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# A remark on Schubert cells and duality of orbits on flag manifolds

## 1. Duality of orbits on flag manifolds

Let $`G_{}`$ be a connected complex semisimple Lie group and $`G_{}`$ a connected real form of $`G_{}`$. Let $`K_{}`$ be the complexification in $`G_{}`$ of a maximal compact subgroup $`K`$ of $`G_{}`$. Let $`X=G_{}/P`$ be a flag manifold of $`G_{}`$ where $`P`$ is an arbitrary parabolic subgroup of $`G_{}`$. Then there exists a natural one-to-one correspondence between the set of $`K_{}`$-orbits $`S`$ and the set of $`G_{}`$-orbits $`S^{}`$ on $`X`$ given by the condition:

(A)
$$SS^{}SS^{}\text{ is non-empty and compact}$$

(\[M3\]). In the following, we will identify orbits $`S`$ with $`K_{}`$-$`P`$ double cosets and $`S^{}`$ with $`G_{}`$-$`P`$ cosets.

We defined in \[GM\] a subset $`C(S)`$ of $`G_{}`$ by

$$C(S)=\{xG_{}xSS^{}\text{ is non-empty and compact in }X=G_{}/P\}$$

where $`S^{}`$ is the $`G_{}`$-orbit on $`X`$ given by (A).

If $`S`$ is closed, then $`S^{}`$ is open (\[M1\]) and so the condition

$$xSS^{}\text{ is non-empty and compact in }G_{}/P$$

implies

$$xSS^{}.$$

Hence the set $`C(S)_0`$ is the cycle domain (cycle space) for $`S^{}`$ (\[WW\]) where $`C(S)_0`$ denote the connected component of $`C(S)`$ containing the identity.

On the other hand, let $`S_0`$ denote the unique open $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double coset in $`G_{}`$ where $`B`$ is a Borel subgroup of $`G_{}`$ contained in $`P`$. (We will keep this notation for the whole note.) Then $`S_0^{}`$ is the only one closed $`G_{}`$-$`B`$ double coset in $`G_{}`$ and the condition

$$xS_0S_0^{}\text{ is non-empty and compact in }G_{}/B$$

implies

$$xS_0S_0^{}.$$

Let $`\{S_jjJ\}`$ be the set of $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double cosets in $`G_{}`$ of codimension one and $`T_j=S_j^{cl}`$ denote the closure of $`S_j`$. The sets $`T_j`$ will play an important role in our constructions.

The compliment of $`S_0`$ in $`G_{}`$ is written as

$$\underset{jJ}{}T_j$$

(by Theorem 2 in Section 2). So the set $`C(S_0)`$ is the compliment of the infinite family of complex hypersurfaces

$$T_j^1g(jJ,gS_0^{})$$

and hence the connected component $`C(S_0)_0`$ is Stein.

This domain is sometimes called the “Iwasawa domain” since it is a maximal domain where all Iwasawa decompositions can be holomorphically extended from $`G_{}`$.

In \[GM\], we defined

$$C=C(S)$$

where we take the intersection for all $`K_{}`$-orbits on $`X`$ on all flag manifolds $`X=G_{}/P`$ of $`G_{}`$ and conjectured

$$C=\stackrel{~}{D_0}Z$$

(Conjecture 1.3) where $`D_0=\stackrel{~}{D_0}/K_{}`$ is the domain introduced by \[AG\] (which is sometimes denoted as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{AG}`$) and $`Z`$ is the center of $`G_{}`$. For connected components, it means

(B)
$$C_0=\stackrel{~}{D_0}.$$

It is proved in Proposition 8.3 of \[GM\] that

$$C_0=C(S_0)_0.$$

In other words, $`C(S)_0`$ is minimal when $`S=S_0`$. We believe that it is one of central facts of this theory since it gives a very strong estimate of all $`C(S)`$ through $`C(S_0)`$ only. So the conjecture (B) is equivalent to

$$C(S_0)_0=\stackrel{~}{D_0}.$$

Recently, the inclusion $`C(S_0)_0\stackrel{~}{D_0}`$ is proved by Barchini (\[B\]). On the other hand, the opposite inclusion $`C(S_0)_0\stackrel{~}{D_0}`$ is proved for all classical cases (\[GM\], \[KS\]) and exceptional Hermitian cases (\[GM\]). It is announced that it is proved for all spaces in \[H\]. (We had no chance to see this preprint.)

###### Remark 1.

In \[FH\], the authors deduce the inclusion $`C_0\stackrel{~}{D_0}`$ from their result about $`C(S)`$ for closed $`S`$ and Proposition 8.1 in \[GM\]. As we showed above, this inclusion is already the consequence of Proposition 8.3 in \[GM\] and \[B\]. So it does not need the results in \[FH\].

## 2. Schubert cells in the category of $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double cosets

The principal idea of our considerations in \[GM\] was that $`C(S)_0`$ will be essentially independent of neither $`S`$ nor the flag manifold $`X=G_{}/P`$. To justify it, we need to build bridges between $`C(S)`$ for different $`S`$ and for it we need to see connections between different $`K_{}`$-orbits. It turns out that Schubert cells are very efficient tool for such considerations as in Section 2 and Section 8 in \[GM\]. They give a possibility to obtain an important information about general $`C(S)`$ from a consideration of simplest $`S`$. Here we refine connections between $`K_{}`$-orbits and Schubert cells and give more examples of applications.

For a simple root $`\alpha `$ in the root system with respect to the order defined by $`B`$, we can define a parabolic subgroup

$$P_\alpha =BBw_\alpha B$$

of $`G_{}`$ such that $`dim_{}P_\alpha =dim_{}B+1`$.

###### Lemma 1.

Let $`S_1`$ be a $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double coset. Then we have$`:`$

(i) If $`dim_{}S_1P_\alpha =dim_{}S_1`$, then $`S_1^{cl}P_\alpha =S_1^{cl}`$.

(ii) If $`dim_{}S_1P_\alpha =dim_{}S_1+1`$, then there exists a $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double coset $`S_2`$ such that $`S_1^{cl}P_\alpha =S_2^{cl}`$.

Proof. Though this lemma follows easily from \[M2\] Lemma 3, we will give a proof for the sake of completeness. Write $`S_1=K_{}gB`$. Then we have a natural bijection

$$(g^1K_{}gP_\alpha )\backslash P_\alpha /BK_{}\backslash K_{}gP_\alpha /B=K_{}\backslash S_1P_\alpha /B$$

by the map $`xgx`$.

(i) If $`dim_{}S_1P_\alpha =dim_{}S_1`$, then $`(g^1K_{}gP_\alpha )B/B`$ is Zariski open in $`P_\alpha /B=P^1()`$ and hence it is dense. So we have

$$S_1^{cl}=(K_{}gB)^{cl}S_1P_\alpha S_1$$

and therefore $`S_1^{cl}=S_1^{cl}P_\alpha `$.

(ii) Suppose $`dim_{}S_1P_\alpha =dim_{}S_1+1`$. Then there exists a $`pP_\alpha `$ such that $`(g^1K_{}gP_\alpha )pB/B`$ is Zariski open in $`P_\alpha /B=P^1()`$ since the number of $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double cosets in $`G_{}`$ is finite. If we write $`S_2=K_{}gpB`$, then we have

$$(S_2)^{cl}S_1P_\alpha S_2$$

and therefore $`S_2^{cl}=S_1^{cl}P_\alpha `$. q.e.d.

###### Theorem 1.

Let $`S_1`$ be a $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double coset in $`G_{}`$ and $`w`$ an element of $`W`$. Then we have$`:`$

(i) $`S_1^{cl}(BwB)^{cl}=S_2^{cl}`$ for some $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double coset $`S_2`$.

(ii) $`(`$minimal expression$`)`$ There exists a $`w^{}W`$ such that $`w^{}<w`$ $`(`$Bruhat order$`)`$, $`\mathrm{}(w^{})=dim_{}S_2dim_{}S_1`$ and that

$$S_1^{cl}(Bw^{}B)^{cl}=S_2^{cl}.$$

Here $`\mathrm{}(w^{})=dim_{}Bw^{}Bdim_{}B`$ is the length of $`w^{}`$.

Proof. (i) This follows from Lemma 1 because every Schubert cell $`(BwB)^{cl}`$ is written as

$$(BwB)^{cl}=P_{\alpha _1}\mathrm{}P_\alpha _{\mathrm{}}$$

where $`w=w_{\alpha _1}\mathrm{}w_\alpha _{\mathrm{}}`$ is a minimal expression of $`wW`$.

(ii) By Lemma 1, we can choose a subsequence $`\beta _1,\mathrm{},\beta _q`$ ($`q=dim_{}S_2dim_{}S_1`$) of $`\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _{\mathrm{}}`$ such that

$$dim_{}S_1^{cl}P_{\beta _1}\mathrm{}P_{\beta _k}=dim_{}S_1^{cl}P_{\beta _1}\mathrm{}P_{\beta _{k1}}+1$$

for $`k=1,\mathrm{},q`$ and that

$$S_2^{cl}=S_1^{cl}(BwB)^{cl}=S_1^{cl}P_{\alpha _1}\mathrm{}P_\alpha _{\mathrm{}}=S_1^{cl}P_{\beta _1}\mathrm{}P_{\beta _q}=S_1^{cl}(Bw^{}B)^{cl}$$

with $`w^{}=w_{\beta _1}\mathrm{}w_{\beta _q}`$. q.e.d.

###### Remark 2.

$`S_1^{cl}(BwB)^{cl}=S_2^{cl}`$ implies $`S_1^{cl}S_2^{cl}`$. But $`S_1^{cl}S_2^{cl}`$ does not always imply $`S_1^{cl}(BwB)^{cl}=S_2^{cl}`$ for some $`w`$ (c.f. \[M2\]).

