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# PHYSICAL DIAGNOSTICS FROM A NARROW FeK𝛼 EMISSION LINE DETECTED BY CHANDRA IN THE SEYFERT 1 GALAXY NGC 5548

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA – Tanaka et al. 1994) found that the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ fluorescent emission line in Seyfert 1 galaxies is often very broad and is generally interpreted as the result of an origin in matter in an accretion disk rotating around a central black hole (see Fabian et al. 2000 and references therein). The line profile is sculpted by characteristic gravitational and Doppler energy shifts. Currently, study of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission line is the only way to probe matter within a few to tens of gravitational radii of a black hole. There is an important caveat with respect to studying the relativistic $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line profiles with ASCA. The energy resolution of the CCD detectors is only $`E/\mathrm{\Delta }E40`$ (or FWHM $`160`$ eV, or $`7500`$ km/s) in the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ band (6–7 keV). Thus, even for the highest signal-to-noise data, one could not unambiguously separate that part of the line which originates in the accretion disk, from any other component originating in matter beyond the accretion disk, further away (e.g. see Weaver and Reynolds 1998; Done, Madejski, and Zycki 2000). Such line components will be much narrower than the disk line, due to the lower Keplerian velocities and small gravitational shifts. Indeed, such a narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission line from the putative obscuring torus is thought to be the key for unifying type 1 and type 2 AGN, and is expected from Seyfert 1 galaxies (e.g. see Krolik, Madau, and Zycki 1994; Ghisellini, Haardt, and Matt 1994). The torus is extended on the parsec-scale and would lead to a FWHM for the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line from this region of $`760\sqrt{(M_8/r_{\mathrm{pc}})}`$ km/s (assuming a virial relation and an r.m.s. velocity dispersion of $`\sqrt{3}V_{\mathrm{FWHM}}/2`$; see e.g. Netzer 1990). On the same scale, narrow-line emission may also originate in the extended warm scattering region which is also a feature of unified AGN models (e.g. see Krolik and Kallman 1987). A broader narrow-line contribution (1000s of km/s) might also be expected from the optical/UV broad-line region (BLR).

As we shall demonstrate in this paper, accurate measurements of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line energy, width and intensity can provide a suite of powerful physical diagnostics of the central engine in AGN. Up to now, the expected narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line has never been unambiguously detected in a Seyfert 1 due to limited instrumental energy resolution and sensitivity. However, strong evidence for its existence and physical parameters of the putative line have been deduced for several sources (e.g. Weaver et al. 1993; Yaqoob & Weaver 1996; Yaqoob et al. 1995,1996; Sulentic et al. 1998; Weaver & Reynolds 1998; Done et al. 2000). The narrow line appears to be most prominent in NELG such as NGC 2992 (Weaver et al. 1996), which may sometimes have an underlying broad component (e.g. MCG $``$5-23-16, Weaver et al. 1997). The above evidence for the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line in Seyfert 1 galaxies has been tempered by the case of MCG $``$6$``$30$``$15 in which, during a flare, the entire broad $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line was highly redshifted, leaving no clear emission peak around 6.4 keV (Iwasawa et al. 1999). This has led to some debate about the existence of a narrow component.

In this paper we report the detection of a narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line in the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 from a Chandra observation. In §2 we present the data and describe the analysis procedures. In §3 we show that the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line in NGC 5548 cannot be explained by emission from a relativistic disk alone and present the basic measurements of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line parameters. In §4 we discuss all the different possible mechanisms contributing to the width of the narrow line and give our best estimate of its velocity width. We discuss the physical constraints imposed by the narrow line in §5, and in §6 we investigate the effect of the narrow line on the parameters derived for the relativistic broad line using archival ASCA data. In §7 we discuss some implications of the presence of a non-disk $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ component on the interpretation of variability studies of the line and continuum. Finally, we present our conclusions in §8.

## 2 THE CHANDRA DATA

NGC 5548 was observed with Chandra starting on 2000 February 5, UT 15:38 for a total duration of 83 ks (continuous). The instrument used in the focal plane of the High Resolution Mirror Assembly (HRMA) was the High-Energy Transmission Grating (or HETG – Markert, et al. 1995). The HETG consists of two grating assemblies, a High-Energy Grating (HEG) and a Medium-Energy Grating (MEG). The HEG has a better efficiency than the MEG above $`5`$ keV. The spectral resolution of the HEG is roughly two times better than the MEG ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =0.012\AA `$ and $`0.023\AA `$ for the HEG and MEG respectively). $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda `$ is roughly constant over the instrument bandpass (HEG: $`0.89`$ keV , MEG: $`0.59`$ keV). Events dispersed by the gratings are collected by a CCD array and can be assigned an energy based on the position along the dispersion axis. Since the CCDs have intrinsic energy resolution, background events can be rejected with a high efficiency, and different spectral orders can be easily discriminated.

Our Chandra observation of NGC 5548 yielded a net exposure time of 82,198.4 s. After accounting for a deadtime factor of 0.987337, the effective exposure time is 81157.6 s For our analysis we used data from events reprocessed using the latest software and calibration, as of 3 July 2000 111Details of the Chandra pipeline reprocessing and data analysis specifics can be found at http://asc.harvard.edu/ciao/threads/. Genuine photon events collected by the CCDs fall into specific pixel patterns classified by their grade and we retained only grades 0, 2, 3, 4, and 6; rejected grades correspond to non-X-ray events. We examined the radial profile of the zeroth-order image and found a single Gaussian to be a poor representation, due to the effects of pile-up broadening the profile (the best-fitting width was $`\sigma =0.52`$ arcseconds). A double Gaussian model gave a good fit and the best-fitting widths of two Gaussian were $`0.48\pm 0.01`$ and $`1.09\pm 0.07`$ arcseconds, the ratio of the normalization of the narrow to broad Gaussian being 27.4. Since the zeroth order data suffer from pile-up we did not use these data for spectral analysis. For the grating data, in the cross-dispersion direction we found that the counts distribution as a function of cross-dispersion angle could be approximated by Gaussians with widths in the range 0.47–0.58 arcseconds for the four arms of first-order data ($`\pm 1`$ orders for the HEG and MEG). We accumulated grating spectra from events along the dispersion direction, and within $`\pm 3.6`$ arcseconds of the peak in the cross-dispersion direction. In the first-order spectra we obtained total count rates (summed over the $`\pm 1`$ orders) of 0.19 cts/s and 0.43 cts/s for the HEG and MEG respectively. The count rates in the higher order spectra are at most 11.3% and 9.8% of the first order count rates for HEG and MEG respectively so in this paper we will restrict our analysis to the first order spectra only.

We do not expect further refinements to the CCD gain to affect the energy scale of the grating data since the energy assignment of events depends only on the position of the event on the CCD according to the dispersion relation. The CCD energy scale may, however affect the rejection of source events as background events and vice versa. Since we are most concerned with the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ band and this band will have the highest proportion of background in the data that is relevant for this paper, we checked how important background is for our data in the 5.5–7 keV band. We collapsed the 5.5–7 keV first-order HEG data in the dispersion direction and examined the count distribution as a function of cross-dispersion angle, which is again approximately Gaussian. We estimated the background level by fitting a model consisting of a Gaussian plus a constant and found that the background is $`1.5\%`$ of the total counts in the 5.5–7 keV band. The same procedure for the MEG showed that the background is $`2.2\%`$ of the total counts in the 5.5–7 keV band.

We made effective area files (ARF, or ancillary response file) using ciao v 1.1 (Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations), which also takes account of the dithering of the satellite. We only used ciao for the reprocessing of the event data and to make the ancillary response files; the remaining data analysis (except for spectral fitting) was done using IDL routines written by ourselves. For the spectral fitting procedures described below, we used spectral response matrices acisheg1D1999-07-22rmfN0002.fits (HEG) and acismeg1D1999-07-22rmfN0002.fits (MEG). Note that absolute flux-calibration may be uncertain by as much as 30% at the time of writing (Marshall et al. 2000). However our principal results (i.e. center energy, width and equivalent width of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line) do not depend at all on the absolute flux calibration.

The spectral energy resolution is determined principally by the telescope response function but could be degraded by grating period variation (only at very low energies), incoherent dispersion ($`1\%`$ of first order events), incorrect aspect solution, and defocussing. By examining the zeroth-order image from CCD frame-transfer events (which do not suffer pile-up), Paerels et al. (2000) determined from a HETG observation of Cyg X-3 that these effects do not compromise the spectral resolution within the measurement uncertainties. We also examined the frame-transfer events (or ‘streak data’) of our NGC 5548 data and found that the photon distribution in the dispersion direction could be approximated well with a single Gaussian, resulting in a best-fitting width of $`\sigma =0.41\pm 0.03`$ arcseconds (90% confidence errors), consistent with nominal expectations. This reassures us that there are no adverse effects on the spectral resolution of the gratings. The absolute calibration of the wavelength scale is typically $`2\mathrm{m}\mathrm{\AA }`$ (e.g. Paerels et al. 2000), much smaller than the statistical uncertainty in the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission line energy that we are concerned with in this paper.

## 3 DETECTION OF A NARROW $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ LINE IN NGC 5548

We used XSPEC for spectral fitting the 2–7 keV HEG and MEG spectra (the signal-to-noise for both the HEG and MEG drops rapidly above $`7`$ keV). The $`1`$ and $`+1`$ orders were summed for the HEG and MEG. The spectral bins had a width of $`0.005\AA `$ which corresponds to the $`1\sigma `$ width of the spectral resolution of the HEG. For most of the 2–7 keV bandpass, in the HEG or MEG spectra, there were less than 10 counts per bin and at most 14 or 12 counts per bin (HEG and MEG respectively). Since the data are in the Poisson regime we performed the spectral fitting and error analysis using the C-statistic. Figure 1a shows the HEG and MEG spectra fitted with a simple power-law model, which describes well the overall spectra in the 2–7 keV band. The consistency between the HEG and MEG is good over most of this energy range, except that between $`45`$ keV the MEG shows systematic deviations of the order of $`2030\%`$. Figure 1a also shows that an $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission line is clearly detected with high signal-to-noise in both the HEG and the MEG. The insets in Figure 1 show close-ups of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ region for the HEG data, and also the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ region from an ASCA observation in July 1996. The ASCA $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line is broad, with no obvious signature of a narrow core (but note that the ASCA energy resolution in the Fe-K region is $`160`$ eV FWHM, a factor of $`4`$ worse than the HEG data in that band).

