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# On the 𝑟-mode spectrum of relativistic stars in the low-frequency approximation

## 1 Introduction

Immediately after the discovery of the $`r`$-modes being generically unstable with respect to gravitational-wave emission (Andersson 1998a; Friedman & Morsink 1998), it was suggested that they may cause the newly born neutron stars to spin down via the emission of gravitational waves (Lindblom, Owen & Morsink 1998; Andersson, Kokkotas & Schutz 1999). Because of their surprisingly fast growth times, $`r`$-modes should be able to slow down a hot and rapidly spinning newly born neutron star during the first months of its existence. There is also work suggesting that the $`r`$-mode instability might be relevant for old neutron stars in binary systems. This potential relevance for astrophysics has attracted the interest of both the relativity and the astrophysical community on various aspects of this subject. For an exhaustive upto-date review, see for instance Andersson & Kokkotas (2001) and Friedman & Lockitch (2001).

Most of the recent work on $`r`$-modes is based on Newtonian calculations under the assumption of slow rotation, and the effects of gravitational radiation are incorporated through the quadrupole formula. However, it is clear that for a complete and quantitatively correct understanding, one has to use the framework of general relativity. Still the slow-rotation approximation is well justified, since the angular velocity of even the fastest spinning known pulsar corresponds to a rotational expansion parameter of $`\epsilon =\mathrm{\Omega }/\sqrt{M/R^3}0.3`$. The full set of equations in the slow-rotation limit was first given by Chandrasekhar & Ferrari (1991) for the axisymmetric case, and by Kojima (1992) for the general case.

In the non-rotating case, the perturbation equations are decoupled with respect to the harmonic index $`l`$ and degenerate with respect to the azimuthal index $`m`$. Furthermore the oscillation modes can be split into two independent sets, which are characterized by their behaviour under parity transformation. The polar (or spheroidal) modes transform according to $`(1)^l`$, whereas the axial (or toroidal) modes according to $`(1)^{l+1}`$. For a non-rotating perfect fluid star, the only possible fluid oscillations are the spheroidal $`f`$\- and $`p`$-modes. For non-barotropic stars, i.e. stars with a temperature gradient or a composition gradient, there exists another family of modes, the $`g`$-modes, where the main restoring force is gravity. All axial perturbations of non-rotating perfect fluid stars have zero frequency, i.e. they represent stationary currents. In the non-barotropic case, this zero-frequency space consists only of the axial $`r`$-modes, while for barotropic stars 111Following Lockitch et al. (2001) we call a stellar model barotropic if the unperturbed configuration obeys the same one-parameter equation of state as the perturbed configuration., it also includes the polar $`g`$-modes, since they require a temperature gradient for their existence.

As the star is set into rotation, the picture changes. In the slow rotation approximation, the $`m`$-degeneracy is removed and the polar modes with index $`l`$ are coupled to the axial modes with indices $`l\pm 1`$ and vice versa. Furthermore, the rotation imparts a finite frequency to the zero-frequency perturbations of the non-rotating stars. In non-barotropic stars, those modes, whose restoring force is the Coriolis force, all have axial parity. However, as has been first pointed out in the Newtonian framework by Lockitch & Friedman (1999), for barotropic stars the rotationally restored (inertial) modes are generically hybrids, whose limit in the non-rotating case are mixtures of axial and polar perturbations.

If one focuses only on the $`r`$-mode, whose frequency is proportional to the star’s angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, one can order the perturbation variables in powers of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Kojima (1997, 1998) used this low-frequency approximation, sometimes also called slow-motion approximation (Schumaker & Thorne, 1983), to show that the purely axial modes of (non-barotropic) stellar models can be described by a single second-order ODE. This eigenvalue problem, however, proves to be singular, since it is possible for the highest derivate to vanish at some value of the radial coordinate inside the star. Kojima (1997,1998) then argued that this singular structure should give rise to a continuous spectrum. This has been put on a rigorous mathematical footing by Beyer & Kokkotas (1999). The appearance of a continuous spectrum can be explained as follows. It is well known that in the Newtonian limit, the eigenfrequency of the $`r`$-mode for an inertial observer is given by

$$\sigma _N=m\mathrm{\Omega }\left(1\frac{2}{l(l+1)}\right).$$
(1)
A first relativistic correction can be obtained by using the relativistic Cowling approximation, which consists in neglecting all metric perturbations. In this case, the only correction comes from the frame dragging $`\omega `$, which is a function of the radial coordinate $`r`$, thus leading to an $`r`$-dependent oscillation frequency of each fluid layer:

$$\sigma _C(r)=m\mathrm{\Omega }\left[1\frac{2}{l(l+1)}\left(1\frac{\omega (r)}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\right)\right].$$
(2)
Instead of a single frequency, there is now a continuous band of frequencies, whose boundaries are determined by the values of the frame dragging $`\omega (r)`$ at the centre and the surface of the star.

However, it has been pointed out (Beyer & Kokkotas 1999) that the existence of the continuous spectrum might be just an artefact of the too restricted low-frequency approximation. With the inclusion of gravitational radiation effects, the frequencies become complex-valued, thus potentially removing the singular structure of Kojima’s equation. But even in the case of real-valued frequencies, it has been recently shown by Lockitch, Andersson & Friedman (2001) that for a non-barotropic uniform density model, in addition to the continuous spectrum there also exists a single mode solution with the eigenfrequency lying outside the continuous band. It is this mode that represents the relativistic $`r`$-mode for non-barotropic stars.

In this paper, we extend the search of $`r`$-mode solutions to stars with various polytropic and realistic equations of state (EOS). We shall show that in addition to the continuous part, the eigenvalue equation always admits a single mode solution, at least for $`l=2`$. However, for some stellar models, depending on the polytropic index $`n`$ and on the compactness, the frequency of this solution lies inside the continuous band and is associated with a divergence in the fluid perturbation at the singular point. This is clearly not acceptable, and therefore we have to discard such solutions as being unphysical. As a logical consequence, we conclude that in those cases, there do not exist any $`r`$-modes, at least within the low-frequency approximation. In an independent work, Yoshida (2001) has come to a similar conclusion. He showed that even when studied in the post-Newtonian approximation, some polytropic models do not admit any $`r`$-modes.

For realistic EOS, the existence of $`r`$-modes depends on the average polytropic index of the high-density regime. For very stiff EOS, the neutron star models can exhibit $`r`$-modes throughout the complete physically acceptable mass range, whereas for the very soft EOS, none of the neutron star models does. For EOS in the intermediate range, the existence of $`r`$-modes depends on the compactness of the stellar model. In addition to the mode calculations, we also use the time depend form of the equations. For those cases where we can find a physical $`r`$-mode solution, the Fourier spectrum of the time evolution does indeed show a peak at the appropriate frequency, whereas for those cases where we only have the unphysical mode, it does not.

## 2 Mathematical formulation

Assuming that the star is slowly rotating with a uniform angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, we neglect all terms of order higher than $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. In this approximation, the star remains spherical, because the deformation due to centrifugal forces is of order $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$. Thus, the metric can be written in the form

$$ds_0^2=e^{2\nu }dt^2+e^{2\lambda }dr^2+r^2\left(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2\right)2\omega r^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta dtd\varphi ,$$
(3)
where $`\nu `$, $`\lambda `$ and the “frame dragging” $`\omega `$ are functions of the radial coordinate $`r`$ only. With the neutron star matter described by a perfect fluid with pressure $`p`$, energy density $`ϵ`$, and four-velocity

$$(u^t,u^r,u^\theta ,u^\varphi )=(e^\nu ,0,0,\mathrm{\Omega }e^\nu ),$$
(4)
the Einstein equations, together with a one-parameter equation of state $`p=p(ϵ)`$, yield the well-known TOV equations plus an extra equation for the function $`\varpi `$, defined as

$$\varpi :=\mathrm{\Omega }\omega .$$
(5)
To linear order, this equation is

$$\varpi ^{\prime \prime }\left(4\pi re^{2\lambda }(p+ϵ)\frac{4}{r}\right)\varpi ^{}16\pi e^{2\lambda }\left(p+ϵ\right)\varpi =0.$$
(6)
In the exterior, it reduces to

$$\varpi ^{\prime \prime }+\frac{4}{r}\varpi ^{}=0,$$
(7)
for which we have the solution (Hartle 1967)

$$\varpi =\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{2J}{r^3},$$
(8)
with $`J`$ being the total angular momentum of the neutron star. Equation (6) has to be integrated from the centre of the star to its surface $`R`$, where it has to match smoothly the exterior solution (8). With the angular momentum given by (Hartle 1967, Glendenning 1997)

$$J=\frac{8\pi }{3}_0^Rr^4e^{\lambda \nu }\left(p+ϵ\right)\varpi 𝑑r,$$
(9)
the matching condition becomes

$$R^4\varpi ^{}(R)=6J,$$
(10)
and with Eq. (8)

$$\varpi ^{}(R)=\frac{3}{R}(\mathrm{\Omega }\varpi (R)).$$
(11)
If we focus on pure axial perturbations, the perturbed metric can be written in the following form:

$$ds^2=ds_0^2+2\underset{l,m}{}\left(h_0^{lm}(t,r)dt+h_1^{lm}(t,r)dr\right)\left(\frac{_\varphi Y_{lm}}{\mathrm{sin}\theta }d\theta +\mathrm{sin}\theta _\theta Y_{lm}d\varphi \right),$$
(12)
where $`Y_{lm}=Y_{lm}(\theta ,\varphi )`$ denote the scalar spherical harmonics. In addition, the axial component of the fluid velocity perturbation can be expanded as

$$4\pi (p+ϵ)(\delta u^\theta ,\delta u^\varphi )=e^\nu \underset{l,m}{}U^{lm}(t,r)(\frac{_\varphi Y_{lm}}{\mathrm{sin}\theta },\mathrm{sin}\theta _\theta Y_{lm}).$$
(13)
Einstein’s field equations then reduce to four equations for the three variables $`h_0^{lm}`$, $`h_1^{lm}`$ and $`U^{lm}`$ (Kojima 1992).

