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# Fermion Dipole Moments from R-parity Violating Parameters.

## I Introduction

Fermion electric dipole moments (EDMs) are known to be extremely useful constraints on (the CP violating part of) models depicting interesting scenarios of beyond Standard Model (SM) physics. In particular, the experimental bounds on neutron EDM ($`d_n`$) and electron EDM ($`d_e`$) are very stringent. The current numbers are given by $`d_n<6.310^{26}e\text{cm}`$ and $`d_e<4.310^{27}e\text{cm}`$. The SM contributions are known to be very small, given that the only source of CP violation has to come from the KM phase in (charged current) quark flavor mixings : $`d_n10^{32}e\text{cm}`$ and $`d_e810^{41}e\text{cm}`$.

Extensions of the SM normally are expected to have potentially large EDM contributions. For instance, for the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), there are a few source of such new contributions. For example, they can come in through $`LR`$ sfermion mixings. The latter have two parts, an $`A`$-term contribution as well as a $`F`$-term contribution. The $`F`$-term is a result of the complex phase in the so-called $`\mu `$-term. The resulted constraints on MSSM have been studied extensively. We are interested here in the modified version with R parity not imposed. We will illustrate that there are extra contributions at the same level and discuss the class of important constraints hence resulted.

## II Formulation and Notation

A theory built with the minimal superfield spectrum incorporating the SM particles, the admissible renormalizable interactions dictated by the SM (gauge) symmetries together with the idea that supersymmetry (SUSY) is softly broken is what should be called the the generic supersymmetric standard model (GSSM). The popular MSSM differs from the generic version in having a discrete symmetry, called R parity, imposed by hand to enforce baryon and lepton number conservation. With the strong experimental hints at the existence of lepton number violating neutrino masses, such a theory of SUSY without R-parity deserves ever more attention. The GSSM contains all kinds of (so-called) R-parity violating (RPV) parameters. The latter includes the more popular trilinear ($`\lambda _{ijk}`$, $`\lambda _{ijk}^{}`$, and $`\lambda _{ijk}^{\prime \prime }`$) and bilinear ($`\mu _i`$) couplings in the superpotential, as well as soft SUSY breaking parameters of the trilinear, bilinear, and soft mass (mixing) types. In order not to miss any plausible RPV phenomenological features, it is important that all of the RPV parameters be taken into consideration without a priori bias. We do, however, expect some sort of symmetry principle to guard against the very dangerous proton decay problem. The emphasis is hence put on the lepton number violating phenomenology.

The renormalizable superpotential for the GSSM can be written as

$`W`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon _{ab}\left[\mu _\alpha \widehat{H}_u^a\widehat{L}_\alpha ^b+h_{ik}^u\widehat{Q}_i^a\widehat{H}_u^b\widehat{U}_k^C+\lambda _{\alpha jk}^{}\widehat{L}_\alpha ^a\widehat{Q}_j^b\widehat{D}_k^C+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\lambda _{\alpha \beta k}\widehat{L}_\alpha ^a\widehat{L}_\beta ^b\widehat{E}_k^C\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\lambda _{ijk}^{\prime \prime }\widehat{U}_i^C\widehat{D}_j^C\widehat{D}_k^C,`$ (1)
where $`(a,b)`$ are $`SU(2)`$ indices, $`(i,j,k)`$ are the usual family (flavor) indices, and $`(\alpha ,\beta )`$ are extended flavor indices going from $`0`$ to $`3`$. At the limit where $`\lambda _{ijk},\lambda _{ijk}^{},\lambda _{ijk}^{\prime \prime }`$ and $`\mu _i`$ all vanish, one recovers the expression for the R-parity preserving MSSM, with $`\widehat{L}_0`$ identified as $`\widehat{H}_d`$. Without R-parity imposed, the latter is not a priori distinguishable from the $`\widehat{L}_i`$’s. Note that $`\lambda `$ is antisymmetric in the first two indices, as required by the $`SU(2)`$ product rules, as shown explicitly here with $`\epsilon _{12}=\epsilon _{21}=1`$. Similarly, $`\lambda ^{\prime \prime }`$ is antisymmetric in the last two indices, from $`SU(3)_C`$.

R-parity is exactly an ad hoc symmetry put in to make $`\widehat{L}_0`$, stand out from the other $`\widehat{L}_i`$’s as the candidate for $`\widehat{H}_d`$. It is defined in terms of baryon number, lepton number, and spin as, explicitly, $`=(1)^{3B+L+2S}`$. The consequence is that the accidental symmetries of baryon number and lepton number in the SM are preserved, at the expense of making particles and superparticles having a categorically different quantum number, R parity. The latter is actually not the most effective discrete symmetry to control superparticle mediated proton decay, but is most restrictive in terms of what is admitted in the Lagrangian, or the superpotential alone. On the other hand, R parity also forbides neutrino masses in the supersymmetric SM. The strong experimental hints for the existence of (Majorana) neutrino masses is an indication of lepton number violation, hence suggestive of R-parity violation.

The soft SUSY breaking part of the Lagrangian is more interesting, if only for the fact that many of its interesting details have been overlooked in the literature. However, we will postpone the discussion till after we address the parametrization issue.

Doing phenomenological studies without specifying a choice of flavor bases is ambiguous. It is like doing SM quark physics with 18 complex Yukawa couplings, instead of the 10 real physical parameters. As far as the SM itself is concerned, the extra 26 real parameters are simply redundant, and attempts to relate the full 36 parameters to experimental data will be futile. In the GSSM, the choice of an optimal parametrization mainly concerns the 4 $`\widehat{L}_\alpha `$ flavors. We use here the single-VEV parametrization (SVP), in which flavor bases are chosen such that : 1/ among the $`\widehat{L}_\alpha `$’s, only $`\widehat{L}_0`$, bears a VEV, i.e. $`\widehat{L}_i0`$; 2/ $`h_{jk}^e(\lambda _{0jk})=\frac{\sqrt{2}}{v_0}\mathrm{diag}\{m_1,m_2,m_3\}`$; 3/ $`h_{jk}^d(\lambda _{0jk}^{}=\lambda _{j0k})=\frac{\sqrt{2}}{v_0}\mathrm{diag}\{m_d,m_s,m_b\}`$; 4/ $`h_{ik}^u=\frac{\sqrt{2}}{v_u}V_{\text{CKM}}^T\mathrm{diag}\{m_u,m_c,m_t\}`$, where $`v_0\sqrt{2}\widehat{L}_0`$ and $`v_u\sqrt{2}\widehat{H}_u`$. The big advantage of the SVP is that it gives the complete tree-level mass matrices of all the states (scalars and fermions) the simplest structure.

## III Leptons in GSSM

The SVP gives quark mass matrices exactly in the SM form. For the masses of the color-singlet fermions, all the RPV effects are paramatrized by the $`\mu _i`$’s only. For example, the five charged fermions ( gaugino \+ Higgsino + 3 charged leptons ), we have

$$_C=\left(\begin{array}{ccccc}M_2& \frac{g_2v_0}{\sqrt{2}}& 0& 0& 0\\ \frac{g_2v_u}{\sqrt{2}}& \mu _0& \mu _1& \mu _2& \mu _3\\ 0& 0& m_1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& m_2& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& m_3\end{array}\right).$$
(2)
Moreover each $`\mu _i`$ parameter here characterizes directly the RPV effect on the corresponding charged lepton ($`\mathrm{}_i=e`$, $`\mu `$, and $`\tau `$). This, and the corresponding neutrino-neutralino masses and mixings, has been exploited to implement a detailed study of the tree-level RPV phenomenology from the gauge interactions, with interesting results.

Neutrino masses and oscillations is no doubt one of the most important aspects of the model. Here, it is particularly important that the various RPV contributions to neutrino masses, up to 1-loop level, be studied in a framework that takes no assumption on the other parameters. Our formulation provides such a framework. Interested readers are referred to Refs..

## IV Soft SUSY Breaking Terms and the Scalar Masses

Obtaining the squark and slepton masses is straightforward, once all the admissible soft SUSY breaking terms are explicitly written down. The soft SUSY breaking part of the Lagrangian can be written as

$`V_{\mathrm{soft}}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_{ab}B_\alpha H_u^a\stackrel{~}{L}_\alpha ^b+ϵ_{ab}\left[A_{ij}^U\stackrel{~}{Q}_i^aH_u^b\stackrel{~}{U}_j^C+A_{ij}^DH_d^a\stackrel{~}{Q}_i^b\stackrel{~}{D}_j^C+A_{ij}^EH_d^a\stackrel{~}{L}_i^b\stackrel{~}{E}_j^C\right]+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.`$ (3)
$`+`$ $`ϵ_{ab}\left[A_{ijk}^\lambda ^{}\stackrel{~}{L}_i^a\stackrel{~}{Q}_j^b\stackrel{~}{D}_k^C+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}A_{ijk}^\lambda \stackrel{~}{L}_i^a\stackrel{~}{L}_j^b\stackrel{~}{E}_k^C\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}A_{ijk}^{\lambda ^{\prime \prime }}\stackrel{~}{U}_i^C\stackrel{~}{D}_j^C\stackrel{~}{D}_k^C+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.`$ (4)
$`+`$ $`\stackrel{~}{Q}^{}\stackrel{~}{m}_Q^2\stackrel{~}{Q}+\stackrel{~}{U}^{}\stackrel{~}{m}_U^2\stackrel{~}{U}+\stackrel{~}{D}^{}\stackrel{~}{m}_D^2\stackrel{~}{D}+\stackrel{~}{L}^{}\stackrel{~}{m}_L^2\stackrel{~}{L}+\stackrel{~}{E}^{}\stackrel{~}{m}_E^2\stackrel{~}{E}+\stackrel{~}{m}_{H_u}^2|H_u|^2`$ (6)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{M_1}{2}}\stackrel{~}{B}\stackrel{~}{B}+{\displaystyle \frac{M_2}{2}}\stackrel{~}{W}\stackrel{~}{W}+{\displaystyle \frac{M_3}{2}}\stackrel{~}{g}\stackrel{~}{g}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$
where we have separated the R-parity conserving $`A`$-terms from the RPV ones (recall $`\widehat{H}_d\widehat{L}_0`$). Note that $`\stackrel{~}{L}^{}\stackrel{~}{m}_{\stackrel{~}{L}}^2\stackrel{~}{L}`$, unlike the other soft mass terms, is given by a $`4\times 4`$ matrix. Explicitly, $`\stackrel{~}{m}_{L_{00}}^2`$ corresponds to $`\stackrel{~}{m}_{H_d}^2`$ of the MSSM case while $`\stackrel{~}{m}_{L_{0k}}^2`$’s give RPV mass mixings.

The only RPV contribution to the squark masses is given by a $`(\mu _i^{}\lambda _{ijk}^{})\frac{v_u}{\sqrt{2}}`$ term in the $`LR`$ mixing part. Note that the term contains flavor-changing ($`jk`$) parts which, unlike the $`A`$-terms ones, cannot be suppressed through a flavor-blind SUSY breaking spectrum. Hence, it has very interesting implications to quark electric dipole moments (EDMs) and related processses such as $`bs\gamma `$.

