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# Stellar populations in early-type Coma cluster galaxies — I. The data

## 1 Introduction

Rich clusters provide a large sample of galaxies at a common distance. This makes them ideal laboratories to study global correlations between the dynamical, structural and stellar population properties of galaxies in dense environments. One of the most important currently unsolved problems in observational cosmology though is the formation process and subsequent evolutionary history of early-type galaxies within such a rich cluster environment. These early-type galaxies constitute the dominant population of galaxies within rich cluster cores. Studies using photometric and spectroscopic observations of bright ellipticals in clusters have suggested that their luminosity and colour evolution is modest and consistent with the passive evolution of stellar populations formed at high redshifts, $`z>24`$ (Aragón-Salamanca et al. 1993; Ellis et al. 1997; Kodama et al. 1998; van Dokkum et al. 1998; Kelson et al. 2000). However these studies have been unable to distinguish between dissipationless (or ‘monolithic’) collapse (e.g. Larson 1975) or hierarchical merging models (e.g. Baugh, Cole & Frenk 1996; Kauffmann 1996) of galaxy formation. This relatively modest evolution contrasts with the claims of strong evolution in the morphological mix in clusters, specifically the ratio of lenticular (or ‘S0’) to elliptical galaxies. Dressler et al. (1997) used the Hubble Space Telescope to image 10 clusters at $`z>0.30.6`$ and observed a rapid increase in the ratio of lenticular to elliptical galaxies from 10-20 per cent at $`z0.5`$ to the 60 per cent seen today (see also Fasano et al. 2000). Poggianti et al. (1999) used spectroscopic observations to analyse the Dressler et al. (1997) sample and suggested that the increase in the numbers of lenticular galaxies (assuming that the number of ellipticals remains constant) rather than simply being due to the slower formation of lenticulars from primordial origins (i.e. from methods similar to ellipticals) is in fact due to the morphological transformation of accreted field spiral galaxies into lenticulars. This implies that lenticulars and ellipticals are not constituent members a single morphological class of early-type galaxies, despite their broad similarity and their closeness on the Hubble sequence, but instead have contrasting evolutionary histories. In clusters, the presence of a large population of red, apparently passive galaxies (i.e. little evidence of recent star formation) with late-type morphologies together with the absence of blue lenticular galaxies (i.e. galaxies with young stellar populations) was hypothesised by Poggianti et al. (1999) to be evidence that any morphological transformation occurs on a longer time scale than the decline in the star formation rates of the accreted field galaxies (see also Kodama & Smail 2001). Their hypothesis was that the accreting spiral galaxies first suffered a decline in their star formation due to the stripping of their gas as they encountered the dense intra-cluster medium within the cluster potential (by e.g. galaxy-galaxy collisions, ram pressure stripping, gas evaporation in the hot intra-cluster medium, or galactic winds methods, see Spitzer & Baade 1951; Gunn & Gott 1972; Faber & Gallagher 1976; Cowie & Songaila 1977; Burstein 1979; Dressler 1980b; Larson, Tinsley & Caldwell 1980) *before* their morphological transformation into lenticular galaxies (this transformation could be by a completely separate process, e.g. Moore, Lake & Katz 1998). If this hypothesis is correct and morphological transformation occurs on a time-scale of $`23`$ Gyr after a galaxy’s entry into a cluster there should still be evidence of the previous star formation activity in the stellar populations of the lenticular galaxies, with a wider spread in age for lenticulars than for ellipticals. Therefore a study of the stellar population ages of elliptical and lenticular galaxies can be a powerful probe of the evolutionary history of rich clusters.

To date there have been many observational studies probing the evolutionary history of nearby cluster early-type galaxies (e.g. Bower, Lucey & Ellis 1992; Caldwell et al. 1993; Kuntschner & Davies 1998; Colless et al. 1999; Jørgensen 1999; Castander et al. 2001; Poggianti et al. 2001; Vazdekis et al. 2001). However these studies have reached somewhat differing conclusions. Some of the significant results, particularly on the Coma cluster of galaxies (A1656), are discussed below in more detail.

Caldwell et al. (1993) (see also Caldwell & Rose 1997) obtained multi-fibre spectroscopy for 125 early-type Coma cluster galaxies from two 45 diameter fields: one centred on the cluster core ($`21.4B17.6`$) and one centred 40 south west (SW) of the cluster centre ($`21.4B16.7`$). They found that for $`B18.5`$, 11 out of the 28 galaxies (39 per cent) in the SW region are ‘abnormal’, as opposed to only 3 out of 68 (4 per cent) in the central field. A subsequent line-strength analysis of the Caldwell spectra by Terlevich et al. (1999) confirms the previous results and demonstrates that the colour-magnitude-relation in Coma is driven primarily by a luminosity-metallicity relation. These results imply an old, passively evolving cluster core whilst the SW corner, possibly infalling to the main, older core of galaxies, shows a spread of stellar population ages.

Jørgensen (1999) observed 71 Coma cluster early-type galaxies ($`B19.2`$) within the central $`64^{}\times 70^{}`$ region. She combined these observations with literature data to create a data set of 115 early-type galaxies with Mg2, H$`\beta _\mathrm{G}`$ and $`\mathrm{Fe}`$ Lick/IDS index measurements (though there were only 68 with all of the indices measured). Using stellar population models and the Lick/IDS indices she found a low mean age and a sizeable spread in age (5.25 Gyr $`\pm `$ 0.166 dex) for a sub-sample of 71 early-type galaxies ($`B19.2`$). She also observed a small spread in metallicity, \[Fe/H\] of $`+0.08\pm \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.194}`$. Taken at face value this result seems to disagree with the analysis of the Caldwell et al. (1993) spectra.

The SDSS team (Castander et al. 2001) observed a 3 field centred on the south western part of the Coma cluster. They found 25 per cent of galaxies (49 out of 196 galaxies, $`B17.7`$) showed signs of recent star formation activity, giving them a young luminosity-weighted mean age. Their total population of galaxies therefore has a large spread in age. This result is in broad agreement with the findings of Caldwell et al. (1993) and Jørgensen (1999). However since they used spectral morphological classification techniques it is difficult to relate their findings directly to the early-type galaxy sub-population.

Poggianti et al. (2001) observed two $`32.5^{}\times 50.8^{}`$ fields towards the centre and the south west region of the Coma cluster. They found that for their sample of of 52 early-type galaxies ($`21.0B18.0`$), 95 per cent (18 out of 19) of ellipticals were consistent with ages older than 9 Gyr, whilst 41 per cent (13 out of 32) of lenticulars had ages smaller than 5 Gyr (one lenticular was excluded from their analysis because it had strong emission lines). The early-type galaxies show a large metallicity spread (–0.7 to $`+0.4`$ in \[Fe/H\]). This more detailed study suggests that there are real differences between the formation processes of the ellipticals and lenticulars. However the individual measurements are not actually contradictory with those of previous Coma cluster studies, but the study does imply that a better understanding of the sample selection is needed. It seems, that if a sample of early-type galaxies is incomplete then an over-representation of ellipticals would lead to the conclusion that there is a small spread in age, whereas a sample with a larger number of lenticulars would conclude the reverse. It is therefore important to understand the selection effects and to deal with the elliptical and lenticular morphological classes separately. The caveat to the findings of Poggianti et al. (2001) is that they are based upon data from both the core of the cluster *and* the south west region. Caldwell et al. (1993) previously showed that these parts of the cluster have *different* levels of star formation activity. This would affect conclusions based upon a conglomerate sample from the two regions (a sample with more galaxies from the SW region would have a larger age distribution than a sample with more from the core).

The different evolutionary histories of elliptical galaxies have previously been reported by Kuntschner & Davies (1998, see also Kuntschner 2000) who conducted a study of the small Fornax cluster (11 ellipticals and 11 lenticulars, $`B17.0`$). They found a large spread in metallicity of –0.25 to $`+0.30`$ in \[Fe/H\] for the ellipticals, while the data are consistent with no spread in age suggesting an early formation epoch at $``$8 Gyr. For the lenticulars, however, they found a large spread in age (1 Gyr to older than $`12`$ Gyr) and metallicity (–0.5$``$\[Fe/H\]$``$$`+0.5`$). Overall, the mean metallicity of early-type galaxies increases with luminosity in the Fornax cluster.

Emerging from the studies discussed is a picture of a different evolutionary history of lenticular and elliptical galaxies within the cluster environment. Additionally, the growth of clusters due to accretion of small groups or mergers with other clusters can affect the stellar populations of the individual galaxies (evidenced by the differences between the SW region and the core of the Coma cluster). It can be seen that it is essential in all observational studies of galaxy evolution to build up homogeneous and complete, or at least representative, samples. Somewhat surprisingly this has not been done for the Coma cluster up to this date. This has been the cause of much disagreement and controversy in the study of galaxy stellar population ages and metallicities. A new study is therefore needed which does not suffer from these limitations and which can answer the question of the formation processes and subsequent evolutionary histories of early-type galaxies within a rich cluster environment. This is the aim of this study.

In this study we measure spectroscopic line indices to derive accurate luminosity-weighted mean ages and metallicities for the central stellar populations of bright early-type galaxies in Coma to probe their evolutionary history through an analysis of the ‘noise’ of galaxy formation. This study will also use several important early-type galaxy correlations to place further constraints on their evolution. The correlations that will be investigated are: the colour–magnitude relation (Faber 1973; Visvanathan & Sandage 1977; Bower et al. 1992), the Mg2 line strength versus velocity dispersion relation (Terlevich et al. 1981; Burstein et al. 1988; Bender, Burstein & Faber 1993) and the Fundamental Plane (Djorgovski & Davis 1987; Dressler et al. 1987). These early-type galaxy relations provide a rich source of constraints for galaxy formation scenarios, probing their underlying physical mechanisms (Bower et al. 1992; Bender, Burstein & Faber 1992, 1993; Guzmán, Lucey & Bower 1993; Ciotti, Lanzoni & Renzini 1996; Bernardi et al. 1998).

