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# Bi-metric Gravity and “Dark Matter”

## 1 Introduction

The presence of dark matter in the universe has been invoked to explain a number of phenomena, the rotation curves of galaxies- the apparent mass of galactic clusters and the observed expansion of the universe. Many attempts to detect this conjectured matter are under way but at the moment there is no direct observation of it. In this paper we present a model with a modified version of gravity that can accommodate these points in a relatively straightforward way. It does so without the necessity of postulating dark matter. The theory, which is geometrical in character, is perfectly covariant, locally Lorentz invariant and satisfies the Equivalence Principle. It also satisfies all the tests of General Relativity on the scales at which they have been carried out.

The theory is a bi-metric theory. Such theories have a long history  and have recently been used as a way of realising Variable Speed of Light (VSL) theories -. An earlier incomplete version of the theory presented here was motivated in this way . Bi-metric theories ran into difficulties when, as then formulated, they appeared to be inconsistent with the tests of General Relativity . However the theory proposed here does meet all those tests . Of course VSL is built into bi-metric theories. This will be important in applying the model to early universe studies. However in this paper we concentrate on those implications of our theory for the gravitational interaction of matter that provide an explanation of the current state of the universe without recourse to dark matter.

Our proposal is to introduce into the space-time manifold, two vierbein bundles. Each bundle supports its own metric. One is associated with matter and the other with (underlying) gravity. The matter vierbein can be strained and scaled relative to the gravitational vierbein. The dynamics of the theory includes this straining and scaling as dynamical degrees of freedom. The justification for introducing these new effects is ultimately in the results that emerge. However if dark matter is not present some modification of gravity or dynamics is essential. We choose to modify gravity in a way that permits the introduction of a galactic scale, something that is impossible with standard General Relativity.

The equations of motion are obtained from an action comprising three parts, a gravitational term $`I_G`$, of the standard curvature form, a matter term $`I_M`$, of the standard form based on the matter metric, and a linking action $`I_L`$, that depends on the variables that determine the relationship between the two vierbein bundles. The full action, $`I`$, is the sum of all three terms,

$$I=I_G+I_L+I_M.$$
(1)
Each term has its own gravitational coupling constant with the dimensions of Newton’s constant, $`G_N`$ . In developing the theory we show how these different constants are related to one another and to Newton’s constant.

## 2 General Structure

The geometrical character of the theory is clearly revealed by its formulation in the vierbein formalism. The local Lorentz invariance in both the gravitational and matter vierbein frame is explicit throughout as a gauge invariance. We introduce a vierbein bundle appropriate to gravity, $`\{e_{\mu a}\}`$, with the associated metric

$$g_{\mu \nu }=e_{\mu a}e_\nu ^a,$$
(2)
where raising and lowering of $`a`$-indices is carried out with the standard Lorentz metric $`\eta _{ab}=\{1,1,1,1\}`$ . The inverse vierbein is $`\{e^{a\mu }\}`$ so that

$$e_{\mu a}e^{a\nu }=\delta _\mu ^\nu ,e^{a\mu }e_{\mu b}=\delta _b^a,$$
(3)
and

$$g^{\mu \nu }=e^{a\mu }e_a^\nu .$$
(4)
The vierbein associated with matter is $`\{\overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}}\}`$ and the raising and lowering of $`\overline{a}`$-indices is by means of the Lorentz metric, $`\eta _{\overline{a}\overline{b}}=\{1,1,1,1\}`$ . The associated metric is

$$\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }=\overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}}\overline{e}_\nu ^{\overline{a}}.$$
(5)
The two vierbein bundles are related by a local linear transformation

$$\overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}}=e_{\mu a}M_{\overline{a}}^ae^\varphi ,$$
(6)
where the matrix $`M`$ is an element of $`SL(4,R)`$ and the local scaling is introduced through the factor $`e^\varphi `$ . The determinants associated with the volume elements of the bundles are $`J`$ and $`\overline{J}`$ where

$$J=det\{e_\mu ^a\},\text{and}\overline{J}=det\{\overline{e}_\mu ^{\overline{a}}\}.$$
(7)
We have therefore $`\overline{J}=Je^{4\varphi }`$ . We denote the inverse matrix by $`M_a^{\overline{a}}`$ so that

$$M_{\overline{a}}^aM_b^{\overline{a}}=\delta _b^a,M_a^{\overline{a}}M_{\overline{b}}^a=\delta _{\overline{b}}^{\overline{a}}.$$
(8)
The vierbein connections and associated coordinate connections are defined so that the vierbeins are covariantly constant in the appropriate way.

$$D_\mu e_{\nu a}=_\mu e_{\nu a}+\omega _{\mu a}^be_{\nu b}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu }^\lambda e_{\lambda a}=0,$$
(9)
and

$$\overline{D}_\mu \overline{e}_{\nu \overline{a}}=_\mu \overline{e}_{\nu \overline{a}}+\overline{\omega }_{\mu \overline{a}}^{\overline{b}}\overline{e}_{\nu \overline{b}}\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{\mu \nu }^\lambda \overline{e}_{\lambda \overline{a}}=0.$$
(10)
The requirement that $`\eta _{ab}`$ and $`\eta _{\overline{a}\overline{b}}`$ be covariantly constant implies that $`\omega _{\mu ab}=\omega _{\mu ba}`$ and $`\overline{\omega }_{\mu \overline{a}\overline{b}}=\overline{\omega }_{\mu \overline{b}\overline{a}}`$ .

It is convenient to define a covariant derivative of $`M`$ that includes both the right and left vierbein connections,

$$D_\mu M_{\overline{a}}^a=_\mu M_{\overline{a}}^a+\omega _{\mu b}^aM_{\overline{a}}^bM_{\overline{b}}^a\overline{\omega }_{\mu \overline{a}}^{\overline{b}}.$$
(11)
However further differentiation requires the coordinate connection, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu }^\lambda `$ . The covariant deriviative $`\overline{D}_\mu `$ can be defined and extended in a similar way. Its effect on $`M`$ is the same as that of $`D_\mu `$ but a second differentiation must use the coordinate connection $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{\mu \nu }^\lambda `$ .

Gravitational curvature tensors appropriate to each of the bundles are defined so that

$$[D_\mu ^L,D_\nu ^L]V_a=R_{ab\mu \nu }V^b,$$
(12)
and

$$[D_\mu ^R,D_\nu ^R]V_{\overline{a}}=\overline{R}_{\overline{a}\overline{b}\mu \nu }V^{\overline{b}},$$
(13)
where $`D_\mu ^L`$ includes the left vierbein connection field, $`\omega _{\mu ab}`$ but not the coordinate connection, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu }^\lambda `$ . Similarly $`D_\mu ^R`$ includes the only the right vierbein connection, $`\overline{\omega }_{\mu \overline{a}\overline{b}}`$ . We have then

$$R_{ab\mu \nu }=_\mu \omega _{\nu ab}_\nu \omega _{\mu ab}+\omega _{\mu a}^c\omega _{\nu cb}\omega _{\nu a}^c\omega _{\mu cb},$$
(14)
with a similar definition for $`\overline{R}_{\overline{a}\overline{b}\mu \nu }`$ . It follows that

$$[D_\mu ,D_\nu ]M_{\overline{a}}^a=R_{b\mu \nu }^aM_{\overline{a}}^bM_{\overline{b}}^a\overline{R}_{\overline{a}\mu \nu }^{\overline{b}}2C_{\mu \nu }^\lambda D_\lambda M_{\overline{a}}^a,$$
(15)
where

$$C_{\mu \nu }^\lambda =\frac{1}{2}\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu }^\lambda \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\nu \mu }^\lambda \right).$$
(16)
The quantity $`C_{\mu \nu }^\lambda `$ is the torsion tensor in the coordinate basis. It is not in general zero.

## 3 Gravitational Action

The gravitational action has the standard form

$$I_G=\frac{1}{16\pi G}d^4xJR,$$
(17)
where

$$R=e^{a\mu }e^{b\nu }R_{ab\mu \nu },$$
(18)
and $`G`$ is a coupling with the dimensions of Newton’s constant, $`G_N`$ . The vierbeins and the connections are treated as independent variables. If we vary the former then

$$\delta I_G=\frac{1}{8\pi G}d^4xJ\delta e_{\sigma c}\left(e^{c\mu }R_\mu ^\sigma \frac{1}{2}e^{c\sigma }R\right).$$
(19)
The variation of the vierbein connection yields

$$\delta I_G=\frac{1}{16\pi G}d^4xJe^{a\mu }e^{b\nu }\left(D_\mu ^L\delta \omega _{\nu ab}D_\nu ^L\delta \omega _{\mu ab}\right).$$
(20)
Switching to the full covariant derivative we get

$$\delta I_G=\frac{1}{16\pi G}d^4xJe^{a\mu }e^{b\nu }\left(D_\mu \delta \omega _{\nu ab}D_\nu \delta \omega _{\mu ab}+2C_{\mu \nu }^\lambda \delta \omega _{\lambda ab}\right).$$
(21)
Using the result

$$JD_\mu V^\mu =_\mu (JV^\mu )+2JC_{\lambda \mu }^\lambda V^\mu .$$
(22)
we can integrate by parts and obtain finally

$$\delta I_G=\frac{1}{8\pi G}d^4xJe^{a\mu }e^{b\nu }\left(C_{\lambda \mu }^\lambda \delta _\nu ^\sigma C_{\lambda \nu }^\lambda \delta _\mu ^\sigma +C_{\mu \nu }^\sigma \right)\delta \omega _{\sigma ab}.$$
(23)
If there is no other interaction in the theory we can deduce from the vanishing of these variations that $`C_{\mu \nu }^\lambda =0`$, and

$$R_\mu ^\sigma \frac{1}{2}\delta _\mu ^\sigma R=0,$$

the standard equations for matterless gravity.

## 4 Linking Action

Proposals for constructing an action for the linear transformation relating the bundles have involved parametrizing it in terms of a vector or scalar field . Our proposal treats all the degrees of freedom inherent in the transformation. This is crucial for the structure of the theory.

Because scaling commutes with the other elements of the group of linear transformations, it can be treated separately. The Lagrangian for $`\varphi `$ can be chosen to be proportional to $`g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi `$ . The remaining degrees of freedom are represented by the matrix $`M`$ which lies in the non-linear manifold $`SL(4,R)`$ . A natural way of constructung a Lagrangian for such a theory is to invoke the mechanism of the non-linear sigma model and express it as a quadratic form in the derivatives $`(D_\mu M)M^1`$ with the appropriate structure. The use of the covariant derivative guarantees the local Lorentz gauge invariance relative to both bundles and the presence of $`M^1`$ guarantees that the derivative is a proper element of the tangent space to the manifold $`SL(4,R)`$ . We take as our action

$$I_L=\frac{1}{16\pi F}d^4xJg^{\mu \nu }\text{Tr}(j_\mu j_\nu )+\frac{1}{16\pi F^{}}d^4xJg^{\mu \nu }(_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi ),$$
(24)
where $`F`$ and $`F^{}`$ are new gravitational constants with the same physical dimensions as $`G`$ . The matrix valued current $`j_\mu `$ is given by

$$j_\mu =(D_\mu M)M^1,$$
(25)
or more explicitly

$$j_\mu ^{ab}=(D_\mu M_{\overline{b}}^a)M^{\overline{b}b}.$$
(26)
It is also convenient to define an alternative version of the current, appropriate to the barred vierbein bundle, $`\overline{j}_\mu ^{\overline{a}\overline{b}}`$, as

$$\overline{j}_\mu ^{\overline{a}\overline{b}}=\left(M^1D_\mu M\right)^{\overline{a}\overline{b}}=M_a^{\overline{a}}D_\mu M^{a\overline{b}}.$$
(27)
We also include in $`I_L`$ “mass” terms of the form

$$\frac{1}{16\pi F}d^4xJ\frac{m^2}{4}\left(M_{\overline{a}}^aM_a^{\overline{a}}+M_{\overline{a}}^aM_a^{\overline{a}}\gamma \right)\frac{1}{16\pi F^{}}d^4xJm^2\varphi ^2.$$
(28)
For simplicity we have chosen the mass parameter $`m`$ to be the same in both these these additional terms. For the choice $`\gamma =8`$, the action vanishes when $`M`$ represents a Lorentz transformation. Departures from this value introduce a cosmological constant term in the action. By construction these additional terms clearly maintain local Lorentz invariance in both vierbein bundles. The mass terms are crucial for the effectiveness of the theory because we identify the galactic distance scale with $`m^1`$ . For effects on a scale much less than this therefore $`m`$ will be viewed as a small parameter that can be neglected in certain circumstances.

