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# Spin-3/2 Nucleon and Δ Baryons in Lattice QCD

## I Introduction

The level orderings in the baryon spectrum and mass splittings between excited baryon multiplets provide important clues to the underlying dynamics governing inter-quark forces and the relevant effective degrees of freedom at low energy ISGUR . Considerable insights into these and other problems of spectroscopy have been gained from QCD-inspired phenomenological models, however, many fundamental questions about the origins of the empirical spectrum remain controversial CR .

The resolution of some of these issues may only be possible with the help of calculations of the spectrum in lattice QCD — currently the only first-principles method able to determine hadron properties directly from the fundamental quark and gluon theory. Recent advances in computational capabilities and more efficient algorithms have enabled the first dedicated lattice QCD simulations of the excited states of the nucleon to be undertaken DEREK ; LL ; LEE ; DGR ; UKQCD ; BNL ; NSTAR ; Nakajima:2001js . Lattice studies of excited hadrons are possible because at the current unphysically large quark masses and finite volumes used in the simulations, most excited states are stable. Contact with experiment can be made via extrapolations incorporating the nonanalytic behaviour of chiral effective field theory RHO . These studies are timely as they complement the first results from the high precision measurements of the $`N^{}`$ spectrum at Jefferson Lab CLAS .

In a recent paper NSTAR  we presented first results for the excited nucleon and spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ hyperon spectra using the Fat-Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) quark action FATJAMES  with an $`𝒪(a^2)`$-improved gluon action. The FLIC action minimizes the effect of renormalization of action improvement terms and displays excellent scaling properties FATJAMES . Clear mass splittings are observed for $`J^P=\frac{1}{2}^+`$ and $`\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ states, as well as evidence for the sensitivity to hyperfine splittings of odd-parity states for different interpolating fields used. On the other hand, no evidence is seen for overlap of three-quark interpolating fields with the Roper-like resonances or the lowest-lying odd-parity SU(3) singlet state, the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(1405)`$. In this paper we extend the analysis of Ref. NSTAR  to the spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ sector, and present first results using the FLIC action, in both the isospin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ and $`\frac{3}{2}`$ channels.

Mass splittings between states within SU(3) quark-model multiplets provide another important motivation for studying higher spin baryons. Understanding the mass splitting between the $`N\frac{1}{2}^{}(1535)`$ and $`N\frac{3}{2}^{}(1520)`$, for instance, or between the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^{}(1620)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^{}(1700)`$, can help identify the important mechanisms associated with the hyperfine interactions, or shed light on the spin-orbit force, which has been a central mystery in spectroscopy SUMRULES . In valence quark models, the degeneracy between the $`N\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ and $`N\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ can be broken by a tensor force associated with mixing between the $`N^2`$ and $`N^4`$ representations of SU(3) CR , although this generally leaves the $`N\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ at a higher energy than the $`N\frac{1}{2}^{}`$. On the other hand, a spin-orbit force is necessary to split the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ states. In the Goldstone boson exchange model GR , both of these pairs of states are degenerate. Model-independent analyses in the large $`N_c`$ limit have found that these mass splittings receive important contributions from operators that do not have a simple quark model interpretation GOITY , such as those simultaneously coupling spin, isospin and orbital angular momentum. Of course, the coefficients of the various operators in such an analysis must be determined phenomenologically and guidance from lattice QCD is essential.

Our lattice simulations are performed on the Orion computer cluster dedicated to lattice QCD at the CSSM, University of Adelaide. In the isospin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ sector, after applying suitable parity and spin projections, we present the first results for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ states, as well as the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^{}`$. Our results for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^+`$ are also in good agreement with earlier simulations LDW . A significant advance of this work is the observation of a discernible signal for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^\pm `$ state, which yielded a weak signal in earlier simulations DGR . The lowest excitation of the ground state, namely the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^{}`$, is found to have a mass $`350`$–400 MeV above the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^+`$, with the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ slightly heavier. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^+`$ state is found to lie $`100`$–200 MeV above these, although the signal becomes weak at smaller quark masses. This level ordering is consistent with that observed in the empirical mass spectrum.

In the spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ nucleon sector, there is good agreement for the spin-projected $`\frac{1}{2}^+`$ and $`\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ states with earlier nucleon mass calculations NSTAR  using the standard spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ nucleon interpolating field. Furthermore, we find a good signal for the $`N\frac{3}{2}^\pm `$ states, with a mass difference of $`300`$ MeV between the spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ parity partners. The $`N\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ and $`N\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ states are approximately degenerate as observed experimentally.

In Section II we outline the basic elements of formulating spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ baryons on the lattice, including the choice of interpolating fields and projection operators. A brief preliminary report of states using the formalism developed and presented here appeared in Ref. LeeSpin32 . These results also supersede preliminary results reported in Refs. QNP ; Latt02 . In Section III, our results using the FLIC action on a large lattice volume at a fine lattice spacing represent the first quantitative analysis of these states. The conclusion and remarks about future work are contained in Section IV.

## II Spin 3/2 Baryons on the Lattice

### II.1 Spin 3/2 Interpolating Fields and Two-Point Functions

In this Section the essential elements for a lattice calculation of spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ baryon properties are presented. The mass of a spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ baryon on the lattice is obtained from the two-point correlation function $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ LDW ,

$$G_{\mu \nu }(t,\stackrel{}{p};\mathrm{\Gamma })=\mathrm{tr}_{\mathrm{sp}}\left\{\mathrm{\Gamma }𝒢_{\mu \nu }(t,\stackrel{}{p})\right\},$$
(1)
where

$$𝒢_{\mu \nu }^{\alpha \beta }(t,\stackrel{}{p})=\underset{\stackrel{}{x}}{}e^{i\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{x}}0|T\left(\chi _\mu ^\alpha (x)\overline{\chi }_\nu ^\beta (0)\right)|0,$$
(2)
where $`\chi _\mu ^\alpha `$ is a spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ interpolating field, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is a matrix in Dirac space with $`\alpha ,\beta `$ Dirac indices, and $`\mu ,\nu `$ Lorentz indices.

In this analysis we consider the following interpolating field operator for the isospin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$, spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$, positive parity (charge $`+1`$) state IOFFE

$$\chi _\mu ^N=ϵ^{abc}\left(u^{Ta}(x)C\gamma _5\gamma ^\nu d^b(x)\right)\left(g_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{4}\gamma _\mu \gamma _\nu \right)\gamma _5u^c(x).$$
(3)
All discussions of interpolating fields are carried out using the Dirac representation of the $`\gamma `$ matricies. This exact isospin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ interpolating field has overlap with both spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ and spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ states and with states of both parities. The resulting correlation function will thus require both spin and parity projection. The quark field operators $`u`$ and $`d`$ act at Euclidean space-time point $`x`$, $`C`$ is the charge conjugation matrix, $`a,b`$ and $`c`$ are colour labels, and the superscript $`T`$ denotes the transpose. The charge neutral interpolating field is obtained by interchanging $`ud`$. This interpolating field transforms as a Rarita-Schwinger operator under parity transformations. That is, if the quark field operators transform as

$$𝒫u(x)𝒫^{}=+\gamma _0u(\stackrel{~}{x}),$$

where $`\stackrel{~}{x}=(x_0,\stackrel{}{x})`$, and similarly for $`d(x)`$, then

$$𝒫\chi _\mu ^N(x)𝒫^{}=+\gamma _0\chi _\mu ^N(\stackrel{~}{x}),$$

and similarly for the Rarita-Schwinger operator

$$𝒫u_\mu (x)𝒫^{}=+\gamma _0u_\mu (\stackrel{~}{x}).$$
(4)
which will be discussed later.

The computational cost of evaluating each of the Lorentz combinations in Eq. (3) is relatively high — about 100 times that for the ground state nucleon LL . Consequently, in order to maximize statistics in our analysis we consider only the leading term proportional to $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ in the interpolating field,

$$\chi _\mu ^Nϵ^{abc}\left(u^{Ta}(x)C\gamma _5\gamma _\mu d^b(x)\right)\gamma _5u^c(x).$$
(5)
This is sufficient since we will in either case need to perform a spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ projection.

In order to show that the interpolating field defined in Eq. (5) has isospin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$, we first consider the standard proton interpolating field,

$$\chi ^p=ϵ^{abc}(u^{Ta}C\gamma _5d^b)u^c,$$
(6)
which we know to have isospin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$. Applying the isospin raising operator, $`I^+`$, on $`\chi ^p`$ one finds,

$`I^+\chi ^p`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ^{abc}(u^{Ta}C\gamma _5u^b)u^c`$
$`=`$ $`ϵ^{abc}(u^{Ta}C\gamma _5u^b)^Tu^c`$
$`=`$ $`ϵ^{abc}(u^{Ta}C\gamma _5u^b)u^c`$
$`=`$ $`0.`$
Similarly, for the interpolating field defined in Eq. (5), one has

$`I^+\chi _\mu ^N`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ^{abc}(u^{Ta}C\gamma _5\gamma _\mu u^b)\gamma _5u^c`$
$`=`$ $`ϵ^{abc}(u^{Ta}C\gamma _5\gamma _\mu u^b)^T\gamma _5u^c`$
$`=`$ $`ϵ^{abc}(u^{Ta}C\gamma _5\gamma _\mu u^b)\gamma _5u^c`$
$`=`$ $`0,`$
where we have used the representation independent identities $`C\gamma _\mu C^1=\gamma _\mu ^T`$, $`C\gamma _5C^1=\gamma _5^T`$ and the identities which hold in the Dirac representation $`C^T=C^{}=C^1=C`$ with $`C=i\gamma _2\gamma _0`$ and $`\gamma _5^T=\gamma _5`$.

We note that $`\overline{\chi }_\mu ^N`$ corresponding to $`\chi _\mu ^N`$ in Eq. (5) is

$$\overline{\chi }_\mu ^N=ϵ^{abc}\overline{u}^a\gamma _5(\overline{d}^b\gamma _\mu \gamma _5C\overline{u}^{cT}),$$
(7)
so that

$`\chi _\mu ^N\overline{\chi }_\nu ^N=`$ $`ϵ^{abc}ϵ^{a^{}b^{}c^{}}(u_\alpha ^{Ta}[C\gamma _5\gamma _\mu ]_{\alpha \beta }d_\beta ^b)\gamma _5u_\gamma ^c\overline{u}_\gamma ^{}^c^{}\gamma _5(\overline{d}_\beta ^{}^b^{}[\gamma _\nu \gamma _5C]_{\beta ^{}\alpha ^{}}\overline{u}_\alpha ^{}^{Ta^{}}),`$
$``$ $`\gamma _5S_u\gamma _5\mathrm{tr}\left[\gamma _5S_u\gamma _5\left(C\gamma _\mu S_d\gamma _\nu C\right)^T\right]+\gamma _5S_u\gamma _5\left(C\gamma _\mu S_d\gamma _\nu C\right)^T\gamma _5S_u\gamma _5,`$ (8)
where the last line is the result achieved after doing the Grassman integration over the quark fields with the quark fields being replaced by all possible pairwise contractions.

In deriving the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ interpolating fields, it is simplest to begin with the state containing only valence $`u`$ quarks, namely the $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}`$. The interpolating field for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}`$ resonance is given by IOFFE ,

$$\chi _\mu ^{\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}}(x)=ϵ^{abc}\left(u^{Ta}(x)C\gamma _\mu u^b(x)\right)u^c(x),$$
(9)
which also transforms as a pseudovector under parity. The interpolating field for a $`\mathrm{\Delta }^+`$ state can be similarly constructed LDW ,

$`\chi _\mu ^{\mathrm{\Delta }^+}(x)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}ϵ^{abc}\left[2\left(u^{Ta}(x)C\gamma _\mu d^b(x)\right)u^c(x)+\left(u^{Ta}(x)C\gamma _\mu u^b(x)\right)d^c(x)\right].`$ (10)
Interpolating fields for other decuplet baryons are obtained by appropriate substitutions of $`u,du,d`$ or $`s`$ fields.

