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# Critical coupling for chiral symmetry breaking in QCD motivated models

## I Introduction

The hadronic physics at low energy is expected to be described by the infrared properties of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), whose non-perturbative character in general forces us to make use of approximate models in order to understand the strong interaction effects at a small momentum scale. One of these models became known as Global Color Model (CGM)  -, which is a quark-gluon quantum field theory that describes QCD for low energy processes. There are many recent calculations exemplifying the remarkable success of this procedure . It relates the hadronic properties to the Schwinger functions of quarks and gluons. Therefore, when comparing the theoretical calculations to some low energy data, e.g. pseudoscalars masses and decay constants or other chiral parameters, we are learning about the infrared behavior of the quark and gluon propagators. In the near future, this semi-phenomenological tool may reveal to be even more successful than the relativistic quark model or the bag model.

In order to have an idea of what is behind the GCM, we can recall that its action is obtained from the QCD generating functional in the standard way , with the main difference being that in the functional generator of the connected gluon $`n`$-point functions we neglect the higher than two $`n`$-point functions, expecting that a phenomenological description of the gluon propagator $`g^2D_{\mu \nu }(xy)`$ retains most of the information about the non-Abelian character of QCD. The effect of this approximation can only be measured in comparison with experiments, and in fact it does work quite well once we model appropriately the infrared behavior of the gluon propagator.

Some of the gluon propagators used in the GCM have a quite enhanced infrared behavior. One example is the introduction of a delta function $`\delta (k)`$ as prescribed in Ref. , which is a confining propagator according to the criterion of absence of real $`k^2`$ poles for the quark propagators . Another ansatz for the gluon two-point function in the infrared is $`g^2D(k^2)=3\pi ^2(\chi /\mathrm{\Delta })^2\mathrm{exp}(k^2/\mathrm{\Delta })`$ , which was inspired by and approaches the $`\delta `$ function ansatz of Ref.  for $`\mathrm{\Delta }0`$, where $`\chi `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are adjustable parameters. In detailed calculations of chiral parameters more complete ansatze for the gluon propagators than the above ones have been used, in general including the asymptotic behavior of the gluon propagator as predicted by QCD. In Ref.  the following form for the gluon propagator in the Landau gauge was introduced

$$g^2D_{\mu \nu }(k)=\left\{\delta _{\mu \nu }\frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{k^2}\right\}D(k^2),$$
(1)
where,

$`D(k^2)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{k^2[1+\mathrm{\Pi }(k^2)]}}`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`4\pi ^2d\left[4\pi ^2m_t^2\delta ^4(k)+{\displaystyle \frac{1e^{(k^2/[4m_t^2])}}{k^2}}\right],`$ (3)
with $`d=12/(332n_f)`$, and $`n_f=3`$ (considering only three quark flavors). The mass scale $`m_t`$ determined in Ref.  was interpreted as marking the transition between the perturbative and nonperturbative domains. Another ansatz is

$$g^2D(k^2)=3\pi ^2\frac{\chi ^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\mathrm{exp}(k^2)+\frac{\alpha _s(k^2)}{k^2}(k^2),$$
(4)
where

$$\alpha _s(k^2)=\frac{4\pi ^2dg^2}{\mathrm{ln}(\frac{k^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}+\tau )},$$
(5)
$`(k^2)`$ is a function chosen differently in the papers of Ref. , $`\alpha _s(k^2)`$ describes the QCD running coupling constant where $`\tau `$ is a parameter adjusted phenomenologically. Notice that in the above expressions the momenta are in Euclidean space. Of course, there are still other variations of these ansatze  and attempts to explain the enhanced behavior in the infrared .

In this work we study the bifurcation of the quark self-energy within the context of the GCM, i.e. we determine the critical coupling constant of the truncated Schwinger-Dyson equation for the quark propagator above which dynamical chiral symmetry breaking occurs using the gluon propagators discussed in the previous paragraph. It is known from analytical and numerical studies of the Schwinger-Dyson equations that dynamical chiral symmetry breaking takes place in QCD when the coupling constant ($`\alpha _s`$) is of $`O(1)`$ . These studies have also been performed with the use of effective potentials  and corroborated by lattice simulations . Therefore, it is natural to ask what is the critical coupling in the GCM with the phenomenological gluon propagators proposed in the literature.

We will apply the standard techniques of bifurcation theory as used by Atkinson and collaborators  and verify that for the gluon propagator given by a delta function the chiral symmetry is always broken no matter what “perturbative” propagator is added to the $`\delta `$. For a propagator of the form given by Eq.(4) we obtain a lower bound on the critical coupling smaller than the one obtained for QCD , and evaluate the smallest characteristic number confirming the result obtained with the $`\delta `$ function propagator in the limit that the gaussian width goes to zero. In Section II we discuss chiral symmetry breaking for an infrared gluon propagator similar to Eq.(3) using a bifurcation analysis of the Schwinger-Dyson equations. In Section III we analyse the infrared gluon propagator given by a gaussian form using a different technique. The last section contains our conclusions.

## II The critical coupling for a confining propagator

The Schwinger-Dyson equation for a massless quark propagator in Minkowski space can be written in the form

$$S^1(p)=\overline{)}pıg^2\frac{d^4q}{(2\pi )^4}D_{\mu \nu }^{ab}(pq)\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu (q,p)\frac{\lambda _c^a}{2}S(q)\gamma ^\nu \frac{\lambda _c^b}{2},$$
(6)
where the gluon propagator in the Landau gauge, which will be used throughout the paper, is given by

$$D_{\mu \nu }^{ab}(k)=\delta ^{ab}\left[g_{\mu \nu }+\frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{k^2}\right]\frac{1}{k^2+iϵ}.$$
(7)
In the case that the gluon propagator is given by the confining delta function

$$D_{\mu \nu }^{ab}(k)=\delta ^{ab}\left[g_{\mu \nu }\frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{k^2}\right]\beta \delta ^4(k),$$
(8)
where $`\beta `$ is an adjustable dimensional parameter. Note that the term $`k_\mu k_\nu \delta (k)/k^2`$ is undefined from the point of view of generalized functions. Of course, we could work with the Feynman gauge where this unwanted behavior is softned. Fortunately the $`\delta `$ function gives an integrable singularity and only because of this peculiarity we have not a strong pathological behavior. With Eq.(8) it is quite easy to verify that the quark self-energy has a nontrivial solution for any positive value of $`g^2`$, in the rainbow approximation $`(\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu (q,p)=\gamma ^\mu )`$. With the quark propagator given by

$$S^1(p)=A(p^2)\overline{)}pB(p^2),$$
(9)
and the gluon propagator of Eq.(8) it follows from Eq.(6), in Euclidean space, the set of coupled integral equations:

$`[A(p^2)1]p^2={\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}g^2\beta {\displaystyle \frac{d^4q}{(2\pi )^4}\delta ^4(pq)\frac{A(q^2)}{q^2A^2(q^2)+B^2(q^2)}}`$ (10)
$`\times \left[pq+2{\displaystyle \frac{q(pq)(pq)p}{(pq)^2}}\right]`$ (11)
$`B(p^2)=4g^2\beta {\displaystyle \frac{d^4q}{(2\pi )^4}\delta ^4(pq)\frac{B(q^2)}{q^2A^2(q^2)+B^2(q^2)}}.`$ (12)
The solutions of the nonlinear coupled integral equations were determined in Ref., showing that $`A(p^2)`$ is a constant. Without loss of generality we can set $`A(p^2)=1`$ and verify the behavior of the self-energy apart from a normalization constant. In this case we obtain the following equation for $`B(p^2)`$

$$B(p^2)=\frac{4g^2\beta }{(2\pi )^4}d^4q\frac{B(q^2)\delta ^4(qp)}{q^2+B^2(q^2)},$$
(13)
whose integration leads to

$$B(p^2)=\frac{4g^2\beta }{(2\pi )^4}\frac{B(p^2)}{p^2+B^2(p^2)}.$$
(14)
Equation (14) has the solution

$`B(p^2)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \sqrt{\frac{4g^2\beta }{(2\pi )^4}p^2}:& p^2\frac{4g^2\beta }{(2\pi )^4}\hfill \\ \hfill 0:& p^2>\frac{4g^2\beta }{(2\pi )^4},\hfill \end{array}`$

for any non-zero and positive value of the coupling constant. If we consider only this infrared behavior of the gluon propagator we would conclude that this model is inconsistent with previous work on QCD, which predicts a critical value of the coupling constant for the onset of chiral symmetry breaking. However, the ultraviolet part of the gluon propagator cannot be neglected and the use of the following propagator is frequent

$`D_{\mu \nu }^{ab}(k)=\delta ^{ab}\left[\delta _{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{k^2}}\right]\beta \delta ^4(k)`$ (15)
$`+\delta ^{ab}\left[\delta _{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{k^2}}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}.`$ (16)
The following comments are in order: a) In some papers the coupling constant $`g^2`$ is absorbed in the parameter $`\beta `$ . Here we assume that $`g^2`$ can always be factorized, and the critical behavior is going to be related to it. b) We assume a constant $`g^2`$. In the next section it will be shown that our result does not change with the inclusion of the running coupling in the ultraviolet part of the gluon propagator. c) This propagator has been used in the literature with some minor differences; these variations are not important for our result as will become clear in the next section.

When the gluon propagator is given by Eq.(16) we need a thorough analysis of the quark self-energy to find for which value of the coupling constant the quark self-energy admits a nontrivial solution. The substitution of Eq.(16) into Eq.(6) yields

$$B(x)=\frac{g^2}{4\pi ^2}\left(\frac{\kappa B(x)}{x+B^2(x)}+_{\mu ^2}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\frac{dy}{x_{max}}\frac{yB(y)}{y+B^2(y)}\right),$$
(17)
where $`x=p^2`$ , $`y=q^2`$, $`x_{max}=\mathrm{max}(x,y)`$ and $`\kappa =\frac{\beta }{\pi ^2}`$. We will be looking for solutions of Eq.(17) only in the interval $`[\mu ^2,\mathrm{\Lambda }^2]`$, although the $`\delta `$ function has been integrated in the full range of momenta. A rigorous handling of this integration does not change the conclusions about the bifurcation point in the limit of very small (large) infrared (ultraviolet) cutoff.

