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# Implementing Integrity Constraints in an Existing Belief Revision SystemThis work was supported in part by the US Army Communications and Electronics Command (CECOM), Ft. Monmouth, NJ through a contract with CACI Technologies. CSE Technical Report 2000-03

## Introduction

Belief revision, or belief change, is the term used to describe any change in a knowledge base. The form of belief revision discussed in this paper is removal of propositions from a knowledge base that is known to be inconsistent in order to restore consistency. This is especially important to information fusion, where information is combined from multiple sources which might contradict each other. This paper describes some belief revision theories and the considerations that arose when they were implemented and added to the existing belief revision subsystem of a mature knowledge representation and reasoning system, SNePS(??).

These considerations center around the impossibility of implementing deductive closure and the proper weighting of belief revision guidelines. We address the need to formalize theories that take into account the fact that deductive closure cannot be guaranteed in a real-world, need-based, implemented system. We also explore one technique for following the belief revision guideline of minimizing damage to the belief space while retaining the most credible beliefs.

The next section provides the background necessary to understand the alterations we made to SNePS. Included are brief descriptions of the following: (a) the different groups doing belief revision research, (b) the integrity constraints we intend to implement, (c) SNePS and its belief revision sub-system, (d) the status of constraint adherence before system alterations, and (e) previous research to improve adherence.

The following two sections discuss the current changes made to improve adherence and implement automatic belief revision (autoBR). The latter gives the user a sense of non-monotonicity, because it is possible to add a belief to the belief space and, consequently, lose a previously held belief. However the underlying relevance-style, paraconsistent logic remains monotonic.

The final section contains conclusions and plans for future work.

## Background

### Theory vs. Implementation

Belief revision research can be divided into two groups: Theoretical vs. Implementations. These two groups differ in the amount of information assumed to be in a knowledge base. The theoretical researchers develop postulates about how a knowledge base should react during revision based upon a number of guidelines. One of these is the assumption of deductive closure, which means that everything derivable is contained in the knowledge base—a deductively closed belief space (DCBS), which is infinite in size and impossible to implement, although it can be simulated with limitations.

Implemented belief spaces must be finite and of reasonable size, and the reasoning operations performed on them must be done in a finite and reasonable time. Beliefs must be added gradually over time and not all derivable beliefs can be guaranteed to be present in the knowledge base. We refer to this kind of belief space as a deductively open belief space, or DOBS(?). In a DOBS, it is possible for a proposition to be derivable from the existing belief space without it being present in that belief space. If that proposition is the negation of another proposition derivable from the belief space, the belief space would be inconsistent, but not known to be inconsistent—i.e. the system would be unaware of the inconsistency. The normal meaning of the word *consistent* cannot, therefore, be applied to a DOBS. For the purpose of this paper, however, the term consistent will be used to describe a belief space or belief set that has no known contradictions (unless otherwise noted).

Even research on finite belief bases still refers to deductive closure in its determination of consistency or when considering belief revision postulates (????). Consistency is determined by the presence of a contradiction in the *implicit* beliefs of a belief base. How can this reliably be implemented? Even if it can be simulated on a small scale knowledge base, the theories developed might be suspect if applied to a very large system. Nebel voiced these concerns as well (?).

We address the need to formalize theories that take into account the fact that deductive closure cannot be guaranteed in a real-world, need-based, implemented system—even if the system is restricted by something as simple as the user needing a response within one minute. These theories need to suggest a belief revision technique that:

* takes time and complexity limitations into account
* recognizes that adhering to these limitations might result in revision choices that are poor in hindsight
* catches and corrects these poor choices as efficiently as possible.

### Integrity Constraints for Belief Revision

Gärdenfors and Rott (?) discuss postulates for belief revision using a coherence approach. These postulates, first presented in (?), are based on four integrity constraints (paraphrased below):

1. a knowledge base should be kept consistent whenever possible;
2. if a proposition can be derived from the beliefs in the knowledge base, then it should be included in that knowledge base;
3. there should be a minimal loss of information during belief revision;
4. if some beliefs are considered more important or entrenched than others, then belief revision should retract the least important ones.

These constraints come from the Theorist group, so strict adherence to constraints 1 and 2 in an implemented system is impossible. The proper weighting and combining of constraints 3 and 4 remains an open question in belief revision research and a challenge for both the Theorists and the Implementers.

### SNePS and SNeBR Before Alteration

#### SNePS

SNePS is a logic- and network-based knowledge representation, reasoning, and acting system designed to constitute the mind of a natural language competent cognitive agent. The underlying logic of SNePS is a monotonic, relevance-style, paraconsistent logic (?). One way that users can interact with SNePS is through the SNePSLOG interface—an interface which allows the user to input propositions in a style that uses “predicate calculus augmented with SNePS logical connectives” (??)—where propositions are expressed as well-formed formulas, or wffs.

Propositions added to the knowledge base by the user are called hypotheses. Propositions derived from those existing in the belief space are called derived propositions. The system records a justification for each proposition (whether it is a hypothesis or derived) by associating it with an *origin set* consisting of the hypotheses used in its derivation. An origin set for a belief is a set of hypotheses which is known to *minimally derive* that belief—i.e. no subset of a belief’s origin set is known to derive that belief.

This is along the style of an ATMS, short for “assumption-based” truth maintenance system —a term “introduced by (??), although similar ideas had been investigated earlier by (?).” (?) also mentions that (?) presented the “first description of as ATMS-like system.”

A hypothesis has a singleton origin set, containing only itself, but might also be derivable from other hypotheses. Multiple derivations of a single proposition can result in its having multiple origin sets. If the hypotheses in a proposition’s origin set are asserted, or believed, then the proposition is also believed and is part of the belief space. This situates SNePS firmly on the foundations side of the coherence/foundations belief revision divide, but a coherence approach can be simulated by additionally asserting each derived belief as a hypothesis.

In the SNePS terminology, the belief space is the set of believed propositions—both hypotheses and derived beliefs—which are supported by the current context. The current context is, intensionally, a named structure that contains a set of hypotheses. That set is the extensional context. When a new hypothesis is added, the intensional context now contains a different extensional set of hypotheses. When we refer to adding and removing hypotheses from “the context”, we are referring to the intensional context.

Unlike theoretical knowledge bases, implemented ones cannot promise deductive closure for a knowledge base, because of the space and time limitations of the real world. SNePS attempts to derive propositions as they are asked for—either by the user or by the system as it performs backward chaining or forward inference. This is typical of a DOBS as it is formalized in (?).

#### SNeBR

The SNePS belief revision sub-system, SNeBR (?), is activated when a derived proposition or a hypothesis is added to the belief space, *and* it explicitly contradicts a pre-existing belief. The following are examples of explicit contradictions in SNePS:

* `P` and `~P`
* `P` and `~(P` $``$ `Q)`

but *not*

* `Q` and `Q=>P` and `~P`

because, in this last case, `P` is only an implicit belief and must be derived before that contradiction can be detected.

The detection of an explicit contradiction is almost instantaneous, even in a knowledge base with thousands of nodes, due to the Uniqueness Principle (?), which states that no two SNePS terms denote the same entity.

> \[Therefore an\] explicit contradiction …in the belief space, is easily recognized by the system because …the data structure representing P is directly pointed to by the negation operator in the data structure representing `~P`. (?)

The user has the option of letting the belief space remain inconsistent or activating a manual version of belief revision to restore consistency. The latter is performed by forming a minimally-inconsistent set of hypotheses, which can be made consistent upon the removal of any one of its members. This set is the union of the origin sets for the contradicting beliefs—multiple origin sets for a belief result in multiple inconsistent sets to be revised. For example: If the contradictory propositions `P` and `~P` had one ($`\alpha `$) and two ($`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$) origin sets respectively, then there would be two minimally-inconsistent sets formed for belief revision: ($`\alpha `$ $``$ $`\beta `$) and ($`\alpha `$ $``$ $`\gamma `$).

After forming the inconsistent sets, SNeBR prompts the user to remove at least one proposition from each set to restore consistency. It is up to the user to decide which beliefs should be removed (retracted, become unasserted).

### How SNeBR Adheres to Constraints 1 and 2

#### Adherence to Constraint 1

Because a SNePS belief space is a DOBS, it can only claim consistency in terms of not knowing of any contradictions. Immediately upon discovery of a contradiction, however, the system activates SNeBR to restore consistency. Therefore, the user always has the option to maintain consistency “whenever possible”.

#### Adherence to Constraint 2

Although SNePS cannot promise that all derivable beliefs are in the knowledge base, it does derive a proposition upon query if that proposition is derivable from the existing knowledge base. Therefore, SNePS follows an altered version of constraint 2: If a proposition can be derived from the beliefs in the knowledge base, then the system will produce it if it is asked for.

