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# Complete Two Loop Electroweak Contributions to the Muon Lifetime in the Standard Model

## 1 Introduction

The muon lifetime is one of the key observables of today’s particle physics. Not only is it measured very precisely, since the current experimental error is 18 ppm , but can be described to competing accuracy within the Standard Model, giving rise to a strong correlation between the masses of the heavy gauge bosons. As a low energy process, the decay is expected to be governed by an effective interaction involving only the electron, muon and their respective neutrinos. The dynamics of the system should be corrected mostly by QED, whereas the electroweak interactions determine solely the size of the coupling constant.

The history of the calculation of the electroweak corrections, in which we are interested here, is rather long. It started in the early eighties with the one loop contributions . Subsequently, leading terms in the top quark $`𝒪(\alpha ^2m_t^4)`$  and Higgs boson $`𝒪(\alpha ^2M_H^2)`$  masses were derived at the two loop level. In the meantime, mixed electroweak and QCD corrections became available at order $`𝒪(\alpha \alpha _s)`$  and $`𝒪(\alpha \alpha _s^2)`$ . Recently, three loop leading terms in the top quark mass $`𝒪(\alpha ^3m_t^6)`$ and $`𝒪(\alpha ^2\alpha _sm_t^4)`$ have also been calculated . As far as the pure two loop electroweak corrections are concerned, after it turned out that the subleading terms in the top quark mass expansion are comparable with the leading ones , complete fermionic and the Higgs boson mass dependence of the bosonic contributions have been evaluated . The complete bosonic part has been done in . It is the purpose of the present paper to present the result of a new independent calculation of the fermionic contributions and, after inclusion of the bosonic corrections, also of the full electroweak corrections.

This work is organized as follows. In the next Section, we discuss the matching procedure and fermion masses as infrared regulators, which avoid ambiguities of the definition of gamma matrices in box diagrams in noninteger dimensions. Then, we present the results for the fermionic and full contributions and compare them with previous calculations by specifying the differences in the $`W`$ boson mass prediction. Conclusions close the paper.

## 2 Matching

Due to a large number of very different mass scales, it is virtually impossible to evaluate the muon decay lifetime directly within the Standard Model, without recourse to some approximation method. An elegant and systematic approximation is provided by the approach based on effective theories. The idea is to agree on some cutoff scale, below which all degrees of freedom are treated exactly, whereas the heavier fields are “integrated out”, which means that they generate effective interactions. It should not be surprising that one first discovers experimentally the effective theories, since the dependence on the heavier scales requires higher “resolution”, i.e. higher energy. For precisely this reason, the effective theory governing muon decay, the Fermi Model, has been known much before the Standard Model. From this point of view, one should not consider that the Fermi Model is used in current calculations for historical reasons, but because it is the appropriate effective theory at this energy scale.

The approximation is constructed as follows. The lagrangian is made only from the light fields, which are the six leptons, the five quarks, the photon and the gluon. At leading order in the inverse heavy scale, for which we take the $`W`$ boson mass $`M_W`$, a single effective operator is added, giving the lagrangian (in the so–called charge conserving form of the Fermi operator)

$`_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ $`=`$ $`_{\mathrm{kin}}(\nu )+_{\mathrm{QED}}(\alpha ^0,m_l^0,m_q^0,l^0,q^0,A_\mu ^0)+_{\mathrm{QCD}}(\alpha _s^0,m_q^0,q^0,A_\mu ^{a,0})`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}\overline{e^0}\gamma ^\alpha (1\gamma _5)\mu ^0\times \overline{\nu _\mu }\gamma _\alpha (1\gamma _5)\nu _e,`$
where the superscript $`0`$ denotes bare quantities. The theory is finite after mass and coupling ($`\alpha `$ and $`\alpha _s`$) renormalization to all orders in $`\alpha `$ and $`\alpha _s`$, and leading order in the Fermi constant $`G_F1/M_W^2`$, which is why this parameter is not renormalized.

The matching procedure in the present case consists in requiring that the amputated renormalized Green functions111This choice is somewhat arbitrary, since one might just as well use full Green functions, or Green functions which are one particle irreducible with respect to the light fields. of the effective theory be equal to the amputated renormalized Green functions of the Standard Model up to terms of order $`𝒪(1/M_W^4)`$ and given order in $`\alpha `$ and $`\alpha _s`$

$$𝒢_{\mathrm{SM}}=𝒢_{\mathrm{eff}}+𝒪(1/M_W^4),$$
(2)
which makes the muon decay amplitude the same in both models up to the specified order. The Fermi constant is then given as an expansion in $`\alpha `$ and $`\alpha _s`$

$$G_F=\underset{i=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}G_F^{(i)}=\frac{\pi \alpha }{\sqrt{2}s_W^2M_W^2}(1+\mathrm{\Delta }r),$$
(3)
with $`G_F^{(0)}=\pi \alpha /(\sqrt{2}s_W^2M_W^2)`$ being the Born level prediction. The quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ is customarily used to parametrize the higher order contributions. At the one loop level, the matching equation is schematically depicted in Fig. 1.

We introduced there the decoupling coefficients , $`Z_{e,\mu }^{}`$, which are different from one in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme for example, but can be neglected in the on-shell scheme. The renormalization constant of the Fermi operator $`Z_{O_F}`$, although trivial (i.e. equal to one), has been included for generality.

The matching equation, Eq. 2, can be solved in different ways. The apparently simplest is to put all light masses and external momenta to zero, and renormalize the wave functions in the on-shell scheme. The right hand side in Fig. 1 will then consist of only one term, proportional to $`G_F^{(1)}`$, if we use dimensional regularization, whereas the left will only have vacuum diagrams with heavy masses. Obviously, this situation will persist to all orders. The price to pay for this simplicity is the problem of infrared divergent box diagrams, where a product of gamma matrices occurs which does not have the form of the Fermi operator. In , this product has been defined through Fierz symmetry with respect to the last line in the string, which has been implemented, for practical reasons, by means of a suitable projection operator. Although sufficient at the two loop level, this symmetry will not suffice at the three loop level, see for example Fig. 3, where due to crossings, there is no last line in this sense.

It is also not trivial that this procedure is correct even at the two loop level. For many topologies, e.g. those that contain a self energy insertion on the gauge boson line, one can convince oneself that this is indeed the case, others like the nonplanar double boxes in the purely bosonic contributions are not that easy. A highly nontrivial test of the calculation would consist in performing the matching without generating spurious infrared divergences222Note that one could also introduce evanescent operators  and perform the calculation with vanishing fermion masses and without projection, as for example in . This would be a second independent test.. The box diagrams being ultraviolet finite can then be calculated in four dimensions, avoiding completely the problem of ambiguous gamma matrix definitions.

In this work we performed the matching by keeping a common mass for all the light fermions and evaluating the box diagrams in four dimensions. It was necessary to calculate both sides of the matching equation and reexpand them subsequently in this common mass. The external wave function renormalization constants were not taken in the on-shell scheme, because this would introduce the usual on-shell infrared divergence. On the contrary, they were evaluated at zero momentum, which, in practice, is equivalent to renormalization in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme with nonvanishing decoupling coefficients. Moreover, it turned out that it is necessary to have a correct $`W`$ boson wave function renormalization constant, since the box diagrams are not gauge invariant by themselves, and in the massive case this constant cancels only in combination with vertex diagrams. We used a photon mass regulator, but the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ renormalization constant would have been just as good. In the end, complete agreement was found with the calculation performed with massless fermions and with the projector conserving Fierz symmetry with respect to the last line from .

## 3 Results

A detailed presentation of the methods used to evaluate the bosonic contributions to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha ^2)}`$ can be found in . The fermionic contributions introduce two additional problems. First, some of the two loop vertex diagrams contain closed triangular fermion loops as shown in Fig 3. The $`\gamma _5`$ matrix that occurs in the trace has to be correctly defined. We chose the naive dimensional regularization scheme , with an anticommuting $`\gamma _5`$ and the four dimensional value of the trace of four gamma matrices and $`\gamma _5`$

$$\mathrm{Tr}(\gamma ^\alpha \gamma ^\beta \gamma ^\gamma \gamma ^\delta \gamma _5)=4iϵ^{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }.$$
(4)
This choice is justified by the fact that the nonvanishing contribution of the purely four dimensional $`ϵ`$ tensors is finite. Moreover, it has been checked in  that the use of the consistent definition of ’t Hooft and Veltman  gives the same result after correction of the Green functions by suitable finite counterterms restoring the Slavnov–Taylor identities. Second, the inclusion of fermions results in unstable gauge bosons, which makes a proper definition of their masses necessary if gauge invariance of $`G_F`$ is to be maintained . We use the pole mass scheme, where the inverse propagator matrix

$$(sM_i^2)\delta _{ij}\mathrm{\Pi }_{Tij}(s),i,j=W,\gamma ,Z,$$
(5)
is singular in the complex $`s`$ plane at points which can be parametrized as

$$s_\mathrm{P}=M_\mathrm{P}^2iM_\mathrm{P}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{P},$$
(6)
where $`M_\mathrm{P}`$ is the mass and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{P}`$ is the width of the boson. This generates a fixed width Breit–Wigner behavior of the total cross section

$$\sigma (s)\frac{1}{(sM_\mathrm{P}^2)^2+M_\mathrm{P}^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{P}^2},$$
(7)
as opposed to the running width parametrization actually used by the experimental collaborations for the masses and widths of the $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons

$$\sigma (s)\frac{1}{(sM_{\mathrm{exp}}^2)^2+s^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{exp}}^2/M_{\mathrm{exp}}^2}.$$
(8)
We translate back and forth between the two definition with the help of the following relations

$$M_\mathrm{P}=M_{\mathrm{exp}}\left(1+\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{exp}}^2}{M_{\mathrm{exp}}^2}\right)^{1/2},\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{P}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{exp}}\left(1+\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{exp}}^2}{M_{\mathrm{exp}}^2}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(9)
As in , we take $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_Z`$ as experimentally measured, whereas we assume $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_W`$ to be given by the one loop QCD corrected value

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_W=\frac{3G_FM_W^3}{2\sqrt{2}\pi }\left(1+\frac{2\alpha _s(M_W)}{3\pi }\right).$$
(10)
The complete result for $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ at order $`\alpha ^2`$ and the partial contributions are given in Fig. 4.

The top quark mass and the running of the fine structure constant are taken from Tab. 1, whereas the masses of the gauge bosons are translated from the experimental values given there to the pole mass scheme values with the help of Eq. 9, which in this case gives $`M_W=80.424`$ GeV and $`M_Z=91.1535`$ GeV.

In order to compare our result for the fermionic contributions with , we evaluate the $`W`$ boson mass from the formula

$$M_W=M_Z\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}+\sqrt{\frac{1}{4}\frac{\pi \alpha }{\sqrt{2}G_FM_Z^2}(1+\mathrm{\Delta }r)}},$$
(11)
with

$$\mathrm{\Delta }r=\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha )}+\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _s)}+\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _s^2)}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{ferm}}^{(\alpha ^2)}.$$
(12)
We keep a finite $`b`$ quark mass in $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha )}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _s)}`$ and take the result for $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _s^2)}`$ from . Note also that we do not resum the running of the fine structure constant, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha )}`$ contains the term $`+\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{ferm}}^{(\alpha ^2)}`$ includes $`+\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha ^2`$. The result is summarized in Tab. 2 for different Higgs boson masses from the range from 100 GeV to 1 TeV. We observe a discrepancy of around $`1.3`$ MeV with respect to , which comes solely from the differing fermionic contributions333The authors of  traced a problem in their calculation and after corrections agree with our results both for the fermionic and for the Higgs boson mass dependence of the bosonic two loop contributions. We checked that all of the remaining corrections are the same to required numerical accuracy..

