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# Duality in the Color Flavor Locked Spectrum

## I The Lagrangian for CFL Goldstones

When diquarks condense for the three flavor case, we have the following symmetry breaking:

$`\left[SU_c(3)\right]\times SU_L(3)\times SU_R(3)\times U_B(1)SU_{c+L+R}(3).`$
The gauge group undergoes a dynamical Higgs mechanism, and nine Goldstone bosons emerge. Neglecting the Goldstone mode associated with the baryon number and quark masses (which will not be important for our discussion at lowest order), the derivative expansion of the effective Lagrangian describing the octect of Goldstone bosons is Hong:1999dk ; CG :

$`={\displaystyle \frac{F_\pi ^2}{8}}\mathrm{Tr}\left[_\mu U^\mu U^{}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{F_\pi ^2}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}\left[p_\mu p^\mu \right],`$ (6)
with $`p_\mu =\frac{i}{2}\left(\xi _\mu \xi ^{}\xi ^{}_\mu \xi \right)`$, $`U=\xi ^2`$, $`\xi =e^{i\frac{\varphi }{F_\pi }}`$ and $`\varphi `$ is the octet of Goldstone bosons. $`U`$ transforms linearly according to $`g_LUg_R^{}`$ and $`g_{L/R}SU_{L/R}(3)`$ while $`\xi `$ transforms non-linearly:

$`\xi g_L\xi K^{}(\varphi ,g_L,g_R)K(\varphi ,g_L,g_R)\xi g_R^{}.`$ (7)
This constraint implicitly defines the matrix, $`K(\varphi ,g_L,g_R)`$. Here, we wish to examine the CFL spectrum of massive states using the technique of integrating in/out at the level of the effective Lagrangian. $`F_\pi `$ is the Goldstone boson decay constant. It is a non-perturbative quantity whose value is determined experimentally or by non-perturbative techniques (e.g. lattice computation). For very large quark chemical potential, $`F_\pi `$ can be estimated perturbatively. It is found to be proportional to the Fermi momentum, $`p_F\mu `$, with $`\mu `$ the quark chemical potential Schafer:2003vz . Since a frame must be fixed in order to introduce a chemical potential, spatial and temporal components of the effective Lagrangians split. This point, however, is not relevant for the validity of our results.

When going beyond the lowest-order term in derivatives, we need a counting scheme. For theories with only one relevant scale (such as QCD at zero chemical potential), each derivative is suppressed by a factor of $`F_\pi `$. This is not the case for theories with multiple scales. In the CFL phase, we have both $`F_\pi `$ and the gap, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, and the general form of the chiral expansion is Schafer:2003vz :

$`LF_\pi ^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{}}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right)^k\left({\displaystyle \frac{_0}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right)^lU^mU_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{n}.`$ (8)
Following Schafer:2003vz , we distinguish between temporal and spatial derivatives. Chiral loops are suppressed by powers of $`p/4\pi F_\pi `$, and higher-order contact terms are suppressed by $`p/\mathrm{\Delta }`$ where $`p`$ is the momentum. Thus, chiral loops are parametrically small compared to contact terms when the chemical potential is large.

There is also a topological term which is essential in order to satisfy the t’Hooft anomaly conditions S ; HSaS ; Sannino:2003pq  at the effective Lagrangian level. It is important to note that respecting the t’Hooft anomaly conditions is more than an academic exercise. In fact, it requires that the form of the Wess-Zumino term is the same in vacuum and at non-zero chemical potential. Its real importance lies in the fact that it forbids a number of otherwise allowed phases which cannot be ruled out given our rudimentary treatment of the non-perturbative physics. As an example, consider a phase with massless protons and neutrons in three-color QCD with three flavors. In this case chiral symmetry does not break. This is a reasonable realization of QCD for any chemical potential. However, it does not satisfy the t’Hooft anomaly conditions and hence cannot be considered. Were it not for the t’Hooft anomaly conditions, such a phase could compete with the CFL phase.

Gauging the Wess-Zumino term with to respect the electromagnetic interactions yields the familiar $`\pi ^02\gamma `$ anomalous decay. This term WZ  can be written compactly using the language of differential forms. It is useful to introduce the algebra-valued Maurer-Cartan one form $`\alpha =\alpha _\mu dx^\mu =\left(_\mu U\right)U^1dx^\mu \left(dU\right)U^1`$ which transforms only under the left $`SU_L(3)`$ flavor group. The Wess-Zumino effective action is

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{WZ}\left[U\right]=C{\displaystyle _{M^5}}\mathrm{Tr}\left[\alpha ^5\right].`$ (9)
The price which must be paid in order to make the action local is that the spatial dimension must be augmented by one. Hence, the integral must be performed over a five-dimensional manifold whose boundary ($`M^4`$) is ordinary Minkowski space. In Hong:1999dk ; S ; Casalbuoni:2000jn  the constant $`C`$ has been shown to be the same as that at zero density, i.e.

$$C=i\frac{N_c}{240\pi ^2},$$
(10)
where $`N_c`$ is the number of colors (three in this case). Due to the topological nature of the Wess-Zumino term its coefficient is a pure number.

## II The vector mesons

It is well known that massive states are relevant for low energy dynamics. Consider, for example, the role played by vector mesons in pion-pion scattering Sannino:1995ik  in saturating the unitarity bounds. More specifically, vector mesons play a relevant role when describing the low energy phenomenology of QCD and may also play a role also in the dynamics of compact stars with a CFL core. In order to investigate the effects of such states, we need to know their in–medium properties including their gaps and the strength of their couplings to the CFL Goldstone bosons. Except for the extra spontaneously broken $`U(1)_B`$ symmetry, the symmetry properties of the CFL phase have much in common with those of zero density phase of QCD. This fact allows us to make some non perturbative but reasonable estimates of vector mesons properties in medium. We have already presented the general form of the chiral expansion in the CFL phase. As will soon become clear, we are now interested in the four–derivative (non–topological) terms whose coefficients are proportional to

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F_\pi ^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}}.`$ (11)
This must be contrasted with the situation at zero chemical potential, where the coefficient of the four–derivative term is always a pure number before quantum corrections are taken into account. In vacuum, the tree-level Lagrangian which simultaneously describes vector mesons, Goldstone bosons, and their interactions is:

$`L`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{F_\pi ^2}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}\left[p_\mu p^\mu \right]+{\displaystyle \frac{m_v^2}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}\left[\left(\rho _\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{v_\mu }{\stackrel{~}{g}}}\right)^2\right]`$ (12)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{Tr}\left[F_{\mu \nu }(\rho )F^{\mu \nu }(\rho )\right],`$
where $`F_\pi 132`$ Mev and $`v_\mu `$ is the one form $`v_\mu =\frac{i}{2}\left(\xi _\mu \xi ^{}+\xi ^{}_\mu \xi \right)`$ with $`U=\xi ^2`$ and $`F_{\mu \nu }(\rho )=_\mu \rho _\nu _\nu \rho _\mu +i\stackrel{~}{g}[\rho _\mu ,\rho _\nu ]`$. At tree level this Lagrangian agrees with the hidden local symmetry results Bando:1987br .

When the vector mesons are very heavy with respect to relevant momenta, they can be integrated out. This results in the field contraint:

$`\rho _\mu ={\displaystyle \frac{v_\mu }{\stackrel{~}{g}}}.`$ (13)
Substitution of this relation in the vector meson kinetic term (i.e., the replacement of $`F_{\mu \nu }(\rho )`$ by $`F_{\mu \nu }(v)`$) gives the following four derivative operator with two time derivatives and two space derivatives Schechter:1999hg :

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{64\stackrel{~}{g}^2}}\mathrm{Tr}\left[[\alpha _\mu ,\alpha _\nu ]^2\right].`$ (14)
The coefficient is proportional to $`1/\stackrel{~}{g}^2`$. It is also relevant to note that since we are describing physical fields we have considered canonically normalized fields and kinetic terms. This Lagrangian can also be applied to the CFL case. In the vacuum, $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$ is a number of order one independent of the scale at tree level. This is no longer the case in the CFL phase. Here, by comparing the coefficient of the four–derivative operator in eq. (14) obtained after having integrated out the vector meson with the coefficient of the same operator in the CFL chiral perturbation theory we determine the following scaling behavior of $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$:

$`\stackrel{~}{g}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{F_\pi }}.`$ (15)
By expanding the effective Lagrangian with the respect to the Goldstone boson fields, one sees that $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$ is also connected to the vector meson coupling to two pions, $`g_{\rho \pi \pi }`$, through the relation

$`g_{\rho \pi \pi }={\displaystyle \frac{m_v^2}{\stackrel{~}{g}F_\pi ^2}}.`$ (16)
In vacuum $`g_{\rho \pi \pi }8.56`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}3.96`$ are quantities of order one. Since $`v_\mu `$ is essentially a single derivative, the scaling behavior of $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$ allows us to conclude that each derivative term is equivalent to $`\stackrel{~}{g}\rho _\mu `$ with respect to the chiral expansion. For example, dropping the dimensionless field $`U`$, the operator with two derivatives becomes a mass operator for the vector meson

$`F_\pi ^2_\mu ^2F_\pi ^2\stackrel{~}{g}^2\rho _\mu ^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2\rho _\mu ^2.`$ (17)
This demonstrates that the vector meson mass gap is proportional to the color superconducting gap. This non-perturbative result is relevant for phenomenological applications. It is interesting to note that our simple counting argument agrees with the underlying QCD perturbative computations of Ref. Casalbuoni:2000na  and also with recent results of Ref. Rho:2000ww . However, our approach is more general since it does not rely on any underlying perturbation theory. It can be applied to theories with multiple scales for which the counting of the Goldstone modes is known. Since $`m_v^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$, we find that $`g_{\rho \pi \pi }`$ scales with $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$ suggesting that the KSRF relation is a good approximation also in the CFL phase of QCD.

