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# 𝑝𝑝̄→𝑡𝑡̄𝐻: A Discovery mode for the Higgs boson at the Tevatron

## Abstract

The production of a Standard Model Higgs boson in association with a top quark pair at the upcoming high luminosity run (15 fb-1 integrated luminosity) of the Fermilab Tevatron ($`\sqrt{s}=2.0`$ TeV) is revisited. For Higgs masses below 140 GeV we demonstrate that the production cross section times branching ratio for $`Hb\overline{b}`$ decays yields a significant number of events and that this mode is competitive with and complementary to the searches using $`p\overline{p}WH,ZH`$ associated production. For higher mass Higgs bosons the $`HW^+W^{}`$ decays are more difficult but have the potential to provide a few spectacular events.

preprint:   Fermilab   FERMILAB-Pub-00/146-T December 1, 2000

One of the untested features of the elegant and highly successful Standard Model (SM) of electroweak interactions is the Higgs mechanism for spontaneous electroweak symmetry breaking. The Higgs sector of the SM consists of one doublet of complex scalar fields which is used to break the SU(2)$`\times `$U(1) electro-weak gauge symmetry to U(1) electromagnetism. This mechanism gives rise to the masses of the W and Z bosons and is also used to give masses to the charged leptons and quarks. An additional physical neutral scalar particle is also produced, the undiscovered Higgs boson. All properties of this boson are predicted by the SM except for its mass. Most extensions to the SM’s electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism predict more than one physical scalar state, however one of these states tends to have properties very similar to the SM Higgs boson.

Direct collider searches have so far ruled out a SM Higgs boson with a mass less than $`107`$ GeV  at the $`95\%`$ confidence level. The final run of the Large Electron Positron collider (LEP) at CERN this year should be able to extend the exclusion limit or provide a $`5\sigma `$ discovery up to about 114 GeV. The next CERN collider, after LEP, is the 14 TeV proton-proton Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which will have the capability to discover a SM Higgs boson of nearly any mass***In the SM $`M_H1`$ TeV is ruled out by unitarity constraints. in multiple search channels. However, the LHC is not scheduled to begin taking data until 2005 at the earliest. In the meantime, the upcoming Run II of Fermilab’s 2 TeV proton-antiproton collider, the Tevatron, will have an opportunity to discover a Higgs boson above the LEP exclusion limit and below 180 GeV. In this Letter we will concentrate on the SM case over this mass range.

The SM Higgs boson couples at lowest order to all SM particles with a strength proportional to their mass. For the massless photon and gluon a coupling is induced at higher order via loops of heavy particles. Therefore there are many ways for the Higgs boson to decay and also many ways to produce it at a hadron collider. For the mass range of interest here, $`100M_H200`$ GeV, the Higgs boson decays predominantly to either a pair of $`b`$-quarks ($`b\overline{b}`$) for a mass less than 135 GeV, or to four fermions via real or virtual $`W`$ gauge bosons for a mass above 135 GeV. These decays are referred to as $`Hb\overline{b}`$ and $`HW^+W^{}`$ respectively, and at 135 GeV they have approximately equal branching ratios ($`43\%`$ to $`40\%`$ respectively). At this mass, the remainder of the decay branching ratio is primarily into $`\tau `$ lepton, $`c`$ quark and gluon pairs.

Cross sections for various Higgs boson production modes at the Tevatron are shown in Fig. 1(a) . The dominant mode is via gluon-gluon fusion, $`ggH`$, which proceeds via a top quark loop. The next largest mode is Higgs boson associated production with a $`W`$ or $`Z`$ boson. At a still lower cross-section is Higgs boson production via bremsstrahlung off a top quark pair. The current searches planned for the Tevatron Run II concentrate on the dominant production modes: $`WH,ZH`$ associated production with decays $`Hb\overline{b}`$ , and gluon fusion production $`ggH`$ with subsequent decay $`HW^+W^{}`$ . While detailed studies with detector simulation and neural net analysis show promise, they do indicate the need for large integrated luminosity, and even with 30 fb-1 these searches have difficulty in the mass regions 130-150 GeV and above 180 GeV. In this letter we investigate the feasibility of a search in $`t\overline{t}H`$ associated production, first proposed in Refs.  in the context of the Superconducting Supercollider, and later examined in more detail for the LHC in particular; see  and . Decays to both $`Hb\overline{b}`$ and $`HW^+W^{}`$ are considered, with a varying number of tagged $`b`$ quarks and additional jets in the final state and at least one charged leptonTop quarks decay predominantly to a $`W`$-boson and a $`b`$-quark. The $`W`$-boson subsequently decays 2/3 of the time to a pair of quarks (jets) and 1/9 of the time into each of $`e\nu _e`$, $`\mu \nu _\mu `$ and $`\tau \nu _\tau `$. The neutrinos are not observed and the $`\tau `$-lepton further decays 2/3 of the time to a jet plus neutrinos and 1/3 of the time to $`e`$ or $`\mu `$ and more neutrinos. Thus, about $`26\%`$ of the time a $`W`$-boson decays into a taggable charged lepton (e or $`\mu `$). to help discriminate against the large QCD backgrounds. We believe that, in spite of the low cross section, a search for the SM Higgs boson in association with a top quark pair in the Tevatron Run II data set (15 fb-1 integrated luminosity) is likely to be comparable to the early search and evidence for the top quark results from CDF in Run I .

We have calculated the signal at the parton level for $`p\overline{p}`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=2.0`$ TeV using exact tree-level matrix elements generated by madgraph  and comphep , and NLO corrected decay rates of the Higgs boson via hdecay . We take the K-factor to be 1.33: the ratio of the NLO $`t\overline{t}`$ cross section to the leading order value. Our estimate agrees well with a calculation in the effective Higgs approximation , which estimates the K-factor to be 1.2 to 1.5 depending on the Higgs boson mass and other uncertainties. CTEQ4L  parton distribution functions are used, and both the factorization and renormalization scales are taken as the top quark mass, $`m_t`$. The cross section times Higgs branching ratio times K-factor used throughout the rest of this letter are shown in Fig. 1(b). For $`Hb\overline{b}`$ the cross section times branching ratio falls steeply and becomes smaller than 1 fb for Higgs masses above 140 GeV. In contrast, the cross section times branching ratio for $`HW^+W^{}`$ is a broad bump above 1 fb between 125 and 190 GeV. Thus, a search strategy developed for a 160 GeV Higgs would likely work over a much wider mass range, covering some of the unobservable regions of the current searches.

