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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

We study the phenomenological consequences of imposing on the constrained MSSM (CMSSM) an asymptotic relation for the Yukawa couplings at the GUT scale. This assumption (Yukawa unification) naturally restricts  the $`t`$-quark mass to large values compatible with the data. Also, the emerging model is highly predictive . Despite of its appealing, the simple scheme of a single Yukawa for the three third generations at the GUT scale leads to an unacceptable $`b`$–quark mass. This fact excludes minimal versions of GUT groups with this property, such as Pati–Salam unification $`(G_{PS}=SU(4)_c\times SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R)`$, $`SO(10)`$ or $`E_6`$.

We consider the SUSY GUT model described in Ref. which is based in the $`G_{PS}`$ as described in Refs. and establish an ‘asymptotic’ relation for the Yukawa couplings that depends on a single complex parameter $`c`$:

$$h_t:h_b:h_\tau =|1+c|:|1c|:|1+3c|,$$
(1)
For simplicity, we will restrict our analysis to real values of $`0<c<1`$. The relative splitting of the Yukawa couplings becomes: $`\delta h(h_bh_t)/h_t=(h_\tau h_t)/h_t=2c/(1+c)`$. This means that the bottom and tau Yukawa couplings split from the top Yukawa coupling by the same amount but in opposite directions, with $`h_b`$ becoming smaller than $`h_t`$.

## 2 The MSSM with Quasi-Yukawa Unification

This model, below $`M_{GUT}`$, reduces to the MSSM supplemented by the ‘asymptotic’ Yukawa coupling quasi-unification condition in Eq.(1). We will assume universal soft SUSY breaking terms at $`M_{GUT}`$, i.e., a common mass for all scalar fields $`m_0`$, a common gaugino mass $`M_{1/2}`$ and a common trilinear scalar coupling $`A_0`$. In the present work, we will concentrate on the $`\mu >0`$. The case $`\mu <0`$ is phenomenologically less interesting, it will be presented in . We follow the notation as well as the RG and radiative electroweak breaking analysis of Ref. for the CMSSM with the improvements of Refs. (recall that the sign of $`\mu `$ in Refs. is opposite to Ref., which is the one adopted here).

For any given $`m_b(M_Z)`$ in its $`95\%`$ c.l. range ($`2.6843.092\mathrm{GeV}`$ for $`\alpha _s(M_Z)=0.1185`$), we can determine the parameters $`c`$ and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ at $`M_{SUSY}=(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})^{1/2}`$ ($`\stackrel{~}{t}_{1,2}`$ are the stop mass eigenstates) so that the ‘asymptotic’ condition in Eq.(1) is satisfied. We use fixed values for the running top quark mass $`m_t(m_t)=166\mathrm{GeV}`$ and the running tau lepton mass $`m_\tau (M_Z)=1.746\mathrm{GeV}`$ and incorporate not only the SUSY correction to the bottom quark mass but also the SUSY threshold correction to $`m_\tau (M_{SUSY})`$ from the approximate formula of Ref.. After imposing the conditions of gauge coupling unification, successful electroweak breaking and Yukawa quasi-unification in Eq.(1), we are left with three free input parameters $`m_0`$, $`M_{1/2}`$ and $`A_0`$. In order to make the notation physically more transparent, we replace $`m_0`$ and $`M_{1/2}`$ equivalently by the mass $`m_{LSP}`$ (or $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }}`$) of the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP), which turns out to be the lightest neutralino ($`\stackrel{~}{\chi }`$), and the relative mass splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2}=(m_{\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2}m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }})/m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }}`$ between the lightest stau mass eigenstate ($`\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2`$) and the LSP. In Fig.1 we display the changes on $`M_{SUSY}`$ and the mass of the pseudo-scalar Higgs, $`m_A`$, for several values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2}`$, and $`m_b(M_Z)`$. These changes will help us to understand the corresponding predictions for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{LSP}h^2`$ in the presence of resonant annihilation channels for values of $`m_A2m_{LSP}`$.

Here, the LSP ($`\stackrel{~}{\chi }`$) is an almost pure bino. Its relic abundance will be calculated by micrOMEGAs , which is the most complete code available. It includes all the coannihilations  of neutralinos, charginos, sleptons, squarks and gluinos since it incorporates automatically all possible channels by using COMPHEP  (A similar calculation has appeared in Ref..) Also, poles and thresholds are properly handled and one-loop QCD corrected Higgs decay widths  are used, which is the main improvement provided by Ref.. The SUSY corrections  to these widths are, however, not included. Fortunately, in our case, their effect is much smaller than that of the QCD corrections. From the recent results of DASI , one finds that the $`95\%`$ c.l. range of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{CDM}h^2`$ is $`0.060.22`$. Therefore, we require that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{LSP}h^2`$ does not exceed 0.22.

In order to have an independent check of micrOMEGAs, we also use the following alternative method for calculating $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{LSP}h^2`$ in our model. In most of the parameter space where coannihilations are unimportant, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{LSP}h^2`$ can be calculated by using DarkSUSY  111 An updated version of this code is now available .. Its neutralino annihilation part is in excellent numerical agreement with the recent exact analytic calculation of Ref., the main defect of its current version is that it uses the tree-level Higgs decay widths. This can be approximately corrected if, in evaluating the Higgs decay widths, we replace $`m_b(m_b)`$ by $`m_b`$ at the mass of the appropriate Higgs boson in the couplings of the $`b`$-quark to the Higgs bosons (see Ref.). In the region of the parameter space where coannihilations come into play, the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) turns out to be the $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2`$ and the only relevant coannihilations are the bino-stau ones  (we do not find bino-stop cannihilations , potencially important when $`A`$ is negative). In this region, which is given by $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2}<0.25`$, we calculate $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{LSP}h^2`$ by using an improved version of the analysis of Ref.. The list of bino-stau coannihilation channels appropriate for all $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$’s given Ref.  has been completed with some additional channels as described in (see also Refs.). Their corresponding cross sections are combined with the results of DarkSUSY as described in . The results presented in Fig. 2 show an impressive agreement of the two methods.

We calculate $`\mathrm{BR}(bs\gamma )`$ using the formalism of Ref., where the SM contribution is factorized out. This contribution includes the next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD and the leading order (LO) QED corrections. The charged Higgs boson contribution to $`\mathrm{BR}(bs\gamma )`$ is evaluated by including the NLO QCD corrections from Ref.. The dominant SUSY contribution includes the NLO QCD corrections from Ref., which hold for large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. With the considerations of  the $`95\%`$ c.l. range of this branching ratio then turns out to be about $`(1.94.6)\times 10^4`$.

According with the latest measurement  of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon $`a_\mu (g_\mu 2)/2`$, the deviation of from its predicted value in the SM , $`\delta a_\mu `$, is found to lie, at $`95\%`$ c.l., in the range from $`4.7\times 10^{10}`$ to $`56\times 10^{10}`$ when the SM calculations based in $`e^+e^{}`$ data and in $`\tau `$ data are both taken into account. The calculation of $`\delta a_\mu `$ in the CMSSM is performed here by using the analysis of Ref., the updating of the experimental bounds does not introduce significant differences respect the results presented in .

We will also impose the $`95\%`$ c.l. LEP bound on the lightest CP-even neutral Higgs boson mass $`m_h>114.1\mathrm{GeV}`$. In the CMSSM, this bound holds almost always for all $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$’s, at least as long as CP is conserved. The CP-even neutral Higgs boson mass matrix by using FeynHiggsFast . Finally, for the values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ which appear here (about 60), the CDF results yield the $`95\%`$ c.l. bound $`m_A>110\mathrm{GeV}`$ .

## 3 The Allowed Parameter Space

The restrictions on the $`m_{LSP}\mathrm{\Delta }_{\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2}`$ plane, for $`A_0=0`$ and with the central value of $`\alpha _s(M_Z)=0.1185`$, are shown in Fig.3. The dashed (dotted) lines correspond to the $`95\%`$ c.l. lower (upper) experimental bound on $`m_b(M_Z)`$ which is $`2.684\mathrm{GeV}`$ ($`3.092\mathrm{GeV}`$), while the solid lines correspond to the central experimental value of $`m_b(M_Z)=2.888\mathrm{GeV}`$. From left to right, the dashed (dotted) lines depict the lower bounds on $`m_{LSP}`$ from the constraints $`m_A>110\mathrm{GeV}`$, $`\mathrm{BR}(bs\gamma )>1.9\times 10^4`$ and $`\delta a_\mu <58\times 10^{10}`$, and the $`95\%`$ c.l. upper bound on $`m_{LSP}`$ from $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{LSP}h^2<0.22`$. The constraints $`\mathrm{BR}(bs\gamma )<4.6\times 10^4`$ and $`\delta a_\mu >6\times 10^{10}`$ do not restrict the parameters since they are always satisfied for $`\mu >0`$. The left solid line depicts the lower bound on $`m_{LSP}`$ from $`m_h>114.1\mathrm{GeV}`$ which does not depend much on $`m_b(M_Z)`$, while the right solid line corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{LSP}h^2=0.22`$ for the central value of $`m_b(M_Z)`$. We see that $`m_A`$ is always smaller than $`2m_{LSP}`$ but close to it. Thus, generally, the neutralino annihilation via the s-channel exchange of an $`A`$-boson is by far the dominant (co)annihilation process. We also observe that, as $`m_{LSP}`$ or $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2}`$ increase, we move away from the $`A`$-pole, which thus becomes less efficient. As a consequence, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{LSP}h^2`$ increases with $`m_{LSP}`$ or $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2}`$ (see Fig.2).

In the allowed (shaded) area of Fig. 3 which corresponds to the central value of $`m_b(M_Z)`$, the parameter $`c`$ ($`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$) varies between about 0.15 and 0.20 (58 and 59). For $`m_b(M_Z)`$ fixed to its lower or upper bound, we find that, in the corresponding allowed area, the parameter $`c`$ ($`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$) ranges between about 0.17 and 0.23 (59 and 61) or 0.13 and 0.17 (56 and 58). We observe that, as we increase $`m_b(M_Z)`$, the parameter $`c`$ decreases and we get closer to exact Yukawa unification. This behavior is certainly consistent with the fact that the value of $`m_b(M_Z)`$ which corresponds to exact Yukawa unification lies well above its $`95\%`$ c.l. range. The LSP mass is restricted to be higher than about $`138\mathrm{GeV}`$ for $`A_0=0`$ and $`\alpha _s(M_Z)=0.1185`$, with the minimum being practically $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2}`$-independent. At this minimum, $`c0.160.20`$ ($`c0.130.23`$) and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta 59`$ ($`\mathrm{tan}\beta 5861`$) for $`m_b(M_Z)=2.888\mathrm{GeV}`$ ($`m_b(M_Z)=2.6843.092\mathrm{GeV}`$).

