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# The Shape and Orientation of NGC 3379: Implications for Nuclear Decoupling

## 1 Introduction

Like many astronomers, the “standard elliptical galaxy” NGC 3379 appears outwardly normal but, deep inside, has serious issues. To the casual observer this object is as ordinary as can be. Its optical surface brightness distribution follows an $`r^{1/4}`$ law over a span of 10 magnitudes (de Vaucouleurs & Capaccioli 1979). Its isophotes are almost perfectly elliptical and aligned (Peletier et al. 1990). Its optical colors are typical of an old population, and color gradients are small (Goudfrooij et al. 1994). It rotates slowly about its apparent minor axis (Davies & Illingworth 1983, Davies & Birkinshaw 1988). It shows no sign of current or past interactions (Schweizer & Seitzer 1992), and contains only a tiny amount of detectable interstellar matter, seen only in H$`\alpha +`$\[N 2\] emission (Macchetto et al. 1996) and dust absorption (van Dokkum & Franx 1995, Michard 1998).

On closer examination, the photometric and kinematic structure of the galaxy are puzzling. Deviations of the surface brightness profile from the $`r^{1/4}`$ law, though small, are significant (Capaccioli et al. 1987). Based on photometric similarities to NGC 3115, Capaccioli et al. (1991) propose that NGC 3379 is a highly triaxial S0 galaxy seen at low ($`31\mathrm{°}`$) inclination. The orientation and shape of the galaxy are difficult to constrain, however. Van der Marel et al. (1990), using stellar kinematic data and explicitly axisymmetric models, infer an inclination of $`60\mathrm{°}`$, at which the galaxy would be intrinsically almost as round as it appears. Statler (1994c, hereafter S94) considers triaxial models, introducing a methodology that relies on multi-position-angle observations of the mean velocity field. These models rule out the axis ratios advocated by Capaccioli et al. (1991) at $`98\%`$ confidence,111The model of Capaccioli et al. is not internally consistent due to unfortunate trigonometric errors (S94, § 5.2). but allow a wide variety of flattened nearly axisymmetric, or rounder triaxial shapes, and a correspondingly wide variety of inclinations.

Detailed kinematic studies of both stars (Bender, Saglia, & Gerhard 1994; Statler & Smecker-Hane 1999, hereafter SS99) and planetary nebulae (Ciardullo, Jacoby, & Dejonghe 1993) show a richer kinematic structure than one might have expected from older data. Inflections in the rotation and dispersion profiles are suggestive of a two-component structure, and are similar to those of S0 galaxies (Fisher 1997). SS99 suggest a low ($`30\mathrm{°}`$) inclination and a weakly triaxial S0-like shape on the basis of these similarities. At large radii the stellar dispersion profile joins with that of the planetary nebulae, which is consistent with a constant mass-to-light ratio out to $`r10\mathrm{kpc}`$ (Ciardullo, Jacoby, & Dejonghe 1993).

More recently, the nuclear regions of NGC 3379 have caught the attention of a number of workers, particularly as a likely home for a supermassive black hole. Kinematic data from the ground and from HST imply a central mass in the vicinity of $`10^8M_{}`$ (Magorrian et al. 1998; Gebhardt et al. 2000a, hereafter G00), placing it roughly in the middle of the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`L_{\mathrm{bulge}}`$ (Magorrian et al. 1998) and $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$-$`\sigma _{\mathrm{bulge}}`$ (Ferrarese & Merritt 2000, Gebhardt et al. 2000b) correlations, but the black hole mass is dependent, to within factors of order unity, on the orientation of the galaxy. The nuclear dust ring (G00, Pastoriza et al. 2000, hereafter P00) seen on arcsecond scales and the slightly more extended H$`\alpha +`$\[N 2\] emission (Macchetto et al. 1996, P00) might be useful in constraining the orientation, if it could be assumed that the interstellar material were in an equilibrium configuration in one of the galaxy’s principal planes. However, there seems not to be compelling justification for such an assumption, since the apparent principal axes of the dust and ionized gas are aligned neither with the stellar principal axes nor with each other. Figure 1 shows a sketch of these components and their relation to the starlight.

In this paper, I revisit the problem of constraining the shape and orientation of the main body of NGC 3379, using the newest stellar kinematic data (SS99, Gebhardt & Richstone 2000). The approach follows that of S94, as modified by Statler, Dejonghe, & Smecker-Hane (1999, hereafter SDS). The data are of sufficiently high quality to attempt to recover not just an average shape, but the shape profile over a full decade in radius. The presentation is arranged as follows: Section 2 describes the photometric and kinematic data used in the modeling. Section 3 gives an overview of the method, and details where the present treatment differs from previous applications. Sections 4 and 5 describe the results for the estimates of the intrinsic shape profile and the orientation, respectively. Section 6 discusses the implications of the results for the structure and evolution of NGC 3379’s nuclear regions, and Section 7 restates the major conclusions.

## 2 Observational Data

The handling of the observational material parallels that in earlier work. Kinematic data consist of mean velocities measured along several long-slit cuts through the galaxy center. Data for P.A.’s 205, 250, 295, and 340 come from SS99; their published velocities for $`6\mathrm{}R78\mathrm{}`$ are reflected about the center and then averaged over pairs of adjacent bins, giving 9 annular zones of mean radius $`6\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}6`$, $`9\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$, $`11\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4`$, $`13\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}8`$, $`16\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}2`$, $`19\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}8`$, $`26\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4`$, $`38\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4`$, and $`69\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$. Data inside $`6\mathrm{}`$ are not used because the models perform poorly in regions where the rotation curve is steeply rising. Additional data for P.A.’s 180, 225, and 235 are taken from Gebhardt & Richstone (2000) and linearly interpolated onto the same radial scale.

Ellipticities and major axis position angles are drawn from the $`R`$ band photometry of Peletier et al. (1990) and averaged over the same radial bins used for the kinematic data, weighted by the inverse square of the published errors. The adopted errors in the rebinned data represent the larger of the mean observational error per data point and the standard deviation in the bin.

The complete set of observational data used in the modeling is summarized in Table 1.

## 3 Models and Methods

### 3.1 Thumbnail Sketch

The shape-fitting method and the models on which it is based have been described exhaustively in earlier papers (Statler 1994a, Statler & Fry 1994, Statler 1994b, hereafter Papers I, II, and III; S94, SDS). The method finds, in a probabilistic sense, the boundaries between the major circulating orbit families using the 2-dimensional radial velocity field and its alignment with the surface brightness distribution. The locations of these boundaries and the apparent shape of the galaxy then constrain the underlying 3-dimensional mass distribution. The analysis of the velocity field proceeds by comparison with dynamical models, which are constructed by solving the equation of continuity for the mean stellar velocities using confocal streamlines linked to the triaxiality $`T`$ of the total mass distribution. The triaxiality is defined in terms of the axis ratios of the equidensity surfaces by $`T(1b^2)/(1c^2)`$, where $`b`$ and $`c`$ are the middle-to-long and short-to-long axis ratios, respectively; corresponding axis ratios for the luminosity distribution are labeled by $`b_L`$ and $`c_L`$. The major assumption of the models is that rotation of the galaxy arises from internal streaming in a non-rotating potential. Certain other simplifying assumptions are made to facilitate the projection along the line of sight. The models include a number of adjustable parameters, which allow a wide array of dynamical configurations to be computed efficiently. These parameters are described in Paper I, and collectively abbreviated by $`𝒅`$.

The statistical estimate of the shape or orientation of the galaxy is obtained by Bayesian methods. Computing a large grid of models results in a multidimensional likelihood function $`L(T,c_L,\mathrm{\Omega },𝒅)`$ in the space of shape $`(T,c_L)`$, orientation $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and dynamical parameters $`𝒅`$. The likelihood is multiplied by a prior, or model parent distribution, which is isotropic in orientation, but which may reflect assumptions about the dynamics. The product is integrated over all unwanted parameters to give a posterior probability distribution for the parameters of interest. A shape estimate is thus a probability density $`P(T,c_L)`$. As in earlier work it is assumed that the isodensity surfaces of mass and luminosity have the same shape at the same radii; tests in Paper III showed that the distribution in $`(T,c_L)`$ is still robust when this assumption is mildly violated.

The 9 annular zones of the galaxy are initially modeled independently, then combined assuming that the galaxy’s principal axes are intrinsically aligned throughout (see Appendix A of SDS). If it is explicitly assumed that the triaxialities of the luminous and total mass distributions are the same, then the shape profile can also be required to reproduce the observed isophotal twist (which is small in this case). Except where specifically noted, all of the results in this paper include the isophotal twist constraint, but are not significantly altered by ignoring it.

### 3.2 Modifications to the Basic Procedure

#### 3.2.1 Model Grid

A preliminary set of models shows that, as in earlier work, the results for NGC 3379 are very insensitive to the parameters $`k`$ and $`l`$, which describe the radial dependence of luminosity density and mean rotation assumed in the projection integrals (see Paper I, equation ). Rather than use a grid of values for each parameter as in previous cases, I simply fix the values at $`k=3`$, $`l=0`$ for the final modeling.

