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# Contents

## 1 Introduction

Eta decays at high precision, both in measuring rare decays and in precisely determining kinematical distributions in the more common decays, have a high potential to teach us about various aspects of the strong interaction. In the view of the new experimental results to be expected from WASA at CELSIUS in Uppsala and KLOE at DAPHNE in Frascati and the ongoing work of the Crystal Ball, an overview of the present situation as regards some of the main eta decays is appropriate. The importance of these decays and measurements can be judged from the fact that they were the main focus of several theoretical talks presented at this workshop, in addition to the ones by the present authors there is also the contribution by Holstein and by Ametller.

In this review we concentrate on chiral symmetry aspects for the main strong decay $`\eta 3\pi `$ and how it can be used to extract information on quark mass ratios. We will show how precise measurements of the slope parameters will lead to more refined theoretical predictions for the decay rate as a function of the quark mass ratio

$$\frac{m_s\widehat{m}}{m_dm_u}.$$
(1)
A discussion of the decay $`\eta 3\pi `$ in Chiral Perturbation Theory (CHPT) and the use of dispersion theory to improve on the one-loop prediction is the main focus of this short review. In addition, a short overview is given of Dalitz ($`\eta \gamma l^+l^{}`$) and double Dalitz ($`\eta l^+l^{}l^+l^{}`$) decays, as well as of the process $`\eta \pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$. We indicate why these are important quantities to be measured.

We first give a very short overview of chiral symmetry and its incorporation using effective field theory methods - known as Chiral Perturbation Theory - in Sect. 2. The decay $`\eta 3\pi `$ is then discussed at the purely perturbative level in CHPT at order $`p^4`$ in Sect. 3 and the estimates of higher orders using dispersion relations in Sect. 4. Section 5 is devoted to the Dalitz and double Dalitz decays, and the decay $`\eta \pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ is the subject of section 6. Our conclusions are presented in section 7.

## 2 Basics of CHPT

We cannot calculate all things we are interested in in the strong interaction directly from QCD. E.g. scattering amplitudes at low energies cannot be expressed as an expansion in the strong coupling constant because:

* At low energies the coupling constant becomes large.
* We deal with bound states which require always to go beyond a simple perturbation series.

So how can we calculate e.g. the cross-section of $`\pi \pi `$-scattering in QCD?

Two fundamental options are possible:

This can be done using the methods developed by Lüscher via QCD calculations at finite volume. The energy spectrum at finite volume depends on the $`\pi \pi `$ interaction. By measuring the lowest two-pion energy level, the $`\pi \pi `$ $`S`$wave scattering lengths $`a_0^I`$ can be obtained via

$$E^I=2m_\pi \frac{4\pi a_0^I}{m_\pi L^3}+𝒪(L^4),$$
(2)
where $`I`$ denotes isospin. There are first lattice results available which make use of this relation .

Using the methods of effective quantum field theory (EFT) we can also evaluate cross-sections in QCD at low energies. We replace the QCD Lagrangian by the effective Lagrangian of Chiral Perturbation Theory (CHPT). We replace the quarks and gluons by the degrees of freedom which are relevant at low energies: $`\pi `$, $`K`$, $`\eta `$, $`p`$, $`n`$,…. This is the method most of this report is concerned with.

Chiral Perturbation Theory does reproduce for appropriately chosen coupling constants the $`S`$-matrix elements of QCD and it allows to make very sharp predictions in some cases. As an example, we quote the recent result on the scattering length combination $`a_0^0a_2^0`$,

$$a_0^0a_0^2=0.265\pm 0.004.$$
(3)
For earlier work at tree level and at one and two-loops accuracy, see .

We will now present the basics which underly the calculations of $`\pi \pi \pi \pi `$, $`\eta \pi \pi \pi `$, etc. in this approach.

### 2.1 Chiral Symmetry

Consider QCD with 3 flavours, $`u`$, $`d`$ and $`s`$. Gluon interactions do not change the helicity of a quark, only mass terms couple the left and right handed helicity states. So in the limit where $`m_u=m_d=m_s=0`$, the left-handed world cannot be turned into the right handed world. Now if all the masses are zero, there is also no way to distinguish the different flavours of quarks and we can continuously rotate one into the other. The QCD Lagrangian is thus invariant under

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}u\\ d\\ s\end{array}\right)_HV_H\left(\begin{array}{c}u\\ d\\ s\end{array}\right)_H;H=L,R,$$
(4)
separately for both helicities, left (L) and right (R). The matrices $`V_H`$ are general unitary $`3\times 3`$ matrices. So we have a global222The $`U(1)`$ parts of the groups play no role here, but see the contributions by Bass, Shore, Michael, Kroll and Feldmann for their effects.

$$SU(3)_L\times SU(3)_R$$
(5)
chiral symmetry of QCD . This symmetry has 16 conserved currents and has thus 16 conserved charges. The vector charges $`Q_V^i=Q_L^i+Q_R^i`$ also annihilate the vacuum, but the axial charges $`Q_A^i=Q_L^i+Q_R^i`$ produce a change on the vacuum:

$$Q_V^I|0=0Q_A^I|00.$$
(6)
The symmetry of the QCD Lagrangian is not the symmetry of the vacuum. This is known as spontaneous breakdown of chiral symmetry or spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking ((S)$`\chi `$SB).

The 8 spontaneously broken axial symmetries require the existence of 8 Goldstone bosons which must be massless and pseudoscalar. They are the pions, kaons and eta. The Goldstone bosons also have zero interactions at zero energy. The expansion of CHPT is based on these facts.

Now, the fact that the quark masses are present and we can also have nonzero energies allows nonzero values for masses and interactions. E.g. the pion mass is an intricate mixture of the current quark mass, explicit $`\chi `$SB, and the quark vacuum expectation value, spontaneous $`\chi `$SB.

$$m_\pi ^2=(m_u+m_d)0|\overline{u}u|0/F^2.$$
(7)
Similarly the pion scattering lengths do not vanish

$$a_0^0=\frac{7m_\pi ^2}{32\pi F_\pi ^2}=0.159.$$
(8)
These predictions are not exact, they are the first term in a series expansion of momenta and the quark masses.

### 2.2 A systematic expansion

The amplitudes are expanded in powers of momenta and quark masses. The price paid for the generality is that order by order we get more terms,

$$_{\text{CHPT}}=_2+_4+_6+\mathrm{},$$
(9)
where $`_n`$ contains terms with $`n`$-derivatives or equivalent. In amplitudes the derivatives turn into momenta such that the expansion converges at low momenta. As said earlier, quark masses are counted as two powers of momentum, this is because Eq. (7) sets a quark mass to the pion mass squared. The structure of the Lagrangians $`_n`$ is fixed by chiral symmetry but the coupling constants are not.

In the strong and semileptonic mesonic sector, these Lagrangians are known and the parameters have conventional names:

$`F_0,B_0`$

$`L_1,\mathrm{},L_{10}`$

$`C_1,\mathrm{},C_{90}`$

These coupling constants (LEC’s) are free in chiral perturbation theory, but are in principle calculable from QCD333For some attempts to determine them from lattice QCD, see Ref. ..

The Lagrangians $`_{2,4,6,\mathrm{}}`$ allow to calculate S-matrix elements order by order in powers of momenta and quark masses. The main point is that order by order, only a limited number of terms can contribute, and the form of the contribution is completely fixed by chiral symmetry. So an amplitude can be expanded in powers

$$A=A_2+A_4+A_6+\mathrm{},$$
(10)
with

tree graphs with vertices from $`_2`$. The form of the vertices is fixed by chiral symmetry.

tree graphs with vertices from $`_2`$ and one vertex from $`_4`$ or loop graphs with vertices from $`_2`$.

This procedure is known as Chiral Perturbation Theory (CHPT).

In loop integrals one integrates over all momenta, from eV to the Planck mass and beyond, yet we always use the vertices from the effective Lagrangian constructed to reproduce the amplitude at low energies. This is not a contradiction, the high energy behaviour of the loop integrals is irrelevant in the sense that this is the part that is absorbed by the coupling constants. In this way, different regularizations can be used to cut-off the integrals and the difference in different ways of doing it is absorbed by using different values of the coupling constants. The final result is always independent of the regularization used. In practice we nearly always use dimensional regularization since it preserves chiral symmetry throughout the calculation reducing the need for technically complicated subtractions to restore symmetries.

Many applications exist, see e.g. the miniproceedings of the Bad Honnef meetings and the review articles as well as the lectures .

## 3 $`\eta \pi \pi \pi `$ at order $`𝐩^\mathrm{𝟒}`$

### 3.1 Kinematics and Isospin Relations

The $`\eta `$ is an isospin singlet and a pseudo-scalar. The decay into two pions is forbidden by CP. CP violation in $`\eta `$ decays is discussed by C. Jarlskog and E. Shabalin and J. Ng in these proceedings. Three pions in an angular momentum 0 configuration cannot have isospin zero as well, but isospin 1 is allowed. This decay thus has to proceed via isospin breaking effects. Electromagnetism is known to play a fairly minor role here as discussed below, except via the kinematical effects due to the charged and neutral pion mass difference. This decay thus goes primarily through the strong isospin breaking part of QCD

$$_{\text{I/}}=\frac{1}{2}(m_um_d)\left(\overline{u}u\overline{d}d\right).$$
(11)
This itself has isospin 1 and there is thus to lowest order in isospin breaking a relation between $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ and $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\pi ^0`$.

The kinematics is depicted in Fig. 1.

The variables used in the remainder are

$`s`$ $`=`$ $`\left(p_{\pi ^+}+p_\pi ^{}\right)^2=\left(p_\eta p_{\pi ^0}\right)^2,`$
$`t`$ $`=`$ $`\left(p_\pi ^{}+p_{\pi ^0}\right)^2=\left(p_\eta p_{\pi ^+}\right)^2,`$
$`u`$ $`=`$ $`\left(p_{\pi ^+}+p_{\pi ^0}\right)^2=\left(p_\eta p_\pi ^{}\right)^2,`$ (12)
which satisfy

$$s+t+u=m_\eta ^2+2m_{\pi ^+}^2+m_{\pi ^0}^23s_0.$$
(13)
The last equality is the definition of $`s_0`$.

