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# Introduction

## Introduction

Sterile neutrinos $`\nu _s`$ may be present at the onset of the nucleosynthesis epoch. There may be different reasons for their production — they are naturally produced in GUT models , in models with large extra dimensions  and Manyfold Universe models , in mirror matter models . They may be produced also in $`\nu _{\mu ,\tau }\nu _s`$ oscillations in the preceeding epoch 111For example, atmospheric and LSND neutrino data require oscillations with maximal mixings and mass differences $`\delta m_{atm}^210^3`$ eV2 and $`\delta m_{LSND}^210^1`$ eV2, which are effective before the BBN epoch. So, in many schemes owing to $`\nu _\mu \nu _s`$ or $`\nu _\tau \nu _s`$ oscillations, $`\nu _s`$ state may be partially thermalized before the nucleosynthesis epoch. according to the most popular 4-neutrino mixing schemes .

The degree of population of $`\nu _s`$, $`\delta N_s`$, may be different depending on the concrete model of $`\nu _s`$ production. Hence, we will consider further on $`\delta N_s`$ as a parameter.

In recent years, strong constraints on the sterile neutrino impact in oscillations, explaining atmospheric and solar neutrino anomalies, were obtained from the analysis of experimental oscillations data . And although a pure sterile channel solution is excluded for any of the neutrino anomalies, the analysis of neutrino oscillation experimental data allows a certain, small fraction of sterile neutrino to participate into these oscillations. In the analysis  and  it was suggested that a small fraction of $`\nu _s`$ is not only allowed but even desirable for solar neutrino data. Recent measurements of the cross section of $`{}_{}{}^{7}Be(p,\gamma )^8B`$ reaction lead to a predicted total $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ neutrino flux by $`13\%`$ larger than measured by SNO, which also may be providing evidence for sterile neutrino .

There also exist stringent cosmological constraints on $`\nu _s`$ produced in oscillations, based on oscillations influence on BBN nucleosynthesis of $`{}_{}{}^{4}He`$. For the case $`\nu _{\mu ,\tau }\nu _s`$ see for example refs.  and for the $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ see refs. . The constraints on electron–sterile neutrino oscillations , excluded the active–sterile LOW solution to the solar neutrino puzzle, in addition to the already excluded in pioneer works (see for example ref.) sterile LMA solution and sterile solution to the atmospheric neutrino anomaly. (For more detail about constraints on neutrino oscillations from cosmology, see refs. .)

Most of the cosmological constraints on active-sterile mixing were obtained in simple two-neutrino mixing schemes 222For discussion and calculation of cosmological constraints in a specific 4-neutrino mixing schemes see ref. , for the case when the sterile neutrino state was initially empty at the epoch before oscillations became effective in the Universe evolution, $`\delta N_s=N_\nu 3=0`$. $`N_\nu `$ is the number of neutrino species in equilibrium. Since the presence of a non-empty sterile state before oscillations was not considered in previous analysis of oscillations effects on the neutrino spectrum distortion and on BBN, in this work we address this question. We omit the assumption $`\delta N_s=0`$ and explore the general case $`\delta N_s0`$.

In the $`\nu _{\mu ,\tau }\nu _s`$ oscillation case, $`\delta N_s0`$ present initially just leads to an earlier increase of the total energy density of the Universe, and it is straightforward to re-scale the existing constraints. In the $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ oscillations case, however, the presence of $`\nu _s`$ at the onset of oscillations influences also the kinetic effects of $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ on BBN. Therefore, we chose $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ oscillations case for exploring electron neutrino distortion, caused by oscillations, and its influence on nucleons freezing and on primordial $`^4`$He, $`Y_p`$ for different $`\delta N_s`$ values in the range $`0\delta N_s1`$.

## The spectrum distortion of the electron neutrinos

We analyze the case of oscillations effective after neutrino decoupling, therefore further on we denote by $`\delta N_s`$ the degree of population of the sterile neutrino state at active neutrino decoupling ($`T2`$ MeV). Here we explore $`\nu _e`$ spectrum distortion , considering the degree of population of the sterile neutrino state $`\delta N_s`$ as a free parameter and, varying its value in the range $`[0,1]`$ with a step $`0.1`$. In the next section we calculate the kinetic effect of oscillations on primordial abundance of $`^4`$He for different $`\delta N_s`$.

The mixing of electron neutrino with $`\nu _s`$ has the following two types of effects on BBN:
(a) it leads to an increase of the energy density of the Universe , and
(b) it changes the nucleons kinetics essential for $`n/p`$-freezing, through the depletion of electron neutrino number density, distortion of the equilibrium spectrum of $`\nu _e`$, and production of asymmetry between neutrinos and anti-neutrinos, all due to oscillations . We will parametrize these kinetic effects and denote them $`\delta N_{kin}`$ further on.

(a) The first effect is usually described by an increase of the effective number of the energy density degrees of freedom $`g_{eff}=(30/\pi ^2)(\rho /T^4)`$. At the BBN epoch $`g_{eff}=10.75+7/4\delta N_s(T_\nu /T)^4`$. Hence, this effect leads to a faster expansion rate $`Hg_{eff}^{1/2}`$ and higher freezing temperature for nucleons $`T_fg_{eff}^{1/6}`$, when nucleons were more abundant:

$$n/p\mathrm{exp}\left[\mathrm{\Delta }m/T_f\right]$$

This reflects into an overproduction of $`^4`$He, since it strongly depends on the $`n/p`$-freezing ratio: $`Y_p2\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Delta }m/T_f)/[1+\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Delta }m/T_f)]`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=m_nm_p1.3`$ MeV is the neutron–proton mass difference. This effect of $`g_{eff}`$ increase on BBN is well known . The approximate fit to the exact calculations is: $`\delta Y_p0.013\delta N_s`$. The maximum helium overproduction corresponding to $`\delta N_s=1`$ is $`5\%`$.

(b) The influence of the kinetic effects of oscillations on BBN is quite obvious, having in mind that: (i) oscillations take place between equilibrium electron neutrino and less populated sterile neutrino ensemble, that (ii) the oscillations probability is inversely proportional to the energy of neutrinos $`P\delta m^2/E`$, so that neutrinos with different momenta start oscillating at different cosmic times, and that (iii) the proton density is bigger than the neutron one. Due to that, the neutrino energy spectrum $`n_\nu (E)`$ may strongly deviate from its equilibrium form .

In case oscillations proceed after the decoupling of active neutrinos, a strong spectrum distortion for both the electron neutrino and the anti-neutrino is possible. This spectrum distortion affects the kinetics of nucleons freezing - it leads to an earlier $`n/p`$-freezing and an overproduction of $`^4`$He yield.

The effect can be easily understood having in mind that the distortion leads both to a depletion of the active neutrino number densities in favor of the sterile ones $`N_\nu `$:

$$N_\nu dEE^2n_\nu (E)$$

and to a decrease of the mean neutrino energy333 The decrease of the electron neutrino energy due to oscillations into low temperature sterile neutrinos, has also an additional effect: Due to the threshold of the reaction converting protons into neutrons, when neutrinos have lower energy than the threshold one, protons are preferably produced, which may lead to an under-production of $`^4`$He . However, this turns to be a minor effect in the discussed oscillations model. This lowers the weak rates, governing nucleons transitions during neutrons freezing, with respect to their values in the standard BBN model, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{weak}N_{\nu _e}\overline{E}_\nu ^2`$, and hence reflects into earlier freezing when neutrons were more abundant. So, helium is over-produced.

The generation of neutrino-antineutrino asymmetry in the resonant oscillations has a subdominant effect on $`^4`$He. It slightly suppresses oscillations at small mass differences, leading to a decrease of helium overproduction.

$`\delta N_{kin}`$ depend strongly on the initial population of the sterile neutrino at BBN. Larger $`\delta N_s`$ decreases the kinetic effects, because the element of initial non-equilibrium between the active and the sterile states is less expressed. Hence, for any specific value of $`\delta N_s`$ it is necessary to provide a separate analysis.

In the case $`\delta N_s=1`$ $`\nu _s`$ are in equilibrium (the sterile state is as abundant as the electron one), and hence the $`n`$$`p`$ kinetics does not feel the oscillations, $`\delta N_{kin}=0`$. The final effect is only due to the energy increase, i.e. $`\delta N_{tot}=1`$.

In the case $`\delta N_s=0`$ the kinetic effect of oscillations was studied numerically for both the resonant  and non-resonant  oscillation cases. In this case $`\delta N_{kin}`$ for given fixed mixing parameters reach their highest value, $`\delta N_{kin}^{max}`$, as far as the non-equilibrium element — the difference between the sterile and active neutrino number densities at the beginning of oscillations — is the greatest. The overproduction of $`^4`$He may be enormous: up to $`13.2\%`$ in the non-resonant oscillation case and up to $`31.8\%`$ in the resonant one . This corresponds effectively to a little more than $`6`$ additional neutrino states $`\delta N_{kin}^{max}6`$. For the case $`\delta N_s=0`$ the kinetic effects were carefully studied and stringent cosmological constraints on the oscillation parameters were obtained on the basis of helium-overproduction, caused by the kinetic effects of oscillations .

In this work, accounting for all the effects (a) and (b), we calculate $`Y_p(\delta N_s,\delta m^2,sin^22\theta )`$ for $`0<\delta N_s1`$ values, and reveal the dependence of $`\delta N_{kin}`$ on $`\delta N_s`$.