We treat the vierbein, which enters through $`g^{\mu \nu }`$, the matrix, $`M`$, and the connections $`\omega _{\mu ab}`$ and $`\overline{\omega }_{\mu \overline{a}\overline{b}}`$ as independent variables. The result for the linking action from the vierbein variation is,

$`\delta I_L={\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi F}}{\displaystyle d^4xJ\delta e_{\sigma c}\left(e^{c\nu }g^{\sigma \mu }\frac{1}{2}e^{c\sigma }g^{\mu \nu }\right)\text{Tr}(j_\mu j_\nu )}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi F}}{\displaystyle d^4xJ\delta e_{\sigma c}e^{c\sigma }\frac{m^2}{8}\left(M_{\overline{a}}^aM_a^{\overline{a}}+M_a^{\overline{a}}M_{\overline{a}}^a\gamma \right)}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi F^{}}}{\displaystyle d^4xJ\delta e_{\sigma c}\left(e^{c\nu }g^{\sigma \mu }\frac{1}{2}e^{c\sigma }g^{\mu \nu }\right)_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi }`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi F^{}}}{\displaystyle d^4xJ\delta e_{\sigma c}e^{c\sigma }\frac{m^2}{2}\varphi ^2}.`$ (29)
From the left vierbein connection we have

$$\delta I_L=\frac{1}{8\pi F}d^4xJ\delta \omega _{\mu ab}j^{\mu ba},$$
(30)
and from the right vierbein connection

$$\delta I_L=\frac{1}{8\pi F}d^4xJ\delta \overline{\omega }_{\mu \overline{a}\overline{b}}\overline{j}^{\mu \overline{b}\overline{a}}.$$
(31)
On varying the matrix $`M`$ we obtain

$$\delta I_L=\frac{1}{8\pi F}d^4xJ(\delta MM^1)^{ab}\left[D_\mu j_{ba}^\mu 2C_{\lambda \mu }^\lambda j_{ba}^\mu +\frac{m^2}{4}\left(M_a^{\overline{c}}M_{b\overline{c}}M_a^{\overline{c}}M_{\overline{c}b}\right)\right],$$
(32)
where the square brackets $`[\mathrm{}]`$ indicate the traceless version of the quantity contained within them. The quantity $`\delta MM^1`$, being an arbitrary element of the $`SL(4,R)`$ Lie algebra, is sufficiently general to identify the other factor in the integrand. Finally, on varying $`\varphi `$, we have

$$\delta I_L=\frac{1}{8\pi F^{}}d^4xJ\delta \varphi \left(g^{\mu \nu }\left(D_\nu _\mu \varphi 2C_{\lambda \nu }^\lambda _\mu \varphi \right)+m^2\varphi \right).$$
(33)
## 5 Matter Action

We assume that matter is propagated in the vierbein background $`\{\overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}}\}`$ . This seems a consistent approach since it implies that matter behaves in a conventional way in relation to the gravitational field it experiences. In particular the Equivalence Principle is satisfied. However the theory does change the relationship of this observed gravitational field to the distribution of matter density. We have

$$\delta I_M=\frac{1}{2}d^4x\overline{J}\delta \overline{g}_{\mu \nu }\overline{T}^{\mu \nu },$$
(34)
where $`\overline{T}^{\mu \nu }=\overline{T}^{\nu \mu }`$ is the symmetric energy momentum tensor for matter. Since

$$\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }=\overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}}\overline{e}_\nu ^{\overline{a}},$$
(35)
it follows that

$$\delta I_M=d^4x\overline{J}\delta \overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}}\overline{e}_\nu ^{\overline{a}}\overline{T}^{\mu \nu }.$$
(36)
However

$$\delta \overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}}=\delta e_{\mu a}M_{\overline{a}}^ae^\varphi +e_{\mu a}\delta M_{\overline{a}}^ae^\varphi +\delta \varphi \overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}},$$
(37)
so the variation of the matter action takes the form

$$\delta I_M=d^4xJe^{4\varphi }\left(\delta e_{\sigma c}T^{\sigma c}+\text{Tr}(\delta MM^1U)+\delta \varphi \overline{T}\right).$$
(38)
where $`\overline{T}=\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }\overline{T}^{\mu \nu }`$,

$$U^{ba}=e_\mu ^aM_{\overline{a}}^b\overline{e}_\nu ^{\overline{a}}\overline{T}^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{4}\eta ^{ab}\overline{T},$$
(39)
and

$$T^{\sigma c}=M_{\overline{a}}^c\overline{e}_\nu ^{\overline{a}}\overline{T}^{\sigma \nu },$$
(40)
$$T_\lambda ^\sigma =e_{\lambda c}T^{\sigma c}=\overline{e}_{\lambda \overline{a}}\overline{e}_\nu ^{\overline{a}}\overline{T}^{\sigma \nu }=\overline{T}^{\sigma \nu }\overline{g}_{\lambda \nu }.$$
(41)
If we adopt the convention that barred quantities, that is those appropriate to the gravitational background of the matter, have spatial indices raised and lowered with the barred metric we can define

$$\overline{T}_\lambda ^\sigma =\overline{T}^{\sigma \nu }\overline{g}_{\lambda \nu }.$$
(42)
Hence we get the simple seeming result

$$T_\lambda ^\sigma =\overline{T}_\lambda ^\sigma .$$
(43)
However it is important to recall that

$$T^{\sigma \tau }=T_\lambda ^\sigma g^{\lambda \tau }\overline{T}^{\sigma \tau }.$$
(44)
In fact $`T^{\sigma \tau }`$ is not necessecarily symmetric. This does not cause any difficulty. Note that $`T=T_\mu ^\mu =\overline{T}`$ .

## 6 Equations of Motion

We obtain the equations of motion by requiring that the variation of the total action is zero. The result is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}\left(R_\rho ^\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta _\rho ^\sigma R\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi F}}\left(\text{Tr}(j^\sigma j_\mu ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta _\mu ^\sigma \text{Tr}(j^\lambda j_\lambda )\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi F}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{8}}\delta _\lambda ^\sigma \left(M_{\overline{a}}^aM_a^{\overline{a}}+M_a^{\overline{a}}M_{\overline{a}}^a\gamma \right)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi F^{}}}(g^{\sigma \nu }_\nu \varphi _\mu \varphi ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta _\mu ^\sigma (g^{\lambda \nu }_\lambda \varphi _\nu \varphi )){\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi F^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{2}}\delta ^\sigma _\lambda \varphi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`e^{4\varphi }\overline{T}_\rho ^\sigma .`$ (45)
Eq(45) is a generalization of the standard equation of General Relativity. The new straining degrees of freedom are controlled by the following equation,

$$\frac{1}{8\pi F}\left(D_\mu j_{ba}^\mu 2C_{\lambda \mu }^\lambda j_{ba}^\mu +\frac{m^2}{4}\left[M_a^{\overline{c}}M_{b\overline{c}}M_a^{\overline{c}}M_{\overline{c}b}\right]\right)+e^{4\varphi }U^{ba}=0.$$
(46)
The generalization of the “no torsion” rule in General Relativity is represented by the next two equations,

$$j^{\sigma [b,a]}=\frac{F}{G}e^{a\mu }e^{b\nu }\left(C_{\lambda \mu }^\lambda \delta _\nu ^\sigma C_{\lambda \nu }^\lambda \delta _\mu ^\sigma +C_{\mu \nu }^\sigma \right).$$
(47)
$$\overline{j}_\mu ^{[\overline{b},\overline{a}]}=0.$$
(48)
Finally the local expansion is controlled by

$$\frac{1}{8\pi F^{}}\left(g^{\mu \nu }\left(D_\nu _\mu \varphi 2C_{\lambda \nu }^\lambda _\mu \varphi \right)+m^2\varphi \right)+e^{4\varphi }\overline{T}=0.$$
(49)
Eq(45) implies that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}R_\mu ^\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi F}}\text{Tr}(j^\sigma j_\mu ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi F^{}}}g^{\sigma \nu }_\nu \varphi _\mu \varphi `$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi F}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{8}}\delta _\lambda ^\sigma \left(M_{\overline{a}}^aM_a^{\overline{a}}+M_a^{\overline{a}}M_{\overline{a}}^a\gamma \right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi F^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{2}}\delta _\lambda ^\sigma \varphi ^2=e^{4\varphi }\left(\overline{T}_\mu ^\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta _\mu ^\sigma \overline{T}\right).`$ (50)
Although rather complex these equations are surprisingly susceptible of analysis as we show below.

## 7 Bianchi Identity

Just as in standard General Relativity it is necessary to check that the theory satisfies the integrability conditions associated with the Bianchi identity. In the presence of torsion this is changed to the following

$$R_{\lambda \tau \mu \nu ;\sigma }+R_{\lambda \tau \nu \sigma ;\mu }+R_{\lambda \tau \sigma \mu ;\nu }=2\left(R_{\lambda \tau \rho \mu }C_{\nu \sigma }^\rho +R_{\lambda \tau \rho \nu }C_{\sigma \mu }^\rho +R_{\lambda \tau \rho \sigma }C_{\mu \nu }^\rho \right),$$
(51)
where $`;\mu `$ indicates the covariant derivative $`D_\mu `$ . In the contracted version it becomes

$$\left(R_\sigma ^\mu \frac{1}{2}\delta _\sigma ^\mu R\right)_{;\mu }=R_{\rho \sigma }^{\mu \nu }C_{\mu \nu }^\rho +2R_\rho ^\mu C_{\sigma \mu }^\rho .$$
(52)
If we take the covariant divergence of the left side of eq(45) and make use of the equations of motion together with the identity

$$j_\mu ^{ab}=e^{a\nu }\left(\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{\mu \nu }^\lambda \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu }^\lambda \right)e_\lambda ^b\eta ^{ab}_\mu \varphi ,$$
(53)
we obtain the result

$$\overline{D}_\sigma \overline{T}_\lambda ^\sigma =2\overline{C}_{\sigma \lambda }^\sigma \overline{T}2\overline{C}_{\sigma \lambda }^\tau \overline{T}_\tau ^\sigma .$$
(54)
It is easily checked that this is equivalent to the standard conservation law

$$D_\sigma ^{(\overline{g})}\overline{T}_\lambda ^\sigma =0,$$
(55)
where $`D_\sigma ^{(\overline{g})}`$ is the covariant derivative formed from the metric connection arising from $`\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }`$ .

## 8 Connection Structure

In standard General Relativity the assumption that matter couples to gravity only through the metric means that torsion plays no role in the theory. In the theory presented here we make the same assumption about matter. However because of the extra complexity of the theoretical structure, torsion is in general not zero. Nevertheless the equations of motion do permit the connection structure to be elucidated in a straightforward way.

The starting point of the analysis is eq(48) which reveals that the antisymmetric part of $`\overline{j}_{\mu \overline{a}\overline{b}}`$ vanishes. It allows us to express $`\overline{\omega }_{\mu \overline{a}\overline{b}}`$ in terms of the other dynamical variables and hence eliminate it from the equations of motion.

We now express $`j_{\mu ab}`$ in terms of the symmetric part of $`\overline{j}_{\mu \overline{a}\overline{b}}`$ as follows

$$j_{\mu ab}=M_a^{\overline{a}}\overline{j}_{\mu \overline{a}\overline{b}}M_b^{\overline{b}}=M_a^{\overline{a}}\overline{j}_{\mu \{\overline{a},\overline{b}\}}M_b^{\overline{b}}.$$
(56)
We can write this more explicitly in the form

$$j_{\mu ab}=\frac{1}{2}M_a^{\overline{a}}\left(M_{\overline{a}}^c_\mu M_{c\overline{b}}+M_{\overline{a}}^c\omega _{\mu c}^dM_{d\overline{b}}+M_{\overline{b}}^c_\mu M_{c\overline{a}}+M_{\overline{b}}^c\omega _{\mu c}^dM_{d\overline{a}}\right)M_b^{\overline{b}},$$
(57)
which shows that $`j_{\mu ab}`$ is a linear function of $`\omega _{\mu ab}`$ .

