text:
# Low Temperature Electronic Transport through Macromolecules and Characteristics of Intramolecular Electron Transfer

## I I. Introduction and Background

It is well known that long distance electron transfer (ET) plays an important part in many biological processes such as signal transduction across membranes, photosynthesis, enzyme cathalysis and other reactions in biological cells one ; two . A fundamental understanding of these reactions also has substantial implications for further miniaturization of electronic devices three ; four ; five . Theoretical and experimental investigation of ET processes in biological macromolecules such as proteins and DNA lasts more than three decades but it still remains a very active area of research. ET kinetic data on macromolecules are increasingly available (for recent experimental results, see e.g. six ; seven  and references therein).

It has been established that molecular ET is essentially a combination of nuclear environment fluctuations and electron tunneling. Due to the large distances between donor and acceptor subsystems in macromolecules $`(1nm),`$ a direct electronic coupling between them is extremely small, so the ET is provided by intervening molecular bridges, giving rise to sets of intermediate states for the electron tunneling. The expression for the ET rate including both electronic and nuclear factors was first proposed by Marcus eight ; nine ; ten  and can be written as follows:

$$K_{ET}=K_{el}K_n\nu _n.$$
(1)
Here, $`K_{el}`$ is the electron transmission coefficient, $`K_n`$ is the nuclear transition or Franck-Condon factor, and $`\nu _n`$ is the effective nuclear vibration frequency.

The enormous size of biological molecules makes straightforward calculations of $`K_{el}`$ extremely difficult. As a result of numerous theoretical studies, some methods have been developed to simplify the analysis of ET processes. These methods are mostly based on a general model of primary or highly probable pathways (see e.g. Refs. eleven ; twelve ; thirteen ; fourteen ; fifteen ; sixteen ; seventeen ). The point of this approach is that an electron involved in a long range ET process, with a high probability follows a few primary tunneling pathways moving through the macromolecule. Therefore large portions of the original macromolecule do not significantly contribute to the electron transfer, and can be excluded from further calculations. Keeping only these primary pathways, one can reduce original molecular bridges to much simpler chain-like structures. This enables to develop a numerical analysis of elecron transport along the chains.

Assuming the coherent tunneling (superexchange mechanism) to predominate one can treat a long-range ET process as a sequence of tunnelings between orbitals of the considered donor-bridge-acceptor system. The latter are sites of the system, and any atom included into consideration is represented as a set of sites corresponding to its states associated with valence electrons. The electron transmission coefficient $`k_{el}`$ equals $`|T_{DA}|^2`$, where $`T_{DA}`$ is the transition amplitude between donor and acceptor subsystems. The transition amplitude can be presented in the form:

$$T_{DA}^{mn}=T_{mn}^0+\underset{ij}{}𝒟_{mi}G_{ij}𝒜_{jn}.$$
(2)
Here, $`T_{mn}^0`$ is the direct coupling of the donor site ”m” to the acceptor site ”n” which is usually weak in macromolecules and therefore can be neglected. The summation in the second term is carried out over the bridge sites involved in the ET process; $`𝒟_{mi}`$ and $`𝒜_{jn}`$ are the couplings of the donor/acceptor to the bridge; $`G_{ij}`$ are matrix elements of the Green’s function between bridge sites $`i`$ and $`j`$:

$$G_{ij}=$$
(3)
where, $`H`$ is the Hamiltonian of the bridge, and $`E`$ is the tunneling energy.

This method of calculation of $`T_{DA}`$ was repeatedly employed in numerous papers eighteen . Obtained results were succesfully used to justify semiempirical expressions for $`k_{el}`$ which were applied for interpretation of experimental results, such as the pathway model (see Ref. six ), or the average packing density model nineteen .

Thus far, insufficient attention was paid to systematically analyze the contribution of donor/acceptor coupling to the bridge to the long-range ET processes. Usually, in theoretical studies concerning ET processes both donor and acceptor are presented as single sites, whereas in realistic biological macromolecules the donor/acceptor subsystem often has a complex structure and includes a set of sites providing effective coupling to the bridge. Correspondingly, the bridge has a set of entrances and a set of exits which an electron involved in the ET process can employ. At different values of the tunnel energy $`E`$ different sites of donor and acceptor subsystems can give predominant contributions to the ET. In other words, at different values of $`E`$ preferred entrances to the bridge and exits from it, as well as primary pathways for electrons, differ.

ET processes in complex molecular systems occur in a highly disordered nuclear/solvation enviroment. Stochastic fluctuations of the environment electric potential cause the electronic phase-breaking effect. Also, incoherent component in the electron transport could originate from the electron scattering on intramolecular vibrational modes twentythree  and due to some other dissipative processes twentyfour . The dephasing could strongly affect the character of the ET processes destroying electron pathways in the molecules and providing a transition from coherent superexchange to the completely incoherent sequental hopping mechanism of the electron transfer twentyfive ; twentysix ; twentyseven ; twentyeight . The effect of inelastic scattering in the ET processes is often described within the Buttiker approach twentynine . The electron propagation along the molecular bridge is considered as a multichannel scattering problem which is treated using the scattering matrix formalism twentyseven ; thirty ; thirtyone ; thirtytwo ; thirtythree ; thirtyfour . Also, some other formalisms are employed to treat the inelastic scattering effects on the ET characteristics which are discussed elsewhere thirtyfive .

ET processes reveal a strong resemblance with the electron conductance through molecular wires thirtysix . This resemblance is a starting point for the present work. We believe that studies of electronic transport through macromolecules can provide important information concerning quantum dynamics of electrons participating in the ET processes. In this paper a simple approach is proposed which shows that some intrinsic characteristics of the intramolecular ET such as pathways of tunneling electrons and distinctive features of donor/acceptor coupling to the bridge at different values of tunnel energy can be obtained in experiments on low-temperature electrical transport through the corresponding molecules. These data may be available under moderate electronic dephasing twentyseven , when the structure of electron transmission function containing the desired information is not completely washed out. A similar approach could also be developed to analyze characteristics of intermolecular ET processes in extended bio-systems.

The organization of this paper is as follows. In Sec. II the adopted model is introduced to analyze coherent electron tunneling through a molecular bridge. Within this model we take into account complex structure of donor and acceptor subsystems which is typical for realistic macromolecules. In the Sec. III we analyze how electronic scattering influences the transmission function. We follow Buttiker dephasing model, and we apply it to a simple single-site bridge. This enables to solve the problem mostly analytically. In the last Section we discuss how these results could be used to get additional information concerning intrinsic characteristics of ET processes.

## II II. The coherent electron transport

Existing theories of electrical transport through macromolecules are mostly based on a very simple model simulating both electrodes by semi-infinite tight-binding chains attached to the ends of the molecule. The latter is also simulated as a single tight-binding chain of sites (see e.g. twentyseven ; thirty ; thirtyone ; thirtysix ; thirtyseven ; thirtyeight ; thirtynine ). Here we adopt a resembling model to analyze the electric transport through realistic macromolecules including donor, bridge, and acceptor subsystems, but we take into account that donor and acceptor subsystems are complex and include many sites which exhibit a significant coupling to the bridge.

To simplify first steps of further calculations we separate out the effect of electron dephasing, assuming coherent electron tunneling through the macromolecule to be the predominant mechanism of electrical transport. Correspondingly, we treat the electron transport through the molecule as a sequence of tunnelings between potential wells. Each well represents one atomic orbital of the donor-bridge-acceptor system. An electron which participates in the transport is treated as moving in an array of these potential wells which are the sites of the array. Within this approach, any atom is represented by a set of sites corresponding to its states and we do not distinguish between sites corresponding to the same atom and sites corresponding to different atoms of the donor-bridge-acceptor system. Sometimes it is more convenient to treat the bridge as consisting of atomic groups such as, for example, the methyl groups CH2 instead of single atoms. Then any such atomic group can be represented as a set of sites, each corresponding to a molecular orbital for the group. For further simplification we assume that intraatomic hopping integrals are smaller that interatomic ones. This enables us to consider electron transfer between different sites as its tunneling between different atoms.

Assume that sites $`\mathrm{"}i\mathrm{"}`$ are associated with those atoms of the bridge which have the maximum coupling to the donor, and sites $`\mathrm{"}j\mathrm{"}`$ are associated with atoms strongly interacting with the acceptor. Neglecting the intraatomic hopping, we can treat any site $`\mathrm{"}i\mathrm{"}`$ which represents an atom at the entrance of the bridge as the origin of a chain along which an electron moves from donor to acceptor, and any site $`\mathrm{"}j\mathrm{"}`$ as the end of the chain. Thus, we have a set of chains (pathways) for an electron moving along the bridge. In further analysis, we concentrate on the case when the chains weakly interact with each other, so we can consider them separately, as illustrated in the diagram below.

We also simulate the donor/acceptor subsystems as sets of semi-infinite tight-binding homogeneous chains. Each chain is attached to a site of donor/acceptor which can be effectively coupled to the bridge. As before, we assume that the chains do not interact. The adopted simple model does not enable us to carry out a proper treatment of coupling of electrodes to the molecule at metal-molecule-metal junctions which is a nontrivial and intricated problem thirtysix ; forty ; fortyone ; fortytwo . Here, however, we concentrate on the analysis of electron tunneling from the donor to the acceptor through the bridge. It seems reasonable to conjecture that intrinsic features and characteristics of this process in the molecules with complex donor and acceptor subsystems do not strongly depend on details of coupling of the electrodes to the donor/acceptor due to a comparatively large size and complicated structure of these subsystems.

