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# Bell’s inequality for 𝑛 spin-𝑠 particles

## I Introduction

Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) EPR35  believed that the results of experiments on a local subsystem of a composite physical system which can be predicted with certainty from the results of local experiments in other regions would be determined by the local properties of the subsystem. However, the violation of Bell’s inequality by quantum mechanics Bell64  meant a spectacular departure from EPR’s point of view. According to quantum mechanics, the results of local experiments cannot be described in terms of classical local properties.

On the other hand, it was commonly accepted that classical properties would emerge for large quantum systems. The adjective “large” usually means either systems composed of many particles or systems with a high number of internal degrees of freedom. Early violations of Bell’s inequalities Bell64 ; CHSH69  involved pairs of spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles in the singlet state Bohm51 . However, the EPR argument is also applicable to pairs of spin-$`s`$ particles in the singlet state or to systems of $`n`$ spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles in Greenberger, Horne, and Zeilinger (GHZ) states GHZ89 . Violations of Bell’s inequalities for the two spin-$`s`$ singlet state have been extensively discussed Mermin80 ; MS82 ; GM82 ; GM83 ; Ogren83 ; BC88 ; SS90 ; Ardehali91 ; Peres92 ; GP92  and have stimulated some recent experiments for $`s=1`$ LHB01 ; HLB02 . On the other hand, violations of Bell’s inequalities for $`n`$ spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles have attracted much attention Mermin90b ; RS91 ; CRB91 ; Ardehali92 ; BK93 ; BM93 ; ZK97 ; GB98 ; WW00 ; WW01 . However, a study of Bell’s inequalities for systems of $`n`$ spin-$`s`$ particles and the limit of both $`n\mathrm{}`$ and $`s\mathrm{}`$ was still missing.

In order to place our discussion in a suitable context, we shall review some of the earlier violations of Bell’s inequalities for two spin-$`s`$ particles and for $`n`$ spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles.

Mermin Mermin80  showed that a pair of spin-$`s`$ particles in the singlet state violates a particular Bell’s inequality involving four local spin component observables $`\stackrel{}{S}_1\widehat{a}`$, $`\stackrel{}{S}_1\widehat{b}`$, $`\stackrel{}{S}_2\widehat{b}`$, and $`\stackrel{}{S}_2\widehat{c}`$. He found that the range of settings for which the violation occurs vanishes as $`1/s`$ when $`s\mathrm{}`$. Subsequently, however, Mermin and Schwarz MS82  found evidence that this vanishing might be peculiar to the chosen inequality (see also SS90 ; Ardehali91 ).

Ögren Ogren83  studied the original Bell’s inequality Bell64  for three different ways of defining dichotomic observables from $`\stackrel{}{S}_1\widehat{a}`$, $`\stackrel{}{S}_1\widehat{b}`$, $`\stackrel{}{S}_2\widehat{b}`$, and $`\stackrel{}{S}_2\widehat{c}`$. He found that the range of settings for which the singlet state of two spin-$`s`$ particles violates Bell’s inequality is of the same magnitude, at least for small $`s`$, and larger than those obtained in Ref. Mermin80 .

Peres Peres92  and Gisin and Peres GP92  found dichotomic operators such that two spin-$`s`$ particles in the singlet state violate the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt CHSH69  (CHSH) inequality and that the magnitude of the violation (that is, the ratio of the quantum correlation to the maximal classical one) tends to a constant Peres92  or is constant GP92  for any $`s`$.

An experimental violation of Bell’s inequalities for an optical analog of the singlet state of two spin-1 particles has been recently reported in Ref. HLB02 .

On the other hand, Mermin Mermin90b  has shown that the correlations found by $`n`$ spacelike separated observers who share $`n`$ spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles in a GHZ state maximally violate a Bell’s inequality involving two local spin component observables per particle by a factor that increases exponentially with $`n`$. Mermin’s inequality for $`n`$ spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles distinguishes between the $`n`$ even and odd cases. Ardehali Ardehali92  derived a similar inequality that leads to a higher violation for even $`n`$. Finally, Belinsky and Klyshko BK93  proposed an elegant single inequality that leads to a maximal violation for arbitrary $`n`$. This inequality is mostly referred to as the Mermin-Klyshko inequality.

The structure of this paper is as follows: In Sec. II we introduce a generalization for any spin of the Mermin-Klyshko inequality using two maximal observables (i.e., represented by nondegenerated operators) per particle. In Sec. III we show that maximally entangled states of two spin-$`s`$ particles and some multiparticle multilevel GHZ states defined in Ref. Cabello01  maximally violate the inequality presented in Sec. II.

In Sec. IV we present the conclusions of our research: On one hand, we reach Gisin and Peres’s conclusion in Ref. GP92 , namely that for two particles in a maximally entangled state the ratio of the quantum correlation to the maximal classical one is constant as $`s`$ grows. Moreover, we extend Gisin and Peres’s conclusion to systems of three or more particles. On the other hand, we generalize to any $`s`$ Mermin’s conclusion in Ref. Mermin90b  that the ratio of the quantum correlation to the maximal classical one grows exponentially with the number of particles. In addition, the inequality presented in Sec. II would allow us to translate the proofs of Bell’s theorem without inequalities for multiparticle multilevel GHZ states introduced in Ref. Cabello01  into feasible experimental tests.

## II The Mermin-Klyshko inequality for n spin-s particles

Let us consider a system with $`n2`$ distant spin-$`s`$ particles, 1, …, $`n`$ shared by $`n`$ distant observers which perform spacelike local experiments, chosen between $`A_j^{(s)}`$ and $`B_j^{(s)}`$, on his/her particle $`j`$. Let us choose units in which $`\mathrm{}=1`$ and let $`A_j^{(s)}`$ and $`B_j^{(s)}`$ be physical observables on particle $`j`$ taking values $`s`$, $`s+1`$, …, or $`s`$.

The correlation $`A_1^{(s)}\mathrm{}A_n^{(s)}`$ of $`A_1^{(s)}`$, …, $`A_n^{(s)}`$ is defined as

$`A_1^{(s)}\mathrm{}A_n^{(s)}`$ $`=`$ (1)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{m_1,\mathrm{},m_n=s}{\overset{s}{}}}m_1\mathrm{}m_nP(A_1^{(s)}=m_1,\mathrm{},A_n^{(s)}=m_n),`$
where $`P(A_1^{(s)}=m_1,\mathrm{},A_n^{(s)}=m_n)`$ is the joint probability of obtaining $`A_1^{(s)}=m_1`$, …, and $`A_n^{(s)}=m_n`$ when $`A_1^{(s)}`$, …, and $`A_n^{(s)}`$ are measured.

Let us consider the linear combination of $`2^{2f\left(n/2\right)}`$ correlations, where $`f(x)`$ is the greatest integer less than or equal to $`x`$, defined recursively by

$$M_n^{(s)}=M_{n1}^{(s)}\left(A_n^{(s)}+B_n^{(s)}\right)+K_{n1}^{(s)}\left(A_n^{(s)}B_n^{(s)}\right),$$
(2)
letting $`M_1^{(s)}=A_1^{(s)}`$, and $`K_n^{(s)}`$ being the same as $`M_n^{(s)}`$ but exchanging the $`A`$’s for $`B`$’s.

In particular,

$$M_2^{(s)}=A_1^{(s)}A_2^{(s)}+A_1^{(s)}B_2^{(s)}+B_1^{(s)}A_2^{(s)}B_1^{(s)}B_2^{(s)}$$
(3)
and

$`M_3^{(s)}`$ $`=`$ $`2(A_1^{(s)}B_2^{(s)}B_3^{(s)}+B_1^{(s)}A_2^{(s)}B_3^{(s)}`$ (4)
$`+B_1^{(s)}B_2^{(s)}A_3^{(s)}A_1^{(s)}A_2^{(s)}A_3^{(s)}).`$
In any theory in which local variables of particle $`j`$ determine the results of local observables $`A_j^{(s)}`$ and $`B_j^{(s)}`$, the absolute value of $`M_n^{(s)}`$ is bound as follows:

$$\left|M_n^{(s)}\right|2^{n1}s^n.$$
(5)
This is the generalization to spin-$`s`$ of the Mermin-Klyshko inequality. If $`A_j`$ and $`B_j`$ are observables taking values $`1`$ or $`1`$ (i.e., for $`s=1`$), or for $`s=\frac{1}{2}`$ and choosing units in which $`2\mathrm{}=1`$, then we obtain the Mermin-Klyshko inequality BK93 . If, in addition, $`n`$ is odd and greater than 3, then (up to a factor $`2^{f\left((n1)/2\right)})`$ we obtain Mermin’s inequality Mermin90b . If $`n=2`$ we obtain the CHSH inequality CHSH69 .

The bounds in inequality (5) can be easily derived as follows: In any local-realistic theory, for any individual system, observables $`A_j`$ and $`B_j`$ have predefined values $`a_j`$ and $`b_j`$, respectively. Each of these values is constrained to lie between $`s`$ and $`s`$. Since $`M_n^{(s)}`$ is linear in each local observable (fixing the value of the other $`2n1`$ local observables), $`M_n^{(s)}`$ will take its extremal values when local observables take their extremal values, $`s`$ or $`s`$. The various combinations of $`a_j=\pm s`$ and $`b_j=\pm s`$ always give $`\pm 2^{n1}s^n`$, Q.E.D.

## III Violations of the generalized Mermin-Klyshko inequality

For a $`n`$ spin-$`s`$ particle system in a quantum pure state $`|\psi `$, the quantum correlation of $`A_1`$, …, $`A_n`$ is defined as $`\psi \left|\widehat{A}_1^{(s)}\mathrm{}\widehat{A}_n^{(s)}\right|\psi `$, where $`\widehat{A}_1^{(s)}`$, …, $`\widehat{A}_n^{(s)}`$ are the self-adjoint operators that represent the local observables $`A_1^{(s)}`$, …, $`A_n^{(s)}`$.

Let us consider the following local operators on particle $`j`$:

$`\widehat{A}_j^{(s)}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccccc}s& & & & \\ & s1& & \\ & & \mathrm{}& & \\ & & & s+1& \\ & & & & s\end{array}\right),`$ (6)
$`\widehat{B}_j^{(s)}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccccc}& & & & s\\ & & & s1& \\ & & \mathrm{}& & \\ & s1& & & \\ s& & & & \end{array}\right).`$ (7)
$`\widehat{A}_j^{(s)}`$ and $`\widehat{B}_j^{(s)}`$ are diagonal $`(2s+1)\times (2s+1)`$ matrices, with nondegenerated eigenvalues $`s`$, $`s+1`$, $`\mathrm{}`$, $`s1`$, $`s`$.

In addition, let us recursively define the following operator on the composite system consisting on $`n2`$ spin-$`s`$ particles:

$$\widehat{M}_n^{(s)}=\widehat{M}_{n1}^{(s)}\left(\widehat{A}_n^{(s)}+\widehat{B}_n^{(s)}\right)+\widehat{K}_{n1}^{(s)}\left(\widehat{A}_n^{(s)}\widehat{B}_n^{(s)}\right),$$
(8)
letting $`\widehat{M}_1^{(s)}=\widehat{A}_1^{(s)}`$, and $`\widehat{K}_n^{(s)}`$ being the same as $`\widehat{M}_n^{(s)}`$ but exchanging the $`\widehat{A}`$’s for $`\widehat{B}`$’s.

As can be easily checked, $`\widehat{M}_n^{(s)}`$ is a linear combination of $`2^{2f\left(n/2\right)}`$ operators of the type $`\widehat{A}_1^{(s)}\mathrm{}\widehat{A}_n^{(s)}`$ (all of them commuting if $`n`$ is odd, but not if it is even). The greatest eigenvalue of $`\widehat{M}_n^{(s)}`$ is $`2^{3(n1)/2}s^n`$, which is nondegenerated. Let us consider the corresponding eigenstate $`|\mu _n^{(s)}`$, characterized by the equation

$$\widehat{M}_n^{(s)}|\mu _n^{(s)}=2^{3(n1)/2}s^n|\mu _n^{(s)}.$$
(9)
For $`n=2`$, $`|\mu _n^{(s)}`$ is a maximally entangled state of two spin-$`s`$ particles. For $`n3`$, $`|\mu _n^{(s)}`$ is a generalized GHZ state, as defined in Ref. Cabello01 , and allows us to develop an EPR-like argument for observables $`A_j`$ and $`B_j`$. For $`n`$ odd (even), $`|\mu _n^{(s)}`$ and all the operators (a subset of mutually commuting operators) of the type $`\widehat{A}_1^{(s)}\mathrm{}\widehat{A}_n^{(s)}`$ included in $`\widehat{M}_n^{(s)}`$ allow us to develop a GHZ-like proof without inequalities of Bell’s theorem com1  (see Cabello01  for the details).

