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# The Composition of the Interstellar Medium towards the Lockman Hole

## 1 Introduction

In this paper we focus on the Galactic plasma emission with emphasis on the coronal gas in the Milky Way halo. We concentrate our study on the Lockman Hole region on the northern high Galactic latitude sky. The Lockman Hole (e.g. Lockman et al. (1986), Jahoda et al. (1990)) is the sky region with the absolute lowest H i column density ($`N_{H\text{i}}4.510^{19}\mathrm{cm}^2`$). Therefore, it is considered to be the most transparent window to the distant Universe. To test this assumption, we investigate the photoelectric absorption of X-rays by the interstellar medium (ISM).

Towards this aim, we performed a correlation analysis of the ROSAT all-sky survey data with the Leiden/Dwingeloo H i 21 cm-line survey. Both surveys are the state-of-the-art data bases for such an approach. In the soft X-ray energy regime (E $`<`$ 1 keV) the mean free path length of the X-ray photons are only a few tens of parsec at maximum, assuming a density of $`n1\mathrm{cm}^3`$ (McCammon & Sanders 1990). The exact knowledge of the amount of photoelectric absorbing material is essential to evaluate the soft X-ray radiative transfer through the Galactic ISM. Previous investigations of the Lockman Hole area (Snowden et al. 1994a) showed that diffuse soft X-ray emission originates beyond some H i gas clouds on the line of sight. They concluded that in general the 1/4 keV X-ray emission appears to be anti-correlated with the $`N_{H\text{i}}`$. In detail, significant deviations between the localization of individual H i clouds and the X-ray intensity minima are suggested. Moreover, Snowden et al. (1994a) proposed that the X-ray emitting halo gas located beyond the Draco cloud (Snowden et al. 1991) and the one observed towards the Lockman Hole are different in temperature $`T`$ and emission measure $`n_\mathrm{e}^2`$ indicating a different origin of both plasmas. This supports the picture of a patchy Milky Way halo gas.

In this paper, we analyze a much larger portion – enclosing the Lockman Hole – of the northern high Galactic latitude sky. We use the ROSAT all-sky survey data of four energy bands, sampling the soft energy regime: 0.25 keV $`E`$ 0.82 keV. The Leiden/Dwingeloo H i survey data serves as a tracer for the photoelectric absorption, evaluated by the H i column density along the lines of sight. We utilize the velocity information inherent to the H i line spectra to unravel spatially the composition of the ISM towards the Lockman Hole. In particular, we focus on the role of the Warm Neutral Medium (WNM) and the intermediate-velocity cloud gas (IVC) towards this position on the sky.

The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the X-ray and H i data. Section 3 outlines our approach to correlate both data sets, summarizes the best fit parameters for the temperatures, intensities and absorbing column densities. Section 4 describes the far-ultraviolet absorption line analysis of the Lockman Hole. In Section 5 we present our conclusions.

## 2 The Data

### 2.1 H i Data

The Leiden/Dwingeloo survey of Galactic neutral hydrogen (Hartmann & Burton 1997) covers the entire sky north of $`\delta =30^{}`$ with a true-angle spacing of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$5 in both l and b. The spectrometer used has 1024 channels and a velocity resolution of 1.03 km s-1 which leads to a LSR velocity coverage of -450 km s-1 to +400 km s-1. Hence, most high-velocity cloud (HVC) emission is encompassed by this velocity interval. The rms-noise of the measured brightness-temperature amounts to $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_\mathrm{B}=0.07`$ K. Moreover, the spectra are corrected for the influence of stray radiation (Kalberla et al. 1980; Hartmann et al. 1996), which is of greatest concern in galactic H i-surveys.

We extracted the sky region bordered by $`b=12^{}`$$`75^{}`$ and $`l=99^{}`$$`166^{}`$ including the Lockman Hole. The lowest H i column density region (Lockman et al. 1986, ($`N_{H\text{i}}4.510^{19}\mathrm{cm}^2`$)) is localized at $`(l,b)=(150^{},53^{})`$. According to the large stretch in Galactic latitude, the contrast between the highest column density region at low Galactic latitude and the Lockman Hole is about a factor of 25 (equivalent $``$ 14 dB). This high column density contrast gives us the opportunity to disentangle the contribution of the different diffuse X-ray emission components, by focussing on regions where each individual X-ray emission component is observable with high significance. The H i data are binned into velocity integrated maps which are projected on the ROSAT grid for a pixel-by-pixel correlation. This is described in Sect. 3.3. The pixel size is set to 48′, about twice the ROSAT all-sky survey data analyzed here and about $`\sqrt{2}`$ of the Leiden/Dwingeloo beam size.

### 2.2 X-ray Data

The X-ray data of the Lockman area were extracted from the ROSAT all-sky survey (RASS) (Snowden et al. 1995, 1997). The data used have an angular resolution of 24′. We investigate four ROSAT energy bands: the R1-band ($`E0.25`$ keV), the R2-band ($`E0.31`$ keV), the C-band ($`E0.28`$ keV), and the M-band ($`E0.82`$ keV) (Snowden et al. 1994b). The data are corrected for scattered solar X-rays (Snowden & Freyberg 1993), particle background (Plucinsky et al. 1993), as well as long–term X-ray enhancements (Snowden et al. 1995). X-ray point sources were removed down to a minimum count rate of 0.02 cts s-1 (Snowden et al. 1997). The statistical significance of the X-ray data were evaluated by the ROSAT uncertainty maps which only account for the number of photon events: they do not include any systematic uncertainties produced by any non-cosmic X-ray events.

## 3 Method

### 3.1 Radiative transfer equation for the ISM

#### 3.1.1 The effective photoelectric absorption

In the soft X-ray energy regime, the photoelectric absorption is the dominant process of X-ray attenuation. According to Morrison & McCammon (1983), the photoelectric absorption cross section is a strong function of energy ($`\sigma E^{\frac{8}{3}}`$) and amounts to some $`\sigma 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (according to ROSAT C-band) for an ISM of solar metalicity and $`n1\mathrm{cm}^3`$. Both findings highlight two important facts: a) the lower the X-ray photon energy the higher the probability of photoelectric absorption and b) all lines of sight through the Galactic ISM are optically thick for soft X-ray emission – except for the Lockman Hole. As pointed out in Sect. 2.2, we analyze the X-ray intensity distribution of broad energy bands. According to this approach, it is necessary to evaluate the X-ray band–averaged photoelectric absorption cross section, the so-called effective photoelectric absorption cross section:

$$\sigma (N_{H\text{i}})=\frac{1}{N_{H\text{i}}}\mathrm{ln}\left\{\frac{S(E)T(E)\mathrm{e}^{\sigma ^{}(E)N_{H\text{i}}}\mathrm{dE}}{S(E)\mathrm{e}^{\sigma ^{}(E)N_{H\text{i}}}\mathrm{dE}}\right\}$$
(1)
Here $`S(E)`$ denotes the spectrum of the X-ray source, $`T(E)`$ the telescope and detector response function, $`\sigma ^{}(E)`$ the Morrison & McCammon (1983) photoelectric cross section, $`N_{H\text{i}}`$ the observed H i column density (for details see Kerp et al. 1999). Using this effective photoelectric absorption cross section $`\sigma (N_{H\text{i}})`$ yields an inherent ambiguity: without an educated guess of $`S(E)`$ it is not possible to determine $`\sigma (N_{H\text{i}})`$. In consequence, we have to compare the observational data with a variety of different spectral models to overcome this ambiguity.

#### 3.1.2 Galactic $`N_{H\text{i}}`$

The distribution of the general ISM of the Milky Way is traced by the Galactic H i 21 cm-line emission. It is thought that H i – as the most abundant element in space – traces the distribution of the metals quantitatively.

Early H i surveys already revealed that H i clouds exist next to the rotating Galactic disk, which cannot be modeled within the framework of co-rotating ISM. Based on these early findings, today we distinguish between low-, intermediate- and high-velocity clouds (Dickey & Lockman 1990). In the following we will show, that low- and intermediate-velocity clouds can be identified as soft X-ray shadows against the distant diffuse X-ray background emission (e.g. Snowden et al. (2000)). To differentiate between these different constituents of the ISM we bin the data into velocity integrated maps covering $`|v_{\mathrm{LSR}}|<25\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, $`|v_{\mathrm{LSR}}|<75\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`|v_{\mathrm{LSR}}|<100\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. We show that the $`|v_{\mathrm{LSR}}|<75\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ already covers H i gas belonging to the M81/M82 group of galaxies. This intra-group H i gas allows a critical test of our X-ray vs. H i correlation analysis because it is accidentally included in the radiative transfer equation as an absorber within the $`|v_{\mathrm{LSR}}|<75\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ map of the Milky Way halo.

### 3.2 The individual X-ray source terms

#### 3.2.1 The Local Hot Bubble

Early sounding rocket experiments as well as the Wisconsin X-ray sky survey established the existence of hot X-ray emitting plasma within the local environment of the Sun. This coronal gas fills the irregularly shaped local void of matter (McCammon & Sanders 1990) – frequently called the Local Hot Bubble (LHB). Therefore, the X-ray intensity of the Local Hot Bubble varies appreciable across the entire sky: $`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}=(2.5\mathrm{}8.2)10^4\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$ (Snowden et al. 1998). $`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ is the first term in our radiative transport equation (see Eqn. 2). Considering the results of Sfeir et al. (1999) we know that only a few local clouds are intermixed with the hot X-ray emitting plasma of the Local Hot Bubble (e.g. Kerp et al. 1993). Because of this finding, we assume that $`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ is not absorbed by any intervening gas along the line of sight.