For lower Higgs boson masses ($`<`$ 140 GeV), the most interesting decay mode of the Higgs is $`Hb\overline{b}`$ and the final state of the hard interaction is $`W^+W^{}b\overline{b}b\overline{b}`$. For higher mass Higgs bosons, $`HW^+W^{}`$ is the dominant decay mode and the final state signature is instead $`W^+W^{}W^+W^{}b\overline{b}`$. For both modes, each W-boson will decay either hadronically into a quark and anti-quark or leptonically into a charged lepton and neutrino. Backgrounds to these modes consist of resonant production, e.g. irreducible $`t\overline{t}Z`$ events with $`Zb\overline{b}`$ or $`Z\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$; continuum $`t\overline{t}b\overline{b}`$ or $`t\overline{t}c\overline{c}`$ production; and reducible backgrounds such as $`t\overline{t}+jets`$, where the additional jets are light quarks or gluons but may be misidentified as $`b`$ quarks. Table I itemizes the major backgrounds and gives their cross sections. All other SM backgrounds are negligible. Clearly, the largest background arises from $`t\overline{t}+jets`$. Thus, the search for $`t\overline{t}H`$ will critically depend on the detector ability to tag $`b`$ quark jets and simultaneously to suppress mistagging of non-$`b`$ jets.

We have calculated the parton level cross section for $`t\overline{t}+jj`$ events using the exact tree-level matrix elements , which contain both collinear and soft singularities for the additional jets. The collinear singularities are removed by imposing the requirement that the final-state partons be well-separated in space, $`\mathrm{}R(jj)>0.4`$. This corresponds to the experimental requirement that the observed jets be similarly separated.$`\mathrm{}R`$ is a separation in the space of detector coordinates azimuth and pseudorapidity, $`\mathrm{}R(jj)=\sqrt{\mathrm{}\varphi ^2+\mathrm{}\eta ^2}`$. The severity of the soft singularity for a given $`p_T`$ cut may be estimated by examining the ratio of the cross sections for $`t\overline{t}+jets`$ production to that for $`t\overline{t}`$, the latter of which may be regarded as an inclusive rate; the overall rate can later be normalized to NLO calculations. For the Tevatron we find $`\sigma _{t\overline{t}jj}/\sigma _{t\overline{t}}1/7`$, including a requirement of $`p_T>20`$ GeV for the additional jets, indicating that the calculation is largely perturbative. This is in line with general expectations that each additional gluon jet of $`p_T20`$ GeV would multiply the inclusive rate by a factor $`1/21/3`$. One may also use an exponentiation approximation for the soft gluons , which yields a result $`30\%`$ lower than the value in Table I.

We have compared the results of our matrix element calculation with Pythia 6.115 , and while there are differences in cross section as a function of jet $`p_T^{min}`$, the differences at Tevatron energies are largely within the uncertainties of the matrix element calculations. Ultimately, any uncertainty in the rate for additional jets in $`t\overline{t}`$ events is not a concern as the $`t\overline{t}+jets`$ sample in Run II will be large enough to calibrate the Monte Carlos. Furthermore, by retaining the larger estimate we make this analysis more conservative.

These uncertainties aside, it is clear that a major background could come from the mistagging of non-$`b`$ jets. Both the efficiency for $`b`$ jet tagging and non-$`b`$ jet suppression will thus be extremely important in this search. Our studies of the upgraded Tevatron collider detectors using Run I algorithms predict an average $`b`$ jet tagging efficiency of about $`60\%`$ and a $`c`$ quark mistag rate of about $`25\%`$, while at the same time providing at least a factor of 500 suppression of light quark and gluon jet mistags. We estimate that implementation of 3-D vertexing algorithms will improve the $`b`$ tagging efficiency to at $`70\%`$ while leaving the mistagging rates unchanged. We use the 3-D values in our analysis ($`70\%,25\%`$ and $`0.2\%`$).

For a Higgs boson of mass $`M_H140`$ GeV, where the $`W^+W^{}b\overline{b}b\overline{b}`$ signature is preferred, a $`70\%`$ $`b`$ tagging efficiency translates to a $`92\%`$ probability to tag $`2`$ $`b`$ jets, $`65\%`$ for $`3`$ tags, and $`24\%`$ to tag all four. As an example, consider the case of $`M_H=120`$ GeV, with one $`W`$ decaying leptonically and one decaying hadronically, which has much better known backgrounds than the larger all-hadronic $`W`$ decay channel. The cross section times branching ratio is 2.0 fb. For three $`b`$ tags, 15 fb-1 of data would contain $`19`$ signal events and about 140 background events. Requiring four $`b`$ tags would yield a signal sample of approximately 7 events, on top of a background of about 40 events. These counts are before any top reconstruction or Higgs boson mass binning.

To extract these few signal events we study their reconstruction by performing a generator level Monte Carlo simulation using Pythia 6.115, which is in good agreement with our parton-level calculations for $`t\overline{t}b\overline{b}`$ production using a jet separation corresponding to a parton-level cone cut of $`\mathrm{}R>0.7`$. Event selection is determined using a parameterized detector simulation. For reasonable rejection of the $`t\overline{t}+jets`$ background, we require at least one isolated lepton and 4 jets with $`p_T>15`$ GeV, at least 3 of which are $`b`$ tagged, and two additional jets with $`p_T>10`$ GeV as well as a missing $`E_T>15`$ GeV. The $`t\overline{t}b\overline{b}`$ ($`t\overline{t}c\overline{c}`$) background differs from signal primarily in that the invariant mass of the $`b`$ ($`c`$) quarks from gluon splitting will be quite low, whereas the $`b`$ quarks from the Higgs boson will have a much higher invariant mass. Prior to top reconstruction, however, in any given signal (background) event we do not know which of the four $`b`$ jet candidates are from the Higgs boson (gluon). Thus, for each event we form invariant masses of all combinations of these $`b`$ jet candidates and order them. We find there is considerable separation between signal and background in the fourth-highest of these ordered dijet masses, and cut at 60 GeV in this distribution, see Fig. 2(a). Incorrect selection of a jet from the hadronic $`W`$ decay is taken into account.