In this paper, however, we are interested in violations of inequality (5). For that purpose, let us take a look at the prediction of quantum mechanics for the state $`|\mu _n^{(s)}`$ for the combination of correlations appearing in inequality (5). Observable $`M_n^{(s)}`$ is represented in quantum mechanics by the self-adjoint operator $`\widehat{M}_n^{(s)}`$. Therefore, as can be immediately seen in Eq. (9), according to quantum mechanics the expected value for $`M_n^{(s)}`$ in the state $`|\mu _n^{(s)}`$ is given by

$$\mu _n^{(s)}\left|\widehat{M}_n^{(s)}\right|\mu _n^{(s)}=2^{3(n1)/2}s^n.$$
(10)
This value violates inequality (5). Indeed, it can be proved that this is the maximum allowed violation of inequality (5). The proof is simple for $`n`$ odd. Then, $`\widehat{M}_n^{(s)}`$ is a linear combination with coefficients $`\pm 2^{(n1)/2}`$ of $`2^{n1}`$ operators of the type $`\widehat{A}_1^{(s)}\mathrm{}\widehat{A}_n^{(s)}`$, and each of these correlations is bound by $`\pm s^n`$. Therefore, for $`n`$ odd, the maximum value that $`M_n^{(s)}`$ can reach is, by definition, $`2^{3(n1)/2}s^n`$, Q.E.D.

If $`n`$ is even the proof is more difficult (for $`n=2`$ and $`s=1`$, or for $`s=\frac{1}{2}`$ and choosing units in which $`2\mathrm{}=1`$, proofs can be found in Refs. Cirelson80 ; Landau87 ).

## IV Conclusions

The ratio between the quantum correlation given by Eq. (10) and the maximal classical one, which appears in Eq. (5), is

$$\frac{\mu _n^{(s)}\left|\widehat{M}_n^{(s)}\right|\mu _n^{(s)}}{\text{max }M_n^{(s)}}=2^{(n1)/2}s.$$
(11)
That is, for a fixed $`n2`$ the contradiction between quantum mechanics and local realism is constant as the spin $`s`$ increases. For $`n=2`$ the same conclusion was reached by Gisin and Peres in Ref. GP92 . Therefore, our analysis is in agreement with Gisin and Peres’s and generalizes it to systems of $`n2`$ particles.

On the other hand, ratio (11) shows that for a fixed $`s`$, the correlations found by $`n`$ distant observers violate the classical bound by a factor that increases exponentially with the number $`n`$ of particles. For $`s=\frac{1}{2}`$ the same conclusion was reached by Mermin in Ref. Mermin90b . Thus our analysis generalizes Mermin’s to systems of spin $`s\frac{1}{2}`$.

Therefore, the approach presented in this paper unifies and generalizes some previous results, in particular, those in Refs. GP92 ; Mermin90b ; BK93 , and unifies the conclusions reached in Refs. Peres92 ; GP92 ; Mermin90b : Neither a large spin nor a large number of particles nor a large number of large spin particles guarantee classical behavior.

In addition, this approach allows us to translate the proofs without inequalities of Bell’s theorem for multiparty multilevel GHZ states introduced in Ref. Cabello01  into Bell’s inequalities that can be tested in real experiments.

###### Acknowledgements.

The author thanks J. L. Cereceda, C. Serra, and M. M. Wolf for comments, and the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología Grant No. BFM2001-3943 and the Junta de Andalucía Grant No. FQM-239 for support.


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# On the geometry of the compactification of the universal Picard variety

## 1 Introduction

The universal Picard variety $`P_{d,g}`$ is the coarse moduli space for line bundles of degree $`d`$ on smooth algebraic curves of genus $`g`$. Even though one is mainly interested in the behaviour of line bundles on smooth curves, nevertheless it is often useful to control their degenerations on singular curves. Perhaps the most celebrated example of proof by degeneration is provided by the Brill-Noether-Petri theorem (see  and the references therein). Another very recent achievement of degeneration techniques is the proof given by L. Caporaso and E. Sernesi (see  and ) that a general curve of genus $`g3`$ can be recovered from its odd theta-characteristics. In particular, in order to control degenerations of curves with prescribed theta-characteristics, a key rôle is played in  by the moduli space of spin curves $`\overline{S}_g`$ constructed by M. Cornalba in . This perspective suggests the deep mathematical interest (both in itself and as a tool) of a geometrically meaningful compactification of the moduli spaces parameterizing pairs of curves and line bundles. Let $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ denote the compactification of $`P_{d,g}`$ constructed by L. Caporaso in  via geometric invariant theory. The boundary points of $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ correspond to certain line bundles on Deligne-Mumford semistable curves, while all previously known compactifications of the generalized Jacobian of an integral nodal curve used torsion free sheaves of rank one. From this point of view, a strict analogy emerges between $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ and $`\overline{S}_g`$: even though the techniques used in the two constructions are completely different, in both cases the resulting compactification is given in terms of line bundles on the same kind of singular curves. We will see that this analogy has a precise explanation: namely, in section 3 we introduce a subscheme of $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ which compactifies the locus in $`P_{d,g}`$ corresponding to curves with theta characteristics and we investigate how it is related to $`\overline{S}_g`$. Indeed, after having established the existence of a natural morphism from $`\overline{S}_g`$ to $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ (see Theorem 1), we prove that it is an injection (see Theorem 2) and we give a precise combinatorial description of its image (see Theorem 3). In the future we hope to address similar questions also for moduli spaces of higher spin curves, which were introduced by T. J. Jarvis in a rather different style (see , , and ). In section 4, instead, we obtain a complete description of the rational divisor class group of $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ (see Theorem 5); its rational Picard group is determined whenever $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ turns out to be a geometric quotient (see Corollary 1). The strategy of proof is straightforward: first of all, we deduce from the basic properties of $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ a rough description of its boundary (see Proposition 4); next, we recall a theorem proved by A. Kouvidakis in  on the Picard group of $`P_{d,g}`$ (see Theorem 4). Hence the result on generation follows and in order to exclude nontrivial relations we simply lift to $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ the families of curves constructed by E. Arbarello and M. Cornalba in .

We work over the field $``$ of complex numbers.

It is a great pleasure to thank Enrico Arbarello, who in many fruitful conversations shared with me his deep insight and invaluable experience, and Lucia Caporaso, who closely followed my work with her contagious enthusiasm and patient support.

This research was partially supported by MIUR (Italy).

## 2 Notation and preliminaries

Let $`X`$ be a Deligne-Mumford semistable curve and let $`E`$ be a complete, irreducible subcurve of $`X`$. One says that $`E`$ is *exceptional* if it is smooth, rational, and meets the other components in exactly two points. Moreover, one says that $`X`$ is *quasistable* if any two distinct exceptional components of $`C`$ are disjoint. In the sequel, $`\stackrel{~}{X}`$ will denote the subcurve $`\overline{XE_i}`$ obtained from $`X`$ by removing all exceptional components.

A *spin curve* of genus $`g`$ (see , ) is the datum of a quasistable genus $`g`$ curve $`X`$ with an invertible sheaf $`\zeta _X`$ of degree $`g1`$ on $`X`$ and a homomorphism of invertible sheaves

$$\alpha _X:\zeta _X^2\omega _X$$

such that

(i) $`\zeta _X`$ has degree $`1`$ on every exceptional component of $`X`$;

(ii) $`\alpha _X`$ is not zero at a general point of every non-exceptional component of $`X`$.

From the definition it follows that $`\alpha _X`$ vanishes identically on all exceptional components of $`X`$ and induces an isomorphism

$$\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_X:\zeta _X^2|_{\stackrel{~}{X}}\omega _{\stackrel{~}{X}}.$$

In particular, when $`X`$ is smooth, $`\zeta _X`$ is just a theta-characteristic on $`X`$.

By definition (see , § 2), two spin curves $`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)`$ and $`(X^{},\zeta _X^{},\alpha _X^{})`$ are *isomorphic* if there are isomorphisms $`\sigma :XX^{}`$ and $`\tau :\sigma ^{}(\zeta _X^{})\zeta _X`$ such that $`\tau `$ is compatible with the natural isomorphism between $`\sigma ^{}(\omega _X^{})`$ and $`\omega _X`$. However, we point out the following fact.

###### Lemma 1.

Let $`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)`$ and $`(X^{},\zeta _X^{},\alpha _X^{})`$ be two spin curves and assume that there are isomorphisms $`\sigma :XX^{}`$ and $`\tau :\sigma ^{}(\zeta _X^{})\zeta _X`$. Then $`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)`$ and $`(X^{},\zeta _X^{},\alpha _X^{})`$ are isomorphic as spin curves.

###### Proof.

Let $`\beta _X:\zeta _X^2\omega _X`$ be defined by the following commutative diagram:

$$\zeta _X^2\stackrel{\beta _X}{}\omega _X$$

$$\tau ^2$$

$$(\sigma ^{}\zeta _X^{})^2=\sigma ^{}(\zeta _X^{}^2)\stackrel{\sigma ^{}\alpha _X^{}}{}\sigma ^{}\omega _X^{}.$$

Then $`(X,\zeta _X,\beta _X)`$ is a spin curve, which is isomorphic to $`(X^{},\zeta _X^{},\alpha _X^{})`$ by definition and to $`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)`$ by , Lemma (2.1), so the thesis follows.

A *family of spin curves* is a flat family of quasistable curves $`f:𝒳S`$ with an invertible sheaf $`\zeta _f`$ on $`𝒳`$ and a homomorphism

$$\alpha _f:\zeta _f^2\omega _f$$

such that the restriction of these data to any fiber of $`f`$ gives rise to a spin curve.

Two families of spin curves $`f:𝒳S`$ and $`f^{}:𝒳^{}S`$ are *isomorphic* if there are isomorphisms $`\sigma :𝒳𝒳^{}`$ and $`\tau :\sigma ^{}(\zeta _f^{})\zeta _f`$ such that $`f=f^{}\sigma `$ and $`\tau `$ is compatible with the natural isomorphism between $`\sigma ^{}(\omega _f^{})`$ and $`\omega _f`$ (see  p. 212).

Let $`\overline{𝒮}_g`$ be the contravariant functor from schemes to sets, which to every scheme $`S`$ associates the set $`\overline{𝒮}_g(S)`$ of isomorphism classes of families of spin curves of genus $`g`$.

Let $`\overline{S}_g`$ be the set of isomorphism classes of spin curves of genus $`g`$ and $`S_g`$ be the subset consisting of classes of smooth curves. One can define a natural structure of analytic variety on $`\overline{S}_g`$ (see , §5) and from , Proposition (4.6), it follows that $`\overline{S}_g`$ is a coarse moduli variety for $`\overline{𝒮}_g`$.

Let now $`g3`$. For every integer $`d`$, there is a *universal Picard variety*

$$\psi _d:P_{d,g}_g^0$$

whose fiber $`J^d(X)`$ over a point $`X`$ of $`_g^0`$ parametrizes line bundles on $`X`$ of degree $`d`$ modulo isomorphism.

Assume $`d20(g1)`$, but notice that this is not a real restriction because of the natural isomorphism $`P_{d,g}P_{d+n(2g2),g}`$. Then $`P_{d,g}`$ has a natural compactification

$$\varphi _d:\overline{P}_{d,g}\overline{}_g$$

such that $`\varphi _d^1(_g^0)=P_{d,g}`$. Namely, let $`\mathrm{Hilb}_{dg}^{dxg+1}`$ be the Hilbert scheme parametrizing closed subschemes of $`^{dg}`$ having Hilbert polynomial $`dxg+1`$ and set $`H_d:=\{h\mathrm{Hilb}_{dg}^{dxg+1}:h\text{ is }G`$-semistable and the corresponding curve is connected $`\}`$. Then $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ was constructed in  as a GIT quotient

$$\pi _d:H_dH_d/G=\overline{P}_{d,g},$$

where $`G=SL(dg+1)`$.

Moreover, one can define (see , §8.1) the contravariant functor $`\overline{𝒫}_{d,g}`$ from schemes to sets, which to every scheme $`S`$ associates the set $`\overline{𝒫}_{d,g}(S)`$ of equivalence classes of polarized families of quasistable curves of genus $`g`$

$$f:(𝒳,)S$$

such that $``$ is a relatively very ample line bundle of degree $`d`$ whose multidegree satisfies the following Basic Inequality on each fiber.

###### Definition 1.

Let $`X=_{i=1}^nX_i`$ be a projective, nodal, connected curve of arithmetic genus $`g`$, where the $`X_i`$’s are the irreducible components of $`X`$. We say that the multidegree $`(d_1,\mathrm{},d_n)`$ satisfies the Basic Inequality if for every complete subcurve $`Y`$ of $`X`$ of arithmetic genus $`g_Y`$ we have

$$m_Yd_Ym_Y+k_Y$$

where

$$d_Y=\underset{X_iY}{}d_i$$

$$k_Y=|Y\overline{XY}|$$

$$m_Y=\frac{d}{g1}\left(g_Y1+\frac{k_Y}{2}\right)\frac{k_Y}{2}$$

(see  p. 611 and p. 614).