The same preliminary models show a complicated dependence on the function $`v^{}(t)`$, which describes the latitude dependence of the mean streaming velocity across the $`x`$-$`z`$ plane.222The $`x`$, $`y`$, and $`z`$ axes correspond to the long, middle, and short axes of the model. The variable $`t`$ is a scaled latitude, defined (equation  of Paper II) so that $`t=0`$ and $`t=2`$ correspond to the $`x`$ and $`z`$ axes, respectively, and the boundary between short-axis and long-axis tube orbits333For brevity I also use the synonyms “Z tubes” and “X tubes.” is at $`t=1`$. In previous papers, $`v^{}(t)`$ in each interval was assumed to be either constant or linearly decreasing to zero at $`t=1`$, as shown by the heavy lines in Figure 2a; these limiting cases are referred to as “spheroid-like” and “disklike” rotation. For NGC 3379, I find it necessary to include the intermediate cases. Again, I take $`v^{}(t)`$ to be linear in each interval, with maxima at $`t=0`$ and $`t=2`$, decreasing to $`(\frac{1}{4},\frac{1}{2},\frac{3}{4})`$ of the maximum at $`t=1`$; these functions are shown as the light lines in Figure 2a. To aid intuition, Figure 2b shows how these choices translate into the actual latitude dependence of the velocity, for streaming about the short axis in an oblate axisymmetric model. Note that in a triaxial model the character of the long and short axis streaming can be completely independent.

#### 3.2.2 Penalty for Steep Shape Gradients

Combining the separate annular fits as prescribed in SDS effectively merges the 9 annuli as if they were separate galaxies seen from the same direction. This prescription ignores the physical constraint that the axis ratios of the isodensity surfaces should change continuously—and, for bona fide ellipticals, slowly—with $`r`$. To remedy this I introduce a set of penalty factors of the form

$$\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{(T_{i+1}T_i)^2+(c_{L,i+1}c_{L,i})^2}{2\sigma _g^2}\right]$$
(1)
for each pair of adjacent annuli ($`i=1,\mathrm{},8`$), with the constant $`\sigma _g=0.118`$. This choice implies that a complete change of shape (i.e., oblate to prolate, or sphere to disk) between the innermost and outermost annuli would be penalized as a priori unlikely at the $`4\sigma `$ level.

#### 3.2.3 Parent Shape Distribution

In previous papers a flat prior distribution in $`(T,c_L)`$ was adopted for modeling individual systems. However, a realistic estimate of the parent shape distribution has now been presented by Bak & Statler (2000, hereafter BS), derived from the 13-galaxy Davies & Birkinshaw (1988) sample, which includes NGC 3379. BS show that their “maximal ignorance” distribution, obtained from an unweighted sum over all parameters $`𝒅`$, gives an ellipticity distribution completely consistent with the 165-galaxy compilation of Ryden (1992). For this work I adopt the BS maximal ignorance result (their Figure 2a) as the prior shape distribution.

## 4 Intrinsic Shape

Formally, the shape profile for the galaxy is a joint probability distribution in 18 variables. To make this more manageable, I follow SDS and project the distribution into the $`(T,c_L)`$ plane for each annulus. The resulting 9 marginal distributions are estimates of the mean shape in each annulus, using the data from all radii but independent of the actual shapes of the other annuli. Figure 3 shows four representative results. Each small panel shows the $`(T,c_L)`$ plane, with oblate spheroids at the right edge, prolate spheroids at the left edge, and spheres at the top. The marginal posterior density $`P(T,c_L)`$ is displayed on a linear color scale, with contours enclosing the 68% and 95% highest posterior density (HPD) regions. Each column shows one complete shape profile, with the mean radii of the 9 annuli indicated along the far right margin. The columns differ in the assumed prior distribution in the dynamical parameters $`𝒅`$.

The small ellipticity and the symmetric, well-aligned velocity field of NGC 3379 make it, ironically, a difficult object to model. Broadly speaking, there are three types of models that fit the data (though there are no clear divisions and so this trichotomy is artificial): (1) fairly round models with small but nonzero triaxiality, seen at moderate inclination; (2) somewhat flatter nearly oblate models, seen at lower inclination; and (3) highly triaxial models with lines of sight in the $`x`$-$`z`$ plane. The first group of models is the most successful, and dominates the total probability in an unweighted sum over all models. This sum gives the maximal ignorance estimate, shown in the first column of Figure 3. In this estimate, the galaxy is most probably axisymmetric at small radii, and shows a slight increase in triaxiality and flattening toward larger $`R`$. The contribution from the second group of models can be seen as the weaker second peak near $`T0.07`$ for $`R<20\mathrm{}`$, and the third group is responsible for the tenuous tail extending toward $`T=0.5`$. The second column of Figure 3 shows the shape estimate under the assumption of zero intrinsic kinematic misalignment, i.e., rotation purely about the short axis. This result is obtained by omitting models with net rotation in the X tube orbits. The most probable shape at each radius agrees fairly closely with that in the maximal ignorance result, with a slightly larger outward triaxiality gradient. The tail toward large $`T`$ is more prominent, but contains a small fraction of the total probability. Both this and the maximal ignorance result imply that NGC 3379 is weakly triaxial and probably close to oblate.

The third group of models becomes particularly problematic in some parts of the $`𝒅`$ parameter space. For lines of sight near the $`x`$-$`z`$ plane, the apparent kinematic misalignment is always small, and one can freely vary the axis ratios while preserving the projected shape, without moving the apparent rotation axis. A model of almost any triaxiality can be made to fit the data in such an orientation by fine-tuning the $`v^{}(t)`$ function (Fig. 2). As a result, restricting the dynamical prior to certain regions of parameter space can give very different answers for the inferred triaxiality. Two extreme cases are shown in the third and fourth columns of Figure 3. In the third column, the models are restricted to those in which the rotation in Z tubes is moderately spheroid-like, corresponding to the second line from the top in the left half of Figure 2. No constraint is put on the X tubes. The result is dominated by prolate-triaxial models viewed in the $`x`$-$`z`$ plane. In the fourth column, the aligned-rotation models from the second column are restricted only to those with disklike rotation. The disappearance of the distribution’s large-$`T`$ tail confirms that spheroid-like rotation makes the highly triaxial models viable.

To help in understanding the radial shape profiles, I project the distributions in Figure 3 onto the $`T`$ and $`c_L`$ axes and plot the 1-dimensional marginal distributions against $`r`$. Figure 4 shows the profiles of $`T`$ and $`c_L`$ for the same four cases shown in Figure 3. The plotted points connected by solid lines show the most-probable values (i.e., peaks of the marginal distribution), and the dashed and dotted lines indicate crossings of the 68% and 95% HPD levels. The radial scale has been set using a distance of $`10.4\mathrm{Mpc}`$ (Ajhar

et al. 1997). One can easily see the tendency for outwardly-increasing triaxiality in 3 out of 4 cases, as well as the effect of altering the dynamical prior. Even though the maximal ignorance result gives a formally narrow error region, the systematic uncertainties associated with disklike or spheroid-like rotation are large in comparison; in other words, the triaxiality profile is prior dominated, and should not be considered a robust result. On the other hand, the radial run of the short-to-long axis ratio $`c_L`$ is robust, and not sensitive to the dynamical prior. The maximal ignorance profile is flat or slowly declining for $`r1\mathrm{kpc}`$, then changes over a factor $`2`$ in radius from the inner value of $`c_L0.8`$ to an outer value $`c_L0.7`$. This transition is driven primarily by the photometric ellipticity gradient, though modulated by kinematics, and occurs more abruptly in the models that rotate purely about their short axes.

## 5 Orientation

A different projection through the parameter space can give a probability distribution for the orientation of NGC 3379. The central points of interest here are the inclination of the (probably axisymmetric) inner region and the relation of the stars to the nuclear dust ring (Figure 1). The ring has a semi-major axis of approximately $`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$, with the minor axis along P.A. $`206\pm 5`$, roughly $`45\mathrm{°}`$ away from the minor axis of the starlight. If the ring is circular, its aspect ratio indicates that its symmetry axis is inclined to the line of sight by $`73\mathrm{°}\pm 5\mathrm{°}`$.

In a non-tumbling triaxial potential, a massless ring can be stable in the planes normal to the long or short axes.444A tumbling rate sufficient to create a significantly tilted equilibrium for the nuclear ring would place corotation well within the main body of the galaxy, so this case is excluded. The latter case would seem the more likely, if the ring dynamics are coupled to the stellar dynamics. This would require P.A. 206 to correspond to the direction of the projected short axis, and a $`73\mathrm{°}`$ inclination of this axis to the line of sight. In the top two panels of Figure 5 I show joint probability distributions in projected short axis P.A. and short axis inclination calculated from the models, for the maximal ignorance and aligned rotation cases. A rejection method has been used to populate the particle-density plots. The inclination is not well constrained, but the P.A. of the projected short axis lies within $`\pm 10\mathrm{°}`$ of the apparent minor axis, at better than $`3\sigma `$ confidence. The error bars show the orientation required if the dust ring were normal to the short axis; it is clear that this configuration is not viable.

One might be concerned that this result could be altered if the luminous and total-mass triaxialities were different, in which case constraining the mass triaxiality profile to reproduce the observed isophotal twist would be inappropriate. Removing this constraint widens confidence intervals on the projected short axis P.A. by about 50%, but the basic result is unchanged.

It is worth reiterating that the short-axis inclination is not well constrained by the data, even though the flattening is fairly well determined. This can be a counterintuitive result, if one’s intuition is based on axisymmetric models. Even a weakly triaxial model does not project to a given apparent shape at a unique inclination. Since $`T`$ is poorly constrained, the inclination is as well, and suffers from the same systematic uncertainties. Modelers are cautioned not to think of the inclination as being set by the short-to-long axis ratio. This is a valid inference only if one asserts via an ad hoc prior that the galaxy is axisymmetric.

