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# Effect of strain on the magneto-exciton groundstate in InP/GaInP quantum disks

## I Introduction

Quantum dots have been the subject of intensive studies during the last two decades, because of their zero-dimensional nature with the corresponding delta-function like density of states . Arakawa and Sakaki  reported in 1982 a theoretical prediction of the promising advantages, such as e.g. a low and temperature independent threshold current, of quantum dot lasers compared to the conventional quantum well semiconductor laser.

The use of the Stranski-Krastanow growth mode to fabricate so-called “self-assembled” quantum dots meant a breakthrough in the further research of semiconductor dots. The fast and easy nature of this growth process, together with the possibility to fabricate small and defect-free dots had a great advantage over previous types of dots, as e.g. colloidal dots or dots created by lithographic techniques. The formation of self-assembled dots requires two semiconductor materials with a substantially different lattice parmeter, which are grown on top of each other. Such lattice-mismatched hetero-epitaxy gives rise to the formation of nanometer sized islands, governed by strain-relaxation effects.

Confinement of charge carriers in quantum dots occurs because of the difference in bandstructure of the two semiconductor materials. One can define two types of quantum dots, namely type-I and type-II, depending on the band alignments. In the case of type-I dots, both the electron and the hole are confined inside the dot. For type-II dots, the confinement inside the dot occurs only for one of the charge carriers, i.e. electron or hole, whereas the dot forms an anti-dot for the other particle. Examples of type-II dots are the InP/GaInP  or InP/GaAs dots with the electron confined in the dot, and the hole in the barrier, and the GaSb/GaAs  or InAs/Si  dots where the hole is located inside the dot, but the electron remains in the barrier.

Up to now most research was devoted to type-I structures, while type-II dots have attracted fewer attention. Theoretical studies considering InP/GaInP dots were performed by Pryor et al.  and Tadić et al.  where a strain-dependent $`𝐤𝐩`$ Hamiltonian was used to calculate the electronic structure. GaSb/GaAs quantum dots were investigated by Lelong et al.  who studied excitons and charged excitons, and by Kalameitsev et al.  who investigated the effect of a magnetic field. In previous work we relied on a simplified effective mass approximation, without considering the effect of strain, to study single and coupled type-II dots in the presence of external magnetic  and electric  fields.

The formation of self-assembled quantum dots is inextricably bound up with the occurrence of strain fields in and around the dots. The strain will have a large impact on the bandstructure, and hereby also on the optical properties of the dots. The hydrostatic component of the strain will shift the conduction and valence band edges, while the biaxial strain modifies the valence bands by splitting the degeneracy of the light- and heavy-hole bands.

Different theoretical models exist to obtain the strain distribution in and around self-assembled quantum dots. Well-known and extensively used are the continuum mechanical (CM) model  and the valence force field (VFF) model . In the CM model the elastic energy is minimized to obtain the distribution of the displacement in the structure and the corresponding strain fields, whereas the VFF model is an atomistic approach, which uses phenomenological expressions for the elastic energy, depending on the atomic coordinates. Pryor et al. compared the two methods and found agreement for small strains, whereas for larger strains discrepancies were reported . This was corroborated very recently by Tadić et al., who also compared both methods for cylindrical InAs/GaAs and InP/InGaP dots, and found a better agreement for InP/GaInP than for InAs/GaAs dots, where the latter has the largest lattice mismatch.

A more simple method to calculate the strain fields near an isotropic quantum dot was presented by Downes et al. , who used Eshelby’s theory of inclusions  to express the strain distribution in quantum dot structures. This approach was adapted by Davies, who showed that the elastic field can be derived from a scalar potential that obeys a Poisson equation with the lattice mismatch as charge density .

In the present paper, we follow the work of Davies  and use the so-called isotropic elasticity model to calculate the strain fields around a single cylindrical quantum disk. The results for this structure have recently been shown to be in good agreement with results obtained by the CM model . The strain distribution is used as an input to calculate the modification to the band structure. We use a single band effective mass approximation to calculate the exciton properties in InP/GaInP quantum disks in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field, considering both heavy- and light-hole bands. The three-dimensional confinement is known to cause drastic effects on the bandstructure close to the zone centre, inducing a mixing of the valence bands. However, strain causes a splitting of the heavy- and light-hole bands, therefore reducing the mixing and making the single band effective mass approach a justifiable first approximation .

The eight-band $`𝐤𝐩`$-theory and consequently also the more simplified two band effective mass model are most accurate in the vicinity of the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-point. However, the accuracy of the eight-band $`𝐤𝐩`$ model decreases for smaller dots and more elaborate methods, as empirical pseudopotential (EP) calculations are necessary. Comparison for InAs/GaAs quantum dots shows a reasonable agreement between eight-band $`𝐤𝐩`$ and EP calculations for dot base lengths $`b9nm`$ . The contribution of “large-$`|𝐤|`$”-states are in this size range found to be negligible. As the dots in the present study have a diameter of approximately $`15nm`$, we therefore neglect states originating from larger $`𝐤`$-values.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sec. II, we explain our theoretical model. Sec. III discusses the strain induced type-I to type-II transition for the heavy hole, while Sec. IV is dedicated to the heavy hole to light hole transition of the groundstate. In Sec. V we compare our numerical results with experimental results of Ref. . Our results are summarized in Sec. VI.

## II Theoretical model

The strain was calculated by adapting the method used in Ref. , and which was already described in Ref. . The elements of the strain tensor are given by

$$\epsilon _{ij}(𝐫)=\epsilon _0\delta _{ij}\frac{\epsilon _0}{4\pi }\frac{1+\nu }{1\nu }_S^{}\frac{(r_ir_i^{})dS_j^{}}{|𝐫𝐫^{}|^3},$$
(1)
where $`\epsilon _0`$ is the lattice mismatch between InP and GaInP, given by $`\epsilon _0=(a_{InP}a_{GaInP})/a_{GaInP}`$. Furthermore, $`\nu `$ denotes the Poisson ratio, generally chosen to be 1/3 for zincblende type semiconductors, $`S^{}`$ is the surface of the dot, and $`i`$ runs over $`x`$, $`y`$ and $`z`$.

For the calculation of the exciton properties, we used a mean-field type of approach, which is equivalent, for this problem, to the Hartree-Fock approximation. This approach was previously introduced by us for type-II quantum dots where strain  was neglected. The coupled single particle equations are given by

$`\left[H_{e(h)}{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{4\pi ϵ}}{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _{h(e)}(r^{},z^{})}{|𝐫𝐫^{}|}𝑑𝐫^{}}\right]\psi _{e(h)}(r_{e(h)},z_{e(h)})`$ (2)
$`=ϵ_{e(h)}\psi _{e(h)}(r_{e(h)},z_{e(h)}),`$ (3)
with $`H_e`$ ($`H_h`$) the single particle Hamiltonian for the electron (hole). In the presence of strain, the single particle Hamiltonian for the electron can be written as

$`H_e`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m^{}(𝐫)}}+V_c(𝐫)+a_c\epsilon _{hy}(𝐫)`$ (5)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}(𝐫)}}{\displaystyle \frac{l_e^2}{r^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{l_e}{2}}\mathrm{}\omega _{c,e}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}m^{}(𝐫)\omega _{c,e}^2r^2,`$
with $`\omega _{c,e}(𝐫)=eB/m^{}(𝐫)`$, where $`m^{}(𝐫)`$ is the position dependent electron effective mass, $`a_c`$ is the conduction band deformation potential, $`l_e`$ is the electron angular momentum, and the hydrostatic strain, $`\epsilon _{hy}`$, is defined by $`\epsilon _{xx}+\epsilon _{yy}+\epsilon _{zz}`$.

Furthermore, we make a distinction between the heavy and the light hole, as the strain will act differently on them. For the heavy hole, we have

$`H_{hh}(𝐫)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2}}\left\{_{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_{hh,}(𝐫)}}_{}+_z{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_{hh,z}(𝐫)}}_z\right\}`$ (8)
$`+V_h(𝐫)+a_v\epsilon _{hy}(𝐫)+b((\epsilon _{xx}+\epsilon _{yy})/2+\epsilon _{zz})`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_{hh,}(𝐫)}}{\displaystyle \frac{l_h^2}{r^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{l_h}{2}}\mathrm{}\omega _{c,hh}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}m_{hh,}(𝐫)\omega _{c,hh}^2r^2,`$
with $`\omega _{c,hh}(𝐫)=eB/m_{hh,}(𝐫)`$, and $`m_{hh,}^1(𝐫)=[\gamma _1(𝐫)+\gamma _2(𝐫)]`$ the in-plane heavy hole effective mass, $`m_{hh,z}^1(𝐫)=[\gamma _1(𝐫)2\gamma _2(𝐫)]`$ the heavy hole effective mass along the $`z`$-direction. The valence band deformation potentials are given by $`a_v`$ and $`b`$, and $`\gamma _i(𝐫)`$ are the Luttinger parameters.

For the light hole, this becomes

$`H_{lh}(𝐫)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_0}}\left\{_{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_{lh,}(𝐫)}}_{}+_z{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_{lh,z}(𝐫)}}_z\right\}`$ (11)
$`+V_h(𝐫)+a_v\epsilon _{hy}(𝐫)b((\epsilon _{xx}+\epsilon _{yy})/2+\epsilon _{zz})`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_{lh,}(𝐫)}}{\displaystyle \frac{l_h^2}{r^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{l_h}{2}}\mathrm{}\omega _{c,lh}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}m_{lh,}(𝐫)\omega _{c,lh}^2r^2.`$
with $`\omega _{c,lh}(𝐫)=eB/m_{lh,}(𝐫)`$, and $`m_{lh,}^1(𝐫)=[\gamma _1(𝐫)\gamma _2(𝐫)]`$ the in-plane light hole effective mass, and $`m_{lh,z}^1(𝐫)=[\gamma _1(𝐫)+2\gamma _2(𝐫)]`$ the light hole effective mass along the $`z`$-direction.

We solved the coupled single-particle equations self-consistently using an iterative procedure. More information about the implementation and numerical procedure can be found in Ref. . After convergence of the iteration procedure, the total energy is given by

$$E_{exciton}=E_e+E_h+\frac{e^2}{4\pi ϵ}\frac{\rho _e(r,z)\rho _h(r^{},z^{})}{|𝐫𝐫^{}|}𝑑𝐫𝑑𝐫^{},$$
(12)
where $`E_e`$ and $`E_h`$ are the single particle energies.

For our numerical calculation, we took the material parameters of InP/GaInP, as used in Refs. , which are given in Table I. Here $`m_{hh,}`$, $`m_{hh,z}`$, $`m_{lh,}`$, and $`m_{lh,z}`$ are calculated from the Luttinger parameters using the formulas mentioned above. From Table I follows that the valence band offset for this system is negative ($`V_h=45meV`$), i.e. we have a type-II system. This appeared to be rather controversial, however, as a theoretical calculation based on first principles by Wei and Zunger  showed that the band offset should be positive ($`V_h=55meV`$), leading to a type-I confinement. Experimentally, Hayne et al.  conclude that the hole should be located in the barrier, and that the system is type-II. In a first step, we will use the negative band offset, as we used previously. Later, we will investigate how our results are modified when we take the positive bulk hole band offset.

## III Strain induced type-I - type-II transition for the heavy hole.

As follows from the equations, hydrostatic strain shifts the conduction and valence band offsets. Furthermore, the biaxial strain induces a splitting of the heavy- and light-hole bands. The heavy-hole band is shifted towards higher energies, whereas the light-hole band shifts towards lower energies.

The unstrained valence band offset is slightly negative, i.e. $`V_h=45meV`$, but the heavy-hole band offset will become strongly positive after strain is introduced. The heavy hole will thus be strongly confined inside the disk, making the system type-I. In contrast, the light-hole band decreases in energy, making the system even more type-II and the light hole will be located outside the disk. The numerical results for a disk of radius $`R=8nm`$ and thickness $`d=4nm`$ are shown in Fig. 1. The unstrained valence band offset (solid curve) is depicted together with the strained heavy hole (dashed curve) and light hole (dotted curve) band offsets, in the direction perpendicular to the disk along its center (Fig. 1(a)) and along its radial (Fig. 1(b)). Contourplots of the heavy and light hole potentials are depicted as insets in Fig. 1. For the heavy hole, we find a deep potential maximum in the middle of the quantum disk. Notice that in the radial direction, this potential decreases towards the disk boundary and increases again just after the radial disk boundary and can have even a higher maximum, but which in the considered case is narrower. The light hole potential shows the deepest confinement (i.e. highest potential) in the barrier material, just on top and below the disk, which will be the preferential position for the light hole.

We found that when we increased the thickness $`d`$ of the disk, the heavy hole moves towards the radial boundary of the disk. This effect is purely due to the strain, which increases the potential maximum at the radial boundary with respect to the potential inside the disk (see Fig. 2(b)). For thicker disks, the height of the potential in the disk systematically decreases, making it eventually preferable for the heavy hole to move out of the disk and the system becomes type-II also for the heavy hole. Fig. 2(a) depicts the downward shift of the confinement potential for increased $`d`$ along the $`z`$-direction. We summarized our results in the phase diagram in Fig. 3. To construct this figure, we calculated the probability of the heavy hole to sit at the radial boundary of the disk

$$P_{side}=2\pi _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑z_h_R^{\mathrm{}}𝑑r_hr_h\left|\mathrm{\Psi }_{hh}(r_h,z_h)\right|^2.$$
(13)
The line in Fig. 3 indicates the probability $`P_{side}=50\%`$. At the right side of this line, the heavy hole is mainly located inside the disk (Fig. 3(a)), and the system is type-I-like. At the left side of the fifty percent line, the heavy hole is predominantly located at the radial boundary outside of the disk (Fig. 3(b)), and the system is type-II-like.

