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# The 𝑟'-band luminosity function of Abell 1367: a comparison with Coma Table 2 and catalogs described in Appendix are only available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr

## 1 Introduction

The study of the LF of galaxies provides us with a diagnostical tool indispensable for solving one of the hottest, yet unsettled cosmological issues, i.e. a plausible reconstruction of the evolution of galaxies from the epoch of their formation to the present. The comparison of the LF of galaxies in clusters and in the field, for example, should shed light on the role of the environment in regulating the evolution of galaxies, both for the giant and dwarf populations (see Press & Schechter 1974, Binggeli et al. 1988). Moreover the comparison of the galaxy LF in nearby clusters with that of clusters at progressively larger $`z`$ can improve our knowledge of the evolution of galaxies in a given environmental condition. The recent work by Trentham & Tully (2002) on the LF in five different local environments up to $`M_R=10`$, has shown that there are far fewer dwarfs than what expected from CDM models. The Coma cluster, being the prototype of evolved rich nearby clusters, is the one on which the attention has been most focused. After the catalogue of galaxies in the Coma cluster (Godwin et al. 1983), several studies on this cluster have been published in different wavelength windows (e.g. Donas et al. 1991; Biviano et al. 1995; Lobo et al. 1997; Andreon 1999; Andreon & Pelló 2000). Considering the optical $`R`$-band alone, there is little agreement in the literature on the faint-end slope of the LF. The published values span from $`\alpha 1.20`$ (Beijersbergen et al. 2002) to $`\alpha 1.7`$ (Trentham 1998). Intermediate values of $`\alpha 1.30`$ (Lugger 1989) and $`\alpha 1.40`$ (López-Cruz et al. 1997; Bernstein et al. 1995; Secker 1997; Thompson & Gregory 1993) are also found. This remarkable lack of agreement is probably due to the inhomogeneity of the observational and data processing conditions, and different magnitude ranges or different cluster regions contributing to the determination of the LF.
Abell 1367, conversely, in spite of its many interesting structural aspects, has received little attention so far. After the first catalog of galaxies from Godwin & Peach (1982) very few studies have been carried out on the determination of the LF. Although Trentham (1997), attempted a LF in the $`R`$ band, he could not perform a quantitative study of the LF because of the large uncertainties in the background subtraction. On the other hand Schechter (1976) and Kashikawa et al. (1995) presented fittings of the LF of Abell 1367 to analytical functions but they kept the parameter $`\alpha `$ fixed to $`1.25`$. Lugger (1986) obtained a value of $`\alpha =1.42`$ for the LF of Abell 1367 but his limiting magnitude was not deep enough to include the dwarf galaxies. In this work we present the $`r^{}`$-band LF of Abell 1367 that includes the dwarfs, and we compare it with the one of Coma, obtained under the same observational and instrumental conditions. Since both clusters have approximately the same recessional velocity (7000 and 6500 km sec-1 respectively for Coma and Abell 1367), the limiting magnitudes as well as the selection biases are comparable. The differences between the two LFs, if any, should then be interpreted as due to the different evolutionary histories of the two clusters or to different initial conditions rather than to other observational or instrumental circumstances. A value of $`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 is adopted throughout this paper.

The paper is arranged as follows: Section 2 contains the details on the observations. Section 3 and 4 give details on the extraction of sources and the photometric calibration. Section 5 lists the different entries contained in the catalogs. Section 6 shows the LFs for both clusters and section 7 contains a brief summary and discussion of the results. A description of the catalogs is presented in Appendix A.

## 2 Observations

The data presented in this work are a by-product of an H$`\alpha `$ survey of nearby clusters aimed at constructing their H$`\alpha `$ LFs, whose main results can be found in Iglesias-Páramo et al. (2002). Observations were carried out with the Wide Field Camera (WFC) attached to the Prime Focus of the INT 2.5m located at Observatorio de El Roque de los Muchachos, on April 26th and 28th 2000, under photometric conditions, excepting the last half of the second night. However, since several exposures of each field were taken, we could properly calibrate all the data. The average seeing ranged from 1.5 to 2 arcsecs on both nights.

The WFC for the INT comprises a science array of four thinned AR coated EEV 4K$`\times `$2K devices, plus a fifth acting as autoguider. The pixel scale at the detectors is 0.333 arcsec pixel-1, which gives a total field of view of about $`34\times 34`$ arcmin2. Given the particular arrangement of the detectors, a squared area of about $`11\times 11`$ arcmin2 is lost at the top right corner of the field. At the end, four fields covering a surface of about $`1\mathrm{°}\times 1\mathrm{°}`$ were observed (see Figure 2 in Iglesias-Páramo et al. 2002). The total exposure time for each field was $`3\times 300`$ s, except for one field in Coma for which a single 300 s exposure was taken.

No broad band photometric standards were observed since the observational run was not devoted to produce broad band catalogs. However, relative calibration between the different frames were possible given that spectrophotometric standards for H$`\alpha `$ calibration were observed. Detailed information about the observations and data reduction procedure can be found in Iglesias-Páramo et al. (2002).

## 3 Extraction of Sources

The identification and extraction of sources was carried out using the code Sextractor (see Bertin & Arnouts 1996, for details). The limiting size and limiting flux for detection of objects were set to 49 pixels (which corresponds approximately to the size of the seeing disk in the frames) and 2.5 times the standard deviation of the sky, respectively, in order to minimize the number of spurious detections.

The regions corresponding to the wings of the PSF of bright, saturated stars were removed. The separation between stars and galaxies is based on the G/S parameter, $`\rho `$, given by Sextractor (see Bertin & Arnouts 1996). To the first approximation, we accept as galaxies all objects with $`\rho <0.05`$, and stars those with $`\rho >0.95`$. For the rest of the objects, a closer inspection based on the FWHM estimated by the IMEXAM task running on IRAF111IRAF is distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, which are operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. was performed and those which were undoubtedly found to be stars were removed. We point out the possibility of loosing compact galaxies that are unresolved in our CCD frames in the process of rejecting stars as suggested by Andreon & Cuillandre (2002). In order to test whether a population of compact dwarf galaxies was lost in the inner parts of the clusters, we performed counts of our rejected unresolved objects with magnitudes in the range $`18R_C15`$222this is the range of magnitudes found for the BCDs over the inner disk $`D0.4`$ degrees and the outer annulus $`D0.5`$ degrees. Surprisingly we found an excess of counts per squared degree in the outer annulus for Abell 1367 whereas for Coma the excess of counts per squared degree was found in the inner disk. Thus, no conclusive results of a systematic lost of compact galaxies can be stated from our data.

An astrometric solution was found with the USNO333United States Naval Observatory catalog of stars for each individual frame. After checking the rms of the fitting and the absolute offsets between the coordinates found for those objects appearing in more than one frame, the accuracy of this solution was found to be approximately 2 arcsecs.

A total of 149 galaxies common to more than one frame was removed by direct inspection. When multiple detections existed for an object, we ruled out the one presenting the worst quality. The criteria to decide the quality of the detections include the distance to the border of the frame, the existence of halos of diffuse light from bright stars and the vignetting of the North part in detector #3. The measured photometry for the multiple objects was also used to obtain the relative calibration between the different detectors.