###### Definition 1.

For every $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double coset $`S`$, we can define, by Theorem 1, a subset $`J(S)`$ of $`J`$ by

$$J(S)=\{jJS^{cl}(BwB)^{cl}=T_j\text{ for some }wW\}.$$

###### Lemma 2.

Let $`S`$ be a non-open $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double coset. Then there exists a simple root $`\alpha `$ such that

$$dim_{}SP_\alpha =dim_{}S+1.$$

Proof. Write $`G_{}=(Bw_0B)^{cl}=P_{\alpha _1}\mathrm{}P_{\alpha _m}`$ with the longest element $`w_0`$ in $`W`$. If

$$dim_{}SP_\alpha =dim_{}S$$

for all simple roots $`\alpha `$, then we have, by Lemma 1,

$$G_{}=S^{cl}G_{}=S^{cl}P_{\alpha _1}\mathrm{}P_{\alpha _m}=S^{cl},$$

a contradiction. q.e.d.

###### Theorem 2.

If $`\mathrm{}(w)<\mathrm{codim}_{}S`$, then

$$S^{cl}(BwB)^{cl}T_j$$

for some $`jJ(S)`$.

Proof. Since $`\mathrm{codim}_{}S^{cl}(BwB)^{cl}=d>0`$, we can choose simple roots $`\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _{d1}`$ such that

$$\mathrm{codim}_{}S^{cl}(BwB)^{cl}P_{\alpha _1}\mathrm{}P_{\alpha _{d1}}=1$$

by Lemma 2. Since $`(BwB)^{cl}P_{\alpha _1}\mathrm{}P_{\alpha _{d1}}=(Bw^{}B)^{cl}`$ for some $`w^{}W`$, we have

$$S^{cl}(BwB)^{cl}S^{cl}(Bw^{}B)^{cl}=T_j$$

for some $`jJ(S)`$. q.e.d.

## 3. Applications

###### Definition 2.

For every subset $`J^{}`$ in $`J`$, we define a domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }(J^{})`$ in $`G_{}`$ by

$$\mathrm{\Omega }(J^{})=\{xG_{}xT_jS_0^{}=\varphi \text{ for all }jJ^{}\}_0.$$

We can prove the following corollary:

CorollaryLet $`S`$ be a closed $`K_{}`$-$`P`$ double coset in $`G_{}`$. Write $`S=S_1^{cl}`$ with the dense $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double coset $`S_1`$ in $`S`$. Then we have

$$C(S)_0=\mathrm{\Omega }(J(S_1)).$$

###### Remark 3.

(i) We can see $`C(S_0)_0=\mathrm{\Omega }(J)`$. By the same argument as for $`C(S_0)_0`$ in Section 1, we can prove $`\mathrm{\Omega }(J^{})`$ is Stein for every subset $`J^{}`$ in $`J`$. So the Steinness of $`C(S)_0`$ (\[W\]) becomes a corollary of this equivalence $`C(S)_0=\mathrm{\Omega }(J(S_1))`$ (c.f. \[HW\]).

(ii) It is clear that $`\mathrm{\Omega }(J^{})\mathrm{\Omega }(J)`$ for every subset $`J^{}`$ in $`J`$. So we have

$$C(S)_0C(S_0)_0.$$

But this inclusion was already proved in Proposition 8.3 in \[GM\]. This is natural because the way of proof of the corollary below is essentially the same as that of Proposition 8.3 in \[GM\]. So the above corollary may be considered as its refinement.

Proof of Corollary. Let $`x`$ be an element on the boundary of $`C(S)_0`$. Then

$$xSS_2^{}P\varphi $$

for some $`G_{}`$-$`P`$ double coset $`S_2^{}P`$ in the boundary of $`S^{}`$. Here we take $`S_2`$ as the dense $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double coset contained in $`S_2P`$. Since $`S`$ is right $`P`$-invariant, we have

$$xSS_2^{}\varphi \text{and}dim_{}S_2>dim_{}S.$$

Applying Theorem 1 (ii) to the pair $`(S_2^{cl},G_{})`$, we can take a $`wW`$ such that $`\mathrm{}(w)=\mathrm{codim}_{}S_2`$ and that

$$S_2(BwB)^{cl}=G_{}.$$

So we have $`S_2(BwB)^{cl}S_0`$ and hence

$$S_2^{}S_0^{}(Bw^1B)^{cl}.$$

Since $`xSS_2^{}\varphi `$, we have

$$xSS_0^{}(Bw^1B)^{cl}\varphi .$$

Hence

$$xS(BwB)^{cl}S_0^{}\varphi $$

which implies $`xT_jS_0^{}\varphi `$ for some $`jJ(S_1)`$ by Theorem 2. Thus $`x\mathrm{\Omega }(J(S_1))`$.

Conversely, suppose

$$xT_jS_0^{}\varphi $$

for some $`T_j=S(BwB)^{cl}=S_1^{cl}(BwB)^{cl}`$. Note that $`jJ(S_1)`$ by Definition 1 and that we may assume $`\mathrm{}(w)=\mathrm{codim}_{}S1=\mathrm{codim}_{}S_11`$ by Theorem 1 (ii). Then we have

$$xSS_0^{}(Bw^1B)^{cl}\varphi $$

and hence

$$xSS_3^{}\varphi $$

for some $`K_{}`$-$`B`$ double coset $`S_3`$ such that $`S_3^{}S_0^{}(Bw^1B)^{cl}`$. Hence $`S_3(BwB)^{cl}S_0`$ and therefore $`dim_{}S_3dim_{}G_{}\mathrm{}(w)>dim_{}S`$. So we have

$$S_3^{}S^{}=\varphi $$

because $`S^{}`$ is the union of $`G_{}`$-$`B`$ double cosets $`S_4^{}`$ satisfying $`S_4S`$. Hence we have

$$xSS^{}$$

and therefore

$$xC(S).\text{q.e.d.}$$

###### Remark 4.

(i) The condition $`\mathrm{}(w)=\mathrm{codim}_{}S1`$ does “not always” imply

$$\mathrm{codim}_{}S^{cl}(BwB)^{cl}=1.$$

Counter examples exist already for $`G_{}=SU(2,1)`$.

(ii) The construction of the domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }(J(S_1))`$ is essentially equivalent to the construction of “Schubert domain” in \[HW\]. Unfortunately, their basic definition needs a correction and after this correction their proof of Corollary 3.2 corresponding to our Corollary is not complete. We can see that the proof of Corollary using the results in Section 2 is extremely simple. Let us explain the connection between these two constructions introducing notations in \[HW\].

Take a Borel subgroup $`B_0`$ of $`G_{}`$ so that $`G_{}B_0`$ is closed in $`G_{}`$. A Borel subgroup $`B`$ of $`G_{}`$ is called an “Iwasawa Borel subgroup” if

$$B=g_0B_0g_0^1\text{for some }g_0G_{}.$$

Let $`Z=G_{}/Q`$ be a flag manifold. Then we can take $`Q`$ so that $`QB_0`$. Every Schubert cell $`Y`$ in $`Z`$ for $`B`$ is written as

$$Y=(Bg_0wQ)^{cl}=(g_0B_0wQ)^{cl}$$

with some $`wW`$. Let $`C_0`$ be a closed $`K_{}`$-$`Q`$ double coset (do not miss with $`C_0`$ of Section 1!). The “incidence divisor” $`H_Y`$ is written as

$$H_Y=\{ggC_0Y\varphi \}=YC_0^1=(g_0B_0wQ)^{cl}C_0^1=(C_0(Qw^1B)^{cl}g_0^1)^1.$$

In this point, in \[HW\], it is written: “If $`\mathrm{codim}YdimC_0+1`$, then $`H_Y`$ is a hypersurface in $`G_{}`$.” It is wrong as we remarked in (i).

But if $`\text{codim}H_Y=1`$, then

$$H_Y^1=C_0(Qw^1B_0)^{cl}g_0^1=T_jg_0^1$$

for some $`jJ^{}=J(C_1)`$ (where $`C_1`$ is the dense $`K_{}`$-$`B_0`$ double coset in $`C_0`$) and $`g_0G_{}`$ by our notation.

So their definition of $`y(D)`$ should be corrected to

$$y(D)=\{Y=(g_0B_0wQ)^{cl}\text{codim}H_Y=1\}.$$

Here $`D`$ is the $`G_{}`$-orbit dual to $`C_0`$. (The condition $`YZD`$ follows from $`\text{codim}H_Y=1`$ because

$`YD=\varphi `$ $`DY^1=D(Qw^1B_0)^{cl}g_0^1\ni ̸e`$
$`D(Qw^1B_0)^{cl}\ni ̸g_0`$
$`D(Qw^1B_0)^{cl}G_{}B_0=\varphi `$
$`C_0(Qw^1B_0)^{cl}K_{}B_0=\varphi `$
$`\text{codim}C_0(Qw^1B_0)^{cl}1.)`$
The Schubert domain is defined as

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_S(D)=\left\{G_{}\left(\underset{Yy(D)}{}H_Y\right)\right\}_0.$$

This definition is equivalent to ours because

$`g{\displaystyle \underset{Yy(D)}{}}H_Y`$ $`g^1T_jg_0^1\text{ for all }jJ^{}\text{ and }g_0G_{}`$
$`g^1G_{}B_0T_j=\varphi \text{ for all }jJ^{}`$
$`G_{}B_0gT_j=\varphi \text{ for all }jJ^{}.`$
(iii) So in their Corollary 3.2 in \[HW\], (2) $`\text{codim}_Z(Y)=q+1`$ does not imply (3) $`H_Y`$ is a hypersurface in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Thus the proof of Corollary 3.2 is incomplete.

###### Remark 5.

The problem of the description of the domain of cycles $`C(S)_0`$ for groups $`G_{}`$ of Hermitian type is simpler than the general case. Firstly, in this case, $`D_0=\stackrel{~}{D_0}/K_{}`$ has a very simple description: $`D_0G_{}/K\times \overline{G_{}/K}`$ (Proposition 2.2 in \[GM\]). As usual, the equality $`C(S)_0=\stackrel{~}{D_0}`$ for $`S`$ ($`S^{}`$) of nonholomorphic type is reduced to two inclusions. The proof of $`C(S)_0\stackrel{~}{D_0}`$ in \[WZ1\] had a mistake which was corrected in \[WZ2\]. The opposite inclusion was checked in \[WZ1\] for classical Hermitian groups. In Proposition 2.4 of \[GM\], we gave a very simple proof of this inclusion for arbitrary groups of Hermitian type which is free of case-by-case considerations: the use of Schubert cells makes this fact almost trivial. The note \[WZ2\] also contains this fact with a proof referred to \[HW\] (which is incomplete as is explained in Remark 4) but without an appropriate reference on the preceding proof in \[GM\]. Moreover it asserts a misleading statement that the preprint \[GM\] does not contain a direct proof.