This paper is the first in a series on the rich Coma cluster (early results can be found in Moore 2001 and Moore et al. 2001). In this paper (Paper I) we present the sample selection, spectroscopic reduction and final data catalogue. Section 2 describes the sample selection, Section 3 details the astrometry, Section 4 the observations, Section 5 the data reduction, Section 6 the corrections to the velocity dispersion measurements, Section 7 the measurement of stellar population absorption line strengths, Section 8 the comparison with previous data, and finally Section 9 presents the conclusions on the quality of the data. The companion papers (Moore et al. 2002a,b – hereafter referred to as Papers II and III) will use the data in this paper to measure stellar population mean ages and metallicities to probe the evolutionary history of the Coma cluster (Paper II) and combine the data with photometry to investigate in detail various spectro-photometric relations (Paper III).

## 2 Sample selection

Our aim was to construct a representative sample of the bright early-type galaxy population in the central region of the rich Coma cluster in order to measure central velocity dispersions and stellar population line strengths. Furthermore, to minimize systematic errors we aimed to provide a large overlap with previous studies; we also aimed to obtain many repeat observations with high S/N to characterise the random errors. The sample was selected using firstly the Godwin, Metcalfe & Peach (1983) catalogue (GMP), which contains 227 galaxies ($`b_j18.0`$, equivalent to $`B17.7`$111taking the mean heliocentric redshift of the Coma cluster to be 6841 km s-1 (*this study*) and assuming H0 = 50 km s-1 Mpc-1, $`q_o=0`$, no extinction and that the cluster is at rest with respect to the Cosmic Microwave Background (i.e. no cluster peculiar velocity) yields a distance modulus of 35.68 mag.) within a 1 field centred close to the cD galaxy NGC 4874 (a small offset is applied to improve the AUTOFIB2/WYFFOS setup). Magnitudes ($`b_j`$) and colours ($`br\mathrm{B}\mathrm{R}`$) for the galaxies were also taken from GMP. A magnitude limit of $`b_j18.0`$ (this is the magnitude limit implied in all subsequent discussions herein) was chosen since this study aims to obtain high quality data of bright early-type galaxies and this limit corresponds to $`1.7`$ mag below the peak of the Coma cluster luminosity function (at $`b_j16.3B19.4`$, see Biviano et al. 1995) and therefore samples the bulk of the early-type galaxy luminosity function with little contamination from dwarf galaxies (see Binggeli, Sandage & Tammann 1988 for a review); it also allowed high S/N measurements ($`35`$ per Å) to be obtained within the observing program time constraints (see Section 4). In addition to the complete GMP data set we also used 816 redshifts in the Coma cluster region (223 within the 1 field and with $`b_j18.0`$) kindly provided by M. Colless (see also Edwards et al. 2002). The morphological typing for the galaxies was taken from Dressler (1980a) where available. Within the central 1 field there are 210 confirmed cluster members. A sub-sample of 158 galaxies have been classified by Dressler and 137 galaxies are of early-type morphology. The sample definition is summarised in Table 1.

Selection criteria are then applied to the sample of 210 Coma galaxies to prioritise their importance within the AUTOFIB2/WYFFOS multi-fibre configuration program. This program uses a weighting scheme to maximise the scientific return of any observations, with priorities from 9 (most important) to 1 (least important), and takes into account the limitations of the instrument (e.g. constraints on the minimum distance between fibres). The highest priority was given to galaxies with early-type morphologies and with previously measured velocity dispersions (the goal being to tie down the systematics of any measurements). The next highest priority was given to galaxies with early-type morphologies but without previous velocity dispersion measurements. Lower priorities are then given to those galaxies with no morphological types in Dressler (1980a), with preference given to the brighter galaxies. The lowest priority was given to late-type galaxies within the cluster. This prioritised sample is then passed to the multi-fibre instrument configuration program. To increase the completeness of the observations of this sample (affected by constraints on fibre closeness and by there being only 126 available fibres), three different AUTOFIB2/WYFFOS field configurations are observed at the same position. The second field has the same priorities for the configuration program as the first, except that the galaxies that were observed in the first field have a lower priority (2 levels lower). Similarly the third field also has reduced priorities for the configuration program for the galaxies observed in the previous two fields. This technique increases the completeness and scientific return of the observations, whilst ensuring repeats between between each of the three observed fields.

## 3 Astrometry

To determine our astrometry three Schmidt plates were used:

– 10 min exposure plate (OR17491) taken on 3/4/1997;
– 30 min exposure plate (OR18041) taken on 18/6/1998;
– 85 min exposure plate (OR9945) taken on 25/2/1985.

The shorter exposure plates were specifically requested to measure accurate astrometry for the bright Coma galaxies. The plates were taken at the UK Schmidt Telescope using 3 mm glass with emulsion IIIaF and filter OG590. These Schmidt plates were scanned in using the SuperCOSMOS scanner at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh (Hambly et al. 2001). The data was then analysed and positions of all the programme objects determined by matching field star positions to the USNOA2 catalogue (Monet at al. 1997) and creating an astrometry solution for the plate. Table 2 lists the astrometry of the objects observed in this study together with the different names associated with each galaxy. Comparison (Fig. 1) with the Coma cluster astrometry of M. Colless (Edwards et al. 2002) confirms that our astrometry is accurate to $`0.3^{\prime \prime }`$. This is sufficient for multi-fibre spectroscopy to be undertaken (cf. the 2.7′′ diameter of the WYFFOS fibres).

## 4 Observations

Observations were carried out over 3 half-nights between 13-18 April 1999 with the wide-field (1 $``$ 1.26 $`h^1`$ Mpc at Coma with H0 = 100 $`h`$ km s-1 Mpc-1) multi-object spectroscopy instrument AUTOFIB2/WYFFOS and the H1800V grating on the William Herschel 4.2 metre telescope (WHT). Table 5 summarises the observation parameters.

Exposure times of typically 6$`\times `$1650 secs per configuration were sufficient to obtain high S/N ($`35`$ per Å) on our programme objects ($`b_j18.0`$). Each individual exposure on the brighter galaxies ($`b_j16.0`$) was also long enough to achieve the same S/N. Therefore a large number of repeats both during a night and night-to-night were gathered enabling a detailed treatment of the random and day-to-day systematic errors of our velocity dispersion and line-strength measurements.

The completeness of the observations versus the sample defined in Section 2 is summarised in Table 6, Fig. 2 and Fig. 3. These completeness calculations assume that the GMP catalogue is 100 per cent complete within the central 1 of the Coma cluster core down to the faint limit of this study; this is justified as at this magnitude limit missing blue compact dwarfs and potential problems of stellar contamination are at a minimum. High S/N spectroscopic data of a homogeneous nature were collected for 73 per cent of the known Coma cluster early-type galaxies brighter than $`b_j=18.0`$.

## 5 Data reduction

### 5.1 Basic data reduction

The first step in the raw reduction was performed with the `IRAF` WYFFOS data reduction software (Pollacco et al. 1999). This software performs the following basic tasks: bias subtraction; aperture identification; scattered light correction; flat fielding; throughput correction; fibre extraction; wavelength calibration (using an Argon I lamp); and sky subtraction. Cosmic ray and night sky line removal were then performed using our own software. The wavelength calibration residuals had a median rms of 0.050 to 0.083 Å for the three field configurations.

Individual spectra from a particular night were summed together to produce a spectrum of higher S/N. Where galaxies were observed on multiple nights it was decided not to co-add the spectra but rather treat each night as a separate measurement. This was because each spectra had sufficient S/N to yield high quality measurements without co-adding.

### 5.2 Redshift and velocity dispersion measurement

Velocity dispersions, $`\sigma `$ of the central 2.7′′ region of a galaxy (determined by the fibre diameter, equivalent to 0.94 $`h^1`$ kpc) are measured using the well-known Fourier Quotient method of Sargent et al. (1977). Recession velocities, $`cz`$, are obtained simultaneously with the velocity dispersions, as a result of the Fourier Quotient fit.

In the Fourier Quotient method a galaxy spectrum is approximated by the convolution of a representative stellar spectrum with an appropriate broadening function. This function is then calculated in Fourier parameter space. Prior to transforming to Fourier space, continuum fits are subtracted (using a 5th order polynomial) from both the stellar template spectrum and the galaxy spectrum, and modulated by a cosine bell function to fix the ends of the spectrum to zero. The latter step is necessary to avoid unphysical signals appearing at all frequencies in the Fourier transforms. These spectra then require filtering in Fourier space to remove signals arising from noise, inadequate continuum removal and the application of the cosine bell. A cut is made at high frequencies, to suppress channel-to-channel noise. The resulting $`\sigma `$ values are fairly insensitive to the exact value, $`k_{\mathrm{high}}`$, chosen for the high frequency cut. $`k_{\mathrm{high}}=200`$ has been used throughout. At low frequencies, a filter must be applied to remove residual continuum features and the effects of the cosine-bell modulation function described above. For the case of the low frequency cut, results are found to exhibit a clear trend: velocity dispersions are measured to be smaller when $`k_{\mathrm{low}}`$ is larger. The cut-off frequency must therefore be chosen with care. It is required that the low frequency filter should remove the signal arising from the cosine bell modulation, whilst preserving intrinsic features in spectra of velocity dispersion $`500`$ km s-1. For the spectra herein, these constraints leave a range of $`k_{\mathrm{low}}=69`$ over which an average velocity dispersion is calculated.

In order for the recovered width to represent only the intrinsic velocity broadening of the galaxy spectrum, it is necessary to ensure that the stellar spectrum has been subject to the same instrumental resolution effects as the galaxy spectrum. This is done by observing standard stars throughout an observing run and comparing these spectra to the observed galaxy spectra. In this study, five radial velocity standard stars (stellar types G8iii to K3iii) were observed down a number of different fibres. Since these observed standard stars have small, but non-zero radial velocities it is necessary to first zero-redshift them. This is performed by applying the Fourier Quotient method to calculate the radial velocity of the standard stars against a high resolution (0.5 Å per pixel), very high S/N ($`2501000`$ per Å) spectrum that has been precisely zero-redshifted through the identification of spectral features and then shifting them to their laboratory rest frame. Four spectra were kindly supplied by Claire Halliday (*private communication*, hereafter referred to as the Halliday spectra). These allow the standard stars to be zero-redshifted to an accuracy of $`\pm 6`$ km s-1.

