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# Adaptive Optics Integral Field Spectroscopy of the Young Stellar Objects in Lk H𝛼 225

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## 1 Introduction

Herbig Ae/Be stars (Herbig, 1960) are commonly accepted as the intermediate mass (1.5–10 M) pre-main sequence counterparts to T Tauri stars. Hillenbrand et al. (1992) separated Herbig Ae/Be stars into three distinct categories based on their spectral energy distributions, similar to T Tauri classifications. However, the exact morphology that causes the infrared excess is under debate, with most models assuming an accretion disk within a large scale envelope (Natta et al., 1993; Hillenbrand et al., 1992; Di Francesco et al., 1994). To further complicate matters, studies of these systems have shown that binaries appear to be as common in Herbig Ae/Be systems as in T Tauri systems (Leinert, Richichi, & Haas, 1997; Pirzkal, Spillar, & Dyck, 1997; Testi, Palla, & Natta, 1998). Thus, coeval star formation of Herbig Ae/Be stars, or even Herbig Ae/Be stars with lower mass T Tauri stars, can provide a wealth of information about intermediate star formation and the role of these systems in clusters.

BD +40° 4124 (=V 1685 Cyg), one of the original Ae/Be stars of Herbig (1960), is at the center of a partially embedded cluster of at least 33 stars with infrared excesses (Strom et al., 1972). The region, part of the giant star forming region 2 Cyg at a distance of $``$ 1kpc, has a significantly younger stellar population than the nearby OB associations. One of the interesting aspects of this region is that both low and high mass stars are forming simultaneously, possibly induced from an external shock into the cloud core (Shevchenko, Ibragimov, & Chernysheva, 1991; Hillenbrand et al., 1995). Although optical images of the field around BD +40° 4124 are dominated by the star itself, Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 (=V 1318 Cyg) is arguably one of the more intriguing sources in the stellar cluster. The Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 system is a possible embedded binary with apparent separation of $``$5000 AU oriented north-south. It has been proposed that the system consists of both a young low mass star, Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 North, and an intermediate-mass very young Herbig Ae/Be star, Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 South, based on luminosity arguments (Aspin et al., 1994). Many authors have suggested that the southern source is a center of star formation activity based on a variety of tracers. Aspin et al. (1994) presented a 800µm map which shows a strong peak on this source, while Palla et al. (1995) found that both high density molecular gas traced by CS $`J=5`$-4 and the total gas column density traced by C18O $`J=2`$-1 are centered in this region. More recently a 5″ resolution CS $`J=2`$-1 map by Safier & Looney (2001) shows that the densest gas is centred on the southern star of this pair.

In this paper we present adaptive optics observations, of J, H, and K band imaging as well as integral field K band spectroscopy toward Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225. With the highest spatial resolution to date in the near-infrared for this system we are able, for the first time, to make clear distinctions between the emission from the two stars. This allows us to highlight some intriguing differences in the K-band emission from the two stars, as well as a number of similarities. Moreover, we present the results of our unique ability to probe the inner binary region in a number of K-band emission lines.

## 2 Observations & Data Reduction

The observations described here were taken using the ALFA adaptive optics (AO) system (Kasper et al., 2000) on the 3.5-m telescope at the German-Spanish Astronomical Centre on Calar Alto. While ALFA has a laser guide star (Davies et al., 2000), here it was used in natural guide star mode. The wavefront reference was BD +40° 4124 (mV=10.6, mK=5.6), which lies 36″ from Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 and is the only star in the group brighter than mV=12. While allowing a good correction on-axis, isoplanaticism at such a large angular distance is the main source of residual wavefront errors and severely limits the resolution achievable on our target. The only real alternative is to use Lk H$`\alpha `$ 224 which is much closer. However, while only 14″ from the target it is too faint to correct on in the prevailing conditions; its magnitude has been seen to vary in the range $`12.5V17.2`$ between 1985 and 1998 (Herbst & Shevchenko, 1999). A discussion of the AO issues, with particular reference to the data obtained with Omega-Cass, is given in Davies et al. (1999).

A K-band image of the field obtained with the near-infrared camera Omega-Cass in 1998, shown in Fig. 1, has a FWHM resolution of 0.25″. This and the corresponding J- and H-band images (Fig. 2) were flux calibrated relative to star #3 in Hillenbrand et al. (1995). This star is the brightest unsaturated star in the image ($`K=10.93`$ mag), but more importantly it is the least reddened with a $`JK`$ colour of only 0.22 mag, which tends to suggest it is the least susceptible to the variability associated with young stellar objects.

We have also obtained integral field spectroscopy using 3D (Weitzel et al., 1996) during Oct 1999 at a pixel scale of 0.25″, using AIM (Anders et al., 1998) as the interface between 3D and ALFA. The pixel scale, ambient seeing conditions ($``$1″), and distance to the reference star limited the final resolution to $``$0.6″. 3D is an integral field spectrograph that simultaneously obtains spectra for each of 256 spatial pixels covering a square field of view. The spectral wavelength range spans from $`1.912\mathrm{\mu m}`$ to $`2.382\mathrm{\mu m}`$ at a spectral resolving power ($`\mathrm{R}\lambda /\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda `$) of 1000. Two pixel scales can be selected with AIM, $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}07`$ and $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}25`$. The latter was used for these observations, giving a field of $`4\mathrm{}\times 4\mathrm{}`$. To observe both Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 N and S, two pointings were necessary. The total on-source integration time for each was $`600\mathrm{s}`$ with individual frame integration times of $`100\mathrm{s}`$. The same amount of time was spent off-source for sky background subtraction. The data were reduced using the set of 3D data analysis routines written for the GIPSY (Van der Hulst et al., 1992) package. This included wavelength calibration, spectral and spatial flat fielding, dead and hot pixel correction, and division by the reference stellar spectrum. Data cubes from the individual exposures were recentered and added using the centroid of the broadband emission. A mosaic of the two pointings was created using the relative coordinates of Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 N and S given in Hillenbrand et al. (1995). Emission line and absorption line maps were extracted by subtracting a spline fit to the entire line-free continuum in each spatial pixel.

## 3 Morphology & YSO class

The system Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 comprises the pair of stars in the south-east corner of Fig. 1, which are separated by 5″, about 5000 AU at the distance of the cluster (980 pc, Hillenbrand et al., 1995). While this is rather large, nearly 5% of known YSOs do have such wide separations (Mathieu, 1994), although it is not certain whether they are gravitationally bound or simply have formed close to each other from the same cloud core.

The strong variability of this object, brightness changes of more than 2 mag in V and V-R colour changes of more than 2 mag within 1 year (Ibrahimov et al., 1988), means that it is not straight forward to compare observations at different times. Based on an R-band image, Aspin et al. (1994) identified 3 components to Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 in a north-south line and a total separation of 5″. The bright central component was also seen in the R-band image of Magakyan & Movsesyan (1997), distinct from both Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 N and S. It is difficult to attribute this to a third star because the infrared appearance is quite different, with a long nebulous tail extending from the northern star. Fig. 2 shows that the tail is rather straight with a sharp kink at the north end, which may suggest it does not originate in the northern star but only appears to because it lies so close. The magnitudes of several points around Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 (Table 1) and the colours marked in the JH-HK diagram indicate that not only is the whole ridge bluer than the two stars, but that the south end is bluer than the north end. If this is due to a decrease in extinction along the ridge of AV=2 mag, it may explain why R-band images give the impression of a third discrete source. The colours along the ridge are easily achieved by reddening stellar light with a disk emission component by AV$``$11. This is in contrast to the two stars which have a much redder $`HK`$ colour. Anomalous extinction laws have been observed towards a number of Herbig Ae/Be stars (Steenman & Thé, 1989, 1991, and references therein) which can modify the direction of the reddening in the colour diagram, calculations by these authors have shown that this change is towards bluer H-K colours. Thus the position of the stars in the diagram appears to demand an additional significant (60–80%) dust contribution, which must arise in an envelope rather than a disk. Their position in the diagram suggests they are Class I young stellar objects (to which the Group I Herbig Ae/Be stars of Hillenbrand et al. (1992) appear to be analogous), or intermediate between Class I and II. Apart from Class 0 sources (which do not emit at wavelengths shorter than 10µm due to heavy extinction) these are the least evolved sources, with accretion disks, and surrounded by envelopes of gas and dust. The spectra presented in Fig. 3 tend to support this interpretation, having shapes suggestive of blackbody emission at $`600`$ K, most similar to the Class I objects in the spectral atlas of Greene & Lada (1996). Such objects are associated with very high K-band veilings – defined as the ratio of excess to photospheric emission in the K-band, $`r_\mathrm{k}=F_{\mathrm{Kex}}/F_\mathrm{K}`$. The excess emission is believed to come from hot dust or an accretion disk around the star and does not necessarily redden the star itself. Flares in such an accretion disk could explain the K-band variability of the two stars reported by various authors: the northern source was the brighter of the two in Sep 93 (Hillenbrand et al., 1995), Nov 93 (Aspin et al., 1994), and both Aug 98 and Oct 99 (this paper); while the southern star was brighter during Oct 91 and May 93 (Aspin et al., 1994).