To project a pure spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ state from the correlation function $`G_{\mu \nu }`$, one needs to use an appropriate spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ projection operator BDM ,

$$P_{\mu \nu }^{3/2}(p)=g_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{3}\gamma _\mu \gamma _\nu \frac{1}{3p^2}\left(\gamma p\gamma _\mu p_\nu +p_\mu \gamma _\nu \gamma p\right).$$
(11)
The corresponding spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ state can be projected by applying the projection operator

$$P_{\mu \nu }^{1/2}=g_{\mu \nu }P_{\mu \nu }^{3/2}.$$
(12)
To use this operator and retain all Lorentz components, one must calculate the full $`4\times 4`$ matrix in Dirac and Lorentz space. However, to extract a mass, only one pair of Lorentz indices is needed, reducing the amount of calculations required by a factor of four. We calculate the third row of the Lorentz matrix and use the projection,

$$G_{33}^s=\underset{\mu ,\nu =1}{\overset{4}{}}G_{3\mu }g^{\mu \nu }P_{\nu 3}^s,$$
(13)
to extract the desired spin states, $`s=\frac{1}{2}`$ or $`\frac{3}{2}`$. Following spin projection, the resulting correlation function, $`G_{33}^s`$, still contains positive and negative parity states.

### II.2 Baryon Level

The interpolating field operators defined in Eqs. (3) and (5) have overlap with both spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ and spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ states with positive and negative parity. The field $`\chi _\mu `$ transforms as a pseudovector under parity, as does the Rarita-Schwinger spinor, $`u_\mu `$. Thus the overlap of $`\chi _\mu `$ with baryons can be expressed as

$`0|\chi _\mu |N^{\frac{3}{2}+}(p,s)`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda _{3/2^+}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{M_{3/2^+}}{E_{3/2^+}}}}u_\mu (p,s),`$ (14a)
$`0|\chi _\mu |N^{\frac{3}{2}}(p,s)`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda _{3/2^{}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{M_{3/2^{}}}{E_{3/2^{}}}}}\gamma _5u_\mu (p,s),`$ (14b)
$`0|\chi _\mu |N^{\frac{1}{2}+}(p,s)`$ $`=`$ $`(\alpha _{1/2^+}p_\mu +\beta _{1/2^+}\gamma _\mu )\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{M_{1/2^+}}{E_{1/2^+}}}}\gamma _5u(p,s),`$ (14c)
$`0|\chi _\mu |N^{\frac{1}{2}}(p,s)`$ $`=`$ $`(\alpha _{1/2^{}}p_\mu +\beta _{1/2^{}}\gamma _\mu )\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{M_{1/2^{}}}{E_{1/2^{}}}}}u(p,s),`$ (14d)
where the factors $`\lambda _B,\alpha _B,\beta _B`$ denote the coupling strengths of the interpolating field $`\chi _\mu `$ to the baryon $`B`$ and $`E_B=\sqrt{\stackrel{}{p}^2+M_B^2}`$ is the energy. For the expressions in Eqs. (14c) and (14d), we note that the spatial components of momentum, $`p_i`$, transform as a vector under parity and commute with $`\gamma _0`$, whereas the $`\gamma _i`$ do not change sign under parity but anticommute with $`\gamma _0`$. Hence the right-hand-side of Eq. (14c) also transforms as a pseudovector under parity in accord with $`\chi _\mu `$.

Similar expressions can also be written for $`\overline{\chi }_\mu `$,

$`N^{\frac{3}{2}+}(p,s)|\overline{\chi }_\mu |0`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda _{3/2^+}^{}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{M_{3/2^+}}{E_{3/2^+}}}}\overline{u}_\mu (p,s),`$ (15a)
$`N^{\frac{3}{2}}(p,s)|\overline{\chi }_\mu |0`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda _{3/2^{}}^{}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{M_{3/2^{}}}{E_{3/2^{}}}}}\overline{u}_\mu (p,s)\gamma _5,`$ (15b)
$`N^{\frac{1}{2}+}(p,s)|\overline{\chi }_\mu |0`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{M_{1/2^+}}{E_{1/2^+}}}}\overline{u}(p,s)\gamma _5(\alpha _{1/2^+}^{}p_\mu +\beta _{1/2^+}^{}\gamma _\mu ),`$ (15c)
$`N^{\frac{1}{2}}(p,s)|\overline{\chi }_\mu |0`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{M_{1/2^{}}}{E_{1/2^{}}}}}\overline{u}(p,s)(\alpha _{1/2^{}}^{}p_\mu +\beta _{1/2^{}}^{}\gamma _\mu ).`$ (15d)
Note that we are assuming identical sinks and sources in these equations. In our calculations we use a smeared source and a point sink in which case $`\lambda ^{},\alpha ^{}`$ and $`\beta ^{}`$ are no longer complex conjugates of $`\lambda ,\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ and are instead replaced by $`\overline{\lambda },\overline{\alpha }`$ and $`\overline{\beta }`$.

We are now in a position to find the form of Eq. (2) after we insert a complete set of intermediate states $`\left\{|B(p,s)\right\}`$. The contribution to Eq. (2) from each intermediate state considered is given by

$`0|\chi _\mu |N^{\frac{3}{2}+}(p,s)`$ $`N^{\frac{3}{2}+}(p,s)|\overline{\chi }_\nu |0`$
$`=`$ $`+\lambda _{3/2^+}\overline{\lambda }_{3/2^+}{\displaystyle \frac{M_{3/2^+}}{E_{3/2^+}}}u_\mu (p,s)\overline{u}_\nu (p,s)`$
$`=`$ $`\lambda _{3/2^+}\overline{\lambda }_{3/2^+}{\displaystyle \frac{M_{3/2^+}}{E_{3/2^+}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\gamma p+M_{3/2^+})}{2M_{3/2^+}}}\left\{g_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\gamma _\mu \gamma _\nu {\displaystyle \frac{2p_\mu p_\nu }{3M_{3/2^+}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_\mu \gamma _\nu p_\nu \gamma _\mu }{3M_{3/2^+}}}\right\},`$
$`0|\chi _\mu |N^{\frac{3}{2}}(p,s)`$ $`N^{\frac{3}{2}}(p,s)|\overline{\chi }_\nu |0`$
$`=`$ $`\lambda _{3/2^{}}\overline{\lambda }_{3/2^{}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_{3/2^{}}}{E_{3/2^{}}}}\gamma _5u_\mu (p,s)\overline{u}_\nu (p,s)\gamma _5`$
$`=`$ $`\lambda _{3/2^{}}\overline{\lambda }_{3/2^{}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_{3/2^{}}}{E_{3/2^{}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\gamma pM_{3/2^{}})}{2M_{3/2^{}}}}\left\{g_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\gamma _\mu \gamma _\nu {\displaystyle \frac{2p_\mu p_\nu }{3M_{3/2^{}}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{p_\mu \gamma _\nu p_\nu \gamma _\mu }{3M_{3/2^{}}}}\right\},`$
$`0|\chi _\mu |N^{\frac{1}{2}+}(p,s)`$ $`N^{\frac{1}{2}+}(p,s)|\overline{\chi }_\nu |0`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{M_{1/2^+}}{E_{1/2^+}}}(\alpha _{1/2^+}p_\mu +\beta _{1/2^+}\gamma _\mu )\gamma _5{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma p+M_{1/2^+}}{2M_{1/2^+}}}\gamma _5(\overline{\alpha }_{1/2^+}p_\nu +\overline{\beta }_{1/2^+}\gamma _\nu ),`$
$`0|\chi _\mu |N^{\frac{1}{2}}(p,s)`$ $`N^{\frac{1}{2}}(p,s)|\overline{\chi }_\nu |0`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{M_{1/2^{}}}{E_{/2^+}}}(\alpha _{1/2^{}}p_\mu +\beta _{1/2^{}}\gamma _\mu ){\displaystyle \frac{\gamma p+M_{1/2^{}}}{2M_{1/2^{}}}}(\overline{\alpha }_{1/2^{}}p_\nu +\overline{\beta }_{1/2^{}}\gamma _\nu ).`$
To reduce computational expense, we consider the specific case when $`\mu =\nu =3`$ and in order to extract masses we require $`\stackrel{}{p}=(0,0,0)`$. In this case we have the simple expressions

$`0|\chi _3|N^{\frac{3}{2}+}(p,s)N^{\frac{3}{2}+}(p,s)|\overline{\chi }_3|0`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda _{3/2^+}\overline{\lambda }_{3/2^+}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _0M_{3/2^+}+M_{3/2^+}}{2M_{3/2^+}}}\right),`$ (16a)
$`0|\chi _3|N^{\frac{3}{2}}(p,s)N^{\frac{3}{2}}(p,s)|\overline{\chi }_3|0`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda _{3/2^{}}\overline{\lambda }_{3/2^{}}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _0M_{3/2^{}}M_{3/2^{}}}{2M_{3/2^{}}}}\right),`$ (16b)
$`0|\chi _3|N^{\frac{1}{2}+}(p,s)N^{\frac{1}{2}+}(p,s)|\overline{\chi }_3|0`$ $`=`$ $`\beta _{1/2^+}\overline{\beta }_{1/2^+}\gamma _3\gamma _5{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _0M_{1/2^+}+M_{1/2^+}}{2M_{1/2^+}}}\gamma _5\gamma _3`$ (16c)
$`=`$ $`+\beta _{1/2^+}\overline{\beta }_{1/2^+}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _0M_{1/2^+}+M_{1/2^+}}{2M_{1/2^+}}},`$
$`0|\chi _3|N^{\frac{1}{2}}(p,s)N^{\frac{1}{2}}(p,s)|\overline{\chi }_3|0`$ $`=`$ $`\beta _{1/2^{}}\overline{\beta }_{1/2^{}}\gamma _3{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _0M_{1/2^{}}+M_{1/2^{}}}{2M_{1/2^{}}}}\gamma _3`$ (16d)
$`=`$ $`+\beta _{1/2^{}}\overline{\beta }_{1/2^{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _0M_{1/2^{}}M_{1/2^{}}}{2M_{1/2^{}}}}.`$
Therefore, in an analogous procedure to that used in Ref. NSTAR , where a fixed boundary condition is used in the time direction, positive and negative parity states are obtained by taking the trace of the spin-projected correlation function, $`G_{33}^s`$, in Eq. (13) with the operator $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Gamma }_\pm `$,

$$G_{33}^{s\pm }=\mathrm{tr}_{\mathrm{sp}}\left\{\mathrm{\Gamma }^\pm G_{33}^s\right\},$$
(17)
where

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_\pm =\frac{1}{2}\left(1\pm \gamma _4\right).$$
(18)
The positive parity states propagate in the (1,1) and (2,2) elements of the Dirac matrix, while negative parity states propagate in the (3,3) and (4,4) elements for both spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ and spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ projected states. A similar treatment has been carried out for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ interpolating fields but is not reproduced here for brevity.

We use an improved unbiased estimator obtained by summing both $`U`$ and $`U^{}`$ configurations which occur with equal weight. From the discussion given in Section Va of Ref NSTAR , $`G_{\mu \nu }^{s\pm }`$ is purely real if $`\mu `$ and $`\nu `$ are both spatial indicies or both temporal indicies, otherwise $`G_{\mu \nu }^{s\pm }`$ is purely imaginary.

## III Results

The analysis is based on a sample of 392 configurations. For the gauge fields, a mean-field improved plaquette plus rectangle action is used. The simulations are performed on a $`16^3\times 32`$ lattice at $`\beta =4.60`$, which corresponds to a lattice spacing of $`a=0.122(2)`$ fm set by a string tension analysis incorporating the lattice coulomb potential Edwards:1998xf  with $`\sqrt{\sigma }=440`$ MeV. For the quark fields, a Fat-Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) FATJAMES  action is implemented. The use of fat links FATLINK  in the irrelevant operators of the fermion action removes the need to fine tune the clover coefficient to remove $`𝒪(a)`$ artifacts. The use of fat links also allows us to employ a highly improved definition of $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ FATJAMES ; SUNDANCE  leaving errors of $`𝒪(a^6)`$ and where errors of $`𝒪(g^2)`$ are suppressed via fat links. Mean-field improvement of the tree-level clover coefficient with fat links represents a small correction and proves to be adequate FATJAMES .

The fattening, or smearing of the lattice links with their nearest neighbours, reduces the problem of exceptional configurations, and minimizes the effect of renormalization on the action improvement terms. By smearing only the irrelevant, higher dimensional terms in the action, and leaving the relevant dimension-four operators untouched, we retain short distance quark and gluon interactions at the scale of the cutoff. Simulations are performed with $`n=4`$ smearing sweeps and a smearing fraction $`\alpha =0.7`$ FATJAMES .

