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# The Quintuple Quasar: Mass Models and Interpretation

## 1 Introduction

The radio source PMN J0134$``$0931 presents a formidable challenge to the gravitational lensing theorist. Instead of having two or four images like nearly every other lensed quasar, the system has at least six components at radio wavelengths (Winn et al. 2002a; hereafter W02). The five brightest components (named A–E in order of radio flux density) have identical continuum radio spectra, but C and E were missing from a high-resolution 1.7 GHz map (W02) and also from optical and near-infrared images (Gregg et al. 2002; Hall et al. 2002; hereafter G02 and H02). Adding to the mystery, the object is one of the reddest quasars known ($`BK11`$), but the location of the dust presumed to cause the reddening is unknown (G02; H02).

Confusion has reigned over such basic issues as the number of lensed images in the system. Four completely different lensing scenarios have been proposed. First, W02 pointed out that four of the components (A, B, D, and F) might be explained as a 2-image lens of a 2-component source, with C and E assumed to be foreground objects, but one would need to invoke coincidence to explain why C and E have the same spectral slope as A, B, and D. Second, W02 suggested that all six components could be images of a single source if there is more than one lens galaxy, but they did not present any quantitative models because the parameter space of multiple-galaxy models is large and not easily explored. Third, G02 imagined A, B, D, and E to constitute a standard 4-image lens, but admitted that such a scenario does not explain component C. Finally, H02 suggested that A–E are five images of a single source and F represents a different source. Although they did not present a quantitative model, H02 pointed out two features that would be expected of such a model: there must be at least two lens galaxies; and there would presumably be at least one additional image of the source corresponding to component F, which should be detectable with more sensitive radio observations.

Here we present a comprehensive lensing analysis of J0134$``$0931, concluding that the quintuple-imaging scenario is correct, and backing it up in quantitative detail. To do so, we originally used modeling considerations. We exhaustively searched the parameter space of two-galaxy lens models, finding numerous successful 5-image lens models but no good 6-image models. While this work was in progress, Winn et al. (2003; hereafter W03) discovered that the spectral index of component F is significantly different from that of the other components. This removed any motivation to consider 6-image models further. Furthermore, the multi-frequency maps of W03 showed that the lower surface brightness of C and E, which was the main objection to the H02 scenario, is due to scatter-broadening rather than being intrinsic. We therefore present only our results for the quintuple-imaging scenario.

Our approach was to search for mass models that could reproduce the most obvious and most easily quantified properties of the system—the number of radio components, their relative positions, and to some extent their relative fluxes (§2)—using two lens galaxies at the same redshift with unknown positions, masses, and shapes (§3). Our success (§4.1) obviated the need to consider more complicated (and a priori unlikely) models involving additional deflectors or deflectors at more than one redshift.

More interestingly, the two-galaxy models make strong predictions about aspects of the system that are observable but were not used as constraints. In particular, they specify the positions of the two galaxies (§4.2); the time delays between the images (§4.3); the resolved shapes of the images (§4.4); the existence of radio arcs (§4.5); and the existence of two “counter-images” of component F (§4.6). New radio and optical observations have been able to test and confirm some of these predictions, as described in the companion paper by W03. Overall, this analysis provides a lensing context that will be valuable for further interpretation of this complex and fascinating system (§5).

Throughout this paper we neglect any faint “core” images that would appear near the center of the lens galaxies; see Keeton (2003) for a general discussion of core images, and Rusin et al. (2001) for a discussion of the various combinations of bright and faint images possible when there are multiple galaxies. Where necessary we adopt a cosmology with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, but changing the cosmology would have little effect on our results.

## 2 Constraints on lens models

The observed properties of J0134$``$0931 are summarized by W03. For modeling purposes, we adopted the relative image positions and flux ratios for components A–E from multi-frequency VLA and MERLIN maps by W02. The astrometric uncertainties from these data are 1–2 milli-arc seconds (mas). The VLBA maps have higher astrometric precision, but because small-scale structure in the lens potential can perturb the image positions by $``$1 mas (Mao & Schneider 1998; Metcalf & Madau 2001), sub-mas precision is not desirable in an analysis focusing on the kiloparsec-scale properties of the lens model. Because component F has only been detected in VLBA maps, we used the VLBA position of that component relative to D, and adopted a 2 mas uncertainty in each coordinate.

The optical flux ratios are best avoided as model constraints because of the contaminating influence of reddening by dust (G02; H02; W03). Instead we used the radio flux density ratios measured by W02. Although the statistical uncertainties in these ratios are 2–4%, we adopted a larger uncertainty of 10% in order to account for possible systematic effects. One particularly important systematic effect is small-scale structure in the lens potential; many studies have shown that mass clumps of size $`10^4`$$`10^8M_{}`$ can perturb radio flux density ratios by $``$10% or more (e.g., Mao & Schneider 1998; Metcalf & Madau 2001; Chiba 2002; Dalal & Kochanek 2002).

## 3 Methods

Single-galaxy models can produce lenses with more than four bright images, but only in configurations with an even number of images lying in a narrow annulus around the lens galaxy (Keeton et al. 2000a; Evans & Witt 2001), which is not the case for J0134$``$0931. The only way to produce more than four bright images in a different configuration is with more than one galaxy (Rusin et al. 2001). Our goal was to see whether two galaxies were sufficient to explain the configuration of J0134$``$0931, and if so, how well the galaxy properties could be constrained by the data.

We modeled the galaxies as singular isothermal ellipsoids (e.g., Kassiola & Kovner 1993; Kormann, Schneider & Bartelmann 1994; Keeton & Kochanek 1998). This is a widely-used model because it is consistent with the observed properties of other individual lenses, lens statistics, and the dynamics and X-ray properties of elliptical galaxies (e.g., Fabbiano 1989; Kochanek 1993; Maoz & Rix 1993; Kochanek 1996; Rix et al. 1997; Treu & Koopmans 2002). This assumption does not cause too much loss of generality; using a different radial mass profile would mainly rescale the predicted time delays (e.g., Kochanek 2002). In the absence of other information, we assumed that both galaxies lie at the absorption line redshift $`z_l=0.76`$ measured by H02. We also included a possible tidal shear due to additional objects near the galaxies or along the line of sight, because such shears seem to be common (e.g., Keeton, Kochanek & Seljak 1997; Holder & Schechter 2002).

The models had 15 free parameters: the positions, ellipticities, orientations, and masses of the two galaxies, the amplitude and orientation of the tidal shear, and the position and flux of S1, the background source corresponding to A–E. The data provide 15 constraints: a position and flux for each of five images. We did not include component F (or its source component, S2) as a constraint because it has no securely detected counter-images, but instead used it as an a posteriori test of the models (see §4.6). Thus, the models formally have zero degrees of freedom.

We used the lens modeling algorithm and software written by Keeton (2001b). For a given lens model, the software solves the lens equation to find the predicted image positions $`𝐱_{i,\mathrm{mod}}`$ and fluxes $`f_{i,\mathrm{mod}}`$, and compares them to the observed image positions $`𝐱_{i,\mathrm{obs}}`$ and fluxes $`f_{i,\mathrm{obs}}`$ using the goodness of fit statistic

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_{\mathrm{images}}}{}}\left[\frac{|𝐱_{i,\mathrm{mod}}𝐱_{i,\mathrm{obs}}|^2}{\sigma _{i,x}^2}+\frac{(f_{i,\mathrm{mod}}f_{i,\mathrm{obs}})^2}{\sigma _{i,f}^2}\right],$$
(1)
where the index $`i`$ runs over all the images, and $`\sigma _{i,x}`$ and $`\sigma _{i,f}`$ are the uncertainties in the positions and fluxes, respectively. Models that do not produce the correct number of images are penalized by setting $`\chi ^2`$ to an extremely large value. The software varies the parameters of the model, using a downhill simplex optimization routine (e.g., Press et al. 1992) to minimize $`\chi ^2`$ and find the best fit to the data.

For this particular problem, we used two special techniques to control the parameter search. First, to ensure a fair sampling of the large and complex parameter space, we ran the optimization many times starting from random points. We drew initial galaxy positions from a box enclosing the radio components, initial ellipticities from the range $`0e0.6`$, and random initial orientations. Second, to speed up the optimization, we noted that it is possible to set up a system of linear equations for the optimal values for four of the parameters (see the Appendix). For any set of the 11 non-linear parameters one can simply solve the system of equations to find the best values for the four linear parameters. As a result, the parameter space that needs to be searched by the optimization routine has only 11 dimensions rather than 15. This technique has been used (in slightly different forms) by Kochanek (1991a, 1991b), Bernstein & Fischer (1999), and Keeton et al. (2000b). One possible problem is that the solutions of the linear equations actually optimize a quantity $`\chi _{\mathrm{src}}^2`$ that is usually a good approximation to the $`\chi ^2`$ defined in eq. (1) but may have slightly different minima. Out of concern about this effect, we considered two approaches. In “assisted” models we used the linear parameter technique throughout the modeling process, whereas in “direct” models we used it when selecting the random starting points but not when optimizing the parameters. As discussed below, the two sets of models had similar properties, suggesting that the linear parameter technique did not significantly bias our results.