#### 3.2.2 The Milky Way halo

The existence of hot coronal gas within the Milky Way halo was one of the major discoveries of the ROSAT mission. Moreover, it was found that the X-ray emission from the LHB has a superposed diffuse component (Snowden et al. 1991; Herbstmeier et al. 1995; Kerp et al. 1996; Pietz et al. 1998) in excess to the contribution of the extragalactic background radiation. It is beyond any doubt that diffuse X-ray emission originates within the Milky Way halo, but it is a matter of debate as to how many thermal plasma components are localized within the Galactic halo (Kuntz & Snowden 2000). Their corresponding individual temperatures and emission measures are also a matter of debate. Here we follow the approach of a hot single halo component which will turn out to be sufficient. We vary the temperature of the Galactic halo plasma and search for a best fit temperature simultaneously consistent with all four ROSAT energy band data. The Milky Way halo is represented as $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ in the radiative transfer equation (see Eqn. 2). This diffuse X-ray emission component is absorbed by the Galactic ISM along the line of sight. Following the latest results on the scale height of the highly ionized species (Savage et al. 1997, 2003) and prior H i vs. X-ray correlation analysis (Pietz et al. 1998), the scale height of the Milky Way halo plasma is about 4 kpc (Kalberla & Kerp 1998). We can safely assume that all ISM components with a lower scale height, the Warm Neutral Medium (WNM), the Warm Ionized Medium (WIM) and the Cold Neutral Medium (CNM) are in front of this diffuse X-ray emission. This amount of absorbing material has to be evaluated in order to calculate the strength of the photoelectric absorption. We account for the different characteristic scale heights of the neutral species by using the velocity integrated maps defined in Sect. 3.1.2.

#### 3.2.3 The extragalactic component

The extragalactic X-ray background is composed of superposed emission of point sources, in particular of AGNs (e.g. Tozzi et al. 2001). Its spectrum can be approximated by a power law ($`E^\mathrm{\Gamma }`$). We assume an average spectral index of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.5`$ according to Hasinger et al. (2001). Its ROSAT C-band intensity was determined by Barber et al. (1996); they derived $`I_{\mathrm{EXTRA}}=22810^6\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$ with an uncertainty of $`9010^6\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$. Throughout the fit procedure (see Sect. 3.3) we will fix $`I_{\mathrm{EXTRA}}`$ to both values normalized to the ROSAT C-band and their corresponding values in the other ROSAT energy bands respectively. We assume that all neutral interstellar matter along the line of sight measured in the Leiden/Dwingeloo H i survey ($`N_{H\text{i},\mathrm{e}}`$) is in front of the extragalactic sources. Also this amount of photoelectric absorbing material is constant in the evaluation of the soft X-ray radiative transfer calculations.

This leads to the radiative transfer equation for soft X-rays introduced by Kerp et al. (1999):

$$I=I_{\mathrm{LHB}}+I_{\mathrm{HALO}}\mathrm{e}^{\sigma _\mathrm{h}N_{H\text{i},\mathrm{h}}}+I_{\mathrm{EXTRA}}\mathrm{e}^{\sigma _\mathrm{e}N_{H\text{i},\mathrm{e}}}.$$
(2)
Here, $`\sigma _\mathrm{h}`$ denotes the effective photoelectric absorption cross section of the Galactic halo, while $`\sigma _\mathrm{e}`$ represents that for the extragalactic background. While we can safely assume that all H i observed towards a distant AGN is enclosed within the velocity range $`450\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1<v_{\mathrm{LSR}}<450\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, we have to question this assumption with respect to the Milky Way. Here we have to identify the best fit velocity range by comparing the H i and the diffuse X-ray data quantitatively. To differentiate between both absorbing column densities we use $`N_{H\text{i},\mathrm{e}}`$ and $`N_{H\text{i},\mathrm{h}}`$ from here on. Equation 2 has four free parameters ($`I_{\mathrm{LHB}},I_{\mathrm{HALO}},T_{\mathrm{LHB}},T_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$) and two fixed parameters ($`I_{\mathrm{EXTRA}},\mathrm{\Gamma }`$). The temperatures of the LHB ($`T_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$) and of the Galactic halo ($`T_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$) are connected to Eq. 2 by the source term $`S(E)`$ in Eq. 1. $`N_{H\text{i},\mathrm{e}}`$ and $`N_{H\text{i},\mathrm{h}}`$ are fixed parameters as well because by optimizing the free parameters both $`N_{H\text{i}}`$ values are fixed. To determine the four free parameters, we use the information of the ROSAT R1-, R2-, C- and M-Band in simultaneous fit procedures of X-ray energy band ratios and intensities vs. $`N_{H\text{i},\mathrm{h}}`$.

### 3.3 Modeling

In order to evaluate the radiative transport equation (Eq. 2) for all ROSAT energy bands and band ratios simultaneously, we developed a two-step fit procedure. The first step (one dimensional approach) gives us the opportunity to estimate the start-values for the fit parameters. The second step (two dimensional approach) is used to derive the spatial distribution of the X-ray intensities correctly. Moreover, we can optimize the fit parameters within the framework of the two dimensional fit procedure.

#### 3.3.1 The one dimensional approach

The radiative transport equation (see Eq. 2) gives us the possibility to derive fit parameters, namely the intensities of the two free emission components. In practice we calculate so–called scatter diagrams (see Fig. 1 for the C-band scatter diagram) for the ROSAT C- and M-band and the energy band ratios R1/R2 and C/M as functions of $`N_{H\text{i}}`$. The energy band ratios are a sensitive measure for the temperature of both X-ray emitting plasmas.

The first free parameter value we derive is the C-band intensity of the Local Hot Bubble ($`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$). The data points in the C-band scatter diagram (Fig. 1) show an asymptotic behavior at high column densities ($`>510^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$). Here we observe only the X-ray foreground emission because the entire background emission of $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ and $`I_{\mathrm{EXTRA}}`$ is absorbed by the high column density in front of both components; therefore, the first estimate is $`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}=45010^6\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$ which is consistent with the values given by Snowden et al. (1998).

The $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ is determined at the low column density part of the C-band and full M-band scatter diagram. In the ROSAT C-band we observe the superposed emission of $`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ and $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ while in the ROSAT M-band (see Fig. 2) we have to include the diffuse X-ray emission attributed to the extragalactic background.

Considering only the C-band scatter diagram (Fig. 1), an ambiguity concerning the plasma temperatures remains. Variations of the plasma temperature $`T_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ yield insignificant variations in the fitted curves. To constrain $`T_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ we plot the R1/R2 and C/B band ratio versus $`N_{\mathrm{HI},\mathrm{h}}`$ (see Fig. 3 & 4). Regarding these, we see large variations in the C/M Band ratio vs. $`N_{\mathrm{HI},\mathrm{h}}`$ plot, when we vary the halo plasma temperature in the same way as for the C-band scatter diagram (see Fig. 1). Variations of $`T_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ cause significant variations in the R1/R2 band ratio vs. $`N_{\mathrm{HI},\mathrm{h}}`$ (Fig. 4). An immediate impact on the energy band ratios vs. $`N_{\mathrm{HI},\mathrm{h}}`$ is seen if we vary $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ and $`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ individually. Because a variation of only one free parameter has an immediate effect, all four scatter diagrams, we have a sensitive tool to find a consistent solution for all four parameters simultaneously. To illustrate this proposal we plot a set of temperature models for $`T_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ in each of the four scatter diagrams while leaving the other parameters $`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$, $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ fixed to the best fit parameters given in Sec. 3.4.2. Since the C-band and R1/R2 band ratio scatter diagrams are not sensitive to temperature variations of the parameter $`T_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ the M-band and C/M band ratio scatter diagrams show up with significant deviations from the best fit situation marked by the solid line.

In Fig. 4 we demonstrate the variation of the $`T_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ on the R1/R2 band ratio scatter diagram. While the C- and M-band scatter diagrams as well as the C/M ratio scatter diagram are not sensitive measures for $`T_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ we find that the R1/R2 band ratio scatter diagram allows one to determine $`T_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ very accurately.

The one-dimensional approach performed here indicates that the field–averaged values of the four free parameters can be accurately determined simultaneously. The R1/R2 band ratio scatter diagram is a measure for $`T_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$. The C/M ratio scatter diagram is a measure for $`T_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$. The C-band scatter diagram determines $`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ and $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$, while the M-band scatter diagram is a measure for $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$.

These four parameters form the smallest set of parameters which are necessary to model the X-ray intensity distribution in the R1-, R2-, C- and M-band. The one dimensional approach leads to the following initial fit parameters:

$`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ $`=`$ $`(450\pm 90)10^6\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$
$`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ $`=`$ $`(1200\pm 120)10^6\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$
$`I_{\mathrm{EXTRA}}`$ $`=`$ $`(230\pm 90)10^6\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$
$`T_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ $`=`$ $`10^{6.0\pm 0.1}\mathrm{K}`$
$`T_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ $`=`$ $`10^{6.2\pm 0.1}\mathrm{K}.`$
### 3.4 The two dimensional approach

Extending our analysis of the diffuse X-ray intensity distribution from one to two dimensions allows us to disclose systematic sources of uncertainties hidden by the scatter of the X-ray counts. Namely variations of $`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ and $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ as functions of $`l`$ and $`b`$ on small as well as on large angular scales.

In our two dimensional approach we evaluate Eq. 2 in a pixel-by-pixel manner. For simplicity we assume that the four parameters are constant across the whole sky region we study.