A fixed boundary condition in the time direction is used for the fermions by setting $`U_t(\stackrel{}{x},N_t)=0\stackrel{}{x}`$ in the hopping terms of the fermion action, with periodic boundary conditions imposed in the spatial directions. Gauge-invariant gaussian smearing Gusken:qx  in the spatial dimensions is applied at the source to increase the overlap of the interpolating operators with the ground states. The source-smearing technique Gusken:qx  starts with a point source,

$$\psi _{0\alpha }^a(\stackrel{}{x},t)=\delta ^{ac}\delta _{\alpha \gamma }\delta _{\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{x}_0}\delta _{t,t_0}$$
(19)
for source colour $`c`$, Dirac $`\gamma `$, position $`\stackrel{}{x}_0=(1,1,1)`$ and time $`t_0=3`$ and proceeds via the iterative scheme,

$$\psi _i(\stackrel{}{x},t)=\underset{\stackrel{}{x}^{}}{}F(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{x}^{})\psi _{i1}(\stackrel{}{x}^{},t),$$

where

$$F(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{x}^{})=\frac{1}{(1+\alpha )}\left(\delta _{\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{x}^{}}+\frac{\alpha }{6}\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{3}{}}\left[U_\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)\delta _{\stackrel{}{x}^{},\stackrel{}{x}+\widehat{\mu }}+U_\mu ^{}(\stackrel{}{x}\widehat{\mu },t)\delta _{\stackrel{}{x}^{},\stackrel{}{x}\widehat{\mu }}\right]\right).$$

Repeating the procedure $`N`$ times gives the resulting fermion source

$$\psi _N(\stackrel{}{x},t)=\underset{\stackrel{}{x}^{}}{}F^N(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{x}^{})\psi _0(\stackrel{}{x}^{},t).$$
(20)
The parameters $`N`$ and $`\alpha `$ govern the size and shape of the smearing function. We simulate with $`N=20`$ and $`\alpha =6`$. The propagator, $`S`$, is obtained from the smeared source by solving

$$M_{\alpha \beta }^{ab}S_{\beta \gamma }^{bc}=\psi _\alpha ^a,$$
(21)
for each colour, Dirac source $`c,\gamma `$ respectively of Eq. (19) via the BiStabilised Conjugate Gradient algorithm BiCG .

In the analysis we use five values of $`\kappa `$, as indicated in Table 1. Extrapolation to $`m_\pi ^2=0`$ gives $`\kappa _{\mathrm{cr}}=0.1300`$. Figure 2 shows the effective mass plot for the $`N\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ state for the five $`\kappa `$ values used as a function of Euclidean time obtained after performing spin and parity projections on the correlation functions calculated using the interpolating field in Eq. (5). We find a good signal for this state up until time slice 13 after which the signal is lost in noise. The effective mass for this state exhibits good plateau behaviour and a good value of the covariance-matrix based $`\chi ^2/N_{\mathrm{DF}}`$ is obtained when one fits in the time fitting window of $`t=10`$–13 (recall, the source is at $`t=3`$). Typically, one finds $`\chi ^2/N_{\mathrm{DF}}1`$ and $`\chi ^2/N_{\mathrm{DF}}<1.5`$ throughout. After performing spin and parity projections to extract the $`N\frac{3}{2}^+`$ state from the interpolating field in Eq. (5), one finds the effective mass plot to be a little noisier, as shown in Fig. 2. There is, however, sufficient information here to extract a mass, and a good value of $`\chi ^2/N_{\mathrm{DF}}`$ is obtained when one fits in the small time fitting window of $`t=9`$–11.

The interpolating field defined in Eq. (5) also has overlap with spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ states of both parities. After performing a spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ projection on the correlation functions, we isolate the $`N\frac{1}{2}^+`$ and $`N\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ states via parity projection and plot the effective masses in Figs. 4 and 4 respectively. The $`N\frac{1}{2}^+`$ state suffers contamination from excited states as seen by the long Euclidean time evolution required to reach plateau in Fig. 4. A good value of $`\chi ^2/N_{\mathrm{DF}}`$ is obtained as long as we fit after time slice 12. For this reason, we use time slices 13–16 to obtain a mass for the $`N\frac{1}{2}^+`$ state. However, for the $`N\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ state, a plateau is seen at early Euclidean times and a good value of $`\chi ^2/N_{\mathrm{DF}}`$ is obtained on time slices 8–11.

The extracted masses of the $`N\frac{3}{2}^\pm `$ and $`N\frac{1}{2}^\pm `$ states are given in Table 1 and are displayed in Fig. 5 as a function of $`m_\pi ^2`$. Earlier results for the $`N\frac{1}{2}^\pm `$ states using the standard spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ interpolating field NSTAR ; FATJAMES  from Eq. (6) are also shown with open symbols in Fig. 5 for reference. It is encouraging to note the agreement between the spin-projected $`\frac{1}{2}^\pm `$ states obtained from the spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ interpolating field in Eq. (5) and the earlier $`\frac{1}{2}^\pm `$ results from the same gauge field configurations. To study this agreement more accurately, we consider the ratio of effective masses obtained for each jackknife subensemble. This provides us with a correlated ratio and we find the ratio to be one as at the one standard deviation level. We also observe that the $`N\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ state has approximately the same mass as the spin-projected $`N\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ state which is consistent with the experimentally observed masses. To study this mass difference more accurately, we again calculate the correlated ratio of effective masses obtained after appropriate spin and parity projections. This ratio is found to be one within one standard deviation. The results for the $`N\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ state in Fig. 5 indicate a clear mass splitting between the $`N\frac{3}{2}^+`$ and $`N\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ states obtained from the spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ interpolating field, with a mass difference around 300 MeV. This is slightly larger than the experimentally observed mass difference of 200 MeV.

Turning now to the isospin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ sector, the effective mass plot for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^+`$ state using the interpolating field given in Eq. (9) is shown in Figure 6 for the five $`\kappa `$ values used. An excellent signal is clearly visible, and a good value of the covariance-matrix based $`\chi ^2/N_{\mathrm{DF}}`$ is obtained by fitting time slices $`t=11`$–14 following the source at $`t=3`$. For the effective mass of the negative parity $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^{}`$, shown in Fig. 7, the signal is quite good up to time slice 11-12, but is lost in noise after time slice 12. Time slices $`t=9`$–12 provide a fitting window with an acceptable value of $`\chi ^2/N_{\mathrm{DF}}`$.

The results for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ masses are shown in Fig. 8 as a function of $`m_\pi ^2`$. The trend of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^+`$ data points with decreasing $`m_q`$ is clearly towards the $`\mathrm{\Delta }(1232)`$, although some nonlinearity with $`m_\pi ^2`$ is expected near the chiral limit MASSEXTR ; ROSS . The mass of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ lies some 500 MeV above that of its parity partner, although with somewhat larger errors, as expected from the effective mass plots in Figs. 6 and 7.

After performing a spin projection to extract the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^\pm `$ states, a discernible, but noisy, signal is detected. This indicates that the interpolating field in Eq. (9) has only a small overlap with spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ states. However, with 392 configurations we are able to extract a mass for the spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ states at early times, shown in Fig. 8. Here we see the larger error bars associated with the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^\pm `$ states. The lowest excitation of the ground state, namely the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^{}`$, has a mass $`350`$–400 MeV above the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^+`$, with the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ possibly appearing heavier. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^+`$ state is found to lie $`100`$–200 MeV above these, although the signal becomes weak at smaller quark masses. This level ordering is consistent with that observed in the empirical mass spectrum, which is also shown in the figure.

The $`N\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ states will decay to $`N\pi `$ in $`S`$-wave even in the quenched approximation QQCD . For all quark masses considered here, with the possible exception of the lightest quark, this decay channel is closed for the nucleon. While there may be some spectral strength in the decay mode, we are unable to separate it from the resonant spectral strength.

The $`N\frac{3}{2}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^+`$ states will decay to $`N\pi `$ in $`P`$ wave, while $`N\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ states will decay to $`N\pi `$ in $`D`$-wave. Since the decay products of each of these states must then have equal and opposite momentum and energy given by

$$E^2=M^2+\left(\frac{2\pi }{aL}\right)^2,$$

these states are stable in our calculations.

## IV Conclusion

We have presented the first results for the spectrum of spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ baryons in the isospin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ and $`\frac{3}{2}`$ channels, using a novel Fat Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) quark action and an $`𝒪(a^2)`$ improved gauge action. Clear signals are obtained for both the spin-projected $`N\frac{3}{2}^\pm `$ and $`N\frac{1}{2}^\pm `$ states from a spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ interpolating field. In particular, the $`\frac{1}{2}^\pm `$ states are in good agreement with earlier simulations of the nucleon mass and its parity partner using the standard spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ interpolating field. We find the $`N\frac{3}{2}^{}`$ state to lie at a similar energy level to the $`N\frac{1}{2}^{}`$, consistent with experiment. We also find a mass difference of $`300`$ MeV between the spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$, isospin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ parity partners, slightly larger than the experimentally observed difference of 200 MeV.

For isospin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ baryons, good agreement is found with earlier calculations for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ ground state, and clear mass splittings between the ground state and its parity partner are observed after suitable spin and parity projections. We obtain a signal for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{2}^\pm `$ states and the level ordering is consistent with that observed in the empirical mass spectrum.

It will also be important in future work to consider the excited states in each $`J^P`$ channel, in particular the lowest “Roper-like” excitation of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }(1232)`$ ground state. Although this will be more challenging, it may reveal further insights about the origin of the inter-quark forces and the nature of the confining potential.

###### Acknowledgements.

W.M. would like to thank R.G. Edwards and D.G. Richards for helpful discussions. This work was supported by the Australian Research Council, and the U.S. Department of Energy contract DE-AC05-84ER40150, under which the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab). The work of S.C. was supported by the Korean Ministry of Education under the BK21 program.


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# On phase transitions in 𝐏𝐛/𝐆𝐞(𝟏𝟏𝟏) and 𝐒𝐧/𝐆𝐞(𝟏𝟏𝟏)

## I I. Structural data

Surface phase transitions of $`\mathrm{Pb}`$ and $`\mathrm{Sn}`$ overlayers on $`\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ have been the subject of numerous studies. It is generally assumed that $`\sqrt{3}\times \sqrt{3}R30^{}`$ (in the following $`\sqrt{3}`$) to $`3\times 3`$ phase transitions in $`\mathrm{Pb}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ and $`\mathrm{Sn}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ are completely equivalent (see, e.g., Refs. Mascaraque99 ; Bunk99 ; Melechko99 ; Floreano01 ). However, taking into account the structural data reported in Refs. Mascaraque99 ; Bunk99  one has to realize that, in fact, these transitions should be very different. It is because of the following symmetry arguments. On one hand, both $`\mathrm{Pb}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ and $`\mathrm{Sn}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ systems have $`\sqrt{3}`$ structures with the symmetry of the $`p31m`$ space group. On the other hand, the symmetry of the $`3\times 3`$ structure in $`\mathrm{Pb}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ is $`p3`$ Mascaraque99  while in $`\mathrm{Sn}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ it is $`p3m1`$ Bunk99 . Therefore, the order parameters of these transitions are different, i.e. they transform according to different irreducible representations of the $`p31m`$ space group. Moreover, the corresponding Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson (LGW) Hamiltonians, which can be constructed according to Ref. Rottman81 , are quite different. This leads, in particular, to very different critical behaviors. The LGW Hamiltonian for the $`\sqrt{3}`$ to $`3\times 3`$ transition in $`\mathrm{Sn}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ is that of the three-state Potts model. Experimental data Floreano01  seem to be in agreement with the critical behavior of this model Alexander75 . The LGW Hamiltonian for the $`\sqrt{3}`$ to $`3\times 3`$ transition in $`\mathrm{Pb}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ is, however, that of the $`XY`$ model with sixth-order anisotropy. The critical behavior of this model is completely different Jose77 . On lowering the temperature one first crosses an upper critical temperature into a Kosterlitz-Thouless region of critical points with continuously variable exponents. One finally crosses a second critical temperature into an ordered phase.

There exist, however, another simpler possibility. Note that, while the $`3\times 3`$ structure in $`\mathrm{Pb}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ appears at $`250\mathrm{K}`$, the data showing $`p3`$ symmetry were obtained at $`50\mathrm{K}`$ Mascaraque99 . Therefore, the total lowering of symmetry could take place in two steps: (i) a first phase transition is responsible of the appearance of a $`3\times 3`$ structure with $`p3m1`$ symmetry and (ii) a second phase transition lower this symmetry to $`p3`$ with no increase of the unit cell. If it were the case, $`\sqrt{3}`$ to $`3\times 3`$ transitions in both $`\mathrm{Pb}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ and $`\mathrm{Sn}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ systems would be equivalent. To our knowledge, $`\mathrm{Pb}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ has not been studied enough to affirm what of the above described possibilities, if any, takes place. So we underline the necessity of such a study.

