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# Lithium in LMC Carbon Stars

## 1 Introduction

Lithium is a sensitive indicator of nucleosynthesis and convective dredge-up in stars, as it is easily produced as well as easily destroyed in stellar interiors.

It has been known for a number of decades (e.g. Torres-Peimbert & Wallerstein, 1966) that some Galactic asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars possess large surface lithium abundances, reaching values one or two orders of magnitude higher than the cosmic value. More recently, Li-rich AGB stars have also been identified in other Local Group galaxies, namely the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC) and M31. The great majority of Li-rich AGB stars discovered to date in the Magellanic Clouds have oxygen-rich rather than carbon-rich atmospheres  (hereafter SPLL95), although the opposite may be true in the Galaxy (Abia et al., 1993, Abia & Isern 1997).

The lithium enrichment of the atmospheres of oxygen-rich AGB stars (i.e., stars with C/O $`<`$ 1) is relatively well understood within the framework of the hot bottom burning (HBB) process during which the bottom of the convective envelope of the star reaches the top layers of the hydrogen-burning shell. Sackmann & Boothroyd  showed that in the intermediate mass range (4–6M) the Cameron-Fowler 7Be transport mechanism  is very effective at producing 7Li (via the decay of 7Be) and can account for the super-Li-rich, oxygen-rich AGB stars found by Smith & Lambert  in the Magellanic Clouds.

Carbon-rich AGB stars (C/O$`>`$ 1), (i.e., carbon stars), also display enhanced lithium abundances. Very large equivalent widths (W$`{}_{6707}{}^{}10`$Å) of the Li i$`\lambda `$6707 resonance doublet have been found in a few Galactic carbon stars: examples are WZ Cas and WX Cyg which are classified as N7 (C2 2) and J6 (C2 3-) by Keenan  and Barnbaum, Stone & Keenan  respectively. However, most Galactic carbon stars have much weaker lithium lines with W$`{}_{6707}{}^{}<0.5`$Å and some have 0.5Å $`<`$ W$`{}_{6707}{}^{}<1`$Å . In the Magellanic Clouds, on the other hand, carbon stars that display lithium-enriched atmospheres seem to be rarer and generally less extreme in terms of lithium abundance, compared with their Galactic counterparts or with the oxygen-rich AGB stars within the Clouds (e.g., SPLL95) mentioned in the previous paragraph. In the most comprehensive study yet of Li-rich AGB stars in the Magellanic Clouds by SPLL95, only four Li-rich carbon stars were recorded in the LMC and just two in the SMC.

The study of Li-rich carbon stars present difficulties both observationally and theoretically. On the observational side, severe measurement difficulties arise from the blending of the lithium lines with the complex array of lines in the red A $`{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{\Pi }`$–X $`{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ CN system. This heavy line blanketing also means that equivalent width measurements are generally made relative to a pseudo-continuum rather than the true continuum. From the theoretical viewpoint, the coexistence of carbon and lithium in the atmosphere of an AGB star is difficult to achieve, at least in the hot-bottom-burning scenario, since the conditions required to ignite lithium production also lead to fast CNO processing at the base of the envelope, with the subsequent destruction of the 12C that was previously conveyed to the stellar surface. Ventura, D’Antona & Mazzitelli , however, showed that, for a certain range of stellar masses corresponding to a very narrow range in bolometric magnitude of $`5.95<M_{\mathrm{bol}}<5.75`$, carbon can survive long enough in the convective envelope to keep C/O $`>`$ 1, despite the activation of the Cameron-Fowler mechanism. At the same time, the 13C/12C ratio increases and the star displays the spectral characteristics of a J-type carbon star which is also Li-rich. These models, however, cannot explain the existence of the fainter (by up to about one magnitude) Li-rich carbon stars found by SPLL95 in the Magellanic Clouds, as well as by Abia et al.  in the Galaxy. Abia & Isern  proposed an alternative mechanism to HBB, involving deep mixing, operating in low-mass carbon stars (M $`<`$ 2M) which can account for the fainter Li-rich and 13C-rich (J-type) carbon stars, found in the Galaxy and in the Magellanic Clouds. A more detailed description of the various models will be discussed later in the light of the new observations described in the present study.

For Li-rich carbon stars, the derivation of reliable lithium abundances, the acquisition of adequate statistics of their occurrence, as well as an understanding of their exact evolutionary stage, are all outstanding and open issues which are important not only for late-stage stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis, but also for modelling the present-day lithium abundance in our Galaxy and other galaxies (e.g., Travaglio et al. , Ventura et al. , Romano et al. ). It must be emphasized that the study of lithium production in external galaxies such as the Magellanic Clouds is particularly important in this respect, since lower metallicity and a different evolutionary history would affect the yield of lithium on galactic scales.

Following the completion of a catalogue of 7760 carbon stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud by Kontizas et al.  (see also Dapergolas et al. ), an extensive programme of spectroscopy of carbon stars has been started  using the 2dF multi-object spectroscopic facility on the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) . The subject of the present paper is the detection of the Li i$`\lambda `$6707 resonance doublet in the spectra of 19 out of the 674 carbon stars studied. This is the first time that such a large homogeneous spectroscopic sample of carbon stars has been studied in the context of lithium enrichment in any galaxy. Having homogeneous spectra for such a large sample of carbon stars, all at practically the same distance and with little reddening, provides a firm basis for making stronger statistical statements about the LMC carbon stars than can be done for (current) Galactic, or other Magellanic Cloud samples. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the observations, Section 3 describes the basic characteristics of the spectra obtained, while Section 4 outlines the method used to identify and measure the equivalent widths of the Li i$`\lambda `$6707 resonance doublet. In Section 5, the photometric properties of the identified Li-rich carbon stars are investigated, while in Section 6, the results are compared with those of previous studies, and some theoretical implications are discussed.

## 2 Observations

Most of the carbon stars observed were selected from the Kontizas et al.  catalogue of LMC carbon stars: simbad identifier – KDM. This catalogue was constructed by identifying the strong (1, 0) and (0, 0) C2 Swan bands (at 4737Å and 5165Å respectively) in carbon stars seen in low-dispersion spectra on an objective-prism survey taken in the blue$``$green with the 1.2-m UK Schmidt Telescope.

The spectroscopic observations were obtained at the AAT on 21 and 22 January 1998, using the 2dF multi-fibre spectroscopic facility, which enables up to 400 spectra to be recorded simultaneously, in a pair of identical fibre-fed spectrographs fitted with TEK 1024 CCDs  – see http://www.aao.gov.au/2df/. The target stars covered four $`2^{}`$ diameter fields. The spectra were centred on the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ = +2 Swan bands near 6200Å and covered the wavelength range 5675–6785Å. Subsequent 2dF observations of more Magellanic Cloud carbon stars were taken over a slightly different wavelength range which included the strong (0, 1) Swan band at 5635Å but excluded the Li i$`\lambda `$6707 line.

The 1200R gratings were used, yielding spectra with 1.1Å per pixel or an effective resolution of $`2.5`$Å. Several exposures were taken for each field, typically 3 $`\times `$ 900 s or 2 $`\times `$ 1200 s, together with offset sky, arc and flat field exposures. The data were reduced with the AAO’s 2dfdr data reduction package  and the iraf package and yielded spectra with signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) usually around 30 per pixel. Full details of the observations are given by Cannon et al. (in preparation).

Relative radial velocities of all the stars were obtained by using a cross-correlation technique in figaro. The high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) usually attained for most stars and the large number of spectral features resulted in an internal precision of about 1/20 pixel though with external accuracies closer to 1/10 pixel.

## 3 Spectral Analysis

### 3.1 General considerations

The spectra have remarkable similarities due to the abundance of CN lines. They can be classified, however, in four main groups, which will be used to aid the analysis. These are: (1) typical N5-type carbon stars, with strong Swan bands and CN bands, (2) stars with weak Swan bands near 6200Å due to higher temperature and/or lower carbon abundance, (3) stars with very weak carbon features, (4) J-stars with strong $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{C}_{}^{12}\mathrm{C}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{C}_{}^{14}\mathrm{N}`$ bands as well as the normal $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{C}_{}^{12}\mathrm{C}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{C}_{}^{14}\mathrm{N}`$ bands. As noted earlier, identification of the J-type stars is important in the context of the theories of lithium enrichment in carbon stars. Details of the precise method used to identify the J stars are given by Morgan et al. ; but it is sufficient here to note that the method selects stars with a similar level of $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{C}`$ to the standard definition of a J star, which is equivalent to $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{C}_{}^{13}\mathrm{C}<15`$ . Allocation of the other stars to the first three groups was made by simple visual inspection. Examples of the spectral groups can also be found in Barnbaum et al. . (1: TV Lac; 2: BD +23336 and Z Psc; 3: HD 123821 and HD 76846; 4: HD 10636 and EU And). Each observed star (with sufficient S/N) was assigned to one of these four groups. The numbers of stars in the four groups were 486, 92, 23 and 66 respectively making a total number of 674 stars.

The spectral range used in the following analysis was limited to 6690–6730Å. Each spectrum was corrected for its radial velocity using a grid of interpolated wavelength points to allow this to be done to the sub-pixel accuracy of the velocities. It was then normalized using mean counts in bands at 6695–6703Å and 6712–6720Å.

A mean spectrum was constructed for each one of the four spectral groups. The mean spectra of N and J stars (Groups 1 and 4) are shown in Figs 1a & 1d respectively. The mean spectra of the carbon-weak stars (Groups 2 and 3) are like that for Group 1 but with weaker features. The J-star combined spectrum is clearly different from the N-star spectrum because of the presence of 13CN bands. The spectrum of the LMC carbon star BMB R-46 taken from SPLL95 is shown in Fig. 1b; the similarity between it and the N-star spectrum of Fig. 1a is striking. The Galactic carbon star SY Eri, which is classified by Barnbaum et al.  as N5 (C2 5), is shown at a higher resolution in Fig. 1c  and is again similar to the combined N-star spectrum. However, there are differences: Ca i$`\lambda `$6717 is strong in SY Eri but is not apparent in either of the LMC stars and there are more features in the region 6702–6710Å of the Galactic star. These differences are due in part to the lower resolution of the LMC spectra and also to the lower metallicity of the LMC. Indeed, the strength of the calcium line in SY Eri is consistent with solar abundance .

### 3.2 Identification of Li i$`\lambda `$6707

The Li i resonance doublet at 6707.8Å lies in a spectral region which is heavily affected by many atomic and molecular features. These are mainly CN lines, but molecular lines of C2 and TiO are also present near the Li doublet. However, the C2 lines are of minor importance compared with the CN lines since at all optical depths the CN concentration is a factor of 7 to 100 times higher than the C2 concentration . Moreover, since C/O $`>`$ 1, CO formation is favoured against TiO. The presence of strong CN bands makes it difficult to use simple visual means to select stars with enhanced lithium, and even harder to measure the strength of the line.

