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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The chiral sector of $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetric gauge theories has been studied for a long time (for a review see e.g. ). Recently Dijkgraaf and Vafa conjectured a new method  to obtain the exact effective glueball superpotential using a matrix model technique. This conjecture was proved via integrating out all the colored freedom perturbatively in the presence of the gaugino condensation  , or via using the (generalized) Konishi anomaly relations  . The net result is, one can obtain (in the massive case) schematically

$$W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })=\text{Veneziano-Yankielowicz term}+W_{pert}(S,g),$$
(1.1)
where the Veneziano- Yankielowicz term is given as

$$\text{Veneziano-Yankielowicz term}=C(S,\mathrm{\Lambda })=N_cS\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right).$$
(1.2)
This term can be interpreted as a measure factor of the matrix model calculation  .

In general, one can solve the (generalized) Konishi anomaly equations to determine $`W_{eff}`$ up to an “integration constant factor” $`C(S,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, which does not depend on other coupling constants:

$$W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })=C(S,\mathrm{\Lambda })+W_{pert}(g,S).$$
(1.3)
$`W_{pert}`$ can be obtained by the perturbative calculation (in special cases this reduces to the corresponding matrix model perturbative calculation), or by integrating the Konishi anomaly relations.

The problem is: how can we determine $`C(S,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ then? It is independent of coupling constants so that we are able to take any convenient limit for its evaluation. For example, take the limit that all coupling constants except mass terms go to 0. In this limit, we should have precisely the Veneziano-Yankielowicz term, because at the low energy, the theory becomes the pure gluodynamics and the physics of the pure gluodynamics is captured by the Veneziano-Yankielowicz effective superpotential . In principle, this completely determines the effective glueball superpotential (as long as one can introduce mass terms). In practice, however, the above-mentioned procedure is cumbersome when one is interested in the massless limit as we will see shortly.

Think about the following example ($`SU(N_c)`$ SQCD with 1 flavor). We take the tree level superpotential as

$$W_{eff}=mM+\lambda M^2,$$
(1.4)
where $`M=Q\stackrel{~}{Q}`$. If we calculate $`W_{eff}(S,m,\lambda ,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ perturbatively around the $`M=0`$ vacuum, we will get

$$W_{eff}=C_1(S,\mathrm{\Lambda })+S\mathrm{log}\frac{m}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}+a_1\lambda \frac{S^2}{m^2}+a_2\lambda ^2\frac{S^3}{m^4}+\mathrm{}.$$
(1.5)
In this case, taking $`\lambda 0`$ limit allows us to determine $`C_1(S,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ as

$$C_1(S,\mathrm{\Lambda })=N_cS\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right),$$
(1.6)
which is just the original Veneziano-Yankielowicz term. However, suppose that we are interested in the massless limit. As is seen directly from the perturbation series (1.5), $`m0`$ limit is obtainable only after summing all the series above.

Actually, in this case, one can sum up all the diagrams (or series) and the limit exist (Alternatively saying, one can integrate the Konishi anomaly relation exactly. See  for details.). However, if we are interested in only $`m=0`$ case, integrating the Konishi anomaly relation is no more difficult than $`m0,\lambda =0`$ case. The Konishi anomaly equation says222We use the same notation to the quantum mechanical gauge invariant operator and its vacuum expectation value, since they are almost the same thing in the sense of the chiral ring.,

$$S=2\lambda M^2,$$
(1.7)
which can be solved as

$$\frac{W_{eff}}{\lambda }=M^2=\frac{S}{2\lambda }.$$
(1.8)
We get right away

$$W_{eff}=\frac{S}{2}\mathrm{log}\lambda \mathrm{\Lambda }+C_2(S,\mathrm{\Lambda }),$$
(1.9)
where $`C_2(S,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ is an integration constant which is to be determined. As a matter of fact, this corresponds to (1.5) after taking $`m0`$ limit.

How can we determine $`C_2(S,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ ? One can show, taking massless limit of (1.5),

$$C_2(S,\mathrm{\Lambda })=\left(N_c\frac{1}{2}\right)S\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right).$$
(1.10)
Note that the coefficient of the Veneziano-Yankielowicz term is not $`N_c`$. This mismatch appears because of the limiting procedure. It would be nice to gain this result without introducing a mass term and consequently without doing this kind of cumbersome limiting procedure. We propose how to obtain correct $`C(S)`$ efficiently in this paper.

Another example is a chiral model. As is chiral, one can not introduce a mass term to $`W_{tree}`$ by definition. Therefore, at first sight, it seems very difficult to determine $`C(S)`$. The clever analysis of  tells us that one can use the Higgs mechanism instead, in order to effectively introduce mass terms and to match the result with the pure glue theory (whose color degrees of freedom are reduced by the Higgs mechanism.).

The natural question is whether this is applicable to any chiral theories. For this procedure to work, we should have pure glue theories after making all colored matters massive via the Higgs mechanism. It fails sometimes, however. For example, the Higgs mechanism may break the gauge group completely or down to $`U(1)`$. In this case, matching seems impossible. In particular, in $`SU(2)`$ theory, this is inevitable. Generally speaking, with more matters, more difficult it becomes to Higgs properly. There is also a technical problem. Even if we could Higgs chiral matters properly, we have to take an un-Higgsed limit if we are interested in un-Higgsed vacua. This requires just the same limiting procedure as was discussed above in the massive case. We have to sum up all the perturbation series to make any un-Higgsed limit sensible. Clearly, it will be a great advantage if one can tell the integration constant $`C(S)`$ without resorting to the Higgs mechanism. Our proposal applies to chiral theories just the same as to non-chiral theories.

The proposal is roughly as follows. We expand the effective superpotential:

$$W_{eff}=CS\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right)+a_1S+a_2S^2+\mathrm{}.$$
(1.11)
We also expand $`W_{tree}`$ in $`S`$:

$$W_{tree}=b_1S+b_2S^2+\mathrm{}.$$
(1.12)
Then we propose that we can determine $`C`$ via the following relation:

$$Cb_1=N_cn_i,$$
(1.13)
where $`n_i`$ is the Dynkin index of the $`i`$th matter chiral superfield. Let us check quickly how we can obtain $`C(S)`$ via this formula, in the example considered above (1.4) with $`m=0`$. In this case, $`b_1=\frac{1}{2}`$ and $`n_i=1`$, which means, according to our proposal (1.13), $`C=N_c\frac{1}{2}`$. This coincides with the direct limiting calculation (1.10).

So far, we have assumed the existence of the Dijkgraag-Vafa type effective glueball superpotential $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. However, applying the above proposed formula, we can see that the existence of $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ fails in some theories. In these theories, there exist some vacua which one can not obtain by extremizing $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ by $`S`$. We will show some examples and analyze the general structure in this paper.

The organization of this paper is as follows. In section 2, we propose the efficient method to obtain the integration constant of the Konishi anomaly relations $`C(S)`$ and give its derivation based on the ILS (Intriligator-Leigh-Seiberg) linearity principle. We apply this method to the models which were studied in the literature and show its efficiency and correctness by comparing our results with their previous results. In section 3, applying our proposal to more exotic models, we study the case in which we do not have $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. We find various examples including chiral theories and non-chiral theories. We see that there are some connections between the nonexistence of $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ and the effective gauge degrees of freedom which are closely related with $`C(S)`$. In section 4, we summarize our results and discuss the possible further applications.

## 2 Effective gauge degrees of freedom

Our proposal is as follows. Consider $`SU(N_c)`$ gauge theory with any tree level superpotential which has discreet vacua classically. Use the Konishi anomaly relation  or the generalized version of it  to determine the effective glueball superpotential up to a coupling independent “integration constant” $`C(S)`$ as is discussed in section 1. Here by the Konishi anomaly relation, we mean

$$\frac{W_{tree}}{\varphi _i}\varphi _j=2n(\varphi _i)S\delta _{ij},$$
(2.1)
where $`\varphi `$ is any matter chiral superfield and $`n(\varphi )`$ is its Dynkin index333We take the normalization of the index as follows; for the fundamental representation $`n_{fund}=1/2`$, for the adjoint representation $`n_{adj}=N_c`$ and so on.. $`S`$ is the so called glueball superfield444If we have an adjoint matter, we need to define the glueball superfields $`S_i`$ which represent the classically unbroken subgroups of the original gauge group. Though the calculation below readily applies to this case, we concentrate on the simple case for simplicity.

$$S=\frac{1}{32\pi ^2}\mathrm{Tr}W^2.$$
(2.2)
We expand the effective glueball superpotential and the tree level superpotential (after substituting the Konishi anomaly relations) such that

$$W_{eff}=CS\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right)+a_1S+a_2S^2+\mathrm{}$$
(2.3)
$$W_{tree}=b_1S+b_2S^2+\mathrm{}$$
(2.4)
where we assumed that there are no singular terms other than Veneziano-Yankielowicz like one. Then we propose the following relation:

$$Cb_1=N_cn_i$$
(2.5)
should be hold. Here $`n_i`$ is the Dynkin index of the $`i`$th matter chiral superfield.

This formula can be derived if one presupposes the ILS (Intriligator-Leigh-Seiberg) linearity principle  and R charge conservation. The basis of this formula is the relation ;

$$W_{n.p.}W_{eff}W_{tree}=(N_cn_i)S$$
(2.6)
which was originally derived via the (massive) Dijkgraaf-Vafa conjecture in order to prove the ILS linearity principle. We are primarily interested in the massless case here, so we can not prove this relation from the first principle (at least not yet). Rather, we assume the ILS linearity principle that naturally leads to this relation as we will see. Before using this relation, we would like to clarify its meaning here. If we assume the ILS linearity principle, that means $`W_{n.p.}`$ does not depend on any coupling constants (other than $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$).

$$W_{n.p.}=f(X)\mathrm{\Lambda }^n$$
(2.7)
where $`X`$ represent all gauge invariant fields. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the dynamically generated mass scale and precisely it is defined via;

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^b=e^{\frac{8\pi ^2}{g_0^2}}\mathrm{\Lambda }_0^b$$
(2.8)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_0`$ is the UV cutoff, $`g_0`$ is the bare gauge coupling and $`b`$ is the coefficient of the $`\beta `$ function, namely $`b=3N_cn_i`$. The ILS linearity principle states that the effective superpotential is the sum of the dynamically generated $`W_{n.p.}`$ and the tree level superpotential $`W_{tree}`$ itself;

$$W_{eff}=W_{n.p.}+W_{tree}.$$
(2.9)
From this one can calculate the gaugino condensation as follows (see e.g. )

$$S=\frac{W_{eff}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^b}\mathrm{\Lambda }^b=\frac{1}{N_cn_i}W_{n.p.}.$$
(2.10)
The second equality holds because anomaly free R charge conservation enforces the power of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^b`$ in the effective superpotential to be $`\frac{1}{N_c{\scriptscriptstyle n_i}}`$ uniquely. This is what the relation (2.6) tells about.

Going back to the expansion (2.3),(2.4), at the first order in $`S`$, the extremization condition is

$$\frac{W_{eff}}{S}=0C\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}+a_1=0.$$
(2.11)
Substituting back to the effective superpotential, we get

$$W_{eff}=CS+O(S^2).$$
(2.12)
Also at the first order in $`S`$, we take as the tree level superpotential

$$W_{tree}=b_1S+O(S^2).$$
(2.13)
Then we require (2.6) to be hold. It leads immediately to the relation

$$Cb_1=N_cn_i,$$
(2.14)
which is just what we have proposed. We call this factor $`C`$ “the effective gauge degrees of freedom” because of the reason we will see in the examples below.