From our previous work , we know that when the hole is located at the radial boundary of the disk it will lead to the occurrence of hole angular momentum transitions as a function of a magnetic field applied parallel to the growth ($`z`$) direction. Such angular momentum transitions also occur for the exciton and are not found for type-I excitons.

## IV Heavy hole to light hole transition of the groundstate.

In the present approach, mixing of the valence bands is neglected and we thus solve two separate sets of coupled equations, namely one for the heavy hole and one for the light hole. Next we will compare the energy of the light and heavy hole exciton in order to determine which one is the ground state. The results are summarized in Fig. 4, which shows a phase diagram of the heavy to light hole transition as a function of both $`R`$ and $`d`$. We find that the light hole exciton becomes the groundstate for increasing thickness of the disk. The full curve in Fig. 4 shows the separation between the heavy and light hole exciton groundstate in the absence of a magnetic field. The dotted curve is the result of Fig. 3, which separates the heavy hole type-I and type-II groundstate. Notice that the heavy hole exciton is in the heavy hole type-I region for $`R>6.4nm`$. When the heavy hole is at the radial boundary outside the dot, the exciton energy is higher than for the (type-II) light hole exciton, except in a very narrow region of $`d`$-values for $`R<6.4nm`$.

The dashed curve shows the result for $`B=50T`$. Thus a magnetic field lowers the light hole groundstate with respect to the heavy hole. This is made more clear in Fig. 5, where the evolution of the heavy (full curve) and light hole (dashed curve) exciton energies are shown as function of magnetic field for a fixed disk size, i.e. $`R=6.5nm`$ and $`d=3.5nm`$. The reason for this magnetic field induced heavy-to-light hole transition can be found in the stronger effect of the magnetic field on the heavy hole. This is due to a larger magnetic energy $`\mathrm{}\omega _{c,hh}=\mathrm{}eB/m_{hh,}`$, which is caused by a smaller in-plane heavy hole mass, known as mass-reversal . The insets show respectively the heavy hole wavefunction at $`B=0T`$ (a) and the light hole wavefunction at $`B=50T`$ (b). Thus this heavy-light hole transition is accompanied with a spatial direct-to-indirect exciton transition.

It is also possible to have a magnetic field induced heavy-to-light hole transition where both heavy and light hole exciton states are spatially indirect. This is shown in Fig. 6, where the evolution of the heavy (full curve) and light (dashed curve) hole exciton are depicted as function of magnetic field for a disk with radius $`R=5.5nm`$ and thickness $`d=3.5nm`$. In the insets are depicted both the probability density $`|\mathrm{\Psi }|^2`$ (a,b,e) and the radial position probability density $`r|\mathrm{\Psi }|^2`$ (c,d,f) for the hole in the exciton groundstate, for different values of the magnetic field, as indicated. The heavy hole is shown in Figs. 6(a-d), where from the radial position probability density follows that indeed the system is type-II. An increasing magnetic field pushes the heavy hole wavefunction more inside the disk, until it would eventually become type-I. However, before this happens, the light hole exciton becomes the groundstate of the system, which is still type-II, as shown in Figs. 6(e,f).

## V Comparison with experiment.

In order to compare our theoretical results with the magneto-photoluminescence experiments of , we have to calculate the exciton transition energy as a function of the magnetic field. The transition energy is defined as follows:

$$E_{trans}=E_{exciton}+E_g$$
(14)
where $`E_g`$ is the bandgap energy of the disk material and $`E_{exciton}`$ (Eq. 6) contains the single particle electron and hole energies and the Coulomb binding energy. Our theoretical results (curves) are compared with the experimental photoluminescence results (squares) from Hayne et al.  in the inset of Fig. 7. We show both the heavy (full curve) and light (dashed curve) hole exciton energy, for two values of the disk thickness: $`d=2nm`$ and $`d=2.5nm`$, as indicated on the plot (the disk radius was taken $`R=8nm`$ for all curves). A change in the thickness almost uniformly shifts the curves up or down in energy, which is due to a corresponding change of the confinement energy (mostly of the electron). For these sets of disk parameters, the heavy hole exciton is the ground state. But we find that the light hole exciton for $`d=2.5nm`$ approaches most closely the experimental result for small $`B`$, while the heavy hole results are closer for high $`B`$. By fine tuning the value of $`d`$, it is possible to fit the $`B=0T`$ heavy hole transition energy to the experimental result. To show more clearly the magnetic field dependence, we investigated the exciton diamagnetic shift, defined as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E=E_{trans}(B)E_{trans}(B=0T).$$
(15)
The result is depicted in Fig. 7 for $`d=2.5nm`$ by the thick full (heavy hole) and dashed (light hole) curves. Notice that the diamagnetic shift of the exciton is overestimated by more than a factor two in the considered magnetic field range.

In order to explain the discrepancy, we systematically investigated the influence of different disk and material parameters on the diamagnetic shift of the exciton. The results for $`d=2nm`$ are on top of the $`d=2.5nm`$ results. This is not too surprising because the disk thickness only minorly influences the in-plane motion. But a decrease of the disk radius will decrease the diamagnetic shift. However, even a substantial decrease to $`R=6nm`$ can not explain the experimental results quantitatively, as shown in Fig. 7 by the thin curves, although the theoretical results are closer to the experimental results than for $`R=8nm`$. We find that the light hole exciton is most strongly affected and shows a smaller diamagnetic shift. However, the shift is still large for high fields, and can thus not be the main reason for the discrepancy. But from the phase diagram (Fig. 4) we know that the heavy hole exciton is still the groundstate and its diamagnetic shift decreased only by 7.7%. It would not be realistic to further decrease the disk radius, as measurements found a disk diameter of approximately $`16nm`$.

Next, the influence of the masses was investigated. In order to obtain a smaller diamagnetic shift, an increase of the masses is needed: the higher the mass, the stronger the particles are bound in the disk, and the smaller will be the influence of the magnetic field, i.e. the diamagnetic shift is inversely proportional to the exciton mass. For the electron, we increased the mass with a factor of two, namely $`m_e^{}(InP)=0.15m_0`$. As the magnetic field acts mainly on the radial direction, a change of the in-plane mass ($`m_{}`$) will have the largest effect on the diamagnetic shift. We will therefore only vary this in-plane mass for the holes. Furthermore, we found that the heavy hole is located in the disk, whereas the light hole is located in the barrier material. For the heavy hole exciton we thus vary only the in-plane mass in the disk, while for the light hole exciton we vary only the in-plane mass in the barrier. The results are shown by the dotted curve in Fig. 7. An excellent fit to the experimental diamagnetic shift with the heavy hole exciton could be found (disk radius $`R=8nm`$ and thickness $`d=2.5nm`$) for $`m_{hh,}=0.5m_0`$, whereas for the light hole, we found a good fit for $`m_{lh,}=1.50m_0`$.

The assumption of a negative band offset was questioned in Ref.  where a positive unstrained valence band offset of $`55meV`$ was found theoretically. The result for the transition energy with a positive unstrained hole band offset of $`V_h=55meV`$ is shown in the inset of Fig. 8, where we find that the heavy hole now more closely approximates the experimental result, although the quantitative agreement is less good than for a negative unstrained offset. Notice also the large difference between the results for heavy and light hole. The reason is that the heavy hole is now much stronger confined inside the disk. The corresponding diamagnetic shift is shown in Fig. 8 for $`R=8nm`$ and $`d=2.5nm`$, where the results for the negative offset are shown by the thick curves, whereas the results for the positive offset are shown by the thin curves. We notice that the heavy hole is stronger affected by the reversed offset: the diamagnetic shift at $`B=50T`$ has decreased by $`5meV`$. We attribute this to the stronger confinement of the heavy hole inside the disk: as the hole will already be confined in the unstrained case, strain will only enhance this effect for the heavy hole. Furthermore a stronger potential confinement decreases the effect of the magnetic field on the particle. The light hole, on the contrary, is only slightly effected by the altered band offset. Although the height of the potential barrier for the light hole has decreased, it is still appreciable, and will not have a drastic influence on the magnetic field behaviour of the light hole. However, the qualitative discrepancy still exists in Fig. 8, which can thus not be explained by the reversed band offset. Also for the case of the positive unstrained VB offset, we investigated the influence of the masses. Again we took a fixed electron mass in the dot of $`m_e^{}=0.15m_0`$, both for the heavy hole exciton as for the light hole exciton. Furthermore, following the same reasoning as above, we only fitted the in-plane heavy and light hole masses. We found an excellent fit to the experimental results for $`m_{hh,}=0.5m_0`$ and $`m_{lh,}=3.0m_0`$ for respectively the heavy and the light hole exciton, which is shown in Fig. 8 by the dotted curve. Notice that in this case we need a light hole effective mass which is two times larger than in the case of a negative unstrained offset. We attribute this to the fact that the light hole is more weakly bound, and that thus a higher mass is needed to obtain a smaller diamagnetic shift.

From the above results, we can conclude that a change of the disk parameters (i.e. radius and/or thickness) is not the main origin of the discrepancy between theory and experiment. Furthermore, we find that taking a positive unstrained valence band offset has only a minor influence to our theoretical results. However, both for the positive and for the negative unstrained offset, a change of the electron mass and of the in-plane hole masses could change drastically the diamagnetic shift, and a good fit to the experimental result could be obtained. Effects due to disorder may have an appreciable effect on the masses and are expected to increase them. But on the other hand the use of the effective mass approximation is questionable in such a situation.

## VI Conclusions

We have investigated theoretically the properties of an exciton in a strained self-assembled quantum dot. The dot was modelled by a disk and strain fields were taken into account using the isotropic elasticity model. The exciton energy and wavefunction were obtained by means of a mean field theory using the Hartree approximation.

Investigation of the effect of strain on the confinement potentials learns that, starting from a negative (type II) unstrained valence band offset, the confinement potential for the heavy hole is reversed (i.e. becomes type I), while for the light hole the system becomes even stronger type II. However, with increasing disk thickness, the heavy hole potential inside the disk was found to decrease strongly with respect to a potential maximum at the radial boundary outside the disk. For a certain disk thickness, it becomes thus preferential for the heavy hole to move towards the radial boundary, into the barrier material, making the system also type II. A consequence of this behaviour is the occurrence of angular momentum transitions for the heavy hole when a magnetic field is applied.

A phase diagram was constructed as a function of the disk radius and thickness, indicating whether the heavy hole exciton or the light hole exciton forms the groundstate of the system. This was done both for $`B=0T`$ and $`B=50T`$. The magnetic field was found to be able to induce a heavy-to-light hole transition. This magnetic field induced transition was attributed to the heavy hole mass, which has a smaller in-plane mass than the corresponding light-hole mass.

Finally, both the transition energy and the energy of the diamagnetic shift were calculated as a function of the magnetic field, and compared with experimental results by Hayne et al. . An appreciable discrepancy was found for the diamagnetic shift, and the origin of this discrepancy was investigated. We considered a smaller disk radius and found that this slightly decreases the difference between theory and experiment. Next, the masses were strongly increased, and we found that we can fit both the heavy and the light hole exciton energies to the experimental result. Furthermore, instead of taking a negative unstrained valence band offset, we investigated the effect of starting with a positive unstrained offset. We found that this gives only a minor change in the theoretical results, and that again an increase of the masses is needed to obtain a good fit.

As far as the experimental result is concerned, we may conclude that from the diamagnetic shift, we find that the most plausible explanation for the small shift is an increase of the electron mass by a factor of two, and as a consequence its value is closer to the GaInP mass, and an increase of the in-plane heavy hole mass such that its value is close to its perpendicular mass. Such increases in electron and hole masses are not unrealistic for a disordered quantum dot system. Thus the exciton observed by Hayne et al.  is most probably a type-I heavy hole exciton in a strongly disordered quantum dot. In order to explain the experimental results in terms of a light hole exciton we have to increase the light hole in-plane mass with approximately a factor of ten, which is rather unrealistic. Furthermore, it is the heavy hole exciton which is the ground state of the system for the experimental value of the sizes of the quantum dot.

## VII Acknowledgements

K. L. J. is supported by the “Instituut voor de aanmoediging van Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie in Vlaanderen” (IWT-Vl) and B. P. is a post-doctoral researcher with the Flemish Science Foundation (FWO-Vl). Part of this work was supported by the FWO-Vl, The Belgian Interuniversity Attraction Poles (IUAP), the Flemish Concerted Action (GOA) Programme, the University of Antwerp (VIS) and the European Commission GROWTH programme NANOMAT project, contract No. G5RD-CT-2001-00545. We acknowledge interesting discussions with M. Tadić, M. Hayne, A. Zunger, A. Matulis and J. Davies.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Heavy flavor contributions to polarized and unpolarized deep inelastic structure functions due to charm and bottom–quark production cause different scaling violations if compared to those due to massless partons. Moreover it is known that in certain phase space regions of $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$ these contributions can be large . Reliable determinations of the QCD scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$ therefore require a careful account of the heavy flavor contributions. In the case of the unpolarized structure functions $`F_{2,L}(x,Q^2)`$ and $`xF_3(x,Q^2)`$ the twist–2 contributions with $`Q\overline{Q}`$–final states, $`Q=c,b`$ were calculated to next–to–leading order (NLO) . For polarized deep–inelastic scattering only the leading order corrections are known for the structure function $`g_1(x,Q^2)`$ at present . All corrections mentioned above have been calculated using mass factorization. As shown in \[5–8\] this method fails in the case of the polarized structure functions which emerge for transverse polarization already in the massless quark limit. The reason for this lies in a violation of covariance due to the omission of contributions $`S.k`$, where $`S`$ denotes the spin vector of the nucleon and $`k`$ the parton 4–momentum.

