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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The structure functions of photons with momentum $`p`$ and virtuality $`P^2=p^2`$ probed at a scale $`Q^2`$ $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ 1 GeV2 and $`Q^2P^2`$, i.e. in the ‘Bjorken limit’, can be described in terms of photonic parton distributions. These spin–\[in\]dependent parton distributions of $`\gamma (P^2)`$, henceforth denoted by $`\left[f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)\right]`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ with $`f=q,\overline{q},g`$ and $`q=u,d,s`$, provide the dominant, lowest–twist, contributions to the structure functions $`\left[F_{1,2}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)\right]`$ and $`g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ in \[un\]polarized deep elastic $`ep`$ collisions.

One expects, of course, a unified description of real ($`P^2=0`$) and virtual ($`P^20`$) photons in the sense of continuity of all the physical predictions at $`P^2=0`$. It turns out, however, that the so–called ‘direct’ contribution to the structure functions due to the subprocess $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)\gamma (P^2)q\overline{q}`$ which arises at the next–to–leading order (NLO) analysis of $`F_{1,2}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ and $`g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ is discontinuous at $`P^2=0`$, thus violating the basic continuity demand.

It was pointed out in  that the physically compelling continuity at $`P^2=0`$ is facilitated by treating the direct–photon contribution at $`P^20`$ to be the same as for a real on–shell ($`P^2=0`$) photon. As a logical consequence of this approach to the continuity demand it is mandatory to consider the direct contribution of the virtual photon to any deep inelastic scattering (DIS) process as if it was real. In  the consequences of this approach to spin–independent DIS processes were presented. The present paper extends this study to the spin–dependent DIS processes.

In Section 2 we present some consequences of our unified approach as reflected by the spin–dependent structure function $`g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ characterizing the spin–dependent deep–inelastic inclusive $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)\gamma (P^2)`$ hadrons scattering process accessible in longitudinally polarized $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilations. Here the various possible (input) boundary conditions for the polarized parton distributions and structure functions of longitudinally polarized real and virtual photons are discussed and presented together with their formal analytic solutions of the inhomogeneous renormalization group (RG) $`Q^2`$–evolution equations. Various illustrative quantitative expectations are presented in Section 3. These QCD resummed RG–improved calculations are compared in Section 4 with the predictions of the standard non–resummed ‘naive’ quark–parton model (QPM) QED ‘box’ approach. In particular, the relevance of the polarized gluonic photon content, the typical RG–improved QCD ingredient, is studied within this context. Finally, our conclusions are summarized in Section 5.

## 2 $`g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ and the associated parton distributions of polarized real and virtual photons

The flux of (longitudinally) polarized virtual photons produced by the the bremsstrahlung process of high energy electrons $`e(k)e(k^{})+\gamma (p)`$, $`P^2p^2=(k^{}k)^2`$, at $`e^+e^{}`$ or $`ep`$ colliders is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\gamma (P^2)/e}(y)=\frac{\alpha }{2\pi }\left[\frac{1(1y)^2}{y}\frac{1}{P^2}+\frac{2m_e^2y^2}{P^4}\right]$$
(2.1)
where $`y=E_\gamma /E_e`$ and $`\alpha 1/137`$. The real ($`P0`$) photons usually considered are those whose virtuality is in reality very small, i.e. of order $`P_{\mathrm{min}}^2=𝒪(m_e^2)`$ or, experimentally, at least $`P^2<10^2`$ GeV2 which is the case for the bulk of produced photons in untagged or antitagging experiments. On the other hand, a sizeable finite virtuality is achieved by tagging of the outgoing electron at the photon producing vertex $`ee\gamma `$. Whenever these virtual photons, with their virtuality being entirely taken care of by the flux factor in (2.1), are probed at a scale $`Q^2P^2`$ they may be considered as real photons, which means that cross sections of partonic subprocesses involving $`\gamma (P^2)`$ should be calculated as if $`P^2=0`$ (partly due to the suppression of any additional terms). Furthermore, the polarized parton distributions $`\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ of the virtual photon obey the same $`Q^2`$ evolution, i.e. renormalization group (RG), equations as the real photon $`\gamma \gamma (P^2=0)`$ distributions $`\mathrm{\Delta }f^\gamma (x,Q^2)`$ and the only difference between them resides in the different boundary conditions. This concept is similar to the one suggested and developed in  for unpolarized photons which, as emphasized in the Introduction, follows from the basic continuity demand at $`P^2=0`$.

Following the situation of protons  and unpolarized photons , the structure function of polarized photons $`g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ will be decomposed into $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ due to the light (massless) $`u,d,s`$ partons, and $`g_{1,h}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ due to the heavy $`h=c,b,\mathrm{}`$ quarks whose contributions are calculated in fixed order of perturbation theory which are known and unproblematic due to the finite $`m_h0`$ (we shall come back to this point at the end of this Section). The main issue of this paper resides of course in $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ which, up to NLO($`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$), is given by the following expression:

$`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{q=u,d,s}{}}e_q^2\{\mathrm{\Delta }q^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(Q^2)}{2\pi }}`$ (2.2)
$`\times [\mathrm{\Delta }C_q\mathrm{\Delta }(q+\overline{q})^{\gamma (P^2)}+2\mathrm{\Delta }C_g\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}]+e_q^2{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\pi }}\mathrm{\Delta }C_\gamma (x)\}`$
where $``$ denotes the usual convolution integral. Here, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q}^{\gamma (P^2)}=\mathrm{\Delta }q^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ provide the so–called ‘resolved’ contribution of $`\gamma (P^2)`$ to $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ with the usual hadronic polarized Wilson coefficient functions in the conventional $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ factorization scheme given by

$`\mathrm{\Delta }C_q(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}[(1+x^2)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}(1x)}{1x}}\right)_+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1x)}}_+{\displaystyle \frac{1+x^2}{1x}}\mathrm{ln}x+2+x`$
$`({\displaystyle \frac{9}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{3}})\delta (1x)]`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }C_g(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[(2x1)\left(\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{1x}{x}}1\right)+2(1x)\right].`$ (2.3)
The aforementioned ‘direct’ contribution is provided by the $`\mathrm{\Delta }C_\gamma (x)`$ term in (2.2) which has to be calculated for real photons $`\gamma \gamma (P^2=0)`$, as follows from the continuity condition, in the polarized ‘box’ subprocess $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)\gamma q\overline{q}`$. Thus $`\mathrm{\Delta }C_\gamma `$ can be easily obtained from $`\mathrm{\Delta }C_g`$ in (2.3) which is also derived for a massless on–shell gluon in the polarized subprocess $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)gq\overline{q}`$:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }C_\gamma (x)=\frac{3}{(1/2)}\mathrm{\Delta }C_g(x)=3\left[(2x1)\left(\mathrm{ln}\frac{1x}{x}1\right)+2(1x)\right].$$
(2.4)
The NLO coefficient functions $`\mathrm{\Delta }C_{q,g,\gamma }`$ are obviously factorization scheme dependent and we shall follow the traditional choice , motivated by the perturbative stability of unpolarized photon structure functions, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }C_{q,g}`$ are considered in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme while the destabilizing $`\mathrm{\Delta }C_\gamma `$ term in (2.2), as given by (2.4), is entirely absorbed  into the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ (anti)quark densities in (2.2) as implied by the so-called ‘polarized DISγ’ factorization scheme, to be denoted by DISΔγ:

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }q+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q})_{\mathrm{DIS}_{\mathrm{\Delta }\gamma }}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ $`=`$ $`(\mathrm{\Delta }q+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q})^{\gamma (P^2)}+e_q^2{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\pi }}\mathrm{\Delta }C_\gamma (x)`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }g_{\mathrm{DIS}_{\mathrm{\Delta }\gamma }}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}.`$ (2.5)
This redefinition of parton distributions implies that the polarized NLO($`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$) splitting functions $`\mathrm{\Delta }k_{q,g}^{(1)}(x)`$ of the photon into quarks and gluons, appearing in inhomogeneous NLO RG $`Q^2`$–evolution equations  for $`\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$, have correspondingly to be transformed according to

$`\mathrm{\Delta }k_q^{(1)}|_{\mathrm{DIS}_{\mathrm{\Delta }\gamma }}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }k_q^{(1)}e_q^2\mathrm{\Delta }P_{qq}^{(0)}\mathrm{\Delta }C_\gamma `$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }k_g^{(1)}|_{\mathrm{DIS}_{\mathrm{\Delta }\gamma }}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }k_g^{(1)}2{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}e_q^2\mathrm{\Delta }P_{gq}^{(0)}\mathrm{\Delta }C_\gamma `$ (2.6)
where

$`\mathrm{\Delta }k_q^{(1)}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}e_q^2{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\{9\mathrm{ln}x+8(1x)\mathrm{ln}(1x)+27x22`$
$`+(2x1)[\mathrm{ln}^2x+2\mathrm{ln}^2(1x)4\mathrm{ln}x\mathrm{ln}(1x){\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\pi ^2]\}`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }k_g^{(1)}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`3{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}e_q^2{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\left\{2(1+x)\mathrm{ln}^2x+2(x5)\mathrm{ln}x10(1x)\right\}`$ (2.7)
with $`\mathrm{\Delta }k_q^{(1)}`$ referring to each single (anti)quark flavor. The polarized LO splitting functions are given by $`\mathrm{\Delta }P_{qq}^{(0)}=\frac{4}{3}\left(\frac{1+x^2}{1x}\right)_+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }P_{gq}^{(0)}=\frac{4}{3}(2x)`$. The NLO expression for $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ in the DISΔγ scheme is thus given by (2.2) with $`\mathrm{\Delta }C_\gamma (x)`$ being dropped. Since from now on we shall exclusively work in this DISγ scheme, we skip the label ‘DISΔγ’ on all our subsequent parton distributions and splitting functions. The leading order (LO) expression for $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ is obviously obtained from eq. (2.2) by simply setting $`\mathrm{\Delta }C_{q,g,\gamma }=0`$.

The general solution of the inhomogeneous evolution equations  for $`\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ may be written as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)=\mathrm{\Delta }f_p\mathrm{}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)+\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)$$
(2.8)
and similarly for $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ in (2.2). The nonhadronic ‘pointlike’ component $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_p\mathrm{}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ evolves according to the full inhomogeneous evolution equations subject to the boundary condition

$$\mathrm{\Delta }f_p\mathrm{}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,\stackrel{~}{P}^2)=0,\stackrel{~}{P}^2=\mathrm{max}(P^2,\mu ^2)$$
(2.9)
with $`\mu `$ being some appropriately chosen resolution scale taken here, in the spirit of the radiative parton model , to be  $`\mu _{\mathrm{NLO}(\mathrm{LO})}^2=0.40`$ (0.26) GeV2. The ‘hadronic’ component in (2.8) represents the solution to the conventional homogeneous evolution equations where the photon splitting functions $`\mathrm{\Delta }k_{q,g}^{(0,1)}`$ are dropped. Following refs.  we shall study two extreme scenarios for $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$:

(i) a ‘maximal’ scenario corresponding to a NLO input

$$\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,\stackrel{~}{P}^2))=\eta (P^2)f_{\mathrm{had}}^\gamma (x,\stackrel{~}{P}^2)_{\mathrm{DIS}_{\gamma ,1}}$$
(2.10)
where $`\eta (P^2)=(1+P^2/m_\rho ^2)^2`$ is a dipole suppression factor with $`m_\rho ^2=0.59`$ GeV2, and in LO the unpolarized photonic parton distributions $`f_{\mathrm{had}}^\gamma (x,\stackrel{~}{P}^2)_{\mathrm{LO}}`$ refer to the common LO (input) densities as obtained, for example, in ;

(ii) a ‘minimal’ scenario corresponding to a NLO input

$`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,\stackrel{~}{P}^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\eta (P^2)e_q^2{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2\pi }}\left[C_{\gamma ,1}(x)C_{\gamma ,2}(x)\right]`$
$`=`$ $`\eta (P^2)e_q^2{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2\pi }}\left[12x(1x)\right]`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }g_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,\stackrel{~}{P}^2)`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (2.11)
whereas in LO $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{\mathrm{had}}^\gamma (x,\stackrel{~}{P}^2)`$ also vanishes, due to the absence of the (unpolarized) NLO coefficient functions $`C_{\gamma ,i}`$, and thus the input $`\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,\stackrel{~}{P}^2)_{\mathrm{LO}}=0`$ coincides with the ‘pointlike’ LO solution for $`\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)_{\mathrm{LO}}`$ in (2.8) with  $`\mu _{\mathrm{LO}}^2=0.26`$ GeV2. Thus this ‘minimal’ scenario constitutes a genuinely lowest, but possibly unrealistic, limit for the expected parton distributions of a longitudinally polarized photon.