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# Search for Point Sources of High Energy Neutrinos with AMANDA

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Nature provides precious few information carriers from the deep recesses of space, and it is imperative to develop techniques to exploit each one. Throughout history, the photon messenger has made vital contributions to the understanding of the observable Universe. In this paper, we present results from a new generation of telescope designed to detect a very different kind of information carrier, high energy neutrinos (where $`E_\nu >`$ 1 TeV). The search for astronomical sources of high energy neutrinos is one of the central missions of the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) (Wischnewski et al., 1999). In this paper, we describe a general search for continuous111Although the flux limits reported in this paper are computed assuming continuous emission, upper bounds could be generated for periodic or episodic emission as well. emission from a spatially localized direction in the northern sky, restricted to declinations greater than +5. The search technique is conceptually simple: a point source would be identified by a statistically significant enhancement over expected background fluctuations from a particular direction. Expected background is readily obtained experimentally from off-source sky bins within the same band of declination. In contrast, unresolved, or diffuse signals, are characterized by an isotropic distribution and backgrounds are estimated by detector simulation programs. The most favorable flux predictions for point sources are several orders of magnitude lower than the most optimistic predictions for diffusely distributed sources. However, atmospheric neutrino background is diffusely distributed as well, so the level of intrinsic background in the diffuse search is also several orders of magnitude higher. While signal-to-noise considerations favor the search for diffuse emission over point source searches, the interpretation of a diffusely distributed signal is more ambiguous. Thus, the search for point sources complements the search for diffuse sources. The latter search is described in Hill and Leuthold (2001). The more specific searches for point emission from Gamma Ray Bursters (Hardtke and Barouch, 2001) and quasi-pointlike emission from galactic dark matter trapped in the core of the earth (Ahrens et al., 2002b) are presented in separate papers since those analyses were optimized for different flux spectra and different background characteristics.

## 2 MOTIVATION

The origin of cosmic rays is one of the oldest puzzles in particle astrophysics. Shocks from galactic supernovae are widely believed to accelerate cosmic rays to $``$1015 eV, while the sources of cosmic rays at the most extreme energies are not known. Plausible models of particle acceleration exist for many classes of galactic and extra-galactic objects, but supporting evidence for any model is largely circumstantial. The observation of high-energy neutrinos from point sources would unequivocally confirm the hadronic nature of such accelerators. Unfortunately, the predicted neutrino fluxes from galactic and extra-galactic point sources are too low to be detected with AMANDA-B10, although uncertainties in the model parameters lead to considerable variation in the flux predictions.

Supernova remnants (SNR) are one of the few classes of galactic sites that have the capability to supply sufficient power to accelerate the galactic cosmic rays. The diffusive shock mechanism naturally produces a power law spectrum of $`dN/dE`$ $`E^{2.1}`$, which is consistent with the deduced spectral index of cosmic rays.

Recent observations of TeV gamma rays from plerions such as the Crab Nebula and SNR provide direct evidence for particle acceleration to high energies. However, these observations do not provide compelling evidence for hadronic acceleration due to an unfortunate ambiguity: it is possible (and even probable) that electrons are solely responsible for the high energy gamma-ray production. But if SNR are the accelerators of galactic cosmic rays, they must also accelerate hadrons. A class of models exploits this idea by suggesting that both protons and electrons are accelerated by the supernova shock. Pions, both neutral and charged, are produced in the nuclear collisions between protons and ambient material (a cosmic equivalent of a “beam dump” commonly used by terrestrial accelerators), and then decay to high-energy gamma rays and neutrinos.

While the notion of particle acceleration by supernova shocks provides a credible and largely consistent picture, not all observations neatly fit this scheme. Alternative sites for cosmic ray acceleration may emerge from a detailed study of the neutrino sky. For example, galactic microquasars – a subclass of X-ray binary systems that exhibit relativistic radio jets – have been identified as possible sources of high-energy neutrino emission (Levinson and Waxman, 2001) and potential sources of the highest energy cosmic rays. If they accelerate cosmic rays to high energies, then their dense environment creates suitable conditions for an efficient beam dump.

Turning to extra-galactic sources, active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are among the most luminous objects in the Universe and promising sources of neutrinos. In these models, high-energy neutrino fluxes are generated near the central engine or in the jets of radio-loud AGNs (e.g., blazars, a class of objects where the jet intersects the line of sight of the observer). The fact that gamma-ray emission has been detected (Cantanese and Weekes, 1999) from nearby blazars Markarian (Mkn) 421 and 501222The review by Cantanese and Weekes (1999) presents a current list of detected VHE gamma-ray sources. provides strong evidence for particle acceleration to high energies. The time-averaged energy spectrum from Mkn 501 during 1997 is consistent with an unbroken power-law energy spectrum up to 10 TeV (Weekes, 2000; Konopelko et al., 1999). Beam dump models of neutrino production predict comparable fluxes of gamma-ray photons and neutrinos. However, gamma-ray photons at TeV energies may interact with material or photon fields in the source, or interact with the diffuse infrared background photons during their flight. Due to this reprocessing, the measured energy spectrum for gamma-ray photons may not trace the energy spectrum of the source. Consequently, it is possible for the ratio of neutrino flux to gamma-ray flux from a given source to exceed unity. Constraints on this ratio are discussed in Section 7.

Recently, it has been argued (Buckley et al., 1998) that the rapid time variability of high-energy photon emission from AGN blazars and the correlated variation between the X-ray and TeV regimes disfavor hadronic acceleration models for this particular class of objects, but others have shown that rapid and correlated variability can be accommodated by modest extensions to the existing hadronic acceleration models (Rachen, 1999; Dermer, 1998). The vigorous debate suggests that high-energy neutrino detectors can play a central role in deciphering the acceleration mechanism.

Figure 1 provides a survey of model predictions for fluxes of high-energy neutrinos. The models were selected to highlight the variation in spectral characteristics. The curve labeled 3C273 is representative of several recent neutrino flux predictions, e.g., a similar differential flux is predicted for microquasars (Distefano et al., 2002) in the region of sky visible to AMANDA and the flat-spectrum radio quasar 3C279 (Dermer and Atoyan, 2001). The figure also shows the differential neutrino flux limit for an assumed source spectrum proportional to $`E^2`$ for AMANDA-B10, and the anticipated corresponding sensitivity of AMANDA-II and IceCube. The AMANDA-B10 result, the subject of this paper, is valid for declinations greater than +40. Many theoretical models of potential astronomical neutrino sources predict a very hard energy spectrum, approximately $`E^2`$ (Learned and Mannheim, 2000), which leads to a most probable energy for a detected neutrino well above 1 TeV (typically 10-30 TeV). This high energy is a consequence of three facts: the neutrino cross-section for weak interactions increases with neutrino energy, and the propagation length of the secondary muon increases and the effective detection area increases as light emission along the muon track increases with energy.

Even though the cosmic ray puzzle provides a powerful motivation to explore the sky for neutrino emission, not all high-energy neutrino sources need to contribute to the cosmic ray flux. In particular, a powerful accelerator may be surrounded by too much material to emit high energy photons or cosmic rays (they would interact and cascade down to lower energies), but this accelerator could be discovered by exploiting the neutrino messenger. Several models of such “hidden” sources have appeared in the literature. For example, the predicted flux of neutrinos from pre-AGN objects (Berezinsky et al., 2001) leads to a muon detection rate of $``$10 y-1km-2.

## 3 DESCRIPTION OF THE AMANDA DETECTOR

The AMANDA telescope is located below the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet at the geographic south pole. The neutrino detection technique relies on the detection of Cherenkov light from upward traveling neutrino-induced muons. Figure 2 shows the current configuration of the AMANDA detector. The shallow array, AMANDA-A, was deployed to depths between 800 to 1000 m in an exploratory phase of the project. The deeper array of ten strings, referred to as AMANDA-B10, was deployed during the austral summers between 1995 and 1997, to depths between 1500 and 2000 m. At this depth, the optical properties are suitable for track reconstruction (Woschnagg et al., 1999). The strings are arranged in a circular pattern when viewed from the surface. The instrumented volume of AMANDA-B10 forms a vertical cylinder with a diameter of 120 m. Most electronics are housed on the surface in a research facility located within a kilometer of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The detector was commissioned in February 1997 (Wischnewski et al., 1999; Barwick, 2000a) and expanded by adding nine strings of OMs between December, 1997 and January, 2000. The composite array of 19 strings forms the AMANDA-II array, which was commissioned in February of 2000.

AMANDA-B10 consists of 302 optical modules (OMs) arranged on ten vertical strings. Each OM contains an 8-inch diameter photomultiplier tube (PMT) controlled by passive electronics and housed in a glass pressure vessel. The OMs are connected to the surface by dedicated electrical cables, which supply high voltage and carry the anode signals from the PMTs. For each event, the amplitudes and arrival times of the pulses from the OMs are digitized by peak ADCs and TDCs. The TDCs are capable of measuring eight distinct pulses per channel. The precision of the arrival time measurement is 5 ns. Details of deployment, timing resolution, and detector operation can be found in Andres et al. (2000, 2001). Readout of the entire array was triggered by a majority logic system, which demanded that at least 16 OMs produce signals, or “hits”, within a time window of 2.2 $`\mu `$s. This window takes into account the rather large time variation introduced by the large geometric size of the detector and the cable propagation delays. Random signals from the OMs (or noise) were observed at a rate of 300 Hz on the inner four strings and 1.5 kHz for OMs on the outer six strings, the difference being due to different levels of radioactive potassium in the glass pressure vessels. On average, random noise contributed one count per event to the majority trigger.