Equipped with the initial parameters, we calculate model maps for the C- and M-band and compare them to the observed X-ray distribution in these bands. This is done by subtracting the model maps from the observed ones and dividing the difference by the ROSAT uncertainty maps. The result is a deviation map which shows the discrepancy of observation and model in units of the statistical standard deviation. These deviation maps (Fig. 5) reveal that most of the observed ROSAT C- and M-band data are fully consistent with the corresponding modeled maps. While the ROSAT M-band data matches with the modeled M-band (within the uncertainties), the C-band shows some large scale deviations between the observed and the modeled X-ray distribution. Especially, the intra-group gas of the M81/M82 group of galaxies leads to an expected deviation in the ROSAT C-band (see Fig. 5, upper panel). This is caused by the admixed H i line emission of the intra-group gas and the Galactic hydrogen. The supernumerary H i column density is seen as an X-ray shadow in the modeled ROSAT C-band located at the correct position on the sky. In this sense, we can test the two dimensional approach spatially.

Towards the low- and high-latitude regions of the maps the observed and the modeled maps agree quantitatively (Fig. 5). Here, the dynamic range in X-ray absorbing H i column density reaches extreme values. The quantitative agreement of these areas indicates that the general approach is successful. However, the differences between both maps are pronounced towards the HVC-complex C (Kerp et al. 1999) and the Lockman Hole. Here, we focus on the Lockman Hole.

#### 3.4.1 Testing the two dimensional correlation

To optimize the initial fit parameters (see Sec. 3.3) we compute histograms of the deviation maps and obtain the mean ($`\mu `$) and variance ($`\sigma `$). In case of a perfect quantitative correlation between the observation and the model we expect a mean of $`\mu =0`$ and a variance of $`\sigma =1`$. This can be achieved by small variations of the free fit parameters and slight changes in the H i column density of the halo component (i.e. the velocity interval of the H i data). It turns out that the quality of the histograms increases when the intensity of the extragalactic background emission is tuned to $`(170\pm 90)10^6\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$ which is fully consistent with Barber et al. (1996) within the uncertainties. After seven iteration steps no further improvement can be achieved. The statistical parameters in the C- and M-band after the optimization are $`\mu _\mathrm{C}=0.13,\sigma _\mathrm{C}=1.56`$ and $`\mu _\mathrm{M}=0.58,\sigma _\mathrm{M}=1.12`$ respectively. The final C-band model map is shown in Fig. 8 for comparison with the observed C-band intensity distribution (Fig. 5).

#### 3.4.2 The role of $`N_{H\text{i}}`$

In order to test which H i components are responsible for the major absorption we use different $`N_{\mathrm{HI}}`$ maps (see Sect. 2.1). Obviously the smaller the velocity integration interval the lower the $`N_{\mathrm{HI}}`$ column density. However, the $`|v_{\mathrm{LSR}}|25\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ map does not include the IVC shadows – most obvious for IVC 135+52-45 (Weiß et al. 1999). The X-ray excess emission close to HVC complex C is still present, as well as the deficit of attenuating H i towards the Lockman Hole. Figures 6, 7 and 8 show three model maps of the ROSAT C-band intensity distribution. The maps differ in the amount of H i in the halo component. We calculate the maps for three different LSR velocity intervals: $`25\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1v_{\mathrm{LSR}}+25\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, $`50\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1v_{\mathrm{LSR}}+50\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`70\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1v_{\mathrm{LSR}}+70\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. The model map to the smallest velocity interval has a mean intensity of $`I_\mathrm{C}=(960\pm 360)10^6\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$. The model map to the medium velocity interval differs by 11 % and the model map to the largest interval by 18 % (see Fig. 68). From these values we conclude, that most of the CNM and WNM is already included within the smallest velocity range, which is accordingly responsible for the dominant fraction of the absorption. Moreover, the CNM is not present at the positions of low column density (Lockman et al. 1986) and therefore the WNM dominates the absorption of the X-ray radiation. This statistical approach leads to the optimized fit parameters:

$`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ $`=`$ $`(350\pm 90)10^6\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$
$`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ $`=`$ $`(1380\pm 120)10^6\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$
$`I_{\mathrm{EXTRA}}`$ $`=`$ $`(170\pm 90)10^6\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$
$`T_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ $`=`$ $`10^{6.0\pm 0.1}\mathrm{K}`$
$`T_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ $`=`$ $`10^{6.2\pm 0.1}\mathrm{K}.`$
In comparison to Kuntz & Snowden (2000) we only need one single X-ray emitting component for fitting the Galactic halo emission. The temperature we derive is in-between the temperature of the soft and hard component derived by Kuntz & Snowden (2000). The temperature for the LHB component is slightly lower in our case.

It turns out that the entire region around the Lockman Hole $`(l,b)=(150^{},53^{})`$ is correctly modeled down to the data uncertainties. We can account for the X-ray intensity distribution on a large sky region ($`60^{}\times 60^{}`$) whereas the Lockman Hole itself is too bright in the model. The question why the model first fails at this prominent position will be discussed in the forthcoming section.

One of the main results is that $`T_{\mathrm{LHB}}<T_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$. This finding is obvious in the R1/R2 band ratio vs. $`N_{\mathrm{HI},\mathrm{h}}`$. Because of the strong dependence of the photoelectric absorption on energy ($`\sigma E^3`$), the soft X-ray photons are much stronger attenuated than the hard ones, leading to an apparent hardening of the X-ray spectrum proportional to $`N_{\mathrm{HI}}`$. This implies that the higher $`N_{\mathrm{HI},\mathrm{h}}`$ the lower the R1/R2 band ratio of the $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ source component. Figure 4 shows the contrary behavior. The higher $`N_{\mathrm{HI},\mathrm{h}}`$ the larger the R1/R2 band ratio. This finding can only be explained by a cooler LHB plasma with respect to the Galactic halo gas. Using the best fit plasma temperatures we derive an important contribution of the Galactic halo plasma to the observed M-band intensities. The $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ is about 4 times brighter than $`I_{\mathrm{LHB}}`$ within the ROSAT C-band, while $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}\frac{4}{3}I_{\mathrm{EXTRA}}`$ in the ROSAT M-band. $`I_{\mathrm{HALO}}`$ is the dominant source in the ROSAT C- and M-band. We assumed the intensity of the Galactic halo plasma to be constant across the field of interest which is consistent within the uncertainties. The derived fluctuations in halo intensity suggested by Snowden et al. (1994a) may be due to the H i velocity intervals, which differ from our choice. These fluctuations do not appear in our model, since we choose the H i velocity intervals as described above.

## 4 Specifying the ISM conditions in the Lockman Hole

### 4.1 Molecular or ionized hydrogen?

As we pointed out in the prior sections, most of the sky region investigated can be explained by our model. The deviating portions of the sky decompose into two types: regions modeled too faint and those modeled too bright. Here we concentrate on the Lockman Hole, which belongs to the latter case (see Fig. 5, upper panel). This is due to a lack of absorbing material. The additional hydrogen column density required to remove the deviation can be estimated to $`N_{H\text{i}}^{\mathrm{add}}(5\pm 3)10^{19}\mathrm{cm}^2`$.

Since most of the sky region is properly fit by our model, we argue that the ISM towards the Lockman Hole has a different composition to the surroundings. Either the ISM at this particular position contains a molecular gas phase or an ionized gas phase, both of which are detectable as X-ray shadows but not quantitatively traced by the H i data. The H i column density inside the bordering contour lines in Fig. 5 (upper panel) is less than $`10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. If we consider a molecular gas phase, a minimum H i column density is needed to shield this molecular phase. Herbstmeier et al. (1993), for example, claimed that an H i column density of at least $`3.710^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ is needed to allow the formation of molecular hydrogen. From this, we conclude that a molecular gas phase is unlikely to exist. The remaining option is an ionized state of the hydrogen towards the Lockman Hole. Previous studies of the interstellar $`H_\alpha `$ emission towards the Lockman Hole (Hausen et al. 2002) yield $`N_{H\text{ii}}210^{19}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ which is of the same order of magnitude as $`N_{H\text{i}}^{\mathrm{add}}`$. We perform a cross-check of the ionization structure towards the Lockman Hole via far-ultraviolet absorption line measurements by FUSE.

### 4.2 Far-Ultraviolet absorption line data

In order to investigate the physical conditions of the interstellar medium in the direction of the Lockman Hole we make use of Far-Ultraviolet (FUV) absorption line data. The FUV range bluewards of the Lyman $`\alpha `$ line and redwards of the Lyman break provides a wealth of spectral diagnostics to study interstellar gas in its various phases (e.g., Savage et al. (2003); Richter et al. (2001a)). A large number of FUV absorption line spectra for almost every direction in the sky is publicly available from the MAST data archive of the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (http://archive.stsci.edu/fuse/). For the purpose of studying the Lockman Hole field extragalactic background sources such as QSOs and AGNs are favorable in order to ensure a correct continuum placement for the various absorption features, and to include Milky Way halo gas that may contain a significant fraction of the X-ray absorbing neutral and ionized gas in this general direction.

### 4.3 NGC 3310

From the extragalactic sight lines in the general direction $`l150^{}`$, $`b50^{}`$ for which good S/N FUSE data is publicly available, we have chosen the one closest to the Lockman Hole: NGC 3310 ($`l=156.6^{}`$, $`b=54.1^{}`$). The raw data was extracted using the standard FUSE data reduction pipeline (CALFUSE v.2.1.6), and was then further reduced in a way similar to the data processing procedure described in Wakker et al. (2003). The velocity calibration was made by comparing absorption lines from various atomic and molecular lines with existing H i 21 cm-line data (see below). The FUSE data have an average signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of $`14`$ per resolution element, and a spectral resolution of $`20`$ km s-1 (FWHM).

