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# Combined effect of coherent 𝑍 exchange and the hyperfine interaction in atomic PNC

## I Introduction

The precise measurements of the $`6s[F=4]7s[F=3]`$ and $`6s[F=3]7s[F=4]`$ parity nonconserving (PNC) dipole matrix elements in 133Cs by Wood et al. (1997) lead to a value of the weak charge111The experimental value includes a net correction of -1.1% to the theoretical PNC amplitude Dzuba et al. (1989); Blundell et al. (1992); Dzuba et al. (2002) from the Breit interaction Derevianko (2000), $`\alpha Z`$ vertex corrections Kuchiev and Flambaum (2002); Milstein et al. (2002), Coulomb-field vacuum polarization Johnson et al. (2001), and nuclear skin effects Pollock and Welliver (1999); James and Sandars (1999).  $`Q_W^{\text{exp}}(^{133}\text{Cs})=72.73(46)`$ that is in agreement with the Standard Model value $`Q_W^{\text{SM}}(^{133}\text{Cs})=73.09(3)`$ Groom et al. (2000). These measurements also lead to an experimental value of the much smaller contribution from the nuclear spin-dependent PNC interaction that is accurate to about 15%. This spin-dependent contribution has three distinct sources: the nuclear anapole moment Zel’dovich (1958); Flambaum et al. (1984), the $`Z`$ exchange interaction from nucleon axial-vector ($`A_nV_e`$) currents, and the combined action of the hyperfine interaction and the spin-independent $`Z`$ exchange interaction from nucleon vector ($`V_nA_e`$) currents Flambaum and Khriplovich (1985); Bouchiat and Piketty (1991a). Of these three, the anapole contribution dominates. The contributions from the anapole and nuclear axial-vector current are

$$H^{(i)}=\frac{G}{\sqrt{2}}\kappa _i𝜶\mathbf{}𝑰\rho (r),$$
(1)
where $`G`$ is the universal weak coupling constant, $`𝑰`$ is the nuclear spin, and $`\rho (r)`$ is a normalized nuclear density function. The subscript $`i`$ of the dimensionless constants $`\kappa _i`$ takes the values $`i=a`$ for the anapole contribution and $`i=2`$ for the axial-vector contribution. In Refs. Flambaum and Khriplovich (1985); Bouchiat and Piketty (1991a), the hyperfine–vector current contribution was also reduced to the form given in Eq. (1) with a corresponding dimensionless constant $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$.

To extract the anapole contribution $`\kappa _a`$ from experiment, it is necessary to know the corresponding spin-dependent PNC amplitude calculated with $`\kappa _a=1`$, as well as the two contributions from the axial-vector and weak-hyperfine interference terms quantified by $`\kappa _2`$ and $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$. The spin-dependent PNC amplitude was calculated in various approximations in Refs. Frantsuzov and Khriplovich (1988); Khraftmakher (1988); Blundell et al. (1992). Nuclear shell-model values of $`\kappa _2`$ for 133Cs and 203Tl were obtained in recent calculations by Haxton et al. (2001). An analytical approximation for $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ was derived by Flambaum and Khriplovich (1985) and values of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ were later determined for various cases of experimental interest by Bouchiat and Piketty (1991a).

Recently, Haxton and Wieman (2001) used the values of $`\kappa _2`$ and $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$222In Ref. Haxton and Wieman (2001), $`\kappa _2`$ and $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ are designated by $`\kappa _{Z_0}`$ and $`\kappa _{Q_W}`$, respectively. determined as described above to extract values of $`\kappa _a`$ from PNC measurements in 133Cs Wood et al. (1997). The resulting anapole moments were, in turn, used to place constraints on PNC meson coupling constants Desplanques et al. (1980). The constraints obtained from the Cs experiment were found to be inconsistent with constraints from other nuclear PNC measurements, which favor a smaller value of the 133Cs anapole moment.

Motivated by this disagreement, we are led to re-examine the combined hyperfine-weak interaction. We find that the contribution of this term to the PNC dipole matrix element at the Dirac-Hartree-Fock (DHF) level can be approximated by a spin-dependent interaction of the type given in Eq. (1); however, such an approximation is not justified in correlated calculations, since contributions from Eq. (1) are very sensitive to correlations, whereas contributions from the combined hyperfine-weak interaction are relatively insensitive to correlation corrections. We do find, nevertheless, that even in correlated calculations there is a rough proportionality between contributions from the combined interaction and those from the interaction given in Eq. (1) that is independent of hyperfine state, and we use this fact to define “effective” values of the coupling strength $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ for cases of potential experimental interest. For the $`6s7s`$ transition in Cs, our effective value of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ is about 40% smaller than the value from Bouchiat and Piketty (1991a). Interestingly, for this case our final correlated value of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ is quite close to the value predicted by the formula derived in Flambaum and Khriplovich (1985). Other things being unchanged, this decrease in the size of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ leads to an increase in the size of $`\kappa _a`$ and, correspondingly, in the Cs anapole moment; consequently, increasing the inconsistencies between various experimental constraints on PNC meson coupling constants described in Haxton and Wieman (2001).

## II Method

We write the spin-dependent PNC correction to the reduced electric-dipole matrix element $`wF_FzvF_I`$ as the sum of three terms:

$$wF_FzvF_I_{\text{PNC}}^{\text{sd}}=\kappa _awF_FzvF_I^{(a)}+\kappa _2wF_FzvF_I^{(2)}+wF_FzvF_I^{(\text{hf})},$$
(2)
where indices $`(a)`$, $`(2)`$, and $`(\text{hf})`$ correspond to the anapole, axial-vector, and weak-hyperfine interference, respectively. Since the anapole and axial-vector contributions both take the form given in Eq. (1), we can introduce $`wF_FzvF_I^{(2,a)}wF_FzvF_I^{(a)}=wF_FzvF_I^{(2)}`$. We then define $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ as the ratio

$$\kappa _{\text{hf}}=\frac{wF_FzvF_I^{(\text{hf})}}{wF_FzvF_I^{(2,a)}}.$$
(3)
We expect, and indeed find, that $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ depends on the initial and final hyperfine levels. For cases considered here, however, the dependence of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ on the hyperfine levels $`F_I`$ and $`F_F`$ is weak and we may treat $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ as constant to some level of accuracy. We write the expression for the total spin-dependent PNC contribution to the electric-dipole matrix element $`wF_FzvF_I`$ as

$$wF_FzvF_I_{\text{PNC}}^{\text{sd}}=(\kappa _a+\kappa _2+\kappa _{\text{hf}})wF_FzvF_I^{(2,a)}.$$
(4)
and define

$$\kappa =\kappa _a+\kappa _2+\kappa _{\text{hf}}.$$
(5)
In this work, we calculate both $`wF_FzvF_I^{(\text{hf})}`$ and $`wF_FzvF_I^{(2,a)}`$ and, therefore, determine the state-dependent values of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$.

The hyperfine interaction Hamiltonian is written

$$H^{\text{(}\text{hf}\text{)}}=ec𝜶\mathbf{}𝑨,𝑨(𝒓)=\frac{\mu _0}{4\pi }d^3x\frac{𝑴(x)\mathbf{\times }(𝒓𝒙)}{|𝒓𝒙|^3},$$
(6)
where $`𝑴(x)`$ is the magnetization density, which is related to the nuclear moment $`𝝁_I`$ by

$$𝝁_I=d^3x𝑴(x)=g_I𝑰\mu _N.$$

Here $`\mu _N=|e|\mathrm{}/2M_p`$ is the nuclear magneton.