As an alternative, we can use the ADM-formalism (Arnowitt, Deser & Misner 1962) to derive the evolution equations for the axial perturbations. The usefulness of this formalism for the perturbation equations of non-rotating neutron stars has been showed in Ruoff (2001). This formalism can be taken over to rotating stars and we can deduce equations describing the evolution of purely axial oscillations of slowly rotating neutron stars in terms of metric and extrinsic curvature variables. We should mention that our derivation starts with the complete set of perturbations, including both polar and axial perturbations. Only at the end do we neglect the coupling between the two parities and focus only on the axial equations. In the Regge-Wheeler gauge, there are just 2 non-vanishing axial metric perturbations and 2 axial extrinsic curvature components. In the notation of Ruoff (2001), they metric components are given by

$`(\beta _\theta ,\beta _\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\nu \lambda }{\displaystyle \underset{l,m}{}}K_6^{lm}({\displaystyle \frac{_\varphi Y_{lm}}{\mathrm{sin}\theta }},\mathrm{sin}\theta _\theta Y_{lm}),`$ (14)
$`(h_{r\theta },h_{r\varphi })`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\lambda \nu }{\displaystyle \underset{l,m}{}}V_4^{lm}({\displaystyle \frac{_\varphi Y_{lm}}{\mathrm{sin}\theta }},\mathrm{sin}\theta _\theta Y_{lm}),`$ (15)
and the extrinsic curvature components read

$`(k_{r\theta },k_{r\varphi })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^\lambda {\displaystyle \underset{l,m}{}}K_3^{lm}({\displaystyle \frac{_\varphi Y_{lm}}{\mathrm{sin}\theta }},\mathrm{sin}\theta _\theta Y_{lm}),`$ (16)
$`\left(\begin{array}{cc}k_{\theta \theta }& k_{\theta \varphi }\\ k_{\varphi \theta }& k_{\varphi \varphi }\end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^\lambda {\displaystyle \underset{l,m}{}}K_6^{lm}\mathrm{sin}\theta \left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{sin}\theta ^2X_{lm}& W_{lm}\\ W_{lm}& X_{lm}\end{array}\right),`$ (21)
where $`W_{lm}`$ and $`X_{lm}`$ are abbreviations for

$`W_{lm}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(_\theta ^2+l(l+1)\right)Y_{lm},`$ (22)
$`X_{lm}`$ $`=`$ $`2\left(_\theta \mathrm{cot}\theta \right)_\varphi Y_{lm}.`$ (23)
For the fluid velocity perturbation, we use the covariant form

$$(\delta u_\theta ,\delta u_\varphi )=e^\lambda \underset{l,m}{}u_3^{lm}(t,r)(\frac{_\varphi Y_{lm}}{\mathrm{sin}\theta },\mathrm{sin}\theta _\theta Y_{lm}).$$
(24)
The relation to the expansions (12) and (13) is given by (from now on we omit the indices $`l`$ and $`m`$):

$`h_0`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\nu \lambda }K_6,`$ (25)
$`h_1`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\lambda \nu }V_4,`$ (26)
$`U`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi e^{\lambda \nu }(p+ϵ)\left(u_3K_6\right).`$ (27)
We obtain the following quite simple set of evolution equations for the variables $`V_4`$, $`K_3`$, $`K_6`$ and $`u_3`$:

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}+\text{i}m\omega \right)V_4`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2\nu 2\lambda }\left[K_6^{}+\left(\nu ^{}\lambda ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{r}}\right)K_6e^{2\lambda }K_3\right],`$ (28)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}+\text{i}m\omega \right)K_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{l(l+1)2}{r^2}}V_4+{\displaystyle \frac{2\text{i}m}{l(l+1)}}\omega ^{}e^{2\lambda }K_6,`$ (29)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}+\text{i}m\omega \right)K_6`$ $`=`$ $`V_4^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\text{i}mr^2}{l(l+1)}}\left[\omega ^{}K_316\pi (\mathrm{\Omega }\omega )(p+ϵ)u_3\right],`$ (30)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}+\text{i}m\mathrm{\Omega }\right)u_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\text{i}m(\mathrm{\Omega }\omega )}{l(l+1)}}\left(u_3K_6\right).`$ (31)
Furthermore, we have one momentum constraint:

$$16\pi (p+ϵ)u_3=K_3^{}+\frac{2}{r}K_3\frac{l(l+1)2}{r^2}K_6\frac{2\text{i}m\omega ^{}}{l(l+1)}e^{2\nu }V_4.$$
(32)
These equations are completely equivalent to the axial parts of Eqs. (20), (24), (25) and (27) of Kojima (1992) when the coupling to the polar equations is neglected.

## 3 Low-frequency approximation

The above evolution equations should not only describe the $`r`$-modes but also the axial $`w`$-modes, which have much higher oscillation frequencies. If we want to focus on the $`r`$-modes only, we can use the fact that from Eq. (1), it follows that the $`r`$-mode frequency $`\sigma `$ is proportional to the star’s angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Hence, we can require that in our evolution equations (28) – (31), the time derivative $`_t`$ be proportional to the $`r`$-mode frequency $`\sigma `$ or, equivalently, to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (Kojima 1997, 1998). In this case, we can order the perturbation variables in powers of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (Lockitch et al. 2001) as

$`u_3,K_3,K_6`$ $``$ $`O(1),`$
$`V_4`$ $``$ $`O(\mathrm{\Omega }).`$ (33)
Keeping only the lowest order terms, we can neglect terms proportional to $`V_4`$ in the evolution equation (28) and in the constraint (32), which then read

$`K_6^{}+\left(\nu ^{}\lambda ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{r}}\right)K_6e^{2\lambda }K_3`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (34)
$`K_3^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{r}}K_3{\displaystyle \frac{l(l+1)2}{r^2}}K_6`$ $`=`$ $`16\pi (p+ϵ)u_3.`$ (35)
These can be easily combined to give a single second-order differential equation for $`K_6`$. However, it is more convenient to write this equation in terms of the variable $`h_0=e^{\nu \lambda }K_6`$:

$$e^{2\lambda }h_0^{\prime \prime }4\pi r(p+ϵ)h_0^{}+\left[8\pi (p+ϵ)+\frac{4M}{r^3}\frac{l(l+1)}{r^2}\right]h_0=16\pi e^{\nu \lambda }(p+ϵ)u_3,$$
(36)
together with the evolution equation for $`u_3`$

$$\frac{}{t}u_3=\text{i}m\left[\mathrm{\Omega }u_3+\frac{2\varpi }{l(l+1)}\left(e^{\lambda \nu }h_0u_3\right)\right].$$
(37)
At this point, it is worth making some comments on this approximation. The full set of axial equations (28) – (31) is a hyperbolic system describing the propagation of gravitational waves, which are excited on the one hand by the fluid motion ($`r`$-modes) and on the other hand by the curvature of spacetime itself ($`w`$-modes). With the above approximation, we have completely suppressed the wave propagation, and the resulting equations now correspond to a Newtonian-like picture, where the fluid oscillations are acting as a source in the equation of the gravitational field. As now being described by a Poisson-like elliptic equation, implying an infinite propagation speed, the gravitational field $`h_0`$ reacts instantaneously on any changes in the source $`u_3`$. Of course, this picture is only an analogy, since the metric variable $`h_0`$ corresponds to a post-Newtonian correction of the gravitational field and vanishes completely in the Newtonian limit.

Furthermore our derivation of this approximation is only valid for non-barotropic stars. This is because in general we cannot start from decoupling the polar and axial equations in the first step as we did. Instead, when we apply the low-frequency approximation, we actually have to start from the full coupled system of equations, including both polar and axial perturbations. If we then do the same ordering in powers of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, we also would have some polar variables of order $`O(1)`$, namely the remaining two fluid velocity components, coming from $`\delta u_r`$ and the polar part of the angular components $`(\delta u_\theta ,\delta u_\varphi )`$, and the $`(rt)`$ component of the metric, usually denoted by $`H_1`$. It turns out that the polar constraint equations can be combined to give a single constraint for $`H_1`$, which can be reduced to

$$\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Gamma }_1\right)H_1=0,$$
(38)
with

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=\frac{p+ϵ}{p}\frac{dp}{dϵ}$$
(39)
the adiabatic index corresponding to the unperturbed configuration and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ the adiabatic index of the perturbed configuration, which in general differs from $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. This is the case for non-barotropic stellar models, and Eq. (38) can only be satisfied if $`H_1`$ vanishes. But this automatically implies that the polar fluid perturbations vanish, too, leaving thus only the axial equations, given above. In the barotropic case, it is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ and the constraint for $`H_1`$ is trivially satisfied, even for nonzero $`H_1`$. But this has as a consequence that the coupling between the polar and axial mode cannot be neglected, which means that there cannot exist pure axial mode solutions, since any kind of pure axial initial data will through the coupling automatically induce polar fluid oscillations. Hence, our analysis is strictly valid only for non-barotropic stellar models.

As a further approximation, we could completely neglect all the metric perturbations. With this so-called relativistic Cowling approximation, we would be left with a single evolution equation for the fluid variable $`u_3`$:

$$\frac{}{t}u_3=im\left(\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{2\varpi }{l(l+1)}\right)u_3.$$
(40)
From this equation we can immediately deduce that the various fluid layers are decoupled from each other, which means that each layer has its own real oscillation frequency given by

$$\sigma =m\left(\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{2\varpi }{l(l+1)}\right).$$
(41)
In the Newtonian limit $`(\varpi \mathrm{\Omega })`$, this reduces to the well known result for the frequency of the $`r`$-mode given in Eq. (1). It should be pointed out that in the relativistic case, the presence of the frame dragging $`\omega `$ destroys the occurrence of a single mode frequency and gives rise to a continuous spectrum, at least to this order of approximation. Of course, it has been argued that this might be a pure artefact of the approximation, and the continuous spectrum may disappear as soon as certain approximations are relaxed.

Let us therefore return to the low-frequency approximation, which is less restricted than the Cowling approximation, and see whether or not we can find real mode solutions. To this end, we assume our variables to have a harmonic time dependence

$`u_3(t,r)=u_3(r)e^{i\sigma t},`$ (42)
$`h_0(t,r)=h_0(r)e^{i\sigma t}.`$ (43)
Note that for the sake of notational simplicity, we do not explicitely distinguish between the time dependent and time independent form of the variables. With this ansatz, we assume the $`r`$-mode frequency $`\sigma `$ to be positive for positive values of $`m`$ in contrast to the definitions in Eqs. (41) and (1). From Eq. (37) we find that

$$u_3=\frac{2m\varpi }{2m\varpi +l(l+1)(\sigma m\mathrm{\Omega })}e^{\lambda \nu }h_0,$$
(44)
which can be used to eliminate $`u_3`$ in Eq. (36), yielding

$$\left(\sigma m\mathrm{\Omega }+\frac{2m\varpi }{l(l+1)}\right)\left[e^{2\lambda }h_0^{\prime \prime }4\pi r(p+ϵ)h_0^{}\left(8\pi (p+ϵ)\frac{4M}{r^3}+\frac{l(l+1)}{r^2}\right)h_0\right]+16\pi (p+ϵ)(\sigma m\mathrm{\Omega })h_0=0.$$
(45)
With appropriate boundary conditions, this equation represents an eigenvalue problem which should yield one, or possibly several, distinct eigenmodes. However, as was at first pointed out by Kojima (1997,1998), it might occur that the denominator in Eq. (44) can become zero at some point inside the star, and the resulting eigenvalue problem becomes singular at this point. If the zero of the denominator lies outside the star, the eigenvalue problem is regular, since outside $`u_3=0`$ and Eq. (36) can be directly solved without using Eq. (44). The zeroes of the denominator occur if the frequency $`\sigma `$ lies in an interval determined by the values of $`\varpi `$ at the centre and the surface, which we denote by $`\varpi _c`$ and $`\varpi _s`$, respectively:

$$m\mathrm{\Omega }\left(1\frac{2\varpi _s}{\mathrm{\Omega }l(l+1)}\right)<\sigma <m\mathrm{\Omega }\left(1\frac{2\varpi _c}{\mathrm{\Omega }l(l+1)}\right).$$
(46)
By comparison with similar results from fluid dynamics, Kojima concluded that this equation should have a continuous spectrum with the frequency range given by (46). This was put on a rigorous mathematical footing by Beyer & Kokkotas (1999). However, they could not exclude that there might not exist additional isolated eigenvalues, which would correspond to true mode solutions.

We will now show that there actually exist such solutions, even though in some cases they are unphysical since the corresponding fluid perturbations would be divergent at the singular point. To make things look simpler, we can rescale Eq. (45) and make it independent of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`m`$. Following Lockitch et al. (2001), we introduce a normalized frequency

$$\alpha =\frac{1}{2}l(l+1)\left(1\frac{\sigma }{m\mathrm{\Omega }}\right)$$
(47)
and rewrite Eq. (45) as

$$\left(\alpha \widehat{\varpi }\right)\left[e^{2\lambda }h_0^{\prime \prime }4\pi r(p+ϵ)h_0^{}\left(8\pi (p+ϵ)\frac{4M}{r^3}+\frac{l(l+1)}{r^2}\right)h_0\right]+16\pi (p+ϵ)\alpha h_0=0,$$
(48)
where

$$\widehat{\varpi }:=\varpi /\mathrm{\Omega }.$$
(49)
Equation (44) then reads

$$u_3=\frac{\widehat{\varpi }}{\widehat{\varpi }\alpha }e^{\lambda \nu }h_0.$$
(50)
Equation (48) becomes singular if $`\alpha `$ lies in the interval limited by the values of $`\widehat{\varpi }`$ at the centre and at the surface of the star, i.e. if

$$\widehat{\varpi }_c<\alpha <\widehat{\varpi }_s.$$
(51)
For a solution to be acceptable, it must be regular at the origin, which amounts to $`h_0(0)=0`$, and it must vanish at infinity. As already mentioned above the integration of Eq. (45) is straightforward, if the singular point lies outside the star. It is only when the singular point lies inside the star that some care has to be taken.

