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# On Lens Spaces and Their Symplectic Fillings

## 1. Introduction

Four–dimensional symplectic fillings are objects of central interest in symplectic and contact topology. They can be used to prove tightness of contact structures on three–dimensional manifolds , to distinguish tight contact structures , and they arise in symplectic cut–and–paste constructions . Symplectic fillings also have an intrinsic interest. For example, they behave like closed symplectic four–manifolds from the point of view of the Seiberg–Witten invariants and this fact has a number of consequences .

A difficult and interesting problem in this area is the diffeomorphism classification of the symplectic fillings of a given contact three–manifold. Eliashberg and McDuff solved this problem in some cases . The purpose of this note is to announce a generalization of their results.

A (coorientable) *contact three–manifold* is pair $`(Y,\xi )`$, where $`Y`$ is a three–manifold and $`\xi TY`$ is a two–dimensional distribution given as the kernel of a one–form $`\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }^1(Y)`$ such that $`\alpha d\alpha `$ is a volume form.

A *symplectic filling* of a closed contact three–manifold $`(Y,\xi )`$ is pair $`(X,\omega )`$ consisting of a smooth, connected four–manifold $`X`$ with $`X=Y`$ and a symplectic form $`\omega `$ on $`X`$ such that $`\omega |_\xi 0`$ at every point of $`X`$. Moreover, if $`X`$ is oriented by $`\omega \omega `$ and $`\xi =\{\alpha =0\}`$, the boundary orientation on $`Y`$ must coincide with the orientation induced by $`\alpha d\alpha `$ (which only depends on $`\xi `$).

A basic fact to bear in mind is that any diffeomorphism classification of symplectic fillings will always be “up to blowups”. This is because a blowup, i.e. a connected sum with $`\overline{}^2`$, is a local operation which can be performed in the symplectic category. Therefore, if $`(X,\omega )`$ is a symplectic filling of $`(Y,\xi )`$ then $`\widehat{X}=X\mathrm{\#}N^2`$, $`N1`$, carries a symplectic form $`\widehat{\omega }`$ such that $`(\widehat{X},\widehat{\omega })`$ is still a symplectic filling of $`(Y,\xi )`$.

The *standard contact structure* $`\xi _0`$ on the three–sphere is the $`2`$–dimensional distribution of complex lines tangent to $`S^3^2`$. The unit four–ball $`B^4^2`$ endowed with the restriction of the standard Kähler form on $`^2`$ is a symplectic filling of $`(S^3,\xi _0)`$. The following result, due to Eliashberg, yields the diffeomorphism classification of the symplectic fillings of $`(S^3,\xi _0)`$.

###### Theorem 1.1 ().

Let $`(X,\omega )`$ be a symplectic filling of $`(S^3,\xi _0)`$. Then, $`X`$ is diffeomorphic to a blowup of $`B^4`$.

The standard contact structure $`\xi _0`$ is invariant under the natural action of $`U(2)`$ on $`S^3`$. Thus, $`\xi _0`$ is a fortiori invariant under the induced action of the subgroup

$$G_{p,q}=\{\left(\begin{array}{cc}\zeta & 0\\ 0& \zeta ^q\end{array}\right)|\zeta ^p=1\}U(2),$$

where $`p,q`$. It follows that when $`p>q1`$ and $`p,q`$ are coprime, $`\xi _0`$ induces a contact structure $`\overline{\xi }_0`$ on the lens space $`L(p,q)=S^3/G_{p,q}`$.

Let $`D_p`$ denote the disk bundle over the $`2`$–sphere with Euler class $`p`$. It is not difficult to construct a symplectic form $`\omega `$ on $`D_p`$ such that $`(D_p,\omega )`$ is a symplectic filling of $`(L(p,1),\overline{\xi }_0)`$. Another symplectic filling of $`(L(4,1),\overline{\xi }_0)`$ is given by $`𝒞=^2\nu (C)`$, where $`\nu (C)`$ is a pseudo–concave neighborhood of a smooth conic $`C^2`$, endowed with the restriction of the standard Kähler form. The four–manifold $`𝒞`$ is easily shown to have the handlebody decomposition given by the right–hand side of Figure 2 in section 3.

The following theorem is a by–product of Dusa McDuff’s classification of closed symplectic four–manifolds containing symplectic spheres of non–negative self–intersection. It yields the diffeomorphism classification of the symplectic fillings of $`(L(p,q),\overline{\xi }_0)`$.

###### Theorem 1.2 ().

Let $`(X,\omega )`$ be a symplectic filling of $`(L(p,1),\overline{\xi }_0)`$. Then, $`X`$ is diffeomorphic to a blowup of:

1. $`D_p`$ if $`p4`$,
2. $`D_4`$ or $`𝒞`$ if $`p=4`$.

## 2. Symplectic fillings of $`(L(p,q),\overline{\xi }_0)`$

From now on, we shall assume that $`p`$ and $`q`$ are two coprime integers such that

(2.1)
$$p>q1,\frac{p}{pq}=b_1\frac{1}{b_2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{b_k}}}}},$$

where $`b_i2`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},k`$. Note that there is a unique continued fraction expansion of $`\frac{p}{pq}`$ as in (2.1). We shall use the shorthand $`[b_1,\mathrm{},b_k]`$ for such continued fractions.

Let $`𝐧=(n_1,\mathrm{},n_k)`$ be a $`k`$–tuple of non–negative integers such that $`[n_1,\mathrm{},n_k]=0`$. We can view the “thin” framed link in Figure 1 as a three–dimensional surgery presentation of a closed, oriented three–manifold $`N(𝐧)`$. The assumption $`[n_1,\mathrm{},n_k]=0`$ ensures the existence of an orientation–preserving diffeomorphism

(2.2)
$$\phi :N(n_1,\mathrm{},n_k)S^1\times S^2.$$

###### Definition 2.1.

Let $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ be the smooth four–manifold with boundary obtained by attaching $`2`$–handles to $`S^1\times D^3`$ along the framed link $`\phi (𝐋)S^1\times S^2`$, where $`𝐋N(𝐧)`$ is the thick framed link in Figure 1.

Observe that the manifold $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ does not depend on the choice of the diffeomorphism $`\phi `$, because every self–diffeomorphism of $`S^1\times S^2`$ extends to $`S^1\times D^3`$ . Also, since $`𝐋`$ is canonically embedded in $`S^3`$, the framings of its components can be identified with integers.

Define $`𝐙_{p,q}^k`$ as follows:

$$𝐙_{p,q}=\{(n_1,\mathrm{},n_k)^k|[n_1,\mathrm{},n_k]=0,0n_ib_i,i=1,\mathrm{},k\}.$$

We are now ready to state our main result.

###### Theorem 2.2 ().

1. Let $`𝐧𝐙_{p,q}`$. Then, the four–manifold $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ carries a symplectic form $`\omega `$ such that $`(W_{p,q}(𝐧),\omega )`$ is a symplectic filling of $`(L(p,q),\overline{\xi }_0)`$. Moreover, $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ does not contain smoothly embedded spheres with self–intersection $`1`$.
2. If $`(W,\omega )`$ is a symplectic filling of $`(L(p,q),\overline{\xi }_0)`$, then $`W`$ is diffeomorphic to a blowup of $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ for some $`𝐧𝐙_{p,q}`$.

It is interesting to contrast Theorem 2.2 with certain properties of the versal deformations of certain isolated complex bidimensional singularities. The lens space $`L(p,q)`$, endowed with the contact structure $`\overline{\xi }_0`$, can be viewed as the link of a cyclic quotient singularity of type $`(p,q)`$. Stevens  used deep results of Kollár and Shepherd-Barron  to show that the irreducible components of the reduced base space $`S_{\text{red}}`$ of the versal deformation of such a singularity are in one–to–one correspondence with the set $`𝐙_{p,q}`$ (see also ).