It should be noticed that the unpolarized NLO inputs in (2.10) and (2.11) refer to the so–called DISγ,1 factorization scheme  related to $`F_1^\gamma `$, rather than to $`F_2^\gamma `$, in order to comply with the fundamental positivity constraint $`|A_1^{\gamma (P^2)}||g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}/F_1^{\gamma (P^2)}|1`$, to which we shall turn in more detail in the next Section. The unpolarized parton distributions in the DISγ,1 factorization scheme required in (2.10) can be easily derived from the ones in the DISγ scheme , as obtained from an analysis  of the data on $`F_2^\gamma `$, via

$`q^\gamma (x,Q^2)_{\mathrm{DIS}_{\gamma ,1}}`$ $`=`$ $`q^\gamma (x,Q^2)_{\mathrm{DIS}_\gamma }e_q^2{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2\pi }}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}12}x(1x)`$
$`g^\gamma (x,Q^2)_{\mathrm{DIS}_{\gamma ,1}}`$ $`=`$ $`g^\gamma (x,Q^2)_{\mathrm{DIS}_\gamma }.`$ (2.12)
These boundary conditions are dictated, as in , by the continuity of $`\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ at $`P^2=0`$. The hadronic vector–meson–dominance (VMD) oriented input distributions of the unpolarized real photon $`f_{\mathrm{had}}^\gamma (x,Q^2)`$ in (2.10) will also be taken from  for reasons of consistency with the positivity constraint. These scenarios will be considered below for our quantitative analyses.

It should be mentioned that our above boundary conditions for the hadronic input in NLO differ substantially from those considered by Sasaki and Uematsu  who consider only the kinematical region $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2P^2Q^2`$ in contrast to our analysis addressing the full kinematical region $`0P^2Q^2`$ and the ensuing continuity constraints at $`P^2=0`$. More specifically, Sasaki and Uematsu  consider on the contrary the perturbatively calculable doubly–virtual polarized box $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)\gamma (P^2)q\overline{q}`$, following the original treatment of the parton structure of the unpolarized virtual photon , and thus adopt for $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\mathrm{had},\mathrm{NLO}}^{\gamma (P2)}`$ the following boundary condition at $`Q^2=P^2`$ in the DISγ factorization scheme:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{\mathrm{had},\mathrm{NLO}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2=P^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q}_{\mathrm{had},\mathrm{NLO}}^{\gamma (P2)}(x,Q^2=P^2)`$
$`=`$ $`3e_q^2{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2\pi }}(2x1)\left(\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x^2}}2\right)`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }g_{\mathrm{had},\mathrm{NLO}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2=P^2)`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (2.13)
Due to the nonvanishing virtuality $`(P^20)`$ of the target photon, these results obviously cannot be related anymore, as in (2.4), to the one of a massless initial on–shell gluon in (2.3). Apart from exluding the polarized real $`(P^2=0)`$ photon within this approach, the input in (2.13) is problematic on its own since kinematically $`x`$ is restrained to $`x\frac{1}{2}`$ at $`Q^2=P^2`$ due to $`0x(1+P^2/Q^2)^1`$. This latter problem is also faced in the treatment of the partonic structure of a virtual unpolarized photon as suggested originally in . (The LO boundary conditions are, in contrast to (2.13), obviously given by $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\mathrm{had},\mathrm{LO}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2=P^2)=0`$.) In view of $`P^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ it is tacitly assumed in  that the hadronic VMD input, eq. (2.10), is negligible. One can, however, also implement a smooth transition to $`P^2=0`$ in this approach by multiplying the r.h.s. of (2.13) by, say , $`\zeta (P^2)=P^2/(P^2+Q_0^2)`$ where $`Q_0^21`$ GeV2, as derived from DIS $`ep`$ structure functions, and adding to this part also the VMD hadronic component in (2.10). Alternatively a smooth transition to $`P^2=0`$ may be achieved by multiplying the r.h.s. of (2.13) by $`[1\eta (P^2)]`$ with $`\eta (P^2)`$ as in (2.10), as has been originally suggested for the unpolarized virtual photon .

Having fixed the boundary (input) conditions, we turn now to the inhomogeneous RG $`Q^2`$–evolution equations which are formally very similar to the ones of an unpolarized real photon , replacing the spin–independent splitting functions everywhere by their spin–dependent counterparts . Their LO and NLO solutions can be given analytically for the Mellin $`n`$–moments of $`\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ in (2.8):

$`\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2),n}(Q^2)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑xx^{n1}\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ (2.14)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_p\mathrm{}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(Q^2)+\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(Q^2).`$
The ‘pointlike’ solution, which vanishes at the input scale $`Q^2=\stackrel{~}{P}^2`$ in (2.9), is driven by the LO and NLO pointlike photon splitting functions $`\mathrm{\Delta }k_{q,g}^{(0,1)}`$ appearing in the inhomogeneous evolution equations, while $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ depends on the hadronic input in (2.10) and evolves according to the standard homogeneous evolution equations. The flavor–singlet solutions for $`f=3`$ flavors, i.e. $`Q^2Q_3^2m_c^2`$, are given by

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }_p\mathrm{}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(Q_3^2)\\ \mathrm{\Delta }g_p\mathrm{}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(Q_3^2)\end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{\alpha _s^{(3)}(Q_3^2)}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s^{(3)}(Q_3^2)}{2\pi }}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{U}\right)\left[1L_3^{1\frac{2}{\beta _0^{(3)}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}\right]`$ (2.18)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{1\frac{2}{\beta _0^{(3)}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2\pi \beta _0^{(3)}}}\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}^{(0)n}+\left[1L_3^{\frac{2}{\beta _0^{(3)}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}\right]`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2\pi }}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}^{(1)n}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _1^{(3)}}{2\beta _0^{(3)}}}\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}^{(0)n}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{U}\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}^{(0)n}\right)`$
$`\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(Q_3^2)\\ \mathrm{\Delta }g_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(Q_3^2)\end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`[L_3^{\frac{2}{\beta _0^{(3)}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s^{(3)}(Q_3^2)}{2\pi }}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{U}L_3^{\frac{2}{\beta _0^{(3)}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}`$ (2.24)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s^{(3)}(\stackrel{~}{P}^2)}{2\pi }}L_3^{\frac{2}{\beta _0^{(3)}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{U}\left]\right(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(\stackrel{~}{P}^2)\\ \mathrm{\Delta }g_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(\stackrel{~}{P}^2)\end{array})`$
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }=\mathrm{\Sigma }_f(\mathrm{\Delta }q+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q})`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}^{(0)}=(\mathrm{\Delta }k_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{(0)},0)^T`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}^{(1)}=(\mathrm{\Delta }k_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{(1)},\mathrm{\Delta }k_g^{(1)})^T`$ with $`\mathrm{\Delta }k_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{(0,1)}=2\mathrm{\Sigma }_q\mathrm{\Delta }k_q^{(0,1)}`$ denote the inhomogeneous LO and NLO polarized photon splitting functions into quarks and gluons  in (2.6) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }k_q^{(0)}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}e_q^2\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}[2x1]`$. The $`2\times 2`$ matrix $`\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{U}`$ is, in complete analogy to the unpolarized case , expressed in terms of the usual $`2\times 2`$ matrices of the polarized one– and two–loop splitting functions $`\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(1)n}`$ which have been presented in  and from where also the $`n`$–moments of the coefficient functions in (2.3) and (2.4) can be obtained. The input distributions $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(\stackrel{~}{P}^2)`$ in (2.16) are given by (2.10) and $`L_3\alpha _s^{(f=3)}(Q_3^2)/\alpha _s^{(3)}(\stackrel{~}{P}^2)`$. For $`0P^2\mu ^2`$ one of course has to freeze $`\alpha _s^{(3)}(\stackrel{~}{P}^2)`$ at $`\stackrel{~}{P}^2=\mu ^2`$ in order to comply with the LO and NLO boundary conditions in (2.10).

Evoluting beyond the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ ‘threshold’ $`Q_3=m_c`$, one has to take into account $`f+1=4`$ active flavors in $`\alpha _s^{(f+1)}(Q^2)`$ at $`Q^2Q_4^2>m_4^2m_c^2`$ and where the results obtained in (2.15) and (2.16) at $`Q_3^2`$ serve as input for the hadronic component of the full solution in (2.14). In this way we arrive at the following general form of solutions which holds, in an obvious way, for any active number of flavors, i.e. $`m_4<Q_4m_5m_b`$ as well as for $`m_5<Q_5m_6m_t`$:

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }_p\mathrm{}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(Q_{f+1}^2)\\ \mathrm{\Delta }g_p\mathrm{}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(Q_{f+1}^2)\end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{\alpha _s^{(f+1)}(Q_{f+1}^2)}}\left[1L_{f+1}^{1\frac{2}{\beta _0^{(f+1)}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}\right]`$ (2.28)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{1\frac{2}{\beta _0^{(f+1)}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2\pi \beta _0^{(f+1)}}}\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}^{(0)n}+\left[1L_{f+1}^{\frac{2}{\beta _0^{(f+1)}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}\right]`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2\pi }}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}^{(1)n}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _1^{(f+1)}}{2\beta _0^{(f+1)}}}\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}^{(0)n}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{U}\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}^{(0)n}\right)`$
$`\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(Q_{f+1}^2)\\ \mathrm{\Delta }g_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(Q_{f+1}^2)\end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`[L_{f+1}^{\frac{2}{\beta _0^{(f+1)}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s^{(f+1)}(Q_{f+1}^2)}{2\pi }}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{U}L_{f+1}^{\frac{2}{\beta _0^{(f+1)}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}`$ (2.34)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s^{(f+1)}(m_{f+1}^2)}{2\pi }}L_{f+1}^{\frac{2}{\beta _0^{(f+1)}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{P}^{(0)n}}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{U}]`$
$`\times \left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }_p\mathrm{}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(m_{f+1}^2)+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(m_{f+1}^2)\\ \mathrm{\Delta }g_p\mathrm{}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(m_{f+1}^2)+\mathrm{\Delta }g_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2),n}(m_{f+1}^2)\end{array}\right)`$
where $`L_{f+1}\alpha _s^{(f+1)}(Q_{f+1}^2)/\alpha _s^{(f+1)}(m_{f+1}^2)`$ and it should be noted that the ‘pointlike’ solution is always such that it vanishes, per definition, at each $`Q_{f+1}=m_{f+1}`$, as in (2.9) and (2.15) at $`Q^2Q_3^2=\stackrel{~}{P}^2`$. (Similar solutions have been used for calculating the parton content of unpolarized photons ). The evolution of $`\alpha _s^{(f)}(Q^2)`$, corrresponding to a number of $`f`$ active flavors, is obtained by exactly solving in NLO($`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$)

$$\frac{d\alpha _s^{(f)}(Q^2)}{d\mathrm{ln}Q^2}=\frac{\beta _0^{(f)}}{4\pi }\left[\alpha _s^{(f)}(Q^2)\right]^2\frac{\beta _1^{(f)}}{16\pi ^2}\left[\alpha _s^{(f)}(Q^2)\right]^3$$
(2.35)
numerically  using $`\alpha _s^{(5)}(M_Z^2)=0.114`$, rather than using the more conventional approximate solution

$$\frac{\alpha _s^{(f)}(Q^2)}{4\pi }\frac{1}{\beta _0^{(f)}\mathrm{ln}(Q^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)}\frac{\beta _1^{(f)}}{(\beta _0^{(f)})^3}\frac{\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{ln}(Q^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)}{[\mathrm{ln}(Q^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)]^2}$$
(2.36)
which becomes sufficiently accurate only for $`Q^2`$ $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ $`m_c^22`$ GeV2 with  $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}^{(f=4,5,6)}=257,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}173.4},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}68.1}`$ MeV, whereas in LO ($`\beta _10`$) $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{LO}}^{(4,5,6)}=175,132,66.5`$ MeV. Furthermore, $`\beta _0^{(f)}=112f/3`$ and $`\beta _1^{(f)}=10238f/3`$. For the $`\alpha _s`$ matchings at the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ ‘thresholds’ $`QQ_f=m_f`$, i.e. $`\alpha _s^{(f+1)}(m_{f+1}^2)=\alpha _s^{(f)}(m_{f+1}^2)`$, we have used  $`m_c=1.4`$ GeV, $`m_b=4.5`$ GeV and $`m_t=175`$ GeV. On the other hand, we fix $`f=3`$ in the splitting functions $`\mathrm{\Delta }P_{ij}^{(0,1)}`$ in (2.17) and (2.18) for consistency since we treat the heavy quark sector ($`c,b,\mathrm{}`$) by the perturbatively stable full production cross sections in fixed–order perturbation theory, i.e. $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)\gamma (P^2)c\overline{c}`$ and $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)g^{\gamma (P^2)}c\overline{c}`$, etc., keeping $`m_c0`$ as will be discussed below.

