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# The ISOGAL field FC–01863+00035: Mid-IR interstellar extinction and stellar populations This is paper no. 15 in a refereed journal based on data from the ISOGAL project,Based on observations with ISO, an ESA project with instruments funded by ESA Members States (especially the PI countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) and with the participation of ISAS and NASA; and on DENIS observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, Chile

## 1 Introduction

ISOGAL is an ISOCAM survey at 7$`\mu `$m and 15$`\mu `$m, at a spatial resolution in pixel-field-of-view of 6″and sensitivity about 10mJy, of about 16 deg2, toward the Galactic plane mostly interior to $`|l|=30\mathrm{°}`$ (Omont et al. 2002). About 200 fields observed are well spread in the inner bulge and in the Galactic disk. In combination with the DENIS data (Epchtein et al. 1997), the colors between 15$`\mu `$m, 7$`\mu `$m, KS, J, I in the ISOGAL-DENIS catalogue (Schuller et al. 2002) allows a detailed study of cold stellar populations. For example, this survey shall result in a practically complete census of mass-losing AGB stars in the fields of the inner bulge and in some parts of the Galactic disk. The stars at the RGB tip may also be well characterized in the ISOGAL catalogue, as well as nearby or massive young stellar objects (YSOs). In addition to the study of cold stellar populations, another goal of ISOGAL is to study the Galactic structures in regions highly obscured through the inner Galaxy with a sensitivity and spatial resolution about two orders of magnitude better than IRAS.

FC–01863+00035 is one of the disk fields within the ISOGAL survey. In order to avoid strong sources saturating the ISOCAM detectors, an ISOGAL field is usually limited to a small $`l\times b`$ raster where no bright IRAS objects exist. The field FC–01863+00035 covers an area of about 0.1 deg2 in the Galactic plane. Unlike the fields studied in the Galactic bulge by Glass et al. (1999) and Omont et al. (1999), this disk field suffers serious interstellar extinction in the Galactic plane. We picked it to make a case study of ISOGAL data in the Galactic disk, taking advantage of the recent availability of the ISOGAL-DENIS PSC. This line of sight is interesting because it crosses four spiral arms, with large values of visible extinction up to 30 mag and beyond, corresponding to strong CO emission (Bronfman et al. 1989). Being much closer to the Galactic Center than the field of the early study by Pérault et al.(1996), at $`l=45\mathrm{°}`$, it is more typical of the majority of ISOGAL fields. Being outside of the tangential direction of the molecular ring, it avoids too strong perturbations of the quality of ISOGAL data by star forming regions, while keeping nevertheless a non negligible number of detected YSOs. On the other hand, it is far enough from the Galactic Center so that disk sources well prevail against bulge ones, although this direction is neither very far from the far end of the bar structure (e.g. Lopez-Corredoira et al. 2001). In addition to the discussion of stellar populations detected by ISOGAL, which is more difficult than in the bulge because of the larger uncertainty on the distance of the sources, the main goal of this paper is to show how the combination of ISOGAL and DENIS data allows to study the properties and the structure of interstellar extinction in the inner Galactic disk.

## 2 Observation and data reduction

The observation by the 60-cm space telescope ISO took place towards the center position of $`l`$=–18.63$`\mathrm{°}`$ and $`b`$=+0.35$`\mathrm{°}`$, i.e. $`\alpha =16^\mathrm{h}50^\mathrm{m}25.4^\mathrm{s}\mathrm{and}\delta =43\mathrm{°}58\mathrm{}29\mathrm{}`$. The rasters covered a rectangular $`l\times b`$ area of $`0.35\times 0.29`$ deg2. The details of the ISOGAL observation procedure with ISOCAM (Cesarsky et al. 1996) are described in Schuller et al. (2002). The observations of the field FC–01863+00035 were performed with 6$`\mathrm{}`$ pixels with the filters LW2 (5.0–8.5 $`\mu `$m, $`\lambda _{\mathrm{ref}}=6.75\mu `$m) and LW3 (12–18$`\mu `$m, $`\lambda _{\mathrm{ref}}=14.3\mu `$m ). The log of ISOGAL and DENIS observations is given in Table 1.

The general processing of the ISOGAL data is described in detail in Schuller et al.(2002). The reduction of the data from the OLP7.0 (OffLine Processing) pipeline was performed by first using the CIA package (Ott et al. 1997). Dark currents are corrected and cosmic-rays are removed. Thereafter, a procedure is applied to simulating the time behavior of the pixels of the ISOCAM detectors, eliminating the related artifacts and improving the photometry. The flat-field and image distortion are corrected. Conversion to magnitudes from the calculated flux density at 7$`\mu `$m and 15$`\mu `$m is under the assumption that a Vega model, without circumstellar dust, corresponds to zero magnitude at respective wavelengths, i.e. $`[7]=12.382.5\mathrm{logF}_{\mathrm{LW2}}(\mathrm{mJy})`$ and $`[15]=10.792.5\mathrm{logF}_{\mathrm{LW3}}(\mathrm{mJy})`$. The current version of the images are shown in Fig. 1. On average, the rms dispersion of the ISOGAL photometry (from repeated observations - see for example Schuller et al. 2002) is estimated to be generally less than 0.2 magnitude with a small increase for the faintest sources that correspond to about the 50% completeness limit.

In the field FC–01863+00035, the numbers of point sources extracted are 538 and 389 respectively in LW2 and LW3 bands within the limits of magnitude 9.38 in LW2 and 8.16 in LW3, which correspond to the flux limits of about 15mJy and 11mJy, respectively (generally such limits are chosen in the ISOGAL PSC such that they correspond to detection completeness $``$50% (Schuller et al. 2002) ). There are in total 648 ISO sources, out of which 279 objects were detected in both LW2 and LW3 bands, 259 objects detected in only LW2 band and 110 objects detected in only LW3 band. Among the 279 LW2-LW3 associated sources, 257 sources have good association quality flags 3 or 4 and 21 sources have doubtful associations with quality flag 2. We will discard the single association with quality flag 1 hereafter. With the association radius 5.4″, the number of LW2-LW3 spurious associations should be $``$3. The ISO sources are distributed along brightness as shown in Fig. 2. As can be seen from Fig. 2 the detection is certainly not complete to sources fainter than magnitude 9.0 in LW2 or fainter than magnitude 7.5 in LW3. A general tendency is that more brighter sources are detected in both LW2 and LW3 bands while more weaker sources are detected in only one band.

In near-infrared, this ISOGAL field was also observed in the 2MASS survey in the J, H and KS bands, but the data are not yet available. Contrarily, it was early observed in a special observation of the DENIS survey in the I, J, KS bands by a 1-m telescope at ESO, La Silla (Simon in preparation). The DENIS survey has much higher sensitivity (by typically 3 magnitudes in KS) as well as higher spatial resolution (by about 2$``$3 times) than the ISOGAL survey. The number of sources detected by DENIS is much larger and limited by confusion in the J and KS bands. There are 5345, 5817 and 5702 sources in the I, J and KS bands, respectively. From the distribution of the brightness of these DENIS sources in this field as shown in Fig. 3, the detections in the near IR bands are reasonably complete to I=16 mag, J=14 mag and KS=12 mag.

In order to keep the population of spurious DENIS-ISOGAL cross-identifications below a few percents, the association was limited to KS-detected sources with KS$`<`$12.9 (shown by a long-dash line in the right panel of Fig. 3), corresponding to a density of KS sources $`\mathrm{n}=36000/\mathrm{deg}^2`$. Such a density limit is systematically applied in the ISOGAL PSC for the DENIS association radius. It is chosen such as $`\mathrm{n}\pi \mathrm{r}_\mathrm{a}^2=0.1`$, where $`\mathrm{r}_\mathrm{a}=3.5\mathrm{}`$ is the main association radius. The numbers of sources associated with a DENIS source in the ISOGAL PSC are thus 479 objects in the LW2 band and 270 objects in the LW3 band. Among these objects, 16 LW2 sources and 18 LW3 sources (in total 24 sources only) are poorly associated with the DENIS objects, i.e. their association quality factors are either 1 or 2 in the ISOGAL PSC (see for details from Schuller et al. 2002) and they are dropped for later discussion. The numbers of associations with quality flag equal to 3 are 9 in the LW2 band and 10 in the LW3 band (15 sources in total); they mainly correspond to association radius between $`\mathrm{r}_\mathrm{a}`$ and 2$`\mathrm{r}_\mathrm{a}`$. The associations with quality factors 4 or 5 (463 sources) are very probably real associations with a proportion of spurious associations less than $``$2%. The associations with quality flag 3 still have a good chance to be real, but with a larger proportion of spurious associations; in this field however no such objects have association radius larger than 5″. Among the 538 LW2 objects, 463 (86% of all LW2 sources) are thus reasonably well associated with the DENIS KS sources, 351 are also detected in the J-band and 109 in all DENIS bands. Among the 389 LW3 objects, 252 (65% of all LW3 sources) are reasonably well associated with the DENIS KS sources, 198 are also detected in the J-band and 54 in all DENIS bands. Three DENIS sources associated with ISOGAL have a bad quality in KS because of saturation (KS$`<`$6.5), and one J-associated source is saturated (J$`<`$8.0). One can check on the DENIS KS and J images that five strong sources present at the position of strong ISOGAL sources are missing in the DENIS catalog because of saturation (see Sect. 4.3). From Fig. 3 it can be seen that most of the DENIS objects with KS$`<`$9 with 11 exceptions were detected by ISO. Among the ISOGAL sources that are not associated with the DENIS sources, 31 are detected in both LW2 and LW3 bands, 27 in only LW2 band and 87 in only LW3 band. There are 15 LW3 objects associated with KS objects and with association quality flag $``$ 3, but are not associated with LW2 sources. They may be spurious cross-identification between DENIS and ISOGAL catalogues and are dropped in the following discussions.

The details of the results including the astrometric, photometric and association information of all the ISOGAL objects will be available on the web in the ISOGAL-DENIS PSC via http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR and http://www-isogal.iap.fr (Schuller et al. 2002).