Optical absorption and scattering properties of the glacial ice that encapsulates the AMANDA detector have been studied using light sources buried with the strings and Cherenkov light from atmospheric muons. These studies (Woschnagg et al., 1999) confirm that the ice is not homogeneous, but consists of horizontal strata correlated with climatological events in the past, such as ice ages (Price et al., 2000). Variations in the concentration of insoluble impurities between the strata produce a strong modulation of the optical properties. The absorption length, averaged over depth within the AMANDA-B10 array, is 110 m at a wavelength of 400 nm, and the average effective scattering length is approximately 20 m.

The detection of neutrinos relies on the observation of Cherenkov photons generated by muons created in charged-current interactions. At the energies of interest, muons typically propagate for distances in excess of several kilometers (e.g. a muon with E = 10 TeV will travel 8 kilometers in water). Therefore neutrino interactions outside the instrumented volume can be inferred by the presence of a muon, providing a method to extend the volume of the detector beyond the instrumented boundary of the array. The average angle between the muon direction and the parent neutrino direction, $`\theta _{\nu \mu }`$, is approximately $`0.65^{}/(E_\nu /\mathrm{TeV})^{0.48}`$ for $`E_\nu `$ less than 100 TeV (Oppelt, 2001). However, nearly independent of the muon energy, the precision of the measured muon direction in AMANDA-B10 is approximately 4 degrees (see Section 6), which dominates the angular uncertainty in the neutrino direction.

The AMANDA-B10 data analysed here was collected between April and October of 1997. Once construction was completed in February, 1997, calibration and data management activities continued until April. Operations ceased between late October, 1997 and February, 1998, due to the beginning of construction of the AMANDA-II array. Furthermore, limitations in the data acquisition and archiving system during that first year of operation reduced the total livetime to approximately 130.1 days.

## 4 SIMULATIONS

Astronomical signals are unlikely to produce more than a few tens of upgoing neutrino events per year in AMANDA-B10. Data is therefore overwhelmingly dominated by two types of background: downgoing atmospheric muons generate essentially all of the recorded events, and atmospheric neutrinos contribute a few tens of events per day. The point source search relies on a good understanding of both signal and background through simulations based on Monte Carlo techniques.

Atmospheric muon events are generated from the measured flux of cosmic rays (Wiebel-Sooth and Biermann, 1998). Two different air shower simulation packages were used to assess systematic uncertainty: BASIEV (Bosiev et al., 1989), and CORSIKA (version 5.6) (Heck et al., 1998) using the QGSJET hadronic interaction model. CORSIKA was modified to include the curved geometry of the earth and atmosphere to provide a more accurate description of the flux at zenith angles close to the horizon. Most characteristics of the events generated with BASIEV were found to be similar to those from the more accurate, but computationally more intensive, CORSIKA simulation. The density profile of the atmosphere was modified for polar conditions, but no attempt was made to replicate the small seasonal variations of the trigger rate (Bouchta, 1999). Muon tracking from the surface to the detector was handled by the muon propagation program MUDEDX (Lohmann et al., 1985) and the energy loss characteristics compared against two additional propagation programs which are available for general use: PROPMU (Lipari and Stanev, 1991) and MMC (Rhode and Chirkin, 2001). Integral lateral distributions of muons at the depth of AMANDA were simulated for proton and iron showers (Bai et al., 2002), and used for verification of the detector performance as described below.

The propagation of upward traveling muons from neutrino interactions was treated differently than downgoing atmospheric muons because the energies of signal neutrinos were expected to extend to much higher energy. Neutrinos were tracked through the earth and allowed to interact in the ice within or near the instrumented volume of the detector, or in the bedrock below (Hill, 1997). Muons with energies above $`10^{5.5}`$ GeV at production were propagated using PROPMU until they reached the rock-ice boundary and then propagated through the ice in exactly the same way as downgoing atmospheric muons. For energies below $`10^{5.5}`$ GeV at the production vertex, muons were tracked with MUDEDX. The background fluxes from atmospheric $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ (Agrawal et al., 1996) were included (AMANDA cannot differentiate the charge sign of the muon).

In addition to background from atmospheric muons and muon neutrinos, the detection efficiency for atmospheric electron neutrinos has been simulated. At the relevant energies, the flux of $`\nu _e`$ is far smaller than for $`\nu _\mu `$, so the background contribution is small a priori. Furthermore, the topology of electron neutrino events, reflecting the electromagnetic shower generated by the secondary electron, is spherical rather than linear, and this characteristic has been exploited to further increase the rejection. Simulations show that the detection rate of atmospheric $`\nu _e`$ in the point source analysis is only 0.3% of $`\nu _\mu `$ (Young, 2001) and therefore negligible in this context. We note that a separate analysis was devised to search for electron neutrinos and consequently achieved a much larger sensitivity(Ahrens et al., 2002c).

An overview of the simulation of the detector response is given in Hundertmark (1999). The depth dependence of the optical properties of the bulk ice (ICRC Proceedings, 1999) is included along with a realistic treatment of trigger conditions, intrinsic noise rates, and hardware-dependent pulse shapes. The linearity and saturation of the photomultiplier response is included. The angle-dependent sensitivity of the optical module was computed from a convolution of PMT quantum and collection efficiencies as estimated by the manufacturer, detection efficiency, wavelength-dependent transparency through the pressure housing and buffer gel, and obscuration by cables and mechanical support hardware. The relative angular dependence of the sensitivity of the photomultiplier tubes was measured in the laboratory. The local optical properties of the refrozen ice were included in the photon tables that describe the probability and the timing characteristics of photon propagation (Ahrens et al., 2002).

Figure 3 presents the differential distribution of the multiplicity of optical modules, or channels, participating in an event, $`N_{\mathrm{ch}}`$, for the full detector simulation and for experimental data after known detector-related artifacts were removed. The integrated rates differ by less than 25%, which is within the systematic uncertainties associated with the flux of the primary cosmic rays (Gaisser et al., 2002) and uncertainties associated with the absolute sensitivity of the optical module. The agreement in shape demonstrates a good understanding of the overall sensitivity of the array for the most common events that trigger AMANDA-B10.

As the inset of Fig. 3 shows, the largest values of $`N_{\mathrm{ch}}`$ are produced by events with more than one muon. This information provides indirect evidence that the response of AMANDA to single high-energy muons is correctly modeled, by the following argument. Multi-muon bundles that reach AMANDA mainly consist of muons below the critical energy of 600 GeV, which implies that energy loss due to ionization is near minimum. The Cherenkov light production from muons well above the critical energy is dominated by electromagnetic showers, and the total light from a muon with $`E_\mu `$ is approximately equal to the light of a bundle of N muons, where N$`E_\mu /E_{\mathrm{crit}}`$. Therefore, the light production by a multi-muon event can be related to the light production by a single-muon event. For example, the average energy loss per unit length for a muon with energy $`10^{13}`$ eV is approximately a factor of 15 larger than for a single muon, as long as the energy is below 600 GeV. There are several modest limitations to this line of reasoning. One is that the lateral distribution of multi-muon events generates Cherenkov photons over a much larger cylinder than a single muon. Another difference is that multi-muon events deposit Cherenkov photons more uniformly than the equivalent high energy muon, for which energy loss is dominated by occasional pair production and bremsstrahlung. However, optical scattering by the ice mitigates the effects of non-uniform photon generation. Simulations show that bundles of 20 muons generate a similar $`N_{\mathrm{ch}}`$ distribution as single muons with an energy of 10 TeV. The correlation between muon multiplicity and $`N_{\mathrm{ch}}`$ multiplicity is shown in Fig. 4.

## 5 ANALYSIS PROCEDURE

The analysis procedure exploits two essential characteristics of the signal to simplify the analysis relative to atmospheric neutrino measurements. First, the sources are assumed to be point sources in the sky, so only events within a restricted angular region are considered. Secondly, we use the topological and directional characteristics of the spectrally hard neutrino signal to help reject poorly reconstructed atmospheric muons (i.e., downward traveling muons reconstructed as upward traveling) and atmospheric neutrinos, both of which have softer spectra. Unlike many neutrino detectors, the effective sensitivity of AMANDA varies dramatically as a function of the background rejection requirements. By concentrating on harder spectra, the effective area of the detector can be increased by relaxing the background rejection criteria. Since the point source analysis tolerates a larger background ($`B`$) contamination in the final data sample, the analysis procedure optimizes on signal to noise ($`S/\sqrt{B}`$) rather than signal purity ($`S/B`$).

Prior to track reconstruction and event selection, experimental data were selected from runs that exhibited no abnormal behavior, and various instrumentally-induced artifacts were removed. Once the data in the runs were certified, individual OMs in the array were examined to insure proper operation. OM channels with hardware malfunction ($``$15% of OMs), such as pickup from unusually large external noise sources or fluctuations in the response of the amplifier electronics, were rejected. Approximately 85% of OMs remained after deselection. Occasional signals induced by cross-talk in the electrical cables or surface electronics exhibited characteristic behavior and could be removed by straightforward restrictions on pulse amplitude and width. Noise signals generated internally by the photomultiplier tubes were readily removed if their time of arrival occurred earlier than 5 microseconds prior to the formation of the event trigger. The reconstruction programs stochastically account for PMT noise within the event duration.

After this initial data cleaning, a number of event reconstruction techniques (Andres et al., 2000) are applied to the data. The most sophisticated technique relies on a search in multiparameter space to find the maximum likelihood for a track hypothesis given the recorded hits. After reconstruction is completed, events are selected according to a set of criteria that retain only the highest-quality events that possess topological and directional information consistent with those expected for upgoing neutrino-induced muons. In a first step, the data sample of $`1.05\times 10^9`$ events at trigger level is reduced to a more manageable size by two filtering stages. Most events in data are readily identified as due to downward traveling muons by computationally fast reconstruction routines. Removing these events reduces the data approximately by a factor of $`10^3`$.