The mass matrices are a bit more complicated in the scalar sectors. We illustrated explicitly here only the charged scalare mass matrix. The $`1+4+3`$ charged scalar masses are given in terms of the blocks

$`\stackrel{~}{}_{Hu}^2=\stackrel{~}{m}_{H_u}^2+\mu _\alpha ^{}\mu _\alpha +M_Z^2\mathrm{cos}2\beta \left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W\right]+M_Z^2\mathrm{sin}^2\beta [1\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W],`$ (7)
$`\stackrel{~}{}_{LL}^2=\stackrel{~}{m}_L^2+m_L^{}m_L+M_Z^2\mathrm{cos}2\beta \left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W\right]+\left(\begin{array}{cc}M_Z^2\mathrm{cos}^2\beta [1\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W]& 0_{1\times 3}\\ 0_{3\times 1}& 0_{3\times 3}\end{array}\right)+(\mu _\alpha ^{}\mu _\beta ),`$ (10)
$`\stackrel{~}{}_{RR}^2=\stackrel{~}{m}_E^2+m_Em_E^{}+M_Z^2\mathrm{cos}2\beta \left[\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W\right];`$ (11)
and

$`\stackrel{~}{}_{LH}^2`$ $`=`$ $`(B_\alpha ^{})+\left(\begin{array}{c}\frac{1}{2}M_Z^2\mathrm{sin}2\beta [1\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W]\\ 0_{3\times 1}\end{array}\right),`$ (14)
$`\stackrel{~}{}_{RH}^2`$ $`=`$ $`(\mu _i^{}\lambda _{i0k}){\displaystyle \frac{v_0}{\sqrt{2}}},`$ (15)
$`(\stackrel{~}{}_{RL}^2)^T`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ A^E\end{array}\right){\displaystyle \frac{v_0}{\sqrt{2}}}(\mu _\alpha ^{}\lambda _{\alpha \beta k}){\displaystyle \frac{v_u}{\sqrt{2}}}.`$ (18)
Note that $`\stackrel{~}{m}_L^2`$ here is a $`4\times 4`$ matrix of soft masses for the $`L_\alpha `$, and $`B_\alpha `$’s are the corresponding bilinear soft terms of the $`\mu _\alpha `$’s. $`A^E`$ is just the $`3\times 3`$ R-parity conserving leptonic $`A`$-term. There is no contribution from the admissible RPV $`A`$-terms under the SVP. Also, we have used $`m_L\text{diag}\{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},m_E\}\text{diag}\{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},m_1,m_2,m_3\}`$.

## V Neutron Electric Dipole Moment

Let us take a look first at the quark dipole operator through 1-loop diagrams with $`LR`$ squark mixing. A simple direct example is given by the gluino diagram. Comparing with the MSSM case, the extra (RPV) to the $`d`$ squark $`LR`$ mixing in GSSM obvious modified the story. If one naively imposes the constraint for this RPV contribution itself not to exceed the experimental bound on neutron EDM, one gets roughly $`\text{Im}(\mu _i^{}\lambda _{i11}^{})<10^6\text{GeV}`$, a constraint that is interesting even in comparison to the bounds on the corresponding parameters obtainable from asking no neutrino masses to exceed the super-Kamiokande atmospheric oscillation scale.

In fact, there are important contributions beyond the gluino diagram and without $`LR`$ squark mixings involved. For the MSSM, it is well-known that there is such a contribution from the chargino diagram, which is likely to be more important than the gluino one when a unification type gaugino mass relationship is imposed. The question then is if the GSSM has a similar RPV analog. A RPV version of the chargino diagram is given in Fig.1. The diagram, however, looks ambiguous. Looking at the diagram in terms of the electroweak states involved under our formulation, it seems like a $`l_k^{\text{ -}}`$$`\stackrel{~}{W}^+`$ mass insertion is required, which is however vanishing. However, putting in extra mass insertion, with a $`\mu _i`$ flipping the $`l_k^{\text{ -}}`$ into a $`\stackrel{~}{h}_u^+`$ first seems to give a non-zero result. The structure obviously indicates a GIM-like cancellation at worked, and we have to check its violation due to the lack of mass degeneracy.

We have performed an extensive analytical and numerical study, including the complete charginolike contributions, as well as the neutralinolike contributions, to the neutron EDM. The charginolike part is given by the following formula :

$$\left(\frac{d_f}{e}\right)_{\chi ^\text{-}}=\frac{\alpha _{\text{em}}}{4\pi \mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W}\underset{\stackrel{~}{f}^{}}{}\underset{n=1}{\overset{5}{}}\text{Im}(𝒞_{fn})\frac{M_{\chi _n^\text{-}}}{M_{\stackrel{~}{f}^{}}^2}\left[𝒬_{\stackrel{~}{f}^{}}B\left(\frac{M_{\chi _n^\text{-}}^2}{M_{\stackrel{~}{f}^{}}^2}\right)+(𝒬_f𝒬_{\stackrel{~}{f}^{}})A\left(\frac{M_{\chi _n^\text{-}}^2}{M_{\stackrel{~}{f}^{}}^2}\right)\right],$$
(19)
for $`f`$ being $`u`$ ($`d`$) quark and $`f^{}`$ being $`d`$ ($`u`$), where

$`𝒞_{un}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{y_u}{g_2}}𝑽_{2n}^{}𝒟_{d11}\left(𝑼_{1n}𝒟_{d11}^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{y_d}{g_2}}𝑼_{2n}𝒟_{d21}^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _{k11}^{}}{g_2}}𝑼_{(k+2)n}𝒟_{d21}^{}\right),`$ (20)
$`𝒞_{un+}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{y_u}{g_2}}𝑽_{2n}^{}𝒟_{d12}\left(𝑼_{1n}𝒟_{d12}^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{y_d}{g_2}}𝑼_{2n}𝒟_{d22}^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _{k11}^{}}{g_2}}𝑼_{(k+2)n}𝒟_{d22}^{}\right),`$ (21)
$`𝒞_{dn}`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{y_d}{g_2}}𝑼_{2n}+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _{k11}^{}}{g_2}}𝑼_{(k+2)n})𝒟_{u11}\left(𝑽_{1n}^{}𝒟_{u11}^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{y_u}{g_2}}𝑽_{2n}^{}𝒟_{u21}^{}\right),`$ (22)
$`𝒞_{dn+}`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{y_d}{g_2}}𝑼_{2n}+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _{k11}^{}}{g_2}}𝑼_{(k+2)n})𝒟_{u12}\left(𝑽_{1n}^{}𝒟_{u12}^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{y_u}{g_2}}𝑽_{2n}^{}𝒟_{u22}^{}\right),`$ (24)
$`\text{ (only repeated index }i\text{ is to be summed)};`$
$`𝑽^{}_C𝑼=\text{diag}\{M_{\chi _n^\text{-}}\}\text{diag}\{M_{c1},M_{c2},m_e,m_\mu ,m_\tau \}`$ while $`𝒟_u`$ and $`𝒟_d`$ diagonalize the $`\stackrel{~}{u}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{d}`$ squark mass-squared matrices respectively; and

$$A(x)=\frac{1}{2(1x)^2}\left(3x+\frac{2\mathrm{ln}x}{1x}\right),B(x)=\frac{1}{2(x1)^2}\left[1+x+\frac{2x\mathrm{ln}x}{(1x)}\right].$$
(25)
To extract the contribution from the diagram of Fig. 1, we have to look at the pieces in $`𝒞_{dn}`$ with a $`𝑽_{1n}^{}`$ and a $`𝑼_{(k+2)n}`$. It is easy to see that the $`n=1`$ and $`2`$ mass eigenstates, namely the chargino states, do give the dominating contribution. With the small $`\mu _i`$ mixings strongly favored by the sub-eV neutrino masses, we have

$$𝑼_{(k+2)1}=\frac{\mu _k^{}}{M_{c1}}R_{R_{21}}\text{and}𝑼_{(k+2)2}=\frac{\mu _k^{}}{M_{c2}}R_{R_{22}}$$
(26)
where the $`R_R`$ denotes the right-handed rotation that would diagonalize the first $`2\times 2`$ block of $`_C`$. The latter rotation matrix is expected to have elements of order 1. Hence, we have the dominating result proportional to

$`{\displaystyle \underset{n=1,2}{}}R_{R_{12}}^{}R_{R_2n}\mu _k^{}\lambda _{k11}^{}F_{BA}\left(M_{c_n}^2\right)`$where $`F_{BA}`$ denotes the mass eigenvalue dependent part. The result agrees with what we say above. It vanishes for $`M_{c1}=M_{c2}`$, showing a GIM-like mechanism. However, with unequal chargino masses, our numerical results indicate that the cancellation is generically badly violated. More interestingly, it can be seen from the above analysis that a complex phase in $`\mu _k^{}\lambda _{k11}^{}`$ is actually no necessary for this potentially dominating chargino contribution to be there, so long as complex CP violating phases exist in the $`R_R`$ matrix, i.e. in the R-parity conserving parameters such as $`\mu _0`$.

An illustration of the result is given in Fig. 3 in which variations of the EDM contribution against the $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ value is plotted. On the whole, the magnitude of the parameter combination $`\mu _i^{}\lambda _{i11}^{}`$ is shown to be responsible for the RPV 1-loop contribution to neutron EDM and is hence well constrained. This applies not only to the complex phase, or imaginary part of, the combination. Readers are referred to Ref. for more details.

FIG.2 Logarithmic plot of (the magnitude of) the neutron EDM result verses $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. We show here the MSSM result, our general result with RPV phase only, and the generic result with complex phases of both kinds. In particular, the $`A`$ and $`\mu _0`$ phases are chosen as $`7^o`$ and $`0.1^o`$ respectively, for the MSSM line. They are zero for the RPV-only line, with which we have a phase of $`\frac{\pi }{4}`$ for $`\lambda _{311}^{}`$. All the given nonzero values are used for the three phases for the generic result (from our complete formulae) marked by GSSM.

## VI Dipole Moments of the Electron and Other Fermions

There is in fact a second class of 1-loop diagrams contributing to the quark EDMs. These are diagrams with quarks and scalars in the loop, and hence superpartners of the charginolike and neutralinolike diagrams discussed above. The R-parity conserving analog of the class of diagrams has no significance, due to the unavoidable small Yukawa couplings involved. With the latter replaced by flavor-changing $`\lambda ^{}`$-couplings. We can have a $`t`$ quark loop contributing to neutron EDM, for example.

For the case of the charged leptons, the two classes of superpartner diagrams merges into one. But then, all scalars has to be included. The assumption hidden, in our quark EDM formula above, that only the (two) superpartner sfermions have a significant role to play does not stand any more.

The above quark EDM formula obviously applies with some trivial modifications to the cases of the other quarks. For the charge leptons, while the exact formulae would be different, there are major basic features that are more or less the same. For instance, for the charged lepton, the $`\lambda `$-couplings play the role of the $`\lambda ^{}`$-couplings. The $`\mu _i^{}\lambda _{i11}`$ combination contributes to electron EDM while the $`\mu _i^{}\lambda _{i22}`$ combination contributes to that of the muon. As we have no explicit numerical results to show at the moment, we refrain from showing any details here. However, we have finished a $`\mu e\gamma `$ study,

from which the charged lepton EDM formula could be extracted without too much effort. Interested readers may check the reference for details.

## VII Neutrino dipole moments

Another topic we want to discuss briefly here is the dipole moments of the neutrinos. Neutrinos as Majorana fermions have vanishing dipole moments. However, flavor off-diagonal dipole moments, or known as transition dipole moments are interesting. There are good terrestial as well as astrophysical and cosmological bounds available.

The same set of diagrams giving rise to 1-loop neutrino masses within the model give rise also to dipole moments when an extra photon line is attached. There are two types of such neutrino mass diagrams, the charged and neutral loop ones. A neutral loop diagram has, of course, no place to attach a photon line. Hence, only the charged loop diagrams contribute. Checking parameter fits to both neutrino masses and their implications on dipole moments would be very interesting.

