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# Revealing deuterium Balmer lines in H ii regions with VLT-UVES Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, Paranal, Chile [ESO VLT-UT2 No 65.I-0498(A)].

## 1 Introduction

Deuterium is an element of primordial origin. Measuring its abundance in different astrophysical sites brings valuable constraints on the Big-Bang nucleosynthesis and the Galactic evolution (e.g. Lemoine et al. lemoine99 (1999)).

The detection and identification of the deuterium Balmer lines D$`\alpha `$ and D$`\beta `$ in emission in the Orion Nebula was first reported by Hébrard et al. (hebrard00 (2000), hereafter Paper I). The narrowness of these lines, their strength with respect to the hydrogen lines and finally their relative fluxes were incompatible with recombination excitation, but could be understood in terms of fluorescence excitation by stellar UV continuum in the Photon Dominated Region (PDR), located behind the ionized region.

Here, observations of the whole Balmer series with the new spectrograph UVES, installed at the Nasmyth focus of VLT-UT2, are presented for Orion and other H ii regions. Observations are described in Sect. 2. Results for each H ii region are presented in Sect. 3. New evidence in support to the identification of deuterium is discussed in Sect. 4. A more complete analysis will follow in forthcoming papers.

## 2 Observations

Observations were secured during the night 2000 July 25th-26th, using the UV-Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) located at the Nasmyth focus of Kueyen, the second VLT Unit Telescope (D’Odorico & Kaper uves\_manual (2000)). Spectra from both the red and blue arms were registered simultaneously on two detectors, using the standard setting DIC1 (390+564). The approximate spectral ranges were 3290Å - 4530Å (blue arm), and 4610Å - 5620 Å and 5660Å - 6660Å (red arm), encompassing the whole Balmer series.

The slits were 8″ and 11″ long for the blue and red arms respectively. The slit width was 1″ on the sky. According to the staff of the VLT, the spectral resolution was $`R=\lambda /\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda \mathrm{40\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ (Full Width at Half Maximum, FWHM), equivalent to $`7`$$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. The present conclusions do not depend on the exact value of $`R`$, which will be determined after reducing the calibration exposures. A total exposure time of one hour was devoted to each H ii region (except for Orion, Sect. 3.1), the observations being divided in short sub-exposures to prevent detector saturation at the H i Balmer lines.

Data reduction (bias subtraction, flat-fielding, wavelength calibration) was performed with the UVES pipeline, using the available calibration database. 1D spectra were box-extracted from the central third of the slits. The standard sky-subtraction algorithm, inappropriate for extended objects, was omitted. This extraction was judged robust enough for this preliminary study. Subsequent data reduction will be performed over the whole slit length, using the calibration exposures obtained during the observing run.

Cosmics and bad pixels were cleaned where necessary. Sub-exposures were averaged (no shift was observed from one sub-exposure to the next) and the lines were shifted to the same radial velocity. For a given object, the peak fluxes of the different lines were assigned the same value in order to display the relative variations of the weak lines (figures of Sect. 3). Shifts and normalizations were all based on Gaussian fits to the emission lines.

## 3 Results

Line detections reported here in the blue wings of the H i lines are at least at the 5-$`\sigma `$ confidence level. Most of them are confirmed by the detection of lines at the same velocity for several principal quantum numbers $`n`$.

### 3.1 Orion Nebula (M 42)

The area observed in Orion was the same as the one observed previously (Paper I). The slit, oriented North-South, was located 2.5′ South of $`\theta ^1`$ Ori C (HD 37022) at coordinates $`\alpha =`$05:35:16.7, $`\delta =`$05:25:29 (J2000). The exposure time was 30 min in the red arm and 50 min in the blue arm.

Plots of the H i Balmer line wings are shown in Fig. 1. Deuterium lines are detected from D$`\alpha `$ to D$`\eta `$. They are redshifted $`10`$$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ with respect to H i (the isotopic shift between D i and H i at rest is $`81.6`$$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$), in good agreement with the previous measurements (Paper I). D i lines seem to be detected up to D16, but elaborate treatment is required due to low signal-to-noise ratio.

FWHM are from Gaussian fits, after quadratic subtraction of the instrumental point-spread function. The FWHM of the D i lines is $`11`$$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, much less than that of the H i recombination lines ($`30`$$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$). Widths similar to these were found for the lines detected in M 8, M 16, M 20 and DEM S 103 (see below). From Fig. 1, it is apparent that D i increases relative to H i for increasing $`n`$, at least up to D$`ϵ`$. Approximate relative fluxes are given in Table 1. Despite lower signal-to-noise ratio, a similar trend exists in the data for M 8 and M 16.

In Fig. 2, are shown on the same scale the wings of \[N ii$`\lambda `$6583Å, \[O ii$`\lambda `$3729Å, \[O iii$`\lambda `$5007Å and H$`\alpha `$. No counterparts to D i can be seen for lines other than H$`\alpha `$, thus excluding any interpretation in terms of emission from high-velocity ionized gas (see Sect. 3.6). Similarly, counterparts are lacking in M 8, M 16, M 20 and DEM S 103.

### 3.2 Lagoon Nebula (M 8)

In M 8, the slit was oriented North-South and located 17″ East and 18″ North of Herschel 36 (HD 164740), at $`\alpha =`$18:03:40.8, $`\delta =`$24:22:25. This position corresponds to position L11 in Bohuski (bohuski73 (1973)). Deuterium is detected from D$`\alpha `$ to D$`\zeta `$ (Fig. 3). Again the flux ratios range from $`F(\mathrm{D}\alpha )`$/$`F(\mathrm{H}\alpha )2\times 10^4`$ to $`F(\mathrm{D}\zeta )`$/$`F(\mathrm{H}\zeta )1\times 10^3`$.

M 8 was observed at a second slit position: 43″ South from Herschel 36 \[position L7 in Bohuski (bohuski73 (1973)), not shown here\]. The coordinates were $`\alpha =`$18:03:40.3, $`\delta =`$24:23:27 and the slit was oriented East-West. Only D$`\alpha `$ was detected, with a weaker flux: $`F(\mathrm{D}\alpha )`$/$`F(\mathrm{H}\alpha )3\times 10^5`$.

### 3.3 Eagle Nebula (M 16)

In M 16, the slit was oriented North-South and located at $`\alpha =`$18:18:51.7, $`\delta =`$13:49:07. It corresponds to one of the brightest regions of the PDR in this nebula (Levenson et al. levenson00 (2000)). Deuterium is detected from D$`\alpha `$ to D$`\gamma `$ (Fig. 4). The flux ratios range from $`F(\mathrm{D}\alpha )`$/$`F(\mathrm{H}\alpha )2\times 10^4`$ to $`F(\mathrm{D}\gamma )`$/$`F(\mathrm{H}\gamma )1\times 10^3`$.

### 3.4 Trifid Nebula (M 20)

In M 20, the slit was oriented North-South and located 51″ East and 23″ South from HD 164492, at $`\alpha =`$18:02:27.3, $`\delta =`$23:02:14. This position corresponds to position T12 in Bohuski (bohuski73 (1973)). Only D$`\alpha `$ was detected (Fig. 5).

### 3.5 DEM S 103 in the Small Magellanic Cloud

The last deuterium Balmer line detection was performed outside the Galaxy, in the brightest H ii region of the SMC, namely DEM S 103 \[Henize 66, Caplan et al. (caplan96 (1996))\]. The coordinates of the slit, oriented North-South, were $`\alpha =`$00:58:51.6, $`\delta =`$72:10:09. Again, only D$`\alpha `$ was detected (Fig. 5).

### 3.6 Omega Nebula (M 17): high-velocity structure emission

In M 17, the slit was oriented North-South and located at $`\alpha =`$18:20:48.0, $`\delta =`$16:10:31. Here the emission features detected in the blue wings of the H i lines, from H$`\alpha `$ to H$`ϵ`$ (Fig. 6), differ from those shown in previous targets:

* they are broad (FWHM $``$ 20$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, instead of $``$10$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, whilst the main H i component has the usual FWHM $``$ 30$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$);
* they are proportional to the H i lines (intensity $`3\times 10^3`$ relative to nearby H i for every $`n`$);
* \[N ii\], \[O ii\] and \[O iii\] present clear counterparts at the same velocity (Fig. 7).

It is concluded that, in this case, the features should be mainly due to H i emission from ionized material with velocity $`70`$$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ relative to the main body of the nebula. The width of these features is compatible with recombination excitation in a hot H+ gas. In fact, Meaburn & Walsh (meaburn81 (1981)) detected velocity components shifted by $`70`$$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ from the main H$`\alpha `$ component, $`2`$′ South of the UVES position. Clayton et al. (clayton85 (1985)) showed that the high-velocity material was probably associated with a breakout (collimated outflow) of a radially expanding shell. A D$`\alpha `$ line with the same relative flux as in Orion would be one order of magnitude weaker than the feature near H$`\alpha `$, making detection difficult without an elaborate treatment.

## 4 Confirming the identification of deuterium

In addition to the objects presented in Sect. 3, two more H ii regions were observed: 30 Doradus (in the LMC) and Sh2-100. In the former, the velocity field appears complex and more work is needed. In the latter, no obvious D i lines are seen, suggesting that no PDR is present along the line of sight. So far, D i lines have therefore been detected in at least five out of the eight H ii regions observed. Kinematic properties appear in Table 2.

The new observations bring confirmatory evidence in favour of the identification of the deuterium Balmer lines. They complement and add to the results presented in Paper I. The lines are seen with similar characteristics in the five H ii regions, using different telescopes (CFHT and VLT) and different spectrographs (GECKO and UVES). Instrumental artifacts (such as grating ghosts or in-order scattered light) can be definitely ruled out.

Since the lines are seen for many members of the Balmer series, they can only be D i or blue-shifted H i emission. H i emission may arise from H+ gas (recombination) or H0 gas (fluorescence). High-velocity ionized structures will produce H i recombination lines with properties like those already listed in the case of M 17 (width, flux, counterparts), not observed in the other H ii regions described in Sect. 3. A high-velocity neutral structure cannot be formally excluded for any one isolated object, but the probability that such a structure could exist and yet be detectable only in H i is low. No evidence for the existence of such a structure could be found in the case of Orion (Paper I). Considering the present data, it would be extraordinary if such a neutral component could be present in such a systematic manner in five different H ii regions, always at about the same velocity.

Understandably, the D i lines are narrow since they arise from a cold material with small thermal velocity. Nonetheless, considering the prevalence of large velocity fields in H ii regions, it was not a priori obvious that these lines would appear so systematically narrow (Table 2). The explanation partly lies in the fact that the entrance aperture of UVES is relatively small and that observable H ii regions tend to be incomplete on one side, with the associated molecular cloud and PDR located behind the expanding H+ region. This is consistent with the tendency shown by the D i lines to be redshifted with respect to the H i lines (Table 2). Thus, in practice, a small line width (at the expected wavelength!) turns out to be an important criterion to identify D i. On the other hand, H ii regions may exist with PDR’s encompassing a large velocity range. A fundamental criterion for D i identification remains the lack of counterparts in lines from ionized species. Large variations of the line intensity ratio D i/H i with $`n`$ constitute another useful criterion (Table 1), since fluorescence will generally not result in the same decrement as the one corresponding to recombination.

As a result of the present high spectral resolution and high signal-to-noise observations, the identification of deuterium Balmer lines is now very safe.

## 5 Conclusion

Detection of deuterium Balmer emission in five H ii regions is reported. These are first detections in four targets, including an extragalactic one. Detection was made feasible thanks to the large collecting area of the 8.2m VLT mirror and the high efficiency of UVES. Fluorescence is confirmed as the probable excitation mechanism of D i, recombination being excluded. Spectroscopic criteria leading to virtually certain identification of D i in any given H ii region are now clearly established.

Possible ways to determine D/H from D i Balmer lines were discussed in Paper I. One method requires a knowledge of the $`n`$ for which the line ratio D i/H i starts decreasing. The detection of D i up to D9, and possibly D16, in Orion suggests this as a promising way of investigation. Comparison of D i to O i fluorescence lines, present in the UVES spectra and also produced in the PDR, may be another way to explore.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the staff of the VLT for excellent assistance.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The QCD perturbation series diverges in a factorial manner. If A is the amplitude for an infrared safe process and if $`A_n\alpha ^n`$ is the $`n^{th}`$ order term in its perturbative expansion one expects terms of the form $`A_ncn!R^nn^\gamma `$ at large orders. While $`\gamma `$ depends on the amplitude in question, $`R`$ is independent of $`A.`$ The only known sources for such factorial terms are infrared renormalons, ultraviolet renormalons and instantons. At large orders the logarithmic dependence of the running coupling gives $`n!`$ terms. When these terms come from low momentum regions they give singularities (infrared renormalons) in the right-half plane of the Borel function corresponding to A. Such singularities signal a breakdown of the perturbative expansion and correspond to higher twist terms, requiring nonperturbative information, when that expansion is done for a hard process. Running coupling effects in the ultraviolet regime lead to singularities in the left-half Borel plane which are harmless and do not obstruct the Borel resummation of the series. The third type of singularities, nonsummable singularities in the right-half Borel plane, can be viewed in two seemingly different ways. On the one hand the leading singularity of this variety is believed to correspond to a well separated instanton-antiinstanton pair having action $`4\pi /\alpha `$ and leading to a singularity at $`b=4\pi `$ in the Borel plane. On the other hand, this singularity is believed to be due to graph counting and as such should be visible in large order perturbative calculations. The precise relationship between the Feynman graph picture and the instanton picture has never been given and it is this task which motivates the present work.

