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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

N=2 super Yang - Mills (SYM) theory has been extensively studied these last years after the work of Seiberg and Witten  where a self consistent non-perturbative effective action was calculated by using certain ansätze dictated by physical intuitions. This solution is unique .

After this seminal paper  one of the main area of research in N=2 SYM is to calculate directly the multi-instanton contributions to the holomorphic prepotential and consequently to check the correctness of the results of . These multi-instanton contributions are calculated in a pioneering work  for one and two instantons by using a semi-classical expansion around approximate saddle points of the action  111One instanton contribution is also calculated in .. The results are found to be in agreement with the one of . (For a self-contained review see Ref. .) However a natural question was posed by several researchers: how it could be possible that an approximate approach gives an exact result and what was the mechanism behind ?

In order to get answer to the above questions, in Ref. the instanton calculus is performed in the framework of Topological Yang Mills (TYM) theory and it is found that the results are the same with that of traditional instanton calculus of . As noted in , the underlying fact of this result is, the action of TYM theory, which can be obtained as a twist of the ordinary N=2 SYM , can be written as a BRST-exact term  and the functional integration over the antifields of the topological theory gives the same field configurations of the constrained instantons of the ordinary theory without any approximation. Therefore, the authors of Ref.  have noted that the twisting procedure can be thought as variable redefinitions in flat space time.

However, up to now no explicit variable redefinitions is given in order to obtain the topological theory. For instance, even if the twist can be considered as a linear change of variables, after twisting physical interpretation of some fields change, i.e. some become ghosts or anti-ghosts. The dimensions of the topological fields are also different then their untwisted counterparts.

Our main aim in this note, is to derive explicit field redefinitions in order to obtain the topological fields with correct dimensionality and ghost number.The strategy that we follow is to use the the extension of BRST formalism (also called BV or field-antifield formalism ) to include global supersymmetry (SUSY).  222Such an extension of BRST transformations that includes rigid symmetries is first introduced in . The problem of how to extend the BRST formalism to include arbitrary global symmetries can be found in Ref. .. By using this formalism we show that N=2 SYM action can be written as an exact term and both of the formulations of TYM given by Witten  and Baulieu and Singer  can be obtained as a change of variables without twisting.

The paper is organized as follows: In Sec.II, we review briefly how to include SUSY in an extended BRST operator. Since the actions of SYM theories can be represented as chiral (or antichiral) multiple supervariations of lower dimensional gauge invariant field polynomials 333For a similar approach of constructing N=1 globally and locally supersymmetric actions and also for the discussion of anomalies, see ., in Sec.III we construct a nilpotent extended BRST operator $`\overline{s}`$ on the field space that only contains the chiral part of the N=2 SUSY as a global symmetry in addition to gauge symmetries. It is then straightforward to find an expression as a gauge fermion of which the full off-shell N=2 action is its BRST ($`\overline{s}`$) variation under some conditions in Minkowski space. In Sec. IV, we give Euclidean formulation of the result given in Sec.III in order to derive field redefinitions by comparing the Euclidean N=2 SYM action written as an exact term and the topological theory. We demonstrate explicitly that Wittens topological Yang-Mills theory can be obtained from the ordinary Euclidean N=2 SYM directly by using such field redefinitions. In Sec.V, by using an instanton inspired truncation of the model given by Zumino , we also show how to obtain the approach of Baulieu-Singer of TYM with the help of field redefinitions. Finally, Sec.VI is devoted to concluding remarks.

## 2 N=2 SYM and Extended BRST transformations

N=2 SYM theory is a rather old and well studied theory. In this work we will study the off-shell formulation of the theory given in  by using the conventions of . The action of the theory is given in Minkowski space as

$`S_{N=2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}Tr{\displaystyle }d^4x({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }i\lambda ^iD/\overline{\lambda }_i+\varphi D_\mu D^\mu \varphi ^{}`$ (1)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}}(\lambda _i[\lambda ^i,\varphi ^{}]+\overline{\lambda }^i[\overline{\lambda }_i,\varphi ]){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\varphi ,\varphi ^{}]^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\stackrel{}{D}.\stackrel{}{D})`$
where the gauge field $`A_\mu `$ and the scalar fields $`\varphi ,\varphi ^{}`$ are singlets, the Weyl spinors $`\lambda _{i\alpha }\overline{\lambda }_{\dot{\alpha }}^i`$ are doublets and the auxiliary field $`\stackrel{}{D}`$ is a triplet under the $`SU(2)_R`$ symmetry group. These fields are members of N=2 vector multiplet $`V=(A_\mu ,\varphi ,\varphi ^{},\lambda _{i\alpha },\overline{\lambda }_{\dot{\alpha }}^i,\stackrel{}{D})`$ . The $`SU(2)_R`$ indices of the spinors are raised and lowered due to

$`\lambda ^i=^{ij}\lambda _j`$ , $`\lambda _i=\lambda ^j_{ji}`$ (2)
$`\overline{\lambda }_i=_{ij}\overline{\lambda }^j`$ , $`\overline{\lambda }^i=\overline{\lambda }_j^{ji}`$ (3)
where the antisymmetric tensor $`^{ij}`$ is given as444Note that in our convention the $`^{ij}`$ is different then the one, $`ϵ_{\alpha \beta }`$, used for spinor indices,

$$_{12}=^{12}=_{21}=^{21}=1.$$

The extension of the BRST transformations with the global N=2 SUSY and translation symmetry is first given in Ref.:

$$s=s_0i\xi ^iQ_ii\overline{\xi }_i\overline{Q}^ii\eta ^\mu _\mu $$
(4)
where $`s_0`$ is the ordinary BRST transformations, $`Q_i,\overline{Q}^i`$ are chiral and antichiral parts of N=2 SUSY transformations and $`\xi ^{i\alpha },\overline{\xi }_{i\dot{\alpha }}`$ and $`\eta _\mu `$ are the constant commuting chiral, antichiral SUSY ghosts and constant imaginary anticommuting translation ghost respectively. Note that the parameters of the global transformations are promoted to the status of constant ghosts and their Grassmann parity are changed so that the extended transformation $`s`$ is a homogeneous transformation.

The extended BRST transformations read on the elements of the N=2 vector multiplet as555Here, $`\stackrel{}{\tau }`$’s are Pauli spin matrices,

$`sA_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`D_\mu c+\xi _i\sigma _\mu \overline{\lambda }^i+\overline{\xi }^i\overline{\sigma }_\mu \lambda _ii\eta ^\nu _\nu A_\mu `$ (5)
$`s\lambda _i`$ $`=`$ $`i\{c,\lambda _i\}i\sigma ^{\mu \nu }\xi _iF_{\mu \nu }+\xi _i[\varphi ,\varphi ^{}]\sqrt{2}\sigma ^\mu \overline{\xi }_iD_\mu \varphi +\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j\xi _j.\stackrel{}{D}i\eta ^\mu _\mu \lambda _i`$ (6)
$`s\overline{\lambda }^i`$ $`=`$ $`i\{c,\overline{\lambda }^i\}i\overline{\sigma }^{\mu \nu }\overline{\xi }^iF_{\mu \nu }\overline{\xi }^i[\varphi ,\varphi ^{}]\sqrt{2}\overline{\sigma }^\mu \xi ^iD_\mu \varphi ^{}\overline{\xi }^j\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j.\stackrel{}{D}i\eta ^\mu _\mu \overline{\lambda }^i`$ (7)
$`s\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`i[c,\varphi ]i\sqrt{2}\xi _i\lambda ^ii\eta ^\mu _\mu \varphi `$ (8)
$`s\varphi ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`i[c,\varphi ^{}]i\sqrt{2}\overline{\xi }^i\overline{\lambda }_ii\eta ^\mu _\mu \varphi ^{}`$ (9)
$`s\stackrel{}{D}`$ $`=`$ $`i[c,\stackrel{}{D}]+i\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j(\xi _jD/\overline{\lambda }^i\overline{\xi }^i\overline{D/}\lambda _j+\sqrt{2}\xi ^i[\lambda _j,\varphi ^{}]\sqrt{2}\overline{\xi }_j[\overline{\lambda }^i,\varphi ])i\eta ^\mu _\mu \stackrel{}{D}`$ (10)
On the other hand, in order to get a nilpotent $`s`$,

$$s^2=0$$
(11)
Fadeev-Popov ghost field and the global ghosts are asked to transform as

$`sc`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\{c,c\}2i\xi _i\sigma ^\mu \overline{\xi }^iA_\mu \sqrt{2}\xi _i\xi ^i\varphi ^{}\sqrt{2}\overline{\xi }^i\overline{\xi }_i\varphi i\eta ^\mu _\mu c`$ (12)
$`s\eta _\mu `$ $`=`$ $`2\xi ^i\sigma _\mu \overline{\xi }_i`$ (13)
$`s\xi _i`$ $`=`$ $`s\overline{\xi }_i=0`$ (14)
Note that with the help of extra terms in $`sc`$, the characteristic complication that SUSY algebra is modified by field-dependent gauge transformations is solved, whereas the closure on translations disappeared due to inclusion of translation ghosts. We summarize the dimension, ghost number and the R-charges of the fields and ghosts in Table 1.

## 3 N=2 SYM action as an exact term

It is known from cohomological arguments that the actions of SYM theories can be represented as chiral (or antichiral) multiple supervariations of lower dimensional gauge invariant field polynomials . For instance, N=2 SYM action can be written as a fourfold chiral SUSY transformation of $`Tr\varphi ^2`$ in component formalism of SUSY.