Let us now assume the singular point $`r=r_0`$ lie inside the star. An analysis of Eq. (45) (Andersson 1998b) shows that the singular point is a regular singularity, which admits a Frobenius expansion of the form

$`h_0(rr_0)`$ $`=`$ $`A\left(a_1(rr_0)+a_2(rr_0)^2+\mathrm{}\right)+`$ (52)
$`B\left[\left(a_1(rr_0)+a_2(rr_0)^2+\mathrm{}\right)\mathrm{ln}|rr_0|+b_0+b_1(rr_0)+b_2(rr_0)^2+\mathrm{}\right].`$
Even though the solution is finite and smooth at the singular point $`r=r_0`$, its derivative diverges, because of the logarithmic term. Moreover, if we want to compute the associated velocity component $`u_3`$, we find that unless $`h_0(r=r_0)=0`$, it will blow up at the singular point $`r=r_0`$. Therefore, we conclude that the coefficient $`B`$ has to vanish in order to obtain a physical solution and we are only left with the first power series starting with the linear term $`a_1(rr_0)`$. This yields vanishing $`h_0`$ at $`r=r_0`$ and therefore $`u_3`$ can be finite at this point. The question is whether there are solutions satisfying both $`h_0(r=r_0)=0`$ and the appropriate boundary conditions at the centre and at infinity. We will now show that this cannot be the case.

Suppose that $`h_0(r=r_0)=0`$ and $`h_0^{}(r=r_0)>0`$. We can then integrate Eq. (45) from $`r_0`$ to $`r>r_0`$:

$$h_0^{}(r)=h_0^{}(r_0)+_{r_0}^re^{2\lambda }\left[4\pi r(p+ϵ)h_0^{}+\left(8\pi (p+ϵ)\frac{4M}{r^3}+\frac{l(l+1)}{r^2}\right)h_0+16\pi (p+ϵ)\frac{\alpha }{\widehat{\varpi }\alpha }h_0\right]𝑑r,$$
(53)
Since it is $`\varpi \alpha >0`$ for $`r>r_0`$, each coefficient in the integral is strictly positive, hence we will have $`h_0^{}(r)>0`$ for all $`r>r_0`$; i.e. $`h_0`$ keeps increasing as $`r\mathrm{}`$, which is clearly incompatible with our requirement that $`h_0`$ vanish at infinity. Of course, the same argument holds if $`h_0^{}<0`$ at $`r=r_0`$, with $`h_0`$ keeping decreasing. Hence, it follows that $`h_0(r=r_0)0`$, but this means that we cannot have a vanishing coefficient $`B`$. Therefore, our solution will always contain the logarithmic term, which means that the associated velocity perturbation $`u_3`$ is divergent at this point. This is clearly unphysical. We thus conclude that it is in principle possible to find eigensolutions to Eq. (48), however, if the associated eigenfrequencies lie inside the continuous band, the solutions become singular and have to be discarded on physical grounds.

It has been shown by Lockitch et al. (2001) that for the existence of mode solutions, the allowed range of the eigenvalues $`\alpha `$ is bounded from below by $`\widehat{\varpi }_c`$:

$$\widehat{\varpi }_c\alpha 1.$$
(54)
However, based on our above argumentation, we can further restrict this interval for the physically allowed eigenmodes to have as lower limit the value of $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$:

$$\widehat{\varpi }_s<\alpha 1.$$
(55)
## 4 Numerical results

The numerical integration of Eq. (48) can be easily accomplished if the singular point lies outside the star, since in the exterior $`u_3=0`$ and we can therefore use the non-singular Eq. (36) for the integration toward the outer boundary. If the singular point lies inside the star, we initiate our integration with a regular solution at the origin and integrate outward close to the singular point, where we match the solution to the expansion (52), i.e. we compute the leading coefficients $`b_0`$ and $`a_1`$. This gives us the new starting values to the right of the singular point and we can continue the integration up to a finite point outside the star, where we test if the solution satisfies the correct boundary condition. We mention again that for the integration outside the star we take the non-singular Eq. (36), with $`u_3`$ set to zero.

We have performed mode calculations for sequences of uniform density and polytropic stars. For the uniform density models, the eigenfrequency $`\alpha `$ always lies outside the range of the continuous spectrum and therefore the associated eigenfunctions do not exhibit any singularities. In Fig. 1, we show the normalized eigenvalues $`\alpha `$ for $`l=2`$ as a function of the compactness $`M/R`$ together with $`\widehat{\varpi }_c`$ and $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$, marking the boundaries of the continuous spectrum. For larger $`l`$ (not shown), the eigenvalues $`\alpha `$ decrease and converge to $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$, but stay always above $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$. 222 Note that in Table 1 of Lockitch et al. (2001), there is a systematic error in their given values of $`\alpha `$, which are too large by about 5 per cent. This might be a consequence of a misprint in their Eqs. (5.2), (5.4) and (5.7), where the terms $`\left(12M_0/R\right)^{1/2}`$ and $`\left(12M_0/R\left(r/R\right)^2\right)^{1/2}`$ got confused. In Fig. 2, we show the eigenfunctions $`h_0`$ and $`u_3`$ for a uniform density model with a compactness of $`M/R=0.153`$ and corresponding mode frequency $`\alpha =0.89806`$. Close to the centre of the star, the fluid perturbation $`u_3`$ is proportional to $`r^{l+1}`$, but as it approaches the stellar surface, it grows much stronger, which comes from the denominator in Eq. (50) becoming very small.

### 4.1 Polytropic models

For polytropic models, obeying an equation of state of the form

$$p=\kappa ϵ^{1+1/n}$$
(56)
with polytropic index $`n`$, we obtain a quite different picture. For a polytropic index $`n=1`$, as it is for instance shown in Fig. 3, it is only for the less compact stellar models that the eigenfrequencies $`\alpha `$ lie outside the continuous spectrum and therefore represent physical mode solutions. However, they are already that close to the upper boundary of the continuous spectrum $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$ that in Fig. 3 they cannot be distinguished any more. For more compact models, the eigenfrequency eventually moves inside the domain of the continuous spectrum, which means that the singular point now lies inside the star. This happens for a compactness of about $`M/R0.085`$. As discussed above, at the singular point the mode solution for $`h_0`$ exhibits an infinite slope and the associated fluid perturbation $`u_3`$ diverges. Therefore, we have to discard them as being unphysical mode solutions. In Table 1, we have listed some polytropic models with their physical parameters and the eigenvalues $`\alpha `$ for $`l=2`$ and $`l=3`$. The frequencies which are marked by an asterisk lie inside the continuous band and therefore correspond to unphysical mode solutions. For $`l=2`$, only models 1 and 2 permit physical modes, whereas for $`l=3`$, the modes are unphysical for all the stellar models. We should also mention that all our values are in perfect agreement with those previously obtained by Andersson (1998b).

To assess how the existence of a physical mode solution depends on the polytropic index $`n`$, we have computed modes for stellar models with fixed compactness $`M/R`$ but with different values of $`n`$, ranging from 0 to 1.5. The results are depicted in Fig. 4, where we show $`\alpha `$ as a function of $`n`$ for $`l=2`$. For small values of $`n`$, i.e. for stiff equations of state, the mode eigenfrequency lies outside the range of the continuous spectrum. But as $`n`$ is increased, what corresponds to softening the equation of state, the mode frequency eventually crosses the boundary and migrates inside the continuous spectrum. This happens at $`n0.8`$, but for larger values of $`l`$, the transition point moves to smaller values of $`n`$. Actually, it is not the mode frequency $`\alpha `$ which moves towards the boundary of the continuous spectrum $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$ as $`n`$ is increased, it is rather the boundaries of the continuous spectrum which start to expand, and $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$ approaches the mode frequency $`\alpha `$, which more or less hovers at a constant value. For $`n=0`$, the uniform density models, the range of the continuous spectrum (the shaded area in Fig. 4) is the smallest, and probably it is only in this case that one can find eigenvalues for quite large $`l`$, if not for all $`l`$. We should also mention that for each polytropic model, there seems to exist a maximal value of $`l`$, beyond which there are neither physical nor unphysical mode solutions. The frequency $`\alpha `$ of the unphysical mode solution quickly approaches $`\widehat{\varpi }_c`$ as $`l`$ is continuously increased. For $`l`$ larger than the critical value, where $`\alpha (l)=\widehat{\varpi }_c`$, we could not find any mode solution at all. For the $`n=1`$ models of Table 1, this happens already for $`l=4`$.

To check and corroborate our above results, we also numerically evolved the time dependent equations (36) and (37) and took Fourier transforms of the resulting evolution. For initial data representing the physical mode solution of Fig. 2, the time evolution indeed gives a single frequency signal at each point inside and outside the star. In this case, there is no sign of a continuous spectrum at all, and all the fluid layers oscillate in a uniform manner. This is shown in Fig. 5, where for both the fluid variable $`u_3`$ (left panel) and the metric variable $`h_0`$ (right panel), there is one single peak, which is independent of the location $`r`$.

If we now choose arbitrary initial data, as for instance in Fig. 6, we expect the power spectrum at a given location $`r`$ to consist of two peaks: One which is independent of the location inside the star and represents the eigenmode, and another peak which varies between the boundaries determined by $`\widehat{\varpi }_c`$ and $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$ as one moves throughout the star. This is how the continuous spectrum should show up in the Fourier transform. For the fluid variable $`u_3`$, the power spectrum of the evolution indeed confirms our expectations, as is shown in the left panel of Fig. 7.

However, the spectra of $`h_0`$ show that for locations closer to the stellar surface, the peaks corresponding to the continuous spectrum are smaller by several orders of magnitudes compared to the peak representing the eigenmode. For $`u_3`$, the peaks are of the same order of magnitude. And outside the star, $`h_0`$ shows only the eigenmode peak, and no sign of the presence of the continuous spectrum, which should reveal itself as a superposition of all the frequencies in the range between $`\widehat{\varpi }_c`$ and $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$. In therefore seems to be invisible for an external observer. We should note that those spectra are taken after a certain initial time, in which the system adjusts itself. If we had taken the Fourier transform right from $`t=0`$, we would have obtained a clear sign of the continuous spectrum.

Let us now turn or attention to the polytropic cases, where we can have unphysical mode solutions. We will present evolution runs for the stellar models 1 and 5 from Table 1 with $`l=2`$. For model 1, the singular point lies outside the stellar surface and therefore there exists a physical mode solution. For model 5, the singular point lies inside the star, hence $`\alpha <\widehat{\varpi }_s`$ and the associated eigensolution is unphysical. It should be noted that this model is also unstable with respect to radial collapse.