Redshifts and velocity dispersions were measured both from each galaxy exposure and from the combined galaxy exposures for each night the galaxy was observed. The redshifts are corrected to heliocentric redshifts and the results averaged (weighting by their S/N) to yield a final value for a galaxy.

### 5.3 Spectral resolution variation

Using any multi-fibre spectroscopy instrument introduces intra-fibre and fibre-to-fibre variations in spectral resolution and throughput that necessarily have to be removed before an accurate analysis can be undertaken. These variations are due to the optical performance of the telescope plus instrumentation setup both across the field and along the slit where the fibres are fed into the spectrograph. These variations are found to be significant in the WHT/WYFFOS system and affect velocity dispersion and line-strength measurements (though to a lesser extent, see Section 6). In this section we describe how these variations are quantified.

The variation in spectral resolution was mapped by analysing the calibration spectra taken on each night222It would have been preferable to use twilight sky flats to characterise the performance of the system, but these observations could not be obtained. The arc lamps were located at the Cassegrain focus of the WHT and shine their light on to the tertiary mirror from which it is then relayed to the fibres. These allowed accurate mapping of the vignetting caused by the IDS grating H1800V convolved with a function representing the vignetting of the telescope optics from that point onwards. This approach is capable of removing the majority of the overall vignetting, since any effects superimposed by the telescope optics prior to the tertiary mirror are significantly smaller than the dominant effects subsequent to the tertiary mirror.

The results of this mapping can be seen in Fig. 4. A clear and sizable variation in spectral resolution is seen for each of the WYFFOS fibres. This effect is inherent in all telescopes due to the natural vignetting caused by their optical performance. However it is exacerbated in the WHT/WYFFOS system by the mis-match between the *smaller* IDS grating H1800V used and the *larger* WYFFOS beam; this mis-match further vignettes the spectra observed in fibres at the top and bottom ends of the slit. The widths of the Argon I calibration spectrum can be seen to vary from $`4`$ Å at the end of the slit and at the edge of the field to $`1.7`$ Å at the centre of the slit and at the centre of the field. This variation is a function both of fibre number (reflecting the position of the fibre on the slit and within the observed field) and of wavelength. These variations in line width will affect any velocity dispersion measurements (with a maximum error of 12 km s-1 for $`\sigma =100`$ km s-1), but will not change the redshift measurements (there is no systematic shift introduced by this problem) and will have a minor effect on line strengths (since the spectrum are broadened before measurement, see Section 7.2).

In principle it is possible that the variable throughput of the fibres might play a role here, with a dependence of spectral resolution on the strength of an arc line. However after further investigation this was ruled out. There could also be a further complication in that the tracking of the field centre on the Coma cluster during an exposure is not perfect, causing a drift in field position (and hence fibre position) relative to the target being observed. This drift, both during an exposure and between exposures, could introduce a time dependence into the mapping of the fibre characteristics. This effect was investigated by comparing the first and last spectra observed on a night and was found to be negligible ($`0.1`$ Å) compared to the other effects discussed.

## 6 Velocity dispersion corrections

### 6.1 Modelling the effect of intra–fibre and fibre–fibre variations

The first stage in removing the effect of any intra–fibre and fibre–fibre variations is to fit a function to the spectral resolution variation. We fit 2nd order polynomials to the variation with wavelength for each fibre and each field configuration (see Fig. 4a). These functions can then be convolved with an ideal template spectrum and the result used to cross-correlate against that of an observed galaxy to find its dispersion with any intrinsic fibre variation removed. The problem with this method is in having a template spectrum of very high resolution that is not itself suffering from any internal or instrumental variation.

To counter this problem we have devised the following method. We use the Halliday spectra which have been precisely zero-redshifted through the identification and then subsequent shifting of spectral features to their laboratory rest frame. These are the same spectra that were previously used to removed any redshift from observed standard stars in Section 5.2. These spectra will still suffer from some intrinsic variation (due to e.g. the telescope/instrument setup they were obtained with), but this is unimportant in the proposed method. These spectra are convolved with a particular fibre model in linear wavelength space, resulting in a ‘template spectrum’. The new template spectra are then cross-correlated against a mock galaxy created by convolving the original high-resolution spectra with a fibre model (not necessarily the same fibre) and broadening it by a fixed amount in logarithmic wavelength space (to simulate the Doppler broadening caused by a galaxy). A correction can then be calculated for each fibre configuration and each galaxy dispersion case:

$$\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{dispersion}\\ \mathrm{correction}\end{array}=\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{measured}\\ \mathrm{dispersion}\end{array}\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{true}\\ \mathrm{dispersion}\end{array}$$
(1)
These corrections are then used to modify the real calculated dispersions which are calculated using template spectra observed on the night to cross-correlate against the galaxy spectra. This is done by subtracting the calculated correction from the measured value. In this way the ‘true’ (or best estimate) dispersion is derived, with any modifications due to intra–fibre and fibre–fibre variations removed. Some results of this method can be seen in Figs. 5 to 7.

Figs. 5 and 6 show the size of the velocity dispersion correction required versus galaxy fibre number for a range of template stars with different broadening factors (simulating the typical velocity dispersions of the observed galaxies) and different spectral resolution variation functions (simulating the variations introduced through observing a galaxy with different fibres). Ideally each plot should be a straight line, however this is not the case because of the WHT/WYFFOS spectral resolution variations. A correction therefore needs to be applied to the velocity dispersion measurements of the observed early-type galaxies. This correction is a function of the fibre number that the galaxy was observed with and of the fibre number that the star used for the velocity dispersion measurement was observed with. The size of the correction is also a function of the velocity dispersion of the galaxy observed (Fig. 7), with larger velocity dispersions requiring a smaller correction. These corrections are typically small, but where an unfavourable pairing between galaxy fibre and standard star fibre occurs the velocity dispersion correction can be as large as 20 km s-1 for low velocity dispersion galaxies ($`\sigma 50`$ km s-1). However for the typical velocity dispersions of the galaxies that we observed in this project ($`\sigma 100`$ km s-1 and greater) the corrections are not large, but are significant. As expected though, when a galaxy is cross-correlated against a standard star observed in the same field configuration and with the same fibre the velocity dispersion correction is zero.

This modelling of the effect of intra-fibre and fibre-fibre variations results in accurate velocity dispersions for the galaxies, which are subsequently required during the Lick/IDS stellar population index measurement process (see Section 7.6). Bootstrap tests on the accuracy of this method using the high-resolution, very high S/N stellar template spectra have shown that the random errors for the velocity dispersion corrections are $`12`$ km s-1, demonstrating the success of this approach.

### 6.2 Redshift and velocity dispersion data

Table 7 lists the heliocentric redshift (135 galaxies) and central velocity dispersion data (132 galaxies) for the galaxies observed in the Coma cluster in this study. The dispersions have been corrected for the field variations (Section 5.3). These data are average values (weighted by their S/N) of all the measurements from the multiple exposures. Blank entries indicate a measurement was not possible.

The redshift errors are calculated by combining the error in the wavelength calibration in quadrature with the error resulting from the cross-correlation technique plus the template mis-matching error (calculated through cross-correlating the galaxy spectrum against *different* stellar spectra) and an additional error component factor (calculated from the variance between multiple exposures on a galaxy cross-correlated against a single stellar spectrum). The median heliocentric redshift error is 12 km s-1.

The velocity dispersion errors are calculated by combining the error resulting from the cross-correlation technique in quadrature with the error resulting from template mis-matching (calculated through cross-correlating the galaxy spectrum against *different* stellar spectra) plus an additional error component factor (calculated from the variance between multiple exposures on a galaxy cross-correlated against a single stellar spectrum). The median velocity dispersion error is 0.015 dex.

## 7 Stellar population absorption line strengths

One of the main goals of this study was to measure the luminosity weighted mean ages and metallicities of the dominant stellar populations within the core of bright early-type galaxies. To measure these ages and metallicities, we used the Lick/IDS system of line strength measurement and then compared the data to models (e.g. Worthey 1994). The principal line indices used were H$`\beta _\mathrm{G}`$ (predominantly age dependent) and $`[`$MgFe$`]`$ (predominantly metallicity dependent). This section details the measurement of these and other stellar population absorption line strength indices in the wavelength range $``$4600–5600 Å.

### 7.1 Flux calibration

It is first necessary to remove the overall instrument response function (IRF) from galaxy spectra prior to line strength measurement. Spectra are affected by: the response of the spectrograph optics; the response of the CCD; the response of the grating; atmospheric conditions; and airmass. These effects are removed by observing flux standard stars (see e.g. Massey et al. 1988). Flux calibration of the galaxy spectra was performed by comparing the observed stars to their standard spectrum and computing the IRF which was then used to transform the galaxy spectra continuum. Since the conditions these observations were performed in were not photometric, it is only possible to correct the galaxy spectra to some arbitrary flux units. However this does not affect the shape of the spectral continuum nor the line strength measurements. To improve the calculation of the IRF a number of flux standard stars were observed during the run. The IRFs calculated from each star were then compared and a mean IRF derived using a technique that minimized their maximum absolute deviations (MAD).

It was not possible to measure flux standard stars down each fibre and for each field configuration because of the prohibitively long observing time required. This means that the computed IRF function is only an *overall* IRF and does not include fibre-to-fibre continuum shape variations333Note that the fibre-to-fibre throughput variations are already removed in the basic data reduction process. This fibre-to-fibre IRF variation is however small and would only affect line strength measurements at the level of $`<0.1`$ Å.

A typical flux calibrated galaxy spectrum is shown in Fig. 8.

