm{Sun}}(E)`$ is the solar spectrum scaled to the heliocentric distance of Venus (Fig. 5 b), and $`E_K_{\mathrm{}}`$ are the energies of the K absorption edges (Chantler 1995): 555See Sect. 4.2 for an alternative set of $`E_K_{\mathrm{}}`$.

$$E_{K_\mathrm{C}}=283.8\text{ eV},E_{K_\mathrm{N}}=401.6\text{ eV},E_{K_\mathrm{O}}=532.0\text{ eV}.$$

Only a fraction of the photons which interact with K electrons cause subsequent K shell fluorescence emission:

$$f_{\mathrm{},ik}^{\mathrm{em}}(E)=y_{\mathrm{}}f_{\mathrm{},ik}^{\mathrm{abs}}(E)$$

with the fluorescent yields $`y_\mathrm{C}=0.0025`$, $`y_\mathrm{N}=0.0055`$ and $`y_\mathrm{O}=0.0085`$ (Krause 1979). The resulting volume emissivity of fluorescence photons is shown in Fig. 7 for the subsolar atmospheric column and for a column at the terminator.

As the fluorescence photons are emitted at an energy $`E_{\mathrm{}}`$ which is below the corresponding K edge $`E_K_{\mathrm{}}`$ (see Sect. 3.2 and 4.2), they are not subject to subsequent K shell absorption by the same element. K shell absorption by lighter elements, however, is possible. All photons are subject to elastic scattering, but as this process is nearly isotropic, only weakly energy dependent and characterized by cross sections which are several orders of magnitude smaller than for photoabsorption, it should not much affect the distribution of photons along the line of sight. We treat the attenuation of the reemitted photon flux due to subsequent photoabsorption along the line of sight in a similar way as we did for the attenuation of the incident solar flux, but this time only at the three discrete energies $`E_{\mathrm{}}`$. By sampling the radiation in the volume elements along the line of sight, starting from the volume element which is farthest away from the observer, we can then accumulate images of Venus in the three energies $`E_{\mathrm{}}`$ in, e.g., orthographic projection, for any phase angle.

### 4.6 Results of the simulation

The simulated images of Venus at the Kα fluorescence energies C, N, and O are shown in Fig. 8 a – c. They agree well with the observed X–ray image (Fig. 8 d), while the optical image (Fig. 8 e) is characterized by a different brightness distribution. In X–rays, Venus exhibits significant brightening at the sunward limb, accompanied by reduced brightness at the terminator, which causes it to appear less than half illuminated. This is a consequence of the fact that the volume emissivity extends into the tenuous, optically thin parts of the thermosphere and exosphere (Fig. 7). From there, the volume emissivities are accumulated along the line of sight without considerable absorption, so that the observed brightness is mainly determined by the extent of the atmospheric column along the line of sight. Detailed comparison of the images shows that the amount of limb brightening is different for the three energies. This can be understood in the following way.

If the incident solar spectrum consisted only of photons above the O–Kα edge, then the peak of volume emissivity would occur at the same height for all fluorescent lines, and this height would be determined by the spectral hardness of the incident solar flux. Differences in the height of the volume emissivity peak between C, N, and O occur due to the presence of photons with energies between the individual Kα edges. Photons with energies between N–Kα and O–Kα, for example, influence the atmospheric height of maximum N–Kα emission, but do not affect the O–Kα peak. Due to the presence of such photons in the incident solar spectrum (Fig. 5 b), which are affected by less photoabsorption (Fig. 5 a) and penetrate deeper into the atmosphere, the nitrogen volume emissivity peak occurs at the lowest atmospheric heights (Fig. 7). In a similar way, the carbon emissivity peak lies just below that of oxygen.

Although the difference in the atmospheric heights of the individual peaks is only a few kilometers, this has consequences for the appearance of Venus in the individual fluorescence lines. At heights of $`125\text{ km}`$, the density doubles every 3 km with decreasing height. The deeper in the atmosphere the emission occurs, the more absorbing layers are above. This effect is particularly important at the limb, where the column of absorbing material along the line of sight reaches a maximum, thus reducing the amount of limb brightening. Another factor which determines the amount of limb brightening is the photoabsorption cross section at the fluorescence energy. This energy is just below the corresponding K–edge (see Sect. 3.2 and 4.2). Fig. 5 a shows that for the chemical composition of the Venus atmosphere the photoabsorption cross section for nitrogen Kα fluorescence photons is about twice as large as that for carbon and oxygen Kα fluorescence photons, causing an additional attenuation of the limb brightness in the nitrogen image.