Every irreducible component of $`S_{\text{red}}`$ gives a smoothing of the singularity and therefore a symplectic filling of $`(L(p,q),\overline{\xi }_0)`$. It follows by Theorem 2.2 that every smoothing of a quotient $`(p,q)`$–singularity is diffeomorphic to a manifold of the form $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$.

Indeed, it seems very likely that the smoothing coming from the irreducible component indexed by $`𝐧𝐙_{p,q}`$ be diffeomorphic to $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$. For example, it is easy to check that $`𝐙_{p,q}`$ always contains the $`k`$–tuple $`(1,2,\mathrm{},2,1)`$ as long as $`k>1`$. The corresponding irreducible component of $`S_{\text{red}}`$ is called the *Artin component*. The associated smoothing is diffeomorphic to the canonical resolution the singularity $`R_{p,q}`$, which is a well–known four–manifold obtained by plumbing according to a certain linear graph (see for example ). It is not difficult to see that $`R_{p,q}`$ is orientation–preserving diffeomorphic to $`W_{p,q}(1,2,\mathrm{},2,1)`$.

If $`\frac{p}{q}=[a_1,\mathrm{},a_h]`$ with $`a_i5`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},k`$, it turns out that $`𝐙_{p,q}=\{(1,2,\mathrm{},2,1)\}`$. Thus, in this case $`S_{\text{red}}`$ coincides with the Artin component, a fact which had been conjectured by Kollár .

Under the same assumption, Theorem 2.2 implies that every symplectic filling of $`(L(p,q),\overline{\xi }_0)`$ is diffeomorphic to a blowup of $`W_{p,q}(1,2,\mathrm{},2,1)`$. In particular, we see that *there exist infinitely many lens spaces $`L(p,q)`$ with $`q1`$ such that $`(L(p,q),\overline{\xi }_0)`$ admits only one symplectic filling up to blowup and diffeomorphism*.

On the other hand, suppose that $`k4`$, $`b_2,\mathrm{},b_{k2}3`$ and $`b_kk2`$. Then,

$$𝐧(r,s)=(1,\stackrel{r}{\stackrel{}{2,\mathrm{},2}},3,\stackrel{s}{\stackrel{}{2,\mathrm{},2}},1,s+2)𝐙_{p,q}$$

for every $`0r,sk4`$ with $`r+s+4=k`$. Moreover, one can easily check that

(2.3)
$$\mathrm{rk}H_2(W_{p,q}(𝐧(r,s));)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}b_i2ks.$$

Since the manifolds $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ do not contain exceptional spheres and therefore are not blowups of one another, Equation (2.3) implies that $`(L(p,q),\overline{\xi }_0)`$ admits at least $`k3`$ symplectic fillings up to blowup and diffeomorphism. This shows that *for any natural number $`N`$, there exist infinitely many lens spaces $`L(p,q)`$ such that $`(L(p,q),\overline{\xi }_0)`$ admits more than $`N`$ symplectic fillings up to blowup and diffeomorphism*.

## 3. Examples

In this section we illustrate Theorem 2.2 by analyzing its implications in a few particular cases.

Given a $`k`$–tuple of positive integers

$$(n_1,\mathrm{},n_{s1},n_s,n_{s1},\mathrm{},n_k)$$

with $`n_s=1`$, we say that the $`k1`$–tuple

$$(n_1,\mathrm{},n_{s1}1,n_{s+1}1,\mathrm{},n_k)$$

is obtained by a *blowdown at $`n_s`$* (with the obvious meaning of the notation when $`s=1`$ or $`s=k`$). The reverse process is a *blowup*.

We say that a $`k`$–tuple of positive integers $`(n_1,\mathrm{},n_k)`$ is *admissible* if the continued fraction $`[n_1,\mathrm{},n_k]`$ makes sense, i.e. if none of the denominators appearing in $`[n_1,\mathrm{},n_k]`$ vanishes.

The following Lemma 3.1 can be proved by an easy induction.

###### Lemma 3.1.

Let $`(n_1,\mathrm{},n_k)`$ be an admissible $`k`$–tuple of positive integers. Then, $`[n_1,\mathrm{},n_k]=0`$ if and only if $`(n_1,\mathrm{},n_k)`$ is obtained from $`(0)`$ by a sequence of blowups.

First Example. Let us apply Theorem 2.2 to determine all the symplectic fillings of $`(L(p,1),\overline{\xi }_0)`$. We have

$$\frac{p}{p1}=[\stackrel{p1}{\stackrel{}{2,\mathrm{},2}}].$$

Using Lemma 3.1 one can easily check that:

$$𝐙_{p,1}=\{\begin{array}{cc}\{(1,2,\mathrm{},2,1)\},\text{if }p4,\hfill & \\ \{(1,2,1),(2,1,2)\},\text{if }p=4.\hfill & \end{array}$$

Therefore, Theorem 2.2 implies that the symplectic fillings of $`(L(p,1),\overline{\xi }_0)`$ up to blowup and diffeomorphism are $`W_{p,1}(1,2,\mathrm{},2,1)`$ for $`p4`$ and either $`W_{4,1}(1,2,1)`$ or $`W_{4,1}(2,1,2)`$ for $`p=4`$.

But $`W_{p,1}(1,2,\mathrm{},2,1)`$ is diffeomorphic to the canonical resolution $`R_{p,1}=D_p`$, while Figure 2 shows that $`W_{4,1}(2,1,2)=𝒞`$. As expected, we have just re–obtained Theorem 1.2.

Second Example. Let us consider $`L(p^2,p1)`$. Since

$$\frac{p^2}{p^2p+1}=[p,\stackrel{p}{\stackrel{}{2,\mathrm{},2}}],$$

applying Lemma 3.1 one sees that

$$𝐙_{p,q}=\{(1,2,\mathrm{},2,1),(p,1,2,\mathrm{},2)\}.$$

Thus, by Theorem 2.2, the symplectic fillings of $`(L(p^2,p1),\overline{\xi }_0)`$ up to blowup and diffeomorphism are given by the canonical resolution $`R_{p^2,p1}`$ and $`W_{p^2,p1}(p,1,2,\mathrm{},2)`$, which is a rational homology ball as is apparent from Figure 3. In fact, Figure 3 shows that $`W_{p^2,p1}(p,1,2,\mathrm{},2)`$ is precisely the rational homology ball used in the symplectic rational blowdown construction , and therefore carries a symplectic form $`\omega `$ such that $`(W_{p^2,p1}(p,1,2,\mathrm{},2),\omega )`$ is a symplectic filling of $`(L(p^2,p1),\overline{\xi }_0)`$.

Third Example. This time we look at $`L(p,p1)`$. We have $`k=1`$ and $`𝐙_{p,p1}=\{(0)\}`$. Hence, by Theorem 2.2(b) every filling of $`L(p,p1)`$ is diffeomorphic to a blowup of $`W_{p,p1}(0)`$, which is given in Figure 4.

Theorem 2.2(a) says that $`W_{p,p1}(0)`$ carries a symplectic structure $`\omega `$ such that $`(W_{p,p1}(0),\omega )`$ is a symplectic filling of $`(L(p,p1),\overline{\xi }_0)`$ and moreover $`W_{p,p1}(0)`$ does not contain smoothly embedded $`(1)`$–spheres. In fact, $`W_{p,p1}(0)`$ is easily seen to be diffeomorphic to the canonical resolution $`R_{p,p1}`$, which gives a symplectic filling of $`(L(p,p1),\overline{\xi }_0)`$ with even intersection form.