In Refs.  it was shown that the quarkonic contributions to the transverse structure functions can be correctly obtained using the covariant parton model. The results in this approach are identical to those derived in the local light–cone expansion, cf. , for massless quarks on the level of the twist–2 contributions. In particular the twist–2 part of $`g_2(x,Q^2)`$ is obtained by the Wandzura–Wilczek relation. The effect of quark masses for quarkonic matrix elements was further investigated in Ref.  using the method of . Also in this case the Wandzura–Wilczek relation was found to hold, irrespective of the values of the quark masses chosen. In  the target mass corrections to the quarkonic contributions to $`g_2(x,Q^2)`$ and the other four polarized structure functions  were studied. Again the Wandzura–Wilczek relation was found to hold relating the twist–2 contributions of $`g_1(x,Q^2)`$ and $`g_2(x,Q^2)`$. In a more general approach the amplitudes which contribute to the quarkonic matrix elements for deeply virtual non–forward scattering were investigated in . In the generalized Bjorken limit the non–forward Compton amplitude is expressed by operator matrix elements of vector operators. However, one usually parameterizes it in terms of scalar operator matrix elements to which the (generalized) parton distributions correspond. Therefore relations between the operator matrix elements of the vector and scalar operators are implied, which form the origin of the Wandzura–Wilczek relations and other integral–relations . The absence of the typical integral terms e.g. in the Callan–Gross  relation is merely the exception and caused by a cancellation of the former, see Ref. . For the polarized case it was shown that the Wandzura–Wilczek relation holds for the twist–2 contributions to the respective non–forward amplitudes, cf. . This result could be generalized allowing multiple meson production in the final state in . Also semi–inclusive processes such as diffrative scattering have been investigated w.r.t. the emergence of Callan–Gross and Wandzura–Wilczek relations . Although the variables change, the Wandzura–Wilczek relation relates the twist–2 contributions of $`g_1^{\mathrm{diffr}}(x,x_P,Q^2)`$ to $`g_2^{\mathrm{diffr}}(x,x_P,Q^2)`$ independently of the value for $`x_P`$. Integral relations of similar kind were also established for other structure functions and matrix elements  and for the fermionic twist–3 contributions in .

In the present paper we calculate the heavy flavor twist–2 contribution to the structure function $`g_2(x,Q^2)`$. We show that the Wandzura–Wilczek relation holds also in this case and present numerical predictions.

## 2 Longitudinal Gluon Polarization

The hadronic tensor of the polarized part of the $`eN`$–scattering cross section in case of pure photon exchange111The corresponding expressions in the case of additional weak boson exchange are given in . reads

$`W_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}=i\epsilon _{\mu \nu \lambda \sigma }{\displaystyle \frac{q^\lambda S^\sigma }{p.q}}g_1(x,Q^2)+i\epsilon _{\mu \nu \lambda \sigma }{\displaystyle \frac{q^\lambda (p.qS^\sigma S.qp^\sigma )}{(p.q)^2}}g_2(x,Q^2).`$ (1)
$`S_\sigma `$ denotes the nucleon spin vector, $`p`$ the nucleon momentum, and $`q`$ the vector of the 4–momentum transfer, with $`Q^2=q^2`$ and $`x=Q^2/(2p.q)`$. The polarized part of the scattering cross section for longitudinal nucleon polarization $`S_L`$, integrated over the azimuthal angle $`\varphi `$, is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\sigma (\lambda ,\pm S_L)}{dxdy}}`$ $`=`$ $`\pm 2\pi 𝖲{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{Q^4}}\left[2\lambda y\left(2y{\displaystyle \frac{2xyM^2}{𝖲}}\right)xg_1(x,Q^2)+8\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{yx^2M^2}{𝖲}}g_2(x,Q^2)\right].`$ (2)
Correspondingly, for transversely polarized nucleons one obtains

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\sigma (\lambda ,\pm S_T)}{dxdyd\varphi }}`$ $`=`$ $`\pm 𝖲{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{Q^4}}2\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{M^2}{𝖲}}}\sqrt{xy\left[1y{\displaystyle \frac{xyM^2}{𝖲}}\right]}\mathrm{cos}(\chi \varphi )`$ (3)
$`\times \left[2\lambda yxg_1(x,Q^2)4\lambda xg_2(x,Q^2)\right].`$
Here $`M`$ is the nucleon mass, $`𝖲`$ the cms energy, $`\alpha `$ the fine structure constant, $`y=2p.q/𝖲`$, $`\lambda `$ is the degree of lepton polarization and $`S_T`$ the degree of hadronic transverse polarization, $`\chi `$ denotes the azimuthal angle associated with $`S_T^\mu `$, (3), and $`g_1(x,Q^2)`$ and $`g_2(x,Q^2)`$ are the polarized structure functions which contribute in this case.

The heavy flavor contributions to the longitudinal and transverse differential scattering cross sections are obtained in calculating the corresponding contributions to the polarized structure functions $`g_1(x,Q^2)`$ and $`g_2(x,Q^2)`$.

Let us consider the sub–system hadronic tensor for photon–interactions with on–shell initial state partons

$`w_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}={\displaystyle \frac{i}{q.k}}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }\left\{q^\rho s^\sigma g_1^{\mathrm{parton}}(z,Q^2)+\left(q^\rho s^\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{s.q}{q.k}}q^\rho k^\sigma \right)g_2^{\mathrm{parton}}(z,Q^2)\right\}.`$ (4)
In assuming that the gluon is longitudinally polarized, i.e. parallel to the proton and parton 4–momentum

$`s_\mu =\xi _1S_\mu =\xi _2k_\mu ,`$ (5)
with $`k=zp`$, the sub–system hadronic tensor of the polarization asymmetry (4) receives purely longitudinal contributions, since the term $`g_2^{\mathrm{parton}}`$ vanishes. Clearly (5) is a special model assumption which does not describe the general case being discussed in section 3. However, it is possible to derive in this approximation the correct expression for the coefficient functions $`C_{g_1}^{Q\overline{Q}}`$ at twist–2 which contributes to the structure function $`g_1^{Q\overline{Q}}(x,Q^2)`$. At leading order in $`\alpha _s`$ the structure function $`g_1^{Q\overline{Q}}(x,Q^2)`$ receives only gluonic contributions and is obtained as

$`g_1^{Q\overline{Q}}(x,Q^2)=2e_Q^2{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(Q^2)}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle _{ax}^1}{\displaystyle \frac{dy}{y}}C_{g_1}^{Q\overline{Q}}({\displaystyle \frac{x}{y}},M_Q^2,Q^2)\mathrm{\Delta }G(y,Q^2),`$ (6)
with

$`C_{g_1}^{Q\overline{Q}}(z,Q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[\beta (34z)(12z)\mathrm{ln}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{1+\beta }{1\beta }}\right|\right]`$ (7)
and $`\mathrm{\Delta }G(x,Q^2)`$ the polarized gluon distribution. Here $`a`$ denotes the threshold $`a=1+4M_Q^2/Q^2`$, $`e_Q`$ the charge of the produced heavy quarks, and $`\beta `$ is the cms velocity

$`\beta =\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{4M_Q^2}{Q^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{z}{1z}}}`$ (8)
of the final state quarks, with $`\beta ϵ[0,\sqrt{14M_Q^2x/[Q^2(1x)]}]`$. Eq. (6) defines the LO twist–2 contribution to $`g_1^{Q\overline{Q}}(x,Q^2)`$ 222Note, that mass–scale effects may introduce twist–3 contributions to the structure function $`g_1(x,Q^2)`$ as well, as has been shown for target mass corrections in Ref. .. Note that

$`{\displaystyle _0^{1/a}}𝑑zC_{g_1}^{Q\overline{Q}}(z,M_Q^2,Q^2)=0,`$ (9)
cf. , which leads to a positive and a negative branch of the structure function $`g_1^{Q\overline{Q}}(x,Q^2)`$ in leading order for a positive definite polarized gluon density $`\mathrm{\Delta }G(x,Q^2)`$, see Figure 2a. In this order also the first moment of $`g_1^{Q\overline{Q}}(x,Q^2)`$ vanishes, since the r.h.s. of (6) is a Mellin–convolution of two functions with the support of $`C_{g_1}^{Q\overline{Q}}(z,M_Q^2,Q^2)`$ being $`zϵ[0,1/a]`$. Eq. (9) also holds for the gluonic contribution to $`C_{g_1}^{Q\overline{Q}}(z,M_Q^2,Q^2)`$ in the asymptotic limit $`Q^2M_Q^2`$ in NLO . For quarkonic initial states this relation does not hold, see .

The choice of the collinear factorization leads to difficulties in deriving the correct twist–2 terms in the case of structure functions which contain also twist–3 contributions in the limit of vanishing mass scales, as $`g_2(x,Q^2)`$ and $`g_3(x,Q^2)`$ in the case of electro–weak currents. This was extensively studied in the past  using the light–cone expansion and comparing the results to those being obtained in parton–model approaches333For a review of earlier results see the comparison given in Ref. .. In Refs. \[5–7\] it was shown, that for fermionic contributions to the polarized structure functions the well–known results being obtained in the light–cone expansion, see e.g. , can be obtained if one refers to the covariant parton model, cf. . This is due to the fact that the kinematic assumption (5) which neglects all parton momenta in the transverse direction is in conflict with the fact that the nucleon spin vector has both transverse and longitudinal components. This may have impact on predictions of relations between the moments of polarized structure functions, the Burkhardt–Cottingham sum rule \[22–24\] or integral relations between these functions. In the following we will therefore refer to a general orientation of the parton spin vector and use the covariant parton model instead of the collinear approach.

## 3 The general Case

We now consider the polarization asymmetry of the hadronic tensor $`W_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}`$ for a general nucleon spin vector $`S_\mu `$ and general gluon spin vector $`s_\mu `$, respectively. The nucleon spin vector obeys :

$`S_\mu P^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`0,S^\mu =S_{}^\mu +S_{}^\mu `$
$`S_{}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`(0;0,0,M)`$
$`S_{}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`M(0;\mathrm{cos}\chi ,\mathrm{sin}\chi ,0).`$ (10)
The latter two relations hold in the nucleon rest frame.

The polarization asymmetry of the hadronic tensor reads

$`W_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}(q,p,S)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\left[f_+(p,k,S)f_{}(p,k,S)\right]w_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}(p,q,k,s)}.`$ (11)
The nucleon spin $`S`$ is assumed to enter (11) linearly as usually the case in single photon–fermion interactions . Here, $`k`$ denotes the gluon 4–momentum. The gluon distribution functions $`f_\pm (p,k,S)`$ refer to opposite proton spin directions and are supposed to be twist–2 parton distribution functions in the present paper. The sub–system hadronic tensor asymmetry $`w_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}(p,q,k,s)`$ depends in addition on the virtual photon momentum exchanged, $`q`$, and the gluonic momentum– and spin vectors. $`s_\mu `$ obeys

$`s_\mu ={\displaystyle \frac{p.k}{\sqrt{(p.k)^2k^2M^2k^4}}}\left[k_\mu {\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{p.k}}p_\mu \right],`$ (12)
with $`s.k=0,k.k=k^2`$. We consider general values of the gluon virtuality $`k^2`$, which is assumed to be sufficiently damped by the difference of the distribution functions $`f_\pm (p,k,S)`$ as $`k^2\mathrm{},0`$ in order to keep (11) a well defined relation. Let us denote

$`\sqrt{(p.k)^2k^2M^2k^4}=N.`$ (13)
The following relations are obtained :

$`S.s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}p.kS.k`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{S.q}{q.k}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}p.k\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{k^2p.q}{p.kq.k}}\right).`$ (14)
We define now

$`\mathrm{\Delta }f={\displaystyle \frac{Mp.k}{N}}(f_+f_{}){\displaystyle \frac{S.k}{M^2}}\stackrel{~}{f}(p^2,p.k,k^2)`$ (15)
and construct the sub–system hadronic tensor $`w_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}(p,q,k,s)`$ for single photon exchange and general values of the virtuality $`k^2`$. The Lorentz structure is determined by the Levi–Civita symbol contracted with two 4–vectors of the problem. $`w_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}(p,q,k,s)`$ obeys the representation

$`w_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}(p,q,k,s)`$ $`=`$ $`i\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{Mp.k}{Nq.k}}\{q^\alpha [k^\beta {\displaystyle \frac{k^2p^\beta }{p.k}}][\widehat{g}_1+\widehat{g}_2]q^\alpha k^\beta [1{\displaystyle \frac{k^2p.q}{p.kq.k}}]\widehat{g}_2`$ (16)
$`+k^\alpha [k^\beta {\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{p.k}}p^\beta ]\widehat{v}\}.`$
The hadronic tensor is thus given by

$`W_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}(q,p,S)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{M^2}}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }{\displaystyle }d^4k\stackrel{~}{f}(p^2,p.k,k^2){\displaystyle \frac{S.k}{q.k}}[q^\alpha k^\beta (\widehat{g}_1+{\displaystyle \frac{k^2p.q}{q.kp.k}}\widehat{g}_2){\displaystyle \frac{q^\alpha p^\beta k^2}{p.k}}(\widehat{g}_1+\widehat{g}_2)`$ (17)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{k^\alpha p^\beta k^2}{p.k}}\widehat{v}].`$
Here $`\widehat{g}_i=\widehat{g}_i(q^2,q.k,k^2)`$ and $`\widehat{v}=\widehat{v}(q^2,q.k,k^2)`$ denote the respective sub–system structure functions. The function $`\widehat{v}`$ emerges for $`k^20`$.