For model 1, the physical mode solution can be used as initial data. As for the uniform density case, the numerical evolution of such data yields a purely sinusoidal oscillation with the expected $`r`$-mode frequency $`\alpha `$. Therefore, the corresponding power spectrum is similar to Fig. 5. For arbitrary initial data, we obtain a picture similar to Fig. 7. Note, that the values of $`\alpha `$ and $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$ differ only by about 0.01 per cent. Still, with a high resolution run we can numerically distinguish these values, as is shown in Fig. 8. Here, we plot the power spectra of $`h_0(t)`$ and $`u_3(t)`$ taken at the stellar surface. The spectrum of $`h_0`$ shows one single peak at the eigenfrequency $`\alpha `$, whereas $`u_3`$ shows two peaks at $`\alpha `$ and $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$.

For model 5, things are quite different. Here, we cannot evolve initial data representing the unphysical mode solutions because the fluid perturbation would diverge at the singular point. Yet, if this solution still had some physical relevance, then arbitrary initial data should be able to excite this mode, and the power spectrum of the time evolution should show a peak at the corresponding frequency. However, this is clearly not the case, as can be seen in Fig. 9, where we show the late time power spectra of the time evolution of $`u_3`$ (left panel) and $`h_0`$ (right panel) for model 5. For the fluid variable $`u_3`$, there is always one single peak, which varies for different locations $`r`$ between the boundaries $`\widehat{\varpi }_c`$ and $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$. There is not even the slightest trace of a common peak at the expected value of $`\alpha =0.52932`$.

For the metric variable $`h_0`$ (right panel), we essentially observe the same picture. Here, too, no common peak can be found at the expected mode frequency $`\alpha `$, but curiously there is nevertheless an additional common peak for all locations with its frequency given exactly by $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$. However, this peak does not show up in the power spectrum of $`u_3`$, except, of course, directly at the surface.

It is obvious that it cannot be a mode solution, since first of all the eigenvalue code does not give a solution for this particular frequency $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$ or even in the close vicinity. Moreover, the time evolution shows a quite different behaviour compared to the case where a physical $`r`$-mode exists. In Fig. 10, we plot the time evolutions of $`h_0`$ outside the star for models 1 and 5 of Table 1. For model 1, where we have a physical $`r`$-mode, after some initial time the amplitude remains constant, whereas for model 5 the amplitude keeps decreasing with time and in this case fits very well a power law with an exponent of -2. For model 1, the dominant oscillation frequency is the corresponding $`r`$-mode frequency $`\alpha `$, whereas for model 5 it is given by $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$. In both cases, the amplitude of the fluid perturbation $`u_3`$ remains constant after some initial time. It now becomes clear, why we cannot observe the common peak at $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$ in the fluid spectrum. The spectra are taken at late times, where the amplitude of $`h_0`$ and therewith its influence on $`u_3`$ has considerably decreased. If we had taken the spectra at earlier times, we could observe a similar peak in the fluid spectrum, as well.

We have no clear explanation what causes this additional peak, but we suppose that it comes from the behaviour of the energy density $`ϵ`$ at the surface. The peak is much more pronounced for polytropes with $`n<1`$, since there the energy density $`ϵ`$ has an infinite slope at the surface. For $`n=1`$, the slope $`ϵ^{}`$ is finite and for $`n>1`$, it is zero. In the latter case, the peak is strongly suppressed. Even for uniform density models, one can observe this additional peak, arising because of the discontinuity of the energy density at the surface. However, this peak is several orders of magnitudes smaller than the peak corresponding to the eigenmode, which is always present for uniform density models, and therefore hard to detect.

It is instructive to compare the evolution of the same initial fluid perturbation for a uniform density model and a polytropic model, having the same compactness but without the latter admitting a mode solution. Since in the low-frequency approximation, there is no radiation which can dissipate the energy of the fluid, the total energy of the system should be conserved. However, we have observed that in the polytropic case the amplitude of $`h_0`$ is constantly decreasing, hence its initial energy has to be transferred to the fluid, whereas in the uniform density model, the energy should be shared between $`u_3`$ and $`h_0`$. This is indeed, what can be observed. In the uniform density case, the fluid amplitude does not change too much, but in the polytropic case, it shows a quite strong initial growth, accompanied by the strong decrease of $`h_0`$.

### 4.2 Realistic Equations of State

Having found that for a quite large range of polytropic stellar models, there do not exist any physical $`r`$-modes, an obvious question is, whether or not realistic equations of state do admit physical mode solutions. To give an answer, we have investigated the collection of realistic equations of state which have been studied by Kokkotas & Ruoff (2001) for the radial modes. The relevant notations, references and data of the stellar models can be found in there.

The results are quite unexpected and seemingly contradictory. When trying to compute the modes through Eq. (48), we find that for all the equations of state, the frequencies always lie inside the continuous band. Based on our above discussion, we therefore would have to discard them as being unphysical. It then would seem that none of the existing realistic EOS admits an $`r`$-mode, at least in the physically relevant range from about one solar mass up to the stability limit of each EOS. The surprise is now that the time evolution does show a quite different picture. Only for the EOS B (Pandharipande, 1971), G (Canuto & Chitre, 1974) and MPA (Wu et al., 1991) do the evolutions meet our expectations and show the continuous decrease in the amplitude of the metric variable $`h_0`$, in accordance with the polytropic cases without $`r`$-modes. However, for all other EOS, the amplitude remains constant after a while, indicating that there is indeed a mode present. Only when approaching their respective stability limit do some EOS show a decay of the amplitude of $`h_0`$. When obtaining the frequency through Fourier transformation, we find that it always lies inside the continuous spectrum, however, it does not coincide with the frequency found from the mode calculation. Instead, the frequency is in all cases given by the value of $`\widehat{\varpi }`$ close to the neutron drip point.

How can we explain this discrepancy with our previous considerations? First, we would like to stress that it is not a numerical artefact of the time evolution, for convergence tests corroborate the presence of this mode. When examining the different EOS, we find that the EOS B, G and MPA are the softest ones, with a maximal polytropic index in the high density regime around $`n=0.8`$. All others have indices less than 0.8, going down to $`n0.5`$ for the EOS I (Cohen et al. 1970) and L (Pandharipande et al. 1976). From Fig. 4, it becomes clear that it is just for polytropic models with $`n0.8`$ that the eigenvalue migrates inside the continuous band, and the $`r`$-mode therefore ceases to exist. For models with $`n<0.8`$, we usually can find a physical $`r`$-mode, but this depends on the compactness of the model under consideration.

At a density of $`10^{14}`$g/cm3, the effective polytropic index of any EOS is given by $`n2`$. As the EOS is approaching the neutron drip point at a density of $`ϵ4\times 10^{11}`$g/cm3, the EOS becomes softer and softer, i.e. $`n`$ increases even further. Only for densities below the neutron drip point does the EOS stiffen again. This structure of the EOS is responsible of putting a low density layer (the crust) around the high density core. However, because of its low density compared to the core, this layer practically does not contribute to the total mass, its only effect is to slightly increase the radius of the neutron star. Thus, whether or not the EOS admits a mode, should be determined solely by the core. To assess this proposition, we can do the following. We replace the whole part of the EOS below $`10^{14}`$g/cm3 by a smooth polytropic EOS with polytropic index of $`n=2`$. By doing so, we obtain a model with practically the same mass, but a somewhat smaller radius. Computing the modes of the thus modified model, we find that the $`r`$-mode frequencies $`\alpha `$ actually do lie outside the continuous spectrum, if the average polytropic index of the core is less than 0.8, and the model is not too compact. However, $`\alpha `$ lies extremely close to the value of $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$. For softer EOS with an average index of $`n0.8`$, we still would not be able to find any physical modes. If we now go back and restore the outer layer, the $`r`$-mode frequency should not significantly change, because of the negligible gravitational influence of this outer layer. The only effect is the slight increase of the stellar radius $`R`$. But with $`R`$ becoming larger, the value of $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$ also increases and actually becomes larger than the $`r`$-mode frequency $`\alpha `$, which then lies inside the continuous band. This is shown in Fig. 11, where we plot the two density profiles for a stellar model based on the EOS WFF (Wiringa, Ficks & Fabrocini, 1988) and the same model with the low-density regime replaced by a $`n=2`$ polytropic fit. For the polytropic fit, the zero of $`\widehat{\varpi }\alpha `$ lies right outside the star, whereas for the complete realistic model, it is inside the star. In the latter case, however, the mode still exists, but it cannot have a purely harmonic time dependence any more. If this were the case, it had to be a physical solution of Eq. (48), but it is clearly not since the frequency lies inside the continuous spectrum. We therefore conclude that this stable oscillation that can be seen in the time evolution is always a mixture of a mode and the continuous spectrum. We should mention that in our treatment of realistic EOS, we have assumed that the neutron stars consists entirely of a perfect fluid, even in the outer layer. This is certainly not true, instead a neutron star should have a solid crust, which clearly will modify the above results. However, this is beyond the scope of this work.

## 5 Summary

We have performed both mode calculations and time evolutions of the pure axial perturbation equations for slowly rotating stars in the low-frequency approximation. Although the time independent equation (48) represents a singular eigenvalue problem, admitting a continuous spectrum, it is nevertheless possible to find discrete mode solutions, representing the relativistic $`r`$-modes. If the mode frequency lies outside the continuous spectrum, the eigenvalue problem becomes regular, and the associated solution represents a physically valid $`r`$-mode solution. If the eigenvalue lies inside the continuous band, the eigenfunction exhibits an infinite slope at the singular point, which is due to the presence of a $`r\mathrm{log}|r|`$ term in the series expansion. Moreover, the corresponding fluid perturbation $`u_3`$ diverges at the singular point. Therefore, we conclude that these mode solutions are unphysical, and the only physically valid mode solutions are the ones where the associated frequencies $`\alpha `$ lie outside the range of the continuous spectrum.

We have performed mode calculations for uniform density models, for various polytropic models and also for a set of realistic equations of state. In agreement with the results of Lockitch et al. (2001), we find that uniform density models generally admit $`r`$-modes for any compactness. For polytropic equations of state, however, the existence of physical $`r`$-mode solutions depends strongly on both the polytropic index $`n`$ and the compactness $`M/R`$ of the stellar model. The general picture is that the smaller $`n`$ is, which corresponds to a stiffer equation of state, the larger is the compactness range where one can find physical mode solutions. For a given polytropic index $`n`$, one usually finds physical mode solutions for models with a small $`M/R`$ ratio. As the compactness is increased, i.e. as the models become more relativistic, the mode frequency $`\alpha `$ decreases and starts approaching $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$. Eventually it crosses this point and migrates inside the range of the continuous spectrum, thus becoming unphysical, and no $`r`$-mode exists any more.

When considered as a function of $`l`$, the $`r`$-mode frequency $`\alpha `$ is monotonically decreasing. For a uniform density model, $`\alpha `$ approaches $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$ as $`l`$ is increased. In polytropic models, this has the effect that it is even harder to find physical mode solutions for higher values of $`l`$, since $`\alpha `$ will much sooner cross the border $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$ of the continuous spectrum. If $`l`$ is large enough, it seems that the eigenvalue equation (48) does not admit any mode solution at all, not even a singular one.

We have verified our results by explicitly integrating the time dependent equations. The time evolutions for the models admitting an $`r`$-mode can clearly be distinguished from those without a discrete mode. In the former case, both the fluid perturbation $`u_3`$ and the metric perturbation $`h_0`$ oscillate with a constant amplitude after some initial time. In the latter case, the amplitude of $`h_0`$ constantly decreases. The fluid amplitude, however, still remains at a constant level. This can be explained by a decoherence effect in the fluid oscillations, since the frame dragging causes each fluid layer to oscillate with a different frequency. Thus the initially uniform fluid profile becomes more and more disturbed because the fluid layers get out of phase, resulting in a continuously weakening of the strength of the fluid source term in Eq. (36). When a physical $`r`$-mode exists, the system can oscillate in a coherent manner.

