format: text

text:
# New measurement of the 6Li/7Li isotopic ratio in the extra-solar planet host star HD82943 and line blending in the Li 6708 Å region.

## 1 Introduction

An interesting opportunity for testing the planet(s) ingestion scenario is offered by a 6Li test (Israelian et al. isr01 (2001)). This approach is based on looking for an element that should not appear in the atmosphere of a normal star, but would be present in a star that has swallowed a planet. We have proposed recently that a light isotope, 6Li, is an excellent tracer of any planetary matter accretion. The detection of 6Li in HD 82943 by our group (Israelian et al. isr01 (2001)) was considered as convincing observational evidence that stars may accrete planetary material, or even entire planets, during their main sequence (MS) lifetime. Other explanations (such as stellar flares or surface sports) of this phenomenon were ruled out (Israelian et al. isr01 (2001)). It has been suggested (Sandquist et al. san02 (2002)) that 6Li can be used to distinguish between different giant planet formation theories.

Nuclear reactions destroy the lithium isotopes (6Li and 7Li) in stellar interiors at temperatures $`2\times 10^6`$ (6Li) and $`2.5\times 10^6`$ K (7Li). Convection cleans the upper atmosphere of Li nuclei by transporting them to deeper, hotter layers where they are rapidly destroyed. Young low mass stars are entirely convective and most of the primordial Li nuclei are burned in their interiors in a mere few million years. However, many solar-type stars preserve a large fraction of their initial atmospheric 7Li nuclei. According to standard models (Forestini for94 (1994); Montalbán & Rebolo mon02 (2002)), at a given metallicity there is a mass range, where 6Li but not 7Li is being destroyed. These models predict that no 6Li can survive pre-MS mixing in metal-rich solar-type stars. Observations seem to support this scenario since no clear detections of 6Li have been reported in solar-type solar-metallicity stars (Andersen, Gustaffson & Lambert and84 (1984); Rebolo et al. reb86 (1986)). We note, however, that the mass and the depth of the convection zone also depend on the metal content of the star, and for this reason several old metal-poor stars have preserved a fraction of their initial 6Li nuclei (Cayrel et al. cay99 (1999), Hobbs, Thorburn & Rebull hobbs99 (1999)). This suggests that any detected 6Li in a metal-rich solar-type star would most probably signal an external source for this fragile isotope.

Observations of 6Li are extremely difficult for several reasons. First of all, it is a weak component of a blend of the much stronger doublet of 7Li with an isotopic separation 0.16 Å. In the case of metal-poor halo stars with \[Fe/H\]$`<1`$, blending of the Li line with other weak absorptions is not expected, and also the placement of continuum does not pose serious problems. 6Li has been unsuccessfully sought in many metal-poor stars but unambiguously detected in only few (Hobbs et al. hobbs99 (1999); Cayrel et al. cay99 (1999); Nissen et al. Nis99 (1999)). The methods used in the analysis of 6Li have been widely discussed in the literature (e.g. Nissen et al. Nis99 (1999); Cayrel et al. cay99 (1999); Hobbs et al. hobbs99 (1999)). In metal-rich stars the identification of any possible weak blends in the region of the Li absorption becomes crucial (King et al. king97 (1997)). Recently Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) updated the line list of Lambert, Smith & Heath (lam93 (1989)) based on the analysis of the solar spectrum of Kurucz et al. (kur84 (1984)) and Hinkle et al. (Hin00 (2000)). They claimed that a previously noticed weak absorption in the solar spectrum at 6708.025 Å (Müller, Peytremann & De La Reza mull75 (1975)) belongs to Ti i. With this assumption their analysis of the Li feature in HD 82943 did not confirm the presence of 6Li.

With the goal of establishing the nature of the absorption at 6708.025 Å and better understanding the line list near Li, we have obtained high resolution, high S/N spectra for several metal-rich stars with no detectable Li line. Our targets cover a wide range of effective temperature, allowing a more reliable identification of the lines in the spectral region of the Li feature. We have also obtained new spectra of HD 82943. Here we present new analysis of the 6Li/7Li ratio in HD 82943 and critically discuss the line list of the Li region. Our observations do not confirm the Ti i line of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) and support our previous claim for detection of 6Li.

## 2 Observations

We used the 8.2 m VLT Kueyen (ESO, La Silla), the UVES spectrograph and an EEV detector to obtain spectra of HD 82943 during the night of 2001 March 5. The 0.3″ slit yielded a resolving power of $`R`$ 105 000 as measured from the FWHM of Th–Ar lamp lines.

The 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope on La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain) and the UES spectrograph were used to observe several solar-type stars with large Li depletions in their atmospheres. Our first targets were HD 171888 (F8 V), HD 4747 (G8 V), HD 217580 (K4 V), HD 217107 (G3 V) and HD 210277 (G4 V). These stars were observed on 2000 July 8. The CCD SITE1 (2148 $`\times `$ 2148 pixel), grating E31, slit width 1″ (providing a resolving power of 55 000) and the central wavelength of 5140 Å were used during this run. Our spectra had an S/N ratio in the range 300–350, which was sufficient to guarantee the detection of any spectral lines with a minimum equivalent width of $``$1.5 mÅ. These data were used by us (Israelian et al. 2001) in order to check the presence of blends near 6708 Å with the EW larger than 1.5 mÅ. More targets (Table 1) have been observed in order to reduce this limit to below 1 mÅ. The same configuration was used in 2001 October to observe HD 16141, HD 22049, HD 75732A and HD 217107. In the next observing run (2002 June 20), we used a $`4096\times 2048`$-pixel EEV CCD with a pixel size of 15 $`\mu `$m, the E31 grating, a slit width of 1″ and a central wavelength of 7215 Å. Ten exposures of HD 82943 were taken on 2001 February 5 with a mosaic of two EEVs, the E79 grating and a slit width of 0.7″ in order to obtain a high quality of spectrum of this star.

The SARG high resolution echelle spectrograph at the 3.5 m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (La Palma) was used during two runs in 2001 August and 2002 May. The spectra were obtained with the yellow grism and span the wavelength range 4600–7820 Å at a resolving power of $``$57 000. The CCD was a mosaic of two $`4096\times 2048`$-pixel EEVs with a pixel size of 15 $`\mu `$m.

All our VLT/UVES, WHT/UES and TNG/SARG spectra were reduced using standard IRAF111IRAF is distributed by National Optical Astronomy Observatories, operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under contract with the National Science Foundation, USA. routines. Normalized flats created for each observing night were used to correct the pixel-to-pixel variations and a Th–Ar lamp was used to find a dispersion solution.

Some observations were made with the FEROS spectrograph at the ESO 1.52 m telescope in La Silla. The mosaic of two $`4096\times 2048`$-pixel EEV CCDs were used to observe HD 1461 and HD13 445 on 2000 November 10 and HD 192263 on 2001 October 31. The spectra were flatfielded, calibrated with a Th–Ar lamp and reduced using MIDAS routines.

## 3 Spectrum synthesis and stellar parameters

In this article we used models of atmospheres provided by Kurucz (1992) and the spectrum synthesis code MOOG (Sneden 1973). We have compared abundances of various elements computed with our atmospheric models and with those used by Reddy et al. (1999) (i.e. Kurucz 1995). We found that differences induced in the abundances by the two types of models are less than 0.01 dex and can therefore be neglected. Solar abundances of chemical elements were taken from Anders & Grevesse (And89 (1989)). We have also made an extensive use of the VALD database (Kupka et al. 1999). The parameters of some of the planet host stars listed in Table 1 were slightly updated with respect to the values given in Santos et al. (2001, 2002). Three stars in our sample (HD 1461, HD 198084 and HD 200790) are not known to harbour planets and were observed because of the absence of Li. We have attempted to estimate the parameters of a cool subgiant, HD 137759, from the set of Fe lines used in our previous analysis (Santos et al. San01 (2001)). However, given the low temperature of this object, our final values had large error bars and we have decided to use the parameters based on colours and accurate parallax measurement from Hipparcos (Mallik 1999). Two Li-poor dwarfs, HD 198084 and HD 200790, were taken from Boesgaard et al. (boes01 (2001)). The parameters of HD 200790 were estimated in the same way as for the other stars in our sample. HD 198084 is a metal-rich F8IV-V (Boesgaard et al. boes01 (2001), Malagnini et al. mal00 (2000)) spectroscopic binary (Griffin grif90 (1990)). The iron lines in our spectrum were strongly blended owing to the presence of the second star and we did not make a new estimate of the stellar parameters.

## 4 The line list in the Li region

Accurate measurements of the wavelengths and oscillator strengths of the Li lines are available in the literature (Sansonetti et al. 1995). Unidentified blends in the Li region of the Sun and other cool stars have been discussed by several authors (Müller, Peytremann & De La Reza mull75 (1975); Lambert, Smith & Heath lam93 (1989); Andersen et al. and84 (1984); King et al. king97 (1997)). Müller et al. (mull75 (1975)) were the first to notice the weak feature at 6708.025 Å in the solar spectrum and attributed it to the Si i line with $`\mathrm{log}gf=2.7`$, $`\chi `$ = 6 eV. The line list of Lambert et al. (lam93 (1989)) has been extensively discussed and modified by King et al. (king97 (1997)). Following Müller et al. (1975), these authors used a fictitious high excitation Si i line with $`\chi _l`$ =6 eV in order to account for the weak absorption in the spectrum synthesis.

The line was also considered by Nissen et al. (1999) in their analysis of metal-poor disc stars. According to Nissen et al. (1999), the equivalent width (EW) of the 6708.025 Å absorption is 0.6 mÅ in the solar spectrum. Reddy et al.’s (red02 (2002)) identification of this absorption with the Ti line ($`\mathrm{log}gf=2.252`$, $`\chi `$ = 1.88) implies a slightly different value EW = 0.75 mÅ. While this feature is too weak to affect the determination of the Li isotopic ratio in metal-poor halo stars (where it certainly disappears), it may cause problems in solar metallicity or more metal-rich stars. Apart from this unidentified feature, there are other weak lines of Cr i 6707.64 Å, Ce i 6707.74 Å and CN 6707.816 Å with uncertain $`gf`$ values. It is interesting that the best synthetic spectra fits to the Li region of different stars can be achieved only by altering the $`gf`$ values of these weak lines by different amounts. This led King et al. (king97 (1997)) to propose that various uncertainties in the analysis of the solar spectrum allow Li isotopic ratios as high as 0.1.