## 4 Photometry

The final instrumental magnitudes are derived using Sextractor’s MAG\_BEST magnitudes. A total magnitude is provided for the galaxies following Kron’s (1980) first moment algorithm. However for those galaxies suspected to have a neighbor biasing the magnitude by more than 0.1 mag, a corrected isophotal magnitude is provided (see Bertin & Arnouts 1996 for more details). For the objects for which the corrected isophotal magnitude was obtained, we compared it with that computed by performing detailed aperture photometry. In Table 1 we show the fraction of galaxies for which our aperture magnitude differs by more than 0.2 magnitude from the magnitude provided by Sextractor, in three magnitude intervals. Even for most of the faintest galaxies, the Sextractor’s magnitudes agree with our more accurate aperture magnitudes within 20%, which is accurate enough for a statistical analysis of the LF.

The instrumental zero point was first estimated from the H$`\alpha `$ calibration, taking into account the airmass, the relative calibration between the different detectors and the scaling factor between the broad band and the H$`\alpha `$ frames, which were taken respectively with a Sloan-Gunn $`r^{}`$ and a narrow band \[Sii\] filters (see Iglesias-Páramo et al. 2002 for details on the instrumental setup). This provided us with instrumental magnitudes already corrected for airmass and for chip-to-chip variation, that could be directly compared with the published photometry.

The procedure used for the calibration of our data is the following: we searched in the literature for all galaxies belonging to any of the two clusters with available aperture photometry in any photometric band with an effective wavelength close to 6000 Å, namely $`R`$ Cousins, $`r`$ Gunn and $`r^{}`$ Sloan. The relationship between our instrumental magnitudes ($`M_{ins}`$) and the ones corresponding to the different photometric systems at similar effective wavelengths are:

$$R_{Cousins}=m_{ins}+Z_{Cousins}$$
(1)
$$r_{Gunn}=m_{ins}+Z_{Gunn}$$
(2)
$$r_{SDSS}^{}=m_{ins}+Z_{SDSS}$$
(3)
respectively for the Cousins, Gunn and Sloan photometric systems.

Expected values for the differential zero points are

$$Z_{Gunn}Z_{Cousins}=0.35$$
(4)
and

$$Z_{Gunn}Z_{SDSS}=0.15$$
(5)
from Jorgensen (1994) and Fukugita et al. (1996).

We did not apply a color correction because of the lack of any color information for the target galaxies. Given the similarity of the filter profiles ($`\lambda _{eff}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda `$) in the three photometric systems mentioned above, we expect an almost negligible color term in the conversion equations, thus our instrumental magnitudes can be converted to any of the three systems (see Fukugita et al. 1995 for details on the color effects for the different galaxy types in different photometric systems). Furthermore, if any color term is present, it would be negligible compared to the bin width used in the construction of the LF ($`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{}=0.5`$ mag), thus unaffecting the main results of the present study.

Jorgensen et al. (1992) give Gunn $`r`$-band aperture photometry for a large sample of ellipticals and S0s belonging to the Coma cluster. We performed instrumental photometry of the galaxies in common using the same apertures. For cross-calibration we used the galaxies with intermediate magnitudes (in the range $`14.0r^{}16.0`$). The faintest galaxies were excluded because they have the largest statistical errors. Marin-Franch & Aparicio (2002) performed Cousins $`R_C`$-band aperture photometry for a sample of galaxies in the central regions of Coma. Their data were taken at the 2.5m INT, with the same instrumental configuration as ours. They made aperture photometry of eight galaxies in common with our catalog.

Figure 1 shows the difference between our instrumental magnitudes and the published magnitudes vs. the $`R_C`$ magnitudes. The horizontal lines show the median value of the distributions. The best fitting results for the zero points expressed in Cousins $`R`$ magnitudes are $`Z_{Gunn}=28.90\pm 0.15`$ (for the data of Jorgensen et al. 1992) and $`Z_{Cousins}=29.27\pm 0.09`$ (for the data of Marin-Franch & Aparicio 2002).

After correlating both independent calibrations, we obtained $`Z_{Gunn}Z_{Cousins}=0.37`$, which is in good agreement with the expected value for these two photometric systems (Eq. 4). For Abell 1367 we adopt the same value of $`Z_{Cousins}`$ since the night was photometric and the same instrumental setup was used.

In addition we applied average corrections for Galactic extinction following Schlegel et al. (1998), that amounts to 0.02 and 0.06 mag for Coma and Abell 1367 respectively.

In what follows, we will refer our photometry to the Sloan $`r^{}`$-band system for convenience (since the used background counts are refereed to this system, see section 6 for more details) using Eqs. 1 to 3.

## 5 The Catalogs

Two catalogs are produced containing 4413 and 5555 galaxies respectively for Abell 1367 and Coma. Both are available electronically from the CDS site. A one-page sample of the catalogs is given in appendix A. The catalogs are arranged as follows:
(1): Name of the object.
(2)-(7): Right Ascension and Declination (J2000), with an accuracy of $``$ 2”.
(8): Sloan $`r^{}`$-band magnitude following the Kron method.
(9): Error in the Sloan $`r^{}`$-band magnitude, provided by Sextractor.
(10): Surface brightness within the Sloan $`r^{}`$ 25.5 mag arcsec-2 isophote.
(11): Error in the surface brightness within the Sloan $`r^{}`$ 25.5 mag arcsec-2 isophote estimated as the inverse of the signal to noise of the galaxies within the area enclosed by the 25.5 mag arcsec-2 isophote.
(12): Area of the $`r^{}`$ 25.5 mag arcsec-2 isophote in arcsec2.
(13): Number in the catalogs Godwin & Peach (1982, for Abell 1367) and Godwin et al. (1983, for Coma). 0 indicates galaxies without an identification in the Godwin’s catalogs.
(14): Position angle of the elliptical profile, north to east (in degrees).
(15): Ellipticity ($`1b/a`$, where $`a`$ and $`b`$ are respectively the major and minor axis of the elliptical profile).
(16): Star-Galaxy separator (Close to 0 means galaxy-like, close to 1 means star-like).

Figure 2 shows the Sloan $`r^{}`$-band total galaxy counts for both clusters. Error bars contain only the poissonian term. As can be seen from the figure, the limiting magnitude for both clusters is around 21 mag. However, given the shorter exposure time for one of the fields in Coma, we adopt a conservative 20.5 mag completeness limit of our survey.