In order to gain an understanding of what the relationship between large order graphs and instantons might be, we study here the analogous question for the quantum mechanical double well oscillator. Indeed it is well-known that there is a simple relationship between the instantons in the double well oscillator and the QCD instantons. Since graph counting only depends on the types of vertices in the theory, but not on whether a field theory or a quantum mechanical problem is being considered, one can expect this aspect of the problem also to be similar for the double well oscillator and for QCD.

The relationship between classical solutions and graphs is understood for the anharmonic oscillator, $`S=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t[\frac{1}{2}\dot{\phi }^2(t)+\frac{1}{2}\phi ^2(t)+\frac{1}{2}\alpha \phi ^4(t)]`$ in Euclidean time. For large $`n`$ the evaluation of the $`n^{th}`$ order coefficient, $`A_n,`$ in a perturbative series in $`\alpha `$ is determined by the classical solution to the Lagrangian after making the replacement $`\alpha 2/3n.`$ One may view $`A_n`$ as being given by the number of graphs at order $`n`$ times the value of a typical graph, which value is determined by a classical (bounce) solution.

We follow the same procedure in the double well oscillator whose (Euclidean) Lagrangian is given in (1). Since we are interested in evaluating large order graphs we find it useful to write the perturbative expansion in terms of the number of 3-vertices, $`2n_3,`$ and the number of 4-vertices, $`n_4,`$ as indicated in (26). Following the Lipatov procedure we are able in Sec.2 to evaluate $`E(n_3,n_4),`$ the sum of all graphs having $`2n_3`$ 3-vertices and $`n_4`$ 4-vertices, in terms of a classical solution to (12) and (16). However, this classical solution seems to be unrelated to the instanton solution of the original double well potential. This classical solution (20) and (21) and the evaluation of the small oscillations about it are given in Sec.3. The evaluation of the coefficient of $`\alpha ^n,n=n_3+n_4,`$ involves the sum $`_{n_4=0}^nE(nn_4,n_4)=_{n_4=0}^n(1)^{n_4}|E(nn_4,n_4)|,`$ an alternating sign series with delicate cancellations. Nevertheless, the classical solution can be used to compute $`E(n_3,n_4)`$ with sufficient accuracy to do the sum and generate the perturbation series in $`\alpha ^n.`$ This is done in Sec.4 where all the $`E(n_3,n_4)`$ are given (numerically) for $`n_3+n_4=10.`$

However, we still have not made a connection between graphs and the instanton-antiinstanton solution of the double well potential. To do this we go to the Borel plane and look at the singularity at $`b=1/3`$ which is known to be related to the instanton-antiinstanton solution, and which we are going to evaluate in terms of graphs. The integrand of the Borel representation is given in Sec.5. In Secs. 6 and 7 we evaluate the Borel integrand and find the singularity at $`b=1/3.`$ In this evaluation we face the same alternating sign series involving $`E(n_3,n_4)=|E(n_3,n_4)|(1)^{n_4}.`$ To avoid this alternating sign we write the $`n_4`$ sum as a Sommerfeld-Watson integral first in $`n_4`$ and later in $`r=n_4/n_3.`$ For $`b`$ near $`1/3`$ the pole part of the Borel integrand is determined by values of $`r`$ and $`n_3`$ given by $`n_3[\frac{1}{3}b]^1|log(1/3b)|`$ and $`1r|log(1/3b)|^1.`$ Thus the instanton-antiinstanton solution corresponds to a graph with a large number, $`2n_3,`$ of 3-vertices and a large negative number, $`rn_3,`$ of 4-vertices with the instanton-antiinstanton separation given by $`T=\frac{2}{3}(1r)^1.`$ We have no simple interpretation of why the instanton-antiinstanton pair corresponds to an (analytically continued) negative number of 4-vertices.

In Sec.8, we discuss the instanton-antiinstanton solution as the analytic continuation of the bounce solution we found in Sec.3 and comment on the zero mode. We emphasize, however, that (55) is an exact solution to (12) and closely resembles the usual $`I\overline{I}`$ pair when $`ϵ`$ is small. We note that we have no quasi-zero mode in our formalism because the instanton-antiinstanton separation is fixed in terms of the value of $`1/3b`$ in the Borel integrand.

In Appendix A we evaluate integrals which appear while in Appendix B we evaluate the determinant of the small fluctuations about the classical solution describing large order graphs.

## 2 Saddle point of the effective action and large orders of the perturbation series

We start from the Euclidean time Lagrangian for a double well anharmonic oscillator with degenerate vacua at $`\phi =0`$ and $`\phi =1/\sqrt{\alpha }.`$ The potential is shown in Fig.1 and the Lagrangian is given by

$$L=\frac{1}{2}\dot{\phi }^2+\frac{1}{2}\phi ^2\sqrt{\alpha }\phi ^3+\frac{1}{2}\alpha \phi ^4.$$
(1)
We want to calculate the large order in $`\alpha `$ behavior of the ground state energy $`E(\alpha )`$ which is given by the path integral

$$E(\alpha )E(0)=\underset{\beta \mathrm{}}{lim}\left(\frac{1}{\beta }logZ(\alpha )\right)$$
(2)
where

$$Z(\alpha )=\frac{1}{Z(0)}D\phi e^{S[\phi ]}$$
(3)
$$Z(0)=D\phi e^{S_0[\phi ]},$$
(4)
with

$$S[\phi ]=\frac{1}{2}𝑑t(\dot{\phi }^2(t)+\phi ^2(t))\sqrt{\alpha }𝑑t\phi ^3(t)+\frac{1}{2}\alpha 𝑑t\phi ^4(t).$$
(5)
$`S_0[\phi ]`$ is the action of the free theory defined by

$$L_0=\frac{1}{2}\dot{\phi }^2+\frac{1}{2}\phi ^2.$$
(6)
In the path integral in (3) the configurations $`\phi (t)`$ satisfy the periodic boundary condition

$$\phi (\mathrm{})=\phi (\mathrm{}).$$
(7)
To construct the perturbation series one expands the exponentials of the interaction terms of $`S`$ in (3) to obtain

$$Z(\alpha )=\frac{1}{Z(0)}\underset{n_3,n_4}{}\frac{\alpha ^{n_3+n_4}(1)^{n_4}}{(2n_3)!n_4!2^{n_4}}D\phi e^{S_{eff}[\phi ]}$$
(8)
where the effective action is

$$S_{eff}=𝑑t(\frac{1}{2}\dot{\phi }^2+\frac{1}{2}\phi ^2)2n_3log𝑑t\phi ^3n_4log𝑑t\phi ^4.$$
(9)
Next, in order to evaluate the terms in the sum in (8) when $`n_3`$ and/or $`n_4`$ are large we look for a saddle point $`\phi _c(t),`$ a classical solution, which minimizes the effective action. Then we use the steepest descent method to evaluate the path integral in (8) in terms of paths near the classical solution. Thus we can write

$$Z(\alpha )=\underset{n_3,n_4}{}\frac{\alpha ^{n_3+n_4}2(1)^{n_4}𝒩_\phi e^{S_{eff}[\phi _c]}}{(2n_3)!n_4!2^{n_4}}.$$
(10)
$`𝒩_\phi `$ is the prefactor coming from the integration around $`\phi _c`$ divided by the normalization factor $`Z(0).`$ This small fluctuation integration is Gaussiasn after the zero mode is isolated. The zero mode is a consequence of the translational invariance of the problem. If $`\phi _c(t)`$ is a solution, then $`\phi _c(t\tau )`$ is also a solution for any $`\tau .`$ The factor of 2 in (10) appears because there is a discrete symmetry. If $`\phi _c`$ is a solution, then $`\phi _c`$ is also one. Now the solution is found from

$$\frac{\delta S_{eff}}{\delta \phi (t)}|_{\phi _c}=0,$$
(11)
which leads to

$$K_0\phi _c=\frac{6n_3}{𝑑t\phi _c^3}\phi _c^2+\frac{4n_4}{𝑑t\phi _c^4}\phi _c^3$$
(12)
where

$$K_0=\frac{d^2}{dt^2}+1.$$
(13)
In order to simplify the differential equation rescale the positive $`\phi _c`$ according to

$$\phi _c=\sqrt{\frac{2n_3}{J_3}}\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c,$$
(14)
and define the integrals

$$J_2=𝑑t\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2,\dot{J}_2=𝑑t\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c^2$$

$$J_3=𝑑t\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3,J_4=𝑑t\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^4.$$
(15)
Then Eq.(12) becomes

$$K_0\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c=3\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2+2(ϵ^21)\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3$$
(16)
where, for convenience, we have defined the parameter

$$ϵ^2=1+\frac{n_4}{n_3}\frac{J_3}{J_4}.$$
(17)
Notice that $`ϵ^2`$ is the only parameter appearing in Eq.(16). The solution $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c`$ and therefore the integrals $`J_3,J_4`$ depend only on this single parameter. Thus, given the ratio $`n_4/n_3,ϵ^2`$ can be found from (17). In other words every quantity which is a function of $`ϵ^2`$ can be considered a function of $`n_4/n_3.`$ For fixed $`ϵ^2,`$ one can give an effective potential leading to (16). This potential is stable at infinity since $`ϵ^2>1`$ as can be seen from the defining equation (17). The effective potential is shown in Fig.2 where the dotted line shows the classical path $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c`$ which is positive. Before moving on to find $`\phi _c,`$ let’s calculate $`S_{eff}[\phi _c]`$ in terms of $`ϵ^2,n_3,n_4.`$ Multiplying (16) by $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c`$ and integrating one obtains

$$J_2+\dot{J}_2=\left(3+\frac{2n_4}{n_3}\right)J_3$$
(18)
where we have used (17). Substitution of (14) and (18) into (9) gives

$$S_{eff}[\phi _c]=3n_3+2n_4n_3log\frac{8n_3^3}{J_3}n_4log\frac{4n_3^2J_4}{J_3^2}.$$
(19)
## 3 The classical solution

Given the ratio $`n_4/n_3`$ the solution of equation (16) is unique when one imposes the boundary condition, but there is a freedom to make time translations. Integrating twice, the positive solution that satisfies (16) is

$$\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c=\frac{1}{1+ϵch(t\tau )},$$
(20)
for any $`\tau ,`$ demonstrating the translational symmetry of the system. The non-scaled solution is

$$\phi _c=\sqrt{\frac{2n_3}{J_3}}\frac{1}{1+ϵch(t\tau )}.$$
(21)
$`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c`$ is shown in Fig.3 as a function of time. As one can see clearly in both Figs.2 and 3, $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c`$ starts from 0 in the remote past. It remains almost zero for $`\tau t>>1`$ because of the exponential behavior of (20). It increases significantly from zero in region of $`t`$ near $`\tau .`$ At $`t=\tau \stackrel{~}{\phi }_c`$ reaches its maximum value $`(1+ϵ)^1.`$ This is also evident in Fig.2, since this value is also the point where the effective potential vanishes.

The calculation of the integrals appearing in (15), as functions of $`ϵ^2,`$ is given in Appendix A. One obtains

$$J_3=\frac{3}{(ϵ^21)^2}+\frac{ϵ^2+2}{(ϵ^21)^{5/2}}tan^1\sqrt{ϵ^21}$$

$$J_4=\frac{4ϵ^2+11}{3(ϵ^21)^3}\frac{3ϵ^2+2}{(ϵ^21)^{7/2}}tan^1\sqrt{ϵ^21}$$
(22)
$$\dot{J}_2=\frac{1}{2}[J_3+(ϵ^21)J_4].$$

The calculation of the prefactor $`𝒩_\phi `$ is given in Appendix B. After isolating the zero mode, it involves the calculation of the determinant of a nontrivial non-local operator. We find

$$𝒩_\phi =\beta \sqrt{n_3}\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi $$

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi =\sqrt{\frac{8J_4}{\pi [6\dot{J}_2(J_3J_4)2ϵ^2J_3J_4]}},$$
(23)
where $`\beta `$, coming from the zero mode, is the “volume” of the 1-dimensional Euclidean time, and the $`\sqrt{n_3}`$ factor in (23) comes from an identical factor appearing in the relation (14) between $`\phi _c`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c.\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi `$ is a function only of $`ϵ^2.`$ One can show that it is an increasing function for $`ϵ^2>1.`$ The limit

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi ^2\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{}{}}{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ϵ^21}{}}15/\pi $$
(24)
shows that our solution is stable, that is it minimizes the effective action.

