text:
# I introduction

## I introduction

The Atiyah-Drinfeld-Hitchin-Manin-Nahm (ADHMN) construction  is a powerful method for constructing the Bogomol’nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS)  magnetic monopole solutions in Yang-Mills-Higgs theory. In this method, the problem of solving the BPS equations for gauge and Higgs fields in three-dimensional space is reduced to that of solving ordinary differential equations for a triplet of Hermitian matrices $`T_a`$, called the Nahm data, that are functions of a single variable $`t`$. We will consider the case of an SU($`N`$) theory maximally broken to \[U(1)\]N-1 by an adjoint Higgs field with asymptotic form $`\mathrm{diag}(t_1,t_2,\mathrm{},t_N)`$, where $`t_1<t_2<\mathrm{}<t_N`$ and $`t_i=0`$. There are $`N1`$ species of “fundamental monopoles” , each carrying a single unit of one of the topological charges. The $`T_a`$ are defined on $`t_1tt_N`$. On the interval $`t_i<t<t_{i+1}`$, they are $`(m_i\times m_i)`$-dimensional, where the $`m_i`$ give the numbers of the various fundamental monopoles. We will denote this system as $`(m_1,m_2,\mathrm{},m_{N1})`$.

The boundary conditions are important in this construction. For example, in SU(2) where we have only one interval $`(t_1,t_2)`$, the Nahm data must have poles at the boundaries $`t=t_1`$ and $`t=t_2`$. For SU($`N`$), where there are $`N1`$ intervals, the boundary conditions at $`t_i`$ depend on the numbers of fundamental monopoles on either side of this boundary. When the numbers are unequal, the boundary conditions are a generalization of those in SU(2) case. There is an additional element if $`m_i=m_{i+1}`$ for some $`i`$. In this case we also have “jumping data”, consisting of a $`2m_i`$-component vector $`a_i`$ located at the boundary $`t=t_i`$.

While the constructions for the cases with or without jumping data are different, the following intuitive physical picture suggests that there must be a connection between them. Suppose we consider a solution with $`m_i>m_{i+1}`$. We can gradually deform the solution by removing the extra fundamental monopoles to spatial infinity, so that the number of fundamental monopoles in $`(t_i,t_{i+1})`$ becomes equal to $`m_{i+1}`$. We will study in this paper how the jumping data appear in this process.

More generally, we will show how the ADHMN construction for magnetic charge $`(m_1,\mathrm{},m_i,\mathrm{},m_{N+1})`$ goes over to a “reduced” ADHMN construction for charge $`(m_1,\mathrm{},m_i1,\mathrm{},m_{N+1})`$ when one of the fundamental monopoles is taken to spatial infinity.

There is a D-brane interpretation of this construction . In this picture the monopoles are D-strings ending on D3 branes , $`t`$ parameterizes the direction parallel to the D-strings, the $`t_i`$ are the places where the D3 branes are located and the Nahm data $`T_a(t)`$ describe the positions and interactions of the various D-string segments. When the gauge symmetry is maximally broken, this configuration can be thought of as a superposition of different numbers of fundamental monopoles, with each D-string joining adjacent D3 branes representing a fundamental monopole.

The easiest way to get the jumping data is to start with a D0-D4 system and use T-duality to get the D1-D3 configuration . This requires that the numbers of D-string segments (fundamental monopoles) on both sides of the D3-brane (boundary) are the same. One finds that the jumping data originate from the hypermultiplets that describe the D0-D4 strings. After the T-duality, the hypermultiplets are localized at the positions of the D3-branes (boundaries). Therefore, it is interesting to see how these hypermultiplets (jumping data) appear or disappear when we remove D-string segments (fundamental monopoles). This will help us to understand how to consistently derive the other boundary conditions.

This paper is organized as follows: In Sec. II, we briefly review the ADHMN construction for SU($`N`$). In Sec. III, we study the case of SU(2). We show how the $`k`$-monopole ADHMN construction becomes equivalent to the reduced $`(k1)`$-monopole construction when one monopole is removed to spatial infinity. In Sec. IV, we study cases in larger groups where no jumping data is involved. In Sec. V, we consider the cases $`m_i=m_{i+1}+1`$ and $`m_i=m_{i+1}`$, where jumping data appears or disappears in the reduced problem. An explicit SU(3) example is given in Sec. VI. The results are interpreted in terms of the D-brane picture in Sec. VII. Section VIII contains the conclusions and some discussion. Some details omitted from Sec. IV A are included in Appendix A.

## II The ADHMN construction

In this section, we briefly outline the ADHMN construction. We restrict our discussion to the SU($`N`$) case . The generalization to SO($`N`$) and Sp($`N`$) is discussed in . There are basically three steps in the ADHMN construction. We first illustrate this in the SU(2) case with $`m`$ fundamental monopoles and asymptotic Higgs field $`\mathrm{diag}(t_1,t_2)`$.

The first step is to find the Nahm data, which are $`m\times m`$ Hermitian matrices $`T_a(t)`$ $`(a=1,2,3)`$ defined on the interval $`t_1tt_2`$. They satisfy the Nahm equationsRepeated indices $`a,b,c`$ are summed over unless otherwise indicated. Here, and for most of the paper, we set the gauge group coupling $`e=1`$.

$$\frac{dT_a}{dt}=iϵ_{abc}T_bT_c.$$
(1)
It is useful to note that the Nahm equation is preserved under a unitary transformation $`T_aUT_aU^{}`$, where $`U`$ is $`t`$ independent. The boundary conditions are that the $`T_a`$ have simple poles at $`t_1`$ and $`t_2`$, with the residues being $`m`$-dimensional irreducible SU(2) representations.

The second step is to solve the construction equation

$$0=\left[\frac{d}{dt}+(T_a+r_a)\sigma _a\right]v_p(t,r_a),$$
(2)
where the $`\sigma _a`$ are the Pauli matrices, the $`v_p`$ are $`2m`$-component vectors and $`p`$ labels the linearly independent solutions. We note that the $`v_p`$ depend on the spatial position $`𝒓`$, while the Nahm data $`T_a`$ do not; this $`𝒓`$ dependence will often not be explicitly indicated. As we will see shortly, in the SU(2) case there are two linearly independent $`v_p`$. We normalize these so that

$$𝑑tv_p^{}v_q=\delta _{pq}.$$
(3)
In the third step we obtain the monopole gauge and Higgs fields satisfying the self-dual BPS equations. If we assemble all the independent normalizable solutions into a $`2m_i\times 2`$ matrix $`𝒗`$, then

$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑tt𝐯^{}𝐯},`$ (4)
$`𝐀`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle 𝑑t𝐯^{}𝐯}.`$ (5)
The linearly independent solutions of the construction equation, Eq. (2), can be counted as follows: At each boundary, due to the irreducible SU(2)-valued residue of the Nahm data, one can show  that of the $`2m`$ solutions near each boundary, $`m+1`$ behave as $`|tt_{end}|^{(m1)/2}`$, while the other $`m1`$ behave as $`|tt_{end}|^{(m+1)/2}`$ and are thus non-normalizable. Matching the $`m+1`$ normalizable solutions from the left boundary and the $`m+1`$ normalizable solutions from the right in the middle of the interval imposes $`2m`$ constraints, because these vectors are $`2m`$-dimensional. This leaves two independent normalizable solutions and thus give the SU(2) fields in Eq. (5). (Although the case $`m=1`$ has no poles, the counting is the same.)

For the general SU($`N`$) case with asymptotic Higgs field $`\mathrm{diag}(t_1,t_2,\mathrm{},t_N)`$, the gauge symmetry is broken to \[U(1)\]N-1. Each U(1) factor is associated with a fundamental monopole that can be obtained by embedding the unit SU(2) monopole.

On the interval $`(t_i,t_{i+1})`$ the Nahm data are $`m_i\times m_i`$ matrices $`T_a^i`$ obeying Eq. (1). These define a construction equation for $`2m_i`$-component vectors $`v_p^i`$. The boundary conditions at $`t_1`$ and $`t_N`$ are the same as for SU(2). At the other boundaries, the boundary conditions depend on the number of fundamental monopoles on either side of the boundary.

The $`m_im_{i+1}`$ case is a generalization of the SU(2) case. We first assume $`m_im_{i+1}+k>m_{i+1}`$. Near the boundary $`t_{i+1}^{}`$, the $`T_a^i`$ take the form

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}S_a& 𝒪\left((tt_{i+1})^{(k1)/2}\right)\\ & \\ 𝒪\left((tt_{i+1})^{(k1)/2}\right)& \frac{J_a^{(k)}}{tt_{i+1}}\end{array}\right),$$
(6)
where $`S_a(t_{i+1})=T_a^{i+1}(t_{i+1})`$, and the $`J_a^{(k)}`$ are $`k`$-dimensional irreducible representations of SU(2). For the solutions of Eq. (2), the upper $`2m_{i+1}`$ components of $`v_p^i`$ from $`(t_i,t_{i+1})`$ are continuous across the boundary, connecting with the $`2m_{i+1}`$-component solutions from $`(t_{i+1},t_{i+2})`$. The other $`2k`$ components of $`v_p^i`$ from $`(t_i,t_{i+1})`$ are finite and terminate at the boundary. The case $`m_i<m_{i+1}`$ is completely analogous.

In the case of $`m_i=m_{i+1}`$, the $`T_a^i`$ are discontinuous at the boundary $`t_{i+1}`$. These discontinuities are described by an extra term involving $`2m_{i+1}`$-dimensional row vectors $`a_{r\alpha }^{i+1}`$, where $`\alpha =1,2`$ are spinor indices and $`r=1,\mathrm{},m_{i+1}`$:

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }T_a)_{rs}`$ $``$ $`T_a^{i+1}(t_{i+1})_{rs}T_a^i(t_{i+1})_{rs}`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}a_{s\alpha }(\sigma _a)_{\alpha \beta }a_{r\beta }^{}`$ (8)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}tr_2(a_r^{}a_s\sigma _a).`$ (9)
\[For simplicity we have dropped the superscript $`(i+1)`$ on $`a`$.\] The trace in the last equality is over the two-dimensional spinor indices $`\alpha `$ of $`a`$ and the Pauli matrices $`\sigma _a`$. Correspondingly, the solutions of the construction equations are also discontinuous at the boundary, with

$$\mathrm{\Delta }v=v^{i+1}(t_{i+1})v^i(t_{i+1})=a^{(i+1)}S^{i+1},$$
(10)
where the $`S^{i+1}`$ are complex numbers.

We can count the number of linearly independent normalizable solutions of the construction equations by a method similar to that for the SU(2) case. In the $`k=0`$ case, it is important to note that there is an additional degree of freedom from the vector $`a^iS^i`$ in Eq. (10) when we connect the solutions from both side of the boundary. The final result is always $`N`$.

If we assemble the $`S_p^i`$ into an $`N`$-component row vector $`𝐒_i`$, the normalization condition Eq. (3) becomes

$$I=𝑑t𝐯^{}𝐯+\underset{i}{}𝐒_i^{}𝐒_i.$$
(11)
Equation (5) becomes

$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑tt𝐯^{}𝐯}+{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}t_i𝐒_i^{}𝐒_i`$ (12)
$`𝐀`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle 𝑑t𝐯^{}𝐯}i{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}𝐒_i^{}𝐒_i.`$ (13)
In these equations the sum over $`i`$ is restricted to the boundaries with $`m_{i1}=m_i`$.

## III The SU(2) example

We first study the simplest example, that of SU(2) broken to U(1), which does not involve the appearance or disappearance of the jumping data. Parameter counting and other analyses  suggest that in this case if all the monopoles are separated much further than their core sizes, the solution can be approximated as a superposition of many unit monopoles.

Let us assume that we have $`k`$ unit monopoles. The Nahm data for this system are $`k\times k`$ Hermitian matrices $`T_a`$ on the interval $`(t_1,t_2)`$. We want to show that by removing one unit monopole, the $`k`$ dimensional ADHMN construction effectively becomes that for $`k1`$ monopoles. Doing this is also an explicit demonstration of the above mentioned superposition picture. We assume that $`k1`$ of the monopoles, as well as the position $`𝒓`$ where we probe the fields, are located within a region of size $`l`$, and that the $`k`$th monopole is removed by a distance $`Dl`$, which without loss of generality we can take to be along the $`z`$-axis.

The Nahm data have poles near the boundaries. This requires

$$T_a\frac{J_a^{(k)}}{tt_2}$$
(14)
in the region $`(t_21/D,t_2)`$, and

$$T_a\frac{\stackrel{~}{J}_a^{(k)}}{tt_1}$$
(15)
in the region $`(t_1,t_1+1/D)`$, where $`J_a^{(k)}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{J}_a^{(k)}`$ are $`k`$-dimensional irreducible representation§§§The $`J_a^{(k)}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{J}_a^{(k)}`$ do not have to be the same representation, although they will of course be unitarily equivalent. of SU(2).

