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# Results on the spectrum of R-Modes of slowly rotating relativistic stars

## 1 Introduction

The discovery  of the instability of $`r`$-modes in rotating neutron stars by the emission of gravitational waves via the Chandrasekhar-Friedman-Schutz (CFS) mechanism  found much interest among astrophysicists. That instability might be responsible for slowing down a rapidly rotating, newly-born neutron star to rotation rates comparable to the initial period of the Crab pulsar ($``$19 ms) through the emission of current-quadrupole gravitational waves and would explain why only slowly-rotating pulsars are associated with supernova remnants . Also, while an initially rapidly rotating star spins down, an energy equivalent to roughly 1% of a solar mass would be radiated in the form of gravitational waves, making the process an interesting source of detectable gravitational waves .
It was soon realized in a large number of studies that many effects work against the growth of the r-mode like viscous damping, coupling to a crust, magnetic fields, differential rotation and exotic structure in the core of the neutron star. Those effects could lead to a significant reduction of the impact of the instability or even to its complete suppression. For an account of those studies we refer to the recent reviews .
Most of the results have been obtained using a newtonian description of the fluid and including radiation reaction effects by the standard multipole formula. Of course, such an ad hoc method cannot substitute a fully general relativistic treatment of the system, but it was believed that it gives at least roughly correct results, both, qualitatively and quantitatively. However in a first step towards such a fully relativistic treatment it was shown in  that the method misses important relativistic effects. Working in the low-frequency approximation Kojima could show that the frame dragging leads to the occurrence of a continuous part in the spectrum of the oscillations. This is qualitatively different from the newtonian case where this spectrum is ‘discrete’. 111But note that depending on the equation of state still mode solutions can be found in the low-frequency approximation . Mathematically, Kojima’s arguments were not conclusive since drawn from an analogy to the equations occurring in the stability discussion of non-relativistic rotating ideal fluids  and because his mathematical reasoning still referred to ‘eigenvalues’ (which generally don’t exist in that case) rather than to values from a continuous part of a ‘spectrum’. But soon afterwards in  K. Kokkotas and myself provided a rigorous interpretation along with a proof of Kojima’s claim. Indications for the continuous spectrum were also found in the subsequent numerical investigation . After that still the possibility remained that the result was an artefact of the used low-frequency approximation which in particular neglects gravitational radiation although numerical results in  suggested that this is not the case. Also is Kojima’s ‘master equation’ (see (16)) time independent whereas mathematically it is preferable to start from a time dependent equation, because in this way it can be build on the known connection between the spectrum of the generator of time evolution and the stability of the system . For these reasons we consider here Kojima’s full equations for r-modes which include gravitational radiation but still neglect the coupling to the polar modes. Indeed we will meet some surprises, related to the following.
Due to lack of appropriate exact background solutions of Einstein’s field equations the background model and its perturbation are expanded simultaneously into powers of the angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of the uniformly rotating star. In particular Kojima’s equations are correct only to first order in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Of course, once the evolution equations of the perturbations are given, there is no room for neglecting any second nor higher order terms occuring in further computations. The spectrum of the oscillations is determined by those equations and depending on that the system is stable or unstable. Now in the calculation it turns out that second order corrections in the coefficients of the evolution equations can qualitatively influence the spectrum of the oscillations. In particular continuous parts in the spectrum (both, stable and unstable) can come and go depending on such corrections. As a consequence different descriptions of the star which are equivalent to first order could lead to different results with respect to its stability. Hence the decision on the stability would have to take into account such corrections which in turn would lead to considering a changed operator. In addition judging from the mathematical mechanism how this can happen it does not seem likely that this property of the equations is going to change in higher orders, which would ultimately question the expansion method as a proper means to investigate the stability of a rotating relativistic star. With respect to this point further study is necessary, but still the results shed some doubts on the appropriateness of the expansion method.

## 2 Mathematical Introduction

Continuous spectra have been found in many cases in the past in the study of differentially rotating fluids. . The continuous spectrum in these cases was again seen for $`r`$-modes together with many interesting features such as: the passage of low-order $`r`$-modes from the discrete part into the continuous part as the differential rotation increases; and the presence of low order discrete $`p`$-modes in the middle of the continuous part in the more rapidly rotating disks .
The stars under consideration here have no differential rotation and the existence of a continuous part of the spectrum is attributed to the dragging of the inertial frames due to general relativity which is an effect not present in an newtonian description.
Mathematically, the study of spectra containing continuous parts requires a higher level of mathematical sophistication than usual in astrophysics. Such parts can cause instabilities and they cannot be computed by straighforward mode calculations. Their occurrence makes it necessary to differentiate between ‘eigenvalues’ (and the corresponding ‘modes’) and the ‘spectrum’ of the oscillations. The last depends on the introduction of a function space, a topology and the domain of definition of a linear operator (namely the generator of time evolution) analogous to quantum theory and for this the use of subtle mathematics from functional analysis, operator theory and in particular ‘Semigroups of linear operators’ is essential.
Since the system considered here is dissipating (by gravitational radiation) the generator of time evolution has complex spectral values and is non self-adjoint. This complicates the investigation, because a general spectral theory for such operators comparable to that for self-adjoint operators is still far from existing. Indeed here there was not (even) found a ‘small’ self-adjoint part of the generator which would have been suitable for applying the usual perturbation methods. 222 However note that such a method was successfully applied to Kojima’s equation (16) for the low-frequency approximation .

## 3 Kojima’s Equations for R-modes

Since the calculations here are based on the equations of Kojima  which are presented in detail there, here we are going only briefly to describe the perturbation equations. The star is assumed to be uniformly rotating with angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }O(ϵ)`$ where

$$ϵ:=\mathrm{\Omega }\sqrt{R^3/M}$$
(1)
is small compared to unity. 333 The assumption of slow rotation is considered to be a quite robust approximation, because the expansion parameter $`ϵ`$ is usually very small and the fastest spinning known pulsar has $`ϵ0.3`$. Here $`M`$ and $`R`$ are the mass and the radius of the star. Note that we use here and throughout the paper geometrical units $`c=G=1`$.
The background metric is given by:

$$g_{ab}^{(0)}=e^\nu dt^2+e^\lambda dr^2+r^2(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2)2\omega r^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta dtd\varphi ,$$
(2)
where $`\omega O(ϵ)`$ describes the dragging of the inertial frame. If we include the effects of rotation only to order $`ϵ`$ the fluid is still spherical, because the deformation is of order $`ϵ^2`$ . The star is described by the standard Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkov (TOV) equations (cf Chapter 23.5 ) plus an equation for $`\omega `$

$$\left(jr^2\varpi ^{}\right)^{}16\pi (\rho +p)e^\lambda jr^4\varpi =0,$$
(3)
where we have defined

$$\varpi =\mathrm{\Omega }\omega $$
(4)
a prime denotes derivative with respect to $`r`$, and

$$j=e^{(\lambda +\nu )/2}.$$
(5)
In the vacuum outside the star $`\varpi `$ can be written

$$\varpi =\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{2J}{r^3},$$
(6)
where $`J`$ is the angular momentum of the star. The function $`\varpi `$, both inside and outside the star is a function of $`r`$ only and continuity of $`\varpi `$ at the boundary (surface of the star, $`r=R`$) requires that $`\varpi _R^{}=6JR^4`$. Additionally, $`\varpi `$ is monotonically increasing function of $`r`$ limited to

$$\varpi _0\varpi \mathrm{\Omega },$$
(7)
where $`\varpi _0`$ is the value at the center.
The basic variables for describing r-modes propagating on the background metric $`g_{ab}^{(0)}`$ are the functions $`h_{0lm}(t,r),h_{1lm}(t,r)`$ ($`r,\theta ,\phi `$ spherical coordinates, $`t`$ time coordinate) defined by expansion into spherical harmonics (imposing the Regge-Wheeler gauge)