## III CFL-Solitons

The low energy effective theory supports solitonic excitations which can be identified with the baryonic sector of the theory at non-zero chemical potential. In order to obtain classically stable configurations, it is necessary to include at least a four–derivative term (containing two temporal derivatives) in addition to the usual two–derivative term. Such a term is the Skyrme term:

$`L^{\mathrm{skyrme}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{32e^2}}\mathrm{Tr}\left[[\alpha _\mu ,\alpha _\nu ]^2\right].`$ (18)
Since this is a fourth–order term in derivatives not associated with the topological term we have:

$`e{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{F_\pi }}.`$ (19)
This term is the same as that which emerges after integrating out the vector mesons (see eq. (14)), and one concludes that $`e=\sqrt{2}\stackrel{~}{g}`$ Schechter:1999hg . The simplest complete action supporting solitonic excitations is:

$`{\displaystyle d^4x\left[\frac{F_\pi ^2}{2}\mathrm{Tr}\left[p_\mu p^\mu \right]+L^{\mathrm{skyrme}}\right]}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{WZ}.`$ (20)
The Wess-Zumino term in eq. (9) guarantees the correct quantization of the soliton as a spin $`1/2`$ object. Here we neglect the breaking of Lorentz symmetries, irrelevant to our discussion. The Euler-Lagrangian equations of motion for the classical, time independent, chiral field $`U_0(𝐫)`$ are highly non-linear partial differential equations. To simplify these equations Skyrme adopted the hedgehog ansatz which, suitably generalized for the three flavor case, reads Schechter:1999hg :

$`U_0(𝐫)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}𝐞^{𝐢\stackrel{}{\tau }\widehat{𝐫}𝐅(𝐫)}& \mathrm{𝟎}\\ \mathrm{𝟎}& \mathrm{𝟏}\end{array}\right),`$ (23)
where $`\stackrel{}{\tau }`$ represents the Pauli matrices and the radial function $`F(r)`$ is called the chiral angle. The ansatz is supplemented with the boundary conditions $`F(\mathrm{})=0`$ and $`F(0)=0`$ which guarantee that the configuration posseses unit baryon number. After substituting the ansatz in the action one finds that the classical solitonic mass is, up to a numerical factor:

$`M_{\mathrm{soliton}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_\pi }{e}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_\pi ^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }}},`$ (24)
and the isoscalar radius, $`r^2_{I=0}1/(F_\pi ^2e^2)1/\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$. Interestingly, due to the non perturbative nature of the soliton, its mass turns to be dual to the vector meson mass. It is also clear that although the vector mesons and the solitons have dual masses, they describe two very distinct types of states. The present duality is very similar to the one argued in Montonen:1977sn . Indeed, after introducing the collective coordinate quantization, the soliton (due to the Wess-Zumino term) describes baryonic states of half-integer spin while the vectors are spin one mesons. Here, the dual nature of the soliton with respect to the vector meson is enhanced by the fact that, in the CFL state, $`\stackrel{~}{g}\mathrm{\Delta }/F_\pi `$ is expected to be substantially reduced with respect to its value in vacuum. Once the soliton is identified with the nucleon (whose density–dependent mass is denoted with $`M_N(\mu )`$) and assuming quark-hadron continuity, we predict the following relation to be independent of the matter density:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{M_N(\mu )m_v(\mu )}{(2\pi F_\pi (\mu ))^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{M_N(0)m_v(0)}{(2\pi F_\pi (0))^2}}1.05.`$ (25)
In this way, we can relate duality to quark-hadron continuity.

## IV Conclusions

We have shown that the vector mesons in the CFL phase have masses of the order of the color superconductive gap, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. On the other hand the solitons have masses proportional to $`F_\pi ^2/\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and hence should play no role for the physics of the CFL phase at large chemical potential. We have noted that the product of the soliton mass and the vector meson mass is independent of the gap. This behavior reflects a form of electromagnetic duality in the sense of Montonen and Olive Montonen:1977sn . Combining duality and quark-hadron continuity we have predicted that the nucleon mass times the vector meson mass scales as the square of the pion decay constant at any non zero chemical potential. In the presence of two or more scales provided by the underlying theory the spectrum of massive states shows very different behaviors which cannot be obtained by assuming a naive dimensional analysis.

It is a pleasure to thank R. Casalbuoni for discussions and J. Schechter for careful reading of the manuscript. The work of F.S. is supported by the Marie–Curie fellowship under contract MCFI-2001-00181.


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# Measurement of Branching Ratios for 𝜂_𝑐 Hadronic Decays

(29 Aug 2003)

## Abstract

In a sample of 58 million $`J/\psi `$ events collected with the BES II detector, the process J/$`\psi \gamma \eta _c`$ is observed in five decay channels: $`\eta _cK^+K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, $`K^\pm K_S^0\pi ^{}`$ (with $`K_S^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$), $`\varphi \varphi `$ (with $`\varphi K^+K^{}`$) and $`p\overline{p}`$. From these signals, we determine
$`Br(J/\psi \gamma \eta _c)\times Br(\eta _cK^+K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{})`$ $`=(1.5\pm 0.2\pm 0.2)\times 10^4`$,
$`Br(J/\psi \gamma \eta _c)\times Br(\eta _c\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{})`$ $`=(1.3\pm 0.2\pm 0.4)\times 10^4`$,
$`Br(J/\psi \gamma \eta _c)\times Br(\eta _cK^\pm K_S^0\pi ^{})`$ $`=(2.2\pm 0.3\pm 0.5)\times 10^4`$,
$`Br(J/\psi \gamma \eta _c)\times Br(\eta _c\varphi \varphi )`$ $`=(3.3\pm 0.6\pm 0.6)\times 10^5`$ and
$`Br(J/\psi \gamma \eta _c)\times Br(\eta _cp\overline{p})`$ $`=(1.9\pm 0.3\pm 0.3)\times 10^5`$.

PACS: 13.25.Gv, 14.40.Gx, 13.40.Hq

J. Z. Bai1, Y. Ban10, J. G. Bian1, X. Cai1, J. F. Chang1, H. F. Chen16, H. S. Chen1, H. X. Chen3, Jie Chen9, J. C. Chen1, Y. B. Chen1, S. P. Chi1, Y. P. Chu1, X. Z. Cui1, H. L. Dai1, Y. S. Dai18, Y. M. Dai7, L. Y. Dong1, S. X. Du17, Z. Z. Du1, J. Fang1, S. S. Fang1, C. D. Fu1, H. Y. Fu1, L. P. Fu6, C. S. Gao1, M. L. Gao1, Y. N. Gao14, M. Y. Gong1, W. X. Gong1, S. D. Gu1, Y. N. Guo1, Y. Q. Guo1, Z. J. Guo15, S. W. Han1, F. A. Harris15, J. He1, K. L. He1, M. He11, X. He1, Y. K. Heng1, H. M. Hu1, T. Hu1, G. S. Huang1, L. Huang6, X. P. Huang1, X. B. Ji1, Q. Y. Jia10, C. H. Jiang1, X. S. Jiang1, D. P. Jin1, S. Jin1, Y. Jin1, Z. J. Ke1, Y. F. Lai1, F. Li1, G. Li1, H. H. Li5, J. Li1, J. C. Li1, K. Li6, Q. J. Li1, R. B. Li1, R. Y. Li1, W. Li1, W. G. Li1, X. Q. Li9, X. S. Li14, Y. F. Liang13, H. B. Liao5, C. X. Liu1, Fang Liu16, F. Liu5, H. M. Liu1, J. B. Liu1, J. P. Liu17, R. G. Liu1, Y. Liu1, Z. A. Liu1, Z. X. Liu1, G. R. Lu4, F. Lu1, H. J. Lu16, J. G. Lu1, C. L. Luo8, X. L. Luo1, E. C. Ma1, F. C. Ma7, J. M. Ma1, L. L. Ma11, X. Y. Ma1 Z. P. Mao1, X. C. Meng1, X. H. Mo1, J. Nie1, Z. D. Nie1, S. L. Olsen15, H. P. Peng16, N. D. Qi1, C. D. Qian12, J. F. Qiu1, G. Rong1, D. L. Shen1, H. Shen1, X. Y. Shen1, H. Y. Sheng1, F. Shi1, L. W. Song1, H. S. Sun1, S. S. Sun16, Y. Z. Sun1, Z. J. Sun1, S. Q. Tang1, X. Tang1, D. Tian1, Y. R. Tian14, G. L. Tong1, G. S. Varner15, J. Z. Wang1, L. Wang1, L. S. Wang1, M. Wang1, Meng Wang1, P. Wang1, P. L. Wang1, W. F. Wang1, Y. F. Wang1, Zhe Wang1, Z. Wang1, Zheng Wang1, Z. Y. Wang2, C. L. Wei1, N. Wu1, X. M. Xia1, X. X. Xie1, G. F. Xu1, Y. Xu1, S. T. Xue1, M. L. Yan16, W. B. Yan1, F. Yang9, G. A. Yang1, H. X. Yang14, J. Yang16, S. D. Yang1, Y. X. Yang3, M. H. Ye2, Y. X. Ye16, J. Ying10, C. S. Yu1, G. W. Yu1, C. Z. Yuan1, J. M. Yuan1, Y. Yuan1, Q. Yue1, S. L. Zang1, Y. Zeng6, B. X. Zhang1, B. Y. Zhang1, C. C. Zhang1, D. H. Zhang1, H. Y. Zhang1, J. Zhang1, J. M. Zhang4, J. W. Zhang1, L. S. Zhang1, Q. J. Zhang1, S. Q. Zhang1, X. Y. Zhang11, Yiyun Zhang13, Y. J. Zhang10, Y. Y. Zhang1, Z. P. Zhang16, D. X. Zhao1, Jiawei Zhao16, J. B. Zhao1, J. W. Zhao1, P. P. Zhao1, W. R. Zhao1, Y. B. Zhao1, Z. G. Zhao1†, J. P. Zheng1, L. S. Zheng1, Z. P. Zheng1, X. C. Zhong1, B. Q. Zhou1, G. M. Zhou1, L. Zhou1, N. F. Zhou1, K. J. Zhu1, Q. M. Zhu1, Yingchun Zhu1, Y. C. Zhu1, Y. S. Zhu1, Z. A. Zhu1, B. A. Zhuang1, B. S. Zou1.

(The BES Collaboration)

1 Institute of High Energy Physics, Beijing 100039, People’s Republic of China

2 China Center of Advanced Science and Technology, Beijing 100080, People’s Republic of China

3 Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541004, People’s Republic of China

4 Henan Normal University, Xinxiang 453002, People’s Republic of China

5 Huazhong Normal University, Wuhan 430079, People’s Republic of China

6 Hunan University, Changsha 410082, People’s Republic of China

7 Liaoning University, Shenyang 110036, People’s Republic of China

8 Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, People’s Republic of China

9 Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, People’s Republic of China

10 Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China

11 Shandong University, Jinan 250100, People’s Republic of China

12 Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200030, People’s Republic of China

13 Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, People’s Republic of China

14 Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People’s Republic of China

15 University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822

16 University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, People’s Republic of China

17 Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, People’s Republic of China

18 Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310028, People’s Republic of China

Visiting professor to University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

Hadronic decays of the $`\eta _c`$ have been studied by Mark III , DM2 , and other experiments \[4-7\]. However, the branching fractions of the $`\eta _c`$ still have very large errors in the Particle Data Group (PDG) compilation . More recently the branching fractions for $`B\eta _cK`$ decays and $`B\eta _cK^{}`$ have been measured by the Belle  experiment, and their measured branching fraction for $`\eta _c\varphi \varphi `$ is smaller than the PDG value .

In a previous paper , based on 58 million $`J/\psi `$ events collected in the Beijing Spectrometer (BES II) detector at the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider, we measured the $`\eta _c`$ mass and width using the processes J/$`\psi \gamma \eta _c`$, $`\eta _c`$ $`K^+K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, $`K^\pm K_S^0\pi ^{}`$ (with $`K_S^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$), $`\varphi \varphi `$ (with $`\varphi K^+K^{}`$) and $`p\overline{p}`$, and obtained $`m_{\eta _c}=2977.5\pm 1.0(\text{sta})\pm 1.2(\text{sys})`$ MeV and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\eta _c}=17.0\pm 3.7(\text{sta})\pm 7.4(\text{sys})`$ MeV. In this paper, we report measurements of the branching ratios for the same processes.