When turning to realistic equations of state, the mode calculations yielded only frequencies lying inside the continuous band, therefore being apparently unphysical. However, for most EOS the numerical time evolutions revealed the presence of a mode, but with the frequency still lying inside the continuous band and corresponding approximately to the value of $`\widehat{\varpi }`$ at the neutron drip point. We explained this seemingly contradictory behaviour by making the core responsible for the existence of the $`r`$-mode. For, if we remove the outer layer, which does not have any significant gravitational contribution, we can indeed find eigenvalues $`\alpha `$ which lie outside the continuous band. However, they are very close to the upper limit of the continuous band $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$. By adding the additional layer, we increase $`\widehat{\varpi }_s`$ such that it now becomes larger than $`\alpha `$, which remains basically unaffected. Although now lying inside the continuous spectrum, the mode still exists, but it will be always associated with an excitation of the continuous spectrum. Most of the realistic EOS do admit $`r`$-modes in a certain mass range, but only the stiffest ones admit modes throughout the whole mass range up to the stability limit. The less stiff ones have a maximal mass model above which there are no $`r`$-modes any more, and for the softest EOS, namely EOS B, G and MPA, there are no $`r`$-mode for the whole physically relevant mass range.

It should be kept in mind that all our results concerning the $`r`$-modes are obtained within the low-frequency approximation. It would be clearly much too early to infer any statements about the existence or non-existence of the $`r`$-modes in rapidly rotating neutron stars. And if the true EOS of neutron stars is rather stiff, and therefore would already admit $`r`$-modes within the low-frequency approximation, then the whole discussion about the singular structure would be irrelevant. But as the true EOS is not known yet, we cannot exclude it to be rather soft, and the appearance of the singular points has to be taken much more seriously. Still, it could still be seen as a mere artefact of the low-frequency approximation. But the work of Kojima & Hosonuma (1999) indicates that the inclusion of second-order terms in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ even increases the range of the continuous spectrum, which is responsible for the disappearance of the $`r`$-mode. They worked only in the Cowling approximation, but whether or not the inclusion of more higher order terms and the complete radiation reaction can restore the existence of the $`r`$-modes in all cases is still an open question and deserves further investigation. As a next step in this direction, we will investigate in a subsequent paper the full set of axial equations (Eqs. (28) – (31)), which contains the radiation reaction.

## acknowledgments

We thank Nils Andersson, Horst Beyer, John Friedman, Luciano Rezzolla, Adamantios Stavridis, Nikolaos Stergioulas and Shin Yoshida for helpful discussions. J.R. is supported by the Marie Curie Fellowship No. HPMF-CT-1999-00364. This work has been supported by the EU Programme ’Improving the Human Research Potential and the Socio-Economic Knowledge Base’ (Research Training Network Contract HPRN-CT-2000-00137).


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# An additive problem in the Fourier coefficients of cusp forms

## 1. Introduction and statement of results

In the analytic theory of automorphic $`L`$-functions one often encounters sums of the form

(1)
$$D_f(a,b;h)=\underset{am\pm bn=h}{}\lambda _\varphi (m)\lambda _\psi (n)f(am,bn),$$

where $`a`$, $`b`$, $`h`$ are positive integers, $`\lambda _\varphi (m)`$ (resp. $`\lambda _\psi (n)`$) are the normalized Fourier coefficients of a holomorphic or Maass cusp form $`\varphi `$ (resp. $`\psi `$) coming from an automorphic representation of $`GL(2)`$ over $``$ and $`f`$ is some nice weight function on $`(0,\mathrm{})\times (0,\mathrm{})`$. These sums have been studied extensively beginning with Selberg \[Se\] (see also Good \[G\]) and are analogous to the generalized binary additive divisor sum where $`\lambda _\varphi (m)`$ and $`\lambda _\psi (n)`$ are replaced by values of the divisor function:

$$D_f^\tau (a,b;h)=\underset{am\pm bn=h}{}\tau (m)\tau (n)f(am,bn).$$

The analogy is deeper than formal, because $`\tau (n)`$ appears as the $`n`$-th Fourier coefficient of the modular form $`\frac{}{s}E(z,s)|_{s=1/2}`$ where $`E(z,s)`$ is the Eisenstein series for $`SL_2()`$. In general one tries to deduce good estimates for these sums assuming the parameters $`a`$, $`b`$, $`h`$ are of considerable size.

The binary additive divisor problem has an extensive history and we refer the reader to \[D-F-I2\] for a short introduction. Let us just mention that in the special case $`a=b=1`$ one can derive very sharp results by employing the spectral theory of automorphic forms for the full modular group \[Mo\]. This approach is hard to generalize for larger values of $`a`$, $`b`$ as one faces difficulties with small Laplacian eigenvalues for the congruence subgroup $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0(ab)`$ as well as uniformity issues. The idea of Duke, Friedlander and Iwaniec \[D-F-I2\] is to combine the more elementary $`\delta `$-method (a variant of Kloosterman’s refinement of the classical circle method) with a Voronoi-type summation formula for the divisor function and then apply Weil’s estimate for the individual Kloosterman sums

$$S(m,n;q)=\underset{d\text{ (mod }q\text{)}}{^{}}e_q\left(dm+\overline{d}n\right)$$

that arise.

Assuming $`a`$, $`b`$ are coprime and the partial derivatives of the weight function $`f`$ satisfy the estimate

(2)
$$x^iy^jf^{(i,j)}(x,y)_{i,j}\left(1+\frac{x}{X}\right)^1\left(1+\frac{y}{Y}\right)^1P^{i+j}$$

with some $`P,X,Y1`$ for all $`i,j0`$, they were able to deduce

$$D_f^\tau (a,b;h)=_0^{\mathrm{}}g(x,x\pm h)𝑑x+O\left(P^{5/4}(X+Y)^{1/4}(XY)^{1/4+ϵ}\right),$$

where the implied constant depends on $`ϵ`$ only,

$$g(x,y)=f(x,y)\underset{q=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(ab,q)}{abq^2}c_q(h)(\mathrm{log}x\lambda _{aq})(\mathrm{log}y\lambda _{bq}),$$

$`c_q(h)=S(h,0;q)`$ denotes Ramanujan’s sum and $`\lambda _{aq}`$, $`\lambda _{bq}`$ are constants given by

$$\lambda _{aq}=2\gamma +\mathrm{log}\frac{aq^2}{(a,q)^2}.$$

As was pointed out in \[D-F-I2\] the error term is smaller than the main term whenever

$$abP^{5/4}(X+Y)^{5/4}(XY)^{3/4ϵ}.$$

The case $`N=a=b=1`$ of the sum $`D_f(a,b;h)`$ has been discussed in detail via spectral theory by Jutila \[J2, J3\]. This approach is hard to generalize to $`Nab>1`$ because one faces with the difficulty of uniformity and small Laplacian eigenvalues similarly as in the additive divisor problem. A different spectral approach was developed by Sarnak for all levels. Using his estimates for triple products of eigenfunctions \[S1\] (see also \[P, B-R\]) he recently established quite strong uniform bounds for $`D_f(a,b;h)`$ at least when the forms $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ are holomorphic. This method has the big advantage of generalizing naturally to number fields \[P-S, C-PS-S\]. Our aim here is to emphasize the Maass case and establish, uniformly for all $`h>0`$, a nontrivial estimate on $`D_f(a,b;h)`$ in the spirit of Duke, Friedlander and Iwaniec.

###### Theorem 1.

Let $`\lambda _\varphi (m)`$ (resp. $`\lambda _\psi (n)`$) be the normalized Fourier coefficients of a holomorphic or Maass cusp form $`\varphi `$ (resp. $`\psi `$) of arbitrary level and nebentypus and suppose that $`f`$ satisfies (2). Then for coprime $`a`$ and $`b`$ we have

$$D_f(a,b;h)P^{11/10}(ab)^{1/10}(X+Y)^{1/10}(XY)^{2/5+ϵ},$$

where the implied constant depends only on $`ϵ`$ and the forms $`\varphi `$, $`\psi `$.

See the next section for a precise definition of the notions in the theorem. We note that the theorem supercedes the trivial upper bound $`(XY/ab)^{1/2}`$ (following from Cauchy’s inequality, see Section 5) whenever

(3)
$$abP^{11/4}(X+Y)^{1/4}(XY)^{1/4ϵ}.$$

As an application we prove a subconvex estimate on the critical line for $`L`$-functions associated to character twists of a fixed holomorphic or Maass cusp form $`\varphi `$ of arbitrary level and nebentypus. We shall assume that $`\varphi `$ is a *primitive form*, i.e. a newform in the sense of \[A-L, Li, A-Li\] normalized so that $`\lambda _\varphi (1)=1`$. Then $`\lambda _\varphi (m)`$ $`(m1)`$ defines a character of the corresponding Hecke algebra while $`\lambda _\varphi (m)=\pm \lambda _\varphi (m)`$ (with a constant sign) when $`\varphi `$ is a Maass form. In other words, $`\varphi `$ defines a cuspidal automorphic representation of $`GL(2)`$ over $``$. The contragradient representation corresponds to the primitive cusp form $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(z)=\overline{\varphi }(\overline{z})`$ with Fourier coefficients $`\lambda _{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }}(m)=\overline{\lambda }_\varphi (m)`$. If $`q`$ is an integer prime to the level and $`\chi `$ is a primitive Dirichlet character modulo $`q`$ then to the twisted primitive cusp form $`\varphi \chi `$ is attached the $`L`$-function

$$L(s,\varphi \chi )=\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\lambda _\varphi (m)\chi (m)}{m^s}$$

which is absolutely convergent for $`\mathrm{}s>1`$ and has an Euler product over the prime numbers. It has an analytic continuation to an entire function, as shown by Hecke, and satisfies a functional equation of the standard type. It follows from the Phragmén–Lindelöf convexity principle that for a fixed point on the critical line $`\mathrm{}s=1/2`$ we have a bound

$$L(s,\varphi \chi )_{ϵ,s,\varphi }q^{1/2+ϵ}.$$

By a subconvexity estimate we mean one which replaces the convexity exponent $`1/2`$ by any smaller absolute constant. Upon the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis we would have the Generalized Lindelöf Hypothesis which asserts that any positive exponent is permissible. For the philosophy of breaking convexity in the analytic theory of $`L`$-functions and its importance for arithmetic we refer the reader to the excellent discussion by Iwaniec and Sarnak \[I-S\].

###### Theorem 2.

Suppose that $`\varphi `$ is a primitive holomorphic or Maass cusp form of arbitrary level and nebentypus. Let $`\mathrm{}s=1/2`$ and $`q`$ be an integer prime to the level. If $`\chi `$ is a primitive Dirichlet character modulo $`q`$ then

(4)
$$L(s,\varphi \chi )q^{1/21/54+ϵ},$$

where the implied constant depends only on $`ϵ`$, $`s`$ and the form $`\varphi `$.

This estimate with exponent $`1/21/22`$ has been proved for holomorphic forms of full level in \[D-F-I1\] and the improved exponent $`1/27/130`$ follows for holomorphic forms of arbitrary level as a special case of Theorem 1 in \[C-PS-S\]. Duke, Friedlander and Iwaniec anticipated their method to be extendible to more general $`L`$-functions of rank two, and the present paper is indeed an extension of their work.

Combining the estimate (4) at the central point $`s=1/2`$ with Waldspurger’s theorem \[Wa\] (see also \[Ko\]) we get the bound

$$c(q)_ϵq^{1/41/108+ϵ},q\text{ square-free}$$

for the normalized Fourier coefficients of half-integral weight forms of arbitrary level. Such a nontrivial bound is the key step in the solution of the general ternary Linnik problem given by Duke and Schulze-Pillot \[D, D-SP\].