Inclusion of the bosonic corrections generates an additional variable shift already given in . As a result, our complete contributions induce a change of the $`M_W`$ prediction by $`2.4`$ MeV for a Higgs boson mass as low as 100 GeV (see Tab. 2). Since the bosonic part becomes negative for a heavier Higgs boson, this shift reaches $`0.6`$ MeV for $`M_H=1`$ TeV.

In Tab. 3, we include also the recent partial results at three loop order , i.e. we use

$$\mathrm{\Delta }r=\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha )}+\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _s)}+\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _s^2)}+\mathrm{\Delta }^{(\alpha ^2)}\frac{c_W^2}{s_W^2}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _t^{(\alpha ^3)}+\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _t^{(\alpha ^2\alpha _s)}\right).$$
(13)
Together with errors coming from the top quark mass and the running of the fine structure constant but without a theoretical error estimate, the $`M_W`$ prediction is shown against the current experimental result in Fig. 5.

## 4 Conclusions

We have presented a new result for the complete electroweak contributions to the lifetime of the muon, which induces a shift in the $`W`$ boson mass prediction as large as $`2.4`$ MeV for a light Higgs boson, of which $`1.3`$ MeV come from a discrepancy with the previous calculation of the fermionic contributions  and the rest from the bosonic part. The authors of  corrected their evaluation444see the updated version  and are now in full agreement with this work. Together with recent results at the three loop level , this calls for an updated fitting formula. Such a formula will be given in a subsequent publication .

The authors would like to thank A. Freitas for his effort put into the comparison of the present results and the results of  and for tracing an error in an earlier version of this paper, and G. Weiglein for reading the manuscript. The warm hospitality of the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology of the University of Durham during the time when part of this work was completed is gratefully acknowledged. This work was supported in part by the KBN Grant 5P03B09320.


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# 1RXS J062518.2+733433: A new intermediate polar

## 1 Introduction

Over the past few years it has become increasingly clear that our understanding of the evolution of cataclysmic variables (CVs) is a rather unsettled matter. A number of the predictions made by the standard theory of CV evolution (disrupted magnetic braking, King 1988) are in direct conflict with the observations. Whereas a number of additions/alternatives to the standard model have been recently proposed (King & Schenker 2002; Schenker & King 2002; Schenker et al. 2002; Andronov et al. 2003), it is apparent that the disturbing disagreements between the theory and the observations have a common denominator: the possible impact of selection effects on the currently known population of galactic CVs. In order to quantitatively test any theory of CV evolution it is mandatory to establish a statistically complete sample of this class of binary stars.

There are currently a number of large scale surveys for CVs underway that pursue this aim (e.g. Szkody et al. 2002; Marsh et al. 2002). Among these projects, our selection of CVs based on their spectroscopic properties in the Hamburg Quasar Survey (HQS; Hagen et al. 1995) has been especially prolific, resulting in the discovery of more than 50 new bright CVs (e.g. Gänsicke et al. 2000; Nogami et al. 2001; Gänsicke et al. 2002a, b).

In this paper, we report follow-up observations of 1RXS J062518.2+733433, henceforth RX J0625, an object originally identified as a CV on the base of its X-ray emission and optical spectrum (Wei et al. 1999). We have independently selected RX J0625 as a CV candidate because of the noticeable Balmer emission in its HQS data. The strong He II$`\lambda `$ 4686 emission detected in the identification spectrum of RX J0625, along with coherent optical variability observed on a time scale of $`20`$ min, immediately reveal the intermediate polar nature of this CV. In Sect. 2 we describe the observational data and its reduction. We then derive the orbital period from the radial velocity variation of the emission lines and the spin period from differential photometry in Sect. 3. Finally, in Sect. 4 we discuss the behaviour of the strongest emission lines in detail and summarise our findings in Sect. 5.

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction

### 2.1 Spectroscopy

On 2001 April 29 we obtained a single identification spectrum of RX J0625 at the Calar Alto 2.2m telescope with the CAFOS focal reductor spectrograph, using the standard SITe CCD (Table 1). We used the B-200 grism and a slit width of $`2\mathrm{}`$, resulting in a useful wavelength range of 3500–7000 Å and a spectral resolution of 4.7 Å (Fig. 1). A flux standard (BD+75 325) was observed with the same set up in order to correct for the instrumental response. The identification spectrum contains noticeable Balmer, He I and He II and N/C Bowen emission lines. The strength of He II$`\lambda `$ 4686 is comparable to $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$, indicating the presence of a strong source of ionising photons in RX J0625, typical of either magnetic CVs or novalike variables. In order to determine the orbital period of RX J0625, we obtained 45 higher resolution spectra, again with CAFOS at the Calar Alto 2.2m telescope (Table 1). This time the G-100 grism was used in conjuction with a $`1.2\mathrm{}`$ slit which gave a wavelength range of 4240–8300 Å and a spectral resolution of 2.1 Å. The higher resolution spectra were obtained over a period of 3 weeks, optimising the sampling for an efficient period determination.

All spectra were reduced in a standard manner using the Figaro package within the Starlink software collection. The frames were corrected for the bias level by subtracting the mean of a series of bias images taken at the start and end of each observing night. Dome flat-fields were used to remove pixel to pixel variations of the chip. The spectra were then optimally extracted (Horne 1986) and sky line subtracted using Tom Marsh’s Pamela package. Especial care was taken to account for the tilt of the spectra in order to maximise the signal-to-noise ratio. The wavelength calibration was performed using mercury-cadmium, helium-argon and rubidium arcs. Uncertainties on every data point calculated from photon statistics are rigorously propagated through every stage of the data reduction. We did not attempt to flux-calibrate the higher resolution spectra as it was not required for the radial velocity analysis described below.

Table 2 gives the equivalent widths and line widths of the main emission lines detected in the average of the 45 high resolution spectra.

### 2.2 Photometry

We have obtained differential $`V`$-band and filter-less photometry of RX J0625 during 6 nights in December 2002 with the CAFOS SITe CCD camera on the Calar Alto 2.2m telescope (Table 1). In order to achieve a high time resolution ($`30`$ s), only a small window of the chip ($`3\mathrm{}\times 2\mathrm{}`$) was read out. The data were bias-subtracted and flat-fielded in a standard fashion using the ESO-MIDAS package, and aperture magnitudes were extracted with the sextractor (Bertin & Arnouts 1996). The $`V`$ magnitudes of RX J0625 were derived relative to the HST Guide Star GSC 0437000234 ($`V=13.4\pm 0.4`$), located $`1\mathrm{}50\mathrm{}`$ southwards of RX J0625. This comparison star has been saturated in a number of the filter-less CCD images obtained on December 14/15, and, hence, we used GSC 0437000998 ($`V=14.9\pm 0.4`$), located $`1\mathrm{}10\mathrm{}`$ northwards of RX J0625 for the reduction of these images. RX J0625 was found at an average magnitude of $`14.80\pm 0.05`$ throughout the nights in which we used the $`V`$ band filter. The light curves of RX J0625 clearly reveal the presence of variability with a period of $`20`$ min and an amplitude of $`\pm 0.2`$ mag throughout all nights (Fig. 2). In addition to this short-term variations the light curve of RX J0625 displays a modulation on time scales of several hours.

## 3 Analysis

### 3.1 Spectroscopy

The primary aim of our time resolved spectroscopy of RX J0625 is to measure its orbital period from the radial velocity variations of the emission lines. The line profiles clearly display a complicated multicomponent structure (Fig. 3). In a first attempt, we used a single Gaussian least square fitting procedure to determine the radial velocity variations of $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$, $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ and He II$`\lambda `$ 4686. The radial velocity data were then subjected to the following period analysis methods: (a) the phase dispersion method (Stellingwerf 1978), (b) the analysis of variance (Schwarzenberg-Czerny 1989, as implemented in the MIDAS context TSA), (c) and a sine wave $`\chi ^2`$ fitting procedure, using chisq in the Starlink package period. The resulting periodograms for $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ are shown in Fig. 4. The orbital frequency (period) is inferred from the three independent techniques in a consistent way to be $`\mathrm{\Omega }=5.088\pm 0.003`$$`\mathrm{d}^1`$($`P_{\mathrm{orb}}=283.0\pm 0.2`$ min), where the error is computed from the $`\chi ^2`$ sine wave fitting ($`2\sigma `$, 4 interesting parameter). A slightly more conservative error estimate based on the results obtained from all three methods gives $`P_{\mathrm{orb}}=283.0\pm 0.3`$ min. The analysis of $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ and He II$`\lambda `$ 4686 provides consistent results for $`P_{\mathrm{orb}}`$, but with significantly larger errors. The robustness of our period determination is shown in Fig. 5 were we folded the $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ radial velocities over the orbital period. The radial velocity measurements from this fit are provided in Table 3.

For comparison purposes we measured the radial velocities of $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ cross-correlating the observed line profile with a single Gaussian of fixed width of 300 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Schneider & Young 1980). The resulting orbital period is identical to that derived from the single Gaussian fit to the $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ profiles, but the radial velocity variation displays an amplitude larger by a factor of $`2`$.

Finally, we attempted to fit the $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ emission with a blend of a narrow and a broad Gaussian component to model more accurately the complex structure of the observed profiles. Unfortunately, this procedure did not provide unambiguous results because of the limited spectral resolution of our data. Due to the multicomponent structure of the lines profile (see Fig. 3) it is difficult to interpret the radial velocity variation obtained from either the single Gaussian fit (Fig. 5) or the Gauss correlation to $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$. The behaviour of the most important emission lines is discussed in more detail in Sect. 4 on the basis of trailed spectrograms.

### 3.2 Photometry

In order to analyse the periodicities observed in the light curve of RX J0625 (Fig. 2), we have computed from the entire photometric data set both a Scargle (1982) periodogram (as implemented in the MIDAS context TSA) as well as a periodogram using the Phase Dispersion Method (PDM) of Stellingwerf (1978). Because the lengths of our individual photometric observations are of the order of or shorter than the orbital period subtracting the nightly mean from the data would introduce erroneous signals in the low-frequency range of the periodograms. Considering that RX J0625 does not exhibit noticeable night-to-night variability, we therefore decided to subtract from the $`V`$ filter and white light data the mean of all measurements obtained in the corresponding band prior to the computation of the periodograms. The resulting periodograms (Fig. 6 and 7) contain strong signals concentrated in the frequency ranges $`f10\mathrm{d}^1`$ and $`f6070\mathrm{d}^1`$. The nature of the signals detected in these two separate frequency regimes is discussed below.

#### High-frequency signal.

Figure 7 shows an enlargement around the peak signal contained in the high-frequency range of the periodogram shown in Fig. 6. Both period analysis methods consistently detect the maximum power at $`72.772\pm 0.008\mathrm{d}^1`$, corresponding to a period of $`19.788\pm 0.002`$ min, whose error is given by $`1\sigma `$ width of the Gaussian fit to the frequency peak. In order to test the significance of this signal, we have created a faked data set from a sine wave with a period of 19.788 min, a similar amplitude as the observed short-period variability, and sampled exactly in the same way as the observed data. In addition, we added a 10% error to these synthetic data. The periodograms for this faked data set are plotted in gray in Fig. 7, and reproduce very well the entire structure of aliases contained in the periodograms of the observed data. We conclude from this comparison that the frequency of the maximum signal detected in the periodograms is indeed the true period underlying the short-term variability observed in RX J0625.