One possibility to explain the emission between the two stars is that the cloud core from which Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 formed condensed into a long filament. The continuum we see is tracing the remnants of this filament, arising either through direct emission from a string of young low-mass stars, or more likely since we do not see discrete sources, through light scattered from such stars. Polarisation studies would help to make progress on understanding this unusual morphology.

## 4 H2 line emission

The advantage of integral field spectroscopy is the ability to obtain line maps and spectra simultaneously. Fig. 4 (centre) is a map of the H2 1-0 S(1) emission confirming what the spectra show, that the strongest emission is located directly on the southern star (we find no difference in their centroid positions), with a ratio S(1)/Br$`\gamma `$$`>`$20. Additionally, there is an outflow/jet or extra source 1″ to its north-east. For reference, the left image (both greyscale and contours) is the integrated K-band continuum to indicate the positions of the 2 stars on the field.

Aspin et al. (1994) observed weak emission from the northern star, while we have detected none. It is possible that a combination of seeing and large pixel size (3″) meant that some of the flux from the southern star bled over to the pixels on which the northern star is located. With a finer pixel scale and high resolution our data do not suffer from this problem.

A continuum-subtracted spectrum of the south star is presented in Fig. 5, in which 8 H2 lines are detectable at $``$3$`\sigma `$, 4 from each of the $`\nu `$=1-0 and $`\nu `$=2-1 series. The relative line fluxes are summarised in Table 2, and in Fig. 6 we have derived a relative population diagram for hot H2 molecules from the lines assuming the LTE value of 3 for the ortho/para ratio. While this assumption is not necessarily strictly correct, the diagram is a very useful presentation that gives an indication of whether the emission is thermal. We have further assumed that there is negligible differential extinction between 1.95–2.25µm, in contrast to the AV=25$`\pm `$9 mag estimated by Aspin et al. (1994) from the ratio of the lines 1-0 Q(3) to 1-0 S(1). We find that for AV$``$9 implies the higher rotational levels have larger populations (even for the $`\nu =1`$ vibrational level which is derived from lines with high signal-to-noise). We suspect that Aspin et al. (1994) may have underestimated the continuum level longward of 2.35µm, as this is hard to determine at low spectral resolution due to the many H2 and CO emission lines: our spectra in Fig. 3 show that the continuum begins to rise rapidly at the long end of the K-band, the effect of which is to reduce the flux estimated in the Q-branch lines and thus also the derived extinction.

From an analysis of H2 lines in an ISO spectrum, van der Ancker et al. (2000) concluded that there were two components: a C-shock (thermal component) with only mild (AV$``$15) extinction, and a J-shock (non-thermal component) that is heavily (AV$``$50) extincted. A reconciliation of these high extinctions with the low ones implied by our data may be possible if there is a significant extended H2 component, perhaps which we are beginning to see in Fig 4.

Without any correction for extinction the $`\nu =1`$ levels are well approximated by thermal excitation at a temperature of T$`{}_{ex}{}^{}=1000`$–1100 K. Correcting for an assumed AV=5 mags of extinction raises the temperature derived from the $`\nu =1`$ levels to nearly 2700 K. In order to make the most of even the weaker lines which have fluxes that are hard to measure we have taken the following approach. We have calculated the theoretical spectrum from 1.93–2.28µm (to avoid the CO emission) using a combination of thermal (ortho/para ratio 3) and non-thermal components. For the latter, model 14 from Black & van Dishoeck (1987) (with ortho/para ratio $``$1.7 and calculated for a density of $`3\times 10^3`$ cm-3 and a incident UV radiation field of $`3\times 10^3`$ times the background) was used. Since the relative line intensities are fairly insensitive to the density and strength of the radiation field, it provides a typical spectrum over the range of conditions that were considered; thus while we can estimate the fraction of H2 emission due to fluorescence, we cannot constrain the conditions for its excitation. Additionally, in our fitting procedure we have left the FWHM and velocity shift of the lines as free parameters. The results of the $`\chi ^2`$ minimisation are given in Table 3. In summary, we find that the H2 lines at Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 S are unresolved and have zero velocity shift; thermal excitation at 1070 K contributes 91% of the 1-0 S(1), and the remainder has a non-thermal origin. Two temperature models are ruled out since a higher temperature component that is prevalent enough to account for the $`\nu =2`$-1 lines would significantly modify the observed fluxes in some of the $`\nu =1`$-0 lines.

The calculation here assumes the low density regime, but on the other hand dense gas is a prerequisite for H2O masers, one of which is seen in this region (Palla et al., 1995). The population diagram is indeed reminiscent of the high density photo-dissociation region (PDR) models of Sternberg & Dalgarno (1989), where H2 excitation occurs above the critical density at which collisional effects dominate the spectrum. These authors found that for UV intensities more than 100 times the background and densities above $`10^5`$ cm-3, the low vibrational levels become thermalised with a characteristic temperature of 1000 K. However, their models showed that this extends to the $`\nu `$=2 level, exhibited as thermal ratios for the $`\nu =2`$-1 as well as the $`\nu =1`$-0 lines. This appears not to be the case for our data (Fig. 6), arguing against the scenario.

We have extracted a spectrum of the H2 emitting region to the northeast of Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 S, in a 0.5″$`\times `$0.5″ box. The same approach indicates that H2 lines in this region are resolved, with a quadrature corrected FWHM of 220 kms-1, and are shifted by -75 kms-1. Only 81% of the 1-0 S(1) has a thermal origin, with a characteristic temperature of 980 K. That 19% of the 1-0 S(1) lines has a non-thermal origin implies that more than half of all the H2 cooling that can be deduced from these observations is through fluorescent emission. We cannot rule out the possibility that the broad line is due to two narrow components with different velocity shifts; but in any case there must be a significant component at -75 kms-1. This result is discussed in Section 6 with reference to the \[Sii\] line emission and the molecular outflow.

## 5 CO emission

The 2.3µm CO 2-0 bandhead line map in Fig. 4 (right) clearly indicates that there is a compact spot of CO emission centered on each of the two stars and none elsewhere. In an analysis of the CO line emission seen with ISO, van der Ancker et al. (2000) used four rotational $`\nu =0`$-0 transitions between 150–190µm, which have very low excitation temperatures and so trace cool gas heated thermally rather than fluorescently; hence they derived a thermal excitation temperature of only 300 K. If both the rotational and vibrational transitions of CO are excited collisionally (as argued by Carr 1989) then the CO 2-0 bandheads at 2.3µm indicate an excitation temperature of more than 3000 K and a density greater than $`10^{10}`$ cm-3.

Carr (1989), using their own and data from Geballe & Persson (1987), demonstrated that all the CO emitting sources then known also exhibited Br$`\gamma `$ emission, and that there was a correlation between them, the Br$`\gamma `$ luminosity being a factor of 2 or so greater than the CO 2-0 luminosity. Understanding this relationship has been difficult since the converse is not true, and only 25% of Br$`\gamma `$ emitters also exhibit CO emission. One unusual aspect of Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 S is that it breaks this correlation by exhibiting a ratio CO 2-0/Br$`\gamma >5`$ (we have not presented a Br$`\gamma `$ map since there is no detectable emission in 3D’s entire field of view). Although Thompson (1985) proposed a model in which both CO and Br$`\gamma `$ emission originate in the same gas, Carr (1989) argue it is more likely that there are two components, hot (partially) ionised gas and cool ($`4000`$ K) neutral gas. Our observations can be explained if there is no hot component (or it is highly extincted), or if the temperature of Thompson’s model is lowered. The concept of different lines arising in different gas components can be extended to include the H2 emission in the southern star. The conditions needed to observe this line ($`1000\mathrm{T}3000`$ K, density $`10^{67}`$ cm-3) are rather different to those for the CO, and so it must also arise in a different volume of gas.

We cannot use the CO line profile from the observations presented here to distinguish between accretion disk or neutral wind models, but instead the CO morphology can help. The molecular outflow seen by Palla et al. (1995), for which they estimated a mass loss rate of $`3\times 10^3`$M yr-1, would tend to support the wind model. To verify or veto this it is crucially important to know where the outflow originates. CO emission is seen only on the stars, inconsistent with an outflow that begins between them; indeed two distinct sources of CO emission is inconsistent with any model in which the CO arises in a single outflow. Additionally, the mass loss rate is also several orders of magnitude larger than models of winds predict from CO emission (Carr, 1989). The alternative accretion disk model would naturally explain the compactness of the CO emission; and it also appears that it could simultaneously account for both the veiling and CO emission, at least in the southern source. In the northern source the CO flux is similar and could indicate similar conditions (density, temperature, accretion rate) in an accretion disk, but an additional warm dust envelope probably contributes to the higher veiling.

