text:
# Degeneration of Kähler-Einstein hypersurfaces in complex torus to generalized pair of pants decomposition

## 1 Introduction

According to the conjecture of Calabi, on a complex manifold $`X`$ with ample canonical bundle $`K_X`$, there should exist a Kähler-Einstein metric $`g`$. Namely, a metric satisfying $`\mathrm{Ric}_g=\omega _g`$, where $`\omega _g`$ is the Kähler form of the Kähler metric $`g`$. The existence of such metric when $`X`$ is compact was proved by Aubin and Yau () using complex Monge-Ampère equation. This important result has many applications in Kähler geometry. Starting with this important result, Yau initiated the program of applying Kähler-Einstein metrics to algebraic geometry (). It was realized by him the need to study such metrics for quasi-projective manifolds () and their degenerations. The original proof of  was a purely existence result. Later the existence of $`C_1(X)<0`$ Kähler-Einstein metrics was generalized to complete complex manifolds by Cheng and Yau (), where other than existence the proof also exhibits the asymptotic behavior of the Kähler-Einstein metric near the infinity boundary.

Since Kähler-Einstein metric is canonical for a complex manifold, one would expect its structure to be closely related to the topology and complex geometry of the manifold. In this work we will explore one such relation between the convergence of Kähler-Einstein manifolds in the sense of Cheeger-Gromov and the algebraic degeneration of the underlying algebraic manifolds.

From algebraic geometry point of view, when discussing the compactification of the moduli space of complex manifold $`X`$ with ample canonical bundle $`K_X`$, it is necessary to consider a holomorphic degeneration family $`\pi :𝒳B`$ such that $`X_t=\pi ^1(t)`$ are smooth except for $`t=0`$, and such that the canonical bundle of $`X_t`$ for $`t0`$ as well as the dualizing sheaf of $`X_0`$ are ample line bundles. Such degeneration will be called canonical degeneration.

For $`t0`$, the works of Aubin and Yau imply the existence of a unique Kähler-Einstein metric $`g_t`$ on $`X_t`$. For $`t=0`$, assume the central fibre $`X_0={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}D_i`$. Under certain conditions, the work of Cheng and Yau implies the existence of a complete Kähler-Einstein metric $`g_{0,i}`$ on each $`D_i{\displaystyle \underset{ji}{}}D_j`$. It is interesting to understand the relation between $`g_t`$ for $`t0`$ and the collection of complete $`g_{0,i}`$’s. Such understanding will provide structure results on the Kähler-Einstein metric $`g_t`$ (which was only known to exist previously) based on the structure of $`g_{0,i}`$’s. G. Tian made the first important contribution (in ) in this direction. He proved (in ) that the family of Kähler-Einstein metrics $`g_t`$ on $`X_t`$ is convergent in the sense of Cheeger-Gromov to the complete Kähler-Einstein metric $`g_0=\{g_{0,i}\}_{i=1}^l`$ on the smooth part of $`X_0`$ under the following three assumptions:

(1). the total space $`𝒳`$ is smooth;
(2). the central fibre $`X_0={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}D_i`$ has only normal crossing singularities;
(3). any three of the $`D_i`$’s have empty intersection.

Following Tian’s framework authors of  and later  improved Tian’s result by removing assumption (3). Notice that for most natural examples of canonical degeneration, the total space $`𝒳`$ is not smooth, and there are a lot of canonical degeneration singularities that cannot be reduced to normal crossing case. Therefore, there are very few natural examples beyond the curve case where the normal crossing results () apply.

One of the main purposes of this work is to give a class of interesting concrete global examples, where the theory of the degeneration of Kähler-Einstein manifolds applies. More specifically, we will discuss the convergence of complete Kähler-Einstein hypersurfaces in complex torus in the sense of Cheeger-Gromov. In the situations we are interested, the central fiber $`X_0`$ of the underlying algebraic degeneration is almost never normal crossing globally. In fact, the underlying algebraic degenerations are naturally toroidal canonical degenerations. In , we generalized result and method in  to the case of toroidal degeneration. Methods developed in  will enable us to deal with degeneration discussed in this paper. Notice that the large class of natural examples discussed in this paper concern the convergence of complete Kähler-Einstein manifolds with finite volume. In , we will discuss another large class of natural examples concerning the convergence of complete Kähler-Einstein manifolds with infinite volume.

The examples discussed in this paper are inspired by our previous work  on the “large complex structure limit” degeneration phenomenon that was first discovered by Viro  in his work of curve patching. This original idea of Viro has many interesting applications in very diverse problems. For example, it was applied by Mikhalkin  to real algebraic curves, by Sturmfels  to solving algebraic equations and by our previous work  to Lagrangian torus fibrations and mirror symmetry. From (symplectic) topology point of view,  and  indicate that complex hypersurfaces in complex torus admit “generalized pair of pants” decomposition induced by such degeneration in terms of singular (Lagrangian) fibration. For example, $`C_t=\{(z_1,z_2)(^{})^2:p_t(z_1,z_2)=0\}`$ with

$$p_t(z_1,z_2)=t^3(1+z_1^3+z_2^3)+t(z_1+z_1^2+z_2+z_2^2+z_1z_2^2+z_1^2z_2)+z_1z_2$$

defines a family of cubic curves in complex 2-torus, which topologically are elliptic curves with 9 points removed. When $`t`$ goes to zero, $`C_t`$ degenerate into 9 “pair of pants” ($`^1`$ with 3 points removed that can be identified with $`\{z_1+z_2+1\}(^{})^2`$). This example can also be viewed as an explicit realization of Deligne-Mumford stable degeneration of elliptic curves with 9 marked points into a stable curve as the union of 9 pair of pants. (For more detail of this degeneration construction and its higher dimensional generalization, please refer to section 3.) Our current work (theorem 6.2) will show that the convergence of the corresponding canonical Kähler-Einstein hypersurfaces in the sense of Cheeger-Gromov will canonically degenerate the underlying manifolds into “generalized pair of pants” decomposition. This result brings yet another interesting relation between the Kähler-Einstein metric and the complex, symplectic geometry and topology of the underlying manifold.

Another main objective of this paper is to find interesting examples of minimal Lagrangian submanifolds in Kähler-Einstein manifolds with negative first Chern class. Such minimal Lagrangian submanifolds were first discussed in . Up to now, most known examples of such minimal Lagrangian submanifolds are either the fixed point set of an anti-holomorphic automorphism of the Kähler-Einstein manifold or explicit local examples. In our opinion, such minimal Lagrangian submanifolds arise most naturally as the vanishing cycles of degeneration of Kähler-Einstein manifolds with negative first Chern class. In , we developed deformation techniques to construct such minimal Lagrangian vanishing cycles in general. Applying techniques from , we are able to represent the vanishing cycles of the degeneration discussed in this paper by minimal Lagrangian tori in the corresponding Kähler-Einstein hypersurfaces (theorem 8.2). In the curve case, the minimal Lagrangian tori are just minimal geodesic circles that will canonically divide smooth $`C_t`$ near the degeneration into a union of hyperbolic pairs of pants.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 summarizes the basic facts from Riemannian geometry that are needed for our work. Section 3 introduces the algebraic framework and structure of the degenerating family $`\{X_t\}`$ of hypersurfaces and discusses its canonical limit $`\stackrel{~}{X}_0`$. In sections 4,5,6, we carry out the proof of the convergence of Kähler-Einstein hypersurfaces in complex torus in the sense of Cheeger-Gromov to generalized pair of pants decomposition. Since the degenerating hypersurfaces in this paper are not compact, results in  do not apply directly. In section 4, proposition 4.1 is proved based on lemma 4.2, which is the main technical result that enables us to generalize estimates in  to the complete manifold case here. In section 5, the approximate metrics are constructed rather explicitly, which is an improvement over the formula in  that would not apply to the complete manifold case. The construction and estimates of the approximate metrics here are global in nature and are simpler than the counterparts in . Section 6 is essentially the same as its counterpart in . In section 7, we clarify the relation between the “large complex structure limit” degeneration in this paper and general toroidal degeneration discussed in . In section 8, we apply general result from  to construct minimal Lagrangian vanishing torus in our Kähler-Einstein hypersurfaces here.

Convention of notations: (1) When we use $`g_t`$ to denote a Kähler metric, we will automatically use $`\omega _t`$ to denote the corresponding Kähler form and vice versa. (2) When the Kähler potential is $`\mathrm{log}[V_t/(\mathrm{\Omega }_t\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }_t})]`$ for volume $`V_t`$ and some holomorphic section $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$ of $`K_{X_t}`$, since the Kähler metric is independent of the choice of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$, by slight abuse of terminology, we will call the Kähler potential the logarithm of the volume form $`V_t`$ and denote by $`\mathrm{log}V_t`$. (3) By $`AB`$, we mean that there exist constants $`C_2>C_1>0`$ such that $`C_1BAC_2B`$. (4) Following convention in analysis, $`C`$ is used to denote a constant that may differ in different formulas. (5) A smooth function $`f(x)`$ is called a bounded smooth function of $`x`$ if $`f(x)`$ and all its multi-derivatives are bounded when $`x`$ is bounded. We have the following basic properties of bounded smooth functions:

###### Proposition 1.1

(i) If both $`f`$ and $`g`$ are bounded smooth functions, then $`fg`$ is also a bounded smooth function. (ii) If $`f(x)`$ is a bounded smooth function of $`x`$ and $`|f(x)|>C>0`$, then $`\mathrm{log}f(x)`$ is a bounded smooth function of $`x`$. (Consequently, $`1/f(x)=\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{log}f(x))`$ is a bounded smooth function of $`x`$.)

## 2 Background from Riemannian geometry

Notations in this section will not extend to other sections of this paper. Results in this section are all wellknown basic facts from Riemannian geometry. We present them here due to our failure to find a source that is written in a convenient enough form for us to quote from.

Let $`(X,g)`$ be a Riemannian $`n`$-manifold, and $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ be vector fields that form a frame field. Let $`\alpha _i`$ be the dual 1-form fields, and $`g=g_{ij}\alpha _i\alpha _j`$. $`[v_i,v_j]=a_{ij}^kv_k`$. Let $`\{w_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ be another frame field and $`w_i=b_i^jv_j`$.

###### Definition 2.1

The frame field $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ is called proper (with respect to $`g`$) if $`a_{ij}^k`$, $`g_{ij}`$ and all their multi-derivatives with respect to $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ are bounded and $`det(g_{ij})C>0`$. We say that $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ is equivalent to $`\{w_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ if $`b_i^j`$ and all their multi-derivatives with respect to $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ are bounded and $`det(b_i^j)C>0`$.

It is easy to verify the following

###### Proposition 2.1

Two proper frame fields $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ and $`\{w_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ are equivalent to each other. A frame field $`\{w_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ that is equivalent to a proper frame field $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ is also proper.

A Riemannian manifold $`(X,g)`$ is said to have $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded curvature if the curvature of $`(X,g)`$ and all its covariant multi-derivatives are bounded. A smooth tensor $`T`$ on a Riemannian manifold $`(X,g)`$ with $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded curvature is called $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded with respect to $`(X,g)`$ (or $`C_g^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded) if $`T`$ and all its covariant multi-derivatives are bounded. We have

###### Proposition 2.2

$`(X,g)`$ has $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded curvature if for any point $`xX`$, there exists a proper frame field $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ on a neighborhood $`U_x`$ of $`x`$. A smooth tensor $`T`$ on such $`(X,g)`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded if and only if $`T`$ and all its multi-derivatives with respect to the proper frame $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ are bounded in each $`U_x`$.

Proof: The connection coefficients $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}^k`$ can be expressed as rational functions of $`a_{ij}^k`$, $`g_{ij}`$ and their multi-derivatives with respect to $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$, where denominators can only be powers of $`det(g_{ij})`$. Consequently, the curvature of $`(X,g)`$ and all its covariant multi-derivatives can be expressed as rational functions of $`a_{ij}^k`$, $`g_{ij}`$ and their multi-derivatives with respect to $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$, where denominators can only be powers of $`det(g_{ij})`$. Therefore, when $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ is a proper frame field on $`U_x`$, $`(X,g)`$ has $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded curvature on $`U_x`$.

Notice that the difference of a covariant multi-derivative of $`T`$ and the corresponding multi-derivative of $`T`$ with respect to $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ will be a bilinear combination of (connection coefficients $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}^k`$ and their multi-derivative with respect to $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$) and (lower order multi-derivative of $`T`$ with respect to $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$). By induction, we get the second part of the proposition.

$`(X,g)`$ is said to be $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`(X,g^{})`$ if $`(X,g)`$ is quasi-isometric to $`(X,g^{})`$, $`g`$ has $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded curvature and $`g^{}`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded with respect to $`g`$.

###### Proposition 2.3

$`(X,g)`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`(X,g^{})`$ if and only if for any point $`xX`$, there exists a frame field $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ on a neighborhood $`U_x`$ of $`x`$ that is proper with respect to both $`g`$ and $`g^{}`$. A smooth tensor $`T`$ on $`X`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded with respect to $`g`$ if and only if $`T`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded with respect to $`g^{}`$.