For later use we rewrite (17) as

$`W_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}(q,p,S)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{M^2}}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }{\displaystyle }d^4kS.k\{q^\alpha k^\beta [{\displaystyle \frac{a_1}{p.k}}{\displaystyle \frac{b_1}{q.k}}+p.q{\displaystyle \frac{a_2}{p.k}}{\displaystyle \frac{b_2}{q.k}}]`$ (18)
$`+q^\alpha p^\beta \left[{\displaystyle \frac{a_3}{p.k}}{\displaystyle \frac{b_3}{q.k}}+{\displaystyle \frac{a_4}{p.k}}{\displaystyle \frac{b_4}{q.k}}\right]`$
$`+k^\alpha p^\beta {\displaystyle \frac{a_5}{p.k}}{\displaystyle \frac{b_5}{q.k}}\},`$
where

$`{\displaystyle \frac{a_1}{p.k}}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{f}(p^2,p.k,k^2)`$ (19)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{a_i}{p.k}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{p.k}}\stackrel{~}{f}(p^2,p.k,k^2),\mathrm{for}i=2\mathrm{}5`$ (20)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{b_1}{q.k}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q.k}}\widehat{g}_1(q^2,q.k,k^2)`$ (21)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{b_2}{q.k}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(q.k)^2}}\widehat{g}_2(q^2,q.k,k^2)`$ (22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{b_3}{q.k}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q.k}}\widehat{g}_1(q^2,q.k,k^2)`$ (23)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{b_4}{q.k}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q.k}}\widehat{g}_2(q^2,q.k,k^2)`$ (24)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{b_5}{q.k}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q.k}}\widehat{v}(q^2,q.k,k^2).`$ (25)
The functions $`a_i=a_i(p^2,p.k,k^2)`$ and $`b_i=b_i(q^2,q.k,k^2)`$ will be used in Eq. (42).

The tensor structure in Eq. (17) is yet different of that in (1). To determine the structure functions $`g_{1,2}(x,Q^2)`$ a tensor decomposition in terms of the outer variables $`p,q`$ and $`S`$ is performed :

$`W_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}(q,p,S)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{M^2}}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }q^\alpha S_\tau \left[I_1^{\beta \tau }+I_2^{\beta \tau }+p^\beta J_1^\tau +p^\beta J_2^\tau \right]+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{M^2}}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }S_\tau p^\beta K^{\alpha \tau },`$ (26)
with

$`I_1^{\beta \tau }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\frac{k^\beta k^\tau }{q.k}\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_1}=A_1g^{\beta \tau }+B_1p^\beta p^\tau +C_1q^\beta q^\tau +D_1\left(p^\beta q^\tau +p^\tau q^\beta \right)`$ (27)
$`I_2^{\beta \tau }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\frac{k^\beta k^\tau k^2p.q}{(q.k)^2p.k}\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_2}=A_2g^{\beta \tau }+B_2p^\beta p^\tau +C_2q^\beta q^\tau +D_2\left(p^\beta q^\tau +p^\tau q^\beta \right)`$ (28)
$`J_1^\tau `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\frac{k^2k^\tau }{p.kq.k}\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_1}=E_1p^\tau +H_1q^\tau `$ (29)
$`J_2^\tau `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\frac{k^2k^\tau }{p.kq.k}\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_2}=E_2p^\tau +H_2q^\tau `$ (30)
$`K^{\alpha \tau }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\frac{k^2k^\alpha k^\tau }{p.kq.k}\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{v}}=A_vg^{\alpha \tau }+B_vp^\alpha p^\tau +C_vq^\alpha q^\tau +D_v\left(p^\alpha q^\tau +q^\alpha p^\tau \right).`$ (31)
The contributions due to $`B_{1,2},C_{1,2},E_{1,2},B_v`$ and $`D_v`$ vanish. $`A_v`$ has to vanish because of current conservation. Therefore $`W_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}`$ is given by

$`W_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}(q,p,S)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{M^2}}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }q^\alpha S^\beta \left[A_1+A_2\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{M^2}}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }q^\alpha p^\beta S.q\left[D_1+D_2+H_1+H_2+C_v\right].`$
The coefficients $`A_{1,2},D_{1,2},H_{1,2}`$ and $`C_v`$ read :

$`A_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\left[\frac{k^2}{2(q.k)}+\frac{q^2(p.k)^2}{2(p.q)^2(q.k)}\frac{(p.k)}{(p.q)}\right]\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_1}`$ (33)
$`A_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\left[\frac{k^4(p.q)}{2(q.k)^2(p.k)}+\frac{q^2k^2(p.k)}{2(p.q)(q.k)^2}\frac{k^2}{(q.k)}\right]\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_2}`$ (34)
$`D_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\left[\frac{k^2}{2(p.q)(q.k)}\frac{3q^2(p.k)^2}{2(p.q)^3(q.k)}+\frac{2(p.k)}{(p.q)^2}\right]\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_1}`$ (35)
$`D_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\left[\frac{k^4}{2(p.k)(q.k)^2}\frac{3q^2k^2(p.k)}{2(p.q)^2(q.k)^2}+\frac{2k^2}{(p.q)(q.k)}\right]\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_2}`$ (36)
$`H_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\frac{k^2}{(p.q)(q.k)}\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_1}`$ (37)
$`H_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\frac{k^2}{(p.q)(q.k)}\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_2}`$ (38)
$`C_v`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\frac{k^2(p.k)}{(p.q)^2(q.k)}\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{v}}.`$ (39)
We finally obtain the following representations for $`g_1(x,Q^2)`$ and $`g_2(x,Q^2)`$ :

$`g_1(x,Q^2)+g_2(x,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p.q}{M^2}}[A_1+A_2]`$ (40)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d^4k{\displaystyle \frac{p.q}{M^2}}\{[{\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{2q.k}}+{\displaystyle \frac{q^2(p.k)^2}{2q.k(p.q)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{p.k}{p.q}}]\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_1`$
$`+[{\displaystyle \frac{k^4p.q}{2(q.k)^2p.k}}+{\displaystyle \frac{q^2k^2p.k}{2p.q(q.k)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{q.k}}]\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_2\}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d^4k[{\displaystyle \frac{q^2(p.k)^2}{2q.kp.q}}p.k]{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_1}{M^2}}+{\displaystyle }d^4k\left({\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{Q^2}}\right)\mathrm{\Phi }_1(k,p,q),`$
$`g_1(x,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p.q}{M^2}}[A_1+A_2]+{\displaystyle \frac{(p.q)^2}{M^2}}[D_1+D_2+H_1+H_2+C_v]`$ (41)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d^4k{\displaystyle \frac{p.q}{M^2}}\{[{\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{q.k}}{\displaystyle \frac{q^2(p.k)^2}{q.k(p.q)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{p.k}{p.q}}]\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_1`$
$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{q^2k^2p.k}{(q.k)^2p.q}}\right]\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{p.kk^2}{q.kp.q}}\right]\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{v}\}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d^4k[{\displaystyle \frac{q^2(p.k)^2}{q.kp.q}}+p.k]{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{f}\widehat{g}_1}{M^2}}+{\displaystyle }d^4k\left({\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{Q^2}}\right)\mathrm{\Phi }_2(k,p,q).`$
Here the functions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{1,2}(k,p,q)`$ are finite as $`k^20`$.

## 4 Representation of the structure functions in terms of a generating functional

Equivalently to the representation of the polarized structure functions in the previous section one may represent them referring to a generating functional444This case was studied for polarized light quarks in the presence of an on–shell condition in Ref.  before.. The hadronic tensor can be represented by functions of the form

$$F_i(p^2,p.q,q^2)=d^4ka_i(p^2,p.k.k^2)b_i(q^2,q.k,k^2),$$
(42)
where the functions $`a_i`$ represent the parts depending on $`p`$ and $`k`$ and $`b_i`$ have a dependence on $`q`$ and $`k`$ only. As shown in the foregoing this separation is possible accounting for other factors, which do not depend on $`k`$. Here $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$ belongs to the former and $`\widehat{g}_1`$, $`\widehat{g}_2`$, and $`\widehat{v}`$ to the latter besides of scalar products.

The partial derivatives of $`F`$ by $`q`$ and $`p`$ can be represented by partial derivatives of the functions $`a`$ and $`b`$ as follows :

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F}{q^\sigma }}`$ $`=`$ $`p_\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{F}{p.q}}+2q_\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{F}{q^2}}`$ (43)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4ka\left[k_\sigma \frac{b}{q.k}+2q_\sigma \frac{b}{q^2}\right]}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{F}{p^\sigma }}`$ $`=`$ $`q_\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{F}{p.q}}+2p_\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{F}{p^2}}`$ (44)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4kb\left[k_\sigma \frac{a}{p.k}+2p_\sigma \frac{a}{p^2}\right]}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{^2F}{p^\lambda q^\sigma }}`$ $`=`$ $`g_{\lambda \sigma }{\displaystyle \frac{F}{p.q}}+2p_\sigma p_\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{^2F}{p^2p.q}}+2q_\sigma q_\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{^2F}{q^2p.q}}+p_\sigma q_\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{^2F}{(p.q)^2}}+4q_\sigma p_\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{^2F}{q^2p^2}}`$ (45)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\left[k_\lambda k_\sigma \frac{a}{p.k}\frac{b}{q.k}+2k_\lambda q_\sigma \frac{a}{p.k}\frac{b}{q^2}+2p_\lambda k_\sigma \frac{a}{p^2}\frac{b}{q.k}+4p_\lambda q_\sigma \frac{a}{p^2}\frac{b}{q^2}\right]}.`$
The following structures contribute to the polarized part of the hadronic tensor :

$`\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \sigma }q^\alpha S_\lambda {\displaystyle d^4kk^\lambda k^\sigma \frac{a}{p.k}\frac{b}{q.k}}`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }q^\alpha [S^\beta {\displaystyle \frac{F}{p.q}}+S.qp^\beta {\displaystyle \frac{^2F}{(p.q)^2}}]`$ (46)
$`\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \sigma }p^\alpha S_\lambda {\displaystyle d^4kk^\lambda k^\sigma \frac{a}{p.k}\frac{b}{q.k}}`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \sigma }p^\alpha [S^\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{F}{p.q}}+2S.qq^\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{^2F}{(p.q)^2}}`$ (47)
$`2q^\sigma S_\lambda {\displaystyle }d^4kk^\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{a}{p.k}}{\displaystyle \frac{b}{q^2}}]`$
$`\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \sigma }q^\alpha p^\beta S_\lambda {\displaystyle d^4kk^\lambda \frac{a}{p.k}b}`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }q^\alpha p^\beta S.q{\displaystyle \frac{F}{p.q}},`$ (48)
which is given by

$`W_{\mu \nu }^{(A)}(q,p,S)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{M^2}}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }q^\alpha \{S^\beta [{\displaystyle \frac{F_1}{(p.q)}}+p.q{\displaystyle \frac{F_2}{(p.q)}}]+S.qp^\beta [{\displaystyle \frac{^2F_1}{(p.q)^2}}+p.q{\displaystyle \frac{^2F_2}{(p.q)^2}}`$ (49)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{^2(F_3+F_4)}{(p.q)^2}}]`$
$`+2S.qp^\beta [{\displaystyle \frac{^2F_5}{(p.q)q^2}}{\displaystyle }d^4k{\displaystyle \frac{S.k}{S.q}}{\displaystyle \frac{a_5}{(p.q)}}{\displaystyle \frac{b_5}{q^2}}]\}.`$
The comparison with (1) yields the following expressions for the structure functions :

$`g_1(x,Q^2)+g_2(x,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p.q}{M^2}}[{\displaystyle \frac{F_1}{p.q}}+p.q{\displaystyle \frac{F_2}{p.q}}],`$ (50)
$`g_2(x,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(p.q)^2}{M^2}}[{\displaystyle \frac{^2F_1}{(p.q)^2}}+p.q{\displaystyle \frac{^2F_2}{(p.q)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{^2(F_3+F_4)}{(p.q)^2}}+2{\displaystyle \frac{^2F_5}{p.qq^2}}`$ (51)
$`2{\displaystyle }d^4k{\displaystyle \frac{S.k}{S.q}}{\displaystyle \frac{a_5}{p.q}}{\displaystyle \frac{b_5}{q^2}}].`$
We now separate the finite contributions to the polarized structure functions in the limit $`k^20`$ from those which vanish. We consider