Let us check the validity of this formula by applying to the models which were studied in . In the next section we will apply our method to more exotic models.

The first example is $`SU(N_c)`$ SQCD with one flavor555There are other approaches to the massless SQCD both in the context of the Matrix model and the Konishi anomaly relation. See e.g.     . See also                  .. The tree level superpotential is

$$W_{tree}=\lambda M^2+\alpha M^4.$$
(2.15)
In this model, we can integrate the Konishi anomaly equation exactly and we get

$$W_{eff}=C(S)\frac{\lambda ^2}{8\alpha }\frac{\lambda ^2}{8\alpha }\sqrt{1+\frac{4\alpha }{\lambda ^2}S}+\frac{1}{2}S\mathrm{log}\frac{\alpha }{\lambda }\frac{1}{2}S\mathrm{log}\left(\sqrt{1+\frac{4\alpha }{\lambda ^2}S}1\right).$$
(2.16)
Classically the upper sign corresponds to the Higgsed branch and the lower sign to the un-Higgsed one. Although this tree level superpotential does not have a mass term, we can unambiguously determine $`C(S)`$ in the Higgsed branch. As is discussed in ,

$$C(S)=(N_c1)S\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right).$$
(2.17)
Intuitively we can interpret this that the gauge degrees of freedom which survive in the IR are reduced by 1 via the Higgs mechanism. What about the un-Higgsed branch? Let us see, using our method, we will reproduce the same answer also in this case.

First, we expand $`W_{eff}`$ in the series of $`S`$:

$$W_{eff}=CS\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right)\frac{1}{2}S\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right)+\frac{1}{2}S\mathrm{log}\lambda +O(S^2).$$
(2.18)
We also have in the linear order,

$$M^2=\frac{S}{2\lambda }+O(S^2).$$
(2.19)
Thus the tree level superpotential is

$$W_{tree}=\lambda M^2+\alpha M^4=\frac{S}{2}+O(S^2).$$
(2.20)
We apply our formula (2.5),

$$\left(C+\frac{1}{2}\right)\frac{1}{2}=N_c1.$$
(2.21)
Then we acquire the same conclusion $`C=N_c1`$, which is of course the correct result. Note that in the un-Higgsed branch, effective gauge degrees of freedom is $`N_c\frac{1}{2}`$ as was calculated in section 1 in the $`\alpha =0`$ case (remember there is an extra factor $`\frac{1}{2}`$ from $`\left[\frac{1}{2}S\mathrm{log}\left(\sqrt{1+\frac{4\alpha }{\lambda ^2}S}1\right)\right]`$ in the un-Higgsed case).

The next example is a chiral $`SU(6)`$ model with 2 antifundamentals $`\overline{Q}^I`$ and 1 antisymmetric tensor $`X`$     . The gauge invariant operators we will use are

$$T=ϵ_{IJ}\overline{Q}^I\overline{Q}^JX$$
(2.22)
and

$$U=\mathrm{Pf}X.$$
(2.23)
where $`I,J=1,2`$ are the flavor indices and gauge indices are contracted in the obvious way. We consider the tree level superpotential

$$W_{tree}=hT+gU.$$
(2.24)
In , introducing the auxiliary (unrenormalizable) interaction $`\lambda TU`$ and using the Higgs mechanism, they obtained as the effective glueball superpotential (in the $`\lambda 0`$ limit),

$$W_{eff}=5S\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right)+S\mathrm{log}gh.$$
(2.25)
We reproduce this result without resorting to the Higgs mechanism (namely without introducing the auxiliary unrenormalizable interaction).

The Konishi anomaly relation states,

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}S=hT\hfill & \\ \mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}4}S=hT+3gU\hfill & \end{array}$$
(2.26)
where we used the fact that the Dynkin index of an $`SU(N)`$ antisymmetric tensor is $`\frac{N2}{2}`$. We can solve these equations immediately,

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}T=\frac{S}{h}\hfill & \\ U=\frac{S}{g}.\hfill & \end{array}$$
(2.27)
Integrating this results,

$$W_{eff}=S\mathrm{log}gh+C(S).$$
(2.28)
It is also easy to see,

$$W_{tree}=2S.$$
(2.29)
Applying our proposal,

$`C2`$ $`=`$ $`6\left(2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{2}}\right)`$ (2.30)
$`C`$ $`=`$ $`5.`$ (2.31)
This is the desired result. Thus we can avoid the cumbersome limiting procedure and obtain the effective glueball superpotential directly.

## 3 Nonexistence of $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$

We would like to apply our proposal and discuss the (non)existence of the effective glueball superpotential $`W_{eff}(S,g,\lambda )`$ in this section. To motivate, let us consider SQCD with $`N_f`$ flavors. We take as the tree level superpotential

$$W_{tree}=g_k\mathrm{Tr}M^k,$$
(3.1)
where $`M_{ij}=Q_i\stackrel{~}{Q}_j`$ is a meson superfield. We integrate the Konishi anomaly equation and obtain the effective glueball superpotential:

$$W_{eff}=CS\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right)+\frac{N_f}{k}S\mathrm{log}g_k\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2k3}.$$
(3.2)
We can determine $`C`$ just as was discussed in section 2.

$$C=N_cN_f+\frac{N_f}{k}.$$
(3.3)
$`C`$ is the effective gauge degrees of freedom of this theory. What happens if $`C=0`$ ? Take $`k=2`$ for example. To make $`C=0`$, we should take $`N_f=2N_c`$. This corresponds to the Seiberg self-dual point .

Since $`C=0`$ in this case, we may conclude that there is no Veneziano-Yankielowicz term:

$$W_{eff}=\frac{N_f}{2}S\mathrm{log}g_2\mathrm{\Lambda }.$$
(3.4)
If you demand the extremization of $`S`$:

$$\frac{W_{eff}}{S}=0,$$
(3.5)
then there is a contradiction unless

$$g_2=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}.$$
(3.6)
This might remind you of the case of the IYIT (Izawa-Yanagida, Intriligator-Thomas) model   which was also studied in this effective glueball superpotential approach in . In their analysis, they got the similar effective glueball superpotential which is just linear in $`S`$. Then they concluded that SUSY is dynamically broken in the IYIT model (except at some fine-tuned couplings).

Does our Seiberg self-dual theory considered above break SUSY dynamically? We can argue against this scenario in two ways.

First, it is believed (without the tree level superpotential) that the Seiberg dual point is in the conformal non-Abelian Coulomb phase. At the same time, anomaly free R charge of the operator $`\mathrm{Tr}M^2`$ is 2. That means this tree level superpotential is a marginal perturbation. So we expect, after adding the tree level superpotential $`g_2\mathrm{Tr}M^2`$, there still remains a conformal vacuum: $`S=\mathrm{Tr}M^2=0`$.

Another argument is as follows. Add $`m\mathrm{Tr}M`$ to the tree level superpotential, and one can show that there is a vacuum such that

$$S=O(m^2\mathrm{\Lambda }),$$
(3.7)
which we hope becomes a conformal vacuum in the massless limit. However, we can not obtain this vacuum by extremizing an effective glueball superpotential $`W_{eff}(S,g_2,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, even if we choose any $`C(S)`$ as an integration constant. If we begin with

$$W_{eff}=\frac{N_f}{2}S\mathrm{log}g_2\mathrm{\Lambda }+C(S),$$
(3.8)
for $`S=0`$ to be the solution of the extremization equation,

$$\frac{N_f}{2}\mathrm{log}g_2\mathrm{\Lambda }=C^{}(0)$$
(3.9)
should be hold, whatever the value of $`g_2`$ is. However, since the right hand side does not depend on $`g_2`$, this is impossible.

Now, we will apply our method to more exotic models. The next example is $`SU(7)`$ with 6 antifundamentals $`\overline{Q}_i`$ and 2 antisymmetric tensors $`A^I`$. This model exhibits a dynamical SUSY breaking, if one adds an appropriate tree level superpotential . The relevant gauge invariant composite operators are

$$H_1=A^1\overline{Q}_1\overline{Q}_2,H_2=A^2\overline{Q}_2\overline{Q}_3,$$
(3.10)
$$H_3=A^1\overline{Q}_3\overline{Q}_4,H_4=A^2\overline{Q}_4\overline{Q}_5,$$
(3.11)
$$H_5=A^1\overline{Q}_5\overline{Q}_6,H_6=A^2\overline{Q}_6\overline{Q}_1,$$
(3.12)
and

$$N_i=A^1A^1A^2A^2\overline{Q}_i(i=1,2,\mathrm{},6).$$
(3.13)
We first consider the case in which the tree level superpotential is

$$W_{tree}=f_1H_1+\mathrm{}+f_6H_6+g_1N_1+\mathrm{}+g_6N_6.$$
(3.14)
Although we are ultimately interested in $`g_i=0`$ case, we have to include these (unrenormalizable) terms to solve the Konishi anomaly equations as we will see shortly.

The Konishi anomaly equations are

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}5}S=f_1H_1+f_3H_3+f_5H_5+2_ig_iN_i\hfill & \\ \mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}5}S=f_2H_2+f_4H_4+f_6H_6+2_ig_iN_i\hfill & \\ S=f_iH_i+f_{i+1}H_{i+1}+g_iN_i(\text{For}i=1\mathrm{}6),\hfill & \end{array}$$
(3.15)
in the third equation, no summation is implied. These equations are solved as

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}N_i=\frac{S}{3g_i}\hfill & \\ H_i=\frac{S}{3f_i}.\hfill & \end{array}$$
(3.16)
Therefore, the effective glueball superpotential is

$$W_{eff}=C(S)+\frac{S}{3}\mathrm{log}(g_1\mathrm{}g_6\mathrm{\Lambda }^{12})+\frac{S}{3}\mathrm{log}(f_1\mathrm{}f_6)$$
(3.17)
It is easy to see $`W_{tree}=4S`$ and $`n_i=2\frac{5}{2}+6\frac{1}{2}=8`$, so that the effective gauge degrees of freedom $`C`$ is 3.

$$C(S)=3S\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right).$$
(3.18)
Extremizing the effective glueball superpotential determines the VEV of $`N_i`$s and $`H_i`$s

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}N\frac{f^{2/3}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{13/3}}{g^{1/3}}\hfill & \\ H\frac{g^{2/3}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{13/3}}{f^{1/3}},\hfill & \end{array}$$
(3.19)
where we have given all $`f_i`$s and $`g_i`$s the same value $`f`$ and $`g`$. From this result, we can conclude that, when $`g0`$, the vacuum runs away and there remains no stable vacuum. This is compatible with the result discussed in the literature . This model ($`g=0`$) breaks SUSY dynamically.

Let us see whether we can obtain this conclusion, setting $`g=0`$ from the first. Setting $`g=0`$ in (3.15), we immediately recognize that the Konishi anomaly equations allow an only solution $`S=H_i=0`$. This means that it is impossible to have an off-shell effective glueball superpotential $`W_{eff}(S,f,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. Also one can see the same difficulty, when one takes $`g0`$ limit in (3.17). This tells you that if there were supersymmetric vacuum, this should be $`S=H_i=0`$. How can we tell whether there is such a vacuum or not? The nonexistence of $`W_{eff}(S,f,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ in the $`g0`$ limit seems to suggest that there is not such a vacuum. However, this is not at all conclusive! In the following, we show a counterexample in which there is such a vacuum but there does not exist $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ in the limit.