We have analyzed the self-consistent evolution of the oscillating neutrino and the nucleons from the neutrino decoupling epoch at $`2`$ MeV till the freezing of nucleons. We have followed the line of work described in detail in ref. , omitting the assumption for negligible density of the sterile neutrinos at the onset of $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ oscillations.

It is hardly possible to describe analytically, without some radical approximations, the non-equilibrium picture of active–sterile neutrino oscillations, producing non-equilibrium neutrino number densities and distorting the neutrino spectrum. Satisfactory precise analytical description was found only for the case of relatively fast oscillations proceding before neutrino freezing, with $`\delta m^2>10^6`$ eV2 and small mixing angles . Therefore, we have provided a self-consistent numerical analysis of the evolution of the nucleons number densities $`n_n`$ and the ones of the oscillating neutrinos $`\rho `$ and $`\overline{\rho }`$ in the high-temperature Universe, using the following coupled integro-differential equations, the first equation describing the kinetics of the neutrino ensembles in terms of the density matrix of neutrino $`\rho `$ and anti-neutrino $`\overline{\rho }`$, the second equation – the kinetic evolution of the neutrons.

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho (t)}{t}}=Hp_\nu {\displaystyle \frac{\rho (t)}{p_\nu }}+`$
$`+i[_o,\rho (t)]+i\sqrt{2}G_F\left(\pm Q/M_W^2\right)N_\gamma [\alpha ,\rho (t)]+\mathrm{O}\left(G_F^2\right),`$ (1)
$`\left(n_n/t\right)=Hp_n\left(n_n/p_n\right)+`$
$`+{\displaystyle d\mathrm{\Omega }(e^{},p,\nu )|𝒜(e^{}p\nu n)|^2\left[n_e^{}n_p(1\rho _{LL})n_n\rho _{LL}(1n_e^{})\right]}`$
$`{\displaystyle d\mathrm{\Omega }(e^+,p,\stackrel{~}{\nu })|𝒜(e^+np\stackrel{~}{\nu })|^2\left[n_{e^+}n_n(1\overline{\rho }_{LL})n_p\overline{\rho }_{LL}(1n_{e^+})\right]}.`$ (2)
where $`\alpha _{ij}=U_{ie}^{}U_{je}`$, $`p_\nu `$ is the momentum of electron neutrino, $`n`$ stands for the number density of the interacting particles, $`\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }(i,j,k)`$ is a phase-space factor, and $`𝒜`$ is the amplitude of the corresponding process. The plus sign in front of $``$ corresponds to the neutrino ensemble, the minus sign - to the anti-neutrino ensemble.

Mixing just in the electron sector is assumed: $`\nu _i=U_{il}\nu _l`$ ($`l=e,s`$). The initial condition for the neutrino ensembles in the interaction basis is of the form:

$$\rho =n_\nu ^{eq}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& S\end{array}\right),$$

where $`n_\nu ^{eq}=\mathrm{exp}(E_\nu /T)/(1+\mathrm{exp}(E_\nu /T))`$, while $`S`$ measures the degree of population of the sterile state.

$`_o`$ is the free neutrino Hamiltonian. The ‘non-local’ term $`Q`$ arises as a $`W/Z`$ propagator effect, $`QE_\nu T`$. $``$ is proportional to the fermion asymmetry of the plasma and is essentially expressed through the neutrino asymmetries $`2L_{\nu _e}+L_{\nu _\mu }+L_{\nu _\tau }`$, where $`L_{\mu ,\tau }(N_{\mu ,\tau }N_{\overline{\mu },\overline{\tau }})/N_\gamma `$ and $`L_{\nu _e}\mathrm{d}^3p(\rho _{LL}\overline{\rho }_{LL})/N_\gamma `$.

The equations are for the neutrino and neutron number densities in momentum space, which allows to describe precisely the kinetic effects: spectrum distortion and neutrino-antineutrino asymmetry growth due to oscillations. For the description of the spectrum 1000 bins were used in the nonresonant oscillations case, and at least 5000 in the resonant one. These equations provide a simultaneous account of the different competing processes, namely: neutrino oscillations, Universe expansion, neutrino forward scattering, nucleons transformations.

The analysis was performed for all mixing angles $`\vartheta `$ and mass differences $`\delta m^210^7`$ eV2. The analyzed temperature interval was $`[2.0,0.3]`$ MeV, because at temperatures higher than $`2`$ MeV the deviations from the standard BBN model without oscillations are negligible in the discussed model of oscillations.

As expected, the spectrum distortion is less expressed when increasing the degree of population of the sterile neutrino state $`\delta N_s`$ (Fig.1.). Correspondingly, the kinetic effect on primordial nucleosynthesis should decrease. The results of our numerical analysis on spectrum distortion at different $`\delta N_s`$ are illustrated in the Figs. 1a-c, where the dependence of the energy spectrum distortion of the electron neutrino on the initial population of the sterile state is shown.

At each temperature we have plotted the spectrum for three different levels of initial population of the sterile neutrino, namely $`\delta N_s=0.0,0.5,0.8`$.

Figure 1a: The figure illustrates the degree of distortion of the electron neutrino energy spectrum $`x^2\rho _{LL}(x)`$, where $`x=E/T`$ at a characteristic temperature $`1`$ MeV, caused by resonant oscillations with a mass difference $`\delta m^2=10^7`$ eV2 and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\vartheta =0.1`$ for different initial sterile neutrino populations, correspondingly $`\delta N_s=0`$ (the lower curve), $`\delta N_s=0.5`$ and $`\delta N_s=0.8`$ (the upper curve). The dashed curve gives the equilibrium neutrino spectrum for comparison.

Figures 1b,c: Distortion of the electron neutrino energy spectrum at a temperature $`0.7`$ MeV (Fig.1b) and $`0.5`$ MeV (Fig.1c) for the same parameters as for Fig.1a.

The oscillations parameters are $`|\delta m^2|=10^7`$ eV2 and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\vartheta =0.1`$. For illustrating the evolution of the spectrum distortion we have presented it at characteristic temperatures $`1`$ (Fig.1a), $`0.7`$ (Fig.1b) and $`0.5`$ MeV (Fig.1c). At each $`\delta N_s`$ the characteristic behavior of the spectrum distortion due to oscillations is observed. Namely, since oscillation rate is energy dependent $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\delta m^2/E`$ the low energy part of the spectrum is distorted first (as far as low energy neutrinos start to oscillate first) and later the distortion penetrates noticeably into the more energetic part of the spectrum.

We have found that the neutrino energy spectrum $`n_\nu (E)`$ may strongly deviate from its equilibrium form during all the period of interest ($`2`$ MeV – $`0.3`$ MeV) even for considerably large $`\delta N_s`$, and hence the spectrum distortion may constitute the dominant effect on the overproduction of $`^4`$He.

## The kinetic effect

For different $`\delta N_s`$ we calculate precisely the $`n/p`$-freezing, essential for the production of helium, down to temperature $`0.3`$ MeV. Then we calculate $`Y_p`$, accounting adiabatically for the following decay of neutrons till the start of nuclear reactions, at about $`0.1`$ MeV.

We have found that neutrino spectrum distortion effect on BBN is very strong even when there is a considerable population of the sterile neutrino state before the beginning of the electron–sterile oscillations. It always gives positive $`\delta N_{kin}`$, which for a large range of initial sterile population values, are bigger than $`1`$. The kinetic effects are the strongest for $`\delta N_s=0`$: $`Y_p^{max}(\delta N_s,\delta m^2,\mathrm{sin}^22\vartheta )`$ $`=`$ $`Y_p(0,\delta m^2,\mathrm{sin}^22\vartheta )`$. They disappear for $`\delta N_s=1`$, when $`\nu _e`$ and $`\nu _s`$ states are in equilibrium, and the total effect reduces to the SBBN with an additional neutrino.

In Fig.2 we present the frozen neutron number density relative to nucleons $`X_n^f=N_n^f/N_{nuc}`$ as a function of the sterile neutrino content at neutrino decoupling for a resonant and a nonresonant oscillation case. The oscillation parameters are $`\delta m^2=10^7`$ eV2 and $`\delta m^2=10^7`$ eV2 and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta =10^1`$. As far as $`\delta Y_p/Y_p=\delta X_n^f/X_n^f`$, the results are representative for the overproduction of primordially produced helium.

Figure 2: The solid curves present frozen neutron number density relative to nucleons $`X_n^f=N_n^f/N_{nuc}`$ as a function of the sterile neutrino initial population. The dashed curves present only the kinetic effect, while the dotted curve presents the effect due to the energy density increase. The upper two curves (dashed and solid) correspond to the resonant case, the lower dashed and solid curves - to the nonresonant one.

The dotted curve presents only the effect (a), due to the energy density increase $`X_n^f=f(\delta N_s)`$, the dashed curves present the pure kinetic effects (b) $`X_n^f=f(\delta N_{kin})`$, while the solid lines give the total effect. The upper dashed and solid curves correspond to the resonant case, the lower ones to the non-resonant one.