The method chosen here to identify the lithium line in a particular star was to subtract the mean observed spectrum (described above) of the spectral group appropriate for the star in question, scaled according to the strength of the CN bands in the individual spectrum. The scaling factor was determined by minimizing the difference between the spectrum and the scaled mean. The subtracted spectrum is mainly that of CN, but includes contributions from metal lines and other molecular bands. The subtraction process is designed to reveal only those features that deviate significantly from the scaled mean spectrum. Fig. 2 shows examples of this process for three stars: two typical N stars (Group 1), one with and the other without a lithium line, and a J star (Group 4) with a strong lithium line. The relative smoothness of the residual spectra beyond the bounds of the lithium line and seen throughout the entire upper panel shows that this is a valid procedure which takes account of the strong star-to-star variations in the overall strengths of the CN bands, presumably depending on both temperature and carbon and nitrogen abundances.

Residual spectra such as those shown as solid lines in Fig. 2 were constructed for every observed star. Lines in the residual spectra were then sought as follows: a second-order polynomial was fitted to the residual spectrum using the least-squares method in order to define the ‘continuum’ and all maxima and minima (potential emission and absorption lines respectively) about this fit were identified. A gaussian, superimposed on the quadratic fit, was then fitted to each maximum and minimum allowing its central wavelength ($`\lambda _{cen}`$), height and full width at half maximum (fwhm) to vary. The equivalent widths of the identified (both emission and absorption) lines (Wλ) were then measured. It should be emphasized that these equivalent widths should be used in a relative sense only, due to their strong dependence on the way the continuum is defined. Other authors use a pseudo-continuum, so equivalent widths from different sources are not directly comparable.

Clearly, a spectrum with poor signal-to-noise ratio will generate random ‘lines’. It turns out that the number of detected lines starts to rise significantly once the count level falls below $``$500 counts per pixel. Consequently, 53 stars with fewer than 500 counts per pixel were excluded from further consideration.

The derived Wλ are plotted against $`\lambda _{cen}`$ in Fig. 3. What appears as a gap around $`W_\lambda =0`$ is merely a consequence of the limit applied to the line search procedure. Absorption features appear in the lower part of the figure; emission features appear in the upper half. The fairly uniform distribution of points with $`|W_\lambda |`$ 0.25Å demonstrates the noise level of the identification procedure, which results from the S/N in the original spectra, the spectral mismatch between star and template and/or velocity errors. Most of the features in this region of the diagram have fwhm$``$ 2Å and are indeed unlikely to correspond to true absorption (or emission) features given the spectral resolution of 2.5Å. However, there are a few outlying points, both below (absorption) and above (emission) this band, which have $`|W_\lambda |`$ 0.3Å and which were selected for further investigation. In particular, there is a peak in the distribution of absorption features at 6708Å and emission peaks at 6717Å and 6706Å.

The emission features at 6717Å are due to \[S ii\] $`\lambda `$6717, most probably originating in line-of-sight nebulosity in the LMC. This supposition is corroborated by the fact that the same stars also show strong H$`\alpha `$ emission, as one would expect. The occasional appearance of nebular emission lines in the 2dF data is not surprising because there is patchy nebulosity across the LMC field, but the sky subtraction was done using the mean signal from a relatively small number of sky fibres chosen to lie in clear areas. However, the \[S ii\] $`\lambda `$6717 emission lines do help place limits on the acceptable values of the gaussian fwhm. Most of these have 2Å $`<`$fwhm$`<`$ 3Å, and none has fwhm$`<`$ 2Å or fwhm$`>`$ 4.5Å. Consequently, all detections with fwhm$`<`$ 2Å were excluded from further consideration. In practice, no features rejected in this way were close to the position of the lithium line. Since small spectral mismatches in the region around the lithium line can affect the wings of the detected lithium feature, as is the case with the strong line shown in Fig. 2c, an upper limit for the line width was set at fwhm$``$ 5Å.

Another way to study these results is to consider Fig. 4 which shows histograms of the identifications plotted in Fig. 3 which lie in the range 2Å $``$fwhm$``$ 5Å. The 40Å wavelength range is divided into 2Å-wide bins. The three left-hand panels are for absorption features and the three right-hand panels are for emission features. The individual histograms are for identifications with Wλ$`>`$ 0.4Å, 0.3 $`<`$ Wλ$`<`$ 0.4Å and Wλ$`<`$ 0.3Å. The predominance of the peak at 6708Å in the stronger absorption features is obvious (Fig. 4a): it contains eleven stars. one of which, KDM 2832, has a very strong absorption line at 6707Å and stands out clearly from the rest in Fig. 3. Its spectrum is plotted in Fig. 2c and shows a Li i$`\lambda `$6707 that is strong enough to be seen even without the subtraction of the template spectrum. Of the remaining three features in Fig. 4a, one appears at 6691Å in star KDM 2379, another is the blend of two smaller features at 6717Å in star KDM 3389 and the third is the consequence of a bad pixel. Since none of the bins in Fig. 4a apart from the 6708Å bin has more than one star, it is reasonable to assume that no more than one of the eleven stars in the 6708Å bin is there by chance. With only two out of 18 bins having single stars, the likelihood that this is happening is only $``$0.11.

The same peak can be seen in the weaker lines of Fig. 4b, but here there are also significant numbers of lines in the two neighbouring bins at lower wavelengths. Nevertheless, the histogram certainly reflects a non-random distribution. It is unlikely that the detections shortward of 6708Å are due to enhancements of individual metal lines because related metal lines are found in other wavelength bins as well  and are relatively weak in LMC stars. It is more likely that they are associated with a general spectrum characteristic which also produces the relatively high numbers of weak lines found (Fig. 4c) at the same two bins and also gives rise to a number of emission features at 6706Å (Fig. 4e). This could be due to differences in the relative strengths of the $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{C}_{}^{12}\mathrm{C}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{C}_{}^{12}\mathrm{C}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{C}_{}^{14}\mathrm{N}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{C}_{}^{14}\mathrm{N}`$ molecular bands between some stars and the mean spectrum. In contrast, very few very weak lines are found at 6708Å. Nor are many emission lines found at 6708Å. If, as is likely, the weak lines give a measure of how errors in the method generate lines, two of the ten lines in the 6708Å bin in Fig. 4b are expected to have been caused in this way. If they do not, then the number of false detections at 6708Å (at 0.3 $`<`$ Wλ$`<`$ 0.4Å) could be as high as the number seen in the neighbouring bin at 6706Å, i.e., five out of the ten detections at 6708Å could be false.

Fig. 5 is an example of a J star with a modest detection of Li i$`\lambda `$6707 with W6707 = 0.48Å. (This can be compared with the strongest lithium line detected in our sample, shown in Fig. 2c.) The superimposed lines show the quadratic ‘continuum’ and the fitted gaussians. This particular example includes gaussians fitted to two broad shallow absorption features and two narrow emission features; all these have fwhm values that are inappropriate for real lines. Although very clear in this figure, the line at 6707Å cannot be seen directly in the original spectrum, but is manifested as a lowering of the maximum that usually arises between the groups of CN lines at 6702Å and 6709Å (see Fig. 1). Changing the ‘continuum’ fit from quadratic to cubic or linear changes the set of selected lines slightly and generally reduces (cubic) or increases (linear) the equivalent widths. However, most lines selected as lithium are recovered in each case.

At this point it is important to examine other possible sources of the features identified here. The CN bands coincident with Li i$`\lambda `$6707 are: Q1(28)+Q2(29) of the (12, 7) band, Q2(44) of the (6, 2) band and Q1(22)+P12(13) of the (7, 3) band . Within each of these CN sub-bands there are neighbouring bands which fall within the 6690–6730Å wavelength range and should be present at similar strengths. These are not seen in the residual spectra, so it is unlikely that the line detected at 6707Å is due to CN. A similar argument applies to the R1(17)+R2(16)+R3(15) trio of lines belonging to the (1, 4) Swan band of C2 , which appears at 6707Å, because the neighbouring trios at 6703Å and 6711Å are not seen. Other metal lines are unlikely to produce significant absorption near 6707Å . Another possible cause of spurious spectral features is spectral mismatch due to a temperature difference between the star and the mean spectrum. A temperature difference of say 2000 K could produce a small apparent absorption at 6707Å due mainly to altering the contribution from the (12, 7) band, but it would also gererate larger features at 6722Å and 6728Å. Since these are not seen, it is reasonable to assume that the 6707Å feature is not due to a temperature mismatch. The grouping of the stars in spectral subclasses helped to minimize any such problem. Finally, it is possible that in some cases the presence of a circumstellar component in the 6707Å absorption line can contaminate the photospheric feature. Although this possibility cannot be ruled out, it was not found to be a significant effect in Galactic carbon stars . Therefore, the observed absorption lines at 6707Å seem to be correctly attributed to lithium. Ideally, however, high dispersion spectra of these and some comparison stars would be needed to confirm the weakest identifications.

### 3.3 Stars with detected Li i$`\lambda `$6707

Table 1a gives the final sample of carbon stars with absorption features within 0.75Å of Li i$`\lambda `$6707.8, with W6707$`>`$0.3Å and with 2.0Å $``$fwhm$``$ 5.0Å. As seen in the previous section, features with W6707$`>`$ 0.4Å are likely to be due to Li i$`\lambda `$6707 at the 90 per cent confidence level, while those with 0.3 $`<`$ W6707$`<`$ 0.4Å are likely to be due to Li i$`\lambda `$6707 at the 50–70 per cent confidence level. Column 1 gives the identification number of the star in the Kontizas et al.  catalogue, column 2 gives the spectral group assigned to each star (see Section 3.1), columns 3 to 6 give various photometric measurements which will be explained in Section 4, columns 7 and 8 give the W6707 (equivalent width) and fwhm measurements of the line at 6707Å, column 9 gives the j-index taken from Morgan et al.  and column 10 provides cross references to Blanco, McCarthy & Blanco : BMB, Blanco & McCarthy : BM, Hughes : SHV, and Westerlund et al. : WORC.

Table 1b provides a list of LMC and SMC carbon stars with identification of Li i$`\lambda `$6707 recorded in the literature and makes a noteworthy comparison with Table 1a. SPLL95 reported four Li-rich LMC carbon stars and a further 31 carbon stars for which lithium could not be detected. Richer, Olander & Westerlund  and Richer  detected the lithium line in two out of 52 stars and two out of 25 stars respectively. With one in each of the two pairs common to SPLL95, the total number of stars is six. SPLL95 also note two Li-rich SMC stars. These are both members of the Rebeirot, Azzopardi & Westerlund catalogue  and both are J stars as seen in other 2dF data (Cannon et al., in preparation). They are also included in Table 1b.

### 3.4 Comparison with other work

First there is the question of commonality between the 2dF-selected and previously known Li-rich stars. It turns out that not one of the six known Li-rich stars were included in the 2dF sample. Nor were any of the stars reported by SPLL95 as having no lithium detection included in the 2dF sample. However, five of the other stars observed by Richer et al.  (WORC 54 $``$ KDM 1490, WORC 78 $``$ KDM 1814, WORC 106 $``$ KDM 2518, WORC 192 $``$ KDM 5314, WORC 196 $``$ KDM 5426) and three of those observed by Richer  (BMB BW 31 $``$ KDM 2117, BMB BW 41 $``$ KDM 2148, BMB BW 54 $``$ KDM 2197) are in the 2dF sample. Whereas Li i$`\lambda `$6707 was not noted by these authors as being present in any of these eight stars, it was found in one of the 2dF spectra (KDM 2197); none of the others has a line anywhere near the limit for inclusion in Table 1a. In fact, the line identified in KDM 2197 is at the lowest limits of both W6707 and fwhm for inclusion in the table. It is likely that this strength is below the limit for identification by Richer .

