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# Phase diagram and dependence of the critical temperature 𝑇_𝑐 on the pressure for 𝑇𝑙_0.5𝑃𝑏_0.5𝑆𝑟₂𝐶𝑎_{1-𝑥}𝑌_𝑥𝐶𝑢₂𝑂₇

## 1 Introduction

In spite of the advance attained in the research of the high temperature superconductors (HTSC), a great number of questions related to them remain to be answered. In order to obtain a better understanding of these new materials many experiments were performed, but the different experiments were interpreted by different theories. One of the most fundamental evidence that these experiments showed was the interplay among critical temperature $`T_c`$, hole content $`n_h`$, and pressure $`P`$, since one of the effects of the application of external pressure is a change in the hole content $`n_h`$ in the $`CuO_2`$ planes , which results in a large change in $`T_c`$. The large increase of $`T_c`$ by the application of pressure  has been the motivation for a vast number of works on the study of the effects of pressure on the critical temperature $`T_c`$ of the high temperature superconductors , not only to achieve higher $`T_c`$ but also to obtain a hint for chemical substitution which originates new materials and yields a better understanding of their physical properties.

Thus, in the detailed study of the dependence of the critical temperature $`T_c`$ of the HTSC on the pressure $`P`$, it has been suggested that the derivate $`dT_c/dP`$ may be strongly influenced by a pressure-induced alteration in the density of hole-like charge carriers $`n_h`$ on the $`CuO_2`$ planes . This proposal was also supported by experimental observations of Hall constant’s pressure dependence  that confirmed the existence of a growth in $`n_h`$ in the $`CuO_2`$ planes when the pressure is applied . Therefore, there is a pressure induced charge transfer (PICT) from the block layers into the $`CuO_2`$ planes, that is, $`n_h=n_h(P)`$. Since one expects $`dT_c/dP=0`$ at the optimum doping, and $`T_c(n_{op})`$ generally increases with $`P`$, it is well accepted that the pressure also increases $`T_c`$ by a different mechanism of “intrinsic” origin , and such intrinsic term is a characteristic of each family of compounds. Therefore, we can separate these two effects by considering :

$$\frac{dT_c}{dP}=\frac{dT_c^i}{dP}+\frac{T_c}{n_h}\frac{n_h}{P}.$$
(1)
Here the first term, $`dT_c^i/dP`$, represents the intrinsic contribution, not related to the charge transfer induced by pressure $`n_h/P`$. Thus, the change of $`T_c`$ with the hole content is given by $`T_c/n_h`$.

In this paper we consider the intrinsic contribution as originated from a variation of the magnitude $`V`$, of the attractive potential that forms the Cooper pairs in the superconducting phase with the applied pressure $`P`$, in such a way that $`V=V(P)`$. Similar proposition was previously made by Angilella et al.  and de Mello et al . As discussed in Ref. , as $`V`$ increases with the applied pressure, the zero temperature superconductor gap also increases. This hypothesis has been indirectly verified in the experimental study of polycristallines samples of $`Hg_{0.82}Re_{0.18}Ba_2Ca_2Cu_3O_{8+\delta }`$ .

## 2 The Method

In order to study the dynamics of the hole-type carriers in the superconducting phase as well as the normal phase with correlations and the basic attractive interaction, we consider a two dimension extended Hubbard Hamiltonian

$`H={\displaystyle \underset{ij\sigma }{}}t_{ij}c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{j\sigma }+U{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}n_in_i+{\displaystyle \underset{<ij>\sigma \sigma ^{}}{}}V_{ij}c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{j\sigma ^{}}^{}c_{j\sigma ^{}}c_{i\sigma },`$ (2)
where $`t_{ij}`$ is the hopping integral between the nearest-neighbour and next-nearest-neighbour sites $`i`$ and $`j`$; $`U`$ is the on-site correlated repulsion and $`V_{ij}`$ describes the attractive interaction between nearest-neighbour sites $`i`$ and $`j`$.

In the superconducting phase the paired states form a condensate separated from the single-particle states by a “gap” (order parameter). Using a BCS-type mean-field approximation  the self-consistent gap equation, at finite temperatures, is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤=\underset{𝐤^{}}{}V_{\mathrm{𝐤𝐤}^{}}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤^{}}{2E_𝐤^{}}\mathrm{tanh}\frac{E_𝐤^{}}{2k_BT},$$
(3)
with

$$E_𝐤=\sqrt{\epsilon _𝐤^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤^2}.$$
(4)
Here, $`V_{\mathrm{𝐤𝐤}^{}}`$ is the interaction potential which contains the repulsive and attractive potential, and may be written in a separable form

$$V_{\mathrm{𝐤𝐤}^{}}=U+2V\mathrm{cos}(k_xa)\mathrm{cos}(k_x^{}a)+2V\mathrm{cos}(k_ya)\mathrm{cos}(k_y^{}a),$$
(5)
where it was considered a square lattice of lattice parameter $`a`$ and equal coupling constants $`V`$ along both directions in the Cu-O planes, in the context of mean field approximation.

A tight-binding approximation may be employed to dispersion relation in Eq.4, which yields

$$\epsilon _𝐤=2t(\mathrm{cos}(k_xa)+\mathrm{cos}(k_ya))+4t_{xy}\mathrm{cos}(k_xa)\mathrm{cos}(k_ya)\mu .$$
(6)
This equation has been previously considered , but here it was considered identical hopping integrals along both directions in the Cu-O planes for the nearest-neighbour ($`t_x=t_y=t`$) and a different one for the next-nearest-neighbour ($`t_{xy}`$); $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential.

Also, using the same BCS-type mean-field approximation applied to the gap (Eq.3), we obtain the hole-content equation

$$n_h(\mu ,T)=\frac{1}{2}\underset{𝐤}{}\left(1\frac{\epsilon _𝐤}{E_𝐤}\mathrm{tanh}\frac{E_𝐤}{2k_BT}\right),$$
(7)
where $`0n_h1`$.

Following the steps of Ref , one observes that the substitution of the potential (Eq.5) in the gap equation (Eq.3) leads to the appearance of a gap with two different symmetries

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤(\mu ,T)=\mathrm{\Delta }^{max}(\mu ,T)[\mathrm{cos}(k_xa)\pm \mathrm{cos}(k_ya)],$$
(8)
where the plus sign is for $`extendeds`$ wave and the minus sign, for $`d`$ wave symmetry. The anisotropy of the gap is one of the characteristic distinction between the usual low temperatures superconductors and the HTSC. Many experiments and theoretical calculations suggest that the HTSC exhibit a pairing symmetry different than the usual superconductors , and in some cases even a mixture of different symmetries must be considered . Thus, the determination of the symmetry of the gap is the first step in the identification of the pairing mechanism of the charge carriers and the subsequent development of a microscopic theory for the HTSC.

To obtain the phase diagram, the gap equations are solved numerically, in the limit $`TT_c`$, together and self-consistently with the density of hole carriers $`n_h`$ (Eq.7). In these calculations it was considered that there were no symmetry mixture near the critical point .

The values of the hopping integrals $`t`$ and $`t_{xy}`$ used in the calculation of the phase diagram of the $`Tl_{0.5}Pb_{0.5}Sr_2Ca_{1x}Y_xCu_2O_7`$ series are taken from A.R.P.E.S. measurements for the Bi2212 , since it is a HTSC with similar structure, having two $`CuO_2`$ identical layers per unit cell , although this does not guarantee that the real $`t`$ and $`t_{xy}`$ have this values and that is why we have tried a small variation around the A.R.P.E.S results. The chemical potential $`\mu `$ is calculated self-consistently. The values of $`U`$ and $`V`$ are considered adjustable parameters, in order to reproduce the $`T_c\times n_h`$ curve close to the experimental data. Our method to derive the phase diagrams is similar to the approach based on a change in the zero temperature gap . On Fig. 1 we show the phase diagram with the theoretical curves from the numerical calculation for the $`extendeds`$ and $`d`$ wave symmetries, together with the experimental data for the $`Tl_{0.5}Pb_{0.5}Sr_2Ca_{1x}Y_xCu_2O_7`$ .

Fig. 2 illustrates the behavior of the phase diagram, for the $`extendeds`$ symmetry, when $`V`$ is varied. Both symmetries exhibit a similar dependence on the potential $`V`$.