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dx}}\left\{x\left[g_1(x,Q^2)+g_2(x,Q^2)\right]\right\}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(p.q)^2}{M^2}}[{\displaystyle \frac{^2F_1}{(p.q)^2}}+p.q{\displaystyle \frac{^2F_2}{(p.q)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{F_2}{(p.q)}}],`$ (52)
where $`x=q^2/(2p.q)`$. Likewise one obtains

$`x{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dx}}\left\{g_1(x,Q^2)+g_2(x,Q^2)\right\}`$ $`=`$ $`g_1(x,Q^2)+g_2(x,Q^2)`$ (53)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(p.q)^2}{M^2}}[{\displaystyle \frac{^2F_1}{(p.q)^2}}+p.q{\displaystyle \frac{^2F_2}{(p.q)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{F_1}{(p.q)}}].`$
On the r.h.s. of (53) one may express the structure function $`g_2(x,Q^2)`$ inserting (51) which yields

$`x{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dx}}\left\{g_1(x,Q^2)+g_2(x,Q^2)\right\}`$ $`=`$ $`g_1(x,Q^2)\mathrm{\Phi }(x,Q^2),`$ (54)
with

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(x,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(p.q)^2}{M^2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(F_3+F_4F_2)}{(p.q)}}+2{\displaystyle \frac{^2F_5}{(p.q)q^2}}2{\displaystyle d^4k\frac{S.k}{S.q}\frac{a_5}{p.k}\frac{b_5}{q^2}}\right].`$ (55)
Let us investigate the structure of the function $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x,Q^2)`$ more closely. To do this we refer to (4648) from which follows

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F_i}{p.q}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4k\frac{S.k}{S.q}\frac{a_i}{p.k}b}.`$ (56)
One notices that

$$\frac{a_i}{p.k}=\frac{k^2}{p.k}\widehat{f},\mathrm{for}k=2\mathrm{}5.$$
(57)
The remainder terms contributing to $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x,Q^2)`$ result from (48). Using Eqs. (56,57) one thus concludes that $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x,Q^2)`$ obeys the representation

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(x,Q^2)=d^4k\left(\frac{k^2}{Q^2}\right)\varphi (p.k,q.k,p^2,q^2,k^2),$$
(58)
where $`\varphi (p.k,q.k,p^2,q^2,k^2)`$ is finite for $`k^20`$.

## 5 The relation between $`𝒈_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{(}𝒙\mathbf{,}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}`$ and $`𝒈_\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{(}𝒙\mathbf{,}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}`$

In (40, 41, 50, 51) the virtuality of the gluon field is revealed by power corrections in $`(k^2/Q^2)^l`$. These functions are not yet projected onto the twist–2 contributions.555Plain consideration of off–shell contributions in $`k^2`$ to hadronic structure functions may introduce unphysical contributions. One example are wrong target mass corrections as noted in  a long time ago. Any kind of partonic approach is only valid if the partonic virtualities $`k^2`$ obey

$$|k^2|Q^2.$$
(59)
This is an analogous condition to the requirement that the parton lifetime has to be much larger than the interaction time in the deeply inelastic scattering process for all associated infinite momentum frames, . To project out the twist–2 contributions we refer to the collinear basis, cf. , and expand these functions into a Taylor series in $`k^\mu `$ at $`k^\mu =zp^\mu `$. Here $`p.p=0`$ and the lowest twist contribution is obtained in setting $`k^20`$ in (40, 41, 50, 51). Note, however, that the corresponding expressions may contribute at higher twist due to the associated derivatives in $`k^\mu `$. We denote the twist–2 contributions to the structure functions $`g_i(x,Q^2)`$ by $`g_i^{\mathrm{II}}(x,Q^2)`$.

Whereas the relation between the structure functions $`g_1^{\mathrm{II}}`$ and $`g_2^{\mathrm{II}}`$ is not easily seen from Eqs. (40, 41) 666For this the explicit dependence on $`(p.q)`$ had to be known for Eq. (40)., it can be directly obtained from (54),

$$x\frac{d}{dx}\left[g_1^{\mathrm{II}}(x,Q^2)+g_2^{\mathrm{II}}(x,Q^2)\right]=g_1^{\mathrm{II}}(x,Q^2),$$
(60)
the differential form of the Wandzura–Wilczek relation, see . The integral form can be obtained from (60) using the condition

$$\underset{x1}{lim}g_i^{\mathrm{II}}(x,Q^2)=0$$
(61)
which yields

$$g_2^{\mathrm{II}}(x,Q^2)=g_1^{\mathrm{II}}(x,Q^2)+_x^1\frac{dy}{y}g_1^{\mathrm{II}}(y,Q^2).$$
(62)
At the level of twist–2 all structure functions depend on the same non–perturbative function $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$ and sub–system structure function $`\widehat{g}_1^{\mathrm{𝗉𝖺𝗋}}`$. Since the Wandzura–Wilczek relation holds as well for quarkonic initial states  all higher order radiative corrections can be absorbed into $`\widehat{g}_1^{\mathrm{𝗉𝖺𝗋}}`$, respectively, with $`\mathrm{𝗉𝖺𝗋}=g,q_i`$ denoting the quark species and the gluon, and holds thus in all orders.

The validity of the Wandzura–Wilczek relation also in the case of gluonic operator matrix elements is in accordance with the observation of the general nature of this relation connecting vector operator matrix–elements with the associated scalar operator matrix–elements on the light cone, which was shown for fermionic fields in .

To compare the heavy flavor contributions to $`g_{1,2}(x,Q^2)`$ to the usual parameterizations of these structure functions numerically we show the light flavor contributions to $`xg_{1,2}(x,Q^2)`$ in Figures 1a,b at leading order. For the parton distributions we refer to the parameterization . Other recent parameterizations  are well in accordance with  within the current experimental errors. The polarized gluon and sea–quark distributions have still a rather large uncertainty which can only be lowered by more precise data from future experiments. The present parameterizations were derived assuming three light quarks through a fit to the data ignoring any heavy flavor contribution. Part of the present gluon–distribution is thus corresponding to the contribution due to heavy flavors and one cannot add the distributions in Figures 1a,2a or Figures 1b,2b in a simple way.

As Figure 2a shows the effect of $`xg_1^{c\overline{c}}(x,Q^2)`$ is small at low scales $`Q^2`$ but rises rapidly with $`Q^2`$ and should be taken into account in future refined QCD analyses. Due to the larger quark mass and charge–suppression the $`b`$–quark contribution to $`xg_1(x,Q^2)`$ is smaller than that due to charm–quarks. While the distributions are positive for $`x>510^3`$ they change sign for lower values of $`x`$. In the present example the polarized gluon distribution is positive. The Wilson coefficient (7) changes sign, since

$`\underset{z0}{lim}C_{g_1}^{Q\overline{Q}}(z,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[3\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{zM_Q^2}}\right)\right],`$ (63)
$`\underset{\beta 0}{lim}C_{g_1}^{Q\overline{Q}}(z,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\beta >0,`$ (64)
and vanishes at threshold $`z=Q^2/(1+4M_Q^2)`$. Furthermore Eq. (9) holds. The oscillating behaviour of the Wilson coefficient implies lower relative heavy flavor contributions than in the unpolarized case.

Figure 1b shows $`xg_2(x,Q^2)`$ for the light flavors due to the Wandzura–Wilczek relation. $`xg_2(x,Q^2)`$ is positive for small $`x`$ values up to $`x10^1`$ and changes sign then. The integral over the positive function $`xg_1(x,Q^2)`$ is such larger than the subtraction term $`xg_1(x,Q^2)`$ in the former region while the subtraction term dominates in the latter region. The function has to have a positive and a negative branch since the Wandzura–Wilczek relation formally covers the Burkhardt–Cottingham relation777Note that the Wandzura–Wilczek relation is the analytic continuation from the positive moments, cf. e.g.  in the local light cone expansion, where the 0th moment, which corresponds to the Burkhardt–Cottingham sum rule, does not contribute.,

$`{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑xg_2(x,Q^2)=0.`$ (65)
Due to the additivity of twist–2 structure functions w.r.t. their parton contents the relation has to hold for each flavor separately.

Similar conclusions can be drawn for $`xg_2^{Q\overline{Q}}(x,Q^2)`$ shown in Figure 2b. $`xg_2^{Q\overline{Q}}(x,Q^2)`$ is widely positive for smaller values of $`x\stackrel{<}{}210^2`$ and negative for larger $`x`$. Again we would like to stress that the present numerical results on $`xg_{1,2}^{Q\overline{Q}}(x,Q^2)`$ are very sensitive on the polarized gluon distribution.

## 6 Conclusions

We calculated the heavy flavor contribution to $`g_2(x,Q^2)`$ at leading order in the strong coupling constant using the covariant parton model for finite values of the gluon virtuality $`k^2`$. The representation of the polarized structure functions $`g_{1,2}^{Q\overline{Q}}(x,Q^2)`$ can be obtained applying a tensor decomposition. Furthermore, a generating functional in which the $`k`$–dependent parton densities and coefficient functions are connected can be used to obtain a representation of the structure functions from which their possible relation can be derived. The twist–2 contributions are obtained in the limit $`k^2Q^2`$. The functions $`g_{1,2}^{Q\overline{Q}}(x,Q^2)`$ obey the Wandzura–Wilczek relation for a gluon induced process similar to earlier findings in fermion induced processes \[5–10,12,13,15–18\]. The absolute value of the relative numerical effect on both structure functions due to the LO heavy flavor contributions is about the same and may reach values of up to 5–10% in some kinematic ranges. 888Similar size effects have been reported in  for $`g_1^{Q\overline{Q}}`$ before. To make future QCD analyses of even more precise experimental data consistent at the level of the twist–2 contributions the heavy flavor distributions have to be taken into account.

Figure 1a: The light flavor contributions to the polarized structure function $`xg_1^p(x,Q^2)`$ in leading order (parameterization ISET=1 of , $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}=203\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$) as a function of $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$. Full line: $`Q^2=4\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2`$; dashed line: $`Q^2=10\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2`$; dotted line: $`Q^2=100\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2`$; dash–dotted line: $`Q^2=1000\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2`$.

Figure 1b: The light flavor contributions to the polarized structure function $`xg_2^p(x,Q^2)`$. All conditions are the same as in Figure 1a.

Figure 2a: Heavy flavor contributions to the polarized structure function $`xg_1(x,Q^2)`$ in leading order (parameterization ISET=1 of , $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}=203\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$) as a function of $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$. Upper lines: $`g_1^{c\overline{c}}(x,Q^2)`$ for $`m_c=1.5\mathrm{GeV}`$. Full line: $`Q^2=4\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2`$; dashed line: $`Q^2=10\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2`$; dotted line: $`Q^2=100\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2`$; dash–dotted line: $`Q^2=1000\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2`$. Lower lines: $`g_2^{c\overline{c}}(x,Q^2)`$ for $`m_b=4.3\mathrm{GeV}`$. Dotted line: $`Q^2=100\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2`$; dash–dotted line: $`Q^2=1000\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2`$. Figure 2b: Heavy flavor contributions to the polarized structure function $`xg_2^p(x,Q^2)`$.

Figure 2b: Heavy flavor contributions to the polarized structure function $`xg_2^p(x,Q^2)`$. All conditions are the same as in Figure 2a.


text:
# Products of characters and derived length

## 1. Introduction

Let $`G`$ be a finite group. Denote by $`\mathrm{Irr}(G)`$ the set of irreducible complex characters of $`G`$. Let $`1_G`$ be the principal character of $`G`$. Denote by $`[\mathrm{\Theta },\mathrm{\Phi }]`$ the inner product of the characters $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ of $`G`$. Through this work, we will use the notation of .

Let $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$. Define $`\overline{\chi }(g)`$ to be the complex conjugate $`\overline{\chi (g)}`$ of $`\chi (g)`$ for all $`gG`$. Then $`\overline{\chi }`$ is also an irreducible complex character of $`G`$. Since the product of characters is a character, $`\chi \overline{\chi }`$ is a character of $`G`$. So it can be expressed as an integral linear combination of irreducible characters. Now observe that

$$[\chi \overline{\chi },1_G]=[\chi ,\chi ]=1,$$

where the last equality holds since $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$. Assume now that $`\chi (1)>1`$. Then the decomposition of the character $`\chi \overline{\chi }`$ into its distinct irreducible constituents $`1_G`$, $`\alpha _1`$, $`\alpha _2,\mathrm{},\alpha _n`$ has the form

(1.1)
$$\chi \overline{\chi }=1_G+\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}a_i\alpha _i,$$

where $`n>0`$ and $`a_i>0`$ is the multiplicity of $`\alpha _i`$.

Set $`\eta (\chi )=n`$, so that $`\eta (\chi )`$ is the number of distinct non-principal irreducible constituents of $`\chi \overline{\chi }`$. The number $`\eta (\chi )`$ carries information about the structure of the group. For example, if $`\eta (\chi )`$ is an odd number, then the order of the group has to be an even number. To see this, notice that $`\chi \overline{\chi }`$ is a real character. When $`\eta (\chi )`$ is odd, at least one of the irreducible characters $`\alpha _i`$ has to be real. Then $`G`$ has a non-principal irreducible real character. So the order of $`G`$ has to be even.

The purpose of this work is to give some answers to the following questions:

Question 1. Assume that we know $`\eta (\chi )`$ for some $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$. What can we say about the structure of the group $`G`$ and about the character $`\chi `$?