The dominant, spin-independent, part of the weak interaction is

$$H^{(1)}=\frac{G}{2\sqrt{2}}Q_W\gamma _5\rho (r),$$
(7)
where $`Q_W`$ is the conserved weak charge of the nucleus, given at tree level in terms of the neutron number $`N`$, the proton number $`Z`$, and the Weinberg angle $`\theta _W`$ by $`Q_W=Z(14\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W)N`$, and $`\rho (r)`$ is a nucleon distribution function. In our numerical calculations of the interference term, we use radiatively corrected values of $`Q_W`$ inferred from Groom et al. (2000). The nucleon distribution $`\rho (r)`$ is assumed to have the form

$$\rho (r)=\frac{\rho _0}{1+\mathrm{exp}[(rC)/a]}$$
(8)
where $`a=0.523`$ fm (corresponding to 90%–10% fall-off thickness $`t=2.3`$ fm) and where $`C`$ is inferred from the nuclear charge radii listed in Johnson and Soff (1985). In the exceptional case of 211Fr, we choose $`C=6.733`$ fm, corresponding to the value $`R_{\text{rms}}=5.566`$ fm given in Ref. Grossman et al. (1999). We assume that the radial dependence of the magnetization distribution is identical to that of the nucleon distribution.

As shown in Appendix A, the dipole matrix element corresponding to the weak-hyperfine interference is given by the third-order perturbation theory expression

$$\begin{array}{c}wIF_FM_F|z|vIF_IM_I^{\text{(hf)}}=\hfill \\ \hfill \underset{\begin{array}{c}mw\\ nw\end{array}}{}\frac{w|H^{(1)}|nn|H^{\text{(hf)}}|mm|z|v}{(E_wE_m)(E_wE_n)}+\underset{\begin{array}{c}mw\\ nw\end{array}}{}\frac{w|H^{\text{(hf)}}|nn|H^{(1)}|mm|z|v}{(E_wE_m)(E_wE_n)}\\ \hfill +\underset{\begin{array}{c}mw\\ nv\end{array}}{}\frac{w|H^{(1)}|mm|z|nn|H^{\text{(hf)}}|v}{(E_wE_m)(E_vE_n)}+\underset{\begin{array}{c}mw\\ nv\end{array}}{}\frac{w|H^{\text{(hf)}}|mm|z|nn|H^{(1)}|v}{(E_wE_m)(E_vE_n)}\\ \hfill +\underset{\begin{array}{c}mv\\ nv\end{array}}{}\frac{w|z|nn|H^{(1)}|mm|H^{\text{(hf)}}|v}{(E_vE_m)(E_vE_n)}+\underset{\begin{array}{c}mv\\ nv\end{array}}{}\frac{w|z|nn|H^{\text{(hf)}}|mm|H^{(1)}|v}{(E_vE_m)(E_vE_n)}\\ \hfill w|H^{\text{(hf)}}|w\underset{mw}{}\frac{w|H^{(1)}|mm|z|v}{(E_wE_m)^2}\underset{nv}{}\frac{w|z|nn|H^{(1)}|v}{(E_vE_n)^2}v|H^{\text{(hf)}}|v,\end{array}$$
(9)
where we use designations $`|w`$ and $`|v`$ on the right-hand side for coupled hyperfine states $`|wIF_FM_F`$ and $`|vIF_IM_I`$, respectively, and where we designate the energy of state $`i`$ by $`E_i`$. Note that the other matrix element $`wIF_FM_F|z|vIF_IM_I^{(2,a)}`$ in Eq. (4) is obtained from a considerably simpler second-order perturbation theory calculation.

In Ref. Bouchiat and Piketty (1991a), terms on the second and fourth lines of Eq. (9) were ignored and partial sums on the first and third lines, such as

$$\underset{nv}{}\frac{H^{(1)}|nn|H^{\text{(}\text{hf}\text{)}}}{E_nE_v},$$

were carried out using free-particle Green’s functions and reduced to an effective interaction

$$H^{(\text{eff})}=\frac{G}{\sqrt{2}}\kappa _{\text{hf}}𝜶\mathbf{}𝑰\rho (r)$$

of the form given in Eq. (1). A similar reduction was made in Ref. Flambaum and Khriplovich (1985). Here, we evaluate all of the terms in the Eq. (9) numerically. One important advantage of this direct numerical evaluation is that correlation corrections to $`wIF_FzvIF_I^{(\text{hf})}`$ can be determined using standard many-body methods. Indeed, we find that Eq. (9) is insensitive to correlations at the random-phase approximation (RPA) level for most of the cases considered here, whereas calculations based on the contracted approximation above are very sensitive to correlation corrections! A reduction of Eqs. (4) and (9) to reduced matrix elements suitable for numerical evaluation is given in Appendix B.

## III Numerical Results

We evaluate the reduced dipole matrix element $`wF_FzvF_I^{(\text{hf})}`$ given in (48) and the reduced matrix element $`wF_FzvF_I^{(2,a)}`$ given in (58), and we find that their ratio is approximately independent of the angular momentum quantum numbers $`F_I`$ and $`F_F`$ for transitions between hyperfine levels.

Let us consider the $`6s7s`$ transition in Cs. We first evaluate the reduced matrix elements in (58) and (48) at the DHF level of approximation. We solve the DHF equations in a finite B-spline basis using the methods described in Johnson et al. (1988) and use the resulting basis functions to evaluate matrix elements and carry out sums over intermediate states. For the case Cs, our basis set consists of 100 splines of order 15 for each angular momentum state. The basis orbitals are constrained to a cavity of radius 45 a.u.; the cavity radius is modified in other atoms to accommodate the initial and final valence orbitals. As a check, we carried out the Cs calculations using a cavity of radius 75 a.u. to verify that the results are stable against changes in the cavity radius. Results of our DHF calculations for the transitions between the possible hyperfine levels are presented in the upper four rows of Table 1. We find that the ratio $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ of the $`wF_FzvF_I^{(\text{hf})}`$ to $`wF_FzvF_I^{(2,a)}`$ matrix element changes from level to level by only 2% in the DHF approximation.

The DHF treatment of PNC in cesium is known to be a rather poor approximation, giving a value for the dominant part of the PNC dipole matrix element that is 20% smaller than the final correlated value. To obtain a reliable value for the PNC matrix element, one must go beyond the DHF approximation and treat correlation corrections. The dominant correlation corrections, those associated with core shielding, are obtained in the random-phase approximation. Including RPA corrections to both weak-interaction and dipole matrix elements gives a value for the dominant PNC dipole matrix element in Cs that is within 2% of the final correlated value.

The RPA matrix elements are calculated as described in Ref. Johnson et al. (1996), with the value of $`\omega `$ in the RPA equations set to zero. In the last four rows of Table 1, we give values of $`7sF_Fz6sF_I^{(2,a)}`$ that include RPA corrections to both dipole and weak-interaction operators, and values of $`7sF_Fz6sF_I^{(\text{hf})}`$ that include RPA corrections to the dipole, weak-interaction, and hyperfine operators. While the RPA values of $`7sF_Fz6sF_I^{(2,a)}`$ are 15-25% larger than the DHF values, the RPA and DHF values of $`7sF_Fz6sF_I^{\text{(hf)}}`$ differ by only 3-5%. Thus, by contrast to PNC dipole matrix elements induced by the dominant spin-independent interaction and by the spin-dependent interactions given in Eq. (1), which are very sensitive to correlation corrections, the third-order matrix elements for the combined interaction are relatively insensitive to correlations for the $`6s7s`$ transition in Cs. It should be emphasized that the contraction of operators introduced in Bouchiat and Piketty (1991a) is a useful approximation at the independent-particle DHF level of approximation; however, when correlation corrections are included, although an approximate proportionality still obtains, the proportionality constant depends on correlations; this is a reflection of the fact that there is no effective Hamiltonian of form (1) for the combined interaction.