We give in Ref., all contributions to 1-loop neutrino masses within GSSM under a systematic framework. For example, each diagram composes of two (external) neutrino interaction vertices. The charged vertices are given by

$`𝒞_{inm}^R`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{y_{e_i}}{g_2}}𝑽_{(i+2)n}D_{2m}^l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _{ikh}^{}}{g_2}}𝑽_{(h+2)n}D_{(k+2)m}^l^{},`$ (27)
$`𝒞_{inm}^L`$ $`=`$ $`𝑼_{1n}𝒟_{(i+2)m}^l^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{y_{e_i}}{g_2}}𝑼_{2n}𝒟_{(i+5)m}^l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _{ihk}}{g_2}}𝑼_{(h+2)n}𝒟_{(k+5)m}^l^{}.`$ (28)
A $`𝒞_{jnm}^R^{}`$ $`𝒞_{inm}^L`$ combination plays the role of $`𝒞_{fn}`$ in the formula of Eq.(19), for $`\nu _i`$ and $`\nu _j`$. Here, we are interested not only in the imaginary part; the real part contribute magnetic moments. Nevertheless, we have to switch back to the mass eigenstate basis for the neutrinos to better understand and use the dipole moment results.


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# Universal description of 𝑆-wave meson spectra in a renormalized light-cone QCD-inspired model

## I Introduction

In the effective light-cone QCD theory  the lowest Fock component of the hadron wave function is an eigenfunction of an effective mass squared operator with constituent quark degrees of freedom and parameterized in terms of an interaction which contains a Coulomb-like potential and a Dirac-delta term. The Fock-state components of the hadron light-front wave function can be constructed recursively from the lowest Fock-state component. The interaction in the mass operator comes from an effective one-gluon-exchange where the Dirac-delta term corresponds to the hyperfine interaction. The masses of the ground state of the pseudo-scalar mesons and in particular the pion structure  were described reasonably, with a small number of free parameters, which is only the canonical number plus one — the renormalized strength of the Dirac-delta interaction.

The model was extended to include the confining interaction and used to study the splitting of the excited pseudo-scalar states from the excited $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$ vector meson states as a function of the ground state pseudo-scalar mass . In Ref. , the Coulomb-like and the confining interactions were substituted by a harmonic oscillator potential, which allowed an analytic formulation. The parameters of the confining interaction in the mass squared operator, were fitted to the $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$-meson ground state mass and to the slope of the trajectory of excited states with the radial quantum number . With the renormalized strength of the Dirac-delta interaction fixed by pseudo-scalar masses, it was shown that the $`\pi `$-$`\rho `$ mass splitting, due to the attractive Dirac-delta interaction, is the source of the splitting between the masses of the excited states. A reasonable agreement with the data  was obtained. Besides, in light-cone framework (mass squared operator appears in the Hamiltonian), the Dirac-delta plus confining harmonic oscillator potential gave a natural explanation of the observation of the almost linear relationship between the mass squared of excited states with radial quantum number $`n`$ . This reveals some of the physics that are brought by the work of Ref.  and showed the relation between the $`\pi `$ and $`\rho `$ spectrum, through the pion mass scale which defines the renormalization condition of the model.

In the present paper, this simple model, with the Dirac-delta interaction acting in the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ channel only and harmonic oscillator potential as confinement, is used to investigate the $`S`$-wave meson spectra from $`\pi `$-$`\rho `$ to $`\eta _b`$-$`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ and make predictions for $`\eta _t`$-$`\theta `$ (we do not study $`\eta `$-$`\omega `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\varphi `$). Instead of using flavor-dependent parameters, parameters are found for the harmonic oscillator potential which is valid for not only light mesons but also heavy mesons. In other words, the parameters are universal. It is shown that the linear relationship between the mass squared of excited states with radial quantum number is still qualitatively valid even for heavy mesons like $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$. The simply model presents reasonable agreement with available data and/or with the meson mass spectra given by Godfrey and Isgur .

This paper is organized as follows. In section II, we give very briefly the extension of the light-cone QCD-inspired theory for which the mass squared operator of a constituent quark-antiquark system includes a confining interaction . The renormalization of the theory using the subtracted equations for the transition matrix  of the model can be found in Ref.  thus is omitted here. In the same section, we present the Dirac-delta term plus harmonic oscillator potential approach and solve it with the $`T`$ matrix method developed in Ref. . The results and discussion are presented in section III. A brief summary is given in the last section.

## II Extended Light-cone QCD-inspired theory with Dirac-delta and harmonic oscillator confining potential

In this section we review our previous work , in which we have extended the renormalized effective QCD-theory of Ref.  to include confinement. In the effective theory the bare mass operator equation for the lowest Light-Front Fock-state component of a bound system of a constituent quark and antiquark of masses $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$, is described as

$`M^2\psi (x,\stackrel{}{k}_{})`$ $`=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{k}_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+m_1^2}{x}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{k}_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+m_2^2}{1x}}\right]\psi (x,\stackrel{}{k}_{})`$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dx^{}d\stackrel{}{k}_{}^{}\theta (x^{})\theta (1x^{})}{\sqrt{x(1x)x^{}(1x^{})}}\left(\frac{4m_1m_2}{3\pi ^2}\frac{\alpha }{Q^2}\lambda W_{\text{conf}}(Q^2)\right)\psi (x^{},\stackrel{}{k}_{}^{})},`$
where $`M`$ is the mass of the bound-state and $`\psi `$ is the projection of the light-front wave-function in the quark-antiquark Fock-state. The confining interaction is included in the model by $`W_{\text{conf}}(Q^2)`$. The momentum transfer $`Q`$ is the space-part of the four momentum transfer and the strength of the Coulomb-like potential is $`\alpha `$. The singular interaction is active only in the pseudo-scalar meson channel with $`\lambda `$ as the bare coupling constant.

For convenience the mass operator equation is transformed to the instant form representation , which in operatorial form is written as

$`\left(M_0^2+V+V^\delta +V_{\text{conf}}\right)|\phi =M^2|\phi ,`$ (3)
where the free mass operator, $`M_0(=E_1+E_2)`$, is the sum of the energies of quark 1 and 2 ($`E_i=\sqrt{m_i^2+k^2}`$, $`i`$=1, 2 and $`k|\stackrel{}{k}|`$), $`V`$ is the Coulomb-like potential, $`V^\delta `$ is the short-range singular interaction and $`V_{\text{conf}}`$ gives the quark confinement.

We simplify Eq. (3) by omitting the Coulomb term to the form

$`\left(M_{\mathrm{ho}}^2+g\delta (\stackrel{}{r})\right)\phi (\stackrel{}{r})=M^2\phi (\stackrel{}{r}),`$ (4)
where the bare strength of the Dirac-delta interaction is $`g`$, and the mass squared operator is

$`M_{\mathrm{ho}}^2=\left(C(k)k^2+m_s^2\right)+2m_sv(r),`$ (5)
in units of $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$, $`m_s=m_1+m_2`$. The dimensionless factor of $`k`$ is

$$C(k)=2+\frac{E_1+m_1}{E_2+m_2}+\frac{E_2+m_2}{E_1+m_1}.$$
(6)
In the following, we approximate $`C(k)`$ as $`m_s/m_r`$ , with $`m_r=m_1m_2/(m_1+m_2)`$.

The harmonic oscillator potential is introduced as a confinement

$$v(r)=c_0+\frac{1}{2}c_2r^2,$$
(7)
where $`c_0`$ and $`c_2`$ are two universal parameters valid for all of the mesons. The eigenvalue Eq. (5) is given now by

$$2m_s\left(\frac{1}{2m_r}^2+\frac{1}{2}c_2r^2+\frac{1}{2}m_sc_0\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_n(\stackrel{}{r})=M_n^2\mathrm{\Psi }_n(\stackrel{}{r}),$$
(8)
with $`\mathrm{\Psi }_n(\stackrel{}{r})`$ the eigenstate of the harmonic oscillator potential and the corresponding eigenvalue

$$M_n^2=2m_s\left(\left(2n+\frac{3}{2}\right)\sqrt{c_2/m_r}+\frac{1}{2}m_sc_0\right)=nw+m_s^2+3m_s\sqrt{c_2/m_r}2m_sc_0,$$
(9)
where $`n`$ (0, 1, 2, $`\mathrm{}`$) is the radial quantum number and $`w=4m_s\sqrt{c_2/m_r}`$. Note that here $`n`$ begins from 0 for convenience, while in discussions in Section III, it begins from 1 to keep accordance with literature. In the present model, Eq. (9) gives the vector meson spectrum since Dirac-delta interaction acts only on pseudo-scalar mesons. The mass squared of the ground state ($`n=0`$) of the $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$ meson can be written as

$$M_{\mathrm{gs}}^2=m_s^2+3m_s\sqrt{c_2/m_r}2m_sc_0.$$
(10)
With the subtraction point, $`\mu `$, taken to be the mass of the pseudo-scalar meson ground state, the reduced $`T`$ matrix was derived in Ref.  as

$`t_{}^1(M^2)=(2\pi )^3{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_n(0)|^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mu ^2M_n^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M^2M_n^2}}\right).`$ (11)
The value of the $`S`$-wave eigenfunction at the origin is given by

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_n(0)=\alpha ^{\frac{3}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2^{2n}}{\sqrt{\pi }}}{\displaystyle \frac{(2n+1)!!}{n!}}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}},`$ (12)
where $`\alpha ^1`$ is the oscillator length. The final form the reduced $`T`$ matrix is

$`t_{}^1(M^2)=(2\pi \alpha )^3{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2^{2n}}{\sqrt{\pi }}}{\displaystyle \frac{(2n+1)!!}{n!}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mu ^2nwM_{\text{g}s}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M^2nwM_{\text{g}s}^2}}\right).`$ (13)
The zeros of Eq. (13) gives the eigenvalues of the the mass squared operator of Eq. (4). In Ref. , $`\mu `$ was changed continuously to study the splitting between the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$ spectrum of the $`\pi `$-$`\rho `$ mesons. In the following section, we are going to discuss this splitting in more detail and apply the model to mesons with heavy quarks as well.

## III Results and discussions

### A Parameters and nomenclature

The masses of $`\rho (770)`$, $`\rho (1450)`$, $`J/\psi (1S)`$ and $`\psi (2S)`$  and Eqs. (9, 10) are used to fix $`c_0`$, $`c_2`$ and up, down and charm quark masses with the assumption of $`m_u=m_d`$. Then masses of strange and bottom quarks are determined by the masses of $`K^{}`$ and $`B^{}`$  and Eq. (10). In order to predict $`t`$-quark meson spectrum, we adopt an estimate from Godfrey and Isgur , $`m_t=35`$ GeV. The parameters used in the present model are listed in Table I.

The physical nomenclature of mesons are given in Table II to facilitate the following discussion. Since we assume that up and down quarks are the same, and since mixing between different flavors can not be dealt with within this simple model, we investigate only $`I=1`$ states among the diagonal meson sectors containing $`u`$, $`d`$ and $`s`$ quark. $`m_u=m_d`$ also means that in our model the spectrum of $`\pi ^0`$ ($`\rho ^0`$, $`K^0`$, $`K^0`$, $`D^0`$, $`D^0`$, $`B^0`$, $`B^0`$, $`T^0`$, $`T^0`$) is same as that of $`\pi ^\pm `$ ($`\rho ^\pm `$, $`K^\pm `$, $`K^\pm `$, $`D^\pm `$, $`D^\pm `$, $`B^\pm `$, $`B^\pm `$, $`T^\pm `$ and $`T^\pm `$). In the following discussions, we will omit the charge signs of mesons for simplicity.