The decay amplitude itself can be written as

$$\pi ^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}\text{out}|\eta =i\left(2\pi \right)^4\delta ^4\left(p_\eta p_{\pi ^+}p_\pi ^{}p_{\pi ^0}\right)A(s,t,u).$$
(14)
Charge conjugation requires this amplitude to be symmetric under the interchange of $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ so we have

$$A(s,t,u)=A(s,u,t).$$
(15)
Using isospin as discussed above and labeling the three momenta as $`p_1,p_2,p_3`$ and $`s_i=\left(p_\eta p_i\right)^2`$, the amplitude for the neutral decay

$$\pi ^0\pi ^0\pi ^0\text{out}|\eta =i\left(2\pi \right)^4\delta ^4\left(p_\eta p_1p_2p_3\right)\overline{A}(s_1,s_2,s_3)$$
(16)
satisfies

$$\overline{A}(s_1,s_2,s_3)=A(s_1,s_2,s_3)+A(s_2,s_3,s_1)+A(s_3,s_1,s_2),$$
(17)
see e.g.  for a detailed derivation of this result. Experimentally, there are two main numbers to be kept in mind. The decay width from an overall fit

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)=271\pm 25eV,$$
(18)
with a scale factor of $`S=1.8`$, and the ratio of neutral to charged decays

$$r\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\pi ^0)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)}=1.404\pm 0.034,$$
(19)
with a scale factor of $`S=1.3`$. The presence of these scale factors is an indication of mutually incompatible experiments.

### 3.2 Lowest order: $`p^2`$

The lowest order CHPT contribution from the quark mass difference was derived in the sixties using current algebra methods and is

$$A(s,t,u)=\frac{B_0(m_um_d)}{3\sqrt{3}F_\pi ^2}\left\{1+\frac{3(ss_0)}{m_\eta ^2m_\pi ^2}\right\}.$$
(20)
As announced, the decay amplitude is proportional to $`m_um_d`$. We can now rewrite the amplitude in terms of $`Q`$, a combination of quark masses which is experimentally more easily accessible,

$$Q^2\frac{m_s^2\widehat{m}^2}{m_d^2m_u^2},$$
(21)
where $`m_i`$ stands for the up, down or strange current quark mass, and

$$\widehat{m}=\frac{1}{2}(m_u+m_d).$$
(22)
The decay rate can then be written as

$$A(s,t,u)=\frac{1}{Q^2}\frac{m_K^2}{m_\pi ^2}(m_\pi ^2m_K^2)\frac{M(s,t,u)}{3\sqrt{3}F_\pi ^2},$$
(23)
with at lowest order

$$M(s,t,u)=\frac{3s4m_\pi ^2}{m_\eta ^2m_\pi ^2}.$$
(24)
It can alternatively be rewritten in terms of

$$R=\frac{m_s\widehat{m}}{m_dm_u}$$
(25)
as

$$A(s,t,u)=\frac{1}{4\sqrt{3}F_\pi ^2R}\left(3s4m_\pi ^2\right).$$
(26)
So if we have a good theoretical description of $`M(s,t,u)`$, we get an accurate determination of $`Q`$, since

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\eta 3\pi \right)|A|^2Q^4.$$
(27)
Due to the high power, the error on $`Q`$ can be made much smaller than its determination from meson mass ratios,

$$Q^2=\frac{m_K^2}{m_\pi ^2}\frac{m_K^2m_\pi ^2}{(m_{K^0}^2m_{K^+}^2)_{\text{QCD}}}(1+O(m_{quark}^2)),$$
(28)
because this relation has much larger electromagnetic corrections.

In order to show the accuracy which can be obtained, we can input two different values of $`Q`$ or $`R`$. We first use the value

$`R`$ $`=`$ $`40.8\pm 3.2\text{[27]},`$
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)`$ $``$ $`66\text{eV},`$
$`r`$ $`=`$ $`1.51.`$ (29)
The second one is where we use instead the fit done at $`p^6`$ order for the quark masses from the meson masses and the estimate of the kaon electromagnetic mass difference including higher order effects ,

$`Q`$ $`=`$ $`20.0\pm 1.5\text{or}R29,`$
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)`$ $``$ $`140\text{eV}.`$ (30)
It is clear that a good understanding of $`M(s,t,u)`$ can lead to a very accurate determination of $`Q`$ and $`R`$.

### 3.3 Electromagnetic effects

The lowest order contribution does not contribute directly to the decay rate. It only comes in via the electromagnetic mass difference of pions. This is very relevant for the actual values of the kinematical variables $`s,t,u`$ in terms of the measured momenta, but this can be included in a simple fashion. That this decay could not be explained by its electromagnetic contributions has been known for a long time already.

The calculation of the purely electromagnetic contribution to the decay has also been pushed to one-loop level and the total effect remains small.

The decay with an extra photon in the final state has been estimated as well. This could have had potentially a large impact, since it can proceed without extra isospin breaking. Fortunately, both a simplified analysis using Low’s theorem and a full analysis at one loop in CHPT lead to a rather small result of the order of 1% of the decay width of $`\eta 3\pi `$.

The correct incorporation of the electromagnetic corrections also tells us which value for the pion mass should be introduced in the expression for the amplitude. It is the same for both decays and is the neutral pion mass but we need to include the correct physical masses in the phase-space integrals. This follows from adding to $`_2`$ the effective electromagnetic term

$$_2_2+CQUQU^{},$$
(31)
with

$$QUQU^{}=\frac{2e^2}{F^2}\left(\pi ^+\pi ^{}+K^+K^{}\right)+\frac{2e^2}{3F^2}\pi _3^2\pi ^+\pi ^{}+\mathrm{}.$$
(32)
There is no direct contribution to $`\eta 3\pi `$. The first term leads to an equal mass shift for the charged pion and charged kaon in the chiral limit. This fact is known as Dashen’s theorem. The second term generates a contribution through mixing. This may appear to be negligibly small, because it is of order $`e^2(m_dm_u)`$. However, this matters in the ratio $`r`$. Taking these corrections into account tells us that the pion mass appearing in Eq. (26) is the neutral pion mass.

### 3.4 Conclusions from the tree level

* The total rate is off by a factor of about 4, depending on the precise inputs used.
* The ratio $`r`$ is near its experimental value. The reason for this is discussed below.
* Second order isospin breaking effects are important in the phase-space. Since the latter is small, small terms are important there - they significantly lower $`r`$.
* The effective Lagrangian method is a very efficient tool to perform these calculations.

### 3.5 One-loop contribution

The amplitude can be expanded as

$$A(s,t,u)=A_2(s,t,u)+A_4(s,t,u)+\mathrm{}$$
(33)
$`A_2`$ has been calculated in the previous subsections. To evaluate $`A_4(s,t,u)`$, one needs to evaluate one-loop diagrams with $`_2`$ and tree diagrams with $`_4`$. This was done in Ref. . The decay rate can now be written in the form of Eq. (23). From the expression in Ref. , it can be seen that the only free parameter coming in is $`L_3`$. This parameter can be determined from $`\pi \pi `$-scattering or more accurately from $`K_{e4}`$ decays.

What one numerically finds is a very large enhancement over the lowest order expression,

$$\frac{{\displaystyle 𝑑LIPS|A_2+A_4|^2}}{{\displaystyle 𝑑LIPS|A_2|^2}}=2.4,$$
(34)
where $`LIPS`$ stands for Lorentz invariant phase-space. This enhancement has as one major source the large $`S`$-wave final state rescattering as was expected, see Ref.  and references therein. In Sect. 4 we will come back to estimates of this contribution to higher orders. This contributions is about half of the total enhancement found in Ref. .

### 3.6 $`r`$ and slope parameters

Can $`r`$ be very different from 1.5? The lowest order amplitude has a zero for $`s=(4/3)m_\pi ^2`$. Higher order corrections are not expected to remove the zero and also not to move it very much. We can thus expect that the amplitude will remain roughly of the form

$$A(s,t,u)b\left(sXm_\pi ^2\right),$$
(35)
with $`X`$ about 4/3. Given this form we see from Fig. 2 that unless the zero moves very much, the ratio $`r`$ will remain close to 1.5.

The reason for this relation between $`X`$ and the ratio $`r`$ is the isospin relation between the amplitudes for the neutral and charged decays.

At $`𝒪(p^4)`$ the ratio $`r`$ is changed from the tree level prediction. It is now lowered to 1.43, bringing it into nice agreement with the observed ratio. Again, the relation between $`X`$, or more generally the slope measurements in the Dalitz plot, and $`r`$ follows from isospin. This is discussed in detail in Ref. .

### 3.7 $`Q`$ at order $`p^4`$

The quark mass ratio $`Q`$ determines the major semi axis of Leutwyler’s ellipse in the $`m_s/m_d`$ and $`m_u/m_d`$ plane,

$$\frac{m_u^2}{m_d^2}+\frac{1}{Q^2}\frac{m_s^2}{m_d^2}=1.$$
(36)
The situation at order $`p^4`$ is shown in Fig. 3.

The role that a better understanding of $`\eta 3\pi `$ has in this context is shown in Fig. 4,

where at order $`p^4`$ the measurement of $`\eta 3\pi `$ is compared with the determination from the $`K^+`$-$`K^0`$ mass difference. The different points on the graph correspond to various estimates of the electromagnetic part of the mass difference. Note that estimates of the $`p^6`$ contributions  indicate possibly even lower values of $`Q`$ than are shown here.

## 4 $`\eta \pi \pi \pi `$ beyond order $`𝐩^\mathrm{𝟒}`$

### 4.1 The method and equations to solve

We can now try to estimate even higher orders using dispersion relation techniques. This should catch a large part of the higher order corrections, because the large $`\pi \pi `$ rescattering part was already a large part of the one-loop prediction. Unfortunately, for a general three-body decay, this is not such an easy undertaking. There are several subtleties involved here, as compared to the simple case of a two-body final state, because one can have imaginary parts not only from the scattering, but also from the unstable particle. The latter difficulty can be avoided by studying instead the scattering process $`\pi \eta \pi \pi `$ with an $`\eta `$ mass such that the eta cannot decay. Then we only have $`\pi \pi `$ singularities in the various channels to deal with. This procedure is how one can restrict oneself to the influence of two-body scattering only. The general framework is known as Khuri-Treiman equations  and was used in Ref.  to study higher order corrections to eta decay.