## 6 The Luminosity Functions

The membership of galaxies to the two studied clusters is known from complete redshift measurements only down to 15.5 (Abell 1367) and 16.5 (Coma) magnitudes. Thus, to construct the $`r^{}`$-band LFs some statistical subtraction is necessary in order to decontaminate our catalogs from background and foreground galaxies. Since the aim of our observations was to construct the H$`\alpha `$ LF and not the $`r^{}`$ LF, we have not taken observations of a reference field from which the galaxy counts could be estimated. Thus, to perform the statistical subtraction of background galaxies we must rely on galaxy counts taken from the literature. Various sets of galaxy counts from different sources in the literature exist for similar effective wavelengths. Figure 3 shows galaxy counts transformed to the Sloan $`r^{}`$-band system for several sources in the literature (Koo 1986; Metcalfe et al. 1991; Yasuda et al. 2001; Paolillo et al. 2001; Beijersbergen et al. 2002). A large dispersion exists between the different galaxy counts sets. We also added for comparison the galaxy counts from the most external fields of Abell 1367 (i.e. detectors #2 and #3 of exposure 1; see Figure 2, left panel in Iglesias-Páramo et al. 2002 for more clarity). Given that these two exposures are about $`1\mathrm{°}`$ far from the cluster center, the contamination due to the cluster galaxies should be almost negligible. Thus, the counts from these frames should be reasonably similar to the true background galaxy counts. As it is apparent in the zoomed right panel of Figure 3, the galaxy counts from the SDSS match reasonably well our external counts for Abell 1367 towards faint magnitudes. We select this set of galaxy counts in order to decontaminate our cluster counts for the background and foreground population. We stress the fact that the results obtained for the LF will depend on the background counts used to decontaminate the total counts. The uncertainty in the galaxy counts due to the cosmic variance of the background is taken into account in the error budget as it is explained below.

There is a further concern about the subtraction of the background counts related to the fact that both the Abell 1367 and Coma clusters belong to the Great Wall (see Ramella et al. 1992). Whether the Great Wall should be considered as a background source for the two clusters is a matter of debate. Gavazzi et al. (1995) applied a caustic model to determine the membership to the clusters. As can be seen from their Figure 7, almost all galaxies with radial velocities within 3$`\sigma `$ of the average velocity of any of the two clusters and within the range of projected radial distances covered by our survey are considered as members of the clusters. This suggests that the contamination by supercluster members is non important at least within the area covered by our data. Thus, we decided not to apply any correction due to supercluster population. We remark however that the analysis by G95 was based on galaxies from the Zwicky catalog, and nothing can be said about the dwarf galaxies.

A further point concerning the construction of a proper LF is the normalization of the galaxy counts to the same area. The total area covered by our mosaic of detectors is 1.07 and 1.03 $`\mathrm{°}^2`$ for Abell 1367 and Coma respectively. However, after correction for the area lost because of the presence of strongly saturated stars, the gaps between chips and the vignetting at the upper left corner of detector #3, the effective covered area is 0.97 $`\mathrm{°}^2`$ for both clusters.

In order to account for all the possible sources of error (see Huang et al. 1997), we included the contributions from the cosmic variance of the background counts (this contribution was added twice, to the cluster counts and to the background counts as suggested by Andreon & Cuillandre 2002), the contribution corresponding to the photometric error of the zero point and the poissonian term.

After subtraction of the background galaxy counts, we fitted the resultant points with the Schechter functional form (Schechter 1976):

$$\varphi (m_r^{})=\varphi ^{}\times [10^{0.4(m^{}m_r^{})}]^{\alpha +1}e^{10^{0.4(m^{}m_r^{})}}$$
(6)
The fitting procedure used minimizes the $`\chi ^2`$ and takes into account the errors and assigns to each bin a statistical weight equal to $`1/\sigma _i^2`$, where $`\sigma _i`$ is the error term corresponding to bin $`i`$.

The value of the parameter $`\alpha `$ is of special relevance for our study because it accounts for the relative dwarf-to-giant populations of galaxies in the clusters.

### 6.1 Coma: Comparison with Previous Studies

As a starting point, we will compare the total counts in the Coma cluster with others already existing in the literature. For this purpose we selected the compilations by Bernstein et al. (1995), Trentham (1998), Beijersbergen et al. (2002) and Andreon & Cuillandre (2002). All these works present $`R_C`$-band data on the Coma cluster over regions of the sky totally or partially covered by our survey. The comparison between our total counts and the ones mentioned above, restricted to a common region, are presented in Figure 4. Our limiting magnitude, $`M_r^{}=14.32`$, is marked with a vertical dashed line.

Bernstein et al. (1995) obtained very deep $`R_C`$-band CCD imaging of a small field close to the X-ray center of the cluster, covering an area of 7.5’ square (covered by our survey). The two sets of data are consistent within 1$`\sigma `$ up to our limiting magnitude.

Trentham (1998) obtained data in a small region (approximately 0.18 $`\mathrm{°}^2`$, covered by our survey) in the $`R_C`$-band. The agreement between the two sets of data is very good. The slight (within 1$`\sigma `$) discordance at $`M_R15`$ mag could be due to the different method used to extract the objects: Sextractor in this work and FOCAS in Trentham’s paper.

Beijersbergen et al. (2002) presented data taken with the WFC at the INT as ours. Although the area covered by their survey is larger than ours, they also presented the LF for the inner region of the cluster which was also covered by us. All points are consistent within 1$`\sigma `$ in the range of completeness of our data.

We finally compare our data with those of Andreon & Cuillandre (2002). These authors present a very deep survey of the central part of the Coma cluster in three bands: $`B`$, $`V`$ and $`R`$. In this case, the region of the sky covered by these authors did not exactly match with ours, but the two areas overlap by 90% of their total surveyed area. The data of Andreon & Cuillandre are normalized to ours at $`R_C=18`$. Once again, the data are consistent within our magnitude range of completeness.

The comparison with four independent sources in the literature shows that our data are consistent within 1$`\sigma `$ with all of them. Any residual difference in the derived LF should depend purely on the adopted background counts, on the effective surveyed area and on the range of magnitudes over which the LF is computed.

Figure 5 shows our LF for the total area covered in the Coma cluster for $`r^{}=20.5`$ mag, assuming the background counts selected in the previous section. The values of the best fitting Schechter parameters are $`\varphi ^{}=21.83\pm 7.36`$, $`\alpha =1.47_{0.09}^{+0.08}`$, and $`M_r^{}^{}=21.63_{0.57}^{+0.46}`$ with $`\chi _\nu ^2=1.69`$. As previously claimed, we find that a Schechter function is not the best representation of the Coma LF in the area covered by our survey. Most of the points show deviations by more than 1$`\sigma `$ from the best fitting function. The distribution shows two local minima around $`M_r^{}19`$ and $`17`$ which significantly deviate from the fit at the 1$`\sigma `$ level. There is also a maximum centered at $`M_r^{}20.5`$ with four points not fitting the Schechter fit.

In order to make a better estimate of the faint end slope of the LF, we fit our data to an exponential function of the type $`10^{km}`$ where $`m`$ is the absolute magnitude and the constant $`k`$ is related to the $`\alpha `$ parameter of the Schechter function by the relation:

$$\alpha =(k/0.4+1)$$
(7)
The best fitting is shown in Figure 5 with a dotted line. The best fitting slope is $`k=0.22\pm 0.03`$ with $`\chi _\nu ^2=0.77`$ in the magnitude range $`19M_r^{}14.5`$ (corresponding to $`\alpha =1.55)`$.

