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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

To formulate nonperturbative aspects of string theory or M theory, several kinds of matrix models have been proposed. These proposals are based on the developments of D-brane physics. IIB matrix model is one of these proposals. It is a large $`N`$ reduced model of ten-dimensional supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory and the action has a matrix regularized form of the Green-Schwarz action of IIB superstring. It is postulated that it gives a constructive definition of type IIB superstring theory.

In the matrix model, matter and even spacetime are dynamically emerged out of matrices. Spacetime coordinates are represented by matrices and therefore noncommutative geometry appears naturally. The idea of the noncommutative geometry is to modify the microscopic structure of the spacetime. This modification is implemented by replacing fields on the spacetime by matrices. It was shown that noncommutative Yang-Mills theories in a flat background are obtained by expanding the matrix model around a flat noncommutative background. The noncommutative background is a D-brane-like background which is a solution of the equation of motion and preserves a part of supersymmetry. Various properties of noncommutative Yang-Mills have been studied from the matrix model point of view . In string theory, it is discussed that the world volume theory on D-branes with NS-NS two-form background is described by noncommutative Yang-Mills theory.

A different kind of noncommutative backgrounds, a noncommutative sphere, or a fuzzy sphere is also studied in many contexts. In , it is discussed in the framework of matrix regularization of a membrane. In the light-cone gauge, they gave a map between functions on spherical membrane and hermitian matrices. In BFSS matrix model, membranes of spherical topology are considered in . A noncommutative gauge theory on a fuzzy sphere in string theory context is discussed in . The approach to construct a gauge theory on the fuzzy sphere were pursued in .

The fuzzy sphere can be constructed by introducing a cut off parameter $`N`$ for angular momentum of the spherical harmonics. The number of independent functions is $`_{l=0}^N(2l+1)=(N+1)^2`$. Therefore, we can replace the functions by $`(N+1)\times (N+1)`$ hermitian matrices on the fuzzy sphere. Thus, the algebra on the fuzzy sphere becomes noncommutative.

In this paper, to construct a noncommutative gauge theory on the fuzzy sphere, we first consider a three dimensional supersymmetric reduced model. We add Chern-Simons term and Majorana spinor mass term to the action of original supersymmetric matrix model. An action with both of Yang-Mills and Chern-Simons terms are also considered in . Although an ordinary matrix model has only a flat background as a classical solution, our matrix model can describe a curved background owing to these terms.

We also study another type of action containing Chern-Simons term but not Majorana mass term. Although this action is not invariant under the original supersymmetry, it is invariant under a modified supersymmetry. It is also invariant under a constant shift of the fermion and hence it has $`𝒩=2`$ supersymmetry.

This paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we study a matrix model which gives a noncommutative gauge theory on a fuzzy sphere. We derive a noncommutative gauge theory by expanding the model around a classical solution which represents a fuzzy sphere. It is shown that in a commutative limit, it gives a standard theory on a commutative sphere. In the latter part of this section, another large $`N`$ limit corresponding to a sphere with a large radius but the noncommutativity fixed is considered. By taking the limit, we can obtain a noncommutative gauge theory in a flat noncommutative background, which is considered in . In section 3, some properties of Dirac operator and chirality operator in this model are considered. These operators become the correct operators on a commutative sphere in a commutative limit. In section 4, stability of two clsssical solutions, diagonal matrices and the fuzzy sphere, is examined. One-loop effective action is calculated for the classical solutions. For diagonal matrices, all supersymmetry is preserved. Hence, one-loop effective action vanishes and eigenvalues can move freely. On the other hand, all supersymmetry is broken for the fuzzy sphere. Therefore one-loop effective action does not vanish. It is shown that the value of the action including the one-loop corrections of the fuzzy sphere is lower than that of the commuting matrices when $`N`$ is sufficiently large for fixed $`g_{YM}`$. Another matrix model is analyzed by the same manner as the case of a former model in section 5. While in the former model the fuzzy sphere does not preserve supersymmetry, in this model it is a BPS solution. Therefore we can obtain a supersymmetric noncommutative gauge theory on a fuzzy sphere by expanding this model around a fuzzy sphere. Section 6 is devoted to conclusions and discussions. In appendix A, a noncommutative product on a fuzzy sphere is constructed by following . In appendix B, by projecting a fuzzy sphere to a fuzzy complex plane stereographically using a coherent state approach developed by , a noncommutative product which corresponds to the normal ordered product is considered. We also give mapping rules from matrix models to field theories on the projected plane. This construction leads to field theories with the Berezin type noncommutative product instead of the Moyal type.

## 2 Noncommutative Gauge Theory on Fuzzy Sphere

We start with a three-dimensional reduced model which is defined by the following action,

$$S=\frac{1}{g^2}Tr(\frac{1}{4}[A_i,A_j][A^i,A^j]+\frac{2}{3}i\alpha ϵ_{ijk}A^iA^jA^k+\frac{1}{2}\overline{\psi }\sigma ^i[A_i,\psi ]+\alpha \overline{\psi }\psi ).$$
(1)
Reduced models are obtained by reducing the spacetime volume to a single point. We have added Chern-Simons term and Majorana mass term to the reduced model of supersymmetric Yang-Mills. $`A_i`$ and $`\psi `$ are $`(N+1)\times (N+1)`$ hermitian matrices, and $`\psi `$ is a three-dimensional Majorana spinor field. $`\sigma _i(i=1,2,3)`$ denote Pauli matrices. $`\alpha `$ is a dimensionful parameter which depends on $`N`$.

This model possesses $`SO(3)`$ symmetry and the following translation symmetry

$$A_iA_i+c\mathrm{𝟏}.$$
(2)
Gauge symmetry of this model is expressed by the unitary transformations,

$$A_iUA_iU^{},\psi U\psi U^{}.$$
(3)
In addition to the above symmetries, this model has $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetry:

$`\delta A_i=i\overline{ϵ}\sigma _i\psi `$ (4)
$`\delta \psi ={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}[A_i,A_j]\sigma ^{ij}ϵ.`$ (5)
Because of the fermionic mass term, translation symmetry of $`\psi `$ is not present.

We next consider the equation of motion of (1). When $`\psi =0`$, it is

$$[A_i,[A_i,A_j]]=i\alpha ϵ_{jkl}[A_k,A_l].$$
(6)
The simplest solution is realized by commuting diagonal matrices:

$$A_i=diag(x_i^{(N+1)},x_i^{(N)},\mathrm{},x_i^{(1)}).$$
(7)
Another solution represents an algebra of the fuzzy sphere:

$$[\widehat{x}_i,\widehat{x}_j]=i\alpha ϵ_{ijk}\widehat{x}_k.$$
(8)
We impose the following condition for $`\widehat{x}_i`$,

$$\widehat{x}_1\widehat{x}_1+\widehat{x}_2\widehat{x}_2+\widehat{x}_3\widehat{x}_3=\rho ^2.$$
(9)
In the $`\alpha 0`$ limit, $`\widehat{x}_i`$ becomes commutative coordinates $`x_i`$:

$`x_1`$ $`=`$ $`\rho \mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi `$ (10)
$`x_2`$ $`=`$ $`\rho \mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\varphi `$ (11)
$`x_3`$ $`=`$ $`\rho \mathrm{cos}\theta ,`$ (12)
where $`\rho `$ denotes the radius of the sphere. Although the commuting matrices preserve the supersymmetry, the solution representing the fuzzy sphere breaks it. The noncommutative coordinates of (8) can be constructed by the generators of the $`(N+1)`$-dimensional irreducible representation of $`SU(2)`$

$$\widehat{x}_i=\alpha \widehat{L}_i,$$
(13)
where

$$[\widehat{L}_i,\widehat{L}_j]=iϵ_{ijk}\widehat{L}_k.$$
(14)
$`\alpha `$ and $`\rho `$ are related by the following relation

$$\rho ^2=\alpha ^2\frac{N(N+2)}{4}.$$
(15)
where we have used the fact that the quadratic Casimir of $`SU(2)`$ in the $`(N+1)`$-dimensional irreducible representation is given by $`N(N+2)/4`$. The Plank constant, which represents the area occupied by the unit quantum on the fuzzy sphere, is given by

$$\frac{4\pi \rho ^2}{N+1}=\frac{N(N+2)}{N+1}\pi \alpha ^2.$$
(16)
Commutative limit is realized by

$$\rho =\text{fixed},N\mathrm{}(\alpha 0).$$
(17)
From now on, we set $`\rho `$=fixed.

Now we show that, expanding the model around the classical backgrounds (8) by the similar procedure as in  it leads to a noncommutative Yang-Mills on the fuzzy sphere. We first consider $`U(1)`$ noncommutative gauge theory on the fuzzy sphere. We expand the bosonic matrices around the classical solution (8):

$$A_i=\widehat{x}_i+\alpha \rho \widehat{a}_i=\alpha \rho (\frac{\widehat{L}_i}{\rho }+\widehat{a}_i).$$
(18)
A correspondence between matrices and functions on a sphere is given as follow. Ordinary functions on the sphere can be expanded by the spherical harmonics,

$`a(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}}a_{lm}Y_{lm}(\mathrm{\Omega }),`$ (19)
$`\psi (\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}}\psi _{lm}Y_{lm}(\mathrm{\Omega }),`$ (20)
where

$$Y_{lm}=\rho ^l\underset{a}{}f_{a_1,a_2,\mathrm{}a_l}^{(lm)}x^{a_1}\mathrm{}x^{a_l}$$
(21)
is a spherical harmonics and $`f_{a_1,a_2,\mathrm{}a_l}`$ is a traceless and symmetric tensor. The traceless condition comes from $`x_ix_i=\rho ^2`$. The normalization of the spherical harmonics is fixed by

$$\frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }Y_{l^{}m^{}}^{}Y_{lm}=\frac{1}{4\pi }_0^{2\pi }𝑑\phi _0^\pi \mathrm{sin}\theta d\theta Y_{l^{}m^{}}^{}Y_{lm}=\delta _{l^{}l}\delta _{m^{}m}.$$
(22)
Matrices on the fuzzy sphere, on the other hand, can be expanded by the noncommutative spherical harmonics $`\widehat{Y}_{lm}`$ as

$`\widehat{a}={\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}}a_{lm}\widehat{Y}_{lm},`$ (23)
$`\widehat{\psi }={\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}}\psi _{lm}\widehat{Y}_{lm}.`$ (24)
$`\widehat{Y}_{lm}`$ is a $`(N+1)\times (N+1)`$ matrix and defined by

$$\widehat{Y}_{lm}=\rho ^l\underset{a}{}f_{a_1,a_2,\mathrm{},a_l}^{lm}\widehat{x}^{a_1}\mathrm{}\widehat{x}^{a_l},$$
(25)
where the same coefficients as (21) are used. Angular momentum $`l`$ is bounded at $`l=N`$ and these $`\widehat{Y}_{lm}`$’s form a complete basis of $`(N+1)\times (N+1)`$ hermitian matrices. From the symmetry of the indices, the ordering of $`\widehat{x}`$ corresponds to the Weyl type ordering. A hermiticity condition requires that $`a_{lm}^{}=a_{lm}`$. Normalization of the noncommutative spherical harmonics is given by

$$\frac{1}{N+1}Tr(\widehat{Y}_{l^{}m^{}}^{}\widehat{Y}_{lm})=\delta _{l^{}l}\delta _{m^{}m}.$$
(26)
A map from matrices to functions is given by

$$\widehat{a}=\underset{l=0}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}a_{lm}\widehat{Y}_{lm}a(\mathrm{\Omega })=\underset{l=0}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}a_{lm}Y_{lm}(\mathrm{\Omega }),$$
(27)
and correspondingly a product of matrices is mapped to the star product on the fuzzy sphere:

$$\widehat{a}\widehat{b}ab.$$
(28)
Detailed structures of the star product are summarized in Appendix A.