Consider the same model but with the tree level superpotential

$$W_{tree}=h_1(H_1)^2+\mathrm{}+h_6(H_6)^2+g_1N_1+\mathrm{}g_6N_6.$$
(3.20)
The calculation is almost the same with the above one. The Konishi anomaly equations are

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}5}S=2h_1(H_1)^2+2h_3(H_3)^2+2h_5(H_5)^2+2_ig_iN_i\hfill & \\ \mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}5}S=2h_2(H_2)^2+2h_4(H_4)^2+2h_6(H_6)^2+2_ig_iN_i\hfill & \\ S=2h_i(H_i)^2+2h_{i+1}(H_{i+1})^2+g_iN_i(\text{For}i=1\mathrm{}6).\hfill & \end{array}$$
(3.21)
These equations are solved as

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}N_i=\frac{S}{3g_i}\hfill & \\ (H_i)^2=\frac{S}{6h_i}.\hfill & \end{array}$$
(3.22)
Therefore, the effective glueball superpotential is

$$W_{eff}=C(S)+\frac{S}{3}\mathrm{log}(g_1\mathrm{}g_6\mathrm{\Lambda }^{12})+\frac{S}{6}\mathrm{log}(h_1\mathrm{}h_6\mathrm{\Lambda }^{18})$$
(3.23)
We can show that the effective gauge degrees of freedom $`C=2`$ in this case. After extremizing the effective glueball superpotential, we obtain

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}Nh^{1/2}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{13/2}\hfill & \\ H\frac{g\mathrm{\Lambda }^{13/2}}{h^{1/2}}.\hfill & \end{array}$$
(3.24)
This shows that there exists a vacuum in the limit $`g0`$. There, one can see $`S=0`$. However, if we take $`g0`$ in (3.21) or in (3.23), we may misleadingly conclude that there does not exist $`W_{eff}(S,h,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, so dynamical SUSY breaking occurs.

The last example we would like to discuss is the ISS (Intriligator-Seiberg-Shenker) model . This model is a $`SU(2)`$ gauge theory with one spin $`\frac{3}{2}`$ representation which we call $`\psi `$. The tree level superpotential we consider666Note, one can not make any gauge invariant bilinear in this model. That means this is a chiral theory. is

$$W_{tree}=\lambda u,$$
(3.25)
where $`u=\psi ^4`$. The Konishi anomaly equation becomes

$$10S=4\lambda u.$$
(3.26)
Solving this and substituting back into the tree level potential gives

$$W_{tree}=\frac{5}{2}S.$$
(3.27)
We consider the effective glueball superpotential;

$$W_{eff}=CS\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right)+\frac{5}{2}S\mathrm{log}\lambda \mathrm{\Lambda }$$
(3.28)
In this case, our formula (2.5) determines $`C`$ as

$$C\frac{5}{2}=25$$

$$C=\frac{1}{2}.$$
(3.29)
Thus as long as we believe our procedure is correct, the final effective glueball superpotential is

$$W_{eff}=\frac{1}{2}S\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{S}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}1\right)+\frac{5}{2}S\mathrm{log}\lambda \mathrm{\Lambda }.$$
(3.30)
By extremizing $`W_{eff}`$ by $`S`$, we obtain

$$S=\frac{1}{\lambda ^5\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}$$
(3.31)
$$u=\frac{5}{2\lambda ^6\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}.$$
(3.32)
Is this result correct? This vacuum implies that there is a dynamically generated nonperturbative superpotential

$$W_{n.p.}=a\frac{u^{\frac{5}{6}}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\frac{1}{3}}}.$$
(3.33)
Nevertheless, this superpotential was discarded in the literature , because it has no sensible behavior in the classical limit.

Since we have obtained an unwanted vacuum, we can not say anything about whether this model breaks SUSY dynamically or not. Actually the very problem discussed in the literature  is whether this theory has an $`S=u=0`$ vacuum. We are forced to feel that something is wrong with our approach. One of the manifestation of this peculiarity is that, in this model, the effective gauge degrees of freedom $`C`$ becomes negative, which seems to be hard to interpret.

Let us review our logic carefully. We assumed the existence of $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. Under the assumption of its existence (and the ILS linearity principle), we can use our method to determine it. Thus, if there is not such a thing (because of the dynamical SUSY breakdown or some other reasons), we can not obtain anything (or might obtain, in principle, anything that are wrong as the effective glueball superpotential). Also, as is discussed in the chiral $`SU(7)`$ case, the nonexistence of $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ does not necessarily imply the dynamical SUSY breakdown. This is the way things are. We should invent another method to see whether the ISS model breaks SUSY dynamically777The direct way to see the possibility of the $`S=0`$ vacuum is to study the Kahler potential of the theory. However, this is beyond our current ability..

Before concluding this section, we would like to discuss the nature of the missing vacua and the effective gauge degrees of freedom. In all the examples considered above, missing vacua correspond to $`S=0`$ conformal phase888This reminds us of the Kovner-Shifman vacuum .. The reason seems clear intuitively, because in the conformal phase, there is no gaugino condensation and the vacuum structure is completely different from that of the confining or Higgsed vacua999Note that the confining vacua and the Higgsed vacua are on the other side of the same coin, see  for example., and it is natural to expect that the method suitable for finding the confinement vacua fails in this case. Then, there seems to be a natural connection between the effective gauge degrees of freedom $`C`$ and the existence of the missing vacua, although this is not always the case. Roughly speaking, when $`C0`$, remaining gauge degrees of freedom do not confine and the conformal phase can be possible. We conjecture this is one of the mechanisms which forbid us to obtain the effective glueball superpotential $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$101010Another possibility is that we do have the right superpotential, but the Kahler potential of $`S`$ becomes singular at $`S=0`$. This is plausible, since we expect nontrivially interacting gluinos and gluons there. In this case, the actual effective potential of $`S`$ is $`V_{eff}(S,\overline{S})=g^{S\overline{S}}\left|\frac{W_{eff}}{S}\right|`$, so that it can become 0, provided $`g^{S\overline{S}}(S,\overline{S})=0`$..

## 4 Summary and Discussion

We have shown in the above sections, under the assumption $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ exits, how to efficiently obtain the Veneziano-Yankielowicz type part in the effective glueball superpotential $`C(S,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, which is coupling independent. We used the ILS linearity principle as a guide. Therefore, if one could prove our proposal directly (for example, by the careful study of the matrix model measure and the suitable massless limiting procedure), it would mean the proof of the ILS linearity principle with any tree level superpotential without mass terms. It is a challenging problem.

As for the existence of the Dijkgraaf-Vafa type effective superpotential $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, we have given some examples in which we do not have such an effective glueball superpotential or even though it has one, this effective glueball superpotential lacks some pieces of information about possible vacua. Of course, if one introduces a mass term, this possibility is ruled out. Conceptually it is clear: when the fields are all massive, integrating out all the colored matter makes sense and the well-defined glueball superpotential will exist. Therefore, for a non-chiral theory, the solution of this problem is clear in principle. We should consider the most general tree level superpotential including mass terms and take the desired limit carefully, though this is just what we have wanted to avoid in this paper111111In this perspective, the nonexistence of $`W(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ is formally clear. Once one allows all the couplings, one expects the effective superpotential depends on them “holomorphically” (including logarithmic or cut singularities). Since everywhere nonsingular holomorphic function must be a constant, the effective superpotential should have some singularities in this enlarged space of coupling constants. This is just the reason why we can not obtain the effective glueball superpotential at some special couplings. However, when and where this happens or the nature of its singularity (conformal vacua, dynamical SUSY breakdown $`\mathrm{}`$) are interesting questions to ask. Remember, as we saw in the introduction, in SQCD with one flavor, the finite order perturbative calculation suggests a singularity when we take $`m0`$. Actually, $`m0`$ is not singular at all. In contrast, when $`N_f=2N_c`$, there is a true singularity there.. For a chiral theory, the Higgs mechanism may work sometimes, but the general solution seems to be lacking. We also conjecture that these missing vacua always do not have the gaugino condensation i.e. $`S=0`$. This can also be seen in the Feynman diagrammatic approach of , where $`S0`$ means an effective (fermionic) mass of the propagator, which can become singular in the “massless” limit $`S0`$.

We conclude this paper by suggesting further applications of our proposal.

* Obviously we can apply our method to the study of the higher critical tree level superpotential. For example, in  new $`𝒩=1`$ AD points, whose tree level superpotential requires a higher critical interaction, were discovered121212Unfortunately, it can be shown in this case that the direct use of our method fails to capture the $`𝒩=1`$ AD vacuum (though it should be there, if one includes all the possible tree level couplings and takes the limiting procedure properly). This might be another example in which $`W_{eff}(S,g,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ does not exist..
* Another arena we can apply our method is chiral models. In this paper, we have limited ourselves to the simpler models, where the Konishi anomaly relations are easily solved and we do not need to use the generalized version. Since our method does not depend on how the coupling dependent part is solved, it would be nice to apply it to more complex models in which more interesting physics might be found.
* We can use our formula that determines the effective gauge degrees of freedom in order to search interesting theories. We conjecture that, when the effective gauge degrees of freedom becomes zero or negative, something peculiar may happen. One possibility is the dynamical SUSY breakdown and another one is the nonexistence of the effective glueball superpotential and the consequent emergence of the (possibly conformal) vacuum in which the gaugino condensation is 0. We might encounter other various scenarios that we have not expected.

## Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank T. Eguchi, R. Nobuyama and Y. Tachikawa for very useful discussions.


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# Anisotropic magnetoresistive and magnetic properties of La0.5Sr0.5CoO3-δ film

## I Introduction

Mixed-valence lanthanum cobaltites of the type La1-xSrxCoO3 have attracted much attention in recent years due to their unique magnetic and transport properties itoh ; gooden . Study of this system is also important for understanding the nature of colossal magnetoresistance in the related oxides, mixed-valence manganites coey ; dagotto . For technical application, the epitaxial films of these compounds are mainly implied to be used. In that case the shape anisotropy (due to the demagnetization effect) and the film-substrate lattice interaction can induce magnetization anisotropy and, therefore, magnetoresistance (MR) anisotropy (bulk samples of these compounds show no marked magnetic or MR anisotropy). This point was studied rather intensively in manganite films (see belev1  and references therein). Studies of this type can hardly be found in literature for cobaltites. In addition, the properties of mixed-valence cobaltites are influenced by their unavoidable magnetic inhomogeneity, which is caused by different extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. The extrinsic ones are determined by various technological factors in the sample preparation. They can cause inhomogeneity in chemical composition (for example in oxygen concentration) or in crystal structure (polycrystalline or granular samples). The intrinsic sources of inhomogeneity are believed to arise for thermodynamical reasons and can lead to phase separation into two phases with different concentration of the charge carriers and, therefore, to significant magnetic inhomogeneity itoh ; gooden ; belev2 . In this article we present a study of La0.5Sr0.5CoO3-δ film which demonstrates a combined influence of the magnetic anisotropy and inhomogeneity on its transport, magnetoresistive and magnetic properties. Indications of the temperature-driven spin reorientation transition from an out-of plane orderded state at low temperatures to an in-plane ordered state at high temperatures as a result of competition between the mentioned anisotropy sources are found.

## II Experimental

The La0.5Sr0.5CoO3-δ film (about 220 nm thick) was grown by pulsed-laser deposition (PLD) on a (001) oriented LaAlO3 substrate. The ceramic target used was prepared by a standard solid-state reaction technique. A PLD system with an Nd-YAG laser operating at 1.06 $`\mu `$m was used to ablate the target. The pulse energy was about 0.39 J with a repetition rate of 12 Hz and pulse duration of 10 ns. The film was deposited with a substrate temperature of 880$`\pm 5^{}`$C in oxygen atmosphere at a pressure of about 8 Pa. The film was cooled down to room temperature after deposition at an oxygen pressure about $`10^5`$ Pa. The target and film were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) study.