## II II. Transition temperature

Let us now examine the other point. In Refs. Melechko99 , the transition temperature of the $`\sqrt{3}`$ to $`3\times 3`$ transition in $`\mathrm{Sn}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ has been established, from STM experiments, as the temperature at which the region of $`3\times 3`$ structure induced by some defects becomes infinite nota . The difference between this temperature and that obtained from diffraction experiments Floreano01  is remarkably large ($`100^{}`$). However if these defects are mobile, what seems to be the case Melechko99 , the temperature reported in Ref. Melechko99  has nothing to do with the real transition temperature: the long-range order, what implies defect ordering, is not probed in these experiments. Therefore, the so large difference between these temperatures is not so surprising. Indeed, the influence on the phase transition temperature of mobile symmetry-breaking defects is well known since long ago Halperin76 . Experimental examples of such a influence, for instance in $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3:\mathrm{Li}`$, are also well documented Vugmeister90 . This crystal is an incipient ferroelectric in absence of $`\mathrm{Li}`$-dopants, i.e. its “transition temperature” is negative and close to zero. The $`\mathrm{Li}`$-dopants act as orientable dipoles (mobile symmetry-breaking defects) and, as a result of these new degrees of freedom, the resulting transition temperature is high enough to permit that the phase transition takes place. The corresponding increase of the $`\sqrt{3}`$ to $`3\times 3`$ transition temperature in $`\mathrm{Sn}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ and $`\mathrm{Pb}/\mathrm{Ge}(111)`$ can be conveniently estimated according to Ref. Levanyuk79 . One obtains that, if the defect concentration is $`1\%`$, this temperature could change up to $`100^{}`$ for not necessarily very strong defects.

### II.1 Acknowledgments

We acknowledge E.G. Michel and A. Mascaraque for useful discussions.


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# A multi-wavelength test of the FR I - BL Lac unifying model

## 1 Introduction

The unifying model for low power radio–loud Active Galactic Nuclei predicts that BL Lacs and Fanaroff-Riley I (FR I, Fanaroff & Riley 1974) radio galaxies constitute the same class of objects, the difference being the orientation of their relativistic jets with respect to the line of sight. This scenario has been mainly supported (and tested) through the comparison of extended, presumably isotropic, properties of the two populations (see Urry & Padovani 1995 for a review).

However it is also possible to verify and quantify the model parameters by estimating (or setting tight limits on) the nuclear emission in radio galaxies and directly compare it with the corresponding emission in BL Lacs. Recently the increased instrumental spatial and spectral resolution has in fact allowed the nuclear contribution in radio galaxies to be separated from the rest of the emission; there are now reliable nuclear flux estimates also in the X–ray and optical bands. Emission at optical and X-ray frequencies appears to well correlate with the radio core one, as shown by e.g. Canosa et al. (1999), Hardcastle & Worrall (1999, hereinafter HW99) for the X-rays and Chiaberge et al. (1999, hereafter CCC99) for the optical case (as deduced from HST observations of FR I 3CR galaxies). These correlations suggest the same non-thermal origin of radiation in all three bands, thus implying little (if any) obscuration along the line of sight in FR Is. Furthermore, Capetti & Celotti (1999, hereafter CC99) have been able to find for a subsample of (only) five FR Is that the optical core luminosity decreases by increasing the angle of the jet axis with respect to the line of sight, in agreement with the unifying scheme.

Following the same line of work, combining the information for individual sources in the different bands, Capetti et al. (2000; hereinafter paper I) considered the spectral energy distributions of the same small sample analyzed in CC99, in the attempt to compare the whole individual SEDs of FR Is with those of BL Lac objects. In particular they considered the broad-band spectral indices ($`\alpha _{\mathrm{ro}}`$, $`\alpha _{\mathrm{rX}}`$ and $`\alpha _{\mathrm{oX}}`$), which provide a good description of the SED, and also the X-ray spectral information, which provides a valuable tool to discriminate between the (steep) synchrotron and (flat) inverse Compton X-ray emission in BL Lacs. A similar broad-band approach has been later adopted also by Hardcastle & Worrall (2000) and Bai & Lee (2000). A general agreement with the unification model has been found through this comparison, with indications of the presence of two broad peaks, which characterize blazar spectra, also found in the FR I SEDs (with hints of the presence of High and Low frequency peak sources, as in BL Lacs, Giommi & Padovani 1995). A very clear example of double peaked SED is that of Centaurus A (Chiaberge et al. 2001) in which both peaks can be accurately identified. However, it became clear that the simplest scenario involving a one velocity jet was not adequate to consistently reproduce the SEDs of BL Lacs and FR Is via beaming effects. In particular the emission in radio galaxies exceeded what was expected by de-beaming (at large angles) the typical BL Lac luminosity. It was therefore suggested the presence of a slower jet component (e.g. a layer of the jet) dominating the emission at larger angles (Chiaberge et al. 2000).

Given the relevance of such issues for both the unifying model itself and the physics of jets, we decided to further explore them by considering a significantly larger sample of sources. For this purpose we extend here the analysis of paper I by constructing the SEDs for FR Is from the 3CR radio catalog for which multi-band observations are available and by comparing their SEDs with those of BL Lacs. The radio and optical data are those reported in CCC99. A few available infrared and UV observations not yet reported in the literature have been extracted from the HST archive. Most of the X-ray data have been taken from the recent literature, but again we also present here the analysis of Rosat pointed observations of a few objects which have not yet been presented elsewhere. From this selection we obtained a final sample of 16 radio galaxies, 20 including those examined in paper I. From the study of this relatively large sample of objects we are able to deduce some further implications concerning the validity of the unified model.

In the following Sect. 2 we list the sources considered in this work and outline their main properties at different wavelengths, with particular emphasis on the X-ray observations. In Sect. 3 we build up the SED of our objects and we discuss their features and compare them with those of BL Lacs, while in Sect. 4 we test the BL Lac/FR I unification by considering the different beaming conditions. The main implications of our results on the validity of the unified scheme are summarized in the last Sect. 5. Throughout this work we adopt the following values for the cosmological parameters: $`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 and $`q_0=0.5`$. Spectral indices are defined by $`F_\nu \nu ^\alpha `$.

## 2 The sample and the multi-wavelength data

The sources have been extracted from the 3CR for which X-ray data are available and core emission has been detected in the HST images (CCC99). In this list we have not considered M 87, that will be discussed separately, and 3C 84, that appears to be a very peculiar object (sometimes it is classified as a BL Lac) and highly variable at all frequencies. Conversely we have kept in the sample 3C 346, that in most publications is classified as a narrow line, FR II radio galaxy. We remark also that 3C 348 (Hercules A) has properties similar to both FR I and FR II radio galaxies and its total radio luminosity is more typical of FR IIs than FR Is. We have also considered in our sample 3C 189, which is part of the B2 sample of radio galaxies recently studied using HST data by Capetti et al. (2001), although this source is not included in the revised version of the 3C catalog (3CR).

In the following we outline the main properties of our targets, discussing separately the data at radio and IR/optical/UV frequencies (Table 1) and those at X-ray energies (Table 2).

Radio observations. For the radio core luminosities we referred to the VLA observations at 5 GHz of Giovannini et al. (1988) and Morganti et al. (1993), reported in CCC99. For some sources VLBI data also are available, however we prefer to use the lower resolution VLA observations as they have been obtained on scales similar to the measurements at the other wavelengths. The flux variability of the radio core is generally negligible for our sources. Fluctuations of $`20\%`$ have been found in 3C 66B (Hardcastle et al. 1996), whereas in 3C 338, the most strongly variable radio galaxy known of our sample, the core flux may vary up to $`6070\%`$ (Giovannini et al. 1998).

Optical, infrared and UV observations. Most of the HST observations in CCC99 were performed with the WFPC2 using the filter F702W; for a few sources data with different filters are also available. In the public archive at STSCI observations with the HST/NICMOS are found at infrared frequencies for 3C 272.1 with the broad-band filters F110W, F160W and F205W, and for 3C 317 and 3C 338 with F160W. The analysis of these data have been performed as in paper I. UV images of 3C 66B and 3C 346 have been taken with the HST/FOC (at $`\lambda =4440`$ Å and 3440 Å) and HST/STIS (at $`\lambda =1400`$ Å), respectively. All these observations have been performed in the years 1994 - 1996. So far repeated HST observations are available only for a few sources. In particular, 3C 66B shows a decrease in flux by a factor $``$ 2 in the optical between 1995 and 2000, while 3C 317 has revealed strong variability in the UV (by a factor $``$ 10) between 1994 and 1999 (Chiaberge et al. 2002). Other UV data of 3C 66B, 3C 78, 3C 317 and 3C 338 are taken from Chiaberge et al. (2002).

All the fluxes have been corrected for the galactic extinction, but some amount of local absorption may be present. In Paper I we estimated that, based on the small dispersion of the radio/optical correlation for FR I nuclei, such local extinction does not exceed 2 magnitudes in the optical. This result is confirmed by recent UV observations (Chiaberge et al. 2002), which implies an underestimate of the luminosity of by factor $`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}6}`$ (this is probably the case in 3C 272.1 where a central dust lane is present, CCC99). However, this is not critically relevant for the construction of the SED (for details see paper I).

X-ray observations. We discuss in more detail the observations in the X-ray band that are particularly crucial for us to be able to define the structure of the SED.

We must point out that in instruments with poor imaging capability the nuclear X-ray flux may be contaminated by spurious sources, like X-ray binaries, jets, etc. However the correlation between the radio and X-ray core luminosities (Canosa et al. 1999, HW99), suggests that in general the jet emission should provide the most relevant contribution to the nuclear flux. We remind in particular that for the radio galaxies of our sample the integrated contribution from binaries to the total emission is not relevant (see e.g. Fabbiano 1989). Furthermore from Chandra data it has been deduced that emission from X-ray jets is not the dominant source of high energy photons in these radio galaxies (Hardcastle et al. 2001, Worral et al. 2001). It has also been proposed that advection dominated disks (ADAF) could contribute to the core emission from radio to hard X-ray energies (see e.g. Narayan & Yi 1995, Di Matteo et al. 2000, 2001). In normal elliptical galaxies it has been excluded a relevant contribution from the ADAF to the nuclear luminosity (Loewenstein et al. 2001). Chandra observations suggest that this should be also the case for radio galaxies (Di Matteo et al. 2002, Pellegrini et al. 2003). The above considerations leave us with extended hot galactic gas as the main source of contamination.

The data on our sources are quite heterogeneous, as they have been collected from different instruments and satellites. In all cases the luminosities have been re-scaled to the soft X-ray energy range of Rosat (0.1 - 2.4 keV). Most of the data reported here have been extracted from recent publications, while we directly analyzed the archival Rosat data of 3C 29, 3C 66B, 3C 189, 3C 277.3 and 3C 317 not yet discussed in the literature.

Very recent Chandra data have been collected for 3C 31111We reconsider here this source that was previously analyzed in paper I using Rosat data (Hardcastle et al. 2002), 3C 66B (Hardcastle et al. 2001), 3C 189 (Worral et al. 2001), 3C 272.1 (Finoguenov & Jones 2001), 3C 317 (Blanton et al. 2003) and 3C 338 (Di Matteo et al. 2000). In all sources a point-like core has been detected, with flux almost unabsorbed locally ($`N_\mathrm{H}<`$ few units of $`10^{21}`$ cm-2), however only for 3C 31, 3C 66B and 3C 272.1 is there a good evaluation of the spectral slope.

For six objects the core emission has been searched for through spectral fits with two–component models: thermal (from the environment) + power law (from the nucleus). A positive detection has been obtained for 3C 78 (BeppoSAX, Trussoni et al. 1999), 3C 346 (ASCA and Rosat, Worral & Birkinshaw 2000) and 3C 348 (BeppoSAX, Rosat and ASCA, Siebert et al. 1999, Trussoni et al. 2001), although with poor, if any, estimate of the spectral index. From our spectral analysis of the Rosat/PSPC observations of 3C 29, 3C 277.3 and 3C 317 only an upper limit to the core emission has been deduced for the first two radio galaxies while for 3C 317 non-thermal flux has been detected with very flat spectrum ($`\alpha _\mathrm{X}0.1`$). For all those sources with no estimate of the spectral index, the X-ray luminosities have been deduced assuming $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=1`$.