### B $`S`$-wave meson spectra

The splitting of the light mesons, $`\pi `$-$`\rho `$ and $`K`$-$`K^{}`$ spectra, due to the Dirac-delta interaction acting in the pseudo-scalar $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ channel, are studied in the previous work . There the empirical slope ($`w`$) from Ref.  or Ref.  are used directly. In the present paper, $`\pi `$-$`\rho `$ and $`K`$-$`K^{}`$ are reinvestigated in the same framework as other $`S`$-state mesons. The results are presented in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 respectively. Similar agreement with the data as that in Ref.  is found in Fig. 1, simply because the present model gives $`w=1.55`$ GeV2 which is very close to $`w=1.39`$ GeV2 used in Ref. . For $`K^{}`$, the present model gives a large value of $`w`$, 1.92 GeV2, (due to the fact that strange quark mass is larger than up-down quark mass, $`w`$ for $`K^{}`$ must be larger than that for $`\rho `$ from the present model), compared to that extracted from the data, 1.19 GeV2. However, as pointed out in Refs. , there are ambiguities about the quantum number assignment of exited states of $`K`$ and $`K^{}`$. If we follow the identification of the quark model  for $`K(1460)`$ ($`2^1S_0`$), $`K(1830)`$ ($`3^1S_0`$) and $`K^{}(1410)`$ ($`2^3S_1`$), the spectra of $`K`$-$`K^{}`$ from present model are in good agreement with the data.

In Fig. 3 the results are shown for the $`\eta _c`$-$`\psi `$ mass splitting as a function of the ground-state pseudo-scalar mass $`\mu `$, which interpolates from the $`\eta _c`$ to the $`J/\psi `$ meson spectrum. Compared to the light $`\pi `$-$`\rho `$ and $`K`$-$`K^{}`$ mesons, the splitting is smaller even for the ground state ($``$ 100 MeV) and becomes weaker in the excited states, although the model attributes consistently smaller masses for the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ states compared to the respective $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$ ones. An excited state of $`\eta _c`$ is observed without definite spin and parity assignment . From our model, this state might be $`\eta _c(2S)`$, which is consistent with the assignment of quark model . There are many exited states for $`\psi `$, such as $`\psi (3770)`$, $`\psi (4040)`$, $`\psi (4160)`$, and $`\psi (4415)`$, all of them are assigned to $`J^\pi =1^{}`$. Considering that $`\psi (3770)`$ is $`\psi (1^3D_1)`$ , $`\psi (4040)`$ or $`\psi (4160)`$ seems to be $`\psi (3^3S_1)`$ from the present model.

From Eqs. (9, 10) and quark masses listed in Table I, one obtains the spectrum of $`D^{}`$. The splitting of $`D`$-$`D^{}`$ and spectrum of $`D`$ meson can be calculated from Eq. (11) with the renormalized strength of $`\delta `$ potential fixed by the mass of corresponding pseudo-scalar ground state $`D`$ and is shown in Fig. 4. One finds good agreement for $`D^{}(1S)`$ with the data. The predicted mass of $`D(2S)`$ is about 10% larger than the unconfirmed data.

Similarly, the present model gives $`D_s^{}(1S)`$ with good agreement with the data as is seen from Fig. 5 in which the spectra for $`D_s`$-$`D_s^{}`$ are presented.

As mentioned before, the bottom quark mass is fixed by mass of $`B^{}(1S)`$ and Eq. (10). There are no more data for $`b`$-quark mesons. The predicted spectra for $`B`$ and $`B^{}`$ are presented in Fig. 6.

The spectrum of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ can be calculated from our model with parameters listed in Table I and is shown in Fig. 7. We should note that the agreement with the data is good, from $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(1S)`$ to $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$, considering that no parameter is adjusted specially for $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$, the heaviest meson states observed up to now. The unconfirmed bottomonium state $`\eta _b(9300)`$ is used to predict the spectrum of $`\eta _b`$ and also presented in the same figure.

No confirmed data are available for the triplet states of $`B_s`$ and $`B_c`$. With the bottom quark mass $`m_b=5068`$ MeV, the present model predicts the triplet ground state masses for $`B_s`$ and $`B_c`$, being 5342.1 MeV and 6.346 GeV, respectively. Although the predicted mass for $`B_s(1S)`$ is comparable to the unconfirmed data 5416.6 MeV, both predictions are respectively smaller than their corresponding singlet ground state masses, 5369.6 MeV and 6.4 GeV. Therefore we can not calculate within our model the singlet spectra $`B_s`$ and $`B_c`$. However, for completeness and in order to give a reference to the reader, we list the calculated values for triplets of the bottom strange and bottom charged mesons in Table III and Table IV respectively.

The vector top meson spectra from the present model with the top quark mass $`m_t`$ = 35 GeV  and $`m_t`$ = 175 GeV  are given in Table V. The top quark mass $`m_t`$ = 35 GeV is used in order to compare the present spectra with predictions of Ref. . Qualitative agreement between the two models is found.

### C Further discussions

From the above results, it is clear that our model, with the mass squared operator consisting of a harmonic oscillator confining potential and a Dirac-delta interaction, could be used to describe universally and satisfactorily both singlet and triplet states of $`S`$-wave mesons as well as radial excitations. However, lattice QCD calculations predict that the quark-antiquark potential increases linearly with the distance between quark and antiquark $`r`$ when $`r`$ is large. One may ask, does this contradict our model? The answer is no. In the following, we justify roughly that the two interactions are consistent with each other for large $`r`$ disregarding the case for small $`r`$ which is not important in the present work.

In the front form of QCD, the mass squared $`M^2=m_s^2+2m_sE=m_s^2+2m_s(T_{\text{FF}}+V_{\text{FF}})`$ ($`m_s`$ is the sum of the quark and antiquark mass, $`T`$ is the kinetic energy and $`V_{\text{FF}}`$ is the interaction) , while in the instant form of QCD, $`M=m_s+E=m_s+(T_{\text{IF}}+V_{\text{IF}}`$). The relation between the interactions $`V_{\text{FF}}`$ and $`V_{\text{IF}}`$ is found for large $`r`$ (where $`TVV^2`$) as $`V_{\text{FF}}V_{\text{IF}}^2`$, from which the harmonic like potential for the mass squared operator in the front form can be derived from the linear confinement potential in the instant form of QCD.

Very recently the radial excitations of light mesons were studied in detail in the framework of the QCD string approach . There the spin-averaged meson masses were calculated with a modified confining potential and the calculated slopes of the radial Regge trajectories are in agreement with Ref. . In Ref. , the linear relation between mass squared $`M_n^2`$ and the radial quantum number $`n`$ comes mainly from properties of the approximated eigenvalues of the spinless Salpeter equation with the linear confining potential. Since in our light-cone QCD model, the harmonic oscillator potential is included in the mass squared operator, one arrives naturally at the same linear relation between $`M_n^2`$ and $`n`$ for vector mesons. This gives an explicit explanation of the radial Regge trajectories found for light vector mesons in Ref. . This relation is still valid even for heavy vector mesons as shown in the previous subsection. In addition, an extension of the present model with orbital excitation included could also be used to describe the orbital Regge trajectory.

For pseudoscalar mesons, particularly for the light ones, the present model does not support the simple linear relation because the Dirac-delta interaction plays an important role now. However, this is not in contradiction with the data because light pseudoscalar mesons follow the radial Regge trajectories poorly. Let’s take the pion as an example, the slope $`w`$ = 1.67 GeV2 is derived from the masses of $`\pi `$ ($`M`$ = 0.14 GeV) and its first radial excited state ($`M`$ = 1.3 GeV), while a slope smaller by $``$ 10%, $`w=1.55`$ GeV2 can be calculated from its first and second excited states ($`M=1.8`$ GeV).

## IV Summary

We applied the renormalized light-cone QCD-inspired effective theory with confinement in the mass squared operator to study mesons with heavy quarks. For the confinement, the harmonic oscillator potential is used which allows an analytic solution of our model. The Coulomb-like potential is omitted in the present work while the Dirac-delta interaction is kept which acts on the singlet $`S`$-wave states and plays important role in the splitting of the singlet-triplet spectra. The two parameters of the harmonic potential and quark masses are fixed by masses of $`\rho (770)`$, $`\rho (1450)`$, $`J/\psi `$, $`\psi (2S)`$, $`K^{}(892)`$ and $`B^{}`$. A $`T`$ matrix renormalization method is used to renormalize the model, in which the pseudo-scalar ground state mass fixes the renormalized strength of the Dirac-delta interaction.

The model is applied to study the $`S`$-wave meson spectra from $`\pi `$-$`\rho `$ to $`\eta _b`$-$`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ and is also used to predict top quark meson spectra. The linear relationship between the mass squared of excited states with radial quantum number —the radial Regge trajectory —is apparent from our model and is found to be qualitatively valid even for heavy mesons like $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$.

The simple model presents satisfactory agreement with available data and/or with the meson mass spectra given by Godfrey and Isgur . Therefore, the recently proposed extension of the light-cone QCD-inspired model which includes confinement while keeping simplicity and renormalizability, gives a reasonable picture of the spectrum of both light and heavy mesons. An extension of the present model with orbital excitations included could also be used to describe the orbital Regge trajectories.

###### Acknowledgements.

TF thanks the Max Planck Institute of Heidelberg and specially to Prof. Hans-Christian Pauli for the warm hospitality during the period where this work was initiated. TF also thanks Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) and Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) of Brazil for partial financial support. SGZ is partly supported by the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China Under Contract Number G2000077407 and by the Center of Theoretical Nuclear Physics, National Laboratory of Heavy Ion Accelerator at Lanzhou, China.


text:
# Extremely metal-poor Lyman limit system at 𝑧_abs= 2.917 toward the quasar HE 0940–1050Based on observations obtained at the VLT Kueyen telescope (ESO, Paranal, Chile), the ESO programme 65.O-0474(A)

## 1 Introduction

Metal abundance measurements in quasar intervening absorbers provide insight into the chemical evolution of matter over cosmological time scales. Since heavy elements were discovered in some Ly$`\alpha `$ clouds at $`z3`$ by Cowie et al. (1995) and by Tytler et al. (1995), several mechanisms explaining the origin of metals in the intergalactic medium (IGM) have been proposed. Nowadays it is supposed that at $`z>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}`$ the IGM was pre-enriched by the first Population III (Pop III) stars formed from gas with zero metallicity (e.g. Bromm et al. 2001; Nakamura & Umemura 2001) and enriched later due to disruption of low-mass protogalaxies (e.g. Madau et al. 2001) at $`6<z<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}`$, and due to ejection of metals from massive galaxies at $`z<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}6}`$ (e.g. Aguirre et al. 2001; Scannapieco et al. 2002). It is clear that to see the signature of Pop III stars one must go to very low metallicities. The simulations of collapse and fragmentation of primordial gas clouds suggest that in the first generation the stars may have been very massive, $`M_{}>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}100}M_{}`$ (Abel et al. 2000; Bromm et al. 2001). However, the calculations by Nakamura & Umemura (2001) produced a bimodal initial mass function (IMF) for Pop III stars with a second peak at $`12M_{}`$. According to these calculations the first generation supernova ($`10M_{}<M_{}<35M_{}`$) and pair-instability supernova ($`140M_{}<M_{}<260M_{}`$) can produce metallicity in the range $`10^410^3Z_{}`$. Since the element yields and production rate differ significantly for the massive ($`1035M_{}`$) and very massive ($`140260M_{}`$) stars (Woosley & Weaver 1995; Umeda & Nomoto 2001; Heger & Woosley 2002), the Pop III IMF can be constrained by measuring the abundance ratios in low metallicity cosmic objects.

