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# Wilsonian effective action for SU(2) Yang-Mills theory with Cho-Faddeev-Niemi-Shabanov decomposition

## 1 Introduction

The fact that quarks and gluons are not observed as asymptotic states in our world indicates that a description in terms of these fields is not the most appropriate language for discussing low-energy QCD. On the other hand, there seems to be little predictive virtue in describing the low-energy domain only by observable quantities, such as mesons and baryons. A purposive procedure can be the identification of those (not necessarily observable) degrees of freedom of the system that allow for a “simple” description of the observable states. The required “simplicity” can be measured in terms of the simplicity of the action that governs those degrees of freedom. Clearly, a clever guess of such degrees of freedom is halfway to the solution of the theory; the remaining problem is to prove that these degrees of freedom truly arise from the fundamental theory by integrating out the high-energy modes.

For the pure Yang-Mills (YM) sector of QCD, such a guess has recently been made by Faddeev and Niemi  inspired by the work of Cho . For the gauge group SU(2), they decomposed the (implicitly gauge-fixed) gauge potential $`𝐀_\mu `$ into an “abelian” component $`C_\mu `$, a unit color vector $`𝐧`$ and a complex scalar field $`\phi `$; here, $`C_\mu `$ is the local projection of $`𝐀_\mu `$ onto some direction in color space defined by the space-dependent $`𝐧`$. Faddeev and Niemi conjectured that the important low-energy dynamics of SU(2) YM theory111Different generalizations of the gauge field decomposition for higher gauge groups can be found in ,  and . is determined by the $`𝐧`$ field; its effective action of nonlinear sigma-model type, the Skyrme-Faddeev model, should then arise from integrating out the further degrees of freedom: $`C_\mu `$, $`\phi `$, …:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\text{eff}}^{\text{FN}}=d^4x\left[m^2(_\mu 𝐧)^2+\frac{1}{g^2}(𝐧_\mu 𝐧\times _\nu 𝐧)^2\right].$$
(1)
The additional mass scale $`m`$ is expected to be generated by the integration process as well; first hints of this mechanism have been observed in a one-loop integration over a reduced set of variables . The associated knotlike solitonic excitations of the Skyrme-Faddeev model are supposed to be identified with glue balls (which are directly observable at least on the lattice).222In a very recent paper , Faddeev and Niemi generalized their decomposition in order to obtain a manifest duality between the here-considered “magnetic” and additional “electric” variables, involving an abelian scalar multiplet with two complex scalars. This electric sector will not be considered in the present work.

The presence of gauge symmetry in YM theory complicates this ambitious conjecture in two ways: first, in order to formulate a quantum theory, the decomposition of $`𝐀_\mu `$ has to also include the overabundant gauge degrees of freedom; and secondly, the gauge has then to be fixed in a prescribed way, not only to be able to perform functional integration, but also to arrive nevertheless at a unique $`𝐧`$ field.333A different approach was put forward in , where the $`𝐧`$ field was identified by constructing an unconstraint version of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in a Hamiltonian context.

The first problem was solved by Shabanov , who established a one-to-one correspondence between the unfixed gauge field $`𝐀_\mu `$ and its decomposition, and the quantum theory was formulated; his results are briefly sketched in Sect. 2 and shall serve as the starting point of our investigations. The second problem of gauge fixing implies that a successful realization of the ideas of Faddeev and Niemi will only be meaningful in a certain gauge. In this (a priori unknown) gauge, the important low-energy degrees of freedom might in fact be determined by the $`𝐧`$ field and a simple action, whereas in a different gauge, these degrees of freedom may be hidden in a highly complicated structure involving the $`𝐧`$ and other fields.

The present paper is dedicated to a calculation of the one-loop Wilsonian effective action for SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in terms of the gauge field decomposition of Shabanov. Our intention is to study the renormalization group flow of the mass scale parameter of Eq. (1), the gauge coupling and further marginal couplings. In view of the second problem mentioned above, our results and their interpretation are strictly tied to the particular gauge we shall choose. We face this problem by fixing the gauge in such a way that Lorentz invariance and global color transformations remain as residual symmetries; these are the symmetries of the Skyrme-Faddeev model and must mandatorily be respected.

The Wilsonian effective action is characterized by the fact that it governs the dynamics of the low-energy modes below a certain cutoff $`k`$; it incorporates the interactions that are induced by high-energy fluctuations with momenta between $`k`$ and the ultraviolet (UV) cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ which have been integrated out. Following the Faddeev-Niemi conjecture, we only retain the $`𝐧`$ field as low-energy degree of freedom. Actually, we integrate over the high-energy modes in two different ways: first, we integrate out the $`k<p<\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ fluctuations of all fields except for the $`𝐧`$ field, which is left untouched (Sec. 3). Secondly, we integrate all fields including the $`𝐧`$ field over the same momentum shell (Sec. 4). In this way, we can study the effect of the $`𝐧`$ field fluctuations on the flow of the mass scale and the couplings in detail.

The results for both calculations are similar: the mass scale $`m`$ appearing in Eq. (1) is indeed generated by the renormalization group flow, and the gauge coupling is asymptotically free. As far as the simplicity of the conjectured effective action Eq. (1) is concerned, our results are a bit disappointing: as discussed in Sec. 5, further marginal terms (not displayed in Eq. (1)) are of the same order as the displayed one and therefore have to be included in Eq. (1). Keeping only those terms that involve single derivatives acting on $`𝐧`$ results in an action without stable solitons; nevertheless, stability is in fact ensured owing to the presence of higher-derivative terms. The disadvantage is that these terms spoil the desired simplicity of the low-energy effective theory.

Of course, our perturbative results represent only a first glance at the true infrared behavior of the system and are far from providing qualitatively confirmed results, not to mention quantitative predictions. To be precise, the one-loop calculation investigates only the form of the renormalization group trajectories of the couplings in the vicinity of the perturbative Gaussian fixed point. Nevertheless, various extrapolations of the perturbative trajectories can elucidate the question as to whether the Faddeev-Niemi conjecture is realizable or not.

## 2 Quantum Yang-Mills theory in Cho-Faddeev-Niemi-Shabanov variables

In decomposing the Yang-Mills gauge connection, we follow . Let $`𝐀_\mu `$ be an SU(2) connection where the color degrees of freedom are represented in vector notation. We parametrize $`𝐀_\mu `$ as

$$𝐀_\mu =𝐧C_\mu +(_\mu 𝐧)\times 𝐧+𝐖_\mu ,$$
(2)
where the cross product is defined via the SU(2) structure constants. $`C_\mu `$ is an “abelian” connection, whereas $`𝐧`$ denotes a unit vector in color space, $`𝐧𝐧=1`$. $`𝐖_\mu `$ shall be orthogonal to $`𝐧`$ in color space, obeying $`𝐖_\mu 𝐧=0`$, so that $`C_\mu =𝐧𝐀_\mu `$. For a given $`𝐧`$, $`C_\mu `$ and $`𝐖_\mu `$, the connection $`𝐀_\mu `$ is uniquely determined by Eq. (2). In the opposite direction, there is still some arbitrariness: for a given $`𝐀_\mu `$, $`𝐧`$ can generally be chosen at will, but then $`C_\mu `$ and $`𝐖_\mu `$ are fixed (e.g., $`𝐖_\mu =𝐧\times D_\mu (𝐀)𝐧`$, where $`D_\mu `$ denotes the covariant derivative).

While the LHS of Eq. (2) describes $`3_{\text{color}}\times 4_{\text{Lorentz}}=12`$ off-shell and gauge-unfixed degrees of freedom, the RHS up to now allows for $`(C_\mu :)4_{\text{Lorentz}}+(𝐧:)2_{\text{color}}+(𝐖_\mu :)3_{\text{color}}\times 4_{\text{Lorentz}}4_{𝐧𝐖_\mu =0}=14`$ degrees of freedom. Two degrees of freedom on the RHS remain to be fixed. For example, by fixing $`𝐧`$ to point along a certain direction and imposing gauge conditions on $`𝐖_\mu `$, we arrive at the class of abelian gauges which are known to induce monopole degrees of freedom in $`C_\mu `$. In order to avoid these topological defects, we let $`𝐧`$ vary in spacetime and impose a general condition on $`C_\mu ,𝐧`$ and $`𝐖_\mu `$,

$$𝝌(𝐧,C_\mu ,𝐖_\mu )=0,\text{with}𝝌𝐧=0,$$
(3)
which fixes the redundant two degrees of freedom on the RHS of Eq. (2). Moreover, Eq. (3) also determines how $`𝐧`$, $`C_\mu `$ and $`𝐖_\mu `$ transform under gauge transformations of $`𝐀_\mu `$: by demanding that $`\delta 𝝌(𝐧,C_\mu (𝐀),𝐖_\mu (𝐀))=0`$ (and $`\delta (𝝌𝐧)=0`$), the transformation $`\delta 𝐧`$ of $`𝐧`$ is uniquely determined, from which $`\delta C_\mu `$ and $`\delta 𝐖_\mu `$ are also obtainable.