In the following calculations we start from a tight-binding Hamiltonian for a single chain included into the bridge:

$$H=H_0+H_1$$
(4)
whose matrix elements between states $`<k|`$ and $`|l>`$ corresponding to the $`k`$-th and $`l`$-th sites of the chain (the states are supposed to be orthogonal) are given by:

$$(H_0)_{kl}=\alpha _k\delta _{kl};(H_1)_{kl}=𝒱_{kl},$$
(5)
where $`\delta _{kl}`$ is the Kronecker symbol, $`𝒱_{kl}`$= 0 when $`k=l,`$ and only states associated with valence electrons are considered. The diagonal matrix elements $`\alpha _k`$ are ionization energies of electrons at sites $`k`$, and $`𝒱_{kl}=𝒱_{lk}`$ includes both direct and exchange energy contributions for an electron to transfer between the $`k`$-th and $`l`$-th sites. As well as it was carried out in thirtyseven ; thirtyeight  we also take into account self-energy corrections arising due to the coupling of the donor $`(H_𝒟)`$ and acceptor $`(H_𝒜)`$ to the bridge. As a result, we arrive at the effective Hamiltonian for the chain, i.e.,

$$H_{eff}=H+H_𝒟+H_𝒜.$$
(6)
Assuming that the chosen chain starts at the $`i`$-th site and ends at the $`j`$-th site and generalizing the results of thirtyone  for the case when we have several donor and acceptor sites coupling to the bridge, we obtain nonzero matrix elements of $`H_𝒟`$ and $`H_𝒜`$ in the form

$$(H_𝒟)_{ii}=(\mathrm{\Sigma }_𝒟)_i=\underset{m}{}\frac{𝒟_{mi}^{2}}{Eϵ_m\sigma _m},$$
(7)
$$(H_𝒜)_{jj}=(\mathrm{\Sigma }_𝒜)_j=\underset{n}{}\frac{𝒜_{jn}^{2}}{Eϵ_n\sigma _n}.$$
(8)
Here, $`𝒟_{mi}`$ and $`𝒜_{jn}`$ are respectively coupling strengths between the $`m`$-th donor site or the $`n`$-th acceptor site and the $`i`$-th or $`j`$-th site of the bridge, and $`\sigma _{m,n}=\frac{1}{2}\left\{\theta _{m,n}i\sqrt{4\gamma _{m,n}^2\theta _{m,n}^2}\right\}`$ are self-energy corrections of the semi-infinite chains attached to the corresponding sites thirty . The parameters $`\theta _{m,n}=Eϵ_{m,n}`$; $`ϵ_{m,n}`$ and $`\gamma _{m,n}`$ are ionization energies of electrons at the corresponding donor/acceptor sites, and nearest-neighbor hopping integrals for the chains. Summation in Eqs. (7) and (8) is carried out over all donor/acceptor sites coupled to the bridge. When $`Eϵ_{m,n}`$ is smaller than $`\gamma _{m,n}`$, we have $`\sigma _{m,n}i\gamma _{m,n}`$. In the opposite limit $`Eϵ_{m,n}>>\gamma _{m,n}`$ this quantity takes on values close to zero.

Due to the presence of the self-energy corrections the eigenvalues of the effective Hamiltonian (6) include imaginary parts which represent broadening of the bridge energy levels $`E_i`$ originating from the coupling of the bridge to the donor and acceptor systems. The energy levels are further broadened if we take into account scattering processes in the bridge.

Treating the long-range ET processes, we can neglect the direct coupling of donor sites to acceptor sites. The probability amplitude for the transition between the $`m`$-th donor site and the $`n`$-th acceptor site is given by (2), and $`G_{ij}`$ is the matrix element of the Green’s function corresponding to $`H_{eff}`$. An electric tunneling current $`I`$ flowing from donor to acceptor through the bridge in the presence of a small applied voltage $`V`$ has the form:

$$I=\frac{2\pi e}{\mathrm{}}\underset{k,l}{}f\left(E_m\right)[1f\left(E_n+eV\right)]T_{mn}^2\delta \left(E_mE_n\right)$$
(9)
where $`f(E)`$ is the Fermi function, $`e`$ is the charge of the electron. Assuming that the applied potential varies linearly in the molecule, we can use the approximation $`V=V_0L_b/L_{mol}`$, where $`L_b`$ and $`L_{mol}`$ are the lengths of the bridge and the whole molecule, respectively, and $`V_0`$ is a voltage applied across the whole molecule. Starting from this expression (9), and following a usual way we arrive at the standard formula thirtysix :

$$I=\frac{e}{\pi \mathrm{}}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑ET(E)[f\left(E\mu _1\right)f\left(E\mu _2\right)],$$
(10)
where the chemical potentials $`\mu _1`$ and $`\mu _2`$ are determined by the equilibrium Fermi energy of the bridge $`E_F`$ and the effective voltage $`V`$ across the bridge thirtyeight , i.e.

$$\mu _1=E_F+\left(1\eta \right)eV;\mu _2=E_F\eta eV.$$

Here, the parameter $`\eta `$ characterizes how the voltage $`V`$ is divided between the two ends of the bridge. The electron transmission function included in the expression (10) is given by the formula

$$T(E)=4\underset{i,j}{}\mathrm{\Delta }_i|G_{ij}|^2\mathrm{\Delta }_j.$$
(11)
The summation in (11) is carried over states $`<i|`$ at the entrances to the bridge and states $`|j>`$ corresponding to the exits from the bridge to the acceptor subsystem, therefore contributions from all possible pathways are contained here. The quantities $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{i,j}`$ are imaginary parts of the self-energy corrections $`_{𝒟,𝒜},`$ namely:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_i=\text{Im}(\mathrm{\Sigma }_𝒟)_{ii};\mathrm{\Delta }_j=\text{Im}(\mathrm{\Sigma }_𝒜)_{jj}.$$
(12)
We see that the dependence of the electron transmission function on energy is determined by the contributions from different donor/acceptor sites, as well as from the Green’s function matrix elements corresponding to different chains included into the bridge subsystem. When the tunnel energy $`E`$ takes on a value close to $`ϵ_{m,n}`$ or to one of the poles of the Green’s function, the relevant term in (11) can surpass all remaining terms. Thus, for different values of $`E`$ different donor/acceptor sites and different pathways can predominate in the electron transfer through the bridge.

This model was applied in numerical simulations of the electron transport in a porphyrin-nitrobenzene molecule fortythree ; fortyfour . The latter was chosen for it has complex donor and acceptor subsystems connected with a relatively simple bridge. It was shown that low temperature $`IV`$ characteristics exhibited a step-like behavior. The steps originate from the structure of the electron transmission $`T(E)`$ within the energy range where $`f(E\mu _1)f(E\mu _2)`$ differs from zero. The steps disappear as the temperature rises. Also, the structure of $`IV`$ curves could be significantly affected due to electronic dephasing analyzed below.

## III III. dephasing effects

Nuclear motions existing in realistic molecules give rise to the electronic phase-breaking effect. This affects electron transmission function and the electron current through the molecule. When the dephasing is strong (e.g. within the strong thermal coupling limit), the predominant ET mechanism is sequental hopping which replaces the coherent tunneling dominating at weak dephasing. Typically, ET processes occur within an intermediate regime, when both coherent and incoherent contributions to the electron transmission are manifested. The general approach to ET studies in the presence of dissipation is the reduced dynamics density matrix formalism (see e.g. fortyfive ; fortysix ). This microscopic computational approach has advantages of being capable to treat transition from nonadiabatic to adiabatic ET and to provide the detailed dynamics informations. However, these informations are usually much redundant as far as stationary ET processes are concerned. Therefore we choose an alternative approach using the scattering matrix formalism and phenomenological Buttiker dephasing model twentynine ; thirty . This enables us to analytically treat the problem, and the results agree with those obtained by means of more sophisticated computational methods, as it was demonstrated in the earlier work twentyseven .

To proceed analytically, we restrict further consideration with the case of a single-site bridge. We assume that the bridge is coupled to a phase randomizing scatterer. Following the Buttikers work we simulate the scatterer as shown below. Here, we present the ET process by tunneling through two barriers separating the donor and acceptor from the bridge site where the dephasing could occur. The squares represent tunnel barriers, and the triangle imitates a scatterer coupling the bridge to a dissipative electron reservoir.

This simple model could be succesfully applied to visualize and analyze various phase-breaking processes such as scattering on vibrionic phonon modes in the molecule and/or scattering on the phonons which represent the thermal surrounding. All information concerning characteristics of the scattering processes is contained in the dephasing parameter $`ϵ`$ introduced below

The scatterer coupled to the bridge is described with the $`4\times 4`$ scattering matrix $`s`$ relating outgoing wave amplitudes $`a_1^{},a_2^{},a_3^{},a_4^{}`$ to the incoming amplitudes $`a_1,a_2,a_3,a_4`$. Introducing the phenomenological parameter $`ϵ`$ which measures the dephasing strength we arrive at the result twentynine :

$$\text{ }s\text{ }\text{ = }\left(\begin{array}{cccc}0& \sqrt{1ϵ}& \sqrt{ϵ}& \text{ 0}\\ & & & \\ \sqrt{1ϵ}& 0& 0& \sqrt{ϵ}\\ & & & \\ \sqrt{ϵ}& 0& 0& \sqrt{1ϵ}\\ & & & \\ 0& \sqrt{ϵ}& \sqrt{1ϵ}& \text{ 0}\end{array}\right)\text{.}$$

The parameter $`ϵ`$ takes on values within the interval $`[0,1].`$ When $`ϵ=0`$ the bridge is detached from the scatterer, and the ET is completely coherent. In the opposite limit $`ϵ=1`$ the electron is surely scattered to the reservoir and then re-emitted from there, which results in complete phase randomization.

Also, the electron tunneling through a single barrier is described with the transmission and reflection amplitudes $`(t`$ and $`r,`$ respectively). These are the matrix elements of a $`2\times 2`$ matrix:

$$\text{ }s_{el}\text{ = }\left(\begin{array}{cc}r& \text{ }t\text{ }\\ \text{ }t\text{ }& \text{ }r\end{array}\right).$$

Combining Eqs. (13) and (14) we arrive at the expression for the scattering matrix $`S`$ which gives the relation of the amplitudes $`b_1^{},b_2^{},a_3^{},a_4^{}`$ to the amplitudes $`b_1,b_2,a_3,a_4.`$ In other words, this matrix describes the ET in our system with a single-site bridge. The scattering matrix $`S`$ is given by twentyseven ; twentynine :

$$S=Z^1\left(\begin{array}{cccc}r_1+\alpha ^2r_2& \alpha t_1t_2& \beta t_1& \alpha \beta t_1r_2\\ & & & \\ \alpha t_1t_2& r_2+\alpha ^2r_1& \alpha \beta r_1t_2& \beta t_2\\ & & & \\ \beta t_1& \alpha \beta r_1t_2& \beta ^2r_1& \alpha r_1r_2\alpha \\ & & & \\ \alpha \beta t_1r_2& \beta t_2& \alpha r_1r_2\alpha & \beta ^2r_2\end{array}\right)$$

where $`Z=1\alpha ^2r_1r_2;\alpha =\sqrt{1ϵ};\beta =\sqrt{ϵ};r_{1,2}`$ and $`t_{1,2}`$ are the amplitude transmission and reflection coefficients for the two barriers. The above expression could be generalized to include an arbitrary number of the bridge sites, as shown in Ref. twentyseven . Within this approach we introduce the effective electron transmission $`T_{eff}(E):`$

$$T_{eff}\frac{J_A}{J_D}$$
(13)
where $`J_D`$ is the incoming current from the donor and $`J_A`$ is the outgoing current from the acceptor. An electron could be injected into our system via four channels indicated in the above schematic drawing. Outgoing currents in these channels $`(J_j^{})`$ are related to the incoming ones $`(J_i)`$ by means of the transition matrix $`T(T_{ij}=|S_{ij}|^2):`$

$$J_j^{}=\underset{i}{}T_{ji}J_i.$$
(14)
Here, $`J_D=J_1,J_A=J_2^{}.`$ To provide the charge conservation, the net current must be zero in the channels 3 and 4 connecting the system with the reservoir, so we have

$$J_3+J_4J_3^{}J_4^{}=0.$$
(15)
There are no grounds to anticipate any difference between these two channels, therefore we assume $`J_3=J_4.`$ Also, we put $`J_2=0`$ presuming zero income current in the channel 2.