We include negative-energy contributions Savukov et al. (1999) when evaluating sums over intermediate states in Eqs. (48) and (58) and when calculating RPA matrix elements. We find almost no negative-energy correction to $`7sF_Fz6sF_I^{(2,a)}`$. However, the negative-energy corrections to $`7sF_Fz6sF_I^{\text{(hf)}}`$ were found to be large, 22-23% at both the DHF and RPA levels of approximation. Since negative-energy contributions are important for accurate calculation of $`7sF_Fz6sF_I^{\text{(hf)}}`$, they are, therefore, important in the evaluation of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$. Omission of negative-energy contributions leads to values of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}=0.0049`$ in the DHF approximation and $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}=0.0038`$ in the RPA approximation which are about 20% smaller than our final values listed in Table 1. We note that our final correlated value fortuitously coincides with the DHF value without negative energy contributions; the correlation correction decreases the value of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ and the negative energy contribution increases $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ by approximately the same amount. We stress again that these two effects contribute, in fact, to different quantities, negative energies contribute only to $`7sF_Fz6sF_I^{\text{(hf)}}`$ and correlation primarily to $`7sF_Fz6sF_I^{(2,a)}`$.

We also found that sums in the interference matrix element given in Eq. (48) must include the entire set of basis orbitals, in contrast to the sums in Eq. (58), where omitting high-energy orbitals from the basis has very little effect. In other words, the completeness of the basis is very important for calculation of the sums in (48).

Results of our RPA calculations for the $`7s8s`$ transitions in Fr are presented in Table 2. The state dependence of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ increases to 6-7% in Fr in comparison to Cs, where differences in $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ for different transitions were 3-4% in the RPA approximation. As in the case of Cs, the largest differences occur between transitions with $`F_I=F_F`$ and those with $`F_FF_I`$; there is only 0.7% difference in $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ between the 4-5 and 5-4 transitions.

For the 4–3 and 3–4 hyperfine transitions in Cs measured by Wood et al. (1997), an effective value $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}=0.0049`$ can be extracted from the RPA values listed in Table 1. This value is about 40% smaller than the value $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}=0.0078`$ from Bouchiat and Piketty (1991a) but agrees exactly with the value obtained earlier by Flambaum and Khriplovich (1985). We use our value of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ to extract a value of $`\kappa _a`$ from the Cs PNC experiment of Wood et al. (1997),

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\left[\frac{\text{Im}(E_{\text{PNC}})}{\beta }\right]_{3443}=0.077\pm 0.011\text{mV/cm},$$
(10)
where $`\beta `$ is the vector polarizability of the transition, which has been measured in Ref. Bennett and Wieman (1999) with high accuracy $`\beta =27.02(8)a_0^3`$. The subscripts $`34`$ and $`43`$ in (10) correspond to $`F_FF_I`$.

The spin-independent PNC amplitude $`E_{\text{PNC}}^{(1)}`$ in alkali-metal atoms ($`j_F=j_I=1/2`$) is customarily defined as

$$E_{\text{PNC}}^{(1)}=j_F1/2|z|j_I1/2,$$
(11)
leading to the following relation between spin-dependent PNC amplitude and the corresponding spin-dependent reduced matrix elements:

$$E_{\text{PNC}}^{\text{(sd)}}=\frac{\kappa }{𝒜}wF_FzvF_I^{\text{(2,a)}},$$
(12)
where the $`\kappa `$ is defined by Eq. (5) and $`𝒜`$ is an angular coefficient

$$𝒜=(1)^{j_F+F_I+I+1}\sqrt{6\left[F_I\right]\left[F_F\right]}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}F_F& F_I& 1\\ j_I& j_F& I\end{array}\right\},$$
(13)
where $`[F]=2F+1`$. For the two transitions considered here, $`𝒜_{43}=𝒜_{34}`$, so we may write

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\left[\frac{\text{Im}(E_{\text{PNC}})}{\beta }\right]_{3443}=\frac{\kappa }{𝒜_{43}\beta }\left[7sF_Fz6sF_I_{34}^{(2,a)}+7sF_Fz6sF_I_{43}^{(2,a)}\right]\frac{e}{4\pi ϵ_0a_0^2}$$
(14)
Combining the experimental results for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\left[\text{Im}(E_{\text{PNC}})/\beta \right]_{3443}`$ and $`\beta `$ with our values for the spin-dependent matrix elements from Table 1, we obtain $`\kappa =0.117(16)`$. The uncertainty comes from the uncertainty in the experimental value on the left side of Eq. (14); the uncertainty in $`\beta `$ is negligibly small. In Ref. Flambaum and Murray (1997), $`\kappa =0.112(16)`$ was obtained by combining the same experimental data Wood et al. (1997); Bennett and Wieman (1999) with spin-dependent matrix elements from Refs. Frantsuzov and Khriplovich (1988); Khraftmakher (1988). This value is also used in Refs. Haxton and Wieman (2001); Haxton et al. (2001, 2002). Differences with our value of $`\kappa `$ come only from differences in $`7sF_Fz6sF_I^{(2,a)}`$.

Combining the effective value for $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ with the value $`\kappa _2=0.0140`$ from Haxton et al. (2001) and the value $`\kappa =0.117(16)`$ obtained above leads to $`\kappa _a=0.098(16)`$, which is 8% larger than the value $`\kappa _a=0.090(16)`$ obtained by Haxton and Wieman (2001) and 6% larger than the value $`\kappa _a=0.092(16)`$ from Flambaum and Murray (1997). To clarify the sources of these differences, we compare our results with those from Refs. Flambaum and Murray (1997); Haxton and Wieman (2001); Haxton et al. (2001, 2002); Bouchiat and Piketty (1991a, b) in Table 3. We scaled the constants given in Flambaum and Murray (1997); Bouchiat and Piketty (1991a, b) to represent them in terms of the coefficients $`\kappa `$, $`\kappa _a`$, $`\kappa _2`$, $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ used here.

The revised value of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ and $`7sF_Fz6sF_I^{(2,a)}`$ obtained in this work increases the value of the 133Cs anapole moment, and thereby slightly increases the differences between various experimental constraints on PNC meson coupling constants discussed in Haxton and Wieman (2001). Since correlation corrections to $`7sF_Fz6sF_I^{(2,a)}`$ are large, 25% at RPA level, further accurate calculations are clearly desirable.

Measuring the PNC electric-dipole transition between ground-state hyperfine levels is a potentially fruitful method for obtaining experimental anapole moments for atoms other than Cs. Schemes have been proposed to carry out such measurements and calculations have been carried out for various atoms in Refs. Novikov and Khriplovich (1975); Loving and Sandars (1977); Gorshkov et al. (1988); Budker (1998); Porsev and Kozlov (2001). The contribution of the spin-independent interaction from $`Z`$ exchange, which dominates the PNC dipole matrix element between different atomic levels, vanishes for the microwave transitions between hyperfine states of the same level.

As an aid to the analysis of these microwave experiments, we give reduced matrix elements $`F_FzF_I^{(2,a)}`$ induced by the spin-dependent interaction of Eq. (1) together with values of the third-order dipole matrix element $`F_FzF_I^{\text{(hf)}}`$ for atoms of potential experimental interest in Table 4. The corresponding calculations were carried out at the RPA level of approximation. The ratio of matrix elements again gives $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$. The ground state configurations of the atoms listed in the table are $`ns_{1/2}`$ or $`np_{1/2}`$, and the hyperfine levels have angular momentum $`F=I\pm 1/2`$. For some of the atoms considered in Table 4, RPA correlation corrections to the weak-hyperfine interference matrix element are no longer small; they contribute 20% and 34% to $`F_FzF_I^{\text{(hf)}}`$ for Au and Ra+, respectively.