In Run I, $`t\overline{t}`$ reconstruction efficiencies of $`60\%`$ were achieved by CDF for double $`b`$-tagged events . Studies indicate that this can be enhanced by improvements in jet-parton assignments resulting from better tracking and energy corrections expected in Run II. Further improvements may even be possible via detector enhancements to $`b`$ flavor tagging. However, the efficiency for $`t\overline{t}H`$ may be lower than for $`t\overline{t}`$, but we do not make the distinction here. In this paper we will use an optimistic $`70\%`$ efficiency but note that results are only slightly worse for $`60\%`$. Although this is somewhat higher than that of the LHC studies, , the jet multiplicity at the Tevatron is significantly lower than at the LHC, and as the $`t\overline{t}H`$ events would be produced closer to threshold at the Tevatron, they would be better measured than at the LHC. Using $`70\%`$ efficiency we plot in Fig. 2(b) the invariant mass distribution of the additional jets after top quark pair reconstruction. Here the signal exhibits a significant peak above the background. For $`M_H=120`$ GeV, this would correspond to a $`2.8\sigma `$ observation for one experiment using Poisson statistics converted to a Gaussian equivalent, or $`4.1\sigma `$ for two experiments. Increasing the integrated luminosity to 20 fb-1 increases the significances to $`3.3\sigma /4.7\sigma `$, respectively.

For higher Higgs boson masses, $`M_H140`$ GeV, the dominant signature is $`W^+W^{}W^+W^{}b\overline{b}`$. One possible strategy is to demand $`3`$ charged leptons, which is one of the smaller components of this decay mode at $`6\%`$ of the total rate. For $`M_H=160`$ GeV and 15 fb-1 of data for one experiment, this translates to only 3.0 events of the 45 total $`t\overline{t}H`$ events produced. Adding a requirement to see $`1`$ $`b`$ tag and minimal cuts, the signal sample is only 2 events. The expected background, however, is much less than one event, so there is the potential to observe one or two spectacular events per experiment§§§Any background from $`t\overline{t}W`$ may be eliminated by requiring the observation of extra hadronic activity from the fourth signal $`W`$-boson.. This estimate holds approximately over the Higgs boson mass range 140-170 GeV.

The signal sample containing exactly two charged leptons is larger, by a factor of 3.6, but there is much more background. Requiring the two leptons to have the same charge reduces the background dramatically, to of order 2 events if additional jets are required to be observed. Further mass constraints may make this much smaller than one. However, since only 1/3 of the two lepton signal sample will have same-sign leptons, one expects another 3-4 spectacular events per experiment.

Despite the low signal rate for $`t\overline{t}H`$ associated production events, there is considerable potential in this channel to observe a SM Higgs boson, or to set exclusion limits on its mass. We have not examined cases of non-SM Higgs bosons, but the outlook is optimistic as production cross sections times branching ratio are often enhanced relative to the SM, e.g. in SUSY or topcolor models. Our analysis suggests an optimistic search strategy for Higgs bosons up to about 140 GeV in the $`Hb\overline{b}`$ channel, and some promise in the $`HW^+W^{}`$ channel for the mass range 140-170 GeV. A thorough understanding of and improvements to the top quark reconstruction efficiency and the identification of $`b`$, $`c`$ and light quark jets are very important for this search. Increasing the integrated luminosity of the Tevatron by a factor of three would increase the significance of this search to $`5\sigma `$ per experiment.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank U. Baur, E. Eichten, K. Ellis, C. T. Hill, M. Mangano and C. Quigg for useful discussions. Fermilab is operated by URA under DOE contract No. DE-AC02-76CH03000.


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# Theoretical Models for Classical Cepheids: VII. Metallicity effects on the Cepheid distance scale

## 1 Introduction

The Cepheid Period-Luminosity (PL) relation is a classical tool widely used to estimate the distance to Local Group galaxies and to external galaxies with Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations, as well as, through the calibration of secondary distance indicators, to even more distant stellar systems. This explains the dominant role of these variables on the route to solve cosmological problems such as the evaluation of the Hubble constant $`H_0`$ and, in turn, of the age of the Universe.

The basic physics underlying the Cepheid variability suggests that the pulsation period $`P`$ depends on the mass, luminosity and effective temperature of the pulsator. From stellar evolution theory one expects a close relation between mass and luminosity, and the natural result of these theoretical prescriptions is a Period-Luminosity-Color (PLC) relation, where the pulsator absolute magnitude $`M_j`$ in each given photometric passband $`j`$ is a linear function of the period and color index \[$`CI`$\], as given by

$$M_j=\alpha +\beta \mathrm{log}P+\gamma [CI]$$
$`(1)`$
However, since the pulsation occurs within a finite zone of the HR diagram, the color term in the PLC relation is often neglected and Cepheid distances are usually estimated from the most favourite PL relation

$$\overline{M_j}=a+b\mathrm{log}P,$$
$`(2)`$
where $`\overline{M_j}`$ is now the average of the Cepheid magnitudes for each given period. It should be noticed that whereas the PLC relation holds for any individual pulsator, PL is a “statistical” solution which depends both on the pulsation boundaries and on the distribution of pulsators within the instability strip. This explains why distance determinations based on PL relations require statistically significant numbers of Cepheids in order to reduce the effects of deviations from the ridge line.