The film resistance, as a function of temperature and magnetic field $`H`$ (up to 20 kOe), was measured using a standard four-point technique. The field was applied parallel or perpendicular to the film plane. In both cases it was perpendicular to the transport current. The magnetization, $`M`$, was measured in a Faraday-type magnetometer. A rotating electromagnet makes it possible to measure the magnetization with different directions of $`H`$ relative to the plane of the film.

## III Results and discussion

We have found a strong anisotropy in magnetic and magnetoresistive properties of the film studied. The anisotropy manifests itself as dramatic differences in those properties for magnetic fields applied parallel and perpendicular to the film plane. Consider at first the anisotropy of magnetic properties. Magnetization curves for the fields parallel ($`H_{}`$) and perpendicular ($`H_{}`$) to the film plane demonstrate a strong anisotropy (Fig. 1). At the maximum field applied (7 kOe), the magnetization seems to be rather close to saturation for the in-plane field orientation, but it is far from it for the out-of-plane one. It is reasonable to suppose that this is determined mainly by the shape anisotropy.

Temperature dependences of the film magnetization for the field directions parallel \[$`M_{}`$\] and perpendicular \[$`M_{}`$\] to the film plane are shown in Fig. 2. The Curie temperature, $`T_\mathrm{c}`$, is found to be about 250 K. The $`M_{}(T)`$ behaviour is quite common for ferromagnetic (FM) metals: it saturates with temperature decreasing. The behavior of $`M_{}(T)`$ is quite different from that of $`M_{}(T)`$. At fairly high field used, 2 kOe, the $`M_{}(T)`$ curve is found to be well below the $`M_{}(T)`$ curve. Besides, in low temperature range the $`M_{}(T)`$ curve is non-monotonic (Fig. 2).

Figure 2 presents actually the $`M(T)`$ behavior only for two values of the angle, $`\theta `$, between the field and the film plane: $`\theta =0^{}`$ and $`\theta =90^{}`$. It is helpful to consider the whole angle dependences of the magnetization which are presented in Fig. 3(a). Here, the curves $`M_{\mathrm{up}}(\theta )`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{down}}(\theta )`$ were recorded with step rotating of the field from 0 to 360 and back to 0, respectively. It can be seen that the magnetization takes maximum values at $`\theta `$ 0, 180 and 360, that is for the in-plane field orientations. The magnetization magnitude at $`\theta `$ 180 is less than these at $`\theta `$ 0 and 360. This is determined by the shape of a magnetization loop and thermomagnetic prehistory of the sample. The minimum magnetization values are found, as expected, at $`\theta `$ 90 and 270, that is for the out-of-plane field orientations.

It is seen a considerable hysteresis effect in the $`M(\theta )`$ curves \[Fig. 3(a)\]. To present the effect more clearly, an angular dependence of the difference between the $`M_{\mathrm{up}}(\theta )`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{down}}(\theta )`$ is shown in Fig. 3(b). The function $`d(\theta )=M_{\mathrm{up}}(\theta )M_{\mathrm{down}}(\theta )`$ can be taken as some measure of the angular hysteresis effect. It is seen that the $`d(\theta )`$ dependence is close to a periodic one with a period equal to $`180^{}`$. It takes zero value at the angles multiple of $`90^{}`$, corresponding to both the in-plane and out-of-plane directions of magnetic field \[Fig. 3(b)\]. The extreme values of $`d(\theta )`$ are situated at some intermediate angles, which are, however, more close to the out-of-plane directions than to the in-plane ones.

As indicated above, the magnetization anisotropy in the film studied should be determined mainly by the shape anisotropy. Closer inspection shows, however, that $`M_{}(T)`$ behavior cannot be attributed solely to the shape-anisotropy effect: $`M_{}(T)`$ and $`M_{}(T)`$ are practically equal in rather broad temperature range just below $`T_\mathrm{c}`$, then (going to lower temperature) the $`M_{}(T)`$ curve goes rather abruptly well below the $`M_{}(T)`$ curve and becomes non-monotonic with a pronounced increase in $`M_{}(T)`$ at low temperatures (Fig. 2). These $`M_{}(T)`$ features can be caused by the strain-induced magnetic anisotropy due to lattice mismatch between the film and the substrate. This guess is supported by our XRD study which has revealed that the film has an out-of-plane tensile strain. For materials with the positive magnetostriction this must favor an out-of-plane easy magnetization. An additional corroborations of this suggestion have been found in the MR properties of the film, described below.

Now turn to transport properties of the film. The temperature dependence of the resistivity, $`\rho (T)`$, is found to be non-monotonic (Fig. 4) with a maximum at $`T250`$ K and a minimum at $`T107`$ K. La0.5Sr0.5CoO3-δ samples with fairly perfect crystalline structure and $`\delta `$ close to zero are known to be metallic ($`\mathrm{d}\rho /\mathrm{d}T>0`$) in the whole range below and above $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ gooden . The $`\rho (T)`$ behavior in Fig. 4 reflects inhomogeneous structure of the film and some oxygen deficiency. Due to the last factor, the hole concentration is less then a nominal one (at $`\delta =0`$). This is responsible for a resistance peak at $`T=250`$ K which is common for low-doped La1-xSrxCoO3 with $`0.2x0.3`$ gooden . The low temperature resistance minimum is typical for systems of FM regions (grains or clusters) with rather weak interconnections. For example, it has been frequently seen in polycrystalline manganites mahen ; andres ; auslender . The inhomogeneous structure can be determined by technological factors of sample preparation (causing the polycrystalline structure with rather high tunneling barriers between the grains) or by the phase separation into the hole-rich and hole-poor phase itoh ; gooden . The conductivity of inhomogenenous systems of this type is determined by the intragrain conductivity and the tunneling of charge carriers through the boundaries between the grains. A competition between these two contributions can lead to a resistance minimum andres ; auslender . For an extended discussion of the most obvious reasons for the appearance of the resistance minimum in polycrystalline cobaltites see Ref. belev2 .

The MR in the film studied is found to be anisotropic. The absolute values of negative MR in fields parallel to the film plane are considerably above those in perpendicular fields (Fig. 5). The temperature behavior of the ratio between the in-plane and out-of-plane MRs is shown in Fig. 6. It is seen from Figs. 5 and 6 that this MR anisotropy takes place only in FM state and disappears for $`T>T_\mathrm{c}`$. Since the conductivity of mixed-valence cobaltites increases with enhancement of the magnetic (spin) order, this behavior just reflects the point that the magnetization increases more easily in a magnetic field parallel to the film plane, as it has been indeed found in this study (Figs. 1, 2 and 3).

In polycrystalline samples (beside an intrinsic MR, which depends on magnetic order inside the grains) a significant contribution to the MR comes from grain boundaries, and this contribution increases with decreasing temperature. Discussion of the possible mechanisms for this extrinsic type of MR can be found in Refs. gupta ; hwang ; evetts ; ziese . The film studied shows indeed a continuous increase in MR for decreasing temperature (for the temperatures well below $`T_\mathrm{c}`$) (Fig. 5). This behavior is expected for polycrystalline FM samples with poor enough intergrain conductivity gupta ; hwang . In contrast, for cobaltite and manganite samples with fairly good crystal perfection and even for polycrystalline samples of these materials but with a good intergrain connectivity, the MR goes nearly to zero with decreasing temperature gupta ; yamaguchi . It should be mentioned that grain boundaries in FM oxides are regions of perturbation of structural and magnetic orders, and, therefore, induce a magnetic inhomomogeneity as well. These boundaries (and, maybe, other sources of inhomogeneity, i.e., the phase separation) can cause the significant angular hysteresis effect found in this study (Fig. 3) since they hinder the motion of FM domains at a rotation of magnetic field. It is noteworthy, however, that hysteresis effect is minimal at the angles corresponding to both the in-plane and out-of-plane directions of magnetic field. In summary, the behavior of resistivity, MR and magnetization of the film corresponds to that of a system of weakly connected grains.

The data presented in Fig. 5 are pertaining to negative MR for fairly high fields. In general, the MR curves are hysteretic and have specific features in low-field range (Fig. 7). Symmetric hysteresis curves, like that in Fig. 7, were obtained for the film studied after some number of repeated sweeps between the chosen maximum (positive and negative) field magnitudes. For the first sweeps, the hysteresis curves were somewhat asymmetric. Actually, their behavior correlates with that of magnetization loops ziese . In particular, the field $`H=H_\mathrm{p}`$, at which resistance peaks (Fig. 7), corresponds to value of the coercive force ($`H_\mathrm{c}`$). The value of $`H=H_\mathrm{p}`$ decreases with increasing temperature and goes to zero with approaching $`T_\mathrm{c}`$. The magnitude of positive MR in the low-field range, $`\mathrm{\Delta }R(H_\mathrm{p})=[R(H_\mathrm{p})R(0)]/R(0)`$, is some measure of the remanent magnetization.

We found that $`H_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }R(H_\mathrm{p})`$ depend on the field direction and reflect in this way the magnetization anisotropy. The temperature dependences of $`H_\mathrm{p}`$ for the in-plane and out-of-plane directions of magnetic field are shown in Fig. 8. It is seen that at $`T4.2`$ K the value of $`H_p`$ in the out-of-plane field is less than that in the in-plane field, but at $`T78`$ K and higher temperatures the opposite relation is true. For high enough temperature ($`T>T_\mathrm{c}`$) the $`H_\mathrm{p}`$ values go to zero for both field directions. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }R(H_p)`$ values are found to be higher for the out-of-plane field direction as compared with the in-plane one at $`T4.2`$ K. At $`T78`$ K and $`T=200`$ K, the opposite relation holds true. All this implies that at low temperatures the out-of-plane magnetization is favored, whereas for higher temperatures the in-plane magnetization becomes dominant. The pronounced increase in $`M_{}(T)`$ at low temperatures (Fig. 2) and decrease in the ratio between the in-plane and out-of-plane MRs below $`T80`$ K (Fig. 6) support additionally this suggestion. All these are indications of the temperature-driven spin reorientation transition which can be determined by competition between the shape anisotropy and the strain-induced anisotropy. This transition has been studied rather intensively (theoretically and experimentally) for films of common FM metals hucht ; hu , but has never been mentioned for cobaltite films. It should be noted, however, that theoretical models, like hucht ; hu , are applicable only for ultrathin magnetic films (up to 10 monolayers), whereas the film studied is much thicker and rather disordered. Consequently, a spin-reorientation transition in the film studied can have a different nature than those proposed for ultrathin films.

In conclusion, we have revealed and investigated the magnetic and magnetoresistance anisotropy in La0.5Sr0.5CoO3-δ film. Among other things, we found indications of the temperature-driven spin reorientation transition in the film studied: at low temperature, the magnetization vector is prone to be perpendicular to the film plane, but by increasing the temperature the magnetization vector goes entirely to the in-plane direction.


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# Compact Groups in the UZC galaxy sample: II. Connections between morphology, luminosity and large-scale density 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

## 1 Introduction

Because of their high density and relatively low velocity dispersion, Compact Groups (CGs) are predicted to constitute the most probable sites for strong galaxy-galaxy interactions and mergers to occur (Mamon 1992a, ). If CGs merge into a single galaxy in several Gyr (Barnes, 1985, 1989; Mamon, 1987), many remnants, possibly resembling bright field ellipticals (Mulchaey & Zabludoff, 1999; Vikhlinin et al., 1999; Jones et al., 2003) will be produced in less than a Hubble time.