It is important to verify that Eq.(17) is a very peculiar one, in the sense that for very small values of $`g^2`$, keeping the product $`g^2\kappa `$ fixed, we do have the solution of the nonlinear equation, which, at low momenta, approaches

$$B(x0)=\left(\sqrt{\frac{g^2\kappa }{4\pi ^2}}\right)_{g^20,g^2\kappa fixed}.$$
(18)
To find nontrivial small solutions of the nonlinear equation (17) we study the linearized equation, i.e. the functional derivative of Eq.(17) evaluated at $`B(x)=0`$ . Writing $`\delta B=f`$, we obtain

$$f(x)=\frac{g^2}{4\pi ^2}\left(\frac{\kappa f(x)}{x}+_{\mu ^2}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}𝑑y\frac{f(y)}{x_{max}}\right).$$
(19)
Note that we are not considering the equation for $`A(p^2)`$ because this equation is of second order in $`\delta B`$ . The existence of a solution for Eq.(19) is a sufficient condition for the onset of chiral symmetry breaking . Defining $`\alpha g^2/4\pi ^2=\alpha _s/\pi `$, Eq.(19) is equivalent to the differential equation

$$x(x\alpha \kappa )f^{^{\prime \prime }}(x)+2xf^{^{}}(x)+\alpha f(x)=0,$$
(20)
together with the ultraviolet boundary condition $`[(x\alpha \kappa )f(x)]^{}|_{x\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}=0`$ and another condition valid in the infrared region.

The choice of the infrared boundary condition is a crucial one. Note that if we neglect the second term of the right-hand side of Eq.(13) we only obtain a trivial result, no matter what is the boundary condition coming from Eq.(13). However, we know that the nonlinear equation always has a nontrivial solution for the $`\delta `$ function propagator. The most suitable infrared boundary condition is the one that comes from the nonlinear integral equation (12), since when applied to the linear equation the result must be consistent with the known solution of the nonlinear equation for small $`g^2`$ (see Eq.(18)). Therefore, our infrared boundary condition is given by

$$f(x)|_{x\mu ^2}=\sqrt{\alpha \kappa }.$$
(21)
Equation (20) can be put in the form of a hypergeometric equation performing a shift $`xz+\alpha \kappa `$ and defining $`y=z/\alpha \kappa `$ leading to

$`y(1y)f^{^{\prime \prime }}(\alpha \kappa y+\alpha \kappa )+2(1y)f^{^{}}(\alpha \kappa y+\alpha \kappa )`$ (22)
$`+\alpha f(\alpha \kappa y+\alpha \kappa )=0,`$ (23)
The solution of Eq.(23) that obeys the infrared boundary condition is

$$f(x)=AF(a,b;2;1\frac{x}{\alpha \kappa }),$$
(24)
where

$$A=\sqrt{\alpha \kappa }\mathrm{\Gamma }(3/2\sigma )\mathrm{\Gamma }(3/2+\sigma ),$$
(25)
is a normalization constant, $`\sigma `$ is defined as $`\sigma =(\frac{1}{4}\alpha )^{1/2}`$, and

$`a={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\alpha },`$ (26)
$`b={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\alpha }.`$ (27)
To apply the ultraviolet boundary condition we recall the following relation involving hypergeometric functions

$$\frac{d}{dz}[z^{c1}F(a,b;c;z)]=(c1)z^{c2}F(a,b;c1;z),$$
(28)
which lead us to the analysis of the zeros of the following equation

$`[(x`$ $``$ $`\alpha \kappa )f(x)]^{}|_{x\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}=`$ (29)
$``$ $`\alpha \kappa AF(1/2+\sigma ,1/2\sigma ;1,1{\displaystyle \frac{x}{\alpha \kappa }})|_{x\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}.`$ (30)
We need to consider the solution of Eq.(30) in three different regions of the parameter $`\alpha `$, namely, $`0<\alpha <\frac{1}{4}`$, $`\alpha =\frac{1}{4}`$ and $`\alpha >\frac{1}{4}`$, and study the asymptotic behavior of $`f(x)`$ in each one of these cases. When $`\alpha <\frac{1}{4}`$ the relation

$`F(a,b;c;z)=`$ (31)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(c)\mathrm{\Gamma }(ba)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(b)\mathrm{\Gamma }(ca)}}(z)^aF(a,1+ac;1+ab;z^1)`$ (32)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(c)\mathrm{\Gamma }(ab)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(a)\mathrm{\Gamma }(cb)}}(z)^bF(1+bc,b;1+ba;z^1),`$ (33)
can be used together with

$$F(a,b;c;0)=1$$
(34)
to give

$`[`$ $`(x\alpha \kappa )f(x)]^{}|_{x\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}=`$ (36)
$`A^{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{\alpha \kappa }}1\right)^{1/2+\sigma }+B^{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{\alpha \kappa }}1\right)^{1/2\sigma }|_{x\mathrm{\Lambda }^2},`$
where $`A^{}`$ and $`B^{}`$ depend on $`\sigma `$ and $`\alpha \kappa `$.

In this case $`\sigma `$ is a real and positive number smaller than $`\frac{1}{2}`$. For large values of $`x`$ we see that Eq.(36) condition is satisfied. Therefore, (24) is a solution when $`0<\alpha <\frac{1}{4}`$.

Note that when $`\alpha =\frac{1}{4}`$ we have $`\sigma =0`$, the constants $`a`$ and $`b`$ are identical, implying that (33) cannot be used in this case. However, we can perform the limit $`x\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ already in the differential equation (20) and study its behavior for this particular value of $`\alpha `$. In the asymptotic region (UV) we obtain

$$f(x)_{UV}=x^{1/2}(C+D\mathrm{ln}x).$$
(37)
We easily see that the ultraviolet boundary condition is satisfied for large $`x`$ and (24) is also a solution when $`\alpha =\frac{1}{4}`$.

When $`\alpha >\frac{1}{4}`$ in the parameters $`a`$ and $`b`$ of Eq.(24) we make the substitution $`\sigma i\rho `$ with $`\rho `$ defined as $`(\alpha \frac{1}{4})^{\frac{1}{2}}`$. The asymptotic behavior in this case is obtained with the help of (34) and (33) leading to

$`[(x`$ $``$ $`\alpha \kappa )f(x)]^{}|_{x\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}=`$ (38)
$``$ $`2(\alpha \kappa )^{3/2}Re\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2i\rho )\mathrm{\Gamma }(3/2\sigma )\mathrm{\Gamma }(3/2+\sigma )}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(\frac{1}{2}+i\rho )}}\right]`$ (40)
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{\alpha \kappa }}1\right)^{\frac{1}{2}+i\rho }|_{x\mathrm{\Lambda }^2},`$
which is valid for $`x\alpha \kappa `$. Eq.(40) has an infinite set of zeros located at $`x=\alpha \kappa (x_n+1)`$ for integer $`n`$, which can be determined with the procedure of the second paper of Ref. .

The real part of Eq.(40) can be written as

$$\mathrm{exp}\left\{\mathrm{ln}\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2i\rho )\mathrm{\Gamma }(3/2\sigma )\mathrm{\Gamma }(3/2+\sigma )}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(\frac{1}{2}+i\rho )}x_n^{\frac{1}{2}+i\rho }\right]\right\},$$
(41)
as $`\mathrm{ln}z=\mathrm{ln}|z|+i(\mathrm{arg}z\pm 2n\pi )`$, where $`z`$ is a complex number and $`n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$, the zeros of this function will occur for

$$\mathrm{ln}(x_n)\frac{1}{\rho }\left[2n\pi \mathrm{arg}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2i\rho )\mathrm{\Gamma }(3/2\sigma )\mathrm{\Gamma }(3/2+\sigma )}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(\frac{1}{2}+i\rho )}\right)\right]$$
(42)
with $`n=1,2,\mathrm{}`$. This relation was obtained for $`x\alpha \kappa `$, and $`n=0`$ was excluded in order to obtain only positive values in Eq.(42). Therefore, also for $`\alpha >\frac{1}{4}`$ we do have a nontrivial solution.

In summary, when the gluon propagator is modeled by a delta function plus a “perturbative” $`1/k^2`$ propagator we verified that the chiral symmetry is broken for any positive value of the coupling constant. One may ask if this result changes if we modify the non-perturbative as well as the perturbative propagator, as in the case of Eq.(3), or with the inclusion of the running coupling or the effect of a dynamical gluon mass . We will show in the next section that this is not the case.

## III An Infrared Model in the Gaussian Form

As discussed in the introduction a different ansatz for the gluon propagator, exemplified by Eq.(4), has frequently been used. Its non-perturbative infrared behavior is given by the first term of Eq.(4)

$$D_{\mu \nu }^{ab}(k)=\delta ^{ab}\left[\delta _{\mu \nu }\frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{k^2}\right]3\pi ^2\frac{\chi ^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\mathrm{exp}\frac{k^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }},$$
(43)
where the parameter $`\chi `$ controls the intensity of the interaction, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ gives the gaussian width. It is important to note that in the limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }0`$ we recover the infrared behavior of the propagator discussed in the previous section.

In this section we will show that the quark self-energy calculated with the propagator of Eq.(43) has a well defined bifurcation point. Afterwards, we verify that adding a perturbative tail to this propagator results in a smaller critical coupling constant than the one obtained only with the perturbative part. Finally, in the limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }0`$, we recover the result of the previous section showing that it is independent of the perturbative part that is added to the delta function.