In Fig. 3, we present the restrictions on the $`m_{LSP}A_0/M_{1/2}`$ plane for $`m_b(M_Z)=2.888\mathrm{GeV}`$, $`\alpha _s(M_Z)=0.1185`$ and fixed values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2}`$. The most significant restriction on the allowed area are due to the displacement of the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{LSP}h^2=0.22`$ line as $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2}`$ increases, showing clearly the effect of the bino-stau coannihilations on the left panel. On the right panel we can observe that the allowed area becomes narrower as $`|A_0/M_{1/2}|0`$.

## 4 Conclusions

We showed that, in the particular model with Yukawa quasi-unification considered, there exists a wide and natural range of CMSSM parameters which is consistent with all the above constraints. We found that, within the investigated part of the overall allowed parameter space, the parameter $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ ranges between about 58 and 61 and the ‘asymptotic’ splitting between the bottom (or tau) and the top Yukawa couplings varies in the range $`2635\%`$ for central values of $`m_b(M_Z)`$ and $`\alpha _s(M_Z)`$.

Acknowledgements. This work was supported by European Union under the RTN contracts HPRN-CT-2000-00148 and HPRN-CT-2000-00152. M.E.G. acknowledges support from the ‘Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia’ under contract SFRH/BPD/5711/2001 and project CFIF-Plurianual (2/91).


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# The galaxy population of the 𝑧=1 cluster of galaxies MG2016+112Based on observations made with ESO Telescopes at the Paranal Observatory under programmes ID 63.O-0379 and 65.O-0666

## 1 introduction

### 1.1 Galaxy evolution in clusters

The predominance of early-type galaxies in clusters compared with the field is a clear sign that the evolution of galaxies depends on environment, but the physical mechanism at work, in particular the question of when and how the most massive galaxies, the giant ellipticals, formed is a topic of ongoing theoretical and observational research.

The traditional “monolithic” elliptical galaxy formation scenario proposed by Eggen et al. (1962) postulates a single burst of star formation at high redshift, followed by passive stellar evolution.

Early type galaxies in nearby and intermediate redshift clusters are observed to form a tight colour-magnitude relation (Bower et al., 1992; Aragon-Salamanca et al., 1993; Gladders et al., 1998; Stanford et al., 1998), or “red sequence” which when combined with the close correlation between galaxy mass and metallicity implied by the Mg2-$`\sigma `$ relation (Bender et al., 1993) is explained naturally by a single, early episode of star formation ($`z_f>2`$). If more massive galaxies are more efficient at retaining supernova ejecta, they will have higher metallicities, and therefore redder colours (Arimoto & Yoshii, 1987; Kodama & Arimoto, 1997).

There is however many pieces of evidence suggesting that the evolution of the entire cluster galaxy population is not as simple as expected from the monolithic galaxy formation scenario. The fraction of blue galaxies in clusters increase rapidly with redshift (Butcher & Oemler, 1978, 1984; Rakos & Schombert, 1995). High resolution imaging and spectroscopic studies show that a significant fraction of intermediate redshift blue galaxies are late-type spirals with emission lines and/or post-starburst signatures (Dressler & Gunn (1992); Dressler et al. (1999); Poggianti et al. (1999) and that the cluster S0 population is far less abundant at $`z0.5`$ than today. It has been proposed that these blue star-forming galaxies are the progenitors of cluster S0 galaxies (Dressler et al., 1997; van Dokkum et al., 1998; van Dokkum et al., 2000). In agreement with this explanation of the Butcher-Oemler effect, some S0s in the present epoch appear to contain younger stellar populations (Kuntschner & Davies, 1998).

Hierarchical structure formation models present a very different view of galaxy evolution in which galaxies assemble by merging of smaller stellar systems over a wide redshift range. In this scenario, the evolution of elliptical galaxies are governed by the time at which the bulk of the stellar populations are formed, the era when the majority of mergers took place, and the amount of new star formation induced during each merger event. If the formation of the stars in an elliptical galaxy takes place over a broad cosmic time interval, then ellipticals at any redshift should exhibit a wide range of mass-weighted stellar ages. If however most stars in present day cluster ellipticals were formed in smaller disks at high redshift $`z1`$ and if little additional star formation took place in subsequent mergers, then the end product ellipticals could appear to be old and approximately coeval even if the bulk of merging took place relatively late. The hierarchical models of Kauffmann & Charlot (1998a) reproduce the colour-magnitude relation of ellipticals because more massive galaxies are formed from merging of systematically more massive progenitors, which retain more metals when forming stars.

Discriminating between the two formation scenarios described above is difficult, even when studying galaxies in clusters at high redshift. An increasing number of observations (Stanford et al., 1997; Ellis et al., 1997; Stanford et al., 1998; Rosati et al., 1999; Nakata et al., 2001) show that the evolution of the “red sequence” to redshifts $`z1`$ is consistent with a high formation redshift and a subsequent passive evolution favored by monolithic collapse, but none of them can exclude the possibility that cluster ellipticals formed from mergers of smaller galaxies as long as the bulk of star formation took place at much larger redshifts and there was little star formation in the subsequent merging process.

One way to distinguish between the two scenarios is by studying the evolution of the mass function of the cluster galaxies. Hierarchical galaxy formation models predicts the mass assembly of galaxies to take place over a long time scale ($`z2`$) and to be quite decoupled from star formation (Kauffmann & Charlot, 1998b). If this picture is true, a strong evolution of the stellar mass function with redshift is expected. This evolution is best studied in the $`Ks`$-band because it is relatively unaffected by ongoing/recent star-formation and hence directly measures the growth of galaxy mass (Kauffmann & Charlot, 1998b).

Locally, the cluster galaxy luminosity function have been studied in great detail both at optical and Near Infrared (NIR) wavelengths. Goto et al. (2002) derive the composite luminosity function of 204 “Sloan Digital Sky Survey Cut & Enhance Galaxy Cluster Catalog” in the redshift range range $`z=0.02`$ to $`z=0.25`$ in the five SDSS bands $`u^{}`$, $`g^{}`$, $`r^{}`$, $`i^{}`$ and $`z^{}`$, and find that the faint-end slope of the luminosity function becomes flatter toward the redder wavebands, consistent with the hypothesis that the cluster luminosity function has two distinct underlying populations; a population of bright ellipticals with a gaussian-like luminosity distribution that dominate the bright end, and a population of faint blue star-forming galaxies with a steep power-law like luminosity distribution, that dominate the faint-end. de Propris et al. (1998) derive the NIR (H-band) luminosity function of the Coma cluster galaxies, and find results consistent with the above picture of a population of bright red galaxies and large population of faint blue dwarf galaxies.

HST imaging of high redshift cluster galaxies have revealed a population of luminous “red” mergers in high redshift clusters (van Dokkum et al., 2000; van Dokkum et al., 2001). The existence of these galaxies which follow the same colour-magnitude relation as the cluster ellipticals (but with a slightly larger scatter) supports the hierarchical galaxy formation scenario.

The bright (massive) end of the luminosity function is expected to steepen and shift to fainter magnitudes at high redshift, as the old bright cluster galaxies begin to break up into building blocks.

In contrast to the bright cluster galaxies, the faint cluster galaxies seem to have a much greater diversity of star formation histories (Kodama & Bower, 2001). The Butcher-Oemler effect in intermediate redshift is an example of this. If this progression of activity to lower-mass galaxies as the universe ages is a consequence of the faint galaxies forming at later cosmic times than their massive counterparts, then distant clusters should have a luminosity function with a declining faint-end slope in contrast to rising faint-end slope of local clusters (de Propris et al., 1998).

The evolution of the $`K`$-band luminosity function in the redshift range $`z=0.1`$-$`0.9`$ has been studied by de Propris et al. (1999). The evolution of the characteristic magnitude $`K^{}`$ of the galaxies, is found to be consistent with what is expected for a passively evolving population of galaxies formed at $`z_f>2`$. The data is not deep enough to constrain the faint-end slope which is fixed at $`\alpha =0.9`$ (the value derived in the H-band for the Coma cluster). The authors find no significant dependence on the X-ray luminosity of the clusters.

Nakata et al. (2001) extend the study to $`z=1.2`$ by deriving the $`K`$ band luminosity function for the cluster around the radio galaxy 3C324. These authors also choose to fix the faint-end slope at $`\alpha =0.9`$ and find consistency with what is expected for passively evolving stellar populations formed at $`z_f>2`$.

The suggested passive evolution of $`K^{}`$ with redshift to $`z=1.2`$ is a nice confirmation of the passively evolving stellar population found from other methods (such as the colour-magnitude relation), but does not help discriminate between the monolithic and hierarchical formation scenarios, since no steepening of the bright end of the luminosity function (a deficit of the brightest galaxies) has been observed and no attempt has been made to measure the faint-end slope.

### 1.2 Previous observations of the MG2016+112 system

MG2016+112 is a wide separation gravitational lens first identified by Lawrence et al. (1984) to be comprised of at least three lensed images of an active galactic nucleus (AGN) at redshift $`z=3.269`$. The primary lensing object is a giant elliptical galaxy at $`z=1.004`$ (hereafter “the lens galaxy”, Schneider et al. (1986); Soucail et al. (2001); Koopmans & Treu (2002)). Wide separation gravitational lens systems have in many cases been found to contain galaxy clusters or groups that contribute significantly to the large separation angles. A nice property of clusters discovered in this way is that they are mass selected, and therefore not biased toward the old relaxed systems that clusters selected in X-rays or in the optical/NIR are (since their selection depends on the presence of thermalized gas and/or central concentrations of luminous old red galaxies).

Hattori et al. (1997) reported the detection of resolved X-ray emission at $`z1`$ centered on the lens galaxy. This result was based on the detection of an X-ray line at 3.35 keV in the ASCA spectra of the system, which was interpreted as Fe K emission originating from a cluster at $`z1`$, and on the detection of “diffuse” X-ray emission near the giant elliptical in ROSAT HRI observations. Infrared and optical observations of the field revealed no excess of galaxies around the giant elliptical lens (Schneider et al., 1985; Langston et al., 1991; Lawrence et al., 1993). This led to the suggestion of a “dark cluster” associated with the lens, in which a cluster sized dark matter and hot gas overdensity exists with few optically bright galaxies ($`M/L_V>2000M_{\mathrm{}}/L_{\mathrm{}}`$). This conclusion was puzzling as the observed iron line in the X-ray spectra indicated a near solar metallicity for the cluster, which implies a long history of star-formation in the region. Benítez et al. (1999) re-analyzed the ROSAT HRI data and found a faint elliptical X-ray source which was coincident with a red galaxy overdensity. Deep $`V`$,$`I`$ and $`K`$ band Keck imaging revealed a red sequence of galaxies, with colours consistent with being at redshift $`z1`$.