Away from the boundaries, moving one fundamental monopole faraway makes one of the eigenvalues in the Nahm data $`T_a`$ much larger than the others. Therefore the Nahm data in the middle of the interval can be put into the form

$$T_a=\left(\begin{array}{cc}M_a& A_a^{}\\ A_a& b_a\end{array}\right),$$
(16)
where the $`M_a`$ are $`(k1)\times (k1)`$ dimensional Hermitian matrices with entries that are $`𝒪(l)`$, the $`A_a^{}`$ are $`k1`$ dimensional vectors that are at most $`𝒪(\sqrt{lD})`$, and $`b_a=\delta _{a3}D+𝒪(l)`$.

It is useful to note that a unitary transformation $`T_aUT_aU^{}`$ with

$$U=\left(\begin{array}{cc}I_{(k1)\times (k1)}+𝒪(l/D)& 𝒦^{}/D\\ & \\ 𝒦/D& 1+𝒪(l/D)\end{array}\right)$$
(17)
and $`𝒦𝒪(\sqrt{lD})`$ shifts

$$A_aA_a𝒦\delta _{a3},M_aM_a\frac{𝒦^{}𝒦}{D}.$$
(18)
\[In Eq. (18) we have omitted terms that vanish when $`D\mathrm{}`$.\] By making use of such a transformation, we can always subtract a $`t`$-independent constant from $`A_3`$. We will use this freedom to make $`A[(t_1+t_2)/2]`$ vanish, up to exponentially small terms.

In the following we will show that, in this case, the $`A_a`$ terms are effectively negligible and that the $`M_a`$ obey the Nahm equations for the $`k1`$ monopole problem. For $`𝒓𝒪(l)`$, the fields derived from $`M_a`$ using Eq. (5) approximate those derived from $`T_a`$.

We define $`A=A_1+iA_2`$, $`\widehat{A}=A_1iA_2`$, $`M=M_1+iM_2`$, $`\widehat{M}=M_1iM_2`$, $`b=b_1+ib_2`$ and $`\widehat{b}=b_1ib_2`$. The Nahm equations separate into the following equations:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dM_a}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ_{abc}(M_bM_c+A_b^{}A_c),`$ (19)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dA}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`AM_3+A_3MbA_3+b_3A,`$ (20)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\widehat{A}}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{A}M_3A_3\widehat{M}+\widehat{b}A_3b_3\widehat{A},`$ (21)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dA_3}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(A\widehat{M}\widehat{A}M+b\widehat{A}\widehat{b}A\right),`$ (22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{db}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`AA_3^{}+A_3\widehat{A}^{},`$ (23)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\widehat{b}}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{A}A_3^{}A_3A^{},`$ (24)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{db_3}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(AA^{}\widehat{A}\widehat{A}^{}\right).`$ (25)
We first consider the middle of the interval, away from the boundaries, where the $`M_a`$ are $`𝒪(l)`$. Equation (22) gives

$$A_3=𝒪(l)|t_2t_1|\mathrm{Max}(A,\widehat{A}).$$
(26)
(Recall that we have used a unitary transformation to subtract a constant from $`A_3`$.)

If $`A\widehat{A}`$, andSince later we will know that $`A_3e^{D|tt_2|}`$ or $`e^{D|tt_1|}`$, this is an over-estimate. In fact, we can replace $`(t_2t_1)`$ by $`1/D`$; i.e., it is enough that $`Dl`$. $`D(t_2t_1)𝒪(l^2)`$, the fourth term dominates the right-hand side of Eq. (20). This gives

$$A=Ce^{D|tt_2|},$$
(27)
where the coefficient $`C`$ is $`t`$-independent. Matching this behavior to the pole region at $`tt_21/D`$ requires that $`C=𝒪(D)`$. Consequently, Eq. (22) gives

$$A_3=C_3e^{D|tt_2|},$$
(28)
where the coefficient $`C_3`$ is $`𝒪(l)`$. Equation (21) then implies

$$\widehat{A}=𝒪(l^2/D)e^{D|tt_2|}.$$
(29)
If instead $`\widehat{A}A`$,

$`\widehat{A}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{C}e^{D|tt_1|},`$ (30)
$`A_3`$ $`=`$ $`C_3e^{D|tt_1|},`$ (31)
$`A`$ $`=`$ $`𝒪(l^2/D)e^{D|tt_1|},`$ (32)
where $`\widehat{C}`$ is $`𝒪(D)`$ and $`C_3`$ is $`𝒪(l)`$. Equations (27-29) apply for $`t`$ closer to $`t_2`$, while Eqs. (30-32) apply for $`t`$ closer to $`t_1`$.

From Eqs. (27-32), we see that $`A_a𝒪(l)`$ except within narrow regions of width $`t_D\frac{1}{D}\mathrm{ln}\frac{D}{l}`$ near the boundaries. Hence, outside these boundary regions, Eq. (19) can be approximated by the $`(k1)`$-monopole Nahm equations with Nahm data $`M_a`$. In order to match the pole behavior of the $`T_a`$ in $`(1/D,0)`$ in the original problem, the $`(k1)`$-monopole Nahm data $`M_a`$ must have pole behavior in $`(1/l,t_D)`$. The residues of the poles will be irreducible SU(2) representations.

To see what happens to the construction equation, we decompose

$$v=\left(\begin{array}{c}w\\ z\end{array}\right),$$
(33)
where $`w`$ is a $`2m`$-dimensional vector and $`z`$ is 2-dimensional. The construction equation then becomes

$`0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}w+\left[(M_a+r_a)\sigma _a\right]w(A_a^{}\sigma _a)z,`$ (34)
$`0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}z(A_a\sigma _a)w+\left[(b_a+r_a)\sigma _a\right]z.`$ (35)
In the interval $`(t_1+t_D,t_2t_D)`$ the $`w`$ and $`z`$ components are decoupled, since the contributions to them from the cross terms in Eqs. (34) and (35) are negligible due to the exponential smallness of the $`A_a`$. There are three types of solutions. The first two types are associated with the reduced Nahm data $`M_a`$. One is of the form

$$v=\left(\begin{array}{c}v_i\\ 0\end{array}\right)+\mathrm{},i=1,2$$
(36)
where $`v_i`$ is a normalizable solution of the $`(k1)`$-monopole construction equation formed from the $`M_a`$, and the dots represent exponentially small terms. Next are solutions of the form

$$v=\left(\begin{array}{c}u_j\\ 0\end{array}\right)+\mathrm{},j=1,\mathrm{},2k4$$
(37)
where the $`u_j`$ are non-normalizable solutions of the construction equation formed from the $`M_a`$. These behave as $`|tt_{end}|^{k/2}`$ at least near one boundary. Finally, there are two solutions of the form

$$v=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ z_\pm \end{array}\right),$$
(38)
where $`z_\pm =e^{\pm Dt}\eta _\pm `$ and $`\sigma _3\eta _\pm =\eta _\pm `$, and higher order exponential terms are ignored. As we can see, these are concentrated near the boundaries.

We normalize the $`v_i`$ so that

$`{\displaystyle v_i^{}v_j}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{ij},`$ (39)
and fix the scale in Eqs. (37) and (38) by requiring

$`\mathrm{Max}[u_j(t_1+1/D),u_j(t_21/D)]`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{D},`$ (40)
$`\mathrm{Max}[z_\pm (t_1+1/D),z_\pm (t_21/D)]`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{D}.`$ (41)
From the discussion below Eq. (5), we see that $`v_i(t_1+1/D)`$ and $`v_i(t_21/D)`$ are both of order $`D^{k/2+1}`$.

Now we match the linear combination

$$v=\underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}c_iv_i+\underset{i=1}{\overset{2k4}{}}d_iu_i+\underset{i=\pm }{}e_iz_i$$
(42)
to the normalizable solutions in the boundary regions $`(t_1,t_1+1/D)`$ and $`(t_21/D,t_2)`$. As we have seen, within each of these two boundary regions there are $`k+1`$ normalizable solutions behaving as $`|tt_{end}|^{(k1)/2}`$. The matching of the solutions of Eq. (42) on to the boundary region solutions requires that all three terms in Eq. (42) be of the same order of magnitude at $`|tt_{end}|=1/D`$. This implies that the $`d_i`$ and $`e_i`$ are order of $`D^{(k1)/2}`$ smaller than the $`c_i`$. Therefore, the last two terms of Eq. (42) are negligibleSimply stated, the solutions in Eqs. (37) and (38) share the feature that they decay quickly away from the boundaries, so if their scales are fixed to be finite near the boundary, they do not contribute to the fields. We will see similar situations later. in the integrals in the normalization condition, Eq. (3), and the fields, Eq. (5), since they only give corrections of order $`D^{k+1}`$. The changes of the solutions of Eq. (36) within $`(t_1,t_1+t_D)`$ and $`(t_2t_D,t_2)`$ also only have negligible effect on the fields and normalization condition, because the integration region is too small. So we effectively recover the reduced $`(k1)`$ monopole construction.

## IV The pole behavior

In this and the next section, we describe how the boundary conditions in the ADHMN construction change when a monopole is removed to spatial infinity. We will concentrate on the case of SU(3) with magnetic charge $`(m+k,m)`$, focusing on the boundary between the intervals $`(t_1,t_2)`$ and $`(t_2,t_3)`$; the extension to larger unitary groups is straightforward. We write the $`(m+k)\times (m+k)`$ Hermitian matrices on the left of $`t_2`$ as $`T_a^L`$ and the $`m\times m`$ Hermitian matrices on the right as $`T_a^R`$. Because we will remove one fundamental monopole corresponding to the left interval $`(t_1,t_2)`$, one eigenvalue of $`T_a^L`$ should be of order $`D`$ throughout most of this interval. The other elements of $`T_a^L`$ and all the elements of $`T_a^R`$ should be $`𝒪(l)`$ outside the boundary regions. For simplicity, we take $`t_2=0`$ in this and the next section.

We first study the two simpler cases where no jumping data is involved. These are the case $`k>1`$ (in Sec. IV A) and the case $`k<0`$ (in Sec. IV B). In the next section we study how removing a monopole leads to the appearance (for $`k=1`$) and disappearance (for $`k=0`$) of jumping data.

### A $`k>1`$: Reducing the dimension of the pole term on the left

We first consider the case where we remove one fundamental $`(1,0)`$ monopole from the $`(m+k,m)`$ system, with $`k>0`$. (The discussion of Sec. III can be viewed as the special case where $`m=0`$.)

We first phrase the problem and our expectation. In the original $`(m+k,m)`$ problem, we have on the left interval Hermitian matrices $`T_{a,\mathrm{orig}}^L`$ that have one large eigenvalue in the middle of the interval and that develop the poles in the boundary region $`(1/D,0)`$ of the form

$`T_{a,\mathrm{orig}}^L=\left(\begin{array}{cc}N_a& 𝒪(t^{(k1)/2})\\ & \\ 𝒪(t^{(k1)/2})& {\displaystyle \frac{J^{(k)}}{t}}\end{array}\right),`$ (46)
where the $`N_a(0)=T_a^R(0)`$ are $`m\times m`$ dimensional. We want to show that this is equivalent to the reduced $`(m+k1,m)`$ problem whose Nahm data $`T_{a,\mathrm{red}}^L`$ have poles in the boundary region $`(1/l,0)`$ of the form

$`T_{a,\mathrm{red}}^L=\left(\begin{array}{cc}N_a& 𝒪(t^{(k2)/2})\\ & \\ 𝒪(t^{(k2)/2})& {\displaystyle \frac{J^{(k1)}}{t}}\end{array}\right).`$ (50)
Again, the $`N_a(0)=T_a^R(0)`$ are $`m\times m`$-dimensional.

We write the Nahm data in the left interval as

$$T_a^L=\left(\begin{array}{cc}M_a& A_a^{}\\ & \\ A_a& b_a\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}N_a& E_a^{}& F_a^{}\\ E_a& P_a& G_a^{}\\ & & \\ F_a& G_a& b_a\end{array}\right),$$
(51)
where in the second equality we have separated the $`(m+k1)`$-dimensional $`M_a`$ into blocks of dimension $`m`$ and $`(k1)`$.