Most of the lines in the list of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) come from the original compilation of Lambert et al. (lam93 (1989)). However, the Ti i 6707.752 Å line was not listed in any of the references cited by Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)). On the other hand, the V i 6707.563 Å line in the list of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) appears under 6707.518 Å in the VALD-2 database (Kupka et al. 1999). The $`gf`$ values of many lines have been modified by Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) in order to fit the solar spectra of Kurucz et al. (1984), Hinkle et al. (2000) and 16 Cyg B. In most cases there is a clear disagreement with the list of King et al. (king97 (1997)), who employed the same spectrum synthesis code, model atmospheres and, as a matter of fact, the same targets (i.e. the Sun and 16 Cyg B). Despite this, King et al. (king97 (1997)) found for CN 6707.816 Å $`\mathrm{log}gf=1.74`$ while Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) arrived at $`\mathrm{log}gf=2.317`$. Futhermore, King et al. (king97 (1997)) have considerably increased the $`\mathrm{log}gf`$ value of a Ce ii line at 6707.74 Å and obtained $`\mathrm{log}gf=1.86`$ while Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) decreased it to $``$0.8 dex after Lambert et al. (1993) and obtained a value $`\mathrm{log}gf=3.81`$. The V i 6708.07 Å line with $`\mathrm{log}gf=2.33`$ from Lambert et al. (lam93 (1989)) appears under V i 6708.094 Å with $`\mathrm{log}gf=3.113`$ in the list of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)). The latter took it from the list available in the web site of R. Kurucz. The $`gf`$ values of the Cr i 6707.64 Å line in King et al. (1997) and Reddy et al. (2002) differ by 0.14 dex. The source of these discrepances was not investigated by Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)).

Our own synthesis of the solar spectrum suggests $`gf`$ values close to those proposed by King et al. (king97 (1997)). For example, when doing a synthesis of 6Li in HD 82943 (Israelian et al. 2001) we set $`\mathrm{log}gf=1.81`$ for the CN 6707.816 Å line, which is similar to $`\mathrm{log}gf=1.74`$, as found by King et al. (1997). In addition to these weak lines, there is a Ti i line at 6707.964 Å with $`\chi `$ = 1.88 eV and $`\mathrm{log}gf=6.903`$, which appears in the VALD-2 database. This fact probably led Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) to assume that the feature at 6708.025 Å also belongs to Ti and has a similar excitation energy but much larger oscillator strength. For some reason Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) did not incorporate the Ti line at 6707.964 Å in their final list. The two Ti i lines at 6708.025 and 6708.125 Å of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) have never been tested in stars other than the Sun and 16 Cyg B.

It is clear that the Li line list in the solar spectrum is not well calibrated. Different authors obtain different adjusted $`gf`$ values even when they use the same tools and spectra. Our goal is not to make a better fit to the solar Li region since this does not guarantee a unique identification of the spectral lines. Instead, we have decided to use the same list as Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) and see if we can explain observations of stars other than the Sun and 16 Cyg B.

## 5 The Li region in the Sun and in Arcturus

The unidentified line at 6708.025 Å is clearly seen in the solar spectrum (Fig. 1). In the same figure we show a small spectral window from McDonald’s atlas of a K III giant Arcturus observed with a resolving power 150 000 and S/N $``$ 1000 (Hinkle et al. Hin00 (2000)). Most of the absorptions in this small region appear in the spectra of both stars, which have very different temperature, gravity and metallicity. It is interesting that the feature at 6708.025 Å does not become stronger in Arcturus. It may still exist in the spectrum but is severely blended with a strong absorption centred at 6708.094 Å.

The line at 6708.094 Å is certainly not a redshifted Ti i 6708.025 Å of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)). It also cannot be one of the TiO lines observed in much cooler stars (Luck luck77 (1977)) and taking into account in our synthesis of three cool giants. The wavelength of this line corresponds to the V i at 6708.094 Å in the VALD-2 database and also appears in the list of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) but with an oscillator strength that does not fit observations of Arcturus and other cool giants. Both wings of this line are disturbed by blends. The figure also demonstrates that blending is not the only problem in these studies. The exact location of the stellar continuum becomes a critical issue when we deal with absorption features as small as 1 mÅ.

We know that echelle spectra are not calibrated in the absolute flux scale, and that, therefore, the placement of local continuum levels is either visually estimated after fitting the extracted spectra with polynomials, or results from a detailed spectral synthesis. We have marked several points (C1-C6) in Fig. 1. which indicate very narrow windows theoretically free from spectral lines. These windows are used in metal-poor stars to make a fine tuning of the continuum and estimate the S/N. Points C1, C2, C5 and C6 mark the solar continuum fitted by Kurucz et al. (1984). We do not know how the continuum was placed in Arcturus but it appears from the figure that only C5 and C6 can be considered as continuum points. Neither is it clear whether C2 and C4 are continuum points in the solar spectrum. The point C3 lies on the continuum in those stars that do not have CN and Li absorptions at 6707.78 Å. The strength of the unknown line at 6708.025 Å and the V i absorption at 6708.28 Å define whether or not C4 is placed on the local continuum. The region between C2 and the Si i line at 6707.01 Å is depressed in the solar spectrum as well as in the spectra of many other stars probably owing to some weak, still unknown, blends that start to appear in cool and very metal-rich stars (e.g. HD 145675 in Fig. 2). Depending on the exact location of the points C1–C6 one may derive different EW values for the unidentified feature at 6708.025 Å. However, as we will show below, even this uncertainty does not smear the huge differences between observations and spectrum synthesis when the Ti line of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) is considered.

## 6 The spectral feature at 6708.025 Å

### 6.1 The Ti i line of Reddy et al. (2002)

Let us investigate how the Ti i 6708.025 Å line of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) fits our observations. We have computed Ti abundance in the sample of metal-rich stars (Table 1) using two lines of the ionized Ti from Santos et al. (2000). The EWs of these lines and derived abundances are listed in Table 2. The difference in abundance from the two lines was always less than 0.03 dex. Our tests with the neutral Ti i lines from Santos et al. (2000) showed that the abundances derived from Ti i and Ti ii agree within 0.1 dex in F8–G2 stars while there is a systematic difference at lower temperatures. The abundances obtained from the Ti ii lines are about 0.1–0.15 dex smaller than those derived using Ti i. Because of a small non-LTE effect on Ti i, the use of Ti ii lines is preferred (N. Shchukina 2002, personal communication). In addition, the abundances derived from Ti ii lines are insensitive to the errors in $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ (Santos et al. 2000). In any case, even if we suppose that our Ti abundances are uncertain by up to 0.3 dex (which is very unlikely, given the errors considered in this work), this will not change our final conclusion regarding the reliability of the line proposed by Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)).

Using the abundances from the Ti ii lines, we have estimated the EW of the feature at 6708.025 Å, assuming that it belongs to the line proposed by Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)). Predicted and observed EWs of the Ti line are listed in Table 2. We see an obvious disagreement at low $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$: the predicted line is much stronger than the observed one. In Fig. 2 we show spectrum synthesis for three metal-rich stars with different parameters. The abundances of V, C, Si and other elements were scaled with Fe and then modified by small amounts (always less than 0.1 dex) in order to fit the observations. HD 217107, with $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=5655`$ K, is more similar to the Sun than the two other stars and apparently for this reason the agreement between predicted and observed profiles of 6708.025 Å is good. There is small room for making adjustments in continuum level in order to accommodate \[Ti/H\] = 0.3 and fit the observations. This plot alone cannot be used to argue against the identification proposed by Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)). As a matter of fact, the observed and predicted EWs of the Ti line agree within errors in HD 217107 (Table 2). The discrepancy is larger in cooler objects HD 145675 and HD 75732A. We also note that the centre of the Ti line is slightly shifted to the blue in the spectrum of HD 145675. This shift and the disagreement between predicted and observed EW become much larger when we study K-type stars (Fig. 3). One of our targets is the well-known red giant Arcturus. The atmospheric parameters and the abundances of elements in this star were taken from the literature (Peterson et al. 1993). This figure demonstrates that the predicted Ti line becomes strong and its wavelength clearly does not correspond to the absorption observed at 6708.094 Å. Although our computations rule out the \[Ti/H\] ratios $``$0.2 and $``$0.4 (thin continuous lines in Fig. 3) considered by us as the lower limits in the synthesis of HD 177830 and HD 137759, we provided them in order to show the wavelength shift between the fictitious Ti line and the absorption at 6708.094 Å. These plots clearly demonstrate that the feature at 6708.025 Å disappears at low temperatures while a different line at 6708.094 Å (not clearly observed in the solar spectrum) becomes stronger. The wavelength of this line corresponds to V i in the VALD-2 database. Two lines at 6708.025 and 6708.094 Å appear as a single absorption feature in stars with $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ = 5000–5400 K. It should be possible to separate them in very high resolution and high S/N spectra of stars with intrinsically narrow absorption lines.

When estimating the EW of the Ti line in HD 82943 we found another disagreement with Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)), who state that the combined strength of the two Ti i lines (6708.025 and 6708.125 Å) in the spectrum of HD 82943 is 2.2 mÅ, while our analysis using exactly the same tools and parameters shows 1.1 mÅ, in which the 6708.125 Å line contributes only 0.2 mÅ. The same disagreement appears when we consider the solar spectrum. Using the list of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)), we found that the EWs of the Ti i lines at 6708.025 and 6708.125 Å are 0.75 and 0.17 mÅ, respectively. Thus, the combined EW = 0.92 mÅ is at odds with the 1.5 mÅ claimed by Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)).

### 6.2 Identifying the line

We have attempted a new identification of the 6708.025 Å feature knowing that the strength of the line does not increase towards cooler temperatures. It is clear that any molecular or a low excitation line from a neutral metal will behave like the Ti line of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)). Since this is not observed, we are left with two possibilities. Either the transition belongs to an ion, or it is produced by a neutral element with a high excitation energy of the lower level.

The most abundant ions at these temperatures belong to Fe, Si, Mg, Ca and Ti. Reliable experimental line lists exist for all of these ions and are available in VALD-2. Most of the Si ii linesin the Li region have very high excitation energies of between 10–16 eV. The same is true for Mg ii ($`\chi `$ = 11–13 eV) and Ca ii ($`\chi `$ = 7–9.7 eV). Ti ii has several transitions with $`\chi `$ = 1.9–3.1 eV. A Ti ii line with $`\chi `$ = 1.9 eV and $`\mathrm{log}gf=4.1`$ will reproduce the solar feature with EW = 0.75 mÅ. This line will also fit the spectra of the coolest objects in our sample, such as HD 137759 and HD 177830, where it will be weaker than 2 mÅ. In HD 82943 it will have EW = 1.1 mÅ, which is not really different from the strength of the neutral Ti line (0.9 mÅ). However, small discrepancies may appear in hotter stars. For example, given the Ti abundance in HD 200790, we anticipate about 1 mÅ absorption which we think is not observed in the high S/N spectrum (Fig. 4). The marginal feature observed at 6708.028 Å is about 0.6 mÅ and it is hard to judge by eye if it is real. On the upper panel of the same graph we show the spectrum of HD 198084. Unfortunately, this star is in a binary system and we cannot make any strong statements regarding the strength of the unidentified absorption. However, we would still expect to see the blend of two unidentified lines at 6708.025 Å. In fact, there is a broad absorption around 6708.0 Å, most probably caused by the shifted unidentified lines but its EW does not exceed 1 mÅ.

