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# Small Scale Fluctuations of the Microwave Background in the Quasi-Steady State Cosmology

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The quasi-steady state cosmology (QSSC) has been proposed by Hoyle, Burbidge and Narlikar (1993, 1994$`a`$, $`b`$, 1995) as an alternative to the standard big bang model. This cosmology does away with the initial singularity, and does not have any cosmic epochs when the universe was hot. The synthesis of light nuclei and the origin of th e microwave background radiation have therefore to be shown to be explained by different physical processes than those invoked in the big bang. (cf. Hoyle, Burbidge and Narlikar, 2000; Burbidge and Hoyle, 1998\].

The microwave background radiation (MBR) is explained as follows. A typical QSSC scale factor for a flat Robertson-Walker universe is given by

$$S(t)=\mathrm{exp}(t/P)\times [1+\eta \mathrm{cos}2\pi \tau /Q],$$
(1)
where the time scales $`P10^{12}`$ yr $``$ $`Q4050`$ Gyr are considerably greater than the Hubble time scale of 10-15 Gyr of standard cosmology. The function $`\tau (t)`$ is very nearly like $`t`$, with significantly different behaviour ne ar the minima of the function $`S(t)`$. The parameter $`\eta `$ has modulus less than unity thus preventing the scale factor from reaching the value zero. Hence there is no spacetime singularity nor a violation of the law of conservation of matter and energy, as happens at the big bang epoch in the standard model. For, matter in the universe is created through minibangs, through explosive processes that produce matter and an equal quantity of a negative energy scalar field $`C`$. Such processes take place when ever the energy density of the $`C`$-field rises above the threshold energy $`m_Pc^2`$, the restmass energy of the Planck particle which is typically created.

While the overall level of the $`C`$-field is below this threshold, it can rise in the neighbourhood of highly collapsed massive objects (objects close to becoming black holes), and these then become the sites of creation. Also since the overall energy den sity of the $`C`$field goes as $`S^4`$, the creation is facilitated near the epochs of smallest $`S`$. It is close to these relatively denser epochs that the creation activity is at its peak, switching itself off as the universe continues to expand in the cycle. Hence from one cycle to another the density of matter would have fallen by the factor exp$`(3Q/P)`$, but for the compensating creation of matter at the beginning of a new cycle at the minimum of $`S`$.

Thus, although the universe is in a long term steady state, it oscillates over shorter time scales, with each cycle physically the same as the preceding one. Each cycle has new matter forming into stars and galaxies which evolve as in the previous cycle. What happens to the radiation of stars in this process? Assuming that the radiation density falls like $`S^4`$ in each cycle, it would be depleted by the factor exp$`(4Q/P)`$ from one oscillatory minimum to the next. It is this gap that is made up by t he starlight generated during the cycle. Given $`P`$ and $`Q`$, and the starlight energy generated per cycle, we can estimate the radiation background at any stage of a cycle. We have shown elsewhere (Burbidge and Hoyle 1998; Hoyle, Burbidge and Narlikar 2000) that it is this starlight thermalized by dust grains which is responsible for the microwave background (MBR) in the QSSC. We have also shown why the temperature is very close to $`2.7^0`$ K. In the following sections we show how the processes of thermalization take place.

In the following sections we show how the smoothness, the spectrum and homogeneity of the MBR are explained in the QSSC and compare the results with recent observations in which the fluctuations of the MBR at different angular scales have been measured.

## 2 SPECTRUM AND HOMOGENEITY OF THE MBR

In our model it is hydrogen burning in stars in galaxies that generates the energy of the MBR, and the energy distribution of stellar radiation over different wavelengths from a typical galaxy varies through the cycle in the following way. At the minimum $`S`$ epoch, new gaseous material is acquired and new stars are formed, with the energy coming ou t mostly in the blue to ultraviolet, from stars of masses greater than $`M_{}`$. However, as the cycle proceeds towards the maximum phase and the times of the order $`25`$ Gyr elapse, the massive stars burn out, leaving only the low mass stars stil l shining. The typical stars left are the dwarfs of types $`K`$ to $`M`$, with the consequence that the radiation is then mainly in the red and the infrared. However, as the cycle proceeds towards the next minimum, these wavelengths are shortened as the sc ale factor drops by a considerable factor.

To fix ideas, we will consider the typical oscillatory cycle from one minimum of scale factor to next. Let

$$x=S(t)/S(t_{min})$$
(2)
where, in going from one minimum to the next we have ignored the exponential term. It is clear from this time dependence, that in going from the maximum to the minimum the scale factor drops by a factor $`(1+\eta )/(1\eta )12`$ for $`\eta 0.85`$. We shall assume as an additional parameter that the present epoch is characterized by $`x=6`$.

Thus, infrared wavelengths of 1000 nm at $`x=6`$ are shortened to ultraviolet wavelengths of only $`160`$ nm at $`x=1`$. However, by this stage, the intergalactic density is increased by a factor $`x^3`$ as the minimum is approached and the issue of abso rption becomes important.

We have shown that metallic particles in the form of graphite whiskers as well as iron whiskers play a crucial role in the absorption process. As Narlikar et al (1997) have discussed, a plausible case can be made for the condensation of metallic whiskers from the hot ejecta of supernovae, which are blown out into the intergalactic space by the shock waves generated at the time of explosion. The extinction properties of such whiskers, typically of length $`1`$mm and diameter $`0.01\mu `$m differ considerably from those of normal spherical dust. In particular the iron whiskers at cryogenic temperatures are a dominant source of opacity in the microwave region, while carbon whiskers are more effective at the shorter UV wavelengths.

The value of $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ for graphite whiskers is essentially constant for all wavelengths longer than $`1\mu `$m, extending even to the long radio wavelengths, being equivalent to an absorption coefficient of $`10^5`$cm2g-1. It is, however, three times this value for the UV radiation. Thus an intergalactic density of $`10^{34}`$ g cm-3 at $`x=6`$ would rise to $`2\times 10^{32}`$g cm-3, at the minimum ($`x=1`$) epoch. Over a cosmological distance of $`10^{27}`$cm at this stage , the optical depth would be $`6`$ for UV, and $`1`$ for wavelengths longer than 1 $`\mu `$m.

The great bulk of the optical radiation that becomes subject to thermalization in the contracting phase of the oscillation will have travelled a distance of the order of 10 Gpc, or even more in the case of microwaves. The radiation incident on a carbon wh isker will have been in transit since the maximum $`S`$ epoch of the previous cycle, and it includes all the microwave radiation existing before the present cycle, as well as the starlight generated by the galaxies in the current cycle. The result is that all this radiation is well thermalized and uniform in energy density. The carbon whiskers themselves can, however, be lumpily distributed, on the scale of clusters of galaxies. So as the minimum of $`S`$ is approached at the end of the last cycle, th e conversion of starlight to microwaves would be lumpy. Let us consider a typical carbon whisker reacting to the ambient radiation.

To begin with, the whisker will find itself in a uniform radiation bath, which includes microwaves from previous cycles as well as starlight still to be converted to them. As the starlight is progressively absorbed, the grain temperature first rises abov e the MBR temperature $`T_{\mathrm{MBR}}`$ to a value

$$T_g[(1f)+3^{1/4}\times f]\times T_{\mathrm{MBR}}$$
(3)
where we have assumed that a fraction $`f10`$ percent of the radiation is in the ultraviolet having been blueshifted during the contracting phase, so that the stellar component has a $`Q_{abs}`$ three times higher. With optical depth $`\tau `$ for the progressive absorption of the starlight, the grain temperature drops according to the relation

$$T_g[1+f\times \mathrm{e}^\tau \times (3^{1/4}1)]\times T_{\mathrm{MBR}}.$$
(4)
Thus the grain temperature lapses back to the temperature of the microwave background.

The effect of grains being lumpily distributed on the scale of clusters of galaxies on the MBR is to cause the slight rise followed by the fall back to the MBR temperature to be lumpy too. The radiation background itself, however, does not derive this lum piness: for the total assembly of grains has a negligible heat content and in thermal equilibrium, each one emits as much heat as it receives. Since the emissivity of the particles does not depend on wavelength, each emits a Planckian spectrum correspond ing to its temperature $`T_g`$. Eventually when all particles come down to the temperature $`T_{\mathrm{MBR}}`$, however, further absorption and reemission bring about a strict Planckian distribution at this temperature. Although as suggested by Narlikar, Wick ramasinghe and Edmunds (1975) the thermalization can be achieved by the carbon whiskers, the presence of a small quantity of iron whiskers helps the process further. The absorptions and reradiations by the whiskers at the oscillatory minimum, thus genera te a mixing of radiation from distances as far as $`10^{29}`$ cm, at the relatively low intergalactic particle densities prevalent there, thus permitting radiation to travel freely.