For the flavor–nonsinglet case the (matrix) solutions in eqs. (2.15)–(2.18) reduce to simple equations for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\gamma (P^2)}\mathrm{\Delta }q_{\mathrm{NS}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}^n\mathrm{\Delta }k_{\mathrm{NS}}^n`$  and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{U}\mathrm{\Delta }U_{\mathrm{NS}}`$ expressed in terms of $`\mathrm{\Delta }P_{\mathrm{NS}}^{(0)n}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }P_{\mathrm{NS}}^{(1)n}`$ .

The LO results are of course entailed in the above expressions by simply dropping all the obvious higher order terms ($`\beta _1,\mathrm{\Delta }k^{(1)n},\mathrm{\Delta }U`$).

We shall also compare our quantitative results with the ones based on the virtual box input (2.13) as suggested in  for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2P^2Q^2`$. Therefore it is also useful to recall the expression for the $`n`$–moment, as defined in (2.14), of the ‘box’ $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{\mathrm{had},\mathrm{NLO}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,P^2)`$ in (2.13):

$$\mathrm{\Delta }q_{\mathrm{had},\mathrm{NLO}}^{\gamma (P^2),n}=3e_q^2\frac{\alpha }{2\pi }\left[\frac{2}{n}\frac{4}{n+1}\frac{2}{n^2}+\frac{4}{(n+1)^2}\right].$$
(2.37)
All the above solutions and expressions in Mellin $`n`$–moment space can be easily converted into the desired Bjorken–$`x`$ space by utilizing a numerical Mellin–inversion as described, for example, in ref. .

Finally, the heavy quark ($`h=c,b,\mathrm{}`$) contribution $`g_{1,h}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ to $`g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$, as mentioned at the beginning, consists of two contributions, the ‘direct’ one and a ‘resolved’ one. The ‘direct’ contribution derives  from the polarized box diagram $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)\gamma h\overline{h}`$, where the polarized virtual target photon has to be treated as a real polarized photon $`\gamma \gamma (P^2=0)`$ in order to comply with our continuity condition at $`P^2=0`$,

$$g_{1,h}^{\mathrm{dir}}(x,Q^2)=3e_h^4\frac{\alpha }{2\pi }\theta (\beta ^2)\left[(2x1)\mathrm{ln}\frac{1+\beta }{1\beta }+\beta (34x)\right]$$
(2.38)
where $`\beta ^2=14m_h^2/W^2=14m_h^2x/(1x)Q^2`$ and $`h=c,b,t`$. The ‘resolved’ contribution derives from the polarized subprocess $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)gh\overline{h}`$ and is given by

$$g_{1,h}^{\mathrm{res}}(x,Q^2)=_{y_{\mathrm{min}}}^1\frac{dy}{y}\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}(y,\mu _F^2)\widehat{g}_{1,h}^{\gamma ^{}gh\overline{h}}(\frac{x}{y},Q^2)$$
(2.39)
where $`\widehat{g}_{1,h}^{\gamma ^{}gh\overline{h}}(x,Q^2)`$ is given by (2.22) with $`e_h^4\alpha e_h^2\alpha _s(\mu _F^2)/6`$, $`y_{\mathrm{min}}=x(1+4m_h^2/Q^2)`$ and $`\mu _F^24m_h^2`$. These contributions add up to $`g_{1,h}^{\gamma (P^2)}=g_{1,h}^{\mathrm{dir}}+g_{1,h}^{\mathrm{res}}`$. We state these LO results for completeness despite the fact that the NLO corrections have not yet been calculated and that the heavy quark (charm) contribution will be immaterial for our more illustrative quantitative purposes.

## 3 Quantitative Results

Typical LO and NLO maximal and minimal expectations for $`\mathrm{\Delta }u^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ for real and virtual polarized photons at $`Q^2=10`$ GeV2 are shown in figs. 1 and 2 which follow from our ‘maximal’ input scenario in (2.10) and the ‘minimal’ input scenario in (2.11) which in LO is identical to the ‘pointlike’ solution in (2.8) as given by eqs. (2.15) and (2.17). Due to the hadronic component (2.10) in (2.8), the difference between the ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ scenario is of course very large for medium and small values of $`x`$ for a real $`(P^2=0)`$ photon, whereas this difference almost disappears already for $`P^2=1`$ GeV2, except for $`\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ at very small $`x`$ in fig. 2, due to the suppression of the hadronic contribution by the dipole factor $`\eta (P^2)`$ in (2.10) and (2.11). Also noteworthy is the perturbative LO/NLO stability of $`\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ which seems to hold in the large and small $`x`$–region as exemplified in figs. 1 and 2. Thus, for $`P^2`$ $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ 1 GeV2, the structure functions of longitudinally polarized virtual photons are expected to be dominated by the perturbatively uniquely calculable ‘pointlike’ contribution. The predicted $`Q^2`$–dependence at various fixed values of the virtuality $`P^2`$ is depicted in figs. 3 and 4. The resulting polarized structure function $`g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ is shown in fig. 5 at some typical scales $`Q^2`$ and virtualities $`P^2`$, with the kinematical constraint $`xQ^2/(Q^2+P^2)`$ taken into account. For illustration we also display the ‘direct’ heavy quark (charm) contribution according to eq. (2.22), whereas the ‘resolved’ contribution in (2.23) is much smaller at the scales considered.

We also compared our quantitative results with the ones based on the virtual box input (2.13), or (2.21), as studied by Sasaki and Uematsu  for $`P^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$. Although we fully confirm quantitatively their NLO results  for $`\mathrm{\Delta }q^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$, we disagree even with their corrected ones  for $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$, despite the fact that we agree with their analytic expressions for $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ as given, for example, by eq. (3.16) of ref. . This discrepancy is illustrated in fig. 6 where, following , the $`Q^2`$–evolution has been performed for fixed $`f=3`$ flavors, using $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.2`$ GeV. (Notice that there is a trivial overall normalization difference due to the common factor of $`\frac{1}{2}`$ on the r.h.s. of (2.2) which has not been adopted in ).

Next we turn to a comparison of our polarized structure functions with the rather well established unpolarized ones of real as well as of virtual photons. The fundamental positivity constraint $`|\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma |\sigma `$ always refers to the experimentally measurable cross sections or, in other words, to the directly measurable structure functions, i.e.

$$|g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)|F_1^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2),$$
(3.1)
implying $`|A_1^{\gamma (P^2)}||g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}/F_1^{\gamma (P^2)}|1`$. Here $`F_1^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ (not $`F_2^{\gamma (P^2)}`$) is the spin–averaged analog of the spin–dependent $`g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ in (2.2):

$`F_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{q=u,d,s}{}}e_q^2\{q^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)+\overline{q}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(Q^2)}{2\pi }}`$ (3.2)
$`\times [C_{q,1}(q+\overline{q})^{\gamma (P^2)}+2C_{g,1}g^{\gamma (P^2)}]+2e_q^2{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2\pi }}C_{\gamma ,1}(x)\}`$
with $`q=q_++q_{}`$ and $`g=g_++g_{}`$ as compared to the spin–dependent $`\mathrm{\Delta }q=q_+q_{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }g=g_+g_{}`$ in (2.2) in terms of the positive and negative helicity densities $`q_\pm `$ and $`g_\pm `$. The NLO coefficient functions in (3.2) refer, as in (2.2), to the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ factorization scheme and are given by

$`C_{q,1}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`C_{q,2}(x){\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}x`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}[(1+x^2)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}(1x)}{1x}}\right)_+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1x)_+}}{\displaystyle \frac{1+x^2}{1x}}\mathrm{ln}x+3`$
$`({\displaystyle \frac{9}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{3}})\delta (1x)]`$
$`C_{g,1}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`C_{g,2}(x){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}x(1x)`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left\{\left[x^2+(1x)^2\right]\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{1x}{x}}+4x(1x)1\right\}`$
$`C_{\gamma ,1}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{(1/2)}}C_{g,1}(x)`$ (3.3)
which have been used in (2.11). The DISγ,1 factorization scheme  associated with $`F_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ and used in the previous Section is then obtained by absorbing again the entire ‘direct’ $`C_{\gamma ,1}`$ term in (3.2) into the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ quark densities $`q^{\gamma (P^2)}=\overline{q}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$:

$`(q+\overline{q})_{\mathrm{DIS}_{\gamma ,1}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ $`=`$ $`(q+\overline{q})^{\gamma (P^2)}+e_q^2{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\pi }}C_{\gamma ,1}(x)`$
$`g_{\mathrm{DIS}_{\gamma ,1}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ $`=`$ $`g^{\gamma (P^2)},`$ (3.4)
in complete analogy to the definition of the polarized DISΔγ factorization scheme in (2.5). Again, this redefinition of parton distributions implies that the unpolarized NLO($`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$) splitting functions $`k_{q,g}^{(1)}(x)`$ of the photon into quarks and gluons, appearing in the inhomogeneous NLO $`Q^2`$–evolution equations  for $`f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$, have to be transformed according to

$`k_q^{(1)}|_{\mathrm{DIS}_{\gamma ,1}}`$ $`=`$ $`k_q^{(1)}e_q^2P_{qq}^{(0)}C_{\gamma ,1}`$
$`k_g^{(1)}|_{\mathrm{DIS}_{\gamma ,1}}`$ $`=`$ $`k_g^{(1)}2{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}e_q^2P_{gq}^{(0)}C_{\gamma ,1}`$ (3.5)
similarly to (2.6), where the $`k_{q,g}^{(1)}(x)`$ can be found, for example, in , and $`P_{qq}^{(0)}=\mathrm{\Delta }P_{qq}^{(0)}`$ and $`P_{gq}^{(0)}=\frac{4}{3}\left[1+(1x)^2\right]/x`$. The NLO expression for $`F_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ in the DISγ,1 scheme is thus given by (3.2) with $`C_{\gamma ,1}`$ being dropped. The relevant DISγ,1 parton distributions are obtained via (2.12) from the ones in the DISγ scheme  as derived from an analysis of the data on $`F_2^\gamma (x,Q^2)`$. The results at $`Q^2=10`$ GeV2 are shown in fig. 7 for a real photon ($`P^2=0`$) and a virtual one with $`P^2=1`$ GeV2, and are compared with the polarized structure function $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ for our ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ scenario. For both cases these NLO results are in agreement  with the positivity constraint (3.1) which, moreover, is trivially satisfied in LO . This is also illustrated in fig. 8 where, for completeness, we present the asymmetry $`A_1^{\gamma (P^2)}g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}/F_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ in LO and NLO.