## IV Summary

We have considered the PNC dipole matrix elements induced by the combined hyperfine–weak interaction and found that they are, at the few percent level of accuracy, proportional to the PNC dipole matrix elements induced by the spin-dependent interaction of Eq. (1), independent of $`F_I`$ and $`F_F`$, for transitions $`F_IF_F`$ between hyperfine levels. The proportionality is not the result of an operator identity, but of similar angular momentum structures for the respective matrix elements. By carrying out calculations at the RPA level of approximation, which are expected to be accurate to a few percent, we are able to extract effective coupling constants $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ from the calculations. Although the dominant matrix element $`wIF_FzvIF_I^{(2,a)}`$ is sensitive to correlation corrections, increasing by 10–30% in Cs and Fr when correlation corrections are included, the matrix element $`wIF_FzvIF_I^{\text{(hf)}}`$ is correlation insensitive, changing by less than 6% for these cases.

For the case of 133Cs, the value of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ is about 40% smaller than that obtained in an earlier calculation Bouchiat and Piketty (1991a) and slightly increases the size of the anapole moment of 133Cs inferred from experiment Wood et al. (1997); Haxton and Wieman (2001). Values of $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$ are also presented for the $`7s8s`$ transition in Fr and for microwave transitions between ground-state hyperfine levels in atoms of potential experimental interest.

###### Acknowledgements.

The work of W.R.J. was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant No. PHY-01-39928. U.I.S. acknowledges support by Grant No. B516165 from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The authors owe thanks to V. V. Flambaum for calling the early work of Flambaum and Khriplovich (1985) to our attention. One of the authors W.R.J. wishes to thank B. R. Holstein for a useful discussion concerning constraints on weak meson-nucleon coupling constants.

## Appendix A Third-Order Perturbation Theory

We introduce a perturbation $`V_I=H^{(1)}+H^{\text{(hf)}}`$ into the many-body Hamiltonian $`H_0`$ describing an atom and expand the many-body wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ of the bound state $`v`$ in powers of $`V_I`$

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{\Psi }_v+\mathrm{\Psi }_v^{(1)}+\mathrm{\Psi }_v^{(2)}+\mathrm{}$$

to find

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_v^{(1)}`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{nv}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{|nn|V_I|v}{E_vE_n}}`$ (15)
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_v^{(2)}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{nv}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{v|V_I|nn|V_I|v}{(E_vE_n)^2}}\psi _v`$ (16)
$`E_v^{(1)}{\displaystyle \underset{mv}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{|mm|V_I|v}{(E_vE_m)^2}}+{\displaystyle \underset{\begin{array}{c}mv\\ nv\end{array}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{|mm|V_I|nn|V_I|v}{(E_vE_m)(E_vE_n)}},`$ (17)
where

$$E_v^{(1)}=v|V_I|vv|H^{\text{(hf)}}|v$$
(18)
is the first-order correction to the energy. The approximate wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_v+\mathrm{\Psi }_v^{(1)}+\mathrm{\Psi }_v^{(2)}`$ is normalized to second-order.

The third-order matrix element of the dipole operator is given by

$$w|z|v^{(3)}=\mathrm{\Psi }_w^{(2)}|z|\mathrm{\Psi }_v+\mathrm{\Psi }_w^{(1)}|z|\mathrm{\Psi }_v^{(1)}+\mathrm{\Psi }_w|z|\mathrm{\Psi }_v^{(2)}.$$
(19)
Expanding this expression, we obtain

$$\begin{array}{c}w|z|v^{(3)}=\frac{1}{2}\underset{mw}{}\frac{w|V_I|mm|V_I|w}{(E_wE_m)^2}w|z|vE_w^{(1)}\underset{mw}{}\frac{w|V_I|mm|z|v}{(E_wE_m)^2}\hfill \\ \hfill +\underset{\begin{array}{c}mw\\ nw\end{array}}{}\frac{w|V_I|nn|V_I|mm|z|v}{(E_wE_m)(E_wE_n)}+\underset{\begin{array}{c}mw\\ nv\end{array}}{}\frac{w|V_I|mm|z|nn|V_I|v}{(E_wE_m)(E_vE_n)}\\ \hfill \frac{1}{2}\underset{nv}{}\frac{v|V_I|nn|V_I|v}{(E_vE_n)^2}w|z|vE_v^{(1)}\underset{nv}{}\frac{w|z|nn|V_I|v}{(E_vE_n)^2}\\ \hfill +\underset{\begin{array}{c}mv\\ nv\end{array}}{}\frac{w|z|nn|V_I|mm|V_I|v}{(E_vE_m)(E_vE_n)}\end{array}$$
(20)
Setting $`V_I=H^{(1)}+H^{\text{(hf)}}`$ and retaining only those terms linear in $`H^{(1)}`$, we obtain the expression given in Eq. (9). It should be noted that the two terms above proportional to $`w|z|v`$ do not contribute when the states $`v`$ and $`w`$ have the same parity.

## Appendix B Angular Decomposition

The matrix element of the spin-independent operator $`H^{(1)}`$ between single-particle states $`|i`$ and $`|j`$ is

$$i|H^{(1)}|j=i\frac{G}{2\sqrt{2}}Q_W\delta _{\kappa _i\kappa _j}\delta _{m_im_j}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑r\left[F_i(r)G_j(r)G_i(r)F_j(r)\right]\rho (r).$$
(21)
Here, $`(\kappa _i,m_i)`$ are angular momentum quantum numbers of the state $`|i`$ $`[\kappa _i=(j_i+1/2),\text{for}j_i=l_i\pm 1/2]`$, $`l_i`$ and $`j_i`$ being the orbital and total angular momentum, respectively, of the state $`|i`$. The functions $`G_i(r)`$ and $`F_i(r)`$ are the large and small radial components, respectively, of the Dirac wave function for the state $`|i`$. We define the reduced matrix element of $`H^{(1)}`$ as the coefficient of the angular momentum deltas in Eq. (21). Using this (somewhat unconventional) definition, it follows that

$$iH^{(1)}j=i\frac{G}{2\sqrt{2}}Q_W_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑r\left[F_i(r)G_j(r)G_i(r)F_j(r)\right]\rho (r).$$
(22)
We decompose the spin-dependent operators of the type $`H^{(k)}`$, with $`k=(a,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2})`$ in a spherical basis as333In this equation, we omit the multiplicative factors $`\kappa _a`$ and $`\kappa _2`$ defined in the Sec. I to avoid confusion with the angular momentum quantum numbers $`\kappa _i`$ introduced in the previous paragraph.

$$H^{(k)}=\underset{\mu }{}(1)^\mu I_\mu K_\mu ^{(k)}.$$

The matrix element of the purely electronic operator $`K_\mu ^{(k)}`$ between single-particle states $`|i`$ and $`|j`$ is

$`i|K_\mu ^{(k)}|j=i{\displaystyle \frac{G}{\sqrt{2}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}dr\rho _v(r)[\kappa _im_i|\sigma _\mu |\kappa _jm_jF_i(r)G_j(r).`$ (23)
$`.\kappa _im_i|\sigma _\mu |\kappa _jm_jG_i(r)F_j(r)].`$
From this, it follows

$`iK^{(k)}j=i{\displaystyle \frac{G}{\sqrt{2}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}dr\rho _v(r)[\kappa _i\sigma \kappa _jF_i(r)G_j(r).`$ (24)
$`.\kappa _i\sigma \kappa _jG_i(r)F_j(r)].`$
Reduced matrix elements of the operator $`\sigma `$ are given by:

$`\kappa _i\sigma \kappa _j`$ $`=`$ $`(1)^{j_i+\overline{l}_i1/2}\sqrt{6[j_i][j_j]}\delta _{\overline{l}_il_j}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}j_j& j_i& 1\\ 1/2& 1/2& \overline{l}_i\end{array}\right\}`$ (27)
$`\kappa _i\sigma \kappa _j`$ $`=`$ $`(1)^{j_i+l_i1/2}\sqrt{6[j_i][j_j]}\delta _{l_i\overline{l}_j}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}j_j& j_i& 1\\ 1/2& 1/2& l_2\end{array}\right\}.`$ (30)
In the above, we have used the notation $`\overline{l}=l(\kappa )`$ and $`[j]=2j+1`$.