The analysis for these concrete oscillation parameters, shows that the overproduction of helium is strongly suppressed with the increase of $`\delta N_s`$ for the resonant case, while in the non-resonant case it increases with $`\delta N_s`$. This is a result of the fact that, in the resonant case, the kinetic effects (b) due to the spectrum distortion are the dominant contribution to the overproduction of helium, even for very large degree of population of the sterile state, while in the non-resonant case the main contribution comes from the increase of degrees of freedom already at very small $`\delta N_s`$. An empirical approximation formula is:

$`\delta Y_p=0.013[\delta N_{kin}^{max}(1\delta N_s)+\delta N_s]`$,

where $`\delta N_{kin}^{max}`$ is the value calculated in the case of oscillations with an initially empty sterile state, i.e. $`\delta N_{tot}=\delta N_{kin}^{max}(1\delta N_s)+\delta N_s`$. It is a good approximation for the non-resonant case and a rather rough one for the resonant case: the deviation from the exactly calculated helium given in Fig. 2 may be up to $`\delta Y_p/Y_p0.8\%`$. Still, it can give some idea of $`\delta Y_p/Y_p`$ dependence on $`\delta N_s`$.

However, for other mixing parameters, the kinetic oscillation effects in the non-resonant case can be also considerable, as shown in ref., the kinetic effect can be as high as $`\delta N_{kin}3`$ for initially empty sterile state. Hence, in the non-resonant case the spectrum distortion effects may be the dominant one even for much larger $`\delta N_s`$ than in the case illustrated in Fig.2.

For each concrete $`\delta N_s`$ value a detailed numerical analysis is necessary to reveal the interplay of effects (a) and (b) and their influence on primordial production of $`^4`$He.

In a forthcoming paper we apply the results obtained here to define the isohelium contours corresponding to $`3\%`$ overproduction of $`^4`$He for different $`\delta N_s`$, and we present the cosmological constraints for nonzero $`\delta N_s`$.

## Conclusions

The presence of a non-empty sterile state before $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ oscillations was not considered in previous analysis of $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ oscillation effects on the neutrino spectrum distortion and on BBN. In this work we have studied the kinetic effects due to $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ oscillations in the general case $`0\delta N_s1`$.

We have provided a numerical analysis, investigating how the presence of the sterile neutrino state, partially populated before oscillations, will influence the production of $`^4`$He in the model of BBN with electron–sterile oscillations effective after electron neutrino decoupling.

We have found that the effect of the neutrino spectrum distortion due to oscillations may be very strong, even for a considerable initial population of the sterile neutrino state. Correspondingly, the kinetic effect of oscillations remain the dominant one even for big $`\delta N_s`$.

The results of this analysis may be applied for different models generating sterile neutrino, like GUT models, mirror models, extra-dimensions models, etc., as far as the initial value of population of the sterile state $`\delta N_s`$ depends on the concrete model of its production. These results may be of interest also for mixing schemes in which a portion of $`\nu _s`$ have been brought into equilibrium before neutrino decoupling, due to $`\nu _\mu \nu _s`$ or $`\nu _\tau \nu _s`$ oscillations. In case the $`\nu _s`$ presence is due to the much earlier (at atmospheric mass difference scale, or LSND) oscillations of $`\nu _{\mu ,\tau }\nu _s`$, $`\delta N_s`$ may be directly connected with the available constraints on the sterile neutrino fraction, deduced from the neutrino oscillations experimental data analysis. So, we hope that the results may be indicative and helpful for choosing among the different possibilities for the sterile fraction in the subdominant active-sterile oscillations used in the oscillation analysis of neutrino anomalies.

A more general study of kinetic oscillations effects on BBN for non-empty initially sterile state in the framework of 4-neutrino mixing schemes seems appropriate, although much more complicated.

I thank A. Dolgov for useful comments on the draft version, M. Chizhov and A. Strumia for stimulating discussions during the preparation of this work. I am grateful to my parents for their help with the kids, during the work on this paper.

I appreciate the Corresponding Associate position at CERN TH and the Regular Associateship at the Abdus Salam ICTP, Trieste. This work was supported in part by Belgian Federal Government (office for scientific affairs grant and IAP 5/27).


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# A Study of the Direct-Fitting Method for Measurement of Galaxy Velocity Dispersions

## 1 Introduction

The recent discovery of a tight correlation between stellar velocity dispersion and black hole mass (the $`M_{}\sigma `$ relation; Ferrarese & Merritt, 2000; Gebhardt et al., 2000) has placed new emphasis on the importance of accurate velocity dispersion measurements for the central regions of nearby galaxies. Since black hole mass is approximately proportional to $`\sigma ^4`$, even modest errors in $`\sigma `$ for galaxies with black hole mass measurements can have a substantial impact on the correlation (Tremaine et al., 2002). Use of the predictive power of the $`M_{}\sigma `$ relation to obtain estimates of the masses of black holes in galaxy nuclei also relies on the accuracy of the velocity dispersion measurements. In view of these issues, it is worthwhile to examine the level of agreement between velocity dispersion measurements obtained with different techniques and from different spectral regions, to determine the methods that are most likely to yield accurate results.

This paper presents an examination of a simple direct template-fitting technique operating in the wavelength domain. Initially, our main goal was to measure velocity dispersions for the sample of nearby galaxies observed with *Chandra* by Ho et al. (2001), so that estimates of the black hole masses in these galaxies could be derived by applying the $`M_{}\sigma `$ relation. We were able to observe most of the galaxies from this sample during two observing runs. We also observed some other nearby galaxies for which no previous velocity dispersion measurements were available, a few velocity dispersion “standard” galaxies from McElroy (1995) for comparison, and several low-redshift BL Lac objects for which the results have been reported separately (Barth, Ho, & Sargent, 2002a, b). Here, we present velocity dispersions for 33 nearby galaxies and a comparison of measurements obtained from the Ca triplet and Mg I*b* spectral regions. We also discuss some systematic issues relevant to the application of the direct template-fitting method. In particular, we demonstrate that model fits to the Mg I*b* spectral region are sensitive to the \[Mg/Fe\] abundance ratio, and that the results are usually improved if the Mg I*b* lines themselves are *excluded* from the fitting region used to determine the velocity dispersion.

## 2 Observations and Reductions

The data were obtained during two observing runs with the Double Spectrograph (Oke & Gunn, 1982) at the Palomar Hale 5m telescope, in 2001 June and 2002 January. The red side setup was identical during the two runs. For the blue side, we used a 600 lines mm-1 grating during the 2001 June run, and a 1200 lines mm-1 grating during the 2002 January run. The setups and instrumental dispersions are listed in Table 1. Conditions were mediocre during both runs, with typical seeing of 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$5–2$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$0 and moderate to thick cloud cover during most of the nights. None of the data were obtained in photometric conditions.

The spectrograph slit was oriented at the parallactic angle, so that the blue and red spectra would cover the same region of the galaxy. This allows a more consistent comparison between the red and blue measurements but with the caveat that our measurements do not generally correspond to any particular symmetry axis of the galaxy. Given the mediocre seeing during our observing runs and the fact that the slit position angle is effectively random relative to the galaxy major axis, we choose to measure only the bulk velocity dispersion in a region centered on the nucleus, rather than performing a detailed study of spatially-resolved kinematics. The high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the spectra obtained from these wide extractions allows us to explore various systematic issues in the measurement procedure.

Bias subtraction and flat-fielding were performed in the usual manner using standard IRAF tasks. Extractions were performed over a width of 3$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$74, which corresponds to 8 pixels on the red CCD and 6 pixels on the blue CCD. This extraction width was chosen so that the blue and red measurements would cover exactly the same spatial region of the galaxy, to facilitate comparison of the results. The spectra were extracted optimally (Horne, 1986) in order to maximize the S/N and remove cosmic-ray hits. We verified that there were no differences in line strength or width between the optimally-weighted spectra and normally-weighted extractions over the same extraction widths. The fractional differences in pixel values between the optimal and normal extractions were typically at the level of $`10^3`$ for well-exposed spectra, except at pixels affected by cosmic-ray hits. Averaged over all galaxies in the sample, the mean S/N per pixel of the extracted spectra is 107 for the red side data, and 224 and 142 for the blue side data obtained with the 600 and 1200 line gratings, respectively, in the wavelength regions used to determine $`\sigma `$.

The spectra were then wavelength calibrated and flux calibrated using standard techniques. The deep telluric H2O absorption features longward of 8900 Å were removed by dividing by the normalized spectrum of a standard star, but this spectral region is not used in any of the analysis discussed below. Finally, a small linear shift was applied to the wavelength scale of each exposure based on the wavelengths of night sky emission lines, and in cases where multiple exposures of the same object were taken, they were averaged together.

## 3 Measurements

### 3.1 Method

Our observations cover the Ca triplet at $`\lambda \lambda `$8498, 8542, 8662 Å and the Mg I*b* triplet at $`\lambda \lambda `$5167, 5173, 5184 Å, as well as blends of Fe lines at 5270 and 5335 Å and other weaker lines in the region surrounding Mg I*b*. As discussed by Dressler (1984), the Ca triplet region is ideal for velocity dispersion measurements since it is relatively insensitive to differences in stellar populations.

We performed the measurements of $`\sigma `$ with a direct template-fitting routine. Direct fitting in the pixel domain is the most straightforward method for measuring velocity dispersions (van der Marel, 1994; Rix et al., 1995). One of its main advantages is that it is simple to mask out unwanted spectral features from the fit and compute $`\chi ^2`$ only over an exactly specified wavelength range. This is particularly useful for galaxies having emission lines, or when telluric or interstellar absorption lines are in the wavelength range of interest. Direct fitting has the disadvantage of being more computationally expensive than, for example, cross-correlation (Tonry & Davis, 1979) or Fourier quotient (Simkin, 1974; Sargent et al., 1977) methods, but this is no longer a severe limitation with processor speeds currently available.