BES is a conventional solenoidal magnet detector that is described in detail in Ref. ; BESII is the upgraded version of the BES detector . A 12-layer vertex chamber (VTC) surrounding the beam pipe provides trigger information. A forty-layer main drift chamber (MDC), located radially outside the VTC, provides trajectory and energy loss ($`dE/dx`$) information for charged tracks over $`85\%`$ of the total solid angle with a momentum resolution of $`\sigma _p/p=0.0178\sqrt{1+p^2}`$ ($`p`$ in $`\text{GeV}/c`$) and a $`dE/dx`$ resolution for hadron tracks of $`8\%`$. An array of 48 scintillation counters surrounding the MDC measures the time-of-flight (TOF) of charged tracks with a resolution of $`200`$ ps for hadrons. Radially outside the TOF system is a 12 radiation length, lead-gas barrel shower counter (BSC). This measures the energies of electrons and photons over $`80\%`$ of the total solid angle with an energy resolution of $`\sigma _E/E=21\%/\sqrt{E}`$ ($`E`$ in GeV). Outside the solenoidal coil, which provides a 0.4 Tesla magnetic field over the tracking volume, is an iron flux return that is instrumented with three double layers of counters that identify muons of momentum greater than 0.5 GeV/c.

A Geant3 based Monte Carlo, SIMBES, which simulates the detector response, including interactions of secondary particles in the detector material, is used in this analysis. Reasonable agreement between data and Monte Carlo simulation is observed in various channels tested, including $`e^+e^{}(\gamma )e^+e^{}`$, $`e^+e^{}(\gamma )\mu \mu `$, $`J/\psi p\overline{p}`$, $`J/\psi \rho \pi `$ and $`\psi (2S)\pi +\pi ^{}J/\psi `$, $`J/\psi l^+l^{}`$.

The event selection criteria for each channel are described in detail in our previous paper . Here we repeat only the essential information and emphasize those considerations that are unique to the $`\eta _c`$ branching ratio measurement.

Candidate events are required to have the correct number of charged tracks for a given hypothesis. Events are kinematically fitted with four constraints (4C) to the hypotheses: $`J/\psi \gamma K^+K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, $`J/\psi \gamma \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, $`J/\psi \gamma K^\pm \pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, and $`J/\psi \gamma p\overline{p}`$. A one-constraint (1C) fit is performed for the $`J/\psi \gamma _{miss}K^+K^{}K^+K^{}`$ hypothesis, where $`\gamma _{miss}`$ indicates that this photon is not detected. Events with a $`\chi ^2`$ less than 40.0 for a particular channel are selected.

In order to remove backgrounds from non-radiative decay channels, all selected events are subjected to (4C) kinematic fits to the hypotheses: $`J/\psi K^+K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, $`J/\psi \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, and $`J/\psi K^\pm \pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ and are required to satisfy $`\chi ^2(J/\psi K^+K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{})>20.0`$ (for $`K^+K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$); $`\chi ^2(J/\psi \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{})>10.0`$ (for $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$) and $`\chi ^2(J/\psi K^\pm \pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{})>10.0`$ (for $`K^\pm K_S^0\pi ^{}`$). For the $`J/\psi \gamma p\overline{p}`$ channel, we require that the opening angle of the two charged tracks is smaller than $`179^{}`$. A detailed Monte Carlo simulation shows that these cuts, referred to below as the $`J/\psi `$ veto, do not distort the invariant mass distributions around the $`\eta _c`$ signal peak.

After event selection, the invariant mass spectra for the individual decay modes are obtained, as shown in Fig. 1. An unbinned maximum likelihood fit using MINUIT  is performed to all five channels simultaneously. The fitting method is described in detail in our previous paper .

The branching ratio can be calculated using

$$Br=\frac{N_{fit}/ϵ}{N_{J/\psi }}=\frac{N}{N_{J/\psi }},$$

where $`ϵ`$ is the detection efficiency; $`N=N_{fit}/ϵ`$ is the efficiency-corrected number of $`\eta _c`$ events obtained directly from the fit and corrected using $`Br(K_s^0\pi ^+\pi ^{})`$ and $`Br(\varphi K^+K^{})`$  where necessary; and $`N_{J/\psi }=(57.7\pm 2.72)\times 10^6`$  is the total number of $`J/\psi `$ events. The numbers of $`\eta _c`$ events determined from the fit and the corresponding branching ratios, by decay channel, are listed in Table 1.

The main systematic error contributions in measuring the $`\eta _c`$ branching ratios originate from uncertainties in the background shape parameterization used, differences between different Monte Carlo simulations of the drift chamber wire resolution, detection efficiency differences due to uncertainties in $`\eta _c`$ decay sequences into the final state (for $`\eta _c\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, $`\eta _cK^+K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ and $`\eta _cK^\pm K_S^0\pi ^{}`$), differences in the photon efficiency determined using data and that determined from the Monte Carlo simulation, particle identification uncertainties, and the uncertainty in the total number of $`J/\psi `$ events. In Fig. 1, second-order polynomials are used to describe the backgrounds. The systematic errors due the background shape are studied by using instead linear polynomial functions to fit the backgrounds in Fig. 1(b), (d), and (e) and third order polynomials to fit the backgrounds in Fig. 1(a) and (c), changing the upper fitting bound from 3.05 to 3.07 GeV/$`c^2`$, and removing the $`J/\psi `$ veto from the event selection. The relative systematic errors from these sources are listed in Table 2. Since the errors are correlated, we choose the largest one as the systematic error due to the background shape.

The relative systematic errors for the individual channels are summarized in Table 3, where the individual contributions are added in quadrature to obtain the total relative systematic error. The systematic errors on the product branching ratios are given in Table 1.

Using the branching fraction $`Br(J/\psi \gamma \eta _c)=(1.3\pm 0.4)\%`$ , the $`\eta _c`$ branching fractions can be obtained. Table 4 shows the BES results together with the PDG  and Belle  values. The BES $`Br(\eta _c\varphi \varphi )`$ is smaller than the current PDG value of $`(7.1\pm 2.8)\times 10^3`$ and is consistent with the Belle  and DM2  measurements within errors. The branching fractions for $`\eta _cK^\pm K_S^0\pi ^{}`$ and $`\eta _cp\overline{p}`$ are consistent with both the Belle and PDG values . The branching fractions for $`\eta _c\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ and $`\eta _cK^+K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ are consistent with the PDG values  within errors.

The BES collaboration thanks the staff of the BEPC and the IHEP computing center for their efforts. This work is supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contracts Nos. 19991480, 10225524, 10225525, the Chinese Academy of Sciences under contract No. KJ 95T-03, the 100 Talents Program of CAS under Contract Nos. U-11, U-24, U-25, and the Knowledge Innovation Project of CAS under Contract Nos. U-602, U-34 (IHEP); by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Contract No.10175060 (USTC); and by the Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-FG03-94ER40833 (U Hawaii).


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# Star Cluster Formation in Extreme Starburst Environments

## 1. Gravitational Interaction Induced Star (Cluster) Formation

Close encounters between gas-rich galaxies often have devastating effects on the state of their interstellar medium (ISM), in particular of the ISM of either the smaller or of the most gas-rich of the interacting galaxies (e.g., de Grijs et al. 2001, 2003). The ram pressure caused by the time-varying gravitational potential induced by the interaction causes free-floating giant molecular clouds in the affected galaxy’s ISM to collapse and enter a phase of violent star formation. This process is particularly well illustrated by the ongoing interaction between NGC 6745 and its small northern companion galaxy, “NGC 6745c” (cf. de Grijs et al. 2003), where dynamical and kinematic evidence from Hi observations obtained with the Very Large Array support the scenario that the small companion galaxy has traveled from the south east across the eastern edge of the main galaxy to its current location north of the main galaxy, in its wake leaving a frenzy of very violent and active star, and in particular star cluster, formation.

In de Grijs et al. (2003b) we used the ages, masses and metallicities of the rich young star cluster system in NGC 6745, based on the analysis of multi-passband archival Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations, to derive its cluster formation history and subsequent evolution. We derive a median age, and thus an estimate of the starburst duration, of $`10`$ Myr. NGC 6745 contains a significant population of high-mass “super star clusters (SSCs)”, with masses in the range $`6.5<\mathrm{log}(M_{\mathrm{cl}}/\mathrm{M}_{})<8.0`$. We caution, however, that these massive SSC candidates may not be gravitationally bound objects, but more diffuse star forming regions or aggregates of multiple unresolved clusters instead. Nevertheless, we measure an effective radius for the most massive object ($`M_{\mathrm{cl}}5.9\times 10^8\mathrm{M}_{}`$) of only $`R_{\mathrm{eff}}16`$ pc. However, this object appears very elongated, or may in fact be a double cluster. We should keep in mind, of course, that this high mass estimate is a strong function of the (low) metallicity assumed; if we had assumed solar metallicity for this object, the derived age would have been significantly smaller ($`1020`$ Myr vs. $`1`$ Gyr), and the mass could be smaller by a factor of $`>10`$. Even so, if we could confirm this mass estimate spectroscopically, either of the subcomponents would be the most massive cluster known to date, significantly exceeding cluster W3 in NGC 7252, which has a mass of about $`(318)\times 10^7\mathrm{M}_{}`$, depending on the age, metallicity and IMF assumed (Schweizer & Seitzer 1998; Maraston et al. 2001).

The suggestion that such massive objects (either star clusters, or extended star-forming regions) form preferentially in the extreme environments of interacting galaxies, is supported quantitatively by our analysis (de Grijs et al. 2003a) of pixel-by-pixel colour-magnitude and colour-colour diagrams of the Mice and Tadpole interacting galaxies (NGC 4676 and UGC 10214, respectively), based on a subset of the (archival) HST Advanced Camera for Surveys Early Release Observations, which provide a powerful technique to explore and deduce the star and star cluster formation histories of galaxies at moderate distances. In each interacting system we found some 40 bright young star clusters, with a characteristic mass of $`3\times 10^6\mathrm{M}_{}`$, which are spatially coincident with blue regions of active star formation in their tidal tails and spiral arms. We showed that star cluster formation is a major mode of star formation in galaxy interactions, with $`>35`$% of the active star formation in encounters occurring in star clusters. In particular, the tidal tail of the Tadpole system is dominated by blue star-forming regions, which occupy some 60% of the total area covered by the tail and contribute $`70`$% of the total flux in the F475W filter (decreasing to $`40`$% in F814W).

Finally, in the nearby (ultra)luminous infrared galaxy NGC 6240, we detect a population of massive young star clusters, with tentative evidence (based on statistical considerations) that the more massive clusters are found closer to the galaxy’s double (or perhaps triple) nucleus and the most intense starburst region (Pasquali, de Grijs, & Gallagher 2003).

Thus, the currently available empirical evidence, mostly based on high-resolution HST imaging observations, strongly suggests that star cluster formation is an important and perhaps even the dominant mode of star formation in the starburst events associated with galaxy interactions.

### Acknowledgments.

I acknowledge invaluable collaborations with Peter Anders, Nate Bastian, Uta Fritze-v. Alvensleben, Jay Gallagher, Henny Lamers, and Anna Pasquali.

