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# No Froissart Bound from Gluon Saturation

## .1 Properties of $`N(x,y)`$

The dipole scattering probability $`N(x,y)`$ depends on the size $`r=xy`$ of the dipole $`\{x,y\}`$ and on its impact parameter $`b=\frac{1}{2}\left(x+y\right)`$ with respect to the hadronic target. For sufficiently small $`b`$ and $`r`$, it may be characterized in terms of the saturation scale $`Q_s(t,b)`$

$`N(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c}}\mathrm{Tr}1U^{}(x)U(y)`$ (3)
$``$ $`1\mathrm{exp}\left[Q_s^2(t,b)(xy)^2\right].`$
It is important to keep in mind that the last equality only holds for small impact parameters. This last equality implies that for sufficiently large dipole size $`r`$, the scattering probability always approaches unity. However in reality at large enough impact parameters the scattering probability is perturbatively small for dipoles of arbitrary size. This follows since the colour fields far from the hadron vanish and thus $`U(x)1+O(g)`$. Hence $`N(x,y)O(\alpha _s)1`$. Thus, for sufficiently large impact parameter, there is no transverse scale $`1/Q_s(t,b)`$ above which the dipole scattering probability is of order unity, in contrast to the last line in (3).

To clarify the limited applicability of the concept of saturation scale $`Q_s(t,b)`$ in characterizing the dipole scattering probability, we illustrate the $`r`$\- and $`b`$-dependence of $`N(x,y)`$ in more detail:

Consider first a small dipole $`rR_0(t)`$ where $`R_0(t)`$ denotes the radius within which the target colour fields are large at rapidity $`t`$. In this case, the two legs $`x`$ and $`y`$ of the dipole see the target field of approximately the same normalized strength $`S(b)`$, and the scattering probability can thus be written in the factorized form

$`N(x,y)=n\left(r/L(b)\right)S(b).`$ (4)
Here, $`L(b)`$ characterizes the scale of correlations of the target field (correlation length) as a function of impact parameter. For impact parameter $`b<R_0(t)`$ where target colour fields are large, the colour field correlation length is equivalent to the inverse saturation scale, $`L(b)=1/Q_s(t,b)`$. For larger impact parameters the correlation scale $`L(b)`$ is still a meaningful concept but $`Q_s(t,b)`$ does not exist.

At initial rapidity $`t_0`$, a physically sensible choice of the target field strength at impact parameter $`b`$ is

$`S(b)`$ $`=`$ $`1\text{for}b<R_0(t_0),`$ (5)
$`S(b)`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left[M(bR_0(t_0))\right]\text{for}b>R_0(t_0),`$ (6)
where $`M`$ is some mass scale. One should keep in mind, however, that even though this initial profile shows an exponential fall-off at large distances, there is no guarantee that this functional shape is preserved in the evolution via (1). In fact, as seen in eq. (9) below, it is not.

As for the properties of the function $`n`$ in (4), one expects that it is a monotonically increasing function of its argument. Since $`N(x,y)`$ is always smaller than unity and since its maximal value is set by the strength of the target colour field, we have $`n(r/L(b))1`$. For small dipoles, the scattering probability is vanishingly small and grows as $`r^2`$. Thus even the central region of the target is transparent for sufficiently small dipoles. For larger dipoles of size $`rL(b)`$ the central region is black. However, for the profile (5,6) the last line of (3) holds only as long as $`S(b)=1`$, or $`bR_0`$. In short, the initial scattering probability $`N(t_0,x,y)`$ can be parameterized in terms of some saturation scale $`Q_s(t_0,b)`$ only for impact parameters lying in the “grey” region of the target, at $`b<R_0(t_0)`$. The same of course applies also to scattering probability at any given value of $`t`$.

The situation is very different for dipoles of large size where the factorization (4) does not hold. This is the case e.g. for dipoles with $`r=b`$ sitting at large impact parameter $`bR_0(t)`$. If $`\stackrel{}{r}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{b}`$ are orthogonal, then both legs of the dipole are in the “white” region (i.e., $`x,yR_0(t)`$) and the scattering probability is small, $`N(x,y)1`$. If $`\stackrel{}{r}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{b}`$ are parallel instead, then one of the legs is in the ”grey” region (i.e., $`x<R_0(t)`$) while the other is in the “white” region (i.e., $`yR_0(t)`$, $`U(y)1`$). As a consequence, the dipole scattering probability loses in this latter case any dependence on the size of the dipole and its impact parameter. It can be viewed as the scattering probability $`1\frac{1}{N_c}\mathrm{Tr}U^{}(x)`$ of a coloured probe in the sense

$`N(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c}}\mathrm{Tr}1U^{}(x)U(y)`$ (7)
$``$ $`1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c}}\mathrm{Tr}U^{}(x),\text{for}yR_0(t).`$
For $`x<R_0(t)`$ the target fields are large, and $`<U(x)>=0`$. Thus $`N(x,y)=1`$. Accordingly, the radius $`R_0(t)`$ characterizes the size of the black disk for a coloured probe. Again, for dipoles for which (7) applies, the scattering probability $`N(x,y)`$ cannot be characterized in terms of a saturation scale $`Q_s`$.

To sum up, the saturation scale $`Q_s(t,b)`$ is a meaningful concept only in the region of impact parameter space which is black for a coloured probe, $`b<R_0(t)`$. For larger impact parameter, the scattering probability is smaller than unity for arbitrarily large dipoles and the last line of (3) does not apply.

## .2 Long-range Contributions violate the Froissart Bound

We consider now a small-size dipole $`r=xy=1/QR_0(t_0)`$ which has at initial rapidity $`t_0`$ a negligible interaction probability with the hadronic target since it sits at large impact parameter $`bR_0(t_0)`$. We ask how rapidly its scattering probability grows to order unity as a function of rapidity $`t`$. We first establish that the initial growth of $`N(x,y)`$ is dominated by long-range contributions to the $`z`$-integral in (1).

If the newly generated dipole leg $`z`$ in eq.(1) sits at transverse position in the neighbourhood of $`x`$, $`y`$, i.e. in the white region, then $`N(x,z)N(y,z)N(x,y)1`$ and the non-linear term in the BK equation can be neglected. As a consequence, the short-range contribution grows proportional to the local scattering probability which was taken to have an exponential fall-off at initial rapidity,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}N(x,y)|_{\mathrm{short}}^{\mathrm{at}t=t_0}\alpha _se^{M(bR_0(t_0))}.`$ (8)
For the long-range contribution, a lower bound of the growth of $`N(x,y)`$ can be obtained by considering contributions from the ”grey” region only. With the initial dipole in the white region (i.e. $`N(x,y)0`$) but the leg $`z`$ in the ”grey” region (i.e. $`N(x,z)1`$, $`N(y,z)1`$), the BK equation (1) gives

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}N(x,y)|_{\mathrm{long}}=\overline{\alpha }_s{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{b^4}}R_0^2(t).`$ (9)
Comparison of eqs. (8) and (9) shows that at sufficiently large impact parameter $`bR_0(t)`$, the dominant growth of the dipole scattering probability comes from long-range contributions.

It is important that $`R_0(t)`$ appearing on the right hand side of (9) is the radius of the black region for a coloured probe in the precise sense specified in (7). Namely, while the right hand side of (1) depends on colourless dipoles $`\{x,y\}`$, $`\{x,z\}`$ and $`\{y,z\}`$, only one of their coloured legs $`z`$ touches the target. Thus, the scattering probability for these dipoles depends only on the strength of the target-induced colour rotation $`1\frac{1}{N_c}\mathrm{Tr}U^{}(z)`$ for this one coloured leg, i.e. it is the scattering probability of a coloured probe.

As shown in Ref. kw01 ; kw02  and as rederived in Ref. fiim02 , the black disk radius $`R_0(t)`$ for a coloured probe grows exponentially with rapidity,

$$R_0(t)=R_0(t_0)\mathrm{exp}\left[\overline{\alpha }_sϵ(tt_0)\right].$$
(10)
Substituting this into eq.(9) and integrating up to rapidity

$$t_1=\frac{1}{\overline{\alpha }ϵ}\mathrm{ln}\frac{b}{R_0(t_0)},$$
(11)
we find

$`N(r,b)|_{t_1}{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{b^2}}.`$ (12)
Thus, as advertized we find that by the time the radius of the ”grey” region $`R_0(t)`$ reaches the impact parameter $`bR_0(t_0)`$, the scattering probability $`N(r,b)`$ is not exponentially suppressed as suggested by eqs. (4,6) but rather has a long power tail.

Since we expect $`R(t,Q^2)<R_0(t)`$, we can not use the approximation eq.(9) beyond the rapidity $`t_1`$. We can nevertheless establish the exponential growth of $`R(t,Q^2)`$. Starting at rapidity $`t_1`$, the point $`b`$ enters the ”grey” region. From this point on the evolution is dominated by ”local” contributions. The concept of saturation scale is well defined at $`b`$ for $`t>t_1`$. As shown in many previous works levin , and rederived in fiim02  the saturation momentum grows exponentially with rapidity

$$Q_s(t,b)=Q_s(t_1,b)\mathrm{exp}\left[\overline{\alpha }_s\lambda (tt_1)\right]$$
(13)
Thus at rapidity $`t_2`$ such that

$$t_2t_1=\frac{1}{\overline{\alpha }\lambda }\mathrm{ln}\frac{Q}{Q_s(t_1,b)},$$
(14)
the scattering probability $`N(r,b)`$ reaches unity.