To measure $`\sigma `$, the object and template spectra are rebinned to a wavelength scale that is linear in $`x=\mathrm{ln}\lambda `$, so that velocity shifts can be performed by linear shifts to the log wavelength scale.111A redshift $`z`$ corresponds to a wavelength transformation $`x^{}=x+\mathrm{ln}[1+z]`$; this is closely approximated by $`x^{}=x+z`$ for $`z1`$. The logarithmic bin size is chosen to preserve the total number of pixels in the spectrum. The object spectrum $`O(x)`$ is transformed to zero redshift by setting $`O(x_{\mathrm{rest}})=O(x_{\mathrm{observed}}+\mathrm{ln}[1+z])`$, where $`z`$ is the galaxy’s redshift.

Our measurement technique is very similar to the direct-fitting procedure described by Kelson et al. (2000). For simplicity, we assume a Gaussian profile for the line-of-sight velocity distribution (LOSVD). Then, the model $`M(x)`$ is computed as

$$M(x)=\left\{\left[T(x)G(x)\right]+C(x)\right\}\times P(x),$$
(1)
where $`T`$ is the stellar template spectrum, $`G`$ is the Gaussian broadening function, $`C`$ is a featureless continuum, $`P`$ is a low-order Legendre polynomial, and $``$ denotes convolution. The featureless continuum is a straight line of arbitrary slope that allows the model to match the dilution of the galaxy spectrum. A straight line is sufficient to model the featureless continuum since our fits are performed only over a small wavelength range. The multiplicative polynomial $`P`$ allows for possible differences in continuum shape or reddening between the object and template without requiring an explicit determination of the reddening. The order of the polynomial is kept low to ensure that it does not affect the widths of individual absorption features; we discuss this issue in more detail below. To determine the goodness of fit we calculate $`\chi ^2`$ according to

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i}{}\left(\frac{M_iO_i}{ϵ_i}\right)^2,$$
(2)
where $`ϵ(x)`$ is the error spectrum corresponding to the object spectrum $`O(x)`$, and the calculation is performed over all pixels $`i`$ in the fitting region. The template spectra are assumed to be noise-free as they have much higher S/N than the galaxy spectra. The fit is optimized by minimizing $`\chi ^2`$ using a downhill simplex algorithm (Press et al., 1988). To ensure that the global minimum of $`\chi ^2`$ is found, the fit is repeated several times with different search parameters. This method can be generalized to include higher-order moments of the velocity profile (van der Marel, 1994) or a blend of templates of different spectral types (Rix & White, 1992; Rix et al., 1995), but in general we found that good fits to the Ca triplet region could be achieved using the simple model of Gaussian-broadened K-giant spectra, at least over the fairly large spectroscopic aperture employed in this study.

For the pixel errors $`ϵ_i`$ we used the error spectra returned by the IRAF optimal extraction algorithm, calibrated in the same manner as the galaxy spectra. For well-exposed spectra, these errors were found to be essentially identical to error spectra calculated from the Poisson noise, background noise, and CCD readout noise for a given extraction. The uncertainty on $`\sigma `$ was calculated by finding how much $`\sigma `$ must be displaced from its best-fit value, with all other parameters allowed to float freely, in order to increase $`\chi ^2`$ by unity relative to its minimum value.

Prior to calculating the uncertainty, the pixel errors $`ϵ_i`$ were rescaled so as to yield $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^2=1`$ (where $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^2`$ denotes $`\chi ^2`$ per degree of freedom). This is conservative in that it increases the size of the error bars on $`\sigma `$, but in practice it results in only a small increase in the uncertainty estimates. We note that in some cases, particularly for observations with lower than average S/N on the red side, the best fit obtained using the original error spectrum would sometimes yield $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^2<1`$; this suggests that the optimal algorithm in IRAF tends to overestimate the pixel errors by a small amount, $`1020\%`$, at low S/N. When this occurred, the pixel errors were not rescaled. We also performed tests of our fitting routine using equal weighting for all pixels rather than using the error spectrum to calculate $`\chi ^2`$. Equal weighting gave results virtually identical to weighting by the pixel errors, with differences of $`1`$ km s-1 in both $`\sigma `$ and its uncertainty. Thus, measurements obtained by the direct fitting method are not adversely affected if no error spectrum is available.

For each measurement, we used 8 template stars of spectral type G7–K5, with luminosity class III or IV; the stars are listed in Table 2. The uncertainty in $`\sigma `$ is dominated by template mismatch in many cases, particularly for the blue side data, as the scatter in $`\sigma `$ values for different templates exceeds the uncertainty in a single fit. To account for this scatter, the final measurement uncertainty given for each galaxy is the sum in quadrature of the fitting uncertainty for the best-fitting template and the standard deviation of the measurements from all 8 template stars.

### 3.2 Fitting Region

The fitting regions were chosen to include portions of the spectrum that are sensitive to $`\sigma `$ but not contaminated by emission lines. On the red side, we used a wavelength region closely surrounding the Ca triplet lines, $`84808690`$ Å. The continuum region $`85908640`$ Å was exluded from the fit as the fits are often poor over this region and there may be \[Fe II\] emission at 8617 Å in some galaxies (van der Marel, 1994). The continuum regions near the Ca triplet lines have very little sensitivity to $`\sigma `$ in any case. Figure 1 illustrates the quality of the red side fits over a wide range in $`\sigma `$. The exclusion of the region $`85908640`$ Å from the fitting region is clearly justified by the poor template match over this wavelength range for NGC 4579, NGC 1052, and NGC 4278.

The blue side data presented additional challenges. Our original intent was to compare the Ca triplet measurements with velocity dispersions measured from the Mg I*b* region, and after some trial and error we chose the region $`50405430`$ Å over which reasonable fits could usually be obtained. However, the template spectra often give a very poor match to the Mg I*b* lines themselves. While the surrounding region of continuum and weak absorption lines could generally be fit adequately, we found that the fits were usually dramatically improved (in the sense of having a lower value of $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^2`$) by excluding Mg I*b* from the fit. The change in $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^2`$ is particularly dramatic for galaxies with high velocity dispersions. We also found it necessary to exclude a small region around 5200 Å, as many galaxies have weak \[N I\] $`\lambda 5200`$ Å emission. Even when this line is not clearly visible in the spectra, the fits often reveal a slight excess in the galaxy spectra near 5200 Å relative to the broadened templates. For our final fits, we excluded the range $`51505210`$ Å from the calculation of $`\chi ^2`$.

The difficulty of fitting the Mg I*b* profile is a consequence of the correlation between Mg I*b* line strength and $`\sigma `$ (Terlevich et al., 1981; Dressler et al., 1987). More specifically, since the ratio \[Mg/Fe\] in elliptical galaxies is correlated with velocity dispersion (Worthey, Faber, & Gonzalez, 1992; Trager et al., 1998; Kuntschner et al., 2001), galaxies with high $`\sigma `$ will have stronger Mg I*b* absorption relative to the surrounding Fe lines, in comparison with typical nearby giant stars used as velocity templates. Our template stars were chosen based on their spectral type and magnitude, without regard to metallicity, and most have slightly subsolar to slightly above-solar \[Fe/H\]. The fits shown in Figure 2 demonstrate that with these template stars, it is not possible to achieve a good fit to both the Mg I*b* lines and the surrounding region (dominated by Fe blends) for galaxies of high $`\sigma `$.

As a comparison, we attempted to perform fits using the Mg I*b* lines alone, over the range 5150–5190 Å. However, since the Mg lines cover such a small wavelength range, the fits were very poorly constrained even after restricting both the multiplicative polynomial and the featureless continuum to zeroth order (i.e., both flat in $`f_\lambda `$). Consequently, no useful results could be obtained from fitting models only to the Mg I*b* lines.

In principle, the \[Mg/Fe\] mismatch problem could also be alleviated to some extent by observing template stars having a range of super-solar metallicities. However, it would be difficult to find an exact stellar match to the \[Mg/Fe\] ratio of any given galaxy spectrum, and it would be very time-consuming to observe a grid of template stars with a range in both spectral type and metallicity.

We also note that both the Mg I*b* and the Ca triplet lines are intrinsically strong features that are subject to pressure broadening. The widths of these lines in a galaxy spectrum are due to a composite population of stars with a range of surface gravities and therefore a range in intrinsic linewidths. For galaxies with very small velocity dispersions, or for objects such as young super star clusters, it may be preferable to measure velocity dispersions only from regions containing weaker, intrinsically narrow lines, such as the region just redward of Mg I*b* (e.g., Ho & Filippenko, 1996).

### 3.3 Tests of the Measurement Routine

We performed tests to determine whether the measurement routine would yield correct results on a galaxy of known velocity dispersion, including some degree of template mismatch. To perform the tests, we began with a composite template spectrum made by combining a K2 III star, a G2 V star, and a featureless continuum. The weights were chosen so that the total flux in the composite spectrum was 40% K2 III, 40% G2 V, and 20% featureless continuum. The spectrum was then broadened by convolution with Gaussians having $`\sigma =50300`$ km s-1, and its spectral shape was adjusted by multiplication by a 4th-order Legendre polynomial. The polynomial coefficients were restricted so that the continuum flux at any wavelength was modified by $`<5\%`$. Finally, Poisson noise was added to the broadened spectrum to give S/N = 120 per pixel. The velocity dispersions were measured using the same techniques described above and the same set of template spectra. For the blue side, the simulated data were created using spectra observed with the 1200 line grating.