An action of $`Ad(\widehat{L}_3)`$ is obtained by

$$Ad(\widehat{L}_3)\widehat{a}=\underset{lm}{}a_{lm}[\widehat{L}_3,\widehat{Y}_{lm}]=\underset{lm}{}a_{lm}m\widehat{Y}_{lm}.$$
(29)
This property and $`SO(3)`$ symmetry gives the following correspondence:

$`Ad(\widehat{L}_i)L_i{\displaystyle \frac{1}{i}}ϵ_{ijk}x_j_k.`$ (30)
The laplacian on the fuzzy sphere is given by

$$\frac{1}{\rho ^2}Ad(\widehat{L})^2\widehat{a}=\frac{1}{\rho ^2}\underset{lm}{}a_{lm}[\widehat{L}_i,[\widehat{L}_i,\widehat{Y}_{lm}]]=\underset{lm}{}\frac{l(l+1)}{\rho ^2}a_{lm}\widehat{Y}_{lm}.$$
(31)
$`Tr`$ over matrices can be mapped to the integration over functions as

$$\frac{1}{N+1}Tr\frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }.$$
(32)
Let us expand the action (1) around the classical solution (8) and apply these mapping rules. The bosonic part of the action (1) becomes

$`S_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^4\rho ^4}{4g^2}}Tr(\widehat{F}_{ij}\widehat{F}_{ij})`$ (34)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2g^2}}\alpha ^4\rho ^3ϵ^{ijk}Tr({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}[\widehat{L}_i,\widehat{a}_j]\widehat{a}_k+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\widehat{a}_i[\widehat{a}_j,\widehat{a}_k]{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\rho }}ϵ_{ijm}\widehat{a}^m\widehat{a}_k){\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{6g^2}}Tr(\widehat{x}^i\widehat{x}_i)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^4\rho ^4}{4g^2}}(N+1){\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }(F_{ij}F_{ij})_{}}`$ (37)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2g^2}}\alpha ^4\rho ^3ϵ^{ijk}(N+1){\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }(\frac{1}{\rho }(L_ia_j)a_k+\frac{1}{3}a_i[a_j,a_k]\frac{i}{2\rho }ϵ_{ijm}a^ma_k)_{}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^4}{24g^2}}N(N+1)(N+2),`$
where $`\widehat{F}_{ij}`$ is defined as follows

$`\widehat{F}_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha ^2\rho ^2}}([A_i,A_j]i\alpha ϵ_{ijk}A_k)`$ (38)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}[\widehat{L}_i,\widehat{a}_j]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}[\widehat{L}_j,\widehat{a}_i]+[\widehat{a}_i,\widehat{a}_j]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}iϵ_{ijk}\widehat{a}_k,`$ (39)
and the corresponding function $`F_{ij}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ becomes

$`F_{ij}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}L_ia_j(\mathrm{\Omega }){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}L_ja_i(\mathrm{\Omega })+[a_i(\mathrm{\Omega }),a_j(\mathrm{\Omega })]_{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}iϵ_{ijk}a_k(\mathrm{\Omega }).`$ (40)
This quantity is gauge covariant and becomes zero when the fluctuation is set to zero. The Yang-Mills coupling is found to be $`g_{YM}^2=4\pi g^2/(N+1)\alpha ^4\rho ^2`$. $`()_{}`$ means that the products should be taken as the star product. Hence commutators do not vanish even in the case of $`U(1)`$ gauge group.

The fermionic part of the action becomes

$`S_F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2g^2}}Tr(\overline{\widehat{\psi }}\sigma ^i[\widehat{L}_i+\rho \widehat{a}_i,\widehat{\psi }]+2\overline{\widehat{\psi }}\widehat{\psi })`$ (41)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha \rho }{2g^2}}(N+1){\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }(\frac{1}{\rho }\overline{\psi }\sigma ^iL_i\psi +\overline{\psi }\sigma ^i[a_i,\psi ]+\frac{2}{\rho }\overline{\psi }\psi )_{}}.`$ (42)
We next focus on the gauge symmetry of this action. The action (1) is invariant under the unitary transformation (3). For an infinitesimal transformation $`U=\mathrm{exp}(i\widehat{\lambda })1+i\widehat{\lambda }`$ in (3) where $`\widehat{\lambda }=_{lm}\lambda _{lm}\widehat{Y}_{lm}`$, the fluctuation around the fixed background transforms as

$`\widehat{a}_i`$ $``$ $`\widehat{a}_i{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\rho }}[\widehat{L}_i,\widehat{\lambda }]+i[\widehat{\lambda },\widehat{a}_i].`$ (43)
After mapping to functions, we have local gauge symmetry

$`a_i`$ $``$ $`a_i{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\rho }}L_i\lambda +i[\lambda ,a_i]_{}.`$ (44)
Let us discuss a scalar field which is defined by

$`\widehat{\varphi }`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\alpha \rho }}(A_iA_i\widehat{x}_i\widehat{x}_i)`$ (45)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\widehat{x}_i\widehat{a}_i+\widehat{a}_i\widehat{x}_i+\alpha \rho \widehat{a}_i\widehat{a}_i).`$ (46)
It transforms covariantly as an adjoint representation

$$\widehat{\varphi }\widehat{\varphi }+i[\widehat{\lambda },\widehat{\varphi }].$$
(47)
Since the scalar field should become the radial component of $`\widehat{a}_i`$ in the commutative limit, a naive choice is $`\widehat{\varphi }_0=(\widehat{x}_i\widehat{a}_i+\widehat{a}_i\widehat{x}_i)/2`$. For small fluctuations this field is the correct component of the field $`\widehat{a}_i`$ but large fluctuations of $`\widehat{a}_i`$ deform the shape of the sphere and $`\widehat{\varphi }_0`$ can be no longer interpreted as the radial component of $`\widehat{a}_i`$. This is a manifestation of the fact that matrix models or noncommutative gauge theories naturally unify spacetime and matter on the same footing. An addition of the non-linear term $`\widehat{a}_i\widehat{a}_i`$ makes $`\widehat{\varphi }`$ transform correctly as the scalar field in the adjoint representation.

We have so far discussed the $`U(1)`$ noncommutative gauge theory on the fuzzy sphere. A generalization to $`U(m)`$ gauge group is realized by the following replacement:

$$\widehat{x}_i\widehat{x}_i\mathrm{𝟏}_m.$$
(48)
$`\widehat{a}`$ is also replaced as follows:

$$\widehat{a}\underset{a=1}{\overset{m^2}{}}\widehat{a}^aT^a,$$
(49)
where $`T^a(a=1,\mathrm{},m^2)`$ denote the generators of $`U(m)`$. Then we obtain $`U(m)`$ noncommutative gauge theory by the same procedure as the $`U(1)`$ case:

$`S_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^4\rho ^4}{4g^2}}(N+1)tr{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }(F_{ij}F_{ij})_{}}`$ (52)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2g^2}}\alpha ^4\rho ^3ϵ^{ijk}(N+1)tr{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }(\frac{1}{\rho }(L_ia_j)a_k+\frac{1}{3}a_i[a_j,a_k]\frac{i}{2\rho }ϵ_{ijm}a^ma_k)_{}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^4}{24g^2}}mN(N+1)(N+2)`$
$`S_F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha \rho }{2g^2}}(N+1)tr{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }(\frac{1}{\rho }\overline{\psi }\sigma ^iL_i\psi +\overline{\psi }\sigma ^i[a_i,\psi ]+\frac{2}{\rho }\overline{\psi }\psi )_{}},`$ (53)
where $`tr`$ is taken over $`m\times m`$ matrices.

Let us consider a commutative limit. It is realized by the large $`N`$ limit with fixed $`\rho `$. The following relations are satisfied in the commutative limit:

$`\rho a_i(x)`$ $`=`$ $`K_i^a(x)b_a(x)+{\displaystyle \frac{x_i}{\rho }}\varphi `$ (54)
where $`i=1,2,3,a=\theta ,\varphi `$ and $`b_a`$ is a gauge field on the sphere. Two fields $`b_a`$ are defined on the local coordinates $`\theta ,\varphi `$. $`K_i^a`$ are two Killing vectors and defined by

$`L_i`$ $`=`$ $`iK_i^a(x)_a.`$ (55)
The explicit forms of these Killing vectors are given as follows

$$\begin{array}{cc}K_1^\theta =\mathrm{sin}\varphi \hfill & K_1^\varphi =\mathrm{cot}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi \hfill \\ K_2^\theta =\mathrm{cos}\varphi \hfill & K_2^\varphi =\mathrm{cot}\theta \mathrm{sin}\varphi \hfill \\ K_3^\theta =0\hfill & K_3^\varphi =1.\hfill \end{array}$$
(56)
From these Killing vectors, we obtain the metric tensor on $`S^2`$ as

$`g^{ab}=K_i^aK_i^b.`$ (57)
Three fields $`a_i`$ are defined in three dimensional space R3 and contain a gauge field $`b_a`$ on $`S^2`$ and a scalar field $`\varphi `$ as well. In the commutative limit, we can separate the gauge field $`b_a`$ from $`a_i`$ using the Killing vectors as in (54). The bosonic part of the action is rewritten as

$`S_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4g_{YM}^2\rho ^2}}{\displaystyle }d\mathrm{\Omega }(K_i^aK_j^bK_i^cK_j^dF_{ab}F_{cd}+i2K_i^aK_j^bF_{ab}ϵ_{ijk}{\displaystyle \frac{x_k}{\rho }}\varphi `$ (60)
$`+2K_i^aK_i^b(D_a\varphi )(D_b\varphi )2\varphi ^2)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2g_{YM}^2\rho ^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }(iϵ_{ijk}K_i^aK_j^bF_{ab}\frac{x_k}{\rho }\varphi \varphi ^2)}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2g_{YM}^2\rho ^2}}{\displaystyle d^2x\sqrt{g}(F_{ab}F^{ab}+\frac{2i}{\sqrt{g}}ϵ^{ab}F_{ab}\varphi +(D_a\varphi )(D^a\varphi )2\varphi ^2)}`$ (61)
where $`F_{ab}=\frac{1}{i}_ab_b\frac{1}{i}_bb_a+[b_a,b_b]`$, $`D_a=\frac{1}{i}_a+[b_a,]`$ and $`ϵ^{\theta \varphi }=ϵ^{\varphi \theta }=1`$. The fermionic part is also rewritten as

$`S_F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2g_{YM}^2\alpha ^3\rho ^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }(\overline{\psi }\gamma ^aD_a\psi +\overline{\psi }\gamma _3[\varphi ,\psi ]+2\overline{\psi }\psi )}`$ (62)
where $`\gamma _3=\sigma _ix_i/\rho `$ (See (92)) and $`\gamma ^a=\sigma ^iK_i^a`$. We thus obtained the action of a field theory with a gauge field, an adjoint scalar and a gaugino field on a sphere.

In the commutative limit, the gauge transformation becomes

$$b_ab_a_a\lambda $$
(63)
for $`U(1)`$ gauge group and

$$b_ab_a_a\lambda +i[\lambda ,b_a]$$
(64)
for $`U(m)`$ gauge group.