## References

de Grijs, R., O’Connell, R.W., Gallagher, J.S., iii 2001, AJ, 121, 768

de Grijs, R., Lee, J.T., Mora Herrera, M.C., Fritze-v. Alvensleben, U., Anders, P. 2003a, New Astron., 8, 155

de Grijs, R., Anders, P., Bastian, N., Lynds, R., Lamers, H.J.G.L.M., O’Neil, E.J., Jr. 2003b, MNRAS, 343, 1285

Maraston, C., Kissler-Patig, M., Brodie, J.P., Barmby, P., Huchra, J.P. 2001, A&A, 370, 176

Pasquali, A., de Grijs, R., Gallagher, J.S., iii 2003, MNRAS, in press (astro-ph/0306446)

Schweizer, F., Seitzer, P. 1998, AJ, 116, 2206

Department of Physics & Astronomy, The University of Sheffield, Hicks Building, Hounsfield Road, Sheffield S3 7RH, UK

## 2. “Super” or normal?

One of the main contributions to date of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to the field of stellar populations in nearby galaxies has been the discovery of numerous dense stellar objects resembling star clusters with properties similar to those predicted for the progenitors of the old globular cluster (GC) population in the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies.

These objects are often confusingly referred to as “super star clusters” (SSCs), by virtue of their high luminosities and compact sizes. They have been found in a wide variety of galactic environments, ranging from quiescent dwarf and irregular or amorphous galaxies to large, gas-rich spiral galaxies involved in large-scale gravitational interactions and mergers, and in the starburst events associated with them (see de Grijs, O’Connell, & Gallagher 2001 for an overview). However, the question arises of whether these objects are indeed “super” star clusters, in terms of either their integrated luminosity or their total mass. If they are indeed the progenitors of Milky Way-type GCs, assuming that they have the potential to survive for a Hubble time, then their high luminosities at their correspondingly young ages (of up to $`1`$ Gyr, in general) are simply conform the expectations of any modern flavour of simple stellar population theory.

Indeed, the mass distributions of most of these young star cluster populations do not extend significantly beyond that of the Milky Way GC population (which is generally used as a benchmark), with a few exceptions (e.g., NGC 7252-W3: Schweizer & Seitzer 1998, Maraston et al. 2001; NGC 6745: de Grijs et al. 2003c; some of the Antennae clusters, e.g., Mengel et al. 2002), although their existence might simply be due to stochastic effects. Nevertheless, the latter objects may therefore truly be supermassive objects. With the exception of these few clusters, one should perhaps not consider the overall mass distribution of a given cluster population compared to that of the almost universal GC mass function in a wide variety of galaxies hosting such old objects, but instead consider these remarkable clusters in the context of their own parent population. This exercise leads us to realise that in a number of (predominantly) dwarf and irregular galaxies the overall cluster population is host to a few clusters that are significantly more massive than any of the other clusters (although not necessarily more massive than the high-mass wing of the Milky Way GC system), such as observed in NGC 1705 (NGC 1705-I, Ho & Filippenko 1996), NGC 1569 (SSCs A and B; see, e.g., Hunter et al. 2000, and Anders et al 2003 for comparative analyses in the context of the galaxy’s overall cluster population), and M82 (M82-F; e.g., Smith & Gallagher 2001). Therefore, the assignation “super” appears to be merely a relative qualification.

In view of the confusing nomenclature, I will henceforth refer to these objects as Young Massive Star Clusters (YMCs).

## 3. Survival to old age?

Although YMC populations are often assumed to be GC-type progenitors, their survival for a Hubble time is by no means guaranteed. In fact, this depends crucially on the slope of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) governing these clusters. High-resolution spectroscopy can – for the nearest YMC systems – be utilised to derive dynamical mass estimates and, combined with integrated luminosity measurements from e.g. HST imaging, one can derive mass-to-light (M/L) ratios for a small number of clusters at a time. In their comparison of the M/L ratios at the corresponding ages for a handful of the brightest YMCs, Smith & Gallagher (2001) and Mengel et al. (2002) showed convincingly that a number of them appear to have IMF slopes that are significantly too shallow for the clusters to survive for any longer than roughly the next Gyr. Thus, these objects are unlikely to become GC analogues.

Instead of going through the cumbersome exercise of measuring individual M/L ratios, one can approach this problem statistically, by analysing the potential of a given cluster population to survive for a Hubble time. The currently most popular models for the dynamical evolution of star clusters predict that the power-law Cluster Luminosity Functions (CLFs) characteristic of YMC systems will be transformed rapidly into the universal Gaussian CLFs of old Milky Way-type GC systems. In a recent paper (de Grijs, Bastian, & Lamers 2003a; see also de Grijs, Bastian, & Lamers 2003b), we provided the first evidence for a turn-over in the intermediate-age, approximately 1 Gyr-old CLF in the centre of the nearby starburst galaxy M82, which very closely matches the universal CLFs of old Milky Way-type GC systems. This is likely to remain virtually unchanged for a Hubble time. We also showed that with the very short characteristic cluster disruption time-scale governing the centre of M82 (de Grijs et al. 2003b), its cluster mass distribution will evolve towards a higher characteristic mass scale than for the Galactic GCs by the time it reaches a similar age. We argue, therefore, that this evidence, combined with the similar cluster sizes (de Grijs et al. 2001), lends strong support to a scenario in which the current central M82 cluster population will eventually evolve into a significantly depleted old Milky Way-type GC system dominated by a small number of high-mass clusters. This implies that GC progenitors, which were once thought to be the oldest building blocks of galaxies, are still forming today in galaxy interactions and mergers. However, they will likely be more metal-rich than the present-day old GC systems. This connection between young or intermediate-age star cluster systems and old GCs lends strong support to the hierarchical galaxy formation scenario.

M82’s proximity, its shortest known cluster disruption time-scale of any galaxy, and its well-defined peak of cluster formation make it an ideal candidate to probe the evolution of its star cluster system to fainter luminosities, and thus lower masses, than has been possible for any galaxy before.

### Acknowledgments.

I acknowledge invaluable collaborations with Peter Anders, Nate Bastian, Uta Fritze–v. Alvensleben, Jay Gallagher, and Henny Lamers.

## References

Anders, P., de Grijs, R., Fritze–v. Alvensleben, U., Bissantz, N. 2003, MNRAS, submitted

de Grijs, R., O’Connell, R.W., Gallagher, J.S., iii 2001, AJ, 121, 768

de Grijs, R., Bastian, N., Lamers, H.J.G.L.M., 2003a, ApJ, 583, L17

de Grijs, R., Bastian, N., Lamers, H.J.G.L.M., 2003b, MNRAS, 340, 197

de Grijs, R., Anders, P., Bastian, N., Lynds, R., Lamers, H.J.G.L.M., O’Neil, E.J., Jr. 2003c, MNRAS, 343, 1285

Ho, L.C., Filippenko A.V. 1996, ApJ, 472, 600

Hunter, D.A., O’Connell, R.W., Gallagher, J.S., iii, Smecker-Hane, T.A. 2000, AJ, 120, 2383

Maraston, C., Kissler-Patig, M., Brodie, J.P., Barmby, P., Huchra, J.P. 2001, A&A, 370, 176

Mengel, S., Lehnert, M.D., Thatte, N., Genzel, R. 2002, A&A, 383, 137

Schweizer, F., Seitzer, P. 1998, AJ, 116, 2206

Smith, L.J., Gallagher, J.S., iii 2001, MNRAS, 326, 1027


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# Radio emission and the optical isophotal twist of radio-loud ellipticals

## 1 Introduction

Whereas supermassive black holes are now known to reside in the nuclei of many elliptical galaxies (e.g. Magorrian et al. 1998; Gebhardt et al. 2000; Ferrarese & Merritt 2000), only a tiny fraction of them hosts powerful (twin-lobed) radio sources. What triggers the nuclear activity and how it is related to the actual formation and evolution of the host galaxy are widely debated issues. It is well established that powerful radio emission is almost exclusively associated with the spheroidal component of galaxies. However, at any given epoch, an overwhelming majority of luminous spheroidal galaxies sampled is found to be radio-quiet (e.g., Wisotzki et al. 2001). One oft discussed possibility, based on direct observations, is that galaxy mergers or interactions could be playing an important role in radio activity, as indicated by the frequent presence of optical isophotal distortions, shells and dust lanes seen in radio-loud ellipticals, particularly in the more powerful Fanaroff-Riley (1974) Class II (FR II) radio galaxies (RGs) (e.g., Heckman et al. 1986). It has also been proposed that the formation of the weaker FR I RGs may involve merging of early-type galaxies deficient in dense ISM, as the FR I RGs are often located in richer environments (Colina & Pérez-Fournon 1990; Colina & de Juan 1995).

Another set of potentially important clues reported on the basis of morphological analyses of the optical images are: (i) a marked tendency for the radio-loud ellipticals to be rounder than normal ellipticals (Disney et al. 1984; Calvani et al. 1989); (ii) a strong correlation between boxiness of the elliptical host and its radio emission (Bender et al. 1987, 1989). Both of these issues are addressed in a more recent study based on a surface photometric analysis of a well defined sample of 79 radio galaxies at $`z0.12`$ (Govoni et al. 2000, hereafter GFFS). Their analysis, however, did not confirm the suggestion that radio-loud ellipticals are rounder in shape, in agreement with the conclusions also reached by Smith & Heckman (1989) for powerful RGs, by Ledlow & Owen (1995) for (mostly) FR I RGs in Abell clusters, and by Falomo et al. (2000) for the hosts of BL Lacertae objects. Secondly, GFFS find no clear correlation between radio emission and the presence of boxy isophotes in the host, in agreement with Ledlow & Owen (1995) (see also, Jorgenson et al. 1995; González-Serrano et al. 1993). Another potentially interesting result emerging from their study concerns the presence of non-concentric disposition of the isophotes, which is believed to be a strong measure of galaxy interaction. In this respect, they find no significant difference between the FR I and FR II members of their sample of radio galaxies.

Larger isophotal twist is another potential indicator of strong galaxy interaction or merger events, although a small amount of isophotal twist could arise simply from the triaxiality of the galaxy (e.g., Kormendy 1982). The twist is quantified in terms of the total position angle variation, $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA`$, of the major axis of the stellar component over the entire range in surface brightness. However, isolated ellipticals are found to show a similar distribution of twist angle as a randomly selected sample of ellipticals, suggesting that by and large, twisting is probably an intrinsic property (Fasano & Bonoli 1989; also, Falomo 2003).

## 2 Is the radio output of radio-loud ellipticals related to isophotal twist?

Recently, Govoni et al. (2000) have reported a two-dimensional surface photometry analysis for 79 ellipticals with $`z<0.12`$, extracted from two complete samples of radio galaxies. Among other parameters, they have published for each elliptical the value of its ellipticity, $`ϵ=1b/a`$, measured at its effective radius. Also, for 78 out of the 79 ellipticals, they have reported the isophotal twist angle, $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA`$. This is the maximum twist observed over the range of isophotes. (Note that they have excluded both the isophotes at radii $`<5^{\prime \prime }`$ as they are usually affected by seeing related smearing as well as the values of $`PA`$s having errors larger than $`8^{}`$.) These superior data support the earlier claim that, statistically, rounder radio galaxies tend to have larger isophotal twists (Galletta 1980; Fasano & Bonoli 1989). As seen from the $`ϵ`$ versus $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA`$ diagram (Fig. 16 of GFFS), essentially all the elongated ellipticals ($`ϵ>0.3`$) have $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA<10^{}`$. In contrast, for less elongated ellipticals ($`ϵ<0.3`$), the amount of isophotal twist appears to be independent of ellipticity (although few galaxies have $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA>40^{}`$). The origin of this trend is unclear.