## 6 Shocks, the Maser, & the Molecular Outflow

From observations of the 12CO 2-1 line at 1.3 mm, Palla et al. (1995) discovered a molecular outflow originating in Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225. They identified the origin of this with the H2O maser in this object which they confirmed to have a velocity shift of -80 kms-1, and which appears to lie on the southern star. The coordinates given by Palla et al. (1995) and Hillenbrand et al. (1995) (B1950 and J2000 respectively) do not agree to better than a few arcsec, so we have used the 2MASS astrometry (accurate to $`<`$0.2″) combined with our K-band image to determine accurate an position for Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 S ($`\alpha =\mathrm{20\hspace{0.17em}20\hspace{0.17em}30.59}`$, $`\delta =\mathrm{41\hspace{0.17em}21\hspace{0.17em}26.0}`$, J2000). The maser lies $`0.4\pm 0.2`$″ north and $`0.1\pm 0.2`$″ east of this star. If the transverse velocity of the maser is similar to its radial velocity, then it will not have moved by more than $``$0.1″ between the radio and our near-infrared observations.

A number of different observations add to the complexity of the source. We have shown that there is a second weaker region of H2 emission to the northeast of Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 S. It is also only 0.6″ from the maser, and has a broader line width that is shifted by -75 kms-1, the same velocity as the maser. These are all suggestive of a link between the maser and H2 source. An important argument against the much brighter H2 emission on the star itself being associated with the maser is that it shows no such velocity shift. A second line of reasoning is based on the maser model proposed by Elitzur, Hollenbach, & McKee (1989) in which H2O maser could occur in the $``$400 K temperature plateau behind a J-shock. Elitzur (1995) further showed that C-shocks can also give rise to such masers, increasing the phase space to include preshock densities of 106–108 cm-3 and velocities 20–200 kms-1. The spectrum of the H2 knot to the east of Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 S shows that more than half of the total H2 emission arises from molecules that have been non-thermally excited (a greater fraction than in the H2 emission coincident with the star). One way to achieve this is through H2 dissociation in a J-shock, if the shock velocity is more than 30–40 kms-1 – although not faster than this since significant Br$`\gamma `$ emission must be avoided. It is the heat from re-formation of the molecules behind the shock front that produces the warm plateau ideal for maser formation (Elitzur, Hollenbach, & McKee, 1989). Based on these arguments, we suggest that this H2 knot and the H2O maser may be excited in the same shock system.

The other emission which could be associated with the maser is the strong \[Sii\], which is also shifted by -80 kms-1 with respect to Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225-N, and was observed between the two stars by Magakyan & Movsesyan (1997). In this region they found almost no detectable H$`\alpha `$ or \[Nii\] emission, putting tight constraints on the excitation temperature since the ionisation potential of hydrogen and nitrogen is 13.6 eV and 14.5 eV respectively, while for sulphur it is 10.4 eV. In their later observations (1995 rather than 1992) they also saw \[Sii\] had appeared at the location of the northern star. Such rapid variability in the emission lines effectively rules out shock-excitation since models show that the flow time through the hot shock structure is on the order of 100 yrs. We would argue that if this variability of the \[Sii\] is genuine then it is more likely to be in gas photo-ionised by one or both of the young stars (as discussed earlier, at least one may be late-B or early-A type). The -80 kms-1 velocity shift could be reproduced if the ionised gas was swept up in the outflow (while the average outflow velocity is 8 kms-1 (Palla et al., 1995), it could be much higher nearer the stars). The variations might then be tied to changes of optical depth between the star and the gas, or be associated with flaring up of the accretion disk which would act as an intermittent source of higher energy photons necessary to produce \[Sii\].

## 7 Conclusions

We have presented adaptive optics imaging and integral field spectroscopy of the deeply embedded and highly variable sources associated with Lk H$`\alpha `$ 225 in the star forming complex around BD +40° 4124 . The 2 bright stars have JHK colours and K-band spectra typical of Class I-II YSOs, with an additional component of emission coming from a more extended envelope rather than just a circumstellar disk. The extinction to the stars is uncertain, but seems to be AV$``$11 mag. The ridge of continuum emission between the stars has bluer colours than the stars themselves, inconsistent with direct dust emission but appears instead to be stellar light that is extincted and perhaps also scattered.

There are 2 sources of H2, one co-incident with the southern star, and one 1″ to its north-east. For their line ratios to be physically meaningful neither can be reddened by more than AV$``$9 mags. In both cases most of the 1-0 S(1) emission has a thermal origin with a characteristic temperature of 1000 K, but the latter source does have a greater contribution from non-thermal emission. Its lines are broader and shifted by -75 kms-1, suggesting it is this knot which is associated most closely with the water maser (astrometric measurements place the maser almost equidistant from the star and this region). The variability reported by some authors in the \[Sii\] lines, which occur between the star and near the northern star, would seem to rule out shock excitation for this line. We suggest that it is a result of gas (which itself is caught up in the outflow) photo-ionised by one of the young stars, and that flares in the accretion disk or changes in optical depth to the star cause the variations in line flux.

Both stars show CO lines in emission, but in contrast to other CO emitting YSOs, there is no detectable Br$`\gamma `$ emission. The molecular outflow seen in the radio CO emission provides ample evidence for a neutral wind which could also give rise to 2.3µm CO emission. However, two distinct 2.3µm CO sources is not consistent with a model of a single outflow; determining the exact origin of the outflow with respect to the K-band continuum emission would be a big step towards understanding the emission. On the other hand, an accretion disk model would naturally explain the compactness of the CO emission regions on each star, and it could account for at least some of the veiling seen.

The authors are grateful to both the ALFA and 3D teams for their invaluable help, and the Calar Alto staff for their hosptality. We extend our thanks to Mansur Ibrahimov for providing a copy, and translation, of his paper. RD acknowledges the support of the TMR network ‘Laser Guide Stars for 8-m Class Telescopes’. This publication makes use of data products from 2MASS, a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and IPAC/CalTech, funded by NASA and the NSF.


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# Reduction of a Class of Three-Loop Vacuum Diagrams to Tetrahedron Topologies

## Abstract

We obtain finite parts (as well as $`\epsilon `$-pole parts) of massive three-loop vacuum diagrams with three-point and/or four-point interaction vertices by reducing them to tetrahedron diagrams with both massive and massless lines, whose finite parts were given analytically in a recent paper by Broadhurst. In the procedure of reduction, the method of integration-by-parts recurrence relations is employed. We use our result to compute the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ effective potential of the massive $`\varphi ^4`$ theory.

The calculations of the effective potential for a single-component massive $`\varphi ^4`$ theory  and for a massless $`O(N)`$ $`\varphi ^4`$ theory  were achieved at the three-loop level in four-dimensional spacetime. (In three dimensional spacetime, see the work of Rajantie  for a single-component $`\varphi ^4`$ theory.) The calculations in Ref. 1 and Refs. 2 and 3 are done in the dimensional regularization scheme with a specific set of renormalization conditions. The same calculations at a lower-loop level, in the cutoff regularization, with the same renormalization conditions can be found in Ref. 5 and Ref. 6 respectively. We see that the results agree with each other. Therefore, in the mass-dependent scheme, we do not need to calculate finite the parts of three-loop diagrams. Knowledge of the pole terms is sufficient.

However, in a mass-independent scheme, such as the MS or $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme, we have to calculate three-loop diagrams to the finite parts, i.e., to the $`\epsilon ^0`$ order in the $`\epsilon `$ expansion. Without imposing renormalization conditions at a specific scale, we just leave an arbitrary constant $`\mu `$, which is introduced inevitably for dimensional reasons, unspecified as in Eq. (50) below. This has the drawback that it does not involve true physical parameters measured at a given scale. Though it normally takes some effort to express physically measurable quantities in terms of the parameters of the expression, the renormalization group (RG) equation is dealt with much easier,See Ref. 7 for two-loop RG improvement of the effective potential. and the calculations in complicated theories are much more convenient.

The purpose of this note is to reduce a class of massive three-loop vacuum diagrams to (three-loop) tetrahedron diagrams with both massive and massless lines by using the method of recurrence relations. Once the reductions are completed, the finite parts (as well as the $`\epsilon `$-pole parts) of the diagrams in question can be readily obtained because the finite parts of these tetrahedron diagrams were determined analytically by Broadhurst .