The equivalent widths, W6707, recorded in Table 1a range between 0.3Å and 0.6Å with one stronger line at 1.4Å. Torres-Peimbert and Wallerstein  found similar strengths for W6707 of $``$0.4–0.5Å in fourteen of the sixteen Galactic carbon stars in which they detected lithium. The other two were the well known super-Li-rich stars WZ Cas and WX Cyg. However, in the more recent studies by SPLL95 in the Magellanic Clouds and by Boffin et al.  in the Galaxy, significantly higher values W6707 have been reported. In fact, three of the four Li-rich LMC carbon stars described by SPLL95 are in the super-Li-rich category. Part of the discrepancy between levels of W6707 is due to the different methods used. SPLL95 used a pseudo continuum fitted near 6700Å and did not attempt to correct their values of W6707 for a CN contribution. It is worth stating that the W6707 levels determined by Torres-Peimbert and Wallerstein  and noted above as being similar to those of Table 1a were corrected for a contribution from CN, though through a method different to the one used here. Inspection of Fig. 2c shows that this technique would give a larger equivalent width than the one quoted in Table 1a. Tests on the 2dF spectra of J stars imply differences of 0.4–0.5Å between the two methods. However, this level of discrepancy is not sufficient to explain why no super-Li-rich carbon stars were discovered in the 2dF sample.

## 4 Photometry

Infrared photometry of sources in much of the LMC is now available through the Second Incremental Data Release of the Two Micron All Sky Survey – (2-MASS)  and is available on-line at http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/. 2-MASS $`JHK`$ measurements were extracted for the stars in the 2dF sample by matching catalogue coordinates. Whenever 2-MASS data were unavailable, $`JK`$ measurements were taken from the Deep Near-Infrared Survey of the southern sky – DENIS  which is available on-line from the CDS at Strasbourg (http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/denis.html). The magnitudes from the DENIS database were corrected in the way described by Morgan et al.  to bring them into alignment with the 2-MASS data.

The $`J`$ and $`K`$ magnitudes were subsequently used to derive bolometric magnitudes ($`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$) and effective temperatures ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$) by applying the relations $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}=K_\mathrm{o}dm+0.69+2.65(JK)_\mathrm{o}0.67(JK)_\mathrm{o}^2`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=7070/[(JK)_\mathrm{o}+0.88]`$, derived by Wood, Bessell & Fox  and Bessell, Wood & Lloyd Evans , respectively. A distance modulus value of 18.45 was adopted  and a mean reddening of $`E(JK)`$ = 0.07 . Small deviations from the adopted value of the reddening do not significantly affect the derived values of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$. The resulting values of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ are listed in Columns 5 and 6 of Table 1. It must be pointed out that the use of these parameterizations for $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ may not be fully applicable to the specific stars studied here and must be treated with caution. Formal errors for $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ are $`\pm `$0.2 mag and $`\pm `$70 K.

The bolometric magnitudes of the Li-rich stars identified in the 2dF sample lie in the range $``$3.3 to $``$5.7 which includes fainter stars than the range of $``$4.6 to $``$5.7 occupied by the four Li-rich LMC stars identified by SPLL95. Similarly faint Li-rich carbon stars have been found in the SMC (SPLL95), in M31 , and in the Galaxy where $``$3.5 $`<`$$`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$$`<`$$``$6.0 .

Figure 6 shows the location of the Li-rich carbon stars of Table 1a on the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram. For comparison the location of all carbon stars observed are shown on the same diagram. Their bolometric magnitudes and effective temperatures were derived in the same way as those of the stars in Table 1, based on the data in Cannon et al. (2003: in preparation). The six Li-rich stars listed in Table 1b are also included in this plot. The distribution of the Li-rich stars in Fig. 6 is clearly not the same as that of the normal carbon stars. Of the stars plotted as triangles, the two ‘coolest’ (WORC 186 and BMB R46) are both thought to be Mira variables and have the appropriate extreme colours, and the ‘warmest’ (BMB BW89) is actually an SC star  and perhaps should not be included. Two of the 2dF Li-rich stars are fainter and cooler than the others and lie near the tip of the red giant branch rather than on the AGB; the rest lie among the main body of AGB stars but seem to be more widely distributed and relatively uncommon at the peak of the general distribution. Fig. 7 shows the distribution of Li-rich stars with bolometric magnitude (in 0.5-magnitude bins), separately for N and J types. For comparison, the distributions for normal carbon stars are superimposed. The normal N and J stars stars have clear single peaks at $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ = $``$4.75 and $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ = $``$3.75 respectively. Although the total number of J stars is small here, studies of a much larger sample show that the J stars are indeed fainter than the N stars . The error bars shown in Fig. 7 are based on $`\sqrt{n}`$ statistical errors. There would not seem to be a significant difference between the distributions of the bolometric magnitudes of the Li-rich and normal J stars. However, the Li-rich N stars are absent from the $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ = $``$4.75 bin which is the peak of the normal N-star distribution. There are, in fact, no Li-rich N stars in the range $``$5.25 $`<`$$`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$$`<`$$``$4.5.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 Statistics

Of the 667 stars studied here, 53 were excluded as being of insufficient quality to allow the reliable non-detection (or detection) of Li i$`\lambda `$6707 to a limit of W6707$``$ 0.3Å. Of the remaining 614 stars, nineteen (i.e. 3.1 per cent) have detectable Li i$`\lambda `$6707. Among the 614 stars there are 62 J stars, of which seven are Li-rich. This means that, to the detection limit of the present work, 11.3 per cent of the J stars are Li-rich compared with only 2.2 per cent of the non-J stars. So lithium enrichment seems to be about five times more frequent among J-type carbon stars. No super-Li-rich carbon stars were discovered in the sample of 614 stars. It is probably true to say that none was discovered in the full sample of 667 stars because most of the extra 53 stars could have revealed a very strong lithium line with W6707$``$ 4Å.

These percentages are significantly lower than those recorded in the literature for the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds, although in the latter case in particular the samples are one or two orders of magnitude smaller than the present one. Boffin et al.  found that in a sample of about 200 Galactic carbon stars $``$12.5 per cent were Li-rich and 1.5 per cent were super-Li-rich. (The Boffin et al.  results are updates of generally similar results based on smaller samples, presented in the earlier papers of Abia et al. (1991, 1993).) More recently, Abia & Isern  made an extensive study of 44 Galactic carbon stars (28 of N type, 11 of J type, and 5 SC stars) and detected 7Li in 82 per cent of the J stars and in 15 per cent of the rest. In the Magellanic Clouds, SPLL95 found four Li-rich carbon stars out of a total of 35 LMC carbon stars in their sample (11.4 per cent) and 2 out of 25 (8 per cent) for the SMC.

Part of the difference in the frequencies of Li-rich carbon stars reported by the different authors may be related to actual differences between the carbon star populations in the parent galaxies (ages, masses, metallicities), but part of it may be due to the different approaches adopted for the lithium detection in the spectra, and, most importantly, the correction (or lack of it) for the CN contribution and the choice of continuum. The size of the sample considered in each case and its initial selection must also be taken into account.

### 5.2 Spectral properties

In order to gain some insight into the formation of the observed population of Li-enriched carbon stars, it is useful to investigate the possible existence of correlations between the equivalent widths W6707 and other properties of the stars, such as bolometric magnitude, effective temperature, and spectral group (Groups 1–4 as shown in Table 1a). Figs 8a and 8b show W6707 plotted against $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ for the 2dF results in Table 1a and the data from SPLL95 (Table 1b) respectively. The SC star, BMB 89, is considered to be too different in spectral type and is not shown. The two points in brackets are estimates of W6707 based on the Li-indices published by Richer et al.  and Richer . No statistically significant correlations can be found for the N stars in Fig. 8a, but the bimodality of the distribution can be seen again. Nor did Abia et al.  find any correlation between bolometric magnitude and lithium abundance for their sample of Galactic carbon stars. However, if only J-type carbon stars are taken into account, a different picture seems to emerge with W6707 appearing to increase with bolometric magnitude. For the 2dF sample plotted in Fig. 8a, this conclusion is based on just one star and cannot be taken as more than tentative; but it is more striking for the SPLL95 sample plotted in Fig. 8b. As noted earlier, the apparent offset between the new data and the SPLL95 results can be partly explained by the different continua adopted. In interpreting these diagrams it should be remembered that some of the stars, especially those in the SPLL95 sample, are variables and could change in $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$; e.g., BMB R46 appears in Table 1b with $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ = $``$5.6 and is recorded at $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ = $``$6.3 by Whitelock & Feast . With these considerations in mind, it is clear that a larger statistical sample is needed to confirm this result.

So it would appear that J-type stars hold some special position in the Li-enriched carbon star sample: (i) it seems to be about 5 times more likely to get a Li-enriched carbon star if it is also of J-type and (ii) there seems to be a correlation between bolometric magnitude and equivalent width of the lithium line for these stars. It must also be emphasized that the highest equivalent width of the lithium line in the 2dF sample occurs in a J-type carbon star.

W6707 does not seem to display any obvious correlation with either $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ or, for the J stars, with the j-index derived by Morgan et al.  and listed in Table 1a. However, it must be remembered that the size of the sample of J-type Li-enriched stars is just seven.

### 5.3 Theoretical models

Given that for the first time the search for Li-enriched carbon stars has been conducted within such a large and homogeneous spectral sample, it is worth discussing the theoretical implications of the results presented here. Ventura et al.  produced a self-consistent description of time-dependent mixing, overshooting and nuclear burning in AGB stars, and showed that there is a narrow range of stellar masses in which, despite the activation of the Cameron-Fowler mechanism, carbon can survive long enough in the convective envelope to keep the C/O ratio over unity as well as increasing 13C/12C, and that consequently these objects can be observed as Li-rich C stars for a non-negligible fraction of their AGB life. Their model can account for:
(i) the very rare luminous Li-rich carbon star with $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}=6.5`$. No such star exists in either our or SPLL95’s sample of LMC Li-rich carbon stars.
(ii) Li-rich J-type carbon stars with $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$$``$$``$5.75 to $`5.95`$. The brightest J-type Li-rich star in our sample has $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}=5.1`$, which is more than half a magnitude fainter than required, for its formation to be attributable to this mechanism.
(iii) Li-rich non-J carbon stars for short periods during thermal pulses. Although this scenario could explain some of the N-type Li-rich carbon stars, it cannot explain all of them, as the mechanism can operate successfully only for short periods. Not enough details are given by Ventura et al.  to allow for a stronger statement. In any case, the faint J-type Li-rich carbon stars in our sample cannot be explained in this way. To summarize, it would seem that only very few, if any, of the Li-rich carbon stars of Table 1a can be accounted for by these models; the predicted overall distribution of Li-enriched stars is not a good match to the observations. It should be noted that the models which reproduce the characteristics of J-type stars suffer from another deficiency; they predict that these stars should show enhancements of the s-process elements because they are thermally pulsing AGB stars which suffer the third dredge-up, but no s-process enhancements are seen in J-type carbon stars in the Galaxy. Thus, there is a strong possibility that J-type stars are not in the AGB phase and their chemical peculiarities are due to a different atmospheric processes.