The PL relation in bolometric magnitude is traditionally assumed to be metal-insensitive (see, e.g., Iben & Renzini 1984, Freedman & Madore 1990) and Cepheid distances are generally derived by adopting universal PL relations at different wavelengths, having the slope provided by the Cepheids in the LMC and the zero-point referenced to the LMC distance, as obtained with independent methods (see Freedman 1988; Kennicutt et al. 1998; Walker 1999, and reference therein), or to calibrating Galactic Cepheids (see Feast & Catchpole 1997; Lanoix et al. 1999).

In the last years, we have deeply investigated the Cepheid pulsational behavior through the computations of nonlinear, nonlocal and time-dependent convective pulsating models which take into account the coupling between pulsation and convection. With respect to linear-nonadiabatic models computed by different authors (e.g., Chiosi et al. 1993; Saio & Gautschy 1998; Alibert et al. 1999), our theoretical approach allows reliable predictions on the temperature of both the blue and red edges of the instability strip, as well as about the amplitude and morphology of the light-curve (see Bono et al. 1999a \[Paper I\], 2000a \[Paper III\], 2000b \[Paper VI\]). Concerning the assumptions on the input physics, computing procedures and the adopted mass-luminosity relation, the reader is referred to Paper I and Paper III, which contain also the detailed comparison of our models with the linear results in the literature. Here we only remark that from pulsating models computed with three different chemical abundances ($`Z`$=0.004, 0.008 and 0.02) we derived that the bolometric magnitude of metal-rich variables is, on average, fainter than that of metal-poor stars with the same period (Bono et al. 1999b \[Paper II\]). Moreover, we found that both the slope and zero-point of synthetic PL relations at different wavelengths depend on the pulsator metallicity, with the amplitude of the metallicity effect decreasing from visual to near-infrared magnitudes (see Paper II; Caputo et al. 2000 \[Paper V\]). Also the predicted PLC relations at the different wavelengths turned out to be, in various degrees, metallicity dependent: as an example, for a given period and $`BV`$ color, metal-rich pulsators are brighter than metal-poor ones, whereas they are fainter if the $`VK`$ color is adopted (see Paper V). On these grounds, it has been shown that Cepheid observations in three filters ($`BVI`$ or $`BVK`$) allow to simultaneously constrain distance, reddening and metallicity of variables in the Magellanic Clouds (Caputo et al. 1999 \[Paper IV\]) and in the Milky Way (Caputo et al., in preparation).

In this paper we will apply our theoretical scenario to the Cepheids observed within two HST surveys: the “Extragalactic Distance Scale Key Project” (hereafter KP, see Freedman et al. 1994a) and the “Type Ia Supernova Calibration” (hereafter SNP, see Saha et al. 1994). The adopted procedure is briefly presented in Sect. 2 and the predicted reddenings and distances are given in Sect. 3. The metallicity effects on the Cepheid distance scale and on the value of the Hubble constant $`H_0`$ are discussed in Sect. 4. The concluding remarks close the paper.

## 2 The procedure

The results presented in Paper V predict that the intrinsic dispersion of the synthetic PL relations with fixed metallicity decreases with increasing the filter wavelength, in close agreement with the observed trend (see Madore & Freedman 1991; Tanvir 1999). Moreover, we found that the predicted PLC relations are almost independent of the pulsator distribution within the instability strip and reproduce the tight correlation between pulsation period and photometric parameters of individual pulsators, as earlier suggested by Sandage (1958), Sandage & Gratton (1963) and Sandage & Tammann (1968).

Since HST observations are in the two passbands $`V`$ and $`I`$, we adopt the predicted PL($`I`$) and PLC($`VI`$) relations given in Paper V and reported here in Table 1 and Table 2, respectively, to get the average reddening and true distance modulus of the Cepheid samples from the observed intensity-weigthed mean magnitudes $`<V>`$ and $`<I>`$, for each assumption about the Cepheid metallicity. With respect to the classical method based on PL($`V`$) and PL($`I`$), our procedure aims at reducing the spurious effects caused by both the large dispersion of the observed PL($`V`$) relation and the uncertainty on the predicted PL($`V`$) relation as due to different pulsator distributions (see Paper II and Paper V).

The offset of each Cepheid from the predicted PL($`I`$) and PLC($`VI`$) relations gives the apparent distance moduli $`\mu _1`$=$`\mu _0`$+$`A_I`$ and $`\mu _2`$=$`\mu _0`$+$`A_V\gamma E(VI)`$, respectively. Adopting $`A_V/E(BV)`$=3.1 and $`A_I/E(BV)`$=1.88 from Cardelli et al. (1989), the reddening $`E(BV)`$ and true distance modulus $`\mu _0`$ of each Cepheid are derived. Eventually, by averaging over the sample of variables, we provide the predicted mean values, for the three adopted metallicities.

## 3 Predicted Cepheid distances to HST galaxies

Table 3 lists the KP galaxies together with the color excess $`E(BV)`$ and true distance modulus $`\mu _0`$, as given by the authors (see references in the last column), and the oxygen-to-hydrogen abundance ratios (O/H) of HII regions, as listed in Ferrarese et al. (1999). For some of these galaxies the Cepheid data have been re-analyzed by the KP team and the new reddening and distance values (Ferrarese et al. 1999) are given in italics in the same table. The galaxies marked with an asterisk, originally studied by the SNP group, were extracted from the HST archive and re-processed by the KP team (Gibson et al. 2000). For them we list in Table 3 the KP values, while the SNP original distances are reported in Table 4.

By applying the theoretical relations in Table 1 and Table 2 to the full samples of Cepheids provided by KP and SNP studies (references in Table 3 and Table 4), we derive the predicted reddenings and true distance moduli listed in Table 5 and Table 6, respectively, for each of the three selected metal abundances. To avoid any bias, the predicted true distance modulus includes the correction for negative reddening, if present. The total errors to the predicted values are due to the observed scatter in the PL and PLC fits added in quadrature to the intrinsic dispersion of the theoretical relations.