Here we will restrict ourselves to a simpler formalism that has been very successful in the study of $`\pi \pi `$ scattering. The underlying observation is that there are no imaginary parts from rescattering with angular momentum larger than or equal to two up to $`p^8`$. This together with the fact that $`s+t+u`$ is constant shows that to order $`p^6`$ the amplitude (23) can be written as

$$M(s,t,u)=M_0(s)+(su)M_1(t)+(st)M_1(t)+M_2(t)+M_2(u)\frac{2}{3}M_2(s).$$
(37)
The functions $`M_I(s)`$ correspond to isospin $`I`$ rescattering in the two particles whose kinematics is described by $`s`$. The split into these functions is not quite unique. There is some ambiguity in the distribution of the polynomial terms over the various $`M_I`$, because $`s+t+u`$ is constant. The split (37) is useful because:

* Dispersion problems are now reduced to a set of functions of only one variable much simplifying the analysis.
* This split is fully correct to two-loop order.
* The main two-body rescattering corrections happen inside the functions $`M_I`$.

This method was used to estimate higher order corrections to $`\eta 3\pi `$ in Ref. . A detailed description can be found in Ref. . With the approximations used in Ref. , the two methods are in fact entirely equivalent.

So we use here the form (23) and discuss the process $`\pi \eta \pi \pi `$ with the final two pions in isospin $`I`$ for an eta mass below the three pion threshold. This leads to the dispersion relations

$$M_I(s)=\frac{1}{\pi }_{4m_\pi ^2}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑s^{}\frac{\text{Im}M_I(s^{})}{s^{}si\epsilon },$$
(38)
up to subtractions, see below. To be more precise, the integrand contains the discontinuity

$$\text{Im}M_I(s^{})\text{disc}M_I(s)=\frac{1}{2i}\left(M_I(s+i\epsilon )M_I(si\epsilon )\right).$$
(39)
We will need to subtract to be able to compare with the one-loop expression. Checking the high-energy behaviour of the one-loop expressions leads to three subtractions for $`M_0`$ and $`M_2`$, while two are sufficient for $`M_1`$. So the equations we will need to solve for $`M_I`$ are

$`M_0(s)`$ $`=`$ $`a_0+b_0s+c_0s^2+{\displaystyle \frac{s^3}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{ds^{}}{s^3}\frac{\text{disc}M_0(s^{})}{s^{}si\epsilon }},`$
$`M_1(s)`$ $`=`$ $`a_1+b_1s+{\displaystyle \frac{s^2}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{ds^{}}{s^2}\frac{\text{disc}M_1(s^{})}{s^{}si\epsilon }},`$
$`M_2(s)`$ $`=`$ $`a_2+b_2s+c_2s^2+{\displaystyle \frac{s^3}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{ds^{}}{s^3}\frac{\text{disc}M_2(s^{})}{s^{}si\epsilon }}.`$ (40)
This leads to eight constants which should be determined. But the ambiguity in the precise choice of the $`M_I`$ is visible here too. Up to the same order in the $`s,t,u`$ expansion we have only four parameters

$$M(s,t,u)=a+bs+cs^2d(s^2+tu),$$
(41)
so there is some freedom in the choice.

We can form some more convergent combinations at one-loop as well. Comparing expressions one sees that

$$M_0(s)+\frac{4}{3}M_2(s)$$
(42)
and

$$sM_1(s)+M_2(s)+s^2\frac{4L_31/(64\pi ^2)}{F_\pi ^2(m_\eta ^2m_\pi ^2)}$$
(43)
need only two subtractions. This allows to determine $`c`$ and $`d`$ in terms of $`L_3`$ and integrals over the discontinuities via

$`c`$ $`=`$ $`c_0+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}c_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{ds^{}}{s^3}\left\{\text{disc}M_0(s^{})+\frac{4}{3}\text{disc}M_2(s^{})\right\}},`$
$`d`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4L_31/(64\pi ^2)}{F_\pi ^2(m_\eta ^2m_\pi ^2)}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{ds^{}}{s^3}\left\{s^{}\text{disc}M_1(s^{})+\text{disc}M_2(s^{})\right\}}.`$ (44)
So once we know $`a`$, $`b`$ and $`L_3`$, this forms a set of integral equations that can be solved. Now we have to put in the knowledge of the $`\pi \pi `$ phases. In a single channel problem without singularities in the cross channel, this problem is simple and was solved by Omnès long ago. Here we have cross-channel singularities but they are again $`\pi \pi `$ scattering in an isospin 0,1,2 state. The discontinuities thus obey

$$\text{disc}M_I(s)=\mathrm{sin}\delta _I(s)e^{i\delta _I(s)}\left\{M_I(s)+\widehat{M}_I(s)\right\},$$
(45)
with $`\widehat{M}_I`$ a consequence of the singularities in the $`t`$ and $`u`$ channel. They satisfy

$$\widehat{M}_I(s)=\underset{n,I^{}}{}_1^1d\mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{cos}^n\theta c_{nII^{}}M_I^{}(t),$$
(46)
where $`t`$ is the appropriate $`t`$ for a scattering of angle $`\theta `$ with center of mass energy squared of $`s`$. The coefficients $`c_{nII^{}}`$ can be found in .

So at least we have a principle solution. There are several technical complications involved. After analytically continuing $`m_\eta ^2`$ to its physical value, extra singularities appear, and we need $`\widehat{M}(s)`$ for values of $`s`$ outside the physical domain, so singularities in the relation of $`t`$ with $`s`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ appear. The integration path needs to be chosen carefully to avoid these extra singularities. Having solved this problem, one finds that the solution to the equations is not unique. The problem is that homogeneous equations of the type

$$M_I(s)=\frac{1}{\pi }\frac{ds^{}}{s^{}si\epsilon }\mathrm{sin}\delta _I(s)e^{i\delta _I(s)}\left\{M_I(s)+\widehat{M}_I(s)\right\}$$
(47)
have nontrivial solutions - we need to pick out the physically correct one. The solution is  to write a dispersion relation for a related function which only has one solution. We remove the singularity in the direct channel by dispersing instead

$$m_I(s)=\frac{M_I(s)}{\mathrm{\Omega }_I(s)},$$
(48)
with

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_I(s)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{s}{\pi }\frac{ds^{}}{s^{}}\frac{\delta _I(s^{})}{s^{}si\epsilon }\right\}.$$
(49)
Similar arguments to above lead then to the dispersion relations with a total of 4 subtraction constants for the $`m_I`$. They are, rewritten in the $`M_I`$,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{M_0(s)}{\mathrm{\Omega }_0(s)}}`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _0+\beta _0s+\gamma _0s^2+{\displaystyle \frac{s^2}{\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑s^{}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\delta _0(s^{})\widehat{M}_0(s^{})}{|\mathrm{\Omega }_0(s^{})|s^2(s^{}si\epsilon )}},`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{M_1(s)}{\mathrm{\Omega }_1(s)}}`$ $`=`$ $`\beta _1s+{\displaystyle \frac{s}{\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑s^{}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\delta _1(s^{})\widehat{M}_1(s^{})}{|\mathrm{\Omega }_1(s^{})|s^{}(s^{}si\epsilon )}},`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{M_2(s)}{\mathrm{\Omega }_2(s)}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{s^2}{\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑s^{}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\delta _2(s^{})\widehat{M}_2(s^{})}{|\mathrm{\Omega }_2(s^{})|s^2(s^{}si\epsilon )}}.`$ (50)
So basically we now have to find a parametrization of $`\delta _{0,1,2}(s)`$, the $`\pi \pi `$ phaseshifts, and determine the subtraction constants. After that the above equations can be solved numerically. Two of the constants can be determined similarly to $`c`$ and $`d`$ above, leading to

$`\gamma _0`$ $``$ $`0,`$
$`\beta _1`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4L_31/(64\pi ^2)}{F_\pi ^2(m_\eta ^2m_\pi ^2)}}.`$ (51)
The values of these two parameters compared with the one-loop expressions are basically independent of the matching points. The other two are discussed in the next section.

### 4.2 Results

The two papers  and  basically only differ in the choice of the subtraction procedure. As explained above, the formalism is quite different but the underlying approximations and assumptions are the same.

Reference  looks at the lowest order expression for

$$M(s,t,u)=\frac{3s4m_\pi ^2}{m_\eta ^2m_\pi ^2},$$
(52)
and notices that we can determine $`\alpha _0`$ and $`\beta _0`$ from the place of the zero, the Adler zero happening at $`s_A`$, and the value of the slope in $`s`$ at $`s=s_A`$.

Reference  instead uses several values of $`s,t,u`$ to fit the dispersive approximation to the one-loop result. The resulting divergence in results is taken as an estimate of the theoretical error. The final result for the enhancement over the one-loop result is quite similar in both papers, but a closer look at the intermediate results shows some discrepancies which need to be understood. The one thing which can be compared are the published plots of $`\text{Re}M(s,t,u)`$ as a function of $`s`$ along the line $`t=u`$. These are shown in Fig. 5 and 6.

Notice that while both have a significant enhancement, the slope is quite different. The results of  are always above the one-loop result while the results of  cross the one-loop result at the end of the physical region. Given the similarity of the methods and the inputs used, this type of discrepancies needs to be understood, but it is obvious that a better experimental determination of the slopes can distinguish between both calculations. It is therefore very important that all slope parameters, see below for the definitions, are well measured.