### 7.2 Lick/IDS system

Absorption line strengths were measured using the Lick/IDS system of indices, where a central feature bandpass is flanked on either side by pseudo-continuum bandpasses (see Trager et al. 1998 for details). The Lick/IDS system is based upon spectra with a mean resolution of 9 Å (Fig. 9). The spectra in this study need to be broadened to the same resolution to measure indices on the Lick/IDS system. This is done by calculating a transformation function using the known resolution function of a galaxy spectrum (Section 5.3) and the Lick/IDS resolution function (see Fig. 9 or Worthey & Ottaviani 1997):

$$\mathrm{FWHM}_{trans}(\lambda )^2=\mathrm{FWHM}_{Lick}(\lambda )^2\mathrm{FWHM}_{gal}(\lambda )^2$$
(2)
The spectrum is then broadened in linear wavelength space using a sliding Gaussian smoothing function derived from this transformation function.

### 7.3 Line strength measurement

Indices were measured by first zero-redshifting galaxy spectra to the laboratory rest frame using the previously measured heliocentric redshifts corrected back to the geocentric rest frame. Then the mean height in each of the two pseudo-continuum regions was determined in either side of the feature bandpass, and a straight line drawn through the mid-point of each one. The difference in flux between this line and the observed spectrum within the feature bandpass determines the index. For narrow features, the indices are expressed in angstroms (Å) of equivalent width (EW); for broad molecular bands, in magnitudes. Specifically, the average pseudo-continuum flux level is:

$$F_P=_{\lambda _1}^{\lambda _2}\frac{F_\lambda }{(\lambda _2\lambda _1)}𝑑\lambda $$
(3)
where $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$ are the wavelength limits of the pseudo-continuum sideband. If $`F_{C\lambda }`$ represents the straight line connecting the midpoints of the blue and red pseudo-continuum levels, an equivalent width is then:

$$\mathrm{EW}=_{\lambda _1}^{\lambda _2}\left(1\frac{\mathrm{F}_{\mathrm{I}\lambda }}{\mathrm{F}_{\mathrm{C}\lambda }}\right)d\lambda $$
(4)
where $`F_{I\lambda }`$ is the observed flux per unit wavelength and $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$ are the wavelength limits of the feature passband. Similarly, an index measured in magnitudes is:

$$\mathrm{mag}=2.5\mathrm{log}_{10}\left[\left(\frac{1}{\lambda _2\lambda _1}\right)_{\lambda _1}^{\lambda _2}\frac{\mathrm{F}_{\mathrm{I}\lambda }}{\mathrm{F}_{\mathrm{C}\lambda }}d\lambda \right]$$
(5)
These definitions, after Trager et al. (1998), differ slightly from those used in Burstein et al. (1984) and Faber et al. (1985) for the original 11 IDS indices. In the original scheme, the continuum was taken to be a horizontal line over the feature bandpass at the level $`F_{C\lambda }`$ taken at the midpoint of the bandpass. This flat rather than sloping continuum would induce erroneous small, systematic shifts in the feature strengths.

An example of the measurement of the Mgb index for galaxy NGC 4869, an elliptical galaxy with $`b_j=14.97`$ and $`\sigma =203`$ km s-1, is shown in Fig. 10.

### 7.4 Indices measured

Table 10 presents the stellar population absorption line indices measured in this work. Column (5) is after the work of Tripicco & Bell (1995), who modelled the Lick/IDS system using synthetic stellar spectra. They found that many of the Lick/IDS indices do not in fact measure the abundances of the elements for which they are named. The following composite indices were also measured in our study:

$$\mathrm{Fe}=\frac{\mathrm{Fe5270}+\mathrm{Fe5335}}{2}$$
(6)
$$[\mathrm{MgFe}]=\sqrt{\mathrm{Mg}_\mathrm{b}\times \mathrm{Fe}}$$
(7)
### 7.5 Signal-to-noise

Our goal was to measure high signal-to-noise (S/N) line strength indices to probe the age and metallicity structure of the Coma cluster early-type galaxy population. We therefore measured a S/N at the central rest wavelength of *each* line index investigated in this study. The line indices H$`\beta _\mathrm{G}`$ and $`[`$MgFe$`]`$ have a mean S/N for their combined exposures of 58.7 and 66.7 per Å respectively if a minimum cut-off of S/N$``$35 per Å is applied. This minimum S/N cut-off is chosen to keep the errors of the line indices small in subsequent stellar population analyses. Fig. 11 shows the distribution of S/N for our sample as measured at the H$`\beta _\mathrm{G}`$ index.

### 7.6 Line index velocity dispersion correction

The observed spectrum of a galaxy is the convolution of the integrated spectrum of its stellar population with the instrumental broadening and the distribution of line-of-sight velocities of the stars (parameterized by the velocity dispersion measurement). The broadening of the spectra generally causes the indices to appear weaker than they intrinsically are.

To probe the stellar population of a galaxy it is necessary to remove the effects of the instrumental and velocity dispersion broadening. This gives an index measurement corrected to zero velocity dispersion. This was done by using the spectra of standard stars that were observed during the run. These stellar spectra were convolved in logarithmic wavelength space with a Gaussian function of widths 0–460 km s-1 (in steps of 20 km s-1) to simulate the velocity dispersion broadening within a galaxy. They were then converted in linear wavelength space to the Lick/IDS resolution using the method detailed in Section 7.2. Index strengths were measured for each spectrum. These values were compared to the values measured from the zero velocity dispersion stellar spectra which have also been transformed to the Lick/IDS resolution. A correction function versus velocity dispersion for each line index was then computed by calculating the difference between the broadened value and the zero velocity dispersion value and then dividing it by the zero velocity dispersion value. For each line index, a second order polynomial was fit to the correction function data from all the observed standard stars. This function was then evaluated at the velocity dispersion of each observed galaxy and the measured line index value for that galaxy corrected to a zero velocity dispersion value. After Kuntschner (2000), stars with low H$`\beta `$ ($`<1.6`$ Å) which are unrepresentative of bright elliptical galaxies are excluded from the analysis.

The correction functions for the line indices Mgb and H$`\beta _\mathrm{G}`$ are shown in Fig. 12. Table 11 gives the polynomial coefficients for each line index correction function and the size of the correction for a galaxy with a velocity dispersion, $`\sigma `$ of 200 km s-1. The corrections are multiplicative except for the Mg1 and Mg2 indices where the corrections are additive (since they are measured in magnitudes rather than in equivalent widths).

### 7.7 Emission correction

An important issue when estimating ages and metallicities from line strength indices is nebular emission. Elliptical galaxies normally contain much less dust and ionized gas than spirals, and were regarded as dust and gas free for a long time. Surveys of large samples of early type galaxies (Phillips et al. 1986; Caldwell 1984; Goudfrooij et al. 1994) have revealed however that 50–60 per cent of the galaxies show weak optical emission lines. The measured emission line strengths of \[Oii\], \[H$`\alpha `$\] and \[Nii\]$`\lambda `$6584 indicate a presence of only 103–10$`{}_{}{}^{5}\mathrm{M}_{}^{}`$ of warm ionized gas in the galaxy centre. Additionally, HST images of nearby bright early type galaxies revealed that approximately 70–80 per cent show dust features in the nucleus (van Dokkum & Franx 1995). Stellar absorption line strength measurements can be severely affected if there is emission present in the galaxy (e.g. González 1993; Goudfrooij & Emsellem 1996): nebular H$`\beta `$ emission on top of the integrated stellar H$`\beta `$ absorption weakens the H$`\beta `$ index and leads therefore to incorrectly older age estimates.

In the González (1993) study of bright elliptical galaxies in groups and clusters, he noted that \[Oiii\] emission at 4959 Å and 5007 Å are clearly detectable in about half of the nuclei in his sample and that most of these galaxies also have detectable H$`\beta `$ emission (see his Fig 4.10). For galaxies in his sample with strong emission, H$`\beta `$ is fairly tightly correlated with \[Oiii\] such that:

$$\frac{\mathrm{H}\beta \mathrm{emission}}{[\mathrm{O}\mathrm{iii}]}0.7$$
(8)
A statistical correction of:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{H}\beta =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.7}[\mathrm{O}\mathrm{iii}]$$
(9)
was therefore added to H$`\beta `$ to correct for this residual emission.

Trager et al. (2000a,b) re-examined the accuracy of this correction by studying H$`\beta `$/\[Oiii\] among the González (1993) galaxies, supplemented by additional early type galaxies from the emission line catalogue of Ho, Filippenko & Sargent (1997). The sample was restricted to include only normal, non-AGN Hubble types E through to S0 and well measured objects with H$`\alpha >1.0`$ Å. For 27 galaxies meeting these criteria, they found that H$`\beta `$/\[Oiii\] varies from 0.33 to 1.25, with a median value of 0.60. They suggest that a better correction coefficient in Equation (9) is 0.6 rather than 0.7:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{H}\beta =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.6}[\mathrm{O}\mathrm{iii}]$$
(10)
implying that the average galaxy in the González (1993) sample is slightly over-corrected. For a median \[Oiii\] strength through the González (1993) $`r_e/8`$ aperture of 0.17 Å, the error due to this correction difference would be 0.02 Å or $``$3 per cent in age. This systematic error for a typical galaxy is negligible compared to other sources of error.

In this study we adopt the 0.6 multiplicative factor to correct the H$`\beta `$ index for nebular emission using the \[Oiii\]$`\lambda `$5007 Å emission line strength. Whilst there is evidence that this correction factor is uncertain for individual galaxies (Mehlert et al. 2000), it is good in a statistical sense for the study sample. After Kuntschner (2000), we adopt a slightly different definition of the \[Oiii\] emission line strength index bandpasses which we have found better measures the true \[Oiii\] emission. After the Lick/IDS system of measuring line indices, we define the feature bandpass to be 4998–5015 Å and the continuum side bandpasses to be 4978–4998 Å and 5015–5030 Å. This new definition does not affect the conclusions of Trager et al. (2000a,b) nor González (1993) on the relationship of \[Oiii\] to H$`\beta `$ emission. To further improve the measurement of the \[Oiii\] emission line strength in this study, we measure our best estimate of the emission by first subtracting a zero emission template from a galaxy spectrum and then measuring the residual equivalent width. The zero emission template is simply a standard star. The process is repeated for a set of zero emission templates and an average \[Oiii\] emission line strength calculated. An example of this process is shown in Fig. 13.