In the present study we report on the discovery of extremely metal-poor cloud at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917 toward the quasar HE 0940–1050 which reveals the lowest metallicity of \[C/H\]111Using the customary definition \[X/H\] = log (X/H) – log (X/H). Photospheric solar abundances are taken from Holweger (2001). $`3`$ measured up to now at high redshifts. All previously reported measurements of the metal abundances in the Ly$`\alpha `$ clouds lie in the range \[C/H\] $`>2.4`$ (Fan 1995; Songaila & Cowie 1996; Levshakov et al. 2002a, hereafter LACM; Levshakov et al. 2003, hereafter LADWD). We note that the lowest carbon abundance measured in Galactic metal poor stars is \[C/H\] = $`3.6`$ (Norris et al. 2001).

While dealing with metallicity measurements in high redshift absorbers, one should take into account that the results are strongly dependent on several assumptions on physical parameters poorly known such as geometry of the cloud, gas density distribution, shape and intensity of the background ionizing radiation, ionizing mechanisms etc. Our results are obtained with the Monte Carlo inversion (MCI) algorithms described in detail in Levshakov et al.(2000, hereafter LAK), LACM, LADWD. Since this technique is relatively new, we briefly outline here its basics.

The main assumption is that all lines observed in an absorption system arise in a continuous absorbing gas slab of a thickness $`L`$ with a fluctuating gas density and a random velocity field. Numerous cosmological hydrodynamical calculations performed in the previous decade have shown that the QSO absorption lines arise more likely in the smoothly fluctuating intergalactic medium in a network of sheets, filaments, and halos (e.g. Cen et al. 1994; Miralda-Escudé et al. 1996; Theuns et al. 1998). This is also supported by modern high resolution spectroscopic observations: the increasing spectral resolution reveals progressively more and more complex profiles. Thus, such an approach seems to be more physically justified as compared to the model of separate homogeneous clouds which the commonly used procedure is based on. This procedure consists of the deconvolution of the complex spectra into a set of separate Voigt profiles and the subsequent estimation of ionization parameters (one for every subsystem) from the obtained ionic column densities. As shown in LAK and LACM, this simplified technique may produce incorrect metallicities exceeding in some cases 1 dex.

Further we assume that within the absorber the metal abundances are constant, the gas is in thermal and ionizing equilibrium and it is optically thin for the ionizing UV radiation. The intensity and the shape of the background ionizing radiation is considered as an external parameter. Within the absorbing region the radial velocity $`v(x)`$ and the total volumetric gas density $`n_\mathrm{H}(x)`$ along the line of sight are considered as two continuous random functions which are represented by their sampled values at equally spaced intervals $`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$. The computational procedure is based on the adaptive simulated annealing (see LAK, LACM), the fractional ionizations of different elements are computed at every space coordinate $`x`$ with the photoionization code CLOUDY (Ferland 1997).

The MCI allows us to recover self-consistently the physical parameters of the intervening gas cloud; namely, the mean ionization parameter $`U_0`$, the total hydrogen column density $`N_\mathrm{H}`$, the line-of-sight velocity and density dispersions ($`\sigma _\mathrm{v}`$ and $`\sigma _\mathrm{y}`$, respectively) of the absorbing gas, and the chemical abundances $`Z_\mathrm{a}`$ of all elements involved in the analysis. With these parameters we can further calculate the mean gas number density $`n_0`$, the column densities for different species $`N_\mathrm{a}`$, the mean kinetic temperature $`T_{\mathrm{kin}}`$, and the linear size $`L`$. Having these comprehensive information we are able to classify the absorber more reliably and hence to obtain important clues concerning the physical conditions in the intervening clouds.

The structure of the paper is as follows. Sect. 2 describes the data sets, the estimated parameters for the $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917 Lyman limit system are given in Sect. 3, the obtained results are discussed in Sect. 4, and our conclusions are reported in Sect. 5.

## 2 Observations and data reduction

Observations of the QSO HE 0940–1050 (B=16.6, zem = 3.06) from the Hamburg/ESO survey (Reimers et al. 1995; Reimers et al. 1996; Reimers & Wisotzki 1997; Wisotzki et al. 2000) have been obtained with the Ultraviolet-Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) on the Nasmyth focus of the ESO 8.2m KUEYEN telescope, second unit of the VLT at Paranal, Chile.

The spectra were recorded with two different dichroic filters which allow to use the UVES blue and red arms simultaneously as two independent spectrographs for both instrumental settings. One of the instrumental configurations covered the wavelength ranges 3300-3864 Å and 4790-6816 Å with a wavelength gap between 5763 Å and 5846 Å, while the other covered the spectral regions 3740-4983 Å and 6715-10400 Å with a wavelength gap between 8530 Å and 8677 Å.

Three exposures of 3600 seconds each one of 2700 seconds were obtained for each instrumental configuration over the nights 26-29 March and 3 April 2000, when the seeing, as given by the telescope guide probe, was between 0.5 and 0.7 arcsec FWHM.

The slit widths were set at 1 arcsec and the CCDs were read-out in 2x2 pixel binned mode, resulting in a spectral resolution between 6.6 and 7.1 km s$`^1`$. This full width at half maximum of the instrumental profile was measured from the widths of emission lines of the Thorium-Argon lamp used for the wavelength calibration of the spectra.

The data reduction was performed using the ECHELLE context routines implemented in the ESO MIDAS package. Flat-fielding, cosmic ray removal, sky subtraction, and wavelength calibration were performed on each spectrum separately. Typical r.m.s. of the wavelength calibration is $``$ 1 mÅ.

The observed wavelength scale of each spectrum was then transformed into vacuum, heliocentric wavelength scale. The single extracted spectra were then added together using weights proportional to their S/N. Finally, the local continuum was determined in the average spectrum by using a spline to connect smoothly the regions free from absorption features. The continuum for the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest region was fitted by using the small regions deemed to be free of absorptions and by drawing an interpolating spline between them.

We confirm the identification of several metal absorption-line systems with $`z=2.82`$, 2.32, 1.918, and 1.06 performed from the low (4 Å) resolution spectra of HE 0940–1050 by Reimers et al. (1995). These systems will be analyzed in detail in a separate paper. A new Lyman limit system (LLS) with $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917, found in the high resolution ($`0.1`$ Å) VLT/UVES spectra, is the subject of the present work.

## 3 Lyman limit system at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917

The Lyman limit system at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.9171 toward the quasar HE 0940–1050 consists of hydrogen Lyman series lines (from Ly$`\alpha `$ up to Ly-20) and metal lines of C ii $`\lambda 1334`$, Si ii $`\lambda 1260`$ and $`\lambda 1526`$ (the Si ii $`\lambda \lambda 1190,1193`$ lines are blended), Al ii $`\lambda 1670`$, C iii $`\lambda 977`$, Si iii $`\lambda 1206`$, N iii $`\lambda 989`$, C iv $`\lambda 1548`$ and $`\lambda 1550`$, Si iv $`\lambda 1393`$ and $`\lambda 1402`$. The doublet O vi $`\lambda \lambda 1031,1037`$ is hopelessly blended and no conclusions about this important element can be made. Additionally the quasar spectrum beyond the Lyman limit ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{obs}}<3572.4`$ Å) shows residual intensity $`I_\lambda 0.14`$ giving us a model independent estimation of the total neutral hydrogen column density of about $`3\times 10^{17}`$ cm$`^2`$.

The first attempts to inverse the system under study were made with the HM ionizing spectrum corresponding to $`z=3`$. In spite of many trials with different initial conditions it turned out to be impossible to gain a good fitting for all available lines: the Si ii $`\lambda 1260`$ line was systematically overestimated, whereas the Si iv $`\lambda 1393,1402`$ doublet – underestimated. This was the reason why we started to modify the shape of the background ionizing spectrum. After numerous experiments with different power law spectra, galactic spectra from Leitherer et al. (1999) and combinations of them it was found empirically that the self-consistent fitting of all observed lines can be achieved if we adopt the HM spectrum with about 4 times enhanced intensity between 2 and 3 Ryd (shown by the dotted line in Fig. 1). Can this emission peak be present in the real intergalactic UV background ? Yes, indeed. The bump at 3 Ryd in the HM spectrum is due to He ii Ly$`\alpha `$ recombination radiation produced by the photoionized Ly$`\alpha `$ forest clouds. The primary quasar UV continuum spectra were adopted by HM in the form of power law $`\nu ^{1.5}`$ (for $`\lambda <1216`$ Å). But it is known that the far UV region of quasar radiation sometimes contains rather strong emission lines. For instance, quasar He ii Ly$`\alpha `$ emission at 3 Ryd was observed in spectra of HS 1700+6416 (Davidsen et al. 1996; Reimers et al. 1998), Q 0302–003 (Jakobsen et al. 1994; Heap et al. 2000), and in the composite QSO spectrum (Telfer et al. 2002), the last spectrum also shows additional three wide emission features between 304 Å and 500 Å. Thus the strong bump at 3 Ryd can be explained qualitatively. However, to estimate its exact shape and the amplitude, calculations accounting for the presence of emission lines in far UV QSO spectra and for radiative transfer effects in an inhomogeneous universe are needed. From the analysis of the $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917 system we only conclude that to match all Si and C lines, about 4 times more photons with energies between 2 and 3 Ryd are required (the dotted line shown in Fig. 1 is only one possible example, the emission bump at 3 Ryd may be broader and lower as well).

Due to the large number of ionic transitions in the $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917 LLS and due to the very high S/N ratio this system is a sensitive probe of the shape of the background photoionizing radiation. For instance, it was impossible to describe self-consistently all observed profiles of hydrogen and metal absorption lines using any of the composite UV spectra ($`\lambda <912`$ Å) of young galaxies from Leitherer et al. (1999) (a typical galactic spectrum is shown in Fig. 1 by the dashed line) or any of the combined spectra calculated by mixing (with different weights) a spectrum of the young galaxy with the HM UV background. From this, we do not confirm the result by Steidel et al. (2001) that the Lyman-break galaxies produce a dominated photoionizing background at $`z3`$.

The results obtained with the MCI and the modified HM spectrum (Fig. 1) are presented in Table 1 and illustrated in Figs. 2-4 (for details of calculations see LAK and LACM). Parts of line profiles included in the least-squares minimization are marked by horizontal lines in each panel in Fig. 2. We also tried to probe the presence of deuterium absorption but found that the wide Ly$`\alpha `$ profile is not sensitive to any additional D absorption. The blue wing of the Ly$`\beta `$ line is strongly blended and this line cannot be used in the D/H estimations.

Fig. 2 shows that the observed profiles (portions free from blending) are well represented. A self-consistent fitting of all available lines has revealed that the blue wing of the C iii$`\lambda 977`$ line is partly contaminated by some Ly$`\alpha `$ forest absorption.

The profiles of the Al ii$`\lambda 1670`$ and N iii$`\lambda 989`$ were calculated in a second round using the velocity $`v(x)`$ and density $`n_\mathrm{H}(x)`$ distributions already obtained and the metallicities chosen in such a way that the synthetic spectra did not exceed 1 $`\sigma `$ deviations from the observed intensities.

The Lyman series lines higher than Ly-12 are lying on the right wing of the damped Ly$`\alpha `$ (DLA) identified at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 1.918 (Fig. 3). Using the neutral hydrogen column density in the $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917 LLS, we estimated the neutral hydrogen column density for the DLA system of $`N`$(H i) $`1.0\times 10^{20}`$ cm$`^2`$ (this DLA system is described in detail in M. Centurión et al. 2003, in preparation).

Fig. 4 illustrates the distributions of the gas density and the radial velocity inside the $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917 LLS. It is clearly seen that the co-existence of lowly and highly ionized species in this system is due to density fluctuations. A wide range between $`x=0.15`$ and 0.37 with very low gas density is also responsible for the blue-side asymmetry seen in the metal line profiles in Fig. 2.