The thus established one-to-one correspondence between $`𝐀_\mu `$ and its decomposition (2) allows us to rewrite the generating functional of YM theory in terms of a functional integral over the new fields :

$$Z=𝒟𝐧𝒟C𝒟𝐖\delta (𝝌)\mathrm{\Delta }_\text{S}\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{FP}}\text{e}^{S_{\text{YM}}S_{\text{gf}}}.$$
(4)
Beyond the usual Faddeev-Popov determinant $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{FP}}`$, the YM action $`S_{\text{YM}}`$ and the gauge fixing action $`S_{\text{gf}}`$, we find one further determinant introduced by Shabanov, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\text{S}`$; this determinant accompanies the $`\delta `$ functional which enforces the constraint $`𝝌=0`$, in complete analogy to the Faddeev-Popov procedure:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_\text{S}:=\text{det}\left(\frac{\delta 𝝌}{\delta 𝐧}|_{𝝌=0}\right).$$
(5)
All objects in the integrand of Eq. (4) are understood to be functions of the 14 integration variables $`𝐧`$, $`C_\mu `$ and $`𝐖_\mu `$.

By construction, the generating functional (4) is invariant under different choices of $`𝝌`$ for the same reason that it is invariant under different choices of the gauge – this is controlled by the Faddeev-Popov procedure.

Nevertheless, the choice of $`𝝌`$ crucially belongs to the definition of the decomposition (2) and of the conjectured low-energy degrees of freedom; in other words, even if there is one particular $`𝝌`$ that leads to Eq. (1) as the true low-energy effective action after integrating out $`C_\mu `$ and $`𝐖_\mu `$, other choices of $`𝝌`$ will not lead to the same result, because the low-energy degrees of freedom then are differently distributed over $`𝐧`$, $`C_\mu `$ and $`𝐖_\mu `$.

In the present work, $`𝝌`$ is chosen in such a way that $`𝐧`$ transforms homogeneously under gauge transformations, i.e., $`𝐧`$ is orthogonally rotated in color space :

$`0`$ $`=`$ $`𝝌:=_\mu 𝐖_\mu +C_\mu 𝐧\times 𝐖_\mu +𝐧(𝐖_\mu _\mu 𝐧),`$ (6)
$``$ $`\delta 𝐧=𝐧\times 𝝋,\text{under}\delta 𝐀_\mu =D_\mu (𝐀)𝝋=_\mu 𝝋+𝐀_\mu \times 𝝋.`$
Incidentally, the gauge transformation properties of $`C_\mu `$ and $`𝐖_\mu `$ also become very simple with the choice (6): $`𝐖_\mu `$ also transforms homogeneously, and $`\delta C_\mu =𝐧_\mu 𝝋`$.

Finally, the choice of the gauge-fixing condition must also be viewed as being part of the definition of the decomposition. Not only does the functional form of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{FP}}`$ and $`S_{\text{gf}}`$ depend on this choice, but the discrimination of high- and low-momentum modes is also determined by the gauge fixing. In fact, this gauge dependence of the mode momenta usually is the main obstacle against setting up a Wilsonian renormalization group study. But in the present context, it belongs to the conjecture that the particular gauge that we shall choose singles out those low-momentum modes which finally provide for a simple description of low-energy QCD; in a different gauge, we would encounter different low-momentum modes, but we also would not expect to find the same simple description.

In this work, we choose the covariant gauge condition $`_\mu 𝐀_\mu =0`$. This automatically ensures covariance of the resulting effective action and, moreover, allows for the residual symmetry of global gauge transformations, $`𝝋=`$const. Together with the choice (6), this residual symmetry coincides with the desired global color symmetry of the Skyrme-Faddeev model (1). This means that the demand for color and Lorentz symmetry of the action (1) is satisfied exactly by a covariant gauge and condition (6).

## 3 One-loop effective action without $`𝐧`$ fluctuations

Our aim is the construction of the one-loop Wilsonian effective action for the $`𝐧`$ field by integrating out the $`C`$ and $`𝐖`$ field over a momentum shell between the UV cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and an infrared cutoff $`k<\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. In general, this will induce nonlinear and nonlocal self-interactions of the $`𝐧`$ field; since we are looking for an action of the type (1), we represent these interactions in a derivative expansion and neglect higher derivative terms of order $`𝒪(^2𝐧^2𝐧)`$ (later, we shall question this approach).

Furthermore, we do not integrate out $`𝐧`$ field fluctuations in this section (see Sect. 4) and disregard any induced $`C`$ or $`𝐖`$ interactions below the infrared cutoff $`k`$. From a technical viewpoint, the one-loop approximation of the desired effective action $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k[𝐧]`$ is obtained by a Gaussian integration of the quadratic $`C`$ and $`𝐖`$ terms in Eq. (4), neglecting higher-order terms of the action:

$`\text{e}^{\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k[𝐧]}`$ $`=`$ $`\text{e}^{S_{\text{cl}}[𝐧]}{\displaystyle _k}𝒟C𝒟𝐖\mathrm{\Delta }_\text{S}[𝐧]\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{FP}}[𝐧]\delta (𝝌)`$
$`\times \text{e}^{\frac{1}{g^2}{\scriptscriptstyle \left\{C_\mu {\scriptscriptstyle \frac{1}{2}}M_{\mu \nu }^CC_\nu +𝐖_\mu {\scriptscriptstyle \frac{1}{2}}M_{\mu \nu }^𝐖𝐖_\nu +C_\mu 𝐐_{\mu \nu }^C𝐖_\nu +C_\nu K_\nu ^C+𝐖_\mu 𝐊_\mu ^𝐖\right\}}},`$
where the hat on $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k[𝐧]`$ indicates that the $`𝐧`$ field fluctuations have not been taken into account. Furthermore, any $`C`$ or $`𝐖`$ dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\text{S}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{FP}}`$ has been neglected to one-loop order; the various differential operators and currents which all depend on $`𝐧`$ (and the gauge parameter $`\alpha `$) are defined in Appendix A. The classical action of $`𝐧`$ including gauge fixing terms is given by:

$$S_{\text{cl}}[𝐧]:=d^4x\left(\frac{1}{4g^2}(_\mu 𝐧\times _\nu 𝐧)^2+\frac{1}{2\alpha g^2}(^2𝐧\times 𝐧)^2\right).$$
(8)
We treat the $`\delta `$ functional in Eq. (3) in its Fourier representation,

$$\delta (𝝌)𝒟\mathit{\varphi }\text{e}^{\text{i}{\scriptscriptstyle \mathit{\varphi }_\mu 𝐖_\mu }+\mathit{\varphi }C_\mu 𝐧\times 𝐖_\mu +(\mathit{\varphi }𝐧)(_\mu 𝐧𝐖_\mu )},$$
(9)
where the second term in the exponent, the triple vertex, can actually be neglected, because it leads only to nonlocal terms (cf. later) or terms of higher order in derivatives. Inserting Eq. (9) into Eq. (3), we end up with three functional integrals over $`C`$, $`𝐖`$ and $`\mathit{\varphi }`$, which can successively be performed, leading to three determinants,

$$\text{e}^{\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k[𝐧]}\text{e}^{S_{\text{cl}}[𝐧]}\mathrm{\Delta }_\text{S}[𝐧]\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{FP}}[𝐧]\left(detM^C\right)^{1/2}\left(det\overline{M}^𝐖\right)^{1/2}\left(det\stackrel{~}{Q}_\mu ^\mathit{\varphi }(\overline{M}^𝐖)_{\mu \nu }^1Q_\nu ^\mathit{\varphi }\right)^{1/2},$$
(10)
where we have omitted several nonlocal terms that arise from the completion of the square in the exponent during the Gaussian integration. In Appendix B, we argue that these nonlocal terms are unimportant in the present Wilsonian investigation. Again, details about the various operators in Eq. (10) are given in App. A.