Two families over $`S`$, $`(𝒳,)`$ and $`(𝒳^{},^{})`$ are *equivalent* if there exists an $`S`$-isomorphism

$$\sigma :𝒳𝒳^{}$$

and a line bundle $`M`$ on $`S`$ such that

$$\sigma ^{}^{}f^{}M.$$

By , Proposition 8.1, there is a morphism of functors:

$$\overline{𝒫}_{d,g}\text{Hom}(.,\overline{P}_{d,g})$$
(1)
and $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ coarsely represents $`\overline{𝒫}_{d,g}`$ if and only if

$$(dg+1,2g2)=1.$$
(2)
The relationship between $`\overline{S}_g`$ and $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ can be expressed as follows.

###### Theorem 1.

For every integer $`t10`$ there is a natural morphism:

$$f_t:\overline{S}_g\overline{P}_{(2t+1)(g1),g}.$$

###### Proof.

First of all, notice that in this case (2) does not hold, so the points of $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ are *not* in one-to-one correspondence with equivalence classes of very ample line bundles of degree $`d`$ on quasistable curves, satisfying the Basic Inequality (see , p. 654). However, we claim that the thesis can be deduced from the existence of a morphism of functors:

$$F_t:\overline{𝒮}_g\overline{𝒫}_{(2t+1)(g1),g}.$$
(3)
Indeed, since $`\overline{S}_g`$ coarsely represents $`\overline{𝒮}_g`$, any morphism of functors $`\overline{𝒮}_g\text{Hom}(.,S)`$ induces a morphism of schemes $`\overline{S}_gS`$, so the claim follows from (1). Now, a morphism of functors as (3) is the datum for any scheme $`S`$ of a set-theoretical map

$$F_t(S):\overline{𝒮}_g(S)\overline{𝒫}_{(2t+1)(g1),g}(S),$$

satisfying obvious compatibility conditions. Let us define

$$F_t(S)\left([f:𝒳S,\zeta _f,\alpha _f]\right):=[f:(𝒳,\zeta _f\omega _f^t)S].$$

In order to prove that $`F_t(S)`$ is well-defined, the only non-trivial matter is to check that the multidegree of $`\zeta _f\omega _f^t`$ satisfies the Basic Inequality on each fiber, so the thesis follows from the next Lemma.

###### Lemma 2.

If $`Y`$ is a complete subcurve of $`X`$ and $`d_Y`$ is the degree of $`\zeta _X\omega _X^t|_Y`$, then $`m_Yd_Ym_Y+k_Y`$ in the notation of the Basic Inequality. Moreover, if we set

$$\stackrel{~}{k_Y}:=|\stackrel{~}{Y}\overline{\stackrel{~}{X}\stackrel{~}{Y}}|,$$

we have $`d_Y=m_Y`$ if and only if $`\stackrel{~}{k_Y}=0`$ and all exceptional components in $`Y`$ do not intersect $`\overline{XY}`$, and $`d_Y=m_Y+k_Y`$ if and only if $`\stackrel{~}{k_Y}=0`$ and all exceptional components in $`\overline{XY}`$ do not intersect $`Y`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`Y_1,\mathrm{},Y_\nu `$ be the irreducible components of $`Y`$, of arithmetic genus $`g_1,\mathrm{},g_\nu `$ respectively. We may assume that the first $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ ones are non-exceptional and the last $`(\nu \stackrel{~}{\nu })`$ ones are exceptional, so that $`\stackrel{~}{Y}=Y_1\mathrm{}Y_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}`$. Next, let $`\{p_1,\mathrm{}p_\delta \}`$ be the points of intersection between two distinct irreducible components of $`Y`$. Again, we may assume that the first $`\stackrel{~}{\delta }`$ ones involve two non-exceptional components and the last $`(\delta \stackrel{~}{\delta })`$ ones are between a non-exceptional and an exceptional component. We have

$$g_Y=\underset{i=1}{\overset{\nu }{}}g_i+\delta \nu +1=\underset{i=1}{\overset{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}{}}g_i+\delta \nu +1$$

and since $`\zeta _X^2|_{\stackrel{~}{Y}}\omega _{\stackrel{~}{X}}|_{\stackrel{~}{Y}}`$ we may compute

$$\mathrm{deg}\zeta _X|_{\stackrel{~}{Y}}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{deg}\omega _{\stackrel{~}{X}}|_{\stackrel{~}{Y}}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}{}}(2g_i2)+2\stackrel{~}{\delta }+\stackrel{~}{k_Y}\right).$$

Hence we deduce

$`d_Y`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{deg}\left(\zeta _X\omega _X^t\right)|_Y=\mathrm{deg}\zeta _X|_Y+t\mathrm{deg}\omega _X|_Y=`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{deg}\zeta _X|_{\stackrel{~}{Y}}+\mathrm{deg}\zeta _X|_{\overline{Y\stackrel{~}{Y}}}+t\mathrm{deg}\omega _X|_Y=`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}{}}}(2g_i2)+2\stackrel{~}{\delta }+\stackrel{~}{k_Y}\right)+(\nu \stackrel{~}{\nu })+t(2g_Y2+k_Y)=`$
$`=`$ $`g_Y1(\delta \stackrel{~}{\delta })+2(\nu \stackrel{~}{\nu })+{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{k_Y}}{2}}+2t\left(g_Y1+{\displaystyle \frac{k_Y}{2}}\right).`$
On the other hand,

$$m_Y=(2t+1)\left(g_Y1+\frac{k_Y}{2}\right)\frac{k_Y}{2}=2t\left(g_Y1+\frac{k_Y}{2}\right)+g_Y1,$$

so

$$d_Y=m_Y(\delta \stackrel{~}{\delta })+2(\nu \stackrel{~}{\nu })+\frac{\stackrel{~}{k_Y}}{2}$$

and the Basic Inequality is satisfied if and only if

$$02(\nu \stackrel{~}{\nu })(\delta \stackrel{~}{\delta })+\frac{\stackrel{~}{k_Y}}{2}k_Y.$$

Now, since every exceptional component meets the other components in exactly two points, there are obvious inequalities

$$\delta \stackrel{~}{\delta }2(\nu \stackrel{~}{\nu })$$

and

$$(\delta \stackrel{~}{\delta })+(k_Y\stackrel{~}{k_Y})2(\nu \stackrel{~}{\nu }),$$

hence the thesis follows.

###### Remark 1.

If $`t_1`$ and $`t_2`$ are integers $`10`$, then Lemma 8.1 of  yields an isomorphism $`\tau :\overline{P}_{(2t_1+1)(g1),g}\overline{P}_{(2t_2+1)(g1),g}`$. We point out that by the definitions of $`\tau `$ (see , proof of Lemma 8.1) and of $`f_t`$ (see proof of Theorem 1) there is a commutative diagram:

$$\overline{S}_g\stackrel{f_{t_1}}{}\overline{P}_{(2t_1+1)(g1),g}$$

$$\tau $$

$$\overline{S}_g\stackrel{f_{t_2}}{}\overline{P}_{(2t_2+1)(g1),g}.$$

## 3 Spin curves in $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$

For every integer $`t10`$ we define

$`K_{(2t+1)(g1)}:=\{h\mathrm{Hilb}_{(2t+1)(g1)g}^{(2t+1)(g1)xg+1}:\text{there is a spin curve}`$
$`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)\text{and an embedding}h_t:X^{(2t+1)(g1)g}`$
$`\text{induced by}\zeta _X\omega _X^t\text{such that}h=h_t(X)\}.`$
By applying , Proposition 6.1, from the first part of Lemma 2 we deduce

$$K_{(2t+1)(g1)}H_{(2t+1)(g1)}$$

(the definition of $`H_d`$ was recalled above in section 2). Moreover, the second part of the same Lemma provides a great amount of information on Hilbert points corresponding to spin curves.

###### Proposition 1.

Let $`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)`$ be a spin curve. Then $`h_t(X)`$ is GIT-stable if and only if $`\stackrel{~}{X}`$ is connected.

###### Proof.

We are going to apply the stability criterion of , Lemma 6.1, which says that $`h_t(X)`$ is GIT-stable if and only if the only subcurves $`Y`$ of $`X`$ such that $`d_Y=m_Y+k_Y`$ are union of exceptional components.

If $`\stackrel{~}{X}`$ is connected, then for every subcurve $`Y`$ of $`X`$ which is not union of exceptional components we have $`\stackrel{~}{k_Y}>0`$, so from Lemma 2 it follows that $`d_Y<m_Y+k_Y`$ and $`h_t(X)`$ turns out to be GIT-stable.

If instead $`\stackrel{~}{X}`$ is not connected, pick any connected component $`Z`$ of $`\stackrel{~}{X}`$ and take $`Y`$ to be the union of $`Z`$ with all exceptional components of $`X`$ intersecting $`Z`$. It follows that $`\stackrel{~}{k_Y}=0`$ and all exceptional components in $`\overline{XY}`$ do not intersect $`Y`$, so Lemma 2 yields $`d_Y=m_Y+k_Y`$ and $`h_t(X)`$ is not GIT-stable.

###### Proposition 2.

If $`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)`$ is a spin curve, then the orbit of $`h_t(X)`$ is closed in the semistable locus.

###### Proof.

Just recall the first part of , Lemma 6.1, which says that the orbit of $`h_t(X)`$ is closed in the semistable locus if and only if $`\stackrel{~}{k_Y}=0`$ for every subcurve $`Y`$ of $`X`$ such that $`d_Y=m_Y`$, so the thesis is a direct consequence of Lemma 2.

The sublocus of $`\overline{P}_{(2t+1)(g1),g}`$ obtained by projection from $`K_{(2t+1)(g1)}`$ is indeed the GIT analogue of $`\overline{S}_g`$ we are looking for. Namely, if we set

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_t:=\pi _{(2t+1)(g1)}(K_{(2t+1)(g1)})$$

then the following holds.

###### Theorem 2.

The morphism $`f_t`$ is an injection:

$$f_t:\overline{S}_g\mathrm{\Sigma }_t.$$

###### Proof.

It is easy to check that $`f_t(\overline{S}_g)=\mathrm{\Sigma }_t`$. Indeed, if $`[(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)]\overline{S}_g`$, then any choice of a base for $`H^0(X,\zeta _X\omega _X^t)`$ induces an embedding $`h_t:X^{(2t+1)(g1)g}`$ and $`f_t([(X^{},\zeta _X^{},\alpha _X^{})])=\pi _{(2t+1)(g1)}(h_t(X))\mathrm{\Sigma }_t`$; conversely, if $`\pi _{(2t+1)(g1)}(h)\mathrm{\Sigma }_t`$, then there is a spin curve $`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)`$ and an embedding $`h_t:X^{(2t+1)(g1)g}`$ such that $`h=h_t(X)`$ and $`f_t([(X^{},\zeta _X^{},\alpha _X^{})])=\pi _{(2t+1)(g1)}(h)`$.

Next we claim that $`f_t`$ is injective. Indeed, let $`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)`$ and $`(X^{},\zeta _X^{},\alpha _X^{})`$ be two spin curves and assume that $`f_t([(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)])=f_t([(X^{},\zeta _X^{},\alpha _X^{})])`$. Choose bases for $`H^0(X,\zeta _X\omega _X^t)`$ and $`H^0(X^{},\zeta _X^{}\omega _X^{}^t)`$ and embed $`X`$ and $`X^{}`$ in $`^{(2t+1)(g1)g}`$. If $`h_t(X)`$ and $`h_t(X^{})`$ are the corresponding Hilbert points, then $`\pi _{(2t+1)(g1)}(h(X))=\pi _{(2t+1)(g1)}(h(X^{}))`$ and the Fundamental Theorem of GIT implies that $`\overline{O_G(h_t(X))}`$ and $`\overline{O_G(h_t(X^{}))}`$ intersect in the semistable locus. It follows from Proposition 2 that $`O_G(h_t(X))O_G(h_t(X^{}))\mathrm{}`$, so $`O_G(h_t(X))=O_G(h_t(X^{}))`$ and there are isomorphisms $`\sigma :XX^{}`$ and $`\tau :\sigma ^{}(\zeta _X^{})\zeta _X`$. Now the claim follows from Lemma 1 and the proof is over.

Next we are going to derive an explicit combinatorial description of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_t`$. We omit the proof of the following easy Lemma, referring to the proof of Lemma 2 for a similar computation.