On the other hand, from the definition of $`s`$ it is still possible to derive another nilpotent operator by using a suitable filtration of global ghosts. We choose this filtration to be

$$𝒩=\overline{\xi }_{i\dot{\alpha }}\frac{\delta }{\delta \overline{\xi }_{i\dot{\alpha }}}+\eta _\mu \frac{\delta }{\delta \eta _\mu };s=s^{(n)},[𝒩,s^{(n)}]=ns^{(n)},$$
(15)
so that the zeroth order in the above expansion is a operator that includes ordinary BRST and chiral SUSY on the space of the fields of the N=2 vector multiplet

$$\overline{s}:=s^{(0)}=s_0i\xi ^iQ_i$$
(16)
that is also nilpotent,

$$\overline{s}^2=0.$$
(17)
The $`\overline{s}`$ transformation of the fields are now given as

$`\overline{s}A_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`D_\mu c+\xi _i\sigma _\mu \overline{\lambda }^i`$ (18)
$`\overline{s}\lambda _i`$ $`=`$ $`i\{c,\lambda _i\}i\sigma ^{\mu \nu }\xi _iF_{\mu \nu }+\xi _i[\varphi ,\varphi ^{}]+\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j\xi _j.\stackrel{}{D}`$ (19)
$`\overline{s}\overline{\lambda }^i`$ $`=`$ $`i\{c,\overline{\lambda }^i\}\sqrt{2}\overline{\sigma }^\mu \xi ^iD_\mu \varphi ^{}`$ (20)
$`\overline{s}\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`i[c,\varphi ]i\sqrt{2}\xi _i\lambda ^i`$ (21)
$`\overline{s}\varphi ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`i[c,\varphi ^{}]`$ (22)
$`\overline{s}\stackrel{}{D}`$ $`=`$ $`i[c,\stackrel{}{D}]+i\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j(\xi _jD/\overline{\lambda }^i+\sqrt{2}\xi ^i[\lambda _j,\varphi ^{}])`$ (23)
$`\overline{s}c`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\{c,c\}\sqrt{2}\xi _i\xi ^i\varphi ^{}`$ (24)
$`\overline{s}\eta _\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\overline{s}\xi _i=\overline{s}\overline{\xi }_i=0`$ (25)
Since $`\overline{s}`$ contains gauge transformations and chiral SUSY and the action is gauge invariant, it is straightforward to assume that the action can be written also as an $`\overline{s}`$ exact term of a gauge invariant field polynomial which is independent of Fadeev-Popov ghost fields666In other words, we assume that the action can be chosen to be a trivial element of equivariant cohomology of $`\overline{s}`$. See for instance Ref.s and the references therein.,

$$I=\overline{s}\mathrm{\Psi }.$$
(26)
It is clear that $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, the so called gauge fermion in BV formalism, has negative ghost number, $`Gh(\mathrm{\Psi })=1`$. However, since no fields with negative ghost number has been introduced and since we have chosen the gauge fermion to be free of Fadeev-Popov ghosts, the only way to assign a negative ghost number to $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is to choose $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ to depend on the negative powers of the global SUSY ghosts. In other words, the action can be written as an exact $`\overline{s}`$-term only if the extended BRST operator $`\overline{s}`$ is defined on the space of field polynomials that are not necessarily analytic in constant ghosts.

Therefore a further assumption to assign a negative ghost number to $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is to choose a gauge fermion that has the following form:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{1}{\xi _k\xi ^k}\xi ^id^4x\psi _i$$
(27)
where $`\psi _i^\alpha `$ is a dimension $`7/2`$ fermion that is made from the fields of the N=2 vector multiplet. The most general such gauge fermion that is covariant in its Lorentz, spinor and $`SU(2)_R`$ indices is easy to find:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{1}{\xi _k\xi ^k}Trd^4x\{(k_1\xi ^i\lambda _i[\varphi ,\varphi ^{}]+k_2\xi ^i\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j\lambda _j.\stackrel{}{D}+k_3\xi ^i\sigma ^{\mu \nu }\lambda _iF_{\mu \nu }+k_4\varphi \xi ^iD/\overline{\lambda }_i)\}$$
(28)
Here $`k`$’s are constants. In order that the $`\overline{s}`$ variation of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ to be free of chiral ghosts after some algebra it is seen that constants $`k`$ should be fixed and as a result

$`\overline{s}\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{s}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\xi _k\xi ^k}}Tr{\displaystyle }d^4x\{({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\xi ^i\lambda _i[\varphi ,\varphi ^{}]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\xi ^i\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j\lambda _j.\stackrel{}{D}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\xi ^i\sigma ^{\mu \nu }\lambda _iF_{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{2}}\varphi \xi ^iD/\overline{\lambda }_i)\}`$ (30)
$`=`$ $`Tr{\displaystyle }d^4x({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{i}{8}}ϵ^{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }F_{\mu \nu }F_{\lambda \rho }i\lambda ^iD/\overline{\lambda }_i+\varphi D_\mu D^\mu \varphi ^{}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}}(\lambda _i[\lambda ^i,\varphi ^{}]+\overline{\lambda }^i[\overline{\lambda }_i,\varphi ]){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\varphi ,\varphi ^{}]^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\stackrel{}{D}.\stackrel{}{D})`$
is found. This expression is exactly the action (1) of N=2 SYM theory with a topological term $`ϵ^{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }F_{\mu \nu }F_{\lambda \rho }`$ ,

$$I_{N=2}=\frac{1}{4\pi }Im[\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(\overline{s}\mathrm{\Psi })]=S_{N=2}\frac{\theta }{16\pi }Trd^4xϵ^{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }F_{\mu \nu }F_{\lambda \rho }$$
(31)
where $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ is the complex coupling constant, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}=\frac{i4\pi }{g^2}+\frac{\theta }{2\pi }`$.

One can argue that the action written in this form is obvious since the action can be obtained by applying all four supersymmetry transformations to the prepotential $`Tr\varphi ^2`$. However, it has important consequences.

First of all, the operator $`\overline{s}`$ is strictly nilpotent. It is a well known fact that the cohomology of the complete operator $`s`$, given in (4), is isomorphic to a subspace of the cohomology of $`\overline{s}`$, since $`\overline{s}`$ is obtained after using a suitable filtration of $`s`$ (see for instance ). If the functional space is defined to be the polynomials of the fields that are not necessarily analytic in the constant ghosts $`\xi _i`$, as it is shown above, the action belongs to the trivial cohomology of $`\overline{s}`$ and therefore to that of complete operator $`s`$.

Second, the above given nonanalyticity argument plays an important role to obtain the topological Yang-Mills from Euclidean N=2 SYM by identifying the topological fields with certain functions of fields and SUSY ghosts of N=2 SYM (which are also partly nonanalytic $`\xi _i`$’s). These points will be clarified in the next sections.

## 4 Euclidean N=2 SYM and
TYM as a variable redefinition

As it is well known TYM theory can be obtained by twisting N=2 SYM theory in Euclidean space . In summary twisting procedure is simply identifying the $`SU(2)_R`$ index $`i`$ with the spinor index of one chirality i.e. $`\alpha `$ 777In $`^4`$ the symmetry group of N=2 SYM is $`SU(2)_LSU(2)_RSU(2)_RU(1)_R`$. The twist $`(i\alpha )`$ consists of replacing the rotation group $`SU(2)_LSU(2)_R`$ with $`SU(2)_L^{}SU(2)_R`$ where $`SU(2)_L^{}`$ is the diagonal sum of $`SU(2)_LSU(2)_R`$. For a detailed analysis of topological theories see for instance . and $`R`$-charges of the fields with ghost number. It is then possible to show that TYM action can be written as a BRST-exact term up to some field redefinitions . Therefore TYM theory is called a topological theory of cohomological type and it is natural to look for an analogy between the results of previous section and TYM theory by rewriting the results of the previous section in Euclidean space.

However, before formulating the results of Sec.III in Euclidean space, we find it useful to clarify our approach to Euclidean N=2 SYM. First of all, obviously in Euclidean space the chiral and antichiral spinors are not related with each other. Nevertheless, it is still possible to find consistent reality conditions for the spinors of extended supersymmetry . We will take these reality conditions in our conventions as,

$$(\lambda _i^\alpha )^{}=iϵ_{\alpha \beta }^{ij}\lambda _j^\beta ,(\overline{\lambda }^{i\dot{\alpha }})^{}=iϵ_{\dot{\alpha }\dot{\beta }}_{ij}\overline{\lambda }^{j\dot{\beta }}.$$
(32)
On the other hand, since the spinors of different chirality are independent from each other and since supersymmetry is manifest, it is clear that one should also consider the complex scalar field $`\varphi `$ and its hermitean conjugate $`\varphi ^{}`$ defined in Minkowski space as independent fields from each other in Euclidean space. Indeed, this somehow unusual treatmet appears naturally if one defines a continuous Wick rotations to Euclidean space : pseudoscalar field $`B`$ where $`\varphi =A+iB`$, goes over into $`iB_E`$ in Euclidean space i.e. Euclidean scalar fields become $`\varphi _E=A_E+B_E`$ and $`\varphi _E^{}=A_EB_E`$. By applying above mentioned continuous Wick rotation to N=2 SYM theory in Minkowski space one gets  the N=2 supersymmetric Euclidean theory that is constructed by Zumino . Note that corresponding action in Euclidean space is hermitean.

Following above remarks, we perform a (continuous) Wick rotation to formulate the results of previous section in Euclidean space i.e. Minkowskian vector quantities $`v^\mu =(v^0,\stackrel{}{v})`$, $`\mu =0,1,2,3`$ become Euclidean ones $`v_\mu =(\stackrel{}{v},iv^0)`$, $`\mu =1,2,3,4`$ and Euclidean sigma matrices are taken as $`e_{\mu \alpha \dot{\alpha }}=(i\stackrel{}{\tau },1)`$ and $`\overline{e}_\mu ^{\dot{\alpha },\alpha }=(i\stackrel{}{\tau },1)`$. We will also take the gauge field anti-hermitean rather then hermitean in order to follow the instanton literature888We use the Euclidean conventions of Ref.. and to avoid confusion we will denote Euclidean scalar fields as $`M:=\varphi _E`$, $`N:=\varphi _E^{}`$.