$`h_{t\theta }`$ $`=`$ $`h_{\theta t}={\displaystyle \underset{l,m}{}}h_{0lm}Y_{lm,\phi }/sin\theta `$
$`h_{t\phi }`$ $`=`$ $`h_{\phi t}={\displaystyle \underset{l,m}{}}h_{0lm}sin\theta Y_{lm,\theta }`$
$`h_{r\theta }`$ $`=`$ $`h_{\theta r}={\displaystyle \underset{l,m}{}}h_{1lm}Y_{lm,\phi }/sin\theta `$
$`h_{r\phi }`$ $`=`$ $`h_{\phi r}={\displaystyle \underset{l,m}{}}h_{1lm}sin\theta Y_{lm,\theta },`$ (8)
and the fluid perturbation $`U_{lm}(t,r)`$. Here

$$g_{ab}=g_{ab}^{(0)}+h_{ab},$$
(9)
where $`h_{ab}`$ is the ‘small’ perturbation.The dependance of the basic variables on $`l,m`$ will be suppressed in the following. The evolution/constraint equation will be written in terms of the following vector-valued variable

$$\stackrel{}{h}:=\left(\begin{array}{c}h_1\\ h_0\\ Z\end{array}\right)$$
(10)
Then Kojima’s equations for pure r-modes (neglecting coupling to polar modes) of a slowly and uniformly rotating general relativistic star take the following form ($`l2`$):

$$\dot{h}_1=(D\stackrel{}{h})_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}}:=h_0^{}Z$$
(11)
$`\dot{h}_0`$ $`=`$ $`(D\stackrel{}{h})_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}`$
$`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^\nu }{r^2}}\left[2M+kr^3(p\rho )\right]h_1+e^{\nu \lambda }h_1^{}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left[\mathrm{\Lambda }\omega 2e^\lambda r\omega ^{}\varpi \left(2kr^2(\rho +p)+{\displaystyle \frac{4M}{r}}\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)\right]h_0`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\varpi e^\lambda r\left(rZ^{}2h_0^{}\right){\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left[\omega ^{}e^\lambda r^2+\varpi \left(kr^3(\rho +p)2re^\lambda \right)\right]Z`$
$`\dot{Z}`$ $`=`$ $`(D\stackrel{}{h})_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}}`$ (13)
$`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^\nu }{r^3}}\left[r(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)+4M+2kr^3(p\rho )\right]h_1+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{r}}e^{\nu \lambda }h_1^{}`$
$`+2{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}r\varpi e^\lambda Z^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }\omega 4e^\lambda \varpi \right)h_0^{}`$
$`+2{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left[\left(2e^\lambda kr^2(\rho +p)\right)\varpi \mathrm{\Lambda }\omega e^\lambda r\omega ^{}\right]Z`$
$`+2{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left[(1+2e^\lambda )\omega ^{}+\left(2kr^3(\rho +p)\mathrm{\Lambda }r+4M\right){\displaystyle \frac{\varpi }{r^2}}\right]h_0,`$
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=l(l+1)`$, $`k=4\pi `$, or in a more compact notation

$$\frac{d\stackrel{}{h}}{dt}=D\stackrel{}{h}.$$
(14)
In addition we have:

$`rZ^{}`$ $``$ $`2h_0^{}+\left[2e^\lambda r^2k(p+\rho )\right]Z4re^{\lambda +\nu }U`$ (15)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^\lambda }{r^2}}\left[4M\mathrm{\Lambda }r2kr^3(p+\rho )\right]h_0imr\omega h_1^{}`$
$``$ $`im\left[\left(2kr^2e^\lambda (\rho +p)\right)\omega +r\omega ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }+2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\right]h_1=0.`$
which gives the fluid velocity $`U`$ in terms of $`h_0,h_1`$ and $`Z`$. Since $`U`$ has to vanish outside (15) constrains the data for (14) outside the star.

### 3.1 Reminder on Results in the Low-Frequency Approximation

Kojima  investigates the r-modes of the system with low-frequency of the order $`O(ϵ)`$. He finds that the master equation governing those oscillations is given by

$$q\mathrm{\Phi }+(\varpi \mu )\left[v\mathrm{\Phi }\frac{1}{r^4j}\left(r^4j\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\right)^{}\right]=0,$$
(16)
where

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=\frac{h_0}{r^2},$$
(17)
and

$$v=\frac{e^\lambda }{r^2}(l1)(l+2),$$
(18)
$$q=\frac{1}{r^4j}\left(r^4j\varpi ^{}\right)^{}=16\pi (\rho +p)e^\lambda \varpi ,$$
(19)
$$\mu =\frac{l(l+1)}{2m}(\sigma m\mathrm{\Omega }).$$
(20)
Mainly from its similarity with equations describing plane ideal newtonian fluids  he concludes that the spectrum of the oscillations is given by the singular values 444i.e., zeros of the coefficient multiplying the highest order derivatives of the equation of (16) inside the star, i.e., by the range

$$\varpi _0\mu =\frac{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)}{2m}\left(\sigma m\mathrm{\Omega }\right)\varpi _R.$$
(21)
In fact in  it was proven that it is given by the larger set

$$\varpi _0\mu =\frac{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)}{2m}\left(\sigma m\mathrm{\Omega }\right)\mathrm{\Omega }.$$
(22)
Note that such singular values are not visible in (14).

## 4 The Evolution Equations

In a first step we deal with the evolution equations only. To formulate a well posed initial value problem for the system (14) data will be taken from the Hilbert space 555For the used notation compare the Conventions in the Appendix.

$$X:=L_{}^2(I,j)\times L_{}^2(I,j)\times L_{}^2(I,r^2j),I:=(0,\mathrm{}),$$
(23)
where $`j`$ is defined by (5). Further we define an operator $`A:D(A)X`$ by

$$D(A):=\{\stackrel{}{h}\left(C^1(I,)\times C^2(I,)\times C^1(I,)\right)X:D\stackrel{}{h}X\}$$
(24)
and

$$A\stackrel{}{h}:=D\stackrel{}{h},\stackrel{}{h}D(A).$$
(25)
Obviously, it can be seen by partial integration that the adjoint operator to $`A`$ is densely-defined 666i.e, is defined on a subspace of $`X`$ which is in addition such that any element of $`X`$ is a limit point of that subspace. and hence that $`A`$ is closable, i.e., there is a unique ‘smallest’ closed extension of $`A`$ which is denoted by $`\overline{A}`$ in the following. In the following the system (14) is interpreted as the abstract equation