Notice that although there is a strong tendency toward a $`d`$-wave symmetry on many experiments the HTSC, our results, with the parameters $`t`$ and $`t_{xy}`$ fixed, show that the $`extendeds`$ symmetry seems to reproduce well the phase diagram of the $`Tl_{0.5}Pb_{0.5}Sr_2Ca_{1x}Y_xCu_2O_7`$ series in a better agreement with the experimental points than the $`d`$ wave one. This is in accordance with the results of Schneider et al. .

Thus, the study of the phase diagram yields the best values $`t`$=0.05eV, $`t_{xy}`$=0.023eV, $`U`$=0.052eV and $`V`$=-0.0875eV for the $`extendeds`$ symmetry, and $`t`$=0.05eV, $`t_{xy}`$=0.0275eV, $`U`$=0.052eV and $`V`$=-0.057eV for the $`d`$ wave symmetry, which will be used in the next section.

## 3  The Pressure Effects

On Fig. 2 we show that $`T_c`$ is quite sensible with respect to a change in the magnitude $`V`$ of the attractive potential. Therefore, as it was previous mentioned, we suppose that the pressure induces a change in the attractive potential, in such a way that $`V=V(P)`$. In the absence of informations of how $`V`$ effective behaves with respect to the pressure $`P`$, we assume a linear dependence , which should be the case since the pressure causes very small structural changes in the lattice constants . Therefore

$$V(P)=V+\mathrm{\Delta }V(P).$$
(9)
In the same way, for the density of carriers, we have

$$n_h(P)=n_h+\mathrm{\Delta }n_h(P).$$
(10)
Here, $`V`$ and $`n_h`$ are the $`P=0`$ values of $`V(P)`$ and $`n_h(P)`$. The pressure dependence is defined as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }V(P)=c_1P,\mathrm{\Delta }n_h(P)=c_2P$$
(11)
where $`c_1=(V/P)`$ and $`c_2=(n_h/P)`$ are parameters usually determined from the experimental data.

Our previous discussion leads to $`T_c(n_h,P)=T_c(n_h(P),V(P)).`$ Thus, we can estimate $`T_c`$ for a compound with a certain value $`n_h`$, and under pressure $`P`$, using an expansion of $`T_c(n_h,P)`$ in terms of $`P`$. Consequently, we have

$`T_c(n_h,P)`$ $`=`$ $`T_c(n_h,0)+\left({\displaystyle \frac{dT_c}{dP}}\right)_{P=0}P+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2!}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{d^2T_c}{dP^2}}\right)_{P=0}P^2+`$ (12)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3!}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{d^3T_c}{dP^3}}\right)_{P=0}P^3+\mathrm{},`$
where

$$\frac{d^zT_c}{dP^z}=\left(c_1\frac{}{V}+c_2\frac{}{n_h}\right)^zT_c(n_h(P),V(P)).$$
(13)
$`T_c(n_h,0)`$ is the critical temperature for $`P`$=0. The Eq. (12) can be written as

$$T_c(n_h,P)=\underset{z}{}\alpha _z\frac{P^z}{z!},$$
(14)
with

$$\alpha _z=\left(c_1\frac{}{V}+c_2\frac{}{n_h}\right)^zT_c(n_h(P),V(P)).$$
(15)
One can see by considering the case $`z=1`$ in the above equation, and comparing with Eq.(1), that

$$\frac{dT_c^i}{dP}=\frac{V}{P}\frac{T_c}{V},$$
(16)
which clearly shows that, in our model, the intrinsic contribution is related to the variation of the magnitude $`V`$ of the attractive potential with the pressure $`P`$. Now, the analytical expressions for the coefficients $`\alpha _z`$ will be derived below as a function of the parameters $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$, for the values of $`n_h`$ and $`P`$.

The first coefficient ($`z=1`$) for the above expression is given by

$$\alpha _1=\left(c_1\frac{T_c}{V}+c_2\frac{T_c}{n_h}\right).$$
(17)
Restricting ourselves to small changes in $`V`$, we may approximate

$$\frac{T_c}{V}\overline{\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T_c}{\mathrm{\Delta }V}},$$
(18)
where the horizontal bar denotes a “mean” over the values of $`T_c`$ obtained direct from the phase diagram as a function of $`V`$, as it is shown in Fig. 2. This “mean” is realized for each value of $`n`$. To estimate $`T_c/n_h`$ we may either use an experimental value, or use directly the curves of Fig. 2 or a phenomenological universal parabolic curve :

$$T_c=T_c^{max}[14\beta (n_{op}n_h)^2],$$
(19)
and, therefore, an analytical expression for $`T_c/n_h`$ is obtained. Thus, we derive the following expression for the coefficient $`\alpha _1`$

$$\alpha _1=c_1\overline{\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T_c}{\mathrm{\Delta }V}}+c_22(4\beta )T_c^{max}(n_{op}n_h),$$
(20)
and $`\alpha _2`$, which is given by

$$\alpha _2=\left(c_1\frac{}{V}+c_2\frac{}{n_h}\right)\left(c_1\frac{T_c}{V}+c_2\frac{T_c}{n_h}\right),$$
(21)
and results in

$$\alpha _2=2(4\beta )\overline{\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T_c^{max}}{\mathrm{\Delta }V}}(n_{op}n_h)c_1c_22(4\beta )T_c^{max}c_2^2,$$
(22)
where ($`\overline{\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T_c^{max}}{\mathrm{\Delta }V}}`$) is an empirical mean derived numerically by inspection on Fig. 2 at the optimum doping compound $`n_{op}`$. Following along the same procedure, the third coefficient becomes

$$\alpha _3=4(4\beta )\overline{\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T_c^{max}}{\mathrm{\Delta }V}}c_1c_2^2.$$
(23)
As one can notice the coefficients $`\alpha _z`$, for $`z4`$, are all nulls.

## 4 Comparison with experimental data

In order to study the effects of the pressure on the critical temperature of any given family of compounds, we need first to calculate the constants $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$, which yield the coefficients $`\alpha _z`$. Thus, we can see that the constants $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$ are determined by how $`V`$ and $`n_h`$ changes with the pressure (Eq (11)). Hall effects can give directly $`n_h/P`$ as in the case of Bi2212  and therefore $`c_2`$ . Since these measurements are not available for the $`Tl_{0.5}Pb_{0.5}Sr_2Ca_{1x}Y_xCu_2O_7`$, we can obtain $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$ by comparing with the curves of $`T_c\times P`$ for two values of $`n_h`$. In fact Wijngaarden et al.  also estimate the value of $`c_2`$ from their experimental data for the $`Tl_{0.5}Pb_{0.5}Sr_2Ca_{1x}Y_x`$
$`Cu_2O_7`$.

Since at low pressures only the linear term comes into play, the higher order coefficients can be ignored. Thus, $`\alpha _1`$ becomes the slope of a linear approximation from the initial points of the $`T_c\times P`$ curve, for a given $`n_h`$ compound. Starting with $`n_h`$=$`n_{op}`$, in spite of not being strictly necessary, we determine $`c_1`$ using the estimated $`\alpha _1`$ in Eq.(20), as long as at $`n_{op}`$ the charge transfer term vanishes. To determine $`c_2`$ we estimate $`\alpha _1`$ from the $`T_c\times P`$ curve of an $`n_hn_{op}`$ compound, and use again Eq.(20). Once these two constants are determined, the $`\alpha _z`$ coefficients for any $`n_h`$ value can be calculated (Eq.(15)).

For the $`Tl_{0.5}Pb_{0.5}Sr_2Ca_{1x}Y_xCu_2O_7`$  series we used the experimental values for the $`n_h=n_{op}=0.15`$ and $`n_h`$=0.20 compounds to calculate $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$. The estimated $`\alpha _1`$ were 1.5$`K/GPa`$ and 0.41$`K/GPa`$ for $`n_{op}`$ and $`n_h`$=0.20, respectively. The phase diagram parameters ($`\overline{\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T_c}{\mathrm{\Delta }V}}`$) taken from Fig. 1 and 2 and used in the calculations were 2900$`K/eV`$ for the $`extendeds`$ wave and 2300$`K/eV`$ for the $`d`$ wave symmetry for the $`n_{op}`$ compound and 2700$`K/eV`$ for the $`extendeds`$ wave and 2600$`K/eV`$ for the $`d`$ wave symmetry for the $`n_h`$=0.20 compound. The parameters of the parabolic curve (Eq.19) used were $`\beta =3.5`$ and $`T_c^{max}`$=105.1K. Therefore, the resulting constants were $`c_1^s=5.17\times 10^4eV/GPa`$ and $`c_2^s=6.7\times 10^3GPa^1`$ for the $`extendeds`$ wave and $`c_1^d=6.52\times 10^4eV/GPa`$ and $`c_2^d=8.7\times 10^3GPa^1`$ for the $`d`$ wave symmetry.