Coherent variability on time scales of a several minutes to several tens of minutes has been detected in the optical light curves of a number of intermediate polars (e.g. Patterson 1994), and is interpreted as the spin period of the accreting magnetic white dwarf. We conclude from the spectral appearance of RX J0625 and from the detected coherent optical variability that RX J0625 is indeed a new member of the small class of intermediate polars. We suggest that the detected frequency (period) of 72.772 $`\mathrm{d}^1`$ (19.788 min) is the white dwarf spin frequency $`\omega `$ (period $`P_{\mathrm{spin}}=1/\omega `$). From the combined $`V`$ band and filter-less photometry, we derive the following spin ephemeris:

$$\varphi _0^{\mathrm{spin}}=\mathrm{HJD}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2452617.0645}(4)+0.013742(3)\times E$$
(1)
where $`\varphi ^{\mathrm{spin}}=0`$ is defined as the spin pulse maximum. Errors in the last digit are given in brackets. Figure 8(a) shows our photometric data folded with this ephemeris. The quasi-sinusoidal shape of this light curve, which is typical for the spin light curve of intermediate polars (see, e.g., the spin light curve of FO Aqr by de Martino et al. 1994), lends support to our hypothesis that the 72.772 $`\mathrm{d}^1`$ frequency detected in the power spectrum of RX J0625 is indeed the spin frequency of the white dwarf.

Another hallmark of intermediate polars is the detection of beat frequencies between the white dwarf spin frequency $`\omega `$ and the orbital frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, which arise from the reprocession of X-rays emitted from close to white dwarf surface on, e.g., the secondary star. Such sideband signals have been detected in different systems at $`\omega 2\mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`\omega +\mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`\omega +2\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (see Warner 1986 for an interpretation of these frequencies). In RX J0625, the only unambiguous detection of a sideband signal is $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$ (see Fig. 6). The photometric data folded over this beat period of $`21.275`$ min are shown in Fig. 8(b). While we are confident that our identifications of the spin and beat period are correct we mention as a note of caution that time-resolved X-ray and/or polarimetric data are necessary to unambigously confirm this interpretation.

#### Low-frequency signal.

The strongest signal in the low-frequency range does not coincide with the orbital frequency derived in Sect. 3.1 from the radial velocity variation of $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$, but is found at 4.944 $`\mathrm{d}^1`$, corresponding to a period of 291.3 min. This period is $`3\%`$ longer than the orbital period. Considering the sampling of our photometric time series, especially the fact that none of our data sets covers significantly more than one binary orbit, the most likely hypothesis is that the detected low-frequency signal is related to the orbital motion of the binary. Further observations would be useful to test in detail whether the low-frequency photometric frequency is indeed identical to the orbital frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

## 4 Discussion

As already mentioned in Sect. 3.1, the line profiles clearly display a multicomponent structure (Fig. 3), which makes the interpretation of the determined radial velocity variations rather ambiguous (Fig. 5). To explore the behaviour of the emission lines in more detail, we constructed trailed spectra of $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$, $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$, He I$`\lambda `$ 6678, and He II$`\lambda `$ 4686, which are shown in Figure 9. These diagrams were computed from the continuum-normalised spectra after binning into 15 phase intervals. The He I$`\lambda `$ 6678 line clearly shows two emission components: a narrow one with a radial velocity semi-amplitude of $`140`$$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and a wider one with velocity reaching $`\pm 500`$$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Both components are not in phase, the phase offset being $`0.15`$. The trailed spectra shown in Fig. 9 were phased according to the following orbital ephemeris

$$\varphi _0^{\mathrm{orb}}=\mathrm{HJD}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2452617.5083}(9)+0.1965(1)\times E$$
(2)
where the instant of zero phase was derived as the time of blue-to-red crossing of the narrow component of He I$`\lambda `$ 6678.

In analogy to the narrow emission lines observed in many magnetic CVs, this narrow emission line component may have its origin on the irradiated face of the secondary star. In order to test this hypothesis, we performed the following simple calculation. The secondary mass was estimated from the mass-period relation derived by Smith & Dhillon (1998), which gives a value of $`M_20.48`$$`M_{}`$. For the primary mass we adopted $`M_1=0.8`$$`M_{}`$ (the average white dwarf mass in long-period CVs determined by Smith & Dhillon 1998), resulting in a mass ratio $`q=M_2/M_10.6`$. Assuming a disc radius of $`0.8R_{\mathrm{L}_1}`$, the lack of eclipses in the optical light curve of RX J0625 sets an upper limit on the orbital inclination of $`i60^\mathrm{o}`$. The projected velocity of the secondary is given by:

$$K_2=\frac{2\pi a\mathrm{sin}i}{P_{\mathrm{orb}}(1+q)},$$
(3)
where $`a`$ is the binary separation. With the above assumptions we the radial velocity variation of the secondary star can be as large as $`K_2130`$$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, which is comparable to the value obtained from the trailed spectrogram of the narrow He I$`\lambda `$ 6678 line. The predicted $`K_1`$ velocity is then $`80`$$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, somewhat larger than the semi-amplitude of the radial velocity curve of the broad component of $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ (Fig. 9, see also Fig. 5), but not inconsistent.

Taken at face value, the behaviour of the narrow emission line components detected in our (admittedly rather low resolution) phase-resolved spectroscopy are consistent with an origin on the irradiated face of the secondary.

As we mentioned above, the broad component of the He I$`\lambda `$ 6678 line displays a phase offset of $`0.15`$ with respect to the narrow one, reaching a velocity of $`500`$$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at its maximum excursion to the blue. The phasing with respect to the narrow component (and assuming that our above interpretation of the origin of the narrow component is correct) indicates that the broad emission is not coming from an axisymmetric structure around the white dwarf. Nevertheless, the high velocity dispersion observed in the broad component clearly points towards an origin close to the white dwarf. The maximum velocity to the blue is reached at phase $`0.40.5`$. A similar high-velocity S-wave has been observed in the intermediate polars EX Hya (Hellier et al. 1989) and V1025 Cen (Hellier et al. 2002). The same components are also characteristic of the SW Sextantis stars, which have been recently proposed to be magnetic systems (Rodríguez-Gil et al. 2001). In all these systems, it is believed that these high-velocity S-waves form in the vicinity of the primary’s magnetosphere.

The trailed spectra of He II$`\lambda `$ 4686 seem to exhibit the same two emission components, with the narrow one also dominating and same velocity amplitudes as in He I$`\lambda `$ 6678. Also the trailed spectra of $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ and $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ clearly show a multicomponent structure, even though their narrow components are less obvious than in He I$`\lambda `$ 6678. In order to securely identify the different line components with physical emission sites in the binary, it will be necessary to obtain time-resolved spectroscopy study spanning several consecutive binary orbits with better spectral resolution.

## 5 Conclusions

We have observed RX J0625 as part of our ongoing search for new CVs selected on the base of their spectroscopic properties from the Hamburg Quasar Survey. From the radial velocity variations measured in $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$, we determine an orbital period of $`283.0\pm 0.2`$ min. The detection of coherent optical variations clearly classifies RX J0625 as being a member of the small class of intermediate polars. The period of these variations, $`19.788\pm 0.002`$ min, which is most likely the spin period of the white dwarf. In terms of its orbital and spin period, RX J0625 is very similar to FO Aqr ($`P_{\mathrm{orb}}=291`$ min, and $`P_{\mathrm{spin}}=21`$ min). Our phase-resolved spectroscopy clearly shows that the emission lines are multicomponent structured, and we identify a narrow component with a radial velocity semi-amplitude of $`140`$ kms, which might originate on the irradiated face of the secondary. Extensive photometric monitoring, phase-resolved high-resolution spectroscopy and pointed X-ray observations of RX J0625 are strongly encouraged.

###### Acknowledgements.

SAB likes to thank PPARC for a studentship. BTG was supported by a PPARC Advanced Fellowship, The HQS was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through grants Re 353/11 and Re 353/22. We thank Ana Guijarro for obtaining part of the Calar Alto observations. We are grateful to Christian Knigge for suggesting the use of chisq in the Starlink period package for the analysis of the radial velocity data — and for pointing out that the latest version of period does not work properly. Tom Marsh is thanked for providing his reduction and analysis packages. Patrick Woudt is acknowldedged for his prompt referee report and for a number of useful suggestions. Note added in proof: After submission of this paper, we became aware of an independent photometric study of RX J0625 by Staude et al. (2003) that confirms the likely white dwarf spin period and shows that the low-frequency photometric signal detected in RX J0625 is consistent with our spectroscopic orbital period within the errors of the measurements. Furthermore, the referee drew our attention to the fact that an orbital period for RX J0625 has been included on December 13 2002 in the online catalogue of Downes et al. (2001), which is consistent with our value.


text:
# Explaining Why the 𝑢 and 𝑑 Quark Masses are Similar

## Abstract

An approach is suggested for modeling quark and lepton masses and mixing in the context of grand unified theories that explains the curious fact that $`m_um_d`$ even though $`m_tm_b`$. The structure of the quark mass matrices is such as to allow a non-Peccei-Quinn solution of the Strong CP Problem.

preprint: BA-03-07

It is well known that the grand unification group $`SU(5)`$ relates the mass matrices of the down quarks and charged leptons. There is some empirical support for the existence of such a relationship in the fact that when the fermion masses are extrapolated to the GUT scale in the MSSM one finds $`m_bm_\tau `$ Chanowitz:1977ye ; begd , $`m_sm_\mu /3`$, and $`m_d3m_e`$ gj . However, the pattern of masses of the up quarks is very different. One difference is that the $`t`$ mass is much greater than the $`b`$ and $`\tau `$ masses, which is usually explained by saying that the ratio of VEVs $`v_u/v_d\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ is large compared to one. Another difference is that the interfamily mass hierarchies are much stronger for the up quarks than for the down quarks and charged leptons (e.g. $`m_c/m_tm_s/m_b`$ and $`m_u/m_cm_d/m_s`$). It is tempting to say that the up quark mass matrix ($`M_U`$) is more distantly related to the down quark and charged lepton mass matrices ($`M_D`$ and $`M_L`$) than the latter are to each other. On the other hand, there is the tantalizing fact that $`m_u/m_d1`$.

In this paper we suggest a somewhat new approach which qualitatively explains why $`m_tm_b`$ but $`m_um_d`$. The idea is that there are “underlying” mass matrices (denoted by the superscript zero) whose structure is controlled by $`SO(10)`$ and which satisfy $`M_U^0M_D^0M_L^0M_N^0`$ (it is assumed $`v_u/v_d1`$), but that a strong mixing of the third family with vectorlike fermions at the GUT scale distorts these underlying mass matrices in such a way that $`m_b`$ and $`m_\tau `$ are highly suppressed relative to $`m_t`$. This distortion does not affect the first family much, so the masses $`m_u`$, $`m_d`$, and $`m_e`$ remain of the same order.

The approach we will describe has several other virtues: (a) It can be realized in models with very few parameters. (b) It dovetails with the ideas of Ref. nb  for solving the Strong CP Problem. And (c) it implements the “lopsided” mass matrix approach to explaining large neutrino mixing angles bb96 ; lopsided .