Proof: Assume that $`(X,g)`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`(X,g^{})`$ and $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ is a proper frame field with respect to $`g`$. Then $`det(g_{ij}^{})C_1det(g_{ij})C_2>0`$ and $`g^{}`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded with respect to $`g`$. By proposition 2.2, $`g_{ij}^{}`$ and all their multi-derivatives with respect to $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ are bounded. Hence $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ is a proper frame field with respect to $`g^{}`$.

Conversely, if $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ is proper with respect to both $`g`$ and $`g^{}`$, then $`g`$ is quasi-isometric to $`g^{}`$ and both $`g`$ and $`g^{}`$ have $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded curvature (proposition 2.2). Further more, by proposition 2.2, $`g^{}`$ being $`C_g^{}^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded implies that $`g^{}`$ and all its multi-derivatives with respect to the proper frame $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ are bounded with respect to $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$. Consequently, $`g^{}`$ is also $`C_g^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded. Therefore, $`(X,g)`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`(X,g^{})`$.

By proposition 2.2, $`T`$ on $`X`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded with respect to $`g`$ if and only if $`T`$ and all its multi-derivatives with respect to $`\{v_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ are bounded if and only if $`T`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded with respect to $`g^{}`$.

###### Proposition 2.4

$`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometry is an equivalence relation.

Proof: The first part of proposition 2.3 implies that $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometry is a symmetric relation. Assume that $`(X,g)`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`(X,g^{})`$ and $`(X,g^{})`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`(X,g^{\prime \prime })`$, then $`g^{\prime \prime }`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded with respect to $`g^{}`$. By the second part of proposition 2.3, we have that $`g^{\prime \prime }`$ is also $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded with respect to $`g`$. Consequently, $`(X,g)`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`(X,g^{\prime \prime })`$.

###### Proposition 2.5

Assume that $`(X,g_t)`$ are $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to each other uniformly for different $`t`$ near $`0`$, and $`\underset{t0}{lim}g_t(x)=g_0(x)`$ for any $`xX`$. Then $`g_t`$ converge to $`g_0`$ on $`X`$ in $`C^k`$-topology on the space of Riemannian metrics as $`t`$ goes to $`0`$ for any $`k`$.

Proof: Since $`g_t`$ are $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to each other uniformly for different $`t`$. For any sequence $`g_{t_k}`$ with $`\underset{k\mathrm{}}{lim}t_k=0`$, there exists a subsequence $`g_{t_{k_i}}`$ that converges (necessarily to $`g_0`$ by the assumption of the proposition) in $`C^k`$-topology on the space of Riemannian metrics as $`i`$ goes to $`\mathrm{}`$ for any $`k`$. Consequently, $`g_t`$ converge to $`g_0`$ on $`F`$ in $`C^k`$-topology on the space of Riemannian metrics as $`t`$ goes to $`0`$ for any $`k`$.

## 3 Basic setting

Consider an integral convex polyhedron $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (in a rank $`l`$ lattice $`M`$) with a real valued convex function $`w=\{w_m\}_{m\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ that determines a simplicial decomposition of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Let $`Z`$ ($`Z_{\mathrm{top}}`$) denote the set of (top dimensional) simplices. Such $`w`$ is clearly generic. We have the family of complex hypersurface $`X_t=\{s_t^1(0)\}N_{^{}}(^{})^l`$, where $`N=M^{}`$, $`s_t={\displaystyle \underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }}{}}t^{w_m}s_m`$, $`s_m`$ denotes the monomial on $`N_{^{}}(^{})^l`$ corresponding to $`mM`$.

Let $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ be the canonical holomorphic volume form on $`N_{^{}}(^{})^l`$. For $`t0`$ and $`m\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we have $`s_t/s_m:N_{^{}}`$. $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{t,m}=(t^{w_m}\mathrm{\Omega }(d(s_t/s_m))^1)|_{X_t}`$ defines a section of $`K_{X_t}(K_N_{^{}}K_{}^1)|_{X_t}`$. $`\{\mathrm{\Omega }_{t,m}\}_{m\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ are holomorphic sections of $`K_{X_t}`$ with at most logarithmic singularities at the infinity.

$$e_t=\{\mathrm{\Omega }_{t,m}\}_{m\mathrm{\Delta }}:X_t^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}$$

is an embedding that equals to the restriction to $`X_t`$ of the natural embedding

$$i_t=\{t^{w_m}s_m\}_{m\mathrm{\Delta }}:(^{})^l^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}.$$

Let $`Y_t=\mathrm{Image}(i_t)`$ and $`H=\{\stackrel{~}{z}^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}:_{m\mathrm{\Delta }}\stackrel{~}{z}_m=0\}`$. Then $`X_tY_tH`$. $`Y_t`$ has a natural set-theoretical limit $`Y_0`$ in $`^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}`$.

$$Y_0=\underset{SZ}{}T_S,T_S=\{\stackrel{~}{z}^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}:\stackrel{~}{z}_m0(mS);\stackrel{~}{z}_m=0(mS)\}.$$
(3.1)
Let $`X_0=Y_0H`$. We have $`X_0\mathrm{Sing}(X_0)={\displaystyle \underset{SZ_{\mathrm{top}}}{}}X_{0,S}`$, where $`X_{0,S}=T_SH`$. As set-theoretical limit of $`X_t`$, $`X_0`$ generally has multiplicities.

To get the canonical multiplicity 1 algebraic limit of the family $`\{X_t\}`$ when $`t0`$, we will need the following basic construction of an algebraic variety $`Y_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ determined by a fan $`\mathrm{\Sigma }M`$. For each $`\sigma \mathrm{\Sigma }`$, there is an affine variety $`A_\sigma =\mathrm{Spec}([\sigma ])`$. For $`\sigma ,\sigma ^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ satisfying $`\sigma \sigma ^{}`$, there is a natural semi-group morphism $`\sigma ^{}\sigma `$ that restricts to identity map on $`\sigma \sigma ^{}`$ and restricts to zero map on $`\sigma ^{}\sigma `$, which induce the map $`h_{\sigma \sigma ^{}}:A_\sigma A_\sigma ^{}`$. Using $`\{h_{\sigma \sigma ^{}}\}_{\sigma ,\sigma ^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }}`$, we may glue the affine pieces $`\{A_\sigma \}_{\sigma \mathrm{\Sigma }}`$ into the singular variety $`Y_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. We have the following natural canonical (Whitney) stratification

$$Y_\mathrm{\Sigma }=\underset{\sigma \mathrm{\Sigma }}{}T_\sigma ,\mathrm{where}T_\sigma =(N/\sigma ^{})_{}^{}.$$
(3.2)
For each polyhedron $`SZ`$ and a vertex $`mS`$, there is the natural tangent cone $`\sigma _{m,S}M`$ of $`S`$ at $`m`$. For each $`m\mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_m=\{\sigma _{m,S}\}_{mSZ}`$ forms a fan in $`M`$. The polyhedron $`S`$ determines a toric variety $`P_S`$. The fan $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_m`$ determine a singular variety $`Y_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_m}`$. For $`mS`$, the affine variety $`A_{\sigma _{m,S}}`$ has natural embeddings $`A_{\sigma _{m,S}}Y_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_m}`$ and $`A_{\sigma _{m,S}}P_S`$. Using such embeddings, we may glue $`\{Y_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_m}\}_{m\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ and $`\{P_S\}_{SZ}`$ together to form a variety $`Y_Z`$ such that $`Y_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_m}P_S=A_{\sigma _{m,S}}`$. We have the following natural canonical (Whitney) stratification

$$Y_Z=\underset{SZ}{}\stackrel{~}{T}_S,\mathrm{where}\stackrel{~}{T}_S=N_S_{}^{},N_S=N/S^{}.$$
(3.3)
For each $`SZ`$, there is a natural finite cover $`i_{0,S}=\{s_m\}_{mS}:\stackrel{~}{T}_ST_S^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}`$. Together, we have the global map $`i_0=\{i_{0,S}\}_{SZ}:Y_\mathrm{\Sigma }Y_0^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}`$. Let $`\stackrel{~}{X}_0=i_0^1(X_0)=_{SZ}\stackrel{~}{X}_{0,S}`$, where $`\stackrel{~}{X}_{0,S}=i_{0,S}^1(X_{0,S})`$. We have $`e_{0,S}=i_{0,S}|_{\stackrel{~}{X}_{0,S}}:\stackrel{~}{X}_{0,S}X_{0,S}^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}`$ and $`e_0=i_0|_{\stackrel{~}{X}_0}:\stackrel{~}{X}_0X_0^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}`$. For each $`SZ_{\mathrm{top}}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{T}_S(^{})^l`$, under the toric gauge $`w_m=0`$ for $`mS`$, we have $`i_{0,S}=\underset{t0}{lim}i_t`$ and $`e_{0,S}=\underset{t0}{lim}e_t`$. In such sense, we may think of $`\stackrel{~}{X}_0`$ (resp. $`Y_Z`$) as the canonical multiplicity 1 algebraic limit (canonical limit for short) of the family $`\{X_t\}`$ (resp. $`\{Y_t\}`$) when $`t0`$. Each $`\stackrel{~}{X}_{0,S}`$ for $`SZ_{\mathrm{top}}`$ is a so-called “generalized pair of pants”, which is a finite abelian cover of $`\{z(^{})^l|z_1+\mathrm{}+z_l+1=0\}`$.

Remark: It is easy to see that all constructions in this section can also be carried out (with slight modification), when $`w=\{w_m\}_{m\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ is not generic, namely, $`Z`$ is a convex polyhedron decomposition instead of a simplicial decomposition for $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

## 4 Basic estimates

In the estimates of the later sections, we quite often need to prove certain functions on $`X_t`$ are $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded (uniformly with respect to $`t`$). The main goal of this section is to prove proposition 4.1, which provides the technique for such purpose. The proof of proposition 4.1 depends on the estimates (lemmas 4.1, 4.2) for the convex function $`w`$.

For $`m\mathrm{\Delta }`$, define

$$a_m=\kappa \mathrm{log}\eta _m,\mathrm{where}\eta _m=t^{w_m}s_m_t^2,s_t^2=|s|^2\left(\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }}{}|t|^{2w_m}|s_m|^2\right)^1,$$

and $`\kappa >0`$ is a constant that will be determined later to make $`a_m`$ suitably large.

###### Lemma 4.1

There exists a constant $`a>0`$ such that for any $`xN_{^{}}`$ the set

$$S_{x,a}=\{m\mathrm{\Delta }|\eta _m(x)>t^a\}$$

is a simplex in $`Z`$.

Proof: According to the definition of $`\eta _m`$, it is easy to see that $`\stackrel{~}{w}=\{\stackrel{~}{w}_m\}_{m\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ equals to the piecewise linear convex function $`w=\{w_m\}_{m\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ up to the adjustment of an affine function, where $`\stackrel{~}{w}_m=(\mathrm{log}\eta _m)/(2\mathrm{log}t)0`$. Assume there is a subset $`\stackrel{~}{S}S_{x,a}`$ that forms a simplex not in $`Z`$. Since $`0\stackrel{~}{w}_ma`$ for $`m\stackrel{~}{S}`$, we may adjust $`\stackrel{~}{w}`$ by an affine function so that $`\stackrel{~}{w}_m=0`$ for $`m\stackrel{~}{S}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{w}_mC_1a`$ for $`m\stackrel{~}{S}`$.

Generally, there exists a constant $`C_2>0`$ that only depends on the equivalence class of the strictly convex $`w`$ modulo affine functions, such that $`inf_{m\mathrm{\Delta }}w_mC_2`$ for any simplex $`SZ`$ and adjustment of $`w`$ by affine function (still denote by $`w`$) satisfying $`w_m=0`$ for $`mS`$. If we take $`a<C_2/C_1`$ and $`S=\stackrel{~}{S}Z`$, we have a contradiction. Therefore $`S_{x,a}`$ is a simplex in $`Z`$.

###### Lemma 4.2

For any $`xN_{^{}}`$, there exists $`S_xZ_{\mathrm{top}}`$ with the filtration $`S_1(=S_{x,a})\mathrm{}S_K(=S_x)`$, numbers $`t_1(=t^a)\mathrm{}t_K>0`$, and $`b_k,c_k>0`$ for $`1kK`$ such that $`\eta _m(x)t_k^{c_k}`$ for $`mS_k`$ and $`t_k^{b_k}\eta _m(x)`$ for $`m(\mathrm{\Delta }S_k)(M_kM_{k1})`$, where $`M_k=\mathrm{Span}(S_k)`$, $`M_0=\{0\}`$.

Proof: Take $`S_1=S_{x,a}`$ and $`t_1=t^a`$, lemma 4.1 implies that $`\eta _m(x)t_1`$ for $`mS_1`$ and $`t_1\eta _m(x)`$ for $`m\mathrm{\Delta }S_1`$. Assume the lemma is true up to $`k`$. Assume that $`\eta _m(x)`$ reaches maximum $`t_{k+1}`$ at $`m=m_{k+1}`$ for $`m{\displaystyle \underset{SZ,S_kS}{}}SS_k`$. Let $`S_{k+1}=S_k\{m_{k+1}\}`$ and $`M_{k+1}=\mathrm{Span}(S_{k+1})`$. Then it is easy to see that there exist $`b_{k+1},c_{k+1}>0`$ such that $`\eta _m(x)t_{k+1}^{c_{k+1}}`$ for $`mS_{k+1}`$ and $`t_k^{b_{k+1}}\eta _m(x)`$ for $`m\mathrm{\Delta }(M_{k+1}M_k)`$. By induction, we get the desired filtration and $`S_x`$.