Putting eqs.(11) and (14) together we find that the radius of the black disk $`R(t,Q^2)`$ reaches a given impact parameter $`b`$ at rapidity $`t`$

$$t=\frac{1}{\overline{\alpha }ϵ}\mathrm{ln}\frac{R(t,Q^2)}{R_0(t_0)}+\frac{1}{\overline{\alpha }\lambda }\mathrm{ln}\left[\frac{Q}{Q_s(t_1,b)}\right].$$
(15)
We have not calculated the exact value of $`Q_s(t_1,b)`$, but even without doing so we can put an upper bound on $`t`$. Whatever the value of $`Q_s(t_1,b)`$, it is greater than the inverse of the impact parameter $`b^1`$remark . Thus substituting $`b`$ for $`Q^1(t_1,b)`$ in eq.(14) and adding eq.(11) we find the upper bound on the time that it takes the black disk $`R(t,Q^2)`$ to reach a given impact parameter $`b`$

$$t<\frac{1}{\overline{\alpha }ϵ}\mathrm{ln}\frac{R(t,Q^2)}{R_0(t_0)}+\frac{1}{\overline{\alpha }\lambda }\mathrm{ln}\left[R(t,Q^2)Q\right].$$
(16)
Thus

$$\sigma (t,Q^2)2\pi R(t,Q^2)>2\pi [R_0^\lambda (t_0)Q^ϵ]^{\frac{1}{ϵ+\lambda }}e^{\frac{ϵ\lambda }{ϵ+\lambda }\overline{\alpha }_st}.$$
(17)
We stress that eq.(17) is the lower bound on $`R(t,Q^2)`$. For example in the case when $`Q_s(t_1)`$ is a fixed $`b`$-independent scale, the rates of growth of $`R(t,Q^2)`$ and $`R_0(t)`$ are the same.

## .3 Critique of FIIM

The mistake in the argument of Ref. fiim02  can now be easily understood. The set-up of Ref. fiim02  is in principle inadequate for studying the growth of $`R(t,Q^2)`$. In Ref. fiim02  the saturation scale at impact parameter $`b`$ is assumed to be defined and to be perturbatively large at initial rapidity $`t_0`$, $`Q_s(t_0,b)\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$. Thus, by definition, this set-up ignores evolution in the region $`b>R_0(t_0)`$ where the target field strength is initially small and where the saturation scale does not exist at initial rapidity $`t_0`$. As is clear from the discussion of eq. (9) above, the power tails generated in this region quickly start dominating the total cross section, and therefore cannot be ignored. It is this powerlike fall off of $`N(b)`$ (or equivalently $`S(b)`$) and not the initial exponential one, that has to be taken as the ”basic distribution” which is further evolved by local effects. This has been ignored in Ref.fiim02 .

The physics is quite simple. We know from Refs. kw01 ; kw02 ; fiim02  that $`R_0(t)`$ grows exponentially with $`t`$. Then eq.(12) tells us that for $`R_0(t_0)<b<R_0(t)`$, that is up to distances exponentially larger than the initial radius $`R_0`$, the long range contributions generate a powerlike tail for the scattering probability. This is to be contrasted with the exponential fall off assumed for the initial profile. We can now use the same argument as in Ref.fiim02  to establish that the total cross section of a dipole of size $`r=1/Q`$ grows exponentially. Starting from rapidity $`t_1`$, where $`t_1`$ is given in eq.(11), the evolution of $`N(r,b)`$ at the impact parameter $`b`$ is governed by the BFKL equation. The initial condition for this BFKL evolution at $`t_1`$ is furnished by the previous evolution from $`t_0`$ to $`t_1`$ which is dominated by the long range contributions to eq.(1). This initial condition is given by eq.(12). Thus all we have to do is to replace in eqs.(4.5) of Ref.fiim02  the exponential tail $`\mathrm{exp}[2m_\pi b]`$ by the power law tail $`r^2/b^2=(Q^2b^2)^1`$ (see eq.(12)) and take into account the fact that the BFKL evolution goes on not for the whole rapidity interval $`t`$, but rather only for $`tt_1`$. Neglecting the so called diffusion term as in Ref.fiim02  we obtain:

$$N(Q^2,b)=\mathrm{exp}\left[\mathrm{ln}[Q^2b^2]+\omega \overline{\alpha }_s(tt_1)\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{Q^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\right].$$
(18)
Equating the scattering probability to one at $`b=R(t,Q^2)`$, we obtain

$$R(t,Q^2)=\left[[\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{Q^3}]^ϵR_0(t_0)^\omega \right]^{\frac{1}{\omega +2ϵ}}e^{\frac{\omega ϵ}{\omega +2ϵ}\overline{\alpha }_st}.$$
(19)
Here $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the saturation momentum in the central region of the target at the initial value of rapidity. Given that $`2\lambda <\omega `$, eq.(19) is consistent with the lower bound eq.(17). Thus we see again that the radius of the black disk for the scattering of a colourless dipole grows exponentially with $`t`$. The result of Refs.kw01 ; kw02  stands confirmed.

## .4 Final comments

We finally give an intuitive physics argument of why the total cross section of a colourless dipole violates the Froissart bound if it is violated by a coloured scattering probe. To this end, we first recall an argument due to Heisenberg: consider a theory with a mass gap, where the profile of the distribution of matter density in any target must decay exponentially at the periphery, $`\rho (b)\mathrm{exp}\left[mb\right]`$. As this target is struck by a projectile, in order to produce an inelastic scattering event at least one particle must be produced. Assuming that the scattering is local in the impact parameter plane, the region of the overlap of the probe and the target must therefore contain energy at least equal to the mass of the lightest particle, $`m`$. For scattering at energy $`E=s/m`$ in the frame where all the energy resides in the target, the target energy density is $`E\rho (b)`$. Thus the scattering can only take place for impact parameters smaller than those that satisfy $`E\mathrm{exp}\left[mb\right]=m`$. Thus $`b_{max}=\frac{1}{m}\mathrm{ln}\left[s/m^2\right]`$, which is equivalent to the Froissart bound. Conversely, if the cross section grows as a power of energy, then the density distribution in the target is not exponential but power like. With $`\rho (b)b^\lambda `$ one obtains $`b_{max}s^{\frac{1}{\lambda }}`$ and this violates the Froissart bound. Assume now that the total cross section for a coloured probe (a quark, say) violates unitarity, i.e., the scattering probability for a quark at impact parameter $`b`$ is proportional to $`\rho (b)\frac{1}{b^\lambda }`$. A quark-antiquark dipole of transverse size $`r`$ will compare the target field strength at two points separated by the distance $`r`$. Its scattering probability is thus proportional to $`r\frac{d}{db}\rho (b)r\frac{1}{b^{\lambda 1}}`$, which is still a power-law fall-off. Hence, the total dipole-hadron cross section violates the Froissart bound if the total quark-hadron cross section does so.

## .5 Note added

After the appearance of the present paper, the authors of fiim02  added a note to fiim02  agreeing with our conclusions. Unfortunately they also attribute to the present paper as well as to our previous papers kw01 ,kw02  several statements which we never made nor intended to make. For example, they attribute to our works ”the statement that one cannot compute the high-energy cross section using the ideas of (perturbative) saturation”. To the contrary, it is the main point of Ref. kw02  to explain how the ideas of perturbative saturation can be used for the calculation of high-energy cross sections. For lack of space, we refrain here from giving further examples of the same kind. Although Ref. fiim02  is quite misleading in the way it presents some aspects of our work, we are confident that the careful reader will easily identify these inaccuracies.


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# 1 MESONS in 2002?

## 1 MESONS in 2002?

Why in 2002 should we be interested in low energy meson physics? After all, it is forty years since Gell-Mann  recognised the $`SU(3)`$ flavour structure of baryons and mesons, and shortly after realised  that this was naturally embodied in the quark model. All the evidence since then has confirmed that hadrons are indeed made of quarks. Moreover, it is now thirty years since it was acknowledged that the force that binds quarks to make hadrons is mediated by gluons coupling to colour charges and described by the Lagrangian of QCD  — a seemingly simple equation. However, despite the lapse of thirty years, we do not yet know how to translate the hieroglyphs of the Book of QCD into the “hadron text” describing what we see in experiment (and vice versa). At first this is surprising since QCD is modelled on our best tested theory, namely QED, which makes very precise predictions, for instance, about the structure of atoms. These predictions rely on perturbation theory, in which an atomic electron, for example, moves through empty space. This we call the vacuum. Perturbations about this vacuum make it not quite empty. As the electrons orbit they radiate photons and these in turn can produce $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs. As a result each electron swims in a (dilute) sea of fermion-antifermion pairs, the effect of which can be readily calculated. At first we expect the vacuum of QCD to be very similar. Quarks move through a cloud of gluons and a sea of $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs. Indeed, the effect of the gluon cloud is to make the interaction of the quarks weak at short distances. This “asymptotic freedom” makes perturbation theory most reliable for short distance interactions.

The simplest process producing quarks is $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation into hadrons. There at SLAC or LEP an electron and a positron annihilate in a region of space no more than a hundredth of the size of a proton. They create a quark and an antiquark which eventually produce jets of hadrons. To predict the resulting cross-section, we need not know how the quarks become hadrons, only that they do so with unit probability. Thus using perturbative QCD we can predict the behaviour for $`e^+e^{}hadrons`$ for each flavour of quark above the corresponding threshold. On their way to hadronisation the quarks propagate through the QCD vacuum containing $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs and a gluon cloud. Over longer distances these quarks and antiquarks and gluons are so strongly interacting they form quark and gluon condensates. This alters the nature of the vacuum dramatically. Fortunately, we can learn about this structure of the QCD vacuum in several ways which we will now discuss.

## 2 QCD Sum Rules

The first assumes a hadron description takes place at low energies (for light flavours) and a calculable QCD component at higher energies. This is embodied in the QCD sum rules proposed by Shifman, Vainshtein and Zakharov  25 years ago. We consider a correlator of two currents. The simplest example is the electromagnetic current of $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation. The correlator depends on $`s`$ the square of the momentum flowing in the current giving $`\mathrm{\Pi }(s)`$. At low energies, this correlator is dominated by resonances, $`\rho `$, $`\omega `$, etc., and at high energies by $`u\overline{u}`$ and $`d\overline{d}`$ loops corrected by gluon emission and the effect of higher dimension operators that are the condensates. $`\mathrm{\Pi }(s)`$ is an analytic function in the complex $`s`$plane with a cut along the real axis, starting at the lowest hadronic threshold. Along the top of this cut is where experiments are performed. Since $`\mathrm{\Pi }(s)`$ is an analytic function, it satisfies Cauchy’s theorem round any closed contour in the complex $`s`$plane:

$$_C𝑑s\omega (s)\mathrm{\Pi }(s)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}$$
(1)
provided the contour $`C`$ encircles no poles of $`\mathrm{\Pi }(s)`$.