## 3 THE ORIGIN OF MBR INHOMOGENEITIES

Although at the present epoch, the last minimum was some 10 Gpc away, there will be local sources, such as a galaxy at a distance of $`d`$ 3 Mpc, which are capable of making a small contribution to the MBR. Galaxies in which the main contribution to stellar radiation comes essentially from the main sequence dwarfs, would have a luminosity of $`L10^{44}`$ erg s-1. At a distance of 3 Mpc, the energy density of its radiation would be around

$$ϵ=\frac{L}{4\pi d^2}\times c3\times 10^{18}\mathrm{ergcm}^3,$$
(5)
which may be compared to the energy density of starlight of the order of $`10^{14}`$ erg cm-3, i.e., a local variation of energy density of one part in 3000. This leads to a variation in temperature of the thermalizing particles by one part in $`12,000`$. This effect becomes negligible when we take into account all thermalizing particles out to the cosmological distances. However, when we take into account a particle lying within $`3`$ Mpc of a rich cluster containing, say, 1000 galaxies, the local modification of the starlight energy density will be of the order $`1000\times 3\times 10^{18}`$ erg cm-3 = $`3\times 10^{15}`$ erg cm-3. This is around 30 percent of the average starlight energy density, and is thus capable of changing the temperature of the typical whisker from the ambient MBR temperature by an amount that is 30 percent of the value calculated in e quation (3). For the present temperature of 2.73 K, this is $`3\times 10^2`$ K.

Consider now the sky examined on an angular scale such that a beam width containing a rich cluster is compared with one that does not contain such a cluster. Based on the above calculation, shall we expect to find a detectable variation of background temp erature between the two observations? The answer is, ‘yes’, but we have to take into account the local fluctuation along with all the thermalizing particles out to the Olbers limit $`c/H_0,H_0`$ being the present value of the Hubble constant. This d istance being of the order of 5000 Mpc, when compared with the the local distance of 3 Mpc, the overall effect will be down to a temperature variation of the order of 3/5000 of the above estimate of $`3\times 10^2`$, K, i.e., about 20$`\mu `$K.

We can look at the calculation another way. Imagine a 10 Mpc size region, typically containing $`10^4`$ galaxies, each emitting starlight at the rate $`10^{44}`$ erg /s ( corresponding to magnitude -21.4). The flux of radiation in the form of degra ded starlight across the surface of this region (assumed to be a sphere of radius 5 Mpc), would be $`3.35\times 10^4`$ erg/s/cm2. Now, the present energy density of MBR $`4.2\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-3, implies that by the $`(1+z)^4`$ r ule, it was $`6^4`$ times this value at the epoch of the last minimum of $`S`$. Using the Stefan’s law the flux across a sphere of radius 5 Mpc for this radiation would be $`c/4`$ times the energy density, i.e., about 4.08 erg/s/ cm2. Comparing the exces s flux due to the galaxies in this region computed above with this value we find that the excess flux is by a factor $`8.21\times 10^5`$ of the average background. Equating this to $`4\mathrm{\Delta }T/T`$, we get the fluctuation of temperature as $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=56muK`$. Given the observational uncertainties this compares well with the peak recently given by the Boomerang results (de Bernardis et al 2000; Hanany et al 2000).

Because of the inhomogeneity of the universe on the scale of clusters, the calculation cannot be made more precise, and at this stage one should only look at its order of magnitude. The fact that this calculation yields a temperature fluctuation of the o rder reported by the various observations is, however, encouraging from the point of view of the QSSC. We now estimate the angular scale of the inhomogeneities.

## 4 THE ANGULAR SCALE OF INHOMOGENEITIES

Typically we will look at the angle subtended by a linear scale $`a`$ of an object located at redshift $`z`$ in the quasi-steady state model whose scale factor is defined in equation (1). To fix ideas we will choose the parameters which we have also used for explaining the redshift magnitude relation based on Type Ia supernovae (see Banerjee, et al, 2000). They are :

$$H_0=65\mathrm{kms}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1,,z_{\mathrm{max}}=5,,\eta =0.811,\mathrm{\Lambda }_0=0.358.$$
(6)
The parameters $`P`$ and $`Q`$ do not enter explicitly in the calculation but we may typically take them to be 1000 Gyr and 50 Gyr, respectively. We further define the dimensionless parameters by the following formulae:

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G\rho _0}{3H_0^2}}\mathrm{density}\mathrm{parameter},`$
$`\mathrm{\Lambda }_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{3H_0^2}}\mathrm{cosmological}\mathrm{constant}\mathrm{parameter},`$
$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{c0}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G\rho _{c0}}{3H_0^2}}\mathrm{creation}\mathrm{density}\mathrm{parameter},`$
$`K_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{H_0^2S_0^2}}\mathrm{curvature}\mathrm{parameter}.`$ (7)
Here $`\lambda `$ is the cosmological constant, which is negative in the QSSC. The angle subtended at the observer by the above scale at redshift $`z`$ ($`see`$ Banerjee and Narlikar, 1999) is then given by

$$\alpha =\frac{H_0a(1+z)}{c}_1^{1+z}\frac{cdy}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }_0+\mathrm{\Omega }_0y^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_{C0}y^4}}.$$
(8)
We will take $`z=z_{\mathrm{max}}=5`$. Then the above calculation gives

$$\alpha =3a.$$
(9)
where $`a`$ is measured in units of megaparsecs.

This then is the characteristic angle subtended by an object of linear size $`a`$ viewed when close to the oscillatory minimum. Assuming that this is the size of a rich cluster of galaxies, we expect the characteristic angular size of the MBR inh omogeneity it generates will be of this order. This would translate to a peak in the angular power spectrum at a harmonic of order $`l180^0/\pi \alpha `$. So we arrive at the following relationship between cluster size and the harmonic it generates:

$$l\frac{1100}{a}.$$
(10)
Thus a peak in the power spectrum of MBR anisotropy at harmonic $`l200`$ as observed by the Boomerang and the Maxima groups (de Bernardis et al 2000, Hanany et al, 2000) is generated in this theory by rich clusters of size $`5.5`$ Mpc, located at cosmological distances. Smaller peaks are expected on the scale of groups of galaxies, at $`l5001000`$, and on the scale o f superclusters at lower values of $`l1020`$. These latter peaks will be smaller than the cluster peak at $`l200`$ and thus they will be much harder to detect.

## 5 CONCLUDING REMARKS

In the QSSC the MBR arises from the matter in galaxies and this is quite different from its origin in big bang cosmology. In a similar way the major peak in the MBR in the framework of the QSSC is explained in terms of rich clusters of galaxies, whereas in the big bang cosmology it is the Doppler peak. The QSSC interpretation links the inhomogeities of radiation field to those of the matter field, of visible matter in the form of clusters of galaxies. Indeed, one may argue that in the QSSC interpretation, the observations of MB R-inhomogeneities provide us with a direct diagnostic of the structural hierarchy in the universe. For example, the pattern of patchiness could be related to the cluster - cluster correlation function.

It should be also mentioned that the interpretation of the $`mz`$ relation for Type Ia supernovae within the framework of the QSSC by Banerjee et al (2000) invokes the same whisker - dust as is used here for generating a redshift - dependent contribution to $`m`$. It is significant that the dust density required to get the best (and highly satisfactory) fit to the observed $`mz`$ relation agrees very well with that needed for generating the MBR.

We thank Tarun Souradeep for comments. J.V. Narlikar and R.G. Vishwakarma acknowledge grants from the Department of Atomic Energy for support of the Homi Bhabha Professorship for the former and the associated postdoctoral fellowship for the latter.

References

Banerjee, S.K. and Narlikar, J.V. 1999, MNRAS, 307, 73

Banerjee, S.K., Narlikar, J.V., Wickramasinghe, N.C., Hoyle, F. and Burbidge, G. 2000, A.J., 119, 2583

Burbidge, G. and Hoyle, F. 1998, Ap. J., 509, L1

de Bernardis, et al, P. 2000, Nature, 404, 955

Dittmar,W. and and Neumann, K. 1958, in Growth and Perfection in Crystals, Eds R.H. Doremus, P.W. Roberts and D. Turnbull, Wiley,388

Gomez,R.J. 1957, Chem. Phys., 26, 1333

Hanany, S. et al 2000, Ap. J., 545, L5

Hoyle,F., Burbidge, G. and Narlikar, J.V. 1993, Ap. J, 410, 437

Hoyle,F., Burbidge, G. and Narlikar, J.V. 1994$`a`$, MNRAS, 267, 1007

Hoyle, F., Burbidge, G. and Narlikar, J.V. 1994$`b`$, Astron. & Ap., 289, 729

Hoyle,F., Burbidge, G. and Narlikar, J.V. 1995, in The Light Nuclear Abundances, Ed P. Crane, Springer Verlag, p.21

Hoyle,F., Burbidge, G. and Narlikar, J.V. 2000, A Different Approach to Cosmology, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press

Nabarrow, F.R.N. and Jackson, P.J. 1958, in Growth and Perfection in Crystals, Eds R.H. Doremus, P.W. Roberts and D. Turnbull, Wiley, 65

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# Constraints on the warm dark matter model from gravitational lensing

## 1. Introduction

While cosmological models with a mixture of roughly $`35\%`$ cold dark matter (CDM) and $`65\%`$ vacuum energy have proved remarkably successful at explaining the origin and evolution of cosmic structures on large-scales ($`>1`$ Mpc), there are a number of independent observations on small scales that seem to be in conflict with the predictions of standard CDM models such as the cusped density profiles of virialized dark halos and the overabundance of satellite structures. Among many other mechanisms suggested for resolving these discrepancies, the simplest approach is to smear out small scale power by free-steaming due to thermal motion of particles. Warm dark matter (WDM) is thus invoked and has recently received a lot of attention in literature (e.g. White & Croft 2000; Colín, Avila-Reese & Valenzuela 2000; Sommer-Larsen & Dolgov 2000; Bode, Ostriker & Turok 2000b; references therein).