## 4 Results

### 4.1 Quality of the fits

We repeated our randomization and optimization modeling procedure many times to obtain a suite of lens models that sample the local minima in the $`\chi ^2`$ surface. Figure 1 shows histograms of $`\chi ^2`$ values for 50 assisted and 51 direct models with $`\chi ^2<30`$. In this sample, there are four assisted models that give a perfect fit ($`\chi ^2=0`$), and another four models (three assisted, one direct) with $`\chi ^2<1`$. The existence of models that fit the data exactly is not mathematically surprising, because the models have zero degrees of freedom. It is nevertheless interesting to find physically plausible two-galaxy models that can account for the configuration of this unusual lens. Our first significant result is the mere existence of quantitatively successful models of J0134$``$0931.

There are a few models with $`1<\chi ^2<8`$, and a large collection of models (41 assisted, 48 direct) centered at $`\chi ^216`$. Interestingly, in the latter models most of the value of $`\chi ^2`$ comes from the flux ratios (see Table 1). In fact, the dominant contribution is from the flux of component A, which is commonly predicted to be $``$40% fainter than observed. This is an important point, because recent theoretical work has indicated that in many lenses one of the image fluxes is perturbed by mass substructure in the lens (e.g., Mao & Schneider 1998; Metcalf & Madau 2001; Chiba 2002; Dalal & Kochanek 2002). According to such analyses, even smooth models that correctly describe the overall lens potential can fail to reproduce one of the flux ratios. The smooth models will often tend to underestimate the flux of the brightest image, which is exactly the situation for the $`\chi ^216`$ models.

Let us stress, though, that we do not claim that substructure is required to explain the radio flux ratios in this system. That claim is disproved by the existence of smooth models that fit the radio data exactly. Rather, we simply argue that models with $`\chi ^216`$ dominated by a $``$40% discrepancy in the flux of A should not be ruled out. We therefore consider all models with $`\chi ^2<25`$ to be viable models. (This limit represents a natural break in the $`\chi ^2`$ histograms; see Figure 1.) We study a sample of acceptable models containing 50 assisted models and 50 direct models.

Note that there is little difference between the $`\chi ^2`$ histograms for assisted and direct models. The assisted models appear to be somewhat more efficient at finding models with $`\chi ^2<10`$, presumably because the linear parameter technique helps the downhill simplex method find models that lie at the bottom of narrow valleys in the $`\chi ^2`$ surface (see §3). But there is no significant and systematic difference in the values of $`\chi ^2`$ or the best-fit parameter values between the two model types, which is reassuring evidence that the linear parameter technique did not bias our results.

### 4.2 Galaxy properties

Table 1 gives typical values of the model parameters for ten representative models, chosen to capture the range of properties seen in the full sample of 100 models. To give a visual impression of the range of positions, relative masses, ellipticities, and orientations for the lens galaxies, in Figure 2a we have overplotted the $`\kappa =\mathrm{\Sigma }/\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{crit}}=1`$ contours for the two galaxies in all 100 models.

The first interesting result is that the models all basically agree on the positions of the two galaxies. The northern galaxy (henceforth labeled Gal-N) lies $``$0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$2 south of component C, while the southern galaxy (Gal-S) lies $``$0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$15 south of component E. The fact that the galaxy positions vary little from model to model indicates that they are robust predictions of two-galaxy models.

More details become apparent when the models are grouped by their $`\chi ^2`$ values, as in Figure 2b–d. The best models ($`\chi ^2<1`$) fall into two different families: either the two galaxies are both oriented nearly east–west, or they are both oriented nearly north–south. In the range $`1<\chi ^2<15`$, the range of allowed ellipticities and orientations increases, and for some models Gal-N is allowed to be highly flattened in the north-south direction.

The models with $`15<\chi ^2<25`$ represent the majority (84%) of allowed models, and form a remarkably homogeneous family that is qualitatively different from the other models. In all but one of these models, the galaxies are comparatively round and are located almost directly south of of components C and E. (Recall that these are the models that are acceptable under the hypothesis that mass substructure affects the radio flux density of A.)

A different way to display the model results is with scatter plots of the parameter values. Figure 3a provides this view of the galaxy positions. As before, it is evident that the models basically agree on the galaxy positions. There is some freedom for the galaxies to move through a $``$0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$1 range along lines running northwest to southeast, but as they move they must maintain a fixed separation of $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}385\pm 0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}008`$ (2.0 $`h^1`$ kpc at $`z_l=0.76`$).

Figure 3b shows the allowed values of the galaxy mass parameters $`b_{\mathrm{Gal}\mathrm{N}}`$ and $`b_{\mathrm{Gal}\mathrm{S}}`$ (defined in eq. A2 in the Appendix). In most models the two galaxies have comparable masses, although there is some freedom to make one or the other galaxy more massive provided that the total mass within the region bounded by the images remains fixed. The mass parameter $`b`$ can be translated into a velocity dispersion via the relation $`\sigma 117(b/0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}2)^{1/2}\text{km s}\text{-1}`$, assuming a lens redshift $`z_l=0.76`$ and neglecting an ellipticity-dependent factor of order unity.

Finally, Figures 3c and 3d show that there is great diversity in the allowed ellipticities and orientations of the two galaxies. The models fill a broad region in these slices of parameter space. We therefore cannot determine these aspects of the lens models from the image configuration alone, although some discrimination may be possible from observations of the intrinsic, resolved shapes of the individual images (see §4.4).

When G02 deconvolved a ground-based $`K^{}`$-band image, they found two faint components in addition to A, B, and D. They suggested that, if these components were real and not deconvolution artifacts, they might correspond to component E and a lens galaxy. Because the positions of these peaks agree well with the two predicted galaxy positions, we suggest instead that G02 detected both of the lens galaxies.

Furthermore, H02 identified possible flux from a lens galaxy or galaxies in Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images but were unable to draw any detailed conclusions. In a more careful analysis of the HST images that was conducted in tandem with this work, W03 found clear evidence for two flux peaks. The peaks agree roughly with the positions predicted by the models, although imperfect PSF subtraction makes it difficult to measure their positions accurately.

Thus, the $`K^{}`$-band and optical HST images appear to confirm the first important prediction of the models, the presence of two galaxies near components C and E. It is interesting to note that the southern peak observed by W03 in the HST images appears to be elongated in the east–west direction. In principle, one might use this information to rule out the broad class of models that predict Gal-S to be round or elongated north–south. However, we hesitate to rule out models based on the HST images, not only because the residual peaks are faint and poorly characterized, but also because the mass distribution need not follow the light distribution. Differences between the mass and light distributions would not be surprising of the two galaxies are interacting, or if they are spiral galaxies (as we suspect) with prominent spiral arms.

### 4.3 Components A–E

The lensing properties of this system can be understood by examining the critical curves, caustics, and time delay surface, which are shown in Figure 4. (To avoid clutter only the ten models listed in Table 1 are shown, but the other models are qualitatively similar.) Although there is some freedom for the critical curve to meander, especially to the southeast near component D, the data require the critical curve to thread between A, B, C, and E along a well-constrained path. Components A and D both lie outside the critical curve and at minima of the time delay surface, so they are predicted to have positive parity; while B, C, and E all lie inside the critical curve and at saddle points of the time delays surface, so they are expected to have negative parity. These results have implications for the resolved shapes of the images (see §4.4).

The models all predict that S1, the source corresponding to components A–E, lies only $``$0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$02 from a cusp in the caustic (Figure 4b). The models also generally agree on the position and orientation of that cusp, and on the presence of a second cusp nearby. There is less agreement about the shape of the caustic farther from the source, which corresponds to the poorly-constrained stretch of the critical curve. The fact that the source lies so close to a cusp means that the quasar host galaxy might be visible as a partial or complete Einstein ring in a high-resolution near-IR image of the system (see Kochanek, Keeton & McLeod 2001).

One feature of J0134$``$0931 cited by W02 as circumstantial evidence for gravitational lensing was the fact that four of the radio components (A, B, D, and F) lie on a circle, and that the A/B radio arc conforms closely to the same circle. However, as our models do not involve an intrinsically circular mass distribution, we suggest that the near-perfect circularity is just a mild coincidence. Any three points (say, A, B, and D) define a circle. Any extended emission should be seen most prominently between A and B because they are the brightest images. The extended emission, along with any additional images near D, are likely to lie in the direction of maximum stretching in the image plane, which is roughly perpendicular to the A–D separation.

The differential time delays between the images can be predicted from the models. In all cases the temporal ordering of the images, from shortest time delay to longest, is D–A–C–B–E. The delay values are shown in Figure 5, using the source redshift $`z_s=2.2`$ and assuming that the galaxies lie at redshift $`z_l=0.76`$. The delays are short because the angular size of the lens is small. The D–A delay is only $``$10 days ($`7h^1`$ days), and the A–E delay is only another $``$2 days. The small separations between components A, B, and C mean that the time delays between them are just a few hours.

Little or no variability has been measured in the total radio flux density over a 20-year baseline (W02), which is reason for pessimism about the prospect of measuring the time delays at radio wavelengths. One might hope for a greater degree of variability at optical or near-infrared wavelengths. The time delays would be challenging to measure at these wavelengths because of the small angular size of the system, but G02 demonstrated that it is possible to resolve some of the components in ground-based images with reasonable accuracy. Another possibility is to attempt to measure the short delays between A, B, and C in a single X-ray observation; the general feasibility of this approach has been demonstrated by Dai et al. (2001), but it would depend on the X-ray flux of the quasar. Although the complexity of J0134$``$0931 makes it unlikely ever to be useful for Hubble constant determination, measurements of the time delays would provide valuable new constraints on lens models.