The median value $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA`$ for the GFFS sample is found to be $`10^{}`$, similar to $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA16^{}`$ found for a sample of isolated ellipticals using an identical method (Fasano & Bonoli 1989). Also, at least for $`z<0.2`$, there is no significant statistical difference between the isophotal twist for radio galaxies and radio-quiet ellipticals (Falomo et al. 2000). Thus, it would appear that radio emission has no obvious dependence on isophotal twisting. In contrast, Colina & de Juan (1995) found a significantly larger twisting for FR I radio galaxies, with a median twist angle of $`14^{}`$, compared to a sample of isolated normal ellipticals studied by Sparks et al. (1991) for which the median twist angle is only $`4^{}`$.

To follow up these rather conflicting claims, we have examined the distribution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA`$ against $`P_{408}`$ for the GFFS sample (Fig. 1). The values of these two parameters are directly taken from GFFS, so we follow them in taking $`H_0`$ = 50 km s-1 Mpc-1 and $`q_0`$ = 0. For two of the 78 radio galaxies, the values of $`P_{408}`$ are not tabulated by GFFS and we have determined these by extrapolating from the values of $`P_{2700}`$ given in GFFS and $`P_{843}`$ reported by Jones & McAdam (1992).

From Fig. 1, one notices an upper envelope of the data points, which rises with the radio luminosity until $`P_{408}10^{26}`$ W Hz-1. In particular, larger twist angles ($`\mathrm{\Delta }PA>20^{}`$) are found almost exclusively above $`P_{408}3\times 10^{25}`$, which is close to the well known average transition luminosity between the low and high power radio sources (Fanaroff & Riley 1974). We note, however, that there is a considerable overlap between the morphologically determined FR I and FR II sources in the luminosity range considered here (e.g. Ledlow & Owen 1995). In fact, as can be seen from Fig. 1, there is no obvious relation between twist angle and FR classification; in order to avoid introducing possible bias into the present analysis, we have simply adopted the FR classification given by GFFS. Govoni et al. (2000) themselves note that the mean twist for FR I’s is $`13^{}\pm 12^{}`$ while for FR II’s it is nearly identical: $`15^{}\pm 12^{}`$.

Another version of Fig. 1 is displayed in Fig. 2 where the histograms of $`P_{408}`$ are presented for two ranges of the twist angle separated at $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA`$ = $`20^{}`$. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test shows that the two distributions are statistically different at the $`97\%`$ confidence level. Thus, there seems to be a relation between isophotal twist and radio luminosity for massive ellipticals in their active phase, and the two may share a common origin.

Here it may be recalled that in any flux limited sample, such as the the present one (GFFS), luminosity is strongly correlated with redshift. It is therefore conceivable that the primary correlation is between the parameters $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA`$ and $`z`$. However, this is highly unlikely, since that would imply an unphysically steep cosmological evolution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA`$, given that the entire sample is defined over a very narrow range in redshift ($`z0.12`$). Explicitly, a plot of twist angle against redshift shows that sources with $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA>20^{}`$ are essentially uniformly distributed in $`z`$. Alternatively, the radio power could be correlated primarily with the rounder shape of the host (Sect. 1), given the $`\mathrm{\Delta }PA`$$`ϵ`$ dependence mentioned above. However, as also concluded by Govoni et al. (2000), we find no significant correlation of radio power with ellipticity of the host to be evident in the GFFS sample. Thus, it appears more likely that, during the radio-loud phase, powerful radio sources are preferentially associated with ellipticals exhibiting relatively large isophotal twist. At the same time, a large twist cannot be a sufficient condition for generating and sustaining strong nuclear activity, since similarly large twists are also seen in radio-quiet ellipticals (Falomo et al. 2000; Fasano & Bonoli 1989).

In summary, the relation between radio power and the isophotal twist reported here suggests that during the radio-loud phase of an elliptical galaxy the conditions giving rise to a more powerful radio source are reflected in the occurrence of larger isophotal twist of the stellar component. At present, no satisfactory theoretical explanation is available for this trend. It is certainly conceivable that a recent merger or strong tidal interaction could both twist the isophotes and drive more gas into the central engine, thereby triggering the radio activity, but no convincing results on the mechanisms and relative timescales of these phenomena are yet available. We also note that there is some support for the scenario in which radio loudness is linked to the spin of the nuclear black hole (Wilson & Colbert 1995; also, Small & Blandford 1992; Rees 1978). Thus it is of considerable interest to investigate any possible link between the isophotal twist of the stellar body and the process of spinning up the supermassive black hole at the nucleus. It is clearly also important at this stage to verify the empirical trend emerging in the present analysis, using an independent sample of radio galaxies.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Prof. Vasant Kulkarni for helpful comments and the anonymous referee for suggestions that improved the clarity of the manuscript. PJW is grateful for hospitality at Princeton University Observatory and for support from RPE funds at GSU.


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# H𝛼 and hard X-ray observations of a two-ribbon flare associated with a filament eruption

## 1 Introduction

Two-ribbon flares are usually accompanied by the eruption of filaments or coronal mass ejections (CMEs). A generally accepted model for two-ribbon flares predicts that prior to the flare, a filament (prominence) lies above magnetic arcades, which becomes unstable owing to some processes such as a shear motion of magnetic arcades (Mikić & Linker 1994), a converging motion of them (Forbes & Priest 1995), or an emerging flux (e.g., Chen & Shibata 2000). The filament eruption leaves below a current sheet where magnetic reconnection occurs and energy is released to power a solar flare. Recently, the relationship between flares and filament eruptions (or CMEs) has become a hot topic (e.g., Zhang et al. 2001; Wang et al. 2003).

A two-ribbon flare comprises of a series of arcade loops whose footpoints form the two flare ribbons that are most often observed in H$`\alpha `$. It is known from observations with high spatial resolution that several flare kernels can appear in one ribbon, which correspond to different flaring loops whose energy processes (heating mechanisms) may be different (e.g., Kitahara & Kurokawa 1990). Asai et al. (2003) even identified small-scale conjugate footpoints in the two ribbons of a flare by searching for the most correlated H$`\alpha `$ light curves. Discrimination between different heating mechanisms (electron bombardment versus heat conduction) relies on several ways. First, as is well known, the hard X-ray emission provides a direct information on the site where high-energy electrons precipitate. Second, the emission features of the H$`\alpha `$ line can also be used as an indirect diagnostic tool for the heating mechanisms, based on the line shape and width (e.g., Canfield, Gunkler, & Ricchiazzi 1984; Canfield & Gayley 1987; Fang, Hénoux, & Gan 1993) and the comparison of H$`\alpha `$ and hard X-ray light curves (e.g., Wang et al. 2000; Trottet et al. 2000). In a few cases, heating at deeper layers can be achieved that produces an enhanced white-light emission. A probable cause is chromospheric heating by a strong electron beam followed by the backwarming effect (Liu, Ding & Fang 2001; Ding et al. 2003).

In this paper, we perform a multi-wavelength study of a two-ribbon flare on 2002 September 29, observed simultaneously by the Solar Tower Telescope of Nanjing University and the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI). The following topics are in particular addressed: (1) spatial and temporal variation of the H$`\alpha `$ and continuum emission; (2) dynamics of the filament eruption in association with the flare development; and (3) distribution of the hard X-ray source and its variation with time.

## 2 Observations

A two-ribbon flare (importance M2.6/2N), associated with a filament eruption, occurred at N12 E21 in NOAA Active Region 0134, on 2002 September 29. It started from 06:32 UT and peaked at 06:39 UT. We made spectral observations in H$`\alpha `$ and Ca ii 8542 Å lines for this flare during the period of 06:35–06:49 UT, using the imaging spectrograph installed in the Solar Tower Telescope of Nanjing University (Huang et al. 1995; Ding et al. 1999). Two-dimensional spectra for the whole flaring region were obtained by using a scanning technique. A frame of two-dimensional spectra contains a three-dimensional data array: 260 wavelength points around the line, 120 points along the slit with a pixel spacing 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$85, and 50 points along the scanning direction with a spacing 2$`\mathrm{}`$. The spectral resolution is 0.05 and 0.118 Å pixel-1 for H$`\alpha `$ and Ca ii 8542 Å respectively. Therefore, we can detect the emission at the far wings of the lines ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =6`$ Å for H$`\alpha `$ and 15 Å for Ca ii 8542 Å), which can be served as a proxy of the continuum window. We repeated in total 17 scans with a repetition time about 15 s in the impulsive phase. The last scan was done well after the flare when the continuum emission has dropped back to the quiescent value.

This flare was also observed by RHESSI, which provides the first high-resolution hard X-ray imaging spectroscopy (Lin et al. 2002). The hard X-ray data yield important information on high-energy electrons and the heating of the flare atmosphere. In addition, we use the data from the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) to deduce the magnetic geometry related to this flare.

Reduction of the ground-based data includes a correction for the dark field and the flat field. H$`\alpha `$ images of the flaring region are reconstructed from the 2D spectral data. To compare images from different instruments, we align the H$`\alpha `$ image at the line wing with the MDI intensity image by tracing the sunspot features in the active region. The accuracy of image alignment is estimated to be $`2\mathrm{}`$. Other images can be overlapped similarly.

## 3 Results and Discussions

### 3.1 Evolution of the flare ribbons and the emission features

Figure 1 shows the H$`\alpha `$ monochromatic images (at the line center) of the 2002 September 29 flare at some selected times covering the impulsive phase. Overlapped is the magnetic neutral line from the MDI magnetogram observed at 06:24:01 UT, $`15`$ min prior to the flare maximum time. Therefore, when drawing the magnetic neutral line, we have applied a correction of 15 min solar rotation for consistency between the H$`\alpha `$ image and the magnetogram. It is seen that the curved magnetic neutral line divides the flare into three parts. The lower part below the neutral line is a small (fainter) ribbon. The upper part (above the neutral line ) and the middle part (surrounded by the neutral line) look like to form a big (brighter) ribbon. However, they lie in areas of different magnetic polarities. In particular, we draw attention to two points across the neutral line, labeled as “A” and “B” in Fig. 1, and plot the time profiles of the H$`\alpha `$ emission in Fig. 2. Point “A” is the center of the kernel in the upper part of the flare and point “B” is the center of the kernel in the middle part (also the brightest kernel in the flare). We find that point “A” is already relatively hot at the start of observations. It then cools down gradually with time. Point “B”, however, is relatively cool at first and is heated rapidly during the impulsive phase.

As mentioned above, a two-ribbon flare may consist of many small loops that flare up and evolve differently, and that produce light curves of different shapes. Generally speaking, the H$`\alpha `$ line emission originates from and reflects a heating status in the upper chromosphere, while the white-light continuum emission is from the lower chromosphere or photosphere. For the present event, we also search for the continuum emission near the H$`\alpha `$ line. We select a wavelength window at the far red wing (i.e., 6 Å from the line center) to avoid a possible effect of the filament absorption, and then derive the relative enhancement of the intensity, defined as $`R=(I_fI_q)/I_q`$, where $`I_f`$ is the intensity during the flare and $`I_q`$ is the quiescent value at the same point. The latter is taken as the intensity well after the flare ($`10`$ min after the flare maximum). The same is done for the continuum near the Ca ii 8542 Å line, but we use the wavelength window at 15 Å from the line center. The time variations of the H$`\alpha `$ line center intensity and the continuum intensity for points “A” and “B” are plotted in Fig. 2, together with the RHESSI hard X-ray counts summed over detectors 1 through 9, excluding detectors 2 and 7.

