text:
# The Luminosity Function of QSO Host Galaxies

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Much has been learned about the properties of QSO host galaxies since they were first imaged almost three decades ago (Kristian 1973). Early results include establishing a positive correlation between host and nuclear QSO luminosities (Hutchings, Crampton, & Campbell 1984) and indications of a morphological difference between radio-loud and radio-quiet QSOs, with the former more likely to be in elliptical hosts and the latter in spiral hosts (Malkan, Margon, & Chanan 1984). Boroson, Persson, & Oke (1985), as well as Stockton & MacKenty (1987) examine hosts to classify them spectroscopically and in the context of their nuclear emissions. Working in the near-infrared, where the luminosity contrast is more favorable to the host galaxy, Dunlop et al. (1993) show that QSO hosts are typically drawn from the bright end of the galaxy luminosity function (in agreement with Hutchings et al. 1984). McLeod & Rieke (1994a,b), also using near-infrared data, find that hosts of radio-quiet QSOs are typically represented by an exponential (spiral disk) light profile (in agreement with Malkan et al. 1984), and that high-luminosity QSOs generally have brighter hosts than low-luminosity QSOs (in agreement with Hutchings et al. 1984).

High-resolution space-based images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) make observing the host galaxy much easier. The first, and to date one of the largest, systematic HST studies of QSO hosts is by Bahcall, Kirhakos, & Saxe (1997), who study 20 of the most luminous nearby QSOs. They can discern the morphology of the hosts, and they discover that, while radio-loud QSOs are found only in ellipticals or interacting systems, radio-quiet QSOs can be in ellipticals, spirals or interacting systems. They also find that QSO hosts do not follow a Schechter (1976) luminosity function and are instead found at systematically high luminosities. More recent studies strengthen and expand on these results. McLure et al. (1999) confirm that QSO hosts are generally luminous, and also determine that, even for radio-quiet QSOs, the hosts are often ellipticals or bulge-dominated. Furthermore, elliptical hosts appear to follow the same luminosity-surface brightness relation as field elliptical galaxies (Hamabe & Kormendy 1987). Other recent studies include Nolan et al. (2001), who discuss QSO host ages, and Kukula et al. (2001), who study host evolution from redshifts of $`z2`$ to the local universe.

In this paper we focus on the luminosity distribution of a large sample of QSO hosts observed with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) aboard HST2). We have collected and reanalyzed wide-band archival images of 71 QSOs with $`M_V23`$ mag (total nuclear $`+`$ host light) and redshifts $`0.06z0.46`$. We have taken an inclusive approach in our sample selection, imposing no additional selection criteria on the QSOs besides those of total absolute magnitude and redshift, while some of the previous work on QSO hosts has focused on specific classes of QSOs: radio loud (Lehnert et al. 1999), intrinsically very bright (Bahcall et al. 1997), and so on. For each we have subtracted the nuclear light component using two-dimensional image fits and have derived the luminosity and size of the underlying host galaxy by fitting both an $`r^{1/4}`$ and an exponential light profile (§3). Given the total number of objects considered, more than triple that of previous studies, we can effectively sample the general QSO population for redshifts $`z0.46`$, and derive a global luminosity function for their host galaxies (§4) that is not grossly affected by selection criteria. This luminosity function is compared with that of normal galaxies, and selection effects/biases and other issues are discussed (§5). Conclusions are then summarized (§6).

Throughout this paper, we adopt a Friedman cosmology with $`H_0=50`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, $`q_0=0.5`$, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$. We have converted the results of other researchers to this cosmology when comparing our results to theirs.

We confirm previous results that host galaxies of QSOs are significantly more luminous than typical luminous $`L_V^{}`$ galaxies, where $`L_V^{}`$ is the “knee” in the Schechter (1976) luminosity function. We also consider the relationship between host morphology and QSO radio loudness. Spiral hosts are, on average, nearly as luminous as elliptical hosts, while hosts of radio-loud QSOs are, on average, about 0.5 magnitudes brighter than hosts of radio-quiet QSOs. Subject to systematic uncertainties in normalization procedures, we find that the combined low-redshift QSO host luminosity function has a very different shape from that of normal galaxies but that they coincide at the highest luminosities. In approximate terms, at redshift $`z0.26`$ the ratio of the number of these QSO hosts to the number of normal galaxies of luminosity $`L_V`$ is $`(L_V/11.48L_V^{})^{2.46}`$, where $`L_V^{}`$ corresponds to $`M_V^{}=22.35`$.

## 2 SAMPLE SELECTION

Our sample includes 71 QSOs with total magnitudes $`M_V23`$ and redshifts $`0.06z0.46`$ with available WFPC2 observations in wide-band filters. The objects are listed in Table 1, along with the HST programs under which they were obtained. The median redshift of this sample is $`z=0.24`$, close to the mid-point of the range considered. The two-thirds of the sample surrounding the median point falls within the range $`0.14z0.41`$. We have analyzed or reanalyzed HST archival imaging observations in a systematic and uniform manner, and the results are reported in Table 1. Comparisons are made between the magnitudes we determine and the results of the original observers in §5.4. The absolute magnitude selection ($`M_V23`$) aims at including only historically traditional QSOs. However, since the selection is based on the combined magnitude of the host and nucleus, lower-luminosity nuclei, down to $`M_V19`$, are in fact included in our sample. We have not excluded these objects from our analysis since they would be present in most magnitude-selected ground-based samples.

We limit our analysis to objects with $`z0.46`$, in order to obtain a significant sample size and to ensure that the HST resolution permits a reasonably reliable separation between a host and nuclear component. At $`z0.4`$, a typical host with a half-light radius of 9 kpc has an apparent radius of $`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4`$, which corresponds to 14 pixels in the Wide Field Camera (WFC) or 31 pixels in the Planetary Camera (PC). The light from a luminous host should therefore be clearly separated from that of the nucleus. In fact, the host galaxy cannot be convincingly detected in only one of the 71 QSOs in our sample; this one is listed as such in Table 1.

Radio-loudness data are collected primarily from Brinkmann et al. (1997) and Yuan et al. (1998), both of whom use a loudness criterion that classifies an object as radio-loud if it has a radio-to-optical flux density ratio in excess of 10. Radio-loudness data for the remaining objects come from a variety of sources, with extensive use made of the NASA Extragalactic Database (NED).

## 3 MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUE

Even at HST resolution, the light of the unresolved nuclear central source significantly affects the extended light distribution of the host galaxy. A careful subtraction of the central point source is needed in order to measure the properties of the host accurately. The following is a brief description of our technique, which is largely similar to that of Remy et al. (1997).

Because of the complex structure of the HST WFPC2 Point Spread Function (PSF), our analysis procedure has three principal steps: (1) A model of the PSF is fitted to the central point source, in order to determine its subpixel position and the telescope focus, which affects the shape of the PSF. (2) The PSF and a galaxy model are simultaneously fitted to the entire image to distinguish the nuclear and host components. (3) The nuclear magnitude is determined from the PSF model. Then the fitted PSF is subtracted, and the magnitude of the host is determined from the residual light.

The fitting of a model PSF, as opposed to an observed PSF, is dictated by both opportunity and quality considerations. Since we rely on archival data, in most cases we do not have a PSF observation taken at the same time as the QSO image. The PSF in WFPC2 varies with time as a consequence of short and long term changes in the telescope focus. Thus, using a PSF observed at other times does not generally yield a good subtraction of the nuclear light. Also, the undersampled nature of WFPC2 images make PSF subtraction very difficult, unless both PSF and image have been properly dithered. Under these circumstances, a cleaner PSF subtraction can be achieved by using a model PSF produced by the TinyTim software (Krist & Burrows 1995), provided both focus and subpixel positions are explicitly fitted (Remy et al. 1997; Surdej et al. 1997). This also results in photometry that is comparable in accuracy to using an observed PSF.

### 3.1 First Step: Fitting the PSF

The model PSF is constructed from a set of artificial PSFs, created using the TinyTim software (Krist & Hook 1999). TinyTim uses a detailed model of the telescope and camera optics, including the zonal errors in the primary and secondary mirrors, to produce a good wavelength-dependent approximation of the resulting PSF. However, the PSF structure changes significantly depending on both the telescope focus and on exactly how the point source is centered with respect to the pixel grid. The telescope focus changes with time due to “breathing,” which is the thermal expansion and contraction of the spacecraft due to changes in its attitude relative to the Sun. Breathing typically changes the relative positions of the primary and secondary mirrors by about $`5\mathrm{\mu m}`$.

Therefore, we produce PSF models oversampled 11 times, i.e., on virtual pixels 11 times smaller in area than actual detector pixels, and for focus positions that range from $`10\mathrm{\mu m}`$ to $`+10\mathrm{\mu m}`$ in $`1\mathrm{\mu m}`$ steps. Each PSF is then aligned with various offsets with respect to the true pixel grid and resampled to the actual detector resolution, including the estimated pixel spread function described in the TinyTim documentation. The best fit to the light distribution in the central few pixels identifies the subpixel position and the estimated focus of the observation. If the PSF is not saturated, we can achieve a precision of $`0.01`$ pixels in the central position and $`1\mathrm{\mu m}`$ in the focus position, for QSOs dominated by their nuclei. During this procedure, the light of the extended galaxy, which varies little over the scale of the PSF, is treated as a constant background.

In some cases, several of the pixels at the core are overexposed and saturated on the CCD. These pixels provide no information and are masked from all fits. The pixels vertically adjacent to them are also masked, because the CCD “blooming” effect could have altered those pixels’ intensity values. Our technique works in the presence of saturation, although the focus position is determined less accurately. Most images have either no saturation or a small amount that does not completely cover the PSF core.

Once the position and focus have been found, a PSF of angular size large enough to cover the host image is created with these parameters, and it is used in the subsequent analysis.

### 3.2 Second Step: Distinguishing the QSO and Host Galaxy Light

A second two-dimensional fit distinguishes the light of the QSO from that of the resolved host galaxy, simultaneously fitting both parts. In this step, the model PSF’s brightness is scaled to match the QSO nuclear brightness, while a galaxy model is fitted to the host. The host model accounts for ellipticity, position angle, brightness, size, and a simple morphological classification based on radial profile. We consider two surface brightness models, each of which is convolved with the PSF: the de Vaucouleurs $`r^{1/4}`$ law, $`I(\stackrel{~}{r})=I(0)\mathrm{exp}[7.67(\stackrel{~}{r}/\stackrel{~}{r}_{1/2})^{1/4}]`$, which is typical of elliptical galaxies, and the exponential law, $`I(\stackrel{~}{r})=I(0)\mathrm{exp}[\stackrel{~}{r}/\stackrel{~}{r}_e]`$, typical of spirals. Here, $`\stackrel{~}{r}`$ is the elliptical radius, $`\stackrel{~}{r}=(x^2+\alpha ^2y^2)^{1/2}`$, where $`x`$ and $`y`$ are aligned with the major and minor axes of the ellipse, respectively, and $`\alpha =a/b`$, where $`a`$ is the semi-major axis and $`b`$ is the semi-minor axis. The half-light radius $`\stackrel{~}{r}_{1/2}`$ is the elliptical radius enclosing half the total light as projected onto the sky; for the exponential model, $`\stackrel{~}{r}_{1/2}=1.68\stackrel{~}{r}_e`$.