In the latter part of this section, we investigate the relation to a noncommutative gauge theory in a flat background by taking $`\rho \mathrm{}`$ limit while fixing $`\alpha `$. By virtue of the $`SO(3)`$ symmetry, we may consider the theory around the north pole without loss of generality. Around the north pole, $`\widehat{L}_3`$ can be approximated as $`\widehat{L}_3N/2`$. By defining $`\widehat{L}_i^{}=\sqrt{\frac{2}{N}}\widehat{L}_i`$, the commutation relation (14) becomes

$$[\widehat{L}_1^{},\widehat{L}_2^{}]i.$$
(65)
By further defining $`\widehat{x}_i^{}=\alpha \widehat{L}_i^{}`$ and $`\widehat{p}_i^{}=\alpha ^1\epsilon _{ij}\widehat{L}_j^{}`$ $`(i,j=1,2)`$, we have

$$[\widehat{x}_1^{},\widehat{x}_2^{}]=i\alpha ^2,[\widehat{p}_1^{},\widehat{p}_2^{}]=i\alpha ^2,[\widehat{x}_i^{},\widehat{p}_j^{}]=i\delta _{ij}.$$
(66)
We take the following limit to decompactify the sphere,

$`\alpha =\text{fixed},\rho ^{}1(N1),`$ (67)
where $`\rho ^2=\widehat{x}_i^{}\widehat{x}_i^{}=\frac{2}{N}\rho ^2=\frac{N+2}{2}\alpha ^2\frac{N}{2}\alpha ^2`$. In the coordinates of $`\widehat{x}_i^{}`$, the Plank constant is given by

$$\frac{4\pi \rho ^2}{N+1}2\pi \alpha ^2.$$
(68)
$`ab`$ which is defined in (28) becomes the Moyal product $`a_Mb`$ because of (65) and the Weyl type ordering property in (25). The following replacements hold in this limit,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N+1}}Tr{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }}={\displaystyle \frac{d^2x}{4\pi \rho ^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{d^2x^{}}{4\pi \rho ^2}}`$ (69)
$$Ad(\widehat{p}_i^{})=\frac{1}{\rho ^{}}\epsilon _{ij}Ad(\widehat{L}_j)\frac{1}{i}_i^{}(i=1,2)$$
(70)
We can regard $`\widehat{a}_3`$ as the scalar field $`\widehat{\varphi }`$ around the north pole. For simplicity, only $`U(1)`$ case is treated in the present discussions. The bosonic part of the action (1) becomes

$`S_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^4}{2g^2}}Tr([\widehat{L}_1+\rho \widehat{a}_1,\widehat{L}_2+\rho \widehat{a}_2]^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^4}{2g^2}}Tr(\rho \widehat{\varphi }[\widehat{L}_i+\rho \widehat{a}_i,[\widehat{L}_i+\rho \widehat{a}_i,\rho \widehat{\varphi }]])`$ (72)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{2i\alpha ^4}{g^2}}Tr([\widehat{L}_1+\rho \widehat{a}_1,\widehat{L}_2+\rho \widehat{a}_2]\rho \widehat{\varphi })`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^4}{2g^2}}(\rho ^{})^4\{Tr([\widehat{p}_2^{}\widehat{a}_2^{},\widehat{p}_1^{}+\widehat{a}_1^{}]^2)+Tr(\widehat{\varphi }^{}[\widehat{p}_i^{}+\widehat{a}_i^{},[\widehat{p}_i^{}+\widehat{a}_i^{},\widehat{\varphi }^{}]])`$ (74)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{4i}{\rho ^{}}}Tr([\widehat{p}_2^{}\widehat{a}_2^{},\widehat{p}_1^{}+\widehat{a}_1^{}]\widehat{\varphi }^{})\},`$
where we have defined $`\widehat{a}_i=\sqrt{\frac{2}{N}}\widehat{a}_j^{}\epsilon _{ji}(i,j=1,2)`$ and $`\widehat{\varphi }=\sqrt{\frac{2}{N}}\widehat{\varphi }^{}`$. This action can be mapped to the following action,

$`S_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^6N^2}{16\pi g^2}}\{{\displaystyle }d^2x^{}F_{12}(x)F_{12}(x)+{\displaystyle }d^2x^{}\varphi ^{}(x)(Ad(D))^2\varphi ^{}(x)`$ (76)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{4i}{\rho ^{}}}{\displaystyle }d^2x^{}F_{12}(x)\varphi ^{}(x)\},`$
where $`Ad(D_i)=[\frac{1}{i}_i^{}+a_i^{},]`$ and $`F_{12}=\frac{1}{i}_1^{}a_2^{}\frac{1}{i}_2^{}a_1^{}+[a_1^{},a_2^{}]_{}`$. It is found that the Yang-Mills coupling is $`g_{YM}^2=4\pi g^2/N^2\alpha ^6`$. Similarly the fermionic part of the action (1) becomes

$`S_F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2g^2}}Tr(\overline{\widehat{\psi }}\sigma ^i[\widehat{L}_i+\rho \widehat{a}_i,\widehat{\psi }]+2\overline{\widehat{\psi }}\widehat{\psi })`$ (77)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha \rho ^{}}{2g^2}}Tr(\overline{\widehat{\psi }}\stackrel{~}{\sigma }^i[\widehat{p}_i^{}+\widehat{a}_i^{},\widehat{\psi }]+\overline{\widehat{\psi }}\sigma ^3[\widehat{\varphi }^{},\widehat{\psi }]+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\rho ^{}}}\overline{\widehat{\psi }}\widehat{\psi })`$ (78)
where we have defined $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_j=\epsilon _{ji}\sigma _i(i,j=1,2)`$. This is also mapped as follows

$`S_F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha \rho ^{}}{2g^2}}(N+1){\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^2x^{}}{4\pi \rho ^2}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{i}}\overline{\psi }(x)\stackrel{~}{\sigma }^i_i^{}\psi (x)`$ (80)
$`+\overline{\psi }(x)\stackrel{~}{\sigma }^i[a_i^{}(x),\psi (x)]_{}+\overline{\psi }(x)\sigma ^3[\varphi ^{}(x),\psi (x)]_{}+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\rho ^{}}}\overline{\psi }(x)\psi (x)).`$
The gauge transformation (43) becomes

$$a_i^{}a_i^{}_i^{}\lambda +i[\lambda ,a_i^{}]_{}.$$
(81)
We have seen that in the large radius and $`\alpha `$=fixed limit (67), the noncommutative Yang-Mills theory in the flat backgrounds can be obtained. The last term in (76) and the last term in (80) become small in the $`\rho ^{}\mathrm{}`$. To discuss the meaning of these terms, we integrate out the scalar field $`\varphi `$. The action (76) becomes

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4g_{YM}^2}}\{{\displaystyle }d^2x^{}F_{12}(x)F_{12}(x)+{\displaystyle }d^2x^{}\varphi ^{}(x)(Ad(D))^2\varphi ^{}(x)`$ (83)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{4i}{\rho ^{}}}{\displaystyle }d^2x^{}F_{12}(x)\varphi ^{}(x))\}`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4g_{YM}^2}}\{{\displaystyle d^2x^{}F_{12}^2(x)}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\rho ^2}}{\displaystyle d^2x^{}F_{12}(x)(\frac{1}{^2})F_{12}(x)}+O(a^3)\}`$ (84)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4g_{YM}^2}}\{{\displaystyle d^2x^{}F_{12}^2(x)}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\rho ^2}}{\displaystyle d^2x^{}d^2y^{}F_{12}(x)\mathrm{\Delta }(xy)F_{12}(y)}+O(a^3)\}`$ (85)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4g_{YM}^2}}{\displaystyle d^2p(1+\frac{4}{\rho ^2p^2})F_{12}(p)F_{12}(p)}+O(a^3),`$ (86)
where $`1/^2=\mathrm{\Delta }(xy)=d^2ke^{ik(x^{}y^{})}/k^2`$. The mass of the gauge field is found to be

$$M_{\text{gauge}}=\frac{2}{\rho ^{}}.$$
(87)
We found that the gauge field has acquired the mass by absorbing the degree of freedom of the scalar field. From (80), the mass of the gaugino field is $`2/\rho ^{}`$ which is degenerate with the mass of the gauge field. In the $`\rho ^{}\mathrm{}`$ limit, the gauge field and the gaugino field become massless.

## 3 Some Properties of Dirac Operator

In this section, we investigate some properties of Dirac operator. Dirac operator in our model is given by

$$\widehat{D}=\frac{1}{\rho }(\sigma _i(Ad(\widehat{L}_i)+1).$$
(88)
Other Dirac operators are also constructed in . In the commutative limit, this operator becomes

$$D=\frac{1}{\rho }(\sigma _iL_i+1),$$
(89)
which is the standard massless Dirac operator on the sphere. The second term of this operator comes from the contribution of the spin connection on the sphere. Around the north pole, the operator behaves as

$$D=\sqrt{\frac{2}{N}}(\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_ip_i^{}+\frac{1}{\rho ^{}}),$$
(90)
and in the $`\rho ^{}\mathrm{}`$ limit, it approaches the massless Dirac operator in the flat background.

We consider the following chirality operator

$$\widehat{\gamma }_3=\frac{1}{\rho }\sigma _i\widehat{x}_i,$$
(91)
which becomes, in the commutative limit,

$$\gamma _3=\frac{1}{\rho }\sigma _ix_i.$$
(92)
It is the standard chirality operator on the sphere. This chirality operator obeys $`\widehat{\gamma }_3^2=12\widehat{\gamma }_3/\sqrt{N(N+2)}`$ and does not satisfy the usual condition for the chirality operator before taking the commutative limit. A chirality operator which satisfies the condition $`\widehat{\gamma }_3^2=1`$ and becomes (92) in the commutative limit is given by

$$\widehat{\gamma }_3^{}=\frac{1}{M}(\sigma _i\widehat{x}_i+\frac{\alpha }{2}),$$
(93)
where $`M=\alpha (N+1)/2`$ is a normalization factor. Anticommutation relation between the Dirac operator and the chirality operator is

$$\widehat{D}\widehat{\gamma }_3+\widehat{\gamma }_3\widehat{D}=\frac{2}{\rho ^2}\widehat{x}_iAd(\widehat{L}_i)$$
(94)
which vanishes in the commutative limit as can be seen from (30). Another type of a Dirac operator which anticommutes with (93) is constructed in .

We next investigate the spectrum of the Dirac operator. We consider an eigenstate $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ of $`J^2`$ and $`J_3`$, satisfying $`J^2\mathrm{\Psi }_{jm}=j(j+1)\mathrm{\Psi }_{jm}`$ and $`J_3\mathrm{\Psi }_{jm}=(m+1/2)\mathrm{\Psi }_{jm}`$, where $`J_i=L_i+\sigma _i/2`$ and $`1/2jN+1/2`$ and $`lml`$. Acting on $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{jm}`$, square of the Dirac operator becomes

$`\rho ^2\widehat{D}^2\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{jm}`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma _i[\widehat{L}_i,\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{jm}]+[\widehat{L}_i,[\widehat{L}_i,\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{jm}]]+\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{jm}`$ (95)
$`=`$ $`((Ad(J))^2(Ad(L))^2{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}})\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{jm}+(Ad(L))^2\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{jm}+\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{jm}`$ (96)
$`=`$ $`(j+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}})^2\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{jm}.`$ (97)
We have used the relation $`J^2=L^2+L\sigma +3/4`$. This spectrum is identical with the spectrum in the commutative limit.

## 4 Stability of Classical Solutions

We have argued the noncommutative gauge theories on the fuzzy sphere. This section is devoted to a discussion of stability of the classical solutions. Let us first evaluate classical values of the action for the solutions of (7) and (8).

The action vanishes

$$S=0,$$
(98)
for commuting matrices (7), and becomes

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{24g^2}}N(N+1)(N+2)\alpha ^4`$ (99)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3g^2}}\rho ^4{\displaystyle \frac{N+1}{N(N+2)}},`$ (100)
for the fuzzy sphere 555The classical value of the action depends on the quadratic Casimir. That is, it depends on the representation. We can construct an alternative representation in (13). The value of the action is larger than the irreducible representation. Therefore the solutions of reducible representation are unstable. (8). The solution of the fuzzy sphere has lower energy than the solution of commuting matrices, and therefore the fuzzy sphere is more stable than the commuting matrices at the classical level.