When we added a Gaussian to the power law continuum to model the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission line in the HEG plus MEG spectra, the C-statistic decreased by 25.6, which corresponds to a detection significance of nearly $`5\sigma `$ for three degrees of freedom. In this latter model, there were six free parameters in total; two independent normalizations for the continuum (one for the HEG and one for the MEG), the power-law photon index ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$), the line intensity, Gaussian width and center energy. The results of this spectral fit are shown in Table 1, along with the 90% confidence, one-parameter errors for the derived model parameters. Also shown in Table 1 for reference are the spectral fitting results obtained when the same model is applied to the HEG data only. These latter results are consistent with the joint fit so hereafter we will refer only to the parameters derived from the combined HEG and MEG fits. We obtain a photon index for the power law of $`1.54\pm 0.06`$ and a 2–10 keV flux of $`2.4\times 10^{11}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. Historical 2–10 keV flux levels for NGC 5548 measured by EXOSAT, Ginga, and ASCA, according to the archival HEASARC databases and published results, span the range $`1.76.4\times 10^{11}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$, with values in the upper third of this range being most common (e.g. see Turner & Pounds 1989; Nandra & Pounds 1994; Chiang et al. 2000). Thus it appears that the 2–10 keV flux during the Chandra observation was a factor of $`2`$ down from typical historical values.

Unless otherwise stated, we will refer all our measurements for X-ray line parameters to the galaxy frame, using a redshift of $`0.01676`$, obtained from the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED). Note that the redshift of NGC 5548 is uncertain by the equivalent of $`100\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$, and the value $`z=0.01676`$ refers to the value otained from optical emission-line measurements, whilst $`H\mathrm{i}`$ measurements give $`z=0.017175`$. See, for example, Mathur, Elvis, and Wilkes (1999) and references therein. Thus, our quoted galaxy-frame $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line-energy measurements carry additional uncertainties of the order of $`2`$ eV.

Table 1 shows that for the Gaussian fit we obtain a peak energy, intensity, and width of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line detected by the HEG and MEG, of $`6.402_{0.025}^{+0.027}`$ keV, $`3.6_{1.5}^{+1.7}\times 10^5\mathrm{photons}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$, and $`4515_{2645}^{+3525}`$ km/s FWHM respectively. The equivalent width (EW) of the line is $`133_{54}^{+62}`$ eV. Statistical errors are $`90\%`$ confidence for one parameter for all the above measurements. Yaqoob (1998) noted that, in the extreme Poisson limit, the $`C`$-statistic can under-estimate the statistical errors on spectral features which are comparable to or narrower than the instrument resolution. Although our spectra are not in the extreme Poisson limit, we performed simulations (as described in Yaqoob, 1998) to check the reliability of the statistical errors derived from spectral fitting. Thus, we made a grid of simulated spectra in which the input $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line intensity was set at nine values in the range 1.5–6.0 $`\times 10^5\mathrm{photons}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ and the input (Gaussian) line width was set at twelve values in the range 4–80 eV. The input line energy was set at 6.402 keV in the galaxy frame (the best-fit value from spectral fitting). Each grid point contained 1000 simulated spectra. All other model parameters (e.g. exposure time) were set at the values obtained from the Chandra data. The simulated spectra were fitted with the same power law plus Gaussian model and we found the statistical errors on the derived model parameters to be consistent with those obtained from spectral fitting. Our simulations also show that the HEG data contain a mean of only 70 photons in the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line with a $`1\sigma `$ dispersion of $`\pm 8`$ photons. This is consistent with the mean number of line photons (72) we obtain from the product of the effective area at the observed line center energy, the exposure time and the best-fitting line intensity from Table 1. A similar calculation shows that the expectation value of the number of line photons detected by the MEG is 23.

We next addressed the question of whether the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line detected by Chandra is resolved. Note that the spectral resolution of the HEG at the observed $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line energy corresponds to $`38`$ eV FWHM, or $`1800`$ km/s FWHM. Starting with the best-fitting power law plus Gaussian model to the HEG and MEG data we constructed confidence contours using the C-statistic for the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line intensity versus the line width. Figure 2 shows the 68%, 90% and 99% joint confidence regions, from which it can be seen that the emission line is resolved at the 90% level but not at 99%.

### 3.1 RELATIVISTIC DISK LINE CONTRIBUTION

We note that the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission line detected by Chandra cannot be accounted for by a relativistic disk line alone. We fitted the HEG plus MEG data with a power-law continuum and a model of the broad $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line originating in an accretion disk rotating around a Schwarzschild black hole (e.g. Fabian et al. 1989). We fixed the disk power-law emissivity index at $`2.5`$ (close to the mean of a sample of Seyfert 1 galaxies – Nandra et al. 1997), and the energy of the line in the disk rest-frame at 6.4 keV. The inner and outer disk radii were fixed at $`6_{r_g}`$ and $`1000r_g`$ respectively, where $`r_g=GM/c^2`$, and $`6_{r_g}`$ is the radius of the last marginally stable orbit around a black hole of mass $`M`$. The data are not very sensitive to the parameters that were fixed. The inclination angle ($`\theta _{\mathrm{obs}}`$) and the disk-line intensity were allowed to float. Including two independent continuum normalizations for the HEG and MEG, there are only a total of five free parameters, one less than the power law plus Gaussian line model. The best fit was much worse than the one in which the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line was modeled only by a Gaussian (see Table 1); specifically the C-statistic was higher by 10.1 for the disk-line model, for one less degree of freedom. This means that the confidence level for the Gaussian model being a better description of the line is greater than 99.8%. The best-fitting disk inclination was $`14.6_{4.0}^{+4.6}`$ degrees (90% confidence for one parameter), which is inconsistent with the best-constrained inclination derived from fitting ASCA data (see §6). Essentially, the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line detected by Chandra is too sharply peaked for even low-inclination disk-line models.

Next, we investigated the effect of including a broad, relativistic $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line in addition to the narrow Gaussian model. This time, in addition to the parameters which were fixed in the disk-line only fits, we also fixed the disk inclination angle at the best-constrained value from the ASCA data, of $`31^{}`$ (see §6). All the Gaussian parameters were still free so there is only one additional degree of freedom in this composite, dual-line model. Spectral fitting the HEG and MEG data with this model reduces the C-statistic by only 0.1 relative to the power law plus Gaussian model. We note here that the Chandra data are insensitive to the disk inclination angle, with the C-statistic changing by less than 0.6 when the inclination angle is varied over the entire range of $`0^{}`$ to $`90^{}`$. Since the relativistic line is so broad, its flux is spread out over a wide energy range and we found that it has a negligible effect on the derived parameters of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line. In particular, the intensity of the narrow line decreased by $`3\%`$ and the width increased by $`4\%`$ when the disk line was included. The best-fitting intensity and equivalent width of the relativistic disk line was $`0.4_{0.4}^{+7.2}\times 10^5\mathrm{photons}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`13_{13}^{+227}`$ eV respectively (errors are 90% confidence for three parameters). Thus, the broad component of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line is not detected due to the small effective area of the Chandra gratings but the statistical upper limits on its intensity are consistent with historical ASCA measurements (Chiang et al. 2000, and §6).

## 4 BROADENING MECHANISMS FOR THE NARROW $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ LINE

The intrinsic width of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line, which results from a combination of the natural width and level width, is less than 1 eV (Bambynek 1972) so for our purpose it is negligible. The thermal width of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line is $`1.7\sqrt{(T/10^4K)}`$ km/s so this too is negligible. We can also neglect gravitational redshifts (these are of order $`\mathrm{\Delta }E/Er_g/r`$ for $`r/r_g1`$, where $`r_gGM/c^2`$) which will be less than 1 eV at a distance greater than four light days from a black hole with a mass of $`10^8M_{}`$). In §5 and Figure 3 we show that the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line originates at $`1`$ light month from the central X-ray source.

The $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line actually consists of two lines, K$`\alpha _1`$ at 6.404 keV and K$`\alpha _2`$ at 6.391 keV, with a branching ratio of 2:1. Therefore we investigated how this affects our results as follows. Using the 2–7 keV HEG and MEG data we fitted a model consisting of a power-law continuum plus two Gaussians, with the center energies fixed at the above energies, and the intensity of the Gaussian at higher energy was constrained to have twice the intensity of the other Gaussian. The widths of the two Gaussians were constrained to vary together. We obtained best-fitting values for the total line intensity (the sum of the two Gaussian intensities) and the width which were the same as those obtained from a single Gaussian model (Table 1), and also obtained similar statistical errors. In particular we obtained a width of the line of $`4515_{2530}^{+3630}`$ km/s FWHM (compare with the single-Gaussian measurement in Table 1).

If the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line is formed in Compton-thick material such as the putative obscuring torus, Compton down-scattering will also increase the apparent width of the line. However the Compton shoulder on the red side of the line peak due to the first scattering is already an order of magnitude down in intensity relative to the unscattered component (e.g. Matt, Brandt, and Fabian 1996; Iwasawa, Fabian, and Matt, 1997). The present data are not sensitive to this level of structure.

Another uncertainty arises from a possible contribution to the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line from higher ionization states such as Fe II, which is expected if some of the line is coming from the putative obscuring torus. However, laboratory measurements of the energies of these higher ionization lines is uncertain and the HEG does not have sufficient energy resolution to place any tighter constraints other than the fact that the 90% confidence errors on the line center energy rule out a dominant contribution from ionization states higher than Fe XVIII (e.g. Makishima 1986). Thus, until better data are available we attribute the broadening of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line in the Chandra data for NGC 5548 to the bulk velocity of the emitting gas but do not rule out some contribution from emission components with velocity widths less than our formal lower limits imply.

## 5 PHYSICAL DIAGNOSTICS FROM THE NARROW $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ LINE

The narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line discovered in NGC 5548 immediately enables some robust deductions to be made. We showed in §3.1 that line is too narrow to be the core of a relativistic disk line (e.g. see Fabian et al. 1989, 2000) in which the line-emissivity falls off with increasing distance from the continuum source. In the following sections we use the measurements of the peak energy, width, intensity and equivalent width of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line to place physical constraints on the line-emission region.

### 5.1 PEAK ENERGY OF THE LINE

The peak energy of the line is $`6.40\pm 0.03`$ keV, consistent with the rest-energy for cold, neutral iron. The upper limit on the energy corresponds to an ionization state of Fe XVIII and this is consistent with the ionization parameter for the optical/UV BLR deduced by Goad and Koratkar (1998) of $`\mathrm{log}U0.60.0`$ from detailed modeling. As mentioned in §4, gravitational redshifts are not large enough to significantly shift back the line energy from ionized Fe to lower energies (the distance of the line-emitting region we deduce below produces energy shifts less than 1 eV). Therefore a dominant emission component from a warm scattering zone, consisting of He-like or H-like Fe, (a component of type 1 and type 2 AGN unification models, e.g. Krolik & Kallman, 1987) appears to be ruled out, at least in NGC 5548. Models in which the broad $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line is produced and broadened by Compton scattering in an optically thick medium (e.g. Misra and Kembhavi 1998; Mouchet et al. 2000) are likewise ruled out since the unscattered peak of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line would be at $`6.67`$ keV.