If the dust ring were normal to the long axis, then this axis would have to fall at P.A. 206 in projection and lie at the right inclination. The bottom row of Figure 5 shows the results from the models. The constraints are much weaker than for the short axis, and also more dependent on the dynamical prior. However, the distributions shown are typical in that different subsets of the $`𝒅`$ parameter space do not populate regions of the figure that are unpopulated in these examples. The same is true for models in which the isophotal twist constraint is lifted. The orientation required by the dust lane falls squarely in an unpopulated region; I conclude that a configuration with the ring about the long axis is also ruled out.

The last equilibrium refuge for the dust lies in making the galaxy exactly axisymmetric in the inner parts and placing the dust in a polar ring at the correct azimuth, where it would be neutrally stable. From the HST photometry of G00, the ellipticity just outside the ring is $`0.11`$, and the minor axis P.A. is $`161\mathrm{°}`$, which must equal the P.A. of the projected short axis. To match the observed ring orientation and aspect ratio requires the short axis to be inclined $`24\mathrm{°}`$ to the line of sight. At this inclination all oblate objects—even razor-thin disks—project to ellipticities $`<0.11`$. On the other hand, the required inclination is very sensitive to the ring parameters; pushing both the ring P.A. and inclination by $`1\sigma `$ in the favorable directions changes the galaxy’s inclination to $`33\mathrm{°}`$, at which a flattening of $`c_L=0.54`$ will project to the correct ellipticity. Pushing by $`1.5\sigma `$ in both directions allows $`c_L=0.66`$ to fit the inner photometry at an inclination of $`38\mathrm{°}`$, which is well within the viable region for oblate models found in Section 4. A polar ring configuration is therefore not ruled out.

## 6 Discussion

By fitting dynamical models to the stellar kinematics and photometry, I have shown that NGC 3379 is most probably axisymmetric and oblate in its inner parts, with a weak but significant outward triaxiality gradient.555 It is worth noting that this gradient is required both by the observed isophotal twist and by the twist of the velocity field, which are in opposite directions (see Fig. 6a of SS99). Relaxing the requirement that the models match the isophotal twist gives the same $`T`$ gradient as that in the top row of Fig. 4, but at lower significance. There are, however, regions of parameter space where the best models are prolate-triaxial. Thus the estimate of small triaxiality is dependent on the dynamical prior, and, pending a better understanding of the internal velocity fields of ellipticals, should not be considered robust.

Nonetheless, this result bolsters the use of oblate axisymmetric models for constraining the mass of the putative central black hole (Magorrian et al. 1998, G00). Even though the present models use data only from $`R>6\mathrm{}`$, there is no sign of serious photometric (G00) or kinematic (SS99) twists interior to this radius that could signal a loss of axisymmetry. If axisymmetry is asserted a priori , and the axis ratios assumed constant from $`R=6\mathrm{}`$ inward, the maximal-ignorance flattening $`c_L=0.81\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+.05}{.1}`$ would imply an inclination of $`40\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+8}{4}\mathrm{°}`$. At this inclination, the models of G00 imply a central dark mass of $`2\times 10^8M_{}`$. At the same time, one must be conscious of the highly triaxial solutions, particularly those at high inclinations, which would imply smaller central masses than the less-inclined axisymmetric models. G00’s best-fit black hole mass drops by a factor of 2 as they tilt their oblate models from $`50\mathrm{°}`$ to $`90\mathrm{°}`$ (their preferred inclination). In addition, triaxial systems observed down their long axes can appear atypically “hot” because of velocity anisotropy, requiring less dark mass for a given observed dispersion if triaxiality persists to small radii.

The present results for the shape of NGC 3379 are consistent with those found earlier using older kinematic data (S94, Fig. 8; BS, Fig. 4). On the other hand, they do not strongly favor the argument of SS99 that the galaxy is a weakly triaxial, slightly puffy S0-like system seen at low inclination. SS99 make this argument based on photometric and kinematic similarities with NGC 3115 (Capaccioli et al. 1991, Fisher 1997). In the present models, configurations that are highly flattened ($`c_L<0.5`$) and nearly oblate are viable and do contribute to the total probability density, but only at a low level. Moreover, their contribution comes almost entirely from the most spheroidlike models, whereas one would expect more disklike rotation if the galaxy were a two component disk-bulge system. Alternatively, if one believes that the nuclear dust is in a polar ring, this configuration requires an inclination $`<43\mathrm{°}`$ ($`3\sigma `$ confidence), consistent with that argued for by SS99.

But there is no compelling reason for the dust ring to be polar. The evolution of such an object is not like the evolution of the large polar rings commonly observed (e.g., Whitmore et al. 1990) and modeled (e.g. Sackett et al. 1994). A nuclear ring is immersed in the rotating stellar population, and will be torqued by dynamical friction. One should expect a nuclear polar ring to secularly tilt out of the meridional plane and begin to differentially precess in the oblate potential. Big polar rings can be stabilized by self gravity (Sparke 1986, Arnaboldi & Sparke 1994), but this is not an option for the NGC 3379 ring, which obscures only $`1\%`$ of the galaxy’s $`V`$-band surface brightness. Assuming a Galactic dust-to-gas ratio, this $`A_V`$ implies a mass only of order $`100M_{}`$, compared with the $`10^8M_{}`$ enclosed by the ring.

Regardless of whether the nuclear ring is strictly polar or merely misaligned with the symmetry axes, the results of Section 5 show clearly that it is effectively decoupled from the main body of the galaxy. This echoes the original finding of Davies & Birkinshaw (1988) of a lack of correlation between the radio and optical axes of radio ellipticals. In general, recent imaging studies (van Dokkum & Franx 1995, Carollo et al. 1997) have found a bewildering variety of nuclear dust morphologies in ellipticals, which seem totally uncorrelated with properties of the host galaxies. For NGC 3379, the observed dust surely cannot have come directly from the stellar population, whose mass distribution and angular momentum are extremely well ordered and not aligned with the dust ring. For one of the most ordinary and quiescent ellipticals in the sky to contain a misaligned—and, presumably, rapidly evolving—non-stellar component is remarkable.

The nature and history of the dust ring may be related to the ionized gas that extends from the center out to $`R8\mathrm{}`$ (Figure 1; Macchetto et al. 1996). P00 obtain H$`\alpha +`$\[N 2\] rotation curves for $`R3\mathrm{}`$ along P.A. 70, 115, and 160. The maximum observed velocity is approximately $`220\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ on P.A. 70 and 115, and roughly half this on P.A. 160, which is the stellar minor axis. These amplitudes are consistent with the gas rotation axis lying parallel to the axis of the dust ring. From the very round H$`\alpha +`$\[N 2\] isophotes and an assumption that the gas distribution is circular, P00 infer an inclination of $`25\mathrm{°}`$ for the ionized disk. However, this inclination implies gas rotation velocities in excess of $`500\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, which seems unrealistic considering the $`200\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ dispersion of the stars.

More likely, the ionized gas lies in a strongly warped disk, in which case the outer H$`\alpha +`$\[N 2\] isophotes may not reflect the disk’s inclination at the smaller radii where P00 measure the rotation. The dust ring could then be part of the same structure, either marking the inner edge of the disk or merely made prominent by its low inclination. Macchetto et al. estimate the ionized disk to be only a few $`10^3M_{}`$ in mass. It is far from clear whether a low mass, low density warped disk could be a long-lived object. In a slightly oblate isothermal system with velocity dispersion $`\sigma `$, inclined, nearly circular orbits of radius $`r`$ precess at a frequency given in the epicycle approximation by

$$\omega _p=\frac{\sqrt{2}\sigma }{r}\left(\frac{1}{q}1\right),$$
(2)
where $`q`$ is the flattening of the potential (Statler et al. 1996). The preferred flattening $`c_L=0.8`$ gives $`q=0.93`$ if mass follows light, from which the precession period is

$$\frac{2\pi }{\omega _p}14\left(\frac{R}{1\mathrm{}}\right)\mathrm{Myr}.$$
(3)
To warp an initially coplanar disk by $`90\mathrm{°}`$ between $`R=1\mathrm{}`$ and $`R=5\mathrm{}`$ by differential precession thus requires only about $`4\mathrm{Myr}`$. Significantly later than this, say, by $`20\mathrm{Myr}`$, the disk will have evolved into a multiply-wrapped sheet, which may be inconsistent with the observed velocity field. This simple calculation ignores the effect of dynamical friction against the stars, which will simultaneously try to align the disk’s angular momentum with the stellar rotation axis.

## 7 Conclusions

Dynamical models have been fit to the stellar kinematics and surface photometry of NGC 3379, in order to constrain the intrinsic shape profile and orientation of the main body of the galaxy. The Bayesian “maximal ignorance” shape estimate, which reflects an unweighted average over the dynamical parameter space, indicates that the galaxy is most probably axisymmetric and oblate in its inner parts, with a slight but significant outward triaxiality gradient. The formal $`1\sigma `$ limits on triaxiality $`T`$ are $`T<0.13`$ at $`R=6\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}6`$ ($`0.33\mathrm{kpc}`$) and $`T=0.08\pm 0.07`$ at $`R=69\mathrm{}`$ ($`3.5\mathrm{kpc}`$). The most probable short-to-long axis ratio of the luminosity distribution is $`c_L=0.79\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+0.05}{0.1}`$ for $`R<16\mathrm{}`$ ($`0.82\mathrm{kpc}`$), flattening beyond this point and reaching $`c_L=0.66\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+0.07}{0.08}`$ at $`R=38\mathrm{}`$ ($`1.9\mathrm{kpc}`$). The results are similar, with slightly steeper gradients in $`T`$ and $`c_L`$, if the galaxy is assumed a priori to rotate about its short axis. While the estimates for $`c_L`$ are robust, those for $`T`$ are dependent on the degree to which the internal rotation field is disklike or spheroid-like. There are regions in the dynamical parameter space where the preferred shapes are prolate-triaxial. Thus the triaxiality estimate should not be considered robust until the dynamical prior can be better constrained on physical grounds.