### 6.2 Abell 1367

Figure 6 shows our LF for the total area covered in Abell 1367 in the magnitude range of completeness ($`M_r^{}14.19`$). The best fitting Schechter parameters are $`\varphi ^{}=35.66\pm 12.40`$, $`\alpha =1.07_{0.16}^{+0.20}`$, and $`M_r^{}^{}=21.20_{0.63}^{+0.60}`$ with $`\chi _\nu ^2=0.53`$. In this case, the Schechter function provides a good fitting of the data except for 3 points which do not fit the model within 1$`\sigma `$. The errors become very large for $`M_r^{}17`$. We also fit an exponential function over the same range of magnitudes as for the Coma LF and obtain a value for the slope of $`k=0.02\pm 0.06`$, corresponding to $`\alpha =1.05`$, with $`\chi _\nu ^2=0.66`$.

The comparison of the LFs of Coma and Abell 1367 is shown in Figure 6 (the shaded band corresponding to the uncertainty region of Coma LF). As can be seen from the plot, at most of the magnitudes, LFs of both clusters do not coincide at the 1$`\sigma `$ level. This effect is mostly due to the different richness of both clusters. However, the shapes of the LFs also show appreciable differences: The LF of Abell 1367 does not show the bump at $`M_r^{}20`$ exhibited by the Coma LF. The steep rise of the slope of the Abell 1367 LF in the interval $`15.5r^{}14.5`$ cannot be trusted due to large statistical uncertainties.

Figure 7 shows the 1, 2 and 3$`\sigma `$ confidence contours for the best fitting Schechter function parameters of both clusters. Although the errors in the determination of the parameters of the Abell 1367 LF are large, even the 3$`\sigma `$ contours do not cross each other, supporting the conclusion that the slopes of the two clusters are significantly different at this level.

The ratio of dwarf-to-giant galaxies is considerably higher in Coma than in Abell 1367. This result, together with the fact that the H$`\alpha `$ LFs of both clusters are fairly similar (Iglesias-Páramo et al. 2002), indicates that an important population of non star-forming dwarf galaxies present in Coma is absent in Abell 1367.

### 6.3 The Influence of the Cluster Environment on the LFs of Coma and Abell 1367

Beijersbergen et al. (2002) found that the faint end of the LF of the Coma cluster steepens as we move outwards in the cluster. We repeat a similar exercise for the two studied clusters. In order to minimize errors due to the limited statistics (mostly severe for the outer parts of Abell 1367), we select only two regions of each cluster: an inner one of radius $`0.4\mathrm{°}`$ and an external one with projected radius larger than 0.5$`\mathrm{°}`$. Galaxies belonging to the annulus $`0.4\mathrm{°}<R<0.5\mathrm{°}`$ are excluded from this analysis. The cluster centers were assumed coincident with the peak of the extended X-ray sources (Donnelly et al. 1998 for Abell 1367; White et al. 1993 for Coma). We use the same radius for both clusters because not only are they at approximately the same distance, but also the estimates of their physical sizes coincide (see Girardi et al. 1995). The virial radii were estimated as 0.5$`\mathrm{°}`$ and 0.4$`\mathrm{°}`$ and the core radii as 0.12$`\mathrm{°}`$ and 0.08$`\mathrm{°}`$ respectively for Abell 1367 and Coma.

Figure 8 shows the LFs of the two clusters restricted to the two regions mentioned above. The data are binned by 1 mag in order to increase the statistics, and fitted to exponential functions. As can be seen in the left panel of Figure 8 the slopes of the LFs of the two regions of Coma are clearly different from each other. The best fit values for the slopes over the range $`19M_r14.5`$ are $`k_{in}=0.19\pm 0.03`$ and $`k_{out}=0.34\pm 0.07`$ for the inner and outer regions respectively.

For Abell 1367 the restricted LFs are shown in the right panel of the same figure. The cluster counts become negative at $`M_r^{}15.5`$ for the external annulus and the error bars are very large fainter than $`M_r^{}=16.5`$ affecting the reliability of this comparison. The slopes obtained from the best fitting to the exponential function (in the same magnitude range as for Coma) are $`k_{in}=0.06\pm 0.06`$ and $`k_{out}=0.09\pm 0.11`$ for the inner and outer regions respectively, thus showing consistency. However, we stress that the slope for the outer annulus was computed rejecting the negative point at $`M_r^{}15.5`$, and that the real uncertainty could be even larger than the one obtained from the least squared fitting.

## 7 Summary and Conclusions

We present new deep catalogs containing positions and $`r^{}`$-band photometry of galaxies in the central $`1\mathrm{°}\times 1\mathrm{°}`$ of the nearby clusters Abell 1367 and Coma. These catalogs are used to determine the SDSS $`r^{}`$-band LFs of both clusters by subtracting the Yasuda et al. (2001) galaxy counts from our cluster counts. The faint-end slope of the Coma LF is $`\alpha =1.47_{0.09}^{+0.08}`$ whereas that of the Abell 1367 LF is shallower, with $`\alpha =1.07_{0.16}^{+0.20}`$. This difference is found significant at the 3$`\sigma `$ level. Given that the observations of both clusters were obtained in homogeneous conditions, we argue that these differences are not due to instrumental or data handling biases, but they are intrinsic to the clusters. We also stress that the differences are not due to the background counts since the best set of galaxy counts was used to decontaminate the counts of both clusters.

The LF parameters strongly depend on the surveyed region, on the background counts used to decontaminate the cluster counts and on the magnitude range over which the fitting is performed. Other determinations of the LFs of the same clusters (in section 6.1 we checked that our total Coma counts are consistent with several sources in the literature), is valid only with those covering a similar area and with substantial overlapping.

Concerning the comparison with the LF of field galaxies, the values of $`\alpha `$ derived for Coma and Abell 1367 are consistent with those of the field, which show a larger spread of parameters: Lin et al. (1996) found $`\alpha =0.70\pm 0.05`$ ($`M_R<17.5`$), Geller et al. (1997) found $`\alpha =1.17\pm 0.19`$ ($`M_R<16`$) and Blanton et al. (2001) reported $`\alpha =1.20\pm 0.03`$ ($`M_r^{}<16`$).

The slope of the LF of Coma is found steeper towards the cluster outskirts within 1$`\sigma `$ statistical significance. No such trend is observed in Abell 1367. This means that the bright-to-faint galaxy ratio in Coma decreases as we move outwards the cluster. The observed increase of $`\alpha `$ in the cluster’s outskirts could be explained both by an increase of the dwarf population or by a decrease of the giant population with respect to the cluster center. It would be interesting to find out at which clustercentric distance the cluster LF would approach the one of the field. Once again Coma and Abell 1367 would be the ideal clusters to do this test: they are both embedded in the Great Wall (Geller & Huchra 1990) located at the same distance of $``$ 6500-7000 km s-1. A survey of some square degrees in between the two clusters would suffice to map the variations of the LF with increasing clustercentric distances. Given the low density of supercluster galaxies, a deep redshift survey is however needed.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank S.Andreon for his interesting comments and suggestions. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The INT is operated on the island of La Palma by the ING group, in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. JIP acknowledges the Fifth Framework Program of the EU for a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship.