Let us define three-loop vacuum integrals $`J`$, $`K`$, and $`L`$, which are nonfactorizable into lower-loop integrals:

$`J`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _{kpq}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(p^2+\sigma ^2)[(p+k)^2+\sigma ^2](q^2+\sigma ^2)[(q+k)^2+\sigma ^2]}},`$ (1)
$`K`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _{kpq}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(k^2+\sigma ^2)(p^2+\sigma ^2)[(p+k)^2+\sigma ^2](q^2+\sigma ^2)[(q+k)^2+\sigma ^2]}},`$ (2)
$`L`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _{kpq}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(k^2+\sigma ^2)^2(p^2+\sigma ^2)[(p+k)^2+\sigma ^2](q^2+\sigma ^2)[(q+k)^2+\sigma ^2]}}.`$ (3)
The momenta in Eq. (3) are all (Wick-rotated) Euclidean, and the abbreviated integration measure is defined as

$`{\displaystyle _k}=\mu ^{4n}{\displaystyle \frac{d^nk}{(2\pi )^n}},`$ (4)
where $`n=42\epsilon `$ is the space-time dimension in the framework of dimensional regularization, and $`\mu `$ is an arbitrary constant with a dimension of mass. The pole parts of all the integrals in Eq. (3) are known . Now, the problem is to the find the finite parts of these integrals in terms of the known transcendental numbers.

While massless multi-loop diagrams can be dealt with by essentially algebraic methods , the situation is more complicated in the case of massive diagrams. In notation of Avdeev , the above three-loop diagrams $`J`$, $`K`$, and $`L`$ correspond to $`B_N(0,0,1,1,1,1)`$, $`D_5(1,1,1,1,1,0)`$, and $`D_5(1,1,1,1,2,0)`$, respectively. The method of integration-by-parts recurrence relations, given in Avdeev’s paper , allows us to connect the integrals $`B_N(0,0,1,1,1,1)`$, $`D_5(1,1,1,1,1,0)`$, and $`D_5(1,1,1,1,2,0)`$ to the tetrahedron integrals $`B_N(1,1,1,1,1,1)`$, $`B_M(1,1,1,1,1,1)`$, and $`D_5(1,1,1,1,1,1)`$. The analytic expressions of the finite parts, i.e., $`\epsilon ^0`$ order terms, for all tetrahedron vacuum diagrams with different combinations of massless and massive lines of a single mass scale were given in a recent paper by Broadhurst . With the convention of integration measure used in Ref. 8,

$`{\displaystyle [dk]}={\displaystyle \frac{d^nk}{\sigma ^{n4}\pi ^{n/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\epsilon )}},`$
we quote the results of Broadhurst which are relevant to our calculation:

$`B_N(1,1,1,1,1,1)`$ $`=`$ $`V_{4N}={\displaystyle \frac{2\zeta (3)}{\epsilon }}+6\zeta (3)14\zeta (4)16U_{3,1},`$ (5)
$`B_M(1,1,1,1,1,1)`$ $`=`$ $`V_{3T}={\displaystyle \frac{2\zeta (3)}{\epsilon }}+6\zeta (3)9\zeta (4),`$ (6)
$`D_5(1,1,1,1,1,1)`$ $`=`$ $`V_5={\displaystyle \frac{2\zeta (3)}{\epsilon }}+6\zeta (3){\displaystyle \frac{469}{27}}+{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}\mathrm{Cl}_2^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)16V_{3,1},`$ (7)
where $`U_{3,1}`$ and $`V_{3,1}`$ are defined as

$`U_{3,1}{\displaystyle \underset{m>n>0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^{m+n}}{m^3n}},`$
$`V_{3,1}{\displaystyle \underset{m>n>0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^m\mathrm{cos}(2\pi n/3)}{m^3n}},`$
and can be expressed in terms of known transcendental numbers as§§§The combination $`V_{3,1}`$ in Eq. (9) in terms of the known transcendental numbers was found by Fleischer and Kalmykov .

$`U_{3,1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta (4)}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta (2)}{2}}\mathrm{ln}^22{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}\mathrm{ln}^422\mathrm{L}\mathrm{i}_4\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right),`$ (8)
$`V_{3,1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\mathrm{Cl}_2^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\pi \mathrm{Ls}_3\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{3}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{13}{24}}\zeta (3)\mathrm{ln}3{\displaystyle \frac{259}{108}}\zeta (4)+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8}}\mathrm{Ls}_4^{(1)}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{3}}\right).`$ (9)
In the above equation, $`\mathrm{Li}_4(x)`$, $`\mathrm{Cl}_2(x)`$, $`\mathrm{Ls}_3(x)`$, and $`\mathrm{Ls}_4^{(1)}(x)`$ are the polylogarithm, Clausen’s polylogarithm, the log-sine integral, and the generalized log-sine integral, respectively , whose numerical values at the given arguments are

$`\mathrm{Li}_4\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0.517479061\mathrm{},`$ (10)
$`\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`1.014941606\mathrm{},`$ (11)
$`\mathrm{Ls}_3\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{3}}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`2.144762212\mathrm{},`$ (12)
$`\mathrm{Ls}_4^{(1)}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{3}}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0.497675551\mathrm{}.`$ (13)
Using the the method of recurrence relations , we can arrive at following connections:

$`\sigma ^4B_N(0,0,1,1,1,1)=32B_4\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(13\epsilon )}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{23\epsilon }}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{12\epsilon }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(1\epsilon )}}\right]`$ (14)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{486}{13\epsilon }}{\displaystyle \frac{729}{2(23\epsilon )}}{\displaystyle \frac{35}{2\epsilon }}+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{\epsilon ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\epsilon ^3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{512}{12\epsilon }}+{\displaystyle \frac{10}{1\epsilon }}`$ (15)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\epsilon )\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(1+2\epsilon )\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+3\epsilon )}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(1+\epsilon )\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+4\epsilon )}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{14}{3\epsilon ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{35}{\epsilon }}+{\displaystyle \frac{378}{13\epsilon }}+{\displaystyle \frac{189}{23\epsilon }}{\displaystyle \frac{896}{3(12\epsilon )}}{\displaystyle \frac{14}{3(1\epsilon )}}\right],`$ (16)
$`D_5(1,1,1,1,1,1)={\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\sigma ^2D_5(1,1,1,1,1,0)\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\epsilon }}\right]`$ (17)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}B_4\left[{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2(13\epsilon )}}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{12\epsilon }}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(1\epsilon )}}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3\epsilon ^2}}\sigma ^2\mathrm{𝐕𝐋𝟏𝟏𝟏}(1,1,1)`$ (18)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3\epsilon ^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon ^3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3\epsilon ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{243}{2(13\epsilon )}}+{\displaystyle \frac{15}{\epsilon }}{\displaystyle \frac{160}{3(12\epsilon )}}+{\displaystyle \frac{7}{6(1\epsilon )}}`$ (19)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\epsilon )\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(1+2\epsilon )\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+3\epsilon )}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(1+\epsilon )\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+4\epsilon )}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{7}{9\epsilon ^3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{14}{3\epsilon ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{175}{9\epsilon }}+{\displaystyle \frac{189}{2(13\epsilon )}}{\displaystyle \frac{224}{9(12\epsilon )}}+{\displaystyle \frac{7}{18(1\epsilon )}}\right],`$ (20)
$`D_5(1,1,1,1,2,0)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\sigma ^2D_5(1,1,1,1,1,0)(1+\epsilon ){\displaystyle \frac{32}{3}}B_4\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(13\epsilon )}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12\epsilon }}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(1\epsilon )}}\right]`$ (21)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3\epsilon }}\sigma ^2\mathrm{𝐕𝐋𝟏𝟏𝟏}(1,1,1)+{\displaystyle \frac{162}{13\epsilon }}+{\displaystyle \frac{44}{3\epsilon }}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3\epsilon ^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{256}{3(12\epsilon )}}+{\displaystyle \frac{10}{3(1\epsilon )}}`$ (22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\epsilon )\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(1+2\epsilon )\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+3\epsilon )}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(1+\epsilon )\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+4\epsilon )}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{28}{9\epsilon ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{56}{3\epsilon }}+{\displaystyle \frac{126}{13\epsilon }}{\displaystyle \frac{448}{9(12\epsilon )}}+{\displaystyle \frac{14}{9(1\epsilon )}}\right],`$ (23)
where $`B_4`$ is proportional to the difference between $`B_N(1,1,1,1,1,1)`$ and $`B_M(1,1,1,1,1,1)`$ , i.e.,

$`B_4`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(12\epsilon )(22\epsilon )}{4}}\left[B_M(1,1,1,1,1,1)B_N(1,1,1,1,1,1)\right].`$
In Eq. (23), VL111(1,1,1) denotes a two-loop bubble integral, shown in Fig. 1 of the paper by Fleischer and Kalmykov . Its value up to $`\epsilon ^3`$ order in the $`\epsilon `$ expansion can be found in Eq. (7) of Ref. 11. For all higher-order terms, one may refer to Ref. 14. For our desired accuracy, it is sufficient to take its value up to $`\epsilon `$ order:

$`\sigma ^2\mathrm{𝐕𝐋𝟏𝟏𝟏}(1,1,1)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2(1\epsilon )(12\epsilon )}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)`$ (25)
$`+\epsilon \{{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)\mathrm{ln}3{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^3}{3\sqrt{3}}}2\sqrt{3}\mathrm{Ls}_3\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{3}}\right)\}+O(\epsilon ^2)].`$
From Eqs. (7) — (25), we eventually obtain

$`B_N(0,0,1,1,1,1)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\epsilon ^3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{23}{3\epsilon ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{35}{2\epsilon }}+{\displaystyle \frac{275}{12}}+O(\epsilon ),`$ (26)
$`D_5(1,1,1,1,1,0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon ^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{17}{3\epsilon ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon }}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{67}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{12}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)\right]{\displaystyle \frac{229}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{60}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)`$ (28)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{12}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)\mathrm{ln}3+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^3}{\sqrt{3}}}+6\zeta (3)+6\sqrt{3}\mathrm{Ls}_3\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{3}}\right)+O(\epsilon ),`$
$`D_5(1,1,1,1,2,0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3\epsilon ^3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3\epsilon ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon }}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)\right]`$ (30)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)\mathrm{ln}3+2\zeta (3){\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^3}{3\sqrt{3}}}2\sqrt{3}\mathrm{Ls}_3\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{3}}\right)+O(\epsilon ).`$
We readily recover the values of $`J`$, $`K`$, and $`L`$ in our original integration measure, Eq. (4), by using the following relations:

$`J`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^4}{(4\pi )^6}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^2}{4\pi \mu ^2}}\right)^{3\epsilon }\mathrm{exp}\left[3\gamma \epsilon +{\displaystyle \frac{3\zeta (2)}{2}}\epsilon ^2\zeta (3)\epsilon ^3+\mathrm{}\right]B_N(0,0,1,1,1,1),`$
$`K`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^2}{(4\pi )^6}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^2}{4\pi \mu ^2}}\right)^{3\epsilon }\mathrm{exp}\left[3\gamma \epsilon +{\displaystyle \frac{3\zeta (2)}{2}}\epsilon ^2\zeta (3)\epsilon ^3+\mathrm{}\right]D_5(1,1,1,1,1,0),`$
$`L`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(4\pi )^6}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^2}{4\pi \mu ^2}}\right)^{3\epsilon }\mathrm{exp}\left[3\gamma \epsilon +{\displaystyle \frac{3\zeta (2)}{2}}\epsilon ^2\zeta (3)\epsilon ^3+\mathrm{}\right]D_5(1,1,1,1,2,0),`$
where the $`\mathrm{exp}[]`$ factor comes from an expansion of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^3(1+\epsilon )`$ and $`\gamma `$ is the Euler constant.

In the standard $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme , the factors $`\mathrm{ln}(4\pi )`$ and $`\gamma `$ are absorbed into the renormalization scale $`\mu `$. Howerever, in the other widespread $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ convention (see, e.g., Refs. 16 and 17), the factor $`\zeta (2)`$ is absorbed further into the scale $`\mu `$. (This convention gives the same result in the one-loop diagrams and is more convenient in higher-loop massive calculations.) By introducing a new renormalization scale $`\overline{\mu }`$,

$`\overline{\mu }^2=4\pi \mu ^2\mathrm{exp}\left[\gamma +{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta (2)\epsilon }{2}}\right],`$ (31)
the above three integrals $`J`$, $`K`$, and $`L`$ are given as follows:

$`J`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^4}{(4\pi )^6}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^2}{\overline{\mu }^2}}\right)^{3\epsilon }\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\epsilon ^3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{23}{3\epsilon ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{35}{2\epsilon }}+F_J\right],`$ (32)
$`K`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^2}{(4\pi )^6}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^2}{\overline{\mu }^2}}\right)^{3\epsilon }\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{17}{3\epsilon ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon }}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{67}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{12}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)\right\}+F_K\right],`$ (33)
$`L`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(4\pi )^6}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^2}{\overline{\mu }^2}}\right)^{3\epsilon }\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3\epsilon ^3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3\epsilon ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon }}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)\right\}+F_L\right],`$ (34)
where

$`F_J={\displaystyle \frac{275}{12}}2\zeta (3),`$ (35)
$`F_K={\displaystyle \frac{229}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^3}{\sqrt{3}}}+7\zeta (3)+{\displaystyle \frac{60}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{12}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)\mathrm{ln}3+6\sqrt{3}\mathrm{Ls}_3\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{3}}\right),`$ (36)
$`F_L={\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^3}{3\sqrt{3}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{5\zeta (3)}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)\mathrm{ln}32\sqrt{3}\mathrm{Ls}_3\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{3}}\right).`$ (37)
This completes the analytic evaluations of the three-loop vacuum integrals of Eq. (3) up to the finite parts.

The purely numerical computation of the finite parts for some three-loop vacuum diagrams in a paper by Pelissetto and Vicari  enables us to extract the numerical values for $`F_J`$, $`F_K`$, and $`F_L`$. In obtaining $`F_J`$ and $`F_K`$, we assume first the unknown finite parts $`F_J`$ and $`F_K`$ for $`J`$ and $`K`$ in Eq. (34) since the pole parts are already known . Then, we differentiate $`J`$ and $`K`$, twice and once, respectively, with respect to $`\sigma ^2`$. Meanwhile, we can differentiate $`J`$ and $`K`$ in Eq. (3), twice and once, respectively, with respect to $`\sigma ^2`$ before the momentum integrations, yielding the three-loop diagrams given in Appendix B of Ref. 18 whose finite parts have been numerically calculated. By equating the results of the differentiations thus done, we determine the unknown values of $`F_J`$ and $`F_K`$. The extracted results are

$`F_J={\displaystyle \frac{275}{12}}6\sqrt{3}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)22\zeta (3)+80S_1+20S_2120S_530S_66S_7,`$ (38)
$`F_K={\displaystyle \frac{229}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{28}{\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)\pi ^2+9\zeta (3)24S_16S_2+6S_412S_7,`$ (39)
$`F_L={\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}4\sqrt{3}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{5\zeta (3)}{3}}+8S_1+2S_2+2S_4,`$ (40)
where the quantities $`S_1`$, $`S_2`$, $`S_4`$, $`S_5`$, $`S_6`$, and $`S_7`$ were calculated numerically in Appendix B of Ref. 18. We see that the numerical values of $`F_J`$, $`F_K`$, and $`F_L`$ given in Eq. (40) agree with the analytical values in Eq. (37).Also, in a recent paper by Anderson et al. , $`F_J`$ was calculated numerically. The numerical value of $`C_0`$ in Eq. (18) of Ref. 19 agrees with our analytic value $`F_J`$ in Eq. (37): our $`F_J+23\pi ^2/12`$ means $`C_0`$ of Ref. 19.

Our results, Eqs. (34) and (37), together with the result for the all-massive-line tetrahedron diagram in Ref. 8,

$`M`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _{kpq}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(k^2+\sigma ^2)(p^2+\sigma ^2)(q^2+\sigma ^2)[(kp)^2+\sigma ^2][(pq)^2+\sigma ^2][(qk)^2+\sigma ^2]}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(4\pi )^6}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^2}{\overline{\mu }^2}}\right)^{3\epsilon }\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2\zeta (3)}{\epsilon }}+6\zeta (3)17\zeta (4){\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^2}{3}}\mathrm{ln}^22+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\mathrm{ln}^424\mathrm{C}\mathrm{l}_2^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)+16\mathrm{L}\mathrm{i}_4\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\right],`$
enable us to calculate the three-loop effective potential in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme for the single-component massive $`\varphi ^4`$ theory. The renormalization of the three-loop effective potential is straightforward, albeit long. Thus, we simply report the result:

$`V`$ $`=`$ $`V^{(0)}+\mathrm{}V^{(1)}+\mathrm{}^2V^{(2)}+\mathrm{}^3V^{(3)}+O(\mathrm{}^4),`$ (41)
$`V^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m^2\varphi ^2}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda \varphi ^4}{4!}},`$ (42)
$`V^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{(4\pi )^2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{3m^4}{8\lambda }}{\displaystyle \frac{3m^2\varphi ^2}{8}}{\displaystyle \frac{3\lambda \varphi ^4}{32}}+\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{m^4}{4\lambda }}+{\displaystyle \frac{m^2\varphi ^2}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda \varphi ^4}{16}}\right\}\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\varphi ^2}{\overline{\mu }^2}}\right)\right],`$ (43)
$`V^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2}{(4\pi )^4}}[{\displaystyle \frac{m^4}{8\lambda }}+m^2\varphi ^2({\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right))+\lambda \varphi ^4({\displaystyle \frac{11}{32}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right))`$ (45)
$`\{{\displaystyle \frac{m^4}{4\lambda }}+{\displaystyle \frac{3m^2\varphi ^2}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{5\lambda \varphi ^4}{16}}\}\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\varphi ^2}{\overline{\mu }^2}}\right)+\{{\displaystyle \frac{m^4}{8\lambda }}+{\displaystyle \frac{m^2\varphi ^2}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{3\lambda \varphi ^4}{32}}\}\mathrm{ln}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\varphi ^2}{\overline{\mu }^2}}\right)],`$
$`V^{(3)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^3}{(4\pi )^6}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{576}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^4}{\lambda }}+m^2\varphi ^2({\displaystyle \frac{2363}{576}}+{\displaystyle \frac{13}{4\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{3\zeta (3)}{4}})`$ (50)
$`+\lambda \varphi ^4({\displaystyle \frac{4487}{2304}}+{\displaystyle \frac{11}{8\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\mathrm{Cl}_2^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\mathrm{Li}_4\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{17\zeta (4)}{24}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2\mathrm{ln}^22}{36}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}^42}{36}})+\{{\displaystyle \frac{41m^4}{96\lambda }}+m^2\varphi ^2({\displaystyle \frac{371}{96}}{\displaystyle \frac{7}{4\sqrt{3}}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right))`$
$`+\lambda \varphi ^4({\displaystyle \frac{701}{384}}{\displaystyle \frac{3\sqrt{3}}{4}}\mathrm{Cl}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta (3)}{4}})\left\}\mathrm{ln}\right({\displaystyle \frac{m_\varphi ^2}{\overline{\mu }^2}})\{{\displaystyle \frac{17m^4}{48\lambda }}+{\displaystyle \frac{37m^2\varphi ^2}{24}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{143\lambda \varphi ^4}{192}}\}\mathrm{ln}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\varphi ^2}{\overline{\mu }^2}}\right)+\{{\displaystyle \frac{5m^4}{48\lambda }}+{\displaystyle \frac{7m^2\varphi ^2}{24}}+{\displaystyle \frac{9\lambda \varphi ^4}{64}}\}\mathrm{ln}^3\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\varphi ^2}{\overline{\mu }^2}}\right)],`$
where $`m_\varphi ^2`$ is defined as $`m_\varphi ^2m^2+\frac{\lambda \varphi ^2}{2}`$.

In summary, using the method of integration-by-parts recurrence relations, we have obtained the exact relations between the non-tetrahedron three-loop integrals $`B_N(0,0,1,1,1,1)`$, $`D_5(1,1,1,1,1,0)`$, and $`D_5(1,1,1,1,2,0)`$ and the tetrahedron three-loop integrals $`B_N(1,1,1,1,1,1)`$, $`B_M(1,1,1,1,1,1)`$, and $`D_5(1,1,1,1,1,1)`$, whose values are known to the finite parts. As an application of our loop calculations, the analytic evaluation of three-loop effective potential in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme for the single-component massive $`\varphi ^4`$ theory was obtained.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This work was supported by a Korea Research Foundation grant (KRF-2000-015-DP0066).


text:
# Introduction

## Introduction

The amplitudes of the pion production near the threshold by the electromagnetic probe

$`\gamma ^{}+N\pi +N^{}`$ (1)
at a not too large virtuality ($`Q^2`$) of the photon $`Q^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^3/m_\pi `$ ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$ GeV is a typical hadronic scale) can be expressed in terms of various nucleon form factors with the help of the soft pion theorem (SPT) . For virtualities $`Q^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^3/m_\pi `$ and larger this SPT does not work .

In the present paper we derive a new “hard-soft” pion theorem (hSPT) for the reaction (1) in the near threshold region and for large virtuality of the photon $`Q^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$. Our main tool is the QCD factorization theorem for exclusive processes  (for a recent review and comprehensive list of references see e.g. ). It allows us to express the pion production amplitude at large virtuality in terms of the distribution amplitudes (DAs) of the nucleon and of the low-mass $`\pi N`$ system. These non-perturbative objects correspond to the lowest three quark (3q) Fock component of the nucleon and $`\pi N`$ systems. We derive a hSPT to relate the corresponding distribution amplitude of the $`\pi N`$ system (we shall call it as $`\pi N`$ DA) to the nucleon distribution amplitude. This hSPT is valid for the limit when the mass of the $`\pi N`$ system (denoted as $`W`$) is close to the threshold $`W_{\mathrm{th}}=M_N+m_\pi `$, i.e. $`WW_{\mathrm{th}}\text{ }<\text{ }\text{ }m_\pi `$. The derivation of the similar theorem for DA of the two pion system near threshold can be found in .

The physical picture of the near threshold production of pion by a hard electromagnetic probe is as follows. At large $`Q^2`$ the emission of the soft pion from the initial state contributes only to large invariant masses $`W`$. The emission from the hard interaction part is a higher twist in $`Q^2`$. Hence the emission occurs solely in the final state when a small $`3q`$ system produced in the hard interaction expands to a large enough configuration. At this point we are dealing with a soft pion emission and can apply corresponding near threshold chiral theory relations.

## Threshold theorem for hard electromagnetic probe

We consider the hard reaction (1) in the near threshold region, $`i.e.`$ when $`W`$ is close to the threshold of the reaction $`W_{\mathrm{th}}=M_N+m_\pi `$ and at large virtuality of the photon $`Q\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Hence, $`x_{Bj}\left[1+m_\pi (2M_N+m_\pi )/Q^2\right]^1`$ in the discussed limit. In the near threshold region the cross section of the reaction (1) can be expressed in terms of the $`N\pi N`$ transition form factors at large momentum transfer $`Q^2`$:

$`M_\mu ^{ff^{}a}=\pi ^aN_f^{}|J_\mu ^{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}(0)|N_f`$ (2)
Here $`f,f^{}=p,n`$ are flavours of the initial and final nucleons, $`a`$ is the flavour index of the emitted pion.

In this section we shall be interested in the matrix element (2) at the threshold of the reaction (1), i.e. at $`W=W_{\mathrm{th}}`$. The matrix element (2) at the threshold for the transverse photon has the form***Longitudinally polarized photon gives a power suppressed contribution for $`Q^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$.:

$`M_\mu _{}^{ff^{}a}=A(\gamma ^{}N_fN_f^{}+\pi ^a)\overline{u}(p^{})\gamma _\mu _{}\gamma _5u(p).`$ (3)
It follows from the QCD factorization theorem  that the transition matrix element $`A(\gamma ^{}N\pi N^{})`$ at large $`Q^2`$ can be written as (up to the power suppressed terms)

$`A(\gamma ^{}N\pi N^{})={\displaystyle 𝑑x𝑑y\mathrm{\Phi }_{\pi N^{}}^{}(x)T(x,y,Q^2)\mathrm{\Phi }_N(y)},`$ (4)
where $`T(x,y,Q^2)`$ is the hard part of the process computable in perturbative QCD. The functions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N(y)`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\pi N^{}}(x)`$ are distribution amplitudes (light cone wave functions) of the nucleon and of the low-mass $`\pi N^{}`$ system. The DA of the nucleon $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N(y)`$ also enters the QCD description of the nucleon form factor and it is a subject of intensive studies. The distribution amplitude of the $`\pi N`$ system is a straightforward generalization of the baryon DAs. Many general properties of these objects are similar to those of the two-pion distribution amplitude which were extensively studied in Ref. . They will be discussed elsewhere.

We focus here on the soft pion theorem for $`\pi N`$ DAs. Using the general soft pion theorem (see e.g. ) we can write:

$$\pi ^a(k)N_f(p,S)|O|0=\frac{i}{f_\pi }N_f(p,S)|[Q_5^a,O]|0$$
(5)
$$+\frac{ig_A}{4f_\pi (pk)}\underset{S^{},f^{}}{}\overline{u}(p,S)\text{/}k\gamma _5\tau _{ff^{}}^au(p,S^{})N_f^{}(p,S^{})|O|0.$$

Here $`f_\pi =93`$ MeV is the pion decay constant, $`g_A1.25`$ is the axial charge of the nucleon. The operator $`O`$ is the trilocal quark operator of twist-3 in which quark fields are separated by a light cone distance, in the complete analogy with the definition of the baryon DA, see e.g. . The operator $`Q_5^a`$ is the operator of axial charge, so that the calculation of the commutator $`[Q_5^a,O]`$ reduces to the chiral rotation of operator $`O`$. The second term in the rhs of Eq. (5) corresponds to the chiral singularity due to the nucleon pole in the graph shown in Fig. 1. The contribution of this diagram is strongly suppressed for $`WW_{\mathrm{th}}m_\pi `$ but for $`WW_{\mathrm{th}}m_\pi `$ it becomes significant, see Eqs.(Structure functions: comparison with data,Structure functions: comparison with data).