## 4 Asymptotic results for the large $`n_3,n_4`$ perturbative coefficients and a numerical application

Because of the factorial growth of the perturbative coefficients in (10), which originates from the factor $`exp(S_{eff}[\phi _c]),`$ one can write the leading asymptotic series for Eq.(2) as

$$E(\alpha )E(0)=\underset{\beta \mathrm{}}{lim}\left(\frac{Z(\alpha )}{\beta }\right).$$
(25)
The error from this approximation appears only in the non-leading terms of the series . Using Eqs.(10) and (23) one sees that the “volume” $`\beta `$ drops out and the ground state energy is

$$E(\alpha )=\frac{1}{2}+\underset{n_3,n_4}{}\alpha ^{n_3+n_4}E(n_3,n_4)$$
(26)
the coefficients being

$$E(n_3,n_4)=\frac{(1)^{n_4+1}2\sqrt{n_3}\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi e^{S_{eff}[\phi _c]}}{(2n_3)!n_4!2^{n_4}}.$$
(27)
Formulas (17), (19), (22), (23), (27) give complete results for the perturbative coefficients when $`n_3`$ and/or $`n_4`$ are large.

It is not difficult to find $`E(n_3,n_4)`$ numerically. For given $`n_3`$ and $`n_4`$ we first solve Eqs.(17) and (22) numerically to determine $`ϵ^2.`$ Then we get $`J_3,J_4,\dot{J}_2`$ from (22), $`S_{eff}[\phi _c]`$ from (19), $`\stackrel{~}{N}_\phi `$ from (23) and finally $`E(n_3,n_4)`$ from (27). As an application we fix the order to be $`n=n_3+n_4=10.`$ We find the values $`E(n_3,n_4)`$ presented in Table 1. Because of the alternating sign of the series, delicate cancellations occur when we sum the terms and the result is

$$\underset{n_3=0}{\overset{10}{}}E(n_3,10n_3)=2.019\times 10^{11}$$
(28)
which is 4 orders of magnitude smaller than the largest term. It is a well-known result, which we also derive using a different approach later in this paper, that

$$E(\alpha )=\underset{n}{}E_n\alpha ^n=\underset{n}{}\frac{3^{n+1}n!}{\pi }\alpha ^n$$
(29)
neglecting preasymptotics corrections which behave like $`1/n`$ compared to $`E_n`$. From (29) we obtain

$$E_{10}=2.046\times 10^{11}$$
(30)
Comparing (28) and (30) we see that the error is 1.31%. As $`n`$ becomes larger, the error becomes smaller, and also both (27) and (29) are getting closer to the exact value. Recall that our approach is to use the steepest descent method around the saddle point $`\phi _c.`$ We calculate only the Gaussian fluctuations. This will lead to equation (29) as we show in the following sections.

## 5 Borel transformation of the series

Neglecting the, unimportant for our purposes, zeroth order term $`E(0)=1/2`$ we can write (26) as

$$E(\alpha )=\frac{1}{\alpha }𝑑be^{\frac{b}{\alpha }}\underset{n_3,n_4}{}\frac{E(n_3,n_4)b^{n_3+n_4}}{(n_3+n_4)!},$$
(31)
or

$$E(\alpha )=\frac{1}{\alpha }𝑑be^{\frac{b}{\alpha }}\stackrel{~}{E}(b)$$
(32)
where the Borel transform $`\stackrel{~}{E}(b)`$ of the ground state energy is given by the series

$$\stackrel{~}{E}(b)=\underset{n_3,n_4}{}\frac{b^{n_3+n_4}(1)^{n_4+1}2\sqrt{n_3}\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi e^{S_{eff}[\phi _c]}}{(2n_3)!n_4!(n_3+n_4)!2^{n_4}}.$$
(33)
In order to show that (27) is in exact agreement with (29) we shall show that $`\stackrel{~}{E}(b),`$ as given by (33), leads to a simple pole in the Borel plane with the residue demanded by (29). This requires transforming the $`n_4`$-sum in (33) into an integral and summing over $`n_3,`$ tasks to which we now turn.

## 6 Analytical continuation in the complex $`n_4`$ plane and summation over the 3-vertices

The summand in (33) has a very complicated dependence on $`ϵ^2`$ and the terms are of alternating sign in $`n_4.`$ The summation over $`n_4`$ cannot be done directly. We replace this summation by an integration over a contour in the complex $`n_4`$ plane in the following way. In general, let

$$\sigma =\underset{n_4=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^{n_4+1}f(n_4)$$
(34)
then

$$\sigma =\frac{i}{2}_c^{}\frac{dn_4f(n_4)}{sin\pi n_4},$$
(35)
where the contour $`c^{}`$ includes all non-negative integers and is shown in Fig.4. Now let $`n_4=\stackrel{~}{n}_4,`$ then

$$\sigma =\frac{i}{2}_c\frac{d\stackrel{~}{n}_4f(\stackrel{~}{n}_4)}{sin\pi \stackrel{~}{n}_4}$$
(36)
where $`c`$ is also shown in Fig.4. Using

$$\stackrel{~}{n}_4!(\stackrel{~}{n}_4)!=\frac{\pi \stackrel{~}{n}_4}{sin\pi \stackrel{~}{n}_4}$$
(37)
we finally get

$$\sigma =\frac{i}{2\pi }_c\frac{d\stackrel{~}{n}_4}{\stackrel{~}{n}_4}f(\stackrel{~}{n}_4)\stackrel{~}{n}_4!(\stackrel{~}{n}_4)!.$$
(38)
Therefore one can write $`\stackrel{~}{E}(b)`$ as

$$\stackrel{~}{E}(b)=\frac{i}{\pi }\underset{n_3}{}_c𝑑\stackrel{~}{n}_4\frac{b^{n_3\stackrel{~}{n}_4}2^{\stackrel{~}{n}_4}\stackrel{~}{n}_4!\sqrt{n_3}\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi e^{S_{eff}[\phi _c]}}{\stackrel{~}{n}_4(2n_3)!(n_3\stackrel{~}{n}_4)!}.$$
(39)
Notice, as is shown in Fig.4, that one can extend the contour $`c`$ in (39) to include positive integers too, so long as $`\stackrel{~}{n}_4<n_3.`$ This will be important since, as we shall see, the dominant contribution will come from large and positive $`\stackrel{~}{n}_4`$ close to $`n_3.`$

In equation (39) one has to let $`n_4\stackrel{~}{n}_4`$ in $`S_{eff}[\phi _c]`$ and analytically continue the integrals $`J_3,J_4,\dot{J}_2`$ for complex $`ϵ^2`$ as given in Appendix A. The variable $`ϵ^2`$ clearly becomes

$$ϵ^2=1\frac{\stackrel{~}{n}_4}{n_3}\frac{J_3}{J_4}.$$
(40)
Using Stirling’s approximation for the factorials, (39) becomes

$$\stackrel{~}{E}(b)=\frac{i}{\sqrt{4\pi ^3}}\underset{n_3}{}_c𝑑\stackrel{~}{n}_4\frac{\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi e^{n_3A}}{\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{n}_4(n_3\stackrel{~}{n}_4)}}$$
(41)
where A is a function of $`ϵ^2`$ and b and is given by

$$A=\frac{2\dot{J}_2}{J_3}log\frac{\dot{J}_2}{b}\frac{(1ϵ^2)J_4}{J_3}log(1ϵ^2).$$
(42)
Since A depends on $`n_3,\stackrel{~}{n}_4`$ only through their ratio, we change variables from $`n_3`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{n}_4`$ to $`n_3`$ and $`r`$ where

$$\stackrel{~}{n}_4=n_3r$$
(43)
and hence

$$d\stackrel{~}{n}_4=n_3dr.$$
(44)
Then Eq.(41) becomes

$$\stackrel{~}{E}(b)=\frac{i}{\sqrt{4\pi ^3}}\frac{dr\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi }{\sqrt{r(1r)}}\underset{n_3=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{n_3A}.$$
(45)
The summation over the 3-vertices is now trivial leading to

$$\stackrel{~}{E}(b)=\frac{i}{\sqrt{4\pi ^3}}\frac{dr\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi }{\sqrt{r(1r)}(1e^A)}.$$
(46)
## 7 The singularity in the Borel plane

As is clear from (46) the singularity of $`\stackrel{~}{E}(b)`$ will come at a value of b where A vanishes. It is not too difficult to see that the important region of integration in equation (46) is for small $`ϵ^2.`$ Defining

$$T=log\frac{ϵ^2}{4}$$
(47)
and using the expansions of Appendix A we have

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi =\sqrt{\frac{6T}{\pi }}$$
(48)
$$r=1\frac{2}{3T}$$
(49)
$$dr=\frac{2}{3T^2}dT$$
(50)
and

$$A=\frac{2}{T}(\delta b2e^T),$$
(51)
where $`\delta b=1/3b`$ is small. Substitution of the above in (46) gives

$$\stackrel{~}{E}(b)=\frac{i}{2\pi ^2}\frac{dT}{\delta b2e^T}.$$
(52)
Defining $`z=2e^T`$ and using $`dz=zdT`$ we get

$$\stackrel{~}{E}(b)=\frac{i}{2\pi ^2}\frac{dz}{z(z\delta b)}.$$
(53)
where the integration contour in (53) is shown in Fig.5, in the region where a pinch occurs. The integrand has a first-order pole at $`\delta b`$ and the residue is $`1/\delta b.`$ Thus we finally find

$$\stackrel{~}{E}(b)=\frac{1}{\pi }\frac{1}{\frac{1}{3}b}$$
(54)
which is the well-known result. The Borel transform of the ground state energy has a 1st order pole at $`b=1/3`$ with residue $`1/\pi .`$ Using (54), Eq.(32) gives the leading asymptotic series in Eq.(29).

Finally we note that as $`1/3b`$ becomes small the pinch in the z-integration in (53) at $`z=0`$ (or at $`T=\mathrm{}`$) corresponds to a pinch of the $`r`$integration contour in (46) at $`r=1`$ as is evident from (49). This means that one can view the pole in $`\stackrel{~}{E}(b)`$ at $`b=1/3`$ as being determined by a particular “graph” having $`n_3n_4=\stackrel{~}{n}_4`$ large, that is a large but negative number of 4-vertices.

## 8 The $`I\overline{I}`$ pair and comments

The classical solution (21) can also be expressed as

$$\phi _c=\sqrt{\frac{n}{\dot{J}_2}}\frac{1}{1+ϵch(t\tau )}$$
(55)
where $`n=n_3+n_4=n_3\stackrel{~}{n_4}.`$ Therefore $`\phi _c`$ grows with the square root of the order in the perturbation series. When $`ϵ^2`$ is small, $`\dot{J}_2`$ is close to $`1/3`$ leading to

$$\phi _c\sqrt{3n}\frac{1}{1+ϵch(t\tau )}.$$
(56)
Now consider a “standard” approximate solution  to the equation of motion

$$\ddot{\phi }+\phi =3\sqrt{\alpha }\phi ^22\alpha \phi ^3$$
(57)
corresponding to the Lagrangian given by (1)

$$\phi =\frac{1}{\sqrt{\alpha }}\{\frac{1}{e^{(t\tau +\frac{\stackrel{~}{T}}{2})}+1}+\frac{1}{e^{t\tau \frac{\stackrel{~}{T}}{2}}+1}1\}.$$
(58)
The instanton has its center at $`\tau \stackrel{~}{T}/2`$ and the antiinstanton at $`\tau +\stackrel{~}{T}/2,`$ their separation being $`\stackrel{~}{T}.`$ When $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$ is large, (58) is an approximate solution to (57). It may be written in the form

$$\phi =\frac{1}{\sqrt{\alpha }}\frac{th\frac{\stackrel{~}{T}}{2}}{1+(ch\frac{\stackrel{~}{T}}{2})^1ch(t\tau )},$$
(59)
and as $`\stackrel{~}{T}\mathrm{},`$ or $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}^2=4e^{\stackrel{~}{T}}0,`$ one finds

$$\phi \frac{1}{\sqrt{\alpha }}\frac{1}{1+\stackrel{~}{ϵ}ch(t\tau )}.$$
(60)
Comparing (56), (60) we see that our exact solution of $`S_{eff}`$ represents an $`I\overline{I}`$ pair centered at $`t=\tau `$ and the separation is $`T=\mathrm{log}(ϵ^2/4).`$ This is shown in Fig.6. The small $`ϵ^2`$ term in (16) is the difference between equations (16) and (57), but this is what allows us to have an exact $`I\overline{I}`$ solution. Fig.7 shows the effective potential for fixed small $`ϵ^2.`$ The conclusion is that the solution of the differential equation (16) which describes large order graphs is an $`I\overline{I}`$ pair. This pair is a large fluctuation of the vacuum, but it has zero topological charge, and it emerges in a perturbative approach.