We can also rule out a scenario in which the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line is not seen directly but from reflection in optically thin cold gas out of the line-of-sight. Line photons of energy $`E_0`$ will be Compton down-scattered to a mean energy of $`E_0/[1+E_0/m_ec^2]`$. For $`E_0=6.4`$ keV this is $`80`$ eV lower than the peak energy we measure from the HEG data for NGC 5548. Of course if the scattering medium is hot, Fe XX could produce a line which is scattered back down to the observed energy. However, this requires a temperature of the order of 1 keV, and this would give rise to a Compton-broadened line with a FWHM $`670`$ eV, an order of magnitude larger than observed (see Pozdnyakopv, Sobol and Sunyaev, 1983). In fact, to obtain a line width consistent with the observed value, the gas electron temperature would have to be less than $`1.4\times 10^5`$ K.

### 5.2 LINE WIDTH

From a detailed study of the velocity widths and line/continuum time lags for optical/UV emission lines in NGC 5548, Peterson & Wandel (1999) found strong evidence for Keplerian motion of the line-emitting matter and estimated the central mass to be $`6.8\times 10^7M_{}`$. As Peterson & Wandel (1999) caution, this mass estimate is subject to uncertainties in the geometry and kinematics of the BLR, and optical/UV line reprocessing physics. The actual mass may be as small as $`5\times 10^6M_{}`$ and as high as $`10^8M_{}`$. A summary of estimates of the central mass in NGC 5548 using other methods can be found in Hayashida et al. (1998) and are consistent with this general range. In Figure 3 we plot the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line width constraints (90% confidence range) that we measured from the Chandra data on a diagram of reverberation time-delays versus velocity widths of some of the BLR optical/UV emission lines measured by Peterson & Wandel (1999). Using their value of the central mass and our $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ FWHM of $`4515_{2645}^{+3525}\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$ we obtain a size of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line-emitting region of 23 light days ($`90\%`$ confidence, one parameter limits: $`7135`$ light days). This places the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line-emitting region predominantly in the outer BLR and beyond (from Figure 3 the BLR extends from $`130`$ light days). Since we infer a low ionization state for the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line-emitting region we would also expect $`\mathrm{Mg}\mathrm{II}\lambda 2798`$ from the same region. Indeed, Goad & Koratkar (1998) measure a FWHM of $`3581_{161}^{+127}`$ km/s for the broad core of $`\mathrm{Mg}\mathrm{II}\lambda 2798`$. It is not clear why the innermost region of the BLR is apparently contributing little to the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line. Perhaps the BLR covering factor increases radially and is significantly less in the inner BLR than it is in the outer BLR. The deduced location of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line emission also implies that we might not expect the line intensity to respond to changes in the X-ray continuum intensity on timescales less than a week or so. Also, the energy resolution of the HEG does not allow us to rule out some additional contribution to the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line from material further out, such as the putative obscuring torus.

Yaqoob et al. (1993) calculated the expected line profiles, equivalent widths, and transfer functions for an $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line formed in the BLR. For pure radial motion in a spherically symmetric cloud distribution (inflow or outflow), the line profile has almost vertical sides, nearly the same intensity on the red and blue sides for the narrow widths we are considering here. The full width of such a line profile corresponds to twice the maximum flow velocity. We fitted the HEG plus MEG data with a very simplistic rectangular model of the line profile and derive a flow velocity of $`2910_{1480}^{+4295}`$ km/s.

### 5.3 LINE INTENSITY AND EQUIVALENT WIDTH

We estimate the intensity and equivalent width of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line from the BLR following Krolik and Kallman (1987) but use updated Fe abundance and K-shell cross-section data. We assume a spherically symmetric cloud distribution and neutral iron for simplicity. The line intensity can be obtained by computing the number of photons removed from the continuum above the Fe-K edge threshold energy (at $`E_K`$, or 7.11 keV for neutral Fe) and multiplying by the fluorescence yield ($`\omega _K=0.34`$ for neutral Fe) and the fraction of the sky covered by BLR clouds ($`f_c`$). If the observed power-law continuum is $`N_pE^\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{photons}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}}(E)`$ is the K-shell photoelectric absorption cross-section as a function of energy, then the predicted observed intensity of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line is

$$I_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}}=f_c\omega _Kf_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }_{E_K}^{\mathrm{}}N_pE^\mathrm{\Gamma }[1\mathrm{exp}(\sigma _{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}}A_{\mathrm{Fe}}N_H)]\mathrm{photons}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1$$
(1)
where $`N_H`$ is the column density of each cloud, $`A_{\mathrm{Fe}}`$ is the Fe abundance relative to Hydrogen, and $`f_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$ is the fraction of emission-line photons appearing in the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line (as opposed to Fe $`K\beta `$ line), and we take $`f_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }=150/167`$ (e.g. Bambynek 1972). Assuming the clouds are optically thin, we use a linear approximation for the exponential in equation 1. We fitted photoelectric absorption cross-section data from Henke tables222http://www-cxro.lbl.gov/optical\_constants with a simple power-law and obtained

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}}(E)=3.79\left(\frac{E}{E_K}\right)^{2.646}\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{per}\mathrm{atom}.$$
(2)
for $`EE_K`$. This is not as steep as the $`(E/E_K)^3`$ relation used in older work (e.g. Krolik and Kallman 1987; Yaqoob et al. 1993). Using an Fe abundance of $`4.68\times 10^5`$ (Anders and Grevesse 1989) the line intensity is then

$`I_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$ $`=`$ $`1.04\times 10^5\left({\displaystyle \frac{f_c}{0.35}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _K}{0.34}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{A}_{\mathrm{Fe}}}{4.68\times 10^5}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{N_H}{10^{23}\mathrm{cm}^2}}\right)\times `$ (3)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{3.2}{\mathrm{\Gamma }+1.646}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{E_K}{7.11}}\right)^{1\mathrm{\Gamma }}\left(7.11\right)^{1.5\mathrm{\Gamma }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{N_p}{4.68\times 10^3}}\right)\mathrm{photons}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1.`$
The equivalent width of the line is

$`EW_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$ $`=`$ $`42\left({\displaystyle \frac{f_c}{0.35}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _K}{0.34}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{A}_{\mathrm{Fe}}}{4.68\times 10^5}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{N_H}{10^{23}\mathrm{cm}^2}}\right)\times `$ (4)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{3.2}{\mathrm{\Gamma }+1.646}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{E_K}{7.11}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{E_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }}{E_K}}\right)^\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{eV}.`$
Here $`E_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$ is the center energy of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line. All quantities in the above equations refer to the source frame. The above approximations are valid if the Fe-K absorption optical depth at all energies is much less than unity. Effectively this means $`N_H5.6\times 10^{23}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (using the maximum optical depth, at $`E_K`$). Exact calculation using numerical integration showed that for $`N_H=10^{23}\mathrm{cm}^2`$, the approximations lead to underestimates of the line intensity and equivalent width of $`6\%`$.

In a recent detailed study involving modeling the broad optical/UV emission lines in NGC 5548, Goad and Koratkar (1998) found that a covering factor of 35% and a column density of $`10^{23}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ satisfy the observational constraints. These values, along with parameters measured for NGC 5548 from the Chandra data, namely $`N_p=4.68\times 10^3`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.54`$, give a predicted $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line intensity of $`10^5\mathrm{photons}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ and an EW of 36 eV. These both fall short of the observed values ($`3.6_{1.5}^{+1.7}\mathrm{photons}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ for the intensity and $`133_{54}^{+62}`$ for the EW) by a significant factor. If the BLR is responsible for the production of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line, the observed intensity and equivalent width could be reconciled with the predicted values if the continuum level was a factor of $`3`$ higher in the recent past before the Chandra observation such that the line had not responded to the decline in the continuum by the time of the Chandra observation. Historical values of the 2–10 keV flux range from $`1.76.4\times 10^{11}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ (from HEASARC archives and Chiang et al. 2000 and references therein), so such a scenario is possible. There is of course the possibility that there is an additional contribution to the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line from the putative obscuring torus of a few tens of eV. A torus component of the line is not ruled out by our velocity-width measurements and would bring the observed and predicted strength of the line into better agreement with a more modest implied change in the continuum level. Another effect which would increase the predicted equivalent width of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line is anisotropic X-ray continuum illumination of the BLR (see Yaqoob et al. 1993 for details).

## 6 EFFECT OF THE NARROW LINE ON THE PARAMETERS OF THE RELATIVISTIC LINE

NGC 5548, like many other Seyfert 1 galaxies, is known to have a relativistically broadened $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line (Figure 1 (b); Mushotzky et al. 1995; Nandra et al. 1997). The broad line cannot be clearly seen in the Chandra grating data because of the small collecting area and in §4 we placed formal limits on the intensity of the broad component from the Chandra data. We now investigate the effect on the relativistic line parameters derived from the ASCA data when a narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission-line component is included. There have been three observing campaigns of NGC 5548 with ASCA in 1993, 1996 and 1998. The latter two consisted of multiple observations spaced over one to three weeks and we used the summed data in each campaign. We fitted the 3–10 keV spectra with a power law plus a model for the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission line originating in a disk rotating about a Schwarzschild black hole as described in §3.1. No additional narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line was included at first. As in §3.1 we fixed the disk-line parameters to which the data are insensitive, namely the power-law emissivity index at $`2.5`$, the inner and outer disk radii at $`6_{r_g}`$ and $`1000r_g`$, respectively, and the energy of the line in the disk rest-frame at 6.4 keV. The inclination angle ($`\theta _{\mathrm{obs}}`$) and the disk-line intensity ($`I_D`$) were allowed to float. Acceptable fits were obtained for all three spectra and the results are shown in Table 2. It can be seen that $`\theta _{\mathrm{obs}}`$ is consistent with a single value (the weighted mean is $`31.5^{}\pm 6.5^{}`$) but the EW during the July 1998 observation was almost a factor 2 less than that in the other two epochs, implying time delays between variation in the continuum and line intensity. Indeed the line intensity was less in this observation than in the previous two observations which both had a lower continuum flux.

Next, we added a narrow Gaussian to the model, with center energy and width fixed at the values derived from the HEG plus MEG measurements (Table 1). The intensities of both the broad and narrow components were allowed to float. The results are shown in Table 3. The disk inclination angle is consistent with the spectral fits which did not include a narrow line (Table 2) but it is poorly constrained in the 1993 and 1998 observations. The best constraint, from the 1996 observation is $`\theta _{\mathrm{obs}}=31\pm 8`$ degrees. It can be seen from Table 3 that all the ASCA data for 1993 and 1998 are consistent with the existence of a narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line with the same intensity measured by Chandra. However, for the 1996 observation, the 90% confidence, three-parameter errors on the narrow-line intensity do not formally overlap with the Chandra measurement. We conclude (with caution because of uncertainties in absolute calibration), that the narrow-line intensity is variable and was less during the 1996 ASCA observation than the values measured by Chandra and by ASCA in 1993 and 1998. This conclusion is supported by the fact that $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$ decreases by 8.1 and 76.9 (for an additional degree of freedom) when a narrow line is included in the 1993 and 1998 ASCA dual-line spectral fits but $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=0`$ for the 1996 ASCA data (see Table 3).