The Euclidean $`\overline{s}`$-transformations of the fields now read

$`\overline{s}A_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`D_\mu c\xi _ie_\mu \overline{\lambda }^i`$ (33)
$`\overline{s}\lambda _i`$ $`=`$ $`\{c,\lambda _i\}e_{\mu \nu }\xi _iF_{\mu \nu }+\xi _i[M,N]+\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j\xi _j.\stackrel{}{D}`$ (34)
$`\overline{s}\overline{\lambda }^i`$ $`=`$ $`\{c,\overline{\lambda }^i\}+i\sqrt{2}\overline{e}_\mu \xi ^iD_\mu N`$ (35)
$`\overline{s}M`$ $`=`$ $`[c,M]+i\sqrt{2}\xi ^i\lambda _i`$ (36)
$`\overline{s}N`$ $`=`$ $`[c,N]`$ (37)
$`\overline{s}\stackrel{}{D}`$ $`=`$ $`[c,\stackrel{}{D}]+\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j(\xi _je_\mu D_\mu \overline{\lambda }^i+i\sqrt{2}\xi ^i[\lambda _j,N])`$ (38)
$`\overline{s}c`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\{c,c\}+i\sqrt{2}\xi _i\xi ^iN`$ (39)
and consequently the gauge fermion (28) in Euclidean space is given as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_E=\frac{1}{\xi _k\xi ^k}Trd^4x(\frac{1}{2}\xi ^i\lambda _i[M,N]\frac{1}{2}\xi ^i\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j\lambda _j.\stackrel{}{D}\frac{1}{2}\xi ^ie_{\mu \nu }\lambda _iF_{\mu \nu }\frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}M\xi ^ie_\mu D_\mu \overline{\lambda }_i).$$
(40)
The N=2 supersymmetric Euclidean action, that is constructed by Zumino , can now be written as the $`\overline{s}`$-variation of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_E`$,

$`I_E`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{s}\mathrm{\Psi }_E`$ (41)
$`=`$ $`Tr{\displaystyle }d^4x({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}ϵ_{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }F_{\mu \nu }F_{\lambda \rho }\lambda ^iD/\overline{\lambda }_i+MD_\mu D_\mu N`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}}(\lambda _i[\lambda ^i,N]+\overline{\lambda }^i[\overline{\lambda }_i,M]){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[M,N]^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\stackrel{}{D}.\stackrel{}{D})`$
up to the topological term $`ϵ_{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }F_{\mu \nu }F_{\lambda \rho }`$ and the auxiliary term $`\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{D}.\stackrel{}{D}`$, since in our approach the inclusion of the auxiliary fields i.e. off-shell formulation is mandatory.

As noted before, the only way to write the action as a $`\overline{s}`$exact term is to allow the gauge fermion to depend on the negative powers of SUSY ghost $`\xi _i`$. In other words $`\overline{s}`$ has to be defined on the space of field polynomials that are not necessarily analytic in these constant ghosts.

On the other hand, the above mentioned non-analyticity argument can be used to derive a relation between the above expressions and topological theory. Note that after twisting physical nature of some fields are interprated differently, i.e. some fields become ghosts while some others become anti-ghosts . We summarize the dimensions and ghost numbers of the topological fields $`(A_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }},\psi _\mu ,\eta ,𝒳_{\mu \nu },B_{\mu \nu })`$ in Table2.

In order to get the topological fields that are given in Table2 that have the correct dimensions and ghost numbers we note that the SUSY ghosts $`\xi _i`$ have ghost number one and dimension 1/2. Therefore it is natural to think that the topological fields can be written as certain functions of ordinary N=2 fields and SUSY ghosts which are also partly non-analytic in these constant ghosts. These relations can be found by using the non-analytic structure of the gauge fermion $`\mathrm{\Psi }_E`$ given in (40). The only consistent field redefinitions that assign the correct dimensionality and ghost number to the topological fields are found to be999We have chosen the coefficients in the definitions of the topological fields in order to get the conventions of .,

$$A_\mu =A_\mu $$
(42)
$$\psi _\mu =\xi _ie_\mu \overline{\lambda }^i$$
(43)
$$\mathrm{\Phi }=i\sqrt{2}\xi _i\xi ^iN,\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}=\frac{i}{\sqrt{2}\xi _i\xi ^i}M$$
(44)
$$\eta =\frac{1}{\xi _k\xi ^k}\xi _i\lambda ^i,𝒳_{\mu \nu }=\frac{2}{\xi _k\xi ^k}\xi ^ie_{\mu \nu }\lambda _i$$
(45)
$$B_{\mu \nu }=\frac{2}{\xi _k\xi ^k}\xi ^ie_{\mu \nu }\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j\xi _j.\stackrel{}{D}$$
(46)
It is straightforward to show that when the above variable redefinitions are inserted in the ordinary Euclidean action (41) and in the transformations (33-39), the action and corresponding BRST transformations that are found, are exactly the TYM action of Witten  with an auxiliary term and the (extended) BRST transformations defined in TYM which contain the Witten’s scalar SUSY . In other words, as mentioned by several authors (but not shown explicitly to our best knowledge), TYM theory in flat Euclidean space can be obtained directly as variable redefinitions from the ordinary N=2 SYM theory. As it is obvious from the above definitions of the topological fields, the ghost numbers and the dimensions that are assigned to the fields in the twisting procedure by hand, appears here naturally due to the composite structure of the topological fields in terms of global ghosts $`\xi _i`$ and the original fields i.e. with respect to the power of $`\xi _i`$’s in the definitions.

To be clear, (and hoping not to be too tedious) we demonstrate the above points explicitly. By using the field redefinitions (33-39), $`\overline{s}`$-transformations can be rewritten as101010Here we note that the derivation of the above results depends crucially on the commuting nature of the global ghost $`\xi _i`$. For example it is easy to verify that $`\overline{s}`$-transformation of $`\lambda _i`$ (34) decomposes into (52,53) by using $`\xi ^ie_{\mu \nu }\xi _i=0`$ and $`\xi ^i\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j\xi _j=0`$.

$`\overline{s}A_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`D_\mu c+\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu `$ (47)
$`\overline{s}\psi _\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\{c,\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu \}D_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }`$ (48)
$`\overline{s}\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`[c,\mathrm{\Phi }]`$ (49)
$`\overline{s}c`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\{c,c\}+\mathrm{\Phi }`$ (50)
and

$`\overline{s}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ $`=`$ $`[c,\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}]+\eta `$ (51)
$`\overline{s}\eta `$ $`=`$ $`\{c,\eta \}+[\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}]`$ (52)
$`\overline{s}𝒳_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`[c,𝒳_{\mu \nu }]+F_{\mu \nu }^++_{\mu \nu }`$ (53)
$`\overline{s}B_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`[c,B_{\mu \nu }]+[\mathrm{\Phi },𝒳_{\mu \nu }](D_\mu \psi _\nu D_\nu \psi _\mu )^+`$ (54)
where $`F_{\mu \nu }^+=F_{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{2}ϵ_{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }F_{\mu \nu }`$ is the self-dual part of the field strength $`F_{\mu \nu }`$. If one decomposes $`\overline{s}`$ on the fields $`(A_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }},\psi _\mu ,\eta ,𝒳_{\mu \nu })`$ as

$$\overline{s}=s_o+\delta $$
(55)
where $`s_0`$ is the ordinary BRST transformation, one can see that $`\delta `$-transformations are exactly the same with the scalar supersymmetry transformations introduced by Witten . Note that this scalar SUSY generator can also be written as a composite generator,

$$\delta =i\xi ^iQ_i$$

where $`Q_i`$ are the chiral SUSY generators.

In terms of topological fields given in (42-46), the gauge fermion (40) now reads as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{top}=Trd^4x(\frac{1}{2}\eta [\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}]+\frac{1}{8}𝒳_{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }^+\frac{1}{8}𝒳_{\mu \nu }B_{\mu \nu }+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}D_\mu \psi _\mu ).$$
(56)
and the corresponding action is found as

$`I_{top}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{s}\mathrm{\Psi }_{top}`$ (58)
$`=`$ $`Tr{\displaystyle }d^4x({\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}F_{\mu \nu }^+F_{\mu \nu }^++\eta D_\mu \psi _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}𝒳_{\mu \nu }(D_\mu \psi _\nu D_\nu \psi _\mu )^+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}D^2\mathrm{\Phi }`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Phi }\{\eta ,\eta \}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}\mathrm{\Phi }\{𝒳_{\mu \nu },𝒳_{\mu \nu }\}+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\{\psi _\mu ,\psi _\mu \}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}]^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}B_{\mu \nu }B_{\mu \nu }).`$
The above given action $`I_{top}`$, is exactly the Topological Yang Mills action  with an auxiliary field term. We remark once more that the inclusion of the auxiliary field is crucial in order to write the action as an exact term111111The reason why the action could not be written as an exact term in the original paper  is that the twisted theory was obtained from the on-shell SYM. Note that, since $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{top}`$ given in (56) is gauge invariant we have $`I_{top}=\overline{s}\mathrm{\Psi }_{top}=\delta \mathrm{\Psi }_{top}`$..