#### 4.3.1 Neutral and weakly ionized gas

In Fig. 9 (uppermost panel) we have plotted the Green Bank H i 21 cm-line spectrum towards NGC 3310 (Murphy et al. 1996) on a LSR velocity scale. The 21 cm-line spectrum shows at least four distinct velocity components: (1) a broad local Galactic component centered at $`11`$ km s-1 with $`\mathrm{log}`$ N($`H\text{i})=19.63\pm 0.02`$, (2) a very narrow local Galactic component at $`17`$ km s-1 having $`\mathrm{log}`$ N($`H\text{i})=19.54\pm 0.01`$, (3) a relatively strong broad component located at $`47`$ km s-1 with $`\mathrm{log}`$ N($`H\text{i})=19.71\pm 0.01`$, related to the Intermediate-Velocity Arch (IV Arch; Wakker (2001)) in the lower Milky Way halo, and (4) a weaker, second IV Arch component at $`65`$ km s-1 with $`\mathrm{log}`$ N($`H\text{i})=19.11\pm 0.01`$. In the lower four panels of Fig. 9 we have plotted the FUSE absorption profiles of O i $`\lambda 936.6`$, Ar i $`\lambda 1048.2`$, P ii $`\lambda 1152.8`$, and H2 P(2),4-0 $`\lambda 1053.3`$ in direction of NGC 3310.

Only three velocity components (fitted by Gaussian absorption profiles) are visible in absorption, centered at approximately $`5`$, $`45`$, and $`70`$ km s-1, in Fig. 9 indicated by dotted lines. Possibly, the two local Galactic components, in the 21 cm-line emission data seen at $`11`$ and $`17`$ km s-1, are smearing together into one single absorption component, given the fact the FUSE data has a spectral resolution of only $`20`$ km s-1. However, it is also possible that the narrow $`17`$ km s-1 21 cm-line component relates to gas that partly fills the $`21\stackrel{}{.}0`$ Green Bank beam, but is not present along the pencil-beam FUSE spectrum towards NGC 3310. Since beam smearing effects can introduce enormous uncertainties when comparing 21 cm-line data with FUV absorption line data for low-column density clouds, it is important to look for possibilities to study the structure of the neutral interstellar gas towards the Lockman Hole based on the FUSE data alone. Unfortunately, the H i Lyman series in the FUSE bandpass cannot be used for this purpose, since these lines are heavily saturated at this column density level.

The Ar i $`\lambda 1048.2`$ (Fig. 9, third panel) indicates that the bulk of the neutral material resides in the IVC component near $`45`$ km s-1. And also the H2 absorption (lower-most panel) suggests that most of the diffuse molecular gas is situated in the IV Arch rather than in the local Galactic component (see also Richter et al. (2003) for details on the H2 spectrum). The best available tracer for the neutral gas in the FUSE bandpass is O i. The O i column density is tightly bound to the H i column density, since both neutral hydrogen and neutral oxygen have the same ionization potential ($`13.6`$ eV), and their abundance is coupled by charge-exchange reactions. In addition, oxygen is not strongly depleted in dust grains. Unfortunately, O i absorption towards NGC 3310 is saturated for all available lines at $`\lambda 930`$ Å, and only the relatively weak O i $`\lambda 936.6`$ can be used to roughly estimate the O i column density. This line is shown in Fig. 9, second panel. As is clearly visible, the O i absorption does not reach the zero-flux level in any of the three absorption components, which (together with the total width of the composite absorption structure) allows upper limits to be placed on the individual equivalent widths and column densities by modeling the component structure with Gaussian absorption components. Such a model also has to account for the H2 P(3) absorption that partly blends the local Galactic O i absorption component near $`+50`$ km s-1 (in Fig. 9 indicated with ‘b’). We have done such modeling for the O i $`\lambda 936.6`$ line, and find that the O i absorption in the local Galactic component at $`5`$ km s-1 must be $`90`$ mÅ ($`3\sigma `$ upper limit), while for the two IVC components at $`45`$, and $`70`$ km s-1 we find equivalent width limits of $`115`$ and $`85`$ mÅ. Assuming that $`b=10`$ km s-1 (or greater), these equivalent width limits correspond to logarithmic column density limits of $`16.02`$, $`16.57`$, and $`15.94`$ for O i, and $`19.28`$, $`19.83`$, and $`19.20`$ for H i, respectively, if \[O/H\] is solar (log (O/H)$`{}_{\mathrm{}}{}^{}=3.26`$ (Holweger 2001)). Thus, the FUSE data suggest that the H i column density in the local Galactic gas towards NGC 3310 is by a factor of $`2`$ lower than indicated by the beam-smeared 21 cm-line data pointed in this direction, while the 21 cm-line matches the FUSE data for the two IVC components. However, unresolved sub-components (particular in the local Galactic component) may be present, in which case these limits could be incorrect.

What does the FUSE spectrum of NGC 3310 tell us about the ionization conditions in the interstellar gas in the direction of the Lockman Hole? As has been demonstrated in earlier studies (Richter et al. 2001b), the P ii/O i column density ratio is a good indicator for the ionization structure in interstellar clouds. P ii has an ionization potential of 19.7 eV, and lives in regions where O and H are both neutral and ionized. Also for phosphorus, dust depletion is not considered to be important. Thus, assuming an intrinsic P/O ratio, the O i and P ii column densities can be used to determine lower limits for the ionization fraction, $`f_{\mathrm{ion}}=`$H$`{}_{}{}^{+}/`$(H$`{}_{}{}^{0}+`$H+), in the weakly ionized gas phase (for ionization energies $`<19.7`$ eV). The weak P ii $`\lambda 1152.8`$ absorption (Fig. 9, fourth panel), can be reproduced by a three–component Gaussian fit, for which the three velocity components have been fixed at $`5`$, $`45`$, and $`70`$ km s-1. Using this method, we derive equivalent widths of $`18\pm 4`$ mÅ for the $`5`$ km s-1 component, $`60\pm 8`$ mÅ for the $`55`$ km s-1 component, and $`11\pm 4`$ mÅ for the $`70`$ km s-1 component. Assuming a $`b`$ value of $`10`$ km s-1, these equivalent widths correspond to column densities, $`\mathrm{log}`$ N$`(P\text{ii})`$, of $`12.85\pm 0.10`$, $`13.51\pm 0.09`$, and $`12.63\pm 0.14`$, respectively. Assuming that all three velocity components have solar phosphorus-to-oxygen abundance ratios (see also Richter et al. 2001a, b), the data for O and P yield $`f_{\mathrm{ion}}0.22`$ and N(H)=N(H i)+N(H$`{}_{}{}^{+})=8.66\times 10^{19}`$cm-2, whereas no useful limits can be obtained for the local Galactic component and the second IVC component, since their P/O column density ratios would allow every degree of ionization (i.e., $`f_{\mathrm{ion}}0.0`$). The FUSE data therefore indicates that approximately a fifth of the total hydrogen column density in the main IVC component is in ionized form; very likely, the ionization in the local Galactic component is much higher, but the limitations for the FUSE O i data unfortunately does not allow the derivation of a quantitative limit.

#### 4.3.2 Highly ionized gas

The FUSE data also yields information about the highly ionized gas phase for ionization energies $`>100`$ eV through the two resonance lines of five-times ionized oxygen, O vi, situated at $`1031.9`$ and $`1037.6`$ Å. O vi traces collisionally ionized, hot gas at temperatures $`T2\times 10^5`$ K (thus lower than the X-ray emitting gas), or gas that is photoionized by a hard UV background (or a combination of both). In Fig. 10 we have plotted the O vi $`\lambda 1031.9`$ absorption profile towards NGC 3310 (the weaker O vi $`\lambda 1037.6`$ cannot be used due to blending effects). The main analysis of the O vi $`\lambda 1031.9`$ absorption towards NGC 3310 has already been presented in Wakker et al. (2003) and Savage et al. (2003). O vi absorption is smeared over a broad range from $`200`$ to $`+90`$ km s-1, thus spanning a velocity range that covers all three velocity components seen in 21 cm-line emission. The total integrated O vi column density is $`\mathrm{log}`$ N$`(O\text{vi})=14.56\pm 0.02`$. This column density is slightly (but not significantly) higher than the O vi column densities in other directions outside the Lockman Hole (see Savage et al. 2003). This is not too surprising though, since the pathlength through the Lockman Hole is too short to contribute significantly to the total O vi column density at the expected low volume densities. Assuming that the fraction of oxygen residing in the O vi phase is $`0.2`$, the total gas column density of this highly ionized gas phase is $`3.3\times 10^{18}`$ cm-2 for solar oxygen abundances (Holweger 2001). The highly ionized gas component traced by O vi therefore cannot contribute significantly to the total hydrogen gas column density in direction of the Lockman Hole.

## 5 Conclusion

The analysis performed shows that the main absorption of soft X-rays is due to the WNM. It turns out that a single-temperature plasma in the Milky Way halo is sufficient to reproduce the X-ray distribution on the Lockman Hole field ($`60^{}\times 60^{}`$) very well. Hence, a patchy Milky Way halo is not likely. Furthermore, the applied fit procedure (simultaneously for four ROSAT energy bands) is very sensitive to temperature. We showed that the temperature of the LHB plasma is lower than the temperature of the halo plasma. The X-ray/H i-analysis of the Lockman Hole itself gives evidence that a large fraction of the attenuating ISM may reside in form of ionized hydrogen.