## 3 Interstellar extinction

This field FC–01863+00035 at $`b`$=0.35$`\mathrm{°}`$ is close to the Galactic mid-plane where the interstellar extinction is serious. The measurement of interstellar extinction becomes then impossible in optical at large distances. Based on the optical observations of O-type to F-type stars, the AV value at the direction of $`l`$=–18$`\mathrm{°}`$ and $`b`$=–0.5$`\mathrm{°}`$ which is close to the ISOGAL field, is estimated to be about 3 magnitude and approximately constant from a distance of $``$1 kpc up to $``$4 kpc (Neckel & Klare 1980). This may be a good reference for short distances although the patchy distribution of interstellar matter in the Galactic plane (Schultheis et al. 1999) may lead to some significant difference from the extinction in the ISOGAL field FC–01863+00035. However, the sources detected in the mid-infrared LW2 and LW3 bands extend to a much larger distance because of the much smaller extinction at these wavelengths than in optical.

Our calculation of interstellar extinction is based on two assumptions. One is that most of the objects in the ISOGAL field are luminous RGB stars or AGB stars with moderate mass loss rate. These objects are very bright with a luminosity of about one thousand to several thousand solar luminosity, and cold with an effective temperature lower than 4000 K or so. In addition, stellar winds from the photosphere have formed a circumstellar envelope for many of them. So they are strong emitters in mid-infrared. The analysis of the ISOGAL fields at ($`l`$=0.0° , $`b`$=1.0°) and in Baade’s Window, has actually found most of the sources there are RGB and AGB stars whose colors are mildly reddened by interstellar extinction (Omont et al. 1999; Glass et al. 1999). The other assumption is that the intrinsic colors (J–KS)0 of all these sources are approximately similar as well as (KS–)0, which is not true for the minority of objects with large mass-loss. According to the compilation of Wainscoat et al.(1992), the value of (J–K)0 of an M0III star is about 1.0 and of an M5 early AGB star is about 1.3 (see also van Loon et al. 2002 and references therein). In one ISOGAL field Sgr I that is inside the Baade’s Window (Glass et al. 1999), the concentration of (J–KS)0 and (KS–)0 is very evident; for the objects with (KS–)$`<`$1.0, the average (J–KS)0 is 1.08 with standard deviation of 0.17 mag and the average (KS–)0 being 0.20 with standard deviation of 0.23 mag (with the revised photometry of the ISOGAL PSC, see Sect. 3.1) when the interstellar extinction is subtracted as 0.2 mag in the KS-band.

### 3.1 Extinction law at 7 and 15 micron

The assumption to start to extract the extinction law in mid-infrared is that the intrinsic color index (J–KS)0 of most stars in the field is the same so that their observed color J–KS represents the interstellar extinction. Another presumption is the linear correlation between two color indexes if they are both originated from interstellar extinction, e.g. a linear correlation between the interstellar reddening at J–KS and KS–, and at J–KS and KS–. For the first assumption, we had to remove some objects with apparently different intrinsic color. In addition to RGB stars and AGB stars with moderate mass loss, YSOs and AGB stars with high mass loss may be important members of the mid-infrared objects. Their cold and thick circumstellar envelopes absorb near-infrared radiation and radiate in mid-infrared strongly and make them easily detected by the ISOGAL survey. Their intrinsic color indexes (KS–)0 and (KS–)0 \[and even (J–KS)0 for some of them\] are redder than RGB stars or early AGB stars, and their color index – is also redder. Because the observed values of J–KS, KS– and KS– are significantly influenced by interstellar extinction, they can not be used as a criterion to pick up the late AGB stars or YSOs. On the other hand, the interstellar extinction in the LW2 and LW3 bands is much smaller, the color index – should be affected little by interstellar extinction. From the ISOGAL results in the Baade’s Window (Glass et al. 1999) and from modeling (Ojha et al. 2002) we estimate that, for –$`<`$0.4, the effect of circumstellar dust of AGB stars is negligible on (KS–)0, that it remains small ($``$0.3) on (KS–)0, and that it is similarly negligible on (J–KS)0 for –$`<`$1.0. Therefore we exclude the stars with $`[7][15]>0.4`$ or $`[7][15]>1.0`$ in the discussion of the relation of the colors KS– and J–KS, respectively, with interstellar extinction. Applying the same criteria for young stars also warrants that the effect of circumstellar dust is negligible on their intrinsic colors (see e.g. Bontemps et al. 2001).

If we set the intrinsic color (J–KS)0 of most ISOGAL stars as C$`{}_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$ and of (KS–)0 as C$`{}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$, and the observed color indexes as C$`_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}`$=J–KS and C$`_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}`$=KS– accordingly, the linear relationship is expected to be C$`_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}`$–C$`{}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$ = $`k`$ (C$`_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}`$–C$`{}_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}{}^{0})`$. Based on model calculation (e.g. Bertelli et al. 1994 ) and the observation of the field Sgr I, the intrinsic color C$`{}_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$ of RGB stars or early AGB stars is taken to be 1.2 on average, while the intrinsic color index C$`{}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$ of these stars is not well known (however, see van Loon et al. 2002). By leaving C$`{}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$ as a variable and assuming that the observed C$`_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}`$ of sources with $`[7][15]<0.4`$ is mainly caused by interstellar extinction, a robust linear fitting method, which minimizes absolute deviation and is insensitive to large departures for a small number of points, was used to fit the data and the result is displayed in the color-color diagram (Fig. 4, left). The resulted values for this linear fitting to the points decoded by pluses and triangles in Fig. 4 are: $`k`$=0.35 and C$`{}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$=0.34 (assuming C$`{}_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$=1.2 ).

The processing of KS– is similar to that of KS–. The results are then $`k=0.39`$ and C$`{}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}15}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$=0.39 (assuming C$`{}_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$=1.2) (Fig. 4, right). In Fig. 4, the sources with –$`>`$0.4 are displayed by diamonds though they were abandoned during the fitting process to both the KS– and KS– with J–KS. Their large deviation to the right side from the fit line further proves that they are intrinsically redder. However, there could be a residual effect of circumstellar dust on the value of KS– even for sources with –$`<`$0.4, especially for sources with large values of J–KS which are more luminous; it could lead to an overestimation of $`k`$ by maybe $``$10-20%.

For a blackbody radiation at temperature 4000K typical of an M0 RGB star, the Planck function yields C$`{}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$=0.35 and C$`{}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}15}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$=0.44 when the flux density for KS=0.0 is taken as 6.65$`\times 10^{24}`$ W/m2/Hz (Schuller et al. 2002) , which is consistent with the fitting results C$`{}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$=0.34 and C$`{}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}15}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$=0.39. Our values of C$`{}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$ and C$`{}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}15}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$ are in reasonable agreement with those from Glass et al. (1999) in Baade’s Windows when one takes into account the correction of $``$0.45 magnitude to be applied to the preliminary ISOGAL photometry used by Glass et al. (1999) (Schuller et al. 2002).

The linear coefficients between C$`_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}`$ and C$`_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}`$ or C$`_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}15}`$ define the extinction values at 7 and 15 microns which depend on the extinction values in near infrared. With the extinction values in near infrared given by van de Hulst(1946), Glass(1999) and Rieke & Lebofsky(1989), the corresponding values at 7 and 15 microns are calculated and listed in Table 1 by adopting the coefficients $`k=0.35`$ and $`k=0.39`$ between C$`_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}`$ and C$`_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}`$, and C$`_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}`$ and C$`_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}15}`$, respectively.

While the extinction values in the near-infrared from Rieke & Lebofsky (1989) are higher, the ones preferred by Glass (1999) are just an update of those of van de Hulst(1946) and thus the two latter sets of values are quite close to each other. Similarly, the extinction values at 7 and 15$`\mu `$m derived from Rieke & Lebofsky $`(A_7A_{15}0.05)`$ are higher than those inferred from Glass–van de Hulst, i.e. A$`{}_{7}{}^{}0.03`$AV and $`A_{15}0.025`$AV (see Table 1). As generally in other ISOGAL papers, we prefer Glass’ values for the reasons exposed in Glass (1999), except possibly for the fields close to the Galactic Center and in star forming regions. To compare the values we have derived for the mid-infrared extinction with previous ones, we will distinguish the case of 7 $`\mu `$m where the fitting of Fig. 4 (left) is very robust, from the one of 15 $`\mu `$m which is more uncertain. In both cases one should note that the averages of the extinction on the wavelength range of the LW2 and LW3 broad bands yield slightly larger values than at 7 and 15$`\mu `$m, respectively, which are both close to a minimum of the extinction curve.

At 7 $`\mu `$m the most widely used reference for the extinction value is probably Mathis (1990) which is similar to Draine & Lee (1984). They used similar extinction law in near infrared to Rieke & Lebofsky (1989), and estimated the infrared extinction from an extrapolation of the optical extinction law and near-infrared observational data, yielding A7 $``$0.020AV. This value is slightly lower than the one we derived, 0.03AV. Such a difference may arise from the uncertainty in the ISOGAL photometry or in the fitting procedure in Fig.4. It is probably included as well within the uncertainty of the extrapolation by Mathis (1990). We will use our value, 0.03AV, in the following of this paper, keeping in view its uncertainty. Let however note that the higher value we could derive from the near-infrared extinction law of Rieke & Lebofsky (1989) (Table 2), is also consistent with the results derived by Lutz (1999) (A$`{}_{7}{}^{}`$0.045) who used the hydrogen recombination lines and the same near-infrared extinction law towards the Galactic Center.