In six cases, namely PG 0052$`+`$251, MRK 1014, PKS 0736$`+`$01, 3C 215, LBQS 1222$`+`$1010 and PG 1402$`+`$261, the automated fitting procedure does not produce a good match to the central point source, most often because of complex host features at very small radii. For these cases, we manually subtract an increasingly luminous central point source until the residuals are smooth. Consequently, the resulting nuclear and host magnitudes for these objects are somewhat subjective and more uncertain.

For $`90`$% of the objects, the host morphology is assigned simply on the basis of the best-fitting (lowest $`\chi ^2`$) model: elliptical if the $`r^{1/4}`$ model fits best, spiral if the exponential model does. We overrule the automatic classification in seven cases. Four hosts, those of PKS 0312$``$77, PKS 1004$`+`$13, PG 1216$`+`$069, and PG 1358$`+`$04, yield a spiral classification after the automated fit, but plots of their radial profiles (Figure 1) show them to follow an $`r^{1/4}`$ law more closely overall \[i.e., plotting log(counts) vs. $`r^{1/4}`$ yields a straight line\], and they show no evidence of spiral arms. They are reclassified as ellipticals, and their $`r^{1/4}`$ models are used in our subsequent analysis. Three hosts, those of MRK 1014, PG 1309$`+`$355 and MS 2159.5$``$5713, have their radial profiles outside their central bulges well represented by the $`r^{1/4}`$ law, yet they show clear evidence of spiral arms. They are thus classified as spiral, although their best-fitting $`r^{1/4}`$ models are used in the analysis. Note that we are able to identify late-type spiral structure in hosts at redshifts as high as $`z=0.4`$. Except for these seven cases, we keep the morphological assignments determined by the best-fitting models.

For spiral hosts with a visible bulge, we use masks to fit the bulge and disk separately. The bulge is fitted first, and its model is subtracted from the entire image before the disk is fitted. Bars, if present, are masked out of the fit altogether, though they are used in determining the host’s total magnitude. Based on visual inspection, some hosts appear to have undergone recent, strong interactions that have severely distorted their appearances from those of a normal elliptical or spiral, and we have noted these in Table 1. Two QSOs in this sample have a nucleus not concentric with the main part of the host, 3C 48 and IR 0450-2958. Both of these appear to have undergone severe interactions with other galaxies and are left with disrupted hosts and offset nuclei. There are several other cases of hosts that have undergone interactions, such as Q 0316-346, PG 1012+008, and PKS 2349-014, but these still have a nucleus centered within the host.

### 3.3 Third Step: Extracting the Magnitudes

Using the fitted parameters, we then subtract the properly scaled PSF from the QSO image, leaving the host galaxy. The magnitude of the nucleus is measured directly from the scaled PSF model. The light of the PSF model is measured within an aperture of radius $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$. An aperture correction of 0.10 magnitudes is subtracted (Voit 1997), and the result is used for the nuclear apparent magnitude. The host magnitude is measured from the PSF-subtracted image, within an aperture large enough to encompass the visible extent of the host. Outside the aperture, we extrapolate the host model to a radius of infinity and add this contribution to the light contained within the aperture, yielding the apparent magnitude of the host galaxy. The measurements are not based on the models alone because the host profiles often deviate from strict $`r^{1/4}`$ or exponential laws, creating noticeable differences between magnitudes derived from the model alone and magnitudes obtained in the way described above. For some objects, we find differences between our host magnitudes and those of other researchers that may be due to their having derived the magnitudes from the host model alone (see §3.4 and §5.4).

With the exception of MRC 0022$``$297 (which was observed with the F336W filter), the observations were made in WFPC2 F606W or redder filters. The measured apparent magnitudes of the nuclei and hosts are transformed to rest frame $`V`$. They are then converted to absolute magnitudes in our adopted cosmology and reported in Table 1.

In calculating the absolute $`V`$ magnitudes, the apparent $`V`$ magnitudes are first obtained by applying a color correction. Colors for the nuclei are interpolated in redshift from Cristiani & Vio (1990), who provide $`\mathrm{V R}`$ and $`VI`$ as functions of the redshift, $`z`$ (where $`R`$ corresponds closely to $`F675W`$ and $`I`$ to $`F814W`$). We obtain colors for $`VF606W`$ and $`VF702W`$ by treating these filters as linear combinations of $`V`$, $`R`$, and $`I`$. We calculate the combinations using the IRAF synphot package and a power-law spectrum of the form $`f_\nu \nu ^\alpha `$, with $`\alpha =0.0`$. For the $`F606W`$ filter, we use $`V=F606W+0.25(\mathrm{V R})`$, and for the $`F702W`$ filter, $`V=F702W+0.85(\mathrm{V R})+0.15(VI)`$. For $`R`$-band images of redshift $`z<0.1`$ and $`I`$-band images of redshift $`z<0.2`$, Cristiani & Vio (1990) have no color data. We therefore take $`\mathrm{V R}=0.25`$ and $`VI=0.43`$, calculated using the above power-law spectrum.

Galaxy colors are interpolated in redshift from Fukugita et al. (1995). Because we do not classify the spiral galaxies into more detailed morphologies, we average together the colors given for the S0 and all spiral categories in Fukugita et al. (1995). There are noticeable differences in the $`VF814W`$ colors of S0 and Scd galaxies at higher redshifts. At a redshift of $`z=0.0`$, the maximum deviation from the average is $`0.05`$ mag, but this grows to $`0.26`$ mag at a redshift of $`z=0.5`$. The other spiral colors have much smaller differences.

Once we have the apparent $`V`$ magnitudes, the absolute $`V`$ magnitudes are given by

$$M_V=m_V45.3965\mathrm{log}(1+z\sqrt{1+z})K(V)A_V\text{ ,}$$
(1)
where $`K(V)`$ is the $`V`$-band K-correction, and $`A_V`$ is the Galactic reddening. The individual absolute magnitudes here account for Galactic extinction, using the data from Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis (1998) and interpolated by the Galactic extinction calculator on the NASA Extragalactic Database 111nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu (NED). The unweighted and weighted host luminosity distributions use the extinction-corrected magnitudes, but the host luminosity function uses the uncorrected magnitudes. This is done to allow a direct comparison with the luminosity function of Metcalfe et al. (1998), which does not account for Galactic extinction. We interpolate the nuclear K-corrections in redshift from the data of Cristiani & Vio (1990). For galaxy K-corrections, we use the data of Pence (1976) which assumes no intrinsic reddening in the host galaxies. Pence (1976) combines E and S0 morphologies into a single category and subdivides spiral galaxies into multiple categories. Following our decision with spiral galaxy colors, we average the K-corrections for all S-types, including S0. At a redshift of $`z=0.06`$, the maximum deviation from this average is $`0.06`$ mag, and at a redshift of $`z=0.46`$, this increases to $`0.49`$ mag.

### 3.4 Comparison with Other Methods

The analysis techniques used by others in studies with criteria similar to our own are sometimes different in minor ways. For example, the method of Bahcall et al. (1997) uses stellar PSFs taken at the time of the observations, while we generally cannot. They observe a set of four stars for the PSFs, chosen to have colors similar to QSOs. The PSF is subtracted by scaling it until the $`\chi ^2`$ between it and the QSO image is minimized. The best-fitting of the four PSF stars is used in each case. Elliptical and spiral host models are then fitted to the residual in an annular region $`r>1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$, avoiding the core of the QSO. Bahcall et al. (1997) try one- and two-dimensional models, and adopt the two-dimensional results in the end.

McLure et al. (1999) also use stellar observations for the PSFs in their analysis, employing two-point dithering to improve the sampling (and therefore the subpixel centering), with the PSF stars being chosen to match closely the typical $`\mathrm{B V}`$ colors of QSOs. Their host fitting technique is similar to ours, with the host and QSO being fitted simultaneously. They use a two-dimensional host model, assuming either a strict $`r^{1/4}`$ or exponential law profile, and varying the host model’s size, luminosity, ellipticity and position angle, as well as the nuclear luminosity. Separately, they try the technique of using a model with the radial profile having a variable exponent, $`\beta `$. A true exponential law would have $`\beta =1.00`$, and a de Vaucouleurs law would appear as $`\beta =0.25`$. They achieve similar classifications using this technique, but their adopted $`M_{\mathrm{host}}`$ values are based on the former method.

## 4 THE LUMINOSITY FUNCTION OF QSO HOST GALAXIES

### 4.1 Subclasses and the Unweighted Absolute Magnitude Distribution of QSO Hosts

With 70 detected QSO hosts in our sample, we are able to investigate the properties of the host galaxy luminosity function quantitatively and consider issues related to host morphology and radio loudness.

As noted in §2, the host of one QSO is not convincingly detected; this one, MRC 0022$``$197, is a radio-loud QSO and is the only QSO observed in the F336W filter (approximately Johnson $`U`$). Importantly, this is also the QSO in our sample with the faintest apparent magnitude, $`m_V=19.0`$, according to Véron-Cetty & Véron (1998). For one spiral (MS 2159.5$``$5713), we have no radio information. Consequently, MRC 0022$``$197 is excluded from all analyses, and MS 2159.5$``$5713 is excluded from analyses requiring radio information.

It is of interest to consider whether the remaining elliptical and spiral hosts in our sample are drawn from different parent populations. This might also be related to possible selection effects and biases (§5.3). Below we consider these objects in terms of a binary classification yielding four subclasses. The nuclear and host magnitudes for these objects, separated by subclass, are plotted in Figure 2. The overall absolute magnitude distribution of the hosts in our sample is shown in Figure 2. Our sample is divided almost evenly into three subclasses: radio-loud QSOs with elliptical hosts (designated “LE,” 22 objects), radio-quiet QSO with elliptical hosts (designated “QE,” 22 objects), and radio-quiet QSOs with spiral hosts (designated “QS,” 21 objects). Membership in the fourth subclass, radio-loud QSOs with spiral hosts (designated “LS,” 4 objects), is rare. The total of these subsamples is 69 because the lack of radio information on MS 2159.5$``$5713 excludes it. First we discuss the rare LS subclass.

Two of the four radio-loud QSOs with spiral hosts, 3C 277.1 and MC 1548+114A, are at redshifts $`z>0.3`$ and have little detail visible, but both appear to have large tidal arms that may be responsible for the exponential profile being the better model. It is possible that they are simply interacting cases and not normal spirals. Additionally, 3C 277.1 is a compact steep-spectrum quasar known to have bright, emission-line gas aligned with the radio source, and its classification may have been affected by this feature (De Vries et al. 1999). A third object, 3C 351, appears to contain a complete ring surrounding an off-center bulge, with the putative bulge following an $`r^{1/4}`$ radial profile. We classify the complete host as a spiral on the basis of the ring structure, although it could be another case of an interacting system. The fourth, PG 1309+355 ($`z=0.184`$), has spiral arms but follows an $`r^{1/4}`$ profile. Its unitless radio-to-optical flux density ratio is $`18`$ (Kellermann et al. 1989). Since Kellermann et al. (1989) classify QSOs with radio-to-optical flux ratios $`>10`$ as radio-loud, it would be considered radio-loud by that standard. However, its ratio does lie between the peaks of the radio-loud and radio-quiet distributions. Furthermore, its observed 6 cm flux is only $`54`$ mJy, despite its low redshift. Therefore, it, too, might be considered a questionable case for a radio-loud spiral.