While the FUSE data of NGC 3310 impressively demonstrates the complex multiphase structure of the gas in the general direction of the Lockman Hole, a precise quantitative analysis of the gas properties turns out to be unfeasible due to the complexity of the velocity structure of the gas that cannot be resolved with the FUSE instrument. The data shows that the majority of the neutral and molecular gas is situated in the IVC component in the lower Milky Way halo rather than in the disk component. Due to the data limitations, we are not able to obtain precise ionization fractions, but the FUSE data of NGC 3310 are at least consistent with the idea of ionized hydrogen in the Lockman Hole. While the ionization fraction is not well constrained by the FUSE data the total amount of ionized gas is sufficiently high to overcome the apparent discrepancy between the H i and X-ray observations.

###### Acknowledgements.

MK and JK like to thank the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt for financial support under grant No. 50 OR 0103.


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# Alternative Method for Quantum Feedback-Control

## I Introduction

It is a dream for both theorists and experimentalists to be able to control single quantum systems, in particular quantum gates for quantum computing. Uchiyama described how to achieve open-loop control for spin-boson model in the first day of the symposiumU . Among interesting works on open loop controls, Viola and Lloyd introduced quantum bang-bang controlVL , whereas Mancini et al. considered stochastic resonance to control quantum systemsMVBT . However, as in classical control theories, open-loop control is of limited use because in most cases it is merely a blind control.

Feedback control is not only experimentally difficult, but even theoretically impossible, because a measurement at the output collapses the system’s coherenceVN . Wiseman made many attempts to achieve feedback control, based mainly on the homodyne method of detectionWMW ; WM ; WWM . Doherty et al. used state estimation methodsDHJMT . These methods with some measurements at the output stage to have feedback signals can be summarized as shown in Fig.(1a). However, are such measurements necessary? Recent works on quantum information theories indicate that having signals need not destroy coherence.

In this paper the idea of feeding back precisely the process output is renounced. Instead, a quantum cloning machine is placed at the output side, as shown in Fig.(1b). According to quantum-cloning theorems, it is possible to make either imperfect copies with unity probabilityBH ; C  or perfect copies with probability less than unityDG . In the later case, a measurement is necessary, whereas the former cloning machine, which can be decomposed into rotations and controlled NOTs gates, does not involve measurementBBHB . The former approach relies on adding some ancillary quantum system in a known state and unitarily evolving the resulting combined system. Simply stated, a cloning machine is a device to split the information of the input state.

When the Bužek and Hillery cloning machine is applied at the process output, although the feedback and output of the controlled process become imperfect, as long as the system is controllable, so that the system can be steered to any state desired, and observable, so that the system can be monitored, it made no difference for controlling. We are no more than feeding back a transformed output. For the feedback loop the cloner acts like an actuator (a device added to the feedback loop to alter the system’s controllability and observability) while for the output it distorted the output. Although the controllability and the observability of the system are modified, the coherence of the output can be preserved. An analogy is that having a colleague who is invariably half-hour late for any meeting is immaterial. As long as she arrives, it makes no difference, for all practical purposes.

## II method

The simplest actuator is a transformation that does nothing, which Wiseman called ’simple feedback’. In practice, one can adjust the actuator function to achieve system controllability and observability as in classical control theories, which is an engineering problem.

For a mixed input state, the output state of the cloning machine reads,

$$\rho _{0,1}^{(out)}=\frac{2}{3}\rho ^{(in)}+\frac{1}{6}I,$$
(1)
in which $`I`$ is the identity matrix. The Bloch vector shrinks by a factor of $`2/3`$.

We can perform logical operations for the cloned feedback state, $`B`$, with the input state, $`I`$, to obtain the process input state, $`M`$.

In a control theory, we suppose a knowledge of only the desired state and our input signal; intermediate states, such as the process input, are supposed to be unknown. A matching condition at the process output, or any other junction of the system, such as the process input, fixes the unknowns in $`\rho ^{(in)}`$. Controllability and observability follow if this input-output mapping is one-to-one.

In conventional physics or engineering practice, a dynamic process is represented by a differential equation such as a master equation. However, as an equation of this kind can be written in terms of quantum operations, we can ignore the detail and formulate the process in turns of quantum operationsNC .

In the operator-sum formalism, a process defined by an input density matrix $`\rho _M`$, and an output density matrix $`\rho _0`$, with the process described by a quantum operation, $`𝒫`$,

$`\rho _M\stackrel{𝒫}{}\rho _0.`$ (2)
$`𝒫`$ can be rewritten as a completely positive linear transformation acting on the density matrix

$$𝒫(\rho _M)=\underset{i}{}P_i\rho _MP_i^{},$$
(3)
in which the $`P_i`$ satisfy the completeness relation

$$\underset{i}{}P_i^{}P_i=I,$$
(4)
or equivalently $`\text{Tr}[𝒫(\rho _M)]=1`$.

This way of treating the process is elegant. Furthermore, we can treat the cloning machine consistently.

## III Example

As an example, we consider the process of a two-level atom coupled to the vacuum undergoing spontaneous emission. The coherent part of the atom’s evolution has a Hamiltonian $`H=\omega \sigma _z/2`$, in which $`\omega `$ is the energy difference of the atomic level. The emission process is described by an Lindblad operator $`\sqrt{\gamma ^{^{}}}\sigma _{}`$, in which $`\sigma _{}=|01|`$ is the atomic lowering operator, and $`\gamma ^{^{}}`$ is the rate of spontaneous emission. The master equation reads,

$$\dot{\rho ^{^{}}}=i[H,\rho ^{^{}}]+\gamma ^{^{}}\left[2\sigma _{}\rho ^{^{}}\sigma _+\sigma _+\sigma _{}\rho ^{^{}}\rho ^{^{}}\sigma _+\sigma _{}\right],$$
(5)
with $`\sigma _+=\sigma _{}^{}`$. The solution of this equation in the interaction picture can be written in the operator-sum formalism, after a change of variable $`\rho (t)=\mathrm{exp}(iHt)\rho ^{^{}}(t)\mathrm{exp}(iHt)`$ and using a Bloch vector representation for $`\rho `$, as

$$\rho _0=𝒫(\rho _M)=P_0\rho _MP_0^{}+P_1\rho _MP_1^{},$$
(6)
in which

$$P_0=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& \hfill 0\\ 0& \hfill \sqrt{1\gamma }\end{array}\right),P_1=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& \hfill \sqrt{\gamma }\\ 0& \hfill 0\end{array}\right),$$
(7)
while $`\gamma =1\mathrm{exp}(2t\gamma ^{^{}})`$ implies the probability of losing a photon. For the suffixes of $`\rho `$, please refer to Fig.(1b).

The most general input state for the process can be written in terms of Bloch sphere representation as

$$\rho _M=\frac{1}{2}\left(I+\stackrel{}{a}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\right)=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1+a_3& \hfill a_1ia_2\\ a_1+ia_2& \hfill 1a_3\end{array}\right).$$
(8)
Here, $`\stackrel{}{a}=(a_1,a_2,a_3)`$ is the Bloch vector of length unity or less, and $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$ is the vector of Pauli matrices. These intermediate variables are to be eliminated from the following calculations.

The action of the process on this density matrix produces

$$𝒫(\rho _M)=\frac{1}{2}\left(I+\stackrel{}{b}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\right),$$
(9)
in which

$$\stackrel{}{b}=(a_1\sqrt{1\gamma },a_2\sqrt{1\gamma },a_3(1\gamma )+\gamma )$$
(10)
is computed according to Eq.(3). This state can be fed into the cloner according to Eq.(1). The later state is also the output state of the system, since the cloning machine we used is symmetric.

For simplicity and demonstration, we consider a system without even the input terminal, in the first instance. Therefore, Bloch vector $`2/3\stackrel{}{b}`$ becomes the input Bloch vector of the process. Hence, $`\stackrel{}{a}=2/3\stackrel{}{b}`$ fixes the unknown variables of the system. The solution is $`\stackrel{}{a}=2\stackrel{}{b}/3==(0,0,2\gamma /(1+2\gamma ))`$.

If one want to have an input signal to control the system, at least a two-qubit gate is needed for the gate, $`G`$, to combine the feedback signal and the input signal. It can be a controlled-NOT gate or a controlled-phase gate for example. Even more generally, a controlled-U gateEHI  can serve. Furthermore, according to the Landauer’s principle, if one wishes the system to be reversible, the gate must has input terminals and output terminals of equal number, as shown in the figure, although the extra output signal can be discarded.

Suppose we take the input signal, $`I`$, having a Bloch vector $`\stackrel{}{i}=(e_1,e_2,e_3)`$, and the feedback signal, $`B`$, as the control signal. The controlled-NOT gate read,

$$C_{NOT}=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}0\hfill & 1& 0& \hfill 0\\ 1\hfill & 0& 0& \hfill 0\\ 0\hfill & 0& 1& \hfill 0\\ 0\hfill & 0& 0& \hfill 1\end{array}\right).$$
(11)
The total density matrix of the input and the feedback state is a direct product of the input density matrix, $`\rho _I`$, and the feedback density matrix, $`\rho _B`$. After they interact through $`C_{NOT}`$, partial trace is taken over the $`I`$ degree of freedom. The resulting density matrix reads

$$\text{Tr}_I(C_{NOT}\rho _I\rho _BC_{NOT}^{})=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1+\frac{2}{3}e_3(a_3(1\gamma )+\gamma )\hfill & \hfill \frac{2\sqrt{1\gamma }}{3}(a_1ia_2e_3)\\ \frac{2\sqrt{1\gamma }}{3}(a_1+ia_2e_3)\hfill & \hfill 1\frac{2}{3}e_3(a_3(1\gamma )+\gamma )\end{array}\right).$$
(12)
Only one component of the input Bloch vector has an influence on the process, because the $`C_{NOT}`$ gate mixed the total density matrix only slightly whereas the partial trace operation eliminated all other components.