Let $`S=\{m_0,m_1,\mathrm{},m_l\}Z_{\mathrm{top}}`$. Without loss of generality, we may normalize $`w`$ so that $`w_{m_i}=0`$ for $`0il`$. Then by convexity of $`w`$, we have $`w_m>0`$ for $`mS`$. Without loss of generality, we may assume that $`a_{m_i}`$ is in ascending order. Take coordinate $`z=(z_1,\mathrm{},z_l)`$, where $`z_i=s_{m_i}/s_{m_0}`$. Then $`1|z_1|\mathrm{}|z_l|`$. We may identify $`m_0`$ to be the origin of $`M`$. Then

$$s_m/s_0=z^m=\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}z_i^{m^i},\mathrm{for}mS,$$

where $`(m^1,\mathrm{},m^l)`$ is the coordinate of $`m`$ with respect to the basis $`\{m_1,\mathrm{},m_l\}`$ of $`M`$. Let $`I_m=\{i|1il,m^i0\}`$ and $`W_j^0=a_{m_j}z_j{\displaystyle \frac{}{z_j}}`$.

###### Lemma 4.3

Each derivative of a term in the following

$$\begin{array}{c}\frac{1}{a_{m_j}},z_jP(a_{m_j}),\overline{z}_jP(a_{m_j}),\mathrm{for}1jl;\hfill \\ t^{w_m}z^mP(\{a_{m_j}\}_{jI_m}),\overline{t}^{w_m}\overline{z}^mP(\{a_{m_j}\}_{jI_m}),\mathrm{for}m\mathrm{\Delta }S;\hfill \\ \frac{a_{m_j}}{a_m},\mathrm{for}m\mathrm{\Delta }S\mathrm{and}jI_m;\hfill \end{array}$$
(4.1)
with respect to $`\{W_j^0,\overline{W}_j^0\}_{j=1}^l`$ is a finite sum of products of a term of the same form and a bounded smooth function of terms in (4.1). (Here $`P`$ denote polynomials. A term of the same form as $`\frac{a_{m_j}}{a_m}`$ will just be the same term, while a term of the same form as $`z_jP(a_{m_j})`$ may have different polynomial $`P`$.)

Proof:

$$W_k^0(\mathrm{log}z_j)=\delta _{jk}a_{m_j}.$$

$$W_k^0(\mathrm{log}a_{m_j})=\delta _{jk}(a_{m_k}|z_k|^2)\frac{1}{a_{m_j}}\frac{1}{1+|z|^2}.$$
(4.2)
$$W_k^0(\mathrm{log}a_m)=m^k\frac{a_{m_k}}{a_m}(a_{m_k}|z_k|^2)\frac{1}{a_m}\frac{1}{1+|z|^2}.$$

The conclusion of the lemma is an easy consequence of these computations.

###### Lemma 4.4

There exists a constant $`C>0`$ such that when restricted to $`X_t`$, near $`xX_t`$ satisfying $`S_x=S`$, we have $`1|z_1|C`$.

Proof: When restricted to $`X_t`$,

$$1+z_1+\mathrm{}+z_l+\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }S}{}t^{w_m}z^m=s/s_0=0.$$

Since we assumed that $`|z_1|`$ is the largest among $`|z_i|`$ for $`1il`$, and when $`S_x=S`$, $`m\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ is not in $`S_{x,a}S_x`$. Consequently, $`|t^{w_m}z^m|=|s_m/s_0||s_{m_1}/s_0|=|z_1|`$ for $`m\mathrm{\Delta }S`$. Therefore

$$1=\left(z_1+\mathrm{}+z_l+\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }S}{}t^{w_m}z^m\right)|\mathrm{\Delta }||z_1|,1|z_1|\frac{1}{|\mathrm{\Delta }|}.$$

When restricted to $`X_t`$, under the coordinate $`(z_2,\mathrm{},z_l)`$, let $`W_j=a_{m_j}z_j{\displaystyle \frac{}{z_j}}`$ for $`2jl`$.

###### Lemma 4.5

When restricted to $`X_t`$, near $`xX_t`$ satisfying $`S_x=S`$, each derivative of a term in (4.1) with respect to $`\{W_j,\overline{W}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$ is a finite sum of products of a term of the same form and a bounded smooth function of terms in (4.1).

Proof: When restricted to $`X_t`$, near $`xX_t`$ satisfying $`S_x=S`$,

$$z_1=1z_2\mathrm{}z_l\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }S}{}t^{w_m}z^m$$

is clearly a bounded smooth function of terms in (4.1). Since $`1|z_1|C>0`$ (lemma 4.4), by proposition 1.1, $`z_1`$, $`\frac{1}{z_1}`$, $`\mathrm{log}z_1`$ and their complex conjugates are all bounded smooth functions of terms in (4.1). Let $`f`$ be a bounded smooth function of terms in (4.1), then

$$W_k(f)=W_k^0(f)+W_k(z_1)\frac{f}{z_1}.$$

The only term in $`W_k(f)`$ that needs comment is

$$W_k(z_1)\frac{f}{z_1}=a_{m_k}z_k\frac{z_1}{z_k}\frac{f}{z_1}=\frac{1}{a_{m_1}}\frac{1}{z_1}\left(z_ka_{m_k}+\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }S}{}m^kt^{w_m}z^ma_{m_k}\right)W_1^0(f).$$

This computation together with lemma 4.3 implies the desired result.

###### Proposition 4.1

Let $`f`$ be a bounded smooth function of terms in (4.1). Near $`xX_t`$ satisfying $`S_x=S`$, $`f`$ and its multi-derivatives with respect to $`\{W_j,\overline{W}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$ are bounded (uniformly with respect to $`t`$).

Proof: Since $`\eta _m1`$, by taking the constant $`\kappa >0`$ large, we can ensure that $`a_mC>0`$. When $`S_x=S`$, lemma 4.2 gives us the filtrations $`\{S_k\}_{k=1}^K`$ and $`\{M_k\}_{k=1}^K`$. For $`m\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ and $`jI_m`$, there exists $`k`$ such that $`mM_kM_{k1}`$. Since $`m^j0`$, we have $`m_jS_k`$. Lemma 4.2 then implies that $`\eta _mt_k^{b_k}\eta _{m_j}^{b_k/c_k}`$. Hence there exists a $`C>0`$ such that $`a_{m_j}Ca_m`$. Consequently, the terms in (4.1) are bounded (uniformly with respect to $`t`$). By lemma 4.5, we get the desired results.

## 5 Construction and estimates of the approximate metrics

Choose the Fubini-Study metric $`\omega _{FS}`$ on $`^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}`$, and define

$$\widehat{\omega }_t=e_t^{}\omega _{FS}.$$

Then the Kähler potential of $`\widehat{\omega }_t`$ is the logarithm of the volume form

$$\widehat{V}_t=\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }}{}\mathrm{\Omega }_{t,m}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{t,m}.$$

Let

$$h_t=\kappa ^2\underset{SZ_{\mathrm{top}}}{}A_S^2,A_S=a_S^1,a_S=\underset{mS}{}a_m,$$

then

$$A_S=A_S\mathrm{log}a_S,\overline{}A_S=A_S\overline{}\mathrm{log}a_S+A_S\mathrm{log}a_S\overline{}\mathrm{log}a_S,$$

$$\frac{i}{2\pi }\overline{}\mathrm{log}h_t=\frac{i}{2\pi }\underset{SZ_{\mathrm{top}}}{}\lambda _S\overline{}\mathrm{log}a_S^2+\omega ^{}=\underset{SZ_{\mathrm{top}}}{}\lambda _S\omega _S+\left(\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }}{}\frac{2\lambda _m}{a_m}\right)\widehat{\omega }_t+\omega ^{},$$

where

$$\omega _S=\frac{i}{\pi }\underset{mS}{}\frac{a_m\overline{}a_m}{a_m^2},\lambda _S=A_S^2\left(\underset{SZ_{\mathrm{top}}}{}A_S^2\right)^1,\lambda _m=\underset{Sm}{}\lambda _S,$$

$$\omega ^{}=\frac{i}{2\pi }\underset{SZ_{\mathrm{top}}}{}\lambda _S\mathrm{log}a_S^2\overline{}\mathrm{log}a_S^2\frac{i}{2\pi }\left(\underset{SZ_{\mathrm{top}}}{}\lambda _S\mathrm{log}a_S^2\right)\left(\underset{SZ_{\mathrm{top}}}{}\lambda _S\overline{}\mathrm{log}a_S^2\right)$$

$$=\frac{i}{4\pi }\underset{S,S^{}Z_{\mathrm{top}}}{}\lambda _S\lambda _S^{}(\mathrm{log}a_S^2\mathrm{log}a_S^{}^2)\overline{}(\mathrm{log}a_S^2\mathrm{log}a_S^{}^2).$$

Let $`V_t=h_t\widehat{V}_t`$, then we have the Kähler form of the approximate metric

$$\omega _t=\frac{i}{2\pi }\overline{}\mathrm{log}V_t=\widehat{\omega }_t+\frac{i}{2\pi }\overline{}\mathrm{log}h_t$$

$$=\left(1+\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }}{}\frac{2\lambda _m}{a_m}\right)\widehat{\omega }_t+\underset{SZ_{\mathrm{top}}}{}\lambda _S\omega _S+\omega ^{}.$$

###### Lemma 5.1

Near $`xX_t`$ satisfying $`S_x=S`$, $`\omega _t`$ is quasi-isometric to

$$\omega _S^{}=\frac{i}{\pi }\underset{i=2}{\overset{l}{}}\frac{1}{a_{m_i}^2}\frac{dz_id\overline{z}_i}{|z_i|^2}.$$

Proof:

$$a_{m_i}=\frac{dz_i}{z_i}+\underset{k=1}{\overset{l}{}}\left(s_{m_k}_t^2+\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }S}{}m^ks_m_t^2\right)\frac{dz_k}{z_k}$$

Since $`s_m_t^2=O(t^a)`$ for $`m\mathrm{\Delta }S`$, we have

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}a_{m_i}=\left(1+\underset{k=1}{\overset{l}{}}s_{m_k}_t^2+O(t^a)\right)\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}\frac{dz_i}{z_i}.$$

Consequently, $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{a_{m_i}\overline{}a_{m_i}}{a_{m_i}^2}}`$ is quasi-isometric to $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a_{m_i}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{dz_id\overline{z}_i}{|z_i|^2}}`$. It is straightforward to verify the following:

(1) $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{a_{m_i}\overline{}a_{m_i}}{a_{m_i}^2}}`$ is quasi-isometric to $`{\displaystyle \underset{SZ_{\mathrm{top}}}{}}\lambda _S\omega _S+\omega ^{}`$,

(2) $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a_{m_i}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{dz_id\overline{z}_i}{|z_i|^2}}`$ dominates $`\widehat{\omega }_t`$,

(3) $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a_{m_i}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{dz_id\overline{z}_i}{|z_i|^2}}`$ is quasi-isometric to $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{i=2}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a_{m_i}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{dz_id\overline{z}_i}{|z_i|^2}}`$.

Combining these, we get the desired conclusion.

###### Proposition 5.1

Near $`xX_t`$ satisfying $`S_x=S`$, $`\omega _t`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`\omega _S^{}`$, and the basis $`\{W_j,\overline{W}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$ is proper with respect to both metrics.

Proof: It is straightforward to check that the coefficients of $`[W_j,W_k]`$, $`[W_j,\overline{W}_k]`$, $`[\overline{W}_j,\overline{W}_k]`$ with respect to the basis $`\{W_j,\overline{W}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$ are all bounded smooth functions of terms in (4.1). For example,

$$[W_j,W_k]=W_j(\mathrm{log}a_{m_k})W_kW_k(\mathrm{log}a_{m_j})W_j.$$

$$W_j(\mathrm{log}a_{m_k})=W_j^0(\mathrm{log}a_{m_k})\frac{a_{m_j}}{a_{m_1}z_1}\left(z_j+\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }S}{}m^jt^{w_m}z^m\right)W_1^0(\mathrm{log}a_{m_k}).$$

By (4.2), $`W_j(\mathrm{log}a_{m_k})`$ is clearly a bounded smooth function of terms in (4.1). By proposition 4.1 and proposition 2.2, we have that $`\{W_j,\overline{W}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$ is proper with respect to $`\omega _S^{}`$.

It is straightforward to check that the coefficients of $`\omega _t`$ with respect to the basis $`\{W_j,\overline{W}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$ are all bounded smooth functions of terms in (4.1). By proposition 4.1, lemma 5.1 and proposition 2.2, we have that $`\{W_j,\overline{W}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$ is also proper with respect to $`\omega _t`$. Consequently, $`\omega _t`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`\omega _S^{}`$.

###### Proposition 5.2

The curvature of $`g_t`$ and its derivatives are all uniformly bounded with respect to $`t`$.

Proof: This is a direct consequence of propositions 5.1 and 2.2.