An iterative analysis procedure was developed to maximize $`S/\sqrt{B}`$ for a simulated signal with an energy spectrum proportional to $`E^2`$. It ignored the absolute time of the event, which helped to minimize bias from potential sources in the data. In this optimization the background was determined from experimental data by assuming that the fraction of signal events in the data sample is negligible. After the filtering stages, cuts were applied sequentially on a set of selection variables, with several variables included more than once. The specific value for each cut after stage 2 was chosen to retain $``$ 80% of the signal. At each stage, given this constraint on signal efficiency, the same cut was made on data for the variable with the largest rejection power, $`R=ϵ_{\mathrm{sig}}/ϵ_{\mathrm{bgr}}`$, where $`ϵ=N^{\mathrm{pass}}/N^0`$, and $`N^0`$ and $`N^{\mathrm{pass}}`$ are the number of events before and after the application of the selection cut respectively. The signal-to-noise ratio was then computed as a function of zenith angle to ensure that the acceptance of AMANDA-B10 remained as large as possible near the horizon. The effective areas for detection of background and signal needed for this computation were determined from simulations (as described in Section 7). After each stage, this procedure was repeated on the remaining variables.

Besides restrictions on the reconstructed zenith angle, $`\theta `$, the most effective selection criteria impose a threshold on the number, $`N_{\mathrm{dir}}`$, of only slightly scattered, or “direct” photons (i.e., photons that travel between the reconstructed track and the OM in nearly a straight line), and the track length, $`L_{\mathrm{dir}}`$, over which these photons are detected. Furthermore, the analysis requires a minimum goodness-of-fit value from the maximum likelihood procedure. Other criteria evaluate the topological distribution of the photon emission using variables that describe the granularity of the light pattern along the trajectory, and a related observable that assesses the sphericity of the photon pattern333Muons normally generate a linear distribution of Cherenkov photons, whereas electromagnetic cascades initiated by pair production or bremsstrahlung produce spherically symmetric distributions.. Table 1 shows the selection variables and cuts used in this analysis, including a brief technical description of the two filtering stages. The selection variables were introduced previously (Ahrens et al., 2002) and a complete description is also available (Young, 2001). Also shown in the table are efficiencies and rejection factors at each stage of the analysis for experimental data, simulated background and simulated signal, averaged over all angles.

The simulated background from atmospheric muons and neutrinos is compared to data at all stages of the analysis to establish confidence in the simulation. Figure 5 shows the comparison at stage 4, which is sufficiently early in the analysis to retain high statistical precision. Figure 6 shows the final stage (13) of the analysis procedure. We note that the signal sensitivity determined from simulations is quite robust against small deviations between the simulated event distribution and the actual response of the detector (Young, 2001).

Due to the large experimental data sample, precision studies of detector performance are possible from the most common events in the sample to extremely rare components. The predicted and experimental sample sizes are compared through all stages of the analysis to establish the absolute calibration of detector sensitivity. This method assumes that signal from astronomical sources contributes negligibly to the sample. Figure 7 shows that the simulated background and data agree to within a factor two at all stages of the analysis even though the size of the event samples vary by six orders of magnitude. The relative rates and the agreements in shape of the selection variable distributions provide evidence that the background generators and detector simulation programs are an adequate description of the detector physics, including detector response. Due to the optimization on signal to noise, all stages of the analysis produce event samples that are dominated by poorly reconstructed downgoing atmospheric muon events. Diffuse backgrounds from atmospheric neutrinos become noticeable only after rejecting most of the poorly reconstructed atmospheric muons, but they never dominate the event sample.

Obviously, atmospheric muon data is an imperfect tool to investigate the sensitivity of the detector to neutrino-induced muons, due to the downgoing nature of the events and differences in the energy and multiplicity distributions. This concern is addressed by the measurement of atmospheric neutrinos (Andres et al., 2001; Ahrens et al., 2002) which were used to verify the basic operational sensitivity of AMANDA-B10 to a known neutrino signal. In this analysis, the relative agreement between the measured and predicted event rates is 30%, which is consistent with uncertainties in the measured flux of cosmic-ray primaries, theoretical uncertainty in the interaction models, and systematic uncertainties in the modeling of the detector response. However, because of the steeply falling energy spectrum for atmospheric neutrinos, the mean energy of the muons induced by charged-current interactions is close to the energy threshold of the detector, which implies that they cannot be used to reliably probe the high-energy response of AMANDA-B10.

## 6 POINTING RESOLUTION AND POINT SOURCE SEARCH

The final stage of the data analysis procedure yields a sample of 815 events (as is evident from Fig. 7, atmospheric neutrinos contribute about 25% of the events to the simulated background.). Visual inspection of the distribution in the sky of the final event sample, shown in Figure 8, reveals no obvious clustering. In order to perform a quantitative search for possible sources of high-energy neutrinos in the northern hemisphere the sky was divided into non-overlapping angular bins of approximately equal solid-angle coverage. A point source would then be revealed by a statistically significant clustering of events within a particular angular bin. The optimal bin size and shape depend on the space angle resolution of the detector, which can be expressed in terms of a point spread function. The space angle deviation, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, between the true angular coordinates of a muon, ($`\theta _{\mathrm{true}},\varphi _{\mathrm{true}}`$), and the reconstructed coordinates, ($`\theta _{\mathrm{rec}},\varphi _{\mathrm{rec}}`$), is given by

$$\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\mathrm{rec}}\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\mathrm{true}}+\mathrm{sin}\theta _{\mathrm{rec}}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{\mathrm{true}}\mathrm{cos}(\varphi _{\mathrm{rec}}\varphi _{\mathrm{true}}).$$
(1)
Figure 9 shows the distribution of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and the corresponding point spread function, computed from the $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ distribution by dividing by the appropriate solid angle, for the simulated sample of upward traveling muons generated by neutrinos with an $`E^2`$ energy spectrum. A median value of $`\mathrm{\Psi }=3.9^{}`$, averaged over positive declinations, is achieved. A function involving the sum of two Gaussian distributions was fit to the point spread function. It yields an amplitude ratio of $`A_2/A_1`$ = 0.25, indicating the importance of the second component related to the degrading angular resolution at large muon energies (Young, 2001). Given this point spread function and the relatively small number of background events shown in Fig. 8, the optimal slice in zenith angle is 11.25 degrees (Young, 2001). For azimuth angle, a weak optimum occurs for a width of 12 degrees for the declination band closest to the horizon. These angular dimensions of the bins were chosen to maximize the signal to noise.

Two studies were performed to check the predicted space angle resolution and absolute pointing accuracy. The first uses AMANDA events that were also tagged by the GASP air Cherenkov telescope (Barbagli et al., 1993). GASP determines the direction of the air shower and AMANDA measures the direction of the penetrating muon component. At AMANDA depths, these events are almost entirely single muons. Unfortunately, the duty cycle of operation is low, so the sample size if relatively small. To improve the statistical accuracy of the angular resolution studies, a second method based on extensive air showers was developed. This method utilized events that triggered both the SPASE array and AMANDA (Bai et al., 2002). SPASE responds to the electron and photon content of the shower front that reaches the surface. Since the direction of muons within the air shower event is nearly perpendicular to the shower front, the difference between the direction of the air shower and the reconstructed muon direction can be used to deduce the angular resolution of AMANDA. SPASE measures the direction of an air shower with a pointing resolution of approximately 1-2 degrees (Dickinson et al., 2000) (depending on shower size), which is small enough to calibrate the AMANDA pointing resolution.

In this study, AMANDA data was analyzed using the procedure outlined in Table 1, with the exception that angle-dependent cuts were inverted to account for the downgoing direction of travel of SPASE/AMANDA coincidence events (e.g., the cut at stage 3 was changed to $`\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{(5)}>0.1)`$. The absolute pointing accuracy is characterized by the average of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$, the difference between the true and the reconstructed zenith angle. Due to the excellent zenith angle resolution of SPASE, SPASE/AMANDA coincidence data was used to deduce $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$ using the reconstructed zenith angles of both detectors, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta =\theta _{\mathrm{AMANDA}}\theta _{\mathrm{SPASE}}`$. Figure 10 shows the measured zenith angle resolution using SPASE/AMANDA coincidence events, together with the resolution obtained for a SPASE/AMANDA simulation of air showers initiated by protons and iron nuclei. Iron primaries produce a larger fraction of coincidence events with more than one muon penetrating to AMANDA depths, which accounts for the small difference between protons and iron nuclei. The coincidence data support the predicted angular resolution, and show that the angular offset is small compared to the angular dimensions of the sky bins. These conclusions are nearly independent of the choice of cosmic ray primary.

Also shown in Fig. 10 is the expected angular resolution as function of declination for single muons with energies of 0.1 TeV and 4 TeV within the detector volume. These muon energies were chosen to be representative of the average muon energy that were initiated by atmospheric neutrinos and by a source with differential energy spectrum proportional to $`E^2`$. The predicted value for the absolute offset is less than 1.5 degrees, which is consistent with results obtained by additional study of the SPASE&AMANDA and GASP&AMANDA coincidence events (Rawlins, 2001; Bai et al., 2002). The offset is due to bias in the AMANDA event reconstruction, which tends to produce more vertical events. This effect is most evident from the high energy muon simulation which shows that the angular offset changes sign for positive and negative declinations. Since the absolute offset is substantially smaller than the angular resolution and small compared to the size of the search bin, the offset has minimal impact on the signal efficiency. For a zenith (declination) offset of 1.5 degrees, 6% of the signal events are shifted to the neighboring bin. The lower panel of the figure also shows that the angular resolution for upward traveling events is slightly better than for events traveling in the downward direction, presumably due to the asymmetry in the response of the photomultiplier tubes, which are oriented toward the center of the earth.