For both the blue and red sides, the measurement routine is very successful at recovering the correct velocity dispersion over the entire range of $`50300`$ km s-1. In all cases, the measured dispersion is within 6 km s-1 of the input dispersion. The red side measurements are systematically closer to the input dispersion than the blue side results are, however: the RMS disagreement between the measured and input velocity dispersions is 3.0 km s-1 for the red side and 4.4 km s-1 for the blue side. This is not by any means a complete test of the method; a full examination would require testing the measurement routine as a function of velocity dispersion, S/N, and degree of template mismatch, for both the red and blue spectral regions. Nevertheless, it does demonstrate the accuracy of the method for a somewhat simplified input model. As expected, the results were less accurate for velocity dispersions smaller than the instrumental dispersion. On the blue side, for an input model with $`\sigma _{\mathrm{in}}=25`$ km s-1, the measurement routine gave $`\sigma =34\pm 5`$ km s-1. The red side, with an instrumental dispersion of 25 km s-1, returned $`\sigma =25\pm 3`$ km s-1 for an input dispersion of 25 km s-1, but for input dispersions of $`15`$ km s-1 it was not able to yield useful results.

We investigated one other aspect of the measurement routine, the order of the multiplicative polynomial used to adjust the template’s continuum shape to match the galaxy. Our final measurements were performed using a quadratic polynomial on both the red and blue sides. Figure 3 demonstrates how these results change if a 4th order polynomial is used. The red side results are nearly unchanged. However, the blue side measurements with the two polynomial models disagree by a larger amount, with an RMS difference of 5% for our sample.

There is no *a priori* reason to prefer any particular polynomial order, as long as the order is low enough not to introduce any structure on scales close to the width of individual or blended spectral features. Thus, we interpret the variation of $`\sigma _B`$ with polynomial order as a source of systematic uncertainty in the blue measurements; it is an additional reason to prefer the Ca triplet region for measurement of $`\sigma `$. For high values of $`\sigma `$, it appears that using a 4th-order polynomial systematically reduces the measured value of $`\sigma `$; this could be a consequence of the polynomial function over-fitting the shallow, blended, broad absorption features in the galaxy spectrum. However, there does not appear to be an obvious explanation for the systematic rise in the derived value of $`\sigma `$ when using a higher-order polynomial fit to galaxies with $`\sigma 175`$ km s-1. Kelson et al. (2000) discuss the issue of the polynomial order in direct-fitting routines; they find that their results are not very sensitive to the polynomial order, with $`<1\%`$ differences in velocity dispersions derived with polynomial orders of 4, 5, or 6. The higher sensitivity we find may be due to the fact that our measurements are performed over a small wavelength region, so that higher-order polynomials may begin to fit individual absorption features in addition to the overal spectral shape. Also, our fits do not require such high-order polynomials since our spectra are flux-calibrated and the galaxy redshifts are small, minimizing any instrumental differences in spectral shape between the galaxies and template stars.

Since the red side is dominated by just a few strong lines surrounded by a relatively simple continuum, it is less susceptible to mismatch in the continuum shape. For individual galaxies the agreement between blue and red measurements can be either better or worse when using the higher-order polynomial on the blue side. Considering the entire sample, the RMS difference between blue and red measurements is virtually identical whether the blue side polynomial order is 2, 3, or 4, and we somewhat arbitrarily choose the quadratic model for the final blue side measurements. This issue may have a similar effect on velocity dispersion measurements obtained with other techniques, since other methods also require normalization of the continuum shape of the galaxy and template star, and this normalization is usually carried out by multiplication by a polynomial (e.g., Franx, Illingworth, & Heckman, 1989; Dalle Ore et al., 1991).

## 4 Results and Discussion

### 4.1 Comparison of blue and red side results

Table 3 lists the velocity dispersions measured from the blue and red side spectra. For three galaxies (NGC 404, NGC 660, and NGC 6503), the velocity dispersion was too small to be measured from the blue side data. We did not attempt to fit models to the blue spectrum of Arp 102B as it contains a number of weak emission lines in this region. In general, we consider the red side results to be more reliable for the reasons described above. One simple measure of the relative degree of template mismatch between the red and blue sides is the goodness of fit as measured by $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^2`$. The mean value of $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^2`$ for all galaxies is 1.12 on the red side, and 3.03 on the blue side. Given that the same LOSVD model was used for the red and blue side data, this difference in $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^2`$ clearly demonstrates the larger degree of template mismatch on the blue side. In addition to template mismatch issues, the red measurements are aided by higher spectral resolution. The low spectral resolution of the blue side data obtained with the 600 line grating is clearly reflected in the large error bars for these measurements, in comparison with the data obtained with the 1200 line grating.

To determine whether the red and blue results are in agreement within their uncertainties, we compute the statistic $`\delta =(\sigma _B\sigma _R)/(ϵ_B^2+ϵ_R^2)^{1/2}`$. If $`|\delta |1`$, then the difference between the red and blue measurements is consistent with zero, and the two measurements are considered to be in agreement. Figure 4 shows the results of this test. Out of 29 galaxies with blue and red measurements, 15 (or 52%) agree within the estimated $`1\sigma `$ uncertainties. The worst disagreements are at the $`3\sigma `$ level. This suggests that the measurement uncertainties may be somewhat underestimated, particularly for the blue side data.

The systematic uncertainty in the choice of the polynomial order for the blue measurements may be largely to blame for this situation. As described above, there appears to be an additional uncertainty of roughly 5% in the blue side measurements due to the choice of polynomial order, in addition to the uncertainty determined by the fitting routine. If we add this 5% uncertainty in quadrature to the blue side measurement uncertainties, the agreement between the red and blue sides appears more satisfactory, with $`|\delta |1`$ for 19 of 29 galaxies, or 65% of the sample. Thus, we conclude that the blue side uncertainties are systematically too small and should be increased by adding $`0.05\sigma _B`$ in quadrature to the uncertainties listed in Table 3. Increasing the error bars by this amount leads to a satisfactory comparison between the red and blue measurements, giving roughly the level of agreement that would be expected from $`1\sigma `$ uncertainties in the case of Gaussian statistics. It is still somewhat surprising how large the disagreement is between the blue and red data for a few of the galaxies, but in some cases (such as NGC 4569) the discrepancy could be ascribed to a poor template match due to the presence of a young starburst component.

Figure 5 demonstrates the results obtained if the Mg I*b* lines are included in the fitting region. For comparison, we performed measurements of our blue side data using the entire wavelength range 5040–5430 Å, except for a small 20 Å window centered on the \[N I\] emission line at 5200 Å. Including the Mg lines in the fit nearly always leads to a significant increase in $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^2`$ because of the poor match between the \[Mg/Fe\] ratios of the templates and the galaxies. The outcome is that, for all but one galaxy, the velocity dispersions measured by including Mg I*b* in the fitting region are larger than those obtained with our default fitting region. The discrepancy increases systematically as a function of $`\sigma `$ due to the correlation between \[Mg/Fe\] and $`\sigma `$, and is as bad as 25–30% for galaxies with large $`\sigma `$. The large increase in $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^2`$ clearly demonstrates that template stars of near-solar metallicity should not be used to fit the Mg and Fe lines of galaxy spectra simultaneously. This template matching problem appears to affect the measurements over the entire range in $`\sigma `$, not just galaxies with large velocity dispersions. Even for galaxies with $`\sigma 100`$ km s-1, the model fits are still severely degraded in quality by including Mg I*b*, and the velocity dispersions are affected at the $`510\%`$ level.

The difficulty in matching the Mg I*b* line strength is a problem for the direct-fitting method in particular, because the widths and the depths of the absorption lines are coupled together in the calculation of $`\chi ^2`$. Methods for measurement of velocity dispersions that operate in the Fourier domain may be less sensitive to variations in line strength for individual lines. The sensitivity of the Fourier quotient method to metallicity variations in the Mg I*b* region has been examined by Laird & Levison (1985), who found that the derived dispersions have a modest dependence on \[Fe/H\]; it would be worthwhile to perform similar tests for various other measurement techniques, using galaxies and template stars with a range of \[Mg/Fe\] ratios.

The \[Mg/Fe\] mismatch problem can be seen in some previous kinematic studies, in cases where velocity dispersion measurements were performed using a small wavelength region containing both Mg I*b* and Fe 5270. For example, some of the model fits shown by Rix & White (1992) and Kuijken & Merrifield (1993) appear to underpredict the strength of the Mg I*b* lines relative to Fe 5270. In kinematic studies that attempt to derive the shape of the LOSVD by methods operating in the pixel domain, it is important to be aware of this \[Mg/Fe\] mismatch problem, because it does affect the velocity dispersions (as shown in Figure 5) and there is the possibility that it could affect the shape of the derived velocity profile as well. As Figure 2 demonstrates, this problem can be largely avoided by shifting the fitting region redward to cover the Fe 5270 and Fe 5335 blends, and excluding Mg I*b*.