## 4 Discussion

According to the recovered parameters, the LLS at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917 is a very large could ($`L>100`$ kpc) with very low metal content. What could it be related to ?

In our code $`L`$ is calculated from the ratio $`L=N_\mathrm{H}/n_0`$, and $`n_0(1+\sigma _\mathrm{y}^2)J_{912}/U_0`$ (here $`J_{912}`$ is the Lyman-limit specific flux in erg cm$`^2`$ s-1 Hz-1 sr-1). Thus the intensity of the background radiation can influence the mean gas density and, hence, the absorber size. We used in our calculations $`J_{912}=0.4\times 10^{21}`$ erg cm$`^2`$ s-1 Hz-1 sr-1 given by Haardt & Madau (1996) for the mean background flux at $`z=3.0`$. This value is poorly known and may be affected by local sources. But since we have no clues on how this value might be changed for this particular case, we will rely on the estimated linear size.

For linear sizes as large as hundreds of kpc the velocity differences due to the Hubble expansion, $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_\mathrm{H}`$, become already noticeable. At $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917 and $`L=140`$ kpc the velocity difference is $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_\mathrm{H}=81`$ km s$`^1`$, assuming $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$ and the present day Hubble constant $`H_0=75`$ km s$`^1`$ Mpc-1. The corresponding velocity dispersion caused by the Hubble flow is then $`\sigma _\mathrm{H}=\mathrm{\Delta }v_\mathrm{H}/\sqrt{12}=23`$ km s$`^1`$. The velocity dispersion of the bulk material deduced by the MCI is $`\sigma _\mathrm{v}=50`$ km s$`^1`$, implying that the line-of-sight peculiar velocity dispersion is about 44 km s$`^1`$.

Large size, small peculiar velocity dispersion, and very low metallicity may indicate that the $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917 absorber is hosted by either an external galactic halo or by some large-scale structure object like a filament, and may consist of the gas pre-enriched by the first generations of stars. The sizes of the galactic halos or the filaments have been recently directly measured at $`z<1`$. For instance, observations of C iv absorption lines by Chen et al. (2001) revealed that all these lines can be associated with galaxies seen up to 180 kpc away. Penton et al. (2002) reported on large size Ly$`\alpha `$ absorbers aligned along a possible filamentary structure of $`20h_{70}^1`$ Mpc long and $`1h_{70}^1`$ Mpc wide.

As already mentioned above, the metal content measured in this LLS may be considered as primordial, i.e. produced by the explosions of early generations of stars. Then we may use the relative metal abundances to restrict masses of these hypothetical Pop III objects. Theory predicts that the abundance ratio \[Si/C\] rises to highly supersolar values with increasing masses of the Pop III stars. The calculations of the nucleosynthesis patterns of metal-free stars with various masses (e.g. Umeda & Nomoto 2001) show that \[Si/C\] = 0.34, 0.42, 0.70 for, respectively, $`M/M_{}=13,15,20`$ (Type II SNe); \[Si/C\] = 0.41 – 0.76 for the Pop III 25$`M_{}`$ model with explosion energies $`E_{\mathrm{exp}}=10^{51}10^{52}`$ erg (Fe Core Collapse Hypernovae); and \[Si/C\] = 1.49 and 1.70 for $`M/M_{}=170`$ and 200, respectively, in the Pair Instability SNe model222The \[Si/C\] ratios from Umeda & Nomoto (2001) which are normalized to the solar abundance system given by Anders & Grevesse (1989) are adjusted to the new solar photospheric values from Holweger (2001).. Similar results are reported in Heger & Woosley (2002) who also predicted a pronounced deficit of Al compared to Si (\[Al/Si\] $`<1.5`$) in the mass range $`140260M_{}`$.

In our system we measured \[Si/C\] = $`0.35\pm 0.15`$ and \[Al/Si\] = $`0.18\pm 0.13`$. These values certainly rule out the enrichment by very massive stars explosions and restrict the stellar masses by $`25M_{}`$. It should be noted that the abundance ratio \[Si/C\] $`0.30.4`$ is in line with other measurements in high redshift absorbers (e.g., Songaila & Cowie 1996; Levshakov et al. 2002b, 2003). If, nevertheless, the Pop III stars were massive ($`M>140M_{}`$), then the metallicity produced by their explosions should be much lower than $`10^3Z_{}`$.

We also estimated an upper limit on \[N/C\] $`<0.4`$. Nitrogen is usually assumed to be mostly produced by the intermediate mass stars ($`4<M/M_{}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}8}`$) whereas carbon production is dominated by the massive ($`M/M_{}>8`$) stars (Henry et al. 2000). Unfortunately, the obtained upper limit is too high to allow us to conclude about the possible nature of nitrogen in the $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917 LLS: the N iii $`\lambda 989`$ line lies in the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest where the signal-to-noise ratio is only about 25.

## 5 Summary

We have analyzed the VLT/UVES spectrum of the quasar HE 0940–1050 and deduced the physical properties of the Lyman limit system at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917. The main conclusions are as follows :

1. For the first time, a very low carbon abundance of \[C/H\] = $`2.93\pm 0.13`$ is directly measured in the LLS providing an example of a gas cloud probably enriched by the early generations ($`z>3`$) of stars.
2. The analyzed Lyman limit system has the line-of-sight size $`L`$ of about 140 kpc. Its velocity dispersion is only about 50 km s$`^1`$. This system may be hosted by an intergalactic filament structure or an external galactic halo.
3. The measured abundance ratios \[Si/C\] = $`0.35\pm 0.15`$ and \[Al/Si\] = $`0.18\pm 0.13`$ are in line with the assumption that the initial mass functions for early generations of stars are restricted to intermediate stellar masses, probably $`M_{\mathrm{up}}<25M_{}`$. The relative abundances of \[Si/C\] and \[Al/Si\] do not reveal any signature of very massive stars from the early generation.
4. The estimated shape of the photoionizing background radiation does not confirm that the Lyman-continuum radiation escaping from the young galaxies produces 5 times more H-ionizing photons per unit comoving volume than QSOs at $`z3`$ as suggested by Steidel et al. (2001). None of the far UV galactic spectra calculated by Leitherer et al. (1999) can produce profiles of carbon and silicon ions observed in the LLS at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$= 2.917.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Prof. H. Habing for valuable comments and suggestions. S.A.L. gratefully acknowledges the hospitality of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (Mitaka) where this work was performed. The work of S.A.L. and I.I.A. is supported by the RFBR grant No. 00-02-16007.


text:
# Waves in Schwarzschild spacetimes: how strong can be imprints of the spacetime curvature

## I Introduction

It is known essentially since the times of Hadamard  that curved spacetimes can affect the propagation of waves. The breakdown of the Huyghens principle  (or the backscatter, a name adopted by the general relativity community after de Witt and Brehme ) can influence both the energy and the energy flux of a wave signal. The backscatter can leave its imprints on the frequency spectrum and can affect the transmission time. The manifestations of this effect are the so-called tails and, most impressively, the quasinormal modes (QNM thereafter). The literature on the backscattering and related phenomena is quite extensive – see () and numerous references therein.

The QNM’s have some features of the scattering-type solutions and they have been studied in the context of general relativity for more than three decades . Many of their characteristics are well known for black holes , for instance their (complex) frequency spectrum. An observer located at a fixed space position would find that QNM’s oscillate with amplitudes decreasing exponentially in time. The oscillation periods and the damping exponents are the real and the imaginary parts of a frequency, respectively. They depend only on a few global characteristics of black holes – their asymptotic mass, angular momentum and/or global electric charge. Therefore their identification in an observed wave spectrum would unambiguously identify a black hole (and in fact provide an argument, closest to the direct observation, in favour of the existence of black holes). Extensive reviews are presented in  and . Tail terms have been studied in 1970’s beginning from Price  but interest in them has again revived recently .

The spectra of QNM’s and the decay exponents of the tails are universal, independent of initial data, but the very existence of QNM’s and their amplitudes (as well of the tails) do depend on initial wave conditions. The main aim of this paper is to show the strongest imprints of the spacetime curvature that are present in the form of QNM’s in a propagating wave. The implementation of this task requires the separation of the genuine geometric effects from those being built into initial data – notice that even in the Minkowski spacetime one can easily form a QNM-like structure by producing suitable initial data. The simplest possibility is to consider the purely backscattered part of the initial radiation, which is absent in the Minkowski geometry but which always exists in a curved spacetime.

It would be meaningless to try to accomplish our aim by the method of ”trial and error” – by selecting at random various initial wave configurations from the ocean of all possible data. Rather one should focus on “extremal” in some sense initial data that can generate, in the first instance, “extremal” asymptotic templates, but also can set bounds on some parameters used in the numerical descriptions. In the present paper we follow the second strategy, using as a guiding principle the idea of extremizing the so-called diffusion parameter  and addressing following issues. First, we estimate the maximal strength of the backscatter. The corresponding profiles of initial wave packets are found to favour vigorous ringing and/or strong deformation of initial signals. Second, and in relation with the former point, we obtain information on the process of taking waveforms from specific properties of the backscattered radiation. The order of the rest of this paper is as follows. Sec. 2 provides basic information on the wave equations. Sec. 3 describes in detail the procedure of maximizing the diffusion parameter and shows exemplary initial data for the wave evolution. Sec. 4 reviews some representative examples of wave templates. In Sec. 5 we again review those features of the numerical examples that could be useful for the numerical relativists dealing with the full nonlinear description of the collapse of two black holes. Sec. 6 summarizes main conclusions.

## II Basic definitions and concepts

### A Equations

The spacetime geometry is defined by the line element

$$ds^2=\eta _Rdt^2+\frac{dR^2}{\eta _R}+R^2d\mathrm{\Omega }^2,$$
(1)
where $`t`$ is a time coordinate, $`R`$ is the radial areal coordinate, $`\eta _R=1\frac{2m}{R}`$ and $`d\mathrm{\Omega }^2=d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2`$ is the line element on the unit sphere, $`0\varphi <2\pi `$ and $`0\theta \pi `$. Throughout this paper the Newtonian constant $`G`$ and the velocity of light $`c`$ are put equal to 1.

We will study the propagation of polar and axial modes of the quadrupole gravitational waves (GW thereafter) and the dipole electromagnetic waves (EW) in the Schwarzschild background. The evolution equation has the form

$$(_t^2+_r^{}^2)\mathrm{\Psi }=V\mathrm{\Psi }.$$
(2)
Here $`r^{}=R+2m\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{R}{2m}1\right)`$ is the tortoise coordinate while the potential term reads: for the polar GW

$$V(R)=6\frac{\eta _R^2}{R^2}+\eta _R\frac{63m^2(1+\frac{m}{R})}{2R^4(1+\frac{3m}{2R})^2};$$
(3)
for the axial GW

$$V(R)=6\frac{\eta _R}{R^2}(1\frac{m}{R});$$
(4)
and for the dipole EW

$$V(R)=2\frac{\eta _R}{R^2}.$$
(5)
The evolution equations corresponding to the first two potentials are called the Zerilli equation  and the Regge-Wheeler equation , respectively.

### B Conserved energy

The equation (2) possesses a conserved energy,

$$E(R,t)=\underset{R}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{dr}{\eta _r}\left((_t\mathrm{\Psi })^2+(_r^{}\mathrm{\Psi })^2+V\mathrm{\Psi }^2\right);$$
(6)
that is, the rate of change of $`E`$ in a fixed volume equals to the total flow through the boundary ( and ). This agrees (up to a constant factor) with the energy deduced from the stress-energy tensor for the EW. Eq. (6) represents a mathematically useful quantity in the case of the gravitational waves, with the density being asymptotically proportional to the density in the quadrupole formula. In either case, the energy conservation becomes important in our forthcoming construction.