To understand the idea, consider an $`SU(5)`$ model (which will later be assumed to descend from $`SO(10)`$) that has three families of fermions in $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_i+\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i+\mathrm{𝟏}_i`$, with mass terms of the form $`(M_U^0)_{ij}\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_i\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_j+(M_D^0)_{ij}\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_i\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_j+(M_L^0)_{ij}\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_j+(M_N^0)_{ij}\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i\mathrm{𝟏}_j`$. The matrices $`M_D^0`$ and $`M_L^0`$ come from the VEV of a $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$ of Higgs, and $`M_U^0`$ and $`M_N^0`$ (the neutrino Dirac mass matrix) come from the VEV of a $`\mathrm{𝟓}`$ of Higgs. Suppose that there are also for each family a vectorlike pair of quark/lepton multiplets, denoted $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{𝟓}_i^{}`$ and having superheavy mass terms $`A_{ij}\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i^{}\mathrm{𝟓}_j^{}+B_{ij}\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i\mathrm{𝟓}_j^{}`$. ($`A_{ij}B_{ij}M_{GUT}`$.) There is then mixing between the ordinary three families and the vectorlike fermions, more specifically the mixing is between the $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i`$ and the $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i^{}`$. (A similar idea, but with mixing among fermions in $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}`$’s of $`SU(5)`$ was used in bb96 . However, the models proposed there were very different in character from the present models.) With the mass terms specified above, we may write

$$\left(\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}^{}\right)_F\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}\\ \mathrm{𝟓}^{}\end{array}\right)=\left(\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i^{}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cc}(M_F^0)_{ij}& B_{ij}\\ 0& A_{ij}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_j\\ \mathrm{𝟓}_j^{}\end{array}\right),$$
(1)
where $`F=L`$ or $`D`$, and $`M_F^0`$ is either $`M_L^0`$ or $`(M_D^0)^T`$, depending on whether the fermions in $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$ are $`\mathrm{}_L^{}`$ or $`d_L^c`$.

In order to find the light fermion mass matrices in the effective low-energy theory, we must do a unitary transformation $`_F=𝒰_F^0`$ that eliminates the off-diagonal block $`B`$ in the full mass matrix given in Eq. (1). Such a transformation is

$$𝒰=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Lambda }& \mathrm{\Lambda }x\\ x^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}& \overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\end{array}\right),$$
(2)
where $`xBA^1`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(I+xx^{})^{1/2}`$, and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}=(I+x^{}x)^{1/2}`$. (To check the unitarity of $`𝒰`$ it is useful to note that $`x^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }=\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}x^{}`$ and $`x\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}=\mathrm{\Lambda }x`$.) This gives the result for the low energy mass matrices

$`M_L`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }M_L^0,`$ (3a)
$`M_D`$ $`=`$ $`M_D^0\mathrm{\Lambda }^T.`$ (3b)
Basically, the hermitian matrix $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ describes the mixing of $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i`$ with $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i^{}`$. It appears on the left in the equation for $`M_L`$ since $`(M_L)_{ij}`$ couples to $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_j`$. It appears on the right in the equation for $`M_D`$ since $`(M_D)_{ij}`$ couples to $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_i\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_j`$. For the Dirac neutrino masses we have

$$\left(\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}^{}\right)_N\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{𝟏}\\ \mathrm{𝟓}^{}\end{array}\right)=\left(\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i^{}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cc}(M_N^0)_{ij}& B_{ij}\\ 0& A_{ij}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{𝟏}_j\\ \mathrm{𝟓}_j^{}\end{array}\right),$$
(4)
giving

$$M_N=\mathrm{\Lambda }M_N^0.$$
(5)
Since the masses of the up-type quarks come from a $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_i\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_j`$ coupling of the fermions, they are not affected by the mixing of the $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i`$ with the $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i^{}`$. Consequently,

$$M_U=M_U^0.$$
(6)
Before we discuss how the structure we have described can help us explain the magnitudes of quark and lepton masses and mixings, we note that it is exactly the kind of structure that is used in the solution of the Strong CP Problem proposed in nb . The idea there was the following. Suppose that CP is a symmetry of the lagrangian that is spontaneously broken, and that the VEV that breaks CP appears in the off-diagonal matrix $`B`$ in Eq. (1), but not elsewhere in the quark mass matrices. Then $`M_D^0`$ and $`A`$ are real, and it is easily shown that the determinant of the full mass matrix $`_D`$ is therefore real. Also real, of course, is the determinant of $`M_U`$. Thus, at tree level, the phase $`\overline{\theta }`$ is zero. At higher order, these matrices can receive complex corrections that induce a non-vanishing $`\overline{\theta }`$, but these may be made small. (In SUSY, there can be contributions to the $`\overline{\theta }`$ parameter that are harder to make small, for example, one-loop corrections to the gluino mass dlk . How large these are depends upon how SUSY is broken. These contributions are not a problem in theories with gauge-mediated SUSY breaking, for example. We imagine that whatever mechanism resolves the usual SUSY flavor and SUSY CP problems will also suppress these extra contributions to $`\overline{\theta }`$.) On the other hand, since $`B`$ is a complex matrix, so is the matrix $`x=BA^1`$ and the matrix $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=(I+xx^{})^{1/2}`$. Consequently, the mass matrix of the light three families of down-type quarks in the effective low-energy theory, given by $`M_D=M_D^0\mathrm{\Lambda }^T`$, is also complex, which means that in general there is a non-vanishing Kobayashi-Maskawa phase.

In short, the structure in Eq. (1) allows a spontaneously generated phase in the matrix $`B`$ to contribute to $`\delta _{KM}`$ but not at tree level to $`\overline{\theta }`$. This can also enhance the predictivity of models by reducing the number of parameters, since one can assume that all parameters in $`M_L^0`$, $`M_D^0`$, $`M_U^0`$, $`M_N^0`$, and the right-handed Majorana matrix $`M_R`$ are real, and that the only phase (and only one is needed) comes from $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. This is the assumption we shall make in the illustrative model we present below.

Returning to the issue of mass and mixing hierarchies, let us assume that the matrix $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ that characterizes the mixing of $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i`$ with $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i^{}`$, has the form

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& \lambda t\\ 0& \lambda t^{}& \lambda \end{array}\right),$$
(7)
where the real parameter $`\lambda 1`$ and the complex parameter $`t`$ has magnitude of order one. As we shall see shortly, it is the smallness of $`\lambda `$ that gives rise to $`m_b,m_\tau m_t`$, while the $`|t|1`$ explains the large atmospheric neutrino mixing. The phase of $`t`$, the only phase in the model, is what produces the KM phase. We shall see later that the form in Eq. (7) is easy to obtain.

To illustrate our basic approach we now present a toy model in which the underlying mass matrices have the following simple “textures”:

$$\begin{array}{cccccc}M_U^0& =& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& \delta & \delta ^{}\\ \delta & ϵ_u& 0\\ \delta ^{}& 0& 1\end{array}\right)m_U,& M_D^0& =& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& \delta & 0\\ \delta & ϵ_d& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)m_D,\\ & & & & & \\ M_N^0& =& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& \delta & \delta ^{}\\ \delta & 3ϵ_u& 0\\ \delta ^{}& 0& 1\end{array}\right)m_U,& M_L^0& =& \left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& \delta & 0\\ \delta & 3ϵ_d& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)m_D,\end{array}$$
(8)
where $`\delta ,\delta ^{}ϵ_u,ϵ_d1`$. The similarity of these four matrices is assumed to come from $`SO(10)`$. In $`SO(10)`$ one would have the $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_i+\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i+\mathrm{𝟏}_i`$ come from a $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟔}_i`$, whereas the extra vectorlike fermions $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i^{}+\mathrm{𝟓}_i^{}`$ could come from a $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_i`$.

The textures in Eq. (8) can be obtained from simple $`SO(10)`$ operators. In particular, we assume that the 33 elements come from a term of the form $`h_{33}\mathrm{𝟏𝟔}_3\mathrm{𝟏𝟔}_3\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_H`$. Thus, what we have called $`m_U`$ and $`m_D`$ in Eq. (8) are given by $`m_U=h_{33}H_u(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})`$, and $`m_D=h_{33}H_d(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})`$. If the two Higgs doublets of the MSSM came purely from the $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_H`$, i.e. if $`H_u=H_u(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})`$ and $`H_d=H_d(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})`$, then we would have $`m_U/m_D=\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. However, one expects in a realistic $`SO(10)`$ model that $`H_u`$ and $`H_d`$ will come from a mixture of several $`SO(10)`$ Higgs multiplets. Thus, we may write $`H_d=\mathrm{cos}\gamma _dH_d(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})+\mathrm{sin}\gamma _dH_d(other)`$ and $`H_u=\mathrm{cos}\gamma _uH_u(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎})+\mathrm{sin}\gamma _uH_u(other)`$. Inverting these, we obtain $`m_D=h_{33}v\mathrm{cos}\gamma _d\mathrm{cos}\beta `$ and $`m_U=h_{33}v\mathrm{cos}\gamma _u\mathrm{sin}\beta `$. Therefore, the usual $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ parameter of the MSSM is given by $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =(m_U/m_D)(\mathrm{cos}\gamma _d/\mathrm{cos}\gamma _u)`$. From Eq. (8) one sees that the top quark mass is $`m_tm_U`$. Therefore, $`1/\mathrm{cos}\gamma _uh_{33}(v/m_t)\mathrm{sin}\beta `$, and we may write $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =(m_U/m_D)[\mathrm{cos}\gamma _d(v/m_t)\mathrm{sin}\beta ]h_{33}`$. The expression in the square brackets is less than or equal to 1, and $`h_{33}`$, which is a Yukawa coupling in the $`SO(10)`$ theory, cannot be much larger than 1 without destroying the perturbativity of the theory below the Planck scale. Thus, the value of the parameter $`m_U/m_D`$, which can be determined by fitting the quark and lepton masses, puts an upper bound on $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. We shall find that $`m_U/m_D2`$, so with $`h_{33}=1.5`$ to 2, the value of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ is consistent with the experimental lower limit of 3 tanbeta

Now, given Eqs. (3), (7), and (8), one has

$$M_D=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& \delta & \delta \lambda t^{}\\ \delta & ϵ_d& ϵ_d\lambda t^{}\\ 0& \lambda t& \lambda \end{array}\right)m_D,$$
(9)
and

$$M_L=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& \delta & 0\\ \delta & 3ϵ_d& \lambda t\\ \delta \lambda t^{}& 3ϵ_d\lambda t^{}& \lambda \end{array}\right)m_D.$$
(10)
Of course, from Eq. (6) one sees that $`M_U`$ is already given in Eq. (8).

Simply by inspecting these matrices one can observe several significant facts. First, the masses of $`m_b`$ and $`m_\tau `$ are suppressed by the small parameter $`\lambda `$, whereas $`m_t`$ is not, so that $`m_b,m_\tau m_t`$ can be explained without requiring that $`m_U/m_D`$ be extremely large. Second, the masses of the first family will be almost unaffected by the parameter $`\lambda `$, so that $`m_d`$ and $`m_e`$ will not be similarly suppressed compared to $`m_u`$. Indeed for $`m_U/m_D`$ of order one, $`m_um_d`$, as observed. Third, there emerges naturally the “lopsided” structure discussed in many recent papers lopsided . That is, we see that the 23 element of $`M_L`$ is much larger than its 32 element, whereas for $`M_D`$ the opposite is the case. This comes directly from the fact that $`M_D=M_D^0\mathrm{\Lambda }^T`$ whereas $`M_L=\mathrm{\Lambda }M_L^0`$. This lopsided structure explains why the atmospheric neutrino mixing angle (which gets a contribution from $`(M_L)_{23}/(M_L)_{33}`$) is of order $`|t|1`$, whereas the corresponding quark mixing $`V_{cb}`$ (which gets a contribution from $`(M_D)_{23}/(M_D)_{33}`$) is only of order $`ϵ_d|t|1`$.