### 4.4 Resolved image shapes

In high-resolution VLBA observations, W03 resolved the five radio components A–E. Although we did not use this information to derive our lens models, we can use it as an a posteriori test of the models. Specifically, we considered the images shapes inferred from elliptical Gaussian fits to the 15 GHz VLBA maps. We chose 15 GHz to minimize the possible effect of scatter-broadening, and we used only the position angles (rather than the major and minor axes) because the true 15 GHz shapes are not simply ellipses. For modeling purposes, we used an elliptical source, because it can easily be combined with the lensing magnification tensor to estimate the orientation of the lensed image (Keeton 2001a). It ought to be reasonable to compare predicted orientations of images inferred from an elliptical source to the measured orientations, even if the images are not strictly elliptical.

For each of the 100 lens models we varied the axis ratio and orientation of the source component S1 to find the best fit. The best case has $`\chi _{\mathrm{shape}}^2=0.58`$ for three degrees of freedom. A total of 23 models are consistent with the data at better than 95% confidence ($`\chi _{\mathrm{shape}}^2<7.8`$ for three degrees of freedom). These models all have sources with an axis ratio between 1.5 and 2.0 and position angle between $`145\mathrm{°}`$ and $`153\mathrm{°}`$.

The fact that 77 of our otherwise successful models are formally excluded by the image shapes indicates that the shapes contain important higher-order information about the lensing potential. It reassures us that the remaining 23 models are reasonable descriptions of the potential. It also narrows the range of allowed lens galaxy properties. Figure 3 shows that the models that agree with the images shapes occupy smaller regions of parameter space than the full set of models. Specifically, the two galaxies must lie at the western end of the allowed range of positions (and hence due south of components C and E), and Gal-N must be moderately elongated north–south. Interestingly, the image shapes seem to exclude models in which Gal-S is elongated east–west, suggesting that its mass distribution may not follow its light distribution (see §4.2).

We caution, however, against over-interpreting the $`\chi _{\mathrm{shape}}^2`$ values because fitting the complex 15 GHz image shapes with elliptical Gaussians probably underestimates the uncertainties in the position angles (see W03). We consider the models that produce formal agreement to be favored, but do not consider the other models to be ruled out definitively.

### 4.5 Extended emission

W02 detected a curved arc of radio emission at 1.7 GHz between components A and B. Again, because we did not use this information to derive our lens models, we can use it as an independent check of the models. At 15 GHz, the angular sizes of A–E are no greater than a few milli-arcseconds and no arcs are seen (W03), both of which imply an angular size of $``$1 mas for S1. At lower frequencies, though, one might expect the source to be larger and any extended emission (which typically has a steeper radio spectrum than the core) to be more prominent. As a first step, we took the model that gives the best fit to the 15 GHz image shapes and enlarged the angular size of S1 to 15 mas. The result is shown in Figure 6a.

The model predicts extended emission between components A and B, and also between components A and C. These two predictions appear to be robust and common to models that reproduce the 15 GHz image shapes, although the detailed surface brightness profiles of the A/B and A/C extended emission depend on the angular extent, orientation, and shape of S1. The bright A/B arc discovered by W02 is therefore compatible with the models. In addition, W03 found evidence for a connection between components A and C.

However, Figure 6a is not the best possible fit to the surface brightness distributions observed by W03. The model predicts the A/B emission to lie nearly along a straight line, but it is actually curved along a nearly circular arc. In addition, the model predicts the A/C emission to have nearly the same brightness as the A/B emission, but it is apparently fainter (although scatter broadening at 1.7 GHz may contribute to the difference).

Trying to optimize the model to fit the extended emission would require a detailed description of the surface brightness distribution plus a much more sophisticated modeling algorithm, and is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, we simply note that a better fit to the data is obtained when S1 is rotated by $`90\mathrm{°}`$. The results for that case are shown in Figure 6b. The A/C arc is now fainter and the A/B arc is curved, as observed. This model has the additional virtue that the major axis of S1 points nearly in the direction of S2, which is what one would expect for a core-jet source. In this scenario, S2 is neatly explained as a hot-spot in the $``$15 mas jet emerging from S1.

Taken at face value, the analyses of the 15 GHz image shapes and the 1.7 GHz extended emission suggest that the jet is bent by $``$90 degrees between its emergence from S1 on scales of $``$1 mas and its continuation to S2 on scales of $``$15 mas. This might seem unnatural, but in fact bends of this size have been observed within the inner few milli-arcseconds of active galactic nuclei (e.g., Kellerman et al. 1998), and are usually explained as a smaller three-dimensional bend angle viewed nearly along the jet axis.

### 4.6 Component F

Component F, with its steeper spectral index (W03), corresponds to a different source component in our models that we call S2. According to the models there should be additional lensed images of S2 that have not yet been detected. To learn about these counter-images of F, we used each of the 100 allowed models to map F into the source plane, locating S2. We then solved the lens equation for S2 to find the positions and fluxes of all images besides F. Figures 4 and 7 show the positions of S2 and the counter-images. Figure 8 is a histogram of the separation between S1 and S2. Finally, Figure 9 shows the predicted fluxes of the counter-images relative to F.

All but one of the models predict that S2 lies just outside the cusp caustic and hence produces three images. Thus, F should have two counter-images that lie close to components C and E. It is striking that even though F lies only 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$05 from D, and even though S2 is only $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}015`$$`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}020`$ from S1, and even though no information about F or its counter-images was used to derive the models, nearly all of the models predict that F belongs to a family of images with a different multiplicity than A–E. In the one exception, S2 lies just inside the cusp caustic and F has four counter-images: one near C, one near E, and a pair straddling the critical curve between A and B. The existence of (at least) two counter-images of F is therefore a robust and testable prediction of the models.

We refer to putative counter-images near C and E as $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{E}^{}`$, respectively. We reserve the names G and H, which would follow from the flux-order convention by which A–F are named, for any actual detections of these components. This is partly because the predicted flux ordering is not certain, although generally F is predicted to be brighter than $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$, which in turn is brighter than $`\mathrm{E}^{}`$. In the majority of cases, $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$ is 80–90% as bright as F (especially for models that agree with the measured 15 GHz image shapes; see Figure 9), while $`\mathrm{E}^{}`$ is only $``$25% as bright as F.

Given that $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$, in particular, is predicted to be only modestly fainter than F, one might expect that it could easily be detected or ruled out. Unfortunately, circumstances make detection of the counter-images difficult and obscure the interpretation of non-detections. Because of the steep radio spectrum of S2, one would prefer to search for $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{E}^{}`$ at low radio frequencies where their flux densities are large. However, at low radio frequencies, C and E are heavily scatter-broadened, suggesting that $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{E}^{}`$ might also be broadened out of detectability. Given the high electron column density implied by the scatter-broadening, it is also possible that the flux of these components is being reduced by free-free absorption. At high radio frequencies, where these plasma effects are smaller, the counter-images are predicted to be intrinsically faint.

These challenges are illustrated by the analysis of new high-resolution VLBA maps by W03. In the 1.7 GHz map, component C is missing, because of scatter-broadening and possibly free-free absorption. Intriguingly, however, there is a puff of resolved emission located just south of the expected position of C, which is exactly where $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$ is predicted to appear. The total flux of the extended emission is $``$90% of the flux of F at that frequency, which is also consistent with the prediction for $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$. It is therefore possible that W03 detected $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$. But if the figure of 90% is correct, then W03 should also have detected $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$ at 8.4 GHz (where it should have been much more compact due to the $`\nu ^2`$-dependence of scatter-broadening) and they did not.

If $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{E}^{}`$ were point sources at 8.4 GHz, and if scatter-broadening were neglected, the 5$`\sigma `$ upper limits of the map would imply $`S/S_\mathrm{F}<0.57`$ for both counter-images. The limit on $`\mathrm{E}^{}`$ is consistent with all the models, but the limit on $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$ formally excludes 96% of our otherwise acceptable models, including all the models that agree with the 15 GHz image shapes. However, if $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{E}^{}`$ were scatter-broadened even at 8.4 GHz, the upper limits would be weakened. For example, under the assumption that $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{E}^{}`$ have the same ratio of peak to total flux density as C and E, respectively, the 8.4 GHz upper limits would become $`S_\mathrm{C}^{}/S_F<2.1`$ and $`S_\mathrm{E}^{}/S_F<1.1`$, which are consistent with all of our models.

Thus, it appears that the new observations by W03 were not conclusive in this regard. This is unfortunate, because the detection of a counter-image would be a clear validation of the models. Probably the best strategy for future attempts to detect the counter-images is to conduct more sensitive VLBI observations at around 8 GHz, where the plasma effects are expected to be small, and the intrinsic flux density of S2 is still fairly large. If the sensitivity could be improved by a factor of $``$3, then $`\mathrm{C}^{}`$ should be revealed; if by a factor of $``$10, then $`\mathrm{E}^{}`$ should also be revealed. However, because the plasma effects cannot be quantified without assumptions about the density, temperature, and path length through the ionized material, a non-detection would be difficult to interpret unless one worked at 15 GHz or higher, where the observed angular sizes of C and E appear to be mainly intrinsic.