To find nontrivial small solutions of the nonlinear Schwinger-Dyson equation for the quark self-energy we can study the linearized equation. The substitution of Eq.(43) into Eq.(6) gives the following linear integral equation for $`f(x)`$ (recalling that $`f(x)=\delta B(x)`$)

$$f(x)=\frac{3}{4}g^2\frac{\chi ^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\left[_0^x𝑑yf(y)\mathrm{exp}\frac{x}{\mathrm{\Delta }}+_x^{\mathrm{}}𝑑yf(y)\mathrm{exp}\frac{y}{\mathrm{\Delta }}\right],$$
(44)
where we considered $`A(p^2)=1`$, since, according to bifurcation theory, the equation for $`(A(p^2)1)`$ is of higher order in the functional derivative of $`B(p^2)`$, and the critical coupling constant is determined only through Eq.(44). To obtain Eq.(44) we performed in the gluon propagator the so called angle approximation, which is given by

$$D((pq)^2)\theta (p^2q^2)D(p^2)+\theta (q^2p^2)D(q^2).$$
(45)
The Eq.(44) is a homogeneous Fredholm equation with the kernel

$$K_I(x,y)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{x}{\mathrm{\Delta }}\right)\theta (xy)+\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{y}{\mathrm{\Delta }}\right)\theta (yx).$$
(46)
The norm of (46) is easily calculated

$$K_I^2=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑yK_I^2(x,y)=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{2},$$
(47)
and we find nontrivial $`L^2`$ solutions of $`B(x)`$ for $`g^2`$ on a point set whose smallest positive point satisfies

$$g^2\frac{4\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{3\chi ^2}\frac{1}{K_I}=\left(\frac{4\sqrt{2}}{3}\right)\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\chi ^2}1.88\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\chi ^2}.$$
(48)
Eq.(48) gives a lower bound for the critical point $`g_c^2`$. However, we can do better than this. Using the method of traces we can show that the approximate critical value is indeed of the order of the smaller value of the bound given by Eq.(48).

The following approximate formula holds true for the smallest characteristic number $`g_c^2`$

$$|g_c^2|\sqrt{\frac{A_2}{A_4}},$$
(49)
where for a symmetric kernel

$$A_{2m}=2_0^{\mathrm{}}_0^xK_m^2(x,y)𝑑y𝑑x,$$
(50)
with $`m`$ running over $`1,2`$. $`K_2(x,y)`$ is given by

$$K_2(x,y)=_0^{\mathrm{}}K_1(x,z)K_1(z,y)𝑑z,$$
(51)
and, in the case of the infrared part of the propagator, $`K_1(x,y)=(3\chi ^2/4\mathrm{\Delta }^2)g^2K_I(x,y)`$. The calculation of Eq.(49) entails

$$g_c^2\sqrt{\frac{9\chi ^4/32\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{297\chi ^8/4096\mathrm{\Delta }^4}}1.97\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\chi ^2}.$$
(52)
It is known that this method overestimates $`g_c^2`$. In this case we verify that the smallest value of our lower bound Eq.(48) is a good approximation for the critical point. The value of the critical coupling can be obtained substituting the phenomenological values of $`\chi `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ into Eq.(48). It is obvious that in the limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }0`$ we recover the result of the previous section, i.e. with the gluon propagator given by a $`\delta `$ function the chiral symmetry is broken for any coupling constant $`g^2>0`$.

Let us now consider the case where we add to the gaussian form of the infrared propagator a perturbative contribution. If this new contribution is of the form given by (3) or (4), it is not difficult to verify the existence of a critical coupling constant for the onset of chiral symmetry breaking. The reason for this is that the ultraviolet behavior of the propagator is softened by the factors $`1\mathrm{exp}(k^2/[4m_t^2])`$ and $`(k^2)`$, producing an effect equivalent to a dynamical gluon mass  for which it was shown the existence of a bifurcation point . Therefore, we proceed to the most intriguing case where we add to the ansatz for the infrared gluon propagator the contribution of QCD with massive gluons and the effect of the running coupling constant, i.e. a propagator proportional to $`\alpha _s(k^2)/(k^2+m_g^2)`$.

If we denominate by $`K_U`$ the kernel related to this ultraviolet propagator, we assume that we do have a nontrivial solution for

$$g^2\frac{1}{K_U}.$$
(53)
A lower bound for the bifurcation point in the case that we consider the sum of propagators will be given by

$$g_c^2\frac{3\chi ^2}{4\mathrm{\Delta }^2}K_I+K_U1,$$
(54)
where $`K_I`$ is given by Eq.(47). With the triangle inequality

$$K_A+K_BK_A+K_B,$$
(55)
and making use of Eq.(47) we obtain

$$g^2\left(\frac{3\sqrt{2}}{8}\frac{\chi ^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }}+K_U\right)1.$$
(56)
The solutions that break the chiral symmetry appear only for values of the coupling constant obeying Eq.(56). Note that as long as we can factor out $`g^2`$ from both propagators, and as long as the kernel of the perturbative tail is bounded, we obtain a condition for values of $`g^2`$ above which the self-energy bifurcates. The lower bound for the critical value

$$g_c^2\frac{1}{\left(\frac{3\sqrt{2}}{8}\frac{\chi ^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }}+K_U\right)},$$
(57)
approaches zero as we take the limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }0`$, and is compatible with the result of the previous section.

Considering the infrared and ultraviolet contributions to the propagator, we apply again the method of traces to determine the critical coupling constant through Eqs.(49) and (50). In this case the kernel $`K_1(x,y)`$ in Eq.(50) is given by

$$K_1(x,y)=H(x)\theta (xy)+H(y)\theta (yx),$$
(58)
where

$$H(x)=\frac{3\chi ^2}{4\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{x}{\mathrm{\Delta }}\right)+\frac{1}{x+m_g^2}\frac{4\pi ^2d}{\mathrm{ln}(\frac{x}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}+\tau )}.$$
(59)
Note that we have already factored out from the kernel the coupling $`g^2`$. To determine $`A_4`$ we need $`K_2(x,y)`$ which is equal to

$`K_2(x,y)=H(x)H(y){\displaystyle _0^y}𝑑z+H(x){\displaystyle _y^x}𝑑zH(z)`$ (60)
$`+{\displaystyle _x^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑zH^2(z).`$ (61)
The critical coupling constant was determined numerically for four quark flavors, $`\chi ^2=2.0\text{GeV}^2`$, $`m_g=600`$ MeV, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=300`$ MeV, and we assumed $`\tau =16`$, where all these values are phenomenologically acceptable, and, in particular, the value of $`\tau `$ is compatible with the infrared behavior of the running coupling constant in a theory admitting dynamically generated gluon masses  (in these papers we have $`\tau 4(m_g^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)`$). The critical coupling is shown in Fig.(1) as a function of the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Note that as we decrease $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ the value of the critical coupling goes to zero, confirming the result of the previous section. In this region also the integrals appearing in Eq.(61) become more problematic because the gaussian becomes very peaked. Changes in the form of the ultraviolet propagator barely affect this result. Finally, we confirm that for this class of infrared propagators the chiral phase transition happens at a smaller value than the one obtained with perturbative QCD.

## IV Conclusions

An ansatz for the infrared gluon propagator in the form of a $`\delta ^4(q)`$ function (or a variation thereof), frequently used in applications of the Global Color Model, gives an excelent description of hadronic properties connected with chiral symmetry breaking. In this work we studied the bifurcation of the quark self-energy within this model. The idea was to compare GCM to QCD with just the perturbative gluon propagator, where it is known that above a certain critical value of the coupling constant the chiral symmetry is broken . We verified that the introduction of a delta function to describe the infrared behavior of the gluon propagator implies that the chiral symmetry is always broken for any value of the coupling constant. This is an interesting result if we remember that this propagator is considered to describe confined quarks . However, this is certainly in contrast with what is known to happen in QCD.

With a model for the gluon propagator inspired by the delta function but softer at the origin (in a gaussian form), we verified, using the method of traces, that the critical coupling for the onset of chiral symmetry breaking is lower than the one expected for perturbative QCD, and recovered in a particular limit the result obtained with the model involving a delta function for the infrared gluon propagator. Therefore, the critical point for chiral symmetry breaking may distinguish among different QCD motivated models, and in the cases we have studied the critical coupling is always smaller than the one known for QCD .

## Acknowledgments

We would like to thank E.V.Gorbar for valuable remarks. This research was supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (AAN,RR), by Fundacão de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) (ACA,AAN,RR) and by Programa de Apoio a Núcleos de Excelência (PRONEX).


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# The Effects of Dust on the Spectral Energy Distributions of Star-Forming Galaxies

## 1 Introduction

A global measure of the impact of dust obscuration on the light emerging from galaxies is provided by the cosmic background light spectrum. The background light above $``$40 $`\mu `$m (Hauser et al., 1998; Fixsen et al., 1998) contains between 50% and $``$70% of the bolometric emission from galaxies integrated over all redshifts (Figure 1). This wavelength range is where most of the stellar energy absorbed by dust is re-emitted.

While the redshift-integrated effect of dust on galaxy light is somewhat constrained, the relative importance of dust obscuration as a function of redshift is not well established, with the possible exception of the Local Universe. In nearby galaxies, the 8–120 $`\mu `$m FIR emission measured by IRAS represents only $``$25% of the bolometric output from galaxies (Soifer & Neugebauer, 1991). However, when compared with the galaxy UV output, the energy in the IRAS bands represents between 1/2 and 2/3 of the total UV$`+`$FIR emission in Local galaxies. Regions of active star formation emit the bulk of their energy in the UV, owing to the presence of young, massive stars, and the dust-reprocessed UV light is the major contributor to the FIR emission in the IRAS wavebands. Thus, between half and two-third of the star formation in the Local Universe is obscured by dust.

Observational evidence points to increased dust obscuration in more distant galaxies (Calzetti & Heckman, 1999; Steidel et al., 1999). Part of this effect is due to the fact that standard observing techniques access bluer and bluer, and thus more and more dust-sensitive, restframe wavelength regions for increasing redshift. Using dust-correction methods tested in the Local Universe (Calzetti, 1997; Meurer, Heckman & Calzetti, 1999; Calzetti et al., 2000), the UV light from high redshift star-forming galaxies has been shown to be possibly obscured at the 60%–80% level. If confirmed by further evidence, this result has a major impact on a number of properties of the high-z Universe, including the star formation rate (SFR) estimates (Steidel et al., 1999). Moreover, the selective absorption of dust as a function of wavelength is likely to be the main reason for the discrepant results given by different SFR indicators. Figure 2 shows the SFR density of the Universe as a function of redshift (Madau et al., 1996) measured from restframe UV, H$`\alpha `$, and FIR emission, before and after dust correction. Only after the effect of dust is factored in the estimates, the three different SFR indicators are brought back into agreement.