The hyperfine operator is decomposed as

$$H^{\text{(}\text{hf}\text{)}}=\underset{\lambda }{}(1)^\lambda t_\lambda \mu _\lambda ,$$

where $`\mu _\lambda =g_I\mu _NI_\lambda `$ is the nuclear magnetic moment operator, and $`t_\lambda `$ is the electronic part of the hyperfine interaction. We may write the reduced matrix element of the magnetic moment operator in the nuclear ground state as

$$I\mu I=\sqrt{I(I+1)(2I+1)}g_I\mu _N.$$
(31)
In the following, the factor $`\mu _N`$ is absorbed into the hyperfine interaction energy scale factor:

$$W_{\text{hf}}=\frac{|e|}{4\pi ϵ_0}\frac{|e|\mathrm{}}{2M_p}\frac{1}{ca_0^2}=1.987131\times 10^6\text{a.u.}$$

The electronic part of the hyperfine interaction for a point nucleus in these units is given by

$$t_\lambda =i\sqrt{2}\frac{𝜶\mathbf{}𝑪_{1\lambda }^{(0)}(\widehat{r})}{r^2},$$
(32)
where $`𝑪_{1\lambda }^{(0)}(\widehat{r})`$ is a normalized vector spherical harmonic (Varshalovich et al., 1988, p. 210). For a distributed nuclear magnetization $`𝑴(r)`$, Eq. (32) becomes

$$t_\lambda =i\sqrt{2}\frac{𝜶\mathbf{}𝑪_{1\lambda }^{(0)}(\widehat{r})}{r^2}m(r),$$
(33)
where the function $`m(r)`$ is given by

$$m(r)=\frac{4\pi }{\mu }_0^r𝑑ss^2M(s)=_0^r𝑑ss^2M(s)÷_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑ss^2M(s).$$

For the Fermi-type distribution given in Eq. (8), we find

$$\begin{array}{c}m(r,r<C)=\frac{1}{𝒩}[\frac{r^3}{C^3}3\frac{ar^2}{C^3}S_1\left(\frac{Cr}{a}\right)+6\frac{a^2r}{C^3}S_2\left(\frac{Cr}{a}\right)\hfill \\ \hfill 6\frac{a^3}{C^3}S_3\left(\frac{Cr}{a}\right)+6\frac{a^3}{C^3}S_3\left(\frac{C}{a}\right)]\end{array}$$
(34)
and

$$\begin{array}{c}m(r,r>C)=1\hfill \\ \hfill \frac{1}{𝒩}\left[3\frac{ar^2}{C^3}S_1\left(\frac{rC}{a}\right)+6\frac{a^2r}{C^3}S_2\left(\frac{rC}{a}\right)+6\frac{a^3}{C^3}S_3\left(\frac{rC}{a}\right)\right],\end{array}$$
(35)
where $`𝒩`$ is

$$𝒩=\left[1+\frac{a^2}{C^2}\pi ^2+6\frac{a^3}{C^3}S_3\left(\frac{C}{a}\right)\right].$$

In the previous three equations,

$$S_k(x)=\underset{1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^{n1}}{n^k}e^{nx}.$$

The reduced matrix element of the hyperfine operator $`t`$ is

$$jti=(\kappa _j+\kappa _i)\kappa _jC_1\kappa _i_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dr}{r^2}(G_j(r)F_i(r)+F_j(r)G_i(r))m(r),$$
(36)
where $`C_{kq}(\widehat{r})`$ is a normalized spherical harmonic. Finally, we note that the reduced matrix element of the dipole operator $`z`$ is

$$jzi=\kappa _jC_1\kappa _i_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑rr(G_j(r)G_i(r)+F_j(r)F_i(r)).$$
(37)
With the aid of the above expressions, the reduced third-order matrix element corresponding to Eq. (9) is found to be

$`wIF_wzvIF_v^{(\text{hf})}=g_I\sqrt{I(I+1)(2I+1)[F_v][F_w]}\times `$ (48)
$`\{{\displaystyle \underset{jv}{}}(1)^{vw+1}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}F_w& F_v& 1\\ j_j& j_w& I\end{array}\right\}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}I& I& 1\\ j_j& j_v& F_v\end{array}\right\}.`$
$`[{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{wH^{(1)}iizjjtv}{(ϵ_jϵ_v)(ϵ_iϵ_w)}}+{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{wziiH^{(1)}jjtv}{(ϵ_jϵ_v)(ϵ_iϵ_v)}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{wzjjtiiH^{(1)}v}{(ϵ_jϵ_v)(ϵ_iϵ_v)}}{\displaystyle \frac{wzjjH^{(1)}v}{(ϵ_jϵ_v)^2}}vtv]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{jw}{}}(1)^{F_vF_w+1}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}F_w& F_v& 1\\ j_v& j_j& I\end{array}\right\}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}I& I& 1\\ j_j& j_w& F_w\end{array}\right\}`$
$`[{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{wtjjziiH^{(1)}v}{(ϵ_iϵ_v)(ϵ_jϵ_w)}}+{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{wH^{(1)}iitjjzv}{(ϵ_jϵ_w)(ϵ_iϵ_w)}}`$
$`.+{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{wtjjH^{(1)}iizv}{(ϵ_jϵ_w)(ϵ_iϵ_w)}}wtw{\displaystyle \frac{wH^{(1)}jjzv}{(ϵ_jϵ_w)^2}}]\}.`$
It is interesting to compare the interference term with the the second-order reduced matrix element of the dipole operator associated with the spin-dependent terms $`H^{(k)}`$, $`k=2,a`$,

$`wIF_wzvIF_v^{(2,a)}=\sqrt{I(I+1)(2I+1)[F_v][F_w]}\times `$ (58)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{jv}{}}[(1)^{vw+1}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}F_w& F_v& 1\\ j_j& j_w& I\end{array}\right\}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}I& I& 1\\ j_j& j_v& F_v\end{array}\right\}{\displaystyle \frac{wzjjK^{(k)}v}{ϵ_vϵ_j}}`$
$`+(1)^{F_vF_w+1}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}F_w& F_v& 1\\ v& j& I\end{array}\right\}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}I& I& 1\\ j& w& F_w\end{array}\right\}{\displaystyle \frac{wK^{(k)}jjzv}{ϵ_wϵ_j}}].`$
We find that the first term in this expression goes over to the first term in the interference term under the replacement

$`wzjjK^{(k)}v`$ (59)
$`g_I[{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{wH^{(1)}iizjjtv}{(ϵ_wϵ_i)}}+{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{wziiH^{(1)}jjtv}{(ϵ_vϵ_i)}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{wzjjtiiH^{(1)}v}{(ϵ_vϵ_i)}}{\displaystyle \frac{wzjjH^{(1)}v}{(ϵ_vϵ_j)}}vtv],`$
and that a similar correspondence can be made for the second term. The completely different dependence on the intermediate state $`j`$ on the two sides of the above expression explains the state-dependence of the coefficient $`\kappa _{\text{hf}}`$.