Question 2. Knowing the set $`\{a_ii=1,\mathrm{},\eta (\chi )\}`$, what can we say about the group $`G`$?

Denote by $`\mathrm{dl}(G)`$ the derived length of the group $`G`$. The main results of this work regarding the first question are the following:

###### Theorem A.

There exist constants $`C`$ and $`D`$ such that for any finite solvable group $`G`$ and any irreducible character $`\chi `$

$$\mathrm{dl}(G/\mathrm{Ker}(\chi ))C\eta (\chi )+D.$$

###### Theorem B.

Let $`G`$ be a finite solvable group and $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$. Then $`\chi (1)`$ has at most $`\eta (\chi )`$ distinct prime divisors.

If, in addition, $`G`$ is supersolvable and $`\chi (1)>1`$, then $`\chi (1)`$ is a product of at most $`\eta (\chi )1`$ primes.

The main result of this work regarding the second question is

###### Theorem C.

Assume that $`G`$ is a finite solvable group and $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$ with $`\chi (1)>1`$. Let $`\{\alpha _i\mathrm{Irr}(G)^\mathrm{\#}i=1,\mathrm{},n\}`$ be the set of non-principal irreducible constituents of $`\chi \overline{\chi }`$. If $`\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)`$ is maximal under inclusion among the subgroups $`\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i)`$, for $`i=1,\mathrm{},n`$, of $`G`$, then $`[\chi \overline{\chi },\alpha _j]=1`$. Thus $`1\{[\chi \overline{\chi },\alpha _i]i=1,\mathrm{},n\}`$.

Notation. Set $`V^\mathrm{\#}=V\{0\}`$ and $`\mathrm{Irr}(G)^\mathrm{\#}=\mathrm{Irr}(G)\{1_G\}`$.

## 2. Preliminaries

###### Definition 2.1.

Let $`V`$ be a finite $`𝐅G`$-module for some finite field $`𝐅`$. Then $`m(G,V)`$ is the number of distinct sizes of orbits of $`G`$ on $`V^\mathrm{\#}`$.

###### Lemma 2.2 (Keller).

There exist universal constants $`C_1`$ and $`C_2`$ such that for any finite solvable group $`G`$ acting faithfully and irreducibly on a finite vector space $`V`$ we have

$$\mathrm{dl}(G)C_1\mathrm{log}(m(G,V))+C_2.$$

###### Proof.

See . ∎

###### Definition 2.3.

We define the function

$$h(n)=C_1\mathrm{log}(n)+C_2$$

where $`C_1`$ and $`C_2`$ are as in Lemma 2.2.

## 3. The function $`\eta (\chi )`$

Given a finite group $`G`$ and a character $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$, we define $`\eta (\chi )`$ as the number of non-principal irreducible constituents of the product $`\chi \overline{\chi }`$. We give examples showing that there is no relation between induction of characters and $`\eta `$.

###### Example 3.1.

If $`\chi =\theta ^G`$ is induced from some $`\theta \mathrm{Irr}(H)`$, where $`HG`$, then we need not have $`\eta (\chi )\eta (\theta )`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`E`$ be an extra-special group of exponent $`p`$ and order $`p^3`$, for some odd prime $`p`$. Let $`a\mathrm{Aut}(E)`$ be an element of prime order $`q`$ that divides $`p1`$. Assume that $`a`$ acts fixed point free on $`E`$.

Set $`G=<a>E`$. Let $`\theta \mathrm{Irr}(E)`$ be a non-linear character. Since $`a`$ acts fixed point free, we have that $`\theta ^G=\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$.

Observe that $`G`$ has $`q`$ linear characters, namely the irreducible characters of $`G/E`$. Also $`G`$ has $`\frac{p^21}{q}`$ irreducible characters of degree $`q`$, the characters that are induced from linear non-principal characters of $`E`$. And finally there are $`\frac{p1}{q}`$ irreducible characters of degree $`pq`$. We conclude that $`G`$ has $`q+\frac{p^21}{q}+\frac{p1}{q}`$ distinct irreducible characters. Thus $`\eta (\chi )q1+\frac{p^21}{q}+\frac{p1}{q}.`$

We can check that

$$q1+\frac{p^21}{q}+\frac{p1}{q}<p^21.$$

Observe that $`\theta \overline{\theta }=(1_{𝐙(E)})^E`$. Thus $`\eta (\theta )=p^21>\eta (\chi )`$. ∎

###### Example 3.2.

If $`\chi =\theta ^G`$ is induced from some $`\theta \mathrm{Irr}(H)`$, where $`HG`$, then we need not have $`\eta (\chi )\eta (\theta )`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`G`$ be an extra-special group. Let $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$ be a non-linear character. Let $`\theta `$ be a linear character of some subgroup $`H`$ of $`G`$ such that $`\chi =\theta ^G`$. Then $`\eta (\chi )>\eta (\theta )=0`$. ∎

## 4. Proof of Theorem C

Let $`G`$ be a finite group and $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$. Consider the expression (1.1) for $`\chi \overline{\chi }`$. We will see in this section that if $`G`$ is solvable, then $`1\{a_i\}`$. That may not be true in general. For example, consider $`A_6`$, the alternating group on 6 letters, and $`\chi _5\mathrm{Irr}(A_6)`$ with $`\chi _5(1)=10`$. Using the notation of page 289 of , we can check that

$$\chi _5\overline{\chi _5}=\chi _1+2\chi _2+2\chi _3+3\chi _4+2\chi _5+2\chi _6+2\chi _7.$$

Thus $`\{a_i\}=\{2,3\}`$.

###### Lemma 4.1.

Let $`L`$ and $`N`$ be normal subgroups of $`G`$ such that $`L/N`$ is an abelian chief factor of $`G`$. Let $`\theta \mathrm{Irr}(L)`$ be a $`G`$-invariant character. Then the restriction $`\theta _N`$ is reducible if and only if

(4.2)
$$\theta (g)=0\text{ for all }gLN.$$

Also if $`\theta _N`$ is reducible, then

(4.3)
$$\theta \overline{\theta }=(1_N)^L+\mathrm{\Phi }$$

where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is either the zero function or a character of $`L`$, and $`[\mathrm{\Phi }_N,1_N]=0`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`\phi \mathrm{Irr}(N)`$ be a character such that $`[\phi ,\theta _N]0`$. If $`\theta _N`$ is reducible, by Theorem 6.18 of  we have that either $`\theta _N=e\phi `$, where $`e^2=|L:N|`$, or $`\theta =\phi ^L`$. If $`\theta _N=e\phi `$, where $`e^2=|L:N|`$, by Exercise 6.3 of  we have that $`\theta `$ vanishes on $`LN`$. If $`\theta =\phi ^L`$, since $`N`$ is a normal subgroup of $`L`$ we have that $`\theta (g)=0`$ for all $`gLN`$. Thus (4.2) holds.

Now assume that (4.2) holds. Then

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill [\theta _N,\theta _N]& =\frac{1}{|N|}\underset{gN}{}\theta (g)\overline{\theta (g)}\hfill \\ & =\frac{1}{|N|}\underset{gL}{}\theta (g)\overline{\theta (g)}\text{ by (}\text{4.2}\text{)}\hfill \\ & =\frac{1}{|N|}|L|[\theta ,\theta ]=\frac{|L|}{|N|},\hfill \end{array}$$

where the last equality holds since $`\theta \mathrm{Irr}(L)`$. Because $`|L|/|N|>1`$, it follows that $`\theta _N`$ is a reducible character.

For any $`\gamma \mathrm{Irr}(L/N)`$ we have that

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill [\theta \overline{\theta },\gamma ]& =[\theta ,\theta \gamma ]\hfill \\ & =\frac{1}{|L|}\underset{gL}{}\theta (g)\overline{\theta (g)}\overline{\gamma (g)}\hfill \\ & =\frac{1}{|L|}[\underset{gLN}{}\theta (g)\overline{\theta (g)}\overline{\gamma (g)}+\underset{gN}{}\theta (g)\overline{\theta (g)}\overline{\gamma (g)}]\hfill \\ & =\frac{1}{|L|}[\underset{gLN}{}\theta (g)\overline{\theta (g)}+\underset{gN}{}\theta (g)\overline{\theta (g)\gamma (g)}]\text{ by (}\text{4.2}\text{)}\hfill \\ & =\frac{1}{|L|}[\underset{gLN}{}\theta (g)\overline{\theta (g)}+\underset{gN}{}\theta (g)\overline{\theta (g)}]\text{ since }\mathrm{Ker}(\gamma )N\text{ and }\gamma (1)=1\hfill \\ & =[\theta ,\theta ]=1.\hfill \end{array}$$

Thus (4.3) follows. ∎

###### Lemma 4.4.

Let $`G`$ be a finite solvable group and $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$. Let $`\{\alpha _ii=1,\mathrm{},\eta (\chi )\}`$ be the set of non-principal irreducible constituents of the product $`\chi \overline{\chi }`$. Let $`N`$ be a normal subgroup of $`G`$. Then $`\chi _N\mathrm{Irr}(N)`$ if and only if $`N\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i)`$ for $`i=1,\mathrm{},\eta (\chi )`$.

###### Proof.

Observe that

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill [\chi _N,\chi _N]& =[\chi _N\overline{\chi }_N,1_N]\hfill \\ & =[(1_G+\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}a_i\alpha _i)_N,1_N]\text{ by (}\text{1.1}\text{)}\hfill \\ & =[1_N+\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}a_i(\alpha _i)_N,1_N]\hfill \\ & =[1_N,1_N]+\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}a_i[(\alpha _i)_N,1_N]\hfill \\ & =1+\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}a_i[(\alpha _i)_N,1_N].\hfill \end{array}$$

Thus $`[\chi _N,\chi _N]=1`$ if and only if $`_{i=1}^na_i[(\alpha _i)_N,1_N]=0`$. Since $`a_i>0`$ for $`i=1,\mathrm{},n`$, we have $`[\chi _N,\chi _N]=1`$ if and only if $`[(\alpha _i)_N,1_N]=0`$ for all $`i`$. Since $`[(\alpha _i)_N,1_N]=0`$ if and only if $`N\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i)`$, the result follows. ∎

###### Proof of Theorem C.

Set $`N=\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)`$. Let $`L`$ be a normal subgroup of $`G`$ such that $`L/N`$ is a chief factor of $`G`$. Since $`N=\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i)`$ for $`i=1,\mathrm{},n`$, we have $`L\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i)`$ for $`i=1,\mathrm{},n`$. By Lemma 4.4 we have that $`\chi _L\mathrm{Irr}(L)`$. Set $`\theta =\chi _L`$. Since $`N=\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)`$, we have that $`[(\alpha _j)_N,1_N]=\alpha _j(1)`$. Thus

$$[\chi _N,\chi _N]=[(\chi \overline{\chi })_N,1_N]1+a_j\alpha _j(1)>1.$$

Therefore $`\chi _N`$ is reducible. By Lemma 4.1 we have that

(4.5)
$$(\chi \overline{\chi })_L=\theta \overline{\theta }=1_N^L+\mathrm{\Phi },$$

where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is either the zero function or a character of $`L`$ and $`[\mathrm{\Phi }_N,1_N]=0`$. Also, by (1.1) we have that

$$(\chi \overline{\chi })_L=1_L+\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}a_i(\alpha _i)_L.$$

Let $`\gamma \mathrm{Irr}(L/\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j))`$ be such that $`[(\alpha _j)_L,\gamma ]0`$. Then

$$0<a_j[(\alpha _j)_L,\gamma ]=[(a_j\alpha _j)_L,\gamma ][(\chi \overline{\chi })_L,\gamma ]=1,$$

where the last equality follows from (4.5). Therefore $`a_j=1`$.

Since there is some $`j\{1,\mathrm{},n\}`$ such that $`\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)`$ is maximal among the $`\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i)`$ for all $`i`$, the last part of Theorem C follows from that. ∎

## 5. Proof of Theorem B

###### Lemma 5.1.

Assume $`G`$ is a finite group and $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$ is a faithful character. Let $`\{\alpha _i\mathrm{Irr}(G)^\mathrm{\#}i=1,\mathrm{},n\}`$ be the set of non-principal irreducible constituents of $`\chi \overline{\chi }`$. Then

$$𝐙(G)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i).$$

###### Proof.

By Lemma 2.21 of ,

$$\mathrm{Ker}(\chi \overline{\chi })=\mathrm{Ker}(1_G)\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i).$$

Since $`(\chi \overline{\chi })(g)=\chi ^2(1)`$ if and only if $`g𝐙(\chi )`$, it follows that $`\mathrm{Ker}(\chi \overline{\chi })=𝐙(G)`$, and the result follows. ∎

###### Definition 5.2.

Let $`G`$ be a group and $`L`$ be a subgroup of $`G`$. We say that

$$(N,\theta )(L,\varphi )$$

if $`NL`$, $`\varphi \mathrm{Irr}(L)`$, $`\theta \mathrm{Irr}(N)`$ and $`[\varphi _N,\theta ]0`$. We say that

$$(N,\theta )<(L,\varphi )$$

if $`N<L`$, $`\varphi \mathrm{Irr}(L)`$, $`\theta \mathrm{Irr}(N)`$ and $`[\varphi _N,\theta ]0`$.