Thus, with the possible exceptions of PG 1309+355 and 3C 351, we confirm the result of Bahcall et al. (1997) that radio-loud QSOs are almost exclusively found in elliptical or interacting hosts, while radio-quiet QSOs may be found in elliptical, spiral or interacting systems. The host absolute magnitudes of the radio-loud spirals were found to lie in the range $`22.2>M_V>24.6`$, spread across our overall host absolute magnitude distribution.

Table 2 presents the median absolute magnitudes of the various subsamples. To check whether the host and nuclear luminosities in each of the three major subclasses are consistent with being drawn from similar parent populations, we apply two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) tests to each combination of subclasses. The detailed results of this exercise are reported in Table 3. The individual host magnitude distributions are shown in Figure 3. Comparison of the LE and QE subclasses shows that their host luminosity distributions differ at a significance $`>99.9`$%, while their nuclear luminosity distributions differ at a significance of $`96.5`$%. Formally, the LE subclass is more luminous than the QE subclass in both cases. For host magnitudes, the LE median is 0.8 mag brighter than the QE median, but for nuclear magnitudes the LE median is only about 0.2 mag brighter than that of the QE class. Comparison of the LE and QS subclasses shows that both their host and nuclear luminosity distributions differ at a significance $`>97`$%, with the LE subclass again being the more luminous. The LE median host magnitude is about 0.4 mag brighter than the QS median, and the LE median nuclear magnitude is about 0.3 mag brighter than that of the QS class. The host luminosity distributions of the QE and QS subclasses are slightly less distinct, differing at a significance of 88.1%, but their nuclear luminosity distributions are fairly compatible, differing only at a significance of 9.2%.

Additionally, we compare the host and nuclear luminosities of all ellipticals (“E,” 44 objects) to all spirals (“S,” 26 objects), and the host and nuclear luminosities of all radio-loud QSOs (“L,” 26 objects) to all radio-quiet QSOs (“Q,” 43 objects). The results are also shown in Table 3 and indicate that the radio-loud and radio-quiet objects can be distinguished not only by their nuclear luminosity distributions (98.7% significance) but by their host luminosity distributions as well ($`>99.9`$% significance). The hosts of radio-loud QSOs are typically half a magnitude more luminous than their radio-quiet counterparts, and the radio-loud nuclei are also noticeably brighter (0.3 mag) than the radio quiet nuclei. The differences between objects in ellipticals and spirals are less significant, however. Their nuclear luminosity distributions are distinguishable, differing at a significance of 91.0%, but their host luminosity distributions differ only at 60.9% level of significance. The ellipticals are more luminous than the spirals in both cases. The magnitude difference is fairly small ($`0.2`$ mag) in their median host magnitudes, but it is pronounced ($`0.8`$ mag) in their nuclear magnitudes.

From Figure 4 we see that the number distribution of our complete sample of QSO hosts as a function of their absolute magnitude. This distribution is entirely contained within a range of 3.1 mag, from $`M_V=21.7`$ to $`24.8`$, with a median of $`M_V=23.2`$. It can be fitted by a Gaussian with a peak at $`M_V=23.1`$ and a $`1\sigma `$ width of $`0.67`$ mag. Note that since all but one of the hosts are clearly detected, the lack of faint hosts is not due to a failure to detect them.

### 4.2 The Weighted Number Distribution of QSO Host Absolute Magnitudes

The 71 QSOs in our sample correspond to $`7`$% of all known QSOs within the magnitude range of our sample in the catalog of Véron-Cetty & Véron (1998; hereafter VCV). However, since our selection of QSOs to include in this study is based on the availability of HST observations, they may not adequately represent the characteristics of all low-redshift QSOs. In particular, our sample may be systematically biased as a function of apparent luminosity and redshift: nearer and brighter objects are more accessible, and therefore more likely to be selected for study. We therefore apply a simple weighting technique to approximately correct for redshift- and magnitude-dependent selection effects relative to the VCV catalog. However, we note that any inherent biases in the VCV catalog will not be removed. This catalog is intended to be a compilation of all known, published QSOs, so it has a mix of biases from the various surveys that make up the catalog. As a result, for example, its ratio of the number of radio-loud to the number of radio-quiet QSOs is not the true ratio, but we do not base our conclusions on this information. More subtle biases, such as those involving limiting magnitudes, will remain.

Our procedure for weighting the distribution function to derive a corrected or unbiased distribution function is based on a replacement method as follows. For each of the 982 QSOs in VCV within our selected magnitude and redshift range, we pick a representative object in our observed sample with approximately the same total (nuclear $`+`$ host) magnitude $`M_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ and redshift $`z`$. The representative object is chosen randomly with a Gaussian probability distribution that depends on the difference in absolute magnitude and redshift. We choose a Gaussian width of $`0.5`$ mag in absolute magnitude and $`0.07`$ in redshift. These widths are chosen to ensure that most catalog objects have several sample objects within about 1$`\sigma `$ in both magnitude and redshift; if the widths are too narrow, regions of the $`(M_{\mathrm{tot}},z)`$ plane that contain few sample objects would yield a luminosity function that depends too heavily on those few objects.

Each object, $`i`$, in our observed sample is then assigned a weight, $`w_i`$, that is simply the number of times it is selected by the random process. The resulting weighted distribution function is shown as the unshaded histogram in Figure 5. The error bars reflect the nominal counting error defined as $`\sigma _{\mathrm{bin}}=(\mathrm{\Sigma }_i(w_i^2))^{1/2}`$, where the sum is over all objects in the bin. Note that this error is an upper limit for the Poisson uncertainty in the distribution function in that bin, in that it assumes that the host magnitude is not correlated with redshift or total magnitude; any correlation makes the assignment process less random and therefore reduces the counting uncertainty.

The extinction-corrected, weighted distribution function has a shape similar to that of the unweighted distribution, though with a narrower peak, and its estimated median, $`M_V23.23`$, is almost identical. A Gaussian fit to the weighted distribution peaks at $`M_V=23.1`$ and has a $`1\sigma `$ width of $`0.63`$, so it peaks approximately in the same location as the fit to the unweighted data and has only a slightly narrower width.

Since the morphologies of VCV hosts are generally unknown, we cannot weight the elliptical and spiral distributions separately. However, we can perform a simple weighting for radio loudness by using the unitless radio-to-optical flux density ratio, $`R_{\mathrm{ro}}`$, described by Kellermann et al. (1989), calculated from the apparent $`V`$ magnitudes and the 6 cm radio flux densities listed in VCV. Since these are relatively nearby QSOs, we assume those QSOs without radio detections in VCV to have no 6 cm flux. Kellermann et al. (1989) classify QSOs with $`R_{\mathrm{ro}}>10`$ as radio-loud and those with $`R_{\mathrm{ro}}<1`$ as radio-quiet. In keeping with Brinkmann et al. (1997) and Yuan et al. (1998), we choose $`R_{\mathrm{ro}}=10`$ as a strict dividing line between radio-loud and radio-quiet. Under these assumptions, we derive a weighted distribution function of QSO hosts, separated in terms of hosts of radio-loud and radio-quiet QSOs. These individual weighted distributions are also shown in Figure 5. The shapes of the radio-loud and radio-quiet distributions are fairly similar between the weighted and unweighted versions. Note that the weighted radio-quiet distribution rises higher than the overall weighted distribution in some bins. This is because they are calculated from separate Monte Carlo runs.

### 4.3 The Luminosity Function of QSO Host Galaxies

We use the QSO luminosity function of Boyle et al. (2000) to derive a normalization for our weighted host distribution function, turning it into a QSO host galaxy luminosity function. Boyle et al. (2000) have analyzed a ground-based sample of over 6000 QSOs to derive a QSO luminosity function for the total (nuclear + host) light. They parameterize the luminosity function in terms of a two-power-law function,

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(M_B,z)=\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{Boyle}}^{}/\left\{10^{0.4(\alpha _{\mathrm{Boyle}}+1)[M_BM_B^{}(z)]}+10^{0.4(\beta _{\mathrm{Boyle}}+1)[M_BM_B^{}(z)]}\right\}\text{ ,}$$
(2)
and use a polynomial function for the evolution of $`M_B^{}(z)`$ in redshift, $`M_B^{}(z)=M_B^{}(0)2.5(k_1z+k_2z^2)`$, where $`\alpha _{\mathrm{Boyle}}=3.60`$, $`\beta _{\mathrm{Boyle}}=1.77`$, $`M_B^{}(0)=22.39`$, $`k_1=1.31`$, $`k_2=0.25`$, and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{Boyle}}^{}=6.8\times 10^7`$ objects Mpc-3 mag-1. Their data are limited to redshifts of $`z0.35`$, and at the low-redshift end the data do not span a large range in total absolute magnitude. Thus, we restrict our consideration to redshifts of $`0.35z0.46`$, where our sample overlaps with theirs, and to total absolute magnitudes of $`23.00M_V(\mathrm{total})24.61`$, extending no more than one magnitude brighter than $`M_B^{}(z=0.405)`$. We use $`z=0.405`$ in the function since it is the average of the range we consider. We note parenthetically that 22 of the QSOs in our sample lie within this redshift range and that 12 of those also lie within the above total magnitude range. Since the total absolute magnitudes of the QSOs in the survey of Boyle et al. (2000) are likely dominated by nuclear luminosity, we assume $`\mathrm{B V}0.0`$.

Integrating the two-power-law function over the range $`23.0M_V(\mathrm{total})24.61`$, with $`z=0.405`$, we find $`7.5\times 10^7`$ QSOs Mpc-3. Over the same total absolute magnitude interval, with $`0.35z0.46`$, there are $`228`$ objects in the VCV catalog. Dividing the integrated function by 228, we obtain a normalization factor of $`3.3\times 10^9`$ Mpc-3. Multiplying our weighted host distribution by this normalization factor and by a factor of $`2`$ to account for our $`0.5`$ magnitude bin width converts our distribution into a QSO host luminosity function in units of QSO hosts Mpc-3 mag-1. This QSO host luminosity function is shown in Figure 6. We note that in Figure 6 we also show how removing objects with nuclear luminosities fainter than $`M_V=23`$ affects the derived luminosity function.

## 5 DISCUSSION

Here we elaborate on some of the results of this work. A more thorough discussion will be made elsewhere when we consider the other properties of the sample in detail.