The inclination of the short axis to the line of sight is not well determined, because the triaxiality is not well determined. Inclinations between $`30\mathrm{°}`$ and $`50\mathrm{°}`$ are preferred. However, highly triaxial models in high inclination are also allowed, which can affect central black hole mass estimates (Magorrian et al. 1998, G00) by factors of a few. The position angle of the projected short axis on the sky is well constrained, and lies within $`10\mathrm{°}`$ of the photometric minor axis at better than $`3\sigma `$ confidence. Similar, though weaker, constraints can be placed on the P.A. and inclination of the long axis. These constraints rule out the possibility that the nuclear dust ring at $`R1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$ lies in one of the planes normal to either axis. Stable equilibria for planar gas disks in triaxial potentials exist only in these planes. Alternatively, if $`T0`$ and the short axis inclination is $`<43\mathrm{°}`$ ($`3\sigma `$ limit), the dust could be in a neutrally stable equilibrium in a polar ring. However, even in this configuration the ring would be torqued by dynamical friction against the rotating stellar population, which would act toward aligning the ring with the stellar rotation axis. The ring is clearly a decoupled nuclear component whose orientation is not linked to the main body of the galaxy.

The dust ring may be connected with the ionized gas that extends out to $`R8\mathrm{}`$ (Macchetto et al. 1996, P00). The projected gas rotation axis is near the minor axis of the ring, though the H$`\alpha +`$\[N 2\] isophotes are very round. It is possible that the gas and dust are both part of a strongly warped disk. However, the evolution and expected lifetime of such a structure are problematic. If the warp is caused by differential precession, one should expect the entire structure to wind up on itself in $`10^7`$ years. The decoupling with the stellar component would suggest that the gas has an external origin. But no trace of recent interaction or accretion is seen at larger radii, where it would presumably be much longer lived. At very large radii ($`10\mathrm{}`$), NGC 3379 and NGC 3384 are collectively surrounded by a ring of H 1 (Schneider 1985) whose connection with these and neighboring galaxies is far from clear (Schneider 1989). Whether the intergalactic ring could be a source of material for occasional accretion events, and how this material might evolve dynamically as it accreted into the nuclear regions, are topics for future work.

###### Acknowledgements.

Many thanks to Karl Gebhardt for providing data in advance of publication and for helpful comments. An anonymous referee also kindly suggested several improvements to the paper. This work was supported by NSF CAREER grant AST-9703036.


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# The stability of vacua in two-dimensional gauge theory

## 1 Introduction

Two-dimensional gauge theory has often been used as a toy model for four-dimensional gauge theory. Although there are no propagating degrees of freedom in two dimensions, two-dimensional gauge theory (supplemented with appropriate matter) can mimick some of the most intriguing features of QCD in 4 dimensions, like confinement, a fermion condensate, a non-trivial vacuum structure and stringy behavior at large $`N`$ (see e.g. ).

In this letter we study two-dimensional gauge theory for a simple, simply connected gauge group $`G`$, with massive matter transforming in the adjoint. The effective gauge group is then $`G/Z`$, where $`Z`$ is the center of the group $`G`$. The non-trivial vacuum structure can be gathered from homotopical arguments. Just as $`\mathrm{\Pi }_3(SU(3))=𝐙`$ leads to $`\theta `$-vacua in four dimensions, so $`\mathrm{\Pi }_1(G/Z)=Z`$ makes $`\mathrm{\#}Z`$ $`\theta `$-vacua in two dimensions plausible . In this letter, we want to study the existence and stablity of these vacua in more detail – the dynamics involved in the stability of the vacua cannot be read from the topological reasoning.

There are no propagating degrees of freedom for a gauge field in two dimensions. Therefore, to study dynamical aspects of the vacua, we introduce massive adjoint matter (that can mimick aspects of the dynamics of transverse gluons in higher dimensions (see e.g. )). We will study the stability of vacua against pair creation, by representing them as Wilson lines at infinity . We have a discrete choice for the representation at infinity, since the gauge group is a simple, simply connected Lie group. In the limit where the adjoint particles are heavy, we can evaluate their interaction by computing the correlation function of the corresponding Wilson line with the Wilson line at infinity. We will study whether the strings stretching between our heavy probes have positive or negative tension. If a negative string tension is generated, this implies that the choice for representation for the vacuum at infinity is unstable against pair creation  . Moreover, as we will see, we also have to check the stability of the vacuum against the creation of more than one particle anti-particle pair to find agreement with topological arguments .

These phycical problems reduce to neat problems in representation theory of Lie groups. We solve these problems in all generality, completing the analysis performed in .

## 2 Vacua as Wilson lines at infinity

In two-dimensional gauge theory, we can represent a choice of vacuum by a choice for the representation for a Wilson line at infinity . This is perhaps most familiar in two-dimensional abelian gauge theory, where charges at infinity mimick the existence of $`\theta `$-vacua that are associated to the non-trivial homotopy group $`\mathrm{\Pi }_1(U(1))=\text{Z}`$. This is easily demonstrated since, for a $`U(1)`$ gauge theory with Wilson loop of charge $`\frac{\theta }{2\pi }`$ at infinity, we have:

$`<W_{\mathrm{}}(\theta )>`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑Ae^{{\scriptscriptstyle F}F}e^{\frac{\theta }{2\pi }_{\mathrm{}}A}}`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑Ae^{{\scriptscriptstyle F}F+\frac{\theta }{2\pi }{\scriptscriptstyle F}}}.`$
Therefore, correlation functions evaluated with the insertion of a Wilson loop at infinity, or in a $`\theta `$-vacuum, are identical.

For our non-abelian gauge theory with simple gauge group $`G`$, there is a similar representation, but the choice of Wilson loop is the discrete choice of irreducible representation in which we evaluate the trace of the path-ordered exponential .

## 3 Adjoint matter and stability of vacua

We introduce adjoint matter into the system, to obtain non-trivial dynamics that may be taken to mimick the behavior of the transverse gluons in higher dimensional Yang-Mills theories. We will take these particles to be heavy, such that we can measure their interaction by evaluating the expectation value of the associated Wilson loop, in the adjoint of the gauge group .

The Wilson loop calculation is straightforward, using standard techniques in two-dimensional gauge theory     . To calculate the correlator of the two Wilson loops, we glue a Wilson line at infinity in an arbitrary representation $`R(\mu )`$ with highest weight $`\mu `$, into the propagator on the cylinder, and at the end of the cylinder, we put another Wilson loop in the adjoint $`R(\theta )`$, representing the particle anti-particle pair, and then we close the two-dimensional plane using the propagator on the disc. 111These operations are systematically explained in . We heavily make use of the invariance of 2d Yang-Mills theory under area preserving diffeomorphisms. We denote by $`g`$ the Yang-Mills coupling, by $`A_2`$ the area enclosed by the inner Wilson loop in the adjoint and by $`A_1`$ the area of the rest of the plane. $`C(\lambda )`$ is the quadratic Casimir evaluated in the representation with highest weight $`\lambda `$. We have then: 222We abuse notation by indicating a representation by its highest weight, for brevity. For notations, see also appendix A.

$`<W_{\mathrm{}}(\mu )W(\theta )>`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda ,\lambda ^{}}{}}{\displaystyle _G}𝑑g𝑑g^{}\chi _\mu (g)\chi _\lambda (g^1)e^{\frac{g^2}{2}C(\lambda )A_1}`$
$`\chi _\lambda (g^{})\chi _\theta (g^{})\chi _\lambda ^{}((g^{})^1)e^{\frac{g^2}{2}C(\lambda ^{})A_2}d(\lambda ^{})`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda ^{}}{}}{\displaystyle _G}𝑑g^{}e^{\frac{g^2}{2}C(\mu )A_1}\chi _\mu (g^{})\chi _\theta (g^{})`$
$`\chi _\lambda ^{}((g^{})^1)e^{\frac{g^2}{2}C(\lambda ^{})A_2}d(\lambda ^{})`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\nu _i\mu \theta }{}}e^{\frac{g^2}{2}C(\mu )A_1}e^{\frac{g^2}{2}C(\nu _i)A_2}d(\nu _i)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\nu _i\mu \theta }{}}d(\nu _i)e^{\frac{g^2}{2}C(\mu )(A_1+A_2)}e^{\frac{g^2}{2}(C(\nu _i)C(\mu ))A_2}.`$
After we factored out the contribution corresponding to the exterior Wilson loop at infinity, we can interpret the exponent $`C(\nu _i)C(\mu )`$ as the string tension for the string stretching between the adjoint matter.333 This intuitive picture was corroborated in  by the corresponding detailed Hamiltonian analysis. We need $`C(\nu _i)C(\mu )`$ for all $`\nu _i\mu \theta `$ 444The notation $``$ indicates that the irreducible representation $`\nu _i`$ is part of the decomposition of the tensor product in irreps. to have a vacuum that is stable against pair creation. In the next section, we enumerate the representations $`R(\mu )`$ satisfying this condition, and we prove that our list is complete.

But this is not the end of the story. In fact, we also want to consider whether the vacuum is stable against the creation of more than one particle pair . After a calculation similar to the one we performed in detail above, this boils down to the following extra condition: $`C(\nu _i)C(\mu )`$ for all $`\nu _i\mu (\theta )^n`$, where $`n`$ is the (arbitrary) number of matter pairs that are created in the process of screening the trial vacuum at infinity.