Now, we use equations (17) to express outgoing currents in terms of the incoming ones, and we substitute the results into (18). This gives

$$J_3=J_4=J_D\frac{K_1(E)}{2R(E)}$$
(16)
where

$`K_1(E)=T_{31}+T_{41},`$
$`R(E)=T_{33}+T_{44}+T_{43}+T_{34}.`$ (17)
Inserting the expressions (19) into Eq. (17) for the current $`J_2^{}=J_A,`$ we obtain

$$T_{eff}(E)=T(E)+\frac{K_1(E)K_2(E)}{2R(E)}.$$
(18)
Here, the functions $`T(E),`$ $`K_2(E)`$ and $`R(E)`$ introduced in the expression (21) are given by:

$`T(E)=T_{21},`$
$`K_2(E)=T_{23}+T_{24}.`$ (19)
To simplify further analysis we assume both barriers to be identical, so we have $`r_1=r_2r`$ and $`t_1=t_2t`$. Then we easily arrive at the analytical expression for the effective transmission function:

$$T_{eff}(E)=\frac{t^2(E)(1+\alpha ^2)[1\alpha ^2(1t^2(E))]}{2[1+\alpha ^2(1t^2(E))]^2}.$$
(20)
In the coherent limit $`(ϵ=0,\alpha =1)`$ the transmission function $`T_{eff}(E)`$ coincides with $`T(E)`$ given by Eq. (11), so we can express the tunneling parameter $`\delta (E)t^2(E)`$ in terms of the earlier introduced Green’s functions and self-energy corrections:

$$\delta (E)=\frac{2g}{1+g}$$
(21)
Assuming the identical barriers, the function $`g(E)`$ has the form

$$g(E)=\frac{2\mathrm{\Delta }}{\sqrt{(EE_1)^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}}.$$
(22)
In this expression, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1=\mathrm{\Delta }_2=\mathrm{\Delta },\mathrm{\Delta }_{1,2}`$ represent imaginary parts of the self-energy corrections introduced by Eqs. (12), and the Green’s function for the single-site bridge is given by

$$G(E)=\frac{1}{EE_1+i\mathrm{\Gamma }}$$
(23)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`E_1`$ is the site energy. The width of this energy level is determined with the parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }.`$ Using these expressions, we have to keep in mind that both site energy $`E_1`$ and the parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ change their values when we attach the bridge to the dephasing reservoir. In our system phase breaking effect originates from nuclear motions which could be described as the set of phonons therefore $`E_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ are replaced by thirtyfive :

$$\stackrel{~}{E}_1=E_1+\text{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ph}(E);\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}=\mathrm{\Gamma }+\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ph}(E)$$
(24)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ph}(E)`$ is the electronic self-energy correction due to the electron-phonon interaction. Nevertheless, the expression (25) for the function $`g(E)`$ maintains its form provided that the replacement (27) is carried out.

So, we get

$$T_{eff}(E)=\frac{g(E)(1+\alpha ^2)[g(E)(1+\alpha ^2)+1\alpha ^2]}{[g(E)(1\alpha ^2)+1+\alpha ^2]^2}.$$
(25)
As it was already mentioned for the coherent tunneling $`(ϵ=0,\alpha =1)`$ the transmission function $`T_{eff}(E)`$ reduces to $`T(E)`$. In the opposite limit of the totally incoherent transport we arrive at the expression:

$$T_{eff}(E)=\frac{g(E)}{1+g(E)}=\frac{2\mathrm{\Delta }}{\sqrt{(E\stackrel{~}{E}_1)^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}+2\mathrm{\Delta }}.$$
(26)
To further simplify our analysis we proceed within the wide-band limit. Correspondingly, we assume that the self-energy terms in the expression (25) do not depend on energy. Then the coherent electron transmission $`(ϵ=0)`$ shows a sharp peak at the energy $`\stackrel{~}{E}_1`$ (see Fig. 1) which gives rise to a step-like form of the volt-ampere curve presented in the Fig. 2. When the dephasing reservoir is attached to the electronic bridge $`(ϵ0)`$ the peak in the transmission is eroded. The greater is the value of the dephasing parameter $`ϵ`$ the stronger is the erosion. When $`ϵ`$ takes on value $`0.7`$ the peak in the electron transmission functions is completely washed out as well as the step-like shape of the $`IV`$ curve. The latter becomes linear corroborating the well-known Ohmic Law for the sequental hopping mechanism.

To proceed in a more realistic way we must express the phenomenological dephasing strength $`ϵ`$ in terms of some relevant energies characterizing the ET process. To obtain the desired expression for $`ϵ`$ we compare our results with those recently presented in Ref. thirtyfive . In that work the correction $`\delta I`$ to the coherent tunnel current via a single-site bridge is calculated using nonequilibrium Green’s functions formalism. The relevant result (See Eq. (33) in Ref. thirtyfive ) is derived in the limit of weak electron-phonon interaction when $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ph}<<\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ph}=\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ph}).`$ It is natural to assume that the dephasing strength $`ϵ`$ is small within this limit, so we expand our expression for $`T_{eff}(E)`$ in powers of $`ϵ.`$ Keeping two first terms in this expansion, we get

$$T_{eff}(E)g^2(E)\left(1+\frac{ϵ}{2}\left[12g^2(E)\right]\right).$$
(27)
We employ this approximation to calculate the current through the bridge, and we arrive at the following expression for $`\delta I:`$

$`\delta I`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑E{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ\mathrm{\Delta }}{\mathrm{\Gamma }+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ph}}}\rho _{el}(E){\displaystyle \frac{(E\stackrel{~}{E}_1)^24\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{(E\stackrel{~}{E}_1)^2+4\mathrm{\Delta }^2}}`$ (28)
$`\times `$ $`\left[f(E\mu _1)f(E\mu _2)\right].`$
Here, $`\rho _{el}(E)`$ is the electron density of states at the bridge:

$$\rho _{el}(E)=\frac{1}{\pi }\text{Im}G(E)$$
(29)
Comparing the expression (31) with the corresponding result of Ref. thirtyfive  we find out that these two are consistent, and we get

$$ϵ=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ph}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ph}}.$$
(30)
When $`\mathrm{\Delta }>>\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ph}(ϵ<<1)`$ the bridge coupling to the dephasing reservoir is weak, and the superexchange mechanism of ET is predominating. The opposite limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }<<\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ph}(ϵ1)`$ corresponds to the completely incoherent phonon assisted ET. The phonon contribution to the electron linewidth depends on energy $`E.`$ Starting from the general expression for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ph}(E)`$ derived in Ref. twentythree , we can write out the approximation appropriate at low temperatures within the relevant energy range $`\mu _2<E<\mu _1,`$ namely:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ph}(E)`$ $`=`$ $`\pi M^2\{{\displaystyle _0^{(\mu _1E)/\mathrm{}}}d\omega \rho _{ph}(\omega )\rho _{el}(E+\mathrm{}\omega )`$ (31)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{(E\mu _2)/\mathrm{}}}d\omega \rho _{ph}(\omega )\rho _{el}(E\mathrm{}\omega )\}.`$
Here, $`M`$ is the electron-phonon coupling strength, and $`\rho _{ph}(\omega )`$ is the phonon density of states. It includes contributions from phonons representing the thermal environment (stochastic nuclear motions) as well as from vibrational modes.

Intensity of stochastic nuclear motions strongly depends on temperature. Therefore we may expect vibrational modes contributions to predominate in the phonon density of states at low temperatures. Assuming a single vibrational mode with the frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ to exist in the system, we have:

$$\rho _{ph}(\omega )=\frac{1}{\pi \mathrm{}}\frac{\gamma }{(\omega \mathrm{\Omega })^2+\gamma ^2}.$$
(32)
In typical situations the linewidth $`\gamma `$ is much smaller than $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ thirtyfive , so $`\rho _{ph}(\omega )`$ exhibits rather sharp maximum at $`\omega =\mathrm{\Omega }.`$ We can roughly estimate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(E)`$ approximating $`\rho _{ph}(\omega )`$ given by Eq. (35) as $`\delta (\omega \mathrm{\Omega }).`$ Then we obtain:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ph}(E)`$ $``$ $`\pi M^2\{\rho _{el}(E+\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega })\theta (\mu _1\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }E)`$ (33)
$`+`$ $`\rho _{el}(E\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega })\theta (E\mu _2\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega })\}`$
where $`\theta (x)`$ is the step function.

So we see that the peak in the frequency dependence of $`\rho _{ph}`$ is reflected in the energy dependencies of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ph}`$ and the dephasing parameter $`ϵ.`$ Being taken into account, this energy dependence of the dephasing strength may bring some features (peaks and dips) in the first and second derivatives of the current through the bridge $`I`$ with respect to the applied voltage $`V.`$ Such features were intensely studied in recent papers (see e.g. Refs. twentythree ; thirtyfive ; fortyseven ), and we do not discuss the issue here. Further more, the dependence of the dephasing parameter $`ϵ`$ of energy usually does not bring significant changes in the shapes of $`IV`$ curves themselves, compared to those calculated assuming $`ϵ`$ to be a constant. Replacing $`\rho _{el}(E\pm \mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega })`$ with their maximum values we obtain that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ph}<M^2/\mathrm{\Delta },`$ and the dephasing parameter $`ϵ`$ will take on small values provided that $`M<\mathrm{\Delta }.`$ Therefore, we have grounds to expect the dephasing rate to be reduced at low temperatures and the steps in the $`IV`$ characteristics to be distinguishable.

## IV IV. Results and Discussion

It follows from the obtained results that the electron transmission function contains important information concerning intramolecular electron transfer. Under low temperatures and moderate electronic dephasing $`T_{eff}(E)`$ can exhibit series of peaks. Their location is determined with contributions from donor/acceptor sites predominating the donor/acceptor coupling to the bridge at a given interval of tunneling energy E, and with the energy spectrum of a chain of sites connecting them. Different bridge chains (pathways) contribute to the electron transmission function to different extent, but we can expect the primary pathways to predominate, and to produce the most distinguishable series of peaks in the structure of the electron transmission function in appropriate energy ranges.