Soucail et al. (2001) performed a spectroscopic survey of 44 galaxies in the field and found an excess of 6 red galaxies securely identified to be at $`z1`$, though not very centrally concentrated around the giant elliptical galaxy. For these six galaxies a mean redshift of $`z=1.005`$, a velocity dispersion of $`\sigma =771_{160}^{+430}`$km s-1, a dynamical mass estimate of $`2.8\times 10^{14}h_{50}M_{\mathrm{}}`$ and a V-band mass-to-light ratio of $`M/L_V=215_{77}^{+308}h_{50}M_{\mathrm{}}/L_{\mathrm{}}`$ was derived.

It is interesting to note that a high fraction of the $`z=1`$ galaxies (5 out of 6) have emission lines in their spectra, indicating the presence of young stellar populations. This is a much larger fraction than in low redshift clusters which are dominated by old quiescent galaxies with no emission lines, and also much higher than in other high redshift ($`z1`$) clusters, where the fraction of emission line galaxies is found to be 10-15% (Stanford et al., 1997; Rosati et al., 1999).

Clowe et al. (2001) performed a weak lensing analysis of the field and detected a mass concentration 64″ northwest of the lensing galaxy, and were able to rule out (at the $`2\sigma `$ level) a mass peak centered on the lensing galaxy of the size suggested by the Hattori et al. (1997) X-ray observations.

Chartas et al. (2001) recently acquired a 7.7 ksec observation of the system with Chandra. These observations can account for all the X-ray emission as originating from the lensed images and additional X-ray point sources in the field, and place an $`3\sigma `$ upper limit on the 2-10 keV flux and luminosity of diffuse cluster emission of 1.6 $`\times `$ 10-14 ergs s-1 cm-2 and 1.7 $`\times `$ 1044 ergs s-1, respectively, and an estimated upper limit on the mass $`M_{500}<4.5\times 10^{14}h_{50}M_{\mathrm{}}`$ and mass-to-light ratio of $`M/L_V<190M_{\mathrm{}}/L_{\mathrm{}}`$.

Rather than being an X-ray luminous “dark-cluster”, MG2016+112 thus turned out to be a spectroscopically confirmed cluster of galaxies, detected neither in X-rays nor in weak lensing maps.

In this paper we revisit the system through deep NIR and optical observations. We identify 69 galaxies in the field with photometric redshifts consistent with being cluster galaxies at redshift $`z=1`$ and derive their colour-magnitude sequences and their luminosity function.

The outline of the paper is as follows: In section 2 we describe the observations and data reduction. In section 3 we describe the construction of a multi colour photometric catalog of galaxies in the field (object detection, matching, photometry, star/galaxy separation). In section 4 we discuss the photometric redshift analysis. The results are presented in section 5 and summarized in Section 6.

Throughout this paper we assume a flat $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, $`h_0=0.70`$ cosmology unless otherwise noted.

## 2 Observations and data reduction

The observational basis of this work consists of very deep NIR $`J`$ and $`Ks`$ band observations carried out with the ISAAC instrument (proposal 63.O-0379) in service mode between May and July 1999, and moderately deep optical $`B`$, $`V`$, $`R`$, and $`I`$ band observations carried out with the FORS1 instrument (proposal 65.O-0666) in service mode in July 2000. Both FORS1 and ISAAC are mounted on the VLT/ANTU telescope. ISAAC employs a $`1024^2`$ Hawaii array, with a pixel scale of $`0\stackrel{}{.}147`$ and a field of view (FOV) of $`2\stackrel{}{.}5\times 2\stackrel{}{.}5`$. FORS1 employs a $`2048^2`$ CCD (TK2048EB4) which with the high resolution collimator used for the present observations has a pixel scale of $`0\stackrel{}{.}1`$ and a FOV of $`3\stackrel{}{.}4\times 3\stackrel{}{.}4`$.

The data was originally obtained for other purposes than studying the cluster galaxy population. The NIR dataset was designed to perform a weak lensing analysis on the background galaxies. The optical dataset was designed to study the central bright gravitationally lensed QSO and is therefore not deep enough to detect the fainter cluster galaxies. The derived magnitudes (or upper limits) however serve as powerful input for the photometric redshift analysis which separates the cluster galaxies from the foreground and background field galaxy population. All observations were performed in excellent seeing conditions. The observing log is given in Tab. 1.

### 2.1 Reduction and calibration of NIR data

The deep near-infrared imaging consists of 70 images of 2 minutes integration time (2 hours 20 minutes) obtained in $`J`$ in 3 independent sequences, and 275 images of 1 minute each (4 hours 35 minutes) obtained in $`Ks`$ in 5 sequences. Some of them were taken in photometric conditions while others not, so subsequent re-scaling to the photometric ones was applied in the final combination. Data reduction was performed with the “eclipse” software package (Devillard, 1997) and IRAF routines. Flat-fields were produced from series of twilight sky flats. To take into account the rapidly varying NIR background the sky value in each pixel was calculated as a running median of the pixel value in the exposures taken immediately before and after a given exposure.

To compensate for the dithering pattern and optical distortion the individual frames were transformed to a reference frame using a 3rd order geometrical transformation calculated from the position of 30-40 stars in each frame. Finally, the images were averaged with some clipping to remove residuals defects. Photometric calibration was obtained through the observations of standard calibration stars during the photometric nights of the programme.

### 2.2 Reduction and calibration of optical data

The individual optical data frames were bias subtracted and flat fielded using the standard ESO pipeline and cleaned for cosmic rays using Laplacian edge detection (van Dokkum, 2001). In some of the frames the background was found to have large scale gradients over the field. To properly account for this we ran all the frames through the SExtractor software (Bertin & Arnouts, 1996) with options set to save a full resolution interpolated background map, which was then subtracted from the science frames (large scale background variation are well modeled by SExtractor). Cosmetic defects in areas with no objects were patched by interpolation of the background in surrounding annuli. This was necessary since some wavebands had too few exposures for deviant pixel rejection. Finally the individual frames were geometrically transformed to the same reference frame and combined using the IRAF tasks *geoform*, *geotran* and *imcombine*.

The combined frames were calibrated using the atmospheric extinction and color corrected zero-points quoted on the ESO webpage, and corrected for Galactic extinction using the parameterization of the Galactic extinction law of Cardelli, Clayton & Mathis (1989), assuming the mean Galactic value for the total-to-selective extinction in the V band $`R_V=R_V_{MW}=3.1`$ and E(B$``$V)=0.22 (from interpolation of DIRBE/IRAS dust maps, Schlegel et al. 1998). Finally, all the frames were WCS calibrated using the USNO-A2.0 catalog (Monet & et al., 1998).

## 3 Object detection, Photometry and Matching

Object detection was done in the $`Ks`$ band, using the SExtractor software (Bertin & Arnouts, 1996) with default parameter settings. We searched for the detected objects in the remaining frames using the SExtractor ASSOC option, which assumes that the frames being matched have been registered to the same pixel coordinate system.

The transformations of the combined images to the $`Ks`$-band image were derived using the IRAF tasks *geoform*.

Transforming the optical images to the $`Ks`$-band image includes a rebinning (due to the different pixel scales of the two instruments) in addition to the distortion transformation. To avoid this image degradation, as well as other potential problems associated with non-linear image transformations, such as blurring of persistent bad pixels and cosmic ray events, corruption of the background statistics etc. we transformed the $`Ks`$-band object list xy-pixel coordinates to match the reference frames of the other images using the IRAF task *geoxytran*, rather than transforming the images themselves. In this way the photometry is performed on the original, untransformed images.

For the total $`Ks`$ band magnitudes of the objects we used SExtractors *mag\_best* which has been shown to be accurate to about $`0\stackrel{m}{.}05`$ (Smail et al., 2001) and colours were derived in fixed apertures of approximately 12 kpc at $`z=1`$ (10 pixels in the ISAAC images, 15 pixels in the FORS1 images).

### 3.1 Completeness

To estimate the completeness magnitude of the observations we ran SExtractor object detection independently on all the frames. In Fig. 1 we plot the number of detected objects as a function of $`Ks`$ and $`J`$ band magnitude. From visual inspection of the turnover magnitudes of the distributions in Fig. 1 we estimate that the $`Ks`$ band observations are complete to about 22$`\stackrel{m}{.}`$0 and the $`J`$ band observations are complete to about 23$`\stackrel{m}{.}`$0. The estimated completeness magnitudes of all the wavebands, including the optical are listed in Tab. 1.

### 3.2 Star/galaxy separation

SExtractor assigns to each object a parameter *class\_star* which ranges from 0 to 1. When the FWHM is well determined stars obtain values close to 1, while extended objects obtain values close to 0. A main concern is contamination of the galaxy sample by stars, especially since some of them (e.g. M stars) would have the same colours as early-type galaxies at the cluster redshift. We therefore adopt a very conservative threshold in the *class\_star* parameter of 0.05. Objects with *class\_star* larger than this value in the $`Ks`$ band or $`J`$ band are labeled stars. Now we can construct a multi colour catalogue of galaxies consisting of objects which (i) have $`Ks22`$ (ii) are detected in at least two bands and (iii) are classified as a galaxy by means of the *class\_star* parameter.

## 4 Photometric Redshift Analysis

To separate the cluster galaxies from the foreground and background galaxies we estimated their redshifts using the public *hyperz* photometric redshift code of Bolzonella et al. (1996). The code uses the GISSEL98 (Galaxy Isochrone Synthesis Spectral Evolution Library) spectral evolution library of Bruzual & Charlot (1993) to build synthetic spectra with 7 different star formation histories which match the observed properties of local galaxies from E to Irr type: a constant star-forming rate and six exponentially decaying star formation rates with time scales from 1-30 Gyr. The models assume solar metallicity and a Millar-Scalo IMF, and internal reddening is considered using the Calzetti et al. (2000) model with $`A_V`$ varying between 0$`\stackrel{m}{.}`$0 and 1$`\stackrel{m}{.}`$2. Objects not detected in a waveband are assigned zero flux (with an error corresponding to the limiting magnitude) rather than just ignored in the fit. This “upper limit” is important for the photometric redshift determination and is the reason for including the rather “shallow” optical data in the analysis. Fig. 2 shows a histogram of the derived photometric redshifts of all the galaxies in the field. There is a distinct peak at redshift $`z_{phot}1`$, and quite a few galaxies with $`z_{phot}0.2`$.