To obtain approximately equal solid-angle coverage for all bins, the northern sky is divided into 154 non-overlapping bins, using the calculated optimal declination slice ($`11.25^{}`$) and a varying number of bins in azimuth for the resulting eight declination bands – from 30 near the horizon to three near $`+90^{}`$ declination. Each angular bin is then tested for an excess of events by computing the significance,

$$\xi =\mathrm{log}_{10}(P),$$
(2)
where

$$P=\underset{n=N_0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{e^\mu \mu ^n}{n!}$$
(3)
is the probability for the bin to contain at least the observed number of events, $`N_0`$, assuming that fluctuations are described by a Poisson distribution. The expected mean number of events, $`\mu `$, is obtained by taking the average of the number of events in all other bins in the same declination slice. The polar location of AMANDA assures equal sky coverage for all declinations, independent of time gaps in the collection of data. Figure 11 shows the distribution of significance for the experimental data and for random fluctuation of the background events. This noise estimate is obtained by randomizing the right ascension coordinate of the data events, then recalculating $`\xi `$ for each bin. A point source candidate would be identified by a large observed value of significance with a large ratio to the significance expected from random fluctuations of background. To avoid the statistical problem of a potential source near a bin boundary distributing signal between two adjacent bins, the procedure was repeated with the grid shifted by one half bin in both declination and azimuth. The largest value of significance, $`\xi =1.85`$, appears in the bottom panel. Taking into account the 154 bins in the sky and the two versions of the sky grid, there is a 40% probability that the most significant sky bin is produced by random fluctuation of background. Therefore, the distribution of significance shows no evidence of a source.

Another approach was also investigated, using the angular correlation function between event pairs to avoid the problem of a source near a bin boundary, but this alternate approach did not reveal sources either (Young, 2001).

## 7 FLUX LIMITS

The absence of a detected source translates into an upper limit on the high-energy neutrino flux. Neutrino flux and neutrino-induced muon flux limits depend on the effective area of the detector, $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, for a muon with energy $`E_\mu `$. The effective area, obtained by dividing the signal rate by the incident flux, is determined from simulations by

$$A_{\mathrm{eff}}(E_\mu )=f_{\mathrm{ev}}(E_\mu )A_{\mathrm{GEN}}$$
(4)
where $`A_{\mathrm{GEN}}`$ is the cross-sectional area of the cylinder in the simulation that contains all neutrino interaction vertices, and $`f_{\mathrm{ev}}`$ is the fraction of generated muon events that survive the 13-stage data analysis procedure. As an example, results are shown in Fig. 12 for muon vertices located near the detector. The effective area is computed as a function of declination for muons with energies of 1, 10 and 100 TeV. These effective areas can be contrasted to the geometric cross-section of the instrumented volume of deep ice, which spans from $`1.1\times 10^4`$ m2 in the vertical direction to $`6.1\times 10^4`$ m2 in the horizontal direction.

The average effective area, folding in the source spectra, detector response and the probability of a neutrino-nucleon interaction, is given by

$$\overline{A}_{\mathrm{eff}}^i=N_A\rho _{\mathrm{ice}}A_{\mathrm{GEN}}\frac{_{E_\nu ^{\mathrm{min}}}^{E_\nu ^{\mathrm{max}}}\sigma _{\nu \mu }(E_\nu )S(E_\nu )R(E_\nu ;E_\mu ^{\mathrm{min}})f_{ev}\frac{d\varphi _\nu }{dE_\nu }𝑑E_\nu }{_{E_\nu ^{\mathrm{min}}}^{E_\nu ^{\mathrm{max}}}\frac{d\varphi _i}{dE_\nu }𝑑E_\nu }$$
(5)
where the index $`i`$ denotes either $`\mu `$ or $`\nu `$, and $`E_\nu ^{\mathrm{min}}=10`$ GeV and $`E_\nu ^{\mathrm{max}}=10^7`$ GeV define the energy range in the simulation, which safely brackets the interval of interest for most theoretical models. The other variables are $`N_A`$, Avogadro’s number, $`\rho _{\mathrm{ice}}`$, the molar density of nucleons in ice, and $`\sigma _{\nu \mu }`$ is the charged-current cross section for $`\nu _\mu `$ (or $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$) interactions. The term $`S(E_\nu )`$ accounts for neutrino absorption in the earth and $`R(E_\nu ;E_\mu ^{\mathrm{min}})`$ is the average propagation length for a muon created by a neutrino with energy $`E_\nu `$, corrected for the energy threshold of the detector. In this calculation, the neutrino interaction vertices are located randomly within a volume that is large compared to the instrumented volume of the detector. The propagation programs properly account for muon energy losses.

The muon differential flux is related to the neutrino differential flux by

$$\frac{d\varphi _\mu }{dE_\nu }=\sigma _{\nu \mu }(E_\nu )S(E_\nu )R(E_\nu ;E_\mu ^{\mathrm{min}})\frac{d\varphi _\nu }{dE_\nu }.$$
(6)
The energy-averaged muon effective area is presented in Fig. 13 for different spectral indices. The energy response of AMANDA is described by the distribution of $`E_\mu `$ at the detector, which depends on the spectral index of the neutrino spectrum. Figure 14 shows the distribution for differential spectra proportional to $`E^2`$ and $`E^3`$. For $`E^2`$, the most probable muon energy (mode) is 5 TeV, and the central 90% of the muon events are within the energy interval 80 GeV to 200 TeV. For a spectral index of 3, appropriate for atmospheric neutrinos, the most probable detected energy of the muon is much lower.

If neutrino emission from a point source is described by a differential energy spectrum, the energy-averaged flux limit is calculated from

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_i^{\mathrm{limit}}=\frac{\mu _\mathrm{s}(N_0,N_{\mathrm{bgr}})}{T_{\mathrm{live}}ϵ_{\mathrm{bin}}\overline{A}_{\mathrm{eff}}^i}.$$
(7)
The quantity $`\mu _\mathrm{s}(N_0,N_{\mathrm{bgr}})`$ is the upper limit on the number of signal events at 90% confidence level, calculated following the unified procedure of Feldman and Cousins (1998), where $`N_0`$ is the observed number of events in a potential source bin and $`N_{\mathrm{bgr}}`$ is the expected number of background events. For the binning technique employed in our point source search, $`N_{\mathrm{bgr}}`$ is determined by averaging the number of observed events over the declination band, excluding the bin being considered. The efficiency factor, $`ϵ_{\mathrm{bin}}`$, accounts for the finite angular resolution and the possible noncentral location within the bin of a potential source. The factor $`T_{\mathrm{live}}`$ is the operational livetime of the detector. The resulting muon and neutrino flux limits are shown in Fig. 15 and Fig. 16, respectively, for various assumed spectral indices between 2 and 3.

Figure 17 shows a comparison of the AMANDA flux limits with a representative sample of neutrino detectors located in the Northern Hemisphere. The AMANDA-B10 detector approaches its maximum sensitivity for declinations greater than +30, which complements the sky regions covered by neutrino detectors such as MACRO (Montaruli et al., 1999) and Super Kamiokande (Matsuno, 2001). With only 130.1 days of detector livetime, the muon flux limits for positive declinations approach those achieved for the Southern sky. The AMANDA flux limits were calculated for $`E_\nu >10`$ GeV, while both Super Kamiokande and MACRO present fluxes for $`E_\mu >`$ 1-2 GeV, but for relatively hard differential neutrino spectra, such as $`E_\nu ^2`$, the impact of energy threshold on muon flux limits is modest (Biron, 2002).

In addition to the general search for a point source, a number of potential sources of particular interest were investigated by performing the significance test while centering the search bin on their sky coordinates. The resulting flux limits are presented in Table 2. As one interesting example, we compare the AMANDA limit on the neutrino flux from Markarian 501 to the observed gamma ray flux and this flux corrected for intergalactic absorption by infrared photons in Fig. 18. Assuming that the neutrino energy spectrum is proportional to the inferred gamma-ray spectrum at the source, the AMANDA limit constrains the proportionality factor. For example, the ratio of the flux of neutrinos to the flux of gamma-rays must be less than ten if the source spectrum of Konopelko et al. (1999) is assumed. Recent work (de Jager and Stecker, 2002) suggests that the ratio may be smaller.

## 8 IMPACT OF SYSTEMATIC UNCERTAINTIES ON FLUX LIMITS

In the absence of a well-understood source of high-energy neutrinos, the sensitivity of the AMANDA-B10 detector, as expressed in terms of the effective area and angular resolution, had to be estimated from detector simulations. The required input relies on knowledge of detector performance extracted from, e.g., laboratory measurements of the individual components, in-situ measurements of the optical properties of the ice, and calibration studies. Consequently, the predicted sensitivity is affected by uncertainty in this information. Table 3 lists the dominant contributions to systematic uncertainties. The uncertainty in the right column is defined as the variation $`|(A_{\mathrm{eff}}^jA_{\mathrm{eff}}^{\mathrm{nom}})/(A_{\mathrm{eff}}^j+A_{\mathrm{eff}}^{\mathrm{nom}})|`$ of the effective area from its value determined with the nominal set of input parameters, $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^{\mathrm{nom}}`$, given by the area, $`A_{\mathrm{eff}}^j`$, obtained by varying the specified parameter (index $`j`$) by its estimated uncertainty.

The most significant component is generated from the uncertainty in the angular dependence of the OM sensitivity. It arises mainly from a lack of detailed understanding of the physics governing the refreezing process in the water column required to be melted for the deployment of OMs. A local increase in scattering from air bubbles trapped in the vicinity of the OM translates into a modulation of its angle-dependent acceptance. This effect is difficult to disentangle from the intrinsic angular dependence of the OM sensitivity, which was measured in the laboratory. An event sample highly enriched in atmospheric muons was used to investigate the in situ angle dependence of the OM sensitivity (Ahrens et al., 2002). The modification to the angular sensitivity leads to a 25% uncertainty in the effective area.

Since the angle-integrated sensitivity of the OM is a poorly constrained parameter in this analysis, we also investigated the impact of varying the absolute sensitivity of the OM. It was parameterized by a wavelength-dependent function that included the PMT quantum efficiency, the OM collection efficiency, obscuration by nearby cables, and absorption properties of the glass pressure vessel and coupling gel. We obtain a fractional uncertainty of 0.15 in the effective area after reducing the absolute OM sensitivity by 15%, a value consistent with the atmospheric neutrino results. Further reduction is inconsistent with observed experimental trigger rates.