Indeed, Hickson CGs (HCGs, Hickson 1982, 1997 and references therein) do include an excess of both, early-type galaxies and luminous sources, and they appear as the most likely sites for bright isolated Ellipticals to form. However, the scarce evidence for strongly interacting galaxies (Rubin et al., 1991; Zepf, 1993), the underabundance of peculiar or blue early-type galaxies (Zepf et al., 1991; Zepf & Whitmore, 1991; Fasano & Bettoni, 1994) as well as the non significant difference between galaxies in HCGs and in other environments as far as the fundamental plane is concerned (De La Rosa et al., 2001) do leave open the question of CG evolution. Dynamical N-body simulations (Mamon 1992b, ) indicate indeed, that many of the global characteristics of HCGs lying in between those of field galaxies and those of strongly interacting binaries are consistent with the assumption that chance alignments of galaxies in small groups are binary-rich.

Hickson’s sample includes CGs spanning a wide range of characteristics, and a relevant fraction of HCGs might not be isolated (Sulentic, 1987; Williams & Rood, 1987; Rood & Williams, 1989; Mamon, 1990; Palumbo et al., 1995). In an attempt to produce a larger and more uniform CG sample, Focardi & Kelm (2002) have automatically selected 291 CGs (UZC-CGs) in the Updated Zwicky Catalog (UZC) redshift catalog (Falco et al., 1999). Contrary to HCGs, which represent surface brightness enhancements, UZC-CGs are selected according to compactness criteria (surface number density enhancement) and are thus less biased to compact groups of very luminous galaxies.

Focardi & Kelm have shown that, at variance with galaxies lacking close companions, UZC-CGs are typically non isolated systems displaying an excess of gas-poor galaxies. Further they suggest CGs selected according to compactness criteria to constitute an intrinsically non-homogeneous sample, including two distinct classes of systems which segregate according to morphology and large scale environment.

One class of CGs displays small velocity dispersion, a high fraction of emission-line galaxies and is typically located in sparse environments. This class constitute a possibly genuine sample of isolated field-CGs (Ribeiro et al., 1998) probably rich in AGNs (de Carvalho & Coziol, 1999; Coziol et al., 2000; Kelm et al. 2003c, ), but its high content in gas-rich galaxies suggests it might be contaminated by non-bound accordant redshift projections.

The other class of CGs, associated with embedded systems, displays large velocity dispersion and includes high fractions of absorption-line galaxies. Since CGs presenting a passive population are embedded in fairly dense environments, a doubt emerges on whether these galaxies can be considered genuine compact group members rather than collapsing cores within large groups (Governato et al., 1996) or transient projections within loose groups (Mamon, 1986; Diaferio, 2000), clusters (Walke & Mamon, 1989) or long cosmological filaments seen end-on (Hernquist et al., 1995). The question is clearly relevant, for the non-reality of CGs would imply that no (or very few) galaxy systems exist on scale intermediate between the scale of galaxies and the scale of groups.

If CGs are real physical structures their local high galaxy density is expected to affect galaxy properties. It can simply act as a particular initial condition, or influence subsequent galaxy evolution or both. In any event, the dominant mechanism acting in CGs is expected to significantly alter the luminosity and the morphology of galaxies within CGs (Carlberg et al., 2001; Helsdon & Ponman 2003a, ). To determine which characteristics are intrinsic of the galaxies rather than of CGs, we compare galaxies in CGs with a sample of Isolated galaxies. Similarly, to test contamination of the CG sample by transient configuration within loose groups, we compare CGs with their large scale Neighbours.

We will also evaluate the role of a dense environment on the evolution of spirals and early-type galaxies separately, and discuss differences between CGs whose dominant member is a spiral and a E-S0 respectively. This allows addressing the controversial issue of the true nature of spiral rich groups, and to comment on the lack of observed extended X-ray emission in spiral-only groups (Ebeling et al., 1994; Ponman et al., 1996; Mulchaey et al., 1996; de Carvalho & Coziol, 1999; Mulchaey et al., 2003). Relative to previous studies addressing similar topics our analysis has the great advantage of comparing samples selected within the same flux-limited catalogue (Falco et al., 1999) and the same redshift range. A Hubble constant of $`H_0`$= 100 $`h^1`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 is used throughout.

## 2 Isolated Galaxies, CGs and Neighbours: the samples

All samples are automatically selected in the UZC, which is 96% complete for northern galaxies with $`m_B`$$``$$`15.5`$. Magnitudes have been estimated by eye by Zwicky. Bothun & Cornell (1990) estimate the photometric accuracy to be $``$ 0.3 mag.

A galaxy is defined Isolated when no companion galaxies are found within a region of 1 $`h^1`$ Mpc projected radius and 1000 km s-1 from it. It is worth stressing that our sample of Isolated galaxies is based on a nearly complete catalogue whose limiting magnitude is $``$1 magnitude fainter than those used in previous investigations (Colbert et al., 2001; Helsdon et al., 2001).

A UZC-CG is defined as a system including at least 3 galaxies within a region of 200 $`h^1`$ kpc projected radius and radial velocity within 1000 km s-1 from its center (Focardi & Kelm, 2002). Cluster subclumps have been excluded from the UZC-CG sample rejecting all CGs found within 1.5 $`h^1`$ Mpc from ACO clusters. Samples of Isolated galaxies and CGs at high galactic latitude ($`|`$bII$`|`$ $``$ 30$`\mathrm{°}`$) and $`\delta `$$``$-2$`\mathrm{°}`$ are here analysed, covering a solid angle of $``$ $`\pi `$ sr. We do not consider systems at lower galactic latitude because galactic extinction would bias the samples, artificially enlarging the fraction of Isolated galaxies.

We investigate systems in the range of radial velocities between 2500 and 5500 km s-1. The lower cut is adopted to avoid misidentification of group members whose Hubble flows are strongly biased by peculiar velocities. The upper limit is adopted to investigate a galaxy sample which is relatively complete (in flux and volume) also well below $`M_{}`$. At a distance limit of 5500 km s-1, the UZC extends to $`M_B`$=$`18.2`$ \+ 5 log h which is roughly 1.5 magnitude fainter than $`M_{}`$, the knee of the Schechter (1976) luminosity function.

The Isolated galaxy sample includes 386 galaxies, the CG sample includes 220 galaxies lying in 69 UZC-CGs. Most CG galaxies (177=77%) are in Triplets (Ts). The excess of Ts among CGs is partially induced by having rejected subsystems of ACO clusters from the sample, as well as non-symmetric systems (CGs whose galaxies have no univocal membership assignment on a 200 $`h^1`$ kpc projected radius scale). In the range of radial velocities between 2500 and 5500 km s-1, we have rejected 43 non-symmetric groups, 26 including 4 or more members.

Neighbours are galaxies at distances between 0.2 $`h^1`$ and 1 $`h^1`$ Mpc and at radial velocity within 1000 km s-1 from the CG centers. The Neighbour sample includes 278 galaxies. Naked CGs, i.e. with 0 Neighbours are rare (3 out of 69 CGs).

Morphological classification is available (NED) for most galaxies in the samples (82% in CGs, 86% in Neighbours, 71% in the Isolated galaxy sample). Table 1 lists the number of galaxies per morphological class, in the 3 samples. NSpir indicates spirals which cannot be attributed to Sa-Sb or Sc-Sd classes. The last column lists the early type fraction in the samples, normalized to the number of galaxies for which morphological classification is available.

## 3 Isolated galaxies and galaxies in CGs: do they constitute two different populations?

Figure 1 shows luminosity functions for the 386 Isolated (open circles) and the 220 CG (filled circles) galaxies. The points are computed with a modified version (Zucca et al., 1997) of the C-method (Lynden-Bell, 1971). Schechter function parameters (see Table 2) are derived with the STY method (Sandage et al., 1979). Error bars represent 1$`\sigma `$ Poissonian uncertainties. The sample of Isolated galaxies display brighter M than CG galaxies, however, one should consider that in the isolated sample there are only 3 galaxies more luminous than M=$`20`$, while in the CG sample 12 such galaxies are found. Table 2 also indicates that the number of dwarfs in CGs is considerably smaller than the number of dwarfs in the Isolated galaxy sample. The fact that CGs are poor in faint galaxies could imply that CGs are formed without low luminosity galaxies, but it is also consistent with a scenario claiming that they have lost or cannibalized them.

The value of the faint-end slope $`\alpha `$ has been a matter of debate for HCGs: Mendes de Oliveira & Hickson (1991) find $`\alpha `$=$`0.2`$, while Sulentic & Rabaca (1994) report $`\alpha `$=$`1.13`$ (and $`\alpha `$=$`1.69`$ for the $`M`$$`<`$$`18`$ galaxy subsample). Zepf et al. (1997) use redshifts of faint galaxies around 17 HCGs to replenish the faint end of the HCG luminosity function. The authors find $`\alpha `$=$`1`$ and state that HCGs are not underabundant of intrinsically faint galaxies. Hunsberger et al. (1998), fit the distribution of 39 HCGs with 2 Schechter functions and interpret the decreasing bright end slope as a deficit of intermediate luminous galaxies.

While results concerning HCGs are inevitably biased because of the magnitude concordance criterion ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$m $``$3) applied to select the groups, in the UZC-CG sample the lack of faint galaxies relative to the Isolated sample is real, as the redshift range and the magnitude depth of the CG and Isolated galaxy samples are the same.

It has been suggested (Zabludoff & Mulchaey, 1998) that the deficiency of faint galaxies in CGs might reflect the enhanced rate of dynamical friction for luminous (massive) galaxies, bringing high luminous galaxies into the compact core of loose groups, and leaving low luminosity galaxies outside the loose group cores.

## 4 The influence of local density on morphology and luminosity

CG galaxies are expected to display significant differences in morphological content compared to Isolated galaxies. Figure 2 shows the morphological content of Isolated galaxies, CGs and Neighbours. This figure indicates that CGs display a significant excess of early-type galaxies, along with a clear deficiency of late ($`>`$ Sb) spirals when compared to Isolated galaxies. That CGs contain a relatively higher fraction of elliptical galaxies relative to the field has also been found in the SDSS-CG sample (Lee et al., 2003). Neighbours display a distribution intermediate between CGs and Isolated galaxies, suggesting galaxies surrounding CGs are neither typical CG members nor typical Isolated galaxies. The relative content of early-spirals is the same in the 3 samples indicating that the fraction of Sa-Sb galaxies is a poor tracer of environmental density.

In Fig. 3, the fraction of E-S0s over the total number of galaxies with assigned morphological type in each of the 3 samples is plotted. As one can reasonably expect from the morphology-density relation (Postman & Geller, 1984), the early-type fraction does increase with global density, ranging from 16% in the Isolated galaxy sample to 39% in the CG sample. The fraction of early-type galaxies we find in UZC-CGs is identical to the fraction found in HCGs, when limiting Hickson’s sample to groups lying between 2500 and 5500 km s-1. Mergers could be responsible for the fact that Neighbours display an intermediate global fraction of E/S0s (27%) between those of CGs and Isolated galaxies (see Mamon 2000). Alternatively, Fig. 3 could indicate that CGs are typically born in environments which are already evolved compared to the low density field, suggesting that whatever the enhancement of early-type galaxies in CGs, it is partially due to initial conditions.

Because the early type fraction increases in more luminous samples, we also show in Fig. 3 the early-type fractions computed for the faintest and more luminous thirds of each sample. The early-type fraction increases with environmental density in the brightest subsample, but not in the faintest one. Figure 3 indicates that only the morphologies of high luminosity CG galaxies are affected, and might suggest that the CG environment enhances the luminosity of early-type galaxies only, while leaving the luminosity of the spiral population quite unaffected. And indeed, while early-type galaxies do constitute only 30% of the whole CG galaxy population (when including also galaxies with no morphological type assigned), they represent roughly half of the CG dominant members.