Here $`\omega (s)`$ is some suitable weight function. By taking the contour, $`C`$, as in Fig. 1, we can input experimental information of the appropriate quantum numbers along the cut up to $`s=s_0`$. Then round the contour $`|s|=s_0`$, we assume the correlator is describable by the part of QCD explicitly calculable using the Operator Product Expansion — perturbation theory plus condensates (and instantons where appropriate). Though such sum rules have been in use for 25 years, developments in the past ten years have transformed their use from an art to a science, aided by the calculation of higher order perturbative contributions needed for the particularly useful finite energy sum-rules . Moreover, we have understood how to suppress the sensitivity to the transition illustrated in Fig. 1 from hadron physics to quark dynamics at $`|s|=s_0`$, by introducing so called “pinched weights” with a zero in the weight function, $`\omega (s)`$, at $`s=s_0`$ . With these advances a series of sum rule analyses have been used to learn about the key parameters of QCD from hadron physics. In Table 1 are listed recent results \[7-17\] for the mean up and down quark mass, $`\widehat{m}`$, at the perturbative scale of 2 GeV in the $`\overline{MS}`$ scheme. These show $`\widehat{m}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}5`$ MeV.

Similarly from Table 2 we see the $`q\overline{q}`$ condensate ($`=u\overline{u}=d\overline{d}`$) \[18-22\] has a scale of $``$(250-270 MeV)3, again at a “perturbative” scale of 2 GeV. A recent major industry has been the extraction of the strange quark mass, which is between 90 and 130 MeV at a scale of 2 GeV . The corresponding $`s\overline{s}`$-condensate is however rather poorly determined . We will see these key numbers again.

## 3 Effective Lagrangians

An alternative way to relate quark dynamics to hadron physics is the method of effective field theories . At short distances interactions are described in terms of QCD with its renormalizable Lagrangian with a small number of basic interactions of quarks and gluons and a single coupling. At larger distances we imagine a description in terms of an effective Lagrangian of hadron interactions. In this all permitted couplings occur. There are a huge number of terms. The theory is not renormalizable in terms of a finite number of constants. Even at some finite order in the number of interactions very many are required. All have to be fixed from experiment before predictions can be made. Nevertheless, this approach has value in limited energy regimes for particular processes. This comes about because we expect the effective hadronic Lagrangian to incorporate the symmetries of the underlying theory. So, for example, as a result of the near equality of the up and down quark masses, the QCD Lagrangian is symmetric in the $`u`$ and $`d`$ quark fields. We correspondingly expect the hadronic Lagrangian to respect this $`SU(2)`$ symmetry (and even an approximate $`SU(3)`$ symmetry), so that protons and neutrons have the same strong interaction.

Now the mass that enters the renormalized Lagrangian of QCD is the current mass, which for up and down quarks is only a few MeV, as we have seen, and very much less than the scale of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$ of 100-200 MeV. Consequently, to a good approximation we can regard the up and down quarks as massless. This means that their two helicity components become independent of each other. We can therefore interchange up and down quark fields spinning left-handedly quite independently of the right-handed sector, and vice-versa. Consequently the QCD Lagrangian has an $`SU(2)SU(2)`$ chiral symmetry, which the hadronic Lagrangian should also respect. This clearly restricts the form of the allowed interactions .

Now this symmetry is not observed in the hadron world. Scalars and pseudoscalars, vectors and axial-vectors are not degenerate in mass with simply related interactions. This symmetry must be spontaneously broken. A mechanism that achieves this was proposed 40 years ago by Nambu , long before the discovery of QCD. To see this, consider an effective Lagrangian of pseudoscalar $`\underset{¯}{\pi }`$ and scalar $`\sigma `$ fields. The potential generated by their interactions has to be symmetric between these fields. If instead of this potential having the shape of a parabolic bowl with its minimum at zero values of the $`\underset{¯}{\pi }`$ and $`\sigma `$ fields, it has a Mexican hat (or wine bottle) shape, then the ground state chosen by nature has a non-zero value for the $`\sigma `$ field. The fluctuations about this minimum corresponding to the scalar particle are up and down the sides of the potential. This makes the $`\sigma `$ massive. Indeed, this makes this scalar field the Higgs boson of the strong interactions. Its mass gives mass to all other hadrons, as we see below. In contrast, the pion field, which corresponds to quantum fluctuations round the hat, or the bottom of the bottle, feels no resistance and is massless. Of course, the $`u`$ and $`d`$ quarks are not quite massless and there is a small explicit breaking of chiral symmetry. Nevertheless, the pions remain by far the lightest of all hadrons, just as experiment requires.

What in the quark and gluon world drives this spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the hadronic sphere is a dynamical breakdown of the chiral symmetry of the quark fields. While the $`u`$ and $`d`$ quarks are nearly massless at short distance, the condensates in the vacuum provide a “sticky medium” through which these quarks propagate. Consequently, over longer distances of the size of a hadron, these quarks change from current to constituent quarks — they become “dressed” .

Now what condensates drive this symmetry breaking ? This, in fact, we can test from hadronic experiments. As a result of pions being the Goldstone bosons of chiral symmetry breaking, the strong interaction of pions is forced to be “weak” at low energies. This requires the $`\pi \pi `$ scattering amplitude to have a zero in the near threshold region. Indeed, the amplitude has a line of zeros, which in the physical regions generate dips in the corresponding differential cross-sections. The position of this zero contour depends crucially on the explicit breaking of chiral symmetry . If the $`q\overline{q}`$ condensate is large, of the order of 250-270 MeV in scale, the zero in the $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ passes close to the symmetry point of the Mandelstam triangle, as required by Standard Chiral Perturbation Theory . If the $`q\overline{q}`$ condensate is smaller, and some other condensate drives chiral symmetry breaking, the line of zeros passes further from this point . The shift in the zero contour is small, but nevertheless this can be checked by having precision data on $`\pi \pi `$ scattering in the very low energy region. Since pions are the lightest of all hadrons, their scattering is universal, being independent of their production process. Thus, for instance, by studying $`K_{e4}`$ decay, in which $`Ke\nu (\pi \pi )`$, as a function of the 5 kinematic variables on which it depends , we can extract the relative phase of the contributing $`\pi \pi `$ amplitudes. This phase difference is the same as that for $`\pi \pi `$ scattering itself. Thanks to the BNL-E865 experiment , as shown in Fig. 2, we have a determination of the phase difference of sufficient precision to show that experiment is consistent with a large $`q\overline{q}`$ condensate saturating the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner relation

$$m_\pi ^2f_\pi ^2=(m_u+m_d)q\overline{q}+O(m_q^2).$$
(2)
to better than 90% . Thus neglecting higher order quark mass terms accords with $`q\overline{q}(270\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})^3`$ at a scale of 2 GeV: just as indicated by sum rule phenomenology, Table 2.

## 4 Strong QCD

In both the approach of effective field theory and that of QCD sum rules we regard the two worlds of hadron physics and quark dynamics as distinct. Clearly they are not: quarks create hadrons, hadrons are made of quarks. QCD must be able to explain the confinement aspects of quarks and gluons. Lattice Monte Carlo methods are often advertised as the way to bridge the gap between the two descriptions. This modelling is however quite unsuited to studying dynamical chiral symmetry breaking, since light quarks do not fit on a finite size lattice. Continuum approaches to QCD are much more appropriate to this problem . One considers the Schwinger-Dyson equations of QCD. These are an infinite set of nested integral equations, which contain all the information about the theory. These equations are most easily understood diagramatically. They say, for instance Fig. 3, that the complete quark propagator is determined by knowledge of the gluon propagator and the full quark-gluon interaction.

These in turn are determined in terms of higher point interactions. Consequently, the equation for the quark propagator can only be solved if the infinite set of equations is truncated.

Perturbation theory, in which one makes an expansion of each interaction in powers of the coupling, is the best known truncation procedure and is in fact the only one that has been formally shown to respect gauge invariance and multiplicative renormalizability order by order. However, dynamical chiral symmetry breaking is definitely non-perturbative. It is a feature of strongly interacting theories and cannot occur at any finite order in perturbation theory. Fortunately more relevant non-perturbative truncations have been developed over the past ten years . These enable the up and down quark propagators to be studied more precisely. Solving the quark equation requires us to know about the behaviour of the gluon and ghost propagators and the quark-gluon interaction, Fig. 3. Twenty years ago it was believed the gluon propagator in covariant gauges was enhanced at small momenta  and it was this that was responsible for confinement. More recent work, largely by the Tübingen group , has shown that in fact in the Landau gauge, the gluon propagator is suppressed at infrared momenta, while the ghost is strongly enhanced, Fig. 4. Recall it is only a combination of gluon and ghost propagators that can have physical degrees of freedom. These in turn make the effective quark-gluon coupling large at low momenta, as seen in Fig. 4. It has long been known that this is sufficient to generate dynamical chiral symmetry breaking. What is new is the detailed calculation that shows the $`u`$, $`d`$ quark mass, while being very small for large momenta, really does grow to 350 MeV in the low energy regime (Fig. 4), provided the “right” interaction is included . While the behaviour of the gluon, ghost and quark propagators is gauge dependent, the $`q\overline{q}`$ condensate can be defined in a gauge invariant way. These calculations correspond to

$$q\overline{q}(250270\mathrm{MeV})^3$$
(3)
as we might have hoped. This is most reassuring.

The constituent mass of 350 MeV is reflected directly in the masses of the scalar and vector mesons, for instance, and the mass of the nucleon. In contrast, the pion mass is uniquely tied to the current quark mass and is small. While very small momenta are not accessible on the lattice, the gluon and ghost propagators found on the lattice at larger momenta  agree with the continuum results just described. Consequently, undoubted progress is being made in extending the predictions of QCD from the perturbative regime to confinement scales in a quantifiable way.