A total of 50 galaxies were found to have 1 sigma evidence of \[Oiii\]$`\lambda `$5007 Å emission, with a median emission of 0.228 Å giving a median H$`\beta `$ correction of 0.137 Å (see Fig. 14). The H$`\beta `$ correction is calculated separately for each galaxy using Equation (10) and our best estimate of the \[Oiii\]$`\lambda `$5007 Å emission for that galaxy.

### 7.8 Line strength index errors

The line index measurement errors were calculated by internal comparison during a night and between nights. With the large amount of multiple observations with different fibre configurations and high S/N data this allows accurate mapping of the random and some of the systematic errors.

The method assumes that the errors have an underlying Gaussian nature and exploits the central limit theorem. Firstly it is necessary to compute the difference between the multiple line index measurements taken during a night to the ‘true’ line index measurement, taken to be the measurement from the combined exposure for that night. To prevent any contaminating systematics, only exposures from a particular night were compared. In this way we mapped the random errors as a function of galaxy S/N up to a maximum S/N governed by the individual exposures. To extend this random error mapping to a higher S/N limit, we used the fact that a number of galaxies were observed every night during the observing run and further compared the line index measurement from the combined exposure for a night to the mean line index measurement from all of the nights, taken here to be the ‘true’ measurement as before. This mapping to higher S/Ns is only done for galaxies observed on all nights (often with different fibres due to the different field fibre configurations) to minimize any systematic error contamination of the random error mapping.

Once we obtained the dependence of the random errors with S/N for a particular line index, we deduced the error function for that index. The error function is calculated by binning the data by S/N from 5–35 S/N per Å with bin widths of 3 S/N per Å (the lower limit is to exclude very low S/N spectra which would contaminate the derivation of the error function). These bins were then analysed and a standard deviation computed for each bin. For spectra with a S/N greater than 35 per Å binning is no longer used to prevent contamination by small number statistics. Instead a standard deviation was computed for the differences for all galaxies with a S/N greater than 35 per Å and then this lower limit was incremented by the bin width and the standard deviation re-computed. This process was repeated up to a maximum S/N of 120 per Å. This procedure results in a data set of standard deviation versus S/N. A 4th order polynomial was then fit to the natural log of the variation of standard deviation with S/N (the function is fit to the natural logarithm of the data to simply fit a smoother function to the data, without introducing any erroneous high order fluctuations). Fig. 15 shows the error calculation plots for the Mgb and H$`\beta _\mathrm{G}`$ line indices.

The computed error function versus S/N was subsequently used to calculate the errors for all of the line index measurements.

To test the correctness of the error determination the central limit theorem was exploited to perform a scale test on the data. If the errors computed are appropriate then the following function will have a standard deviation equal to unity:

$$\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{scale}\mathrm{test}\\ \mathrm{parameter}\end{array}=\frac{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{line}\mathrm{index}\\ \mathrm{measurement}\end{array}\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{true}\mathrm{line}\\ \mathrm{index}\mathrm{value}\end{array}}{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{line}\mathrm{index}\\ \mathrm{error}\end{array}}$$
(11)
This scale test was performed on all data with a S/N greater than 10 per Å to prevent any contamination by very low S/N measurements. In our case the true line index value is equal to the mean line index value. It is therefore necessary to include the error on the mean in the line index error. Table 12 includes the results of the scale test for each line index measured. The scale test parameter does indeed have a standard deviation approximately equal to unity (apart from the Fe5406 index), showing that the errors calculated are truly representative. For the Fe5406 index, the scale test implies that the median error should be 0.194 Å. A possible explanation for the difference between our error estimate and the conclusion of the scale test is the proximity of the index to the end of the wavelength range. In a conservative approach we adopt a final error for Fe5406 scaled by a factor 1.647.

In addition to the scale test, we conducted an internal systematic error analysis. A mean difference was calculated for data with a S/N$``$10 per Å (the same low S/N cut-off used in the scale test), however only the central 68.3 per cent of this sample (i.e. 1 sigma clipping) were used so that effect of any rogue outliers in the sample distribution was minimized. The conclusion of this analysis was that there are no internal systematic errors either during a night or between nights.

### 7.9 Lick/IDS index absorption line strength data

Table 16 lists the Lick/IDS index absorption line strength data for 132 galaxies observed in the Coma cluster in this study. The three remaining galaxies (RB 71, RB 199, GMP 4469) had insufficient S/N to permit any line strength measurement. Missing values in the table indicate either that the line strength measured had a low S/N or that it could not be measured. Where a galaxy was observed on multiple nights with the same wavelength range, the line strength measurements from each night were combined using the square of the S/N to weight the measurements. The H$`\beta `$ and H$`\beta _\mathrm{G}`$ line strengths given in the table have not been corrected for nebula emission. The \[Oiii\]$`\lambda `$5007 Å emission line strength measurement used for this correction is in the column $`[`$Oiii$`]`$sm.

## 8 Comparison with previous data

Although the spectral resolution of the Lick/IDS system has been well matched, small systematic offsets in the indices introduced by continuum shape differences are generally present (note that the original Lick/IDS spectra are *not* flux calibrated). These offsets do not depend on the velocity dispersion of the galaxy itself. To establish these offsets we compared our measurements with data from studies that have galaxies in common:

(i) Seven Samurai (Dressler et al. 1987; Faber et al. 1987);
(ii) Lick/IDS database (Trager et al. 1998);
(iii) Jørgensen (1999);
(iv) SMAC (Hudson et al. 2001);
(v) Mehlert et al. (2000)444Mehlert et al. (2000) measured high S/N long-slit spatially resolved spectra, giving line strength measurements as a function of radius from the galaxy centre. After Jørgensen, Franx & Kjaergaard (1995a,b) and Mehlert et al. (2000) we used the equation $`r_L=\left(\frac{r_A}{1.025}\right)^2\frac{\pi }{2b}`$ to convert the aperture radius used in this study ($`r_A`$) to a ‘slit-equivalent’ radius ($`r_L`$). $`b`$ is the width of the slit used by Mehlert et al. (2000). An index value at this slit-equivalent radius was then calculated.;
(vi) Kuntschner et al. (2001).

Whilst some of the above studies partly contain data from the same source, for simplicity they are treated as independent studies.

This comparative analysis investigated the following hypothesis: an offset could be present between the data in this study and the published data sets, but there should be no offset between each of the comparison sets (since these have already been corrected to a common Lick/IDS system). This analysis also allowed a direct comparative measure of the quality of the data in this study.

### 8.1 Method of analysis

The following statistics were calculated for each sample of data from this study (with S/N$``$35 per Å) that matches with that of a previous study:

(i) mean offset to this study;
(ii) root mean squared of sample differences (rms);
(iii) intrinsic root mean squared of sample differences, taking into account the measurement errors (rmsintr).

All offsets were calculated as:

$$\mathrm{offset}=\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{data}\mathrm{from}\\ \mathrm{this}\mathrm{study}\end{array}\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{data}\mathrm{from}\mathrm{a}\\ \mathrm{comparison}\mathrm{study}\end{array}$$
(12)
The intrinsic root mean squared of sample differences is a test of the quality of the data errors: if the quoted errors on the parameters are correct, then the intrinsic rms should be negligible (i.e. close to zero).

### 8.2 Results of comparisons

Table 13 shows the results of the comparisons between the data in this study with that in previous studies. Intrinsic scatters are not calculated for the Seven Samurai data (Dressler et al. 1987) because they do not quote individual measurement errors.

Our velocity dispersion measurements show good agreement with published values, with the mean offsets all being less than 3 per cent (see Fig. 16). After allowing for the quoted measurement errors, only a small intrinsic scatter of 0.0216 dex is seen. To remove this intrinsic scatter the quoted measurement errors have to be increased by only $`15`$ per cent. These velocity dispersions will be used in Paper III with photometric data to investigate various spectro-photometric relations, using the stellar population parameters to probe their fundamental nature

As in our study of stellar population ages and metallicities (Paper II), we focus our comparative analysis on the indices H$`\beta _\mathrm{G}`$ (predominantly age dependent) and $`[`$MgFe$`]`$ (predominantly metallicity dependent). We can see that the analysis gives an initial average offset over all studies in H$`\beta `$ of –0.088 $`\pm `$ 0.043 Å and in $`[`$MgFe$`]`$ of 0.016 $`\pm `$ 0.030 Å. This implies that the $`[`$MgFe$`]`$ values in this study require no correction to place them fully on the Lick/IDS system (as the computed correction is not statistically significant), but that the H$`\beta `$ do require a correction (though only at a 2.0 sigma level). However a closer examination shows that there are systematic offsets between the comparison data sets. If the Jørgensen (1999) data set (which has the largest offset from this study for the line indices H$`\beta `$ and $`[`$MgFe$`]`$) is excluded from the comparative analysis, an average offset in H$`\beta `$ of 0.017 $`\pm `$ 0.059 Å and in $`[`$MgFe$`]`$ of 0.152 $`\pm `$ 0.033 Å is found. This implies the reverse of the previous result, namely that the $`[`$MgFe$`]`$ values in this study *do* require a correction (at a 4.6 sigma level), whilst the H$`\beta `$ values do not. This analysis highlights problems with the comparison data sets, indicating that either there are underlying problems with the line index measurements or that the data sets have not been fully corrected to the Lick/IDS system. This leads to the conclusion that any systematic correction to the data set in this study would be uncertain because of the discrepancies between published data sets, therefore no corrections are applied. The size of the correction would in any case only be $`0.1`$ Å which corresponds to either a correction of $`0.05`$ in stellar population mean metallicity, $`[`$Fe/H$`]`$ or $`2`$ Gyr in stellar population mean age, depending on where the data point is on a stellar population grid (e.g. the grids of Worthey 1994). Such corrections would be approximately a systematic shift for the entire data set and would therefore not significantly affect the analysis of distributions or relative trends within the Coma cluster bright early-type galaxy stellar populations.

