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# Collisional Damping of Giant Monopole and Quadrupole Resonances

## Abstract

Collisional damping widths of giant monopole and quadrupole excitations for 120Sn and 208Pb at zero and finite temperatures are calculated within Thomas-Fermi approximation by employing the microscopic in-medium cross-sections of Li and Machleidt and the phenomenological Skyrme and Gogny forces, and are compared with each other. The results for the collisional widths of giant monopole and quadrupole vibrations at zero temperature as a function of the mass number show that the collisional damping of giant monopole vibrations accounts for about $`3040\%`$ of the observed widths at zero temperature, while for giant quadrupole vibrations it accounts for only $`2030\%`$ of the observed widths of zero temperature.

Nuclear collective vibrations built on the ground state and on the excited states of the nucleus have been studied extensively during the last several years both theoretically and experimentally . On the theoretical side, much effort have been devoted to understand the damping properties of giant dipole excitations at zero and finite temperatures. In medium-weight and heavy nuclei at relatively low temperatures the damping results mostly from the spreading width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$ which is due to mixing of the collective state with the near by more complex doorway states . There are essentially two different approaches for calculation of the spreading widths: (i) Coherent mechanism due to coupling with low-lying surface modes which provides an important mechanism for damping of giant resonance in particular at low temperatures , (ii) Damping due to the coupling with incoherent 2p-2h states which is usually referred to as the collisional damping , and the Landau damping modified by two-body collisions . The investigations carried out on the basis of these approaches have been partially successful in explaining the broadening of the giant dipole resonance with increasing temperature. In this work, we do not consider the coherent contribution to damping, but investigate the collisional damping of isoscalar giant monopole and isoscalar giant quadrupole resonances at zero and finite temperatures due to decay of the collective state into incoherent 2p-2h excitations in the basis of a semi-classical non-Markovian transport approach. In this approach, the collisional term involves two-body transition rates which can be expressed in terms of the in-medium scattering cross sections . Therefore in order to assess the contribution of collisional damping to the total width of giant resonance excitations, we need realistic in-medium cross-sections which correctly interpolate between the free space and the medium. In previous investigations, the contributions of spreading width resulting from the decay of the collective state into incoherent 2p-2h states have been estimated by employing either free nucleon-nucleon cross sections or an effective Skyrme force . However, Skyrme force at most can provide a semiquantitative description of the collisional damping since it provides a poor approximation in the collisional term because in the vicinity of nuclear surface it does not match at all to the free nucleon-nucleon cross-sections. In a recent work, we calculated the collisional damping width of the giant dipole excitations by employing the microscopic in-medium cross sections of Li and Machleidt , which interpolate correctly between the free space and the medium and provide the best available input for determining the magnitude of the collisional damping . In the present work, we extend this analysis to the study of the collisional damping widths of giant monopole and quadrupole excitations by employing the microscopic in-medium cross-sections of Li and Machleidt and phenomenological Skyrme and Gogny forces.

We study the collective vibrations in the small amplitude limit of the extended TDHF theory in which damping resulting from the coupling of the collective state to incoherent 2p-2h states is included in the form of a non-Markovian collision term . In the Hartree-Fock representation, the Fourier transform of the self-energy of collective modes due to coupling with the incoherent 2p-2h states is given by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_\lambda (\omega )=\frac{1}{4}\frac{\left|<ij|[O_\lambda ^{},v]|kl>_A\right|^2}{\mathrm{}\omega \mathrm{\Delta }ϵ+i\eta }[n_kn_l\overline{n}_i\overline{n}_jn_in_j\overline{n}_k\overline{n}_l]$$
(1)
where $`O_\lambda ^{}`$ is the collective operator associated with the RPA mode $`\lambda `$, $`v`$ is the effective interaction that couples the ph-space with 2p-2h configurations, $`\overline{n}_i=1n_i`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ=ϵ_i+ϵ_jϵ_kϵ_l`$ , and $`\eta `$ is a small positive number . The real and imaginary parts of the self energy, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\lambda (\omega )=\mathrm{\Delta }_\lambda (\omega )\frac{i}{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\lambda (\omega )`$, determine the energy shift and the damping width of the collective excitation, respectively .

We evaluate the expression for the self-energy in the Thomas-Fermi approximation, which corresponds to the semi-classical transport description of the collective vibrations. In Thomas-Fermi approximation the self-energy of the collective modes can be deduced from the quantal expression (1) by replacing the occupation numbers $`n_i`$ with the equilibrium phase-space density given by the Fermi-Dirac function as $`n_if(ϵ,T)=1/[exp(ϵ\mu )/T+1]`$ with $`\mu `$ denoting the chemical potential, and summations over the 2p-2h states with integrals over phase-space, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }𝑑𝐫𝑑𝐩_1𝑑𝐩_2𝑑𝐩_3𝑑𝐩_4`$ . Furthermore, spin-isospin effects in collective vibration can be incorporated into the treatment by considering proton and neutron degrees of freedom separately. Observing that in isoscalar modes protons and neutrons vibrate in phase, in Thomas-Fermi approximation the collisional widths of isoscalar modes can be expressed as

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_\lambda ^s=\frac{1}{N_\lambda }𝑑𝐫𝑑𝐩_1𝑑𝐩_2𝑑𝐩_3𝑑𝐩_4[W_{pp}+W_{nn}+2W_{pn}]\frac{(\mathrm{\Delta }\chi _\lambda )^2}{2}Zf_1f_2\overline{f}_3\overline{f}_4$$
(2)
where $`N_\lambda =𝑑𝐫𝑑𝐩(\chi _\lambda )^2(\frac{}{ϵ}f)`$ is a normalization, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi _\lambda =\chi _\lambda (1)+\chi _\lambda (2)\chi _\lambda (3)\chi _\lambda (4)`$, $`Z=[\delta (\mathrm{}\omega _\lambda \mathrm{\Delta }ϵ)\delta (\mathrm{}\omega _\lambda +\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ)]/\mathrm{}\omega _\lambda `$, and $`\chi _\lambda (t)`$ denotes the distortion factor of the phase-space density $`\delta f(t)=\chi _\lambda (t)(f/ϵ)`$ in the corresponding mode. In this expression, two-body transition rates $`W_{pp},W_{nn}`$ and $`W_{pn}`$ associated with proton-proton, neutron-neutron and proton-neutron collisions are given in terms of the corresponding scattering cross-sections

$$W(12;34)=\frac{1}{(2\pi \mathrm{})^3}\frac{4\mathrm{}}{m^2}\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}\delta (𝐩_1+𝐩_2𝐩_3𝐩_4).$$
(3)
We apply the formula (2) to calculate the collisional widths of monopole and quadrupole vibrations. We use the nuclear fluidynamical model to express the distortion factors of the momentum distribution in which the distortion factors can be expressed in terms of the velocity field $`\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐫)`$ associated with the collective mode as $`\chi =(𝐩)(𝐩)\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐫)`$. An accurate description of the monopole vibrations can be obtained by parameterizing the velocity field in terms of the zeroth order Bessel functions $`\mathrm{\Phi }(r)=j_0(kr)`$, with the wave number $`k=\pi /R`$, and the nuclear radius R . For the quadrupole vibrations, we use the parameterization of the velocity field in terms of second order Bessel function $`\mathrm{\Phi }(r)=j_2(kr)`$ and take $`k=3.34/R`$ . We also carry out the calculations for the collisional width of the quadrupole vibrations by taking the distortion factor of the momentum distribution according to the scaling picture as $`\chi _Q=p^2P_2(\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$ . In the case of isoscalar modes, the collisional width is determined by the spin-isospin averaged nucleon-nucleon cross-section, $`(d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega })_0=[(d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega })_{pp}+(d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega })_{nn}+2(d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega })_{pn}]/4`$. The nucleon-nucleon cross-sections in this expression associated with an effective residual interaction can be expressed as

$$\left(\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}\right)_{pp}=\left(\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}\right)_{nn}=\frac{\pi }{(2\pi \mathrm{})^3}\frac{m^2}{4\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{4}\underset{S}{}(2S+1)|<𝐪;S,T=1|v|𝐪^{};S,T=1>_A|^2$$
(4)
and

$$\left(\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}\right)_{pn}=\frac{\pi }{(2\pi \mathrm{})^3}\frac{m^2}{4\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{8}\underset{S,T}{}(2S+1)|<𝐪;S,T|v|𝐪^{};S,T>_A|^2,$$
(5)
where $`𝐪=(𝐩_1𝐩_2)/2`$, $`𝐪^{}=(𝐩_3𝐩_4)/2`$ are the relative momenta before and after a binary collision, and $`<𝐪;S,T|v|𝐪^{};S,T>_A`$ represents the fully anti-symmetric matrix element of the residual interaction between two particle states with total spin and isospin $`S`$ and $`T`$. By noting that, S=T=1 and S=T=0 matrix elements of the interaction are space antisymmetric, and S=1, T=0 and S=0, T=1 matrix elements are space symmetric, we find that the spin-isospin averaged nucleon-nucleon cross-section associated with the Gogny force is given by

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}}\right)_0^G`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{(2\pi \mathrm{})^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_{G}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{4\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}`$ (6)
$`\times `$ $`\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{9}{2}}\right|{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}}I_i^{}(W_i+B_iH_iM_i)|^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}}I_i^{}(W_iB_i+H_iM_i)|^2+`$ (8)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}|{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}}I_i^+(W_i+B_i+H_i+M_i)+4t_3\rho ^{1/3}|^2+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}|{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}}I_i^+(W_iB_iH_i+M_i)|^2\}`$
where $`m_G^{}`$ denotes the effective mass corresponding to the Gogny force, and the quantities $`I_i^+`$ and $`I_i^{}`$ are the symmetric and anti-symmetric matrix elements of the Gaussian factor in the force,

$$I_i^\pm =(\sqrt{\pi }\mu _i)^3\left(exp[\frac{1}{4}(𝐪𝐪^{})^2(\frac{\mu _i}{\mathrm{}})^2]\pm exp[\frac{1}{4}(𝐪+𝐪^{})^2(\frac{\mu _i}{\mathrm{}})^2]\right).$$
(9)
In these expressions, $`\rho `$ is the local density and $`W_i,B_i,H_i,M_i,\mu _i`$ denote the standart parameters of the Gogny force . In a similar manner, this cross-section can be calculated in terms of the effective Skyrme force as

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}}\right)_0^S={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{(2\pi \mathrm{})^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_{S}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{4\mathrm{}}}`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}[t_0(1x_0)+{\displaystyle \frac{t_1}{2\mathrm{}^2}}(1x_1)(𝐪^2+𝐪_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})+{\displaystyle \frac{t_3}{6}}(1x_3)\rho ^\alpha ]^2+`$ (12)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}[t_0(1+x_0)+{\displaystyle \frac{t_1}{2\mathrm{}^2}}(1+x_1)(𝐪^2+𝐪_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})+{\displaystyle \frac{t_3}{6}}(1+x_3)\rho ^\alpha ]^2+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{5}{8}}[({\displaystyle \frac{t_2}{\mathrm{}^2}})^2(1x_2)^2+3({\displaystyle \frac{t_2}{\mathrm{}^2}})^2(1+x_2)^2](𝐪𝐪^{})^2).`$
The expressions for the effective masses $`m_G^{}(r)`$ and $`m_S^{}(r)`$ for the Gogny and Skyrme forces are given in . The angle $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ between $`𝐪`$ and $`𝐪^{}`$ in the cross-sections (6) and (8) defines the scattering angle in the center of mass frame, and the total cross-section is found by an integration over this angle, $`\sigma _0=2\pi sin\mathrm{\Theta }𝑑\mathrm{\Theta }\left(d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega }\right)_0`$. Microscopic in-medium cross-sections of Li and Machleidt  for proton-proton and neutron-proton cross-sections are parameterized as

$$\sigma _{pp}^{LM}=[23.5+0.00256\left(18.2E_{lab}^{0.5}\right)^{4.0}]\frac{1.0+0.1667E_{lab}^{1.05}\rho ^3}{1.0+9.704\rho ^{1.2}},$$
(13)
$$\sigma _{pn}^{LM}=[31.5+0.092\left|20.2E_{lab}^{0.53}\right|^{2.9}]\frac{1.0+0.0034E_{lab}^{1.51}\rho ^2}{1.0+21.55\rho ^{1.34}},$$
(14)
where $`E_{lab}=(𝐩_1𝐩_2)^2/2m=2𝐪^2/m`$ is the kinetic energy of the projectile in the rest frame of the target nucleon which is also equal to twice the energy available in the center of mass frame.