Following  we call the vacua that are stable against the appearance of a single pair of adjoint particles metastable. The vacua satisfying the more stringent condition are the stable vacua. In the next section, by solving these problems in representation theory, we give a complete list of metastable and stable vacua, and prove the list  in all generality.

## 4 Stable and metastable vacua

### 4.1 Metastable vacua

Problem: Find all representations $`\mu `$ such that

$`C(\nu _i)C(\mu )\text{for all}\nu _i\mu \theta .`$ (2)
We call these representations and corresponding highest weights $`\mu `$ metastable.
Answer. The metastable weights for gauge group $`G`$ are given by the level 1 weights of the corresponding affine (non-twisted) Kac-Moody group $`\widehat{G}`$. 555For nomenclature, see also  . In appendix A and B we give our conventions and in appendix B we list the level 1 weights. To prove this statement, we first introduce the notion of a ’bad root’. We call a positive root $`\alpha `$ bad for a representation $`\mu `$ (with labels $`m_i=\mu .\stackrel{ˇ}{\alpha _i}`$) if $`\alpha (m_i+1)\alpha _i`$ is not a root or $`0`$ for all $`i`$, and $`(\mu +\rho ).\stackrel{ˇ}{\alpha }>1`$. Here and further $`\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _r`$ are the simple roots and $`\stackrel{ˇ}{\alpha }=\frac{2\alpha }{\alpha ^2}`$

We claim that $`\mu `$ is metastable if and only if there are no positive bad roots for $`\mu `$. Indeed, all highest weights $`\nu _i`$ in the decomposition are of the form $`\mu \alpha `$, where $`\alpha `$ is a root or $`0`$. The inequality in (2) becomes then:

$`|\nu _i+\rho |^2`$ $``$ $`|\mu +\rho |^2`$
$`(\rho +\mu ).\stackrel{ˇ}{\alpha }`$ $``$ $`1.`$ (3)
If $`\alpha 0`$, this inequality always holds. If $`\alpha >0`$, then by the theorem in appendix A, $`\mu \alpha =\nu _j`$ for some $`j`$ if and only if $`\alpha (m_i+1)\alpha _i`$ is not a root or $`0`$ (where $`m_i`$ are the labels of $`\mu `$). In that case the inequality (3) must hold. This proves our claim. We are now prepared to prove the answer in two steps:
Step 1: All weights satisfying (2) are fundamental or $`0`$.
a) No weight $`\mu `$ has Dynkin label 2 or more. Indeed, it is clear that $`\alpha _i`$ would be a bad root for $`\mu `$.
b) No two Dynkin labels equal to 1 are allowed. Suppose $`m_i=1=m_j(ij)`$. Then the root $`\alpha =\alpha _i+\alpha _{i+1}\mathrm{}+\alpha _{j1}+\alpha _j`$, that connects dot $`i`$ with dot $`j`$ in the Dynkin diagram of $`G`$, is a bad root. 666The indices do not necessarily differ by one. See appendix B for our conventions for labeling simple roots. We conclude that only fundamental weights can satisfy condition (2).
Step 2: Firstly, observe that $`\mu =\theta `$, the highest root, is not a metastable weight (since $`0\theta \theta `$). Secondly, if $`\mu `$ is not metastable for a subdiagram of the Dynkin diagram of $`G`$, then $`\mu `$ is not metastable for $`G`$ (due to the above claim). These two observations along with Table 1 and Figure 1 show that all non level 1 fundamental weights $`\lambda _i`$ are not metastable, except for $`\lambda _2`$ for $`F_4`$. The latter is not metastable since the root $`\alpha _1+3\alpha _2+2\alpha _3+\alpha _4`$ is bad for $`\lambda _2`$. That the level 1 weights do satisfy the criterium (2), can be checked on a case by case basis by going over all positive roots (listed e.g. in ) and verifying that all of them are good. (For miniscule weights, in particular in all simply-laced cases, this also follows from the geometric argument given in section 4.2.)

### 4.2 Stable vacua

Problem: Find all representations $`\mu `$ such that

$`C(\nu _i)C(\mu )\text{for all}\nu _i\mu \theta ^n\text{for any}n`$ (4)
Answer. The stable vacua are given by the miniscule weights of $`G`$.777For nomenclature see   and appendix B. There are $`\mathrm{\#}Z`$ miniscule weights. We prove this in two steps.
Step 1: We rule out the level 1 non-miniscule weights. We distinguish the following chains of representations:
For $`G_2`$: 888These decompositions were obtained using the software ; they can also be obtained using the theorem in appendix A.

$`\lambda _1\lambda _22\lambda _1`$
$`2\lambda _1\lambda _2\lambda _2`$
$`\lambda _2\lambda _20`$ (5)
For $`F_4`$:

$`\lambda _1\lambda _4\lambda _2`$
$`\lambda _2\lambda _42\lambda _1`$
$`2\lambda _1\lambda _4\lambda _4`$
$`\lambda _4\lambda _40`$ (6)
For $`B_r`$: From the tables in , we find that, starting with $`\lambda _1`$, tensoring with the adjoint $`n`$ times contains $`\lambda _{2n+1}`$, untill we hit the end of the Dynkin diagram. There, regardless of whether $`r`$ is odd or even, we find that the representation $`2\lambda _r`$ is contained in the decomposition of $`\lambda _1\theta ^{[r/2]}`$. Tensoring $`2\lambda _r`$ with the adjoint brings us back over the complementary fundamental weights to $`\lambda _2`$. Tensoring once more with the adjoint, which is $`\lambda _2`$, give us a trivial representation.
For $`C_r`$: Using the tables in  or the theorem in appendix A, we find that generically $`\lambda _k2\lambda _1\lambda _1+\lambda _{k+1}`$. Similarly $`(\lambda _1+\lambda _{k+1})2\lambda _1\lambda _{k+2}`$. Therefore all fundamental weights with even index are linked by chains of representations, as are all fundamental weights with odd index. Note also that $`\lambda _22\lambda _12\lambda _1`$. It is clear then that all odd fundamental weights are screened to the miniscule weight $`\lambda _1`$, and all even to the trivial weight $`0`$, since these have smaller Casimir then all other fundamental weights. (This will also be clear from the geometrical proof in step 2).
Step 2: We proof geometrically that all miniscule weights satisfy condition (4). The fundamental alcove $`A`$ is the part of the fundamental chamber $`C`$ that satisfies $`\mu .\stackrel{ˇ}{\alpha _i}0`$ and $`\mu .\stackrel{ˇ}{\theta }^{}1`$, where $`\theta ^{}`$ is the highest short root. It intersects with the dominant weights only by the miniscule weights . Clearly it is sufficient to prove that if $`\mu +\alpha `$ lies in the fundamental chamber $`C`$, for $`\mu `$ miniscule and $`\alpha `$ a nonzero in the root lattice $`Q`$, then:

$`|\mu +\alpha +\rho |^2`$ $`>`$ $`|\mu +\rho |^2\text{or}`$
$`(2\mu +2\rho +\alpha ).\alpha `$ $`>`$ $`0.`$ (7)
Now, $`C`$ is covered by alcoves $`\nu +A`$, where $`\nu QC`$. Since $`\mu A`$ and $`\mu +\alpha C`$, we conclude that $`\alpha C`$. Since the inverse of the Cartan matrix has only positive entries, we conclude that $`\alpha `$ is a linear combination of simple roots with non-negative coefficients. Hence $`\mu .\alpha 0`$, $`(\mu +\alpha ).\alpha 0`$ , and $`\rho .\alpha >0`$. QED.

## 5 Conclusion

We proved that the classification of stable vacua in two-dimensional gauge theory with simple, simply connected gauge group $`G`$ and heavy matter in the adjoint, in an algebraic fashion based on Wilson loop computations, agrees with the naive homotopical arguments for the classification of vacua. The stable vacua correspond to the miniscule weights of $`G`$, of which there are $`\mathrm{\#}Z`$, where $`Z`$ is the center of $`G`$. Moreover we gave a proof of a complete list of vacua that are metastable, i.e. stable against the creation of a single adjoint particle anti-particle pair. These are the fundamental weights that are level 1 weights for affine (non-twisted) Kac-Moody algebras. This completes the partial proof in .

From the set-up it is clear that we might as well have introduced other matter in a representation $`S`$, and that the same analysis would have boiled down to the following mathematical questions: for which representations $`R`$ is $`C(R)C(R_i)`$ for all $`R_iRS`$, and similarly, for which representation $`R`$ is $`C(R)C(R_i)`$ for all $`R_iRS^n`$ ? This question seems to be of less physical importance, since matter in a general representation $`S`$ cannot be expected to mimick aspects of transverse gluons in higher dimensions, but the question seems mathematically interesting, in view of the fact that it has such a non-trivial answer for the adjoint representation. The techniques in this paper should carry over, certainly, to the case of representations $`R`$ where the multiplicities of all non-zero weights is 1.

Physically more interesting is the question of stability of vacua in the presence of adjoint matter and extra particles in a fundamental representation of the gauge group. It should be easy to give the answer to this question algebraically, starting from the results obtained in this letter. (There will be a similar parallel topological argument, based on the representation of the center of the gauge group in the chosen fundamental representation.)

It would be very nice to find a physical interpretation for the intriguing fact that all metastable vacua are exactly the level 1 weights of affine (non-twisted) Kac-Moody algebras (see also the suggestion in  of a phase transition at finite mass). Moreover, it seems interesting to generalize the explicit study of the different vacua, and instanton contributions in 2d QCD (see e.g. ) for different gauge groups. In fact, there seems to be a broad class of questions in two-dimensional gauge theory which have only been studied in detail for $`SU(N)`$ gauge groups that should have interesting counterparts for more general groups.