In the conventional scenario of structure formation by WDM, perturbations on small mass scales $`M_\mathrm{f}4\times 10^{11}M_{}h^2\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{X}(R_\mathrm{f}/0.1\mathrm{Mpc})^3`$ are damped, relative to CDM models, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{X}`$ is the WDM density parameter and $`R_\mathrm{f}`$ denotes the characteristic free-streaming length. As a result, it suppresses the formation of small halos with $`M<M_\mathrm{f}`$ at high redshift and meanwhile reduces the overall number of low mass halos in the universe, depending sensitively on the WDM particle mass $`m_\mathrm{X}`$. Observational tests of this scenario and hence robust constraints on $`m_\mathrm{X}`$ are restricted to the studies of less massive systems with $`M<M_\mathrm{f}`$. The existing limits in literature are based on the Gunn-Peterson effect and the Ly-$`\alpha `$ forest, which set $`m_\mathrm{X}>750`$ eV (Narayanan et al. 2000). In this Letter, we would like to examine whether the gravitational lensing of high-redshift quasars by foreground dark halos can be used to distinguish CDM and WDM models or place any meaningful constraints on $`m_\mathrm{X}`$. This arises because the probability of gravitational lensing would be lower in WDM model, as a result of the suppression of formation of small mass halos on galactic and sub-galactic scales, than in CDM model. For a massive galaxy like the Milky Way as a lens at cosmological distance, the Einstein radius of a background quasar is typically 1 arcsecond. So, it is expected that the difference in lensing properties between WDM and CDM models would occur below sub-arcsecond scales. We would like to demonstrate quantitatively to what angular separations the two models become to be distinguishable and how sensitively their lensing probabilities depend on the WDM particle mass.

## 2. Lensing probability

For simplicity, we use a singular isothermal sphere to model the mass distribution inside a virialized halo so that the total mass $`M`$ within radius $`r`$ is simply $`M=2\sigma _\mathrm{v}^2r/G`$. We truncate the mass profile at the virial radius $`r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ defined by $`M_{\mathrm{vir}}=4\pi \mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}\rho _\mathrm{c}r_{\mathrm{vir}}^3/3`$, where $`\rho _\mathrm{c}=3H^2(z)/8\pi G`$ is the critical mass density of the universe, $`H(z)=100hE(z)`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 is the Hubble constant, $`E(z)=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}(1+z)^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}(1+z)^2+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}`$ denotes the curvature term, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}`$ represents the overdensity of dark matter with respect to the critical density $`\rho _\mathrm{c}`$ at the collapse redshift $`z`$. For a dark halo at $`z`$ as a lens, the multiple images of a distant quasar at $`z_\mathrm{s}`$ with an angular separation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta =2\theta _\mathrm{E}`$ will occur if it happens to lie in the Einstein radius of the dark halo: $`\theta _\mathrm{E}=4\pi (\sigma _\mathrm{v}/c)^2(D_{\mathrm{ds}}/D_\mathrm{s})`$, in which $`D_{\mathrm{ds}}`$ and $`D_\mathrm{s}`$ are the angular diameter distances from the lens and observer to the source, respectively. The lensing cross section for the multiple images is simply $`\pi \theta _\mathrm{E}^2`$. The probability that a quasar at $`z_\mathrm{s}`$ will have multiple images with an angular separation greater than $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$ due to all the foreground dark halos is thus

$$P(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )=_0^{z_\mathrm{s}}\left(\frac{dV}{dz}\right)𝑑z_{M_{\mathrm{min}}}^{\mathrm{}}\left(\frac{\theta _\mathrm{E}^2}{4}\right)\left(\frac{dN}{dMdV}\right)𝑑M,$$
(1)
where $`dV`$ is the comoving volume element, and $`M_{\mathrm{min}}`$ is related to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$ through

$`M_{\mathrm{min}}=`$ $`1.50\times 10^{12}M_{}h^1`$ (2)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{E(z)}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\theta }{1^{\prime \prime }}}\right)^{3/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{D_\mathrm{s}}{D_{\mathrm{ds}}}}\right)^{3/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}}{200}}\right)^{1/2}.`$
We use the Press-Schechter (PS) mass function for the abundance and evolution of virialized dark halos:

$$\frac{dN}{dMdV}=\sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi }}\frac{\overline{\rho }}{M}\frac{\delta _c(z)}{\sigma ^2}\frac{d\sigma }{dM}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\delta _c(z)^2}{2\sigma ^2}\right),$$
(3)
where $`\overline{\rho }`$ is the present-day average mass density of the universe, $`\delta _\mathrm{c}(z)`$ is the linear over-density of perturbations that collapsed and virialized at redshift $`z`$, and $`\sigma `$ is the variance of the mass density fluctuation in sphere of mass $`M=(4\pi /3)\overline{\rho }R^3`$. It is convenient to express $`\delta _\mathrm{c}(z)`$ as $`\delta _\mathrm{c}(z)=\delta _0(1+z)[g(0)/g(z)]`$, where $`g(z)`$ is the linear growth factor, for which we take the approximate formula by Carroll, Press & Turner (1992), and the quantity $`\delta _0`$ has a weak dependence on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}`$: $`\delta _0=1.6866[1+0.01256\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}(z)]`$ for a flat universe with nonzero cosmological constant (Mathiesen & Evrard 1998). Once a power spectrum, $`P(k)`$, is specified, the mass variance becomes

$$\sigma ^2(M)=\frac{1}{2\pi ^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}k^2P(k)W^2(kR)𝑑k,$$
(4)
in which $`W(x)=3(\mathrm{sin}xx\mathrm{cos}x)/x^3`$ is the Fourier representation of the window function. We adopt the following parameterization of WDM power spectrum

$$P(k)=Ak^nT_\mathrm{X}^2(k)T_{\mathrm{CDM}}^2(k),$$
(5)
where $`n`$ is the primordial power spectrum and is assumed to be the Harrison-Zeldovich case $`n=1`$, $`T_{\mathrm{CDM}}(k)`$ is the transfer function of adiabatic CDM model for which we use the fit given by Bardeen et al. (1986), and $`T_\mathrm{X}(k)`$ acts as the CDM to WDM “ transfer function” for which we adopt the form provided by Bode et al. (2000b): $`T_\mathrm{X}(k)=[1+(\alpha k)^{2\nu }]^{5/\nu }`$, where $`\nu =1.2`$ and $`\alpha `$ is related to the WDM particle mass $`m_\mathrm{X}`$ through $`\alpha =0.048(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{X}/0.4)^{0.15}(h/0.65)^{1.3}(\mathrm{keV}/m_\mathrm{X})^{1.15}`$. The amplitude $`A`$ is determined by equation (4) using the rms mass fluctuation on an 8 $`h^1`$ Mpc scale, $`\sigma _8`$.

We work with a flat cosmological model where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{X}+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}=0.03`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, and $`h=0.68`$, which fixes the shape parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}h\mathrm{exp}[\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}(1+\sqrt{2h}/\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M})]=0.176`$. The normalization parameter is taken from the calibration of cluster abundance, $`\sigma _8=0.85`$. We compute the lensing probabilities for a quasar at redshift $`z_\mathrm{s}=1`$, $`2`$ and $`3`$, respectively, and for two choices of the WDM particle mass $`m_\mathrm{X}=350`$ eV and 1 keV. As a comparison, we also give the corresponding lensing probabilities for a CDM model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{CDM}}=0.27`$. In order to highlight their differences, we display in Figure 1 the normalized differential probabilities $`[1/P(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )][dP(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )/d\mathrm{\Delta }\theta ]`$ instead of the total probabilities $`P(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )`$. For the latter, the typical value for a quasar at $`z_\mathrm{s}=2`$ with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta >1^{\prime \prime }`$ is nearly the same for all the three models (two WDM models and the standard CDM model): $`P(>1^{\prime \prime })1\times 10^3`$. This result is consistent with the pioneering statistical study of gravitational lensing by Turner, Ostriker & Gott (1984). Noticeable departure of the lensing probability in WDM models from that in CDM model occurs only at small angular separations $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta <1^{\prime \prime }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta <0.^{\prime \prime }1`$ for $`m_\mathrm{X}>350`$ eV and $`m_\mathrm{X}>1`$ keV, respectively. It is likely that one needs to reach an even smaller angular separation of $`10`$ milliarcseconds in order to make an effective distinction between the WDM and CDM models for a realistic WDM particle mass of $`m_\mathrm{X}1`$ keV. We have applied the lensing probability $`P(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )`$ to the quasar luminosity function determined from the 2dF QSO survey over absolute magnitudes $`26<M_\mathrm{B}<23`$ and redshifts $`0.35<z_\mathrm{s}<2.3`$ (Boyle et al. 2000). Here we would rather take a less vigorous approach to the problem by neglecting the magnification effect of the double images. It is shown that at a limiting magnitude of $`m_\mathrm{B}=20`$, the fractions of small angular separation events with $`0.^{\prime \prime }001<\mathrm{\Delta }\theta <0.^{\prime \prime }01`$ in the total number of doubly-imaged quasars are approximately $`1/100`$, $`4/1000`$ and $`1/1000`$ for the CDM model and the WDM models with $`m_\mathrm{X}=1`$ keV and $`m_\mathrm{X}=350`$ eV, respectively. Indeed, observational tests of these fractions on milliarcsecond scales turn out to be difficult and challenging.