Finally, for the remaining six radio galaxies (3C 83.1, 3C 288, 3C 296, 3C 310 and 3C 449) we referred to the results of HW99 who, exploiting the imaging capabilities of the HRI and PSPC of Rosat, looked for the presence of point-like components coinciding with the active nuclei. As a small thermal region may be present in the central regions of radio galaxies the nuclear flux can be overestimated, mainly for distant sources (as e.g. in 3C 465, at the center of cluster A 2634, see paper I). However the correlation between the radio and X-ray core luminosities suggests that in most of the detected cores the non-thermal component cannot be a negligible fraction of the total emission. In any case the values of the luminosities will be considered as upper limits of their nuclear emission (marked with a star in Table 2).

For $`2/3`$ of the targets repeated X–ray observations are available. However in most cases the count rate is too low (or only upper limits exist) to obtain information on the possible presence of variability. From ASCA and Rosat data a slight decrease of the emission has been found in 3C 346 over $``$ 1.5 yr. In contrast, from two PSPC and one Chandra observation it turns out that the X-ray core flux from 3C 66B has decreased by a factor $`4`$ in 9 years. A similar trend has been found for 3C 317, although the large statistical errors do not allow a definite conclusion. Out of the repeated observations of these three targets we use those closer in time to the HST pointings.

More details on the observations and the X-ray properties of the other objects not discussed in HW99 are reported in the Appendix.

## 3 Results

As already mentioned in the Introduction, the correlations found between the luminosities of the nuclei of FR Is in different spectral bands, from radio to X–ray energies, suggest a common non-thermal origin for the emission form these nuclei, occurring in the inner parts of the relativistic jets. Our aim is to use the data to compare the multi-wavelength properties of the nuclear emission of FR Is with those of BL Lacs, in order to derive information on the jet properties. In particular we examine the Spectral Energy Distribution, the intensity of the X-ray emission and the values of the broad-band spectral indices.

### 3.1 The Spectral Energy Distribution

The main characteristic of BL Lac SEDs is that they can be well described as composed by two broad peaks. The lower energy one, most likely due to synchrotron emission, is located in the mm-IR or UV-soft/X-ray bands in Low and High peak BL Lacs, respectively (HBL and LBL, in the terminology introduced by Giommi & Padovani 1995). The higher energy component comprises the X-ray and $`\gamma `$-ray range and is possibly due to inverse Compton emission. Therefore, it is important to look for the presence of such two components also in the SEDs of FR Is, to investigate if indeed their nuclear emission is dominated by non-thermal radiation, only de-beamed with respect to BL Lacs. Positive indications of the compatibility of the behaviour of such a spectral shape with the (although poorly sampled) SEDs of FR Is have been found in paper I. Here we further investigate the SED shape for a larger number of sources, and with better sampled energy distributions, and try to locate the positions of the peak of the synchrotron component.

The SEDs of our objects are shown in Fig. 1. All of them present an increase of the emission from radio up to $``$ infrared wavelengths, while significant differences can be seen at higher frequencies. Indications of the shape of the SEDs and on the location of the emission peak can be inferred from the relative intensity of the optical and X–ray emission and - as already mentioned - from the X–ray spectral index. Unfortunately, for half of the sources we have only an upper limit to the nuclear non-thermal X–ray emission (see Table 2). We do not further consider here the sources for which the X–ray limit is not significant (3C 83.1, 3C 288, 3C 296, 3C 310 and 3C 442), whereas in three cases (3C 29, 3C 277.3 and 3C 449) the limit is still useful to provide constraints on the SED.

In 3C 78, 3C 272.1 and 3C 449, the X-ray luminosity is significantly lower than that of the optical component. This suggests the existence of a minimum approximately around X-ray energies, in the region of transition from synchrotron to Compton emission and it is supported by the steep X-ray spectrum of 3C 272.1.

In five radio galaxies (3C 31, 3C 66B, 3C 317, 3C 338 and 3C 346) the X-ray spectrum is rather flat (the SED is rising at these energies) suggesting that the synchrotron peak must be located at lower frequencies. Even though the overall shape of the SED may be affected by spurious emission in the IR/optical band (e.g. by dust emission) the above interpretation seems to be confirmed by the comparison of the SED slope in the IR/optical/UV spectral region. In fact in all these cases the slope is decreasing, suggesting for the presence of a minimum and for a location of the synchrotron peak at $``$ IR frequencies, or lower. The SEDs of these sources are then qualitatively similar to the SEDs of LBL: the X-ray emission is plausibly of Compton origin with a flat spectrum. Very similar properties are present in the SED of 3C 270 (see paper I).

Conversely, the data for 3C 29, 3C 189, 3C 277.3 and 3C 348 (similar to 3C 465 discussed in paper I) do not allow to characterize the shape of their SEDs.

While these findings generally support the presence of a double peaked SED of FR Is, it is necessary to stress that the luminosity scatter of these objects ranges over $``$ 2-3 order of magnitudes in the radio and X-ray bands, and it is impossible to derive any trend with the source power.

### 3.2 Comparison between the X-ray emission in FR Is and BL Lacs

Measurements of the nuclear emission in FR I radio galaxies and their comparison with the luminosities of BL Lacs provide us with a direct measure of the amount of beaming affecting the two different classes of objects. For this test we must consider objects of similar large scale properties, which do not depend on orientation. In particular, they must share a common range of extended radio luminosity as this is linked to the energy carried by the relativistic jet, which is plausibly at the origin of the nuclear emission.

The same method has been applied both in the optical and radio bands to the 3C and the B2 samples of FR I radio galaxies (Chiaberge et al. 2000, Capetti et al. 2001). The luminosity ratio between FR Is and BL Lacs was found to be $`L_{\mathrm{BL}}/L_{\mathrm{FR}\mathrm{I}}10^{2.5}`$ and $`L_{\mathrm{BL}}/L_{\mathrm{FR}\mathrm{I}}10^{3.9}`$ in the radio and optical bands, respectively. These authors deduced that the difference in nuclear luminosity (in both bands) between BL Lacs and FR Is can be accounted for by a single amplification factor, taking into account the scatter of the data, with corresponding jet bulk Lorentz factors $`\mathrm{\Gamma }46`$ (Chiaberge et al. 2000). Similar values in FR I objects have been deduced by Giovannini et al. (2001) from radio data. However these Lorentz factors are significantly smaller than those derived for BL Lacs from other observational and theoretical considerations. Namely, the variability and time lags at different frequencies, the spectral fittings of the overall SED, and the detection of $`\gamma `$ -ray emission constrain $`\mathrm{\Gamma }>15`$ (Dondi & Ghisellini 1995, Ghisellini et al. 1998, Tavecchio et al. 1998).

Chiaberge et al. (2000) have shown that the presence of a velocity structure in the jet (a fast spine surrounded by a slower layer) could overcome this difficulty. In such a picture, observers at different viewing angles see different components of the jet: the fast spine dominates the emission in BL Lacs, whereas the slower layer dominates the emission observed in FR Is. We remark that such a model has been suggested, from radio observation, for 3C 31 (even though on a much larger scale; Laing & Bridle 2002).

Here we adopt the same strategy for the X-ray nuclear luminosities. In Fig. 2 we show our samples of FR Is and BL Lacs in the plane formed by $`L_{\nu \mathrm{X}}`$ against $`L_{\nu \mathrm{r},\mathrm{ext}}`$ (i.e. the nuclear X-ray luminosity vs the extended radio luminosity at 1.4 GHz). Note that the two classes of BL Lacs share the same range of X–ray luminosity independently on $`L_{\nu \mathrm{r},\mathrm{ext}}`$ ($`L_{\nu \mathrm{X}}10^{27}`$ erg s-1 Hz-1, with a scatter of $`\pm `$ 1 order of magnitude).

The presence of several upper limits in the FR Is makes the estimate of the relative beaming factor in the X-ray band less accurate than in the radio and optical bands. Although a correlation between $`L_{\nu \mathrm{X}}`$ and $`L_{\nu \mathrm{r},\mathrm{ext}}`$ in the FR Is cannot be firmly established, we followed the method used in Capetti et al. (2001) and Chiaberge et al. (2000), and fitted a regression line to the data, using the survival analysis package ASURV (Isobe & Feigelson 1985, 1986). In this way, we derived that at $`L_{\nu \mathrm{r},\mathrm{ext}}10^{32}`$ erg s-1 Hz-1, which is the median value for our sample, the corresponding X–ray luminosity is $`L_{\nu \mathrm{X}}10^{23.5}`$ erg s-1 Hz-1. Thus the luminosity ratio between FR Is and BL Lacs is of $``$ 3.5 orders of magnitude. This corresponds to a ratio between the Doppler factors of BL Lacs and FR Is $`R_\delta \delta _{\mathrm{BL}}/\delta _{\mathrm{FR}\mathrm{I}}=(L_{\nu \mathrm{X}}^{\mathrm{BL}}/L_{\nu \mathrm{X}}^{\mathrm{FR}\mathrm{I}})^{1/(p+\alpha )}`$ between 10 and 25 for $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=1.50.5`$, respectively, and $`p=2`$ (as appropriate for a continuous jet)222This relation between the luminosities and the Doppler factors strictly holds for synchrotron and Self-Synchro-Compton (SSC) emissions, while for External Compton emission (EC) we should shift $`1/(p+\alpha )1/(p+1+2\alpha )`$ (Georganopoulos et al. 2001). In such regime of Compton emission it is $`0.5\alpha _\mathrm{X}1`$, and for ratios of luminosities of $`10^{3.5}`$ we overestimate $`R_\delta `$ by a factor $`3.0`$ if the emission mechanism is EC. This in principle affects the beaming tracks of flat X-ray spectrum sources but does not critically modify our conclusions considering the scatter of the data in Fig. 2 ($``$ one order of magnitude). In the case of a relativistically moving sphere ($`p=3`$) is $`R_\delta 610`$, for the same range of $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}`$. These values are therefore compatible with those found for both the radio and the optical bands ($`R_\delta 1820`$ for $`p=2`$; $`R_\delta 79`$ for $`p=3`$), although they have a larger allowed range, due to the uncertainty on the local X–ray spectral index.

If there is a velocity gradient across the jet, $`R_\delta `$ corresponds to an “effective” beaming factor, which accounts for the effects of the different jet speed components. Therefore, the comparison of the nuclear luminosity of BL Lacs and FR Is does not lead to a “real” value of a unique Lorentz factor of the jet. As in the case of the radio and optical bands, the inferred values of the bulk Lorentz factors are lower than those obtained for the BL Lacs from other arguments. Indeed, by adopting the reference value of $`\delta _{\mathrm{BL}}\mathrm{\Gamma }=15÷20`$ (see Chiaberge et al. 2000, and references therein) and a viewing angle for BL Lacs and FR Is of $`\theta =1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`\theta 60^{}`$ respectively, we obtain $`R_\delta `$ $`100÷200`$. This value of $`R_\delta `$ would translate in a ratio $`L_{\nu \mathrm{X}}^{\mathrm{BL}}/L_{\nu \mathrm{X}}^{\mathrm{FR}\mathrm{I}}=10^510^9`$ for the range of parameters used above ($`p=2,3`$; $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.5,1.5`$). Therefore, we outline that also the X-ray data are consistent with the possible presence of a velocity structure in the jet.

A second deduction that can be made from the $`L_{\nu \mathrm{r},\mathrm{ext}}/L_{\nu \mathrm{X}}`$ plane is an estimate of $`R_\delta `$ for each individual source comparing its X-ray luminosity with BL Lacs of similar extended radio luminosity. However this comparison is meaningful only if the difference in X–ray luminosity at a given extended luminosity can be ascribed mainly to a different orientation of the radio galaxy. As already noted in the optical and radio bands, it also the case in the X-rays that we have a clear indication that objects seen at a small angle with respect to the line of sight are over-luminous. In particular, all sources with a resolved optical jet, an indication of a close jet alignment (see Sparks et al. 1995, 2000), namely 3C 66B, 3C 78, 3C 189, 3C 264 and 3C 346, are among the brightest objects. At the same time we note the low luminosity of 3C 338 ($`L_{\mathrm{BL}}/L_{\mathrm{FR}\mathrm{I}}10^{4.5\pm 1}`$) which suggests a largely de-beamed nuclear emission, consistent with a jet basically projected on the sky plane, as deduced from radio data ($`\theta 85^{}`$, Giovannini et al. 2001). The spread in X-ray luminosity then appears to be dominated by orientation effects rather than by intrinsic differences from source to source and therefore this information can be used to constraint the “beaming tracks” that will be discussed in the following section.