## Appendix A Overview of the Catalogs

| Name | hh | mm | ss | dd | md | sd | $`r^{}`$ | $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{}`$ | $`\mu _{25.5}`$ | $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _{25.5}`$ | Area | God | $`\theta `$ | Ellip. | S/G |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | (J2000.) | | | (J2000.) | | | (mag) | | (mag arcsec-2) | | arcsec2 |  | (deg.) |  |  |
| 113957+194339 | 11 | 39 | 57.8 | 19 | 43 | 39 | 20.68 | 0.02 | 23.88 | 0.02 | 17.96 | 0 | 174.59 | 0.44 | 0.53 |
| 113958+195514 | 11 | 39 | 58.4 | 19 | 55 | 14 | 20.08 | 0.01 | 23.80 | 0.02 | 27.72 | 0 | 157.09 | 0.07 | 0.07 |
| 113958+194515 | 11 | 39 | 58.5 | 19 | 45 | 15 | 19.88 | 0.01 | 23.64 | 0.02 | 32.16 | 0 | 69.50 | 0.15 | 0.03 |
| 113958+194329 | 11 | 39 | 58.7 | 19 | 43 | 29 | 20.84 | 0.02 | 23.84 | 0.02 | 14.30 | 0 | 72.89 | 0.20 | 0.47 |
| 113958+194333 | 11 | 39 | 58.8 | 19 | 43 | 33 | 19.32 | 0.01 | 23.48 | 0.02 | 41.14 | 0 | 162.66 | 0.05 | 0.03 |
| 113958+194827 | 11 | 39 | 58.8 | 19 | 48 | 27 | 17.79 | 0.00 | 22.99 | 0.01 | 111.89 | 0 | 139.41 | 0.44 | 0.03 |
| 113958+194702 | 11 | 39 | 58.8 | 19 | 47 | 2 | 20.87 | 0.02 | 24.06 | 0.03 | 17.52 | 0 | 55.84 | 0.33 | 0.01 |
| 113958+200102 | 11 | 39 | 58.9 | 20 | 1 | 2 | 19.26 | 0.01 | 23.46 | 0.02 | 43.25 | 0 | 19.05 | 0.25 | 0.03 |
| 113958+195339 | 11 | 39 | 59.0 | 19 | 53 | 39 | 19.72 | 0.01 | 23.43 | 0.02 | 27.39 | 0 | 54.46 | 0.05 | 0.29 |
| 113959+194251 | 11 | 39 | 59.1 | 19 | 42 | 51 | 20.21 | 0.02 | 24.00 | 0.02 | 26.17 | 0 | 62.95 | 0.41 | 0.16 |
| 113959+195403 | 11 | 39 | 59.1 | 19 | 54 | 3 | 20.58 | 0.02 | 24.14 | 0.03 | 23.40 | 0 | 164.80 | 0.18 | 0.02 |
| 113959+194743 | 11 | 39 | 59.3 | 19 | 47 | 43 | 20.94 | 0.02 | 24.04 | 0.02 | 13.42 | 0 | 104.87 | 0.13 | 0.63 |
| 113959+194703 | 11 | 39 | 59.3 | 19 | 47 | 3 | 20.52 | 0.02 | 24.06 | 0.03 | 22.40 | 0 | 137.74 | 0.25 | 0.03 |
| 113959+194700 | 11 | 39 | 59.6 | 19 | 47 | 0 | 20.43 | 0.01 | 23.97 | 0.02 | 22.51 | 0 | 116.33 | 0.20 | 0.03 |
| 113959+194948 | 11 | 39 | 59.8 | 19 | 49 | 48 | 20.24 | 0.01 | 23.95 | 0.02 | 26.17 | 0 | 26.36 | 0.22 | 0.02 |
| 113959+195210 | 11 | 39 | 59.8 | 19 | 52 | 10 | 19.40 | 0.01 | 23.45 | 0.02 | 38.70 | 0 | 95.13 | 0.05 | 0.20 |
| 113959+195346 | 11 | 39 | 59.8 | 19 | 53 | 46 | 20.92 | 0.02 | 24.12 | 0.03 | 16.19 | 0 | 25.87 | 0.11 | 0.37 |
| 113959+195456 | 11 | 39 | 59.9 | 19 | 54 | 56 | 19.87 | 0.01 | 23.54 | 0.02 | 26.17 | 0 | 70.95 | 0.20 | 0.13 |
| 114000+194327 | 11 | 40 | 0.1 | 19 | 43 | 27 | 18.82 | 0.01 | 23.41 | 0.01 | 61.77 | 0 | 118.40 | 0.20 | 0.03 |
| 114000+195714 | 11 | 40 | 0.2 | 19 | 57 | 14 | 19.96 | 0.01 | 23.68 | 0.02 | 27.61 | 0 | 27.04 | 0.07 | 0.07 |
| 114000+195343 | 11 | 40 | 0.3 | 19 | 53 | 43 | 17.42 | 0.00 | 22.97 | 0.01 | 155.24 | 0 | 164.95 | 0.23 | 0.08 |
| 114000+194340 | 11 | 40 | 0.5 | 19 | 43 | 40 | 19.92 | 0.01 | 23.78 | 0.02 | 30.38 | 0 | 38.22 | 0.10 | 0.05 |
| 114000+195426 | 11 | 40 | 0.6 | 19 | 54 | 26 | 15.63 | 0.00 | 22.39 | 0.01 | 462.96 | 0 | 152.53 | 0.20 | 0.03 |
| 114000+195048 | 11 | 40 | 0.7 | 19 | 50 | 48 | 18.93 | 0.01 | 23.08 | 0.01 | 41.81 | 0 | 57.56 | 0.26 | 0.10 |
| 114001+195315 | 11 | 40 | 1.1 | 19 | 53 | 15 | 20.60 | 0.02 | 23.83 | 0.02 | 16.52 | 0 | 29.89 | 0.07 | 0.12 |
| 114001+194401 | 11 | 40 | 1.2 | 19 | 44 | 1 | 18.84 | 0.01 | 23.12 | 0.01 | 47.02 | 0 | 102.02 | 0.17 | 0.04 |
| 114001+195729 | 11 | 40 | 1.3 | 19 | 57 | 29 | 19.18 | 0.01 | 23.22 | 0.01 | 37.48 | 0 | 109.11 | 0.14 | 0.04 |
| 114001+195330 | 11 | 40 | 1.3 | 19 | 53 | 30 | 20.00 | 0.01 | 24.07 | 0.03 | 36.15 | 0 | 80.50 | 0.26 | 0.02 |
| 114001+194355 | 11 | 40 | 1.3 | 19 | 43 | 55 | 19.30 | 0.01 | 23.48 | 0.02 | 41.81 | 0 | 149.09 | 0.20 | 0.06 |
| 114001+200001 | 11 | 40 | 1.4 | 20 | 0 | 1 | 19.67 | 0.01 | 24.44 | 0.03 | 55.56 | 0 | 6.00 | 0.23 | 0.00 |
| 114001+195821 | 11 | 40 | 1.7 | 19 | 58 | 21 | 19.77 | 0.01 | 23.72 | 0.02 | 33.16 | 0 | 114.59 | 0.32 | 0.03 |
| 114002+195313 | 11 | 40 | 2.4 | 19 | 53 | 13 | 19.36 | 0.01 | 23.32 | 0.01 | 35.15 | 0 | 86.57 | 0.17 | 0.03 |
| 114002+195324 | 11 | 40 | 2.5 | 19 | 53 | 24 | 20.39 | 0.01 | 23.81 | 0.02 | 20.85 | 0 | 58.13 | 0.16 | 0.05 |
| 114002+194219 | 11 | 40 | 2.5 | 19 | 42 | 19 | 20.43 | 0.01 | 23.99 | 0.02 | 22.95 | 0 | 26.57 | 0.11 | 0.03 |
| 114002+194331 | 11 | 40 | 2.7 | 19 | 43 | 31 | 19.02 | 0.01 | 23.34 | 0.01 | 49.57 | 0 | 49.21 | 0.10 | 0.03 |
| 114002+200227 | 11 | 40 | 2.7 | 20 | 2 | 27 | 20.89 | 0.03 | 24.38 | 0.03 | 16.08 | 0 | 125.59 | 0.18 | 0.04 |
| 114002+194931 | 11 | 40 | 2.9 | 19 | 49 | 31 | 18.27 | 0.01 | 23.24 | 0.01 | 89.93 | 0 | 9.50 | 0.16 | 0.03 |
| 114002+194212 | 11 | 40 | 3.0 | 19 | 42 | 12 | 17.33 | 0.00 | 23.08 | 0.01 | 185.18 | 0 | 163.54 | 0.01 | 0.03 |
| 114003+195245 | 11 | 40 | 3.2 | 19 | 52 | 45 | 20.12 | 0.01 | 23.67 | 0.02 | 24.84 | 0 | 70.51 | 0.29 | 0.03 |
| 114003+194603 | 11 | 40 | 3.4 | 19 | 46 | 3 | 20.35 | 0.01 | 23.94 | 0.02 | 23.51 | 0 | 54.08 | 0.17 | 0.03 |
| 114003+200148 | 11 | 40 | 3.7 | 20 | 1 | 48 | 19.74 | 0.01 | 23.60 | 0.02 | 28.05 | 0 | 123.35 | 0.20 | 0.70 |
| 114003+194354 | 11 | 40 | 3.7 | 19 | 43 | 54 | 19.80 | 0.01 | 23.71 | 0.02 | 32.82 | 0 | 94.62 | 0.23 | 0.03 |
| 114003+200010 | 11 | 40 | 3.9 | 20 | 0 | 10 | 20.12 | 0.01 | 23.94 | 0.02 | 30.83 | 0 | 20.88 | 0.19 | 0.04 |
| 114003+195325 | 11 | 40 | 4.0 | 19 | 53 | 25 | 20.65 | 0.02 | 24.34 | 0.03 | 24.51 | 0 | 20.58 | 0.46 | 0.01 |
| 114004+195129 | 11 | 40 | 4.1 | 19 | 51 | 29 | 20.12 | 0.01 | 23.73 | 0.02 | 24.84 | 0 | 56.35 | 0.11 | 0.04 |
| 114004+195808 | 11 | 40 | 4.3 | 19 | 58 | 8 | 20.59 | 0.02 | 23.92 | 0.02 | 18.19 | 0 | 83.01 | 0.20 | 0.42 |
| 114004+194900 | 11 | 40 | 4.4 | 19 | 49 | 0 | 20.54 | 0.02 | 23.81 | 0.02 | 18.07 | 0 | 64.56 | 0.08 | 0.62 |
| 114004+194414 | 11 | 40 | 4.5 | 19 | 44 | 14 | 18.83 | 0.01 | 23.07 | 0.01 | 45.80 | 0 | 41.12 | 0.06 | 0.04 |
| 114004+195552 | 11 | 40 | 4.7 | 19 | 55 | 52 | 19.73 | 0.01 | 23.59 | 0.02 | 32.60 | 0 | 66.50 | 0.17 | 0.03 |
| 114004+194522 | 11 | 40 | 4.8 | 19 | 45 | 22 | 18.99 | 0.01 | 23.66 | 0.02 | 66.31 | 0 | 78.35 | 0.28 | 0.03 |
| 114005+195754 | 11 | 40 | 5.2 | 19 | 57 | 54 | 19.77 | 0.01 | 23.49 | 0.02 | 27.83 | 0 | 135.47 | 0.07 | 0.41 |
| 114005+194544 | 11 | 40 | 5.6 | 19 | 45 | 44 | 19.73 | 0.01 | 23.70 | 0.02 | 34.71 | 0 | 47.48 | 0.11 | 0.05 |
| 114005+200220 | 11 | 40 | 5.6 | 20 | 2 | 20 | 20.31 | 0.02 | 24.03 | 0.03 | 26.84 | 0 | 77.06 | 0.11 | 0.02 |
| 114006+200151 | 11 | 40 | 6.1 | 20 | 1 | 51 | 20.34 | 0.02 | 24.19 | 0.03 | 30.05 | 0 | 52.99 | 0.12 | 0.01 |
| 114006+200216 | 11 | 40 | 6.2 | 20 | 2 | 16 | 20.61 | 0.02 | 23.89 | 0.02 | 17.96 | 0 | 47.88 | 0.09 | 0.32 |