###### Lemma 3.

Let $`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)`$ be a spin curve. Fix a decomposition

$$X=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\stackrel{~}{X}_i\underset{j=1}{\overset{m}{}}E_j$$

where the $`\stackrel{~}{X}_i`$’s are the irreducible components of $`\stackrel{~}{X}`$ and the $`E_j`$’s are the exceptional components of $`X`$. Set $`k_i:=|\stackrel{~}{X}_i\overline{X\stackrel{~}{X}_i}|`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{k_i}:=|\stackrel{~}{X}_i\overline{\stackrel{~}{X}\stackrel{~}{X}_i}|`$. Then the multidegree of $`\zeta _X\omega _X^t`$ on $`X`$ is $`\underset{¯}{d}=(d_1,\mathrm{},d_n,d_{n+1},\mathrm{},d_{n+m})`$ with

$`d_i`$ $`=`$ $`(2t+1)(p_a(\stackrel{~}{X}_i)1)+tk_i+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\stackrel{~}{k_i}1in`$
$`d_{n+j}`$ $`=`$ $`11jm.`$
As in , $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 5.1, we set

$$M_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}:=\{hH_d,h=\mathrm{hilb}(C,L):\underset{¯}{\mathrm{deg}}L=\underset{¯}{d}\}$$

and

$$V_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}:=\overline{M_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}}H_d.$$

By , Corollary 5.1 (but see also on p. 627), if $`[C]\overline{}_g`$ then the $`V_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}`$’s are exactly the irreducible components of the fiber over $`[C]`$ of the natural morphism

$$\psi _d:H_d\overline{}_g.$$

###### Proposition 3.

Let $`\underset{¯}{d}=(d_1,\mathrm{},d_n)`$ be a multidegree and let $`C=_{i=1}^nC_i`$ be a stable curve, where the $`C_i`$’s are the irreducible components of $`C`$. Set $`g_i:=p_a(C_i)`$ and $`k_{ij}:=|C_iC_j|`$ if $`ij`$, $`k_{ij}:=0`$ if $`i=j`$.
Then there exists a spin curve $`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)`$ such that $`h_t(X)V_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}`$ if and only if for every $`1i,jn`$ there are integers $`s_{ij}`$ and $`\sigma _{ij}`$ with

$`0`$ $`s_{ij}`$ $`k_{ij}s_{ij}=s_{ji}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}(k_{ij}s_{ij})0\mathrm{mod}.2`$
$`0`$ $`\sigma _{ij}`$ $`s_{ij}\sigma _{ij}+\sigma _{ji}=s_{ij}`$
such that

$$d_i=(2t+1)(g_i1)+t\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}k_{ij}+\frac{1}{2}\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}(k_{ij}s_{ij})+\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}\sigma _{ij}.$$

###### Proof.

To get a quasistable curve $`X`$ starting from $`C=_{i=1}^nC_i`$, for every $`1i,jn`$ choose $`r_i`$ nodes of $`C_i`$ and $`s_{ij}`$ contact points between $`C_i`$ and $`C_j`$ and blow them up. In the notation of Lemma 3, notice that $`p_a(\stackrel{~}{X}_i)=g_ir_i`$, $`k_i=_{j=1}^nk_{ij}+2r_i`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{k_i}=_{j=1}^n(k_{ij}s_{ij})`$. As pointed out in , $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 3, in order for a spin curve having $`X`$ as underlying curve to exist, a necessary and sufficient condition is that $`\stackrel{~}{k_i}0\mathrm{mod}.2`$ for every $`1in`$. Moreover, by , Proposition 5.1, $`h_t(X)V_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}`$ if and only if there is a partition $`X=_{i=1}^nX_i`$ such that $`X_i`$ is a complete connected subcurve of $`X`$ whose stable model is $`C_i`$ and $`d_i=\mathrm{deg}_{X_i}(\zeta _X\omega _X^t)`$. So the thesis follows from Lemma 3.

Let $`V_C:=_{\underset{¯}{d}}V_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}`$ and let $`\overline{P}_{d,C}:=\varphi _d^1(C)`$. By , proof of Corollary 5.1, we have

$$\overline{P}_{d,C}=V_C/G$$

and for every irreducible component $`I`$ of $`\overline{P}_{d,C}`$ there is a unique multidegree $`\underset{¯}{d}`$ such that $`V_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}`$ dominates $`I`$ via the quotient map

$$V_C\overline{P}_{d,C}.$$

###### Theorem 3.

Let $`C=_{i=1}^nC_i`$ be a stable curve, where the $`C_i`$’s are the irreducible components of $`C`$. Set $`g_i:=p_a(C_i)`$ and $`k_{ij}:=|C_iC_j|`$ if $`ij`$, $`k_{ij}:=0`$ if $`i=j`$. Let $`I`$ be an irreducible component of $`\overline{P}_{d,C}`$ and let $`\underset{¯}{d}=(d_1,\mathrm{},d_n)`$ be the multidegree such that $`I`$ is dominated by $`V_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}`$.
Then there exists a spin curve $`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)`$ such that $`f_t(\left[(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)\right])I`$ if and only if for every $`1i,jn`$ there are integers $`s_{ij}`$ and $`\sigma _{ij}`$ with

$`0`$ $`s_{ij}`$ $`k_{ij}s_{ij}=s_{ji}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}(k_{ij}s_{ij})0\mathrm{mod}.2`$
$`0`$ $`\sigma _{ij}`$ $`s_{ij}\sigma _{ij}+\sigma _{ji}=s_{ij}`$
such that

$$d_i=(2t+1)(g_i1)+t\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}k_{ij}+\frac{1}{2}\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}(k_{ij}s_{ij})+\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}\sigma _{ij}.$$

###### Proof.

By the Fundamental Theorem of GIT,

$$f_t([(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)])=\pi _{(2t+1)(g1)}(h_t(X))I$$

if and only if there is $`hV_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}`$ such that $`\overline{O_G(h_t(X))}`$ and $`\overline{O_G(h)}`$ intersect in the semistable locus.

Since $`O_G(h_t(X))`$ is closed in the semistable locus by Proposition 2, we have

$$O_G(h_t(X))\overline{O_G(h)}\mathrm{}$$

and since $`\overline{O_G(h)}`$ is a union of orbits we may rephrase the above condition as

$$h_t(X)\overline{O_G(h)}.$$

On the other hand, we have $`V_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}=_{hV_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}}O_G(h)`$ since $`V_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}`$ is $`G`$-invariant and $`V_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}=_{hV_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}}\overline{O_G(h)}`$ since $`V_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}`$ is closed.

Summing up, we see that $`f_t(\left[(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)\right])I`$ if and only if $`h_t(X)V_C^{\underset{¯}{d}}`$. Now the thesis follows from Proposition 3.

Example. Let $`C`$ be a *split curve* of genus $`g`$, i.e. the union of two nonsingular rational curves meeting transversally at $`g+1`$ points. Such curves are particularly interesting, for a number of reasons (see  and ). According to Theorem 3, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_t`$ meets an irreducible component $`I`$ of $`\overline{P}_{d,C}`$ if and only if $`I`$ corresponds to a bidegree $`(d_1,d_2)`$ with

$`d_1`$ $`=`$ $`\left(t+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)(g+1)(2t+1){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}s+\sigma `$
$`d_2`$ $`=`$ $`\left(t+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)(g+1)(2t+1)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}s\sigma `$
where $`s`$ and $`\sigma `$ are nonnegative integers satisfying

$$\sigma sg+1sg+1\mathrm{mod}.2.$$

Moreover, from the proof of Proposition 3 it follows that $`s`$ is the number of exceptional components of a quasi-stable curve $`X`$ underlying a spin curve $`(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)`$ such that $`f_t([(X,\zeta _X,\alpha _X)])\mathrm{\Sigma }_tI`$. ∎

## 4 Divisors on $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$

In order to understand the boundary of $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$, we recall the decomposition of the boundary of $`\overline{}_g`$ into its irreducible components:

$$\overline{}_g=\mathrm{\Delta }_0\mathrm{\Delta }_1\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }_{g/2}$$

and we define

$$D_i:=\varphi _d^1(\mathrm{\Delta }_i)$$

for $`i=0,\mathrm{}g/2`$. Notice that, since $`\varphi _d`$ is surjective, each $`D_i`$ turns out to be a divisor on $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$. Moreover, if $`X\overline{}_g`$, we set as usual $`\overline{P}_{d,X}:=\varphi _d^1(X)`$.

###### Lemma 4.

For every $`i`$, if $`X`$ is a general element in $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ then $`\overline{P}_{d,X}`$ is irreducible.

###### Proof.

If $`i1`$, a general element $`X`$ of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ is the union of two smooth curves $`X_1`$ and $`X_2`$ meeting at one node, so $`X`$ is of compact type and $`\overline{P}_{d,X}`$ is irreducible (see , footnote on p. 594). If instead $`i=0`$, a general element $`X\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is an irreducible curve and also $`\overline{P}_{d,X}`$ turns out to be irreducible (see  7.1).

As a consequence, we obtain a complete description of the boundary of $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$.

###### Proposition 4.

For every $`i`$, $`D_i`$ is irreducible.

###### Proof.

By , Corollary 5.1 (2), for every $`X\overline{}_g`$ all irreducible components of $`\varphi _d^1(X)`$ have dimension $`g`$. Let $`I`$ be an irreducible component of $`D_i`$; by applying the theorem on the dimensions of the fibers (see for instance , II, Ex. 3.22 (b) p. 95) to the map

$$\varphi _{d|I}:I\varphi _d(I)\mathrm{\Delta }_i$$

we obtain

$$dimIdim\varphi _d(I)dim(\varphi _d^1(X)I)g.$$

Hence

$`3g4`$ $`=`$ $`dim\mathrm{\Delta }_idim\varphi _d(I)4g4dim(\varphi _d^1(X)I)`$
$``$ $`3g4`$
and all the above inequalities turn out to be equalities. In particular, we have

$$dim(\varphi _d^1(X)I)=g$$

and $`\varphi _d^1(X)I`$ is a closed subscheme of $`\varphi _d^1(X)`$ of maximal dimension. By Lemma 4 there is a dense open subset $`U_i\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ such that $`\varphi _d^1(X)`$ is irreducible for every $`XU_i`$. It follows that $`\varphi _d^1(X)I`$ for every $`XU_i`$ and $`\varphi _d^1(U_i)`$ is a dense open subset of $`I`$. Hence $`I=\overline{\varphi _d^1(U_i)}`$ is uniquely determined.

We recall that the class of any line bundle $``$ on $`P_{d,g}`$ restricted to a fiber $`J^d(X)`$ is a multiple $`m\theta `$ of the class $`\theta `$ of the $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ divisor (see  p. 840); it seems therefore natural to define the *class* of $``$ to be the integer $`m`$.

The Picard group of $`P_{d,g}`$ is completely described by the following result, due to A. Kouvidakis (see , Theorem 4 p. 849).

###### Theorem 4.

If $`g3`$ then the Picard group of the universal Picard variety $`\psi _d:P_{d,g}_g^0`$ is freely generated over $``$ by the line bundles $`_{d,g}`$ and $`\psi _d^{}(\lambda )`$, where $`_{d,g}`$ is any line bundle on $`P_{d,g}`$ with class

$$k_{d,g}=\frac{2g2}{\mathrm{gcd}(2g2,g+d1)}$$

and $`\lambda `$ is the Hodge bundle on $`_g^0`$.

The analogous result for $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ is the following:

###### Theorem 5.

Assume $`g3`$ and $`d20(g1)`$. Then the divisor class group of the universal Picard variety $`\varphi _d:\overline{P}_{d,g}\overline{}_g`$ is freely generated over $``$ by the classes $`_{d,g}`$, $`\varphi _d^{}(\lambda )`$ and $`𝒟_i`$ ($`i=0,\mathrm{}g/2`$), where $`𝒟_i`$ denotes the linear equivalence class of $`D_i`$.

###### Proof.

Since $`P_{d,g}`$ is smooth and irreducible, there is a natural identification $`\mathrm{Pic}(P_{d,g})=A_{4g4}(P_{d,g})`$, so using the exact sequence

$$A_{4g4}(\overline{P}_{d,g}P_{d,g})A_{4g4}(\overline{P}_{d,g})A_{4g4}(P_{d,g})0$$

we may deduce from Theorem 4 that $`A_{4g4}(\overline{P}_{d,g})`$ is generated by $`_{d,g}`$, $`\varphi _d^{}(\lambda )`$ and $`A_{4g4}(\overline{P}_{d,g}P_{d,g})`$. Now, we have

$$\overline{P}_{d,g}P_{d,g}=D_0\mathrm{}D_{g/2}\varphi _d^1(_g_g^0).$$

Moreover, by applying the theorem on the dimensions of the fibers to the map

$$\varphi _{d|\varphi _d^1(_g_g^0)}:\varphi _d^1(_g_g^0)_g_g^0$$

we obtain that $`\mathrm{codim}(\varphi _d^1(_g_g^0),\overline{P}_{d,g})\mathrm{codim}(_g_g^0,\overline{}_g)=g2`$. Hence, if $`g4`$, Proposition 4 implies that $`A_{4g4}(\overline{P}_{d,g}P_{d,g})`$ is generated by the $`𝒟_i`$’s. If, instead, $`g=3`$, we recall that the hyperelliptic locus $`H`$ is the unique divisor in $`_3`$ contained in $`_3_3^0`$ (see , Ex. 2.27, 3)). Since $`\left[H\right]=18\lambda `$ in $`\mathrm{Pic}(_3)`$ (see  p. 164), we have $`\left[\varphi _d^1(H)\right]=18\varphi _d^{}(\lambda )`$ and the result on generation is completely proved. As for relations, let

$$a_{d,g}+b\varphi _d^{}(\lambda )+c_i𝒟_i=0$$
(4)
be a relation in $`A_{4g4}(\overline{P}_{d,g})`$. If $`J^d(X)`$ is the fiber over a curve $`X`$ in $`_g^0`$, then restricting (4) to $`J^d(X)`$ yields $`ak_{d,g}\theta =0`$ and we get $`a=0`$. So we may rephrase (4) as $`\varphi _d^{}(b\lambda +c_i\delta _i)=0`$. The thesis is now a direct consequence of the following Lemma.