In figure 1 and figure 2, we compare the spin-isospin averaged nucleon-nucleon cross-sections calculated using the microscopic in-medium cross-sections of Li and Machleidt (dotted lines) with the cross-sections of the Gogny force (dashed lines) and the Skyrme force (solid lines) with SkM parameters. In figure 1, the total cross-sections are plotted as a function of the projectile energy $`E_{lab}`$ at two different nuclear matter densities $`\rho =\rho _0=0.18fm^3`$ (top panel) and $`\rho =\rho _0/2`$ (bottom panel). The cross-sections shown in the left and right parts of the figure are calculated with the bare nucleon mass and the corresponding effective masses, respectively. Around the normal nuclear matter density $`\rho \rho _0`$, and over a narrow energy interval around 150 MeV, these cross-sections roughly match, however at lower densities and at lower and higher energies the phenomenological cross-sections deviate strongly from the microscopic cross-sections, deviations being larger in the calculations with the bare nucleon mass. In figure 2, the cross-sections are shown as a function of density for the bombarding energy $`E_{lab}=100`$ MeV. The microscopic calculations approach the free nucleon-nucleon cross-section for decreasing density, on the other hand the phenomenological cross-sections strongly increase and reach large values in free space. Therefore, we can safely state that the microscopic calculations of Li and Machleidt provide a more reliable description of the in-medium cross-sections than those given by the finite range Gogny and the zero range Skyrme force. In a previous work , the momentum integrals in the expression for the damping width of giant dipole resonance were evaluated exactly. We follow the same method in the present work and evaluate the momentum integrals in the expression (2) exactly for monopole and quadrupole vibrations. In this calculation the angular anisotropy of the cross-sections are neglected and we make the replacement $`\left(d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega }\right)_0\sigma _0/4\pi `$. In the numerical evaluations, we determine the nuclear density $`\rho (r)`$ in Thomas-Fermi approximation using a Wood-Saxon potential with a depth $`V_0=44`$ MeV, thickness $`a=0.67`$ fm and sharp radius $`R_0=1.27A^{1/3}`$ fm, and we calculate the position dependent chemical potential $`\mu (r,T)`$ in the Fermi-Dirac function $`f(ϵ,T)`$ at each temperature. We use the formula $`\mathrm{}\omega =64A^{1/3}`$ MeV for the giant quadrupole resonance energies, and the expressions $`\mathrm{}\omega =31.2A^{1/3}+20.6A^{1/6}`$ MeV for $`A70`$ and $`\mathrm{}\omega =17.5`$ MeV for $`A<70`$ to calculate the giant monopole resonance energies. Figure 3 shows the collisional damping width of giant monopole resonance in $`{}_{}{}^{120}Sn`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{208}Pb`$ as a function of temperature. In figure 4, we show the collisional damping width of giant quadrupole resonance in $`{}_{}{}^{120}Sn`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{208}Pb`$ as a function of temperature, where we use the distortion factors of momentum distributions obtained from the fluidynamical model by the parametrization $`\mathrm{\Phi }(r)=j_2(kr)`$ of the velocity field. The collisional damping widths of the same nuclei calculated by employing the distortion factor $`\chi _Q=p^2P_2(\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$ using scaling approximation are shown in figure 5. In these figures T=0 experimental data points are also indicated. Calculations performed with the cross-sections of Li and Machleidt are denoted with dotted lines. For comparison, we also show the results with the SkM (solid lines) and the Gogny (dashed lines) cross-sections with the bare nucleon mass (lower panel) and the effective nucleon mass (upper panel). For both monopole and quadrupole vibrations, the calculations with cross-sections of Li and Machleidt exhibit a weaker temperature dependence than the calculations with the SkM and the Gogny cross-sections with the bare nucleon mass and result in considerably smaller damping widths at all temperatures than those with the cross-sections of the phonemenological forces. However, if the effective nucleon mass is used, the calculations employing microscopic and phenomenological cross-sections give collisional damping widths that almost agree with each other at low temperatures with differences becoming somewhat more appreciable only at high temperatures. Furthermore, a comparison of figure 4 and figure 5 shows that the calculations for quadrupole vibrations employing the scaling approximation for the distortion factors result in smaller values for the damping width as a function of temperature than those where the distortion factors are determined from fluidynamical picture. Moreover, in calculations using the effective nucleon mass, scaling approximation for the distortion factors give results for the collisional damping widths that become somewhat more appreciably different for microscopic and phenomenological cross-sections at relatively high temperatures. In figure 6, we show the collisional damping widths of giant monopole (left) and quadrupole vibrations (right) as a function of the mass number at zero temperature calculated with the microscopic cross-sections (dotted lines), and with the SkM (solid lines) and the Gogny (dashed lines) cross-sections. Here, we use the effective nucleon mass and employ the scaling approximation for distortion factors in quadrupole vibrations, since at zero temperature both scaling and fluidynamical pictures for distortion factors give results that are not appreciably different from each other. If we base our conclusion on the result obtained employing the microscopic in-medium cross-sections, we can conclude that the collisional damping of giant monopole vibrations accounts for about $`3040\%`$ of the observed widths at zero temperature, while for giant quadrupole vibrations it accounts for only $`2030\%`$ of the observed widths at zero temperature.

Acknowledgments

One of us (S. A.) gratefully acknowledges the Physics Department of Middle East Technical University for warm hospitality extended to him during his visits. We thank R. Machleidt for providing a table of their cross-sections, and P. Shuck for fruitful discussions. This work is supported in part by the U.S. DOE Grant No. DE-FG05-89ER40530.

Figure Captions:

The spin-isospin averaged nucleon-nucleon in-medium cross-sections as a function of bombarding energy $`E_{lab}`$ at several different densities. Dotted lines are cross-sections of Li and Machleidt, and solid and dashed lines are cross-sections associated with the SkM and the Gogny forces with the bare nucleon mass (left) and the effective nucleon mass (right), respectively.

The spin-isospin averaged nucleon-nucleon in-medium cross-sections as a function of density $`\rho `$ at $`E_{lab}=100MeV`$. Dotted lines are cross-sections of Li and Machleidt, and solid and dashed lines are cross-sections with the SkM and the Gogny forces with the bare nucleon mass (left) and the effective nucleon mass (right), respectively.

The collisional damping width of giant monopole resonance in $`{}_{}{}^{120}Sn`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{208}Pb`$ as a function of temperature. Dotted lines are calculations with the cross-sections of Li and Machleidt, and solid and dashed lines are results with the SkM and the Gogny cross-sections with the bare nucleon mass (lower panel) and the effective nucleon mass (upper panel).

The collisional damping width of giant quadrupole resonance in $`{}_{}{}^{120}Sn`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{208}Pb`$ as a function of temperature. Dotted lines are calculations with the cross-sections of Li and Machleidt, and solid and dashed lines are results with the SkM and the Gogny cross-sections with the bare nucleon mass (lower panel) and the effective nucleon mass (upper panel). For distortion factors fluidynamical model is used.

The collisional damping width of giant quadrupole resonance in $`{}_{}{}^{120}Sn`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{208}Pb`$ as a function of temperature. Dotted lines are calculations with the cross-sections of Li and Machleidt, and solid and dashed lines are results with the SkM and the Gogny cross-sections with the bare nucleon mass (lower panel) and the effective nucleon mass (upper panel). For distortion factors scaling approximation is used.

The collisional widths of giant monopole (left) and giant quadrupole (right) vibrations as a function of the mass number at zero temperature with effective nucleon mass. Experimental widths are shown by solid dots with error bars.


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# Generalizations of Eulerian partially ordered sets, flag numbers, and the Möbius function

### 1 Introduction

In this paper we study certain classes of graded partially ordered sets (posets), defined by conditions on the sizes of rank sets in intervals. We are concerned with numerical parameters of the posets, in particular, flag vectors and the Möbius function.

A graded poset $`P`$ is a finite partially ordered set with a unique minimum element $`\widehat{0}`$, a unique maximum element $`\widehat{1}`$, and a rank function $`\rho :P\text{N}`$ satisfying $`\rho (\widehat{0})=0`$, and $`\rho (y)\rho (x)=1`$ whenever $`yP`$ covers $`xP`$. The rank $`\rho (P)`$ of a graded poset $`P`$ is the rank of its maximum element. Given a graded poset $`P`$ of rank $`n+1`$ and a subset $`S`$ of $`\{1,2,\mathrm{},n\}`$ (which we abbreviate as $`[1,n]`$), define the $`S`$–rank–selected subposet of $`P`$ to be the poset

$$P_S=\{xP:\rho (x)S\}\{\widehat{0},\widehat{1}\}.$$

Denote by $`f_S(P)`$ the number of maximal chains of $`P_S`$. Equivalently, $`f_S(P)`$ is the number of chains $`x_1<\mathrm{}<x_{|S|}`$ in $`P`$ such that $`\{\rho (x_1),\mathrm{},\rho (x_{|S|})\}=S`$. (Call such a chain an $`S`$-chain of $`P`$.) The vector $`\left(f_S(P):S[1,n]\right)`$ is called the flag $`f`$-vector of $`P`$. Whenever it does not cause confusion, we write $`f_{s_1\mathrm{}s_j}`$ rather than $`f_{\{s_1,\mathrm{},s_j\}}`$; in particular, $`f_{\{i\}}`$ is always denoted $`f_i`$.

In the last twenty years there has grown a body of work on numerical conditions on flag vectors of posets and complexes, especially those arising in geometric contexts. A major recent contribution is the determination of the closed cone of flag vectors of all graded posets by Billera and Hetyei (). In  the authors study the closed cone of flag vectors of Eulerian posets. These are graded posets for which every (closed) interval has the same number of elements of even rank and of odd rank.

A poset is $`r`$-thick if every nonempty open interval has at least $`r`$ elements. Thus, every poset is $`1`$-thick, and Eulerian posets are $`2`$-thick. In the first part of this paper we show that the closed cone of flag vectors of $`r`$-thick posets is linearly equivalent to the Billera-Hetyei cone, the closed cone of flag vectors of all graded posets.

The second part of the paper defines a $`k`$-analogue of the Möbius function and $`k`$-Eulerian posets (which are $`2k`$-thick). We show that the generalized Dehn-Sommerville equations of  transfer to $`k`$-Eulerian posets. These equations have a particularly nice representation in terms of the $`L^k`$-vector, introduced here as a relative of the $`cd`$-index. The results of this paper can be used to find inequalities valid for flag vectors of Eulerian posets. In the last section we give as an example a new, sharp inequality for rank 8 Eulerian posets.

## Part I $`r`$-thick posets

### 2 Flag vectors of arbitrary graded posets

We describe first the cone of flag vectors of all graded posets. This is due to Billera and Hetyei ().

An interval system on $`[1,n]`$ is any set of subintervals of $`[1,n]`$ that form an antichain (that is, no interval is contained in another). A set $`S[1,n]`$ blocks the interval system $``$ if it has a nonempty intersection with every $`I`$. The family of all subsets of $`[1,n]`$ blocking $``$ is denoted by $`𝐁_{[1,n]}()`$. The main result of  is the following.

###### Theorem 2.1

An expression $`_{S[1,n]}a_Sf_S(P)`$ is nonnegative for all graded posets $`P`$ of rank $`n+1`$ if and only if

$$\underset{S𝐁_{[1,n]}()}{}a_S0\text{for every interval system }\text{ on }[1,n]\text{.}$$
(1)
Here is an outline of the proof from . The proof of the necessity of the condition (1) involves constructing for every interval system $``$ on $`\{1,2,\mathrm{},n\}`$ a family of posets $`\{P(n,,N):N\text{N}\}`$ of rank $`n+1`$ such that

$$\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{f_{[1,n]}(P(n,,N))}\underset{S[1,n]}{}a_Sf_S(P(n,,N)))=_{S𝐁_{[1,n]}()}a_S.$$

For the other implication, let $`P`$ be an arbitrary graded poset, and assume that its Hasse-diagram is drawn in the plane. Given an interval $`[x,y]`$ of $`P`$, let $`\varphi (x,y)`$ denote the leftmost atom in $`[x,y]`$. (If $`y`$ covers $`x`$ then set $`\varphi (x,y)=y`$.) The operation $`\varphi `$ has the following crucial property:

if $`p[x,y][x,z]`$ and $`p=\varphi ([x,z])`$ then $`p=\varphi ([x,y])`$. (2)
For every $`S[1,n]`$ and $`i[1,n]`$ define $`M_S(i)`$ to be the smallest $`j[i,n+1]`$ such that $`jS\{n+1\}`$ Consider the set of maximal chains

$$F_S=\{\widehat{0}=p_0<p_1<\mathrm{}<p_n<p_{n+1}=\widehat{1}:i[1,n],p_i=\varphi ([p_{i1},p_{M_S(i)}])\}.$$

It is easy to verify that $`F_S`$ contains exactly $`f_S(P)`$ elements. Moreover, there is a way of associating a family of intervals $`_C`$ to every maximal chain $`C=\{\widehat{0}=p_0<p_1<\mathrm{}<p_n<p_{n+1}=\widehat{1}\}`$ such that $`C`$ belongs to $`F_S`$ if and only if $`S`$ blocks $`_C`$. The fact that one may find such a family of intervals is a direct consequence of property (2).

