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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Optical photometric observations of stellar populations in the Galactic center (GC) regions are, for many reasons, very difficult. First of all these regions are highly obscured by interstellar extinction. On the other hand, the stellar density in the so called windows of lower extinction is usually so high that good resolution and precise photometry can only be obtained from very good astronomical sites with modern CCD detectors. It is not surprising then that very limited photometric coverage of the Galactic bulge (GB) can be found in the literature. The existing papers concentrated typically on the well known Baade’s window or selected objects in the bulge, e.g., globular clusters. The situation has significantly changed in 1990s when large microlensing surveys like MACHO, EROS or OGLE started using the GB stars as sources for microlensing. Huge photometric databases covering large areas of the GB were created as a natural by-product of the microlensing searches. For example, the OGLE project has recently released the photometric maps of the GB containing photometry of about 30 million stars from 49 fields covering 11 square degrees in different regions of the GB (Udalski et al. 2002). These data can be very useful for many astrophysical projects including studying the stellar populations in many lines-of-sight in the GB.

Good understanding of properties of interstellar extinction is crucial for studying the GB. Unfortunately, it is large and highly non-uniform over the bulge making dereddening of observed magnitudes and colors difficult and uncertain. One of the possible solutions is to observe the GB stars in the infrared where the interstellar extinction is much smaller. Indeed, large areas of the GB were covered by the large field infrared surveys – DENIS and 2MASS. However, the range of both surveys was so shallow that only the brightest objects from the GB could be reliably measured. Nevertheless, infrared data from both surveys were used for construction of K-band extinction maps in the GB by Schultheis et al. (1999) and Dutra et al. (2002ab).

The optical range still remains very important for studying the GB. In this range the (V,$`VI`$) extinction maps were compiled by Stanek (1996). They cover the Baade’s window and were based on the method of Woźniak and Stanek (1996) who used the mean brightness and color of red clump giants as an indicator of the amount of interstellar extinction. After corrections of the zero point (Gould et al. 1998 and Alcock et al. 1998) these maps have been widely used for many GB projects.

Dereddening of the GB red clump and RR Lyr stars with Stanek’s maps led, however, to somewhat surprising results. Paczyński and Stanek (1998) found that the mean dereddened $`VI`$ color of the GB red clump stars is redder by about 0.2 mag than the color of nearby red clump giants. As the metallicity of both populations is similar (Udalski 2000, Ramirez et al. 2000), large difference in dereddened colors, decreased later to 0.11 mag by Paczyński et al. (1999) based on more accurate OGLE-II photometry, made this result suspicious. Moreover, similar effect was found for the GB RR Lyr stars observed by OGLE and dereddened with Stanek’s maps (Stutz, Popowski and Gould 1999). Popowski (2000) summarized possible explanations of these discrepancies. He noted that while it is in principle possible that the differences are caused by different properties of the local and bulge populations of red giants or RR Lyr stars as proposed by Paczyński (1998) and Stutz et al. (1999), the simplest and most plausible explanation would be non-standard properties of interstellar extinction. The discrepancy would vanish if the ratio of the total to selective absorption, $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}=\mathrm{A}_V/\mathrm{E}(VI)`$, was equal to about 2.1 instead of the standard value of about 2.5. Thus, he suggested for the first time that the interstellar extinction toward the GB might be anomalous what can significantly affect any analysis of the GB properties.

The problem becomes more important and urgent because of rapidly increasing number of the GB observations with new generation of large telescopes. Gould et al. (2001) reviewed existing results of determination of $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ and proposed a new method. It was based on comparison of VIK magnitudes of red giants with magnitudes of the local population of similar stars. Unfortunately, their results were inconclusive, mostly due to uncertainties of zero points of the GB photometry. The question whether the properties of interstellar extinction toward the GB are anomalous or close to the standard ones still remains open.

In this paper we present results of analysis of photometric data of several GB fields from the OGLE-II microlensing survey (Udalski et al. 2002) with the interstellar extinction high and highly variable across the field. Straightforward analysis suggests that $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ in the GB is different than the value corresponding to the standard extinction curve ($`\mathrm{R}_V=3.1`$). In general it is much smaller but varies along different lines-of-sight.

## 2 Observational Data

The photometric data used in this paper come from the recently released “OGLE-II VI Maps of the Galactic Bulge” (Udalski et al. 2002) http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/~ogle or http://bulge.princeton.edu/~ogle. The maps contain VI photometry and astrometry of about 30 million stars from the GB. Provided photometry is the mean photometry from typically a few hundreds measurements in the I-band and several measurements in the V-band collected in 1997–2000. Accuracy of the zero points of photometry is about 0.04 mag. Quality of data and possible systematic errors are discussed in detail in Udalski et al. (2002).

The observed fields, $`14.2\times 57`$ arcmin each, are located in many lines-of-sight in the GB (see the map – Fig. 1 in Udalski et al. 2002). Several of them are located in the regions where the interstellar extinction is high or highly variable across the field. Udalski et al. (2002) present several $`(I,VI)`$ color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of such fields. They show in a spectacular way how the interstellar extinction reddens the GB stars when observing closer and closer to the GC. In many fields where extinction is patchy or varies significantly across the field, the compact and round feature of the CMD like the red clump becomes not only highly elongated but rather a strip of stars distributed along the reddening line. Large range of these variations enables us to study directly the properties of interstellar extinction toward the GB.

For further analysis we selected the following regions from the OGLE-II maps: A) the region closest to the GC consisting of fields BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC5, BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC37, BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC3, BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC4 and BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC39. Centers of these fields are located from $`1\text{.}^{}3`$ to $`2\text{.}^{}3`$ from the Galactic center. B) the region of patchy extinction located about $`3\text{.}^{}2`$ from the GC: BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC22 and BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC23. C) BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC43: a field at the opposite side of the GB at positive latitude, located about $`3^{}`$ from the GC. D) Baade’s window fields: BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC46, BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC45, BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC1 and BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC38. E) Comparison field from the LMC including two LMC fields with the largest variation of interstellar extinction: LMC$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC16 and LMC$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC17. The data for this region come from similar OGLE-II maps of the LMC (Udalski et al. 2000).

## 3 Data Analysis

To trace the amount of interstellar extinction toward the GB we selected the GB red clump (RC) giants as a reference source of light similar to Woźniak and Stanek (1996) and Stanek (1996). The RC stars constitute a compact and well defined group in the CMD and were proposed as a good and well calibrated distance indicator (Paczyński and Stanek 1998). Although there is no common agreement on the magnitude of population effects (age, metallicity) on the mean magnitude of RC stars (Pietrzyński, Gieren and Udalski 2003, Girardi and Salaris 2002), it is rather widely accepted that within a population it is constant to a few hundredths of a magnitude. As the selected regions are small – at most 1.3 square degree for the region (A) – we assume that the mean properties of the RC stars are similar within a field and the RC mean magnitude and color are constant across the region.

Contrary to Woźniak and Stanek (1996) and Stanek (1996) we analyzed the mean RC magnitude in the $`(I,VI)`$ CMD instead of $`(V,VI)`$ as they did. Paczyński and Stanek (1998) first showed that the I-band magnitude of the RC is constant with color. The V-band magnitude is a function of $`VI`$ what can lead to systematic errors when analyzing interstellar extinction effects (Popowski 2000).

We divided each of the analyzed OGLE-II fields into 64 subfields of $`512\times 512`$ pixel size ($`3\text{.}{}_{}{}^{}5\times `$3.5 on the sky). $`(I,VI)`$ CMD of each of the subfields was retrieved from the OGLE-II maps, and centroid of the RC was determined. In spite of so fine grid, in some of the subfields (especially those located close to the GC) the variations of interstellar extinction even over so small area were so significant that the RC remained severely elongated. Such fields were excluded from further analysis. The typical accuracy of the RC centroids is about 0.04 mag in I and $`VI`$.