$$\dot{\stackrel{}{h}}(t)=\overline{A}\stackrel{}{h}(t),t,$$
(26)
where the dot denotes the ordinary derivative of functions assuming values in $`X`$. The use of this formulation makes possible the application of the results in the field of ‘Semigroups of linear operators’. In order that (26) has a unique solution for data from the domain of $`\overline{A}`$ it has to be proven that $`\overline{A}`$ is the generator of strongly continuous semigroup (or group). That this is not just a technicality is already indicated by the fact that the system (14) can be seen to have complex characteristics if the equation

$$\frac{m^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\frac{r}{r2M}\omega \varpi <\frac{1}{j^2}$$
(27)
is violated. Hence in those cases it cannot be expected that $`\overline{A}`$ is such a generator. For this reason (27) is assumed to hold for now on. Note that since

$$\frac{1}{j^2}<e^{8\pi _0^Rr^{}(p+\rho )e^\lambda 𝑑r^{}}$$
(28)
and because of

$$\frac{m^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\frac{r}{r2M}\omega \varpi \frac{m^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\omega _0(\mathrm{\Omega }\omega _0)\text{for }r0$$
(29)
and

$$\frac{m^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\frac{r}{r2M}\omega \varpi \frac{2m^2\mathrm{\Omega }J}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\frac{1}{r^3}\text{for }r\mathrm{}$$
(30)
that there is a large range of values for the physical parameters where inequality (27) is satisfied. But note also that we meet here for the first time a quantity of the order $`O(ϵ^2)`$ which restricts the meaningfullness of (14) which itself is correct only to the order $`O(ϵ)`$.
If $`\overline{A}`$ is the generator of strongly continuous semigroup (or group) –which is to expect– its spectrum $`\sigma (\overline{A})`$ 777given by all complex numbers $`\sigma `$ for which the corresponding map $`\overline{A}\sigma :D(\overline{A})X`$ is not bijective tells us about the stability of the solutions of (26). For instance, if that spectrum contains values from the left half-plane of the complex plane then there are solutions of (26) which are exponentially growing. Now the whole process of proving that $`\overline{A}`$ is such a generator would be greatly simplified by the usual perturbation methods if $`A`$ could be split into a symmetric differential operator and into a ‘small’ perturbation. This was tried on a diagonalized form of the evolution equations (14), but unsuccessfully. Indeed the problem there occurred in proving the ‘smallness’ of the the perturbing operator. A further problem in that case was that assumptions of usually used theorems giving the asymptotics of solutions near $`\mathrm{}`$ which are needed for the construction of the resolvent of the operator turned out to be not satisfied. For these reasons that approach was not pursued any further.
Usually, after the proof that an operator is the generator of a strongly continuous semigroup the far more difficult problem occurs in finding physically interesting properties of its spectrum and here it might be thought on first sight that this is analytically impossible, because of the complicated nature of the evolution equations (14). But fortunately in  there was found a whole class of operators 888The operators of that class occurred as a natural generalization of the operators governing spheroidal oscillations of adiabatic spherical newtonian stars. which generally have a continuous part in their spectrum and where the occurrence of that part can be concluded from the structure of the resolvent. Indeed in the next section the same structure will be found in the resolvent of $`\overline{A}`$.

## 5 Construction of the Resolvent of the Generator

In a first step we try to invert the equations

$$(\overline{A}\sigma )\stackrel{}{h}=\stackrel{}{f}$$
(31)
for $`\stackrel{}{h}D(\overline{A})`$ for any complex number $`\sigma `$ ($`=i\sigma `$ in Kojima’s notation) and any continuous function

$$\stackrel{}{f}=\left(\begin{array}{c}f_1\\ f_2\\ f_3\end{array}\right)$$
(32)
assuming values in $`^3`$ and with compact support on the half line. Any $`\sigma `$ for which there is some $`\stackrel{}{f}`$ such that (31) has not a unique solution is a spectral value. The unique inversion can fail for two reasons. Either there is a non trivial solution of the associated homogeneous equation and hence $`\sigma `$ is an eigenvalue or otherwise there is no solution at all for some particular non trivial $`\stackrel{}{f}`$. Often the last happens not only for some isolated value of $`\sigma `$ but for a ‘continuous set’ of values (like a real interval, a curve in $``$ or even from an open subset of $``$) leading to a ‘continuous part’ in the spectrum. For all other values of $`\sigma `$ the inversion leads to a continuous (‘bounded’) linear operator on $`X`$.
Due to the special structure of $`A`$ (the orders of differentiation inside $`A`$ vary in a special way) these equations can be decoupled leading to a single second differential equation for $`h_0`$. This equation generalizes Kojima’s equation (16). It is given by

$`\left(p_1{\displaystyle \frac{p_3p_4}{q_4}}\right)h_0^{\prime \prime }+\left(p_2\left\{p_3\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_4}{q_4}}\right)^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{q_3}{q_4}}\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{q_2p_4}{q_4}}\right\}\right)h_0^{}+`$
$`\left(q_1\left[p_3\left({\displaystyle \frac{q_3}{q_4}}\right)^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{q_2q_3}{q_4}}\right]\right)h_0=g_3:=g_1\left[p_3\left({\displaystyle \frac{g_2}{q_4}}\right)^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{q_2g_2}{q_4}}\right]`$ (33)
where

$`p_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}r^2e^\lambda \varpi `$
$`p_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left[\omega ^{}e^\lambda r^2+kr^3\varpi \left(p+\rho \right)\right]`$
$`p_3`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\nu \lambda }+{\displaystyle \frac{im\sigma }{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\varpi r^2e^\lambda `$
$`p_4`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{r}{2}}\left(\sigma im\omega \right)`$ (34)
$`q_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left[\mathrm{\Lambda }\omega 2e^\lambda r\omega ^{}\varpi \left(2kr^2(p+\rho ){\displaystyle \frac{4M}{r}}\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{\Lambda }\sigma }{m}}\right]`$
$`q_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^\nu }{r^2}}\left[2M+kr^3(p\rho )\right]{\displaystyle \frac{im\sigma }{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left[\omega ^{}e^\lambda r^2+\varpi \left(kr^3(p+\rho )2re^\lambda \right)\right]`$
$`q_3`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left(r\omega ^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{8M}{r}}\varpi +\mathrm{\Lambda }\omega \right)\right]`$
$`q_4`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^\nu }{2r}}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma }{2}}im\omega \right)\sigma r`$ (35)
and

$`g_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}r^2e^\lambda \varpi f_1^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left[\omega ^{}r^2e^\lambda +\varpi \left(kr^3(p+\rho )2re^\lambda \right)\right]f_1f_2`$
$`g_2`$ $`=`$ $`r\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma }{2}}im\omega \right)f_1+f_2{\displaystyle \frac{r}{2}}f_3.`$ (36)
From $`h_0`$ the functions $`h_1`$ and $`Z`$ can be computed by