### Previous Attempts at Ordering Beliefs and AutoBR

The researchers described in this section chose to order beliefs based on relative credibility *as determined by the user*—i.e. the user decides which beliefs (or types of beliefs) are more credible than others. This not the only way to order beliefs as “more important or entrenched,” but, due to our interest in information fusion, this epistemic entrenchment is the way we, also, have chosen to order our beliefs. To this end, any reference in this paper to orderings of beliefs or sources should be assumed to mean ordering based on credibility (unless otherwise stated). This ordering was then used in the implementation of automatic belief revision (autoBR) which allowed the systems described to perform belief revision without user interaction.

Cravo and Martins (?) introduced an altered version of SNePS, called SNePSwD (SNePS with Defaults), that incorporated default reasoning. It also offered automatic belief revision based on ordering beliefs by credibility and specificity. The system allowed the user not only to order beliefs but to also order the orders. Ordering large amounts of information was tedious, however, and any new additions required updating relevant orderings.

Ehrlich (???) altered a version of SNePSwD that had this ordering capability. She chose to eliminate the laborious hand ordering by defining a predetermined group of “knowledge categories,” with a preset ordering. The category for a proposition was added as another argument of the proposition. She then ordered all her propositions based on the relative order of their knowledge categories. Although this saved her the manual ordering, there were several drawbacks: (a) she had to predetermine the knowledge categories that would be used, (b) no new ones could be added, and (c) the ordering hierarchy of the categories was fixed.

Both Cravo and Martins and Ehrlich developed their automatic belief revision processes (autoBR) to remove hypotheses based on credibility orderings—adhering to constraint 4. How to properly combine and weight both constraints 3 and 4 remains an open topic in belief revision. Our initial attempt to combine and weight them is detailed later.

## Alterations to Aid Adherence to Constraint 3

To minimize information loss, the total number of beliefs removed from the system during revision must be considered. Removal of some belief, `P`, will also remove any propositions that have `P` in all of their currently active origin sets. The revised SNeBR system orders the hypotheses in the inconsistent sets based on the number of derived propositions that they support.

It is also possible to make multiple inconsistent sets consistent with a single retraction in the case that a hypothesis common to those sets is the one chosen for removal. The revised system creates an ordered list of the hypotheses based on how many of the minimally-inconsistent sets they are in.

From these two orderings, two lists are formed: (a) the hypotheses supporting the fewest number of derived propositions, and (b) the hypotheses common to the largest number of inconsistent sets. These two lists are now considered during belief revision in the interest of adherence to constraint 3.

Unlike belief spaces created by deductive closure, our DOBS system builds beliefs as they are queried about, thus we can consider those beliefs to be of high interest to the user. This somewhat validates the connection between the cardinality of a belief set and the information it holds. Other researchers (?) also choose culprits based on set cardinality combined with credibility issues.

Our current approach to minimizing information loss involves counting believed propositions without regard to their internal form. For example, `A` and `B`$``$`C`$``$`D` are each counted as one proposition, as are both `Q(a)` and `all(x)(P(x) => Q(x))`, even thought the latter one of each pair clearly ”encodes” more information. Especially in the context of a DOBS, it would be important to try to assess the usefulness of a proposition in terms of the number of other propositions that might in the future be derived from it. We leave this assessment for future work.

## Epistemic Entrenchment Additions to SNeBR

### Sources and their information

As mentioned earlier, Ehrlich’s knowledge categories have to be determined and ordered off-line before running the system. This, plus the source information being included in each proposition as additional argument, forced a static treatment and implementation. Our revised SNePS system uses meta-propositions to assign sources, allowing dynamic source addition and ordering.

#### Problems with Source Information as an Added Argument

Representing the source information as an additional argument of the predicates has several problems associated with it. For example, if “Fran is smart.” were represented as `Smart(Fran)`, “The prof says that Fran is smart.” could be represented as `Smart(Fran, Prof)`, and the problems are:

1. The source of `Smart(Fran, Prof)` cannot be removed or changed without also removing or changing the belief that Fran is smart. Although that might immediately be reintroduced with `Smart(Fran, Nerd)`, belief revision may have had to be performed in the interim, wasting time and effort.
2. The proposition `~Smart(Fran, Sexist)` might represent either the belief that the sexist is the source of the information that Fran is not smart or the belief that the sexist is not the source of the information that Fran is smart. No matter which one it does represent, there is no obvious way to represent the other.
3. It is not clear how to ascribe a source to a rule, such as `all(x)(Grad(x) => Smart(x))`.

#### Benefits of Source Information in a Meta-Proposition

Representing the source information in a meta-proposition, is to represent it as a belief about the belief. For example, “The prof says that Fran is smart.” would be represented as `Source(Prof, Smart(Fran))`.111This is syntactically and semantically correct, because propositions like Smart(Fran)— are, in SNePS, functional terms denoting propositions (?). This solves the three problems cited above:

1. The source of the belief that Fran is smart can be removed or changed, without removing or changing the belief that Fran is smart, by removing `Source(Prof, Smart(Fran))` without removing `Smart(Fran)`, and then, perhaps, introducing a different source, e.g. `Source(Nerd, Smart(Fran))`.
2. The belief that the sexist is the source of the information that Fran is not smart would be represented as `Source(Sexist, ~Smart(Fran))`, whereas the belief that the sexist is not the source of the information that Fran is smart would be represented as `~Source(Sexist, Smart(Fran))`.
3. The belief that the prof is the source of the rule that all grads are smart would be represented by `Source(Prof, all(x)(Grad(x) => Smart(x)))`.

As shown, this allows dynamic interaction, where the user can add, remove, and change source information about a proposition while the system is running and without affecting or entirely rewriting the actual proposition. Source orderings are also stored as propositions, such as `Greater(Prof,Nerd)`, which can be interacted with and reasoned about dynamically. New sources as well as their credibility orderings can be added at any time to the knowledge base. Propositions can even have more than one source, although SNeBR assumes a single source at this time.

### Ordering Propositions (Epistemic Entrenchment) and Sources

Our system currently depends on the user to determine the credibility of sources or beliefs directly. The user inputs information to the system declaring source credibility orders and/or belief credibility orders. These are partial orders that are qualitative and transitive.

The system currently assumes beliefs have, at most, one source, but future research will explore multiple source situations and their implementation. We are also assuming at this time that a more credible source delivers more credible information. E.g. Given the following:

* Lisa is more credible than Bart.
* Lisa tells us, “It is snowing.”
* Bart tells us, “Homer is fat.”

we consider “It is snowing” more credible than “Homer is fat.”

Since ordering can never be assumed complete or unchangeable, the system works with what it has—including propositions whose sources are unknown (assumed at this time to be more credible than beliefs that have recorded sources). An interesting issue to explore in the future would be to have the system dynamically establishing and adjusting source credibility information based on revision experiences.

### Recommendations and Automatic Belief Revision

The user can set the belief revision mode at any time from the top level of the SNePSLOG interface. The two modes are:

offers recommendations, but requires the user to revise (this is the default)

activates automatic belief revision, autoBR

From the union of all the inconsistent sets underlying the contradiction, SNeBR produces three lists that are used to create a recommended culprit list:

the least believed hypotheses

the hypotheses that are the most common (to the largest number of inconsistent sets)

the hypotheses that support the fewest beliefs in the knowledge base.

The first set provides possible culprits that support constraint 4 (remove the least important or least credible beliefs). Both the second and the third sets will provide possible culprits that support constraint 3 (minimal loss of information during belief revision). The culprit list is created by combining these lists using a method described in the next section.

Once the recommended culprit list is formed, the user is notified of the three lists as well as the culprit list. In manual mode, the user must then decide (with the help of those lists) which hypotheses to remove from the context. In auto mode, the system will perform an automatic retraction if the culprit list contains a single hypothesis. Otherwise it reverts to manual. In either case, any unresolved inconsistencies are dealt with manually.

### Culprit List Algorithm

Processing the three lists above to create a culprit list ($`CL`$) results in the smallest, non-empty intersection: $`CL=Minnot\mathrm{}((LBMCFS),(LBMC),(LBFS),(MCFS),LB,MC,FS)`$, where $`Minnot\mathrm{}`$ is a function that chooses the smallest non-empty set from a list of sets in decreasing order of importance (for tie-breaking purpose—e.g. choose $`LB`$ over $`MC`$).

Other factors being equal, removing a belief with low credibility (constraint 4) is currently preferred over one whose removal does the least damage (constraint 3), because credibility orders are not weakened by the absence of deductive closure. Regarding the information used to support constraint 3, the system prefers to remove a more common belief over one with the fewest supported nodes, because that will protect beliefs that have been derived in more ways. For example, given `A, B, D, A->C, B->C, and D->~C,` and the derivations of `C` (both ways) and `~C`, the minimally inconsistent sets would be `{A, A->C, D, D->~C}` and `{B, B->C, D, D->~C}` and both `D` and `D->~C` would be the most common hypotheses. Removal of either results in the loss of `~C` and the retention of `C`, which was derived two ways.