Alternatively, using  one can check that $`W_{p,p1}(0)`$ carries a structure of Stein surface, so in particular it carries a symplectic structure $`\omega `$ such that $`(W_{p,p1}(0),\omega )`$ is a symplectic filling of $`(L(p,p1),\xi )`$ for some contact structure $`\xi `$. On the other hand, on the lens space $`L(p,p1)`$ there exists only one tight contact structure up to isotopy . Hence, since fillable contact structures are tight we have $`\xi =\overline{\xi }_0`$ and $`(W_{p,p1}(0),\omega )`$ is a symplectic filling of $`(L(p,p1),\overline{\xi }_0)`$. As explained in the next section, the argument we have just used can be generalized to prove Theorem 2.2(a).

## 4. The proof of Theorem 2.2

In this section we outline the proof of Theorem 2.2. Complete arguments will appear elsewhere .

Part (a). The argument consists of two steps. First, we show that each of the manifolds $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ is a Stein surface (see e.g.  for the definition).

A knot $`K`$ in a closed, contact three–manifold $`(Y,\xi )`$ is called *Legendrian* if it is everywhere tangent to the distribution $`\xi `$. The contact structure induces a framing of $`K`$ often called the *contact framing*.

The standard tight contact structure $`\zeta _0`$ on $`S^1\times S^2`$ is the kernel of the pull–back of the one–form $`zd\theta +xdyydx`$ under the inclusion $`S^1\times S^2S^1\times ^3`$, where $`d\theta `$ is the standard angular form on $`S^1`$ and $`x,y,z`$ are coordinates on $`^3`$.

The manifolds $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ are obtained by attaching $`2`$–handles to the boundary of $`S^1\times D^3`$. If the $`2`$–handles are attached along knots $`K_i`$ which are Legendrian with respect to $`\zeta _0`$ and whose framings equal their contact framings minus one, then for every choice of orientations of the $`K_i`$’s the resulting smooth four–manifold carries a structure of Stein surface. This construction is sometimes referred to as Legendrian surgery. It is originally due to Eliashberg , and has been sistematically investigated by Gompf . The first step of the proof of Theorem 2.2(a) is achieved using the following Proposition 4.1, which can be proved via an induction argument.

###### Proposition 4.1 ().

Let $`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }_0`$ be the pull-back of $`\zeta _0`$ under the diffeomorphism (2.2) and let $`𝐋`$ be the “thick” framed link of Figure 1. Then, $`𝐋`$ is isotopic to a link $``$ Legendrian with respect to $`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }_0`$, all of whose components have contact framing equal to zero.

The existence of a Stein structure on $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ implies that $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ does not contain smoothly embedded $`(1)`$–spheres. Moreover, each Stein structure induces an exact symplectic form $`\omega `$ on $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ and a contact structure $`\xi `$ on $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)=L(p,q)`$ such that $`(W_{p,q}(𝐧),\omega )`$ is a symplectic filling of $`(L(p,q),\xi )`$.

The second step of the argument consists of showing that $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ carries a Stein structure inducing a contact structure $`\xi `$ isomorphic to $`\overline{\xi }_0`$.

Given a $`2`$–plane field $`\xi `$ on a three–manifold $`M`$, there is a $`\mathrm{S}pin^c`$ structure $`𝐬_\xi `$ on $`M`$ which only depends on $`\xi `$ up to homotopy. The following result is proved via an induction argument which relies on the homotopy invariant $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\xi ,)`$ introduced in .

###### Proposition 4.2 ().

The Legendrian link $``$ of Proposition 4.1 can be chosen and oriented so that the contact structure $`\xi `$ induced by the corresponding Stein structure satisfies $`𝐬_\xi =𝐬_{\overline{\xi }_0}`$.

By the classification of tight contact structures on lens spaces , $`𝐬_\xi `$ determines $`\xi `$ up to isotopy, hence $`\xi =\overline{\xi }_0`$. This concludes the proof of Theorem 2.2(a).

Part (b). Let $`(X,\omega )`$ be a symplectic four–manifold. A *symplectic string* in $`X`$ is an immersed symplectic surface

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=\underset{i=0}{\overset{k}{}}C_iX$$

such that:

1. $`C_i`$ is a connected, embedded symplectic surface, $`i=0,\mathrm{},k`$;
2. $`C_i`$ meets transversely $`C_{i+1}`$ at one point, $`i=0,\mathrm{},k1`$;
3. $`C_iC_j=\mathrm{}`$ if $`|ij|>1`$.

We say that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ as above is *of type $`(m_0,\mathrm{},m_k)`$* if, furthermore,

1. $`C_iC_i=m_i`$, $`i=0,\mathrm{},k`$.

Let $`(W,\omega )`$ be a symplectic filling of $`(L(p,q),\overline{\xi }_0)`$. Using a cut–and–paste argument which combines results from  and , it is possible to prove:

###### Theorem 4.3 ().

There exist a symplectic four–manifold $`X_W`$ and a symplectic string

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=\underset{i=0}{\overset{k}{}}C_iX_W$$

of type $`(1,b_11,b_2,\mathrm{},b_k)`$ such that $`W`$ is diffeomorphic to $`X_W\nu (\mathrm{\Gamma })`$, where $`\nu (\mathrm{\Gamma })X_W`$ is a regular neighborhood of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$.

The results of  imply that if $`(M,\omega )`$ is a closed symplectic four–manifold containing an embedded symplectic $`2`$–sphere $`C`$ of self–intersection $`+1`$ such that $`MC`$ is minimal (i.e. not containing embedded symplectic $`(1)`$–spheres), then $`(M,\omega )`$ is symplectomorphic to $`^2`$ with the standard Kähler structure. Morever, the symplectomorphism can be chosen so that $`C`$ is sent to a complex line. Thus, since non–minimal (possibly non–compact) symplectic four–manifolds can be reduced to minimal ones by blowing down exceptional symplectic spheres, applying  to the pair $`(X_W,C_0)`$ we conclude that, for some $`M0`$, there is a symplectomorphism

$$\psi :X_W^2\mathrm{\#}M\overline{}^2$$

such that $`\psi (C_0)`$ is a complex line in $`^2`$. Clearly, $`\psi (\mathrm{\Gamma })^2\mathrm{\#}M\overline{}^2`$ is a symplectic string of type $`(1,b_11,b_2,\mathrm{},b_k)`$. Now we have:

###### Theorem 4.4 ().

Let $`^2\mathrm{\#}M\overline{}^2`$ be endowed with a blowup of the standard Kähler structure on $`^2`$. Let

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\underset{i=0}{\overset{k}{}}D_i^2\mathrm{\#}M\overline{}^2$$

be a symplectic string of type $`(1,b_11,b_2,\mathrm{},b_k)`$ such that $`D_0^2`$ is a complex line. Then,

1. $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the strict transform of two distinct complex lines in $`^2`$;
2. The complement of a regular neighborhood of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is diffeomorphic to $`W_{p,q}(𝐧)`$ for some $`𝐧𝐙_{p,q}`$.

Note that symplectic strings have well–defined strict transforms. Theorem 2.2(b) follows immediately from Theorem 4.4 together with the previous discussion. The proof of Theorem 4.4(a) relies on the positivity of intersections of $`J`$–holomorphic curves , while Theorem 4.4(b) follows directly from Theorem 4.4(a) via a Kirby calculus argument.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Recently, the Lax pair representation of the $`N=4`$ supersymmetric Toda chain hierarchy in $`N=2`$ superspace has been constructed in . The explicit relationship between the $`N=4`$ supersymmetric Toda chain and KdV  hierarchies has been established in , and due to this reason we call both these hierarchies the $`N=4`$ Toda chain (KdV) hierarchy. As a byproduct, the relationship, established in , induces a new Lax pair representation of the $`N=4`$ KdV hierarchy in $`N=2`$ superspace. So together with the former Lax pair in $`N=2`$ superspace derived in , two Lax pair representations of the $`N=4`$ Toda (KdV) hierarchy in $`N=2`$ superspace are now known. However, although the first few flows of the hierarchy are known both in harmonic  and ordinary $`N=4`$ superspace , a Lax pair formulation in $`N=4`$ superspace is still unknown. Moreover, even a relation (if any) between the two different descriptions of the flows in $`N=4`$ superspace used in  and  is not established yet.