The proof Theorem 1 is presented in Sections 2 through 5 and closely follows \[D-F-I2\]. The heart of the argument is again a Voronoi-type formula (see Section 2) for transforming certain exponential sums defined by the coefficients $`\lambda _\varphi (m)`$ and $`\lambda _\psi (n)`$ but this time the level of the forms imposes some restriction on the frequencies in the formula. As the $`\delta `$-method uses information at all frequencies (and in this sense it corresponds to the classical Farey dissection of the unit circle) we replace it (in Section 3) with another variant of the circle method (given by Jutila \[J1\]) which is more flexible in the choice of frequencies. After the transformations we shall encounter twisted Kloosterman sums

$$S_\chi (m,n;q)=\underset{d\text{ (mod }q\text{)}}{^{}}\chi (d)e_q\left(dm+\overline{d}n\right),$$

where $`\chi `$ is a Dirichlet character mod $`q`$. We shall make use of the usual Weil–Estermann bound

(5)
$$\left|S_\chi (m,n;q)\right|(m,n,q)^{1/2}q^{1/2}\tau (q)$$

which holds true for these sums as well (the original proofs \[W, E\] carry over with minor modifications).

Sections 6 through 8 are devoted to the proof of Theorem 2. In Section 6 we reduce (4), via an approximate functional equation, to an inequality about certain finite sums involving about $`q`$ terms. In order to prove this inequality we use the amplification method which was introduced in \[D-F-I1\]. The idea is to consider a suitably weighted second moment of the finite sums arising from the family $`\varphi \chi `$ of cusp forms ($`\chi `$ varies, $`\varphi `$ is fixed). We choose the weights (called amplifiers) in such a way that one of the characters $`\chi `$ is emphasized while the second moment average is still of moderate size. This forces, by positivity, $`L(s,\varphi \chi )`$ to be small. In the course of evaluating the amplified second moment we encounter diagonal and off-diagonal terms and it is the off-diagonal contribution where Theorem 1 enters.

Acknowledgements. I am grateful to Peter Sarnak for calling my attention to this problem (a question originally raised by Atle Selberg, cf. \[Se\]), for his comments about the paper and for many valuable discussions on related topics. I also thank the referee for a careful reading and for suggesting to clarify certain points in the argument.

Addendum (October 2001). A preliminary draft of this paper was completed in January 2001 and posted to the *e-Print archive* as math.NT/0101096. Later I learned about the work of Kowalski, Michel and VanderKam \[K-M-V\] establishing subconvexity bounds for various families of Rankin–Selberg $`L`$-functions. This work involves a more elaborate version of the summation formula Proposition 1 below. The ultimate generalization (depending heavily on Atkin–Lehner theory) appears in an unpublished complement \[M1\] to \[K-M-V\]. As pointed out on p.10 of \[M1\], this suffices, via the $`\delta `$-method, to establish Theorems 1 and 2 even in slightly stronger forms. In particular, the original subconvexity exponent $`1/21/22`$ of \[D-F-I1\] applies for the general setting as well. However, the present paper is technically simpler (e.g. it requires the theory of newforms only to have the relevant $`L`$-functions at hand) and the simplification is achieved by using Jutila’s method of overlapping intervals in place of the $`\delta `$-method.

Addendum (December 2002). It is straightforward to see from the argument given below that the implied constants of Theorems 1 and 2 depend polynomially on $`|s|`$ and the levels of the forms involved. Some additional estimates on Bessel functions establish polynomial dependence on the Archimedean parameters (weight or Laplacian eigenvalue) as well. The details are worked out for a special case in a recent paper by Michel \[M2\] where such a dependence turns out to be crucial. \[M2\] also supercedes the unpublished complement \[M1\].

## 2. Summation formula for the Fourier coefficients

We define the normalized Fourier coefficients of cusp forms as follows. Let $`\varphi (z)`$ be a cusp form of level $`N`$ and nebentypus $`\chi `$, that is, a holomorphic cusp form of some integral weight $`k`$ or a real-analytic Maass cusp form of some nonnegative Laplacian eigenvalue $`1/4+\mu ^2`$. By definition, $`\chi `$ is a Dirichlet character mod $`N`$ and the form $`\varphi `$ satisfies a transformation rule with respect to the Hecke congruence subgroup $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0(N)`$:

$$\varphi [\gamma ]=\chi (d)\varphi ,\gamma =\left(\begin{array}{cc}a& b\\ c& d\end{array}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }_0(N),$$

where

$$\varphi [\gamma ](z)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\varphi (\gamma z)(cz+d)^k\hfill & \text{if }\varphi \text{ is holomorphic,}\hfill \\ \varphi (\gamma z)\hfill & \text{if }\varphi \text{ is real-analytic,}\hfill \end{array}$$

and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0(N)`$ acts on the upper half-plane $`=\{z:\mathrm{}z>0\}`$ by fractional linear transformations. Also, the form $`\varphi `$ is holomorphic or real-analytic on $``$ and decays exponentially to zero at each cusp. Any such $`\varphi `$ admits the Fourier expansion

$$\varphi (z)=\underset{m0}{}\widehat{\lambda }_\varphi (m)W(mz),$$

where

$$W(z)=\{\begin{array}{cc}e(z)\hfill & \text{if }\varphi \text{ is holomorphic,}\hfill \\ |y|^{1/2}K_{i\mu }\left(2\pi |y|\right)e(x)\hfill & \text{if }\varphi \text{ is real-analytic.}\hfill \end{array}$$

Here $`e(z)=e^{2\pi iz}`$, $`z=x+iy`$ and $`K_{i\mu }`$ is the MacDonald-Bessel function. If $`\varphi `$ is holomorphic, $`\widehat{\lambda }_\varphi (m)`$ vanishes for $`m0`$. We define the *normalized Fourier coefficients* of $`\varphi `$ as

$$\lambda _\varphi (m)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\widehat{\lambda }_\varphi (m)m^{\frac{1k}{2}}\hfill & \text{if }\varphi \text{ is holomorphic,}\hfill \\ \widehat{\lambda }_\varphi (m)|m|^{\frac{1}{2}}\hfill & \text{if }\varphi \text{ is real-analytic.}\hfill \end{array}$$

This normalization corresponds to the Ramanujan Conjecture which asserts that

$$\lambda _\varphi (m)_{ϵ,\varphi }m^ϵ.$$

Rankin–Selberg theory implies that the conjecture holds on average in the form

(6)
$$\underset{1mx}{}|\lambda _\varphi (m)|^2_\varphi x.$$

Various Voronoi-type summation formulas are fulfilled by these coefficients. In the case of full level ($`N=1`$) Duke and Iwaniec \[D-I\] established such a formula for holomorphic cusp forms and Meurman \[Me\] for Maass cusp forms. These can be generalized to arbitrary level and nebentypus with obvious minor modifications as follows.

###### Proposition 1.

Let $`d`$ and $`q`$ be coprime integers such that $`Nq`$, and let $`g`$ be a smooth, compactly supported function on $`(0,\mathrm{})`$. If $`\varphi `$ is a holomorphic cusp form of level $`N`$, nebentypus $`\chi `$ and integral weight $`k`$ then

$$\chi (d)\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\lambda _\varphi (m)e_q(dm)g(m)=\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\lambda _\varphi (m)e_q\left(\overline{d}m\right)\widehat{g}(m),$$

where

$$\widehat{g}(y)=\frac{2\pi i^k}{q}_0^{\mathrm{}}g(x)J_{k1}\left(\frac{4\pi \sqrt{xy}}{q}\right)𝑑x.$$

If $`\varphi `$ is a real-analytic Maass cusp form of level $`N`$, nebentypus $`\chi `$ and nonnegative Laplacian eigenvalue $`1/4+\mu ^2`$ then

$$\chi (d)\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\lambda _\varphi (m)e_q(dm)g(m)=\underset{\pm }{}\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\lambda _\varphi (m)e_q\left(\pm \overline{d}m\right)g^\pm (m),$$

where

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill g^{}(y)& =\frac{\pi }{q\mathrm{cosh}\pi \mu }_0^{\mathrm{}}g(x)\{Y_{2i\mu }+Y_{2i\mu }\}\left(\frac{4\pi \sqrt{xy}}{q}\right)𝑑x,\hfill \\ \\ \hfill g^+(y)& =\frac{4\mathrm{cosh}\pi \mu }{q}_0^{\mathrm{}}g(x)K_{2i\mu }\left(\frac{4\pi \sqrt{xy}}{q}\right)𝑑x.\hfill \end{array}$$

Here $`\overline{d}`$ is a multiplicative inverse of $`dmodq`$, $`e_q(x)=e(x/q)=e^{2\pi ix/q}`$ and $`J_{k1}`$, $`Y_{\pm 2i\mu }`$, $`K_{2i\mu }`$ are Bessel functions.

The proof for the holomorphic case \[D-I\] is a straightforward application of Laplace transforms. Meurman’s proof for the real-analytic case \[Me\] is more involved, but only because he considers a wider class of test functions $`g`$ and has to deal with delicate convergence issues. For smooth, compactly supported functions $`g`$ as in our formulation these difficulties do not arise and one can give a much simpler proof based on Mellin transformation, the functional equations of the $`L`$-series attached to additive twists of $`\varphi `$ (see \[Me\]), and Barnes’ formulas for the gamma function. Indeed, Lemma 5 in \[St\] (a special case of Meurman’s summation formula) has been proved by such an approach. We expressed the formula for the non-holomorphic case in terms of $`K`$ and $`Y`$ Bessel functions in order to emphasize the analogy with the Voronoi-type formula for the divisor function (where one has $`\mu =0`$) as derived by Jutila \[J4, J5\].

## 3. Setting up the circle method

For sake of exposition we shall only present the case of real-analytic Maass forms and the equation $`ambn=h`$. The other cases follow along the same lines by changing Bessel functions and signs at relevant places of the argument. In our inequalities $`ϵ`$ will always denote a small positive number whose actual value is allowed to change at each occurrence. Furthermore, unless otherwise indicated, implied constants will depend on $`ϵ`$ and the cusp forms only (including dependence on the level, nebentypus characters and Laplacian eigenvalues).

Let $`\varphi (z)`$ (resp. $`\psi (z)`$) be a Maass cusp form of level $`N`$, nebentypus $`\chi `$ (resp. $`\omega `$) and Laplacian eigenvalue $`1/4+\mu ^20`$ (resp. $`1/4+\nu ^20`$) whose normalized Fourier coefficients are $`\lambda _\varphi (m)`$ (resp. $`\lambda _\psi (n)`$), i.e.,

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \varphi (x+iy)& =\sqrt{y}\underset{m0}{}\lambda _\varphi (m)K_{i\mu }\left(2\pi |m|y\right)e(mx),\hfill \\ \\ \hfill \psi (x+iy)& =\sqrt{y}\underset{n0}{}\lambda _\psi (n)K_{i\nu }\left(2\pi |n|y\right)e(nx).\hfill \end{array}$$

We shall first investigate $`D_g(a,b;h)`$ for smooth test functions $`g(x,y)`$ which are supported in a box $`[A,2A]\times [B,2B]`$ and have partial derivatives bounded by

(7)
$$g^{(i,j)}_{i,j}A^iB^jP^{i+j}.$$

Our aim is to prove the estimate

(8)
$$D_g(a,b;h)P^{11/10}(ab)^{1/10}(A+B)^{1/10}(AB)^{2/5+ϵ}.$$

In Section 5 we shall deduce Theorem 1 from this bound by employing a partition of unity and decomposing appropriately any smooth test function $`f(x,y)`$ satisfying (2). In fact, (8) is a special case of Theorem 1, as can be seen upon setting $`X=A`$, $`Y=B`$, and $`f(x,y)=g(x,y)`$. It supercedes the trivial upper bound

$$D_g(a,b;h)(AB/ab)^{1/2}$$

whenever

(9)
$$abP^{11/4}(A+B)^{1/4}(AB)^{1/4ϵ}.$$

The trivial bound is a consequence of $`g1`$, Cauchy’s inequality, and the Rankin–Selberg estimate (6) applied to the forms $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$.