The extinction ratio A7/A15 is given as $``$1.3 by Mathis (1990). However, the value of Draine & Lee (1984) is almost twice smaller. The best value for this ratio has probably been derived by Hennebelle et al. (2001) from an analysis of infrared dark clouds from the ISOGAL survey. They give 0.7$`\pm `$0.1 for the clouds away from the Galactic Center, which is similar to Draine & Lee (1984). The value we derived for this ratio in Table 2, Col. 2, 1.2, is more compatible with Mathis (1990) than with Hennebelle et al. (2001). In Fig.4 (right), the 15 $`\mu `$m value deduced from the Hennebelle et al. ratio is shown by a dashed line derived from the extinction values at J, KS and 7$`\mu `$m taken from Col. 2 of Table 1. It is evident that their result implies more extinction at 15$`\mu `$m. However, let us stress that our direct fitting is somewhat uncertain at 15 $`\mu `$m because of the smaller number of sources and of the possibility of residual effects of circumstellar reddening on KS–, especially for the distant luminous sources with large extinction. Therefore, we consider that the 15 $`\mu `$m value deduced from Hennebelle et al. (2001) (dashed line in Fig.4 (right)) is still compatible with the data of our fitting in Fig.4 (right, full line), and that our data cannot provide a really accurate value of the extinction at 15 $`\mu `$m. Nevertheless, we will use the values derived from our fitting in the subsequent sections, since such differences on the small extinction at 15 $`\mu `$m are practically negligible in the following discussions. One has to keep in mind that the extinction law may vary with the directions due to the inhomogeneous distribution of the interstellar matter in the Galactic plane.

### 3.2 Extinction structure along the line of sight

By assuming the intrinsic color index C$`{}_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$ is the same for all the objects which were detected in both J and KS bands and with –$`<`$1.0 if detected in both LW2 and LW3 bands as well, the interstellar extinction to individual objects can then be calculated from the observed C$`_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}`$. Theoretical calculation shows that C$`{}_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$ doesn’t differ much for late-type RGB stars and early AGB stars which are the major components of the ISOGAL sources. Though there may be some foreground main-sequence stars and early-type AGB stars with intrinsic bluer color than late-type RGB stars that would bring about the underestimation of $`\mathrm{A}_V`$, the number of such sources should be small and they should be mostly at small distance to be detectable by ISOGAL as seen in Fig. 4 for those with J–KS$`<`$1.0. While many of the ISOGAL sources are detected in the KS-band and not detected in the J-band, the value of $`\mathrm{A}_V`$ may then be inferred from C$`_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}`$ according to the extinction law derived above. This method is right only if the non-detection in the J-band is caused by large interstellar extinction. Because some of the non-detections in the J-band may come from serious absorption by circumstellar dust of AGB stars or YSOs, the estimation from C$`_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}`$ may overestimate the real interstellar extinction, in particular when the index C$`_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}7}`$ is large, e.g. larger than 2 that results in $`A_V30`$. So when inferring the extinction value from KS–, we have excluded the sources with –$`>`$0.4 because of the risk they present the occurrence of large mass loss. For the same reason, we have excluded the sources with –$`>`$1.0 when inferring the extinction value from J–KS. However, we have thus altogether discarded a large proportion of sources with the largest extinction.

We adopted the value of intrinsic color index C$`{}_{\mathrm{JK}_\mathrm{S}}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$ as 1.2 and the extinction values listed in Col. 2 of Table 1. The global distribution of $`\mathrm{A}_V`$ is shown in Fig. 5d, where values of $`\mathrm{A}_V`$ from J–KS or KS– are distinguished by the dash or dot lines respectively, while the summation of the two types is represented by the solid line. It can be seen, as expected, that the sources not detected in the J-band experience higher extinction than those detected in the J-band on average. All the sources not detected in the J-band have $`\mathrm{A}_V>10`$ and peak at about 28. In Fig. 5, we have added to the bin AV=0–2 all the sources with J–KS$`<`$1.2. Such sources should not be AGB or RGB-tip stars, but nearby earlier stars, mostly K giants with a few A-B stars. Most of them must have A$`{}_{\mathrm{V}}{}^{}<`$2–3. We have checked that the corresponding values of I–J are consistent with J–K for all these 19 sources, except for one where there is a problem with the DENIS I–J associations. As expected, all of them are associated with a visible GSC2–2 star. The combined visible/near-infrared colors are consistent with K-early or M giants for most of them, with, however, an identified A2 star.

In addition to the concentration at A$`{}_{\mathrm{V}}{}^{}`$0, the sources are distributed along $`\mathrm{A}_V`$ unevenly. After a dip at $`\mathrm{A}_\mathrm{V}`$$``$4–6, there is first a progressive increase of their number up to $`\mathrm{A}_V`$$``$12, and then a steeper rise until a relatively sharp maximum at $`\mathrm{A}_V`$$``$14–16. After that, their number decreases rather regularly up to $`\mathrm{A}_V`$$``$50.

We think that the uneven distribution of $`\mathrm{A}_V`$ reflects the inhomogeneities in the distribution of the interstellar medium, partly along the line of sight with the crossing of the molecular ring and of several arms, but probably mainly perpendicular to the line of sight across the observed ISOGAL field. In order to see the influence of the spiral arms, we estimated the extinction values to the arms from the distribution of the emission in the radio lines of CO and HI. The kinematical distance to the interstellar clouds can be inferred from their radial velocity. The line of sight in the direction $`l`$=-18.63° and $`b`$=0.35° touches the outer edges of the Sagittarius, the Centaurus and the Norma arm at respectively 1, 4, and 6 kpc, runs through the bulge and then reaches the far side of the Norma arm at about 13 kpc. Indeed, most of the line of sight, between 3 to 13 kpc, is in the molecular ring, including the tangential point at $``$8kpc (v$``$ -130km/s).

As for the whole Galactic disk, there exist 12CO data for our field taken from the Milky Way survey at the coarse resolution of 0.125°(7.5′) (Dame et al. 2001). Our 0.35°$`\times `$0.29° field thus implies nine pointings of this survey at $`l=18.625\mathrm{°}\pm 0.125`$°and $`b=0.375\mathrm{°}\pm 0.125`$°. A rapid look at these CO emission data shows that it corresponds mainly to radial velocities characteristic of the molecular rings and more precisely, of the Centaurus and Norma arms. However, there is an ambiguity for the emission between -70 – -80 km/s which could be attributed either to the near side or to the far side of Norma. Especially in the Centaurus arm, the CO emission displays a strong gradient with respect to $`b`$ across this field (Table 2). In order to take into account this gradient in the discussion of the distribution of AV, we will consider separately the three $`b`$ ranges of the pointings of the CO survey (Table 2). For each $`b`$ range of the pointings we computed the CO integrated intensity, WCO, averaged over the three $`l`$ pointings, for each velocity interval roughly corresponding to the different spiral arms (Table 2). Then we estimated the corresponding AV shown in Table 2, adding a contribution from the HI regions from the HI survey of Bloemen et al.(1990).

We estimated $`\mathrm{A}_V`$ shown in Table 2 by adopting the conversion factor $`1.8\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1)^1`$ from the CO integrated line intensity WCO to H2 column density (Dame et al. 2001) and the factor $`10^{21}\mathrm{molecules}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{mag}^1`$ from H2 column density to $`\mathrm{A}_V`$. This estimation, in particular of the HI column density, suffers some uncertainty from integrating the velocity on unclear contours of the paper that could be about 30%. The WCO to NH2 conversion factor is also known to be rather uncertain (Bachiller & Cernicharo 1986; Harjunpaa & Mattila 1996).

Similarly, we split our sample of ISOGAL sources in three unequal parts corresponding to these $`b`$ ranges (Table 2). For each subsample, we have represented in Fig. 5 the histogram of the distribution of AV. We note, as expected, important differences in the total ranges of these three distributions reflecting the gradient of the extinction with $`b`$.

In view of discussing the correspondence between the AV distribution from the ISOGAL sources and the determination from the interstellar gas, let us stress the difficulty that any spatial inhomogeneity in the CO intensity smaller than the large CO beam is smoothed with the present CO data. Therefore, it is impossible to estimate the actual spatial dispersion of AV within a spiral arm. It is certainly significantly larger than the dispersion, $``$20%, between the three $`l`$ pointings for the same $`b`$ range. In each of the three histograms of Fig. 5 the average value of the accumulated extinction expected from the interstellar gas just beyond the Centaurus arm is, AVc=23, 18 and 12, respectively (Table 2). Looking at the values of the sharp rise of the AV distribution due the Centaurus arm, with AVc1=12, 14 and 10, respectively, one sees that these are 20-50% lower than AVc. A natural interpretation is that this difference essentially represents the dispersion of the extinction through the Centaurus arm. The case of the subfield with $`b>`$0.4375° is special because the $`b`$ sample observed by ISOGAL, 0.4375°$`<b<`$0.495° is about half the total range of the CO pointing, 0.4375°$`<b<`$0.5625°. Because of the strong gradient with $`b`$, it is likely that the average extinction in the region observed by ISOGAL is larger than the one in the total CO beam which yields AVc=12 (see Table 2). Indeed the main feature of Fig. 5c is approximately symmetric with respect to A$`_{\mathrm{Vc}^{}}`$=14, which should be close to the actual value of the average of AV in the region observed by ISOGAL. However, it is unclear in this case whether the main contribution of Norma is absent because it comes from the far side with very few sources behind it, or it is included in the pedestal between AV=18 and A$`{}_{\mathrm{V}}{}^{}=`$22, together with the extinction of a few sources behind the tangential point region.

The situation is less clear for the other two subsamples with smaller $`b`$ and larger extinction. It is true that the distribution again extends beyond the value AVc2, symmetric of AVc1, with respect to AVc, as expected from such a dispersion of the AV distribution through the Centaurus clouds and the additional extinction beyond Centaurus. But there is a large decline of the number of the sources towards large AV, making the distribution very asymmetric with respect to AVc. The loss of sources may be explained by the very large value of AV which prevents the detection at 7$`\mu `$m or even in the KS-band of many sources.

Finally, we note that for the three subsamples, the total range of values of AV inferred from the ISOGAL sources is consistent with the maximum accumulated extinction along the line of sight expected from the interstellar gas, including the dispersion of AV values within clouds, the Norma ambiguity and the loss of sources with very large AV.