As the interstellar extinction increases, the V and I-band magnitudes of the RC become fainter and for significantly reddened fields they can reach the photometry limit making the determined mean magnitudes biased and unreliable. In practice, the problem affects only our most reddened field BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC5, located closest to the Galactic center. To avoid the problem we limited our subfields to those which do not suffer from incompleteness of photometry. Fig. 1 presents the distribution of stars in the field BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC5 as a function of magnitude. From the shape of the histogram we may conclude that the OGLE-II photometry is complete up to $`V21.3`$ mag and $`I19.4`$ mag. In the I-band the brightness of RC stars is always far from the incompleteness limit. On the other hand, in the V-band it reaches the limit for many highly reddened subfields. Therefore, we set a safety margin of 0.6 mag and removed from further analysis all subframes with the mean magnitude of RC $`V>20.7`$ mag. The margin is large enough to have the mean magnitude of the RC reliably measured. In other fields the completeness of photometry starts to drop at slightly (0.2–0.3 mag) brighter magnitudes due to higher crowding but, on the other hand, those fields are less reddened than BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC5 field and the RC brightness is always far from the incompleteness limit. Also the brightness of the RC in the LMC is far away from the incompleteness limit of the LMC photometry.

Assuming that the variation of the mean RC magnitude and color are due to interstellar extinction, the $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ ratio can be directly determined by fitting a straight line to the location of RC centroids in the $`(I,VI)`$ CMD (plus 1.0). Figs. 2–5 present CMDs with location of RC centroids (asterisks) for regions (A)–(D), respectively. Solid line is a least square fit to the data. Slopes of the fitted lines ($`\mathrm{\Delta }I/\mathrm{\Delta }(VI)`$) are listed in the second column of Table 1. The RC centroids and the fit are plotted twice in Figs. 2–5 what will be discussed in the next Section. The magnitude scale refers to the lower plot, the upper one is shifted by 1.2 mag up along the magnitude axis.

## 4 Discussion

Figs. 2–5 indicate that the variation of interstellar extinction in the selected regions is indeed very large. In particular, in the region (A) the range of observed $`VI`$ colors of RC stars reaches almost 1.5 mag, in region (B) – 1.2 mag. Thus, the base for studying the interstellar extinction properties is very extended. It should be also noted that because the photometric data come from the same instrument the results are insensitive to some systematic effects like uncertainty of zero points etc.

It is striking that the slopes of the best linear fit to the RC centroids listed in Table 1 are significantly smaller than the slope of the (I,$`VI`$) standard extinction reddening line (usually assumed to be about 1.5). This may indicate that the interstellar extinction toward the Galactic bulge is indeed anomalous, and the $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ ratio is significantly smaller than the standard value, as predicted by Popowski (2000). To check this possibility we analyzed possible systematic effects which could lead to smaller slope of the RC centroids as observed in the OGLE-II data.

First, we repeated the procedure described in the previous section for the comparison field (E) located in the LMC. This region covers the area of the largest variation of extinction in the observed OGLE-II fields in the LMC. Although the range of color changes is smaller in this case than in the GB regions, centroids of the RC can be derived much more accurately, because the RC is much more compact. Fig. 6 shows the RC centroids and the fit similarly to the GB fields. The slope of the best linear fit to the LMC data is also provided in Table 1. One can immediately conclude that in the LMC case the properties of interstellar extinction and $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ ratio in this direction are similar to the standard ones. This strengthens our suspicion that the extinction toward the GB might be anomalous.

Then, we considered possible instrumental effects. As noted by Udalski et al. (2002) the I-band filter used by OGLE-II was an often used approximation of the I-band with a Schott glass filter. However, its transmission curve has somewhat wider red-wing what may lead to systematic deviations from the standard values for very red stars. Udalski et al. (2002) presented detailed modeling of the possible discrepancies between the OGLE-II and standard I-band filter using the Kurucz’s model atmosphere of a typical GB red clump star, reddened with the standard interstellar extinction (CCM89) similar as in the observed GB fields. The differences noted in Udalski et al. (2002) work in the direction of lowering the slope of the reddening line in the CMD diagram. Because the regions analyzed in this paper are in the color range where those differences become significant, the non-matching filters could, in principle, introduce a systematic effect leading to the observed discrepancy of slopes. On the other hand the differences between the OGLE-II I-band filter and the standard one, as modeled by Udalski et al. (2002), are much too small to explain so different slopes of RC stars as observed in Figs. 2–5. Different slope in the region (D) where the large part of RC magnitudes is in the range of photometry well calibrated by standard stars seems to indicate that the effect is not of instrumental origin.

Ideally, one should either calibrate the red range of the OGLE-II photometry with standards or compare with other photometry of highly reddened fields taken with the standard I-band filter. Unfortunately, none of these options is feasible. There is practically no standards with $`VI>2`$ as those very red stars are usually variable. Also, as mentioned in Introduction, as far as we know there is no precise CCD photometry of highly reddened GB fields in the literature to which we could directly compare our RC photometry. We hope that our paper will encourage astronomers to carry out such project. It is worth noting that highly reddened RC stars could be ideal standard stars for calibrating very red photometry, as they are usually non-variable, bright enough and, due to high interstellar extinction, could be found in relatively uncrowded regions.

The only available photometry of required accuracy we could find in the literature for comparison with our data comes from the Baade’s window. Stanek et al. (2000) observed a small $`9^{}\times 9^{}`$ field of relatively small interstellar extinction while Richtler et al. (1998) even smaller field around the globular cluster NGC 6528. Photometric data from both projects are available via Internet so we could compare photometries on the star by star basis. Stanek et al. (2000) and Richtler et al. (1998) fields are located in our BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC45 and BUL$`\mathrm{\_}`$SC46 fields, respectively. None of them contains significantly reddened RC stars but, fortunately, they contain many red stars. On the other hand, red stars in the GB are usually variable (Mizerski and Bejger 2002) so we limited comparison to stars with standard deviation of the I-band magnitudes over the four years of OGLE-II observations smaller than 0.05 mag, selecting in this way only the least variable objects. We also limited the magnitude of stars to $`I<16.5`$ mag.

Almost 2000 and 1170 stars were matched between OGLE-II vs. Stanek et al. (2000) and OGLE-II vs. Richtler et al. (1998) objects, respectively. Fig. 7 presents the difference of magnitude as a function of OGLE-II $`VI`$ color. It is striking that only small number of red stars ($`VI>2.2`$ mag) passed the standard deviation limit confirming that the vast majority of these objects are variable. The top panel presents the comparison of V magnitudes between Stanek et al. (2000) and OGLE-II. As noted by Udalski et al. (2002) one cannot expect significant differences between the OGLE-II photometry and the standard one in this band as the filters were similar. Indeed, the comparison in the top panel of Fig. 7 indicates very good agreement – only a small shift of the zero point and probably a small slope of differences can be noticed. The latter can be attributed to the possible small inaccuracies in transformation from the instrumental system to the standard one by Stanek et al. (2000) as their calibrations were based on observations obtained on one night only.

Middle panel of Fig. 7 shows the comparison of the I-band photometry of OGLE-II and Stanek et al. (2000). It should be stressed that the observations by Stanek et al. (2002) were obtained with the standard I-band filter. It is worth noting that the differences between the OGLE-II photometry and the standard one behave exactly as expected in Udalski et al. (2002). For the color range calibrated by standards ($`VI<2`$) they are constant while for redder stars the OGLE-II magnitudes are systematically too bright. Dashed line in Fig. 7 indicates the difference of OGLE-II and standard magnitudes of RC stars from this field ($`VI1.65`$) as modeled in Udalski et al. (2002). As one can see the agreement between the modeled and observed differences is very good indicating that modeling presented in Udalski et al. (2002) is accurate to 0.02–0.04 mag.