$`h_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_2}{q_4}}{\displaystyle \frac{p_4}{q_4}}h_0^{}{\displaystyle \frac{q_3}{q_4}}h_0`$
$`Z`$ $`=`$ $`h_0^{}+\sigma h_1+f_1.`$ (37)
Note that $`q_4`$ vanishes if only if

$$\sigma =i\left[m\omega \pm \sqrt{m^2\omega ^2+(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\frac{e^\nu }{r^2}}\right]$$
(38)
for some $`r>0`$ and that

$$p_1q_4p_3p_4=\frac{r}{2}e^{\nu \lambda }\left[\left(1\frac{m^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\omega \varpi r^2e^\nu \right)\sigma im\left(\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\varpi \right)\right]$$
(39)
vanishes if and only if

$$\sigma =\frac{im\left(\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\varpi \right)}{1\frac{m^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\omega \varpi r^2e^\nu }$$
(40)
for some $`r>0`$. Note that the last formula gives up to first order in $`m`$ exactly the values of the continuous spectrum found for (16). Also note that the denominator in (40) is greater than zero, because of

$$e^{\nu +\lambda }\left(1\frac{m^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\omega \varpi r^2e^\nu \right)=\frac{1}{j^2}\frac{m^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\frac{r}{r2M}\omega \varpi $$
(41)
and condition (27) demanding that the right hand side of the last equation is greater than zero.999Remember that the last condition was imposed to exclude the occurrence of complex characteristics for the evolution equations (14).
Hence both functions vanish only for purely imaginary $`\sigma `$. So the equations are non singular for non purely imaginary $`\sigma `$ and this case is considered in the following. We denote by $`P_1`$ the coefficient of the leading order derivative in (33) and by $`P_2`$ the coefficient of the first order derivative

$`P_1`$ $`=`$ $`p_1{\displaystyle \frac{p_3p_4}{q_4}},`$
$`P_2`$ $`=`$ $`p_2\left\{p_3\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_4}{q_4}}\right)^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{q_3}{q_4}}\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{q_2p_4}{q_4}}\right\}.`$ (42)
If $`h_{0l}`$ and $`h_{0r}`$ (here, ‘ $`l`$ ’ stands for ‘ left ’ and ‘ $`r`$ ’ for ‘ right ’) are linear independent solutions of the homogeneous equation associated with (33) which are square integrable near $`0`$ and near $`\mathrm{}`$, respectively, $`h_0`$ is given by

$`h_0(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C}}[h_{0l}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}h_{0r}(r^{})g_3(r^{})K(r^{})dr^{}`$ (43)
$`+h_{0r}(r){\displaystyle _0^r}h_{0l}(r^{})g_3(r^{})K(r^{})dr^{}],`$
where $`C`$ is a non zero constant defined by

$$h_{0l}(r)h_{0r}^{}(r)h_{0r}(r)h_{0l}^{}(r)=Cexp\left(^r\frac{P_2(r^{})}{P_1(r^{})}𝑑r^{}\right)$$
(44)
and

$$K(r)=\frac{1}{P_1(r)}\mathrm{exp}\left(^r\frac{P_2(r^{})}{P_1(r^{})}𝑑r^{}\right).$$
(45)
The lower constant of integration has to be the same in the last two formulas. It is kept fixed in the following although its precise value does not enter the formulas in any essential way. Note that the inhomogenity $`g_3`$ in (43) allows the following decomposition into terms containing derivatives of the components of $`\stackrel{}{f}`$ and terms without such derivatives by

$$g_3=\frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}r^2e^\lambda \varpi f_1^{}p_3\left(\frac{g_2}{q_4}\right)^{}+g_4,$$
(46)
where

$$g_4=\frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\left[\omega ^{}r^2e^\lambda +\varpi \left(kr^3(p+\rho )2re^\lambda \right)\right]f_1f_2\frac{q_2}{q_4}g_2.$$
(47)
Finally from (44),(46) we get by partial integration

$`h_0(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C}}[h_{0l}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}\left(h_{0r}r^2e^\lambda \varpi K\right)^{}(r^{})f_1(r^{})dr^{}+`$ (48)
$`h_{0r}(r){\displaystyle _0^r}\left(h_{0l}r^2e^\lambda \varpi K\right)^{}(r^{})f_1(r^{})dr^{}]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C}}[h_{0l}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}h_{0r}^{}(r^{}){\displaystyle \frac{p_3}{q_4}}(r^{})g_2(r^{})K(r^{})dr^{}+`$
$`h_{0r}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}h_{0l}^{}(r^{}){\displaystyle \frac{p_3}{q_4}}(r^{})g_2(r^{})K(r^{})dr^{}]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C}}[h_{0l}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}h_{0r}(r^{}){\displaystyle \frac{(p_3K)^{}}{q_4}}(r^{})g_2(r^{})dr^{}+`$
$`h_{0r}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}h_{0l}(r^{}){\displaystyle \frac{(p_3K)^{}}{q_4}}(r^{})g_2(r^{})dr^{}]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C}}[h_{0l}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}h_{0r}(r^{})g_4(r^{})K(r^{})dr^{}+`$
$`h_{0r}(r){\displaystyle _0^r}h_{0l}(r^{})g_4(r^{})K(r^{})dr^{}]`$
Further it follows from (43), (44) and (45) that

$`h_0^{}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C}}[h_{0l}^{}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}h_{0r}(r^{})g_3(r^{})K(r^{})dr^{}+`$ (49)
$`h_{0r}^{}(r){\displaystyle _0^r}h_{0l}(r^{})g_3(r^{})K(r^{})dr^{}]`$
and hence by (44), (46) and partial integration

$$h_0^{}(r)=h_{0I}^{}(r)\frac{p_3}{q_4P_1}g_2\frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\frac{r^2e^\lambda \varpi }{P_1}f_1,$$
(50)
where

$`h_{0I}^{}(r)`$ $`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C}}[h_{0l}^{}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}\left(h_{0r}r^2e^\lambda \varpi K\right)^{}(r^{})f_1(r^{})dr^{}+`$ (51)
$`h_{0r}^{}(r){\displaystyle _0^r}\left(h_{0l}r^2e^\lambda \varpi K\right)^{}(r^{})f_1(r^{})dr^{}]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C}}[h_{0l}^{}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}h_{0r}^{}(r^{}){\displaystyle \frac{p_3}{q_4}}(r^{})g_2(r^{})K(r^{})dr^{}+`$
$`h_{0r}^{}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}h_{0l}^{}(r^{}){\displaystyle \frac{p_3}{q_4}}(r^{})g_2(r^{})K(r^{})dr^{}]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C}}[h_{0l}^{}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}h_{0r}(r^{}){\displaystyle \frac{(p_3K)^{}}{q_4}}(r^{})g_2(r^{})dr^{}+`$
$`h_{0r}^{}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}h_{0l}(r^{}){\displaystyle \frac{(p_3K)^{}}{q_4}}(r^{})g_2(r^{})dr^{}]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C}}[h_{0l}^{}(r){\displaystyle _r^{\mathrm{}}}h_{0r}(r^{})g_4(r^{})K(r^{})dr^{}+`$
$`h_{0r}^{}(r){\displaystyle _0^r}h_{0l}(r^{})g_4(r^{})K(r^{})dr^{}].`$
Finally, using (50) in (5) and some calculation leads to

$$h_1=h_{1I}+\frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\frac{r^2e^\lambda \varpi }{q_4P_1}\left(\frac{im\omega r}{2}f_1+f_2\frac{r}{2}f_3\right)$$
(52)
and

$$Z=h_{0I}^{}+\sigma h_{1I}\frac{e^{\nu \lambda }}{q_4P_1}\left(\frac{im\omega r}{2}f_1+f_2\frac{r}{2}f_3\right),$$
(53)
where

$$h_{1I}=\frac{p_4}{q_4}h_{0I}^{}\frac{q_3}{q_4}h_0.$$
(54)
Note that the structure of these formulas for $`h_1,Z`$ is similar to that of formula (43) for $`h_0`$, with one important difference. Apart from terms containing integrals both include an additive term which does not involve integration. They are