We detect a fairly strong continuum enhancement ($`R8`$ %) at point “B”. The continuum emission rises more rapidly than the line emission; it reaches a maximum that corresponds roughly to the peak of $`25`$ keV hard X-ray emission, or a sub-peak of the hard X-ray emission at lower energies; then, it keeps above the quiescent value until the later phase of the flare. Note that we find a similar enhancement with a slightly less magnitude at the continuum near the Ca ii 8542 Å line. The visible continuum at point “A” seems also enhanced but much less significant than at point “B”. As will be discussed below, such a continuum emission may be related to electron beam precipitation.

We further study the origin of the hard X-ray emission by making a fit to the RHESSI hard X-ray spectra. Figure 3 plots the spatially integrated, background-subtracted photon spectrum for the time interval 06:36:00–06:37:00 UT, obtained using the RHESSI spectral executive software (Smith et al. 2002). We fit this spectrum by a bremsstrahlung spectrum that originates from both a thermal source and a thick-target source, as was done in Sui et al. (2002). The thick-target source yields a power-law fit. The results show that the non-thermal contribution to the hard X-ray emission dominates over the thermal source when $`E14`$ keV; the former becomes nearly one order of magnitude stronger than the latter at $`E20`$ keV.

### 3.2 The filament eruption

The 2002 September 29 flare is closely associated with a filament eruption. In the observed H$`\alpha `$ and Ca ii 8542 Å spectra, the filament causes an absorption, or sometimes an emission, in the line blue wing. To view this feature clearly, we subtract the H$`\alpha `$ images at the red wing ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =4`$ Å) from that at the blue wing ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =4`$ Å) and plot these difference images in Fig. 1. The figure shows clearly the location and evolution of the filament (more accurately, the moving material in the filament). Seen from the MDI magnetogram overlapped on the image, the filament lies along the magnetic neutral line. With the flare development, the filament expands along its axis, in the southeastern direction. This phenomenon can be explained as a projection of the motion of the filament mass in the plane perpendicular to the line of sight. Since we cannot determine the velocity vector, we are unable to trace a specific mass element and study its dynamics. Therefore, we try to deduce the line-of-sight velocity for a fixed spatial point within the filament, based on the Doppler shift of the absorption feature in the line wing. The time history of the line-of-sight velocity for a typical point in the midst of the filament, marked as “C” in Fig. 1, is shown in Fig. 2. The filament is shown to undergo a drastic acceleration during the impulsive phase; it reaches a maximum line-of-sight velocity of $`210`$ km s-1 at $``$06:37:40 UT, roughly in coincidence with the H$`\alpha `$ maximum at point B; after this, the filament is decelerated, while it continues to rise higher until the later phase of the flare.

The relationship between filament eruptions and flares has been extensively studied for decades (e.g., Rust 1976; Hanaoka et al. 1994; Wang et al. 2003). For a limb event, one can accurately determine the height of the erupting filament (prominence) and derive its propagation speed (e.g., Klein & Mouradian 2002). Since the event studied here is close to the disk center, it is hard to measure the height of the filament. The velocity derived from the Doppler shift of the absorption center reflects only a mean velocity averaged over the line of sight; it more probably corresponds to the velocity in the base part of the filament where the mass density is higher and most absorption is produced. However, the fact that the acceleration phase of the filament eruption corresponds to the flare impulsive phase provides a convincing confirmation of the result of Zhang et al. (2001).

We also notice from Fig. 1 (the lower panels) that the filament does not always appear in absorption (dark features); in stead, some parts may appear in emission (bright features) in the H$`\alpha `$ blue wing. This implies either an ejection of heated plasma (Batchelor & Hindsley 1991) or a heating of the filament material during its eruption. Note that such an emission feature appears especially in the impulsive phase.

### 3.3 The hard X-ray source and its motion

The spatial distribution and the temporal evolution of the hard X-ray emission provide clues to the acceleration of energetic electrons and to the heating of the flaring atmosphere. When a flare occurs, electrons are accelerated in the magnetic reconnection site and then precipitate downward along the magnetic field lines to both footpoints of the flaring loop, producing hard X-ray emission there. Therefore, in most cases, flares exhibit double hard X-ray sources (Sakao 1994), or multiple sources in the case of more than one flaring loops. However, in quite a few cases, only a single source in seen. This is either because the two footpoint sources are too close to be spatially resolved, or due to an asymmetric magnetic topology, in which the magnetic field in one loop leg is so converging that the magnetic mirroring effect inhibits most electrons from streaming downward.

The RHESSI data provide a good opportunity to study the above issue. To this end, we construct the hard X-ray images at different times that are overlaid on the H$`\alpha `$ images in Fig. 1. In producing the hard X-ray images, we adopt the clean procedure, set the integration time to 12 s, and include detectors 3 through 8. We notice that a strong hard X-ray source appears, covering the bright points “A” and “B”, from the impulsive phase to the gradual phase. In the fainter ribbon, however, we only detect a rather weak source at the very beginning ($``$ 06:35–06:36 UT), prior to the H$`\alpha `$ observation time. This weak source is of a very short duration, located in the southeastern part of the fainter ribbon, which seems to have no relation to the strong source. Therefore, we think that the strong source itself contains two footpoint sources that are spatially mixed. A fact supporting this point is that the source straddles over the magnetic neutral line at earlier times (Fig. 1).

A further inspection of Fig. 1 reveals a motion of the hard X-ray source across the magnetic neutral line in the early phase. For a quantitative view, we plot in Fig. 4 the position of the centroid of the source at different energy bands for 5 successive time intervals of 12 s during 06:36–06:37 UT. Note that the centroid is defined as the intensity-weighted center of the hard X-ray source with $`50`$% peak intensity. Since the shape of the hard X-ray source is nearly round, the centroid is roughly the place of peak intensity. The source motion is seen to depend on the energy of the emission. The source at a higher energy band moves later, but across a longer distance, than that at a lower energy band. Note that such a difference can be explained by the different proportions of thermal and non-thermal sources at different energy bands. As revealed in Fig. 3, the hard X-ray emission at 3–12 keV is mainly thermal, while that at 25–50 keV is nearly nonthermal; at 12–25 keV, the thermal and nonthermal contributions are comparable. (In fact, we have also tried to construct the hard X-ray image at the 50–100 keV range; however, the centroid of the source cannot be reliably determined since the count rates are not large enough.) To trace the fastest source motion, we shorten the time interval (also the integration time) to as small as 2 s; at the 25–50 keV band, the biggest motion during this small interval is $`2\mathrm{}`$, which means a source motion speed as large as $`1\mathrm{}`$ per second. We also find that at first, the sources at different energy bands are more spatially separated than later; they converge to nearly the same place and become relatively stable after their motions stop (at $``$ 06:37 UT).

Sakao et al. (2000) have studied in detail the motion of hard X-ray (double) sources in flares observed by Yohkoh. They found that in most cases, the double sources move anti-parallelly. Krucker, Hurford, & Lin (2003) also found a hard X-ray source motion roughly parallel to the magnetic neutral line with a velocity of up to $`100`$ km s-1. Masuda, Kosugi, & Hudson (2001) found both kinds of hard X-ray source motions, parallel and vertical to the magnetic neutral line, for an X-class flare. In our case, the source motion does show both the parallel and vertical components. Note that at the 25–50 keV energy band, the motion is nearly perpendicular to the magnetic neutral line during the period of fast motion. Since this source is probably a merging of two footpoint sources, we propose two causes for such a motion: an asymmetric hard X-ray emission, that is, the footpoint source at the southern side of the neutral line gradually dominates over that at the northern side, and/or a ribbon separation from the neutral line (e.g., Qiu et al. 2002). We think that the first effect is more important during the short period of fast motion. That is to say, there is a mechanism that suddenly switches off (or greatly reduces) the emission from the northern side but enhances the emission from the southern side. We further postulate that the magnetic topology of the newly reconnected loops becomes very asymmetric so that the magnetic mirroring effect results in such an asymmetric hard X-ray emission.

To confirm the above point, we compute the magnetic topology of the active region from the MDI magnetogram using a potential field extrapolation developed by Sakurai (1982). In Fig. 5, we schematically plot the magnetic field lines projected on the MDI magnetogram. For clarity, only the field lines in the flaring region are given. The connectivity of the magnetic field indicates that there are magnetic loops that straddle over the upper part of the magnetic neutral line. These loops are responsible for the production of the main hard X-ray source and the continuum emission, as discussed above. In addition, there appear other loops that connect the H$`\alpha `$ brighter ribbon and the fainter ribbon (across the lower part of the magnetic neutral line). The overall picture of this flare is a sequence of sheared magnetic arcade loops and a filament lying above them. Unfortunately, the cadence of MDI magnetograms is only 96 min; therefore, we are unable to learn the magnetic field change during the flare.

Note that we do not find a corresponding motion of the continuum emission source. This is not surprising if we interpret the continuum emission as due to the backwarming effect (Ding et al. 2003). The lower atmosphere requires tens of seconds to get fully heated, so that the continuum emission cannot follow closely in space the fast motion of the hard X-ray emission. Of course, it may also be due to the relatively low spatial resolution of the 2D spectral observations.

## 4 Conclusions

We have studied the H$`\alpha `$ emission and the RHESSI hard X-ray emission of the 2002 September 29 flare. The main results are as follows.

(1) The flare is associated with a filament eruption. A rapid acceleration of the filament occurs in the flare impulsive phase. The line-of-sight velocity deduced at a fixed spatial point within the filament is seen to reach a maximum at nearly the same time of H$`\alpha `$ maximum in the brightest kernel. In the impulsive phase, some parts of the filament may produce an emission in the H$`\alpha `$ blue wing. This implies either a heating of the filament mass or an ejection of heated plasma.

(2) The flare ribbons comprise of several H$`\alpha `$ kernels that evolve differently. Judging from the magnetic topology and the emission features in both H$`\alpha `$ and hard X-rays, we have identified two bright points, which lie at both sides of the magnetic neutral line and are probably the footpoints of a flaring loop.

(3) We detect a motion of the hard X-ray source across the magnetic neutral line. Since this source is probably a merging of two footpoint sources, its motion is ascribed to a rapid change of their relative weights owing to a change of the magnetic topology of the newly reconnected loops. However, it is still unclear what is the mechanism that produces such a change in a very short time ($`2`$ s).

(4) We also detect an enhanced emission at the visible continuum (near H$`\alpha `$) and the infrared continuum (near Ca ii 8542 Å), at a place near the center of the hard X-ray source. Liu et al. (2001) have reported a similar continuum emission in a flare of 2001 March 10. Ding et al. (2003) proposed a model for the continuum emission as a result of electron beam heating followed by radiative backwarming. The results here favor such an interpretation.

In principal, the observed features of this flare can still be interpreted by the canonical model of two-ribbon flares (Kopp & Pneuman 1976).