We should stress here that above results do not mean that N=2 SYM is just a topological theory. It has its own physical degrees of freedom. However, it becomes a topological theory (of cohomological type) if the analyticity requirement of the SUSY ghosts is relaxed. This fact has also been pointed out in Ref.s, for twisted N=2 SYM that the twist of the N=2 theory can be interpreted as a topological theory only if the analyticity is lost in (scalar) SUSY ghosts. Note that, in many cases the cohomology of $`s`$ can be understood by studying a simpler operator that is found by using a suitable filtration of $`s`$ . In our case we take $`\overline{s}`$ as the filtered operator. The cohomology of $`\overline{s}`$ is empty only if when $`\overline{s}`$ is allowed to act on the field polynomials that are not necessarily analytic in the parameters $`\xi _i`$. Since the cohomology of complete operator $`s`$ is isomorphic to a subspace of the filtrated operator $`\overline{s}`$ , the cohomology of $`s`$ is also empty when the analyticity requirement is relaxed and the theory can be interprated as a topological theory.

## 5 Instantons and Baulieu-Singer approach to TYM

As it is well known, instantons are finite action solutions of the Euclidean field theories. Aiming to incorporate the instantons into supersymmetric theories Zumino have constructed a supersymmetric field theory directly in the Euclidean space . This theory has N=2 supersymmetry with a hermitean action. (Recently, this theory has been derived by defining a continuous Wick rotation  and also by using dimensional reduction via time direction from six dimensional N=1SYM.) It is observed by Zumino that when one imposes for instance an anti self-dual field strength,

$$F_{\mu \nu }^+=F_{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{2}ϵ_{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }F_{\mu \nu }=0$$
(59)
with the following restrictions

$$M=\lambda _i=0$$
(60)
the equations of motion from (41) reduce to a simple form ,

$`F_{\mu \nu }^+`$ $`=`$ $`F_{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ_{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }F_{\mu \nu }=0`$ (61)
$`D^2N`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}}\{\overline{\lambda }^i,\overline{\lambda }_i\}`$ (62)
$`e_\mu D_\mu \overline{\lambda }^i`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (63)
These restrictions (59,60) and the equations (61-63) are covariant under the supersymmetry transformations found by applying the above restrictions .

The equations (61-63) are also the ones whose solutions are used as approximate solutions of the saddle point equations in the context of constraint instanton method . On the other hand, similar equations are obtained in TYM without any approximation  from an action functional that can be written as a BRST transformation of a gauge fermion given by Baulieu-Singer . Both of the approaches to the instanton calculations give the same result .

Therefore, since Euclidean N=2 SYM action can be written as a BRST exact term (41) and Wittens TYM  can be obtained by using simple field redefinitions (42-46), we look for another analogy between the above instanton inspired truncation of Euclidean N=2 SYM theory and the Baulieu-Singer approach to TYM.

The first step towards for this purpose is to define a truncated $`\stackrel{~}{s}`$ ,

$$\stackrel{~}{s}=\overline{s}|_{F_{\mu \nu }^+=D/\overline{\lambda }^i=M=\lambda _i=0}$$
(64)
such that,

$`\stackrel{~}{s}A_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`D_\mu c\xi _ie_\mu \overline{\lambda }^i`$ (65)
$`\stackrel{~}{s}\overline{\lambda }^i`$ $`=`$ $`\{c,\overline{\lambda }^i\}+i\sqrt{2}\overline{e}_\mu \xi ^iD_\mu N`$ (66)
$`\stackrel{~}{s}N`$ $`=`$ $`[c,N]`$ (67)
$`\stackrel{~}{s}c`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\{c,c\}+i\sqrt{2}\xi _i\xi ^iN`$ (68)
and

$`\stackrel{~}{s}M`$ $`=`$ $`i\sqrt{2}\xi ^i\lambda _i`$ (69)
$`\stackrel{~}{s}\lambda _i`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j\xi _j.\stackrel{}{D}`$ (70)
$`\stackrel{~}{s}\stackrel{}{D}`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (71)
The reason why we do not set $`\lambda _i=\stackrel{}{D}=0`$ in equations (69,70) is that the pairs $`(M,\xi ^i\lambda _i)`$ and $`(\xi ^i\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j\lambda _j,\stackrel{}{D})`$ behaves like the trivial pairs (or sometimes called BRST doublets) i.e. like $`(\overline{c},b)`$ such that $`s\overline{c}=b,sb=0`$ where $`s`$ is a nilpotent operator. It is known that the cohomology of an operator does not depend on inclusion of such trivial pairs (see for instance ).

It is straightforward to derive that $`\stackrel{~}{s}`$ is also nilpotent

$$\stackrel{~}{s}^2=0$$

and after performing the field redefinition given in (42-46), $`\stackrel{~}{s}`$-transformations are found to be exactly that of Baulieu-Singer .

On the other hand the gauge fermion that is compatible with the restrictions of Zumino  has to be chosen slightly different then the one given for Euclidean case (40),

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{inst.}=\frac{1}{\xi _k\xi ^k}Trd^4x(\frac{\alpha }{2}\xi ^i\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j\lambda _j.\stackrel{}{D}\frac{1}{2}\xi ^ie_{\mu \nu }\lambda _iF_{\mu \nu }^++\frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}\xi ^ie_\mu \overline{\lambda }_iD_\mu M).$$
(72)
The reason of this modification becomes apparent when the corresponding action is driven,

$`I_{inst.}^{(\alpha )}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{s}\mathrm{\Psi }_{inst.}`$ (73)
$`=`$ $`Tr{\displaystyle }d^4x({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{8}}B_{\mu \nu }B_{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}B_{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }^+\lambda ^ie_\mu D_\mu \overline{\lambda }_i+M(D_\mu D_\mu N{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}}\{\overline{\lambda }^i,\overline{\lambda }_i\})`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\xi _k\xi ^k}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\xi ^ie_{\mu \nu }\lambda _i[c,F_{\mu \nu }^+]+{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}}M\{c,\xi ^ie_\mu D_\mu \overline{\lambda }_i\}))`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\xi _k\xi ^k}}Tr{\displaystyle d^4x_\mu (\stackrel{~}{s}\frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}M\xi ^ie_\mu \overline{\lambda }_i)}`$
where we have used the definition of $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ in order to have notational simplification.

First of all, the gauge fermion $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{inst}`$ (72) and the above action $`I_{inst}`$ are exactly the ones given in Baulieu-Singer approach  up to ordinary gauge fixing121212For instance adding $`\stackrel{~}{s}d^4x\overline{c}^\mu A_\mu )`$ to $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{inst}`$ such that $`\stackrel{~}{s}\overline{c}=b,\stackrel{~}{s}b=0`$.. It is straightforward to rewrite the above given gauge fermion $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{inst.}`$ and the action $`I_{inst.}`$ by using the field redefinitions given in (42-46) in order to get the results of . However, if the above relations are considered on their own, to be able to derive the instanton equations (61-63) from the action functional without having any dependence on the constant ghosts, the Euclidean $`\mathrm{\Psi }_E`$ has to be modified. For instance when the restrictions of  are used the $`\xi _i`$ dependence that comes from the $`\stackrel{~}{s}`$ variation of $`Tr\xi ^i\lambda _i[M,N]`$ cannot be eliminated. Therefore, the coefficient of this term has to be chosen to vanish. The coefficient of $`Tr\stackrel{~}{s}\xi ^i\stackrel{}{\tau }_i^j\lambda _j.\stackrel{}{D}`$ can be left arbitrary since after performing the Gaussian integration over the auxiliary field $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ the action is

$`I_{inst.}^{(\alpha )}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{s}\mathrm{\Psi }_{inst.}`$ (74)
$`=`$ $`Tr{\displaystyle }d^4x({\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\alpha }}F_{\mu \nu }^+F_{\mu \nu }^+\lambda ^ie_\mu D_\mu \overline{\lambda }_i+M(D_\mu D_\mu N{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}}\{\overline{\lambda }^i,\overline{\lambda }_i\})`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\xi _k\xi ^k}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\xi ^ie_{\mu \nu }\lambda _i[c,F_{\mu \nu }^+]+{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}}M\{c,\xi ^ie_\mu D_\mu \overline{\lambda }_i\}))`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\xi _k\xi ^k}}Tr{\displaystyle d^4x_\mu (\stackrel{~}{s}\frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}M\xi ^ie_\mu \overline{\lambda }_i)}`$
and Fadeev-Popov ghost field, $`c`$, independent part of the action is also SUSY ghost $`\xi _i`$ free. The form of the last term in $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{inst}`$ is inspired from Ref. in order to get a surface contribution, since

$$Tr\stackrel{~}{s}\xi ^ie_\mu \overline{\lambda }_iD_\mu M=Tr^\mu \stackrel{~}{s}\xi ^ie_\mu \overline{\lambda }_iMTr\stackrel{~}{s}M\xi ^ie_\mu D_\mu \overline{\lambda }_i$$

if the scalar field has non-trivial boundary conditions. Therefore, the gauge fermion $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{inst}`$ is the only consistent choice up to total derivatives that gives the right action to derive the exact instanton equations, when the truncated transformations (65-71) are used.

On the other hand, the free parameter $`\alpha `$ can be thought as a gauge parameter, since it is so in Baulieu-Singer approach . By choosing directly $`\alpha =0`$, the action (71) takes the form,

$`I_{inst.}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{s}\mathrm{\Psi }_{inst.}`$ (75)
$`=`$ $`Tr{\displaystyle }d^4x({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}B_{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }^+\lambda ^ie_\mu D_\mu \overline{\lambda }_i+M(D_\mu D_\mu N{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}}\{\overline{\lambda }^i,\overline{\lambda }_i\})`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\xi _k\xi ^k}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\xi ^ie_{\mu \nu }\lambda _i[c,F_{\mu \nu }^+]+{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}}M\{c,\xi ^ie_\mu D_\mu \overline{\lambda }_i\}))`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\xi _k\xi ^k}}Tr{\displaystyle d^4x_\mu (\stackrel{~}{s}\frac{i\sqrt{2}}{2}M\xi ^ie_\mu \overline{\lambda }_i)}.`$
and by performing a functional integration over the fields $`\lambda _i,M`$ and $`_{\mu \nu }`$, the configurations of the constraint instanton method (61-63) are obtained without using any approximation procedure. In other words, as it is demonstrated above, Baulieu-Singer approach can also be obtained by using field redefinitions given in (42-46) when an instanton inspired truncation (59,60) of the Euclidean model is used.