On Fig. 3 and 4 we present our results in comparison with the experimental data. One observes that, for the optimum doping, and the compounds near the optimum doping, we have a rather good result. For the optimum compound ($`n_h`$=0.15) in particular, we had the better result, for both symmetries, with very good agreement with the experimental data . For $`n_h`$=0.075, 0.20 and 0.25 we can reproduce well the low temperature data and obtain a qualitative agreement on the high pressure region.

The value of the constant $`c_2`$ ($`=6.7\times 10^3GPa^1`$), which means the rate of charge transfer by the pressure ($`\frac{n_h}{P}`$), for the $`extendeds`$ symmetry is close to the experimental results for the $`YBCO`$ compounds , and is smaller than the experimental Hall coefficient value for the Bi2212 . The value estimated experimentally by Wijngaarden et al.  for the $`Tl_{0.5}Pb_{0.5}Sr_2Ca_{1x}Y_xCu_2`$
$`O_7`$ series was $`n_h/P_{exp}=3.9\times 10^4GPa^1`$. This discrepancy can be attributed to the parameters $`\overline{\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T_c}{\mathrm{\Delta }V}}`$, which are difficult to be estimated with the very few experimental points, what introduces some uncertainties in the calculated phase diagrams. This discrepancy is also the reason why our curves is in good agreement with the experimental data up to $`10GPa`$, but starts to deviate above this value. Another evidence that our main source of error comes from $`n_h/P`$ is the fact that the optimum compound, with $`n_h`$=0.15, which is the one with $`n_h/P`$=0, is in much better agreement with the experimental results than the others, with different $`n_h`$.

## 5 Conclusions

In conclusion, to relate the pressure $`P`$, the density of holes $`n_h`$ and the attractive potential $`V`$ we used in the calculation a BCS-type mean-field approach on the bidimensional extended Hubbard Hamiltonian with the potential $`V`$ as an adjustable parameter. Our method has general application, and can therefore be used in any compound under pressure. We showed that these calculations can describe reasonably well the pressure effects on the critical temperature $`T_c`$ for the series $`Tl_{0.5}Pb_{0.5}Sr_2Ca_{1x}Y_xCu_2O_7`$, for the four measured doping values.

Our results for the $`extendeds`$ wave symmetry give a better quantitative agreement with the experimental data. But the $`d`$-wave calculations are also in qualitative agreement with the experimental data, showing that the order parameter symmetry is not decisive to study the pressure effects.

Thus, our method provides a very interesting novel explanation to the intrinsic term, which is related with the change in the potential $`V`$, in agreement with a previous hypothesis that the pressure increases the zero temperature superconducting gap  and with some experimental results .


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# Deep ROSAT-HRI observation of the elliptical galaxy NGC 1399

## 1. Observations

The NGC 1399 field, including NGC 1404, was observed at three separate times with the ROSAT High Resolution Camera (HRI): in February 1993, between January and February 1996 and between July and August of the same year (Table 1). The total exposure time is 167567 s.

The observations were corrected for aspect problems (Harris et al. ) and added together to obtain a “composite observation”. To correct pointing uncertainties, that may affect the following analysis, we used the centroids of three bright pointlike sources in the field (N.8, 19 and 24 in Table 2) to align the observations. The final image is shown in Figure 1.

## 2. Brightness distribution and X-optical comparison

To study the brightness distribution of the NGC 1399 field we rebinned the data in 5”$`\times `$5” pixels and adaptively smoothed the image with the CSMOOTH algorithm contained in the CIAO package, developed at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. The algorithm convolves the data with a gaussian of variable width so as to enhance, at the same time, both small and large scale structures.

The ”csmoothed” (and exposure corrected, Snowden et al. ) 5”/pixel image shown in Figure 2, reveals a very complex X-ray morphology. The center of the image is occupied by the extended halo of NGC 1399. The galaxy has a central compact component within $`1`$ arcmin from the X-ray emission peak and an external extended and asimmetric halo The halo is decentered with respect to the X-ray peak, extending more on the SW side. Inside the halo we see many elongated structures protruding from the nuclear region separated by “voids”. Over 5 arcmin from the center the halo seems to replicate on larger scale the features seen in the inner 5 arcmin, extending further with larger elongated structures and voids. As it can be seen from a comparison with the optical DSS image (Fig.2 \- lower panel), while the X-ray emission peak is centered on the optical galaxy, the halo extends much further than the optical distribution. Moreover most of the features seen in the X-ray image have no optical counterpart and must then be part of NGC 1399 halo.

A comparison with NGC 1404, whose X-ray emission is almost symmetric and consistent with the optical distribution, confirms the peculiar nature of dominant cluster members such as NGC 1399. The ”csmoothed” image reveals also the presence of the SE tidal tail already seen by Jones et al.(, hereafter JSF) in PSPC data, probably a signature of ram pressure stripping of the NGC 1404 corona due to the infall toward the NGC 1399 halo.

The great number of pointlike sources present in the field is also evident in Figure 2. These objects will be studied in greater detail in Sec.5.

## 3. Radial brightness profiles

### 3.1. NGC 1399

To study the brightness distribution of NGC 1399 we created the radial brightness profile shown in Figure 3. The emission extends out to at least 450”–500”, equivalent to 42–46 Kpc (1 arcmin = 5.53 Kpc for a distance of 19 Mpc, H0=75 Km s-1/Mpc). We know from previous investigations of the Fornax cluster (JSF, Ikebe et al. ) that extended X-ray emission is present over 500”. Unfortunately, over this radius, the HRI data are affected from exposure correction uncertainties so that we can not clearly detect the outer X-ray emission.

After comparing our data with the Rosat-PSPC profile we adopted as background level (red dotted line in Figure 3) the rescaled HRI particle map produced with the Snowden software (Snowden et al. ; for a more detailed discussion of the background determination see Paolillo et al., \[2001, in prep.\]). This background level was used to derive the background subtracted profile shown as red diamonds in Figure 3. We can discriminate an inner component, decreasing with a power-law profile, dominating up to 50” and already evident in the brightness map of Figure 2, plus an external component, dominating over 50”, with a more extended profile. A comparison with the HRI point response function (blue shaded region) shows that both components are extended.

Due to the complex halo structure it is not possible to model the whole brightness distribution with a single model. We thus decided to model the inner component, up to 50”, with the Beta profile:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }[1+(r/a)^2]^{3\beta +0.5}$$

binning count rates in 2” annuli and properly convolving for the HRI PRF. The best-fit model is compared the observed profile in Figure 4. We obtain the best-fit values

$$a=3.93\pm 0.16\beta =0.506\pm 0.003$$

yielding $`\chi ^2=14.5`$ for 22 degrees of freedom. Thus, for $`r>>a`$ the X-ray emission of the inner component falls as $`r^{2.04\pm 0.02}`$.

To study the outer halo structure we derived the X-ray profiles in two different sectors. We divided our F.O.V. along the line connecting the NGC 1399 and NGC 1404 X-ray centroids: a NE sector (P.A. 331.5–151.5) and a SW sector (P.A. 151.5–331.5). The radial profiles are plotted in Figure 5. While the compact component shows minor asymmetries, the outer halo is more extended in the SW direction. Moreover in both sectors the X-ray emission is well in excess of the Beta profile derived from the best-fit of the inner 50” (black continuous line).

The asymmetries of the NGC 1399 X-ray emission were already noticed by JSF. They showed that the outer halo extends at least out to 150 Kpc but, even though they find a central excess with respect to their best-fit model, their data do not have enough resolution to clearly separate the compact component from the outer one, thus obtaining smaller values for the ‘mean’ power law slope ($``$0.35).

We are currently exploring the possibility of modeling the whole halo with a double Beta profile to determine the relative contribution of the two components.

### 3.2. NGC 1404

We derived the brightness profile of NGC 1404 extracting count rates in 2” annuli centered on the galaxy centroid. A background level of $`5.60\times 10^3`$ counts arcmin2 sec-1 counts was determined in a 200”– 300” annulus centered on the galaxy. The measured count rates are shown in Figure 7. NGC 1404 emission extends up to 110” ($``$10 Kpc) from the galaxy center and shows no sign of a multi component structure as the one detected in NGC 1399. The emission exibits a circular symmetry and declines with a Beta profile up to 100”.