In the bottom panel of Fig. 7 we show comparison of the OGLE-II and Richtler et al. (1998) photometry in the I-band. Again, except for a shift of the zero point (see below), the agreement of photometries in the range $`VI<2`$ is very good. It is also very good for redder stars with the OGLE-II magnitudes being only slightly brighter (0.02–0.03 mag) at $`VI`$ of 3.5 mag. This behavior is somewhat different than observed in the middle panel of Fig. 7 but Richtler’s et al. (1998) data were collected through the Gunn $`i`$ filter and later transformed to the standard Landolt system what can explain why the differences in the bottom panel are smaller than in the middle panel of Fig. 7. We may conclude that our comparisons of OGLE-II photometry for red stars with others show that the modeling presented in Udalski et al. (2002) very reasonably estimates differences between the OGLE-II filter and the standard one and, as expected, the modeling values are likely to be an upper limit for the differences.

Our comparisons also provide information on the accuracy of zero points of the OGLE-II photometric maps. The mean differences between the OGLE-II and Stanek et al. (2000) magnitudes for stars with $`VI<2.1`$ (Stanek – OGLE) are $`0.039,0.042`$ and $`0.007`$ mag for V, $`VI`$ and I, respectively. All these values are within the estimated errors of the OGLE-II zero points. On the other hand, the comparison with photometry of Richtler et al. (1998) indicates systematic shift of similar value in V and I between both photometries: $`0.133,0.152`$ mag for V and I, respectively, and $`0.014`$ mag for $`VI`$ color (Richtler – OGLE). However, the shift is of no concern: Richtler et al. (1998) compared their photometry with the older one of Ortolani, Bica and Barbuy (1992) and found shifts of similar values as with OGLE-II magnitudes (Table 4 of Richtler et al. : $`0.129`$ and $`0.000`$ mag for V and $`VI`$, respectively, for stars brighter than $`V<18.5`$ mag, what corresponds roughly to our limit of $`I<16.5`$ mag; differences in the sense Richtler – Ortolani). Very similar shifts indicate that the OGLE-II photometry is almost identical with that of Ortolani et al. (1992) and calibration of Richtler et al. (1998) data suffers from quite large systematic error. It is worth noting here that the OGLE-II calibrations were obtained from observations of standard stars collected on tens of nights (Udalski et al. 2002) while the others on single or two nights only, so they are certainly more prone to systematic errors.

To compare the observed slopes of RC centroids with expected ones for the standard interstellar extinction we performed modeling similar as in Udalski et al. (2002). We selected a model of atmosphere of a typical bulge RC star from Kurucz (1992) archive ($`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=0.2`$ dex, $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}=4500`$ K and $`\mathrm{log}g=2.00`$). Such a star has $`VI1.0`$. Then we reddened it with the standard extinction law with $`\mathrm{R}_V=3.1`$ and calculated the magnitudes for the standard and OGLE-II filters. Unfortunately, the shape of the extinction curve longward of the V-band has not yet been precisely determined. While it is often assumed that its shape follows the CCM89 approximation, another approach – cubic spline interpolation between the “anchor points” – was proposed by F99. The differences between both approximations are large enough that we decided to perform our modeling for both cases independently. Lower plot in Figs. 2–6 corresponds to the modeling with CCM89 extinction law, while the upper one (shifted by 1.2 mag along the magnitude axis) to the F99 extinction law approximation.

Dashed lines in Figs. 2–6 show the position of the modeled RC star in the CMD for the standard I-band filter. In other words they indicate the standard reddening line in the observed regions. In Fig. 6 the line is not shown for CCM89 modeling, as it would overlap with the RC fit line. Mean slopes of the standard reddening lines in the standard I-band filter for both extinction law approximations are provided in the third and fifth column of Table 1.

Dotted lines in Figs. 2–6 mark the results of modeling for the OGLE-II filter transformed to the standard system as the real data were (Udalski et al. 2002). They indicate the standard reddening line as it should be observed through the OGLE-II filter. The mean slopes of the standard reddening line in the OGLE-II filter are also listed in Table 1 (fourth and sixth column). As expected they are somewhat smaller than for the standard I-band filter. The difference depends on color, it is larger for redder $`VI`$ colors and practically negligible in the range where the OGLE data were calibrated by standards ($`VI<2`$). As we already mentioned, the differences presented in Figs. 2–6 are very likely to be an upper limit.

Were the interstellar extinction close to the standard one, the RC centers in Figs. 2–6 should be scattered around the dotted lines. This is the case only in the LMC region for CCM89 approximation (Fig. 6 lower plot). In the GB regions the slopes of the observed centers of RC are generally significantly smaller than the slope of the standard reddening line in the OGLE-II filter. It is, however, worth noting that the largest difference is found in the region (A), located closest to the GC. In other regions the differences are smaller but do not seem to depend on the distance from the GC. For instance, in the region (C), located on the opposite side of the GB – only about $`3^{}`$ from the GC – the interstellar extinction seems to be the most similar to the standard one.

It is evident that the different approximations of the extinction curve give significantly different results for the slope of the reddening line. For the CCM89 approximation the differences between the observed RC slopes and expected for the standard ($`\mathrm{R}_V=3.1`$) extinction are larger than for the F99 approach. On the other hand the observed slope in the LMC nicely agrees with the slope of the standard reddening line for CCM89 while it is too large for F99.

If the interstellar extinction toward the GB follows the standard extinction law, then the smaller slopes of RC centroids seen in Figs. 2–5 can be explained by different (smaller) value of the $`\mathrm{R}_V`$ parameter compared to the standard value of $`\mathrm{R}_V=3.1`$. Therefore, we repeated our modeling of RC stars with different parameters $`\mathrm{R}_V`$ of the standard extinction law, looking for values of $`\mathrm{R}_V`$ for which the reddening line in the OGLE-II filter would fit the observational data, i.e., the solid and dotted lines in Figs. 2–6 would overlap. Table 2 lists such values of $`\mathrm{R}_V`$ for our regions as well as corresponding values of the $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ ratio for the standard Landolt I-band. Values for both CCM89 and F99 approximations of the extinction curve are provided.

Table 2 shows that the observed flatter slopes of the centers of RC can be explained by anomalous interstellar extinction toward the GB, i.e., extinction described by smaller $`\mathrm{R}_V`$ or $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ ratio than the standard value. Resulting values of $`\mathrm{R}_V`$ in the GB regions are roughly similar for both approximations of the extinction curves – CCM89 and F99, but corresponding values of $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ are typically smaller by 0.1–0.15 for F99 approximation. On the other hand, the latter indicates highly non-standard extinction in the LMC. According to the CCM89 approximation the properties of interstellar extinction in the LMC are very similar to the standard ones. At this stage it is premature to decide which approximation of the the red and infrared extinction curve is better, but it seems that additional more extended studies similar to presented in this paper should shed the light on the actual shape of the extinction curve at longer wavelengths.