We would like to thank the referee for his/her valuable comments on the paper. We are grateful to the RHESSI team and the SOHO/MDI team for providing the observational data, and to T. Sakurai for providing the computer code for magnetic field extrapolation. This work was supported by NKBRSF under grant G20000784, by NSFC under grants 10025315 and 10221001, and by a grant from TRAPOYT.


text:
# Implications of Bi-Large Neutrino Mixing on GUTs

\[

YITP-03-49 hep-ph/0308258

## Abstract

Under the assumptions that 1) the quark/lepton mass matrices take Froggatt-Nielsen’s factorized power form $`\lambda ^{\psi _i+\psi _j}`$ with anomalous $`U(1)`$ charges $`\psi _i`$, and 2) the $`U(1)`$ charges $`\psi _i`$ respect the $`SU(5)`$ GUT structure, we show that the quark mass data and the mass-squared difference ratio of solar and atmospheric neutrinos, as inputs, necessarily imply that both the 1-2 and 2-3 mixings in the MNS matrix $`U_{\mathrm{MNS}}`$ are large. This analysis also gives a prediction that $`U_{e3}(U_{\mathrm{MNS}})_{13}`$ is of order $`\lambda (0.10.5)`$. We also add an argument that $`E_6`$ GUT is favored.

\]

Existence of a certain grand unified theory (GUT) beyond the standard model is guaranteed by i) the anomaly cancellation between quarks and leptons and ii) the unification of the gauge coupling constants at energy scale around $`\mu \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{16}`$ GeV. The strongest candidate for the unified gauge group is $`E_6`$, which is not only suggested by string theory but also unique in the property that it is the maximal safe simple group allowing complex representations in the $`E`$-series; $`E_3=SU(3)\times SU(2)`$, $`E_4=SU(5)`$, $`E_5=SO(10)`$, $`E_6,E_7,E_8`$.

On the other hand, the present neutrino data  show the following particular facts:

1. Bi-large mixing;

$$\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{12}0.8,\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{23}1.$$
(1)
2. Mass-squared difference ratio of solar ($``$) to atmospheric ($``$) neutrinos;

$$\frac{\mathrm{}m_{}^2}{\mathrm{}m_{}^2}\frac{7\times 10^5\mathrm{eV}^2}{2\times 10^3\mathrm{eV}^2}\lambda ^2,$$
(2)
where $`\lambda `$ defined below is a quantity of magnitude $`\lambda 0.22`$.

These show a sharp contrast to the quark sector, in which the mixings are very small and the mass spectrum is hierarchical. The mutual relations of the masses and mixing angles between quarks and leptons/neutrinos will be great clues for the GUTs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the implications of these neutrino data on the possible GUTs. We analyze these data first assuming, as an working hypothesis, a supersymmetric SU(5) GUT and the Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism for generating hierarchical quark/lepton masses. The latter mechanism utilizes a (usually anomalous) $`U(1)_X`$ charge to generate effective Yukawa couplings via higher dimensional interaction terms in the superpotential of the form

$$y\mathrm{\Psi }_i\mathrm{\Psi }_jH\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }}{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}}\right)^{\psi _i+\psi _j+h},$$
(3)
where the ‘pre-Yukawa’ coupling constants $`y`$ can in principle depend on the generation label $`i,j`$ but are here assumed to be all of order 1 and so are denoted by $`y`$ collectively. $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the Froggatt-Nielsen field carrying the $`U(1)_X`$ charge $`1`$ and the $`U(1)_X`$ charges of the Higgs chiral superfield $`H`$ and matter chiral superfields $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i`$ ($`i=1,2,3`$) are denoted by the corresponding lower-case letters:

$$X(\mathrm{\Theta })=1,X(H)=h,X(\mathrm{\Psi }_i)=\psi _i(0).$$
(4)
After the Froggatt-Nielsen field $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ develops a vacuum expectation value (VEV) $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, which is assumed to be smaller than the Planck scale by a factor of Cabibbo angle $`\theta _\mathrm{C}`$

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }}{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}}\lambda 0.22\mathrm{sin}\theta _\mathrm{C},$$
(5)
the effective Yukawa couplings induced from Eq. (3) are given by

$$y_{ij}^{\mathrm{eff}}=y\times \lambda ^{\psi _i+\psi _j+h}=𝒪(1)\times \lambda ^{\psi _i+\psi _j+h}.$$
(6)
That is, suppressing the $`𝒪(1)`$ coefficients henceforth, and distingushing the right-handed and left-handed matter superfields $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i^\mathrm{R}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i^\mathrm{L}`$, the mass matrix $`M`$ takes the form

$$M=yv\lambda ^h\times \begin{array}{cccccc}& & & \stackrel{j}{}& & \\ & (\mathrm{}& & & & )\mathrm{}\\ i>& & \lambda ^{\psi _i^\mathrm{R}+\psi _j^\mathrm{L}}& \end{array}$$
(7)
with $`H=v`$ and $`\psi _i^\mathrm{R}`$ and $`\psi _j^\mathrm{L}`$ denoting the $`U(1)_X`$ charges of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i^\mathrm{R}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i^\mathrm{L}`$, respectively. Thus, in this Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism, the hierarchical mass structure can be explained by the difference of the $`U(1)_X`$ charges $`\psi _i^{\mathrm{R},\mathrm{L}}`$ of the matter fields. Note that this type of ‘factorized’ mass matrix can be diagonalized as

$$VMU^{}=M^{\mathrm{diag}.}$$
(8)
by the unitary matrices $`U`$ and $`V`$ taking also similar power forms:

$$U\left(\lambda ^{\left|\psi _i^\mathrm{L}\psi _j^\mathrm{L}\right|}\right),V\left(\lambda ^{\left|\psi _i^\mathrm{R}\psi _j^\mathrm{R}\right|}\right).$$
(9)
We assume $`SU(5)`$ structure for the quark and lepton matter contents and the $`U(1)_X`$ charge assignment for them. Then, the higher dimensional Yukawa couplings responsible for the up-quark sector masses, which are invariant under $`SU(5)`$ and $`U(1)_X`$, are given by:

$$y_u\mathrm{\Psi }_i(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})\mathrm{\Psi }_j(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})H_u(\mathrm{𝟓})\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }}{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}}\right)^{\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})+\psi _j(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})+h_u}.$$
(10)
After the VEV (5) is developed, these yield the effective Yukawa coupling constants

$`y_{u}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{\mathrm{eff}}=y_u\times \lambda ^{\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})+\psi _j(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})+h_u}.`$ (11)
In order for these to reproduce the observed up-type quark mass hierarchy structure

$$m_t:m_c:m_u\underset{\text{exp.}}{=}1:\lambda ^4:\lambda ^7,$$
(12)
we are led to choose the following values for the $`U(1)_X`$ charges of three generation $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})`$ fermions taking $`h_u=0`$ for simplicity:

$$(\psi _1(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}),\psi _2(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}),\psi _3(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}))=(\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3},2,0)$$
(13)
Next we consider the mass matrices of down-type quarks and charged leptons which come from the couplings

$`y_d\mathrm{\Psi }_i(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})\mathrm{\Psi }_j(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})H_d(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Theta }}{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}}}\right)^{\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})+\psi _j(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})+h_d}`$ (14)
$`y_{d}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{\mathrm{eff}}=y_d\times \lambda ^{\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})+\psi _j(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})+h_d}.`$ (15)
Note that this yields the transposed relation between the down-type quark mass matrix $`M_d`$ and the charged lepton one $`M_l`$: $`M_{d}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}M_l`$. This is because the $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})`$ multiplets contain the right-handed component $`d^c`$ for the down-type quarks while the left-handed component $`l`$ for the charged leptons. Therefore the unitary matrices for diagonalizing those mass matrices, satisfy the relations

$$\{\begin{array}{c}V_dM_dU_d^{}=M_d^{\mathrm{diag}.}\hfill \\ V_lM_lU_l^{}=M_l^{\mathrm{diag}.}\hfill \end{array}\{\begin{array}{c}V_l=U_d^{}\hfill \\ V_d=U_l^{}\hfill \end{array},$$
(16)
so that we have $`U_d^{}(M_lM_d^T)U_l^{}=\text{diag.}`$ with

$$U_d\left(\lambda ^{\left|\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})\psi _j(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})\right|}\right),U_l\left(\lambda ^{\left|\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})\psi _j(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})\right|}\right).$$
(17)
That is, the mass matrix takes the form

$`M_d^TM_ly_dv\lambda ^{h_d}\times \left(\lambda ^{\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})+\psi _j(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})}\right).`$ (18)
In order for this $`M_d`$ to reproduce the mass ratio of the top and bottom quarks

$$\frac{m_b}{m_t}\underset{\text{exp.}}{}\lambda ^{23}$$
(19)
we take $`\psi _3(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})=2h_d`$. Further, to reproduce the down-type quark mass hierarchy

$$m_b:m_s:m_d\underset{\text{exp.}}{=}1:\lambda ^2:\lambda ^4,$$
(20)
we take $`\psi _2(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})=\psi _1(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})1=\psi _3(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})`$, so that

$$(\psi _1(\mathrm{𝟓}^{}),\psi _2(\mathrm{𝟓}^{}),\psi _3(\mathrm{𝟓}^{}))=(\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}h_d,2h_d,2h_d),$$
(21)
and the mass matrix (18) now reduces to

$$M_d^TM_ly_dv\lambda ^2\times \left(\begin{array}{ccc}\lambda ^4& \lambda ^3& \lambda ^3\\ \lambda ^3& \lambda ^2& \lambda ^2\\ \lambda & 1& 1\end{array}\right)$$
(22)
This form of mass matrix is called lopsided.

Mixing matrices in the quark sector and lepton sector are called Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) and Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata (MNS) matrices, respectively, and they are defined by

$$U_{\mathrm{CKM}}=U_uU_d^{},U_{\mathrm{MNS}}=U_lU_\nu ^{}.$$
(23)
In our case both $`U_u`$ and $`U_d`$ takes the form $`U_uU_d(\lambda ^{\left|\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})\psi _j(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})\right|})`$, so that the CKM matrix, generally, also has the same form

$$U_{\mathrm{CKM}}\left(\lambda ^{\left|\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})\psi _j(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})\right|}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& \lambda & \lambda ^3\\ \lambda & 1& \lambda ^2\\ \lambda ^3& \lambda ^2& 1\end{array}\right),$$
(24)
agreeing perfectly the experimatal data. For the charged lepton sector we have

$$U_l\left(\lambda ^{\left|\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})\psi _j(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})\right|}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& \lambda & \lambda \\ \lambda & 1& 1\\ \lambda & 1& 1\end{array}\right).$$
(25)
If the mixing matrix $`U_\nu `$ in neutrino sector is $`1`$, this beautifully explains the observed large 2-3 neutrino mixing! However, this alone fails in explaining the large 1-2 mixing. We thus have to discuss the neutrino mixing matrix $`U_\nu `$ now.

Generally in GUTs, there appear some right-handed neutrinos $`\mathrm{\Psi }_I(\mathrm{𝟏})=\nu _{\mathrm{R}I}`$ ($`I=1,\mathrm{},n`$); for instance, $`n=3`$ in $`SO(10)`$ and $`n=6`$ in $`E_6`$. They will generally get superheavy Majorana masses denoted by an $`n\times n`$ mass matrix $`(M_\mathrm{R})_{IJ}`$, and also possesses the Dirac masses (R-L transition mass terms)

$$\left(M_\mathrm{D}^T\right)_{iI}y_\nu v\lambda ^{h_u}\times \left(\lambda ^{\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})+\psi _I^\mathrm{R}}\right)$$
(26)
induced from

$`y_\nu \mathrm{\Psi }_i(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_I(\mathrm{𝟏})H_u(\mathrm{𝟓})\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Theta }}{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}}}\right)^{\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})+\psi _I^\mathrm{R}+h_u}.`$ (27)
Here $`\psi _I^\mathrm{R}`$ denotes the $`U(1)_X`$ charges of the right-handed neutrinos $`\mathrm{\Psi }_I(\mathrm{𝟏})`$.