## 5 Meson spectrum and decay

A major success of Lattice Monte Carlo methods is the way it allows the study of the gauge sector of QCD. Thus for years we have known that the world without quarks has a spectrum of colour singlet states of pure glue . Of these glueballs the scalar is the lightest with a mass of 1.5–1.7 GeV . There are scalar glueball candidates in this very mass region . Of course, these have been found in experiments “with” quarks. Glueball states have to decay to $`\pi \pi `$, $`K\overline{K}`$, $`4\pi `$, etc. Consequently, they must couple to quarks, Fig. 5, and so inevitably mix with other $`q\overline{q}`$ mesons with the same vacuum quantum numbers. This makes unambiguous identification of gluonic states far from easy. The isoscalar scalar sector is indeed complicated experimentally — perhaps it had to be that way.

What we have learnt is that the states of the quark model are most easily identified with the hadrons we observe experimentally when unquenching is unimportant, Fig. 6. Thus the $`\varphi `$ is readily seen to be an $`s\overline{s}`$ state and the $`\rho `$ and $`\omega `$ combinations of $`u\overline{u}`$ and $`d\overline{d}`$. This follows from their respective decays to $`K\overline{K}`$, and to $`2\pi `$ and $`3\pi `$. Though these decay modes are a crucial characteristic of their make-up, they have a relatively small effect on the states themselves. This is in part because of the $`P`$wave nature of their hadronic dressing. This small effect reproduces the suppression of the $`1/N_c`$ expansion. In contrast, $`q\overline{q}`$ scalar mesons are strongly disturbed by their couplings to open hadron channels , Fig. 6. Thus almost regardless of their composition in the quenched approximation, the $`f_0(980)`$ and $`a_0(980)`$ are intimately tied to the opening of the $`K\overline{K}`$ threshold. Scalars change on unquenching. For them the $`1/N_c`$ suppression of quark loops does not occur. The fact that these resonances, $`f_0(980)`$ and $`a_0(980)`$, couple to both $`\pi \pi `$/$`\pi \eta `$ and $`K\overline{K}`$, means scalar non-strange and $`s\overline{s}`$ states communicate, Fig. 6. The coupling of different flavour quark pairs is not merely unsuppressed, nullifying the OZI rule in the scalar sector , but is even enhanced. This reflects the strange quark pairs in the vacuum . The flavour structure of the vacuum and how it changes between the world of two light flavours, $`u`$ and $`d`$, and the theoretically interesting limit in which the strange quark is also light (compared to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$), is an open question .

The key role played by scalars means that some or all of the scalar mesons, $`f_0(4001200)`$, $`f_0(980)`$, $`f_0(1370)`$, $`f_0(1500)`$, $`f_0(1710)`$, … , are closely related to the vacuum. They link the “hadron text” to the Book of QCD. To decipher this relation we need more information. This is increasingly provided almost entirely from heavy flavour decays like $`\psi \varphi X`$ , $`D_s\pi X`$ , $`\varphi \gamma X`$ . The data are already of excellent quality. We can learn a lot, once these experimental results are analysed in ways consistent with the complementary information collected over decades from purely hadronic reactions like peripheral and central $`\pi \pi `$ and $`K\overline{K}`$ production .

That meson physics is still interesting in 2002 is a consequence of the complex structure of the QCD vacuum — a complexity long recognised but now starting to be understood sufficiently well that it can be calculated. Hopefully this conference will add to this understanding.

Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank Andrzej Magiera and colleagues for organising a most interesting meeting in such wonderful surroundings. Partial support from the EU-TMR Programme, Contract No. CT98-0169, EuroDA$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$NE is gratefully acknowledged.


text:
# On the Determination of the Mean Cosmic Matter Density and the Amplitude of Density Fluctuations

## 1. Constraints from the HIFLUGCS Mass Function

A new X-ray selected and X-ray flux-limited galaxy cluster sample has been constructed (HIFLUGCS, the HIghest X-ray FLUx Galaxy Cluster Sample, Reiprich & Böhringer 2002). Based on the ROSAT All-Sky Survey the 63 brightest clusters with galactic latitude $`|b_{\mathrm{II}}|20`$ deg and flux $`f_\mathrm{X}(0.12.4\mathrm{keV})2\times 10^{11}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$ have been compiled. Gravitational masses have been determined utilizing intracluster gas density profiles, derived mainly from ROSAT PSPC pointed observations, and gas temperatures, as published mainly from ASCA observations, assuming hydrostatic equilibrium. This sample and an extended sample of 106 galaxy clusters has been used to establish the X-ray luminosity–gravitational mass relation.

From the complete sample and the individually determined masses the galaxy cluster mass function has been determined and used to constrain the mean cosmic matter density and the amplitude of mass density fluctuations. Comparison to Press–Schechter type model mass functions in the framework of cold dark matter cosmological models and a Harrison-Zeldovich initial density fluctuation spectrum yields the constraints $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}=0.12_{0.04}^{+0.06}`$ and $`\sigma _8=0.96_{0.12}^{+0.15}`$ (90% c.l.). The degeneracy between $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$ and $`\sigma _8`$ previously encountered for local cluster samples therefore has been broken mainly due to the large covered mass range (Fig. 1; see section 5.3.2 in Reiprich & Böhringer 2002 for more details). Various possible systematic uncertainties have been quantified. Adding all identified systematic uncertainties to the statistical uncertainty in a worst case fashion results in an upper limit $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}<0.31`$. For comparison to previous results a relation $`\sigma _8=0.43\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}^{0.38}`$ has been derived.

Two further constraints on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$ obtained from the HIFLUGCS clusters agree well with the above results. The mean intracluster gas fraction combined with independent estimates of the baryon density yields the upper limit $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}<0.34`$. Calculation of the median mass-to-light ratio for 18 clusters in common to the sample of Girardi et al. (2000) combined with estimates of the total luminosity density in the Universe yields $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}0.15`$ (Reiprich 2001).

The mass function has been integrated to show that the contribution of mass bound within virialized cluster regions to the total matter density is small; i.e., $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{cluster}}=0.012_{0.004}^{+0.003}`$ for cluster masses larger than $`6.4_{0.6}^{+0.7}\times 10^{13}h_{50}^1M_{}`$. If light traces mass this also implies that most galaxies sit outside clusters.

## 2. Comparison to Independent Observations

The constraints from Sect. 1 are compared to independent constraints in Fig. 2. Shown are (95%) confidence contours from measurements of distant type Ia supernovae and temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background. These confidence contours overlap with the 90% statistical uncertainty region from the mass function and the overall region of consistency indicates that the expansion of the (apparently flat) Universe is currently accelerating.

Also shown are $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$$`\sigma _8`$ relations as determined from cluster abundance measurements compiled from the examples given in Reiprich & Böhringer (2002) plus three more recent estimates from Seljak (2002), Viana et al. (2002), and Bahcall et al. (2002), as well as the ‘COBE normalization’. The various inherent differences of the individual analyses which affect the shape of these lines, e.g., the value of the primordial power spectral index, $`n`$, and the calculation of the transfer function, will be ignored in the following discussion. Note also that several other methods exist to estimate $`\sigma _8`$. A discussion of them is not possible here but it appears fair to state that the range of other estimates of $`\sigma _8`$ is similar to the range of the cluster results shown here, at least for the relevant $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$ range.

The four lowest cluster normalizations (all published in 2002) do not fit the higher ‘canonical cluster normalization’ and recently the categorization ‘low’ and ‘high’ cluster normalization appears to have been adopted. If the low cluster normalization turns out to be close to the ‘true’ value and the Universe is flat then comparison to the COBE results indicates a low value for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$ (0.20–0.25). Should independent measurements fix $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$ to a value very close to the ‘bandwagon’ (J.P. Henry) value 0.3 then this could be an exciting indication for the presence of inflationary gravitational waves biasing upwards the COBE normalization.

Attention on the reasons for the discrepant cluster results has been focussed mainly on different normalizations of cluster mass–X-ray temperature relations. However, this is only one source of uncertainty as is immediately obvious by noting that, e.g., several determinations relied entirely on optical data (i.e., optically selected cluster samples and masses estimated from cluster richness or galaxy velocity dispersion). Other sources of uncertainty include the following. The different cluster samples vary in the covered volume size and are therefore affected by cosmic variance in different ways. Slight systematic differences between optical and X-ray cluster selection and mass estimates exist as discussed, e.g., in Reiprich (2001) and Reiprich & Böhringer (2002). Different methods to determine an overall cluster X-ray temperature yield systematically different results. It is not clear whether the slope of the mass–temperature relation is correctly described by $`MT^{1.5}`$ over the entire mass range. The treatment of observed scatter in relations varies. Different samples may contain different fractions of clusters undergoing a major merger. Optical and X-ray mass estimates of merging clusters tend to overestimate their mass and may therefore lead to overestimates of $`\sigma _8`$ (e.g., Randall et al. 2002).

Nevertheless the uncertainty in the normalization of the $`M`$$`T`$ relation is undoubtedly important. Currently the following situation exists. Despite the fact that combined $`N`$-body/hydrodynamic simulations show that the method to estimate gravitational cluster masses from X-ray data (hydrostatic assumption plus $`\beta `$ model) yields accurate and unbiased results at least out to the radius within which the mean mass density equals 500 times the critical density apart from major mergers (e.g., Schindler 1996; Evrard et al. 1996), $`M`$$`T`$ relations estimated from simulations and observations disagree (but see the recent simulations by Thomas et al. 2002). This disagreement needs to be solved.

There are several possible ways how one may obtain the ‘correct’ normalization of the $`M`$$`T`$ relation. The most direct way appears to be to study in more detail simulations and observations. From the simulation side one may test the effect of additional physics and from the observational side clearly better spatially and spectrally resolved X-ray observations are needed. We are currently in the most fortunate situation to have two great X-ray observatories in space, XMM-Newton and Chandra, that complement each other in the sense that they allow to study the pressure structure in the outer cluster parts as well as in the very centers of clusters in unprecedented detail. Observations of a reasonably sized cluster sample and systematic comparison to mass estimates based on weak lensing and galaxy velocity dispersions will allow to tighten the constraints on the $`M`$$`T`$ relation significantly. Moreover such observations at hand for a complete sample, like HIFLUGCS, one does not have to resort to using a relation between temperature and mass but one can use the determined masses directly for the construction of the mass function. Taking into account the additional information on the gas density structure alleviates some of the other systematic uncertainties discussed above. It is obvious that such observations are a necessary step to ascertain that galaxy clusters remain competitive cosmological probes needed for cross checks of systematic uncertainties inherent to all measurements, to help break parameter degeneracies, e.g., for the equation of state parameter, $`w`$, and to finally arrive at a detailed refined theory of structure formation.