Despite the many uncertainties in the relation between WCO and the ISOGAL colours and in the interpretation of the AV distribution, one feature remains intriguing. Before the sharp rise at A$`{}_{\mathrm{V}}{}^{}`$10–14 that we associate with the Centaurus arm, there is a distribution of a smaller number of sources from A$`{}_{\mathrm{V}}{}^{}`$6 to $``$12. The local and Sagittarius arm emission of CO is quite unable to account for such extinctions. The only explanation is that such sources are located within the Centaurus arm, behind the first dust layers. The subsequent very sharp rise suggests a narrow distribution of the bulk of the Centaurus extinction. The appreciable number of sources with A$`{}_{\mathrm{V}}{}^{}`$6 to $``$12 suggests that the first Centaurus layers of dust are distributed over a rather large distance with a substantial source density. This implies a large width for the Centaurus “arm”, which is consistent with the broad CO velocity distribution, and/or an over-density of ISOGAL sources inside it, which could be mostly young/massive K giants.

## 4 Stellar populations

### 4.1 Sources detected in the J-band

For the ISOGAL sources which are detected in both J and KS bands during the DENIS observation a correction for interstellar extinction can be applied to observed color indexes such as KS–, KS– and –. The group of extinction values we used are in Col. 2 of Table 1. The color magnitude diagrams (KS–)0/0 and (KS–)0/0, are shown in Figs. 7 and 8 for the sources detected in both J and KS bands. They are compared with the diagrams of the ISOGAL sources in the Baade’s Window Sgr I where the interstellar extinction is much smaller. Specifically, the extinction in the KS-band in the Sgr I field is taken to be 0.2 magnitude and no extinction is taken into account there for the LW2 and LW3 bands (Glass et al. 1999). In the color-magnitude diagram –/ of our field FC–01863+00035 (see Fig. 6), we have not applied the correction for interstellar extinction because it is relatively small in both – and  (especially in –), and not certain for both.

In these color-magnitude diagrams, the distribution of most of the ISOGAL objects of the field FC–01863+00035 detected in the J-band is very similar to that of Sgr I, with some small differences. The cluster of stars at the tip of RGB which is seen in the Sgr I field around – = $`\mathrm{C}_{715}=0.2,[15]=8.0`$ or (KS–)$`{}_{0}{}^{}=\mathrm{C}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}15}^0=0.3,[15]_0=8.0`$, does not appear clearly among the LW3 sources in the disk field FC–01863+00035. Instead there is a loose branch of stars along the line $`\mathrm{C}_{715}=0.2`$ or $`\mathrm{C}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}15}^0=0.3`$ with width of about $`\pm `$0.2 magnitude which are probably also RGB stars. Because the sources in the disk field FC–01863+00035 span a wider range of distance than the concentration mostly in the bulge in the case of the Baade’s Window, their apparent luminosity in bands LW2 and LW3 scatters more. The intermediate AGB stars, which are fainter by one or two magnitudes in absolute KS or Mbol and lose mass at lower rate than very luminous AGB stars (Omont et al. 1999), appear in the region next to RGB branch with a redder color $`\mathrm{C}_{715}^0`$. The stripe from $`\mathrm{C}_{715}=0.5,[15]=7.5`$ to $`\mathrm{C}_{715}=1.0,[15]=6.0`$ coincides well with the location of intermediate AGB stars in Sgr I. Upper along this sequence are the luminous AGB stars with redder color, approximately in the same region as Mira variables in the Sgr I field (Glass et al. 1999). Several stars are brighter than magnitude 4 at , which is lacking in the Sgr I field. These stars are mostly identified in the IRAS PSC catalogue due to their strong flux density at 12 $`\mu `$m. They are discussed in a separate subsection. Many of them are clearly much closer than the bulge distance and illustrate the fact that the AGB sequence is not as well defined as in bulge fields because of the wider spread in distances.

### 4.2 Sources not detected in the J-band

Non-detection in the J-band by DENIS can be due to three reasons. The most frequent one is that interstellar extinction absorbs most of the stellar radiation in the J-band. The second is that the J absorption is due to a very thick and cold circumstellar envelope. Finally a few very strong J sources may not figure in the DENIS catalogue because they are badly saturated (Sect. 2). The reddest color indexes J–KS of objects detected by ISOGAL and DENIS J and KS in this field go up to about 7, corresponding to AV=35 mag if (J–KS)$`{}_{0}{}^{}<`$1.5. The J detections are relatively complete only to J–KS = 5, i.e. AV $``$25, which approximately corresponds to the cumulated average extinction of the Centaurus and Norma arms (see Sect. 3.2). The non detections in the J-band are mainly due to a very large extinction which may arise either because the star is behind a concentration of interstellar matter in the Centaurus (or Norma) arm, or because it lies much farther in the molecular ring. Their observed color KS– is on average about one magnitude redder than those detected in the J-band. This tendency can be seen from the color-magnitude diagram of Fig. 7. If the rough relationship derived from the objects detected in the J-band between KS– and J–KS is applicable to the non-detections in the J-band, then one magnitude difference in KS– corresponds to 3 magnitude difference in J–KS, i.e. about 18 magnitude difference in AV.

There are some J-nondetections whose location in the color-magnitude diagram can not be explained by interstellar extinction alone. They are bright in the LW2 or LW3 band, e.g. $`<`$7.0 and $`<`$6.0. Their color index – is around 1.0 that indicates much circumstellar matter. They are good candidates for luminous Mira variable. These stars are at the center of Fig. 6, right-upper of Fig. 7.

Several J-nondetections are not so bright as the candidates for Miras. They are on the contrary a little faint in the LW3 band, from about =7.0 to =8.5. Their color index – is usually redder than 1.0. These could be YSOs judged from the relatively low luminosity and excess emission in the LW3 band. In Fig. 6 they are in the middle-lower corner and a similar position in Fig. 8.

### 4.3 Sources not associated with DENIS

The sources which are not associated with DENIS can be divided into three groups according to the ISO bands of detection: in both LW2 and LW3 bands, only LW2 band and only LW3 band.

The sources detected in both LW2 and LW3 bands, but not in DENIS, are denoted in Fig. 6 by triangles. There are five objects, no. 20, 48, 120, 169 and 198 which are so bright to cause saturation in the DENIS observation and rejection from the DENIS catalogue. From their locations in Fig. 6, sources no. 48, 169 and 198 may be nearby RGB star or an intermediate AGB star with relatively thin circumstellar envelope; sources no. 20 and 120 are redder and brighter, thus may be luminous AGB stars with thick circumstellar envelope.

The non-detection of the other sources is due to their faintness in the DENIS bands. The faint 15$`\mu `$m ISO sources with  $`>`$ 6.0 not detected in DENIS are partly mixed with those detected in the KS-band and not detected in the J-band in Fig. 6 that were suspected to be candidates for YSOs, again due to their red color and low luminosity. Their non-association with DENIS can be accounted for by heavy absorption and coldness of circumstellar disk of YSOs, plus possibly interstellar extinction. However, their nature needs confirmation since most of the reddest and weakest sources in Fig. 6 (-$`>`$1.5) have at least one ISOGAL magnitude of poor quality (as well as the sources with (KS-)$`{}_{0}{}^{}`$2.0 and $`{}_{0}{}^{}`$7.5 in Fig. 7).

The sources detected only in the LW2 band are mostly faint with  $`<`$ 8.0 (see Fig.2). If they are not artifacts, the non-detection in LW3 can be understood by the lower sensitivity of ISOCAM in the LW3 band than in the LW2 band, the incompleteness in the LW3 band to faint objects, and because the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the objects do not rise steeply from 7$`\mu `$m to 15$`\mu `$m. As the DENIS survey is almost complete to KS=11.0 mag, their color index KS– would be greater than 2.0 and possibly very large, i.e. A$`{}_{\mathrm{V}}{}^{}>`$ 30 since the limiting  magnitude is taken to be 9.38. They must be distant, for example, further than the near side of the Norma arm. On the other hand, the objects were detected in LW2 at such large distance, which means they must be bright in LW2. The study of ISOGAL variables in the Galactic bulge showed that the AGB variables are distinguishable from other M-type giants by their high 7$`\mu `$m luminosities (Schultheis et al 2000; Schultheis & Glass 2001). So they are possibly AGB variables.

The sources detected only in LW3 are mostly fainter than magnitude 7.0. The incompleteness of the ISOGAL survey in LW2 to faint objects can account for part of the non-detection in LW2. However, the reality of weak unassociated LW3 sources should be confirmed. There may be some real sources that are candidates for YSOs. The low temperature of YSOs peaks their radiation in middle and even far infrared. The non-detection in shorter wavelengths can be understood by their weak emission in these bands. If they were RGB or AGB stars, the higher sensitivity of ISOCAM in LW2 should bring them to the detection limit in LW2. More observation of these sources would reveal their identity.

### 4.4 Sources identified in IRAS or MSX PSC

Although the IRAS photometric results of these faint sources are mostly uncertain at 60 and 100$`\mu `$m (Table 4), the difference in the SED in the IRAS four bands between AGB stars and YSOs is generally clear. The YSOs rise more steeply in SED from 12 to 100 micron than AGB stars. According to the IRAS colors, there are three YSO candidates #134, #364 and possibly #506 ( or IRAS16464-4359, IRAS16469-4348 and IRAS16472-4351) which have steep SED in the IRAS bands. A further support comes from the ISOGAL imaging, i.e. around the first two YSO candidates extended nebulae are clearly visible in the ISOCAM images in both LW2 and LW3 bands (see also Fig. 1). In addition, sources #364 and #506 lie in a region of the –/ diagram assigned to YSOs by Felli et al.(2000), and #134 lies slightly left of the borderline between YSOs and late-type stars and it is still acceptable to be a YSO. However, for #506, the MSX color D–E appears anomalously blue for a YSO.