The corresponding asymmetries for the (un)polarized parton distributions, $`A_f^{\gamma (P^2)}\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}/f^{\gamma (P^2)}`$, are depicted in figs. 9 and 10 in LO and NLO. In LO, where cross sections (structure functions) are directly related to parton densities, the positivity constraint (3.1) for structure functions implies

$$\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)|f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)$$
(3.6)
which is clearly satisfied, $`|A_{u,g}^{\gamma (P^2)}|1`$, as shown in figs. 9 and 10 by the dashed curves. At NLO, however, a simple relation between parton distributions and cross sections no longer holds. Parton distributions are renormalization and factorization scheme dependent quantities; although universal, they are not directly observable, i.e. measurable. Hence there are NLO contributions which may violate (3.6) in specific cases . Such a curiosity occurs for the photonic parton distributions which, for medium to large values of $`x`$, are dominated by the photon’s splitting functions $`(\mathrm{\Delta })k_{q,g}`$ appearing as inhomogeneous terms in the RG $`Q^2`$–evolution equations . Up to NLO they are given by

$$(\mathrm{\Delta })k_i(x,Q^2)=\frac{\alpha }{2\pi }(\mathrm{\Delta })k_i^{(0)}(x)+\frac{\alpha \alpha _s(Q^2)}{(2\pi )^2}(\mathrm{\Delta })k_i^{(1)}(x)$$
(3.7)
where in LO $`(\mathrm{\Delta })k_q^{(0)}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}e_q^2\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\left[x^2{}_{()}{}^{+}(1x)_{}^{2}\right]`$, $`(\mathrm{\Delta })k_g^{(0)}=0`$ and the NLO polarized (two–loop) $`\mathrm{\Delta }k_{q,g}^{(1)}`$ are given in (2.7) and the unpolarized $`k_{q,g}^{(1)}`$ are as in (3.5). Our NLO results for $`\mathrm{\Delta }u^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }d^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ still satisfy the positivity constraint (3.6) as demonstrated by the solid curves for $`A_u^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ in fig. 9 since in LO $`|\mathrm{\Delta }k_q^{(0)}|k_q^{(0)}`$ despite the fact that the subleading NLO contributions in (3.7) in general violate $`|\mathrm{\Delta }k_q^{(1)}/k_q^{(1)}|1`$. The NLO gluon distributions, however, violate (3.6) because of the vanishing of the LO terms $`(\mathrm{\Delta })k_g^{(0)}=0`$ and the now dominant NLO terms $`(\mathrm{\Delta })k_g^{(1)}`$ in (3.7) violate $`|\mathrm{\Delta }k_g^{(1)}/k_g^{(1)}|1`$. This violation  of the NLO gluon ‘positivity’ is illustrated by the solid curves in fig. 10 for $`A_g^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ where $`A_g^{\gamma (P^2)}>1`$ for $`x`$ $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ 0.6 and 0.7 – 0.85 for the ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ scenario, respectively.

Finally it should be mentioned that sum rules for the first $`(n=1)`$ moment of $`g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ have been derived for a real $`(P^2=0)`$  and truly virtual $`(P^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)`$  polarized photon. Since our $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ of a virtual photon in (2.2) refers to splitting and coefficient functions of on–shell partons and (real) photons, as dictated by our continuity condition at $`P^2=0`$, it is the real–photon sum rule  that matters in our case,

$$_0^1𝑑xg_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)=0,$$
(3.8)
which derives from current conservation. Since this sum rule is maintained for all $`Q^2`$ as can be shown by inspecting  the relevant LO and NLO evolution kernels and coefficient functions in (2.2) and (2.15) – (2.18) for $`n=1`$, in particular the vanishing of the $`n=1`$ moment of $`\mathrm{\Delta }C_\gamma `$ in (2.4), it can be realized by demanding at the input scale $`Q^2=\stackrel{~}{P}^2`$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }q^{\gamma (P^2),n=1}(\stackrel{~}{P}^2)=0,$$
(3.9)
whereas the photonic gluon distribution remains unconstrained. Our LO ‘minimal’ scenario in (2.11), which corresponds just to the ‘pointlike’ solution in (2.8), obviously satisfies (3.9) because of (2.9). On the other hand one could rather easily enforce artificially  the vanishing of the $`n=1`$ moment of $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,\stackrel{~}{P}^2)`$ in the ‘maximal’ scenario (2.10) as well as of the NLO ‘minimal’ input in (2.11), but in view of our present complete ignorance of the hadronic component of a polarized photon we refrain from doing that. Since our quantitative speculations refer here mainly to, say, $`x`$ $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ $`10^2`$, the current conservation constraint (3.9) for the non–vanishing inputs could be accounted for by contributions from smaller $`x`$ which do not affect of course the evolutions at larger $`x`$.

For completeness it should also be mentioned that for the truly virtual region $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2P^2Q^2`$, i.e. if one disregards the continuity to $`P^2=0`$, the sum rule (3.8) gets replaced by the relation

$$_0^1𝑑xg_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)=0\frac{3\alpha }{2\pi }\underset{q=u,d,s}{}e_q^4+𝒪\left(\alpha \alpha _s(Q^2)\right)$$
(3.10)
where the LO $`𝒪(\alpha /\alpha _s)`$ contribution vanishes and the finite NLO$`𝒪(\alpha )`$ term derives essentially from the $`n=1`$ moment of the polarized doubly–virtual ‘box’ $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)\gamma (P^2)q\overline{q}`$ in (2.13) to $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ in (2.2), cf. eq. (2.21). The NNLO–$`𝒪(\alpha \alpha _s)`$ contribution in (3.10) has been calculated as well in . (It should be noted that different normalization and sign conventions for $`g_1`$ have been used in these latter references.) Again, this $`P^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ approach could be smoothly extrapolated to $`P^2=0`$, where the sum rule (3.8) holds, by multiplying the r.h.s. of (3.10) by a form factor like  $`\zeta (P^2)=P^2/(P^2+Q_0^2)`$, as has already been discussed after eq. (2.13), where $`Q_0^21`$ GeV2, i.e. tpyically  $`Q_0^2=𝒪(m_\rho ^2)`$.

## 4 The Nonresummed QED ‘Box’ Contribution

An interesting question concerning the photon structure functions is where the effects due to the RG resummation actually show up. This question was studied for the unpolarized photon in  by comparing the contribution of the non–resummed QED ‘box’ cross sections for $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)\gamma (P^2)q\overline{q}`$ to their QCD RG–improved counterparts.

In the present context this amounts to comparing $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)_{\mathrm{box}}`$, as derived from the longitudinally polarized ‘box’ subprocess $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }^{}(Q^2)\stackrel{}{\gamma }(P^2)q\overline{q}`$, with $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ as evaluated according to the prescriptions in Section 2. The general polarized doubly–virtual box result for the colored three light $`q=u,d,s`$ quarks ($`m_q=0`$) is given by

$`2g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)_{\mathrm{box}}`$ $`=`$ $`3\left({\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}e_q^4\right){\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{\beta }^5}}\{(2x1)(12\delta )\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{1+\overline{\beta }}{1\overline{\beta }}}`$
$`+\overline{\beta }[24x(12\delta )4\delta ]8\delta x(1x\delta )[2\delta x\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{1+\overline{\beta }}{1\overline{\beta }}}\overline{\beta }]\}`$
where $`\delta =xP^2/Q^2`$ and $`\overline{\beta }^2=14x\delta `$. It should be noticed that the third term proportional to $`8\delta x\mathrm{}`$ does not have any partonic interpretation since it corresponds to spin–flip transitions for each of the photons with total helicity conservation, i.e. it derives from the combination of helicity amplitudes  $`W_{++,00}W_{0+,0}`$ with $`W_{a^{}b^{},ab}`$ for the transition $`aba^{}b^{}`$. (We have corrected for a sign misprint in eq. (E.1) of ref.  which results in $`\overline{\beta }`$ in the last term in (4.1) .)

It is instructive to recall the asymptotic result of our polarized virtual ($`P^20`$) box expression derived from (4.1) in the Bjorken limit $`Q^2P^2`$:

$$2g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)_{\mathrm{box}}3\left(\underset{q}{}e_q^4\right)\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\left\{(2x1)\mathrm{ln}\frac{Q^2}{P^2}+(2x1)\left(\mathrm{ln}\frac{1}{x^2}2\right)\right\}$$
(4.2)
where the appropriate ‘finite’ contribution has been already used in (2.13). The universal process independent part of this pointlike box expression proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}Q^2/P^2`$ may be used to define formally, as in the case of an unpolarized photon , light (anti)quark distributions in the polarized photon $`\gamma (P^2)`$:

$$2g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)_{\mathrm{box}}|_{\mathrm{univ}.}\underset{q=u,d,s}{}e_q^2\left[\mathrm{\Delta }q_{\mathrm{box}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q}_{\mathrm{box}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)\right]$$
(4.3)
with

$$\mathrm{\Delta }q_{\mathrm{box}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)=\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q}_{\mathrm{box}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)=3e_q^2\frac{\alpha }{2\pi }(2x1)\mathrm{ln}\frac{Q^2}{P^2}.$$
(4.4)
It should be noted that these naive, i.e. not QCD–resummed, box expressions do not imply a gluon component in the polarized photon, $`\mathrm{\Delta }g_{\mathrm{box}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)=0`$.

Furthermore, in order to demonstrate the importance of $`𝒪(P^2/Q^2)`$ power corrections in the large $`P^2`$ region for photonic quark distributions, it is sometimes also useful  to define, generalizing the definition (4.3), some ‘effective’ non–universal (anti)quark distributions as common via

$$2g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)_{\mathrm{box}}\underset{q=u,d,s}{}e_q^2\left[\mathrm{\Delta }q_{\mathrm{eff}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q}_{\mathrm{eff}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)\right]$$
(4.5)
where, of course, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{\mathrm{eff}}^{\gamma (P^2)}=\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q}_{\mathrm{eff}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ and the full box expression for $`g_{1,\mathrm{box}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ is given by (4.1). The full box expression implies again $`\mathrm{\Delta }g_{\mathrm{eff}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)=0`$ in contrast to the QCD resummed finite gluon distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$.

Our QCD–resummed total light quark distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)2_{q=u,d,s}`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }q^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ is compared in fig. 11 with the corresponding universal ‘box’ expectation according to (4.4) and with the ‘effective’ densities as defined in (4.5) which indicate the relevance of possible $`𝒪(P^2/Q^2)`$ terms. In particular in the small $`x`$ region, $`x`$ $`\stackrel{<}{}`$ $`0.3`$, these latter two distributions differ significantly from the QCD resummed one. Furthermore the polarized gluon distribution, which does not exist within the box–approach, becomes comparable to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ below $`x`$ $`\stackrel{<}{}`$ $`0.5`$ and dominates, as ususal, in the small–$`x`$ region, as in the case of an unpolarized virtual photon . Thus it should be possible to distinguish between the naive box expectations and the QCD RG–improved parton distributions of a polarized photon with future dijet production measurements in polarized deep inelastic $`\stackrel{}{e}\stackrel{}{p}`$ experiments. Here the production rates will, in LO, be related to an effective polarized parton density

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{f}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)=\underset{q=u,d,s}{}\left[\mathrm{\Delta }q^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)\right]+\frac{11}{4}\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2),$$
(4.6)
with a similar relation for the proton $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{f}^p(x,Q^2)`$ which is assumed to be known. This equation is the polarized counterpart of a similar relation extracted from unpolarized subprocesses  as utilized  for calculating the high–$`p_T`$ dijet production rates in unpolarized $`ep`$ collisions.

Finally we compare in fig. 12 our QCD RG–improved predictions for the polarized structure functions $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ for the light $`u,d,s`$ quarks, to be measured in polarized $`\stackrel{}{e}^+\stackrel{}{e}^{}e^+e^{}X`$ experiments, with the expectations of the naive box results in (4.1) and (4.2). Evidently, differences between these expectations may be experimentally discernible only in the small–$`x`$ region, $`x`$ $`\stackrel{<}{}`$ $`0.2`$.