###### Lemma 5.2

Near $`xX_t`$ satisfying $`S_x=S`$,

$$\widehat{V}_t=(1+|z|^2+O(t^a))\mathrm{\Omega }_{t,m_0}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{t,m_0}=(1+O(t^a))\frac{1+|z|^2}{|z_1|^2}\underset{i=2}{\overset{l}{}}\frac{dz_id\overline{z}_i}{|z_i|^2}.$$

Proof: Notice that $`t^{w_m}z^m=O(t^a)`$ for $`m\mathrm{\Delta }S`$. The first equality is obvious from the formula

$$\widehat{V}_t=(1+|z|^2+\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }S}{}|t^{w_m}z^m|^2)\mathrm{\Omega }_{t,m_0}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{t,m_0}.$$

Since $`s_t/s_{m_0}=1+z_1+\mathrm{}+z_l+{\displaystyle \underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }S}{}}t^{w_m}z^m`$, $`d(s_t/s_{m_0})={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}(z_i+O(t^a)){\displaystyle \frac{dz_i}{z_i}}`$. The second equality is a direct consequence of

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{t,m_0}=(\mathrm{\Omega }(d(s_t/s_{m_0}))^1)|_{X_t}=(1+O(t^a))\frac{1}{z_1}\underset{i=2}{\overset{l}{}}\frac{dz_i}{z_i}.$$

Assume $`e^{\varphi _t}={\displaystyle \frac{\omega _t^{l1}}{V_t}}`$, we have

###### Proposition 5.3

$`|\varphi _t|`$ is bounded independent of $`t`$.

Proof: According to lemmas 5.2 and 5.1 and the definition of $`h_t`$, we have

$$e^{\varphi _t}=\frac{\omega _t^{l1}}{V_t}=\frac{\omega _t^{l1}}{h_t\widehat{V}_t}1.$$

Therefore $`|\varphi _t|`$ is bounded independent of $`t`$.

###### Proposition 5.4

For any $`k`$, $`\varphi _t_{C^k,g_t}`$ is uniformly bounded with respect to $`t`$.

Proof: With proposition 5.3, it is straightforward to check that $`\varphi _t`$ is a bounded smooth function of terms in (4.1). Applying proposition 4.1 and proposition 5.1, we get the desired result.

Let $`\psi _t:\stackrel{~}{X}_0\mathrm{Sing}(\stackrel{~}{X}_0)X_t`$ be the Hamiltonian-gradient flow (lifted to $`\stackrel{~}{X}_0\mathrm{Sing}(\stackrel{~}{X}_0)`$ from $`X_0\mathrm{Sing}(X_0)`$) with respect to the family $`X_t^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}`$ under the Fubini-Study metric. Then $`\psi _0=e_0`$. As discussed in  and the references therein, the Hamiltonian-gradient flow $`\psi _t`$ for a general family $`\{X_t,g_t\}`$ with total space $`(𝒳,g)`$ satisfying $`g|_{X_t}=g_t`$ is defined along radial direction $`I_{\theta _0}=\{t=re^{i\theta _0}:0r<1\}`$, and is completely determined by the restriction $`\{X_t,g_t\}_{tI_{\theta _0}}`$. The flow $`\psi _t`$ for a similar situation was discussed in the remark at the end of . The fact that we will need of the flow is that locally near any compact set $`F\stackrel{~}{X}_0\mathrm{Sing}(\stackrel{~}{X}_0)`$, the flow $`\{\psi _t\}_{tI_{\theta _0}}`$ is a bounded smooth family of smooth diffeomorphisms, which is obvious because the Hamiltonian-gradient vector field is smooth in such region.

Let $`h_0|_{\stackrel{~}{X}_{0,S}}=h_{0,S}|_{\stackrel{~}{X}_{0,S}}=\kappa ^2A_S^2`$ for each $`SZ_{\mathrm{top}}`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }_0=\widehat{\omega }_0+\frac{i}{2\pi }\overline{}\mathrm{log}h_0`$, where $`\widehat{\omega }_0=e_0^{}\omega _{FS}`$. Then we have

###### Proposition 5.5

The approximate metric $`g_t`$ on $`X_t`$ will converge to the complete metric $`\stackrel{~}{g}_0`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{X}_0\mathrm{Sing}(\stackrel{~}{X}_0)`$ in the sense of Cheeger-Gromov: for any compact subset $`F\stackrel{~}{X}_0\mathrm{Sing}(\stackrel{~}{X}_0)`$, $`\psi _t^{}g_t`$ converge to $`\stackrel{~}{g}_0`$ on $`F`$ in $`C^k`$-topology on the space of Riemannian metrics as $`t`$ goes to $`0`$ for any $`k`$.

Proof: Without loss of generality, we may assume that $`F`$ is a compact subset in $`\stackrel{~}{X}_{0,S}`$ for fixed $`SZ_{\mathrm{top}}`$. Since $`e_0(F)`$ is a compact subset in $`T_S`$, there exists a constant $`C>0`$ and a choice of small neighborhood $`U_S^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}`$ of $`e_0(F)`$ such that $`1|z_1|\mathrm{}|z_l|C`$ in $`U_S`$. Hence, for $`xX_tU_S`$, we have $`S_x=S`$. And it is straightforward to see that $`\{W_j,\overline{W}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$ is equivalent to $`\{\frac{}{z_i},\frac{}{\overline{z}_i}\}_{i=2}^l`$ in $`X_tU_S`$. By propositions 2.1 and 2.3, we have that $`g_t`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`\widehat{g}_t`$ in $`X_tU_S`$, uniform with respect to $`t`$. It is also straightforward to see that $`\{\psi _t^{}\frac{}{z_i},\psi _t^{}\frac{}{\overline{z}_i}\}_{i=2}^l`$ are equivalent to each other for different $`t`$. Hence $`\psi _t^{}\widehat{g}_t`$ are $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to each other for different $`t`$. Consequently, $`\psi _t^{}g_t`$ are $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to each other uniformly for different $`t`$. It is straightforward to see that $`\underset{t0}{lim}\psi _t^{}g_t=\stackrel{~}{g}_0`$ on $`F`$ as tensors under $`C^0`$-topology. By proposition 2.5, we have $`\psi _t^{}g_t`$ converge to $`\stackrel{~}{g}_0`$ on $`F`$ in $`C^k`$-topology on the space of Riemannian metrics as $`t`$ goes to $`0`$ for any $`k`$.

## 6 Construction and degeneration of the Kähler-Einstein metrics

In , using the Monge-Ampère estimate of Aubin and Yau, Tian essentially proved the following theorem when $`X_t`$ are compact. The case when $`X_t`$ are complete can be proved in exactly the same way if one uses the Cheng-Yau’s Monge-Ampère estimate for complete manifold instead ().

###### Theorem 6.1

Assume that $`\varphi _t`$, the curvature of $`g_t`$ and their multi-derivatives are all bounded uniformly independent of $`t`$, the approximate metrics $`g_t`$ on $`X_t`$ converge to the complete metric $`\stackrel{~}{g}_0`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{X}_0\mathrm{Sing}(\stackrel{~}{X}_0)`$ in the sense of Cheeger-Gromov, then the complete Kähler-Einstein metric $`g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}`$ on $`X_t`$ will converge to the complete Kähler-Einstein metric $`g_{E,0}`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{X}_0\mathrm{Sing}(\stackrel{~}{X}_0)`$ in the sense of Cheeger-Gromov.

###### Theorem 6.2

The complete Cheng-Yau Kähler-Einstein metrics $`g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}`$ on $`X_t`$ satisfying $`\mathrm{Ric}(g_t^{\mathrm{KE}})=g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}`$ converge to the complete Cheng-Yau Kähler-Einstein metric $`g_{E,0}`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{X}_0\mathrm{Sing}(\stackrel{~}{X}_0)`$ in the sense of Cheeger-Gromov.

Proof: This theorem is a direct corollary of theorem 6.1 and propositions 5.2, 5.4, 5.5.

It is easy to see that our construction actually implies the following asymptotic description of the family of Kähler-Einstein metrics.

###### Theorem 6.3

Kähler-Einstein metric $`g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}`$ on $`X_t`$ is uniformly $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to the explicit approximate metric $`g_t`$. More precisely, there exist constants $`C_1,C_2>0`$ independent of $`t`$ such that $`C_1g_tg_t^{\mathrm{KE}}C_2g_t`$ and $`g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}`$ is uniformly $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded with respect to $`g_t`$.

Proof: The uniform $`C^0`$-estimate of the complex Monge-Ampère equations implies that $`C_1\omega _t^{l1}(\omega _t^{\mathrm{KE}})^{l1}C_2\omega _t^{l1}`$ for some $`C_1,C_2>0`$. The uniform $`C^2`$-estimate of the complex Monge-Ampère equations implies that $`\mathrm{Tr}_{g_t}g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}`$ is uniformly bounded from above. Consequently, $`g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}`$ is uniformly quasi-isometric to $`g_t`$. The uniform complex Monge-Ampère estimates based on the uniform estimates in propositions 5.3, 5.2, 5.4 imply that $`g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}`$ is uniformly $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-bounded with respect to $`g_t`$.

## 7 Toroidal degeneration

Although the degenerations discussed in this paper are examples of toroidal degenerations, due to the special structure of our situation, we are able to construct the degeneration family of Kähler-Einstein metrics directly without incurring the general theory of toroidal degeneration. Therefore, the discussion in this section is not absolutely necessary for other sections of this paper, but will serve to reveal the underlying algebraic degeneration structure.

As one may observe, the degenerations discussed in our paper are somewhat more general than usual algebraic degenerations. In algebraic geometry, degenerations are usually over a disc $`D=\{|t|<1\}`$ with the central fibre $`X_0`$ over $`t=0`$ being the singular fibre. In our situation, since $`w`$ is not necessarily rational, there are multi-fibres $`X_t`$ over each $`t0`$, while there is only one singular fibre $`X_0`$ over $`t=0`$. We will call such degeneration $``$-degeneration. To avoid multi-fibres, we may consider the restriction of the degeneration to a ray $`I_{\theta _0}=\{t=re^{i\theta _0}:0r<1\}`$ for a fixed angle $`\theta _0`$ or a fan-like region $`D_{\theta _0,ϵ}=\{t=re^{i\theta }:0r<1,\theta _0ϵ\theta \theta _0+ϵ\}`$.

Recall that $`M`$ is an integral lattice, and $`N=M^{}`$. Consider $`w=\{w_m\}_{m\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(1)}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(1)`$ is a finite subset of primitive elements in $`M`$ whose real convex span is $`M_{}`$, and $`w`$ is convex at the origin (in another word, $`w`$ can be adjusted by a linear function on $`M`$ such that $`w_m>0`$ for $`m\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(1)`$). Then there exists the maximal piecewise linear function $`p`$ on $`M`$ satisfying $`p(m)w_m`$ for $`m\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(1)`$. Let $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}(1)`$ be the subset of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(1)`$ such that $`p(m)=w_m`$, and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(1)`$ be the subset of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}(1)`$ such that $`p`$ is not linear near $`m`$ for $`m\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}(1)`$. $`p`$ determines a complete fan $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ on $`M`$ with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(1)`$ identified with the set of 1-dimensional cones in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. We will assume $`w`$ to be generic, then $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ will be a simplicial fan. $`w`$ is called convex (resp. strictly convex) if $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(1)=\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}(1)`$ (resp. $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(1)=\mathrm{\Sigma }(1)`$). In particular, $`w^{}=w|_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}(1)}`$ is convex and $`w^{\prime \prime }=w|_{\mathrm{\Sigma }(1)}`$ is strictly convex.

For $`t0`$, $`i_t=\{s_m(z)\}_{m\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(1)}:N_{^{}}^{|\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(1)|}`$ with $`s_m(z)=t^{w_m}z^m`$ defines a family of toric embedding. Let $`X_t=i_t(N_{^{}})`$ and $`X_0={\displaystyle \underset{\sigma \mathrm{\Sigma }}{}}X_{0,\sigma }^{|\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}(1)|}`$, where $`X_{0,\sigma }=i_{0,\sigma }(N_{^{}})`$ with $`i_{0,\sigma }=\{z^m\}_{m\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}(1)\sigma }:N_{^{}}^{|\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}(1)\sigma |}^{|\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(1)|}`$. $`X_0`$ is the set-theoretical limit of $`X_t`$ in $`^{|\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(1)|}`$ as $`t0`$. Such degeneration $`\{X_t\}`$ is called toric degeneration (determined by $`w`$). Two toric degenerations with the same $`X_0`$ are said to be equivalent to each other. Among all the toric degenerations with the same $`w^{\prime \prime }=w|_{\mathrm{\Sigma }(1)}`$, there is a minimal equivalent class determined by toric degeneration satisfying $`w^{\prime \prime }=w`$, there is also a maximal equivalent class determined by toric degenerations satisfying $`\mathrm{Span}_{}(\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}(1)\sigma )=\mathrm{Span}_{}(\sigma )`$ for all $`\sigma \mathrm{\Sigma }`$. General toric degenerations degenerate $`X_t`$ to different components of $`X_0`$ with possibly different multiplicities, while the maximal toric degeneration is simple, namely, it degenerate $`X_t`$ to $`X_0`$ with multiplicity 1.