Assume that initial data $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and $`_t\mathrm{\Psi }`$ vanish inside a sphere having a radius $`a>2m`$. From the conservation law one easily finds that the amount of the energy that reaches a distant observer is equal to

$$E_a(\mathrm{})E(a,t=0)\delta E_a,$$
(7)
where

$$\delta E_a=\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑t\left((_t\mathrm{\Psi }+_r^{}\mathrm{\Psi })^2+V\mathrm{\Psi }^2\right)$$
(8)
( and ). The integration in (8) is done along the outgoing null cone that starts from $`a`$ at $`t=0`$. In the Minkowski spacetime (put formally $`m=0`$ in Eq. (2)) all of an initially outgoing radiation would get to infinity; in this case $`\delta E_a=0`$, since there is no diffusion through the null cone that expands outward from the initial position $`R=a`$. It is meaningful to distinguish between the momentarily outgoing and ingoing radiation also in a curved, but asymptotically flat, spacetime. One can give either an operational or an analytic definition. Imagine a directional wave generator that sends all radiation in a fixed direction, when located in an almost flat region. (That makes sense, since it is known from analytic estimates, that the fraction of the backscattered energy must fall off at least as $`C\times (2m/a)^2`$, where $`C`$ is of the order of unity – ,  and . By choosing a sufficiently distant location one can make the diffused energy $`\delta E_a`$ arbitrarily small.) This generator, when carefully moved to a strongly curved region, will preserve its property of generating directed radiation, which can be initially purely outgoing (or initially purely ingoing). Alternatively, one can work out an analytic definition. Initial data can always be split into two parts, one “initially outgoing” (defined below; in the Minkowski spacetime that would all get to the infinity) and the other purely ingoing (its form is similar to the former – just change $`r^{}t`$ into $`r^{}+t`$ and some signs in the expansion – but it is purely ingoing in the Minkowski spacetime). We will show in Sec. 3, that the concept of initially outgoing waves is useful in bulding a nontrivial construction, and that fact in itself justifies this notion.

### C Initial data for wave equations

Let us define

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}(R,t)=\mathrm{\Psi }_0(r^{}t)+\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_1(r^{}t)}{R}+\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_2(r^{}t)}{R^2},$$
(9)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i`$’s ($`i=0,1,2`$) satisfy following relations:

$`_t\mathrm{\Psi }_1=3\mathrm{\Psi }_0,_t\mathrm{\Psi }_2=\mathrm{\Psi }_1m_t\mathrm{\Psi }_1,`$ (10)
$`_t\mathrm{\Psi }_1=3\mathrm{\Psi }_0,_t\mathrm{\Psi }_2=\mathrm{\Psi }_1{\displaystyle \frac{m}{2}}_t\mathrm{\Psi }_1,`$ (11)
$`_t\mathrm{\Psi }_1=\mathrm{\Psi }_0,\mathrm{\Psi }_2=0,`$ (12)
for the polar GW, axial GW and dipole EW, respectively. In the Minkowski spacetime the function $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ exactly solves Eq. (2). We assume that $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_i(r^{},t=0)`$’s vanish for $`Ra`$. Notice that only one of the three functions (for instance $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$) can be freely chosen.

We will say that initial data are purely outgoing if on the initial hypersurface $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ and $`_t\mathrm{\Psi }=_t\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}`$. The full solution of Eq. (2) can be now split into the known part $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ and an unknown $`\delta `$,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}+\delta ,$$
(13)
with null initial values for $`\delta `$ and $`_t\delta `$. $`\delta `$ is evolved according to the inhomogeneous wave equation

$$(_t^2+_r^{}^2)\delta =V\delta +\stackrel{~}{V},$$
(14)
where

$`\stackrel{~}{V}=\left(V6{\displaystyle \frac{\eta _R^2}{R^2}}\right)\left(\mathrm{\Psi }_0+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_1}{R}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_2}{R^2}}\right)+`$ (15)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2m\eta _R}{R^4}}\left(3\mathrm{\Psi }_1+2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_2}{R}}\right),`$ (16)
for polar gravitational modes,

$`\stackrel{~}{V}={\displaystyle \frac{10m\eta _R}{R^5}}\mathrm{\Psi }_2,`$ (17)
for axial GW and

$$\stackrel{~}{V}=6m\frac{\eta _R}{R^4}\mathrm{\Psi }_1$$
(18)
for the electromagnetic case. The splitting (13) has been crucial in obtaining the analytic estimates of the backscatter  but it appears to be advantageous also from the numerical point of view.

## III Extremizing the diffusion parameter

### A Diffusion parameter and the variational problem

Let us define the reprocessed radiation  (RR) as that reaching a distant observer after the passage of the initial pulse; the delay is caused by multiple backscatterings. RR would be absent in the Minkowski spacetime. (For an example, see on Figs 8-13 the parts of waveforms to the right from $`x=0`$.) We study hereafter the RR generated by initially outgoing waves, in order to separate the genuine effects of the geometric curvature from those implied by artificial initial data.

The diffusion parameter $`\kappa `$ is defined as the ratio of the diffused energy and the initial energy,

$$\kappa =\frac{\delta E_a}{E(a,0)}.$$
(19)
Our aim in this section is to provide outgoing initial data that maximize $`\kappa `$. This will be done in a class of data that do vanish for $`Ra`$. The intuition behind this is that if $`\kappa `$ is large then the fraction of the energy of the reprocessed radiation  should be also large. That in turn should translate into effects like vigorous ringing modes or tail terms. We conjecture, that there exists a correlation between $`\kappa `$ and (defined in some way) the strength of QNM’s.

Expressing things in technical terms: we want to maximize the nonnegative quadratic form $`\delta E_a`$ while keeping fixed the positive quadratic form $`E(a,0)`$. In numerical calculations this task reduces to a multi-dimensional algebraic eigenvalue problem, as we shall demonstrate. In the first step we choose some large $`R_1a`$ – the upper end of the initial support – and maximize $`\kappa `$ in the future domain of dependence of $`(a,R_1)`$ with the appex at $`(R_2R(\frac{r^{}(R_1)+r^{}(a)}{2}),t=\frac{r^{}(R_1)r^{}(a)}{2})`$. Obviously the change of $`R_1`$ would change $`\kappa `$ as well, but it has been established that above some critical value of $`R_1`$ the value of $`\kappa `$ stabilizes. It has been found by the method of trial and error that the choice $`R_1150m`$ is satisfactory.

### B Discretization of the variational problem

In the second step we determine a functional discrete basis $`\{f_i\}`$ ($`i=1\mathrm{}N`$) on the closed interval $`[r^{}(a),r^{}(R_1)]`$. The dimension of that basis was usually 250 (but tests with smaller and bigger dimensions were also done) – a number much smaller than the number of points (8000) in the spatial grid; that facilitated greatly the numerical calculation, without loosing accuracy. The best results have been obtained for the basis consisting of the first 250 Legendre polynomials with odd indices.

Let the expansion of the function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ (the only free function in the initial data set – see the remark folowing Eq. (12)) be

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_0(r^{},t)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}C_if_i\left(\frac{r^{}tr^{}(a)}{r^{}(R_1)r^{}(a)}\right).$$
(20)
Then one finds from Eq. (6) that the total initial energy is a positive definite quadratic form,

$`E(a,R_1,t=0)=`$ (21)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{a}{\overset{R_1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dr}{\eta _r}}\left((_t\mathrm{\Psi })^2+(_r^{}\mathrm{\Psi })^2+V\mathrm{\Psi }^2\right)|_{t=0}=`$ (22)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}B_{ij}(a,R_1)C_iC_j,`$ (23)
where the matrix $`B_{ij}`$ is known from the numerical calculation.

Each element $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{0,i}=f_i`$ determines some initial values $`(\mathrm{\Psi }_{f_i})_{t=0},(_t\mathrm{\Psi }_{f_i})_{t=0}`$; they give rise to solutions $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{f_i}`$ in the domain of dependence. These solutions are linearly independent (due to the uniqueness of solutions of Eq. (2)). Therefore the solution generated by the initial data defined by (20) can be expressed as the linear combination

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(r^{},t)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}C_i\mathrm{\Psi }_{f_i}.$$
(24)
Thus the energy $`\delta E_a`$ diffused through the null cone connecting $`(a,0)`$ with $`(R_2,t)`$ has the form

$$\delta E(a,R_2)=\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}A_{ij}(a,R_1)C_iC_j.$$
(25)
Again the matrix $`A`$ is obtained numerically.

The task of maximizing the ratio of the two quadratic forms is equivalent to finding eigenvalues in the generalized eigenvalue problem

$$\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}A_{ij}C_j=\lambda \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}B_{ij}C_j,$$
(26)
where $`\lambda `$ is the eigenvalue and $`(C_i)`$ is the corresponding eigenvector. There are many excellent numerical procedures for solving of the generalized problem. We choose one from the fast EISPACK package. This allowed us to find several largest eigenvalues $`\lambda ^{(k)}`$, the eigenvectors $`(C_j^{(k)})`$ and, from Eq. (20), the corresponding functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{(k)}(a,R_1,N)`$ for $`k=1,2\mathrm{}`$. Having $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{(k)}`$ one finds initial data using Eqs (9) and (12).

As a consistency check, in number of cases the wave packet given by $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0(a,R_1,N)`$ was evolved and the diffusion parameter was found directly from the definition. In the case of disagreement the procedure could be repeated with other values of numerical parameters. The disagreement was never observed for the vectors maximizing $`\kappa `$, but it was found in number of cases with fourth and fifth eigenvectors (by convention, the eigenvectors are ordered according to the decreasing eigenvalue, $`\lambda _1>\lambda _2>\mathrm{}`$). The parameters ($`N=250,r^{}(R_1)r^{}(a)+160m`$, the size of the grid) that are reported above seem to be optimal, in the sense that the corresponding integration time was not too long while the accuracy was kept reasonably good. These values have been obtained by performing many series of numerical calculations.

### C Final preparation of extremal initial data

These pre-prepared initial data that are maximizing within the chosen region (in the future dependence zone of data defined on ($`a,R_1)`$) undergo a process of extending the initial data beyond $`R_1`$. Strictly saying, we match a function

$$f(r^{})=C_2+C_1\mathrm{exp}(r^{}/10)$$
(27)
to each eigenvector $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{(k)}(a,R_1,N)`$. The matching is differentiable and the gluing point $`G`$ is selected independently for each eigenvector. The value of $`G`$ has been obtained as follows. Fixing $`a`$ and $`R_1`$, one finds $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{R_1}`$ (the upper index is put here in order to stress the local character of the procedure) and initial values of the locally extremizing solution $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{R_1}`$. With the increase of $`R_1`$, while keeping $`a`$ fixed, the function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{R_1}`$ changes. In the limit one should in principle obtain the sought extremizing solution, $`\mathrm{\Psi }=lim_{R_1\mathrm{}}\mathrm{\Psi }^{R_1}`$. In the numerical practice the integration region must be finite. The dependence of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ on $`R_1`$ suggests that $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{R_1}const`$ outside some region of compact support. The point $`G`$ is numerically determined as being some point near the transition region. In our cases we obtained $`r^{}(8m)r^{}(G)r^{}(25m)`$. Therefore the chosen $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ bears on an asymptotically constant value. Fig. 1 shows initial profiles of the the third eigenvector $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ for $`a=2.001`$ (GW, the polar mode).

We would like to point that this process of matching is to a degree arbitrary and the obtained eigenvectors can be expected to be close (but not necessarily identical) to the extremizing eigenvectors.