The present paper addresses both above-stated problems. Thus, we propose a Lax pair and a Hamiltonian formulation of the $`N=4`$ Toda (KdV) hierarchy in $`N=4`$ superspace and establish a simple relation between the two above-mentioned descriptions of the hierarchy in $`N=4`$ superspace. We derive general formulae for its bosonic $`N=4`$ flows in terms of the Lax operator in $`N=4`$ superspace and construct an $`N=4`$ superfield basis in which they are local. Moreover, we show how to embed this superfield basis into the $`N=4`$ $`O(4)`$ superconformal supercurrent. We also present a proof that all these flows possess both an infinite-dimensional group of discrete Darboux transformations  and five complex conjugations in $`N=4`$ superspace.

## 2 Lax pair formulation of the N=4 Toda (KdV) hierarchy in N=4 superspace

Our starting point is a manifestly $`N=2`$ supersymmetric Lax pair representation of even flows of the $`N=4`$ Toda chain (KdV) hierarchy

$`L=D_{}+vD_+^1u,`$ (1)
$`\frac{}{t_l}L=[(L^{2l})_0,L],`$ (2)
$`\frac{}{t_l}v=[(L^{2l})_0v],\frac{}{t_l}u=(1)^{l+1}[\left((L^T)^{2l}\right)_0u],`$ (3)
where the subscript $`0`$ denotes the differential part of the operator and $`L^T`$ is the operator conjugated Lax operator111Let us recall the operator conjugation rules: $`D_\pm ^T=D_\pm `$, $`(OP)^T=(1)^{d_Od_P}P^TO^T`$, where $`O`$ ($`P`$) is an arbitrary operator with the Grassmann parity $`d_O`$ ($`d_P`$), and $`d_O`$=0 ($`d_O=1`$) for bosonic (fermionic) operators $`O`$. All other rules can be derived using these. Hereafter, we use the notation $`[Of]`$ for an operator $`O`$ acting on a function $`f`$.. The functions $`vv(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{})`$ and $`uu(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{})`$ are $`N=2`$ superfields, and $`D_\pm `$ are fermionic covariant derivatives222Hereafter, we explicitly present only nonzero algebra brackets. Throughout this paper, we shall use the notation $`v^{}v\frac{}{z}v`$.

$`D_\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{}{\theta ^\pm }}+\theta ^\pm ,\{D_\pm ,D_\pm \}=+2.`$ (4)
It is instructive to rewrite the Lax operator (1) in another superfield basis

$`Juv+D_{}D_+\mathrm{ln}u,\overline{J}uv,`$ (5)
where $`JJ(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{})`$ and $`\overline{J}\overline{J}(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{})`$ are unconstrained even $`N=2`$ superfields. It becomes

$`LD_{}\overline{J}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{D_++[D_{}^1(\overline{J}+J)]}}.`$ (6)
We would like to write the flows in $`N=4`$ superspace. We introduce two additional odd coordinates $`\eta ^\pm `$ and the $`N=4`$ odd covariant derivatives

$`𝒟_\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}({\displaystyle \frac{}{\theta ^\pm }}+i{\displaystyle \frac{}{\eta ^\pm }}+(\theta ^\pm +i\eta ^\pm )),\overline{𝒟}^\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}({\displaystyle \frac{}{\theta ^\pm }}i{\displaystyle \frac{}{\eta ^\pm }}+(\theta ^\pm i\eta ^\pm )),`$
$`\{𝒟_k,\overline{𝒟}^m\}=\delta _{k}^{}{}_{}{}^{m},\{𝒟_k,𝒟_m\}=\{\overline{𝒟}^k,\overline{𝒟}^m\}=0,k,m=\pm .`$ (7)
Our claim is that if one replaces the $`N=2`$ superfields $`J`$ and $`\overline{J}`$ in this basis by one chiral $`𝒥(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{},\eta ^+,\eta ^{})`$ and one antichiral $`\overline{𝒥}(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{},\eta ^+,\eta ^{})`$ even $`N=4`$ superfield,

$`𝒟_\pm 𝒥=0,\overline{𝒟}^\pm \overline{𝒥}=0,`$ (8)
then the Lax pair representation (2) with the new $`N=4`$ Lax operator $`L_1`$,

$`L_1=D_{}\overline{𝒥}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{D_++[D_{}^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)]}},D_\pm 𝒟_\pm +\overline{𝒟}^\pm ,`$ (9)
gives consistent333We would like to underline that such a prescription of supersymmetrization leads to inconsistent Lax pair representations in general except in some cases, one of which is under consideration. $`N=4`$ supersymmetric flows $`\frac{}{t_l}`$. In order to prove this claim it is enough to show that the flow equations (3), being rewritten in the basis (5), are consistent with the chirality constraints (8). We present the proof in a few steps in what follows.

First, let us simplify the Lax operator $`L_1`$ (9) by applying a gauge transformation and requiring that the gauge transformed Lax operator

$`\stackrel{~}{L}_1=e^\xi L_1e^\xi `$ (10)
possesses the following two properties: it should anticommute with the supersymmetric covariant derivative $`\overline{𝒟}^+`$,

$`\{\overline{𝒟}^+,\stackrel{~}{L}_1\}=0,`$ (11)
and it should contain only a first order term in the inverse fermionic derivative $`D_+^1`$. It turns out that these two requirements completely fix both the gauge transformation function

$`\xi [(𝒟_{}+\overline{𝒟}^{})^1(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)]`$ (12)
and the form of the Lax operator

$`\stackrel{~}{L}_1=𝒟_{}+\overline{𝒟}^{}+[(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)]\overline{𝒥}(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1.`$ (13)
Then, the Lax pair representation (2) and flows (3) become

$`\frac{}{t_l}\stackrel{~}{L}_1=[(\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{2l})_0\frac{}{t_l}\xi ,\stackrel{~}{L}_1],`$ (14)
$`(1)^l\frac{}{t_l}\overline{𝒥}=[\left(\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_1\right)^T\overline{𝒥}],(1)^l\frac{}{t_l}\xi =\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0,`$ (15)
respectively, where the subscripts $`1`$ and $`0`$ denote the differential part of the operator without the nonderivative term and the nonderivative term, respectively. After substituting $`\frac{}{t_l}\xi `$ from equations (15) into (14), the Lax equations become

$`(1)^l\frac{}{t_l}\stackrel{~}{L}_1=[\left(\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_1\right)^T,\stackrel{~}{L}_1],`$ (16)
where we have used the following identity:

$`(1)^l(\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{2l})_+\left(\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_1\right)^T+\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0.`$ (17)
After transposition, (16) becomes

$`(1)^{l+1}\frac{}{t_l}\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}=[\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_1,\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}],`$ (18)
$`\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}+[(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)](𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1\overline{𝒥},\{\overline{𝒟}^+,\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}\}=0.`$ (19)
The transposed Lax operator $`\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T`$ (19) entering into the Lax pair representation (18) possesses the following important properties:

$`(1)^{l1}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T)^{2(l1)}\right)_{}={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{2l3}{}}}[(\stackrel{~}{L}_1^k)^T1](𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1[\stackrel{~}{L}_1^{2l3k}\overline{𝒥}],`$ (20)
$`(1)^l\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T)^{2l1}\right)_{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{2(l1)}{}}}[(\stackrel{~}{L}_1^k)^T1](𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1[\stackrel{~}{L}_1^{2(l1)k}\overline{𝒥}]`$ (21)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{2l3}{}}}(1)^k[(\stackrel{~}{L}_1^k)^T1](𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1(𝒟_{}+\overline{𝒟}^{})[\stackrel{~}{L}_1^{2l3k}\overline{𝒥}]`$
which can be derived by rewriting the corresponding formulae of  into the superfield basis (5).