Matching Eq.(8) and Eq.(12) yields $`a_1=a_2=0`$, and $`a_3=e_3\gamma /(3/2e_3(1\gamma ))`$, which fixes the unknown variables of the process. A valid Bloch vector has to be of length unity or less. Furthermore, note $`\gamma `$ is also less than unity. Through Eq.(10), one obtains the input-output relationship of the system: $`b_1=b_2=0`$, and $`b_3=\gamma /(1(2/3)e_3(1\gamma ))`$. The system is controllable in the valid range of the process because the mapping between $`\stackrel{}{a}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{i}`$ is one to one. Furthermore, according to Eq.(10) the system is observable, because we can calculate the process state once we know the output state.

Similar calculation can be done if one take $`I`$ as the control signal.

In summary, the system considered maps states with Bloch vector $`\stackrel{}{i}`$ into states with Bloch vector $`2/3\stackrel{}{b}`$. If the mapping from $`\stackrel{}{i}`$ to $`\stackrel{}{b}`$ is one to one, by definition, the system is controllableTK . The mapping of state with Bloch vector $`2/3\stackrel{}{b}`$ to state with Bloch vector $`\stackrel{}{a}`$ is one to one signifies the system is observable.

## IV discussion

Coherent feedback is formulated without using adiabatic elimination as Wiseman did. Our method indicated that, although the system cannot be divided, the information can. Therefore part of the output information is feed back for control purposes.

This work is a synergy of two fields in modern science, namely, automatic control theories and quantum-cloning theories. As Bruß et al. mentioned, presently quantum-cloning theories have been mainly of academic interestsBCL . A concrete example of the application of cloning theory is presented here.

In the example given, one has the freedom to either feedback the ancilla or one of the cloned copy, since the ancilla also contains the process informationBCL . According to the figure, their roles are similar.

The input control signal need not be another unknown quantum stateJAZB . It can be a quantum system in its eigenstate. We can change other parameters, such as time, for controlling. The details depend on the design of the system. On the other hand, an unknown state controlling another unknown state is not necessarily useless: A NOT-gate is an exampleB . In the same way we can design gates that switch the quantum state to a particular state. For instance, a gate that always rotates the input state by 45 degree. A control system which incorporated 45, 90, 135 degrees of rotation, with selection is another way to achieve quantum control.

With a quantum feedback system formulated in this way, many recent results in quantum information sciences are applicable. For instance, the system can be considered as a channel; it entropy exchange can be calculated and the uncertainty principle derivedTL .

Our formalism does suffer from some deficiencies: Firstly, the outputs of the cloner are likely to entangled with themselves or with the ancillaBM . We assume this does not happen presently. Secondly, because the operator-sum formalism ignores the detail evolution of the system, we can take no time lag between various components into account. The evolution time of any component must be finiteGLM . The entanglement cannot be eliminated in view of the second point because entanglement serves to accelerate the evolution. However, the time lag problem only makes difference at the design stage. The basic method for doing quantum feedback control is unchanged.

For the control scheme proposed by LloydL , he found quantum control with coherent feedback often do not distinguish between sensors and actuators. This is probably because of the models he considered are pathological. In conventional control theories, there is always an input control signal to be mixed with the feedback signal. Therefore the roles of the process and the actuator are made asymmetric. However, in Lloyd’s examples this input signal is missing.

Recently Simon et al. proposed doing quantum cloning via stimulated emissionSWZ ; KSW . In view of our proposal, this recently realized cloning machine appears to be part of Warszawski and Wiseman’s feedback control systemWW  in that they all have feedback in one mode which coupled to another mode for output. Perhaps their device has a cloner implicitly built-in?

As quantum-cloning machine has been realized recentlyLLHZGJ ; MMB ; LSHB ; CJFSMPJ , and a method for making cloning machine for cavity QED is proposedMOR , the feedback control method proposed herein should be verifiable.

Finally, I thank Dr. Giyuu Kido, chairman of APF8, and the organization committee for generous support and hospitality during my visit to NIMS.


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# Quark coalescence and elliptic flow of charm hadrons

## I Introduction and Conclusions

During the early stage of ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the future Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a deconfined phase, often called the quark-gluon plasma, is expected to be formed. As the dense matter expands, the parton degrees of freedom in the deconfined phase convert to hadrons. Quark coalescence is a simple model of hadronization, where it is assumed that gluons, which are abundant at high temperatures, either convert to quark-antiquark pairs or serve to “dress” quarks into constituent quarks near hadronization. The effective degrees of freedom are constituent quarks and anti-quarks, and mesons form from a quark-antiquark pair, while baryons from three quarks according to their valence quark compositions. Quark coalescence has been applied to heavy ion collisions in the algebraic coalescence rehadronization (ALCOR) and microscopic coalescence rehadronization (MICOR) models alcormicor  to describe hadron abundances and in a multiphase transport model (AMPT) with string melting Lin:2001zk  to describe the elliptic flow at RHIC. Recently it has been used to address the elliptic flow of hadrons of different flavors Lin:2002rw ; Voloshin:2002wa ; Molnar:2003ff , and the large $`p/\pi `$ ratio Voloshin:2002wa ; Hwa2 ; Fries:2003vb ; Greco:2003xt  observed at RHIC.

Elliptic flow, $`v_2\mathrm{cos}(2\varphi )`$, the second Fourier moment of the azimuthal momentum distribution, is one of the important experimental probes of collective dynamics in $`A+A`$ reactions flow-review . It results from the spatial asymmetry in the transverse plane in non-central collisions, which is largest at early times. Therefore, elliptic flow is sensitive to the properties of dense matter, such as its equation of state Kolb2 ; Teaney:v2 ; Huovinen:2001cy ; Kolb:2001qz  or the effective scattering cross section of partons produced in the collisions Zhang:1999rs ; Molnar:v2 ; Zabrodin:2001rz ; Lin:2001zk . Measurements of elliptic flow at high transverse momentum star  provide important constraints about the density and effective energy loss of partons pQCDv2 ; Molnar:v2 .

Charm quark elliptic flow holds the key to resolve a recent controversy regarding charm dynamics. It was pointed out in Ref. Batsouli:2002qf  that both i) initial perturbative QCD charm production without final state interactions (as modeled in PYTHIASjostrand:1993yb ) and ii) complete thermal equilibrium for charm hadrons are consistent with the single electron spectra from PHENIX Adcox:2002cg . Information on the magnitude of charm quark elliptic flow is essential to distinguish between these two extreme scenarios.

In this study we determine the elliptic flow of charm mesons and baryons based on quark coalescence and investigate how to extract the charm quark elliptic flow from that of charm hadrons. We extend the simple quark coalescence formalism to the case of different constituent quark masses, which is relevant for heavy flavors, and also consider the effect of the finite momentum width of hadron wavefunctions.

We find that relations between hadron and parton elliptic flow are modified for hadrons with constituent quarks of unequal masses. As a result, charm hadron elliptic flow is predicted to increase much slower with transverse momentum and saturate at a much higher momentum scale than the flow of hadrons with only lighter flavors. A very slow increase of charm hadron elliptic flow with $`p_{}`$ is a strong indication for a small charm quark elliptic flow. The effect of the finite momentum spread in hadron wavefunctions is relatively small for charm hadrons. In this case, simple relations exist to unfold both light and charm quark $`v_2(p_{})`$ from hadron elliptic flow. Comparing these predictions with upcoming experimental data will tell to what degree charm quarks rescatter in the medium and provide valuable insights into the dynamics and hadronization of the dense partonic matter in heavy ion collisions.

## II Mass and wavefunction effects in quark coalescence

A convenient starting point to describe meson production via coalescence $`\alpha \beta M`$ is the relation Dover:1991zn

$`E{\displaystyle \frac{dN(\stackrel{}{p})}{d^3p}}=g_M{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma ^\mu p_\mu }{(2\pi )^3}d^3q\left|\psi _\stackrel{}{p}(\stackrel{}{q})\right|^2f_\alpha (\stackrel{}{p_\alpha },x)f_\beta (\stackrel{}{p_\beta },x)}`$ (1)
between the phase space distributions of constituent quarks $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, the meson wavefunction $`\psi _\stackrel{}{p}`$ note , and the invariant momentum distribution of produced mesons. Here $`\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{p_\alpha }+\stackrel{}{p_\beta }`$, $`\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{p_\alpha }\stackrel{}{p_\beta }`$, $`g_M`$ is the statistical factor for the meson formation Dover:1991zn ; Fries:2003vb ; Greco:2003xt , and the integration runs over a 3D space-time hypersurface parameterized by $`\sigma ^\mu (x)`$. The expression is valid if coalescence is a rare process. When the coalescence probabilities are high for the constituents, instead of the quadratic (cubic) scaling of the meson (baryon) number with the quark number implied by the above equation, the scaling should be linear Voloshin:2002wa ; Molnar:2003ff . Eq. (1) also neglects the hadronic binding energy. Because of the large charm quark mass, this assumption is better met for charm hadrons than for lighter ones. For quark coalescence into baryons $`\alpha \beta \gamma B`$, Eq. (1) can be generalized in a straightforward manner.