Let’s return to discuss presently available constraints. In Fig. 3 the distribution of a subset of published $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$ estimates is shown in order to get a very rough overview of the observationally favored values. The left hand side shows a compilation by Schuecker et al. (1998) and the right hand side shows all published values that fufill the following criteria. Only publications returned by a query of the Astrophysics Data System (ADS) with “‘omega;m” AND constraint’ in the abstract and within the date range ‘01-1997–06-2002’ have been included. Out of the 156 retrieved publications only abstracts have been checked for constraints on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$. Multiple occurences of the same data (e.g., as AAS abstracts) as well as upper limits on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$ have been excluded. If there was a choice values for a flat Universe and $`H_0=70\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ have been used. If only an uncertainty range was given the mean value has been used. It is quite obvious that this procedure excludes a large fraction of published estimates on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$ and certainly may be biased. Also error bars have been entirely neglected. Still the resulting distribution might be useful to get a feeling for the general trend.

A comparison of both histograms indicates that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}=1`$ is less favored nowadays than it used to be. Furthermore the mean value of the estimates today appears to be lower than previously and especially values very close to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}=0.3`$ seem to be strongly supported. The best fit value $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}=0.12`$ found from the HIFLUGCS mass function is therefore on the low side of the current estimates, as expected from the left hand side of Fig. 2. However, when plotting the estimates compiled here as a function of time (Fig. 4) there appears to be a vague hint that the apparent decrease of the mean might continue to the current date. Assuming boldly that improved accuracy is positively correlated with publication date a ‘true’ low value $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}0.2`$ does currently not appear entirely unreasonable.

The evolution of cluster abundances is given by the graph on the right hand side of Fig. 4 where the $`\sigma _8`$ estimates from Fig. 2 are plotted for a fiducial value $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}=0.3`$ as a function of publication date (results not yet published in a journal have been assigned the date 06-2002). Here one can make out an indication of decreasing $`\sigma _8`$ estimates with time and a cluster normalization substantially lower than previously thought might be suggested (for the specific fiducial choice $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}=0.3`$; for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}0.15`$ a value close to one for $`\sigma _8`$ may be recovered). However, it cannot be stressed enough that the simple minded plots shown in this section might be completely misleading and should not be taken too seriously. By the time these conference proceedings get published hopefully first results from MAP and especially their combination with independent estimates will have narrowed down the range of reasonable parameter values.

### Acknowledgments.

The code for calculation of the Bunn & White normalization has been provided by T. Kitayama. T.H.R. thanks the Celerity Foundation for support. T.H.R. was also supported by NASA XMM-Newton Grant NAG5-10075. For more infos on HIFLUGCS visit http://www.reiprich.net .

## References

Bahcall, N. A., et al. 2002, ApJ, submitted (astro-ph/0205490)

Bunn, E. F. & White, M. 1997, ApJ, 480, 6

de Bernardis, P., et al. 2000, Nat, 404, 955

Evrard, A. E., et al. 1996, ApJ, 469, 494

Girardi, M., et al. 2000, ApJ, 530, 62

Perlmutter, S., et al. 1999, ApJ, 517, 565

Randall, S. W., et al. 2002, ApJ, accepted (astro-ph/0206161)

Reiprich, T. H. 2001, Ph.D. thesis, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Reiprich, T. H. & Böhringer, H. 2002, ApJ, 567, 716

Schindler, S. 1996, A&A, 305, 756

Schuecker, P., et al. 1998, ApJ, 496, 635

Seljak, U. 2002, MNRAS, submitted (astro-ph/0111362)

Thomas, P. A., et al. 2002, MNRAS, 330, L48

Viana, P. T. P., et al. 2002, ApJ, 569, L75


text:
# Understanding the nature of FR II optical nuclei: a new diagnostic plane for radio galaxiesBased on observations obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.

## 1 Introduction

In the framework of the AGN unification scheme for radio–loud sources, powerful radio galaxies with FR II edge–brightened morphology (Fanaroff & Riley fr (1974)) are believed to be misaligned quasars, while lower power, edge–darkened FR I are associated with BL Lac objects. This basic unification picture (Barthel barthel (1989), Orr & Browne browne (1982), see Urry & Padovani urrypad (1995) for a review) is mainly supported by the comparison of the extended properties (radio morphology and linear dimensions, host galaxy type and environment, and narrow emission line luminosity) as well as by the number counts of the two classes. However, the detection of polarized broad emission lines, although only for a small number of FR II, is the most direct evidence of the unification scheme and the presence of absorbing “tori” in high power radio loud sources (Antonucci & Barvainis antonucci90 (1990), Cohen et al. cohen99 (1999)).

How these results extend to low power sources is still unclear. In fact, on large scales, the morphological FR I/FR II dicothomy appears to be also associated with other (large scale) properties. From the optical point of view, FR II are associated with different sub-classes of bright elliptical galaxies. On average, FR II hosts are less luminous with respect to FR I ones (Owen owen (1993), Ledlow & Owen ledlowowen (1996)), and belong to lower density groups, at least at low redshifts (e.g. Zirbel zirb96 (1996), zirb97 (1997)).

However, how these large–scale properties relate to the nuclear structure and central activity is still a debated issue. In particular, the properties of the emission lines observed in the spectrum of radio galaxies and plausibly connected to the nuclear activity, have revealed a phenomenology richer than the radio one. For example, the role of a sub-class of low-ionization FR II (e.g. Laing et al. laing94 (1994)) has still to be assessed. These objects have an FR II morphology, but their optical spectral properties are similar to those of FR I. Wall & Jackson (jacksonwall97 (1997)) and Jackson & Wall (jacksonwall99 (1999)) proposed that such objects constitute, together with FR I, a single population of radio galaxies. Furthermore, Willott et al. (willott (2000)) have recently found that the fraction of objects with observed broad lines (in the 6C, 7C and 3CRR samples and having excluded FR I) decreases with luminosity. They indicate as a possible explanation for this lack of quasars the rise of a distinct population of radio galaxies which have an FR II radio morphology but lack a well-fed quasar nucleus.

Our aim is to investigate these issues by directly looking at the nuclear continuum emission in the optical band, identifying its physical origin and relating it to both the radio and emission line properties. HST optical images of the nuclear regions of radio galaxies are suited to this goal as their high resolution allows us to separate the AGN emission from the stellar host galaxy background. In particular, the optical snapshot surveys of 3CR objects (e.g. Martel et al. martel (1999), De Koff et al. dekoff (1996)) has provided a wealth of high quality data for this purpose.

We have started this study by considering complete samples of FR I and FR II from this catalog (Chiaberge et al. pap1 (1999), hereafter Paper I; Chiaberge et al. pap2 (2000), hereafter Paper II). We analyzed the properties of unresolved optical nuclei, which have been found to be present in the great majority of the objects.

The optical nuclei of 3CR FR I behave similarly, and are best explained as non thermal synchrotron emission from the base of the relativistic jet. Furthermore, the high detection rate ($`85\%`$) directly implies that geometrically thick obscuring tori are not present in FR I radio galaxies (or, alternatively, they are present only in a minority of them). Given this, the lack of broad emission lines in these objects cannot be due to obscuration.

The behavior of FR II (at redshift below $`z=0.1`$) appears to be more complex, although their properties are clearly related to their spectral classification. Broad line radio galaxies show an optical excess with respect to the expected non thermal emission level, which might indicate a contribution from the thermal disk. Several radio galaxies in which broad lines are absent do not show any nuclear source, and they can be interpreted as obscured nuclei, as expected in the framework of the current AGN unification scheme. Most importantly, 5 sources of the sample have a core with radio-optical properties that are completely consistent with those found in FR I. Although not all of them belong to the low–ionization subclass, it is tempting to consider them as FR I–like.

In all cases, this nuclear emission sets an upper limit to any radiation from the accretion flow. In particular, in the non–thermally dominated nuclei (FR I or FR II) this seems to imply that accretion might take place on a low efficiency radiative regime.

Since it is important both to establish whether these findings hold only for nearby sources, and to analyze a larger sample of objects in order to improve the statistics, in this paper we extend the sample up to a redshift of $`z=0.3`$. Furthermore we will show that in order to address the nature of the nuclei, a crucial parameter is the equivalent width of the \[OIII\] emission line, which we calculate with respect to the nuclear continuum emission. The organization of the paper is as follows: in Sect. 2 we describe our sample of FR II and the HST observations; in Sect. 3 we present the results of the photometry of the nuclei and we analyze the relation between the optical and radio core luminosity; in Sect. 4 we discuss our results for the different spectral subclasses, also considering their radio properties and, most importantly, the \[OIII\] emission line luminosity. In Sect. 5 we present a summary of our findings and we draw conclusions and future perspectives.

$`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 and $`q_0=0.5`$ are adopted throughout the paper. The spectral index $`\alpha `$ is defined as $`F_\nu \nu ^\alpha `$.

## 2 The sample and the HST observations

The sample considered here comprises all radio galaxies belonging to the 3CR catalogue (Spinrad spinrad (1985)) with redshift $`z<0.3`$, morphologically classified as FR II. We directly checked their classification for erroneous or doubtful identifications by searching the literature for the most recent radio maps. The final list constitutes a complete, flux and redshift limited sample of 65 FR II radio galaxies.

We searched for optical spectral classification and/or optical spectra, in order to differentiate our sources on the basis of the presence of broad or narrow and high or low excitation emission lines. Here we adopt the scheme defined by Jackson and Rawlings (jackson (1997)). They classify as WQ (weak quasar) objects for which at least one broad line has been observed and whose optical continuum V-band luminosity is $`<10^{23}`$ W Hz-1 while quasars (QSO) have brighter continua; high and low ionization narrow-lined galaxies (HEG and LEG) are classified on the basis of their \[OIII\] equivalent width (less than 10 Å for a LEG) and/or \[OII\]/\[OIII\] ratio ($`>1`$ for a LEG). In the following, we will also refer to WQ and QSO as the broad-lined objects (BLO).