## 5 Discussion

The observed properties of the unique gravitational lens J0134$``$0931 can be completely explained as follows. The background radio source has two components, S1 and S2, separated by $``$15–20 mas (90–120 $`h^1`$ pc at $`z_s=2.2`$). Source S1 is the radio core with a gigahertz-peaked radio spectrum and a quasar optical counterpart (W02; G02). Source S2 has a steeper radio spectrum (W03) and is a hot-spot in a jet emerging from S1. The jet is bent, turning by $`90\mathrm{°}`$ from its emergence from S1 ($``$1 mas) to its continuation towards S2 ($``$15 mas).

There are two lens galaxies in the foreground producing five images of S1 (observed as radio components A–E) and three images of S2 (of which only F has been securely detected, although W03 found evidence for one additional image). The $``$10 mas jet between S1 and S2 is magnified into the extended emission observed at low frequencies between A and B, and between A and C. The inner $``$1 mas of the jet is displayed in the resolved image shapes at 15 GHz.

The lens galaxies have nearly equal mass ($`\sigma 120\text{km s}\text{-1}`$) and are seen in projection just south of components C and E. Due to ionized material in the northern galaxy, components C and E (and, to a lesser degree, component A) are being scatter-broadened at radio wavelengths (W03). Due to differential reddening by dust in both galaxies, the optical counterparts of the images have different colors (H02; W03). The inference of large amounts of dust and ionized material leads us to suspect that the galaxies are spiral galaxies.

We have shown that this scenario can account quantitatively for the observed positions and relative fluxes of the radio components. In addition, W03 have presented evidence for the direct detection of the lens galaxies in HST images, in agreement with an earlier detection of two flux peaks by G02 in a $`K^{}`$-band deconvolution. A subset of our models are also compatible with the intrinsic image orientations measured by W03, and with the upper limits on the flux densities of the counter-images of component F (although there are potential ambiguities in the interpretation of both constraints).

Two puzzles remain. First, many of our models, and especially those that are consistent with the 15 GHz image shapes, predict that the radio flux density of component A should be $``$40% lower than observed. It is possible that a small-scale density fluctuation in the lens model near image A is enhancing its flux density via the substructure lensing effect (e.g., Mao & Schneider 1998; Metcalf & Madau 2001). The density fluctuation might represent a mass clump such as a dark matter subhalo or globular cluster, or perhaps a tidal tail if the two lens galaxies are interacting. Although we cannot test this hypothesis with the present analysis, it may be possible to do so with a detailed study of the intrinsic shape of image A (see Metcalf 2002).

Second, our models suggest that the mass in the southern galaxy (Gal-S) cannot be highly elongated in the east–west direction and still be consistent with the observed 15 GHz image shapes. The puzzle is that there are two indications that Gal-S is indeed elongated east–west: the HST detection of Gal-S appears to be elongated east–west (W03); and component D is highly reddened (H02; W03), suggesting it is being covered by an easterly extension of Gal-S. Taking all this evidence seriously requires that the light and dust do not follow the mass. Although this might be unexpected, it does not demand an exotic explanation. There may simply be a spiral arm covering D. Or perhaps Gal-S has a dark matter halo that is fairly round but a light distribution that is flattened (such as an edge-on disk). Alternatively, perhaps the two galaxies are interacting and the relationship between light and mass is looser than for isolated galaxies, with the presence of tidal tails for example. In such a case, our assumption of ellipsoidal mass distributions would be incorrect, and future studies of this lens would need to consider a wider range of mass distributions.

J0134$``$0931 is the second galaxy-mass gravitational lens system with an image multiplicity larger than four. The first such system was the six-image lens B1359+154 produced by a compact group of three galaxies (Rusin et al. 2001). In both cases, the high multiplicity is due to the presence of more than one lens galaxy. It is interesting to note that both systems have a very compact arrangement of galaxies, smaller than the typical massive ellipticals that dominate lensing. In J0134$``$0931 the two galaxies have velocity dispersions $`\sigma 120\text{km s}\text{-1}`$ and a projected separation of just $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4`$ (2 $`h^1`$ kpc at $`z_l=0.76`$), while in B1359+154 the three galaxies have $`\sigma 140`$$`160\text{km s}\text{-1}`$ and a maximum projected separation of $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}7`$ (4 $`h^1`$ kpc at $`z_l1`$; Rusin et al. 2001). Although these are just two out of nearly 100 lenses currently known, they represent a much larger fraction of the radio surveys that discovered them; B1359+154 is one of 22 lenses in the Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey (see Myers et al. 1999; Browne et al. 2001), while J0134$``$0931 comes from a survey that has found four lenses and one other candidate (Winn et al. 2000, 2001, 2002a, 2002b). The incidence of high-multiplicity lenses is still subject to Poisson uncertainties, but it appears to be several percent or even higher. Lensing, especially radio lens surveys, may therefore turn out to be an interesting way to discover compact groupings of galaxies at redshifts out to $`z1`$.

It is a pleasure to thank Hans-Walter Rix, Paul Schechter, and the other organizers of the 2002 Ringberg Workshop on Gravitational Lensing, where this work commenced. We thank Chris Kochanek for interesting discussions, and the anonymous referee for helpful comments on the manuscript. C.R.K. thanks Pat Hall for originally bringing J0134$``$0931 to his attention. C.R.K. is supported by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF-01141.01-A from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. J.N.W. is supported by an NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship, under grant AST-0104347.

## Appendix A Handling Linear Parameters

The surface mass density of an isothermal ellipsoid lens galaxy can be written as follows, in units of the critical density for lensing, and in a coordinate system aligned with the major axis of the ellipse:

$$\kappa (x,y)=\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }(x,y)}{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{crit}}}=\frac{\sqrt{1+q^2}}{2\sqrt{2}q}\frac{b}{\sqrt{x^2+y^2/q^2}},$$
(A1)
where $`q=1e1`$ is the axis ratio of the ellipse, and $`b`$ is a mass parameter. For a spherical galaxy, $`b`$ equals the Einstein radius and is related to the velocity dispersion $`\sigma `$ of the galaxy as

$$b=4\pi \left(\frac{\sigma }{c}\right)^2\frac{D_{ls}}{D_{os}},$$
(A2)
where $`D_{ls}`$ and $`D_{os}`$ are, respectively, angular diameter distances from the lens and observer to the source. For a non-spherical galaxy, this relation is modified by an ellipticity-dependent factor of order unity (see Keeton et al. 1997). Note that the surface mass density, and hence the lensing potential and deflection, is linear in $`b`$. This leads to an expression for the deflection of the form (see Kassiola & Kovner 1993; Kormann et al. 1994; Keeton & Kochanek 1998)

$$\alpha (𝐱;b,𝐱_g,e,\theta _e)=b\widehat{\alpha }(𝐱;𝐱_g,e,\theta _e),$$
(A3)
where $`\widehat{\alpha }`$ is some function of position $`𝐱`$ in the image plane that depends on the parameters $`𝐱_g`$, $`e`$, and $`\theta _e`$ (the centroid, ellipticity, and orientation of the ellipsoid).

If we map an observed image $`𝐱_i`$ to the source plane using the two-galaxy-plus-shear model, we find the corresponding source position

$$𝐮_i=𝐱_ib_1\widehat{\alpha }_1(𝐱_i;𝐱_{g1},e_1,\theta _{e1})b_2\widehat{\alpha }_2(𝐱_i;𝐱_{g2},e_2,\theta _{e2})\mathrm{\Gamma }𝐱_i,$$
(A4)
where the two components $`\gamma _c`$ and $`\gamma _s`$ of the shear enter through the tensor

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \gamma _c& \hfill \gamma _s\\ \hfill \gamma _s& \hfill \gamma _c\end{array}\right].$$
(A5)
We might imagine that instead of evaluating $`\chi ^2`$ by comparing the observed and predicted images in the image plane (eq. 1), we could simply work in the source plane and use the scatter in the model source positions, defining

$$\chi _{\mathrm{src}}^2=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_{\mathrm{images}}}{}}\frac{|𝐮_i𝐮_{\mathrm{mod}}|^2}{\sigma _{i,x}^2},$$
(A6)
where $`𝐮_{\mathrm{mod}}`$ is the model source position. This “source-plane $`\chi ^2`$” is often a good approximation to the image-plane $`\chi ^2`$ and can be valuable for modeling (see Kochanek 1991a). We do not use it as the basis of all modeling mainly because it does not have the ability to check whether the model predicts the correct number of images, which is essential in the case of J0134$``$0931.