$`{\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\displaystyle \frac{r^2e^\lambda \varpi }{q_4P_1}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{im\omega r}{2}}f_1+f_2{\displaystyle \frac{r}{2}}f_3\right)\text{for }h_1`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{e^{\nu \lambda }}{q_4P_1}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{im\omega r}{2}}f_1+f_2{\displaystyle \frac{r}{2}}f_3\right)\text{for }Z.`$ (55)
Note that both factors multiplying the brackets diverge at the values of $`\sigma `$ given by (40). So here we recover again up to first order in m the values of the continuous spectrum found for (16). It is known from  that such values become part of the spectrum if the operator is considered on a compact interval. 101010See the proof of Theorem 17 in that paper. Basis for this Lemma 2 in the Appendix and the compactness of integral operators in (48) and (51). For the construction of the resolvent there are still needed solutions of the homogeneous equation corresponding to (33) which are square integrable near $`r=0`$ and others which are square integrable near $`\mathrm{}`$. The following Section investigates on their existence.

## 6 Asymptotics of the Homogeneous Solutions

The result of the investigation is as follows. In the following we drop the assumption that $`\sigma `$ is non purely imaginary. There are 111111for e.g., according to the variant of Dunkel’s theorem  given in the Appendix. linearly independent solutions $`h_{01},h_{02}`$ satisfying

$`\underset{r0}{lim}r^{(l+1)}h_{01}(r)=1`$ (56)
$`\underset{r0}{lim}r^lh_{01}^{}(r)=l+1`$ (57)
$`\underset{r0}{lim}r^lh_{02}(r)=1`$ (58)
$`\underset{r0}{lim}r^{l+1}h_{02}^{}(r)=l`$ (59)
and for $`\sigma `$ different from

$$0,\frac{im\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Lambda }2),\frac{im\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\left[\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\pm 8mM\mathrm{\Omega }\right]$$
(60)
there are 121212for e.g., according to the proof of Theorem 1 in paragraph 8 of  . linearly independent solutions

$`h_{03}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`r^{\rho _1}e^{\gamma _1r}U_1(r)`$
$`h_{04}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`r^{\rho _2}e^{\gamma _2r}U_2(r),`$ (61)
such that

$`\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}U_n(r)=1`$
$`\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}U_n^{}(r)=0.`$ (62)
for $`n=1,2`$. Here $`\gamma _1`$, $`\gamma _2`$ are solutions of

$$\gamma ^2\frac{16m^2M\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\frac{\sigma }{\sigma \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega }}\gamma \sigma ^2=0$$
(63)
such that $`\text{Re}(\gamma _1)\text{Re}(\gamma _2)`$,

$$\rho _n=\frac{\sigma _1\gamma _n+\tau _1}{2\gamma _n+\sigma _0},$$
(64)
for $`n=1,2`$, where

$`\sigma _1=\{32m^2M\mathrm{\Omega }^2\sigma [(\mathrm{\Lambda }M+m^2\mathrm{\Omega }J)\sigma +imM\mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)]`$
$`2\mathrm{\Lambda }[\mathrm{\Lambda }\sigma im(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega }]^2\left\}\right\{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3[\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega }]^2\}^1,`$
$`\tau _1={\displaystyle \frac{2\sigma ^2\left[(J\mathrm{\Omega }m^2+2M\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma 2iM\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Lambda }m\right]}{\mathrm{\Lambda }\left[\sigma \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega }\right]}},`$
$`\sigma _0={\displaystyle \frac{16m^2M\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma }{\sigma \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega }}}.`$ (65)
Note that the presence of a second order term in (63) diverging near

$$\sigma =\frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega },$$
(66)
which is the newtonian frequency for r-modes (to first order in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$) as seen from an inertial observer . Despite of being second order that term becomes arbitrarily large near this frequency.
Further, note that (5), (56), (6) imply that the corresponding $`h_{11},h_{12},h_{13},h_{14},Z_1,`$ $`Z_2,Z_3,Z_4`$ satisfy

$`\underset{r0}{lim}r^{(l+2)}h_{11}(r)=(\sigma im\omega (0))(j(0))^2/(l+2)`$ (67)
$`\underset{r0}{lim}r^{l1}h_{12}(r)=(\sigma im\omega (0))(j(0))^2/(l1)`$ (68)
$`\underset{r0}{lim}r^lZ_1(r)=l+1`$ (69)
$`\underset{r0}{lim}r^{l+1}Z_2(r)=l`$ (70)
and

$`\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}r^{\rho _1}e^{\gamma {}_{1}{}^{}r}h_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}13}}(r)=\gamma _1/\sigma `$ (71)
$`\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}r^{\rho _2}e^{\gamma {}_{2}{}^{}r}h_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}14}}(r)=\gamma _2/\sigma `$ (72)
$`\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}r^{1\rho _1}e^{\gamma {}_{1}{}^{}r}Z_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}}(r)=2`$ (73)
$`\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}r^{1\rho _2}e^{\gamma {}_{2}{}^{}r}Z_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}}(r)=2.`$ (74)
The outcome for the solutions near $`0`$ is, of course, exactly as expected. As a consequence for any $`\sigma `$ the triple

$$\stackrel{}{h}_1:={}_{}{}^{t}(h_{11},h_{01},Z_1)$$
(75)
is in $`X`$ near $`0`$.
The analysis of the solutions of (63) uses Theorem (39,1) in  which generalizes the Routh-Hurwitz theorem to polynomials with complex coefficients. For this solutions with $`Re(\gamma )<0`$, $`Re(\gamma )>0`$, will be referred to as ‘stable’ and ‘unstable’, respectively. For the analysis define the discrimants $`\mathrm{}_1`$ and $`\mathrm{}_2`$ of (63) by

$`\mathrm{}_1`$ $`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{16m^2M\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\left|\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega }\right|^2`$ (76)
$`\left\{\sigma _1^2+\left[\sigma _2{\displaystyle \frac{m}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }}}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega }\right]^2{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{4\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2\right\}`$
and

$`\mathrm{}_2:=\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{16m^2M\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\right|\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{im}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega }|^2(\sigma _1^2+\sigma _2^2)`$
$`[\sigma _1^2+\sigma _2({\displaystyle \frac{m}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega }\sigma _2)]\mathrm{}_1+4\sigma _1^2\sigma _2^2\}.`$ (77)
Then if, both, $`\mathrm{}_10`$ and $`\mathrm{}_20`$ the number of zeros of (63) in the open left half-plane of the complex half-plane is given by the sign changes in the sequence $`S=1,\mathrm{}_1,\mathrm{}_2`$ and the number of zeros in the open right half-plane is given by the number of permanences of sign in this sequence. Note that $`\mathrm{}_1`$ is $`>0`$ ($`<0`$) outside (inside) the circle

$$\sigma _1^2+\left[\sigma _2\frac{m}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega }\right]^2=\frac{m^2}{4\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2.$$
(78)
So we consider the following cases.