In Fig. 3 we plot the derived photometric redshifts of all the galaxies in the field versus their $`Ks`$-band magnitude. The open squares mark the galaxies which have been spectroscopically confirmed to be at redshift $`z=1`$ (hereafter spectroscopic members, Soucail et al. (2001)). The full line marks the redshift of the lensing galaxy at $`z=1`$ while the dashed lines are the limits $`z_{phot}=0.7`$ and $`z_{phot}=1.2`$ that encompasses all the galaxies in the peak around $`z_{phot}=1`$, including the 5 spectroscopically confirmed ones. Fig. 3 reveals that most of the $`z_{phot}0.2`$ are faint $`Ks>20`$ galaxies which may have been misclassified as dusty low redshift galaxies due to poor photometry.

We classify the 69 galaxies within the limits $`0.7z_{phot}1.2`$ as probable cluster galaxies (hereafter photometric members). The choice of limits is a trade off between maximum cluster galaxy completeness and minimum contamination from field galaxies. We choose the lower limit to be $`z_{phot}>0.7`$ rather than e.g. $`z_{phot}>0.8`$ to avoid excluding spectroscopic members, and other cluster galaxies with similar colours. Young stellar populations in the cluster galaxies can influence their broadband colours and derived photometric redshifts due to the discrete nature of the spectral library used by *hyperz*. Since a large fraction of the spectroscopically confirmed cluster galaxies show evidence of recent star formation it is likely that this is also the case for other cluster galaxies. Some galaxies in the $`0.7<z_{phot}<0.8`$ interval may be truly foreground, but many could also be cluster galaxies at $`z=1`$ with recent star formation. To test the stability of the photometric redshifts derived with *hyperz* versus the photometric errors we did the following: For each $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$=0.5 mag bins in the observed range of magnitudes $`Ks=1622`$, we generated a catalogue of 1000 galaxies at $`z=1`$ for the same bandpasses and limiting magnitudes as for the data of MG2016+112. The catalogue was generated using the *make\_catalog* code in the *hyperz* package. The galaxies are randomly drawn from the 7 template spectral types (E to Im) used for estimating the photometric redshifts. We then apply *hyperz* to the catalog to estimate the photometric redshifts. In Fig. 5 we plot the fraction of the input ($`z=1`$) galaxies that have derived photometric redshifts in the range $`0.7<z_{phot}<1.2`$ as a function of $`Ks`$-band magnitude. From this figure it can be seen that *hyperz* recovers 100% of the galaxies down to magnitudes of $`Ks=18.5`$. At $`Ks=20`$ it recovers about 90% and at $`Ks=22`$ the recovery rate is down to 40%.

The redshift evolution of the field galaxy luminosity function, and its cosmic variance is not known with sufficient accuracy to correctly incorporate the effects of pollution from field galaxies in the completeness function analysis. Instead we will return to the issue of field contamination in Sec. 5.1 where we discuss the derived projected spatial distribution of the cluster galaxies, and in Sec. 5.4 where we discuss their luminosity function.

## 5 Results

### 5.1 Distribution of the cluster galaxies

The distribution of the cluster galaxies (photometric members) on the sky is not very centrally concentrated. This is illustrated in Fig. 4 where the overlay circles mark the photometric cluster members, and in Fig. 6 where the overlay represents contours of the smoothed density distribution of the photometric member galaxies. The contours are 3-30$`\sigma `$ above the background density which is taken to be the density of galaxies in the HDFN with $`K_s<22`$ and $`0.7<z_{phot}<1.2`$ (Fernández-Soto et al., 1999). The apparent morphology of the cluster is an elongated filamentary-like distribution similar to what is observed in other $`z>1`$ clusters (e.g. the Lynx clusters (Stanford et al., 1997; Rosati et al., 1999) and the RDCS J0910+5422 cluster (Stanford et al., 2002)) and consistent with what is expected for a “dynamically young” cluster in the process of assembly. The high significance of the overdensity structure, compared to the HDFN indicates that most of the photometric members are $`z=1`$ cluster galaxies rather than random field galaxies that would be distributed more homogeneously across the field. Fig. 7 illustrates that there is no apparent luminosity segregation of the cluster galaxies (i.e the brighter cluster galaxies are not more centrally clustered than the fainter galaxies). This is consistent with the picture of a young cluster where the smaller galaxies have not yet had time to merge and transform into the population of massive galaxies found in the center of relaxed clusters.

### 5.2 Properties of the cluster galaxies

A full morphological analysis of the cluster galaxies requires higher resolution imaging data, and is beyond the scope of this paper, but qualitative inspection of Fig. 4 shows a wide variety of galaxies types: elliptical, spirals and even three or four mergers. Merging cluster galaxies are very rare in the cores of local relaxed clusters. The significant fraction of merging cluster galaxies found here, and in other high redshift clusters (van Dokkum et al., 2000; van Dokkum et al., 2001) is direct evidence of the hierachical formation scenario.

### 5.3 Colour-magnitude relation

In Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 we plot the $`JKs`$ versus $`Ks`$ and $`RKs`$ vs $`Ks`$ colour-magnitude relations of galaxies in the field of MG2016+112. Filled symbols mark galaxies within 0.5 Mpc of the lensing galaxy. We label this region the “inner region”. Open symbols mark galaxies farther away than 0.5 Mpc from the lensing galaxy. We label this region the “outer region”. The area of the outer region is approximately the same as the inner region. Also indicated are predicted colour-magnitude relations at the cluster redshift ($`z=1`$) for passively evolving galaxies formed at $`z_f`$=2, 3 and 5 (Kodama & Arimoto, 1997). This model assumes that the red sequence of early type galaxies in the colour-magnitude diagram is a pure metalicity sequence as a function of galaxy magnitude, and calibrate its zeropoint using the red sequence of early type galaxies in the Coma cluster.

Most of the photometric members are concentrated in the “inner region” around the lensing galaxy, while the non members are distribubuted more homogeneously across the field. The photometric members span a “red sequence” in the colour-magnitude diagrams with a considerable scatter. The slope and zeropoint of the red sequence are hard to define due to the large scatter but are roughly consistent with predictions of the simple models.

The large observed scatter is likely to be caused by variations in the dust content, the morphology and/or the age of the stellar populations of the galaxies. The red sequence is expected to increase its scatter and eventually fall apart as the redshift approaches the formation redshift of the stars in the galaxies. The properties of the red sequence are consistent with the picture of a young cluster in the process of formation, in which the cluster galaxies habour young stellar populations and have not yet evoloved in to the old red galaxies found in the cores of relaxed clusters.

### 5.4 Cluster galaxy luminosity function

We can now proceed to derive the $`Ks`$-band luminosity function of the cluster galaxies. Since the $`Ks`$-band observations are complete to $`Ks=22`$ and we know the photometric redshift distribution of all galaxies in the field, we can do this without having to make uncertain statistical corrections to account for foreground and background contamination. To take full advantage of the data, we use a maximum likelihood technique applied directly to the luminosity distribution of the cluster galaxies, rather than doing a “least squares” fit to a binned representation. Details of the method are discussed in App.A. In Fig. 10 we show the best fitting Schechter function parameters $`\alpha =0.60_{0.33}^{+0.39}`$ and $`K^{}=18.90_{0.57}^{+0.45}`$.

In Fig. 11 we plot the derived $`Ks`$-band luminosity function of the cluster galaxies. It is found to be well represented by the Schechter function.

The constraints on $`\alpha `$ are not strong, but it is important to leave it as a free parameter since the derived uncertainty on its value is coupled to the derived value of $`Ks^{}`$ and its uncertainties. Also, since $`\alpha `$ has recently been shown to depend on wavelength (Goto et al., 2002) it is interesting to note that the value of $`\alpha `$ is in agreement with the value derived locally in the $`z^{}`$-band (which roughly corresponds to the same restframe wavelength as the $`Ks`$-band at $`z=1`$) namely $`\alpha _{z^{},local}=0.58`$.

Earlier studies of the evolution of the luminosity function with redshift have assumed the faint-end slope to be fixed at the value measured in the Coma cluster $`\alpha =0.9`$ (de Propris et al., 1999; Nakata et al., 2001). To allow a comparison with these results we repeat our analysis with the faint-end slope fixed at $`\alpha =0.9`$ and derive a 1$`\sigma `$ constraint on the characteristic magnitude of $`K_s^{}=18.60_{0.24}^{+0.22}`$. In Fig. 12 we compare the derived value of $`K_s^{}`$ with values derived at other redshifts, and with the predictions of passively evolving stellar population models with different formation redshifts (Kodama & Arimoto, 1997). Dashed lines are calculated in a $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$, $`h_0=0.6`$ cosmology while full lines are calculated in a $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, $`h_0=0.7`$ cosmology. The filled circle is the value derived with $`\alpha `$ left as a free parameter. The open circle is the value derived with a fixed $`\alpha =0.9`$. We have included this result in the plot to make a more direct comparison with results from the literature.

As expected from Fig. 10, fixing $`\alpha `$ results in a brighter best fitting $`K_s^{}`$ with smaller errorbars, bringing it into perfect agreement with the results of de Propris et al. (1999) and Nakata et al. (2001) and consistency with what is expected for a passively evolving stellar populations formed at high redshift $`z_f2`$.

To investigate the effects of field galaxy polution we redid the analysis on a subsample of the photometric member galaxies with photmetric redshifts in the range $`0.9<z_{phot}<1.1`$. This limits the effects of field galaxy polution but also excludes several known (bright) cluster galaxies from the sample. The best fitting values obtained in this way are $`\alpha =0.51_{0.28}^{+0.43}`$ and $`K_s^{}=19.10_{0.25}^{+0.77}`$. The favored $`K_s^{}`$ is a bit fainter, due to the exclusion of some of the brightetest galaxies from the sample, but apart from that the main effect is an increase of the size of the error bars. With the faint-end slope fixed at $`\alpha =0.9`$, the best fitting characteristic magnitude hardly changes. The derived value is $`K_s^{}=18.55_{0.27}^{+0.24}`$.

From the present analysis we conclude that the effects of field galaxy polution on the derived luminosity function paramenters are marginal, but that fixing the faint-end slope of the cluster galaxy luminosity function directly affects the derived characteristic magnitude. We find no evidence for a steepening or shift to fainter magnitudes of the bright end of the (cluster galaxy) luminosity function at $`z=1`$, when compared to the local ($`z=0`$) one. Nor do we find a significant change of its faint-end slope to support the hierachical formation scenario.

### 5.5 Mass-to-light ratio

The restframe $`K_s`$-band mass-to-light ratio of the cluster around MG2016+112 can be estimated by comparing the total cluster mass, estimated from the velocity dispersion of 6 cluster members (Soucail et al., 2001), with the total K-corrected $`Ks`$-band flux of the cluster galaxies. We calculate the absolute K-corrected $`Ks`$-band magnitude of the cluster galaxies to be

$$M_{Ks}=m_{Ks}5\mathrm{log}d_L25k_{Ks}(z=1),$$
(1)
where $`d_L`$ is the luminosity distance in Mpc calculated in a $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$, $`h_0=0.5`$ (for easier compariason to previous results), and $`k_{Ks}(z=1)=0.352`$ is the k correction in the $`Ks`$ band for an object at redshift $`z=1`$ from Poggianti (1997) (we apply this term to be able to compare with the absolute $`Ks`$-band magnitude of the sun. We assume $`M_V\mathrm{}=4.8`$ and $`(VKs)_{\mathrm{}}=1.45`$).