One can read off from the simple forms in Eqs. (9) and (10) the following approximate relations that hold at the GUT scale:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}m_tm_U,\hfill & m_cϵ_um_U,\hfill & m_u(\delta ^2/ϵ_u)m_U,\hfill \\ & & \\ m_b\lambda \sqrt{1+|t|^2}m_D,\hfill & m_s(ϵ_d/\sqrt{1+|t|^2})m_D,\hfill & m_d(\delta ^2/ϵ_d)m_D,\hfill \\ & & \\ m_\tau \lambda \sqrt{1+|t|^2}m_D,\hfill & m_\mu (3ϵ_d/\sqrt{1+|t|^2})m_D,\hfill & m_e(\delta ^2/3ϵ_d)m_D,\hfill \end{array}$$
(11)
and

$$\begin{array}{ccc}V_{cb}& & (ϵ_d/\lambda )\left(\frac{t}{1+|t|^2}\right)(m_s/m_b)t,\hfill \\ & & \\ V_{us}& & (\delta /ϵ_d)(\delta /ϵ_u)\sqrt{m_d/m_s}(1+|t|^2)^{1/4}\pm \sqrt{m_u/m_c},\hfill \\ & & \\ V_{ub}& & \delta ^{}+\left(\frac{\delta }{\lambda }\frac{t}{1+|t|^2}\right)\left(1\frac{ϵ_d}{ϵ_u}\right)\delta ^{}+V_{us}V_{cb}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(12)
From the form of the $`M_L`$ (Eq. (10)) and $`M_N`$ (Eqs. (5) and (8)) it can be seen that the tangent of the atmospheric neutrino mixing angle is controlled by $`t`$, which therefore must be of order one. That in turn implies, through the equation for $`V_{cb}`$, that $`V_{cb}m_s/m_b`$. This succesful qualitative relation between the atmospheric neutrino angle, $`V_{cb}`$ and $`m_s/m_b`$ is characteristic of lopsided models.

In this model there are eight parameters ($`m_U/m_D`$, $`ϵ_u`$, $`ϵ_d`$, $`\delta `$, $`\delta ^{}`$, $`\lambda `$, $`|t|`$, and $`\theta _t`$) to fit twelve quantities (eight mass ratios of charged leptons and quarks, three CKM angles, and the KM phase). There are therefore four quantitative predictions, which can be taken to be $`m_bm_\tau `$, $`m_sm_\mu /3`$, $`m_d3m_e`$, and the value of the Cabibbo angle. In addition, the atmospheric angle is predicted to be of order one, though it cannot be predicted more precisely than that without knowing $`M_R`$.

We can easily determine the approximate values of most of the parameters of the model from Eqs. (11) and (12). We take the values of the quark and lepton masses and CKM mixings at the GUT scale to be $`m_t=112`$ GeV, $`m_b=0.96`$ GeV, $`m_\tau =1.16`$ GeV, $`m_c=0.27`$ GeV, $`m_s=0.015`$ GeV, $`m_\mu =0.069`$ GeV, $`m_u=0.57`$ MeV, $`m_d=0.86`$ MeV, $`m_e=0.334`$ MeV, $`|V_{cb}|=0.0357`$, and $`|V_{us}|=0.222`$. These are found by extrapolating experimentally determined central values at low scale pdg  to the GUT scale using the following procedure. First, we propagate the masses of light quarks and leptons from $`2`$ GeV scale to $`M_Z`$ scale using the 3-loop QCD and 1-loop QED renormalization group equations (RGEs). Then, we perform additional running from $`M_Z`$ to $`m_t`$ scale using the Standard Model RGEs. (The relevant renormalization-group $`\beta `$ functions are summarized in Ref. SMRGE .) Finally, assuming all SUSY particle masses to be degenerate at $`m_t`$ we run the masses and mixings to the GUT scale $`M_{GUT}2\times 10^{16}`$ GeV using the 2-loop MSSM $`\beta `$ functions summarized in Ref. MSSMRGE . In the final running we set $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =3`$.

The equation for $`V_{cb}`$ tells us immediately that $`|t|V_{cb}m_b/m_s2`$. From Eq. (11) one has that $`(m_um_c)/(m_dm_s)(m_U/m_D)^2\sqrt{1+|t|^2}`$, which implies that $`m_U/m_D2`$. The equation $`\lambda (m_b/m_t)(m_U/m_D)/\sqrt{1+|t|^2}`$ then gives $`\lambda 10^2`$.

The value of $`|ϵ_u|`$ is given approximately by $`\sqrt{m_c/m_t}2.4\times 10^3`$. The equation $`ϵ_d\frac{1}{3}(m_\mu /m_\tau )\lambda (1+|t|^2)`$ gives $`|ϵ_d|10^3`$. It is gratifying that $`ϵ_u`$ and $`ϵ_d`$ come out to be of the same order. If we choose the relative sign of $`ϵ_u`$ and $`ϵ_d`$ to be negative, then we get a good fit to the Cabibbo angle: $`V_{us}\sqrt{m_d/m_s}(1+|t|^2)^{1/4}+\sqrt{m_u/m_c}(0.2)(0.7)+(0.05)=0.2`$.

The value of $`\delta `$ is determined from $`\delta ^2m_um_c/m_t^2`$ to be $`10^4`$. Finally, the parameter $`\delta ^{}`$ and the phase of $`t`$ can be determined from the real and imaginary parts of $`V_{ub}`$. Specifically, one has

$$V_{ub}/(V_{us}V_{cb})=1\delta ^{}e^{i\theta _t}/|V_{us}V_{cb}|.$$
(13)
One gets a fairly reasonable fit from the following values of the parameters of the model: $`m_U/m_D=2.03`$, $`\lambda =1.03\times 10^2`$, $`|t|=1.45`$, $`ϵ_U=2.38\times 10^3`$, $`ϵ_D=2.14\times 10^3`$, $`\delta =1.12\times 10^4`$. The resulting masses and mixings and the experimental values extrapolated to the GUT scale are compared in Table 1.

It is apparent that the fit is not completely satisfactory. In particular, the mass of the $`\tau `$ comes out about 15% too small. This is typical of grand unified theories. Simple GUTs generally predict $`m_b=m_\tau `$ at the GUT scale, whereas the data tend to give $`m_\tau `$ about 15 to 20% larger than $`m_b`$. There are a number of ways of improving the agreement, including supposing that $`m_b`$ gets corrections from sparticle loops. Also off considerably here is $`m_s`$. The Georgi-Jarlskog relation $`m_sm_\tau /3`$ is built into a choice of Clebsch in this toy model. But that relation is known to give a value of $`m_s`$ that is somewhat large compared to the values favored by recent lattice calculations slattice .

While this model does not give a perfect fit, it is simple enough to illustrate the basic idea we are proposing in a transparent way. It seems likely that models based on these ideas can be found that give better fits. Another possibility that might be realized in this approach is a “doubly lopsided” model bb02 . One could imagine, for example, that the matrix $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ had the form

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& \lambda t_1\\ 0& 1& \lambda t_2\\ \lambda t_1^{}& \lambda t_2^{}& \lambda \end{array}\right),$$
(14)
with $`\lambda 1`$ and $`|t_i|1`$. If the underlying matrix $`M_L^0`$ has a hierarchical form, with the 33 element being the largest, then the effective low-energy mass matrix $`M_L=\mathrm{\Lambda }M_L^0`$ would have the doubly lopsided form, with the 13, 23, and 33 elements all being of the same order. This is known to be able to give in a simple way the correct “bi-large” pattern of neutrino mixing angles, with $`U_{e3}`$ being small bb02 .

We now turn to the question of whether the form of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ given in Eq. (7) can arise naturally. Consider the special case where $`B`$ is diagonal and where the only non-zero elements of $`A`$ are the diagonal elements and the 23 element: $`B_{ij}=b_i\delta _{ij}`$ $`A_{ij}=a_i\delta _{ij}+a_4\delta _{i2}\delta _{j3}`$. Then it is easily found that for $`b_1<a_1`$, $`b_2<a_2`$, and $`b_3>a_3`$, the matrix $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ has the form given in Eq. (7) with $`\lambda |a_3|^2/(|a_3|^2+|b_3|^2)`$, and $`t=(b_3^{}b_2a_4)/(a_2|a_3|^2)`$. Of course, there are other forms of $`A`$ and $`B`$ that also give Eq. (7). Another simple example is that $`A`$ is diagonal and $`B`$ has nonzero diagonal elements and 23 element.

In conclusion, we have found a framework that differs from most “texture” models of quark and lepton masses in several respects. First, it can partially explain the fact, usually treated as an accident, that $`m_um_d,m_e`$, while also giving $`m_tm_b,m_\mu `$. This it does, not by requiring $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ to be large, which might be somewhat unnatural, but by mixing the $`b`$ and $`\tau `$ strongly with vectorlike fermions at the GUT scale. Second, it combines predictive textures with a structure that realizes a non-axion solution to the strong CP problem proposed many years ago nb . By allowing most of the parameters to be real, even though CP is violated, it has the potential of giving very predictive models. And it gives rise naturally to the “lopsided” kind of structure that has been proposed to explain the largeness of $`U_{\mu 3}`$ relative to $`V_{cb}`$ lopsided .

The toy model we have described illustrates the essential ideas in a transparent way. However, it would be good to find a model which is more predictive and which does a better job fitting certain quantities, especially $`m_s`$. It would also be interesting to investigate further models of this type that are “doubly lopsided” bb96 ; bb02 .


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Despite its phenomenal success in predicting phenomena at high energies, the theory of strong interactions still lacks understanding at low energies. Recently progress has been made in understanding the vacuum structure of supersymmetric $`N=1`$ extensions of $`4`$ dimensional gauge theories , which could provide a useful laboratory for studying $`QCD`$. As a part of this ongoing effort we will study supersymmetric gauge theories on $`^3\times S^1`$. As argued in , various holomorphic data including the vacuum structure and the value of the superpotential in each vacuum are independent of the radius $`R`$ of the $`S^1`$. In particular this means that we can recover the four-dimensional ($`R\mathrm{}`$) vacuum structure from the three-dimensional (finite $`R`$) field theory.

The quantum structure of the three-dimensional field theory ( $`𝒩=4`$ supersymmetric gauge theory deformed to $`𝒩=2`$ by a classical superpotential) turns out to be easier to describe than the four-dimensional gauge theory. There are two main reasons why this is the case. First of all there are no additional light degrees of freedom that can condense. Secondly there are no fractional instantons in the theories we consider. This ultimately implies that we can find the quantum superpotential by expressing the classical superpotential in the right variables.

These right variables are provided by the integrable system that underlies the Seiberg-Witten solution of $`𝒩=2`$ supersymmetric gauge theories in four dimensions   . This integrable system takes on a more direct physical meaning once we compactify the four-dimensional theory down to three dimensions, as the moduli space of $`𝒩=4`$ gauge theories in three dimensions coincides with the complexified phase space of the integrable system. We therefore proposed in , following earlier work   , that one can obtain the quantum superpotential simply by replacing the adjoint scalar $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ in the classical superpotential by the Lax matrix $`M`$ of the corresponding integrable system,

$$W_{\mathrm{quantum}}(\mathrm{\Phi })=W_{\mathrm{classical}}(M).$$
(1)
We were able to show, in several cases, that this proposal correctly reproduced the vacuum structure of the four-dimensional supersymmetric gauge theories. That is, we were able to show that at extrema of the superpotential, the Seiberg-Witten curve factorizes precisely in the right way as it should according to the four-dimensional analysis in . In the case where the gauge group is $`U(N)`$, this factorization implies that the Seiberg-Witten curve degenerates to a curve of genus $`k<N1`$, and the general form of this factorization is

$$y^2=P_N^2(x)4\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}=H_{Nk}^2(x)T_{2k}(x)$$
(2)
$$G_{nk}^2(x)T_{2k}(x)=W^{}(x)^2+f_{n1}(x),$$
(3)
where $`P_N(x)`$ is the $`z`$-independent part of $`det(xM(z))`$ ($`z`$ is the spectral parameter that appears in the Lax matrix $`M(z)`$) and $`H,T,G,f`$ are polynomials of degree $`Nk,2k,nk,n1`$ respectively. The degree of the superpotential $`W`$ is $`n+1`$.