The Majorana mass matrix $`M_\nu `$ of (left-handed) neutrino is induced from these masses $`M_\mathrm{R}`$ and $`M_\mathrm{D}`$ by the see-saw mechanism and evaluated as

$`\left(M_\nu \right)_{ij}`$ $``$ $`\left(M_\mathrm{D}^T\right)_{iI}\left(M_\mathrm{R}^1\right)_{IJ}\left(M_\mathrm{D}\right)_{Jj}`$ (28)
$``$ $`\lambda ^{\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})}\left(\lambda ^{\psi _I^\mathrm{R}}\left(M_\mathrm{R}^1\right)_{IJ}\lambda ^{\psi _J^\mathrm{R}}\right)\lambda ^{\psi _j(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})}`$ (29)
$``$ $`\lambda ^{\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})+\psi _j(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})}.`$ (30)
Note that the dependence on the $`U(1)_X`$ charges $`\psi _I^\mathrm{R}`$ of the right-handed neutrinos has completely dropped out. (We should however take it into account that this occurs only for a generic case and may be broken in particular cases in which $`\left(M_\mathrm{D}^T\right)_{iI}`$ brings about correlation between the left-handed neutrino index $`i`$ and right-handed one $`I`$.) Plaguing the values (21) for $`\psi _i(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})`$, we thus have

$$M_\nu \left(\begin{array}{ccc}\lambda ^2& \lambda & \lambda \\ \lambda & 1& 1\\ \lambda & 1& 1\end{array}\right).$$
(31)
This neutrino mass matrix happens to take the same form as one of the models that have been proposed by Ling and Ramond and Babu, Gogoladze and Wang This form is very interesting.

First, this matrix implies the large 2-3 mixing in the diagonalization matrix $`U_\nu `$. The 2-3 mixing is also large in the charged lepton mixing matrix $`U_l`$ as we have seen above, and so is it generally in the MNS matrix $`U_{\mathrm{MNS}}=U_lU_\nu ^{}`$ unless a cancellation occurs between $`U_l`$ and $`U_\nu `$.

Second, it is natural to assume that three neutrino masses are not accidentally degenerate . Then, the mass squared difference ratio (2) of the solar and atmospheric neutrinos implies the mass ratio of the second and third neutrinos: $`m_{\nu 2}/m_{\nu 3}\lambda `$. In order for the $`M_\nu `$ to reproduce this mass ratio, the determinant of the $`2\times 2`$ bottom-right submatrix of this $`M_\nu `$ should not be naturally-expected order 1, but should be $`O(\lambda )`$; that is, that submatrix should be diagonalized by an $`2\times 2`$ unitary matrix $`u_\nu `$ as

$$u_\nu ^{}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 1\\ 1& 1\end{array}\right)u_\nu ^{}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\lambda & 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right).$$
(32)
If this is the case, the mass matrix $`M_\nu `$ takes the following form after the diagonalization of this $`2\times 2`$ bottom-right submatrix:

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& u_\nu ^{}\end{array}\right)M_\nu \left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& u_\nu ^{}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\lambda ^2& \lambda & \lambda \\ \lambda & \lambda & 0\\ \lambda & 0& 1\end{array}\right).$$
(33)
If we note the $`2\times 2`$ top-left submatrix of this matrix

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}\lambda ^2& \lambda \\ \lambda & \lambda \end{array}\right),$$
(34)
we see that this also gives the large mixing in the 1-2 sector so that it explains the bi-large mixing.

Therefore, the experimental fact

$$\frac{\mathrm{}m_{}^2}{\mathrm{}m_{}^2}\lambda ^2\frac{m_{\nu 2}}{m_{\nu 3}}\lambda $$
(35)
necessarily implies the bi-large mixing!

We note that a very similar neutrino mass matrix $`M_\nu `$ to ours (31) was also proposed by Maekawa:

$$M_\nu \left(\begin{array}{ccc}\lambda ^2& \lambda ^{1.5}& \lambda ^1\\ \lambda ^{1.5}& \lambda ^1& \lambda ^{0.5}\\ \lambda ^1& \lambda ^{0.5}& 1\end{array}\right).$$
(36)
We should note that there is one more prediction in our framework; that is, it predicts a rather ‘large’ value for the element $`U_{e3}(U_{\mathrm{MNS}})_{13}`$:

$$U_{e3}O(\lambda ^1)\left(0.10.5\right).$$
(37)
This is seen as follows. First, for $`U_l`$, we have

$`(U_l)_{11}`$ $``$ $`O(1),`$ (38)
$`(U_l)_{12}\text{and}(U_l)_{13}`$ $``$ $`\lambda ^{\psi _1(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})\psi _{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2}{3}}(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})}=\lambda ^1,`$ (39)
which have resulted from down-type quark masses and an $`SU(5)`$ relation. Second, for $`U_\nu `$, we have

$`(U_\nu )_{31}\lambda ^{\psi _1(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})\psi _3(\mathrm{𝟓}^{})}=\lambda ^1,`$ (40)
$`(U_\nu )_{32}\text{and}(U_\nu )_{33}O(1).`$ (41)
These clearly give rise to $`U_{e3}(U_{\mathrm{MNS}})_{13}=(U_lU_\nu ^{})_{13}O(\lambda )`$. Although the bigger side of this prediction is already excluded experimentally, this prediction gives a crucial test for the idea of Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism.

Summarizing the points up to here, we have shown:

1. If we assume Froggatt-Nielsen’s factorized form for the quark/lepton mass matrices and the $`SU(5)`$ structure for the $`U(1)_X`$ charges, an input of up- and down-type quark masses necessarily implies that the 2-3 mixing is large in the MNS matrix $`U_{\mathrm{MNS}}`$.

2. If we further add the data $`\sqrt{\mathrm{}m_{}^2/\mathrm{}m_{}^2}\lambda `$, then, it implies that the 1-2 mixing in $`U_{\mathrm{MNS}}`$ is also large, so leading to bi-large mixing.

3. The measurement of $`U_{e3}`$ will confirm or kill the basic idea of Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism for explaining the hierarchical mass structures of quarks and leptons.

Let us now look back our analysis and examine the possible implication of the neutrino data on the GUTs.

Recall first that the mixing unitary matrices are determined solely by the $`U(1)`$ charges of the left-handed components, and that the left-handed components fall into $`SU(2)`$ doublets under the standard gauge symmetry. Therefore, under the assumption of the generic factorized power form for the mass matrices, the standard gauge symmetry alone predicts

$$U_uU_d\left(\lambda ^{|Q_iQ_j|}\right),U_\nu U_l\left(\lambda ^{|L_iL_j|}\right),$$
(42)
and hence also, for CKM and MNS matrices,

$`U_{\mathrm{CKM}}`$ $`=`$ $`U_uU_d^{}\left(\lambda ^{|Q_iQ_j|}\right),`$ (43)
$`U_{\mathrm{MNS}}`$ $`=`$ $`U_lU_\nu ^{}\left(\lambda ^{|L_iL_j|}\right).`$ (44)
Here $`Q_i`$ and $`L_i`$ are the U(1) charges of the quark and lepton doublets, respectively. If we had the Pati-Salam symmetry $`SU(4)_{\mathrm{PS}}`$, instead of the $`SU(5)`$ symmetry as assumed in the above, the $`U(1)`$ charges of quark and lepton doublets must be the same, $`Q_i=L_i`$, which leads to an incorrect prediction that the CKM and MNS mixing matrices should have the same structure, $`U_{\mathrm{CKM}}U_{\mathrm{MNS}}`$.

This apparently seems to exclude GUT gauge groups like SO(10) and $`E_6`$ larger than SU(5), since they necessarily contain the $`SU(4)_{\mathrm{PS}}`$ and the gauge multiplet members all carry a common $`U(1)_X`$ charge. Actually, any $`SO(10)`$ models in which three generations of matters come from three 16 representations are excluded, since there the leptons are the fourth colored ‘quarks’ of $`SU(4)_{\mathrm{PS}}`$ and so the relations $`Q_i=L_i`$ must hold. The group $`E_6`$, however, has two intrinsic mechanisms giving the ways out of this difficulty, and hence the $`E_6`$ models in which three generations come from three 27 representations are indeed allowed.

The first reason is because 27 is decomposed into the $`SU(5)`$ multiplets

$$\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}=\underset{SO(10)\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}16}}{\underset{}{(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}+\mathrm{𝟓}^{}+\mathrm{𝟏})}}+\underset{SO(10)\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}10}}{\underset{}{(\mathrm{𝟓}+\mathrm{𝟓}^{})}}+\underset{SO(10)\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}1}}{\underset{}{\mathrm{𝟏}}}$$
(45)
The point here is that there appear two $`SU(5)`$ $`\mathrm{𝟓}^{}`$ representatioons in each 27, and six in all for three generation case. The $`SU(4)_{\mathrm{PS}}`$ partner of the quark doublet contained in 10 in $`SO(10)\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}16}`$ is the lepton doublet in the $`\mathrm{𝟓}^{}`$ in $`SO(10)\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}16}`$, but not that in the the $`\mathrm{𝟓}^{}`$ in $`SO(10)\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}10}`$. However, the light lepton doublets may generally come from any three (linear combinations) out of these six $`SU(5)`$ $`\mathrm{𝟓}^{}`$, and, so the relation $`Q_i=L_i`$ can easily be avoided.

Second, it is also important that three 27 contain six $`SU(5)`$ singlets $`\mathrm{𝟏}`$ which play the roll of right-handed neutrinos and form $`6\times 3`$ Dirac mass matrix with the three left-handed neutrinos in the three light lepton doublets. However, depending on the $`SO(10)`$ properties of those three lepton doublets, there may appear zeros in the matrix elements of the $`6\times 3`$ Dirac mass matrix. This is because, for instance, $`SU(5)`$ singlet in $`SO(10)`$ 16, denoted $`(\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏𝟔})`$ for brevity, can form Dirac masses with the left-handed neutrinos in $`(\mathrm{𝟓}^{},\mathrm{𝟏𝟔})`$ but not those in $`(\mathrm{𝟓}^{},\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})`$, when the Higgs is assumed to be $`(\mathrm{𝟓},\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})`$. And $`6\times 6`$ Majorana mass matrix for the right-handed neutrinos can have additional structure other than the Froggatt-Nielsen’s $`U(1)`$ power structure, since $`(\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏𝟔})`$ and $`(\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏})`$ have different $`SO(10)`$ quantum numbers and their Majorana masses may come from different Higgs scalars. These two facts invalidate the above discusion in Eq. (30) proving the factorization of the light neutrino mass matrix $`M_\nu `$. So $`U_\nu \left(\lambda ^{|L_iL_j|}\right)`$ no longer remains true and $`U_{\mathrm{CKM}}\sim ̸U_{\mathrm{MNS}}`$ even when $`Q_i=L_i`$.

We would like to thank N. Maekawa for valuable discussions. We were also inspired by stimulating discussions during the Summer Institute 2002 and 2003 held at Fuji-Yoshida.