The derived $`Ks`$-band mass-to-light ratio of the cluster is found to be $`M/L_{Ks}=27_{17}^{+64}h_{50}(M/L_{Ks})_{\mathrm{}}`$. This is in agreement with the upper limit on the total mass of the cluster derived from X-rays (Chartas et al., 2001) which when combined with our estimate of the total $`Ks`$-band luminosity of the cluster galaxies translates into the following upper limit on $`Ks`$-band mass-to-light ratio $`M/L_{Ks}<43h_{50}(M/L_{Ks})_{\mathrm{}}`$, and in agreement with the $`Ks`$-band mass-to-light ratio derived locally in the Coma cluster $`M/L_{Ks}=38\pm 23h_{50}(M/L_{Ks})_{\mathrm{}}`$ (Rines et al., 2001).

## 6 Summary

We have obtained deep NIR and optical imaging of the field around the wide separation gravitational lens MG2016+112. A photometric redshift analysis of objects in the field, reveal 69 galaxies with photometric redshifts consistent with being in a cluster at the redshift of the lensing galaxy $`z=1`$.

The $`Ks`$-band luminosity function of the cluster galaxies is well represented by the Schechter function. The best fitting faint-end slope $`\alpha =0.60_{0.33}^{+0.39}`$ is consistent with what is measured at the same restframe wavelength (the $`z^{}`$ band) locally, providing no evidence of evolution. In the bright end no steepening or shift to fainter magnitudes of the luminosity function is found. The best fitting characteristic magnitude $`K^{}=18.90_{0.57}^{+0.45}`$ is consistent with what is expected for a passively evolving population of galaxies formed at high redshift $`z_f2`$. From the $`Ks`$-band flux of the cluster galaxies and the total cluster mass estimates of Soucail et al. (2001) a $`Ks`$-band mass-to-light ratio of $`M/L_{Ks}=27_{17}^{+64}h_{50}(M/L_{Ks})_{\mathrm{}}`$ is derived, consistent with the upper limit derived from Chandra X-ray observations (Chartas et al., 2001) and the value measured locally in the Coma cluster (Rines et al., 2001).

The projected spatial distribution of the cluster galaxies is filamentary-like rather than centrally concentrated around the lensing galaxy, and show no apparent luminosity segregation. A handful of the cluster galaxies shows evidence of merging and interaction. The cluster galaxies span a red sequence with a considerable scatter in the colour-magnitude diagrams, suggesting that they contain young stellar populations in addition to the old populations of main sequence stars that dominate the $`Ks`$-band luminosity function. This is in agreement with spectroscopic observations which show that 5 out of 6 galaxies at the redshift of the lensing galaxy has emission lines.

The evidence presented here suggest that a young cluster of galaxies is in the process of assembling around the massive lensing galaxy MG2016+112. The cluster is mass-selected (from the precence of the wide-seperation gravitationally lensed QSO) and is therefore likely to be more typical of the $`z1`$ cluster population than clusters selected using X-ray or optical techniques that rely on the presence of a relaxed intra cluster medium and/or a central concentration of old bright red galaxies for the clusters to be detected.

## Appendix A Deriving the Cluster Galaxy Luminosity Function using the Maximum Likelihood technique

To take full advantage of the data, we apply the maximum likelihood technique of Schechter & Press (1976) directly to the luminosity distribution of the cluster galaxies, rather than doing a “least squares” fit to a binned representation. In this way we include the information that in many magnitudes intervals no galaxies are found, and we do not make the erroneous assumption of the $`\chi ^2`$ method that the underlying distribution is gaussian (it is in fact poissonian, either a galaxy is there or it is not). This in turn leads to results with more realistic errorbars.

In the magnitude interval between $`m`$ and $`m+dm`$, the expected number of galaxies $`p(m)dm`$ is taken to be

$$p(m)dm=f(m)n^{}\left[10^{0.4(m^{}m)}\right]^{\alpha +1}e^{10^{0.4(m^{}m)}}dm,$$
(2)
where $`m^{}`$ is the characteristic magnitude of the cluster galaxies, $`\alpha `$ is the slope of the faint-end of the cluster galaxy luminosity function, $`n^{}`$ is a normalization constant and $`f(m)`$ is the completeness function of the “photometric member” sample (shown in Fig. 5) evaluated in $`m`$.

Poisson statistics gives the probability that a cluster of galaxies characterized by $`n^{}`$, $`m^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$ will yield the data set actually observed ($`N`$; $`m_1`$,$`m_2`$,….,$`m_N`$; $`m_{lim}`$)

$$P=\mathrm{exp}\left[_{\mathrm{}}^{m_{lim}}p(m)𝑑m\right]\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left[p(m_i)dm\right],$$
(3)
where $`m_{lim}`$ is the magnitude limit (to which the dataset is complete, in this case $`m_{lim}=K_{lim}=22`$). The parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`m^{}`$ which are “most likely” to represent the observed data set are those that minimizes the C statistics (the likelihood function (Cash, 1979))

$$C=2\mathrm{l}\mathrm{n}(P).$$
(4)
The minimum value of the C statistics $`C_{min}`$ is found by varying $`\alpha `$ and $`m^{}`$. For each combination of $`\alpha _i`$ and $`m_{,i}`$ we calculate the term $`\mathrm{\Delta }C=C(\alpha _i,m_{,i})C_{min}`$, which is distributed as $`\chi ^2`$ with 2 degrees of freedom (Cash, 1979). From $`\mathrm{\Delta }C`$ the 1-3$`\sigma `$ confidence levels can be derived in a straight forward manner as these (as for the $`\chi ^2`$ distribution) are found where $`\mathrm{\Delta }C=2.29575,6.18008,11.8291`$.

## Acknowledgments

We thank T. Kodama for providing us with his elliptical galaxy evolution models, N. Drory and G. Feulner for letting us use their scripts for distortion corrections and H. Ebeling for useful discussions. This work was supported by the Danish Ground-Based Astronomical Instrument Centre (IJAF) and the Danish National Reseach Council (SNF).


text:
# Lepton flavor violating signals of gauge bosons 𝑍' at future 𝑒⁺𝑒⁻ colliders

## Abstract

Many models, such as topcolor-assisted technicolor (TC2) models and flavor-universal TC2 models, predict the existence of extra $`U(1)`$ gauge bosons $`Z^{}`$, which couple preferentially to the third generation. The lepton flavor violating (LFV) signals of these new particles at the future $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders (LCs) are discussed via calculating its contributions to the LFV process $`e^+e^{}\mu \tau `$. We calculate the cross section of this process and discuss its dependence on the beam polarization. The ratio of signal over square root of the background $`(S/\sqrt{B})`$ is also calculated. The results show that the LFV signals of the gauge bosons $`Z^{}`$ may be detected at the future LC experiments.

The high statistic results of the SuperKamiokande (SK) atmospheric neutrino experiment  and the solar neutrino experiment  have made one to believe that neutrinos are massive and oscillate in flavor. This phenomenon is lepton flavor violating (LFV). LFV processes are practically suppressed to zero in the standard model(SM), due to the unitarity of he leptonic analog of the CKM mixing matrix and the near masslessness of the three neutrinos. So the experimental result is the first convincing signature of new physics (NP) beyond the SM and make that one is of interest in the LFV processes.

There are many kinds of NP scenarios predicting new particle, which can lead to significant LFV signals. For example, in the minimal supersymmetric SM, a large $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ mixing leads to clear LFV signals in slepton and sneutrino production and in the decays of neutralinos and charginos into sleptons and sneutrinos at hadron colliders and lepton colliders . The non-universal $`U(1)`$ gauge bosons $`Z^{}`$, which are predicted by various specific models beyond the SM, can lead to the large tree-level flavor changing (FC) couplings. Thus, these new particles may have significant contributions to some LFV processes .

Many kinds of models beyond the SM predict the presence of massive gauge bosons $`Z^{}`$ that couple preferentially to the third generation quarks and leptons. Examples are the topcolor-assisted technicolor (TC2) models  and flavor-universal TC2 models . It has been shown that, to fit the electroweak measurement data, the $`Z^{}`$ mass must be larger than $`1TeV`$ . Some signals of this kind of extra gauge bosons have been studied in literature . In this paper, we are interested in studying the contributions of $`Z^{}`$ to the LFV process $`e^+e^{}\mu \tau `$, as a possible LFV signal of this kind of gauge bosons at the future high energy $`e^+e^{}`$ linear collider (LC) experiments. We calculate the cross section of this process and discuss its dependence on the beam polarization. The main SM backgrounds of this process come from the Drell-Yan process $`e^+e^{}Z(\gamma )\tau ^+\tau ^{}\mu \overline{\nu }_\mu \tau \nu _\tau `$ and $`W^+W^{}`$ pair production $`e^+e^{}W^+W^{}\mu \overline{\nu }_\mu \tau \overline{\nu }_\tau `$. The ratio of signal over square root of the background ($`S/\sqrt{B}`$) is simply calculated. Our results show that there will be several tens and up to thousand events to be generated at a future LC experiment with the center-of-mass energy $`\sqrt{s}=800GeV`$ and a yearly integrated luminosity of $`L=580fb^1`$. The LFV signals of the extra $`U(1)`$ gauge bosons $`Z^{}`$, which couple preferentially to the third generation, may be detected at the future LC experiments.

The key feature of TC2 models  and flavor-universal TC2 models  is that the large top quark mass is mainly generated by topcolor interactions at a scale of order $`1TeV`$. The topcolor interactions may be flavor non-universal (as in TC2 models) or flavor-universal (as in flavor-universal TC2 models). However, to tilt the chiral condensation in the $`t\overline{t}`$ direction and not form a $`b\overline{b}`$ condensation, all of these models need a non-universal extended hypercharge group $`U(1)`$. Thus, the existence of the extra $`U(1)`$ gauge bosons $`Z^{}`$ is predicted. These new particles treat the third generation fermions (quarks and leptons) differently from those in the first and second generations, namely, couple preferentially to the third generation fermions. After the mass diagonalization from the flavor eigenbasis into the mass eigenbasis, these new particles lead to tree-level FC couplings. The couplings of the extra $`U(1)`$ gauge bosons $`Z^{}`$ to ordinary fermions, which are related to our calculation, can be written as :

$$=\frac{1}{2}g_1\{\mathrm{tan}\theta ^{}(\overline{e}_L\gamma ^\mu e_L+2\overline{e}_R\gamma ^\mu e_R)k_{\tau \mu }(\overline{\tau }_L\gamma ^\mu \mu _L+2\overline{\tau }_R\gamma ^\mu \mu _R)\}Z_\mu ^{},$$
(1)
where $`g_1`$ is the hypercharge gauge coupling constant, $`\theta ^{}`$ is the mixing angle with $`\mathrm{tan}\theta ^{}=\frac{g_1}{2\sqrt{\pi k_1}}`$ and $`k_{\tau \mu }`$ is flavor mixing factor. In the following estimation, we will take $`k_{\tau \mu }=\lambda `$, where $`\lambda =0.22`$ is the Wolfenstein parameter .