The determinants are functionals of $`𝐧`$ only and have to be evaluated over the space of test functions with momenta between $`k`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The determinants depend also on the gauge parameter $`\alpha `$. Only for the Landau gauge $`\alpha =0`$ is the gauge-fixing $`\delta `$ functional implemented exactly; in fact, $`\alpha =0`$ appears to be a fixed point of the renormalization group flow . But this in turn ensures that the choice of $`\alpha =\alpha (k)\alpha _k`$ at the cutoff scale $`k\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is to some extent arbitrary, since $`\alpha _k`$ flows to zero anyway as $`k`$ is lowered. This allows us to conveniently choose $`\alpha _{k=\mathrm{\Lambda }}=1`$ at the cutoff scale and evaluate the determinants with this parameter choice.

As mentioned above, we evaluate the determinants in a derivative expansion based on the assumption that the low-order derivatives of $`𝐧`$ represent the essential degrees of freedom in the low-energy domain. There are various techniques for the calculation at our disposal; it turns out that a direct momentum expansion of the operators is most efficient.444As cross-checks, we also employed a propertime representation for the operators which we decomposed with a heat-kernel expansion as well as with a multiple use of the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff formula. We shall demonstrate this method by means of the third determinant of Eq. (10), the “$`C`$ determinant”; the key observation is that derivatives acting on the space of test functions create momenta of the order of $`p`$ with $`k<p<\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, whereas derivatives of the $`𝐧`$ field are assumed to obey $`|𝐧|k`$ in agreement with the Faddeev-Niemi conjecture. This suggests an expansion of the form

$`\mathrm{ln}(detM^C)^{1/2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{Tr}\mathrm{ln}\left(^2\mathrm{𝟙}_\text{L}+𝐧𝐧\right)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{Tr}\left[\mathrm{ln}(^2\mathrm{𝟙}_\text{L})+\mathrm{ln}\left(\mathrm{𝟙}_\text{L}+{\displaystyle \frac{𝐧𝐧}{^2}}\right)\right]`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{Tr}\mathrm{ln}(^2\mathrm{𝟙}_\text{L}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{Tr}{\displaystyle \frac{𝐧𝐧}{^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\text{Tr}\left({\displaystyle \frac{𝐧𝐧}{^2}}\right)^2+𝒪((𝐧)^6),`$
where we suppressed Lorentz (L) indices. Here, we neglected higher-derivative terms of $`𝐧`$, e.g., $`^2𝐧`$, which is in the spirit of the Faddeev-Niemi conjecture; of course, this has to be checked later on. Employing the integral formulas given in App. C, we finally obtain for the $`C`$ determinant

$`\mathrm{ln}(detM^C)^{1/2}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2k^2){\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧)^2`$ (12)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{k}}{\displaystyle _x}\left(_\mu 𝐧\times _\nu 𝐧\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{k}}{\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧)^4,`$
where $`_xd^4x`$. The first term contributes to the desired mass term of Eq. (1), whereas the second and third renormalize the classical action (8).

The remaining four determinants of Eq. (10) have to be evaluated in the same way. The calculation is straightforward though extensive. Here, we shall cite only the final results:

$`\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{FP}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2k^2)}{64\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{48\pi ^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{k}}{\displaystyle _x}\left(_\mu 𝐧\times _\nu 𝐧\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{k}}{\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧)^4,`$
$`\mathrm{ln}(det\overline{M}^𝐖)^{1/2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{5(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2k^2)}{64\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧)^2{\displaystyle \frac{5}{24\pi ^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{k}}{\displaystyle _x}\left(_\mu 𝐧\times _\nu 𝐧\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{35}{128\pi ^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{k}}{\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧)^4,`$
$`\mathrm{ln}(det\stackrel{~}{Q}^\mathit{\varphi }\overline{M}^𝐖`$ $`^^1`$ $`Q^\mathit{\varphi })^{1/2}={\displaystyle \frac{3(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2k^2)}{128\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle }_x(_\mu 𝐧)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{49}{192\pi ^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{k}}{\displaystyle }_x(_\mu 𝐧\times _\nu 𝐧)^2`$ (13)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{5}{16\pi ^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{k}}{\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧)^4.`$
The determinant $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\text{S}`$ does not contribute, because it is independent of $`𝐧`$ in one-loop approximation. Inserting these results into Eq. (10) leads us to the desired Wilsonian effective action to one-loop order for the $`𝐧`$ field in a derivative expansion:

$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k[𝐧]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{13}{8}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{16\pi ^2}}\left(1\text{e}^{2t}\right){\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{7}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^2}}t\right){\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧\times _\nu 𝐧)^2`$ (14)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha g^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^2}}t\right){\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧)^4,`$
where $`t=\mathrm{ln}k/\mathrm{\Lambda }]\mathrm{},0]`$ denotes the “renormalization group time”. We would like to stress once more that $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k[𝐧]`$ does not contain the result of fluctuations of the $`𝐧`$ field itself; in other words, it represents (an approximation to) the “tree-level action” for the complete quantum theory of the $`𝐧`$ field.

Indeed, the generation of a “kinetic” term $`(_\mu 𝐧)^2`$ growing under the flow of increasing $`k`$ as conjectured by Faddeev and Niemi is observed. Moreover, it has the correct sign (+), implying that an “effective field theory” interpretation seems possible. The second term which is proportional to the classical action reveals information about the renormalization of the Yang-Mills coupling:

$$\frac{1}{\widehat{g}_\text{R}^2}:=\frac{1}{g^2}+\frac{7}{3}\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}t\widehat{\beta }_{g^2}:=_t\widehat{g}_\text{R}^2=\frac{7}{3}\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}\widehat{g}_\text{R}^4.$$
(15)
The resulting $`\widehat{\beta }`$ function is a factor of $`44/7`$ smaller than the $`\beta `$ function of full Yang-Mills theory for SU(2). This is an expected result, since we did not integrate over all degrees of freedom of the gauge field; the $`𝐧`$ integration still remains. Nevertheless, the $`\widehat{\beta }`$ function implies asymptotic freedom, which indicates that the decomposition of the Yang-Mills field is not a pathologically absurd choice. It is interesting to observe that the $`C`$ and $`𝐖`$ determinants contribute positively to $`\widehat{\beta }_{g^2}`$, whereas the Faddeev-Popov and the $`\mathit{\varphi }`$ determinant contribute negatively; the latter, which arises from the $`𝐖`$ fixing, even dominates: $`7/3=[6_C4_{\text{FP}}+40_𝐖49_\mathit{\varphi }]/3`$.

The third term of Eq. (14) contains information about the renormalization of the gauge parameter $`\alpha `$ under the flow:

$$\frac{1}{\widehat{\alpha }_\text{R}\widehat{g}_\text{R}^2}=\frac{1}{\alpha g^2}+\frac{5}{4}\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}t,_t\widehat{\alpha }_\text{R}=\frac{7}{3}\widehat{\alpha }_\text{R}\left(1\frac{15}{28}\widehat{\alpha }_\text{R}\right)\frac{\widehat{g}_\text{R}^2}{16\pi ^2}.$$
(16)
The RHS of this renormalization group equation is positive for $`\alpha <28/151.87`$; this implies that $`\alpha `$ runs to zero under the flow as long as $`\alpha _\mathrm{\Lambda }<28/15`$. Therefore, our starting point $`\alpha _\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$ is a consistent choice that ensures a running into the desired Landau gauge $`\alpha 0`$.

Before we discuss the physical implications of our result Eq. (14), let us study the effective action including the $`𝐧`$ field fluctuations. In principle, this action should be obtainable from the present result by inserting $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k[𝐧]`$ into a functional integral over $`𝐧`$. However, we evaluated $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k[𝐧]`$ in a derivative expansion, neglecting high-momentum fluctuations of the $`𝐧`$ field. But when integrating over $`𝐧`$ fluctuations, especially these high-momentum modes are important for the renormalization of the couplings. Hence, their correct running cannot be calculated via such an indirect approach. The direct way is presented in the next section.