It should be emphasized, however, that the final determination of CL is the smallest, non-empty set found. In this sense, condition 3 regains some of its lost status. For example: if $`(LBFS)`$ contained three hypotheses and $`(MCFS)`$ contained two, the latter would be chosen over the former, even though only the former contained credibility information.

An edited sample of the autoBR output for a belief revision exercise is available in Appendix 1.

## Conclusion and Future Work

By considering the work of coherence and theoretical researchers, we were able to improve our existing belief revision system by adding information essential to improving culprit selection during revision. The revised system combines the constraints of minimal information loss and maximal credibility in its development of a culprit list during belief revision to return consistency to a knowledge base. It considers (a) the number of hypotheses and derived propositions that will be affected by the revision as well as (b) the relative credibility orderings of the hypotheses under consideration. These orderings are determined by both source credibility orderings and credibility orders directly assigned between hypotheses. All source and credibility information can be retracted, altered, added to, and reasoned about while the system is running.

Automatic belief revision is possible when the culprit list contains a single hypothesis. In this case, the system appears to the user to be non-monotonic: i.e. the user can add a proposition to an existing context, but end up with a belief space that is not a superset of the original belief space.

The issue of incorporating source information and credibility ordering into a knowledge base is key to maintaining the credibility of an information fusion system. Selection of a well-believed hypothesis as the culprit (due to other considerations like minimizing damage to the knowledge base) might also indicate a need to re-evaluate the reliability of its source. This might lead to development of a system that dynamically adjusts source and propositional credibility orders based on past performance.

Work for the immediate future will include dealing with (1) a proposition having multiple sources and (2) revising the inconsistent sets as a group. For the latter, we might first partition the inconsistent sets based on which of the contradictory nodes each hypothesis supports (or if it supports both), then analyzing the groups by their inconsistent set as well as by their partition. Then the system could better determine which of the contradictory nodes should be contracted and remove its supports efficiently. We hope that one result will be an improvement on safe contraction (?). For example: If retracting a proposition `P` with the two origin sets of `{A,B,C}` and `{B,D}` ordered in increasing credibility, then retracting the least-believed in each set (as per safe-contraction) would remove both `A` and `B`, when removal of `B` would be sufficient. This improvement might show up as the union of the least believed and the most common sets.

## Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate the insights and feedback of Bill Rapaport, Haythem Ismail, and the SNePS Research Group.

## Appendix 1

Below is a description of the information given to the knowledge base. WFF22 is added last with forward inferencing, which produces the contradictory propositions that trigger SNeBR. The five sources with their credibility orderings are:

| $`Holybook>Prof`$ | `WFF1: GREATER(HOLYBOOK,PROF)` |
| --- | --- |
| $`Prof>Nerd`$ | `WFF2: GREATER(PROF,NERD)` |
| $`Nerd>Sexist`$ | `WFF3: GREATER(NERD,SEXIST)` |
| $`Fran>Nerd`$ | `WFF4: GREATER(FRAN,NERD)` |

`WFF10: all(X)(JOCK(X) => (~SMART(X)))` `WFF11: SOURCE(NERD,WFF10)`

`WFF12: all(X)(FEMALE(X) => (~SMART(X)))` `WFF13: SOURCE(SEXIST,WFF12)`

`WFF14: all(X)(GRAD(X) => SMART(X))` `WFF15: SOURCE(PROF,WFF14)`

`WFF16: all(X)(OLD(X) => SMART(X))` `WFF17: SOURCE(HOLYBOOK,WFF16)`

```
WFF22:  FEMALE(FRAN) and OLD(FRAN) and
GRAD(FRAN) and JOCK(FRAN)
```
`WFF23: SOURCE(FRAN,WFF22)`

The following code is an edited version of the system output showing the inconsistencies found and the hypotheses removed through autoBR. Author’s comments are in italics.

After all the information is in, one contradiction is detected:

The contradiction involves the newly derived proposition:

and the previously existing proposition:

To resolve the contradiction, SNePS Belief Revision (SNeBR) analyzes the inconsistent set formed by the union of the two Origin Sets for the contradictory propositions:

| (WFF16,WFF22) $``$ (WFF12,WFF22) $`=`$ |
| --- |
|  | (WFF22,WFF16,WFF12) |

The three sets aiding culprit selection:

| The least believed hypothesis: |
| --- |
|  | (WFF12) |
| The most common hypotheses: |
|  | (WFF22 WFF16 WFF12) |
| The hypotheses supporting the fewest nodes: |
|  | (WFF12 WFF16) |

| The system informs the user of its decision: |
| --- |
|  | `I will remove the following node:` |
|  |  | `WFF12: all(X)(FEMALE(X) => (~SMART(X)))` |

The system continues reasoning and discovers the same contradiction (derived in new ways):

The contradiction involves the newly derived proposition:

and the previously existing proposition:

There are two known-to-be-inconsistent sets in the context, now:

The following sets are known to be inconsistent. To make the context consistent, remove at least one hypothesis from each of the sets:

The three sets aiding culprit selection:

| The least believed hypothesis: |
| --- |
|  | (WFF10) |
| The most common hypotheses: |
|  | (WFF22 WFF10) |
| The hypotheses supporting the fewest nodes: |
|  | (WFF14 WFF10) |

The system’s decision in this case:

| I will remove the following node: |
| --- |
|  | `WFF10: all(X)(JOCK(X) => (~SMART(X)))` |


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# Very high energy gamma radiation associated with the unshocked wind of the Crab pulsar

## 1 Introduction

The Crab pulsar is a powerful nonthermal machine, accelerating plasma in the form of a relativistic wind that carries off most of the rotational energy of the pulsar.

At a distance of about $`r=r_\mathrm{S}0.1\mathrm{pc}`$ the wind is terminated by a standing reverse shock, which accelerates the electrons up to energies $`10^{15}\mathrm{eV}`$, and randomizes their pitch angles \[Rees & Gunn 1974, Kennel & Coroniti 1984\]. This results in formation of a bright synchrotron source in the region downstream of the shock. The synchrotron radiation of the Crab Nebula is well studied in a very broad frequency range, from radio to hard X-rays. Its general spectral and spatial characteristics are satisfactorily explained by the relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) model of Kennel & Coroniti \[Kennel & Coroniti 1984\]. Remarkably, the latter provides also a reasonable explanation, even in its simplified (spherically symmetric) form, for the detected very high energy (VHE) $`\gamma `$-rays as a result of inverse Compton (IC) scattering of relativistic electrons in the ambient low-frequency photon fields. This implies that the study of the TeV IC radiation of the Crab Nebula, combined with synchrotron X-ray emission, can yield unambiguous information about the relativistic electrons and the nebular magnetic field in the downstream region of the shock \[de Jager & Harding 1992, Stepanian 1995, Atoyan & Aharonian, 1996, Hillas et al. 1998\].

Although very important, this information unfortunately does not tell much about the origin and characteristics of the wind, i.e. about the region between the pulsar magnetosphere and the shock. It is generally believed that this region, where almost the whole rotational energy of the pulsar is somehow released in the form of kinetic energy of the wind, cannot be directly observed. This has a simple explanation. Although the wind electrons may have an energy as large as $`10^{13}`$ eV, they move together with the magnetic field and thus do not emit synchrotron radiation. This explains the fact that the region upstream of the shock is underluminous \[Kennel & Coroniti 1984\]. However, this statement is valid only for the synchrotron radiation of the wind. In fact, the wind could be directly observed through its IC radiation. Indeed, the IC $`\gamma `$-radiation of the wind electrons is unavoidable because of the illumination of the wind by external low-energy photons of different origin. There are three isotropic photon field populations that contribute effectively to the production of IC $`\gamma `$-radiation of the nebula in the downstream region: the nonthermal (synchrotron) and thermal (dust) radiation of the Crab Nebula itself, and the 2.7 K microwave background radiation (Atoyan & Aharonian 1996). Formally, all these photon fields could also serve as a target for the IC scattering of the wind before the shock. However, the fluxes of $`\gamma `$-rays emitted through these channels appear to be well below the sensitivity threshold of $`\gamma `$-ray telescopes. Meanwhile, in the pulsar vicinity, namely within approximately 100 light cylinders, the efficiency of production of IC $`\gamma `$-rays dramatically increases because of the existence of intense low energy radiation of the pulsar itself. The radiation consists of two, pulsed and unpulsed components, the latter being modulated at the period of the pulsar.