A degeneration $`\{X_t\}`$ is called toroidal if it is locally a toric degeneration times a smooth manifold.

###### Lemma 7.1

$`\{X_t\}`$ and $`\{Y_t\}`$ defined in section 3 are toroidal degenerations at $`t=0`$.

Proof: Since the hypersurface $`H`$ intersects each smooth strata of $`Y_0`$ transversely, we only need to verify the lemma for $`\{Y_t\}`$.

For $`SZ`$, $`w`$ defined in the beginning of section 3 can be adjusted by affine function on $`M`$ so that $`w_m=0`$ for $`mS`$ and $`w_m>0`$ for $`m\mathrm{\Delta }S`$. Let $`F`$ be a compact subset in $`T_S`$. Then for $`xY_t`$ near $`F`$, we have $`SS_x=\{m_0,m_1,\mathrm{},m_l\}`$. Assume $`S=\{m_0,m_1,\mathrm{},m_l^{}\}`$ for some $`l^{}l`$. Then locally near $`F`$, we have the map $`i_t=(i_t^{},i_t^{\prime \prime }):Y_t^{|\mathrm{\Delta }|1}`$ with $`i_t^{}=(z_1,\mathrm{},z_l^{})`$ and $`i_t^{\prime \prime }=\{t^{w_m}z^m\}_{m\mathrm{\Delta }S}`$. Since $`FT_S`$ is compact, we have $`C_1|z_i|C_2>0`$ for $`1il^{}`$. Consequently, $`i_t^{\prime \prime }`$ is naturally a toric degeneration and $`\{Y_t\}`$ near $`F`$ is a toric degeneration family times $`i_{0,S}^1(F)`$, where $`i_{0,S}:(N_S)_{^{}}T_S`$ is a finite cover.

It is not hard to check that the canonical limit $`\stackrel{~}{X}_0`$ (resp. $`Y_Z`$) defined in section 3, when restricted to each local toric degeneration model, is exactly the simple maximal toric degeneration limit of $`\{X_t\}`$ (resp. $`\{Y_t\}`$).

## 8 The minimal Lagrangian vanishing torus

In , we constructed minimal Lagrangian vanishing torus for toroidal degeneration family of Kähler-Einstein manifolds discussed in  near maximal degeneracy points. In this section, we will apply results in  to construct minimal Lagrangian vanishing torus in $`(X_t,g_t^{\mathrm{KE}})`$ near maximal degeneracy points in $`X_0`$. The maximal degeneracy points in $`X_0`$ are $`0`$-dimensional stratas in $`X_0`$. They are the intersections of $`1`$-dimensional stratas in $`Y_0`$ and $`H`$. $`1`$-dimensional stratas in $`Y_0`$ correspond to $`1`$-simplices in $`Z`$. Let $`S_1=\{m_0,m_1\}Z`$ be a $`1`$-simplex. Let $`\widehat{M}=M/(m_1m_0)`$, with the projection $`\pi :M\widehat{M}`$. We will use $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}(1)\widehat{M}`$ to denote the image of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{S_1}={\displaystyle \underset{S_1SZ}{}}(SS_1)M`$ into $`\widehat{M}`$. Let $`\widehat{Z}`$ denote the set of simplices $`\pi (SS_1)`$ in $`\widehat{M}`$ for $`SZ`$ satisfying $`S_1S`$. Adjust $`\{w_m\}_{m\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ by affine function, we may assume $`w_{m_0}=w_{m_1}=0`$ and $`w_m\stackrel{~}{w}`$ for $`m\mathrm{\Delta }S_1`$ and a constant $`\stackrel{~}{w}>0`$.

For $`m\mathrm{\Delta }_{S_1}`$, define $`\widehat{s}_{\widehat{m}}=(s_m/s_{m_0})|_{\widehat{T}}`$, where $`\widehat{m}=\pi (m)`$, $`\widehat{T}=\{x(^{})^l:s_{m_1}(x)=s_{m_0}(x)\}`$. $`\{t^{w_m}\widehat{s}_{\widehat{m}}\}_{\widehat{m}\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}(1)}:\widehat{T}^{|\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}(1)|}`$ defines a toric degeneration. Let $`\widehat{N}=\widehat{M}^{}=(m_1m_0)^{}`$. There is the natural moment map $`F:\widehat{T}\widehat{N}_{^{}}\widehat{N}_{}`$. Recall from

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_\tau =\{x\widehat{N}_{}|\widehat{m},x+\tau w_m0,\mathrm{for}\widehat{m}\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}(1)\},\mathrm{where}\tau =\mathrm{log}|t|.$$

On $`F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_\tau )\widehat{T}`$, define a family of toric Kähler metrics $`g_t^{\mathrm{tor}}`$ with Kähler potential $`\rho _\tau =\mathrm{log}\widehat{h}_t`$, where

$$\widehat{h}_t=\underset{S\widehat{Z}_{\mathrm{top}}}{}\widehat{A}_S^2,\widehat{A}_S=\widehat{a}_S^1,\widehat{a}_S=\underset{\widehat{m}S}{}\widehat{a}_{\widehat{m}},\widehat{a}_{\widehat{m}}=\mathrm{log}|t^{w_m}\widehat{s}_{\widehat{m}}|^2.$$

Let $`O`$ be a maximal degeneracy point in $`X_0`$. Then locally near $`O`$, $`X_t`$ can be identified with $`F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_\tau )`$. More precisely, we will use the coordinate $`\{z_k=s_{m_k}/s_{m_0}\}_{k=2}^l`$ with respect to a fixed $`S_{}=\{m_0,\mathrm{},m_l\}(\{m_0,m_1\}\widehat{S}_{})Z_{\mathrm{top}}`$ as toric coordinate for the identification, where $`\widehat{S}_{}\widehat{Z}_{\mathrm{top}}`$.

###### Lemma 8.1

There exists constant $`\mu >0`$ so that $`g_t^{\mathrm{tor}}`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`g_t`$ on $`F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_{\tau \mu })`$ uniformly for $`\tau `$ large.

Proof: For $`xX_tN_{^{}}`$, Let $`S_xZ_{\mathrm{top}}`$ denote the simplex chosen in lemma 4.2. When $`x`$ is near $`O`$, $`S_x`$ contains $`S_1=\{m_0,m_1\}`$. Assume that $`S_x=\{m_0,\mathrm{},m_l\}\{m_0,m_1\}\widehat{S}_x`$, where $`\widehat{S}_x\widehat{Z}_{\mathrm{top}}`$. Choose $`\{z_k=s_{m_k}/s_{m_0}\}_{k=1}^l`$ and $`z=\{z_k\}_{k=2}^l`$ to be coordinates of $`N_{^{}}`$ and $`X_t`$ near $`O`$. Choose $`\widehat{z}=\{\widehat{z}_k=\widehat{s}_{\widehat{m}_k}\}_{k=2}^l`$ to be the coordinate for $`F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_\tau )\widehat{T}`$. Recall that $`X_t`$ near $`O`$ is identified with $`F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_\tau )`$ using the fixed $`S_{}`$. $`z`$ and $`\widehat{z}`$ are identified under such identification if $`S_x=S_{}`$. In general, $`S_x`$ is not necessarily equal to $`S_{}`$ and the coordinate transformation is generally, $`\widehat{z}_j=z_j(z_1)^{d_j}`$ for $`2jl`$. $`z_j\frac{}{z_j}=\widehat{z}_j\frac{}{\widehat{z}_j}+d_k\frac{z_j}{z_1}\frac{z_1}{z_j}\widehat{z}_k\frac{}{\widehat{z}_k}`$.

By proposition 5.1, $`\{W_j,\overline{W}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$ is a proper basis for $`g_t`$. With similar (and slightly simpler) arguments as in the proof of proposition 5.1, one can see that $`\{\widehat{W}_j,\overline{\widehat{W}}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$ is a proper basis for $`g_t^{\mathrm{tor}}`$, where $`\widehat{W}_j=\widehat{a}_{\widehat{m}_j}\widehat{z}_j\frac{}{\widehat{z}_j}`$. We have

$$W_j=b_j^k\widehat{W}_k=\frac{a_{m_j}}{\widehat{a}_{\widehat{m}_j}}\widehat{W}_j+d_k\frac{a_{m_j}z_j}{\widehat{a}_{\widehat{m}_k}z_1}\frac{z_1}{z_j}\widehat{W}_k.$$

$$det(b_j^k)=\frac{a_{\widehat{S}_x}}{\widehat{a}_{\widehat{S}_x}}\left(1+\underset{j=2}{\overset{l}{}}d_j\frac{z_j}{z_1}\frac{z_1}{z_j}\right),\mathrm{where}a_{\widehat{S}_x}=\underset{mS_xS_1}{}a_m.$$

$`\widehat{z}F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_{\tau \mu })`$ implies that $`\widehat{a}_m\stackrel{~}{w}\mu `$ and $`|t^{w_m}\widehat{z}^{\widehat{m}}|e^{\stackrel{~}{w}\mu }`$ for $`m\mathrm{\Delta }_{S_1}`$. Since $`\mathrm{log}|z_1|^2`$ is bounded by lemma 4.4, we also have $`|t^{w_m}z^m|=O(e^{\stackrel{~}{w}\mu })`$ for $`m\mathrm{\Delta }S_1`$. Notice that

$$a_{m_0}=\kappa +\mathrm{log}\left(1+|z_1|^2+\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }S_1}{}|t|^{2w_m}|z^m|^2\right)$$

is also bounded. It is easy to verify that

$$\frac{a_{m_j}}{\widehat{a}_{m_j}}=1+\frac{a_{m_0}d_j\mathrm{log}|z_1|^2}{\widehat{a}_{m_j}}.$$

When $`\mu `$ is large enough, we have $`a_{m_j}/\widehat{a}_{m_j}=1+O(1/\mu )`$ for $`2jl`$. Consequently, $`a_{\widehat{S}_x}/\widehat{a}_{\widehat{S}_x}=1+O(1/\mu )`$. On the other hand,

$$z_j\frac{z_1}{z_j}=t^{w_{m_j}}z_j+\underset{m\mathrm{\Delta }S_x}{}m^jt^{w_m}z^m=O(e^{\stackrel{~}{w}\mu }).$$

Consequently, when $`\mu `$ is large, we have $`det(b_j^k)=1+O(1/\mu ,e^{\stackrel{~}{w}\mu })C>0`$.

It is straightforward to verify that $`b_j^k`$ are bounded smooth functions of terms in (4.1) using above computations and proposition 1.1. Then proposition 4.1 implies that $`b_j^k`$ and their multi-derivatives with respect to $`\{W_j,\overline{W}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$ are bounded. Consequently, $`\{W_j,\overline{W}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$ is equivalent to $`\{\widehat{W}_j,\overline{\widehat{W}}_j\}_{j=2}^l`$. By propositions 2.1 and 2.3, we get the desired conclusion.

Let $`\{g_t^{\mathrm{tor}}\}`$ be a smooth family of toric Kähler metrics and $`\{g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}\}`$ be a smooth family of Kähler-Einstein metrics defined on the family of spaces $`\{F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_\tau )\}`$. Theorem 4.1 in  can be rephased as the following:

###### Theorem 8.1

For certain fixed $`\mu `$, if $`g_t^{\mathrm{tor}}`$ and $`g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}`$ defined on $`F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_\tau )`$ are $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric on $`F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_{\tau \mu })`$ (uniform with respect to $`t`$), and the Kähler potential $`\rho _\tau `$ of the toric Kähler metric $`g_t^{\mathrm{tor}}`$ (viewed as a function on $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\tau `$) satisfies $`\rho _\tau (x)\rho _1(x/\tau )=C(\tau )`$ for $`x\mathrm{\Delta }_\tau `$ and $`\underset{c1}{lim}\rho _1|_{\mathrm{\Delta }_c}=+\mathrm{}`$, then there exists a smooth family of minimal Lagrangian torus $`L_t(X_t,\omega _t^{\mathrm{KE}})`$.

###### Theorem 8.2

Let $`O`$ be a maximal degeneracy point in $`X_0`$. Then there exists a smooth family of minimal Lagrangian torus $`L_t(X_t,\omega _t^{\mathrm{KE}})`$ for $`t`$ small that approaches $`O`$ when $`t`$ approaches $`0`$.