## Acknowledgements

This work is supported in part by funds provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (D.O.E.) under cooperative research agreement DE-FC02-94ER40818.

## Appendix A A theorem

We denote by $`W`$ the Weyl group, by $`Q`$ the root lattice, by $`C`$ the fundamental chamber, and by $`\rho `$ half the sum of all positive roots. By $`A`$ we denote the fundamental alcove and $`\lambda _i`$ are the fundamental weights, corresponding to the simple roots $`\alpha _i`$. $`e_{\alpha _i}`$ is the Lie algebra generator associated with the simple root $`\alpha _i`$.

Theorem (see e.g. ): The multiplicity of a representation $`R(\nu )`$ with highest weight $`\nu =\lambda +\mu ^{}`$ in the tensor product of the representation $`R(\lambda )`$ with highest weight $`\lambda `$ and Dynkin labels $`m_i=\lambda .\stackrel{ˇ}{\alpha _i}`$, and $`R(\mu )`$, where $`\mu ^{}`$ is a weight of $`R(\mu )`$, is equal to the dimension of the subspace of the weightspace of $`R(\mu )`$ with weight $`\mu ^{}`$ consisting of vectors killed by $`(e_{\alpha _i})^{m_i+1}`$ for all simple roots $`\alpha _i`$.

## Appendix B  Miniscule and level 1 weights

The miniscule weights are the non-zero dominant weights in the fundamental alcove. They can be defined by $`\mu .\stackrel{ˇ}{\alpha _i}0`$ and $`\mu .\stackrel{ˇ}{(\theta ^{})}1`$. If we take, instead of $`W\times Q`$, the group $`W\times Q^{}`$ where $`Q^{}`$ is the Z-span of the long roots, then the fundamental alcove becomes bigger: the inequality $`\mu .\stackrel{ˇ}{\theta }^{}1`$ is replaced by $`\mu .\stackrel{ˇ}{\theta }1`$, and intersects the dominant weights by all level 1 weights of the affine (non-twisted) Kac-Moody algebra.


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# Precision of inflationary predictions and recent CMB anisotropy data

## Introduction

High quality measurements of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) probe the cosmic fluctuations generated during an inflationary epoch in the very early Universe fluc . Recently, BOOMERanG BoomerangD  and MAXIMA MaximaD  teams announced the clear detection of a first acoustic peak at an angular scale $`1^{}`$, which confirms the most important prediction of inflation: the Universe seems to be spatially flat analysis . Another generic prediction of inflation is that the primordial spectra of density perturbations and gravitational waves are almost scale-invariant. More CMB precision measurements will be available soon.

We argue MS2  that CMB predictions on the basis of the simplest inflationary model, slow-roll inflation slowroll , are not as precise as could be believed from the accuracy of the power spectra Grivell . We compare the predictions from the slow-roll approximation SL  with the exact solutions from the model of power-law inflation AW . We find unacceptable large errors in the predictions of multipole moments. The reason is as follows: The primordial spectrum is best approximated at some pivot scale $`k_{}`$. A small error in the spectral index gives rise to a large error at wavenumbers that differ significantly from $`k_{}`$, due to a large lever arm. A natural choice for the pivot scale is the present Hubble scale, but leads to extremely large errors for high multipole moments. A shift of the pivot scale to the scale of the first acoustic peak decreases these errors dramatically (see Figure 1).

In MRS  we compare the improved (optimal pivot scale) slow-roll predictions with recent CMB data (see Figure 2). Most data analysis so far analysis  was based on a power-law shape of the primordial spectra. This shape is not predicted by the slow-roll approximation, only the first two terms in a Taylor expansion with respect to the wavenumber coincide.

## Precision of slow-roll predictions

Slow-roll inflation is very simple and is an attractor for many inflationary models. Inflation driven by a single field $`\phi `$, may be characterized at a given moment of time $`t_{}`$ by the parameters $`ϵ[\dot{H}/H^2]_{}`$, $`\delta [\ddot{\phi }/(H\dot{\phi })]_{}`$, $`\xi [(\dot{ϵ}\dot{\delta })/H]_{}`$, …, where $`H`$ is the Hubble rate. The condition for inflation is $`ϵ<1`$, whereas slow-roll inflation is characterized by $`ϵ1,|\delta |1,\xi =𝒪(ϵ^2,ϵ\delta ,\delta ^2)`$, and negligible higher derivatives. Based on these approximations the power spectrum of the Bardeen potential $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and of the amplitude of gravitational waves $`h`$ reads SL ; MS2

$`k^3P_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9H_{}^2l_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}{25\pi ϵ}}\left[12ϵ2(2ϵ\delta )\left(C+\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{k}{k_{}}}\right)\right],`$ (1)
$`k^3P_h`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{16H_{}^2l_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}{\pi }}\left[12ϵ\left(C+1+\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{k}{k_{}}}\right)\right],`$ (2)
where $`C\gamma _\mathrm{E}+\mathrm{ln}220.7296`$, $`\gamma _\mathrm{E}0.5772`$ being the Euler constant. The pivot scale is defined as $`k_{}=(aH)_{}`$. Fixing $`k_{}`$ corresponds to a choice of the time $`t_{}`$ during inflation. The spectral indices can be obtained from $`n_\mathrm{S}1\mathrm{d}\mathrm{ln}(k^3P_\mathrm{\Phi })/\mathrm{d}\mathrm{ln}k=4ϵ+2\delta `$ and $`n_\mathrm{T}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{ln}(k^3P_h)/\mathrm{d}\mathrm{ln}k=2ϵ`$. We call this the next-to-leading order of the slow-roll approximation (at the leading order strictly scale-invariant spectra are predicted).

On the other hand, the power spectra may be calculated exactly for power-law inflation, which is characterized by a power-law behavior of the scale factor, i.e., $`at^p`$. For power-law inflation we have $`ϵ=\delta `$ and $`\xi =0`$ during inflation. We use $`ϵ`$ to parametrize the spectra, i.e. $`p=1/ϵ`$. The corresponding power spectra then read AW ; MS

$$k^3P_\mathrm{\Phi }=\frac{9H_{}^2l_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}{25\pi ϵ}f(ϵ)\left(\frac{k}{k_{}}\right)^{\frac{2ϵ}{1ϵ}},k^3P_h=\frac{16H_{}^2l_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}{\pi }f(ϵ)\left(\frac{k}{k_{}}\right)^{\frac{2ϵ}{1ϵ}},$$
(3)
where $`f(ϵ)=[2/(1ϵ)]^{2/(1ϵ)}\mathrm{\Gamma }[1/(1ϵ)+1/2]^2/\pi `$, with $`f(0)=1`$. For power-law inflation the spectral indices read: $`n_\mathrm{S}=1+n_\mathrm{T}=(13ϵ)/(1ϵ)`$. In the limit $`ϵ1`$ the power spectra (3) go to (1) with $`ϵ=\delta `$ and to (2), respectively.

We can now calculate the multipole moments $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ for the power-law and slow-roll spectra for $`ϵ=\delta `$. We define the error from the slow-roll approximation as

$$e_C_{\mathrm{}}\left|\frac{C_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{sr}}C_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{pl}}}{C_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{pl}}}\right|\times 100\%.$$
(4)
For similar spectra the error (4) depends only weakly on the transfer function. This allows us to neglect the evolution of the transfer function for this purpose and to obtain an analytic result, which is plotted in Figure 1. The values of $`n_\mathrm{S}`$ refer to the exact power-law solution. In the left figure $`k_{}=k_0(aH)_0`$ gives the smallest error for the quadrupole and unacceptably large errors at high multipoles. In the right figure the pivot scale has been chosen to minimize the error around the first acoustic peak, $`\mathrm{}200`$. The corresponding condition is $`D_{\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{opt}}}=\mathrm{ln}(k_{}r_{\mathrm{lss}})`$, where $`r_{\mathrm{lss}}`$ is the comoving distance to the last scattering surface and $`D_{\mathrm{}}1\mathrm{ln}2+\mathrm{\Psi }(\mathrm{})+(\mathrm{}+1/2)/[\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)]`$ with $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x)\mathrm{d}\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Gamma }(x)/\mathrm{d}x`$. For $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{opt}}1`$ this gives $`k_{}(e\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{opt}})/(2r_{\mathrm{lss}})`$, where $`r_{\mathrm{lss}}3.3/(aH)_0`$ for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM.

## Slow-roll inflation and CMB anisotropy data

Let us now compare MRS  the predictions of slow-roll inflation with recent data from BOOMERanG BoomerangD  and MAXIMA-1 MaximaD , supplemented with the COBE/DMR dataset COBE . Instead of fitting ten cosmological parameters we fix the values of otherwise measured parameters and assume that slow-roll inflation is the correct theory. In Figure 2 we present the sum of scalar and tensor CMB band power for a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}h^2=0.019,`$ and $`h=0.6`$. The Boltzmann code used here was developed by one of us (A.R.). We see without a $`\chi ^2`$ analysis that qualitatively different inflationary models are consistent with the observations: Both models with $`ϵ=0.02`$ give reasonable fits, one of these models has a flat scalar spectrum (with $`n_\mathrm{S}n_\mathrm{T}+1`$), the other one has a negative tilt (with $`n_\mathrm{S}=n_\mathrm{T}+1`$). Both models have an important contribution of gravitational waves ($`20\%`$).