As $`g(x,y)`$ is supported in $`[A,2A]\times [B,2B]`$, we can assume that $`A,B1/2`$, and also that

(10)
$$h2(A+B),$$

for otherwise $`D_g(a,b;h)`$ vanishes trivially. We shall attach, as in \[D-F-I2\], a redundant factor $`w(xyh)`$ to $`g(x,y)`$ where $`w(t)`$ is a smooth function supported on $`|t|<\delta ^1`$ such that $`w(0)=1`$ and $`w^{(i)}_i\delta ^i`$. This, of course, does not alter $`D_g(a,b;h)`$. We choose

(11)
$$\delta =P\frac{A+B}{AB},$$

so that, by (7), the new function

$$F(x,y)=g(x,y)w(xyh)$$

has partial derivatives bounded by

(12)
$$F^{(i,j)}_{i,j}\delta ^{i+j}.$$

We apply the Hardy–Littlewood method to detect the equation $`ambn=h`$, that is, we express $`D_F(a,b;h)`$ as the integral of a certain exponential sum over the unit interval $`[0,1]`$. We get

(13)
$$D_g(a,b;h)=D_F(a,b;h)=_0^1G(\alpha )𝑑\alpha ,$$

where

$$G(\alpha )=\underset{m,n}{}\lambda _\varphi (m)\lambda _\psi (n)F(am,bn)e\left((ambnh)\alpha \right).$$

We shall approximate this integral by the following proposition of Jutila (a consequence of the main theorem in \[J1\]).

###### Proposition 2 (Jutila).

Let $`𝒬`$ be a nonempty set of integers $`Qq2Q`$ where $`Q1`$. Let $`Q^2\delta Q^1`$ and for each fraction $`d/q`$ (in its lowest terms) denote by $`I_{d/q}(\alpha )`$ the characteristic function of the interval $`[d/q\delta ,d/q+\delta ]`$. Write $`L`$ for the number of such intervals, i.e.,

$$L=\underset{q𝒬}{}\phi (q),$$

and put

$$\stackrel{~}{I}(\alpha )=\frac{1}{2\delta L}\underset{q𝒬}{}\underset{d\text{ (mod }q\text{)}}{^{}}I_{d/q}(\alpha ).$$

If $`I(\alpha )`$ is the characteristic function of the unit interval $`[0,1]`$ then

$$_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\left(I(\alpha )\stackrel{~}{I}(\alpha )\right)^2𝑑x\delta ^1L^2Q^{2+ϵ},$$

where the implied constant depends on $`ϵ`$ only.

We shall choose some $`Q`$ and apply the proposition with a set of denominators of the form

$$𝒬=\{q[Q,2Q]:Nabq\text{ and }(h,q)=(h,Nab)\}.$$

By a result of Jacobsthal \[Ja\] the largest gap between reduced residue classes mod $`h`$ is of size $`h^ϵ`$, whence, by (10),

(14)
$$|𝒬|\frac{Q(AB)^ϵ}{ab},$$

assuming the right hand side exceeds some positive constant $`c=c(ϵ,N)`$. Moreover, we shall assume that

(15)
$$Q^2\delta Q^1,$$

so that also

(16)
$$1QAB,$$

whence (14) yields

(17)
$$L\frac{Q^2(AB)^ϵ}{ab}.$$

We clearly have

(18)
$$|D_F(a,b;h)\stackrel{~}{D}_F(a,b;h)|G_{\mathrm{}}I\stackrel{~}{I}_1,$$

where

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \stackrel{~}{D}_F(a,b;h)& =_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}G(\alpha )\stackrel{~}{I}(\alpha )𝑑\alpha =\frac{1}{2\delta L}\underset{q𝒬}{}\underset{d\text{ (mod }q\text{)}}{^{}}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}G(\alpha )I_{d/q}(\alpha )𝑑\alpha \hfill \\ \\ & =\frac{1}{2\delta L}\underset{q𝒬}{}\underset{d\text{ (mod }q\text{)}}{^{}}_\delta ^\delta G(d/q+\beta )𝑑\beta =\frac{1}{2\delta L}\underset{q𝒬}{}\underset{d\text{ (mod }q\text{)}}{^{}}_{d/q},\hfill \end{array}$$

say. To derive an upper estimate for $`G(\alpha )`$ we express it as

$$G(\alpha )=_0^{\mathrm{}}_0^{\mathrm{}}F(x,y)e(h\alpha )𝑑S(x/a)𝑑T(y/b),$$

where

$$S(x)=\underset{1mx}{}\lambda _\varphi (m)e(am\alpha ),T(y)=\underset{1ny}{}\lambda _\psi (n)e(bn\alpha ).$$

Then, integrating by parts,

$$G(\alpha )=_0^{\mathrm{}}_0^{\mathrm{}}F^{(1,1)}(x,y)e(h\alpha )S(x/a)T(y/b)𝑑x𝑑y,$$

therefore (12) combined with Wilton’s classical estimate

$$S(x)x^{1/2}\mathrm{log}(2x),T(y)y^{1/2}\mathrm{log}(2y)$$

yields

$$G_{\mathrm{}}\frac{(AB)^{1/2+ϵ}}{(ab)^{1/2}}F^{(1,1)}_1\frac{\delta (AB)^{3/2+ϵ}}{(ab)^{1/2}(A+B)}.$$

Also, by (17) and Proposition 2 we get

$$I\stackrel{~}{I}_13I\stackrel{~}{I}_2\frac{ab(AB)^ϵ}{\delta ^{1/2}Q},$$

so that (18) becomes

(19)
$$D_F(a,b;h)\stackrel{~}{D}_F(a,b;h)\frac{(ab)^{1/2}\delta ^{1/2}}{Q}\frac{(AB)^{3/2+ϵ}}{A+B}.$$

## 4. Transforming exponential sums

The contribution of the interval $`[d/q\delta ,d/q+\delta ]`$ can be expressed as

$$_{d/q}=_\delta ^\delta G(d/q+\beta )𝑑\beta =e_q(dh)\underset{m,n}{}\lambda _\varphi (m)\lambda _\psi (n)e_q\left(d(ambn)\right)E(m,n),$$

where

$$E(x,y)=F(ax,by)_\delta ^\delta e\left((axbyh)\beta \right)𝑑\beta .$$

Using (12) we clearly have

$$E^{(i,j)}_{i,j}\delta ^{i+j+1}a^ib^j,$$

and we also record, for further reference, that

(20)
$$E^{(i,j)}_1_{i,j}\delta ^{i+j}a^{i1}b^{j1}\frac{AB}{A+B}.$$

We assume that $`q𝒬`$, hence $`Nabq`$ and we can apply Proposition 1 to yield

$$_{d/q}=\overline{\chi \omega }(d)e_q(dh)\underset{\pm \pm }{}\underset{m,n1}{}\lambda _\varphi (m)\lambda _\psi (n)e_q\left(\overline{d}(\pm ambn)\right)E^{\pm \pm }(m,n),$$

where the corresponding signs must be matched and

$$E^{\pm \pm }(m,n)=\frac{ab}{q^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}_0^{\mathrm{}}E(x,y)M_{2i\mu }^\pm \left(\frac{4\pi a\sqrt{mx}}{q}\right)M_{2i\nu }^\pm \left(\frac{4\pi b\sqrt{ny}}{q}\right)𝑑x𝑑y,$$

$$M_{2ir}^+=(4\mathrm{cosh}\pi r)K_{2ir},M_{2ir}^{}=\frac{\pi }{\mathrm{cosh}\pi r}\{Y_{2ir}+Y_{2ir}\}.$$

By summing over the residue classes we get

(21)
$$\underset{d\text{ (mod }q\text{)}}{^{}}_{d/q}=\underset{\pm \pm }{}\underset{m,n1}{}\lambda _\varphi (m)\lambda _\psi (n)S_{\overline{\chi \omega }}(h,\pm ambn;q)E^{\pm \pm }(m,n).$$

In order to estimate the twisted Kloosterman sum we observe that the greatest common divisor $`(h,\pm ambn,q)`$ divides $`N(h,n,a)(h,m,b)`$ as follows from the relations $`(a,b)=1`$ and $`(h,q)=(h,Nab)`$, therefore (5) and (16) imply that

(22)
$$S_{\overline{\chi \omega }}(h,\pm ambn;q)(h,m)^{1/2}(h,n)^{1/2}Q^{1/2}(AB)^ϵ.$$

We estimate $`E^{\pm \pm }(m,n)`$ by successive applications of integration by parts and the relations

$$\frac{d}{dz}\left(z^sK_s(z)\right)=z^sK_{s1}(z),\frac{d}{dz}\left(z^sY_s(z)\right)=z^sY_{s1}(z);$$

$$K_s(z)_sz^{1/2},Y_s(z)_sz^{1/2},z>0.$$

We get, for any integers $`i,j0`$,

$$\begin{array}{c}E^{\pm \pm }(m,n)_{i,j}\frac{ab}{Q^2}\left(\frac{Q}{a\sqrt{m}}\right)^{i+\frac{1}{2}}\left(\frac{Q}{b\sqrt{n}}\right)^{j+\frac{1}{2}}\hfill \\ \hfill \times \underset{\begin{array}{c}0ki\\ 0lj\end{array}}{\mathrm{max}}\left(\frac{A}{a}\right)^{k\frac{i}{2}\frac{1}{4}}\left(\frac{B}{b}\right)^{l\frac{j}{2}\frac{1}{4}}E^{(k,l)}_1,\end{array}$$

i.e., by (20),

$$\begin{array}{c}E^{\pm \pm }(m,n)_{i,j}\frac{1}{Q^2}\left(\frac{Q}{a\sqrt{m}}\right)^{i+\frac{1}{2}}\left(\frac{Q}{b\sqrt{n}}\right)^{j+\frac{1}{2}}\hfill \\ \hfill \times \left(\frac{A}{a}\right)^{\frac{i}{2}\frac{1}{4}}\left(\frac{B}{b}\right)^{\frac{j}{2}\frac{1}{4}}\frac{AB}{A+B}\underset{\begin{array}{c}0ki\\ 0lj\end{array}}{\mathrm{max}}(A\delta )^k(B\delta )^l.\end{array}$$

Therefore

(23)
$$E^{\pm \pm }(m,n)_{i,j}\frac{(AB)^{1/2}}{\delta Q^2(A+B)}\left(\frac{(\delta Q)^2A}{am}\right)^{\frac{i}{2}+\frac{1}{4}}\left(\frac{(\delta Q)^2B}{bn}\right)^{\frac{j}{2}+\frac{1}{4}},$$

suggesting that we can neglect the contribution to (21) of those pairs $`(m,n)`$ for which $`am/A`$ or $`bn/B`$ is $`>(\delta Q)^2(AB)^ϵ`$. Indeed, if we apply (6) to $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ to see that

$$\underset{1mx}{}|\lambda _\varphi (m)|(h,m)^{1/2}x\tau ^{1/2}(h),\underset{1ny}{}|\lambda _\psi (n)|(h,n)^{1/2}y\tau ^{1/2}(h)$$

then we can specify $`i`$ and $`j`$ large enough (in terms of $`ϵ`$) to deduce from (22) and (23) that the contribution to (21) of those terms with $`m`$ or $`n`$ large is

$$\tau (h)\frac{\delta ^3Q^{5/2}(AB)^{100}}{ab(A+B)},$$

say, while the choice $`i=j=0`$ in (23) shows that the remaining terms (for which $`am/A`$ and $`bn/B`$ are at most $`(\delta Q)^2(AB)^ϵ`$) contribute

$$\tau (h)\frac{\delta ^3Q^{5/2}(AB)^{3/2+ϵ}}{ab(A+B)}.$$

Hence, by (17),

(24)
$$\stackrel{~}{D}_F(a,b;h)=\frac{1}{2\delta L}\underset{q𝒬}{}^{}_{d\text{ (mod }q\text{)}}_{d/q}\frac{\delta ^2Q^{3/2}}{ab}\frac{(AB)^{3/2+ϵ}}{A+B}.$$

Inequalities (19) and (24) show that the optimal balance is achieved when

$$\delta ^3Q^5(ab)^31.$$

A natural choice is given by

$$\delta ^3Q^5=(cab)^3,$$

where $`c`$ is the constant appearing in the remark after (14). By (13), this choice proves (8) whenever the conditions of Proposition 2 are satisfied, that is, when $`Qcab(AB)^ϵ`$ and (15) hold simultaneously. It turns out that this is the case whenever

$$cabP^{2/3}(A+B)^{2/3}(AB)^{2/3ϵ},$$

in particular, whenever (9) is true. However, when (9) fails, (8) follows from the Cauchy bound $`(AB/ab)^{1/2}`$, as we already pointed out in Section 3.