As a simple estimate of the uncertainties involved, we have used a simplified version of the equations (4.1) where we set the functions $`\widehat{M}_I=0`$. So we only consider rescattering effects in the direct channel. We then fix the values of $`\alpha _0`$ and $`\beta _0`$, considered real, to the tree level slope and Adler zero. In Fig. 7 the tree level is shown (tree) and the dispersive improved tree level (dispersive tree). The two dispersive improvements of the one-loop result shown are using the position of the one-loop Adler zero, and either the absolute value of the slope (dispersive absolute) or its real part (dispersive real) at one-loop to determine $`\alpha _0`$ and $`\beta _0`$. It can be seen that these predictions lead to different slopes in the physical regions, thus allowing the theoretical subtraction procedure to be experimentally tested. Notice that we have shown only one variation in the phase-space. The variation over all of phase-space can of course be used similarly.

The total enhancement found is fairly small, about 14% in Ref.  for the total rate and 5% in the center of the Dalitz plot in Ref. , with a total rate enhancement in very good agreement with Ref. .

### 4.3 Dalitz plot expansions or slope parameters

Once the amplitude is known, one can easily expand the Dalitz plot distributions around the center of the Dalitz plot. Notice that some care is needed to precisely define the center of the Dalitz plot, given the second order isospin breakings discussed earlier. The point $`s=t=u=s_0`$ does not quite coincide with the point where all kinetic energies are equal for the charged decay. The usual definition of the slope parameters is in terms of the kinematical variables $`x`$ and $`y`$,

$`x`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{3}{\displaystyle \frac{T_+T_{}}{Q_\eta }}={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2M_\eta Q_\eta }}(ut),`$
$`y`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3T_0}{Q_\eta }}1={\displaystyle \frac{3}{2m_\eta Q_\eta }}\left\{\left(m_\eta m_{\pi ^0}\right)^2s\right\}1,`$
$`Q_\eta `$ $`=`$ $`m_\eta 2m_\pi ^+m_\pi ^0.`$ (53)
$`T_i`$ stands for the kinetic energy of the pion of charge $`i`$. In Fig. 8 we have shown how $`s`$ and $`u`$ depend on $`x`$ and $`y`$. The crosses correspond to $`x=0`$ and $`y`$ equal to $`1`$, $`0.9`$,…,$`1`$. The $`\times `$ correspond to $`y=0`$ and $`x=1,0.9,\mathrm{},1`$. The filled square indicates the place where $`s=t=u`$. The difference with the point $`x=y=0`$ is again an indication of the isospin breaking effects in the masses discussed earlier.

The measured distribution is now parametrized as follows. For the charged decay, one takes

$$1+ay+by^2+cx^2,$$
(54)
normalized to the center $`x=y=0`$ of the Dalitz plot, and

$$1+g(x^2+y^2)$$
(55)
for the neutral decay. It is hard to compare with the experimental results in the review of particle properties . They simply state that the assumptions made in the different measurements are not compatible. The problem is that making assumptions on the values of the quadratic slopes significantly alters the fitted result of the others. In table 1 we show the theoretical results of tree level, one-loop, the dispersive results from  and the results of the tree dispersive and absolute dispersive simplified estimates discussed above. Note that the one-loop predictions of the neutral slope $`g`$ is not zero, contrary to the statement made in Refs. . The loops themselves do give a contribution, whereas the contributions from the tree and tadpole diagrams at $`𝒪(p^4)`$ happen to vanish. The precise value is dependent on the procedure used and is sensitive to fairly small changes. The number quoted corresponds to the precise way the expressions are given in . We plan to come back to this issue in a later publication.

Measurements as mentioned earlier are difficult to compare, but several new results have been obtained recently. In particular, the new Crystal Ball value for $`g`$ was announced at this meeting . Note that the experiments usually quote $`\alpha =g/2`$. For completeness the known experimental results are given in table 2 for the charged decay and table 3 for the neutral decay.

Notice that while the overall agreement is all right, there is a problem in obtaining a value of $`g`$ which is compatible with the newer experiments. The theoretical evaluation of $`g`$ suffers from large cancellations.

## 5 Dalitz and double Dalitz decays

This section is a shortened version of the work presented in Ref. . The underlying question is how well do we understand the couplings of the $`\eta `$ to two photons. In table 4 we show the (expected) branching ratios for all of the decays with two photons. The decays with one lepton-antilepton pair are known as Dalitz decays, those with two pairs as double Dalitz decays.

These decays allow us to study the off-shell structure of the $`\eta \gamma \gamma `$ vertex as shown in Fig. 9.

The question is: how does this form-factor $`F(q_1^2,q_2^2)`$ behave over the entire range of off-shell masses for the photons? Is it of order 1, w.r.t. to on-shell photons, can it be described by adding vector meson propagators in the photon legs? One would also like to know the approach to the perturbative QCD result (see e.g. Ref. )

$$F(Q^2,Q^2)=\frac{8\pi ^2F_\pi ^2}{3Q^2}+\mathrm{},Q^2\mathrm{}.$$
(56)
This type of form-factors are one of the places where experiments are possible for the same underlying physical process over the entire regime, ranging from the fully perturbative to the fully nonperturbative one. The large and intermediate values of $`|q_1^2|`$ and $`|q_2^2|`$ can be studied in tagged photon-photon collisions while the small timelike values can be studied in $`\eta `$-decays.

To study how well $`\eta `$-decays can see variations in the form-factor, in Ref.  four trial form-factors were investigated,

$`F(q_1^2,q_2^2)`$ $`=`$ $`1,`$ (57)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^4}{\left(m_V^2q_1^2\right)\left(m_V^2q_2^2\right)}},`$ (58)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2}{\left(m_V^2q_1^2q_2^2\right)}},`$ (59)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^4\left(4\pi ^2F_\pi ^2/3\right)\left(q_1^2+q_2^2\right)}{\left(m_V^2q_1^2\right)\left(m_V^2q_2^2\right)}}.`$ (60)
The first form is included to check how well a deviation from a pointlike eta can actually be measured. The second one is the standard double vector meson dominance model, while the third was a variation that reproduced single vector meson dominance, while numerically approaching Eq. (56) quite well. The last form was suggested in Ref. , see also Ref. , Knecht and Nyffeler in Ref.  as well as the contribution by Feldmann and Kroll to this conference. One important reason why we like to know this form-factor better is that pseudoscalar exchange is the major contribution to the hadronic light-by-light scattering part of the muon anomalous magnetic moment as studied in Ref. . The contribution of the exchange of $`\pi ^0`$, $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ using the different form-factors to $`a_\mu =(g_\mu 2)/2`$ is  $`7.910^{10}`$ for form-factor (58), $`9.710^{10}`$ for (59) and $`10.910^{10}`$ for (60). It is thus clearly important for future measurements of $`a_\mu `$ that this form-factor becomes experimentally more constrained.

In tables 5 to 7 we show the results  for the various decays as a function of the electron-positron mass lower bound as well the muonic cases for all of phase-space.

It turns out that it is surprisingly difficult to see the difference between the various models of the form-factors in $`\eta `$ decays, but some constraints are possible. The form-factors which are different in single Dalitz decays should be easily distinguishable, but more subtle differences, as the one between (58) and (59) - which only become visible in double Dalitz decays - will be difficult to see. Given the importance of these results, the measurements should be performed. The differences between the effects of the the form-factors in (57) to (60) is $`𝒪(p^6)`$. Form-factors (58) (59) only differ at $`𝒪(p^8)`$. The differences are a good indication of the importance of the various orders.

## 6 $`\eta \pi ^\mathrm{𝟎}\gamma \gamma `$

This decay is only touched upon in this report. A more comprehensive discussion can be found in the review by Ametller and in the references. The main theory paper underlying this decay is , and the main interest is that this decay is a window on rather high order corrections in CHPT. The $`𝒪(p^4)`$ result is small for several reasons. The amplitude has two possible Lorentz structures. In the gauge $`ϵ_iq_j=0`$, with $`ϵ_i`$ and $`q_i`$ the polarization vector and momentum of photon $`i`$, the amplitude can be written as

$$M(\eta \pi ^0\gamma \gamma )=Aq_1q_2ϵ_1ϵ_2B\left(ϵ_1ϵ_2P_\eta q_1P_\eta q_2+P_\eta ϵ_1P_\eta ϵ_2q_1q_2\right).$$
(61)
At $`𝒪`$$`(p^4)`$ only the $`A`$ part of the amplitude is nonzero and it is small. The pion loop is suppressed by isospin breaking and the kaon loop is suppressed by $`4m_K^2`$ and an extra factor of $`1/12`$ in the integral. The contributions are

$`\pi \text{-loops}`$ $`0.8410^3\text{eV},`$
$`K\text{-loops}`$ $`2.4510^3\text{eV},`$
sum $`3.910^3\text{eV},`$ (62)
rather far from the old experimental value of $`0.84\pm 0.18`$ eV. Newer experimental limits come from Novosibirsk and the Crystal Ball. The latter gives $`0.42\pm 0.14`$ eV. The result of Eq. (6) is therefore more than two orders of magnitudes below the measured width.

We can also add vector meson exchange as depicted in Fig. 10. This starts at $`𝒪(p^6)`$ and has contributions to all orders. Restricting the exchange of $`\omega `$ and $`\rho `$ to $`p^6`$ terms only leads to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\rho ,\omega }^{(6)}=0.18`$ eV and if all orders are kept

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\text{VMD}}=0.31\text{eV},$$
(63)
much larger than the suppressed $`p^4`$ contributions. In fact, there is one more contribution with well determined signs which appears at $`𝒪(p^8)`$. Here there is no isospin suppression of the pion-loops any longer nor any factors like the $`1/12`$ at $`𝒪(p^4)`$. As a result the $`p^8`$ contribution from the double WZW vertex one-loop diagram is as large as the $`p^4`$ one. Given the structure of the amplitude, interference effects are quite strong so that if we put in the loops plus the VMD estimates we obtain the estimate

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }0.42\text{eV}.$$
(64)
We can now add the contribution from $`a_0`$ and $`a_2`$ exchange, the absolute values are experimentally known but the signs are free. This leads to

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }0.42\pm 0.20\text{eV}.$$
(65)
in very nice agreement with the preliminary Crystal Ball result. Studies of distributions in the decays will allow to disentangle various contributions to this decay. It should be noted that studies of this decay mode have also been performed in the ENJL model and by adding other resonances than the ones referred to above. There also exist some recent quark model studies.