Travaglio et al.  investigated the behaviour of AGB models – again in the framework of the HBB process – with masses in the range 4–6M and metal abundances between Z = 0.004 and Z = 0.02. They showed that the condition C/O $`>`$ 1 together with high 7Li (log$`ϵ(Li)4`$) can only be achieved for the 4M Z$`=`$0.004 case, while much lower Li abundances (log$`ϵ(Li)2`$) are found for the same mass, but for Z$`=`$0.008. However, their models are far too bright ($`7<M_{\mathrm{bol}}<6`$), to be applicable for the cases of Table 1a. They do, however, mention that preliminary calculations showed that lithium enrichment of AGB atmospheres through the HBB process can operate at lower masses (and give lower $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$) for low metallicities (Z = 0.0001). This statement holds promise with regard to the faint Li-rich carbon stars in the Magellanic Clouds, but one has to await for more detailed models.

Abia & Isern  found observational evidence that supports the existence of a deep mixing mechanism operating in low-mass AGB stars that could be responsible for the creation of Li-rich, J-type, low-mass (and low luminosity) carbon stars. This mechanism could account for the fainter J-type, Li-rich stars of Table 1a, but cannot explain the equally faint N-type, Li-rich carbon stars found.

## 6 Summary

The results of the present study can be summarized as follows:
(1) The incidence of lithium enrichment among carbon stars in the LMC is much rarer than in the Galaxy, and about five times more frequent among J-type than among N-type carbon stars: of the 614 stars studied here, 19 (3.1 per cent) have detectable Li i$`\lambda `$6707. Among the 614 stars there are 62 J-type stars, 7 (11.3 per cent) of which are among the Li-rich stars found here. No super-Li-rich carbon stars were found.
(2) The equivalent widths of the Li i$`\lambda `$6707 line were measured from spectra corrected in a statistical fashion for the contribution from (mostly) CN. The values derived are similar to the corrected equivalent widths for the lithium line in Galactic carbon stars derived by Torres-Peimbert & Wallerstein  but significantly lower than the values derived by SPLL95 in the Magellanic Clouds (whose values were not corrected for CN contamination).
(3) The bolometric magnitudes of the Li-rich carbon stars range between $``$3.3 and $``$5.7. The distribution in $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ of the Li-rich N-type carbon stars seems to have two distinct peaks at $`4.25`$ and $`5.25`$ mag.
(4) J stars hold some special position in the Li-enriched carbon star sample, as they are about five times more likely to be Li-enriched. Also, there seems to be some correlation between bolometric magnitude and equivalent width of the lithium line for these stars.
(5) Existing models of lithium enrichment via the hot bottom burning process fail to account for the observed properties of the Li-enriched stars studied here. A different deep mixing mechanism operating in low-mass AGB stars seems to be required, especially for the faint N stars that do show Li-enrichment.

## 7 Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the staff of the Anglo-Australian Observatory for assistance with the observations, to the Australian Time Assignment Committee for the allocation of telescope time, and to the 2-MASS project team for making the infrared photometry available.


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# Untitled Document

High-Precision Entropy Values

for Spanning Trees in Lattices

by Jessica L. Felker and Russell Lyons

Abstract. Shrock and Wu have given numerical values for the exponential growth rate of the number of spanning trees in Euclidean lattices. We give a new technique for numerical evaluation that gives much more precise values, together with rigorous bounds on the accuracy. In particular, the new values resolve one of their questions.

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 05C05, 60C05. Secondary 60K99, 05C80, 82B20. Key words and phrases. Asymptotic complexity, graphs, tree entropy, uniform spanning forests.Research partially supported by NSF grants DMS-0097813 and DMS-0103897.
§1. Introduction.

Since the time of \[Kirch???\], physicists and mathematicians have been interested in enumerating spanning trees. One aspect of this endeavor has been to evaluate or to estimate asymptotics of the growth rate of the number of spanning trees in large graphs. Additional interest in the asymptotic growth rate arises in ergodic theory, since the exponential rate is also the entropy of a natural and important system, the so-called uniform spanning forest. See \[MR92g:60014???\], \[MR94m:60019???\], \[BLPS:usf???\], \[MR1630412???\], and \[Lyons:est???\] for explanations and information about the uniform spanning forest. Some modern enumeration efforts include \[MR94m:60019???\], \[MR2001b:05111???\], \[Lyons:est???\]; see also the references therein. In many cases, one can express the main term of the asymptotics by an integral formula. For example, if $`\tau (G)`$ denotes the number of spanning trees of a graph $`G`$ and if $`G_n`$ are the graphs induced by cubes of side length $`n`$ in the hypercubic lattice $`Z^d`$, then it is well known (and rederived in both \[MR94m:60019???\] and \[MR2001b:05111???\]) that the thermodynamic limit

$$h_d:=\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{n^d}\mathrm{log}\tau (G_n)$$

can be expressed as

$$h_d=_{T^d}\mathrm{log}\left(2d2\underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}\mathrm{cos}2\pi x_i\right)𝑑x=\mathrm{log}(2d)+_{T^d}\mathrm{log}\left(1\frac{1}{d}\underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}\mathrm{cos}2\pi x_i\right)𝑑x.$$
$`(1.1)`$
It is also well known (due to its connection with the dimer problem) that $`h_2=4\mathrm{G}/\pi `$, where $`\mathrm{G}:=_{k=0}^{\mathrm{}}(1)^k/(2k+1)^2`$ is Catalan’s constant (see, e.g., \[Kas:dim???\] or \[Montroll???\]). No values of $`h_d`$ for any $`d3`$ are known in simple terms of other known constants and functions. \[MR2001b:05111???\] evaluated these integrals in higher dimensions by numerical methods and found one particularly intriguing value: $`h_4=2.0000(5)`$. They suggested that $`h_4`$ may be exactly $`2`$, which would be quite surprising. Indeed, it would be extraordinary for a natural system without parameters to have a natural-log entropy that is a non-zero integer. This would have been the first such example to our knowledge. However, we shall see that $`h_4`$ is extraordinarily close to 2, but not, in fact, exactly 2. We shall also give more accurate values for other $`h_d`$ with rigorous bounds on their accuracy.

The numerical evaluation of $`h_d`$ is problematic if one wants to use the formula (1.1), due to the difficulty of accurate integration in higher dimensions. Therefore, \[MR2001b:05111???\] gave an interesting large-$`d`$ asymptotic expansion of $`h_d`$ to order $`1/d^6`$; we have given more terms below, to show that not all coefficients are positive, as one might otherwise believe, and to illustrate that this is indeed only an asymptotic expansion, not a convergent series:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill h_d=\mathrm{log}(2d)[& \frac{1}{4d}+\frac{3}{16d^2}+\frac{7}{32d^3}+\frac{45}{128d^4}+\frac{269}{384d^5}+\frac{805}{512d^6}+\frac{3615}{1024d^7}\hfill & \\ & +\frac{23205}{4096d^8}\frac{144963}{10240d^9}\frac{2187031}{8192d^{10}}\frac{40225409}{16384d^{11}}\frac{1277353077}{65536d^{12}}\hfill & \\ & \frac{66817216455}{458752d^{13}}\frac{271891453119}{262144d^{14}}+O\left(\frac{1}{d^{15}}\right)].\hfill & \end{array}$$

However, it is difficult to know how many terms of this expansion to use; \[MR2001b:05111???\] used this series to report $`h_5=2.243`$ and $`h_6=2.437`$. For smaller $`d`$, \[MR2001b:05111???\] used numerical integration to find that $`h_3=1.6741481(1)`$ and that $`h_4=2.0000(5)`$. However, the accuracy of $`h_3`$ is off by several orders of magnitude.

To obtain greater accuracy and enable us to prove that $`h_42`$, we shall use a new formula, namely,

$$h_d=\mathrm{log}(2d)\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}p_d(k)/k,$$
$`(1.2)`$
where $`p_d(k)`$ is the probability that simple nearest-neighbor random walk on the hypercubic lattice $`Z^d`$ returns to its starting point after $`k`$ steps. (A generalization of this formula is due to \[Lyons:est???\].) Even this formula is slightly problematic to use, since $`p_d(k)`$ is the sum of a large number of binomial coefficients for large $`k`$. Because of the large number of small terms, it is important to calculate the sum as an exact rational before converting to a real approximation. Fortunately, there is a simple recursion formula that enables quicker computation. In addition, we explain how to estimate the tail of the series in (1.2).

In the remainder of this note, we first state our numerical results and then derive the simple but crucial (1.2). Next, we explain how to compute $`p_d(k)`$ quickly and how to approximate the error, and finally prove rigorous bounds. We shall also briefly discuss body-centered cubic lattices. We end by discussing an alternative approach that was brought to our attention after a first version of this article was submitted.

§2. Results.

The numerical results are, to an accuracy we believe includes all reported digits, in the following table:

$`d`$ $`h_d`$             3 1.67338930297   4 1.999707644517   5 2.2424880598113   6 2.43662696200071   7 2.5986763042   8 2.73786766385   9 2.859910142340   10 2.968594484443   11 3.066571824248                     $`d`$ $`h_d`$             12 3.1557714292824   13 3.2376421551842   14 3.31330031802725   15 3.383624540390254   16 3.449318935201   17 3.510956551787645   18 3.56901006528479   19 3.62387396384455   20 3.67588091671257
These arise as follows. To prove (1.2), use the Maclaurin series for $`\mathrm{log}(1z)`$ to find

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill _{T^d}\mathrm{log}\left(1\frac{1}{d}\underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}\mathrm{cos}2\pi x_j\right)𝑑x& =\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{k}_{T^d}\left[\frac{1}{d}\underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}\mathrm{cos}2\pi x_j\right]^k𝑑x.\hfill & \\ & =\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{k}_{T^d}\left[\frac{1}{2d}\underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}\left(e^{2\pi ix_j}+e^{2\pi ix_j}\right)\right]^k𝑑x\hfill & \\ & =\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{k}p_d(k).\hfill & \end{array}$$

Clearly, we have $`p_d(k)=0`$ for $`k`$ odd and $`p_1(2k)=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2k}{k}\right)/2^{2k}`$. It is well known that $`p_2(2k)=p_1(2k)^2`$ (e.g., one step of a random walk in $`Z^2`$ can be made by taking one step in each of the directions $`\pm (1/\sqrt{2},1/\sqrt{2})`$ and $`\pm (1/\sqrt{2},1/\sqrt{2})`$, independently). For fast computation of other return probabilities, write $`f(d,k):=(2d)^{2k}p_d(2k)`$ for the number of nearest-neighbor walks of length $`2k`$ in $`Z^d`$ that start and end at the origin. Such a walk has the property that its projection to the first $`d_1`$ coordinates also starts and ends at the origin, while the number of steps in the first $`d_1`$ directions may be any even number between $`0`$ and $`2k`$. Similar reasoning shows that

$$f(d_1+d_2,k)=\underset{r=0}{\overset{k}{}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2k}{2r}\right)f(d_1,r)f(d_2,kr).$$

This allows one to reduce the computation of $`p_d()`$ to the values of $`p_{d/2}()`$ and $`p_{d/2}()`$.