Let us start from the calculation of the first (commutator) term in Eq. (5). Since the chiral rotation of the trilocal quark operator $`O`$ does not change its twist Eq. (5) allows us to express generalized $`\pi N`$ DAs at the threshold in terms of nucleon DAs.

We write the nucleon DA in terms of functions $`\varphi _S(x)`$ and $`\varphi _A(x)`$ which are symmetric and antisymmetric respectively under $`x_1x_3`$ (1 and 3 are quarks with parallel helicities) . For the proton we have

$`|p`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _S(x)}{\sqrt{6}}}|2u_{}d_{}u_{}u_{}u_{}d_{}d_{}u_{}u_{}`$ (6)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _A(x)}{\sqrt{2}}}|u_{}u_{}d_{}d_{}u_{}u_{}.`$
The distribution amplitude for neutron can be obtained from the above expression by the replacement $`ud`$.

Applying the general soft pion theorem (5) we express the distribution amplitudes of various $`\pi N`$ systems at the threshold in terms of the nucleon DAs $`\varphi _S(x)`$ and $`\varphi _A(x)`$:

$`|p\pi ^0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _S(x)}{2\sqrt{6}f_\pi }}|6u_{}d_{}u_{}+u_{}u_{}d_{}+d_{}u_{}u_{}`$ (7)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _A(x)}{2\sqrt{2}f_\pi }}|u_{}u_{}d_{}d_{}u_{}u_{},`$
$`|n\pi ^+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _S(x)}{\sqrt{12}f_\pi }}|2u_{}d_{}u_{}3u_{}u_{}d_{}3d_{}u_{}u_{}`$ (8)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _A(x)}{2f_\pi }}|u_{}u_{}d_{}d_{}u_{}u_{}.`$
The DAs of the neutral $`\pi N`$ systems can be obtained by the trivial replacement $`ud`$.

Now we can compute the threshold amplitudes $`A(\gamma ^{}N\pi N^{})`$ at large $`Q^2`$ combining the factorization theorem (4) with the expressions for $`\pi N`$ DAs (7,8). The technique of calculations of the hard part $`T(x,y,Q^2)`$ is standard and can be found, e.g. in refs. . We give here only the final results using notations of refs. . For the transitions $`p\pi N`$ we obtain:

$`Q^4A(\gamma ^{}p\pi ^0p)|_{\mathrm{th}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(16\pi \alpha _s)^2}{9f_\pi }}{\displaystyle }[dxdy]\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{9}}(23T_18T_2)\varphi _S(x)\varphi _S(y)`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}T_1\left[\varphi _S(x)\varphi _A(y)+\varphi _S(y)\varphi _A(x)\right]`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(T_1+2T_2)\varphi _A(y)\varphi _A(x)\},`$
$`Q^4A(\gamma ^{}p\pi ^+n)|_{\mathrm{th}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(16\pi \alpha _s)^2}{9\sqrt{2}f_\pi }}{\displaystyle }[dxdy]\{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{9}}(11T_1+4T_2)\varphi _S(x)\varphi _S(y)`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{3}}}T_1\left[\varphi _S(x)\varphi _A(y)+\varphi _S(y)\varphi _A(x)\right]`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}(T_1+2T_2)\varphi _A(y)\varphi _A(x)\}.`$
Here $`[dx]=dx_1dx_2dx_3\delta (1x_1x_2x_3)`$ and coefficient functions $`T_1`$ and $`T_2`$ have the form :

$`T_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x_3(1x_1)^2y_3(1y_1)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x_2(1x_1)^2y_2(1y_1)^2}}`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x_2x_3(1x_3)y_2y_3(1y_1)}},`$
$`T_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x_1x_3(1x_1)y_1y_3(1y_3)}}.`$ (12)
Expressions for various nucleon form factors in the same notations can be found e.g. in refs. .

For the transitions $`n\pi N`$ we obtain:

$`Q^4A(\gamma ^{}n\pi ^0n)|_{\mathrm{th}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(16\pi \alpha _s)^2}{9f_\pi }}{\displaystyle }[dxdy]\{{\displaystyle \frac{13}{9}}(T_1T_2)\varphi _S(x)\varphi _S(y)`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}T_1\left[\varphi _S(x)\varphi _A(y)+\varphi _S(y)\varphi _A(x)\right]`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(T_1T_2)\varphi _A(y)\varphi _A(x)\},`$
$`Q^4A(\gamma ^{}n\pi ^{}p)|_{\mathrm{th}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(16\pi \alpha _s)^2}{9\sqrt{2}f_\pi }}{\displaystyle }[dxdy]\{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{9}}(T_1T_2)\varphi _S(x)\varphi _S(y)`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{3}}}T_1\left[\varphi _S(x)\varphi _A(y)+\varphi _S(y)\varphi _A(x)\right]`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}(T_1T_2)\varphi _A(y)\varphi _A(x)\}.`$
Using Eq. (Threshold theorem for hard electromagnetic probe) one can express the near threshold structure functions $`F_2^{p,n}(W,Q^2)`$ and various differential cross sections for particular $`\pi N`$ channels in terms of the nucleon DAs. The same  DAs appear in the QCD factorization theorem for the nucleon form factors at large $`Q^2`$. We find that in the case of the symmetric form of the nucleon DA

$`\varphi _S(x)\mathrm{is}\mathrm{arbitrary},\varphi _A(x)=0,`$ (15)
one can describe the near threshold pion production directly in terms of the nucleon form factors without specifying the nucleon DA, see below. Certainly the nucleon DA can have a nonzero asymmetric component $`\varphi _A(x)`$. Actually our general Eq. (Threshold theorem for hard electromagnetic probe) can be applied to any specific model of the nucleon DA (see e.g. ) to compare the model predictions with the experiment. In the case of symmetric nucleon DA the amplitude of the process (1) can be expressed in terms of nucleon magnetic form factors ($`G_{MN}(Q^2)`$) as follows:

$`A(\gamma ^{}p\pi ^0p)|_{\mathrm{th}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{5}{6}}G_{Mp}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}G_{Mn}\right),`$ (16)
$`A(\gamma ^{}p\pi ^+n)|_{\mathrm{th}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}f_\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{5}{3}}G_{Mp}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}G_{Mn}\right),`$ (17)
$`A(\gamma ^{}n\pi ^0n)|_{\mathrm{th}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{13G_{Mn}}{6f_\pi }},`$ (18)
$`A(\gamma ^{}n\pi ^{}p)|_{\mathrm{th}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_{Mn}}{3\sqrt{2}f_\pi }}.`$ (19)
Since these results are based on the symmetric form (15) for the nucleon distribution amplitude, deviations from these equations would allow to probe directly the asymmetric part of the nucleon distribution amplitude and check the validity of the leading twist description of the nucleon form factors.

At asymptotically large $`Q^2`$ the DAs of the nucleon are evolved to their asymptotic values:

$`\varphi _S^{\mathrm{as}}(x)=Nx_1x_2x_3,\varphi _A^{\mathrm{as}}(x)=0.`$ (20)
As the form (up to overall normalization) of the asymptotic nucleon DAs is fixed uniquely we can make predictions for the ratios of various amplitudes at the threshold at $`Q^2\mathrm{}`$ $`lim_{Q^2\mathrm{}}\frac{A(\gamma ^{}p\pi ^0p)|_{\mathrm{th}}}{A(\gamma ^{}p\pi ^+n)|_{\mathrm{th}}}=\sqrt{2}+O\left(\frac{m_\pi }{M_N}\right)`$, $`lim_{Q^2\mathrm{}}\frac{A(\gamma ^{}n\pi ^0n)|_{\mathrm{th}}}{A(\gamma ^{}n\pi ^{}p)|_{\mathrm{th}}}=\frac{13}{\sqrt{2}}+O\left(\frac{m_\pi }{M_N}\right)`$ which are qualitatively different from predictions for the case $`Q^20`$  $`lim_{Q^20}\frac{A(\gamma ^{}N\pi ^0N)|_{\mathrm{th}}}{A(\gamma ^{}p\pi ^+n)|_{\mathrm{th}}}=O\left(\frac{m_\pi }{M_N}\right)`$ For the ratio of neutron to proton structure functions we obtain from new soft pion theorems the following asymptotic result: $`lim_{Q^2\mathrm{},WW_{\mathrm{th}}}\frac{F_2^n(W,Q^2)}{F_2^p(W,Q^2)}=\frac{57}{32}+O\left(\frac{m_\pi }{M_N}\right),`$ which is much larger than the perturbative QCD scaling limit expectation of 3/7 . Although it is worth noting that the presently experimentally accessible values of $`Q^2`$ are not very large. Therefore one may expect considerable deviations from the above asymptotic results.