The simulations show that the limb brightening depends sensitively on the density and chemical composition of the Venus atmosphere. Thus, precise measurements of this brightening will provide direct information about the atmospheric stucture in the thermosphere and exosphere. With ACIS–I a brightening of $`2.4\pm 0.6`$ was observed (Fig. 2 b). From the computed images, smoothed with a Gaussian function with $`\sigma =1\stackrel{}{.}0`$, we determine corresponding limb brightenings of 2.0 for C–Kα, 1.7 for N–Kα, and 2.2 for O–Kα. The simulated images can also be used to derive the flux from the whole visible side of Venus in the three energies. Table 3 shows that the derived flux values highly depend on the coronal temperature, in particular for O–Kα. We derive from the simulation a total flux of $`\left(3.6\pm 0.9\right)10^{13}\text{ erg cm}^2\text{ s}^1`$ for all three lines. The corresponding value obtained from the LETG / ACIS–S observation (Tab. 2) is $`\left(4.1\pm 0.8\right)10^{13}\text{ erg cm}^2\text{ s}^1`$ or $`\left(2.6\pm 0.4\right)10^{13}\text{ erg cm}^2\text{ s}^1`$, depending on whether we take the O–Kα flux from the S2 or S3 CCD. Considering all the uncertainties, these values are in good agreement with each other.

In order to study the angular distribution of the scattered photons, we computed X–ray images of Venus for different phase angles $`\phi `$ (Fig. 9 a). We scanned the full range of $`\phi `$ from $`0\mathrm{°}`$ to $`180\mathrm{°}`$ with a step size of $`1\mathrm{°}`$, and determined the corresponding X–ray intensities for the three emission lines by integrating the observed flux from the images. Fig. 9 b shows the result. It is evident that the intensity declines first very slowly, staying above half of its maximum value for $`\phi <75\mathrm{°}`$. At $`\phi =90\mathrm{°}`$, the intensity has dropped to $`40\%`$. This illustrates that the solar X–rays are preferentially scattered back towards the Sun. For larger phase angles the decline becomes faster. Between $`170\mathrm{°}`$ and $`175\mathrm{°}`$, the intensity drops by a factor of two, and the X–ray crescent starts to evolve into a thin ring around the dark planet, which is seen fully developed at $`\phi =180\mathrm{°}`$. This ring might be observable with sufficiently sensitive solar X–ray observatories immediately before and after the upcoming Venus transits on 8 June 2004 and 5/6 June 2012. However, such observations would be extremely challenging, as the intensity of the ring will be only 0.3% of the fully illuminated Venus.

By spherically integrating the X–ray intensity for the three energies (Fig. 9 a) over phase angle, we determined the luminosities listed in Tab. 3. The total X–ray luminosity of Venus, 55$`\pm `$14 MW, agrees well with the prediction of Cravens & Maurellis (2001), who estimated a luminosity of 35 MW with an uncertainty factor of about two.

## 5 Discussion

The Chandra data are fully consistent with fluorescent scattering of solar X–rays in the Venus atmosphere. This is an especially interesting result when compared with the X–ray emission of comets, where the dominant process for the X–ray emission is charge exchange between highly charged heavy ions in the solar wind and cometary neutrals. The LETG / ACIS–S spectrum (Fig. 3) definitively rules out that a similar process dominates the X–ray flux from the atmosphere of Venus at heights below $`200\text{ km}`$.

The LETG / ACIS–S spectrum, however, does not exclude charge exchange interactions in the outer exosphere of Venus, as they would be too faint to be detected in the dispersed spectrum. A more sensitive method for finding charge exchange signatures there is to look for enhancements of the surface brightness in the environment of Venus. In fact, the ACIS–I data do show indications for a decrease of the surface brightness with increasing distance from Venus from $`20\mathrm{}`$ to $`100\mathrm{}`$, in the energy range 0.2 – 1.5 keV (Fig. 2). We find the brightness at $`r=20\mathrm{}`$ to exceed that at $`r=75\mathrm{}`$ by $`\left(2.7\pm 1.0\right)10^3\text{ counts arcmin}^2\text{ s}^1`$ on the dayside and by $`\left(3.8\pm 1.2\right)10^3\text{ counts arcmin}^2\text{ s}^1`$ on the nightside. Both values are consistent with each other and yield a mean excess of $`\left(3.3\pm 0.8\right)10^3\text{ counts arcmin}^2\text{ s}^1`$.

Observations of comets in the ROSAT all–sky survey 1990 – 1991, also performed at solar maximum, show that the peak surface X–ray brightness which can be reached by charge exchange is $`1.010^{13}\text{ erg cm}^2\text{ s}^1\text{ arcmin}^2`$ at $`r=1\text{ AU}`$ for an average composition and density of the low–latitude solar wind (Dennerl et al. 1997); it scales with $`r^2`$. This result is in good agreement with the theoretical estimate by Cravens (1997). Charge exchange produces a spectrum consisting of many narrow emission lines. The overall properties, however, can be approximated by 0.2 keV thermal bremsstrahlung emission (Wegmann et al. 1998). By applying this approximation to the ACIS–I observation, we obtain a maximum countrate due to charge exchange of $`4.610^3\text{ counts arcmin}^2\text{ s}^1`$ at $`r=0.72\text{ AU}`$.