Once we have these values, it is simple to compute partial sums for (1.2). Since all terms of the series are positive, each such partial sum gives a rigorous upper bound for the true value of $`h_d`$. Merely summing the first 13 terms of the series in (1.2) for $`d=4`$ gives a rigorous proof that $`h_4<2`$. To get an lower bound for $`h_d`$, it suffices to bound above the remainder. It is well known (see, e.g., \[MR52:9383???\], Section 7) that

$$p_d(2k)2\left(\frac{d}{4\pi k}\right)^{d/2}.$$
$`(2.1)`$
A more accurate approximation is

$$p_d(2k)2\left(\frac{d}{4\pi k}\right)^{d/2}\left(1\frac{d}{8k}\right),$$
$`(2.2)`$
as shown by \[Ball???\]. As this suggests, we believe that the right-hand side of (2.1) is actually larger than the left-hand side; indeed, this appears to be true for all $`d`$ and $`k`$, not merely for large $`k`$, though it has been proved only for large $`k`$ and small $`d`$. That is, we have

$$p_d(2k)2\left(\frac{d}{4\pi k}\right)^{d/2}$$
$`(2.3)`$
for all $`k`$ when $`1d6`$ and for all large $`k`$ (if not all $`k`$) when $`d7`$; see \[Ball???\]. Since the sum over $`kr`$, any $`r>0`$, of the right-hand sides of either (2.1) or (2.2) can be expressed via the Hurwitz zeta function, for which Euler-Maclaurin summation approximations are readily available, we obtain the very accurate values reported in the tables above by summing relatively few terms. Excellent accuracy is already available after just 10 terms, but we have used 1000 terms for $`3d6`$, 100 terms for $`7d10`$, and 80 terms for $`11d20`$. In addition, by using (2.3) and partial sums of 1000 terms, we get the rigorous bounds

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 1.6733893024176978& h_31.6733917596720884\hfill & \\ \hfill 1.9997076445004571& h_41.9997076951104138\hfill & \\ \hfill 2.242488059810819& h_52.2424880610724065\hfill & \\ \hfill 2.436626962000695& h_62.4366269620369234.\hfill & \end{array}$$

One can use similar estimates to improve the accuracy of the asymptotics for body-centered hypercubic lattices. As shown by \[MR2001b:05111???\], the exponential growth rate of the number of spanning trees in $`d`$ dimensions is

$$h_d^{\mathrm{bcc}}=d\mathrm{log}2\frac{1}{2}\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{k}p_1(k)^d.$$
$`(2.4)`$
It is straightforward to show that

$$p_1(2k)2\left(\frac{1}{4\pi k}\right)^{1/2}\left(1\frac{1}{8k}\right)$$
$`(2.5)`$
by use of Stirling’s approximation. We sum 1000 terms of (2.4) and bound the remainder. Using (2.3) for a lower bound and (2.5) for an upper bound, we find

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 1.9901914178466& h_3^{\mathrm{bcc}}1.9901914178472\hfill & \\ \hfill 2.732957535468933& h_4^{\mathrm{bcc}}2.7329575354689455.\hfill & \end{array}$$

These agree with the estimates of \[MR2001b:05111???\], but give about 3 times as many digits.

After a first version of this article was submitted for publication, Alan Sokal kindly brought to our attention some related calculations by \[MR2002h:82037???\]. Up to a constant, the entropy $`h_d`$ studied here is equal to the free energy $`g_d(1/d)`$ studied there (see equation (A.2) of their paper). Their formula (A.6) shows, then, that

$$h_d=\mathrm{log}(2d)+_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{e^t}{t}\left[1I_0(t/d)^d\right]𝑑t,$$
$`(2.6)`$
where $`I_0`$ is the modified Bessel function. In this way, $`h_d`$ can be estimated by numerical integration in only one dimension, which can be accomplished very quickly. The disadvantage, however, is that the integrand decays rather slowly. As noted in Appendix A.2 of \[MR2002h:82037???\], one can improve the precision dramatically by numerical integration up to some cut-off, then symbolic integration of the tail with an asymptotic formula replacing $`I_0`$. Even so, not all the numerical values reported in \[MR2002h:82037???\] are correct in all their digits, as can be seen by comparison with our tables and our rigorous bounds. The second disadvantage of (2.6) is that it is less straightforward to provide rigorous bounds. For this purpose, one has to treat carefully the technique of numerical integration, as well as evaluation and bounding of $`I_0`$. Some of this is discussed in Appendix B of \[MR93j:82033???\]. By comparison, our technique requires only the calculation of rational numbers, as well as one simple logarithm calculation.

REFERENCES

Ball, K. and Sterbenz, J. (2003). Explicit bounds for simple random walks. In preparation.

Benjamini, I., Lyons, R., Peres, Y., and Schramm, O. (2001). Uniform spanning forests. Ann. Probab. 29, 1–65.

Burton, R.M. and Pemantle, R. (1993). Local characteristics, entropy and limit theorems for spanning trees and domino tilings via transfer-impedances. Ann. Probab. 21, 1329–1371.

Hara, T. and Slade, G. (1992). The lace expansion for self-avoiding walk in five or more dimensions. Rev. Math. Phys. 4, 235–327.

Kasteleyn, P. (1961). The statisics of dimers on a lattice I. The number of dimer arrangements on a quadratic lattice. Physica 27, 1209–1225.

Kirchhoff, G. (1847). Ueber die Auflösung der Gleichungen, auf welche man bei der Untersuchung der linearen Vertheilung galvanischer Ströme geführt wird. Ann. Phys. und Chem. 72, 497–508.

Lyons, R. (1998). A bird’s-eye view of uniform spanning trees and forests. In Aldous, D. and Propp, J., editors, Microsurveys in Discrete Probability, volume 41 of DIMACS Series in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, pages 135–162. Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI. Papers from the workshop held as part of the Dimacs Special Year on Discrete Probability in Princeton, NJ, June 2–6, 1997.

Lyons, R. (2003). Asymptotic enumeration of spanning trees. Preprint.

Montroll, E. (1964). Lattice statistics. In Beckenbach, E., editor, Applied Combinatorial Mathematics, pages 96–143. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York-London-Sydney. University of California Engineering and Physical Sciences Extension Series.

Pemantle, R. (1991). Choosing a spanning tree for the integer lattice uniformly. Ann. Probab. 19, 1559–1574.

Shrock, R. and Wu, F.Y. (2000). Spanning trees on graphs and lattices in $`d`$ dimensions. J. Phys. A 33, 3881–3902.

Sokal, A.D. and Starinets, A.O. (2001). Pathologies of the large-$`N`$ limit for $`𝐑\mathrm{P}^{N1}`$, $`𝐂\mathrm{P}^{N1}`$, $`Q\mathrm{P}^{N1}`$ and mixed isovector/isotensor $`\sigma `$-models. Nuclear Phys. B 601, 425–502.

Spitzer, F. (1976). Principles of Random Walk. Springer-Verlag, New York, second edition. Graduate Texts in Mathematics, Vol. 34.

Department of Mathematics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405-5701

rdlyons@indiana.edu

http://php.indiana.edu/~rdlyons/

and

School of Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0160

rdlyons@math.gatech.edu

Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139

felk@alum.mit.edu


text:
# Nodal Order Parameter in Electron-Doped Superconducting Films Pr₂₋ₓCeₓCuO_{4-𝛿} (𝑥=0.13, 0.15 and 0.17)

(10 April, 2003)

## Abstract

The London penetration depth, $`\lambda _{ab}`$(T), is reported for thin films of the electron-doped superconductor Pr2-xCexCuO4-δ at three doping levels (x = 0.13, 0.15 and 0.17). Measurements down to 0.35 K were carried out using a tunnel diode oscillator with excitation fields applied both perpendicular and parallel to the conducting planes. For all samples and both field orientations $`\lambda _{ab}`$(T) showed power law behavior implying a superconducting gap with nodes.

type-II superconductivity, penetration depth, irreversibility  preprint: cond-mat/000000

It is now generally accepted that the hole-doped high-Tc cuprates exhibit d-wave pairing symmetry harlingen ; tsuei . For electron doped materials, several different experiments have recently provided strong evidence for unconventional pairing. These include penetration depth on single crystals prozorov ; kokales , tricrystal measurements tsuei2 , ARPES armitage , tunneling hayashi ; biswas , specific heat balci  and Raman scattering blumberg . However, the situation in thin films has been controversial. Tunnelling measurements provided evidence for an energy gap alff . Mutual inductance measurements of the penetration depth in Pr2-xCexCuO4-δ (PCCO) films claimed gapped behavior in optimal and overdoped films and a transition to a $`T^2`$ power law for underdoped films, indicative of d-wave pairing skinta . More recent measurements on PCCO films grown with a $`\mathrm{Pr}_2\mathrm{CuO}_4`$ buffer layer indicate a nodeless order parameter at all doping levels kim , albeit with an unusually small value of the superconducting gap ($`0.9T_c`$ compared to $`1.76T_c`$ of a weak-coupling BCS value).

To help resolve this controversy we have measured the penetration depth in PCCO films for several different doping levels and for ac magnetic field excitation both parallel and perpendicular to the film plane. This approach helps to eliminate complications that might arise from vortex motion and demagnetization effects.

Thin PCCO films of thickness 2500 Å were grown using pulsed laser deposition on LaAlO3 and yttria stabilized zirconia substrates. Details of the film growth can be found in Ref. maiser . The films have been optimized for oxygen content by maximizing $`T_c`$ for each cerium concentration. The films were characterized by x-ray, ac susceptibility and resistivity measurements. Corresponding critical temperatures and cerium doping levels for underdoped, optimally doped and overdoped films used in the measurements are $`T_c=9.1`$ K ($`x=0.13`$), $`T_c=20.5`$ K ($`x=0.15`$) and $`T_c=11.8`$ K ($`x=0.17`$), respectively. Penetration depth measurements were carried out using a 13 MHz tunnel-diode LC resonator described previously carrington ; prozorov2 . Samples were placed on a movable sapphire stage with temperature control from 0.35 to 40K mounted in a 3He refrigerator. When the magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the conducting Cu-O planes ($`H_{ac}ab)`$ only in-plane screening currents are induced. In that case, it can be shown that the frequency shift of the resonator is proportional to the change of the in-plane penetration depth, $`\mathrm{\Delta }f=f\left(T\right)f\left(0\right)=G\left(\lambda _{ab}\left(T\right)\lambda _{ab}\left(0\right)\right)`$ where $`G`$ is geometrical factor that depends on the sample and coil geometry . When $`H_{ac}ab`$ there are no demagnetization effects and the oscillator frequency shift is accurately proportional to the susceptiblity, prozorov2 ,

$$4\pi \chi =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\left(2\lambda _{ab}\mathrm{/}d\right)\mathrm{tanh}\left(d\mathrm{/}2\lambda _{ab}\right)$$
(1)
In principle, $`\lambda _c`$ also contributes to the susceptibility, but its relative contribution is proportional to *d/w*, where $`d`$ is a thickness and $`w`$ is a width prozorov2 . Since *d/w*$``$10-4 this contribution is negligible.

In Fig. 1 we plot the change in penetration depth as a function of normalized temperature $`(T/T_c)`$ for three measured PCCO films with differing Ce doping levels (ac field was applied perpendicular to the films plane). Owing to the very large demagnetization factor, it is difficult to accurately determine the calibration constant G relating the frequency shift to the change in penetration depth. We therefore plot the normalized frequency shift alone. For comparison we show data taken for V3Si, a weak-coupling isotropic $`s`$-wave superconductor, taken in the same apparatus. Small data offsets were used for clarity. $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_0`$ corresponds to the total frequency shift when the perfectly diamagnetic sample is inserted into a resonator at the lowest temperature. The low temperature behavior of all three measured PCCO samples differs from that obtained for the s-wave material. However, there are considerable differences in behavior between PCCO films of different Ce doping levels.