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# Phase diagram and influence of defects in the double perovskites

(14th October 2002)

## Abstract

The phase diagram of the double perovskites of the type Sr2-xLaxFeMoO6 is analyzed, with and without disorder due to antisites. In addition to an homogeneous half metallic ferrimagnetic phase in the absence of doping and disorder, we find antiferromagnetic phases at large dopings, and other ferrimagnetic phases with lower saturation magnetization, in the presence of disorder.

Introduction. The double perovskite Sr2FeMoO6 and related materialsSW72  are good candidates for magnetic devices, as they combine a high Curie temperature and a fully polarized (half metallic) conduction band.Ketal99  At present, these materials are being extensively studied.Oetal99 ; Metal00 ; Setal00 ; Getal00 ; Retal00 ; Netal01 ; Betal01 ; Getal01 ; Metal01 ; Getal01b ; Setal02 ; Setal02b ; Tetal02

The magnetism of these compounds arises from the Fe3+, $`S=5/2`$ core spin, while the charge state of the Mo ion is $`5+`$. Spatially, the Mo and Fe ions occupy two interleaving FCC lattices (sodium chloride structure). The conduction band contains one electron per unit cell, which tends to be antiparallel to the Fe spin. Experiments suggest that, in many samples, the saturation magnetization is less than the expected $`4\mu _B`$ per formula unit. This effect is usually ascribed to the presence of antisite defects,Oetal99 ; Setal00 ; Betal01 ; Metal01 ; Netal01 ; Getal01 ; Setal02 ; Setal02b ; Vetal02 ; SS01  where, due to the similarity of their atomic radii, Mo ions are randomly placed on the Fe sublattice and conversely. Notice that when a Fe ion is misplaced, with high probability it will have a Fe ion among its first neighbors, enhancing direct antiferromagnetic (AFM) superexchange with respect to the ideal structure. The strength of this coupling can be inferred from the compound LaFeO3, which has the same structure, but where the Mo ions have been substituted by Fe3+. LaFeO3 is known to be AFM,RCA93  with a Néel temperature of $`T_\mathrm{N}=720`$K.