## 7 IMPLICATIONS FOR VARIABILITY OF THE $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ LINE IN SEYFERT 1 GALAXIES

The intensity of the disk line derived from the ASCA dual-line spectral fits (§6) appears to be variable, it naturally being less for larger values of the intensity of the best-fitting narrow-line component (Table 3). Although it appears that both the intensity and EW of the disk line may be variable amongst the three ASCA observations, the 90% confidence errors formally overlap so we cannot draw any firm conclusions. If the disk-line variability is real then the line intensity is not simply correlated with the observed continuum level because the 1998 observation, the one with the highest continuum flux, appears to have the smallest disk-line intensity. Time delays between the continuum and line variability are expected to be less than 10 hours for a black hole mass of $`7\times 10^8M_{}`$ (appropriate for NGC 5548; e.g. Peterson and Wandel, 1999) for line emission from within $`100r_g`$. Since the continuum does not vary significantly on this timescale during the observing periods this implies that the response time of the disk line may be longer than expected, implying more emission from larger radii than is assumed. Thus, the broad disk-line variability, if it is real, has difficulty being reconciled with the simple disk model. Chiang et al. (2000) actually found that the total Fe-K line intensity (as measured by RXTE) is anticorrelated with the X-ray continuum flux. Now we have shown that when one takes account of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line the problem is worse, since Table 2 shows that even without a narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line the disk line EW in July 1998 is already less than expected ( and any additional narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line can only decrease the disk-line intensity).

Since the continuum level during the Chandra observation was at least a factor $`2`$ less than that during the ASCA observations we might expect the disk line to have a smaller intensity in the Chandra data. However, in §4 we showed that the Chandra data cannot constrain the broad-line component very well and obtained an upper limit of $`7.6\times 10^5\mathrm{photons}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ on its intensity, formally consistent with the values obtained from all the ASCA observations.

Recent campaigns to investigate the short-term variability of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line in Seyfert 1 galaxies and its relation to the continuum variability have been conducted for a handful of sources (NGC 7314, Yaqoob et al. 1996; MCG $``$6-30-15, Iwasawa et al. 1996, 1999, Reynolds 2000; NGC 3516, Nandra et al. 1999; NGC 4051, Wang et al. 1999; NGC 5548, Chiang et al. 2000; NGC 7469, Nandra et al. 2000). If one assumes that all or most of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line emission comes from the putative accretion disk then one expects the line intensity to track the continuum on timescales appropriate for the size and geometry of of the X-ray source and disk system. Evidence for this is found only in NGC 7314 and NGC 7469. The other sources show complex behavior which cannot be interpreted in terms of this simple model. Even in NGC 7314, only the broad wings of the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line respond to the continuum, leaving a constant intensity core centered at 6.4 keV (Yaqoob et al. 1996). This implies that NGC 7314 also has a separate, non-disk narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission line component, just like NGC 5548. The NGC 7469 data were taken with RXTE so do not have the spectral resolution to identify a constant core component of the emission line. Moreover, no study has yet shown the expected correlation between the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line intensity and the Compton-reflection continuum (which also comes from the accretion disk). This is such a fundamental prediction of the disk model for the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line, yet when it has been tested either no correlation is found, or else an anti-correlation has been found (such behavior is actually found in NGC 5548; see Chiang et al. 2000 and §6). If a narrow, non-disk $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line component becomes important in general for low-flux states of Seyfert 1 galaxies, then variability studies need to take this into account. While discussions of a non-disk component to the $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ lines have been around ever since their discovery in Seyfert 1 galaxies with early proportional counters in the late seventies, the Chandra observation of NGC 5548 now provides direct observational proof that this component exists, at least in one source.

## 8 CONCLUSIONS

Using the Chandra High-Energy Grating we detected a narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission line in the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548, with a center energy of $`6.40\pm 0.03`$ keV, a FWHM of $`4515_{2645}^{+3525}`$ km/s and an equivalent width (EW) of $`133_{54}^{+62}`$ eV (90% confidence errors, three parameters of interest; all quantities are in the galaxy frame). The line is only marginally resolved. This emission line is distinct from the broad $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line in NGC 5548 and other Seyfert 1 galaxies, thought to originate in a disk rotating around a central black hole. The Chandra data are inconsistent with the line originating only from a disk because it is too sharply peaked even for low-inclination disks. The narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line center energy, velocity width and equivalent width measurements are consistent with the bulk of the line originating in cold, neutral matter in the outer BLR at about a light-week to a few light-months from the central source. We also do not, however, rule out ionization states up to about Fe XVIII.

The agreement of the line equivalent width and intensity with predicted values assumes a spherically symmetric distribution of BLR clouds with a covering factor of 35% and typical cloud column densities of $`10^{23}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (values consistent with optical/UV emission-line studies) and is conditional upon the X-ray continuum having been a factor $`3`$ higher in the immediate past prior to the Chandra observation. The 2–10 keV flux during the Chandra observation was a factor of 2.5 below typical historical values so this is not unreasonable. The continuum variability constraint would be relieved somewhat if there were a contribution to the narrow line from a putative, parsec-scale obscuring torus, which has been postulated as a key component of unification schemes of Seyfert 1 and Seyfert 2 galaxies. Indeed, such a contribution is not ruled out by the data. Anisotropic X-ray illumination of a spherical BLR would also increase the expected equivalent width of the narrow line. Considering its deduced location, the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line iteself may vary on timescales of weeks to months. Indeed, examination of archival ASCA data provides evidence for variability of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line.

We do not yet know whether the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission line is a common feature of Seyfert 1 galaxies. From a moderate sample of sources, Nandra et al. (1997) placed an upper limit on a narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ component in the overall $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line profile typically of $`60`$ eV, but some sources show stronger evidence for a separate, narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line (e.g. Yaqoob & Weaver 1996; Weaver and Reynolds 1998; Done et al. 2000). In the case of NGC 5548 one of the likely reasons for the relatively large EW of the narrow component observed by Chandra is that the continuum intensity happened to be significantly lower during the Chandra observation compared to the upper range of historical values. It will be important to obtain Chandra data for a large sample of Seyfert 1 galaxies. However, studying the variability of the narrow line is rather expensive with Chandra . Monitoring the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line and using it for reverberation mapping with future X-ray astronomy missions with larger effective area will allow us to independently measure the central black-hole mass, complementing reverberation studies using optical/UV emission lines. Combining these future variability studies with spectral analysis with an energy of resolution of the order of 1 eV will allow us to constrain the details of the geometry and dynamics of the gas which are not accessible by current observations.

We thank Dr. Kimberly Weaver and Professor Julian Krolik for valuable discussions relating to this work. We also thank Drs. H. Marshall and F. Nicastro for their helpful advice on Chandra data analysis issues. We are grateful to an anonymous referee for reviewing the manuscript and making some important suggestions. This research made use of HEASARC online databases.

## Figure Captions

Figure 1
(a) Chandra HETG spectra for NGC 5548 from the HEG (solid error bars) and MEG (crosses for data points with dotted error bars). Solid line is the best-fitting power-law continuum to HEG plus MEG data but with the best-fitting HEG normalization. The $`\pm 1`$ orders are summed. The narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission-line component is clearly detected in both the HEG and MEG. (b) ASCA SIS0+SIS1 relativistic $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line profile for the July 1996 observation of NGC 5548 (see text). (c) Close-up of the HEG spectrum; the data are smoothed with a boxcar five bins wide, where the binsize is $`0.005\AA `$. The solid line is the best-fitting model which consists of a power-law continuum and a narrow Gaussian. All parameters have the best-fitting values derived from fitting the HEG data (Table 1). Energy scale in all three panels is for the observer’s frame.

Figure 2
Joint two-parameter confidence region of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ line intensity versus Gaussian width from spectral fitting to the HEG and MEG Chandra data. The contours correspond to 68%, 90% and 99% confidence.

Figure 3
Measurements by Peterson and Wandel (1999) of the time lags (relative to the appropriate continuum ) and the FWHM of various optical/UV emission lines in NGC 5548. The dashed line corresponds to the best Keplerian model fit obtained by Wandel and Peterson (1999) for the data from which they obtain a central mass of $`6.8\times 10^7M_{}`$. The dotted lines show the best-fitting parameters and 90% confidence (one-parameter) limits on the FWHM of the narrow $`\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{K}\alpha `$ emission line measured from our Chandra HEG plus MEG data (see Table 1).


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# Polarization Sweeps in Rotation Powered Pulsars

## 1 Introduction

The characteristic S-curve polarization sweeps exhibited by pulsar emission have spawned a large body of research, both theoretical and observational. Ever since the highly-successful rotating vector model of Radhakrishnan & Cooke (1969), hereafter RC, fitting pulsar polarization profiles has been a standard method of constraining the underlying pulsar geometry. Some pulsars, however, have polarization behavior which does not fit the standard S-curve. The millisecond pulsars, for example, seem to have noisy and on average flatter polarization sweeps than normal (Xilouris, et al., 1998). In attempts to understand these deviations, several relativistic and plasma effects have been proposed which would modify the sweep through plasma propagation effects (Barnard & Arons, 1986; McKinnon, 1997), through aberration of the beaming direction from strict parallelism (Blaskiewicz, Cordes, & Wasserman, 1991), or through multiple interacting orthogonal modes (McKinnon & Stinebring, 1998).

Such effects become progressively more important as the radius of emission (or the polarization-limiting radius) approaches the light cylinder distance, $`R_Lc/\mathrm{\Omega }`$. $`r/R_L`$ is very small in the polar cap emission model for pulsars ($`rR_{}`$), a model consistent with most observational constraints on $`r`$ (Rankin, 1990). Since $`R_L`$ is significantly smaller for millisecond pulsars, due to their faster rotation, we expect these effects to be proportionally larger.

However, most of the departures from the pure RC model previously considered have depended on effects of second-order or higher in $`r/R_L`$, such as the field sweepback perturbation of Barnard (1986). The only first-order effect which has been considered is the aberrational shift due to the co-rotational velocity, examined by Blaskiewicz, Cordes, & Wasserman (1991), hereafter BCW. In this paper, we re-examine that effect and analyze an additional first-order effect due to current flow above the polar cap.

This is a phenomenological study, guided by the success of the rotating vector model. That model contains three chief assumptions: that the observed radiation is beamed along the direction of the magnetic field lines, that the polarization of the radiation is at a fixed angle to the radius of curvature of the field lines, as is the case for vacuum curvature radiation, and that the underlying magnetic field is a dipole. To go beyond this, we relax some of these assumptions in physically-motivated ways. Keeping the assumption that the polarization is related to the curvature of the field lines, we include aberrational change in the beaming direction and the effects of currents on the underlying dipole field.