## 4 One-loop effective action including $`𝐧`$ fluctuations

In the following, we propose a different way to integrate out the “hard” modes with high momenta $`p`$, $`k<p<\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. This time, we also include the hard fluctuations of the $`𝐧`$ field and decompose the complete Yang-Mills field into soft and hard modes,

$$𝐀_\mu =𝐀_\mu ^\text{S}+𝐀_\mu ^\text{H},𝐀_\mu ^{\text{S,H}}=𝐀_\mu ^{\text{S,H}}(C_\mu ^{\text{S,H}},𝐧^{\text{S,H}},𝐖_\mu ^{\text{S,H}}).$$
(17)
Since the hard modes $`𝐀_\mu ^\text{H}`$ shall be integrated out completely, the explicit use of the decomposition into $`C_\mu ^\text{H}`$, $`𝐧^\text{H}`$ and $`𝐖_\mu ^\text{H}`$ would be a very inconvenient choice of overabundant integration variables; therefore, the decomposition is only adopted for the soft modes $`𝐀_\mu ^\text{S}`$. In the spirit of the Faddeev-Niemi conjecture, we assume that these soft modes are dominated by the $`𝐧`$ field:

$$𝐀_\mu ^\text{S}=_\mu 𝐧^\text{S}\times 𝐧^\text{S}.$$
(18)
Integrating out the hard modes $`𝐀^\text{H}`$ results in two determinants in one-loop approximation,

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_k[𝐀^\text{S}]=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}det(\mathrm{\Delta }^{\text{YM}}[𝐀^\text{S}])^1\mathrm{ln}det\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{FP}}[A^\text{S}],$$
(19)
corresponding to the hard gluon and ghost loops; again we dropped the nonlocal terms (cf. App. B). The ghost contribution in the form of the Faddeev-Popov determinant is, of course, identical to the one obtained in the first line of Eq. (13), since the gauge fixing is performed in the same way as before. The gluonic determinant involves the operator

$$(\mathrm{\Delta }^{\text{YM}}[𝐀^\text{S}])_{\mu \nu }^1=\left[D^2\mathbb{\hspace{0.17em}1}_\text{L}2\text{i}FDD+\frac{1}{\alpha }\right]_{\mu \nu }|_{𝐀=𝐀^\text{S}},$$
(20)
where $`D_\mu `$ denotes the covariant derivative and $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ the field strength tensor. The explicit representation of Eq. (20) in terms of the $`𝐧`$ field is again given in App. A, Eqs. (A.6) and (A.7). The determinants in Eq. (19) can be calculated in a derivative expansion in the same way as described in the preceding section. Since the computation of the term $`(𝐧)^2`$ is already very laborious, we do not calculate the marginal terms $`(_\mu 𝐧\times _\nu 𝐧)^2`$ etc. directly, but take over the known one-loop results for the running coupling and the gauge parameter from . The final result for the Wilsonian one-loop effective action for the soft modes of the $`𝐧`$ field reads

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k[𝐧]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{16\pi ^2}}\left(1\text{e}^{2t}\right){\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{44}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^2}}t\right){\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧\times _\nu 𝐧)^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha g^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{14}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^2}}t\right){\displaystyle _x}(_\mu 𝐧)^4+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha g^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{14}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^2}}t\right){\displaystyle _x}(^2𝐧^2𝐧),`$
where we dropped the superscript S. Furthermore, we included for later use a higher-derivative term $`^2𝐧^2𝐧`$ which is also marginal in the renormalization group sense and accompanied by the $`1/(\alpha g^2)`$ coefficient in the classical action.

Again, the generation of the “kinetic” term $`(𝐧)^2`$ with a mass scale is observed; it is smaller by a factor of $`8/13`$ than in the preceding section. This means that the hard $`𝐧`$ field fluctuations that have been taken into account in Eq. (4) reduce the new mass scale slightly; on the other hand, they increase the running of the Yang-Mills coupling by contributing the missing piece to the $`\beta `$ function which now obtains the correct SU(2) value, $`\beta _{g^2}=\frac{44}{3}\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}g_\text{R}^4`$. The running of the gauge parameter $`\alpha `$ is also increased, but no qualitative changes compared to Eq. (14) can be observed.

## 5 Discussion and Conclusions

The main results of our paper are contained in Eqs. (14) and (4), where the Wilsonian one-loop effective actions $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$ for the $`𝐧`$ field have been given without and including hard $`𝐧`$ field fluctuations, respectively. We were able to demonstrate that a “kinetic” term with a new mass scale for the $`𝐧`$ field is indeed generated perturbatively, as was conjectured by Faddeev and Niemi. This term is relevant in the renormalization group sense and perturbatively exhibits a quadratic dependence on the UV cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

Furthermore, we studied the renormalization group flow of the marginal couplings of the $`𝐧`$ field self-interactions given by the Yang-Mills coupling and the gauge parameter. These terms are responsible for the stabilization of possible topological excitations of the $`𝐧`$ field, as suggested by the Skyrme-Faddeev model. In total, the difference between $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$ is only of quantitative nature: the inclusion of hard $`𝐧`$ field fluctuations increases the running of the marginal couplings and reduces the new mass scale; qualitative features such as stability of possible solitons remain untouched.

In fact, the question of stability turns out to be delicate: truncating our results for $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k`$ or $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$ in Eqs. (14) or (4) at the level of the original Faddeev-Niemi proposal Eq. (1) (the first lines of Eqs. (14) and (4), respectively), we find an action that allows for stable knotlike solitons, since the coefficients of both terms are positive (as long as we stay away from the Landau pole, which we consider as unphysical). Taking additionally the $`(𝐧)^4`$ term of $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k`$ or $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$ into account, which is also marginal and does not contain second-order derivatives on $`𝐧`$, stability is lost, since the coupling coefficient is negative in Eqs. (14) and (4); for stable solitons, a strictly positive coefficient would be required for this truncation, as was shown in .

Finally dropping the demand for first-order derivatives, we can include one further marginal term $`^2𝐧^2𝐧`$ as given in Eq. (4) for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$. With the aid of the identity

$$_x(^2𝐧\times 𝐧)^2=_x[^2𝐧^2𝐧(_\mu 𝐧)^4],$$
(22)
we find that the second line of Eq. (4) represents a strictly positive contribution to the action which again stabilizes possible solitons.555We expect a similar behavior for the action $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k`$ in Eq. (14), although we have not calculated the coefficient of the $`^2𝐧^2𝐧`$ term explicitly.

Of course, this game could be continued by including further destabilizing and stabilizing higher-order terms again and again, but such terms are irrelevant in a renormalization group sense; that means their corresponding couplings are accompanied by inverse powers of the UV cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and are thereby expected to vanish in the limit of large cutoff.

To summarize, our perturbative renormalization group analysis suggests enlarging the Faddeev-Niemi proposal for the effective low-energy action of Yang-Mills theory by taking all marginal operators of a derivative expansion into account. The original proposal of Eq. (1) was inspired by a desired Hamiltonian interpretation of the action that demands the absence of third- or higher-order time derivatives. But, as demonstrated, the covariant renormalization group does not care about a Hamiltonian interpretation of the final result. In some sense, the desired “simplicity” of the final result is spoiled by the presence of higher-derivative terms; moreover, it remains questionable as to whether the importance of the $`^2𝐧^2𝐧`$ term is still consistent with the derivative expansion of the action. Unfortunately, this cannot be checked within the present approach.

It should be stressed once again that the perturbative investigation performed here hardly suffices to confirm results about the infrared domain of Yang-Mills theories. On the contrary, it is only a valid approximation in the vicinity of the Gaussian UV fixed point of the theory. Nevertheless, our study might lend some intuition to possible nonperturbative scenarios: for example, let us assume that the Landau gauge $`\alpha =0`$ indeed is an infrared fixed point in covariant gauges. Then the stabilizing term $`(^2𝐧\times 𝐧)^2`$ is enhanced in the infrared, provided that the increase of the running coupling $`g`$ obeys $`\alpha g^20`$ for $`k0`$; this would be realized, e.g., if $`g`$ approached an infrared fixed point. Such a scenario thus supports the idea of topological knotlike solitons as important infrared degrees of freedom of Yang-Mills theories.

Perhaps the main drawback of our study lies in the fact that the new mass scale is not renormalization-group invariant; for example, we can read off from Eq. (4) that

$$m_k^2=\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}\mathrm{\Lambda }^2(1\text{e}^{2t}),t\mathrm{ln}\frac{k}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}0.$$
(23)
The new mass scale $`m_k`$ is necessarily proportional to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, because there simply is no other scale in our system. But contrary to the gauge coupling or the gauge parameter, which can be made independent of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ by adjusting the bare parameters, the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ dependence of $`m_k`$ persists, since there is no bare mass parameter to adjust. One may speculate that this problem is solved by “renormalization group improvement” of the kind

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\text{e}^{\frac{316\pi ^2}{22g^2(\mathrm{\Lambda })}},$$
(24)
which upon insertion into Eq. (23) leads to a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-independent mass scale for $`k0`$. Obviously, our perturbative calculation can never produce the RHS of Eq. (24), but a nonperturbative study of the renormalization group flow should result in such a structure (in a different context, such a mechanism has been observed in ).