## 7 Conclusions

We have discussed several eta decays from the point of view of Chiral Perturbation Theory and various possible enhancements. The main conclusion is that more and precise measurements are very much needed.

$`\underset{¯}{\eta 3\pi }:`$ This decay has the potential to deliver accurate quark mass ratios. For this we need better measurements of the slope parameters in the Dalitz plot and a better determination of the ratio $`r`$ between the neutral and charged decay mode. These will allow to put the theoretical calculations of the decay rate on the experimentally verified footing needed to obtain accurate quark mass ratios. A possible discrepancy with the slope $`g`$ in the neutral decay should be checked theoretically and further experimental confirmation would be welcome.

$`\underset{¯}{\eta \gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}:`$ The double off-shell form-factors are needed in these double Dalitz decays and provide a useful insight into short-distance long-distance transitions in QCD. They are also needed input in precision calculations for the muon anomalous magnetic moment. It turned out to be surprisingly difficult to see these differences in $`\eta `$-decays, but it is an important measurement to be performed.

$`\underset{¯}{\eta \pi ^0\gamma \gamma }:`$ The existing discrepancy with theory seems to be on the way to be resolved but we need confirmation of this and the study of distributions will allow different contributions to this decay mode to be distinguished. It is a decay mode where the usually dominant contributions CHPT at tree level and one-loop are very small. It thus provides a rare window on higher order contributions.

## Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the Swedish Research Council, the Swiss National Science Foundation and the European Union TMR network, Contract No. ERBFMRX–CT980169 (EURODAPHNE), and BBW-Contract No. 97.0131. We thank the local organizing committee for a well run and stimulating meeting and the sponsors, the Swedish Research Council, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences through its Nobel Institute for Physics and the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education. We thank Heiri Leutwyler for reading the manuscript.


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# Variable Stars in Leo A: RR Lyraes, Short-period Cepheids, and Implications on Stellar Content

## 1 Introduction

The Local Group dwarf irregular galaxy Leo A has been a source of considerable controversy, regarding both its distance and stellar content (van den Bergh, 2000). Discovered by Zwicky (1942), its first distance was determined by Demers et al. (1984) from photographic photometry. They found an unusual CMD, apparently containing no normal supergiants (blue or red). A large number of very blue ($`BV0.4`$) stars were observed; these were interpreted as $`60120M_{}`$ main sequence stars and thus evidence of very recent star formation. No red supergiants were observed. They used the three brightest blue stars to derive a distance of $`(mM)_0=26.8\pm 0.4`$.

A later photographic study by Sandage (1986) found significant discrepancies between the two photometry sets, strongly nonlinear (especially in $`B`$) in the sense that the photometry of Demers et al. (1984) was fainter than that of Sandage (1986) for bright stars and brighter for faint stars. Sandage (1986) thus found a “normal” CMD, with both red and blue supergiants falling in locations similar to those of other dwarf irregular galaxies. He therefore was able to use both the brightest three red star and the brightest three blue star methods to determine a distance modulus of $`(mM)_0=26\pm 1`$.

The photometric distance determinations were confirmed by Hoessel et al. (1994), who determined a value of $`(mM)_0=26.74\pm 0.22`$ based on four Cepheids. Tolstoy (1996) then used their photometric data and distance to make the first stellar population analysis of Leo A. Modeling the strong blue and red plumes in the CMD as blue and red supergiants, she concluded that Leo A has no very young stars and is apparently in a period of diminished star formation.

This picture of Leo A’s distance and stellar content came into question with the HST-based study of Tolstoy et al. (1998). With these data, it became clear that what had been interpreted by Tolstoy (1996) as a red supergiant sequence was actually a very narrow red giant branch, and that the broadening at its base was a vertically-extended red clump. The distance modulus was therefore revised to $`(mM)_0=24.2\pm 0.2`$, making Leo A’s brightest supergiants and Cepheids two magnitudes fainter than had previously been believed. The explanation for the error in the brightest supergiant distance is straightforward. For dwarf galaxies, the luminosity of the brightest star is limited by the stellar IMF and small number statistics rather than stellar astrophysics (Rozanski & Rowan-Robinson, 1994). Thus, while two giant galaxies can be reasonably expected to have similar brightest supergiants, this is not true of dwarfs, in which the same supergiants could be interpreted as a small nearby system or as a large distant system with equal validity. This degeneracy was recognized by Sandage (1986), and was the reason for his 1 magnitude uncertainty.

However, the results of Hoessel et al. (1994) have remained a puzzle. Even with the shorter distance, there is no doubt that Leo A contains a large amount of recent star formation, and therefore should contain a significant Cepheid population. As noted by Tolstoy et al. (1998), only one of the periodic variables found by Hoessel et al. (1994) falls on the Cepheid period-luminosity (P-L) relation for the shorter distance. The implication of these findings was therefore that Leo A is an unusual system – one containing a significant amount of young stars and possibly an entirely-young system (Tolstoy et al., 1998), but apparently without Cepheids.

By bringing the galaxy a factor of three closer, the blue supergiants previously assumed to be rather young were made older, thus producing the interpretation that most of Leo A’s stars were formed $`0.91.5`$ Gyr ago, with a much smaller amount at more recent ages and perhaps none at older ages. The conclusion of Tolstoy et al. (1998) that any ancient population is very weak or perhaps non-existent was based on the relative weakness of the red giant branch, when compared with the red clump. However, they noted that studies of Leo A main sequence turnoff stars or RR Lyrae stars would be needed in order to definitively establish the existence or lack of an ancient population. With a distance of less than 1 Mpc, it is now feasible to search for RR Lyraes with ground-based telescopes.

The present work is a new study of variable stars in Leo A. Our observations, photometry, and variable star search is described in Sections 2 and 3. Our variable star results are discussed in Sections 4 and 5, while a stellar population gradient is examined in Section 6. Section 7 contains the summary.

## 2 Observations and Reduction

Observations of Leo A were obtained at the WIYN 3.5m telescope on the nights of 20$``$22 December 2000, using the MIMO camera (described by Saha et al. (2000)). Our observations are summarized in Table 1. The MIMO camera contains two 2k$`\times `$4k chips, separated by 10 arcsec. Because of its size, shape, and orientation, Leo A fit completely on chip 2, allowing us to “hide” a bright star in the gap between the chips and obtain a halo field on chip 1. A deep $`V`$ image is shown in Figure 1. Because of scheduling limitations, Leo A rose during the middle of the night, restricting our observing to a 6.5 hour window between its rise and morning twilight.

As indicated in Table 1, we had sub-arcsecond seeing for the entire run, with seeing as good as $`0.50.6`$ arcsec (excellent image quality is typical at WIYN). This was was critical for our project, both in terms of reducing blending and reducing the effective background level. As the RR Lyraes were near the limits of our photometry, they could not have been detected with significantly worse seeing.

To ensure a robust final result, the data were processed completely independently by two groups. AED used his own package, an adaptation of HSTphot (Dolphin, 2000a), which includes image processing as well as photometry programs. The reduction algorithms were similar to that implemented in IRAF, but include a more accurate overscan correction algorithm and an algorithm to mask pixels affected by crosstalk between MIMO’s amplifiers. Deep frames in $`V`$ and $`R`$ were created by aligning all images for the filter (23 $`V`$, 5 $`R`$) to the nearest pixel and coadding. Photometry was determined for the deep frames, with the resulting star list used as a template (after determining appropriate coordinate transformations) for each of the individual epochs. By restricting the star positions, we obtain more accurate photometry in the individual epochs, as each star has only one free parameter (brightness) instead of three (X, Y, and brightness).

JC and AS made a parallel reduction using IRAF and photometry using DoPHOT (Schechter, Mateo, & Saha, 1993). In this reduction, the images were adjusted prior to IRAF reduction, correcting for overscan and crosstalk using an IDL routine written by AS. The normal IRAF procedure was then used to reduce the data. The DoPHOT photometry consisted of two passes, similar in concept to that made by AED. In the first pass, each individual-epoch image was photometered, along with the deep frames. Coordinate transformations were made between the deep and individual star lists, and photometry was re-run on the individual frames. A comparison between our deep photometry of Chip 2 is shown in Figure 2; there are no obvious inconsistencies between the two reductions.

Because only one of the three nights was photometric, we could not make independent photometric solutions for each night. Instead, we observed two standard fields – SA 92 (Landolt, 1992) and NGC 2419 (Stetson, 2000) – and used Leo A observations at similar airmass (n2086 and n2083; see Table 1) to define secondary standards in our Leo A field. Unfortunately, we did not observe SA 92 in $`R`$, and the Stetson (2000) $`R`$ standards in NGC 2419 only cover the region north of NGC 2419 (corresponding to chip 1 on our images). Thus we were forced to use the chip 1 $`R`$ transformation for chip 2 also, under the assumption that the color term of the $`R`$-band transformation is the same in the two chips. Data for other WIYN+MIMO studies has shown this to be nearly true; we increase our $`R`$ error bars by $`0.02`$ magnitudes to account for this source of uncertainty. The resulting photometric calibration is accurate to $`\pm 0.02`$ magnitudes in $`V`$ and $`\pm 0.04`$ magnitudes in $`R`$.

Using our secondary standards within the Leo A images, we calibrated both photometry sets by forcing the mean difference between the calibrated and PSF-fit magnitudes of all secondary standards to be zero. This resulted in a large photometric database consisting of the deep positions and magnitudes of all stars, as well as the magnitudes determined for each epoch.

## 3 Variable Star Identification

Variable stars were identified according to the procedure described by Dolphin et al. (2001b), except that only the $`V`$ observations were used for locating variables. Because of smaller error bars in the photometry, we adopted AED’s PSF-fitting photometry as our primary measurement. We believe that the smaller errors in AED’s photometry resulted because his PSF formulation (an analytical function plus a residual image) permitted a more accurate modeling of the oddly-shaped PSFs (due to tracking errors) found in our data than does the DoPHOT PSF formaultion (analytical function only). The measured magnitudes were nearly identical in the two reductions as noted above; however the smaller (and more accurate) error bars were necessary to accurately identify variable stars.