In this paper we show that at certain circumstances concerning the position of formation of the particle dominated wind, the geometry of the flow and the Lorentz-factor of the bulk motion of the wind, the fluxes of the IC $`\gamma `$-radiation of the wind could be sufficiently high to enable detection by present and forthcoming space-borne and ground-based $`\gamma `$-ray telescopes. Moreover, the distinct spectral features of this radiation could allow effective separation of the “wind” component of radiation from the heavy background, which consists of unpulsed radiation of the Crab Nebula at very high (TeV) energies and pulsed radiation at low (GeV) energies. We argue, that even upper limits obtained in such a study could provide unique information about the origin of the pulsar wind.

## 2 Characteristics of the wind

### 2.1 The total particle ejection rate of the wind

The wind from the Crab pulsar carries away most of the energy of rotation of the pulsar. The energy released in the form of electromagnetic emission of the pulsar, which peaks at gamma-ray energies, does not exceed 1 per cent of the total rotational losses \[Arons, 1996\], therefore it can be neglected in the energy balance of the wind.

The fluxes of the energy and the angular momentum of the wind consist of two parts. One of them corresponds to the matter and another corresponds to the electromagnetic field. The total flux of the kinetic energy of particles can be presented as

$$\dot{E}_{\mathrm{kin}}=\dot{N}mc^2<\gamma _w>,$$
(1)
while the flux of the angular momentum of the matter is equal to

$$\dot{L}_{\mathrm{kin}}=\dot{N}m<r\gamma _wv_\phi >.$$
(2)
Here $`\dot{N}`$ is the total rate of particle ejection from the pulsar magnetosphere, $`<\gamma _\mathrm{w}>`$ is the average Lorentz-factor of the wind, $`r`$ is the distance to the axis of rotation $`v_\phi `$ is the component of the velocity of plasma propagation in the direction of rotation. Hereafter we assume that the wind consists of only electrons and positrons. The total rate of particle ejection can be estimated within the models $`e^\pm `$ pair production in the pulsar magnetosphere:

$$\dot{N}_{\mathrm{gap}}=n_\pm cS_{\mathrm{cap}}\lambda ,$$
(3)
where $`S_{cap}=2\pi R_{}^3\mathrm{\Omega }/c`$ is the total area of the polar caps of the neutron star where the roots of the open magnetic field lines are placed, $`n_\pm `$ is the density of the particles in the primary beam, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the angular velocity of rotation of the pulsar, $`R_{}`$ is the radius of the pulsar and the factor $`\lambda `$ takes into account the multiplication of particles because the development of electromagnetic cascades in the magnetosphere. In the inner gap models, the electromagnetic cascade is initiated by a beam of electrons accelerated up to the Lorentz-factor $`\gamma _{\mathrm{gap}}210^7`$ \[Ruderman & Sutherland 1975, Arons 1983\]. The density of particles in the beam is of the order of Goldreich-Julian density $`n_\pm =n_{\mathrm{GJ}}`$ \[Goldreich & Julian 1969\] determined as

$$n_{GJ}=\frac{(𝛀𝐁)}{2\pi ec}.$$
(4)
Owing to the electromagnetic cascade in the pulsar magnetosphere, the number of particles increases by a factor of $`\lambda `$ and, correspondingly the Lorentz-factor of particles decreases by the same factor.

The calculations by Daugherty & Harding \[Daugherty & Harding 1982\] and Gurevich & Istomin \[Gurevich & Istomin 1985\] show that for the Crab pulsar this factor is of order of $`10^4`$. Note that these early calculations took into account only multiplication resulting from the cascades supported by two processes – the curvature radiation of electrons and $`e^\pm `$ pair production of $`\gamma `$-rays of these photons in the magnetic field. Meanwhile, the process of the Compton scattering of electrons on the soft thermal emission of the neutron star plays, most probably, a non-negligible role in the cascade development \[Arons 1998\], thus this effect should be taken into account in the estimates of $`\lambda `$. In any case, the uncertainties in the model parameters and assumptions does not allow an accurate theoretical estimate of $`\lambda `$, but instead give a broad range of possible values of $`\lambda `$ between $`10^3`$ and $`10^5`$. Remarkably, a rather accurate estimate of $`<\gamma _\mathrm{w}>`$ in the upstream flow can be derived from the analysis of the nonthermal high energy radiation of the downstream region. Indeed, the explanation of the spectrum of synchrotron X-ray emission by the wind electrons accelerated (redistributed) by the termination shock requires a power-law injection spectrum of the electrons $`Q(E)E^\alpha `$ with $`\alpha 2.4`$ and a cutoff of the spectrum below $`E_{}150200`$ GeV. Also, the interpretation of the X-ray and TeV $`\gamma `$-ray emissions within the synchro-Compton model of the Crab Nebula allows one to derive, with very good accuracy, the average magnetic field in the downstream region and the total luminosity in shock-accelerated electrons, $`B210^4`$ G, and $`\dot{W}3\times 10^{38}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$ (for review see Aharonian & Atoyan \[Aharonian & Atoyan 1998\]). The obvious conservation laws concerning both the number and the total energy of the of relativistic electrons in the downstream and upstream regions (i.e. before and after the shock acceleration) gives $`<\gamma _\mathrm{w}>=\frac{\alpha 1}{\alpha 2}(E_{}/m_\mathrm{e}c^2)1.310^6`$. The accuracy of this estimate depends on the possible range of variation of the parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`E_{}`$ that still fit the data, and is estimated smaller than factor of 4. Correspondingly we find the injection rate of the wind particles $`\dot{N}=\dot{W}/<\gamma _\mathrm{w}>m_\mathrm{e}c^2=2.810^{38}\mathrm{s}^1`$. This implies that for $`\dot{N}_{\mathrm{gap}}=210^{34}`$ the $`\lambda `$-factor should be close to $`10^4`$.

Thus, the cascade multiplication of the primary electrons accelerated in the pulsar magnetosphere leads to the formation of an $`e^\pm `$ plasma with parameters

$$\dot{N}=\frac{\lambda B_0\mathrm{\Omega }^2R_{}^3}{ec^2},$$
(5)
and

$$\gamma _{\mathrm{w0}}=\frac{\gamma _{\mathrm{gap}}}{\lambda }.$$
(6)
The Lorentz factor of this initial wind is close to $`\gamma _{w0}10^3`$ while the kinetic energy flux of the wind is

$$\dot{E}_0\gamma _{wo}mc^2\dot{N}$$
(7)
For the Crab pulsar this flux is estimated as $`1.6\times 10^{35}`$ erg/s. It is much lower than the total rotational losses of the pulsar $`\dot{E}_{rot}=4\times 10^{38}`$ erg/s (see e.g. Shklovsky \[Shklovsky 1968\]). This leads to a conclusion that the most part of pulsar’s rotational energy is carried off by the electromagnetic field (see e.g. Arons \[Arons, 1996\]). The state of the wind is characterized by so-called $`\sigma `$-parameter determined as the ratio of the electromagnetic energy flux to the kinetic energy flux of particles in the wind. At $`\sigma _w1`$ the wind is Poynting-flux dominated. At $`\sigma _w1`$ the wind is kinetic-energy-dominated. Initially the wind ejected from the pulsar magnetosphere is Poynting flux dominated, because $`\sigma _{\mathrm{w0}}=\dot{E}_{\mathrm{rot}}/\dot{E}_02.510^3`$. The estimates of the wind parameters in the outer gap model gives essentially the same magnetization parameter \[Cheung & Cheng 1994, Coroniti 1990\].

On the other hand, the explanation of the characteristics of the nonthermal radiation of the Crab Nebula requires that $`\sigma _w`$ be between $`10^3`$ and $`10^2`$ in the wind region upstream of the termination shock \[Rees & Gunn 1974, Kennel & Coroniti 1984\]. Thus the magnetization parameter $`\sigma _w`$ decreases by several orders of magnitude on the way from the light cylinder to the pre-shock region. Therefore it is difficult to avoid a conclusion that the wind is additionally accelerated in a some region beyond the light cylinder.