Employing the measured values of the strong coupling constant at various renormalization points, we can determine the order of magnitude of the new mass scale: $`mm_{k0}=𝒪(1)`$MeV, e.g., $`m5.74`$MeV for $`\alpha _\text{s}(M_\text{Z})=0.12`$ or $`m0.68`$MeV for $`\alpha _\text{s}(10`$GeV$`)=0.18`$ (the difference between these numbers arises from the fact that the initial values for the coupling are not related by a pure one-loop running). Of physical interest are the masses of the solitonic excitation in this effective theory. Unfortunately, there are no numerical results available for theories with higher-derivative order, so that we have to resort to results for an action identical to the first line of Eq. (4). For this model, the mass of the lowest lying states are approximately given by $`M𝒪(10^3)\sqrt{q}m`$, where $`q`$ denotes the value of the coefficient in front of the $`(_\mu 𝐧\times _\nu 𝐧)^2`$ term . For couplings of order 1, we end up with soliton masses of the order of $`M𝒪(1)`$GeV; this is in accordance with lattice results for glue ball masses: e.g., $`M_{\text{GB}}1.5`$GeV for the lowest lying state in SU(2) . Of course, this rough and speculative estimate should not be viewed as a “serious prediction” of our work.

With all these reservations in mind, the Faddeev-Niemi conjecture about possible low-energy degrees of freedom of Yang-Mills theories provides an interesting working hypothesis which deserves further exploration.

## Acknowledgment

The author wishes to thank W. Dittrich for helpful conversations and for carefully reading the manuscript. Furthermore, the author profited from discussions with T. Tok, K. Langfeld and A. Schäfke. This work was supported in part by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under DFG GI 328/1-1.

## Appendix

## A Differential operators, tensors, currents, etc.

This appendix represents a collection of differential operators and other tensorial quantities which are required in the main text.

The Faddeev-Popov determinant $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{FP}}`$ in Eq. (3) and (10) for covariant gauges involves the operator (in one-loop approximation)

$$_\mu D_\mu (𝐀)|_{C=0=𝐖}=^2\mathrm{𝟙}_\text{c}+(^2𝐧𝐧𝐧^2𝐧)+(_\mu 𝐧𝐧𝐧_\mu 𝐧)_\mu ,$$
(A.1)
so that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{FP}}=det(_\mu D_\mu (𝐀)|_{C=0=𝐖})`$.

The objects occurring in the exponent of Eq. (3) are defined as follows:

$`M_{\mu \nu }^C:=^2\delta _{\mu \nu }+_\mu _\nu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha }}_\mu _\nu +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha }}_\mu 𝐧_\nu 𝐧`$
$`M_{\mu \nu }^𝐖:=^2\delta _{\mu \nu }\mathrm{𝟙}_\text{c}+_\mu _\nu \mathrm{𝟙}_\text{c}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha }}_\mu _\nu \mathrm{𝟙}_\text{c}_\mu 𝐧_\nu 𝐧+_\nu 𝐧_\mu 𝐧`$
$`𝐐_{\mu \nu }^C:={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha }}\left(_\mu 𝐧_\nu +_\nu 𝐧_\mu +_\mu _\nu 𝐧\right)`$
$`K_\mu ^C:=_\nu (𝐧_\nu 𝐧\times _\mu 𝐧)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha }}_\mu 𝐧^2𝐧\times 𝐧`$
$`𝐊_\mu ^𝐖:={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha }}_\mu (𝐧\times ^2𝐧).`$ (A.2)
The determinants in Eq. (10) employ several composites of these operators. Since we first perform the $`C`$ integration, the resulting determinant involves only $`M^C`$, whereas the $`𝐖`$ determinant also receives contributions from the mixing term $`𝐐^C`$,

$$\overline{M}_{\mu \nu }^𝐖=M_{\mu \nu }^𝐖+\stackrel{~}{𝐐}_{\mu \kappa }^C(M^C)_{\kappa \lambda }^1𝐐_{\lambda \nu }^C.$$
(A.3)
Here, $`\stackrel{~}{𝐐}`$ is defined via partial integration

$$(𝐐_{\mu \nu }^C𝐖_\nu )f_\nu \stackrel{\text{i.b.p}}{=}𝐖_\mu \stackrel{~}{𝐐}_{\mu \nu }^Cf_\nu ,$$
(A.4)
and $`f_\nu `$ denotes an arbitrary test function.

The last determinant in Eq. (10) arises from the $`\mathit{\varphi }`$ integration and receives contributions from the relevant parts of the exponent of Eq. (9), which we denote by

$$Q_\mu ^\mathit{\varphi }:=\text{i}\left(_\mu \mathrm{𝟙}_\text{c}+_\mu 𝐧𝐧\right),$$
(A.5)
so that $`\delta (𝝌)𝒟\mathit{\varphi }\mathrm{exp}(𝐖_\mu Q_\mu ^\mathit{\varphi }\mathit{\varphi })`$ to one-loop order. Employing a notation similar to Eq. (A.4), the differential operator accompanying the term $`\mathit{\varphi }\mathit{\varphi }`$ in the exponent finally reads $`\stackrel{~}{Q}_\mu ^\mathit{\varphi }(\overline{M}_{\mu \nu }^𝐖)^1Q_\nu ^\mathit{\varphi }`$. Integrating the $`\mathit{\varphi }`$ field along the imaginary axis leads to the last determinant in Eq. (10).

In Sect. 4, we employ the inverse gluon propagator $`(\mathrm{\Delta }^{\text{YM}}[𝐀^\text{S}])^1`$ coupled to all orders to the soft $`𝐧`$ field fluctuations. For an explicit representation, we need the covariant derivative,

$$D_\mu [𝐧]=_\mu \mathrm{𝟙}_\text{c}+𝐧_\mu 𝐧_\mu 𝐧𝐧,$$
(A.6)
where we have inserted the soft gauge potential Eq. (18) into the covariant derivative. The inverse gluon propagator Eq. (20) then reads

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }^{\text{YM}}[𝐧])_{\mu \nu }^1`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{𝟙}_\text{c}\delta _{\mu \nu }2(𝐧_\lambda 𝐧_\mu 𝐧𝐧)_\lambda \delta _{\mu \nu }+(𝐧_\nu 𝐧_\nu 𝐧𝐧)_\mu `$ (A.7)
$`+(𝐧_\mu 𝐧_\mu 𝐧𝐧)_\nu (𝐧^2𝐧^2𝐧𝐧)\delta _{\mu \nu }+(_\lambda 𝐧)^2𝐧𝐧\delta _{\mu \nu }`$
$`+_\lambda 𝐧_\lambda 𝐧\delta _{\mu \nu }(2_\mu 𝐧_\nu 𝐧_\nu 𝐧_\mu 𝐧)`$
$`+(𝐧_{\mu \nu }𝐧_{\mu \nu }𝐧𝐧)(_\mu 𝐧_\nu 𝐧)𝐧𝐧.`$
## B Nonlocal terms

During the Gaussian integration over the $`C`$, $`\mathit{\varphi }`$ and $`𝐖`$ fields in Sect. 3, several nonlocal terms arise from the completion of the square in the exponent. Here, we shall give reasons why they can be neglected. Let us exemplarily consider the simplest nonlocal contribution arising from the $`C`$ integration:

$$K^C(M^C)^1K^C=(𝐧_\lambda 𝐧\times _{\lambda \mu }𝐧)\left(\frac{1}{^2+𝐧𝐧}\right)_{\mu \nu }(𝐧_\kappa 𝐧\times _{\kappa \nu }𝐧).$$
(B.8)
Within the calculation of the determinants, we expanded the inverse operator assuming that $`𝐧𝐧^2`$. This was justified, since the derivative operator acts on the test function space with momenta $`p`$ between $`k`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, which are large compared to the conjectured slow variation of the $`𝐧`$ field.

In the present case, the situation is different, because the derivative term $`^2`$ acts only on the $`𝐧`$ field and its derivatives to the right (there is no test function to act on). In other words, the nonlocal terms are only numbers, not operators. The derivatives can thus be approximated by the (inverse) scale of variation of the $`𝐧`$ field or its derivatives which is much smaller than $`k`$ or $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. This implies that the nonlocal terms do not depend on $`k`$ or $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, so that they cannot contribute to the flow of the couplings.

For example, a reasonable lowest-order approximation of the RHS of Eq. (B.8) is given by its local limit,

$$K^C(M^C)^1K^C=(𝐧_\lambda 𝐧\times _{\lambda \mu }𝐧)\left(\frac{1}{𝐧𝐧}\right)_{\mu \nu }(𝐧_\kappa 𝐧\times _{\kappa \nu }𝐧)+\mathrm{},$$
(B.9)
where it is obvious that these terms do not contribute to the desired Wilsonian effective action. The same line of argument holds for all nonlocal terms appearing in Sects. 3 and 4.