We emphasize that the generic slow-roll predictions (1) and (2) do not have a power-law shape. This fact induces large differences to multipole moments that are predicted under the assumption that the power-law shape (3) is the generic inflationary prediction. Besides using the correct primordial spectrum a clever choice of the pivot scale can hide unavoidable uncertainties of the multipole moments in the cosmic variance on one side and in the instrumental noise on the other side of the spectrum.


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# Uncovering the Intrinsic Shapes of Elliptical Galaxies. IV. Tests on Simulated Merger Remnants

## 1 Introduction

Observational estimates of the true three-dimensional shapes of elliptical galaxies serve as diagnostics of the physics of galaxy formation and evolution. Numerical simulations of protogalactic collapse (Dubinski & Carlberg 1991), mergers (Weil & Hernquist 1996, Barnes & Hernquist 1998), and black-hole growth (Merritt & Fridman 1996, Merritt & Quinlan 1998) all suggest that dark halos should tend toward axisymmetry with increasing dissipation or central mass concentrations. But whether this has, in fact, happened is difficult to establish. The effort to uncover the intrinsic shape distribution has a long history (reviewed by Statler 1995, updated by Bak & Statler 2000, hereafter BS). Photometric methods, introduced by Hubble (1926) and revisited by many authors (most recently Ryden 1992, 1996; Fasano 1995), have been effective in constraining the distribution of flattenings, but not in establishing the relative numbers of triaxial and axisymmetric systems. For constraining triaxiality, dynamical information is necessary, with both gas (Bertola et al. 1991) and stellar (Binney 1985, Franx et al. 1991, Tenjes et al. 1993) kinematic data having been used for this purpose.

Earlier papers in this series (Statler 1994a, Statler & Fry 1994, Statler 1994b, hereafter Papers I, II, and III respectively) presented a method for statistically estimating the intrinsic shapes of elliptical galaxies from observations of their radial velocity fields and surface brightness distributions. Paper III included a test of the method on the end product of an $`N`$-body collapse simulation (Dubinski 1992). Using simulated observations of the object along a single line of sight, the method could recover the true shape only to within a $`2\sigma `$ error region; this result was attributed to an unfortunate line of sight. Since then, the method has profitably been applied to real systems, to derive both the shapes of individual galaxies (NGC 3379, Statler 1994c, Statler 2001, NGC 1700, Statler et al. 1999, hereafter SDS) and the parent shape distribution of a sample (Davies & Birkinshaw 1998) of radio ellipticals (BS). Nonetheless, there remains a lingering impression that the performance on realistic simulated systems is “disappointing” (Binney & Merrifield 1998).

In this paper we present more extensive tests, using a homogeneous set of simulated elliptical galaxies from group-merger experiments (Weil & Hernquist 1994, 1996, hereafter WH94 and WH96, collectively WH). We demonstrate that the method performs well, both in estimating the shapes of individual objects and in deriving the shape distribution of small samples. The presentation is ordered as follows: Section 2 briefly describes the test objects and the methods employed, with references to earlier papers where complete expositions can be found. Section 3 describes the tests performed and their results. Section 4 deals with residual systematic bias and its possible origin, and Section 5 sums up.

## 2 Methods

### 2.1 Simulated Data

#### 2.1.1 Merger Remnants

The simulated ellipticals used for this study are late-time snapshots of the group-merger simulations of WH, listed as 1–6 in Table 1 of WH96. The simulations were performed using a tree code, with 393216 particles representing luminous matter and an equal number representing dark matter, initially distributed as six disk galaxies with dark halos. The disk/halo mass ratio was $`1:5.8`$; in case 5, the galaxies also contained bulges one-third the mass of the disk. The initial systems had identical macroscopic properties, except in case 6, where the masses of two systems were doubled. The six progenitors were distributed inside a sphere with a radius 30 times the disk scale length, and were given center of mass velocities drawn from a Maxwellian distribution. In five of the six cases, all group members merged into a single ellipsoidal remnant; case 4 ejected one galaxy at an early time.

#### 2.1.2 Observations

Each of the merger remnants may be rotated to any orientation. To keep the nomenclature unambiguous, we will refer to the six remnants as the true objects, and to a particular remnant in a particular orientation as an observed object.

For each observed object we project the phase space particle distribution for the luminous matter along the line of sight and create photometric and kinematic data sets from the zeroth and first velocity moments, using a software pipeline developed by Bak (2000). The projected distribution is first binned onto a tree-like hierarchical grid, and the surface brightnesses and mean radial velocities smoothed and interpolated onto a uniform grid using thin-plate splines. The resulting surface brightness image is analyzed photometrically using the ELLIPSE task in IRAF/STSDAS, which outputs radial profiles of surface brightness, ellipticity, and major axis position angle (PA). Based on a radial average of the latter, 1-dimensional cuts of the radial velocity field (i.e., rotation curves) are extracted along the major and minor axes and at diagonal position angles $`\pm 45\mathrm{°}`$ from the major axis; while the actual PA sampling in published data varies widely, this choice reflects the sampling in recent observations used with this approach (Statler et al. 1996, Statler & Smecker-Hane 1999). In some cases with significant isophotal twists, the velocity field is resampled at position angles keyed to the average major axis PA in the range of radii where the data are used (see 2.1.3 below).111In two cases kinematic cuts were erroneously made at PAs unrelated to the photometric axes. Since the $`45\mathrm{°}`$ spacing of the cuts was preserved and the actual sampled PAs were correctly propagated through the modeling procedure, we left the error uncorrected.

#### 2.1.3 Radial Averages

Use of the observational material exactly parallels that of Statler (1994c) and BS, where the goal is to produce estimates of the mean shape in the main body of the galaxy. Because projection of the model velocity fields is robust only where the rotation curve is not steeply rising, we exclude data at small radii. Each velocity profile is folded about the center and averaged, assuming antisymmetry. For each observed object we estimate by eye the radius at which the largest-amplitude rotation curve flattens and omit the data inside this point. We also discard data beyond approximately 4 effective radii since data past this point are unavailable for real galaxies. Typically the data we retain span a factor of 3 to 5 in radius (e.g., $`0.8`$ to 3 effective radii). We take an unweighted average of the radial velocities on each PA between the inner and outer radii, and the uncertainty associated with the average is taken to be the unweighted standard deviation. Photometric data are handled similarly; we adopt error weighted averages of the major-axis position angle and ellipticity over the same radial interval, using standard deviations as the uncertainties. Each observed object is hence described by 4 radially averaged velocities and one mean ellipticity.

### 2.2 Dynamical Modeling

#### 2.2.1 Models

The dynamical models are presented in Paper I and their use discussed in subsequent papers. The models assume a stationary potential, with observed rotation arising from a mean streaming of the “stellar fluid” in the nonrotating figure. The total internal velocity field is the vector sum of mutually crossing flows generated by short-axis and long-axis tube orbits, each of which is assumed to follow confocal streamlines. Other orbit families have zero mean motion and contribute only to the density. The shapes of the streamlines are linked to the triaxiality of the total mass distribution (Anderson & Statler 1998). Given ellipsoidal distributions for the luminous and total mass, the velocity field is calculated by solving the equation of continuity subject to appropriate boundary conditions. The boundary conditions are described by a number of adjustable parameters, allowing a broad variety of dynamical configurations. The models are then projected along the line of sight assuming that the luminosity density and mean rotation vary as power laws with radius.

#### 2.2.2 Bayesian Shape Estimate

The Bayesian methodology for estimating the shapes of single objects is discussed in detail in Paper III. For each observed object, a lengthy exploration of the parameter space (typically $`10^7`$ individual models) results in a multidimensional likelihood function $`L(T,c_L,\mathrm{\Omega },𝒅)`$, where $`T`$ is the triaxiality of the mass distribution, $`c_L`$ is the short-to-long axis ratio of the luminosity distribution, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`𝒅`$ represent the orientation and the remaining dynamical parameters, respectively. Models are computed over the same grid of parameters used by BS, to match previous applications to real data (see § 2.4 of BS, § 2.1 of SDS, §§ 2 and 4.1 of Statler 1994c for details). We normally assume a flat prior distribution in all parameters; the posterior probability density $`P(T,c_L)`$, which constitutes the estimate of intrinsic shape, is then obtained by integrating $`L(T,c_L,\mathrm{\Omega },𝒅)`$ over the nuisance parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`𝒅`$ and normalizing the result. The flat distribution in $`𝒅`$ represents “maximal ignorance” of the true dynamical configuration. Other prior assumptions may be accommodated by limiting the integration over $`𝒅`$ to a subregion of parameter space; a relevant example would be an assumption that rotation were purely around the intrinsic short axis.

#### 2.2.3 Parent Distribution

Given a sample of observed objects, we can also attempt to recover the parent shape distribution for the set of true objects. This proceeds according to the methods described by BS. We assume that the sample is randomly oriented, and start with a flat model for the parent distribution, $`F(T,c_L)=\mathrm{const}`$. The posterior probability density $`P_i(T,c_L)`$ for each observed object $`i`$ is given by the normalized product of $`F`$ with the integrated likelihood $`L_i(T,c_L)`$. (Initially, $`P_i=L_i`$.) The $`P_i`$’s are summed, and the sum is smoothed with a nonparametric smoothing spline and normalized. This yields an improved estimate for $`F`$, which is multiplied by the $`L_i`$’s and iteratively cycled through the same procedure. The smoothing parameter in the spline is chosen at the first iteration to optimize a cross-validation score,222The likelihood cross-validation score (Coakley 1991) is the average over $`i`$ of the log-likelihood of the $`i`$th observation in the model fitted to all but the $`i`$th observation (BS, § 2.3, equations  and ); thus an optimized score gives the model that is most likely to correctly predict the next observation. The use of cross-validation with smoothing splines is discussed fully by Green & Silverman (1994). and we conservatively stop iterating when the maximum fractional change per iteration in $`F`$ drops below 10%. Once the final parent distribution is obtained, its normalized product with the integrated likelihoods gives corrected shape estimates for the individual objects.