The data for an underdoped PCCO film is shown in Fig. 2, along with several fits. The fitting range was chosen up to 0.32Tc to ensure the validity of low temperature BCS expression for an s-wave material,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =\lambda (0)\sqrt{\frac{\pi \mathrm{\Delta }_0}{2T}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{T}\right)$$
(2)
Here $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is the value of the energy gap at zero temperature . In each case the small negative offset $`A=\lambda (0)\lambda (0.4K)`$ was determined as a fitting parameter. The dotted line shows a fit to the standard BCS form with the weak coupling gap value $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0/T_c`$ = 1.76. The dashed curve shows the best fit obtained by allowing $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ to be a free parameter. In this case the extracted value $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0/T_c=0.60\pm 0.01`$ is considerably smaller than the weak-coupling BCS value. The solid line is a fit to a power law, $`\mathrm{\Delta }fA+BT^n`$. The best result was achieved with $`n`$=2.00 $`\pm `$ 0.01. The inset displays residuals for the various fits. The T2 fit is superior to either s-wave fit, suggesting a gap function with line nodes and unitary limit impurity scattering, as reported earlier for PCCO crystals \[19-21\].

Fig. 3 shows the same analysis for an optimally doped PCCO film. The dash-dotted line in the figure represents the BCS fit with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0/T_c`$ = 1.76 while the dotted line shows the best fit with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ as free parameter. In this case we obtain $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0/T_c=0.46\pm 0.01`$. The dashed line is a fit to the power law, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda A+BT^2`$. Allowing the exponent to be a free parameter, the best fit for optimally doped PCCO film was achieved for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda T^{1.52\pm 0.01}`$ , displayed in the graph as solid line. The residuals plot (inset) indicates that a power law provides a superior fit to an exponential. Although certain organic superconductors do consistently exhibit a $`\lambda T^{1.5}`$ power law behavior carrington , in this case the $`n`$ = 1.5 power is more likely to be an alternative way to describe the well-known ”dirty d-wave” model in which $`\lambda T^2/(T^{}+T)`$ where $`T^{}`$ is a measure of the rate of unitary limit impurity scattering \[19-21\]. A fit to this form with $`T^{}=0.29T_c`$ gives a fit of nearly identical quality to the fractional power law.

Fig. 4 shows the data for an overdoped PCCO film. With $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ as a free parameter we obtain $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0/T_c=0.69\pm 0.01`$. The dotted line shows the fit for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0/T_c=1.76`$. The dashed line shows the fit to a ”dirty d-wave” expression, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda A+BT^2`$. Finally, the solid line shows the fit to the power low expression, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda A+BT^n`$. The best overall fit was achieved with for for $`n`$=2.50 $`\pm `$ 0.03.

In the figure 5 we plot the change in penetration depth as a function of $`(T/T_c)^2`$ obtained for optimally and overdoped PCCO films measured in the parallel configuration ($`H_{ac}a)`$. In this case, the absence of demagnetizing effects allows us to determine the change in $`\lambda `$ directly from the frequency shift. Since $`\lambda `$ is comparable to the film thickness the total frequency shift in this geometry is much less than in the previous orientation and the data is correspondingly noisier. The solid lines through the data are not fits but represent the scaled data taken in the ($`H_{ac}a)`$ orientation with an additive offset for the $`\lambda _0`$. The overall temperature variation is the same in both orientations, giving us confidence that only the in-plane penetration depth is being measured.

To summarize, we find that London penetration depth in underdoped, optimally doped and overdoped PCCO films studied can be fit by a dirty d-wave temperature dependence rather than a gapped order parameter. Indeed, it is possible to observe apparently non-exponential behavior of $`\lambda (T)`$ for samples with extremely large spread of transition temperatures due to inhomogeneities in chemical composition. However, our numerical solution in the framework of the weak-coupling s-wave BCS theory indicates that in order to mimic the $`T^2`$ behavior observed, the sample would have to contain a linear probability distribution of $`T_c`$s extending from $`T_c(max)`$ down to 0K. Such a distribution is chemically unfeasible and there is no indication of chemical inhomogeneity from the observed superconducting transition widths. Furthermore, good agreement of the thin film data with the earlier data obtained on single crystals indicates the unlikeness of this scenario. The $`n=2.5`$ effective power law observed in overdoped films is difficult to explain with any simple model of the gap function. However, it is clear that the disparity between the power law and the finite gap model is smaller for overdoped films and could indicate a progression towards the formation of a small gap with *Ce* doping or for a particular kind of substrate.

Acknowledgments: the work at University of South Carolina was supported by the NSF/EPSCoR under Grant No. EPS-0296165. Work at the University of Illinois was supported by NSF under grant No. DMR-0101872. PF acknowledges the support of Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Foundation of the Universit de Sherbrooke.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Ever since its proposal as a way to generate neutrino masses, either on its own or in the context of effective seesaw schemes , many variants of the triplet model have been considered111Here the triplet majoron will not be discussed because it is ruled out by the measurement of the invisible Z decay width at LEP.. In fact the triplet is a common ingredient in the formulation of seesaw schemes with gauged , or ungauged B-L symmetry . They are also a characteristic feature in several left-right symmetric models , required in order to reduce the extended gauge structure down to the minimal $`SU(2)U(1)`$. For studies of the phenomenology of left-right symmetric models, both supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric see ref.  and references therein.

Recent experiments, including the recently published first results of KamLAND , have confirmed the LMA-MSW oscillation solution to the solar neutrino problem . Together with the earlier discoveries in atmospheric neutrinos , one can now be fairly confident that all neutrino flavours mix and that at least two non-zero neutrino masses exist. This impressive progress has brought the quest for an understanding of the smallness of neutrino masses to the center of attention in particle physics.

In the standard model neutrinos are massless. One of the best-known mechanisms to generate small (Majorana) neutrino masses is the seesaw mechanism. Elegant as it may be, the seesaw mechanism is not the only theoretically interesting approach to neutrino masses. More interesting from a phenomenological point of view are models in which the neutrino masses are generated at the electroweak scale. Models of this kind include, for example, variants of the seesaw scheme at the electro-weak scale , radiative models of neutrino mass  and supersymmetry with R-parity violation .

In this work we further explore the triplet approach to neutrino mass, by combining it with the idea of bilinear R-parity violating (BRpV) supersymmetry. The later might arise as the effective description of models with spontaneously broken R-parity . Alternatively, the required smallness of the bilinear R parity violating parameters may result from some suitable family symmetry , thus providing a common solution  to the so-called mu-problem  and the neutrino anomalies.

At the superpotential level lepton number violation resides only in the explicit BRpV terms, but after electro-weak symmetry breaking takes place, this induces a naturally small VEV for the neutral component of the Higgs triplets, suppressed by two powers of the BRpV parameters , as emphasized recently by Ernest Ma  222This corresponds to a type II weak-scale supersymmetric seesaw scheme, where an effective triplet VEV is induced from the exchange of scalar bosons. This should be contrasted with the type-I mechanism which produces the effective neutrino mass from the exchange of neutralinos. Both types, however, come out proportional to the square of RPV parameters, as seen in eq. (15) and eq. (28) below. .

The result is a hybrid scheme for the neutrino masses. An attractive and natural possibility is that the atmospheric mass scale arises from bilinear R-parity breaking, while the solar mass scale is generated by the small Higgs triplet VEVs. The model is theoretically simple, since only tree-level physics is required to explain current neutrino data, and has the advantage of being directly testable in the next generation of colliders.

The presence of Higgs triplets would induce lepton flavor violating decays of muons and taus. A number of low-energy constraints on Higgs triplet couplings have been derived from the non-observation of such processes . Although the model we are considering is different from the standard left-right models, many constraints apply equally well to our case. The most important bounds for our model are from the experimental upper limits on $`\mu 3e`$ and $`\mu e\gamma `$, which can be expressed as ,

$$h_{e\mu }h_{ee}<3.2\times 10^7\frac{M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_u^{}}^2}{(100\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})^2}$$
(1)
from $`\mu 3e`$ and

$$h_{e\mu }h_{\mu \mu }<2\times 10^6\frac{M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_u^{}}^2}{(100\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})^2}$$
(2)
from $`\mu e\gamma `$. Here, $`h_{ij}`$ are the Yukawa couplings of the triplet to the leptons and $`M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_u^{}}`$ is the triplet mass. Note that these bounds are on products of two couplings. Limits exist  on individual Yukawa couplings but are weaker by several orders of magnitude.

This paper is organized as follows. In the next section we will present the model, discussing the Higgs potential as well as the mass matrix describing the neutrino-neutralino sector. In Sec. 3 we will then turn to the phenomenology of the model. Neutrino masses and mixings are calculated, with emphasis on the solar neutrino data. Finally production and decays of the Higgs bosons of the model are discussed. In Sec. 3.2 we point out that there is a relation between various branching ratios of the decay of the doubly charged component of the scalar triplet and the solar angle, which will allow to test the validity of the model in a future accelerator. We will then close with a short summary.

## 2 Model

### 2.1 Superpotential and scalar sector

The model to be presented below is the supersymmetric extension of the original triplet model of neutrino mass  in which the simplest form of R-parity violation is assumed. The model is defined by the particle content of the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of Standard Model (MSSM) augmented by a pair of Higgs triplet superfields:

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_u=\left(\begin{array}{c}\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_u^{++}\hfill \\ \widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_u^+\hfill \\ \widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_u^0\hfill \end{array}\right)\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_d=\left(\begin{array}{c}\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_d^0\hfill \\ \widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_d^{}\hfill \\ \widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_d^{}\hfill \end{array}\right)$$
(3)
with hypercharges $`Y=+2`$ and $`Y=2`$ and lepton number $`L=2`$ and $`L=+2`$ respectively. Note that although only one Higgs triplet superfield is necessary to provide the neutrinos with appropriate masses, two triplets are needed to avoid the triangle gauge anomaly. Apart from the new Higgs triplet superfields, we include R-parity violation in three generations, by adding bilinear lepton number violating superpotential terms , . The superpotential of this model is then given by a sum of three terms,

$$W=W_{MSSM}+W_{BRpV}+W_\mathrm{\Delta }$$
(4)
where

$$W_{MSSM}=\mu \widehat{H}_u\widehat{H}_d+h_U^{ij}\widehat{H}_u\widehat{Q}_i\widehat{u}_j^c+h_D^{ij}\widehat{H}_d\widehat{Q}_i\widehat{d}_j^c+h_E^{ij}\widehat{H}_d\widehat{L}_i\widehat{e}_j^c$$
(5)
is the superpotential of the MSSM,

$$W_{BRpV}=ϵ_i\widehat{L}_i\widehat{H}_u$$
(6)
is the usual bilinear R-parity violating term, while

$$W_\mathrm{\Delta }=\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_u\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_d+h_{ij}\widehat{L}_i\widehat{L}_j\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_u$$
(7)
includes the terms that determine the interactions and masses of the new Higgs triplet superfields. The Yukawa couplings $`h_U`$, $`h_D`$, $`h_E`$ and $`h`$ are $`3\times 3`$ matrices in generation space and $`\mu `$, $`ϵ_i`$ ($`i=1,\mathrm{},3`$) and $`M`$ are parameters with units of mass.