## 3. Discussion and conclusions

In the CDM scenario of structure formation, many small galaxies would form, relative to what are predicted by the WDM model. Consequently, the standard CDM model would predict more multiple, small angular separation images of the gravitationally lensed distant quasars than WDM model does. This unique property can be used as an effective tool to distinguish these two prevailing models. It has been shown that the significant difference in the distributions of image angular separations between WDM and CDM models occurs at small angular separations $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta 0.01^{\prime \prime }`$ for the WDM particle mass $`m_\mathrm{X}1`$ keV. Although there are no data available at present to test our prediction, these angle ranges should be accessible by current radio observations such as VLBI. Recall that systematic radio surveys for strong gravitational lensing have proved to be very successful at finding small separation images in the range $`0.^{\prime \prime }3`$-$`0.^{\prime \prime }6`$ (e.g. Augusto, Wilkinson & Browne 1998; Augusto & Wilkinson 2001; and references therein). It is hoped that future multiple image surveys down to $`10`$ milliarcseconds would allow one to place useful constraints on the WDM particle mass.

We now briefly discuss several major uncertainties in the present predictions: Firstly, we have used a simple singular isothermal sphere model for the mass distributions of dark halos. An alternative is the universal density profile suggested by high-resolution $`N`$-body simulations (Navarro, Frenk & White 1995; NFW), which should be valid for the virialized dark halos as small as $`10^9M_{}`$. Li & Ostriker (2000) have recently compared the lensing probabilities $`P(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )`$ produced by a singular isothermal sphere model and the NFW profile using roughly the same approach as ours. It turns out that the NFW profile results in a significantly small value of $`P(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )10^6`$, insensitive to the image separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$. We have recalculated the lensing probabilities under CDM and WDM models following the approximate treatment of Li & Ostriker (2000) for the image separation by NFW profile, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta 2\theta _0`$ where $`\theta _0`$ is the solution to the lensing equation with the zero alignment parameter. Unlike Li & Ostriker (2000) who took a constant halo concentration $`c`$ for massive halos from numerical simulations, we fix the characteristic density $`\delta _\mathrm{c}`$ and halo concentration $`c`$ for each halo $`M`$ using the $`\delta _\mathrm{c}`$-$`M`$ relation via the collapse redshift $`z_{\mathrm{coll}}`$ proposed by Navarro, Frenk & White (1997). Nevertheless, we have reached a conclusion essentially similar to Li & Ostriker (2000). For example, the lensing probabilities for a distant quasar at $`z_\mathrm{s}=3`$ with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta 0.001^{\prime \prime }`$$`1^{\prime \prime }`$ are $`P(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )3.7\times 10^6`$, $`3.6\times 10^6`$ and $`2.9\times 10^6`$ for the CDM model and the WDM models with $`m_\mathrm{X}=1`$ keV and $`m_\mathrm{X}=350`$ eV, respectively. The lack of small separation events below arcsecond scales will invalidate our original intention that the study of doubly-imaged quasars may help to distinguish between CDM and WDM models. However, we note that the lensing probability produced by NFW profile is unreasonably small ($`10^6`$). This implies that the NFW profile may be inappropriate to the description of the mass distributions in the inner regions of dark halos where the multiple images would occur. Indeed, the central mass density of an NFW profile is too shallow to act as an effective lens. The absence of detectable odd images in the known lens systems also lends support to the existence of a steeper inner density profile in galaxies, $`\rho r^2`$ (Rusin & Ma 2001). In a word, the singular isothermal sphere model may be a reasonable approximation for the inner mass profiles of galactic and sub-galactic halos.

Secondly, the PS mass function may become inaccurate for small halos. High resolution $`N`$-Body simulations have shown that the PS approximation predicts too many small halos at low redshifts (e.g. Bode et al. 2000a; Jenkins et al. 2001). This will lead to an overestimate of the total lensing probability for multiple images, $`P(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )`$, although the differential lensing probability normalized by $`P(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )`$, $`[1/P(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )][dP(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )/d\mathrm{\Delta }\theta ]`$, is probably less affected. In order to demonstrate the uncertainty, we have used the modified PS mass function by Sheth & Tormen (1999) and the best fit parameters by Jenkins et al. (2001). It is found that the total lensing probabilities for small separation events in both CDM and WDM models are slightly reduced as compared with those predicted by the standard PS formalism. For example, at $`z_\mathrm{s}=2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta =0.1^{\prime \prime }`$, the values of $`P(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )`$ in terms of the Sheth & Tormen (1999) mass function are $`1.2`$ times smaller than those derived from the PS approach, and this ratio is insensitive to cosmological models. The distribution of the differential lensing probability normalized by $`P(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )`$ based on the Sheth & Tormen (1999) mass function remains roughly the same as in Figure 1.

Thirdly, the theoretically predicted distribution of image separations depends critically on the choice of the cosmological parameters (e.g. Li & Ostriker 2000). Therefore, a robust constraint on the WDM particle mass from the study of lensing probability for multiple images with small angular separations needs a priori precise determinations of many other parameters such as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\sigma _8`$ and $`H_0`$.

Finally, one may worry about the contamination of the supermassive black holes as lenses in the actual application of the gravitational lensing probability to the observational tests of WDM model. Indeed, it is believed that all the AGNs contain supermassive black holes with masses $`M10^8`$$`10^9`$ $`M_{}`$ in their centers. The lensing effect by these supermassive black holes leads to an image separation of typically $`0.^{\prime \prime }1`$ for a quasar at cosmological distance, which is indeed of the same order of magnitude as the effect produced by small galaxies discussed in the present Letter. Yet, the lensing probability of a background quasar due to the supermassive black holes residing in AGNs is considerably low ($`10^8`$) (Augusto & Wilkinson 2001).

Overall, we feel that gravitational lensing should serve as a critical test for WDM model although further work will be needed to address in more detail various uncertainties in the issue.

We gratefully acknowledge the useful comments by an anonymous referee. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China, under Grant No. 19725311 and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, under Grant No. NKBRSF G19990754.


text:
# MASSIVE CONSTITUENT QUARKS AND UNIFIED DESCRIPTION OF FREEZE-OUT PARAMETERS: DOES QGP FORM AT LOW ENERGIES?

## Abstract

The possibility of unified description of hadron multiple production in heavy ion collisions over the wide energy interval, from few hundreds MeV/n at GSI/SIS through 11 GeV/n at BNL/AGS up to 160 GeV/n at CERN/SPS, has been emphasized recently by J. Cleymans and K. Redlich (CR) . They, and somewhat later B. Muller and J. Rafelski , treated this fact as an indication that quark-gluon plasma ($`QGP`$) can be produced even at very low energies of impinging nuclei. In our opinion, it rather witnesses that a massive constituent quark (valon) - not massless current quark and gluon! \- is just what becomes ”quite easily” to be unbound, and thus supports the expectation  that in course of compression and heating from hadronic state to $`QGP`$ (or, vice versa, of expansion and cooling down from $`QGP`$ to hadronic state) nuclear matter should pass through an intermediate phase in between.

Lebedev Physical Institute of RAS, Leninski prospect 53, 117333 Moscow,Russia

e-mail: $`<chernav\mathrm{@}lpi.ru>,<feinberg\mathrm{@}lpi.ru>,<royzen\mathrm{@}lpi.ru>`$

Analysis of QSI/SIS, BNL/AGS and CERN/SPS data on central collisions of heavy nuclei have led CR  to the conclusion that, for any per nucleon impinging energy (from the corresponding very wide interval), freeze-out points for all species of final hadrons concentrate around a single point in the phase space plane $`(\mu ,T)`$, $`\mu `$ and $`T`$ being baryonic chemical potential and temperature, respectively. If one takes into account the observation that final hadrons of each species show up the same mean energy about 1 GeV, then these three points fall to the theoretically motivated freeze-out curve it 1 in Fig. 1 which was treated by the authors as a boundary between the hadronic and $`QGP`$ phases (the domains of the plane below and above the curve 1, respectively).

Of course, the first (hadronic) part of this statement meets no objections, whereas the second one deserves a much more careful discussion. Indeed, everything, what underlies the remarkable CR observation, is that, at each of the above energies, the nuclear matter produced in course of heavy ion collision consists of some subhadronic entities mixed in a proper proportion which coalesce to form hadrons at the Hagedorn  temperature $`T_H`$. However, since this proportion is governed mostly by the differences in masses of the entities, irrespectively of whether they are current quarks or valons, it is rather insensitive to their mass values themselves. It is why the CR results do not necessarily ask for $`QGP`$ formation - the same unification in the $`(\mu ,T)`$-plane is expected to result from coalescence of valons linked to current quarks: $`Q_u`$ and $`Q_d`$ of the mass $``$ 330 MeV and $`Q_s`$ of the mass $``$ 480 MeV. If the interaction energy is sufficiently high, then this pion-valonic state 111Pions should present necessarily, although their fraction is rather small . comes next to the $`QGP`$ which is formed at the early stage of interaction, whereas, if this energy is rather low, then this state is formed from the very beginning of interaction, i.e., no $`QGP`$ is formed at all. Within this pattern of nuclear matter (fireball) evolution, one can, obviously, get rid of the questionable (and annoying) assumption of mysterious low energy $`QGP`$. Instead, formation of an chemically and thermally equilibrium pion-valonic state ($`Q\pi `$) is suggested which precedes the hadronization. This would not be even an assumption, if valons were incorporated consistently into the QCD formalism. However, all the endeavors to do this have been unsuccessful .