### 5.1 Comparison of the QSO Host and Normal Galaxy Luminosity Functions

To compare our QSO host galaxy luminosity function (§4.3) with that of normal galaxies, we use the normal galaxy luminosity function of Metcalfe et al. (1998). The Schechter (1976) luminosity function parameters that describe their V-band luminosity function in our cosmology are $`\alpha =1.2`$, $`M_V^{}=22.35`$, and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{}=8.5\times 10^4`$ Mpc-3. The host luminosity function lies below that of normal galaxies, as shown. The most relevant uncertainty in the normal galaxy luminosity function is at the bright end, where it is less well constrained due to the dearth of luminous galaxies in surveys. The least luminous QSO host used in our analysis is relatively luminous, with $`M_V=21.7`$, and the median of our QSO host luminosity function is at $`M_V22.95`$, twice the luminosity of the $`M_V^{}`$ “knee” of the normal galaxy luminosity function. The normal galaxy luminosity function is also shown in Figure 6, and it is evident that it has a very different shape from that of the QSO luminosity function.

The brightest luminosity bin in the Metcalfe et al. (1998) data extends up to $`M_V24.0`$, and their Schechter function is extrapolated to brighter magnitudes, as we have marked with the dashed line in Figure 6. In fact, we searched for published accounts of any normal galaxies of luminosity $`M_V<24.0`$ with little success. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has recently released a preliminary galaxy luminosity function (Blanton et al. 2001), in which the highest-luminosity bin also extends up to $`M_V24.0`$. We also searched the literature on Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCG). In the sample of BCGs in Postman & Lauer (1995), the most luminous has $`M_V23.7`$, although Disney et al. (1995) refer in passing to BCG luminosities as $`M_V24.5`$. It may be that the $`M_V<24.0`$ region is dominated by QSO hosts. We conclude that the luminosity function of QSO hosts differs greatly in shape from that of normal galaxies but that they are coincident in the highest luminosity bin, if the normal galaxy luminosity function can be extrapolated that far.

We can use the luminosity functions to estimate the ratio of the number of low-redshift QSO hosts to the number of normal galaxies as a function of absolute magnitude. The normal galaxy luminosity function is integrated over our 0.5–mag bins and then compared to the binned host data. The ratio of the number of hosts to the number of normal galaxies is shown in Figure 7, along with a parameterization of the results. The relationship can be expressed as $`=(L_V/11.48L_V^{})^{2.46}`$, up to $`M_V25.0`$, where $``$ is the ratio of the number of hosts to the number of normal galaxies, $`L_V`$ is the $`V`$-band luminosity, and $`L_V^{}`$ corresponds to $`M_V^{}=22.35`$. The points at $`M_V=24.0`$ and $`24.5`$ are drawn with thin lines to indicate that they depend on the extrapolation of the normal galaxy luminosity function, although they are included in the fit. We note that the accuracy of these results is subject to the inherent systematic uncertainties in normalization procedures for both the local galaxy luminosity function and our low-redshift QSO host galaxy luminosity function. Normalizations of normal-galaxy luminosity functions can differ by a factor of 2 from one study to another.

The conclusions drawn here about the comparison of the QSO and normal galaxy luminosity functions are roughly similar to those reached by Smith et al. (1986) in their ground-based study of the hosts of QSOs and lower-luminosity AGN. The current data are of course better than what was available to them, so we believe that the conclusions are now considerably stronger. As suggested by these authors, this ratio essentially represents an empirical parameterization of the probability that a galaxy with luminosity $`L_V`$ will host a QSO. It applies in the redshift interval studied here, $`z0.060.46`$.

### 5.2 Radio-loud and Radio-quiet QSOs with Elliptical Hosts

As described in §4.1 and shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3, the QE subclass tends to have dimmer host and nuclear luminosities than the LE subclass, but there is a great deal of overlap. Within this overlap, there must be some property, other than host luminosity, that affects the amount or nature of the fuel available to the central engine for radio emission. The possible causes of this effect should be investigated more closely by using the members of these two subclasses of elliptical hosts to examine other properties of these QSOs, including environmental clues.

### 5.3 Selection Effects and Biases

Images in our sample are of heterogeneous quality, because the original observers have chosen a variety of filters and exposure times for objects with disparate properties. The best-exposed images, such as Q 1402$`+`$436 and PG 1444$`+`$407, average up to 15000 e pixel-1 within the half-light radius, for a S/N up to 150 per resolution element (the full-width at half-maximum of the PSF). The worst cases, such as 3C 93 and LBQS 0020$`+`$0018, have as little as 200 e pixel-1, for a S/N of 25 per resolution element.

Adequate model fits can be obtained even in images with low S/N, as shown by the radial profile of 3C 93 (Figure 8). While noise does give its profile a ragged appearance, the model is not a bad fit overall, and the small discrepancy between model fit and measured profile is not reflected in the object’s computed magnitude, which is based primarily on the actual counts rather than on the model fit (§3.3). Some of the most irregularly-shaped hosts can give rise to systematic differences between the image profile and the model, as in the example of 3C 48 (Figure 9). In this case, the host’s shape and position, with the active nucleus offset from its center, requires masking irregular parts of the host to allow the fit to converge; this results in the systematic errors at small radii shown in the figure. But others of these irregular hosts, such as PKS 2349$``$014 (Figure 10), have excellent fits, without significant systematic differences in their profiles. Finally, Figure 11 shows an example of a spiral host with both the disk and bulge modeled.

A bright QSO may be expected to hide a dim host, and the more distant it is, the harder the host will be to detect. However, we are able to see hosts that are 3.3 magnitudes dimmer than their nuclear QSO light (in apparent magnitudes in the observed wavebands). Very few of the objects have hosts nearly this much dimmer than their nuclei, and there are in fact only 7 objects that have a host 2.1 or more magnitudes dimmer than their nucleus. In general, considering that the host magnitudes span a noticeably smaller range than the nuclear magnitudes (Figure 2), combined with the fact that we have failed to detect a host in only one case, makes us confident that our host luminosity function is not strongly biased by missing very dim hosts.

The ellipticals outnumber the spirals in our sample, making up 62% of the total. However, due to HST target selection effects, this may not be representative of all QSOs in this redshift range. For example, we confirm, with only one or two possible exceptions, that radio-loud QSOs are found in elliptical or interacting hosts (§4.1), while radio-quiet QSOs may be found in either ellipticals, spirals or interacting cases. The fraction of radio-loud QSOs in our sample is $`37\%`$, higher than the 10–20% expected for optically–selected samples in this redshift range (Kellermann et al. 1989; Hooper et al. 1995; Hooper et al. 1996). This may indicate that we have selected an artificially high fraction of QSOs with elliptical hosts. But since QSOs in ellipticals are more luminous than those in spirals, our weighting procedure (§4.2) may compensate for this bias to an extent.

It is unlikely that a redshift-dependent magnitude bias could arise from non-stellar emission from the hosts. Spiral hosts may contain H ii regions, however most bright H ii regions are masked from our fits and analyses if they are in dim areas of the host. Although less-prominent H ii regions might be unmasked, the rest equivalent width of H$`\alpha `$, the major H ii emission line, is typically $`25`$ Å in late-type galaxies (Gavazzi et al. 1998). In contrast, the WFPC2 wide-band filters we use have much larger equivalent widths ranging from 867 Å (F675W) to 1539 Å (F814W) (Burrows 1995), so the H$`\alpha `$ effect in the host is very small. More important is the affect that broad emission lines might have on a QSO’s nuclear luminosity, and H$`\alpha `$ is again the most prominent line. In this case, H$`\alpha `$ rest-frame equivalent widths are distributed with a median of $`240`$ Å and usually do not exceed $`450`$ Å (Sabbey 1999); thus this could account for at most a few tenths of a magnitude variation, depending on whether or not the line is included in the filter passband.

### 5.4 Comparisons with Results from Some Other Studies

There have been a few other large-sample studies of QSO hosts with selection criteria similar to our own. Of the space-based HST ones, the two largest, those of Bahcall et al. (1997) and of McLure et al. (1999), have samples that are included in ours.

The sample of Bahcall et al. (1997) includes 20 QSOs with redshifts $`z<0.3`$ and $`M_V<24.4`$, making them among the most luminous objects in the nearby universe. In this comparison, we use their final results, which come from their 2-D model fits. Their host magnitude distribution has a shape similar to ours but is nearly a magnitude fainter. It should be noted that the results of their 1-D fits are brighter than their 2-D fits and give a distribution about half a magnitude fainter than ours. They find that, on average, the hosts of radio-loud QSOs are one magnitude brighter than the hosts of radio-quiet QSOs, while we find that the radio-loud hosts are about half a magnitude brighter. They also report the hint of a luminosity difference between elliptical and spiral hosts, but they state that it may be artificial, a consequence of fitting the host model to the outer ($`r1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$) region of the host. Our analysis shows only a small difference, with elliptical hosts being $`0.2`$ mag brighter than the spirals on average. This is true whether using the mean or the median.

Bahcall et al. (1997) classify 4 of their hosts as spirals, 12 as ellipticals, and the remaining 4 as interacting or of indeterminate morphology. Ignoring the interacting and indeterminate types, we agree with their morphology classifications, with the possible exceptions of PG 1116$`+`$215 and PG 1444$`+`$407. Bahcall et al. (1997) classify both of these as elliptical, but we find they are disk-like. In our analysis, they are best fit by exponential profiles, and they contain central bulges, although neither host shows visual evidence of spiral arms. One of the central conclusions of Bahcall et al. (1997), that elliptical galaxies can host either radio-loud or radio-quiet QSOs, is confirmed by our study. Finally, we agree with their finding that the host magnitude distribution is inconsistent with a Schechter (1976) function.

The sample of McLure et al. (1999) includes 15 QSOs with a redshift range of $`0.1z0.35`$. Transforming their results into $`M_V`$, using $`\mathrm{V R}=0.7`$ for ellipticals and $`\mathrm{V R}=0.6`$ for spirals (Fukugita et al. 1995), we find that their host luminosity distribution is narrower ($`21.9>M_V>23.6`$) than ours, though with the peak in the same magnitude bin ($`M_V23`$) as ours. They find only two QSOs with spiral hosts (with the remaining 13 being ellipticals), while we have a much larger fraction of spirals, 26/70. But note that we classify MRK 1014 as a spiral on the basis of its arms, while they list it as an elliptical on the basis of its $`r^{1/4}`$-law radial profile. While McLure et al. (1999) find that essentially all radio-quiet QSOs with nuclear luminosities $`M_V<23.7`$ ($`M_R<24.0`$) have elliptical hosts, we find several spiral hosts with nuclei in this luminosity range. However, our data do show that the radio-quiet QSOs with the brightest nuclei reside in elliptical hosts, while those with the dimmest nuclei reside in spiral hosts. This may still lend support to their idea that the correlation between black hole and bulge mass derived by Magorrian et al. (1998) affects the distribution of nuclear luminosities between elliptical and spiral hosts.