Considering that both KP and SNP distances adopt PL($`V`$) and PL($`I`$) relations based on the Cepheids in the LMC, and since the average metallicity of LMC Cepheids is $`<Z>`$0.008 (Luck et al. 1998), let us first compare the predicted reddening and distance with $`Z`$=0.008 to the LMC-based empirical values. It seems worth mentioning that we have already found a fair agreement between the empirical PL($`V`$) and PL($`I`$) relations and our predictions with $`Z`$=0.008 (see Paper V).

As for the galaxies in Table 3, we obtain that empirical and predicted results with $`Z`$=0.008 (Table 5) are in mutual agreement, with a difference (empirical minus predicted) of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _0`$0.05 mag and $`\mathrm{\Delta }E(BV)+`$0.05 mag, in the mean. We show in Fig. 1 that the discrepancy is for each galaxy well within a total uncertainty on the distance of the order of 10% (dashed lines). This is a reassuring result as to the reliability of the adopted method of analysis and our pulsating models with $`Z`$=0.008.

Moreover, one has to consider that both KP and SNP studies assume $`\mu _{0,LMC}`$=18.50 mag and $`E(BV)_{LMC}`$=0.10 mag, and that the above differences of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _0`$0.05 mag and $`\mathrm{\Delta }E(BV)+`$0.05 mag with respect to the predictions with $`Z`$=0.008 could be easily removed by slightly increasing (decreasing) the adopted LMC distance (reddening). On the other hand, the theoretical results depend on assumptions such as the adopted mass-luminosity ratio, bolometric corrections and temperature-color relations. Thus, revisions of input physics and/or atmosphere models might modify the results in Table 5 and Table 6, but with marginal effects on the relative distances and reddenings. As a fact, by applying our method to the LMC Cepheids (Madore & Freedman 1991) we get $`\mu _{0,LMC}`$18.6 mag and $`E(BV)_{LMC}`$0.03 mag. Accounting for these results, the actual discrepancy between empirical and predicted results is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _0+`$0.05 mag and $`\mathrm{\Delta }E(BV)`$0.02 mag, in the mean.

On the contrary, it seems important to notice that different distributions of Cepheids within the instability strip may produce non-systematic effects on both distance and reddening. As a matter of example, let us consider a Cepheid with absolute magnitudes $`M_V^{}`$ and $`M_I^{}`$, true distance modulus $`\mu _0^{}`$ and reddening $`E^{}(BV)`$, and let us assume that $`M_j^{}`$=$`\overline{M_j}ϵ_j`$, where $`\overline{M_j}`$ is given by the PL($`j`$) relation. From the PL($`V`$)+PL($`I`$) procedure one derives $`E(VI)=E^{}(VI)(ϵ_Vϵ_I)`$, while following our PL($`I`$)+PLC($`VI`$) method one has $`E(VI)=E^{}(VI)0.36ϵ_I`$. Since Cepheids close to the blue edge of the instability strip have positive values of $`ϵ_j`$, with $`ϵ_V>ϵ_I`$ as a consequence of the fact that the width of the instability strip decreases towards longer wavelengths (see Paper V), the result is that the actual reddening of Cepheids near the pulsation blue edge is underestimated, whereas the opposite occurs for variables close the red edge. Concerning the distance, from the PL($`V`$)+PL($`I`$) procedure one has $`\mu _0=\mu _0^{}+1.54ϵ_V2.54ϵ_I`$, while the PL($`I`$)+PLC($`VI`$) method yields $`\mu _0=\mu _0^{}0.45ϵ_I`$. With $`ϵ_V`$ 0.35 mag and $`ϵ_I`$ 0.25 mag for Cepheids close to the pulsation blue edge111Average values with log$`P`$ 1.0-1.5., the derived reddening and true distance modulus are $``$ 0.10 mag lower than the actual values, whatever is the adopted method of analysis. On these grounds, one understands that statistically significant samples of variables are required in order to get accurate distance and reddening determinations. Otherwise, selection effects on distant Cepheids (the variables close to the blue edge are brighter than those near the red edge, for fixed period) lead to underestimate both the distance and reddening.

As already mentioned, for some of the KP galaxies in Table 3 the Cepheid data have been reviewed by the same team, leading to a slight systematic increase on the distance. From the data listed in italics in Table 3 one finds that the average upward revision is of the order of $``$0.09 mag. As discussed in Ferrarese et al. (1999), this is a consequence of the adopted lower cut-off in period, as the empirical distance modulus increases when the lower period cut-off is moved from 10 to 20-25 days. On the theoretical side, we show in Table 5 (see values in italics) that using the same selection as in Ferrarese et al. (1999) causes a systematic increase of the predicted true distance modulus by only $``$0.05 mag. This suggests that the cut-off in period has minor influence upon our PL($`I`$)+PLC($`VI`$) procedure, supporting the belief that robust distance determinations should adopt only PLC relations, for which Cepheid observations in at least three filters are needed.

Concerning the SNP galaxies, we give in Table 6 the predicted distances as obtained from the full set of Cepheid data provided in the original papers, while the values in italics refer to the Cepheid samples as selected by the SNP team. One notices that the adopted selection criteria yield rather discordant effects on the predicted distance. With $`Z`$=0.008, the true distance modulus of four galaxies increases (from 0.05 mag for NGC 4496A to 0.44 mag for NGC 3627), whereas it decreases by $``$0.11 mag for IC 4182. Moreover, limiting the comparison to the SNP empirical distances obtained from the selected samples (Table 4), the difference with respect to the predicted distance modulus with $`Z`$=0.008 (in italics in Table 7) ranges from $``$0.30 mag (IC 4182) to +0.22 mag (NGC 4536), which is somehow larger than that (from $``$0.12 mag for IC 4182 to +0.18 mag for NGC 3627) found by adopting KP results for the same galaxies (see Table 3 and Table 5).

It is known that the disagreement between SNP and KP distances to the same galaxy (up to 0.47 mag for NGC 5253) deals with different pipeline processing procedures, selection criteria and data reduction strategies, and the interested reader can find a detailed discussion in Gibson et al. (2000) and Tammann et al. (2000). Here we have to face up to the evidence that by using the Cepheid data selected by SNP studies the overall discrepancy between empirical and predicted distances with $`Z`$=0.008 is somehow larger (see Fig. 2) than that found with KP data (filled circles in Fig. 1). For this reason, the rest of our analysis will deal exclusively with the results of KP studies.