## 5 Spirals and E-S0s: type specific luminosity distributions

The analysis performed so far suggests the CG environment is a favourable one for bright E-S0s and could imply that the high luminosity of E-S0s is (or has been) triggered by the CG. It remains then to be seen whether spirals are triggered similarly: to investigate this point, type specific luminosity distributions of CGs and Isolated galaxies are to be compared.

Figure 4 shows the luminosity functions for E-S0 and spirals separately in the CG and in the Isolated sample. In CGs, spirals display steeper faint-end slopes ($`\alpha `$) than do E-S0s (see Table 2 and Fig. 5 for contour plots). The same result is found when comparing spirals and E-S0s in the Isolated galaxy sample. This confirms, for CGs and for the isolated environment separately, the results by Lin et al. (1996), Zucca et al. (1997) and Madgwick et al. (2002) all claiming emission line galaxies have a steeper faint end slope than galaxies without emission lines.

The faint-end luminosity functions are steeper for isolated galaxies than for CG galaxies in the spiral samples. In the E-S0s samples the difference is small, suggesting that the lack of dwarf galaxies in CGs might be related to their higher fraction of early-type galaxies (de Lapparent et al., 2003). The values of the parameter $`M_{}`$ for E-S0s and spirals in the isolated sample indicate that bright isolated galaxies are typically spirals. In CGs the values of $`M_{}`$ for E-S0s and spirals are roughly similar: among the brightest CG galaxies ($`M<20`$) 7 E/S0 and 5 spirals are found, suggesting that in general luminous galaxies are more likely associated to early-type hosts.

## 6 Galaxies in CGs and CG Neighbours

It has been shown in Fig. 3 that CG Neighbours display a fraction of early-type galaxies intermediate between CGs and isolated galaxies. It has also been shown that the fraction of luminous galaxies among the E-S0s is somewhat larger in CGs than among their Neighbours. To test whether CG Neighbours present a deficit of bright E-S0s compared to CGs, we next compare E-S0s in the Neighbour and CG samples. In Fig. 5 we show confidence ellipses (at 1$`\sigma `$) for the parameters $`\alpha `$ and M for CGs (solid), Neighbours (dashed) and Isolated galaxies (dotted).

Figure 5 shows that LF parameters are strongly dependent on morphological type, regardless of environment. But it also indicates that CGs have fewer low-luminosity E-S0s than their Neighbours, and definitely fewer low-luminosity spirals. Figure 5 suggests that the lack of faint galaxies in CGs is not a characteristic shared by their neighbour galaxies. Hence, it appears that a segregation (Zabludoff & Mulchaey, 1998) between bright and faint galaxies occurs, separating CG galaxies from their neighbours.

LF contour plots indicate marginal brighter $`M_{}`$ for Neighbour E-S0s relative to E-S0s in CGs, and significative brighter $`M_{}`$ for Neighbour spirals relative to spirals in CGs. No excess of bright E-S0s is associated to CGs in terms of their $`M_{}`$ parameter. Along with the deficit in dwarf E-S0s, this suggests that CGs include an excess of E-S0s of intermediate luminosity relative to E-S0s in their Neighbour sample. The excess of E-S0s of intermediate luminosity in CGs appears to contradict the finding of Hunsberger et al. (1998) that HCGs show a deficit of intermediate luminous galaxies relative to the field.

The lack of bright spirals in CGs in comparison with spirals in the Neighbour sample confirms that dense CGs are not a preferred environment for bright spirals.

Differences between late and early type galaxies are also seen in loose group samples of bright galaxies (Girardi et al., 2003) with early-type galaxies lying closer to the group center than late type galaxies.

Results drawn from CG type specific analysis deserve some caution, however, because real CGs and their Neighbours are never E-S0-only (spiral-only) systems.

## 7 Dominant CG galaxies, non-dominant CG galaxies and Neighbours

We next investigate whether differences between CG and Neighbour samples are equally likely induced by CGs which are dominated by early-type galaxies and by spirals. In comparison with the global type-dependent luminosity function, the analysis of luminosity functions according to the morphological type of the dominant member seems more meaningful. Dynamical simulations of similar mass merging spirals lead to ellipticals for binary mergers and for multiple mergers within dense groups (Barnes, 1988, 1989). Spiral dominated and E-S0 dominated CGs also display a very different behaviour in the X-ray domain: E-S0s dominated CGs are likely associated to extended X-ray emission (Mulchaey et al., 2003) and E-S0 dominated CGs might constitute an artificial subsample of E-S0 dominated loose groups (Zabludoff & Mulchaey, 1998; Helsdon & Ponman, 2000). At variance with this, it is still uncertain whether spiral dominated (or spiral rich) CGs do exist presenting diffuse X-ray emission (Burstein & Blumenthal, 2002; Mulchaey et al., 2003) as AGNs seem to contaminate the X-ray properties of these systems (de Carvalho & Coziol, 1999). The one case of an X-ray group with only spiral galaxies is HCG 16, whose X-ray morphology appears clumpy (Dos Santos & Mamon, 1999), although this is not evident in recent XMM-Newton data (Belsole et al., 2003).

Out of 69 CGs, we find 33 E-S0 dominated, and 30 Spiral dominated (6 CGs present a dominant member whose morphological type could not be assigned). For comparison, among HCGs (between 2500 and 5500 km s-1) there are 10 Spiral dominated and 8 E-S0 dominated groups. The morphological content of CGs with a dominant E-S0 (Spiral) is listed in Table 3, along with the morphological content of their Neighbours. In Table 4, we list the best fit STY parameters for these sample.

The fraction of early-type galaxies is 53% among E-S0s dominated CGs, while being 21% among Spiral dominated CGs. The early-type fraction in E-S0 dominated and Spiral dominated CGs are $``$ typical of groups and of the field (Bahcall 1999), which could be used to argue that only CGs with a dominant early-type galaxy are dense and physical (e.g. mergers should build up the early-type fraction). However, when dominant galaxies are excluded from the computation the fraction of early-type galaxies in the two samples becomes similar (27% in E-S0 dominated and 33% in Spiral dominated). This could imply that densities in systems with a dominant E-S0 and a dominant Spiral are similar and that both type of systems are physical. Alternatively, assuming only E-S0 dominated CGs are physical, the result might suggest no global morphology-density relation to hold in CGs, where the morphology of the dominant galaxy alone traces the real underlying potential.

The early-type fraction in samples of Neighbours of E-S0 and Spiral dominated CGs are similar (see Table 3) and it is noteworthy that the early-type fraction in both Neighbour samples tend to be comparable to fractions derived for the non-dominant CG population. This may imply that, for small groups, the characteristics of the brightest member are possibly a more fundamental parameter than general CG properties such as the total fraction of early-type (or late-type) galaxies, or the velocity dispersion (Zabludoff & Mulchaey, 1998; Helsdon & Ponman 2003a, ). Whether (and how many) CGs exist in which all members have their morphology modified by a locally dense environment remains an open question which could be checked investigating CG samples selected according to different criteria (Prandoni et al., 1994; Iovino, 2002; Barton et al., 1996; Giuricin et al., 2000; Zandivarez et al., 2003; Lee et al., 2003).

Figure 6 shows confidence ellipses for the parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`M_{}`$ for CGs with a dominant E-S0 (solid) and a dominant Spiral (dotted). The parameters are the same for E-S0s dominated and Spiral dominated CGs. E-S0 and Spiral dominated CGs present similar numbers of bright and faint galaxies and they both appear to lack faint galaxies relative to isolated galaxies, which display a much steeper faint-end LF slope. As expected, the exclusion of dominant members (light contours) moves the ellipses towards less luminous $`M_{}`$ and steeper faint-end slopes; but again, no difference is found between LF parameters of Spiral and E-S0 dominated CGs.

In Fig. 6 we have also plotted the contour plots of Neighbours of E-S0s dominated CGs (short dashed) and Spiral dominated CGs (long dashed). Neighbours of Spiral dominated CGs appear rich in faint and bright galaxies in comparison with Spiral dominated CGs. E-S0 dominated CGs have Neighbours which are moderately richer in faint and in bright galaxies.

The presence of many luminous (massive) galaxies among CG Neighbours might indicate that dynamical friction has not operated efficiently in bringing bright galaxies into the center of a large group. Or, that bright Neighbours have an initial position so distant from the group centre that they had not enough time to decay by dynamical friction to the core of the group.

Figure 5 and 6 indicate that CGs are poor in dwarfs relative to their Neighbours when applying a morphological segregation as well as when separating samples according to the morphological type of the CG dominant galaxy. More significative differences between CGs and their Neighbours emerge when the comparison involves spirals or Spiral dominated CGs, but spirals are more numerous in both samples and small number statistics might affect results concerning the early-type galaxy population.

## 8 Spiral and E-S0 dominated CGs

Both bright spirals and bright E-S0s are found in optically selected CGs. This agrees with the results by Norberg et al. (2002) indicating that (below $`L_{}`$) both early and late types have approximately the same dependence of clustering strength on luminosity and with the finding by Cappi et al. (2003) that (very) bright spirals are often the brightest members of systems which escape standard group finding methods. Bright E-S0s and bright spirals in groups actually display different X-ray emission properties and we therefore next investigate whether an analogous difference might emerge from the analysis of optical data alone.

We have applied the Tremaine-Richstone statistic (1977) to see if the brightest CG members are indeed anomalous members. The test is based on two parameters $`t_1`$ and $`t_2`$ defined by

$$t_1=\frac{\sigma (M_1)}{M_2M_1}$$

$$t_2=\frac{\sigma (M_2M_1)}{(0.677)^{1/2}M_2M_1}$$

where $`\sigma `$($`M_1`$) and $`\sigma `$($`M_2M_1`$) are the standard deviations of the absolute magnitude $`M_1`$ and of the difference in absolute magnitude ($`M_2M_1`$). Values of $`t_1`$ and $`t_2`$ below 1 indicate that the first-ranked group galaxies are abnormally bright. Table 5 lists the value for $`t_1`$ (which appears to be a better estimator than the parameter $`t_2`$) for the whole sample of brightest CG galaxies and for the E-S0 and spiral dominated subsamples. Given the small number of galaxies in the CGs and the small number of CGs in the sample the T-R statistic $`t_1`$ is biased to low values (Mamon, 1987). Monte-Carlo simulations (1000 random trials) for a given slope of the Schechter luminosity function show that the expected value of $`t_1`$ is $``$ 0.90 in all samples (Mamon, priv. comm.). So the distribution of ($`M_1M_2`$) from the galaxies in the E-S0 dominated CGs has less than 1% probability of being randomly drawn from a parent LF, implying that the brightest group member is abnormally luminous. On the contrary, the dominant Spirals are not abnormally luminous. This is just a tentative result that should be checked on larger and complete CG samples. We stress that the significantly low $`t_1`$ for the E-S0 sample is partially caused by a fairly low (but not significant) $`\sigma `$($`M_1`$).

Bright spirals in CGs appear therefore different compared to bright E-S0s in CGs. Menon & Hickson (1985) were the first to point out that dominant elliptical galaxies in HCGs were special: indeed they found that among HCG galaxies that were radio continuum emitters, those that were ellipticals were always the dominant group member, while those that were spirals had random group rank. Dominant Spirals and dominant E-S0s possibly show a different behaviour also in the ($`m_1`$ \- $`m_f`$) parameter ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$mag between the brightest and the faintest CG galaxy) distribution. Figure 7 shows the absolute magnitude of the brightest (triangles) and the faintest (squares) member of each CG, plotted against radial velocity for for CGs with a dominant E-S0 and Spiral respectively.