Since this investigation uses archival HST images, we also compare our host apparent filter magnitudes, $`m_{\mathrm{host}}`$, against those of the above two studies, for cases in which we use the same images. This allows a comparison of the measurement techniques themselves. For the Bahcall data, this corresponds to 16 objects from HST observing programs numbered 5099, 5343, and 5849 (see Table 1 for the object names). For the McLure data, this corresponds to 11 objects from program number 6776 (but note that PKS 2135$``$147 is not included in their paper). We note in particular that Bahcall et al. (1997) provide the results of both their one-dimensional and two-dimensional model fits; while they adopt the two-dimensional magnitudes in their analysis, we find that their one-dimensional magnitudes agree better with ours, and thus adopt their one-dimensional magnitudes in the following comparison. There are 27 other objects for which there exist published $`m_{\mathrm{host}}`$ values taken from the same observations we use. These include the 9 objects observed by Boyle (program 6361) and published in Schade et al. (2000), the 10 observed by Impey (program 5450) and published in Hooper, Impey, & Foltz (1997), the four observed by Disney (program 6303) and published in Boyce et al. (1998) \[note that we exclude PG 0043$`+`$039, for which the published host measurements are very uncertain, and IR 0450$``$2958 and IR 0759$`+`$6508, which are published in Boyce et al. (1996) without values for $`m_{\mathrm{host}}`$\], the two observed by Hutchings (program 5178) and published in Hutchings & Morris (1995), and the two observed by Macchetto (program 5143) and published in Disney et al. (1995) and Boyce et al. (1998).

The comparisons show that the one-dimensional $`m_{\mathrm{host}}`$ data of Bahcall et al. (1997) are on average $`0.09\pm 0.35`$ mag fainter than ours, and the $`m_{\mathrm{host}}`$ data of McLure et al. (1999) are an average of $`0.16\pm 0.33`$ mag fainter than ours. Looking at all 54 objects together, we find that published $`m_{\mathrm{host}}`$ results average $`0.30\pm 0.62`$ magnitudes fainter than ours. Although there is considerable scatter to these differences in apparent filter magnitudes, we believe that at least part of the difference may be systematic and lie in our direct measurement of the apparent host magnitude from the PSF-subtracted image, without relying on a simple galaxy model except at large radii. In theory, if the host model fit is weighted inversely to the square of the Poisson noise in the image ($`1/\sigma `$), the model’s magnitude will be slightly fainter than that of the actual host image. In practice, we find that our host models are $`0.25`$ mag fainter than the host magnitudes we calculate in §3.3. The host magnitudes we adopt (§3.3) are not affected much by this bias in the models.

## 6 CONCLUSIONS

1. We have assembled a sample of 71 HST WFPC2 imaging observations of luminous QSOs (total nuclear plus host light $`M_V23`$ in our adopted cosmology with $`H_0=50`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, $`q_0=0.5`$, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$) in the redshift interval $`0.06z0.46`$. We derive results on QSO host and nuclear luminosities and on host morphology, using procedures we have developed, and we compile results on radio loudness. Of the 71 QSOs, we detect hosts in 70 cases. The one non-detection may be due to filter choice (F336W) and faintness.

2. The host galaxies span a narrow range of luminosities and are exceptionally bright, much more so than normal galaxies, usually $`L>L_V^{}`$.

3. The hosts are almost equally divided between subclasses of radio-loud QSOs with elliptical hosts (22 objects), radio-quiet QSOs with elliptical hosts (22 objects), and radio-quiet QSOs with spiral hosts (21 objects). Radio-loud QSOs with spiral hosts (at most 4 objects) are extremely rare.

4. The elliptical host luminosity distribution of the radio-loud QSOs differs significantly from both the elliptical and spiral host luminosity distributions of the radio-quiet QSOs. However, the latter two distributions are more compatible. Spiral hosts are typically nearly as luminous as elliptical hosts, and the hosts of radio-loud QSOs are typically 0.5 magnitude brighter than those of radio-quiet QSOs.

5. Using a weighting procedure, we derive the combined luminosity function of low-redshift QSO host galaxies. Subject to systematic uncertainties in normalization procedures, the luminosity function of nearby QSO hosts peaks near the point where the normal galaxy luminosity function falls off. We conclude that the host luminosity function of low-redshift QSOs differs in shape from the normal galaxy luminosity function but that they coincide at the highest luminosities. With a QSO defined in historically traditional terms, i.e., total nuclear plus host light has $`M_V23`$, the ratio of the number of nearby QSO hosts to the number of normal galaxies is $`=(L_V/11.48L_V^{})^{2.46}`$, where $`L_V^{}`$ corresponds to $`M_V^{}=22.35`$. This ratio represents an empirical parameterization of the probability that a galaxy with luminosity $`L_V`$ will host a QSO at redshift $`z0.26`$.

This research has been supported by a Graduate Student Fellowship and a grant from the Director’s Discretionary Research Fund, both from the Space Telescope Science Institute. We made use of the following databases: the HST data archive; NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France; and NASA’s Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service. We would like to thank Sandhya Rao for discussions about luminosity functions and comments on the manuscript, as well as Chris O’Dea for his helpful suggestions.


format: text

text:
# Biot-Savart-like law in electrostatics

## I Introduction

The Biot-Savart law  is one of the most basic relations in electricity and magnetism. It allows one to determine the total magnetic field $`𝐁`$ at a given point in space as the superposition of infinitesimal contributions $`\mathrm{𝐝𝐁}`$, caused by the flow of current $`I`$ through an infinitesimal path segment $`\mathrm{𝐝𝐬}`$, oriented in the same direction as the current. If $`\widehat{𝐫}`$ is the position unit-vector pointing from the element of length to the observation point $`P`$, then the total field contribution due to a closed circuit $`C`$ at $`P`$ is given by a closed line integral

$$𝐁=\frac{\mu _0I}{4\pi }_C\frac{(\mathrm{𝐝𝐬}\times \widehat{𝐫})}{r^2},$$
(1)
where $`\mu _0`$ is the permeability of free space and the path of integration is along the wire.

The usefulness of the Biot-Savart law goes far beyond its basic textbook applications. Equation (1) is a much studied integral form which arises in various interesting physical problems involving topological defects , magnetic fluids , amphiphilic monolayers , type-I superconductors  and the $`n`$-body problem of celestial mechanics . In the framework of classical electrodynamics the Biot-Savart law provides a useful technique to calculate the magnetic field generated by current carrying wires. Equation (1) is quite general, valid for nonplanar current loops of arbitrary shape. Obviously, the presence of a cross-product in the formula may introduce some difficulties in practical calculations. Ultimately, the range of problems to which equation (1) can be applied is limited primarily by the difficulty experienced in performing the integrations. These difficulties are less serious if the loop $`C`$ is flat and if the observation point lies in the plane of the loop. It has been recently shown  that the magnitude of the magnetic field due to an arbitrarily shaped (not self-intersecting), planar, current carrying wire at a point lying on the wire’s plane can be written as

$$B=\frac{\mu _0I}{4\pi }_C\frac{d\theta }{r}.$$
(2)
Equation (2) is very simple and compact, expressing $`B`$ in terms of the wire shape $`r=r(\theta )`$, where $`\theta `$ denotes the polar angle. As shown in reference , this basic result expands the degree of applicability of the Biot-Savart law allowing exact, closed form solutions for a whole new set of elementary problems.

Based on the general nature of the Biot-Savart law, its connection to recent physics research topics , and its success in performing magnetic field calcultions, we felt motivated to investigate the following question: is it possible to formulate a Biot-Savart-like law in electrostatics ? If so, what sort of electrostatic problem could be more easily solved by such an approach? In this work we address these issues and show, for the first time, that it is indeed possible to formulate a Biot-Savart-type law in the realm of electrostatics.

The formulation we propose is suitable to calculate the electric field due to an arbitrary shaped, planar region maintained at a fixed scalar potencial V, with the rest of the plane held at zero potential. We show that the calculation of the electric field produced by such a region is analogous to the evaluation of the magnetic field due to a flat current carrying wire of the same shape (figure 1). We point out that the “brute-force” calculation of the electric field due to such an arbitrarily shaped region, kept at a fixed potential, by directly applying conventional boundary-value techniques  may be quite challenging. The nontrivial nature of the problem comes from the fact that we do not know the surface charge distribution in advance. Our eletrostatic Biot-Savart law provides a much simpler way to perform this nontrivial electric field calculation, and allows one to borrow many of the standard procedures ordinarily used in the corresponding magnetostatic situation. Therefore, complicated electrostatic problems may have straightforward solutions, if solved by the Biot-Savart-like approach we develop here. We stress that, even though our derivation and new results (8) and (9) presented below are quite simple, they have not been derived in any standard electromagnetism book or journal publication. This work comes to fill this gap, offering a new and simple tool to perform electric field calculations.

As a by-product, we obtain a very compact expression for the electric field in the plane of the flat sheet (see equation (9)), which is as simple as its magnetic field counterpart given by equation (2). Finally, we illustrate our results by explicitly calculating the electric field produced by a constant potential, flat region that has the shape of a regular, $`n`$-sided polygon, for observation points located along its axis of symmetry. The calculation for the field produced in the plane of regions having other peculiar shapes (elliptical, spiral, regularly undulating) is also presented.

## II Electric field calculation

Consider an arbitrarily shaped, two-dimensional region, located in the $`x`$-$`y`$ plane, kept at a fixed potential V while the rest of the plane is held at zero potential (see figure 2). The shape of the flat plate is determined by a closed boundary curve $`C`$. We want to calculate the electric field caused by this charge configuration at a given observation point P located by the vector $`𝐱`$

$$𝐄(𝐱)=\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐱),$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐱)`$ denotes the electric scalar potential.

Since the scalar potential is specified everywhere on the $`x`$-$`y`$ plane, we have to solve a Dirichlet problem . We apply Dirichlet boundary conditions, i.e., $`G_D(𝐱,𝐱^{})|_{z^{}=0}=0`$, where $`G_D(𝐱,𝐱^{})`$ denotes the Green’s function for Dirichlet conditions, and the primed vector $`𝐱^{}`$ locates the charge distribution points. Using Green’s theorem and the fact that the volume charge density $`\rho (𝐱^{})=0`$, the electrostatic potential for $`z>0`$ can be expressed in terms of the value of the potential on the plate $`\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐱^{})=V`$

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐱)=\frac{1}{4\pi }\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐱^{})\left(\frac{G_D}{n^{}}\right)\mathrm{da}^{},$$
(4)
where $`\widehat{𝐧^{}}=\widehat{𝐳^{}}`$ is the outward unit normal and $`\mathrm{da}^{}`$ is an infinitesimal area element of the plate.

By employing the method of images , we can easily find the Green’s function by considering the potential in $`𝐱`$ due to a unit point charge located at a point in the region $`z>0`$, plus the potential of an image charge placed in a symmetric position in the lower-half plane $`z<0`$. Through this procedure we calculate $`(G_D/n^{})=(G_D/z^{})|_{z^{}=0}`$ explicitly, and rewrite equation (4) as

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐱)=\frac{V}{2\pi }\mathrm{\Omega }(𝐱),$$
(5)
where

$$\mathrm{\Omega }(𝐱)=\frac{(\widehat{𝐳})(𝐱^{}𝐱)}{|𝐱𝐱^{}|^3}\mathrm{da}^{}$$
(6)
is the solid angle subtended by the surface (flat plate of area $`a^{}`$) spanning the loop $`C`$ as seen from $`𝐱`$. The sign convention established for the solid angle is the following: $`\mathrm{\Omega }(𝐱)`$ is positive when the observation point $`P`$ views the “inner” side of the flat plate, in other words, $`\mathrm{\Omega }(𝐱)>0`$ if the unit normal points away from $`P`$. This sign convention is the same as the one adopted in references .