It is also instructive to compare the coefficients $`\sqrt{3n}`$ and $`1/\sqrt{\alpha }`$ in (56), (60). These coefficients become equal when

$$3\alpha n=1.$$
(61)
To interpret this we differentiate $`E_n`$ of Eq.(29) to see when the asymptotic series starts to diverge. One finds that $`\frac{dE_n}{dn}=0`$ exactly when (61) is satisfied so that the solution, (56), determining the large orders of the perturbation theory agrees with the $`I\overline{I}`$ approximate solution of the original Lagrangian just when the perturbation series starts to diverge.

Finally, we make a couple of comments. As mentioned earlier the value of the effective action does not depend on the position $`\tau `$ of the center of the $`I\overline{I}`$ pair. As can be seen from Appendix B, the existence of this “collective coordinate” results in a factor

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\sqrt{\frac{2n_3\dot{J}_2}{J_3}}=\sqrt{n}.$$
(62)
This is equivalent to the statement that in a general interacting theory with coupling $`\alpha ,`$ each collective coordinate, which comes from a symmetry, results in a factor $`1/\sqrt{\alpha }.`$ One should also comment on the quasizero mode which normally appears as a fluctuation of the $`I\overline{I}`$ separation. In Appendix B we calculate the determinantal ratio $`det^{}(K+U)/detK_0`$ which is $`(18T^2)^1`$ for large $`T.`$ It looks as if there exists a small eigenvalue with eigenfunction, say, $`\eta _1.`$ However, the fluctuation of the action along $`\eta _1`$ is large. From the scaling relation (14) one has

$$\eta _1\sqrt{\frac{n_3}{J_3}}\sqrt{\frac{n_3}{T}}.$$
(63)
Therefore, there is an additional overall factor of $`n_3/T`$ coming into the effective action (see (B2) and (B3)) leading to

$$\mathrm{\Delta }S_{eff}\lambda _1\eta _1^2n_3/T^3$$
(64)
from the eigenmode corresponding to $`\eta _1.`$ From (45), (46), and (51) we see that the important region of $`n_3`$ is

$$n_3\frac{1}{A}\frac{T}{ϵ^2}.$$
(65)
Thus (64) becomes

$$\mathrm{\Delta }S_{eff}\frac{1}{ϵ^2T^2}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{}{}}{ϵ^20}\mathrm{}.$$
$`(66)`$
APPENDIX A Here we calculate the integrals $`J_3,J_4`$ and $`\dot{J}_2`$ as functions of $`ϵ^2,`$ first for $`ϵ^2>1.`$ We start from the integral

$$J(a)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dt}{a+ϵcht}=\frac{2}{\sqrt{ϵ^2a^2}}tan^1\sqrt{\frac{ϵ^2}{a^2}1}$$
$`(A1)`$
for $`a<ϵ.`$ Differentiating with respect to $`a`$ and setting $`a=1`$ we get $`J_3,J_4`$ from

$$J_{n+1}=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dt}{(a+ϵcht)^{n+1}}=\frac{(1)^n}{n!}\frac{d^nJ(a)}{da^n}|_{a=1}.$$
$`(A2)`$
Thus

$$J_3=\frac{3}{(ϵ^21)^2}+\frac{ϵ^2+2}{(ϵ^21)^{5/2}}tan^1\sqrt{ϵ^21},$$
$`(A3)`$
and

$$J_4=\frac{4ϵ^2+11}{3(ϵ^21)^3}\frac{3ϵ^2+2}{(ϵ^21)^{7/2}}tan^1\sqrt{ϵ^21}.$$
$`(A4)`$
One can obtain $`\dot{J}_2`$ by using the differential equation (16):

$$\ddot{\stackrel{~}{\phi _c}}+\stackrel{~}{\phi _c}=3\stackrel{~}{\phi _c}^2+2(ϵ^21)\stackrel{~}{\phi _c}^3.$$
$`(A5)`$
Multiplying (A5) by $`\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi _c}}`$ and integrating one obtains

$$\dot{J}_2J_2=2J_3(ϵ^21)J_4.$$
$`(A6)`$
Multiplying (A5) by $`\stackrel{~}{\phi _c}`$ and integrating gives

$$\dot{J}_2+J_2=3J_3+2(ϵ^21)J_4.$$
$`(A7)`$
Equations (A6) and (A7) give

$$\dot{J}_2=\frac{1}{2}[J_3+(ϵ^21)J_4].$$
$`(A8)`$
One may use the above equations for complex $`ϵ^2.`$ Since we need the integrals for small and complex $`ϵ^2`$ we write them in the more convenient form

$$J_3=\frac{3}{(1ϵ^2)^2}+\frac{2+ϵ^2}{(1ϵ^2)^{5/2}}th^1\sqrt{1ϵ^2}$$
$`(A9)`$
$$J_4=\frac{11+4ϵ^2}{3(1ϵ^2)^3}+\frac{2+3ϵ^2}{(1ϵ^2)^{7/2}}th^1\sqrt{1ϵ^2},$$
$`(A10)`$
where $`\dot{J}_2`$ is still given by (A8). The expansions to order $`ϵ^2,`$ for small $`ϵ^2`$ or equivalently large $`T=log(ϵ^2/4),`$ are:

$$J_3=T3+(12T26)\frac{ϵ^2}{4}$$
$`(A11)`$
$$J_4=T\frac{11}{3}+(20T\frac{154}{3})\frac{ϵ^2}{4}$$
$`(A12)`$
$$\dot{J}_2=\frac{1}{3}(2T\frac{16}{3})\frac{ϵ^2}{4}$$
$`(A13)`$
$$\frac{\stackrel{~}{n}_4}{n_3}=1\frac{2}{3(T3)}+\frac{4[T(3T11)+11]}{3(T3)^2}\frac{ϵ^2}{4}$$
$`(A14)`$
where we have used (40) to derive (A14).

Appendix B Here we calculate the prefactor $`𝒩_\phi .`$ The effective action is given by (9). Its second derivate evaluated at the saddle point $`\phi _c`$ is given by

$$\frac{\delta ^2S_{eff}}{\delta \phi (t^{})\delta \phi (t)}|_{\phi _c}=\{\frac{d^2}{dt^2}+16\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c(t\tau )6(ϵ^21)\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2(t\tau )\}\delta (tt^{})$$

$$+\frac{9}{J_3}\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2(t\tau )\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2(t^{}\tau )+\frac{8(ϵ^21)}{J_4}\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3(t\tau )\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3(t^{}\tau ).$$
$`(B1)`$
Let $`\eta (t)`$ be the small fluctuation around $`\phi _c(t\tau ).`$ Then the small fluctuation action is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }S_{eff}=\frac{1}{2}𝑑t𝑑t^{}\frac{\delta ^2S_{eff}}{\delta \phi (t^{})\delta \phi (t)}|_{\phi _c}\eta (t)\eta (t^{}).$$
$`(B2)`$
Substituting (B1) into (B2) we can write $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_{eff}`$ in a convenient bracket notation as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }S_{eff}=\frac{1}{2}<\eta |(K+U)_\tau |\eta >$$
$`(B3)`$
with

$$K=K_06\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c6(ϵ^21)\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2$$
$`(B4)`$
$$U=\frac{9}{J_3}|\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2><\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2|+\frac{8(ϵ^21)}{J_4}|\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3><\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3|.$$
$`(B5)`$
The index $`\tau `$ means that the argument of $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c`$ is $`t\tau .`$

Thus the prefactor is

$$𝒩_\phi =\frac{D\eta exp\{\frac{1}{2}<\eta |(K+U)_\tau |\eta >\}}{D\eta exp\{\frac{1}{2}<\eta |K_0|\eta >\}}.$$
$`(B6)`$
The nonlocal operator $`(K+U)_\tau `$ has a zero mode given by $`\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c(t\tau ).`$ First notice that

$$U|\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c>=0$$
$`(B7)`$
since $`<\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2|\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c>=<\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3|\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c>=0`$ because $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c`$ is even while $`\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c`$ is odd. Also

$$K\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c=K_0\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c6\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c6(ϵ^21)\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c$$

$$=\frac{d}{dt}(3\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2+2(ϵ^21)\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3)6\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c6(ϵ^21)\stackrel{~}{\phi _c}^2\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c$$

implies

$$K\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c=0.$$
$`(B8)`$
Therefore

$$(K+U)_\tau |\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c(t\tau )>=0.$$
$`(B9)`$
Since $`<\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c|\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c}>=\dot{J}_2`$ we define the zero frequency normalized eigenfunction by

$$\eta _0(t\tau )=\frac{\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c(t\tau )}{\sqrt{\dot{J}_2}}.$$
$`(B10)`$
Now use the Fadeev-Popov trick to change the zero eigenvalue into a collective coordinate integration

$$1=𝑑\tau \delta (<\eta (t)|\eta _0(t\tau )>)\mathrm{\Delta }$$
$`(B11)`$
where

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{d}{d\tau }<\eta (t)|\eta _0(t\tau )>.$$
$`(B12)`$
Equation (B12) leads to

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=<\dot{\phi }(t)|\eta _0(t\tau )>.$$
$`(B13)`$
In the sense of the steepest descent method $`\dot{\phi }(t)`$ may be approximated by $`\dot{\phi }_c(t\tau )`$ so that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=<\dot{\phi }_c(t\tau )|\eta _0(t\tau )>$$
$`(B14)`$
giving finally

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\sqrt{\frac{2n_3\dot{J}_2}{J_3}}.$$
$`(B15)`$
The identity (B11) is inserted in the functional integral expression (B6) for $`𝒩_\phi `$ giving

$$𝒩_\phi =\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }𝑑\tau D\eta \delta (<\eta |\eta _0(t\tau )>)exp\{\frac{1}{2}<\eta |(K+U)_\tau |\eta >\}}{D\eta exp\{\frac{1}{2}<\eta |K_0|\eta >\}}.$$
$`(B16)`$
In the numerator of (B16) the functional integral is independent of $`\tau ,`$ so we can choose, say, $`\tau =0.`$ The integration over $`\tau `$ is trivial and gives the one-dimensional volume of time $`\beta .`$ Thus

$$𝒩_\phi =\frac{\beta \mathrm{\Delta }}{\sqrt{2\pi }}\sqrt{\frac{detK_0}{det^{}(K+U)}}$$
$`(B17)`$
where the prime means that the zero eigenvalue is omitted because of the $`\delta `$function in (B16).