The same arguments as in the SU(2) case show that away from the boundary, the $`A_a`$ and $`A_a^{}`$ are negligible and the $`M_a`$ obey the $`(m+k1)`$-monopole Nahm equations.\**\**\**As in the SU(2) case, we can eliminate a constant from $`A_3`$ by a unitary transformation of the form of Eq. (17). We show in Appendix A that $`A_3`$ is at most of order $`l`$, so the shifts in the $`M_a`$ are negligible. However we must make sure that the $`N_a`$ are constant in the boundary region $`(1/D,0)`$ as $`D\mathrm{}`$, so that they can continuously connect to the $`T_a^R`$ in the next interval. In Appendix A we show that the transition of the poles in the $`T_a^L`$ is similar to the SU(2) case. In terms of the regions shown in Fig.1, we have

$`\mathrm{Region}\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{I}:T_{1,2}^L(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}T_{1,2,\mathrm{red}}^L& 𝒪(D)e^{D|t|}\\ & \\ 𝒪(D)e^{D|t|}& 𝒪(l)\end{array}\right),1/l<t<t_D,`$ (55)
$`T_3^L(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}T_{3,\mathrm{red}}^L& 𝒪(l)e^{D|t|}\\ & \\ 𝒪(l)e^{D|t|}& D+𝒪(l)\end{array}\right),1/l<t<t_D,`$ (60)
$`\mathrm{Region}\mathrm{L}_{\mathrm{II}}:T_a^L(t)`$ $`=`$ $`T_{a,\mathrm{orig}}^L,1/D<t<0.`$ (62)
The discussion of the construction equation is similar to the SU(2) case and included in Appendix A.

### B $`k<0`$: Increasing the dimension of the pole term on the right

We now remove a $`(1,0)`$ monopole from an $`(m|k|,m)`$ configuration and see how a higher dimensional pole arises in $`T_a^R`$. In the original $`(m|k|,m)`$ problem, $`T_{a,\mathrm{orig}}^L`$ is $`(m|k|)\times (m|k|)`$-dimensional. Near the boundary, $`0<t<1/D`$,

$`T_{a,\mathrm{orig}}^R`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}N_a^{}& 𝒪(t^{(k1)/2})\\ & \\ 𝒪(t^{(k1)/2})& {\displaystyle \frac{J_a^{(|k|)}}{t}}\end{array}\right),`$ (66)
where the $`N_a^{}(0)=T_{a,\mathrm{orig}}^L(0)`$ are $`(m|k|)\times (m|k|)`$-dimensional. Here both $`T_{3,\mathrm{orig}}^L`$ and $`N_3^{}`$ have one large eigenvalue $`D`$. We want to show that this problem is equivalent to the reduced $`(m|k|1,m)`$ problem where $`T_{a,\mathrm{red}}^L`$ is $`(m|k|1)\times (m|k|1)`$-dimensional and $`𝒪(l)`$, while

$`T_{a,\mathrm{red}}^R`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}N_a& 𝒪(t^{k/2})\\ & \\ 𝒪(t^{k/2})& {\displaystyle \frac{J_a^{(|k|+1)}}{t}}\end{array}\right),`$ (70)
for $`0<t<1/l`$, with $`N_a(0)=T_{a,\mathrm{red}}^L(0)`$.

We decompose the Nahm data $`T_a^L`$ as in Eq. (16),

$$T_a^L=\left(\begin{array}{cc}M_a& A_a^{}\\ A_a& b_a\end{array}\right),$$
(71)
but with the $`M_a`$ being $`(m|k|1)`$-dimensional.

Because the off-diagonal terms $`A_a`$ must match on to the $`N_a^{}`$, they can be at most of $`𝒪(l)`$ at $`t=0`$. This is different from the situation in Sec. III. Thus, in the large $`D`$ limit, the only divergent element of $`T_a^L`$ at the boundary is $`b_3=D`$. Since the $`T_a^L`$ are continuously connected to the $`(m|k|)\times (m|k|)`$ upper diagonal block of $`T_a^R`$, this requires that the corresponding element of $`T_a^R`$ also be divergent at $`t_2`$. The Nahm Eqs. (1) require this divergent behavior to be a simple pole and the residues to be $`(|k|+1)`$-dimensional SU(2) representations, which is irreducible due to the irreducibility of the residue in the original problem within $`(0,1/D)`$.

In terms of the regions shown in Fig. 2, the transition of the pole behavior is††††††The block-diagonal form in region L can be obtained by the unitary transformation Eq. (17), as before. We now also do a corresponding unitary transformation $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}U& 0\\ 0& I_{|k|\times |k|}\end{array}\right)`$ on the $`T_a^R`$, thus maintaining the boundary condition at $`t=0`$.

$`\mathrm{Region}\mathrm{L}:T_a^L(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}T_{a,\mathrm{red}}^L& 𝒪(l)e^{D|t|}\\ & \\ 𝒪(l)e^{D|t|}& D\delta _{a3}+𝒪(l)\end{array}\right),1/l<t<0,`$ (75)
$`\mathrm{Region}\mathrm{R}_\mathrm{I}:T_a^R(t)`$ $`=`$ $`T_{a,\mathrm{orig}}^R,0<t<1/D,`$ (77)
$`\mathrm{Region}\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{II}}:T_a^R(t)`$ $`=`$ $`T_{a,\mathrm{red}}^R,t_D<t<1/l.`$ (79)
As in the previous case, the construction equation on the left interval $`(t_1,0)`$ has a solution $`v_+`$ localized near $`t=0`$. On the right interval, there is a solution $`v_R`$ that behaves as $`(\mathrm{\Delta }t)^{(|k|+2)/2}`$ in $`(t_D,1/l)`$ and that would have been discarded due to non-normalizability in the $`(m|k|1,m)`$ description, that becomes normalizable in $`(0,1/D)`$ because the dimension of the pole residue has decreased. However, like $`v_+`$, this solution decays quickly away from the boundary. By reasoning similar to that at the end of Sec. III, these solutions have no effect on the fields in the $`D\mathrm{}`$ limit. Thus the original $`(m+k,m)`$ description goes over to the reduced $`(m+k1,m)`$ description.

## V The jumping data

### A $`k=1`$: Emergence of the jumping data

As described in the introduction, we want to investigate how the jumping data appear when a monopole is removed from a configuration that originally has no jumping data. We start with an $`(m+1,m)`$ configuration in the SU(3) theory. The Nahm data of interest for this system are three $`(m+1)\times (m+1)`$ Hermitian matrices $`T_a^L`$ defined on $`(t_1,0)`$, and three $`m\times m`$ Hermitian matrices $`T_a^R`$ defined on $`(0,t_3)`$ that are continuously connected to the upper diagonal $`m\times m`$ block of the $`T_a^L`$. We write

$$T_a^L=\left(\begin{array}{cc}M_a& A_a^{}\\ A_a& b_a\end{array}\right)$$
(80)
where the $`M_a`$ are $`m\times m`$ dimensional, the $`A_a^{}`$ are $`m`$-dimensional vector and the $`b_a`$ are real. Again, we choose $`b_a=\delta _{a3}D+𝒪(l)`$. The Nahm equations are decomposed as in Eqs. (19-25).

It is easier to analyze the Nahm equation when they are block-diagonalized in the middle of the interval. Using the same arguments as in Sec. III, we first do a unitary transformation to subtract an additive constant from $`A_3`$. We will denote the matrices after this transformation with an extra prime. Two of the decomposed Nahm equation become

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dM_a^{}}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ_{abc}(M_b^{}M_c^{}+A_{b}^{}{}_{}{}^{}A_c^{}),`$ (81)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dA_3^{}}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ_{3bc}(A_b^{}M_c^{}+B_b^{}A_c^{}),`$ (82)
The exponential dependence of $`A`$ in Eq. (27) can now be extended all the way to the boundary $`t=0`$. This is because, unlike the SU(2) case in Sec. III, we no longer have poles at the boundary. The $`M_a`$ are required to continuously connect to the matrices on the right interval and are always $`𝒪(l)`$. We then have

$$A_{1,2}^{}=\stackrel{~}{A}_{1,2}\sqrt{2D}e^{D|t|},$$
(83)
where the $`t`$-independent $`\stackrel{~}{A}_{1,2}`$ are $`𝒪(\sqrt{l})`$ and related by

$$\stackrel{~}{A}_1=i\stackrel{~}{A}_2.$$
(84)
Notice that although we have the same exponential behavior as in Sec. III, the orders of magnitude are different. This is because, if the orders of magnitude of $`\stackrel{~}{A}_{1,2}`$ are bigger than those in Eq. (83), then by Eq. (81) they will cause the variation of $`M_a^{}`$ around the boundary to exceed $`𝒪(l)`$. From Eq. (82) we get

$$A_3^{}=𝒪(l^{3/2}/D^{1/2}).$$
(85)
From Eq. (81) and the orders of magnitude in Eqs. (83) and (85), we can see that, for $`t<t_D/2`$, the $`M_a^{}`$ satisfy the $`m`$-monopole Nahm equation.‡‡‡‡‡‡The factor of $`1/2`$ arises because of the difference in the orders of magnitude of $`\stackrel{~}{A}_a`$ between here and Sec. III.

However, the value of $`A_3`$ before the unitary transformation of Eq. (17) does not have to be as small as in Eq. (85), but can instead contain a constant term\**\**\**The $`A_3`$ cannot be bigger than $`𝒪(\sqrt{lD})`$, since otherwise it would cause the $`M_a`$ to vary too much near the boundary $`t=0`$, as we will see from Eq. (89). of $`𝒪(\sqrt{lD})`$. This general form of $`T_a^L`$ can be obtained by doing the inverse of the unitary transformation on $`T_a^{}`$. This gives

$`A_{1,2}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{A}_{1,2}\sqrt{2D}e^{D|t|}+𝒪(l^{3/2}/D^{1/2})`$ (86)
$`A_3`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{A}_3\sqrt{D/2}+𝒪(l^{3/2}/D^{1/2}).`$ (87)
The shift caused by this unitary transformation is no longer negligible, as it was in Secs. III and IV. From Eq. (18), it is

$$M_3=M_3^{}+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{~}{A}_3^{}\stackrel{~}{A}_3.$$
(88)
From Eq. (81) and the forms of the $`A_a`$, we can see that within $`(t_D/2,0)`$ the $`M_a`$ are rapidly varying,

$$M_a(0)M_a(t_D/2)=iϵ_{abc}\stackrel{~}{A}_b^{}\stackrel{~}{A}_c.$$
(89)
In the following we will see that for the effective construction problem the discontinuity in the Nahm data at the boundary is

$$M_a(0)M_a^{}(t_D/2)=iϵ_{abc}\stackrel{~}{A}_b^{}\stackrel{~}{A}_c+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{~}{A}_3^{}\stackrel{~}{A}_3\delta _{a3},$$
(90)
where $`M_a(0)=T_a^R(0)`$ is the boundary value of the Nahm data $`T_a^R`$ at $`t=0`$. Because, as we will show, the rapid variation of $`M_a^{}`$ in the infinitesimally small region $`(t_D/2,0)`$ has only negligible effects on the construction solutions in the large $`D`$ limit, $`M_a^{}(t_D/2)`$ is effectively the boundary value of the left side Nahm data in the reduced problem.

To see this, we need to look at the solutions of the construction equation. As with the Nahm equations, it is easier to study the solutions using the block-diagonalized form of the Nahm data $`T_a^{}`$ obtained by the unitary transformation. We decompose the corresponding construction solution as

$$v^{}=\left(\begin{array}{c}w^{}\\ z^{}\end{array}\right),$$
(91)
where $`w^{}`$ is a $`2m`$-dimensional vector and $`z^{}`$ is 2-dimensional. The decomposition of Eq. (2) is the same as in Eqs. (34) and (35):

$`0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}w^{}+\left[(M_a^{}+r_a)\sigma _a\right]w^{}(A_{}^{}{}_{a}{}^{}\sigma _a)z^{},`$ (92)
$`0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}z^{}(A_a^{}\sigma _a)w^{}+\left[(b_a^{}+r_a)\sigma _a\right]z^{}.`$ (93)
It is clear from Eqs. (83) and (85) that in the middle of the interval (i.e., $`t<t_D/2`$) $`w^{}`$ and $`z^{}`$ are decoupled. In the following we will consider two types of decoupled solutions. We will start in the middle of the interval and then study their behavior near the boundary.

For the first type, neglecting the terms which vanish as $`D\mathrm{}`$, we have only the $`w^{}`$ components

$$v^{}=\left(\begin{array}{c}w^{}\\ 0\end{array}\right).$$
(94)
Near the boundary region, the second term in Eq. (93) is $`𝒪(w^{}\sqrt{lD})e^{D|t|}`$. After integrating across the boundary region, this gives the $`z^{}`$ components a contribution of $`𝒪(w^{}\sqrt{l/D})`$, which is still negligible compared to $`w^{}`$. Hence, the $`w^{}`$ in Eq. (94) is a solution of Eq. (92) with the last term ignored. Furthermore, the rapid $`𝒪(l)e^{D|t|}`$ variation of the $`M_a^{}`$ is restricted to an interval of width $`t_D/2`$, which is too small to significantly affect $`w^{}`$. Hence the $`w^{}`$ components in Eq. (94) solve the construction equation defined by the Nahm data $`\widehat{M}_a`$ that are defined by $`\widehat{M}_a=M_a`$ for $`t<t_D/2`$ and $`\widehat{M}_a=\mathrm{constant}`$ for $`t_D/2<t0`$. From this definition, we can see that at the boundary the $`\widehat{M}_a`$ are not continuously connected to $`T_a^R`$, but instead have a jump given by Eq. (90).