### 4.2 Comparison with previous results

Velocity dispersions have been reported previously for all but 6 of the galaxies in our sample. Two of the most commonly used references for velocity dispersions measurements are the compilation by McElroy (1995), which lists averages of measurements from the literature for each galaxy, and the online Hypercat database (Prugniel et al., 1998), which lists all previous measurements of $`\sigma `$ and also computes an average value for each galaxy.222The Hypercat database is available at http://www-obs.univ-lyon1.fr/hypercat . Figure 6 shows a comparison of our results with the average values reported by McElroy (1995) and by Hypercat. The measurements compiled by McElroy are corrected to a standard aperture of $`2\mathrm{}\times 4\mathrm{}`$, very close to the aperture size we used, so the results should be directly comparable. Hypercat also applies correction factors to homogenize the measurements to a consistent aperture size prior to computing the average values.

In general, the Hypercat mean results agree more closely with our red side results than do the McElroy average values. This is primarily due to the fact that the Hypercat catalog is more up-to-date and contains a larger number of measurements for some galaxies, so the Hypercat averages are sometimes less affected by individual discrepant measurements. For the 20 galaxies in common between our sample, McElroy (1995), and Hypercat, the RMS deviation between the catalog mean results and our red side measurements is 28 km s-1 for McElroy, and 20 km s-1 for Hypercat. Since most of the galaxies in our sample are spirals, some portion of this scatter must be due to different slit position angles, which would lead to different amounts of rotational broadening in the extracted spectrum.

The averages computed by these catalogs often include quite discrepant measurements taken from different literature sources. The case of NGC 3627 serves as a useful example. Hypercat lists two sources for $`\sigma `$ that disagree by far more than their quoted uncertainties: $`117\pm 9`$ km s-1 (Héraudeau & Simien, 1998), and $`184\pm 19`$ km s-1 (Whitmore et al., 1979). Our result ($`124\pm 3`$ km s-1) agrees well with Héraudeau & Simien (1998) but is significantly lower than that of Whitmore et al. (1979). Similarly, for NGC 4826, Whitmore et al. (1979) find $`\sigma =160`$ km s-1 while two other sources listed in Hypercat give 90 and 113 km s-1, closer to our red side measurement of 96 km s-1. These examples demonstrate that the average values listed by Hypercat, and by McElroy, should be viewed with a great deal of caution, because the average dispersions for galaxies with a small number of measurements can be badly influenced by a single discrepant value. There appears to be a systematic problem with the measurements of Whitmore et al. (1979) in particular. There are 8 galaxies in common between our sample and Whitmore et al. (1979), and in only one case (NGC 4374) is their velocity dispersion smaller than our result. On average their measurements are larger than ours by 25%. The sytematic offset of this one source contributes a nonnegligible amount to the overall disagreement between our results and the average literature results.

The worst apparent disagreement between our results and the mean literature data is for NGC 1058, a late-type spiral galaxy with a compact central stellar cluster for which we find $`\sigma =31\pm 6`$ km s-1. The mean velocity dispersion is given by McElroy (1995) as 60 km s-1, and by Hypercat as 59 km s-1. However, according to Hypercat, the sole previous measurement is from unpublished data of Whitmore & Rubin (1985), and according to Hypercat the original measurement was actually an *upper limit* of 60 km s-1. This example serves as a reminder that when velocity dispersions for individual galaxies are taken from the literature, it is probably safer to consult the original sources than to rely on averaged results reported in these compilations.

## 5 Summary

We have measured the central velocity dispersion within a $`2\mathrm{}\times 3\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}7`$ aperture for 33 galaxies, using an extremely simple fitting routine. The measurements are performed by fitting broadened stellar templates to the galaxy spectra, assuming a Gaussian model for the LOSVD. Results obtained from the Ca triplet lines appear to be quite robust and are not very sensitive to the choice of template star or to the particular way in which the continuum shape of the template is adjusted to match the galaxy; this is consistent with the conclusions of Dressler (1984). The Mg I*b* region is subject to somewhat larger uncertainty, as it is a more complicated spectral region and more susceptible to template mismatching. We find that after taking into account an estimated $`5\%`$ uncertainty in the blue side measurements due to the choice of a particular form for the continuum normalization function, the blue and red measurements are in agreement within their uncertainties for 65% of the sample.

Template mismatch in the Mg I*b* region can be reduced by avoiding the use of both Mg and Fe lines simultaneously in measurement of $`\sigma `$, because the \[Mg/Fe\] abundance ratio is correlated with $`\sigma `$. Typical nearby K-giant stars used as velocity templates will not match the \[Mg/Fe\] ratios of galaxies having large velocity dispersions, and fits of broadened templates to galaxy spectra over the $`50005500`$ Å region are often dramatically improved if the Mg I*b* lines are excluded from the fit. This template matching problem should be considered when performing more detailed analyses of galaxy kinematics, such as measurements of black hole masses using spatially-resolved spectra of the Mg I*b* region from the *Hubble Space Telescope*.

We thank Todd Small for assistance during the June 2001 observing run, Tom Matheson for providing software used in the data reduction, and Pieter van Dokkum for helpful discussions. Research by A.J.B. is supported by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant #HST-HF-01134.01-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555. Research by W.L.W.S. is supported by NSF grant AST-9900733. 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 NASA.


text:
# Massive Vacua of 𝒩=1^∗ Theory and 𝑆-duality from Matrix Models

## 1 Introduction

According to Dijkgraaf and Vafa’s (DV) proposal , the effective superpotentials for a large class of $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetric field theories at finite $`N`$ are computed from related large-$`N`$ matrix models. Some of the best tests of this hypothesis have been for certain mass deformations of $`𝒩=4`$ supersymmetric gauge theory which preserve $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetry—the so-called $`𝒩=1^{}`$ theory. The latter theory is obtained by adding masses for all three adjoint chiral superfields of the $`𝒩=4`$ theory. In addition, one can allow arbitrary polynomial deformations of the superpotential involving one of the three adjoint superfields. In this note, we will refer to this entire class of theories as $`𝒩=1^{}`$ theories. These theories provide some of the best tests of the DV proposal, since the resulting effective superpotential depends in a non-trivial and characteristic way on the coupling constant of the $`𝒩=4`$ theory. Up till now the checks have involved calculating the effective superpotential in the confining vacuum for the quadratic $`\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }^2`$ deformation  and then for arbitrary polynomial deformations and holomorphic condensates in the confining vacuum . In the present note we extend this analysis to cover all the massive vacua of the theory, including the Higgs vacuum.

We find that the result of the $`\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }^2`$ deformation is an effective superpotential in each massive vacuum of the $`𝒩=1^{}`$ theory computed using the DV prescription from the matrix model of the form

$$W_{\mathrm{eff}}=\frac{Np^2}{12}E_2(p(p\tau +k)/N),k=0,1,\mathrm{},N/p1.$$
(1)
where $`p`$ is a divisor of $`N`$. Once the vacuum-independent constant $`N^2E_2(\tau )/12`$ is added, the results in different vacua are related to each other by the action of the modular group, $`\text{SL}(2,)`$ on $`\tau `$, the $`𝒩=4`$ coupling, and the results agree perfectly with earlier computations using different approaches . What is remarkable about the derivation from the matrix model is that the modular properties emerge as a result of the computation without being assumed at the beginning.

Let us first briefly recall the vacuum structure of the $`𝒩=1^{}`$ theory. In $`𝒩=1`$ language, the $`𝒩=4`$ $`\text{SU}(N)`$ theory with coupling constant $`\tau 4\pi i/g_{YM}^2+\theta /2\pi `$ has three adjoint chiral superfields $`\mathrm{\Phi }^+,\mathrm{\Phi }^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. We consider a general class of deformations of the $`𝒩=4`$ theory specified by a tree level superpotential

$$W=\frac{1}{g_{YM}^2}\mathrm{Tr}\left(i\mathrm{\Phi }[\mathrm{\Phi }^+,\mathrm{\Phi }^{}]+\mathrm{\Phi }^+\mathrm{\Phi }^{}+V(\mathrm{\Phi })\right),$$
(2)
where $`V(\mathrm{\Phi })`$ is a general polynomial

$$V(\mathrm{\Phi })\underset{p}{}g_p\mathrm{\Phi }^p.$$
(3)
Note that for the sake of simplicity we have set all masses to unity in the knowledge that it is simple to re-introduce them. For $`V(\mathrm{\Phi })=\mathrm{\Phi }^2`$ we obtain the basic $`𝒩=1^{}`$ theory, however, it is also interesting to consider the space of possible $`𝒩=1^{}`$ deformations as in .

The vacuum structure can be deduced by proceeding with a classical argument augmented by some quantum considerations. The classical vacuum structure follows by solving the $`F`$\- and $`D`$-flatness conditions modulo gauge transformations. Equivalently, one solves the $`F`$-flatness conditions modulo complex gauge transformations. Up to complex gauge transformations, the solutions of the $`F`$-flatness conditions are associated to representations of $`\text{SU}(2)`$ in the following way: $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is precisely $`iJ_3`$ of an $`\text{SU}(2)`$ representation, reducible or irreducible, of dimension $`N`$, and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^\pm `$ have the same non-zero elements as $`J^\pm `$ except that the actual numerical values depend on the form of the potential $`V(\mathrm{\Phi })`$. Vacua can be classified according to whether there are, after the Higgs mechanism, unbroken $`\text{U}(1)`$’s, in which case it is a massless vacuum. On the contrary, if the unbroken gauge group is non-abelian (or empty) one has a massive vacuum. In terms of $`\text{SU}(2)`$ representations, the massive vacua correspond to $`N/p`$ copies of the $`p`$-dimensional representation, where, by construction, $`p`$ must be a divisor of $`N`$. The unbroken gauge group is then $`\text{SU}(N/p)`$. The classical eigenvalues of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ are explicitly

$$\lambda _j^{\mathrm{cl}}=\frac{i}{2}(p2j+1),j=1,\mathrm{},p,$$
(4)
each with a degeneracy of $`N/p`$. Now quantum reasoning is needed to deduce the multiplicity of vacua for each $`p`$. One expects at low energies that the theory flows to pure $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetric gauge theory with gauge group $`\text{SU}(N/p)`$. Standard arguments then imply there are $`N/p`$ physically inequivalent quantum vacua. All-in-all, there are $`_{p|N}N/p_{p|N}p`$ massive vacua, where $`p`$ is a divisor of $`N`$.