### 3 Flag vectors of $`r`$-thick posets

It is easy to expand any graded poset to obtain an $`r`$-thick poset. Let $`P`$ be a graded poset of rank $`n+1`$. Write $`D^rP`$ for the poset obtained from $`P`$ by replacing every $`xP\{\widehat{0},\widehat{1}\}`$ with $`r`$ elements $`x_1`$, $`x_2`$, …$`x_r`$, such that $`\widehat{0}`$ and $`\widehat{1}`$ remain the minimum and maximum elements of the partially ordered set, and $`x_i<y_j`$ if and only if $`x<y`$ in $`P`$. The poset $`D^rP`$ is an $`r`$-thick graded poset of rank $`n+1`$. Clearly $`f_S(D^rP)=r^{|S|}f_S(P)`$.

###### Theorem 3.1

For every positive integer $`r`$, $`_{S[1,n]}a_Sf_S(P)0`$ for every graded poset $`P`$ of rank $`n+1`$ if and only if $`_{S[1,n]}a_Sr^{n|S|}f_S(Q)0`$ for every $`r`$-thick poset $`Q`$ of rank $`n+1`$.

Proof: First assume $`_{S[1,n]}a_Sr^{n|S|}f_S(Q)0`$ for every $`r`$-thick poset $`Q`$ of rank $`n+1`$. Let $`P`$ be any graded poset of rank $`n+1`$. Since $`D^rP`$ is $`r`$-thick,

$`0`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{S[1,n]}{}}a_Sr^{n|S|}f_S(D^rP)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{S[1,n]}{}}a_Sr^{n|S|}r^{|S|}f_S(P)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{S[1,n]}{}}a_Sr^nf_S(P).`$
Dividing by $`r^n`$ gives the desired inequality for all graded posets.

Now assume $`_{S[1,n]}a_Sf_S(P)0`$ for every graded poset $`P`$ of rank $`n+1`$. Let $`Q`$ be an $`r`$-thick poset of rank $`n+1`$. For each rank $`i`$, fix a total order of the elements of $`Q`$ of rank $`i`$. Given an interval $`[x,y]`$ of $`Q`$ of rank at least 2, let $`\varphi (x,y)`$ denote the set of the first $`r`$ atoms in $`[x,y]`$. (If $`y`$ covers $`x`$, set $`\varphi (x,y)=\{y\}`$.)

The operation $`\varphi `$ satisfies the following:

if $`p[x,y][x,z]`$ and $`p\varphi ([x,z])`$ then $`p\varphi ([x,y])`$. (3)
Let

$$F_S=\{\widehat{0}=p_0<p_1<\mathrm{}<p_n<p_{n+1}=\widehat{1}:i[1,n],p_i\varphi ([p_{i1},p_{M_S(i)}])\}.$$

How many sequences are in the set $`F_S`$? Given any $`S`$-chain of $`Q`$, extend it to sequences in $`F_S`$ one rank at a time. Having fixed $`p_0`$ through $`p_{i1}`$ ($`1in`$), if $`iS`$, then there are exactly $`r`$ choices for $`p_i`$. Thus $`|F_S|=r^{n|S|}f_S(Q)`$.

To each maximal chain $`C`$: $`\widehat{0}=p_0<p_1<\mathrm{}<p_n<p_{n+1}=\widehat{1}`$ of $`Q`$ is assigned an interval system as follows. For $`1in`$, let $`\psi (C,i)`$ be the largest $`j`$ such that $`p_i\varphi (p_{i1},p_j)`$. Let $`_C^{}=\{[i,\psi (C,i)]:1in\text{}\psi (C,i)n+1\}`$, and let $`_C`$ be the interval system consisting of minimal intervals in $`_C^{}`$. We show $`C`$ belongs to $`F_S`$ if and only if $`S`$ blocks $`_C`$. Suppose $`C`$: $`\widehat{0}=p_0<p_1<\mathrm{}<p_n<p_{n+1}=\widehat{1}`$ is in $`F_S`$. Then for all $`i`$, $`p_i\varphi ([p_{i1},p_{M_S(i)}])`$, so by the maximality of $`\psi (C,i)`$, $`\psi (C,i)M_S(i)`$. So for all $`i`$ the interval $`[i,\psi (C,i)]`$ contains the element $`M_{S(i)}`$ of $`S`$. Thus $`S`$ blocks $`_C`$. For the reverse implication, suppose $`C`$ is a maximal chain of $`Q`$ and $`S`$ blocks $`_C`$. Let $`1in`$ and $`[i,\psi (C,i)]_C`$. Since $`S`$ blocks $`_C`$, $`S[i,\psi (C,i)]`$ contains an element $`s`$. So $`M_{S(i)}s\psi (C,i)`$. Apply condition (3): $`p_i[p_{i1},p_{M_S(i)}][p_{i1},p_{\psi (C,i)}]`$ and $`p_i\varphi ([p_{i1},p_{\psi (C,i)}])`$, so $`p_i\varphi ([p_{i1},p_{M_{S(i)}}])`$. Thus $`C`$ is in $`F_S`$.

Given a system of intervals $``$ denote by $`f_{}`$ the number of those maximal chains $`C`$ of $`Q`$ for which $`_C=`$. (Note that $`f_{}`$ depends not only on $`Q`$ but also on the ordering of the elements of each rank.) Then

$`{\displaystyle \underset{S[1,n]}{}}a_Sr^{n|S|}f_S(Q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{S[1,n]}{}}a_S|F_S|={\displaystyle \underset{S[1,n]}{}}a_S{\displaystyle \underset{S𝐁_{[1,n]}()}{}}f_{}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{}{}}f_{}{\displaystyle \underset{S𝐁_{[1,n]}()}{}}a_S.`$
By Theorem 2.1 the sums $`_{S𝐁_{[1,n]}()}a_S`$ are all nonnegative, and so

$$\underset{S[1,n]}{}a_Sr^{n|S|}f_S(Q)0.$$

$`\mathrm{}`$

Let $`𝒞_{r,n+1}`$ be the smallest closed convex cone containing the flag vectors of all $`r`$-thick posets of rank $`n+1`$.

###### Corollary 3.2

For all positive integers $`q`$ and $`r`$, the invertible linear transformation $`\alpha _{q,r}:𝐐^{2^n}𝐐^{2^n}`$ defined by $`\alpha _{q,r}((x_S))=((r/q)^{|S|}x_S)`$ maps $`𝒞_{q,n+1}`$ onto $`𝒞_{r,n+1}`$.

To determine if a graded poset is $`r`$-thick, it is enough to check that between every $`x`$ and $`y`$ with $`x<y`$ and $`\rho (y)\rho (x)=2`$, there are at least $`r`$ elements. The definition of $`r`$-thick posets can then be generalized by allowing the lower bound $`r`$ to vary through the levels of the poset. The results of this section have straightforward analogues in that context.

## Part II $`k`$-Eulerian posets

### 4 The $`k`$-Möbius function

###### Definition 1

The Möbius function of a graded poset $`P`$ is defined recursively for any subinterval of $`P`$ by the formula

$$\mu ([x,y])=\{\begin{array}{cc}1& \text{if }x=y,\hfill \\ _{xz<y}\mu ([x,z])& \text{otherwise}.\hfill \end{array}$$

A graded poset $`P`$ is Eulerian if the Möbius function of every interval $`[x,y]`$ is given by $`\mu ([x,y])=(1)^{\rho (x,y)}`$.

(Here $`\rho (x,y)=\rho ([x,y])=\rho (y)\rho (x)`$.)

See  for a survey of Eulerian posets. The first characterization of all linear equalities holding for the flag vectors of all Eulerian posets was given by Bayer and Billera in .

###### Theorem 4.1 (Bayer and Billera)

For every Eulerian poset of rank $`n+1`$, every subset $`S[1,n]`$, and every maximal interval $`[i,\mathrm{}]`$ of $`[1,n]S`$,

$$\left((1)^{i1}+(1)^{\mathrm{}+1}\right)f_S(P)+\underset{j=i}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^jf_{S\{j\}}(P)=0.$$

Furthermore, every linear equality holding for the flag vector of all Eulerian posets of rank $`n+1`$ is a consequence of these equations.

Next we present generalizations of the Möbius function and of Eulerian posets.

###### Definition 2

The $`k`$-Möbius function of a graded poset is defined recursively by the formula

$$\mu _k([x,y])=\{\begin{array}{cc}1& \text{if }x=y,\hfill \\ 1\frac{1}{k}_{x<z<y}\mu _k([x,z])& \text{otherwise}.\hfill \end{array}$$

The following proposition gives the $`k`$-Möbius function of a poset $`P`$ as a $`k`$-analogue of the reduced Euler characteristic of the order complex of $`P`$. It is a generalization of Philip Hall’s theorem, and is easy to prove by induction.

###### Proposition 4.2

If $`P`$ is a graded poset of rank $`n+1`$, then

$$\mu _k(P)=\underset{S[1,n]}{}(\frac{1}{k})^{|S|}f_S^{n+1}(P).$$

A graded poset is $`k`$-Eulerian if for every interval $`[x,y]P`$, $`\mu _k([x,y])=(1)^{\rho (x,y)}`$. Note that $`1`$-Eulerian is the same as Eulerian. The following proposition follows easily from the definitions.

###### Proposition 4.3

If $`P`$ is a $`k`$-Eulerian poset of rank $`n+1`$, then

1. every interval of $`P`$ is $`k`$-Eulerian
2. $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}(1)^{i1}f_i(P)=k(1(1)^n)`$

The thickening operation introduced in Section 3 connects the $`k`$-Möbius function for different values of $`k`$.

###### Proposition 4.4

Let $`[x,y]`$ be an interval of a graded poset $`P`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ a positive integer. Consider an interval $`[x_i,y_j]D^{\mathrm{}}P`$ corresponding to $`[x,y]P`$. Then

$$\mu _k([x,y])=\mu _k\mathrm{}([x_i,y_j]).$$

Proof: Recall that $`f_S(D^{\mathrm{}}P)=\mathrm{}^{|S|}f_S(P)`$. Since the interval $`[x_i,y_j]`$ of $`D^{\mathrm{}}P`$ is isomorphic to $`D^{\mathrm{}}[x,y]`$, the result is obtained by substitution in Proposition 4.2. $`\mathrm{}`$

###### Corollary 4.5

A poset $`P`$ is $`k`$-Eulerian if and only if $`D^{\mathrm{}}P`$ is $`k\mathrm{}`$-Eulerian.

In  a half-Eulerian poset was defined to be a poset $`P`$ for which $`D^2P`$ is Eulerian.

Using Proposition 4.4 we can determine exactly the set of those $`k`$’s for which $`k`$-Eulerian posets exist.

###### Theorem 4.6

For every positive integer $`n`$, there exists a $`k`$-Eulerian poset of rank $`n+1`$ if and only if $`k=j/2`$ for some positive integer $`j`$. Moreover, every $`k`$-Eulerian poset is $`2k`$-thick.

Proof: The chain $`C`$ of rank $`n+1`$ is half-Eulerian. For every positive integer $`j`$, $`D^jC`$ is a $`j/2`$-Eulerian poset. On the other hand, by the definition of the function $`\mu _k`$, for an interval $`[x,y]`$ of rank $`2`$ in a $`k`$-Eulerian poset,

$$(1)^2=\mu _k([x,y])=11/k\underset{x<z<y}{}\mu _{1/k}([x,z])=1\frac{1}{k}\underset{x<z<y}{}(1).$$

Therefore $`2k`$ is the number of elements $`z`$ strictly between $`x`$ and $`y`$. Thus, if $`P`$ is a $`k`$-Eulerian poset, then $`2k`$ is a positive integer, and $`P`$ is $`2k`$-thick. $`\mathrm{}`$

It is easy to check by induction that a graded poset is half-Eulerian if and only if (1) in every interval $`[x,y]`$ with $`\rho (x,y)`$ odd, the number of elements of even rank equals the number of elements of odd rank; and (2) in every interval $`[x,y]`$ with $`\rho (x,y)`$ even, the number of elements $`z`$ with $`\rho (x,z)`$ even is one more than the number of elements $`z`$ with $`\rho (x,z)`$ odd. This characterization can be used to check that the following “vertical doubling” of an arbitrary graded poset produces a half-Eulerian poset. Let $`P`$ be any graded poset with relation $`_P`$. Form the set $`Q=\{\widehat{0},\widehat{1}\}\{x_1,x_2:xP\{\widehat{0},\widehat{1}\}\}`$. Define a relation $`_Q`$ on $`Q`$ by $`u_Qv`$ if and only if one of the following holds:

$``$ $`u=\widehat{0}`$, $`vP\{\widehat{0}\}`$

$``$ $`v=\widehat{1}`$, $`uP\{\widehat{1}\}`$

$``$ $`u=x_1`$ and $`v=x_2`$ for some $`xP\{\widehat{0},\widehat{1}\}`$

$``$ $`u=x_i`$ and $`v=y_j`$ for some $`x,yP\{\widehat{0},\widehat{1}\}`$, with $`x_Py`$.