In this paper we will prove that (1) reproduces the correct factorization of the Seiberg-Witten curve (2),(3). The proof is purely algebraic and relies heavily on the (almost) tri-diagonal shape of the Lax matrix. In section 4 we will give a short alternative proof using methods from the theory of integrable systems and Riemann surfaces. We also briefly discuss the number of flat directions of (1), the difference between the gauge groups $`SU(N)`$ and $`U(N)`$, and possible generalizations to other gauge groups.

While this paper was being typed,  appeared, in which yet another proof of the correctness of (1) is given.

## 2 The setup

As explained in the previous paper  (section 3) we are interested in extrema of the potential $`\mathrm{Tr}W(M)`$ obtained by inserting the Lax matrix $`M`$ of the periodic Toda chain into the superpotential of the deformed $`𝒩=2`$ $`U(N)`$ super Yang-Mills theory. In this section we will review the exact statements to be proven and along the way fix some notation.

The periodic Toda chain Lax matrix is given as

$`M`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccccc}p_1& \mathrm{\Lambda }^2e^{(q_1q_2)/2}& 0& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{\Lambda }^2e^{(q_Nq_1)/2}z\\ \mathrm{\Lambda }^2e^{(q_1q_2)/2}& p_2& \mathrm{\Lambda }^2e^{(q_2q_3)/2}& \mathrm{}& 0\\ 0& \mathrm{\Lambda }^2e^{(q_2q_3)/2}& p_3& \mathrm{}& 0\\ .& .& .& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{\Lambda }^2e^{(q_{N1}q_N)/2}\\ \mathrm{\Lambda }^2e^{(q_Nq_1)/2}z^1& .& .& \mathrm{\Lambda }^2e^{(q_{N1}q_N)/2}& p_N\end{array}\right)`$ (4)
$``$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccccc}\varphi _1& y_1& 0& \mathrm{}& y_0z\\ y_1& \varphi _2& y_2& \mathrm{}& 0\\ 0& y_2& \varphi _3& \mathrm{}& 0\\ .& .& .& \mathrm{}& y_{N1}\\ y_0z^1& .& .& y_{N1}& \varphi _N\end{array}\right).`$
Note that we have changed the definition of the $`y_i`$ with respect to our previous article in order to declutter notation in this article. Also, we have changed to a symmetric Lax matrix representation, which is related to the one in  by conjugation by a diagonal matrix. Another representation, which will be used in the algebraic proof in the next section, can be obtained by using the embedding $`\widehat{gl}_N`$ in $`gl_{\mathrm{}}`$,

$$\stackrel{~}{M}=\left(\begin{array}{cccccc}\mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& & \\ \mathrm{}& \varphi _N& y_0& 0& 0& \\ \mathrm{}& y_0& \varphi _1& y_1& 0& \mathrm{}\\ \mathrm{}& 0& y_1& \varphi _2& y_2& \mathrm{}\\ & 0& 0& y_2& \varphi _3& \mathrm{}\\ & & \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}\end{array}\right).$$
(5)
The Lax matrix is then an infinite tridiagonal matrix $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ with period $`N`$. If we define a shift operator $`Z`$ of order $`N`$ by the equation $`Z=D^N`$, where $`D`$ is the shift operator of order one with matrix elements $`D_{ij}=\delta _{i,j1}`$, then clearly $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ commutes with $`Z`$. By considering the action of $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ on vectors that are eigenvectors of $`Z`$ with eigenvalue $`z`$, so that they have only $`N`$ independent components, we recover (4).

Another ingredient in the setup is the operator $``$ which will act on integer powers of the Lax matrix $`M`$; $`M`$ depends on a spectral parameter $`z`$ and can therefore be expanded as

$$M^n=\underset{r}{}z^rM_{(r)}^n$$
(6)
Furthermore, define $`M_+^n`$ as the sum of the upper diagonal part of $`M_{(0)}^n`$ plus $`_{r<0}z^rM_{(r)}^n`$, $`M_{}^n`$ as the sum of the lower diagonal part of $`M_{(0)}^n`$ plus $`_{r>0}z^rM_{(r)}^n`$, and finally $`M_0^n`$ as the diagonal part of $`M_{(0)}^n`$. In terms of these, $``$ acts as,

$$(M^n)M_{}^n+M_0^nM_+^n.$$
(7)
Note that in the infinite matrix representation $`\stackrel{~}{M}_{}^n`$, $`\stackrel{~}{M}_0^n`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{M}_+^n`$ are simply the lower triangular, diagonal and upper triangular part of $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ respectively. The linear operator (7) has a natural interpretation in terms of the affine root system of $`\widehat{gl}_N`$, it flips the signs of all positive roots but does nothing to the negative roots. For every $`1<n<N1`$ these $`(M^n)`$ generate the independent isospectral flows on the phase space of the system.

$$\frac{M}{t_n}=[M,(M^n)].$$
(8)
These flows commute and clearly preserve the quantities $`\mathrm{Tr}(M^l)`$. The latter are the action variables of the periodic Toda chain, while the times $`t_n`$ are essentially the angle variables, and altogether this demonstrates the integrability of the Toda chain.

The spectral curve associated to the Lax matrix $`M`$ is defined by the equation

$$det(xM)P_N(x)+(1)^N(z+\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}z^1)=0$$
(9)
and is identified with the Seiberg-Witten curve of the four-dimensional $`𝒩=2`$ theory.

The flows (8) preserve the product $`_{i=0}^{N1}y_i^2=\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}`$, and in  we enforced this condition using a Lagrange multiplier field. Since the flows do not affect $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, we will not write this Lagrange multiplier term explicitly in the remainder, but freely replace the product $`_{i=0}^{N1}y_i^2`$ by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}`$ whenever appropriate.

The flows (8) also preserve $`\mathrm{Tr}(M)`$. If we take $`M`$ to be traceless, we are discussing the $`SU(N)`$ theory, while if we include the trace of $`M`$ we are discussing the $`U(N)`$ theory. In the latter case, the moduli space also includes the expectation values of an extra complex scalar field which is obtained from the four dimensional diagonal $`U(1)U(N)`$ gauge field after compactifying on a circle and dualizing the remaining three dimensional gauge field. This extra complex scalar is completely decoupled from the discussion since it cannot appear in the superpotential and we will ignore it in the remainder. In the remainder of the paper we will assume the gauge group is $`U(N)`$ and briefly comment on the $`SU(N)`$ in section 5.

### 2.1 Reduction of the integrable system

We are interested in the extrema of the superpotential $`\mathrm{Tr}W(M)\mathrm{Tr}_{i=1}^{n+1}\frac{g_i}{i}M^i`$ of maximum power $`n+1`$. These are found by differentiating the superpotential with respect to the coordinates and momenta of the Toda chain, and by putting these equal to zero. Equivalently, the Poisson brackets of $`\mathrm{Tr}W(M)`$ with the coordinates and momenta should vanish. Since $`\mathrm{Tr}W(M)`$ is a linear combination of action variables $`\mathrm{Tr}(M^k)`$, vanishing of the Poisson brackets implies that the flow generated by the action $`\mathrm{Tr}W(M)`$ should have a stationary point, which in turn translates into the two matrix equations

$$[M,W^{}(M)_+W^{}(M)_{}]=0,W^{}(M)_0=0.$$
(10)
The second equation $`W^{}(M)_0=0`$ appears because $`\mathrm{Tr}(M)`$ does not generate a flow, and has to be treated separately. It is absent for $`SU(N)`$ gauge theories. In (10) $`W^{}`$ is the function obtained by differentiating $`W(x)`$ for some complex number $`x`$. The following theorem will be proven in the next section

###### Theorem 1

Equations 10 imply the existence of polynomials $`H_{Nk},T_{2k},G_{nk},f_{n1},U_k`$ of degrees $`Nk,2k,nk,n1,k`$, $`1kn`$ respectively such that

$`(W^{}(M)_+W^{}(M)_{})^2`$ $`=`$ $`W^{}(M)^2+f_{n1}(M)`$ (11)
$`W^{}(M)_+W^{}(M)_{}`$ $`=`$ $`G_{nk}(M)(U_k(M)_+U_k(M)_{})`$ (12)
$`(P_N(M)_+P_N(M)_{})^2`$ $`=`$ $`P_N(M)^24\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}`$ (13)
$`P_N(M)_+P_N(M)_{}`$ $`=`$ $`H_{Nk}(M)(U_k(M)_+U_k(M)_{})`$ (14)
$`(U_k(M)_+U_k(M)_{})^2`$ $`=`$ $`T_{2k}(M).`$ (15)
In more physical terms, the theorem implies the following factorization of the Seiberg-Witten curve ,

$`P_N^2(x)4\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}`$ $`=`$ $`H_{Nk}^2(x)T_{2k}(x)`$ (16)
$`T_{2k}(x)G_{nk}^2(x)`$ $`=`$ $`W^2(x)+f_{n1}(x).`$ (17)
These equations state that the genus of the Riemann surface is reduced by the introduction of a classical superpotential. Furthermore, these equations show that the matrix model curve (17) can degenerate as well.

## 3 Algebraic proof

In this section we will provide an algebraic proof of the above theorem. The first step of the proof is to show that in addition to (10) we also have

$$[M,P_N(M)_+P_N(M)_{}]=0$$
(18)
or equivalently

$$[\stackrel{~}{M},P_N(\stackrel{~}{M})_+P_N(\stackrel{~}{M})_{}]=0.$$
(19)
This follows from (9). Indeed, (9) implies the matrix equation

$$P_N(M)+(1)^N(z+\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}z^1)=0$$
(20)
which when expressed in terms of the infinite matrix $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ implies

$$P_N(\stackrel{~}{M})+(1)^N(Z+\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}Z^1)=0.$$
(21)
Therefore, $`P_N(\stackrel{~}{M})_+=(1)^{N+1}Z`$ and $`P_N(\stackrel{~}{M})_{}=(1)^{N+1}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}Z^1`$, and (18) follows trivially from $`[\stackrel{~}{M},Z]=0`$.

The main idea of the proof is to show that one can compute a “greatest common divisor” of $`P_N(M)_+P_N(M)_{}`$ and $`W^{}(M)_+W^{}(M)_{}`$. This computation follows a version of the Euclid algorithm that one uses compute the greatest common divisor of two integers. The crucial step is to show that if $`[M,A(M)_+A(M)_{}]=0`$, then for all polynomials $`B`$ there is a polynomial $`C`$ such that $`C(M)_+C(M)_{}=B(M)(A(M)_+A(M)_{})`$ and in addition $`[M,C(M)_+C(M)_{}]=0`$. We will show this below, working exclusively with the infinite matrix representation of $`M`$ (and dropping the tilde for convenience).