The structure of $`T_{eff}(E)`$ can be revealed in the low temperature current-voltage characteristics for the electronic transport through the molecular bridges. At low temperatures current-voltage curves can exhibit a step-like behavior. This originates from a step-like character of Fermi distribution functions at low temperatures along with the ”comblike” structure of the electron transmission function $`T_{eff}(E)`$. At a given voltage $`V`$ the difference of Fermi functions in the Eq. (10) takes on nonzero values only in the interior of a certain energy range including $`E_F.`$ Within a linear approximation the size of the range $`\delta E`$ is proportional to the magnitude of the voltage $`V`$ applied across the bridge. Therefore the magnitude of the current $`I`$ at a given voltage is determined by the contributions of peaks of the electronic transmission function located in this energy range. When the applied voltage increases, this enhances the width of the energy interval $`\delta E.`$

However, the enhancement of $`\delta E`$ does not immediately give rise to an enhancement of the tunneling current $`I.`$ The latter abruptly changes when an extra peak of the electron transmission function appears in the interior of the energy range where $`f(E\mu _1)f(E\mu _2)`$ differs from zero. This explains a step-like behavior of the tunneling current as a function of the applied voltage. We also see that the steps originate from the structure of $`T_{eff}(E)`$ in the foresaid energy interval. Widths of the plateaus are equal to the distances between adjacent peaks in $`T_{eff}(E)`$ and magnitudes of sudden changes in the current between the plateaus correspond to the heights and shape of these peaks.

At higher temperatures Fermi distribution functions in the integrand of the Eq. (10) lose their step-like character and the plateaus are washed out. Another reason for the structure of $`T_{eff}(E)`$ (and $`IV`$ curves) to be eroded is the electronic phase-breaking effect which arises in complex molecules due to nuclear motions. We expect, however, that at low temperatures the electronic dephasing effects could be reduced so that the structure of $`T_{eff}(E)`$ could be revealed.

On these grounds we believe that experiments on electronic transport through macromolecules at low temperatures $`(T1K)`$ could be useful to obtain an additional information upon characteristics of the intramolecular electron transfer. Namely, comparing the structure of the electron transmission function reconstructed on the basis of experimental $`IV`$ curves with that obtained as a result of calculations, we can make conclusions concerning actual primary pathways of electrons through intramolecular bridges, as well as sites of the donor/acceptor subsystems involved in the ET process at different values of the tunnel energy. The above comparison can be succesfully performed for the molecules including bridges which can be reasonably well simulated as sets of weakly interacting chains.

The simple model of donor-bridge-acceptor system adopted in the present work can provide us with the results suitable for a quantitative comparison with the results of proposed experiments even avoiding a proper and reliable calculation of some parameters such as the equilibrium Fermi energy of the bridge, and the effective voltage $`V`$ applied across the bridge. The lack of information about proper values of $`E_F`$ and $`V`$ produces an uncertainty in the location of the origin at the ”voltage” axis so we cannot identify steps of the $`IV`$ curves separately. Nevertheless, changes in the values of $`E_F`$ and $`V`$ do not influence the electron transmission function for a given molecule, therefore the structure of series of the peaks remains fixed. This enables us to identify some series of peaks analyzing sequences of widths of successive steps of the current-voltage curves. Such analysis also can give reasonable estimations for the $`E_F`$ and $`V`$ for the chosen molecule.

In summary, the purpose of the present work is to analyze how characteristics of the low-temperature electronic transport through macromolecules can be used to get an additional information concerning long range electron transfer. It is shown that at low temperatures and moderate electron dephasing the electron transmission function reveales a ”comblike” series of peaks which contain information about donor/acceptor sites effectively participating in the ET processes and primary pathways of electrons tunneling through the bridge. This important information can be obtained as a result of analysis of experimental low temperature current-voltage characteristics for chosen macromolecules.

## V  acknowledgments

I thank G.M. Zimbovsky for help with the manuscript. This work was supported in part by NSF Advance program SBE-0123654 and PR Space Grant NGTS/40091.


format: text

text:
# Effects of wind on radiation spectra from magnetized accretion disks

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The broadband spectrum of Sgr A, from radio to hard X-ray bands, was reproduced fairly well for the first time by Narayan, Yi and Mahadevan (1995) based on an optically thin ADAF (advection-dominated accretion flow) model. In contrast to the standard accretion-disk model (Shakura & Sunyaev 1973), the optically thin ADAF model could reproduce the wide spread of the observed spectrum. Namely, the rather narrow peak in the radio band was explained by thermal synchrotron radiation from the inner part of a disk with relativistic temperature, and X-ray luminosity, by the bremsstrahlung from the whole disk. Another great advantage of this model is in its low efficiency in producing radiative fluxes. The latter feature could make the model possible to explain the low luminosity of Sgr A compared with that expected from a standard disk of about the Bondi accretion rate (see, e.g., Melia & Falcke 2001).

This type of models for optically thin ADAFs has been developed by many authors (e.g., Ichimaru 1977; Rees et al. 1982; Narayan & Yi 1994, 1995a, b; Abramowicz et al. 1995; Blandford & Begelman 1999). Since, in this category, the viscosity of the accreting plasma plays a dominant role in both energy dissipation and angular-momentum extraction processes, we call it the viscous ADAF model. The model looked successful in explaining the broadband spectra not only of Sgr A (Narayan, Yi & Mahadevan 1995; Manmoto, Mineshige & Kusunose 1997; and Narayan et al. 1998b), but also of Galactic X-ray sources and of low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGNs; for a review, see Narayan, Mahadevan & Quataert 1998a).

Meanwhile, if the presence of ordered magnetic fields in the nuclear regions of galaxies is taken seriously, anther type of optically thin ADAF model can be constructed (Kaburaki 2000, for brevity, K00). Since, in this model, the gravitational energy of accreting matter is liberated through the plasma’s electric resistivity it will be called the resistive ADAF model. Angular momentum, on the other hand, is extracted from the accreting matter by an ordered magnetic field that is penetrating the disk and is twisted, to a certain extent, by the rotational motion of the accreting matter. The observed spectrum of Sgr A could be reproduced also by this model (Kino, Kaburaki & Yamazaki 2000, for brevity, KKY) as satisfactorily as the viscous ADAF models could.

Recently, however, a fairly drastic change of the above stated situation has come with the appearance of the results of the X-ray telescope, Chandra. Owing to its high resolution, the apparent nuclear sources of a few nearby galaxies have been further resolved into several point sources including a true nuclear source in each case (e.g., Garcia et al. 2000 for M31; Baganoff et al. 2001a for Sgr A). The intrinsic X-ray luminosity of these true nuclear sources are therefore considerably lower in fact, and moreover, their spectra have tuned out to be much softer than previously believed.

Especially, this softness of the spectra requires a critical reconsideration of the broadband spectral fittings of these objects by optically thin ADAF models, because this fact may exclude the hitherto accepted bremsstrahlung fitting to the X-ray band of the spectra. Further, as already been demonstrated by some authors (e.g., Quataert & Narayan 1999; Di Matteo et al. 2000), the presence of winds emanating from accretion disks can alter the ratio of X-ray luminosity to radio luminosity. Therefore, it is also necessary to include the presence of winds into the basic models based on which the spectral fittings are performed. In this context, the resistive ADAF model has been developed to include winds emanating from the disk surfaces (Kaburaki 2001, for brevity, K01).

The present paper is devoted to describe the general predictions on the broadband spectra radiated from such accretion disks as described by the analytic model of K01, and to report the results of applications to Sgr A and the nucleus of M31. Although Di Matteo et al. (2000) insist the presence of winds in the nuclei of some nearby elliptical galaxies on the basis of their broadband spectral fittings by a wind-version of the viscous ADAF model, the results are still uncertain because the X-ray fluxes they used are obtained by ASCA and hence the nuclear sources are not resolved (see also Quataert & Narayan 1999, for a Galactic X-ray transient and Sgr A). We therefore restrict our applications only to such objects as have been resolved by Chandra and the results of observations have been open to the public.

## 2 RESISTIVE ADAF MODEL INCLUDING WINDS

In this section, we first introduce the basic ideas and physics contained in the resistive ADAF model proposed in K01, in which the presence of winds from the disk surfaces is allowed for. A schematic drawing of the global configuration presumed in the this model is given in Figure 1. An asymptotically uniform magnetic field is vertically penetrating the accretion disk and is twisted by the rotational motion of the plasma. Owing to the Maxwell stress of this twisted magnetic field, a certain fraction of the angular momentum of accreting plasma is carried out to infinity, and this fact ensures the plasma to gradually infall toward the central black hole.

In a stationary state, the deformation of magnetic field lines is determined by a balance between motional dragging and diffusive slippage of the field lines. Since the representative magnetic-Reynolds number $`\mathrm{}`$ is large (i.e., $`\mathrm{}^2(r)1`$) in the disk (except the region close to its inner edge, where $`\mathrm{}1`$), the deformations are also large. In this sense, the disk can be said as weakly resistive. Generally, the deformation in the toroidal direction is larger than that in the poloidal direction (i.e., $`b_\phi /b_\mathrm{p}\mathrm{}`$, where $`b`$ denotes the deformed part of the magnetic field).

The vertical structure of the disk is maintained by a pressure balance between the magnetic pressure of the toroidal field, which is dominant on the outside the disk, and the gas pressure in the disk: i.e., the accreting plasma is magnetically confined in a geometrically thin disk. Reflecting this fact, the gas pressure and density in the disk become quantities of order $`\mathrm{}^2`$ (see, equations  and  in K01). In general, this balance is not a static balance in its strict sense, and there may be a vertical flow from the upper and lower surfaces of a disk. We call such outflows (or inflows depending on the case) winds, distinguished from jets that may be formed within the inner edge of the accretion disk (also see below).

Since the wind velocity obtained in K01 is much smaller than the rotational velocity (by a factor of order $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}^1`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }1`$ is the half-opening angle of the disk), its inertial force can hardly affect the vertical force balance described above. However, the wind may be accelerated, by some mechanisms with which we do not concern in this paper, to a considerable speed after it has been injected from the accretion disk to the wind region outside the disk. Here, we only expect that the upward wind proceeds to infinity because its total energy per unit mass (i.e., the Bernoulli sum in K01) is positive and hence the flow is unbound in the gravitational field.