We next investigate one-loop effective action around the classical solutions. We decompose the matrices $`A_i`$ and $`\psi `$ into the classical backgrounds and fluctuations:

$`A_i`$ $`=`$ $`X_i+\stackrel{~}{A}_i,`$ (101)
$`\psi `$ $`=`$ $`\chi +\stackrel{~}{\psi }.`$ (102)
We add the following gauge-fixing term,

$`S_{g.f.}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}Tr({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[X_i,A_i]^2+[X_i,b][A_i,c]),`$ (103)
where $`b`$ and $`c`$ are ghost and anti-ghost, respectively. We expand the action up to the second order of the fluctuations and set $`\chi =0`$:

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}Tr({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[X_i,\stackrel{~}{A}_j]^2+[X_i,X_j][\stackrel{~}{A}_i,\stackrel{~}{A}_j]`$ (106)
$`i\alpha ϵ_{ijk}X_i[\stackrel{~}{A}_j,\stackrel{~}{A}_k]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{\stackrel{~}{\psi }}\mathrm{\Gamma }^i[X_i,\stackrel{~}{\psi }]\alpha \overline{\stackrel{~}{\psi }}\stackrel{~}{\psi }+[X_i,b][X_i,c]).`$
Then the one-loop effective action is calculated as

$$W=\mathrm{log}𝑑\stackrel{~}{A}𝑑\stackrel{~}{\psi }𝑑b𝑑ce^S.$$
(107)
We first consider the one-loop effective action for the commuting matrices. The contributions from $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ are calculated as follows

$`W_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}(\mathrm{log}(x^{(i)}x^{(j)})^2+\mathrm{log}(1{\displaystyle \frac{4\alpha ^2}{(x^{(i)}x^{(j)})^2}})),`$ (108)
$`W_F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}(\mathrm{log}(x^{(i)}x^{(j)})^2+\mathrm{log}(1{\displaystyle \frac{4\alpha ^2}{(x^{(i)}x^{(j)})^2}})).`$ (109)
Contributions from ghosts are included in $`W_B`$. We find that the one-loop effective action for commuting matrices vanishes due to the cancellation between bosonic and fermionic contributions as expected from supersymmetry. Therefore there are no net forces between the eigenvalues if we neglect the effect of the fermionic zero modes. For the fuzzy sphere, one-loop effective action can be calculated as

$`W_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}Tr\mathrm{log}(Ad(L))^2,`$ (110)
$`W_F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}Tr\mathrm{log}(Ad(L))^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}Tr\mathrm{log}(1+{\displaystyle \frac{4+3\sigma ^iAd(L_i)}{(Ad(L))^2}}).`$ (111)
In this case, the one-loop effective action does not vanish because this background preserves no supersymmetry. One-loop quantum corrections to the classical action (100) are

$$W=\frac{1}{4}Tr\mathrm{log}(1+\frac{4+3\sigma ^iAd(L_i)}{(Ad(L))^2}).$$
(112)
Let us evaluate this quantity. This expression can be rewritten using a replacement $`\sigma ^iAd(L_i)j(j+1)l(l+1)3/4=s(2l+1)1/2`$, where $`s=\pm 1/2`$:

$`W`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{l}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{s=\pm 1/2}{}}(2l+1)\mathrm{log}(1+{\displaystyle \frac{3s(2l+1)+\frac{5}{2}}{l(l+1)}})`$ (113)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{l}{\overset{N}{}}}(2l+1)\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{(l+2)(l1)}{l(l+1)}}.`$ (114)
In the large $`N`$ limit, we have

$`W2\mathrm{log}N.`$ (115)
The value of the effective action including both the classical and the one-loop quantum corrections becomes

$`S_{eff}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3g^2}}\rho ^4{\displaystyle \frac{N+1}{N(N+2)}}+2\mathrm{log}N`$ (116)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{6\rho ^2g_{YM}^2}}N(N+2)+2\mathrm{log}N.`$ (117)
For large enough $`N`$ and $`g_{YM}`$=fixed, the fuzzy sphere is more stable than the commuting matrices 666 As studied in papers, the partition function of $`d=3`$ supersymmetric reduced models is not convergent against integral over bosonic variables. It implies that eigenvalues are more likely to be separated from each other and the fuzzy sphere solution is unstable nonperturbatively, in contrast to our perturbative analysis. From this point of view, it is more interesting if we can construct nontrivial curved backgrounds from convergent higher dimensional supersymmetric reduced models. We thank Staudacher for informing us of their analysis on reduced model integrals. . On the other hand, there is a region of $`S_{eff}>0`$ if we take $`g_{YM}`$ sufficiently large so that the second term dominates the first one. In the region, the commuting matrices is more stable than the fuzzy sphere.

## 5 Supersymmetric Noncommutative Gauge Theory
on Fuzzy Sphere

In this section, we consider another action which gives a supersymmetric noncommutative gauge theory on the fuzzy sphere. Supersymmetric gauge theories on a fuzzy sphere is also considered in . The action is defined by

$$S=\frac{1}{g^2}Tr(\frac{1}{4}[A_i,A_j][A^i,A^j]+\frac{2}{3}i\alpha ϵ_{ijk}A^iA^jA^k+\frac{1}{2}\overline{\psi }\sigma ^i[A_i,\psi ]).$$
(118)
It has has the following $`𝒩=2`$ supersymmetry:

$`\delta ^{(1)}A_i=i\overline{ϵ}\sigma _i\psi `$ (119)
$`\delta ^{(1)}\psi ={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}([A_i,A_j]i\alpha ϵ_{ijk}A_k)\sigma ^{ij}ϵ,`$ (120)
and

$`\delta A_i^{(2)}=0`$ (121)
$`\delta ^{(2)}\psi =\xi .`$ (122)
The transformation for the gaugino in (120) is modified in comparison to the transformation in the usual Yang-Mills reduced models 777 In , there is a discussion about the supersymmetry transformation on the fuzzy sphere. In the context of string theory, the spherical D2-brane can be a supersymmetric configuration. The fact that our model (118) has the modified supersymmetry (120) which vanishes for the fuzzy sphere is consistent with the comment given in . We thank K.Hashimoto and K.Krasnov for their stimulating comments. . Let us check that these two transformations form the $`𝒩=2`$ supersymmetry algebra. Algebra is also modified due to the modification of supersymmetry. We have the following relations:

$`(\delta _{ϵ^1}^{(1)}\delta _{ϵ^2}^{(1)}\delta _{ϵ^2}^{(1)}\delta _{ϵ^1}^{(1)})\psi `$ $`=`$ $`i[\psi ,\lambda ]+i\theta _i{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _i}{2}}\psi ,`$ (123)
$`(\delta _{ϵ^1}^{(1)}\delta _{ϵ^2}^{(1)}\delta _{ϵ^2}^{(1)}\delta _{ϵ^1}^{(1)})A_i`$ $`=`$ $`i[A_i,\lambda ]+ϵ_{ijk}\theta _jA_k,`$ (124)
where $`\lambda =2i(\overline{ϵ}_2\sigma _jϵ_1)A_j`$ and $`\theta _j=2i\alpha (\overline{ϵ}_2\sigma _jϵ_1)`$. The second term in the right hand side is a new term corresponding to $`SO(3)`$ rotation. Other commutation relations are calculated as follows,

$`(\delta _ϵ^{(1)}\delta _\xi ^{(2)}\delta _\xi ^{(2)}\delta _ϵ^{(1)})\psi `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (125)
$`(\delta _ϵ^{(1)}\delta _\xi ^{(2)}\delta _\xi ^{(2)}\delta _ϵ^{(1)})A_i`$ $`=`$ $`i\overline{ϵ}\sigma _i\xi ,`$ (126)
and

$`(\delta _{\xi ^1}^{(2)}\delta _{\xi ^2}^{(2)}\delta _{\xi ^2}^{(2)}\delta _{\xi ^1}^{(2)})\psi `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (127)
$`(\delta _{\xi ^1}^{(2)}\delta _{\xi ^2}^{(2)}\delta _{\xi ^2}^{(2)}\delta _{\xi ^1}^{(2)})A_i`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (128)
If we take a linear combination of $`\delta ^{(1)}`$ and $`\delta ^{(2)}`$ as

$`\stackrel{~}{\delta }^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta ^{(1)}+\delta ^{(2)},`$ (129)
$`\stackrel{~}{\delta }^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`i(\delta ^{(1)}\delta ^{(2)}),`$ (130)
we can obtain the following commutation relations up to a gauge symmetry and $`SO(3)`$ symmetry,

$`(\stackrel{~}{\delta }_ϵ^{(1)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_\xi ^{(1)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_\xi ^{(1)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_ϵ^{(1)})\psi `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (131)
$`(\stackrel{~}{\delta }_ϵ^{(1)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_\xi ^{(1)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_\xi ^{(1)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_ϵ^{(1)})A_i`$ $`=`$ $`2i\overline{ϵ}\sigma _i\xi ,`$ (132)
$`(\stackrel{~}{\delta }_ϵ^{(2)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_\xi ^{(2)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_\xi ^{(2)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_ϵ^{(2)})\psi `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (133)
$`(\stackrel{~}{\delta }_ϵ^{(2)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_\xi ^{(2)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_\xi ^{(2)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_ϵ^{(2)})A_i`$ $`=`$ $`2i\overline{ϵ}\sigma _i\xi ,`$ (134)
$`(\stackrel{~}{\delta }_ϵ^{(1)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_\xi ^{(2)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_\xi ^{(2)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_ϵ^{(1)})\psi `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (135)
$`(\stackrel{~}{\delta }_ϵ^{(1)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_\xi ^{(2)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_\xi ^{(2)}\stackrel{~}{\delta }_ϵ^{(1)})A_i`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (136)
We find that these commutation relations indeed show the $`𝒩=2`$ supersymmetry algebra. A new feature is the appearance of $`SO(3)`$ rotation. This model has the same classical solutions as the previous model, commuting diagonal matrices and the fuzzy sphere. In this model, the fuzzy sphere preserves half of the $`𝒩=2`$ supersymmetries since (120) vanishes for the fuzzy sphere while (122) does not, and this solution corresponds to a $`1/2`$ BPS background. Looking at the algebra (124), the remaining supersymmetry on the fuzzy sphere generates $`SO(3)`$ rotation instead of a constant shift of $`A_i`$. It is natural since translation on a sphere is generated by $`SO(3)`$ rotation. On the other hand, commuting matrices break all the supersymmetry.

By expanding the bosonic matrices around the fuzzy sphere solution (8) as in (18) and applying the mapping rule which is given in section 2, we can obtain an $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetric $`U(1)`$ or $`U(n)`$ noncommutative gauge theory on the fuzzy sphere. For simplicity only $`U(1)`$ gauge theory is considered in the following. The bosonic part of the action is

$`S_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^4\rho ^4}{4g^2}}Tr(\widehat{F}_{ij}\widehat{F}_{ij})`$ (138)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2g^2}}\alpha ^4\rho ^3ϵ^{ijk}Tr({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}[\widehat{L}_i,\widehat{a}_j]\widehat{a}_k+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\widehat{a}_i[\widehat{a}_j,\widehat{a}_k]{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\rho }}ϵ_{ijm}\widehat{a}^m\widehat{a}_k){\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{6g^2}}Tr(\widehat{x}^i\widehat{x}_i)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^4\rho ^4}{4g^2}}(N+1){\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }(F_{ij}F_{ij})_{}}`$ (141)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2g^2}}\alpha ^4\rho ^3ϵ^{ijk}(N+1){\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }(\frac{1}{\rho }(L_ia_j)a_k+\frac{1}{3}a_i[a_j,a_k]\frac{i}{2\rho }ϵ_{ijm}a^ma_k)_{}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^4}{24g^2}}N(N+1)(N+2),`$
where $`F_{ij}`$ is defined in (40).