As we showed, the anomalous interstellar extinction can explain the observed location of RC centroids in the GB fields. Are there other possibilities? One could suspect that the mean brightness of the RC that serves as a reference of light in our study is not constant. Indeed, it is rather widely accepted that its mean I-band magnitude is somewhat dependent on metallicity. However, the dependence is very weak and well calibrated (Udalski 2000, Pietrzyński et al. 2003). To change the slope from the standard to observed values in Figs. 2–5 the metallicity distribution of RC stars in the GB would have to be highly correlated with the reddening (larger reddening – lower metallicity). The metallicity gradients would have to be enormous in our small fields to be responsible for the observed difference of slopes. This possibility seems to be extremely unlikely as the stars in the GB should be well mixed and the population of RC stars very uniform, especially in so small regions as analyzed in this paper. Moreover, Ramirez et al. (2000) do not find any significant metallicity gradients in the inner bulge including our regions.

Another possibility is that the mean RC in our subfields is located at different distances – again correlated with interstellar reddening (larger reddening – closer the mean RC). However, this situation also seems to be unlikely. The range of photometry is always large enough that we do not miss RC stars even in our most reddened subfields. The observed regions are small so it is hard to imagine large differences in the mean distance of RC stars. Although Stanek et al. (1997) noted almost 0.4 mag difference in the brightness of RC in regions located symmetrically in longitude along the GC, and interpreted it as an effect of geometry of the GB (assuming constant and standard interstellar extinction), the spatial scale of such variation was about 10 degrees. Therefore it is hard to expect geometrical effects larger than about 0.05 mag (or less if $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ is variable across the GB) in our at most $`1^{}1\text{.}^{}3`$ wide regions. This is much too low to explain the observed slopes of RC centers by geometry. For instance, in the case of the region (A), the most reddened RC stars are 0.4–0.5 mag brighter than they would be in the standard reddening case (Fig. 2). So they would have to be by about 1.5 kpc closer to us compared to the least reddened subfields in this region if the distance differences (geometry) were to compensate the difference of slopes.

Thus, the anomalous extinction seems to be the most natural explanation of the observed slopes of RC in the GB. The determined values of $`\mathrm{R}_V`$ in our regions are much smaller than usually observed for stars (CCM89), but it should be noted that similar low values were reported in the literature for interstellar cirrus clouds (Szomoru and Guhathakurta 1999). One of such regions is located only $`10^{}`$$`14^{}`$ from our fields so it would not be surprising if large parts of the GB regions were embedded and obscured by similar cirrus clouds. Our results indicate that $`\mathrm{R}_V`$ and the $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ ratio are variable across the GB and variations are significant. This is very unfortunate as it indicates that proper dereddening of a particular field in the GB might be difficult without prior determination of $`\mathrm{R}_V`$ in a given line-of-sight.

It should be noted that the models of the Galactic bar based on modeling of RC stars (Stanek et al. 1997) might be somewhat affected by our finding, because Stanek et al. (1997) assumed constant and standard $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$. While our analysis indicate variable and non-standard interstellar extinction in the GB, the range of variation of $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ (Table 2) is much too small to fully account for effects presented by Stanek et al. (1997). Therefore, we suspect that only some fine tuning to the GB models might be necessary, when accurate $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ in the lines-of-sight presented in Stanek et al. (1997) are known.

It is also worth noting that our results nicely confirm predictions of Popowski (2000). Although Stanek et al. (2000) suggested that the difference between the mean dereddened (with the extinction map of Stanek 1996 based on standard $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$=2.5) $`VI`$ color of the GB and local (Hipparcos) RC stars is small and within uncertainties of photometry, we note that the GB stars are still about 0.06 mag redder according to their data. OGLE-II photometry of exactly the same region indicates, however, that the difference is larger, i.e., 0.09 mag – in good agreement with the difference of the $`VI`$ color zero point between photometries found above. This value is also very consistent with the result of Paczyński et al. (1999) in another region of GB. As we believe that the zero points of the OGLE-II photometry are sound (see above) we may conclude that the difference between the mean dereddened in that way $`VI`$ colors of the GB and local RC stars is real at the 0.06–0.09 mag level.

According to Table 2, $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ is equal to 2.1–2.2 for the Baade’s window (region (D)) for both approximations of the extinction law. If such a value of $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{𝑉𝐼}}`$ is used to deredden photometry of the GB stars instead of the standard one (used in the map of Stanek 1996) then the difference in the $`VI`$ colors of RC and RR Lyr stars from the GB and local population (Paczyński and Stanek 1998, Stutz et al. 1999) diminishes by additional 0.08–0.10 mag to very small values well explained by uncertainties of photometry (Popowski 2000).

Summarizing, the OGLE-II photometry seems to indicate that the interstellar extinction toward the GB is anomalous. However, additional observations are necessary for further verification and confirmation of this finding. Photometry in larger number of preferably narrower bands should provide more information on the shape of the red and infrared extinction curve. Alternatively, spectrophotometry of large sample or RC stars from the GB should probably allow to disentangle effects of extinction, metallicity and other population effects in RC stars spectra and determine the extinction properties in much wider range, likely with better accuracy than it is possible with photometry alone. A list of possible RC stars suitable for such a project can be prepared using the OGLE-II GB maps (Udalski et al. 2002).

Acknowledgements. We would like to thank Dr. B. Draine for very important comments and pointing our attention to F99 approximation of the extinction law and Drs. B. Paczyński, K.Z. Stanek and M. Szymański for many helpful remarks. We also thank the anonymous referee for constructive criticism leading to significant improvement of the paper. The paper was partly supported by the Polish KBN BST grant to Warsaw University Observatory. Partial support for the OGLE project was provided with the NSF grants AST-9820314 and AST-0204908 and NASA grant NAG5-12212 to B. Paczyński.

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text:
# CLEO Contributions to Tau Physics

## 1 Introduction

Over the last dozen years, the CLEO Collaboration has made use of data collected by the the CLEO-II detector  to measure many of the properties of the tau lepton and its neutrino. Now that the experiment is making a transition from operation in the 10 GeV (B factory) region to the 3-5 GeV tau-charm factory region , it seemed to the author and the Tau02 conference organizers to be a good time to review the contributions of the CLEO experiment to tau physics. We are consciously omitting results from CLEO-I (data taken before 1989). The author has chosen to take a semi-critical approach, emphasizing both the strengths and weaknesses of tau physics at CLEO: past, present, and future.

## 2 Tau Production at 10 GeV

We begin by discussing a topic on which CLEO has not published: tau pair production.

In $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions, one can study taus in production and/or decay. The production reaction $`e^+e^{}\gamma ^{}\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ is governed by well-understood QED. As such, it is not terribly interesting (or at least, nowhere near as interesting as studying $`e^+e^{}\gamma ^{}/Z^{()}\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ at LEP I and LEP II). CLEO has studied resonance production and decay, e.g., in  $`e^+e^{}\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(nS)\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$.

In addition to overall rate, one can search for small anomalous couplings. Rather generally, these can be parameterized as anomalous magnetic, and (CP violating) electric, dipole moments. With $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ final states, one can study the spin structure of the final state; this is perhaps the most sensitive way to search for anomalous couplings. We will return to this subject in section 9.1.

Measuring the production rate at 10 GeV is only interesting if it is precise: $`<1\%`$. This has proven to be difficult at CLEO, for several reasons.

First, it is desirable to do an inclusive selection of $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ final states, so that production rates don’t depend on decay branching fractions, which were not measured at the 1% level in the early part of the last decade. It’s difficult to select taus inclusively, because backgrounds from $`q\overline{q}`$, $`e^+e^{}`$, $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ and two-photon are less easily distinguishable from $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ than at LEP, and they depend on tau decay mode. It’s not really hard, but it’s hard to get precise selection efficiencies. In the end, tau selection at CLEO always had smaller efficiencies and/or larger backgrounds, and often also larger systematic errors, than analogous analyses at LEP.