By substituting equations (5) and (6) into the electric field equation (3) and using the well-known relation

$$\mathrm{\Omega }(𝐱)=_C\frac{\mathrm{𝐝𝐬}^{}\times (𝐱𝐱^{})}{|𝐱𝐱^{}|^3},$$
(7)
we finally obtain

$$𝐄(𝐱)=\frac{V}{2\pi }_C\frac{(𝐱𝐱^{})\times \mathrm{𝐝𝐬}^{}}{|𝐱𝐱^{}|^3},$$
(8)
where $`\mathrm{𝐝𝐬}^{}`$ is an element of length of the integration path $`C`$. The direction of the integration around $`C`$ is determined by the direction of the outward unit normal via the right-hand rule. Notice that the cross-product in (8) has a reversed order in comparison to the one that appears in the magnetostatic case (1). This distinction is necessary to give the correct direction for the electric field vector at the observation point $`P`$.

Equation (8) is our central result. It allows the calculation of the electric field through a Biot-Savart-type law. Notice that (8) is written in terms of a line integral, so to calculate the electric field we just need to take into account the contributions coming from the boundary contour $`C`$. This result makes the solution of the electrostatic problem much easier. Under the circumstances studied in this work, the traditional Dirichlet problem can be mapped onto a Biot-Savart-like problem, a mapping that can simplify considerably the computation of the electric field in many problems of interest.

As it was in the magnetic case , a much simpler expression for the field can be obtained if we concentrate our attention in the calculation of the electric field at observation points that lie in the plane of the charge distribution. Using the same arguments as those presented in reference  it can be easily shown that

$$𝐄(𝐱)=\frac{V}{2\pi }_C\frac{d\theta }{r}\widehat{𝐳},$$
(9)
where $`r=|𝐱𝐱^{}|`$. Equation (9) is a surprisingly simple result. Note that this line integral expression (9) works for flat charge distributions of any boundary shape, including those described by curves $`C`$ which are not single valued functions of $`\theta `$. In addition, it is valid for observation points $`P`$ located either inside or outside the loop $`C`$. To illustrate our approach, in the next section we calculate the electric field due to specific planar charge configurations of some representative shapes.

## III Illustrative examples

In this section we illustrate the usefuness the the Biot-Savart-like law (8) by discussing a class of electrostatic problem that is trivially solved by using (8) or (9), but that would require a much more involved solution otherwise. We start by applying equation (8) to calculate the electric field due to a thin, flat plate, which has the shape of a regular n-sided polygon, inscribed in a circle of radius $`a`$ (see figure 3). Consider that the flat plate is located in the $`x`$-$`y`$ plane with its center at the origin, and that it is maintained at a fixed potential $`V`$. In the plane $`z=0`$ the region outside the plate is held at zero potential. We wish to compute the electric field at a point $`P`$ in the $`z`$-axis.

As discussed in section 2, by inspecting equation (8) we notice that in order to calculate the electric field due to this flat configuration, we just need to take into account the contributions coming from the boundary contour $`C`$. Let us analyze this point a little more carefully: the total electric field at point $`P`$ in the $`z`$-axis can be written as the superposition of the field due to $`n`$ triangles obtained by joining the center of circle to the vertices of the polygon (figure 3). If we sum all the contributions from these various triangular paths, we will be left with the integration around the contour $`C`$. This happens because the sense of integration along their common sides is opposite for two adjacent triangles, making the contributions from the common sides to cancel. Therefore, after performimg the integration around all the triangles, the only nonzero contributions come from the $`n`$ straight edges that define the plate’s boundary contour $`C`$. With these considerations in mind we turn to the field calculation itself.

When the field contributions of the $`n`$ sides are summed vectorially, the horizontal ($`x`$-$`y`$ plane) components add to zero. By symmetry, only the vertical components located along the $`z`$-axis will survive. From figure 3 we verify that the total electric field at $`P`$ is given by

$$E=nE_n\mathrm{cos}\alpha ,$$
(10)
where $`E_n`$ is the net field due to just one of the $`n`$ triangles that compose the polygon and $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha =a\mathrm{cos}(\pi /n)/\sqrt{a^2\mathrm{cos}^2(\pi /n)+z^2}`$. Considering the fact that the only nonzero contribution from such triangular path comes from the single edge of the polygon, we employ equation (8) to get

$$E_n=\frac{V}{\pi }\frac{a\mathrm{sin}(\pi /n)}{\sqrt{\left[a^2\mathrm{cos}^2(\pi /n)+z^2\right]\left[a^2+z^2\right]}}.$$
(11)
Using equations (10) and (11) we obtain the total electric field along the $`z`$-axis

$$𝐄=\frac{V}{2\pi }\left\{\frac{na^2\mathrm{sin}(2\pi /n)}{\left[a^2\mathrm{cos}^2(\pi /n)+z^2\right]\sqrt{a^2+z^2}}\right\}\widehat{𝐳}.$$
(12)
This result is quite handy since it provides, all at once, the calculation of the electric field along the $`z`$-axis due to any regular polygon of $`n`$ sides (equilateral triangle, square, pentagonal, etc.). We point out that our electric field result (12) agrees with the equivalent (but conceptually distinct) formula for the magnetic field at the axis of an n-sized polygonal, current carrying circuit, previously obtained in reference .

It is worth mentioning that result (12) can also be used compute the magnitude of the electric field along the axis passing through the center of a circular conducting plate of radius $`a`$. This can be easily obtained by taking the limit $`n\mathrm{}`$ in equation (12) yielding

$$𝐄=\frac{Va^2}{[a^2+z^2]^{3/2}}\widehat{𝐳}.$$
(13)
This limit agrees with reference , in which the potential calculation is done solely for the circular plate, by employing traditional boundary-value problem techniques.

We conclude this section by calling the attention of the reader to the fact that the calculation of the electric field at observation points lying in the plane of flat plates of various shapes can be obtained, with great facility, by directly using our expression (9). For example, the magnitude of the electric field in the plane of elliptical, spiral shaped and harmonically deformed circular plates (see figure 4), kept at a fixed potential $`V`$, are readily obtained by (9). Table 1 displays the values of the electric field at observation points $`P`$, for these three characteristic flat regions. So, despite the boundary curve especific geometry, the $`E`$ field calculation may be promptly performed by using our Biot-Savart-like approach. In practical terms the difficulty of having a complicated boundary shape is not a very serious obstacle in order to compute $`E`$ in closed form, as long as the related integrations are not terribly hard to handle.

## IV Concluding Remarks

In this work we show that, under certain circumstances, complicated electrostatic problems may have straightforward solutions, if solved by a Biot-Savart-like approach. We consider the general situation in which a flat region of arbitrary shape is kept at a fixed potential $`V`$, in a otherwise grounded plane. The objective is to compute the electric field due to this nontrivial charge distribution at a given point in space. At first glance, such a calculation looks very involved, mainly because we have no prior knowledge about the precise charge distribution on the planar region. We derived a Biot-Savart-like law suitable to deal with such electrostatic situation, allowing the calculation of the electric field to be done in a simple fashion.

This Biot-Savart-like law is written in terms of a line integral along the boundary contour defined by the nonzero potential region, so that the calculation does not require information about the charge distribution in the bulk. As a by-product, we show that for observation points located in the $`z=0`$ plane, the Biot-Savart-like expression can be written in a very simple and compact form, as was the case for similar magnetic field calculations recently published in reference . We illustrate our results by calculating the electric field along the axis of a polygonal flat region of $`n`$ sides, kept at a constant potential $`V`$. In addition, we calculate the magnitude of the electric field in the plane of charged plates presenting nontrivial boundary geometries such as elliptical, spiral and regularly undulating borders. In summary, we show that it is possible to define a Biot-Savart-like in electrostatics. Our new approach provides an alternative and simple technique to solve a class of complicated boundary value problems in electrostatics.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by CNPq and FINEP (Brazilian Agencies).

Figure Captions

Figure 1: Two equivalent systems: (a) arbitrarily shaped, planar wire carryng a steady current $`I`$, and (b) a flat charge distribution of the same shape, maintained at a fixed potential $`V`$, with zero potential in the rest of the plane. In (a) the magnetic field $`𝐁`$ can be calculated with the help of the usual Biot-Savart law (equation (1)), while in (b) the calculation of the electric field $`𝐄`$ may be performed with the help of an electrostatic Biot-Savart-like law (equation (8)).

Figure 2: Charged flat plate located in the $`x`$-$`y`$ plane, bounded by the curve $`C`$ and kept at a fixed potential $`V`$. The potential is set to zero in the region of the plane $`z=0`$ outside the curve $`C`$. Vector $`𝐱^{}`$ locates the source point, while vector $`𝐱`$ refers to the field point. The observation point is denoted by $`P`$.

Figure 3: Schematic view of a regular $`n`$-sized polygonal plate, kept at a potential $`V`$. The plate lies in the $`x`$-$`y`$ plane, while the observation point $`P`$ is located along the $`z`$-axis. Each individual triangle defines the angle $`2\pi /n`$. The direction of integration around $`C`$ is determined by the outward unit-normal $`\widehat{𝐧}=\widehat{𝐳}`$ via the right-hand rule.

Figure 4:(a) Elliptical plate, presenting major axis $`2a`$ and minor axis $`2b`$, centered at point $`P`$; (b) Harmonically deformed plate (Perturbed Circle) $`r(\theta )`$=$`a`$ $`[1+ϵ\mathrm{cos}(n\theta )]`$ , centered at $`P`$, for $`n=5`$ and $`ϵ=0.5`$; (c) Logarithmic spiral plate. The magnitude of the electric fields at observation point $`P`$ due to these shapes are listed in Table 1.


text:
# New anomalous exchange in Regge phenomenology and hard diffraction

## 1 Introduction

Understanding the mechanisms of diffraction at large energies is one of the main topics in QCD . This interest comes from the possibility that the fundamental problems of QCD in the diffractive processes are related to the perturbative and nonperturbative quark-gluon interactions. One of such problems is the role of the complex structure of QCD vacuum in parton scattering. A well-known fact is that at large energies the dominant contribution to the parton-parton scattering cross sections comes from the exchange which has the vacuum quantum numbers. At small momentum transfers this exchange can be successfully described by the famous Pomeron which has $`P=C=+1`$ and even signature. If the virtualities of the quarks and gluons are large enough, then the hard BFKL Pomeron, based on pQCD, would play an important role. When the virtualities of the partons are small, the QCD vacuum structure becomes very important, where the soft Pomeron contribution is dominant phenomenologically. The relations between the soft Pomeron properties and the QCD vacuum structure are widely under discussion . The most interesting idea is relating the unusual properties of the Pomeron trajectory, e.g., its high intercept and small slope, with the existence of the scale anomaly in QCD .