Table 13 also contains comparative analyses of other parameters. No highly statistically significant evidence for any offsets between the data from this study and the comparison data are found, except for the Mg1 index. This is found to have a mean offset of 0.0204 $`\pm `$ 0.0025 mag. This offset was therefore removed from the Mg1 line strengths published in this paper.

### 8.3 Effect of aperture corrections

The above comparative analysis did not take into account the effect of different aperture sizes. Galaxies exhibit a radial dependence for line strength measurements (see e.g. Mehlert et al. 2000) so it is necessary to understand the offsets introduced when comparing data from studies with different aperture dimensions. Following Jørgensen et al. (1995a,b) and Mehlert et al. (2000) we calculate ‘slit-equivalent’ radii to match the aperture width of 2.7′′ used in this study with the standard 3.4′′ diameter aperture and the long-slit of dimension 1.4′′$`\times `$ 4′′ (Trager et al. 1998) used in the comparison studies. These radii are then used to convert the long-slit absorption line strengths of Mehlert et al. (2000) to equivalent values and a mean aperture correction factor calculated (Table 14). Since Mehlert et al. (2000) only measured H$`\beta `$, Mgb and $``$Fe$``$ (and therefore $`[`$MgFe$`]`$ as well as it is a composite index), this data can only be used to corrected these indices. The calculated aperture corrections are small ($`<\pm 0.05`$ Å) in comparison to the data errors ($`0.1`$ Å) and therefore do not affect the previous conclusion about the presence of a mean offset between the Lick/IDS calibrated data and the data in this study (the data in Fig. 17 and in Table 15 give a very similar average offset to Table 13 for H$`\beta `$ and $`[`$MgFe$`]`$).

### 8.4 Implications for the errors within our study

The intrinsic rms of the differences between this study and the comparative studies for the indices H$`\beta `$ and $`[`$MgFe$`]`$ was non-zero in Table 13. An intrinsic rms of 0.120 $`\pm `$ 0.014 Å and 0.078 $`\pm `$ 0.009 Å was found respectively for the indices H$`\beta `$ and $`[`$MgFe$`]`$. If there are no systematic differences between the comparison data sets and the data set in this study then the presence of an intrinsic rms implies that the random errors of the data have been underestimated. In Section 7.8 the median error of the H$`\beta `$ measurements in this study was found to be 0.106 Å, whilst $`[`$MgFe$`]`$ had a median error of 0.085 Å. Since the error calculation method used in this study is completely independent and truly statistical, we believe that the published errors of the comparison data sets are underestimated. These published data sets rely greatly upon comparisons between each other to normalise their error estimations. We believe this approach has led to the underestimation of the line strength index errors. In the worst case scenario, if the errors in the comparison data sets are however perfect and it is the errors in this study that are underestimated, this analysis implies that the median errors for the indices H$`\beta `$ and $`[`$MgFe$`]`$ should in fact be 0.177 Å and 0.115 Å respectively. The true situation is likely to be somewhere in between, with both errors requiring some scale factor to be applied. A scale factor is not applied to the errors in this study because of the large uncertainties of this scaling and the question of the validity of such a scaling to our independent error estimates. However it does highlight the importance of rigorous error treatments and of obtaining high-quality repeat observations to fully characterise both the random and systematic errors in a data set. Both of these approaches have been taken in this study.

## 9 Conclusions

In this paper we have presented data from a new spectroscopic study on the central 1 of the nearby rich Coma cluster. This study aims to accurately measure the ages and metallicities of the bright ($`b_j18.0`$, $`B17.7`$) early-type galaxy population and to probe their distributions and the impact upon spectro-photometric relations. The data set described in this paper is a homogeneous and high signal-to-noise set of Lick/IDS stellar population line indices and central velocity dispersions for 132 galaxies. Our observations include 73 per cent (100 out of 137) of the total early-type galaxy population ($`b_j18.0`$).

The data has been compared to previous studies and found to be of high quality. No significant systematic offsets are found between the study data and any previously published data, except for the Mg1 index. A correction of 0.0204$`\pm `$0.0025 mag is applied to the Mg1 index. The significance of any other offsets is at the level of $`0`$–5 per cent. The data is therefore shown to be fully on the Lick/IDS system. This data can now be used to analyse the galaxy stellar populations and cluster properties using models based upon the Lick/IDS system (e.g. the Worthey 1994 models). Since the data set is homogeneous, there are in addition no inherent internal systematic errors clouding any analyses; such errors are often introduced when multiple data sets are combined. The data in this paper also has well characterised errors which have been calculated in a rigorous and statistical way. Fig. 18 shows the line strength data versus magnitude, $`b_j`$. This data provides an important baseline at $`z0`$ for studies of distant, high redshift clusters. It also expands the existing knowledge base of galaxy formation and evolution in rich clusters.

The companion papers in this study will use the data presented in this paper to measure stellar population mean ages and metallicities to probe the evolutionary history of the bright early-type galaxies within the core of the Coma cluster (Paper II). These stellar populations act as fossil records of galaxy formation and evolution and provide a powerful tool to constrain theoretical models. They will also combine the data with photometry to investigate in detail various spectro-photometric relations (Paper III). These relations will be used to place further constraints on the models of formation and evolution.

## Acknowledgments

This work is based on observations made with the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope operated on the island of La Palma by the Isaac Newton Group in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. This research has made use of the USNOFS Image and Catalogue Archive operated by the United States Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station (www.nofs.navy.mil/data/fchpix/). It has also used the UK Schmidt Telescope situated at Siding Spring Observatory, New South Wales, Australia which is operated as part of the Anglo-Australian Observatory. Schmidt plates were scanned in using the advanced photographic plate digitising machine SuperCOSMOS operated by the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.


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# Band structure in classical field theory

## I Introduction

A wide variety of classical static solutions in field theories have been constructed and they can play crucial roles in particle physics, condensed matter systems, and cosmology. Commonly the static solutions exist because of non-trivial topology of the field theory and in these cases the solution is known as a “topological defect”. Alternately the solution may exist in the form of a topological defect embedded in a theory where the requisite topology is absent. In these cases the static embedded topological defect is usually unstable and can decay. We are interested in determining if this instability is also present in embedded defects that are not static.

It is helpful to consider a mechanical analog of the unstable defect solution. Consider a particle in two spatial dimensions with position $`𝐱(t)=(x(t),y(t))`$ and Lagrangian

$$L=\frac{1}{2}m𝐯^2V(𝐱)$$
(1)
where

$$V(𝐱)=\frac{k_x}{2}x^2\frac{k_y}{2}y^2+\frac{c}{2}x^2y^2$$
(2)
with $`k_x`$, $`k_y`$ and $`c`$ being positive parameters. The extremum of the potential is at $`𝐱=0`$ and is a saddle point. The positive eigenvalue at the saddle point is along the $`x`$ direction and the negative eigenvalue is along the $`y`$ direction. The equations of motion are:

$$m\ddot{x}=k_xxcxy^2$$
(3)
$$m\ddot{y}=+k_yycx^2y$$
(4)
where overdots denote derivatives with respect to $`t`$. The static solution is $`x=0=y`$ and is clearly unstable to perturbations in the $`y`$ direction. This is seen by taking $`y`$ to be a perturbation and then linearizing the equation for $`y`$:

$$m\ddot{y}=+k_yy$$
(5)
This equation has exponentially growing solutions and hence the particle is unstable to “rolling off” in the $`y`$-direction.

Next consider a dynamic solution of the system:

$$x(t)=A\mathrm{cos}(\omega t),y(t)=0$$
(6)
where $`\omega =\sqrt{k_x/m}`$. Is this solution stable?

Once again we proceed by perturbing the $`y`$ equation, and linearizing in the perturbations. This gives

$$m\ddot{y}=+k_yycA^2\mathrm{cos}^2(\omega t)y$$
(7)
where $`y`$ denotes the perturbation. This is the Mathieu equation (Sec. 5.2, MorFes53 ).

There exist solutions to the Mathieu equation of the form

$$y(t)=e^{i\nu t}P(t),$$
(8)
a result which is derived using Floquet’s theorem. The value of $`\nu `$ depends on the parameters $`k_y/k_x`$ and $`cA^2/k_x`$ and can be found as described in Sec. 5.2 of Ref. MorFes53 . If $`\nu `$ is imaginary, the original solution is unstable; if $`\nu `$ is real, the original solution is stable.

A remarkable feature of this system is that there are bands of stability and instability. For fixed $`\omega `$, if $`A`$ is close to zero, there is an instability and the particle rolls off in the $`y`$-direction. For larger $`A`$, we find stability – the particle gets displaced in the $`y`$-direction at the saddle point, but is unable to roll off by the time it has moved away from the saddle point in the $`x`$-direction. This is shown in Fig. 1 where we have plotted the stability and instability bands in the $`aq`$ plane, where

$$a=\frac{cA^2}{2k_x}\frac{k_y}{k_x},q=\frac{cA^2}{4k_x}.$$
(9)
Then, for fixed $`k_y/k_x`$, we get the line

$$a=2q\frac{k_y}{k_x}$$
(10)
on the plot. This line intersects the unstable and stable regions alternately as we go to larger amplitudes for fixed model parameters.

It is tempting to think that the pattern of stability and instability as the amplitude is increased can be understood in terms of the time spent by the particle in the vicinity of the saddle point as compared to the decay time of the static solution. However, this intuition does not work since for yet larger $`A`$ we again get instability. The band structure then has to be understood as a resonance phenomenon between the various oscillatory modes of the particle.