## C Momentum integrals

Several standard integrals appear in the integration over the momentum shell $`[k,\mathrm{\Lambda }]`$ in Sect. 3. One basic formula is given by

$$\underset{[k,\mathrm{\Lambda }]}{}\frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{p_\lambda p_\kappa p_\mu p_\nu }{p^8}=\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{64\pi ^2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{k}\left(\delta _{\lambda \kappa }\delta _{\mu \nu }+\delta _{\lambda \mu }\delta _{\kappa \nu }+\delta _{\lambda \nu }\delta _{\kappa \mu }\right).$$
(C.10)
From this formula, we can also deduce upon index contraction that

$`{\displaystyle \underset{[k,\mathrm{\Lambda }]}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{p_\mu p_\nu }{p^6}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{k}},`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{[k,\mathrm{\Lambda }]}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p^4}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi ^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{k}}.`$ (C.11)
The last integral is, of course, standard and can be used to prove Eq. (C.10) in addition to symmetry arguments. The same philosophy applies to the second type of integrals:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{[k,\mathrm{\Lambda }]}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{p_\mu p_\nu }{p^4}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{64\pi ^2}}(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2k^2)\delta _{\mu \nu },`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{[k,\mathrm{\Lambda }]}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^2}}(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2k^2).`$ (C.12)


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# Ultraviolet and Visible Spectropolarimetric Variability in P Cygni

## 1. Introduction

P Cygni was found by many early polarimetric investigators to possess intrinsic linear polarization (eg, Coyne & Gehrels 1967; Coyne, Gehrels, & Serkowski 1974; Serkowski, Mathewson, & Ford 1975). Hayes (1985) and Lupie & Nordsieck (1987) established that the polarization was variable on timescales of days - weeks, with an amplitude of approximately 0.4%, and with no apparent periodicity nor favored position angle, although the interpretation was hampered by an appreciable, unknown interstellar polarization. The long time series of Hayes (1985) exhibits a polarimetric episode length of $`1`$ week, and a repetition rate of once per 20-30 days. Taylor, Nordsieck et al (1991, hereafter ”TN”), in the first detailed spectropolarimetric investigation, made use of the apparent non-variability of the polarization of the $`H\alpha `$ emission line to estimate the interstellar polarization there, extrapolating to other wavelengths using a galactic mean interstellar wavelength dependence. After removing this interstellar polarization, TN then confirmed the remarkable daily variability and the random nature of the degree and position angle of the intrinsic continuum polarization. The $`H\alpha `$, $`H\beta `$, and $`HeI\lambda 5876`$ lines were found to be essentially unpolarized, while the continuum polarization wavelength dependence is not flat, but exhibits a steady decrease from the near ultraviolet into the red. TN pointed out that this, coupled with the lack of a polarization Balmer Jump, was difficult to explain using the model which is conventionally used for Be stars, where hydrogen bound-free opacity competes with wavelength-independent electron scattering to impart a polarization wavelength dependence.

## 2. New Spectropolarimetry

The new polarimetric data presented here includes four vacuum ultraviolet spectropolarimetric observations by WUPPE on the shuttle missions Astro-1 (one observation: 12 Dec, 1990) and Astro-2 (three observations: 3, 8, and 12 March, 1995), and 15 new visible-wavelength observations obtained by the ”HPOL” CCD spectropolarimeter at the Pine Bluff Observatory of the University of Wisconsin. The WUPPE instrument is described in Nordsieck et al (1994) and HPOL is described in Nordsieck & Harris (1995). The visible wavelength spectropolarimetry includes three HPOL observations made within 12 hours of each of the three Astro-2 WUPPE observations, giving essentially simultaneous observations extending from $`1500`$ to $`10500\AA `$. The Astro-1 WUPPE observation was discussed by Taylor, Code, et al (1991), who noted a total continuum polarization generally consistent with interstellar, plus possible line-blanketing of the intrinsic polarization, an effect similar to that observed in WUPPE observations of Be stars (Bjorkman, et al 1991).

Figure 1 shows the net polarization vs wavelength from the WUPPE observations and the three contemporaneous HPOL observations. The observations exhibit an overall interstellar polarization continuum shape plus strong intrinsic polarization variability over most of the spectrum. The interstellar polarization is estimated in a variety of ways. First, we see that the four WUPPE observations all cross in the $`17001900\AA `$ region. We interpret this to be strong FeIII line blanketing which is suppressing the intrinsic polarization there. This region is known to be the most strongly blanketed region in P Cyg (Pauldrach and Puls 1990), and strong polarization suppression there is seen similarly in the Be star $`\zeta `$ Tau (Bjorkman, et al 1991). Conveniently, this then establishes the interstellar polarization value at $`1800\AA `$, $`0.47\pm 0.03\%`$ at PA 32.1. Second, following TN, the $`H\alpha `$ line is assumed to be not intrinsically polarized.

This is supported by figure 2a, which shows a polarization vector diagram for all of the HPOL observations. The continuum polarization near $`H\alpha `$ varies by roughly $`\pm 0.3\%`$ with no apparent favored position angle, while the $`H\alpha `$ points are consistent with a constant polarization of $`1.11\pm 0.03\%`$ at PA 35.5. This is then taken to be the interstellar polarization at $`H\alpha `$ (cross in figure 2a). Using the standard Serkowski interstellar polarization law as modified by Wilking, Lebowski, & Rieke (1987; ”WLR”), plus a modest position angle rotation, these two points determine the actual P Cyg WLR parameters: $`p_{max}=1.17\pm 0.03\%`$, $`\lambda _{max}=5100\pm 100\AA `$, $`P.A.=35.1^{}`$, and a position angle rotation of $`0.8\pm 0.5{}_{}{}^{}/\mu \text{m}^1`$. The adopted interstellar polarization curve is shown as the gray dashed line in figure 1. We have attempted to verify the above estimate through observations of stars near P Cyg (figure 2b). Observations with HPOL with the 0.9m telescope at PBO of HD19300 and HD19307 (17 arcmin distant) exhibit rather different interstellar polarizations, consistent with the large known variations in Cygnus. New observations at the WIYN 3.5m telescope of two B stars less than 5 arcmin distant within the P Cyg cluster, LSII 37-49 and -54, yield more comparable results, 1.5% at $`35^{}`$ and 0.9% at $`47^{}`$. This provides support for our adopted value.

## 3. Intrinsic Polarization

In Figure 3 we show the mean intrinsic polarization wavelength dependence for the three Astro-2 \+ HPOL observations. This was obtained by removing the fitted interstellar polarization, rotating the intrinsic polarization into the Q stokes parameter using the blue position angle, and averaging the result. This is the same procedure used by TN to estimate the mean wavelength dependence of the intrinsic polarization: it assumes that the intrinsic polarization at one time has a position angle independent of wavelength. The Stokes polarization Q is positive when the polarization is parallel to the blue continuum polarization, and negative when it is orthogonal. Note the strong decrease into the vacuum ultraviolet (presumably due to line blanketing), the strong decrease into the red as noted by TN but here extended into the near infrared, and the lack of both a Balmer and Paschen jump .

### 3.1. Clump Optical Depth

It is assumed that for a star as hot as P Cyg, any continuum intrinsic polarization is due to electron scattering in the envelope, presumably in asymmetric inhomogeneities (”clumps”). We may estimate the electron scattering optical depth $`\tau _e`$ of the clumps from a simple single-scattering analysis of the degree of polarization. Using formulae in Cassinelli, Nordsieck, and Murison (1987), the net polarization from a sector- shaped density enhancement subtending $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }<1`$ ster and with electron scattering optical depth $`\tau _e<1`$ is

$`p(4\pi )^1/(1+(4\pi )^1)\mathrm{sin}^2iD(r)\tau _e\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }`$
$`=0.073\mathrm{sin}^2i(1(R_{\mathrm{𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑡}}/r)^2)^{1/2}\tau _e\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }.`$
Here $`i`$ is the inclination of the clump direction to the line of sight, and $`D(r)`$ is the ”finite disk correction factor” which corrects for cancellation of polarization near the stellar photosphere caused by illumination from a non-point source (here we take the approximation of no photospheric limb darkening). Given the rapid timescale and the large amount of polarization observed, we expect that the clumps are polarimetrically observable only near the base of the wind. Later we find that the appropriate value for the radial position of the clumps is $`r/R_{}=1.42.5`$, which gives $`D0.40.9`$ for $`R_{\mathrm{𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑡}}/R_{}=1.3`$ (Najarro 2000); we will take $`D=0.65`$. This formula holds approximately until $`\tau _e1`$, where the clump becomes optically thick to the total opacity, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }1`$ ster, where geometric cancellation over the clump begins to reduce the polarization. Thus the maximum possible polarization (for $`i=90`$) is

$$p_{max}0.073\times 0.65\tau _e\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }0.05\tau _e\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }.$$

The observed polarization amplitude below $`5000\AA `$ is roughly 0.004, so that $`\tau _e\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }0.1`$. A range of clump properties consistent with the observations is then $`(\tau _e,\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega })=(0.1,1)`$ to $`(1,0.1)`$.