Finally, we note that on average HBLs are characterized by lower extended radio luminosities than LBL: the former sample extends from $`10^{29}`$ to $`10^{31.5}`$ erg s-1Hz-1, the latter from $`10^{30}`$ erg s-1Hz-1 to $`10^{33}`$ erg s-1Hz-1 (Chiaberge et al. 2000, and references therein). As the SED’s of these two BL Lac classes are different (Fossati et al. 1998), it would be interesting to test if such a distinction also reflects to the FR Is. We might also expect that radio-galaxies of low extended luminosity will show a SED typical of HBL, while the highest luminosity objects should be LBL-like. Unfortunately, our FR I sample is mostly concentrated on the transition region across LBL and HBL. The few objects with extreme luminosities and well defined SEDs are 3C 272.1, with $`L_{\nu \mathrm{r},\mathrm{ext}}`$ typical of HBL, and the powerful 3C 346 and 3C 348, with the same extended luminosity as LBL. Although clearly not conclusive, these results do not contradict the trend observed in BL Lacs.

### 3.3 Distribution of $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ro}}`$, $`\alpha _{\mathrm{rX}}`$ and $`\alpha _{\mathrm{oX}}`$

Further information on the unification model can be obtained by considering the broad-band spectral indices $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ro}}`$, $`\alpha _{\mathrm{rX}}`$ and $`\alpha _{\mathrm{oX}}`$ of FR I radio galaxies and comparing with those of BL Lacs (Fig. 3; the 3CR sources of paper I are also included).

It is evident that there is essentially no overlap of the distribution of the spectral indices of FR Is with the regions of these planes where HBL and LBL are located. In particular, with respect to HBL a large radio excess is present in radio galaxies (both $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ro}}^{\mathrm{FR}\mathrm{I}}`$ and $`\alpha _{\mathrm{rX}}^{\mathrm{FR}\mathrm{I}}`$ are greater than $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ro}}^{\mathrm{HBL}}`$ and $`\alpha _{\mathrm{rX}}^{\mathrm{HBL}}`$ respectively). Overall the values of $`\alpha _{\mathrm{rX}}`$ are similar to those of LBL, but only few sources fall in the LBL region as in most of the FR I objects we have $`\alpha _{\mathrm{oX}}<1.1`$ and $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ro}}>0.7`$, i.e. they show an excess of X-ray and radio emission with respect to LBL.

To establish whether the distributions shown in Fig. 3 are indicative of an intrinsic difference between the two classes of objects it is essential to evaluate the effect of the relativistic beaming. This point will be discussed in the following section.

## 4 Testing the FR I - BL Lac unified model

Based on the results outlined in the previous section, it is now possible to perform a more quantitative comparison between FR Is and BL Lacs. In particular, we can test if the information on the SED, spectral indices and difference in luminosities of the two classes can be simultaneously accounted for within the simplest unification scheme, only allowing for the presence of a velocity structure in the jet that is suggested by the observations (see Chiaberge et al. 2000, Capetti et al. 2001).

We reiterate that from the luminosity ratio between a FR Is and BL Lacs in a given band (see Sect. 3.2) we can estimate the ratio of the beaming factors $`R_\delta `$. At the same time, moving from a large viewing angle to a jet more closely aligned with the line of sight the SED is Doppler shifted to higher frequencies by a factor $`R_\delta `$. As the SED is not represented by a single power law, the broad-band spectral indices transform as (Chiaberge et al. 2000):

$$\alpha _{ij}^{\mathrm{BL}}=\alpha _{ij}^{\mathrm{FR}\mathrm{I}}+(\alpha _i\alpha _j)\frac{\mathrm{log}R_\delta }{\mathrm{log}(\nu _j/\nu _i)}$$
$`(1)`$
where $`i,j\mathrm{r},\mathrm{o},\mathrm{X}`$. The above relation provides a ‘beaming track’, i.e. the path of a representative radio galaxy in the $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ro}}`$ and $`\alpha _{\mathrm{rX}}`$ vs $`\alpha _{\mathrm{oX}}`$ planes as a function of $`R_\delta `$.

It is clear that a crucial ingredient to perform this comparison effectively is the X-ray spectrum of the radio-galaxies. This information is available for eight of our radio galaxies (six from Table 2 and 3C 264 and 3C 270 from paper I). For the radio emission we have assumed a spectral index $`\alpha _\mathrm{r}=0`$. For the optical band only for few sources in the sample the photometry is sufficiently accurate to allow a constrained enough estimate of $`\alpha _\mathrm{o}`$ ($`0.71.3`$, see CC99). To be conservative we have assumed the spectral index free to vary in the interval $`0.5\alpha _\mathrm{o}1.5`$ (from their standard SED we expect $`\alpha _\mathrm{o}>1`$ and $`\alpha _\mathrm{o}1`$ for LBL and HBL, respectively).

We then proceed to analyze the tracks for those sources with the best data, by estimating $`R_{\delta _\mathrm{X}}`$ from the ratio between their measured X-ray luminosity and the average luminosity of BL Lac objects (see Fig. 2) and taking into account the X-ray spectral index. Referring in particular to 3C 272.1, which has the best sampled SED, we find $`L_{\mathrm{BL}}/L_{\mathrm{FR}\mathrm{I}}=10^{5\pm 1}`$ and $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=1.3`$, which yields $`R_{\delta _\mathrm{X}}10^{1.5\pm 0.3}`$. With this allowed range of values for the ratio of the beaming factors estimated in the X-rays, it is possible to check if, by adopting the same range for the optical and radio band (i.e. $`R_\delta =R_{\delta _\mathrm{X}}`$), the resulting relative luminosities are also consistent with a given class of BL Lac objects. The tracks of 3C 272.1 fall in the region of overlapping between HBL and LBL (see the shadowed regions in Fig. 4, right panels). Thus the ‘beamed’ 3C 272.1 falls, in both planes, in the HBL zone almost independently of the slope of the optical spectrum (Fig. 4, left panels). We have already seen that the X-ray spectrum of 3C 272.1 is rather steep and its SED has a minimum around the X-ray band, both features typical of HBL. Finally, its extended radio emission is also typical of HBL sources. In summary there is a complete consistency between all spectral and luminosity indicators, and any optical extinction does not modify these conclusions.

The tracks of 3C 66B ($`R_\delta 10^{1.4\pm 0.4}`$, $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.3`$; Fig. 5) ‘join’ the LBL region, as expected by its flat X-ray spectrum and by the shape of its SED, again independently of the optical spectrum. A similar trend holds for 3C 346 for which a small amount of beaming is required due to its high luminosity ($`R_\delta 10^{0.4\pm 0.4}`$; Fig. 6). The X-ray spectral slope ($`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.7`$) and the extended radio luminosity are typical of LBL. Indeed 3C 346 appears as a LBL-like radio galaxy in all diagnostic planes, provided the optical spectrum is quite steep ($`\alpha _\mathrm{o}1.5`$), consistently with the standard SED of LBL.

Referring to the sources studied in paper I, the analysis of the beaming tracks confirm that 3C 270 ($`R_\delta 10^{1.5\pm 0.4}`$, $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.7`$), can be associated to a LBL, as we already argued based on its SED. As in the case of 3C 346, 3C 270 falls into the LBL region only if its optical spectrum is quite steep ($`\alpha _\mathrm{o}1.5`$) as indeed observed for this source. For 3C 264 ($`R_\delta 10^{0.7\pm 0.3}`$) we have an accurate measurement of $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}`$ (= 1.45), while from the IR and optical data we can estimate $`\alpha _\mathrm{o}0.81`$. The diagnostic plots (Fig. 7) confirm that this radio galaxy can be associated with a HBL.

More ambiguous is the case of 3C 189 ($`R_\delta 10^{1\pm 0.3}`$, not shown here) as neither its X-ray spectral slope ($`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=1.1_{0.4}^{+0.1}`$) nor its SED clearly identify it with a given class of BL Lacs. The beaming tracks of the spectral indices seem to favour an association with a LBL, but the available data are not conclusive.

The quality of spectral data on the remaining sources of our sample do not allow us to explore their beaming tracks.

We must remind finally that in Eq. (1) the spectral slopes in the different bands are kept constant, which is in principle inappropriate taking into account that $`R_\delta 10÷30`$. This assumption may be critical only in the region of the optical peak and of the transition between the Compton and synchrotron emission. In such a case the values of $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ro}}`$ and $`\alpha _{\mathrm{rX}}`$ could be misestimated by a quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha _{ij}<0.1`$. However we have seen above that a similar amount of uncertainties affect the evaluations of $`R_\delta `$ from Fig. 2.

## 5 Summary and Conclusions

We combined measurements in the X-ray band with optical nuclear luminosities derived from HST images and radio data taken from the literature, to characterize the multi-wavelength properties of 20 FR I radio galaxies from the 3CR sample. In the framework of the unifying model for FR I and BL Lac the results of the present analysis can be summarized as follows:

1. The SED of the sources are not monotonic showing, as in BL Lacs, peaks and minima of emission; in more than half of the objects this minimum occurs around the soft X-ray band.

2. A comparison of the X-ray luminosities of FR Is and BL Lacs indicates that a single amplification factor accounts for their difference in luminosity in the radio, optical and X-ray band.

3. The dominant role of Doppler boosting is confirmed, while obscuration of the nucleus does not appear to be relevant in the FR I/BL Lac unification.

4. The distribution of FR Is in the broad-band spectral index planes shows essentially no overlap with the region typical of HBL and LBL. However, we have shown that this behaviour is only apparent and related to the effects of relativistic beaming and the BL Lac SED.

5. Based on these results we have performed, for the sources with the best data, a more complete and quantitative comparison between FR Is and BL Lacs to verify the consistency between all spectral and luminosity indicators. Namely we derived the beaming factor for 6 FR I sources (including also two objects analyzed in paper I) based on their X-ray luminosity as compared to that of a BL Lac of similar extended radio luminosity. From the estimate of this single free parameter we predicted optical and radio luminosities and broad-band spectral indices for its counterpart observed at a small angle from the line of sight. This provided us with an association of each FR I source with a given type of BL Lac, which is found to be in agreement with the slope of the X-ray spectrum, the overall SED shape and the extended radio luminosity of the corresponding BL Lac class.

Thus the differences between FR Is and BL Lacs can be all accounted for within the simplest unification scheme, where the nuclear FR I emission is non–thermal radiation from a relativistic jet, only allowing for the presence of a velocity structure in the jet. This is required for Centaurus A, for which very detailed multi-band data up to GeV energies are available and the orientation of the jet is known (Chiaberge et al. 2001). On the other hand the fact that a similar amount of beaming occurs from radio to X-ray energies puts some strong constraints on the jet dynamics. As it is likely that the X-ray and optical emission regions occur closer to the central engine than the radio emission by $`2`$ orders of magnitudes, the jet structure would have to be preserved on these length scales.

In conclusion let us briefly consider how the validity of this procedure to test the unified model could improve with better observational information. Apart the availability of a larger sample of objects, multi-frequency observations would be necessary to estimate the spectral slope at IR–optical–UV wavelengths. Furthermore with respect to previous X-ray data, Chandra is greatly improving our ability to find point-like nuclei. However, in general, they are so weak that only in few cases we had a satisfactory estimate of $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{H},\mathrm{loc}}`$ (for this purpose also data from XMM could be useful). Finally we point out that the variability of the core fluxes at all frequencies may affect the shape of the SED and the evaluation of the indices $`\alpha _{ij}`$ (this may be quite crucial at X-ray energies, see e.g. the case of 3C 66B). A useful step forward to test the validity of the unified scheme would be simultaneous multi-frequency observations.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work has been partially supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Italian Ministery for Education and Research (MIUR, cofin 2001/028773). The authors wish to thank M. Georganopoulos for his useful comments and suggestions.

## Appendix A Notes on the X-ray properties of some sources

We summarize here the observations and the main results of 11 radio galaxies observed with Rosat/PSPC, Chandra, BeppoSAX and ASCA. The properties of the other six sources of the sample are discussed in detail in HW99.