* The first case (corresponding to regions I in Fig.1) considers the values of $`\sigma `$ in the complement of the closed strip $`\times [0,m(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega }/\lambda ]`$. Here we have $`\mathrm{}_1>0`$ and hence maximal one sign change in the sequence. In particular, there is no change in sign near the imaginary axis. So there is maximally one stable solution and especially no stable solution near the imaginary axis.
* The second case (corresponding to region II in Fig 1) considers the values of $`\sigma `$ in the open strip $`\times (0,m(\mathrm{\Lambda }2)\mathrm{\Omega }/\lambda )`$. Here we have three subcases a), b) and c) (corresponding to regions A, B and C, respectively, in Fig 1.)

Subcase a) considers those values with $`\mathrm{}_1>0`$. Obviously, this implies $`\mathrm{}_2<0`$. As a consequence there is exactly one sign change in the sequence and hence there are exactly one stable and one unstable solution.

Subcase b) considers those values with $`\mathrm{}_2>0`$. This implies $`\mathrm{}_1<0`$ and two sign changes in the sequence. Hence in this case there are only stable solutions.

The last subcase c) considers those values satisfying, both, $`\mathrm{}_1<0`$ and $`\mathrm{}_2<0`$. Then there is only one sign change and hence exactly one stable and one unstable solution.

Finally, by an application of Rouche’s theorem (see e.g. Theorem 3.8 in Chapter V of ) follows that

* For

$$|\text{Re}(\sigma )|>\frac{|m||\mathrm{\Omega }|}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }2+\frac{8|m|M|\mathrm{\Omega }|}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\right)$$
(79)
there exist, both, a solution with $`\gamma _1<0`$ and with $`\gamma _1>0`$ and hence a stable and an unstable solution.

The asymptotics near $`\mathrm{}`$ of $`h_{03},h_{04}`$ for $`\sigma `$ near and on the imaginary axis is surprising. Expected was that in the complement of imaginary axis there are always, both, a stable and an unstable solution of (63) and on the imaginary axis that both solutions are purely imaginary. Indeed this would have been the case if the second order term in this equation were absent. There one has either exponential growth of both solutions (in Regions D) or exponential decay of both solutions (Region B). As a consequence each $`\sigma B`$ – different from the values given in (60) – is an eigenvalue of $`A`$. Hence there is a continuum of eigenvalues for $`A`$ in the open left half-plane and hence the evolution given by (11), (3) and (13) is unstable.

## 7 Discussion and Open Problems

In the previous Section it was found that the spectrum of $`\overline{A}`$ contains a continuum of unstable eigenvalues leading to an unstable evolution given by (11), (3) and (13). In addition there was found a continuum of values $`\sigma `$ (from Regions D in Fig.1 – which include the spectral values found in the low-frequency approximation as well as (40) – for which any non trivial solution of the homogeneous equation corresponding to (31) growths exponentially near $`\mathrm{}`$. Hence it is to expect that those values are also part of the spectrum of $`\overline{A}`$ and hence contribute to the instability. Note in particular that their associated growth times displayed in Fig.1 can be of larger size than those for the found unstable eigenvalues (Region B in Fig.1) which suggests that the influence on the evolution dominantes over the influence of those eigenvalues.
A further question is how the constraint (15) – which has not been treated so far – is likely to influence the spectrum. The constraint should lead to closed subspace of $`X`$ being invariant under $`\overline{A}`$. Then the spectrum of the restriction of $`\overline{A}`$ to that subspace is a subset of the spectrum of $`\overline{A}`$. This should have the effect that the eigenvalues in region $`B`$ (see Fig.1) are becoming discrete instead whereas the continuous part of the spectrum in Region $`D`$ might be left unchanged, because in general continuous spectra are less sensitive to such a operation. In any case the singular structure of the resolvent at the values given by (40) will be unchanged having the effect that those values remain part of the spectrum at least when the system is restricted to finite space as is necessarily done in most numerical investigations. To decide these questions further study is needed. Note in this connection that the occurrence of an unbounded spectrum for $`\overline{A}`$ would not be a surprise, because for e.g., it is known that a self-adjoint operator has a bounded spectrum if and only if it is defined on the whole Hilbert space and in general differential operators cannot be defined on the whole of a weighted $`L^2`$-space. Also would the occurrence of an infinitely extended continuous part in the spectrum of oscillations be not surprising since that is quite common for infinitely extended physical systems.
From a physical point of view the main worrying feature of the results is their qualitative dependance on second order terms like that in (63). It is to expect that changes in second order to the coefficents in (11), (3) and (13) influence that term which can lead to a qualitative change of the spectrum. As a consequence different descriptions of the star which are equivalent to first order could lead to different statements on the stability of the star. Hence to decide that stability such corrections of the coefficients would have to be taken into account which in turn would lead to considering a changed operator. In addition judging from the mathematical mechanism how the coefficients of the evolution equations influence the spectrum – namely through the asymptotics of the homogeneous solutions of (31) near $`\mathrm{}`$ – it might be suspected that this property of the equations does not change in higher orders, which would ultimately question the expansion method as a proper means to investigate the stability of a rotating relativistic star. Also with respect to these points further study is necessary, but still the results raise first doubts whether the slow rotation approximation is appropriate for this purpose.
A final interesting question to ask is whether a numerical investigation of the evolution given by (11), (3) and (13) is capable of detecting the computed instabilities. This seems unlikely, because in that process space has to be ‘cutoff’ near the singular points $`r=0,\mathrm{}`$ and suitable local boundary conditions have to be posed at that the endpoints. But such a system is qualitatively different from the infinite system since for instance there the asymptotics of the homogeneous solutions (31) near $`\mathrm{}`$ does not play a role. Note that – independent from the used boundary conditions – for such a system the continuum of values given by the restriction of (40) to the chosen interval are part of the spectrum 131313 This is an easy consequence of Lemma 2 in the Appendix along with the compactness of the integral operators involved in the representation of the resolvent given by (48) - (54). Compare also the proof of Theorem 17 in . of the corresponding operator as also is also indicated by the numerical investigation .

### Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Kostas Kokkotas and Johannes Ruoff for many important discussions. Also I would like to thank B. Schmidt for reading the paper and helpful suggestions.