###### Lemma 5.

Assume $`g3`$ and $`d20(g1)`$. Then

$$\varphi _d^{}:A_{3g4}(\overline{}_g)A_{4g4}(\overline{P}_{d,g})$$

is injective.

###### Proof.

It is well-known that $`A_{3g4}(\overline{}_g)`$ is generated by the Hodge class $`\lambda `$ and the boundary classes $`\delta _i`$ (see for instance , Proposition 2). A natural way to check that these classes are independent is to construct families of stable curves $`h:XS`$, with $`S`$ a smooth complete curve, such that the vectors $`(\mathrm{deg}_h(\lambda ),\mathrm{deg}_h(\delta _0),\mathrm{})`$ are linearly independent. Such a construction is carried out in detail in  and it is applied in  to show the injectivity of $`\chi ^{}:\mathrm{Pic}(\overline{}_g)\mathrm{Pic}(\overline{S}_g)`$. We are going to mimic the same idea in our case. Namely, in order to prove that $`\varphi _d^{}(\lambda )`$ and the $`\varphi _d^{}(\delta _i)`$’s are independent in $`A_{4g4}(\overline{P}_{d,g})`$, we will lift to $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ the families $`h:XS`$ constructed in . The key observation is that each of them is equipped with many sections passing through the smooth locus of the general curve $`C`$ of the family. Indeed, for every irreducible component $`C_i`$ of $`C`$ we easily find a section $`\sigma _i`$ of $`h`$ which cuts on $`C`$ a smooth point $`P_iC_i`$. Next, we decompose the integer $`d`$ as a sum of $`d_i`$’s in such a way that the multidegree determined by the $`d_i`$’s satisfies the Basic Inequality. Finally, we endow $`C`$ with the line bundle $`:=_i𝒪_{C_i}(d_iP_i)`$. Since $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ is proper over $`\overline{}_g`$, this construction uniquely determines a lifting of $`h:XS`$, so the proof is over.

###### Corollary 1.

Assume $`g3`$, $`d20(g1)`$ and $`(dg+1,2g2)=1`$. Then $`\mathrm{Pic}(\overline{P}_{d,g})`$ is freely generated by $`_{d,g}`$, $`\varphi _d^{}(\lambda )`$ and $`𝒟_i`$ ($`i=0,\mathrm{}g/2`$).

###### Proof.

By , Lemma 2.2 (1), $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ is the quotient of a nonsingular scheme, so in particular it is normal and there is an injection:

$$\mathrm{Pic}(\overline{P}_{d,g})A_{4g4}(\overline{P}_{d,g}).$$

Moreover, since $`(dg+1,2g2)=1`$, the singularities of $`\overline{P}_{d,g}`$ are all of finite quotient type (see , Proposition on p. 594). It follows that every Weil divisor is $``$-Cartier, so we get a surjective morphism:

$$\mathrm{Pic}(\overline{P}_{d,g})A_{4g4}(\overline{P}_{d,g}).$$

Hence Theorem 5 yields the thesis.

Claudio Fontanari
Università degli Studi di Trento
Dipartimento di Matematica
Via Sommarive 14
38050 Povo (Trento)
Italy
e-mail: fontanar@science.unitn.it


text:
# Nonlinear Couplings Between r-modes of Rotating Neutron Stars

## 1 Introduction

Gravitational radiation can drive nonaxisymmetric normal modes of rotating star unstable (Chandrasekhar, 1970; Friedman & Schutz, 1978b; Friedman, 1978) (CFS). The CFS instability affects nonaxisymmetric modes of stars which counter-rotate when viewed in a reference frame rotating with the star, but co-rotate when viewed in the inertial frame. The nonaxisymmetric modes are predicted to radiate gravitational radiation and the emission of radiation drives the instability. This provides a mechanism for converting the star’s rotational energy into gravitational radiation, which will cause the star to spin down to slower angular velocities while providing a strong source of gravitational radiation which could potentially be detected.

The traditional analysis of the CFS instability has been in terms of the instability of the fundamental pressure modes (f-modes) of rapidly rotating neutron stars (eg. Stergioulas 1998). However, it was suggested by Andersson (1998) that fluid modes of neutron stars driven by the Coriolis force (Rossby waves, or r-modes) can also be driven unstable by the CFS mechanism. It has since been shown that the r-modes are indeed unstable within the context of linear perturbation theory (Friedman & Morsink 1998) and that the growth times are short enough to be of astrophysical interest (Lindblom, Owen & Morsink 1998; Andersson, Kokkotas & Schutz 1999). A review of recent results on the astrophysical relevance of the r-mode instability has been given by Andersson & Kokkotas (2001).

The use of linear perturbation theory is sufficient to show that the modes are unstable, however a linear analysis can not describe the evolution of the instability when the amplitude of the perturbation grows large. It is inevitable, then, that linear perturbation theory can not be a sufficient description of an unstable system. In order to fully describe the growth and saturation of an instability, it is necessary to incorporate the nonlinear aspects of the system, either through a full numerical evolution of the nonlinear equations describing the system, or through a higher order perturbation expansion.

One of the most interesting aspects of the r-mode instability to gravitational radiation reaction, is the prediction (Owen et. al. 1998) that the gravitational radiation could be detected with an advanced version of LIGO. However, the analysis made by Owen et. al. (1998) is dependent on the maximum amplitude the unstable mode is assumed to have before nonlinear effects dominate. The value of the maximum mode amplitude is inaccessible from a purely linear perturbation analysis and it is necessary to consider the nonlinearities in the fluid equations of motion. First steps towards including nonlinearities in the study of r-modes have been made. Two numerical evolutions of the fully nonlinear fluid equations have recently been made. The first evolution (Stergioulas & Font 2001) is fully relativistic, however, changes in the gravitational field induced by the perturbation had to be neglected in order to make the computation feasible. This evolution found that over the course of 25 r-mode pulsation periods, no saturation was observed. A second numerical evolution (Lindblom, Tohline and Vallisneri 2001a, 2001b) was performed using Newtonian gravity and post-Newtonian gravitational radiation reaction terms and did not show any signs of amplitude saturation due to nonlinearities. Neither numerical evolution can definitively explain the lack of nonlinear saturation.

An alternative approach to the nonlinear evolution problem is to consider the weakly nonlinear regime and to do a higher order perturbation analysis. This approach involves taking the general Hamiltonian for a rotating fluid and perturbing around the equilibrium. This allows the explicit evaluation of coupling coefficients between different modes, so that it is possible to make predictions about the maximum amplitudes allowed before the perturbation analysis breaks down. This paper will apply this approach to the nonlinear coupling between the r-modes. This paper is a complementary study to that of Schenk et al. (2002) who have derived the Hamiltonian for nonlinear perturbations of rotating Newtonian stars. Schenk et al. (2002) have explicitly evaluated the lowest order nonlinear coupling coefficients for stars which have a small ratio of $`N/\mathrm{\Omega }`$, where $`N`$ is the Brunt-Vaisala frequency (due to buoyancy) and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the star’s angular velocity. In this paper, the opposite limt is considered. This is equivalent to a slow-rotation approximation, while the work of Schenk et al. (2002) corresponds to rapid rotation. The results of numerical evolutions of the interactions between the coupled modes considered in this paper and those considered by Schenk et al. (2002) will be presented in a following paper (Arras et. al. 2002).

The weakly nonlinear regime has been investigated by other authors for other types of modes and stars. The role of parametric resonances in the nonlinear coupling of modes of nonrotating stars were discussed in detail by Dziembowski (1982). This work showed how stable equilibrium solutions can lead to mode saturation and was extended to describe the behaviour of Cepheids by Dziembowski & Kovács (1984). The role of nonlinear interactions between p-modes in the Sun were investigated by Kumar & Goldreich (1989) and Kumar, Goldreich, & Kerswell (1994). Amplitude saturation of g-modes in white dwarfs through nonlinear interactions was shown in a paper by Wu & Goldreich (2001). All of the above calculations have involved only the lowest order nonlinear terms. Van Hoolst (1994) has constructed a higher order Hamiltonian which includes terms which are quartic in the displacement. Higher order terms have also been included in a relativistic study of radial oscillations (Sperhake, Papadopoulos, & Andersson, 2001). None of the above studies has considered rotating stars. However, in order to be able to study the saturation of an unstable r-mode, it is necessary to include the complicating effect of rotation. In geophysics, r-modes in oceans are of great interest and nonlinear interactions between the r-modes in oceans have been studied by Longuet-Higgins & Gill (1967), Ripa (1981), and Pokhotelov et al. (1995). However, these calculations are typically done in the “$`\beta `$-plane” approximation where locally the surface of a sphere is replaced by a plane. This approximation does not describe very well the situation of interest in stellar physics, where the star as a whole is expected to oscillate. In the calculations where the curvature of the ocean is not neglected, the radial dependence of the mode’s eigenfunction is ignored, and this is not valid for stellar physics. As already discussed above, Schenk et al. (2002) are the first to study the effect of nonlinear interactions amongst the modes of rotating stars.

The structure of this paper is as follows. In section 2 linear perturbation theory is briefly reviewed. In section 3 an alternative form of the third order Hamiltonian is derived. In section 4 the form of the nonlinear equations of motion for oscillations of a rotating star are reviewed. The type of resonances allowed in the coupled r-mode system are discussed in section 5. Numerical results are presented in section 6 and their implications are discussed in the conclusion.

## 2 Linear Perturbation Theory of Rigidly Rotating Nonrelativistic Fluids

The equilibrium state of a rotating star is described by its pressure $`p`$, density $`\rho `$, velocity $`v^a`$ and gravitational field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. In this work, only rigidly rotating stars are considered, so that the star’s velocity field is of the form $`v^a=\mathrm{\Omega }\varphi ^a`$ where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is a constant angular velocity. Small perturbations about the equilibrium star are described by the displacement vector field $`\xi ^a`$ which connects a fluid element in the equilibrium star to a fluid element in the perturbed star.

The Hamiltonian for the perturbation theory of a nonrelativistic fluid is a series expansion in the fluid displacement field of the form

$$\delta H=\delta H_2(\xi ^a,\xi ^a)+\delta H_3(\xi ^a,\xi ^a,\xi ^a)+\mathrm{}+\delta H_n(\xi ^a,\mathrm{},\xi ^a)+O(|\xi |^{n+1}),$$
(1)
where each term in the series depends on the equilibrium fluid variables and $`\xi `$. The subscript on each term denotes the order at which the displacement field $`\xi ^a`$ appears in the term. If all terms up to and including the term $`\delta H_n`$ are kept in the expansion, then the resulting equations of motion will be of order $`(n1)`$ in $`\xi ^a`$. In this notation, retaining only the second order Hamiltonian term results in linear perturbation theory.

The second order Hamiltonian for a nonrelativistic rigidly rotating fluid is (Friedman & Schutz, 1978a)

$`\delta H_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \left[\rho |\dot{\xi }|^2+\frac{1}{\rho }\delta \rho \delta p\frac{1}{4\pi G}|\delta \mathrm{\Phi }|^2\right]𝑑V},`$ (2)
where the Eulerian perturbations of the density and pressure are given by

$`\delta \rho `$ $`=`$ $`_i(\rho \xi ^i)`$ (3)
$`\delta p`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1p_i\xi ^i\xi ^i_ip,`$ (4)
and the perturbed gravitational potential satisfies

$$^2\delta \mathrm{\Phi }=4\pi G\delta \rho .$$
(5)
The expression (2) can be physically interpreted as the energy of the perturbation as measured in the rotating frame and has also been named the rotating frame canonical energy by Friedman & Schutz (1978a), where its properties have been discussed extensively.

## 3 An Alternative Expression for the Third Order Hamiltonian

The expansion of the Hamiltonian up to and including terms third order in the displacement $`\xi `$ has been found by Kumar & Goldreich (1989) for the case of static fluids111The terms involving the perturbed gravitational field given by Kumar & Goldreich (1989) are incorrect and have been corrected by Schenk et al. (2002).. When the equilibrium star is rotating, the contributions to the perturbed Hamiltonian through the perturbation’s kinetic energy is altered. Surprisingly, Schenk et al. (2002) have shown that the contribution from the kinetic energy of the perturbation is exactly second order in the displacement. As a result, all terms in the perturbation expansion of the Hamiltonian for a rotating star which are third order in the displacement (or higher order) are exactly the same as the terms in the perturbation expansion for a nonrotating star. This is an important result and simplifies the study of perturbations of rotating stars greatly. The third order term in the perturbation expansion of the Hamiltonian is

$`\delta H_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}{\displaystyle }dV[2p_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^c_c\xi ^a+\rho \xi ^a\xi ^b\xi ^c_a_b_c\mathrm{\Phi }`$
$`3p(\mathrm{\Gamma }_11)\xi _a\xi ^b_b\xi ^ap\left((\mathrm{\Gamma }_11)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1}{\mathrm{ln}\rho }}\right)(\xi )^3`$
$`+3\rho \xi ^i\xi ^j_i_j\delta \mathrm{\Phi }],`$
as derived by Kumar & Goldreich (1989) and corrected by Schenk et al. (2002).