We fitted the observed brightness distribution, within 90”, with a Beta model. obtaining:

$$a=6.21_{0.20}^{+0.25}\beta =0.513_{0.004}^{+0.005}$$

with $`\chi ^2=51.5`$ for 42 d.o.f. For $`r>>a`$ the X-ray emission falls as $`r^{2.08\pm 0.03}`$. The best fit model is shown in Figure 7 together with the 66%, 90% and 99% contour levels relative to the fit parameters.

## 4. Fluxes and Luminosities

NGC 1399 X-ray counts were extracted within 500” and corrected for the contamination of sources listed in Table 2. Background counts were measured from the rescaled particle map (see Sec.3.1.). The total count rate is 0.451$`\pm `$0.004 counts sec-1.

To obtain a flux estimate we used the two temperature Raymond-Smith model found by Rangarajan et al.(, hereafter RFFJ) using ROSAT PSPC data: a main thermal component with $`KT`$1 keV plus a softer emission with $`KT=80.8`$ eV contributing for 16% of the emission in the 0.2–0.3 keV range. The metal abundace was fixed to the solar value and the absorbing column to the galactic value ($`1.3\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2). We obtain $`f_X=(1.14\pm 0.01)\times 10^{11}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 in the 0.1-2.4 keV energy range. Assuming a distance of 19 Mpc $`L_X=(4.41\pm 0.04)\times 10^{41}`$ erg s-1. Taking into account differences in the background subtraction and exposure correction uncertainties this result agrees within 10% with the estimate of RFFJ.

In the case of NGC 1404 we used a single temperature Raymond-Smith spectrum with $`KT=0.6`$ keV and metallicity 0.2 of the solar abundance, following JSF. We measured a count rate of $`0.277\pm 0.003`$ counts sec-1 within 150” extracting background from the 200”-300” annulus, consistent within 7% with the one derived by JSF. This gives a total flux $`f_X=(3.64\pm 0.03)\times 10^{12}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 and a total luminosity of $`L_X=(1.41\pm 0.01)\times 10^{41}`$ erg s-1.

NGC 1399 is known to be a radio galaxy with a faint radio core ($`S_{core}10`$ mJy at 5 GHz, Ekers et al. ). Searching the X-ray counterpart of the radio core, we estimated an upper limit for a central point source: we added a central point source to our Beta model repeating the fit at different brightness values until we reached a $`3\sigma `$ confidence level. We obtain an upper count rate limit of $`2.25\times 10^3`$ counts s-1. Assuming a power law spectrum with $`\alpha _{ph}=1.7`$ we get $`f_X^{3\sigma }=1.00\times 10^{13}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 in the 0.1-2.4 keV range, corresponding to $`L_X^{3\sigma }=3.87\times 10^{39}`$ erg s-1. This value is approximately 50% of what found in the spectral analysis of RFFJ.

## 5. Individual sources

Our field contains many emission peaks in addition to the two main galaxies. We made use of the algorithm developed at the Palermo Observatory by F.Damiani and collaborators (Damiani et al. \[1997a\]) to detect these sources. The wavelet algorithm found 43 sources in our field, using a signal to noise threshold of 4.65, so to assure a contamination of one/two spurious detection (F.Damiani: private communication, see also Damiani et al. \[1997b\]).

Table 2 lists the sources position, 3$`\sigma `$ radius, number of counts, the maximum signal to noise ratio within those measured by the algorithm at different scales, the count rate, the temporal variability based on a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the presence of a possible optical counterpart (identified by visual inspection of DSS photographic plates) and the name of the possible NED (Nasa Extragalactic Database) counterpart. Sources N.27 and N.28, representing respectively NGC 1399 and NGC 1404, are not included in the table.

We compared our source distribution to the one obtained by Hasinger et al.() from a deep survey of the Lockmann hole, after correcting for variable sensitivity across the detector. We assumed for our sources a power law spectrum with photon index $`1.96\pm 0.11`$, as found by Hasinger for faint sources. Following what found by Kim & Fabbiano () in their study of pointlike sources near NGC 507, we also tried to use a Raymond-Smith spectrum with $`KT=0.52`$ and abundance $`0.2`$, obtaining an almost identical result.

The resulting distribution is shown in Figure 10. Our counts are higher than the Hasinger estimate but consistent at the $`2\sigma `$ level, giving a corrected total number of sources $`281\pm 44`$ over our field vs $`230\pm 15`$ expected counts. To take into account absorption uncertainties we estimated a lower limit on the number of expected sources adopting the higher absorption value found by RFFJ in the NGC 1399 field. In this case the number of expected counts decreases to $`184\pm 14`$ leading to an upper limit of the observed excess of $`2.1\sigma `$.

Even though the mean source counts across the field are compatible with the expected background counts, their spatial distribution is not homogeneous. In Figure 10 we measured the sources excess in circular annuli centered on NGC 1399. We find that the excess is peaked on the dominant galaxy suggesting that the inner sources are associated with NGC 1399, rather than being background objects. In fact, excluding the central 300”, the measured and expected counts turn out to be in agreement within less than $`1\sigma `$ ($`204\pm 32`$ vs $`230\pm 15`$)

## 6. Conclusions

We presented some preliminary results obtained from the analysis of a deep observation of the cD galaxy NGC 1399. We found that:

* NGC 1399 posseses an extended and asymmetric X-ray halo with a multi-component structure;
* the “inner” component is centered on the optical galaxy and follows a Beta profile, very similar to the one seen in non-dominant galaxies (e.g. NGC 1404);
* the “outer” component displays a more complex morphology, probably affected by the cluster potential and by the interaction with the intracluster medium;
* the individual sources found in the HRI FOV are slightly in excess of the number expected from deep surveys. The excess is strongly peaked on NGC 1399 suggesting that it is due to sources associated with the central galaxy.

We aknowledge partial support from the CXC contract NAS8-39073 and NASA grant NAG5-3584 (ADP), and from the MURST PRIN-COFIN 1998-1999 (resp. G. Peres).
This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.


text:
# Computing the perturbative gluon condensate

## 1 Introduction

Recent years have witnessed a rapid development of the area covering the borderline between “perturbative” and “non-perturbative” physics in QCD. In particular, perturbative ideas have been pushed increasingly far towards the low-energy frontier to deal with the phenomenology of power corrections. Still in these advances the normalization of power corrections is usually considered as an incalculable “non-perturbative” parameter, to be fitted from the data. This has been the situation ever since their original introduction  by Shifman, Vainshtein and Zakharov (SVZ). In this note, I suggest a possibility to compute these parameters from first principles, for the limited class of “renormalon-related” power corrections which include in particular the “gluon condensate”. Among the various methods  devised to deal with these contributions, the “infrared finite coupling” approach  stands out as a particularly attractive scheme. A framework where this approach can be justified has recently been suggested , and the possibility of a calculation of power corrections from perturbative input has been pointed out. The aim of this paper is to implement the latter suggestion. After a brief review (section 2) of the infrared (IR) finite coupling approach and of the proposal in , a method to construct the IR finite coupling from the Banks-Zaks expansion is described in section 3. The results for the power corrections are given in section 4, and further discussed in section 5 which also contains the conclusions.

## 2 A framework for the IR finite coupling approach to power corrections

In this approach the power corrections are parametrized in term of low energy moments of a “non-perturbative” coupling $`\overline{a}=a+\delta a`$ assumed to be IR finite, where $`a`$ ($`a\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }`$) is the “perturbative part”, and $`\delta a`$ a “non-perturbative” modification needed to make $`\overline{a}`$ IR finite. Although the approach can also deal with Minkowskian quantities, consider as a simple example the case of an Euclidean observable $`D(Q^2)`$ in the “single dressed gluon exchange approximation”

$$D(Q^2)=_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk^2}{k^2}\overline{a}(k^2)\mathrm{\Phi }\left(\frac{k^2}{Q^2}\right)$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }(k^2/Q^2)`$, the “loop momentum distribution function” , is known  from the relevant single dressed gluon diagrams. Introducing an IR cut-off $`\mu _I`$ to separate long and short distances, the right hand side is approximated at large $`Q^2`$ by

$$D(Q^2)c_n\frac{\lambda _n(\mu _I)}{Q^{2n}}+_{\mu _I^2}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk^2}{k^2}a(k^2)\mathrm{\Phi }\left(\frac{k^2}{Q^2}\right)$$
(2)
with $`\lambda _n(\mu _I)=_0^{\mu _I^2}\frac{dk^2}{k^2}\overline{a}(k^2)k^{2n}`$, where I assumed that $`\mathrm{\Phi }(k^2/Q^2)c_n(k^2/Q^2)^n`$ at low $`k^2`$ and the contribution of the $`\delta a`$ piece has been neglected above $`\mu _I`$. These steps can now be justified with the following two crucial assumptions:

i) The perturbative part $`a`$ of the coupling reaches a non-trivial IR fixed point at low scales and is IR finite by itself, without the need for an hypothetical $`\delta a`$ contribution. This statement is likely to be correct for $`N_f`$ slightly below 16.5 where the perturbative coupling has a Banks-Zaks fixed point  beyond one-loop, and I assume it is still true down to $`N_f=0`$. This assumption is supported  by the behavior of the Banks-Zaks expansion for some QCD effective charges.