The fermionic part is

$`S_F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2g^2}}Tr\overline{\widehat{\psi }}\sigma ^i[\widehat{L}_i+\rho \widehat{a}_i,\widehat{\psi }]`$ (142)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha \rho }{2g^2}}(N+1){\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }(\frac{1}{\rho }\overline{\psi }\sigma ^iL_i\psi +\overline{\psi }\sigma ^i[a_i,\psi ])_{}}.`$ (143)
This supersymmetric noncommutative gauge theory has the following $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetry:

$`\delta a_i={\displaystyle \frac{i}{\alpha \rho }}\overline{ϵ}\sigma _i\psi `$ (144)
$`\delta \psi ={\displaystyle \frac{i\alpha ^2\rho ^2}{2}}F_{ij}\sigma ^{ij}ϵ.`$ (145)
Applying this transformation twice generates translation on the sphere, that is the rotation.

Let us consider a commutative limit. The action in the commutative limit is obtained by the same procedure as in section 2. In terms of the gauge field $`b_a`$ and the scalar field $`\varphi `$, the bosonic part becomes

$`S_B={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2g_{YM}^2\rho ^2}}{\displaystyle d^2x\sqrt{g}(F_{ab}F^{ab}+\frac{2i}{\sqrt{g}}ϵ^{ab}F_{ab}\varphi +(D_a\varphi )(D^a\varphi )2\varphi ^2)}.`$ (146)
This is the same as (61). The fermionic part becomes

$`S_F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2g_{YM}^2\rho ^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }(\overline{\psi }\gamma ^aD_a\psi +\overline{\psi }\gamma _3[\varphi ,\psi ])}.`$ (147)
We have rescaled as $`\psi \alpha ^{3/2}\psi `$. The difference between the action obtained in this section and the action obtained in section 2 is that the former is supersymmetric while the latter is not. The $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetry transformation (145) is rewritten in terms of the gauge field and the scalar field as

$`\delta \varphi =i\overline{ϵ^{}}\gamma _3\psi `$ (148)
$`\delta b^a=i\overline{ϵ^{}}\gamma ^a\psi `$ (149)
and

$`\delta \psi ={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}(F_{ab}\gamma ^{ab}2\rho \gamma ^3\varphi +\rho (D_a\varphi )[\gamma ^3,\gamma ^a])ϵ^{}`$ (150)
where $`b^ag^{ab}b_b`$, $`\gamma ^3=x_i\sigma _i/\rho `$, $`\gamma ^a=K_i^a\sigma _i`$ and $`ϵ^{}=\alpha ^{1/2}ϵ`$.

We next consider stability of the two classical solutions against quantum corrections in the same manner as discussed in section 4. One-loop corrections to the commuting matrices are calculated as

$`W_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}(\mathrm{log}(x^{(i)}x^{(j)})^2+\mathrm{log}(1{\displaystyle \frac{4\alpha ^2}{(x^{(i)}x^{(j)})^2}})),`$ (151)
$`W_F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}\mathrm{log}(x^{(i)}x^{(j)})^2.`$ (152)
Then, the value of the effective action including both classical and one-loop quantum effects is given by

$`S_{eff}^{CM}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}\mathrm{log}(1{\displaystyle \frac{4\alpha ^2}{(x^{(i)}x^{(j)})^2}}).`$ (153)
From this expression, we can read off that the eigenvalues tend to collapse into a single ball whose size is of order $`\alpha `$. This shows that there exist a minimum length scale set by $`\alpha `$ in this theory. Since there are $`N(N+1)/2`$ pairs of eigenvalues, $`S_{eff}^{CM}`$ is negative and of order $`N^2`$.

For the fuzzy sphere, one-loop correction can be calculated as

$`W_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}Tr\mathrm{log}(Ad(L))^2,`$ (154)
$`W_F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}Tr\mathrm{log}(Ad(L))^2,`$ (155)
and the effective action for the fuzzy sphere does not receive quantum corrections perturbatively as expected. Therefore the value of the effective action is

$`S_{eff}^{FS}={\displaystyle \frac{2}{3g^2}}\rho ^4{\displaystyle \frac{N+1}{N(N+2)}}={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{6\rho ^2g_{YM}^2}}N(N+2).`$ (156)
In this case, since both of (153) and (156) are negative valued and of the same order $`N^2`$, it is difficult to conclude perturbative stability of the fuzzy sphere at this level.

## 6 Summary

In this paper, we have studied noncommutative gauge theories on the fuzzy sphere. We considered two different types of supersymmetric three-dimensional matrix model actions with a Chern-Simons term. These models have a classical solution which represents a fuzzy sphere. By expanding the models around this solution, we have obtained noncommutative gauge theories on the fuzzy sphere. The gauge field acquires a mass due to the Chern-Simons term.

We have discussed two large $`N`$ limits. One corresponds to a commutative limit. By taking this limit, we obtained a gauge theory on a commutative sphere. Another limit corresponds to a decompactifying limit. A noncommutative gauge theory on the fuzzy sphere becomes a noncommutative gauge theory on a noncommutative plane.

Two types of three-dimensional supersymmetric matrix model actions we have considered in this paper have different supersymmetry properties. The first type contains a Majorana mass term in order to preserve the original supersymmetry in the flat space. The second one does not have any other term than the Yang Mills and the Chern Simons terms but it is invariant under a modified supersymmetry. The fuzzy sphere preserves supersymmetry in the second type while it does not in the first one. Therefore the second one will be more natural from the fuzzy sphere point of view. On the other hand, as for the commuting matrices, the situation is opposite. A solution with commuting matrices preserves the supersymmetry in the first type and eigenvalues can move freely at least perturbatively. In the second type, eigenvalues collapse into a small ball whose size is of the noncommutative scale.

We have also investigated the stability of the fuzzy sphere against quantum fluctuations. By calculating the one-loop effective action, we showed that in the first model the fuzzy sphere is stable for fixed $`g_{YM}`$ in the large $`N`$ limit. However, if we take $`g_{YM}`$ sufficiently large with the large $`N`$ limit, the fuzzy sphere becomes unstable and decays into a set of diagonal eigenvalues. On the other hand, the fuzzy sphere is stable against quantum corrections because of the nature of a BPS state in the second model.

Finally let us comment on ambiguities of operator orderings and corresponding freedom for mapping from matrices to functions. Matrices on the fuzzy sphere are expanded by a noncommutative spherical harmonics as discussed in section 2. The ordering of the noncommutative coordinates in the noncommutative spherical harmonics corresponds to the Weyl type ordering. Therefore a product of the noncommutative spherical harmonics becomes Moyal product in the decompactifying limit. On the other hand, a stereographic projection from a fuzzy sphere to a noncommutative complex plane as discussed in the appendix B enables us to construct a normal ordered type basis. After mapping from matrices to functions, a product of functions are written by the so called Berezin product. Since such noncommutative products are known for general Kähler manifolds, it would be an interesting problem to obtain noncommutative gauge theories on more general curved backgrounds from matrix models.

## Appendix A Star product on fuzzy sphere

In this section we summarize the noncommutative products on fuzzy sphere. We mainly follow . We have expanded functions and matrices as (20) and (24):

$$a(\mathrm{\Omega })=\underset{l=0}{\overset{l=N}{}}\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}a_{lm}Y_{lm}(\mathrm{\Omega }),$$
(A.1)
$$\widehat{a}=\underset{l=0}{\overset{l=N}{}}\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}a_{lm}\widehat{Y}_{lm}.$$
(A.2)
Normalization is fixed as in (22) and (26). Combining (A.1) and (A.2), we can obtain a map between the field and the function:

$$a(\mathrm{\Omega })=\frac{1}{N+1}\underset{lm}{}Tr(\widehat{Y}_{lm}^{}\widehat{a})Y_{lm}(\mathrm{\Omega }).$$
(A.3)
Let us consider the product of the two spherical harmonics, $`\widehat{Y}_{lm}`$ and $`\widehat{Y}_{l^{}m^{}}`$. We have required that maximum value of $`l`$ is $`N`$. This product is expanded by the spherical harmonics and it contains $`\widehat{Y}_{l+l^{}}`$. We assume that $`N`$ is large such that $`l+l^{}`$ does not exceed $`N`$. We define the noncommutative product on the fuzzy sphere as

$`ab(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N+1}}{\displaystyle \underset{lm}{}}Tr(\widehat{a}\widehat{b}\widehat{Y}_{lm}^{})Y_{lm}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ (A.4)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N+1}}{\displaystyle \underset{lm}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{l^{}m^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{l^{\prime \prime }m^{\prime \prime }}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }^{}𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }^{\prime \prime }Y_{l^{}m^{}}^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }^{})Y_{l^{\prime \prime }m^{\prime \prime }}^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }^{\prime \prime })a(\mathrm{\Omega }^{})b(\mathrm{\Omega }^{\prime \prime })}`$ (A.6)
$`Tr(\widehat{Y}_{l^{}m^{}}\widehat{Y}_{l^{\prime \prime }m^{\prime \prime }}\widehat{Y}_{lm}^{})Y_{lm}(\mathrm{\Omega }).`$
Components of the spherical harmonics can be given using Wigner Eckart theorem:

$$(\widehat{Y}_{lm})_{ss^{}}=<\frac{N}{2},s|\widehat{Y}_{lm}|\frac{N}{2},s^{}>=(1)^{\frac{N}{2}s}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{N}{2}& l& \frac{N}{2}\\ s& m& s^{}\end{array}\right)\sqrt{(2l+1)(N+1)}$$
(A.7)
where $`s,s^{}=N/2,N/2+1,\mathrm{},0,\mathrm{},N/2`$.

Then we can calculate the trace of three spherical harmonics:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N+1}}Tr(\widehat{Y}_{l_1m_1}\widehat{Y}_{l_2m_2}\widehat{Y}_{l_3m_3})`$ (A.8)
$`=`$ $`(1)^{N+l_1+l_2+l_3}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l_1& l_2& l_3\\ m_1& m_2& m_3\end{array}\right)\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}l_1& l_2& l_3\\ \frac{N}{2}& \frac{N}{2}& \frac{N}{2}\end{array}\right\}\sqrt{(2l_1+1)(2l_2+1)(2l_3+1)(N+1)}.`$ (A.13)
where $`(\mathrm{})`$ and $`\{\mathrm{}\}`$ are Wigner’s 3$`j`$-symbol and 6$`j`$-symbol respectively. $`\{\mathrm{}\}`$ behaves as $`N^{3/2}`$ for $`N\mathrm{}`$. $`(\mathrm{})`$ becomes zero only when $`m_1+m_2+m_3=0`$. By substituting this quantity into (A.6), we get the explicit expression of the noncommutative product on the fuzzy sphere.

Commutator of two matrices is

$`[\widehat{a},\widehat{b}]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l_1m_1}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{l_2m_2}{}}a_{l_1m_1}b_{l_2m_2}[\widehat{Y}_{l_1m_1},\widehat{Y}_{l_2m_2}]`$ (A.14)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l_1m_1}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{l_2m_2}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{l_3m_3}{}}a_{l_1m_1}b_{l_2m_2}f_{l_1m_1l_2m_2}^{l_3m_3}\widehat{Y}_{l_3m_3}.`$ (A.15)
$`f_{l_1m_1l_2m_2}^{l_3m_3}`$ is zero when $`l_1+l_2+l_3=`$even and is given as follows when $`l_1+l_2+l_3=`$odd:

$`f_{l_1m_1l_2m_2}^{l_3m_3}`$ (A.16)
$`=`$ $`2\sqrt{(2l_1+1)(2l_2+1)(2l_3+1)}\sqrt{N+1}(1)^{N1}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l_1& l_2& l_3\\ m_1& m_2& m_3\end{array}\right)\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}l_1& l_2& l_3\\ \frac{N}{2}& \frac{N}{2}& \frac{N}{2}\end{array}\right\}.`$ (A.21)
This quantity behaves as $`N^1`$ when $`N\mathrm{}`$.