### 3.1 Some definitions

Let $`gl(\mathrm{})_N`$ denote the elements in $`gl(\mathrm{})`$ which are periodic with period $`N`$. $`X`$ is said to be a matrix operator of degree $`k`$ if

$$Xgl(\mathrm{})_N,X_{ij}0i+k=j.$$
(22)
Any matrix can be written as a sum of matrices of fixed degree, $`X=_rX^{(r)}`$, with $`X^{(r)}`$ of degree $`r`$. If there is a smallest $`r`$ for which $`X^{(r)}0`$, we say that $`X`$ is of minimal degree $`r`$, and similarly if there is a largest $`r`$ for which $`X^{(r)}0`$ we say $`X`$ is of maximal degree $`r`$.

We will only study operators with a finite maximal degree, which form a ring. By the inverse of a matrix we will mean an inverse in this ring. If this exists, it is defined as follows: write a general matrix $`R`$ of maximal degree $`r`$ as $`R=R^{(r)}+\stackrel{~}{R}`$, where $`\stackrel{~}{R}=_{j<r}R^{(j)}`$. $`R`$ is invertible in the ring if and only if $`R^{(r)}`$ is invertible, in which case it is defined as

$$R^1=(R^{(r)})^1(1+\stackrel{~}{R}(R^{(r)})^1)^1(R^{(r)})^1\underset{k0}{}(1)^k(\stackrel{~}{R}(R^{(r)})^1)^k$$
(23)
so that $`R^1`$ is of maximal degree $`r`$.

### 3.2 Some facts

First we will collect a number of intermediate results which will be used to prove the theorem, beginning with the following

###### Lemma 1

Let $`X`$ be a matrix operator of degree $`p0`$.

$$[X,M^+]=0\mathrm{iff}X=\lambda (M^+)^p$$
(24)
for some constant $`\lambda `$

The proof of the first statement follows trivially from the second. Clearly, $`X=\lambda (M^+)^p`$ constitutes a one parameter family of solutions of $`[X,M^+]=0`$. We will now show that this equation only has a one parameter family of solutions thereby proving the lemma. Write out the equation in components,

$$[X,M^+]_{ij}=(X_{i,i+p}M_{i+p,i+p+1}^+M_{i,i+1}^+X_{i+1,i+p+1})\delta _{i+1+p,j}=0.$$
(25)
Recall that none of the off-diagonal elements of $`M`$ can be zero, since $`y_i^2=\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}0`$. Therefore the above equation recursively determines all entries of $`X`$ in terms of one arbitrary given entry, and therefore there is a one complex parameter family of solutions.

The above lemma is used to construct a proof for

###### Lemma 2

Let $`Xgl(\mathrm{})_N`$ have maximal degree $`k`$. Then $`[X,M]=0`$ implies

$$X=\underset{\mathrm{}ik}{}\lambda _iM^i.$$
(26)
As before, we denote by $`X^{(p)}`$ the component of $`X`$ of degree $`p`$. $`X`$ can be trivially expanded as

$$X=\underset{ik}{}X^{(i)}$$
(27)
Since $`M`$ is of maximal degree one, $`[X,M]`$ is of maximal degree $`k+1`$, and its component of highest degree equals

$$[X,M]^{(k+1)}=[X^{(k)},M^{(1)}]=0.$$
(28)
Using the previous lemma we have $`X^{(k)}=\lambda _kM_+^k`$. Now consider the operator $`X^{}=X\lambda _kM^k`$ of maximal degree $`k1`$. This operator also commutes with $`M`$. By applying the same procedure we find $`\lambda _{k1}`$ such that $`X^{\prime \prime }=X^{}\lambda _{k1}M^{k1}`$ is of maximal degree $`k2`$. By continuing the procedure the lemma follows.

By itself the lemma is not that useful yet: we would like to obtain a finite (polynomial) series. Note that the natural operator with a finite series is the upper triangular part of a matrix of finite maximal degree since this matrix can be obtained by the above procedure in a finite number of steps,

$$X_+=\left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}\lambda _iM^i\right)_+$$
(29)
This observation leads to the following easily proven

###### Lemma 3

Let $`Xgl(\mathrm{})_N`$ have maximal degree $`k`$ and $`[X,M]=0`$.

* $`X`$ is symmetric then $`X=A(M)`$
* $`X`$ is antisymmetric then $`X=A(M)_+A(M)_{}`$

with $`A(M)`$ some polynomial function in M of order $`k`$

Finally we prove the lemma

###### Lemma 4

Let $`A`$ be some some polynomial function in M of order $`k`$ and $`[M,A(M)_+A(M)_{}]=0`$. Then $`A(M)_0=\lambda 𝕀`$ and

$$(A(M)_+A(M)_{})^2=A(M)^2+f_{k1}(M)+2\lambda A(M)$$
(30)
with $`f_{k1}`$ a polynomial function of order $`k1`$, $`\lambda `$ .

Adding $`A(M)`$ to $`A(M)_+A(M)_{}`$ yields $`[M_+,A(M)_0]=0`$. By lemma 1 $`A(M)_0=\lambda 𝕀`$. Now consider $`(A(M)_+A(M)_{})^2`$. Since this is a symmetric operator, it is by lemma 3 equal to a polynomial, say $`U(M)`$. Then

$$U(M)A(M)^2=2\lambda A(M)\lambda ^24(A_+(M)A_{}(M))$$
(31)
This proves the lemma, since the last term is symmetric and of maximal degree $`k1`$.

### 3.3 Proving the theorem

With these auxiliary results the stage is set for proving the assertions in theorem 1. The fifth assertion is a consequence of lemma 3. The first is a simple application of lemma 4 using the second condition in (10). This leaves (12), (14). We will find the greatest common divisor indicated in these equation through the following algorithm, which is a variant of the algorithm of Euclid:

1. There is a polynomial function $`A(M)`$ in $`M`$ of maximum degree $`Nn`$ such that

$$(P_N(M)_+P_N(M)_{})^{(\pm N)}=A(M)^{(\pm (Nn))}(W^{}(M)_+W^{}(M)_{})^{(\pm n)}$$
(32)
2. Define

$$\stackrel{~}{P}(M)_+\stackrel{~}{P}(M)_{}(P_N(M)_+P_N(M)_{})A(M)(W^{}(M)_+W^{}(M)_{})$$
(33)
Note that this operator commutes with $`M`$ and is of maximum degree $`N1`$. The existence of the polynomial $`\stackrel{~}{P}`$ is guaranteed by lemma 3.
3. Repeat the above steps with the operators $`(W^{}(M)_+W^{}(M)_{})`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{P}(M)_+\stackrel{~}{P}(M)_{}`$.
4. At some point the subtraction step will give an operator of degree zero which commutes with $`M`$ and is thus proportional to the identity matrix. The other operator is now by construction the greatest common divisor.

Some remarks are in order. First of all, the algorithm stops after a finite number of steps. Furthermore, the maximum degree of the gcd is of course $`n`$ which is obtained if the algorithm terminates after one step. Denoting the maximum degree of the gcd by $`k`$ we see we have proven (12) and (14) thereby finishing the proof of theorem 1.

We have now shown explicitly that the superpotential (1) indeed reproduces correctly the factorization of the Seiberg-Witten curve for softly broken $`𝒩=2𝒩=1`$ super Yang-Mills theory . This is strong evidence that they give a correct description of the F-terms of the low-energy effective field theory.

## 4 Algebraic geometrical proof

There is a long literature relating solutions of the equations of motion of the periodic Toda chain to algebraic geometric quantities, see e.g.   . The basic result that allows one to do so is that the commuting flows of the Toda system correspond to linear flows on the Jacobian of the associated spectral curve (9). The action variables correspond to moduli of the spectral curve, and are left invariant by the commuting flows. The angle variables are literally coordinates on the Jacobian of each of the surfaces. Therefore, the main problem is to understand the relation between the coordinates on the Jacobian and the variables that appear in the Lax matrix. This relation involves a set of $`g`$ points (more precisely, a divisor of degree $`g`$) on the spectral curve (of genus $`g`$). On the one hand, given $`g`$ points $`P_i`$, one other point $`P_0`$, and a basis of the holomorphic one-forms $`\omega _i`$, the map

$$\{P_i\}\underset{i}{}_{P_0}^{P_i}\omega _j$$
(34)
maps the $`g`$ points to a point on the Jacobian, and every point on the Jacobian can be written in this way via the Jacobi inversion theorem. Therefore, in order to understand the relation between the Lax matrix and the Jacobian, we need to extract $`g`$ points on the spectral curve from the Lax matrix. One way to do this is to consider eigenvectors of the Lax matrix (4). Viewed as functions on the spectral curve, the entries of the eigenvectors generically have poles at $`g`$ points, which we take to be the $`P_i`$. Equivalently, we can consider the spectrum of the matrix $`M^{}`$ obtained from the Lax matrix by removing the last row and column. This is a matrix of rank $`N1`$, and the spectral curve of a generic Lax matrix is indeed a curve of genus $`N1`$.

It would be interesting to study in more detail the construction and physical meaning of the points $`P_i`$, and their behavior under the flows of the Toda lattice, but we will not do that here. To prove that the Seiberg-Witten curve factorizes in the appropriate way, it suffices to use theorem 4 in , which gives an explicit expression for the velocities of the Toda flows on the Jacobian. Adapted to our situation, this theorem states that the velocities are given by

$$a_j=\mathrm{Res}_{x=\mathrm{}}(\omega _jA(x))$$
(35)
for the flows given by $`\dot{M}=[M,A(M)_+A(M)_{}]`$. Here, $`\omega _j`$ is a basis for the holomorphic one-forms on the Riemann surface. For a surface of the form $`y^2=P_N(x)^24\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}`$, such a basis is

$$\omega _j=\frac{x^{j1}}{\sqrt{P_N(x)^24\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}}},j=1,\mathrm{},N1.$$
(36)
In order to make the flow given by $`A(x)=W^{}(x)`$ stationary, which is according to (10) a necessary condition to find an extremum of the superpotential, we therefore need that

$$\mathrm{Res}_{x=\mathrm{}}(\frac{x^{j1}}{\sqrt{P_N(x)^24\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}}}W^{}(x))=0,j=1,\mathrm{},N1.$$
(37)
Though necessary, these equations are not yet sufficient, since we have not yet taken the additional constraint $`W^{}(M)_0`$ in (10) into account. This constraint is in fact equivalent to $`\mathrm{Tr}(W^{}(M))=0`$, as one can see from the proof of lemma 4. Now if $`W^{}`$ has a large order, $`W^{}(M)`$ appears to depend explicitly on the spectral parameter, but in our previous paper we explained what the natural interpretation of such high order $`W^{}`$ is, namely we should work with the infinite Lax matrix (5) instead, and view the trace as the trace over any $`N`$ consecutive diagonal entries of the infinite matrix (since the matrix is periodic, this is well-defined). With this interpretation of $`W^{}(M)`$ for any $`W^{}`$, one then obtains that $`\mathrm{Tr}(W^{}(M))`$ is proportional to

$$\mathrm{Res}_{x=\mathrm{}}(\frac{P_N^{}(x)}{\sqrt{P_N(x)^24\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}}}W^{}(x)).$$
(38)
Thus, the complete set of equations we need to solve are (37) and (38 = 0), which can be summarized as

$$\mathrm{Res}_{x=\mathrm{}}(\frac{x^{j1}}{\sqrt{P_N(x)^24\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}}}W^{}(x))=0,j=1,\mathrm{},N.$$
(39)
These equations have no solution if the order of $`W^{}`$ is less than $`N`$. The only way in which we can have a stationary flow is if the Riemann surface degenerates, so that the genus becomes smaller and there are fewer holomorphic one-forms. So we will assume that the surface degenerates with

$$P_N^2(x)4\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}=H_{Nk}^2(x)T_{2k}(x)$$
(40)
in which case the constraints we need to solve read

$$\mathrm{Res}_{x=\mathrm{}}(\frac{x^{j1}}{\sqrt{T_{2k}(x)}}W^{}(x))=0,j=1,\mathrm{},k.$$
(41)
To obtain this, observe that $`P_N^{}/\sqrt{P_N^24\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N}}V_{k1}/\sqrt{T_{2k}}`$ for some polynomial $`V_{k1}`$ if the curve degenerates according to (40). Equations (41) are equivalent to

$$\frac{W^{}(x)}{\sqrt{T_{2k}(x)}}=G_{nk}(x)+\underset{l>k}{}\frac{c_l}{x^l}$$
(42)
with $`G_{nk}`$ a polynomial of order $`nk`$ (recall that $`n`$ is the order of $`W^{}`$). Multiplying the left and right hand side by $`\sqrt{T_{2k}}`$, and taking squares, shows that

$$W^{}(x)^2=T_{2k}(x)G_{nk}(x)^2f_{n1}(x)$$
(43)
where $`f_{n1}(x)`$ is a polynomial whose order is at most $`n1`$. Thus, we have in (40) and (43) once again precisely reproduced the factorization of the Seiberg-Witten curve (16) and (17).