Let $`X`$ be a family of normal subgroups of $`G`$ with $`GX`$. We say that a chain

$$(N_0,\theta _0)>(N_1,\theta _1)>(N_2,\theta _2)>\mathrm{}>(N_k,\theta _k),$$

where $`N_0=G`$ and $`\chi =\theta _0`$, is an $`(X,\chi )`$-reducing chain if $`N_iX`$ and $`(\theta _i)_{N_{i+1}}`$ is reducible for $`i=0,\mathrm{},k`$.

We say that the above chain is a maximal $`(X,\chi )`$-reducing chain if it is a $`(X,\chi )`$-reducing chain with the following two properties:

(i) For any $`i`$ with $`0<ik`$, the group $`N_i`$ is a maximal subgroup in the set

$$\{MXMN_{i1}\text{ and }(\theta _{i1})_M\text{ is reducible}\}.$$

(ii) For any $`MX`$ such that $`M<N_k`$, the restriction $`(\theta _k)_M`$ is irreducible.

Remark. Given a family $`X`$ of normal subgroups of $`G`$ with $`GX`$ and given $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$, there is always an $`(X,\chi )`$-reducing chain, and a maximal $`(X,\chi )`$-reducing chain. In fact $`(G,\chi )`$ is already an $`(X,\chi )`$-reducing chain. We find a maximal reducing $`(X,\chi )`$ chain by induction. We start with $`(N_0,\theta _0)=(G,\chi )`$. If $`(\theta _0)_M`$ is irreducible for any $`MX`$, then $`(N_0,\theta _0)`$ is our maximal $`(X,\chi )`$-reducing chain. Assume we have found $`(N_{i1},\theta _{i1})`$ for some integer $`i1`$. If the set

$$\{MXMN_{i1}\text{ and }(\theta _{i1})_M\text{ is reducible}\}$$

is non-empty, we choose $`N_i`$ to be any maximal element in this set, and $`\theta _i`$ to be any character in $`\mathrm{Irr}(N_i)`$ such that $`[(\theta _{i1})_{N_i},\theta _i]>0`$. Otherwise we stop our chain with $`k=i1`$.

###### Hypotheses 5.3.

Assume $`G`$ is a finite solvable group and $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$ is a faithful character. Set $`n=\eta (\chi )`$. Let $`\{\alpha _i\mathrm{Irr}(G)^\mathrm{\#}i=1,\mathrm{},n\}`$ be the set of non-principal irreducible constituents of $`\chi \overline{\chi }`$. Set

(5.4)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\{\underset{iS}{}\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i)S\{1,2,\mathrm{},n\}\},$$

where $`_{iS}\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i)`$ is taken to be $`G`$ when $`S`$ is empty.

Let

$$(G,\chi )=(N_0,\theta _0)>(N_1,\theta _1)>\mathrm{}>(N_k,\theta _k)$$

be a maximal $`(\mathrm{\Omega },\chi )`$-reducing chain.

###### Lemma 5.5.

Assume Hypotheses 5.3. Then the maximal $`(\mathrm{\Omega },\chi )`$-reducing chain has the following properties:

(a) For any integer $`i=1,2,\mathrm{},k`$ and any normal subgroup $`M`$ of $`G`$ such that $`N_i<MN_{i1}`$ we have that

(5.6)
$$(\theta _{i1})_M\mathrm{Irr}(M).$$

(b) $`N_k`$ is abelian.

(c) $`kn`$.

(d) If, in addition, $`G`$ is supersolvable, then $`kn1`$.

###### Proof.

(a) If $`M\mathrm{\Omega }`$, then $`(\theta _{i1})_M`$ has to be irreducible. Otherwise $`N_i`$ is not a maximal element in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ such that $`(\theta _{i1})_{N_i}`$ reduces, a contradiction with property (i) in Definition 5.2.

So we may assume that $`M`$ is not an element of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Let $`L`$ be minimal among all elements $`K\mathrm{\Omega }`$ such that $`MKN_{i1}`$. By property (i) in Definition 5.2 we have that

$$\varphi =(\theta _{i1})_L\mathrm{Irr}(L).$$

Observe that

(5.7)
$$1=[\varphi ,\varphi ]=[\varphi \overline{\varphi },1_L][(\varphi \overline{\varphi })_M,1_M]=[\varphi _M,\varphi _M],$$

where equality holds if and only if $`\varphi _M\mathrm{Irr}(M)`$.

Recall that $`[\chi _{N_{i1}},\theta _{i1}]0`$. Thus $`[\chi _L,\varphi ]0`$. Let $`T`$ be the stabilizer of $`\varphi `$ in $`G`$ and $`Y`$ be a set of coset representatives of $`T`$ in $`G`$. Thus if $`g,hY`$ and $`gh`$, we have that $`\varphi ^g\varphi ^h`$ and therefore $`[\varphi ^g,\varphi ^h]=0`$. By Clifford Theory we have that $`\chi _L=e_{gY}\varphi ^g`$, for some integer $`e>0`$. Thus

(5.8)
$$[(\chi \overline{\chi })_L,1_L]=[\chi _L,\chi _L]=[e\underset{gY}{}\varphi ^g,e\underset{gY}{}\varphi ^g]=e^2\underset{gY}{}[\varphi ^g,\varphi ^g]$$

Since $`\chi _M=(\chi _L)_M`$, we have that

(5.9)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill [(\chi \overline{\chi })_M,1_M]& =[\chi _M,\chi _M]\hfill \\ & =e^2[\underset{gY}{}(\varphi ^g)_M,\underset{gY}{}(\varphi ^g)_M].\hfill \end{array}$$

If $`\varphi _M\mathrm{Irr}(M)`$, then (5.7), (5.8) and (5.9) imply that

(5.10)
$$[(\chi \overline{\chi })_L,1_L]<[(\chi \overline{\chi })_M,1_M].$$

By (1.1) and (5.10) there exists some $`\alpha _j`$ such that $`\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)M`$ but $`\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)L`$. Therefore $`L\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)`$ is a proper subset of $`L`$, contains $`M`$ and lies in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. This contradicts our choice of $`L`$. Thus $`(\theta _{i1})_M=\varphi _M\mathrm{Irr}(M)`$.

(b) By Lemma 5.1 we have that $`𝐙(G)M`$ for any $`M\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Thus $`(\theta _k)_{𝐙(G)}`$ is irreducible by property (ii) in Definition 5.2. That implies that $`\theta _k\mathrm{Irr}(N_k)`$ is a linear character. Since $`N_k`$ is normal in $`G`$ and $`[\chi _{N_k},\theta _k]0`$, all the irreducible components of $`\chi _{N_k}`$ are linear. By hypothesis $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$ is a faithful character. Therefore $`N_k`$ must be abelian.

(c) This follows from the definition of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and the fact that the set $`\{\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)\}`$ has at most $`n`$ elements.

(d) Suppose that $`N_k=𝐙(G)`$. Let $`L/N_k`$ be a chief factor of $`G`$ with $`LN_{k1}`$. Since $`G`$ is supersolvable, $`L/N_k`$ is cyclic of prime order. Observe that $`L`$ is abelian because it has a central subgroup $`N_k`$ with a cyclic factor group $`L/N_k`$. So $`\theta _k`$ extends to $`L`$. By (a) we have that $`(\theta _{k1})_L\mathrm{Irr}(L)`$. Thus $`(\theta _{k1})_{N_k}=\theta _k`$. That can not be by Definition 5.2 (i). We conclude that $`N_k𝐙(G)`$.

Since $`N_k𝐙(G)=_{i=1}^n\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i)`$ and $`\{\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _i)i=1,2,\mathrm{}n\}`$ has at most $`n`$ elements, we must have that $`kn1`$. ∎

Theorem B is an application of Lemma 5.5.

###### Proof of Theorem B.

Working with the group $`G/\mathrm{Ker}(\chi )`$, by induction on the order of $`G`$ we can assume that $`\mathrm{Ker}(\chi )=1`$. Let

$$(G,\chi )=(N_0,\theta _0)>(N_1,\theta _1)>\mathrm{}>(N_k,\theta _k)$$

be a maximal $`(\mathrm{\Omega },\chi )`$-reducing chain. For each $`i=1,2,\mathrm{},k`$, let $`L_i`$ be a normal subgroup of $`G`$ such that $`L_i/N_i`$ is a chief factor of $`G`$ and $`L_iN_{i1}`$.

By Lemma 5.5 we have that $`(\theta _{i1})_{L_i}\mathrm{Irr}(L_i)`$. Since $`L_i/N_i`$ is an elementary abelian $`p_i`$-group for some prime $`p_i`$, we have

$$\theta _{i1}(1)=\theta _i(1)p_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{m_i}$$

for some integer $`m_i1`$. Here $`m_i=1`$ in the case that $`G`$ is supersolvable. By Lemma 5.5 (b), we have that $`\theta _k(1)=1`$. By Lemma 5.5 (c), $`kn`$. We conclude that $`\chi (1)`$ has at most $`kn`$ distinct prime divisors.

If $`G`$ is supersolvable, by Lemma 5.5 (d) we have $`kn1`$. Thus $`\chi (1)`$ has at most $`n1`$ prime divisors. ∎

## 6. Proof of Theorem A

###### Hypotheses 6.1.

Assume Hypotheses 5.3. For each $`i`$, let $`L_i/N_i`$ be a chief factor of $`G`$ where $`L_iN_{i1}`$.

###### Lemma 6.2.

Assume Hypotheses 6.1. There exists a subgroup $`U`$ of $`L_i`$ and a character $`\varphi \mathrm{Irr}(U)`$, such that

(6.3)
$$(N_i,\theta _i)(U,\varphi )<(L_i,\psi )$$

###### Proof.

Suppose that the lemma is false. Then for any $`U`$ and $`\varphi \mathrm{Irr}(U)`$ such that (6.3) holds, we have that $`(L_i)_\varphi =L_i`$. Choose a chain

$$(N_i,\theta _i)=(U_s,\varphi _s)<\mathrm{}<(U_1,\varphi _1)<(U_0,\varphi _0)=(L_i,\psi )$$

such that $`|U_{j1}:U_j|`$ is a prime number for all $`j=1,2,\mathrm{},s`$. We can do that since $`L_i/N_i`$ is an elementary abelian group. Since $`(L_i)_{\varphi _j}=L_i`$ for all $`j=1,2,\mathrm{},s`$, we have $`(U_{j1})_{\varphi _j}=U_{j1}`$. Since $`|U_{j1}:U_j|`$ is a prime number, it follows that $`(\varphi _{j1})_{U_j}=\varphi _j`$ for $`j=1,\mathrm{},s`$. But then $`(\theta _{i1})_{N_i}\mathrm{Irr}(N_i)`$, a contradiction with Definition 5.2 (i). Therefore there exist $`U<L_i`$ and a character $`\varphi \mathrm{Irr}(U)`$ such that (6.3) holds and $`(L_i)_\varphi L_i`$.

Since $`N_i(L_i)_\varphi <L_i`$, and $`L_i/N_i`$ is an elementary abelian subgroup, the subgroup $`(L_i)_\varphi `$ is normal in $`L_i`$. By Clifford Theory $`\psi `$ is induced from some character $`\psi _\varphi \mathrm{Irr}((L_i)_\varphi )`$. Since $`(L_i)_\varphi `$ is normal in $`L_i`$, and $`(\psi _\varphi )^{L_i}=\psi `$, we have $`\psi (g)=0`$ for any $`gL_i(L_i)_\varphi `$. ∎

###### Lemma 6.4.

Assume Hypotheses 6.1. Let $`r_i=|\{\alpha _j|N_i\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)\text{ and }N_{i1}\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)\}|`$. Then we have

$$\mathrm{dl}(N_{i1}/𝐂_{N_{i1}}(L_i/N_i))h(r_i),$$

where $`h`$ is as in Definition 2.3.

###### Proof.

By Lemma 5.5 (a), we have that

(6.5)
$$\psi =(\theta _{i1})_{L_i}\mathrm{Irr}(L_i).$$

Let $`V(\psi )`$ be the “vanishing-off subgroup of $`\psi `$” (see page 200 of ), the smallest subgroup $`V(\psi )`$ of $`L_i`$ such that $`\psi `$ vanishes on $`L_iV(\psi )`$. Since $`\psi =(\theta _{i1})_{L_i}`$ and $`\theta _{i1}\mathrm{Irr}(N_{i1})`$, the subgroup $`V(\psi )`$ is $`N_{i1}`$-invariant. Therefore $`N_iV(\psi )`$ is a normal subgroup of $`N_{i1}`$. Let $`U`$ and $`\varphi \mathrm{Irr}(U)`$ be as in Lemma 6.2. Observe that $`V(\psi )(L_i)_\varphi `$ since for all $`gL_i(L_i)_\varphi `$ we have that $`\psi (g)=0`$. Also observe that $`N_i(L_i)_\varphi `$. Thus $`N_iV(\psi )(L_i)_\varphi `$. Therefore $`N_iV(\psi )`$ is a proper subgroup of $`L_i`$.