Actually, the previous statement must be correct within a range $`N_f^{}<N_f<16.5`$ which defines the “conformal window” where the perturbative coupling is IR finite and causal . Within the conformal window, there is by definition no $`\delta a`$ term, and we have

$$D(Q^2)=D_{\overline{PT}}(Q^2)$$
(3)
with

$$D_{\overline{PT}}(Q^2)_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk^2}{k^2}a(k^2)\mathrm{\Phi }\left(\frac{k^2}{Q^2}\right)$$
(4)
At large $`Q^2`$, one obtains as in eq.(2)

$$D_{\overline{PT}}(Q^2)\frac{C_{PT}(\mu _I)}{Q^{2n}}+_{\mu _I^2}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk^2}{k^2}a(k^2)\mathrm{\Phi }\left(\frac{k^2}{Q^2}\right)$$
(5)
with the normalization of the power correction

$$C_{PT}(\mu _I)=c_n_0^{\mu _I^2}\frac{dk^2}{k^2}a(k^2)k^{2n}$$
(6)
given by a low energy moment of the perturbative coupling. Since the latter is no more causal below $`N_f^{}`$ (even if it still IR finite there), eq.(3) cannot be correct anymore for $`N_f<N_f^{}`$, where the “conformal window amplitude” $`D_{\overline{PT}}(Q^2)`$ is expected to have unphysical Landau singularities in the (complex) $`Q^2`$ plane. We must therefore have

$$D(Q^2)=D_{\overline{PT}}(Q^2)+D_{\overline{NP}}(Q^2)$$
(7)
where111If $`D_{\overline{PT}}(Q^2)`$ is interpreted as the analytic continuation in $`N_f`$ of the full conformal window amplitude, the decomposition eq.(7) is general  and valid beyond the single dressed gluon approximation of eq.(1). the “genuine non-perturbative piece” $`D_{\overline{NP}}(Q^2)`$ cancels the Landau singularities present in $`D_{\overline{PT}}(Q^2)`$. In the standard IR finite coupling approach this piece would correspond to the contribution of the $`\delta a`$ part of the coupling in eq.(1). Since the existence of such a term is quite hypothetical, I shall not assume that the $`D_{\overline{NP}}(Q^2)`$ piece is related to a (universal) non-perturbative QCD coupling. Still at large $`Q^2`$ this piece may contribute a “non-perturbative component” $`C_{NP}`$ to the $`𝒪(1/Q^{2n})`$ power correction

$$D_{\overline{NP}}(Q^2)\frac{C_{NP}}{Q^{2n}}$$
(8)
so that below $`N_f^{}`$ we have

$$D(Q^2)D_{\overline{PT}}(Q^2)+\frac{C_{NP}}{Q^{2n}}$$
(9)
hence

$$D(Q^2)\frac{C(\mu _I)}{Q^{2n}}+_{\mu _I^2}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk^2}{k^2}a(k^2)\mathrm{\Phi }\left(\frac{k^2}{Q^2}\right)$$
(10)
with

$$C(\mu _I)=C_{PT}(\mu _I)+C_{NP}$$
(11)
ii) The second crucial assumption I shall make is that the “non-perturbative” component $`C_{NP}`$ can in fact be neglected (for not too small $`\mu _I`$) in eq.(11). This assumption, which actually takes the exact counterpart of the SVZ hypothesis  that the “genuine non-perturbative piece” $`C_{NP}`$ dominates over the “perturbative” fluctuations, can be justified  in a number of ways. One is to observe that $`C_{NP}`$, which vanishes identically for $`N_f^{}<N_f<16.5`$ within the conformal window, may still be small for $`N_f<N_f^{}`$ below the conformal window, provided $`N_f`$ is close enough to $`N_f^{}`$. In , it was found that in fact $`4<N_f^{}<6`$, which makes it at least plausible the neglect of $`C_{NP}`$ at the “real life” QCD value $`N_f=3`$. Another (more drastic) possibility is that the power corrections in $`D_{\overline{PT}}(Q^2)`$ and $`D_{\overline{NP}}(Q^2)`$ do not match (even though at low $`Q^2`$ the two components cancel their mutual Landau singularities below the conformal window), i.e. that the power corrections are either entirely “perturbative” and contribute only to $`D_{\overline{PT}}(Q^2)`$, or entirely “non-perturbative” and contribute only to $`D_{\overline{NP}}(Q^2)`$. This would mean that $`C_{NP}0`$ even below $`N_f^{}`$, and only the $`C_{PT}`$ component is present, for those condensates (like the gluon condensate) which do not vanish within the conformal window, whereas $`C_{NP}0`$ below $`N_f^{}`$ only for those condensates (like the quark condensate) which vanish identically within the conformal window, and therefore have no $`C_{PT}`$ component. In such a case, the neglect of $`C_{NP}`$ would be justified at all $`N_f`$’s for the “conformal window type” of power corrections. Anyway, the working hypothesis in the following shall be that one can compute the bulk of the latter type of power corrections from eq.(6) alone. In this way, the IR finite coupling approach not only finds a natural framework, but its predictiveness is enhanced since there is not any more any “non-perturbative” free parameter and the normalization of power corrections can be computed, as we demonstrate in the next section (in this sense the approach goes beyond the operator product expansion even when applied to Euclidean quantities).

## 3 Reconstructing the IR finite perturbative coupling: a Banks-Zaks expansion approach

Even though the perturbative coupling appears to have an IR fixed point for large enough $`N_f`$ beyond two-loop, this is not always manifest when one decreases $`N_f`$. For instance, the Banks-Zaks fixed point at two-loop relies on having $`\beta _1<0`$, which is not realized for $`N_f<8`$. Then one might rescue the fixed point with a negative three-loop term, but even this feature is usually lost at $`N_f=3`$. On the other hand, as mentioned in section 2, the Banks-Zaks expansion does signal in a number of cases the persistence of the fixed point even down to $`N_f=2`$. This observation suggests the following strategy: try to reconstruct the IR finite coupling, and eventually supply the missing higher order terms in the beta function $`\beta (a)`$, given the IR fixed point Banks-Zaks expansion. This is an expansion in powers of the distance $`16.5N_f`$ from the top of the conformal window, which is proportional to $`\beta _0`$. The solution $`a^{}=a^{}(ϵ)`$ of the equation

$$\beta (a)=\beta (a,ϵ)=\beta _0a^2\beta _1a^3\beta _2a^4\beta _3a^5+\mathrm{}=0$$
(12)
in the limit $`\beta _00`$, with $`\beta _i`$ ($`i1`$) finite is obtained as a power series

$$a^{}=a^{}(ϵ)=ϵ+\delta _1ϵ^2+\delta _2ϵ^3+\mathrm{}$$
(13)
where

$`\delta _1`$ $`=`$ $`\beta _{1,1}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _{2,0}}{\beta _{1,0}}}`$
$`\delta _2`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _1^2+g_1\delta _1+\beta _{2,1}g_2`$ (14)
The expansion parameter  is $`ϵ\frac{8}{321}(16.5N_f)=\frac{\beta _0}{\beta _{1,0}}`$. The $`\beta _{i,j}`$, which are $`N_f`$-independent (but scheme dependent for $`i>1`$), are defined by $`\beta _1=\beta _{1,0}+\beta _{1,1}\beta _0`$ ($`\beta _{1,0}=\frac{107}{16}`$, $`\beta _{1,1}=\frac{19}{4}`$), $`\beta _2=\beta _{2,0}+\beta _{2,1}\beta _0+\beta _{2,2}\beta _0^2`$ (I assume $`\beta _2`$ is at most quadratic in $`N_f`$, hence in $`\beta _0`$) and $`g_1`$, $`g_2`$ are given in eq.(17). Given the knowledge of the 3-loop beta function in (e.g.) the $`\overline{MS}`$ scheme, $`\beta _{2,0}`$ can be obtained  from a one-loop calculation of $`a`$ (see eq.(31)). I shall also use the related expansion for the critical exponent

$`\gamma `$ $`=`$ $`\gamma (ϵ)={\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{a}}(a^{},ϵ)`$ (15)
$`=`$ $`\beta _{1,0}ϵ^2(1+g_1ϵ+g_2ϵ^2+\mathrm{})`$ (16)
where

$`g_1`$ $`=`$ $`\beta _{1,1}`$
$`g_2`$ $`=`$ $`g_1^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _{3,0}}{\beta _{1,0}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\beta _{2,0}}{\beta _{1,0}}}\right)^2`$ (17)
The $`g_i`$’s are scheme independent , and  $`g_2=8.89`$.