If $`P`$ is a rank $`n+1`$ graded poset, then the resulting poset $`Q`$ is a rank $`2n+1`$ half-Eulerian poset.

For larger $`k`$, not all $`k`$-Eulerian posets are obtained by the thickening operation. For an example, consider the poset $`P`$ of rank $`n+13`$ having elements $`x_1`$, $`x_2`$, …, $`x_m`$ of rank 1, elements $`y_1`$, $`y_2`$, …, $`y_m`$ of rank 2, with $`x_i<y_j`$ if and only if $`i=j`$, and one element of each other rank. It is easy to check that $`P`$ is half-Eulerian, and so $`D^{2k}P`$ is $`k`$-Eulerian. In the Hasse diagram of $`D^{2k}P`$, the subgraph induced by the elements of ranks 1 and 2 consists of $`m`$ copies of the complete bipartite graph $`K_{2k,2k}`$. Replace this subgraph by any other $`2k`$-regular bipartite graph on these elements. The resulting graph is the Hasse diagram of another $`k`$-Eulerian poset. (Note that the only relations changed in the poset are those between rank 1 and rank 2 elements.)

The definition of $`k`$-Eulerian, like that of $`r`$-thick, can be generalized by varying the multiplier $`k`$ with the rank of the elements. The results of this and the next section can easily be adapted for such posets.

### 5 The flag $`L^k`$-vector

A certain transformation of the flag $`f`$-vector was useful in , , and . It has a natural adaptation to the $`k`$-Eulerian setting.

###### Definition 3

The flag $`L^k`$-vector of a graded partially ordered set $`P`$ of rank $`n+1`$ is the vector $`(L_S^{k,n+1}(P):S[1,n])`$, where

$$L_S^{k,n+1}(P)=(1)^{n|S|}\underset{T[1,n]S}{}\left(\frac{1}{2k}\right)^{|T|}f_T^{n+1}(P).$$

For $`k=1/2`$ this is the $`\mathrm{}`$-vector of ; for $`k=1`$ this is the “$`ce`$-index” of  and the $`L`$-vector of . The formula inverts to give

$$f_S^{n+1}(P)=(2k)^{|S|}\underset{T[1,n]S}{}L_T^{k,n+1}(P).$$
(4)
The $`L^k`$-vector ignores the effect of the operator $`D^{\mathrm{}}`$. If $`P`$ is a graded poset of rank $`n+1`$, then

$$L_S^{k\mathrm{},n+1}(D^{\mathrm{}}P)=L_S^{k,n+1}(P).$$
(5)
A set $`S[1,n]`$ is even if $`S`$ is a disjoint union of intervals of even cardinality. The parameters $`L_S^{k,n+1}`$ for even sets $`S`$ play a special role for $`k`$-Eulerian posets. The $`k`$-analogue of Theorem 4.1 is the following.

###### Theorem 5.1

For every $`k`$-Eulerian poset $`P`$ of rank $`n+1`$, every subset $`S[1,n]`$, and every maximal interval $`[i,\mathrm{}]`$ of $`[1,n]S`$,

$$k\left((1)^{i1}+(1)^{\mathrm{}+1}\right)f_S(P)+\underset{j=i}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^jf_{S\{j\}}(P)=0.$$

Every linear equality holding for the flag vector of all $`k`$-Eulerian posets of rank $`n+1`$ is a consequence of these equations.

In $`L^k`$-vector form, these equations are equivalent to the set of equations $`L_S^{k,n+1}(P)=0`$ for all subsets $`S[1,n]`$ that are not even.

Call these equations the generalized Dehn-Sommerville equations, and denote by $`DS_{k,n+1}`$ the resulting subspace of $`𝐑^{2^n}`$.

Proof: The fact that the equations (in flag $`f`$-vector form) hold for all $`k`$-Eulerian posets follows from Proposition 4.3. Fix a set $`S`$ with gap $`[i,\mathrm{}]`$. For each $`S`$-chain identify the rank $`i1`$ element $`x`$ and rank $`\mathrm{}+1`$ element $`y`$, and apply equation (2) to the interval $`[x,y]`$. Sum the resulting equations for all the $`S`$-chains.

Convert the flag $`f`$-vector equations using equation (4). Writing $`V=[1,n]S`$ and dividing by $`2^{|S|}k^{|S|+1}`$, the result is

$$\left((1)^{i1}+(1)^{\mathrm{}+1}\right)\underset{TV}{}L_T^{k,n+1}+2\underset{j=i}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^j\underset{TV\{j\}}{}L_T^{k,n+1}=0.$$
(6)
From this we prove by induction that $`L_V^{k,n+1}(P)=0`$ (abbreviated as $`L_V=0`$) for all noneven sets $`V`$. Let $`V[1,n]`$ be any noneven set, and let $`[i,\mathrm{}]`$ be an odd maximal interval of $`V`$. Equation (6) gives

$$\underset{TV}{}L_T+\underset{j=i}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^{ji+1}\underset{TV\{j\}}{}L_T=0.$$
(7)
If $`T`$ is a noneven proper subset of $`V`$, then by the induction assumption, $`L_T=0`$. So consider an even subset $`TV`$. Since the maximal intervals of $`T`$ contained in $`[i,\mathrm{}]`$ are even, $`[i,\mathrm{}]T=\{j_1,j_2,\mathrm{},j_t\}`$, where $`t`$ is odd, $`j_1i`$ is even, and, for $`2pt`$, $`j_pj_{p1}`$ is odd. Thus, for $`1pt`$, $`j_pi+1`$ has the same parity as $`p`$. The coefficient of $`L_T`$ in (7) is $`1+_{p=1}^t(1)^{j_pi+1}=1+_{p=1}^t(1)^p=0`$. So equation (7) reduces to $`L_V=0`$.

Conversely, suppose $`L_V=0`$ for all noneven sets $`V[1,n]`$. We show that the equations in (6) hold. Let $`V[1,n]`$ and $`[i,\mathrm{}]`$ a maximal interval of $`V`$. For $`\mathrm{}i`$ even, we need to prove equation (7). (The case of $`\mathrm{}i`$ odd is similar, and is omitted.) It suffices to consider the terms $`L_T`$ with $`T`$ an even set. For such $`T`$, $`[i,\mathrm{}]T=\{j_1,j_2,\mathrm{},j_t\}`$ as above, with $`t`$ odd, and $`j_pi+1p(mod2)`$. So the coefficient in (7) of $`L_T`$ is $`1+_{p=1}^t(1)^{j_pi+1}=1+_{p=1}^t(1)^p=0`$. Thus equation (7) holds.

To complete the proof, it suffices to show that the linear span of the $`L^k`$-vectors of $`k`$-Eulerian posets of rank $`n+1`$ is the subspace of $`𝐑^{2^n}`$ determined by the equations $`L_S^{k,n+1}(P)=0`$ for all subsets $`S[1,n]`$ that are not even. This can be accomplished by finding a set of linearly independent vectors in the span of the $`L^k`$-vectors of $`k`$-Eulerian posets, one vector for each even subset $`S[1,n]`$. In  Billera and Hetyei constructed, for each interval system $``$, a sequence of graded posets $`P(n,,N)`$. The construction starts with a rank $`n+1`$ chain, and replicates intervals of ranks in the poset. For an even set $`S`$, let $`[S]`$ be the set of maximal intervals in $`S`$. (For example, for $`S=\{1,3,4,7,8,9,10\}`$, $`[S]=\{[1],[3,4],[7,10]\}`$.) If $`S`$ is an even subset of $`[1,n]`$, then $`P(n,[S],N)`$ is half-Eulerian for all $`N`$. Furthermore, the sequence of $`L^{1/2}`$-vectors of these posets satisfies the following. Here $`m`$ is the number of intervals in $`[S]`$.

$$\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{N^m}L_T^{1/2,n+1}\left(P(n,[S],N)\right)=\{\begin{array}{cc}(1)^j\hfill & \text{if }T\text{ is the union of }j\text{ intervals of }S\text{,}\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{otherwise}.\hfill \end{array}$$

(See  for details.) Using (5), we get for any positive integer $`2k`$,

$$\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{N^m}L_T^{k,n+1}\left(D^{2k}P(n,[S],N)\right)=\{\begin{array}{cc}(1)^j\hfill & \text{if }T\text{ is the union of }j\text{ intervals of }S\text{,}\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{otherwise}.\hfill \end{array}$$

For fixed $`k`$ the limiting $`L^k`$-vectors for each even interval system $`[S]`$ are linearly independent, since for each even set $`S`$, the vector formed from the sequence $`(P(n,[S],N))`$ has $`T`$-entry 0 for all $`T`$ not containing $`S`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

A flag vector can by chance lie in the subspace $`DS_{k,n+1}`$ without the poset being $`k`$-Eulerian. However, $`k`$-Eulerian posets are characterized by the equations holding locally. The $`k=1`$ case of this is in . The proof requires the convolution of flag operators, defined by Kalai  (see also ). It is defined for the flag numbers by $`f_S^mf_T^n=f_{S\{m\}(T+m)}^{m+n}`$, and is extended by bilinearity to linear combinations. For $`p^{m+1}`$ and $`q^{n+1}`$ linear combinations of chain operators in ranks $`m+1`$ and $`n+1`$, respectively, their convolution on a rank $`m+n`$ poset $`P`$ satisfies

$$p^{m+1}q^{n+1}(P)=\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{xP}{\rho (x)=m}}{}p^{m+1}([\widehat{0},x])q^{n+1}([x,\widehat{1}]).$$

Convolution behaves nicely on the flag $`L^k`$-vector. For a rank $`m+n+2`$ poset $`P`$,

$$L_S^{k,m+1}L_T^{k,n+1}(P)=\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{xP}{\rho (x)=m+1}}{}L_S^{k,m+1}([\widehat{0},x])L_T^{k,n+1}([x,\widehat{1}])=2kL_{S(T+m+1)}^{k,m+n+2}(P).$$
(8)
###### Theorem 5.2

A graded partially ordered set $`P`$ is $`k`$-Eulerian if and only if for every interval $`[x,y]P`$ of positive even rank $`L_{[1,\rho (x,y)1]}^{k,\rho (x,y)}([x,y])=0`$.

Proof: Since every interval of a $`k`$-Eulerian partially ordered set is $`k`$-Eulerian, Theorem 5.1 gives that $`L_{[1,\rho (x,y)1]}^{k,\rho (x,y)}([x,y])=0`$ for all intervals $`[x,y]`$ of positive even rank.

Now assume that for every interval $`[x,y]`$ of positive even rank, $`L_{[1,\rho (x,y)1]}^{k,\rho (x,y)}([x,y])=0`$. Then by equation (8), for every interval $`[x,y]P`$ and for every $`S[1,\rho (x,y)1]`$ that is not even, $`L_S^{k,\rho ([x,y])}([x,y])=0`$.

For $`P`$ of rank $`n+1`$, by Proposition 4.2,

$`\mu _k(P)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{S[1,n]}{}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{k}})^{|S|}f_S^{n+1}(P)={\displaystyle \underset{S[1,n]}{}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{k}})^{|S|}(2k)^{|S|}{\displaystyle \underset{T[1,n]S}{}}L_T^{k,n+1}(P)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{T[1,n]}{}}L_T^{k,n+1}(P){\displaystyle \underset{S[1,n]T}{}}(2)^{|S|}={\displaystyle \underset{T[1,n]}{}}L_T^{n+1}(P)(1)^{n|T|}.`$
Since $`L_T^{k,n+1}(P)`$ is nonzero only if T is an even set, and then $`|T|`$ is an even number,

$$\mu _k(P)=(1)^{n+1}\underset{T[1,n]}{}L_T^{n+1}(P)=(1)^{n+1}f_{\mathrm{}}^{n+1}(P)=(1)^{n+1}.$$

The same argument can be repeated for every interval of $`P`$, showing that it is a $`k`$-Eulerian poset. $`\mathrm{}`$

Using this result, we get the following curious characterization via the Möbius function.