## 5 Summary

The presently unknown parton distributions, $`\mathrm{\Delta }f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$, of the polarized real and virtual photon were studied in LO and NLO within the context of two extreme scenarios for their inputs at some low resolution scale. In particular it was shown how one may reasonably implement the physical requirement of their continuity at $`P^2=0`$ in the nontrivial case of a NLO analysis. The extreme ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ saturation scenarios are defined in NLO via eqs. (2.10) and (2.11), respectively, where the choice of the DISγ,1 factorization scheme in eq. (2.10) as well as the content of eq. (2.11) were dictated by the positivity constraint $`|g_1^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)|F_1^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$. The hadronic input in (2.10) is obtained from an analysis  of the unpolarized real photon data on $`F_2^\gamma (x,Q^2)`$ via the relation (2.12).

Finally we compare in figs. 11 and 12 the QCD resummed predictions of the ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ saturation models with results obtained within the framework of a simple non–resummed quark ‘box’ $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)\gamma (P^2)q\overline{q}`$ calculation (where a gluon distribution in $`\gamma (P^2)`$ does not exist), expected to yield reasonable estimates in the not too small regions of $`x`$ and $`P^2`$.

Acknowledgements

We thank I. Schienbein for helpful discussions concerning the calculation and results of the polarized box contribution. This work has been supported in part by the ‘Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie’, Berlin/Bonn.

Figure Captions

* Typical LO and NLO(DISΔγ) expectations for the parton densities of a real $`(P^2=0)`$ and virtual polarized photon at a common scale of $`Q^2=10`$ GeV2, which follow from our ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ input scenarios in eqs. (2.10) and (2.11), respectively.
* Same as in fig. 1 but plotted for a logarithmic $`x`$–scale in order to illustrate the small–$`x`$ structure of the polarized distributions.
* The predicted $`Q^2`$–dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }u^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ in NLO(DISΔγ) at various fixed values of the virtuality $`P^2`$ according to the ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ input scenarios in eqs. (2.10) and (2.11), respectively. For $`P^2=1`$ GeV2 the results at $`Q^2=2`$ GeV2 are, for obvious reasons, not displayed anymore.
* As fig. 3 but for $`\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ in NLO.
* The resulting NLO predictions of the polarized structure function $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ for the light $`u,d,s`$ quarks as defined in (2.2), according to the ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ input scenarios in eqs. (2.10) and (2.11), respectively. Notice that the virtual photon structure function is kinematically constrained within $`0x(1+P^2/Q^2)^1`$. For comparison the charm contribution at $`Q^2=10`$ GeV2 is shown as well according to the ‘direct’ box expression (2.22) using $`m_c=1.4`$ GeV. The ‘resolved’ contribution in (2.23) is marginal in the kinematic region considered.
* The polarized virtual photon structure function $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ for the $`f=3`$ light quark flavors at $`Q^2=30`$ GeV2 and $`P^2=1`$ GeV$`{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$, where $`N=(3/2)_qe_q^4(\alpha /\pi )\mathrm{ln}(Q^2/P^2)`$ with $`_qe_q^4=2/9`$. Our NLO result is compared with the one presented in the second reference of ref. .
* The unpolarized and polarized structure functions $`F_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ and $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ in NLO for the three light $`u,d,s`$ quarks as defined in eqs. (3.2) and (2.2), respectively. $`F_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ has been calculated according to the analysis of ref. . The results for the polarized structure function $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ refer to the ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ scenarios in eqs. (2.10) and (2.11), respectively. The Bjorken–$`x`$ is kinematically constrained by $`x(1+P^2/Q^2)^1`$.
* The spin asymmetries $`A_1^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}/F_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ in LO and NLO for the ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ scenario for $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}`$. The NLO results are of course directly related to the ones of fig. 7.
* The up–quark spin asymmetry $`A_u^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)\mathrm{\Delta }u^{\gamma (P^2)}/u^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ with $`\mathrm{\Delta }u^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ being calculated according to the ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ scenarios in eqs. (2.10) and (2.11), respectively, and the unpolarized $`u^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ is calculated according to the DISγ results of ref.  using eq. (2.12). The polarized NLO distributions refer to the DISΔγ factorization scheme defined in (2.5), whereas the unpolarized NLO distributions are calculated in the DISγ,1 scheme as defined in (3.4).
* As in fig. 9 but for the gluon spin asymmetry $`A_g^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}/g^{\gamma (P^2)}`$.
* Comparing the LO QCD–resummed total polarized light quark distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)2_{q=u,d,s}\mathrm{\Delta }q^{\gamma (P^2)}`$ and the polarized gluon distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ in the ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ scenario with the naive universal ‘box’ results defined in (4.4), and with the ‘effective’ distributions derived from (4.5). Notice that it is the quantity $`(11/4)\mathrm{\Delta }g^{\gamma (P^2)}`$, which appears in the effective polarized parton density in (4.6), that will be directly accessible by future experiments.
* Comparing the LO– and NLO–QCD results for the polarized structure function $`g_{1,\mathrm{}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ for the light $`u,d,s`$ quarks for the ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ input scenarios in (2.10) and (2.11) with the expectations due to the ‘full box’ in (4.1) and its ‘asymptotic box’ approximation given in (4.2) for $`Q^2P^2`$.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The construction of a high-$`p_T`$ trigger is an attempt to broaden the physics reach of the HERA-B experiment beyond it’s main goal of measuring sin$`2\beta `$ through the decay mode $`B^0J/\psi K_s^0`$. Some of the possibilities include measurement of the angles $`\alpha `$ and $`\gamma `$ through hadronic B decays such as $`B^0\pi ^+\pi ^{},\pi ^{}K^+`$ and $`B^0\pi ^\pm K^{},D^+\pi ^{}`$, respectively.? In addition, this trigger can be useful to constrain the $`B_s`$-$`\overline{B}_s`$ mixing parameter $`x_s`$.

The HERA-B experiment produces $`b`$ mesons and baryons by colliding 920 GeV/c protons in the HERA storage ring with 4-8 fixed wire targets. The nominal interaction rate is 20-40 MHz. The configuration of detectors downstream of the targets are: a silicon vertex detector for reconstruction of decay vertices; a tracking system for momentum measurement; and lepton ($`e`$, $`\mu `$) and hadron ($`\pi `$, $`K`$ and $`p`$) identification systems consisting of an electromagnetic calorimeter, gas ionization chambers interleaved with iron plates, and a Ring-Imaging Cherenkov counter (RICH). Detailed descriptions of these detectors can be found elsewhere.?

## 2 High-$`P_T`$ Trigger System

The objective of the high-$`p_T`$ trigger system is to identify high-$`p_T`$ hadrons. This is done by selecting high-$`p_T`$ track candidates in an event based on the hit patterns in the trigger chambers with a pad-type readout placed within the spectrometer magnet. The hit positions determine “regions-of-interest” in downstream tracking chambers which are used as seeds for a Kalman-filter tracking algorithm in the First Level Trigger (FLT).

The high-$`p_T`$ tracks typically bend little or make larger angles with respect to the beam direction, and their hit patterns in the trigger chambers are distinct from those caused by minimum bias tracks. The $`p_T`$ distribution for tracks from two body decays of $`b\overline{b}`$ and minimum bias events are shown in Fig. 3. This difference in the $`p_T`$ spectrum has been exploited in the design of this trigger system.

The high-$`p_T`$ trigger chambers (12 in total) with pad readout are organized as follows: six gas-pixel chambers? for the region nearest the beam, and six straw-tube chambers with pad readout? for the larger outer region. Half the chambers are located on the $`+x`$ side of the beam and half on the $`x`$ side. For each side, the six chambers are positioned at three different distances from the target (along the beam direction); these are referred to as the PT1, PT2, and PT3 stations. The inner chambers have a total of 11960 channels and an angular acceptance in the bending view of 10 $`<`$$`\theta `$$`<`$ 60 mrad. The outer chambers have a total of 6240 channels and an angular acceptance of 40 $`<`$$`\theta `$$`<`$ 250 mrad. The gas-pixel chambers were constructed at ITEP, Moscow. The outer straw tube chambers were constructed at the University of Cincinnati and Princeton University.

## 3 Implementation of the Trigger Scheme

The nominal high-$`p_T`$ track pre-selection is based on a 1-3-2 coincidence algorithm: combination of one pad in PT1 with three pads in PT2, and each of the three pads in PT2 with two pads in PT3. A sketch of this triple-pad-coincidence scheme is shown in Fig. 3. The scheme is implemented in the trigger electronics and can be modified in situ depending on the background level. Based on the 1-3-2 algorithm, the Monte Carlo estimation of trigger efficiency for pions from $`B\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ decays is shown in Fig. 3. With an input data rate of $`2\times 10^{11}`$ bits per second, the high-$`p_T`$ trigger system is expected to process approximately $`3\times 10^{12}`$ coincidence patterns (for 1-3-2 algorithm) per second and send the kinematic information to the FLT. At an interaction rate of 40 MHz, the typical output data rate is expected to be $`𝒪(10^7)`$ messages per second. The high-$`p_T`$ trigger logic hardware is designed to successfully handle $`1.5\times 10^8`$ messages per second.

References


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# Contents

## 1 Introduction

In modern particle physics, all the fundamental forces are considered to be mediated by the corresponding gauge bosons. The gauge boson is described by the gauge theory which is characterized by its invariance under the gauge transformation of the fundamental fields. The gauge invariance is a guiding principle to determine the form of the interaction between gauge fields and matter fields through the minimal coupling. In quantizing the gauge theory, however, we need to fix (or reduce) the gauge degrees of freedom, i.e., the redundant degrees of freedom associated with the gauge transformation. After the prescription of gauge fixing, the gauge theory no longer has the gauge symmetry. Nevertheless, it has been discovered that the gauge theory after the gauge fixing possesses a kind of global supersymmetry called the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) symmetry  which plays the fundamental role in the gauge theory. In fact, all the Ward-Takahashi and Slavnov-Taylor identities associated with the local gauge symmetry are derived from the global BRST supersymmetry.

The BRST symmetry is a continuous global symmetry, while the gauge symmetry is a continuous local symmetry. For the Yang-Mills gauge theory, the BRST transformation is given by

$`𝜹_B𝒜_\mu (x)`$ $`=𝒟_\mu [𝒜]𝒞(x):=_\mu 𝒞(x)+g(𝒜_\mu (x)\times 𝒞(x)),`$ (1a)
$`𝜹_B𝒞(x)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g(𝒞(x)\times 𝒞(x)),`$
$`𝜹_B\overline{𝒞}(x)`$ $`=i(x),`$
$`𝜹_B(x)`$ $`=0,`$
where111We use the following notation:
$$FG:=F^AG^A,F^2:=FF,(F\times G)^A:=f^{ABC}F^BG^C,$$
where $`f^{ABC}`$ are the structure constants of the Lie algebra $`𝒢`$ of the gauge group $`G`$.  $`𝒜_\mu ,,𝒞`$ and $`\overline{𝒞}`$ are the gauge field, Nakanishi-Lautrap (NL) auxiliary field, Faddeev–Popov (FP) ghost and anti-ghost fields respectively. It is important to notice that the ghost field $`𝒞`$ and the anti-ghost field $`\overline{𝒞}`$ are Hermitian fields which are mutually independent, i.e., $`𝒞^{}(x)=𝒞(x)`$, $`\overline{𝒞}^{}(x)=\overline{𝒞}(x)`$. (Note that $`\overline{𝒞}`$ is neither the complex conjugate $`𝒞^{}`$ of $`𝒞`$ nor the Hermitian conjugate $`𝒞^{}`$ of $`𝒞`$). By this assignment, the total Lagrangian of the Yang-Mills theory with the gauge fixing (GF) and FP ghost term becomes hermitian. As suggested from the observation that the role of $`𝒞`$ and $`\overline{𝒞}`$ is asymmetric in the BRST transformation, there is another BRST transformation, say anti-BRST transformation ), given by