Now we turn to the nonlocal part U. In general

$$det(K+\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{N}{}}|\alpha ><\alpha |)=detKdet(1+\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{N}{}}K^1|\alpha ><\alpha |)$$
$`(B18)`$
where $`K^1`$ is well-defined and is linear. The second determinant can be shown to obey

$$det(1+\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{N}{}}K^1|\alpha ><\alpha |)=det(1+\widehat{K}^1)$$
$`(B19)`$
where on the right-hand side of (B19) $`\widehat{K}^1`$ is a $`N\times N`$ matrix with elements

$$\widehat{K}_{\alpha \alpha ^{}}^1=<\alpha |K^1|\alpha ^{}>.$$
$`(B20)`$
In our case $`K^1`$ is well-defined because we consider the primed determinant. The operation of $`K^1`$ on $`|\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2>,|\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3>`$ is also defined because these states are orthogonal to the zero mode. Thus

$$det^{}(K+U)=det^{}Kdet(1+\widehat{K}^1)$$
$`(B21)`$
$$det(1+\widehat{K}^1)=(1+\frac{9}{J_3}\widehat{K}_{22}^1)(1+\frac{8(ϵ^21)}{J_4}\widehat{K}_{33}^1)\frac{72(ϵ^21)}{J_3J_4}(\widehat{K}_{23}^1)^2.$$
$`(B22)`$
It is not difficult to find the three matrix elements. Start from the operation of $`K`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c:`$

$$K\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c=3\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^24(ϵ^21)\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3$$

$$\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c=3K^1\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^24(ϵ^21)K^1\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3.$$
$`(B23)`$
Multiplying (B23) by $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3`$ in turn and integrating gives

$$J_3=3\widehat{K}_{22}^14(ϵ^21)\widehat{K}_{23}^1$$
$`(B24)`$
and

$$J_4=3\widehat{K}_{23}^14(ϵ^21)\widehat{K}_{33}^1.$$
$`(B25)`$
A third equation may be obtained from the operation of $`K`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2`$ in a similar way:

$$K\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2=3\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2+4\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3$$

$$\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^{}3K^1\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^2+4K^1\stackrel{~}{\phi }_c^3$$

$$J_4=3\widehat{K}_{22}^1+4\widehat{K}_{23}^1.$$
$`(B26)`$
Solving (B24), (B25), (B26) we find the matrix elements and (B22) gives

$$det(1+\widehat{K}^1)=2\frac{6\dot{J}_2(J_3J_4)}{ϵ^2J_3J_4}.$$
$`(B27)`$
Finally, we need to calculate the ratio of determinants $`det^{}K/detK_0.`$ We consider a finite sized “volume” $`\beta .`$ Then $`K`$ has no zero eigenvalue, since translation symmetry is lost, but there is a small eigenvalue $`\lambda _0`$ which goes to zero as $`\beta \mathrm{}.`$ The determinantal ratio can be obtained just from he knowledge of the classical solution. Following references one writes

$$\frac{det^{}K}{detK_0}=\underset{\beta \mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{\psi (\beta /2)}{\lambda _0\psi ^{(0)}(\beta /2)}$$
$`(B28)`$
where $`\psi (t),\psi ^{(0)}(t)`$ are zero eigenvalue solutions of $`K,K_0`$ respectively, which do not vanish at $`t=\beta /2,`$ but satisfy the boundary conditions

$$\psi (\beta /2)=0,\dot{\psi }(\beta /2)=1,$$
$`(B29)`$
with analogous boundary conditions for $`\psi ^{(0)}.`$ It is trivial to find $`\psi ^{(0)}(\beta /2)`$ for the free theory:

$$\psi ^{(0)}(t)=sh(t+\beta /2)$$

$$\psi ^{(0)}(\beta /2)=sh\beta $$

$$\psi ^{(0)}(\beta /2)\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{}{}}{\beta \mathrm{}}e^\beta /2.$$
$`(B30)`$
Now we need to find $`\psi (t).`$ We already know one solution $`\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c`$ satisfying $`K\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c=0.`$ For convenience we normalize it to be $`\frac{ϵ}{2}\dot{\stackrel{~}{\phi }}_c`$ and call it $`\psi _1.`$ We need only the asymptotic behavior

$$\psi _1\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{}{}}{t\pm \mathrm{}}\pm e^{|t|}.$$
$`(B31)`$
A second independent solution is

$$\psi _2\psi _1(t)^t\frac{dt^{}}{\psi _1^2(t^{})},$$
$`(B32)`$
which leads to

$$\psi _2\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{}{}}{t\pm \mathrm{}}e^{|t|}.$$
$`(B33)`$
As expected $`\psi _2`$ has the opposite exponential behavior from $`\psi _1,`$ and $`\psi _2`$ is even while $`\psi _1`$ is odd. One can write the linear combination of $`\psi _1,\psi _2`$ which satisfies (B29) as

$$\psi (t)=\frac{1}{2}\{\psi _1(\beta /2)\psi _2(t)\psi _2(\beta /2)\psi _1(t)\}$$
$`(B34)`$
and its value at $`t=\beta /2\mathrm{as}\beta \mathrm{}`$ is

$$\psi (\beta /2)\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{}{}}{\beta \mathrm{}}1.$$
$`(B35)`$
It remains to get the small eigenvalues $`\lambda _0.`$ To first order in perturbation theory the solution $`\psi _\beta (t)`$ that vanishes at $`t=\pm \beta /2`$ is

$$\psi _\beta (t)=\psi (t)+\frac{\lambda _0}{2}_{\beta /2}^t𝑑t^{}\psi (t^{})[\psi _1(t)\psi _2(t^{})\psi _2(t)\psi _1(t^{})].$$
$`(B36)`$
It is obvious that $`\psi _\beta (\beta /2)=0.`$ Requiring $`\psi _\beta (\beta /2)=0`$ gives $`\lambda _0`$ as

$$\lambda _0=2[\psi _1(\beta /2)<\psi |\psi _2>\psi _2(\beta /2)<\psi |\psi _1>]^1.$$
$`(B37)`$
Substituting $`\psi `$ from (B34) in (B37) and using $`<\psi _1|\psi _2>=0`$ gives

$$\lambda _0=4[e^\beta <\psi _2|\psi _2>+e^\beta <\psi _1|\psi _1>]^1.$$
$`(B38)`$
The dominant term in (B38) is the second one which diverges while the first one remains finite for $`\beta \mathrm{}.`$ We finally obtain

$$\lambda _0=\frac{16e^\beta }{ϵ^2\dot{J}_2}$$
$`(B39)`$
which vanishes when $`\beta \mathrm{}`$ as claimed. Hence the determinantal ratio from (B28), (B30), (B35), (B39) is

$$\frac{det^{}K}{detK_0}=\frac{ϵ^2\dot{J}_2}{8}.$$
$`(B40)`$
The minus sign is not surprising since $`K`$ has a negative eigenvalue. Recall that the zero mode is odd with one node, therefore there should be an even mode with no nodes and a smaller, thus negative, eigenvalue. This minus sign causes no problem in the stability of the solution since $`det(1+\widehat{K}^1)`$ is negative too leaving the saddle point $`\phi _c`$ a minimum for the action. Putting everything together from equations (B15), (B17), (B21), (B27) and (B40) the prefactor as a function of $`n_3`$ and $`ϵ^2`$ is

$$𝒩_\phi =\beta \sqrt{n_3}\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi $$

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒩}_\phi =\sqrt{\frac{8J_4}{\pi [6\dot{J}_2(J_3J_4)2ϵ^2J_3J_4]}}.$$
$`(B41)`$


text:
# The Dynamics of the Formation of Degenerate Heavy Neutrino Stars

## Abstract

Through reformulating the cold, self-gravitating fermion gas as a Bose condensate by identifying their mutual Thomas-Fermi limits, the dissipationless formation of a heavy neutrino star in gravitational collapse is numerically demonstrated. Such stars offer an alternative to supermassive black holes for the compact dark objects at the centers of galaxies.

Supermassive neutrino stars, in which gravity is balanced by the degeneracy pressure of cold fermions, have been a subject of speculation for more than three decades . Originally, these objects were proposed as models for dark matter in galactic halos and clusters of galaxies, with neutrino masses in the $``$ eV range. More recently, however, degenerate superstars composed of weakly interacting fermions in the $``$ 10 keV range have been suggested as an alternative to the supermassive black holes that are purported to exist at the centers of galaxies . In fact it has been shown  that such degenerate fermion stars could explain the whole range of supermassive compact dark objects which have been observed so far, with masses ranging from 106 to 3 $`\times `$ 109$`M_{}`$, merely assuming that a weakly interacting quasi-stable fermion of mass $`m_f`$ 15 keV exists in nature.

As an example, the most massive and violent compact dark object ever observed is located at the center of M87 with a mass $`M`$ 3.2 $`\times `$ 10$`{}_{}{}^{9}M_{}^{}`$ . Interpreting this as a relativistic fermion star at the Oppenheimer-Volkoff  limit yields the fermion mass $`m_f`$ 15 keV and a radius $`R=`$ 4.45 $`R_\mathrm{S}`$ 1.5 light-days , where $`R_\mathrm{S}`$ is Schwarzschild radius. In this case there is little difference between the fermion star and black hole scenarios because the last stable orbit around a Schwarzschild black hole is at 3$`R_\mathrm{S}`$ anyway.

Extrapolating this down to the compact dark object at the center of our galaxy , with mass $`M`$ 2.6 $`\times `$ 10$`{}_{}{}^{6}M_{}^{}`$, which is at the lower limit of the mass range, and $`R`$ 20 light-days, the same fermion mass gives $`R`$ 10$`{}_{}{}^{4}R_{\mathrm{S}}^{}`$. Consequent upon the shallow potential inside this fermion star, the spectrum of radiation emitted by accreting baryonic matter is cut off for frequencies larger than 1013 Hz , as is observed in the spectrum of the strong radio source Sgr A at the galactic center . This fermion star is also consistent  with the observed motion of stars within a projected distance of 10 to 30 light-days of Sgr A .

Of course, it is well-known that 15 keV lies squarely in the cosmologically forbidden mass range for stable active neutrinos $`\nu `$ . Sterile neutrinos are another matter: as shown by Shi and Fuller , in the presence of an initial lepton asymmetry of $``$ 10-3, a sterile neutrino $`\nu _s`$ of mass $`m_s`$ 10 keV is resonantly produced with near closure density, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ = 1. Moreover, the resulting energy spectrum is not thermal but rather cut off so as to approximate a cold degenerate Fermi gas. This model is constrained by astrophysical bounds on $`\nu _s\nu \gamma `$ , however the allowed parameter space includes $`m_s`$ 15 keV contributing $`\mathrm{\Omega }_s`$ 0.3 as favoured by the BOOMERANG data .

The statics of degenerate fermion stars is well understood, being the Oppenheimer-Volkoff equation in the relativistic case  or the Lané-Emden equation with polytropic index $`n`$ = 3/2 in the nonrelativistic limit . Alternatively, because $`R`$ 1/$`m_f`$, one may understand these as the Thomas-Fermi theory applied to self- gravitating systems. The extension of the Thomas-Fermi theory to finite temperature  has been used to show that at a certain critical temperature weakly interacting massive fermionic matter undergoes a first-order gravitational phase transition from a diffuse to a clustered state, i.e. a nearly degenerate fermion star. Such studies do not, however, bear on the crucial dynamical question of whether the fermion star can form through gravitational collapse of density fluctuations in an orthodox cosmological setting. Indeed, since collisional damping is negligible, one would expect that only a virialized cloud results .

$`N`$-body simulations of the collisionless Boltzmann or Vlasov equation evidence a rather different picture: the collapse is followed by a series of bounces with matter expelled at each bounce, leaving behind a condensed object . By Liouville’s theorem the Vlasov equation describes an incompressible fluid in phase-space so that it respects a form of the exclusion principle. Hence, these $`N`$-body simulations are effectively fermion simulations. What transpires is that gravity, being attractive, self- organises the phase-space fluid into a high-density/momentum core at the expense of other low-density/momentum regions as seen in the evolution of the spherical Vlasov equation .

Much the same behaviour is observed in the formation of mini-boson stars through so-called gravitational cooling . Such a mini-boson star is stable by balancing uncertainty and gravitational pressure. A similar mechanism works in the presence of a quartic self-interaction  which dominates over uncertainty pressure resulting in an equilibrium radius $`R`$ 1/$`m_b`$ where $`m_b`$ is the boson mass . Hence we have a universal description of the physics underlying the formation process: once the collapse proceeds far enough (uncertainty, interaction or degeneracy) pressure results in a bounce, the outgoing shock wave carrying away the binding energy. The virial argument above is circumvented because the ejected matter invalidates its assumption that there is no flow through the boundary.

In this letter we verify the above picture for the formation of the fermion star from a cold nonequilibrium configuration. The dynamical Thomas-Fermi theory was given long ago by Bloch for the electron gas , and amounts to Euler’s equations for irrotational flow together with an equation of state $`P=P(\rho )`$. The problem is that, transcribed to the self-gravitating fermion gas, there is the Jeans instability, signalled by an imaginary plasma frequency, and thus short-wavelength shocks must be regulated. The usual remedy is to introduce some small numerical viscosity; however it seems imprudent to draw conclusions based on introducing dissipation into what is fundamentally a dissipationless process. Here we take another, literally conservative approach.