Although the third order Hamiltonian (3) describes the nonlinear interactions of modes, it is not simple to see from this expression what the relative size of the interaction term is to other physical energy scales. For this reason, an alternative form of equation (3) will now be presented which is useful for finding the size of the nonlinear coupling between different r-modes.

The goal is to replace the first term in (3) with a simpler expression by integrating by parts. The explicit calculation can be found in the Appendix. The final result is

$`2{\displaystyle 𝑑Vp_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^c_c\xi ^a}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }dV[\xi ^a\xi ^b\xi ^c_a_b_cp+3(\xi )\xi ^b\xi ^c_c_bp`$ (7)
$`3(p\xi )_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^a+2(\xi )^2\xi p`$
$`2p(\xi )\xi ^a_a(\xi )].`$
While the expression (7) doesn’t appear to be a simplification, it is useful, since the first term involves three derivatives of the equilibrium pressure. Recall that the third order Hamiltonian (3) has a term involving three derivatives of the equilibrium gravitational potential. This suggests that these terms be combined using the equilibrium equations of motion. The equation of hydrostatic equilibrium for a rotating star is

$$\frac{1}{2}_a(v^2)+\frac{1}{\rho }_ap+_a\mathrm{\Phi }=0.$$
(8)
The strategy will be to take two covariant derivatives of the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium and use the result to simplify the third order Hamiltonian.

In the case of rigid rotation,

$$_a_b_c(v^2)=0.$$
(9)
To prove equation (9), use Cartesian coordinates, so that $`v^2=\mathrm{\Omega }^2(x^2+y^2)`$ and $`_a=_a`$. Then

$`_a(v^2)`$ $`=`$ $`2\mathrm{\Omega }^2(x_ax+y_ay)`$ (10)
$`_b_a(v^2)`$ $`=`$ $`2\mathrm{\Omega }^2(_ax_bx+_ay_by)`$ (11)
from which eq. (9) follows.

Taking the two derivatives of the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium and taking the inner product with three displacements, we find the following equality

$`\xi ^a\xi ^b\xi ^c\left(_a_b_c\mathrm{\Phi }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}_a_b_cp\right)=`$
$`\xi ^a\xi ^b\xi ^c\left({\displaystyle \frac{(\gamma +1)}{\rho \gamma ^2p^2}}_ap_bp_cp+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho \gamma ^2p}}_ap_bp_c\gamma {\displaystyle \frac{3}{\gamma \rho p}}_a_bp_cp\right).`$ (12)
The hydrostatic equilibrium equation (12) and the integration by parts formula (7) can now be substituted into the equation for the third order Hamiltonian (3) resulting in the equivalent third order Hamiltonian

$`\delta H_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}{\displaystyle }dV[\delta p(_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p\gamma }}\xi ^a\xi ^b_a_bp)`$ (13)
$`\xi ^a\xi ^b\xi ^c\left({\displaystyle \frac{(\gamma +1)}{\rho \gamma ^2p^2}}_ap_bp_cp+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho \gamma ^2p}}_ap_bp_c\gamma \right)`$
$`+2(\xi )\left((\xi )\xi pp\xi (\xi )\right)`$
$`3p(\mathrm{\Gamma }_11)\xi _a\xi ^b_b\xi ^ap\left((\mathrm{\Gamma }_11)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1}{\mathrm{ln}\rho }}\right)(\xi )^3`$
$`+3\rho \xi ^i\xi ^j_i_j\delta \mathrm{\Phi }].`$
Equation (13) was derived using only the assumption of rigid rotation. No assumption about the type of perturbation has been used.

It is now of interest to consider the coupling of r-modes at third order in perturbation theory. The traditional r-modes are solutions of the linearized Euler equation in the limit of small rotation rate, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\mathrm{\Omega }\sqrt{R^3/M}1`$ and the slow rotation approximation will be used for the remainder of this paper. In the slow rotation approximation, the r-mode displacement satisfies (eg. Friedman & Morsink 1998)

$$\xi \delta p\xi p\xi \gamma O(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^2),$$
(14)
while in Appendix B it is shown that the terms

$$_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^a\xi ^a\xi ^b_a_bpO(1)$$
(15)
in the slow rotation expansion.

In the slow rotation approximation, adopting the Cowling approximation the third order Hamiltonian coupling r-modes together is

$$\delta H_3=\frac{1}{6}𝑑V\delta p\left(_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^a\frac{1}{p\gamma }\xi ^a\xi ^b_a_bp\right)+O(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^4).$$
(16)
Note that the third order Hamiltonian is $`O(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }})^2`$ in the slow rotation expansion. (The term dropped by assuming the Cowling approximation is also $`O(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }})^2`$.) This has important consequences, since the energy of the r-modes (the term $`\delta H_2`$ in the perturbation expansion) is also $`O(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }})^2`$ (Friedman & Morsink 1998). If the third order term was first order in the dimensionless angular velocity, then the third order term would dominate over the second order terms whenever the amplitude of the r-mode grew larger than the square of the angular velocity. Instead, we see that the third order term in the Hamiltonian is of the same order (in the small angular velocity limit) as the second order term. As a result, if the third order terms are responsible for saturation, the limit on the r-mode amplitude which they set will be independent of angular velocity. However, this is strictly only true if no dissipation is present. Since the dissipative timescales will depend on angular velocity, there will always be an angular velocity dependence in the saturation amplitude.

In order to investigate the possible saturation of an unstable r-mode through couplings with other r-modes at third order, it is necessary to solve for the r-mode at a high enough order in the slow rotation approximation that the pressure perturbation is non-zero. For if only the lowest order in angular velocity terms are kept, the r-mode pressure perturbation will vanish and the third order Hamiltonian will also vanish (Schenk et al., 2002).

## 4 Nonlinear Equations of Motion

The equations of motion for a general perturbation at any order of perturbation theory can be found in a straight-forward manner if the equilibrium star is nonrotating. The general procedure is to expand the displacement into a sum over normal mode solutions

$$\xi =\underset{A}{}c_A(t)\zeta _A(x)$$
(17)
where $`\zeta _A(x)e^{i\omega _At}`$ is a solution of the linearised equations of motion. The expansion coefficients, $`c_A(t)`$ are found by substituting in the expansion (17) into Euler’s equation and making use of the orthogonality properties of the functions $`\zeta _A`$. This procedure is not as straight-forward when the background star is rotating. The main complication is that the normal mode solutions are not orthogonal with respect to the usual inner product,

$$<\zeta _A,\zeta _B>=𝑑V\rho \zeta _A^{}\zeta _B0\text{for}AB.$$
(18)
If such a procedure were to be followed, the resulting equations of motion would be coupled at linear order (Schenk et al., 2002). The coupling of equations at linear order can be circumvented by using a phase space expansion of the displacement, which combines equation (17) with the expansion (Schenk et al., 2002)

$$\dot{\xi }=\underset{A}{}(i\omega _A)c_A(t)\zeta _A(x).$$
(19)
The resulting equations of motion derived by Schenk et al. (2002) for the expansion coefficients (including third order terms in the Hamiltonian) are

$$\dot{c}_A(t)+i\omega _Ac_A(t)=\frac{i\omega _A}{2}\underset{BC}{}\frac{\kappa _{ABC}^{}}{ϵ_A}c_B^{}(t)c_C^{}(t)$$
(20)
where $`ϵ_A`$ is the mode’s energy in the rotating frame at unit amplitude defined by

$$\delta H_2=\underset{A}{}ϵ_A|c_A|^2$$
(21)
and the nonlinear coupling coefficient $`\kappa `$ is defined by

$$\delta H_3=\frac{1}{3}\underset{ABC}{}c_A(t)c_B(t)c_C(t)\kappa _{ABC}.$$
(22)
There is freedom to choose the amplitudes of the spatial mode functions $`\zeta `$. One simple scheme is to choose these amplitudes so that the rotating frame energies all take the value

$$ϵ_A=MR^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2$$
(23)
which is the same order of magnitude as the star’s kinetic energy. With this choice, $`|c_A|^2`$ is the ratio of the mode’s energy to the star’s energy. Since the coupling coefficients $`\kappa _{ABC}`$ have units of energy, the fraction $`\kappa _{ABC}/ϵ_A`$ corresponds to a dimensionless fraction of the star’s energy. When the mode amplitudes satisfy

$$\frac{|c_B||c_C|}{|c_A|}\frac{ϵ_A}{\kappa _{ABC}}$$
(24)
the nonlinear terms in the equation of motion (20) will dominate over the linear terms, which signals the breakdown of the weakly nonlinear regime. If (24) is satisfied, it will be necessary to include higher order nonlinear terms in the equations of motion.

### 4.1 Coupling between r-modes

In the case of the r-modes, the coupling coefficients are

$`\kappa _{ABC}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}{\displaystyle }dV[\delta p_A(_a\zeta _B^b_b\zeta _C^a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p\gamma }}\zeta _B^a\zeta _C^b_a_bp)`$
$`+\delta p_B(_a\zeta _C^b_b\zeta _A^a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p\gamma }}\zeta _A^a\zeta _C^b_a_bp)+\delta p_C(_a\zeta _A^b_b\zeta _B^a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p\gamma }}\zeta _A^a\zeta _B^b_a_bp)]`$
where $`\delta p_A=\mathrm{\Gamma }_1p\zeta _A\zeta _Ap`$. The coupling coefficients for the case of three r-modes are of second order in angular velocity. In the case of r-mode couplings, a dimensionless coupling coefficient, $`\overline{\kappa }_{ABC}`$ is defined by

$$\overline{\kappa }_{ABC}=\frac{\kappa _{ABC}}{MR^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2},$$
(26)
so that the magnitude of the $`\overline{\kappa }_{ABC}`$ coefficients are independent of the star’s angular velocity. This choice of dimensionless coupling coefficient also has the nice feature that the coefficients are independent of the star’s mass, once a polytropic model has been chosen.

The r-mode frequencies, given quantum numbers $`l_A`$ and $`m_A`$, are

$$\omega _A=\frac{2m_A\mathrm{\Omega }}{l_A(l_A+1)}+C(l_A,m_A,k_A)\mathrm{\Omega }\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^2,$$
(27)
where the frequency correction $`C(l_A,m_A,k_A)`$ depends on $`k_A`$, the number of radial nodes in the eigenfunction, as well as the equation of state and buoyancy law. It is convenient to introduce dimensionless frequencies $`\overline{\omega }_A`$ are defined by

$$\overline{\omega }_A=\frac{\omega _A}{\mathrm{\Omega }}.$$
(28)
With the new dimensionless coefficients and frequencies, the equations of motion coupling r-modes together are

$$\dot{c}_A(t)+i\overline{\omega }_Ac_A(t)=\gamma _Ac_A(t)+\frac{i\overline{\omega }_A}{2}\underset{BC}{}\overline{\kappa }_{ABC}^{}c_B^{}(t)c_C^{}(t)$$
(29)
where the time coordinate is now measured in units of the star’s spin period, and an external damping/driving term proportional to $`\gamma _A`$ has been included. When the external damping and driving terms are neglected, equation (29) is independent of angular velocity. As a result, as the star spins down, the nonlinear coupling equations are unchanged if no dissipation is present. When dissipation is included, the strength of the dissipation terms changes with time if the star spins down. The scalings with angular velocity which have been used are only strictly correct in the slow rotation approximation. However, calculations of r-modes for rapidly rotating stars (Lindblom & Ipser, 1999; Yoshida et al., 2000; Karino et al., 2000) have shown that these scalings are not a bad approximation when the star is rapidly rotating.

## 5 Resonance Condition and Selection Rules

The coupling coefficients $`\kappa _{ABC}`$ involve integrals of three r-mode eigenfunctions over all space. This leads to two selection rules on the possible values of $`l`$ and $`m`$ for each mode. Integration over $`\varphi `$ gives the selection rule on the azimuthal quantum numbers,

$$m_A+m_B+m_C=0.$$
(30)
Since the integration is over all space, the overall parity of the integrand must be even. Since r-modes have axial parity, the parity of an r-mode with angular momentum quantum number $`l`$ is $`(1)^{l+1}`$. It follows then that the only allowed couplings of r-modes must obey

$$l_A+l_B+l_C+1=0\text{(mod 2)}.$$
(31)
It is simple to see that as a result of these selection rules, there are no couplings between r-modes of barotropic stars (ie. neutrally convective stars) in third order perturbation theory. Stars which are barotropic only have r-mode solutions with $`l=|m|`$. The $`l`$ selection rule (31) in this case is

$$|m_A|+|m_B|+|m_C|+1=0\text{(mod 2)}.$$
(32)
However it is a property of the integers that

$$|m_A|+|m_B|+|m_C|=m_A+m_B+m_C\text{(mod 2)}.$$
(33)
In order to have nonzero coupling coefficients between r-modes of barotropic stars, we would require 0 = 1 (mod 2), which is clearly impossible (Schenk et al., 2002).