In Table 1 we show redshifts and radio data of objects with $`z<0.3`$, as taken from the literature, together with the optical spectral classifications. Low redshift objects ($`z<0.1`$) have been already discussed in Paper II and are listed here for completeness.

In Fig. 1 we show the redshift vs total radio luminosity diagram for the sample of FR II galaxies, together with the sample of FR I discussed in Paper I. FR II have a median redshift $`z=0.152`$, and total radio luminosities at 178 MHz are between $`10^{32}`$ and 1034.4 erg s-1 Hz-1. Note that whereas the two samples are selected at the same limits of redshift and flux, FR II are, on average, more luminous and distant than FR I. Furthermore, there is no significant difference in the distributions of extended radio power for the different spectral classes of FR II.

HST observations were performed during the 3CR snapshot survey (Martel et al., etc etc.) and are available in the public archive for all 65 objects except 4 (3C 33, 3C 61.1 and 3C 105, 3C 458 which were not observed). The whole sample was observed using the F702W filter except for 3C 192 (F555W). Exposure times are in the range 140-300 s. The data were processed through the standard PODPS (Post Observation Data Processing System) pipeline for bias removal and flat fielding (Biretta et al. biretta (1996)). Individual exposures in each filter were combined to remove cosmic rays events.

## 3 Optical cores in FR II and their relationship with radio cores.

We derive the radial brightness profiles of all objects, looking for unresolved nuclear components (central compact cores, CCC). Here we adopt the same definition for CCC as in Paper I and II (a central component with measured FWHM $`<0.08^{\prime \prime }`$, i.e. unresolved at the HST resolution). In the $`z<0.3`$ sample we find 34 CCC and 19 objects with smooth nuclear profiles and no detected central source. In these objects, we evaluate the upper limit to any central component measuring the light excess of the central 3x3 pixels with respect to the surrounding galaxy background. In 8 galaxies, the presence of complex morphologies prevents us from evaluating a reliable upper limit to any central source.

Considering each spectral class of FR II separately, we find that all objects classified as QSO and WQ have a CCC; among the narrow–lined objects, 15 HEG (and 4 LEG) have a CCC, for 10 HEG (and 9 LEG) we are able to set upper limits to the optical nuclear emission, while 3 HEG (and 2 LEG) have complex nuclear morphologies. Of the unclassified sources, 2 have a CCC and 3 have complex nuclei.

We performed aperture photometry of the 34 CCC, using the same technique as described in Paper I. We evaluate the background level at a distance of $`5`$ pixels ($`0.23^{\prime \prime }`$) from the center. The dominant photometric error is thus the determination of the background in regions of steep brightness gradients, especially for the faintest cores, resulting in a typical error of $`10\%`$.

All images were taken with broad band filters which, within our redshift range, include emission lines (H$`\alpha `$ \+ \[N II\]). Unfortunately, no HST narrow band images are available for our sources in this spectral range. Since the broad line emission is probably cospatial to the optical CCC, we corrected the broad band fluxes from line contamination in the case of two objects (3C 227 and 3C 445), for which ground based measurements of the broad H$`\beta `$ line flux are available (Tadhunter et al. tadhunter (1993)), assuming a ratio H$`\alpha `$/H$`\beta =6`$ (Netzer netzer (1990)). In these cases, the resulting emission line contribution is $`1520`$% of the total flux measured in the F702W filter111Other authors (e.g. Heckman et al. heckman89 (1989)) adopt a value of H$`\alpha `$/H$`\beta 2`$ for radio galaxies. Therefore our estimate might be considered as an upper limit to the line contamination.. We have not corrected the flux of the other QSO and WQ, however, we have tested that the the total $`H\alpha `$ line flux (Baum & Heckman baumheckman89 (1989)) would represent only $`1020\%`$ of the CCC flux. We expect line contribution to be even smaller in the case of HEG and LEG, due to the wide spectral range covered by the filter used ($`2000`$ Å ) with respect to typical narrow line equivalent widths. In Table 3 we report the luminosity of the CCCs for the sample of FR II with $`z<0.3`$.

Let us now analyze the behavior of FR II nuclei in the plane defined by the radio core luminosity $`L_r`$ and optical CCC luminosity $`L_o`$ (Fig. 2), similarly to what we have done in Paper I and II and considering their different optical spectral classification.

The nuclei of QSO and WQ (the broad-lined objects) are among the brightest, both in $`L_r`$ and $`L_o`$. They are found exclusively in the high luminosity region of the plane, for $`L_r>10^{30.4}`$ erg s-1 Hz-1 and $`L_o>10^{28}`$ erg s-1 Hz-1). Most of them show an optical excess of about 2 dex with respect to the radio-optical core correlation of FR I CCC. Conversely, nuclei of LEGs are only found at low luminosities, i.e. for $`L_o<10^{27.5}`$ erg s-1 Hz-1 and $`L_r<10^{32}`$ erg s-1 Hz-1 and all lie close to (or just below) the FR I correlation.

The behavior of HEGs is more complex. Their nuclei span a larger range of luminosity, both in radio and optical. Overall, their CCC (or the upper limits) lie along the FR I correlation, but there are at least two clear exceptions are present (namely 3C 184.1 and 3C 197.1) which are located well above it.

## 4 Discussion

The behavior of optical nuclei of the various sub-classes of FR II in the radio-optical plane for this sample essentially confirms what has been observed in the lower redshift sources discussed in Paper II. However, as the total number of sources here is more than doubled, we can now discuss in more detail what the different position on the radio-optical plane tells us about the nature of the optical nuclei. Note that in the highest redshift sources, the CCC might be contaminated by a contribution from extended features such as the synchrotron jets observed in some of the low redshift sources. However, we are confident that this issue does not significantly alter our results, since these features are observed only in a small fraction of FR I galaxies (possibly only in those with jets pointing towards us). Furthermore, the contribution from the observed jets (e.g. in 3C 264) is typically less than 20% of the CCC flux.

### 4.1 QSO and WQ: the broad-lined objects

Let us firstly examine the case of WQ and QSO, the broad-lined objects. As discussed in Paper II, the optical excess shown by these sources, with respect to the radio core emission, can be explained if the dominant component in the optical band is due to thermal emission from an accretion disc.

A very important result here is that the optical nuclei of BLO are present only for $`L_\mathrm{o}>L_{\mathrm{o},\mathrm{min}}10^{28}`$ erg s-1 Hz-1, corresponding to a luminosity $`\nu L_\nu \stackrel{>}{}4\times 10^{42}`$ erg s-1. A rather different behavior is seen in radio-quiet AGN, in which broad lines are seen in objects that span many orders of magnitude in nuclear optical luminosity, from LINERS to powerful QSO. Recent works have indeed shown that in LINERS (and in several Seyfert 1 galaxies) the nuclear bolometric luminosity of Type 1 radio quiet AGNs can be as low as $`L_{bol}10^{40}`$ (see e.g. Barth et al. barth (2001) for NGC 4579, Moran et al. moran (1999) for NGC 4395).

We are quite confident that the lack of BLO below this limit is not due to selection effects. In fact, although spectral data of 3CR radio galaxies are not homogeneous, Willott et al. willott (2000) have shown that in these low redshift sources the most prominent optical broad line (H$`\alpha `$) should be easily detected if the observed trend between the extended jet and emission line power extends smoothly to the lower luminosity objects (Rawlings & Saunders rawlings91 (1991), Celotti et al. celpadgg97 (1997)).

If the optical nucleus observed in BLO is directly related to the inner disk, we can derive some important parameters of the accretion process, under the assumption that the optical luminosity is a fixed fraction of $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$, the bolometric luminosity of the AGN. This translates to $`L\stackrel{>}{}3\times 10^4\eta L_{Edd}`$, where $`\eta =L_{\mathrm{bol}}/L_o`$ and $`L_{\mathrm{Edd}}=1.3\times 10^{46}M_8`$ erg s-1 is the Eddington luminosity for a $`10^8M_{}`$ black hole. For any fixed value of the radiative efficiency $`ϵ`$, this in turn translates in an accretion rate $`\dot{m}\dot{M}/\dot{M}_{Edd}3\times 10^4M_8^1ϵ^1\eta `$. Assuming $`ϵ=0.1`$, i.e. radiatively efficient accretion, and $`\eta 15`$, following Elvis et al. (elvis (1994)), the value of the accretion rate corresponds to $`\dot{m}5\times 10^2M_8^1ϵ_{0.1}^1\eta _{15}`$. Note, however, that Zheng et al. (zheng1997 (1997)) have recently found that the peak of the disk radiated power occurs at a much lower frequency than previously evaluated, and possibly only a factor of 2 higher than the optical luminosity. This implies, for a fixed optical luminosity, a lower value of $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ and in turn a lower accretion rate.

A possible scenario for the presence of a lower limit in the optical luminosity of BLO is that our estimate of $`\dot{m}`$ represents a threshold at which the accretion process changes its regime. For lower values of $`\dot{m}`$ this accretion might occur at a low radiative efficiency, in the form of an advection dominated flow (ADAF, see e.g. Narayan & Yi narayan95 (1995)), an adiabatic inflow-outflow (ADIOS, Blandford & Begelman bland99 (1999)), or a convection-dominated flow (CDAF, Narayan, Igumenshchev, & Abramowicz cdaf00 (2000)). As shown in Paper I, FR I radio-galaxies, excluding the small minority of them that show clear sign of quasar activity (e.g. 3C 120), might represent examples of such low efficiency processes. The lower amount of ionizing photons available would account for the lack (or at least for the substantial lower intensity) of broad lines in these objects.

However, the presence of an accretion threshold generates a corresponding threshold in luminosity only if there is a relatively narrow range of black hole masses at a fixed radiative efficiency. While a wide range of black hole masses are likely to be harbored in radio-quiet AGNs, we then speculate that black hole masses in radio-loud AGN could be only restricted to a relatively small range, at the higher end of the black hole mass distribution. This seems to be confirmed observationally, as the measured masses in these objects are all concentrated around 10$`{}_{}{}^{9}M_{}^{}`$ (e.g. Dunlop et al. dunlop (2001), Laor laor (2000)).