For the analysis of the Rosat/PSPC observations of 3C 29, 3C 66B, 3C 277.3, 3C 189 and 3C 317 (not yet analyzed elsewhere) we have followed the same procedure discussed in paper I, i.e. we performed a spectral analysis using composite models allowing for the presence of both a thermal and a non-thermal (power-law) component. To establish the statistical significance of the non-thermal component, we have then checked through an F-test when its inclusion improves the fit. The size of the region of photon extraction has been chosen to avoid as much as possible contamination from the extended diffuse zone, and taking into account the intensity of the sources and their position in the detector FOV. In addition for targets offset more than $`20^{}`$ from the center of the FOV we have excluded the first 50 channels of energy, where the background flux largely increases. The data have been processed using the Exsas package (version 1998) and the reported errors are given at 1 $`\sigma `$ level for a single parameter ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=1`$). The uncertainties on the luminosities (in the range 0.1 - 2.4 keV) are at the same level, but for two parameters ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=2.3`$). The upper limits are given at $`3\sigma `$ levels, while no error is reported for sources where thermal contamination is probable (for the details concerning the statistical criteria for the other sources listed in Table 2, see the quoted literature).

3C 29. X-ray emission from this radio galaxy (observed in 1992 with an exposure of 15197 s), offset by $`30^{}`$ in the FOV (centered on the cluster A 119), has been detected with a $`3\sigma `$ confidence level (c. r. $`=5\pm 2\times 10^3`$ s-1). Assuming a power law spectrum with $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=1.0`$ we deduce an unabsorbed flux of $`1.0\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. The X-ray emission is consistent with that expected from the correlation between the radio and X-ray core luminosities (Canosa et al. 1999). To account for a possible contribution from a thermal hot corona then, as for the data of HW99, this emission is assumed as an upper limit to the core luminosity.

3C 31. In paper I we derived, from Rosat/PSPC data, a nuclear flux of $`2.0\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, uncertain within a factor $`2`$ ($`1\sigma `$) and without any estimate of the spectral index. From the Chandra observation of November 2000 (Hardcastle et al. 2002) the inner region has been resolved in the pointlike nucleus and a jet, with comparable luminosities in the Rosat X-ray band. The spectrum is quite flat ($`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.5_{0.2}^{+0.3}`$), with no evidence of a local absorption ($`N_\mathrm{H}=1.5_{1.4}^{+2.2}\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2). The shape of the SED is very similar to that of 3C 189 (see Fig. 1). The flux is $`5\times 10^{14}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, i.e. $`4`$ times less than detected in Rosat but still consistent considering the statistical fluctuations and the jet contribution.

3C 66B. A Chandra observation of November 2000 has shown that non-thermal flux originates from a point-like nucleus and a jet, which are embedded in a diffuse, thermally emitting plasma. From the spectral analysis, an index $`1.03_{0.05}^{+0.07}`$ and a flux $`2.5\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 (Hardcastle et al. 2001) have been obtained for the core emission. This radio galaxy falls in the FOV of two pointed PSPC observations of August 1991 (24654 s) and August 1993 (31497 s): in both cases 3C 66B is offset by $`38^{}`$ from the center, and at $`6^{}`$ from the blazar 3C 66A. To avoid as much as possible the contamination from this nearby powerful source, the target photons have been extracted from a ring with radius of only $`2.5^{}`$, and those of the background from a coronal ring centered on 3C 66A with inner and outer radii of $`3^{}`$ and $`8^{}`$, respectively. This implies an underestimate of the total luminosity. To search for the core emission we have performed spectral fits with a three components model, thermal (from the diffuse region) plus two power law spectra (from the jet and the core). Keeping fixed the parameters for the thermal and jet emission as deduced from the Chandra data, and assuming $`N_\mathrm{H}=N_{\mathrm{H},\mathrm{gal}}`$ ($`=9.15\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2) we obtain for the two epochs : $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.20_{0.25}^{+0.20}`$ and flux $`9.5\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 (1991), and $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.30_{0.40}^{+0.30}`$ and flux $`6.0\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 (1993). Assuming, for consistency with the Chandra results, the largest allowed values of the spectral indices at $`2\sigma `$ level of confidence (two related parameters, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=4.6`$), $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.75`$ (1991) and $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.85`$ (1993), the fluxes are $`1.2\times 10^{12}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 and $`8.1\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 for the former and latter observation, respectively. This comparison of the Chandra and Rosat data indicates that the core X-ray flux of 3C 66B has decreased by a factor $`4`$ in 10 years, with a remarkable softening of the spectrum. For the multi-wavelength analysis we used the 1993 PSPC data, closer in time to the HST observations.

3C 78. The spectral analysis of a BeppoSAX observation of this source (January 1997) supports the presence of non-thermal emission, but without the estimate of the spectral index (Trussoni et al. 1999). If we assume $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=1.0`$ we get a flux of $`1.5\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, corresponding to a value of the luminosity expected from the radio core emission.

3C 189. From a Chandra observation of April 2000 (Worral et al. 2001) the nuclear emission is fitted with a non-thermal spectrum with $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=1.1_{0.4}^{+0.1}`$, with flux $`3.6\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. Approximately the same energy flux is emitted by a jet and from a diffuse thermal halo surrounding the central region within a radius of $`10^{\prime \prime }`$. To verify for a possible variability we have analyzed the data of a Rosat/PSPC observation of 1991. From a spectral fit, assuming a thermal + non-thermal components, we get a slightly softer spectrum, $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=1.4_{0.2}^{+0.2}`$, but still consistent with the Chandra observation. The resulting flux to be $`=6.2\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1; fixing $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=1.2`$ the allowed range of the flux is $`3.06.7\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 at $`2\sigma `$ level. Then, if X-ray variability occurred in the nucleus of 3C 189 in the period 1991 - 2000, its amplitude had to be less than a factor $`1.8`$. In the present analysis we have adopted the Chandra results.

3C 272.1. The X-ray emission from the nucleus of M 84 detected by Chandra (May 2000) has been fit with a power law spectrum with $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=1.3_{0.1}^{+0.1}`$, $`N_\mathrm{H}=2.7_{0.3}^{+0.3}\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2 and an unabsorbed flux of $`1.9\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 (Finoguenov & Jones 2001). We remark that the hydrogen column density implies an extinction of $`1.4`$ magnitudes at optical wavelengths, consistent with the HST data (CCC99). In the Rosat energy band the core luminosity is $`5.0\times 10^{39}`$ erg s-1, in agreement with the data of HW99.

3C 277.3. No X-ray emission has been detected at the position of this radio galaxy associated with the cluster Coma A. The pointing center was offset by $`45^{}`$ in the FOV (pointed in 1991, c.r. $`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^3`$ s-1, exposure of 20345 s). Assuming a power law model with $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=1`$ this corresponds to an upper limit flux of $`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4.2}\times 10^{14}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, consistent with the radio/X-ray correlation of Canosa et al. (1999).

3C 317. This radio galaxy is the main member of the cooling flow cluster A 2052: its X-ray properties (from HRI observations) were analyzed by Rizza et al. (2000) who did not find strong evidence of a compact core. The PSPC flux from the inner region (c.r. $`=0.23\pm 0.01`$ s-1, total exposure of 9240 s from two pointings of 1992 and 1993) is consistent with the emission from a plasma with $`T=1.4_{0.1}^{+0.2}`$ keV and metallicity $`=0.60_{0.10}^{+0.15}`$ ($`\chi _\mathrm{r}^2=1.2`$), while a simple power law is not acceptable ($`\chi _\mathrm{r}^2=3`$). If we fix the metallicity to 0.5 a better fit is obtained at 94 % of confidence including a non-thermal component, that appears very flat ($`\alpha _\mathrm{X}0.1`$) even though the determination of the slope is very uncertain. The flux results to be $`7.4\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. This object has been observed in September 2000 with the ACIS-S detector on Chandra, for a total exposure of 36754 s. The core emission has been fit to an unabsorbed power law with $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=1.00_{0.15}^{+0.15}`$ and flux $`2.1\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 in the Rosat energy range (Blanton et al. 2002; no jet-like structure has been detected). This emission is $`3.5`$ times weaker than deduced in the 1993/93 observations and has a steeper spectrum. However the spectral parameters obtained from the PSPC data are affected by large statistical fluctuations and we have verified that they are consistent with the Chandra results at the $`2\sigma `$ level. Then it is not possible to argue about a variability of the nuclear X-ray emission. For the analysis of the SED we have adopted the 1992/1993 observations, closer in time to the HST data.

3C 338. A Chandra observation of the cluster A 2199 (December 1999) has detected a point-like source coinciding with the center of the galaxy NGC 6166 (Di Matteo et al. 2001). The low count rate does not provide a well constrained estimate of the parameters: for a power law model we deduce $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.54_{0.54}^{+0.56}`$ and flux $`1.8\times 10^{14}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 (in the Rosat energy band). However it has been found that the value of the spectral slope rapidly increases with the hydrogen column: for $`N_{\mathrm{H},\mathrm{loc}}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2), Di Matteo et al. obtain $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}1.9`$ and a flux $`2`$ times larger.

3C 346. The observations of Rosat/PSPC (1993) and ASCA (1995) of this radio galaxy have been recently analyzed by Worrall & Birkinshaw (2001). From the Rosat data it turns out that most of the emission is point-like, unabsorbed (local $`N_\mathrm{H}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2) with $`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.69_{0.14}^{+0.16}`$ and flux $`=1.1\times 10^{12}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, while from ASCA (two years later) a similar spectral slope ($`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.73_{0.23}^{+0.17}`$) is found, but a significant lower flux ($`7.4\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1). For our analysis we have used the 1995 ASCA data.

3C 348. From ASCA (1998) and Rosat data (PSPC in 1993, HRI in 1996) Siebert et al. (1999) detected non-thermal emission from the core of this radio galaxy with very poor determination of the spectral index ($`\alpha _\mathrm{X}=0.7_{0.3}^{+0.7}`$) and flux $`3\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. This corresponds to $`10\%`$ of the total extended thermal X-ray emission. These results have been confirmed by an observation with BeppoSAX of March 1997 (Trussoni et al. 2001). It is worth noticing that 3C 348 is extremely bright at high energies: the optical core luminosity is consistent with its radio emission (CCC99), while the X-ray luminosity is $``$ ten times higher than expected from the radio/X-ray correlation (Canosa et al. 1999).


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# Untitled Document

IRREDUCIBLE REPRESENTATIONS

OF THE QUANTUM ANALOGUE OF SU(2)

P. Roche and D. Arnaudon

Centre de Physique Théorique

Ecole Polytechnique F91128 Palaiseau Cedex

Abstract:

We give the complete set of irreducible representations of $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$ when $`q`$ is a $`mth`$ root of unity. In particular we show that their dimensions are less or equal to $`m`$. Some of them are not highest weight representations. A854.0988 September 1988

I. Introduction

Quantum groups take their origin in the context of completely integrable systems, where they have shown to be a powerful tool to construct $`R`$ matrices \[Drinfeld, Jimbo\]. $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$ is the simplest case of this algebraic structure, it is the trigonometric limit of the Sklyanin algebra \[Sklyanin\]. It is the symmetry group of the $`XXZ`$ Heisenberg chain \[Pasquier-Saleur\] and it can be used to construct completely integrable systems as well as conformal field theory \[Pasquier\]. Among the values of $`q`$, the roots of unity correspond to discrete series in conformal field theories.

In this letter we show that: (let $`q`$ be a $`mth`$ root of unity)

\+ for odd $`m`$, $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$ has $`N`$dimensional irreducible representations if $`1Nm`$.

\+ for even $`m`$, $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$ has $`N`$dimensional irreducible representations if $`1N\frac{m}{2}`$ or $`N=m`$.

In both cases, $`m`$ dimensional representations are not always highest weight representations.

We will give the complete set of irreducible representations of $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$. In particular, we prove that the set of finite dimensional irreducible unitary representations of $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$ given by Sklyanin is complete.

In section II we recall the results for $`q`$ not a root of unity and give some preliminaries. In section III, we classify the representations of dimension strictly less than $`m`$ and prove that they are highest weight representations. In section IV we prove that there is no irreducible representation of dimension strictly greater than $`m`$. In section V we study the $`m`$dimensional representations and prove that some of them are not of highest weight.

II. Preliminaries

Let $`q𝐂^{}\{1,1\}`$. $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$ is the Hopf algebra over $`𝐂`$ generated by $`q^{H/2}`$, $`q^{H/2}`$, $`J^+`$, $`J^{}`$ satisfying the relations:

$$q^{H/2}q^{H/2}=q^{H/2}q^{H/2}=1$$

$$q^{H/2}J^\pm q^{H/2}=q^\pm J^\pm $$

$$[J^+,J^{}]=\frac{q^Hq^H}{qq^1}=(H)_q$$

We will not use the coalgebra structure in the following.