## 8 Appendix

### 8.1 Conventions

The symbols $``$, $``$, $``$ denote the natural numbers (including zero), all real numbers and all complex numbers, respectively.
To ease understanding we follow common abuse of notation and don’t differentiate between coordinate maps and coordinates. For instance, interchangeably $`r`$ will denote some real number greater than $`0`$ or the coordinate projection onto the open interval $`I:=(0,\mathrm{})`$. The definition used will be clear from the context. In addition we assume composition of maps (which includes addition, multiplication etc.) always to be maximally defined. So for instance the addition of two maps (if at all possible) is defined on the intersection of the corresponding domains.
For each $`k\{0\}`$, $`n\{0\}`$ and each non-trivial open subset $`M`$ of $`^n`$ the symbol $`C^k(M,)`$ denotes the linear space of $`k`$-times continuously differentiable complex-valued functions on $`M`$. Further $`C_0^k(M,)`$ denotes the subspace of $`C^k(M,)`$ consisting of those functions which in addition have a compact support in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.
Throughout the paper Lebesgue integration theory is used in the formulation of . Compare also Chapter III in  and Appendix A in . To improve readability we follow common usage and don’t differentiate between an almost everywhere (with respect to the chosen measure) defined function $`f`$ and the associated equivalence class (consisting of all almost everywhere defined functions which differ from $`f`$ only on a set of measure zero). In this sense $`L_C^2(M,\rho )`$, where $`\rho `$ is some strictly positive real-valued continuous function on $`M`$, denotes the Hilbert space of complex-valued, square integrable (with respect to the measure $`\rho d^nx`$) functions on $`M`$. The scalar product $`<|>`$ on $`L_C^2(M,\rho )`$ is defined by

$$<f|g>:=_Mf^{}g\rho d^nx,$$
(80)
for all $`f,gL_C^2(M,\rho )`$, where  denotes complex conjugation on $``$. It is a standard result of functional analysis that $`C_0^k(M,)`$ is dense in $`L_C^2(M,\rho )`$.
Finally, throughout the paper standard results and nomenclature of operator theory is used. For this compare standard textbooks on Functional analysis, e.g., Vol. I, .

### 8.2 Auxiliary Theorems

The variant of the theorem of Dunkel  (compare also ) used in Section 4 is the following.

###### Theorem 1

: Let $`nN`$; $`a,t_0R`$ with $`a<t_0`$; $`\mu N`$; $`\alpha _\mu :=1`$ for $`\mu =0`$ and $`\alpha _\mu :=\mu `$ for $`\mu 0`$. In addition let $`A_0`$ be a diagonalizable complex $`n\times n`$ matrix and $`e_1^{},\mathrm{},e_n^{}`$ be a basis of $`C^n`$ consisting of eigenvectors of $`A_0`$. Further, for each $`j\{1,\mathrm{},n\}`$ let $`\lambda _j`$ be the eigenvalue corresponding to $`e_j^{}`$ and $`P_j`$ be the matrix representing the projection of $`C^n`$ onto $`C.e_j^{}`$ with respect to the canonical basis of $`C^n`$. Finally, let $`A_1`$ be a continuous map from $`(a,t_0)`$ into the complex $`n\times n`$ matrices $`M(n\times n,C)`$ for which there is a number $`c(a,t_0)`$ such that the restriction of $`A_{1jk}`$ to $`[c,t_0)`$ is Lebesgue integrable for each $`j,k1,\mathrm{},n`$.
Then there is a $`C^1`$ map $`R:(a,t_0)M(n\times n,C)`$ with $`lim_{t0}R_{jk}(t)=0`$ for each $`j,k1,\mathrm{},n`$ and such that $`u:(a,t_0)M(n\times n,C)`$ defined by

$`u(t):=\{\begin{array}{cc}_{j=1}^n(t_0t)^{\lambda _j}(E+R(t))P_j\text{for }\mu =0\hfill & \\ _{j=1}^nexp(\lambda _j(t_0t)^\mu )(E+R(t))P_j\text{for }\mu 0\text{ }\hfill & \end{array}`$ (83)
for all $`t(a,t_0)`$ (where $`E`$ is the $`n\times n`$ unit matrix), maps into the invertible $`n\times n`$ matrices and satisfies

$$u^{}(t)=\left(\frac{\alpha _\mu }{(t_0t)^{\mu +1}}A_0+A_1(t)\right)u(t)$$
(84)
for each $`t(a,t_0)`$.

###### Lemma 2

Let $`X`$ be a non-trivial Hilbert space with scalar product $`<|>`$ and induced norm $``$ and let be $`A:D(A)X`$ a densely-defined, linear and closable operator in $`X`$. Further let be $`\sigma `$ such that $`A\sigma `$ is injective. Finally, let be $`\mu ^{}`$ and let be $`\eta _0,\eta _1,`$ a sequence of elements of $`Ran(A\sigma )`$ for which there is an $`\epsilon (0,\mathrm{})`$ such that $`\eta _\nu \epsilon `$ for every $`\nu `$ and

$$\underset{\nu \mathrm{}}{lim}\left[\left(A\sigma \right)^1\eta _\nu \mu \eta _\nu \right]=0.$$
(85)
Then $`\sigma +\mu ^1`$ is in the spectrum of the closure $`\overline{A}`$ of $`A`$.

Proof: The proof is indirect. Assume otherwise that $`\sigma +\mu ^1`$ is not part of the spectrum of $`\overline{A}`$. Then $`\overline{A}(\sigma +\mu ^1)`$ is in particular bijective with a bounded inverse $`\left(\overline{A}(\sigma +\mu ^1)\right)^1`$. Then we have for every $`\nu `$

$$\left(\overline{A}(\sigma +\mu ^1)\right)\left(A\sigma \right)^1\eta _\nu =\eta _\nu \mu ^1\left(A\sigma \right)^1\eta _\nu $$
(86)
and hence also

$`\left(\overline{A}(\sigma +\mu ^1)\right)^1\left(A\sigma \right)^1\eta _\nu `$ $`=`$ $`\mu \left(\overline{A}(\sigma +\mu ^1)\right)^1\eta _\nu `$ (87)
$`\mu \left(\overline{A}\sigma \right)^1\eta _\nu .`$
Using this it follows from (85) and the continuity of $`\left(\overline{A}(\sigma +\mu ^1)\right)^1`$ that

$`\underset{\nu \mathrm{}}{lim}\left\{\left(\overline{A}(\sigma +\mu ^1)\right)^1\left(A\sigma \right)^1\eta _\nu \mu \left(\overline{A}(\sigma +\mu ^1)\right)^1\eta _\nu \right\}=`$
$`\mu \underset{\nu \mathrm{}}{lim}\left(A\sigma \right)^1\eta _\nu =0`$ (88)
and hence by (85) that

$$\underset{\nu \mathrm{}}{lim}\eta _\nu =0.$$
(89)
The last is in contradiction to the assumption there is an $`\epsilon (0,\mathrm{})`$ such that $`\eta _\nu \epsilon `$ for all $`\nu `$. Hence the Lemma is proven.


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# Integral Field Spectroscopy with the Gemini 8-m Telescopes

## 1. Introduction

The high image quality and large collecting areas of the Gemini 8-m telescopes make them well-suited to integral field spectroscopy. On smaller telescopes signal-to-noise considerations have forced integral-field units (IFUs) to have either coarse spatial sampling (e.g. INTEGRAL, DensePak, SAURON) or fine sampling of the highest surface brightness targets (e.g. OASIS, TEIFU). More collecting area, a smaller diffraction limit, and new technology in today’s 8-10 meter telescopes means that higher signal-to-noise spectra of finer spatial structures can be obtained. Therefore, the first generation of instrumentation on Gemini will include optical and near-infrared IFUs on both telescopes: GMOS and NIFS instruments on Gemini North, and GMOS and GNIRS on Gemini South (see Table 1). This paper summarizes the capabilities of the telescopes and these instruments.