All the other IRAS objects, except #169, are probably AGB stars with high mass loss rate. The first criterion is that their IRAS colors mimic such stars. Moreover, the IRAS variability indexes of #204 and #565 are 83 and 79 respectively, which seems to point out to variable late-type stars. One object #22 (IRAS 16459-4354) is an OH maser star (Sevenster et al. 1997). All are in the region where the large-amplitude long-period variables are found in Fig. 6. The location in Fig. 6 of these objects whose AGB nature is confirmed by IRAS fluxes supports the consistency of the borderline between AGB stars and YSOs proposed by Felli et al.(2000). These ISO-IRAS objects are bright sources in the ISOGAL catalogue since the ISOGAL sensitivity is much higher than IRAS. However, because they have large AV and are either AGB stars with high mass loss rate or YSOs embedded in cold circumstellar envelope, they also exhibit very red colors in the DENIS bands. In spite of their brightness in LW2 and LW3 bands, no IRAS object was bright enough to be detectable in the I-band by DENIS, except one, #169, whose non-detection by DENIS was caused by saturation other than by faintness.

The ISOGAL objects were also cross-identified with the MSX point source catalogue available at http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/ipac/msx/msx.html. The MSX (Midcourse Space eXperiment) surveyed the entire Galactic plane between +4.5 °and –4.5° at 4.3$`\mu `$m(band B), 8.3$`\mu `$m(band A), 12.1$`\mu `$m(band C), 14.6$`\mu `$m(band D) and 21.3$`\mu `$m (band E) (Egan et al. 1996; Price et al. 2001). The FC–01863+00035 ISOGAL field was in the MSX observing area. In order to cross identify the ISOGAL sources with the MSX objects, the search radius was set to 10″ which is about 4$`\sigma `$ position uncertainty of MSX (Cohen et al. 2000). The brightness of the ISOGAL objects to be associated with MSX is also limited to those with $`[7]<7.0`$ since the MSX SPIRIT III detector was much less sensitive than ISOCAM, so that the possibility of spurious chance associations is quite negligible. Twenty-five ISOGAL objects (4%) are found to have counterpart in the MSX PSC catalogue and they are all shown in Fig. 6. The MSX results of the objects associated with IRAS PSC are listed in Table 4. Most of them, with $`<`$6.0 and 0.5$`<`$–$`<`$1.6, have MSX color indexes like luminous mass-losing AGB stars, more or less distant. Three of them (#306 (not in Table 4), #364 and #506, plus #134) are probably YSOs from their color –$`>`$1.8 and their MSX colors ; they could be nearby or massive since they are all brighter than 5 mag at .

A table with such data about all ISOGAL-MSX associations is available at CDS (Table 5). At least six blue sources with –$`<`$0.4 (#48, #119, #169, #190, #397 and #587, see Fig. 6) should be relatively nearby stars with little circumstellar dust, either RGB, or early AGB, or main sequence stars.

## 5 Conclusion

The combination of 7 and 15 $`\mu `$m ISOGAL data with near-infrared DENIS data is powerful to trace the extinction and Galactic structures on the lines of sight of ISOGAL fields in the inner Galactic disk. Our detailed analysis of the good quality ISOGAL-DENIS data of the field FC–01863+00035 has firstly allowed to derive a reasonably accurate value of the extinction at 7 $`\mu `$m through $`\mathrm{A}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}}\mathrm{A}_7=0.35(\mathrm{A}_\mathrm{J}\mathrm{A}_{\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}})`$ which yields A7/AV $``$0.03 from the near-IR extinction values of van de Hulst–Glass (Glass 1999). One can thus use the value of the color KS– to determine the very large interstellar extinction on the lines of sight of the ISOGAL sources without too much circumstellar dust, in the range of AV $``$25–45 where the DENIS data alone fail because of non-detection in the J-band. The preliminary comparison with CO and HI data confirms that most of the interstellar extinction comes from the large molecular clouds in the Centaurus arm which produces the bulk of the CO and HI emission. For sources with very large extinction, future studies with higher-resolution CO data should help to distinguish whether the excess of extinction mainly comes from a condensation in this cloud or from additional dust layers farther out.

The combination of the ISOGAL and DENIS data and the knowledge of the interstellar extinction allow an approximate determination of the nature of most of the ISOGAL sources. As in other ISOGAL fields, the bulk of ISOGAL sources are AGB stars with weak mass-loss and bright RGB stars, with some high mass-loss AGB stars and of bluer and less luminous foreground stars, together with a few YSOs. The combination with MSX and IRAS data helps to identify more precisely the brightest and reddest sources and to find the most interesting ones for follow-up studies. The values of the colors (KS–)0 and – could provide reasonably accurate estimates of the mass-loss rates of AGB stars (e.g. Ojha et al. 2002). The information about the extinction structure on the line of sight may bring some information on the distance of ISOGAL sources in the Galactic disk. But the distances are still much too uncertain to allow accurate estimates of the luminosities, and, hence, to elaborate, e.g., on the age of the AGB populations. The main differences between this disk field and Baade’s Window are that there is a larger proportion of relatively nearby objects, and that there is a branch of a few YSO candidates. They either have a redder color index $`[7][15]>1.6`$ or were detected only in the LW3 band. However, further observations are needed to confirm their nature.

There are obviously many possible extensions of such a case study of an ISOGAL field: systematic similar analysis of the extinction in all other ISOGAL fields; extended studies of stellar populations in various disk fields which is in progress (Felli et al. 2002); detailed combined studies with better CO data, and with continuum mm/submm emission of molecular clouds; systematic analysis of mass-loss of AGB stars of the inner Galactic disk; identification of lists of particular interesting sources for spectroscopic follow-up studies, in particular in the mid-IR with SIRTF, in the near-IR with various ground telescopes, and in the visible for low–extinction sources; more sophisticated analysis with multi-wavelength data at high angular resolution from the SIRTF/GLIMPSE legacy program and from wide-field near-IR cameras.

###### Acknowledgements.

B.W. Jiang thanks NKBRSF G19990754 and the support from CAS and CNRS, and Dr. Aigen Li for useful discussion. We particularly thank M. Schultheis, F. Sévre and T. August for their help. We thank Dr. G.Gilmore for his helpful referee’s comments and suggestions. S. Ganesh, G. Simon and A. Omont acknowledge support from Project N. 1910-1 of the Indo–French collaboration CEFIPRA/IFCPAR.


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# The emission distribution in RR Pictoris

## 1 Introduction

Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) are close, interacting binary systems, comprising a white dwarf receiving mass from a Roche–lobe–filling late–type star. In absence of strong magnetic fields, the mass transfer takes place via an accretion disc. RR Pic belongs to the subclass of CVs known as classical novae, which have displayed a thermonuclear runaway outburst. The system has been discovered by Spencer Jones (1931) at maximum light in 1925 and, although it was of slow type, it is supposed to be in its quiescence state by now. The orbital period of 0.145025 days (Vogt, 1975) places it just above the period gap of CVs. Vogt found the lightcurve dominated by a very broad hump, often interrupted by superimposed minima. He explained this behaviour by an extended hot spot region with an inhomogeneous structure. Haefner & Metz (1982) however, explained their own time–resolved photometric and polarimetric observations together with radial velocity variations of the He II (4686 Å) emission line (Wyckoff & Wehinger, 1977) by suggesting the presence of an additional source of radiation opposite the hot spot. From high speed photometry, Warner (1986) concluded that during the 1970s (about 50 yr after outburst) structural changes have taken place in the system, resulting in a more isotropic distribution of the emitted radiation. In addition, he has found evidence for a shallow, irregular eclipse, showing RR Pic to be a high inclination system. Haefner & Betzenbichler (1991) confirmed the general change in the lightcurve of RR Pic as well as the presence of the eclipse, which they found to be very stable over several orbits. However, they point out that the additional emission source on the trailing side is still necessary to understand the phase relation between the radial velocity curve and the photometric lightcurve.

Apart from this, the question arose whether RR Pic is an intermediate polar. Additional to the orbital period, Kubiak (1984) found a periodic modulation in the optical with a 15 min period. He interpreted this as the rotation of the white dwarf and concluded that RR Pic is an intermediate polar. Haefner & Schoembs (1985) however, repeated the high time–resolved photometry on a longer time–scale and could not find any sign of this short period. Since no 15 min period variation is found in X–ray measurements (Becker & Marshall, 1981) either, they concluded that Kubiak’s variation was more likely a transient event in the disc rather than a rotating white dwarf. Also Warner’s high-speed photometry does not reveal any period other than the orbital one. Hence no evidence remains that RR Pic is an intermediate polar.

With a quiescence magnitude $`m_V`$ = 12 mag, RR Pic is a comparatively bright CV. Although it has been well observed photometrically, spectroscopic studies of the binary are sparse. In particular, no systematic investigation of the line profile has been undertaken so far, which could provide information on the accretion process in this system. In this paper we present new time–resolved spectroscopic data on RR Pic and compare it with photometric data from the literature. We establish a Doppler map of the H$`\alpha `$ emission, study the isolated emission sources in the disc, and discuss the models of RR Pic’s accretion disc. Finally, we analyse the high velocity wings of the H$`\alpha `$ line and discuss possible interpretations.

## 2 Data

The time–resolved optical spectroscopy was obtained on 2002 February 23 with the Boller & Chivens at the 1.52m ESO telescope on La Silla. Grating #20 together with a 1.5 arcsec slit has been used to cover the wavelength range from 5800 to 7500 Å with a spectral resolution of 2.45 Å FWHM. 19 spectra were obtained, each with an exposure time of 600 s. In total, we cover 3.8 h, which is slightly more than a complete orbit. IRAF has been used for the basic data reduction including BIAS subtraction, flat–fielding, and wavelength calibration. No flux calibration has been performed. Two emission lines (H$`\alpha `$ and He I) are present in the observed part of the spectrum. Both lines show a double peak profile in the average spectrum of all exposures (Fig. 1) and strong variability in time (Fig. 2). H$`\alpha `$ has been used for further analysis in order to map the emission distribution in the system, thus gaining insight in the accretion structure and additional components. For this we used the tomography code by Spruit (1998), with a MIDAS interface replacing the original IDL routines (Tappert et al., 2002).

Note, that this technique makes use of the variability of the line due to the binary rotation. We also expect a contribution to the line of the extended remnant shell of RR Pic which expands with a velocity around 400 km s$`{}_{}{}^{}1`$ (Rosino et al., 1982). However, since the shell is a circumbinary object, it is not effected by the binary rotation and any contribution to the line profile is a stable one. It does therefore not effect the here presented study.