The torsion tensor is also a linear function of $`\omega _{\mu ab}`$ . The covariant constancy of $`e_{\mu a}`$ implies that

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu }^\lambda =e^{a\lambda }\left(_\mu e_{\nu a}+\omega _{\mu a}^be_{\nu b}\right).$$
(58)
Hence

$$C_{\mu \nu }^\lambda =\frac{1}{2}e^{a\lambda }\left(_\mu e_{\nu a}+\omega _{\mu a}^be_{\nu b}_\nu e_{\mu a}\omega _{\nu a}^be_{\mu b}\right).$$
(59)
If we define

$$C_{\lambda \mu \nu }=g_{\lambda \sigma }C_{\mu \nu }^\sigma ,$$
(60)
and

$$\omega _{\mu \lambda \nu }=e_\lambda ^ae_\nu ^b\omega _{\mu ab},$$
(61)
then we obtain $`\omega _{\mu ab}`$ as a linear function of the torsion,

$$\omega _{\mu \lambda \nu }=C_{\lambda \mu \nu }C_{\nu \mu \lambda }+C_{\mu \lambda \nu }+\widehat{\omega }_{\mu \lambda \nu },$$
(62)
where $`\widehat{\omega }_{\mu \lambda \nu }`$ is the metric version of $`\omega _{\mu \lambda \nu }`$ and is given by

$$\widehat{\omega }_{\mu \lambda \nu }=\frac{1}{2}\left(e_\nu ^a_\mu e_{\lambda a}e_\lambda ^a_\mu e_{\nu a}+_\nu g_{\lambda \mu }_\lambda g_{\nu \mu }\right).$$
(63)
We note that eq(47) relates the torsion tensor $`C_{\mu \nu }^\lambda `$ linearly to $`j_{\mu ab}`$ .

$$C_{\sigma \mu \nu }+C_{\lambda \mu }^\lambda g_{\nu \sigma }C_{\lambda \nu }^\lambda g_{\mu \sigma }=X_{\sigma \mu \nu },$$
(64)
where

$$X_{\sigma \mu \nu }=\frac{G}{F}j_{\sigma [\mu ,\nu ]},$$
(65)
and

$$j_{\sigma \mu \nu }=e_\mu ^ae_\nu ^bj_{\sigma ab}.$$
(66)
It follows that

$$C_{\sigma \mu \nu }=X_{\sigma \mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}X_{\lambda \mu }^\lambda g_{\nu \sigma }+\frac{1}{2}X_{\lambda \nu }^\lambda g_{\mu \sigma }.$$
(67)
Finally we have the linear relation

$$\omega _{\mu \lambda \nu }=X_{\lambda \mu \nu }+X_{\nu \mu \lambda }X_{\mu \lambda \nu }X_{\tau \lambda }^\tau g_{\mu \nu }+X_{\tau \nu }^\tau g_{\mu \lambda }+\widehat{\omega }_{\mu \lambda \nu },$$
(68)
that determines $`\omega _{\mu ab}`$ in terms of the other dynamical variables.

For future reference and to show that the above equation can take a simple form in special cases we compute $`j_{\lambda ab}`$ when the matrix $`M`$ takes a diagonal form, namely

$$M_{\overline{a}}^a=\mathrm{\Lambda }_a\delta _{\overline{a}}^a\text{and}M_a^{\overline{a}}=\mathrm{\Lambda }_a^1\delta _a^{\overline{a}}.$$
(69)
We enforce an obvious correspondence between the values of the symbols $`a`$ and $`\overline{a}`$ to give meaning to the $`\delta `$ symbols. We can compute $`j_{\mu ab}`$ from eq(57) to obtain

$$j_{\lambda ab}=\frac{_\lambda \mathrm{\Lambda }_a}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_a}\eta _{ab}+\frac{1}{2}\omega _{\lambda ab}\left(1\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_a^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_b^2}\right),$$
(70)
with the simple result

$$j_{\lambda [a,b]}=\frac{1}{4}\omega _{\lambda ab}\left(2\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_a^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_b^2}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_b^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_a^2}\right).$$
(71)
Used in conjunction with eq(68) this leads to an easy evaluation of the vierbein connection.

## 9 Weak Field Limit

In order to apply it to planetary motion, galaxies and galactic clusters it is appropriate to examine the theory in the limit of weak gravitational fields. Since we are considering relatively local objects in an effectively flat background we will choose the parameter $`\gamma =8`$ in order to set the cosmological constant to zero.

The weak field limit has the form

$$e_{\mu a}=e_{\mu a}^{(0)}+h_{\mu a},$$
(72)
where

$$e_{\mu a}^{(0)}e_\nu ^{(0)a}=\eta _{\mu \nu },$$
(73)
Similarly we can set

$$\overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}}=\overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}}^{(0)}+\overline{h}_{\mu \overline{a}},$$
(74)
where

$$\overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}}^{(0)}\overline{e}_\nu ^{(0)\overline{a}}=\eta _{\mu \nu }.$$
(75)
The connections $`\omega _{\mu ab}`$, $`\overline{\omega }_{\mu \overline{a}\overline{b}}`$ and the scaling field $`\varphi `$ are first order quantities. The matrix $`M`$ has the form

$$M_{\overline{a}}^a=M_{\overline{a}}^{(0)a}+m_{\overline{a}}^a,$$
(76)
where $`M^{(0)}`$ is a constant Lorentz transformation. We have then

$$M_a^{(0)\overline{a}}=M_a^{(0)\overline{a}}.$$
(77)
We can use $`M^{(0)}`$ and its inverse and $`e^{(0)}`$ and $`\overline{e}^{(0)}`$ to convert superfixes and suffixes between the various bases. For example we have

$$m_b^a=m_{\overline{a}}^aM_b^{(0)\overline{a}}.$$
(78)
The requirement that $`detM=1`$ implies that

$$m_a^a=m_{\overline{a}}^{\overline{a}}=m_\mu ^\mu =0.$$
(79)
The relationship between $`e`$ and $`\overline{e}`$ implies that

$$\overline{h}_{\mu \overline{a}}=h_{\mu \overline{a}}+m_{\mu \overline{a}}+\varphi \overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}}^{(0)},$$
(80)
or

$$\overline{h}_{\mu \nu }=h_{\mu \nu }+m_{\mu \nu }+\varphi \eta _{\mu \nu },$$
(81)
together with corresponding equations in other bases.

To lowest order

$$R_{ab\mu \nu }=_\mu \omega _{\nu ab}_\nu \omega _{\mu ab}.$$
(82)
Hence

$$R_\mu ^\sigma =e^{(0)a\sigma }e^{(0)b\nu }R_{ab\mu \nu },$$
(83)
so that

$$R_\mu ^\sigma =_\mu \omega _\nu ^{\sigma \nu }_\nu \omega _\mu ^{\sigma \nu },$$
(84)
and

$$R=2_\mu \omega _\nu ^{\mu \nu }.$$
(85)
Again in the lowest order approximation

$$j_{\mu ab}=_\mu m_{ab}+\omega _{\mu ab}\overline{\omega }_{\mu ab}.$$
(86)
If we convert to the coordinate basis we have

$$j_{\mu \lambda \tau }=_\mu m_{\lambda \tau }+\omega _{\mu \lambda \tau }\overline{\omega }_{\mu \lambda \tau }.$$
(87)
We can also evaluate $`\overline{j}_\mu `$ . In this lowest approximation it coincides with $`j_\mu `$ . From eq(47) we have

$$\overline{j}_{\mu [\lambda ,\tau ]}=j_{\mu [\lambda ,\tau ]}=0.$$
(88)
That is

$$_\sigma m_{[\lambda ,\tau ]}+\omega _{\sigma \lambda \tau }\overline{\omega }_{\sigma \lambda \tau }=0.$$
(89)
From eq(47) we see that the torsion in the gravitational vierbein bundle vanishes. Explicitly we have

$$C_{\mu \nu }^\lambda =\frac{1}{2}\left(_\mu h_\nu ^\lambda _\nu h_\mu ^\lambda +\omega _{\mu \nu }^\lambda \omega _{\nu \mu }^\lambda \right)=0.$$
(90)
Eq(46) yields

$$\eta ^{\mu \sigma }_\mu \left(_\sigma m_{\lambda \tau }+\omega _{\sigma \lambda \tau }\overline{\omega }_{\sigma \lambda \tau }\right)+m^2m_{\{\lambda ,\tau \}}=8\pi FU_{\lambda \tau },$$
(91)
where

$$U_{\lambda \tau }=\overline{T}_{\lambda \tau }\frac{1}{4}\eta _{\lambda \tau }\overline{T},$$
(92)
and we have assumed that $`\overline{T}_{\mu \nu }`$ and hence $`U_{\mu \nu }`$ is a first order quantity. Making use of eq(89) we obtain the result

$$\eta ^{\mu \sigma }_\mu _\sigma m_{\{\lambda ,\tau \}}+m^2m_{\{\lambda ,\tau \}}=8\pi F\left(\overline{T}_{\lambda \tau }\frac{1}{4}\eta _{\lambda \tau }\overline{T}\right).$$
(93)
Because we set $`\gamma =8`$ in eq(45) we obtain

$$R_{\sigma \lambda }\frac{1}{2}\eta _{\sigma \lambda }R=8\pi G\overline{T}_{\sigma \lambda }.$$
(94)
In the present approximation $`m_{[\mu ,\nu ]}`$ can be removed by gauge transformations of the form

$$\omega _{\sigma \lambda \tau }\omega _{\sigma \lambda \tau }+_\sigma \varphi _{\lambda \tau },\text{and}\overline{\omega }_{\sigma \lambda \tau }\overline{\omega }_{\sigma \lambda \tau }+_\sigma \overline{\varphi }_{\lambda \tau }.$$
(95)
We can assume therefore that in this approximation $`m_{[\mu ,\nu ]}`$ vanishes. Therefore $`m_{\mu \nu }`$ may be assumed symmetric. It satisfies

$$(^2+m^2)m_{\mu \nu }=8\pi F(\overline{T}_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{4}\eta _{\mu \nu }\overline{T}).$$
(96)
The gauge invariance referred to above means also the we are free to choose $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ to be symmetric with the result that $`\overline{h}_{\mu \nu }`$ is also symmetric. Under these circumstances we can solve eq(90) to yield

$$\omega _{\nu \lambda \mu }=_\mu h_{\nu \lambda }_\lambda h_{\nu \mu }.$$
(97)
Eq(45) now implies that

$$_\mu _\nu h_\sigma ^\nu +_\sigma _\nu h_\mu ^\nu ^2h_{\mu \sigma }_\mu _\sigma h_\nu ^\nu \eta _{\sigma \mu }(_\nu _\tau h^{\nu \tau }^2h_\nu ^\nu )=8\pi G\overline{T}_{\sigma \mu }.$$
(98)
We now refine our coordinate system by choosing the harmonic gauge.

$$g^{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu }^\lambda =0.$$
(99)
In the lowest approximation it yields

$$_\mu h_\lambda ^\mu =\frac{1}{2}_\lambda h_\mu ^\mu .$$
(100)
The equation of motion then becomes

$$^2\left(h_{\mu \sigma }\frac{1}{2}\eta _{\mu \sigma }h_\tau ^\tau \right)=8\pi G\overline{T}_{\mu \sigma },$$
(101)
or

$$^2h_{\mu \sigma }=8\pi G\left(\overline{T}_{\mu \sigma }\frac{1}{2}\eta _{\mu \sigma }\overline{T}\right).$$
(102)
The equation for $`\varphi `$ is

$$(^2+m^2)\varphi =8\pi F^{}\overline{T}.$$
(103)
To demonstrate how the theory matches up to the standard tests of General Relativity we consider its implications for phenomena on a scale such as the solar system that is much smaller than the galactic scale. For such applications we can set $`m=0`$ . We will return to the problem with the galactic scale parameter later.

By combining the above equations we find for the massless case

$$^2\overline{h}_{\mu \nu }=8\pi (G+F)\overline{T}_{\mu \nu }+8\pi \left(\frac{1}{2}G+\frac{1}{4}FF^{}\right)\eta _{\mu \nu }\overline{T}.$$
(104)
By making use of the result $`_\sigma \overline{T}_\nu ^\sigma =0`$, we can show also that

$$^2\left[_\mu \overline{h}_\nu ^\mu \xi _\nu \overline{h}_\mu ^\mu \right]=0,$$
(105)
where

$$\xi =\frac{\frac{1}{2}G+\frac{1}{4}FF^{}}{G4F^{}}.$$
(106)
Assuming then that the relevant fields are sourced by the energy momentum tensor we can maintain the condition

$$_\mu \overline{h}_\nu ^\mu \xi _\nu \overline{h}_\mu ^\mu =0.$$
(107)
For arbitrary $`F^{}`$ this gauge condition on $`\overline{h}_{\mu \nu }`$ is different from that on $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ . However the choice

$$F^{}=\frac{1}{4}F,$$
(108)
is of special interest. We have then $`\xi =\frac{1}{2}`$ . As a result $`\overline{h}_{\mu \nu }`$ satisfies the same harmonic condition as $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ .

$$_\mu \overline{h}_\nu ^\mu \frac{1}{2}_\nu \overline{h}_\mu ^\mu =0.$$
(109)
The wave equation for $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ also takes a significant form and becomes

$$^2\overline{h}_{\mu \nu }=8\pi (G+F)\left(\overline{T}_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}\eta _{\mu \nu }\overline{T}\right).$$
(110)
It follows that for this choice of $`F^{}`$ weak field gravity is related to the matter distribution exactly as in General Relativity if we set Newton’s constant $`G_N=G+F`$ . Hereafter we will assume that $`F^{}`$ has this special value and that Newton’s constant is obtained in this way from the theory.