The important point is that the parameters $`b_1`$, $`b_2`$, $`\gamma _c`$, $`\gamma _s`$, and $`𝐮_{\mathrm{mod}}`$ are all linear parameters in $`\chi _{\mathrm{src}}^2`$. It is therefore possible to write down a system of linear equations for the parameter values that minimize $`\chi _{\mathrm{src}}^2`$. These equations have the form

$$\mathrm{M}𝐩=𝐯,$$
(A7)
where $`𝐩=(b_1,b_2,\gamma _c,\gamma _s,u_{\mathrm{mod}},v_{\mathrm{mod}})`$ is the parameter vector, and the matrix and right-hand side vector are:

$$\mathrm{M}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_{\mathrm{images}}}{}}\frac{1}{\sigma _{i,x}^2}\left[\begin{array}{cccccc}\widehat{\alpha }_{1x}^2+\widehat{\alpha }_{1y}^2& & & & & \\ \widehat{\alpha }_{1x}\widehat{\alpha }_{2x}+\widehat{\alpha }_{1y}\widehat{\alpha }_{2y}& \widehat{\alpha }_{2x}^2+\widehat{\alpha }_{2y}^2& & & & \\ x_i\widehat{\alpha }_{1x}y_i\widehat{\alpha }_{1y}& x_i\widehat{\alpha }_{2x}y_i\widehat{\alpha }_{2y}& x_i^2+y_i^2& & & \\ y_i\widehat{\alpha }_{1x}+x_i\widehat{\alpha }_{1y}& y_i\widehat{\alpha }_{2x}+x_i\widehat{\alpha }_{2y}& 0& x_i^2+y_i^2& & \\ \widehat{\alpha }_{1x}& \widehat{\alpha }_{2x}& x_i& y_i& 1& \\ \widehat{\alpha }_{1y}& \widehat{\alpha }_{2y}& y_i& x_i& 0& 1\end{array}\right]$$
(A8)
$$𝐯=\underset{i}{}\frac{1}{\sigma _{i,x}^2}\left[\begin{array}{c}x_i\widehat{\alpha }_{1x}+y_i\widehat{\alpha }_{1y}\\ x_i\widehat{\alpha }_{2x}+y_i\widehat{\alpha }_{2y}\\ x_i^2y_i^2\\ 2x_iy_i\\ x_i\\ y_i\end{array}\right]$$
(A9)
where $`(\widehat{\alpha }_{1x},\widehat{\alpha }_{1y})`$ and $`(\widehat{\alpha }_{2x},\widehat{\alpha }_{2y})`$ are the $`x`$ and $`y`$ components of the (scaled) deflections for galaxy 1 and 2, respectively, evaluated at the appropriate image position $`𝐱_i`$; and the sum is over the images. All the elements of $`\mathrm{M}`$ can be derived from the ones presented here, because $`\mathrm{M}`$ is symmetric.

Using standard methods to solve this system of equations (e.g., Press et al. 1992), we can find the optimal values of the parameters $`𝐩`$ given any values of the other model parameters. This technique can be used to aid the optimization as discussed in §3. In practice, we use only the values for $`b_1`$, $`b_2`$, $`\gamma _c`$, and $`\gamma _s`$ recovered from this analysis, even though solving the system of equations yields an estimate of the source position as well.


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# References

Investigation of the obscuring circumnuclear torus in the active galaxy Mrk231

Hans–Rainer Klöckner1,2, Willem A. Baan2 and Michael A. Garrett3

1. Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen, 9700 AV, Groningen, The Netherlands
2. ASTRON, P.O.Box 2, 7990 AA, Dwingeloo, The Netherlands
3. JIVE, Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe, PO Box 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo, The Netherlands

published in Nature Vol. 421, 821–823, 20 February 2003

Active galaxies are characterized by prominent emission from their nuclei. In the unified view of active galaxies, the accretion of material onto a massive compact object - now generally believed to be a black hole - provides the fundamental power source (Rees, 1984). Obscuring material along the line of sight can account for the observed differences in nuclear emission (Krolik & Begelman, 1988; Krolik, 1999), which determine the classification of AGN (for example, as Seyfert 1 or Seyfert 2 galaxies). Although the physical processes of accretion have been confirmed observationally (Greenhill et al., 1995; Gallimore et al., 1997), the structure and extent of the obscuring material have not been determined. Here we report observations of powerful hydroxyl (OH) line emissions that trace this obscuring material within the circumnuclear environment of the galaxy Markarian 231. The hydroxyl (mega)–maser emission shows the characteristics of a rotating, dusty, molecular torus (or thick disk) located between 30 and 100 pc from the central engine. We now have a clear view of the physical conditions, the kinematics and the spatial structure of this material on intermediate size scales, confirming the main tenets of unification models.

Observations of powerful molecular water–vapour and hydroxyl megamaser emissions , which are a million times more luminous than their galactic counterparts (Baan, 1985), have provided unique information about distinct regions within galactic nuclei. Water–vapour masers can map out the central few parsecs of an AGN, tracing the rotation of nuclear accretion disks and the state of molecular material surrounding the radio jets (Maloney, 2002). The inferred geometry and thickness of these disks, however, cannot account for the observed obscuration signature and the radiation patterns seen in active galactic nuclei (AGN) (Maloney, 2002; Herrnstein et al., 1998). On the other hand, the hydroxyl masers in galactic nuclei are spread across hundreds of parsecs (Diamond et al., 1999; Lonsdale et al., 1998; Pihlström et al., 2001). Their tight correlation with the infrared emission (Baan, 1989) indicates a strong association with the dusty obscuring material along the line of sight towards the nucleus (Krolik & Begelman, 1988; Krolik, 1999). To study the distribution of the hydroxyl megamaser emission with respect to the nuclear engine at a resolution of tens of parsecs in Mrk 231, we performed very–long–baseline interferometry (VLBI) radio observations with the European VLBI Network (EVN). Mrk 231 is the most luminous infrared galaxy in the local universe (distance of 172 Mpc), and is undergoing a merger as indicated by the high dust content and the prominent tidal tails observed at optical wavelengths. The nuclear power source has been classified (Baan et al., 1998) as a Seyfert 1, which in the unification scheme would suggest that the observer has a direct, and almost unobscured, line–of–sight view into the broad–line emission region at parsec scales. The location of the nuclear engine on similar scale sizes is traced by the radio outflow (Ulvestad et al., 1999b), which extends to almost a hundred parsecs (Ulvestad et al., 1999a).

The EVN data reveal an OH emission structure with an east–west extent of 130 pc that is straddling a north–south elongated radio continuum emission (Fig. 1). This continuum emission has been further resolved into a lobe–core–lobe structure (Ulvestad et al., 1999a) of 80 pc at position angle PA = 8 , which is found to be misaligned by 57 with the core radio structure on parsec scales (Ulvestad et al., 1999b). The emission spectrum integrated across the whole OH emitting region displays the two main hydroxyl lines at 1667 and 1665 MHz showing a line–width of around 200 km s-1 (full–width at half–maximum, FWHM) at a centroid velocity of 12610 km s-1(Fig. 2). The EVN data and also the intermediate–scale MERLIN (Richards et al., 2000) observations account for only half of the integrated line emission seen by the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT; see Figure 2) and previous single–dish measurements (Baan, 1985). This missing emission component must therefore originate within the resolution gap between the EVN and WSRT observations, in an extended region between 190 pc and 11 kpc of the nucleus. This component is probably associated with the nuclear continuum emission (Taylor et al., 1999) and the CO(1-0) line emission (Bryant & Scoville, 1996; Downes & Solomon, 1998). Figure 3 (top panel) presents the spatial velocity distribution, which is similar for each of the two hydroxyl lines and which has an overall velocity shift of about 160 km s-1 from the northwest towards the southeast. The velocity width of the emission lines has an average value of about 70 km s-1 (FWHM) across the northern part of the radio continuum emission. On the other hand, there is also a distinct OH emission region at the northwestern edge of the continuum emission that has a velocity similar to that seen towards the centre of the radio core, and which has a distinctly higher velocity width of 85 km s-1 (Figure 3; middle panel).

The nature of the OH emission observed in the nucleus of Mrk 231 adds a new component to the hierarchical structure of this system, and complements the information obtained with other tracers at lower resolution. We find that the OH velocity field with its symmetry axis at PA = 34does not agree with that of the kiloparsec–scale CO(1-0) structure (Bryant & Scoville, 1996; Downes & Solomon, 1998) having a PA = 0. Neither does it agree with the large–scale radio outflow (PA = 8), or the more compact CO(2-1) distribution (Downes & Solomon, 1998) extending up to 850 pc at PA = 18. However, the OH velocity field is in agreement with that of the line–of–sight HI absorption (Carilli et al., 1998) at PA = 27. The HI absorption is detected against a diffuse radio–emitting halo with an extent of about 350 pc and an orientation of PA = 22. This diffuse radio halo, which is possibly associated with a circumnuclear starburst (Taylor et al., 1999), could then also trace the dense and opaque interstellar medium of a disk or torus (Carilli et al., 1998) inclined at 56. The integrated HI velocity dispersion (Carilli et al., 1998) of 193 $`\pm `$ 25 km s-1 agrees well with that of the hydroxyl lines (Fig. 2). This suggests that the OH emission indeed originates in the central regions of a circumnuclear rotating disk or torus having an outer structure that is traced by the CO(2-1) emission.

The energy source responsible for the excitation of the OH molecules is the extreme far–infrared radiation (Baan, 1989) field in Mrk 231. The observed far–infrared spectral temperature of around 43 K provides the ideal pumping conditions for the OH clouds, which could range in size from 10 pc up to 100 pc (Henkel et al., 1987; Randell et al., 1995). The ratio of the intensity of the two maser lines varies rather smoothly across the entire emission structure and has an average value of 1.8, as expected for local temperature equilibrium (LTE). This would indicate that the observed emission lines are optically thin and are mostly unsaturated masers. Assuming that the diffuse radio continuum, which serves as a background for the nuclear HI absorption, also serves as a background for the observed OH masers, this emission could be explained in terms of exponential amplification with a maximal gain of about 2.2 within classical OH maser–models (Baan et al., 1982; Baan, 1985). However, extreme values for the line ratio have been found in the discrepant northwestern region discussed earlier in this text. This region must have a completely different pumping environment than the rest of the structure. The unusual blue–shifted velocity, the slightly higher velocity dispersion, and the line ratios of this discrepant region are all consistent with the theoretically predictions (Baan, 1985; Randell et al., 1995; Wada & Norman, 2002; Baan, 1985) for an interaction region between the radio outflow and the molecular environment.