As mentioned in Sec. 4, two muon propagation routines were employed to show that systematic variations in the effective area for signal (i.e., upward traveling) muons were between 5% and 10%. This is much less than observed for studies of atmospheric muons, presumably due to the much weaker angular dependence of the average pathlength. Possible uncertainty in timing and position calibration of individual OMs are included by varying these parameters to the largest extent allowed by the imprecision of the calibration procedures. The effective area changes by 10%. A conservative estimate of the variation in sensitivity introduced by uncertainties in the depth-dependent optical properties and their approximate treatment in the detector simulation is obtained by substituting the nominal bulk ice model, containing a parameterization of the measured dust strata, with a homogeneous ice model. The impact on effective area is less than 5%.

The impact of the most dominant systematic uncertainties on the average effective area is shown in Fig. 19, where the systematic variations have been applied one at a time, with the exception of the muon propagation curve which also includes the variation of the angular OM sensitivity.

The variation of the detector sensitivity due to systematic uncertainties was studied by adjusting the physical parameters in the detector simulation. The parameters were adjusted according to the known or estimated uncertainties listed in Table 3, which are assumed to bound the true values of the parameters. Systematic uncertainty were included according to the prescription of Conrad et al. (2002) which is an extension of the method of Cousins and Highland (1992). The calculations assumed that the distribution of systematic uncertainty was flat, and bound by the maximum and minimum values for a given declination bin found in Fig. 20 and Fig. 21.

The solid curves in Fig. 20 and Fig. 21 indicate the flux limits after adjusting for systematic uncertainty. They are valid for declination greater than +5. The limits including systematic uncertainties are about 25% worse than those obtained from the simulation with nominal input parameters. Finally, the flux limits change by less than 6% due to the effects of zenith offset and the variation in $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{median}}`$ due to declination (Young, 2001). These small effects were not taken into consideration in the limit calculations.

## 9 DISCUSSION

The previous sections have shown that AMANDA-B10 has unprecedented sensitivity to high energy neutrinos and possesses the necessary angular response and background rejection to search for point emission of these particles from astronomical objects; i.e., it is a novel telescope that detects the neutrino messenger. The sensitivity and angular response were determined by simulation. The reliability of these programs was established by utilizing the known signals generated by (downgoing) atmospheric muons and (upgoing) atmospheric neutrinos. The angular response was confirmed by the study of air shower events that triggered both AMANDA-B10 and SPASE. Systematic uncertainty in the analysis procedure was also addressed.

The search for point sources of high-energy neutrinos revealed no candidates. A set of event selection criteria was determined by optimizing the signal to noise ratio for a signal with a hard energy spectrum, yet this analysis retains reasonable sensitivity for softer spectra. The upper limits on muon flux for all search bins in the northern hemisphere are presented in Table 4.

The neutrino flux limits in Fig. 15 are inferred from the assumption of a power-law energy spectrum. This procedure is reliable if the mean energy of the neutrino-induced muon is compatible with the energy response of the detector. For example, Fig. 14 shows that $`E_\mu `$ at the detector brackets the interval between 0.1 TeV and $`10^3`$ TeV for source spectra proportional to $`E^2`$. Two lines of evidence show that the simulated energy response of the detector is valid over this interval. First, the agreement between the detected and expected rates of atmospheric neutrinos shows that the response of AMANDA is being correctly modeled in the sub-TeV region. Second, the tails of the $`N_{\mathrm{ch}}`$ distribution are sensitive to brighter events within AMANDA, which are roughly equivalent to single muons with energy above 1 TeV. We know of no reason to doubt the predicted energy response for $`E_\mu <10^3`$ TeV. Evaluation and calibration of the energy response beyond $`10^3`$ TeV remain an ongoing activity.

Not all model predictions are well characterized by power-law energy spectra. Therefore, Table 2 shows the results for a selection of models in the literature. The inferred limits on neutrino flux apply to point sources with continuous emission (or episodic emission averaged over the time interval of data collection) and power-law energy spectra with a fixed spectral index. The limits presented here for sources at large positive declination complement existing data, so that comparable limits now exist for the entire sky.

During 1997, the TeV gamma-ray emission of two nearby AGN blazars (Markarian 421 and 501) were observed to exhibit episodic flaring. If neutrino emission follows the same time variability, then it may be possible to improve the signal-to-noise ratio by eliminating the periods of relatively low output. Multiple detection of Mkn 501 from several air Cherenkov instruments allowed nearly continuous monitoring, including periods when the moon was shining. However, monitoring by multiple instruments only extended from March to late August. Due to uncertainties in the details of the time dependence of the gamma emission, neutrino flux limits are not greatly improved by restricting the analysis to high-flux periods of gamma-ray emission.

While this paper describes an analysis dedicated to the search for point sources, another strategy was developed based on the event selection of the atmospheric neutrino analysis (Biron, 2002). The results of this complementary analysis are consistent with the results presented here. The absolute efficiency was extracted by comparing to the known flux from atmospheric neutrinos. Moreover, the second analysis was subject to different systematic uncertainties.

The method based on the atmospheric neutrino analysis retained a smaller event sample of 369 events, of which $`270`$ are expected from atmospheric neutrinos. The cut selections produce an implicit optimization on more vertical events and/or softer energy spectra. Figure 22 compares the average effective area of the two analysis for an assumed differential spectra proportional to $`E^2`$. The best flux limits for soft spectra are obtained by atmospheric neutrino analysis, but the neutrino and muon flux limits for either analysis are much larger than obtained for an assumed power law of index of -2.0.

While the flux limits for any particular source or direction in the northern hemisphere can be extracted from this analysis (see Table 4), flux limits -both integral and pseudo-differential- for a pre-selected list of 62 sources have been reported (Biron, 2002). These include all known TeV gamma ray blazars, nearby QSOs, and galactic TeV gamma ray sources in the northern hemisphere. The list also includes microquasars, the five most luminous AGNs in wavelength bands that span across MeV, X-ray, infrared, and radio bands. Of particular interest are radio galaxies with strong emission at GHz frequencies. We have also investigated BL Lacs that are close to the arrival directions of the very highest energy cosmic rays (Tinyakov and Tkachev, 2001) and the 10 reported cosmic ray doublets at extreme energies (Uchihori et al., 2000).

## 10 FUTURE

The technique employed in this paper optimized the selection criteria on signal to noise. Due to the relatively large number of sky bins and the relatively low number of events in any individual bin, the analysis procedure produced event samples that are dominated by poorly-reconstructed atmospheric muons rather than upward traveling atmospheric neutrino background. However, as the background rejection of downgoing events improves with larger detectors, such as AMANDA-II, this trend may not continue.

AMANDA-II, completed in January 2000, surrounds the B10 core with nine additional strings, more than doubling the number of optical modules. For this broader configuration, the effective area for neutrino-induced muons remains relatively constant over the entire hemisphere (Barwick, 2001). Consequently, AMANDA-II is expected to achieve a factor of five improvement in sensitivity for nearly horizontal events compared to AMANDA-B10 (Wischnewski, 2001). The greater statistical sample of atmospheric neutrinos will allow better tests of the detector simulation programs, especially near the horizon. With the data already collected on tape, AMANDA-II can observe (or exclude) neutrino fluxes that are approximately one order of magnitude below the limits presented here, as shown in Fig.1.

## 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was supported by the following agencies: U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs and Physics Division, University of Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Swedish Natural Science Research Council, Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden, German Ministry for Education and Research, the U.S. National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (supported by the Office of Energy Research of the U.S. Department of Energy), UC-Irvine AENEAS Supercomputer Facility, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). C. Pérez de los Heros received support from the EU 4th framework of Training and Mobility of Researchers, and D. F. Cowen acknowledges the support of the NSF CAREER program. P. Desiati was supported by the Koerber Foundation.


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# The Neupert effect in solar flares and implications for coronal heating

## 1 Introduction

The Neupert effect is the name given to the observational finding that the rising part of the soft X-ray (SXR) light curve often resembles the time integral of the hard X-ray (HXR) or microwave emission (Neupert, 1968; Dennis & Zarro, 1993). The physical relevance of the Neupert effect basically arises from the fact that it is interpreted as a causal connection between the thermal and nonthermal flare emissions, which can be naturally explained within the nonthermal thick-target model (Brown, 1971). In this model, the flare energy is released primarily in the form of nonthermal electrons, and hard X-rays are produced via electron-ion bremsstrahlung when the electron beams impinge on the lower corona, transition region and chromosphere. The model assumes that only a small fraction of the electron beam energy is lost through radiation; most of the loss is due to Coulomb collisions that serve to heat the ambient plasma. As a consequence of the rapid energy deposition a strong pressure imbalance develops between the dense, heated chromosphere and the tenuous corona. The high pressure gradients cause the heated plasma to convect into the corona in a process known as chromospheric evaporation (Antonucci et al. 1984; Fisher et al. 1985), where it gives rise to enhanced SXR emission via thermal bremsstrahlung.

In this case, the hard X-ray flux is linked to the instantaneous rate of energy supplied by electron beams, whereas the soft X-ray flux is related to the accumulated energy deposited by the same electrons up to that time, and we can expect to see the Neupert effect. Any deviation from the Neupert effect, in principle, suggests that the hot SXR emitting plasma is not heated exclusively by thermalization of the accelerated electrons that are responsible for the HXR emission. Therefore, investigations of the Neupert effect provide insight into the role of nonthermal electrons for the flare energetics.

The Neupert effect can be expressed as

$$F_{\mathrm{P},\mathrm{SXR}}=k_{\mathrm{HXR}},$$
(1)
with $`F_{\mathrm{P},\mathrm{SXR}}`$ the SXR peak flux and $`_{\mathrm{HXR}}`$ the HXR fluence, i.e. the HXR flux integrated over the event duration. The coefficient $`k`$ depends on several factors, as, e.g., the magnetic field geometry and the viewing angle, and thus may vary from flare to flare (Lee et al., 1995). However, if $`k`$ does not depend systematically on the flare intensity, then the SXR peak flux and the HXR fluence are linearly related.