###### Theorem 5.3

A graded poset $`P`$ is $`k`$-Eulerian if and only if the $`2k`$-Möbius function of every interval $`[x,y]P`$ of even rank is zero.

Proof: Let $`P`$ be a graded poset. By Corollary 4.5 $`P`$ is Eulerian if and only if $`D^2P`$ is $`2k`$-Eulerian if and only if for every interval $`[x_i,y_j]`$ of $`D^2P`$ with $`\rho (x_i,y_j)`$ even

$$L_{[1,\rho (x_i,y_j)1]}^{2k,\rho (x_i,y_j)}([x_i,y_j])=0$$

if and only if for every interval $`[x_i,y_j]`$ of $`D^2P`$ with $`\rho (x_i,y_j)`$ even

$$\underset{T[1,\rho (x_i,y_j)1]}{}(\frac{1}{4k})^{|T|}f_T([x_i,y_j])=0$$

if and only if for every interval $`[x,y]`$ of $`P`$ with $`\rho (x,y)`$ even

$$\underset{T[1,\rho (x,y)1]}{}(\frac{1}{4k})^{|T|}2^{|T|}f_T([x,y])=0$$

if and only if for every interval $`[x,y]`$ of $`P`$ with $`\rho (x,y)`$ even

$$\underset{T[1,\rho (x,y)1]}{}(\frac{1}{2k})^{|T|}f_T([x,y])=0$$

if and only if for every interval $`[x,y]`$ of $`P`$ with $`\rho (x,y)`$ even $`\mu _{2k}([x,y])=0`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

In particular, a graded poset $`P`$ is half-Eulerian if and only if the (usual) Möbius function of $`[x,y]`$ is zero for every $`[x,y]P`$ of even rank.

The $`L^1`$-vector of a graded poset is the vector of coefficients of the $`ce`$-index, introduced in  as a variation of the $`cd`$-index of an Eulerian poset. (The $`cd`$-index of an Eulerian poset, due to Fine (see ), is a vector linearly equivalent to the flag vector; it embodies the generalized Dehn-Sommerville equations of Theorem 4.1.) In , Stanley observed that the existence of the $`cd`$-index for a graded poset is equivalent to the vanishing of the coefficients of $`ce`$-words containing an odd string of $`e`$’s; in our notation this says $`L_S^{1,n+1}(P)=0`$ for all subsets $`S[1,n]`$ that are not even. Thus the last part of Theorem 5.1 (as well as the first part) is already known for $`k=1`$.

The $`L^k`$-vector for general $`k`$ can be presented in the same way. For $`P`$ any graded poset of rank $`n+1`$, write a generating function for the flag $`f`$-vector as follows:

$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(a,b)=\underset{S[1,n]}{}f_Su_S,$$

where $`u_S=u_1u_2\mathrm{}u_n`$ with $`u_i=a`$ if $`iS`$ and $`u_i=b`$ if $`iS`$. then

$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(e,\frac{ce}{2k})=\underset{T[1,n]}{}L_Tv_T,$$

where $`v_T=v_1v_2\mathrm{}v_n`$ with $`v_i=c`$ if $`iT`$ and $`v_i=e`$ if $`iT`$. The equations of Theorem 5.1 for $`k`$-Eulerian posets can then be rephrased as saying that $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(e,(ce)/(2k))`$ is a polynomial in (the noncommuting expressions) $`c`$ and $`ee`$.

### 6 The cone of $`k`$-Eulerian flag vectors

Theorem 3.1, along with the description of the cone of flag vectors of general graded posets (), can be used to generate all the inequalities valid for all $`r`$-thick posets. The inequalities for $`2k`$-thick posets are, in particular, valid for all $`k`$-Eulerian posets, but they may not be sharp. We would like to know the essential inequalities, that is, the closed cones of flag vectors of Eulerian and of half-Eulerian posets. In  these cones are studied and are completely determined up through rank 7. (See also  for data on the cone.) In the context of this paper, the results can be stated as follows.

###### Theorem 6.1 ()

For rank $`n+17`$,

1. the closed cone of flag vectors of half-Eulerian posets of rank $`n+1`$ is the intersection of the cone $`𝒞_{1,n+1}`$ of flag vectors of all graded posets of rank $`n+1`$ with the subspace $`DS_{1/2,n+1}`$ determined by the half-Eulerian equations of Theorem 5.1;
2. the closed cone of flag vectors of Eulerian posets of rank $`n+1`$ is the intersection of the cone $`𝒞_{2,n+1}`$ of flag vectors of all $`2`$-thick graded posets of rank $`n+1`$ with the generalized Dehn-Sommerville subspace $`DS_{1,n+1}`$; and
3. the two cones are isomorphic.

We do not know if this theorem extends to higher ranks. However, for all ranks, part 1 of the theorem implies parts 2 and 3.

###### Theorem 6.2

Let $`\mathrm{CONE}_{k,n+1}`$ be the statement,

> The closed cone of flag vectors of $`k`$-Eulerian posets of rank $`n+1`$ is the intersection of the cone $`𝒞_{2k,n+1}`$ of flag vectors of all $`2k`$-thick graded posets of rank $`n+1`$ with the generalized Dehn-Sommerville space $`DS_{k,n+1}`$.

For all $`k1`$ (with $`2k`$ an integer) and all positive integers $`n`$,

$$\mathrm{CONE}_{1/2,n+1}\mathrm{CONE}_{k,n+1}.$$

Proof: Recall the map $`\alpha _{1,2k}`$ of Corollary 3.2; it maps $`𝒞_{1,n+1}`$ onto $`𝒞_{2k,n+1}`$. Clearly it also maps $`DS_{1/2,n+1}`$ onto $`DS_{k,n+1}`$. So $`\alpha _{1,2k}(𝒞_{1,n+1}DS_{1/2,n+1})=𝒞_{2k,n+1}DS_{k,n+1}`$, which contains the cone of $`k`$-Eulerian flag vectors. On the other hand, for any half-Eulerian poset $`P`$, $`\alpha _{1,2k}((f_S(P)))=(f_S(D^{2k}P))`$, the flag vector of the $`k`$-Eulerian poset $`D^{2k}P`$. If $`\text{CONE}_{1/2,n+1}`$ holds, then $`𝒞_{1,n+1}DS_{1/2,n+1}`$ is the cone of half-Eulerian flag vectors, and its image is contained in the cone of $`k`$-Eulerian flag vectors. Thus, if $`\text{CONE}_{1/2,n+1}`$ holds, then $`𝒞_{2k,n+1}DS_{k,n+1}`$ is exactly the closed cone of flag vectors of $`k`$-Eulerian posets. $`\mathrm{}`$

Another question raised in  on the structure of these cones can be answered. For rank at most 7, all facet inequalities of the half-Eulerian (and with slight modification, Eulerian) cone are generated from two basic types of inequalities.

###### Theorem 6.3 ()

Let $`S`$ and $`T`$ be disjoint subsets of $`[1,n]`$, such that every maximal interval of the complement of $`S`$ contains at most one element of $`T`$. Then for every rank $`n+1`$ half-Eulerian poset $`P`$,

$$\underset{RT}{}(1)^{|TR|}f_{SR}(P)0.$$

Let $`1i<j<\mathrm{}n`$. Then for every rank $`n+1`$ half-Eulerian poset $`P`$,

$$f_i\mathrm{}(P)f_i(P)f_{\mathrm{}}(P)+f_j(P)0.$$

Other valid inequalities are obtained by the convolution of inequalities of these types. The question arose whether these generate all inequalities valid for the flag vectors of all half-Eulerian posets. They do not.

###### Proposition 6.4

For all half-Eulerian posets $`P`$ of rank 8,

$$f_{1356}^8(P)f_{135}^8(P)f_{356}^8(P)+f_{15}^8(P)f_{16}^8(P)+f_{35}^8(P)+f_{36}^8(P)f_3^8(P)0,$$

or, in $`L^{1/2}`$-vector form,

$`L_{45}^{1/2,8}(P)+L_{2345}^{1/2,8}(P)+L_{56}^{1/2,8}(P)+L_{1256}^{1/2,8}(P)L_{2367}^{1/2,8}(P)`$
$`L_{3467}^{1/2,8}(P)+L_{4567}^{1/2,8}(P)+L_{124567}^{1/2,8}(P)`$ $``$ $`0.`$ (9)
This inequality determines a facet of the closed cone of flag vectors of half-Eulerian posets, and does not follow from the inequalities of Proposition 6.3.

The proposition remains valid if “half-Eulerian” is replaced by $`k`$-Eulerian, and each $`f_S`$ is replaced by $`(2k)^{n|S|}f_S`$.

Proof: We first show the inequality is not a convolution of lower rank inequalities. In $`L^k`$-vector form the convolution satisfies the rule $`L_T^{k,i+1}L_V^{k,j+1}=2kL_{T(V+i+1)}^{k,i+j+2}`$ (see equation 8). So the convolution of linear expressions for ranks $`i+1`$ and $`j+1`$ with $`n=i+j+1`$ gives a linear combination of $`L_S^{k,n+1}`$ involving only subsets $`S[1,n]`$ not containing $`i+1`$. Since each element of $`[1,7]`$ occurs in some set $`S`$ in the inequality 6.4, it is not a convolution of lower rank inequalities.

We now show that the inequality determines a facet of the cone. Billera and Hetyei list the facet inequalities for the general graded cone up through rank 5. The inequality of the proposition comes from applying one of the rank 5 Billera-Hetyei inequalities to the rank-selected subposet $`P_{\{1,3,5,6\}}`$ of an arbitrary half-Eulerian poset $`P`$. To check it is a facet of the half-Eulerian cone, we give twenty linearly independent limiting normalized $`L^{1/2}`$-vectors of half-Eulerian posets, for which the inequality holds with equality. The first sixteen posets are Billera-Hetyei limit posets determined by interval systems as in the following table.

| $`P_1`$ | $`\mathrm{}`$ | $`P_7`$ | $`[1,2][5,6]`$ | $`P_{12}`$ | $`[1,4][6,7]`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`P_2`$ | $`[1,2]`$ | $`P_8`$ | $`[1,2][3,4][5,6]`$ | $`P_{13}`$ | $`[4,5][6,7]`$ |
| $`P_3`$ | $`[2,3]`$ | $`P_9`$ | $`[3,6]`$ | $`P_{14}`$ | $`[2,3][4,5][6,7]`$ |
| $`P_4`$ | $`[3,4]`$ | $`P_{10}`$ | $`[6,7]`$ | $`P_{15}`$ | $`[1,2][4,7]`$ |
| $`P_5`$ | $`[1,2][3,4]`$ | $`P_{11}`$ | $`[1,2][6,7]`$ | $`P_{16}`$ | $`[2,7]`$ |
| $`P_6`$ | $`[2,3][4,5]`$ |  | | | |

The next three limit posets are obtained from the rank 7 Extremes 2, 3 and 4 of \[3, Theorem 4.8\] by inserting a single new element of rank 1, shifting the old elements up one rank.

To describe the last sequence of posets, let us (re)introduce the following generalization of the operator $`D^r`$. Given a graded poset $`P`$ of rank $`n+1`$ denote by $`D_{[u,v]}^r(P)`$ the poset obtained from $`P`$ by replacing each $`xP`$ satisfying $`\rho (x)[u,v]`$ with $`r`$ elements $`x_1,x_2,\mathrm{},x_r`$ (keep every $`yP`$ satisfying $`\rho (y)[u,v]`$ unchanged), and by setting the following order relations. The $`([1,n][u,v])`$-rank-selected subposet of $`P`$ and of $`D_{[u,v]}^r(P)`$ are identical. For $`x,yP`$ satisfying $`\rho (x)[u,v]`$ and $`\rho (y)[u,v]`$ set $`x_i<y`$ or $`x_i>y`$ in $`D_{[u,v]}^r(P)`$ if and only of the same relation holds between $`x`$ and $`y`$ in $`P`$. Finally for $`x,yP`$ satisfying $`u\rho (x)<\rho (y)v`$ set $`x_i<y_j`$ in $`D_{[u,v]}^r(P)`$ if and only if $`i=j`$ and $`x<y`$ in $`P`$.

For example, Figure 1 shows $`D_{[1,2]}^2(C_4)`$ where $`C_4`$ is a chain of rank $`4`$. Note that for a graded poset $`P`$ of rank $`n+1`$ the graded poset $`D^r(P)`$ is isomorphic to $`D_{[1,1]}^rD_{[2,2]}^r\mathrm{}D_{[n,n]}^r(P)`$. The same notation is used in .