If we include frictional forces on the particle as it moves on the potential, the amplitude of oscillations will gradually diminish and eventually the particle will enter a band of instability. The decay time of the oscillations will then be determined by the time it takes for the particle to slip from a stability band to an instability band.

We are interested in determining if a similar phenomenon can occur in classical field theories. If a certain static field solution is unstable, can its lifetime be much longer due to some dynamics? There is clearly an affirmative though trivial answer – since these are relativistic field theories, a boosted field solution lives longer due to relativistic time dilation. However, we are not interested in this factor and would like to determine if there is an effect similar to the band structure observed in the mechanical problem. There is another complication in field theory: the dynamical solution will almost certainly emit radiation and dissipate and hence is similar to the mechanical case with the inclusion of friction. Yet in the examples we will consider, the dissipation due to radiation is very small and can be ignored.

We will restrict our attention in this paper to classical field theory in 1+1 dimensions. Our first approach to the problem is to construct unstable (embedded) kink solutions and study the growth of linearized perturbations on kink solutions that are forced to oscillate. The similarity between this field theory problem and the mechanical problem described above can be understood by going to the rest frame of the kink as it oscillates. In this (non-inertial) frame the perturbation modes are oscillating in the vicinity of the kink. In the time when a perturbation mode lies outside the kink, it cannot grow. The mode can only grow during the time that it lies within the kink. This is exactly like the mechanical model where the particle (analogous to the perturbation mode) can roll off in the $`y`$-direction near the saddle point but not when its oscillations take it away from $`x=0`$. Hence we expect the behaviour of the perturbation mode to be similar to that of the particle.

Indeed our analysis reveals band structure in the growth of the perturbation modes though we only find stability when the amplitude of the kink oscillations is comparable to the width of the kink. In other words, in the linearized analysis only “jittering” kink backgrounds are found to have stability bands. We have also performed a second analysis of the problem. In this approach, we impose an external potential in which the kink can oscillate. Now we evolve the full field equations and find the lifetime of the kink. Here again we find band structure. Furthermore, the amplitude of motion can be significantly larger than the kink width. We attribute the enhanced stability bands at large amplitudes to the reduced and varying kink width in the external potential.

Our study has obvious implications for the study of classical solutions that are unstable when static. Examples of such solutions include a variety of embedded defects VacBar92 ; BarVacBuc94 . In particular, electroweak Z-strings are an important example Vac92 ; AchVac99 . Assuming, for now, that the band structure exists for dynamical solutions in 3+1 dimensions as well, we discuss the possible relevance of our work to the electroweak model in Sec. IV.

## II Linearized analysis of field theory problem

The 1+1 dimensional field theory we choose to study is one that contains embedded kink solutions VacBar92 ; BarVacBuc94 . The complex scalar field, $`\varphi =\varphi _1+i\varphi _2`$, has the Lagrangian density:

$$L=\frac{1}{2}|_\mu \varphi |^2V(\varphi )$$
(11)
where

$$V(\varphi )=\frac{1}{4}(|\varphi |^21)^2+\frac{(c1)}{2}\varphi _1^2\varphi _2^2.$$
(12)
(In 1+1 dimensions, the fields are dimensionless. For convenience, we have also rescaled the coordinates so that they are dimensionless.) The last term in the potential is analogous to the cross-term in eq. (2) and it violates the $`U(1)`$ symmetry $`\varphi exp(i\alpha )\varphi `$ when $`c1`$ but preserves a $`Z_2\times Z_2`$ subgroup. A vacuum expectation value of either the real ($`\varphi _1`$) or imaginary component ($`\varphi _2`$) of $`\varphi `$ spontaneously breaks the symmetry to the identity group. Hence there are topological kink solutions in the model for $`c1`$. However, we will not be interested in these topological solutions. Instead we will study the embedded kink solution which is not topological and exists for all values of $`c`$. This solution is:

$$\varphi _1=\mathrm{tanh}\left(\frac{x}{\sqrt{2}}\right),\varphi _2=0$$
(13)
In the sub-space of field configurations defined by $`\varphi _2=0`$, the embedded kink is topological and hence stable. However, in the full field space, the static embedded kink is unstable to perturbations in the $`\varphi _2`$ direction. The equation for linearized perturbations in the $`\varphi _2`$ direction in the static embedded kink background is:

$$\ddot{\varphi }_2\varphi _2^{\prime \prime }+(c\varphi _1^21)\varphi _2=0$$
(14)
where $`\varphi _1`$ is given in eq. (13). The solution for $`\varphi _2`$ is a hypergeometric function (Sec. 6.3, MorFes53 ):

$`\varphi _2`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i\nu t}\mathrm{sech}^K\left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{\sqrt{2}}}\right)`$ (15)
$`F(K+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+P,K+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}P|K+1|z)`$
with

$$z=\frac{1}{2}\left[1+\mathrm{tanh}\left(\frac{x}{\sqrt{2}}\right)\right],$$
(16)
$$K^2=2(c1\nu ^2),$$
(17)
$$P=\sqrt{2c+\frac{1}{4}}.$$
(18)
The lowest eigenvalue $`\nu _0`$ is given by:

$$\nu _0^2=\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{2c+\frac{1}{4}}\frac{5}{4}$$
(19)
Since $`\nu _0`$ is imaginary for $`1c<3`$, the static solution in eq. (13) is unstable for these parameter values. For $`c=3`$, the lowest value of $`\nu `$ is zero, corresponding to the translation mode of the topological $`Z_2`$ kink Raj87 . Hence for $`c3`$, the static embedded kink is stable.

We now want to introduce some dynamics to the embedded kink solution and study the effect of the dynamics on the unstable mode in the $`\varphi _2`$ direction. In the linearized approach to the problem, the dynamics is introduced “by hand” by introducing a time dependence in the unperturbed background:

$$\varphi _1=\mathrm{tanh}\left[\frac{\gamma }{\sqrt{2}}(xg(t))\right],\varphi _2=0$$
(20)
where

$$g(t)=A\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)$$
(21)
describes oscillations with amplitude $`A`$ and angular frequency $`\omega `$, and $`\gamma `$ is the “Lorentz factor”

$$\gamma =\frac{1}{\sqrt{1\dot{g}^2}}$$
(22)
We require $`\omega A<1`$ so that the speed of the kink is always sub-luminal. In this background the equation for $`\varphi _2`$ perturbations is:

$$\ddot{\varphi }_2\varphi _2^{\prime \prime }+(c\mathrm{tanh}^2X1)\varphi _2=0$$
(23)
where

$$X(t,x)\frac{\gamma }{\sqrt{2}}(xg(t)).$$
(24)
Note that boosts of the static solution can be obtained by setting $`g=vt`$ where $`v`$ is the speed of the kink. Such backgrounds do have a longer lifetime but this is due to the special relativistic time dilation.

In Appendix A we extend Floquet’s theorem to field theory to show that solutions of eq. (23) have the form:

$$\varphi _2(t,x)=e^{i\nu t}P(t,x)$$
(25)
where $`P(t,x)`$ is a periodic function in $`t`$:

$$P(t+2\pi \omega ^1,x)=P(t,x)$$

The next step is to find the eigenvalue $`\nu `$. We were unable to determine $`\nu `$ analytically and instead solved eq. (23) numerically for various parameters $`A`$, $`\omega `$ and $`c`$ and with an initial perturbation:

$$\varphi _2(t=0,x)=\mathrm{sech}(X(0,x))$$
(26)
A sample result of the numerical evolution is shown in Fig. 2. Here we plot $`P(t,x)`$ for several different values of $`X`$ (see eq. (24)) versus time. The plots are consistent with the form in eq. (25). For some values of $`A`$, $`\varphi _2(t,x)`$ grows exponentially with time, while for others it oscillates without growth. This allows us to find the lifetime, $`\tau `$, of the background. In Fig. 3, we show the inverse lifetime, $`\tau ^1`$, as a function of the amplitude $`A`$ for $`c=1,2,2.5`$ with $`\omega `$ fixed by the relation $`\omega =0.99/A`$. The reason we held $`\omega =0.99/A`$ is that we expect that stability will depend on the acceleration $`a_c`$ of the kink and this is $`\omega ^2A`$. Since the speed cannot exceed the speed of light, we impose $`\omega A1`$. Therefore $`a_cv_{max}^2/A`$ where $`v_{max}=\omega A`$ is the maximum speed of the kink. So we expect greatest stability when $`v_{max}1`$ and for small oscillation amplitude. In Fig. 2, the bands of stability occur where the inverse lifetime vanishes.

It is worth noting that the values of $`A`$ for which stability can occur are of order the half-width of the kink which is given by $`\sqrt{2}`$. Hence, stability bands only occur when the background is undergoing a rigid jittering motion. The point $`A=0`$ is a singular point in our approach since the oscillation frequency is $`\omega =0.99/A`$ and this becomes infinite as $`A`$ tends to zero. Another important point is that there are no stability bands for the embedded kink in the $`U(1)`$ model obtained with $`c=1`$. We also observe that the dynamic kink with $`c>3`$ can show instability. This is not inconsistent with our earlier analysis of the static kink – only the static kink is stable for $`c3`$ and there is no reason why rigidly moving dynamic kinks should be stable when $`c3`$.