The method relies on the differential equation  for $`a^{}(ϵ)`$

$$\frac{}{ϵ}[ϵ\nu (a^{},ϵ)]=\gamma (ϵ)\frac{da^{}}{dϵ}$$
(18)
where $`\nu (a,ϵ)`$ is the $`N_f`$ dependent part of the beta function, after splitting off the $`ϵ=0`$ (i.e. $`N_f=16.5`$) piece $`\beta (a,0)`$

$$\beta (a,ϵ)\beta (a,0)ϵ\nu (a,ϵ)$$
(19)
Its expansion in powers of $`a`$ is

$$\nu (a,ϵ)=\beta _{1,0}a^2[1+\beta _{1,1}a+(\beta _{2,1}+\beta _{2,2}\beta _0)a^2+\mathrm{}]$$
(20)
Eq.(18) follows by taking the total derivative with respect to $`ϵ`$ of the relation $`\beta (a^{},ϵ)=0`$ which defines the fixed point $`a^{}(ϵ)`$

$$\frac{\beta }{a}(a^{},ϵ)\frac{da^{}}{dϵ}+\frac{\beta }{ϵ}(a^{},ϵ)=0$$
(21)
and using eq.(15) and $`\frac{\beta }{ϵ}(a,ϵ)=\frac{}{ϵ}[ϵ\nu (a,ϵ)]`$ (eq.(19)).

It is convenient to introduce the function $`ϵ^{}(a)`$, which is the inverse of the Banks-Zaks function $`a^{}(ϵ)`$: for given $`a`$, $`ϵ^{}(a)`$ is the value of $`ϵ`$ (i.e. of $`N_f`$) where $`\beta (a,ϵ)=0`$. The knowledge of $`ϵ^{}(a)`$ and of $`\nu (a,ϵ)`$ determine $`\beta (a,0)`$, hence the full beta function. Indeed using eq.(19) the condition $`\beta [a,ϵ^{}(a)]=0`$ becomes

$$\beta (a,0)=ϵ^{}(a)\nu [a,ϵ^{}(a)]$$
(22)
Hence

$$\beta (a,ϵ)=ϵ^{}(a)\nu [a,ϵ^{}(a)]ϵ\nu (a,ϵ)$$
(23)
In term of $`ϵ^{}(a)`$ eq.(18) reads

$$\frac{}{ϵ}[ϵ\nu (a,ϵ)]|_{ϵ=ϵ^{}}=\frac{\gamma (ϵ^{})}{\frac{dϵ^{}}{da}}$$
(24)
Eq.(24) gives a constraint on $`\nu (a,ϵ)`$ given the Banks-Zaks functions $`\gamma (ϵ)`$ and $`a^{}(ϵ)`$. This constraint is not sufficient to determine $`\nu (a,ϵ)`$ (and the beta function) without further assumptions. In the following I shall assume that $`\nu (a,ϵ)=\nu _0(a)`$ is independent of $`ϵ`$, i.e. that the beta function coefficients are at most linear in $`N_f`$ (or $`\beta _0`$): this amounts to an approximation, in the spirit of the Banks-Zaks approach, where one keeps only the leading $`ϵ=0`$ term in an expansion of $`\nu (a,ϵ)`$ in powers of $`ϵ`$ (in particular, one neglects the $`\beta _{2,2}\beta _0`$ term in eq.(20)). Then eq.(24) gives

$$\nu _0(a)=\frac{\gamma [ϵ^{}(a)]}{\frac{dϵ^{}}{da}}$$
(25)
and from eq.(23) one gets

$$\beta (a,ϵ)=[ϵ^{}(a)ϵ]\frac{\gamma [ϵ^{}(a)]}{\frac{dϵ^{}}{da}}$$
(26)
Using the Banks-Zaks expansions of the fixed point $`a^{}(ϵ)`$ and of the critical exponent $`\gamma (ϵ)`$ truncated to a given order as input, eq.(26) yields a corresponding “improved” approximation to the beta function, which displays a built-in fixed point at $`a=a^{}(ϵ)`$.

In this approach, the leading order (LO) approximation thus gives $`ϵ^{}(a)=a`$ and $`\gamma [ϵ^{}(a)]=\beta _{1,0}a^2`$. The next-to-leading order (NLO) approximation uses the NLO Banks-Zaks expansions of the fixed point and of the critical exponent: $`ϵ^{}(a)`$ is then obtained by inverting eq.(13) (with $`\delta _2=0`$), i.e. solving for $`ϵ^{}`$ in $`a=ϵ^{}+\delta _1ϵ^2`$ and reporting in eq.(26), with $`\gamma (ϵ^{})=\beta _{1,0}ϵ^2(1+g_1ϵ^{})`$. The next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) approximation uses the NNLO Banks-Zaks expansions of the fixed point (which requires the knowledge of $`\beta _{2,1}`$) and of the critical exponent (eq.(13) and (16)), etc…

The approximation can be further systematically improved by including the knowledge of the known $`N_f`$-dependent terms in the beta function. For instance, if the three-loop $`\beta _2`$ coefficient is known, one can include the knowledge222Actually, given that $`0<a<a^{}=𝒪(ϵ)`$, this term is effectively of the same order as the $`\beta _{3,1}a^5`$ term in $`\nu (a,ϵ)`$ (eq.(20)), and should be taken as input only together with the latter, i.e. at the NNNLO level. of the term quadratic in $`\beta _0`$ in $`\beta _2`$ with the ansatz

$$\nu (a,ϵ)=\nu _0(a)+\beta _{1,0}^2\beta _{2,2}a^4ϵ$$
(27)
where $`\nu _0(a)\nu (a,0)`$ is independent of $`ϵ`$ (the knowledge of $`\beta _{2,0}`$ and $`\beta _{2,1}`$ is contained in the NLO and NNLO terms in the Banks-Zaks expansion of $`a^{}`$, as mentioned above). Eq.(24) then fixes $`\nu _0(a)`$ from

$$\nu _0(a)+2\beta _{1,0}^2\beta _{2,2}a^4ϵ^{}(a)=\frac{\gamma [ϵ^{}(a)]}{\frac{dϵ^{}}{da}}$$
(28)
which yields $`\nu (a,ϵ)`$, hence from eq.(23)

$$\beta (a,ϵ)=[ϵ^{}(a)ϵ]\frac{\gamma [ϵ^{}(a)]}{\frac{dϵ^{}}{da}}\beta _{1,0}^2\beta _{2,2}a^4[ϵ^{}(a)ϵ]^2$$
(29)
## 4 Results

The “coupling” appearing in eq.(4) should be viewed as a physical, gauge-independent quantity, just as the observable $`D(Q^2)`$ to which it is directly related. In the IR finite coupling approach, it is also assumed to be universal, i.e. the same for all observables. The existence of such an object is still speculative. It is attractive to identify this coupling to the “skeleton coupling”  associated to a (yet hypothetical) “QCD skeleton expansion”. A promising approach in this direction is provided by the “pinch technique” construction . The pinch coupling is presently known only at one-loop, where it is related to the $`\overline{MS}`$ coupling by

$$a(k^2)=a_{\overline{MS}}(\mu ^2)+\left[\beta _0\left(\mathrm{log}(k^2/\mu ^2)5/3\right)+d_1\right]a_{\overline{MS}}^2(\mu ^2)+\mathrm{}$$
(30)
with $`d_1|pinch=1`$. An alternative suggestion  is to use the “gluon bremsstrahlung coupling” , also known to the one-loop level eq.(30) with $`d_1|brems=1\pi ^2/4`$. Since the full three-loop beta function coefficient (hence $`\delta _2`$) is not yet known for these two couplings, I shall apply the method of section 3 in the NLO approximation described there. Actually, since the Banks-Zaks expansion of the critical exponent is known  up to NNLO (eq.(16)), and may be reliable  even down to $`N_f=3`$, I shall go half-way towards the NNLO approximation, and use eq.(16) in eq.(26), while still using eq.(13) (with $`\delta _2=0`$) to fix $`ϵ^{}(a)`$. The input scheme dependent numerical values following from eq.(30) and the relation

$$d_1=\frac{\beta _{2,0}\beta _{2,0}^{\overline{MS}}}{\beta _{1,0}}$$
(31)
are  $`\frac{\beta _{2,0}}{\beta _{1,0}}|pinch=2.61`$ and $`\frac{\beta _{2,0}}{\beta _{1,0}}|brems=2.61+\frac{\pi ^2}{4}=5.08`$. Hence $`\delta _1|pinch=2.14`$ while $`\delta _1|brems=0.33`$ (a smaller correction!). It follows from eq.(13) that at $`N_f=3`$ the IR fixed point $`a^{}=0.299`$ for the gluon bremsstrahlung coupling, smaller then the corresponding value $`a^{}=0.578`$ for the pinch coupling which is subject to rather large uncertainties.