$`\overline{𝜹}_B𝒜_\mu (x)`$ $`=𝒟_\mu [𝒜]\overline{𝒞}(x):=_\mu \overline{𝒞}(x)+g(𝒜_\mu (x)\times \overline{𝒞}(x)),`$ (2a)
$`\overline{𝜹}_B\overline{𝒞}(x)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g(\overline{𝒞}(x)\times \overline{𝒞}(x)),`$
$`\overline{𝜹}_B𝒞(x)`$ $`=i\overline{}(x),`$
$`\overline{𝜹}_B\overline{}(x)`$ $`=0,`$
where $`\overline{}`$ is defined by

$$\overline{}(x)=(x)+ig(𝒞(x)\times \overline{𝒞}(x)).$$
(3)
It is well known that the manifest covariant formulation of the gauge theory needs an indefinite inner product space $`𝒱`$. The BRST symmetry plays the crucial role to single out the physical state space $`𝒱_{\text{phys}}`$ with positive semi-definite metric as a subspace of $`𝒱`$. In fact, it has been shown by Kugo and Ojima  that the physical state is invariant under the BRST transformation, in other words, the physical state is characterized by the generator $`Q_B`$ of the BRST transformation (i.e., the BRST charge $`Q_B`$) as

$$Q_B|\mathrm{phys}=0,$$
(4)
where $`𝜹_B𝒪=[iQ_B,𝒪]_\pm `$. Similarly to (4), the following condition is also imposed:

$$\overline{Q}_B|\mathrm{phys}=0,$$
(5)
without any inconsistency and without any change in the physical contents of the theory. Moreover, an additional condition for the ghost number operator $`Q_c`$ can be imposed:

$$Q_C|\mathrm{phys}=0.$$
(6)
The generators $`Q_B,\overline{Q}_B,Q_c`$ form the BRST algebra :

$`i[Q_B,Q_C]`$ $`=Q_B,`$ $`i[\overline{Q}_B,Q_C]`$ $`=\overline{Q}_B,`$
$`\{Q_B,Q_B\}`$ $`=0,`$ $`\{\overline{Q}_B,\overline{Q}_B\}`$ $`=0,`$ $`\{Q_B,\overline{Q}_B\}=0.`$
This relation implies that $`Q_B(\overline{Q}_B)`$ generates the translation $`\theta \theta +\lambda (\overline{\theta }\overline{\theta }+\overline{\lambda })`$ and $`Q_c`$ the dilatation $`\theta e^\rho \theta `$ with $`\theta `$ and $`\lambda `$ being the real elements of the Grassmann algebra and $`\rho `$ a real number . The BRST symmetry is a supersymmetry in the sense that the BRST transformation changes the commuting variable into the anti-commuting one and vice versa.

In the paper , however, Fujikawa emphasized that the BRST supersymmetry in non-Abelian gauge theories is not what it to be imposed on the theory but rather what is to be proved. The spontaneous breakdown of the BRST symmetry is demonstrated by a non-gauge model and it is examined also in non-Abelian gauge theories. It is pointed out that the dynamical stability of BRST supersymmetry is closely related to the so-called Gribov problem for the Lorentz type gauge $`_\mu 𝒜^\mu =0`$.

In this paper, we discuss the spontaneous BRST supersymmetry breaking in the Yang-Mills theory with the GF plus FP ghost term $`_{GF+FP}`$ which has the characteristic features enumerated below. In particular, we discuss the Delbourgo–Jarvis–Baulieu–Thierry-Mieg (DJBT) gauge  and the modified Maximally Abelian (MA) gauge . Both gauge satisfy the following properties:

1. $`_{GF+FP}`$ is BRST invariant, i.e., $`𝜹_B_{GF+FP}=0`$, due to nilpotency of the BRST transformation $`𝜹_B^20`$.
2. $`_{GF+FP}`$ is anti-BRST invariant, i.e., $`\overline{𝜹}_B_{GF+FP}=0`$, due to nilpotency of the anti-BRST transformation $`\overline{𝜹}_B^20`$.
3. $`_{GF+FP}`$ is invariant under the $`OSp(4|2)`$ rotation among the component fields in the supermultiplet $`(𝒜_\mu ,𝒞,\overline{𝒞})`$ defined on the superspace $`(x_\mu ,\theta ,\overline{\theta })`$. The hidden supersymmetry causes the dimensional reduction in the sense of Parisi-Sourlas. Then the 4-dimensional GF+FP sector reduces to the 2-dimensional nonlinear sigma model. See ref.  for more details.
4. $`_{GF+FP}`$ is invariant under the FP ghost conjugation,

$$𝒞^A\pm \overline{𝒞}^A,\overline{𝒞}^A𝒞^A,^A\overline{}^A,\overline{}^A^A,(𝒜_\mu ^A𝒜_\mu ^A).$$
(7)
Therefore, $`𝒞`$ and $`\overline{𝒞}`$ can be treated on equal footing. In other words, the theory is totally symmetric under the exchange of $`𝒞`$ and $`\overline{𝒞}`$.
5. The total Yang-Mills theory with the GF+FP term $`_{GF+FP}`$ is (multiplicatively) renormalizable, see  and . In particular, the naive MA gauge

$$_{GF+FP}=i𝜹_B\left[\overline{C}^a\left\{D_\mu [a]A^\mu +\frac{\alpha }{2}B\right\}^a\right]$$
(8)
spoils the renormalizability. This is because the MA gauge is a nonlinear gauge. For the renormalizability of the Yang-Mills theory in the MA gauge, therefore, we need the four-ghost interaction from the beginning. In fact, the renormalizability of the Yang-Mills theory in Abelian gauge supplemented with the four-ghost interaction was proved to all orders in perturbation theory .

In the following argument, thus, existence of both the BRST symmetry and the anti-BRST symmetry is essential. In this paper we discuss the possibility of the spontaneous breakdown of the BRST or anti-BRST symmetry due to ghost–anti-ghost condensation.222 In this paper, we assume that the ghost number is not spontaneously broken, i.e., $`Q_C|\mathrm{phys}=0`$, even if $`Q_B|\mathrm{phys}0`$, or $`\overline{Q}_B|\mathrm{phys}0`$. Therefore, we have for example $`C\times C=0=\overline{C}\times \overline{C}`$.  This type of condensation has been proposed recently  as a mechanism of providing the masses of off-diagonal gluons and off-diagonal ghosts in the Yang-Mills theory in the Maximally Abelian gauge. This mechanism can give an evidence of the infrared Abelian dominance , thereby justifies the dual superconductor picture  of QCD vacuum for explaining quark confinement . Finally, we discuss a relationship between the spontaneous breaking of BRST symmetry and the Gribov problem .

## 2 Delbourgo–Jarvis and Baulieu–Thierry-Mieg gauge

First, we examine an orthosymplectic $`OSp(4|1)`$ invariant gauge fixing term proposed by Delbourgo–Jarvis and Baulieu–Thierry-Mieg (DJBT) . For the gauge group $`G=SU(N)`$, it reads

$$_{GF+FP}=i𝜹_B\overline{𝜹}_B\left(\frac{1}{2}𝒜_\mu ^A𝒜^\mu {}_{}{}^{A}\frac{\alpha }{2}i𝒞^A\overline{𝒞}^A\right)(A=1,\mathrm{},N^21).$$
(9)
By performing the BRST transformation explicitly, the GF+FP term is rewritten as

$`_{GF+FP}`$ $`=_\mu 𝒜^\mu +i\overline{𝒞}_\mu 𝒟^\mu [𝒜]𝒞`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}ig(𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{8}}g^2(\overline{𝒞}\times \overline{𝒞})(𝒞\times 𝒞)`$
$`=_\mu 𝒜^\mu +i\overline{𝒞}_\mu 𝒟^\mu [𝒜]𝒞`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}ig(𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{4}}g^2(i𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})(i𝒞\times \overline{𝒞}).`$
First, we examine the case of non-zero $`\alpha `$. The GF+FP term can be recast into

$`_{GF+FP}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ig(𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha }}_\mu 𝒜^\mu \right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\alpha }}(_\mu 𝒜^\mu )^2`$
$`+i\overline{𝒞}_\mu 𝒟^\mu [𝒜]𝒞+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{8}}g^2(i𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})(i𝒞\times \overline{𝒞}).`$
Although the NL field $``$ can be removed by performing the Gaussian integration, we retain it to discuss the breaking of BRST symmetry, since $``$ could be an order parameter for the BRST symmetry breaking as shown shortly. (Note that in order to perform the integration over the NL field, we must shift the $``$ field. If the $``$ field has a non-vanishing vacuum expectation value (VEV), this procedure is nontrivial.) We define the potential $`V()`$ for the bosonic field $``$ by

$$V()=\frac{\alpha }{2}\left(\frac{1}{2}ig(𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})+\frac{1}{\alpha }_\mu 𝒜^\mu \right)^2.$$
(10)
This potential has an absolute minimum (maximum) for negative (positive) value of $`\alpha `$ at

$$=\frac{1}{2}ig(𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})\frac{1}{\alpha }_\mu 𝒜^\mu .$$
(11)
By keeping the Lorentz invariance, we have $`𝒜^\mu =0`$ and hence the vacuum state $`|0`$ obeys

$$0|^A|0=\frac{1}{2}g0|i(𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})^A|0.$$
(12)
Suppose that the ghost–anti-ghost condensation occurs,

$$0|i(𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})^A|00.$$
(13)
Then the NL field $``$ acquires the non-vanishing VEV and the spontaneous breaking of the BRST symmetry occurs, since

$$0|𝜹_B\overline{𝒞}^A|0:=0|\{iQ_B,\overline{𝒞}^A\}|0i0|^A|0=\frac{1}{2}ig0|i(𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})^A|00.$$
(14)
In this case, the anti-BRST symmetry is also spontaneously broken simultaneously, since

$$0|\overline{𝜹}_B𝒞^A|0:=0|\{i\overline{Q}_B,𝒞^A\}|0i0|\overline{}^A|0=\frac{1}{2}ig0|i(𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})^A|0,$$
(15)
where we have used

$$0|\overline{}|0=0||0+ig0|(𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})|0.$$
(16)
The Noether current for the BRST symmetry is obtained as $`J_B^\mu =^{\mu \nu }𝜹_B𝒜_\nu +𝜹_B𝒜^\mu +i^\mu \overline{𝒞}𝜹_B𝒞`$. By making use of the equal-time canonical commutation relation for the anti-ghost, $`\{i(𝒟_0𝒞)^A(𝒙,t),\overline{C}^B(𝒚,t)\}=i\delta ^{AB}\delta ^3(𝒙𝒚)`$, the relation (14) is recovered as

$$0|\{iQ_B,\overline{𝒞}^B(𝒚,t)\}|0d^3𝒙0|\{iJ_B^0(𝒙,t),\overline{𝒞}^B(𝒚,t)\}|0=i0|^A(𝒚,t)|0.$$
(17)
The similar expression is also obtained for the anti-BRST symmetry in agreement with (15).

In order to determine whether such a ghost–anti-ghost condensation and the resulting spontaneous breakdown of BRST supersymmetry take place or not, it is important to evaluate the effective potential for the composite operator $`i(𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})^A`$. For $`G=SU(2)`$, the similar analysis to that performed in the paper  leads to the total bosonic effective potential:

$$V(,\phi )=V(\phi )\frac{\alpha }{2}\left(+\frac{1}{2\alpha g}\phi \right)^2,$$
(18)
where the effective potential $`V(\phi )`$ of $`\phi ^A\alpha g^20|i(𝒞\times \overline{𝒞})^A|0`$ is given by

$$V(\phi )=\frac{1}{\alpha g^2}|\phi |^2+\frac{1}{32\pi ^2}|\phi |^2[\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{|\phi |}{4\pi \mu ^2}\right)^2+C],$$
(19)
with a regularization-dependent constant $`C`$ and the renormalization scale $`\mu `$. It is easy to see that the potential $`V(\phi )`$ has stationary points for $`^A=\frac{1}{2\alpha g}\phi ^A`$ and $`|\phi |:=\sqrt{\phi ^A\phi ^A}=\phi _0`$ where $`\phi _0=4\pi \mu ^2e^{(1+C)/2}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{8\pi ^2}{\alpha g^2(\mu )}\right]`$. Note that $`\phi _0`$ exhibits the pathological behavior for $`\alpha <0`$; $`\phi _0\mathrm{}`$ as $`g0`$. Hence the ghost–anti-ghost condensation is meaningful only when $`\alpha >0`$. However, the total bosonic effective potential $`V(,\phi )`$ does not have any absolute minimum for $`\alpha >0`$. Therefore, we can not conclude that either the BRST symmetry or the anti-BRST symmetry is spontaneously broken (Here note that we don’t exclude the symmetry breaking due to other mechanisms).