Quantifying the impact of dust on the light emitted by the stellar component of galaxies bears not only on our understanding of the evolution of the star formation, but also on a host of other aspects of galaxy evolution, including the relationship between star formation and AGN. Various authors (Boyle & Terlevich, 1998; Shaver et al., 1999) have pointed out the close resemblance between the SFR density of galaxies and the space density of quasars (the latter measured in the radio) as a function of redshift. The comparison between the two trends is, however, strongly dependent on the adopted dust corrections for the SFR of galaxies, and may or may not result in a similarity. For instance, corrections like those shown in the right-hand panel of Figure 2 imply a relatively constant SFR density for z$`>`$2.5, in a regime where the space density of quasars is declining for increasing redshift (Shaver et al., 1999).

## 2 Why Is Dust Elusive?

Paraphrasing Witt, Thronson & Capuano (1992), the derivation of the opacity of a galaxy “depends sensitively upon the adopted \[dust\] geometry, largely due to the important effects of scattering and to the relative fraction of stars that are lightly obscured”. The effects of dust obscuration and reddening are very hard to quantify in galaxies, especially if the only data available are in the UV-to-nearIR, i.e. in a wavelength range where dust manifests itself predominantly by absorbing or scattering the stellar light. Three main factors conspire to make dust an elusive component of galaxies: (1) the lack of obvious emission or absorption features below the K band (except, in some instances, for the 0.22 $`\mu `$m absorption ‘bump’); (2) the grey obscuration often produced by the combination of dust geometry, varying optical depth, and scattering; (3) the age-dust degeneracy.

The largest majority of the methods for measuring the opacity/reddening of a galaxy use the light from the galaxy itself as the ‘illuminating source’ for the dust. However, the stellar populations of galaxies are complex mixtures of stars of all ages. A dust reddened population often resembles an older population. The dust-age degeneracy is an important effect when broad band colors or low resolution spectroscopy only are available for the object of interest and stellar features are not identifiable. For instance, an optical attenuation AV=1 changes the galaxy colors to mimic an age “increase” of a factor of $``$5 in a stellar population younger than 100 Myr. Conversely, the colors of a relatively old stellar population will not be easily discriminated from the colors of a young but reddened population.

This problem can be minimized in starburst galaxies, where the UV-to-nearIR output is dominated by the recently formed stars. In particular, massive stars dominate the UV emission, and their spectra are in the Rayleigh-Jeans regime above the Lyman discontinuity at 0.0912 $`\mu `$m. Thus the shape of the UV spectrum of starburst galaxies is relatively constant over a fairly large range of ages and physical parameters (Leitherer & Heckman, 1995); the non-ionizing photons are less age-sensitive than the ionizing photons, and the nebular emission lines from a starburst will fade before appreciable changes in the shape of the UV continuum can be observed. In summary, the starburst populations in galaxies can provide a relatively standard ‘illuminating source’ for studying the effects of dust in these objects.

## 3 Measuring Dust Obscuration in UV-Selected Starbursts

The ionizing and non-ionizing stellar light absorbed by dust is re-emitted in the FIR, and measuring dust reddening and obscuration in galaxies requires multi-wavelength information. Figure 3 shows the SEDs of two starburst galaxies, covering from the UV ($``$0.12 $`\mu `$m) to the FIR ($``$200 $`\mu `$m). The two SEDs are of a metal-rich, FIR-luminous galaxy (NGC6090) and a low-metallicity, Blue Compact Galaxy (Tol1924$``$416). As expected, the metal-rich galaxy is also dusty, with about 10 times more energy emerging in the FIR than in the UV–optical range. In the low-metallicity galaxy, the energy share between FIR and UV–optical is about 50% each. Although the two SEDs are clearly different, the “action” of dust on the stellar light emerging from the two galaxies can be parameterized in a simple manner, at least in the wavelength range 0.12–2.2 $`\mu `$m (Calzetti, Kinney & Storchi-Bergmann, 1994, 1996; Calzetti, 1997; Calzetti et al., 2000):

$$F_o(\lambda )=F_i(\lambda )10^{0.4A^{}(\lambda )}=F_i(\lambda )10^{0.4E_s(BV)k^{}(\lambda )},$$
(1)
$$E_s(BV)=(0.44\pm 0.03)E_g(BV),$$
(2)
$`k^{}(\lambda )`$ $`=`$ $`2.659(1.857+1.040/\lambda )+\mathrm{4.05\; 0.63}\mu m\lambda 2.20\mu m`$ (3)
$`=`$ $`2.659(2.156+1.509/\lambda 0.198/\lambda ^2+0.011/\lambda ^3)+4.05`$
$`0.12\mu m\lambda <0.63\mu m.`$
$$\beta =1.9E_g(BV)+\beta _o.$$
(4)
F$`{}_{o}{}^{}(\lambda )`$ and F$`{}_{i}{}^{}(\lambda )`$ are the dust-obscured and intrinsic stellar continuum flux densities, respectively; A($`\lambda `$) is the dust obscuration suffered by the stellar continuum; Es(B$``$V) and Eg(B$``$V) are the color excess of the stellar continuum and of the nebular emission lines. The latter is measured using hydrogen line ratios and foreground dust (Calzetti, Kinney & Storchi-Bergmann, 1996). $`k^{}`$($`\lambda `$) is the starburst obscuration curve, and $`\beta `$ is the UV continuum slope measured between 0.125 $`\mu `$m and 0.26 $`\mu `$m. $`\beta `$ is a sensitive indicator of both reddening (Calzetti, Kinney & Storchi-Bergmann, 1994) and obscuration (Meurer, Heckman & Calzetti, 1999; Calzetti et al., 2000), owing to the fact the the UV spectral shape is fairly constant when young, massive stars are present. The value of the intrinsic UV slope, $`\beta _o`$, depends slightly on assumptions on the star formation history of the starburst; $`\beta _o`$=$``$2.1 and $``$2.3 for constant star formation over 1 Gyr and over 100 Myr, respectively.

Equations 1–4 are valid for all starbursts with optical depths less than a few, typically E(B$``$V)$`{}_{g}{}^{}`$1. In the specific case of Figure 3, we measure E(B$``$V)g=0.60 in NGC6090 and E(B$``$V)g=0.02 in Tol1924$``$416. The formulae above can be applied to the SEDs of starbursts to calculate the amount of ionizing and non-ionizing stellar energy ‘lost’ to dust absorption, and therefore predict the FIR dust emission. A comparison with the observed FIR emission in Local starbursts shows that the agreement between predictions and observations is within a factor of 2 for each individual object, and within $``$20% on a sample (Calzetti et al., 2000). This implies that Equations 1–3 effectively recover the intrinsic stellar light. The ratio of the observed fluxes in the 1–1000 $`\mu `$m range, F(FIR), and in the ultraviolet at 0.16 $`\mu `$m, F(UV), is a measure of the total dust obscuration suffered by the starburst, and can be expressed in terms of the other dust-obscuration indicator, $`\beta `$, as (Meurer, Heckman & Calzetti, 1999; Calzetti et al., 2000):

$$F(FIR)/F(UV)=1.58[10^{(0.924\beta +1.94)}1]$$
(5)
The wavelength coverage of the FIR SEDs used in this analysis is much broader than in many previous studies, thanks to the addition of ISO data; the data span the range $``$8–240 $`\mu `$m (IRAS$`+`$ISO), sampling well beyond the peak of the FIR emission and probing the contribution of dust cooler than $``$30 K. It is useful to compare the flux detected in this broader range with the 40–120 $`\mu `$m flux, which has been used to characterize the FIR emission from galaxies when only IRAS data were available:

$$\frac{F(8240)}{F(40120)}=1.72\pm 0.25.$$
(6)
For starbursts, the total FIR emission is almost a factor of 2 larger than the flux detected in the 60 $`\mu `$m and the 100 $`\mu `$m IRAS bands, and the flux beyond 120 $`\mu `$m represents $``$20–25% of the total (Calzetti et al., 2000).

In addition to providing a simple and purely empirical recipe for dust obscuration corrections, Equations 1–5 give us insights into the physical conditions of UV-selected starbursts. Equations 1 and 5 imply that the dust obscuring the starburst behaves as if it is external to (surrounding) the region(s) of active star formation. A starburst environment is likely to be inhospitable to dust, due to the high energy densities, to the presence of shocks from supernovae explosions, and to the possibility of gas outflows. Equation 4 means that the stars ionizing the gas are statistically well mixed with the stars producing the UV continuum, although Equation 2 implies that the ionized gas suffers about twice as much reddening as the stars. A way out from this empasse is to assume that the ionized gas is more closely associated to the dust than the stars responsible for the UV emission (Calzetti, Kinney & Storchi-Bergmann, 1994). The ionizing stars may or may not be as dusty as the ionized gas (Calzetti, 1997; Charlot & Fall, 2000), while the non-ionizing, UV-emitting stars will generally be less obscured than the gas (Calzetti, Kinney & Storchi-Bergmann, 1994), as they live long enough to diffuse into regions of lower dust density (Garmany, Conti, & Chiosi, 1982). HST imaging of nearby starbursts shows that both scenarios are present, i.e., ionized gas and dust can be both physically separated from and associated with the exciting stars (Maíz-Apellániz & Walborn, 2000). In either scenario, the nebular emission from the galaxy will be more absorbed than the spatially-integrated stellar continuum, hence Equation 2.

Equations 1–5 are generally not applicable to the most FIR–luminous objects, i.e. ULIRGs. In these galaxies, the gas and dust involved in the starburst are centrally concentrated with densities $``$10 times higher than those of Giant Molecular Clouds (Downes & Solomon, 1998). Dust is heavily mixed with the newly formed stars, and the dominant geometry is very likely to be more extreme than in UV-selected galaxies. Recent results from HST show that the application of Equation 5 to ULIRGs underestimates the FIR flux by factors $``$10–100 (Goldader et al., 2000).