After taking these effects into account, we find that aberration delays the phase of the polarization sweep with respect to the center of emission and, in a plot of polarization angle vs. rotation phase, shifts the entire sweep downwards, while current flow shifts the entire sweep upwards. If both effects are present, they may lead to sharp jumps in the polarization angle near the edges of current-carrying zones.

## 2 Polarization Perturbations

Since we assume that the polarization is related to the acceleration of the emitting particles and that the emission is beamed along the direction of motion, the particle velocity field is the core quantity examined in this paper. Particles follow the magnetic field, so any perturbations to that field are reflected in the velocity.

We apply the same general method to several perturbations. Starting with a simple dipole field, we add a perturbation to find the new velocity field of the emitting particles. From that field, we can calculate the radius-of-curvature vector of the particles at each point in space. Then, for any pulsar phase, we find the position where the velocity field at a given radius $`r`$ points towards the observer, evaluate the radius of curvature vector at that point, and project it onto the sky to find the observed polarization angle.

To obtain analytic expressions, these calculations are done to first order in $`r/R_L`$. This naturally gives the difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi `$ between the normal polarization angle sweep, $`\psi (\mathrm{\Phi })`$ and the perturbed sweep, $`\psi ^{}(\mathrm{\Phi })=\psi (\mathrm{\Phi })+\mathrm{\Delta }\psi (\mathrm{\Phi })`$. More details of this procedure are given in Appendix A.

Two angles define the basic geometry of a pulsar: the angle $`\alpha `$ between the rotation axis ($`𝛀`$) and the magnetic moment ($`𝝁`$), and the inclination angle $`i`$ between the rotation axis and the line of sight to the observer ($`\widehat{\mathbf{}}`$), see Figure 1. The angle of closest approach, the minimum angle between $`𝝁`$ and $`𝛀`$, is then $`\beta i\alpha `$.

These calculations are done in magnetic-centered coordinates, defined so that the $`z`$ axis ($`\theta =0`$) is along the magnetic moment $`𝝁`$, the rotation axis $`𝛀`$ is fixed in the $`xz`$ ($`\varphi =0`$) plane, and the vector to the observer $`\widehat{\mathbf{}}`$ is also in the $`xz`$ plane at $`t=0`$.

We have also numerically calculated the expected polarization angle sweeps for each perturbation examined. Given a modified velocity field, we directly solved for the new emission point, computed the radius of curvature vector, and compared it to the rotation axis to find a polarization angle. These numerical results confirmed the analytic perturbation theory.

### 2.1 Offset dipoles

One suggested perturbation to the magnetic field is an offset dipole, where the center of the dipolar field is offset from the center of the star, e.g. Chen & Ruderman (1993). This has negligible effect on the polarization sweep. In an offset dipole, the magnetic origin revolves about the center of the neutron star with a radius of $`\delta <R_{}`$. In turn, in the frame of the magnetic field, the observer appears to move in a circle of identical radius. The electrodynamics in these field-centered coordinates is the same as in the star-centered case, so the only change in the observed emission is that due to the effective motion of the observer. This motion and the resultant changes are tiny, on the order of $`\delta /d1`$, where $`d`$ is the distance to the observer.

### 2.2 Polar Field Aligned Current

Most models of the pulsar polar cap include a current of charged particles streaming along the field lines, a current approximately equal to the Goldreich-Julian density moving at the speed of light. This current induces a magnetic field of $`𝐁_1=(r/R_L)(J/J_{GJ})B\mathrm{cos}\alpha \widehat{𝒆}_\varphi `$; this field is purely toroidal with respect to the magnetic axis.

From Appendix D, the resulting polarization angle shift is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\psi =\frac{10}{3}\frac{r}{R_L}\frac{J}{J_{GJ}}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(1\frac{7}{40}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _0\right)\mathrm{radians}$$
(1)
where $`\theta _0`$ is the magnetic colatitude of the ($`0^{th}`$-order) emission point, see Appendix B. At the center of the pulse, $`\theta _0`$ has its minimum value, $`\theta _0(2/3)|\alpha i|=(2/3)|\beta |`$. At the boundary of the last closed field line, $`\theta _0`$ reaches its maximum, $`\theta _0(2/3)\sqrt{r/R_L}`$. For $`r/R_L`$ small, the range of $`\theta _0`$ is also small, and the perturbation is mostly flat across the observed pulse.

In terms of the orbital phase, the perturbation is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\psi \frac{10}{3}\frac{r}{R_L}\frac{J}{J_{GJ}}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(\frac{27}{32}+\frac{5}{32}\mathrm{cos}\beta \right)\frac{25}{192}\frac{r}{R_L}\frac{J}{J_{GJ}}\mathrm{sin}2\alpha \mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{sin}^2\mathrm{\Omega }t.$$
(2)
To get this form, we used the approximation formulae of Appendix C, assumed that $`\mathrm{\Omega }t`$ was small enough that $`\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t1(1/2)\mathrm{sin}^2\mathrm{\Omega }t`$, and simplified the constants by taking $`28/455/8`$, which is good to 0.4%. Here, $`t=0`$ corresponds to the center of the pulse profile, where the slope of the polarization angle curve is greatest.

In terms of observables, $`r/R_L1.2^{}P_{0.1}^1r_{100}`$, where $`r_{100}`$ is the emission radius in units of 100 km and $`P_{0.1}`$ is the pulse period in units of 0.1 seconds, so the magnitude of this shift is $`4.0^{}P_{0.1}^1(J/J_{GJ})r_{100}`$.

### 2.3 Aberration

As discussed by Blaskiewicz, Cordes, & Wasserman (1991), the rotation of the magnetosphere itself affects the velocities of particles moving along field lines. Inside the light cylinder, the field lines are stationary in the frame co-rotating with the star. However, as particles move along these lines, their paths curve both because of the curvature of the field line itself and because the frame of those field lines rotates with the star. Even if the field lines were straight, the paths of the particles moving along them would be helices in the inertial frame. This extra curvature generates a perturbation of the instantaneous particle directions equal to the co-rotation velocity, $`𝛀\times 𝐫`$.

To lowest order, this perturbation shifts the polarization angle by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\psi =2\frac{r}{R_L}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi _0}{\mathrm{sin}\theta _0}+O(\frac{r}{R_L}).$$
(3)
Since $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _0`$ is generally tiny, on the order of the polar cap size, $`\theta _c\sqrt{r/R_L}`$, this perturbation is of order $`\sqrt{r/R_L}`$, a half-order lower than the constant shift produced by the current.

This shift has the same form as a phase shift of the entire polarization sweep by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }=3\frac{r}{R_L}$$
(4)
with respect to the geometric center of the pulse phase, as was found previously by BCW. Since aberration advances the emission itself by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }=r/R_L`$ due to simple beaming, the total phase shift with respect to the emission is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }=4r/R_L`$.

From numerical investigations, representing this effect as a phase shift closely matches the perturbation. The analytic method presented here only gives the first order correction (in $`r/R_L`$) to the sweep; higher-order terms quickly become important, since aberration adds appreciable curvature to central field lines which formerly had none. Representing the change as a phase shift better reflects these higher-order terms, while giving the same first-order result.

If Figure 3, we show the numerically-calculated polarization sweep for $`r/R_L=0.1`$; this gives a good idea of the character of the perturbation. As shown in Figure 4, when $`r/R_L=0.01`$, the analytically predicted first-order shift is nearly identical to the numerical, while at $`r/R_L=0.1`$ there is a noticeable difference between the two, which is mostly corrected by casting the perturbation as a phase shift.

Once this phase shift is removed, we are left with a remaining perturbation of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{10}{3}\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(1\frac{7}{10}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _0\right)+\frac{47}{12}\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta _0\mathrm{cos}\varphi _0+O(\mathrm{sin}^3\theta _0).$$
(5)
See Appendix G for details. In terms of the pulsar phase, this is approximately

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Psi }\frac{10}{3}\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(\frac{3}{8}+\frac{5}{8}\mathrm{cos}\beta \right)+\frac{47}{18}\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\beta \frac{23}{144}\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{sin}2\alpha \mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{sin}^2\mathrm{\Omega }t$$
(6)
using the same approximations as for Eq. (2).

The constant portion of this polarization angle shift cancels the constant portion of the perturbation due to polar current flow when $`J/J_{GJ}=1`$. However, if $`J/J_{GJ}1`$, there is a nonzero shift, providing a diagnostic of the magnitude of current flow. The remaining linear and quadratic terms produce slight changes to the shape of the polarization angle sweep.

### 2.4 Relativistic Sweep-back

The actual magnetic field of a pulsar will differ from the ideal dipole due to the relativistic sweep-back of field lines, caused by the induced displacement current. The full vacuum fields are given in Deutsch (1955) and most recently restated by Melatos (1997). Admittedly, the region surrounding a pulsar is almost certainly not a vacuum, but the morphology of the vacuum field should roughly reflect the structure of the magnetic field with conduction currents.

The difference between the Deutsch fields and the vacuum dipole is second order in $`r/R_L`$, however, so the first order effects considered here dominate at low altitudes ($`r/R_L<0.2`$).

In the non-vacuum case, the corresponding perturbation is the magnetic field due to the rotation of the Goldreich-Julian density. This field component satisfies $`\times 𝐁_{rot}=4\pi (𝛀\times 𝐫/c)\eta _{GJ}`$. Since both $`𝛀\times 𝐫/c`$ and $`r\eta _{GJ}/B_0`$ are manifestly first-order in $`r/R_L`$, $`B_{rot}/B_0`$ is second order and therefore has been neglected.

## 3 Return Currents

While the perturbations described in the previous section are general effects, this section applies those effects to a specific model of the polar cap. To maintain charge balance, the current flowing out from the polar cap must be balanced by a return current elsewhere in the system. Here, we assume this current flows along the boundary layer of last-closed field lines, surrounding the polar cone (Goldreich and Julian 1969).

Outside this auroral sheath, the net current flow through a loop surrounding the pole is zero, so there is no magnetic field perturbation due to the current. Only the aberrational shift remains. The field on the open field lines stays the same, containing perturbations from both current and aberration, while within the layer itself the current perturbation is quickly eliminated. For more detailed analytic models, see Appendix E.

If this return current layer is illuminated by emission, it will produce a characteristic signature in the polarization sweep, Figure 5. The sharp transitions are caused by the current perturbation turning on and off as the line of sight passes through the return current layer.

Although the return current layer is not normally thought of as a site of emission, it may be visible either through direct emission, by some form of two-stream instability, or through refraction or scattering of radiation emitted within the cone. Since we are more interested in the consequences of current flow above polar caps, we leave the precise mechanism of the emission open. If the return current is composed of outflowing positrons or ions, the beaming properties would be much the same as those of the primary beam, while if the return current interpenetrates the outflow, even the identical mechansism would reflect the presence of the return current. Transitions like the one in Figure 5 would be strong evidence for emission in this region or radiation transfer through it.