For example in a static situation where $`^2=^2`$, $`\overline{T}_{00}=\overline{T}=\rho `$ (the density of matter) we have

$$^2\overline{h}_{00}=4\pi G_N\rho .$$
(111)
Of course we can interpret $`\overline{h}_{00}`$ as the gravitational potential experienced by a material particle. In addition the spatial part of the metric satisfies

$$^2\overline{h}_{ij}=4\pi G_N\rho \delta _{ij}.$$
(112)
This is precisely the form for the spatial metric to yield Einstein’s prediction for the deflection of light and to satisfy the time-of-flight measurements of radio signals  .

The remaining solar system scale test is the precession of the orbit of Mercury. This requires a higher order correction than the Newtonian approximation of the weak field limit. For reasons of space we do not present this calculation here but we have checked the consistency of the theory on this point by examining the asymptotic behaviour of the Schwarzschild-like solution. The result is that the refinement of the Newtonian potential that produces the precession is correctly given by the theory.

It is clear from the wave equation for $`\overline{h}_{\mu \nu }`$, eq(110), and the associated gauge condition, eq(109), that the gravitational waves emitted by a time dependent matter distribution will be exactly the same as predicted by General Relativity. The detection of these waves by ordinary matter will also be entirely conventional. It is reasonable to conclude that the observations of the slowing of a binary quasar and its conformity with the predictions of GR will be reproduced in our theory .

There are circumstances in which the bi-metric theory could show differences with General Relativity. These would occur were there to be a form of matter that coupled directly to the metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ . Such matter would act as a source for and react to the unbarred metric. In the weak field limit it would therefore behave as if $`G_N=G`$ and if mixed with other matter would imply that the Equivalence Principle did not hold. Part of our theory of ordinary matter and gravity is that such anomalous matter is not present. This is the assumption we use throughout this paper.

## 10 “Dark Matter” and the Galactic Scale

In order to apply our theory to objects of galactic or extra-galactic size we restore the “mass” parameter $`m`$ . Our hypothesis is that $`m^1`$ is a length of the order of $`30`$ kpc. Assigning such a value to $`m^1`$ achieves the purpose that the theory exhibits three regions of length scale, namely (i) 0-1 kpc in which conventional Newtonian gravity holds sway and for which the theory of the previous section is relevant, (ii) 1-100 kpc, a transition region appropriate to galactic dynamics and (iii) above 100 kpc in which Newtonian gravity with an enhanced coupling appears.

To analyse the gravitational effect of the galactic scale we set

$$\overline{h}_{\mu \nu }=h_{\mu \nu }+h_{\mu \nu }^{},$$
(113)
where

$$h_{\mu \nu }^{}=m_{\mu \nu }+\varphi \eta _{\mu \nu },$$
(114)
while $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ satisfies eq(102) $`h_{\mu \nu }^{}`$ satisfies

$$(^2+m^2)h_{\mu \nu }^{}=8\pi F\left(\overline{T}_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}\eta _{\mu \nu }\overline{T}\right).$$
(115)
Therefore while a highly localised matter distribution of mass M, at the origin yields

$$h_{00}=GM\frac{1}{r}$$
(116)
it gives rise to

$$h_{00}^{}=FM\frac{e^{mr}}{r},$$
(117)
for the remaining part of the metric. We have then

$$\overline{h}_{00}=\frac{GM}{r}\left(1+\frac{F}{G}e^{mr}\right).$$
(118)
It follows that the effective gravitational coupling for $`mr<<1`$ is $`G_N=G+F`$ while at distances beyond the galactic scale for which $`mr>>1`$, the effective coupling is $`G`$ . Our hypothesis is that $`G_N<G`$ so that gravity is weaker at short distances than at long distances. This is the basis of our explanation for “dark matter”. For this to be true we clearly must have $`F<0`$ . We set

$$F=ϵG,$$
(119)
with $`ϵ>0`$, so the above gravitational potential becomes

$$\overline{h}_{00}=\frac{G_NM}{(1ϵ)}\frac{\left(1ϵe^{mr}\right)}{r}.$$
(120)
More generally for a matter distribution $`\rho (𝐫)`$ we have

$$\overline{h}_{00}(𝐫)=d^3𝐫^{}\rho (𝐫^{})\frac{G_N}{(1ϵ)}\frac{(1ϵe^{m|𝐫𝐫^{}|})}{|𝐫𝐫^{}|}.$$
(121)
We believe that this choice of a negative sign for $`F`$ is in fact the “natural” choice and stabilises the theory against tumbling of coordinate frames  . We will pursue this analysis in a future publication. Here we explore the more immediate physical implications of our assumptions.

### 10.1 Galactic Clusters

For objects much greater than galactic size such as galactic clusters, there is ample evidence that the observed matter is insufficient to account for the gravitational potential inferred from applications of the virial theorem to the motion of galaxies in the cluster . Currently the picture of such clusters is that 5-10% of the mass is galactic in origin with a further contribution from hot gas. The bulk of the gravitational potential is accounted for by dark matter. It is also significant that a detailed analysis of clusters suggests that the dark matter distribution follows that of the visible matter . The clusters appear to be condensed versions of the local background.

The explanation of this effect is straightforward in our model. The appearance of dark matter is simply the consequence of an enhanced gravitational coupling of visible matter. The parameter $`ϵ`$ represents the dark fraction of apparent matter. On the basis of the above observations we should expect $`ϵ0.90.95`$ . Note that because our extragalactic dynamics is still Newtonian, although with an enhanced coupling, it is still possible to apply analyses of galactic clusters that rely on the virial theorem for an inverse square law of force between galaxies .

The inverse square law is also crucial for the argument relating the motion of the Local Group to optical flux due to galaxies . The close alignment of the motion of the Local Group through the CMB with the net optical flux confirms that fluctuations in the distribution of visible and dark matter are closely correlated. Disparities in the visible and dark matter distributions would tend to destroy this alignment. In our theory of course, the distribution of dark matter is identical to that of visible matter of which it is merely a reflection. There is no room for any bias between visible and dark matter fluctuations.

We will see later that the re-interpretation of dark matter as an enhancement of the Newtonian constant at large scales extends also to the dynamics of the expanding universe.

### 10.2 Galactic Rotation Curves

On a galactic scale we are concerned with the rotation curves of galaxies. The apparent asymptotic flatness of many of these curves is usually taken as the most direct evidence for dark matter -. Our explanation rests on the modification of the gravitational interaction described above. It turns out that by choosing a value for $`ϵ`$ in the range suggested by large scale dynamics it is possible, using a disk model, appropriate for certain spiral galaxies, to compute rotation curves that exhibit the features of observed rotation curves.

As an example we construct a model galaxy with a thin disk of surface density

$$\sigma (r)=\sigma _de^{a_dr}.$$
(122)
The mass of the disk is $`m_d=2\pi \sigma _d/a_d^2`$ . The gravitational potential in the plane of the galaxy is

$$\psi (r)=\frac{G_N\sigma _d}{1ϵ}d^2𝐫^{}e^{a_dr^{}}\frac{1}{|𝐫𝐫^{}|}\left(1ϵe^{m|𝐫𝐫^{}|}\right),$$
(123)
and the tangential rotational velocity, $`v`$, is given by

$$v^2=𝐫.\psi (r)=\frac{G_N\sigma _da_d}{1ϵ}d^2𝐫^{}e^{a_dr^{}}𝐫.\widehat{𝐫}^{}\frac{1}{|𝐫𝐫^{}|}\left(1ϵe^{m|𝐫𝐫^{}|}\right).$$
(124)
The galaxy NGC 3198 has a well measured rotation curve and it is accepted that a simple exponential disk model gives a good account of its luminosity distribution . We assume a mass distribution with the same exponential shape. In Fig 1 we show the resulting rotation curve where we have chosen the galaxy parameters to be $`a_d=0.38\text{kpc}^1`$ and $`m_d=2.9\times 10^{10}M_{}`$, these are quite close to the values of a previous analysis . The theory parameters are chosen to be $`ϵ=0.937`$ and $`m=0.035\text{kpc}^1`$ or $`m^1=28.6`$ kpc. We stress that these parameters are not a best fit but merely the result of eyeball exploration. However it is not easy to reduce the value of $`ϵ`$ value by much and obtain a convincing shape. It is encouraging that $`ϵ`$ does lie in the range we anticipated from our discussion of extragalactic structure.

The Fig 1 also shows the standard Newtonian curve for the assumed mass distribution. The difference between the two curves is normally attributed to dark matter. Here we achieve the same effect by means of our modified gravity theory. Fig 2 shows the extrapolation of the curve to larger radius. There is clearly a beginning of a fall-off around 90-100 kpc although the there is still substantial rotational velocity out to 400 kpc. The rotation curve becomes Newtonian but with an enhanced gravitational coupling

$$v\sqrt{\frac{GM_d}{r}}.$$
(125)
Of course the challenge to our theory is to fit all galactic rotation curves simultaneously with common values for $`m`$ and $`ϵ`$ and plausible masses and and mass distributions for the galaxies. This is no easy task since many galaxies have a more complicated structure than NGC3198 and detailed modelling will be required to determine the adequacy of our theoretical predicitions. We intend to pursue this task in the future. However one prediction of the theory does not require such a detailed attack. We predict that all galactic rotation curves will fall away in the range 100-200 kpc from the galactic centre. Measurements in this range and beyond would be a direct test of our ideas.

Our proposal of a galactic scale determining the shapes of rotation curves is in conflict with the construction of a proposed universal scaling curve for galaxies . This approach takes the optical radius of the galaxy as the significant length scale and uses a statistical approach to establish well defined rotation curves. We are proposing a model in which the ratio of the optical radius to the galactic scale is the significant quantity for establishing the shape of rotation curves. The statistical approach deployed in , which superimposes results from galaxies of different sizes, is therefore not open to us. It may well be however that the detailed modelling required to test our theory will provide an equally good description of actual galactic rotation curves. More importantly, if a common scale for the underlying structure of all galaxies were established it holds out the prospect of better distance measurements and hence the possibility of measuring the Hubble constant with more certainty.

### 10.3 Expanding Universe

Finally we wish to show that when the matter density is small as in the present epoch, the expansion of the universe is controlled by the standard equations of General Relativity but with Newton’s constant, $`G_N`$, replaced by the enhanced constant $`G`$ . In other words the dark matter component required to relate the visible matter to the observed Hubble constant is again supplied by the enhancement mechanism. Of course a complete reconciliation of the equations with observation requires a contribution to the energy density from the Cosmological Constant. This necessity can be catered for also in our theory.

To apply our theory we take the usual starting point that the spatial sections of the universe are isotropic and homogeneous. In the present approach we meet these requirements by assuming that there exist basis vierbein fields, $`E_{\mu a}`$ such that $`E_{ta}E_{tb}\eta ^{ab}=1`$ and $`E_{ta}E_{\mu b}\eta ^{ab}=0`$ for $`\mu t`$ . We choose our coordinates so that $`E_{ta}`$ is constant in space-time and $`E_{\mu a}`$ depends only on coordinates on the spatial section when $`\mu t`$ . We finally fix the nature of the space-time model by choosing structure constants $`f_{bca}`$ so that

$$_\mu E_{\nu a}_\nu E_{\mu a}=f_{bca}E_\mu ^bE_\nu ^c.$$
(126)
Of course $`f_{bca}`$ vanishes if any of the suffixes is 0 (timelike). For a spatially flat universe all structure constants have the value zero. For a universe of positive spatial curvature the spatial constants $`f_{jki}=2ϵ_{jki}`$, where 2 is a convenient normalization, and for a negatively curved universe $`f_{jki}=\delta _{ij}n_k\delta _{ik}n_j`$ where $`n_k`$ is an arbitrary unit three-vector.

We construct the expanding universe by choosing the gravitational vierbein to have the form

$$e_{\mu a}=A_aE_{\mu a},$$
(127)
where

$$A_0=1\text{and}A_i=A(t),$$
(128)
A similar structure is maintained for the matter vierbein by requiring the transformation matrix $`M`$ to be diagonal. That is (we equivalence the labels $`a`$ and $`\overline{a}`$ in the obvious way),

$$\overline{e}_{\mu \overline{a}}=e^\varphi \mathrm{\Lambda }_ae_{\mu a}=\overline{A}_aE_{\mu a}\text{and}\overline{A}_a=\mathrm{\Lambda }_aA_ae^\varphi ,$$
(129)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_0=\mathrm{\Lambda }(t)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_i=\mathrm{\Lambda }_S(t)`$ . The requirement that $`detM=1`$ implies that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_S=\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\frac{1}{3}}`$ .