## 6 Conclusion and discussion

In this note, we have shown how to write the off-shell N=2 SYM action as an exact term by using a nilpotent extended BRST operator $`\overline{s}`$ that includes supersymmetry transformations of one chirality. The corresponding gauge fixing fermion is found to be nonanalytic in global SUSY ghosts. In other words it is shown that the action belongs to trivial cohomology of the extended BRST operator $`\overline{s}`$, if this operator is allowed to act on the field polynomials that are not necessarily analytic in these global ghosts.

Due to this nonanalytical structure, we have found field redefinitions such that Witten’s TYM theory  can be obtained from the Euclidean N=2 SYM by identifying the fields of TYM with composite fields of N=2 vector multiplet and the chiral SUSY ghosts $`\xi _i`$ in Euclidean space. These field redefinitions are also partly non-analytic in global SUSY ghosts. The ghost numbers and the dimensions of the topological fields, that are assigned by hand when it is formulated by twisting, appear in our approach naturally according to this composite structure. In other words, we have shown explicitly that TYM theory can be found from N=2 SYM exactly as a change of variables (i.e without twisting).

The above mentioned analyticity requirement also plays a decisive role to understand when N=2 SYM can be interprated as a topological theory. Note that, the topological theory is obtained via change of variables only when the requirement of analyticity of the constant ghosts $`\xi _i`$ is relaxed. Therefore physical and topological interpretations of N=2 SYM are intertwined together. However, in order to have a better understanding of implications of the results presented above, it would be intresting to investigate the perturbative regime of the theory by using the standard techniques of algebraic renormalization framework .

On the other hand, when the restrictions on the fields in order to get supersymmetric instanton configurations  are used, we show that with the help of a truncated BRST operator $`\stackrel{~}{s}`$, an action can be written as an $`\stackrel{~}{s}`$-exact term. After using the given variable redefinitions, it is seen that this formulation is exactly TYM theory in the approach of Baulieu-Singer . The instanton equations, that are used in the traditional instanton computations  can be derived from this action (73) without using any approximation. Moreover, it is known that the Witten’s action  can be obtained from the one given in Baulieu-Singer approach by a continuous deformation of the gauge fixing . As a consequence a similar relation also occurs between Euclidean N=2 SYM action (41) and the truncated (instanton) action (73) since both of the formulations of TYM can be obtained by using the variable redefinitions.

Finally, it is worthwhile to mention that the instanton calculations performed in Baulieu-Singer approach of TYM  gives exactly the same result with the one performed in N=2 SYM . Since both N=2 SYM and TYM theories are shown to be equivalent by simple variable redefinitions, it would also be intresting to reinvestigate the equivalence of the instanton calculations of N=2 SYM and TYM and to find out whether the instantons localize in the topological sector of the theory where the functional space of field polynomials is not necessarily analytic in global SUSY ghosts or not.

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to R. Flume for an initiation to the subject.
I also gratefully acknowledge the numerous enlightening discussions with Ö. F. Dayı and M. Hortaçsu.


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# Gravitomagnetic corrections to the lensing deflection angle for spiral galaxy models

## 1 Introduction

Gravitational lensing phenomena are a powerful tool to investigate the curvature of space - time nearby the source of gravitational field. The mathematical formulation of lensing is well developed. The weak field approximation may be used whenever the distance of the light ray to the lens is much larger than its Schwarzschild radius (e.g., $`\stackrel{>}{}10`$ times). This is the situation in several gravitational systems considered in astrophysical applications. When this is not the case, the mathematical formalism becomes much more complicated involving transcendental lens equations which cannot be easily solved (Bozza et al. 2001). Furthermore, interesting contributions to the lensing quantities, in the weak field approximation, could come out considering higher order corrections to the lens potential as the gravitomagnetic ones. Generally, such contributions are discarded since are considered too small \[Schneider et al. 1992\]. In Capozziello et al. (1999), these higher order corrections have been estimated for point - like deflectors showing that they could give rise to non negligible effects. A further generalization was obtained by one of us (Sereno 2002). By using Fermat’s principle and the standard assumptions of gravitational lensing, the gravitomagnetic corrections to the time delay function and the deflection angle for a geometrically thin lens were derived. The effects of the lens angular momentum on the propagation of light rays has been considered in literature using different approaches. For instance, Dymnikova (1986) determined the time delay of a signal due to the graviational field of a rotating body integrating the null geodesics of the Kerr metric. The effects of the rotation of the deflector have been evaluated to the lowest order by Glicenstein (1999) who used an argument based on Fermat’s principle applied to the Lense - Thirring metric. These results are limited to pointlike deflectors and are difficult to generalize to more complex geometries. Asada & Kasai (2000) used a multipole expansion of the deflecting potential to investigate the case of extended lenses. On the other hand, Sereno & Cardone (2002) applied the formalism111This approach has been now further generalized to metric theories of gravity \[Sereno 2003\] to include also post - post - newtonian corrections in the computation of the deflection angle. However, in this paper, we will not consider these deviations from the standard general relativity theory. developed in Sereno (2002) to the case of spherically symmetric mass distribution with angular momentum in the case of a rigid body rotation.

The aim of this paper is to take into account the contribution of gravitomagnetic corrections in the case of spiral galaxies modelled according to two realistic mass profiles. We study how this contribution affects the lensing deflection angle and estimate its detectable range. This approach reveals particularly interesting, especially if related to the capabilities of the present 10 m class telescopes (like VLT, Keck, Subaru), or those ones which are going to be available in the next future (like the 100 m OWL telescope) and the space based interferometric mission, such as SIM and GAIA. The last decade has seen a notably effort in applying gravitational lensing as a tool to investigate the dynamical structure and morphology of galaxies. In particular, a main problem in astrophysics concerns the nature and the distribution of dark matter in the galactic components, that is the halo, the disk or the bulge. Paczyński (1986) realized that this problem could be faced by gravitational microlensing. His predictions have been actually confirmed by the detection of several microlensing events towards the Magellanic Clouds \[Lasserre et al. 2000, Alcock et al. 2001\], the bulge of our Galaxy \[Udalski et al. 1994\] and the Andromeda Galaxy \[Auriere et al. 2001, Calchi Novati et al. 2002\]. These can be considered as an evidence of the presence of dark (likely baryonic) components in the form of massive astrophysical compact halo objects (MACHOs). Anyway, MACHOs are not the only candidates for baryonic dark matter in the halo. It has been proposed, in fact, that an appreciable fraction could be in the form of diffuse objects as self gravitating gas clouds, with masses of the order of $`10^3M_{}`$ and radii $`R`$ 10 AU \[Pfenniger et al. 1994, Kerins et al. 2002\]. The presence of a dark halo is implied by the flat rotation curves in spiral galaxies \[Sofue & Rubin 2001\]. It has been suggested that the rotation curve of such galaxies follows the so - called universal rotation curve that can be characterized by a single free parameter, namely the total luminosity (or mass) of the disk \[Persic et al. 1996a\]. The profile of these curves is given by the sum of an exponential disk and a spherical halo with a flat density core. However, this does not tell us what is the dark halo mass density, but it allows to recover some useful scaling relations to express the halo parameters as functions of those of the disk.

This paper is organized as follows. In Sect. 2, we describe the models of spiral galaxies which we consider and the scaling laws that we will use to determine their parameters. In Sect. 3, we derive general expressions for the deflection angle of a spiral galaxy taking into account the gravitomagnetic corrections and the orientation of the disk plane with respect to the lens plane. Results are discussed in Sect. 4, while conclusions are presented in Sect. 5.

## 2 Modelling spiral galaxies

Following the standard approach, we will consider spiral galaxies as built by two main components : a disk and a dark halo. The disk, essentially, accounts for the optical properties of the galaxy. Disk parameters may be estimated by fitting the data taken in different photometric bands for a given model of the surface brightness distribution. It is usual to describe the disk surface density with the exponential profile222We assume the disk is idealised as being infinitely thin. This is not a serious shortcoming of our analysis since the finite thickness of the disk does not change the main results. \[Freeman 1970\] :

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(R)=\mathrm{\Sigma }_0\mathrm{e}^{R/R_d}.$$
(1)
Two parameters are needed to characterize the model : the central surface density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0`$ and the scale length radius $`R_d`$. The latter is given by fitting the optical data, while $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0`$ is related to the observable central surface brightness $`\mu _02.5\mathrm{log}I_0`$ as :

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_0=\mathrm{{\rm Y}}I_0,$$
(2)
being $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ the disk mass - to - light ratio (which can also depend on the radius). Equation (1) does not tell anything about the vertical density distribution, but this further quantity is not needed for our aims. The total disk mass is $`M_d=2\pi \mathrm{\Sigma }_0R_d^2`$. Another important quantity is the rotation curve, i.e. the circular velocity of stars in the disk potential as function of the radius $`R`$ in the disk plane. For an exponential thin disk, it is \[Freeman 1970, Binney & Tremaine 1987\] :

$$v_{c,disk}(R)=\sqrt{\frac{2GM_d}{R_d}y^2\left[I_0(y)K_0(y)I_1(y)K_1(y)\right]}$$
(3)
with $`yR/2R_d`$; $`I_n(y),K_n(y)`$ are Bessel’s functions of, respectively, first and second type of order $`n`$. The rotation curve increases until it reaches a maximum value and then decreases with a keplerian trend.