## 5 Comments

### 5.1 Stationary flows

Although the equations of motion that we obtained from the superpotential imply that one particular flow is stationary, namely the flow generated by $`W(M)`$ via equation (10), the results in equations (11)–(15) show that $`Nk`$ inequivalent flows have become stationary. One can take any polynomial $`A`$ of degree $`Nk1`$, and in view of lemma 3 we can always write

$$A(M)(U_k(M)_+U_k(M)_{})=V(M)_+V(M)_{}$$
(44)
for some polynomial $`V`$, and $`M`$ commutes with all these operators. Since $`A`$ contains $`Nk`$ free parameters, there are $`Nk`$ linearly independent flows that are stationary.

### 5.2 Number of moduli

We can also easily verify that the Lax matrices that extremize the superpotential have the right number of moduli that one expects from field theory. At low energies, for a solution of the form (11)–(15), we expect an unbroken $`U(1)^k`$ gauge group, and therefore $`k`$ complex moduli. One of these is related to the diagonal $`U(1)U(N)`$ and is not present in the Lax matrix. Therefore, we expect that the Lax matrix has $`k1`$ complex moduli. These moduli are easily understood: under the commuting flows, any extremum of the superpotential is mapped to another extremum, because an extremum is a stationary point of a particular flow and all flows commute. We already argued above that $`Nk`$ flows are stationary, leaving $`k1`$ flows that act non-trivially on the Lax matrix. These are the flows generated by $`\mathrm{Tr}(M^j)`$ for $`j=2,\mathrm{},k`$. These flows must act non-trivially, because if one of them were to act trivially, there would exist a polynomial $`V`$ of degree less that $`k`$ such that $`[M,V(M)_+V(M)_{}]=0`$, and in that case we would be able to reduce the solution (11)-(15) even further. (We tacitly assumed that $`T_{2k}`$ has no further quadratic factors in our solution). The above results are also easily understood in algebraic geometric framework given above.

### 5.3 $`SU(N)`$ versus $`U(N)`$

So far we discussed the theory with gauge group $`U(N)`$, and it is easy to see what needs to be changed if we are interested in gauge group $`SU(N)`$ instead. The only difference is that we need to drop the additional equation $`W^{}(M)_0=0`$ in (10), and that we should work with a traceless Lax matrix. In the algebraic approach in section 3, we can therefore no longer put $`\lambda =0`$ when we apply lemma 4 to $`A=W^{}`$, and therefore we end up with precisely the same results as for $`U(N)`$, the only difference being that the order of $`f`$ has to be $`n`$ instead of $`n1`$. This is consistent with the fact that $`\mathrm{Tr}(M)=0`$, so that the linear term in $`W`$ and thus the constant term in $`W^{}`$ should have no effect whatsoever on the factorization and drop out of all equations. A change of the constant term in $`W^{}`$ can be compensated by a change of $`f_n`$ and indeed does not affect the physics in any way.

From the algebraic geometric perspective, changing $`U(N)`$ to $`SU(N)`$ implies that in (39) and (41) the range of $`j`$ should be $`1jN1`$ and $`1jk1`$ instead. This then implies that we can have a term $`c_k/x^k`$ in equation (42), and therefore $`f`$ in (40) can be of order $`n`$ instead of $`n1`$. Thus we reach the same conclusion as above.

### 5.4 Outlook

Given the results in this paper, there are several directions to explore. What still remains an open problem is the relation between the results in this paper and the integrable model that underlies the Dijkgraaf-Vafa matrix model formulation. It would also be interesting to understand whether the various quantities that appear in the algebraic-geometric formulation have a direct physical interpretation in the gauge theory. Finally, we hope to extend the results given here to the other gauge groups, in order to improve our understanding of the vacuum structure of these theories as well. In  it was shown that perturbative calculations reduce to finite dimensional combinatorical problems for any gauge group and any matter content, but a convenient description of the vacuum structure of such a general gauge theory is still lacking. The three-dimensional analysis may also shed some light on the UV ambiguities discussed in , as they seem closely related to a choice of infinite realization of a finite dimensional Lax matrix.

Acknowledgments:  We would like to thank Robbert Dijkgraaf for useful discussions. This work is partially supported by the Stichting FOM.


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# Chapter 1 Analog read-out of the RPCs in the ARGO-YBJ experiment

## Chapter 1 Analog read-out of the RPCs in the ARGO-YBJ experiment

### Abstract

The ARGO-YBJ experiment, currently under construction at the Yangbaijing Laboratory (4300 m a.s.l.), consists of a single layer of $`2000`$ Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) for a total instrumented area of $``$ 6700 m2. The digital read-out, performed by means of pick-up electrodes 6.7 $`\times `$ 62 cm2 (’strips’), allows one to measure the particle number of small size showers. To extend the size range up to the knee region it is necessary to implement the charge read-out of the detector chambers. In order to achieve this goal each RPC has been instrumented with two large size pads of dimensions 140$`\times `$ 125 cm2. In this paper the performance of the prototype circuit devoted to the charge read-out is reported.

### 1. Introduction

The ARGO-YBJ detector is located in Tibet (P.R. China) at the Yangbajing High Altitude Cosmic Ray Laboratory ($`30^{}`$.11 N, 90.53 E, 4300 m a.s.l., 606 g/cm2). It consists of a central carpet of a single layer of RPCs operated in streamer mode, 74 $`\times `$ 78 m2 size, with an active area of $``$ 92$`\%`$, surrounded by a guard ring .

The signals from each RPC are picked-up with $`80`$ read-out strips with an average density of $`22strips/m^2`$. A simulation has been carried out by means of the CORSIKA/QGSjet code  in order to study the dependence on the energy of the number of fired strips for quasi-vertical ($`<15^o`$) showers with core in a fiducial area ($`A_f`$) of $`260m^2`$ at the center of the carpet . The average strip size ($`N_s`$) is compared in Fig. 1 to the total size and to the size sampled by the central carpet (truncated size) for proton induced showers. Fig. 1 shows clearly that the digital response of the detector cannot be used to study the primary spectrum at energies above a few hundred TeV. In order to extend the dynamic range a charge read-out has been implemented by instrumenting each RPC with two large size pads $`140\times 125cm^2`$ each (Big Pad). Here we report on the performance of a prototype circuit devoted to the read-out of the Big Pad signals.

### 2. The Charge Meter Circuit

The Big Pad is read-out via a unity gain Peak-and-Hold (PH) circuit, specifically designed to fulfill the signal requirements. A typical m.i.p. signal in the Big Pad, with the detector operated at $`9.5kV`$, at sea level, with a gas mixture made of $`15\%`$ Ar, $`10\%`$ Isobutane and $`75\%`$ R143a, is shown in Fig. 2. There the same signal is reported in a) with a horizontal scale of $`2.5\mu s`$ and in b) with a horizontal scale of $`100ns`$. In both cases the vertical scale is $`10mV`$. In Fig. 2c the vertical scale is $`200mV`$ (horizontal scale $`2.5\mu s`$) with the oscilloscope set at infinite persistence and triggered for $`20^{}`$ by single m.i.p. crossing the chamber.

A single particle pulse has a rise time in the range of a few tens of ns and a discharge time constant of many microseconds; the amplitude of the Big Pad signal, on a $`50\mathrm{\Omega }`$ load, can be as high as many Volts as shown in Fig. 2c. The PH circuit is able to track the Big Pad signals starting from $`30mV`$. When this threshold is exceeded, the PH generates a timing gate of $`1.5\mu `$s and in this window it keeps the maximum value of the input signal. The presence of a trigger during this hold-and-update phase validates the event and then PH output level is digitized by a 12-bit ADC with a conversion time of 1.2 $`\mu `$s. If the gate time elapses and no trigger arrives, the PH restarts the operations and clears its output.

The Big Pad pulse height allows us to reconstruct the number of incident particles. In Fig. 3 is reported the amplitude distribution of the m.i.p. signal provided by the Big Pad on $`50\mathrm{\Omega }`$, seen at the oscilloscope: there is a first peak at $`6mV`$ with a H.W.H.M. of $`1mV`$, that corresponds to one streamer, and a second peak at about $`12mV`$ which is wider and corresponds to two streamers.

The output discharge rate of the PH introduces an error in the digitized data that depends upon the jitter in the trigger arrival time. In the ARGO-YBJ experiment, a delay in the trigger generation up to $`400ns`$ is expected for events at the maximum slant. The PH discharge rate is $`6mV/\mu s`$, it is almost independent on the signal amplitude, and corresponds in the worst case to an error of one in the particle counting.

Fig. 3 shows the calibration curve of the circuit for three different values of the trigger delay time, namely $`100`$, $`300`$ and $`500ns`$. The input signal has been provided by a digital pulse generator able to generate signals according to the shape of the signal produced by a m.i.p. on the Big Pad. The figure shows a good linearity from $`100mV`$ up to about $`6V`$. This corresponds to $`600÷700particle/m^2`$ assuming a mean value of $`6mV/m.i.p.`$. Above $`6V`$ the calibration curve starts to deviate from the linear behaviour, or the circuit response starts to saturate.

The ADC reading the PH circuit is hosted on a separated board, and both cards are inserted in a VME crate. We verified that the VME power supply does not introduce appreciable noise to the PH circuit neither to the ADC.

### 3. Conclusions

We have realized a test circuit which allows to measure particle density up to $`600÷700/m^2`$ on our RPCs. The circuit has been tested with signals of many tens of Volts without any breaking. Its response comes out to be linear and independent on the trigger delay time. Also from the noise point of view it does not present problems. The next step of the analog readout project envisages :

1. the extension of the circuit dynamic range up to $`10^3particle/m^2`$ at least;
2. intercalibration of digital versus analog read-out at low particle density, i.e. $`10particle/m^2`$;
3. realization of a data acquisition system for the analog read-out and its integration with the present, operating digital read-out system at Yangbaijing Laboratory;
4. installation of the analog read-out system on a fraction of the ARGO-YBJ apparatus, namely 2 Clusters ($`100m^2`$);
5. data taking of large size events to study the performance of the system.

### 4. References

1. Heck D. et al. 1998, Report FZKA 6019 Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe.

2. Saggese L. et al. 2003, in this proceedings.

3. Surdo A. et al. 2003, in this proceedings.