Throughout the above discussion we used the Cepheid predicted distance with $`Z`$=0.008, neglecting the evidence that the oxygen abundance of the galaxies in Table 3 varies from \[O/H\]$``$0.50 to $``$+0.40222\[O/H\]=log(O/H)-log(O/H), with log(O/H)=-3.10.. Since for the LMC \[O/H\]$``$0.40 (Pagel et al. 1978), one has that the HII metallicity of the Cepheid fields observed with HST may be up to 0.8 dex higher than the “reference” sample of LMC variables.

On the other hand, the data in Table 5 show that the predicted Cepheid reddening and true distance modulus decrease as the adopted metallicity $`Z`$ increases. This is a consequence of the fact that our metal-rich pulsating models are, on average, fainter than metal-poor ones. Resuming the discussion in Sect. 3, let us assume that for our Cepheid holds $`ϵ_V=ϵ_I=`$0 with respect to the PL relations with $`Z`$=0.008. This yields $`E(VI)_{0.008}`$=$`E^{}(VI)`$ and $`\mu _{0,0.008}`$=$`\mu _0^{}`$. However, the variable is brighter with respect to the PL relations with $`Z`$=0.02, by $`ϵ_V`$0.25 mag and $`ϵ_I`$0.20 at log$`P`$1.0 (see Paper V). As a consequence, $`E(VI)_{0.02}E^{}(VI)`$0.06 mag and $`\mu _{0,0.02}\mu _0^{}`$0.11 mag. The decrease of the reddening with increasing the adopted metallicity yields that almost all the galaxies show unpleasant negative values of $`E(BV)`$ with $`Z`$=0.02. However, as already mentioned, our theoretical scenario suggests $`E(BV)`$0.03 mag for the Cepheids in the LMC, while both the KP and SNP studies assume $`E(BV)_{LMC}`$=0.10 mag. Thus, were our predictions calibrated on this galaxy, then all the reddening values in Table 5 and Table 6 should be increased by 0.07 mag.

Since our purpose is the evaluation of the metallicity effects on the distance scale, in the mean we derive $`\delta \mu _0/\delta \mathrm{log}Z=`$0.27$`\pm `$0.04 mag dex-1, at least within the explored range 0.004$`Z`$ 0.02. The sense of this result is that when universal relations are used, the Cepheids more metal-rich than the calibrators will appear spuriously brighter. On this basis, the predicted correction (in magnitude) to empirical LMC-calibrated distance moduli is given by

$$c=0.27\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}Z,$$
$`(3)`$
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}Z`$ is the difference between the Cepheid metallicity and the LMC value of $`Z`$=0.008.

In the following section we investigate into the effects of this metallicity correction to KP distances by assuming that the Cepheid metal content scales with the HII region metallicity, i.e. adopting $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}Z`$=$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$\[O/H\], the difference between the galaxy \[O/H\] abundance and that of the LMC (\[O/H\]=$``$0.40). Observational pros and cons for this assumption will be discussed.

## 4 Metallicity effects on Cepheid distances and $`H_0`$

Figure 3 shows the difference between the empirical KP data333For sake of homogeneity, we adopt the Cepheid distances listed in Ferrarese et al. (1999). and the predicted true distance modulus when the oxygen abundance of the Cepheid fields is taken into account. As expected, the almost flat distribution in Fig.1 now shows a clear correlation to the HII region metallicity, with the discrepancy between LMC-calibrated and theoretical distances increasing when moving from metal-poor to metal-rich galaxies. However, one notices that for very few galaxies the discrepancy overcomes the threshold of 10% (dashed line). Of particular interest is the behaviour of the eight galaxies (the six SNP galaxies plus NGC 3368 and NGC 4414; filled circles) which give Cepheid-calibrated SNIa luminosities (see later).

As a first straightforward test to the actual occurrence of a metallicity effect, we consider the KP distance to galaxies members of groups or clusters. The lower panel of Fig. 4 shows the residuals $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i\mu _0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$\[O/H\] of each galaxy from the distance modulus and O/H metallicity as averaged over the galaxies of the same group or cluster. A correlation between the metallicity and distance deviations from the mean values can be detected, best-fitted by the relation (dotted line)

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_i\mu _0=0.28\mathrm{\Delta }_i[O/H],$$
$`(4)`$
in the sense that galaxies whose O/H metallicity is larger than the average appear to have a larger distance. We believe that depth-effects within a given group or cluster cannot be invoked since there is no reason for which the metal-richest galaxies are also the most distant ones.

This unexpected result, which appears surprisingly in agreement with our predicted correction \[Eq. (3)\], disagrees with earlier observational clues. It is known that studies of different fields in M31 (Freedman & Madore 1990) and M101 (Kennicutt et al. 1998) suggested an opposite metallicity correction on distance (see also Kochanek 1997; Sasselov et al. 1997). Following Kennicutt et al. (1998), the correction (in magnitude) to the true distance modulus is given by

$$c=+0.24\mathrm{\Delta }[O/H]$$
$`(5)`$
We show in the upper panel of the same Fig. 4 that adopting such an empirical correction would imply an even stronger correlation between distance and metallicity, with a slope of +0.53 (dotted line) hard to accept.