It is well known, however, that observed rotation curves of spiral galaxies remains flat well beyond the end of visible disk (see, e.g., Sofue & Rubin 2001). Even if other theoretical solutions have been suggested (see, e.g., Milgrom 1983), the flatness of rotation curves may be easily explained by introducing a second non - visible component in spiral galaxies models : the dark halo. Deriving the shape and mass distribution of such a component from the analysis of the rotation curves is a highly degenerate problem since there are several halo models which fit equally well the observed rotation curve of a given spiral galaxy. Some hints on the halo structure come from N - body simulations of galaxy formation in hierarchical $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM scenarios. However the results are still not unique due to problems of resolution and differences in the input basic properties of dark matter particles.

Among the many proposed distributions, we will consider here the so - called Burkert - Borriello - Salucci model (hereafter BBS; Burkert 1995; Borriello & Salucci 2001; Salucci & Borriello 2002), proposed to empirically account for the rotation curves of four dark matter dominated galaxies and successfully applied to a sample of 17 dwarf and LSB galaxies \[Kravtsov et al. 1998\]. Its density profile is :

$$\rho _{BBS}(r)=\frac{\rho _0r_0^3}{(r+r_0)(r^2+r_0^2)},$$
(4)
where $`\rho _0`$ and $`r_0`$ are free parameters which represent the central dark matter density and the scale radius.

Since we adopt spherical symmetry, the halo contribution to the circular velocity is :

$$v_{c,BBS}(r)=\sqrt{\frac{GM_{BBS}(r)}{r}}.$$
(5)
being $`M_{BBS}(r)`$ the mass of the BBS halo enclosed within $`r`$, which is given by :

$$M_{BBS}(r)=6.4\rho _0r_0^3\{\mathrm{ln}(1+\frac{r}{r_0})\mathrm{tan}^1\left(\frac{r}{r_0}\right)+$$

$$\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}[1+\left(\frac{r}{r_0}\right)^2]\}.$$
(6)
The mass distribution diverges so that we need to introduce a cut - off radius in order to get a finite total mass. To this aim, we will truncate the halo at the virial radius $`r_{vir}`$ defined as the radius within which the mean density is $`\delta _{vir}\rho _{crit}`$, with $`\delta _{vir}`$ depending on the chosen cosmological model and $`\rho _{crit}=3H_0^2/8\pi G`$ the critical density of the universe. The total mass $`M_{vir}`$ is thus obtained by putting $`r=r_{vir}`$ in Eq.(6). To estimate $`r_{vir}`$, we have to fix the value of $`\delta _{vir}`$ choosing a background cosmological model. We adopt the currently popular $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model with $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda })=(0.3,0.7)`$ when $`\delta _{vir}=337`$.

In principle, there is no obvious reason why disk and halo parameters should be correlated. Actually, this turns out to be true : a clear correlation exists. By considering a sample of 1100 synthetic rotation curves built from 15000 measurements, Persic et al. (1996a,b) have demonstrated the existence of the so - called universal rotation curve (hereafter URC), a function which describes (within the measurement errors) the rotation curve of all spiral galaxies, modulo a scaling factor related to the disk total luminosity. From the very existence of the URC, it is possible to infer some useful scaling relations among halo and disk parameters. Briefly, one decomposes the URC as :

$$v_{URC}^2=v_{c,disk}^2+v_{c,halo}^2$$
(7)
with $`v_{c,disk}`$ as in Eq.(3) and $`v_{c,halo}`$ determined by the dark halo model. The universality of the URC does imply that disk and halo parameters should be related by some scaling relations in order to reproduce the URC itself. Modelling the halo by the BBS profile, Salucci & Burkert (2000) have found the following scaling relations among the halo parameters and the total disk mass (see also Salucci & Borriello 2002) :

$$\mathrm{log}\rho _0=23.00.077\mathrm{log}M_d9.98\times 10^6M_d^{0.43},$$
(8)
$$\mathrm{log}r_0=9.10+0.28\mathrm{log}\rho _03.49\times 10^{10}\rho _0^{0.43},$$
(9)
with $`\rho _0`$ in g cm-3, $`M_d`$ in units of the solar mass $`M_{}`$ and $`r_0`$ in kpc. Adding to Eqs.(8, 9) a third relation \[Persic et al. 1996a, Salucci & Borriello 2002\] :

$$\mathrm{log}R_d=4.961.17\mathrm{log}M_d+0.070(\mathrm{log}M_d)^2,$$
(10)
it is possible to estimate all the galaxy parameters from the knowledge of the disk total mass. In principle, it should be possible to use the disk scale length $`R_d`$ as an order parameter since it is directly measurable. However, it is worth to remember that it may vary with the photometric band chosen to fit the disk model. On the other hand, the disk total mass $`M_d`$ may be indirectly obtained by measuring the central surface brightness $`\mu _0`$ and using Eq.(2) since $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ is independently estimated. It is worthwhile to stress that there are different possibilities to get an estimate of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$. We only remember here the correlations between $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ and the color $`BR`$ \[Bell & de Jong 2001\] or between $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ and $`R_d`$ \[Graham 2002\].

The BBS model is not the only density profile able to reproduce the observed URC. Actually, in their original paper, Persic et al. (1996a) proposed a different approach to the URC by modeling directly the halo contribution to the rotation curve. They used :

$$v_{c,halo}^2(x)=v_{opt}^2(1\beta _h)(1+a^2)\frac{x^2}{x^2+a^2},$$
(11)
with $`v_{opt}`$ the circular velocity at the optical radius $`R_{opt}=3.2R_d`$, $`x=r/R_{opt}`$, $`a`$ the halo core radius in units of $`R_{opt}`$ and :

$$\beta _h=\frac{1.1GM_d}{v_{opt}^2R_d}.$$
(12)
If we assume spherical symmetry, the mass distribution corresponding to the halo rotation curve in Eq.(11) is :

$$M_{PSS}(x)=\frac{R_{opt}v_{opt}^2}{G}(1\beta _h)(1+a^2)\frac{x^3}{x^2+a^2},$$
(13)
which is once again divergent. As before, we will truncate the halo at the virial radius $`r_{vir}`$. The mass inside $`r_{vir}`$ is thus the total mass of the halo. We will refer, in the following, to this model as the PSS model. The density profile turns out to be :

$$\rho _{PSS}(r)=\frac{v_{opt}^2}{2\pi GR_{opt}^2}(1\beta _h)(1+a^2)\frac{a^2}{x(a^2+x^2)^2}.$$
(14)
The URC is then obtained by using the following set of scaling relations (Persic et al., 1996a,b) :

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_0=\frac{M_d}{2\pi R_d^2}=7.8\times 10^8\left(1+0.6\mathrm{log}\frac{L_I}{L_{}}\right)^2$$

$$=7.8\times 10^8[10.4(M_I+21.9)]^2,$$
(15)
$$\beta _h=0.72+0.44\mathrm{log}\frac{L_I}{L_{}}=0.720.176(M_I+21.9),$$
(16)
$$a=1.5\left(\frac{L_I}{L_{}}\right)^{0.2}=1.5\times 10^{0.016(M_I+21.9)}$$
(17)
where $`L_I`$ is the total luminosity (in solar units) in the $`I`$ band, $`M_I`$ the absolute total magnitude and $`2.5\mathrm{log}L_{}=21.9`$. We will use $`M_I`$ as an order parameter since it can be measured from observations; for each value of $`M_I`$, we first use Eqs.(10) and (15) to get the disk parameters. Then Eqs.(12), (16) and (17) will allow us to estimate the halo parameters. So the spiral galaxy model is fully characterized.

The two halo models described here will be used in the following section to estimate whether the gravitomagnetic corrections may be directly observed in realistic cases. The scaling relations quoted above will help us to estimate the effects as a function of only one ordering parameter: the disk total mass $`M_d`$ in the BBS case and the disk absolute total magnitude $`M_I`$ in the PSS model.

## 3 Lensing deflection angle

Following Sereno (2002), the deflection angle to the order $`c^3`$ reads :

$$\stackrel{}{\alpha }(\stackrel{}{\xi })=\frac{4G}{c^2}_\mathrm{}^2d^2\xi ^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }(\stackrel{}{\xi }^{})\left[12\frac{\overline{v}_l(\stackrel{}{\xi }^{})}{c}\right]\frac{\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{\xi }^{}}{|\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{\xi }^{}|^2}$$
(18)
being $`\overline{v_l}(\stackrel{}{\xi }^{})`$ the weighted average, along the line of sight, of the component of the velocity orthogonal to the lens plane, i.e. :

$$\overline{v}_l(\stackrel{}{\xi })\frac{(\stackrel{}{v}(\stackrel{}{\xi },l)\stackrel{}{e}_{in})\rho (\stackrel{}{\xi },l)𝑑l}{\mathrm{\Sigma }(\stackrel{}{\xi })},$$
(19)
and :

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(\stackrel{}{\xi })=_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}\rho (\stackrel{}{\xi },l)𝑑l.$$
(20)
In Eqs. (18), (19) and (20), we are using a coordinate system centred on the galaxy lens with the axes $`(\xi _1,\xi _2)`$ in the lens plane which is ortogonal to the direction of the incoming light ray $`\stackrel{}{e}_{in}`$ (coincident with the line of sight), while $`l`$ is the component along the line of sight. Eqs.(18) and (19) show that, in the thin lens approximation, motions in the plane of the lens does not give any contribution to the deflection angle.

Due to tidal interactions with other galaxies during its formation process, a spiral galaxy has a non - zero angular momentum which gives rise to corrections to the lensing deflection angle. The effects of the lens angular momentum on the propagation of light rays has been considered by Sereno & Cardone (2002). They applied the formalism developed in Sereno (2002) to the case of a rotating spherically symmetric lens in the approximation of rigid rotation, i.e. assuming that the angular velocity does not depend on coordinates. While useful to estimate the gravitomagnetic corrections for lensing by stars, the results in Sereno & Cardone (2002) have to be generalized to the case of non costant angular velocity to be applied to spiral galaxies.