In addition to these specific effects, a more general conclusion is that inhomogeneities on the order of $`J_{GJ}`$ in the current flow above pulsar polar caps should produce perturbations in the polarization angle sweep on the order of $`r/R_L`$.

## 4 Discussion

Given a single polarization angle sweep, at a single frequency, observers can hope to see the effects of any current inhomogeneities, small deviations from the standard shape caused by higher-order terms, and the phase shift between the center of the polarization angle sweep and the pulse itself. The constant offsets caused by current flow would be detectable only through comparison of multiple frequencies, which would also help confirm any of the other effects.

From a more qualitative point of view, these concepts may be used to help understand certain difficult objects. For example, the potentially large jumps in the polarization angle when the line of sight crosses a return current layer could explain some of the shifts which are normally ascribed to orthogonal modes. Clearly, this result does not explain orthogonal modes in general, as can be seen from the single-pulse studies of XXX, but these shifts could masquerade as orthogonal mode transitions in individual pulsars.

For example, in J0437-0415, the magnitude of the “orthogonal” transitions changes with frequency, ranging from $`90^{}`$ at high frequency to $`70^{}`$ and $`40^{}`$ at lower frequencies, suggesting that either these are orthogonal modes combined with propagation effects or, perhaps, that the $`90^{}`$ shift is a coincidence and these shifts are instead due to current features in the magnetosphere.

In addition to polarization jumps, J0437-0415 displays a polarization phase lag in which higher frequencies lag lower (Navarro, 1997). Combined with the increasing transition amplitude with frequency, this suggests that the higher frequencies arise from higher in the magnetosphere than the lower frequencies, contrary to the normal radius-to-frequency map. Since most millisecond pulsars do not display the pulse widening with decreased frequency that is one of the best arguments for radius-to-frequency mapping in normal pulsars, it is certainly conceivable that the structure of the emission region is different. In any case, the small range of phase shifts seen argues for a small emission region, on the order of a few kilometers.

## 5 Summary

In this paper, we have shown how two physical effects, rotational aberration and current flow, affect the polarization angle of observed radiation. The strength of these effects is proportional to the height of the emission region.

In brief, current flow tends to shift the entire polarization angle sweep upwards in a plot of polarization angle vs. phase, while aberration tends both to shift the sweep downwards and to phase shift it. The largest of these is the aberrational phase shift between the center of the emission profile and the center of the polarization sweep.

The Goldreich-Julian current and aberration produce equal and opposite constant offsets to the polarization angle sweep, effectively cancelling each other. Any deviations in the current from the fiducial Goldreich-Julian value will break this cancellation, giving a potential indicator of the magnitude of current flow above the polar cap.

Inhomogeneities in the current flow structure above the polar cap should be revealed as perturbations, of order $`r/R_L`$, in the polarization sweep. The specific case of an auroral return current layer would appear as sharp transitions along the edge of the observed pulse, potentially correlated with conal emission. These jumps may appear similar to orthogonal modes, but should have an amplitude which changes with frequency, if frequency is related to emission radius. In the presence of current sheets, single-pulse polarimetry should show a shift in both orthogonal modes, provided that multiple altitudes do not contribute to the observed radiation at one frequency. This is quite different from the existing single-pulse studies (Gil & Lyne, 1995; Gangadhara, 1997), which show a simple shift in the relative amplitude of two existing modes.

We would like to thank Don Backer and Andrea Somer for illuminating discussions about the observability of these effects and Anatoly Spitkovsky for helpful animations of swept-back field lines.

## Appendix A Geometric Method

From classical differential geometry, the tangent vector is the unit vector along $`𝐁`$, $`\widehat{𝒕}=𝐁/|B|`$, while the normal vector $`\widehat{𝒏}`$ is the unit vector along the radius of curvature. For highly relativistic flow, radiation is beamed along the direction of the particle velocity, so at any instant the observed radiation comes from the spot in the magnetosphere where the tangent vector $`\widehat{𝒕}`$ points in the direction of the observer.

For normal vacuum radiation, the polarization vector must lie in the plane perpendicular to $`\widehat{𝒕}`$; for the particular case of curvature radiation, the polarization is almost entirely along $`\widehat{𝒏}`$. For plasma processes, this restriction is relaxed, but in the absence of other directional perturbations, such as density gradients not along $`\widehat{𝒏}`$, we expect that the polarization angle would be related to the direction of curvature of the field lines. Density gradients along $`\widehat{𝒏}`$, which we expect if polar cap pair creation is the main source of the plasma, would likewise link the polarization to the magnetic geometry.

To trace the orientation of the field, we use the binormal vector, defined by $`𝐛\widehat{𝒕}\times \widehat{𝒏}`$. This is equivalent to tracing the normal, but is computationally more convenient, since the binormal of a dipole field is simply a constant vector along $`𝐞_\varphi `$.

The observed polarization angle is then set by finding the angle between the normal vector and the projected rotation axis of the pulsar. Since the tangent points towards the observer, both the normal and the binormal are automatically in the plane of the sky, but the rotation axis must be projected, giving $`𝛀_p\widehat{𝛀}(\widehat{𝛀}\widehat{𝒕})\widehat{𝒕}`$.

If the angle between the rotation axis and the binormal is $`\psi ^{}`$, then $`\mathrm{cos}\psi ^{}=\widehat{𝒃}\widehat{𝛀}_p`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}\psi ^{}=\widehat{𝒕}(\widehat{𝒃}\times \widehat{𝛀}_p)`$. Since the angle made by the normal vector is $`90^{}`$ different from that made by the binormal, the true polarization angle is given by

$$\mathrm{tan}\psi =\mathrm{cot}\psi ^{}=\frac{\widehat{𝒃}\widehat{𝛀}}{\widehat{𝒃}(\widehat{𝒕}\times \widehat{𝛀})}$$
(A1)
where we have expressed the result in terms of $`\widehat{𝛀}`$, rather than $`𝛀_p`$.

For a standard dipole field, this gives the normal polarization curve,

$$\mathrm{tan}\psi =\frac{\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }t}{\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}i\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t},$$
(A2)
c.f. Radhakrishnan & Cooke (1969).

In general, we want to know the change in the polarization angle due to a small perturbation to the background magnetic field, $`𝐁=𝐁_0+𝐁_1`$. This change is due to shifts in both the emission point and the binormal itself.

To first order, the new tangent vector $`\widehat{𝒕}`$ will be the sum of the initial tangent vector, $`\widehat{𝒕}_0`$, and a perturbation $`𝐭_1`$ perpendicular to $`\widehat{𝒕}_0`$. (Any component along $`\widehat{𝒕}_0`$ is simply absorbed into the normalization.)

The new curvature vector is

$$𝜿=(\widehat{𝒕})\widehat{𝒕}=(\widehat{𝒕}_0)\widehat{𝒕}_0+(\widehat{𝒕}_0)𝐭_1+(𝐭_1)\widehat{𝒕}_0=𝜿_0+𝜿_1$$
(A3)
where $`𝜿\widehat{𝒏}/\rho `$, $`𝜿_0=\widehat{𝒏}_0/\rho _0=(\widehat{𝒕}_0)\widehat{𝒕}_0`$, and

$$𝜿_1=(\widehat{𝒕}_0)𝐭_1+(𝐭_1)\widehat{𝒕}_0$$
(A4)
When normalized, the component of $`𝜿_1`$ along $`\widehat{𝒏}_0`$ is absorbed into the normalization, giving a perturbed normal vector of $`\widehat{𝒏}=\widehat{𝒏}_0+𝐧_1`$, where

$$𝐧_1=\rho _0(𝜿_1(\widehat{𝒏}_0𝜿_1)\widehat{𝒏}_0).$$
(A5)
The perturbed binormal is then $`\widehat{𝒃}=\widehat{𝒃}_0+𝐛_1`$, where

$$𝐛_1=𝐭_1\times \widehat{𝒏}_0+\widehat{𝒕}_0\times 𝐧_1.$$
(A6)
The second contribution to the polarization angle change comes from the change in the emission point. If the unperturbed field points towards the observer at $`𝐫_0`$, the perturbed does so at $`𝐫_0+𝐫_1`$, where $`𝐫_1`$ can be found by solving

$$\widehat{𝒕}_0(𝐫_0)+\widehat{𝒕}_0𝐫_1+𝐭_1(𝐫_0)=\widehat{\mathbf{}}$$
(A7)
or

$$𝐫_1=[𝐭_0]^1𝐭_1(𝐫_0)$$
(A8)
This expression is underdetermined, as there is typically an entire line of points where the field points towards the observer.

In this paper, we assume that emission at a given frequency arises at (or decouples from the magnetic field at) a fixed radius, so we constrain the radius to remain constant. This “lateral” motion shifts the emission site to a different field line from the unperturbed one, and, if transverse gradients are steep, with a size scale shorter than roughly $`r^2\mathrm{sin}\theta /R_L`$, this will likely affect the emission properties. Near the boundaries of the polar cap, such transverse gradients may become important, requiring a more careful treatment.

This changes the observed binormal by an additional $`𝜹𝐛=\widehat{𝒃}_0𝐫_1`$, giving a total change of $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝐛=𝐛_1+𝜹𝐛`$. Since this change in the binormal is perpendicular to the unperturbed binormal, the magnitude of the change in polarization angle is simply $`|\mathrm{\Delta }\psi |=|\mathrm{\Delta }𝐛|`$.

Getting the sign correct requires comparing the change in the binormal to the direction of the projected rotation axis, or

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\psi =\frac{\widehat{𝒕}_0(\mathrm{\Delta }𝐛\times \mathrm{\Omega }_p)}{\widehat{𝒃}_0\mathrm{\Omega }_p}.$$
(A9)
Since all of these steps are linear in the perturbation, multiple perturbations may be considered separately, then simply added. In later sections, we consider in turn two different possible perturbations to the basic dipole field.

## Appendix B Unperturbed Field

In $`(r,\theta ,\varphi )`$ polar coordinates centered on the magnetic axis, the unperturbed dipole field is

$$𝐁_0=[\frac{2\mu \mathrm{cos}\theta }{r^3},\frac{\mu \mathrm{sin}\theta }{r^3},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}]$$
(B1)
which gives a tangent vector field of

$$\widehat{𝒕}_0\frac{𝐁_0}{|B_0|}=\frac{1}{N_1}[\mathrm{cos}\theta ,\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}\theta ,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}]$$
(B2)
where

$$N_1\left(1\frac{3}{4}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)^{1/2}$$
(B3)
The curvature vector is then

$$𝜿_0(\widehat{𝒕}_0)\widehat{𝒕}_0=\frac{3}{4}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\theta }{rN_1^4}(1\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta )[\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}\theta ,\mathrm{cos}\theta ,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}],$$
(B4)
giving a normal vector of

$$\widehat{𝒏}_0\frac{𝜿_0}{|\kappa _0|}=\frac{1}{N_1}[\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}\theta ,\mathrm{cos}\theta ,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}].$$
(B5)
The binormal is purely in the $`\varphi `$-direction,

$$\widehat{𝒃}_0=\widehat{𝒕}_0\times \widehat{𝒏}_0=[0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}].$$
(B6)
In order to relate this binormal field to the actual polarization angle, we need to know the emission point, which we denote $`𝐫_0=(r_0,\theta _0,\varphi _0)`$, where the magnetic field points towards the observer at $`(\theta _{obs},\varphi _{obs})`$.