### 4.2 High Excitation Galaxies

In the standard unification picture, narrow–lined FR II are believed to be intrinsically identical to the broad–lined ones, and obscuration of the central regions is assumed to be the only origin of the difference in the emission line properties of the two classes. Note that this is strictly true only in the case of HEG, for which the narrow line properties (luminosity and excitation state) are similar to those of WQ (and QSO). In other words, HEGs are expected to harbor a hidden quasar, while for LEGs this is not strictly required.

The nature of the nuclei of HEG is puzzling. Since most of them lie on the FR I correlation, they might be interpreted, in analogy with FR I, as due to non thermal synchrotron emission from the base of the jet. Of course this appears to be in contrast to the standard unification scenario. However, two narrow-lined objects (3C 184.1 and 3C 197.1) clearly stand out, showing an optical excess of more than 1 dex when compared to sources with similar radio core power. The nature of these objects is unclear: in 3C 184.1 a broad (although very faint) Pa$`\alpha `$ line has been detected while no broad components are observed in optical lines (Hill et al. hill96 (1996)). A possible explanation is that they are moderately absorbed QSO nuclei.

Another puzzling source is 3C 234. Spectropolarimetric studies of this source showed that its polarized spectrum closely matches that of a QSO, with prominent featureless continuum and broad lines (Antonucci antonucci90 (1990), Tran et al. tran1995 (1995), Hurt et al. hurt (1999)). This has been interpreted as the result of scattering of light from a hidden QSO nucleus into our line of sight. Nonetheless, its representative point lies on the correlation (within 2$`\sigma `$). We have calculated that the scattered light exactly corresponds to the flux measured from the nuclear component in the HST images of 3C 234222The polarization level of its broad H$`\alpha `$ line is $`20`$ %, after removal of the host galaxy starlight. This indicates that the total flux of the scattered H$`\alpha `$ is approximately 5 times larger than its polarized component. Applying the same correction to the featureless continuum emission level we infer a scattered flux of $`10^{16}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 A-1. The CCC flux in the HST image of 3C 234 is $`1.1\times 10^{16}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 A-1.. We can then argue that the nuclear source in 3C 234 is a compact scattering region (which appears as unresolved also in high resolution polarimetric images obtained with the Keck telescope, Cohen cohen99 (1999)). The same argument applies to 3C 109, a FR II radio galaxy with a redshift of z=0.3056, just above the distance limit of our sample. Its polarization properties are reminiscent of those of 3C 234 and it was similarly interpreted as a hidden quasar. Also in this case, we have tested that the scattered continuum matches its CCC flux333The continuum flux in 3C 109 is as polarized as the broad lines (indicating the absence of a significant diluting component) at a level of $`7`$ %. Given a polarized flux at 7000 Å of $`2\times 10^{17}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 A-1 this translates into a scattered component of $`3\times 10^{16}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 A-1. The nuclear source in the HST images has a flux of $`2.8\times 10^{16}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 A-1.. Remarkably, its CCC also lies on the correlation (again within 2$`\sigma `$).

Therefore, besides synchrotron radiation from the jet, another possible scenario for the nature of such nuclei is that the observed optical emission might originate from the expected (obscured) quasar component, which is scattered to our line of sight by “mirrors” placed out of the obscuring torus.

From this analysis it turns out that it is very difficult to definitively address the nature of HEG nuclei by only considering their position in the optical–radio plane, particularly in the region of high radio core luminosity, where the FR I correlation intersects the BLO region. In order to clarify their nature, more information is needed. As we show in the following section, a fundamental advancement will be achieved with the inclusion in our analysis of a further parameter, i.e. the luminosity of their emission lines.

### 4.3 EW of \[OIII\] vs. the radio optical correlation: a new diagnostic plane for radio galaxies

In Fig. 3 we plot the ratio between the \[O III\] flux and the optical flux of the CCC, which essentially represents the equivalent width of the emission line with respect to the nuclear component, versus the radio core – CCC ratio. This emission line appears in fact to be strictly connected to the nuclear ionizing source. The value of the \[OIII\] flux is taken by Jackson & Rawlings jackson (1997) and from the data collected by Chris Willott in his home page (http://www-astro.physics.ox.ac.uk/ cjw/3crr/3crr.html). We have collected \[O III\] line fluxes for 42 FRII and for 5 FR I, while complete information (line flux, radio and optical core, either detections or upper limits) is available for 33 FR II and 4 FR I. The location with respect to the X axis is readily understood noting that the radio–optical core correlation of FR I is represented by a fixed radio-to-optical ratio, i.e. a vertical stripe in this plane, centered on $`F_o/F_r10^{3.7}`$. The 1$`\sigma `$ region around this value is represented in the figure as the shaded area. Objects lying on the right side of the plot show an optical excess.

In this plane, sources separate in two regions corresponding to equivalent width values EW $`10^{2.5}`$ Å or EW $`>10^{3.5}`$ Å. In the first region we find all QSO and WQ (squares) 444The only BLO with value of EW higher than 1000 Å is 3C 234 which, as already pointed out in section 2, should be more properly re-classified as a HEG. and LEG (pentagons). Interestingly, also the four FR I (3C 66B, 3C 84, 3C 346 and 3C 449, plotted as filled grey circles) for which these data are available fall into this region. Conversely, all but two of the HEG have much larger equivalent widths, from EW $`10^{3.5}`$ Å to EW $`10^{5.5}`$ Å.

The separation of different sources depending on the equivalent width of their emission line is readily expected from the unified models. This is due to the effects of obscuration that strongly reduces the observed nuclear continuum, while the line emission, produced at larger distance from the nucleus, is unaffected. We can then argue that all sources with EW $`>1000`$ Å are hidden BLO555Note that since the \[OIII\] emission line regions have a typical dimension of 10 kpc (e.g. Baum & Heckman baumheckman89 (1989)), such high values of the EW are still compatible with the assumption made in Sect. 3 of a small line contamination for the nuclear flux.. In sources with very high values of EW (EW $`>10^3`$ Å), a strong ionization source, obscured to our viewing angle, must be present. This argument follows essentially the same line of reasoning that has been previously applied to Seyfert galaxies for which, in several cases, a deficit of ionizing photons with respect to their line luminosity has been found (e.g. Kinney et al. kinney (1991)). Assuming the median value of the EW $`10^{2.5}`$ Å for BLO, the spread in the EW of HEG corresponds to a scattering fraction varying between 0.001 and 0.03. Indeed note that obscuration, which affects only the optical luminosity, moves the objects along straight lines parallel to the diagonal of the plane. Indeed, all galaxies with high values of EW can be led back to the region typical of QSO increasing their nuclear luminosity by, on average, a factor of $``$ 100 (see Fig. 4).

The sources with low values of EW are all clustered around EW $``$ 300 Å. This value is essentially independent of the source class of luminosity. A low value of EW thus appears to be the signature that we are directly observing the source of ionization. While this is straightforward for QSO and WQ, it implies that in FR I either the source of gas ionization is the synchrotron emission from the jet, or any other contribution must have an intensity comparable to the jet emission. Since this must hold for all radio luminosities, the latter hypothesis appears to be quite finely tuned. The correlation found by Verdoes Kleijn et al. (kleijn (2001)) between the nuclear H$`\alpha `$ luminosity and the optical CCC luminosity in FR I further supports the former scenario.

Only two HEG lie among the “unobscured” sources: interestingly, these galaxies (3C 18 and 3C 349) also lie on the FR I correlation, on its high luminosity end. Therefore, due to their position in both planes, we can interpret that these galaxies are true unobscured and synchrotron dominated “FR I–like” FR II.

Since this plane allow us to separate and to identify the nature of the nuclear sources of both FR I and FR II, we consider this as a new “fundamental” diagnostic plane for radio galaxies.

Another interesting consequence of this new characterization is the possibility of inferring the nature of the sources in which the nucleus is not detected. Upper limits among the HEG would be attributed to obscuration of the central quasar–like source and small amount of scattered radiation (compared to the central surface brightness of the host galaxy). In the case of LEG, this issue is more complex: as we expect their nuclei to be fainter, the ambiguity between low contrast and even mild absorption holds. However, in case of absorption by a torus–like structure in LEG, objects with upper limits and detections should have a different orientation distribution. In order to address this issue, and before proceeding to discuss the properties of LEG and their role in the unification models, it is necessary to analyze how the different classes relate to the radio properties.

### 4.4 Relationship with the radio properties

In this section we compare the distribution of the different subclasses of FR II both in total radio luminosity at 178 MHz and in $`R`$, the ratio between core and total radio power, which is often used as an orientation indicator. This is crucial both to understand the role of the different sources in the unification scheme, and to know whether orientation plays a role in the presence (or absence) of the CCC.

Although a similar analysis has been already done on a wider sample of 3CR sources by Laing at al. laing94 (1994), it is very important to perform statistical tests on our sample, taking also into account the newly obtained information on the optical nuclear properties of our objects. In order to improve the statistics, we have considered WQ and QSO as a single class, due to their similar properties. However, we have checked that this does not affect the results, as the objects belonging to these two classes also share the same range in both $`L_{178}`$ and $`R`$. In Fig. 5 we show the distribution in $`L_{178}`$ for the three different spectral classes. Although the number of objects for each class is limited, it is straightforward to note that: i) they share the same range in total power; ii) they are similarly distributed. In particular, this implies that within our range of redshift the three subclasses of FR II co-exist and cannot be discriminated on the basis of their total radio luminosity.

We use a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test to see whether the distributions of $`R`$ for the various sub-classes, as well as for objects with different nuclear properties, are statistically different. From this analysis, we deduce the following:

$``$ broad-lined objects have higher $`R`$ with respect to both HEG ($`P>99.96\%`$) and LEG ($`P>88\%`$). This fits in the framework in which BLO are sources where the nuclear emission is seen directly, and the observing angle is smaller than the HEG one (but still larger than in beamed blazar sources). Their high luminosity CCCs can be produced in the very inner regions of the AGN, possibly in the accretion disc;

$``$ the distributions in $`R`$ of HEG and LEG are different ($`P>91.9\%`$). This is consistent with the conclusions of Laing et al. (laing94 (1994)) that LEG constitute a randomly oriented sample;

$``$ An important result here is that HEG and LEG with and without CCC do not have different distributions in $`R`$. This might imply that the presence of CCC in these sources does not depend strongly on orientation. Note that this is quite obvious for HEG, if the origin of the majority of their nuclei is scattered radiation.