## Appendix B Wick type star product

Here we explain the star product on the fuzzy sphere which corresponds to a normal ordered operator product 888 See  about Weyl ordered star product on Kähler manifold.  and derive mapping rules from matrix models to field theories with the normal ordered products à la Berezin .

We first rescale $`\widehat{x}_i`$ as $`\widehat{y}_i=\widehat{x}_i/\rho `$ where $`\widehat{x}_i`$’s are defined by (8). Then

$$[\widehat{y}_i,\widehat{y}_j]=i\beta ϵ_{ijk}\widehat{y}_k,$$
(B.1)
where $`\beta =\alpha /\rho `$ . Thus $`\widehat{y}_i^2=1`$ and $`\beta ^2=4/N(N+2)`$ . We define the stereographic projection of $`\widehat{y}_i`$ as

$$\widehat{z}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\widehat{y}_{}\widehat{\chi },\widehat{z}^{}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\widehat{\chi }\widehat{y}_+,$$
(B.2)
where $`\widehat{y}_\pm =\widehat{y}_1\pm i\widehat{y}_2/\sqrt{2}`$ , $`\widehat{\chi }=2(1\widehat{y}_3)^1`$ . Note that the complex coordinate projected from the sphere of radius $`\rho `$ is $`\widehat{w}=\rho \widehat{z}`$ . By the above definition, we obtain the commutation relation

$$[\widehat{z},\widehat{z}^{}]=\beta \widehat{\chi }\left(1+|\widehat{z}|^2\frac{1}{2}\widehat{\chi }(1+\frac{\beta }{2}|\widehat{z}|^2)\right),$$
(B.3)
and by using $`\widehat{y}_i^2=1`$ we can solve $`\widehat{\chi }`$ in terms of $`\widehat{z}`$ and $`\widehat{z}^{}`$:

$$\beta \widehat{\chi }=2+\beta \widehat{\xi }^1\sqrt{4\widehat{\xi }^1+\beta ^2\widehat{\xi }^2},$$
(B.4)
where $`|\widehat{z}|^2=\widehat{z}\widehat{z}^{}`$ and $`\widehat{\xi }=1+\beta |\widehat{z}|^2`$ . For sufficiently large $`N`$, $`\widehat{\chi }1+|\widehat{z}|^2`$ and the commutation relation is simplified as

$$[\widehat{z},\widehat{z}^{}]\frac{1}{N}(1+|\widehat{z}|^2)^2.$$
(B.5)
As discussed in , the operator $`\widehat{z}`$ can be written in terms of an annihilation operator of a usual harmonic oscillator as

$$\widehat{z}=f(\widehat{n}+1)\widehat{a},$$
(B.6)
where

$$[\widehat{a},\widehat{a}^{}]=1,\widehat{n}=\widehat{a}^{}\widehat{a},$$
(B.7)
and

$$f(\widehat{n})=\frac{\sqrt{N\widehat{n}+1}}{\sqrt{N/2(N/2+1)}+N/2\widehat{n}}\frac{1}{\sqrt{N+1\widehat{n}}}.$$
(B.8)
Eq.(B.8) is derived from a correspondence

$$|N/2;m|n,$$
(B.9)
where $`|N/2;m`$ and $`|n`$ are eigenstates of $`\widehat{L}_3`$ and $`\widehat{n}`$ respectively. Thus the eigenvalue of $`\widehat{L}_3`$ is given by $`m=nN/2`$ where $`0nN`$ . To construct a normal ordered star product, we define the following coherent state $`|z`$. Requiring $`\widehat{z}|z=z|z`$ , we obtain

$$|z=M(|z|^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}\underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{z^n}{[\gamma (n)]!}|n,$$
(B.10)
where $`M(|z|^2)`$ is a normalization factor, $`\gamma (n)\sqrt{n}f(n)`$ and

$$[\gamma (n)]!=\{\begin{array}{cc}\gamma (n)\gamma (n1)\mathrm{}\gamma (1)& (n0)\hfill \\ 1& (n=0)\hfill \end{array}.$$

Eq.(B.10) satisfies the condition of the coherent state only for sufficiently large $`N`$ and when we can neglect the state of $`|N+1`$. The normalization factor is determined from $`z|z=1`$ as

$$M(|z|^2)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{|z|^{2n}}{[\gamma (n)^2]!}\underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}[N+1n]!\frac{|z|^{2n}}{n!}=(1+|z|^2)^N.$$
(B.11)
Also the completeness condition

$$1=\underset{n}{}|nn|=(N+1)𝑑\mu (z,\overline{z})|zz|$$
(B.12)
determines the measure $`d\mu `$ as

$$d\mu (z,\overline{z})\frac{idzd\overline{z}}{2\pi (1+|z|^2)^2}.$$
(B.13)
(See  for details.)

Normal ordered operators can be expanded in terms of $`|nm|`$

$$\widehat{Z}_{nm}=|nm|=\frac{(\widehat{a}^{})^n}{\sqrt{n!}}|00|\frac{\widehat{a}^m}{\sqrt{m!}}=\frac{(\widehat{z}^{})^n}{[\gamma (n)]!}|00|\frac{\widehat{z}^m}{[\gamma (m)]!},$$
(B.14)
where $`|00|=_kc_k(\widehat{z}^{})^k\widehat{z}^k`$ and $`c_k`$ is determined by $`M(x)^1=_kc_kx^k`$ . The corresponding orthonormalized basis of functions are defined by

$$Z_{nm}(z,\overline{z})=z|\widehat{Z}_{nm}|z=\frac{\overline{z}^nz^m}{[\gamma (n)]![\gamma (m)]!M(|z|^2)}.$$
(B.15)
Thus any operators

$$\widehat{a}=\underset{nm}{}\stackrel{~}{a}_{nm}\widehat{Z}_{nm}$$
(B.16)
are mapped to corresponding functions as

$$\widehat{a}a(z,\overline{z})=z|\widehat{a}|z=\underset{nm}{}\stackrel{~}{a}_{nm}Z_{nm}(z,\overline{z}).$$
(B.17)
The trace of an operator is mapped to an integral over the projected plane

$$\frac{1}{N+1}Tr𝑑\mu (z,\overline{z}).$$
(B.18)
The analytic continuation of this function is defined by

$$a(z,\overline{\eta })=\frac{\eta |\widehat{a}|z}{\eta |z},$$
(B.19)
where $`\eta |z=M(|\eta |^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}M(|z|^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}M(\overline{\eta }z)`$ . Using this definition, a product of matrices is mapped to the star product as

$`ab(z,\overline{z})`$ $`=`$ $`z|\widehat{a}\widehat{b}|z=(N+1){\displaystyle 𝑑\mu (\eta ,\overline{\eta })\frac{z|\widehat{a}|\eta }{z|\eta }|\eta |z|^2\frac{\eta |\widehat{b}|z}{\eta |z}}`$ (B.20)
$`=`$ $`(N+1){\displaystyle 𝑑\mu (\eta ,\overline{\eta })a(\eta ,\overline{z})\frac{M(\overline{\eta }z)M(\overline{z}\eta )}{M(|\eta |^2)M(|z|^2)}b(z,\overline{\eta })}`$
$``$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\lambda }}+1){\displaystyle \frac{id\eta d\overline{\eta }}{2\pi (1+|\eta |^2)^2}a(\eta ,\overline{z})\left[\frac{(1+z\overline{\eta })(1+\eta \overline{z})}{(1+|\eta |^2)(1+|z|^2)}\right]^{\frac{1}{\lambda }}b(z,\overline{\eta })},`$
where $`\lambda =1/N`$ . This star product is nothing but the Berezin product on the sphere. From the definition of $`\widehat{Z}_{nm}`$, the corresponding function satisfies the following simple relations

$$Z_{nm}Z_{rs}=\delta _{mr}Z_{ns},$$
(B.21)
and

$$𝑑\mu (z,\overline{z})\overline{Z}_{nm}Z_{n^{}m^{}}=\delta _{nn^{}}\delta _{mm^{}}.$$
(B.22)
Next we write down functions corresponding to the operators $`\widehat{y}`$ ’s. $`\widehat{y}_\pm ,\widehat{y}_3`$ are rewritten by $`\widehat{z},\widehat{z}^{}`$ and $`\widehat{n}`$ 999$`\widehat{n}`$ can be written in terms of $`\widehat{z},\widehat{z}^{}`$ . However it is not necessary here. as

$`\widehat{y}_3`$ $`=`$ $`\beta (\widehat{n}N/2),`$
$`\sqrt{2}\widehat{y}_+`$ $`=`$ $`(1\widehat{y}_3)\widehat{z}^{},`$
$`\sqrt{2}\widehat{y}_{}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{z}(1\widehat{y}_3).`$ (B.23)
Thus, the corresponding functions can be expanded by $`Z_{nm}`$ as

$`y_3`$ $`=`$ $`\beta {\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}}(nN/2)Z_{nn},`$
$`y_+`$ $`=`$ $`(1y_3)\overline{z}={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\stackrel{~}{y}_nZ_{n+1n},`$
$`y_{}`$ $`=`$ $`z(1y_3)={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\stackrel{~}{y}_nZ_{nn+1},`$ (B.24)
where

$$\stackrel{~}{y}_n=(1\beta (n+1N/2))\gamma (n+1)=\beta \sqrt{n+1}\sqrt{Nn}.$$
(B.25)
Also the functions corresponding to the operators $`\widehat{z},\widehat{z}^{}`$ can be expanded as

$`z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\gamma (n+1)Z_{nn+1},`$
$`\overline{z}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\gamma (n+1)Z_{n+1n}.`$ (B.26)
Now we will derive differential operators corresponding to the adjoint operators $`Ad(\widehat{y}_i)`$ which are necessary to rewrite the matrix model action in terms of field theory on the projected plane. We first define differential operators

$`k_z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}M^1_zM{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{z}}{1+|z|^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}_z,`$
$`k_{\overline{z}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}M^1_{\overline{z}}M{\displaystyle \frac{z}{1+|z|^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}_{\overline{z}}.`$ (B.27)
Note that the derivatives above act not only on $`M`$ but on functions on the right of $`M`$. We can easily obtain the following relations

$`zk_zZ_{nm}=m^{}Z_{nm}`$ , $`\overline{z}k_{\overline{z}}Z_{nm}=n^{}Z_{nm},`$
$`k_zZ_{nm}={\displaystyle \frac{m^{}}{\gamma (m)}}Z_{nm1}`$ , $`k_{\overline{z}}Z_{nm}={\displaystyle \frac{n^{}}{\gamma (n)}}Z_{n1m},`$
$`zZ_{nm}=\gamma (m+1)Z_{nm+1}`$ , $`\overline{z}Z_{nm}=\gamma (n+1)Z_{n+1m},`$
where $`n^{}=n/N,m^{}=m/N`$ . By using these relations, we have

$$[\widehat{y}_3,\widehat{Z}_{nm}]\beta (nm)Z_{nm}=\beta N(\overline{z}k_{\overline{z}}zk_z)Z_{nm}\beta (\overline{z}_{\overline{z}}z_z)Z_{nm}$$

and hence the adjoint operator in matrix models $`Ad(\widehat{y}_3)`$ becomes the following differential operator after mapping matrix models to field theories:

$$Ad(\widehat{y}_3)=[\widehat{y}_3,]\beta (\overline{z}_{\overline{z}}z_z).$$
(B.28)
We can also obtain similar rules for adjoint operators:

$`Ad(\sqrt{2}\widehat{y}_+)`$ $``$ $`\beta (_z+\overline{z}^2_{\overline{z}}),`$ (B.29)
$`Ad(\sqrt{2}\widehat{y}_{})`$ $``$ $`\beta (_{\overline{z}}+z^2_z),`$ (B.30)
$`Ad(\widehat{y}_i)^2`$ $``$ $`\beta ^2(1+|z|^2)^2_z_{\overline{z}}.`$ (B.31)
Using mapping rules (B.17),(B.18),(B.20) and (B.29) $``$ (B.31), the matrix model actions can be written in terms of field theories on the projected plane.