### 2.3 True Shapes

The axis ratios of the true objects are computed directly from the particle distributions. The values tabulated by WH96 are not suited to our purposes, as they represent averages over subsets of particles sorted by binding energy. We need instead the axis ratios of the isodensity surfaces, averaged over the range of radii from which the kinematic data are drawn. We locate the principal axes and measure the axis ratios by diagonalizing the inertia tensors of thin ellipsoidal shells about a fixed center. The shell thicknesses are adjusted to maintain approximately 2000 particles in each shell, and the axis ratios are manipulated until the eigenvalues of the inertia tensor match those for a constant density shell of the same shape.

We find that all of the objects are highly triaxial in the inner parts, becoming nearly axisymmetric at moderate radii. The direction of the minor axis stays, for the most part, well aligned through each system; however, as the middle-to-long axis ratio $`b`$ rises above approximately $`0.85`$, the long-axis direction in the plane normal to the short axis becomes ill defined and wanders from one shell to the next. While we can compute the radial average of $`c`$ by elementary methods, a similar average of $`b`$ would result in an overestimate of the triaxiality, since particle noise will always make a round contour elliptical. Consequently we adopt a complex representation of the ellipticity in the equatorial plane, $`=ϵe^{2i\varphi }`$, where $`ϵ=1b`$ and $`\varphi `$ is the long-axis position angle. We compute the radial average $``$, from which the average axis ratio is $`b=1||`$, and the triaxiality follows according to $`T=(1b^2)/(1c^2)`$.

## 3 Statistical Tests

### 3.1 Single Objects

To test the method’s ability to recover the shape of an individual system, we project remnant number 2 along 11 different lines of sight uniformly distributed over one hemisphere, creating 11 observed objects from one true object. We initially model the observed objects independently, as if they were different systems. The top row ($`a`$$`c`$) of Figure 1 shows posterior probability densities obtained in the “maximal ignorance” case for three of the objects. Contours in each panel show the 68% and 95% highest posterior density (HPD) regions, analogous to $`1\sigma `$ and $`2\sigma `$ error ellipses. These results are similar to those for real systems, in that nearly oblate shapes are preferred, but highly triaxial ones are not excluded. Crosses show the shape of the true object, where we have measured $`T`$ and $`c_L`$ separately from the total mass and luminous mass distributions, respectively, averaged over the intervals from which the data are drawn. As in previous work, we find that the inferred shape and the accuracy of the result depend on the particular line of sight; it is possible to be fooled by an unlucky view. However, in this test the correct shape falls outside the 68% highest posterior density (HPD) region only twice out of 11 trials.

To check for systematic bias, we exploit our knowledge that the 11 observed objects in fact have the same true shape. The proper probability distribution in this case is the normalized product of the 11 separate distributions $`P_i(T,c_L)`$ (Paper III, § 3.2). The result is shown in Figure 1d. Despite the width of the individual $`P_i`$’s, the product is a sharp spike, with its peak at $`(T,c_L)=(0,0.5)`$. This reproduces the true shape to within the resolution of the model grid in $`c_L`$, and to within approximately $`0.1`$ in $`T`$. We know, however, that the maximal ignorance case does not correctly describe the dynamics of the true objects. WH94 report that all of their group merger remnants have angular momenta closely aligned with the short axes. Therefore, we also perform the calculation using only the models that rotate about their short axes; the result is shown in Figure 1e. For this particular object, the change makes little difference. The bottom row of Figure 1 shows results for the same tests repeated on remnant number 1, for the maximal ignorance and aligned rotation cases. The results are not quite as good for this object, though now there is improvement with the correct assumption of aligned rotation. These models correctly detect the nonzero triaxiality, but underestimate both $`T`$ and $`c_L`$ by of order $`0.1`$.

While the above tests suggest a systematic bias in the shape estimates, the bias is small compared to typical statistical errors. The performance of the individual $`P_i`$’s for the 22 observed objects taken together is close to statistically perfect. For both maximal ignorance and aligned rotation, the true shapes fall inside the 68% HPD region 13 times (15 expected) and inside the 95% HPD region 21 times (21 expected).

### 3.2 Simulated Samples

To test the estimation of parent shape distributions, we construct three simulated samples, each consisting of the 6 true objects oriented at random. The maximal-ignorance parent distributions obtained for the three samples are shown in the top row of Figure 2; the corresponding results using only models with rotation aligned with the short axis appear in the bottom row. Crosses show the true mean shapes, which vary slightly between samples because the means are computed over slightly different radial intervals. The samples are ordered by the quality of the results. The maximal ignorance distribution for Sample 1 successfully puts 4 objects inside the 68% HPD contour, and all 6 inside the 95% contour. The aligned rotation models perform slightly better in all cases, moving one more object inside the 68% HPD region in Sample 1. In the worst case, the maximal ignorance distribution for Sample 3, only 2 objects fall within the 95% HPD region and none within the 68% region.

The posterior shape estimates for the individual objects can be used to address systematic bias. These are shown for the best and worst cases in Figure 3. The aligned rotation models for Sample 1 correctly detect the nonzero triaxiality of the two most triaxial objects ($`a`$, $`d`$), but give most-probable triaxialities of zero for the other four. The objects of Sample 3 are predicted to be more axisymmetric and flatter than they actually are; similar results are seen for Sample 2. Taken as a group, the 18 observed objects in the three samples fall within their respective 68% HPD regions 33% of the time, and inside the 95% HPD regions 61% of the time in the maximal ignorance case; the corresponding percentages for the aligned rotation models are 44% and 72%. Shifting the true shapes uniformly by $`0.09`$ in both $`T`$ and $`c_L`$ raises these percentages to their expected values. We conclude that systematic bias in the parent distributions is $`<0.1`$ in $`T`$ and $`c_L`$, which is consistent in both magnitude and direction with the results of section 3.1 for single objects.

## 4 Discussion

We would like to understand the origin of the small systematic bias in our results. One possibility is that the small samples used in § 3.2 could be biased in orientation, but this is not the case. Figure 4 shows the distribution of the lines of sight, relative to the principal axes of the observed objects, for each sample. There is no obvious clustering of views. The isotropy of the distribution can be quantified using $`|Q_1|`$, the largest (in absolute magnitude) eigenvalue of the quadrupole moment tensor, normalized to the number of objects. A Monte Carlo simulation of $`10^5`$ six-object samples gives a skewed distribution with a mean of $`0.44`$, a mode of $`0.36`$, and a standard deviation of $`0.22`$. The $`|Q_1|`$ values for Samples 1, 2, and 3 are $`0.35`$, $`0.42`$, and $`0.24`$ respectively, so the samples are neither abnormally anisotropic nor abnormally isotropic.

At any rate, bias in the 6-object samples, even if present, would not account for the similar systematic error seen in the single-object tests of § 3.1. Unfortunately, we see no obvious reason why the method should tend to underestimate the triaxiality and overestimate the flattening. But we can speculate on three possibilities:

1. Overly cautious use of the kinematic data. The observed rotation curves are averaged over a range of radii where they are well-behaved. By indulging a natural tendency to exclude radii where the data become “weird,” we may have reduced the signature of the very kinematic asymmetries that are the hallmarks of triaxiality.
2. Coarse dynamical grid. SDS and BS emphasized the importance of the “disklike” or “spheroid-like” character of the internal velocity field to the inferred shape. The model grid used here includes only the extreme cases on the assumption that they should bracket the correct result. However, we occasionally encounter situations where shapes inferred from intermediate models are more triaxial than those from either extreme (Statler 2001).
3. Figure rotation. Pattern speeds for the merger remnants have not been measured. An addition of a solid-body component to the streaming velocity field of a triaxial object can, in principle, make it appear more axisymmetric than it actually is. This is a long-standing unresolved issue, and there are still no dynamical models for ellipsoidal systems that include figure rotation as an adjustable parameter.

## 5 Summary

We have tested the methods developed in previous papers for inferring the intrinsic shapes of elliptical galaxies, using a set of six simulated objects formed by group mergers of disk/halo systems. We have modeled two of the objects over a uniform grid of orientations, and find that their true shapes are recovered to within the statistical errors. A more stringent test, using the prior knowledge that the same object is being observed repeatedly, indicates a small systematic bias in the results, in that both triaxiality and short-to-long axis ratio are underestimated by roughly $`0.1`$. We have also constructed three simulated samples of 6 objects, and estimate the parent shape distribution in each case. The result for one of the samples is statistically unimpeachable, with the correct fractions of the sample falling within the 68% and 95% HPD regions. The other two samples give results that are worse by an amount consistent with the above bias. Including prior knowledge of the internal dynamics of the objects improves the results for all the samples. Examination of the posterior shape estimates for the individual objects in the samples again suggests a systematic bias $`0.1`$ in triaxiality and flattening, in the same sense found in the earlier test. The source of this bias is not understood, but may be related to the handling of the observational data, the coarse grid of dynamical parameters in the models, or figure rotation of the test objects. As a whole, these results support the use of our methods to understand the nature of real elliptical galaxies.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to Melinda Weil for providing data from her group merger simulations and for a careful referee’s report. This work was supported by NSF CAREER grant AST-9703036.