Proof: We will take $`g_t^{\mathrm{tor}}`$ as the toric metric defined earlier on $`F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_\tau )`$. As discussed earlier in this section, $`X_t`$ near $`O`$ can be identified with $`F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_\tau )`$. We will take $`g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}`$ to be the restriction to $`F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_\tau )`$ of the Kähler-Einstein metric on $`X_t`$. Lemma 8.1 implies that $`g_t^{\mathrm{tor}}`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`g_t`$ on $`F^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_{\tau \mu })`$. Theorem 6.3 implies that $`g_t`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}`$. Consequently, $`g_t^{\mathrm{tor}}`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-quasi-isometric to $`g_t^{\mathrm{KE}}`$ by proposition 2.4. From the definition of $`\rho _\tau `$, it is easy to observe that $`\rho _\tau (x)=\rho _1(x/\tau )2(l+1)\mathrm{log}\tau `$ and $`\underset{c1}{lim}\rho _1|_{\mathrm{\Delta }_c}=+\mathrm{}`$, apply theorem 8.1, we get the desired result.


format: text

text:
# Ground-Based Gamma-Ray Detection of High Energy Galactic Sources: An Update

## 1. Introduction

Ground-based $`\gamma `$-ray astronomy (at energies $`E>100`$ GeV) has been developing rapidly in the last 10 years. The advent of a number of next-generation instruments in 2003/2004 promises exciting new results and answers to some long-standing questions. Strongly motivating the development of new detectors and telescopes, are the questions surrounding the acceleration of particles to multi-TeV energies in many galactic environments. It has been known for some time that various evolutionary paths following a supernova explosion can lead to the production of high energy cosmic ray (CR) electrons and hadrons to TeV energies and above, and with them, $`\gamma `$-radiation as the most accessible tracer of this process. The main motivation driving the search for galactic TeV sources has been concerned with the origin of these CR. In particular the shell type SNR have long been thought responsible for the hadronic CR up to the ’knee’ energy $`E10^{15}`$eV. From the first convincing discovery of TeV $`\gamma `$-rays from the Crab plerion $``$20 years ago (Weekes et al. 1989), galactic objects now comprise a large fraction of catalogued TeV $`\gamma `$-ray emitters.

In this review, I will outline the present and future developments in ground-based $`\gamma `$-ray astronomy, emphasising the imaging atmospheric Čerenkov technique, and also review the various galactic objects identified as sources of TeV $`\gamma `$-rays. Some present and future scientific questions are also posed. Other reviews of the field, some including summaries of experiments using other techniques to detect TeV $`\gamma `$-rays may be found in Aharonian 1999, Weekes 2000, Rowell 2001 and Ong 2003.

## 2. Ground-Based $`\gamma `$-ray Astronomy: The Imaging Technique

Ground-based $`\gamma `$-ray detection relies on the sampling of extensive air showers (EAS) through their copious Čerenkov photon yield. EAS comprise the secondary cascade particles (mostly $`e^\pm `$) generated as a primary $`\gamma `$-ray interacts with the Earth’s atmosphere, and the Čerenkov photons carry specific information about EAS development. A major feature is the huge effective collection area $`>10^9`$ cm2 afforded by the wide area over which the Čerenkov photons are distributed over the ground. The most powerful technique involves viewing the angular resolution of these Čerenkov photons. This can yield accurate information concerning the primary $`\gamma `$-ray energy and direction of origin. Such telescopes employ large segmented mirrors with focal plane arrays or cameras of fast (ns resolution) photomultiplier tubes. These cameras permit parametrisation of Čerenkov images, usually as an elliptical profile such that the major axis aligns with the direction of origin of the primary $`\gamma `$-ray. Single views of each image provide an event-by-event angular resolution of $``$0.15, for typical pixel granularities of order $`0.15^{}`$ to $`0.25^{}`$. Imaging cameras have also achieved quite large fields of view (FoV) of order 5, permitting survey observations. The detection of TeV $`\gamma `$-rays must be made however, against the dominating background of CR. CR also produce EAS, and hence Čerenkov images that are recorded by telescopes. Due to intrinsic differences in the development of EAS for $`\gamma `$-rays and CR (hadronic interactions are present in the latter), Čerenkov images for CR tend be more irregular in shape. Furthermore CRs also arrive isotropically, reflecting their randomised trajectories through interstellar and intergalactic magnetic fields. The imaging technique thus provides a powerful means to preferentially select ’$`\gamma `$-ray-like’ events via the use of directional and shape cuts. Following the pioneering performance of the Whipple111http://veritas.sao.arizona.edu/VERITAS\_whipple.html telescope, other major systems such as CANGAROO222http://icrhp9.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/index.html, CAT333http://lpnp90.in2p3.fr/~cat/index.html and HEGRA444http://www-hegra.desy.de/hegra/ attained similar, or slightly improved performance, albeit at differing energy thresholds, $`E0.25`$ to $``$ few TeV, owing to various mirror areas and other factors.

A further, significant improvement in performance is attained from multiple or stereo views of the same Čerenkov image. By taking advantage of the uncorrelated nature of EAS image fluctuations, systems of telescopes, separated by $`100`$m can achieve an angular resolution proportional to $`1/\sqrt{n}`$ for $`n`$ views of the same image (Hofmann et al. 1999). For the same reasons, CR background rejection based on Čerenkov image shape also improves significantly. Typical background rejection fractions can exceed 99.99% after all cuts applicable to a pointlike source. The recently decommissioned HEGRA IACT-System (Pühlhofer et al. 2003), consisting of 5x4 metre diameter telescopes demonstrated clearly the power of stereoscopy coupled with the use of large FoV cameras. Other benefits of the stereoscopic technique include much improved energy resolution and also a reduction in systematics across the FoV, easing the task of performing surveys for new sources.

## 3. Galactic Sources: A Status Report

To date a total of 8 galactic candidates, listed in table 1, are now observed as TeV $`\gamma `$-ray sources. Of those listed, only the Crab has been confirmed unambiguously by completely independent groups. I confine my list here to those sources appearing in the recent refereed literature ($`>`$1995) and seen at a statistical significance $`>4.5\sigma `$. For the most recent results the reader is directed to proceedings of the 28th International Cosmic Ray Conference in Japan55528th ICRC Japan http://www.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/icrc2003/, which suggests TeV emission from a few more candidates.

Below I give a brief summary of each listed source, centering on our understanding of their TeV emission processes.

Crab: The Crab was the first source confirmed as a TeV emitter by the Whipple collaboration, and is now clearly detected by all groups active in the field. It is considered the ’standard candle’ in the field. The Crab flux has proved to be steady within instrument systematics, and exhibits an energy spectrum fitted by a pure power law over a remarkably large energy range 0.2 to 70 TeV (see for e.g. Horns et al 2003). The Crab is the most intensely studied pulsar/plerion and the unpulsed TeV flux is universally considered to arise from the inverse-Compton (IC) scattering of local (soft & synchrotron) photons by the shocked wind electrons filling the Crab plerion. These same electrons give rise to the very intense broad-band synchrotron spectrum extending from radio to X-ray energies. At the high energy end however the contribution of accelerated hadrons which lead to $`\gamma `$ emission via $`\pi ^{}`$ decay could also become significant (Aharonian & Atoyan 1996a). This rather hard ’hadronic component’ may be required to explain the unbroken continuation of the Crab spectrum to $`E>50`$ TeV. An IC cutoff would normally be expected due to electron cooling and the Klein-Nishina reduction in IC cross section.
PSR B1706$``$44: Steady TeV emission from this source was reported by CANGAROO and confirmed by the Durham group (Kifune 1995; Chadwick et al. 1998). As for the Crab, the plerionic shocked pulsar wind could give rise to the unpulsed TeV emission, which is reportedly at similar levels to the Crab TeV flux. However, the very weak synchrotron X-ray flux, only recently seen by Chandra (Gotthelf et al. 2002) leads to a strong underprediction of the IC TeV for ’reasonable’ values of the magnetic field $`B15\mu `$G. One possible way out is for the high energy electrons to escape quickly to regions of lower $`B`$ (Aharonian et al. 1997).
Vela: This is another plerion, whose unpulsed TeV emission has been interpreted in the electronic IC framework. Complicating matters somewhat, the CANGAROO discovery found the TeV emission 0.13 offset from the pulsar position (Yoshikoshi et al. 1997), not far from its supposed birthplace. It is possible that a ’relic’ electron wind may be responsible for the plerionic synchrotron X-ray and IC TeV emission although this implies very low $`B`$ fields (Harding et al. 1997). An alternative hadronic picture is put forward by Aharonian 1999 as well as the unshocked electronic wind scenario of Aharonian & Bogovalov (2003).
SN1006: This historical young shell type SNR expanding into a relatively sparse environment exhibits a predominantly featureless X-ray spectrum, considered to be synchrotron emission. The bi-polar morphology of SN1006 in X-rays may trace out regions of more efficient electron injection. TeV emission has been seen from the slightly brighter (in X-rays) NE rim (Tanimori et al. 1998), and was initally attributed to the electronic IC process. However, as for PSR B1706$``$44 and Vela, very low $`B<10\mu `$G fields are required to match the CANGAROO flux. It also appears that the hadronic component may play a significant role (Aharonian & Atoyan 1999; Berezkho et al. 2002), particularly given the recent high-resolution results of Chandra which favour higher $`B>10\mu `$G fields in the post-shocked regions (Bamba et al. 2003).
RXJ1713.7$``$394: This older shell-type SNR appears to show TeV emission at its NW rim (Enomoto et al. 2002), not far from a neighbouring molecular cloud with high ambient matter density. There is also strong non-thermal X-ray emission from this area. Interpretation was initially centred on the electronic IC component but more recently re-evaluation was made in strong favour of the hadronic origin for the accelerated particles. As for SN1006, the high resolution filamentary structure seen by Chandra, pointing to a high $`B`$ field would certainly favour the hadronic component as discussed by Uchiyama et al. 2003.
Cas A: The youngest shell-type SNR, Cas-A is one of the strongest radio sources. The HEGRA detection of TeV emission was made using a very deep exposure of $`>200`$ hrs (Aharonian et al. 2001a). The TeV flux appears to favour a hadronic interpretation since the very high magnetic field in Cas-A, few$``$mG, quenches strongly any electronic component (IC and Bremsstrahlung) at $`E>1`$ TeV (Atoyan et al. 2000; Berezhko et al. 2003). More detailed spectral information at $`E>5`$TeV should solve this issue.
Cen X-3: This high mass X-ray binary contains a 4.8 s pulsar in a 2.1 day orbit around an O-type supergiant and has also been seen by EGRET at low GeV energies. Neither the GeV or TeV fluxes appear modulated with the pulsar orbital period (Chadwick et al. 2000). The TeV production could come from a beam of relativistic hadrons interacting with ejected matter clumps from the companion star (Aharonian & Atoyan 1996b). Recent reanalysis of the TeV data does suggest some modulation of the TeV emission with the pulsar half-period from one night (Atoyan et al. 2002) for higher energy events. In general, the lack of modulation could point to a large scale source region, quite distant from the neutron star and Atoyan et al. also consider electronic IC components and possible ways to discriminate them from the hadronic scenario.
TeV J2032+4130: Discovered seredipitously in HEGRA IACT-System data (Aharonian et al. 2002; Rowell et al. 2003), TeV J2032+4130 is at present the only unidentified TeV source. Despite the fact that no multiwavelength counterpart is identified, its location within the extremely dense OB association Cygnus OB2 cluster could point to particle acceleration in such environments. Alternative explanations invoke a jet-powered microquasar scenario, for example a link to nearby Cygnus X-3, the EGRET source 3E2033+4118, or even an unseen plerion. The lack of an X-ray counterpart could suggest a hadronic source and deeper X-ray observations of the Cygnus OB2 region are in the pipeline (Butt et al. 2003). The discovery of TeV J2032+4130 is in fact a perfect example of the survey capabilities of present ground-based instruments, particularly those utilising large fields of view and achieving arc-minute source location error boxes.

Overall, the interpretion of the galactic TeV sources has invoked both the hadronic and electronic models. Except for the Crab, which is quite well understood in terms of the electronic synchrotron/IC framework, solid discrimination between the hadronic and electronic framework requires more accurate TeV spectral information covering a broader energy range, coupled with multiwavelength studies. In some cases the high resolution results from Chandra are certainly helping to constrain the electronic component. So far what is lacking is clear proof that the TeV galactic objects are capable of accelerating hadrons to multi-TeV energies. Further improvements in sensitivity and energy coverage for ground-based instruments have therefore been sought after during the last 5 years or so. In particular as well as aiming for a decrease in energy threshold to $`E<300`$ GeV, it is now clear that sensitivity improvements at the high energy end $`E>10`$ TeV are are also deemed vital to separating the hadronic from electronic emission processes.

## 4. New Ground-Based Instruments

The best ground-based systems operating up until 2002 achieved an angular resolution, energy resolution, energy threshold, and sensitivity of $`<0.1^{}`$, $``$15%, $``$250 GeV and $`1\times 10^{12}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 ($`E>`$1 TeV, 50 hours, 5$`\sigma `$) respectively. This flux sensitivity amounts to $``$5 to 10$`\sigma `$ / $`\sqrt{hr}`$ on the Crab. The so-called next generation instruments in ground-based $`\gamma `$-ray astronomy aim to realise roughly one order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity and reduction in energy threshold over present instruments. Four primary projects are now coming online. The H.E.S.S.666http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/hfm/HESS/HESS.html, VERITAS777http://veritas.sao.arizona.edu/veritas/index.html and CANGAROO III888http://icrhp9.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/c-ii.html projects are employing the stereoscopic imaging technique. Data analysis techniques will be in general similar to that used by present instruments, in particular the stereoscopic aspects developed with the HEGRA IACT-System. These systems consist of arrays of $`4`$ telescopes each with $``$100 m2 segmented mirrors and imaging cameras of $``$500 pixels subtending $`3^{}`$ fields of view. All are expected to achieve energy thresholds in the range 50 to 200 GeV. The MAGIC999http://hegra1.mppmu.mpg.de/MAGICWeb/ project comprises a single, very large telescope of mirror area ($`>`$200 m2) in an effort to achieve an energy threshold $`E<50`$ GeV. Extra telescopes may be added to form a stereoscopic system. Figure 1 compares the sensitivities of present and next-generation (and beyond) ground-based instruments along with the next space-based detectors in the high energy regime GLAST, INTEGRAL and MEGA.