### 3.2. Free-Free Absorption - Clump Density

The presence of continuum absorption optical depth $`\tau _a`$ in addition to the electron scattering optical depth $`\tau _e`$ reduces the net polarization by the absorption in the clump

$$p(\lambda )=F_p(\lambda )/F(\lambda )\tau _ee^{\tau _a}$$

where $`F`$ is the total flux and $`F_p`$ is the polarized scattered flux. Features in $`p(\lambda )`$ may then be used to estimate $`\tau _a(\lambda )`$, and thus the physical properties of the clumps.

An important feature of the observed continuum intrinsic polarization wavelength dependence is the persistent decrease into the infrared. This was also noted by TN, and holds for individual nights as well as the mean. A plausible explanation for this, given the high density and ionization at the base of the wind, is competing free-free absorptive opacity. Since $`\kappa _{\mathrm{𝑓𝑓}}\lambda ^2`$, the polarization will decrease into the red as $`p(\lambda )e^{a\lambda ^2}`$. Figure 3 shows a fit to the polarization for $`\tau _{\mathrm{𝑓𝑓}}(1\mu \text{m})=1`$, $`1.5`$, and $`2`$. We adopt $`1.5`$ as the best value. Given our the range of allowed $`\tau _e=0.11`$, we have $`\tau _{\mathrm{𝑓𝑓}}(1\mu \text{m})/\tau _e=1.515`$. This provides an estimate of the clump electron density:

$`\tau _{\mathrm{𝑓𝑓}}(\lambda )/\tau _e=\kappa _{\mathrm{𝑓𝑓}}(\lambda )/\sigma =\alpha _{\mathrm{𝑓𝑓}}\lambda ^2gN_eN_pT^{3/2}/N_e\sigma _T\text{(cgs units),}`$
$`\text{or}N_e(\mathrm{𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑝})=3\times 10^{12}T_4(\mathrm{𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑝})^{3/2}\tau _{\mathrm{𝑓𝑓}}(1\mu \text{m})/\tau _e\text{ cm}^310^{13}\text{ cm}^3.`$
(For these rough estimates we assume a highly ionized pure hydrogen gas, $`T_4`$ is the clump temperature in units of $`10^4{}_{}{}^{}K`$, and $`g1`$ is the Gaunt factor). This is approximately 20 times the density in the wind at these radii in the model of Najarro (2000).

### 3.3. Bound-Free Jumps: Clump Temperature and Ionization

The lack of Balmer or Paschen Jumps in the intrinsic polarization of figure 3 puts an upper limit $`\tau _{\mathrm{𝑏𝑓}}(\lambda _B=3646)<0.1`$ for neutral hydrogen bound-free absorption in the clumps, which then means $`\tau _{\mathrm{𝑏𝑓}}(\lambda _B)/\tau _{\mathrm{𝑓𝑓}}(1\mu \text{m})<1/15`$. This ultimately puts a limit on the clump temperature:

$$\frac{\tau _{\mathrm{𝑏𝑓}}(\lambda _B)}{\tau _{\mathrm{𝑓𝑓}}(1\mu \text{m})}=\frac{\alpha _{\mathrm{𝑏𝑓}}(\lambda _B)N_H(n=2)}{\alpha _{\mathrm{𝑓𝑓}}(1\mu \text{m})gN_eN_pT^{3/2}}=\frac{\alpha _{\mathrm{𝑏𝑓}}(\lambda _B)}{\alpha _{\mathrm{𝑓𝑓}}(1\mu \text{m})}X_Hb_2\frac{e^{10.2/kT}}{N_eT^{3/2}},$$

where $`X_H`$ is the neutral fraction and $`b_2`$ is the departure coefficient for the second state of hydrogen in the clump. For simplicity we will assume that $`b_2`$ is unchanged in the clump; it is less than two at the base of the wind in the models of Najarro (2000), in any case. For $`X_H`$, we assume pure optically thin photoionization, so that it may be scaled from the base wind density and temperature:

$$X_H(\mathrm{𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑝})=X_H(\mathrm{𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑})\frac{N(\mathrm{𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑝})}{N(\mathrm{𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑})}\left(\frac{T(\mathrm{𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑝})}{T(\mathrm{𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑})}\right)^{0.8}.$$

Finally, then,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\tau _{\mathrm{𝑏𝑓}}(\lambda _B)}{\tau _{\mathrm{𝑓𝑓}}(1\mu \text{m})}}=7.5\times 10^{19}{\displaystyle \frac{b_2X_H(\mathrm{𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑})T_4(\mathrm{𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑})^{0.8}}{N(\mathrm{𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑})}}\times `$
$`T_4(\mathrm{𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑝})^{0.7}e^{11.8/T_4(\mathrm{𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑝})}<1/15`$
Given a wind model, this may be solved for $`T(\mathrm{𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑝})`$, giving the maximum temperature of the clump consistent with no detectable bound-free absorption. Notice that this is independent of clump electron scattering optical depth and density. Figure 4 (heavy lines) shows the clump density and ionization corresponding to the maximum temperature at each radius in the wind, using the wind model of Najarro (2000), for $`\tau _e=0.1`$ and $`1`$. The clumps will not be detectable inside $`r=1.3R_{}`$, the position of the photosphere. Above $`r=2.5R_{}`$, the maximum temperature decreases below $`8,000{}_{}{}^{}K`$ and recombination must occur; this puts a rough upper limit on the radius.

The clumps must contribute their maximum polarization from $`r=1.3`$ to $`2.5R_{}`$, and at this time they must be at least 20 times more dense and 20% cooler than the wind.

### 3.4. Clump Geometry and Time Evolution

It is interesting to compare the geometric properties of the range of possible clumps. ”Thin” clumps have $`\tau _e=0.1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$. ”Thick” ones have $`\tau _e=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }=0.1`$. The physical thickness of these clumps is $`\mathrm{\Delta }r=\tau _e/(\sigma _TN_e(\mathrm{𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑝}))=0.0005`$ and $`0.05R_{}`$, respectively, at $`r/R_{}=1.5`$. Figure 5 illustrates this ”pancake-like” geometry. The mass of the thick and thin clumps is the same, a result of the requirement that they produce the same polarization. The instantaneous stellar mass loss rate due to a clump compared to that in the base wind is $`(N(\mathrm{𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑝})/N(\mathrm{𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑}))\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }/4\pi =0.16`$ and $`16`$ at $`r/R_{}=1.5`$, which lasts for a time $`\mathrm{\Delta }r/v=1`$ and $`0.01`$ day, respectively. Given that the repetition rate for polarimetric clumps is 20 - 30 days, these clumps account for at most 1% of the mass loss of the star. The largest mass clumps are required at the largest distance from the star: at $`r/R_{}=2.5`$, they still account for at most 2% of the wind mass loss.

Finally, we may speculate on the time evolution of the clumps and their polarization. This will depend on the evolution of the mass and density of the clumps as they are carried out in the wind. The analysis above has placed limits on the properties of the clumps at the time that they contribute the largest polarization. The polarization will grow as the clump appears out of the photosphere, possibly growing in mass as it forms. It may then dissipate and its density, optical depth, and polarization will drop as it is carried out in the wind. This is a complex problem requiring a proper radiative transfer and clump physics model. We may explore the purely geometric effects, however: if we ignore optical depth effects and changes in clump mass, $`p(r)D(r)/r^2`$. This has a maximum at $`r/R_{\mathrm{𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑡}}1.1`$ $`(r/R_{}1.4)`$, and drops by a factor of 10 by $`r/R_{}=3`$. This is consistent with the polarizing clumps being highly ionized: by the time they reach the recombined part of the wind, the polarization is no longer detectable. The time it takes for a clump to traverse the $`r/R_{}=1.32.5`$ region will be $`1.2R_{}/(55\text{km/s})=14`$ days, which compares favorably with the observed duration of roughly one week.