In the commutative limit, the action is simplified by writing the vector fields in terms of projected ones as (54). Killing vectors on the projected plane are given

$`K_+^z={\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}}`$ , $`K_+^{\overline{z}}={\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}}\overline{z}^2,`$
$`K_{}^z={\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}}z^2`$ , $`K_{}^{\overline{z}}={\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}},`$
$`K_3^z=iz`$ , $`K_3^{\overline{z}}=i\overline{z},`$
which can be seen from (B.29)$``$(B.31). Thus the field strength of $`U(1)`$ gauge field in the commutative limit can be written in terms of $`z,\overline{z}`$ as

$`F_+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\rho ^2}}K_+^aK_{}^b(_ab_b_bb_a)={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\rho ^2}}(1|z|^2)(1+|z|^2)F_{z\overline{z}},`$
$`F_{+3}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\rho ^2}}K_+^aK_3^b(_ab_b_bb_a)={\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{2}\rho ^2}}\overline{z}(1+|z|^2)F_{z\overline{z}},`$
$`F_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\rho ^2}}K_{}^aK_3^b(_ab_b_bb_a)={\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{2}\rho ^2}}z(1+|z|^2)F_{z\overline{z}},`$ (B.32)
where

$$F_{z\overline{z}}=_zb_{\overline{z}}_{\overline{z}}b_z.$$
(B.33)
We have set the scalar field $`\varphi =0`$ for simplicity. Also we get

$`Tr\widehat{F}^2`$ $``$ $`2(N+1){\displaystyle 𝑑\mu (z,\overline{z})(F_{12}^2+F_{23}^2+F_{31}^2)}`$ (B.34)
$`=`$ $`2(N+1){\displaystyle 𝑑\mu (z,\overline{z})(F_+^2+2F_{+3}F_3)}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2(N+1)}{\rho ^4}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu (z,\overline{z})(1+|z|^2)^4F_{z\overline{z}}^2}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{16(N+1)}{\rho ^4}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu (z,\overline{z})F_{ab}F^{ab}},`$
where

$$g^{zz}=g^{\overline{z}\overline{z}}=0,g^{z\overline{z}}=g^{\overline{z}z}=\frac{(1+|z|^2)^2}{4}.$$
(B.35)
This is the well-known result.

Finally we consider the flat limit (67). Here, it should not be discussed around the north pole but the south pole because of the definition (B.2). So $`\widehat{y}_3`$ can be approximated as

$$\widehat{y}_3\beta N/21,$$
(B.36)
and a rescaled coordinate corresponding to $`x^{}`$ is

$$w^{}=i\sqrt{\frac{2}{N}}w=i\sqrt{\frac{2}{N}}\rho z=i\rho ^{}z.$$
(B.37)
Thus we can rewrite the star product (B.20) in the flat case:

$`M(|z|^2)`$ $``$ $`(1+|z|^2)^N`$ (B.38)
$`=`$ $`(1{\displaystyle \frac{|w^{}|^2}{\rho ^2}})^N`$
$`=`$ $`\left((1{\displaystyle \frac{|w^{}|^2}{\rho ^2}})^{\frac{\rho ^2}{|w^{}|^2}}\right)^{\frac{N}{\rho ^2}|w^{}|^2}`$
$`\stackrel{\rho ^{}\mathrm{}}{}`$ $`e^{\frac{N}{\rho ^2}|w^{}|^2},`$
$`d\mu (z,\overline{z})`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{idzd\overline{z}}{2\pi (1+|z|^2)^2}}`$ (B.39)
$`=`$ $`(1{\displaystyle \frac{|w^{}|^2}{\rho ^2}})^2{\displaystyle \frac{idw^{}d\overline{w^{}}}{2\pi \rho ^2}}`$
$`\stackrel{\rho ^{}\mathrm{}}{}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{idw^{}d\overline{w^{}}}{2\pi \rho ^2}},`$
$$ab(w^{},\overline{w^{}})=\frac{1}{\nu }\frac{id\eta ^{}d\overline{\eta ^{}}}{2\pi }a(\eta ^{},\overline{w^{}})e^{\frac{1}{\nu }(w^{}\overline{\eta ^{}}+\eta ^{}\overline{w^{}}\eta ^{}\overline{\eta ^{}}w^{}\overline{w^{}})}b(w^{},\overline{\eta ^{}}),$$
(B.40)
where $`\nu =\rho ^2/(N+1)\alpha ^2/2`$ . Thus the star product becomes the Berezin product on the flat plane.


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# Australia Telescope Compact Array Observations of the OH Star Roberts 22: Resolved Images of OH Emission

## 1 Introduction

The OH maser source G 284.2-0.8 was discovered in the course of a southern galactic plane survey at 1612 MHz near the H II region RCW 48 (Manchester, Goss and Robinson 1969; Manchester, Robinson and Goss 1970). The discovery pre-dated the detection of OH emission from IR stars, and the nature of the source was not appreciated at the time. Subsequently it became clear that G 284.2-0.8 could be classified as a Type II OH/IR star, as defined by Wilson et al. (1970). The source acquired its most common name, Roberts 22 (hereafter R22), by its inclusion in a catalog of Wolf-Rayet stars by Roberts (1962). Additional designations include Hen 404, Wray 549 and IRAS 10197-5750.

Subsequent single-dish observations using the Parkes radio telescope from 1968 to 1978 were reported by Allen et al. (1980). These observations found strong OH emission at 1612 MHz and 1665 MHz in a double-peaked spectrum, with fainter emission at 1667 MHz, and no detected emission in the 1720 MHz satellite line. The source was found to have low levels of circular polarization. Allen et al. (1980) reported no time variations exceeding a factor of two over this interval, and concluded that the maser is pump-limited. An OH light curve has also been measured by Silva et al. (1993), who derived a periodicity of 7.2 years. These data are poorly sampled, however, and evidence for this period is not compelling.

Ground based optical observations of R22 reveal that the source is associated with a bipolar reflection nebula (Allen et al., 1980). The irregular lobes of the nebula, each of size 2$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$5 are separated by 3$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$5 at position angle 30$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$ Nearly identical spectra identify them as reflection nebula. Analysis of the reflection spectra in H$`\alpha `$ by Allen et al. (1980) shows that R22 is unusual among OH/IR stars: the nebula is illuminated by a hidden A2 Ie star, not a more typical late M-type star. The spectral type is based on the presence of Fe II absorption, the absence of He I and the weakness of the Balmer absorption lines.

The optical morphology is strikingly confirmed in wideband continuum Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations centered at 606 nm, and in associated imaging in H$`\alpha `$, and \[SII\] (Sahai et al., 1999). These high resolution optical images show that Roberts 22 consists of two bright “butterfly wing” lobes of size 2$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$5 with intersecting loops of 2$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$5, separated by a dark equatorial band hiding the central star. The nebular morphology is characterized by a high degree of point symmetry, with the exception of a “northern spur” – a region of decreased emission extending from the waist into the northern lobe. Sahai et al. (1999) propose that the symmetry may result from the interaction of collimated bipolar flows with an asymptotic giant branch envelope. The authors find that the radial emission profile is not consistent with a r-3 profile expected for time-invariant mass loss.

R22 was initially detected in the near-infrared by Frogel & Persson (1975). Allen et al. (1980) confirmed the near-IR properties, and explain the infrared observations by a hot stellar continuum, reddened by 8–10m. By applying this reddening to star of spectral type A2 Ib, they obtained a distance of 1.8 kpc (although they adopted 2 kpc for calculations) and a luminosity of $`2\times 10^4`$ L. We adopt the distance of 2 kpc in this paper, thus establishing an angular scale of 0.01 pc (2000 AU) per arc second.

Allen et al. (1980) calculated a mass loss velocity of 80 km s-1, from the P Cygni H$`\alpha `$ profile, and suggest that the line of sight to R22 is 20-30° below the equatorial plane. 12CO (J=2-1) was detected by Bujarrabal & Bachiller (1991) with a central velocity of -0.1 km s-1 and a velocity of expansion of $`35`$ km s-1. This CO emission is clearly associated with R22, rather than background emission along the galactic plane.

Initial interferometric observations of the 1612 MHz line at the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) indicated an unresolved source (2-3″ diameter) with a clear velocity gradient suggesting rotation (Goss, 1995, unpublished observations). Subsequent ATCA observations at 1665 MHz and 1667 MHz are reported by Sahai et al. (1999) and by Caswell (1998) in a survey of 200 OH masers. The overall kinematic model proposed by Sahai et al. (1999) is that of radially expanding gas at low latitudes with Vexp $``$ 30 km s-1 for OH and a systemic velocity of 0 to -6 km s-1. They inferred a mass loss rate of 7 $`\times `$ 10-5 M year-1 (from CO observations) to 10-4 M year-1 (from dust observations), and estimate the mass of dust in cavity walls to be $``$0.3 M. They find a timescale for expansion $`<`$ 500 years. The authors also proposed that the southern lobe is closer to the observer, as the northern lobe is $``$0.5m fainter.

The exact kinematics of the circumstellar material of R22 and the evolutionary status of the central star remain important subjects of interest. In this paper, we report on high-resolution imaging observations of the OH maser emission towards R22 using data taken with the ATCA at 1612 MHz, 1665 MHz and 1667 MHz. These observations reveal the morphology of the OH emission at high resolution and allow an investigation of the maser kinematics. The kinematic properties of the source support its classification as a proto-planetary nebula (PPN) (Sahai et al., 1999). An astrometric solution for R22 has been obtained, which registers the OH maser emission with respect to the high-resolution HST images published by Sahai et al. (1999).

We describe new radio observations in Section 2 and discuss the results of these observations in Section 3. We present an astrometric solution in Section 3.3.1 and discuss the resulting conclusions in Section 3.3.2. The discussion and conclusions are given in Section 4 and Section 5 respectively.

## 2 Observations

Observations of R22 were made using the ATCA, located at Narrabri, NSW, Australia on February 1 and 4, 1997, as summarized in Table 1. Two 4 MHz bands were observed, centered at 1612.00 MHz (containing the OH line at rest frequency 1612.231 MHz) and 1666.00 MHz (containing the OH main lines at rest frequencies 1665.402 MHz and 1667.359 MHz). The effective velocity resolution of the observations was 0.44 km s-1. The total observing time was 28 hours, with the major portion of the time (15 hours) allocated to observations at 1612 MHz. The ATCA was in configuration 6A, with a maximum antenna spacing of approximately 6 km. For unit robust weighting (Briggs, 1995), full tracks at 1612 MHz provided a resolution of $`7\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5\times 6\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}2`$ (PA = $`58\mathrm{deg}`$) while the shorter 1666 observation resulted in a resolution of $`20\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4\times 5\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1`$ (PA = $`13.4\mathrm{deg}`$).