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# X-ray spectral evolution of low-mass X-ray binary GX 349+2

## 1 Introduction

Low Mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) containing neutron stars are broadly divided into two classes: Z and atoll sources (Hasinger & van der Klis, 1989). This classification is based on the shape of the path traced by these sources in the X-ray color-color diagram (CD) or hardness-intensity diagram (HID). Z-sources trace out a Z-type pattern in CD and HID, and have luminosities close to Eddington limit (L$`{}_{Edd}{}^{})`$. A Z-track consists of three parts, horizontal branch (HB), normal branch (NB) and flaring branch (FB). Atoll sources trace out a fragmented shape in CD. They have luminosities 0.01-0.1 LEdd and probably, have weaker magnetic fields than Z-sources (van der Klis, 1995; Psaltis, Lamb & Miller, 1995). It is widely believed that in Z-sources the inferred mass accretion rate increases along the Z-track from HB to FB (Hasinger et al., 1990). Similarly, in atoll sources inferred mass accretion rate increases along the fragmented path from the island state to upper part of the banana branch.
X-ray spectra of LMXBs can be described as the sum of soft and hard components. Two different approaches have been used to model these components. In the first case, the soft component is modeled by a single temperature blackbody corresponding to the hot surface of neutron star and a hard component corresponding to comptonized emission from the inner disk or boundary layer (White et al., 1986; White, Stella & Parmar, 1988; Di Salvo et al., 2000, 2001). In the second approach, the soft component is described by a multicolor disk blackbody from accretion disk and the hard component is modeled by comptonized emission (Mitsuda et al., 1984, 1989; Di Salvo et al., 2002). Comparison of these models with observed data have shown that both the approaches require an additional broad iron $`K_\alpha `$ line, arising from the ionized disk or from the accretion disk corona (ADC). Atoll sources exhibit two distinct spectral states; namely hard and soft. In hard state their spectrum extends upto energies $`{}_{}{}^{>}{}_{}{}^{}`$ 100 keV (Barret et al., 2000). The spectrum of Z sources is much softer, with cutoff energies of a few keV. In addition, a hard tail has been occasionally seen in the spectrum of the 5 Z sources (GX 5-1:Asai et al. 1994; GX 17+2: Di Salvo et al. 2000; GX 349+2: Di Salvo et al. 2001; Sco X-1: D’Amico et al. 2001; Cyg X-2: Frontera et al. 1998; Di Salvo et al. 2002).

UV/optical observations (Vrtilek et al., 1990) and correlated spectral and timing study of Z sources suggest (van der Klis, 1995) that accretion rate increases along the Z-track from HB to FB. Modeling of X-ray spectra of Z sources also indicate that their motion in the CD is caused by variations in the inferred mass accretion rate (Psaltis, Lamb & Miller, 1995). However, other possibilities also exist (van der Klis, 2000). Thus, investigations of spectral evolution along the CD may provide an important clue to understand this scenario. The evolution of X-ray spectra of several Z sources have been investigated using BeppoSAX ( GX 17+2: Di Salvo et al. 2000; GX 349+2: Di Salvo et al. 2001; Cyg X-2: Di Salvo et al. 2002). In GX 349+2, no appreciable change was observed in spectral parameters as source moved from NB to FB. Only, seed photon and electron temperature were slightly higher in FB than NB. Also, in GX 17+2 spectral parameters did not vary significantly from HB to NB. X-ray spectra of Cyg X-2 showed an interesting evolution along the Z-track (Di Salvo et al., 2002). It was found that as the source Cyg X-2 made a transition from HB to NB the inner disk temperature increased and at the same time inner rim of accretion disk moved inward. Also, optical depth of comptonized component systematically decreased and electron temperature increased as the source moved from HB to NB. The authors suggest that hardening of the soft blackbody component and softening of the hard comptonized emission are probably responsible for HB to NB transition.
In this paper, we present the most detailed investigation of spectral evolution in GX 349+2 using extensive data set obtained with RXTE. The source traced the most complete CD during our observations (Zhang, Strohmayer & Swank 1998; Agrawal & Bhattacharya. 2003; O’Neill et al. 2002), providing an opportunity to study the spectral evolution in detail.

## 2 Observation

We analyzed public archival data obtained with PCA instrument on-board RXTE satellite. The data were collected during January and September-October, 1998. The total observation time with good data from PCA is $``$ 220 ks. The PCA consists of five identical proportional counter units with total effective area of $``$ 7000 cm2 in the energy range 2-60 keV (Jahoda et al., 1996).

## 3 Color-Color diagram

The PCA standard-2 mode data, accumulated every 16s in the energy range 2-60 keV were used to create X-ray color-color diagram (CD) and Hardness-Intensity diagram (HID). The soft color is defined as the ratio of count rates in 3.5-6.4 keV and 2.0-3.5 keV energy ranges and hard color is defined as that in 9.7-16.0 keV and 6.4-9.7 keV energy ranges. The ‘rank number’ or ‘$`S_z`$’ parameterization technique (Dieters & van der Klis, 2000, and reference there in) was used to define the position of the source in CD. We selected the normal points in the CD in such a way that they form a smooth curve. The color-color points in the CD are projected onto this curve. The $`S_z`$ parameter for each projected point was calculated by measuring their distance from NB/FB vertex. NB/FB vertex ($`S_z`$ = 2) and end-point of the FB ($`S_z`$ = 3) were taken as reference points and rest of the Z curve was normalized according to the length of FB. The CD obtained from January and September-October observations of this source is shown in figure 1. The solid curve in figure 1 represents the approximate Z-track.

## 4 Spectral analysis

The standard-2 mode PCA data were used to create the spectra in the energy range 2.5-25.0 keV. The new cmbrightvle model file “pca\_bkgd\_cmbrightvle\_e3v20020201” for epoch 3 was used to calculate the PCA background. We used the observation (from obsid 30133-01-02-00 to 30133-01-02-08) of Crab Nebula to derive the level of uncertainty in the PCA response matrix. Fitting the Crab spectrum (in the energy range 2.5-25.0 keV) to a power-law with photon-index ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) = 2.185$`\pm `$0.005 provided a reduced $`\chi ^2`$ ($`\chi _\nu ^2=\chi ^2/d.o.f)`$ of 911/51. But, an inclusion of 1% systematic error reduced the value of $`\chi _\nu ^2`$ to 41/51. Hence, a systematic error of 1% was added to all the spectra to take into account the uncertainty in the PCA response matrix. In figure 2, the effect of PCA systematics on the Crab spectrum has been shown.

We divided the NB into 5 intervals and FB into 8 intervals to make an extensive investigation of spectral evolution in the source GX 349+2 along the Z-track. The source and background spectra within each interval were added separately to form a cumulative source and background spectrum. The background subtracted energy spectrum in the 2-25 keV range were fitted using a two-component model. The multi-temperature blackbody (diskbb in XSPEC, Mitsuda et al. 1984) or a single temperature blackbody (bbody  in XSPEC) was used to describe the soft component. To model the hard component, comptonization models compst (Sunyaev & Titarchuk, 1980) and comptt (Titarchuk, 1994) of XSPEC were used. We find that diskbb+comptt model provided a better fit ($`\chi _\nu ^2=133/48)`$ to the spectrum at upper NB (NB1) compared to bbody+comptt model ($`\chi _\nu ^2=158/48)`$. The diskbb+compst model provides a poor fit to the spectrum for interval NB1 ($`\chi _\nu ^2`$ 643/49 ). It is to be noted that, in our case the temperature of diskbb component is nearly coinciding with lower energy range of the detector and hence diskbb and bbody model cannot be discriminated clearly. The analysis of X-ray bursts from GX 17+2 has suggested that the soft component comes from the optically thick accretion disk (Kuulkers et al., 2002). Therefore, we chose diskbb+comptt model to describe the 2.5-25.0 keV spectra at various parts of Z-track. A Gaussian emission line at $``$ 6.7 keV is required to improve the fit to the spectra for all the positions on the Z-track. Addition of this line decreased $`\chi _\nu ^2`$ from 133/48 to 30.7/45 for the spectrum of NB1 ( probability of chance improvement of fit is $``$ $`2.3\times 10^{14}`$). The count rate spectrum for the source GX 349+2 (during interval NB2) in the energy range 2.5-25 keV and best-fit to it are shown in the panel 1 of figure 3. The residuals in the unit of sigma, with and without inclusion of systematic error are shown in panel 2 and 3 respectively.