Since the electroweak gauge bosons $`\gamma `$ and $`Z`$ can not couple to $`\mu \tau `$ at tree-level,we need not consider the interference effects between the $`\gamma `$, $`Z`$ and $`Z^{}`$ on the cross section of the process $`e^+e^{}\mu \tau `$. Then the total unpolarized cross section $`\sigma `$ can be written as (at tree-level):

$$\sigma =\frac{25\pi ^2\alpha ^3k_{\tau \mu }^2}{12C_W^6k_1}\frac{s}{(sM_Z^2)^2+M_Z^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_Z^{}^2},$$
(2)
where $`C_W=\mathrm{cos}\theta _W`$, $`\theta _W`$ is the Weinberg angle. $`\sqrt{s}`$ is the center-of-mass energy of LC experiments. $`M_Z`$ is the mass of the extra $`U(1)`$ gauge boson $`Z^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_Z^{}`$ is its total decay width. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_Z^{}`$ is dominated by $`t\overline{t}`$ and $`b\overline{b}`$, which can be written as :

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_Z^{}\frac{k_1M_Z}{3}$$

To obtain proper vacuum tilting (the topcolor interactions only condense the top quark but not the bottom quark), the coupling constant $`k_1`$ should satisfy certain constraint, i.e. $`k_11`$ . The limits on the $`Z^{}`$ mass $`M_Z`$ can be obtained via studying its effects on experimental observable . Recently, Ref. has shown that, to fit the current electroweak measurement data, the $`Z^{}`$ mass must be larger than $`1TeV`$. As numerical estimation, we assume the center-of-mass energy $`\sqrt{s}=800GeV`$ and take $`k_1`$, $`M_Z`$ as free parameters.

In Fig.1 we plot the production cross section $`\sigma `$ of the LFV process $`e^+e^{}\mu \tau `$ as a function of $`M_Z`$ for three values of the parameter $`k_1`$: $`k_1=0.2`$(solid line), 0.6(dashed line), and 1.0(dotted line). We can see from Fig.1 that the production cross section $`\sigma `$ increases as $`k_1`$ decreasing and strongly suppressed by large $`M_Z`$. For $`k_10.6`$, $`M_Z3TeV`$, the value of $`\sigma `$ is smaller than $`5.8\times 10^3fb`$, which is too small to be detected. However, for $`k_1=0.2`$, $`1TeVM_Z3TeV`$, the cross section $`\sigma `$ varies in the range of $`1.8\times 10^2fb9.5fb`$. In our calculation, we have assumed $`k_{\tau \mu }=\lambda =0.22`$. If we let the flavor mixing factor $`k_{\tau \mu }`$ increase, then the cross section $`\sigma `$ will be enhanced. For example, if we take $`k_{\tau \mu }=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}`$, the cross section $`\sigma `$ can reach $`97fb`$ for $`k_1=0.2`$ and $`M_Z=1TeV`$.

TESLA is a proposed $`e^+e^{}`$ linear collider with a center-of-mass energy $`\sqrt{s}=500GeV`$ or $`800GeV`$. It is a multi-purpose machine that will test various aspects of the SM and search for signals of NP beyond the SM. It has a design luminosity of $`5.8\times 10^{34}cm^2s^1`$ at $`\sqrt{s}=800GeV`$, which corresponds to $`L=580fb^1`$ per year . Thus, for $`k_1=0.2`$, $`1TeVM_Z3TeV`$, there will be about 10 and up to 5533 events to be generated per year at this machine.

A strong longitudinal polarization program at TESLA with considerable polarization of the electron beam and the possibility of polarization of the positron beam is planned . Beam polarization is not only useful for a possible reduction of the background, but might also serve as a possible tool to disentangle different contributions to the signal. Beam polarization of the electron and positron beams would lead to a substantial enhancement of cross section of some processes. Considering the polarization of electron and positron beams, the cross section $`\sigma `$ of the LFV process $`e^+e^{}\mu \tau `$ can be written as:

$$\sigma =(1+P_e)(1P_{\overline{e}})(\sigma _{RR}+\sigma _{RL})+(1P_e)(1+P_{\overline{e}})(\sigma _{LL}+\sigma _{LR}),$$
(3)
where $`P_e`$ and $`P_{\overline{e}}`$ are the degrees of longitudinal electron and positron polarization, respectively. $`\sigma _{ij}`$ are the chiral cross section of this process, which can be easily given from Eq.(1). We calculate the cross section $`\sigma `$ for different beam polarizations. We find that the value of $`\sigma `$ for $`(P_e,P_{\overline{e}})=(0.8,0.6)`$ is equal to that of $`(P_e,P_{\overline{e}})=(0.8,0.6)`$. For $`(P_e,P_{\overline{e}})=(0.8,0.6)`$, the cross section $`\sigma `$ is larger than that of $`(P_e,P_{\overline{e}})=(0,0)`$ in all of the parameter space. In Fig.2 we plot $`\sigma `$ as a function of $`M_Z`$ for $`k_1=0.2`$ and different beam polarizations, in which the solid line, dashed line, dotted line and dotted-dashed line represent $`(P_e,P_{\overline{e}})=(0,0),(0.8,0.6),(0.8,0.6)`$, and $`(0.8,0.6)`$, respectively. From Fig.2 we can see that $`\sigma `$ is indeed sensitive to the polarization of electron and positron beams. For $`(P_e,P_{\overline{e}})=(0.8,0.6)`$ and $`k_1=0.2`$, the cross section $`\sigma `$ varies in the range of $`4.2\times 10^2fb22fb`$ for $`1TeVM_Z3TeV`$.

To see the effect of center-of-mass energy $`\sqrt{s}`$ on the cross section $`\sigma `$, we show the dependence of $`\sigma `$ on $`\sqrt{s}`$ for $`k_1=0.2`$, $`M_Z=1.5TeV`$ and different beam polarizations in Fig.3. We can see from Fig.3 that the cross section $`\sigma `$ increases with $`\sqrt{s}`$ increasing for $`\sqrt{s}M_Z`$. For $`\sqrt{s}=M_Z`$, $`\sigma `$ reach the maximum value. The maximum value of $`\sigma `$ can reach $`464fb`$.

Although the LFV signal is quite spectacular, it is not background-free . The leading SM background of the LFV process $`e^+e^{}\mu \tau `$ come from the Drell-Yan process $`e^+e^{}Z(\gamma )\tau ^+\tau ^{}\mu \overline{\nu }_\mu \nu _\tau \tau `$ and $`W^+W^{}`$ pair production process $`e^+e^{}W^+W^{}\mu \overline{\nu }_\mu \tau \overline{\nu }_\tau `$. As numerical estimation, we only calculate the cross sections of the SM background at tree-level and do not apply cut on the final state. Certainly, cuts as applied in the study of lepton production will enhance the $`S/\sqrt{B}`$, which is the ratio signal over square root of the background. In Fig.4 we plot $`S/\sqrt{B}`$ as a function of the $`Z^{}`$ mass $`M_Z`$ for $`(P_e,P_{\overline{e}})=(0,0)`$ and three values of the parameter $`k_1`$: $`k_1=0.2`$, $`0.6`$ and $`1.0`$. In Fig.4 we have taken the integrated luminosity $`L=580fb^1`$ for $`\sqrt{s}=800GeV`$ and the branching ratios $`Br(\tau \mu \overline{\nu }_\mu \nu _\tau )=(17.4\pm 0.06)\%`$, $`Br(W\mu \overline{\nu }_\mu )=(10.54\pm 0.16)\%`$ and $`Br(W\tau \overline{\nu }_\tau )=(11.09\pm 0.22)\%`$ . From Fig.4 we can see that, with reasonable values of the parameters, the LFV signals of extra $`U(1)`$ gauge bosons $`Z^{}`$ may be detected in the future LC experiments, even if any cuts are not applied and the electron beam and the positron beam are not polarized. If we apply appropriate cuts on the SM background, the cases where the ratio $`S/\sqrt{B}`$ is of order 1 or smaller should clearly improve. For example, a cut on the angular distribution of the final state leptons will strongly reduce the $`WW`$ background.

The results of the atmospheric neutrino experiment and the solar neutrino experiment imply that large mixing is expected between the second and third generation for leptons. In this paper, we assume that the large mixing between the third and second generation leptons is due to the new strong interactions and consider the LFV process $`e^+e^{}\mu \tau `$. We find that the extra $`U(1)`$ gauge bosons $`Z^{}`$ predicted by TC2 models or flavor-universal TC2 models can give significant contributions to this process. Over a sizable region of the parameter space, the production cross section $`\sigma `$ of this process is large than $`1.0\times 10^2fb`$. Furthermore, the cross section $`\sigma `$ can be significantly enhanced by polarization of the electron beam and the positron beam. For example, the value of $`\sigma `$ can reach $`22fb`$ for $`(P_e,P_{\overline{e}})=(0.8,0.6)`$. Thus we can conclude that the LFV signals of extra $`U(1)`$ gauge bosons $`Z^{}`$ may be detected via this LFV process $`e^+e^{}\mu \tau `$ in the future LC experiments.

Figure captions

The cross section $`\sigma `$ of the LFV process $`e^+e^{}\mu \tau `$ as a function of the gauge boson $`Z^{}`$ mass $`M_Z`$ for $`\sqrt{s}=800GeV`$, $`k_1=0.2`$(solid line), $`0.6`$(dashed line) and $`1.0`$(dotted line).

The cross section $`\sigma `$ as a function of $`M_Z`$ for $`\sqrt{s}=800GeV`$, $`k_1=0.2`$ and different beam polarizations, in which the solid line, dashed line, dotted line and dotted-dashed line represent $`(P_e,P_{\overline{e}})=(0,0)`$, $`(0.8,0.6)`$, $`(0.8,0.6)`$ and $`(0.8,0.6)`$, respectively.