### 3.5. Intrinsic Line Polarization

Figure 6 shows an expanded version of the visible-wavelength mean intrinsic polarization spectrum from all 15 HPOL observations. The improved sensitivity of the new HPOL data allows one to extend the TN analysis to 4 Hydrogen lines and 5 HeI lines. The intrinsic polarization of the emission line flux itself is a diagnostic of the wind. Any line radiation produced deep in the wind may become polarized if it is scattered off the clumps that produce the continuum polarization. Alternatively, the P-Cygni absorption beneath the emission line (unresolved in these observations) may be different in the clump, producing an apparent line polarization. The latter appears to be the largest effect in P Cyg.

The line Stokes polarization $`q_{\mathrm{}}`$ is conventionally computed as follows:

$$q_{\mathrm{}}=(I(\lambda )q(\lambda )I_cq_c)𝑑\lambda /(I(\lambda )I_c)𝑑\lambda $$

where the integral is performed over the observed line profile, and $`I_c`$ and $`q_c`$ are the flux and Stokes polarization in the neighboring continuum. The initially surprising result is that the weaker lines all appear to be negatively polarized (polarized orthogonal to the continuum). We believe that this is an artifact of the fact that the P Cygni absorption is enhanced in the clumps, and is as a result interpreted as emission polarized orthogonal to the continuum. For such a situation one can show that the apparent net Stokes polarization $`q_{\mathrm{}}`$ of the line is

$$q_{\mathrm{}}=\frac{q_efq_cW_a/W_e}{1W_a/W_e},$$

where $`q_e`$ and $`q_c`$ are the Stokes polarization of the emission line and continuum, respectively, $`W_a`$ and $`W_e`$ are the equivalent widths of the absorption and emission part of the P-Cygni line, respectively, and $`f=W_a(pol)/W_a`$ is the factor by which the absorption line is enhanced in the polarized light. $`W_a`$ and $`W_e`$ were evaluated using the mean P Cyg line profiles in Stahl, et al (1993).

In Figure 7 we plot $`q_{\mathrm{}}(1W_a/W_e)`$ versus $`q_cW_a/W_e`$ for the 9 lines measured. In this plot, the intercept of a straight line fit to the lines of one species is $`q_e`$ and the slope is $`f`$. The line labeled ”unpol” in this diagram corresponds to $`q_e=0`$ and $`f=1`$. We see that both the H and HeI lines are consistent with unpolarized emission ($`q_e=0\pm 0.02\%`$), implying that more than $`90\%`$ of the emission arises outside of the polarizing region.  On the other hand, both H and HeI are strongly enhanced in absorption in the polarized flux ($`f4`$). The enhancement must be due to a complex combination of ionization and excitation effects, and will require a detailed analysis. It is perhaps surprising that the values are so similar for H and HeI. Another way of seeing these effects is in the bottom panel of figure 6, the ”polarized flux”. This is essentially the spectrum of the scattered light: the emission lines have almost vanished, indicating the emission is unscattered, and strong absorption is seen instead.

## 4. Relation of Polarimetry to other Observations

A frequently mentioned datum for P Cyg is the apparent rotation from $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ measurements. Markova (2000) favors a value of 40 km/s, and it is agreed that values less than 25 km/sec are not consistent with absorption line depths. 40 km/s is $`15\%`$ of breakup velocity for a $`30M_{}`$, $`75R_{}`$ star (270 km/s). This is large enough that one might expect a substantially flattened wind if viewed edge-on. However, the intrinsic polarization does not show a favored position angle: In figure 2a the continuum polarization points occupy a nearly circular region. By contrast, Be stars, which are rotating at $`50\%`$ break-up, show polarization vector diagrams confined to a narrow line. One way out of this apparent contradiction is if P Cyg is rotating rapidly, and is viewed not quite pole-on. For such an object, assuming that all clumps are ejected at random in the equatorial plane, the expected axial ratio in the polarization vector diagram is $`\mathrm{cos}^2i`$. If we insist that $`\mathrm{cos}^2i>0.9`$, this gives $`i<18^{}`$. This in turn gives $`v>v\mathrm{sin}i/0.3=120`$ km/s, which is still $`45\%`$ breakup. This would likely be a bipolar object, but viewed nearly pole-on. Several things recommend this scenario: First, P Cyg has an unusually high wind speed among S Dor variables (Luminous Blue Variables). This would be explained if we are just observing a fast polar wind in a bipolar object. Second, most S Dor’s are bipolar. And third, most clumps would be ejected near the plane of the sky, which is favorable for large polarimetric variations. On the other hand, spectroscopy of the P Cyg shell (Meaburn 2000) does not show the characteristic multiple- redshift components seen in bipolar Planetary Nebulae, for instance. The pole-on hypothesis is testable by looking for a systematic daily change in the polarimetric position angle. During the 14 days of detectability, a clump would rotate about 60about the star, and each successive clump would exhibit the same sense of rotation.

How might the polarimetric clumps be related to the Discrete Absorption Components (DAC’s) seen in P Cyg? If there were no rotation, or the object is viewed pole-on, they would probably be uncorrelated, since polarimetric clumps must be ejected near the plane of the sky and would never cover the stellar disk to form DAC’s. On the other hand, if the star is seen equator-on and is rotating at $`v_{rot}=40`$ km/s, a clump will have rotated about 20by the time it reaches $`2R_{}`$, and $`60^{}`$ by $`10R_{}`$ (if the clump maintains its integrity this long). This suggests that there would be a weeks - month time delay between the appearance of a polarimetric clump and its observability as a DAC. This correlation would vary with the initial ejection longitude of the clump. Given the relatively frequent generation of polarimetric clumps (20-30 days), such a variable delay might be difficult to establish.

On the other hand, the polarimetric clumps should certainly be related to $`H\alpha `$ clumps observed interferometrically (Chesneau, et al 2000). If the clump does not disintegrate first, there should be a roughly 2-6 week delay between the appearance of a polarimetric clump and its detectability as an $`H\alpha `$ clump at $`10R_{}`$. The position angles of the polarimetric and interferometric clumps should be correlated, and systematic differences in position angle would be a sensitive measure of the component of stellar rotation about the line of sight (which combined with $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ would yield the inclination).

## 5. Summary; Future

In summary, we have analyzed the variability of the wavelength dependence of the polarization of P Cyg from $`150010500\AA `$. After removal of the interstellar polarization, we have put limits on the properties of the wind inhomogeneities (”clumps”) during the brief period that they are detectable in polarization.

* The presence of free-free absorption in the polarization wavelength dependence implies a clump electron density of at least $`10^{13}\text{cm}^3`$. This corresponds to a density contrast of at least 20 at the base of the wind.
* The absence of Balmer and Paschen bound-free absorption in the polarization limits the polarimetric zone to $`1.32.5R_{}`$, where the hydrogen ionization is high, and requires the clumps to be substantially cooler than the wind. The clumps take 14 days to be swept through this region.
* In order to produce the maximum observed polarization, the largest clumps must have an electron optical depth of 0.1 - 1 and an angular extent of 0.1 - 1 ster, accounting for at most $`2\%`$ of mean mass loss of the wind.
* The emission lines are essentially unpolarized. However, the P Cygni absorption is enhanced by a factor of four in the polarimetric clumps.

We plan on the following further observational investigations:

* Higher spectral resolution $`R3000`$ spectropolarimetry to resolve polarimetric line profiles. This should verify the line analysis model of section 3.5.
* Monitor the polarization every night for at least a month. During such a campaign we would look for a change in polarization wavelength dependence during an episode, including the expected decease in the free-free absorption and the possible appearance of bound-free jumps near the beginning or end of the episode. We would also look for a systematic position angle change with time, indicating rotation. We will attempt to arrange simultaneous high-resolution spectroscopy (for DACs) and interferometry, to pursue the predictions of section 4.

For modeling, we plan to develop our Monte Carlo polarization radiation transfer code to give a quantitative continuum polarization model based on the mean wind from Najarro (2000), including electron scattering, H bound free, H free-free, and line blanketing, with a simple sector geometry. This would predict the absolute degree of polarization, the continuum wavelength dependence, and their time dependence as the clump is carried out in the wind. Variables would include the clump heating/ cooling and confinement mechanisms.

A more ambitious polarization model would treat the lines. To accomplish this, it will be necessary to more correctly model the ionization and populations in the clump. Such a model would predict equivalent width in polarized flux for H and HeI to compare with the observations. Finally, our ultimate goal is to calculate polarimetric line profiles, allowing for electron scattering broadening and Doppler shifts in the wind, to compare with future high resolution observations.

#### Acknowledgments.

WUPPE was supported by NASA contract NAS5-26777. The analysis reported in this paper is supported by a NASA Astrophysics Data Program grant, NAG5-7931. We gratefully acknowledge Francisco Najarro for sending early results from his P Cyg wind model, and very useful discussions with Henny Lamers, Joe Cassinelli, and John Mathis.

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