In the Newtonian limit a self-interacting boson star is governed by the Gross-Pitaevskii-like equations

$$i\frac{\psi }{t}=\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2m_b}+V\left(|\psi |^2\right)+m_b\phi \right]\psi $$
(2)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }\phi =\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}4}\pi G|\psi |^2,$$
(3)
where for convenience we have absorbed the boson mass $`m_b`$ in the field. Using the ansatz $`\psi =\sqrt{\rho }`$ exp ( - $`im_b\theta `$), we arrive at

$$\frac{\rho }{t}=\stackrel{}{}(\rho \stackrel{}{}\theta )$$
(5)
$$\frac{\theta }{t}=\frac{(\stackrel{}{}\theta )^2}{2}+\frac{1}{m_b}V(\rho )+\phi \frac{1}{2m_b^2\sqrt{\rho }}\mathrm{\Delta }\sqrt{\rho }.$$
(6)
The Thomas-Fermi limit is governed by $`m_b|\stackrel{}{}\rho |/\rho `$. Thus neglecting the last term in (6), Bloch’s equations are recovered, with $`\theta `$ being the velocity potential and $`V(\rho )`$ given by

$$V(\rho )=m_b\frac{dP}{\rho }.$$
(7)
For a general polytropic equation of state

$$P(\rho )=K\rho ^{1+1/n}$$
(8)
eq.(7) yields

$$V(\rho )=(n+1)Km_b\rho ^{1/n}.$$
(9)
Using the potential (9) and introducing

$$R_{}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{m_b}\frac{\left[(n+1)K\right]^{n/2}}{\sqrt{4\pi G}}$$
(11)
$$M_{}=\frac{R_{}}{G}$$
(12)
as the length and mass scales, respectively, the substitution

$$\psi =\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }}{\left[(n+1)K\right]^{n/2}}$$
(13)
yields the dimensionless equations

$$\frac{i}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }}{t}=\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}+\phi +|\mathrm{\Psi }|^{2/n}\right]\mathrm{\Psi }$$
(15)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }\phi =|\mathrm{\Psi }|^2.$$
(16)
The validity of the Newtonian approximation in the static case requires

$$M/M_{}=(4\pi )^1d^3r|\mathrm{\Psi }|^21,n<3.$$
(17)
For weakly interacting degenerate fermions, the polytropic index is $`n`$ = 3/2, and

$$R_{}=\left(\frac{9\pi ^2}{32g_f^2}\right)^{1/4}\frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}}{m_f^2}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0.2325}\left(\frac{\text{keV}}{m_f}\right)^2\sqrt{\frac{2}{g_f}}\mathrm{lyr},$$
(19)
$$M_{}=\text{1.185}\left(\frac{\mathrm{keV}}{m_f}\right)^2\sqrt{\frac{2}{g_f}}\times 10^{11}M_{},$$
(20)
where $`g_f`$ is the spin degeneracy and $`m_{\mathrm{Pl}}`$ is the Planck mass. By construction a large but finite $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ allows us to simulate the fermionic problem as a bosonic one through their mutual Thomas-Fermi limits, while providing an explicitly energy conserving way of controlling the shocks. The basic regulating mechanism is the “kinetic” part of (15) which penalises gradients of order $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Of course, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ must be sufficiently large that this term does not change the static scaling relationship

$$MR^{\left(\frac{3n}{n1}\right)}=\mathrm{const}$$
(21)
arising from the polytropic equation of state. Our criterion is that the ratio of “kinetic” and “pressure” contributions to the static energy functional should be small, in particular for a Gaussian $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\alpha \mathrm{exp}\left[(r/\beta )^2\right]`$

$$\frac{T[\mathrm{\Psi }]}{P[\mathrm{\Psi }]}=\left(1+\frac{1}{n}\right)^{3/2}\frac{3}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\beta ^2\alpha ^{2/n}}.$$
(22)
For $`n`$ = 3/2 this is independent of the size $`\beta `$ for a given mass, yielding the weak condition $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ 0.97 ($`M_{}/M`$)1/3.

In Fig. 1 we display the evolution of $`|r\mathrm{\Psi }|^2`$ for spherical collapse of a mass $`M`$ = 0.008 $`M_{}`$, initially in the form of a Gaussian with $`\beta `$ = 100 = $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The expected features of bounce and ejection leaving a condensed core are evident. Here we have implemented a velocity dependent imaginary part to the potential in the outer layers of the cavity to remove the ejected fermion matter before it can be artificially reflected by the boundary. The core size $`r/R_{}=26`$ and mass $`m/M_{}=0.0057`$ is commensurate with a fermion star, however it is far from smooth as evidenced by the plot of $`|r\mathrm{\Psi }|^2`$ on the final time slice in Fig. 2. This feature may, however, be attributed to the relatively short duration of the simulation.

In summary, using a bosonic representation of the dynamical Thomas-Fermi theory for a self-gravitating gas, we have shown that nonrelativistic, degenerate and weakly interacting fermionic matter will form supermassive fermion stars through gravitational collapse accompanied by ejection. For a fermion mass of $`m_f`$ 15 keV such a superstar is consistent with observations of the compact dark object at the center of our galaxy. A similar demonstration for formation near the Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit, and the question of cosmology with degenerate dark matter requires a general relativistic extension which is under development and will be reported elsewhere.

The authors wish to thank Duncan Elliott for many useful discussions regarding the simulations. This research is in part supported by the Foundation of Fundamental Research (FFR) grant number PHY99-01241 and the Research Committee of the University of Cape Town. The work of N.B. is supported in part by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of Croatia under Contract No. 00980102.


text:
# Immersions of surfaces in almost–complex 4–manifolds

## 1. Introduction

Suppose that $`X`$ is a 4–manifold with an almost complex structure $`J`$ and $`FX`$ is an immersed oriented surface. For a generic immersion, there are two types of distinguished points on this surface. On the one hand, we have the singularities of the embedding which we assume to be ordinary double points (this is always the case for a generic immersion). On the other hand, there is a finite number of complex points, i.e. points at which the almost complex structure $`J`$ preserves the tangent space of the surface. At such a point, the orientation induced by $`J`$ on the tangent space may coincide with the orientation of the surface – in which case we will call the point a positive complex point – or may not, then it is called a negative complex point.

In this paper, we use results of H.F. Lai to derive relations between the number of double points and the number of complex points of an immersion, thus extending the results of \[CG\], where only the case of embedded surfaces is treated. Our main result concerns immersed surfaces in the neighborhood of almost complex submanifolds. So let us assume that $`F_0X`$ is an almost complex curve, i.e. an embedded oriented surface whose points are all positive complex points. Then clearly the number $`n^{}`$ of negative complex points is zero, and so is the number $`d_{}`$ of double points having negative sign. In particular, we have the inequality $`n^{}d_{}`$. It turns out that a similar inequality is true for immersed surfaces “near” $`F_0`$.

###### Theorem 1.

Let $`X`$ be an almost complex 4–manifold and suppose that $`F_0X`$ is an embedded pseudoholomorphic curve with $`F_0F_0>0`$. Now let $`F`$ be an immersed surface contained in a tubular neighborhood of $`F_0`$. Then the following inequalities hold:

1. If $`FF_0>0`$, then $`n^{}(F)d_{}(F)`$.
2. If $`FF_0<0`$, then $`n^+(F)d_{}(F)`$.

Here $`n^+`$ respectively $`n^{}`$ denote the numbers of positive and negative complex points of $`F`$ – counted properly, see Section 2 for details – and $`d_\pm `$ denotes the number of positive respectively negative double points. The proof of this theorem, which relies on Lai’s results and facts from Seiberg–Witten gauge theory, will be given in Section 4. In Section 2, we review the results of Lai we will need and relate them to the existence results for pseudoholomorphic curves proved in \[B1\]. In Section 3, we generalize one of the genus estimates given by Rokhlin in \[Ro\] to the case of immersed surfaces and use this to derive an inequality between the numbers of complex points and double points of certain immersions.

Finally, I would like to thank my advisor, Dieter Kotschick, for many helpful discussions and suggestions.

## 2. Complex points of immersions

In this section, we will briefly describe the paper \[Lai\] of H.F. Lai which contains a formula for the algebraic number of complex points of a surface in an almost complex 4–manifold, and show how this formula is related to the results of \[B1\]. We will then apply Lai’s results to derive some relations between the number of complex points and the number of double points of immersed surfaces in almost complex 4–manifolds.

Suppose that $`\eta `$ is a complex vector bundle of rank $`n`$ over an oriented manifold $`X`$ and that $`\eta `$ splits as a direct sum

$$\eta =\xi \xi ^{}$$

of a complex bundle $`\xi `$ of rank $`(n1)`$ and a complex line bundle $`\xi ^{}`$. Then the Chern product formula for direct sums implies an obvious relation between the Chern classes of the bundles $`\eta ,\xi `$ and $`\xi ^{}`$. The question Lai examined in his paper is the following. Suppose that we have a real subbundle $`\xi \eta `$ of real dimension $`k=2n2`$. Then again $`\eta `$ splits as above, with the important difference that the splitting is now a splitting as a real bundle of rank $`2n`$. Are there still relations between the Euler classes of the bundles $`\xi `$ and $`\xi ^{}`$ and the Chern classes of $`\eta `$?

For this purpose, he uses a certain notion of “complex point” which we will now explain. Consider the bundle $`G_k(\eta )`$ whose fibre over a point $`xX`$ is the Grassmannian of oriented $`k`$–dimensional real subspaces of the fibre $`\eta _x`$. The inclusion $`\xi \eta `$ defines a section (“Gauss map”)

$$t:XG_k(\eta )$$

in this bundle, given by $`t(x)=\xi _x`$. Let $`G_{n1}^{}(\eta )`$ denote the bundle of complex subspaces of dimension $`n1`$ in the fibres of $`\eta `$. Note that every complex subspace carries a canonical orientation and is therefore an oriented $`k`$–dimensional real subspace. Hence we have a canonical inclusion $`G_{n1}^{}(\eta )G_k(\eta )`$ whose image will be denoted by $`K_\eta ^+`$ (this is $`K_\eta `$ in \[Lai\]). Since the fibres of $`G_{n1}^{}(\eta )`$ are complex manifolds and $`X`$ is oriented, $`K_\eta ^+`$ carries a natural orientation and therefore defines a homology class in $`H_{}(G_k(\eta ))`$. In a similar manner, we can fix an orientation on the fibre of $`G_k(\eta )`$ (for example given by the Schubert calculus) to obtain an orientation of the total space $`G_k(\eta )`$. If we equip every complex subspace in $`\eta `$ with the opposite, non–complex orientation, we obtain a second embedding of $`G_{n1}^{}(\eta )`$ into $`G_k(\eta )`$ whose image will be denoted by $`K_\eta ^{}`$. Note that if $`\nu :G_k(\eta )G_k(\eta )`$ denotes the involution given by reversing the orientation, $`K_\eta ^{}=\nu (K_\eta ^+)`$. We will orient $`K_\eta ^{}`$ such that $`\nu `$ maps the orientation of $`K_\eta ^+`$ onto minus the orientation of $`K_\eta ^{}`$. Lai now proved the following result (Theorem 5.10 in \[Lai\]).

###### Theorem 2 (Lai).

Let $`\eta X`$ be a complex vector bundle of rank $`n`$ and $`\eta =\xi \xi ^{}`$ a splitting (as real bundle) into oriented real vector bundles $`\xi `$ and $`\xi ^{}`$ of ranks $`k=2n2`$ and $`2`$. Suppose that the orientations of $`\xi `$ and $`\xi ^{}`$ are compatible with the complex orientation of $`\eta `$ (i.e. an oriented basis of $`\xi `$ together with an oriented basis of $`\xi ^{}`$ defines an oriented basis for $`\eta `$), and let $`t:XG_k(\eta )`$ denote the “Gauss section” defined by $`\xi `$. Then

$$e(\xi )+\underset{r=0}{\overset{n1}{}}e(\xi ^{})^rc_{nr1}(\eta )=2t^{}PD(K_\eta ^+),$$

where $`PD`$ denotes Poincaré duality.

Note that Lai’s formula also implies a statement about $`t^{}PD(K_\eta ^{})`$, namely

(1)
$$e(\xi )+\underset{r=0}{\overset{n1}{}}(1)^{r+1}e(\xi ^{})^rc_{nr1}(\eta )=2t^{}PD(K_\eta ^{}),$$

which can easily be derived from Theorem 2 by reversing the orientations of $`\overline{\xi }`$ and $`\overline{\xi ^{}}`$.

As an application of his formula, Lai considers a complex manifold $`X`$ and an immersed surface $`FX`$. He then proves an equation involving the Euler classes of the normal bundle of $`F`$, the Euler class of its tangent bundle, the Chern class of $`X`$ and the algebraic number of complex points of $`F`$. In \[CG\], Chkhenkeli and Garrity observed that Lai’s arguments still hold if we consider almost complex manifolds instead of complex manifolds, since he only deals with vector bundles but does not make use of the fact that the complex structure on $`TX`$ is integrable. However, there seems to be some confusion about the signs and the question how to count complex points in \[CG\], so we work out this point in greater detail.

Let $`X`$ be a 4–manifold which carries an almost complex structure $`J:TXTX`$. We orient $`X`$ using the orientation given by $`J`$. Assume that $`\iota :FX`$ is an immersion of a connected and oriented surface $`F`$ into $`X`$. If – as above – $`G_2(TX)`$ denotes the bundle of Grassmannians of 2–dimensional oriented real subspaces, the immersion defines a Gauss map $`t_F:FG_2(\iota ^{}TM)`$.

Now let us consider the submanifolds $`K_{\iota ^{}TM}^\pm `$ in $`G_2(\iota ^{}TM)`$, which will be abbreviated by $`K^\pm `$ in the sequel. The points $`xF`$ with $`t_F(x)K^+`$ are exactly the points where $`J`$ respects the tangent space of $`F`$ (i.e. $`J`$ commutes with $`d\iota `$) and the orientation induced by $`J`$ on $`T_xF`$ equals the orientation of $`F`$. Similarly, $`t_F(x)K^{}`$ means that $`J`$ preserves $`T_xF`$, but induces the opposite orientation on $`T_xF`$. We will call the points of the first kind positive complex points and the points of the second kind negative complex points.