In the case of $`\alpha =0`$, this gauge is reduced to the Landau gauge in the Lorentz gauge fixing. In the gauge fixing of the Lorentz type, the GF+FP term is given by

$`_{GF+FP}`$ $`=i𝜹_B\left(\overline{𝒞}\left(_\mu 𝒜^\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}\right)\right)`$
$`=_\mu 𝒜^\mu +i\overline{𝒞}_\mu 𝒟^\mu [𝒜]𝒞+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}},`$
which reads

$$_{GF+FP}=\frac{\alpha }{2}\left(+\frac{1}{\alpha }_\mu 𝒜^\mu \right)^2\frac{1}{2\alpha }(_\mu 𝒜^\mu )^2+i\overline{𝒞}_\mu 𝒟^\mu [𝒜]𝒞.$$
(20)
The minimum or maximum of the potential of the NL field $``$ occurs at $`=0`$, which implies $`0|^A|0=0`$. Therefore, in the Lorentz gauge the spontaneous BRST symmetry breaking due to the mechanism mentioned above can not occur (at least in the tree level). The above result guarantees the conventional treatment of making use of the BRST symmetry in the Lorentz gauge. (up to the Gribov problem discussed in the final section).

If a continuous symmetry is spontaneously broken, there appears a massless particle called the Nambu-Goldstone particle, according to the Nambu-Goldstone theorem. Consequently, the ghost and anti-ghost could be identified as the Nambu-Goldstone particle and hence they should be massless. Although the above consideration cannot yield any result on the gluon mass, gluons are expected to be massive in this gauge at least in the pure gauge sector . This situation is in sharp contrast with the modified MA gauge in which the off-diagonal ghost as well as off-diagonal gluons become massive (in consistent with the infrared Abelian dominance) as argued in the paper .

## 3 Modified MA gauge

First of all, we decompose the gauge potential into the diagonal and off-diagonal components, $`𝒜_\mu (x)=𝒜_\mu ^A(x)T^A=a_\mu ^i(x)T^i+A_\mu ^a(x)T^a,`$ where $`T^i`$ and $`T^a𝒢`$ with $``$ being the Cartan subalgebra of the Lie algebra $`𝒢`$. For gauge fixing of off-diagonal components, we adopt the maximal Abelian (MA) gauge. The MA gauge is a nonlinear gauge, whereas the Lorentz gauge is a linear gauge. It is known  that the introduction of the quartic ghost interaction is necessary to preserve the renormalizability of the Yang-Mills theory, since such an interaction is generated through radiative corrections even if the original Lagrangian does not involve such a term. In fact, the quartic ghost interaction can be introduced as a BRST exact form:

$$_{GF+FP}^{}=i𝜹_B\left[\overline{C}^a\left\{D_\mu [a]A^\mu +\frac{\alpha }{2}B\right\}^ai\frac{\zeta }{2}gf^{abi}\overline{C}^a\overline{C}^bC^ii\frac{\zeta }{4}gf^{abc}C^a\overline{C}^b\overline{C}^c\right].$$
(21)
By performing the BRST transformation explicitly, we obtain

$`_{GF+FP}^{}`$ $`=B^aD_\mu [a]^{ab}A^\mu {}_{}{}^{b}+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}B^aB^a`$
$`+i\overline{C}^aD_\mu [a]^{ac}D^\mu [a]^{cb}C^big^2f^{adi}f^{cbi}\overline{C}^aC^bA^\mu {}_{}{}^{c}A_{\mu }^{d}`$
$`+i\overline{C}^aD_\mu [a]^{ac}(gf^{cdb}A^\mu {}_{}{}^{d}C_{}^{b})+i\overline{C}^agf^{abi}(D^\mu [a]^{bc}A_\mu ^c)C^i`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta }{8}}g^2f^{abe}f^{cde}\overline{C}^a\overline{C}^bC^cC^d+{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta }{4}}g^2f^{abc}f^{aid}\overline{C}^b\overline{C}^cC^iC^d+{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta }{2}}gf^{abc}iB^bC^a\overline{C}^c`$
$`\zeta gf^{abi}iB^a\overline{C}^bC^i+{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta }{4}}g^2f^{abi}f^{cdi}\overline{C}^a\overline{C}^bC^cC^d\}.`$
In particular, the $`SU(2)`$ case is greatly simplified as ($`a,b,c,d=1,2`$)

$`_{GF+FP}^{}`$ $`=B^aD_\mu [a]^{ab}A^\mu {}_{}{}^{b}+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}B^aB^a`$
$`+i\overline{C}^aD_\mu [a]^{ac}D^\mu [a]^{cb}C^big^2ϵ^{ad}ϵ^{cb}\overline{C}^aC^bA^\mu {}_{}{}^{c}A_{\mu }^{d}`$
$`+i\overline{C}^agϵ^{ab}(D_\mu [a]^{bc}A_\mu ^c)C^3`$
$`\zeta gϵ^{ab}iB^a\overline{C}^bC^3+{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta }{4}}g^2ϵ^{ab}ϵ^{cd}\overline{C}^a\overline{C}^bC^cC^d.`$
However, the strength $`\zeta `$ of the quartic ghost self-interaction $`\frac{\zeta }{4}g^2f^{abi}f^{cdi}\overline{C}^a\overline{C}^bC^cC^d`$ is arbitrary. Now we adopt the modified version of the MA gauge proposed by the author ,

$$_{GF+FP}=i𝜹_B\overline{𝜹}_B[\frac{1}{2}A_\mu ^a(x)A^\mu {}_{}{}^{a}(x)\frac{\alpha }{2}iC^a(x)\overline{C}^a(x)],$$
(22)
where $`\alpha `$ corresponds to the gauge fixing parameter for the off-diagonal components, since the explicit calculation of the anti-BRST transformation $`\overline{𝜹}_B`$ yields

$$_{GF+FP}=i𝜹_B\left[\overline{C}^a\left\{D_\mu [a]A^\mu +\frac{\alpha }{2}B\right\}^ai\frac{\alpha }{2}gf^{abi}\overline{C}^a\overline{C}^bC^ii\frac{\alpha }{4}gf^{abc}C^a\overline{C}^b\overline{C}^c\right].$$
(23)
(The most general form of the MA gauge has been obtained by Hata and Niigata .) In the modified MA gauge, the requirement of the orthosymplectic ($`OSp(4|2)`$) invariance yields the quartic ghost interaction and simultaneously determines the strength $`\zeta `$ as $`\zeta =\alpha `$. For $`G=SU(2)`$, the modified MA gauge is further rewritten as

$`_{GF+FP}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}(B^agϵ^{ab}i\overline{C}^bC^3+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha }}D_\mu ^{ab}[a]A^\mu {}_{}{}^{b})^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\alpha }}(D_\mu [a]^{ab}A^\mu {}_{}{}^{b})^2`$
$`+i\overline{C}^aD_\mu [a]^{ac}D^\mu [a]^{cb}C^big^2ϵ^{ad}ϵ^{cb}\overline{C}^aC^bA^\mu {}_{}{}^{c}A_{\mu }^{d}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{4}}g^2ϵ^{ab}ϵ^{cd}\overline{C}^a\overline{C}^bC^cC^d.`$
In order to completely fix the gauge degrees of freedom, we must add the GF+FP term for the diagonal component $`a_\mu ^i`$ to (23). If we adopt the gauge fixing condition of the Lorentz type, $`^\mu a_\mu ^i=0`$ for the diagonal components,333Even for $`G=U(1)^n`$, the GF+FP term is written in the manifest $`OSp(4|2)`$ invariant form
$$_{GF+FP}^{Abelian}=i𝜹_B\overline{𝜹}_B\left[\frac{1}{2}a_\mu ^ia^\mu {}_{}{}^{i}\frac{\beta }{2}ic^i\overline{c}^i\right]=a_\mu ^i^\mu B^i+\frac{\beta }{2}B^iB^ii_\mu \overline{c}^i^\mu c^i.$$
(24)   the GF+FP term reads

$$_{GF+FP}^{diag}=i𝜹_B\left[\overline{c}^i\left(^\mu a_\mu ^i+\frac{\beta }{2}B^i\right)\right]=a_\mu ^i^\mu B^i+\frac{\beta }{2}B^iB^ii_\mu \overline{c}^i(D^\mu [A]c)^i.$$
(25)
We can rewrite it as

$`_{GF+FP}^{diag}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{2}}\left(B^i+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\beta }}^\mu a_\mu \right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\beta }}(^\mu a_\mu )^2i_\mu \overline{c}^i(D^\mu [A]c)^i`$ (26)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{2}}\left(\overline{B}^iig(C\times \overline{C})^i+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\beta }}^\mu a_\mu \right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\beta }}(^\mu a_\mu )^2i_\mu \overline{c}^i(D^\mu [A]c)^i.`$
The potential for the off-diagonal NL field $`B^a`$ has a minimum (maximum) for negative (positive) value of $`\alpha `$ at

$$B^a=gϵ^{ab}i\overline{C}^bC^3\frac{1}{\alpha }D_\mu ^{ab}[a]A^\mu {}_{}{}^{b}.$$
(27)
The vacuum $`|0`$ obeys

$$0|B^a|0=g0|ϵ^{ab}i\overline{C}^bC^3|0\frac{1}{\alpha }g0|ϵ^{ab}a^\mu A_\mu ^b|0.$$
(28)
The ghost–anti-ghost condensation $`\phi ^a:=0|ϵ^{ab}i\overline{C}^bC^3|00`$ will not occur,444This condensation is not invariant under the residual $`U(1)`$ gauge symmetry. Hence, it is excluded in the previous treatment in which the residual U(1) is preserved. because such a condensation leads to a non-zero VEV of $`B^a`$ and anti-ghost $`\overline{C}^a`$ is identified with the massless Nambu-Goldstone particle according to

$$0|𝜹_B\overline{C}^a|0:=0|\{iQ_B,\overline{C}^a\}|0i0|B^a|0.$$
(29)
This contradicts with the result  that the off-diagonal ghosts become massive due to ghost–anti-ghost condensation. The second term in the right-hand-side of (28) is also zero, because it is not invariant under the residual U(1) symmetry. Therefore, we conclude $`0|B^a|0=0`$.

Suppose that the ghost–anti-ghost condensation occurs in the sense

$$\phi ^i:=0|i(C\times \overline{C})^i|00|if^{iab}C^a\overline{C}^b|00.$$
(30)
Then the anti-BRST symmetry is spontaneously broken, since

$`0|\overline{𝜹}_BC^i|0`$ $`:=0|\{i\overline{Q}_B,C^i\}|0i0|\overline{B}^i|0`$
$`=i0|B^i|0+ig0|i(C\times \overline{C})^i|00,`$
where we have assumed $`0|B^i|0=0`$.

It should be remarked that we have excluded a possibility that the diagonal NL field $`B^i`$ acquires a non-zero VEV in such a way that the non-zero value of $`0|B^i|0`$ exactly cancels the ghost–anti-ghost condensation, $`g0|i(C\times \overline{C})^i|0`$, leading to $`0|\overline{B}^i|0=0`$. In this case, the BRST symmetry is spontaneously broken, whereas the anti-BRST symmetry remains unbroken. In fact, an arbitrary non-zero VEV, $`0|B^i|00`$ leads to the spontaneous breakdown of the BRST symmetry as

$$0|𝜹_B\overline{C}^i|0:=0|\{iQ_B,\overline{C}^i\}|0=i0|B^i|00.$$
(31)
This argument suggests that the BRST symmetry or the anti-BRST symmetry is spontaneously broken, if the condensation occurs, $`\phi ^i=0|if^{iab}C^a\overline{C}^b|00`$.