As of October 2003, H.E.S.S. and CANGAROO-III have a number of telescopes running. They are expecting completion of their full 4-telescope arrays by 2004. VERITAS has just begun partial operation of their prototype telescope and MAGIC is also nearing completion, already taking engineering data. Both H.E.S.S. and CANGAROO are situated in the southern hemisphere and as such are perfectly postitioned to survey the Galactic plane for new sources. Searching for high energy counterparts to the numerous EGRET unidentified sources (Hartman et al. 1999) is a prime motivation. The angular resolution and FoV of H.E.S.S. for example is expected to survey the inner plane ($`l\pm 30^{}`$, $`b\pm 2.5^{}`$) at the 0.1 Crab level in less than 200 hours observation time. H.E.S.S. is also presently devoting large effort to confirmation of the all of the southern TeV sources listed above, all of which require confirmation at solid significance levels similar to early results on the Crab for full acceptance in the field.

Looking further into the future, already the expansion of H.E.S.S. and the like is under full consideration. Several options ere now being considered as to how to improve the energy coverage and sensitivities even further. One such option given serious thought is the placement of a Čerenkov telescope at high mountain altitude $`>4000`$ m to approach the lowest possible threshold allowed by the technique $`E5`$ GeV. The ’5@5’ proposal (Aharonian et al. 2001b) considers placing a H.E.S.S.-like system (slightly bigger telescopes) at the ALMA site in Chile (5000 m). Such a system could yield significant detections of Vela in just seconds, allowing for the first time $`\gamma `$-ray pulse timing activities. The follow-up of $`\gamma `$-ray bursts is also a major consideration.

### Acknowledgments.

I thank the organisers of IAU Symposium 218 for the invitation.

## References

Aharonian F.A. 1999 Astropart. Phys. 11, 225

Aharonian F.A., Atoyan A.M. 1996a MNRAS 278, 525

Aharonian F.A., Atoyan A.M. 1996b Space. Sci. Rev. 75, 357

Aharonian F.A., Atoyan A.M, Kifune T. 1997 MNRAS 291, 162

Aharonian F.A., Atoyan A.M. 1999 A&A 351, 330

Aharonian F.A., Akhperjanian A., Barrio J. et al. 2001a A&A 370, 112

Aharonian F.A., Konopelko A.K., Völk H.J. et al. 2001b Astropart. Phys. 15, 335

Aharonian F.A., Akhperjanian A., Beilicke M. et al. 2002 A&A 393, L37

Aharonian F.A., Bogovalov S.V. 2003 New Astronomy 8, 85

Atoyan A.M., Aharonian F.A., Tuffs, R.J et al. 2000 A&A 355, 211,

Atoyan A.M., Aye K.M., Chadwick P.M. et al. 2002 A&A 383, 864

Bamba A, Yamazaki R., Ueno M. et al 2003 ApJ 589, 827

Berezhko E.G., Ksenofontov, L.T., Völk H.J. 2002 A&A 395, 943

Berezhko E.G., Pühlhofer G., Völk H.J. 2003 A&A 400, 971

Butt Y.M., Benaglia P., Combi J. et al. 2003 ApJ in press astro-ph/0302342

Chadwick P.M., Dickinson M.R., Dipper N.A. et al. 1998 Astropart. Phys. 9, 131

Chadwick P.M., Daniel M.K., Lyons K. et al 2000 A&A 364, 165

Enomoto R., Tanimori T., Naito T. et al. 2002 Nature, 416, 823

Gotthelf E.V., Halpern J.P., Dodson R. 2002 ApJ567, L125

Harding A.K. et al. 1997 in Proc. 25th ICRC Durban 3, 325

Hartman R.C. et al. 1999 ApJS 123, 79

Hofmann W., Jung I., Konopelko A. et al. 1999 Astropart. Phys 12, 155

Horns D. et al. in Proc 28th ICRC (Japan) astro-ph/0307334

Ong R. 2002 in Proc. “The Universe Viewing in Gamma-Rays”, 587 astro-ph/0304336

Pühlhofer G., Bolz O., Götting N. et al. 2003 Astropart. Phys in press astro-ph/0306123

Rowell G.P. 2001 Bull. astron. Soc. India 30, 25 astro-ph/0112214

Rowell G.P., Horns D. et al. 2003 Proc. 28th ICRC (Japan) astro-ph/0307334

Tanimori T., Hayami Y., Kamei S. et al. 1998 ApJ497, L25

Uchiyama Y., Aharonian F.A., Takahashi T. 2003 A&A 400, 567

Weekes T.C., Cawley M.F., Fegan D.J. et al. 1989 ApJ 342, 379

Weekes T.C. 2000 AIP Conf. Proc. 558, 15

Yoshikoshi T., Kifune T., Dazeley S.A. 1997 ApJ 487, L65


text:
# Unveiling the origin of shape coexistence in lead isotopes

## Abstract

The shape coexistence in the nuclei 182-192Pb is analyzed within the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approach with the effective Gogny force. A good agreement with the experimental energies is found for the coexisting spherical, oblate and prolate states. Contrary to the established interpretation, it is found that the low-lying prolate and oblate $`0^+`$ states observed in this mass region are predominantly characterized by neutron correlations whereas the protons behave as spectators rather than playing an active role.

The experimental information about the phenomenon of shape coexistence in atomic nuclei has been rather scarce until recent years. Nowadays this topic is one of the most active research fields in Nuclear Physics and rather widespread in the Nuclide Chart. Nowhere, however, coexistence appears as clear and impressive as in the neutron deficient lead isotopes ($`N104`$) AHD.00 . There the ground state and the first two excited states are $`0^+`$ states, all the three are within 1 MeV and each of them corresponds to a different shape: the ground state is spherical, one excited state is prolate and the other one oblate. The fact that this situation takes place in several lead isotopes makes this region more attractive to theoretically understand the phenomenon of coexistence. Since many years there has been considerable interest in this region and quite a few theoretical studies have tried to disentangle the main features of this coexistence. The older works were done in the frame of the Strutinsky method MPF.77 ; BN.89 ; HDR.89 ; NAZ.93  as well as in terms of a schematic SU(3) shell model calculation with degenerate major shells HJM.87 . Recent calculations beyond mean field CER.01 ; DBB.03  have studied the stability of the mean field predictions. In particular, in Ref. CER.01  configuration mixing (shape fluctuations) calculations with the Gogny force in the frame of the Generator Coordinate Method as well as many-body calculations with a separable force have been performed. In Ref.DBB.03 , angular momentum conserving shape fluctuations were considered with the Skyrme interaction. All three calculations confirmed the persistence of the low-lying prolate and oblate configurations predicted in the mean field calculations. Unfortunately in these calculations with effective interactions, not much interest was devoted to understand the physics underlying the phenomenon of coexistence. In this Letter we adopt the opposite point of view: taking for granted that beyond mean field correlations do not destroy the simpler mean field predictions, we will perform a detailed study with the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) approach and effective forces with predictive power to pin down the subtilities of the shape coexistence.

The “traditional” interpretation of the low-lying prolate and oblate minima in the closed shell lead isotopes is based in the 2p-2h proton configurations coming down in energy due to the pairing correlations and the proton-neutron (p-n) interaction, see HJM.87 ; HDR.89 . This interpretation is still common sense today AHD.00 . In this Letter we will show that a different, much more natural, interpretation of these states emerges in a full selfconsistent calculation with an effective interaction. The calculations have been performed within the HFB approach using the finite range density dependent Gogny force (D1S parametrization)BGG.84 . Energies, $`E(q)`$, and wave functions (w.f.), $`\phi (q)`$, with deformation $`q`$, have been calculated by the constrained HFB method, by constraining the expectation value of the mass quadrupole moment, i.e., $`\phi (q)\left|z^21/2(x^2+y^2)\right|\phi (q)=q`$. The calculations have been performed in an axially symmetric Harmonic Oscillator (HO) basis containing thirteen major shells, see also ref. CER.01 .

In Fig. 1, the HFB energy as functions of $`q`$ is displayed for the isotopes 182-192Pb. All these nuclei have spherical ground states, giving us a clear indication of the very strong signature of the Z=82 proton shell closure. Additional low-lying minima around $`10`$b on the prolate and around $`7`$b on the oblate side appear indicating a pronounced shape coexistence. The first (second) excited states in 182-184-186Pb are of prolate (oblate) shape with deformation parameters $`\beta _2=0.29,0.32`$ and $`0.29`$ ($`0.18,0.18`$ and $`0.20`$) respectively. For 188-190-192Pb, the relative positions of the deformed minima are exchanged. The first (second ) excited states are of oblate (prolate) shape with $`\beta _2=0.20,0.20`$ and $`0.17`$ ($`0.28,0.25`$ and $`0.22`$) respectively. It is interesting to notice that the oblate minima become more pronounced with increasing neutron number while the prolate ones display the opposite trend, in particular, the prolate minimum in 192Pb is rather shallow. On the other hand, the changes taking place on the prolate side of the potential are stronger than on the oblate one. The excitation energies of the lowest-lying oblate and prolate minima in 182-192Pb are compared in Fig. 2 with the available experimental data JULI ; HMG.93 ; AHD.00 ; APL.98 ; DUP.87 ; DCD.85 ; PB2 ; PB3 ; PB4 ; PB5 . The crossing of the theoretical prolate and oblate states takes place at $`A=188`$, two units higher than suggested by the experiment (A=186)JULI . It is interesting to notice that the agreement with the experiment is better for the first excited states than for the second ones independently of their oblate or prolate shape. A similar tendency has been obtained in DBB.03 . The results obtained for the excitation energies, without further adjustment of the force, indicate that though the mean field approximation does not reproduce quantitatively the experimental results it provides a good qualitative description of the three minima. We will now try to understand the physics behind them.

An interesting issue in mean field calculations are the single particle energies (s.p.e.) corresponding to the eigenvalues of the one-body Hamiltonian $`h`$. In Fig. 3 the s.p.e. for protons and neutrons around the Fermi level are plotted for the nucleus 186Pb as an example. We observe that the first level crossings in the Fermi surface appear around $`|3|`$b for the neutron system and for the proton system, due to the $`Z=82`$ shell closure, around $`|6|`$b. According to the assignment of earlier works HJM.87 ; NAZ.93  the prolate minimum lying around 10 b is a proton 4p-4h state, while the oblate one around $`7`$ b is a proton 2p-2h. This labeling is somewhat misleading because the reference state of the p-h excitations is changing with deformation. In the framework of Fig. 3 it is more appropriated to talk about level crossings, one level crossing for the oblate state and two for the prolate one. The neutron systems are characterized by more crossings due to the fact that the first level crossing already takes place at $`|3|`$b. For a genuine determination -in the spirit of the shell model- of the p-h excitations at a given $`q`$ one should calculate the single particle occupancies $`\nu (lj,q)=\phi (q)|_{n,m}a_{nljm}^{}a_{nljm}|\phi (q)`$ with $`a_{nljm}^{},a_{nljm}`$ the particle creation and annihilation operators of the spherical HFB solution. For each $`(lj)`$ the quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu (lj)=\nu (lj,q)\nu (lj,q=0)`$ represents the relative spherical total single particle occupancy of the orbital $`lj`$ at a given deformation $`q`$ with respect to the corresponding one at zero deformation and is plotted in Fig. 4 again for the nucleus 186Pb. The proton w.f. of the prolate (oblate) minimum corresponds to a 7p-7h (4.5p-4.5h) with respect to the spherical state. The 7p are distributed, mainly, within the $`h_{9/2},f_{7/2}`$ and $`f_{5/2}`$ orbitals while the 7h are made, mainly, in the $`h_{11/2}`$ orbital. The 4.5p-4.5h of the oblate minimum are distributed within the same orbitals (with the exception of the $`f_{5/2}`$). The neutron w.f. of the prolate (oblate) minimum corresponds to a 5.5p-5.5h (4.4p-4.4h) with respect to the spherical state. The 5.5p are distributed, mainly, within the $`i_{13/2}`$ and the $`g_{9/2}`$ orbitals while the 5.5h are made in the $`h_{9/2},f_{7/2}`$ orbitals. The 4.4p of the oblate minimum are distributed within the $`f_{5/2},p_{3/2}`$ orbitals, the hole orbitals are the same as in the prolate case. It is interesting to observe that for small $`q`$ values, the particle occupation numbers change much earlier than expected from Fig. 3. For both the proton and neutron systems already at $`|3|`$ barn there are significant changes. This feature is related with pairing and with the fact that in Fig. 3 one can not realize the $`nlj`$ mixing since the lines correspond to s.p.e. of a given $`K`$. In the upper part of Fig. 4 the proton and neutron pairing energies are plotted. As expected the proton pairing energy is zero at and around the spherical shape but rather large for $`|q|3`$b. The neutron pairing energy is very large for small $`|q|`$ values and decreases quite fast for large $`|q|`$ values. We mentioned above that the oblate and the prolate minima are the two first excited states above the ground state, the reason is that the lowest two quasiparticle states build on the ground state lie much higher, for protons ($`E_{ph}^{min}=5.7`$ MeV) due to the large s.p.e gap of the shell closure and for neutrons ($`E_{2qp}^{min}=3.6`$ MeV) because of the huge pairing energy. The behavior of the pairing energies for the other lead isotopes are not very different from the plotted ones.