## 3 Discussion

### 3.1 Orbital period and zero phase

The radial velocities have been determined by applying the double Gaussian method as described in Shafter (1983). To evaluate the orbital period, two broad Gaussians have been fitted to each H$`\alpha `$ line. The Scargle algorithm (Scargle, 1982) as implemented in MIDAS has been used to find the period in the radial velocities. As expected for data that covers one orbit only, the periodogram shows a broad maximum at $`P=0.151`$ d. This maximum also includes the value of $`P=0.1450255(2)`$ d, which Vogt (1975) has found from time–resolved photometry. We hence use this much more precise value for the further analysis.

To compare the observed spectral features with the photometric lightcurves in the literature, it is essential to synchronise the respective phases. Unfortunately, Vogt’s measurements are too far away in time from our observations for the accuracy of the period to yield an unambiguous zero phase. However, Kubiak (1984) later showed the constancy of the period and even improved the value slightly, in addition Warner (1986) and Haefner & Betzenbichler (1991) agree on the stability of the eclipse. Bringing these information together, we finally made use of Warner’s lightcurve S3464 from December 1984 (Warner, 1986), determined its HJD of the eclipse as zero point, and added Kubiak’s period to create the ephemeris

$$\mathrm{eclipse}=\mathrm{HJD2450064}.441(2)+0.14502545(7)E,$$
(1)
with E being the number of cycles. These values are of sufficiently high accuracy to be extrapolated and compared to our observations. Defining the zero phase $`\varphi _\mathrm{E}=0`$ as the time of the eclipse we derive the orbital phase $`\varphi _\mathrm{E}`$ for each observational point as

$$\varphi _E=\frac{\mathrm{HJD}_{\mathrm{obs}}2450064.441}{0.14502545}+E$$
(2)
Our observation starts $`E=15612`$ cycles after Warner’s S3464 lightcurve. For the zero phase we hence derive an uncertainty of $`\sigma _0=0.003`$ d or 0.02 phases. For comparison with Fig. 2, the first observation (HJD = 2452328.578335) was obtained at phase $`\varphi _E=710^5`$, the typical time between two exposures is equivalent to 0.053 phase units.

### 3.2 Equivalent width

In Fig. 3, the equivalent width of the H$`\alpha `$–line has been plotted against the orbital phase as derived from Equation 2. A clear sinusoidal variation with a broad minimum around 1.0 and maximum around 0.5 orbits is detected. This behaviour agrees with measurements of the equivalent width by Haefner & Betzenbichler (1991).

A comparison with published lightcurves (Haefner & Metz (1982), Warner (1986), and Haefner & Betzenbichler (1991)) shows that the broad maximum in the lightcurves, which is partly eclipsed, does not coincide with maximal H$`\alpha `$ emission, but rather with the broad minimum of the equivalent width. This indicates that it is probably caused by a region with enhanced continuum radiation, which is hence more optically thick, and therefore suppresses the H$`\alpha `$ emission from this part of the disc. The maximal H$`\alpha `$ flux instead comes from a region situated on the opposite side of the disc and coincides with the start of the minimum at $`\varphi _E=0.7`$ (named No 1 by Warner) of the lightcurve.

Important for the later computation of the Doppler maps is the fact that, within the errors of the equivalent width, no eclipse feature is found in the line. Hence, all data can be used for the Doppler tomography. Still, the variation of equivalent width requires a careful handling, which is discussed in more detail in the corresponding section.

### 3.3 Diagnostic Diagram

While broad Gaussians have been sufficient to measure the orbital period, greater care must be taken to determine those radial velocities, which shall be used to study the line profile in more detail and to derive orbital parameters. As the motion of the white dwarf should be best represented by the extreme high–velocity line wings, which originate from the innermost part of the disc, one aims for a maximum separation of the two Gaussians without being contaminated by the continuum noise. This is usually achieved by a diagnostic diagram (Shafter, 1983) as shown in Fig. 4, where the parameters of the radial velocity fit,

$$v_r(\varphi )=\gamma K_1\mathrm{sin}2\pi \varphi ,$$
(3)
are plotted as a function of the separation of the two Gaussians. The FWHM of each Gaussian was chosen to be 2Å. The amplitude $`K_1`$ shows an extremely steep slope to higher velocities with separation $`d`$ and reaches a maximum value of about 350 km s-1. Although high values of $`K_1`$ might be expected from a high inclination system such as RR Pic, the value derived in this case is very improbable if not impossible. With $`K_1=350`$ km s-1 and $`P=0.145`$ d the distance for the white dwarf to the centre of mass is 0.9 solar radii. The maximum possible distance between white dwarf and secondary for a CV with this period is roughly 1.6 solar radii. Hence, the centre of mass would be situated nearer to the secondary than to the primary, which would imply a mass ratio $`M_2/M_1>1`$, and does not allow for a stable mass transfer. Additionally, we point out that the maximum values of $`K_1`$ are reached at very high separations, which are already far away from the line centre in a region of very low S/N. We conclude that even at high separation, the line is still affected by additional emission sources, which then must be large and reach either deep into the central part of the disc or do not belong to the disc at all, as discussed in section 3.5.

As a consequence of the steep increase of $`K_1`$, the ordinarily plotted ratio $`\sigma (K_1)/K_1`$ stays nearly constant and can not be used to indicate maximal possible separation. We instead plot the error of the sinusoidal radial velocity fit $`\sigma `$ to give an idea of the uncertainties. The strong variation that starts around $`d34`$ might indicate the point of optimal separation and favours a semi–amplitude $`K_1170`$ km s-1. In Fig. 5 the radial velocities for $`d=34`$ are plotted against the orbital phase.

After the initial distortion due to the double peaked line profile (Tappert, 1999) the zero phase settles at a value around 0.05 between separations $`d10`$ and 20. A similar value has also been found by Haefner & Metz (1982) who combined their lightcurves with radial velocities measured by Wyckoff & Wehinger (1977). This value for the zero phase is, however, very likely to be influenced by additional emission sources, which give a strong bias at low separations. Wyckhoff & Wehinger state that they derived the radial velocities with ”classical methods”, and therefore very probably used the total line for their measurements. Hence, their zero phase can be assumed to be biased in the same way as our values at small d.

For higher separations ($`d30`$ and above), which are usually believed to more likely reflect the motion of the white dwarf, the zero phase reaches $`\varphi _0=0.16`$ and stays almost constant afterwards. It therefore very likely corresponds to the superior conjunction of the white dwarf and gives an unambiguous input value for the subsequent Doppler mapping. Note that, since the orbital phase was selected in such a way that $`\varphi _E=0`$ for the eclipse (see Equation 2), the zero phase $`\varphi _0`$ indicates the difference between the phase of the eclipse and the zero phase of radial velocities; i.e. the eclipse appears 0.16 orbits before the superior conjunction of the white dwarf (see also Fig. 5). This can only be explained with the assumption that not the disc as a whole is eclipsed, but rather an emission region on the leading side of the disc (Fig. 6).

### 3.4 Doppler map

For the interpretation of the phase dependent line profiles, the Doppler tomography method as developed by Marsh & Horne (1988) has been applied. A Doppler map $`I(v_x,v_y)`$ displays the flux emitted by gas moving with the velocity $`(v_x,v_y)`$. This deprojection is achieved due to the rotation of the binary system, as the projection of the velocity $`(v_x,v_y)`$ follows a sinusoidal radial velocity curve. Hence, the line profiles can be transformed into a map $`I(v_x,v_y)`$ without any assumptions about the actual velocity field.

To correct for the variation of the equivalent width, the input spectra have been normalised by the H$`\alpha `$ emission line flux. The intensity values in the Doppler map are hence to be interpreted as relative flux values only. Furthermore, we corrected the orbital phase of the input spectra by the zero value $`\varphi _0=0.16`$.

The final Doppler map is given in Fig. 7 and shows the distribution of H$`\alpha `$ emission sources in velocity coordinates. Apart from the disc itself, which is clearly visible, two significant additional emission sources can be seen. The orientation of the map is chosen in such a way that the phase angle $`\varphi _r`$ with respect to the zero point of radial velocities, is zero towards the top and increases clockwise. The smaller of the two emission sources is situated at a phase angle $`\varphi _r0.8`$, a place that is usually identified with emission from the hot spot. The stronger emission, however, arises on the opposite side, $`180^{}`$ away, at $`\varphi _r0.3`$.

The quality of the Doppler map can be judged in several ways. In this paper a quantitative approach is made to compare the shape of the emission line in the original and reconstructed spectrum. The asymmetry of the line profile can be measured by a V/R plot. Here, the line profile is divided in two halves, and V/R defined as logarithm of the ratio of the fluxes in the blue (violet) and red half (Tappert et al., 2002). In Fig. 8, $`V/R`$ of the original and reconstructed line profile is plotted against the orbital phase. The residuals given below show no sign of periodicity, hence indicating the good quality of the fit.

### 3.5 High velocity wings

In Fig. 9 the changing line profiles of the flux normalised H$`\alpha `$ emission line are displayed as an image with emphasis on the faint outer parts of the line. One can clearly see that the line wings reach up to velocities of 1200 km s-1 and vary with the orbital phase.

The classical explanation for this feature is that it is caused by gas circling the white dwarf at velocities of about 1200 km s-1. However, there are some problems with this picture. According to Fig. 9, the gas not only has these high velocities, but also changes its velocity by the same magnitude with phase; it is completely on the side of negative velocities at phase $`\varphi _r=0.25`$ and on the side of positive velocities at $`\varphi _r=0.75`$. As the high velocity gas is supposed to be in the inner part of the disc, this indicates a semi–amplitude $`K_11000`$ km s-1, which is a very unlikely value, especially as the distance of the white dwarf from the centre of mass in the Doppler map indicates a much smaller $`K_1`$.