In the second type of solution, the $`w^{}`$ components are much smaller than the $`z^{}`$ components. The latter can be obtained by ignoring the second term in Eq. (93). We have two such solutions, both similar to those in Eq. (38). We are interested in the one that is localized near $`t=0`$,

$$z^{}=S\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ \sqrt{2D}e^{D|t|}\end{array}\right),$$
(95)
where $`S`$ is $`t`$-independent. To get the boundary behavior of the $`w^{}`$ component, we plug this into Eq. (92) and obtain

$$0=\frac{d}{dt}w^{}(2De^{2D|t|})Sa_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{},$$
(96)
where we assumed the large $`D`$ limit and defined

$`a_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{}=\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{A}_1^{}i\stackrel{~}{A}_2^{}\\ 0\end{array}\right).`$ (99)
Thus, this zero-mode is

$$v_{\mathrm{jump}}^{}=S\left(\begin{array}{c}a_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{}e^{2D|t|}\\ 0\\ \sqrt{2D}e^{D|t|}\end{array}\right)$$
(100)
In contrast with the localized solutions studied in the previous cases, the lower two components of $`v_{\mathrm{jump}}^{}`$ terminate at $`t=0`$ and need not satisfy any boundary conditions. Hence, in this case $`v_{\mathrm{jump}}^{}`$ gives a linearly independent solution that is concentrated within an interval of width $`1/D`$ adjacent to the boundary. In the $`D\mathrm{}`$ limit, it is orthogonal to the other solutions and has norm $`S^{}S`$. Note that while the $`w^{}`$ components are of order $`\sqrt{l/D}`$ smaller than $`z^{}`$, they are $`𝒪(l)`$ at the boundary and cannot be neglected.

To get the general solution of the original problem, we must do an inverse unitary transformation

$`v^{}v=\left[\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& A_3^{}/D\\ & \\ A_3/D& 1\end{array}\right)I_2\right]v^{}`$ (104)
on the solutions of Eqs. (94) and (100).

For the first type of solution, Eq. (94), $`w=w^{}`$ up to terms that can be neglected. The $`z^{}`$ remain small. Hence, in the normalization integral, Eq. (3), and the field integrals, Eq. (5), the only contributions come from the $`w`$ components, which satisfy the construction equation defined by the $`m`$-monopole Nahm data $`\widehat{M}_a`$ defined below Eq. (94).

For the second type of solution, Eq. (100), the $`w`$ components receive contributions from the $`z`$ components after the transformation. We have

$`v_{\mathrm{jump}}=S\left(\begin{array}{c}\left(\stackrel{~}{A}_1^{}+i\stackrel{~}{A}_2^{}\right)e^{2D|t|}\\ \stackrel{~}{A}_3^{}e^{D|t|}\\ 0\\ \sqrt{2D}e^{D|t|}\end{array}\right).`$ (109)
At the boundary the upper components obey $`w_{\mathrm{jump}}(0)=Sa^{}`$, where

$`a^{}=\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{A}_1^{}i\stackrel{~}{A}_2^{}\\ \stackrel{~}{A}_3^{}\end{array}\right)=\stackrel{~}{A}_a^{}\sigma _a\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}\right).`$ (114)
This satisfies

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}tr_2(a^{}a\sigma _a)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(iϵ_{abc}\stackrel{~}{A}_b^{}\stackrel{~}{A}_c+\delta _{a3}\stackrel{~}{A}_b^{}\stackrel{~}{A}_b\stackrel{~}{A}_a^{}\stackrel{~}{A}_3\stackrel{~}{A}_3^{}\stackrel{~}{A}_a\right)`$ (115)
$`=`$ $`iϵ_{abc}\stackrel{~}{A}_b^{}\stackrel{~}{A}_c+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\stackrel{~}{A}_3^{}\stackrel{~}{A}_3\delta _{a3}`$ (116)
$`=`$ $`T_a^R(0)\widehat{M}_a(0).`$ (117)
Equation (84) has been used in the second equality, while Eq. (90) and the definition of the $`\widehat{M}_a`$ have been used in the third equality. Comparing with Eq. (9), we see that the $`a`$ defined in Eq. (114) is the jumping data for the reduced problem. In the large $`D`$ limit, the rapid variation in the $`w`$ component of Eq. (109) over this interval gives

$$\mathrm{\Delta }w_{\mathrm{jump}}=w_{\mathrm{jump}}(0)w_{\mathrm{jump}}(t_D/2)w_{\mathrm{jump}}(0)=Sa^{}.$$
(118)
This is just the discontinuity expected from Eq. (10). As noted above, the inner products containing $`v_{\mathrm{jump}}`$ are dominated by the $`z`$ components. These produce the second terms on the right hand sides of Eqs. (11) and (13).

(In the above discussion, we have mainly concentrated on the region around the middle boundary $`t=0`$. While boundary conditions at other boundaries may eliminate some of the other solutions, they cannot eliminate $`v_{\mathrm{jump}}`$, because it is localized at $`t=0`$.)

A general solution of the construction equation is a linear combination of these two types of solutions. In the $`D\mathrm{}`$ limit, the contribution of the first type to the upper components is continuous, while that from the second type has a discontinuity of the form of Eq. (118). Only the second type of solution has nonzero lower components, and their only effects are to give contributions to the normalization and field integrals that are quadratic in $`S`$.

Thus, we have two different but equivalent ways of looking at this problem. From the point of view of the original $`(m+1,m)`$ ADHMN construction with one monopole far away, the Nahm data $`T_a^L`$ gives two types of solutions: those which have negligible lower components, and the localized solution of Eq. (109). From the point of view of the reduced $`(m,m)`$ construction, the upper components of the first type of solution satisfy the construction equation given by the reduced Nahm data $`\widehat{M}_a`$ and may be discontinuous at the boundary. The effect of the localized solution is replaced by the jumping data that describe the discontinuity of the Nahm data $`\widehat{M}_a`$.

In the reduced problem, the jumping data is part of the Nahm data. It is interesting to note that, although the jumping data arise from a localized solution of the construction equation of the original problem, they are given, through Eq. (114), by the off-diagonal elements $`A_a`$ of the original Nahm matrices.

### B $`k=0`$: Disappearance of the jumping data

In this subsection, we start with an $`(m,m)`$ monopole configuration that has jumping data. We again consider the limit where one of the $`(1,0)`$ monopoles is displaced by a distance $`Dl`$ along the $`z`$-axis. Using the same arguments and notation as in Sec. V A, we find that the original Nahm data $`T_a^L`$ generically take the form

$`T_{1,2}^L`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}𝒪(l)& \stackrel{~}{A}_{1,2}^{}\sqrt{2D}e^{D|t|}+𝒪(l^{3/2}/D^{1/2})\\ & \\ \stackrel{~}{A}_{1,2}\sqrt{2D}e^{D|t|}+𝒪(l^{3/2}/D^{1/2})& 𝒪(l)\end{array}\right),`$ (122)
$`T_3^L`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}𝒪(l)& \stackrel{~}{A}_3^{}\sqrt{D/2}+𝒪(l^{3/2}/D^{1/2})\\ & \\ \stackrel{~}{A}_3\sqrt{D/2}+𝒪(l^{3/2}/D^{1/2})& D+𝒪(l)\end{array}\right).`$ (127)
Evaluating this at the boundary $`t=0`$, we get

$`T_{1,2}^L(t=0)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}𝒪(l)& \stackrel{~}{A}_{1,2}^{}\sqrt{2D}+𝒪(l^{3/2}/D^{1/2})\\ & \\ \stackrel{~}{A}_{1,2}\sqrt{2D}+𝒪(l^{3/2}/D^{1/2})& 𝒪(l)\end{array}\right),`$ (131)
(132)
$`T_3^L(t=0)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}𝒪(l)& \stackrel{~}{A}_3^{}\sqrt{D/2}+𝒪(l^{3/2}/D^{1/2})\\ & \\ \stackrel{~}{A}_3\sqrt{D/2}+𝒪(l^{3/2}/D^{1/2})& D+𝒪(l)\end{array}\right),`$ (136)
where the $`\stackrel{~}{A_a}`$ are $`𝒪(\sqrt{l})`$. We write the jumping data as

$$a=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\alpha _1& \beta _1\\ \alpha _2& \beta _2\end{array}\right),$$
(137)
where 1,2 are spinor indices, $`\alpha _{1,2}`$ are $`m1`$-dimensional row vectors and $`\beta _{1,2}`$ are complex numbers. In this notation, the discontinuities of the Nahm data, Eq. (9), are

$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ $`T_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\alpha _1^{}\alpha _2+\alpha _2^{}\alpha _1& \alpha _1^{}\beta _2+\alpha _2^{}\beta _1\\ & \\ \beta _1^{}\alpha _2+\beta _2^{}\alpha _1& \beta _1^{}\beta _2+\beta _2^{}\beta _1\end{array}\right),`$ (141)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ $`T_2={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\alpha _1^{}\alpha _2\alpha _2^{}\alpha _1& \alpha _1^{}\beta _2\alpha _2^{}\beta _1\\ & \\ \beta _1^{}\alpha _2\beta _2^{}\alpha _1& \beta _1^{}\beta _2\beta _2^{}\beta _1\end{array}\right),`$ (146)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ $`T_3={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\alpha _1^{}\alpha _1\alpha _2^{}\alpha _2& \alpha _1^{}\beta _1\alpha _2^{}\beta _2\\ & \\ \beta _1^{}\alpha _1\beta _2^{}\alpha _2& \beta _1^{}\beta _1\beta _2^{}\beta _2\end{array}\right).`$ (151)
Since all elements of the $`T_a^R`$ are $`𝒪(l)`$ for $`t0`$, we have

$`T_a^L(t=0)+\mathrm{\Delta }T_a=𝒪(l).`$ (152)
By comparing the $`mm`$-elements of Eqs. (136) and (146), we get

$`\beta _1=\sqrt{2D}+𝒪(l/\sqrt{D}),\beta _2=𝒪(l/\sqrt{D}),`$ (153)
where an arbitrary phase can be absorbed in the redefinition. Using the constraint from Eq. (84), we find from the off-diagonal blocks in Eqs. (136) and (146) that

$`\alpha _1=\stackrel{~}{A}_3+𝒪(l^{3/2}/D),\alpha _2=2\stackrel{~}{A}_1+𝒪(l^{3/2}/D).`$ (154)
These results imply that the discontinuities in the upper-left $`(m1)\times (m1)`$ matrices in Eq. (146) can be written as

$`\mathrm{\Delta }M_a=iϵ_{abc}\stackrel{~}{A}_b^{}\stackrel{~}{A}_c{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\stackrel{~}{A}_3^{}\stackrel{~}{A}_3\delta _{a3}+𝒪(l^2/D).`$ (155)
As before, by means of a unitary transformation we can make the $`T_a^L`$ block diagonal away from the boundary and then define $`(m1)\times (m1)`$ Nahm data $`\widehat{M}_a`$. The effective difference between the $`\widehat{M}_a`$ and the $`M_a`$ at the boundary is exactly $`1`$ times the quantity in Eq. (155), as we saw in Eq. (90). Thus, by using the $`\widehat{M}_a`$ and the $`T_a^R`$, the jumping data effectively disappear in the large $`D`$ limit.

As in Sec. V A, all but one of the solutions of the construction equation have upper components $`w`$ that solve the construction equation associated with $`\widehat{M}_a`$ and lower components $`z`$ that are negligible. The remaining solution is localized near $`t=0`$ and is of the form

$$N\left(\begin{array}{c}𝒪\left(\sqrt{l}\right)e^{D|t|}\\ 0\\ \sqrt{2D}e^{D|t|}\end{array}\right),$$
(156)
where $`N`$ is constant and we have only indicated the order of the magnitude of the first $`2m2`$ components. From the jumping data in Eqs. (153) and (154), we see that the discontinuities in the construction equation solutions at $`t=0`$ must be of the form

$$S\left(\begin{array}{c}𝒪\left(\sqrt{l}\right)\\ \sqrt{2D}\\ 0\end{array}\right),$$
(157)
where the notation is the same as in Eq. (156). In order to connect properly to the solutions on the right interval, both $`N`$ and $`S`$ have to be proportional to $`1/\sqrt{D}`$. Hence, neither the localized solution nor the jumping data contribute to the normalization or field integrals in the $`D\mathrm{}`$ limit. Furthermore, in this limit the upper $`2m2`$ components of the solutions become continuous at the boundary. Thus, the fields become the same as in the $`(m1,m)`$ construction.