Second, let us discuss some properties of the Lax operator $`\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}`$ (19) which will be useful in what follows. It can be represented as a sum of two operators $`M`$ and $`\overline{M}`$,

$`\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}=M+\overline{M},`$
$`M𝒟_{}+[\overline{𝒟}^+^1𝒥],\overline{M}(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1\left(\overline{𝒟}^{}[𝒟_+^1\overline{𝒥}]\right)(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)`$ (22)
with the properties

$`M^2=\overline{M}^2=0,\{\overline{𝒟}^+,M\}=\{\overline{𝒟}^+,\overline{M}\}=0,\{𝒟_{},M\}=0,\{\overline{𝒟}^{},\overline{M}\}=0,`$
$`\{𝒟_+,(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1M(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)\}=\{𝒟_+,(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)\overline{M}(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1\}=0,`$ (23)
$`M(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1(\overline{M}^T)^\mathrm{\#}(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+),\overline{M}(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1(M^T)^\mathrm{\#}(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+),`$ (24)
where the superscript $`\mathrm{\#}`$ denotes the following substitution (its origin will be clarified at the end of section 4):

$`\{𝒟_\pm ,\overline{𝒟}^\pm ,𝒥,\overline{𝒥}\}^\mathrm{\#}=\{\overline{𝒟}^\pm ,𝒟_\pm ,\overline{𝒥},𝒥\}`$ (25)
which respects the chirality constraints (8) and which square is the identity. Then, one can easily derive some straightforward consequences

$`(\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^2=\{M,\overline{M}\}`$ (26)
and

$`[M,(\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}]=0,[\overline{M},(\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}]=0`$ (27)
as well as

$`(\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^\mathrm{\#}=(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1\stackrel{~}{L}_1(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+).`$ (28)
We will also need the following relation:

$`\left(\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0\right)^\mathrm{\#}=(1)^l\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0`$ (29)
which results from (28) and from the identity

$`(D_+^1OD_+)_0=(1)^{d_O}(O^T)_0`$ (30)
for a pseudo-differential operator $`O`$ with the Grassmann parity $`d_O`$. It is interesting to remark that the square of the Lax operator $`\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T`$ admits beside (26) another representation in the form of an anticommutator,

$`(\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^2=\{\overline{𝒟}^+,N\},N`$ $``$ $`𝒟_++[\overline{𝒟}^{}^1𝒥]+(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1[𝒟_{}^1\overline{𝒥}](𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)`$ (31)
$``$ $`(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1𝒥(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1[𝒟_+^1\overline{𝒥}],`$
but the square of the operator $`N`$ does not equal zero as $`M`$ does, see equation (23). Perhaps one can modify the operator $`N`$ to satisfy this property, but we did not succeed in that.

Third, on the basis of the properties of the Lax operator $`\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T`$ discussed in the previous paragraph, we are ready to prove the following three identities:

$`[\left(\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_1\right)^T\overline{𝒥}]=[\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0],`$ (32)
$`[𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^+\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0]=0,`$ (33)
$`[𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^{}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0]=0`$ (34)
which are crucial for the proof of our claim. Indeed, if they are satisfied, then it is a simple exercise to rewrite identically the flows (15) in the form

$`(1)^l\frac{}{t_l}\overline{𝒥}=[\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0],(1)^l\frac{}{t_l}𝒥=[𝒟_+𝒟_{}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0]`$ (35)
which respects manifestly the chirality constraints (8). In order to prove the relations (3234), let us extract the equations resulting from the order $`0`$ in $`D_+`$ of the identity

$`\{\overline{𝒟}^+,(\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T)^{2l}\}=0`$ (36)
and from the order $`1`$ in $`D_+`$ of the identities (27). They are

$`\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_1=[\overline{𝒟}^+\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0],`$ (37)
$`[𝒟_{}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_1]=0,`$ (38)
$`[\overline{𝒟}^{}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_1]=[\left(\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_1\right)^T\overline{𝒥}],`$ (39)
respectively, where the subscript $`1`$ denotes the coefficient of the inverse derivative $`D_+^1`$ of a pseudodifferential operator. Now, the quantity $`\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_1`$ being substituted from equation (37) into equations (3839) just leads to the relations (3233). As concerns the remaining relation (34), it can easily be derived from the relation (33) if the substitution (25) is applied to it and then the identity (29) is used. Alternatively, it can be obtained starting from the identities

$`\{𝒟_+,\left((𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1\stackrel{~}{L}_1(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)\right)^{2l}\}=0`$ (40)
and

$`\{(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1\overline{M}^T(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+),\left((𝒟^++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1\stackrel{~}{L}_1(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)\right)^{2l}\}=0,`$ (41)
which are related in an obvious way to the identities (36) and (27). Restricting to the orders $`0`$ and $`1`$, respectively, one obtains

$`\left(\left((𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1\stackrel{~}{L}_1(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)\right)^{2l}\right)_1=[𝒟_+\left(\left((𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1\stackrel{~}{L}_1(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)\right)^{2l}\right)_0],`$ (42)
and

$`[\overline{𝒟}^{}\left(\left((𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1\stackrel{~}{L}_1(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)\right)^{2l}\right)_1]=0.`$ (43)
Then we substitute the quantity $`\left(\left((𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1\stackrel{~}{L}_1(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)\right)^{2l}\right)_1`$ from (42) into (43),

$`[𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^{}\left((𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{2l}(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)\right)_0]=0,`$ (44)
and, at last, use the identity (30). This ends the proof of our claim.

One important remark is in order. The general resolution of the identities (3334) and (29) leads to the following general representation for the quantity $`\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0`$:

$`\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0=[𝒟_+𝒟_{}X_l]+(1)^l[\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}X_l^\mathrm{\#}]+[(𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+)Y_l],Y_l^\mathrm{\#}=(1)^{l+1}Y_l,`$ (45)
where $`X_l`$ and $`Y_l`$ are $`N=4`$ unconstrained nonlocal functionals of the basic superfields. Actually, the functionals $`X_l`$ and $`Y_l`$ are ambiguously defined because both of them are acted upon by the projectors $`𝒟_+𝒟_{}`$ and $`\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}`$, which can be expressed via the operator $`𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+`$ as

$`𝒟_+𝒟_{}(𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+)^1𝒟_+𝒟_{},\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}(𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+)^1\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}.`$ (46)
Let us present, as an example, explicit expressions for $`X_l`$ and $`Y_l`$ for $`l=1`$ and $`l=2`$,

$`X_1=[^1\overline{𝒥}],X_2=\overline{𝒥}+[𝒟_{}^1\overline{𝒥}][𝒟_+^1\overline{𝒥}],`$
$`Y_1=0,Y_2=[𝒟_{}^1\overline{𝒥}][\overline{𝒟}^{}^1𝒥]+[𝒟_+^1\overline{𝒥}][\overline{𝒟}^+^1𝒥].`$ (47)
As a next remark, let us show that one can give two different presentations of the flows (18) in $`N=4`$ superspace which are reminiscent of the formalisms used in  and in  in the N=2 supersymmetric case. First, multiplying the Lax pair representation (18) on both sides by the projector $`\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1`$, it becomes

$`(1)^{l+1}\frac{}{t_l}\text{𝕃}=[(\text{𝕃}^{2l})_+,\text{𝕃}],`$ (48)
where 𝕃 is the chirality preserving Lax operator,

𝕃 $``$ $`\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1(𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}+[(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)])\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1`$ (49)
$``$ $`\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1e^\xi (𝒟_{}+\overline{𝒟}^{})e^\xi \overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1,\overline{𝒟}^+\text{𝕃}=\text{𝕃}𝒟_+=0,`$
and the subscript $`+`$ denotes the part of the operator $`\text{𝕃}^{2l}`$ which can be represented in the form $`\overline{𝒟}^+𝒪𝒟_+`$, where $`𝒪`$ is a differential operator . In order to show that the flows (48) coincide with those in (18), one has to make use of two properties of the operator $`\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T`$. First, its even powers are pseudo-differential operators containing powers of the derivative $`D_+=\overline{𝒟}^++𝒟_+`$ only. Second, the operator $`\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T`$ commutes with $`\overline{𝒟}^+`$. This presentation will be useful when we will study an alternative Lax pair construction in section 6.