## Structure functions: comparison with data

The data on the structure function $`F_2^p(W,Q^2)`$ in the near threshold region were obtained in 1994 in the SLAC experiment E136  for a wide range of $`Q^2=7÷30.7`$ GeV2. Here we make the first comparison of the data with the hSPT predictions. (Previous analyses addressed the scaling features of these data and did not attempt to calculate $`F_2^p(W1.2GeV,Q^2)`$.)

To compute $`F_2^p(W,Q^2)`$ for $`WW_{\mathrm{th}}\text{ }<\text{ }\text{ }m_\pi `$ we combine the strictly threshold amplitude (Threshold theorem for hard electromagnetic probe) with the contribution of the last term from Eq. (5) and obtain

$`F_2^p(W,Q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{Q^2\beta (W)}{(4\pi )^2}}\left[{\displaystyle \underset{X=p\pi ^0,n\pi ^+}{}}\right|A(\gamma ^{}pX)|_{\mathrm{th}}|^2`$ (21)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3g_A^2G_{Mp}^2(Q^2)\beta ^2(W)W^4}{4(W^2M_N^2+m_\pi ^2)^2}}+O\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi }{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\right)],`$
where

$`\beta (W)=\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{(M_N+m_\pi )^2}{W^2}}}\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{(M_Nm_\pi )^2}{W^2}}}.`$ (22)
The first term in the rhs of eq. (21) corresponds to strictly threshold amplitude (Threshold theorem for hard electromagnetic probe). The second term takes into account the emission of the pion from the outgoing nucleon (Fig. 1) with the amplitude given by the second term in the rhs of eq. (5). The latter contribution vanishes exactly at the threshold but gives a parametrically unsuppressed contribution for $`WW_{\mathrm{th}}m_\pi `$. Note that the second term in Eq. (21) corresponds to $`\pi N`$ system in P-wave, therefore it can be separated from the first (S-wave) term by considering the angular distributions in $`\pi N`$ system.

The data of E136 experiment Ref.  are consistent with the factorized form

$`F_2^p(W,Q^2)=F(Q^2)G(W),`$ (23)
with $`F(Q^2)1/Q^6`$ for $`Q^28`$ GeV2 which is exactly the scaling behaviour following from Eq. (21). We also found that Eq. (21) provides a good description of the W-dependence of the E136 data for $`W1.2`$ GeV though the predicted $`W`$-dependence is somewhat different from the $`G(W)W^2W_{\mathrm{th}}^2`$ fit of . However, the resolution of E136 is not sufficient to distinguish between the two forms. The hSPT (21) also predicts the scaling behaviour $`1/Q^6`$ which is confirmed by the E136 data .

Thus we reproduce several features of the data without using any specific nucleon wave functions. To make a first quantitative comparison of the soft pion theorem prediction for the absolute value of $`F_2^p`$ we use the symmetric form for the nucleon distribution amplitude (15). Inserting the expressions (16) and (17) for the threshold amplitudes into Eq. (21) and using the analogous expression for the neutron structure function, we obtain the following hSPT for the structure functions in the case of the symmetric form (15) for the nucleon DA

$`F_2^p(W,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2\beta (W)}{(4\pi f_\pi )^2}}[{\displaystyle \frac{25}{12}}G_{Mp}^2(Q^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}G_{Mn}^2(Q^2)`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3g_A^2G_{Mp}^2(Q^2)\beta ^2(W)W^4}{4(W^2M_N^2+m_\pi ^2)^2}}+O\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi }{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\right)],`$
$`F_2^n(W,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2\beta (W)}{(4\pi f_\pi )^2}}[{\displaystyle \frac{19}{4}}G_{Mn}^2(Q^2)`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3g_A^2G_{Mn}^2(Q^2)\beta ^2(W)W^4}{4(W^2M_N^2+m_\pi ^2)^2}}+O\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi }{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\right)].`$
Now we can compare our results based on the hSPT with the E136 data . It was found in this experiment that in the interval $`W^21.4`$ GeV2 the quantity $`_{\mathrm{th}}^{1.4}𝑑W^2Q^6F_2^p(W,Q^2)`$ is practically constant for $`Q^28`$ GeV2. The experimental value of the integral is in a good agreement with our result (Structure functions: comparison with data):

$`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{th}}^{1.4}}𝑑W^2Q^6F_2^p(W,Q^2)=\{\begin{array}{c}0.10\pm 0.02\mathrm{GeV}^8(\mathrm{E136})\hfill \\ 0.11\pm 0.02\mathrm{GeV}^8(\mathrm{hSPT})\hfill \end{array}`$ (28)
For the theoretical analysis we used as input the following values for the nucleon form factors $`Q^4G_{Mp}(Q^2)=1.0\pm 0.1`$ GeV4 obtained at $`Q^210`$ GeV2  and $`Q^4G_{Mn}(Q^2)=(0.5\pm 0.1)`$ GeV4 extracted from Ref.  at $`Q^210`$ GeV2 . For the summary of the current information on various baryon form factors at large momentum transfer see e.g. . Note that the contribution of the P-wave term in Eq. (Structure functions: comparison with data) is relatively small (about 20%), so that the main part of the hSPT value (28) is due to the strictly threshold contribution (S-wave) in Eq. (21). With the same set of parameters we predict $`_{\mathrm{th}}^{1.4}𝑑W^2Q^6F_2^n(W,Q^2)=0.05\pm 0.02\mathrm{GeV}^8`$. Note that for the nucleon DAs which fit $`G_{Mp}(Q^2),G_{Mn}(Q^2)`$ at $`Q^210`$ GeV2 (such DA significantly differ from the asymptotic one, see e.g. ) the $`F_2^n/F_2^p`$ ratio near threshold is much smaller than the asymptotic value of $`52/37`$ which follows from Eq.(Threshold theorem for hard electromagnetic probe) with the asymptotic distribution amplitude $`\varphi (x)x_1x_2x_3`$. Thus this ratio is extremely sensitive to the deviations of the nucleon DA from the asymptotic form. Therefore measurements of the neutron structure function in the near threshold region would considerably constrain the form of the nucleon distribution amplitude.

## Conclusions

In this paper we derived a new soft pion theorem for the threshold pion production by a hard electromagnetic probe, i.e. with the probe of virtuality $`Q^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$ GeV is a typical hadronic scale). This new hSPT allows us to express the pion production amplitudes in terms of the distribution amplitudes of the nucleon. The latter enter the description of various nucleon form factors at large momentum transfer. These new relations give a possibility to constrain further the nucleon distribution amplitude using data on threshold inelastic electron scattering from the nucleon at high momentum transfer.

Here we restricted ourselves only to the case of the leading chiral contributions to the corresponding threshold amplitudes. The chiral corrections can be rather easily computed using methods of the chiral perturbation theory.

Using a generic symmetric model for the nucleon DAs we demonstrated that various observables for near threshold pion production at high momentum transfer are sensitive to the parameters of nucleon DAs. This shows that the near threshold pion production by a hard electromagnetic probe is a new valuable source of information about nucleon distribution amplitudes. Studies with a broader range of models of nucleon DAs will be presented elsewhere.

Our analysis was restricted to the leading twist QCD contributions. The application of the methods developed here to the models for soft contributions to the baryon form factors (see a review in ) would allow one to derive predictions of these models for hard near threshold pion production. This might be an exciting possibility to use hSPT to discriminate between soft and hard mechanisms for high momentum transfer reactions.

We also note that the generalized $`\pi N`$ distribution amplitudes above the threshold are complex functions. Not very far from the threshold the phases of $`\pi N`$ DAs are fixed by known elastic $`\pi N`$ scattering phase shifts which allows us to use the Omnès solution to the corresponding dispersion relations in order to fix the dependence of $`\pi N`$ DAs on the mass of the corresponding $`\pi N`$ system . Since this dependence is fixed to a large extent by the $`\pi N`$ scattering phase shifts, the generalized $`\pi N`$ DAs also contain information about DAs of various $`\pi N`$ resonances. In a complete analogy with the two-pion distribution amplitudes the generalized $`\pi N`$ DAs give a possibility to describe resonance and non-resonance contributions to the reaction (1) at high photon virtuality in a unified way.

The formalism developed here can be also used for other hard reactions with the pion emission near the threshold. For instance one can analyze the Compton scattering $`\gamma +N\gamma +(\pi N)`$ at large momentum transfer.

The study of the discussed processes should be feasible at the top of the current JLab energies and should be one of the high priorities of JLab at 12 GeV.

We are grateful to P. Bosted, D. I. Diakonov, A. V. Efremov, L. Frankfurt, K. Goeke, V. Yu. Petrov, M. Praszalowicz, A. V. Radyushkin, N. G. Stefanis, P. Stoler and M. Vanderhaeghen for interesting discussions. This research has been supported by DFG, BMFB, A. v. Humboldt foundation and DOE.