Let $`N`$ be an arbitrary positive integer, and $`C_8`$ be a chain of rank $`8`$. Consider now the following four graded posets.

$`P^I(N)`$ $`=`$ $`D_{[1,2]}^{N+1}D_{[2,3]}^{N+1}D_{[4,5]}^{N+1}D_{[1,7]}^N(C_8)`$
$`P^{II}(N)`$ $`=`$ $`D_{[1,3]}^{N^2}D_{[1,5]}^{N+1}D_{[1,7]}^N(C_8)`$
$`P^{III}(N)`$ $`=`$ $`D_{[1,4]}^{N^2N+2}D_{[4,5]}^{N+2}D_{[6,7]}^N(C_8)`$
$`P^{IV}(N)`$ $`=`$ $`D_{[1,2]}^{N+2}D_{[2,7]}^{N^3N^2+2}(C_8)`$
The $`\{4,5,6,7\}`$-rank-selected subposets of $`P^I(N)`$ and $`P^{II}(N)`$ are both isomorphic to $`D_{[1,2]}^{N+1}D_{[1,4]}^N(C_5)`$, where $`C_5`$ is a chain of rank $`5`$; the $`\{6,7\}`$-rank-selected subposets of $`P^I(N)`$, $`P^{II}(N)`$, and $`P^{III}(N)`$ are all isomorphic to $`D_{[1,2]}^N(C_3)`$ where $`C_3`$ is a chain of rank $`3`$. Let $`P(N)`$ be the graded poset of rank $`8`$ obtained from $`P^I(N)`$, $`P^{II}(N)`$, $`P^{III}(N)`$, and $`P^{IV}(N)`$ by performing the following identifications:

-identify the bottom element $`\widehat{0}`$ of all four posets,

-identify the top element $`\widehat{1}`$ of all four posets,

-identify $`P^I(N)_{\{4,5,6,7\}}`$ with $`P^{II}(N)_{\{4,5,6,7\}}`$,

-identify $`P^I(N)_{\{6,7\}}`$ with $`P^{III}(N)_{\{6,7\}}`$.

Figure 2 indicates how the four posets are identified, in a schematic way.

Straightforward calculation shows that $`P(N)`$ is a half-Eulerian poset, for each positive $`N`$. Furthermore the normalized $`L^{1/2}`$-vectors, $`(L_S^{1/2,8}(P(N))/N^4)`$, converge.

The rows of the matrix below are the normalized $`L^{1/2}`$-vectors of the twenty limit posets. In the columns are the values of $`L_S^{1/2,8}`$ (divided by the appropriate power of $`N`$), with the sets $`S`$ in the order $`\mathrm{}`$, $`\{1,2\}`$, $`\{2,3\}`$, $`\{3,4\}`$, $`\{1,2,3,4\}`$, $`\{4,5\}`$, $`\{1,2,4,5\}`$, $`\{2,3,4,5\}`$, $`\{5,6\}`$, $`\{1,2,5,6\}`$, $`\{2,3,5,6\}`$, $`\{3,4,5,6\}`$, $`\{1,2,3,4,5,6\}`$, $`\{6,7\}`$, $`\{1,2,6,7\}`$, $`\{2,3,6,7\}`$, $`\{3,4,6,7\}`$, $`\{1,2,3,4,6,7\}`$, $`\{4,5,6,7\}`$, $`\{1,2,4,5,6,7\}`$, $`\{2,3,4,5,6,7\}`$. It is easy to check the rows are linearly independent.

$$\left[\begin{array}{ccccccccccccccccccccc}\hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 3& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 3& \hfill 0& \hfill 2& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 3& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 2& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1\\ \hfill 4& \hfill 2& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 2& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1\end{array}\right]$$

$`\mathrm{}`$


text:
# References

Despite its remarkable experimental successes there is little doubt that the standard model based on $`SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)`$ must be part of a more complete theory. Support for this statement comes from a variety of sources. Two that are particularly relevant for us here are the atmospheric (and solar) neutrino puzzles, as well as the well known flavor problem. We will attempt to resolve them within a unified framework such as provided by the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), $`SU(5)`$ or $`SO(10)`$, supplemented by a flavor $`𝒰(1)`$ symmetry.

In the charged fermion sector there are noticeable hierarchies within the charged fermion Yukawa couplings and the CKM matrix elements. Since the mass of the top quark is close to the electroweak symmetry breaking scale ($`100`$ GeV), its Yukawa coupling is of order unity ($`\lambda _t1`$). As far as the Yukawa couplings of the $`b`$ quark and $`\tau `$ lepton are concerned, their values could vary in a range $`\lambda _b\lambda _\tau 10^21`$, depending on the value of the MSSM parameter $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ ($`160`$). Introducing the dimensionless parameter $`ϵ0.2`$ (close to the Wolfenstein parameter $`\lambda `$), one can express the observed hierarchies between the charged fermion Yukawa couplings as follows:

$$\lambda _t1,\lambda _u:\lambda _c:\lambda _tϵ^6:ϵ^3:1,$$
(1)
$$\lambda _b\lambda _\tau \lambda _t\frac{m_b}{m_t}\mathrm{tan}\beta ,\lambda _d:\lambda _s:\lambda _bϵ^5:ϵ^2:1,$$
(2)
$$\lambda _e:\lambda _\mu :\lambda _\tau ϵ^5:ϵ^2:1,$$
(3)
while for the CKM matrix elements:

$$V_{us}ϵ,V_{cb}ϵ^2,V_{ub}ϵ^3.$$
(4)
In constructing models, one should arrange for a natural understanding of the hierarchies in (1)-(4).

The latest atmospheric and solar neutrino data (see  and  respectively) seem to provide convincing confidence in the phenomena of neutrino oscillations. Ignoring the LSND data , the atmospheric and solar anomalies can be explained within the three states of active neutrinos. In this paper we will study oscillation scenarios without the sterile neutrinos, which in any case maybe disfavored by the data .

The atmospheric neutrino data suggest oscillations of $`\nu _\mu `$ into $`\nu _\tau `$, with the following oscillation parameters:

$$𝒜(\nu _\mu \nu _\tau )\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\mu \tau }1,$$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2310^3\mathrm{eV}^2.$$
(5)
The solar neutrino anomaly seems consistent with a variety of oscillation scenarios, amongst which the most likely seems to be large angle MSW (LAMSW) oscillation of $`\nu _e`$ into $`\nu _{\mu ,\tau }`$ , with the oscillation parameters:

$$𝒜(\nu _e\nu _{\mu ,\tau })\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{e\mu ,\tau }0.8,$$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{sol}}^2210^5\mathrm{eV}^2.$$
(6)
The scenario of low MSW (LOW MSW) oscillations of solar neutrinos require:

$$\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{e\mu ,\tau }1.0,$$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{sol}}^2810^8\mathrm{eV}^2,$$
(7)
while the small angle MSW (SA MSW) oscillations are realized with:

$$\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{e\mu ,\tau }510^3,$$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{sol}}^2510^6\mathrm{eV}^2.$$
(8)
Finally, the large angle vacuum oscillation (LAVO) solution requires

$$\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{e\mu ,\tau }0.7,$$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{sol}}^2810^{11}\mathrm{eV}^2.$$
(9)
It is worth noting that within MSSM, the neutrinos acquire masses only through non-renormalizable $`d=5`$ Planck scale operators $`l_il_jh_u^2/M_P`$ which, for $`h_u^0100`$ GeV, $`M_P=2.410^{18}`$ GeV (reduced Planck mass) give $`m_{\nu _i}10^5`$ eV. Therefore, already for atmospheric data (5) \[and also for solar neutrino anomalies with (6)-(8)\] we need physics beyond the MSSM. In order to generate the appropriate neutrino masses, we will introduce heavy right handed neutrino states $`𝒩_i`$. Then, the ‘light’ left handed neutrinos will acquire masses through the see-saw mechanism .

In building neutrino oscillation scenarios, the main challenge is to generate desirable magnitudes for neutrino masses and their mixings. And to understand why in some cases, the mixing angles are large (and even maximal), while the quark CKM matrix elements (4) are suppressed. Below we will present a mechanism which successfully resolves all of these problems.

Before proceeding to the model, let us study a specific neutrino mass matrix texture, which provides bi-maximal neutrino mixing. Consider the mass matrix for three active neutrino flavors:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & \\ \begin{array}{c}\end{array}\widehat{M}_\nu =& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}& m_1& m_2\\ m_1& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}\\ m_2& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}\end{array}\right)& \end{array},$$
(10)
and assume that

$$m_1m_2$$
(11)
are real mass parameters. Performing the transformation $`U_1^TM_\nu U_1M_\nu ^{}`$, where

$$\begin{array}{ccc}U_1=& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}& 0& 0\\ \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}& c_\theta & s_\theta \\ 0& s_\theta & c_\theta \end{array}\right)& \end{array},$$
(12)
$$s_\theta \mathrm{sin}\theta ,c_\theta \mathrm{cos}\theta ,\mathrm{tan}\theta =\frac{m_2}{m_1},$$
(13)
the mass matrix acquires the off-diagonal form:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & \\ \begin{array}{c}\end{array}\widehat{M^{}}_\nu =& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}& m& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}\\ m& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}\\ \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}\end{array}\right),& \end{array}m=\sqrt{m_1^2+m_2^2},$$
(14)
which is diagonalized through transformations with maximal rotating angles:

$$U_2^T\widehat{M^{}}_\nu U_2\widehat{M}_\nu ^{\mathrm{diag}}=\mathrm{Diag}(m,m,0),$$
(15)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}U_2=& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& 0\\ \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)& \end{array}.$$
(16)
The rotation matrix which connects the mass eigenstate basis to the flavor one is given by:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}U_\nu =U_1U_2=& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& 0\\ \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}c_\theta & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}c_\theta & s_\theta \\ \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}s_\theta & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}s_\theta & c_\theta \end{array}\right)& \end{array},$$
(17)
which is precisely a bi-maximal mixing matrix. Through (17), using the expression for the oscillation amplitude

$$𝒜(\nu _\alpha \nu _\beta )=4\mathrm{\Sigma }_{j<i}U_\nu ^{\alpha j}U_\nu ^{\alpha i}U_\nu ^{\beta j}U_\nu ^{\beta i},$$
(18)
($`\alpha ,\beta `$ denote flavor indices and $`i,j`$ the mass eigenstates), the oscillation amplitudes for the atmospheric and solar neutrinos are respectively

$$𝒜(\nu _\mu \nu _\tau )\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\mu \tau }=\frac{4m_1^2m_2^2}{(m_1^2+m_2^2)^2}1,$$
(19)
$$𝒜(\nu _e\nu _{\mu ,\tau })\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{e\mu ,\tau }=1.$$
(20)
In (19) we have taken into account (11), while the second equation in (20) holds without any assumptions. For $`m_1m_2`$ we will have $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\mu \tau }1`$, which means that the second mass eigenstate is $`\nu _2\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(\nu _\mu +\nu _\tau )`$, and therefore the $`\nu _e`$ state should oscillate with $`50\%`$ probability each into $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\nu _\tau `$. However, at this level $`\nu _e\nu _2`$ oscillation cannot occur because of zero mass squared difference. Indeed, the neutrino mass spectra is

$$m_{\nu _1}=m_{\nu _2}=m,m_{\nu _3}=0,$$
(21)
(inverted hierarchy), and consequently:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2=m^2,\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2=0.$$
(22)
From (5) we have

$$m^2m_{\mathrm{atm}}^210^3\mathrm{eV}^2.$$
(23)
In order to get a nonzero $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2`$, the texture (10) should be slightly modified:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & \\ \begin{array}{c}\end{array}\widehat{M}_\nu =& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}\rho _1& m_1& m_2\\ m_1& \rho _2& \rho _4\\ m_2& \rho _4& \rho _3\end{array}\right),& \end{array}$$
(24)
with small deviations $`\rho _im_1,m_2`$, in order to preserve bi-maximal mixing. Of course, it is possible to choose $`\rho _i`$s by hand in such a way as to get the desirable picture. However, it would be much nicer to provide a natural mechanism for realizing this. The goal is therefore to construct a model that will allow us to estimate values of $`\rho _i`$, which will give nonzero $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{12}^2`$, thereby guaranteeing $`\nu _e\nu _2`$ oscillations. The value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{12}^2`$ will select one of the currently viable oscillation scenarios for solar neutrinos. In , the texture (10) was obtained by imposing $`L_eL_\mu L_\tau `$ symmetry. Refs.  presented models in which non-zero $`\rho _i`$ emerge at the two loop level and the large angle vacuum oscillation scenario is realized. In  a $`𝒰(1)`$ flavor symmetry is used for providing this bi-maximal mixing matrix. In this paper we will follow the strategy of . Let us finally note that the texture in (10) is also discussed in .