Here we recall that the BRST charge $`Q_B`$ is a generator of the translation in the Grassmann coordinate $`\theta `$, while the anti-BRST charge $`\overline{Q}_B`$ is a generator of the translation in $`\overline{\theta }`$ in the superspace $`(x^\mu ,\theta ,\overline{\theta })`$ as shown by Bonora and Tonin . The modified MA gauge fixing deals with the FP ghost and anti-ghost on equal footing. Therefore, it seems unnatural that only the anti-BRST symmetry is spontaneously broken, while the BRST symmetry remains unbroken and vice versa. The modified MA gauge has a hidden orthosymplectic symmetry $`OSp(4|2)`$, if $`\alpha 0`$ as demonstrated in . Actually, if the orthosymplectic symmetry $`OSp(4|2)`$ is not broken, we can rotate $`\theta `$ to $`\overline{\theta }`$ and vice versa. This argument suggest that both BRST and anti-BRST symmetry can be spontaneously broken, if the ghost–anti-ghost condensation of the type $`0|if^{iab}C^a\overline{C}^b|00`$ takes place.555 By using the Noether current $`J_B^\mu `$ for the BRST symmetry and the equal-time canonical commutation relation for the anti-ghost, i.e., $`\{\pi _{\overline{C}}^i(𝒙,t),\overline{C}^i(𝒚,t)\}=i\delta ^{ij}\delta ^3(𝒙𝒚),`$ it is possible to show that $`0|\{iQ_B,\overline{C}^i(𝒚,t)\}|0d^3𝒙0|\{iJ_B^0(𝒙,t),\overline{C}^i(𝒚,t)\}|0=i0|B^i|0.`$ Here we have used the explicit form, $`J_B^\mu =^{\mu \nu }𝜹_B𝒜_\nu +𝜹_B𝒜^\mu +i^\mu \overline{𝒞}𝜹_B𝒞igϵ^{ab}\overline{C}^a(𝜹_BA^\mu {}_{}{}^{b})C^3igϵ^{ab}\overline{C}^a(𝜹_Ba^\mu )C^b2igϵ^{ab}\overline{C}^aa^\mu 𝜹_BC^b.`$ The similar result holds also for the anti-BRST symmetry.

An advantage of the spontaneous BRST supersymmetry breaking is as follows. The Nambu-Goldstone particle (fermion) associated with the spontaneous breaking of the BRST $`Q_B`$ or anti-BRST $`\overline{Q}_B`$ symmetry is identified with the diagonal anti-ghost $`\overline{C}^i`$ or diagonal ghost $`C^i`$, respectively. Hence the diagonal ghost and anti-ghost are massless. This is consistent with the infrared Abelian dominance which is expected to be realized, if the off-diagonal components of gluons and ghosts become massive while the diagonal components remain massless.

A disadvantage is as follows. If both BRST and anti-BRST symmetry are spontaneously broken, the vacuum is not invariant under the BRST symmetry $`Q_B|00`$, $`\overline{Q}_B|00`$, and we can not conclude the gauge parameter $`\alpha `$ independence of the vacuum-to-vacuum amplitude and the physical $`S`$ matrix (i.e., $`\frac{\delta Z}{\alpha }0`$), since

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta Z}{\alpha }}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{\alpha }}0;out|0;in`$
$`=i{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^4x0;out|𝜹_B\overline{𝜹}_B\left(C^a(x)\overline{C}^a(x)\right)|0;in}`$
$`=i{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^4x0;out|\{Q_B,[\overline{Q}_B,C^a(x)\overline{C}^a(x)]\}|0;in}`$
$`=i{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^4x0;out|\{\overline{Q}_B,[Q_B,C^a(x)\overline{C}^a(x)]\}|0;in}.`$
Similarly, we find the gauge parameter $`\beta `$ dependence as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta Z}{\beta }}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{\beta }}0;out|0;in`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^4x0;out|𝜹_B\left(\overline{C}^i(x)B^i(x)\right)|0;in}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^4x0;out|\{iQ_B,\overline{C}^i(x)B^i(x)\}|0;in}.`$
Therefore, the Yang-Mills theories with different gauge parameters are different theories. The parameter $`\alpha `$ should be determined based on other arguments. As a way to determine the value of $`\alpha `$, $`\alpha `$ could be chosen to sit on the fixed point of the renormalization group as proposed in .

Now we examine a simple case $`G=SU(2)`$. The total bosonic effective potential is given by

$$V(\overline{B},B^a,\phi )=V(\phi )\frac{\beta }{2}\left(\overline{B}+\frac{1}{\zeta g}\phi \right)^2\frac{\alpha }{2}B^aB^a,$$
(32)
where we have ommitted the index of the diagonal component, i.e., $`\overline{B}\overline{B}^3`$, $`\phi \phi ^3`$ and $`V(\phi )`$ is given by

$$V(\phi )=\frac{1}{2\zeta g^2}\phi ^2+\frac{1}{32\pi ^2}\phi ^2[\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{1}{4\pi \mu }\phi \right)^2+\text{const.}].$$
(33)
Note that $`V(\phi )`$ has minima at non-zero values of $`\phi `$, $`\phi =\pm \phi _0`$, for $`\zeta >0`$. Therefore, the spontaneous breakdown of the BRST or anti-BRST symmetry could happen, if $`\zeta >0`$ and $`\beta <0`$, since the total bosonic effective potential has an absolute minimum at non-zero value of $`\overline{B}=(\zeta g)^1\phi `$. A simple way to avoid this situation is to take $`\beta >0`$. If $`\beta >0`$, even the non-zero condensation $`\phi 0`$ for $`\zeta >0`$ does not leads to the spontaneous breakdown of the BRST symmetry, since it corresponds to the saddle point. However, $`\zeta >0`$ and $`\alpha <0`$ can not be simultaneously realized if we impose the $`OSp(4|2)`$ invariance which postulates $`\zeta =\alpha `$. Thus the modified MA gauge with $`OSp(4|2)`$ invariance does not cause the spontaneous breakdown of the BRST and the anti-BRST supersymemtry, at least based on the mechanism of ghost and anti-ghost condensation discussed above.

On the other hand, another type of ghost–anti-ghost condensation

$$0|(C\overline{C})_{off}|0:=0|\delta ^{ab}C^a\overline{C}^b|00,$$
(34)
is possible to occur. However, it does not lead to the spontaneous breaking of BRST or anti-BRST symmetries. Therefore, if the situation

$$0|\delta ^{ab}C^a\overline{C}^b|00,0|f^{iab}C^a\overline{C}^b|0=0,$$
(35)
is realized, we don’t have any direct argument suggesting the breaking of BRST and/or anti-BRST symmetries. The diagonal condensation, $`0|\delta ^{ab}C^a\overline{C}^b|00`$, is enough for off-diagonal gluons and off-diagonal ghosts (and anti-ghost) to acquire their masses as shown in . However, we lose a chance of explaining the ghost–anti-ghost condensation as a spontaneous breaking of a global symmetry $`SL(2,R)`$  which is shown to exist at least for the $`SU(2)`$ Yang-Mills theory in the modified MA gauge. It is a dynamical problem to determine which case is actually realized in the Yang-Mills theory in the modified MA gauge. More systematic investigation will be given elsewhere.

A basic ingredient of the above argument is the non-vanishing VEV of the composite operator $`f^{iab}C^a(x)\overline{C}^b(x)`$, i.e., $`\phi ^i:=0|if^{iab}C^a\overline{C}^b|00`$. Note that the composite operator is not BRST invariant, $`𝜹_B(f^{iab}C^a\overline{C}^b)0`$. However, this does not immediately mean the breakdown of BRST symmetry. The BRST transformation does transform a field into a different field or a composite field. Therefore, the non-zero $`\phi `$ does not necessarily mean the breaking of the BRST symmetry $`Q_B`$. This situation is quite similar to the Higgs field in the Higgs-Kibble model $`\varphi (x)`$ (The Higgs field is not BRST invariant. Nevertheless, it can have a non-vanishing VEV $`\varphi `$ without breaking the BRST symmetry after the gauge fixing). This should be compared with the spin or scalar field models with global rotational symmetry (If the scalar has a non-vanishing VEV in a direction, the global rotational symmetry of the original Lagrangian is spontaneously broken). Finally, we consider an exceptional case in which the composite operator is written as a BRST transform of an operator $`𝒪`$, i.e., $`f^{iab}C^a\overline{C}^b=𝜹_B𝒪`$. If this is the case, the non-zero VEV leads to the spontaneous breakdown of the BRST symmetry. However, this situation is not realized for this operator. The reason is as follows. The composite operator written in the BRST exact form is BRST invariant, $`𝜹_B(f^{iab}C^a\overline{C}^b)=𝜹_B𝜹_B𝒪=0`$ due to nilpotency of BRST transformation. This result contradicts with the non BRST-invariance of the composite operator. Thus there does not exist an operator $`𝒪`$ such that $`f^{iab}C^a\overline{C}^b=𝜹_B𝒪`$. Thus this case is excluded.

## 4 Comments on the Gribov problem

In the rest of this paper, we discuss an implication of the above result to the Gribov problem. The models treated in this paper include quartic ghost self-interaction terms whose coefficients (strengths) are proportional to $`\alpha `$. For non-zero $`\alpha `$, therefore, the integration of the ghost and anti-ghost field does not necessarily yield the conventional Faddeev-Popov determinant. For these models, thus, we can not find the exact relationship between the spontaneous breaking of BRST supersymmetry and the Gribov problem (i.e., existence of the zero eigenvalue of the operator in the Faddeev-Popov determinant), contrary to the conventional Lorentz type gauge which has been extensively discussed by Fujikawa . However, this does not mean that the inclusion of quartic ghost interaction can avoid the Gribov problem. The quartic ghost interaction can be reduced to a bilinear form in the ghost and anit-ghost field by introducing the auxiliary field $`\phi `$. Then we encounter the Gribov problem even in the modified MA gauge, see  for details.

In view of this, we recall the Witten index . It is known that the vanishing of the Witten index, $`\mathrm{Tr}[(1)^F]=\mathrm{Tr}[\mathrm{exp}(i\pi Q_c)]=0`$, is a necessary condition for spontaneous supersymmetry breaking (although it is not a sufficient condition). The regularized index

$$Z(\beta ):=\mathrm{Tr}(e^{\beta H+i\pi Q_c})\mathrm{STr}(e^{\beta H})$$
(36)
is written in the Euclidean path integral as

$$Z(\beta ):=𝒩^1𝒟𝒜_\mu 𝒟𝒟𝒞𝒟\overline{𝒞}\mathrm{exp}\left\{_0^\beta 𝑑\tau d^3x_{tot}[𝒜,,𝒞,\overline{𝒞}]\right\},$$
(37)
where periodic boundary conditions must be imposed on all the fields in Euclidean time $`\tau `$ to avoid the explicit breaking of the BRST supersymmetry (as emphasized by Fujikawa). After the BRST supersymmetry is spontaneously broken, we have more fermion than bosons with zero eigenvalues, then $`Z(\beta )=0`$. Before the spontaneous breaking, we have exactly degenerate eigen values for fermions and bosons and thus $`Z(\beta )=1`$. Thus, the spontaneous breakdown of BRST supersymmetry leads to the (extra) zero eigenvalue.

If the Witten index is non-zero, the BRST symmetry is not spontaneously broken. As a result, the off-diagonal ghost condensation (30) is prohibited and the diagonal ghost condensation (34) can be allowed to be non-zero, which is necessary for the off-diagonal ghost and gluons to acquire non-zero masses. In view of these, it is desirable to calculate the Witten index  precisely.

## Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Kazuo Fujikawa and Shogo Tanimura for helpful conversations on the BRST symmetry breaking and the Gribov problem in the early stage of the investigation. This work is supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (10640249).