For a generic immersion, $`t_F`$ will be transversal to $`K^\pm `$, and since $`K^\pm `$ has codimension $`2`$ in $`G_2(\iota ^{}TM)`$, we have well defined intersection numbers $`n^\pm `$ between $`t_F(F)`$ and $`K^\pm `$, given by the relation

(2)
$$n^\pm =t_F^{}PD([K^\pm ]),[F].$$

We will refer to these numbers as the algebraic sums of positive respectively negative complex points. Now suppose that $`\iota `$ is an embedding. Then we have

$$\iota ^{}TM=NTF,$$

where $`N`$ denotes the normal bundle, and $`e(N),[F]=FF`$ equals the self–intersection number of $`F`$. Using Lai’s result, applied to $`\iota ^{}TM`$, we therefore obtain the following equation:

(3)
$$g(F)+n^+=1+\frac{1}{2}(FF+\iota ^{}c_1(X),[F])=1+\frac{1}{2}(FFKF).$$

Using the equation for $`t_F^{}K^{}`$ derived above, we also obtain

(4)
$$g(F)+n^{}=1+\frac{1}{2}(FF+KF).$$

A nice example is a holomorphic curve $`F`$ in a complex surface $`X`$. Then the image of the Gauss map does not meet $`K^{}`$ at all, but is entirely contained in $`K^+`$. Therefore $`n^{}=0`$, and equation (4) is just the adjunction equality. So it seems that the “$`FC`$” used by Chkhenkeli and Garrity should be our $`n^{}`$ to obtain the correct results.

Using equation (4), we are now able to give another formulation of the condition for the existence of an almost complex structure adapted to a surface as given in Lemma 1 of \[B1\], namely:

###### Corollary 1.

Let $`(X,J)`$ be an almost complex 4-manifold and assume we are given an embedded surface $`FX`$. Then the following conditions are equivalent:

1. There is a (generic) $`J^{}`$ homotopic to $`J`$ such that the algebraic number of negative complex points of $`F`$ with respect to $`J^{}`$ is zero.
2. There is a $`J^{\prime \prime }`$ homotopic to $`J`$ such that $`F`$ is pseudoholomorphic with respect to $`J^{\prime \prime }`$.

###### Proof.

First suppose that the algebraic number $`n^{}`$ of negative complex points with respect to $`J^{}`$ is zero. Then, according to equation (4), the adjunction equality is fulfilled and, by Lemma 1 in \[B1\], we can find an almost complex structure $`J^{\prime \prime }`$ homotopic to $`J^{}`$ and hence to $`J`$ such that $`F`$ is pseudoholomorphic with respect to $`J^{\prime \prime }`$. If conversely $`F`$ is pseudoholomorphic with respect to $`J^{\prime \prime }`$, the adjunction equality holds for $`J^{\prime \prime }`$, and if we choose a generic $`J^{}`$ homotopic to $`J`$ (and $`J^{\prime \prime }`$), equation (4) implies that $`n^{}=0`$. ∎

At this point, the author would like to point out that the proof of Lemma 2 in \[B1\] contains a minor gap, the arguments given there do not work in the special case $`b^+=2=b^{}`$. However, the assertion of the Lemma is true and a slight modification of the published version of the proof also works in this special case. A corrected version can be found in \[B2\].

Now let us relate Lai’s results to the double points of immersed surfaces. In the sequel, we will always assume that an immersion of a surface is proper in the sense that the only singularities are ordinary double points. Recall that there is a natural way to attach a sign to a double point $`p`$ of an oriented surface, depending on whether the orientations of the two branches of the surface meeting in $`p`$ fit together to give the orientation of $`X`$ at this point (then the sign should be $`+1`$) or not (sign $`1`$). If the sign of a double point is $`+1`$, we will call this point a positive double point, otherwise it will be called a negative double point. We will need the following relation between the double points of an immersed surface, its normal Euler number and its self–intersection number.

###### Lemma 1.

Assume that $`X`$ is a closed and oriented 4–manifold and $`\iota :FX`$ an immersion of a connected and oriented surface having $`d_+`$ positive and $`d_{}`$ negative double points. Let $`NF`$ denote the normal bundle of the immersion. Then

$$e(N)=FF2d_++2d_{}.$$

###### Proof.

For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that there is only one double point $`p`$. First consider the case that $`p`$ is positive. Let $`\iota ^1(p)=\{x_1,x_2\}`$ and choose an orientation preserving chart $`h:U^4`$ around $`p`$ such that

1. $`h(U\iota (F))=h(U)(^2\times 00\times ^2)`$
2. For small disks $`D_i`$ in $`F`$ around $`x_i`$, $`h(\iota (D_1))^2\times 0`$,$`h(\iota (D_2))0\times ^2`$ and the restrictions $`(h\iota )|_{D_i}`$ map the orientation of $`F`$ to the canonical orientations of the planes $`^2\times 0`$ and $`0\times ^2`$.

Then a trivialization for the normal bundle $`N=\iota ^{}TM/TF`$ restricted to $`D_1`$ is given by $`dhd\iota `$, followed by the projection onto the second plane $`0\times ^2`$, and with respect to this chart, a section of $`N|_{D_1}`$ is given by the affine plane $`^2\times 0+ϵ`$ for a small $`ϵ>0`$. If we choose a tubular neighborhood $`\tau :NX`$ which coincides with the map given by $`dh`$ and $`h^1`$ around the $`x_i`$, the image of this section will be contained in $`h^1(^2\times 0+ϵ)`$ and will intersect $`F`$ in one positive point. A similar section can be constructed over $`D_2`$, and combined with a generic section of $`N`$ outside of the $`D_i`$, we obtain an immersion $`\iota ^{}`$ of $`F`$ which will intersect $`\iota (F)`$ in $`2+e(N)`$ points, counted with signs.

If the double point $`p`$ is negative, the sections constructed over the $`D_i`$ will contribute with sign $`1`$ to the intersection number of $`\iota ^{}(F)`$ and $`\iota (F)`$, and we obtain $`FF=e(N)2`$. This proves our assertion in the case that there is only one double point, the proof in the general case is similar. ∎

Now let us combine Lai’s work – namely equation (1) – with Lemma 1 to derive a relation between the homology class of an immersed surfaces, its genus, the number of complex points and the number of double points. We then obtain the following

###### Proposition 1.

Let $`(X,J)`$ be an almost complex 4–manifold and $`FX`$ a generic immersion of an oriented surface $`F`$ having $`d_+`$ positive and $`d_{}`$ negative double points. Let $`n^{}`$ denote the algebraic number of negative complex points (as defined by equation (2)). Then

$$g(F)+n^{}d_{}+d_+=1+\frac{1}{2}(FF+KF).$$

###### Proof.

We have a decomposition $`\iota ^{}TX=TFN`$, to which we can apply equation (1) to obtain

$$(22g)c_1(J)F+e(N)=2n^{}.$$

By Lemma 1, $`e(N)=FF2d^++2d^{}`$. Substituting this into the last equation leads to the desired result. ∎

###### Remark 1.

Assume that $`F`$ is an immersed surface with $`d_\pm (F)`$ double points and $`n^\pm (F)`$ complex points. Let $`\overline{F}`$ denote the same surface with the reversed orientation. Then clearly $`d_\pm (\overline{F})=d_\pm (F)`$, and hence Proposition 1 yields the relations $`n^+(\overline{F})=n^{}(F)`$ and $`n^{}(\overline{F})=n^+(F)`$.

## 3. Immersed surfaces and genus estimates

Proposition 1 can be used to derive estimates for the number of negative complex points of immersed surfaces (note that these estimates always include estimates on the algebraic number of positive complex points, since Theorem 2 and equation (1) together imply $`n^{}n^+=KF`$). As a first example, we will now prove a bound for the number of double points of an immersion by using branched covers as in \[Ro\].

###### Proposition 2.

Let $`X`$ be a closed oriented and simply–connected 4–manifold and $`FX`$ be an immersed surface of genus g having $`d_+`$ positive and $`d_{}`$ negative double points. Assume that the homology class $`[F]`$ of $`F`$ is divisible by a prime power $`m`$. Then

$$d_++g\frac{m+1}{6m}FFb_2^+(X).$$

###### Proof.

As demonstrated in \[FS\], we can find an immersed surface in $`X\mathrm{\#}\overline{P^2}`$ having $`d_+`$ positive double points, $`d_{}1`$ negative double points and representing the class $`([F],0)H_2(X\mathrm{\#}\overline{P^2};)=H_2(X;)`$. In fact, pick two generic lines in $`\overline{P^2}`$ and reverse the orientation of one of them to obtain two spheres $`S_1,S_1`$ which intersect in one point with intersection number $`+1`$. Remove a small ball $`B`$ around this point and a similar ball $`B^{}`$ around one negative double points of $`F`$. We than can glue $`XB^{}`$ and $`\overline{P^2}B`$ along their boundaries in such a way that the boundary links $`FB^{}`$ and $`(S_1S_2)B`$ get identified. This yields a new immersed surface in $`X\mathrm{\#}\overline{P^2}`$ as desired. By iterating the construction, one can construct an immersed surface in $`X^{}=X\mathrm{\#}d_{}\overline{P^2}`$ having $`d_+`$ positive self–intersection points and representing the class $`([F],0,\mathrm{},0)`$.

Cutting out small disks and gluing in handles at the remaining double points leads to a surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }X^{}`$ having genus $`d_++g`$ and self–intersection number $`FF`$. Since the homology class $`[F]`$ was divisible by $`m`$, the same is true for $`[\mathrm{\Sigma }]`$. Now let $`YX^{}`$ denote the branched cover of order $`m`$ with branch locus $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. As in \[Ro\], one can use this cover to obtain estimates for the genus of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. We have

$`b_2(Y)`$ $`=mb_2(X^{})+2(m1)(d_++g)`$
$`=mb_2(X)+md_{}+2(m1)(d_++g)`$
and

$$\tau (Y)=m\tau (X)md_{}\frac{m^21}{3m}FF.$$

Now the real cohomology $`H^2(X;)`$ appears in $`H^2(Y;)`$ as the subspace invariant under the action of $`_m`$, and the splitting of $`H^2(Y;)`$ into the eigenspaces of the action is orthogonal with respect to the intersection form (see \[Ro\]), hence we have the inequality

$$|\tau (Y)\tau (X)|b_2(Y)b_2(X),$$

in particular

$$\tau (Y)+\tau (X)b_2(Y)b_2(X).$$

If we substitute the values for $`b_2`$ and $`\tau `$ from the above equation, we see that the terms containing $`d_{}`$ cancel out, and this leads to the desired result. ∎

Note that reversing the orientation of $`X`$ gives an estimate for the number of negative double points. Furthermore, the estimate of Rohklin (inequality 6.3. in \[Ro\]) appears in the result as the special case $`d_+=d_{}=0`$.

###### Example 1.

There is a simple example where the estimate in Proposition 2 is sharp. Consider the class $`a=(3,3)H_2(P^2\mathrm{\#}P^2;)`$. Suppose there is an immersed sphere $`S`$ representing $`a`$ which has $`d_+`$ positive and $`d_{}`$ negative double points. Proposition 2 then shows that $`d_+2`$. On the other hand, the class $`3[P^1]H_2(P^2;)`$ can be realized by a sphere with one positive self–intersection point. Taking two copies of this immersed sphere shows that the class $`(3,3)`$ can be represented by a sphere having two positive double points. Hence the bound from Proposition 2 is sharp in this case.

###### Example 2.

The result of Fintushel and Stern in \[FS\] can be summarized by the statement that for a sphere immersed in a rational surface, the minimal number of positive double points is at least the minimal genus of its homology class. The estimate in Proposition 2 goes in the same direction, since its right hand side equals the right hand side in \[Ro\], 6.3 (up to the absolute value). There is a simple example showing that in general, one cannot estimate the number of positive double points by the minimal genus (the same is true for the number of negative double points).

First note that the minimal genus of the class $`a=(3,1)H_2(P^2\mathrm{\#}P^2;)`$ is one. In fact, a torus representing $`a`$ is obtained by tubing together algebraic representatives in both factors, and by \[KeM\], $`a`$ cannot be represented by a sphere. In the same paper, Kervaire and Milnor show how to represent the class $`(3,0)`$ by a sphere. From a configuration of three lines in $`P^2`$, we obtain a sphere with one positive double point representing $`3[P^1]H_2(P^2;)`$. Take two lines in $`P^2`$ and reverse the orientation of one of them to produce two spheres that intersect each other in one negative intersection point. Cutting out balls around the intersection points and identifying the boundaries leads to a sphere $`SP^2\mathrm{\#}P^2`$ that represents $`(3,0)`$.