## VI An explicit SU(3) example

We illustrate the results of Sec. IV and V by an example with SU(3) broken to U(1) $`\times `$ U(1) with asymptotic Higgs field $`\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{diag}(t_1,t_2,t_3)`$. We consider the $`(2,1)`$ monopole solution, whose explicit Nahm data are available. This example has been discussed in detail in . Here we will be interested in the limit where one fundamental $`(1,0)`$ monopole is removed. We will choose the coordinates so that one $`(1,0)`$ monopole is at the origin and the other $`(1,0)`$ monopole is a distance $`D`$ away on the $`z`$-axis. The $`(0,1)`$ monopole is at a distance of order $`l`$ from the origin.

The Nahm data in the right interval $`(t_2,t_3)`$ are simply real numbers that give the coordinates of the $`(0,1)`$ fundamental monopole. The boundary condition requires these constants to be equal to the boundary values of the 11-elements of the $`2\times 2`$-dimensional Nahm data defined in the left interval $`(t_1,t_2)`$. If all three monopoles are collinear,\*†\*†\*†If they are not collinear, we must do a unitary transformation on $`T_a^L`$, as we will see later in this section. then up to spatial rotations and translations the Nahm data in $`(t_1,t_2)`$ are

$$T_a^L=\frac{1}{2}f_a\sigma _a+\frac{D}{2}\delta _{a3}\text{(no sum)}$$
(158)
for $`a=1,2,3`$, where the $`\sigma _a`$ are Pauli matrices. The analytic functions $`f_a`$ are

$`f_1(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Dcn_k(D(tt_1))}{sn_k(D(tt_1))}},`$ (159)
$`f_2(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Ddn_k(D(tt_1))}{sn_k(D(tt_1))}},`$ (161)
$`f_3(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{D}{sn_k(D(tt_1))}},`$ (163)
where $`0k1`$ and $`D<\frac{2}{t_2t_1}K(k)`$. Here $`sn_k`$, $`cn_k`$ and $`dn_k`$ are the Jacobi elliptic functions and $`K(k)`$ is the complete elliptic integral of the first kind. The $`f_a`$ have poles at $`t_1`$ and $`t_{}=t_1+2K(k)/D>t_2`$.

In general, the relations between the parameters $`k`$ and $`D`$ and the physical quantities are complicated. They become simple when $`k1`$ in the large $`D`$ limit. Within the pole region $`tt_11/D`$, we have

$`T_a^L={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _a}{2(tt_1)}}+𝒪(D^2(tt_1)).`$ (164)
Away from this region, $`tt_11/D`$, we can use the approximation

$$f_1=f_2=D/\mathrm{sinh}(D(tt_1)),f_3=D\mathrm{coth}(D(tt_1)),$$
(165)
valid when $`k1,`$ to obtain

$`T_1^L`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& De^{D|tt_1|}\\ & \\ De^{D|tt_1|}& 0\end{array}\right),`$ (169)
$`T_2^L`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& iDe^{D|tt_1|}\\ & \\ iDe^{D|tt_1|}& 0\end{array}\right),`$ (174)
$`T_3^L`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}De^{2D|tt_1|}& 0\\ & \\ 0& D+De^{2D|tt_1|}\end{array}\right),`$ (179)
for $`t<(t_1+t_{})/2`$. (Higher order exponential terms have been omitted here, and in later similar expressions.) This explicitly verifies the predictions of Eqs. (30)-(32).

The expressions in the region $`t>(t_1+t_{})/2`$ can be related to those in $`t<(t_1+t_{})/2`$ by

$`sn_k(x)`$ $`=`$ $`sn_k(2K(k)x),`$ (180)
$`dn_k(x)`$ $`=`$ $`dn_k(2K(k)x),`$ (181)
$`cn_k(x)`$ $`=`$ $`cn_k(2K(k)x).`$ (182)
In particular, the upper-left element of $`T_3^L`$ has to be $`𝒪(l)`$ at $`t=t_2`$. Then we have

$`T_1^L=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& De^{D|tt_{}|}\\ & \\ De^{D|tt_{}|}& 0\end{array}\right)`$ $`=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& \sqrt{Dc}e^{D|tt_2|}\\ \sqrt{Dc}e^{D|tt_2|}& 0\end{array}\right),`$ (188)
$`T_2^L=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& iDe^{D|tt_{}|}\\ & \\ iDe^{D|tt_{}|}& 0\end{array}\right)`$ $`=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& i\sqrt{Dc}e^{D|tt_2|}\\ & \\ i\sqrt{Dc}e^{D|tt_2|}& 0\end{array}\right),`$ (196)
$`T_3^L=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}De^{2D|tt_{}|}& 0\\ & \\ 0& D+De^{2D|tt_{}|}\end{array}\right)`$ $`=\left(\begin{array}{cc}ce^{2D|tt_2|}& 0\\ & \\ 0& D+ce^{2D|tt_2|}\end{array}\right),`$ (204)
for $`t>(t_1+t_{})/2`$, where $`c=De^{2D|t_{}t_2|}`$ is a positive constant of $`𝒪(l)`$ that gives the position of the $`(0,1)`$ monopole at $`(0,0,c)`$. These are examples of Eqs. (83) and (85).

Away from the boundaries, the Nahm data is approximately diagonal, with

$$T_1^L=T_2^L=0,T_3^L=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 0\\ 0& D\end{array}\right).$$
(205)
This corresponds to two widely separated $`(1,0)`$ monopoles, with one at the origin and the other at $`D`$ on the $`z`$-axis.

Eq. (93) gives two solutions localized near a boundary, with lower components

$$z_{}=\sqrt{2D}\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\end{array}\right)e^{D|tt_1|},z_+=\sqrt{2D}\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}\right)e^{D|tt_2|}.$$
(206)
The second one is localized near $`t_2`$. Substituting this into Eq. (92) gives

$$w=\left(\begin{array}{c}\sqrt{2c}e^{2D|tt_2|}\\ 0\end{array}\right).$$
(207)
Although this has a nonzero value only at the boundary in the $`D\mathrm{}`$ limit, it provides an extra degree of freedom for connecting the solutions from the two intervals. Evaluating Eq. (207) at the boundary $`t_2`$ gives the jumping data $`a^{}`$, with the correct jump $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_a=\frac{1}{2}tr_2(a^{}a\sigma _a)=c\delta _{a3}`$.

So far we have restricted ourselves to the case where all three monopoles are collinear. We now relax this restriction. Without loss of generality, we can rotate the system so that the $`(1,0)`$ monopoles are on the $`z`$-axis while the $`(0,1)`$ monopole is in the $`xz`$ plane at $`(x,0,z)`$. To obtain the Nahm data for this solution, we perform a unitary transformation using

$$𝒰=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\frac{\theta }{2}& \mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta }{2}\\ & \\ \mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta }{2}& \mathrm{cos}\frac{\theta }{2}\end{array}\right)$$
(208)
on the previous Nahm data, with

$`\mathrm{sin}\theta =x/\sqrt{Dc},\mathrm{where}c=(\sqrt{z^2+x^2}z)/2(rz)/2.`$ (209)
This unitary transformation rotates the 11-elements at $`t_2`$ (i.e. the position of the $`(0,1)`$ monopole) along an ellipsoid with foci $`(0,0,0)`$ and $`(0,0,D)`$ on the $`z`$-axis . The Nahm data after the transformation are (in the $`D\mathrm{}`$ limit)

$`T_1^L`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}xe^{D|tt_2|}& \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{D(rz)}{2}}}e^{D|tt_2|}\\ & \\ \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{D(rz)}{2}}}e^{D|tt_2|}& xe^{D|tt_2|}\end{array}\right),`$ (213)
$`T_2^L`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& i\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{D(rz)}{2}}}e^{D|tt_2|}\\ & \\ i\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{D(rz)}{2}}}e^{D|tt_2|}& 0\end{array}\right),`$ (218)
$`T_3^L`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}{\displaystyle \frac{x^2}{2(rz)}}{\displaystyle \frac{rz}{2}}e^{2D|tt_2|}& \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{D}{2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{x}{\sqrt{rz}}}\\ & \\ \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{D}{2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{x}{\sqrt{rz}}}& D{\displaystyle \frac{x^2}{2(rz)}}+{\displaystyle \frac{rz}{2}}e^{2D|tt_2|}\end{array}\right).`$ (223)
These are examples of Eqs. (86) and (87). This transformation changes Eq. (207) to

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\sqrt{rz}e^{2D|tt_2|}\\ \frac{x}{\sqrt{rz}}e^{D|tt_2|}\end{array}\right),$$
(224)
again giving the correct jumps $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_1=x,\mathrm{\Delta }T_2=0,\mathrm{\Delta }T_3=z`$.

## VII The D-brane picture

As mentioned in the introduction, in the D-brane picture the monopoles are D-strings stretching between adjacent D3-branes. From the perspective of the D3-brane, the endpoints of the D-strings are magnetic sources that generate magnetic flux in the three spatial directions on the D3-brane.

We denote the spatial distance on the D3-brane as $`r`$ and the Higgs field as $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. The Higgs field of the D3-brane describes its transverse fluctuations (which we denote as $`\widehat{t}`$ ) up to a factor of $`2\pi l_s^2`$ (where $`l_s`$ is the string scale). The nontrivial profiles of the Higgs fields of the monopoles describe the bending of the D3-brane due to the presence of the D-strings . If we consider the case where the D-strings end at the D3-brane, one typically finds that spikes are created at the D-string endpoints. These spikes can be obtained from the asymptotic Higgs profile of the charge $`k`$ solution

$$|\widehat{t}|=2\pi ł_s^2|t|=2\pi ł_s^2\mathrm{\Phi }(r)=\pi ł_s^2\frac{|k|}{er}.$$
(225)
(For this section, we have restored the factors of $`e`$, with $`r_aer_a`$, $`T_aeT_a`$.) This formula is valid if $`r`$ is bigger than the monopole separation scale $`l`$ and the monopole core size.

On the other hand, there is a dual description of the above phenomena from the perspective of the D-strings . As we have seen in the ADHMN construction, the $`k0`$ case corresponds to situations where the Nahm data on the two sides of the boundary have different dimensions. In this case (for $`|k|>1`$), we have poles emerging at the boundary. Since the Nahm data give the transverse fluctuations of the D-strings, these poles, with $`k`$-dimensional irreducible SU(2)-valued residues, means that these D-strings are no longer distinct from each other near the D3-branes. They form a noncommutative two-sphere  and have an overall funnel-like geometry. The radius of this two-sphere is naturally defined as

$$R(\widehat{t})^2=\frac{4\pi ^2l_s^4}{|k|}\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\mathrm{Tr}\left[T^i(\widehat{t})^2\right].$$
(226)
In the pole region $`|\widehat{t}|<2\pi l_s^2/el`$ we have

$$R(\widehat{t})=\pi l_s^2\frac{|k|}{e|\widehat{t}|}\sqrt{1\frac{1}{k^2}},$$
(227)
where $`_i(J^i)^2=\frac{1}{4}(k^21)I_k`$ has been used.

Noticing that the three transverse directions of the D-strings are the same as the three spatial directions on the D3-brane, we can then identify $`R`$ in Eq. (227) with $`r`$ in Eq. (225). These two dual descriptions, Eq. (225) and Eq. (227), of the brane junction agree well for large $`k`$. This can be explained as follows . This junction can be described by the non-Abelian world-volume Born-Infeld actions of the D3-branes and D-strings. This will give, respectively, the BPS monopole equation on the D3-branes and the Nahm equation on the D-string. The regions of validity of these two descriptions are restricted to the region where the effect of a derivative on the fields is less than a factor of $`1/l_s`$, so that the higher order string corrections to the Born-Infeld actions can be ignored. This means $`rl_s`$ in Eq. (225) and $`|\widehat{t}|l_s`$ in Eq. (227). These regions overlap when $`|k|1`$. In terms of $`\widehat{t}`$, the overlapping region is $`l_s|\widehat{t}|k\pi l_s/e`$. This overlapping region extends into the pole region of the Nahm data if $`e<2\pi l_s/l`$. This is consistent with the weak electric coupling limit where the monopole description makes sense.

Now the transitions of the poles in Sec. IV can be interpreted in this D-brane picture. For the $`k>1`$ case, we only see a $`k1`$ net magnetic charge in the spatial region $`lrD`$ on the D3-brane. In the dual description on the D-strings, this corresponds to the $`(k1)`$-dimensional poles in the boundary region $`|t|1/el`$. If we move far away, to the spatial region $`rD`$, we start to see the charge of the removed monopole. In the dual description, this corresponds to the higher dimensional poles within the boundary region $`|t|1/eD`$. The $`k<0`$ case is similar, except now the removed monopole cancels one unit of magnetic charge. These two cases are sketched in Fig. 3.