We have studied a spectrum of the hot Li-poor star HR 7697 ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$=6588 K, $`\mathrm{log}g`$ = 4,24, \[Fe/H\] = 0.01) with S/N $``$ 550 kindly provided by Ann Boesgaard (Boesgaard et al. 2001). The ionized line of Ti in this object would produce about 1 mÅ absorption, which we could not find in the data. These tests make the idea of an ionized Ti line less attractive, although, given the errors in the data and our analysis, we still cannot completely rule out this possibility. We also note that it will be much harder to identify the line if it belongs to an ion of an element whose abundance does not scale with Fe.

Rare Earth elements were also considered. The best candidates are perhaps two Ce ii lines listed in the DREAM database (http://www.umh.ac.be/ astro/dream.shtml) with wavelengths 6708.077 and 6708.099 Å. The lines are weak ($`\mathrm{log}gf=2.57`$ and $`\mathrm{log}gf=2.12`$) and have excitation energies $`\chi _l`$ = 2.25 and 0.7 eV, respectively. Let us suppose that the 6708.077 Å line is responsible for the feature at 6708.025 Å. The 6708.077 Å absorption is absolutely negligible in the solar spectrum, and in order to produce 0.7 mÅ it must have $`\mathrm{log}gf=0.43`$. This very large correction is not allowed by accurate radiative lifetime measurements (Zhang et al. 2001). If we still suppose that the adjustment is possible, these two lines will produce about 4 mÅ absorption in Arcturus. However, the synthetic spectra will not reproduce the observed profile at 6708.094 Å unless we modify the wavelengths. In brief, we can hardly force these two lines of Ce ii to explain observations.

Our synthetic spectra also demonstrate that the $`gf`$ values of V i lines at 6708.094 and 6708.280 Å in the list of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) do not explain observations of HD 137759, HD 177830 and Arcturus (Fig. 3) assuming that the abundance of V scales with Fe (Sadakane et al. 2002). Our tests show that even adopting \[V/Fe\] = $``$0.5 in these stars, we still cannot fit the feature at 6708.280 Å. Such low abundances of V are excluded from the analysis of other spectral lines. On the other hand, the fit to the same line in HD 82943 was achieved by boosting the abundance to \[V/H\] = 0.8. This high value is ruled out from a synthesis of different V i lines. We faced similar problem for the line at 6708.094 Å but in the opposite direction. The newly added Ti i line at 6708.125 Å in the list of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) cannot salvage the situation as it appears too weak in our targets. We also note that the V i line at 6708.280 Å does not appear in the VALD-2 database (Kupka et al. 1999).

### 6.3 The Si i line of Müller et al. (1975)

Given the large number of high excitation Si lines in the Li region (see VALD-2 database), we have decided to test if the Si line at 6708.025 Å proposed by Müller et al. (mull75 (1975)) can explain our observations. In fact, the high excitation Si line that appears at 6707.01 Å (Fig. 1) is very similar to the one proposed by Müller et al. (mull75 (1975)). It behaves exactly in the same way in stars with different temperatures as the absorption at 6708.025 Å. Given the EW (= 0.75 mÅ) of the 6708.025 Å feature in the solar spectrum, we have estimated $`\mathrm{log}gf=2.97`$ for the Si i line with $`\chi _l`$ = 6 eV proposed by Müller et al. (mull75 (1975)). Our $`gf`$ value is slightly different from that of Müller et al. (mull75 (1975)) owing to the differences in the model atmospheres and the adopted abundance of Si (Anders & Grevesse And89 (1989)), which is 0.05 larger than the value used by Müller et al. (mull75 (1975)). We have computed the Si abundance in our stars using the lines from Bodaghee et al. (2003) listed in Table 3. The new list is an extended and improved version of the one considered by Santos et al. (San00 (2000)). The abundance errors were always less than 0.07 dex and do not affect our analysis. Predicted EWs of the Si line are listed in the last column. As we can see, there is good agreement between observations and synthesis.

In conclusion, we think it is more likely that the spectral feature at 6708.025 Å belongs to a high excitation transition of some neutral atom. The small spectral window near 6708 Å contains many high excitation Si lines; therefore, the identification proposed by Müller et al. (mull75 (1975)) seem to be the best choice. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that the 6708.025 Å line belongs to an ion or to a rare element. More high quality observations are necessary to tackle this problem.

## 7 The 6Li/7Li ratio in HD 82943

HD 82943 was newly observed at VLT/UVES with a resolving power 105 000 and a signal-to-noise ratio close to 1000. Reanalysis of the 6Li/7Li ratio has been carried out using the same tools as in Israelian et al. (2001) and the line list of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)). The only change we have made in this list is a replacement of the Ti i line at 6708.025 Å by the high excitation Si i line with $`\mathrm{log}gf=2.97`$ and $`\chi _l`$ = 6 eV. This change does not help in giving a higher 6Li/7Li ratio in HD 82943 since the EW of the Si i line in HD 82943 is even larger than that of the Ti of Reddy et al. red02 (2002) (see Table 2). Furthermore, an accurate abundance of Si in HD 82943 needs to be calculated. For this purpose we have used eleven Si lines from Table 3 and computed their EWs using very high S/N spectra obtained with VLT/UVES and WHT/UES. In Table 3 we list the lines, measurements and resulting abundances. We found \[Si/H\] = 0.27 $`\pm `$ 0.02 in excellent agreement with the value given by Sadakane et al. (sad02 (2002)) after accounting for differences in stellar parameters.

The identification of the chemical element is also important, although Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) have ignored this point by stating that the identification of the pair as Ti i is not critical to the analysis. The EWs of the Ti line of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) are 0.45 and 0.9 mÅ in HD 82943 for \[Ti/H\] = 0 and \[Ti/H\] = 0.3, respectively. This factor of 2 difference in the EWs is equal to 0.05 correction in 6Li/7Li ratio if the total EW of the Li line is 10 mÅ. This is a significant difference, and given the fact that in many stars \[Ti/H\] can be larger than 0.3, the abundance correction may affect the 6Li/7Li ratios by at least 0.03 dex, depending on the strength of the 7Li line.

To demonstrate the blending of the Si and CN lines in the Li feature of HD 82943, we have computed synthetic spectra without considering any of the Li isotopes. Figure 5 shows that CN and Si make a significant contribution to the total EW of the Li line. Given the high C and N content of HD 82943 (Santos et al. San00 (2000), Sadakane et al. sad02 (2002)) one may consider the abundances of these elements as free parameters in the $`\chi ^2`$ analysis. The strength of the Si line may affect the synthesis as well. It is also important to realize that this line cannot exactly mimic the 6Li component at 6708.0728 Å because their wavelengths differ by 0.05 Å.

In obtaining the broadening parameters we used the same Fe i lines as in our first paper (Israelian et al. isr01 (2001)). From the $`\chi ^2`$ analysis of two Fe lines (Fig. 6) we obtained a mean $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ = 1.6 $`\pm `$ 0.05 km s-1 and $`V_{\mathrm{mac}}`$ = 4 $`\pm `$ 0.3 km s-1, in good agreement with our previous results and also with those of Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)). The synthetic spectra were also convolved with a Gaussian function representing the instrumental profile. Given the low rotational velocity in HD 82943, it is possible to obtain fits using simple Gaussian functions. As we have noticed before (Israelian et al. isr01 (2001), see also Reddy et al. red02 (2002)), the final values of 6Li/7Li are not affected by using a pure Gaussian broadening function. Average broadening parameters obtained from the Fe lines were used to derive the 6Li/7Li ratio.

The free parameters in a standard $`\chi ^2`$ analysis of the 6Li/7Li ratio in HD 82943 were the total abundance of Li, the wavelength shift, the 6Li fraction and the position of the continuum. The final 6Li/7Li ratio is not strongly affected by the blue CN absorption, and after few a iterations we fixed the CN abundance equal to \[C/H\] = \[N/H\] = 0.35. Small adjustments of the continuum level not exceeding 0.2$`\%`$ (given the S/N of the spectrum) were allowed to optimize the fits. The abundance of the Si line was also considered as a free parameter in the range \[Si/H\] = 0.27 $`\pm `$ 0.1 but after a few iterations it was fixed to \[Si/H\] = 0.27. Additional computations were carried out allowing for large variations of $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ and $`V_{\mathrm{mac}}`$ exceeding the 3$`\sigma `$ limit derived from the Fe lines. We found that these effects do not change our final results. The minimum $`\chi ^2`$ was derived by optimizing all free parameters for each value. The new analysis using Reddy et al.’s (red02 (2002)) line list and the Si line yields $`f`$(6Li) = 0.05 $`\pm `$ 0.02 (Fig. 8, left panel). The best fit for $`f`$(6Li) = 0 has an rms of 2.869 $`\times `$ 10-3, which is significantly larger than the rms (9.91 $`\times `$ 10-4) of the best fit with $`f`$(6Li) = 0.05. Wavelength offsets in the best fits for $`f`$(6Li) = 0 and $`f`$(6Li) = 0.05 were $``$0.65 km s-1 and $``$0.44 km s-1, respectively. These values agree perfectly with those reported by Cayrel et al. (1999) in their 6Li/7Li analysis of the halo star HD 84937. The synthetic and the observed profiles for two cases are shown in Fig. 7. Given the strength of the Li line (about 50 mÅ), these shifts are consistent with observations of Fe lines in the solar spectrum (Allende Prieto & García López all98 (1998)). Since the scatter of the velocity shifts of Fe lines in the solar spectrum is large (ranging from $``$0.8 to 0.2 km s-1), one cannot make any predictions for the blueshifts of the Li lines based on a statistical trend observed for the solar Fe lines. So the best option still remains to keep the wavelength shift of the Li line as a free parameter.

The minimum $`\chi ^2`$ is not affected by large variations in the continuum either. Relaxing the upper limit of continuum change from 0.2 to 0.5 $`\%`$ does not change our conclusion (Fig. 8, right panel). The final value of $`f`$(6Li) is also not sensitive to the Si abundance. If we repeat the analysis fixing the continuum but changing the abundance of Si, we will find that the best fit to the observed profile is achieved for \[Si/H\] = 0.27 (Fig. 9, right panel). The same analysis for $`f`$(6Li) = 0 yields \[Si/H\] = 0.51 (Fig. 9, left panel). Such a high abundance of Si is ruled out by our data. However, even if we assume that it is possible, the quality of the fit when $`f`$(6Li) = 0.05 and \[Si/H\] = 0.27 is about 4 times better (i.e. $`\chi ^2`$ is smaller) compared with the case when $`f`$(6Li) = 0.0 and \[Si/H\] = 0.51. On the other hand, the Si i line may suffer from convective blueshifts as well. To account for this effect, we have repeated the $`\chi ^2`$ analysis considering the wavelength of the Si line as another free parameter. We found that the effect is very small. For example, when $`f`$(6Li) = 0.05, the $``$8 mÅ wavelength shift will introduce a negligible change in $`\chi ^2`$ of about 5$`\%`$. This would also imply a small increase in the Si abundance equal to \[Si/H\] = 0.31. These changes do not affect our final results.

Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) noted in their paper that the Ti lines contribute 2.2 mÅ (while our own estimate is EW = 1.1 mÅ) into the 50 mÅ Li line, which, according to these authors, corresponds to 6Li/7Li = 0.06. Given that without this blend the ratio was 6Li/7Li = 0.12 (Israelian et al. isr01 (2001)), one should wonder what is causing the remaining 0.06 contribution. If the contribution of the blend is only 0.06, then we are still left with another 6Li/7Li = 0.06. The blended line is not strong enough to completely eliminate the contribution from 6Li. Although Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)) have stated that our spectra agree very well, they did not explore this puzzle.

In order to judge the validity of our spectral synthesis and the placement of the stellar continuum, we have synthesized spectra of $`\alpha `$ Cen A and HD 82943 in the 7 Å region near the Li doublet (Fig. 10). Observations of $`\alpha `$ Cen A with a resolving power of 105.000 are taken from Rebolo et al. (1986) and have S/N $`>`$500 in the Li region. As stellar parameters for $`\alpha `$ Cen A we have adopted $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ = 5800 K, $`\mathrm{log}g`$ = 4.31, $`\xi _t`$ = 1.1 km s-1, \[Fe/H\] = 0.24 (Chmielewski et al. 1992) and abundances were taken from the literature (Abia et al. 1988; Santos et al. 2000; Chmielewski et al. 1992; King et al. 1997).

Given that we are not able to make a unique identification of the chemical element responsible for the blend, the 6Li/7Li found from the analysis cannot not be considered to be a final value. The abundance of Si usually scales with Fe in planet host stars (see for example Santos et at. San00 (2000); Gonzalez et al. Gon01 (2001); Sadakane et al. sad02 (2002); Takeda et al. tak01 (2001)). However, if the spectral line belongs to an element which is under- or overabundant with respect to Fe, then the 6Li/7Li ratio will be different. In most cases the elemental abundances are not very different from that of Fe (typically within $`\pm `$0.1 dex) and therefore the overall effect on the 6Li/7Li ratio will not be large.

## 8 Conclusions

High quality observations of metal-rich stars with undetectable Li have essential consequences, first for the identification of weak lines in the Li 6708 Å region, and second for the analysis of the 6Li/7Li isotopic ratio. Our results clearly rule out the Ti i line at 6708.025 Å suggested by Reddy et al. (red02 (2002)). Alternatively, we propose that this feature can be attributed to the Si i line of Müller et al. (1975). The identification and the presence of another Ti i line at 6708.125 Å in Reddy et al. (2002) line list is also not justified and cannot be verified with our dataset as this line is extremely weak in all our targets. We also find that two lines of V i at 6708.094 and 6708.280 Å from the same list have incorrect parameters. However, these V i lines and the Ti i line at 6708.125 Å cannot strongly affect the 6Li/7Li ratio in stars with $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}>`$ 5500 K.

Our analysis of the new VLT/UVES spectra (S/N=1000), taking into consideration the Si i line at 6708.025, gives an isotopic ratio 6Li/7Li = 0.05$`\pm `$0.02 in HD 82943. This implies a contribution to the total absorption in the Li region of 1.3 mÅ and 2.7 mÅ due to Si i and 6Li, respectively. If no Si i blend is considered in the analysis we obtain 6Li/7Li=0.08, which is $``$ 33 $`\%`$ smaller than the value obtained in our first analysis (Israelian et al. 2001) based on a spectrum with S/N=500. Since 6Li can be construed as a fossil record of rocky matter accretion during planetary system formation, further high quality observations of this fragile isotope may offer us a unique and invaluable insight into the past dynamical history of extra-solar planetary systems.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank Drs Roger Cayrel, Yoichi Takeda, Poul Eric Nissen, Johannes Andersen, Eric Sandquist, Lew Hobbs, Eswar Reddy and David Lambert for several helpful discussions. Ann Boesgaard has kindly provided us with her spectra of Li-poor stars. We also thank Jonay Gonzalez Hernandez for reducing several WHT/UES spectra used in this article and Carlos Allende Prieto for providing us with the McDonald Atlas of Arcturus. We are grateful to the referee Dr Ruth Peterson for several helpful comments and suggestions.


text:
# Light-front gauge propagator reexamined-II

## 1 Introduction

The history of the light-front gauge goes as far back as 1949 with the pioneering work of P.A.M.Dirac , where the front-form of relativistic dynamics was introduced as a well-defined possibility for describing relativistic fields. Since its début into quantum field theory it has known days of both glory and oblivion for varied reasons. On the one hand it seemed a solid grounded and more convenient approach to studying quantum fields, e.g., the only setting where a proof of the finiteness of the $`N=4`$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory could be carried out successfully was in the light-cone gauge (a facet of its glory) . But on the other hand, manifest Lorentz covariance is lost and non-local terms sneak into the renormalization program (the other side of the coin that charges us with a price to pay).

One of the reasons why the light-front form has lured many into this field of research is due to the fact that its propagator structure seemed simple enough to deserve their special attention. However, its manifest apparent simplicity hide many complexities not envisaged at first glance nor understood without much hard work. For example, one of the, say, “ugly” aspects of the ensuing propagator is the emergence of the mistakenly so-called “unphysical” pole which in any physical processes of interest leads to Feynman integrals bearing these singularities. We say mistakenly because as it became understood later, it is in fact very much physical in that without a proper treatment of such a pole, one violates basic physical principles such as causality .

On the other hand, for the brighter side of it, the light-front gauge seemed advantageous in quantum field theory because it allowed the possibility of decoupling the ghost fields in the non-Abelian theories, since it is an axial type gauge, as shown by J. Frenkel , a property that can simplify Ward-Takahashi identities  and problems involving operator mixing or diagram summation .

Looking through the light-front literature we soon realize that there is a simple and standard gauge vector potential field propagator in which appears two terms , namely,

$$G_{ab}^{\mu \nu }(k)=\frac{i\delta ^{ab}}{k^2}\left\{g^{\mu \nu }\frac{k^\mu n^\nu +k^\nu n^\mu )}{kn}\right\},$$
(1)
where $`a,b`$ labels non-Abelian gauge group indices.

We see that the propagator (1) has one strictly covariant factor proportional to the space-time metric $`g^{\mu \nu }`$ and also the characteristic light-front factor proportional to $`(k^\mu n^\nu +k^\nu n^\mu )(kn)^1`$. For the majority of computations, be they in quantum field theory or in nuclear physics (Bethe-Salpeter, etc.) make use of this propagator. Some people have recognized the presence of a third term proportional to $`(k^2n^\mu n^\nu )(kn)^2`$ , i.e.,

$$G_{ab}^{\mu \nu }(k)=\frac{i\delta ^{ab}}{k^2}\left\{g^{\mu \nu }\frac{k^\mu n^\nu +k^\nu n^\mu }{kn}+\frac{k^2n^\mu n^\nu }{(kn)^2}\right\},$$
(2)
but this third term has always been consistently dropped in the actual calculations on the grounds that it has been claimed long ago that such *“contact terms”* have no physical significance because they do not propagate any information. After all, from its inception, the paradigm has always been that gauge terms such as $`k^\mu n^\nu +k^\nu n^\mu `$ and $`k^2n^\mu n^\nu `$ must not contribute to any physical process because of current conservation. If that be the case, then we must squarely face the vexing question: Why one would drop only the *“contact terms”* in the calculations on the grounds that they do not have physical significance because propagates no information? However, more recently, it has been shown  that this is not the case. These *“contact terms”* do have physical significance being carriers of relevant information.

Our contribution in this paper is to show that the condition $`nA=0`$ ($`n^2=0`$) is *necessary* but *not sufficient* to define the light-front gauge. It leads to the standard form of the light-front propagator (1) which lacks the relevant term of (2). The *necessary* and *sufficient* condition to uniquely define the light-front gauge is given by $`nA=A=0`$ so that the corresponding Lagrange multipliers to be added to the Lagrangian density are proportional to $`(nA)^2+(A)^2`$ instead of the usual $`(nA)^2`$. Note that the condition $`A=0`$ in the light-cone variables defines exactly (for $`nA=A^+=0`$) the constraint

$$A^{}=\frac{^{}A^{}}{^+}\frac{k^{}A^{}}{k^+}.$$
(3)
This constraint, together with $`A^+=0`$, once substituted into the Lagrangian density yields the so-called two-component formalism in the light-front, where one is left with only physical degrees of freedom, and Ward-Takahashi identities and multiplicative renormalizability of pure Yang-Mills field theory is verified . Thus, if we start off by correctly defining the gauge condition in the light-front form, the problems related to residual gauge freedom, zero modes and ….. are completely finessed.

## 2 Light-Front Dynamics: Definition

According to Dirac  it is *“…the three-dimensional surface in space-time formed by a plane wave front advancing with the velocity of light. Such a surface will be called front for brevity ”*. An example of a light-front is given by the equation $`x^+=x^0+x^3`$.

A dynamical system is characterized by ten fundamental quantities: energy, momentum, angular momentum, and boost. In the conventional Hamiltonian form of dynamics one works with dynamical variables referring to physical conditions at some instant of time, the simplest instant being given by $`x^0=0`$. Dirac found that other forms of relativistic dynamics variables refer to physical conditions on a front $`x^+=0`$. The resulting dynamics is called light-front dynamics, which Dirac called front-form for brevity.

A perusal into the specific literature will soon help us to discover that many different names are used to describe this form of dynamics and the corresponding gauge, such as light-front field theory, field theory in the infinite momentum frame, null plane field theory and light-cone field theory. We prefer the word light-front since the quantization surface is a light-front (tangential to the light cone).

The variables $`x^+=x^0+x^3`$ and $`x^{}=x^0x^3`$ are called light-front *“time”* and *longitudinal space* variables respectively. Transverse variables are $`x^{}=(x^1,x^2)`$. We call the reader’s attention to the fact that there are many different conventions used in the literature. Here, we follow the conventions, notations and some useful relations employed in .

By analogy with the light-front space-time variables, we define the longitudinal momentum $`k^+=k^0+k^3`$ and light-front *“energy”* $`k^{}=k^0k^3`$.