Since the dipole field contains no $`\varphi `$-component, we must have $`\varphi _0=\varphi _{obs}`$. Solving for $`\theta _0`$ then gives

$$\mathrm{tan}\theta _0=\frac{3}{2}\frac{1}{\mathrm{tan}\theta _{obs}}\left\{\pm \left(1+\frac{8}{9}\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{obs}\right)^{1/2}1\right\}$$
(B7)
If $`\theta _{obs}`$ is small, as is usually the case for an observer looking down the cone of open field lines, this simplifies to $`\theta _0(2/3)\theta _{obs}`$.

If we take these results and evaluate expression (A1), we obtain the standard polarization angle sweep, (A2).

## Appendix C Approximations

Evaluating the polarization effects of various perturbations naturally leads to expressions which depend on the coordinates of the emission point, usually in the frame co-rotating with the star. Since no actual observer is sitting in that co-rotating frame, we have to rewrite the results in terms of observables, such as the rotational phase ($`\mathrm{\Omega }t`$) and the physical inclination angles ($`\alpha ,i`$). Admittedly, the inclination angles are not directly observable, but they set the geometry of the pulsar.

Unfortunately, this conversion is a significant source of error in the analytic perturbation theory. Straightforward power-series expansions may be used to cast the raw analytical expressions into more useful forms, but doing so limits the range of validity to a small portion of the pulse phase near the pulse center.

Here, we first give the exact formulae relating the pulse phase to the position of the observer in these coordinates. These, coupled with the solution for the 0-order emission colatitude (B7), give a precise definition for $`\theta _0`$ and $`\varphi _0`$ at any pulse phase. We then give several more tractable, but more limited, approximations.

The vector to the observer is

$$\widehat{\mathbf{}}=\left[\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}i\\ \mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }t\\ \mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t+\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{cos}i\end{array}\right]$$
(C1)
in Cartesian magnetic coordinates. In polar, the observer is at $`(\theta _{obs},\varphi _{obs})`$ given by

$`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{obs}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{cos}i+\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t`$ (C2)
$`\mathrm{tan}\varphi _{obs}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }t}{\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}i\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t}}.`$ (C3)
These expressions, coupled with (B7) and the fact that $`\varphi _0=\varphi _{obs}`$, fully define the emission coordinates.

For emission from within the cone of open field lines, several of these angles are small. If the observer is to see this cone, the difference between $`\alpha `$ and $`i`$ must be less than (or on the order of) the colatitude of the last closed field line, $`\theta _c(r)=\sqrt{r/R_L}`$. Similarly, the magnetic colatitude of the emission, $`\theta _0`$, and the rotational phase $`\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Omega }t`$ must be of this same order.

The expression for $`\mathrm{tan}\theta _0`$ (B7) is perhaps the most difficult formula. It has two roots, and the continuous physical solution switches between them when $`\theta _{obs}=\pi /2`$. Since the maximum of $`\theta _{obs}`$ is $`\alpha +i`$, this switch will occur somewhere in the pulse phase for all pulsars with $`\alpha +i>\pi /2`$. If we are only interested in the region close to the pulse center, then this is not a problem, but for millisecond pulsars and other pulsars whose emission covers a substantial fraction of the period, this switch-over has to be kept in mind.

Here, however, for simplicity we assume that $`\theta _{obs}`$ is always less than $`\pi /2`$. In that case, an excellent approximation to (B7) is

$$\mathrm{tan}\theta _0\frac{3}{2}\frac{1}{\mathrm{sin}\theta _{obs}}\left(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{obs}\frac{1}{18}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{obs}\right)$$
(C4)
while for small $`\theta _{obs}`$,

$$\mathrm{tan}\theta _0\mathrm{sin}\theta _0\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{obs}$$
(C5)
Expressing $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{obs}`$ in terms of $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{obs}`$ gives us, for small $`\theta _{obs}`$,

$$\mathrm{sin}\theta _{obs}=\left[2(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{obs})\right]^{1/2}$$
(C6)
which is quite useful, since we frequently have terms in even powers of $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _0`$, and we know $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{obs}`$ from Eq. (C2).

The observer and emission azimuth are the same, $`\varphi _0=\varphi _{obs}`$. Using the transformed y-coordinate, $`y_B=r\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi `$, we find

$`\mathrm{cos}\varphi _0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}i}{\mathrm{sin}\theta _{obs}}}`$ (C7)
$`\mathrm{sin}\varphi _0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }t}{\mathrm{sin}\theta _{obs}}}`$ (C8)
By using the relations between $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _0`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{obs}`$, these can be cast into various useful forms.

For example, in order to simplify expressions (2) and (6), we used these relations to write

$$\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _0\frac{4}{9}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{obs}\frac{4}{9}\left(1\mathrm{cos}\beta +\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{sin}^2\mathrm{\Omega }t\right)$$
(C9)
and

$$\mathrm{sin}\theta _0\mathrm{cos}\varphi _0\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{obs}\mathrm{cos}\varphi _{obs}\frac{2}{3}\left(\mathrm{sin}\beta \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{sin}^2\mathrm{\Omega }t\right)$$
(C10)
where $`\beta i\alpha `$ and we have taken $`\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t1(1/2)\mathrm{sin}^2\mathrm{\Omega }t`$. As mentioned before, this limits these expressions to apply only to the region close to the pole where $`\theta _{obs}`$ is small.

## Appendix D Field Aligned Current

We expect a current to flow along the open field lines with intensity approximately equal to the Goldreich-Julian charge density moving at the speed of light,

$$𝐉=\frac{1}{2\pi }\zeta (𝛀𝐁)\widehat{𝑩}$$
(D1)
where $`\zeta =J/J_{GJ}`$ is scale factor of order unity, reflecting our ignorance of the actual current. Since we will be examining only first-order effects, the results for the perturbing fields and the polarization shifts are simply proportional to $`\zeta `$. In the interest of conciseness, we set $`\zeta =1`$ for the rest of this section and reinsert it into the final result.

In the case of a small polar cap, the variation in $`𝛀𝐁`$ across the cap is also small, so we take $`𝛀𝐁\mathrm{\Omega }B\mathrm{cos}\alpha `$. In addition, if $`𝐁=𝐁_0+𝐁_1`$, with $`B_1B_0`$ and $`\times 𝐁_0=0`$, as is true for any superposition of vacuum multipoles, then $`\times 𝐁_1=2\mathrm{\Omega }_{}𝐁_0/c`$.

Now assume $`𝐁_0`$ is a point dipole and introduce spherical polar coordinates with the $`z`$ axis along the dipole axis and the origin of coordinates at the point dipole. Assume axisymmetry with respect to the magnetic axis. Since the assumed current is axisymmetric, this assumption is equivalent to assuming the polar flow tube has a circular cross section.

The equations for the field components are

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r\mathrm{sin}\theta }}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\theta }}(B_{1\varphi }\mathrm{sin}\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\mathrm{\Omega }_{}\mu }{cr^3}}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\theta ,`$ (D2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{r}}(rB_{1\varphi })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{\Omega }_{}\mu }{cr^3}}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta ,`$ (D3)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{r}}(rB_{1\theta }){\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{B_{1r}}{\theta }}=0.`$ (D4)
Here $`B_{0r}=(2\mu /r^3)\mathrm{cos}\theta ,B_{0\theta }=(\mu /r^3)\mathrm{sin}\theta `$. The solution is

$`B_{1r}`$ $`=`$ $`B_{1\theta }=0,`$ (D5)
$`B_{1\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\mu }{R_L^3}}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left({\displaystyle \frac{r}{R_L}}\right)^2\mathrm{sin}\theta ,`$ (D6)
where $`R_Lc/\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$. One readily finds this $`B_{1\varphi }`$ satisfies both of the non-trivial equations.

This gives a perturbation to the tangent vector of

$$𝐭_1=[0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \frac{\mathrm{sin}\theta }{N_1}]$$
(D7)
in $`(r,\theta ,\varphi )`$ polar components.

Following the above method, and expanding in powers of $`\mathrm{sin}\theta `$, the updated normal is

$$𝐧_1=[0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},4\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{cos}\alpha (1\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta )]$$
(D8)
which results in a change in the binormal of

$$𝐛_1=\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{cos}\alpha [\mathrm{sin}\theta ,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}(1\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta ),\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}].$$
(D9)
The emission point changes by

$$𝐫_1=[\widehat{𝒕}_0]^1𝐭_1=\frac{r^2}{R_L}\mathrm{cos}\alpha [0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},\frac{2}{3}N_1\mathrm{tan}\theta ],$$
(D10)
changing the observed binormal by

$$\delta 𝐛=\widehat{𝒃}_0𝐫_1=\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{cos}\alpha [\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{sin}\theta ,\frac{2}{3},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}]$$
(D11)
giving a total perturbation of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }𝐛=𝐛_1+\delta 𝐛=\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{cos}\alpha [\frac{5}{3}\mathrm{sin}\theta ,\frac{10}{3}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta ]$$
(D12)
yielding a polarization angle shift of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\psi =\frac{10}{3}\frac{r}{R_L}\frac{J}{J_{GJ}}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(1\frac{7}{40}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right),$$
(D13)
where we have re-inserted the dependence on the current strength.

## Appendix E Return Current

To model a return current, we assume that each field line has a fixed flux of current on it, proportional to the local GJ density.

If the perturbing current density has the form

$$𝐉=\frac{1}{2\pi }\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{cos}\alpha 𝐁f(\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }{r})$$
(E1)
for $`f`$ an arbitrary function, then the perturbing field is

$$B_{1\varphi }=\frac{2\mathrm{\Omega }\mu }{c}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \frac{1}{r\mathrm{sin}\theta }_0^u𝑑u^{}f(u^{})$$
(E2)
where $`u\mathrm{sin}^2\theta /r`$ labels an individual field line. This is equivalent to using the magnetic flux as the integration variable.

Dividing by the magnitude of the field gives

$$𝐭_1=\frac{𝐁_1}{|B_0|}=\frac{\mathrm{cos}\alpha }{N_1}\frac{r}{R_L}\frac{r}{\mathrm{sin}\theta }_0^u𝑑u^{}f(u^{})𝐞_\varphi $$
(E3)
with $`N_1`$ as defined in (B3).