## 4 Measuring Dust in UV-Selected High Redshift Galaxies

The population of Lyman-break galaxies at redshift z$`>`$2 (Steidel et al., 1996, 1999) presents a number of observational properties which resemble the central regions of Local UV-selected starburst galaxies. The high-redshift objects have typical SFRs per unit area $``$1–2 M yr-1 kpc-2 (Meurer et al., 1997; Calzetti & Heckman, 1999); the restframe UV spectra show the wealth of absorption lines which is generally observed when young, massive stars dominate the emission; nebular emission is also observed in the restframe optical spectra (Pettini et al., 1998), confirming that the Lyman-break galaxies are actively forming new stars (i.e., they are not in a post-starburst phase). Finally, the range of UV slopes of the high-redshift galaxies is reminiscent of the one observed in the Local, UV-selected starbursts, with values $`3\beta 0.4`$.

In Local starbursts the large range of UV slopes is a signature of dust obscuration, and the same interpretation has been suggested for the high redshift galaxies, based on the similarities presented above. The median UV slope of the Lyman-break galaxies is $`\beta `$1.4, corresponding to about 80% of the UV light at 0.17 $`\mu `$m being reprocessed by dust in the FIR. Incidentally, $`\beta `$1.4 is also the median value of the Local, UV-selected galaxies; the analogy should not be taken any further as different selection biases are at work in the two samples. The peak of the FIR emission from the z$``$3 galaxies should be observable at wavelengths $``$200–400 $`\mu `$m (restframe $``$50–100 $`\mu `$m). Presently, the most sensitive sub-mm instrument, SCUBA at the JCMT, reaches the faintest limits at 850 $`\mu `$m, i.e. restframe wavelength $``$200 $`\mu `$m. This is well beyond the peak FIR emission observed in galaxies in the Local Universe (e.g., Figure 3). The FIR energy detected at such long wavelength represents a fairly small fraction of the total dust emission; in the specific case of the two starbursts in Figure 3, the energy emitted at 200 $`\mu `$m represents between 12% (NGC6090) and 1.3% (Tol1924$``$416) of the total FIR energy. Reconstructing the dust bolometric emission of high redshift galaxies from SCUBA detections is thus bound to suffer from large uncertainties, up to a factor $``$10.

If the two galaxies in Figure 3 were placed at z=3, the fluxes observed at 850 $`\mu `$m would be 0.92 mJy and $`<`$0.01 mJy, respectively, for NGC6090 and Tol1924$``$416. The R band magnitudes would be 25.7 and 26.4, respectively, about 1.5 mag fainter than the $``$R value determined for the Lyman-break galaxies (Steidel et al., 1999). The two galaxies differ by less than a factor of 2 in the restframe UV luminosity, and by about a factor of 400 in the restframe 200 $`\mu `$m luminosity. In addition to have a FIR emission which is about 50 times fainter, Tol1924$``$416 has also a much warmer dust SED than NGC6090 (Calzetti et al., 2000). This explains why in the long-wavelength tail of the dust emission the discrepancy in the intrinsic flux between the two galaxies exharcerbates.

If the luminosity of a z=3 galaxy with the SED of NGC6090 is boosted up to be detectable by SCUBA (adopting as fiducial value the 5 $`\sigma `$ limit of 2 mJy in the Hubble Deep Field, Hughes et al. (1998)), the galaxy would have R$``$24.9 and a bolometric luminosity Lbol=1.5$`\times `$1012 L. Thus, such a galaxy would need to be as luminous as a ULIRG to be observed with SCUBA (Lilly et al., 1999). A more extreme situation is seen with Tol1924$``$416, due to the very small amount of energy emitted at 200 $`\mu `$m, less than 1% of the bolometric luminosity. To be detectable with SCUBA, a z=3 galaxy with the SED of Tol1924$``$416 would need to have a bolometric luminosity L$`{}_{bol}{}^{}`$3$`\times `$1013 L, a few times brighter than the brightest non-AGN powered galaxy known in the Local Universe. Such a galaxy would have R$``$19, almost 4 mag brighter than the brightest Lyman-break galaxy identified so far (Giavalisco, 2000, private communication). Clearly, a galaxy with a luminosity within observed limits and with a FIR SED as warm as that of Tol1924$``$416 would not be detectable with SCUBA.

To summarize, a z=3 galaxy with an SED similar to that of Local UV-selected starbursts needs to be dusty, as bright as a ULIRG, and to have a relatively cool FIR SED to be detectable with current sub-mm instrumentation. The first two criteria already restrict the number of candidates, since, even if high redshift galaxies may be dusty, it is not established how many of those have bolometric luminosities in the 1012 L range. The third criterion (cool FIR SED) is equivalent to require that, for an emissivity index $`ϵ`$=2, dust with temperature $``$20 K must be present in the galaxy; this criterion may further bring down the number of candidates, depending on the details of the distribution of dust and star formation within the galaxy. A recent project aimed at observing Lyman-break galaxies with SCUBA has yielded only one tentative detection out of $``$10 targets (Chapman et al., 2000), confirming that a number of factors have to play together to make the long wavelength tail of the FIR emission of those galaxies detectable. Photometric uncertainties in the restframe UV measurements and Malmquist bias add to the difficulty of making reliable predictions for the FIR luminosity of the high-z galaxies (Adelberger & Steidel, 2000).

The effects of dust in the distant Universe still need to be placed on firmer observational ground. To achieve this target, high redshift star-forming galaxies require better spectral energy coverage. The available optical observations will need to be supplemented with near- to mid-IR spectral data to measure the restframe optical emission and nebular lines, and with far-IR/sub-mm/mm data to derive a full picture of the dust emission. SIRTF, ALMA, and NGST are the key missions which will address this issue. Knowing how much dust is present in galaxies at different redshifts will not only allow us to derive the intrinsic star formation history of the Universe, but will also shed light on a number of other astrophysical issues, such as the dust and metal enrichment of the evolving galaxies and of the Universe, and the starburst–AGN connection.

## 5 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Organizing Committee of the FIRSED 2000 Workshop, and in particular Peter Barthel, for the invitation to this stimulating meeting, for financially supporting my trip, and for arranging for a full-time baby sitter for my 4-months old son. I also thank Claus Leitherer and Gerhardt Meurer for a critical reading of this manuscript.


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# Flat radio-spectrum galaxies and BL Lacs: Part I: core properties

## 1 Introduction

Explanations of different source properties as a manifestation of orientation dependent effects have been successful in both studies of high–powered radio galaxies and quasars, and in radio–weak Seyferts. Obscuration of the nuclear regions by a putative dusty disk at large angles to the line of sight is believed to turn Type I sources (Seyfert Is and quasars) into Type 2 sources (Seyfert 2s and narrow-line radio galaxies) (Scheuer 1987; Barthel 1989; Antonucci 1993). Viewing–angle dependent effects attributed to relativistic bulk flows (superluminal motion, rapid variability, core dominance, one-sided appearance) are also seen in the powerful radio sources (Urry & Padovani, 1995, and references therein)

The effects of orientation at intermediate radio luminosities remain much less clear (see Urry & Padovani 1995 for a review). It is now well accepted that BL Lacs are predominantly FRI radio sources seen at close angles to the line of sight. Many of their distinctive characteristics can be attributed to relativistic motion close to the line of sight: the FRI/BL Lac inner jets are believed to have $`\gamma `$ between 2 and 20 Urry & Padovani (1995); Lara et al. (1997), and BL Lacs are thought to be those objects seen within $`30^{}`$ to the line of sight Urry & Padovani (1995); Ghisellini et al. (1993). The role of obscuration at these intermediate luminosities however remains uncertain (see e.g. Falcke, Gopal-Krishna & Biermann, 1995; Jackson & Marchã, 1999; Chiaberge, Capetti & Celotti, 1999). Furthermore, many important questions remain unanswered or disputed: the relationship between the BL Lacs selected by different means (are the X-ray selected BL Lacs closer to the line of sight than the radio selected ones, or vice versa? or are they objects with underlying different energy distributions? Fossati et al. (1997); Padovani & Giommi (1995); Maraschi et al. (1986)); the frequency of BL Lacs which have FRII parents Kollgaard et al. (1992); Stanghellini et al. (1997); Jackson & Wall (1999).

In this paper we analyse the radio properties of a sample of flat–spectrum radio sources Marchã et al. (1996). Such a population should contain a high fraction of sources at small angles to the line of sight. Indeed, Marchã et al. found a high fraction of BL Lacs and candidate BL Lacs, as well as both weak and strong emission–line objects. The canonical parent population of BL Lacs, the FRIs, are generally weak emission–line objects and so the weak emission–line objects in the sample could be objects which were somewhat further from our line of sight. (The relationship, if any, to the strong emission–line objects is less clear.)

Browne & Marchã (1993) suggested that objects which do not meet the generally used criteria for classification of an object as a BL Lac (EW$`<`$5Å, CaII break contrast $``$0.25; Stickel et al. 1991; Stocke et al. 1991) may still be BL Lacs, but whose identifying characteristics are diluted by starlight. Therefore new criteria were adopted by Marchã et al. (1996) \[hereafter MBIS\] to allow for this possible starlight dilution. Under these criteria, objects were classed as BL Lac candidates if they had CaII break contrasts lower than 0.4 and EWs that could be up to $``$ 30 Å. As an extension of this idea, it is possible that some of the weak emission–line galaxies are not actually (substantially) further from the line of sight than the BL Lacs, but that they are ‘hidden BL Lacs’. That is, their non-thermal emission at optical wavelengths was fainter than the identified BL Lacs, and therefore their nuclear emission is completely swamped by the starlight of the host galaxy. In this scenario the jet is still relativistic and beamed towards the observer at the same, or slightly
greater, angles as occurs in BL Lacs.

In this paper we address:

(i) whether the BL Lac ‘candidates’ found by MBIS have broad band spectral properties consistent with their being bona-fide, but starlight diluted, BL Lacs.

(ii) the relationship of the BL Lacs with the weak emission line galaxies (WLRG), by comparison of their broad band spectral properties and core radio polarization. We analyse whether any of the WLRG are candidates for ‘hidden’ BL Lacs.

In a future paper, we use the results of this study and the radio morphologies to further analyse the relationship of the BL Lacs with the WLRG and, further, to investigate relationship of the broad emission–line galaxies (BLRG).