The rotational velocity is a certain fraction of the Kepler velocity (i.e., a reduced Keplerian rotation) because the radial pressure-gradient force, together with the centrifugal force, sustains the gravitational pull on the plasma. In contrast to the rotational velocity, the infall velocity is a small quantity of the order of $`\mathrm{}^1`$ as far as the disk is weakly resistive (i.e., except for the region near the inner edge). Their ratio does not depend on the disk thickness $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ as far as $`\mathrm{}`$ is regarded as a free parameter like the viscosity parameter $`\alpha `$ in the viscous ADAF models.

It has been demonstrated in K01 that, if the flow is completely adiabatic (i.e., if the liberated gravitational energy remains in each fluid element and is merely advected down the flow), the flow cannot drive winds. On the other hand, if some mechanism of energy transport (i.e., non-adiabaticity) allows the energy flow toward the accretion disk from the region within its inner edge, the disk can drive an upward wind. In K01, the presence of such mechanisms is treated implicitly in terms of a parameter $`n`$ that specifies the strength of a wind. The essence of the results is in that the presence of such non-adiabaticity affects solely on the radial profiles of the quantities such as density, pressure and magnetic field components (velocity components and temperature are not affected) but not on the vertical profiles. Thus, the presence of a wind appears unambiguously as a radius dependent mass accretion rate.

The analytic solution obtained in K01 describes the physical quantities in the accretion disk (i.e., the solution is valid only in between the inner and outer edges of the disk) with also a decreasing accuracy toward the upper and lower surfaces of the disk. The latter part of this statement means that the solution admits a few inconsistencies of the order of $`\mathrm{tanh}^2\eta `$, where $`\eta (\theta \pi /2)/\mathrm{\Delta }`$, in its variable-separated forms. These are negligible, however, except near the disk surfaces. Further, the solution does not care about the radiation loss. Nevertheless, since it has been confirmed retrospectively that the expected radiation flux from such a disk is negligibly small as far as the accretion rate is sufficiently smaller than the Eddington rate, the solution is consistent within this restriction. The disk spectrum can, therefore, be calculated with sufficient accuracy by using this solution, without any correction to the radiation losses.

If we extrapolate our physical understanding obtained within the disk even to the surrounding space, we are naturally led to the following picture of a galactic central engine. The engine is essentially a hydroelectric power station in which the ultimate energy source is the potential energy of the accreting plasma in the gravitational field. The accretion disk is a DC dynamo of an MHD type and drives a poloidally circulating current system, which is the cause of the toroidal magnetic component added to the originally vertical field (i.e., the twisting of the field lines). In the configuration shown in Figure 1, the radial current is driven outward in the accretion disk, and a part of the current closes its circuit through the near wind region while another part closes after circulating remote regions (probably reaching the boundary of a ‘cocoon’ enclosing hot winds). Anyway, these return currents concentrate within the polar regions in the upper and lower hemispheres, and finally return to the inner edge of the disk.

A bipolar jet may be formed from the plasma in this polar current regions, because the Lorentz force due to the toroidal field always has both of the necessary components for collimation and for radial acceleration, as shown in the figure. The often suggested universality of the association of an accretion disk and a bipolar jet is thus understood naturally in terms of one physical entity, the poloidally circulating current system. It is very likely that only a small fraction of the infalling matter input in the disk can actually fall onto the central black hole, with the remaining part expelled as a bipolar jet and a wind from disk surfaces.

## 3 SCALED QUANTITIES

The radial and co-latitude dependences of the all relevant quantities in the resistive ADAF solution are given in K01. In rewriting these quantities in a scaled form convenient for the discussion of LLAGNs, the following normalizations are adopted:

$$x\frac{r}{r_\mathrm{S}},m\frac{M}{10^8M_{}},\dot{m}\frac{\dot{M}_0}{\dot{M}_\mathrm{c}},b\frac{|B_0|}{1G},$$
(1)
where $`r`$, $`M`$, $`\dot{M}_0`$ and $`B_0`$ denote the radial distance, black-hole mass, mass accretion rate at the disk’s outer edge, $`r=r_{\mathrm{out}}`$, and strength of the external magnetic field at $`r_{\mathrm{out}}`$, respectively. The radius is normalized by the gravitational radius of the central black hole (actually neglecting its rotation, by the Schwarzschild radius $`r_\mathrm{S}`$) and the accretion rate, by the critical accretion rate defined in terms of the Eddington luminosity $`L_\mathrm{E}`$ as $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{c}L_\mathrm{E}/(0.1c^2)`$, taking into account a typical conversion efficiency of $`0.1`$.

Further, we eliminate $`|B_0|`$ by the aid of the relation (see K01)

$$r_{\mathrm{out}}=\left(\frac{3\mathrm{}_0^{4n}}{2n+1}\frac{GM\dot{M}_0^2}{B_0^4}\right)^{1/5},$$
(2)
or

$$b=7.6\times 10^4(2n+1)^{1/4}\mathrm{}_0^nx_{\mathrm{out}}^{5/4}\dot{m}^{1/2}m^{1/2},$$
(3)
where $`G`$ is the gravitational constant. This is because $`B_0`$ seems rather difficult to infer from observations compared with the outer edge radius $`r_{\mathrm{out}}`$. Substituting the latter expression into the radial part of the variable-separated forms of the relevant quantities, we finally obtain

$$\stackrel{~}{v}_\phi (x)=1.2\times 10^{10}(2n+1)^{1/2}x^{1/2}\mathrm{cm}\mathrm{s}^1,$$
(4)
$`\stackrel{~}{\rho }(x)`$ $`=`$ $`1.5\times 10^{12}(2n+1)^{1/2}\mathrm{}_0^{2(n+1)}`$ (5)
$`\times x_{\mathrm{out}}^{(1/2+2n)}\dot{m}m^1x^{(12n)}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^3,`$
$`\stackrel{~}{p}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`2.3\times 10^8(2n+1)^{1/2}\mathrm{}_0^{2(n+1)}`$ (6)
$`\times x_{\mathrm{out}}^{(1/2+2n)}\dot{m}m^1x^{2(1n)}\mathrm{dyne}\mathrm{cm}^2,`$
$$\stackrel{~}{T}(x)=9.0\times 10^{11}x^1\mathrm{K},$$
(7)
$`|\stackrel{~}{b}_\phi (x)|`$ $`=`$ $`7.6\times 10^4(2n+1)^{1/4}\mathrm{}_0^{n+1}`$ (8)
$`\times x_{\mathrm{out}}^{(1/4+n)}\dot{m}^{1/2}m^{1/2}x^{(1n)}\mathrm{G},`$
and further,

$$\tau _{\mathrm{es}}(x)=3.7\times 10^1(2n+1)^{1/2}\mathrm{}_0x_{\mathrm{out}}^{(1/2+2n)}\dot{m}x^{2n},$$
(9)
$$\dot{M}(x)=\dot{M}_0x_{\mathrm{out}}^{2n}x^{2n},$$
(10)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{}_0^{(2n+1)},$$
(11)
where $`v_\phi `$, $`\rho `$, $`p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are the rotational velocity, density, gas pressure and the half-opening angle of the disk, respectively, and the tildes above them denote their radial parts. The opacity is dominated by the electron scattering, and the resulting optical depth in the vertical direction $`\tau _{\mathrm{es}}(x)`$ depends on the radius like $`x_{\mathrm{out}}^{2n}x^{2n}=(r/r_{\mathrm{out}})^{2n}`$. Therefore, it is much smaller than unity as far as $`\dot{m}1`$ and $`x_{\mathrm{out}}1`$ since $`r/r_{\mathrm{out}}<1`$. We can confirm the explicit dependence of the accretion rate on the radius in equation (10).

Since the radii of inner and outer edges are mutually related by $`x_{\mathrm{in}}=\mathrm{}_0^2x_{\mathrm{out}}`$ (see K01), they are written in the present units as

$`r_{\mathrm{out}}`$ $`=`$ $`3.0\times 10^{13}x_{\mathrm{out}}m\text{cm},`$
$`r_{\mathrm{in}}`$ $`=`$ $`3.0\times 10^{13}\mathrm{}_0^2x_{\mathrm{out}}m\text{cm}.`$ (12)
Although the numerical values appearing in the above scaled expressions are their formal values at the black hole horizon, a direct inward-extension of the above solution beyond the inner edge is meaningless because the solution becomes invalid there. Finally, we note that the number of free parameters contained in our solution is altogether 5, i.e., $`m`$, $`\dot{m}`$, $`x_{\mathrm{out}}`$, $`\mathrm{}_0`$ and $`n`$.

## 4 RADIATION PROCESSES

The method of calculating the expected spectrum from an accretion disk, based on the analytic solution of the resistive ADAF model including winds, is essentially the same as stated in KKY for the no-wind version of that model. The main radiation mechanisms are thermal cyclo-synchrotron emission most of which contributes to the flux in the radio band, thermal bremsstrahlung that may contribute mainly in the X-ray band, and inverse Compton scattering of the synchrotron (and bremsung) photons, which may appear as one or two peaks in the middle frequency range (and the scattered bremsung flux that may be scarcely recognized above the exponentially decaying part of the spectrum).

There are in the present scheme, however, two main differences from the former version. One is an improvement in the treatment of the Gaunt factor, and the other is in the approximation used in evaluating the unscattered (the sum of synchrotron and bremsung processes) flux from a disk. They are described in the following subsections. Hereafter, we need only the radial parts of the relevant physical quantities, and hence quote them without tildes on them for simplicity.

We first assume that an observed spectrum from a galactic nucleus is produced only by its accretion disk, and neglect the possible contributions from other components such as jet or wind. The validity of this assumption will be discussed in §5.3.

### 4.1 Unscattered Flux

Since the Compton unscattered flux consists of the synchrotron emission and the bremsung (both of which are assumed to be isotropic), the the absorption coefficient is calculated from Kirchhoff’s law

$`\alpha _\nu ={\displaystyle \frac{\chi _{\nu ,\mathrm{br}}+\chi _{\nu ,\mathrm{sy}}}{4\pi B_\nu }},`$ (13)
where $`\chi _\nu `$ denotes the volume emissivity for both processes and $`B_\nu `$ is the Planck function. Assuming LTE, we have for the specific intensity

$`I_\nu =B_\nu \left[1\mathrm{exp}(\tau _\nu )\right],`$ (14)
where $`\tau _\nu =\tau _\nu ^{}/\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, $`\tau _\nu ^{}=\alpha _\nu H`$ and $`H`$ is the height of the disk.

In this situation, we approximate the emerging flux by an interpolation formula as

$`F_\nu \pi B_\nu \left[1\mathrm{exp}(2\tau _\nu ^{})\right].`$ (15)
This formula has a merit of giving the correct answers $`\pi B_\nu `$ and $`(\chi _{\nu ,\mathrm{br}}+\chi _{\nu ,\mathrm{sy}})H/2`$ in the optically thick and thin limits, respectively. The difference between this and the two-stream approximation adopted in KKY, however, remains small.