To this aim, let us consider a spherically symmetric lens that rotates about an arbitrary axis, $`\widehat{\eta }`$, passing through its centre (i.e. a main axis of inertia). To specify the orientation of the rotation axis, we need two Euler’s angles : $`\beta `$ is the angle between the line of sight $`\widehat{l}`$ and the line of nodes defined at the intersection of the $`\widehat{l\xi _1}`$ plane and the equatorial plane (i.e., the plane orthogonal to the rotation axis and containing the lens centre); $`\gamma `$ is the angle between $`\widehat{\eta }`$ and the $`\xi _2`$ \- axis. Using the axial symmetry about the rotation axis, one easily gets \[Sereno & Cardone 2002\] :

$$𝐯𝐞_{in}(\xi _1,\xi _2,l)=\omega (R)\left[\xi _1\mathrm{cos}\gamma +\xi _2\mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{sin}\gamma \right]$$
(21)
where $`\omega (R)`$ is the modulus of the angular velocity at a distance $`R(R_1^2+R_2^2)^{1/2}`$ from the rotation axis, while $`\widehat{R}_1`$ (that, given the spherical symmetry of the system, can be taken along the line of nodes) and $`\widehat{R}_2`$ are the axes on the equatorial plane. It is :

$$R_1=l\mathrm{cos}\beta +\xi _1\mathrm{sin}\beta ,$$
(22)
$$R_2=l\mathrm{sin}\beta \mathrm{cos}\gamma +\xi _1\mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{cos}\gamma +\xi _2\mathrm{sin}\gamma .$$
(23)
For a self - gravitating spherically symmetric system, both the energy and the angular momentum are integrals of motion and the ordered motion of the stars is on the plane orthogonal to the rotation axis. Thus the angular velocity reads :

$$\omega (R)=\frac{v_c(R)}{R}=\frac{\sqrt{v_{c,disk}^2(R)+v_{c,halo}^2(R)}}{R}.$$
(24)
Note that the circular velocity entering Eq.(24) is the total one, i.e. the sum of the contributions due to both the luminous disk and the dark halo. Inserting Eqs.(24) into Eq.(21) and the result into Eq.(18), it is straightforward to get the following general expressions for the two components of the deflection angle :

$$\alpha _1(\xi ,\theta )=\alpha _1^{(0)}+\frac{8G}{c^3}\left(I_{1a}\mathrm{cos}\gamma +I_{1b}\mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{sin}\gamma \right),$$
(25)
$$\alpha _2(\xi ,\theta )=\alpha _2^{(0)}+\frac{8G}{c^3}\left(I_{2a}\mathrm{cos}\gamma +I_{2b}\mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{sin}\gamma \right),$$
(26)
where we have introduced polar coordinates $`(\xi ,\theta )`$ in the lens plane. Here, $`\alpha _i^{(0)}`$ are the two components of the classical deflection angle which, for axisymmetric systems, turn out to be :

$$\alpha _1^{(0)}=\frac{4\pi G}{c^2\xi }\mathrm{cos}\theta _0^\xi \mathrm{\Sigma }(\xi ^{})\xi ^{}𝑑\xi ^{},$$
(27)
$$\alpha _1^{(0)}=\frac{4\pi G}{c^2\xi }\mathrm{sin}\theta _0^\xi \mathrm{\Sigma }(\xi ^{})\xi ^{}𝑑\xi ^{}.$$
(28)
In Eq.(25) it is :

$$I_{1a}(\xi ,\theta )_0^{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{\Sigma }(\xi ^{})\xi ^2d\xi ^{}\times $$

$$_0^{2\pi }\frac{\left(\xi \mathrm{cos}\theta \xi ^{}\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}\right)\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}}{\xi ^2+\xi ^22\xi \xi ^{}\mathrm{cos}(\theta \theta ^{})}\omega (\xi ^{},\theta ^{})𝑑\theta ^{},$$
(29)
$$I_{1b}(\xi ,\theta )_0^{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{\Sigma }(\xi ^{})\xi ^2d\xi ^{}\times $$

$$_0^{2\pi }\frac{\left(\xi \mathrm{cos}\theta \xi ^{}\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}\right)\mathrm{sin}\theta ^{}}{\xi ^2+\xi ^22\xi \xi ^{}\mathrm{cos}(\theta \theta ^{})}\omega (\xi ^{},\theta ^{})𝑑\theta ^{},$$
(30)
while, in Eq.(26), $`I_{2a}`$ ($`I_{2b}`$) is defined as $`I_{1a}`$ ($`I_{1b}`$) by substituting the $`\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}`$ with $`\mathrm{sin}\theta ^{}`$ in the brackets on the right hand side. The average angular velocity333Note that, if we assume solid body rotation, $`\omega `$ is constant and may be taken out from the integrals in Eqs.(29), (30). In this case, Eqs.(25) and (26) reduce to Eqs.(8) and (9) of Sereno & Cardone (2002). has been defined as :

$$\omega (\xi ,\theta )=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Sigma }(\xi )}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{v_c(\xi ,\theta ,l)\rho (\xi ,l)}{\sqrt{\xi ^2+l^2}}𝑑l$$
(31)
having used the axial symmetry of the halo models described in the previous section. Note that $`v_c`$ depends on $`(\xi ,\theta ,l)`$ through $`R`$ because of Eqs.(22) and (23).

The gravitomanetic corrections we are investigating are the terms $`I_{1a,b}`$ and $`I_{2a,b}`$ that are of order $`v_c/c`$. It is now straightforward to compute the deflection angle for a spiral galaxy considered as a two component system, i.e. an exponential disk and a dark halo (modelled with the BBS or the PSS profile). The results for the two different modelling are presented and discussed in the next section.

## 4 Results

To study the detectability of the gravitomagnetic corrections, we have to determine the images positions in order to investigate whether they are significantly modified by these higher order terms. This could be a difficult task since the lens equations are highly nonlinear and the results depend also on the source position. However, the images positions are related to the deflection angle so that, if this latter is not modified significantly by gravitomagnetic corrections, we have no detectable effects on the images angular separation which is the easiest quantity to measure. We can thus investigate whether the higher order terms introduce appreciable corrections to the total deflection angle. To this aim, we introduce the quantities :

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_i(\xi ,\theta ;M_d)=100\times \frac{\alpha _i(\xi ,\theta )\alpha _i^{(0)}(\xi ,\theta )}{\alpha _i(\xi ,\theta )},i=1,2,$$
(32)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }(\xi ,\theta ;M_d)=100\times \frac{\alpha (\xi ,\theta )\alpha ^{(0)}(\xi ,\theta )}{\alpha (\xi ,\theta )}$$
(33)
being $`\alpha =(\alpha _1^2+\alpha _2^2)^{1/2}`$ the modulus of the deflection angle. Note that this quantity is now function of $`(\xi ,\theta )`$ and not only of $`\xi `$ since the gravitomagnetic corrections break down the radial symmetry of the deflection angle \[Sereno 2002, Sereno & Cardone 2002\]. In Eqs.(32) and (33), we consider only the dependence on the disk mass $`M_d`$ since the scaling relations described in Sect. 2 allow us to fully characterize the model (i.e. disk and halo parameters) as function of this latter quantity. For the PSS model, the ordering parameter is the disk magnitude, but there is a one - to - one correspondence between $`M_I`$ and $`M_d`$ so that we will use $`M_d`$ to compare the results for the BBS and the PSS models. To estimate $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ we have to fix the values of $`(\xi ,\theta )`$. Since the deflection angle is roughly proportional to the projected mass inside $`\xi `$, we expect the corrections to be most important for larger values of $`\xi `$. On the other hand, the deflection angle also depends on the angular coordinate $`\theta `$. We have decided to compute $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ for three values of $`\xi `$, namely $`\xi /r_{vir}=0.5,1.0,1.5`$, while we fix $`\theta =\pi /4`$ to speed up the calculations444Note that, for this value of $`\theta `$, we get : $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1=\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$. We do not explicitely calculated $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ for other values of $`\theta `$ since it is reasonable to expect that $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\xi ,\theta \pi /4)`$ is of the same order of magnitude as $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\xi ,\theta =\pi /4)`$ that is enough for our aims.. Finally, we have also to choose the orientation of the disk plane with respect to the lens one. We arbitrarily fix $`\beta =0`$ and $`\gamma =\pi /4`$. It is reasonable to expect that choosing different values of $`(\beta ,\gamma )`$ does not change significantly our results. When computing $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we have included the disk contribution to the classical deflection angle, but we have neglected the gravitomagnetic corrections for the disk. In fact, we have checked that the classical deflection angle of the disk is of the same order of magnitude as the gravitomagnetic corrections for the halo at the positions where we calculate $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Hence, the gravitomagnetic corrections for the disk will be much smaller than those for the halo and can be safely neglected555Actually, this could not be true for high inclination angles : disks almost perpendicular to the plane of the sky may have such a high projected surface mass density that they play a dominant role in the appearance of lensed image configurations \[Maller et al. 1997, Bartelmann & Loeb 1998\]. For these configurations, we should take into account also the disk contribution to the gravitomagnetic corrections. However, it is quite unlikely that this alters significantly our main results since deflection angles will be estimated at $`\xi 0.5r_{vir}`$ that is far from the disk edge since $`r_{vir}>>R_d`$. For these values of the impact parameter, the disk rotational velocity has almost vanished and hence the gravitomagnetic corrections due to the disk could be neglected.. We stress, however, that the disk plays a key role in our analysis. First, it is the disk mass $`M_d`$ which, through the scaling relations discussed in Sect. 2, determines the halo parameters and hence the gravitomagnetic corrections. Second, the disk potential contributes to the total circular velocity entering Eq.(31). It is thus important to include the disk in our analysis, although we neglect its contribution to the gravitomagnetic terms666This also saves computational time without introducing any significative systematic error..