From the construction one can deduce that $`S`$ will intersect a generic line $`\gamma `$ in the second factor twice in one negative and one positive intersection point. Tubing together at the positive point leads to an immersed sphere representing the class $`a`$ with $`d_+=0,d_{}=1`$. This provides an example of an immersed sphere for which the number of positive self–intersection points is smaller than the minimal genus in this homology class. Gluing at the other point gives a representative of the same class with $`d_+=1,d_{}=0`$, thus showing that also the number of negative intersection points can be smaller than the minimal genus. Reversing the orientation of the line finally leads to immersed spheres representing the class $`(3,1)`$.

As was already indicated above, we can now combine the estimate given in Proposition 2 and the relation between complex points and double points of an immersion to obtain the following result.

###### Corollary 2.

Suppose that $`X`$ is a simply–connected almost complex 4–manifold with canonical class $`K`$ and $`FX`$ an immersion of a surface of genus $`g`$ having $`d_+`$ positive and $`d_{}`$ negative double points. Assume that the homology class of $`F`$ is divisible by a prime power $`m`$. As usual, let $`n^{}`$ denote the algebraic number of negative complex points. Then

$$d_{}n^{}\frac{12m}{6m}FF\frac{1}{2}KFb_2^+(X)1.$$

###### Proof.

This follows immediately from Proposition 2 and Proposition 1. ∎

###### Example 3.

Consider the homology class $`3[P^1]H_2(P^2;)`$. Suppose that $`S`$ is an immersed sphere representing this class. Then $`S`$ cannot be an embedding, because the minimal genus in this homology class is $`1`$ (see \[KeM\]), hence there must be at least one double point (as always, we assume that the immersion is generic with double points as the only singularities). In fact, Proposition 2 implies that at least one of the double points must have sign $`+1`$ (this follows also from \[FS\]), i.e. $`d_+>0`$. By Corollary 2, we have $`n^{}d_{}`$.

Since the estimate of Rokhlin is sharp for this homology class, we expect that the inequality $`n^{}d_{}`$ is also sharp, which turns out to be true. For an example where equality occurs consider the algebraic curve of degree $`3`$ given by the equation $`x^3+y^3=3xyz`$. This curve has one node at the point $`[0:0:1]`$. From our point of view, it defines an immersion of a sphere with one positive double point which represents the homology class $`3[P^1]H_2(P^2;)`$ and is pseudoholomorphic with respect to the canonical almost complex structure on $`P^2`$. Hence we have $`n^{}=d_{}=0`$.

## 4. Proof of Theorem 1

It is sufficient to prove the first assertion, the second then follows by reversing the orientation of $`F`$, using Remark 1. Let $`T`$ denote a tubular neighborhood of $`F_0`$ in which $`F`$ is contained. Since $`H_2(T;)=H_2(F_0;)=`$, there is a unique integer $`k`$ such that $`k[F_0]=[F]H_2(T;)`$. Clearly this relation also holds in $`H_2(X;)`$ and therefore $`k>0`$ since $`F_0F=kF_0F_0>0`$ and $`F_0F_0>0`$ by assumption. First we will prove the estimate

(5)
$$d_+(F)+g(F)1+k(g(F_0)1)+\left(\begin{array}{c}k\\ 2\end{array}\right)F_0F_0.$$

Note that this is a version of the so-called “local Thom conjecture” for immersed surfaces. In the special case of embedded surfaces, this conjecture has been proved by Lawson (see \[La\]).

For the proof of (5), we will not make use of the almost complex structure on $`X`$ and of the fact that $`F_0`$ is a pseudoholomorphic curve. By general position, we can assume that $`F`$ and $`F_0`$ intersect transversely, in particular no double point of $`F`$ is lying on $`F_0`$. Pick a complex structure on $`F_0`$ and a holomorphic line bundle $`L`$ over $`F_0`$ having degree $`\mathrm{deg}(L)=c_1(L),[F_0]=F_0F_0`$. If we choose a metric on $`L`$, we can identify $`T`$ with the unit disk bundle of $`L`$. Let $`E=L`$ and $`Y=E`$ the total space of the projective bundle associated to $`E`$. Then $`Y`$ is an algebraic surface, and $`b_2^+(Y)=1+2p_g(Y)=1`$ (see for instance\[BPV\] IV.2.6)

We have an embedding $`LY`$, given by $`l[(l,1)]`$, and the image of $`F_0`$ under this embedding – that again will be denoted by $`F_0`$ – is an algebraic curve in $`Y`$ having self–intersection number $`F_0F_0=\mathrm{deg}(L)`$. If $`K`$ denotes the canonical class of $`Y`$, this implies $`KF_0=2g(F_0)2F_0F_0`$.

Now let $`Y^{}=Y\mathrm{\#}d_{}(F)\overline{P^2}`$, where the blow–up is performed at the positive self–intersection points of $`F`$. Using the construction of \[FS\] as in the proof of Proposition 2, we can construct an embedded surface in $`Y^{}`$ representing the homology class $`[F]=k[F_0]`$ having $`d_+`$ positive double points (here we think of $`H_2(Y;)`$ as a subgroup of $`H_2(Y^{};)`$). Replacing the remaining double points by handles leads to an embedded surface $`F^{}`$ of genus $`g(F)+d_+`$ with $`[F^{}]=[F]`$. Note that $`Y^{}`$ is again an algebraic surface with canonical class $`K^{}=K_iE_i`$, where $`E_i`$ denotes the exceptional curve in $`\overline{P^2}`$.

Choose a Kähler metric $`g^{}`$ on $`Y^{}`$ and let $`\omega ^{}`$ denote its fundamental form. Since $`F_0Y^{}`$ is holomorphic, we have $`[\omega ^{}][F_0]>0`$. Now the Kähler metric $`g^{}`$ defines a symplectic structure with symplectic form $`\omega ^{}`$, and $`[F^{}][\omega ^{}]=k[F_0][\omega ^{}]>0`$, $`F^{}F^{}=k^2F_0F_0>0`$, hence we can apply Theorem E in \[LL\] to conclude that

$$g(F^{})1+\frac{1}{2}(K^{}F^{}+F^{}F^{}).$$

Substituting the values for $`g(F^{})`$ and $`[F^{}]`$ leads to

$$d_++g(F)1+\frac{1}{2}(k(2g(F_0)2F_0F_0)+k^2F_0F_0),$$

and the inequality (5) follows.

Let us now proceed with the proof of Theorem 1. The inequality (5) is an estimate for the genus of $`F`$ and the number of double points in terms of its homology class. In a second step, we can now use Proposition 1 to obtain an inequality between the number of complex points and the number of double points. In fact, Proposition 1 and the inequality (5) together imply

$$d_{}(F)n^{}(F)kg(F_0)\frac{1}{2}kKF_0k\frac{1}{2}kF_0F_0.$$

The right hand side of this estimate can still be simplified using the fact that $`F_0`$ was assumed to be pseudoholomorphic and thus the adjunction equality holds for it. Therefore we finally obtain

$$d_{}(F)n^{}(F)0,$$

and this is the desired estimate.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The structure of the light scalar mesons addresses different problems in hadron spectroscopy: strong channel coupling, the OZI rule violation, exotic states (glueballs, $`q^2\overline{q}^2`$), and the properties of the QCD vacuum. Recent theoretical studies (see  and references therein) have demonstrated that the appearance of dynamical states can naturally explain the striking difference of the observed spectrum of the $`J^{PC}=0^{++}`$ states  from the other multiplets. The goal of this paper is to investigate the properties of the light scalar mesons in a coupled channel model where both the $`\sigma `$ meson and the $`f_0(980)`$ arise as dynamical states due to strongly attractive interactions in the $`\pi \pi `$ and $`K\overline{K}`$ channels.

## 2 The $`\pi \pi K\overline{K}q\overline{q}`$ Coupled Channel Model

Our approach is based on an exactly solvable coupled channel model (CCM), which is an extended version of the one studied in ; it contains the $`\pi \pi `$, $`K\overline{K}`$, and $`q\overline{q}`$ channels ($`J^{PC}=0^{++}`$, $`I^G=0^+`$), and the interactions are approximated by separable potentials. The model parameters were determined by fitting the $`\pi \pi `$ scattering amplitude together with the $`\pi \pi `$ mass distribution in the decay $`\varphi \gamma (\pi \pi )_{J=0}`$ . The detailed description of the model is given in .

The poles of the $`S`$-matrix in the complex mass plane are shown in Fig.1. The $`f_0(980)`$ resonance corresponds to one $`S`$-matrix pole $`M_A=(0.975i0.017)`$GeV close to the $`K\overline{K}`$ threshold; this pole has a dynamical origin and represents the molecular-like $`K\overline{K}`$ state. There are two poles corresponding to the $`\sigma `$ meson: $`M_B=(0.46i0.24)`$GeV on sheet II and $`M_D=(0.67i0.23)`$GeV on sheet III. The dynamical origin of the $`\sigma `$ meson is related to the attractive character of the effective $`\pi \pi `$ interaction which has a partial contribution from the coupling via the intermediate scalar $`q\overline{q}`$ states. Two poles at $`M_C=(1.42i0.26)`$GeV (sheet II) and $`M_E=(1.40i0.25)`$GeV (sheet III) originate from the bare $`q\overline{q}`$ state. The pole trajectories plotted in Fig.1 were calculated for the $`K\overline{K}\pi \pi `$ and $`q\overline{q}\pi \pi `$ couplings changing from zero (the decoupled channels) to their physical values.

The mixing between the $`q\overline{q}`$ and the two–meson channels is illustrated in Fig.2a showing the calculated spectral density $`\rho (M)`$ of the $`q\overline{q}`$ state. In the weak–coupling limit, there would be a single peak corresponding to the bare $`q\overline{q}`$ state with mass $`M_{q\overline{q}}^{(0)}=1.11`$GeV. As a result of the strong $`\pi \pi q\overline{q}`$ coupling a substantial fraction of the $`q\overline{q}`$ spectral density is present in the $`\sigma `$ meson region. The peak around $`1.3`$GeV corresponds to the broad resonance originating from the $`q\overline{q}`$ state. This peak and the corresponding poles $`M_C`$ and $`M_E`$ can be associated with the $`f_0(1370)`$ meson.

The molecular picture of the $`f_0(980)`$ meson was found to be fully consistent with the data on the $`\varphi \gamma \pi \pi `$ decay. Figure 2b shows the result of the CCM calculations of $`\pi \pi `$ invariant mass distribution in the decay $`\varphi \gamma \pi ^0\pi ^0`$ (see  for detailed discussion). The calculated branching ratio $`BR(\varphi \gamma \pi ^0\pi ^0)=0.5BR(\varphi \gamma (\pi ^+\pi ^{})_{J=0})=1.210^4`$ is in good agreement with the experimental data $`BR(\varphi \gamma \pi ^0\pi ^0)=(1.14\pm 0.10\pm 0.12)10^4`$  and $`BR(\varphi \gamma \pi ^0\pi ^0)=(1.08\pm 0.17\pm 0.09)10^4`$  and with the recent calculation in chiral perturbation theory $`BR(\varphi \gamma \pi ^0\pi ^0)=0.810^4`$ .

## 3 Conclusion

The structure of the $`S`$–matrix poles in our coupled channel model shows the dynamical origin of the $`\sigma `$ and $`f_0(980)`$ mesons: both of them are produced by strongly attractive interactions in the $`\pi \pi `$ and $`K\overline{K}`$ channels. The distinction between genuine $`q\overline{q}`$ states and dynamical resonances, $`\sigma `$ and $`f_0(980)`$, can be demonstrated in the limit $`N_c\mathrm{}`$, which implies vanishing meson–meson interaction, where the $`q\overline{q}`$ states turn into infinitely narrow resonances while the dynamical states disappear altogether. Our calculation of the decay $`\varphi \gamma \pi \pi `$ shows that the $`K\overline{K}`$ molecular picture of the $`f_0(980)`$ is in good agreement with the recent experimental data.

The structure of the $`q\overline{q}`$ state embedded into the mesonic continuum has been analyzed using the calculated $`q\overline{q}`$ spectral density $`\rho (M)`$. While the high–energy part of $`\rho (M)`$ is related to the $`f_0(1370)`$ resonance, there is also a significant contribution to $`\rho (M)`$ in the region of $`\sigma `$ meson, which demonstrates the strong coupling between the $`\pi \pi `$ and $`q\overline{q}`$ channels. The same approach can also be used for studying the QCD sum rules related to the gluon condensate by including the mixing with the scalar glueballs in an extended coupled channel model. The results of these studies will be published elsewhere.