For a star to be classified as a variable star, it had to meet a strict set of criteria. The first criterion was that the PSF-fitting photometry had to detect and classify it as a well-fit star in the deep $`V`$ frame. We define “well-fit” to mean that the $`\chi ^2`$ of the fit had to be 4.0 or less, the sharpness had to be between $`0.25`$ and $`0.25`$ (a sharpness of zero is a perfect star), and the signal-to-noise ratio had to be 5.0 or more. Additionally, the star had to be well-photometered in at least 12 of the 23 $`V`$ epochs and at least one $`R`$ epoch, and contamination from bright neighbors had to contribute no more than 20% of the star’s light within a PSF-sized aperture.

Stars that met these criteria had to pass additional variability tests. First, to eliminate non-variable stars, we required that the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of the $`V`$ observations was 2.0 or greater and the standard deviation of the $`V`$ measurements was at least 0.14 magnitudes. The first criterion eliminates stars that appear variable because their measurements have large uncertainties; the second eliminates stars where small systematic errors in the measurements could cause false detections. Additionally, in case a star was spuriously flagged because of one or two bad points, we eliminated 1/3 of the points contributing the most to $`\chi ^2`$ and required that this “robust” $`\chi ^2`$ value was 0.5 or more.

Our final automatic variability test for periodicitiy and was made using the Lafler-Kinman (Lafler & Kinman, 1965) $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ statistic as implemented by (Saha & Hoessel, 1990). For a variety of trial periods, the value $`\mathrm{\Theta }(p)`$ was calculated using

$$\mathrm{\Theta }(p)=\frac{_{i=1}^N(V_iV_{i+1})^2}{_{i=1}^N(V_i\overline{V})^2},$$
(1)
where $`N`$ is the number of epochs in which the star was observed, $`V_i`$ is the $`V`$ magnitude at epoch $`i`$, and $`\overline{V}`$ is the mean $`V`$ magnitude. For uncorrelated data, $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ will be $`2`$, since the typical difference between any two data points would be $`\sqrt{2}`$ times the standard deviation (the denominator). However, if the data are periodic and the correct trial period is used, $`V_i`$ and $`V_{i+1}`$ will be correlated, thus reducing $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$. We required $`\mathrm{\Theta }1.0`$.

Finally, we visually examined the image and light curves of each star, eliminating any candidate variables that either appeared non-stellar or non-periodic.

We found three additional variable stars from the DoPHOT photometry that were not recovered in our initial variable star search. (C2-V09 had $`\sigma V=0.13`$, C2-V30 had $`\chi ^2=4.4`$ in the photometry, C2-V57 had $`\sigma V=0.12`$.) After visual inspection, these three stars were added to our list of variables. In all, we found 92 variable stars, of which 82 have very good light curves.

Our list of variable stars is presented in Table 3, finding charts in Figure 3, and light curves in Figure 4. The values given in Table 3 are the variable star ID, chip and position (the FITS file from which the positions are taken will be published in the electronic AJ), period-averaged $`V`$ and $`R`$ magnitudes (Dolphin et al., 2001b), period, and light curve quality on a scale of 0 being the worst to 4 being the best (Dolphin et al., 2001b). We note that our relatively short observing window created a large number of stars with possibly-aliased periods; these are indicated in Table 3 and Figure 4 by the same star ID being shown with multiple periods.

Only one of our variable stars (our C2-V25 = their V10) is in common with the list of Hoessel et al. (1994), albeit with a period of 1.4 days instead of 13 days. Three of their other variables (V7, V9, and V13) are also clearly variable in our data. However, none of the three passed our PSF fit cut of $`\chi ^24.0`$ (all were more extended than a typical star and thus are likely blends), so these three were excluded from our list. Of their other objects, their V3 appears to be a galaxy in our images and V8 is also clearly elongated, thus being rejected as non-stellar objects by our photometry. We see no sign of variability for the majority of their variables (V1, V2, V4, V5, V6, V11, V12, and V14); this is undoubtedly because of the sampling difference – they had a baseline of a decade but only one pair of observations separated by less than 1 day, while we had a baseline of only 2.25 days but frequent observations during that period. We note that the periods they determined for V2 (1.76 days), V11 (2.01 days), and V12 (0.51 days) are inconsistent with our data; we should have seen such variability during our 2.25 day baseline. These period inconsistencies can be attributed to their poor sampling of time scales of a few days. These concerns were raised in a later paper by the same authors (Saha et al., 1996), who noted the possibility that some of their Leo A Cepheids were long-period red variables.

A color-magnitude diagram showing our variable stars is given in Figure 5, with the variable stars marked as circles (size representing the light curve quality). We emphasize that colors and magnitudes were not used to determine our sample; the restriction of variable stars into two populations on the CMD is therefore real and not a selection effect. We interpret the brighter population (shown as open circles) as classical Cepheids and the fainter population (shown as solid circles) as RR Lyraes.

## 4 RR Lyraes

Our primary goal in this project was a search for RR Lyraes. Eight candidates were found. An expanded CMD detailing this region is shown in Figure 6. Two of these (C1-V03 and C1-V07) have extremely clean light curves, no period aliasing, were well-photometered and isolated from any source of potential contamination, and have colors that place them in the instability strip. We therefore claim that these are bona fide RR Lyraes. C1-V03 has a period and light curve shape (rapid rise, slow descent) that make it appear to be an RRab. C1-V07 has a shorter period and longer ascent time, making it appear to be an RRc.

A third (C2-V79) is another good candidate. Its red color appears to be the result of a bad point in $`R`$ as well as phase coverage; eliminating the point moves the star bluer by 0.3 magnitudes and accounting for the fact that it was observed in $`R`$ only near maximum moves it bluer by an additional 0.2 magnitudes. We cannot make a type classification from its light curve, as it was not observed while ascending. However, its long period would make it an RRab. Finally, C2-V66 also appears to very likely be an RR Lyrae; its having two possible periods lowered it to a quality rating of 2 and makes a classification impossible. As with C2-V79, it was only observed in $`R`$ near maximum and is thus bluer than its listed color.

We are less certain of the nature of the other four candidates. C1-V01 has a period that seems too short to be an RR Lyrae (though it could be an RRd). C2-V33 does not have the light curve shape one would expect to see at that period, perhaps indicating that it is an anomalous Cepheid rather than an RR Lyrae. C2-V56 fits an RRc template light curve reasonably well at the period of 0.40 days, but a few points fall well off that template. (Its red color is caused by poor phase coverage; it is likely $`0.150.2`$ magnitudes bluer than our measured color of $`VR=0.42`$.) Finally, C2-V80 is our faintest candidate and thus has large error bars that prohibit a definitive classification.

Weighting by the light curve qualities of all eight candidate RR Lyraes, we measure a mean magnitude of $`V=25.11\pm 0.06`$, where the quoted uncertainty is the uncertainty in the mean. Using only the four best RR Lyraes, we find $`V=25.08\pm 0.05`$. Finally, the two bona fide RR Lyraes produce a mean magnitude of $`V=25.10\pm 0.09`$. We adopt the final value, which is the most conservative of the values. The DoPHOT magnitudes are not significantly different from these values. Given that our completeness reached well beyond the RR Lyraes ($`V25`$) in the halo of Leo A (where all eight candidates are located), we find it unlikely that our calculated mean magnitude is biased.

In order to determine the distance, we adopt the RR Lyrae absolute magnitude calibration of Carretta et al. (2000):

$$M_V=(0.18\pm 0.09)([\text{Fe/H}]+1.5)+(0.57\pm 0.07).$$
(2)
We choose this calibration largely because its zero point is nearly identical to what we measured in IC 1613 ($`M_V=0.61\pm 0.08`$ at $`[\text{M/H}]=1.3\pm 0.2`$); see Dolphin et al. (2001b) for a more detailed discussion of the various RR Lyrae zero point values. As is demonstrated below, the slope of the relation is irrelevant to this discussion.

Since no spectroscopy exists for stars in Leo A, the metallicity of Leo A RR Lyraes is very uncertain. We can attempt to estimate this value with two methods. First, we can fit the WFPC2 data of Tolstoy et al. (1998) to the theoretical isochrones of Girardi et al. (2000), assuming an age of $`1015`$ Gyr. We find that the RGB color can be fit with a metallicity of $`[\text{M/H}]=1.8\pm 0.3`$. The advantage of this determination is that it is based on old stars; the disadvantage is that metallicities measured by broadband photometry are less accurate than those determined spectroscopically.

An additional constraint is given by the present-day metallicity, as measured by HII region spectra ($`[\text{O/H}]=1.5\pm 0.2`$; van Zee et al. 1999). Adopting an $`[\text{O/Fe}]`$ ratio, we can use this as an upper limit to the metallicity of the RR Lyraes in Leo A. While older stars in our galaxy (halo and globular cluster stars) at the metallicity of Leo A show $`\alpha `$ element enhancements of $`0.4`$ dex and those in the Draco, Ursa Minor, and Sextans dSph galaxies show enhancements of $`0.3`$ dex (Shetrone, Côté, & Sargent, 2001), these enhancements are not seen in the young populations of other metal poor dwarf irregular galaxies, such as the SMC Venn (1999) and NGC 6822 Venn et al. (2001). Thus we adopt an $`\alpha `$ element enhancement of $`[\text{O/Fe}]=0.2\pm 0.2`$ dex, which results in a present-day metallicity of $`[\text{M/H}]=1.7\pm 0.3`$.

We believe the spectroscopic determination to be more accurate (given uncertainties in the isochrones), and thus adopt the value of $`[\text{Fe/H}]=1.7\pm 0.3`$, which results in an RR Lyrae absolute magnitude of $`M_V=0.53\pm 0.08`$. Adopting an extinction of $`A_V=0.06`$ (Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis, 1998), we measure a true distance modulus of $`(mM)_0=24.51\pm 0.12`$, corresponding to a distance of $`0.80\pm 0.04`$ Mpc. Because the metallicity is very close to $`[\text{Fe/H}]=1.5`$, the assumed slope in the RR Lyrae absolute magnitude calibration has little effect on the distance. Adopting a steeper slope slope of 0.30 magnitudes per dex (Sandage, 1993), for example, would only increase the distance modulus by 0.02 magnitudes; adding this difference in quadrature to our $`0.12`$ magnitude uncertainty does not increase the uncertainty.