Let $`M`$ be a subgroup such that $`N_iV(\psi )M<L_i`$ and $`L_i/M`$ is a chief factor of $`N_{i1}`$. So we have the following relations:

$$N_iN_iV(\psi )M<L_iN_{i1}.$$

Since $`L_i`$ is a normal subgroup of $`G`$, the quotient $`L_i/M^g`$ is also a chief factor of $`N_{i1}`$, for any $`gG`$. Hence for any $`gG`$

(6.6)
$$MM^g=M\text{ or }MM^g=L_i.$$

Lemma 4.1 gives us that

$$\psi \overline{\psi }=1_M^{L_i}+\mathrm{\Phi },$$

where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is either $`0`$ or a character of $`L_i`$. Since $`[(\chi )_{L_i},\psi ]0`$, this implies that

$$(\chi \overline{\chi })_{L_i}=1_M^{L_i}+\mathrm{\Theta },$$

where $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is either $`0`$ or a character of $`L_i`$. This and (1.1) imply that

$$1_{L_i}+\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}a_j(\alpha _j)_{L_i}=1_M^{L_i}+\mathrm{\Theta }.$$

Thus

$$\mathrm{Irr}(L_i/M)^\mathrm{\#}=\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}\{\gamma \mathrm{Irr}(L_i/M)^\mathrm{\#}[(\alpha _j)_{L_i},\gamma ]0\}.$$

Let $`X=\{\alpha _j|[(\alpha _j)_{L_i},\gamma ]0\text{ for some }\gamma \mathrm{Irr}(L_i/M)^\mathrm{\#}\}`$. Observe that $`X`$ is a subset of the set

$$\{\alpha _j|N_i\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)\text{ and }N_{i1}\overline{)}\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)\}.$$

Thus

(6.7)
$$|X|r_i.$$

Let $`\gamma ,\delta \mathrm{Irr}(L_i/M)^\mathrm{\#}`$. Suppose that $`\gamma `$ and $`\delta `$ lie below the same $`\alpha _jX`$, i.e. $`[(\alpha _j)_{L_i},\gamma ]0`$ and $`[(\alpha _j)_{L_i},\delta ]0`$, for some $`j=1,\mathrm{},n`$. Since $`L_i`$ is a normal subgroup of $`G`$ and $`\alpha _j\mathrm{Irr}(G)`$, by Clifford theory there exists $`gG`$ such that $`\gamma ^g=\delta `$. By definition we have that $`M\mathrm{Ker}(\delta )`$. Observe that

$$M^g(\mathrm{Ker}(\gamma ))^g=\mathrm{Ker}(\gamma ^g)$$

Since $`\gamma ^g=\delta `$, we have $`MM^g\mathrm{Ker}(\delta )`$. By (6.6) we have that $`M^g=M`$, i.e. $`gN_G(M)`$. We conclude that $`\gamma `$ and $`\delta `$ lie below the same $`\alpha _j`$ if and only if $`\gamma ^g=\delta `$ for some $`gN_G(M)`$, i.e the set $`\{\gamma \mathrm{Irr}(L_i/M)^\mathrm{\#}[(\alpha _j)_L,\gamma ]0\}`$ is an $`N_G(M)`$-orbit in $`\mathrm{Irr}(L_i/M)^\mathrm{\#}`$. Set $`H=N_G(M)`$. Each $`H`$-orbit in $`\mathrm{Irr}(L_i/M)^\mathrm{\#}`$ lies under at least one character $`\alpha _j`$ in $`X`$, and any each $`\alpha _j`$ lies over a single $`H`$-orbit $`\mathrm{Irr}(L_i/M)`$. Hence $`H`$ acts on $`\mathrm{Irr}(L_i/M)^\mathrm{\#}`$ with at most $`|X|`$ orbits. By (6.7) we conclude that $`H`$ acts on $`\mathrm{Irr}(L_i/M)^\mathrm{\#}`$ with at most $`r_i`$ orbits. By Lemma 2.2 we have that

$$\mathrm{dl}(H/𝐂_H(L_i/M))h(r_i).$$

Since $`N_{i1}H=N_G(M)`$ and $`𝐂_H(L_i/M)N_{i1}=𝐂_{N_{i1}}(L_i/M)`$, we have

$$\mathrm{dl}(N_{i1}/𝐂_{N_{i1}}(L_i/M))h(r_i).$$

For any $`gG`$, we can check that

$$(G,\chi )=(N_0,(\theta _0)^g)>(N_1,(\theta _1)^g)>\mathrm{}>(N_k,(\theta _k)^g)$$

is a maximal $`(G,\mathrm{\Omega })`$-reducing chain. Thus, as before we can conclude that

(6.8)
$$\mathrm{dl}(N_{i1}/𝐂_{N_{i1}}(L_i/M^g))h(r_i).$$

Since $`L_i/N_i`$ is a chief factor of $`G`$ and $`N_iM<L_i`$, we have that

$$\mathrm{core}_G(M)=\underset{gG}{}M^g=N_i.$$

Therefore

(6.9)
$$\underset{gG}{}𝐂_{N_{i1}}(L_i/M^g)=𝐂_{N_{i1}}(L_i/N_i).$$

Observe that the lemma follows from (6.8) and (6.9). ∎

###### Lemma 6.10.

Assume Hypotheses 5.3.

$$\mathrm{dl}(N_{i1}/N_i)\mathrm{dl}(N_{i1}/𝐂_{N_{i1}}(L_i/N_i))+1.$$

###### Proof.

Set $`C=𝐂_{N_{i1}}(L_i/N_i)`$. Observe that $`L_iC`$ and that $`C`$ is a normal subgroup of $`G`$. We want to prove that $`C/N_i`$ is abelian. We may assume that $`C>L_i`$. Observe that if $`U`$ is a group and $`N_iUL_i`$, then $`U`$ is normal in $`C`$. By Lemma 6.2, there exist $`U`$ and $`\varphi \mathrm{Irr}(U)`$, where

(6.11)
$$(N_i,\theta _i)(U,\varphi )<(L_i,\psi )$$

and $`(L_i)_\varphi <L_i`$. In particular we have that $`C_\varphi C`$. Since $`(\theta _{i1})_{L_i}=\psi \mathrm{Irr}(L_i)`$ and $`U<L_iCN_{i1}`$, we have that $`(\theta _{i1})_C\mathrm{Irr}(C)`$ and $`(\theta _{i1})_C`$ lies above $`\varphi `$. By Clifford Theory, there exists $`\zeta \mathrm{Irr}(C_\varphi )`$ such that $`\zeta ^C=(\theta _{i1})_C`$. Since $`(\zeta ^C)_{L_i}\mathrm{Irr}(L_i)`$, we have that $`C=C_\varphi L_i`$ (see Exercise 5.7 of ). Observe that $`C_\varphi `$ is normal in $`C`$ since $`L_i/N_i`$ is central in $`C=𝐂_{N_{i1}}(L_i/N_i)`$. Since $`L_i/N_i`$ is abelian, so is $`C/C_\varphi `$. Since $`C`$ is normal in $`G`$, for any $`gG`$ we have that $`C/C_\varphi ^g`$ is abelian.

Since $`(\theta _{i1})_C\mathrm{Irr}(C)`$, while $`[(\theta _{i1})_U,\varphi ]0`$ and $`(L_i)_\varphi <L_i`$, we have that $`(\theta _{i1})_{C_\varphi }`$ is a reducible character. Set $`P=_{gG}C_\varphi ^g`$. Observe that $`P`$ is a normal subgroup of $`G`$ with $`N_iP<N_{i1}`$. Observe also that $`(\theta _{i1})_P`$ is reducible since $`PC_\varphi `$. By Lemma 5.5 (a), we have that $`P=N_i`$. Therefore $`C/N_i`$ is abelian and the lemma follows. ∎

###### Lemma 6.12.

Assume Hypotheses 6.1. Then

$$\mathrm{dl}(N_{i1}/N_i)h(r_i)+1.$$

###### Proof.

It follows from Lemmas 6.4 and 6.10

###### Lemma 6.13.

Let $`n>1`$ be an integer. Set $`𝐍=\{1,2,\mathrm{}\}`$. Define

(6.14)
$$p(n)=max\{n_1n_2\mathrm{}n_s|n_1,n_2,\mathrm{},n_s𝐍\text{ and }n_1+n_2+\mathrm{}+n_s=n\}$$

Then

$$p(n+1)2p(n).$$

Therefore

(6.15)
$$p(n)2^{n1}.$$

###### Proof.

Observe that $`np(n)`$ since we can take $`s=1`$ and $`n_1=n`$ in (6.14). Thus if $`p(n+1)=m_1m_2\mathrm{}m_t`$, where $`m_1,m_2,\mathrm{},m_t`$ are non-zero positive integers and $`m_1+m_2+\mathrm{}+m_t=n+1`$, then $`m_i>1`$ for some $`i\{1,\mathrm{},t\}`$. Assume that $`m_12`$. Then $`m_111`$, $`(m_11)+m_2+\mathrm{}+m_t=n`$. By definition we have that $`(m_11)m_2\mathrm{}m_tp(n).`$ Thus

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill p(n+1)& =m_1m_2\mathrm{}m_t\hfill \\ & =(m_11)m_2\mathrm{}m_t+1m_2\mathrm{}m_t\hfill \\ & p(n)+1m_2\mathrm{}m_t\hfill \\ & p(n)+(m_11)m_2\mathrm{}m_t\hfill \\ & p(n)+p(n)=2p(n).\hfill \end{array}$$

Since $`p(2)=2`$, inequality (6.15) follows. ∎

###### Proof of Theorem A.

Working with the group $`G/\mathrm{Ker}(\chi )`$, by induction on the order of $`G`$ we can assume that $`\mathrm{Ker}(\chi )=1`$. So we may assume Hypotheses 5.3. Let

$$(G,\chi )=(N_0,\theta _0)>(N_1,\theta _1)>\mathrm{}>(N_k,\theta _k)$$

be a maximal $`(\mathrm{\Omega },\chi )`$-reducing chain. Set $`n=\eta (\chi )`$. By Lemma 5.5 (b) and (c), we have that $`N_k`$ is abelian and $`kn`$. By Lemma 6.12, we have that, for $`i=1,\mathrm{},k`$,

$$\mathrm{dl}(N_{i1}/N_i)h(r_i)+1,$$

where $`r_i=|\{\alpha _j|N_i\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)\text{ and }N_{i1}\mathrm{Ker}(\alpha _j)\}|`$. The definition of a maximal reducing chain and the definition of $`r_i`$ implies that

(6.16)
$$r_1+r_2+\mathrm{}+r_kn.$$

By Lemma 6.13 we have that

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}r_i2^{n1}.$$

Thus

$$\mathrm{dl}(G)\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}\mathrm{dl}(N_{i1}/N_i)+\mathrm{dl}(N_k)\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}(h(r_i)+1)+1.$$

Since $`h(r_i)=C_1\mathrm{log}(r_i)+C_2`$ by Definition 2.3, we have that

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{dl}(G)\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}(C_1\mathrm{log}(r_i)+C_2+1)+1=& C_1[\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}\mathrm{log}(r_i)]+(C_2+1)k+1\hfill \\ \hfill & C_1\mathrm{log}(\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}r_i)+(C_2+1)k+1.\hfill \end{array}$$

Let $`s=_{i=1}^kr_i`$. By (6.16) we have $`sn`$. By Lemma 6.15 we have that

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}r_i2^{s1}2^{n1}.$$

Thus

$$\mathrm{dl}(G)C_1\mathrm{log}(2^{n1})+(C_2+1)k+1(n1)C_1\mathrm{log}(2)+(C_2+1)n+1,$$

where the last inequality follows from $`kn`$ (see Lemma 5.5 (c)). Set $`C=C_1\mathrm{log}(2)+C_2+1`$ and $`D=1+C_1\mathrm{log}(2)`$. Then

$$\mathrm{dl}(G)Cn+D.$$

###### Theorem 6.17.

Let $`G`$ be a supersolvable group. Let $`\chi \mathrm{Irr}(G)`$ be such that $`\chi (1)>1`$. Then

$$\mathrm{dl}(G/\mathrm{Ker}(\chi ))2\eta (\chi )1.$$

###### Proof.

Working with the group $`G/\mathrm{Ker}(\chi )`$, by induction on the order of $`G`$ we can assume that $`\mathrm{Ker}(\chi )=1`$.

Let

$$(G,\chi )=(N_0,\theta _0)>(N_1,\theta _1)>\mathrm{}>(N_k,\theta _k)$$

be a maximal $`(\mathrm{\Omega },\chi )`$-reducing chain. Let $`L_i/N_i`$ be a chief factor of $`G`$, where $`L_iN_{i1}`$. Since $`G`$ is a supersolvable group, $`L_i/N_i`$ is a cyclic group of prime order. Set $`H=N_{i1}/𝐂_{N_{i1}}(L_i/N_i)`$. Observe that $`H`$ acts faithfully on $`L_i/N_i`$ as automorphisms. Since $`L_i/N_i`$ is cyclic, $`H`$ is abelian, i.e.

$$\mathrm{dl}(N_{i1}/𝐂_{N_{i1}}(L_i/N_i))1.$$

By Lemma 6.10 we conclude that

$$\mathrm{dl}(N_{i1}/N_i)2.$$

By Lemma 5.5 (d) we have that $`k\eta (\chi )1`$. Also $`N_k`$ is abelian by Lemma 5.5 (b). Thus

$$\mathrm{dl}(G)2(\eta (\chi )1)+1.$$

Acknowledgment.  This is part of my Ph.D. Thesis. I thank Professor Everett C. Dade, my adviser, and Professor I. Martin Isaacs for their advise and suggestions. I would like to thank the mathematics department of the University of Wisconsin, at Madison, for their hospitality while I was visiting, and the mathematics department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for their support.