Using the above information and eq(63) we find that

$$\widehat{\omega }_{i0j}=\widehat{\omega }_{ij0}=\frac{\dot{A}}{A}\delta _{ij},$$
(130)
and

$$\widehat{\omega }_{ijk}=\frac{1}{2A}\left(f_{ijk}+f_{kij}+f_{kji}\right).$$
(131)
All other components vanish. A similar structure is found for $`\omega _{abc}`$ . From eq(71) we obtain

$$\omega _{i0j}=\omega _{ij0}=\frac{\dot{A}}{AE}\delta _{ij},$$
(132)
where

$$E=1\frac{G}{4F}\left(2\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\right),$$
(133)
and

$$\omega _{ijk}=\widehat{\omega }_{ijk}.$$
(134)
From eq(14) we find for the relevant components of the curvature tensor

$$R_{00}=\frac{3}{A}_t\left(\frac{\dot{A}}{E}\right),$$
(135)
and

$`R_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{A}}_t\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{A}}{E}}\right)+2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{A}}{AE}}\right)^2\right)\delta _{ij}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4A^2}}\left(f_{kjl}+f_{ljk}+f_{lkj}\right)\left(f_{lik}+f_{kil}+f_{kli}\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2A^2}}\left(f_{jik}+f_{kji}+f_{kij}\right)f_{lkl}.`$
If we evaluate this expression for the three curvature cases we find

$$R_{ij}=\left(\frac{1}{A}_t\left(\frac{\dot{A}}{E}\right)+2\left(\frac{\dot{A}}{AE}\right)^2+\frac{2k}{A^2}\right)\delta _{ij},$$
(137)
where conventionally $`k=0,\pm 1`$ according as the spatial curvature is zero, positive or negative. We also have from eq(70)

$$j_{tab}j_t^{ba}=\frac{4}{3}\left(\frac{\dot{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\right)^2,$$
(138)
and

$$j_{iab}j_j^{ba}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\dot{A}}{AE}\right)^2\left(2\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\right)\delta _{ij}.$$
(139)
If we denote the matter energy density and pressure by $`\rho `$ and $`p`$ respectively, then from eq(45) we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{A}}_t\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{A}}{E}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{4G}{3F}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{G}{F^{}}}\dot{\varphi }^2`$ (140)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{G}{F}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{8}}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+3\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2+3\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2\gamma \right)+{\displaystyle \frac{G}{F^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{2}}\varphi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi Ge^{4\varphi }\left(\rho +3p\right),`$
and

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{A}}_t\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{A}}{E}}\right)+2E\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{A}}{AE}}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2k}{A^2}}`$ (141)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{G}{F}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{8}}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+3\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2+3\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2\gamma \right){\displaystyle \frac{G}{F^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{2}}\varphi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi Ge^{4\varphi }(\rho p).`$
From eq(46) we find

$`_t\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\right)+3{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{A}}{A}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{A}}{AE}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\right)`$ (142)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3m^2}{16}}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2\right)`$ $`=`$ $`6\pi Fe^{4\varphi }\left(\rho +p\right).`$
Finally from eq(49) we obtain

$$\ddot{\varphi }+\frac{3\dot{A}}{A}\dot{\varphi }+m^2\varphi =8\pi F^{}e^{4\varphi }\left(\rho 3p\right).$$
(143)
Eq(10.3) and eq(10.3) can be combined to eliminate the second derivative in $`t`$ .

$`E\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{A}}{AE}}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{k}{A^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{9}}{\displaystyle \frac{G}{F}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}{\displaystyle \frac{G}{F^{}}}\dot{\varphi }^2`$ (144)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{G}{F}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{24}}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+3\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2+3\mathrm{\Lambda }_S^2\gamma \right){\displaystyle \frac{G}{F^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{6}}\varphi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G}{3}}e^{4\varphi }\rho .`$
If we multiply this equation by $`A^2`$ and differentiate with repect to $`t`$ we can use the above equations of motion to deduce that

$$\dot{\rho }=\left(\frac{\dot{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}3\frac{\dot{A}}{A}3\dot{\varphi }\right)(\rho +p).$$
(145)
This is easily re-expressed as

$$_t\left(\rho \frac{e^{3\varphi }A^3}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\right)+p_t\left(\frac{e^{3\varphi }A^3}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\right),$$
(146)
or

$$_t\left(\rho \overline{A}^3\right)+p_t\left(\overline{A}^3\right),$$
(147)
where $`\overline{A}=e^\varphi A\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\frac{1}{3}}`$ is the cosmic radius parameter appropriate to matter. Eq(147) is therefore the standard equation for the conservation of the energy-momentum tensor in this special case, as we should have expected.

The above equations are rather complicated but can be simplified if we ask how they might be applied to our expanding universe in which the pressure vanishes and the matter density is low and getting lower. In the absence of matter eq(10.3) has a solution for which $`\varphi 0`$ . For weak density we assume that there is a solution for which $`\varphi O(\rho )`$ . We have then as a leading approximation

$$\ddot{\varphi }+\frac{3\dot{A}}{A}\dot{\varphi }+m^2\varphi =8\pi F^{}\rho .$$
(148)
The form of this equation suggests that, ignoring transients, the solution is to a good approximation

$$\varphi =\frac{8\pi F^{}}{m^2}\rho =\frac{2\pi ϵG}{m^2}\rho .$$
(149)
We expect then that $`\varphi `$ will remain $`O(\rho )`$ . If we set $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=e^\xi `$ and omit all terms $`O(\xi ^2)`$ then $`E1`$ and eq(143) becomes

$$\ddot{\xi }+3\frac{\dot{A}}{A}\dot{\xi }+\left(m^28\left(\frac{\dot{A}}{A}\right)^2\right)\xi =6\pi F\rho .$$
(150)
Again we expect there to be a solution $`\xi =O(\rho )`$ . If now we neglect all terms $`O(\rho ^2)`$ we obtain the equations

$$\left(\frac{\dot{A}}{A}\right)^2+\frac{k}{A^2}=\frac{8\pi G}{3}(\rho +\rho _{CC}),$$
(151)
where the energy density associated with the cosmological constant, $`\rho _{CC}`$ is given by

$$\rho _{CC}=\frac{m^2}{8\pi F}\left(1\frac{\gamma }{8}\right)=\frac{m^2(1ϵ)}{8\pi G_Nϵ}\left(\frac{\gamma }{8}1\right).$$
(152)
and

$$_t\left(\rho A^3\right)=0.$$
(153)
These are the standard equations for the expanding universe but with Newton’s constant $`G_N`$ replaced by the enhanced constant $`G`$ . To lowest order in $`\rho `$ the parameter $`t`$ is also the proper time of comoving matter in its own metric since the two metrics coincide under these circumstances. It follows that Hubble’s constant $`H_0=\dot{A}/A`$ and the current deceleration parameter is $`q_0=\ddot{A}A/\dot{A}^2`$ and that the critical density for a flat universe is

$$\rho _c=\frac{3H_0^2}{8\pi G}=\frac{3H_0^2}{8\pi G_N}(1ϵ).$$
(154)
So $`\rho _c`$ in our theory is between one tenth and one twentieth the value appropriate to standard General Relativity. This brings it within range of visible matter . In fact recent measurements of distant supernovae  lead to an estimate of $`q_0`$ that suggests $`\rho =0.3\times \rho _c`$ and $`\rho _{CC}=0.7\times \rho _c`$ (assuming a flat universe ) with the further implication that in the present theory, visible matter may support the current expansion of the universe albeit with the help of a cosmological constant.

## 11 Conclusions

In this paper we have constructed a modified theory of gravity that fits all the standard tests of General Relativity that can be made on the scale of the solar system including the bending of light by the sun, time delay measurements and the precession of Mercury’s orbit. The theory is a bi-metric theory of a novel kind with a very geometrical structure. It has the flexibility to permit the introduction of a galactic length-scale of roughly 30 kpc. Gravitational effects of matter at distances below the galactic scale, in the solar system for example, are of a conventional kind and of a strength determined by Newton’s constant, $`G_N`$ . This outcome is achieved in the theory as the result of a competition between two gravitational effects, a strong attraction and a repulsion that is nearly as strong. Over the range of the galactic scale the theory allows the repulsion to fade out exponentially leaving the much stronger underlying gravity to show through. The gravitational effects of matter on this large scale are also conventional in character but of a strength determined by the much stronger underlying gravitational constant $`G1020\times G_N`$ . These results are consistent with observations of galactic clusters and also apply to the expansion of the universe as a whole. As a result the critical density for a flat universe is between one tenth and one twentieth of the value calculated in General Relativity. This makes it more plausible that visible baryonic matter can support the expansion of the universe without dark matter, though supplemented by a cosmological constant.

The theory provides a natural explanation for the tendency of dark matter to follow the distribution of visible matter since the former is simply an amplification of the latter. Dark matter does not have a separate dynamics of its own. On this basis the apparent dark matter is not in any way biased in its fluctuation structure relative to visible matter.

We showed that at least for the galaxy NGC3198 the theory can reproduce the rotation curve out to 30 kpc (the end of the measured range) equally as well as dark matter models. The theory also predicts that the rotation curve will fall away in the 100-200 kpc range and eventually tend to a standard inverse square root of distance behaviour but with an apparent mass $`1020`$ times the expected mass of the galaxy ($`3\times 10^{10}M_{}`$ for NGC3198) if the conventional Newtonian constant is used for the estimate. Our theory however assigns the expected mass but uses the enhanced value for the gravitational constant appropriate at extra-galactic distances. This phenomenon should appear for all galaxies. It is therefore important for the theory to test rotation curves at distances of $`100200`$ kpc from the galactic centre. It is also important to test the effectiveness of the theory in a range of galaxies and to arrive at a consistent picture with a common set of gravitational parameters. This task requires a good understanding of the structure of individual galaxies and and accurate knowledge of their distance. However we note that the establishment of a fixed scale associated with all galaxies would be of considerable help in establishing galactic distances.

In addition to the incomplete phenomenological analyses discussed above there are many issues yet to be explored in our bi-metric theory. Of particular importance are the development of density fluctations, dynamics and formation of galaxies using the modified gravitational law, and evolution of the early universe. In this last context the ability of bi-metric theories to support anomalous propagation of signals (VSL phenomena) will be of great importance. The existence within the theory of black holes is also a topic that it would be very interesting to resolve. On intuitive grounds it seems reasonable to suppose that black holes will exist in our theory but the nature of the horizon may be more complicated than in General Relativity because of its double light-cone structure.

## Acknowledgements

I thank Jonathon Evans for helpful and clarifying discussions.


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# FZJ-IKP(TH)-2000-20 Towards an understanding of isospin violation in pion–nucleon scattering

## I Introduction

Pion–nucleon scattering ($`\pi N`$) is one of the prime reactions to test our understanding not only of the spontaneous and explicit chiral symmetry breaking QCD is supposed to undergo, but also of isospin symmetry violation. The pion–nucleon system is particularly well suited for such an analysis, since chiral symmetry breaking and isospin breaking appear at the same chiral order. For neutral–pion scattering off nucleons, the isospin violating effects can be dramatically enhanced due to the smallness of the isoscalar pion–nucleon amplitude . This spectacular effect in the difference of the $`\pi ^0p`$ and $`\pi ^0n`$ scattering lengths is, however, at present not amenable to a direct experimental verification. It is therefore mandatory to include also the channels with charged pions in any analysis of isospin violation. The immense experimental effort in the domain of low–energy pion–nucleon physics has stimulated considerable interest in using $`\pi N`$ scattering data to extract information about the violation of isospin symmetry of the strong interactions . Some analyses indicate effects as large as 7% . In both these analyses, the source of this rather large effect remains mysterious. Since the two methods are independent and based on different approaches, it became a challenge to find a theoretical explanation for these rather phenomenological observations. Microscopically, there are two competing sources of isospin violation, which are generally of the same size, namely the strong effect due to the light quark mass difference $`m_dm_um_u`$ and the electromagnetic one caused by virtual photons. There is thus need to describe both effects, the strong and the electromagnetic interaction, consistently. One of the major criticisms raised against the analyses of isospin violation performed up to now is their inherent incompatibility of electromagnetic and strong effects. Chiral perturbation theory ($`\chi `$PT) is able to remedy this problem. Ongoing effort in this field has resulted in the development of an effective field theory of pions, nucleons, and virtual photons, which now allows for the separation of both sources of isospin violation in a consistent fashion. The corresponding effective Lagrangian was developed in  extending the standard $`\pi N`$ EFT. The pertinent power counting of the EFT is based on the (phenomenological) observation that besides the pion mass and momenta, the electric charge $`e`$ should be counted as an additional small parameter, given the fact that

$$\frac{e^2}{4\pi }\frac{M_\pi ^2}{(4\pi F_\pi )^2}\frac{1}{100}.$$
(1)
Note, however, that $`M_\pi `$ vanishes in the chiral limit, whereas the left–hand side of eq. (1) remains finite. If this counting scheme is applied, we only have to deal with one expansion parameter $`q`$, which corresponds to small momenta, pion masses, as well as elementary charges. Since every emitted virtual photon will have to be reabsorbed, we will only have to consider terms proportional to the square of the charge matrix. The difference of the squares of the charged– and neutral–pion masses is thus an effect of second chiral order, i.e. a leading order effect. On the other hand, the mass difference for the nucleons also starts out at second order and is thus suppressed by two chiral orders.