As a second, distinct presentation of the flows (18), let us introduce the operator

$$=D_++[D_{}^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)]=e^\xi D_+e^\xi .$$
(50)
It may be used to rewrite the operator $`L_1`$ in (9) as

$$L_1=𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}^1.$$
(51)
Then, the square of the Lax operator $`L_1`$ reads

$$L_1^2=\{𝒟_{},\overline{𝒟}_{}^1\}[𝒟_{},L_1^2]=0.$$
(52)
We may define an alternative Lax operator by

$$\widehat{L}_1=^1L_1.$$
(53)
Its square reads

$$\widehat{L}_1^2=\{\overline{𝒟}_{},^1𝒟_{}\}[\overline{𝒟}_{},L_1^2]=0.$$
(54)
As a consequence of (53), one has the equation

$$L_1^{2l}\widehat{L}_1^{2l}=0.$$
(55)
Then, in the spirit of references , we consider the flow equations

$$\frac{}{t_l}=(L_1^{2l})_0(\widehat{L}_1^{2l})_0,$$
(56)
which do not have the Lax form. However, it is a matter of simple calculations to show that, as a consequence of (56), the operator $`L_1`$ satisfies the Lax equations (18). Let us note that, by considering a differential operator $``$ of higher order, one may hope to generalize the N=4 hierarchy considered in this article.

The $`N=4`$ Toda (KdV) hierarchy flows (35) in the $`N=4`$ superfield basis $`\{𝒥,\overline{𝒥}\}`$ are nonlocal because of the nonlocal dependence of the Lax operator $`\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T`$ (19) on the superfields $`𝒥`$ and $`\overline{𝒥}`$. Nevertheless, it is possible to obtain local flows by introducing a new superfield basis $`\{\mathrm{\Omega },\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}\}`$ defined by the following invertible transformations:

$`𝒥𝒟_+\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }},\overline{𝒥}\overline{𝒟}^+\mathrm{\Omega },`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}\overline{𝒟}^+^1𝒥,\mathrm{\Omega }𝒟_+^1\overline{𝒥},`$ (57)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ are new constrained odd $`N=4`$ superfields

$`𝒟_+\mathrm{\Omega }=\overline{𝒟}^{}\mathrm{\Omega }=0,𝒟_{}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}=0.`$ (58)
Then, in terms of the superfields $`\{\mathrm{\Omega },\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}\}`$ the Lax operator $`\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T`$ (19) becomes local,

$`\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}+\mathrm{\Omega }+\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1[\overline{𝒟}^+\mathrm{\Omega }].`$ (59)
Using the identities (3334) one can easily rewrite the flows (35) in this basis as well,

$`(1)^l\frac{}{t_l}\mathrm{\Omega }=[\overline{𝒟}^{}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0],(1)^l\frac{}{t_l}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}=[𝒟_{}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0],`$ (60)
where they are obviously local. Actually, beside the basis (57) there are also three other superfield bases with constrained odd $`N=4`$ superfields $`\{\mathrm{\Psi },\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\}`$, $`\{\mathrm{\Sigma },\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}\}`$ and $`\{\mathrm{\Xi },\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}\}`$, which provide local flows, although the reason for this is less evident than for the basis (57). The corresponding formulae are

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }},\mathrm{\Omega }𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^{}^1\mathrm{\Psi },𝒟_{}\mathrm{\Psi }=\overline{𝒟}^+\mathrm{\Psi }=0,𝒟_{}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}=\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}=0,`$
$`\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}=e^\psi \left(𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+\mathrm{\Psi }}}[\overline{𝒟}^{}\mathrm{\Psi }]\right)e^\psi ,\psi [𝒟_+^1\mathrm{\Psi }],`$
$`(1)^{l+1}\frac{}{t_l}\mathrm{\Psi }=[\overline{𝒟}^+\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0],(1)^l\frac{}{t_l}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}=[𝒟_{}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0].`$ (61)
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}=𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^+^1\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }},\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Sigma },𝒟_+\mathrm{\Sigma }=\overline{𝒟}^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }=0,𝒟_+\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}=\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}=0,`$
$`\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}=e^\sigma \left(𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}+\mathrm{\Xi }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^++\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}}[\overline{𝒟}^+\mathrm{\Sigma }]\right)e^\sigma ,\sigma [\overline{𝒟}^+^1\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}],`$
$`(1)^l\frac{}{t_l}\mathrm{\Sigma }=[\overline{𝒟}^{}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0],(1)^l\frac{}{t_l}\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}=[𝒟_+\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0].`$ (62)
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}=𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^+^1\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }},\mathrm{\Omega }𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^{}^1\mathrm{\Xi },𝒟_{}\mathrm{\Xi }=\overline{𝒟}^+\mathrm{\Xi }=0,𝒟_+\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}=\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}=0,`$
$`\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}=e^\xi L_1^Te^\xi ,`$
$`(1)^{l+1}\frac{}{t_l}\mathrm{\Xi }=[\overline{𝒟}^+\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0],(1)^l\frac{}{t_l}\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}=[𝒟_+\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0],`$ (63)
where $`L_1^T`$ and $`\xi `$ in equations (63) are defined by (9) and (12), respectively, and become in this basis

$`L_1^T=𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^++\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}\mathrm{\Xi }}}[\overline{𝒟}^{}\mathrm{\Xi }],\xi [\overline{𝒟}^+^1\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}][𝒟_+^1\mathrm{\Xi }].`$ (64)
Although the Lax operator $`\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}`$ is nonlocal in terms of the superfields involved for each of these three bases, the quantity $`\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0`$ entering into the corresponding equations (6163) is in fact local. Indeed, let us demonstrate this fact for the quantity $`\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0`$, e.g., for the basis (63). In this case,

$`\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0\left((L_1^T)^{2l}\right)_0+\left(e^\xi \left((L_1^T)^{2l}\right)_1e^\xi \right)_0.`$ (65)
The first term in the right-hand side of equation (65) is local because of locality of the Lax operator $`L_1^T`$ (64) with respect to the superfields $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}`$. So, nonlocality could only come from the second term, due to nonlocality of $`\xi `$ (64). However, this term is actually a polynomial in derivatives of $`\xi `$, which are local due to the chirality properties (63) of the superfields $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}`$. Therefore, all potential nonlocalities in fact disappear. The same argument is valid with respect to each basis from the set (6163).