Still one point deserves mentioning in this connection. After hadronization, the final state attractive interaction between hadrons remains still quite strong (corresponding $`pn`$ cross section may be of several hundreds mb), what is confirmed by tremendous fraction of final deuterons at low energies, $`d/p`$ 0,37 at SIS. At higher energies, when pions are produced numerously, a similar (but, most probably, somewhat lower) effect should be caused by the $`\rho `$-meson resonance. Thus, the general patterns of nuclear matter evolution should look like as it is illustrated by curves 2 and 3 in Fig. 1., $`QGP`$ phase being pushed out toward the higher temperatures and chemical potentials.

Actually, the most of what was said above in order to clarify the real physical sense of CR observation is nothing else, than the ”old news”. Most probably, E. Shuryak was the first, who summarized a number of theoretical indications known at that time and called the attention  to possible existence of a new mass scale of the order of 300 MeV in the hadron physics. He expressed also an idea of two separate phase transitions - the valonic deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration. Similar concept was considered in , where it was noticed that only $``$ 3 time increase of density (as compared to the nucleus one) is needed to form a configuration of nearly ”close packed” (i.e., getting in touch) nucleons. 222A model calculation  showed that at $`T`$ = 0 a somewhat more dense nucleon closing is needed. As the compression goes on, the valons no longer ”recognize” their own nucleon and thus are getting unbound (more strictly, their confinement radius becomes $`A^{1/3}`$ times larger, $`A`$ being the number of compressed nucleons). Of course, one can never meet such conditions in real nucleus collisions 333However, they could be realized, probably, in neutron star wombs. The particular case of $`T`$ 0 and very high compression (large $`\mu `$) deserves special discussion, since it is the only one when immediate transition between $`QGP`$ and hadronic phases seems quite probable. \- even at SIS, the freeze-out temperature is expected to be about 55 MeV and therefore, the hadronization temperature $`T_H`$ should be still noticeably higher. Under such temperatures, nucleons should disintegrate, apparently, even at lower compression 444Probably, a mentioning is worthy that already long ago the late experimenter from JINR (Dubna) E. Okonov expressed a guess  that observed by him outcome of strange particles was suggestive for making the assumption that thermalization and quark deconfinement is achieved in nucleus collisions already at laboratory energies of few GeV. The main question of interest is now, what has to result from their disintegration: firstly the quazi-ideal gas of valons of a size (0,2-0,4) fm  (and pions) or immediately the point-like current quarks and qluons? For some time, this problem was subjected to a quite lively discussion  which then unfoundedly faded. In our opinion, the CR observation showed that withdrawal of valons was, at least, a premature doing.

In this connection, we would like to remind that presented above qualitative picture (see Fig. 1) of phases passed by hot and dense nuclear matter in course of its evolution is emerged, in particular, from a certain QCD bag model incorporating valons inevitably which was worked out  in more detail. Also a quite good explanation of the observed low (and, maybe, middle) mass dilepton yield was obtained  from consideration of the pion-valonic phase the expanding nuclear matter is assumed to pass through.

This work is supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Researches, grants No.’s 96-15-96798 and 00-02-17250.

FIGURE CAPTIONS

Figure 1. Chiral transition (solid curve 3) and hadronization (dashed curve 2) with an intermediate phase in between, preceeding the Cleymans-Redlich (CR) freeze-out unified pattern (dashed and solid curves 1).


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Quantum Chromodynamics simplifies when we take the number of colors, $`N_c`$, to infinity ; we will denote this limit by $`QCD_{\mathrm{}}`$. Assuming confinement, it is generally believed that the large-$`N_c`$ solution qualitatively resembles the real world enough to be taken as a serious starting point for a systematic approximation by expanding in inverse powers of $`N_c`$ .

Unfortunately, no solution to $`QCD_{\mathrm{}}`$ has been found to date, except in the two-dimensional case . We know that even in the large-$`N_c`$ limit this solution has to be very complex. Large $`N_c`$, together with confinement and asymptotic freedom, predicts the existence of an infinite set of zero-width meson resonances in any channel with given quantum numbers. These resonances contribute to any Green’s function made of quark bilinear operators corresponding to those quantum numbers. At very large energies a simplification occurs, as the infinite tower of resonances has to become equivalent to the free-quark loop of the parton model obtained in leading-order perturbative QCD (pQCD), with the connection provided by the operator product expansion (OPE). However, how this happens is not known, except in the two-dimensional case. We would therefore like to propose a simple model for this equivalence, which despite its simplicity is phenomenologically quite successful.

In this work we will deal only with two-point functions in the chiral limit. We limit ourselves to this choice because these are the simplest Green’s functions which obey non-trivial chiral symmetry and OPE constraints. The model is based on the observation that, although the equivalence between the resonance description of $`QCD_{\mathrm{}}`$ and the quark-gluon description of pQCD is valid at asymptotically large energy scales, phenomenology suggests that asymptotic behavior may set in already at values of $`s=Q^2(12)\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. In the vector channel, the $`\rho `$ meson is clearly lighter than this scale $`s`$, but all higher resonances ($`\rho ^{},\rho ^{\prime \prime },\rho ^{\prime \prime \prime },`$ etc.) appear to lie already in this asymptotic region. Therefore, it is reasonable to consider this channel as consisting of a separate $`\rho `$ resonance of mass $`M_\rho `$, plus an infinite tower labeled by an index $`n`$, of masses $`M_V(n)`$, which corresponds to the perturbative description in a way to be described below. In the axial-vector channel, on the contrary, the $`a_1`$ may already be heavy enough to group all resonances together in a corresponding tower, $`M_A(n)`$. Here the exception is of course the Goldstone meson which, because of chiral-symmetry breakdown, is massless and stays away from the tower.

How these resonances are spaced as a function of the index $`n`$ is not known in $`QCD_{\mathrm{}}`$ . Instead, we will rely on Regge theory . It has been long suspected that there is a connection between large-$`N_c`$ and Regge theory , but the precise link has never been found . One of the natural features of Regge theory is the existence of so-called daughter trajectories. Their most important feature for us is that they give rise to towers of resonances with a given spin obeying an equal-spacing rule with respect to the index $`n`$, i.e. the mass squared is given by $`M^2(n)=a+bn`$. In two dimensions, where the solution to $`QCD_{\mathrm{}}`$ is known, it can be shown that indeed $`M^2(n)n`$ for large $`n`$. Here, in four dimensions, we will conjecture that this linear behavior in $`n`$ is also valid for both the vector and axial-vector towers, and assume that

$$M_{V,A}^2(n)=m_{V,A}^2+n\mathrm{\Lambda }_{V,A}^2,$$
(1.1)
is a reasonable approximation for all mesons except the $`\rho `$ meson and the pion.

For simplicity, we will content ourselves with this equal-spacing (ES) ansatz producing only the leading term in pQCD, the parton-model logarithm. A possible remedy to this is to delay the onset of the equally spaced tower by including more and more individual resonances which are not part of the tower, and thus move the “onset” of this tower to a higher energy, where the parton-model logarithm is a better approximation. In this way the description would become more accurate. Alternatively, one could take the $`n`$ dependence in eq. (1.1) to be more complicated,111In principle one could also play with the $`n`$ dependence of the resonances’ decay constants (see below). such that non-leading perturbative corrections are reproduced from our ansatz as well. The price to pay, of course, is that this introduces more unknown parameters into our ansatz, which would have to be fixed by matching to the OPE and chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) to higher orders in a way similar to what we will describe for our simple ansatz in section 2.

Much of this has been said before, although perhaps not within the unifying framework of the large-$`N_c`$ expansion. For instance, in the pioneering work by Bramon, Etim and Greco  and Sakurai , it was already observed that a resonance tower including as the first state the $`\rho `$, and obeying

$$M_V^2(n)=M_\rho ^2\left(1+\alpha n\right),$$
(1.2)
reproduces reasonably well the parton-model logarithm of the two-point vector correlation function if $`\alpha =2`$ and the $`\rho `$ decay constant is taken at its experimental value. This was an exciting result because the Veneziano model , which can be considered as the model paradigm of Regge theory, predicted exactly this value. We will later on see that, if the distribution of eq. (1.2) is assumed, the value $`\alpha =2`$ is actually an exact algebraic consequence of the OPE, independent of the value of the $`\rho `$ decay constant. However, in that case eq. (1.2) also leads to a negative value for the gluon condensate, a result which is clearly disfavored phenomenologically . In our approach we will not take the $`\rho `$ to be part of the equally spaced tower.

Also Geshkenbein considered  the problem of an infinite set of resonances in the vector channel and how this would match onto the OPE; this time with a general function $`M_V^2(n)`$. However, nobody seems to have considered an infinite set of resonances in the vector and axial-vector correlation functions on the same footing, together with their properties under chiral symmetry . In addition, the experimental knowledge of the vector spectrum has improved considerably recently, so that an updated comparison is interesting.