Sect. 3 records the observational parameters, Sect. 4 discusses the methods used in analysis of the data and presents some of the measured source parameters in tabular form. Sect. 5 considers these in the light of the spectral classification of the sources, the discussion of which is deferred to Sect. 6.

## 2 The sample

The sample is the 57 objects of MBIS. These objects satisfy the selection criteria S$`{}_{5\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}{}^{}>`$ 200mJy, $`\delta >20^{}`$ and m$`{}_{v}{}^{}<`$17. The Hubble relation for radio sources shows that these criteria will enable selection of an essentially complete redshift–limited sub-sample with z$`<`$0.1. Thus MBIS define a complete sample of 33 flat–spectrum objects with S$`{}_{5\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}{}^{}>`$ 200mJy at z$`<`$0.1. MBIS divide their sample into 6 categories: the known BL Lacs and new BL Lacs discovered by them which satisfy the Stocke et al. (1991) equivalent width–CaII break contrast criteria (EW$`<`$5Å, contrast $`<`$0.25), the ‘candidate BL Lacs’, the weak emission–line galaxies, the strong emission–line objects (both broad– and narrow–lined), and two ‘hybrid’ objects which have properties intermediate between BL Lacs and quasars Jackson & Marchã (1999). There are also a few objects for which they were unable to obtain spectra and whose classification is therefore unknown.

We assign the class ‘BL Lac’ to those objects (both the ‘known’ and ‘new’ BL Lacs of MBIS) which fall within the Stocke et al. criteria. Those which fall outside this region, but within the extended criteria of MBIS, we classify as ‘candidate BL Lacs’ (although due to a change in definition of the contrast our classification of ‘candidate’ BL Lacs differs slightly from that used in MBIS – see Sect. 4.2). Thus Mrk 501 (B 1652+398) is classed as a ‘candidate’ BL Lac, on account of its EW(H$`\alpha `$) (MBIS). This object is already often classed as a BL Lac due to its extreme optical brightness, which makes it a subject of frequent study.

In this paper we are primarily interested in the categories of BL Lacs, candidate BL Lacs and weak emission line objects, although we will comment on the status of the strong emission line objects and hybrids, and for completeness include information on the objects of unknown spectral type.

## 3 Observations and data reduction

The observations were taken with the NRAO VLA CnD array on 29 September and 5, 18 and 27 October 1997. 43 GHz receivers are only available on 13 antennae: we therefore observed 22 GHz and 43 GHz in one subarray, and 8 and 15 GHz simultaneously in the other subarray. On-line integration times were 3.3s. Observing parameters and typical rms noise levels are shown in Table 1. Fast switching was used at 43 GHz where this was beneficial (the existence of a nearby bright good calibrator at this frequency), but in general this was not done: the phase stability in the relatively compact array was sufficient, and moreover the relatively strong, point-like structure of the sources themselves allowed for most sources to be self-calibrated. Absolute flux density and polarization position angle calibration were done with reference to 3C 286. Due to failure of the telescope, three sources have no data at any frequency (B 1646+499, B 1652+398 & B 1703+223), and one only at 8 GHz (B 1658+302).

## 4 Data analysis

### 4.1 The high frequency radio observations

The flux densities were measured using the aips image and (u,v)–plane fitting tasks IMFIT and UVFIT. At these resolutions, all the sources are dominated by a single component at 8 GHz and higher. It was therefore found that a good fit was obtained to all sources with a single Gaussian and a zero-level offset with slope, if the fit was restricted to the region $``$ 3 times FWHM of the restoring beam. The values from IMFIT obtained in this manner were used as the flux densities of the core. The error was estimated using the difference between this and those obtained by UVFIT. At 8 GHz the ‘fitting’ error calculated in this manner is very small. At 43 GHz the UVFIT and IMFIT tasks sometimes yield different results due to the very low signal-to-noise ratio on any given visibility. The total quoted error also includes a 3% calibration error.

We fitted a power–law spectrum to all the high frequency data (S$`\nu ^\alpha `$), using a $`\chi ^2`$ fit, taking account of the errors on the derived flux densities. Only one source (B 1404+286, a known GPS) had a (down-curving) spectra clearly inconsistent with the straight line fit. B 1404+286 was included in the sample of MBIS as it is a serendipitously flat spectrum source between 1.4 & 5 GHz, as its spectral peak falls near these frequencies. The error on the spectral fits is simply the weighted $`\chi ^2`$. Examples of the spectra and the fits are shown in fig 1. The core polarized flux density was calculated from similar fits to Ricean corrected polarized intensity maps. The 8.4 GHz flux densities, spectral indices between 8.4 and 43 GHz and percentage polarization measured at 8.4 GHz, with accompanying errors, are presented in columns 3 to 8 of Table 2, which presents the observational results for all sources.

### 4.2 The non-thermal contribution to the optical flux densities

The observed optical continuum is the sum of the contribution from the host galaxy ($`S_\mathrm{o}^\mathrm{G}`$) and that arising from the AGN ($`S_\mathrm{o}^{\mathrm{AGN}}`$). As the objective is to establish the broad–band properties of a sample of AGNs, it is important that the AGN contribution alone is considered.

The optical spectrum of early–type galaxies shows a prominent flux depression shortward of 4000Å which is referred to as the Ca II break or the 4000Å break. The strength of this break is quantified by the break contrast, C:

$$C=\frac{S_\nu ^+S_\nu ^{}}{S_\nu ^+}.$$
(1)
where $`S_\nu ^{,+}`$ are the flux densities at wavelengths respectively longer and shorter than the Ca II break.

Dressler & Shectman (1987) studied a large sample of galaxies and found that ellipticals had a mean break contrast of $`<`$C$`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{G}}>`$ = 0.49. Inspection of their data showed that less than 5% of early-type galaxies have break contrasts below 0.4. It is therefore a reasonable assumption that an elliptical galaxy with C $``$ 0.4 has an extra source of continuum which reduces the strength of the Ca II break. In other words, if the measured break contrast is found to be below 0.4, there is good statistical evidence to assume that it is due to an extra source of continuum, in particular, a non-thermal source due to the AGN. We therefore calculate the non-thermal contribution from the measured break contrast and total optical flux, according to:

$$S_\mathrm{o}^{\mathrm{AGN}}=\frac{<C^\mathrm{G}>C}{<C^\mathrm{G}>}S_\mathrm{o}.$$
(2)
There is no reason why objects showing break contrasts larger than 0.4 should not hold extra sources of continuum, but these will not be detected via the measurement of the contrast (i.e. they are the ‘hidden BL Lacs’).

It should be noted that the above equation is valid only for sources in which the line contribution to the optical spectrum is negligible, and where C $``$ 0.4. For those sources where there is either a significant emission line contribution or C$`>`$ 0.4, the estimated optical non-thermal contribution is likely to be overestimated. Furthermore, any non-thermal optical contribution for those sources with C$`>`$0.5 cannot be estimated in this manner. In these latter cases, we assigned a break contrast of 0.49, and obtained an upper limit of $`S_\mathrm{o}^{\mathrm{AGN}}`$. Finally, we mention that the So should be measured close to the rest-frame wavelength of the Ca II break (4000 Å). We measured the flux density at a rest–frame wavelength of 5500 Å, in order to be consistent with the wavelength usually considered when determining the broad–band spectral indices. We will show that our results are not dependent on this choice.

We use Eq. 2 to estimate the AGN contribution to the optical flux for the sources for which there is a break contrast given in MBIS. For sources without measured break contrasts (the BL Lacs), either the spectra of MBIS were used to determine the non-thermal emission, or where these were not taken (due to the status of an object as a known BL Lac), the V band magnitudes from the literature were used to estimate the non-thermal optical flux density (assuming $`\alpha _{\mathrm{opt}}`$ =0). These were: B 0109+224 Puschell & Stein (1980),
B 1147+245, B 1215+303 and B 1219+285 Tapia et al. (1976). A spectrum from the literature was used for B 2116+81 Stickel et al. (1993).

The values of the contrast and optical flux densities are tabulated in Table 2. The contrast values given here are slightly different from those in MBIS since the latter were calculated using Sλ in Eq. 1, instead of the definition used here (Sν). The new values (consistent with Dressler & Shectman (1987)) result in contrasts $`>`$0.4 for the sources B 0149+710, B 1144+352, B 1551+239, and
B 1703+223. In what follows we no longer classify these sources as ‘candidate’ BL Lacs as in MBIS, but comment on them individually where this is thought appropriate. We note however, that this leaves only candidate objects very close to the Stocke et al criteria in EW-contrast space, and B 1744+260 (which lies closer to the ‘hybrids’ B 0125+487 and B 1646+499.) The new classifications are in column 2 of Table 2.

## 5 Results

### 5.1 High frequency radio spectra

Firstly we consider high frequency radio spectra of the BL Lacs and the ‘candidate’ BL Lacs (S$`\nu ^\alpha `$). As can be seen on the top panel of Fig. 2, the candidate BL Lacs (hatched) are indistinguishable from the BL Lacs (white) by their high frequency radio spectra. (A Kolmogorov–Smirnov (K-S) test rejects the hypothesis that they are drawn from the same population only at the 13% level.) This is in marked contrast to the weak emission–line galaxies: a comparison of the top and bottom panels shows that the WLRG have a steeper radio spectra than the BL Lacs. This is confirmed by a K-S test: the hypothesis that the WLRG and BL Lacs (including candidate BL Lacs) are drawn from the same population is rejected at the 88% level.

As the BL Lacs are generally at higher redshifts than the WLRG (although there are 7 BL Lacs with unknown redshifts), the intrinsic rest–frame difference in the spectra of the two classes is likely, if anything, to be greater than the difference observed. However, Fig. 3 shows there is no dependence of the spectral index $`\alpha _{43}^8`$ on redshift for any of the different classes.

The BLRG and the BL Lacs have a similar distributions of $`\alpha _{43}^8`$. The one hybrid which was successfully observed, B 0125+487, has a rising spectrum in this frequency range.