The scalar potential along neutral directions is a sum of two terms

$$V=V_{SUSY}+V_{soft}$$
(8)
where

$$\begin{array}{ccc}V_{SUSY}& =& \left|\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0\right|^2+\left|h^{ij}\stackrel{~}{\nu }_i\stackrel{~}{\nu }_j+\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0\right|^2+\left|\mu H_u^0\right|^2+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +\frac{1}{8}(g^2+g^2)\left(\left|H_d^0\right|^2\left|H_u^0\right|^2+_i\left|\stackrel{~}{\nu }_i\right|^2+2\left|\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0\right|^22\left|\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0\right|^2\right)^2+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +_i\left|2h^{ij}\stackrel{~}{\nu }_j\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0+H_u^0ϵ^i\right|^2+\left|\mu H_d^0+ϵ^i\stackrel{~}{\nu }_i\right|^2\hfill \end{array}$$
(9)
is the neutral part of the supersymmetric scalar potential and

$$\begin{array}{ccc}V_{soft}& =& [A^{ij}h^{ij}\stackrel{~}{\nu }_i\stackrel{~}{\nu }_j\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0B\mu H_d^0H_u^0+B^iϵ^i\stackrel{~}{\nu }_iH_u^0+B_\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0+c.c.]+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +M_L^2_i\left|\stackrel{~}{\nu }_i\right|^2+M_{H_d}^2\left|H_d^0\right|^2+M_{H_u}^2\left|H_u^0\right|^2+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_u}^2\left|\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0\right|^2+M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_d}^2\left|\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0\right|^2\hfill \end{array}$$
(10)
is the soft supersymmetry breaking scalar potential, also along neutral directions. The expression in eq. (10) contains terms which are linear in the neutral Higgs bosons $`H_u^0`$, $`H_d^0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0`$ and the scalar neutrinos $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }_i`$ ($`i=1,\mathrm{},3`$). The presence of bilinear RPV terms in the superpotential leads to non-zero sneutrino vacuum expectation values.

The vacuum expectation values can be determined by minimizing the scalar potential in eq. (8). These stationary conditions of the scalar potential are the so-called tadpole equations:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}t_u\hfill & =& \mu Bv_d+(\mu ^2+M_{H_u}^2)v_u+B^iϵ^iv_i+\sqrt{2}ϵ^ih_{ij}v^j\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +ϵ^iϵ_iv_uv_u𝒟\hfill \\ & & \\ t_d\hfill & =& (\mu ^2+M_{H_d}^2)v_d\mu (Bv_u+ϵ^iv_i)+v_d𝒟\hfill \\ & & \\ t^i\hfill & =& ϵ^i(\mu v_d+B^iv_u+ϵ^jv_j)+M_L^2v^i+\sqrt{2}h^{ij}ϵ_jv_u\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +\sqrt{2}A^{ij}h^{ij}v_j\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0+\sqrt{2}\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }h^{ij}v_j\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0+h^{ij}v_jh^{kl}v_kv_l+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +2h^{ij}h_{jk}v^k\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0^2+v^i𝒟\hfill \\ & & \\ t_{\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0}\hfill & =& (\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }^2+M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_u}^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0+v^ih_{ij}(2h^{jk}v_k\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0+\sqrt{2}ϵ^jv_u)+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}A^{ij}h^{ij}v_iv_j+B_\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }_d^02\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0𝒟\hfill \\ & & \\ t_{\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0}\hfill & =& (\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }^2+M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_d}^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }h^{ij}v_iv_j+B_\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0+2\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0𝒟\hfill \end{array}$$
(11)
where the non-zero vacuum expectation values are defined as

$$v_uH_u^0,v_dH_d^0,v_i\stackrel{~}{\nu }_i(i=,1\mathrm{},3)$$
(12)
and

$$𝒟\frac{1}{8}(g^2+g^2)(v_d^2v_u^2+\underset{i}{}v_i^2+2\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0^22\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0^2)$$
(13)
The basic idea of the model is contained in eqs. (11) and (13) and can be understood with the help of the following consideration. The VEVs of the scalar triplets violate lepton number by two units and, therefore, are expected to be small. If $`\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0,\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0v_u,v_d`$,

$$𝒟𝒟^{}\frac{1}{8}(g^2+g^2)(v_d^2v_u^2+\underset{i}{}v_i^2)$$
(14)
and one can solve eqs. (11) for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0`$,

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0\hfill & & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}h^{ij}\frac{v_iv_j[A^{ij}(\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }^2+M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_d}^2+2𝒟^{})+B_\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }^2]2v_iϵ_jv_u(\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }^2+M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_d}^2+2𝒟^{})}{(\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }^2+M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_u}^22𝒟^{})(\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }^2+M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_d}^2+2𝒟^{})(B_\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _\mathrm{\Delta })^2}\hfill \\ & & \\ \mathrm{\Delta }_d^0\hfill & & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}h^{ij}\frac{v_iv_j[A^{ij}B_\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }+\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }(\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }^2+M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_u}^22𝒟^{})]2v_iϵ_jv_uB_\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }}{(\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }^2+M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_u}^22𝒟^{})(\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }^2+M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_d}^2+2𝒟^{})(B_\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _\mathrm{\Delta })^2}\hfill \end{array}$$
(15)
The Higgs triplet VEVs are quadratic in the RPV parameters, and thus automatically small as long as $`v_iv_d,v_u`$. The smallness of the $`v_i`$, on the other hand, depends on the relative size of $`ϵ_i/\mu `$ which we assume to be sufficiently smaller than one. Note also that the presence of neutral scalar lepton VEVs produces a mixing between scalars, higgs bosons and scalar neutrinos .

### 2.2 Neutral Fermion Mixing

The Lagrangian contains the following terms involving two neutral fermions and the neutral scalars (Higgs bosons and scalar neutrinos)

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & \mu \stackrel{~}{H}_d^0\stackrel{~}{H}_u^0ϵ^i\nu _i\stackrel{~}{H}_u^0+h^{ij}\nu _i\nu _j\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0+h^{ij}\nu _i\stackrel{~}{\nu }_j\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_u^0\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_u^0\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_d^0+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +\frac{1}{2}(M_1\lambda ^{}\lambda ^{}+M_2\lambda \lambda )+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +\frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}g^{}\lambda ^{}(\stackrel{~}{\nu }^i\nu _iH_d^0\stackrel{~}{H}_d^0+H_u^0\stackrel{~}{H}_u^0+2\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_u^02\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_d^0)+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +\frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}g\lambda ^3(\stackrel{~}{\nu }^i\nu _i+H_d^0\stackrel{~}{H}_d^0H_u^0\stackrel{~}{H}_u^02\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_u^0+2\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_d^0)\hfill \end{array}$$
(16)
After the electroweak and R-parity symmetries break through non-zero vacuum expectation values for the Higgs boson and sneutrinos, the Lagrangian contains the following mass terms involving nine neutral fermions:

$$\frac{1}{2}(\psi ^0)^T𝐌_𝐍(\psi ^0)$$
(17)
where the basis is

$$(\psi ^0)^T=(\nu _1,\nu _2,\nu _3,i\lambda ^{},i\lambda ^3,\stackrel{~}{H}_d^0,\stackrel{~}{H}_u^0,\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_d^0,\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_u^0)$$
(18)
and the neutral fermion mass matrix is a $`9\times 9`$ matrix of the form:

$$𝐌_𝐍=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}𝐌_\nu \hfill & 𝐦_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐑𝐩𝐕}}\hfill & 𝐦_{\nu 𝚫}\hfill \\ & & \\ 𝐦_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐑𝐩𝐕}}^T\hfill & _{\chi ^\mathrm{𝟎}}\hfill & 𝐦_{\chi ^\mathrm{𝟎}𝚫}\hfill \\ & & \\ 𝐦_{\nu 𝚫}^T\hfill & 𝐦_{\chi ^\mathrm{𝟎}𝚫}^T\hfill & 𝐌_𝚫\hfill \end{array}\right)$$
(19)
where the symmetric matrix

$$𝐌_\nu =\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0\left(\begin{array}{ccc}h_{11}& h_{12}& h_{13}\\ h_{12}& h_{22}& h_{23}\\ h_{13}& h_{23}& h_{33}\end{array}\right)$$
(20)
characterizes the direct contribution to the neutrino mass matrix and

$$_{\chi ^\mathrm{𝟎}}=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}M_1& 0& \frac{1}{2}g^{}v_d& \frac{1}{2}g^{}v_u\\ 0& M_2& \frac{1}{2}gv_d& \frac{1}{2}gv_u\\ \frac{1}{2}g^{}v_d& \frac{1}{2}gv_d& 0& \mu \\ \frac{1}{2}g^{}v_u& \frac{1}{2}gv_u& \mu & 0\end{array}\right)$$
(21)
denotes the standard MSSM neutralino mass matrix. The matrix $`𝐦_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐑𝐩𝐕}}`$ is given as

$$𝐦_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐑𝐩𝐕}}=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\frac{1}{2}g^{}v_1& \frac{1}{2}gv_1& 0& ϵ_1\\ \frac{1}{2}g^{}v_2& \frac{1}{2}gv_2& 0& ϵ_2\\ \frac{1}{2}g^{}v_3& \frac{1}{2}gv_3& 0& ϵ_3\end{array}\right)$$
(22)
and characterizes the bilinear R-parity Violation, while

$$𝐦_{\nu 𝚫}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}h^{1j}v_j\\ 0& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}h^{2j}v_j\\ 0& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}h^{3j}v_j\end{array}\right)$$
(23)
is the neutrino-Higgs triplet mixing mass matrix. On the other hand,

$$𝐦_{\chi ^\mathrm{𝟎}𝚫}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}g^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0& g^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0\\ g\mathrm{\Delta }_d^0& g\mathrm{\Delta }_u^0\\ 0& 0\\ 0& 0\end{array}\right)$$
(24)
is the neutralino-Higgs triplet mixing mass matrix and

$$𝐌_𝚫=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& \mu _\mathrm{\Delta }\\ \mu _\mathrm{\Delta }& 0\end{array}\right)$$
(25)
is the Higgs triplet mass matrix arising from the first term in eq. (7).

One sees that the mixing between neutral fermions (gauginos, Higgsinos and neutrinos) has a rich structure, with several off-diagonal RPV entries which, as we show next, will induce masses (and mixings) for the neutrinos.

## 3 Phenomenology

In what follows we will work in an approximation where we neglect the radiatively induced neutrino masses with respect to those induced at the tree level due to the presence of the triplet. We have checked that there is a natural range of parameters in the model where the use of this approximation is justified. For a thorough discussion of loop-induced neutrino masses in BRpV see refs. .