In this paper, we will study the phenomenological consequences of our ansatz, in which we take equally spaced towers in both the vector and axial-vector channels with separate resonances for the $`\rho `$ and the pion, to leading order in $`N_c`$, and in the chiral limit. Furthermore, although we will refer explicitly to the $`\rho `$ and $`a_1`$ mesons for simplicity, it should be clear that our results also apply in the $`U(3)\times U(3)`$ chiral limit.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 is devoted to the presentation of our model. Section 3 contains the phenomenological consequences of this model. In section 4 we make a comparison with the Lowest-Meson Dominance approximation of ref. , and we conclude in section 5.

## 2 The model

Let us start by defining the vector two-point function as

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{V,A}^{\mu \nu }=id^4xe^{iqx}J_{V,A}^\mu (x)J_{V,A}^\nu (0)=\left(q_\mu q_\nu g_{\mu \nu }q^2\right)\mathrm{\Pi }_{V,A}(q^2),$$
(2.3)
with $`J_V^\mu (x)=\overline{d}(x)\gamma ^\mu u(x)`$ and $`J_A^\mu (x)=\overline{d}(x)\gamma ^\mu \gamma ^5u(x)`$. Both functions $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{V,A}(Q^2q^2)`$ satisfy the dispersion relation (up to one subtraction)

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{V,A}(Q^2)=_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dt}{t+Q^2}\frac{1}{\pi }\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_{V,A}(t).$$
(2.4)
Following the discussion in the introduction we will assume that

$$\frac{1}{\pi }\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_V(t)=2F_\rho ^2\delta (tM_\rho ^2)+2\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}F_V^2\delta (tM_V^2(n)),$$
(2.5)
$$\frac{1}{\pi }\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_A(t)=2F_\pi ^2\delta (t)+2\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}F_A^2\delta (tM_A^2(n)).$$
(2.6)
In these expressions, $`F_\rho `$ is the electromagnetic decay constant of the $`\rho `$, and $`F_\pi =93`$ MeV is the pion decay constant. $`F_V`$ and $`F_A=F_{a_1}`$ are the corresponding constants for the towers of vector and axial-vector mesons. Note that, along with the ansatz of eq. (1.1) for $`M_{V,A}^2(n)`$, we take $`F_{V,A}`$ both to be independent of $`n`$.

Since $`QCD_{\mathrm{}}`$ has not been solved, it is unclear what values to take for all these parameters even in the large-$`N_c`$ limit. We estimate that $`1/N_c`$ subleading corrections are roughly of the order of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/M2030\%`$ so that decay constants and masses are uncertain by this amount. In addition, we will give results for both $`F_\pi 87`$ MeV and $`F_\pi 93`$ MeV as a rough estimate of how much our results change as a consequence of chiral corrections.

The analysis of this ansatz is just a straightforward application of the Euler-Maclaurin summation formula. For instance, in the vector case one obtains

$`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{N_V}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_V^2}{Q^2+n\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2+m_V^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{N_V+1}}𝑑n{\displaystyle \frac{F_V^2}{Q^2+n\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2+m_V^2}}+`$ (2.7)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_V^2}{Q^2+m_V^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_V^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}{(Q^2+m_V^2)^2}}+\mathrm{},`$
where $`N_V1`$, with the condition that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{cutoff}}^2=(N_V+1)\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2+m_V^2`$ is a momentum cutoff which regularizes the theory and is taken equal to the momentum cutoff in the axial channel in order to avoid spurious chiral symmetry breaking in the deep ultraviolet. Performing the integral and expanding in inverse powers of $`Q^2`$, one finds

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_V(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2F_V^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}}\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{cutoff}}^2}{Q^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^2}}\left[2F_\rho ^22F_V^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\right]`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^4}}\left[2F_\rho ^2M_\rho ^2+F_V^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_V^4}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\right)\right]`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^6}}\left[2F_\rho ^2M_\rho ^4{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}F_V^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^4\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_V^6}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^6}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^4}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}}\right)\right]+𝒪(1/Q^8),`$
and in the axial channel

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_A(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2F_A^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2}}\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{cutoff}}^2}{Q^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^2}}\left[2F_\pi ^22F_A^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_A^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\right]`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^4}}\left[F_A^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_A^4}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_A^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\right)\right]`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^6}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}F_A^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^4\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_A^6}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^6}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_A^4}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_A^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2}}\right)\right]+𝒪(1/Q^8).`$
Of course the expansions of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{V,A}(Q^2)`$ in eqs. (2,2) have to match their respective OPE expansions . This leads to the constraints

$$\frac{2}{3}\frac{N_c}{16\pi ^2}=\frac{F_V^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}=\frac{F_A^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2},$$
(2.10)
from the coefficient of the parton-model logarithm in front of the unit operator,

$$F_\rho ^2=F_V^2\left(\frac{m_V^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}\frac{1}{2}\right)\mathrm{and}F_\pi ^2=F_A^2\left(\frac{m_A^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2}\frac{1}{2}\right),$$
(2.11)
from the absence of a dimension-two operator in the OPE,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{12\pi }}G_{\mu \nu }G^{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`2F_\rho ^2M_\rho ^2+F_V^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_V^4}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\right)`$ (2.12)
$`=`$ $`F_A^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_A^4}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_A^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\right),`$
from the contribution of the gluon condensate, and

$`{\displaystyle \frac{28}{9}}\pi \alpha _s\overline{\psi }\psi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`2F_\rho ^2M_\rho ^4{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}F_V^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^4\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_V^6}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^6}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^4}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}}\right),`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{44}{9}}\pi \alpha _s\overline{\psi }\psi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}F_A^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^4\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_A^6}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^6}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^4}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_A^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2}}\right),`$ (2.13)
from the four-quark condensate.

There are two more constraints which we can impose using physical observables which depend only on $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{V,A}(Q^2)`$. These are the coupling $`L_{10}`$ of the $`𝒪(p^4)`$ chiral Lagrangian  and the electromagnetic pion-mass difference. They are expressed in terms of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{V,A}(Q^2)`$ as

$$L_{10}=\frac{1}{4}\frac{d}{dQ^2}\left(Q^2\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}(Q^2)\right)_{Q^2=0},$$
(2.14)
and

$$m_{\pi ^+}m_{\pi ^0}=\frac{3\alpha }{8\pi m_\pi F_\pi ^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑Q^2Q^2\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}(Q^2),$$
(2.15)
where

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}(Q^2)\frac{1}{2}\left(\mathrm{\Pi }_V(Q^2)\mathrm{\Pi }_A(Q^2)\right).$$
(2.16)
Given $`F_\pi `$, the gluon condensate and the combination $`\pi \alpha _s\overline{\psi }\psi ^2`$, we can solve for the eight parameters $`F_\rho ,M_\rho ,F_{V,A},m_{V,A}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{V,A}`$ from eqs. (2.102), and from the solution determine $`L_{10}`$ and $`m_{\pi ^+}m_{\pi ^0}`$. Thus, the system is overconstrained.

## 3 Phenomenological results

In principle, one could solve the system of equations eqs. (2.10-2) as indicated at the end of the previous section. However, the condensates are relatively poorly known, and we prefer to follow a different approach. We will use as inputs the values of $`F_\pi =93`$ MeV (we will also consider the value $`F_\pi =87`$ MeV, which is the value in the chiral limit ), $`M_\rho =770`$ MeV222Since one should actually use large-$`N_c`$ values, one could try to vary the $`\rho `$ mass as well. However, since our choice $`M_\rho 770`$ MeV already does a good job, we decided to keep the analysis as simple as possible and not to fiddle with $`M_\rho `$, while we wait for more data to come in (for instance on the spectrum)., and $`F_\rho `$ ranging from about $`120`$ to $`150`$ MeV, the latter being the experimental value. (For larger values the combination $`\pi \alpha _s\overline{\psi }\psi ^2`$ becomes negative, in contradiction with the phenomenologically most favored value. See below.) Choosing a range like this is reasonable, because we are in the large-$`N_c`$ limit, and expect variations of order $`2030`$%. It allows us to eliminate the condensates from eqs. (2.12,2), and solve the remaining two equations along with eqs. (2.10,2.11) for $`F_{V,A}`$, $`m_{V,A}`$, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{V,A}`$, and then calculate the two condensates in terms of these.

The solutions for $`F_{V,A}`$ are shown in figure 1, those for $`m_{V,A}`$ in figure 2, and the condensates are shown in figures 3 and 4, as a function of $`F_\rho `$. Below $`F_\rho 123`$ MeV the equations do not have a real solution. In the axial channel, $`m_A=M_{a_1}=1230`$ MeV experimentally, while for $`F_A=F_{a_1}`$ a value of $`135`$ MeV is reported in ref. . $`F_V`$ is not known experimentally. Phenomenological estimates for the condensates are $`\alpha _sG^2=0.048\pm 0.030`$ GeV4 , and $`\pi \alpha _s\overline{\psi }\psi ^2=9\pm 2\times 10^4`$ GeV6 . Looking at figures 1 to 4, we see that very good agreement is obtained for values of $`F_\rho `$ of about $`130135`$ MeV. For $`F_\rho =130`$ MeV we summarize both our solution along with the experimental values in table 1, in which we also give our results for $`F_\pi =87`$ instead of $`93`$ MeV.

We may now use the values obtained for $`m_{V,A}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{V,A}`$ in order to calculate the vector and axial-vector meson spectrum, from eq. (1.1). The results are shown in table 2. While experimental confirmation for the mass of the $`a_1^{}`$ (and higher resonances) is needed, table 2 shows a good agreement between the model and the real world.