To measure the production cross-section, one needs a precise luminosity measurement, with an error $`<<1\%`$. At CLEO, we selected large angle Bhabhas ($`e^+e^{}`$), $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$, $`e^+e^{}\gamma \gamma `$ with rather high statistics. To get the luminosity, we need accurate predictions of the cross-section times selection efficiency from precision Monte Carlo simulations, incorporating accurate QED radiative corrections. Much less effort has gone into this at 10 GeV than at LEP! Each of these measurements has small statistical errors, but the systematic errors are of the order of $`2\%`$. CLEO got agreement between the 3 QED processes at the level of 1% but not much better; the discrepancies are likely to be in the QED Monte Carlos. CLEO quotes a 1% systematic error on luminosity .

The moral is that further progress in this topic requires precision QED Monte Carlos. The KKMC program  promises precision results, but it must be validated with careful computational and experimental cross-checks. Consistent results for $`e^+e^{}`$, $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$, $`e^+e^{}\gamma \gamma `$ are a good first step. Further, measurements of anomalous moments make use of the spin correlations in tau pair production at 10 GeV, so one must validate the correct treatment of spin-dependence in the Monte Carlo.

## 3 Tau decay physics at CLEO

CLEO pursued a systematic study of all tau decays during the 1990’s, learning much about the tau, its neutrino, and low-energy meson dynamics. The main decay modes are listed in Table 1.

### 3.1 One-prong problem

In the early 90’s, the “tau one-prong” problem was raging; the branching fractions for exclusively reconstructed tau decays didn’t add up to 1 . The resolution of this discrepancy required precision (sub-1%) branching fractions measurements.

CLEO-II was a new detector; acceptances, in/efficiencies, and detector simulation needed to be understood very well. Important issues included the detection of $`\pi ^0`$’s: they rarely merged into one shower, and CLEO obtained great $`m_{\gamma \gamma }`$ resolution ($``$ 6 MeV) with its CsI calorimeter. However, soft photons could get lost; and “splitoffs” from hadronic showers could fake photons. Overall, ensuring reliable detection of $`\pi ^0`$’s resulted in a detection efficiency $`50(1\pm 0.03)\%`$. Also, CLEO had poor K/$`\pi `$ separation over most of the interesting momentum range. We made progress using $`K_S^0`$, with detection efficiency $`50\%`$. Because of all this, it was hard to know the overall detection efficiency, after backgrounds, to better than 1%.

Ultimately, CLEO’s branching fraction measurements were limited by knowledge of luminosity (1%), cross-section (computed to order $`\alpha `$ with KORALB , $`1\%`$), and knowledge of the detection efficiency and backgrounds ($`12\%`$). However, with millions of produced $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$, what we lacked in efficiency we made up for in statistics.

By 1995, we made $`(12)\%`$ measurements of branching fractions to $`e\nu \nu _\tau `$, $`\mu \nu \nu _\tau `$, $`\pi /K\nu _\tau `$, $`\pi \pi ^0\nu _\tau `$, $`\pi n\pi ^0\nu _\tau `$, $`3\pi \nu _\tau `$, $`3\pi \pi ^0\nu _\tau `$, etc.. These measurements reduced the “tau one-prong” problem to insignificance by PDG 1996 . We had also tested $`e/\mu /\tau `$ charged-current coupling universality at the 1% level . By then, LEP was measuring branching fractions with total errors much smaller than $`1\%`$. This came as quite a shock to CLEO! It helped that the LEP experiments knew $`N_{\tau \tau }=\sigma `$ quite well, as a by-product of their incredibly successful electroweak program.

## 4 Rare semi-hadronic decay modes

Rare semi-hadronic decay modes of the tau provide unique laboratories for low-energy meson dynamics, and tests of conservation laws. With the world’s largest sample of tau pairs throughout the 1990’s, CLEO made many first and/or most precise measurements of rare decay modes , listed in Table 2.

Decay modes like $`5\pi `$, $`6\pi `$, $`7\pi `$, $`\eta \pi \pi `$, $`\eta 3\pi `$, are relatively easy to reconstruct. The big problem is background from $`q\overline{q}`$. Lepton tags can clean that up reasonably well, but an irreducible background remains, that can be estimated and subtracted statistically. These modes have rich and complicated sub-structure, which we attempted to delve into for the $`5\pi `$, $`6\pi `$, and $`\eta 3\pi `$ modes. Some $`6\pi `$ signals are shown in Fig. 1.

Of particular interest are modes involving $`\eta `$ mesons , listed in Table 3.

The $`\eta \pi ^{}`$ mode is a signature for second-class (isospin-violating) currents. The $`\eta K^{}`$ mode proceeds by SU(3)f violation. The $`\eta \pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ mode proceeds by the Wess-Zumino anomalous current. The $`\eta 3\pi `$ signals, which are rich in sub-structure, are shown in Fig. 2.

CLEO also observed the radiative decay modes $`\tau ^{}e^{}\nu _\tau \gamma `$ and $`\tau ^{}\mu ^{}\nu _\tau \gamma `$ , and made the first observation of the decays $`\tau ^{}e^{}e^+e^{}\overline{\nu }_e\nu _\tau `$ (5 events) and $`\tau ^{}\mu ^{}e^+e^{}\overline{\nu }_\mu \nu _\tau `$ (1 event) .

### 4.1 Rare strange modes - $`X_S^{}\nu _\tau `$

Modes with $`K_S^0`$ are easily accessible in the CLEO data. Identifying charged kaons was problematical in CLEO-II, but even with poor K/$`\pi `$ separation ($`<2\sigma `$), we identified and measured branching fractions for many modes containing kaons, listed in Table 4. During the same time period, LEP-I produced terrific results on modes with kaons, including $`K_L^0`$!

## 5 Forbidden (neutrinoless) decays

Tau decays to final states with no $`\nu _\tau `$ (or more precisely, no missing energy) are a clear signature for lepton-number violation, pointing directly to physics beyond the Standard Model. The golden mode is $`\tau \mu \gamma `$, which in many models, would be the easiest to observe in tau decays (despite the strong constraint from non-observation of $`\mu e\gamma `$).

CLEO-II set its first upper limit $`(\tau \mu \gamma )<4.2\times 10^6`$ (90% CL) in 1992 . This was improved to $`3.0\times 10^6`$ by 1996 ($`4.3\times 10^6`$ tau pairs) ; then $`1.1\times 10^6`$ by 1999 ($`12.6\times 10^6`$ tau pairs) . By this point, we were starting to hit background events (see Fig. 3), which appear to be irreducible; further progress can no longer be expected to scale inversely with the number of produced tau pairs.

CLEO also searched for many other neutrinoless modes, setting limits on 22 of them in 1994 , with branching fraction upper limits around $`10^5`$. This was updated in 1997 , with 28 modes, including resonances; branching fraction upper limits of a few $`\times 10^6`$ were obtained. We added 10 more modes with $`\pi ^0`$’s and/or $`\eta `$’s in 1997 . Five more modes were added in 1998 , containing (anti-)protons: $`\tau ^{}\overline{p}X^0`$.

Throughout all this, we managed to forget about modes containing $`K^0`$’s! This has now been corrected: New for this conference , based on $`12.7\times 10^6`$ $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$), are the branching fraction upper limits at 90% CL listed in Table 5.

## 6 CLEO Michel Parameter analyses

We turn now from measurements of branching fractions to the substructure in the multi-particle decay modes. For the leptonic decays $`\tau ^{}\mathrm{}^{}\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}\nu _\tau `$, this amounts to the measurement of the Michel parameters governing the Lorentz structure of the decay (i.e., the search for deviations from the Standard Model $`VA`$ structure). Information on the Lorentz structure of the decay, especially on the helicity of the tau neutrino $`h_{\nu _\tau }`$, can also be obtained from decay distributions in semi-hadronic ($`\tau ^{}X_h^{}\nu _\tau `$) decays.