### 3.1 Neutrino masses and mixing angles

One can provide an approximate analytical understanding of the tree level neutrino masses and mixing angles, by using the previous form of $`𝐌_𝐍`$. This form is especially convenient because the various sub-blocks in eq. (19) can easily have vastly different orders of magnitude and one expects from eq. (15) and eq. (11)

$$𝐌_\nu ,𝐦_{\nu 𝚫},𝐦_{\chi ^\mathrm{𝟎}𝚫}𝐦_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐑𝐩𝐕}}_{\chi ^\mathrm{𝟎}},𝐌_𝚫$$
(26)
if $`ϵ_i<\mu `$. More technically, in the limit where $`\xi _{ij}1`$, where $`\xi =𝐦_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐑𝐩𝐕}}\times _{\chi ^0}^1`$ one can write the effective contribution of the BRpV parameters to the ($`3\times 3`$) neutrino mass matrix as

$$𝐌_\nu ^{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}}=𝐌_\nu +𝐌_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫}}^{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}}$$
(27)
where the contributions from BRpV to the neutrino mass matrix is given by

$$(𝐌_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫}}^{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}})_{ij}=\frac{M_1g^2+M_2g^2}{4det(_{\chi ^\mathrm{𝟎}})}\mathrm{\Lambda }_i\mathrm{\Lambda }_j$$
(28)
with

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_i=\mu v_i+ϵ_iv_d.$$
(29)
With the observation eq. (26) one can further simplify the eigenvalue problem of eq. (27), by means of a perturbative diagonalization. Consider first eq. (28). As has been discussed several times in the literature , this mass matrix is diagonalized by only two angles,

$$\mathrm{tan}\theta _{13}=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_e}{(\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }_\tau ^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}},$$
(30)
$$\mathrm{tan}\theta _{23}=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu }{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\tau }.$$
(31)
and leads to only one non-zero eigenvalue, given by

$$m_\nu ^{BRpV}=\frac{M_1g^2+M_2g^2}{4det(_{\chi ^\mathrm{𝟎}})}|\mathrm{\Lambda }|^2,$$
(32)
where $`|\mathrm{\Lambda }|^2=\mathrm{\Lambda }_i^2`$ The remaining angle $`\theta _{12}`$ is not defined in the bilinear only model at tree-level. The complete diagonalization of eq. (27), $`\widehat{𝐌}_\nu ^{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}}=𝐑𝐌_\nu ^{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}}𝐑^T`$, where the matrix of eigenvectors $`𝐑`$ can be expressed as a product of three Euler rotations, can therefore be written as,

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\widehat{𝐌}_\nu ^{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞}}& =& 𝐑𝐌_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫}}^{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}}𝐑^T+𝐑𝐌_\nu 𝐑^T\hfill \\ & =& 𝐑_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟐}}𝐌_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫}}^{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}}𝐑_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟐}}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}+𝐑_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟐}}𝐌_\nu ^{}𝐑_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟐}}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}\hfill \end{array}$$
(33)
Since $`𝐌_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫}}^{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}}`$ is already diagonal, the solar angle is defined by the entries of $`𝐌_\nu ^{}`$ only,

$$\mathrm{tan}(2\theta _{SOL})\frac{2(𝐌_\nu ^{})_{12}}{(𝐌_\nu ^{})_{11}(𝐌_\nu ^{})_{22}}$$
(34)
Note that $`𝐌_\nu ^{}`$ is not exactly diagonal after applying the rotation eq. (34). However if $`𝐌_\nu ^{}𝐌_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫}}^{\mathrm{𝐞𝐟𝐟}}`$, this small off-diagonals will change the angles defined in eq. (30) and eq. (31) only by a negligible amount. Using the experimentally measured values of $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{ATM}1`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{chooz}}1`$ one can finally find a simple formula for the solar angle ($`\theta _{12}`$) which is approximately given by

$$\mathrm{tan}(2\theta _{SOL})\frac{2\sqrt{2}(h_{12}h_{13})}{2h_{11}+h_{22}+h_{33}2h_{23}}x$$
(35)
From the above discussion one expects that, for reasonable ranges of parameters, atmospheric neutrino physics is determined by the bilinear parameters $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_i`$, whereas the solar neutrino mass scale depends mostly on the Yukawa couplings and the triplet mass.

Fig. 1 shows an example of the solar and atmospheric neutrino mass–squared differences as a function of the Yukawa parameter $`h`$ for a fixed value of the triplet mass $`M_\mathrm{\Delta }=500`$ GeV. These results correspond to the following choice of the MSSM parameters, $`M_2=120`$ GeV, $`\mu =500\text{GeV}`$, $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =5`$, $`A=500\text{GeV}`$. In order to ensure a) negligible loop corrections due to the bilinear parameters and b) correct neutrino mixing angles we have chosen the BRpV parameters as follows: $`ϵ_1=ϵ_2=ϵ_3`$ with $`ϵ^2=10^3|\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}|`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu =\mathrm{\Lambda }_\tau =10\mathrm{\Lambda }_e`$. The absolute value of $`|\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}|`$ can be estimated by $`|\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}|^2=\frac{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{atm}}^2}}{\left(\frac{M_1g^2+M_2g^2}{4det_{\chi ^0}}\right)}`$. In the numerical estimate we took the best fit $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{atm}}^2=2.5\times 10^3\text{eV}^2`$ given in .

One sees that, for the hierarchical spectra produced by the model, $`m_{\nu _2}\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{sol}}^2}`$ scales approximately like $`m_{\nu _2}h^2`$. This is expected from eq. (20) and eq. (15). For values of $`h𝒪(0.1)`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{sol}}^2`$ is in the range of the LMA-MSW solution of the solar neutrino problem. For larger values of $`M_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ the resulting $`m_{\nu _2}`$ gets smaller approximately like $`1/M_\mathrm{\Delta }`$. From Fig. 1 one also sees that for large values of the Yukawas both solar and atmospheric masses are generated by the triplet.

To check to which degree the simplified results for the solar angle discussed above hold we have constructed a set of randomly chosen sample points and diagonalized the neutrino-neutralino mass matrix numerically. Points were chosen as follows. For the MSSM parameters we scan randomly over the following ranges: $`m_0`$ in the interval \[$`0,1`$\] TeV, $`M_2`$ and $`\mu `$ from \[$`0,500`$\] GeV, with both signs for $`\mu `$, and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ in \[$`2,15`$\]. The resulting SUSY spectra were checked to obey existing lower limits on sparticle searches. For the BRpV parameters consistency with the atmospheric neutrino data requires $`|\mathrm{\Lambda }|`$ in the range \[$`0.05,0.15`$\] GeV2, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }_\tau `$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_e0.3\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }_\tau ^2}`$.

To reduce the number of free parameters we assume $`M_T\mu _\mathrm{\Delta }=M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_u}=M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_d}=B_\mathrm{\Delta }`$. We then have calculated neutrino masses and mixing angles for several values of the triplet mass, scanning randomly over the Yukawa couplings with the over-restrictive constraint $`h_{ij}h_{ij}1`$.

Fig. 2 shows the numerically calculated $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{\text{sol}}`$ versus our simple formula eq. (35). Clearly, for the region of interest the simple approximation works surprisingly well. Note, that deviations between the exact and the approximate results mainly occur in the region of parameter space where $`h_{12}h_{13}`$.

### 3.2 Implications for Accelerators

Since in our model R-parity is violated, the lightest supersymmetric particle will decay. As has been shown in , bilinear parameters can then be traced through the study of LSP decays. This feature will also remain to be true in the current model. We will not repeat the discussion and instead concentrate on the Higgs triplet in the following.

One of the characteristic features of the triplet model of neutrino mass is the presence of doubly charged Higgs bosons $`\mathrm{\Delta }_u^{}`$. Here we consider its production cross section at an $`e^{}e^{}`$ linear collider at 500 GeV center of mass energy. In Fig. 3 we present the s-channel production cross section for a doubly charged Higgs boson as a function of its mass. For typical expected luminosities of 500 inverse femtobarns per year  this implies a very large number of events, half a million or more, for a 500 GeV mass, depending on the leptonic branching ratio in question.

The next issue are the decays of such Higgs bosons. Here we come to the most remarkable feature of the present model, namely that the decays of the doubly charged Higgs bosons are a perfect tracer of the neutrino mixing angles. The situation here is similar to that found in the simplest bilinear R-parity model of neutrino mass considered in refs.  (and references therein). There it was found that, depending on the nature of the lightest supersymmetric particle, its decays patterns reflect in a simple way either the solar or the atmospheric mixing angles. Here we have in addition that the doubly charged Higgs bosons decay according to the solar mixing angle.

In Fig. 4 we give the ratio of doubly charged Higgs boson decay branching ratios versus the solar neutrino mixing angle. The ratio of doubly charged Higgs boson decay branching ratios we consider is specified by the variable

$$y_{exp}\mathrm{tan}^2\left(\frac{\mathrm{arctan}(x_{exp})}{2}\right)$$
(36)
where

$$x_{exp}\frac{2\sqrt{2}(\sqrt{BR_{12}}\sqrt{BR_{13}})}{2\sqrt{2BR_{11}}+\sqrt{2BR_{22}}+\sqrt{2BR_{33}}2\sqrt{BR_{23}}}$$
(37)
with $`BR_{ij}`$ denoting the measured branching ratio for the process ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_u^{}l_i^{}l_j^{}`$). Note that the band in the plot includes an assumed $`10\%`$ uncertainty in the measured branching ratios. The triplet mass has been fixed at $`M_{\mathrm{\Delta }_u}=500`$ GeV. As can be seen from the figure, there is a very strong correlation between the pattern of Higgs decays and the mixing angle involved in the solar neutrino problem. The range permitted by current solar and reactor neutrino data  is indicated by the vertical band in Fig. 4. This correlation can be used as the basis for a reconstruction of neutrino angles using only accelerator experiments. This provides a cross-check of the determination provided by laboratory and underground searches for neutrino oscillations.

## 4 Summary and Conclusions

We have extended the minimal supersymmetric standard model by adding bilinear R-parity violation as well as a pair of Higgs triplet superfields. The neutral components of the Higgs triplets develop small induced vacuum expectation values (VEVs) which depend quadratically upon the bilinear R-parity breaking parameters. In this scheme, for reasonable values of parameters, the atmospheric neutrino mass scale arises from bilinear R-parity breaking while the solar neutrino mass scale is generated from the small Higgs triplet VEVs. We have calculated the pattern of neutrino masses and mixing angles in this model and shown how the model can be tested at future colliders. The branching ratios of the doubly charged triplet decays are related to the solar neutrino angle via a simple formula. Similarly the atmospheric mixing can be inferred from the neutralino decay branching ratios, as discussed in ref. . This will allow a full reconstruction of neutrino angles purely from high energy accelerator experiments. The model will be tested in a straightforward way should a high luminosity and center-of-mass energy linear collider ever be built.

## Acknowledgments

We thank E.J. Chun, M.A. Díaz and J. Romão for useful discussions. This work was supported by Spanish grant BFM2002-00345, by the European Commission RTN grant HPRN-CT-2000-00148 and a bilateral CSIC-COLCIENCIAS agreement. M. H. is supported by a Spanish MCyT Ramon y Cajal contract. A. V. was supported by a fellowship from Generalitat Valenciana.


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# A TIME VARIATION OF THE QCD COUPLING CONSTANT

## Acknowledgements

I would like to thank A. Albrecht, J. D. Bjorken, E. Bloom, G. Boerner, S. Brodsky, P. Chen, S. Drell, G. Goldhaber, T. Haensch, M. Jacob, P. Minkowski, A. Odian, H. Walther and A. Wolfe for useful discussions.