The dependence of $`\sigma `$ on $`\sqrt{s}`$ for $`k_1=0.2`$, $`M_Z=1.5TeV`$ and different beam polarizations, in which the solid line, dashed line, dotted line and dotted-dashed line represent $`(P_e,P_{\overline{e}})=(0,0)`$, $`(0.8,0.6)`$, $`(0.8,0.6)`$ and $`(0.8,0.6)`$, respectively.

The ratio of $`S/\sqrt{B}`$ as a function of $`M_Z`$ for $`L=580fb^1`$. and $`k_1=0.2`$(solid line), $`0.6`$(dashed line) and $`1.0`$(dotted line).


text:
# Nucleon-Nucleon Scattering under Spin-Isospin Reversal in Large-𝑁_𝑐 QCD

(March, 2003)

## Abstract

The spin-flavor structure of certain nucleon-nucleon scattering observables derived from the large $`N_c`$ limit of QCD in the kinematical regime where time-dependent mean-field theory is valid is discussed. In previous work TB  this regime was taken to be where the external momentum was of order $`N_c`$ which precluded the study of differential cross sections in elastic scattering. Here it is shown that the regime extends down to order $`N_c^{1/2}`$ which includes the higher end of the elastic regime. The prediction is that in the large $`N_c`$ limit, observables describable via mean-field theory are unchanged when the spin and isospin of either nucleon are both flipped. This prediction is tested for proton-proton and neutron-proton elastic scattering data and found to fail badly. We argue that this failure can be traced to a lack of a clear separation of scales between momentum of order $`N_c^{1/2}`$ and $`N_c^1`$ when $`N_c`$ is as small as three. The situation is compounded by an anomalously low particle production threshold due to approximate chiral symmetry.

preprint: DOE/ER/40762-277 UMPP#03-042

Calculating observables for nucleon-nucleon scattering directly from QCD is a formidable task. Given our experience with other hadronic observables, one might hope to make qualitative predictions by exploiting the large $`N_c`$ limit of QCD; the limit in which the number of colors, $`N_c`$, becomes large and $`1/N_c`$ is regarded as an expansion parameter TH ; EW . Experience in the single baryon sector shows that one of the striking features of large $`N_c`$ QCD is a simple spin-flavor structure associated with a contracted $`SU(2N_f)`$ symmetry which becomes exact as $`N_c\mathrm{}`$ C1 . There has been considerable work over the past several years on the spin-flavor structure of the nucleon-nucleon potential appropriate for low momentum ($`pN_c^0`$) scattering. In particular, it has been established that the leading order terms in the potential are those for which the $`t`$-channel exchange has the same angular momentum and isospin C2 . Furthermore, this picture is consistent with both single-meson and multiple-meson exchange C3 . While this is of interest theoretically, it is of limited direct phenomenological consequence since the potential cannot be directly measured. Recently, ref. TB  noted that the spin-isospin dependence of certain nucleon-nucleon scattering observables was calculable up to $`1/N_c`$ corrections. In particular, they showed that for large $`N_c`$ those observables which are calculable in principle from time-dependent mean-field theory (TDMFT) are invariant under simultaneous spin and isospin flips of either incident particle.

Before proceeding, it is necessary to clarify exactly what this restriction to observables calculable in TDMFT implies. Firstly, as originally noted by Witten EW  there is a kinematic constraint since TDMFT is inapplicable for momenta of order $`N_c^0`$, but becomes exact at large $`N_c`$ for momenta of order $`N_c^1`$ (which implies velocities of order $`N_c^0`$ since the nucleon mass goes $`N_c^1`$). Secondly, mean-field theory only becomes exact in the large $`N_c`$ limit for observables without multi-particle correlations, i.e. for observables associated with the collective flow of currents such as baryon number or energy. Examples of such observables include the differential cross section for baryon number (in the form of nucleons) to flow out from a collision (which in general produces many mesons) at a fixed angle. Since the observable integrates over all of the final meson states, it is independent of multiple particle correlation and depends only on the collective flow of baryon number. Thus it is calculable in TDMFT and subject to the spin-isospin constraint given above.

In ref. TB  it was pointed out that the most familiar nucleon-nucleon scattering observables–the total cross section, the total-elastic cross section and the differential cross section for elastic scattering–were not in the class of observables describable in mean-field theory in the kinematic regime of $`pN_c^1`$. The total cross section includes contributions from nearly-forward scattering and forward scattering is not accessible in semi-classical treatments such as TDMFT LL . Similarly, the total-elastic cross section is inaccessible. The differential elastic cross section in this kinematic regime is inaccessible in mean-field theory for a different reason. When $`pN_c`$, one is well above the threshold for meson production (which scales as $`pN_c^{1/2}`$ for an incident kinetic energy $`p^2/(2M_N)N_c^0`$) and hence the typical collision is inelastic. The extraction of the elastic differential cross section thus depends strongly on multi-particle correlations in that it totally excludes the many-particle final states. As such it cannot be computed in TDMFT and the spin-isospin constraint does not apply.

As a practical matter, the exclusion of these more standard observables has made it very difficult to test the large $`N_c`$ spin-flavor predictions of ref. TB . We know of no nucleon-nucleon scattering experiments in the kinematic regime of $`pN_c`$ (which we can take to be $`pM_N`$) where the data has been reported as a differential cross section for the outgoing nucleons with the outgoing mesons integrated over, and for which data is available for both protons and neutrons with polarized targets and/or beams.

Clearly it would be very useful to have some experimentally accessible observable that is also computable in TDMFT. Ideally, we would hope to find some observable which is readily available experimentally and of the correct class. Since the most readily available data is for the total and elastic cross sections discussed above, it would be extremely useful if there were some circumstance in which one of these may be reliably computed in TDMFT. The argument that forward scattering is not computable in TDMFT is quite generic and holds for all regimes. In contrast, the argument that the differential cross section for elastic scattering is not computable in TDMFT depended on Witten’s kinematic condition that $`pN_c`$ for TDMFT to be valid. The key theoretical point of the present paper is that Witten’s condition is overly restrictive. While TDMFT is clearly inapplicable in the regime where $`pN_c^0`$ and is clearly applicable in the regime of $`pN_c^1`$, there is an intermediate regime of $`pN_c^{1/2}`$. This intermediate regime includes the threshold for meson production so that one can be just below the meson production threshold and still be in this regime. Here we will argue that TDMFT is, in fact, applicable in the intermediate regime at sufficiently large $`N_c`$ and as such one can have observables associated with current flows. Below meson production, however, the differential cross section for baryon flow into a given direction is simply the elastic differential cross section.

We begin by reviewing the argument that led to the spin-isospin constraint under investigation. First, let us consider nucleons in the large $`N_c`$ limit. Witten argued that they could be described by a Hartree-type approximation. From this, it was deduced that the nucleon size is of order unity and that the mass is of order $`N_c`$ EW . Witten also noted that quantities in large $`N_c`$ QCD scale with $`1/N_c`$ in the same manner that the analogous quantities in soliton models scale with $`g^2`$, where $`g`$ is the coupling constant. This suggests that nucleons can be interpreted as solitons of mesonic fields. This notion was exemplified in terms of the Skyrme model—a model in which baryons are topological solitons of a nonlinear chiral field $`U_0`$. The large $`N_c`$ limit corresponds to the classical solution C4 . For the ground state baryons the field takes the hedgehog form $`U_0(x)=\mathrm{exp}[i\theta (r)\stackrel{}{\tau }\widehat{r}]`$, where the isospin and coordinate space vectors are coupled; the detailed functional form of the chiral angle, $`\theta (r)`$, is irrelevant for our purpose. The hedgehog breaks both angular momentum and isospin and thus corresponds to states of more than one spin and isospin. To get physical states with well-defined spin and isospin we need to project the hedgehog, which at large $`N_c`$ can be done via a semi-classical “cranking” technique. In this formalism a set of collective coordinates associated with isospin rotations is introduced $`\{a_i,a_0^2+\stackrel{}{a}\stackrel{}{a}=1\}_{i=0}^3`$ and it is convenient to represent them as a matrix: $`A=a_0+\stackrel{}{a}\stackrel{}{\tau }SU(2)`$. Then the matrix $`U(t)AU_0A^{}`$ contains all the information about the collective dynamics. These dynamics can be quantized ANW ; CB  to yield states of definite spin ($`J`$) and isospin ($`I`$), described by wavefunctions proportional to the Wigner $`D`$ functions: $`\mathrm{\Psi }(A)D_{m,m_I}^{J=I}(A)`$.

Now, let us now consider nucleon-nucleon scattering in light of the large $`N_c`$ limit in the context of the Skyrme model. We use the Skyrme model here to make the argument concrete, but the result is expected to be completely model independent. As noted by Witten, the strength of the nucleon-nucleon interaction is of order $`N_c`$ and the scattering process can be described by TDMFT. Since the interaction and mass is of order $`N_c`$, the nucleon’s momentum must also be of order $`N_c`$ ($`pN_c`$) to ensure a smooth limit for scattering observables as $`N_c\mathrm{}`$. Initially, the nucleons are well separated and approach each other along the beam direction, $`\widehat{n}`$ with an impact parameter, $`\widehat{b}`$. In the Skyrme picture each is taken as a hedgehog, parameterized by its own $`A`$ matrix and wavefunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }(A)`$, with spin ($`m^{(1,2)}`$) and isospin ($`m_I^{(1,2)}`$) projections. In TDMFT, the observable must be written in terms of an operator $`f(A_1,A_2)`$. After quantization, this corresponds to integrating over the collective variables weighted by the appropriate collective wavefunctions. The resulting operator loses any explicit dependence on the collective variables and instead are expressed in terms of the spin or isospin. Moreover, these quantities only appear in the form $`\stackrel{}{S}/`$ or $`\stackrel{}{I}/`$, where $``$ is the hedgehog Skyrmion’s moment of inertia. Since $``$ is of the order $`N_c`$ ANW , these terms may be neglected at leading order. To compute an observable, we must calculate the expectation value of the associated operator and integrate over the impact parameter and collective variables . Reference TB  implemented this procedure and arrived at the following form for an observable:

$`\sigma _{m^{(1)},m_I^{(1)},m^{(2)},m_I^{(2)}}^O`$
$`={\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{b}𝑑A_1𝑑A_2\left|D_{m^{(1)},m_I^{(1)}}^{1/2}(A_1)\right|^2}`$
$`\times \left|D_{m^{(2)},m_I^{(2)}}^{1/2}(A_2)\right|^2f(A_1,A_2),`$ (1)
where $`𝑑A`$ is the invariant Haar measure on $`SU(2)`$. We note that the spin and isospin projection dependence is contained in the Wigner $`D`$ functions and that the time reversal invariance of the rotation operator dictates that $`\left|D_{m,n}^{1/2}(A)\right|^2=\left|D_{m,n}^{1/2}(A)\right|^2`$. This finally leads us to the condition that observables are unchanged at leading order in $`1/N_c`$ when one simultaneously flips both the spin and isospin of either nucleon. As an example, consider this condition for an observable which averages over the direction of all detected particles, thus leaving the beam direction, $`\widehat{n}`$, and spins as the only remaining vectors. Insisting that it be invariant under time reversal and parity, we arrive at the general form

$`\sigma ^O`$ $`=`$ $`A_0+B_I(\stackrel{}{\sigma }^{(1)}\stackrel{}{\sigma }^{(2)})(\stackrel{}{\tau }^{(1)}\stackrel{}{\tau }^{(2)})`$ (2)
$`+C_I(\widehat{n}\stackrel{}{\sigma }^{(1)})(\widehat{n}\stackrel{}{\sigma }^{(2)})(\stackrel{}{\tau }^{(1)}\stackrel{}{\tau }^{(2)}),`$
where $`A_0,B_I,C_I`$ are functions of energy. If one averages over the spins, as we would for an unpolarized measurement, we are left with only the isoscalar $`A_0`$. Therefore, the result will be independent of isospin.