While they are sensitive from optical through mid-infrared wavelengths, the Gemini telescopes are optimized for observing in the near and mid-infrared. Special features of the telescopes include minimizing the mass above the primary mirror in order to lower the thermal background and improve airflow over the mirror, future low-emissivity mirror coatings, daytime climate control, and a tip/tilt chopping secondary. In addition, both telescopes will have facility adaptive optics units that will be able to feed a near-diffraction-limited beam to any instrument. Therefore, Gemini will be able to deliver image quality in the near-infrared about a factor of two better than HST (Figure 1). The Gemini IFUs have been designed to work with the expected image quality from either tip/tilt or adaptive-optics corrected beams. The rest of this paper briefly describes the capabilities of each Gemini integral field unit in approximate order of when it will come into service.

Table 1. Summary of Gemini Integral Field Instruments    Instrument/ FOV Sampling Wavelength R  Location   Range   GMOS $`7^{\prime \prime }\times 5^{\prime \prime }+`$ $`0.2^{\prime \prime }`$ 0.4–1.1 $`\mu `$m 500–8000  GN and GS $`3.^{\prime \prime }5\times 5^{\prime \prime }`$     GNIRS $`3.^{\prime \prime }2\times 4.^{\prime \prime }4`$ $`0.15^{\prime \prime }`$ 1–5 $`\mu `$m 667,2000,  GS    6000  NIFS $`3^{\prime \prime }\times 3^{\prime \prime }`$ $`0.1^{\prime \prime }`$ 0.9–2.5 $`\mu `$m $`5000`$  GN

## 2. GMOS

The Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) instruments — one for each telescope — provide the primary optical imaging and spectroscopic capabilities at Gemini (Murowinski et al. 2002). Each instrument will have a lenslet/fiber-based IFU that sits in one of the three mask cassettes and it is deployed like any other GMOS slit mask. The IFUs are built by the University of Durham and the design of the first unit is described by Allington-Smith et al. (2002; also see Allington-Smith et al. in these proceedings). Commissioning for the first IFU was begun in September, 2001, and its performance has met or exceeded expectations. It was first offered to the community for use in the 2002A semester.

As the design of the IFU is covered elsewhere, this paper will focus on the data format and data reduction procedure. The IFU has two sub-fields — one with 1000 lenslets ($`7^{\prime \prime }\times 5^{\prime \prime }`$), and one with 500 lenslets ($`3.^{\prime \prime }5\times 5^{\prime \prime }`$) — separated by 1 arcminute so that one field can be used for sky subtraction. The light entering the lenslets is redirected by fibers into two pseudo-slits of 750 fibers each. These are imaged on the detector like regular longslits. The current detector is an array of three butted $`2048\times 4608`$ pixel EEV CCDs with an effective size of $`6144\times 4608`$. The gaps between the CCDs are equivalent to 37 pixels in width. The dispersion axis is along the long axis of the mosaic. When both IFU slits are used two banks of 750 spectra appear side-by-side on the detector and blocking filters must be used to avoid spectral overlap. However, either of the slits can be closed, resulting in one-half the field-of-view but allowing twice the spectral coverage. A raw GMOS file is a multi-extension FITS (MEF) file with one extension for each amplifier used for readout (usually 3 or 6).

All Gemini pipeline processing will be done within IRAF. The Gemini staff are writing packages of scripts for handling the data from facility instruments. Scripts for handling GMOS IFU data will be part of the GMOS package and will allow for the extraction, calibration, and analysis of the IFU spectra (Table 2). Most of these scripts are in draft form and the first release is planned for the middle of semester 2002A.

Table 2. IFU related scripts in the GMOS IRAF package    Task Function    gfapsum sum spectra in a spatial region  gfdisplay display datacubes using ldisplay  gfextract extract spectra, apply fiber throughput correction  gfmosaic merge datacubes  gfquick quick image reconstruction for target acquisition  gfreduce apply reduction/calibration to object frames  gfresponse determine relative fiber responses  gfskysub subtract sky  gftransform apply wavelength calibration  gscrrej remove cosmic rays  gsreduce bias subtraction  gswavelength determine wavelength calibration

The current extraction routine uses the IRAF task apall to find, trace, and extract the spectra. Most of the spectra are separated well enough that identifying the individual spectra is not a problem. However, the peaks of three low-throughput fibers cannot be distinguished from their neighbors, so they are lost. More sophisticated reduction techniques, such as deconvolution, may be able to recover these spectra. The current format of the extracted “datacube” is shown in Figure 2. The spectra are packed in 2D IRAF multispec images (one spectrum per image line) within a MEF file. The relative positions of the lenslets on the sky are contained in the binary table (MDF) extension. This format is similar in concept to the proposed Euro3D format. Tasks such as gfdisplay are used to visualize the 3D data. Additional analysis tools will be released as they are developed.

## 3. GNIRS

The Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS) is a fully cryogenic instrument sensitive from 1 to 5 microns. The instrument is being built by NOAO in Tucson and the IFU module is being built by the University of Durham. Similar to the GMOS IFU, the GNIRS IFU is in a cassette that is inserted into the beam on a slit slide. Since the instrument is cooled the IFU is an image slicer containing 21 diamond-turned mirrors that reformat the focal plane into a bank of spectra (Figure 3). The width of a slicer mirror is $`0.^{\prime \prime }15`$ and the slitlets are 4$`.^{\prime \prime }`$4 long, giving 609 independent spatial elements. With slices of this width the IFU is optimized for tip/tilt correction rather than adaptive optics. Spectral resolutions for the short camera are $`R=667`$, $`R=2000`$, and $`R=6000`$, depending on the grating. Delivery to Gemini South is expected to be toward the end of 2002.

## 4. NIFS

The Gemini Near-infrared Integral Field Spectrograph (NIFS), being built by the Australia National University, is designed to work behind the Altair adaptive optics system on Gemini North. To reduce cost and speed development the project is copying the the designs of the on-instrument wavefront sensor and the cryostat from the NIRI instrument already in use at Gemini North. The IFU is based on an image slicer similar to that used in GNIRS. The slicing mirrors have a projected width of $`0.^{\prime \prime }1`$ and the total field-of-view is $`3^{\prime \prime }\times 3^{\prime \prime }`$. The 20482 Hawaii-II detector will give wavelength coverage from 0.9–2.5 $`\mu `$m with a spectral resolution of 5000. Delivery is expected in the middle of 2003.

## 5. Future

Future integral field spectrographs are likely to take advantage of the multi-conjugate adaptive optics system being developed for Gemini South. In this system multiple deformable mirrors will produce a uniform, near diffraction-limited PSF over a 2 arcminute field. Several designs for a spectrograph with multiple, deployable IFUs are under consideration.

## 6. Summary

Large collecting areas, good image quality (with or without adaptive optics), and infrared optimization make the Gemini telescopes well-suited for integral field spectroscopy. Therefore, Gemini will be offering both optical and near-IR IFU capability at both telescopes within the next two years. These instruments will be powerful tools for studies of galaxy dynamics, black holes, and ISM kinematics and abundances, to name a few possible projects.

### Acknowledgments.

The Gemini Observatory is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (United Kingdom), the National Research Council (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), the Australian Research Council (Australia), CNPq (Brazil) and CONICET (Argentina).

## References

Allington-Smith, J., Murray, G., Content, R., Dodsworth, G., Davies, R., Jorgensen, I., Miller, B. W., Hook, I., Crampton, D., & Murowinski, R. 2002, in preparation

Murowinski, R., et al. 2002, in preparation