For a free massive particle, the on-shell condition $`k^2=m^2`$ leads to $`k^+0`$ and the dispersion relation

$$k^{}=\frac{(k^{})^2+m^2}{k^+}.$$
(4)
This dispersion relation (4) is quite remarkable for the following reasons: *(1)* Even though we have a relativistic dispersion relation, there is no square root factor. *(2)* The dependence of the energy $`k^{}`$ on the transverse momentum $`k^{}`$ is just like in the nonrelativistic relation. *(3)* For $`k^+`$ positive (negative), $`k^{}`$ is positive (negative). This fact has several interesting consequences. *(4)* The dependence of energy on $`k^{}`$ and $`k^+`$ is mutiplicative and large energy can result from large $`k^{}`$ and/or small $`k^+`$. This simple observation has drastic consequences for renormalization aspects

## 3 Massless vector field propagator

In our previous work , we showed that a single Lagrangian multiplier of the form $`(nA)(A)`$ with $`nA=A=0`$ leads to a propagator in the light-front gauge that has no residual gauge freedom left. However, it is clear that the constraint $`(nA)(A)=0`$ does not uniquely lead to the  *necessary* conditions $`nA=A=0`$, since the constraint is satisfied even if only one of the factors vanish. In this sequel work we propose a more general form with two multipliers each with its corresponding condition so that they are uniquely defined, and show that we arrive at the same propagator with no residual gauge freedom left.

The Lagrangian density for the vector gauge field (for simplicity we consider an Abelian case) is given by

$$=\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2\alpha }\left(n_\mu A^\mu \right)^2\frac{1}{2\beta }\left(_\mu A^\mu \right)^2,$$
(5)
where $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are arbitrary constants. Of course, with these additional gauge breaking terms, the Lagrangian density is no longer gauge invariant and as such gauge fixing problem in this sense do not exist anymore. Now, $`_\mu A^\mu `$ doesn’t need to be zero so that the Lorenz condition is verified .

Here, instead of going through the canonical procedure of determining the propagator as done in the previous section, we shall adopt a more head-on, classical procedure by looking for the inverse operator corresponding to the differential operator sandwiched between the vector potentials in the Lagrangian density. For the Abelian gauge field Lagrangian density we have:

$$=\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2\beta }\left(_\mu A^\mu \right)^2\frac{1}{2\alpha }\left(n_\mu A^\mu \right)^2=_\text{E}+_{GF}$$
(6)
By partial integration and considering that terms which bear a total derivative don’t contribute and that surface terms vanish since $`\underset{x\mathrm{}}{lim}A^\mu (x)=0`$, we have

$$_\text{E}=\frac{1}{2}A^\mu \left(\mathrm{}g_{\mu \nu }_\mu _\nu \right)A^\nu $$
(7)
and

$`_{GF}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\beta }}_\mu A^\mu _\nu A^\nu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\alpha }}n_\mu A^\mu n_\nu A^\nu `$ (8)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\beta }}A^\mu _\mu _\nu A^\nu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\alpha }}A^\mu n_\mu n_\nu A^\nu `$
so that

$$=\frac{1}{2}A^\mu \left(\mathrm{}g_{\mu \nu }_\mu _\nu +\frac{1}{\beta }_\mu _\nu \frac{1}{\alpha }n_\mu n_\nu \right)A^\nu $$
(9)
To find the gauge field propagator we need to find the inverse of the operator between parenthesis in (9). That differential operator in momentum space is given by:

$$O_{\mu \nu }=k^2g_{\mu \nu }+k_\mu k_\nu \theta k_\mu k_\nu \lambda n_\mu n_\nu ,$$
(10)
where $`\theta =\beta ^1`$ and $`\lambda =\alpha ^1`$, so that the propagator of the field, which we call $`G^{\mu \nu }(k)`$, must satisfy the following equation:

$$O_{\mu \nu }G^{\nu \lambda }\left(k\right)=\delta _\mu ^\lambda $$
(11)
$`G^{\nu \lambda }(k)`$ can now be constructed from the most general tensor structure that can be defined, i.e., all the possible linear combinations of the tensor elements that composes it :

$`G^{\mu \nu }(k)`$ $`=`$ $`g^{\mu \nu }A+k^\mu k^\nu B+k^\mu n^\nu C+n^\mu k^\nu D+k^\mu m^\nu E+`$ (12)
$`+m^\mu k^\nu F+n^\mu n^\nu G+m^\mu m^\nu H+n^\mu m^\nu I+m^\mu n^\nu J`$
where $`m^\mu `$ is the light-like vector dual to the $`n^\mu `$, and $`A`$, $`B`$, $`C`$ , $`D`$, $`E`$, $`F`$, $`G`$, $`H`$, $`I`$ and $`J`$ are coefficients that must be determined in such a way as to satisfy (11). Of course, it is immediately clear that since (9) does not contain any external light-like vector $`m_\mu `$, the coefficients $`E=F=H=I=J=0`$ straightaway. Then, we have

$$A=(k^2)^1$$
(13)
$$(kn)(1\theta )G\theta k^2D=0$$
(14)
$$(k\lambda n^2)G\lambda (kn)D\lambda A=0$$
(15)
$$(k^2+\lambda n^2)C\lambda (kn)B=0$$
(16)
$$(1\theta )A\theta k^2B+(1\theta )(kn)C=0$$
(17)
From (14) we have

$$G=\frac{k^2}{(kn)(\beta 1)}D$$
(18)
which inserted into (15) yields

$$D=\frac{(kn)(\beta 1)}{(\alpha k^2+n^2)k^2+(kn)^2(\beta 1)}A$$
(19)
From (16) and (17) we obtain

$$B=\frac{(\alpha k^2+n^2)}{kn}C$$
(20)
and

$$C=\frac{(\beta 1)(kn)}{(\alpha k^2+n^2)k^2+(kn)^2(\beta 1)}A=D$$

We have then,

$`G^{\mu \nu }(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}\{g^{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{(\alpha k^2+n^2)(\beta 1)}{(\alpha k^2+n^2)k^2+(kn)^2(\beta 1)}}k^\mu k^\nu `$ (21)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{(\beta 1)(k^\mu n^\nu +n^\mu k^\nu )}{(\alpha k^2+n^2)k^2+(kn)^2(\beta 1)}}(kn)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\alpha k^2+n^2)k^2+(kn)^2(\beta 1)}}k^2n^\mu n^\nu \}`$
In the light-font $`n^2=0`$ and taking the limit $`\alpha `$,$`\beta 0`$, we have

$$A=\frac{1}{k^2}$$

$$B=0$$

$$C=D=\frac{1}{k^2(kn)}$$

$$G=\frac{1}{(kn)^2}$$

Therefore, the relevant propagator in the light-front gauge is:

$$G^{\mu \nu }(k)=\frac{1}{k^2}\left\{g^{\mu \nu }\frac{k^\mu n^\nu +n^\mu k^\nu }{kn}+\frac{n^\mu n^\nu }{(kn)^2}k^2\right\},$$
(22)
which has the outstanding third term commonly referred to as *contact term*, which is exactly the same result as in .

## 4 Conclusions

We have constructed Lagrange multipliers in the light-front that leads to a well-defined fixed gauge choice so that no unphysical degrees of freedom are left. In other words, no residual gauge remains to be dealt with. Moreover this allows us to get the correct propagator including the important so-called contact term. As have been proved, this term is of capital importance in the renormalization of (Bethe-Salpeter?) …

We emphasize that in  the Lagrange multiplier term of the form $`(nA)(A)=0`$ was such that $`nA=0`$ and $`(A)=0`$ simultaneously. This means that, of course, $`(nA)+(A)=0`$. Therefore $`[(nA)+(A)]^2=0`$, or

$`(nA)^2+(A)^2+2(nA)(A)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`(nA)^2+(A)^2`$ $`=`$ $`2(nA)(A),`$ (23)
thus establishing the complete equivalence between the two cases. Note that this equivalence guarantees that we still have decoupling of the ghost fields from the physical fields.

acknowledgements: A.T.Suzuki wishes to thank CNPq for partial support under process 303848/2002-2 and J.H.O.Sales is supported by Fapesp (00/09018-0).

## 5 Appendix

In this Appendix we review basic concepts of gauge invariance, gauge fixing and gauge choice that are commonly forgotten or taken for granted, but we deem appropriate to clarify the issues presented in this work. It is clear that Maxwell’s equations

$$_\mu F^{\mu \nu }=_\mu \left(^\mu A^\nu ^\nu A^\mu \right)=0,$$
(24)
do not completely specify the vector potential $`A^\mu (x)`$. For, if $`A^\mu (x)`$ satisfies (24), so does

$$A^{}_{}{}^{}\mu (x)=A^\mu (x)+^\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }(x),$$
(25)
for any arbitrary function $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)`$. It is also clear that both vector potentials $`A^\mu `$ and $`A^{}_{}{}^{}\mu `$ yield the same electric and magnetic fields $`\stackrel{}{E}(x)`$ and $`\stackrel{}{B}(x)`$, which are invariant under the substitutions

$`A_0`$ $``$ $`A_0^{^{}}=A_0+_0\mathrm{\Lambda }`$
$`\stackrel{}{A}`$ $``$ $`\stackrel{}{A}^{^{}}=\stackrel{}{A}\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Lambda }.`$ (26)
This lack of uniqueness of the vector potential for given electric and magnetic fields generates difficulties when, for example, we have to perform functional integrals over the different field configurations. This lack of uniqueness may be reduced by imposing a further condition on $`A^\mu (x)`$, besides those required by Maxwell’s equations (24). It is customary to impose the so-called “Lorenz condition”111 This is not a misprint. J.D.Jackson  calls our attention to this giving first credit to whom it is deserved.

$$_\mu A^\mu (x)=0,$$
(27)
which is clearly the unique covariant condition that is linear in $`A^\mu `$. However, even the imposition of the Lorenz condition does not fix the gauge potential, since if $`A`$ and $`A^{}`$ are related as in (25), then both of them will satisfy (27) if

$$\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }^\mu =0.$$
(28)
When we choose a particular $`A^{}_{}{}^{}\mu `$ in (25), we say that we have *“fixed the gauge”*. In particular, an $`A^\mu `$ satisfying ( 27) is said *“ to be in the Lorenz gauge”*. Still, condition (27) does not exhaust our liberty of choice, i.e., it does not fix completely the $`A^\mu `$; we can go to the Lorenz gauge from any $`A^\mu `$ choosing a convenient $`\varphi `$ such that it obeys

$$\mathrm{}\varphi +_\mu A^\mu =0_\mu ^{^{}}A^\mu =0.$$
(29)
A further transformation

$$A^{{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }\mu }=A^{}_{}{}^{}\mu +^\mu \varphi ^{^{}},$$
(30)
with $`\varphi ^{^{}}`$ obeying

$$\mathrm{}\varphi ^{^{}}=0,$$
(31)
will also lead us to $`_\mu A^{{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }\mu }=0`$. So, a gauge potential in the *“Lorenz gauge”* will be determined except for a gradient of an harmonic scalar field. This remnant or residual freedom can be used to eliminate one of the components of $`A^\mu `$, such as, for example, $`A^0`$: Choose $`\varphi ^{^{}}`$ such that

$$^0\varphi ^{^{}}=A^{}_{}{}^{}0,$$
(32)
so that we have $`A^{{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }0}=0`$ for any space-time point $`(t,\stackrel{}{x})`$. Thus, $`_0A^{{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }0}=0`$ and the Lorenz condition will then be

$$\stackrel{}{A}=0;A^0=0.$$
(33)
This gauge is known as the radiation gauge (or Coulomb one, $`\stackrel{}{A}=0`$). This gauge choice is not covariant, but can be realized in every inertial reference frame.