CLEO-II has published four different analyses focusing on Lorentz structure:

* Select $`\mathrm{}^{}\overline{\nu }\nu _\tau `$ vs. $`\pi ^+\pi ^0\overline{\nu }_\tau `$; Use $`\pi ^\pm \pi ^0`$ as tag. From the lepton energy spectrum, extract the Michel parameters $`\rho `$ and $`\eta `$ .
* Select $`\pi ^{}\nu _\tau `$ vs. $`\pi ^+\overline{\nu }_\tau `$; exploit the spin correlations between the two taus in the event to extract the square of the tau neutrino helicity $`|h_{\nu _\tau }|^2`$ .
* Select $`\mathrm{}^{}\overline{\nu }\nu _\tau `$ vs. $`\pi ^+\pi ^0\overline{\nu }_\tau `$; use the $`\pi ^\pm \pi ^0`$ decay as spin analyzer. Use the full event kinematics to extract measurements of the Michel parameters $`\rho `$, $`\eta `$, $`\xi `$, $`\delta `$, and $`|h_{\nu _\tau }|`$ .
* Select $`\mathrm{}^{}\overline{\nu }\nu _\tau `$ vs. $`(\rho \pi )^{}\overline{\nu }_\tau `$. Exploit the interference between the two $`\rho \pi `$ amplitudes, and use the full event kinematics to extract the parity-violating signed tau neutrino helicity $`h_{\nu _\tau }`$ .

The third-listed analysis , in particular, made rather precise measurements, using a powerful technique. To make full use of kinematical information, a full multi-dimensional likelihood fit was performed. The fit correlated information on the $`\rho ^+`$ polarization in $`\tau ^+\rho ^+\nu _\tau `$ from the decay $`\rho ^+\pi ^+\pi ^0`$, the QED-predicted correlations between the spins of the $`\tau ^+`$ and the $`\tau ^{}`$, and the momentum distribution of the daughter lepton in $`\tau ^{}\mathrm{}^{}\overline{\nu }\nu _\tau `$, in order to extract the spin-independent Michel parameters $`\rho `$ and $`\eta `$, the spin-dependent parameters $`\xi `$ and $`\xi \delta `$, and the tau neutrino helicity $`h_{\nu _\tau }`$. This is illustrated in Fig. 4.

The Michel parameters measured in this way are compared with those from other experiments in Fig. 5. From these measurements, strong constraints could be placed on right-handed $`\tau \nu _\tau `$ couplings and the mass of a right-handed $`W_R^\pm `$. Further, the precise limit obtained on $`\eta `$ (without making use of any constraint on $`\eta `$ from the leptonic branching fractions) sets a constraint on the presence of, e.g., a scalar charged Higgs mediating tau decays.

## 7 Hadronic substructure in tau decays

Tau semi-hadronic decays $`\tau ^{}X_h^{}\nu _\tau `$ provide a uniquely clean probe of low energy meson dynamics. Recall that strong dynamics is the most poorly understood part of the Standard Model. The fundamental theory is QCD, but it is difficult to use QCD to characterize hadronic structure in detail. Instead, we must rely on models, symmetries and conservation laws (such as isospin and $`SU(3)_f`$), the Conserved Vector Current (CVC) hypothesis, sum rules, chiral perturbation theory, and results from QCD on the lattice.

The momentum transfer is small in $`\tau `$ decays; we are in the region where resonances dominate, and their description relies on phenomenological models. The dynamics of such hadronic systems is parameterized in tau decays via the “spectral function” $`v(q^2)`$ ($`q^2=M(X_h)^2`$), containing all the strong dynamics. These spectral functions can be related, via CVC, to similar quantities in $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions and in vacuum polarization diagrams that arise in $`(g2)_\mu `$ and $`\alpha (q^2)`$ . CLEO can measure $`v(q^2)`$ using exclusive final states; it is more problematic to do inclusive studies such as has been done at LEP, as discussed above. Still, CLEO published one paper on the subject , extracting $`\alpha _S(m_\tau ^2)`$.

CLEO has studied substructure in the following tau decays:

* $`\tau ^{}\pi ^{}\pi ^0\nu _\tau `$ ; see Fig. 6. We extracted the mass and width of the $`\rho ^{}`$ meson and the mass, width, and coupling of the $`\rho ^{}`$ meson; measured the pion form factor $`|F_\pi (q^2)|`$; and provided tests of CVC in comparison with $`e^+e^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ (see ). These data are useful in the evaluation of the hadronic contribution to the vacuum polarization diagrams that arise in $`(g2)_\mu `$ and $`\alpha (q^2)`$ .
* $`\tau ^{}\pi ^{}K^0\nu _\tau `$ , see Fig. 7. We studied the mass and width of $`K^{}`$ meson, looked for evidence of a $`K^{}`$, and extracted the decay constant $`f_K^{}`$. This work has not yet been published! Of particular note is a significant discrepancy between the mass of the $`K^{}`$ seen in our clean sample from $`\tau ^{}K^{}\nu _\tau `$ and the world average in the PDG.
* $`\tau ^{}3\pi \nu _\tau `$; see Fig. 6. We have performed three analyses: a model-dependent analysis using the $`\pi ^{}\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ mode , a model-independent measurement of the structure functions using the $`\pi ^{}\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ mode , and a model-dependent analysis using the $`\pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ mode . We found a rich structure, including the presence of scalar and tensor mesons. We measured the decay constant $`f_{a_1}`$; the signed neutrino helicity $`h_{\nu _\tau }`$; and limits on couplings to the $`\pi ^{}(1300)`$.
* $`\tau ^{}(K\pi \pi )^{}\nu _\tau `$ ; see Fig. 7. Here again, a rich structure can be uncovered. We have studied the mass, width, couplings and decay branching fractions of the $`K_1(1270)`$ and $`K_1(1400)`$ mesons, and explored their mixing and SU(3) violating couplings to the tau. More on this in section 7.1.
* $`\tau ^{}(4\pi )^{}\nu _\tau `$ . The physics that can be explored in this decay is discussed in section 7.2.
* $`\tau ^{}\eta (3\pi )^{}\nu _\tau `$ ; see Fig. 2. This decay was first observed by CLEO, using two different modes of the $`\eta `$, and two different charge combinations of $`(3\pi )^{}`$. We observed clear evidence for $`\tau ^{}f_1(1285)\pi ^{}\nu _\tau `$, $`f_1a_0(980)\pi `$, $`a_0\eta \pi `$ and measured their product branching fractions. We searched for and set upper limits on $`\tau ^{}\eta ^{}\pi ^{}\nu _\tau `$ and $`\tau ^{}\eta ^{}\pi ^{}\pi ^0\nu _\tau `$.
* $`\tau ^{}2\pi ^{}\pi ^+3\pi ^0\nu _\tau `$ ; see Fig. 1. We measured a branching fraction in good agreement with expectations from isospin, and constrained the isospin structure of the decay. The branching fraction is somewhat below the CVC prediction from $`e^+e^{}`$ data . The decay appears to be saturated by the channels $`\tau ^{}\pi ^{}2\pi ^0\omega \nu _\tau `$, $`\tau ^{}2\pi ^{}\pi ^+\eta \nu _\tau `$, and $`\tau ^{}\pi ^{}2\pi ^0\eta \nu _\tau `$.

Notable omissions from this list include a study of substructure in $`\tau ^{}(5\pi )^{}\nu _\tau `$, and the study of Lorentz structure in $`\tau ^{}\eta \pi ^{}\pi ^0\nu _\tau `$ (which is expected to proceed via the Wess-Zumino anomalous current).