If $`f(u)=1`$, we get the normal perturbing field. If we include a return current which is a multiple $`\lambda `$ of the background GJ current in a small ring past $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta /r=u_1`$, namely

$$f(u)=\{\begin{array}{cc}1,\hfill & \text{if }u_1>u>0\text{;}\hfill \\ \lambda ,\hfill & \text{if }(1+1/\lambda )u_1>u>u_1\text{;}\hfill \\ 0,\hfill & \text{if }u>(1+1/\lambda )u_1\text{;}\hfill \end{array}$$
(E4)
we get a perturbation of

$$𝐭_1=\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{cos}\alpha 𝐞_\varphi \{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{sin}\theta ,\hfill & \text{if }u_1>u>0\hfill \\ \frac{(1+\lambda )ru_1}{\mathrm{sin}\theta }+\lambda \mathrm{sin}\theta ,\hfill & \text{if }(1+1/\lambda )u_1>u>u_1\hfill \\ 0,\hfill & \text{if }u>(1+1/\lambda )u_1\hfill \end{array}$$
(E5)
This generates the normal polarization angle shift for $`u<u_1`$, no shift for $`u>(1+1/\lambda )u_1`$, and a shift of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\psi =\frac{10}{3}\frac{r}{R_L}\lambda \mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(\frac{1+\lambda }{\lambda }\frac{u_1r}{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }1\right)\left(1\frac{7}{40}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)$$
(E6)
for $`(1+1/\lambda )u_1>u>u_1`$. If $`\lambda 1`$, then this reduces to

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\psi =\frac{10}{3}\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{cos}\alpha (1\xi )\left(1\frac{7}{40}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)$$
(E7)
where $`\xi \lambda (uu_1)/u_1`$ ranges from 0 to 1 through the return current layer.

This simply eliminates the perturbation over the range from $`(1+1/\lambda )u_1>u>u_1`$, which is what we expected. If the return current layer is thin, $`\lambda 1`$, this transition is abrupt. This would appear in the data as a constant negative shift outside of the region of current flow, as there would no longer be any current to offset the aberration, as shown in Figure 5.

## Appendix F Aberration

The aberrational perturbation arises because the velocity of particles streaming along field lines has components both along the rotation direction and along the field line. Following Blaskiewicz, Cordes, & Wasserman (1991), the velocity of the particles becomes

$$𝐯=c\beta _{}\widehat{𝑩}+𝛀\times 𝐫,$$
(F1)
where $`\beta _{}`$ is a free parameter, reflecting the fraction of particle velocity along the field. Assuming the particles are moving at $`c`$ and normalizing gives a change in the tangent vector of

$$𝐭_1=\frac{𝛀\times 𝐫}{c}\left(\frac{𝛀\times 𝐫}{c}\widehat{𝒕}_0\right)\widehat{𝒕}_0$$
(F2)
This change in the tangent vector is of the same form as the current aberration treated previously, i.e. first-order in $`r/R_L`$ and perpendicular to $`\widehat{𝒕}_0`$. As such we can apply the same general formalism to calculate the expected polarization angle shift. Additional first-order changes to the magnetic field generate second-order changes in $`𝐭_1`$, so we may safely treat this perturbation independently.

In polar coordinates,

$$\widehat{𝛀}\times \widehat{𝒓}=[0,\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\varphi ,\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi +\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta ]$$
(F3)
Subtracting out the component along $`t_0`$ gives

$$𝐭_1=\frac{r}{R_L}\left[\begin{array}{c}\frac{1}{2}N_1^2\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{sin}\varphi \\ N_1^2\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}\varphi \\ \mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi +\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta \end{array}\right].$$
(F4)
Aberrational effects change the curvature of particle orbits in two ways. Not only does the instantaneous velocity of the particles change by $`𝛀\times 𝐫`$, but the underlying magnetic dipole is rotating as well. The adds a $`𝐭_0/t`$ term to the curvature vector perturbation $`𝜿_1`$ from (A4), giving

$$𝜿_1=\frac{𝐭_0}{t}+(𝐭_0)𝐭_1+(𝐭_1)𝐭_0$$
(F5)
The normal vector is then found from (A5) to be

$$𝐧_1=\frac{r}{R_L}\left[\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\varphi \left(1\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)\\ \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\varphi \\ \frac{8}{3}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }\left(1\frac{7}{4}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)+4\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(1\frac{3}{4}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)\end{array}\right]+O(\mathrm{sin}^3\theta )$$
(F6)
producing a binormal change of

$$𝐛_1=\frac{r}{R_L}\left[\begin{array}{c}\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi \left(1\frac{29}{8}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)+\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta \\ \frac{8}{3}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }\left(1\frac{27}{16}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)4\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(1\frac{3}{4}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)\\ 0\end{array}\right]+O(\mathrm{sin}^3\theta )$$
(F7)
Solving for the emission point gives

$$𝐫_1=\frac{r^2}{R_L}\left[\begin{array}{c}0\\ \frac{2}{3}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\varphi \left(1\frac{3}{8}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)\\ \frac{2}{3}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi \left(1\frac{3}{8}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta \end{array}\right]+O(\mathrm{sin}^3\theta )$$
(F8)
and a change in binormal of

$$\delta 𝐛=\frac{r}{R_L}\left[\begin{array}{c}\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi \left(1\frac{3}{8}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)+\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta \\ \frac{2}{3}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }\left(1\frac{7}{8}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)+\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \\ 0\end{array}\right]+O(\mathrm{sin}^3\theta )$$
(F9)
giving a total change in the binormal of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }𝐛=\frac{r}{R_L}\left[\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi \left(1\frac{35}{24}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)+\frac{5}{3}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta \\ 2\frac{\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }\left(1\frac{47}{24}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)\frac{10}{3}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(1\frac{33}{40}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)\\ 0\end{array}\right]+O(\mathrm{sin}^3\theta )$$
(F10)
and a shift in the polarization angle of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\psi =2\frac{r}{R_L}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }\left(1\frac{11}{6}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)\frac{10}{3}\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(1\frac{7}{10}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)+O(\mathrm{sin}^3\theta ).$$
(F11)
## Appendix G Aberrational Phase Shift

Qualitatively, the changes to the polarization angle caused by aberration appear to simply shift the phase of the sweep. BCW directly converted their calculated perturbation into a phase shift, but here we want to be slightly more precise and preserve the higher-order terms (in $`\mathrm{sin}\theta `$). A portion of the aberrational change in the binormal $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝐛`$ (F10) corresponds to a phase shift, but part of it does not. In order to separate these two parts, we need to calculate how the binormal at the emission point changes with time.

This will let us decompose the perturbation into $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝐛=\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐛/\mathrm{\Phi })+\mathrm{\Delta }𝐛^{}`$, which corresponds to a perturbed polarization sweep of $`\psi =\psi _0(\mathrm{\Phi }+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi })+\mathrm{\Delta }\psi ^{}`$, where $`\psi _0(\mathrm{\Phi })`$ is the standard sweep, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi ^{}`$ is calculated from $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝐛^{}`$ as before, and $`\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Omega }t`$.

As the star rotates, the zeroth-order binormal (as evaluated in magnetic coordinates) changes both because of the apparent motion of the observer across the sky and because of the change in the rotating coordinates themselves. The change in the binormal is

$$\frac{d\widehat{𝒃}}{dt}=\frac{db^i}{dt}𝐞_i+b^i\frac{d𝐞_i}{dt}=\frac{d\widehat{𝒃}^{(1)}}{dt}+\frac{d\widehat{𝒃}^{(2)}}{dt}$$
(G1)
The first term depends on the motion of the emission point in magnetic coordinates. In these coordinates, the zeroth-order binormal only depends on the azimuth of the emission point, $`\varphi _0=\varphi _{obs}`$. From (C3), this changes in time as

$$\frac{d\varphi _0}{dt}=\mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{cos}\alpha +\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi _0\mathrm{cot}\theta _{obs}).$$
(G2)
Solving for $`\theta _{obs}`$ in terms of $`\theta _0`$ gives

$$\mathrm{cot}\theta _{obs}=\frac{2\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _0}{3\mathrm{tan}\theta _0}\frac{2}{3}\frac{1\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _0}{\mathrm{sin}\theta _0}+O(\mathrm{sin}^3\theta )$$
(G3)
The change in binormal as seen in the rotating frame is then

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\widehat{𝒃}^{(1)}}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{𝒃}}{\varphi _0}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi _0}{dt}}=[\mathrm{sin}\theta _0,\mathrm{cos}\theta _0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}]{\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi _0}{dt}}`$ (G4)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }\left[\begin{array}{c}\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi _0\left(1\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _0\right)+\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta _0\\ \frac{2}{3}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi _0}{\mathrm{sin}\theta _0}\left(1\frac{3}{2}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _0\right)+\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(1\frac{3}{2}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _0\right)\\ 0\end{array}\right]+O(\mathrm{sin}^3\theta _0)`$ (G8)
where we have expanded up to third order in $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _0`$.

The second term depends on the rotation of the coordinate system. Defining $`R_y(a),R_z(b)`$ to be respectively rotations around the $`y,z`$ axes by angles $`a,b`$, this becomes

$$\frac{d\widehat{𝒃}^{(2)}}{dt}=R_y(\alpha )R_z(\mathrm{\Omega }t)\frac{dR_z(\mathrm{\Omega }t)}{dt}R_y(\alpha )\widehat{𝒃}$$
(G9)
or

$$\frac{d\widehat{𝒃}^{(2)}}{dt}=\mathrm{\Omega }[\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi \mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta ,\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\theta +\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi ,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}]$$
(G10)
Adding these two and expanding to third order in $`\mathrm{sin}\theta `$ gives

$$\frac{d\widehat{𝒃}}{dt}=\mathrm{\Omega }[\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi \left(1\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right),\frac{2}{3}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi }{\mathrm{sin}\theta },\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}]+O(\mathrm{sin}^3\theta )$$
(G11)
The shift in $`\widehat{𝒃}`$ due to aberration, (F10), then corresponds to a phase shift of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }=3\frac{r}{R_L}$$
(G12)
Once this phase shift has been subtracted out, we are left with a remainder

$$\mathrm{\Delta }𝐛^{}=\frac{r}{R_L}\left[\begin{array}{c}\frac{5}{3}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta \frac{47}{24}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi \mathrm{sin}^2\theta \\ \frac{10}{3}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(1\frac{33}{40}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)+\frac{47}{12}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi \mathrm{sin}\theta \\ 0\end{array}\right]+O(\mathrm{sin}^3\theta )$$
(G13)
which corresponds to a polarization shift of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\psi ^{}=\frac{10}{3}\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \left(1\frac{7}{10}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right)+\frac{47}{12}\frac{r}{R_L}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\varphi \mathrm{sin}\theta +O(\mathrm{sin}^3\theta )$$
(G14)