There is another class of diffractive process, i.e., the hard diffraction at large $`t`$ and small virtualities of initial and final particles, which has been much less studied experimentally and theoretically. In this process, colourless exchanges between partons are involved having large momentum transfers. The simplest example of such reactions is elastic hadron-hadron scattering at large $`t`$. It should be mentioned that the first data from ISR on $`pp`$ elastic scattering at large $`t`$ have already shown some unexpected results, e.g., only one diffractive minimum was observed instead of the set of minima anticipated from the multi-Pomeron exchange picture. In order to explain such phenomena, the Odderon exchange hypothesis, which has $`P=C=1`$ and intercept $`\alpha _O(0)1`$, has been suggested . The peculiarity of such exchange is in its negative charge parity, which should lead in particular to the difference between the $`pp`$ and the $`p\overline{p}`$ scattering cross sections at large energies. However it was also claimed that the modern data on $`pp`$ and $`p\overline{p}`$ elastic scattering could be explained without introducing the Odderon exchange at least at $`t=0`$ .

New data on large $`t`$ hard diffraction are now available from HERA . These data show unusual energy dependence of the cross sections for vector meson electromagnetic production and thus call for new ideas as they are difficult to explain within the conventional mechanisms based on the soft Pomeron exchange. Recently we suggested a mechanism  to understand these data by introducing a new anomalous $`f_1`$ exchange in Regge theory, which corresponds to an effective trajectory with a high intercept $`\alpha _{f_1}(0)1`$ and small slope $`\alpha _{f_1}^{}0`$. This exchange has the quantum numbers of the flavor-singlet axial-vector $`f_1(1285)`$ meson, i.e., $`P=C=+1`$ and odd signature, and can be considered as the natural partner of another anomalous Regge trajectory, i.e., the Pomeron, which has even signature and the same parities $`P=C=+1`$. Moreover we have shown that the $`f_1`$ exchange allows us to understand the anomalous behavior of the spin-dependent structure function $`g_1(x)`$ at low $`x`$ and the universal behavior of the differential cross sections for elastic $`pp`$ and $`p\overline{p}`$ scattering at large momentum transfers. The quantum numbers of this trajectory ($`P=C=+1`$) are different from those of the Odderon ($`P=C=1`$)  and can be verified by experimental measurements on several spin-dependent cross sections .

## 2 Elastic electromagnetic production of vector mesons and $`𝒇_\mathrm{𝟏}`$ exchange

Among the possible effective quark-quark interactions, there are only two kind of vertices, $`\gamma _\mu \gamma _\mu `$ and $`\gamma _\mu \gamma _5\gamma _\mu \gamma _5`$, which survive at high energies and whose Lorentz structure does not lead to the quark helicity-flip process at large energy $`s`$ and small momentum transfer $`ts`$. The spin-flip property of the quark-quark scattering is very important for the high energy behavior of the corresponding scattering amplitude because any spin-flip amplitude should be suppressed by additional factors $`t/s`$ due to total angular momentum conservation. Therefore only the above mentioned Lorentz structures can lead to non-vanishing cross sections at large energies in the forward scattering limit.

The vector-like structure $`\gamma _\mu \gamma _\mu `$ has been suggested many years ago as a possible effective interaction induced by the soft Pomeron exchange . This structure has enjoyed much success in the description of many hadron-hadron, lepton-hadron and photon-hadron reactions at small $`|t|`$ region ($`|t|1`$ GeV2), as well as their total cross sections, once the phenomenological Pomeron trajectory and form factors are used. However the possible existence of the other important structure $`\gamma _\mu \gamma _5\gamma _\mu \gamma _5`$ has not been noticed seriously until Ref. . It should be emphasized that the effective interactions for both anomalous exchanges have the structure of the product of two vector or axial-vector currents: $`J_\mu ^PJ_\mu ^P`$ for the Pomeron and $`J_{5\mu }^aJ_{5\mu }^a`$ for the $`f_1`$ exchange. The similarity of the Lorentz structure of both exchanges has probably a deep origin. The Pomeron current is expected to be connected with the non-conserved dilaton current whose divergence is given by the scale anomaly, and the $`f_1`$ anomalous exchange is related to the non-conserved axial vector current whose divergence is given by the axial anomaly . The connection between these anomalous exchanges would also be natural in SUSY QCD where only some definite chiral combinations $`G^2\pm iG\stackrel{~}{G}`$ correspond to superfields , which leads to an expectation that these trajectories are degenerate in SUSY QCD.

On the hadronic level the anomaly manifests itself in unusual decay rates. The famous example is the axial anomaly in $`\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ decay due to triangle graph contribution to the transition amplitude. The large mass of the $`\eta ^{}`$ meson is also related to the large mixing of this flavor singlet with gluons due to axial anomaly. Recently it was suggested that abnormal properties of Pomeron trajectory would be explained by the large mixing between glueball and $`q\overline{q}`$ trajectories . In the axial vector channel the lowest meson state with the appropriate quantum numbers, $`I=0`$ and $`P=C=+1`$, is the $`f_1(1285)`$. This flavor-singlet axial vector meson can couple to the quarks through mixing with a two gluon state due to triangle anomaly. In accordance with the Landau-Yang theorem the coupling of $`1^{++}`$ state to two gluon state vanishes for on-shell gluons. Therefore the intermediate gluons should be highly virtual to give a contribution to the $`f_1qq`$ coupling and we thus consider $`f_1qq`$ vertex as point-like.

The diffractive electromagnetic production of vector mesons is one of the appropriate processes for testing different perturbative QCD and QCD-inspired nonperturbative models for quark-quark scattering. Recently new experimental data on photo- and electro-production of $`\rho `$, $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ mesons at large energyies $`W100`$ GeV, and large momentum transfers, up to $`t2`$ GeV2 in elastic production and up to $`t11`$ GeV2 in low-mass dissociation, have been reported . At small $`|t|`$ and large $`W`$, the fixed-target photoproduction data have been described successfully within the soft Pomeron exchange models with the universal Pomeron trajectory $`\alpha _P^{\mathrm{soft}}(t)=1.08+0.25t`$. But the reported new data violate this universality at large $`|t|`$ region . In order to describe such observations in terms of Regge trajectories, an additional Pomeron, called hard Pomeron, with the trajectory $`\alpha _P^{\mathrm{hard}}=1.4+0.1t`$ has been proposed . However it is not yet certain whether this approach can also describe the energy independence of the elastic $`pp`$ and $`p\overline{p}`$ cross sections at large energies and momentum transfers.

In a recent paper  we have shown that the anomalous $`f_1`$ exchange can describe both the elastic hadron-hadron and $`\rho /\varphi `$ photoproduction cross sections in a consistent way. In the calculation of the $`f_1`$ exchange contribution to $`\rho `$ and $`\varphi `$ photoproduction, we have assumed a specific phenomenological form factor in the $`f_1V\gamma `$ vertex, which we would like now to relax. Furthermore the strength of this vertex was fixed from the decay width of $`f_1\gamma V`$, which is a questionable procedure for parameters to be used in high energy scattering where the quark structure of the hadrons is important. Moreover the absence of experimental data on the $`f_1\gamma \omega `$ decay did not allow us to estimate the $`f_1`$ exchange contribution to $`\omega `$ meson photoproduction.

In this work we use a method similar to that used to calculate the Pomeron exchange contribution to vector meson production in Ref. . We then generalize the approach to include the $`f_1`$ exchange process in the same production amplitude. One important feature of this approach is that we have less parameters for photoproduction and that it can be generalized straightforwardly to electroproduction. The Pomeron exchange contribution in the electromagnetic production of vector mesons is presented in Fig. 1. The soft Pomeron contribution to transverse virtual photoproduction cross section at large energy reads

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _P^T}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{27m_V^3\beta _u^2\beta _f^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{e^+e^{}}^V}{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{em}}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{s}{s_0}}\right)^{2\alpha (t)2}`$ (1)
$`\times \left[{\displaystyle \frac{F_1(t)\sqrt{1t/2m_V^2}}{(Q^2+m_V^2t)}}\right]^2F(t,Q^2),`$
where the factor $`F(t,Q^2)`$ accounts for the nonlocality of the Pomeron-quark vertex.

The contribution of the $`f_1`$ exchange to vector meson electromagnetic production (Fig. 2) is obtained in a similar manner as in the calculation of the Pomeron exchange amplitude. The main difference lies on the substitution of $`\gamma _\alpha `$ matrix in the effective Pomeron-quark vertex by $`\gamma _\alpha \gamma _5`$ in the effective $`f_1`$-quark vertex. Note that we do not have any new free parameters for this exchange since the coupling constant $`g_{f_1ff}`$ is fixed by

$$g_{f_1ff}=g_{f_1NN},$$
(2)
which can be obtained using a constituent quark picture for the nucleon wave function. It should be mentioned that this relation is different from the additivity of the Pomeron coupling, i.e., $`g_{PNN}3g_{Pqq}`$. What Eq. (2) implies is that the axial vector coupling is sensitive only to the spin of the particle. In our calculation we use $`g_{f_1NN}=2.5`$ that is obtained from the analyses of the $`f_1`$ contribution to the proton spin (see Ref. ). Then the final form for the $`f_1`$ exchange contribution to transverse virtual photoproduction cross section is (for $`\alpha _{f_1}(0)=1`$ and $`\alpha _{f_1}^{}=0`$)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _A^T}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3m_V^3g_{f_1NN}^4\mathrm{\Gamma }_{e^+e^{}}^V}{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{em}}}}`$ (3)
$`\times \left[{\displaystyle \frac{F_{f_1NN}(t)\sqrt{1t/2m_V^2}}{(Q^2+m_V^2t)(tm_{f_1}^2)}}\right]^2,`$
where $`F_{f_1NN}`$ is the flavor singlet axial vector form factor of the nucleon. In Fig. 3 we present the calculated differential cross sections for vector meson ($`\rho `$, $`\omega `$, $`\varphi `$) photoproduction together with the experimental data . The parameters are $`\beta _u=\beta _d=2`$ GeV-1, $`\beta _s=1.5`$ GeV-1 and $`s_0=4`$ GeV2.

One can see that our model reproduces the experimental data successfully. It should be mentioned that the $`f_1`$ contribution dominates over that of the Pomeron in the large $`|t|`$ region. This dominance is closely related to the slow decrease of the flavor singlet axial vector form factor of the nucleon with respect to $`|t|`$ as compared with that of the electromagnetic form factor, and to the different slopes of the trajectories.