This brings us to the analogy in the light-front case:

$`A^{{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }\mu }`$ $`=`$ $`A^{}_{}{}^{}\mu +^\mu \varphi ^{^{}};`$
$`^+\varphi ^{^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`A^{}_{}{}^{}+.`$ (34)
Therefore, $`A^{{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }+}=A^{}_{}{}^{}+A^{}_{}{}^{}+=0`$, and we obtain the following correspondence:

$`A^0=0`$ $``$ $`A^+=0;`$
$`\stackrel{}{A}=0`$ $``$ $`^+A^{}^{}A^{}=0.`$ (35)
Note that the second equation above is the constraint (3). These imply the double Lagrange multipliers (terms for gauge fixing) in the Lagrangian density herein proposed

$$_{GF}=\frac{1}{2\alpha }(nA)^2\frac{1}{\beta }(A)^2.$$
(36)


text:
# Finite Dimensional Approximations in Geometry

## 1. Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to review the recent developments in a formal framework to extract topological information from nonlinear elliptic operators.

We also explain some applications of the idea to 4-dimensional topology by using the Seiberg-Witten theory.

A prototype is the notion of index for linear elliptic operators. In this introduction we explain this linear case. Later we mainly explain the Seiberg-Witten case.

Let $`D:\mathrm{\Gamma }(E^0)\mathrm{\Gamma }(E^1)`$ be an linear elliptic operator on a close manifold $`X`$. The index $`\mathrm{i}ndD`$ is defined to be

$$\mathrm{i}ndD=dim\mathrm{K}erDdim\mathrm{C}okerD.$$

We can extend this definition as follows. Take any decomposition $`D=LL^{}:V^0W^0V^1W^1`$. such that $`L:V^0V^1`$ is a linear map between two finite dimensional vector spaces and that $`L^{}:W^0W^1`$ is an isomorphism between infinite dimensional vector spaces. Then we have

$$\mathrm{i}ndD=dimV^0dimV^1.$$

It is easy to check that the right-hand-side is independent of the choice of the decomposition. For example we have decomposition satisfying $`V^0=\mathrm{K}erD`$, $`V^1\mathrm{C}okerD`$, $`L=0`$, which gives the former definition of the index.

An important property of $`\mathrm{i}ndD`$ is its invariance under continuous variation of $`D`$. This property is closely related to the above well-definedness.

Another way to understand this property is to consider the whole space of Fredholm maps. Then the given map $`D`$ sits in the space and the $`\mathrm{i}ndD`$ is nothing but the label of the connected component containing $`D`$.

In other words, there are presumably three possible attitudes:

1. The essential data is “supported” on $`\mathrm{K}erD`$ and $`\mathrm{C}okerD`$.
2. It is convenient to look at “some” finite dimensional approximation. $`L:V^0V^1`$.
3. The essential data is the whole map $`D:\mathrm{\Gamma }(E^0)\mathrm{\Gamma }(E^1)`$.

When one considers a family of elliptic operators and tries to define the index of the family, it is not enough to look at their kernels and cokernels.

It is tempting to regard the finite dimensional approximation as a topological version of the notion of “low energy effective theory” in physics. In this story, the whole map $`D`$ would be regarded as a given original theory.

In this paper we explain a nonlinear version of the notion of index which is formulated by using finite dimensional approximations.

## 2. Non-linear cases

While every elliptic operator on a closed manifold has its index as topological invariant, it is quite rare that a nonlinear elliptic operator gives some topological invariant.

We have three examples of this type of invariants: the Donaldson invariant, the Gromov-Ruan-Witten invariant and the Seiberg-Witten invariant. Moreover, the Casson invariant is regarded a variant of the Donaldson invariant. Some other finite type invariants for $`3`$-manifolds are also supposed to be related to these kinds of invariant .

Even for these cases, however, it is not obvious how to proceed to obtain nonlinear version of index in full generality.

Let us first give several examples of finite dimensional approximations.

1. C. Conley and E. Zehnder solved the Arnold conjecture for torus by reducing a certain variational problem to a finite dimensional Morse theory .
2. Casson’s definition of the Casson invariant. Taubes gave an interpretation of the Casson invariant via gauge theory . In other words, Casson’s construction gave a finite dimensional approximation of the gauge theoretical setting by Taubes. (The statement of the Atiyah-Floer conjecture could be regarded as a partial finite dimensional approximation along fibers.)
3. Seiberg-Witten equation. The moduli space of Seiberg-Witten equation is known to be compact for closed $`4`$-manifolds. This enables us to globalize the Kuranishi construction to obtain finite dimensional approximations , .
4. Seiberg-Witten-Floer theory C. Manolescu and P.B. Kronheimer defined Floer homotopy type for Seiberg-Witten theory, which is formulated as spectrum  .
5. Kontsevish explained an idea to define invariants of $`3`$-manifolds by using configuration spaces. This idea was realized by Fukaya , Bott-Cattaneo  , and Kuperberg-Thurston . Formally the configuration spaces appear as finite approximations of certain path spaces.

## 3. Kuranishi construction

While the index is regarded as the infinitesimal information of a nonlinear elliptic operator, its local information is given by the Kuranishi map, which has been used to describe local structure in various moduli problems .

A few years ago the Arnold conjecture was solved in a fairly general setting and the Gromov-Ruan-Witten invariant was defined for general symplectic manifolds. These works were done by several groups independently , , , . A key of their arguments was to construct virtual moduli cycle over $``$.

In their case, the point is to glue local structure to obtain some global data to define invariants. Since their invariants are defined by evaluating cohomology classes, it was enough to have the virtual moduli cycle.

## 4. Global approximation

The notion of Fukaya-Ono’s Kuranishi structure or Ruan’s virtual neighborhood is defined as equivalence class of collections of maps, which define the moduli space. The collection of maps is necessary because the moduli space as topological space is not enough to recover the nature of the singularity on it.

The data depend on the choice of various choice of auxiliary data. When we change the data, the change of the moduli space is supposed to be given by a cobordism, even with the extra structure we have to look at.

Suppose we would like to regard this structure itself as an invariant. Then we have to identify the place where the invariant lives. Since cobordism classes are identified by Pontrjagin-Thom construction, what we need would be a certain stable version of Pontrjagin-Thom construction.

In the case of symplectic geometry or Donaldson’s theory, this construction has not been done. A main problem seems to describe a finite dimensional approximation of the ambient space where the compactification of the moduli space lies. (The same problem occurs for Kotschick-Morgan conjecture.) Since the compactification is fairly complicated, it is not straightforward to identify the finite dimensional approximation.

However in the Seiberg-Witten case, the moduli spaces are known to be compact for closed $`4`$-manifolds and it is not necessary to take any further compactifications.

Let us briefly recall the Seiberg-Witten equation for a closed Spinc manifold $`X`$. For simplicity we assume $`b_1(X)=0`$. Let $`W=W^0W^1`$ be the spinor bundle and $`𝒜`$ be the space of connections on $`detW^0detW^1`$. Then the Seiberg-Witten equation is given by a map

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(W^0)\times 𝒜\mathrm{\Gamma }(W^1)\times \mathrm{\Gamma }(^+),$$

where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(^+)`$ is the self-dual $`2`$-forms for a fixed Riemannian metric. This is an $`U(1)`$-equivariant map. The inverse image of $`0`$ divided by $`S^1`$ is the moduli space, which is known to be compact.

A finite approximation of the above map is defined by global version of the Kuranishi construction. The approximation is a proper $`U(1)`$-equivariant map

$$^{a_0}^{d_0}^{a_1}^{d_1}$$

for some natural numbers $`c_0,c_1,d_0`$ and $`d_1`$. The differences $`c_0c_1`$ and $`d_0d_1`$ depends only on the topology of $`X`$ and its spinc-structure.

The invariant we have is the stable homotopy class of the above $`U(1)`$-equivariant proper map, or equivalently, the $`U(1)`$-equivariant map from the sphere $`S(^{a_0}^{d_0})`$ to the sphere $`S(^{a_1}^{d_1})`$.

S. Bauer and the author pointed out that the invariant constructed above is a refinement of the usual Seiberg-Witten invariant .

## 5. 4-dimensional topology and Seiberg-Witten
theory

We explain some applications of the finite dimensional approximation to $`4`$-dimensional topology.

(1) Bauer’s connected sum formula

Suppose $`X`$ is the connected sum of $`X_0`$ and $`X_1`$. If the neck of the connected sum is long enough, it is known that the moduli space of the solution of the Seiberg-Witten equation (or anti-self-dual equation) for $`X`$ is identified with the product of the moduli spaces for $`X_0`$ and $`X_1`$. When $`X_1=\overline{CP^2}`$, then this gives the blowing-up formula. When $`b^+(X_0),b^{}(X_1)1`$, this gives vanishing of the Seiberg-Witten (or the Donaldson) invariant of $`X=X_0\mathrm{\#}X_1`$. Bauer essentially showed that the product formula holds true for the virtual neighborhood of the moduli spaces, if we use Ruan’s terminology. In the language of stable maps between spheres, “product” becomes “join”. In particular Bauer’s formula gives the blowing-up formula for the refined invariant. When $`b^+(X_0),b^{}(X_1)1`$, the join is torsion. It is, however, not necessary zero. In this way Bauer gave many new examples of $`4`$-manifolds which are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to each other.

Ishida-Lebrun   obtained some applications of the connected sum formula to Riemannian geometry.

(2) Intersection form of spin $`4`$-manifolds

When $`4`$-manifold is spin, we have certain extra symmetry, and the place where the invariant lives is a set of $`Pin(2)`$-equivariant stable maps .