### 7.1 $`\tau ^{}K_1^{}\nu _\tau `$ structure

The decay $`\tau ^{}(K\pi \pi )^{}\nu _\tau `$ has particularly interesting structure. It can be studied in the final states $`K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}\nu _\tau `$ and $`K_S^0\pi ^{}\pi ^0\nu _\tau `$. CLEO has published results focusing on the former , despite the poor $`K^\pm /\pi ^\pm `$ separation. Results on the latter mode, which is much cleaner and can be isolated event-by-event, are still in progress .

The $`(K\pi \pi )^{}`$ final state is expected to be dominated by the axial-vector $`K_1`$ ($`J^P=1^+`$). There are two such states; in the quark model, they are $`K_a`$ in the $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{1}^{}`$ octet, the strange partner of the $`a_1(1260)`$; and $`K_b`$ in the $`{}_{}{}^{1}P_{1}^{}`$ octet, the strange partner of the $`b_1(1235)`$. The $`K_b`$ couples to $`W`$ only through an SU(3)-violating “second-class” current. Both $`K_1`$’s decay to $`K\pi \pi `$ via $`K^{}\pi `$ and $`K\rho `$, and they mix, via virtual states, into the physically observed $`K_1(1270)`$, $`K_1(1400)`$. So, we have weak coupling, SU(3)-violation, mixing, and decays to resonances. In addition, $`(K\pi \pi )^{}`$ final state could proceed via a vector current, via the Wess-Zumino anomaly: $`K^{}(K^{}\pi ,K\rho )K\pi \pi `$ .

We can parameterize the $`K_{1a}K_{1b}`$ mixing via a mixing angle:

$`K_1(1400)`$ $`=`$ $`K_a\mathrm{cos}\theta _KK_b\mathrm{sin}\theta _K`$
$`K_1(1270)`$ $`=`$ $`K_a\mathrm{sin}\theta _K+K_b\mathrm{cos}\theta _K`$
and the $`SU(3)_f`$ symmetry breaking via a parameter $`\delta `$:
$`\tau W|K_a\delta |K_b`$
$`|\delta |=(m_sm_u)/\sqrt{2}(m_s+m_u)0.18`$.
The branching fraction of the $`\tau `$ to the $`K_1`$’s can then be written in terms of these parameters:

$$\frac{(\tau K_1(1270)\nu )}{(\tau K_1(1400)\nu )}=\left|\frac{\mathrm{sin}\theta _K\delta \mathrm{cos}\theta _K}{\mathrm{cos}\theta _K+\delta \mathrm{sin}\theta _K}\right|^2\times \mathrm{\Phi },$$

where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is some known (or estimatable) kinematical and phase space terms.

From the CLEO data , we obtain two possible solutions, depending upon the sign of $`\delta `$:

$`\theta _K`$ $`=(69\pm 16\pm 19)^{}(\delta =0.18),`$
$`\theta _K`$ $`=(49\pm 16\pm 19)^{}(\delta =0.18).`$
These mixing angles are consistent with those obtained using only the $`K_1`$ widths and branching fractions .

### 7.2  $`\tau ^{}(4\pi )^{}\nu _\tau `$

The $`\tau 4\pi \nu _\tau `$ decay is expected to proceed through the vector current $`(J^P=1^{})`$, dominated by the $`\rho `$, $`\rho ^{}`$, $`\rho ^{\prime \prime }`$… resonances. There are many sub-resonances that can contribute: $`\omega \pi `$, $`\eta \pi `$, $`a_1\pi `$. In the CLEO analysis , the spectral functions $`v(m_{4\pi }^2)`$ and $`v(m_{\omega \pi }^2)`$ were measured, and the $`\omega \pi `$ contribution was modeled with interfering $`\rho `$, $`\rho ^{}`$, $`\rho ^{\prime \prime }`$… resonances (see Fig. 8). The resonant substructure was measured and modeled, showing clear evidence for $`\omega \pi `$ and $`\rho \pi \pi `$, and the latter is consistent with originating from $`a_1\pi `$, $`a_1\rho \pi `$.

The $`4\pi `$ spectral function must be known well in order to use this final state to kinematically constrain the $`\nu _\tau `$ mass from $`\tau 4\pi \nu _\tau `$ data; this is discussed in section 8.1. The $`4\pi `$ spectral function can also be compared with the isospin-rotated reactions $`e^+e^{}2\pi ^+2\pi ^{}`$, $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}2\pi ^0`$ as a test of CVC .

The $`4\pi `$ final state can also proceed through the axial-vector current, which is expected to be dominated by the $`b_1(1235)`$: $`\tau b_1\nu _\tau `$, $`b_1\omega \pi `$. The $`b_1`$ has, however, the wrong G-parity to couple to the weak charged current; it is a second-class current. The resulting decay to $`\omega \pi `$ occurs via an S- or D-wave, instead of the $`\rho \omega \pi `$ P-wave. CLEO measured the angular distribution in this decay (Fig. 8) and found complete consistency with P-wave decay, setting a limit on the non-vector current contribution of less than 5.4% of the total at 90% CL.

## 8  Tau mass and lifetime, tau neutrino mass

CLEO pioneered the use of kinematical constraints to measure the tau mass, by observing semi-hadronic tau decays on both sides of an event, and determining for each event a maximum kinematically-allowed tau mass consistent with the observed hadronic energies and momenta. The distribution of this maximum mass exhibits a sharp drop-off near the tau mass, and from the position of this drop-off, CLEO measured  $`m_\tau =(1778.2\pm 1.4)`$ MeV.

At around the same time, the BES experiment measured the tau mass much more accurately, through a threshold scan . CLEO turned this to an advantage; the “maximum kinematically-allowed tau mass” was really a measurement of a combination of the tau mass and the $`\nu _\tau `$ mass: $`m_\tau ^{kin}m_\tau ^{BES}m_{\nu _\tau }^2/m_0`$ where $`m_0`$ is a mass parameter determined through Monte Carlo simulation. Making use of the BES measurement, CLEO kinematically constrained the $`\nu _\tau `$ mass to be $`m(\nu _\tau )<`$ 60 MeV, 95% CL. Of course, what is being constrained here is the effective mass of the linear combination of neutrino mass eigenstates which couple to the tau.

CLEO-II used its vertex proportional chambers to measure the tau lifetime . Using 1-v-3 and 3-v-3 events, and making use of vertex and beam position information, the tau lifetime was measured to be $`\tau _\tau =289.0\pm 2.8\pm 4.0`$ fs, in good agreement with more precise measurements from LEP. CLEO-II.V introduced a precision silicon vertex detector, but so far, that device has not been used to re-measure the tau lifetime.

### 8.1 Mass of the $`m(\nu _\tau )`$

Regardless of $`m(\nu _\tau )`$ constraints from $`\nu `$-mixing and cosmology, constraining it kinematically in tau decays remains a worthy goal. The ALEPH limit from 1998 still stands: $`m^{eff}(\nu _\tau )<18.2`$ MeV (95% CL). (Again, what is being constrained here is the effective mass of the linear combination of neutrino mass eigenstates which couple to the tau.)

CLEO-II has published 3 limits on $`m^{eff}(\nu _\tau )`$, using different decay modes and ever-larger datasets:
$`m^{eff}(\nu _\tau )<32.6`$ MeV, 1993, $`5\pi ,3\pi 2\pi ^0`$ ,
$`m^{eff}(\nu _\tau )<30`$ MeV, 1998, $`5\pi ,3\pi 2\pi ^0`$ ,
$`m^{eff}(\nu _\tau )<28`$ MeV, 2000, $`3\pi \pi ^0`$ .
The last two limits used the $`M_X`$ versus $`E_X/E_{beam}`$ technique pioneered at LEP, where $`X`$ is the hadronic system in $`\tau X\nu _\tau `$ decay. All three of these limits used a much larger data sample, than the one available to ALEPH, and comparable or better $`M_X`$, $`E_X`$ resolution. The data from the second analysis listed above is shown in Fig. 9.