The key issue which must be addressed is the kinematic conditions under which the preceding analysis is valid. Clearly we must assume that $`N_c`$ is sufficiently large. Moreover, Witten noted that at low momenta, $`pN_c^0`$, one does not have a smooth large $`N_c`$ limit for scattering observables, while at larger momenta, $`pN_c`$, those observables calculable in TDMFT will have smooth limits provided we keep the velocities fixed as we take $`N_c`$ to infinity. The issue of relevance here is the determination of the minimum velocity for TDMFT to be valid. To focus sharply on this issue consider some quantity, $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, which is computable in TDMFT. At large $`N_c`$, $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is a function of the velocity (which scales as $`p/N_c`$). Consider now the limit of this function as the velocity approaches zero. The quantity involves a double limit, $`N_c\mathrm{}`$ and $`v0`$, and the limit is not uniform. If the large $`N_c`$ limit is taken first, one can smoothly take $`v`$ down to zero. However, if one takes $`v0`$ first, then for any given $`N_c`$ one passes through the regime $`pN_c^0`$ prior to reaching $`v=0`$. However, the regime $`pN_c^0`$ is outside the validity of TDMFT, and one expects $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ to have no smooth large $`N_c`$ limit.

Consider the combined zero velocity and large $`N_c`$ limits taken in the following way:

$$N_c^10,v0\mathrm{with}vN_c^{1/2}pN_c^{1/2}\mathrm{fixed}.$$
(3)
This limit is interesting in that it corresponds simultaneously to zero velocity and infinite momentum. As we shall argue below, the infinite momentum nature of the limit justifies the use of TDMFT and, thus, this combined limit is both smooth and has the same result as taking the large $`N_c`$ limit first and then the zero velocity limit.

Formally, we see that as $`N_c\mathrm{}`$, velocities of order $`N_c^{1/2}`$ are in the semi-classical regime and, hence, can be described by TDMFT. Moreover, the usual differential cross section in this regime and just below the meson production threshold is exactly the same as the observable associated with the differential flow of baryon number through various angles and as such is computable in TDMFT.

The argument that the limiting procedure given above leads to a quantity computable in TDMFT is straightforward. TDMFT is semi-classical in nature and the fundamental issue is under what kinematic conditions the classical behavior sets in. We know that the momentum must be high enough so that the nucleon’s deBroglie wavelength is small compared to the size of the interaction region. Also, the variation in the effective wavelength as it traverses the interaction region must remain small compared to the wavelength itself. This condition must hold even when the interaction strength becomes large, as in our case since it scales as $`N_c^1`$. Simple potential model calculations with masses and potential strengths both scaling as $`N_c^1`$ show that the semi-classical condition is reached for $`pN_c^{1/2}`$. With this it is highly plausible that the semi-classical approximation is valid for $`pN_c^{1/2}`$ for large $`N_c`$ QCD. Since the key issues here are spin and flavor, one condition for the semi-classical regime to be valid is that the nucleon’s velocity must be rapid enough so that the characteristic rotation time of a hedgehog is long compared to the characteristic interaction time. The characteristic rotation time depends on the moment of inertia $``$ and is given by $`/S`$ which is order $`N_c`$; the characteristic interaction time is $`R/v`$, where $`RN_c^0`$ is the size of the nucleon. Reference TB  noted that the condition holds for velocities of order $`N_c^0`$ which yields interaction times of order unity. Here we simply note that the condition also holds in the large $`N_c`$ limit for $`vN_c^{1/2}`$ which yields interaction times of order $`N_c^{1/2}`$ which is parametrically much smaller than the rotation times.

We also note that the semi-classical approach is known to fail for forward scattering LL , meaning one cannot make valid predictions in the small angular region around the beam direction, $`\widehat{n}`$.

Typical elastic nucleon-nucleon scattering experiments consist of a proton beam with specified polarization incident on a proton or neutron target. Detectors in the reaction chamber can record the lab angle of scattering, the energy, and the polarization of the scattered nucleon. From this information, various observables can be calculated to describe the event. Let us consider two examples: the unpolarized differential cross section ($`d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega }`$) for elastic collisions and the polarization asymmetry in the cross section ($`𝒜`$).

The unpolarized differential cross section, $`d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega }`$, is obtained by counting the number of nucleons scattered into the solid angle $`d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and averaging over the polarization of the beam. Since this is an unpolarized measurement, and, hence, independent of the nucleon spins, the spin-flavor condition of eq. (2) implies $`d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ must be an isoscalar, meaning that np and pp scattering should be equal up to $`1/N_c`$ corrections. In fig. 1(a) we show $`d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ versus the scattering angle as measured in the nucleon’s center of mass frame for a proton beam with kinetic energy of $`T_{lab}=`$279 MeV (which is just below the pion production threshold) using data from ref. NNOnline . For the reason mentioned above, we have omitted forward angles.

The polarization asymmetry, $`𝒜`$, quantifies the dependence of the differential cross section on the beam polarization. Consider a target of protons (p) with a set spin ($`m_t=+`$, for example) and a beam of nucleons N (either n or p) with set spins ($`m_b=\pm `$). The differential cross section obtained for this arrangement will be written as $`d\sigma _{m_bm_t}^N`$ with the $`d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ suppressed since it is irrelevant here. The asymmetry for pp ($`𝒜_{pp}`$) and np ($`𝒜_{np}`$) scattering is then written as

$`𝒜_{pp}={\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{++}^pd\sigma _+^p}{d\sigma _{++}^p+d\sigma _+^p}}`$ (4)
$`𝒜_{np}={\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{++}^nd\sigma _+^n}{d\sigma _{++}^n+d\sigma _+^n}}.`$ (5)
Under spin and isospin reversal of the beam nucleons, $`d\sigma _{++}^nd\sigma _+^p`$ and $`d\sigma _+^nd\sigma _{++}^p`$, meaning that eq. (2) implies that at leading order in $`1/N_c`$, $`𝒜_{np}=𝒜_{pp}`$. In figure 1(b) we show the $`𝒜`$ versus the scattering angle as measured in the nucleon’s center of mass frame for a proton beam with kinetic energy of $`T_{lab}=`$ 279 MeV.

Clearly, the large $`N_c`$ predictions for the two observables considered above fail quite badly. These two cases are typical of the disagreement found between the proposed spin-isospin dependence and data collected from nucleon-nucleon elastic scattering experiments in this kinematic range. Moreover, we cannot go to higher energies above 279 MeV because we will hit the pion production threshold. Above the threshold, the elastic differential cross section is not equal to the full collective flow of baryon as baryons can flow in a given direction accompanied by meson production. Thus, above threshold the elastic differential cross section is not computable in TDMFT.

Why do the large $`N_c`$ predictions for these observables fail so badly? One very plausible explanation for failure of the large $`N_c`$ predictions with these kinematics is that the velocity is insufficient to bring us to the required regime. As argued before, the beam energy must be high enough to achieve the semi-classical scattering regime. However, as the beam’s kinetic energy increases, it reaches the threshold for meson production. Kinematically the threshold occurs at $`T_{lab}=\frac{1}{2}M_Nv_\mathrm{t}^2=2m_\pi `$. Thus the maximum velocity before the meson production channel opens is $`v_\mathrm{t}=2\sqrt{m_\pi /M_n}N_c^{1/2}`$. As argued above, the spin-flavor arguments here depend on the interaction times being short compared to the characteristic rotation time scales. Were this not true, additional terms proportional to $`\stackrel{}{S}/`$ and $`\stackrel{}{I}/`$ could be added to eq. (2). In the kinematics of ref. TB  with $`vN_c^0`$ the ratio of the interaction time to the rotation time was of order $`1/N_c`$ implying that corrections due to these possible extra terms were suppressed by $`1/N_c`$. With the present kinematics the ratio is $`N_c^{1/2}`$ and the additional terms have a characteristically smaller suppression. Of course, if $`N_c`$ is large enough one expects the leading order expression to become increasingly good. However, for $`N_c=3`$ it is by no means clear that what amounts to an expansion in $`N_c^{1/2}`$ will usefully converge.

There is an additional issue which limits the usefulness of the large $`N_c`$ expansion for these observables. The threshold velocity for meson production is proportional to the square root of the meson mass. Moreover, elastic scattering is only associated with collective baryon flow and thus calculable by TDMFT when one is below the threshold for all mesons. The pion is the lightest meson and thus its threshold velocity sets the maximum for which the elastic differential cross section is computable in TDMFT. It is noteworthy that the pion mass is very small on hadronic scales. This is due to the pseudo-Goldstone nature of the pion and the small values of the up and down quark masses. Thus, the pion mass is small for reasons which have nothing to do with $`N_c`$. If we denote the ratio of $`m_\pi `$ to a typical hadronic scale as $`\beta `$, the threshold velocity $`v_\mathrm{t}=2\sqrt{m_\pi /M_n}\beta ^{1/2}N_c^{1/2}`$. Therefore, chiral effects suppress the velocity threshold by a factor of $`\beta ^{1/2}`$ relative to the natural scales in $`1/N_c`$ counting. This suppression could be responsible for pushing the elastic regime below the regime for which the large $`N_c`$ expansion is useful.

In summary, we have shown in principle that the spin and flavor dependence of the elastic differential cross section in non-forward directions at energies just below the meson production threshold can be computed in large $`N_c`$ QCD. In practice, the empirical scattering data is poorly described by the large $`N_c`$ relations. We attribute this to the slow convergence of the expansion which is, in effect, an expansion in $`(\beta N_c)^{1/2}`$, where $`\beta `$ is the ratio of $`m_\pi `$ to typical hadronic scales.

The support of the U.S. Department of Energy for this research under grant DE-FG02-93ER-40762 is gratefully acknowledged.