## III Field theoretic problem with external potential

A drawback of the linearized analysis is that it keeps the background “rigid” – the profile function is always a hyperbolic tangent – while an oscillating kink should also experience some profile fluctuations and be more like a “fluid”. Hence in our second analysis of the problem we treat the full field theory, rather than perform a perturbative analysis about a chosen field background. To obtain a dynamic embedded kink, we have introduced a background potential in which the embedded kink can oscillate. The Lagrangian density now is given by eq. (11) together with an additional “external” term in the potential:

$$V_{ext}(\varphi )=\frac{1}{2}U(x)(\varphi _1^21)^2$$
(27)
where $`U(x)`$ is a potential well in which the embedded kink oscillates. The external potential can possibly originate due to the expectation value of other very massive fields on which backreaction is unimportant111This could be realized physically in a system which has a phase containing only unstable kinks (call it the A phase) that is sandwiched between layers of another phase (call it the B phase) in which the kinks are stable. Then the B-phase stable kink could be driven to oscillate across a region of A-phase where it would be unstable. The potential $`V_{ext}`$ contains both the driving potential ($`U(x)`$) and also the spatial variation of the phases because of the field dependence in it.. A simple example for the external potential is $`U(x)=dx^2/2`$ ($`d>0`$). Then $`V_{ext}`$ provides a force between the position of the embedded kink (inside which $`\varphi _10`$) and the origin of the coordinate system ($`x=0`$). Hence an embedded kink that is initially displaced from $`x=0`$, oscillates about $`x=0`$ and the frequency of oscillation is determined by the parameter $`d`$. In our numerical analysis, we have chosen

$$U(x)=\frac{d}{2}\alpha ^2(1e^{(x/\alpha )^2})$$
(28)
and we have chosen $`\alpha =15`$, $`d=0.1`$. Then $`U(x)`$ has the $`x^2`$ form for small $`x`$ and changes to a constant for $`x>>\alpha `$. The feature that $`U(x)`$ does not diverge at large $`x`$ has the advantage that radiation of $`\varphi _1`$ waves from the oscillating kink can escape to infinity.

Now the equations of motion for $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ are:

$$\ddot{\varphi }_1\varphi _1^{\prime \prime }+(\varphi _1^2+c\varphi _2^21)\varphi _1+2U(\varphi _1^21)\varphi _1=0$$
(29)
$$\ddot{\varphi }_2\varphi _2^{\prime \prime }+(c\varphi _1^2+\varphi _2^21)\varphi _2=0.$$
(30)
The equations of motion are first solved numerically with the initial condition:

$$\varphi _1(t=0,x)=\mathrm{tanh}(\overline{X}(0,x)),\varphi _2(t=0,x)=0.$$
(31)
where

$$\overline{X}(0,x)=\sqrt{1+2U(A)}X(0,x)$$
(32)
The factor of $`1+2U(A)`$ arises since, as seen in eq. (29), the external potential contributes to the width of the kink. On evolution the amplitude of oscillations is expected to decay due to radiation. However, the decay is very slow and we can easily track the evolution of the fields through several tens of oscillations with the amplitude of oscillation nearly constant. Another feature worth pointing out is that the angular frequency of oscillations depends on the amplitude of oscillation. The angular frequencies of the runs with large initial amplitudes are $`1/A`$ but at small amplitudes the angular frequency saturates at $`0.3`$.

Next we ran our numerical code with a non-vanishing perturbation. The initial condition for $`\varphi _1`$ is still given by eq. (31) but $`\varphi _2`$ is chosen to be given by

$$\varphi _2(t=0,x)=ϵ\mathrm{sech}(\overline{X}(0,x))$$
(33)
where $`ϵ`$ is a very small number. The numerical analysis is done with fixed external potential.

As in the linearized analysis, a plot of $`\varphi _2(t,x)`$ versus time either shows exponential growth (superposed on oscillations), or only oscillations. This allows us to calculate the rate of growth of the perturbations. Once again we find bands of stability (see Fig. 4). The new feature is that these bands occur even for rather large amplitudes showing that dynamical (and not only “jittering”) embedded kinks can be stable. Note that stability bands do not occur in the $`U(1)`$ model ($`c=1`$) just as in the linearized analysis.

## IV Conclusions and discussion

Our analysis of the dynamical embedded kink has shown that there are stability bands in field theories, similar to those for the Mathieu equation. This means that for certain dynamics the embedded kink is stable to perturbations. In these cases, the decay of the embedded kink is determined by the rate of radiation and hence its lifetime can be much longer than the lifetime determined by considering the decay of a static embedded kink.

It is worth commenting on the differences between the linearized and full field theory approaches since the results are quite different. In the linearized case, the oscillating background is inserted by hand and this gives stability bands occurring when the kink has the largest acceleration. In the full field theory, an external potential is imposed, supposedly arising from an external field. Now the kink oscillates naturally, but we observe stability bands at large amplitudes. This feature is explained by our earlier remark that the external potential influences the structure of the kink. As the kink gets further away from the center of attraction, it gets thinner and hence more stable. (The connection between the width of a static kink and the instability eigenvalue can be derived quite easily from a generalization of the solution in eq. (15) as given in Ref. MorFes53 .) Then the reason why kinks with large oscillation amplitudes show more stability is that they spend more time in regions where the kink is thin and relatively stable. This is in addition to the effect described in the introduction: the unstable mode moves in and out of the kink, and can grow only while it lies within the kink. Yet the novel feature of stability and instability bands must still be understood in terms of resonance between the oscillation frequency and the phase of the unstable mode when it enters the kink.

A natural question at this point is – can the tension forces that cause extended defects such as domain walls and strings to oscillate be described by an external potential of the type we have used? The answer is in the negative, since the tension forces do not cause changes in the thickness of the defects. The only reason for the defect thickness to change is due to Lorentz contraction. This is our reason for believing that an extended defect will be more accurately described by the linearized analysis of the previous section and not by the full field theory analysis. We are currently extending our analysis to higher dimensions with the aim of studying extended defects.

In the particle physics context, the results are most relevant for the Z-string solutions in the standard model of the electroweak interactions. In 1977 Nambu Nam77  had estimated the lifetime of segments of Z-string (“dumbells”) by calculating the electromagnetic emission from the magnetic monopoles at the ends of a rotating dumbell. If, however, we have a closed loop of Z-string, there are no magnetic monopoles that can lose energy by emitting electromagnetic radiation and the only decay processes are by radiation of massive Higgs and gauge bosons, and by the structural instabilities of the Z-string discussed in Ref. JamPerVac93 . (These may be understood in terms of W-condensation AmbOle90  in a Z magnetic field background Per93 ; Vac93 ; Vac95 ; Achetal94 .) If we assume that the Z-string in 3+1 dimensions also exhibits stability bands, it would mean that the lifetime of certain Z-string loops may be determined by their radiation rate EveVacVil84  and not by the instability growth rate of a static Z-string. This would yield a much longer lifetime and would open the possibility that Z-string loops might be produced in future accelerator experiments and might survive long enough to enable detection.

Some cautionary remarks in extrapolating our results to Z-string loops are in order. The Z-string loop is an extended object and if it is to have an extended lifetime, every point on the loop should lie in a stability band. It may even turn out that the Z-string is like the $`c=1`$ embedded kink and that there are no stability bands for any dynamics. Furthermore, the dynamics of the string is due to tension and not due to an external potential. Hence the Z string stability problem could be like the linearized example, in which case only “jittering” Z strings might be stable. The Z string loop can also have angular momentum and this will be an important factor in its evolution. (The stability of spinning string solutions has been studied in Per94 .) Hence we feel that it is important to directly investigate the lifetime of Z-string loops, keeping in mind the possibility of stability bands.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported by DOE grant number DEFG0295ER40898 at CWRU.

## Appendix A

The following derivation was motivated by Ince’s derivation of Floquet’s Theorem Inc44 . Consider a differential equation of the form:

$$\ddot{\varphi }+F(t,x)\varphi H\varphi =0.$$
(34)
If $`H`$ is Hermitian over an $`N`$ dimensional Hilbert space, we can expand this as:

$$H\varphi =\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\lambda _i\varphi _i(t,x)=0$$
(35)
where the $`\varphi _i`$ span the Hilbert space. Now, if $`F(t,x)=F(t+T,x)`$ where $`T=2\pi /\omega `$ in the notation of the earlier sections, then for each solution $`\varphi _i(t,x)`$, there is a solution $`\varphi _i(t+T,x)`$ by the symmetry in $`H`$. Since the $`\varphi _i`$ are complete,

$$\varphi _i(t+T,x)=\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}a_{ij}\varphi _j(t,x).$$
(36)
Denoting the matrix $`[a_{ij}]`$ by $`𝒜`$ and the $`N\times N`$ identity matrix by $`\mathrm{𝟏}_N`$, for each non-degenerate root $`s_i`$ of the characteristic equation

$$\mathrm{det}(𝒜s\mathrm{𝟏}_N)=0$$
(37)
we can construct a basis $`\psi _i`$ from the $`\varphi _i`$ such that

$$\psi _i(t+T,x)=s_i\psi _i(t,x).$$
(38)
Multiplying both sides of the above result by $`e^{i\nu _i(t+T)}`$, we see

$$e^{i\nu _i(t+T)}\psi _i(t+T,x)=s_ie^{i\nu _iT}\left[e^{i\nu t}\psi _i(t,x)\right].$$
(39)
Then it is clear that $`e^{i\nu t}\psi _i(t,x)`$ is periodic in $`t`$ with period $`T`$ if $`s_i=e^{+i\nu _iT}`$. Therefore, solutions of the form

$$\psi _i(t,x)=e^{i\nu _it}P(t,x)$$
(40)
exist to the equation $`H\psi _i=0`$ with $`P(t+T,x)=P(t,x)`$ and $`\nu _i`$ given by $`e^{+i\nu _iT}=s_i`$ for non-degenerate $`s_i`$.


text:
# 1 The coeficient 𝑦=𝛾(2𝜔_𝑝{ℏ/𝑚})^{-1/2} versus the parameter 𝑥=𝜔/𝜔_𝑝. If 𝜔=2𝜔_𝑝, then 𝛾_{1,2}=±(2𝑚𝜔_𝑝/ℏ)^{1/2}. If 𝜔≫2𝜔_𝑝, for the upper branch we have 𝛾_{1,2}=±(2𝑚𝜔/ℏ)^{1/2}, and for the lower branch 𝛾_{3,4}=±(2𝑚𝜔_𝑝²/𝜔ℏ)^{1/2}.

## Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to the members of the seminar on Theoretical Physics (General Physics Institute of RAS, Moscow, October 1999) for their helpful comments which were taken into account in preparing of the present paper.