## IV Numerical results

### A Extremizing initial data and $`\kappa `$ versus $`a`$

Figs. 2 and 3 show the distribution of the initial energy densities of the first and the fifth axial GW modes. As one can expect, the mass center is closer to the horizon in the case of the extremal data, while (not so obviously) the graph of the fifth vector suggests a larger contribution of high frequency radiation.

Fig. 4 demonstrates that the energy support of maximizing initial data increases with the increase of $`a`$. The larger $`a`$ the larger distance at which the value of the energy stabilizes. That feature of the maximal initial data is counter-intuitive at the first glance, since the backscatter is strongest in regions with large values of the potential $`V`$ (around $`R3m`$ or $`r^{}0`$) and one would expect accumulation of the energy near $`a`$ if $`a2m`$. The reason why it is not so is that the backscatter depends also on the frequency; a radiation accumulated at $`a`$ would be dominated by high–frequency waves, which are weakly backscattered.

The main lesson that can be drawn from the foregoing discussion is that the extremizing initial data can occupy a large region that extends far away from the black hole horizon.

A question arises, whether one can have modes with large $`\kappa `$ in the case of waves that are initially well separated from the horizon, i.e., when $`a2m`$. As it happens, in order to give an answer one has to combine the numerical approach and an analytic insight. This is because the numerical time is proportional (with some large coefficient) to $`(a/2m)^2`$ and the numerics is feasible only when $`a`$ is not too big. Fortunately, analytic estimates show that the diffusion parameter quickly decreases with the distance, at least as quickly as $`(2m/a)^2`$, and becomes small at large $`a`$ . Therefore if $`a2m`$ then no modes with large $`\kappa `$ can exist and it suffices to restrict the present analysis to $`a`$ being relatively small. In this paper the numerics is done for $`a6m`$.

Figs 5 – 7 show the dependence of $`\kappa `$ on $`a`$ for five succesive eigenvectors with largest eigenvalues, in each of the considered wave sectors. While at $`a`$ very close to $`2m`$ the largest eigenvalue is close to 1 in all three cases, then the eigenvalue fifth in the order is smaller than 0.01 for EW and close to 0.1 for polar GW, with the axial GW lying in between. The next observation that should be made is that with the increase of $`a`$, the largest eigenvalue changes slower than the remaining ones and the the falloff of eigenvalues is quickest for EW and slowest for the polar GW.

### B On the stability of templates

Our earlier observation that QNM can be born and can die , when observation points are moved away form the black hole horizon, can be rephrased as demonstration that templates can critically depend on the distance of an observer from the horizon. Below we repeat that study and establish a lower bound on the distance of the observer from the horizon that is needed in order to detect a reliable wave profile.

Fig. 8 shows that there are many oscillations at $`R=10m`$, which gradually die when the observation point is moved away to $`R=100m`$ (Fig. 10). One can see that only the first eigenvector produces some distorted oscillations at $`R=100m`$ while the remaining two fail completely to show any ringing.

Notice that while the amplitude of the surviving QNM seems to increase moderately, the tail (and pre-tail) part extends and gains in power significantly. This agrees with conclusions of . Particularly interesting is the comparison of templates shown in Fig. 9, taken at $`R=25m`$  and in Fig. 10, determined at $`R=100m`$. They are clearly different – the ringing phase can be much shorter or even disappear, while the remnants of the initial data (the parts of the diagrams to the left from $`x=0`$) seen at $`R=25m`$ are completely different from those detected at $`R=100m`$. One can conclude that the process of taking waveforms is unstable under the translation of the observation point – the templates can strongly depend on the location of the observer.

One can also infer from the preceding information that $`25m`$ is too close for being the observation point and $`100m`$ may well be the lower bound for the observer’s position. To this point, let us add that in many of analyzed examples (not reported here) the waveforms did not change significantly above $`R=100m`$.

### C Strong ringing modes

One of our aims is to find initial data that give the strongest possible ringing within the reprocessed radiation. The diffusion energy $`\delta E_a`$ bounds the energies of QNM, the tail (and pre-tail) term and also of the radiation falling to a black hole. While we do not have analytic estimates of the shares of the particular contributing terms in $`\delta E_a`$, it is obvious that configurations with large $`\kappa `$ have some room for robust oscillations. For that reason we study waves defined by the extremal initial data.

Figs 11 – 13 present the radiation corresponding to the EW and GW initial pulses as seen by an ”observer” situated at $`R=100m`$. The $`x=0`$ point of the abscissa corresponds to the moment of time $`t=r^{}(100m)r^{}(a)`$. This train of data that moves with the speed of light is seen earlier ($`t<100mr^{}(a)`$) and it lies to the left from $`x=0`$. To the right from $`x=0`$ we have $`t>100mr^{}(a)`$; in the absence of the backscattering there would be no signal at all.

Notice that the amplitudes of the strongest ringing mode are of the order of the largest amplitudes of remnants of the original radiation. This is particularly clearly manifested in the case of the strongest polar GW eigenvector. Observe also a strong deformation of the original signal just before $`t=r^{}(100m)`$; initial waveform would be zero at $`x=0`$, while in Figs 10 – 13 one can see a gradual build-up of a backscattered signal. Again the effect is strongest for the polar GW (Fig. 12, the 1st eigenvector), when the backscattered part exceeds the remaining signal by a factor of 10. We would also like to direct the attention of the reader to Fig. 10. There the ringing is absent for the second and third eigenvector, but a very strong pre-tail term is observed, comparable to the remainder of the main signal.

These examples essentially confirm our conjecture that there exists a correlation between the diffusion factor and some features (strongest QNM and/or the longevity of the ringing phase) of the ringing. (The reservation ”essentially” is caused by the fact, that the ringing belonging to the second axial mode on Fig. 12 is stronger than that of the first eigenvector; but in this case the diffusion parameters differ only by the factor of 2.) An intuitive explanation with analytic flavour would be following. There is effectively $`(_t\mathrm{\Psi })^2`$ contribution to the observed energy flux, if an observation point is located far away from the horizon (the asymptotic zone, where radiation is dominated by the $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$-type term and $`_t\mathrm{\Psi }_r^{}\mathrm{\Psi }`$). Quasinormal modes oscillate and therefore they give a more significant contribution to the total backscattered energy than, say, tail terms. Hence small $`\kappa `$ would be prohibitive for any ringing, while strong $`\kappa `$ leaves this possibility open. This reasoning suggests also that the diffused energy might well be the best measure (imperfect, admittedly) of the energy of quasinormal modes generated by moving wave pulses.

It was reported earlier (see, for instance, Sec. IX in ) that there exists a (sharp value of) critical width (suitably defined) of initial data corresponding to strong ringing and that both (sub- and super-) critical data generate much weaker ringing. While we observe a kind of a similar dependence, it is certainly less dramatic and no sharp indicator seems to be appropriate. Admittedly, we deal with a different situation – there is only an (initially) outgoing radiation, while in  there are both (initially) ingoing and outgoing components – but that probably is not relevant. More important can be a different shape of initial data – here determined by the extremization procedure of the preceding section, while in  assumed to be gaussian.

## V Linear versus nonlinear descriptions of the post-merger evolution

### A How typical are ringing modes

That is a basic tenet of the General Relativity, dictated by the beliefs in the cosmic censorship  and no-hair conjectures , that at some stage after plunge/merger a geometry generated by a pair of black holes can be represented as a single perturbed black hole. The perturbations would be represented by gravitational waves and the final black hole would be either spinning (the Kerr black hole) or nonspinning (the Schwarzschild black hole), the latter in the case of the head-on collision. The so-called close limit approximation (, , ) seems to assert that the linear approximation is valid since the formation of a common apparent horizon. Anninos et al. give some arguments in favour of this claim that are supported (albeit with some reservations) by their analysis of the head-on collisions , with initial data of Misner type . Gomez et al.  provide other supporting arguments in their discussion of fissioning white holes. An interesting new feature of a recent work by Husa et al. , which uses close approximation, is a weak dependence of waveforms on the collision velocity of two black holes.

If this scenario is right then the naive expectation would be that most of the radiation is concentrated in the vicinity of the horizon . (This is in fact observed – see Fig. 10 in , which shows that initial perturbation extends to regions very close to $`R=2m`$.) One can split these initial data into initially ingoing and outgoing parts, according to the descriptions of Secs 2.B and 2.C. (In the example given in Fig. 10 of  the ingoing radiation remains forever inside the potential well .) The latter can be expanded in the diagonalizing basis defined in Sec. III and consisting of 250 base vectors, with the parameter $`a`$ (that in fact specifies this basis - see Sec. III) being very close to $`2m`$. But if $`a2m`$, then Sec. IV.A suggests that there appear a number of eigenvectors (from at least 2 for EW to at least 4-5 in the case of polar GW) with diffusion parameters being close to 1. The initial data for the linear phase are determined by the preceding nonlinear evolution; if these were purely random, then the chance of having large $`\kappa `$ (and strong ringing) would be of the order of 1%. Leaving aside the question whether the merger phase can be regarded as a random process, the least one can say is that the maximizing initial data of Sec. III should not be apriori excluded. Another argument is that the process of the backscatter is selective – waves longer than QNM’s are stronger backscattered. Since the present gravitational wave detectors are tuned to frequences smaller (even by one order in the case of less massive binaries of black holes ) than QNM’s characteristic for the most likely sources of the gravitational radiation, there are reasons to expect that the detected radiation will be strongly backscattered (even if the ringing itself would be undetectable).

### B Taking of waveforms – some parameters

We pointed out in Sec. IV. B that in some examples the templates are unstable with respect to the change of the “observation” point. No significant changes in the wave profiles have been observed beyond $`100m`$, but the wave profiles at $`R=25m`$ can be profoundly different from those taken at the former point. This suggests that the determination of templates should be done at $`R25m`$ and that $`R=100m`$ might the smallest required distance of the observer. In some cases the duration of the remnants of the original signal and of the comparable in strength backscattered part exceeds $`150m`$ (see Fig. 12). From this one can infer that the minimal integration time must exceed at least $`150m`$; it happens to be the longer the closer the initial pulse is located to the horizon of a black hole. There is no numerical calculation, in the case of the full nonlinear collisions, up to our knowledge, which satisfies both requirements. For instance in , the observations were held at $`R=25m`$ through the time interval $`100m`$.

## VI Concluding remarks

The Schwarzschild spacetime can be believed to provide a good approximation to the last phase of the collapse of two black holes – the so-called close limit () bases on this idea – provided that the collision is (almost) head-on. At this stage the spacetime can be regarded as consisting of a single black hole having a mass $`m`$ and some gravitational radiation that propagates on a Schwarzschlidean background. The initial data for the linear evolution of the gravitational radiation should be provided by a numerical solution of the preceding phases of the collapse. This task is at present (and presumably for some years to come) unavailable for numerical relativists. In this context the existence of universal imprints of the spacetime curvature like QNM’s could be of relevance, but only if their amplitudes are strong enough.

We invent a variational procedure that generates initial data corresponding to the strong backscatter. These initial data have some features that might look as counter-intuitive; they have an extended support and a significant fraction of the wave signal energy comes from a distant region ($`R2m`$). They generate strong ringing modes or (if the ringing is absent) robust terms preceding the tail. In many cases the backscattered terms and QNM’s are much stronger than the remnants of the original signal; therefore the QNM’s waveforms cannot be ruled out as objects of interest for the gravitational wave astrophysics.

Finally, it has been shown how from the linear description one can get clues as to the preparation of templates in the numerical analysis of the full nonliner problem of collapsing (head-on) black holes.

Acknowledgments. EM thanks Bernd Schmidt, Edward Seidel and Jonathan Thornburg for discussions and interesting remarks. This work has been suported in part by the KBN grant 2 PO3B 006 23. ZS thanks the Pedagogical University for the research grant.