Our preferred distance is a factor of three smaller than that of $`(mM)_0=26.74`$ measured by Hoessel et al. (1994), but consistent with that of $`(mM)_0=24.5\pm 0.2`$ determined from the RGB tip by Tolstoy et al. (1998). (They were unsure as to whether or not a population older than 1.5 Gyr existed in Leo A, leading them to base their final distance of $`(mM)_0=24.2\pm 0.2`$ largely on the blue loop and red clump positions than on that of the RGB tip, which is not a standard candle at ages younger than $`2`$ Gyr.) We also note that their “young RC” distance of $`(mM)_0=24.2\pm 0.2`$ is based on an assumed red clump absolute magnitude of $`M_I0.4`$; the semi-empirical (and thus less model-dependent) technique described by Dolphin et al. (2001b) produces a more accurate absolute magnitude of $`M_I=0.67\pm 0.1`$ for the metallicity and age assumed by Tolstoy et al. (1998), thus increasing their red clump distance by $`0.3`$ magnitudes and making it consistent with the other distances. This 15% change in the Leo A distance could significantly alter the star formation history they determined; that problem should thus be revisited in light of our revised distance.

We note the possibility that the stars we are detecting are anomalous Cepheids rather than RR Lyraes. We believe this to not be the case for several reasons. As anomalous Cepheids tend to be $`0.5`$ magnitudes brighter than RR Lyraes, this would push the Leo A distance to $`(mM)_0=25.0`$ and would be inconsistent with the RGB tip and red clump distances quoted above. Additionally, we do see short-period variables, discussed in the following section, which are about half a magnitude brighter than the RR Lyraes.

With the discovery of RR Lyrae stars in Leo A, we have definitively located a population of “ancient” ($`>11`$ Gyr; Walker 1989) stars in Leo A, a galaxy previously considered a potential candidate for a delayed onset of star formation (Tolstoy et al., 1998). A quantitative estimate of the extent of this population is extremely difficult to determine because of the completeness of our RR Lyrae survey, which is zero inside the region where young stars are present. Scaling from the relatively uncrowded chip 1, we estimate a total of $`50`$ RR Lyraes in the entire galaxy, with a $`1\sigma `$ lower limit of $`10`$. Adopting M5’s well-populated horizontal branch (Reid, 1996) and its 65 known RR Lyraes (Kaluzny et al., 2000) as being typical of an ancient population, we estimate that such an M5-like population would account for $`0.1\%1\%`$ of Leo A’s $`V`$ luminosity. Instead using a globular cluster with proportionally fewer RR Lyraes (such as M13), the ancient population could be larger by an order of magnitude or more; we thus quote only a value of $`0.1\%`$ as the lower limit of the contribution. Because of the large uncertainties in this calculation, an accurate quantification of the ancient population would require photometry reaching the ancient main sequence turnoffs ($`M_V+4`$).

## 5 Short Period Cepheids

Although the primary goal of our project was the detection of RR Lyraes in Leo A, our 2-day baseline made us sensitive to any variable star with a period of 2 days or less. It was perhaps surprising, given the lack of previously-known Cepheids in Leo A, that 91% of our detected variable stars (84 out of 92) are brighter than $`V=24.5`$, fall in or near the instability strip, and therefore apparently Cepheids. Figure 7 shows our CMD, expanded around the area of the instability strip; small dots represent all stars, while the circles represent our variables. The sizes of the circles indicate the light curve quality. Note that the majority of objects lie near the intersection of the blue loop with the instability strip. Variables with ambiguous periods, as well as those with quality ratings of 2 or lower (Dolphin et al., 2001b), are omitted, leaving 66 Cepheids with accurately-measured periods and excellent light curves. We plot the P-L diagram of these variables in Figure 8.

Because of the change in the P-L relation slope at a period of 2 days (Bauer et al., 1999), we had to calculate P-L relations for short-period Cepheids like those seen in Leo A instead of using the published relations of Madore & Freedman (1991) or Udalski et al. (1999a). To do this, we selected objects with periods of 2 days or less from the OGLE SMC Cepheid database (Udalski et al., 1999b) and fit the following relations for fundamental-mode and first-overtone pulsators:

$$M_V(\text{FM})=3.14\mathrm{log}(P)1.04$$
(3)
and

$$M_V(\text{FO})=3.39\mathrm{log}(P)1.73.$$
(4)
Using the distance modulus of $`(mM)_0=24.51\pm 0.12`$ determined in Paper I from the RR Lyraes, we plot the P-L relations as solid lines on Figure 8.

Since we have insufficient phase coverage to attempt Fourier decomposition, we must classify Cepheids based simply on their positions in the P-L diagram. From Figure 8, we classify 19 of our 66 Cepheids as fundamental-mode, 38 as first-overtone, and 2 as second-overtone. The remaining 7 Cepheids fall between the relations, and thus cannot be definitively classified.

Of particular interest are three fundamental-mode Cepheids with periods of less than 1 day: C1-V08, C2-V49, and C2-V77. With periods of $`0.8`$ days, these objects fall in the period regime generally populated by RR Lyraes and overtone-pulsating Cepheids. That these objects are not RR Lyraes is clear from the fact that they are $`1.4`$ magnitudes brighter than the RR Lyraes discovered in Paper I. The likelihood of their being overtone-pulsating Cepheids is also small, given that they fall 0.6 magnitudes below the overtone P-L relation in Figure 8 but only 0.06 magnitudes away from an extrapolation of the fundamental-mode relation. Thus we conclude that these objects are fundamental-mode Cepheids, despite having periods similar to those of RR Lyraes.

There is some ambiguity as to whether these objects should be classified as classical or anomalous Cepheids, as the anomalous Cepheid P-L relations of Nemec, Nemec, & Lutz (1994) are very similar to those given above. Adjusting their M15 distance to $`(mM)_0=15.23`$ (Reid, 1999), their relations become:

$$M_V(fundamental)=3.13\mathrm{log}(P)0.99$$
(5)
and

$$M_V(overtone)=3.13\mathrm{log}(P)1.54.$$
(6)
The fundamental-mode relations are clearly the same; the overtone relations are also consistent in the period range of Nemec, Nemec, & Lutz (1994) once the slope differences are accounted for. To further confuse matters, there is an overlap in period between the SMC classical Cepheids of Udalski et al. (1999b) and the anomalous Cepheids of Nemec, Nemec, & Lutz (1994). Thus no clear distinction between these two classes of objects appears to exist in terms of position in a P-L relation. For the sake of clarity, we will define “classical” Cepheids as population I (young) stars, and “anomalous” Cepheids as population II (old) stars.

### 5.1 The Period-Luminosity Relations

A brief review of the origin of the P-L relations may help explain this apparent contradiction of finding Cepheids with periods normally associated with RR Lyraes. What follows is only a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but is sufficiently accurate to demonstrate the nature of these objects. The pulsation period ($`P`$) is related to the mean density ($`\rho `$) as follows:

$$P\rho ^{1/2}.$$
(7)
We can use the definition of density ($`\rho \frac{M}{R^3}`$) and effective temperature ($`T^4L/R^2`$) to rewrite equation 7 as

$$P\frac{L^{3/4}}{M^{1/2}T_{eff}^3}.$$
(8)
Since effective temperature as a function of luminosity is constrained to a small range within the instability strip, the pulsation period is essentially a function of luminosity and mass.

For evolving population I stars, evolutionary motion is approximately horizontal in the H-R diagram. Therefore the main sequence mass-luminosity relation ($`L/L_{}(M/M_{})^{3.5}`$) is roughly true also for pulsating variables, reducing equation 8 to

$$P=C\frac{(L/L_{})^{0.61}}{T_{eff}^3},$$
(9)
where $`C`$ is a constant. Incorporating the dependence of $`T_{eff}`$ on $`L`$ within the instability strip, one obtains the well-known Cepheid P-L relation.

This relation does not hold true for population II stars, however, which become significantly brighter after leaving the main sequence and arrive at the horizontal branch ($`M_V+0.6`$, or $`L50L_{}`$) with a mass of only $`0.6M_{}`$. With the mass thus fixed, the period should be given by:

$$P=1.29C\frac{(L/L_{})^{0.75}}{T_{eff}^3},$$
(10)
where $`C`$ is the same constant as in equation 9.

We note that this population II P-L relation has a very similar slope to the population I P-L relation given in 9, a feature observed by Baade & Swope (1963) in their observations of M31. Using equations 9 and 10, we predict that a pop II variable with $`L=10^4L_{}`$ (a typical luminosity of Baade’s pop II variables) will have a period $`5`$ times that of a pop I variable of the same luminosity. This corresponds to a difference of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}P`$ of $`0.7`$, consistent with the value of 0.8 measured by Baade & Swope (1963).

More pertinent to our discussion of Leo A, one can use these equations to determine the expected luminosity of a classical Cepheid with the same period of an RR Lyrae. For a population I and a population II variable with the same period and effective temperature, we find

$$(L_{Ceph}/L_{})^{0.61}=1.29(L_{RR}/L_{})^{0.75}=24.$$
(11)
Using the mass and luminosity given above for the RR Lyrae and the main sequence mass-luminosity relation for the Cepheid, we find $`L_{Ceph}190L_{}`$, meaning that an RR Lyrae will be $`1.45`$ magnitudes fainter than a Cepheid of equal period and luminosity. Even though the above calculations are rough approximations, it is interesting to note that this is almost exactly the magnitude difference observed in our data between the three variables in question ($`V_{Ceph}=23.74`$), which we have inferred to be fundamental-mode pulsators, and our RR Lyraes ($`V_{RR}=25.11`$).