The theory by Kennel & Coroniti \[Kennel & Coroniti 1984\] is based on the assumption of ideal MHD flow of the plasma after the terminating shock wave. All dissipative processes are neglected, with exception of the cooling of the plasma due to the synchrotron emission. Lyubarskii \[Lyubarskii 1992\] and Begelman \[Begelman 1998\] argued that the theory of Kennel & Coroniti \[Kennel & Coroniti 1984\] is likely not complete. The magnetic field after the terminating shock is mainly toroidal. It is very well known in plasma physics that such configuration is strongly unstable \[Bateman 1980\]. The instabilities can essentially change the physics of the flow in the Nebula. The basic process is the fast dissipation of the toroidal magnetic field with conversion of its energy into the energy of the relativistic particles. The instability drives the plasma towards equipartition of energy between the magnetic field and the matter. This process will inevitably be accompanied by acceleration of particles. The dissipative processes provide the dynamics of the plasma, in good agreement with the observed velocity of the expansion of the outer edge of the nebula, even for the parameter $`\sigma _\mathrm{w}1`$. We emphasize that, although very reasonable, this argument nevertheless does not solve the problem of the wind acceleration, because even in this case we have to transform wind with $`\sigma _{\mathrm{w0}}10^3`$ into wind with $`\sigma _\mathrm{w}1`$. Moreover, the wind with $`\sigma _\mathrm{w}1`$ has almost the same characteristics as we presented above. The only exception is that the Lorentz factor of the wind with $`\sigma _\mathrm{w}1`$ is twice as small as that of the wind with $`\sigma _\mathrm{w}10^3`$. In the limits of uncertainty of the multiplication factor $`\lambda `$ this difference is not important, however

### 2.2 The energy spectrum of the wind electrons

Here we assume that the wind with $`\sigma 1`$ is formed in some ‘acceleration region’ at a distance to the axis of rotation $`R_w`$. We also assume that the plasma axially isotropically fills all the open field lines. Thus, the wind is not modulated in the azimuthal direction.

For calculation of the spectra of emission we need information about spatial and energetic distribution of particles of the wind. Let us first summarize the information about these characteristics following directly from observations. The average Lorentz-factor of the wind in the regime of $`\sigma 1`$ is determined as

$$<\gamma _\mathrm{w}>=\frac{\dot{E}_{\mathrm{rot}}}{\dot{N}},$$
(8)
with a typical value $`10^6`$.

The kinetic-energy-dominated wind is believed to be cold, because the region of the flow of this wind is observed as an ‘underluminous’ region (see Kennel & Coroniti \[Kennel & Coroniti 1984\] and referenced literature). Otherwise, a hot wind would produce remarkable synchrotron emission, which would contradict the existence of underluminous region.

There is definite latitudinal inhomogeneity of the wind. The observations by ROSAT of the torus of X-ray emission in the Crab Nebula clearly demonstrate that energy flux in the wind varies with latitude \[Hester et al. 1995\]. This fact means that the density of the wind, its Lorentz-factor and the toroidal magnetic field should depend on the latitude.

It is believed that the existence of an X-ray torus implies that the wind flows predominantly in narrow disc-like sector along the equator with opening angle less than $`30^0`$ \[Hester et al. 1995\]. However, one should take into account the fact that optical emission is uniformly distributed in the Nebula. This means that there should be a component of the wind at high latitudes. As the luminosities in optical and in X-rays are comparable the energetics of this high latitude wind component is comparable with the energetics of the equatorial component which produces the X-ray torus. Moreover, the evidence that the wind at high latitudes exists close to the pulsar follows also from HST observations \[Hester et al. 1995\]. In our calculations we assume that the particle flux in the wind is isotropic. However to be consistent with observations in X-rays we assume that the Lorentz-factor and the toroidal magnetic field of the wind depend on latitude.

There are no model independent estimates of the latitudinal dependence of the Lorentz-factor of the wind and toroidal magnetic field. We use here the characteristics of the wind obtained in the model of an axisymmetric rotator \[Bogovalov 1997\]. These characteristics are also valid for oblique rotators \[Bogovalov 1999\].

Below we assume that

$$\gamma _\mathrm{w}=\gamma _{\mathrm{w0}}+\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}\mathrm{cos}^2(\alpha ),$$
(9)
where $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=\sigma _{\mathrm{w0}}\gamma _0`$ is the maximum Lorentz-factor of the plasma on the equator($`\alpha =0`$); $`\gamma _010^3`$ (see equation 6) and $`\sigma _{w0}10^3`$ are the Lorentz-factor and the magnetization parameter of the wind near the light cylinder. The wind is assumed to be monoenergetic at a given latitude. It follows from equation (9) that

$$<\gamma _w>=\frac{2}{3}\gamma _{max}.$$
(10)
In the particular case of the axisymmetric rotator \[Bogovalov & Kotov 1992\],

$$\gamma _{max}=\frac{eB_0R_{}}{2mc^2\lambda }(R_{}\mathrm{\Omega }/c)^2.$$
(11)
### 2.3 The geometry of the wind flow

The geometry of the flow and of the IC process are drawn in fig. 1. The neutron star is placed on the axis of rotation and ejects the wind radially. The dash-dotted vertical lines show the light cylinder. The wind is accelerated in the acceleration zone by some unspecified mechanism and at the distance $`R_W`$ it has characteristics discussed above. The acceleration is completed at $`R_W`$. Beyond $`R_W`$ particles in the wind move along straight lines without further acceleration. The equatorial plane of the pulsar is inclined in relation to the observer at the angle $`\alpha =33^0`$ \[Hester et al. 1995\]. IC photons move along the direction of motion of electrons. Therefore only the particles of the wind directed towards Earth can produce observable emission. The lines of flow of the cold kinetic energy dominated wind after acceleration are not exactly radial. Classical mechanics provides a simple relationship between the rates of the rotational energy losses of the pulsar, $`\dot{E}_{rot}=I\mathrm{\Omega }\dot{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$, and the angular momentum losses, $`\dot{L}=I\dot{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$:

$$\dot{E}_{\mathrm{rot}}=\dot{L}\mathrm{\Omega }.$$
(12)
Here $`I`$ is the momentum of inertia of the neutron star. As the electromagnetic field carries off practically no energy in the kinetic-energy-dominated wind, it does not carry the angular momentum either. In the theory of plasma flow in the magnetosphere of an axisymmetric rotator this statement is verified immediately \[Bogovalov 1997\]. Under this condition it follows from equations (1),(2), and (12) that after the acceleration the azimuthal velocity of the wind $`v_\phi `$ is connected with $`R_W`$ as

$$\frac{v_\phi }{c}=\frac{R_\mathrm{L}}{R_\mathrm{W}}.$$
(13)
From this relationship and from Fig. 1 it follows that the projection of the vector of the velocity of the plasma after acceleration lies on the line tangential to the light cylinder. The angle $`\theta `$ between the direction of the motion of relativistic particles in the wind and the soft thermal photons emitted from the pulsar depends on distance $`r`$ to the axis of rotation:

$$\mathrm{sin}\theta =\mathrm{cos}\alpha \frac{R_\mathrm{L}}{r}.$$
(14)
It is seen from this relationship that at any distance from the pulsar there is a non-zero angle between the radial direction and the velocity of the wind. The Inverse Compton scattering of the wind electrons on soft photons emitted as a fan-like beam from the inner magnetosphere of the pulsar results in the production of hard $`\gamma `$\- ray photons. Equations (14) and (13) remain valid for condition $`\gamma _w\gamma _{w0}`$ \[Bogovalov 1997\], also fulfilled in the wind with $`\sigma _w1`$. Below we will not distinguish between the cases with $`\sigma _w1`$ and $`\sigma _w1`$ .

The angular distribution of soft emission close to the pulsar is not well known. In the outer gap model the optical and soft x-ray emission is generated inside, but not far from the light cylinder \[Romani & Yadigaroglu 1995\]. There are several sources of soft emission in the magnetosphere corresponding to the position of the outer gaps. In this model, the projection of the motion of photons from these sources on the equatorial plane is predominantly directed radially. Then the angle between direction of motion of the wind and soft non-thermal photons can also be estimated by equation (14). Note that at $`R_WR_L`$ the IC flux does not depend on the position of the source inside the magnetosphere if the soft photons are emitted radially.

Our calculations of IC radiation are based on the assumption that the wind is illuminated only by the emission that is directed to Earth. However, as we can not exclude the existence of an additional component of optical emission not directed to the observer, but illuminating the wind, our estimates of $`\gamma `$ -ray flux could be considered only as a lower limit.

## 3 Inverse Compton radiation of the wind

### 3.1 The fields of soft photons

The soft emission from the Crab pulsar consists of two, pulsed and unpulsed, components. The recent ROSAT observations allowed one to distinguish the contribution of the pulsar in the observed unpulsed flux from the emission of the nebula. The main contribution to the unpulsed radiation of the pulsar comes, most probably, from the thermal emission of the hot surface of the neutron star. According to the ROSAT observations, the total energy flux of the unpulsed emission in the range 0.1 - 2.4 keV is $`10^{34}`$ erg/s \[Becker & Trümper 1997\]. The latter could be approximated by black-body spectrum with a temperature $`1.910^6K`$ and total luminosity $`10^{34}`$ erg/s.

The pulsed soft radiation of the pulsar is dominated by nonthermal processes in the magnetosphere. The photons in the optical to X-ray band of this radiation play the most important role in the production of inverse Compton $`\gamma `$-rays. Measurements of the spectra of the pulsed optical emission by different groups \[Nasuti et al. 1996, Oke 1969, Percival et.al. 1993\] give the following spectra of optical photons in the range 1680 - 7400 Å

$$F_\nu =3.1(\frac{\nu }{\nu _0})^{0.11}\mathrm{mJy},$$
(15)
where $`\nu _0=6.8210^{14}\mathrm{Hz}`$.