The molecular environment described above for the nuclear region of Mrk 231 is very similar to the dust structures found in active galaxies such as NGC 4261 using the Hubble Space Telescope (van Langevelde et al., 2000). We have applied an axisymmetric torus model with a circular cross–section to the EVN data, in order to determine the structural boundaries in the nuclear region. The compact molecular structure surrounding the nucleus is misaligned with the large–scale molecular disk of the galaxy by 34. The radius of the inner cavity of the torus would be about 30 pc, as suggested by the location of the northwestern interaction region. The outer edge of the torus spans a diameter of 200 pc, which is based on the 4 mJy contours of the diffuse radio emission (Carilli et al., 1998) and on far–infrared blackbody estimates (Downes & Solomon, 1998). This region also serves as a radio background for the OH amplification process. These parameters result in a torus structure with a radius of 65 pc and a thickness of 70 pc, which accounts for an obscuration angle of 60 centered on the plane of the torus and which is representative of values found for other galaxies (Schmitt et al., 2001). The orientation and the shape of the extended radio contours and the symmetry axis of the velocity field indicate that the torus is tilted upward from the line of sight by 56, and is rotated anticlockwise by 35. This inferred model for the torus has been displayed as a wire–structure representation and is presented in Figure 3 (bottom panel). The nuclear radiation cones with opening angles of 60 , assumed to be similar to those seen in M 87 (Junor et al., 1999), represent the directions with an unobscured view of the nucleus. The radio outflow follows a twisted path within these cones, starting at the nucleus (at PA = 65) and ending up as a double source aligned with the symmetry axis of the outer disk (at PA = 8) (Ulvestad et al., 1999b, a). As a result, this parameterization indicates that the nuclear accretion disk, that collimates the jet outflow inside the central cavity, is actually misaligned by 30 with the plane of the molecular torus.

In reality, the proposed torus structure does not need to have a circular cross–section. In addition, it will most probably be wrapped inside a cocoon–like surface region with a higher temperature, and will have the same outer extent of 460 pc as the diffuse radio emission and the HI absorbing gas (Carilli et al., 1998). However, the representation of the inner part of this rotating dusty and molecular torus in Mrk 231 is consistent with (all) current models of galactic nuclei and theoretical investigations (Krolik, 1999), and supports the unification schemes for AGN. Whether a different orientation of the torus and the nuclear accretion disk represents a special case or is a general characteristic of active nuclei needs to be investigated with VLBI observations of other megamaser galaxies hosting a similar nuclear power source.

Acknowledgments

We thank C. Carilli for providing a map of the diffuse continuum structure in Mrk 231. H.-R.K thanks O. Möller for advice on programming in OpenGL software. The European VLBI Network is a joint facility of European, South African, and Chinese radio astronomy institutes funded by their national research councils. The Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope is operated by the ASTRON (Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy) with support from the Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research NWO.

Correspondence and requests for material should be addressed to H.–R. K.(e–mail: hrkloeck@astro.rug.nl).


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# Multi-level 3D non-LTE computations of lithium lines in the metal-poor halo stars HD140283 and HD84937

## 1 Introduction

Lithium abundances of metal-poor halo stars have had a prominent place in astrophysics and cosmology ever since the first discovery of Li in such stars (Spite & Spite 1982) due to their wide-ranging implications. Firstly, the uniformity of the Li abundances in halo stars (Ryan et al. 1999) presumably reflects the primordial Li abundance stemming from Big Bang nucleosynthesis, thus allowing an estimate of the baryon density of the Universe. Secondly, any observed slope in the Spite-plateau with metallicity, when combined with the corresponding behaviour of 6Li, Be, B and O, can be interpreted in terms of Galactic chemical evolution, in particular the history of cosmic ray spallation in the early Galaxy. Thirdly, since it is a fragile element, Li can function as a tracer of stellar mixing; the thinness of the Spite-plateau certainly severely limits the allowed amount of Li-depletion in halo stars (Ryan et al. 1999).

In order to extract Li abundances from an observed spectrum it is necessary to have suitable models of the stellar photosphere and the line formation process. Since traditional abundance analyses utilize 1D hydrostatic model atmospheres based on local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) and a rudimentary description of convection in the form of the mixing length theory (MLT), there may be significant systematic errors, which could distort the derived conclusions. The detailed line formation, including departures from LTE but in 1D hydrostatic model atmospheres, were investigated by Carlsson et al. (1994) who found relatively small non-LTE abundance corrections ($`0.05`$ dex) for low metallicity stars. To investigate the effects of convection on the line formation, Asplund et al. (1999) applied the new generation of 3D, hydrodynamical model atmospheres to abundance analyses of metal-poor stars assuming LTE. Due to the much lower temperatures encountered in the line-forming layers than in classical 1D model atmospheres, the derived abundances differ drastically. Most notably, it was found that the primordial Li abundance may previously have been over-estimated by $`0.3`$ dex. Although such 3D model atmospheres should be a more realistic description of the stellar photospheres (Asplund et al. 2000), the simplification of LTE in the line formation is a crucial assumption. Asplund et al. (1999) indeed warned that the steep temperature gradients may be prone to significant over-ionization of species like Li i. The aim of the present paper is to investigate possible departures from LTE by performing realistic 3D non-LTE calculations for Li i lines, while we defer a detailed investigation of the line formation to a subsequent article. Preliminary calculations have been presented in Asplund (2000) using a smaller Li atom and without consideration of line-blanketing.

## 2 3D non-LTE radiative transfer of Li I lines

From the ab-initio 3D radiative-hydrodynamical convection simulations of the metal-poor halo stars HD 140283 and HD 84937 presented in Asplund et al. (1999), two representative and independent snapshots have been selected from each simulation for the non-LTE calculations. Additionally, two snapshots were taken from a similar solar simulation (Asplund et al. 2000a) for comparison purposes. The original simulation data cubes with dimensions 1002 x 82, were interpolated prior to the non-LTE calculations to a 252 x 100 grid with an improved vertical resolution. Test calculations with 502 x 100 snapshots verified that the procedure had insignificant effect on the 3D non-LTE abundance corrections. Typically the atmospheric structures cover the region $`6\mathrm{log}\tau _{500}2`$. Further details of the numerical simulations are available in Stein & Nordlund (1998) and Asplund et al. (1999, 2000).

The Li model atom employed in the present study is identical to the one compiled by Carlsson et al. (1994). The adopted 21-level atom consists of in total 70 bound-bound and 20 bound-free radiative transitions. We feel confident that the employed Li atom is sufficiently extended as tests with a more restricted 12-level atom revealed non-LTE abundance corrections only about 0.03 dex larger than with the 21-level atom for HD 140283 and HD 84937. The input data for level energies, radiative and electron collisional transitions are in all cases the same as in Carlsson et al. (1994); accordingly, collisions with neutral hydrogen have not been included. We have verified that even inclusion of H collisions according to the classical Drawin (1968) recipe has a very minor impact on our results: for HD 140283 the abundance corrections are decreased by 0.05 dex and 0.01 dex for multiplication factors of 1.0 and 0.01, respectively, of the standard Drawin estimates. Additional atomic data such as background opacities (including line-blanketing for photo-ionization transitions) are taken from the marcs package (Gustafsson et al. 1975 and subsequent updates).

The non-LTE calculations for Li have been performed with multi3d (Botnen 1997; Botnen & Carlsson 1999), which is essentially a 3D-version of the widely used multi-code for 1D statistical equilibrium problems (Carlsson 1986). multi3d iteratively solves the rate equations with a consistent radiation field obtained from a simultaneous solution of the radiative transfer equation along 24-48 inclined rays. The formal solution of the radiative transfer equation is computed using a short characteristic technique, making use of the horizontal periodic boundary conditions of the hydrodynamical model atmospheres. The Doppler shifts introduced by the convective motions are taken into account and therefore no micro- and macroturbulence enter the analysis (Asplund et al. 2000). Typically $`6`$ accelerated lambda-iterations with linearization and preconditioning of the rate equations (Scharmer & Carlsson 1985) were necessary to achieve the stipulated convergence criteria max$`(\delta n_\mathrm{i}/n_\mathrm{i})<10^4`$. The resulting angle-dependent radiation field was subsequently used to compute flux profiles. Various test calculations with 3D-extended plane-parallel homogeneous model atmospheres ensured that the same results were obtained with multi3d and multi.

## 3 Departures from LTE in Li I line formation

Table 1 summarizes the resulting 3D LTE and non-LTE line strengths for the different snapshots and input Li abundances together with the corresponding 1D results. Clearly, there are very significant departures from LTE, in particular for the two metal-poor stars. As predicted by Asplund et al. (1999), over-ionization plays the dominant role.