When $`X`$ is a closed spin $`4`$-manifold with $`b_1(X)=0`$, the Seiberg-Witten map for the spin structure is a $`Pin(2)`$-equivariant map formally given by

$$^{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{~}{}^{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{~}{}^{\mathrm{}},$$

where $`\stackrel{~}{}`$ is the non-trivial $`1`$-dimensional real representation space of $`Pin(2)`$. and $``$ is the $`4`$-dimentional real irreducible representation space of $`Pin(2)`$. Let $`/4`$ be the subgroup of $`Pin(2)`$ generated by an element in $`Pin(2)U(1)`$. The differences of the power $`\mathrm{}`$’s are given by the index of some elliptic operators.

A finite dimensional approximation is given by a $`Pin(2)`$-equivariant proper map

$$^{c_0}\stackrel{~}{}^{d_0}^{c_1}\stackrel{~}{}^{d_1},$$

for some $`c_0,c_1,d_0,d_1`$ satisfying

$$c_0c_1=\frac{\mathrm{s}ign(X)}{16},d_0d_1=b^+(X).$$

This existence implies some inequality between the signature and the second Betti number.

To obtain the inequality explicitly we can use the following results.

Theorem Suppose $`k>0`$ and $`kamod4`$ for $`a=0,1,2,`$ or $`3`$. Then there does not exist a $`G`$-equivariant continuous map from $`S(^{k+x}\stackrel{~}{}^y)`$ to $`S(^x\stackrel{~}{}^{2k+a^{}1+y})`$. for the following $`G`$ and $`a^{}`$.

1. (B. Schmidt  see also   ) $`G=/4`$ and $`a^{}=a`$ for $`a=1,2,3`$.
2. (F - Y.Kametani ) $`G=Pin(2)`$ and $`a^{}=3`$ for $`a=0`$.

From the above non-existence results, we have the following inequality, which is a partial result towards the 11/8-conjecture $`b^+3|\mathrm{s}ign(X)/16|`$.

Theorem Let $`X`$ be a closed spin $`4`$-manifold with $`\mathrm{s}ign(X)=16k<0`$. If $`kamod4`$ for $`a=0,1,2`$ or $`3`$, then we have $`b^+2k+b`$, where $`a^{}=a`$ if $`a=1,2,3`$ and $`a^{}=3`$ if $`a=0`$.

Equivariant version and $`V`$-manifold version can be formulated similarly , , , . There are some applications of these extended versions:

1. C. Bohr  and R. Lee - T.-J. Li  investigated the intersection forms of closed even $`4`$-manifolds which are not spin.
2. Y. Fukumoto, M. Ue and the author    , and N. Saveliev  investigated homology cobordims groups of homology $`3`$-spheres.

When $`b_1>0`$, we can construct another closed spin $`4`$-manifold with $`b_1=0`$ without changing the intersection form. It implies that we can assume $`b_1=0`$ to obtain restriction on the intersection form. However when the intersection form on $`H^1(X)`$ is non-trivial, we may have a stronger restriction. Y. Kametani, H. Matsue, N. Minami and the author found that such a phenomenon actually occurs if there are $`\alpha _1,\alpha _2,\alpha _3,\alpha _4H^1(X,)`$ such that $`\alpha _i,[X]`$ is odd .

## 6. Seiberg-Witten-Floer homotopy type

Recently C. Manolescu and P. B. Kronheimer extends the above formulation for closed $`4`$-manifolds to the relative version , . Let us explain their theory briefly.

We mentioned that Conley-Zehnder used a finite dimensional approximation of a Morse function on an infinite dimensional space to approach the Arnold conjecture for torus. Following this line, Conley exteded the notion of Morse index and defined the Conley index for compact isolated set . The Conley index is not a number, but a homotopy type of spaces. Floer extracted some information from the Conley index just by looking at some finite dimensional skeleton of the Conley index under some assumption. Floer’s formulation has the advantage that the Floer homology is defined even when the Conley index is not rigorously defined.

On the other hand R. L. Cohen, J. D. S. Jones and G. B. Segal tried to define certain stable homotopy type directly which should be an extended version of the Conley index . They called it the Floer homotopy type. At that time the Floer homology was defined only for the Donaldson theory and the Gromov-Ruan-Witten theory. In these theories the moduli spaces are non-compact in general. This cause a serious difficulty to carry out their program.

In the Seiberg-Witten theory, we have a strong compactness for the moduli spaces. Manolescu and Kronheimer succeeded to construct the Floer homotopy type as spectra for the Seiberg-Witten theory by using this compactness.

They also defined relative invariant for $`4`$-manifolds with boundary is also defined and it extends the invariant in .

## 7. Concluding remarks

The idea of finite dimensional approximation is closely related to the notion of “low energy effective theory” in physics. Actually the approximation should be regarded just as a part of the vast notion which we can deal with rigorously or mathematically.

Since Witten’s realization of Donaldson theory as a TQFT, the formal relation between mathematically regorous definition of invariants and their formal path integral expressions has suggested many things. For instance, the well-definedness of the Donaldson invariant is based on the fact that the formal dimension of the moduli space increases when the instanton number goes up. This fact seems equivalent to the other fact that the pure Yang-Mills theory is asymptitotically free (for N=2 SUSY theory) and its renormalized theory does exists.

In the case of the finite dimensional approximations of Seiberg-Witten theory, the suspension maps give relations between many choices of approximations. If we use some generalized cohomology theories to detect our invariants, the suspension maps induces the Thom isomorphisms, or integrations along fibers. If we compare this setting with physics, the family of integrations look quite similar to the renormalization group. It seems the Thom classes which play the role of vacua. In this sense, one could say that the family of finite approximations is a topological version of the renormlization group. This topological setting is very limitted. It, however, has one advantage: Usually the path integral expression is supposed to take values in real or complex numbers. On the other hand our invariants could take values in torsions.

Let us conclude this survey by giving three open problems.

1. What is the correct formulation of the geography of spin $`4`$-manifolds with $`b_1>0`$? (If the intersection on $`H^1`$ is complicated enough, then $`\mathrm{s}ign(X)`$ would have stronger restriction.)
2. When an oriented closed $`3`$-manifold is a link of isolated algebraic singular point, construct a canonical Galois group action on some completion of the Floer homotopy type of Kronheimer-Manolescu. (This problem was suggested by a hand-written manuscript by D. Johnson in which Casson-type invariants were defined.)
3. The Seiberg-Witten map is quadratic. Extract non-topological information from this structure. (Is it possible to approach the 11/8-conjecture from this point of view?)


text:
# Magnetic frustration in a stoichiometric spin-chain compound, Ca3CoIrO6

## Abstract

The temperature dependent ac and dc magnetization and heat capacity data of Ca3CoIrO6, a spin-chain compound crystallizing in a K4CdCl6-derived rhombohedral structure, show the features due to magnetic ordering of a frustrated-type below about 30 K, however without exhibiting the signatures of the so-called ”partially disordered antiferromagnetic structure” encountered in the isostructural compounds, Ca3Co2O6 and Ca3CoRhO6. This class of compounds thus provides a variety for probing the consequences of magnetic frustration due to topological reasons in stoichiometric spin-chain materials, presumably arising from subtle differences in the interchain and intrachain magnetic coupling strengths. This compound presents additional interesting situations in the sense that, ac susceptibility exhibits a large frequency dependence in the vicinity of 30 K uncharacteristic of conventional spin-glasses, with this frustrated magnetic state being robust to the application of external magnetic fields.

PACS numbers: 75.50.Lk, 75.50.-y; 75.30.Cr; 75.30.Kz E-mail address: sampath@tifr.res.in

Conventionally, the phenomenon of spin glass freezing has been associated with the randomness of exchange interactions, mainly due to random distribution of magnetic impurities in a non-magnetic matrix and/or due to crystallographic disorder. In stoichiometric compounds, one can in principle encounter spin-glass-like magnetic frustration anomalies due to certain topological reasons, for instance, due to antiferromagnetic coupling among the magnetic moments in a triangular lattice. Thus, the investigation of glassy effects due to geometric frustration is one of the most interesting topics in magnetism and, in this regard, kagome (2D) or pyrochlore (3D) lattices remain at the centrestage of this direction of research. In this article, we bring out that the spin-chain compounds of the type, (Sr, Ca)3ABO6 (A, B= a metallic ion, magnetic or nonmagnetic), crystallizing in the K4CdCl6 (rhomhohedral) derived structure (space group R$`\overline{3}`$c) \[See, for instance, Refs. 2 and 3\] need an attention in this regard. The structure is characterized by the presence of chains of A and B ions running along c-direction arranged hexagonally forming a triangular lattice. These chains are separated by Sr (or Ca) ions. Within the chains, alternating AO6 trigonal prism and BO6 octahedra share one of the faces. It is generally found that the interchain interaction is antiferromagnetic and therefore triangular arrangement of magnetic ions in the a-b plane may result in magnetic frustration. This, coupled with the tunability of the relative magnitudes of interchain and intrachain magnetic coupling strengths as one varies A and/or B, should provide an opportunity to observe a variety of magnetic anomalies among this class of compounds.

A survey of the very limited literature suggests that this class of compounds is indeed characterized by a host of novel behavior (see, for instance, Refs. 2 - 14). In particular, the observation of ’CsCoCl3-like partially disordered antiferromagnetic (PDA) structure’, in Ca3Co2O6 (Ref. 4) and Ca3CoRhO6 (Ref. 9) is quite fascinating; in the PDA structure, 2/3 of the magnetic chains order antiferromagnetically with each other and the remaining 1/3 are left incoherent in an intermediate T range; however, the magnetism of the latter compounds are unique in the sense that the intra-chain coupling is ferromagnetic unlike in CsCoCl3 in which case this coupling is also antiferromagnetic; in addition, the spins in the incoherent chains are randomly frozen at a lower temperature, while in the Cs compound a ferrimagnetic ordering is observed. In light of these interesting anomalies in Co-based oxides, we considered it worthwhile to subject the sister compound, Ca3CoIrO6, which has been previously reported to undergo antiferromagnetic ordering below 30 K, for a reinvestigation. The present results reveal that there is only one magnetic transition at about 30 K, which is actually of a spin-glass-like frustrated type, however without the PDA structural characteristics in the sense described above for Ca3CoRhO6 and Ca3Co2O6.