As a third alternative, I would like to suggest the “universal coupling” introduced in , because of its simplicity. It is defined333I assume linear $`N_f`$ dependence. Otherwise there is the more general solution $`\beta (a,ϵ)=\gamma (a)(aϵ)+\gamma _1(a)(aϵ)^2+\mathrm{}`$. by the condition $`\delta _i=0`$ for all $`i`$’s, i.e. $`a^{}(ϵ)ϵ`$, and therefore its beta function can be expressed entirely in term of the critical exponent

$`\beta (a,ϵ)`$ $`=`$ $`(aϵ)\gamma (a)`$ (32)
$`=`$ $`(\beta _0a^2+\beta _{1,0}a^3)(1+g_1a+g_2a^2+\mathrm{})`$
At $`N_f=3`$ the IR fixed point is $`a^{}=ϵ=0.336`$. The scale is fixed knowing that $`\frac{\beta _{2,0}}{\beta _{1,0}}|universal=\beta _{1,1}`$ (from $`\delta _1=0`$), which determines (eq.(31)) $`d_1|universal=1.137`$, and the natural assumption that the term proportional to $`\beta _0`$ in eq.(30) is the same.

The bremsstrahlung coupling beta function at $`N_f=3`$ is shown in Fig.1. Note the negative ultraviolet fixed point at $`a0.17`$. It corresponds to a zero of the critical exponent eq.(16) at $`ϵ0.15`$, and is a necessary condition for the scenario in  to determine the bottom $`N_f^{}`$ of the conformal window from the condition $`\gamma (ϵ)=1`$, which yields $`N_f^{}4`$ if one uses eq.(16). The resulting running coupling is shown in Fig.2, where I used $`\alpha _s^{\overline{MS}}(M_Z)=0.117`$ as input (eq.(30) yields the corresponding input value of the bremsstrahlung coupling).

It is then straightforward to compute the first few low energy moments of the coupling

$$a_{2n1}(\mu _I)_0^{\mu _I^2}n\frac{dk^2}{k^2}\left(\frac{k^2}{\mu _I^2}\right)^na(k^2)$$
(33)
In term of the beta function they are given by

$$a_{2n1}(\mu _I)=_a^{}^{a_I}n\frac{da}{\beta (a)}a\mathrm{exp}[n\mathrm{\Phi }(a,a_I)]$$
(34)
where

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(a,a_I)_{a_I}^a\frac{dx}{\beta (x)}=\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{k^2}{\mu _I^2}\right)$$
(35)
is the solution of the renormalization group equation with $`a_Ia(\mu _I^2)`$. Taking $`\mu _I=2GeV`$, one gets the results in Table 1 if $`\alpha _s^{\overline{MS}}(M_Z)=0.117`$ and those in Table 2 if $`\alpha _s^{\overline{MS}}(M_Z)=0.120`$. Note the sensitivity to the high energy input value of $`\alpha _s`$.

These results are subjected to theoretical uncertainties, stemming from the magnitude of the IR values of the coupling which should induce seizable higher order corrections. The convergence of the Banks-Zaks expansion is bad in the pinch coupling case (which has a large IR value), and the knowledge of the 3-loop beta function coefficient and of $`\delta _2`$ is essential for a more reliable prediction. The situation looks better for the“universal coupling”and the bremsstrahlung coupling. To assess the convergence of the expansion, the results for the moments in the NLO approximation where one uses only the first two terms in the Banks-Zaks expansion of $`\gamma `$ (eq.(16)) are quoted within parenthesis in the tables.

The $`n=0`$ moment gives the process-independent part of the normalization of the $`1/Q`$ power corrections. If one uses the gluon bremsstrahlung ansatz for the coupling, the predicted value is in qualitative agreement with the experimentally determined  one ($`a_00.140.17`$), although it should be remembered that the latter depends on the way the “perturbative part” of the amplitude (the piece above $`\mu _I`$ in eq.(10)) is handled, as well as upon extra assumptions in the case of non-inclusive Minkowskian observables. The $`n=3`$ moment gives the normalization of the “gluon condensate”

$$<\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }G^2>_{\mu _I}=\frac{3}{2\pi ^2}a_3(\mu _I)\mu _I^4$$
(36)
Note the definition used here involves an arbitrary IR cut-off $`\mu _I`$, as necessary in the case of renormalon-related power corrections. If one wants to compare444I am indebted to Al. Mueller for raising the question. to the effective phenomenological SVZ definition , one can just compute the integral in eq.(4) (which does not depend on $`\mu _I`$) for any given Euclidean observable where the gluon condensate gives the leading power correction, and fit the result with the SVZ ansatz. For instance, for the Adler D function

$$D(Q^2)a(Q^2)+\frac{2\pi ^2}{3}\frac{1}{Q^4}<\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }G^2>$$
(37)
where the $`\frac{2\pi ^2}{3}`$ factor is the leading order coefficient function. Similarly, the SVZ condensate $`<\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }G^2>`$ could be defined from the basic observable $`a_3(\mu _I)`$ (eq.(33) with n=2), where the IR cut-off $`\mu _I`$ now plays the role of the high energy scale $`Q`$, by

$$a_3(\mu _I)a(\mu _I^2)+\frac{2\pi ^2}{3}\frac{1}{\mu _I^4}<\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }G^2>$$
(38)
For $`\mu _I=2GeV`$, eq.(38) yields $`<\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }G^2>0.05GeV^4`$ for $`\alpha _s^{\overline{MS}}(M_Z)=0.117`$, which looks reasonable compared to the standard SVZ value. However, this comparison is actually devoid of significance due to the following intriguing fact: varying the scale $`\mu _I`$ in eq.(38), one finds the discrepancy $`a_3(\mu _I)a(\mu _I^2)`$ between $`a_3(\mu _I)`$ and its lowest order perturbative approximation $`a(\mu _I^2)`$ decreases much slower then the inverse fourth power of $`\mu _I`$! A similar result is obtained if one uses eq.(37) (with the “loop momentum distribution function” $`\mathrm{\Phi }(k^2/Q^2)`$ taken from ). Since the (principal value regulated) Borel sum of the perturbative series associated to the observables $`a_3(\mu _I)`$ (or $`D(Q^2)`$) are known  to differ from the exact values by just such an $`𝒪(1/\mu _I^4)`$ (resp. $`𝒪(1/Q^4)`$) correction, one is bound to conclude that the naive treatment of approximating the Borel sum by its leading order term does not work555Similar results are obtained if one uses  the BLM scale  in $`a`$. here. This is another point of discrepancy with the standard SVZ procedure, on top of the assumption that the “perturbative part” of the condensate dominates.