We also notice that in these two cases the distant D-string segment interacts predominantly with the noncommutative two-sphere part of the D-strings that contribute to the net magnetic charge on the D3-brane. These string excitations are described by the poles in the Nahm data. The interactions between this distant D-string segment and the other D-strings are small. For the $`k>1`$ case, these are described by the $`F_a`$ in Appendix A. These fall as a power of $`t`$ and vanish at the boundary $`t=0`$. For the $`k<0`$ case, the interactions are described by the $`A_a`$ in Sec. IV B, which are at most of order $`l`$ at the boundary $`t=0`$.

The ADHMN construction with jumping data can be obtained by T-duality of the D0-D4 system. One finds that the jumping data describe excitations of bosonic strings that stretch between the D-strings and D3-branes. These excitations are always localized on the D3-branes. This method naturally imposes the restriction that the number of D-string segments should be the same on both sides of each D3-brane. In other words, from the D3-brane point of view, all the magnetic flux coming from the D-strings on one side has to exit within a finite distance to the D-strings on the other side. We have seen that different boundary conditions can be naturally linked to the others by removing certain D-string segments. Therefore we can start with this configuration and derive all the other boundary conditions by removing certain D-string segments. It is then interesting to see how the appearance or the disappearance of the jumping data can be interpreted in this D-brane picture.

In addition, because of the T-duality, the system is compactified along the D1 direction. If we remove away all the D-string segments in one interval, we effectively decompactify the system.

We first look at the $`k=1`$ case. We focus on the fields describing the fundamental strings stretching between the D-string segment we want to separate and the rest of the D-strings. In the Nahm data, these fields are the $`A_a`$ of Sec. V A. Before the separation, they are within a region of size $`1/el`$ (in terms of the D-string coordinate $`t`$) adjacent to the D3-brane. As we remove the D-string segment to a distance of order $`D`$ (in terms of the distance on the D3-brane), these fields become localized closer to the D3-brane; they are effectively restricted to a region of order $`1/eD`$ as indicated by the $`e^{D|t|}`$ dependence of the $`A_a`$ in Eqs. (86) and (87). Therefore, as $`D\mathrm{}`$ these string excitations will be restricted to the D3 brane and effectively appear as interactions between the D-strings and the D3-brane, just like the hypermultiplet. Quantitatively, as we can see from Eq. (114), the effective jumping data is indeed proportional to the $`A_a`$, with a normalization factor of order $`\sqrt{D}`$. Notice that, in contrast with the previous two cases, these string excitations are not small, even though the system left is neutral. They are of order $`\sqrt{lD}`$ at $`t=0`$. This case is sketched in Fig. 4.

The $`k=0`$ case is a bit more complicated. Just as in the above $`k=1`$ case, as we remove one D-string segment the fundamental string modes connecting this D-string segment and the other D-strings become restricted to the D3 brane (see (b) in Fig. 5). One the other hand, we also have the jumping data between the D-string and D3 branes (see (b) in Fig. 5). Equation (152) requires that the leading, $`𝒪(\sqrt{lD})`$, parts of these two contributions cancel. This leaves the $`\beta `$ part of the jumping data, represented by (c) in Fig. 5. This decouples in the $`D\mathrm{}`$ limit.

## VIII Conclusions and discussion

In this paper, we have related the boundary conditions in the ADHMN constructions for different magnetic charges by removing fundamental monopoles one by one to spatial infinity; we were particularly interested in the cases involving jumping data, which seem quite different from the other cases. We demonstrated the equivalence in the $`D\mathrm{}`$ limit between the ADHMN construction for the original $`(\mathrm{},m+k,m,\mathrm{})`$ problem, with one $`(\mathrm{},1,0,\mathrm{})`$ fundamental monopole removed a distance $`D`$ from the others, and the reduced $`(\mathrm{},m+k1,m,\mathrm{})`$ problem.

For the Nahm data $`T_a^L`$ on the left interval, we generally find a small region near the boundary whose width $`ϵ_D`$ goes to zero as $`D\mathrm{}`$. Away from this boundary region, we can make the $`T_a^L`$ block-diagonal with $`D\delta _{a3}`$ in one block and the decoupled Nahm data of the reduced problem in the other. The values of the $`T_a^L`$ at $`t=ϵ_D`$ become the boundary values for the reduced problem. The Nahm data generally vary rapidly in $`ϵ_D<t<0`$. This can give changes in the pole behavior or can lead to an effective discontinuity $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_a`$.

For $`k>1`$, the dimensions of the pole terms change from $`k1`$ to $`k`$ in the boundary region; this variation does not affect the fields of the reduced problem. For $`k=1`$, this rapid variation gives an effective discontinuity between the Nahm data on the two sides of the boundary in the large $`D`$ limit. The construction equation for this case has a solution localized in this small region that has the same effect as the jumping data in the reduced problem. For $`k=0`$, the rapid variation of $`T_a^L`$ cancels the effect of the original jumping data and makes the reduced Nahm data continuous across the boundary between the left and right intervals. For the $`k<0`$ case, removing a monopole on the left also causes changes on the right interval: The $`|k|`$-dimensional pole terms of the original $`T_a^R`$ are restricted to $`0<t<ϵ_D`$ and go over to the $`(|k|+1)`$-dimensional pole terms of the reduced problem when $`t>ϵ_D`$. As in the $`k>1`$ case, this small region has no effect on the fields.

In terms of the D-brane picture, removing massive fundamental monopoles corresponds to removing D-string segments. The transition between different types of boundary conditions can then be interpreted in terms of the interactions between the distant D-string segment and the rest of the system.

An interesting extension of this work would be to consider the case where some D3-branes coincide with each other. In terms of the world-volume theory on the D3-branes, this corresponds to having a non-Abelian unbroken gauge symmetry. In these cases one finds solutions with clouds of non-Abelian fields surrounding one or more massive monopoles. These clouds can be interpreted as massless monopoles with non-Abelian magnetic charge .

In terms of the Nahm data, these clouds have been found to arise in two different ways. In the first, the clouds originate from the pole behavior of the Nahm data. An example is the $`([1],2)`$ solution\*‡\*‡\*‡The square bracket denotes a massless monopole. in SU(3) $``$ SU(2) $`\times `$ U(1). The D-brane picture is sketched in Fig. 6, where $`t_{end}=t_1=t_2`$ is the position of the two coinciding D3-branes. The pole of the Nahm data is at $`t_{}<t_{end}`$. Sending the massless monopole far away corresponds to bringing $`t_{}`$ closer to $`t_{end}`$. The size of the cloud, which can be interpreted as the distance to the massless monopole, is approximately

$$a\frac{1}{2e(t_{end}t_{})}.$$
(228)
We can understand this result heuristically by applying the large-$`k`$ D-brane analysis of Sec. VII to the present $`k=2`$ case. On the D3-branes, the non-Abelian Higgs fields of the known BPS solution  give $`tt_{end}{\displaystyle \frac{a}{2e(r+a)r}}`$ for $`a`$ much greater than the massive monopole separation. For $`ar`$ this gives

$`r{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2e(tt_{end})+1/a}}.`$ (229)
On the D-strings, since the pole position is at $`t_{}`$, the D-string fluctuation scale

$`R{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2e}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(tt_{end})+(t_{end}t_{})}}.`$ (230)
Setting $`R=r`$ then gives Eq. (228), up to a factor of $`𝒪(1)`$.

In the second case, the clouds arise from the jumping data. An example is the $`(1,[1],1)`$ solution in SU(4) $``$ U(1) $`\times `$ SU(2) $`\times `$ U(1). The relation between the cloud and the D-brane picture is less clear for this situation, as well as for the more complicated examples where both jumping data and pole behavior contribute to the clouds .

In this non-Abelian case the process of taking individual monopoles to spatial infinity is more complicated than when the symmetry is maximally broken. Because the long-range interactions between monopoles with non-Abelian charges are more complex than when only Abelian magnetic charges are present, it is not always possible to deform a solution into one that is essentially a superposition of widely separated component monopoles. A striking example of this is seen when one examines solutions with massive and massless component monopoles whose overall magnetic charge is purely Abelian. Previous studies  of such “magnetically color-neutral” solutions have found that the massive monopoles must always be enclosed by one or more clouds. As a result, one cannot remove one of the massive monopoles to spatial infinity without simultaneously making one of the clouds infinite in size.

However, this is not necessarily the case for solutions that are not magnetically color-neutral. An example of this is provided by the solutions with charge $`([1],m)`$ for SU(3) broken to SU(2)$`\times `$U(1). From the form of the Nahm construction for these solutions, it is easy to see that we can use the methods of this paper to remove $`m2`$ of the $`([0],1)`$ massive fundamental monopoles one by one, while still maintaining a finite size cloud. It is only when we are left with the color-neutral $`([1],2)`$ solution that this procedure breaks down.

This process of removing massive monopoles can help us understand the parameters entering these solutions. Both the counting and the interpretation of these are more complicated than when all the monopoles are massive. With maximal symmetry breaking, the moduli space of $`(1,m)`$ solutions is $`4(m+1)`$-dimensional, with the parameters corresponding to three position and one U(1) collective coordinate for each of the massive monopoles.

With the non-maximal breaking, this counting still holds for the $`m=2`$ case, but the meaning of some of the parameters is changed. Eight are the usual position and U(1) parameters for the two massive monopoles, but three others correspond to global SU(2) rotations, while the last characterizes the size of the non-Abelian cloud. For $`m2`$, the dimensions of the spaces have been found to be 6 for $`m=1`$ and $`4m+6`$ for $`m>2`$ . (There is no solution for $`m=0`$.) By examination of the explicit $`([1],1)`$ solutions \[which are gauge equivalent to the $`([0],1)`$ ones\] one sees that four parameters are position and U(1) variables, while the remaining two dimensions are due to global SU(2) rotations that correspond to non-normalizable zero modes. To understand the parameters when $`m>2`$, we apply the methods of this paper to deform the generic solution into one containing $`m2`$ massive monopoles that are well separated from each other and from a $`([1],2)`$ color-neutral configuration. It then seems clear that the parameters should be understood as $`4(m2)`$ position and U(1) variables for the isolated massive monopoles, the twelve described above for the $`([1],2)`$ configuration, and two more corresponding to non-normalizable global SU(2) modes.

The generalization of this procedure to other charges and groups, as well as to solutions containing more than one cloud, remains a challenge for future work.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy.

## A

In this appendix we describe the details of the analysis of the Nahm data and solutions of the construction equation for the $`k>1`$ case described in Sec. IV A. We will study the case of charge $`(m+k,m)`$ with one $`(1,0)`$ monopole removed by a distance $`D`$, and compare it with the case of charge $`(m+k1,m)`$. We will focus on the behavior in the neighborhood of the middle boundary at $`t_2=0`$, ignoring the boundary regions near $`t_1`$ and $`t_3`$.

We decompose the Nahm data $`T_a^L`$ and construction equation solution $`v`$ as

$$T_a^L=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}N_a& E_a^{}& F_a^{}\\ E_a& P_a& G_a^{}\\ F_a& G_a& b_a\end{array}\right),v=\left(\begin{array}{c}u\\ w\\ z\end{array}\right),$$
(A1)
where in each case the first entry is $`m`$-dimensional, the second is $`(k1)`$-dimensional and the third is one-dimensional.

The Nahm equations separate into

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN_a}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ_{abc}\left(N_bN_c+E_b^{}E_c+F_b^{}F_c^{}\right),`$ (A2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dE_a}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ_{abc}\left(E_bN_c+P_bE_c+G_b^{}F_c\right),`$ (A3)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dF_a}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ_{abc}\left(F_bN_c+G_bE_c+b_bF_c\right),`$ (A4)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dP_a}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ_{abc}\left(E_bE_c^{}+P_bP_c+G_b^{}G_c\right),`$ (A5)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dG_a}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ_{abc}\left(F_bE_c^{}+G_bP_c+b_bG_c\right),`$ (A6)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{db_a}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ_{abc}\left(F_bF_c^{}+G_bG_c^{}\right).`$ (A7)
From Eq. (6) we see that in the interval $`(1/D,0)`$ the matrix

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}P_a& G_a^{}\\ G_a& b_a\end{array}\right)\frac{J_a^{(k)}}{t},$$
(A8)
where the $`J_a^{(k)}`$ are a $`k`$-dimensional irreducible representation of SU(2). The behavior of the other elements of the $`T_a^L`$ in this region can also be seen from Eq. (6). For $`t1/l`$, we have $`b_3=D`$ and the other elements $`𝒪(l)`$, just as in Sec. III.