### 5.2 Radio to optical spectra

The radio–optical non-thermal spectral index can be used to assess the similarity of the ‘candidate’ BL Lacs and the known BL Lacs over a large frequency range. The top panel of Fig. 4 shows the radio–optical spectra of the BL Lacs and (hatched) candidates. For the known BL Lacs the mean spectral index $`\overline{\alpha }_{\mathrm{opt}}^{\mathrm{rad}}=0.47\pm 0.13`$, and for the candidates $`\overline{\alpha }_{\mathrm{opt}}^{\mathrm{rad}}=0.58\pm 0.15`$, where opt$``$ refers to the non-thermal contribution to the optical flux. That they are drawn from the same population is rejected by a K-S test with a probability of 88%. A second estimate of the non-thermal optical flux densities from S. Anton (priv. comm.), combined with our data calculated from literature values, gives spectral indices of 0.50$`\pm `$0.14 for the BL Lacs and 0.63$`\pm `$0.17 for the candidates. This second estimate is not calculated at 5500Å in the rest-frame, but over wavelengths selected to be free of emission lines nearer the 4000Å break. Using these values, the same parent population is rejected at the 95% level.

Thus we see that the spectra of the candidate BL Lacs show some marginal indication of steepening more rapidly than those of the known BL Lacs in the sample. The candidates and known BL Lacs do not show significantly different distributions in 8.4 GHz or optical (5500Å) flux densities: either the total or the AGN component.

The radio–optical non-thermal spectral index is less useful for comparison of the BL Lacs with the WLRG because the measurement of the AGN component at 5500Å is necessarily dominated by the error in the uncertainty of the underlying stellar spectrum. However a clear difference between the populations can be seen in figs. 4 & 5. In these plots the points marked with lower limits refer to a calculation of the non-thermal contribution as outlined in Sect. 4.2. Using these upper limits as measurements, we can reject the possibility that the samples are the same at greater than the 99.99% level.

The BLRG and the BL Lacs show similar distributions of non-thermal optical to radio spectral indices, $`\alpha _{\mathrm{opt}}^{\mathrm{rad}}`$, illustrated in Fig. 5.

### 5.3 Radio polarization

Our new observations of radio polarization at 8 GHz are in general agreement with those in MBIS, although our upper limits tend to be more conservative. (The polarization observations quoted in MBIS were taken from observations done in 1990–91 Patnaik et al. (1992); Wilkinson et al. (1998).) Three sources have markedly different degrees of polarizations between the two sets of observations: these are B 1144+352 & B 1123+203 (decrease) and WLRG B 1241+735 (increase). These differences are commented on before discussing the sample as a whole.

The peculiar source B 1144+352, as has already been noted, is known as a GPS source Snellen et al. (1995) and VLBI maps show a $``$ 50 pc double structure Henstock et al. (1995) with components superluminally expanding Giovannini et al. (1999), and known to be variable (see Schoenmakers et al. 1999). Schoenmakers et al. (1999) argue convincingly that this is the core of a mega-parsec sized giant radio galaxy. The radio polarization drop may be real, as the source was apparently near its maximum flux density at the time of the first observations (Schoenmakers et al. Fig. 7). Alternatively the 2$`\sigma `$ detection may have been erroneous, associated with a component other than the core, or the lower resolution of the observations presented here results in beam depolarization.

The candidate BL Lac B 1123+203 (PGC 035156) has shown extreme optical variability over a period of two decades, dominated by long-term changes Pica et al. (1988), and has apparently also suffered a polarization drop in the 6 years since the previous 8 GHz measurements.

B 1241+735 shows very high radio polarization in these observations: a remarkable 9% for an object classified as a WLRG. Augusto et al. Augusto et al. (1998) show this source to have a core-jet structure in MERLIN observations.

Another source with high percentage of radio core polarization is the ‘red stellar’ (MBIS) object of unknown spectral type B 2214+201. This unusual object was the most polarized object at both epochs and may be a star, perhaps with an extragalactic radio source along the same line of sight.

In general we reproduce the radio polarization results of MBIS: the BL Lacs are significantly more polarized at 8 GHz than the WLRG (Fig. 6). Based on their percentage polarization at 8.4 GHz, the probability that BL Lacs and WLRG are drawn from the same population is rejected at 99.98% level (using upper limits as detections). It can also be seen in Fig. 6 that the candidate BL Lacs have a lower polarization than the known BL Lacs. The K-S test on the BL Lacs and candidates shows only a 2% chance that they are drawn from the same population. Even with the exclusion of the source B 1123+203 which showed little polarization in these observations, the populations remain distinct, with only a 6% chance that they are from the same population.

We also reveal a new effect: the weak emission line objects with radio polarization $`>`$ 1% also have flat high frequency radio spectra. Fig. 7 shows the 8 GHz polarization and high frequency spectral index for all the objects. The known WLRG in this group of flat spectrum, high polarization sources are: B 0149+710, B 0848+686, B 1241+735, B 1755+626 & B 2320+203.

### 5.4 Variability

Clear evidence of variability is seen in a number of the BL Lacs and BL Lac candidates. Studies of radio variability with the available data of this sample are hampered by the different telescopes used at different epochs. Nonetheless it is seen that a comparatively large number of these sources show large differences in flux densities between the 87GB Gregory & Condon (1991) and GB6 Gregory et al. (1996) surveys at 4.85 GHz, and/or the Green Bank White & Becker (1992), NVSS Condon et al. (1998) and FIRST White et al. (1997) surveys at 1.4 GHz. Indeed, the variability of BL Lacs at radio wavelengths is well-known, and the subject of a number of ongoing monitoring campaigns (see e.g. Aller et al. 1999) which include a number of these objects.

Three other sources show evidence for variability at 1.4 GHz as the VLA B array flux density (as measured by FIRST or own observations (forthcoming paper)) is greater than the VLA D array flux density from NVSS. The VLA B array is likely to resolve out source structure, and so we could explain a lower B array flux density without recourse to variability, but not a higher B array flux density. The non-BL Lac sources which fall in this latter category are: two WLRGs B 0729+562, B 2202+363 and one object of unknown spectral type B 2319+317.

## 6 Discussion

### 6.1 The status of the ‘candidate’ BL Lacs

As the objects classified as ‘candidate BL Lacs’ occupy a different region on the contrast-EW plane than the other BL Lacs, we first address whether the data are consistent with them being the same type of object: that is, are they otherwise identical to the other BL Lacs? If they have statistically different properties, are these differences explicable if we assume that the candidate BL Lacs are simply either slightly further from our line of sight, or intrinsically weaker (relative to their hosts)? In either of these cases the hypothesis of MBIS that they are starlight diluted BL Lacs then holds.

It was shown in Sect. 5 that the spectral indices in the 8–43 GHz regime were indistinguishable between the BL Lacs and the candidate BL Lacs. It was also shown that there was a marginal difference in the radio–optical non-thermal spectral indices, and that the candidate BL Lacs were less polarized at 8.4 GHz. The first piece of evidence is clearly consistent with the notion of starlight diluted BL Lacs, particularly striking as they differed from the population of WLRG. However, the remaining two differences require some consideration, which is given below.

First we consider the marginal difference in $`\alpha _{\mathrm{opt}}^{\mathrm{rad}}`$. In a sample such as this which is selected with two flux density limits (i.e. both in the radio and in the optical), we must consider the effects of this selection on the properties of our sample. The optical magnitude limit implies that for objects which are dominated by starlight there will be a smaller flux density attributable to the non-thermal emission at 5500 Å: as there is no difference in the total optical emission from the two classes of objects, we expect that the optical emission due to the non-thermal AGN is weaker in the objects classified as candidate BL Lacs. Indeed, this is so, but the genuine BL Lacs are also brighter in the radio, which makes it unclear as to whether the difference in spectra is due solely to this selection effect. Therefore no firm conclusions can be based upon the marginal difference: the difference could arise simply due to selection effects, or may reflect a real difference, or simply small number statistics (there are only 4 candidate BL Lacs with calculated $`\alpha _{\mathrm{opt}}^{\mathrm{rad}}`$).

The lower fractional polarization of the candidate BL Lacs cannot, however, be attributed to a selection effect. Simple theories of BL Lac emission with a synchrotron origin for both the radio and the optical emission could be used to deduce constraints on the intrinsic conditions or angle to the line-of-sight in these objects, but small number statistics constrain us to discuss this only in qualitative terms. One possibility is that the candidate BL Lacs have lower radio polarization because this sample is at slightly larger angle to the line of sight than the other BL Lacs. In this way they are objects which are more ‘starlight diluted’ principally because they are less Doppler boosted due to a line of sight effect, rather than due to the relative intrinsic weakness of the source.

One potential problem with this idea is that, according to the ‘accelerating jet’ model (Marscher 1980; Ghisellini & Maraschi 1989) for objects dominated by this accelerating region of the jet, the spectrum typically steepens as objects move into the line of sight. This is the opposite of what, if anything, is observed as we move from the BL Lacs to the candidates, although as we have pointed out, there is a problem of a selection effect here.

On the other hand, intrinsically weaker objects may have different synchrotron turn-over frequencies (or maximum particle energies). Ghisellini (1997) suggests that the difference in blazar spectral energy distributions could be explicable by differing amounts of radiative cooling due to electrons. These electrons could be from the BLR. In this scheme the candidate BL Lacs, with stronger emission lines might suffer stronger radiative cooling, and therefore be expected to have a steeper $`\alpha _{\mathrm{opt}}^{\mathrm{rad}}`$. This could only explain the difference in polarization properties if this was due to depolarization in a medium associated with the emission line region.

The discussion here has parallels to the debate over the relation between X-ray– and radio–selected BL Lacs (XBLs & RBLs) or, complimentarily, high– and low–energy cut-off BL Lacs (HBLs & LBLs) (see e.g. Maraschi et al. 1986; Padovani & Giommi 1995): are the differences intrinsic or due to a line of sight difference? The accelerating jet model has had a number of difficulties in reproducing the characteristics of the XBL and RBL populations, and recent work has focussed either on intrinsic physical differences (Padovani & Giommi 1995) or on a combination of both (Georganopoulos & Marscher 1998). Indeed these parallel discussions may be no coincidence – it could be that our candidate BL Lacs are ‘XBL-like’: Mrk501 has been called a ’candidate’ by us, and was called XBL-like by Padovani & Giommi (1995). In this light we plot (Fig. 8) the $`\alpha _\mathrm{o}^\mathrm{r}\alpha _\mathrm{x}^\mathrm{o}`$ plane, which has divided these populations until the more recent discovery of an ‘intermediate’ population Perlman et al. (1998); Laurent-Muehleisen et al. (1999). We plot the non-thermal contribution to the optical flux density only (the plots in the literature use the entire optical flux density). This has the effect of moving the points left and up, although for the BL Lacs this effect is negligible. By comparison with Stocke et al. (1985) we see that all our BL Lacs fall somewhat nearer the ‘dividing line’ (illustrated Fig. 8) than either the complete 1 Jy and EMSS samples, which lie to the top right and bottom left respectively. Furthermore, the candidates, as well as the other BL Lacs, appear both RBL-like and XBL-like by this measure.