The analysis of isospin violation in $`\pi N`$ scattering proceeds essentially in three steps. First, one ignores all isospin breaking effects, i.e. one sets $`e=0`$ and $`m_u=m_d`$. This is the approximation on which the analysis in refs.  was based. These papers comprise the most detailed studies of pion–nucleon scattering in the framework of heavy–baryon chiral perturbation theory (related studies have been published in ). It is obvious that one needs a precise description of the large isospin symmetric “background” of the scattering amplitude in order to be able to pin down the small isospin violating effects. The quality of the results obtained in refs.  makes us feel confident that we have a sufficiently accurate starting point.

In the second step, one should include the leading isospin breaking terms encoded in the pion and nucleon mass differences. The mass splitting for the nucleons amounts to about 1 MeV, whereas the charged– to neutral–pion mass difference is of the order of 5 MeV. To the accuracy we are working (the third order in small momenta and charges) one has to consider such effects. The strength of $`\chi `$PT now lies in the fact that one can consistently take into account only the effect from those isospin violating low–energy constants which enter the particles’ masses. This is the approximation which we will consider here. In fact, in neutral–pion photoproduction off nucleons, to third order in small momenta, this approximation leads to the only isospin breaking effect, which reveals itself in the large cusp effect at the secondary threshold (i.e. at the $`\pi ^+n`$ threshold in the case of $`\gamma p\pi ^0p`$.

In the third step, which goes beyond the scope of this work, one has to account for all virtual–photon effects, in particular soft–photon emission from charged–particle legs and the Coulomb poles due to the ladder exchange of (soft) virtual photons between charged external particles.

In the last two steps, the notion of partial waves with defined total isospin becomes doubtful. It is thus better not to give predictions for any specific isospin channel, but rather to consider quantities for measurable pion–nucleon reactions. After the third step will have been performed, one will be able to directly fit to experimental cross section and polarization data. This will have the advantage that one will not have to rely on any code for electromagnetic corrections, which might or might not be compatible with the hadronic analysis. Instead, one will rather be able to compute electromagnetic corrections consistently in the framework of chiral perturbation theory. Fitting the low–energy constants (LECs) of the full amplitude to experimental data will eventually allow to pin down the values of the hadronic LECs and to give an unambiguous definition of the hadronic phase shifts.

However, this work will only proceed up to the second step, the inclusion of mass difference effects and the leading strong isospin breaking vertices. We believe that the essential effects of isospin violation are captured in the calculation presented here. In , the size of isospin violation in threshold $`\pi N`$ scattering has been investigated. We now extend this analysis to the low–energy region above threshold; as in , we will quantify isospin breaking effects by using a set of relations, which are fulfilled in the limit of exact isospin symmetry.

The manuscript is organized as follows. In section II we show how to generalize the pion–nucleon scattering amplitude in case of isospin violation, and discuss how to quantify isospin breaking in terms of ratios, that vanish in the limit of exact isospin symmetry. Section III is concerned with the calculation of the pertinent $`\pi N`$ scattering amplitude in the presence of strong and electromagnetic isospin breaking. We give results in section IV and compare our approach to previous analyses of this topic. We conclude with a short summary and outlook in section V.

## II Quantification of isospin symmetry breaking

### A Generalization of the scattering amplitude

We consider the elastic scattering process

$$\pi ^a(q)+N(k_1)\pi ^b(q_2)+N(k_2),$$
(2)
where $`\pi ^c(q_i)`$ denotes a pion state in the cartesian isospin basis with four–momentum $`q_i`$ and $`N(k_i)`$ a proton or a neutron with four–momentum $`k_i`$. The masses of the in– (out–) going nucleon and pion are denoted by $`m_{1(2)}`$ and $`M_{a(b)}`$, respectively ($`M_1=M_2=M_{\pi ^+},M_3=M_{\pi ^0}`$). Consider the center–of–mass system (cms) with $`\stackrel{}{k}_i=\stackrel{}{q}_i(i=1,2)`$. For the nucleons in the heavy–fermion approach, we set $`k_\mu =mv_\mu +p_\mu `$ with $`vpm`$, and $`m`$ the nucleon mass in the chiral limit. The small residual momentum $`p_\mu `$ is thus a quantity of chiral order one. The pion and the nucleon energy in the in–state are (we use $`v=(1,0,0,0)`$)

$$\omega _1=vq_1=\sqrt{M_a^2+\stackrel{}{q}_1^2},E_1=\sqrt{m_1^2+\omega _1^2M_a^2},$$
(3)
in order. The energies of the out–going pion and nucleon read

$$\omega _2=\frac{(E_1+\omega _1)^2+M_b^2m_2^2}{2(E_1+\omega _1)},E_2=E_1+\omega _1\omega _2,$$
(4)
respectively. We come back to these kinematical relations after introducing the pion–nucleon scattering amplitudes appropriate for the discussion of isospin violation.

In the limit of isospin symmetry, pion–nucleon scattering can be fully described in terms of two amplitudes $`T^{1/2}`$ and $`T^{3/2}`$, or equivalently $`T^+`$ and $`T^{}`$. These amplitudes depend on two kinematical variables, which we can choose to be the pion cms energy $`\omega `$ and the invariant momentum transfer squared $`t=(q_1q_2)^2`$. In that case, one cannot account for any difference in the scattering off protons compared to the one off neutrons. Indeed, there is no isospin operator which acts selectively on the nucleons. In the presence of isospin violation, i.e. isovector symmetry breaking terms such as $`(m_um_d)(\overline{u}u\overline{d}d)`$, one thus has to generalize the standard form of the $`\pi N`$ scattering amplitude to

$`T^{ba}(\omega ,t)`$ $`=`$ $`\delta ^{ab}T_{ba}^+(\omega ,t)+\delta ^{ab}\tau ^3T_{ba}^{3+}(\omega ,t)`$ (5)
$`+`$ $`iϵ^{bac}\tau ^cT_{ba}^{}(\omega ,t)+iϵ^{bac}\tau ^c\tau ^3T_{ba}^3(\omega ,t),`$ (6)
in terms of two isoscalar ($`T_{ba}^{+,3+}`$) and two isovector ($`T_{ba}^{,3}`$) amplitudes. It is important to realize that the $`T_{ba}^\pm `$ are exclusively sensitive to the neutral– to charged–pion mass difference. The $`T_{ba}^{3\pm }`$ on the other hand distinguish between the different pion states, as well as between scattering off proton or neutron. Indeed the matrix $`\tau ^3`$ acts differently on proton and neutron. Therefore, these amplitudes are also sensitive to the proton–neutron mass difference. The amplitudes are functions of two variables. As in the isospin symmetric case, we choose the mean pion energy $`\omega `$ and the invariant momentum transfer squared $`t`$. Since the total mass in the initial state is in general different from the mass of the outgoing particles, the energies of the pions in the in– and out–state, $`\omega _{1,2}`$, will also be no longer equal,

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ $`=`$ $`\omega _2\omega _1={\displaystyle \frac{(M_b^2M_a^2)(m_2^2m_1^2)}{2\sqrt{s}}}`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(M_b^2M_a^2)(m_2^2m_1^2)}{2m_1}}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _1}{m_1}}+𝒪(q^2)\right],`$ (8)
with $`\sqrt{s}`$ the total cms energy. From eq. (7) one can easily see that while the pion energies $`\omega _{1,2}`$ are of order $`q`$, their difference only starts out at second order in the chiral expansion. This has important consequences as will be discussed later. The $`T`$–amplitudes split into a spin–non–flip and a spin–flip term, denoted by $`g`$ and $`h`$, respectively. The most general $`\pi N`$ scattering amplitude which will allow us to describe isospin symmetry violating effects thus reads:

$`T_{\pi N}^{ba}=𝒩_1𝒩_2`$ $`\{`$ $`\delta ^{ab}g_{ba}^++\delta ^{ab}\tau ^3g_{ba}^{3+}`$ (9)
$`+`$ $`iϵ^{bac}\tau ^cg_{ba}^{}+iϵ^{bac}\tau ^c\tau ^3g_{ba}^3`$ (10)
$`+`$ $`i\stackrel{}{\sigma }(\stackrel{}{q}_2\times \stackrel{}{q}_1)[\delta ^{ab}h_{ba}^++\delta ^{ab}\tau ^3h_{ba}^{3+}`$ (11)
$`+`$ $`iϵ^{bac}\tau ^ch_{ba}^{}+iϵ^{bac}\tau ^c\tau ^3h_{ba}^3]\},`$ (12)
with $`𝒩_i=\sqrt{(E_i+m_i)/(2m_i)}(i=1,2)`$ the standard spinor normalization . We refrain from projecting these amplitudes onto states of defined total isospin, since isospin is no good quantum number anymore. But we can still define states with given angular and total momentum by

$`f_{l\pm ,ba}^{(\pm /3\pm )}(s)={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{E_1+m_1}\sqrt{E_2+m_2}}{16\pi \sqrt{s}}}\times `$ (14)
$`{\displaystyle _1^{+1}}𝑑z\left[g_{ba}^{(\pm /3\pm )}P_l(z)+\stackrel{}{q}_1\stackrel{}{q}_2h_{ba}^{(\pm /3\pm )}\stackrel{~}{P}_l(z)\right],`$ (15)
with $`\stackrel{~}{P}_l(z)=P_{l\pm 1}(z)zP_l(z)`$ a combination of the usual Legendre polynomials. Isospin indices will now be combined in such a way as to match the physical reactions. Since the pions come in three and the nucleons in two charge states, we have ten reaction channels. In terms of the just defined amplitudes, these read:

$`f_{\pi ^+p\pi ^+p}`$ $`=`$ $`f_{11}^+f_{12}^{}+f_{11}^{3+}f_{12}^3,`$ (16)
$`f_{\pi ^{}p\pi ^{}p}`$ $`=`$ $`f_{11}^++f_{12}^{}+f_{11}^{3+}+f_{12}^3,`$ (17)
$`f_{\pi ^0p\pi ^0p}`$ $`=`$ $`f_{33}^++f_{33}^{3+},`$ (18)
$`f_{\pi ^+n\pi ^+n}`$ $`=`$ $`f_{11}^++f_{12}^{}f_{11}^{3+}f_{12}^3,`$ (19)
$`f_{\pi ^{}n\pi ^{}n}`$ $`=`$ $`f_{11}^+f_{12}^{}f_{11}^{3+}+f_{12}^3,`$ (20)
$`f_{\pi ^0n\pi ^0n}`$ $`=`$ $`f_{33}^+f_{33}^{3+},`$ (21)
$`f_{\pi ^+n\pi ^0p}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(f_{13}^{}+f_{13}^3\right)`$ (22)
$`=`$ $`f_{\pi ^0p\pi ^+n},`$ (23)
$`f_{\pi ^{}p\pi ^0n}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(f_{13}^{}f_{13}^3\right)`$ (24)
$`=`$ $`f_{\pi ^0n\pi ^{}p},`$ (25)
where, for simplicity of notation, we do not display the angular indices. Here we made use of the fact that $`T_{11}^{+/3+}=T_{22}^{+/3+}`$, $`T_{12}^{/3}=T_{21}^{/3}`$, $`T_{13}^{}=T_{23}^{}=T_{31}^{}=T_{32}^{}`$, and $`T_{13}^3=T_{23}^3=T_{31}^3=T_{32}^3`$. In eqs. (23) and (25), we have also used time reversal invariance.