It is the goal of this paper to calculate (1) from the matrix model proposal of Dijkgraaf and Vafa , generalizing the results of , which held for the confining vacuum ($`p=1`$ above).

## 2 The matrix model and its solution

As a direct consequence of the proposal of Dijkgraaf and Vafa , in a given vacuum the exact effective superpotential for the above class of deformations of the $`𝒩=4`$ theory is computed by the planar diagram expansion, i.e. a large-$`N`$ limit, of the matrix model for which there is a matrix variable for each chiral multiplet of the field theory and whose action is the tree-level superpotential of the field theory. Using the same notation for the matrix variables and their associated superfields, the matrix model partition function is

$$Z=[d\mathrm{\Phi }^+][d\mathrm{\Phi }^{}][d\mathrm{\Phi }]\mathrm{exp}\frac{1}{g_s}\mathrm{Tr}\left(i\mathrm{\Phi }[\mathrm{\Phi }^+,\mathrm{\Phi }^{}]+\mathrm{\Phi }^+\mathrm{\Phi }^{}+V(\mathrm{\Phi })\right)$$
(5)
In the matrix model, unlike in the field theory, one takes $`\mathrm{\Phi }^+=(\mathrm{\Phi }^{})^{}`$ and the fluctuations of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ around the ensuing saddle points to be Hermitian. At the saddle-point we will allow the eigenvalues of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ to be complex. As noted for example in , the key fact that permits the solution of these matrix models is that one may integrate out $`\mathrm{\Phi }^\pm `$ exactly to obtain a one-matrix integral to be solved in the large-$`N`$ limit:

$$Z=[d\mathrm{\Phi }]\frac{e^{\frac{1}{g_s}\mathrm{Tr}V(\mathrm{\Phi })}}{\mathrm{det}(\text{Adj}_\mathrm{\Phi }+i)}.$$
(6)
The resulting one-matrix model actually becomes tractable in the large-$`N`$ limit by going to the eigenvalue basis and performing a large-$`N`$ saddle-point approximation to the integral. The details of this procedure have been extensively discussed in the literature. We refer the reader to , and references therein, for more details.

In order to describe the confining vacuum, for which $`\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$ classically, one takes a one cut solution as follows . The eigenvalues $`\lambda _j`$ of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ interact via a repulsive effective potential and form a continuum in the large-$`N`$ limit and condense onto a cut along the real axis. The actual extent of the cut and the density of eigenvalues $`\rho (\lambda )`$ along the cut is self-consistently determined by the saddle-point equation in terms of the parameters of the deformation $`V(\mathrm{\Phi })`$ and the matrix model ’t Hooft coupling $`S=g_sN`$. Proceeding along these lines leads to a description of the confining vacuum .

For a general massive vacuum associated in the nomenclature of $`\text{SU}(2)`$ representations to $`N/p`$ copies of the $`p`$-dimensional representation, the classical eigenvalues of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ are given in (4). This suggests in the matrix model we should take a multi-cut solution where at large $`N`$ the eigenvalues condense on $`p`$ cuts defined as

$$𝒞_j=\left\{\lambda =\lambda _j^{\mathrm{cl}}+x,\alpha _jx\alpha _j\right\},j=1,\mathrm{},p.$$
(7)
The saddle-point equation in the large-$`N`$ limit is most conveniently written in terms of the resolvent function

$$\omega (z)=\frac{\rho (\lambda )}{z\lambda }𝑑\lambda $$
(8)
where $`\rho (\lambda )`$ is the unit normalized spectral density of eigenvalues:

$$\rho (\lambda )=\frac{1}{N}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\delta (\lambda \lambda _i),$$
(9)
a function that in the large-$`N`$ limit only has non-trivial support on the cuts. The spectral density is normalized in such a way that the filling fractions of eigenvalues along each cut are given by

$$\frac{N_j}{N}=_{\alpha _j}^{\alpha _j}\rho \left(\lambda _j^{\mathrm{cl}}+x\right)𝑑x.$$
(10)
where $`N_j`$ denotes the number of eigenvalues along the $`j`$th cut.

The resolvent $`\omega (z)`$ is an analytic function on the complex $`z`$-plane which has cuts precisely along each $`𝒞_j`$, $`j=1,\mathrm{},p`$. The discontinuity across each cut gives the spectral density at that point:

$$\omega (\lambda +iϵ)\omega (\lambda iϵ)=2\pi i\rho (\lambda );\lambda 𝒞_j.$$
(11)
In terms of $`\omega (z)`$, the saddle-point equation is

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{V^{}(\lambda )}{S}& =\omega (\lambda +iϵ)+\omega (\lambda iϵ)\hfill \\ & \frac{1}{2}\left(\omega (\lambda +i+iϵ)+\omega (\lambda +iiϵ)+\omega (\lambda i+iϵ)+\omega (\lambda iiϵ)\right)\hfill \end{array}$$
(12)
for $`\lambda _j𝒞_j`$. Notice that various principal values have been taken, giving rise to the $`\pm iϵ`$ prescriptions, in order to render the integrals well defined. Unlike the single cut solution, the final terms—those shifted by $`\pm i`$—also have to be defined as a principal value since most of the shifted cuts collide with each other in pairs.

At this point we need to employ some extra guesswork. We start with the observation that in the massive vacuum there should be same number of eigenvalues on each cut. In other words the filling fractions (10) should be the same. This is well motivated by the classical solutions for massive vacua of the field theory wherein the adjoint scalars have VEVs that split into $`N/p`$ copies of a $`p`$-dimensional representation of $`\text{SU}(2)`$ preserving an $`\text{SU}(N/p)`$ gauge symmetry classically. Of course, we would also expect solutions of the saddle-point equations with different filling fractions which would correspond to massless vacua. However, we are going to specialize to the massive vacua by making an ansatz which automatically ensures that the filling fractions are identical. The ansatz we make is that the eigenvalue density is the same along each of the cuts (all of which have the same extent $`\alpha _j=\alpha `$): for each pair $`j,k`$

$$\rho \left(\lambda _j^{\mathrm{cl}}+x\right)=\rho \left(\lambda _k^{\mathrm{cl}}+x\right),\alpha x\alpha ,$$
(13)
or equivalently

$$\omega (\lambda _j^{\mathrm{cl}}+x+iϵ)\omega (\lambda _j^{\mathrm{cl}}+xiϵ)=\omega (\lambda _k^{\mathrm{cl}}+x+iϵ)\omega (\lambda _k^{\mathrm{cl}}+xiϵ).$$
(14)
Having made this ansatz we now investigate the saddle-point equations (12). Notice that they are linear in the $`w(\lambda +iϵ)+w(\lambda iϵ)`$ and so we can solve for these quantities at each cut. One finds

$$\begin{array}{cc}& \omega (\lambda _j^{\mathrm{cl}}+x+iϵ)+\omega (\lambda _j^{\mathrm{cl}}+xiϵ)\hfill \\ & =2Y(\lambda _j^{\mathrm{cl}}+x)+\frac{2}{p+1}\left((p+1j)\omega (x+i(p+1)/2)+j\omega (xi(p+1)/2)\right),\hfill \end{array}$$
(15)
where $`\alpha x\alpha `$ and $`j=1,\mathrm{},p`$. Notice that the resolvent has no discontinuities at $`x\pm i(p+1)/2`$. In the above, $`Y(\lambda )`$ is the polynomial which is determined by the potential $`V(\lambda )`$ via

$$\frac{V^{}(\lambda )}{S}=2Y(\lambda )Y(\lambda +i)Y(\lambda i).$$
(16)
As in the one-cut solution, it useful to define the function

$$G(z)=U(z)+iS\left(\omega (z+\frac{i}{2})\omega (z\frac{i}{2})\right)$$
(17)
where $`U(z)`$ is a polynomial in $`z`$ such that

$$iV^{}(z)=U(z+\frac{i}{2})U(z\frac{i}{2}).$$
(18)
Given the ansatz (13), the analytic structure of $`G(z)`$ is much simpler than that of the resolvent itself. The cuts of $`\omega (z)`$ are shifted up and down by $`\pm \frac{i}{2}`$ and because of (14) most cancel pairwise. There are only two remaining cuts—the ones on the outside of the stack—given by $`\frac{i}{2}p+x`$ and $`\frac{i}{2}p+x`$, respectively, for $`\alpha x\alpha `$. Furthermore, putting (15) and (14) together, we end up with a rather simple and suggestive constraint on $`G(z)`$:

$$G(x+\frac{i}{2}p\pm iϵ)=G(x\frac{i}{2}piϵ);\alpha x\alpha .$$
(19)
Now we see that having made the ansatz we now have what is closely related to the one-cut solution, $`p=1`$, of . In terms of the function $`G(z)`$, the only difference is that the two cuts of $`G(z)`$ are shifted from $`\pm i/2`$ to $`\pm ip/2`$. Furthermore, just as in the $`p=1`$ case, the equation (19) has the effect of gluing the top (bottom) of the upper cut to the bottom (top) of the lower cut making what is effectively a torus. This is very important, since on general grounds we expect each of the massive vacua to be associated to a particular torus with its own complex structure .