In light of these results, we have acquired enough information to discuss the properties of LEG.

### 4.5 The Low Excitation Galaxies

As already pointed out above, the nuclei of LEG, when detected, lie on the FR I correlation, and they also have EW very close to those of FR I. From the above statistical analysis, we also confirm that LEGs in our sample have a broad distribution in $`R`$, compatible with that of a randomly oriented population. Therefore, from the point of view of their radio-optical nuclear properties, these objects are indistinguishable from FR I. Since their nuclei appear to be dominated by synchrotron radiation from the relativistic jet, the lack of strong (and high ionization) emission lines in their spectra might be accounted for by a lower number of ionizing photons.

These objects, when observed along the jet axis, should appear as BL Lac objects and can therefore account for the known BL Lacs with FR II radio morphology. Note that this is in contrast with a “standard” unification model, which associates all FR II to quasars, but these objects can well account for BL Lacs with both an extended radio morphology (e.g. Kollgaard et al. kollgaard92 (1992)) and extended radio power (Cassaro et al. cassaro (1999)) typical of FR II. Jackson & Wall jacksonwall99 (1999) have also shown that both the evolution and unification of FR I and FR II with BL Lacs and flat–spectrum quasars (FSRQ) are well accounted for by a dual–population scheme, which considers FR I and LEG as a single population, associated with BL Lacs, while all other FR II are unified to FSRQ. Thus, our results are in agreement with such a scenario.

Some independent pieces of evidence appear to confirm this picture. Recently, Willott et al. (willott (2000)) have found that the fraction of quasars in the 3CRR, 6C and 7C samples (having excluded objects with FR I radio morphology) decreases as luminosity (both radio and narrow line) decreases; this behavior might be explained in the framework of a “two population” model: at low luminosities, a significant fraction of sources are “starved quasars”, and their nuclear properties, as well as the characteristics of their spectra, are similar to those of FR I. It is therefore tempting to identify this class with LEGs.

We must point out that a particular source (3C 123) does not appear to fit this scenario, since it has no optical CCC and its equivalent width of \[OIII\] is higher than $`10^3`$ (see Fig. 3). However, its EW is larger by more than one order of magnitude compared to all of the other LEG, and also its O\[III\] luminosity is more typical of HEG. Unfortunately, no detailed spectral information is available in the literature for this object. In particular, the \[OIII\]/\[OII\] ratio, which is a fundamental parameter for a correct classification, is unknown. Therefore, in light of its position in the diagnostic plane, we argue that that 3C 123 should be re-classified as a HEG.

## 5 Summary and conclusions

We have analyzed the optical nuclear properties of a complete sample of 65 FR II radio galaxies up to $`z=0.3`$ from the 3CR catalog. The overall scenario basically confirms the findings for the lower redshift sample ($`z<0.1`$) presented in Chiaberge et al. (pap2 (2000)). However, the larger number of sources (more than double) allows us to reveal a richer and more complex behavior, which turns out to be closely associated with the optical spectral properties of the different objects. The nuclear properties of FR II, as inferred from our analysis, can be summarized as follows.

While the great majority of FR I radio galaxies (optical and radio) nuclei are dominated by non-thermal synchrotron emission from the relativistic jet, the FR II population is not homogeneous. Although optical Central Compact Cores appear to be a common feature also in FR II galaxies, their origin can be ascribed to different physical processes.

BLO typically have the brightest nuclei which show a large optical excess with respect to the radio-optical correlation found for FR I. This is readily explained if the dominant component in the optical band is due to thermal emission from an accretion disc. We found that optical nuclei of BLO are present only for $`L_\mathrm{o}>10^{28}`$ erg s-1 Hz-1. A rather different behavior is seen in radio-quiet AGN, in which broad lines are seen in objects that span many orders of magnitude in nuclear optical luminosity, from LINERS to powerful QSO. As we argued that this effect cannot be ascribed to obscuration or selection effects, we suggest that this is the manifestation of a threshold in the efficiency of the accretion process, from the standard optically thick, geometrically thin accretion disk to low radiative accretion flows.

Note that the presence of any limit in luminosity requires a well defined behavior of the accretion rate and radiative efficiency but also a narrow distribution in black hole masses for radio-loud AGNs. This conjecture seems indeed to be supported by the direct measurements available to date.

The nature of the nuclei of HEG is certainly more complex. Although most sources lie along the FR I correlation, there are at least two clear exceptions, showing a significant optical excess. Furthermore, there are at least two sources (3C 234 and 3C 109) for which spectropolarimetric studies clearly showed that they harbor a hidden QSO nucleus. The amount of scattered continuum light matches exactly the flux of their nuclear component in the HST images, indicating that their CCC is a compact scattering region. Nonetheless, their representative points would lie on the correlation by coincidence. From this analysis it turns out that in general it is impossible to definitively address the nature of HEG nuclei by only considering their position in the optical–radio plane. A fundamental advance is achieved with the inclusion in our analysis of a further parameter, i.e. the luminosity of their emission lines.

In the plane formed by the “nuclear” EW of the \[OIII\] line vs the optical excess with respect to the non-thermal jet emission (a new “fundamental” diagnostic plane?), the different classes of sources clearly separate according to the nature of their nuclei. For low EW values ($`10^{2.5}`$ Å) we find all QSO, WQ, LEG and FR I, which differ only by the amount of the optical excess. On the other hand, all but two of the HEG have much larger equivalent widths $`\stackrel{>}{}`$$`10^{3.5}`$ Å. The separation of sources depending on their line equivalent width is indeed expected from the unified models, as obscuration reduces the nuclear continuum emission while the line emission is less affected or unaffected. In sources with very high values of EW a strong ionization source, obscured to our viewing angle, must be present. We can then argue that all sources with high EW are hidden BLO.

The low EW region would then contains objects in which we see directly the source of ionization. A ramification of this result is that in FR I the most likely dominant source of gas ionization is synchrotron emission from the jet.

Only two HEG are located among the “unobscured” sources: interestingly, these galaxies (3C 18 and 3C 349) also lie on the FR I correlation. Therefore, due to their position in both planes, we identify these objects with true unobscured “FR I–like” FR II.

According to the scenario proposed here, the non–detection of CCC in galaxies of different classes should have different origins. For LEG this might be due to either a low contrast with the stellar host galaxy emission or to a (moderate) amount of absorption, randomly oriented with respect to the jet. On the other hand, for HEG this can be only attributed to a lower amount of scattered nuclear radiation.

The picture which emerges is that radio galaxies manifest in two types, which are not directly related to the extended FR I/FR II dicothomy. In the framework of the unification scheme, BLO and obscured HEG appear to have the same nuclear structure: intense thermal disk (ionizing) emission, substantial broad emission line region, torus-like absorber and, of course, powerful jets. On the other hand, LEG, FR I and unabsorbed HEG constitute a distinct population, characterized by low radiative efficient accretion, weak or absent broad line emission, lack of a significant nuclear absorbing structure. Unfortunately we have complete information (radio, optical and emission line) for only roughly half of the sources in our sample. Although we can only make the assumption that there is no bias in their selection, we can estimate that the population of FR II is composed of $`50\%`$ obscured sources harboring a quasar nucleus, $`25\%`$ BLO, $`20\%`$ LEG and $`5\%`$ FR I–like HEG (although so far this is assessed only for two sources). The latter two classes can account for BL Lac objects with FR II radio morphology and extended radio power (e.g. Kollgaard et al. kollgaard92 (1992), Cassaro et al. cassaro (1999)). This scenario apparently poses problems for the simplest unification models, in particular in identifying the beamed counterparts of FR I–like HEG. However, strong and high excitation narrow emission lines are indeed observed in few BL Lacs (Landt et al. landt (2001)). Moreover, the line equivalent width in the beamed objects will be reduced by a factor $`10^4`$ (the typical ratio between the nuclear optical luminosity between radio galaxies and BL Lacs, see Capetti et al. capetti02 (2001)) producing values consistent with a BL Lac classification.

A possible way to test the overall picture is to look at the spectral properties of the nuclei. BLO and scattered nuclei are expected to be different from the FR I and FR I–like synchrotron ones: in particular, we expect to observe flatter spectral indices, typical of quasars, in BLO, indicating the presence of a thermal blue bump. Due to the large uncertainties, optical observations (even in two different bands) are not enough to determine the spectral slope, which instead could be better measured by taking advantage of the UV information (Chiaberge et al. papuv (2001)). In addition, an infrared nuclear excess is expected in the obscured radio galaxies, while this has to be absent in FR I–like objects, as promisingly shown by Whysong & Antonucci (whysong (2001)) for the case of 3C 405 (a true obscured quasar) and 3C 274 (M 87). A further diagnostic tool is of course the observations in the X–ray band, which can reveal the presence of different amounts of nuclear absorption.

Finally, it would be particularly interesting to analyze how the properties of the newly discovered quasars showing FR I radio morphology (Blundell & Rawlings blundraw (2001), Lara et al. lara (1999)) fit in our picture. In a sense they might represent the analogous (but oposite) case of LEG, where an FR II harbors an FR I nucleus. The spectral information available in the literature for such objects is, to our best knowledge, not yet sufficient to state where these sources are located in the diagnostic plane of Fig. 3. However, if they are indeed broad–lined FR I (showing optical thermal emission from the accretion disk) they should be placed in the lower–right end of the plane, among the BLO. If this is the case, the properties of these peculiar sources might bring further support to the models that claim that the nuclear structure is not directly connected to the extended radio morphology (e.g. Bicknell bicknell84 (1984, 1994); Gopal-Krishna & Wiita wiita (2001)).

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors thanks F. D. Macchetto for insightful discussions. 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. M.C. wish to thank S. Crawshaw, B. Waghorn and A. De Martino for stimulating conversations.