Applying the predicted metallicity correction to the absolute distance moduli \[Eq. (3)\], obviously results in a correction to the $`H_0`$-values based on LMC-calibrated distances. Assuming $`\mathrm{\Delta }h_0=\mathrm{\Delta }H_0/H_0`$, one has $`\mathrm{\Delta }h_0/\mathrm{\Delta }`$\[O/H\]$``$ +0.124 dex-1, i.e. an increase of $``$ 6% in the LMC-based $`H_0`$ value of any SNIa calibrator whose metallicity is 0.5 dex larger than that of the LMC. This is a not dramatic variation, nevertheless it seems interesting to settle whether it works to decrease or increase the present dispersion of $`H_0`$ values. Within this context, it is worth noticing that the well known disagreement between the ”high” and ”low” $`H_0`$ values claimed by KP and SNP studies, respectively, are not due entirely to the already mentioned different distances to SNIa calibrating galaxies. As discussed by Gibson et al. (2000), the methodology adopted by the SNP group with KP distances leads to $`H_0`$ 63 km s-1 Mpc-1 dex-1, which is 9% higher than the SNP average value ($`H_0`$ 58 km s-1 Mpc-1 dex-1). Moreover, the calibration of SNIa luminosities presents a variety of different approaches and the same KP distances, coupled with the Suntzeff et al. (1999) procedure, would give $`H_0`$ 67 km s-1 Mpc-1 dex-1. However, the absolute value of the Hubble constant is out the purpose of this paper. We aim only at determining the metallicity-correction to LMC-based $`H_0`$ values, with the hope of providing new elements for reducing the present uncertainty of $``$10% to a 5% level.

Taking at the face value the $`H_0(V)`$ estimates given by Gibson et al. (2000, see their Table 6) we show in the lower panel of Fig. 5 that they agree to each other to within 10% (dashed lines), but with a mild tendency to increase as the oxygen abundance of the host galaxy decreases. The linear regression to the points (dotted line) is

$$\mathrm{log}H_0=1.820.03[O/H],$$
$`(6)`$
suggesting a metallicity correction as $`\mathrm{\Delta }h_0/\mathrm{\Delta }`$ \[O/H\]$``$ +0.069 dex-1 which is roughly half the amount predicted on the basis of Eq. (3), but it runs towards the same direction. On the contrary, applying the Kennicutt et al. (1998) correction to the true distance moduli \[Eq. (5)\], results in a correction as $`\mathrm{\Delta }h_0`$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$\[O/H\]$``$0.111 dex-1 to the LMC-based $`H_0`$ values. The upper panel of Fig. 5 shows that this would produce a more evident correlation between $`H_0`$ and \[O/H\], with two estimates overcoming the discrepancy of 10% from the average value (dashed lines). On the other hand, the lower panel of Fig. 6 shows that our predicted metallicity correction $`\mathrm{\Delta }h_0`$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$\[O/H\]$``$0.124 dex-1 would yield $`H_0`$ values which agree to within 10%, but slightly increasing as the \[O/H\] abundance increases. Eventually, in order to remove any dependence of $`H_0`$ on the galaxy metallicity (see upper panel in Fig. 6), we suggest that at least the empirical evidence in Fig. 5a should be taken into consideration, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Delta }h_0`$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$\[O/H\]$``$0.069 dex-1, leading to a slight upward revision of the KP unweighted mean of $`<H_0>`$=67.0$`\pm `$4.3 km s-1 Mpc-1 to $`<H_0>`$=68.6$`\pm `$3.9 km s-1 Mpc-1.

As said before, the determination of $`H_0`$ deals with several factors apart from the distance to the SNIa calibrating galaxies. Thus, we are not giving the predicted value of the Hubble constant, but only the result of the predicted metallicity-correction to the KP $`H_0`$ estimates, still holding their adopted approach in the treatment of SNIa data and distance to LMC.

## 5 Concluding remarks

HST galaxies with published Cepheid distances have been studied to the light of a theoretical pulsational scenario based on nonlinear, nonlocal and time-dependent convective models with three selected metallicities ($`Z`$=0.004, 0.008, 0.02).

Theoretical PL and PLC relations in the $`VI`$ passbands have been used to predict Cepheid distance and reddening for each adopted metal content. The comparison of the predictions with $`Z`$=0.008 (the average metallicity of the LMC) to the LMC-calibrated empirical results provided by the KP group shows a mutual agreement, better than that found with SNP results.

The predicted PL and PLC relations suggest that the Cepheid distance should decrease with increasing the adopted metallicity and that LMC-based distance moduli should be corrected according to $`c=`$0.27$`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}Z`$ mag dex-1, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}Z`$ is the difference between the Cepheid metallicity and the LMC mean value of $`Z`$=0.008. Theoretical studies which adopt a linear pulsational approach, being unable to get firm predictions on the red edge of the instability strip, cannot disprove this result.

On the observational front, earlier evidences suggest an opposite metallicity correction as given by $`c`$=+0.24$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$\[O/H\] mag dex-1 (Kennicutt et al. 1998), where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$\[O/H\] is the O/H metallicity difference between the Cepheid field and the LMC mean value (\[O/H\]$``$0.40). However, we show that the KP true distance modulus to galaxies members of clusters or groups seems to be correlated with the galaxy O/H metallicity in good agreement with our predictions.

Moreover, we wish to mention that some recent observational clues give a further support to our theoretical scenario. They are:

* The comparison between Baade Wesselink radii for Galactic and Magellanic Clouds Cepheids (Laney 1998, 1999, 2000; Feast 1999; Storm 2000) suggests that metal-rich variables are fainter than the metal-poor ones.
* The purely “geometric” distance to the galaxy NGC 4258, as obtained from maser sources rotating around the central black hole, is 7.2$`\pm `$0.5 Mpc (Herrnstein et al. 1999), whereas the value derived from LMC-calibrated PL relations is 8.1$`\pm `$0.4 Mpc (Maoz et al. 1999). Since for this galaxy one has \[O/H\]$``$0.12 (Zaritsky et al. 1994), the Kennicutt et al. (1998) correction would increase the distance to $``$ 8.6 Mpc, whereas our predicted correction gives $``$7.6 Mpc.
* A carefully selected sample of 236 Cepheids from the HIPPARCOS catalogue suggests that the slope of the Galactic PL relations could be shallower than that observed for LMC variables (Groenewegen & Oudmaijer 2000), thus suggesting some caution in the adoption of universal PL relations.

As a whole, both the predictions and the empirical evidences seem to confirm that the metallicity effect on the Cepheid distance scale is not dramatic, with a correction factor of $``$0.14 mag to the LMC-based distance modulus of any galaxy whose metallicity is 0.5 dex larger than that of the LMC.