The data were edited, calibrated and imaged using the Astronomical Image Processing System (AIPS) maintained by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). The observations at 1612 MHz were subject to severe interference from a Glonas satellite broadcasting at 1608 MHz. Careful editing of the data was required to eliminate these effects. The 1612 MHz and 1666 MHz data sets were self-calibrated in phase on the channels with strong maser emission. These solutions were applied to all remaining channels. Self-calibration changed the positions of our sources by $``$ 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$1. The images were deconvolved using the Clark CLEAN algorithm down to a threshold level of five times the rms noise. The AIPS task JMFIT was used to fit the centroid of emission in each velocity channel in the image plane. For typical line features with a peak flux density of 10 Jy beam-1, the relative error in the determination of positions is $``$20 mas, assuming the error model of Kogan (1997). The position error contributed by the phase calibrator J0823-500 is limited by an uncertainty in its VLBI position of 2-3 milliarcseconds (mas) (J. Reynolds, private communication).

In the strongest channels, the images are dynamic-range limited at the level of approximately 1000:1 at 1612 MHz and 1665 MHz, and 100:1 at 1667 MHz. The observational parameters are summarized in Table 2; the quoted rms noise values (20 mJy beam-1 at 1612 MHz and 28 mJy beam-1 at 1665 MHz) were measured in channels without strong emission.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Continuum Results

A continuum image was constructed from the line free channels in the 1612 MHz data. The image shows two weak continuum sources $``$10′ to the west of the position of R22, with integrated flux densities of 0.5 Jy and 0.2 Jy. The sources, located near $`\alpha =`$10h 20m 15s, $`\delta `$= -58° 04′ (J2000), are part of the H II region G 284.6-0.5, imaged at 6 cm by Shaver & Goss (1970). No continuum emission was detected at the position of R22 to within a 3$`\sigma `$ limit of 7 mJy beam-1.

### 3.2 Line Results

At 1612 MHz (see Figure 1a) the integrated line emission profile of R22 shows a multiple-peaked spectrum with a peak flux density of 42 Jy beam-1 and a velocity range of 50 km s-1, in agreement with the earlier observations of Allen et al. (1980). The integrated line emission profile at 1665 MHz, shown in Figure 1b, is clearly double-peaked, but asymmetric, with the blue-shifted emission predominating, in agreement with the 1612 MHz emission. The 1665 MHz emission has a peak flux density of 50 Jy beam-1 and a velocity range similar to the 1612 MHz line. The weaker 1667 MHz integrated line emission, which has a maximum of 2.9 Jy beam-1 is shown in Figure 2.

Recent measurements by Caswell (1998) found 1665 MHz and 1667 MHz emission at $`\alpha `$= 10h 21m 33$`\stackrel{\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{.}}`$87 $`\delta `$= -58° 05′ 47$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$6 ($`\pm `$ 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$4, J2000). This determination agrees with the position of the peak flux density at 1665 MHz and 1667 MHz from the observations reported here, as summarized in Table 2. Caswell measured a peak flux density of 2.1 Jy for the peak 1667 MHz emission, in good agreement with our observed flux density of 2.9 Jy beam-1. The peak flux density of the 1665 MHz line, as reported by Caswell (1998) (about 70 Jy beam-1), is quite uncertain due to the large correction for primary beam attenuation.

At 1612 MHz the locations of the centroids of the maser emission in each channel describe an arc, as shown in Figure 3a. This arc covers a position angle (PA) from 310° to 160$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$ At the adopted distance of 2 kpc (Allen et al., 1980; Sahai et al., 1999), the maser emission spans approximately 2800 AU. The velocity increases as PA decreases around the arc, from -35 km s-1 in the NW to -5 km s-1 in the SE. At 160° the velocity–PA correlation changes sign, with velocity increasing from 0 km s-1 at 170° to 15 km s-1 at 210°. The pattern for the 1665 MHz emission (shown in Figure 3b) is similar to 1612 MHz, with the same velocity–PA change of sign at 170°. These relations are plotted in Figure 4. The brightest 1667 MHz maser emission is located near the center of the 1665 and 1612 MHz arcs, but does not show any clear velocity-position angle dependence.

### 3.3 Optical and Radio Morphology

#### 3.3.1 Astrometry

We aligned the HST image of R22, as obtained from the HST archive, to the radio reference frame using guide stars from the USNO-A2.0 catalog. We used mosaiced HST observations of R22, with the object located on the Planetary Camera chip and containing 32 stars from the UNSO-A2.0 catalog, all fainter than 12 magnitude. Table 3 lists the stars used, along with residuals and blue and red magnitudes. Figure 5 shows the stars plotted over the HST image. The USNO-A2.0 catalog has absolute astrometric calibration based on the International Celestial Reference Frame, through the Hipparcos Tycho catalog, and is in agreement with the radio reference frame to within 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$26 (Deutsch, 1999). Deutsch (1999) found that with sufficient reference stars, the position of current (epoch 2000) optical sources not found in USNO-A2.0 can be achieved to a (1$`\sigma `$) accuracy of 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$35. The dominant source of error is small-scale proper motions of reference stars since the 1950-era observations. We investigated several sources of additional error which may have affected our solution, including the proper motion of nearby stars and the uncertainty in relative chip positions. As recommended by Deutsch (1999) we excluded confused stars (such as stars resolved into optical binaries by HST) and stars with obvious proper motions from our fit. We compared solutions for stars on a single chip to solutions over all four chips (including a solution primarily using stars on the WPC) and found no discrepancy in star positions across the chip boundaries. Therefore the alignment of the HST and ATCA observations of R22, shown in Figure 6 and 7, has an accuracy of $`\pm `$ 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$35 (1$`\sigma `$).

The 1612 and 1665 MHz emission features are associated with the northern lobe as shown in Figure 6. The 1612 MHz emission describes a circular arc coincident with regions of fainter optical emission in the waist of the bipolar outflow and in the “northern spur”, clearly visible as a region of decreased intensity in Figure 8. The 1665 MHz emission (see Figure 6b) is located along the same arc. The 1667 MHz emission is less precisely located, due to lower signal to noise but is clearly not confined to the same region (see Figure 7). We do not observe the equatorial spread of 1667 MHz emission shown in Figure 3b of Sahai et al. (1999); rather the emission seems approximately bounded by the extended emission of the nebulae, with the brightest masers (2.8 Jy) located near $`\alpha `$= 10h 21m 33$`\stackrel{\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{.}}`$9, $`\delta `$= -58° 05′ 48″ (J2000) (see Figure 7).

The alignment of the HST and OH maser observations as derived here, differs from that adopted by Sahai et al. (1999). In the absence of an astrometric solution to register the OH and optical emission, Sahai et al. (1999) assumed that the maser emission was aligned with the geometric center of the nebula, confined to the equatorial waist (Sahai, private communication). Their spatial alignment is therefore uncertain at, or above, the arcsecond level.

#### 3.3.2 The position of the star

Without full spatial sampling, the arc of emission at 1612 MHz and 1665 MHz, shown in Figure 3 can be fit by a circle with radius 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$7 centered at $`\alpha `$= 10h 21m 33$`\stackrel{\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{.}}`$95 $`\delta `$= -58° 05′ 47$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$3 We do not believe this position is the most likely location of the star. As stated by Bowers (1991) and te Lintel Hekkert et al. (1992) the most likely position for an obscured central star is the midpoint between the red- and blue-shifted maser emission. However this method is only reliable if the maser distribution is fully sampled in velocity, and is approximately symmetric in appearance. For the case of R22, the distribution on the sky is clearly non-symmetric (see Figure 3), and it is quite likely that maser emission has not been detected from the full range of velocities. Given the point symmetry in the nebulae structure, a more likely estimate is the center of the optical nebula. In the Hipparcos reference frame this suggested stellar position is $`\alpha `$= 10h 21m 33$`\stackrel{\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{.}}`$85, $`\delta `$= -58° 05′ 47$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$8 (J2000). It should be noted that while we have accurately determined the optical-radio alignment, choosing a center of a non-symmetric nebula is a matter of opinion. The location marked by a cross in Figure 3 and diamonds in Figures 6-7 is the same location (relative to the nebula) proposed by Sahai et al. (1999), but aligning the HST image to the Hipparcos reference frame has shifted the optical coordinates by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha `$= -1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$3, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\delta =0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}7`$.

## 4 Discussion

The radio-interferometric images reported here are the first at 1612 MHz, and demonstrate a clear arc-like morphology in both the 1612 MHz and 1665 MHz OH maser emission. The observations have sufficient sensitivity to permit accurate measurements of the position of the centroid of the emission and the variation of maser component velocity across the spectrum. These signatures can be used to explore the kinematics of the circumstellar material in the region in which the OH masers are located in R22.

Double-peaked total-power spectra, such as those observed for R22 (Figs. 1-2), are commonly associated with spherical mass outflows in a stable maser emission region (Bowers, 1991), modulo deviations explained by localized mass loss and density variations (Silva et al., 1993). However, such outflows produce a characteristic radius-velocity signature, described by $`\theta (V_{LSR})=\theta _R\sqrt{1\frac{(V_{LSR}V_{})^2}{V_e^2}}`$, where $`V_{LSR}`$ is the local standard of rest (LSR), $`\theta _R`$ is the radius of the shell, $`V_{}`$ is the velocity of the central star, and $`V_e`$ is the expansion velocity. We plot the measured radius-velocity relationship for R22 as derived from the 1612 MHz and 1665 MHz centroid position in Figure 7, assuming the stellar position at the optical center of the nebula, as described in the preceding section. A spherically symmetric outflow is clearly not consistent with these data.

As discussed above, there is also a systematic variation of velocity with position angle along the arcs of emission at both 1612 MHz and 1665 MHz. This also argues strongly against a spherically symmetric outflow. The kinematic signatures observed for R22 could be produced by a variety of outflow models, perhaps in combination with local masing conditions which vary across the source.

Kinematic modeling of the maser emission was attempted, by fitting to parametrized ellipsoidal models, similar to those described by Bowers (1991). Such fitting is sensitive to the assumed stellar position, the degree of completeness of the velocity and spatial sampling, and the assumptions regarding maser transport. The models employed assumed a regular kinematic flow with one component. Maser intensity was derived directly from the velocity coherence along the line of sight, and no allowance was made for local masing conditions, density or turbulence. No conclusive model has been obtained, and further work is planned in this area.

We can conclude from our study of the kinematic properties of the source that R22 does not show characteristics of a classical OH/IR star. The highly asymmetric OH maser emission supports the classification as a PPN, as clearly supported by the HST observations (Sahai et al., 1999).

The accurate relative astrometry reported here shows a striking spatial association between the arcs of OH maser emission at 1612 MHz and 1665 MHz and the bipolar optical emission, especially in the region of the “northern spur”, shown in Figure 6.

## 5 Conclusions

We have presented radio-interferometric images of the OH maser emission towards R22, obtained using the ATCA, in the transitions at 1612 MHz, 1665 MHz and 1667 MHz. The principal conclusions of this work are:

* The OH maser emission at 1612 MHz and 1665 MHz has an arc-like morphology, with a clear, systematic dependence of maser position and velocity across the spectrum. The kinematic signatures are not consistent with a classical OH/IR star with a spherically symmetric outflow.
* The OH maser emission and the HST optical image have been astrometrically aligned to within $`\pm `$ 0.35″ (1$`\sigma `$). This defines the exact location of the OH maser emission in the equatorial waist of the optical bipolar outflow.
* The maser kinematics support the classification of this object as a PPN as suggested by Sahai et al. (1999).

The Australia Telescope is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under a cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This research has made use of the NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service. We would like to thank A. Silva for suggesting new observations of Roberts 22, P. Diamond and M. Claussen for help in the initial stages of the project, J. Chapman for comments and F. Owen, L. Van Zee and E. Deutsch for assistance with the astrometry. We are especially grateful to P. Bowers for bringing his extensive experience to bear on R22.