Using these results, eq. (1.1) can now be rewritten as

$$M_V^2(n)=M_\rho ^{}^2(1+an),a0.7.$$
(3.17)
This is actually very close to the original proposal of ref.  where the $`\rho `$ is not a separate resonance from the equally spaced tower but just another member. In order to make the comparison more clear, rewrite eq. (1.2) in terms of the $`\rho ^{}`$ mass instead of the $`\rho `$. Equation (1.2) (with $`\alpha =2`$) then reads $`M_V^2(n)=M_\rho ^{}^2(1+2n/3)`$ and $`a=2/3`$, to be compared with eq. (3.17). However, although the spectrum is quite similar, other quantities are not. As a matter of fact, note that the result $`\alpha =2`$ in eq. (1.2) (i.e. $`m_V^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2=1/2`$), can also be derived as a consequence of the lack of dimension-two operator in the OPE: the solution $`\alpha =2`$ follows from eq. (2.11) (after setting $`F_\rho =0`$, since the $`\rho `$ meson belongs to the equally spaced tower of refs. ). However, eq. (2.12) then yields a negative gluon condensate (the gluon condensate is very sensitive to variations in meson masses and decay constants).

From eq. (2.14), we find for the ES ansatz

$$L_{10}=\frac{1}{4}\left(\frac{F_\rho ^2}{M_\rho ^2}+\left(\frac{m_A^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2}\frac{m_V^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}\right)\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{(n+\frac{m_V^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2})(n+\frac{m_A^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2})}+\frac{2}{3}\frac{N_c}{16\pi ^2}\mathrm{log}\frac{F_A^2}{F_V^2}\right).$$
(3.18)
For $`F_\rho =130`$ MeV the values we obtain are recorded in table 1. The value of $`L_{10}`$ varies by less than 15% over the range of $`F_\rho `$ we considered.

For $`m_{\pi ^+}m_{\pi ^0}`$ the expression following from eq. (2.15) is rather lengthy, and we relegate it to an appendix. Again, the values for $`F_\rho =130`$ MeV are presented in table 1. In the calculation of the pion-mass difference we take $`M_\pi =135`$ MeV. At $`F_\rho =150`$ MeV, we find that $`m_{\pi ^+}m_{\pi ^0}=3.0`$ resp. $`3.2`$ MeV for $`F_\pi =87`$ resp. $`93`$ MeV. It is clear that the ES ansatz favors a lower value of $`F_\rho `$ of around $`130`$ MeV. Since we find no solution for $`F_\rho 120`$ MeV, the solution is quite constrained.

In principle, our model may be used to predict hitherto unknown values of quantities of phenomenological interest. Since we have restricted our attention to vector and axial-vector two-point functions, there are not many such quantities. One such quantity is a $`K\pi `$ matrix element of the electro-magnetic penguin operator $`Q_7`$,333The physical $`K(\pi \pi )_{I=2}`$ matrix element is related to this simpler matrix element by ChPT. which can be expressed solely in terms of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}`$ :

$$Q_7^{3/2}(\mu )\pi ^+|Q_7^{3/2}|K^+(\mu )=\frac{3}{8\pi ^2f_\pi ^2}_0^{\mu ^2}𝑑Q^2Q^4\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}(Q^2).$$
(3.19)
Even though this quantity by itself is of limited phenomenological interest, it is interesting to compare the value we obtain with that obtained from Lowest-Meson Dominance  (LMD; cf. section 4 below). The difference in numerical values gives an indication of the robustness of this sum-rule approach with respect to variations in the ansatz taken for the spectral functions. In addition, lattice  and other phenomenological estimates  exist . Note that this quantity is scale dependent, because the integral is logarithmically divergent. This is because terms up to $`1/Q^4`$ cancel in $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}`$ (cf. eq. (2.16)), but not terms of order $`1/Q^6`$. We will return to this quantity in the next section.

## 4 Comparison with the Lowest-Meson Dominance approximation

It is interesting to compare the ES ansatz which we have been considering thus far with the Lowest-Meson Dominance (LMD) ansatz of ref. . In the ES case, the (leading) perturbative values of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{V,A}(Q^2)`$ for large $`Q^2`$ come from the assumed Regge-like spectrum. One may also directly incorporate pQCD into an ansatz by approximating $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{V,A}(Q^2)`$ with the expression one finds in pQCD which, to leading order in $`\alpha _s`$, reads

$$\frac{1}{\pi }\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_V(t)|_{pQCD}=\frac{2}{3}\frac{N_c}{16\pi ^2}\theta \left(ts_0\right).$$
(4.20)
Here a parameter $`s_0`$ is introduced which determines the onset of the perturbative continuum, above which we expect pQCD to give accurate results. For $`ts_0`$ this expression replaces the sums in eqs. (2.5,2.6). All resonances for $`t<s_0`$ are kept; for an illustration, see figure 5. In the simplest version of this approach, one keeps one resonance each in the vector and axial-vector channels. Since, by definition, $`s_0`$ in eq. (4.20) marks the onset of the perturbative continuum, it is taken to be the same for both vector and axial-vector channels, because chiral symmetry is not broken in perturbation theory. This ansatz has recently been shown to yield a successful description of Aleph data for the moments of the $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}`$ function , it successfully predicts pseudoscalar decays  and, also recently, it has allowed an analytic calculation of the $`K^0\overline{K}^0`$ mixing parameter, $`B_K`$ .

Qualitatively one can understand the transition between ES and LMD in the following way. Low-energy observables are dominated by the lowest individual resonances to the extent that the effect of the continuum is suppressed by the fact that $`s_0`$ is larger than the mass (squared) of these individual resonances. For the LMD case, the continuum (4.20) produces a logarithm just like the integral in eq. (2.7) does, with $`s_0=24\pi ^2F_\rho ^2/N_c=m_V^2`$ (see refs.  for details on the LMD ansatz). Taking also into account the leading correction term in eq. (2.7) to order $`1/Q^2`$, we find $`s_0=m_V^2\left(1\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2/m_V^2\right)`$. Taking $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2/m_V^2`$ smaller (keeping $`F_V^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2`$ fixed, cf. eq. (2.10)) clearly approaches the perturbative approximation of eq. (4.20), with $`s_0m_V^2`$, and with the correction terms on the right-hand side of eq. (2.7) becoming smaller (for any value of $`Q^2`$). In this sense, the LMD approach can be seen as following from the ES approach in the limit $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2/m_V^20`$, at least in the vector channel. (In the axial channel, a similar argument would apply if we had taken one separate resonance apart from the tower in the ES approach. In our case, $`m_A`$ is relatively small, and $`\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2/m_A^2`$ is substantially bigger than $`\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2/m_V^2`$.)

Of course, it is easy to put $`\alpha _s`$ corrections into eq. (4.20) in the LMD approach, while this is less straightforward in the ES approach (it requires a more complicated $`n`$ dependence of $`M_{V,A}^2`$ and $`F_{V,A}^2`$). One can also improve the extent to which LMD approximates ES by keeping more individual resonances explicit in the LMD ansatz. This will move up $`s_0`$ or equivalently $`m_V^2`$, hence reducing the size of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2/m_V^2`$.

Using the same information from the OPE, and the relation $`F_\rho ^2=2F_\pi ^2`$ , one finds that in the LMD approach $`s_0`$ is determined to be $`s_0=(4\pi F_\pi )^2`$ from the vector channel, and then, from the axial-vector channel, that $`M_{a_1}`$ is close to, but smaller than $`\sqrt{s_0}`$ .444In comparing with ref. , note that $`F_\rho =f_\rho M_\rho `$, etc. This implies that within LMD the $`a_1`$ resonance has to be kept, and cannot be folded into the perturbative continuum, eq. (4.20). Higher resonances are well above $`\sqrt{s_0}`$ (whether we take their experimental values, or those predicted from ES, cf. table 2). We will therefore compare the phenomenology of the ES ansatz, summarized in tables 1 and 2, with that of the LMD ansatz with one explicit resonance in each channel (in addition to the pion). The LMD results are presented in table 3. All quantities displayed in table 3 are predicted in terms of $`F_\pi `$ with the LMD ansatz , using the relation $`F_\rho ^2=2F_\pi ^2`$, but (obviously) no predictions are made for excited states in both channels in this case. In the comparison with the results in table 1, one should keep in mind that the relation $`F_\rho ^2=2F_\pi ^2`$ was not used with the ES ansatz. However, for $`F_\pi =87`$, resp. $`93`$ MeV, $`F_\rho =130`$ MeV satisfies this relation at the $`10`$, resp. $`2`$% level.

Comparing the results of ES and LMD, it is clear that both approaches yield consistent results, especially if one takes into account that all results are in the large-$`N_c`$ and chiral limits, so that deviations of less than $`30`$% are not significant. Possible exceptions to this are $`F_{a_1}`$ and $`\pi \alpha _s\overline{\psi }\psi ^2`$, for which the LMD values are smaller, resp. larger, than the ES value. Unfortunately, the experimental values, while closer to the ES values, are rather poorly known. Possibly with these two exceptions, the differences between tables 1 and 3 give a good indication of the spread one can expect when one combines QCD techniques such as large $`N_c`$, OPE and pQCD with an ansatz for the spectrum in order to obtain explicit solutions.