### 4.2 Bremsstrahlung

According to Narayan & Yi (1995b) and Manmoto, Mineshige & Kusunose (1997), KKY used the non-relativistic version of the Gaunt factor $`g_{\mathrm{ff}}(\nu ,T)`$ not only for electron-ion collisions but also for electron-electron collisions, and a constant frequency-integrated Gaunt factor $`g_\mathrm{B}(T)`$. Compared with the more strict treatments of these quantities by Skibo et al. (1995), the old scheme evidently over-estimates the contribution from the e-e process when $`h\nu <m_\mathrm{e}c^2`$ (where $`h`$ is the Planck constant and $`m_\mathrm{e}`$ is the electron mass), and under-estimates it by about one order of magnitude when $`h\nu >m_\mathrm{e}c^2`$ (for more details, see Yamazaki 2002). Therefore, we adopt in this paper the formulae given by Skibo et al. (1995). The effect of this change on a spectrum is illustrated in Figure 7 (the thick and thin solid curves are calculated by the new and old versions, respectively, for the same fitting parameters).

In order to grasp the basic ideas, we first assume that the Gaunt factor is nearly constant even in the relativistic temperature regime. Then, the luminosity due to bremsstrahlung is roughly written as

$$L_\nu ^{\mathrm{bs}}_{r_{\mathrm{in}}}^{r_{\mathrm{out}}}\rho ^2T^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}[h\nu /k_\mathrm{B}T]𝑑Vf\mathrm{}_0^{2n+3}\dot{m}^2m,$$
(16)
where $`k_\mathrm{B}`$ is the Boltzmann constant, $`dV=4\pi \mathrm{\Delta }r^2dr`$ is the volume element in the disk, and

$$f_{x_{\mathrm{in}}}^{x_{\mathrm{out}}}x^{1/2+4n}\mathrm{exp}[h\nu /k_\mathrm{B}T(x)]𝑑x.$$
(17)
Properly evaluating this integral $`f`$ in each of the typical frequency ranges, we have the frequency dependence

$$f\{\begin{array}{cc}\text{const.}:\hfill & \nu k_\mathrm{B}T_{\mathrm{out}}/h\hfill \\ \nu ^{3/24n}:\hfill & k_\mathrm{B}T_{\mathrm{out}}/h<\nu k_\mathrm{B}T_{\mathrm{in}}/h\hfill \\ \mathrm{exp}[h\nu /k_\mathrm{B}T_{\mathrm{in}}]:\hfill & \nu >k_\mathrm{B}T_{\mathrm{in}}/h.\hfill \end{array}$$
(18)
In fact, however, in addition to the above features, there may appear an increase in the luminosity in the frequency range $`\nu k_\mathrm{B}T_{\mathrm{in}}/h`$, which is due to the increase of the Gaunt factor at relativistic temperatures (see the peak B in Figure 3).

The predicted power-law index of the luminosity $`\nu L_\nu ^{\mathrm{bs}}`$, i.e. $`1/24n`$ on the frequency, in the intermediate frequency range ($`k_\mathrm{B}T_{\mathrm{out}}/h<\nu k_\mathrm{B}T_{\mathrm{in}}/h`$) exhibits an explicit difference from the corresponding prediction by the viscous ADAF model including winds (Quataert & Narayan 1999), $`1/22p`$ (where $`p=2n`$). In the no-wind case ($`n=p=0`$), the former predicts a negative slope while the latter does a positive slope in the $`\nu `$-$`\nu L_\nu `$ diagram. This difference comes from the difference in the radial dependences of the density in the basic analytic solutions (K00 and Narayan & Yi 1994, respectively). In both models, the inclusion of a wind ($`n>0`$) equally reduces these values depending on its strength. This is because the presence of a wind reduces the contribution from the inner parts of a disk to the bremsstrahlung (since $`\dot{M}x^{2n}`$), resulting in a reduction of the higher frequency side of the spectrum.

### 4.3 Synchrotron Emission

The adopted formulae for the calculation of synchrotron emission and inverse Compton scattering is the same as in KKY. This synchrotron formula is known to be accurate when the electron temperature $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ is in the range $`10^8<T_\mathrm{e}<3\times 10^{10}`$. This temperature range corresponds in our solution to the radius range of $`30<x<10^4`$. Since, however, the contribution from the lower temperature region ($`x>10^4`$) is negligibly small compared with that from the bremsung, we can extend our calculation even to such regions (until the effects of recombination on the bremsung becomes important), by safely truncating the cyclo-synchrotron emission.

The critical frequency under which the radiation becomes optically thick at a fixed $`r`$ is given (Narayan & Yi 1995b; Mahadevan 1997) by

$`\nu _\mathrm{c}T^2(x)|B_\phi (x)|\mathrm{}_0^{n+1}x_{\mathrm{out}}^{(1+4n)}\dot{m}^{1/2}m^{1/2}x^{(3n)}.`$ (19)
Since $`\nu _\mathrm{c}`$ increases towards the inner edge, inner part of a disk is apt to be optically thick at a given frequency $`\nu `$, with a critical radius

$`x_\mathrm{c}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{}_0^{(n+1)/(3n)}x_{\mathrm{out}}^{(1+4n)/(3n)}`$ (20)
$`\times \dot{m}^{1/2(3n)}m^{1/2(3n)}\nu ^{1/(3n)}.`$
Anyway, there is a radius $`x_\mathrm{p}`$ near $`x_{\mathrm{in}}`$ whose contribution to the self-absorbed radiation is the largest so that the peak frequency is determined as $`\nu _\mathrm{p}=\nu _\mathrm{c}(x_\mathrm{p})`$.

Then, for the self-absorbed luminosity per frequency ($`\nu _{\mathrm{min}}<\nu <\nu _\mathrm{p}`$, where $`\nu _{\mathrm{min}}=\nu _\mathrm{c}(x_{\mathrm{out}}`$)), we have

$$L_\nu ^{\mathrm{abs}}_{r_{\mathrm{in}}}^{r_\mathrm{c}}\frac{\nu ^2}{c^2}k_\mathrm{B}T2\pi r𝑑r(x_\mathrm{c}x_{\mathrm{in}})m^2\nu ^2x_\mathrm{c}m^2\nu ^2,$$
(21)
where the final expression is valid only in the frequency range $`\nu \nu _\mathrm{p}`$ in which $`x_\mathrm{c}x_{\mathrm{in}}`$. In the crude approximation in which $`x_\mathrm{c}`$ is regarded as a constant, the luminosity of the self-absorbed synchrotron emission is determined solely by the central mass $`m`$.

However, substituting the above estimation for $`x_\mathrm{c}`$ in equation (20), we have a more accurate dependence

$`L_\nu ^{\mathrm{abs}}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{}_0^{(n+1)/(3n)}x_{\mathrm{out}}^{(1+4n)/(3n)}`$ (22)
$`\times \dot{m}^{1/2(3n)}m^{(114n)/2(3n)}\nu ^{(52n)/(3n)}.`$
The strongest dependence on the parameters is still on the central mass, and its power varies slightly from 1.80 to 1.85 for the variation of $`n`$ in the allowed range, from 1/2 to $`1/4`$. The dependence on the other parameters are rather weak, and this fact is very favorable to determine, at least within the framework of the present model, the central mass from the spectral fittings of this self-absorbed part, without much ambiguity (however, see also §5.3). The power of $`\nu `$ also varies only slightly from 1.6 to 1.7 in the same range of $`n`$.

The main effect of a wind on the synchrotron spectrum is a reduction of its peak intensity (when $`n>0`$) according to the wind strength. This is because the synchrotron emission comes mainly from the inner most region of an accretion disk where the magnetic field is the strongest and the electrons are most energetic, so that the reduction of the accretion rate in this region due to wind loss causes a decrease in the optically thin part of the emission.

## 5 APPLICATIONS

As stated in the previous section, we can calculate the spectrum emanating from an accretion disk by specifying the values of five parameters, $`m`$, $`\dot{m}`$, $`x_{\mathrm{out}}`$, $`\mathrm{}_0`$, and $`n`$. In other words, we can determine these values from the process of spectral fitting only if we have enough data points distributed over the full range of the spectrum of a specific object. In the applications of our model to Sgr A and M 31, we first proceed with this spirit, and regard all five parameters as free fitting parameters.

In fact, however, there are other information independent of the spectral data. For example, the central black-hole masses are known for these objects fairly accurately by the observations based on the dynamics. In the case of Sgr A, the Chandra observations provide us a good estimate of the Bondi accretion rate. In principle, the results obtained from a spectral fitting should not conflict with these additional informations. If, however, there are some discrepancies between them, it may offer some important information about the inadequacy of the present status of the basic model or of our general understanding. Such considerations will be given in §5.3.

### 5.1 Sgr A

Chandra has resolved a weak source at the radio position of Sgr A within the accuracy of 0<sup>′′</sup>.35 (Baganoff et al. 2001a). Its absorption-corrected luminosity in 2-10 keV band is $`2.4_{0.6}^{+3.0}\times 10^{33}`$ ergs s<sup>-1</sup> and power-law fitted photon index is $`2.7_{0.9}^{+1.3}`$. For the other observational data than this X-ray band, we use those compiled by Narayan et al. (1998b). For the sake of comparison, the ROSAT value is also plotted in Figures 2, 3 and 7 with an empty circle. Among the radio observations, the 86 GHz point with the highest resolution obtained by VLBI is taken most seriously in the following spectral fittings.

The most restrictive feature of the Chandra results to the spectral fittings is the softness of the X-ray spectrum whose most probable slope in the $`\nu `$-$`\nu L_\nu `$ diagram is negative, in contrast to the ROSAT observation in which the slope in a similar X-ray range is positive. Although a rapid X-ray flaring is reported (Baganoff et al. 2001b), we do not discuss it here because the event is a transient phenomenon localized in a small region of the accreting plasma.

One possible way of reproducing this negative slope by our model is to use the decreasing side of the first-order Compton peak. Hereafter, we call this type of fittings the ‘Compton fitting’. In order for this negative slope to reach the Chandra X-ray band, the optically thin (i.e., the high frequency) side of the synchrotron peak should be located in a high enough frequency range. Nevertheless, the location of its self-absorbed (i.e., the low frequency) side is fixed by the 86 GHz point. Thus, the synchrotron peak in this fitting is required to be wide enough. Also, in order to keep the required X-ray luminosity, we require a sufficiently high luminosity to the synchrotron peak. However, these two requirements apt to contradict with the upper limit data in IR band, and hence the Compton fitting becomes very tight. We do not include wind in this type of fittings, because its inclusion does not cause any change in the overall spectral shape but reduces the luminosity only similarly at every frequency.