Our spectral results for the BL Lac population as a whole are consistent with those of Gear et al. (1994), who find for a subset of the Stickel et al. (1991) sample of BL Lacs, flat or rising spectra in the range 5 to 37 GHz ($`\alpha =0.04\pm 0.20`$), and falling spectra in the range 150 to 375 GHz ($`\alpha =0.48\pm 0.22`$). They also find, for the cases they have data, that the 90 GHz points are consistent with a single power law from 90 GHz to the millimeter regime. Bloom et al. (1994) also find falling spectra in the millimeter and sub-millimeter regime. These studies concluded that the spectral break for radio-selected BL Lac objects must lie in the range 10 to 100 GHz. For our sample we find flat or slightly falling spectra, with some examples of rising spectra in the range 8 to 43 GHz. Our observations are generally well fit by a single power-law, implying that for our objects the break must lie $`>`$ 22 GHz (The 43 GHz points not having high enough signal to noise to rule out the start of a break in the spectra), or that the spectral break is not sharp (so would be undetected over such a small frequency range). The simplest interpretation is that this sample of somewhat fainter radio-selected BL Lacs has a gradual spectral turn-over at around the same frequencies (10-100 GHz) as the more powerful Stickel et al. (‘1 Jy’) sample.

We therefore conclude that the results can be explained by the hypothesis that the candidate BL Lacs are starlight diluted BL Lacs. The fact that the candidate BL Lacs are indistinguishable from the BL Lacs in the high frequency radio regime, with flat spectra extending out to 43 GHz, indicates that the candidate BL Lacs are still highly Doppler boosted. If the lower radio polarization of the candidate BL Lacs is explained by requiring the candidate BL Lacs to be slightly further from the line of sight than the other BL Lacs, the marginal difference in $`\alpha _{\mathrm{opt}}^{\mathrm{rad}}`$ may reflect a selection effect.

### 6.2 The relationship of the WLRG and BL Lacs

We wish to address whether the WLRG are consistent with being the parent population of the BL Lacs: that is BL Lacs away from the line of sight, and, further, whether there is any indication that any of the objects in this class are ‘hidden’ BL Lacs: that is they are oriented at similar angles as the BL Lacs, but that the starlight contribution from their hosts swamps the characteristic non-thermal emission at optical wavelengths.

Unlike the situation for the BL Lacs themselves we cannot assume that the detected emission of the WLRG comes from jet-like structures. Augusto et al (1998) presented VLBI observations which contained a number of the sources in this sample, and find the WLRGs B 0116+319 to be a CSO, and B 1241+735 to be a core–jet.

The mean 8–43 GHz spectral index is steeper for the WLRG than the BL Lacs. This is consistent with both emission from more extended regions and jet emission at larger angles to the line of sight, if the jet is no longer dominated by an accelerating inner jet. In the latter case this arises as the break in the spectrum (in BL Lacs at a few tens of GHz) is not Doppler shifted to such high frequencies.

At centimeter wavelengths with the resolution of the observations presented here, detailed interpretation of the polarization properties of the sample are not possible, as the effects of Faraday rotation and depolarization and jet bending complicate the interpretation. However the results are consistent with the canonical jet-in-shock model (e.g. Blandford & Konigl, 1979) If we consider the emission detected in the WLRG to be jet material, the comparatively unpolarized cores of the WLRG in comparison to the BL Lacs could arise either by Faraday depolarization by a surrounding dense magneto-ionic medium (e.g. torus) or by the dominance of a single Doppler–boosted shock structure in the BL Lacs. If the polarized emission comes from a variety of structures, or from the general jet material, we must favour Faraday depolarization of the WLRG to explain the difference in polarization properties. A further possibility is that the emission detected in the WLRG is not parsec-scale jet material as is it is for the BL Lacs: indeed, as mentioned above, the WLRG contain a number of known compact symmetric objects. The emission from these objects come from a variety of structures, including hotspots and any lobes, and in these cases the lack of polarization is most likely to be caused by beam depolarization.

Using the Rosat All-Sky Survey and the data presented in this paper, we suggest the following 5 sources contain AGN very close to the line of sight:
B 0149+710 has a RASS detection, high %Pradio and flat $`\alpha _{43}^8`$; it has a relatively low Ca II break contrast, and was considered a candidate BL Lac in MBIS (see Sect. 4.2)
B 1144+352 too was considered a candidate
BL Lac in MBIS, and has a RASS detection, as well as observed superluminal motion (Giovannini et al 1999);
B 1241+735 is a core-jet source (Augusto et al. 1998) has a very high %Pradio and flat $`\alpha _{43}^8`$
B 1755+626 has a high %Pradio and flat $`\alpha _{43}^8`$
B 2320+203 has a RASS detection and a high %Pradio and flat $`\alpha _{43}^8`$
These sources are potentially ‘hidden’ BL Lacs: those which are not detected by the measurement of the Ca II break, because their non-thermal continuum is swamped by starlight. These sources are shaded in the lower panels of Figs. 2, 4 and 6. These sources have similar $`\alpha _\mathrm{x}^\mathrm{o}`$ to the BL Lacs, but steeper radio to optical spectra.

The other two RASS detections, namely
B 0055+300 and B 0733+597 are also candidates of beamed AGN. B 0055+300 (NGC315) is a giant FRI, with an asymmetric two-sided jet and prominent core (the reason the source was included in the 200mJy sample). Due to the core brightness Venturi et al. (1993) argued the jet was highly relativistic. VLBI observations (Cotton et al. 1999) indicate Doppler favoritism as the cause of the brightness asymmetry on small scale and argue the jet is aligned at 35 to the line of sight. B 0733+597 shows a core-jet structure with a faint counter-jet to the south on VLBI scales (Taylor et al. 1994).

One hybrid (B 1646+499) was detected in the RASS, but unfortunately we have no high frequency radio data for this source. However in MBIS it was relatively strongly polarized at 8.4 GHz (1%). The other hybrid (B 0125+487) was also strongly polarized at 8.4 GHz (1.9% in MBIS, 3.4% here) and had a slightly rising $`\alpha _8^{43}`$ spectrum.

From the steep $`\alpha _{43}^8`$, we suggest that B 0035+227, B 0116+319, B 1217+295 and B 1558+595 are likely not to be highly boosted objects, and may, like B 0116+319, turn out to be CSOs. B 0729+562 is intriguing because it too has a steep $`\alpha _{43}^8`$, but has apparently shown variations at 1.4 GHz.

In summary, the steeper $`\alpha _{43}^8`$ and lower radio polarizations of the WLRG as a population as a whole when compared to the BL Lacs can be explained if the WLRG are, on average, at larger angles to the line of sight. The fact that WLRG with radio polarization $`>`$ 1% were found to have flatter $`\alpha _{43}^8`$, can therefore be interpreted as identifying a sub-sample of WLRG closest to the line of sight. The high incidence of X-ray detections in this sub-sample supports this claim. We suggest that around a quarter of the WLRG in the sample are these ‘hidden’ BL Lacs. A similar number of sources may well turn out to be compact objects which are not highly relativistically boosted, but whose spectra is relatively flat at 1.4–5 GHz, as synchrotron losses do not yet dominate the sources. These WLRG may not be so directly related to the BL Lacs in the sample, and this should be borne in mind in further statistical studies. The remaining half of the sources we speculate to be predominantly core-dominated FRI-like sources, but which are not so close to the line of sight to be considered ‘hidden BL Lacs’.

## 7 Conclusions

We have shown that the radio and radio–optical spectra are consistent with the ‘candidate’ BL Lacs of MBIS (revised definition in Sect. 4.2 for compatibility with other workers) being genuine
BL Lacs. However, the percentage radio polarization may indicate some slight differences between these groups. In particular:

* The spectral indices at high radio frequencies indicate that the BL Lacs and candidate BL Lacs are indistinguishable, and that the sample of WLRG as a whole is statistically distinct from the BL Lacs in this regime.
* The candidate BL Lacs do however show a
marginally steeper radio–optical spectra than the known BL Lacs. This is consistent with them being starlight–diluted BL Lacs in a sample limited in both optical and radio flux density.
* The candidate BL Lacs show a somewhat smaller polarization at radio wavelengths than the known BL Lacs. This could indicate they are slightly further from the line of sight, or that (possibly) they have a greater Faraday depth of depolarising medium.

The WLRG population of the 200 mJy sample is composed primarily of objects dominated by relativistically boosted cores and jets, which are probably closely related to the BL Lacs, as well as objects which just creep into the flat–spectrum sample with $`\alpha _5^{1.4}<0.5`$, but whose spectra steepen more rapidly above 5 GHz. We confirm the result of MBIS that the BL Lacs have higher radio polarization cores compared to the WLRG, consistent with a simple interpretation as the WLRG being, on average, further from the line of sight. We also show that WLRG with highly polarized cores have flatter high frequency radio spectra, and suggest that these are the WLRG closest to the line of sight.

Within the WLRG population, we identify five objects which we believe to be strongly relativistically boosted. These objects are candidates for ‘hidden BL Lacs’: i.e. those objects physically identical to BL Lacs, at similar angles to the line of sight, but whose intrinsic power relative to their host galaxy makes them undetected as BL Lacs in the optical regime.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Greg Taylor and Michael Rupen for help with the VLA scheduling. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This research was supported by the European Commission, TMR Programmme, Research Network Contract ERBFMRXCT96-0034 ‘CERES’.