Bright Spiral dominant galaxies are preferentially hosted in nearby CGs, a trend which bright dominant E-S0s do not seem to follow. The statistical significance of the different distribution of ($`M_B`$$``$$`19.5`$) dominant E-S0s and dominant Spirals in this diagram emerges when comparing the different fractions of Spiral dominant galaxies in the cz$``$4000 and the cz$`>`$4000 km s-1 subsamples. Below 4000 km s-1 17 bright dominant galaxies are seen, with 8 E-S0s and 9 Spirals. Above 4000 km s-1 16 bright dominant galaxies are seen, 12 E-S0s and 4 Spirals. The most nearby dominant Spirals typically present a larger gap between the brightest and the faintest CG member than dominant E-S0s.

The MW+LMC+SMC system is actually compact, and it would pass the flux limit if SMC did (which for $`M_B`$(SMC) = $`16`$ translates to cz$`<`$2000 km s-1). Any CG selection criterion imposing an upper limit on the difference in magnitude between the brightest and the faintest group galaxy will certainly be biased against systems including bright spirals. And indeed, of the 10 dominant Spirals in Hickson’s sample (in the 2500-5500 km s-1 range) only one (HCG 90) is below 4000 km s-1, while 4 (out of 8) dominant E-S0s are.

Figure 7 also shows that faint-galaxy-only CGs are rare. Bright galaxies ($`M_B`$$``$$``$$`19`$) are nearly always included in CGs whatever the magnitude of the faintest galaxies seen (ranging from $``$$`17`$ at cz=3000 km s-1 to $``$$`18`$ at cz=5000 km s-1).

## 9  First-ranked Spirals and E-S0s: differences in large scale properties

We have shown that in UZC-CGs, dominant E-S0s are possibly anomalous CG members, while spirals do not share this characteristic. We have also shown that Spiral dominated CGs present a neighbourhood rich in luminous galaxies while in E-S0 dominated CGs and their Neighbour sample the values of $`M_{}`$ are similar. These trends suggest that E-S0 dominant galaxies are more likely than dominant Spirals to be more luminous than their Neighbours. To test this hypothesis we next compare each CG with its own Neighbours. We find that among the 30 dominant Spirals, 14 ($``$50%) display a more luminous neighbour, while among the 33 dominant early-type galaxies, only 8 (25%) do so. It is noteworthy that these 8 galaxies all are S0s, whose more luminous companions are generally spirals. We thus find that all 14 dominant Ellipticals in the CG sample are the (optically) brightest sources and possibly the center of the potential well, in a region 2 $`h^1`$ Mpc across.

This indicates that dominant Ellipticals in CGs are typically the dominant member of a much larger system, while the same is true for only roughly half of the dominant Spirals and S0s. That CGs and loose groups with a dominant Elliptical and diffuse X-ray emission display similar X-ray properties (Helsdon & Ponman, 2000) can be used to indirectly support our result. That only half of the S0s are dominant galaxies in large groups might be attributed to morphological misclassification (Andreon, 1998), or could imply that the evolution of Ellipticals and S0s is differently linked to their large scale properties.

Concerning dominant Spirals with a more luminous companion on large scale (in principle similar to MW+M31), their potential well is possibly rather shallow, which could justify why they lack a diffuse X-ray halo (Mulchaey et al., 2003). HI observations (at the GMRT) will tell whether the 16 dominant Spirals with no more luminous companion present a large unperturbed cold gas disk rather than a truncated one, thereby discriminating between projected and interacting spirals.

In Fig. 8, we show another result which is consistent with the picture in which E-S0 dominant galaxies are formed in denser and more massive groups, while dominant spirals are formed in lower mass, less dense environments. Figure 8 shows that the 25 E-S0s displaying no more luminous neighbour present a correlation between the density of the large scale environment and both, the luminosity of the galaxy and the difference between the magnitude of the first and second ranked galaxy. Spearman-rank test coefficients indicate that correlations exist for E-S0s ($`\rho `$=0.50 in MB vs. Neighbours and $`\rho `$=0.51 in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`mag_{12}`$ vs. Neighbours) but not for spirals (0.05 and 0.17). For E-S0s, the correlations are 99% significant.

This suggests that the formation/evolution of dominant E-S0s and the properties of their large scale environment are possibly linked. Luminous passive galaxies in the 2dF (Colless et al., 2003) have already been shown (Kelm et al. 2003b, ) to display an excess of large scale neighbours compared to luminous emission-line galaxies. The location of CG dominant E-S0s at the centre of their systems to a much greater extent than implied by our CG selection criteria is in agreement with observations in the X-ray domain, showing that the center of diffuse X-ray emission is nearly always overlapping the optically brightest (early-type) galaxy of an underlying group. The relation between the large scale galaxy density and the difference between the first and second ranked galaxy could further indicate that, in accordance with predictions, dynamical friction has more efficiently operated in systems with a larger potential, where the fraction of group mass associated with individual galaxies is low (Zabludoff & Mulchaey, 1998). This tentative result possibly extends to groups Sandage’s (1976) conclusion that the luminosity of brightest cluster galaxies is determined by some special processes. Whether the formation of a group dominant Elliptical occurs during the formation of the group potential or later, when progenitor galaxies merge, is still an open question.

No relation exists between the number of CG Neighbours and the luminosity of CG dominant Spirals, which might suggest that luminous spirals in CGs are the dominant member of a small system whose mass is mainly associated with the dominant member itself rather then with a massive halo. Therefore it seems rather unlikely for these systems to evolve directly into an E-S0 dominated CG. The alternative scenario predicts luminous spirals in CGs are contaminated by accordant redshift projections. The search within $`\pm `$1000 km s-1 from the CG center translate to a search within $`\pm `$10 $`h^1`$ Mpc, so that truly isolated galaxies, aligned along the line of sight of the CG will end up in the ’wrong’ sample. Contamination is stronger in a filamentary universe (Hernquist et al., 1995). Contamination of Spiral dominated CGs by Isolated galaxies could explain why HCGs and UZC-CGs, which should be triggered by interactions, do not display enhanced IR temperature nor IR luminosity (Zepf, 1993; Verdes-Montenegro et al., 1998; Kelm et al. 2003a, ).

## 10 Conclusions

The morphological content and the luminosity of CGs and Isolated galaxies have been compared. Galaxies in the samples are selected from the same flux limited ($`m_B`$$``$15.5) catalogue and within the same redshift range (2500-5500 km s-1). We find that galaxies in CGs display an excess of early-type galaxies and a lack of faint galaxies compared to isolated galaxies. It is mainly the spiral CG population that appears poor in faint galaxies suggesting that the lack of dwarf galaxies in CGs relative to Isolated galaxies might be related to their high content in ellipticals.

We have also compared CG galaxies with their Neighbours to explore whether CGs are compatible with being real condensations rather than temporary non physical projections within loose groups. CGs include more early-type galaxies than their Neighbours and they also have fewer low luminosity and high luminosity galaxies. The lack in dwarfs also emerges when E-S0s in CGs are compared with E-S0s in the Neighbour sample indicating that the lack of dwarfs in CGs is not solely induced by a high content in E-S0. The lack of bright galaxies in CGs in comparison with their Neighbours is due to the presence of many bright spirals among Neighbours.

In our sample, Spirals and E-S0s are equally likely to be first-ranked CG galaxies. It is interesting that the fraction of early type galaxies in E-S0 dominated and Spiral dominated CGs tends to become the same ($``$30%) when CG dominant galaxies are excluded from computation.

Comparing the 33 CGs with an E-S0 dominant galaxy with their Neighbours (and the 30 CG with a Spiral dominant galaxy with their Neighbours) confirms a lack of low-luminosity galaxies in CGs. Spiral dominated CGs appear to be deficient in bright members relative to their Neighbours and the Tremaine-Richstone test indicates that dominant Spirals are not anomalous CG members. E-S0s in optically selected CGs are however anomalous luminous members, which might relate with the observation that the brightest member in X-ray emitting groups is an elliptical and that this elliptical is special (Helsdon et al., 2001; Helsdon & Ponman 2003b, ).

All 14 dominant Ellipticals in CGs are the brightest galaxies in a region of redshift space 2 $`h^1`$ Mpc across, while the same is true for only half of the dominant Spirals and dominant S0s. When considering only CGs whose dominant member is the brightest galaxy in a 1 $`h^1`$ Mpc projected radius region (25 E-S0s and 16 Spirals) we also find a relation to link the number of neighbours of dominant E-S0 to 1) the luminosity of the galaxy and 2) the difference in magnitude between the first and second ranked galaxy. No such relation holds for dominant spirals.

First ranked ellipticals appear to gain luminosity as they gain large scale companions implying a direct causal relationship between the group formation process and the formation of the first ranked galaxy therein. No relation exists between the luminosity of first ranked spirals and the number of their large scale neighbours suggesting that the formation of a bright spiral at the center of a large potential well is unlikely. The presence of many neighbours around dominant ellipticals is possibly accompanied by large quantities of infalling gas, implying that X-ray emission is likely associated to elliptical-dominated groups (Zabludoff & Mulchaey, 1998; Mulchaey et al., 2003).

In summary a clear distinction appears between CGs with a dominant E-S0 and CGs with a dominant Spiral. The former closely resemble small clusters. The latter are likely systems of 1 giant + several faint galaxies, often presenting a bright companion within a 1 $`h^1`$ Mpc distance, a configuration remindful of our Local Group. The above results are based on a small sample, and are just tentative. But they all support a scenario in which the formation of bright Ellipticals (but not of bright spirals) and the presence of large group-scale potentials are linked. And dominant CG Ellipticals could just represent a secondary outcome during the process of formation of group size systems.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are pleased to thank S. Bardelli, R. de Carvalho, A. Iovino, H.J. Mc Cracken and G.G.C. Palumbo, for stimulating discussions and suggestions. We are grateful to E. Zucca and to G. Mamon for providing scientific and technical support in the computation of the luminosity functions. The suggestions of the referee G. Mamon have been essential and have greatly improved the scientific content of this paper. This work was supported by MIUR. B.K acknowledges financial support from the University of Bologna.


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# Less than 2^𝜔 many translates of a compact nullset may cover the real line

## Abstract

We answer a question of Darji and Keleti by proving in $`ZFC`$ that there exists a compact nullset $`C_0`$ such that for every perfect set $`P`$ there exists $`x`$ such that $`(C_0+x)P`$ is uncountable. Using this $`C_0`$ we answer a question of Gruenhage by showing that it is consistent with $`ZFC`$ that less than $`2^\omega `$ many translates of a compact nullset cover $``$.

MSC codes: Primary ; Secondary  Key Words: compact, measure zero, translate, cover, perfect, consistent

The results of this note will appear in a forthcoming paper with detailed proofs and some background. The main goal now is to state the results.

The following set is fairly well known, it was investigated for example by Erdős and Kakutani.

###### Definition 0.1

Denote

$$C_0=\{\underset{n=2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{d_n}{n!}|d_n\{0,1,\mathrm{},n2\}n\}$$

It is easy to see that $`C_0`$ is a compact nullset, that is, a compact set of Lebesgue measure zero. The following theorem answers a question of Darji and Keleti.

###### Theorem 0.2

For every perfect set $`P`$ there exists a translate $`C_0+x`$ of $`C_0`$ such that $`(C_0+x)P`$ is uncountable.

Proof. (sketch) Think of $`d_n`$ as digits with "increasing base", then every $`x[0,1]`$ has an (almost) unique expansion. Construct recursively a dyadic tree of intervals that describes a very thin perfect subset $`QP`$ which is "compatible" with this digit representation. Make sure that each branching is at a far enough level in order to be able to construct the expansion of $`x`$ such that $`QxC_0`$ by simply counting the number of bad digits for every fixed $`n`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

Now we can answer the original question of Gruenhage, which motivated the work of Darji and Keleti. $`CPA`$ is the well known axiom of Ciesielski and Pawlikowski.