Actually the above stated requirement allows only a unique fitting, which is shown in Figure 2 with the full curve. The contribution from bremsstrahlung is buried in the second Compton peak. This curve seems to be marginally fitted to the observational constraints. The curve traces the observational data points fairly well on the low frequency side of the radio peak except around its top, but the X-ray slope is nearly at its steepest limit. If we try to improve the fitting to the X-ray slope, it becomes impossible for the curve to go through the 86 GHz point.

In this fitting, the accretion rate $`\dot{m}`$ has to be reduced from the previously inferred value (KKY) to a considerably lower value in order to suppress the contribution from bremsstrahlung. The position of the low frequency side of the synchrotron peak is fixed by adjusting mainly the black hole mass $`m`$ (see Eq.  or ). The most effective parameter to shift the Compton peak-frequency is $`x_{\mathrm{out}}`$, and a shift toward the high frequency side means a reduction of $`x_{\mathrm{out}}`$. In order to avoid the appearance of the inner edge radii smaller than that of the marginally-stable circular orbit, the magnetic Reynolds number at the outer boundary, $`\mathrm{}_0`$, should stay at rather small values. Since the obtained ratio $`x_{\mathrm{out}}/x_{\mathrm{in}}`$ from this fitting is not so large, the amplification of the seed magnetic field $`B_0`$ by the sweeping and twisting effects of the accretion flow remains to be rather small. In other words, this case of Compton fitting requires considerably large external magnetic fields, since $`b_\phi (x_{\mathrm{in}})`$ is almost fixed by the height of the synchrotron peak.

The resulting values of the fitting parameters are summarized in Table 1. When a figure is expressed as three-digit number, it means that a change in the final digit causes a noticeable shift of the fitting curve. The dimension-recovered values and related physical quantities of our interest are

$`M=6.0\times 10^5M_{},\dot{M}_0=9.6\times 10^9M_{}\text{yr}^1,`$
$`r_{\mathrm{out}}=1.8\times 10^{13}\text{cm},r_{\mathrm{in}}=1.2\times 10^{12}\text{cm}=6.8r_\mathrm{S},`$
$`|B_0|=2.7\text{G},|b_\phi (r_{\mathrm{in}})|=1.5\times 10^2\text{G},`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }=2.60\times 10^1\text{rad}.`$ (23)
Another type of possible fittings is called the ‘bremsstrahlung fitting’, in which the Chandra spectrum is reproduced by the intermediate frequency range of the bremsstrahlung (Eq. ). In order for the Chandra frequency band to fall in this negative slope region, we have to take the disk’s outer edge $`x_{\mathrm{out}}`$ so large that its temperature decreases below about 1 keV. This corresponds to the outer edges of $`x_{\mathrm{out}}>10^5`$, and these values make a great contrast with the former value of $`2.6\times 10^3`$, that was obtained in KKY in reproducing the positive X-ray slope of ROSAT result by the low frequency range of the bremsstrahlung. The relatively faint X-ray luminosity of Chandra means a fairly small $`\dot{m}`$ also in this case, but not so extremely as in the Compton fitting case.

Two good examples of such fittings are shown in Figure 3. The full curve is for a no-wind case, and the dashed curve is for a weak-wind case. Although the fitting to the X-ray slope is much improved by the inclusion of a weak wind, the fitting to the low frequency side of the synchrotron peak becomes rather worse around its top. At present, we cannot clearly point out which is the best fit to Sgr A, because of the lack of data points that are effective to distinguish them. High resolution observations in sub-millimeter to IR band would be very useful not only for this purpose but also to decide the superiority between the Compton and bremsung fittings.

The values of the fitting parameters obtained for each case are cited in Table 1, and the resulting values for the physical quantities are

$`M=4.0\times 10^5M_{},\dot{M}_0=3.7\times 10^8M_{}\text{yr}^1,`$
$`r_{\mathrm{out}}=1.2\times 10^{16}\text{cm},r_{\mathrm{in}}=3.4\times 10^{12}\text{cm}=2.9\times 10^1r_\mathrm{S},`$
$`|B_0|=1.4\times 10^3\text{G},|b_\phi (r_{\mathrm{in}})|=2.8\times 10^2\text{G},`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }=1.70\times 10^2\text{rad},`$ (24)
for the solid curve, and

$`M=4.0\times 10^5M_{},\dot{M}_0=2.0\times 10^8M_{}\text{yr}^1,`$
$`r_{\mathrm{out}}=1.2\times 10^{16}\text{cm},r_{\mathrm{in}}=1.6\times 10^{12}\text{cm}=1.3\times 10^1r_\mathrm{S},`$
$`|B_0|=1.6\times 10^3\text{G},|b_\phi (r_{\mathrm{in}})|=4.2\times 10^2\text{G},`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }=4.71\times 10^3\text{rad},`$ (25)
for the dashed curve.

In order to maintain a relatively higher synchrotron luminosity compared with the X-ray luminosity in the spectrum of Sgr A, considerably large values are required for $`\mathrm{}_0`$ (i.e., small values for $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$), and this fact results in reasonably small values for $`x_{\mathrm{in}}`$ in spite of large $`x_{\mathrm{out}}`$. The latter fact (i.e., $`x_{\mathrm{in}}x_{\mathrm{out}}`$), in turn, guarantees the appearance of a well extended negative-slope region in the spectrum, and comfortably small values for the external magnetic field compared with the case of Compton fitting. The total bremsstrahlung hump in such a case shows a double-peaked structure in which the second peak (B in Figure 3) on the higher-frequency side is emphasized by the enhancement of the Gaunt factor in the relativistic temperature regions located in the inner part of the disk (see also Figure 7).

The results in this case, therefore, predict a fairly wide extent of the ADAF state up to $`x_{\mathrm{out}}>10^5`$ with also a fairly low accretion rate of the order of $`\dot{m}`$ a few $`\times 10^6`$. For the obtained black-hole mass of $``$ a few $`\times 10^5M_{}`$, the former value corresponds to the size of $`r_{\mathrm{out}}>10^{16}`$ cm, which is in good agreement with the marginally resolved radius of 0.02 pc of the nuclear X-ray source (Baganoff et al. 2001a). The corresponding values of the mass accretion rate at the outer radius, $`\dot{M}_0`$, is $``$ a few $`\times 10^8M_{}`$yr<sup>-1</sup>. In the weak wind case, this value is further reduced to $`\dot{M}(r_{\mathrm{in}})=3.4\times 10^9M_{}`$yr<sup>-1</sup> at the inner edge. Therefore, these values are consistent with the limit $`10^8M_{}`$yr<sup>-1</sup> recently imposed on $`\dot{M}(r_{\mathrm{in}})`$ (Agol 2000; Quataert & Gruzinov 2000) from the interpretation of polarization measurement in the radio emission (Aitken et al. 2000, however see also Bower et al. 2001).

### 5.2 M 31

The nuclear source observed by ROSAT at the center of M 31 has also been resolved into five point sources by Chandra (Garcia et al. 2000). The true nuclear source is identified with that located within 1<sup>′′</sup> of the supermassive black hole and has an anomalously soft spectrum. They report that its luminosity in the 0.3-7.0 keV band is $`4.0_{2.8}^{+12}\times 10^{37}`$ erg s<sup>-1</sup> and the power-law fitted photon index is $`4.5\pm 1.5`$ in the 0.3-1.8 keV range (we assume this value to hold up to 7.0 keV), after corrected for interstellar absorption. Although there seems to be some debates about these results, we tentatively fit our model to this observation.

Other observational data are obtained by VLA (Crane et al. 1992, 1993), IRAS (Soifer et al. 1986; Neugebauer et al. 1984), KPNO (McQuade, Calzelli & Kinney 1995), Palomar 5m telescope (Persson et al. 1980) and HST (Brown et al. 1998; King et al. 1995). The radio flux seems to have slight time variations. Among the HST data, the resolution of the $`1.7\times 10^{15}`$ Hz observation is much better ($`0^{\prime \prime }.5`$, King et al. 1995) than the other two (at 1.1 and 1.5 $`\times 10^{15}`$ Hz, Brown et al. 1998).

Although the available data points are rather few, the Compton fitting is very tight. Namely, if we try to adjust the fitting parameters such that the predicted curve passes through the radio and X-ray points (satisfying both luminosity and spectral index), it does automatically also the $`1.7\times 10^{15}`$ Hz point (Figure 4). Other HST and IR data should then be regarded as an excess whose origin may be attributed to other components than the ADAF under consideration. The fitted slope in the Chandra band seems somewhat harder, but it is the best we can do.

The determined fitting parameters are cited in Table 1, and the physical quantities of our interest are calculated as

$`M=7.0\times 10^5M_{},\dot{M}_0=5.6\times 10^7M_{}\text{yr}^1,`$
$`r_{\mathrm{out}}=3.7\times 10^{14}\text{cm},r_{\mathrm{in}}=2.8\times 10^{12}\text{cm}=1.4\times 10^1r_\mathrm{S},`$
$`|B_0|=4.7\times 10^1\text{G},|b_\phi (r_{\mathrm{in}})|=7.0\times 10^2\text{G},`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }=8.73\times 10^2\text{rad}.`$ (26)
On the other hand, if we adopt the bremsung fitting, the fitting to the X-ray slope can be improved much more. In Figure 5, there are three curves that demonstrate the variations caused by the change in the wind parameter. Other parameters are adjusted in each curve to fit the radio, UV and X-ray luminosities simultaneously. As predicted in the previous section, we can clearly see the main effects of winds on the spectra, i.e., the steepening of the bremsung fall toward the high frequency side and the suppression of the synchrotron peak. For a more complete demonstration of such effects as caused by winds, we show in Figure 6 the variation of the spectrum according to the values of the wind parameter in its full range.

The values of the fitting parameters for each curve are summarized also in Table 1. The fitting to the X-ray slope seems satisfactory when $`n`$ is in between 0.3 and 0.5. However, it should be noted that the limiting case of $`n=0.5`$ corresponds to a flat density profile (i.e., it is independent of $`x`$; see Eq. ), which seems rather unplausible. The mass accretion rate in this fitting case increases by about one order of magnitude compared with Compton fitting case.