## 5 Results and Discussion

The values of best fit spectral parameters are given in Table 1 (for NB) and Table 2 (for FB). The diskbb model represents the soft emission expected from the optically thick accretion disk and provides two important disk parameters, color temperature ($`T_{col})`$ of inner disk and inner disk radius ($`R_{in})`$. The inner disk radius $`R_{in}`$ is expressed by:

$$\left(\frac{R_{in}}{km}\right)=\frac{\sqrt{K}\times \left(\frac{D}{10kpc}\right)}{\sqrt{\mathrm{cos}\theta }}$$
(1)
In this expression K is the disk blackbody normalization, D is the distance to the source in kpc, and $`\theta `$ is the inclination of the accretion disk. Distance of the source GX 349+2 is uncertain and probably lies in the range 5-10 kpc (Cooke and Ponman, 1991; Christian and Swank, 1997; van Paradijs & McClintock, 1994) ). Optical observation suggests that if GX 349+2 is a LMXB ( mass of companion $`<2M_{})`$ then inclination should be $`\theta >25^{}`$ for the neutron star of mass $`<2M_{}`$ (Wachter & Margon, 1996). X-ray properties of Z-sources suggest that there are two different classes of Z-sources (Kuulkers et al., 1994; Kuulkers, van der Klis and Vaughan, 1996) : Cyg-like ( Cyg X-2, GX 5-1, Sco X-1) and Sco-like sources (Sco X-1, GX 349+2, GX 17+2). One of the best studied Cyg-like source Cyg X-2 has an inclination $`\theta 60^{}`$(Orosz and Kuulkers, 1999). As, it has been proposed that Sco-like sources are being viewed at lower inclination than Cyg-like sources (Kuulkers et al., 1994; Kuulkers, van der Klis and Vaughan, 1996), for the source GX 349+2 inclination should be $`25^{}<\theta <60^{}`$. Therefore we assume a mean inclination $`\theta =45^{}`$ and distance D = 7.5 kpc for GX 349+2 to derive its inner disk radius. It is to be noted that a different choice of inclination and distance in the range specified above will scale the inner disk radius by a factor of 0.59 to 1.58. However, as the inner disk radius for all the positions on the Z-track are scaled by the same amount, an overall trend of the change in the inner disk radius will not be affected.

In the multicolor disk model the local emission is described by blackbody spectrum (Shakura & Sunyaev, 1973). However, it is expected that in the inner region of the disk, opacity due to electron scattering dominates over that due to absorption processes. In this case the local spectrum can be significantly modified by comptonization and can be approximated by,

$$I_\nu =\frac{1}{f^4}B_\nu (T_{col})$$
(2)
where, $`f=\left(\frac{T_{col}}{T_{eff}}\right)`$ is the spectral hardening factor , $`T_{col}`$ is the color temperature of inner disk, $`T_{eff}`$ is the effective temperature of inner disk, $`\nu `$ is the frequency of radiation, $`B_\nu (T_{col})`$ is the Planck function (Ebisawa et al., 1994). The effective radius and temperature of inner disk is given by,

$$R_{eff}=f^2R_{in}$$
(3)
$$T_{eff}=\frac{T_{col}}{f}$$
(4)
By solving the vertical structure and radiative transfer equation of the disk, Shimura & Takahara (1995) showed that for viscosity parameter $`\alpha 0.1`$, luminosity close to Eddington limit and mass of the compact object 1.4-10 $`M_{}`$ the soft emission from disk can be described by equation 2 with spectral hardening factor f=1.9$`\pm `$0.1.

The variation in the parameters of soft component as a function of $`S_z`$ parameter is shown in figure 4. Our study revealed that $`T_{eff}`$ increased from $``$ 1 keV to $``$ 1.5 keV as source moved from upper to middle part of NB, i.e in the direction of increasing $`S_z`$. Increase in $`T_{eff}`$ can be interpreted in terms of inward motion of accretion disk with increasing accretion rate. In fact inner disk radius $`R_{eff}`$ was found to decrease from upper NB ( $``$ 10.5 km) to middle NB($``$ 8.0 km). As source moved further from middle NB to upper FB, $`T_{eff}`$ decreased from $``$ 1.5 keV to $``$ 0.86 keV. At the same time $`R_{eff}`$ increased from $``$ 12 km to $``$ 30 km. This suggests that inner rim of accretion disk moves outward again with increasing mass accretion rate.

As mentioned earlier, diskbb radiation is emitted by optically thick matter, which is in Keplerian flow. Since the radiation drag force exerted by radiation coming from the neutron star can remove significant angular momentum from the gas in Keplerian flow, radial flow starts a few stellar radii above the neutron star surface. The inner edge of the accretion disk can be taken as the point at which disk-flow ends and radial flow starts. Note that the intensity of radiation will be attenuated exponentially ($`\mathrm{exp}^{\tau _r}`$, where $`\tau _r`$ is the radial optical depth) as it passes through disk. Therefore radiation drag cannot remove any angular momentum beyond a certain distance (R$`{}_{aml}{}^{})`$ from the central compact object and supersonic radial flow is possible only within radius $`R_{aml}`$ (Miller, Lamb & Psaltis, 1998; Miller & Lamb, 1996). This radius is obtained by setting $`\tau _r`$ = 5 (since most of the radiation will be attenuated beyond this optical depth). Since radial flow probably begins at the inner edge of the accretion disk, Raml should be very close to $`R_{eff}`$, i.e, $`R_{aml}R_{eff}`$. Radial optical depth of accreting matter is given by equation 5 of Miller, Lamb & Psaltis (1998), which is

$$\tau _r=\frac{\sigma _T\dot{M}}{4\pi m_p}_R^r\frac{[1v^{\widehat{r}}(r^{})]^1}{\gamma _r(r^{})\gamma (r^{})}\frac{(12M/r^{})^1}{r^{}h(r^{})v^{\widehat{r}}(r^{})}𝑑r^{}.$$
(5)
In this expression, $`\dot{M}`$ is the mass accretion rate through the inner disk, $`\sigma _T`$ is the Thomson scattering cross section, $`v^{\widehat{r}}(r^{})`$ is the radial velocity, $`h(r^{})`$ is the half-thickness of disk, $`\gamma _r=[1(v^{\widehat{r}})^2]^{1/2}`$, $`\gamma =[1v_{}^{\widehat{\varphi }}{}_{}{}^{2}v_{}^{\widehat{r}}{}_{}{}^{2}]^{1/2}`$, where $`v^\varphi `$ is azimuthal velocity of accretion flow. Note that in all the expressions of this section we have used units such that c = G = 1, where c is the speed of light and G is gravitational constant. By substituting $`\tau _r=5`$ and solving equation 1 for radius (see equation 6 of Miller, Lamb & Psaltis (1998)) one can get

$$R_{eff}R+5\left(\frac{\dot{M}}{0.01\dot{M}_E}\right)^1\left(\frac{R}{10km}\right)\left(\frac{v^{\widehat{r}}}{0.1c}\right)\left(\frac{h/R}{10^2}\right)km.$$
(6)
From equation 6, it is clear that inner disk radius will decrease with increasing accretion rate. This explains decrease of inner disk radius seen from upper NB to middle NB. However equation 6 cannot explain the increase of inner disk radius from lower NB to upper part of FB. In this part of CD (from lower NB to upper FB) the source is supposed to be super-Eddington and hence gravitational pressure cannot support the radiation pressure. This will lead to an outflow in this part of the Z-track. It should be noted that equation 5 and 6 do not take into account the presence of outflow. The presence of outflow can remove the matter from radial inflow and can dump it into a hot central corona above the inner disk. This will lead to a reduction in the density of radial flow and hence, in radial optical depth. A decrease in the optical depth of radial flow will cause radiation to penetrate further inside the disk and hence the inner rim of the disk will shift outward (i.e, $`R_{eff}`$ will increase). Also, if a fraction of matter from radial inflow is pumped in to a hot corona then the optical depth of this corona will increase. In fact optical depth of the corona is found to increase along the FB where most likely $`\dot{M}>\dot{M}_{Edd}`$.