The X-ray data in the range of 0.1 - 2.4 keV obtained by ROSAT can be approximated by a power-law with the photon index 1.5 and luminosity (assuming that the radiation is emitted isotropically) $`7.110^{35}`$ erg/s \[Becker & Trümper 1997\].

The extrapolation of the soft x-ray emission spectrum to the optical range gives lower flux than is observed \[Knight 1984\]. This means that the optical emission has a cutoff in the ultraviolet region. Unfortunately there are no data for the pulsating emission in this region. Therefore we assume an exponential cutoff in the spectrum above 0.05 keV. The emission is also strongly suppressed at infrared wavelengths \[Middleditch et al. 1983\]. Below we use the following approximation of the averaged density of non-thermal photons near the light cylinder

$$n(ϵ)=Z(ϵ)\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\frac{810^4\mathrm{keV}}{ϵ}\right)^2\right]\frac{\mathrm{photon}}{\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{keV}},$$
(16)
where $`ϵ`$ is the energy of photons in keV and

$`Z(ϵ)=1.8210^{16}ϵ^{1.5}+`$ (17)
$`+1.2510^{19}ϵ^{1.11}\mathrm{exp}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{510^3\mathrm{keV}}}\right)\right]{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ph}}{\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{keV}}}.`$
The photon density of thermal and non-thermal components of low-frequency radiation on the light cylinder is shown in Fig. 2. We assume that the density of the both photon fields fall off with distance to the pulsar center $`R`$ as $`1/R^2`$.

### 3.2 The fluxes and spectra of gamma radiation

The optical depth characterizing the Compton scattering of the wind electrons propagating through the radiation fields of the pulsar is defined as

$$\tau =\sigma (\omega ,\gamma ,𝐯,𝐜)(1\mathrm{𝐯𝐜})n_{ph}(\omega ,𝐜,r)𝑑l𝑑\omega ,$$
(18)
where $`\sigma (\omega ,\gamma ,𝐯,𝐜)`$ is the total invariant cross-section of the IC scattering, $`\omega `$ is the energy of soft photons in $`mc^2`$. Integration of equation (18) over $`dl`$ is performed along the trajectory of a wind electron (see Fig. 1) from the wind formation position to infinity.

The $`\gamma `$-ray energy flux at the angle $`\alpha `$ to the plane of the pulsar equator is equal to

$`L_{\mathrm{IC}}(E_\gamma )={\displaystyle \frac{\dot{N}}{4\pi D^2}}\times `$ (19)
$`\times {\displaystyle }{\displaystyle }E_\gamma {\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{dE_\gamma }}(\gamma _\mathrm{w}(\alpha ),\omega ,E_\gamma ,\theta )n_{ph}(\omega ,𝐜,𝐫)d\omega dl,`$
where $`D=2`$ kpc is the distance to the source, $`\frac{d\sigma }{dE_\gamma }(\gamma _\mathrm{w}(\xi ),\omega ,E_\gamma ,\theta )`$ is the differential cross-section of the Compton scattering of a photon with energy $`\omega `$ and electron with $`\gamma _w`$ encountering under angle $`\theta `$ and producing a photon with energy $`E_\gamma `$. This cross-section was obtained after integration of the differential cross-section \[Berestetskii, Lifshitz & Pitaevskii 1971\] over the emission angle

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{dE_\gamma }}(\gamma ,\omega ,E_\gamma ,\theta )={\displaystyle \frac{\pi r_\mathrm{e}^2}{(pk)^2}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(pk)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2I}{(pk)\gamma _c\omega _c}}+`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{I^3(1U\delta \beta )}{(\gamma _c\omega _c)^2}}+2({\displaystyle \frac{1}{(pk)}}{\displaystyle \frac{I}{\gamma _c\omega _c}})+`$
$`+({\displaystyle \frac{(pk)I}{\gamma _c\omega _c}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _c\omega _c(1U\delta \beta )}{(pk)}})\}{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _c}{\mathrm{\Gamma }V_c}},`$ (20)
where

$`(pk)=\gamma \omega (1v\mathrm{cos}\theta ),`$ $`V_c={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\omega ^2+(\gamma v)^2+2\gamma v\omega \mathrm{cos}(\theta )}}{(\gamma +\omega )}}`$ ,
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }={\displaystyle \frac{\gamma +\omega }{\sqrt{1+2(pk)}}},`$ $`\omega _c={\displaystyle \frac{(pk)}{\sqrt{1+2(pk)}}},`$
$`\gamma _c={\displaystyle \frac{1+(pk)}{\sqrt{1+2(pk)}}},`$ $`U={\displaystyle \frac{(pk)}{1+(pk)}},`$
$`\delta ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{V_c}}({\displaystyle \frac{E_\gamma }{\mathrm{\Gamma }\omega _c}}1),`$ $`\beta ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{UV_c}}({\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{\mathrm{\Gamma }\gamma _c}}1).`$
Function $`I`$ in equation (20) is defined as follows

$$I=(1U^22U(1U)\beta \delta +U^2(\delta \beta )^2)^{1/2}.$$
(21)
Integration of equation (19) is performed along the trajectory of a electron and over the spectra of soft photons. It is assumed that the observer detects photons from a monoenergetic beam of electrons from the wind moving to the observer. We take $`\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=\frac{3}{2}\dot{E}_{\mathrm{rot}}/\dot{N}`$, with $`\gamma _\mathrm{w}(\alpha )=\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}\mathrm{cos}^2(33^0)`$, since the plane of the pulsar equator is inclined to the observer at the angle $`33^0`$ \[Hester et al. 1995\].

### 3.3 IC photons from thermal isotropic radiation

The optical depth $`\tau `$ , and therefore the spectra of IC photons, depends strongly on the distance $`R_\mathrm{w}`$ at which the kinetic energy dominated wind is formed.

The dependence of the optical depth on $`R_\mathrm{w}`$ is shown in Fig. 3 for two different values of the Lorentz factors of the wind $`\gamma _\mathrm{w}=410^6`$ and $`410^7`$

Strong dependence of $`\tau `$ on $`\gamma _\mathrm{w}`$ is explained by the fact that the optical depth is dominated by IC scattering at small distances from the pulsar where $`2\omega \gamma (1\mathrm{cos}(\theta ))1`$, i.e. the Compton scattering takes place in the Klein-Nishina regime. In this regime the IC cross-section decreases with the electron energy as $`\gamma _w^1`$, which lead to larger optical depth for smaller values of the Lorentz-factor of the wind $`\gamma _w`$. This effect is especially strong for small values of $`R_\mathrm{w}`$. In this case the optical depth is accumulated by IC scattering close to the light cylinder where the collision angle $`\theta `$ is large, and the IC scattering takes place in deep Klein-Nishina regime.

In many “standard” astrophysical situations the efficiency of the $`\gamma `$-ray production in the Klein-Nishina regime is significantly suppressed because of the synchrotron cooling of electrons. In the case of a cold wind we deal with a unique situation when the synchrotron losses of electrons are completely suppressed, and thus the wind electrons lose their energy only through the inverse Compton radiation. Note that in deep Klein-Nishina regime, namely when $`2\gamma _w\omega (1\mathrm{cos}\theta )10^4`$, the triplet pair production dominates over the inverse Compton scattering \[Mastichiadis 1991, Dermer & Schlikeiser 1991\]. This process results in production of new electrons. However, as in all interesting cases the optical depth $`\tau 1`$, the secondary electrons do not increase significantly the density of the wind. Therefore we ignore this process here. The same is true also for another process connected with absorption of TeV $`\gamma `$ -rays in the magnetic field of the wind (see Appendix).

In fig. 4 we present the expected $`\gamma `$-ray fluxes of the wind.

Solid, dashed and dotted lines correspond to the fluxes produced by a wind originated at $`R_\mathrm{w}/R_\mathrm{L}`$=1, 5 and 10. Remarkably, the spectrum of IC $`\gamma `$ -rays has a specific line feature since the radiation is produced in the Klein-Nishina regime. Because of this feature, the IC radiation of the wind can be easily distinguished from the smooth spectra of the Crab Nebula. The corresponding integral fluxes are shown in Fig. 5 for different $`\gamma _w`$ and $`R_w`$.