## 3 $`𝒇_\mathrm{𝟏}`$ contribution to vector meson photoproduction in proton dissociation

The recent report on vector meson photoproduction at large $`t`$ in proton dissociation by the ZEUS Collaboration  shows a surprising behaviour of the differential cross sections. The differential cross section data have very hard $`t`$ dependence. The observed data have $`1/t^3`$ dependence instead of the $`1/t^4`$ dependence which is expected from the pQCD approach. Within our model the dominant contribution to the proton dissociation at large $`t`$ comes from the $`f_1`$ exchange between the proton quarks and the quark-antiquark pair arising from the photon. It was mentioned that it would be a good approximation to consider the $`f_1`$-quark vertex as a point-like vertex. Thus the main difference between the $`f_1`$ contributions to elastic \[Eq. (3)\] and dissociative production of vector mesons is the absence of the proton form factor in the formula for the differential cross section,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{f_1}^{diss}}{dtdx}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}q_i(x,t){\displaystyle \frac{3m_V^3g_{f_1NN}^4\mathrm{\Gamma }_{e^+e^{}}^V}{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{em}}}}`$ (4)
$`\times \left[{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{1t/2m_V^2}}{(Q^2+m_V^2t)(tm_{f_1}^2)}}\right]^2,`$
where $`q_i(x,t)`$ is the distribution of $`i`$-quark ($`i=u,d,s`$) in the proton, $`x=t/(M_x^2t)`$ and $`M_x`$ is the mass of the dissociative system. In Fig. 4 we show the results of our calculation together with preliminary ZEUS data . We have used the ZEUS cut $`x>0.01`$ and LO GRV98  partonic distributions. The agreement with the experimental data is rather good. The deviation at large $`t`$ may be due to the manifestation of non-zero (although small) slope of the $`f_1`$ trajectory (dashed line) or the deviation from the locality of the $`f_1`$-quark vertex.

## 4 Summary

We have calculated the $`f_1`$ anomalous trajectory contribution to vector meson electromagnetic production and have shown its important role in differential cross sections at large momentum transfers. The proton dissociation at large $`t`$ is one of the processes where the contribution from the $`f_1`$ exchange is very large. We have shown that the additional anomalous trajectory can explain preliminary ZEUS data reasonably.

N.I.K. would like to express his sincere gratitude to the Organizing Committee of the Diffraction 2000 Conference and especially to R. Fiore for the kind invitation and financial support. He is also grateful to many participants of the conference for fruitful discussions. This work was supported in part by the Brain Korea 21 project of Korean Ministry of Education.


text:
# Untitled Document

This paper has been withdrawn by the author because of a minor error.
The corrected version will replace the old one.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The investigation of heavy flavour production in high energy hadron collisions is an important method for studying the quark-gluon structure of hadrons and the mechanism of hadroproduction at high energies.

The most popular and technically simplest approach is the so-called QCD collinear approximation, or parton model (PM). The cross sections of QCD subprocess are calculated usually in the leading order (LO), as well as in the next to leading order (NLO) . The possibility to incorporate the incident parton transverse momenta is referred to as $`k_T`$-factorization approach , or the theory of semihard interactions . In our previous papers  we have presented a comparison of results obtained with the help of $`k_T`$-factorization and the parton model.

However in both approaches we calculate the cross sections, one-dimential distributions and correlations of the produced heavy quarks, whereas experimentally we know these quantities for heavy flavour hadrons. Of course, the total production cross sections for heavy flavour quarks and hadrons are the same due to flavour conservation, however the shape of distributions and correlations can be different.

The aim of this paper is the discussion of these differences in different kinematical domains. We will give several qualitative predictions which seem to be trivial. However their experimental check is very important because their violation means that our to-day picture of hadronization is inconsistent. The preference of heavy flavours comes from the fact that at not asymptotically high energy only one heavy quark pair can be produced. So we have the explicite correspondence between the calculated heavy quark and experimentally measured heavy flavour hadron production.

## 2 Fragmentation and recombination approach for secondary production

There exist two classes of the phenomenological models for hadronization which account for two different processes: fragmentation of the produced quark into secondary hadron and recombination of the produced quark with some another quark into secondary hadron.

Experimentally we know that both these processes exist. Quark fragmentation takes place in the case of heavy flavour production in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation. On the other hand, only recombination processes of the produced heavy quark with valence quarks of incident hadrons can explain (see, for example, ) the experimental asymmetry  in yields of leading (favoured) and non-leading (unfavoured) $`D`$-mesons111The intrinsic charm idea  is slightly different. which is defined as

$$A(x)=\frac{d\sigma /dx(Leading)d\sigma /dx(Nonleading)}{d\sigma /dx(Leading)+d\sigma /dx(Nonleading)},$$
(1)
where ”leading” hadrons have the common light quark with the incident particle, and ”non-leading” ones have no such quark.

The similar asymmetry was measured for charmed baryon $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^{}`$ yields in $`\pi ^{}`$ nucleus interactions .

The total momentum distribution $`D_H(p)`$ of the produced heavy flavour hadron, at fixed value of transverse momenta is determined by the sum of the fragmentation and recombination processes, $`D_H^F(p)`$ and $`D_H^R(p)`$,

$$D_H(p)=D_H^F(p)+D_H^R(p).$$
(2)
The principle difference of fragmentation and recombination approaches is the difference of the ratio of the momentum of the produced heavy quark to secondary hadron. In the case of fragmentation the momentum of the hadron is smaller than the momentum of the quark, the momentum distribution of heavy flavour hadron $`D_H(p)`$ is

$$D_H^F(p)=d^3p_1D_Q(p_1)G(p/p_1),$$
(3)
where $`D_Q(p_1)`$ is the momentum distribution of heavy quark and $`G(p/p_1)`$ the fragmentation function of the quark into registrated hadron.

In the case of recombination of heavy quark $`Q`$ with light antiquark (or diquark) $`q`$ we have the opposite situation.

$$D_H^R(p)=d^3p_1d^3p_2D_Q(p_1)D_q(p_2)\delta (pp_1p_2),$$
(4)
and the momentum of secondary hadron is larger than the momentum of every quark.

One can see that the fragmentation contribution into some secondary hadron distribution depends only on the momentum distribution of heavy quarks, whereas the recombination distribution depends both on the momentum distributions of heavy quarks and light antiquarks (or diquark). So the relative contribution of fragmentation and recombination processes in Eq. (2) depends on the density of light antiquarks (diquarks) in the considered kinematical region.

Sometimes it was sayd that heavy flavour hadron can not be produced via recombination of a heavy quark with light antiquark/diquark because of significant difference in their average transverse momenta. However the average transverse momenta of secondaries (mesons) produced centrally at high energy are of the order of their masses, $`p_Tm_H`$. On the other hand in a fast heavy flavour meson most probably both, heavy and light quarks have almost equal velocities222This configuration gives the main contribution, say, in nonrelativistic quark model.. Taking into account that the constituent mass of heavy quark is parametrically larger that the constituent mass of light quark, $`m_Qm_q`$, we will find in heavy flavour meson $`H`$ with standard transverse momentum $`p_Tm_H`$ a heavy quark which carries $`p_Tm_Q`$, and a light quark which carries its usual transverse momentum $`p_Tm_q`$.

As both fragmentation and recombination processes exist, the question is – which process is the most important for the heavy flavour hadron production in the high energy hadron collisions, and how this can depends on the kinematical region. The experimental fact  is that the calculated Feynman-$`x`$ distribution of produced heavy quarks in $`\pi p`$ collisions at fixed target energies are in good agreement with the experimental distributions of produced $`D`$-mesons, see Fig. 5 in . So we can say that in the averaged events with charm production the fragmentation and recombination processes in charm quark hadronization balanced each other.

However, this balance should be violated if we will consider Feynman-$`x`$ distribution of heavy flavoured mesons with some restriction in their transverse momenta. For example, in events with heavy quark pair production at comparatively small $`p_Tm_Q`$ the multiplicity of light quarks is several times (in dependence on the initial energy) larger than the multiplicity of heavy quarks. So here we have many objects (antiquarks or diquarks) which can recombinate with heavy quark. However, in the region of $`p_Tm_Q`$ the $`p_T`$-distributions of light and heavy quarks should be practically the same, because both are determined by the same QCD diagrams with scale, equal to large $`p_T`$ value. In this kinematical region the probability of recombination should decrease (see examles in ), due to decrease of the relative density of light antiquarks/diquarks with the needed comparatively large transverse momentum, $`D_q(p)`$ in Eq. (4), whereas the probability of fragmentation should be the same as at small $`p_T`$. So we can expect that the balance between recombination and fragmentation will be changed and the spectra of secondary heavy flavour hadrons should be more soft than the spectra of produced heavy quarks. The experimental check of this behaviour seems to be very interesting. By the way, possibly the dependence of the difference in $`x_F`$-distribution of heavy quarks and hadrons on the $`p_T`$ values can explain why $`p_T`$ distributions of heavy quarks are changed after $`k_T`$ kick and fragmentation (where $`p_T`$ values are comparatively large), whereas $`x_F`$-distributions (which are controlled by low $`p_T`$ values) becomes practically the same as before fragmentation .

At the same time, if the contribution of recombination for heavy flavour hadrons with large $`p_T`$ decrease, we predict the decrease of the asymmetry Eq. (1) in the production of leading to non-leading secondaries. Besides this, the measurement of the dependence of asymmetry on the transverse momenta of secondaries gives information about wave function of heavy flavour hadrons.

Very interesting behaviour is expected for the energy behaviour of the asymmetry (1) in $`ep`$ collisions. As is well-known, at not very high initial energy the direct $`\gamma p`$ interactions dominate, when the incident photon goes into $`Q\overline{Q}`$ pair with production another secondaries via soft parton shower. So the heavy quark pair and the proton remnant are in different hemispheres, and the difference of their rapidities increase with initial energy fast enough. In this configuration the probability of heavy quark recombination with proton remnant is small and the asymmetry should decrease with the energy. However, with the growth of energy the resolved process starts to contribute more and more. Here heavy quark pair is produced in parton-parton collision via the hadron component of a photon. The cross sections of the last processes are determined by both parton structure functions of proton and photon. The photon structure functions are known not good enough, so the ratio of resolved to direct contributions can be changed several times, by using different sets of parton distributions in the photon, one can see several numerical examples in .

In the resolved photon process heavy quarks are produced in the central region, similarly to the $`pp`$ case, so the asymmetry should be practically the same. The direct interactions should give only small correction. So the measurement of the ratio of heavy flavour hadron asymmetry in $`\gamma p`$ (in the proton fragmentation hemisphere) and in $`pp`$ collisions at the same energy can estimate the ratio of resolved to direct processes. It seems to be also interesting to consider these ratios in different $`p_T`$ regions.

## 3 Conclusion

We have discussed the qualitative features of heavy quark hadronization. It seems that in very general approach the hadronization mechanism should depend on the transverse momentum of heavy quark/hadron. This results in some qualitative predictions for the data. Probably the most important feature should be the decrease of the asymmetry, Eq. (1) with the transverase momenta of heavy flavour hadrons.

The comparison of heavy flavour hadron asymmetries in $`\gamma p`$ and $`pp`$ collisions at similar energies allows one to estimate the part of interactions with resolved photon.

Of course, all quantitative estimations here are model dependent .

I am grateful to M.G.Ryskin for useful discussions.