### 5.2 Metallicity Effects on the Cepheid Population

While we have demonstrated that fundamental-mode Cepheids can be found with the period and absolute magnitude claimed, it is somewhat disturbing that a population of such objects has not previously been observed. The Cepheid P-L relations of Udalski et al. (1999a) show LMC Cepheids reaching $`M_V2.6`$ in large numbers, and SMC Cepheids reaching $`M_V1.4`$. Likewise, IC 1613 (a dwarf slightly more metal-poor than the SMC) shows Cepheids reaching $`M_V=1.3`$ (Dolphin et al., 2001a). First-overtone pulsators fall off at about the same absolute magnitudes in each of those data sets; however we observe significant numbers of both classes of Leo A Cepheids down to $`M_V=0.8`$. In fact, the median $`V`$ magnitude of the Cepheids in our sample is $`M_V=1.1`$, which is fainter than 95.5% of the OGLE SMC Cepheids and 98.9% of their LMC Cepheids. Note that this is not a completeness problem with the OGLE observations. Their survey of the SMC shows a completeness (estimated from artificial star counts) of roughly 96% at $`I=19.5`$ ($`M_I+0.6`$) for their lower-density fields and above 80% for their densest field (Udalski et al., 1998). Comparison of stars in overlapping regions of their survey shows an overall 94% completeness in their Cepheid catalog (Udalski et al., 1999b). Due to its smaller distance, the OGLE LMC catalog should be even less prone to completeness problems. This is conceivably a selection effect in our Leo A data; however, if a significant number of longer-period Cepheids were present, they would have been found by Hoessel et al. (1994).

In addition to the low luminosities, another surprise was the large number of Cepheids recovered in Leo A. With a luminosity 1.5% that of the SMC, one would expect the 2083 OGLE Cepheids to scale to $`30`$. Instead, we find three times that number.

The solutions to both of these dilemmas rest in metallicity dependency of the blue loop position on the CMD. Synthetic CMDs for a variety of metallicities, calculated using the Girardi et al. (2000) isochrones using constant star formation rates from 0 to 15 Gyr ago, are shown in Figure 9. At solar metallicity, blue helium-burning stars (BHeBs) remain to the blue of the instability strip at magnitudes of $`M_V<4`$. This can be seen in the top left panel of Figure 9, where no stars fall in the instability strip. At lower metallicity, however, BHeBs become increasingly blue.

The effect of this metallicity dependence is twofold. First, at lower metallicities, the intersection of the blue loop with the instability strip falls at fainter magnitudes. This is apparent in Figure 9; the absolute magnitude is $`M_V=1.8`$ at Z=0.004, $`M_V=0.9`$ at Z=0.001, and $`M_V=0.4`$ at Z=0.0004. Secondly, because the blue loops are more strongly populated at fainter absolute magnitudes (a result of evolutionary timescales and the stellar IMF), more stars will fall within the instability strip for a low-metallicity system than for a high-metallicity system with equal star formation rates.

The presence of short-period Cepheids in young, low-metallicity populations is not a new discovery. For example, the theoretical models of Bono et al. (1997) show this effect. However, we note that such objects are ordinary post-main sequence population I stars and thus are properly classified as classical Cepheids and not as anomalous Cepheids.

### 5.3 Star Formation History from the Cepheid Population

A nagging question in our new variable star search is to explain the unsuccessful search of Hoessel et al. (1994). Despite an 11-year baseline and observations spaced as close as 1 day apart, they failed to conclusively identify any Cepheids. In contrast, we report the discovery of 84 Cepheid candidates based on three nights of data.

It is clear that Hoessel et al. (1994) would have not been sensitive to the many $`1`$ day Cepheids that we find in abundance due to the BHeBs. However, the population of the instability strip is nonzero at magnitudes brighter than $`M_V=2.3`$. Figure 10 shows a more strongly-populated synthetic CMD, with a constant star formation rate from 0 to 1 Gyr ago and a metallicity of Z=0.0004; stars are present in the instability strip up to the top of the CMD.

While it is possible that the lack of bright Cepheids may result from a recent decrease in the star formation rate, we do not find this to be essential. Of the 5405 stars inside the instability strip of Figure 10, only 75 have absolute magnitudes brighter than $`M_V=2.5`$ (corresponding to $`P>3d`$). Scaling to the number of observed Cepheids in Leo A (84), we would expect only $`1.2`$ bright (long-period) Cepheids in Leo A because of both the stellar IMF and evolutionary timescales. This is also seen in our CMD, which shows no clear evidence of stars brighter than $`V=22`$ in the instability strip, although foreground contamination prohibits a definitive measurement. Thus we find no evidence of an unusual star formation rate. The recent ($`<100`$ Myr) star formation rate can not have been significantly higher than at older ages ($`650`$ Myr), in which case we would expect to see significant numbers of bright Cepheids, but Cepheid statistics provide no lower limit on the recent star formation rate.

This is not the first time that the absence of long-period Cepheids in a dwarf irregular galaxy has been pondered. In their study of WLM, Sandage & Carlson (1985) found numerous Cepheids with periods between 3 and 10 days, but none with periods longer than 10 days. They speculated that the absence of the longer period Cepheids could be due to either stochastic variations in the rate of star formation or (their favored explanation) a metallicity dependency of the lengths of the blue loop excursions of the post main sequence evolutionary tracks. Later, Skillman, Terlevich, & Melnick (1989b) measured HII region abundances in WLM, showing it to be more metal rich than Sextans A, which was known to have several longer-period Cepheids. Today we know that Sextans A has experienced a relatively high rate of star formation in the last 50 Myr (Dohm-Palmer et al., 1997), corresponding to main sequence turnoff masses in excess of 7 M and thus Cepheids with periods in excess of 10 days, while the star formation rate in WLM has been relatively low during this period (Dolphin, 2000b). Thus, given the relatively small numbers of total stars in the low-mass, low-metallicity dwarf irregular galaxies, small numbers of long-period Cepheid variables are expected. Only enhanced recent star formation rates will produce statistically meaningful samples of long-period Cepheid variable stars in a single dwarf galaxy.

## 6 Stellar Populations

Although the primary topic of this paper is the variable star content of Leo A, we have found an interesting difference in the distributions of young and old stars in Leo A, with red stars ($`22.0<V<23.5`$ and $`0.45<VR<0.8`$) distributed over a larger scale than blue stars ($`21.5<V<23.5`$ and $`0.3<VR<0.2`$). The distributions of these populations are shown in Figure 11. The population difference is also supported by the observation that one of out two bona fide RR Lyraes (C1-V03) falls beyond the outermost contour of the blue stars and the other between the outermost and second contours.

In order to better-quantify the population differences, we have divided the galaxy into three regions based on the blue star density. The three resulting CMDs are shown in Figure 12. The inner region shows a blue/red ratio of 0.87, the middle region a ratio of 0.25, and the outer region a ratio of 0.03. We interpret this gradient as the sign of an old stellar halo surrounding the body of the galaxy, similar to those found in found in many other galaxies, such as WLM (Minniti & Zijlstra, 1997), UGC 4483 (Dolphin et al., 2001a), and LGS 3 (Miller et al., 2001). Comparing contour spacing, this stellar halo appears more compact than the HI halo found by Young & Low (1996). As our data were optimized for a variable star search rather than CMD analysis (thus giving us extremely deep photometry in $`V`$ and very shallow photometry in $`R`$), we cannot make a more detailed analysis of the populations. We note that the population gradient we observe would require that such a study sample the entire galaxy in order to obtain a complete picture of the stellar populations and their spatial distributions.

We note that our CMD shows a lack of bright supergiants in Leo A. The brightest blue star falls at $`V=19.23`$, or $`M_V=5.33`$, corresponding to an age of 40 Myr according to the theoretical models of Fagotto et al. (1994) at Z=0.0004. While the presence of HII regions demonstrates that Leo A contains a non-zero number of very young ($`6`$ Myr) main sequence stars, a large and steady amount of star formation should have produced blue supergiants roughly 2.5 magnitudes brighter than what is observed. The brightest three blue stars have an average magnitude of $`V=19.39`$, or $`M_V=5.17`$. This is undoubtedly the cause of the incorrect distances measured by Demers et al. (1984) and Sandage (1986), as the brightest supergiant studies assumed absolute magnitudes of $`M_V7`$ for the brightest blue stars in Leo A.

## 7 Summary

We have presented the results of a search for short-period variables in Leo A, based on three consecutive nights of WIYN MIMO observations. We have located 92 variable star candidates. When placed on a CMD, the variable stars are clearly divided into two populations. The majority of our variables are short-period classical Cepheids; eight are candidate RR Lyraes. From the RR Lyraes, we measure a distance modulus of $`(mM)_0=24.51\pm 0.12`$. The discovery of RR Lyraes in Leo A disproves the hypothesis that the onset of star formation in Leo A was delayed until a few Gyr ago.

We have examined the Cepheid population of Leo A, which appears to be significantly different from previously-studied Cepheid populations. We found 84 Cepheid candidates, of which 66 have excellent light curves in $`V`$ and $`R`$ and unambiguous periods. Rather than a typical Cepheid population, with periods of 2-60 days and absolute magnitudes of $`2<M_V<6.5`$, we found very faint ($`0.7<M_V<2.3`$) Cepheids with short periods, including three fundamental pulsators with periods of under 1 day. We have examined this unusual population in terms of pulsation theory, and have demonstrated that these objects fall at the expected positions on fundamental and overtone P-L relations. The unusual Cepheid magnitudes are caused by the metallicity dependence of the blue loops. We find that this also explains the relatively large number of Cepheids observed in Leo A (three times the number expected from scaling the SMC Cepheid population to Leo A’s luminosity). We believe that most of these unusual aspects of this Cepheid population should, in fact, be a common feature of low-metallicity star-forming galaxies.

We have also examined the distributions of blue stars (primarily blue He burning stars) and red stars (primarily red giants) in our image, and discovered an old stellar halo in Leo A that extends well beyond the extent of the young population. A CMD of the halo looks typical for an old ($`>2`$ Gyr) population, with the only obvious feature being the red giant branch; a definitive age-dating of this population will only be possible with deeper photometry.

We would like to thank the NOAO TAC for the allocation of telescope time and the KPNO staff for their assistance. EDS gratefully acknowledges partial support from NASA LTSARP grant NAG5-9221 and the University of Minnesota.