## 5 Discussion and conclusions

The essential assumption in the present approach is that the perturbative beta function has an IR fixed point at least down to $`N_f=3`$. This is partly implemented by constructing beta functions with negative three-loop coefficients: at NNLO the method of section 3 yields $`\beta _2=\beta _{2,0}+\beta _{2,1}\beta _0`$ where both $`\beta _{2,0}`$ and $`\beta _{2,1}`$ turn out negative (see footnote 4) for the considered couplings. Actually, essentially the same results can be obtained (at least for the bremsstrahlung coupling) in a simpler way, which makes it transparent the reason for the existence of the IR fixed point. Indeed, consider the 4-loop beta function eq.(12), and observe that in the IR region the usual power counting should be modified: namely, given that $`a`$ is $`𝒪(\beta _0)`$ there, to $`𝒪(a^6)`$ accuracy one should drop the $`𝒪(\beta _0^2)`$ term in $`\beta _2`$, and keep only the leading $`𝒪((\beta _0)^0)`$ term in $`\beta _3`$, i.e. use the effective 4-loop beta function (in accordance with the remark in footnote 1)

$$\beta _{eff}(a,ϵ)=\beta _0a^2\beta _1a^3(\beta _{2,0}+\beta _{2,1}\beta _0)a^4\beta _{3,0}a^5+𝒪(a^6)$$
(39)
(in the ultraviolet region, this beta function has of course only the $`𝒪(a^4)`$ accuracy of the 2-loop beta function). In the case of the bremsstrahlung coupling, the results obtained using the 4-loop $`\beta _{eff}`$ turn out to be very close to those of section 4 in the NNLO approximation. For instance $`\beta _{eff}`$ has an IR fixed point at $`a^{}=0.294`$ if $`N_f=3`$ (I used $`\beta _{3,0}=37.76`$ from eq.(17)), and one gets: $`a_0=0.201`$, $`a_1=0.177`$ and $`a_3=0.156`$ if $`\alpha _s^{\overline{MS}}(M_Z)=0.117`$, and $`a_0=0.210`$, $`a_1=0.189`$ and $`a_3=0.168`$ if $`\alpha _s^{\overline{MS}}(M_Z)=0.120`$. Similarly in NLO one should use a 3-loop $`\beta _{eff}(a,ϵ)=\beta _0a^2\beta _1a^3\beta _{2,0}a^4+𝒪(a^5)`$, and in LO a 2-loop $`\beta _{eff}(a,ϵ)=\beta _0a^2\beta _{1,0}a^3+𝒪(a^4)`$. The presence of an IR fixed point in $`\beta _{eff}`$ down to low values of $`N_f`$ seems to be a general phenomenon, at least up to NLO. This is obvious in LO, since $`\beta _{1,0}`$ is scheme independent, but less so in NLO where $`\beta _{2,0}`$ is scheme dependent. Nevertheless it turns out that $`\beta _{2,0}`$ is negative for all known physical effective charges , as well as for the three couplings quoted above. Consequently, there may be a positive zero in the 3-loop $`\beta _{eff}`$ correctly signalling an IR fixed point, even if the standard 3-loop beta function has no positive zero with all its coefficients of the same sign.

At NNLO, the presence of an IR fixed point in the 4-loop $`\beta _{eff}`$ may be jeopardized by large positive values of $`\beta _{2,1}`$ and (or) $`\beta _{3,0}`$. Actually, $`\beta _{2,1}`$ turns out to be negative for all known666For the pinch coupling and the bremsstrahlung coupling, $`\beta _{2,1}`$ has been “predicted” from the assumption that $`\delta _20`$, which yields (eq.(14)) $`\beta _{2,1}=23.6`$ for the pinch coupling and $`\beta _{2,1}=7.43`$ for the bremsstrahlung coupling. This assumption turns out to yield rather good results in the case of the effective charges associated to the Adler D-function and the polarized ($`g_1`$) and non-polarized ($`F_1`$) Bjorken sum rules, for which the “predicted” values are respectively $`\beta _{2,1}=16.17,9.98,6.97`$ compared to the exact values (corrected for some numerical inaccuracies in ) $`\beta _{2,1}=15.94,11.19,6.81`$. The partial reason for this success are the large cancellations between $`g_2`$ (the “scheme independent” contribution to $`\delta _2`$ in eq.(14)) and the “scheme dependent” contribution which involves $`\delta _1`$ and $`\beta _{2,1}`$. effective charges (except the one (“$`a_V`$”) defined by the static QCD potential, where it is positive  but small enough not to destabilize the fixed point). The real problem comes from the 4-loop coefficient $`\beta _{3,0}`$, which is positive for all known effective charges (except again $`a_V`$, where it is negative and tiny). In the case of the pinch coupling, it turns out in fact too large (one gets $`\beta _{3,0}=164.7`$ from eq.(17)) for the 4-loop $`\beta _{eff}`$ to have an IR fixed point if $`N_f<13`$. Similarly, in the case of the Adler D-function effective charge where $`\beta _{3,0}=127`$, the 4-loop $`\beta _{eff}`$ does not have an IR fixed point if $`N_f<11`$. For all other effective charges however the 4-loop $`\beta _{eff}`$ does exhibit an IR fixed point down to $`N_f=0`$! However, in those cases of large positive $`\beta _{3,0}`$ (which is a consequence of a small $`\beta _{2,0}`$, see eq.(17)), the method of section 3 provides an effective resummation of the relevant higher order terms, obtained under the assumption the Banks-Zaks expansions of the IR fixed point and of the critical exponent do converge: all known effective charges then appear777This is even true for the effective charge associated  to Higgs decay. In this case however one gets a large fixed point value $`a^{}=𝒪(1)`$, and convergence of the Banks-Zaks expansion is doubtful for $`N_f<4`$. after resummation to have an IR fixed point down to $`N_f=0`$ (although the convergence of the fixed point Banks-Zaks expansion becomes problematic already at $`N_f=3`$ for some of them, such as the pinch coupling).

The suggestion of perturbative freezing of the coupling at low $`N_f`$ was first made in . There is however an essential difference with the present proposal: it is not suggested here that the perturbative IR fixed point has anything to do with the low energy behavior of the full QCD amplitudes below the conformal window, which is entirely non-perturbative. For instance, as observed in  spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking considerations at large $`N_c`$ imply the Adler D-function must vanish at zero momentum, which is inconsistent with the positive value expected from perturbative freezing. What is suggested instead is that the perturbative freezing at low $`N_f`$ is relevant to determine the normalization of renormalon-related condensates and power corrections which appear in the short distance expansion of amplitudes. This amounts to the recognition that objects like the “gluon condensate”, at the difference of the quark condensate, are of a basically “perturbative” nature, and thus unrelated to “genuine” non-perturbative properties of the vacuum such as chiral symmetry breaking or confinement. The notion of a “conformal window” is an essential part of the present proposal: only those power corrections which are already present within the conformal window are amenable to a perturbative treatment, and below the conformal window there are other really “non-perturbative” contributions which are crucial to determine the true low energy properties of QCD. Moreover, it was shown in  that the assumption that the perturbative IR fixed point persists below the bottom $`N_f^{}`$ of the conformal window leads to the condition $`\gamma (ϵ)=1`$ to determine $`N_f^{}`$. It is interesting that this condition gives $`N_f^{}4`$, rather close to the “real life” QCD value $`N_f=3`$, which might give an alternative justification to the suggested calculation procedure based on the “anti-SVZ” hypothesis that the “perturbative” piece of the condensates actually dominates over the “non-perturbative” fluctuations. Note that the opposite SVZ assumption of dominance of the non-perturbative piece has been questioned previously in the literature (see e.g. ). Furthermore, even if the present assumption turns out to be invalid, the results of this paper are still useful to extract from experiment the “truly non-perturbative” part $`C_{NP}`$, which is given a completely unambiguous definition through eq.(9).

The typical example of a “perturbative” conformal window amplitude is the “single dressed gluon” integral of eq.(4), where the running coupling inside the integral is IR finite, and calculable from perturbative input through an (eventually resummed) Banks-Zaks expansion. It is implicitly assumed that this particular coupling is free of IR renormalons and can be unambiguously determined from its perturbative series (say, by Borel summation). The corresponding Banks-Zaks series should then be also Borel summable. Note also that the integral eq.(4) is free of any renormalon ambiguity, although renormalons are present in the corresponding perturbative series, but is still expected to be affected below the conformal window by unphysical Landau singularities in the complex $`Q^2`$ plane. Such an amplitude  represents a natural form of a generalized perturbation theory, which gives the background on top of which genuine non-perturbative contributions may take place below $`N_f^{}`$. The calculation of the “perturbative condensate”, although using only perturbative information, goes beyond a mere renormalon estimate, since there is usually a part  of the low momentum contribution of the perturbative coupling which is not determined only  by renormalons. The assumption that renormalon-related power corrections are “perturbative” in the above sense also gives a straightforward justification to the IR finite coupling approach to power corrections, and leaves no arbitrary free parameter (except of course the overall QCD scale) to be fixed from experiment. The main conceptual problem in this framework remains to find the identity of the (hopefully unique) perturbative IR finite QCD coupling which determines the power corrections, and derive the systematic form to all orders of the (yet to be constructed) generalized perturbation theory, perhaps  along the lines of a QCD “skeleton expansion”: this is however a problem of a basically perturbative nature.

###### Acknowledgments.

I thank Yu.L. Dokshitzer and A.H. Mueller for stimulating discussions. I also wish to thank the referee for constructive criticism.