Fig. 2 shows images of the continuum intensity and the equivalent width of the Li i 670.8 nm line in LTE and non-LTE at disk-center ($`\mu =1.0`$). The characteristic granulation pattern with warm (bright) upflows and cool (dark) downflows is clearly visible in the continuum intensities. In LTE the Li line typically is strong above the granules, a consequence of the low temperatures in the optically thin layers due to the temperature contrast reversal in the convectively stable layers, which translates to a high population density of Li i. Over the downflows the temperatures tend to be higher than average, thus making the Li line weaker. In non-LTE quite the opposite happens: in general the line is weaker above the upflows, which implies that the population density is largely controlled by the radiation field rather than the local gas temperature.

The same conclusion is obvious from Fig. 3, which quantifies the behaviour in Fig. 2. The Li i lines tend to increase in strength with continuum intensity in LTE but with a very large scatter, since the temperatures in the higher atmospheric layers are not one-to-one correlated with the temperatures in the continuum-forming layers below. In non-LTE the scatter is much smaller for regions with high continuum intensities, which again emphasizes that the line formation process is largely governed by the non-local properties of the radiation field. The 670.8 nm line is, however, weakest in relatively low continuum intensity regions ($`I^{\mathrm{cont}}/I^{\mathrm{cont}}0.9`$ in Fig. 3) which are immediately adjacent to very bright regions: the non-vertical hot radiation field from neighboring granules cause significant over-ionization (low line opacity) which when coupled to the shallow temperature gradient of downflows makes the line very weak (e.g. at $`x=21`$ Mm and $`y=18`$ Mm in Fig. 2). The Li i line typically is strongest in the middle of larger areas of downflowing material, which has weaker photo-ionizing radiation field (e.g. at $`x=9`$ Mm and $`y=13`$ Mm). The non-LTE behaviour of the Li i 670.8 nm line shown in Figs. 2 and 3 is similar to the findings of Kiselman (1997, 1998) and Uitenbroek (1998) in the case of the Sun, which are confirmed by spatially resolved solar observations (Kiselman & Asplund 2001). The Li i 610.4 nm line show a similar behaviour as the resonance line although less dramatically due to the weakness of the line and its higher excitation potential (Fig. 3).

Further support for the departures from LTE being essentially an over-ionization effect comes from the variation with height of the departure coefficient of the Li i ground level (Fig. 4). From the LTE-expectation in the deeper layers, the population density falls rapidly with height as Li i is photo-ionized by radiation from below. The non-LTE line formation of the Li i 670.8 nm line is mainly an optical depth effect since the line source function $`S_\nu ^{670.8}`$ in general remains reasonably close to the Planck function $`B_\nu (T)`$ (Fig. 4). As in the 1D case, the over-ionization is predominantly driven by photo-ionization from the 2p state for which $`J_\nu /B_\nu `$ is near its maximum (Carlsson et al. 1994). The inclusion of line opacities to the background opacities for bound-free transitions is thus of importance: without line-blanketing the non-LTE abundance corrections for HD 140283 would be about 0.07 dex higher. As expected the radiative rates dominate over the corresponding collisional rates for the 2s and 2p levels.

The speculation by Kurucz (1995) that the strength of the Li i 670.8 nm line could be seriously overestimated with 1D models due to substantial departures from LTE in the presence of temperature inhomogeneities, is thus partly validated by our results, although for the wrong reasons and to a much lesser extent. Due to his simple two-stream MLT-convection approach, Kurucz also failed to recognize the compensating effect due to convection (Asplund et al. 1999; Asplund 2000). Cayrel & Steffen (2000) reached similar conclusions to ours based on calculations using a 5-level Li atom and a 2D simulation of a metal-poor Sun.

## 4 Discussion

With the aid of Table 1, it is possible to interpolate the computed 1D and 3D line strengths to the observed equivalent widths of Li i 670.8 nm for HD 140283 (4.65 pm) and HD 84937 (2.44 pm). It is noteworthy that the 3D non-LTE abundances only differ by $`0.05`$ dex from the corresponding 1D non-LTE results for HD 140283 and HD 84937. The 3D LTE abundances on the other hand are distinctly different by $`0.20.3`$ dex. As cautioned by Asplund et al. (1999), LTE is clearly a very poor assumption for Li i in 3D models of halo stars with their low surface temperatures and steep temperature gradients 111This statement is of course not true in general, as LTE may be a very good approximation for other species..

The 3D non-LTE abundances are very similar to the 1D non-LTE results. The main reason for this is that the line strength is determined by the opacity which is set by the photoionizing radiation field while collisions are found to be relatively unimportant according to our calculations222 We note that the approximate ionization equation (e.g. Mihalas 1978, Eq. 5.46) is not applicable as a possible explanation for the similarity of the 1D and 3D results, since the downward rate from Li ii is dominated by collisions to upper levels rather than by photo-recombination to the ground level.. This radiation is optically thin at the height of formation of the Li i resonance line and is thus equal to the observable emergent radiation field. Since 1D and 3D models produce similar ($`\pm 10`$%) emergent intensities at the relevant wavelengths (Asplund & García Pérez 2001), the photo-ionization radiation fields will not differ significantly. The final line strengths will however also depend on the details of the temperature structures in the deep atmospheric layers which differs between 1D and 3D models.

From the results obtained here for two typical halo stars we expect that the 3D non-LTE abundances will be similar ($`\pm 0.1`$ dex) to the 1D non-LTE results (and to 1D LTE given the small 1D non-LTE abundance corrections according to Carlsson et al. 1994) in general for halo stars. However, given the great interest in accurately determining the primordial Li abundance, the intrinsic scatter in the Spite-plateau and the possible existence of a trend with metallicity for the Li abundances (e.g. Ryan et al. 1999), it is clearly important to extend the 3D non-LTE calculations to additional stars with different parameters to determine exactly the net 3D effects. We are currently working towards this goal (Asplund et al., in preparation).

###### Acknowledgements.

It is a pleasure to thank R. Cayrel, R. Collet, A.E. García Pérez and D. Kiselman for stimulating discussions and the referees for helpful comments. This work has been supported by grants from the Swedish and Norwegian Research Councils.


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# Excited tau lepton contribution to 𝑊→𝜏𝜈_𝜏 decay at the one-loop level

## Abstract

We evaluate the compositeness effects of tau lepton on the vertex $`W\tau \nu _\tau `$ in the context of an effective Lagrangian appproach. We consider that only the third family is composed and we get the corrections to the non universal lepton coupling $`g_\tau /g_e`$. As the experimental bounds on non universal lepton couplings in $`W`$ decays are weak, we find that the excited particles contributions do not give realistic limits on the excited mass, since they lead to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }<m^{}`$.

Owing to the precision reached by experimental results nowadays, we are able to impose significant constraints to physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). Compositeness is a very important alternative of new physics which could solve some problems of SM, among them the family mass hierarchy. Compositeness theories lie on the idea that known fermions and perhaps bosons possess an underlying structure, characterized by the scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The fundamental constituents of fermions and bosons could generate the mass spectra if we knew the confinement mechanism, so the mass hierarchy problem would be solved.

Some attempts to generate a proper confinement mechanism have been done by Seiberg, Harari, Terazawa and others,. However there is not any satisfactory confinement mechanism able to generate the whole mass spectrum from preons hitherto, as a consequence we should resort to effective Lagrangian techniques in order to describe the behavior of excited states. Such states should become manifest at a certain energy scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda },`$and the SM is seen as an effective theory of a more fundamental one.

Measurements of anomalous magnetic moment of muon and electron have not shown any track of substructure for the first and second lepton families, consequently we will make the assumption that only the third family shows excited states. Therefore, it is considered that the other families are either elementary or exhibit a much higher scale factor i.e. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\tau <<\mathrm{\Lambda }_e,\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu `$. From this fact, excited states of the third family have appealed the attention of many collaborations such as L3, DELPHI and OPAL  whose analyses are based on an effective $`SU\left(2\right)\times U\left(1\right)`$invariant Lagrangian proposed by Hagiwara et.al. . Moreover, theoretical constraints have been derived from the contribution of anomalous magnetic moment of leptons and the $`Z`$scale observables at the CERN $`e^+e^{}`$collider LEP. Constraints in the context of an effective Lagrangian approach have been extracted from leptonic branching ratios as an allowed region on the $`(m^{},f/\mathrm{\Lambda })`$plane, based on different experiments as well as bounds coming from the anomalous weak magnetic moment of the tau lepton and precision measurement on the Z peak.

Additionally, another information about excited states could come from the Tevatron experimental limits on lepton universality violation in $`W`$ decays ($`g_\tau /g_e`$) by evaluating the contribution of this new physics to $`W\tau \nu _\tau `$ vertex. Since electrons could be considered elementary, no corrections from compositeness are made to the coupling $`g_e`$, then we can evaluate the correction to $`\tau `$ coupling by the ratio $`g_\tau /g_e`$and taking $`g_e=g.`$

We assume that excited fermions acquire their masses before the $`SU\left(2\right)\times U\left(1\right)`$breaking, so that both left handed and right handed states belong to weak isodoublets (vector-like model). The effective dimension five Lagrangian that describes the coupling of excited leptons with ordinary ones can be written as

$$\mathrm{\pounds }_{eff}=\frac{gf}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\overline{L}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }\frac{\stackrel{}{\tau }}{2}.\stackrel{}{W}_{\mu \nu }P_Ll+\frac{g^{}f^{}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\overline{L}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }\frac{Y}{2}B_{\mu \nu }P_Ll+h.c.$$
(1)
where

$$L=\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _\tau ^{}\\ \tau ^{}\end{array}\right)l=\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _\tau \\ \tau \end{array}\right)_L$$
(2)
so, $`L`$represents an isodoublet of excited lepton states of the third generation, which is a vector-like multiplet, and $`l`$, represents a left-handed doublet of ordinary leptons of the third generation. $`g`$ and $`g^{}`$ are the usual $`SU(2)`$ and $`U(1)`$ coupling constants respectively, $`Y`$ is the hypercharge and $`\tau `$ are the Pauli matrices. There are operators of higher dimensions that can contribute to the excited-ordinary lepton interactions, but they are suppressed by higher powers of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ scale. On the other hand, since the excited fermions are doublets, they have gauge couplings given by the following renormalizable Lagrangian

$$\mathrm{\pounds }_{eff}=\overline{L}i\gamma _\mu \left(^\mu ig\frac{\stackrel{}{\tau }}{2}\stackrel{}{W}_\mu i\frac{g^{}}{2}YB^\mu \right)L$$
(3)
which is clearly $`SU\left(2\right)\times U\left(1\right)`$gauge invariant.