The Sr ions in Sr2FeMoO6 can be substituted for trivalent cations, like La, leading to Sr2-xLaxFeMoO6.Metal00 ; Netal01 ; Setal02  These compounds have $`1+x`$ electrons per formula unit in the conduction band. These doped materials tend to have a higher Curie temperature. Notice that one can also consider the substitution with a monovalent ion (i.e. Sr$``$ K, Sr2-xKxFeMoO6 ), which takes one electron from the conduction band, leaving $`1x`$ electrons per formula unit. Hence in this paper negative $`x`$ will actually refer to substitution with a monovalent ion.

The model. Band structure calculations have shown that the conduction band can be described in terms of hybridized $`𝒕_{2g}`$ orbitals at the Mo and Fe sites.Ketal99 ; Setal00b  If one considers the $`𝒕_{2g}`$ orbitals of both spin orientations at the Fe sites, the model leads to a highly correlated system, where an on site Hund’s coupling and a Hubbard repulsive term have to be added.CM01 ; Aetal01 ; PA02  In the following, we will consider the magnetic phase diagram only, and neglect the possible existence of a metal-insulator transition when the ratio between the bandwidth and the Coulomb term is sufficiently small.Aetal01 ; PA02  We consider that the conduction band is built up of the three $`𝒕_{2g}`$ orbitals at the Fe sites with spins oriented antiparallely to the Fe moment, and the six $`𝒕_{2g}`$ orbitals at the Mo sites (see below).

We denote the destruction operator on $`xy`$ orbitals with spin $`+`$ or $``$ at lattice site $`𝒓`$ as $`F_{xy;\pm ;𝒓}`$, $`M_{xy;\pm ;𝒓}`$ ($`F`$ for Fe and $`M`$ for Mo), and so on. The spin and number operators on a given Fe site are:

$`\stackrel{}{𝒮}r`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha ,\beta =\pm }{}}\left(F_{xy;\alpha ;𝒓}^{}+F_{xz;\alpha ;𝒓}^{}+F_{yz;\alpha ;𝒓}^{}\right)\stackrel{}{\sigma }_{\alpha ,\beta }\left(F_{xy;\beta ;𝒓}+F_{xz;\beta ;𝒓}+F_{yz;\beta ;𝒓}\right),`$ (1)
$`𝒩^{\mathrm{Fe}}r`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =\pm }{}}(F_{xy;\alpha ;𝒓}^{}F_{xy;\alpha ;𝒓}+F_{xz;\alpha ;𝒓}^{}F_{xz;\alpha ;𝒓}+F_{yz;\alpha ;𝒓}^{}F_{yz;\alpha ;𝒓}).`$ (2)
Analogous definitions hold for the Mo atoms. Given the large spin value (S=5/2) of the the localized Fe core spins, we treat them as classical, with polar coordinates

$$\stackrel{}{\varphi }=(\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\phi ,\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\phi ,\mathrm{cos}\theta )$$
(3)
As mentioned above, we only consider the Fe orbitals with spin antiparallel to $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }`$, which amounts to assume that the Hund’s coupling at the Fe ions is much larger than the other interactions. Thus, we define up and down orbitals, $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$, with respect to the local 5/2 spin:

$`F_+`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}f_1+\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}f_2,`$
$`F_{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}e^{\mathrm{i}\phi }f_1\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}e^{\mathrm{i}\phi }f_2,`$ (4)
and we neglect all terms including the $`f_1`$ operators. For the sake of brevity, in the following we set $`f_2=f`$. Then, the Hamiltonian, in the absence of disorder and neglecting direct hopping terms between Mo orbitals (see below), can be written as:

$$=𝒦_{xy}+𝒦_{yz}+𝒦_{xz}\mu \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{𝒓\mathrm{even}}{}}{}𝒩^{\mathrm{Fe}}r(\mu +\mathrm{\Delta })\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{𝒓\mathrm{odd}}{}}{}𝒩^{\mathrm{Mo}}r,$$
(5)
with

$$𝒦_{xy}=t_{\mathrm{Mo}\mathrm{Fe}}\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{𝒓\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{lattice}}{\widehat{u}=\widehat{e}_x,\widehat{e}_y}}{}(\mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta r}{2}f_{xy;𝒓}^{}M_{xy;+;𝒓+\widehat{𝒖}}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.)\mathrm{}$$
(6)
where, for brevity, we omit the analogous hoppings from the sites belonging to the Mo sublattice to the Fe sites. Analogous expressions are found for the kinetic energy on the $`xz`$ and $`yz`$ planes. Finally, we add a direct hopping between Mo orbitals. These hopping terms give rise to three separate two dimensional Hamiltonians.CM01 ; Aetal01 ; PA02  The substitution of Mo ions for Fe ions leads to direct Fe-Fe hopping terms, ( we take $`t_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{Fe}}=t_{\mathrm{Mo}\mathrm{Fe}}`$), and also to the inclusion of an AFM exchange, $`J_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{Fe}}`$. Thus, the model is defined by the parameters $`t_{\mathrm{Mo}\mathrm{Fe}},t_{\mathrm{Mo}\mathrm{Mo}},\mathrm{\Delta },\mu `$ and $`J_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{Fe}}`$. There are nine orbitals per unit cell, three at the Fe sites, and six at the Mo sites.

The occupancy of the conduction band depends on the value of the chemical potential, $`\mu `$, and it varies from one electron to two electrons per unit cell in Sr2-xLaxFeMoO6, $`0x1`$. We neglect interactions of the electrons within this band (as discussed below, the number of electrons at the Fe sites is always less than one).

We will use $`t_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{Mo}}`$ as our unit of energy ($`t_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{Mo}}0.35`$eV from band structure calculations). We take $`t_{\mathrm{Mo}\mathrm{Mo}}/t_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{Mo}}=0.25`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$ and $`J_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{Fe}}/t_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{Mo}}=0.1`$. The value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ implies a relatively large hybridization of the Fe and Mo orbitals, which seems consistent with Hartree-Fock calculations.PA02  $`J_{\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{Fe}}`$ is chosen so as to reproduce the Néel temperature of LaFeO3. We have not made a comprehensive study of the dependence of the results on the tight binding parameters, but the calculations made so far indicate that the qualitative features of the phase diagrams to be discussed below are not strongly dependent on the choice of parameters. In the absence of disorder, this model is basically equivalent to the one studied by Chattopadhyay and Millis CM01  in the context of Dynamical Mean Field Theory, although we shall use Variational Mean Field (see Aetal01a,  for a comparison between the two methods). The main novelty is in our considering of the disorder effectsOetal99 ; Setal00 ; Betal01 ; Metal01 ; Netal01 ; Getal01 ; Setal02 ; Setal02b ; SS01 : with probability $`y`$ we misplace an Fe ion onto the Mo sublattice (and conversely) without any spatial correlations ($`y`$ is just the antisite density). It is clear that $`y=0.5`$ corresponds to full disorder on the location of the Fe and Mo ions, while $`y>0.5`$ is equivalent to $`1y`$ with the Fe and Mo sublattices interchanged. Vacancies can be equally considered, but explicit calculations showed that they have a much milder effect on the phase diagram.