If one is motivated to improve this kinematical limit appreciably, e.g. to approach the $``$ 1 MeV level, one needs lots of statistics, excellent, well-understood $`M_X`$, $`E_X`$ resolution, good spectral function models, and most especially, a good understanding of statistics and systematics - there are many subtleties !

## 9  CP Violation in tau decay

A highlight of the recent work in tau physics from CLEO has been the search for CP violation in tau decay .

Of course, CP violation is not expected in leptonic decays, in the Standard Model. To manifest it, a process must have two or more interfering amplitudes, with relatively complex phases (as in the CKM matrix in the quark sector). In the Standard Model, the $`\mu `$ and $`\tau `$ decay via one amplitude: $`\tau ^{}W^{}\nu _\tau `$, a process that has been well studied at CLEO and LEP. Also, the charged leptons cannot undergo particle-antiparticle oscillations.

To produce CP violation in tau decay, we can add a second amplitude, such as a charged Higgs: $`\tau ^{}H^{}\nu _\tau `$. Endow it with a complex coupling $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ with a phase which flips sign under CP, and a strong phase (supplied by the $`W\rho `$ or $`K^{}`$ Breit-Wigner propagator) which does not. CLEO has recently searched for CP violation due to such a mechanism, in two analyses.

In the first, the decay $`\tau ^{}(K\pi )^{}\nu _\tau `$ (or its charged conjugate) is reconstructed on one side of the event. The other tau decay is used only to tag the event as $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$. CP violation would manifest itself if the $`K`$ momentum vector lay preferentially on one side of the plane formed by the $`e^+\tau ^+`$ momentum vectors; this effect is manifestly SU(3)f violating.

In the second, both sides of the event are required to go to $`\rho \nu _\tau `$: $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}(\rho ^{}\nu _\tau )(\rho ^+\overline{\nu }_\tau )`$. The $`\tau \rho \nu _\tau `$ decays are used to analyze the spin orientation of each tau, and one looks for net transverse spin polarization; a manifestly isospin-violating, as well as CP-violating effect.

In both cases, maximal information about the presence of CP-violating terms in the decay rate (in the context of a model containing a scalar charged Higgs with a complex coupling $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$) is extracted by defining an optimal CP-violating observable, and looking for an asymmetry in the distribution of that observable.

No such asymmetry was seen, and (model-dependent) limits were set on $`\mathrm{}(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$:
$`0.172<\mathrm{}(\mathrm{\Lambda })<0.067`$ at 90% CL
in the $`\pi ^\pm K_S^0\nu _\tau `$ -vs- any-tag analysis , and
$`0.033<\mathrm{}(\mathrm{\Lambda })<0.089`$ at 90% CL
in the $`\rho ^+\overline{\nu }`$ -vs- $`\rho ^{}\nu _\tau `$ analysis .

### 9.1 Anomalous $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ production: dipole moments

As mentioned in section 2, it is of interest to search for anomalous $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ production at energies much below the $`Z^0`$, parameterized by anomalous dipole moments. The best sensitivity to anomalous dipole moments can be obtained by studying the spin correlations in $`e^+e^{}\gamma ^{}\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ events.

Searches have recently been made by ARGUS  and Belle . Sadly, CLEO has not published on this subject.

If the tau dipole moments are not anomalously large, then (far below the $`Z^0`$ peak) the taus in $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ events have very small net spin polarization. However, their spin polarizations are almost 100% correlated, in all three dimensions. This is interesting to measure, if only as as a test of QED.

The nature of spin correlations is a strong function of beam energy. At 10 GeV, tau pairs are produced via $`e^+e^{}\gamma ^{}`$. This is parity-conserving, and at at energies where the taus are relativistic but not extremely so. Both longitudinal and transverse spin correlations are maintained, but there is no net spin polarization.

At LEP-I, tau pairs are produced via $`e^+e^{}Z^0`$. This is parity-violating, and at energies where the taus are extremely relativistic. Both longitudinal and transverse spin correlations are maintained, but the large boost makes it nearly impossible to measure the transverse spin polarizations; and there is a net longitudinal spin polarization which is well established at LEP.

Near $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ threshold, tau pairs are produced via $`e^+e^{}\gamma ^{}`$. Again, this is parity-conserving, but the taus are nearly at rest. The spin correlations are dominantly along the direction of the $`e^+e^{}`$ beam axis. Again, there is no net spin polarization.

These differences lead to significant and interesting differences in the way anomalous dipole moments and CP violation are manifested in tau pair production, and different optimal observables must be defined in order to best observe it.

## 10  Tau physics at CLEO-III and at CLEO-c

The study of tau physics continues in the CLEO-III era, where our RICH detector permits a more precise study of modes containing kaons .

CLEO-III has $`9\times 10^6`$ produced $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ near 10 GeV, with good $`K/\pi `$ separation. There is also $`3\times 10^6`$ fb-1 collected on or near the peaks of the on $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(nS)`$ resonances ($`n=1,2,3`$) which will yield measurements of $`(\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(nS)\tau ^+\tau ^{})`$. Other topics in tau physics which will be pursued include:

* rare decays, modes with kaons, precision measurements;

More tests of CP in $`\tau `$ system: $`h_{\nu _\tau }=h_{\overline{\nu }_\tau }`$;

Rare decays may be seen: e.g., 2nd class currents;

Limits (observation?) on LFV decays;

anomalous (e.g., CPv) couplings in weak decay or in QED production;

exotica (e.g., $`\tau ^{}\pi ^{}\nu _{heavy}`$, $`e^{}G^0`$);

continued testing and development of models of meson dynamics as a guide towards more fundamental theory: structure of $`\tau 4\pi \nu _\tau `$, $`K3\pi \nu _\tau `$, $`\eta 2\pi \nu _\tau `$, $`\eta 3\pi \nu _\tau `$, etc..

Within the next year, CESR will make the transition to CESR-c, operating in the $`E_{cm}35`$ GeV region. The suitably modified CLEO-c experiment will collect data on the $`\psi (nS)`$ resonances, and, hopefully, near/at $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ threshold. All the physics topics on the CLEO-III list above will also be accessible to CLEO-c, but with unique kinematical constraints .

When the taus are produced near threshold, decays like $`\tau \pi \nu _\tau `$ will produce a monochromatic pion, which will tag $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ events with good efficiency and virtually no background. It should be possible to measure branching fractions with sub-1% precision. It should be possible to obtain greater precision in measurements of the Michel parameters, especially the low-energy parameter $`\eta `$. The unique spin correlations near $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ threshold will permit new tests of QED, and facilitate searches for anomalous couplings. Threshold scans could result in measurements of the tau mass to a precision of 0.1 MeV. It may also be possible to limit $`m(\nu _\tau )`$ kinematically at the $``$ 10 MeV level.

The CLEO-c tau-charm factory has a bright future in tau physics!

## 11 Summary

The CLEO Collaboration has published numerous studies of the physics of the tau lepton and its neutrino, and looks forward to continuing this work with data from the CLEO-III detector, and into the CLEO-c era.

The author would very much like to thank the organizers of Tau02 for their hospitality, but unfortunately, he was not able to avail himself of it, because personal problems prevented him from attending in person. He is grateful for the opportunity to give his presentation remotely.