### B Isospin relations

Isospin violation is best characterized in terms of quantities which are exactly zero in the isospin limit of equal quark masses and vanishing electromagnetic coupling. We have eight reaction channels, see eqs. (16)–(25), which in the case of isospin symmetry are entirely described in terms of two amplitudes. One can thus write down six independent isospin relations (see also  for a general analysis)

$`R_1`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi ^+p\pi ^+p}+f_{\pi ^{}p\pi ^{}p}2f_{\pi ^0p\pi ^0p}}{f_{\pi ^+p\pi ^+p}+f_{\pi ^{}p\pi ^{}p}+2f_{\pi ^0p\pi ^0p}}}`$ (26)
$`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{11}^+f_{33}^++f_{11}^{3+}f_{33}^{3+}}{f_{11}^++f_{33}^++f_{11}^{3+}+f_{33}^{3+}}},`$ (27)
$`R_2`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi ^+p\pi ^+p}f_{\pi ^{}p\pi ^{}p}\sqrt{2}f_{\pi ^{}p\pi ^0n}}{f_{\pi ^+p\pi ^+p}f_{\pi ^{}p\pi ^{}p}+\sqrt{2}f_{\pi ^{}p\pi ^0n}}}`$ (28)
$`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{12}^{}f_{13}^{}+f_{12}^3f_{13}^3}{f_{12}^{}+f_{13}^{}+f_{12}^3+f_{13}^3}},`$ (29)
$`R_3`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi ^0p\pi ^+n}f_{\pi ^{}p\pi ^0n}}{f_{\pi ^0p\pi ^+n}+f_{\pi ^{}p\pi ^0n}}}=2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{13}^3}{f_{13}^{}}},`$ (30)
$`R_4`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi ^+p\pi ^+p}f_{\pi ^{}n\pi ^{}n}}{f_{\pi ^+p\pi ^+p}+f_{\pi ^{}n\pi ^{}n}}}=2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{11}^{3+}f_{12}^3}{f_{11}^+f_{12}^{}}},`$ (31)
$`R_5`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi ^{}p\pi ^{}p}f_{\pi ^+n\pi ^+n}}{f_{\pi ^{}p\pi ^{}p}+f_{\pi ^+n\pi ^+n}}}=2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{11}^{3+}+f_{12}^3}{f_{11}^++f_{12}^{}}},`$ (32)
$`R_6`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi ^0p\pi ^0p}f_{\pi ^0n\pi ^0n}}{f_{\pi ^0p\pi ^0p}+f_{\pi ^0n\pi ^0n}}}=2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{33}^{3+}}{f_{33}^+}}.`$ (33)
Note that this is just one of many possibilities to define these isospin ratios, but we find it particularly suitable. Again, we do not display angular variables. In the following, we will concentrate on the S–wave ($`R_{i,0+}`$) and two P–waves ($`R_{i,1\pm }`$). The first two ratios, the so–called triangle relations, are based on the observation that in the isospin conserving case, the elastic scattering channels involving charged pions are trivially linked to the corresponding neutral–pion elastic scattering or the corresponding charge exchange amplitude. To be precise, these ratios are to be formed with the real parts of the corresponding amplitudes. The imaginary parts of some of the amplitudes will be discussed later. Of particular interest is the second ratio, which is often referred to as the triangle relation. Only in this case all three channels have been measured (for pion kinetic energies as low as 30 MeV in the center–of–mass system) and the 7% strong isospin violation reported in  refer to this ratio. We stress again that it is difficult to compare this number to the one we will obtain in our calculation since a very different method of separating the electromagnetic effects is used. The ratio $`R_6`$ parameterizes the large isospin violation effect for $`\pi ^0`$ scattering off nucleons first found by Weinberg  and sharpened in , $`R_625\%`$ at threshold. Note that in $`R_1`$, just as in $`R_6`$, the isovector terms drop out completely and one thus expects also a large isospin violation in this ratio (since the isoscalar parts are strongly suppressed and are of the same size as the symmetry breaking terms). To our knowledge, this particular ratio has been called attention to for the first time in . From an experimental point of view, it has the advantage of avoiding the almost unmeasurable $`n\pi ^0`$ amplitude appearing in $`R_6`$. On the other hand, as pointed out in ref. , the elusive $`\pi ^0p`$ scattering length might be measurable in neutral–pion photoproduction off protons below the $`\pi ^+n`$ threshold. This results from the fact that the imaginary part of the electric dipole amplitude $`E_{0+}`$ is proportional to the respective $`\pi N`$ scattering length (final–state theorem); below the $`\pi ^+n`$ threshold, one is thus exclusively sensitive to the small $`\pi ^0p`$ phase shift. Since the two ratios $`R_1`$ and $`R_6`$ are entirely given in terms of isoscalar quantities, we expect large isospin symmetry breaking effects. But on the other hand, this also makes a precise determination of these ratios very difficult; indeed, the S–wave version of both these ratios is sensitive to the precise value of the combination of dimension–two LECs $`2c_1c_2c_3`$, but the strong contribution to the isoscalar scattering length is not even known in sign at present. The predictions for the other ratios are more stable since they involve the larger (and better determined) isovector quantities. In what follows, we will calculate the six ratios $`R_i`$ to leading one–loop accuracy, i.e. to third order in small momenta. For that, we have to consider tree graphs, some with fixed coefficients and some with LECs, and the leading one–loop graphs involving lowest order couplings only.

## III Calculation of the pion–nucleon amplitude

As already mentioned, we will work to third order in the framework of heavy–baryon chiral perturbation theory. Since this method is well documented in the literature, see e.g. the comprehensive review , we only discuss those terms in the isospin violating effective Lagrangian which are relevant for our analysis. For the particular case of isospin symmetric $`\pi N`$ scattering, a detailed exposition can be found in .

In the purely mesonic sector, we have to take into account the following structures:

$$_{\gamma ^{}\pi \pi }^{(2)}=\frac{F^2}{4}u_\mu u^\mu +\chi _++CQ_+^2Q_{}^2,$$
(34)
with

$$Q=\frac{e}{2}(1+\tau _3)$$
(35)
the nucleon charge matrix and $`Q_\pm `$ defined as follows:

$$Q_\pm =\frac{1}{2}(u^{}Qu\pm uQu^{}).$$
(36)
$`F`$ is the pion decay constant in the chiral limit and the chiral vielbein is given by $`u_\mu =iu^{}_\mu Uu^{}`$. The scalar source $`\chi `$ includes the quark mass matrix, $`\chi =2B_0`$, with $`B_0`$ being proportional to the vacuum expectation value of the scalar quark density. We work in the standard scenario of chiral symmetry breaking, $`B_0F`$. From $`\chi `$ one constructs the fields $`\chi _\pm =u^{}\chi u^{}\pm u\chi ^{}u`$. Furthermore, $`\mathrm{}`$ denotes the trace in isospin space. For the pion masses to leading order this gives:

$`M_0^2`$ $`=`$ $`B_0(m_u+m_d),`$ (37)
$`M_+^2`$ $`=`$ $`B_0(m_u+m_d)+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{F^2}}e^2C.`$ (38)
The experimentally known pion mass difference thus directly fixes the value of the low–energy constant $`C`$, $`C=5.910^5`$ GeV<sup>4</sup>. Note that the pion mass difference up to second chiral order is of electromagnetic origin only.

In the one–nucleon sector, we take into account all terms related to strong isospin breaking as well as those electromagnetic terms, which contribute to the nucleon masses. The relevant structures in the Lagrangian are

$`_{\gamma ^{}\pi N}=\overline{N}[ivD+c_1\chi _++c_5\stackrel{~}{\chi }_+`$ (39)
$`+F^2\left(f_1Q_+^2Q_{}^2+f_2Q_+Q_++f_3Q_+^2\right)`$ (40)
$`+d_{17}Su\chi _++id_{18}[SD,\chi _{}]+id_{19}[SD,\chi _{}]`$ (41)
$`+\mathrm{}]N.`$ (42)
Here, $`D_\mu `$ is the covariant derivative, $`S_\mu `$ the nucleon spin vector and the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }`$ denotes the traceless part of $`\chi `$ (for further definitions and the remaining isospin symmetric structures, see ). For the masses up to $`𝒪(q^2)`$ this means

$`m_N`$ $`=`$ $`m4M_0^2c_12B_0(m_um_d)c_5\tau _3`$ (44)
$`e^2F^2[f_1+{\displaystyle \frac{f_2}{2}}(1+\tau _3)+f_3].`$
The constant shift $`4M_0^2c_1e^2F^2(f_1+f_2/2+f_3)`$ is unobservable. The proton–to–neutron mass difference fixes the values of the LECs through

$`(m_pm_n)^{\mathrm{str}.}`$ $`=`$ $`4B_0(m_um_d)c_5`$ (45)
$`=`$ $`(2.05\pm 0.30)\mathrm{MeV},`$ (46)
$`(m_pm_n)^{\mathrm{em}.}`$ $`=`$ $`e^2F^2f_2=(0.760.30)\mathrm{MeV}.`$ (47)
These values are taken from , where the electromagnetic mass shift was calculated with the help of the Cottingham formula. Eq. (47) directly fixes the value of the electromagnetic coupling $`f_2`$, $`f_2=(0.45\pm 0.19)\mathrm{GeV}^1`$. We then fix $`B_0(m_um_d)c_5`$ in such a way that the neutron–proton mass difference coincides with the experimentally determined value. We want to stress that, contrary to the pion case, the nucleon mass difference is of electromagnetic and strong nature. Besides $`c_1`$, also $`c_5,f_1`$, and $`f_2`$ contribute to the $`\pi \pi NN`$ vertex which is given by

$`i{\displaystyle \frac{4}{F^2}}c_1M_0^2\delta ^{ab}ic_5B_0(m_um_d){\displaystyle \frac{1}{F^2}}`$ (48)
$`\times \left[2\delta ^{ab}\delta ^{a3}+iϵ^{bac}\tau ^c(\delta ^{a3}\delta ^{b3})\right]\tau ^3`$ (49)
$`ie^2[2f_1\delta ^{ab}(1\delta ^{a3})+{\displaystyle \frac{f_2}{4}}(2\delta ^{ab}\tau ^3(1\delta ^{a3})`$ (50)
$`+iϵ^{bac}\tau ^c\tau ^3(\delta ^{b3}\delta ^{a3}))].`$ (51)
Whereas $`c_5`$ and $`f_2`$ can be fixed through eqs. (46) and (47) respectively, the value of $`f_1`$ is unknown. In our analysis, it will be varied in some reasonable range. Let us estimate these bounds by observing that the $`f_1`$–contribution to the nucleon mass shift should be of the same order of magnitude as any photonic loop, thus

$$e^2F_\pi ^2f_1\left(\frac{e}{4\pi }\right)^2m_N,$$
(52)
which leads to $`f_11`$ GeV<sup>-1</sup> as a natural order<sup>*</sup><sup>*</sup>* This dimensional analysis differs from the one of , which considers $`f_11/(4\pi )`$ GeV<sup>-1</sup> as a natural order of magnitude.. In the following, we will use the range $`e^2f_1=0.0\pm 0.1\mathrm{GeV}^1`$. We will also need the values of the counterterms related to isospin symmetric structures. The LECs $`c_i`$ and $`d_i`$ are taken from fit 1, 2, 3 of . These are fits of the third order isospin symmetric amplitude to the low–energy pion–nucleon phase shift analyses of refs. , , and , respectively.

In terms of the operators defined in eqs. (34) and (39), retaining only the terms leading to the strong and electromagnetic hadron masses is achieved by setting

$$Ce^20,f_ie^20,m_um_d0,\mathrm{but}e^2=0.$$
(53)
The isospin symmetric tree graphs calculated to first, second, and third order, as well as the loop diagrams can be found in . The additional tree graphs with explicit isospin violating vertices ($`f_1,f_2,c_5,\overline{d}_{17},\overline{d}_{18},\overline{d}_{19}`$) are shown in fig. 1. Before giving results, some important remarks concerning the chiral power counting are in order. Although the so–called Weinberg–Tomozawa $`\overline{N}N\pi \pi `$ contact graph gives a first order contribution to $`g_{ba}^{}`$, in the ratios $`R_i`$ its effect is always proportional to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$, which is of second order, see eq. (7). Consequently, isospin violation only starts at second order in the chiral expansion. The chiral power counting is not as straightforward in the case of isospin violation as in the isospin symmetric case. The difference of the pion energies is of second order, and should thus be neglected whenever it only leads to contributions of $`𝒪(q^4)`$. However, if this was done systematically, a diagram, which in fact vanishes at threshold, would now give a finite contribution. This can be easily seen in the following example: At threshold, either the incoming or the outgoing pion are at rest, and thus $`\stackrel{}{q}_1\stackrel{}{q}_2=0`$. In a strict chiral expansion, this should be replaced by $`(2\omega ^2M_a^2M_b^2t)/2`$, which does not vanish for $`M_aM_b`$. In order to avoid such spurious effects, we decided also to account for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ in some cases where it leads to a higher order effect, giving priority to the correct description of the amplitude at threshold. This is of course fully legitimate, since we only intend to give the amplitude correctly up to third order in the small expansion parameter $`q`$.