One might expect that the usual triangle inequality which occurs in the addition of angular momentum should hold here as well. However, since the formula for the coupling coefficients involves the pressure perturbation, the triangle inequality is modified. If the lowest-order axial term in the r-mode expansion corresponds to quantum number $`l_C`$, the pressure perturbation will have quantum number $`l_C\pm 1`$ (Saio, 1982). The modified triangle inequality is then

$$l_C1l_A+l_B\text{and}|l_Bl_A|l_C+1.$$
(34)
In order to find nonzero coupling coefficients between r-modes, the perturbations must have a nonzero Schwarzschild discriminant so that r-modes with $`l|m|`$ may exist. Including a Schwarzschild discriminant in the perturbation theory is equivalent to introducing a source of buoyancy. Some physical mechanisms for the inclusion of buoyancy in neutron stars which have been suggested are finite temperature (McDermott, Van Horn, & Scholl, 1983), composition gradients (Reisenegger & Goldreich, 1992), and accretion (Bildsten & Cutler, 1995). The general effect of buoyancy can be modelled by introducing an adiabatic index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ different from the polytropic index $`\gamma =1+1/N`$. The dimensionless parameter $`1\gamma /\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ is typically quite small for all of these buoyancy models. For instance, for the composition gradient buoyancy introduced by Reisenegger & Goldreich (1992),

$$1\frac{\gamma }{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1}3\times 10^3\frac{\rho }{\rho _{nuc}}$$
(35)
in the core of the star, where $`\rho _{nuc}=2.8\times 10^{14}\text{g}\text{cm}^3`$. The computation of r-modes including a realistic adiabatic index which varies with position is a challenging problem, since the equations for the $`l|m|`$ r-modes are not valid at any places where $`1\gamma /\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ vanishes. At present, no calculation of r-modes of neutron stars with varying $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ exists in the literature. A reasonable compromise is a simpler model in which $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ is a constant. The r-modes of polytropic stars with constant $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ have been examined in great detail by Yoshida & Lee (2000). Following the work of Yoshida & Lee (2000), we will also adopt similar buoyancy models in the present paper. An important property of the $`l|m|`$ r-modes has been pointed out in the work of Yoshida & Lee (2000): the $`l|m|`$ r-modes only exist in the limits of slow rotation compared to the break-up velocity ($`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}1`$) and slow rotation compared to the Brunt-Vaisala frequency which places an approximate upper limit of $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}\sqrt{1\gamma /\mathrm{\Gamma }_1}`$ on the angular velocity.

In order to make fully nonlinear numerical simulations computationally possible, the physics is generally simplified to the level of a perfect, zero-temperature fluid, as in the simulations by Stergioulas & Font (2001) and Lindblom et al. (2001a, b). For this reason, these simulations can not include any source of buoyancy and the stars can only support the oscillations of r-modes with $`l=|m|`$. Since the arguments presented above show that there are no nonlinear couplings between $`l=|m|`$ r-modes at third order in perturbation theory, the fully nonlinear codes do not access the same physical coupling mechanisms explored in the present paper. At linear level, the codes written by Stergioulas & Font (2001) and Lindblom et al. (2001a, b) model the perturbations known as hybrid modes (Lockitch & Friedman, 1999). Nonlinear couplings between the hybrid modes have been computed by Schenk et al. (2002). The hybrid modes are good description of a star’s low-frequency modes when the Brunt-Vaisala frequency is very small compared to the spin frequency.

It is well known from the theory of nonlinear oscillations that whenever a resonant match of frequencies occurs in a system consisting of three coupled oscillators, it is possible to transfer energy from a large amplitude mode to a small amplitude mode. The condition for resonance is that the detuning, defined by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{ABC}=\omega _A+\omega _B+\omega _C,$$
(36)
should be close to zero. If any resonances occur amongst the direct couplings with the $`l=m=2`$ r-mode, the unstable mode’s amplitude could be limited by the coupling, even if the coupling coefficient is small.

In the numerical simulations of Stergioulas & Font (2001) and Lindblom et al. (2001a, b), the initial amplitude of the unstable $`l=m=2`$ r-mode is set to a small value and all other mode amplitudes are set to zero. In terms of the equations of weakly nonlinear system, this corresponds to the $`l=m=2`$ r-mode acting a a “parent” or source for a later generation of modes. As an example, the parent mode will carry the label $`A=0`$. Since all other modes initially have zero amplitude, the first generation of daughter modes will be only those with nonzero coupling coefficients $`\kappa _{100}`$, where the label $`1`$ refers to an excited daughter mode. In the case of the CFS instability of r-modes, the unstable parent mode is the $`l=|m|=2`$ r-mode. The daughter modes which can be excited through the third order coupling can be found using the selection rules (30) and (31), choosing $`l_A=l_B=2`$, $`m_A=m_B=2`$ and solving for $`l_C`$ and $`m_C`$. The daughter modes which can be excited are shown in Table 1. The detuning can be easily calculated by using the formula for the r-mode frequency in the slow rotation limit $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}1`$. For this first generation of couplings, with $`l_A=m_A=l_B=m_B=2`$, and $`m_C=4`$, the detuning is

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{ABC}}{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{4}{3}\frac{8}{l_C(l_C+1)}=\frac{4(l_C+3)(l_C2)}{3l_C(l_C+1)},$$
(37)
which is non-zero, since the selection rules require $`l_C=5`$.

Similarly, a second generation of daughter modes can be excited through couplings of first generation daughters with the unstable r-mode or through the coupling of two daughter modes. The second generation daughter modes are also displayed in Table 1. It should be clear that modes excited at any generation must have an even value of $`m`$. Furthermore, it is impossible to generate certain modes, such as an r-mode with $`m=2`$ and an odd value of $`l`$ if the only nonzero initial amplitude corresponds to the unstable $`l=m=2`$ r-mode. This type of coupling, where the parent mode acts as a source for a daughter mode will be denoted a direct coupling. In the case of the second generation direct couplings, the detuning is either

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{ABC}}{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{2\left(l^2+l+10\right)}{5l(l+1)}>0$$
(38)
in the case of couplings involving $`l_B=5`$ and $`m_B=4`$ or

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{ABC}}{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{2\left(7l^2+7l6\right)}{15l(l+1)}$$
(39)
which is also nonzero for whole number values of $`l`$. This shows that a numerical simulation which sets to zero the initial values of all modes except for the $`l=m=2`$ r-mode will only involve non-resonant interactions.

In a realistic star it is expected that the other modes will have small but nonzero amplitudes. When is it possible to have a resonance in any triplet of r-modes including the $`l_A=m_A=2`$ r-mode? Suppose we choose values $`l_C=l`$ and $`m_C=m`$ for the quantum numbers for mode C. From the m-selection rule $`m_B=(m+2)`$ and if we choose $`l_Bl`$ the l-selection rule and the triangle inequality restrict $`l_B`$ to the form $`l_B=l+2k+1`$ where $`k`$ is either 0 or 1. The general formula for the detuning in this case is

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{ABC}}{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{2}{3}\frac{4}{l_B(l_B+1)}+\frac{4m(2k+1)(l+k+1)}{l(l+1)l_B(l_B+1)}.$$
(40)
In Figure 1 it can be seen that the detuning can’t vanish if we are restricted to nonzero values of $`m`$ and $`m_B`$. Hence there are no direct resonant couplings with the $`l=m=2`$ r-mode. However, the values of the detuning are typically smaller than unity and quickly converge to $`2/3`$ for large values of $`l`$.

Any three r-modes with an identical odd value of $`l`$ will be resonant if they satisfy the m-selection rule. This occurs because the detuning for modes with $`l_A=l_B=l_C=l`$ is

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{ABC}}{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{2}{l(l+1)}\left(m_A+m_B+m_C\right)$$
(41)
which vanishes when equation (30) is satisfied. The $`l`$-selection rule (31) demands that $`l`$ must be odd, so that these resonant triplets do no involve the $`l=m=2`$ mode. Since the resonance criteria occurs for all odd values of $`l`$, there are an infinite number of resonances, none of which couple directly with the $`l=m=2`$ r-mode. These couplings are indirect resonant couplings. These resonances will not be exact, since the r-mode frequencies have the small correction terms shown in equation (27). In the slow rotation limit, however, these corrections are very small, and these triads will be very close to resonance.

## 6 Numerical Results

In this paper, the r-mode eigenfunctions of polytropic stars are solved by a numerical method, similar to the method described by Saio (1982), which keeps terms in the perturbed velocity that are third order in the angular velocity. The code’s accuracy was checked against the results published by Saio (1982) for the case of modes where $`\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ and against the results of Lindblom, Mendell & Owen (1999) for the case of modes of stars with $`\gamma =\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$. Good agreement was found in both cases. Once the r-mode eigenfunctions for large number of modes has been found, the coupling coefficients can be computed by directly integrating equation (4.1). In these calculations, all r-modes with $`l10`$ and less than 3 radial nodes were computed.

There are two types of three-mode couplings which occur amongst the r-modes of buoyant stars. Triplets of modes which include the $`l=m=2`$ r-mode are always nonresonant. These direct nonresonant mode couplings will be examined in section 6.1. Resonant mode couplings can occur triplets which do not include the $`l=m=2`$ r-mode. This type of coupling is an indirect resonant coupling and will be examined in section 6.2.

### 6.1 Direct Nonresonant Mode Couplings

Table 1 shows the dimensionless coupling coefficients for generating the first and second generations of r-modes. The equilibrium stellar model is a $`N=1`$ polytrope and the adiabatic index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=1.9`$. The $`N=1`$ polytrope was chosen to allow the closest comparison with the nonlinear simulations of Stergioulas & Font (2001); Lindblom et al. (2001a, b) who all make use of the same polytropic model. However, since $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_11+1/N`$, the types of couplings discussed in this paper will not be seen in the nonlinear simulations. The size of the coupling coefficients in Table 1 are all small. Equations (24) and (26) imply that the unstable r-mode would have to grow to an amplitude so that the fraction of energy in the mode to the star’s energy is of order $`1/\overline{\kappa }^2`$ before higher order nonlinear terms would have to be considered. Since the coupling coefficients are of order $`10^2`$, this suggests that the unstable r-mode would need to have an energy which is approximately $`10^4`$ times the energy of the star before higher order nonlinear terms become important. In other words, the weakly nonlinear approximation holds for all physical values of mode energy.

The dependence of the coupling coefficients on the equation of state and buoyancy law was also examined. The coupling coefficients corresponding to the first generation mode coupling (for modes with zero radial nodes) are shown in Table 2. There appears to be very little dependence on the equation of state or on buoyancy. The lack of dependence on buoyancy can be understood by considering equation (4.1) which defines the coupling coefficients. The coupling coefficients only depend on equilibrium quantities (the pressure) and the eigenfunctions of the perturbations. There is no explicit dependence in (4.1) on the eigenvalue $`C(l,m,k)`$ defined in equation (27). As shown by Yoshida & Lee (2000), the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the $`l=|m|`$ r-modes have very little dependence on the buoyancy law. The only dependence on buoyancy can come through the $`l>|m|`$ r-modes. For the eigenvalues of these modes there is a strong dependence on buoyancy, which we have found varies approximately as $`C(l,m,k)(\mathrm{\Gamma }_1\gamma )^1`$. (This scaling can be also be deduced from the form of the equations presented in the work of Saio (1982).) However, as long as the eigenvalue $`C(l,m,k)`$ and the dimensionless angular velocity $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ are small enough that $`C(l,m,k)\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^2<<2m/l(l+1)`$, the form of the eigenfunctions are almost independent of the buoyancy. In order to satisfy this inequality for angular velocities as large as $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}0.1`$, we require that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1\gamma >10^3`$. As the difference $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1\gamma `$ decreases to zero, the $`l>|m|`$ r-modes cease to exist (Yoshida & Lee, 2000) so we would expect that at small values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1\gamma `$ the character of these r-modes will be greatly modified and the values of the coupling coefficients will be altered. In Table 2 the values of the coupling coefficients for $`\gamma =2`$ are practically the same for all values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$. It is only once $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1\gamma `$ falls below $`8\times 10^4`$ that any variation in the coupling coeffients is found.