We introduce a $`𝒰(1)`$ flavor symmetry, which distinguishes the families through the prescription of $`𝒰(1)`$ charges. In many cases it turns out that the $`𝒰(1)`$ is anomalous. It is well known that such anomalous $`𝒰(1)`$ factors can arise in string theories. Cancellation of the anomaly occurs through the Green-Schwarz mechanism . Due to the anomaly the Fayet-Illiopoulos D-term $`\xi d^4\theta V_A`$ is always generated, where in string theory $`\xi `$ is given by

$$\xi =\frac{g_A^2M_P^2}{192\pi ^2}\mathrm{Tr}Q.$$
(25)
The $`D_A`$-term will have the form:

$$\frac{g_A^2}{8}D_A^2=\frac{g_A^2}{8}\left(\mathrm{\Sigma }Q_a|\phi _a|^2+\xi \right)^2,$$
(26)
where $`Q_a`$ is the ‘anomalous’ charge of $`\phi _a`$ superfield. For $`𝒰(1)`$ breaking we introduce the singlet superfield $`X`$ with $`𝒰(1)`$ charge $`Q_X`$. Assuming $`\xi >0`$ \[$`\mathrm{Tr}Q>0`$ in (25)\], and taking

$$Q_X=1,$$
(27)
the cancellation of $`D_A`$ in (26) and nonzero $`X`$ are ensured: $`X=\sqrt{\xi }`$. Further, we will take

$$\frac{X}{M_P}ϵ0.2,$$
(28)
where $`ϵ`$ turns out to be an important expansion parameter. Let us note that an anomalous $`𝒰(1)`$ for understanding the hierarchies of fermion masses and mixings has been discussed in several papers of . In  a variety of neutrino oscillation scenarios were constructed with the help of $`𝒰(1)`$.

Starting our investigation with the neutrino sector, let us first discuss two ways of obtaining large/maximal neutrino mixings with the help of $`𝒰(1)`$ flavor symmetry. With two flavors of lepton doublets $`l_1`$ and $`l_2`$, one way of having large mixing is the so-called democratic approach. In this case the $`𝒰(1)`$ symmetry does not distinguish the two flavors , i.e. they have the same $`𝒰(1)`$ charges $`Q_{l_1}=Q_{l_2}=n`$(positive integer number). In this case, the expected neutrino mass matrix will be:

$$\begin{array}{cc}& \\ \begin{array}{c}\end{array}\widehat{m}_\nu =& \left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}\\ \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}\end{array}\right)\overline{m}ϵ^{2n},\overline{m}=\frac{h_u^2}{\overline{M}},\end{array}$$
(29)
with entries of order unity ($`\overline{M}`$ is some mass scale and we have assumed $`Q_{h_u}=0`$). Therefore, naturally large $`\nu _1\nu _2`$ mixing is expected, $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{12}1`$. Also, one can expect $`m_{\nu _1}m_{\nu _2}`$, and if this mechanism is used for atmospheric neutrinos, somehow one has to keep one state light, in order to accomodate also the solar neutrino puzzle. This can be done  by introducing a single right handed neutrino $`𝒩`$. After integrating it out due to degeneracy, only one state acquires mass. The remaining states can be used for the solar neutrino puzzle. An appropriate mass scale for the latter can be generated by introducing a relatively heavy right handed state $`𝒩^{}`$ with suppressed coupling with $`𝒩`$.

A different approach is the so-called maximal mixing mechanism . It is realized by assigning different $`𝒰(1)`$ charges for the flavors $`l_1,l_2`$. Introducing two right handed states $`𝒩_1`$, $`𝒩_2`$ and the following $`𝒰(1)`$ charge prescriptions

$$Q_{l_1}=k+n,Q_{l_2}=k,Q_{h_u}=0,$$

$$Q_{𝒩_1}=Q_{𝒩_2}=k+k^{},$$
(30)
with $`k,n,k^{}>0,n\stackrel{>}{_{}}k^{}`$, the ‘Dirac’ and ‘Majorana’ couplings will have the forms:

$$\begin{array}{cc}& \begin{array}{cc}𝒩_1& 𝒩_2\end{array}\\ \begin{array}{c}l_1\\ l_2\end{array}& \left(\begin{array}{cc}ϵ^{2k+n+k^{}}& ϵ^{nk^{}}\\ ϵ^{2k+k^{}}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}\end{array}\right)h_u,\end{array}\begin{array}{cc}& \begin{array}{cc}𝒩_1& 𝒩_2\end{array}\\ \begin{array}{c}𝒩_1\\ 𝒩_2\end{array}& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}ϵ^{2(k+k^{})}& 1& \\ \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}& 0& \end{array}\right)M_𝒩,\end{array}$$
(31)
After integrating out the heavy $`𝒩_1,𝒩_2`$ states, the neutrino mass matrix is given by

$$\begin{array}{cc}& \\ \begin{array}{c}\end{array}\widehat{m}_\nu =& \left(\begin{array}{cc}ϵ^n& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}\\ \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}\end{array}\right)\overline{m},\overline{m}=\frac{h_u^2ϵ^{2k+n}}{M_𝒩}\end{array},$$
(32)
a quasi off-diagonal form, leading to a mixing angle

$$\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{12}=1𝒪(ϵ^{2n}),$$
(33)
which is close to maximal mixing. The form (32) is guaranteed by the appropriate zero entries in (31), which are ensured by $`𝒰(1)`$ symmetry. This mechanism turns out to be very convenient for achieving nearly maximal mixings between neutrino flavors within various realistic models, such as $`SU(5)`$ , $`SO(10)`$ , $`SU(4)_c\times SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R`$ , etc.

Returning to our scheme, we attempt to obtain the bi-maximal texture (10) through $`𝒰(1)`$ flavor symmetry. For this, we will combine the two mechanisms for maximal mixing discussed above. Namely, the second and third lepton doublet states will have the same $`𝒰(1)`$ charges, which will lead to their large mixing. The state $`l_1`$ will have a suitable charge, one that ensures maximal $`\nu _1\nu _2`$ mixing.

Introducing two right handed $`𝒩_{1,2}`$ neutrino states and choosing $`𝒰(1)`$ charges as

$$Q_X=1,Q_{l_2}=Q_{l_3}=k,Q_{l_1}=k+n,Q_{h_u}=Q_{h_d}=0,$$

$$Q_{𝒩_1}=Q_{𝒩_2}=k+k^{},$$
(34)
with

$$k,n,k^{}>0,n\stackrel{>}{_{}}k^{},$$
(35)
the ‘Dirac’ and ‘Majorana’ couplings will have forms:

$$\begin{array}{cc}& \begin{array}{cc}𝒩_1& 𝒩_2\end{array}\\ \begin{array}{c}l_1\\ l_2\\ l_3\end{array}& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}ϵ^{2k+n+k^{}}& ϵ^{nk^{}}& \\ ϵ^{2k+k^{}}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}& \\ ϵ^{2k+k^{}}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}& \end{array}\right)h_u,\end{array}\begin{array}{cc}& \begin{array}{cc}𝒩_1& 𝒩_2\end{array}\\ \begin{array}{c}𝒩_1\\ 𝒩_2\end{array}& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}ϵ^{2(k+k^{})}& 1& \\ \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}& 0& \end{array}\right)M_𝒩,\end{array}.$$
(36)
After integrating out $`𝒩_{1,2}`$, we obtain the texture

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & \\ \begin{array}{c}\end{array}\widehat{M}_\nu & \left(\begin{array}{ccc}ϵ^n& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}\\ \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}\\ \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}\end{array}\right)m,m=\frac{ϵ^{2k+n}h_u^2}{M_𝒩},& \end{array}$$
(37)
which differs from (10) by a non-zero (1, 1) element. In (37) coefficients of order unity are assumed. The nonzero (1, 1) entry in (37) guarantees that $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{12}^20`$. Using (18) and (37) the oscillation parameters are:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2=m^210^3\mathrm{eV}^2,$$

$$𝒜(\nu _\mu \nu _\tau )1,$$
(38)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^22m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2ϵ^n,$$

$$𝒜(\nu _e\nu _{\mu ,\tau })=1𝒪(ϵ^{2n}).$$
(39)
Note, that the model does not constrain $`n`$ for the time being. So, LAMSW, LOW MSW and LAVO solutions for solar neutrinos, can be realized. With prescription (34), the expected contribution from the charged lepton sector to the angles $`\theta _{23}^l`$ and $`\theta _{12}^l`$ will be $`1`$ and $`ϵ^n`$ respectively. These do not change the form of $`V_\nu `$ in (17).

The $`𝒰(1)`$ charge selection in (34) nicely blends with the charged fermion sector. Indeed, considering the following prescription:

$$Q_{q_3}=0,Q_{q_2}=2,Q_{q_1}=3,Q_{d_3^c}=Q_{d_2^c}=p+k,$$

$$Q_{d_1^c}=p+k+2,Q_{u_3^c}=0,Q_{u_2^c}=1,Q_{u_1^c}=3,$$

$$Q_{e_3^c}=p,Q_{e_2^c}=p+2,Q_{e_1^c}=p+5n,$$
(40)
the structures of Yukawa matrices, for up-down quarks and charged leptons respectively:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& \begin{array}{ccc}u_1^c& u_2^c& u_3^c\end{array}& \\ \begin{array}{c}q_1\\ q_2\\ q_3\end{array}& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}ϵ^6& ϵ^4& ϵ^3\\ ϵ^5& ϵ^3& ϵ^2\\ ϵ^3& ϵ& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}\end{array}\right)h_u,& \end{array}$$
(41)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}& \begin{array}{ccc}d_1^c& d_2^c& d_3^c\end{array}& \\ \begin{array}{c}q_1\\ q_2\\ q_3\end{array}& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}ϵ^5& ϵ^3& ϵ^3\\ ϵ^4& ϵ^2& ϵ^2\\ ϵ^2& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}\end{array}\right)ϵ^{p+k}h_d,& \end{array}$$
(42)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}& \begin{array}{ccc}e_1^c& e_2^c& e_3^c\end{array}& \\ \begin{array}{c}l_1\\ l_2\\ l_3\end{array}& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}ϵ^5& ϵ^{n+2}& ϵ^n\\ ϵ^{5n}& ϵ^2& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}\\ ϵ^{5n}& ϵ^2& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}\end{array}\right)ϵ^{p+k}h_d.& \end{array}$$
(43)
Upon diagonalization of (41)-(43) it is easy to verify that the desired relations (1)-(4) for the Yukawa couplings and CKM matrix elements are realized. From (42), (43) we have

$$\mathrm{tan}\beta ϵ^{p+k}\frac{m_t}{m_b}.$$
(44)
As we previously mentioned, MSSM does not fix the values of $`n,k,p`$ in (34), (40). Because of this, the solar neutrino oscillation scenario is not specified. According to (39) there is possibility for all three: LAMSW, LOW MSW and LAVO solutions. Namely, for $`n=3`$ we have $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{12}^210^5\mathrm{eV}^2`$, which corresponds to LAMSW. $`n=6`$ give $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{12}^210^7\mathrm{eV}^2`$, which is the scale for LOW MSW, while $`n=10`$ generates the scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{12}^210^{10}\mathrm{eV}^2`$, corresponding to LAVO solution. It would be interesting to look for models/scenarios, which somehow fix the values of $`n,p,k`$, that dictate the solar neutrino oscillation scenario, Here we present two cases in which this happens.

Consider SUSY $`SU(5)`$ GUT. Its matter sector consists of $`10+\overline{5}`$ supermultiplets per generation. Due to these unified multiplets:

$$Q_q=Q_{e^c}=Q_{u^c}=Q_{10},Q_l=Q_{d^c}=Q_{\overline{5}}.$$
(45)
Hierarchies of the CKM matrix elements in (4) dictate the relative $`𝒰(1)`$ charges of the $`10`$-plets

$$Q_{10_3}=0,Q_{10_2}=2,Q_{10_1}=3,$$
(46)
while the Yukawa hierarchies (1)-(3), together with (46), require that

$$Q_{\overline{5}_3}=Q_{\overline{5}_2}=k,Q_{\overline{5}_1}=k+2.$$
(47)
Comparing (45)-(47) with (34), (40) we see that the minimal $`SU(5)`$ GUT fixes $`n`$ and $`p`$ as

$$n=2,p=0.$$
(48)
The mass squared splitting in (39) then equals $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{12}^210^4\mathrm{eV}^2`$, which is a reasonable scale for LAMSW scenario. Therefore, realisation of our bi-maximal mixing scenario in the framework of $`SU(5)`$ GUT dictates that the LAMSW scenario is responsible for the solar neutrino deficit. The same conclusion can be reached for $`SO(10)`$ GUT where we have three $`16`$-plets of the chiral supermultiplets which unify the quark-lepton superfields. We do not present the details here but refer the reader to , where an explicit $`SO(10)`$ model with anomalous $`𝒰(1)`$ flavor symmetry is considered for explanations of fermion masses, their mixings, as well as neutrino anomalies.