As an example, we would like to explicitly present a few first nontrivial manifestly $`N=4`$ supersymmetric flows resulting from equations (35) and (61),

$`\frac{}{t_2}𝒥=𝒥{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }𝒟_+𝒟_{}\left[2(𝒥^1\overline{𝒥}){}_{}{}^{}(\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}^1𝒥)^2\right],`$
$`\frac{}{t_2}\overline{𝒥}=+\overline{𝒥}{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}\left[2(\overline{𝒥}^1𝒥){}_{}{}^{}(𝒟_+𝒟_{}^1\overline{𝒥})^2\right],`$ (66)
$`\frac{}{t_3}𝒥`$ $`=`$ $`𝒥{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime \prime }+𝒟_+𝒟_{}\{3[𝒥{}_{}{}^{}_{}^{1}\overline{𝒥}+(𝒥^1\overline{𝒥})𝒟_+𝒟_{}^1\overline{𝒥}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}^1𝒥)^2]^{}`$
$``$ $`(\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}^1𝒥)^33(\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}^1𝒥)^2𝒟_+𝒟_{}^1\overline{𝒥}+6𝒥\overline{𝒥}\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}^1𝒥\},`$
$`\frac{}{t_3}\overline{𝒥}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{𝒥}{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime \prime }+\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}\{3[\overline{𝒥}{}_{}{}^{}_{}^{1}𝒥+(\overline{𝒥}^1𝒥)\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}^1𝒥+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(𝒟_+𝒟_{}^1\overline{𝒥})^2]^{}`$ (67)
$``$ $`(𝒟_+𝒟_{}^1\overline{𝒥})^33(𝒟_+𝒟_{}^1\overline{𝒥})^2\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}^1𝒥+6𝒥\overline{𝒥}𝒟_+𝒟_{}^1\overline{𝒥}\}`$
and

$`\frac{}{t_2}\mathrm{\Psi }=+\mathrm{\Psi }{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }+2𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}(\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\overline{𝒟}^{}\mathrm{\Psi })\overline{𝒟}^+(𝒟_+\mathrm{\Psi })^2,`$
$`\frac{}{t_2}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}=\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }2\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+(\mathrm{\Psi }𝒟_+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }})+𝒟_{}(\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }})^2,`$ (68)
$`\frac{}{t_3}\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime \prime }+3𝒟_{}[(\overline{𝒟}^{}\mathrm{\Psi }){}_{}{}^{}\overline{𝒟}_{}^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}+(\overline{𝒟}^{}\mathrm{\Psi })(\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }})^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}(𝒟_+\mathrm{\Psi })^2]`$
$`+`$ $`\overline{𝒟}^+\left[(𝒟_+\mathrm{\Psi })^33(𝒟_+\mathrm{\Psi })^2\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}6(𝒟_+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }})(\overline{𝒟}^{}\mathrm{\Psi })𝒟_+\mathrm{\Psi }\right],`$
$`\frac{}{t_3}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime \prime }+3\overline{𝒟}^+[(𝒟_+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}){}_{}{}^{}𝒟_{+}^{}\mathrm{\Psi }+(𝒟_+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }})(𝒟_+\mathrm{\Psi })^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}𝒟_+𝒟_{}(\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }})^2]`$ (69)
$`+`$ $`𝒟_{}\left[(\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }})^33(\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }})^2𝒟_+\mathrm{\Psi }6(𝒟_+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }})(\overline{𝒟}^{}\mathrm{\Psi })\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\right],`$
respectively.

## 3 Hamiltonian structure of the N=4 Toda (KdV) hierarchy in N=4 superspace

Now, we would like to discuss the Hamiltonian structure of the $`N=4`$ Toda (KdV) hierarchy in $`N=4`$ superspace. Let us present first the general formulae for the conserved quantities (Hamiltonians) $`H_l^t`$ of the $`N=4`$ flows (35) and (6063) in $`N=4`$ superspace,

$`H_l^t={\displaystyle 𝑑z𝑑\theta ^+𝑑\eta ^+𝑑\theta ^{}𝑑\eta ^{}^1\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0}.`$ (70)
Hereafter, we use the following definitions of the $`N=2`$ and $`N=4`$ superspace integrals for an arbitrary superfield functional $`f(\theta ^+,\eta ^+,\theta ^{},\eta ^{})`$:

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑z𝑑\theta ^+𝑑\eta ^+𝑑\theta ^{}𝑑\eta ^{}f(\theta ^+,\eta ^+,\theta ^{},\eta ^{})}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑z𝑑\theta ^+𝑑\eta ^+\left(𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}f\right)}|_{\theta ^{}=\eta ^{}=0}`$ (71)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑z\left(𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}f\right)}|_{\theta ^\pm =\eta ^\pm =0},`$
respectively, as well as the following realization of the inverse derivative:

$`_z^1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}𝑑xϵ(zx),ϵ(zx)=ϵ(xz)1,ifz>x.`$ (72)
Using these definitions and the identities (3334), one can equivalently rewrite $`H_l^t`$ (70) in the form of an $`N=2`$ superfield integral

$`H_l^t={\displaystyle 𝑑z𝑑\theta ^+𝑑\eta ^+\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0}|_{\theta ^{}=\eta ^{}=0}.`$ (73)
Then, using the identity (37) as well as the relation (10), one can easily show that this representation reproduces the $`N=2`$ superspace representation for the Hamiltonians used in . Remembering that the quantities $`\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0`$ are local for all the local flows (6063) (see the discussion after equations (64)), we are led to the conclusion that the corresponding Hamiltonians (73) and their $`N=2`$ superfield densities are local quantities as well, while the Hamiltonian densities in $`N=4`$ superspace entering into (70) are nonlocal even when the flows corresponding to them are local. It is interesting to remark that $`H_l^t`$ (70) can identically be rewritten in the following form:

$`H_l^t`$ $`=`$ $`(1)^l{\displaystyle 𝑑z𝑑\eta ^+𝑑\theta ^+𝑑\theta ^{}𝑑\eta ^{}^1\frac{}{t_l}\xi }`$ (74)
$``$ $`(1)^l{\displaystyle }dzd\theta ^+d\eta ^+d\theta ^{}d\eta ^{}(𝒟_{}+\overline{𝒟}^{})^1(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1^1\frac{}{t_l}(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)],`$
where the second of equations (15) and equation (12) have been used. We have verified that the following formula444The derivation of (75) makes essential use of the realization (72) of the inverse derivative.:

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑z𝑑\theta ^+𝑑\eta ^+𝑑\theta ^{}𝑑\eta ^{}^1\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝒥}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0}=l\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}^2\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2(l1)}\right)_0`$ (75)
is valid for a few first values of $`l`$. The variation formula with respect to $`\overline{𝒥}`$ can be obtained if one applies the substitution (25) to equation (75) and uses the identity (29),

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑z𝑑\theta ^+𝑑\eta ^+𝑑\theta ^{}𝑑\eta ^{}^1\frac{\delta }{\delta \overline{𝒥}}\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0}=l𝒟_+𝒟_{}^2\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2(l1)}\right)_0.`$ (76)
It is plausible to suppose that the formulae (7576) are valid for all values of $`l`$ as well, but we cannot present a proof here. Using these formulae and the Hamiltonians $`H_l^t`$ (70), one can represent the flows (35) in the Hamiltonian form

$`(1)^{l+1}\frac{}{t_{l1}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\overline{𝒥}& \\ 𝒥& \end{array}\right)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{l}}J_1\left(\begin{array}{cc}\delta /\delta \overline{𝒥}& \\ \delta /\delta 𝒥& \end{array}\right)H_l^t={\displaystyle \frac{1}{l1}}J_2\left(\begin{array}{cc}\delta /\delta \overline{𝒥}& \\ \delta /\delta 𝒥& \end{array}\right)H_{l1}^t,`$ (83)
where $`J_1`$,

$`J_1=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& \overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}𝒟_+𝒟_{}\\ 𝒟_+𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}& 0\end{array}\right),`$ (86)
is the first Hamiltonian structure in $`N=4`$ superspace. Using the flows (6667), we have also found the second Hamiltonian structure $`J_2`$

$`J_2=\left(\begin{array}{cc}J_{11}& J_{12}\\ J_{21}& J_{22}\end{array}\right),`$ (89)
$`J_{11}=(\overline{𝒥}+\overline{𝒥})\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{},J_{22}=(𝒥+𝒥)𝒟_+𝒟_{},`$
$`J_{12}=\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}\left(+[𝒟_{}𝒟_+^1\overline{𝒥}]+[\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{𝒟}^+^1𝒥]\right)𝒟_+𝒟_{},`$
$`J_{21}=𝒟_+𝒟_{}\left([𝒟_{}𝒟_+^1\overline{𝒥}][\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{𝒟}^+^1𝒥]\right)\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}`$ (90)
which is isomorphic to the $`N=4`$ SU(2) superconformal algebra (see the end of this section and the remark at the end of section 5). In terms of these two Hamiltonian structures the Poisson brackets of the superfields $`\overline{𝒥}`$ and $`𝒥`$ are given by the formula