The Lagrangian in eq. (1) could be rewritten in the following way

$$\mathrm{\pounds }_{eff}=\underset{V=\gamma ,Z,W}{}T_{VLl}\overline{L}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }P_Ll_\mu V_\nu +i\underset{V=\gamma ,Z}{}Q_{VLl}\overline{L}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }P_LlW_\mu V_\nu +h.c.$$
(4)
where the coupling constants $`T_{VLl}`$and the quartic interaction couplings $`Q_{VLl}`$are given by

$`T_{\gamma \tau ^{}\tau }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left(f+f^{}\right),`$
$`T_{\gamma \nu ^{}\nu }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left(f^{}f\right),`$
$`T_{Z\tau ^{}\tau }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left(f\mathrm{cot}\theta _Wf^{}\mathrm{tan}\theta _W\right),`$
$`T_{Z\nu ^{}\nu }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left(f\mathrm{cot}\theta _W+f^{}\mathrm{tan}\theta _W\right),`$
$`T_{W\tau ^{}\nu }`$ $`=`$ $`T_{W\nu ^{}\tau }={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}e}{\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{sin}\theta _W}}f,`$
$`Q_{\gamma \tau ^{}\nu }`$ $`=`$ $`Q_{\gamma \nu ^{}\tau }={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}e^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{sin}\theta _W}}f,`$
$`Q_{Z\tau ^{}\nu }`$ $`=`$ $`Q_{Z\nu ^{}\tau }={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}e^2\mathrm{cos}\theta _W}{\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W}}f,`$
$`Q_{W\nu ^{}\nu }`$ $`=`$ $`Q_{W\tau ^{}\tau }={\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W}}f.`$ (5)
Now, the Lagrangian in eq. (3) could be rewritten in the following way

$$\mathrm{\pounds }_{ren}=\underset{V=\gamma ,Z,W}{}A_{VLL}\overline{F}\gamma ^\mu V_\mu F$$
(6)
where $`F=\nu _\tau ^{}`$, $`\tau ^{}`$ and the coupling constants are given by

$`A_{\gamma \tau ^{}\tau ^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`e,A_{\gamma \nu ^{}\nu ^{}}=0,A_{Z\tau ^{}\tau ^{}}={\displaystyle \frac{\left(2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W1\right)e}{2\mathrm{sin}\theta _W\mathrm{cos}\theta _W}},`$
$`A_{Z\nu ^{}\nu ^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e}{2\mathrm{sin}\theta _W\mathrm{cos}\theta _W}},A_{W\tau ^{}\nu ^{}}={\displaystyle \frac{e}{\sqrt{2}\mathrm{sin}\theta _W}}.`$ (7)
In this calculation we have used the on-shell renormalization scheme and the dimensional regularization which is a gauge-invariant method. Working in $`D=42ϵ`$ dimensions, we identify the poles at $`D=2`$ with quadratic divergencies and the poles at $`D=4`$ with logarithmic divergencies. These divergencies are related to the cutoff scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ by the following relations

$`4\pi \mu ^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ1}}+1\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{\mu ^2}},`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ}}\gamma _E+\mathrm{ln}4\pi +1`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{\mu ^2}}.`$ (8)
The final result for the one-loop calculation can be written as

$$\delta =\delta _{finite}+\delta _1\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{\mu ^2}+\delta _2\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{4\pi \mu ^2}$$
(9)
where

$$\delta _{finite}=\underset{ϵ0}{lim}\left[\delta (ϵ)\delta _1(\frac{1}{ϵ}\gamma _E+\mathrm{ln}4\pi +1)\delta _2(\frac{1}{ϵ1}+1)\right]$$
(10)
and $`\delta _{1(2)}`$ are the residues of the poles at $`ϵ=0(1)`$.

We write the $`W\tau \nu _\tau `$ vertex as

$$\frac{ig}{\sqrt{2}}\rho _{W\tau \nu _\tau }\overline{u}(\tau )\gamma _\mu P_Lv(\nu _\tau )ϵ_W^\mu $$
(11)
where $`\rho _{W\tau \nu _\tau }`$ has the universal contributions which are independent on final fermion states as well as the non-universal ones, which are dependent on the fermion wave function and vertex contribution.

In fig. 1, we show the Feynman diagrams relevant in this calculation at the one loop-level. The contributions of all diagrams lead to a shift in the $`W\tau \nu _\tau `$ coupling which can be written as

$$\frac{ig}{\sqrt{2}}(1+\delta _{NP})\overline{u}(\tau )\gamma _\mu P_Lv(\nu _\tau )ϵ_W^\mu $$
(12)
where $`\delta _{NP}`$ contains the radiative corrections of compositeness contributions. Then, the effective coupling for $`W\tau \nu _\tau `$ is given by:

$$g_\tau =g(1+\delta _{NP}).$$
(13)
We do not consider oblique contributions (universal) because they are cancelled out in the $`g_\tau /g_e`$ quotient. The most important contributions come from the diagrams containing two excited leptons into the loop and correspond to the (c) diagrams. The (g) and (h) diagrams are the self-energy contributions and provide the wave-function renormalization. After summing all Feynman diagrams the quadratic divergencies cancel out and only logarithmic ones appear in the final result.

In the following analysis we take$`m_\tau ^{}=m_{\nu _\tau }^{}=m^{}`$ since the doublet of excited particles in eq. (2) is vector-like. Further, we assume for the sake of simplicity that $`f=f^{^{}}=1`$. In this case we do not write down the radiative corrections as Veltman-Passarino functions because there are amplitudes with Feynman diagrams that involve four momenta in the numerator, see figs. 1(c), (d). The expression for $`\delta _{NP}`$ is very long and does not contain any illuminating information. Instead of that, we display in fig. 2 the contourplots of constant $`\delta _{NP}`$ in the $`m^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ plane. The curve for $`\delta _{NP}=0.036`$ correspond to intersection of $`\delta _{NP}`$ with the upper experimental limit for $`g_\tau /g_e`$:

$$\frac{g_\tau }{g_e}=1.004\pm 0.019\pm 0.026.$$
(14)
This sets correlate bounds for the excited lepton mass and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. For completeness, we also include the asymptotic limit for $`\delta _{NP}`$ when $`m^{}`$ goes to infinity

$$\delta _{NP}=\frac{g^2}{16\pi ^2}\frac{f^2m^^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\left[0.16+0.54\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{m^^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\right)\right].$$
(15)
Since in our calculations quadratic divergencies cancel out, we find that the new physics decouples in the limit $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}`$, because $`\delta _{NP}(\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ vanishes for large $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

In fig. 3, we plot the quotient $`g_\tau /g_e1`$ as a function of $`m^{}`$ for different values of the scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Moreover, the two solid horizontal lines, represent the experimental allowed range for the quotient $`g_\tau /g_e`$.

We can see that compositeness radiative corrections do not give severe limits on $`m^{}`$ as a consequence of the weak experimental bounds on lepton universality violation in $`W`$ decays. The experimental uncertainty have not imposed significant constraints on $`m^{}/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ yet. For example, for $`f=1`$, we obtain from eq. (15) the $`1\sigma `$ bound of $`m^{}/\mathrm{\Lambda }3.4`$, getting that $`m^{}`$ is larger than $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. It is natural to await that new physics decouples from standard physics when the scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ goes to infinity. As $`\delta _{NP}`$ is basically dominated for the ratio $`m^{}/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ then we have to impose the condition that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }>m^{}`$ to get a realistic bound. This is not satisfied by our results.

In conclusion, we evaluated the contributions to $`W\tau \nu _\tau `$ coming from compositeness effects at the one loop level using an effective dimension five Lagrangian in the decoupling scenario, where this effective Lagrangian is valid for energies less than $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. As a consequence, the heavy degrees of freedom $`\nu ^{}`$, $`\tau ^{}`$ should have a $`m^{}`$ lower than $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. However, we find that $`m^{}>\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ from the current precision measurements of non universal lepton couplings of $`W`$ decays, so it is impossible to obtain a realistic bound on the excited states. The intersection of $`\delta _{NP}`$ with the upper experimental bound is positive ($`0.036`$), then it is clear from eq. (15) that we require $`m^{}>\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in order to get a positive value for $`\delta _{NP}`$.

We thank COLCIENCIAS (Colombia) and CONICET (Argentina) for their financial support.