Fortunately, we can now almost lift the analysis of the one-cut solution, with only slight modifications to account for the new positions of the cuts, and we refer to  for more details and conventions. Firstly, we can uniformize the torus in the $`u`$-plane by means of the mapping

$$z(u)=\frac{p\omega _1}{\pi }\left[\zeta (u)\frac{\zeta (\omega _1)}{\omega _1}u\right]\frac{p}{2}\frac{\theta _1^{}(\frac{\pi u}{2\omega _1}|\stackrel{~}{\tau })}{\theta _1(\frac{\pi u}{2\omega _1}|\stackrel{~}{\tau })}.$$
(20)
The torus is defined by the quotient of the complex $`u`$-plane by the lattice generated by the two complex numbers $`2\omega _1`$ and $`2\omega _2`$. The complex structure of the torus $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }=\omega _2/\omega _1`$ is a parameter. In effect we shall see that we have changed variables from $`\alpha `$—and hence from $`S`$—to the new variable $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }`$. Notice in (20), the multiplicative factor of $`p`$ which ensures that the cuts occur in the requisite positions. Tightly encircling around the upper (lower) cut anti-clockwise in the $`z`$-plane corresponds to $`\omega _2+2x\omega _1`$ (or $`\omega _2+2(1x)\omega _1`$) for $`0x1`$ on the $`u`$-plane. The former, or minus the latter, defines the $`A`$-cycle of the torus. In addition, the point at infinity in the $`z`$ plane corresponds to $`u=0`$.

At this point we find it convenient to choose the simplest $`𝒩=1^{}`$ deformation obtained by taking a potential $`V(\mathrm{\Phi })=\mathrm{\Phi }^2`$, although it should be said that more complicated potentials are just as tractable . In this case, Eq. (17) fixes the asymptotic form of $`G`$ to be

$$G(z)\stackrel{z\mathrm{}}{=}z^2+𝒪(1/z^2).$$
(21)
Given the fact that $`G`$ must be single valued on the torus—an elliptic function—this fixes its form uniquely. Eq. (21) implies that in the $`u`$ plane $`G(z(u))`$ must have a double pole at $`u=0`$ with a set coefficient. Given that (20) implies

$$u=\frac{p\omega _1}{\pi }\frac{1}{z}+\frac{p^3\omega _1^2\zeta (\omega _1)}{\pi ^3}\frac{1}{z^3}+\mathrm{},$$
(22)
means that

$$G(z(u))=\frac{p^2\omega _1^2}{\pi ^2}\left[\mathrm{}(u)\frac{2\zeta (\omega _1)}{\omega _1}\right].$$
(23)
Once again take note of the factor of $`p^2`$ which will prove important.

We are now ready to implement the Dijkgraaf-Vafa prescription. First of all, recall that the filling fractions for each of the $`p`$ original cuts are given as in Eq.(10). For our ansatz (13) each of the filling fractions are equal and following the analysis in  we can express them as an integral of $`G(z(u))`$ around the $`A`$-cycle of the torus:

$$2\pi iS_j=i_AG(z(u))\frac{dz(u)}{du}𝑑u=\frac{p^3}{12}\frac{dE_2(\stackrel{~}{\tau })}{d\stackrel{~}{\tau }},S_jg_sN_j.$$
(24)
The factor of $`p^3`$ arising from the $`p^2`$ and $`p`$ factors of $`G(z)`$ and $`z(u)`$, respectively, will turn out to be crucial. In the above $`E_2`$ is the $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$ Eisenstein series (see  for definitions).

The other important ingredient in the Dijkgraaf-Vafa proposal is the quantity $`_0/S_j`$ being the variation in the genus zero free energy of the matrix model upon transporting an eigenvalue in from infinity to the $`j^{\mathrm{th}}`$ cut to infinity. In the present context where we will take all the filling fractions to be the same, we only need an expression for the sum $`_{j=1}^p_0/S_j`$. This quantity is then simply related to an integral of the same form as (24), but now over the $`B`$ cycle of the torus $`\omega _1+(2x1)\omega _2`$, $`0x1`$. The integral is easily evaluated following

$$\underset{j=1}{\overset{p}{}}\frac{_0}{S_j}=i_BG(z(u))\frac{dz(u)}{du}𝑑u=p^3\left(\frac{\stackrel{~}{\tau }}{12}\frac{dE_2(\stackrel{~}{\tau })}{d\stackrel{~}{\tau }}\frac{1}{12}E_2(\stackrel{~}{\tau })\right).$$
(25)
Again the factors of $`p`$ are crucial: $`G(z)`$ and $`z(u)`$ give $`p^2`$ and $`p`$ respectively.

The effective superpotential is obtained by extremizing the following expression with respect to $`S_j`$:

$$W_{\mathrm{eff}}=\underset{j=1}{\overset{p}{}}\left(N_j\frac{_0}{S_j}2\pi i\tau S_j\right).$$
(26)
In this expression $`N_j`$ are the number of eigenvalues of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ which are classically equal to $`\lambda _j^{\mathrm{cl}}`$. It is important to realize that these are not directly related to the $`N_j`$ in the matrix model (although we use the same notation). The latter are related to the filling fractions $`S_j/S`$ via $`N_j=S_j/g_s`$. In order to describe the massive vacua we now take the physical $`N_j=N/p`$. Since $`N_j`$ is an integer, $`p`$ must be a divisor of $`N`$. In this case, after having made the ansatz (13), which solves the saddle-point equations, each of $`S_j`$ depends upon only one parameter, namely $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }`$, the complex structure of the auxiliary torus in the $`u`$-plane. Hence, in implementing the Dijkgraaf-Vafa prescription for the massive vacua, we only have to extremize the superpotential with respect to $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }`$. Substituting our expressions (24) and (25), we have

$$W_{\mathrm{eff}}=Np^2\left(\frac{_0}{S}\right)_{p=1}2\pi i\tau p^4S_{p=1}.$$
(27)
where we have written the result in terms terms of the ($`p=1`$) one-cut solution quantities in order to highlight the $`p`$ dependence:

$$2\pi iS_{p=1}=\frac{1}{12}\frac{dE_2(\stackrel{~}{\tau })}{d\stackrel{~}{\tau }},\left(\frac{_0}{S}\right)_{p=1}=\frac{\stackrel{~}{\tau }}{12}\frac{dE_2(\stackrel{~}{\tau })}{d\stackrel{~}{\tau }}\frac{1}{12}E_2(\stackrel{~}{\tau }).$$
(28)
It is easy to see that

$$\frac{W_{\mathrm{eff}}}{\stackrel{~}{\tau }}=0\stackrel{~}{\tau }=\frac{p^2\tau }{N}.$$
(29)
and substituting back we have

$$W_{\mathrm{eff}}=\frac{Np^2}{12}E_2(p^2\tau /N).$$
(30)
where as stated above $`p`$ has to be a divisor of $`N`$. Upon restoring the mass scales in the problem this result agrees precisely, up to a vacuum-independent additive constant, with the expressions of . Note that $`\text{SL}(2,)`$ modular transformations of $`\tau `$ relate the superpotentials in different massive vacua with the understanding that $`W_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ has modular weight 2 and that one must account for the anomalous modular transformation of $`E_2`$ by adding the vacuum independent constant $`N^2E_2(\tau )/12`$.111The freedom to add such a constant is an example of the more general effect of operator mixing (in this case $`\mathrm{\Phi }^2`$ with the identity) . This is remarkable in that $`S`$-duality of the underlying $`𝒩=4`$ theory was not assumed to begin with, but rather emerges from the solution of the matrix model.

We want to emphasize that our method also covers the Higgs vacuum (and other vacua where $`p`$ scales with $`N`$) which at first sight is puzzling because in the field theory all the eigenvalues are—classically at least—non-degenerate. How can they form continua on $`N`$ separate cuts in the matrix model when there are only $`N`$ eigenvalues? The resolution of this puzzle is the realization that the $`N_j`$ in the field theory are not equated to the $`N_j=S_j/g_s`$ in the matrix model. The latter can be large while the former can be set to one in (26).

Notice that our result (30) only describes one of the $`N/p`$ massive vacua associated in the original analysis to the $`p`$-dimensional representation of $`\text{SU}(2)`$. The other $`N/p1`$ such vacua are obtained by repeatedly performing the modular transformation $`\tau \tau +1`$ a sufficient number of times to give (1).

Our multi-cut technology can also be employed in the $`𝒩=1^{}`$ deformation of the Leigh-Strassler theory for which the confining vacuum result was quoted in . The result in the $`p^{\mathrm{th}}`$ massive vacuum is

$$W_{\mathrm{eff}}=\frac{N}{p}\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\beta /2)}{4\mathrm{sin}^3(\beta /2)}\frac{\theta _1(\beta p/2|p^2\tau /N)}{\theta _1^{}(\beta p/2|p^2\tau /N)}+\frac{N}{4\mathrm{sin}^2(\beta /2)}.$$
(31)
Acknowledgments S.P.K. would like to acknowledge support from a PPARC Advanced Fellowship.