For our second example, we present a model in which anomalous flavor $`𝒰(1)`$ also mediates SUSY breaking . In this case soft masses ($`m_S`$), emerging through non-zero $`D_A`$-term, dominate over $`m_{3/2}`$ (gravitino mass). This fact can be used for natural suppression of FCNC through the so-called decoupling solution . The generated soft mass squared for the scalar component of superfield $`\varphi _a`$ is

$$m_{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_i}^2=m_S^2Q_a.$$
(49)
Therefore, sparticles with non-zero $`𝒰(1)`$ charges will be relatively heavy. A scale $`10`$ TeV is enough for adequate suppression of all FCNC processes . It turns out that in this scenario there also occurs suppression of dimension five nucleon decay . In  we presented a specific model of anomalous flavor $`𝒰(1)`$ mediated SUSY breaking. Suppressions of FCNC and $`d=5`$ nucleon decay were guaranteed through heavy ($`10`$ TeV) first and second sparticle generations (and also through heavy $`\stackrel{~}{b}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }`$, which require the low $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ regime).

In order to have possitive soft squared masses for squarks and sleptons, they should have charges $`Q_{\stackrel{~}{q},\stackrel{~}{l}}>0`$ \[see (49)\]. On the other hand, from (39), the realization of LAVO requires $`n=10`$, which for $`Q_{e^c}`$ gives a negative $`𝒰(1)`$ charge \[see (40). $`p+k\stackrel{<}{_{}}3`$, since $`10^2\stackrel{<}{_{}}\lambda _{b,\tau }\stackrel{<}{_{}}1`$\] and therefore negative $`m_{\stackrel{~}{e^c}}^2`$. However, the value $`n=3`$, which is needed for LAMSW, is possible. Also, the case $`n=6`$ is possible if $`p\stackrel{>}{_{}}1`$, in order to guarantee $`Q_{e^c}\stackrel{>}{_{}}0`$ in (40). This gives the LOW MSW solution. Note also, that in this particular case the value of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ in (44) is either intermediate or low. Therefore, the scenario in which anomalous flavor $`𝒰(1)`$ mediates SUSY breaking permits LAMSW and LOW MSW oscillations for solar neutrinos, but excludes LAVO even in the framework of MSSM.

As we have seen the texture (37) provides bi-maximal neutrino mixing. However, $`\widehat{M}_\nu `$ has the form (37) if we neglect renormalizations. In order for the analysis to be complete, we should take this into account. Crucial for this are the structures in (36), which are prescribed at scale $`M_X`$ ($`𝒰(1)`$ summetry breaking scale). In the ranges $`M_XM_𝒩`$ and $`M_𝒩M_Z`$, renormalization effects will occur and one has to make sure that the successful picture of bi-maximal mixing will not be spoiled. Let us now confirm that this is indeed the case here.

Between $`M_X`$ and $`M_𝒩`$ the states $`𝒩_{1,2}`$ are not decoupled and we have to renormalize the following couplings:

$$l\widehat{\lambda }_\nu 𝒩h_u+𝒩\widehat{M}𝒩.$$
(50)
Renormalization group equations (RGE) for the elements of $`\widehat{\lambda }_\nu `$ and $`\widehat{M}`$ respectively are:

$$16\pi ^2\frac{d\lambda _\nu ^{ij}}{dt}=\left(c_ag_a^2\lambda _\nu +2\lambda _\nu \lambda _\nu ^T\lambda _\nu +\lambda _e\lambda _e^T\lambda _\nu +3\mathrm{t}\mathrm{r}(\lambda _u\lambda _u^T)\lambda _\nu \right)^{ij},$$
(51)
$$16\pi ^2\frac{d}{dt}M^{ij}=\left(M\lambda _\nu ^T\lambda _\nu +\lambda _\nu ^T\lambda _\nu M\right)^{ij},$$
(52)
where $`t=\mathrm{ln}\mu `$ is a renormalization scale factor and $`g_a`$ ($`a=1,2,3`$) are the gauge couplings of $`U(1)_Y,SU(2)_L`$ and $`SU(3)_c`$ respectively. For MSSM $`c_a=(\frac{3}{5},3,0)`$.

We will work in a basis in which $`\widehat{\lambda }_e`$ is a diagonal. The lepton CKM matrix is then completely determined through the neutrino mixing matrix. In this basis, instead of (36), $`\widehat{\lambda }_\nu `$ has the form

$$\begin{array}{cc}\widehat{\lambda }_\nu =& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}ϵ^{2k+n+k^{}}& ϵ^{nk^{}}& \\ ϵ^{2k+k^{}}& ϵ^{2nk^{}}& \\ ϵ^{2k+k^{}}& ϵ^{2nk^{}}& \end{array}\right).\end{array}$$
(53)
It is easy to see that the non-zero but suppressed (2, 2) and (3, 2) entries in (53) do not change results. The important thing is that, after renormalization,

$$\delta _{2(3)}\frac{\lambda _\nu ^{22(32)}}{\lambda _\nu ^{12}}\stackrel{<}{_{}}ϵ^n.$$
(54)
Also, in the texture for $`𝒩_{1,2}`$ in (36), the elements $`M^{11}`$, $`M^{22}`$ must satisfy

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{1(2)}\frac{M^{11(22)}}{M^{12}}1.$$
(55)
At scale $`M_X`$ the conditions (54), (55) are guaranteed by $`𝒰(1)`$, and we have to make sure that $`\delta _2,\delta _3,\mathrm{\Delta }_1,\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$ do not get significant contributions from renormalizations. From (51), (52) the RGEs for $`\delta `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, to a good approximation, are:

$$16\pi ^2\frac{d\delta _2}{dt}(\lambda _\mu ^2+4ϵ^{4k+2k^{}})\delta _2+2ϵ^{4k+2k^{}+n},$$
(56)
$$16\pi ^2\frac{d\delta _3}{dt}(\lambda _\tau ^2+4ϵ^{4k+2k^{}})\delta _3+2ϵ^{4k+2k^{}+n},$$
(57)
$$16\pi ^2\frac{d\mathrm{\Delta }_1}{dt}(2ϵ^{4k+2k^{}}ϵ^{2n2k^{}})\mathrm{\Delta }_1+6ϵ^{2k+2n},$$
(58)
$$16\pi ^2\frac{d\mathrm{\Delta }_2}{dt}(ϵ^{2n2k^{}}2ϵ^{4k+2k^{}})\mathrm{\Delta }_2+6ϵ^{2k+2n}.$$
(59)
The approximate solutions of (56)-(59) are

$$\delta _2\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}[(\lambda _\mu ^2+4ϵ^{4k+2k^{}})\delta _2^0+2ϵ^{4k+2k^{}+n}]\mathrm{ln}\frac{M_𝒩}{M_X}+\delta _2^0\stackrel{<}{_{}}ϵ^n,$$
(60)
$$\delta _3\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}[(\lambda _\tau ^2+4ϵ^{4k+2k^{}})\delta _3^0+2ϵ^{4k+2k^{}+n}]\mathrm{ln}\frac{M_𝒩}{M_X}+\delta _3^0\stackrel{<}{_{}}ϵ^n,$$
(61)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }_1\mathrm{\Delta }_1^0+\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}[(2ϵ^{4k+2k^{}}ϵ^{2n2k^{}})\mathrm{\Delta }_1^0+6ϵ^{2k+2n}]\mathrm{ln}\frac{M_𝒩}{M_X},$$
(62)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }_2\frac{3}{8\pi ^2}ϵ^{2k+2n}\mathrm{ln}\frac{M_𝒩}{M_X},$$
(63)
where $`\delta ^0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }^0`$ denote their values at $`M_X`$, while $`\delta `$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in (60)-(63) are their values at $`M_𝒩`$ (at $`M_X`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2^0=0`$ due to $`𝒰(1)`$). Equations (60)-(63) convince us that down to scale $`M_𝒩`$, the conditions (54), (55) are easily satisfied even for $`M_X/M_𝒩10^{15}`$.

At scale $`M_𝒩`$ the states $`𝒩_{1,2}`$ decouple and $`\widehat{M}_\nu `$ is generated. Therefore, below $`M_𝒩`$ , $`\widehat{M}_\nu `$ will run through appropriate $`d=5`$ operators. The RGE for $`\widehat{M}_\nu `$ is:

$$16\pi ^2\frac{d}{dt}\widehat{M}_\nu =\overline{c}_ag_a^2\widehat{M}_\nu +\widehat{\lambda }_e\widehat{\lambda }_e^T\widehat{M}_\nu +\widehat{M}_\nu \widehat{\lambda }_e\widehat{\lambda }_e^T+6\mathrm{t}\mathrm{r}(\lambda _u^T\lambda _u)\widehat{M}_\nu ,$$
(64)
where $`\overline{c}_a=(\frac{6}{5},6,0)`$.

The important point is that in (37) the elements (1, 1) (2, 3), (3, 3), (2, 2)$`\stackrel{<}{_{}}mϵ^n`$. Using the notations

$$\frac{M_\nu ^{11}}{M_\nu ^{12}}=X_1,\frac{M_\nu ^{22}}{M_\nu ^{12}}=X_2,\frac{M_\nu ^{33}}{M_\nu ^{12}}=X_3,\frac{M_\nu ^{23}}{M_\nu ^{12}}=X_4,$$
(65)
the conditions

$$X_i\stackrel{<}{_{}}ϵ^n$$
(66)
must be satisfied at scale $`M_Z`$. If in (65) $`M_\nu ^{12}`$ will be replaced by $`M_\nu ^{13}`$, the conditions (66) will still occur, since we require that $`M_\nu ^{12}M_\nu ^{13}`$. Let us first demonstrate that the ratio $`M_\nu ^{12}/M_\nu ^{13}r`$ does not change significantly under renormalization. Using (64), the RGE for $`r`$:

$$16\pi ^2\frac{d\mathrm{ln}r}{dt}\lambda _\tau ^2,$$
(67)
with the approximate solution

$$rr^0(1\frac{\lambda _\tau ^2}{16\pi ^2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{M_Z}{M_𝒩})r^0,$$
(68)
where $`r`$ and $`r^0`$ are the values at scales $`M_𝒩`$ and $`M_Z`$ respectively. (68) demonstrates that the magnitude of $`r`$ is not significantly altered. The RGEs for $`X_i`$, to good approximations, are:

$$16\pi ^2\frac{d\mathrm{ln}X_1}{dt}\lambda _\mu ^2,16\pi ^2\frac{d\mathrm{ln}X_2}{dt}\lambda _\mu ^2,$$

$$16\pi ^2\frac{d\mathrm{ln}X_3}{dt}2\lambda _\tau ^2,16\pi ^2\frac{d\mathrm{ln}X_4}{dt}\lambda _\tau ^2,$$
(69)
with approximate solutions

$$X_{1(2)}X_{1(2)}^0\left(1\frac{\lambda _\mu ^2}{16\pi ^2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{M_Z}{M_𝒩}\right)X_{1(2)}^0,$$

$$X_3X_3^0\left(1+\frac{\lambda _\tau ^2}{8\pi ^2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{M_Z}{M_𝒩}\right)X_3^0,X_4X_4^0\left(1+\frac{\lambda _\tau ^2}{16\pi ^2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{M_Z}{M_𝒩}\right)X_4^0,$$
(70)
which demonstrates that the conditions in (66) are satisfied since $`X_i`$ is proportional to $`X_i^0`$, which does not exceed $`ϵ^n`$.

We therefore can conclude that renormalization effects do not significantly affect $`\widehat{M}_\nu `$ which has the desired form (37) at scale $`M_Z`$. Let us note that the papers in  investigate the influence of renormalizations on neutrino mixings and oscillations, while  present models with large neutrino mixings, that are stable against radiative corrections.

In conclusion, within MSSM and beyond we have addressed the problem of flavor and neutrino anomalies. For a simultaneous resolution an anomalous $`𝒰(1)`$ flavor symmetry was invoked. Bi-maximal neutrino mixing texture was generated and the observed hierarchies between charged fermion masses and their mixings were obtained. Renormalization group analysis shows that the bi-maximal neutrino mixing picture is stable against quantum corrections.

Z.T. would like to thank the Organizers of NATO 2000 meeting for warm hospitality at Cascais - Portugal and for their support.