The comparison of the calculated spectra with the observed TeV $`\gamma `$-ray fluxes of the Crab Nebula (for review see Weekes et al. 1997) leads to an interesting conclusion that for any reasonable Lorentz-factor of the wind , the calculated $`\gamma `$-ray fluxes significantly exceed the observed fluxes unless the wind is formed well beyond the light cylinder. This implies a meaningful constraint on the ‘birthplace’ of the kinetic energy dominated wind with $`\gamma _w10^6`$: $`R_\mathrm{w}5R_\mathrm{L}`$. For $`\gamma 1.210^5`$, a similar conclusion is imposed by the EGRET \[Nolan et al. 1993\] observations of unpulsed radiation above 1 GEV. The lack of measurements in the energy region between 10 GeV and 300 GeV does not completely exclude a possibility of formation of the particle dominated wind close to the light cylinder, if one assumes that $`10^5<\gamma _{max}<10^6`$. Although the analysis of the observed synchrotron and IC components of the nonthermal radiation of the Crab Nebula gives certain preference to larger wind Lorentz factors, $`\gamma _\mathrm{w}10^6`$, it is important to have observational constraints on $`R_\mathrm{w}`$ also for $`\gamma _\mathrm{w}`$ in the region between $`10^5`$ to $`10^6`$, which is presently missing This should be provided in the near future by measurements of the Crab spectrum between 10 and 300 GeV by the new generation of low-threshold atmospheric Cherenkov detectors as well as by the GLAST.

### 3.4 The interaction of the wind with the nonthermal emission

The IC $`\gamma `$ radiation caused by illumination of the wind by pulsed soft photon emission should be modulated at the same pulsation period. This conclusion is true even for the isotropic wind. For calculation of the IC fluxes it is assumed that the nonthermal source of soft emission is located inside the light cylinder (see Fig. 1). It is easy to show that under realistic conditions the phase curve of the gamma-rays should be close to the phase curve of the soft emission. Indeed, let us assume for simplicity that the beam is very narrow (delta-function like). Owing to the rotation of the pulsar, it will form a spiral. The point where this spiral crosses the line tangential to the light cylinder and directed towards the observer is the source of $`\gamma `$-rays (see Fig. 6). The width of the $`\gamma `$-ray pulse is determined by the delay in the arrival time $`\delta t`$ of optical and gamma-ray emission to the observer:

$$\delta t\frac{\theta T}{2\pi },$$
(22)
where $`\theta `$ is the maximal value of the angle between the wave vector of photons and the velocity of the particles in the wind, $`T`$ is the period of rotation. In the most interesting case, $`\theta 1`$, the phase curves of gamma-ray emission produced in the process under consideration and those of the optical emission illuminating the wind are expected to be similar. However, because we observe only the pulsed soft emission directed to us and do not observe other possible part of the emission (not directed towards the observer) that can illuminate the wind, there could be a difference between the $`\gamma `$-ray and directly observed soft emission light curves.

It is seen from Fig. 2 that the average density of nonthermal photons is several orders of magnitude larger than the density of the thermal photons. Therefore, the IC optical depth for an electron is much larger than in the case of thermal radiation (see Fig.7). In particular, at $`R_W5R_L`$ the optical depth $`\tau 1`$. As the IC scattering takes place in the Klein-Nishina regime, one or two interactions are sufficient to destroy the wind, and the whole energy of the wind electrons would be transferred to $`\gamma `$ ray emission with huge luminosity $`10^{38}`$ erg/s. This very fact excludes the possibility of formation of the kinetic dominated wind within $`5R_L`$. Moreover, this conclusion can be extended to larger distances. Fig. 8 shows the spectra of the emission for two maximal energies of the electrons in the wind. Solid lines show the spectra for $`\gamma _{max}=310^6`$ and dashed lines show the spectra for $`\gamma _{max}=310^7`$. In contrast to the IC $`\gamma `$-rays from interaction with thermal emission, there are no lines in the spectra of the emission because the IC scattering takes place in the Thomson regime. The spectra consist of two well separated broad components, corresponding to two components in the spectra of the soft nonthermal emission presented in Fig. 2. The comparison of calculated $`\gamma `$-ray fluxes with upper limits on pulsed emission reported by the Whipple \[Weekes et al. 1998\] and HEGRA \[Aharonian et al. 1999\] groups shows that the wind must be formed at relatively large distances from the pulsar, $`R_W>30R_L`$.

The spectra shown in Fig. 8 were calculated at the assumption that the nonthermal source emits photons along the radial direction from the pulsar as it happens in the outer gap model \[Romani & Yadigaroglu 1995\]. Self-consistent MHD solutions confirm that the plasma should move predominantly radially in the pulsar magnetosphere \[Bogovalov 1997\]. Therefore the source of nonthermal photons should indeed emit along the radial direction from the pulsar. In the model by Lyubarskii \[Lyubarskii 1996\] the source of the soft nonthermal photons emits in the direction opposite to the direction of rotation of the pulsar. If so, the $`\gamma `$ -ray emission would be even higher than shown in Fig. 4.

We are not aware of models in which the source of photons corotates with the pulsar and emits photons tangentially along the direction of rotation. In this case the angle of interaction $`\theta `$ is minimum and correspondently the IC flux is expected to be reduced. Although it is almost unlikely that the plasma (and source of soft photons ) can corotate with the pulsar, it is perhaps wise to consider this limiting case from pedagogical point of view in some detail.

Optical and soft X-ray emission can be produced by plasma moving with a Lorentz-factor of order $`\gamma _e10^210^3`$ in the pulsar magnetosphere. At corotation with the pulsar the plasma have azimuthal velocity $`v_\phi =\frac{r\mathrm{\Omega }}{c}`$, where $`r`$ is the radius in the cylindrical system of coordinates. Since these particles should also be directed towards the observer, they have the component of the velocity $`v_z=c\mathrm{cos}\alpha `$. From the relativistic relationship it follows that

$$\gamma _e^2=1+\gamma _e^2[cos^2\alpha +(\frac{r_s\mathrm{\Omega }}{c})^2+(\frac{v_r}{c})^2],$$
(23)
where $`r_s`$ is the distance from the source to the center of the pulsar, $`v_r`$ is the radial component of the velocity. The soft photons are emitted at the angle $`\psi `$ as shown in Fig. 6. Neglecting the term $`1/\gamma _e^2`$ we obtain that

$$\mathrm{sin}\psi =\frac{r_s\mathrm{\Omega }}{c\mathrm{sin}\alpha }.$$
(24)
This relationship shows that a source that emits soft photons in direction to the observer and corotating with the pulsar can not be located exactly on the light cylinder.

Fig. 9 demonstrates how the spectra of IC radiation depend on the position of the corotating source of the soft photons inside the pulsar magnetosphere for parameters of the kinetic energy dominated wind at $`R_w=40R_L`$. Curve 1 corresponds to the emission from the corotating source located on the surface of the pulsar. The same flux is produced by the source of soft photons with the beam directed radially from the pulsar; the IC flux generated from the last source does not depend on $`r_s`$. Therefore comparison of the curve 1 with others allows one to compare the fluxes of IC photons produced at the scattering of electrons on the soft emission from the corotating source and the source with the soft photons emitted radially, but located on the same distance $`r_s`$. It follows from this figure that the flux of the IC photons can be reduced to zero only at the position of the source of soft photons not far from the light cylinder. At any other position of the source the efficiency of generation remains high at $`r_s<0.6R_L`$. The existing upper limit on the pulsating flux from the Crab pulsar means that either the wind is formed beyond 30$`R_L`$ or the wind is formed close to the light cylinder but the pulsating source of soft nonthermal photons corotates with the pulsar and is located close to the light cylinder.

## 4 Summary

The Crab Nebula is a unique cosmic laboratory with an unprecedentedly broad spectrum of the observed nonthermal radiation that extends throughout 21 decades of frequency – from radio wavelengths to very high energy $`\gamma `$-rays (for review see e.g. Aharonian & Atoyan 1998) It is commonly accepted that the synchrotron nebula is powered by the relativistic wind of electrons generated at the pulsar and terminated by a standing reverse shock wave at a distance $`r_\mathrm{s}0.1\mathrm{pc}`$ \[Rees & Gunn 1974\]. The relativistic MHD models, even in their simplified form (e.g. ignoring the axisymmetric structure of the wind and its interaction with the optical filaments), successfully describe the general characteristics of the synchrotron nebula, and predict realistic distributions of relativistic electrons and magnetic field in the downstream region behind the shock \[Kennel & Coroniti 1984\]. Meanwhile our knowledge of the unshocked wind, i.e. about the region between the pulsar magnetosphere and the shock is based only on theoretical speculations. Moreover, it is commonly thought that the wind could not be visible in the region upstream of the termination shock because the relativistic electrons and magnetic field in wind move together, thus the unshocked wind does not produce synchrotron radiation. In this paper we show that the kinetic energy dominated wind nevertheless could be directly observed through its IC radiation because of the illumination of the wind by low-energy radiation of the pulsar. The $`\gamma `$-ray emission consists of two components, pulsed and unpulsed, associated with the nonthermal and thermal low-energy radiation components of the pulsar, respectively.