Polycrystalline Ca3CoIrO6 was prepared by a conventional solid state method. The stoichiometric amounts of high purity ($`>`$ 99.9$`\%`$) CaCO3, Co3O4 and Ir were thoroughly mixed in an agate mortar and calcined in air at 1173 K for one day. Then the preheated powder was reground, pelletized and heated in air for 10 days at 1273 K with intermediate grindings as per the procedure in Ref. 3 and the specimen thus prepared contained an extra line in the x-ray diffraction pattern. Subsequently, the specimen was subjected to an additional heat treatment at a higher temperature of 1423 K for 2 days with an intermediate grinding. The sample thus prepared was found to be single phase and therefore, under our synthetic conditions, we require a temperature higher than that mentioned in Ref. 3 to synthesize the single phase material. The x-ray diffraction pattern is found to be in excellent agreement with that reported in Ref. 3 establishing ordered arrangement of Co and Ir ions. The lattice parameters are: $`a`$= 9.160 $`\AA `$ and $`c`$= 10.890 $`\AA `$. Dc $`\chi `$ measurements (1.8 - 300 K) in the presence of various magnetic fields and isothermal M measurements at several temperatures were performed employing a superconducting quantum interference device (Quantum Design). The same magnetometer was employed to measure ac $`\chi `$ (2-200 K) in a frequency ($`\nu `$) range 1 - 1000 Hz in an ac field of 1 Oe, in the presence of different dc magnetic fields (H= 0, 5 and 40 kOe). The C measurements (2 - 60 K) were performed by semi-adiabatic heat-pulse method employing a home-built calorimeter.

The results of dc $`\chi `$ measurements are shown in Fig. 1 and are found to be in broad agreement with those reported in Ref. 3. $`\chi `$ monotonously increases with decreasing T down to 30 K. The Curie-Weiss law is obeyed only above 250 K; there is a continuous change in the slope of the plot of inverse $`\chi `$ versus T (see, Fig. 1 inset) down to about 125 K, below which (for T $`>`$ 30 K) there is a negligible variation in slope. From the high T linear region, the effective moment is found to be 4.40 $`\mu _B`$ per formula unit, which is very close to the theoretical value of 4.24 $`\mu _B`$ under the assumption that Co is in 2+ state (S= 3/2, high spin) and Ir is in 4+ state (S= 1/2). The paramagnetic Curie temperature ($`\theta _p`$) is found to be 168 K and the positive sign with a large magnitude suggests the existence of strong ferromagnetic correlations. As the T is lowered below 30 K, the ZFC $`\chi `$ exhibits a sharp fall, attaining a nearly T-independent value at lower temperatures for all values of H. The field-cooled (FC) $`\chi `$ curves measured at various fields bifurcate from respective ZFC curves at 30 K; this, though sometimes observed in long range magnetically ordered systems, is a characteristic feature of spin glasses.

In order to resolve whether the 30K-feature is due to long range magnetic ordering, we have performed ac $`\chi `$ measurements, the results of which are shown in Fig. 2. We first discuss the data taken in zero dc magnetic field. Looking at the curves for $`\nu `$= 1 Hz, there is a distinct drop in the real part ($`\chi `$) of ac $`\chi `$ as well below the peak temperature of 42 K. There is also a sharp upturn in the imaginary part ($`\chi `$) below 45 K and there is a distinct peak at about 35 K and the plots of ac $`\chi `$ versus T move to a higher temperature with increasing frequency; these

findings are sufficient enough to conclude that there is a spin-glass-like behavior taking place in this T range in this compound. However, the peak temperature in $`\chi `$ as well as the T-range (32-40 K) where the decreasing part of $`\chi `$ is sharp do not coincide with the corresponding temperatures in dc $`\chi `$ (30 K and 25-30 K respectively), but shifted to a higher temperature by about 12 K in $`\chi `$. It is also important to note that the peak temperatures in $`\chi `$ and $`\chi `$ do not agree. Similar features were observed also in pyrochlores with magnetic frustration (due to topological reasons) and this implies strong frequency dependence of susceptibility arising from slow magnetic dynamics. Further evidence for this explanation comes from the large frequency dependence of ac $`\chi `$ peaks; for instance, the curve shifts upwards by as much as 15 K for a change of frequency from 1 Hz to 1 kHz. Such a large shift corresponds to a value beyond 0.1 for the factor, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$Tf/Tf$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$(log$`\nu `$), which is much larger than that known for conventional spin glasses. In this sense the dynamics of magnetic frustration is quite unusual. It may be recalled that a large frequency dependence of ac $`\chi `$ has been recently reported for Ca3Co2O6 and Ca3CoRhO6 (Refs. 7 and 10). But the magnitude of the discrepancy between the peak temperatures of dc $`\chi `$(T) and $`\chi `$(T) is relatively smaller (about 2 K) for Ca3Co2O6 (Refs. 7 and 14).

Further evidence for spin-glass-like frustration is offered by the C data. It is obvious from Fig. 3a that C increases monotonously with T without any evidence for a well-defined peak characterizing long range magnetic ordering around 30 K. The peak is so washed out that there is no clear-cut anomaly even in the plot of C/T (Fig. 3a, inset). It may be recalled that an intense peak in C could be seen at 19 K in Sr3ZnIrO6 due to antiferromagnetic ordering from Ir ions (S= 1/2), with a magnitude of C jump of about 4J/molK. Therefore, the absence of a noticeable jump in C around 30 K in the present compound conclusively establishes randomness of magnetic interactions. Consistent with this, isothermal M below 30 K, say at 10 K (see Fig. 3b, inset) is found to be hysteretic with a sluggish variation of M with H in the field range of measurement. We have also performed isothermal remanent magnetization ($`M_{IRM}`$) measurements at 5, 45 and 150 K in the following way: The sample was cooled from 200 K to the desired T in zero field, then a magnetic field of 5 kOe was switched on for 5 mins and the magnetization, $`M_{IRM}`$, was measured as a function of time immediately after the field was switched off. While the M attained a very small value (close to the detection limit of the magnetometer) at 45 and 150 K, $`M_{IRM}`$ at 5 K is found to undergo a slow relaxation with time, decreasing exponentially for initial periods followed by logarithmic variation after waiting for 20 mins (Fig. 3c). This slow relaxation of M is also consistent with spin-glass-like freezing.

We have also measured ac $`\chi `$ in the presence of external dc magnetic fields (see Fig. 2). It is fascinating to see that the ac $`\chi `$ features described above, not only frequency dependence but also the order of magnitude of ac $`\chi `$, are not significantly affected by the field. (The plots are found to be noisy for H= 40 kOe and it is so bad for $`\nu =`$ 1 kHz that it is not shown in the figure). This situation is completely different from that observed for the Rh (for Ir) analogue in the sense that the zero-field features are completely suppressed by a field of, say, 30 kOe. Thus, the magnetic frustration phenomenon in this compound is unique in the sense that it is quite robust to the application of H. This difference can be correlated to isothermal M behaviour: It may be recalled that isothermal M as a function of H in the range 30 - 100 K exhibits a plateau in the Rh compound, whereas, in the Ir case, M varies linearly for initial applications of H followed by a curvature towards saturation at higher values of H without exhibiting a plateau (see Fig. 3b). This holds true even in the vicinity of magnetic transition temperature (see the data for 30 K in Fig. 3b). Thus, it appears that the zero-field magnetic state undergoes dramatic modification with H in the Rh case.

A further comparison of M behavior of these two compounds in the intermediate T range (30 - 300 K) is quite revealing. For instance, for Ca3CoIrO6, in Fig. 1, the bifurcation of ZFC-FC $`\chi `$ sets in at the peak (close to 30 K) irrespective of the field, whereas for the Rh analogue, the bifurcation occurs at a noticeably higher temperature depending upon the magnitude of external H; also, the $`\chi `$ exhibits a distinct upturn below 100 K for the Rh compound as though there is a magnetic phase transition below 100 K, whereas $`\chi `$ surprisingly exhibits a linear decrease with increasing temperature up to the highest T measured (see, Fig. 2, inset, for a typical variation). There is a slow decay of MIRM, say at 62 K as at 5 K in the Rh compound, whereas, in the present case, no magnetic relaxation could be observed above 30 K. However, there is a clear evidence for magnetic relaxation at 5 K in the present case as well, as described earlier (see above); it is to be noted that the coefficient of the logarithmic term is larger (about 5 times) compared to that in Ca3CoRhO6, which could mean stronger glassy-effects in the former case. Though dc $`\chi `$ is field dependent above 30 K for both the compounds, this sets in at a well-defined temperature (close to 100 K, corresponding to the onset of PDA structure) for the Rh compound, whereas this field-dependence vanishes in a sluggish way persisting over a wide temperature range for the Ir compound. Apparently, the T-range over which this field-dependence persists may be sample-dependent, as in our case this tendency persists till about 150 K, whereas in Fig. 6 in Ref. 3, this feature appears to terminate around 70 K. Though exact origin of this sample-dependence is not clear, we believe that the T-range over which ferromagnetic correlations (described below) persist may sensitively depend on sample preparative conditions.

From the above discussion, one can infer that presumably short range ferromagnetic correlations persist, say, till about 150 K in the Ir compound without any evidence for glassy features in the intermediate T range, whereas in the Rh analogue, the signatures of the existence of ’first’ long range magnetic ordering (arising from intrachain interaction) and glassy behaviour set in at a well-defined temperature near 100 K. Interestingly, the plots of inverse $`\chi `$ versus T above 30 K for both look similar in the sense that there is not much change in the slope below about 150 K for both. Also, the sign (positive) and the magnitude of $`\theta _p`$ (close to 170 K) are practically the same for both, as though both should have similar magnetic characteristics. It is therefore interesting that the present compound does not apparently show PDA characteristics as in the case of the Rh compound. The fact that there is no well-defined C jump at 30 K in the Ir case implies that the even the 30K-transition is purely glassy-like in its character, rather than originating from simultaneous long range ordering from 2/3 of the chains. It looks as though this difference between these two compounds lies in the elongation of magnetic chain of the Ir compound ($`c`$= 10.890$`\AA `$) with respect to the Rh compound ($`c`$= 10.730$`\AA `$) as the basal plane parameters are nearly equal. The c/a ratio for the three compounds, Ca3Co2O6, Ca3CoRhO6, and Ca3CoIrO6 are 1.143, 1.166 and 1.189 respectively and it appears that the magnetic behavior critically depends on relative strengths of interchain and intrachain coupling determined by c/a ratio in some fashion.

To conclude, we have identified a stoichiometric spin-chain compound, Ca3CoIrO6, undergoing a glassy-type of magnetic ordering below 30 K. We have compared and contrasted the observed magnetic behavior with those of isostructural compounds, Ca3Co2O6 and Ca3CoRhO6. It is particularly notable that the title compound does not exhibit PDA structural characteristics unlike the other two compounds. It may also be added that the behavior of this compound (glassy magnetic transition with a single magnetic transition temperature, which is also robust to the application of magnetic field) is unique among this class of quasi-one-dimensional magnetic oxides. The results sufficiently demonstrate that this class of compounds provide an avenue to probe the consequences of geometric frustration in psuedo-one-dimensional magnetic compounds, presumably resulting from the relative strengths of interchain versus intrachain magnetic coupling.

The authors would like to thank K.K. Iyer for his help while performing the experiments.