###### Theorem 0.3

CPA implies that $``$ can be covered by less than continuum many translates of $`C_0`$.

Remark. (J. Steprans) We can also work with the so callad "slaloms" to obtain the same result for more models.

Rényi Alfréd Institute, Reáltanoda u. 13-15. Budapest 1053, Hungary

Email address: `emarci@renyi.hu`


text:
# Mott transition in multi-orbital systems

Metal insulator transitions driven by local Coulomb interactions are among the most fascinating phenomena in condensed matter physics mott . They occur in a large variety of transition metal compounds imada . Most of these strongly correlated materials consist of valence bands derived from electronic $`d`$ shells where intra- and inter-orbital Coulomb interactions are equally important and where the crystal structure splits the valence bands into narrow and wide subbands. A fundamental question is whether these systems exhibit a common Mott transition, implying all subbands to be either metallic or insulating, or successive orbital dependent transitions, implying a coexistence region with metallic and insulating behavior present in different subbands. Using the dynamical mean field theory DMFT  we show that inter-orbital Coulomb interactions lead to a single Mott transition. Nevertheless, the subbands exhibit more or less strongly correlated excitation spectra in the metallic phase and different band gaps in the insulating phase.

A hallmark of strongly correlated materials is their geometrical, electronic and magnetic complexity. The valence bands typically involve oriented electronic orbitals, giving rise to a variety of highly anisotropic properties. For instance, the layer perovskite Sr2RuO4 consists of a wide, two-dimensional $`d_{xy}`$ band coexisting with narrow, nearly one-dimensional $`d_{xz,yz}`$ bands oguchi . This system exhibits unconventional p-wave superconductivity maeno , but iso-electronic replacement of Sr by Ca induces a Mott transition to an antiferromagnetic insulator nakatsuji . Similar splittings into different subbands occur in the classic Mott insulators VO2 goodenough ; zylbersztejn  and V2O3 rozenberg ; ezhov  in both the low-temperature insulating (monoclinic) and high-temperature metallic (rutile, corundum) phases, in layered organic superconductors lefebvre , fullerenes takenobu , and many other compounds imada .

The nature of the paramagnetic metal insulator transition in a multi-band environment involving narrow and wide subbands is not yet understood; in particular, it is not clear whether all bands undergo a common transition at the same critical Coulomb energy EPL  or whether different subbands generate transitions at successive critical energies anisimov . In the first scenario narrow subbands force wide subbands to become more strongly correlated and the more pronounced metallicity of wider subbands makes narrow bands less correlated than in the isolated case. The critical Coulomb energy $`U_c`$ of the interacting system lies between the critical $`U_{ci}`$ of the isolated subbands. Coexistence of metallic and insulating behavior in different subbands does not occur. In the second scenario the different relative importance of Coulomb correlations in subbands of different widths gives rise to separate Mott transitions and to coexistent metallic and insulating behavior in different subbands. In this case the one-electron properties imposed by the different band widths remain a determining factor for the system’s excitation spectrum and are not entirely superseded by correlations.

While local Coulomb interactions in multi-band systems have been investigated previously multi ; florens , most studies treated the special ‘isotropic’ case of identical orbitals where the question of one or several Mott transitions does not arise. Here we consider the opposite ‘non-isotropic’ situation where the multi-band system consists of different subbands prl . In the absence of inter-orbital Coulomb interactions these bands would exhibit Mott transitions at different critical energies $`U_{ci}`$. As shown below, the striking consequence of inter-orbital interactions is to enforce one common metal insulator transition for all subbands at the same critical $`U_c`$. Remarkably, however, in the joint metallic region different subbands reveal excitation spectra with varying correlation signatures. Similarly, the insulating phase exhibits a ‘multi-gap’ spectrum, in close analogy to the $`\sigma `$\- and $`\pi `$-type superconducting gaps observed in the quasi-two-dimensional compound MgB2 MgB2 .

Let us consider the paramagnetic metal insulator transition in a two-band Hubbard model with narrow and wide subbands. These might represent, for instance, the $`t_{2g}`$ orbitals of a layer-perovskite material or of VO2. For illustrative purposes these bands are assumed to be half-filled and to have elliptical densities of states $`\rho _i(\omega )`$ of widths $`W_1=2`$ eV and $`W_2=4`$ eV. Single-band systems of this type have been investigated extensively in the past and their metal insulator transitions are rather well understood single . To account for Coulomb correlations we use the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) in combination with the multi-orbital Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) method DMFT . The quantum impurity problem is solved at finite temperature $`T`$ for various intra- and inter-orbital Coulomb energies $`U`$ and $`U^{}=U2J`$, where $`J`$ is the Hund’s rule exchange integral.

Two criteria are employed to determine the stability of the Fermi liquid state as a function of Coulomb energy. First, we calculate the subband quasi-particle weights $`Z_i=1/(1\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }_i(\omega )/\omega |_{\omega =0})`$, where the derivative of the real part of the self-energy component $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_i(\omega )`$ is approximated by Im $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_i(i\omega _0)/\omega _0`$ with $`\omega _0=\pi /\beta =\pi k_BT`$ the first Matsubara frequency. The second criterion is obtained from the imaginary-time Green’s functions at $`\tau =\beta /2`$: $`G_i(\beta /2)=𝑑\omega F(\omega )\mathrm{Im}G_i(\omega )/\pi `$, where $`F(\omega )=0.5/\mathrm{cosh}(\beta \omega /2)`$ is a distribution of width $`w=4\mathrm{ln}(2+\sqrt{3})/\beta `$ centered about the Fermi level. While $`Z_i`$ specifies the quasi-particle weight of the ith subband at $`E_F`$, $`G_i(\beta /2)`$ represents the integrated spectral weight within a few $`k_BT`$ of $`E_F`$, i.e., it includes low-lying excitations. Since $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_i(i\omega _n)`$ and $`G_i(\tau )`$ are derived directly from the QMC calculation $`Z_i`$ and $`G_i(\beta /2)`$ are available without having to evaluate the real-frequency spectral distributions Im $`G_i(\omega )`$. Below we present normalized quantities $`\overline{G}_i(\beta /2)=G_i(\beta /2)/G_i^{U=0}(\beta /2)`$ so that $`Z_i=\overline{G}_i(\beta /2)=1`$ in the non-interacting limit.

Figure 1 shows the variation of $`Z_i`$ and $`\overline{G}_i(\beta /2)`$ as a function of $`U`$ for $`T=125`$ meV. The exchange integral is $`J=0.2`$ eV Jbelow1 . Evidently the quasi-particle weights near $`E_F`$ diminish as a result of Coulomb correlations. At a given $`U`$, however, $`Z_1`$ and $`\overline{G}_1`$ in the non-isotropic $`W_1,W_2`$ system are larger than in the degenerate $`W_1,W_1`$ case. Similarly, $`Z_2`$ and $`\overline{G}_2`$ in the $`W_1,W_2`$ system are smaller than in the $`W_2,W_2`$ case. Thus, as a consequence of inter-orbital interactions the narrow (wide) subband is less (more) correlated than in the isotropic case.

Since $`\overline{G}_i(\beta /2)`$ represents the spectral weight within several $`k_BT`$ of $`E_F`$ its reduction at small $`U`$ is weaker than that of $`Z_i`$, while in the critical regions its decay is more abrupt. Close to the metal insulator transitions $`Z_i`$ and $`\overline{G}_i`$ show a rounding off caused by the finite temperature and by critical slowing down. Within this slight uncertainty $`Z_i`$ and $`\overline{G}_i`$ yield consistent critical Coulomb energies: $`U_{c1}3.0`$ eV for the narrow two-band system, $`U_{c2}6.1`$ eV for the wide two-band system, and $`U_c4.8`$ eV for the mixed system factor .

The key point of these results is the fact that the system involving narrow and wide subbands exhibits a single Mott transition at an intermediate $`U_c`$ such that $`U_{c1}<U_c<U_{c2}`$. At small $`U`$ correlations reduce the quasi-particle weight in the narrow subband much more rapidly than in the wide band. For $`U>U_c/2`$, however, $`Z_1`$ and $`Z_2`$ begin to converge again and decrease to zero spectral weight at the same $`U_c`$. The same behavior is shown by the integrated weights $`\overline{G}_i(\beta /2)`$. There is no evidence for a coexistence of insulating and metallic behavior in different subbands Uc1Uc2 . On the other hand, since $`Z_1<Z_2`$ and $`\overline{G}_1<\overline{G}_2`$ for $`U<U_c`$, the narrow band is always more strongly correlated than the wider counterpart. Analogously, the insulating phase exhibits two excitation gaps (see below).

Multi-band QMC calculations at lower temperatures ($`T=62`$ meV and 31 meV) confirm the picture discussed above. To verify that the same conclusion holds also in the low temperature limit we have performed analogous two-band calculations at $`T=0`$ within the self-consistent iterated perturbation theory IPT  (IPT), where the self-energy is calculated at real frequencies within second-order perturbation theory. The results for the quasi-particle weights $`Z_i`$ are shown in Fig. 2. They are consistent with the scenario for $`T>0`$: The isotropic two-band systems have widely different critical Coulomb energies: $`U_{c1}2.3`$ eV and $`U_{c2}4.3`$ eV. In contrast, the non-isotropic system undergoes a Mott transition at $`U_c3.2`$ eV. The specific values of these Coulomb energies differ from those in Fig. 1 since the IPT amounts to a more approximate treatment of correlations, and because of the different temperatures.

Although inter-orbital Coulomb interactions lead to a common metal insulator transition in the narrow and wide subbands, their excitation spectra differ qualitatively both in the metallic and insulating phases. This is illustrated in Fig. 3 where we plot quasi-particle distributions derived using the Maximum Entropy method maxent . For $`U<U_c`$ both bands are metallic. The narrow band spectrum $`N_1(\omega )`$, however, is more strongly correlated than $`N_2(\omega )`$ for the wider band: The spectral weight at $`E_F`$ is much reduced and the Hubbard peaks are more pronounced. Similarly, in the insulating phase the excitation gap of the narrow band is larger than that of the wide band. Note that the $`W_1,W_1`$ system at $`U=4`$ eV is already insulating, while the $`W_2,W_2`$ system is much less correlated than the $`N_2(\omega )`$ spectrum shown in Fig. 3(a). Conversely, at $`U=6`$ eV the $`W_1,W_1`$ system is far in the insulating range, whereas the $`W_2,W_2`$ system is close to its metal insulator transition.

These predictions can be tested using angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy. In the metallic phase of layered perovskites, for example, the $`d_{xy}`$ and $`d_{xz,yz}`$ subbands should exhibit coherent peaks of different spectral weights as well as different incoherent satellite features. At $`U_c`$ the coherent peaks should vanish simultaneously. In the insulating phase, the subbands should exhibit different band gaps and Hubbard bands.

For illustrative purposes we have considered the special case of half-filled, symmetric subbands. The consistency of the picture discussed here with the results obtained for Ca2-xSrxRuO4 EPL  suggests that the same conclusion holds for non-symmetric multi-band systems. In particular, it should be valid for the Mott insulators VO2 and V2O3 and for other transition metal compounds.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to A. Bringer for discussions and to O. Gunnarsson and D. Vollhardt for comments. I also like to thank A. Lichtenstein for the DMFT-QMC code.

Electronic address: a.liebsch@fz-juelich.de