The link between Sklyanin algebra (in the trigonometric case) and $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$ is as follows:

$$S_0=\frac{qq^1}{2i}.\frac{q^{H/2}+q^{H/2}}{q^{1/2}+q^{1/2}}$$

$$S_1=\frac{qq^1}{2i}.\frac{q^{H/2}q^{H/2}}{q^{1/2}q^{1/2}}$$

$$S_+=\frac{qq^1}{2i}J^{}$$

$$S_{}=\frac{qq^1}{2i}J^+$$

(in Sklyanin’s notation, $`e^{2i\eta }=q`$.)

Recall that if $`q`$ is not a root of unity, the finite dimensional representations of $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$ are completely classified by $`(N,\omega )𝐍^{}\times \{1,1,i,i\}`$ \[Rosso, Lusztig\]. They are highest weight representations. One can find a basis $`(w_p)_{0pN1}`$ such that:

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}q^{H/2}w_p\hfill & =\omega q^{\frac{N1}{2}p}w_p\hfill \\ J^+w_p\hfill & =\omega [(p)_q(Np)_q]^{\frac{1}{2}}w_{p1}1pN1\hfill \\ J^+w_0\hfill & =0\hfill \\ J^{}w_p\hfill & =\omega [(p+1)_q(Np1)_q]^{\frac{1}{2}}w_{p+1}0pN2\hfill \\ J^{}w_{N1}\hfill & =0\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(1)`$
where $`(\alpha )_q=\frac{q^\alpha q^\alpha }{qq^1}`$. We use the same determination of the square root for $`J^+`$ and $`J^{}`$. In this basis, $`J^+=(J^{})^t`$.

We suppose in the following that $`m`$ is the smallest integer such that $`q^m=1`$.

Let us begin with the following remark: $`(J^+)^m`$, $`(J^{})^m`$ and $`(q^{H/2})^m`$ are in the center of the algebra. (This is a direct consequence of the commutation relations.)

Lemma 1:Let $`M`$ be a finite dimensional simple module over C. Then $`q^{H/2}`$ is diagonalisable and $`M=_{p𝐙_m}M_{\lambda q^p}`$, where $`M_\mu `$ is the eigenspace of $`q^{H/2}`$ associated to the eigenvalue $`\mu `$.

Proof:

a) $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$ is spanned as a vector space by $`(J^{})^r(J^+)^s(q^{H/2})^t`$ where $`r,s,t𝐍^2\times 𝐙`$

b) Let $`v`$ be an eigenvector of $`q^{H/2}`$ associated to $`\lambda `$. Then $`M=𝒰(SU(2))_q.v`$ since $`M`$ is simple. Because $`(J^{})^r(J^+)^s.v`$ is an eigenvector of $`q^{H/2}`$ the lemma follows.

III. Classification of simple modules of dimension $`N<m`$.

Theorem:

a) If $`m`$ is odd and if $`1N<m`$ the module is defined by the relations (1)

b) If $`m`$ is even and if $`1N<\frac{m}{2}`$ the module is defined by the relations (1)

c) If $`m`$ is even, representations of dimension $`\frac{m}{2}`$ are labelled by $`\lambda 𝐂`$.

d) If $`m`$ is even, there is no irreducible representation of dimension $`N`$ for $`\frac{m}{2}<N<m`$. All these representations are highest weight representations.

Proof: When $`N<m`$ lemma 1 implies that the representation is a highest weight representation (same proof as in \[Rosso\]). As a result there exists a basis $`(v_p)_{0pN1}`$ such that:

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}q^{H/2}v_p\hfill & =q^{\frac{\mu }{2}p}v_p\hfill \\ J^+v_p\hfill & =[(p)_q(\mu +1p)_q]v_{p1}1pN1\hfill \\ J^+v_0\hfill & =0\hfill \\ J^{}v_p\hfill & =v_{p+1}0pN2\hfill \\ J^{}v_{N1}\hfill & =0\hfill \end{array}$$

We have ($`p[1,N]`$ $`(p)_q0`$) $``$ ($`m`$ even and $`N<\frac{m}{2}`$, or $`m`$ odd)). Consequently in these cases we must have $`[(N)_q(\mu +1N)_q]=0`$, which implies that $`q^{\mu /2}=\omega q^{(N1)/2}`$. a) and b) are thus proved. When $`m`$ is even and $`N\frac{m}{2}`$ these relations define a simple module only for $`N=\frac{m}{2}`$, and $`\mu `$ is then a free parameter. Two modules with different values of $`q^{\mu /2}`$ are not isomorphic. After a suitable renormalization of the basis,

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}q^{H/2}w_p\hfill & =q^{\frac{\mu }{2}p}w_p\hfill \\ J^+w_p\hfill & =[(p)_q(\mu +1p)_q]^{\frac{1}{2}}w_{p1}1pN1\hfill \\ J^+w_0\hfill & =0\hfill \\ J^{}w_p\hfill & =[(p+1)_q(\mu p)_q]^{\frac{1}{2}}w_{p+1}0pN2\hfill \\ J^{}w_{N1}\hfill & =0\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(2)`$
using the same determination of the square root for $`J^+`$ and $`J^{}`$. In this basis, $`J^+=(J^{})^t`$.

IV. Classification of simple modules of dimension $`N>m`$.

Let $`Nm`$

First case: $`J^+`$ and $`J^{}`$ are injections (in that case the representation is not a highest weight representation).

Proposition 1: $`N=m`$

Proof: since $`J^{}`$ is an injection, all the $`M_{\lambda q^p}`$ have the same dimension $`n`$, and hence $`N=mn`$. Let $`v_0^{(i)},i=1,\mathrm{},n`$ be a basis of $`M_\lambda `$. Define

$$v_p^{(i)}=(J^{})^pv_0^{(i)}1in0pm1$$

We must have

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}q^{H/2}v_p^{(i)}\hfill & =q^{\frac{\mu }{2}p}v_p^{(i)}\hfill \\ J^{}v_p^{(i)}\hfill & =v_{p+1}^{(i)}0pN2\hfill \\ J^{}v_{m1}^{(i)}\hfill & =_ja_j^iv_0^{(j)}\hfill \\ J^+v_0^{(i)}\hfill & =_jb_j^iv_{m1}^{(j)}\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(3)`$
These relations define two matrices $`A`$ and $`B`$. The relation

$$[J^+,(J^{})^p]=(J^{})^{p1}(p)_q(Hp+1)_q$$

allows us to calculate

$$J^+v_p^{(i)}=(p)_q(\mu p+1)_qv_{p1}^{(i)}+\underset{j,k}{}b_j^ia_k^jv_{p1}^{(k)}$$

An easy calculation shows that these relations define a module if and only if $`[A,B]=0`$. Since $`{}_{}{}^{t}A`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{t}B`$ commute they have a common eigenvector $`(x^1,\mathrm{},x^n)=X`$ such that $`{}_{}{}^{t}AX=ax`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{t}BX=bx`$. Define $`V_p=_ix^iv_p^{(i)}`$ for $`0pm1`$. $`\{V_p\}_{0pm1}`$ is a submodule. Henceforth $`N=m`$.

Second case: $`J^+`$ or $`J^{}`$ is not injective. For example we can suppose it exits $`v0`$, $`vM_\lambda `$ such that $`J^+v=0`$.

Proposition 2: $`N=m`$

Proof: $`N=nm+r`$ with $`0r<m`$. Suppose $`r0`$. Then $`w,`$ $`J^{}w,\mathrm{}`$, $`(J^{})^{N1}w`$ is a basis of the module and

$$(J^{})^Nw=\underset{0kn1}{}\alpha _k(J^{})^{km+r}w$$

Then $`(J^{})^r`$ is not an injection. Let $`w_0M_\lambda \{0\}`$ such that $`(J^{})^rw_0=0`$. Since $`J^+(J^{})^{km}w=0`$ for $`k=0,\mathrm{},n`$, $`Vect\{w_0,J^{}w_0,\mathrm{},(J^{})^{r1}w_0\}`$ is a non-zero submodule of $`M`$. As a result $`r=0`$, i.e. $`N=nm`$. This is a particular case of the first case with $`B=0`$. The same conclusion leads to $`N=m`$.

We have thus proved that there are no simple module of dimension greater than $`m`$.

V. Irreducible representations of dimension $`m`$.

In this case one can construct a basis $`(v_p)_{0pm1}`$ of the module such that:

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}q^{H/2}v_p\hfill & =q^{\frac{\mu }{2}p}v_p\hfill \\ J^{}v_p\hfill & =[(p+1)_q(\mu p)_q+\alpha \beta ]^{\frac{1}{2}}v_{p+1}0pm2\hfill \\ J^{}v_{m1}\hfill & =\alpha v_0\hfill \\ J^+v_p\hfill & =[(p)_q(\mu +1p)_q+\alpha \beta ]^{\frac{1}{2}}v_{p1}1pm1\hfill \\ J^+v_0\hfill & =\beta v_{m1}\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(4)`$
where $`\mu `$ is chosen such that $`[(p)_q(\mu +1p)_q+\alpha \beta ]0`$ $`p\{1,\mathrm{},m1\}`$. This module is an highest weight module in the case $`\alpha \beta =0`$. It is always irreducible unless $`m`$ is even and $`\alpha \beta =0`$.

Note that $`J^+=(J^{})^t`$ when $`\alpha =\beta `$, and $`J^+=(J^{})^+`$ when $`\alpha =\beta ^{}`$ and $`\mu `$ is real. In this last case, our representations with three real parameters correspond to those obtained by Sklyanin.

Let us denote $`M(\mu ,\alpha ,\beta )`$ this module. Two non highest weight representations $`M(\mu ,\alpha ,\beta )`$ and $`M(\mu ^{},\alpha ^{},\beta ^{})`$ are isomorphic if, and only if

$$\mu ^{}=\mu +2rrZ$$

$$\frac{\alpha ^{}}{\beta ^{}}=\frac{\alpha }{\beta }$$

$$\alpha \beta \alpha ^{}\beta ^{}=(2r)_q(\mu +2r+1)_q$$

VI. Conclusion

The finite dimensional irreducible representations of $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$ are now classified for every value of $`q`$.

The quantum analog of Hermann-Weyl theorem on complete reducibility of semi- simple Lie algebras proved by M. Rosso in the case $`q`$ not a root of unity is not valid when $`q^m=1`$.

For example, let $`M`$ be the module defined by $`(v_p)_{0pm}`$ and the following relations:

$$q^{H/2}v_p=q^{\frac{m}{2}p}v_p$$

$$J^{}v_p=v_{p+1}$$

$$J^{}v_m=J^+v_0=0$$

$$J^+v_p=(p)_q(1p)_qv_{p1}$$

$`𝐂v_m`$ is a submodule of $`M`$, but $`M`$ is not completely reducible.

Our work is just a step toward the understanding of representations of $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$. A number of questions are left unanswered:

\- Classification of non semi-simple representations of $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$.

\- Generalization of our work to other quantum Lie algebras.

\- A better understanding of the connection between representations of quantum groups and conformal field theories.

\- It would also be interesting to understand the role (if any) of the whole set of representations of $`𝒰(SU(2))_q`$ in the construction of solutions of the Yang-Baxter equation.

We thank the referee for having brought to our attention the important work of Sklyanin.

REFERENCES:

$``$V. G. Drinfeld. Quantum groups. Proc. I. C. M. Berkeley. (1986)

$``$M. Jimbo. Quantum R matrix for the generalized Toda system. C. M. P. 102, 537-547 (1986)

$``$E. K. Sklyanin. Some algebraic structures connected with the Yang-Baxter equation. Representations of quantum algebras. Functional Analysis and its Applications 17, (1983) p273.

$``$V. Pasquier and H. Saleur. Seminar Les Houches 1988

$``$V. Pasquier. Continuum limit of lattice models built on quantum groups. Saclay Preprint SPhT/87-125.

$``$V. Pasquier. Etiology of IRF models. CMP 118, (1988) p355.

$``$M. Rosso .Finite dimensional representations of the quantum analogue of the enveloping algebra of complex simple Lie algebras. C. M. P. 117,581 (1988)

$``$G. Lusztig. Advances in Mathematics 70, (1988) p237.