Note, Eq. (1) is valid for collectively expanding sources, provided the parton distribution functions, $`f_i(\stackrel{}{p},x)`$, change little over the spatial size of the hadron wavefunctions ($`1`$ fm). However, it has to be modified if flow velocity gradients are very large as shown by Eqs. (3.19-20) in Ref. Scheibl:1998tk . We leave the discussion of this and other space-momentum correlation effects to further studies.

For a hadron at rest, $`\psi _\stackrel{}{0}`$ has a small momentum space extension of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}1/`$fm (based on the uncertainty principle) and therefore Eq. (1) reduces to the simple formula considered in Ref. Molnar:2003ff . For a fast moving hadron, on the other hand, the wavefunction can change significantly due to Lorentz boost. We estimate this effect assuming that $`\psi _\stackrel{}{p}`$ is dominated by the contributions of dressed valence quarks. In this case, e.g., for mesons, $`|\psi _\stackrel{}{0}(\stackrel{}{q}^{})|^2`$ is the probability density for finding quark/antiquark $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ with momenta $`(\stackrel{}{q_\alpha }^{},\stackrel{}{q_\beta }^{})=(+\stackrel{}{q}^{}/2,\stackrel{}{q}^{}/2)`$ in the hadron rest frame (primed quantities refer to the hadron rest frame throughout this study). For a hadron at mid-rapidity with momentum $`\stackrel{}{p}=(p_{}\stackrel{}{n}_{},0)`$ in the LAB frame, the transverse momenta of valence quarks along the transverse boost direction $`\stackrel{}{n}_{}`$ are given by

$`p_i={\displaystyle \frac{E_i^{}}{m_M}}p_{}+\stackrel{}{q_i}^{}\stackrel{}{n}_{}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{p_{}^2+m_M^2}}{m_M}}.`$ (2)
Here $`E_i^{}(m_i^2+|\stackrel{}{q_i}^{}|^2)^{1/2}`$, $`m_i`$ is the effective mass of valence quark $`i`$, and $`m_M`$ is the meson mass.

Suppose now that the rest-frame wavefunction was sufficiently narrow so that one can take $`\stackrel{}{q}^{}0`$. For the weakly bound system assumed, $`m_Mm_\alpha +m_\beta `$ and Eq. (2) then gives $`p_i=p_{}m_i/(m_\alpha +m_\beta )`$. This relation also holds in general for the average constituent momenta, provided $`(\stackrel{}{q}_{}^{}{}_{i}{}^{})^2m_i^2`$. Introducing the constituent momentum fractions $`z_ip_i/p_{}`$, for mesons and baryons we then have, respectively,

$`\overline{z}_i={\displaystyle \frac{m_i}{m_\alpha +m_\beta }},\overline{z}_i={\displaystyle \frac{m_i}{m_\alpha +m_\beta +m_\gamma }}.`$ (3)
If the effective masses of constituent quarks are similar, $`\overline{p}_\alpha =\overline{p}_\beta =p_{}/2`$ for a meson, which is the case, e.g., for pions or the $`J/\psi `$. On the other hand, for $`D`$ mesons $`m_\alpha m_\beta `$ and therefore most of the hadron momentum is carried by the heavy quark. The asymmetric momentum configuration arises because coalescence requires the constituents to have similar velocities, not momenta.

The Lorentz boost also affects the width of the hadron wavefunction. From Eq. (2) the spreads of valence quark momentum fractions in the LAB frame are

$`\delta z_i={\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{q_i}^{}\stackrel{}{n}_{}}{m_H}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{p_{}^2+m_H^2}}{p_{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{q_i}^{}\stackrel{}{n}_{}}{m_H}}`$ (4)
if the hadron is moving relativistically. For massive hadrons, such as charm hadrons, $`\delta z_i\stackrel{}{q_i}^{}\stackrel{}{n}_{}/m_H1`$ because $`\stackrel{}{q_i}^{}`$ is typically on the order of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$. On the other hand, for hadrons with masses comparable to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$, e.g., pions, $`\delta z_i`$ is always on the order of unity regardless of the transverse momentum. However, note that for such light mesons the binding energy cannot be neglected and hence the conventional coalescence formalism may be not be reliable.

Since the constituent quark momentum components perpendicular to the hadron momentum (i.e., $`\stackrel{}{n}_{}`$ at mid-rapidity) are small ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$), we further simplify Eq. (1) by considering only the quark momentum component along $`\stackrel{}{n}_{}`$. Then the integrals over the wavefunction can be recast, for mesons for example, as $`d^3q|\psi _\stackrel{}{p}(\stackrel{}{q})|^2=𝑑z_\alpha |\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{p}(z_\alpha )|^2`$. As seen from Eq. (4), $`\delta z_i`$ is independent of $`p_{}`$ for large $`p_{}`$ and thus $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{p}(z_\alpha )`$ only depends on $`z_\alpha `$. In this case Eq. (1) becomes, with $`z_\beta =1z_\alpha `$,

$`E{\displaystyle \frac{dN(\stackrel{}{p})}{d^3p}}=g_M{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma ^\mu p_\mu }{(2\pi )^3}𝑑z_\alpha \left|\mathrm{\Phi }_M(z_\alpha )\right|^2f_\alpha (z_\alpha \stackrel{}{p},x)f_\beta (z_\beta \stackrel{}{p},x)}.`$ (5)
## III Elliptic flow for charm hadrons

### III.1 Narrow wavefunction case (the limit of zero momentum spread)

Because for charm hadrons the spread $`\delta z_i`$ is small, it is a good approximation to consider only the mean quark momentum fraction $`\overline{z}_\alpha `$ in Eq. (5). For simplicity, we shall neglect the spatial variation of $`f_i`$ on the hypersurface and assume that in non-central heavy ion collisions the $`\mathrm{cos}(2\varphi )`$ component is the only non-trivial term in the quark azimuthal distribution, i.e.,

$`f_i()(2\pi )^3{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{dN}_\mathrm{i}}{\mathrm{d}^3\mathrm{p}}}=\mathrm{h}_\mathrm{i}(\mathrm{p}_{})\left[1+2\mathrm{v}_{2,\mathrm{i}}(\mathrm{p}_{})\mathrm{cos}(2\varphi )\right].`$ (6)
Eq. (3) then relates $`v_2(p_{})`$ of mesons or baryons to those of the constituent quarks as Molnar:2003ff

$`v_2^M(p_{})={\displaystyle \frac{\overline{v_{2,\alpha }}+\overline{v_{2,\beta }}}{1+2\overline{v_{2,\alpha }}\overline{v_{2,\beta }}}}\overline{v_{2,\alpha }}+\overline{v_{2,\beta }},`$
$`v_2^B(p_{})={\displaystyle \frac{\overline{v_{2,\alpha }}+\overline{v_{2,\beta }}+\overline{v_{2,\gamma }}+3\overline{v_{2,\alpha }}\overline{v_{2,\beta }}\overline{v_{2,\gamma }}}{1+2\left(\overline{v_{2,\alpha }}\overline{v_{2,\beta }}+\overline{v_{2,\alpha }}\overline{v_{2,\gamma }}+\overline{v_{2,\beta }}\overline{v_{2,\gamma }}\right)}}`$
$`\overline{v_{2,\alpha }}+\overline{v_{2,\beta }}+\overline{v_{2,\gamma }},`$ (7)
where $`\overline{v_{2,i}}v_{2,i}(\overline{z}_ip_{})`$ is the elliptic flow of valence quark $`i`$ at its average momentum. As a result, for hadrons consisting of both light and charm quarks, elliptic flow at a given $`p_{}`$ contains the light quark elliptic flow at a much smaller $`p_{}`$.

If the light quark density is so high that the coalescence probability for a charm quark is unity, Eq. (7) breaks down, and charm hadrons just inherit the flow contribution from charm quarks Voloshin:2002wa . Preliminary experimental data indicate that $`p_{}`$ scale for light quarks below which this occurs might be as low as 1 GeV star . Also note that our study does not include the independent fragmentation of partons, which eventually dominates over coalescence at very large $`p_{}`$ Fries:2003vb ; Greco:2003xt ; Molnar:2003ff , due to the power-law shape of the parton spectra at high $`p_{}`$. Since the fragmentation function of heavy quarks in vacuum is much harder than that of light quarks, the $`p_{}`$ scale above which independent fragmentation starts to dominate can be different for charm quarks than those for light quarks.

Fig. 1 shows the mass effects on elliptic flow of charm hadrons, considering either $`v_{2,c}(p_{})=v_{2,q}(p_{})`$ (unlabeled) or $`v_{2,c}(p_{})=0`$. For illustration, dashed curves correspond to a light quark flow $`v_{2,q}(p_{})`$ which increases linearly then saturates when $`p_{}>p_0`$. Solid lines instead represent a more realistic scenario, where $`v_{2,q}(p_{})=v_2^{max}\mathrm{tanh}(p_{}/p_0)`$, as found in the Molnar’s parton transport model (MPC) Molnar:v2 . For $`J/\psi `$ and protons, which consist of quarks with similar masses, $`v_2(p_{})`$ saturates at $`p_{}n_vp_0`$ at a value $`n_vv_2^{max}`$ Molnar:2003ff , where $`n_v=2`$ and $`3`$ for mesons and baryons, respectively. However, for $`D`$ mesons and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ baryons elliptic flow increases with $`p_{}`$ very slowly due to the large difference in the constituent quark masses. The reason is that light quarks in these hadrons carry only a small fraction of the hadron momentum. The slow increase is most pronounced when charm quarks have no elliptic flow. Furthermore, when charm quarks have elliptic flow, $`v_2(p_{})`$ of $`D`$ mesons and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ baryons both exhibit two different slopes because the flow of the heavier constituents enters the saturation regime much earlier. In both cases, $`v_2(p_{})`$ of these hadrons saturates at a scale well above $`n_vp_0`$. These qualitative features could be tested by experiments at RHIC and the LHC, and they will provide key information on the dynamics of charm quarks/hadrons in dense matter created in heavy ion collisions closs ; cnoloss ; Batsouli:2002qf .