Similar high velocity wings have been found in the Balmer lines of the SW Sex–type systems, e.g. LS Peg (Taylor et al., 1999). They explain the wings and their variation with a modified disc–overflow model similar to the one developed by Hellier & Robinson (1994). There are certainly similarities between RR Pic and SW Sex–type stars, as the orbital period is between 3 h and 4 h and the radial velocity phase lags behind the eclipse phase (which we have explained by an eclipse of the emission source on the leading side). However, the dominant absorption feature around phase 0.5, which is typical for SW Sex–type stars and probably related to the disc–overflow is not present in RR Pic. Also, if all accreted material were deflected over the disc, no hot spot could be present. However, some SW Sex–type stars are known to show emission sources on the trailing side of their discs. Hence the possibility of part of the accretion stream flowing over the disc can not be ruled out for RR Pic.

A different explanation is that the high velocity gas does not stay inside the system but is actually ejected in the form of an asymmetric outflow, with maximum projected velocity of 1200 km s-1. Taking into account the proposed inclination $`i=65^{}`$ (Haefner & Metz, 1982) the real outflow velocity has to be around 1350 km s-1. This would explain the variation of the high velocity component as a lighthouse effect: the outflow emerges from one part of the disc only and is swept around with the rotation of the system. In this picture, both the high velocity itself and its varying amplitude are explained in a consistent way. Including the information from phase $`\varphi _r=0.25`$ of maximal negative velocity (outflow towards us), the origin of the outflow coincides with the position of the isolated emission source on the leading side of the accretion disc. See Fig. 10 for an explanatory sketch.

Additional evidence for the presence of an outflow in RR Pic comes from the mapping of its remnant shell, which shows a bipolar structure in the form of an equatorial ring with some tails orthogonal to it (Gill & O’Brien, 1998). Although this map shows the shell far outside the binary, the ring might well be fed by the asymmetric outflow from the binary. The fact that no P Cygni profiles have been found in IUE spectra of RR Pic (Rosino et al., 1982) has been interpreted as RR Pic having no outflow and that the shell is already decoupled from the binary. The asymmetric outflow can be considered as optically thin as it is visible in emission. Any P Cygni absorption has hence to be weak, and can furthermore only be produced during the phase when the outflow is directed towards the observer. It would hence smear out over normal exposure times, and is therefore not in contradiction with the observations.

## 4 Conclusion

We have shown via a Doppler map that two isolated emission sources are present in the disc of RR Pic. Combining the radial velocities with published lightcurves we come to a rather uncommon interpretation of the photometric eclipse as an eclipse of the leading side emission source (see Fig. 6) rather than an eclipse of the hot spot as suggested previously by Kubiak (1984).

Putting all the information together, we confirm the working model of Haefner & Metz (1982) for RR Pic in preference to the one of Vogt (1975). Although, as discussed in section 4, the superior conjunction of the white dwarf takes place 0.1 earlier in phase, this does not change their basic interpretation. Warner’s (1986) doubts of the model were based on the fact that no isolated emission from the leading side had been found in other CVs. Meanwhile many systems with this structure have been found (see Tappert & Hanuschik (2001) for an overview), and this argument is no longer valid.

Although common, no convincing explanation for isolated emission sources on the leading side of the disc has so far been presented. Among other possibilities, the presence of spiral shock waves has been discussed as possible explanation for similar features in other CVs (see e.g. Steeghs (2001)). Due to their still enhanced mass transfer, long–period old novae should possess extended hot discs, and are therefore indeed candidates for possessing spiral shocks (Boffin, 2001). However, although the emission sources in the disc of RR Pic have a clearly elongated structure, neither time nor spectral resolution of our data is high enough to confirm this picture for RR Pic.

The analysis of the high velocity wings of the H$`\alpha `$ line yields two possible explanations for these wings and their variability. They may originate from a partial disc–overflow, or from an asymmetric outflow from the accretion disc, i.e. from the emission source on the leading side of the disc. In this case, a connection between the outflow of the binary and the ring–like structure of RR Pic’s shell seems plausible. Deep, high resolution H$`\alpha `$ images as well as high resolution spectroscopy of some metal lines might help to clarify this picture.


text:
# Multichannel cold collisions between metastable Sr atoms

## Abstract

We present a multichannel scattering calculation of elastic and inelastic cold collisions between two low-field seeking, metastable 88Sr \[$`(5s5p)^3P_2`$\] atoms in the presence of an external magnetic field. The scattering physics is governed by strong anisotropic long-range interactions, which lead to pronounced coupling among the partial waves of relative motion. As a result, nonadiabatic transitions are shown to trigger a high rate of inelastic losses. At relatively high energies, $`T>100\mu `$K, the total inelastic collision rate is comparable with the elastic rate. However, at lower collisional energy, the elastic rate decreases, and at $`T1\mu `$K, it becomes substantially smaller than the inelastic rate. Our study suggests that magnetic trapping and evaporative cooling of 88Sr \[$`(5s5p)^3P_2`$\] atoms, as well as 40Ca \[$`(4s4p)^3P_2`$\], in low-field seeking states will prove difficult to achieve experimentally.

In recent years, the trapping and cooling of alkaline-earth atoms has been pursued with increased interest. Trapping experiments with 88Sr DiVo99 ; katori99 ; katori01 ; nagel03 ; xu03  and 40Ca zinner00 ; HaMo03  atoms have been carried out, and experiments are underway in a number of laboratories. One major thrust of this research track is to extend the small class of atomic species that have been Bose-Einstein condensed. Also, the most prevalent isotopes have closed-shell nuclei, which eliminates complications from hyperfine structure and simplifies the interpretation of cold collision data MaJu01 .

The usual route to quantum degeneracy utilizes magnetic trapping and evaporative cooling of precooled atoms. Since ground-state alkaline-earth atoms possess no magnetic dipole moment, some experimental groups work with a system of alkaline-earth atoms in their lowest $`(nsnp)^3P_2`$ metastable state LoBo01 ; katori01 ; nagel03 ; xu03 ; HaMo03 . The radiative lifetime of this state is of the order of ten minutes Dere01 . However, as we show in this Letter, it is not spontaneous emission that ultimately limits the magnetic-trap lifetime of metastable alkaline-earth atoms. Their nonspherical electronic structure gives rise to strong anisotropic interatomic interactions not present in ground-state alkali metals, hydrogen, or metastable helium. In the present study, these interactions are predicted to generate severe inelastic losses.

Derevianko et al. derevianko03  were the first to theoretically approach the intriguing problem of anisotropic long-range interactions between metastable alkaline-earth atoms in an external magnetic field. Their study revealed important insights, notably the existence of a long-range molecular potential well. They also provided a first estimate of inelastic losses within a two-channel model, but at a qualitative level only. Recently, Ref. santra03  performed a detailed tensorial analysis of the anisotropic long-range forces between two nonspherical atoms in a magnetic field and investigated the associated coupling between electronic structure and molecular rotational motion. A two-body potential was derived that is ideal for multichannel-scattering calculations. The present work has the goal to carry the aforementioned theoretical studies to the next level, and thus to provide guidance to experimentalists. Specifically, we develop a quantitative quantum description of the two-body elastic and inelastic collisions between alkaline-earth atoms in the $`(nsnp)^3P_2`$ excited state. We focus on strontium atoms but briefly address implications of the present study to Ca and other similar atoms.

Our treatment is based on the multichannel potential derived in Ref. santra03 :

$`\widehat{V}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝑳^2}{2m_{\mathrm{red}}R^2}}+\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}(𝝁^{(1)}+𝝁^{(2)})𝑩,`$ (1)
$`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{K=0,2,4}{}}\sqrt{2K+1}\left[𝑪_K𝒫𝑻_K𝒫\right]_{0,0},`$ (2)
which is a function of internuclear distance $`R`$. $`𝑳`$ is the operator of the angular momentum associated with the rotation of the molecular frame, $`m_{\mathrm{red}}`$ is the reduced mass of the system, $`𝝁^{(1)}`$ and $`𝝁^{(2)}`$ are magnetic dipole operators of the two atoms, and $`𝑩`$ is the vector of the magnetic field. The term $`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ is the effective interatomic interaction Hamiltonian acting in the electronic subspace of two $`(nsnp)^3P_2`$ atoms, as indicated by the projection operator $`𝒫`$. $`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ is a totally invariant tensor, consisting of three distinct contributions, which derive from coupling of rank-$`K`$ tensor operators $`𝑪_K`$ and $`𝑻_K`$. $`𝑪_K`$ is associated with molecular rotational motion, $`𝑻_K`$ describes specific electronic couplings. Electric dipole-dipole dispersion forces contribute to $`K=0,2,`$ and $`4`$, magnetic dipole-dipole interaction enters $`𝑻_2`$, and electric quadrupole-quadrupole interaction contributes to $`𝑻_4`$ santra03 . For the incident channels of interest, and for magnetic fields of a few gauss or stronger, all collision dynamics at cold temperatures takes place at interatomic distances of about 100 Bohr radii. Thus, using a pure long-range Hamiltonian is justified. In the present calculation the potential $`\widehat{V}`$ is represented by a matrix in the coupled angular momentum basis and evaluated using Wigner-Racah algebra.

The potential matrix of Eq. 1 can be diagonalized at different $`R`$, giving a set of adiabatic potential curves. At large internuclear distances, the potential curves converge to nine different dissociation limits, corresponding to nine different values ($`M_{el}=4,\mathrm{},4`$) of the total electronic angular momentum projection on the direction of the magnetic field. We assume that the initial relative kinetic energy is low enough ($`<100\mu K`$), so that we may limit our treatment to the $`s`$-wave ($`L=0`$) initial channel. However, other channels with $`L>0`$ are present in our model as possible escape channels. The technique of magnetic trapping is limited to low-field seeking atomic states, i.e., the states with a negative projection of the magnetic atomic moment $`𝝁`$ on the direction of the field. We assume that initially, before a collision, the two atoms have a specific $`M_{tot}`$ projection of the total angular momentum including molecular frame rotation. The states with different $`M_{tot}`$ projections are not coupled and can be treated separately. Thus, $`M_{tot}`$, unlike $`M_{el}`$, is conserved during the collision. In the initial channel $`L=0`$, thus $`M_{el}=M_{tot}`$ for this channel.