The largest coupling coefficients for modes which couple to the $`l_A=m_A=2`$ r-mode are shown in Table 3. The largest coefficients appear to be those which couple $`(l_B,m_B)=(l,1)`$, with $`(l_C,m_C)=(l+1,1)`$. As long as these modes have a small but nonzero amplitude, it will be possible for these modes to be excited. In this case, these modes could be the most important type of interaction which could conceivably limit the amplitude of the unstable r-mode.

As with all other types of modes of nonbarotropic stars, there are an infinite number of r-mode solutions for each value of $`l`$ and $`m`$. Each solution can be labelled by the quantum number $`k0`$ which corresponds to the number of radial nodes in the eigenfunction. The CFS instability in the r-modes is strongest in the fundamental $`k=0`$ modes, so only the fundamental $`l=m=2`$ r-mode will be considered in this work. However, it is conceivable that the unstable mode could excite daughter modes with $`k>0`$. In Table 1, the dependence on number of nodes for the first generation daughter mode is shown. It is intriguing that the magnitude of the coefficients does not seem to fall off rapidly with increasing node number. This behaviour is due to the weighting of the integrals in the coupling coefficients, which favours the regions of the eigenfunctions closest to the surface of the star. Since most of the nodes in a $`k>0`$ eigenfunction occur in the middle regions of the star, and the eigenfunctions are peaked near the surface, there is not a large difference in the contributions of different $`k`$-eigenfunctions to the coupling coefficient integrals. All of these higher-order eigenfunctions are able to participate in interactions with the $`l=m=2`$ r-mode. This increases the number of modes which can act as a drain of the unstable mode’s energy. In order to evaluate an upper bound on $`N`$, it is necessary to compute high-radial order r-modes, which becomes difficult since these modes oscillate rapidly. A more suitable approach would be an approximation scheme such as the WJKB method. This type of approach would allow an asymptotic calculation of the coupling coefficients for high-radial order modes. However, it seems unlikely that the high-radial order modes would participate in the type of interactions described above, for they would be rapidly damped by viscosity. In this case of a series of modes with approximately equal frequencies and coupling coefficients, the most slowly damped mode is the one which places the strongest limit on the unstable parent mode (Wu & Goldreich, 2001). In this case, the fundamental mode is damped the least by viscosity, so it should be the most important.

### 6.2 Indirect Resonant Couplings

In section 5 it was shown that there are an infinite number of resonant triads which do not involve the $`l=m=2`$ r-mode. These resonant triads only couple indirectly to the unstable r-mode.

The coupling coefficients for resonant mode interactions are shown in Table 4. We note that the coupling coefficients in Table 4 are at least an order of magnitude larger than the coefficients in Table 1. Due to the infinite number of possible couplings of this type, only a small selection of triplets are shown in Table 4.

In order to examine the possible effect of indirect resonant couplings on the amplitude of the $`l=m=2`$ r-mode, we can consider a toy model consisting of only three modes. Mode A has quantum numbers $`l_A=m_A=2`$. Mode B has quantum numbers $`l_B=5`$ and $`m_B=4`$. Modes A and B can interact through a triplet involving two of mode A and one of mode B, with coupling coefficient $`k_A:=\kappa _{AAB}`$. The AAB triplet is a nonresonant interaction, for the reasons discussed in the previous subsection. The third mode, mode C, has quantum numbers $`l_C=5`$ and $`l_C=2`$. Mode C can interact with mode B through a triplet involving two of mode C and one of mode B, with coupling coefficient $`k_C:=\kappa _{CCB}`$. The CCB coupling is resonant. Interactions between A and C are not allowed by the selection rules discussed at the beginning of this section.

Since the CCB coupling is resonant, it is possible for an efficient transfer of energy to occur which would limit the amplitude of mode B. Suppose that mode B is the most important mode for saturating mode A when only triplets interacting with A are considered. As soon as mode C is included, the rapid transfer of energy between B and C could drastically alter the saturation of mode A. This type of situation is generic, since all allowed triplets involving the $`l=m=2`$ r-mode also involve one r-mode with an odd value of $`l`$. Since r-modes with odd $`l`$ always have resonances (except for $`l=1`$), this type of indirect resonant interaction is possible. A similar situation was encountered in the study of g-modes by Wu & Goldreich (2001). In their study, Wu & Goldreich (2001) found that such couplings slowed down the transfer of energy between modes A and B, but were unable to halt the energy transfer. A similar study for r-modes will be the topic of a future investigation.

## 7 Conclusions

In this paper, we derived an alternative form of the Hamiltonian describing the interaction of r-modes at lowest nonlinear order. This Hamiltonian was used to compute coupling coefficients between r-modes of polytropic stars with a source of buoyancy. In the case that only the $`l=m=2`$ CFS unstable r-mode has a nonzero amplitude, none of the couplings are resonant, and the coupling coefficients are all small. If small but nonzero amplitudes are allowed for the damped r-modes, larger couplings can occur. These triads of modes with the largest coupling coefficients are the ones most likely to contribute to the saturation of the unstable r-mode’s amplitude. An unusual aspect of this problem which we have pointed out is that there are an infinite number of resonant triads which couple indirectly to the unstable r-mode. It should be noted that all of the couplings considered in this paper involve the $`l>|m|`$ r-modes which only exist in the limit of slow rotation. This study is complementary to the work of Schenk et al. (2002) who examined the coupling coefficients for the modes of rotating stars which are neutral to convection, which is a very good approximation when the star is rapidly rotating. The results of a numerical evolution of the coupled system of oscillators considered in this paper and in the paper by Schenk et al. (2002) will be presented in a future paper (Arras et al., 2002).

This paper has been concerned only with the couplings between different r-modes. However, it may be possible to couple r-modes with other modes, such as the g-modes or p-modes. The g-modes are highly distorted by rotation (Bildsten, Ushomirsky, & Cutler, 1996), so the effect of their coupling with r-modes is difficult to compute in the slow-rotation approximation. Instead, for rapid rotation, the inertial or hybrid modes discussed by Lockitch & Friedman (1999), and Yoshida & Lee (2000) are a better approximation to the g-modes and r-modes. Hence the coupling between hybrid modes studied by Schenk et al. (2002) should be sufficient to study all of the different types of couplings between different families of modes.

When the driving and damping of modes is included in the evolution equations describing the coupled oscillators, it is possible for equilibrium solutions with constant amplitude to result (Dziembowski, 1982; Dziembowski & Kovács, 1984; Wu & Goldreich, 2001). This leads to a limiting amplitude on unstable modes. This limiting amplitude depends on the coupling coefficients, frequency detuning and the driving and damping rates of the modes. With the state of understanding of these parameters coming from this paper and the work of Schenk et al. (2002), it will be possible for numerical simulations of mode-mode coupling to show under what conditions it is possible for saturation of the unstable r-mode to occur.

It is a pleasure to thank Phil Arras, Éanna Flanagan, John Friedman, Keith Lockitch, Katrin Schenk, Saul Teukolsky and Ira Wasserman for many helpful discussions. I would like to thank the Institute for Theoretical Physics for hospitality during the workshop “Spin and Magnetism in Young Neutron Stars” and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics where some of this research was carried out. This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and by NSF grants PHY99-07949 and PHY95-07740.

## Appendix A Integration by Parts

In equation (3) the integral

$$I=𝑑Vp_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^c_c\xi ^a$$
(A1)
appears. The purpose of this appendix is to transform the integral (A1) into a form more suitable for evaluating the r-mode coupling coefficients. The goal is to transfer the derivatives acting on the displacements to derivatives acting on the pressure. This can be done by integrating by parts a many times. All surface terms are proportional to either the pressure or the radial derivative of the pressure, both of which vanish on the surface of the star.

Integrating by parts, and throwing away the surface terms,

$$I=𝑑V\xi ^a_c\left(p_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^c\right)=I_A+I_B+I_C,$$
(A2)
where

$`I_A`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V_cp\xi ^a_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^c}`$ (A3)
$`I_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑Vp\xi ^a_a_c\xi ^b_b\xi ^c}`$ (A4)
$`I_C`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑Vp\xi ^a_a\xi ^b_b(\xi )}.`$ (A5)
The integral $`I_A`$ has one derivative of pressure appearing. Integrating by parts once more will produce a term involving two derivatives of pressure, since

$$I_A=𝑑V\xi ^c_b\left(_cp\xi ^a_a\xi ^b\right)=I_{A1}+I_{A2}+I_{A3},$$
(A6)
where

$`I_{A1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V\xi ^c_c_bp\xi ^a_a\xi ^b}`$ (A7)
$`I_{A2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V\xi ^c_cp_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^a}`$ (A8)
$`I_{A3}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V\xi ^c_cp\xi ^a_a(\xi )}.`$ (A9)
The integral $`I_{A1}`$ now has two derivatives acting on the pressure. Only one more integration by parts will be necessary to provide the term involving three covariant derivatives of pressure. The last integration by parts gives

$`I_{A1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V\xi ^b_a\left(\xi ^a\xi ^c_c_bp\right)}`$ (A10)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V\left(\xi \xi ^b\xi ^c_c_bp+\xi ^a_a\xi ^c\xi ^b_b_cp+\xi ^a\xi ^b\xi ^c_a_b_cp\right)}.`$ (A11)
Notice that the second term is just the negative of the integral $`I_{A1}`$. This allows us to rearrange the last equation to read

$`I_{A1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑V\left((\xi )\xi ^b\xi ^c_c_bp+\xi ^a\xi ^b\xi ^c_a_b_cp\right)}.`$ (A12)
This step gives us the term involving three derivatives of the pressure.

The integral $`I_B`$ involves two derivatives of the displacement, which can be simplified through an integration by parts to

$`I_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V_c\xi ^b_a\left(p\xi ^a_b\xi ^c\right)}`$ (A13)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V\left((p\xi )_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^a+p_c\xi ^b\xi ^a_a_b\xi ^c\right)}.`$ (A14)
The last term in this expression is just the negative of $`I_B`$. Hence

$$I_B=\frac{1}{2}𝑑V(p\xi )_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^a.$$
(A15)
The final task is to transform $`I_C`$ into a more useful form. This will be done by integrating by parts again, giving

$$I_C=𝑑V\xi _b\left(p\xi ^a_a\xi ^b\right)=I_{C1}+I_{C2}+I_{C3},$$
(A16)
where

$`I_{C1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V\xi _bp\xi ^a_a\xi ^b}`$ (A17)
$`I_{C2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑Vp\xi \xi ^a_a(\xi )}`$ (A18)
$`I_{C3}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑Vp\xi _a\xi ^b_b\xi ^a}.`$ (A19)
The final integration by parts allows us to rewrite $`I_{C1}`$ in the form

$`I_{C1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V\xi ^b_a\left((\xi )\xi ^a_bp\right)}`$ (A20)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V\left(\xi p\xi (\xi )+(\xi )^2\xi p+(\xi )\xi ^a\xi ^b_a_bp\right)}.`$ (A21)
Putting together the results for $`I_A`$, $`I_B`$ and $`I_C`$, the original integral is

$`I`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑V\left(\xi ^a\xi ^b\xi ^c_a_b_cp+3(\xi )\xi ^b\xi ^c_c_bp3(p\xi )_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^a\right)}`$ (A22)
$`{\displaystyle 𝑑V\left((\xi )^2\xi pp(\xi )\xi ^a_a(\xi )\right)}`$
While equation (A22) may not appear to be simpler than equation (A1), it will prove to be useful in simplifying the third-order Hamiltonian coupling r-modes.

## Appendix B Order of Magnitudes for r-modes

In the slow-rotation approximation, defined by $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}1`$, the fluid displacement vector for r-modes has components which are of order

$$\xi ^r=O(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^2),\xi ^\theta =O(1),\xi ^\varphi =O(1).$$
(B1)
In the slow rotation approximation, the star’s pressure deviates from spherical symmetry at second order in angular velocity, so that derivatives of the pressure are of order

$$\frac{}{r}p=O(1),\frac{}{\theta }p=O(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^2),\frac{}{\varphi }p=0.$$
(B2)
It then follows that

$$\xi ^a_ap=\xi ^a_ap=O(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^2)$$
(B3)
for r-modes.

In equation (16) for the third-order r-mode Hamiltonian, a term involving two covariant derivatives of pressure appears. In terms of partial derivatives and Christoffel symbols for spherical coordinates, this term is

$$\xi ^a\xi ^b_a_bp=\xi ^a\xi ^b(_a_bp\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ab}^c_cp).$$
(B4)
The non-vanishing Christoffel symbols for flat space written in spherical coordinates are

$$r^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{r\theta }^\theta =r^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{r\varphi }^\varphi =\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\theta \theta }^r=\frac{1}{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\varphi \varphi }^r=r,\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\varphi \theta }^\varphi =\mathrm{cot}\theta .$$
(B5)
The leading order behaviour of equation (B4) is then

$$\xi ^a\xi ^b_a_bp=\frac{1}{r}_rp\left(\xi ^\theta \xi _\theta +\xi ^\varphi \xi _\varphi \right)=O(1).$$
(B6)
Similarly, a longer but straight-forward calculation shows that

$$_a\xi ^b_b\xi ^a=O(1).$$
(B7)