In our study of occupancies we got different results than the ones obtained in earlier calculations HJM.87 ; NAZ.93 . These occupancies, however, do not tell us directly the mechanism to generate the energy minima. To unveil the origin of the different minima let us now analyze the different energy contributions. The total HFB energy can be separated as $`E_T=E_{T\nu }+E_{T\pi }`$ for protons and neutrons and additionally $`E_{T\pi }=E_\pi +E_C`$, with $`E_C`$ the Coulomb energy and $`E_\pi `$ the pure nuclear energy. These energies, relative to the spherical shape, have been plotted in Fig. 5 for the nuclei 184Os and 186Pb. We have included the 184Os $`(N=108,Z=76)`$ results in order to illustrate the behavior of a system close to 186Pb but without the impact of the $`Z=82`$ shell closure. Let us first discuss the 184Os case. For $`E_{T\nu }`$ the proximity to the mid-shell $`N=104`$ favors deformed neutron minima as we can see in the 5 MeV deep prolate and oblate minima. The 6-hole proton system would prefer a spherical or a not very pronounced deformed minimum. However, due to the p-n interaction the proton system is driven to deformed minima about 2 to 3 MeV deep. The behavior of $`E_C`$ can be classically understood, it should be a maximum at the spherical shape and rather flat around this shape corresponding to the fact that for small deformation parameters $`\beta `$ the correction to the spherical $`E_C`$ is proportional to $`\beta ^2`$. For quadrupole moments $`5bq6.5b`$, both $`E_\pi `$ and $`E_C`$ are decreasing functions. The coherent addition of $`E_{T\nu }`$ and $`E_{T\pi }`$ in this $`q`$ range gives a $`E_T`$ with two very well defined deformed minima. The spherical shape however remains an energy maximum.

Concerning the nucleus 186Pb, the energy minimum of $`E_\pi `$ is, as expected, at the spherical shape because of the magic number $`Z=82`$. Small deviations around this shape increase this energy in a parabolic way until the single particle occupancies change in a sizable amount, see Fig. 4. At larger $`q`$ values one can distinguish the additional level crossings. $`E_{T\pi }`$ is rather flat for not too large deformations being larger than zero only for $`13bq13`$b. It displays a very shallow minimum around $`q10`$b and a second one around $`q16`$b. On the oblate side we find a flat maximum (!) around $`7`$b and some level crossings at higher $`q`$ values. Concerning $`E_{T\nu }`$ we find a very flat maximum around the spherical shape and two minima, one on the prolate ($`q10`$b) and one on the oblate side ($`q7`$b) as well as two shoulders at larger deformations. Around the spherical maximum we find a parabolic behavior for the same reasons as in the proton case. It is interesting to observe the presence of shoulders in $`E_\pi `$ at the same $`q`$ values where the neutron system has minima or shoulders, this is due to the p-n interaction. $`E_T`$ displays three minima, corresponding to spherical, prolate and oblate shapes. The deformed minima appear at exactly the same quadrupole moments as for the neutron energy. That means according to this picture the protons drive the system to the spherical ground state while the neutrons are responsible for the deformed minima. The coexistence phenomenon in the neutron deficient lead isotopes can be viewed from a microscopic point of view as the result of the following features: As we have seen in the 184Os plot, in the absence of the shell closure the proton system will display a maximum at the spherical shape and two deformed minima and so will do the neutron system. In the presence of a strong proton shell closure, $`E_\pi `$ together with $`E_C`$ provide a spherical minimum and a rather shallow $`E_{T\pi }`$ surface at $`15\mathrm{b}q20`$b. Furthermore, the p-n interaction drives the neutron system to a spherical shape providing a very flat $`E_{T\nu }`$ surface around zero quadrupole moment though not a minimum. This energy flattening causes that the prolate-spherical and spherical-oblate energy barriers become very small. Notice also that due to the strong shell closure $`E_\pi `$ grows faster that $`E_C`$ decreases around the spherical shape (contrary to 184Os). This effect causes in 186Pb a cancellation of $`E_{T\pi }`$ with $`E_{T\nu }`$ in the prolate and oblate minima in such a way that the deformed minima of $`E_T`$ lie close to the spherical minimum. From the previous discussion we can infer that the existence of spherical, prolate and oblate states within 1 MeV is a very special characteristic of this mass region favored by the mid-shell $`N=104`$ neutron configuration and the proton shell closure. The p-n and the pairing interactions provide the remaining ingredients.

We shall now try to understand the evolution of the shape coexistence with the neutron number. In Fig. 6 the different energies for the nuclei 182-192Pb are plotted. The $`E_C`$’s are not drawn because for all isotopes they look rather similar to the one depicted in Fig. 5 for 186Pb. In Fig. 6 we can follow very clearly the evolution of the prolate and oblate minima. In the upper part for the nuclei with a prolate first excited state, i.e., 182-186Pb, we can observe how the neutron oblate well gets deeper with increasing neutron number. The prolate minimum does the same though to a lesser extend. This can be understood looking at Fig. 3, where we can see on the oblate side, around $`q=7`$ b, that for neutron numbers $`N=100,102`$ and $`104`$ we are filling down-sloping $`i_{13/2}`$ orbitals. On the prolate side and around $`q=10`$b, there are down- and up-sloping orbitals providing a smaller change in the energy. In the lower part of Fig. 6 we have plotted the energies for those nuclei with an oblate first excited state, i.e., 188-192Pb. With increasing neutron number we observe a small decrease of the oblate well and the disappearance of the prolate well. This behavior can be understood again looking at Fig. 3, there we find that for neutron number $`N=106,108`$ and $`110`$ and around $`q=10`$b we are filling different up-sloping orbitals. On the oblate side, on the other hand, we are filling on the average orbitals without a well defined behavior. Since the behavior around the spherical minimum, $`5bq5`$b, is dominated by the proton behavior through the p-n interaction, $`E_{T\nu }`$ does not change in this region. Concerning the $`E_\pi `$ we find that as expected they do not vary as much as the neutron ones. We can furthermore observe the effect of the p-n interaction : In the places where $`E_{T\nu }`$ presents stronger variations so does $`E_\pi `$, see the oblate side in 182-186Pb and the prolate side in 188-192Pb. $`E_{T\pi }`$ does not show a clear behavior on the oblate side. Around the prolate minimum and for the nuclei 182-186Pb it shows flat minima and for 188-192Pb somewhat more pronounced ones. This behavior as explained above is caused to the p-n interaction. The addition of $`E_{T\pi }`$ and $`E_{T\nu }`$ provides $`E_T`$ already discussed in Fig.1.

In conclusion the shape coexistence phenomenon in the lead isotopes has been analyzed in the selfconsistent HFB approach with the Gogny force. We have found a reasonable good description of the experimental energies as well as clear explanations for the existence of the three low-lying states of different shapes and of the evolution of these minima with the mass number. In particular, we have shown that the “traditional” understanding of shape coexistence in the lead isotopes based on proton excitations has to be modified because the proton potentials display either maxima or very shallow minima at the corresponding quadrupole moments.

This work was supported in part by DGI, Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia, Spain, under Project BFM2001-0184.


text:
# Age determination of the nuclear stellar population of Active Galactic Nuclei using Locally Weighted Regression

## 1. Introduction

Recent spectroscopic surveys of nearby AGN have proven that a large fraction show high-order hydrogen Balmer absorption lines in the near-UV (González-Delgado et al 1999) (Joguet et al 2001). These features are characteristic of young stars and therefore represent strong evidence of recent star formation in these galaxies.

From a theoretical point of view, it is very important to determine the age of these starbursts, in order to understand the nature of the starburst-AGN connection and galaxy formation and evolution. The characterization of the nuclear star forming region (its age and mass) is very difficult to achieve in AGN, due to the contamination of the nuclear stellar absorption lines by the AGN component itself. The recent release of high-resolution spectra of large number of galaxies by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) consortium allows spectroscopic studies to be performed now on thousands of galaxies with active nuclei.

In this work we propose a Machine Learning (ML) method to determine the age of stellar populations in synthetic galactic spectra. The experimental results obtained here show the efficiency of the automatic learning method applied to astronomy.

## 2. Background

### 2.1. Sequential Floating Backward Selection (SFBS)

SFBS is a feature selection algorithm that allows to work with non-monotonic data. It constructs in parallel the feature sets of all dimensionalities up to a specified threshold and consists of applying after each feature exclusion a number of features inclusion as long as the resulting subsets are better than those previously evaluated at that level. It makes a dynamically controlled number of iterations and achieves good results without static parameters (Pudil 1994).

### 2.2. Locally Weighted Regression (LWR)

LWR is an instance based learning method; it assumes instances can be represented as points in an Euclidean space (Moore 2001). Its training consists of explicitly retaining the training data and using them each time a prediction needs to be made. LWR performs a regression around a point of interest using only a local region around that point. Locally weighted regression can fit complex functions in an accurate way and data modifications have little impact on the training.

### 2.3. Ensembles of Classifiers

An ensemble of classifiers is a group of classifiers trained independently whose outputs are combined in some way, usually by voting (Mitchell 1997). They are normally more accurate than the individual classifiers that make it up.

## 3. Data

The data is composed by 14 high resolution synthetic spectra combined in pairs considering 10 levels of dilution and including Gaussian noise. The experiments were calibrated using two population synthesis models with different ages (A. Bressan, private communication):

* A young population with ages between $`10^{7.0}`$ and $`10^{8.6}`$ years, representing a starburst component,
* An old population with ages between $`10^{8.0}`$ and $`10^{9.6}`$ years, representing the bulge component.

The spectra consist of $`5655`$ points, from the optical to the near UV with wavelengths between $`3600`$ and $`5300`$Å and $`0.2\AA `$ sampling. A subsampling process was performed to a resolution of $`1\AA `$ in order to make the data compatible with the resolution of the observed spectra, in our case the SDSS spectral data. The features selected are the Balmer and Calcium II lines that are characteristic of the young and old populations respectively. The points of interest are selected for each component and population using the SFBS algorithm.

## 4. Implementation

We made specialized classifiers using LWR trained in the high-order Balmer and Ca II absorption lines to determine the young and the old populations respectively; at the end of the process the results were combined by an ensemble of classifiers. For each classifier we selected a subset of features maximizing the probability of correct classification, this goal was achieved applying the SFBS method offline. The general process of age identification is shown in Figure 1 and is as follows:

1. Select features in the relevant regions. This is done online using the information retrieved by SFBS in a previous step.
2. Extract the information in the Ca II K line, which is typical of the older bulge population.
3. Identify the old population using specialized classifiers.
4. For each spectrum with no classification: extract the information in the Balmer lines that is characteristic of recent star formation.
5. Identify the young population using specialized classifiers.
6. Combine results in an ensemble.

## 5. Experimental Results

We experimented using data with different resolutions and adding different noise levels. First we used $`14`$ high spectral resolution synthetic models at $`0.2\AA `$, after that we sub-sampled the spectra to $`1\AA `$ to evaluate the performance of the ML method and to decide if it is possible to make an extension to handle the SDSS spectra.

The ensemble was tested using ten fold cross-validation; in ten fold cross validation we divide the data into 10 subsets of equal size; we train the classifier 10 times, each time leaving out one of the subsets and using it for testing the algorithm. The sample error is calculated each time and is averaged to obtain the true error. An accuracy of about $`0.3dex`$ in logarithmic age was achieved. The main results are summarized in Table 1.

The time of prediction using LWR is linear in the number of examples and the experiments show that the time is reduced drastically with respect to the technique that does not involve ML. The method was then applied to the optical/near UV spectra of nuclear regions of nearby Seyfert galaxies covering the wavelength region $`36005300\AA `$ and it was found to be rather insensitive to the emission line and continuum contamination.

## 6. Conclusions and Future Work

The results obtained by ML are compared with those produced by exhaustive search in terms of time and precision. The machine learning method could find the correct ages, and was faster than exhaustive search, and has the additional advantage of the generalization capabilities inherent to this kind of algorithms. We conclude that the ML method can be extended to work with real spectra if we use a realistic noise model. The two-dimensional classification used for age identification in galactic nuclear spectra is similar in many ways to other problems and can be taken as a guideline in different problems (for example classification of binary stars and search for supernovae in galactic spectra).

An extension of the method to handle observational spectra more reliably is to be published elsewhere. A second goal will be to implement a ML algorithm to find the AGN dilution and modify the synthetic spectra to predict three ages of stellar populations instead of just two.

#### Acknowledgments.

This work was partially supported by CONACyT (the Mexican Research Council) under grants 31877, 171595 and 32186-E. E-P and T-P gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Conference organizers.

## References

González-Delgado R., Leitherer C. & Heckman T. 1999, ApJ, 125, 489

Joguet B. et al. 2001, A&A, 380, 19

Mitchell T.M 1997, Machine Learning, 230-247

Moore A. et al. 2001, Tutorial, 34-35

Pudil P. et al. 1994, ICPR94, 279-283.