## IV Results

In this section, we want to generalize the analysis of ref.  to the energy range above threshold. In addition, we give some additional threshold results not shown in that paper.

### A Momentum dependence

Above threshold, we need the spin non–flip amplitudes $`g^{\pm ,3\pm }`$ and the spin–flip ones, $`h^{\pm ,3\pm }`$. The expressions for the amplitudes are given in . We will focus on the results from fit 1 (based on the KA85 phase shifts). This analysis is different from the one in ref.  in one important point: In , different reactions were compared at their particular threshold energy; this means that the ratios were formed by combining amplitudes at different center–of–mass energies. This will not be the case anymore. We will always consider $`\sqrt{s}`$ as a fixed quantity when forming ratios. This explains the difference between the numbers at low energy obtained here and the ones presented in .

In fig. 2, we show the isospin breaking effects on the S–waves for the different ratios $`R_1`$$`R_6`$, as a function of the total center–of–mass energy $`\sqrt{s}`$. Note that in these calculations, the spinor normalization factors are also taken into accountThis is in contrast to what was done in , but the inclusion of these factors is necessary if one wants to define the partial waves in the standard way. We have checked that the conclusions concerning isospin violation do not depend on whether we include this factor or not.. As expected, the purely isoscalar ratios $`R_1`$ and $`R_6`$ show very large isospin breaking effects. Those ratios, on the other hand, which are given in terms of both isoscalar and isovector quantities show a rather small effect, in the order of 1–2%. Also, the energy dependence is as expected: the lower the energy, the more important the quark mass difference is compared to the kinetic energies of the particles, and the larger the isospin breaking effects should be. As well for $`R_1`$ as for $`R_6`$, the effect drops by a factor of two over the first 50 MeV. The ratios $`R_2`$$`R_5`$ remain almost constant over the whole energy range displayed here. The previously discussed theoretical uncertainties due to the lack of knowledge of $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$ lead to the bands displayed in fig. 2We stress again that a variation in $`f_2`$ stands for varying $`f_2`$ and $`4B_0(m_um_d)c_5`$ such that the neutron–proton mass difference remains constant.. It is important to note that the variation in $`f_1`$ only shows up in $`R_1`$, $`R_4`$, and $`R_5`$. Whereas the range in $`f_1`$ dominates the uncertainty in $`R_1`$, it leads to vanishingly small contributions to $`R_4`$ and $`R_5`$. It is thus the uncertainty in $`f_2`$ which largely dominates the width of the bands in $`R_2`$$`R_6`$. Since electromagnetic effects proportional to $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$ do not contribute to neutral–pion scattering, the band for $`R_6`$ is entirely due to the variation in $`B_0(m_um_d)c_5`$. We see that the prediction for $`R_1`$ is quite sensitive to the precise value of the parameter $`f_1`$. But the conclusions remain unchanged: we expect huge isospin violation in the S–wave parts of the purely isoscalar ratios $`R_1`$ and $`R_6`$.

The corresponding P<sub>3</sub>– and P<sub>1</sub>–wave projections of these relations are shown in figs. 3 and 4. The notation is standard: $`l=1`$ for both P–waves, for $`\mathrm{P}_3`$ the total angular momentum is $`3/2`$ whereas $`\mathrm{P}_1`$ is related to $`j=1/2`$. For $`\mathrm{P}_3`$, everything is as expected: isospin breaking is negligibly small, as well in the purely isoscalar channels as in the ones given by isoscalar and isovector quantities. It is interesting to note that in this projection, $`R_2`$ turns out to show the biggest effect, about $`3\%`$ close to threshold. However, for the $`\mathrm{P}_1`$–waves, the results are more surprising: indeed for $`R_2`$ and for $`R_3`$, the effects from isospin violation become larger with increasing center–of–mass energy: 30 MeV above threshold, they are as big as $`30\%`$ for $`R_2`$ and $`R_3`$. But we run into the same problems as in the threshold analysis , namely that the denominators of some of the relations become very small in the $`\mathrm{P}_1`$–projection. We find a really spectacular result indicating isospin violation as big as $`30\%`$ in $`R_2`$ and $`R_3`$, but it will be a hopeless case to measure such effects, since the associated isospin conserving part is vanishingly small as well. It is thus necessary to find a different representation, to project out different quantities than the usual partial waves. From (15) we obtain

$`\mathrm{P}_3(s)`$ $`=`$ $`𝒢(s)+(s),`$ (54)
$`\mathrm{P}_1(s)`$ $`=`$ $`𝒢(s)2(s),`$ (55)
with

$`𝒢(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{E_1+m_1}\sqrt{E_2+m_2}}{16\pi \sqrt{s}}}{\displaystyle _1^{+1}}𝑑zg_{ba}P_1(z),`$ (56)
$`(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{E_1+m_1}\sqrt{E_2+m_2}}{16\pi \sqrt{s}}}{\displaystyle _1^{+1}}𝑑z\stackrel{}{q}_1\stackrel{}{q}_2h_{ba}`$ (58)
$`\times \left(P_2(z)zP_1(z)\right).`$
In figs. 5 and 6, we thus show isospin breaking in the ratios $`R_1`$$`R_6`$ formed with the quantities $`𝒢`$ and $``$, respectively. From these figures we can see that indeed there is no large isospin symmetry breaking in the P–waves. The problems for the representation in terms of P<sub>1</sub> and P<sub>3</sub> only resulted from very small denominators. Interestingly, the ratios $`R_1`$ and $`R_6`$, which were found to give large results in the S–wave projection, are now found to be very small. Their $`𝒢`$– and $``$–projection show an effect much smaller than $`1\%`$. It seems that for the P–wave projection, $`R_2`$ is the most promising ratio to study. Especially the $``$–projection is very large and indicates isospin breaking of $`6\%`$ at threshold. Note that neither the variation of $`f_1`$ nor the combined one of $`f_2`$ and $`c_5`$ affects the P–wave projections of our ratios.

In fig. 7, we show an analogue representation of isospin breaking effects to what was presented in . The plot is based on the philosophy put forward in . Provided that isospin is a good symmetry, the entire information concerning the elastic $`\pi ^\pm p`$ and the charge exchange $`\pi ^{}p\pi ^0n`$ reactions is contained in two energy–dependent complex functions per partial wave, $`f^+`$ and $`f^{}`$. In such a case, the $`\pi ^+p`$ reaction is described by $`f^+f^{}`$ (represented by the vertical band in fig. 7), the $`\pi ^{}p`$ reaction by $`f^++f^{}`$ (horizontal band in fig. 7), and the charge exchange reaction is given by $`\sqrt{2}f^{}`$ (shown by the diagonal band in fig. 7). At any energy, the principle of isospin symmetry necessitates a common overlap of the three bands. Here, we only show the corresponding bands at threshold. Note that most of the bands are degenerate to a line, since we have not taken into account any experimental errors, but only the spread due to the lack of knowledge of the value of $`f_1`$. In this way of looking at the problem, we cannot quantify isospin violation precisely, since we do not have any experimental errors, which would allow us, as in the case of , to give the standard deviation of the difference between the charge exchange band and the intersection of the two elastic bands.

### B Threshold analysis

The threshold region was already discussed in ref. , in particular the large effect on the ratio $`R_1`$ was for the first time pointed out in that paper and the influence of the operator $`c_5`$ was analyzed. In that paper, predictions for pion scattering off protons were given. For completeness, in table I, we collect these predictions together with the ones for scattering off neutrons (for the central values of the LECs $`c_5`$, $`f_1`$, and $`f_2`$). The large difference among the three sets of predicted values comes from the various input data; in particular, the theoretically most interesting scattering lengths for neutral–pion scattering off nucleons cannot be predicted very reliably. This theoretical uncertainty calls for a dedicated pion photoproduction experiment $`\gamma p\pi ^0p`$ below the secondary threshold which will allow to pin down the scattering length $`a(\pi ^0p)`$, as detailed in ref. . For a more precise discussion on isospin violation effects in threshold S–waves, see .

### C Comparison to other analyses

The question of isospin violation in pion–nucleon scattering has stimulated vast efforts on the experimental, but also on the phenomenological side.

Gibbs, Li Ai, and Kaufmann  restrict their analysis to the triangle relation (arguing that only in this channel, all reactions are experimentally accessible) and look for deviations from zero of $`D=f_{\mathrm{CEX}}(f_{\pi ^+p}f_{\pi ^{}p})/\sqrt{2}`$. They are only interested in isospin violation which lies beyond effects due to the hadronic mass differences and the Coulomb corrections. They thus describe different physics than we do, and our results should consequently not be directly compared to theirs. They find $`D=(0.012\pm 0.003)\mathrm{fm}`$, thus a four–$`\sigma `$–effect. They cannot conclude where the breaking actually occurs; it could as well be in the charge exchange, in the elastic amplitudes, or in a combination of both.

Matsinos  analyzes the whole set of low–energy pion–nucleon scattering data with the help of an extended tree level model . The known electromagnetic corrections and hadronic mass effects are taken care of by the NORDITA method . He finds consistency of the low–energy pion–nucleon database and comes to similar conclusions than Gibbs et al.: the relative difference in the real parts of the two S–wave amplitudes (the one of the elastic channels and the one corresponding to charge exchange) amounts to $`(6.4\pm 1.4)\%`$.

Both authors are only interested in isospin violation stemming from strong vertices, neither in electromagnetic corrections to the amplitudes, nor in mass difference effects. This approach is completely different from ours and the results should not be naively compared. Both analyses come to the same conclusions, although they are based on different models for describing the strong part of the $`\pi N`$ interaction and they use different algorithms for separating strong effects from electromagnetic and mass difference ones. But we stress again that in the framework we are using, a consistent separation of the electromagnetic and the strong effects is possible and to our knowledge this has not been achieved before. Only when a mapping of the method developed here on the commonly used procedures of separating electromagnetic and hadronic mass effects (such as the NORDITA method ) has been performed, a sensible comparison with the numbers quoted in the literature will be possible. In order to achieve this, further work in chiral perturbation theory calculations will have to be done.

In meson exchange models, isospin violation in pion–nucleon scattering is mainly accounted for by $`\pi \eta `$ mixing. Pion–nucleon scattering then proceeds e.g. through an $`\eta `$ production process followed by an isospin symmetry breaking transition $`\eta \pi ^0`$. This process can only occur if at least one of the pions is neutral. In an SU(2) approach to chiral perturbation theory, $`\pi \eta `$ mixing is hidden in some counterterms. If one performs an SU(3) calculation, one can explicitly take into account such effects, and one can convince oneself that they are indeed proportional to $`m_um_d`$ . Another process which could explain isospin violation is $`\rho \omega `$ mixing . Although this effect can account for the same magnitude of isospin breaking as observed in  and , it gives the wrong sign. Both diagrams can be seen in fig. 8.

## V Summary

We have presented an analysis of isospin breaking effects in pion–nucleon scattering due to the light quark mass difference and the dominant virtual–photon effects.

1. We have taken into account all operators related to strong isospin breaking and the electromagnetic ones that lead to the pion and nucleon mass differences. Stated differently, the finite parts of some of the virtual–photon operators contributing at this order have been set to zero. This allows in particular to isolate the contribution of the strong isospin breaking dimension–two isovector operator first considered by Weinberg. We have considered a set of six ratios $`R_i`$, which vanish in the limit of isospin conservation. From these, four involve isovector and isoscalar amplitudes ($`R_{2,3,4,5}`$) while the two others are of purely isoscalar type $`(R_{1,6})`$.
2. We have extended the analysis of ref.  to higher center–of–mass energies. In the S–wave, isospin violating effects tend to disappear rather quickly in energy. But in the P<sub>1</sub>–wave, due to a very small isospin symmetric part, relative isospin violation becomes very large in some ratios. In order to give a more reliable description of the phenomenon, we presented isospin breaking in two other quantities, which are more directly related to the spin–flip and spin–non–flip amplitudes. We conclude that isospin violation effects are small in these new projections.
3. We have tabulated the theoretical predictions for S–wave scattering lengths in the eight physical channels and stressed the importance of measuring the elusive $`\pi ^0p`$ channel via precise photoproduction experiments (which should be feasible at MAMI or the TUNL–FELL).

We want to note again that within the framework presented here, a unique and unambiguous separation of all different isospin violating effects is possible. To access the size of isospin violation encoded in the presently available pion–nucleon scattering data, the extension of this scheme to include hard and soft photons is mandatory. Once this is done, it will be possible to analyze the cross section data directly without recourse to any model for separating electromagnetic or hadronic mass effects, thus avoiding any mismatch by combining different approaches or models.

## Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Aron Bernstein for very stimulating discussions.

## Figures