In Figs. 1 and 2, we show $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ as function of the disk mass $`M_d`$; a log - log plot is used to better illustrate the results777Note that $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\xi ,\theta )`$ is always negative for the cases reported in Figs.1 and 2 so that the plots report $`\mathrm{log}|\mathrm{\Delta }|`$. However, this is not a general result depending on the particular choice of the orietantion angles $`(\beta ,\gamma )`$.. Despite the different halos and scaling laws used, the results for the two models are qualitatively similar. This is not an unexpected result. Eqs.(25) – (31) show that the gravitomagnetic corrections depend on the circular velocity $`v_c(R)`$ of the model averaged along the line of sight. On the other hand, the parameters of both the BBS and the PSS models have been fixed so that the two models reproduce the same URC. As a consequence, for a fixed value of $`M_d`$, the functional form of $`v_c(R)`$ and thus of $`\omega (\xi ,\theta )`$ is the same and hence $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ has the same trend for the two different halo models. The magnitude of the percentual correction is however quite different, the PSS one being almost two orders of magnitude higher. This result reflects the difference between the BBS and the PSS model. Qualitatively, $`\mathrm{\Delta }1/\alpha 1/\alpha ^{(0)}M^1(\xi )`$ and hence the higher is the mass enclosed within $`\xi `$, the lower is the percentage correction. Since, for a fixed $`M_d`$, the value of $`M(\xi )`$ for the BBS model is higher than that for the PSS halo due to the fact that the BBS mass distribution is more concentrated, it turns out that $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is larger for the PSS model.

As a final remark, we note that the formulae in Sect. 2 may be used, in principle, whatever is the astrophysical system considered provided that its surface mass distribution $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\xi )`$ is given and the system is spherically symmetric. A typical example is a cluster of galaxies which could be modelled using the NFW density profile \[Navarro, Frenck and White 1997\] and opportune scaling relations. Since the gravitomagnetic corrections roughly scales as $`v_c/c`$, one could suppose that $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ should be higher for a cluster of galaxies rather than for a single spiral galaxy. A simple scaling argument may qualitatively show that this is not true at all. The ratio of th gravitomagnetic corrections is roughly :

$$\frac{\left[\alpha \alpha ^{(0)}\right]_{galaxy}}{\left[\alpha \alpha ^{(0)}\right]_{cluster}}\frac{(v/c)_{galaxy}}{(v/c)_{cluster}}10^1,$$

while for the total deflection angle we get approximately :

$$\frac{\alpha _{galaxy}}{\alpha _{cluster}}\frac{\alpha _{galaxy}^{(0)}}{\alpha _{cluster}^{(0)}}\frac{M_{galaxy}}{M_{cluster}}10^3.$$

Thus we obtain :

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{galaxy}}{\mathrm{\Delta }_{cluster}}=\frac{\left[\left(\alpha \alpha ^{(0)}\right)/\alpha \right]_{galaxy}}{\left[\left(\alpha \alpha ^{(0)}\right)/\alpha \right]_{cluster}}100$$

so that the gravitomagnetic corrections for a cluster of galaxies are two orders of magnitude lower than for a spiral galaxy. Some attempts, using Eqs.(18) – (31) and the NFW density profile, have strenghtened this qualitative result.

## 5 Conclusions

The detectability of the gravitomagnetic corrections we have evaluated is a hard task. Figs. 1 - 2 show that, for the BBS model, $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|`$ may be as high as $`0.002\%`$, while, for the PSS model, the corrections ranges up to $`0.16\%`$. These values refer to percentage corrections. It is thus useful to give some absolute estimates of the gravitomagnetic corrections. For the BBS model we get :

$$|\alpha \alpha ^0|21÷857\mu as\mathrm{for}\xi /r_{vir}=0.5,$$

$$|\alpha \alpha ^0|5÷71\mu as\mathrm{for}\xi /r_{vir}=1.0,$$

$$|\alpha \alpha ^0|2÷7\mu as\mathrm{for}\xi /r_{vir}=1.5,$$

while for the PSS model it is :

$$|\alpha \alpha ^0|29÷350\mu as\mathrm{for}\xi /r_{vir}=0.5,$$

$$|\alpha \alpha ^0|8÷94\mu as\mathrm{for}\xi /r_{vir}=1.0,$$

$$|\alpha \alpha ^0|3÷43\mu as\mathrm{for}\xi /r_{vir}=1.5,$$

having evaluated all these quantities for $`\theta =\pi /4`$ and $`(\beta ,\gamma )=(0,\pi /4)`$. The images positions depend implicitely on the deflection angles so that it is difficult to estimate the variation of the images angular separations $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$ due to the higher order terms. If one assumes that the correction to $`\alpha (\xi ,\theta )`$ leads to a similar variation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$, then the prospect to detect the effects of the gravitomagnetic terms could be considered quite good. Actually, the astrometric precision of the NASA Space Interferometric Mission (to be launched in 2009) is estimated to be $`4\mu as`$, while the european GAIA satellite (scheduled for 2010) will be able to measure stars position with an accuracy of $`1\mu as`$. Both these satellites will be thus able to detect tiny deviations in the images positions from the values predicted by the standard lensing theory. These instrumentations can thus lead these higher order terms in the realm of detectability.

In addition to the rotational velocity, galaxies typically have also a peculiar line - of - sight velocity whose effect on the deflection angle is easy to estimate. We simply write the total deflection angle as the sum of the standard term, $`\alpha ^{(0)}`$ and the gravitomagnetic correction, $`\alpha ^{GRM}`$. This latter may then be splitted as $`\alpha ^{GRM}=\alpha _{rot}^{GRM}+\alpha _{pec}^{GRM}`$, being $`\alpha _{rot}^{GRM}`$ the contribute of the lens angular momentum and $`\alpha _{pec}^{GRM}`$ the term due to the peculiar motions. Sereno (2002) has shown that:̇

$$\alpha _{pec}^{GRM}=2\alpha ^{(0)}\frac{v_{pec}}{c}.$$

For a receding lens, $`v_{pec}<0`$ so that the effect of the lens peculiar motion increases the gravitomagnetic correction thus strenghtening the possibility of detection.

On the other hand, the gravitomagnetic corrections due to the dark halo angular momentum could also be lower than we have evaluated. A key ingredient in the estimate of the higher order terms through Eqs.(29), (30) is the average angular velocity $`\omega `$ that we have computed using Eqs. (24) and (31). This approach implicitely assumes that the halo objects have only an ordered motion. While this is a correct assumption for the disk particles, the high value of the halo velocity dispersion suggests that random motions could play a significative role in determining the angular momentum $`J`$. As a test, one could evaluate the spin parameter $`\lambda =J|E|^{1/2}/GM_{vir}^{5/2}`$, with $`E`$ the total energy \[Mo et al. 1998\], and compare it to the results of the simulations of galaxy formation (see, e.g., Vitvitska et al. 2002). We find that $`\lambda `$ is overestimated by a factor of order $`7`$ thus suggesting that $`J`$ is overestimated too. Should this come to be true, the values of the gravitomagnetic corrections we have reported should be lowered by a factor of order $`1/7`$. However, it is also possible that the angular momentum of the nowaday halo is higher than that of the protogalactic halo because of the exchange of angular momentum between the halo and the collapsed baryons.

Even if we neglect this question, however, it is worth noting that the variations of the deflection angle due to the gravitomagnetic corrections are smaller or of the same order as the ones due to more classical effects. Uncertainties in the value of the model parameters may induce errors on the value of $`\alpha ^{(0)}`$ and these latter could be so high that the gravitomagnetic corrections are completely masked. Even if the model parameters were known with high accuracy through independent techniques, an external perturbing shear (due to, e.g., the cluster of galaxies which the main lens belongs to or to large scale structure) could mimic the same effect as the higher order terms we have considered in this paper. On the other hand, this problem may also be reversed. There are many multiply imaged QSOs systems where there are no evidences of a cluster of galaxies, but nonetheless a small external shear is needed to fit the observed images configuration. Deviations from axisymmetry in the lens galaxy are usually claimed to be the origin of this perturbing shear, but there are no definitive evidences favouring this hypothesis. It should be interesting to reconsider these systems to see whether the gravitomagnetic corrections (whose effects could be of the same order as that of a small shear) could reconcile model and data without invoking this external perturbation.

Our results are encouraging since they suggest that the gravitomagetic corrections may indeed be detectable. However, a further analysis is needed in order to investigate how the images position is modified and whether corrections emerge also for other lensing observables (such as the amplification). Actually, it is especially interesting to consider the effect of higher order terms on time delay $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ between the images since this is one of the most promising direct technique for the measurement of the Hubble constant \[Refsdal 1964, Cardone et al. 2002\]. The time delay $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ roughly scales with the angular separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$ between the images (see, e.g., Schneider et al. 1992). Since the gravitomagnetic corrections alter the lensing deflection angle, these higher order terms could change $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$ and thus $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ leading to a different estimation of $`H_0`$. Furthermore, the reconstruction of the lensing potential from images configuration can be affected by the gravitomagnetic corrections since the deflecting potential $`\psi (\stackrel{}{\xi })`$, which is used to evaluate the quantity to be fitted, is modified \[Sereno 2002\]. Neglecting gravitomagnetic corrections thus introduces a systematic error in the determination of the Hubble constant. Investigating in detail this issue will be the topic of a forthcoming paper.

## acknowledgements

One of the authors (SC) wishes to acknowledge Paolo Salucci and Luigi Danese for the useful discussions and suggestions on the topics of this paper. We also thank an anonymous referee whose constructive comments have helped us to significantly improve the paper.