The contribution of the soft component (Fdbb) to the total flux increases from $``$ 8% to 56% as the source moves from upper to lower NB. Again from lower part of NB to upper FB, the soft emission decreased from $``$56% to 17%. The variation in the soft component can be explained in terms of variations in the geometry of inner accretion disk with mass accretion rate. An inward motion of disk (from upper to middle NB) increased the area, emitting the soft component. As a result soft disk emission also increased. Similarly, an outward motion of disk (from lower NB to upper FB) caused a decrease in the soft disk flux.

The comptonized spectrum is produced by upscattering of soft photons (described by the Wien spectrum at $``$ 1 keV) by hot electrons in the central hot corona or boundary layer. Our analysis showed that parameters of the comptonized spectrum evolved significantly as the source moved along the Z-track (see figure 5). The electron temperature $`T_e`$ of comptonizing plasma cloud increased from $``$ 2.7 keV to 3.2 keV along the NB. At the same time optical depth $`\tau `$ of the plasma cloud decreased from $``$ 5.6 to 2.8. Probably, increased heating of the central corona caused by increase in the incident flux reduces the density of corona and hence, decrease $`\tau `$. A decrease in $`\tau `$ leads to a reduction in relative energy gain of the comptonization process, given by comptonization parameter $`y=\frac{4T_e}{m_ec^2}\tau ^2`$ (where $`m_ec^2`$ is the rest mass of the electron), from upper to lower part of NB. Other possibility is that a slow collapse of the central corona to a geometrically thin accretion disk, leaving low density plasma cloud above the accretion disk (Di Salvo et al., 2002) may lead to a decrease in optical depth. In this case same amount of matter will be accreted on a smaller area (a strip around neutron star). This will cause an increase in seed photon temperature. In fact seed photon temperature $`T_W`$ increased slowly from 0.79$`\pm `$ 0.01 keV to 0.90$`\pm `$ 0.02 keV along the NB. However, it is not clear that why a central corona should collapse to a geometrically thin disk. As source moved further from NB/FB vertex to upper FB, $`T_e`$ decreased from $``$ 3.3 keV to 2.6 keV and $`\tau `$ increased from $``$ 3.2 to 6.4. In the FB, the radiation pressure is expected to be very high and dominant over gravitational pressure. Therefore, probably due to effect of radiation pressure, an outflow begins near the inner part of disk, creating a density enhancement in the hot corona above the inner disk and hence causing optical depth to increase along the FB. The comptonization parameter $`y`$ also increases along the FB due to increase in optical depth.

The results of Di Salvo et al. (2001) on the source GX 349+2 from BeppoSAX data are different from our results. In their work, the whole Z-track was divided into two intervals; NB and FB. The spectra of FB and NB were best fitted with bbody+comptt+power-law+Gaussian-lines. As the source GX 349+2 moved from NB to FB temperature of the blackbody component slightly increased from 0.51$`\pm `$0.01 keV to 0.59$`\pm `$0.02 keV. At the same time optical depth of the comptonizing cloud decreased from 11.7$`\pm `$0.4 to 10.5$`\pm `$0.5 and electron temperature increased from 2.65$`\pm `$0.05 keV to 2.95$`\pm `$0.07 keV. The comptonization parameter $`y`$ was $``$ 2.84 in the NB and $``$ 2.54 in the FB. Our results show that diskbb component is harder in the NB ($`T_{eff}=2.75\pm 0.01`$) than FB ($`T_{eff}=1.95\pm 0.01`$) and comptonized emission in the NB is soft ($`y0.38`$) compared to that in the FB ($`y0.63)`$. There may be two possible reasons behind the differences seen between our results and those of Di Salvo et al. (2001). First, they have used a model which is different from that used in our work. Second, they have used different energy ranges to model the NB (0.1-200 keV) and FB (1.8-200 keV) spectra as LECS data were not available during the flaring state.

We calculated the radius of seed photon emitting region ($`R_W`$) using expression, $`R_W=3\times 10^4D\sqrt{\frac{F_{bol}}{1+y}}/(T_W)^2`$ as given by In ’t Zand et al. (1999). Here, D is the distance in kpc, $`F_{bol}`$ is the unabsorbed comptonized flux in $`ergss^1cm^2`$, $`y`$ is comptonization parameter and $`T_W`$ is seed photon temperature in keV. The Wien radius $`R_W`$ was $``$ 30-48 km in the NB and $``$ 30-40 km in the FB. These values are considerably larger than that reported previously (Di Salvo et al., 2001).

We found a strong broad iron line at energies $``$ 6.7 keV, with width $``$ 0.7-1.4 keV. It is to be noted that iron line was stronger in the FB (eq. width = 154-295) than NB ( eq. width = 97-210). This behavior of GX 349+2 is just opposite to that exhibited by it during earlier observations (Di Salvo et al., 2001). We also note that in our case observed iron line is much stronger.

Even though X-ray intensity decreases or remains almost constant along the NB, it is generally believed that accretion rate increases along the Z-track. This arguments mostly relies upon two observational facts. First, UV and optical flux increases along the Z-track from HB to FB (Vrtilek et al., 1990; van Paradijs et al., 1990). UV and optical fluxes are thought to be better indicator of accretion rate than the X-ray flux (Hasinger et al., 1990). Second, frequency of Horizontal-Branch-Oscillation (HBO) and kHz quasi-periodic-oscillation (QPO) increases from HB to NB (van der Klis, 2000, and reference there in). In almost all the models, frequency of these two oscillations is directly proportional to accretion rate (Lamb et al., 1985; Psaltis et al., 1999; Miller, Lamb & Psaltis, 1998; Stella, Vietri & Morsink, 1999). However, there are a few recent results which indicate that increasing accretion rate scenario may not be the true story (Homan et al., 2002) and motion along Z-track is caused by variation in the inner disk radius (van der Klis, 2000). Our systematic investigation of spectral evolution showed that the motion of the source along the Z-track can be explained by variation in two emission components; soft disk emission and hard comptonized spectrum. The motion of the source along the NB (i.e softening of spectra) is caused by an increase in disk contribution and a decrease in degree of comptonization. Similarly, a decrease in the contribution of the soft component and an increase in Compton parameter $`y`$ seems to be responsible for the motion of the source along the FB. As discussed earlier, the above changes in the soft component and in the comptonized spectrum are expected if accretion rate is increasing along the Z-track. Hence, our results seems to be in the favor of the scenario in which motion of the source along the Z-track is caused by variations in the accretion rate.

## 6 Conclusion

In this paper, we have carried out a detailed study of spectral evolution in the source GX 349+2 using RXTE data. During our observations the source is found both in the NB and FB. The continuum spectra at different positions of Z-track are well described by a disk blackbody and a comptonized component. We explain the evolution of parameters of both soft and hard components in terms of variations in the mass accretion rate along the Z-track. This study suggests that a systematic increase in the strength of soft component and a decrease in comptonization parameter $`y`$ are responsible for the motion of the source along the NB. Similarly, a decrease in soft disk emission and increase in the $`y`$ parameter may cause the source to move along the FB.

## acknowledgments

This work has made use of High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) facility at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center. We are thankful to the anonymous referee for his useful suggestions.