### III.2 Unfolding quark elliptic flow

When Eq. (1) is valid and the effect of the momentum spread is small, it is possible to unfold the quark elliptic flow from hadron elliptic flow using Eq. (7). For example, if $`v_2(p_{})`$ is known for $`D`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$, we have

$`v_2^q(p_{})=v_2^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left((2+r)p_{}\right)v_2^D\left((1+r)p_{}\right),`$
$`v_2^c(p_{})=2v_2^D\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+r}{r}}p_{}\right)v_2^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2+r}{r}}p_{}\right),`$ (8)
where $`rm_c/m_q`$ is the ratio of the charm quark and light ($`u`$ and $`d`$) quark effective mass.

### III.3 Numerical estimates including the momentum spreads of wavefunctions

For rough numerical estimates, we consider the conditions in semi-peripheral heavy ion collisions at the top RHIC energy, $`\sqrt{s}=200A`$ GeV. With the assumption of Eq. (6), one obtains

$`E{\displaystyle \frac{dN(\stackrel{}{p})}{d^3p}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑z_\alpha \left|\mathrm{\Phi }_M(z_\alpha )\right|^2h_\alpha (z_\alpha p_{})h_\beta (z_\beta p_{})}`$ (9)
$`\times \left[1+2v_{2,\alpha }(z_\alpha p_{})\mathrm{cos}(2\varphi )\right]\left[1+2v_{2,\beta }(z_\beta p_{})\mathrm{cos}(2\varphi )\right].`$
We recover Eq. (7) when the momentum spread is zero, i.e., $`\left|\mathrm{\Phi }_M(z_\alpha )\right|^2=\delta (z_\alpha \overline{z}_\alpha )`$. Including the momentum spread but neglecting small corrections of higher orders in $`v_{2,i}`$, the meson elliptic flow is

$`v_2^M(p_{})={\displaystyle \frac{𝑑z_\alpha w_M(z_\alpha ,p_{})\left[v_{2,\alpha }(z_\alpha p_{})+v_{2,\beta }(z_\beta p_{})\right]}{𝑑z_\alpha w_M(z_\alpha ,p_{})}},`$ (10)
where the weight function for mesons is given by

$`w_M(z_\alpha ,p_{})=\left|\mathrm{\Phi }_M(z_\alpha )\right|^2h_\alpha (z_\alpha p_{})h_\beta (z_\beta p_{}).`$ (11)
For baryons, the similar expression for $`v_2^B(p_{})`$ involves two integrals, over $`z_\alpha `$ and $`z_\beta `$, where $`w_B(z_\alpha ,z_\beta ,p_{})`$ contains the product of three quark distributions.

For the hadron wavefunctions, for simplicity we take the form used in the valon model Hwa2 :

$`\left|\mathrm{\Phi }_M(z_\alpha )\right|^2z_\alpha ^az_\beta ^b,\left|\mathrm{\Phi }_B(z_\alpha ,z_\beta )\right|^2z_\alpha ^az_\beta ^bz_\gamma ^d,`$ (12)
where $`z_\beta =1z_\alpha `$ for mesons and $`z_\gamma =1z_\alpha z_\beta `$ for baryons. The normalization constants play no role in Eq. (10) for the elliptic flow and have been omitted in the above. We take $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}=0.2`$ GeV, and constituent quark masses $`m_u=m_d=0.3`$ GeV, $`m_s=0.5`$ GeV, $`m_c=1.5`$ GeV. Observing Eq. (4) in the large $`p_{}`$ limit, we take $`\delta z_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=n_v(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_M)^2/3`$. With $`\overline{z}_i`$ given by Eq. (3), the exponents $`a`$ and $`b`$ are then determined. With the convention that $`a`$ is for the lightest and $`b`$ (or $`d`$ for a baryon) is for the heaviest quark in a hadron, the values of $`(a,b)`$ are $`(0.25,1.1)`$ for kaons, $`(8.2,8.2)`$ for $`\varphi `$, $`(4.9,28)`$ for $`D`$, and $`(88,88)`$ for $`J/\psi `$. In general, $`a`$ and $`b`$ increase for heavier mesons, reflecting their narrower spread in $`z`$. For pions the above method gives a singular solution, i.e., $`a=b<1`$ leading to divergence in $`𝑑z_\alpha \left|\mathrm{\Phi }_M(z_\alpha )\right|^2`$. Therefore, for pions we take $`a=b=0`$ Hwa2 , i.e., a flat distribution in $`z`$, for simplicity. For baryons, the $`(a,b,d)`$ values are $`(3.6,3.6,3.6)`$ for protons, $`(4.2,4.2,7.7)`$ for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`(5.3,9.5,9.5)`$ for $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$, $`(14,14,14)`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and $`(7.2,7.2,40)`$ for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$.

For heavy ion collisions at RHIC energies, the parton momentum distributions at mid-rapidity, $`h_i(p_{})`$, may be parameterized by the sum of an exponential soft part and a power-law hard component. Assuming these have identical shapes for light quarks ($`u,d,\overline{u},\overline{d},s`$ and $`\overline{s}`$), we take $`h_i(p_{})e^{p_{}/T}+c_H/(1+p_{}/\mathrm{\Lambda }_H)^w`$ with $`T=0.18`$ GeV, $`c_H=0.36`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_H=1.3`$ GeV, and $`w=8.3`$. For charm (and anti-charm) quarks, we use $`h_c(p_{})(p_{}+0.5`$GeV$`)^2/(1+p_{}/6.8`$GeV$`)^{21}`$, which reasonably parameterizes the transverse momentum spectrum of primary charm quarks at mid-rapidity in $`pp`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=200`$ GeV from PYTHIA Sjostrand:1993yb . We note that medium effects for charm quarks in $`A+A`$ collisions such as energy loss closs ; cnoloss  are not considered in this study.

Fig. 2 shows the weight functions (11) for pions and $`\varphi `$ mesons at $`p_{}=1`$, $`4`$ and $`8`$ GeV, with all maxima normalized to one. For the pion, they are not centered around the mean value $`z_\alpha =0.5`$ at higher $`p_{}`$ values. Instead the dominant momentum configuration for the two constituent quarks is around $`z_\alpha 0`$ and $`1`$. This asymmetric momentum configuration at high $`p_{}`$ for wavefunctions that are flat in $`z`$ is a result of the power-law enhancement of the parton spectra at high $`p_{}`$, as shown in Ref. Lin:2002rw . For massive hadrons, such as the $`\varphi `$, the wavefunction becomes narrower. Actually, for large $`a`$ and $`b`$ the meson wavefunction in Eq. (12) becomes a Gaussian, $`\mathrm{exp}[(z_\alpha \overline{z}_\alpha )^2/(2\delta z_\alpha ^2)]`$, where $`\overline{z}_\alpha a/(a+b)`$ and $`\delta z_\alpha ^2ab/(a+b)^3`$. The narrowness of the wavefunction then dominates over the momentum distributions in Eq. (11) so that symmetric momentum configurations are usually favored. Indeed, as shown in Fig. 2, the weight functions for $`\varphi `$ center at $`z_\alpha =0.5`$ for all three $`p_{}`$ values.

We now study the effect of momentum spread on hadron elliptic flow via Eq. (10) for mesons and the analogous equation for baryons. For light quarks including $`s`$ and $`\overline{s}`$, the elliptic flow is parameterized as $`v_{2,q}(p_{})=v_2^{max}\mathrm{tanh}(p_{}/p_0)`$ with $`v_2^{max}=0.05`$ and $`p_0=0.75`$ GeV, based on parton transport simulations using MPC. We consider $`v_{2,c}(p_{})=v_{2,q}(p_{})`$ unless specified otherwise. As shown in Fig. 3, all qualitative features for charm hadrons discussed earlier remain valid. However, in general hadron elliptic flow is reduced relative to Eq. (7) because the concave shape of the quark $`v_2(p_{})`$ ansatz tends to penalize any momentum spread (the average of $`v_2(p_{})`$ at two different $`p_{}`$ values is lower than the value at the average $`p_{}`$). For example, the value of elliptic flow at $`p_{}=6`$ GeV is lower than Eq. (7) by 36% for pions, 32% for kaons, 11%$`(24`$%$`)`$ for $`D`$ mesons with(without) charm flow, 9% for protons, 10% for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, 5% for $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$, 10%$`(17`$%$`)`$ for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ with(without) charm flow. These corrections are especially large for pions and kaons at high $`p_{}`$ and cause the decrease in their $`v_2(p_{})`$ above $`2`$ GeV seen in Fig. 3. The reason for this suppression is that the elliptic flow of the slower constituent quark of a pion or a kaon is still far below the saturation value because of the very asymmetric momentum configuration Lin:2002rw  (see Fig. 2). However, note that the flows of pions and kaons may be significantly modified by resonance contributions and the binding energy, which have been neglected in this study. We also found that the momentum spread has a negligible effect on the elliptic flow of massive hadrons, especially those with quarks of similar masses. The flow reductions are 0.8% for $`\varphi `$, 0.01% for $`J/\psi `$ and 1% for $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, thus these hadrons reflect more directly the partonic elliptic flow.

###### Acknowledgements.

Helpful discussions with U. Heinz, B. Müller, S. Panitkin and S. Voloshin are greatly appreciated. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG02-01ER41190.