The unpulsed component of $`\gamma `$-ray emission associated with thermal radiation of the pulsar with temperature $`210^6\mathrm{K}`$ is produced in deep the Klein-Nishina regime, and therefore has a very sharp (line-like) spectral feature which peaks at energy $`E\gamma _w\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}\mathrm{c}^2`$. Detection of this component would therefore result in unique information about the Lorentz-factor of the bulk motion of the wind. The nonthermal radiation of the pulsar has rather broad energy spectrum which extends to optical and infrared wavelengths, and therefore the IC $`\gamma `$-ray emission associated with this component takes place, to a large extent, in the Thomson regime. This results in a broad $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum with a sharp cutoff at $`E\gamma _w\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}\mathrm{c}^2`$.

The absolute $`\gamma `$-ray fluxes of both components depend strongly on the site of formation of the kinetic dominated wind, as well as the Lorentz-factor and the geometry of propagation of the wind. Thus even the flux upper limits of these $`\gamma `$-ray components should provide important constraints on the wind parameters. In particular, we show that the comparison of the calculated flux of the unpulsed inverse IC emission with the measured $`\gamma `$-ray flux of the Crab Nebula excludes the possibility of formation of the kinetic-energy-dominated wind within 5 light cylinder radii of the pulsar, $`R_\mathrm{w}5R_\mathrm{L}`$. The analysis of the pulsed IC emission, calculated under reasonable assumptions concerning the production site and angular distribution of the optical pulsed radiation, yields even tighter restrictions, namely $`R_\mathrm{w}30R_\mathrm{L}`$.

The mechanism of $`\gamma `$-radiation of the wind of the Crab pulsar discussed in this paper should certainly take place in other pulsars as well. However, from the point of view of detection of this radiation, the Crab is a unique object due to its very powerful wind and relatively high luminosity of thermal and nonthermal low-energy radiation, which provides seed photons for the IC scattering. In other pulsars the IC $`\gamma `$-ray fluxes of unshocked winds are expected to be below the detection threshold of current $`\gamma `$-ray instruments, unless the kinetic energy dominated winds of pulsars are produced very close to the light cylinder. The situation could be different in binary systems containing a pulsar and luminous optical companion, the latter being an effective supplier of seed photons for IC scattering. For example, the pulsar/Be star binary system PSR 1259-63 seems to be a unique object for the search for IC TeV radiation from both shocked \[Kirk, Ball & Skjæraasen 1999\] and unshocked \[Kirk & Ball 1999\] winds of the pulsar.

Acknowledgments

We thank the Astrophysics group of the MPI für Kernphysik, in particular, H. J. Völk, A.M. Atoyan, J.G. Kirk, as well as L. Ball and Yu. Lyubarskii for many fruitful discussions. SB thanks MPI für Kernphysik for warm hospitality and support during his work on this project.

## Appendix A Opacity of the magnetic field of the wind for the TeV Photons.

In the paper of \[Cheung & Cheng 1994\] it was argued that TeV photons produced near the light cylinder of the Crab pulsar will be absorbed, because of conversion of these photons in $`e^\pm `$ pairs in nonuniform magnetic field. We show here that accurate estimate of the rate of the conversion of photons in pairs taking into account electric field existing in the wind give negligible absorption of TeV gamma-rays produced via IC scattering.

The motion of the wind occurs under frozen in condition. Particles move not only along field lines, but there is component of the velocity $`𝐕_𝐝`$ directed perpendicular to the magnetic field line. This is so called drift velocity defined by the expression

$$𝐕_𝐝=\frac{𝐄\times 𝐁}{B^2}$$
(25)
$`V_d`$ is comparable with c beyond the light cylinder, where the electric and magnetic fields are of the same order. The schematic relationship between the magnetic and electric fields and the velocity of plasma is shown in Fig. 10. In this situation an energetic photon is emitted along the velocity vector of the particle at large angle to the magnetic field. However, this happens in the region of crossed electric and magnetic fields, where the coefficient of absorption of the photon is modified by the electric field. The probability of conversion of the photon on unit length, taking into account the electric field, was defined by Daugherty & Lerche: \[Daugherty & Lerche,1975\]

$$\xi =0.23\alpha \frac{mc}{\mathrm{}}\frac{B\chi }{B_{cr}}\frac{(1E^2/B^2)}{(1E\eta _\mathrm{x}/B)}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{8}{3}\frac{B_{\mathrm{cr}}}{E_\gamma \chi B}\right),$$
(26)
where

$$\chi =\sqrt{(\eta _x\frac{E}{B})^2+\eta _y^2(1\frac{E^2}{B^2})},$$
(27)
and $`\alpha =1/137`$. $`\eta _\mathrm{x}`$ and $`\eta _\mathrm{y}`$ are the components of the unit vector directed along the velocity of the photon as it is shown in Fig. 11 and $`E_\gamma `$ is the energy of photon expressed in units of $`mc^2`$.

The components of the velocity of the particle in the system of coordinates presented in Fig. 11 are as follows $`v_x=\frac{cE}{B}`$, $`v_y=0`$, $`v_z=c\sqrt{1\frac{E^2}{B^2}}`$. The corresponding components of the unit vector $`\eta `$ of the photon at the place of the emission will be $`\eta _\mathrm{x}=\frac{v_\mathrm{x}}{v}=\frac{Ec}{vB}`$, $`\eta _y=0`$, $`\eta _\mathrm{z}=\sqrt{1\eta _\mathrm{x}^2}`$. Substitution of these components in equation (27) gives us

$$\chi =\frac{E}{B}\frac{c}{\gamma ^2(1+v/c)v}$$
(28)
This factor is extremely small, $`\chi 10^{14}`$, for the expected parameters of the wind .

Photons propagate along straight lines. Charged particles move in electromagnetic fields and their trajectories diverge from straight lines. If photon would moved along the trajectory of the charged particles, they would never convert in pairs. Therefore it is clear that the probability of conversion of a photon into a pair basically depends on the radius of curvature $`R_c`$ of the trajectory of the charged particles, but not the magnetic field.

The angle $`\vartheta `$ between the direction of propagation of the photon and direction of propagation of the emitting electron depends on the path length of the photon $`l`$;

$$\vartheta =\frac{l}{R_c}.$$
(29)
The dependence of components of the vector $`\eta `$ on $`\theta `$ is as follows

$$\eta _x=\eta _{x0}\mathrm{cos}\vartheta +\eta _{z0}\mathrm{sin}\vartheta \mathrm{sin}\phi $$
(30)
$$\eta _y=\mathrm{sin}\vartheta \mathrm{cos}\phi $$
(31)
Neglecting by terms of the order $`1/\gamma ^2`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^n\vartheta `$ in powers higher than 2, we obtain the following estimate for $`\chi `$ at small $`\theta `$

$$\chi \frac{l}{R_\mathrm{c}}\sqrt{1\left(\frac{E}{B}\right)^2}.$$
(32)
As we are interested in the maximal values of $`\chi `$, we can neglect the term $`\sqrt{1(\frac{E}{B})^2}`$ in this expression. Assuming that after the light cylinder the total magnetic field decreases as $`1/r`$, we obtain for the function $`q=\frac{8B_{\mathrm{cr}}}{3E_\gamma B\chi }`$ the following estimate of the upper limit

$$q=\frac{8B_{\mathrm{cr}}R_\mathrm{c}}{3E_\gamma B_{\mathrm{lc}}r_\mathrm{L}},$$
(33)
and for the probability of conversion of the photon into a pair we obtain finally the estimate

$$\xi 0.23\alpha \frac{mc}{\mathrm{}}\frac{B_{\mathrm{lc}}r_\mathrm{L}}{B_{\mathrm{cr}}R_\mathrm{c}}\mathrm{exp}(\frac{8B_{\mathrm{cr}}R_\mathrm{c}}{3E_\gamma B_{\mathrm{lc}}r_\mathrm{L}})$$
(34)
where $`B_{\mathrm{lc}}`$ is the magnetic field on the light cylinder and $`R_\mathrm{c}`$ is also taken on the light cylinder.

The solution of the problem of the relativistic wind flows in the model of an axisymmetrically rotating star allows us to estimate the radius of curvature $`R_\mathrm{c}`$ of the trajectories of the particles in the wind \[Bogovalov 1997\] as

$$\frac{1}{R_\mathrm{c}}=\frac{\sigma _\mathrm{w}}{\gamma ^2r}.$$
(35)
This estimate shows that the radius of curvature of the trajectories of particles is much more than the curvature radius of the magnetic field line, which is of the order $`r`$. Such a large curvature radius gives $`q1`$ for almost any parameters of the wind. This is why the IC photons produced in the wind are not converted into pairs even at energies $`100`$ TeV and $`\sigma _\mathrm{w}1`$.