This maximum value is only slightly (by $`48\%\pm 36\%`$) larger than the excess observed at $`r=20\mathrm{}`$, which implies that the exosphere should be almost collisionally thick 4 300 km above the surface. At this height, however, both the hydrogen and the hot oxygen densities are $`10^2\text{ cm}^3`$ (Bertaux et al. 1982; Nagy & Cravens 1988) and thus orders of magnitude too low. Furthermore, the ACIS–I spectrum of all events within $`16\stackrel{}{.}5`$ and $`100\mathrm{}`$ radius around Venus (not affected by optical loading) shows no evidence for the spectral signatures observed in the ACIS–S spectrum of Comet C/1999 S4 (LINEAR), which were attributed to charge exchange interactions (Lisse et al. 2001). We conclude that the observed excess in the surface brightness is either spurious or produced by other effects.

At heights of 155 – 180 km, however, the exosphere of Venus does become collisionally thick due to the large cross section of charge transfer interactions (Fig. 6). This implies that if the flux of highly charged heavy solar wind ions reached these atmospheric layers, we would indeed observe the maximum flux estimated above. But even then not more than about 3 photons would have been detected due to charge exchange from the area of the crescent during the ACIS–I exposure. Taking the presence of an ionosphere into account, which shields the lower parts from the solar wind, then even this estimate appears to be too high. By integrating the X–ray production rate over altitude, starting at 500 km, the approximate location of the ionopause, where the density is dominated by the hot oxygen corona, Cravens (2000) estimated a luminosity of $`10^5\text{ W}`$ for the total X–ray luminosity of Venus due to charge exchange. With the 0.2 keV thermal bremsstrahlung approximation this would result in a total ACIS–I countrate of $`1.610^5\text{ counts s}^1`$, or only 0.2 counts accumulated during the whole observation. We conclude that the observation was not sensitive enough for detecting charge exchange signatures.

It is interesting to compare the X–ray properties of Venus with those of comets, where the X–ray emission is dominated by the charge exchange process, while fluorescent scattering of solar X–rays is negligible. This opposite behaviour is a direct consequence of the different cross sections of both processes and the way the gas is distributed.

The cross sections for charge exchange typically exceed $`10^{15}\text{ cm}^2`$ and are thus at least three orders of magnitude greater than for fluorescent emission, which are $`10^{18}\text{ cm}^2`$ and less in the energy range of interest (Fig. 5 a). The gas in a cometary coma is distributed over a much larger volume and solid angle than in a planetary atmosphere. The particle density in a coma is too low to reach a column density for efficiently scattering solar X–rays, but high enough to provide a sufficient number of target electrons for charge exchange. The atmosphere of Venus, on the other hand, is so dense that it is optically thick even to fluorescent scattering (Fig. 6). As the solar wind ions become discharged already in the outermost parts, only a tiny fraction of the atmospheric electrons can participate in the charge exchange process. Additionally, the flux of incident solar wind ions is reduced by the presence of an ionosphere. Even in the absence of an ionosphere, the peak X–ray surface flux due to charge exchange would not exceed that of a comet (with a sufficiently dense coma), when exposed to the same solar wind conditions. But while the X–ray bright area is confined to less than one arcmin in diameter in the case of Venus, the bright part of the cometary X–ray emission can extend over tens of arcminutes, thus increasing the total amount of charge exchange induced X–ray photons by two orders of magnitude or more.

## 6 Summary and conclusions

The Chandra observation clearly shows that Venus is an X–ray source. From the X–ray spectrum and morphology we conclude that fluorescent scattering of solar X–rays is the main process for this radiation, which is dominated by the Kα emission lines from C, N, and O, plus some possible contribution from the C $`1s\pi ^{}`$ transition in CO2 and CO. By modeling the X–ray appearance of Venus due to fluorescence, we have demonstrated that the amount of limb brightening depends sensitively on the properties of the Venus atmosphere at heights above 110 km. Thus, information about the chemical composition and density structure of the Venus thermosphere and exosphere can be obtained by measuring the X–ray brightness distribution across the planet at the individual Kα fluorescence lines. This opens the possibility of using X–ray observations for remotely monitoring the properties of regions in the Venus atmosphere which are difficult to investigate otherwise, and their response to solar activity.

###### Acknowledgements.

SOLAR 2000 Research Grade v1.15 historical irradiances are provided courtesy of W. Kent Tobiska and SpaceWx.com. These historical irradiances have been developed with funding from the NASA UARS, TIMED, and SOHO missions. The SOHO CELIAS/SEM data were provided by the USC Space Sciences Center. SOHO is a joint European Space Agency, United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration mission.