## 5. Concluding Theorem 1

Our aim is to prove Theorem 1 for all test functions $`f(x,y)`$ satisfying (2). We fix an arbitrary smooth function

$$\rho :(0,\mathrm{})$$

whose support lies in $`[1,2]`$ and which satisfies the following identity on the positive axis:

$$\underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\rho \left(2^{k/2}x\right)=1.$$

To obtain such a function, we take an arbitrary smooth $`\eta :(0,\mathrm{})`$ which is constant 0 on $`(0,1)`$ and constant 1 on $`(\sqrt{2},\mathrm{})`$, and then define $`\rho `$ as

$$\rho (x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\eta (x)\hfill & \text{if }0<x\sqrt{2}\text{,}\hfill \\ 1\eta (x/\sqrt{2})\hfill & \text{if }\sqrt{2}<x<\mathrm{}\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$

According to this partition of unity we decompose $`f(x,y)`$ as

$$f(x,y)=\underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}f_{k,l}(x,y),$$

$$f_{k,l}(x,y)=f(x,y)\rho \left(\frac{x}{2^{k/2}X}\right)\rho \left(\frac{y}{2^{l/2}Y}\right).$$

Observe that

(25)
$$\text{supp}f_{k,l}[A_k,2A_k]\times [B_l,2B_l],A_k=2^{k/2}X,B_l=2^{l/2}Y,$$

whence (2) and $`P1`$ show that

$$\left(1+2^{k/2}\right)\left(1+2^{l/2}\right)f_{k,l}^{(i,j)}_{i,j}A_k^iB_l^jP^{i+j}.$$

In other words, the bound (8) applies uniformly to each function

$$g_{k,l}(x,y)=\left(1+2^{k/2}\right)\left(1+2^{l/2}\right)f_{k,l}(x,y)$$

with the corresponding parameters $`A=A_k`$, $`B=B_l`$:

$$D_{g_{k,l}}(a,b;h)P^{11/10}(ab)^{1/10}(A_k+B_l)^{1/10}(A_kB_l)^{2/5+ϵ}.$$

This implies, for $`ϵ<1/10`$,

$$D_{f_{k,l}}(a,b;h)2^{|k|/5}2^{|l|/5}P^{11/10}(ab)^{1/10}(X+Y)^{1/10}(XY)^{2/5+ϵ}.$$

Finally,

$$D_f(a,b;h)=\underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}D_{f_{k,l}}(a,b;h)$$

completes the proof of Theorem 1.

It should be noted that the trivial upper bound

$$D_f(a,b;h)(XY/ab)^{1/2}$$

mentioned in Section 1 follows by a similar reduction technique from the Cauchy bounds $`D_{g_{k,l}}(a,b;h)(A_kB_l/ab)^{1/2}`$ of Section 3.

## 6. Approximate functional equation

Let $`\varphi `$ be a primitive holomorphic or Maass cusp form of arbitrary level and nebentypus, $`\mathrm{}s=1/2`$, and $`\chi `$ a primitive character modulo $`q`$ where $`q`$ is prime to the level. Using the functional equation of the $`L`$-function attached to the twisted primitive cusp form $`\varphi \chi `$ and a standard technique involving Mellin transforms we can express the special value $`L(s,\varphi \chi )`$ as a sum of two Dirichlet series of essentially $`\sqrt{C}`$ terms where $`C=C(s,\varphi \chi )`$ is the analytic conductor defined by \[I-S\]. More precisely, $`Cq^2`$ where the implied constants depend only on $`s`$ and $`\varphi `$, therefore a special case of Theorem 2.1 in \[H\] gives the following

###### Proposition 3.

There is a smooth function $`f:(0,\mathrm{})`$ and a complex number $`\lambda `$ of modulus 1 such that

$$L(s,\varphi \chi )=\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\lambda _\varphi (m)\chi (m)}{m^{1/2}}f\left(\frac{m}{q}\right)+\lambda \underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\overline{\lambda }_\varphi (m)\overline{\chi }(m)}{m^{1/2}}\overline{f}\left(\frac{m}{q}\right).$$

The function $`f`$ and its partial derivatives $`f^{(j)}`$ $`(j=1,2,.\mathrm{})`$ satisfy the following uniform growth estimates at $`0`$ and infinity:

$$f(x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}1+O(x^\sigma ),\hfill & 0<\sigma <1/5;\hfill \\ O(x^\sigma ),\hfill & \sigma >0.\hfill \end{array}$$

$$f^{(j)}(x)x^\sigma ,\sigma >j1/5.$$

The implied constants depend only on $`\sigma `$, $`j`$, $`s`$ and the form $`\varphi `$.

For any positive numbers $`A`$ and $`ϵ`$ we obtain, using (6), an expression

$$L(s,\varphi \chi )=T+\lambda \overline{T}+O_{A,ϵ,s,\varphi }\left(q^A\right),$$

where

$$T=\underset{1mq^{1+ϵ}}{}\frac{\lambda _\varphi (m)\chi (m)g(m)}{m^{1/2}},$$

and $`g:(0,\mathrm{})`$ is a smooth function satisfying

$$g^{(j)}(x)_{j,s,\varphi }x^j.$$

Therefore, applying partial summation and a smooth dyadic decomposition we can reduce Theorem 2 to the following

###### Proposition 4.

Let $`1Mq^{1+ϵ}`$ and $`k`$ be a smooth function supported in $`[M,2M]`$ such that $`k^{(j)}_jM^j`$. Then

$$\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\lambda _\varphi (m)\chi (m)k(m)q^{17/54+ϵ}M^{2/3},$$

where the implied constant depends only on $`ϵ`$ and the form $`\varphi `$.

## 7. Amplification

Our purpose is to prove Proposition 4. As in \[D-F-I1\] we shall estimate from both ways the amplified second moment

$$S=\underset{\omega modq}{^{}}\left|\underset{1lL}{}\overline{\chi }(l)\omega (l)\right|^2|S_\omega |^2,$$

where $`\omega `$ runs through the primitive characters modulo $`q`$, $`L`$ is a parameter to be chosen later in terms of $`M`$ and $`q`$, and

$$S_\omega =\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\lambda _\varphi (m)\omega (m)k(m).$$

Assuming $`Lc(ϵ)q^ϵ`$ (indeed this will be the case whenever $`ϵ<1/27`$, cf. (30)) it follows, using the result of Jacobsthal \[Ja\] that the largest gap between reduced residue classes mod $`q`$ is of size $`q^ϵ`$, that

(26)
$$Sq^ϵL^2|S_\chi |^2.$$

On the other hand, expanding each primitive $`\omega `$ in $`S`$ using Gauss sums and then extending the resulting summation to all characters mod $`q`$, we get by orthogonality,

$$S\frac{\phi (q)}{q}\underset{d\text{ (mod }q\text{)}}{^{}}\left|\underset{n}{}a(n)e_q(dn)\right|^2,$$

where

$$a(n)=\underset{\begin{array}{c}lm=n\\ 1lL\end{array}}{}\overline{\chi }(l)\lambda _\varphi (m)k(m).$$

It is clear that the coefficients $`a(n)`$ are supported in the interval $`[1,N]`$ where $`N=2LM`$. Extending the summation to all residue classes $`d`$ the previous inequality becomes

(27)
$$S\phi (q)\underset{h0\text{ (mod }q\text{)}}{}D(h),$$

where

$$D(h)=\underset{n_1n_2=h}{}a(n_1)\overline{a}(n_2).$$

Using the Rankin–Selberg bound (6) it is simple to estimate the diagonal contribution $`D(0)`$. Indeed, by $`k1`$ we get

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill D(0)& =\underset{n}{}|a(n)|^2\underset{\begin{array}{c}l_1m_1=l_2m_2\\ 1l_1,l_2L\\ Mm_1,m_22M\end{array}}{}\lambda _\varphi (m_1)\overline{\lambda }_\varphi (m_2)\hfill \\ \\ & \underset{\begin{array}{c}1lL\\ Mm2M\end{array}}{}|\lambda _\varphi (m)|^2\tau (ml)N^ϵL\underset{Mm2M}{}|\lambda _\varphi (m)|^2,\hfill \end{array}$$

whence

(28)
$$D(0)=\underset{n}{}|a(n)|^2N^{1+ϵ}.$$

In order to estimate the non-diagonal terms $`D(h)`$ $`(h0)`$ we shall refer to Theorem 1. Clearly, we can rewrite each term as

$$D(h)=\underset{1l_1,l_2L}{}\overline{\chi }(l_1)\chi (l_2)\underset{l_1m_1l_2m_2=h}{}\lambda _\varphi (m_1)\overline{\lambda }_\varphi (m_2)k(m_1)\overline{k}(m_2).$$

The inner sum is of type (1), because $`\overline{\lambda }_\varphi (m)`$ is just the $`m`$-th normalized Fourier coefficient of the contragradient cusp form $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(z)=\overline{\varphi }(\overline{z})`$. For each pair $`(l_1,l_2)`$ we shall apply Theorem 1 with $`a=l_1/(l_1,l_2)`$, $`b=l_2/(l_1,l_2)`$, $`X=aM`$ and $`Y=bM`$ to conclude that

(29)
$$D(h)L^2(a+b)^{1/10}(ab)^{3/10+ϵ}M^{9/10+ϵ}L^{27/10+ϵ}M^{9/10+ϵ}.$$

## 8. Concluding Theorem 2

Inserting the bounds (28) and (29) into (27) it follows that

$$SN^ϵ\phi (q)\left(N+\frac{N}{q}L^{27/10}M^{9/10}\right).$$

This shows that the optimal choice for $`L`$ is provided by

(30)
$$q=L^{27/10}M^{9/10},$$

whence (26) yields

$$S_\chi q^ϵL^1|S|^{1/2}(qN)^{1/2+ϵ}L^1(qM/L)^{1/2+ϵ}.$$

Substituting (30) we get

$$S_\chi (qMq^{10/27}M^{1/3})^{1/2+ϵ}q^{17/54+ϵ}M^{2/3},$$

which is precisely the conclusion of Proposition 4. The proof of Theorem 2 is complete.