The resulting dimensional quantities in the case of thin solid curve ($`n=0.3`$), for example, are

$`M=4.0\times 10^5M_{},\dot{M}_0=2.7\times 10^6M_{}\text{yr}^1,`$
$`r_{\mathrm{out}}=5.3\times 10^{16}\text{cm},r_{\mathrm{in}}=8.3\times 10^{12}\text{cm}=7.0\times 10^1r_\mathrm{S},`$
$`|B_0|=6.0\times 10^3\text{G},|b_\phi (r_{\mathrm{in}})|=2.2\times 10^2\text{G},`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }=9.02\times 10^4\text{rad}.`$ (27)
If we accept the bremsung fittings, we can conclude that M 31 has a considerably strong wind ($`0.3<n<0.5`$). However, it is again difficult to clearly insist the superiority of the bremsung fitting to the Compton fitting because of the shortage of the observational data points. High resolution observations at mm-waves are desirable for this purpose.

### 5.3 Discussion

In the previous subsections, we could reproduce the observed broadband spectra of Sgr A and M 31 fairly satisfactorily, by both of the Compton and bremsung fittings. Although some superiority of the latter case may be recognized in the fitting to the X-ray slope, it is difficult to say clearly which is the better one from the goodness of the fitting only. However, the preference becomes much more clear when we combine other information than from their spectra. In this course, the main issue relating to our basic model will also become evident.

The central dark mass of Sgr A is measured by the method of tracing stellar trajectories, and the result is $`2.61\pm 0.35\times 10^6M_{}`$ within the inner 0.015 pc (Eckert & Genzel 1997; Ghez et al. 1998). On the other hand, the point mass obtained from our spectral fittings is almost one order of magnitude smaller than the ‘dynamical’ mass. For M 31, the central mass is estimated to be $`3.3\times 10^7M_{}`$ by using HST photometry (Kormendy & Bender 1999). Also in this case, our model largely under-estimates it (apparently by about 30$``$40 times), even if the ambiguity caused by the shortage of data points is taken into account.

Since in our model the black hole mass is determined essentially by the fitting to the luminosity of self-absorbed part of the synchrotron emission, the above fact means that our model is over-estimating this luminosity. This can be confirmed by the dashed curve in Figure 7 which is written by adopting the dynamical mass ($`m=2.6\times 10^2`$) without changing other parameters from the case of solid curve in Figure 3. The main reason for this over estimation may be attributed to the over estimation of electron temperature near the disk’s inner edge, in spite of the resulting rather large inner-edge radii (a few tens of $`r_\mathrm{S}`$) than in other models.

This over estimation is avoided in the viscous ADAF models by introducing a two temperature scheme in which the electron temperature deviates from a virial-type ion temperature, especially in an inner region ($`x<100`$), owing to the increasing synchrotron loss and inefficient energy supply from ions (e.g., Narayan & Yi 1995b; Narayan 2002). This may indeed be a plausible explanation, but it is still uncertain whether or not the effective collisions between ions and electrons can remain sufficiently small even in the presence of strong turbulence in the accretion flows (Balbus & Hawley 1998; Kaburaki, Yamazaki & Okuyama 2002).

In addition to the increase of radiation cooling in the inner most accretion disks, there may be other boundary effects such as launching of a jet, which are not included in our idealized treatment of the accretion flow under the assumption of large magnetic Reynolds number. Another possibility may be the effect of viewing angle of the self-absorbed part of the disk, though it has not been considered in the current ADAF fittings except Manmoto (2000). Indeed, we see only a smaller effective area compared with the face-on looking, when the viewing angle becomes the closer to the edge-on. However, this effect can scarcely amount to more than an order of magnitude.

As for the mass accretion rate, it is widely believed that the Bondi accretion rate gives a plausible estimate of the actual accretion rate at the remote (i.e., at the Bondi radius) regions (e.g., Melia & Falcke 2001). However, we have to emphasize here that it is nothing more than a fiducial value like the Eddington accretion rate. This is because there is no definite evidence for Bondi’s spherical accretion processes to be realized generally in actual places. Instead, the validity of that model has been criticized explicitly by Narayan (2002).

Anyway, Chandra provides a good estimate of the Bondi accretion rate for the case of Sgr A. Baganoff et al. (2001a) reports that there is $``$ 2 keV gas with the number density $`n_0100`$ cm<sup>-3</sup> spread over about an arcsec around the central source. This size is consistent with the Bondi radius, $`r_\mathrm{B}=2GM/V_\mathrm{B}^2`$ where $`V_\mathrm{B}`$ is the sound velocity at $`r_\mathrm{B}`$, and the resulting Bondi accretion rate is $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{B}4\pi r_\mathrm{B}^2\rho _\mathrm{B}V_\mathrm{B}3\times 10^{20}`$ gs<sup>-1</sup> $`5\times 10^6M_{}`$yr<sup>-1</sup>.

Since this value corresponds to a normalized accretion rate of the order of $`\dot{m}_\mathrm{B}10^4`$ for the observed dynamical mass, we show in Figure 7 the prediction of our model in this case by fixing the other parameters also at the same values as in the case of thick solid curve. It is evident that the result over estimates the observed luminosity by about three orders of magnitude. We can recognize also in this figure that the overall luminosity is much more sensitive to the mass accretion rate than to the central mass. Therefore, uncertainties in the mass determination causes not so drastic effects on the determination of mass accretion rate and other parameters.

Our best fit value for the normalized mass accretion rate is $`0.04\times \dot{m}_\mathrm{B}`$ and the affairs are similar also for the resistive ADAF fittings (Narayan 2002). Since the outer edge of the ADAF in our bremsung fitting case (and also in the fittings by Narayan 2002) is of the order of the Bondi radius, the large discrepancy between the predicted mass accretion rates and the Bondi rate suggests that the accretion, at least, in Sgr A does not proceed like Bondi’s prediction. Although there is no firm reasoning to relate our $`\dot{M}_0`$ to the Bondi rate $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{B}`$, a simple relation $`\dot{M}_0/\dot{M}_\mathrm{B}\mathrm{\Delta }`$ seems to account for the results of spectral fittings fairly well. The ratio represents the geometrical fraction of a disk accretion with a half-opening angle $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ compared with the spherical accretion. This relation should be compared with a similar one in the viscous ADAF models, $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{N}/\dot{M}_\mathrm{B}\alpha `$ where $`\alpha `$ is the viscosity parameter (Narayan 2002).

As already been pointed out in KKY, the low-frequency radio ($`\nu <86`$ GHz) excess seen above our fitting curves to Sgr A is very likely to come from the inner jet that is located within the inner edge of the accretion disk and extend to the vertical directions along the polar axis. Although its existence in the Galactic center, in particular, has not been established observationally yet, the universality of the disk-jet association seems plausible on both theoretical (see §2 of this paper) and observational (Ho 1999; Nagar, Wilson, & Falcke 2001; Ulvestad & Ho 2001) grounds. There are already many such models in which the spectrum of Sgr A is reproduced by the jet-only or jet-plus-disk model (e.g., Falcke & Markoff 2000; Yuan 2000; for a more comprehensive review, see Melia & Falcke 2001). Therefore, we have to check the above idea by including the contribution from a jet in our calculation of spectra. However, this is beyond the scope of the present paper.

The major concern with the case of the Compton fittings would be the resulting large external magnetic fields. The typical value obtained for it is $``$1 G, and this value is uncomfortably large as the ambient values near the outer edge, even if a pre-amplification of the interstellar magnetic field caused by the sweeping effect of accreting flow is taken into account. On the other hand, this value decreases to $``$ a few $`\times 10^3`$ G in the bremsung case.

The bremsung fittings predict that a widely spreading ADAF exists with a very small half-opening angle of $`\mathrm{\Delta }10^3`$ -$`10^2`$, in each of the objects under our consideration. It is very favorable to this result that Chandra seems to have resolved the diameter of the central source in Sgr A as 1 arcsec. This corresponds to a radius of $`6\times 10^{16}`$ cm and is in very good agreement with our result of the bremsung fitting. Combined with the consideration in the previous paragraph, we can say that we have fairly good reasons for the preference of the bremsung fittings to the Compton fittings.

If such a geometrically thin disk as predicted by our fittings is surrounded by a tenuous wind-plasma, the configuration is somewhat reminiscent of the disk-corona structure in the evaporation model (e.g., Meyer, Liu, & Meyer-Hoffmeister 2001). However, the equatorial disk in our case is an ADAF, not an optically thick disk of standard type. The greatest concern with this situation would be the global stability of such a widely-spreading twisted magnetic structure. At present, this is an open question. In this connection, we only quote a recent work by Tomimatsu, Matsuoka, & Takahashi (2001) in which a stabilizing effect of rotating magnetic fields on the screw instability is reported.

## 6 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

We have examined the expected effects of a wind on the emerging spectrum from an ADAF in a global magnetic field, based on the recently proposed resistive ADAF model including winds (K01). The main effects are seen both in the spectral index (the power of $`\nu `$) appearing in the intermediate frequency range of the thermal bremsstrahlung, and in the luminosity ratio of the thermal synchrotron emission to the bremsstrahlung. These two values decrease according to the strength of a wind. This fact can be explained by a suppressed mass accretion rate in the inner disk caused by wind loss.

In order to test the plausibility of the resistive ADAF model, we have fitted the observed broadband spectra of Sgr A and of the nucleus of M 31, by this model. For each observed spectrum, there are two possible types of fittings. One is the Compton fitting in which the negative X-ray slopes in the spectral energy distribution, which are obtained by Chandra for both objects, are reproduced by the synchrotron self-Compton process, and the other is the bremsung fitting in which the negative slopes are reproduced by the intermediate frequency range of the thermal bremsstrahlung.

On the grounds of the goodness only of the fitting to the observational data points currently available, it is difficult to clearly distinguish the superiority of the one type of fitting to the other, because of the shortage of the observational data. However, we prefer the bremsung fittings for both objects. The main reasons for that are uncomfortably large values required for the strength of the seed magnetic field in the Compton fittings (0.5-3 G for both objects) and the very wide extension of accretion disks in the bremsung fittings, which seems favorable to the X-ray observations in the case of Sgr A.

If the bremsung fittings are more plausible, we can conclude that the ADAFs extend so far as to reach the Bondi accretion radii (for both objects $`r>(1`$ \- $`5)\times 10^5r_\mathrm{S}`$), with no or very weak wind in the Sgr A case, and with fairly strong wind in the M 31 case. The resulting mass accretion rates for both objects are smaller than the Bondi rates by more than an order of magnitude, and this fact strongly suggests that the actual accretion processes in these objects are certainly different from Bondi’s spherical accretion.

The major concern of our model in its present form is in the point that it largely under estimates the central masses. This fact seems to come from the over estimation of the electron temperature near the disk’s inner edge. Therefore, the improvement of the model’s accuracy especially near the inner boundary is strongly desired.

## Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Michael Garcia for correspondence about their data, and to Makoto Hattori for helpful discussions on X-ray observations. We also appreciate the valuable comments by the anonymous referee, which have deepened our understanding on the role of the Bondi accretion rate.