Method of calculation. We use the method developed for double exchange systems in Ref. Aetal01a, . We assume that the Fe core spins are classical. At a given temperature, we average over spin configurations obtained by assuming that there is a magnetic field acting on the spins. The magnitude of these fields are variational parameters, which are taken so as to minimize the free energy. Given a spin configuration, the electronic states are calculated exactly, and the electronic contribution to the free energy is obtained by integrating the density of states. As the Fe spins are distributed in a three dimensional lattice, and the electrons lead to effective interactions with the cubic symmetry, we think that our mean field ansatz for the spin configurations is sufficient. This method is in excellent agreement with more precise Monte Carlo calculations for the double exchange model.Aetal01b  We solve the Hamiltonian in lattices with up to $`512\times 512\times 512`$ sites (note that the calculation of the electronic wave functions requires only the diagonalization of the Hamiltonian in a $`512\times 512`$ square). For these sizes, the disorder due to antisites is self-averaging.

The adequacy of our technique depends on the ansätze made for the possible spin configurations. We have considered four possible phases: i) the paramagnetic (PM) phase, ii) the ferrimagnetic (FI) phase, where all Fe spins are parallel, and the spins of the electrons in the conduction band are antiparallel to the Fe spins, iii) an AFM phase, where the Fe spins in neighboring (1,1,1) planes are antiparallel, and iv) a different ferrimagnetic (FIP) phase where the Fe spins are aligned ferromagnetically if the Fe are in the correct positions, and antiferromagnetically if the Fe ions occupy Mo sites because of the antisite defects. In the absence of disorder, we have checked that other phases with canted spins have higher free energy. Note that the above ansätze define the average magnetization at the Fe sites, but that thermal fluctuations are also included.

Results. The phase diagram of Sr2-xLaxFeMoO6, as function of $`x`$ and temperature, is shown in Fig. 1 for different concentrations of antisites.

In the absence of defects, we find that $`T_\mathrm{C}`$ decreases with increasing doping of the conduction band, in agreement with Ref. CM01, . At high, but still reasonable, dopings we find the ordered AFM phase described above. The phase transitions are first order, with regions of phase separation between them. For $`x0`$, the spins of the electrons at the Mo orbitals are antiparallel to the Fe core spins. We ascribe the tendency toward phases with zero magnetization, upon increasing doping, to the occupancy of the Mo orbitals which are aligned parallel to the Fe spins.

The presence of antisite defects changes significantly the phase diagram: i) The FI phase is replaced by the FIP phase, where the spins at the Fe sites at the defects are antiparallel to the overall magnetization, ii) the ordered AFM phase is strongly suppressed, and iii) the value of $`T_\mathrm{C}`$ increases as the concentration of antisites also increases estimate , iv) the dependence of $`T_\mathrm{C}`$ with the number of electrons in the conduction band is more pronounced in the presence of antisites.

These effects are associated to the direct AFM interaction between spins at Fe ions which are nearest neighbors. These interactions play no role in perfect materials. The antiferromagntic interaction can be easily shown to be equivalent to a ferromagnetic one for the atoms in the Fe sublattice. Thus, superexchange enhances the tendency toward a ferromagnetic order in the original Fe sublattice. This effect is independent of the number of electrons in the conduction band. The saturation magnetization, on the other hand, is reduced.

Fig. 2 gives the occupancies of the different orbitals as the number of electrons in the conduction band is varied. Most of the charge is in the Mo orbitals. The variation is not linear, indicating that a rigid band picture is not valid.SS01  There are sharp changes at the phase transitions.

At low temperatures, the spins at antisites tend to be antiparallel to the magnetization, as shown in Fig. 1. This implies that the saturation magnetization is reduced with respect to the ordered case. The total magnetization of the core spins and the conduction electrons, is shown in Fig. 3. The calculated magnetization is well fitted by the line $`M_S=(4.07.7y)\mu _B`$, where $`y`$ is the antisite density. Experimental results from Refs. Betal01, ; Metal01, ; Setal02b, . are added for comparison. Note that the decrease in the magnetization does not lead to a lowering of the Curie temperature, as discussed above.

Conclusions. We have studied the magnetic phase diagram of the doped double perovskites, Sr2-xLaxFeMoO6. We have analyzed the influence of antisite defects, on the phase diagram.

In clean systems, we find that, as the number of electrons in the conduction band increases, the critical temperature decreases, in agreement with previous calculations.CM01  This variation is due to the increased filling of the Mo band, which reduces the double exchange-like mechanism which tends to align the Fe moments. At sufficiently high dopings, we find ordered phases without net magnetization, which enhance the delocalization of both the Mo and Mo bands. The transitions between these phases tend to be first order, with regions of phase separation between them. Electrostatic effects will prevent the existence of phase separation at macroscopic scales, leading to a domain structure at mesoscopic scalesAGG00 .

Antisite disorder induces significant changes in the phase diagram. The ordered ferrimagnetic phase is replaced by a different ferrimagnetic phase where the Fe spins at defects are antiparallel to the bulk magnetization (the FIP phase, see Fig.1). Antiferromagnetism at finite dopings is suppressed. The saturation magnetization in the FIP phase is reduced, although the Curie temperature tends to increase with the number of Fe in Mo positions, due to the direct AFM exchange between Fe ions which are nearest neighborsestimate .

Note that, in order to study compounds with different number of carriers in the conduction band, the presence of vacancies and changes in the Fe - O - Mo bond angles, Fe/Mo - O distance, and in the energy splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ can influence the results. These effects need to be extracted from the available experimental data and incorporated in the model Hamiltonian, eq. (5).

We have not studied transport properties, although it seems likely that the variation of the magnetic structure near defects will lead to significant changes in a half metallic system.SS01  We have also not analyzed other effects of the electron-electron interaction, such as the existence of a Mott transition to an insulating state, found in the related compound Sr2FeWO6.PA02  We think, however, that our model includes all relevant interactions required to study the magnetic properties of the metallic state of double perovskites. Similar models provide a good understanding of the magnetic properties of the half metallic manganite oxides (such as La1-xCaxMnO3).Aetal01a ; Aetal01b

In summary, we find a rich phase diagram for Sr2-xLaxFeMoO6, which is significantly modified in the presence of defects. Our results seem consistent with existing experimental data.

Acknowledgements. We are thankful to J. Blasco, J.M.D. Coey, J.M. de Teresa, J. Fontcuberta, M. García-Hernández, M.R. Ibarra, J. L. Martínez, L. Morellón, D. D. Sarma, and D. Serrate, M. Venkatesan, and especially to V. Laliena, for helpful discussions. VMM was supported by E.C. contract HPMF-CT-2000-00450 and by a Ramon y Cajal contract (Spain). Financial support from grants PB96-0875, FPA2000-0956, FPA2000-1252, FPA2001-1813 (MCyT, Spain), and 07N/0045/98 (C. Madrid) are acknowledged.