By a unitary transformation using

$$U=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}I_{m\times m}+𝒪(l^2/D^2)& 𝒪(l^2/D^2)& _3^{}/D\\ & & \\ 𝒪(l^2/D^2)& I_{(k1)\times (k1)}+𝒪(l^2/D^2)& 𝒢_3^{}/D\\ & & \\ _3/D& 𝒢_3/D& 1+𝒪(l^2/D^2)\end{array}\right)$$
(A9)
we can subtract constants $`_3`$ and $`𝒢_3`$ from $`F_3`$ and $`G_3`$, respectively. We choose these constants so that $`F_3`$ and $`G_3`$ are exponentially small in the middle of the interval. Since, as we will see, $`_3`$ and $`𝒢_3`$ are both $`𝒪(l)`$, the effects of the transformation on the other elements of the $`T_a^L`$ are negligible.

Using arguments similar to those applied to the $`A_a`$ in Sec. III, we can show that for $`t<1/D`$ the first and second components of Eq. (A6) are dominated by the $`b_3G_c`$ term. This gives the $`t`$-dependence of the $`G_{1,2}`$ to be $`𝒪(D)e^{D|t|}`$, where the coefficient must be $`𝒪(D)`$ so that it can match on to the pole at $`t=1/D`$. This, together with the third component of Eq. (A6), gives $`G_3𝒪(l)e^{D|t|}`$ . The first and second components of Eq. (A4) are dominated by the $`G_{1,2}E_c`$ or $`b_3F_c`$ terms. These give $`F_{1,2}𝒪(l)e^{D|t|}`$. The third component of Eq. (A4) then implies $`F_3𝒪(l)e^{D|t|}`$.

The orders of magnitude of $`G_{1,2}`$ justify our previous statement that $`_3`$ and $`𝒢_3`$ are at most $`𝒪(l)`$, because otherwise Eq. (A3) or Eq. (A7) would imply that $`E_{1,2}`$ or $`b_{1,2}`$ would be too big.

For $`t<t_D`$, the $`F_a`$ and $`G_a`$ are exponentially small and can be ignored in Eqs. (A2), (A3), and (A5). These three are the Nahm equations for the $`(m+k1)`$-monopole case. The poles of the matrices $`P_a`$ in $`(1/D,0)`$ extend into this region and dominate the right-hand sides of Eqs. (A3) and (A5). This gives the $`P_a`$ poles whose residue is a $`(k1)`$-dimensional irreducible SU(2) representation in $`(1/l,t_D)`$. As in Eq. (6), we have $`E_at^{(k2)/2}`$. Finally Eq. (A7) can be used to refine the behavior of $`b_a`$ using the above information. We find that $`b_{1,2}=𝒪(l)+𝒪(l)e^{2D|t|}`$ and $`b_3=D+𝒪(D)e^{2D|t|}`$.

These results are summarized in Table LABEL:k\>1table.

|  | $`t_1`$ |  | $`1/l`$ |  | $`t_D`$ |  | $`1/D`$ |  | 0 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`N_a`$ | $``$ |  |  |  | $`𝒪(l)`$ |  |  |  | $``$ |
| $`E_a`$ | $``$ | $`𝒪(l)`$ | $``$ | $`𝒪(t^{(k2)/2})`$ | $``$ | transition | $``$ | $`𝒪(t^{(k1)/2})`$ | $``$ |
| $`F_a`$ | $``$ |  |  | $`𝒪(l)e^{D|t|}`$ | $``$ | transition | $``$ | $`𝒪(t^{(k1)/2})`$ | $``$ |
| $`P_a`$ | $``$ | $`𝒪(l)`$ | $``$ | $`J_a^{(k1)}/t`$ | $``$ | transition | $``$ | $`J_a^{(k)}/t`$ | $``$ |
| $`G_{1,2}`$ | $``$ |  |  | $`𝒪(D)e^{D|t|}`$ | $``$ | transition | $``$ | $`J_a^{(k)}/t`$ | $``$ |
| $`G_3`$ | $``$ |  |  | $`𝒪(l)e^{D|t|}`$ | $``$ | transition | $``$ | $`J_a^{(k)}/t`$ | $``$ |
| $`b_{1,2}`$ | $``$ |  |  | $`𝒪(l)+𝒪(l)e^{2D|t|}`$ | $``$ | transition | $``$ | $`J_a^{(k)}/t`$ | $``$ |
| $`b_3`$ | $``$ |  |  | $`D+𝒪(D)e^{2D|t|}`$ | $``$ | transition | $``$ | $`J_a^{(k)}/t`$ | $``$ |

> Table LABEL:k\>1table: The behavior of the elements in the Nahm matrices for the $`k>1`$ case. $`J_a^{(k)}`$ is a $`k`$-dimensional irreducible SU(2) representation. The value $`J_a^{(k)}/t`$ in the last five entries indicates that the $`P_a`$, $`G_a`$ and $`b_a`$ together form a pole term $`J_a^{(k)}/t`$.

From Eq. (A2) we see that the variation in the $`N_a`$ in the interval $`(t_D,0)`$ is negligible. Since the only boundary values of $`N_a`$ are required to connect to the next interval, this is what we need to show the equivalence of the Nahm data between the original and the reduced problem.

Next we turn to the construction equation. Using the notation of Eq. (A1), we have

$`0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}u+\left[\left(N_a+r_a\right)\sigma _a\right]u\left[E_a^{}\sigma _a\right]w\left[F_a^{}\sigma _a\right]z,`$ (A10)
$`0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}w\left[E_a\sigma _a\right]u+\left[\left(P_a+r_a\right)\sigma _a\right]w\left[G_a^{}\sigma _a\right]z,`$ (A11)
$`0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}z\left[F_a\sigma _a\right]u\left[G_a\sigma _a\right]w+\left[\left(b_a+r_a\right)\sigma _a\right]z.`$ (A12)
As in Sec. III, there are three types of solutions away from the boundaries. The second and third types of solutions can be ignored for the same reason as in that section. Here we study in more detail the first type of solution. In $`(1/D,0)`$, these are normalizable with positive power dependence on $`t`$, as required in the $`(m+k)`$-monopole construction. Using this information and the order of magnitude of the $`G_a`$ from Table LABEL:k\>1table, we see from the third term of Eq. (A12) that the $`z`$ component, which is exponentially small away from the boundary, can be $`𝒪(w)`$ in $`(t_D,0)`$. The orders of magnitude of the $`P_a`$ and the $`G_a`$ can also cause $`𝒪(w)`$ changes in the $`w`$ components in $`(t_D,0)`$. However, because of the smaller orders of magnitude of the $`E_a`$ and the $`F_a`$, the $`u`$ component of this type of solution is essentially unchanged in $`(t_D,0)`$.

So, comparing the original and the reduced problem, we see that the $`u`$ component, including its boundary value, is unchanged in the $`D\mathrm{}`$ limit. The $`w`$ only differ by an amount of $`𝒪(w)`$ within $`(t_D,0)`$; this has no effect on the normalization condition, Eq. (3), and the fields, Eq. (5), in the limit. The boundary values for $`w`$ are always zero, as we can see from the its power dependence on $`t`$. The $`z`$ component is small except for being $`𝒪(w)`$ in a small region near the boundary, and can also be neglected in Eqs. (3) and (5).


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# Non-LTE Abundances of Magnesium, Aluminum and Sulfur in OB Stars Near the Solar Circle

## 1 Introduction

The massive OB stars, as well as other young objects such as cepheids or H II regions, are used commonly as tracers of the current chemical composition in the Galactic disk. Abundance analyses of H II regions are restricted to a handful of elements, those being most typically He, N, O, S, Ne, and Ar. In the OB stars, besides N, O, and S, the additional elements C, Mg, Al, Si, and Fe can be analyzed using both LTE and non-LTE techniques. Cepheids are the more evolved, cooler descendents of a subset of the OB stars (with masses of $``$ 5-10M) and a rather large number of elements ($``$ 25) can be detected in their spectra. As all three of these types of objects are young ($``$ few $`\times `$ 107 yr), it is reasonable to expect that examples of them inhabiting the same region of the Galaxy should contain approximately the same mixture of chemical elements. This approximation should be as good as allowed by small scale chemical inhomogeneities that can be produced on timescales of the lifetimes of large, starforming regions, i.e. a few times 107 yr.

Care must be taken in comparing abundances between H II regions, OB stars, and cepheids, however. For example, internal stellar mixing may affect both OB stars and cepheids to varying degrees. Some evidence of the mixing of material exposed to the CN-cycle has been uncovered in certain OB stars, even near the main sequence (Gies & Lambert gl92 (1992)); this mixing may be driven primarily by rotation (Heger & Langer hel00 (2000)). In this case, nitrogen abundances are measurably enhanced (by $``$ +0.3 dex) with, perhaps, a marginal decrease in the carbon abundance (by $``$ $``$0.1 dex), while oxygen remains untouched. In the more evolved cepheids, even deeper mixing may have occurred that involves the full CNO cycles, such that some oxygen depletion might be detectable (as well as larger N enhancements and C depletions). There is also the possibility that surface abundances of sodium, magnesium, and aluminum have been altered by the mixing of material exposed to the Ne-Na and Mg-Al cycles. In the H II regions, uncertainties or systematics may arise from temperature fluctuations in the gas, unknown radiation environments, or possible depletions of some elements out of the gas phase and onto solid particles.

By concentrating on a set of OB stars, in comparison to sample H II regions and cepheids, all near the solar circle, abundance trends found in these various objects can be intercompared and ultimately be checked against their corresponding solar values. Such checks can help uncover possible inconsistencies and provide stronger constraints on abundance gradients derived from different types of objects. That is the aim of this paper, which is the fourth paper in a series whose ultimate goal is to use a large sample of OB stars to trace abundance gradients in the Galactic disk. Paper I (Daflon, Cunha & Becker pap1 (1999)) presented the first results from this survey and concentrated on 8 sharp lined star ($`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ 60 km s-1) members of the Cep OB2 association: LTE abundances of C, N, O, Si, and Fe were derived, as well as non-LTE abundances of C, N, O, and Si. Daflon et al. (2001a  $``$ Paper II) added analyses of 15 members of five additional northern OB associations (Cep OB3, Cyg OB2, Cyg OB7, Lac OB1, and Vul OB1). The same sets of elements were analyzed in non-LTE as in Paper I, but additional LTE results were presented for Mg, Al, and S. In Paper III (Daflon et al. 2001b ), the analysis was expanded to include some of the more rapidly rotating stars ($`v\mathrm{sin}i`$= 60-150 km s-1) in the northern sample. In addition, the atomic analysis included non-LTE calculations for Mg and Al. In this paper, the non-LTE calculations for Mg and Al are applied to the remaining northern stars, and sulfur is now added as an element that can be studied in non-LTE.

## 2 Observations and Stellar Parameters

The observational data consist of high resolution (R$``$60 000), high signal-to-noise spectra of 23 main sequence late-O/early-B stars belonging to the OB associations of Cep OB2, Cep OB3, Cyg OB3, Cyg OB7, Vul OB1 and Lac OB1. The spectra were obtained at the McDonald Observatory, University of Texas, Austin, with the 2.1m telescope plus the Sandiford Echelle Spectrograph. A set of lower resolution (R=12 000) spectra of these targets were obtained with the 2.7m telescope plus a Coudé Spectrograph in the H$`\gamma `$ region. More details about the observations and data reduction are found in Papers I and II. Also in these studies are derived the stellar parameters and microturbulences for the 23 target stars.

The effective temperatures and surface gravities have been derived from a photometric calibration for the reddening-free index Q coupled to the fitting of the broadened wings of H$`\gamma `$ profile. In our earlier series of papers (Papers I and II) it has been argued that this method results in uncertainties of $``$4% in $`T_{eff}`$ and $`\pm `$0.10 dex in $`\mathrm{log}g`$. The uncertainties in gravity can be also viewed by noting the positions of stars in a $`\mathrm{log}T_{eff}\mathrm{log}g`$ diagram in comparison to model tracks. For stars of these effective temperatures the $`\mathrm{log}g`$ of the ZAMS is about 4.2. An average of all surface gravities of stars here that are not clearly evolved (i.e., $`\mathrm{log}g`$ 4.0) finds $`\mathrm{log}g=4.25\pm 0.17`$; close to what is expected for stars near the main sequence with a scatter larger than what we have estimated as the expected uncertainty. The microturbulent velocities were obtained from the requirement that the non-LTE O II abundances were independent of the line-strength. The sample stars, their corresponding associations and spectral types, adopted effective temperatures, surface gravities and $`\xi `$-value are gathered in Table 1. We note that the surface gravity for the star HD 214167 has been revised.