Finally, we compare the ES prediction for $`Q_7^{3/2}(\mu )`$ with the LMD prediction for the same number. First, we show the function $`Q^4\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}(Q^2)`$ in figure 6, for both the ES and LMD ansätze. We evaluated the ES value of $`Q_7^{3/2}(\mu )`$ at $`\mu =2`$ GeV from the area under the curve using $`\mu `$ as a sharp cutoff (choosing $`F_\rho =130`$ MeV and $`M_\rho =770`$ MeV), and quote the LMD value from ref. , finding,

$$Q_7^{3/2}(\mu =2\mathrm{GeV})=\{\begin{array}{cc}0.021(\mathrm{GeV})^4,\hfill & \text{ES, }F_\pi =93\text{ MeV,}\hfill \\ 0.019(\mathrm{GeV})^4,\hfill & \text{ES, }F_\pi =87\text{ MeV,}\hfill \\ 0.024(\mathrm{GeV})^4,\hfill & \text{LMD.}\hfill \end{array}$$
(4.21)
We took again $`F_\rho ^2=2F_\pi ^2`$ in the LMD case, in which case the LMD value is independent of $`F_\pi `$ (for a fixed $`M_\rho `$). We see that, as in the case of most other quantities, the predicted value we obtain for $`Q_7^{3/2}(\mu =2\mathrm{GeV})`$ is quite robust to the variation of the ansatz for the vector and axial-vector spectral functions we have been considering. The values we obtain are fully consistent with each other within the context of the large-$`N_c`$ and chiral limits.

## 5 Conclusion

In this paper we have considered the vector and axial-vector current two-point functions in QCD. The combination of taking the large-$`N_c`$ and chiral limits, the use of asymptotic freedom and the OPE constrain the possible form of these two-point functions. However, this is not enough to obtain concrete predictions: more knowledge, or lacking that, an ansatz for the spectral functions in these two channels is still needed.

A particular ansatz which has been considered in the literature is the LMD ansatz, in which the high-energy part of the spectral functions is calculated in pQCD, while one (or a few) explicit resonances are kept at low to medium energy. This approach has been quite successful in reproducing known phenomenology, and should therefore be useful in estimating as yet unknown hadronic quantities, such as weak matrix elements. However, although LMD yields a rather intuitive picture it is not a simple matter to give it a fully systematic treatment. Such systematic treatment should, in particular, produce a theory of the so-called quark-hadron duality violations , a problem which is clearly beyond the scope of the present work. Consequently, determinations of the systematic errors associated with this approach have to rely at some point on phenomenological experience.

One way to address this issue is to vary the nature of the ansatz within the confines of our general picture of the strong interactions, and this is what we have done in this paper. Instead of LMD, we have based our ansatz on Regge theory, except for the lowest states in each channel (the $`\rho `$ meson and the pion). For the precise form of the ES ansatz, see eqs. (2.5,2.6). The hadron phenomenology calculated with this assumption is again very good, and agrees well with what is found with LMD (cf. tables 1 and 3). Possible exceptions perhaps are $`F_{a_1}`$ and $`\pi \alpha _s\overline{\psi }\psi ^2`$; experimentally these quantities are not that well-known. In general, because of the use of large-$`N_c`$ and chiral limits, agreement at the 20-30% level, between ES and LMD, or with experiment, should be considered satisfactory.

The gluon and four-quark condensates are rather sensitive to the values of other quantities (masses and decay constants). Within our solution (cf. table 1), we find that the $`\rho `$ comes out to be very close to lying on the daughter trajectory predicted by Regge theory in that $`M_\rho ^{}^2M_\rho ^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2`$ and $`F_\rho F_V`$. However, requiring the $`\rho `$ to be precisely on this trajectory leads to a negative gluon condensate. Since large $`N_c`$ (supplemented with Regge Theory) and pQCD suggest that asymptotically the tower of resonances has to be equally spaced, it makes intuitive sense to model the resonance spectrum with an equally spaced tower above $`1`$ GeV, keeping those below $`1`$ GeV separate. The ES ansatz goes beyond LMD in that it yields a value for the spacing between the resonances (the parameters $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{V,A}`$), and leads to a reasonable resonance pattern in the vector and axial-vector channels (cf. table 2).

We have then used the ES ansatz in order to predict a weak matrix element, $`Q_7^{3/2}(\mu )`$, which is of interest in the context of non-leptonic kaon decays. We find a value rather close to that predicted from LMD, thus lending support to the credibility of this prediction.

Finally, we discussed the extent to which the two ansätze are equivalent. We qualitatively argued that in the limit in which we take the spacing between the resonances in the ES tower to zero one recovers the LMD approach. However, with LMD, we kept both the $`\rho `$ and the $`a_1`$ as separate resonances (because one finds that the perturbative threshold $`s_0`$ is larger than $`M_{a_1}^2`$), while we did take the $`a_1`$ to be the first resonance of the ES tower.

After all these years we still do not have a real understanding of the large-$`N_c`$ expansion in QCD. Clearly the ES model is not meant to be a substitute for large-$`N_c`$ QCD at the theoretical level but, given its phenomenological success, it may help in our understanding of this limit of QCD.

Acknowledgments

MG and SP thank E. de Rafael for useful discussions and M. Knecht for reading the manuscript. SP thanks A. Bramon for interesting conversations on Regge Theory and F. Jegerlehner for drawing his attention to ref.  in the course of this work. MG and SP thank the IFAE at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Department of Physics at Washington University for mutual hospitality. MG was supported in part by the US Dept. of Energy and by a fellowship of the Spanish Government SAB1998-0171. SP was supported by CICYT-AEN99-0766 and by TMR, EC-Contract No. ERBFMRX-CT980169 (EuroDaphne).

## Appendix

The expression for the electromagnetic pion mass difference, following from the ES ansatz follows from eq. (2.15), is

$`m_{\pi ^+}m_{\pi ^0}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3\alpha }{8\pi m_\pi f_\pi ^2}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}F_\rho ^2M_\rho ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}F_A^2m_A^2`$ (5.22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{N_c}{24\pi ^2}}[{\displaystyle \frac{11}{12}}m_V^4\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{M_\rho ^2}{m_V^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{7}{12}}(m_V^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2)^2\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{M_\rho ^2}{m_V^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}(m_V^2+2\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2)^2\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{M_\rho ^2}{m_V^2+2\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}}]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{N_c}{24\pi ^2}}[{\displaystyle \frac{11}{12}}(m_A^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2)^2\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{m_A^2}{m_A^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{7}{12}}(m_A^2+2\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2)^2\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{m_A^2}{m_A^2+2\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}(m_A^2+3\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2)^2\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{m_A^2}{m_A^2+3\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2}}]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[2F_\rho ^2M_\rho ^2{\displaystyle \frac{24\pi ^2}{N_c}}F_\rho ^4+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}F_V^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2\right]\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{m_A^2}{M_\rho ^2}}`$
$`3F_V^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2G\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2}}\right)+3F_A^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2G\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_A^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_A^2}}\right)\},`$
where

$`G(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{(n+x)^2}}+4(n+1+x)^3\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{n+x}{n+1+x}}3(n+2+x)^3\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{n+x}{n+2+x}}`$ (5.23)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}(n+3+x)^3\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{n+x}{n+3+x}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(n+4+x)^3\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{n+x}{n+4+x}}).`$
This expression results from calculating the integral in eq. (2.15), which is finite, because $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}(Q^2)4\pi \alpha _s\overline{\psi }\psi ^2/Q^6`$ for large $`Q^2`$. By partial integration

$`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑Q^2Q^2\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑Q^2Q^4{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dQ^2}}\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}(Q^2).`$ (5.24)
The sums over $`n`$ inside $`\frac{d}{dQ^2}\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}(Q^2)`$ now converge. Next, one would like to make use of the fact that terms up to order $`1/Q^8`$ in $`\frac{d}{dQ^2}\mathrm{\Pi }_{LR}(Q^2)`$ vanish, as follows from eqs. (2.102.12). This can be done by writing

$`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_V^2}{(Q^2+m_V^2+n\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2)^2}}`$ $`=`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}({\displaystyle \frac{F_V^2}{(Q^2+m_V^2+n\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2)(Q^2+m_V^2+(n+1)\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2)}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{F_V^2}{(Q^2+m_V^2+n\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2)^2(Q^2+m_V^2+(n+1)\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2)}})`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{F_V^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2(Q^2+m_V^2)}}`$ $`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_V^2}{(Q^2+m_V^2+n\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2)^2(Q^2+m_V^2+(n+1)\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^2)}},`$
using

$`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(p+nq)(p+(n+1)q)\mathrm{}(p+(n+\mathrm{})q)}}`$ $`=`$ (5.26)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}q}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{p(p+q)\mathrm{}(p+(\mathrm{}1)q)}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(p+(N+1)q)\mathrm{}(p+(N+\mathrm{})q)}})`$
with $`N=\mathrm{}`$ and $`\mathrm{}=1`$. This process can be repeated by employing this equation for higher values of $`\mathrm{}`$ until the “left-over” sum on the right-hand side of eq. (Appendix) is of order $`1/Q^8`$, so that the integral over $`Q^2`$ in eq. (5.24) can be done term by term. The remaining terms combine with similar terms in the axial channel, and the $`Q^2`$ integral over these combined terms is finite as well, by virtue of eqs. (2.102.12). One ends up with the expression given in eqs. (5.22,5.23).