The consequent predicted metallicity correction to the Hubble constant is $`\mathrm{\Delta }h_0`$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$\[O/H\]$``$+0.124 dex-1, which means an increase of $``$ 6.2% in the LMC-based $`H_0`$ values of any SNIa calibrator whose metallicity is 0.5 dex larger than that of the LMC.

Taking the KP $`H_0`$ estimates at their face value, we show that the observed correlation with the \[O/H\] metallicity of the Cepheid fields suggests $`\mathrm{\Delta }h_0`$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$\[O/H\]$``$+0.069 dex-1, which is more consistent with our prediction rather than the metallicity correction based on the Kennicutt et al. (1998) empirical results ( $`\mathrm{\Delta }h_0`$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$\[O/H\]$``$0.111 dex-1.) On the basis of this, we eventually suggest that the average value provided by the KP team $`<H_0>`$67 km s-1 Mpc-1 should be increased at least up to $`<H_0>`$ 69 Km s-1 Mpc-1.

The adoption of a metallicity correction to LMC-based empirical estimates of $`H_0`$ might hopefully reduce the present uncertainty of 10% on the average value to a 5% level. Unfortunately, the variety of the current methods of calibrating SNIa luminosities give very different results for the absolute value of the Hubble constant. As an example (see Gibson et al. 2000), the Suntzeff et al. (1999) methodology yields a mean value which is from 3.7% to 8.3% larger than that found with the Saha et al. (1997) procedure, even adopting the same distance to the calibrators. In our belief this is a key problem on the route to settle the absolute value of the Hubble constant.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are greatly indebted to our referee for several helpful comments. We thank V. Castellani and G. Bono for discussion and critical suggestions. Financial support for this work was provided by the Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica (MURST) under the scientific project “Stellar Evolution” (Vittorio Castellani, coordinator).


text:
# Frustrated Order by Disorder: the Pyrochlore Antiferromagnet with Bond Disorder

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This reserach has been funded by NSERC of Canada and the Pole Scientifique de Modélisation Numérique (PSMN) of the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon. M.G. and P.H. are grateful to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada for a travel grant from the Going Global STEP program. M.G. acknowledges the Research Corporation for a Research Innovation Award and a Cottrell Scholar Award, and the Province of Ontario for a Premier Research Excellence Award.

## A

We consider the Hamiltonian $`H=H_0+H_1`$ for a single tetrahedron, and treat $`H_1`$ in first order of perturbation theory. The ground states of $`H_0`$ have total spin $`\stackrel{}{L}=0`$. They can be parametrized as $`\stackrel{}{S}_1=(0,0,1);\stackrel{}{S}_2=(0,\mathrm{sin}\alpha ,\mathrm{cos}\alpha );\stackrel{}{S}_3=(\mathrm{sin}\beta \mathrm{sin}\varphi ,\mathrm{sin}\beta \mathrm{cos}\varphi ,\mathrm{cos}\beta );\stackrel{}{S}_4=\stackrel{}{S}_1\stackrel{}{S}_2\stackrel{}{S}_3.`$ The normalisation of $`\stackrel{}{S}_4`$ imposes the restriction $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha +\mathrm{cos}\beta 0,`$ as well as a condition on $`\varphi `$ . Therefore,

$`\stackrel{}{S}_1\stackrel{}{S}_2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha ,`$ (A1)
$`\stackrel{}{S}_1\stackrel{}{S}_3`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\beta ,`$ (A2)
$`\stackrel{}{S}_1\stackrel{}{S}_4`$ $`=`$ $`1\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{cos}\beta .`$ (A3)
In a ground state of $`H_0`$, the sum of any pair of spins is opposite to the sum of the other pair of spins, and hence

$`\stackrel{}{S}_3\stackrel{}{S}_4=\stackrel{}{S}_1\stackrel{}{S}_2,\stackrel{}{S}_2\stackrel{}{S}_4=\stackrel{}{S}_1\stackrel{}{S}_3,\stackrel{}{S}_2\stackrel{}{S}_3=\stackrel{}{S}_1\stackrel{}{S}_4.`$ (A4)
The dot products between two spins can thus be expressed using $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha `$ and $`\mathrm{cos}\beta `$ only, this means that, restricted to the ground states of $`H_0`$, $`H_1`$ must have the following form:

$`H_1/J=A\mathrm{cos}\alpha +B\mathrm{cos}\beta +C,`$ (A5)
where $`A,B`$ and $`C`$ depend on the $`\delta `$: $`A=\delta _{1,2}+\delta _{3,4}\delta _{1,4}\delta _{2,3}`$, $`B=\delta _{1,3}+\delta _{2,4}\delta _{1,4}\delta _{2,3}`$, and $`C=\delta _{1,4}\delta _{2,3}`$.

We now have to distinguish the following cases: (I) $`AB`$. Without loss of generality, let $`A>B`$. (a) For $`A>0,B0`$, the global minimum of $`H_1`$ is given by $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha =1`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}\beta =\mathrm{sign}(B)`$. (b) If $`A>0,B=0`$, then $`\mathrm{cos}\beta `$ is undetermined. (c) For $`A<0`$, $`H_1`$ is minimized by $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha =1,\mathrm{cos}\beta =1`$. (II) $`A=B`$ (a) $`A>0`$: $`H_1`$ is minimized by $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha =\mathrm{cos}\beta =1`$. (b) $`A<0`$: $`H_1`$ is minimized by $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha +\mathrm{cos}\beta =0`$. (c) $`A=0`$: $`H_1`$ is independent of $`\alpha ,\beta `$.

From this, we see that two things can happen. Either all spins are collinear, in the cases Ia,Ic,IIa, or the degeneracy is not fully lifted, in the special (finetuned) cases Ib,IIb,IIc. For the latter, a collinear state still exists which minimizes the energy. In other words, a non-collinear state is never selected by the disorder as unique ground state, and the generic case $`AB,AB0`$ has a unique ground state which is collinear.