## 2 Data Selection

We utilize the SXR data from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) and the HXR data from the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) aboard the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. The X-ray sensor aboard GOES consists of two ion chamber detectors, which provide whole-sun X-ray fluxes in the 0.5–4 and 1–8 Å wavelength bands. BATSE is a whole-sky HXR flux monitor that, in part, consists of eight large-area detectors. From each detector there are hard X-ray measurements in four energy channels, 25–50, 50–100, 100–300 and $`>`$300 keV (Schwartz et al., 1992).

For the analysis, the 1-min averaged GOES SXR data measured in the 1–8 Å channel and the HXR data collected in the BATSE Solar Flare Catalog, archived in the Solar Data Analysis Center at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center for the period 01/1997 – 06/2000 are used. The peak and total count rates are background subtracted for the flux below 100 keV. For the SXR events, we used the flux just before the flare start for background subtraction. To be identified as corresponding events we demand that the start time difference between a SXR and a HXR event does not exceed 10 min. Overlapping events are excluded. Applying these criteria, we obtained 1114 events that were observed in both hard and soft X-rays (for details see Veronig et al., 2002a).

## 3 Analysis

For each event we determined the difference, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$, of the peak time of the SXR emission, $`t_{\mathrm{SXR},\mathrm{P}}`$, and the end time of the HXR emission, $`t_{\mathrm{HXR},\mathrm{E}}`$. Furthermore, the time differences were normalized to the duration $`D`$ of the respective HXR event, i.e.

$$\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{norm}}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }t}{D}=\frac{t_{\mathrm{SXR},\mathrm{P}}t_{\mathrm{HXR},\mathrm{E}}}{D}.$$
(2)
Figure 1 shows the histogram of the absolute and normalized time differences. Both representations of the SXR–HXR time difference have its mode at zero. 49% of the events lie within the range $`|\mathrm{\Delta }t|1`$ min, and 65% within $`|\mathrm{\Delta }t|2`$ min. For the normalized time differences, we obtain that 44% lie within $`|\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{norm}}|0.5`$ HXR units, and 59% within $`|\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{norm}}|1`$ HXR unit. This outcome suggests that certainly a considerable part of the events coincides well with the expectations from the Neupert effect regarding the relative timing.

Figure 2 shows the scatter plot of the SXR peak flux versus the HXR fluence for the complete sample, clearly revealing an increase of $`F_{\mathrm{P},\mathrm{SXR}}`$ with increasing $`_{\mathrm{HXR}}`$. It can also be inferred from the figure that the slope is not constant over the whole range but that it is larger for large HXR fluences than for small ones. For very large fluences, the slope approaches the value of 1, indicative of a linear relation between the SXR peak flux and HXR fluence. We stress that the slope at small fluences might be affected by missing events with small SXR peak fluxes (due to selection effects), and thus appear flatter than it is in fact. Figure 2 reveals an interdependence between the importance of an event and the sign of the time difference. Basically all large flares belong to the group of events with $`\mathrm{\Delta }t<0`$, i.e. the SXR peak occurs before the HXR end. Moreover, the flares with $`\mathrm{\Delta }t<0`$ reveal a strong tendency to be of long duration.

We obtain a high cross-correlation coefficient for the SXR peak flux and HXR fluence relationship, $`r=0.71`$. This coefficient is higher than those for the SXR peak flux and HXR peak flux, $`r=0.57`$. This indicates that the correlation is primarily due to the HXR fluence – SXR peak flux relationship, as predicted from the Neupert effect, and not, e.g., due to the fact that flares with large HXR peak fluxes also tend to have intense SXR counterparts. Furthermore, it is important to note that the HXR fluence – SXR peak flux correlation is higher for the events with negative time differences, $`r=0.82`$, than for the events with positive time differences, $`r=0.54`$.

On the basis of the relative timing of the SXR peak and the HXR end, we extracted two subsets of events. The events of set 1 are roughly consistent with the timing expectations of the Neupert effect, and the events of set 2 are inconsistent with it. The two sets are defined by the following conditions:

$`\mathrm{Set}1:(|\mathrm{\Delta }t|<1\mathrm{min})`$ $`\mathrm{OR}`$ $`(|\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{norm}}|<0.5\mathrm{unit}),`$
$`\mathrm{Set}2:(|\mathrm{\Delta }t|>2\mathrm{min})`$ $`\mathrm{AND}`$ $`(|\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{norm}}|>1.0\mathrm{unit}).`$
The applied conditions represent a combination of absolute and normalized time differences in order to avoid as much as possible any a priori interdependence with the flare duration and/or flare intensity. Out of the 1114 corresponding HXR and SXR flares, 485 (44%) events fulfilled the timing criterion of set 1; 270 events (24%) belong to set 2; 359 events (32%) are neither attributed to set 1 nor to set 2.

In Figure 3, we plot the SXR peak flux versus the HXR fluence separately for set 1 and set 2. The figure reveals that the two sets have very different characteristics besides the different timing behavior. Set 1 contains many more large events and shows a steeper increase of $`F_{\mathrm{P},\mathrm{SXR}}`$ with increasing $`_{\mathrm{HXR}}`$ than set 2. Moreover, set 1 contains more events with negative than positive time difference, whereas almost all events of set 2 are characterized by $`\mathrm{\Delta }t>0`$, i.e. increasing SXR emission beyond the end of the hard X-rays. On average, for small fluences the events belonging to set 2 have a larger SXR peak flux at a given HXR fluence than those of set 1, indicating an “excess” of SXR emission with respect to set 1. The cross-correlation coefficients derived separately for the subsets reveal that the correlation among the SXR peak flux and HXR fluence is much more pronounced for the events of set 1, $`r=0.78`$, than those of set 2, $`r=0.41`$.

## 4 Discussion and Conclusions

24% of the events have $`\mathrm{\Delta }t<0`$, i.e. the SXR maximum occurs before the end of the HXR emission. These events are preferentially of long duration. Li et al. (1993) have calculated time profiles of soft and hard X-ray emission from a thick-target electron-heated model, finding that, in general, the time derivative of the SXR emission corresponds to the time profile of the HXR emission, as stated by the Neupert effect. However, for gradual events they obtained that this relationship breaks down during the decay phase of the HXR event, in that the maximum of the SXR emission occurs before the end of the HXR emission. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that the SXR emission starts to decrease if the evaporation-driven energy supply cannot overcome the instantaneous cooling of the hot plasma, which is likely to happen in gradual flares. Considering our observational findings together with the results from simulations by Li et al. (1993), presumably most of the events with $`\mathrm{\Delta }t<0`$ are consistent with the electron-beam-driven evaporation model. In particular, the high correlation between $`F_{\mathrm{P},\mathrm{SXR}}`$ and $`_{\mathrm{HXR}}`$, $`r0.8`$, supports such interpretation.

56% of the events have $`\mathrm{\Delta }t>0`$; these events are preferentially of short and weak HXR emission. In principle, the fact that the SXR emission is still increasing although the HXR emission, i.e. the electron input, has already stopped indicates that an additional agent besides the HXR emitting electrons is contributing to the energy input and prolonging the heating and/or evaporation. However, McTiernan et al. (1999) have shown that the SXR time profile depends on the temperature response of the used detector: An increase of the SXR emission of low-temperature flare plasma after the HXR end may arise due to cooling of high-temperature plasma. Thus, we cannot attribute all events with $`\mathrm{\Delta }t>0`$ as inconsistent with the electron-beam-driven chromospheric evaporation model. Instead, we consider as inconsistent only flares which show strong deviations from $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0`$, i.e. the events belonging to set 2.

This means that for at least one fourth of the analyzed events an additional heating agent besides nonthermal electrons is suggested. A probable scenario is that energy is transported from the primary energy release site via thermal conduction fronts, which initiate chromospheric evaporation but do not produce hard X-rays. The finding that for a considerable fraction of flares, preferentially weak ones, an additional heating agent other than electron beams is suggested, is not only relevant for the flare energetics but also for Parker’s idea of coronal heating by nanoflares (Parker, 1988).

Hudson (1991) pointed out that if the corona is heated by flare-like events of different sizes, then the flare energy distribution must have a power-law slope $`\alpha >2`$. If the SXR flux does not vary systematically with temperature and density, then the SXR peak flux is linearly related to the maximum thermal energy of the flare plasma (see Lee et al., 1995; Veronig et al., 2002a). On the other hand, HXR fluence distributions can be considered as representative for the energy contained in nonthermal electrons. In Figure 4, we show the SXR peak flux and the HXR fluence distributions derived from 1114 corresponding SXR/HXR flares, finding $`\alpha =1.95`$$`\pm `$ 0.13 and $`\alpha =1.58`$$`\pm `$ 0.13, respectively. The discrepancy between the slopes of the HXR fluence and the SXR peak flux distributions was already pointed out and discussed in Lee et al. (1993, 1995) and Veronig et al. (2002b). The present analysis provides an explanation for this difference in power-law slopes: The relationship between the SXR peak flux and the HXR fluence is not linear, whereby the deviations from a linear correlation are strongest for weak flares (cf. Figure 2).

The soft X-ray flare emission increases due to energy supply by electron beams as well as any other heating agent, whereas the hard X-ray emission contains only information on the energy provided by electrons. Together with our finding that particularly in weak events an additional heating agent besides electron beams is suggested, this strongly suggests that soft X-ray peak flux distributions are a more meaningful indicator of flare energy distributions than hard X-ray fluence distributions. Furthermore, we have shown that weak flares have different characteristics than large flares, in the sense that electrons are less important for their energetics. Therefore, it is possible that the power-law slope of nanoflare frequency distributions differs from that derived for observed flares, which is close to the critical value of $`2`$. In this respect it should be worthwhile to investigate flare frequency distributions of SXR flares without HXR counterparts, i.e. without detectable particle acceleration, since these flares possibly provide the link to the smallest flare-like energy release events.

## Acknowledgements

A. V., M. T. and A. H. gratefully acknowledge the Austrian Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF grant P15344-PHY) for supporting this project.