Figure 1 gives an example of the adiabatic potential curves for $`M_{tot}=4`$ at the magnetic field $`B=500`$ gauss. In the present calculation we have included partial waves of rotating Sr2 molecular frame up to $`L=22`$. The entrance $`s`$-wave channel is marked by a thick line. This channel has a potential well situated around $`R=90`$ a.u. The well is formed by the interplay of Zeeman, quadrupole-quadrupole and dispersion interactions between the two atoms derevianko03 ; santra03 . The shape and depth of the well changes with the magnetic field. This fact allows to change scattering properties of two-body collisions in presence of the field. References derevianko03 ; santra03  suggest that at some magnetic field the elastic scattering length can be made very large, allowing fast evaporative cooling.

The key feature in Fig. 1 is a pronounced avoided crossing at 80-90 a.u. This avoided crossing is mostly formed between the entrance-channel curve and a curve converging to a lower dissociation limit with $`(M_{el}=3,L=14)`$ (see the encircled region in Fig. 1). Other states are mixed as well in this region, but they play a secondary role. According to the familiar Landau-Zener model nikitin84 , such an avoided crossing produces a large transition probability from the entrance channel into the $`(M_{tot}=3,L=14)`$ channel. This is because the energy of the avoided crossing is close to the total energy of the system, and the two curves are almost parallel near the avoided crossing. Thus, at low collision energies, one would expect the inelastic cross-sections to be relatively high.

In the previous theoretical study derevianko03 , Derevianko et al. have calculated the elastic collisional rates and estimated the inelastic rates as well. Their conclusion was that inelastic collisions do not significantly contribute to the total rate. However, in that study, several simplifying assumptions were made. The most important is that the authors estimated the inelastic losses using a two-channel model. The model includes an $`s`$-wave channel coupled to a $`g`$-wave channel by the quadrupole-quadrupole interaction. Our calculations show, however, that higher, $`L>6`$, partial waves are particularly important in the loss process. We have found that $`L=4`$ does not play any important role in the losses, which is in agreement with Ref. derevianko03 . This effect of higher $`L`$ is apparent in Fig. 1, where the channels ($`M_{el}=4,L=0`$) and ($`M_{el}^{}=3,L^{}=14`$) are strongly mixed around $`R=85`$ a.u. At different magnetic field, different partial waves play a dominant role in the inelastic collisions. In other words, the avoided crossing in Fig. 1 can be formed by the states $`(M_{el}=4,L=0)`$ and $`(M_{el}^{}=3,L^{})`$ with $`L^{}`$ depending on the field. The inclusion of the higher partial waves not only produces larger non-adiabatic dynamical effects, but it also modifies the shape of adiabatic curves. This would mean that Derevianko et al. derevianko03  might underestimate the inelastic rates by neglecting the channels that 1) modify the entrance adiabatic channel and that 2) control the inelastic losses associated with the strong nonadiabatic coupling. The strong multichannel coupling not only causes the large inelastic losses; it significantly modifies the elastic scattering. This makes the concept of adiabaticity, adopted in Ref. derevianko03 , inapplicable to the present case.

The above analysis of the adiabatic potential curves develops a qualitative description of two-body collisions. To obtain quantitative results, we solve the coupled radial Schrödinger equations for the potential operator of Eq. 1:

$$\left[\frac{1}{2m_{\mathrm{red}}}\frac{d^2}{dR^2}\widehat{I}+\widehat{V}E\widehat{I}\right]\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Psi }}(R)=0.$$
(3)
Here $`E`$ is the total energy of the system, $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Psi }}(R)`$ is the multicomponent radial wavefunction, $`\widehat{I}`$ is the identity operator. When solving the equation, we work in the coupled channel (diabatic) representation rather than in the adiabatic representation. This choice is justified by the fact that in the diabatic representation, all diagonal and non-diagonal couplings are smooth functions of $`R`$. Out of the possible diabatic basis sets we adopt the atomic set, which diagonalizes the two-body potential $`\widehat{V}`$ at $`R=\mathrm{}`$.

For a given asymptotic collisional energy in the entrance channel, we obtain the total scattering matrix $`\underset{¯}{S}`$ using the one-dimensional $`R`$-matrix approach aymar96 ; burke99 . The $`R`$-matrix is obtained solving the Schrödinger equation within $`R<R_0=1500`$ a.u. using finite elements burke99  as a representation basis. Having obtained the total $`\underset{¯}{S}`$-matrix, the elastic and inelastic rates $`\alpha _i`$ as function of $`E`$ are given by familiar formulas (in atomic units):

$$\alpha _i=\frac{k_i^{}}{m_{\mathrm{red}}}\sigma _{i,i^{}}=\frac{\pi }{k_i^{}m_{\mathrm{red}}}\left|S_{i,i^{}}\delta _{i,i^{}}\right|^2,$$
(4)
where $`k_i^{}=\sqrt{2m_{\mathrm{red}}(EE_i^{})}`$ is the incident de Broglie wavenumber, $`E_i^{}`$ is the energy of the incident channel, and $`\sigma _{i,i^{}}`$ is the corresponding cross-section. The entrance channel is specified by index $`i^{}`$. In our discussion of collision rates, we do not utilize the scattering length, because it is not energy-independent at energies $`E>100\mu K`$ for this system.

In order to check the reliability of the present results, we tested convergence with respect to different numerical and physical parameters of the problem. Two of these, in particular, deserve mention here. The first is a convergence test of the calculated $`\underset{¯}{S}`$-matrix with respect to the position of the inner boundary in the numerical calculations. Since we have neglected the short-range molecular interaction (we do not have the corresponding data), we have to be sure that no flux penetrates into the inner region, i.e. the collisional dynamics is controlled only by long-range potentials. As a result, we have found that for the $`(M_{el}=4)`$ entrance channel, at low energies below $`1m`$K, no flux penetrates into the short-range region. However, the calculation for all the other low-field seeking magnetic states, $`(M_{el}=1,2,3)`$, shows that there is a substantial probability of penetration, and therefore, the inelastic rate is expected to be large. These entrance channels cannot be treated unless one includes the short-range molecular dynamics. Thus, the following treatment is concentrated on the $`(M_{el}=4,L=0)`$ entrance channel solely. The second test is an assessment of convergence with respect to the maximum number of partial waves that are included in the calculations. As was discussed above, most of the inelastic losses occur due to the avoided crossing in the potential well of the incident channel. At the largest magnetic field considered here, B=1000 G, the avoided crossing is formed by an interaction with the $`M_{el}=3,L=14`$ channel. Performing the full $`\underset{¯}{S}`$-matrix calculation with maximum number of partial waves, $`L_{max}`$, up to 18, we have found that, indeed, the inelastic and elastic rates are converged at $`L_{max}=14`$. This test underlines the effect of the molecular frame rotation on the scattering process.

Figure 2 shows the inelastic and elastic rates as a function of the external magnetic field for several incident kinetic energies. The resonant-like behavior of the curves around 400 G is caused by the emergence of a quasibound level in the entrance channel. Due to the strong inelastic loss, the resonance is significantly washed out. Derevianko et al. derevianko03  have predicted a resonance at a field of about $`1000`$ G. Since they neglected the inelastic losses in their model, their elastic rate diverges to infinity at the resonant $`B`$-field. In experiments aimed to obtain a Bose-Einstein condensate, one is particularly interested in the ratio between the elastic and inelastic rates. Figure 2 suggests that for strontium in the $`(5s5p)^3P_2`$ state, evaporative cooling will not be efficient at temperatures below $`10\mu `$K. Figure 3 shows the rates as a function of the relative incident kinetic energy. The rates of inelastic scattering into individual magnetic sublevels are separated. The magnetic field is fixed at $`B=100`$ G. As was expected from the analysis of adiabatic curves shown in Fig. 1, the sublevel $`M_{el}=3`$ is responsible for most of the inelastic losses.

In view of experimental interest in other metastable alkaline-earth atoms, we have carried out a similar calculation for calcium atoms in the $`(4s4p)^3P_2`$ state and obtained a comparable result for the elastic and inelastic rates. The main difference is that the resonance for Ca2 is shifted toward larger magnetic fields. To assess whether any other species is likely to produce a more favorable elastic/inelastic ratio, we have completed a model calculation in which we artificially change the quadrupole moment, the nuclear mass and the dispersion coefficients (see Refs. derevianko03 ; santra03  for definitions of the quantities). Although such a variation of the atomic parameters modifies the results, the main result remains the same, namely an unfavorable elastic/inelastic ratio at submillikelvin collisional energies. We point out that a similar result was recently obtained in the analysis of the collisions between two polar molecules avdeenkov02  in an external electric field. Thus, large inelastic rates apparently rule out the possibility of cooling atoms or molecules with large anisotropic multipole interactions down to submicrokelvin temperatures using magnetic traps.

A possible solution to this problem is to use an optical trap weber02  instead of a magnetic one. In this context, the situation is similar to the case studied in atomic cesium. Early experiments attempting Bose-Einstein condensate of Cs (see, for example soding98 ) using magnetic trapping approaches had shown that the degenerate regime can not be reached due to a rapid loss of atoms at short internuclear distances. In the case of Cs, the losses were caused by a large spin-flip cross-section. Recently, the group of Grimm weber02  utilized a purely optical trap of Cs atoms and successfully achieved a Cs Bose-Einstein condensate.

Conclusion. We have calculated the elastic and inelastic two-body collisional rates of metastable strontium atoms in the \[$`(5s5p)^3P_2`$\] state and metastable calcium atoms in the \[$`(4s4p)^3P_2`$\] state. At low temperatures, $`<1\mu K`$, collisions in all low-field seeking states are dominated by inelastic processes. This appears to rule out the possiblity of achieving a Bose-Einstein condensate with these metastable atoms, using magnetic traps.

This work has been supported in part by the DOE Office of Science and by an allocation of NERSC supercomputing resources. R.S. gratefully acknowledges financial support by the Emmy Noether program of the German Research Foundation (DFG).