## 3 Non-LTE Abundances

Non-LTE synthetic spectra were calculated for the few transitions of Mg II, Al III and S III that are available in the spectra of early-type stars. Although relatively free of blends, linelists for each spectral region containing the lines of interest were constructed within the interval around $`\pm `$3Å. These transitions are listed in Table 2 together with their wavelengths, designations, excitation potentials as well as adopted gf-values.

The abundance analyses in this study are based on the fully-blanketed and plane-parallel LTE model atmospheres calculated with the ATLAS9 code (Kurucz kur92 (1992)) for a constant microturbulent velocity of $`\xi =2\mathrm{k}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and solar composition. Departures from LTE were considered in the line formation calculations with the newest version of the program DETAIL (Butler det (1994)). The adopted model atoms are described in Przybilla et al. (nob01 (2001) \- Mg II), Dufton et al. (duf86 (1986) \- Al III) and Vrancken et al. (vra96 (1996) \- S III). We note that so far, all abundance papers including non-LTE line formation of Al published in the literature (Vrancken et al. vra97 (1997); Vrancken et al. vra00 (2000); Gummersbach et al. gum98 (1998)) were based on the same model atom adopted in this study, and in a sense are not completely independent. Published non-LTE abundance analyses of magnesium (Vrancken et al. vra97 (1997); Vrancken et al. vra00 (2000); Gummersbach et al. gum98 (1998)) are based on the model atom of Mihalas (mih72 (1972)). All sulfur abundances in the literature are derived from LTE analysis, except for Vrancken et al. (vra96 (1996)), who analyzed three B stars as a test for their sulfur model atom. The present study is the first systematic non-LTE analysis of sulfur abundances in OB stars.

A brief description of the adopted model atoms follows. Przybilla et al. (nob01 (2001)) constructed an extensive model atom for Mg I/Mg II based on recent atomic data. This model is roughly complete for levels up to n=9 for Mg I and n=10 for Mg II, whereas Mg III, that does not have a significant population in the range of effective temperatures considered here, is represented only by its ground state. The sulfur model atom (Vrancken et al. vra96 (1996)) treats S II/S III simultaneously considering 81 levels of S II and 21 levels of S III. The model atom also includes the three lowest levels of S I and the two lowest levels of S IV, together with the ground state of S V that are important for the hotter stars. Vrancken et al. (vra96 (1996)) tested their model atom for three B2 III-V stars and concluded that S III lines yield more reliable abundances (than S II lines) for the temperature range they consider. The adopted Al III model atom of Dufton et al. (duf86 (1986)) is less complete than the magnesium and sulfur ones. It consists of 12 states of Al III plus the ground state of Al IV, as the populations of Al II and Al V are not significant in the temperature range between 20000 to 35000K.

The synthetic line profiles were calculated with the SURFACE code (Butler srf (1984)), assuming Voigt profile functions. These profiles were then broadened by means of convolution with the rotational profile, including $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ and limb darkening, and instrumental profile. The microturbulence for each target star was adopted from O II lines, derived in previous studies, while the line abundances and $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$’s were allowed to vary. The best fit was chosen from the $`\chi ^2`$-minimization of the differences between theoretical and observed profiles. The final non-LTE abundances and $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$’s are listed in Table 3. The abundances are represented by the average of the individual line abundances and the respective dispersions (and number \[n\] of fitted lines), whenever this is the case. A sample of profile fitting for all the spectral regions is shown in the panels of Figure 1, for the star HD 197512.

In general, the published non-LTE Mg, Al and S abundances are consistent with our results. However, aluminum abundances deserve special attention. As a test, we recalculated the non-LTE abundances of star 201 in NGC 2244, analyzed by Vrancken et al. (vra97 (1997)), using their listed equivalent widths and, as expected, we reproduced their derived abundance within the errors. We also compared our non-LTE Al abundances with those interpolated in the grid of theoretical equivalent widths of Dufton et al. (duf86 (1986)). The comparison for the model atmospheres with lower $`T_{eff}`$ showed that our abundances derived directly from synthesis agree within the uncertainties with the abundances interpolated within their grid. For the hottest models, however, Dufton’s grid yields aluminum abundances much lower than 6.0. The difference between our synthetic profiles and Dufton’s grid resides basically in the model atmospheres, as they used non-LTE non-blanketed model atmospheres and we use fully blanketed LTE models from Kurucz (kur92 (1992)).

Errors in the determination of the stellar parameters, microturbulence, $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ and the placement of the continuum are the main sources of uncertainties in a chemical analysis based on the fitting of line profiles. In paper III we discussed the uncertainties assigned for each of these parameters and the subsequent abundance error arising from them. Accordingly, our total errors expected for the derived magnesium abundances are of the order of 0.2 dex, being larger for the coolest stars (0.3 dex for $`T_{eff}`$19 000K) and these are dominated by the uncertainty in the microturbulent velocity (as the abundance analysis is based on one intermediate to strong line) and effective temperature. The uncertainties in sulfur abundances arise chiefly from the errors in $`T_{eff}`$ and are estimated to be of the order of $``$0.15 dex. The profile of the weak S III line at 4364Å was only fitted for the stars with lowest $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ and highest signal-to-noise spectra. For this reason, the sulfur abundances of some stars in our sample are based only on the S III line at 4361Å. Formally, aluminum presents smaller errors, around 0.10 dex. However, the abundances derived from the lines $`\lambda \lambda `$ 4512 and 4529Å, that belong to the same multiplet, show some dependence with effective temperature and introduce a larger discrepancy in the average abundances of the hottest stars.

## 4 Discussion

OB stars, as well as other young objects, such as H II regions, track the chemical composition of the Galactic disk. With this paper, we now have a uniform set of non-LTE abundances for C, N, O, Mg, Al, Si, and S in 35 stars of the northern sample. All six OB associations that are represented in this sample lie within 1 kpc of the solar circle (where we take R=7.9 kpc, McNamara et al. (mac00 (2000))) and, as such, will have abundances that are, in principle, not affected significantly by possibly modest galactic abundance gradients. The abundances of certain elements like sulfur, magnesium and aluminum, as well as oxygen can be compared to recent results derived from cepheids and H II regions also lying within the same galactocentric distance interval.

The stars in this sample are all sharp-lined stars, with $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ $``$ 48 km s-1. The mean magnesium abundance is A(Mg)= 7.37$`\pm `$0.14. The magnesium abundances are quite independent of effective temperature, as shown in the top panel of Figure 2. Aluminum shows significantly lower abundances in the OB stars than the Sun, as displayed in the middle panel of Figure 2. Such a large difference may reside partially in uncertainties in the non-LTE calculations for Al III. Some evidence for this possibility may appear in the derived aluminum abundances showing a small offset between the hotter and cooler stars. There is a noticeable displacement between stars with $`T_{eff}`$30000K and those with lower effective temperatures, with the hotter sample having a mean aluminum abundance of 6.13$`\pm `$0.14 and the cooler having 5.94$`\pm `$0.14. For the S III non-LTE abundances, there is no trend with $`T_{eff}`$ and the scatter is small: the mean A(S)= 7.19$`\pm `$0.09 is 0.14 dex below the solar abundance of 7.33$`\pm `$0.11 (Grevesse & Sauval 1998).

Taken together, these new results for S, Mg and Al, could in principle suggest that the OB stars, on average, are slightly underabundant when compared to the Sun. However, these differences could be argued to be at the level of systematics. In fact, the recent results from 3D-hydrodynamical model atmosphere calculations for the elements C, N and O in the solar photosphere have lowered their abundances significantly. The photospheric carbon, nitrogen and oxygen abundances, for instance, have been recently revised to 8.40, 7.81, and 8.65, respectively (Asplund asp02 (2002)), and are now in better agreement with the results for OB stars. In addition, the OB results rely on 1D-models while the recent solar results are from 3D hydrodynamical models. Although it is expected that the radiative OB atmospheres will not have temperature inhomogeneities that are present in the solar atmosphere (caused by convection) it is possible that some other effects like the high microturbulent velocities required for the OB stars indicates that 1D models are not a complete description of atmospheres of hot stars.

Abundances for the different types of young objects, OB stars, cepheids, and H II regions, are compared in Figure 3 for the elements Mg, Al, and S, as well as O (with oxygen taken from our previous papers). We restrict our discussion to galactocentric distances that overlap those values found for the six OB associations represented here, where Rg= 6.9 to 8.2 kpc. Oxygen is added to the discussion in Figure 3 as it represents the most abundant element after H and He, and is the element comprising the largest fraction of a star’s abundance of heavy elements. In Figure 3, the mean abundances of each OB association are plotted as filled squares, with the errorbars representing the standard deviation found within the abundances of the association members (in the case where only 2 members were represented, the errorbars are the average differences from the mean). Over the limited range of distance sampled by this particular set of stars, no significant abundance gradient is apparent and the horizontal solid lines are the mean abundances of the set of OB associations. The solar symbol is plotted at R= 7.9 kpc. The mean oxygen abundance (non-LTE calculations for O II from Papers I, II, and III) is A(O)= 8.58$`\pm `$0.09. Again, as discussed above, in agreement with the revised solar value.

Other results plotted in Figure 3 include the recent cepheid results from Andrievsky et al. (and02 (2002)), shown as open circles, and H II regions from the optical emission lines analyzed by Deharveng et al. (deh00 (2000)), shown as six-pointed stars, and H II region far-IR fine-structure lines by Simpson et al. (sim95 (1995)) and Afflerbach et al. (aff97 (1997)), shown as three-pointed stars.

Beginning with oxygen in Figure 3, with abundances shown for cepheids and H II region optical and far-IR lines, there is considerable overlap among all sets of results. The cepheid O-abundances tend to be slightly higher than the OB associations, but only by $``$0.1 dex: likely within possible systematic offsets. The optical H II region results from Deharveng et al. (deh00 (2000)) scatter almost perfectly within the OB association results, while the far-IR results exhibit a larger scatter, but with an average O-abundance that agrees with the OB associations. Overall, the suggestion from all of the oxygen abundances is that the current mean Galactic abundance near the solar circle is about A(O)$``$ 8.6-8.7, with an intrinsic dispersion that is not yet well-defined. The dispersion among the six OB associations is quite small (as well as the H II region optical emission-line results).

The panel of Mg and Al abundances in Figure 3 contains only OB association and cepheid results. In the case of Mg, the overlap between OB stars and cepheids is essentially perfect. The mean and standard deviations are A(Mg)= 7.37$`\pm `$0.14 for the OB associations and 7.36$`\pm `$0.10 for the cepheids. This tidy agreement between cepheids and OB stars for Mg is not repeated for Al, where the cepheid Al abundances are measurably above solar, while the OB stars are well below solar. As discussed previously, the OB star abundances are based upon non-LTE calculations using Al III lines and there is a noticeable offset in the abundances derived for the hotter and cooler stars. This may indicate problems in the non-LTE calculations. On the other hand, the rather large Al abundances for the cepheids may not be intrinsic, but could be the result of stellar mixing involving material exposed to the Mg-Al cycle of H-burning. An increase in aluminum would come from a decrease in Mg, however, the observed offset in the Al abundances seen in the cepheids would result in a negligible decrease in Mg, due to the larger Mg abundance. For example, if the current Galactic Al abundance is about solar, then the cepheids have had their Al abundances enhanced by $``$ 0.2 dex. If this enhancement came from Mg atoms, it would result in a decrease in the overall Mg abundance by $``$ 0.02-0.03 dex, which is effectively unmeasurable. More work will be needed to decide the best value for the current Galactic aluminum abundance at the solar circle.

Finally, Figure 3 also shows sulfur abundances derived from the OB stars, cepheids, and H II regions (from the far-IR lines). Here, the OB associations and H II regions again show a great degree of overlap. The cepheids exhibit systematically larger S abundances than the Sun, and these enhancements cannot be due to internal stellar mixing.

## 5 Conclusions

We have presented non-LTE abundances of magnesium, aluminum and sulfur for 23 OB stars members of OB associations within 1 Kpc of the Sun. Magnesium abundances derived for cepheids in the literature agree well with the results for OB stars while no Mg abundances can be derived for H II regions. On the other hand, sulfur results point to discrepencies between the cepheids on one side and the OB stars and H II regions on the other, that are not easily resolved: the cepheid sulfur abundances are derived from S I lines, while the OB stars use S III lines, and the H II region results come from far-IR \[S III\] lines at 19 $`\mu `$m. Aluminum abundances OB stars must be interpreted with caution: the relatively low Al abundances derived may reflect problems in the non-LTE calculations for this species and deserves additional analysis before further conclusions while Al in the cepheids could be enhanced due to internal mixing.

###### Acknowledgements.

S.D. acknowledges a CAPES fellowship and partial financial support from DAAD (Germany). KC thanks David Lambert for travel support for observing runs in 1992, 1993, and 1994. VVS acknowledges support by the National Science Foundation through grant AST99-87374.