$`\{\left(\begin{array}{cc}\overline{𝒥}(Z_1)& \\ 𝒥(Z_1)& \end{array}\right)\stackrel{}{,}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\overline{𝒥}(Z_2),𝒥(Z_2)& \end{array}\right)\}_k=J_k(Z_1)\delta ^{N=4}(Z_1Z_2)`$ (94)
where $`\delta ^{N=4}(Z)\delta (z)\theta ^+\eta ^+\theta ^{}\eta ^{}`$ is the delta function in $`N=4`$ superspace with the coordinates $`Z\{z,\theta ^+,\eta ^+,\theta ^{},`$ $`\eta ^{}\}`$. Let us remark that the second Hamiltonian structure $`J_2`$ (90) can be rewritten in terms of the superfunction $`\xi `$ (12), and it has the following simple form:

$`J_2=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}(\xi +\xi )\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}& \overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}(+\xi {}_{}{}^{})𝒟_+𝒟_{}\\ 𝒟_+𝒟_{}(\xi {}_{}{}^{})\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}& 𝒟_+𝒟_{}(\xi +\xi )𝒟_+𝒟_{}\end{array}\right).`$ (97)
Knowing the first and second Hamiltonian structures, we may construct the recursion operator of the hierarchy in $`N=4`$ superspace using the following general rule:

$`R=J_2\widehat{J}_1\left(\begin{array}{cc}J_{12},& J_{11}\\ J_{22},& J_{21}\end{array}\right)^2,\frac{}{t_{l+1}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\overline{𝒥}& \\ 𝒥& \end{array}\right)=R\frac{}{t_l}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\overline{𝒥}& \\ 𝒥& \end{array}\right),J_{l+1}=R^lJ_1,`$ (104)
where the matrix $`\widehat{J}_1`$ is

$`\widehat{J}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0,& 1\\ 1,& 0\end{array}\right)^2,\widehat{J}_1J_1\left(\begin{array}{cc}\overline{𝒥}& \\ 𝒥& \end{array}\right)=J_1\widehat{J}_1\left(\begin{array}{cc}\overline{𝒥}& \\ 𝒥& \end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\overline{𝒥}& \\ 𝒥& \end{array}\right).`$ (113)
The Hamiltonian structures $`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$ (8690) are obviously compatible, e.g., the deformation $`[𝒟_{}𝒟_+^1\overline{𝒥}]`$ $``$ $`[𝒟_{}𝒟_+^1\overline{𝒥}]+\alpha `$, where $`\alpha `$ is an arbitrary parameter, transforms $`J_2`$ into the algebraic sum $`J_2\alpha J_1`$. Thus, one concludes that the recursion operator $`R`$ (104) is hereditary, being obtained from a compatible pair of Hamiltonian structures .

Applying formulae (104) we obtain the following recurrence relations for the flows (35) in $`N=4`$ superspace:

$`\frac{}{t_{l+1}}\overline{𝒥}=\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}((++\xi {}_{}{}^{})𝒟_+𝒟_{}^2\frac{}{t_l}\overline{𝒥}+(\xi +\xi )\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}^2\frac{}{t_l}𝒥),`$
$`\frac{}{t_{l+1}}𝒥=𝒟_+𝒟_{}((+\xi {}_{}{}^{})\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}^2\frac{}{t_l}𝒥+(\xi +\xi )𝒟_+𝒟_{}^2\frac{}{t_l}\overline{𝒥}).`$ (114)
These relations can be rewritten in terms of the single dimensionless superfunction $`\xi `$ (12) in the following form:

$`\frac{}{t_{l+1}}\xi =((\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}\mathrm{\Pi })(\mathrm{\Pi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }})\xi {}_{}{}^{}2\mathrm{\Pi }\xi \overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}2\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}\xi \mathrm{\Pi })\frac{}{t_l}\xi ,`$ (115)
where the operators $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}`$ are $`N=4`$ chiral projectors

$`\mathrm{\Pi }𝒟_+𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}^2,\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}𝒟_+𝒟_{}^2,`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }^2=\mathrm{\Pi },\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^2=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }},\mathrm{\Pi }\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}\mathrm{\Pi }=0,(\mathrm{\Pi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }})\xi =\xi .`$ (116)
The superfunction $`\xi `$ can actually be treated as an independent constrained real linear $`N=4`$ superfield

$`𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^{}\xi =0,𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^+\xi =0`$ (117)
which we could have taken as our starting point, while the relation (12) in this case is the general solution of the quadratic constraints (117) expressed in terms of the pair of chiral-antichiral superfields $`𝒥`$ and $`\overline{𝒥}`$ (8). Conversely, one can express $`𝒥`$ and $`\overline{𝒥}`$ in terms of $`\xi `$

$`𝒥=𝒟_+𝒟_{}\xi ,\overline{𝒥}=\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}\xi .`$ (118)
Let us also remark that the last relation in equations (116) is a direct consequence of the constraints (117) too. Therefore, we come to the conclusion that all the flows of the N=4 Toda (KdV) hierarchy are actually the flows for a single real linear $`N=4`$ superfield $`\xi `$ (117). Moreover, these flows are local because the Lax operator $`\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}`$ (19) entering into the flow equations (15) for the superfield $`\xi `$, being expressed in terms of $`\xi `$ via (118)

$`\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}+[(𝒟_{}+\overline{𝒟}^{})\xi ](𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1[\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}\xi ],`$ (119)
is local in $`\xi `$. As an illustrative example, let us present explicitly the second flow

$`\frac{}{t_2}\xi =(\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{})\xi {}_{}{}^{}(\xi {}_{}{}^{})^2+2(𝒟_+𝒟_{}\xi )(\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}\xi )`$ (120)
resulting from the recurrence relation (115) and the first flow $`\frac{}{t_1}\xi =\xi ^{}`$. In the derivation of the flows (120), one has to use the identity

$`𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^+\xi =𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}\xi ,`$ (121)
following from the constraints (117). For completeness, we also present the first

$`\{\xi (Z_1),\xi (Z_2)\}_k=J_k^\xi (Z_1)\delta ^{N=4}(Z_1Z_2),`$
$`J_1^\xi =\widehat{J}_1^\xi =(\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}\mathrm{\Pi }),J_1^\xi \widehat{J}_1^\xi \xi =\widehat{J}_1^\xi J_1^\xi \xi =\xi `$ (122)
and second

$`J_2^\xi `$ $`=`$ $`(\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}+\mathrm{\Pi })+(\mathrm{\Pi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }})\xi {}_{}{}^{}(\mathrm{\Pi }\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }})2\mathrm{\Pi }\xi \overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}+2\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}\xi \mathrm{\Pi }`$ (123)
$``$ $`^1((\mathrm{\Pi }\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }})^2+\xi ^{}(𝒟_+\xi ^{})\overline{𝒟}^+(\overline{𝒟}^+\xi ^{})𝒟_+(𝒟_{}\xi ^{})\overline{𝒟}^{}(\overline{𝒟}^{}\xi ^{})𝒟_{}`$
$``$ $`2(𝒟_+𝒟_{}\xi )\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}2(\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}\xi )𝒟_+𝒟_{})(\mathrm{\Pi }\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }})`$
Hamiltonian structures as well as the recursion operator

$`R^\xi =J_2^\xi \widehat{J}_1^\xi =(\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}\mathrm{\Pi })(\mathrm{\Pi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }})\xi {}_{}{}^{}(\mathrm{\Pi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }})2\mathrm{\Pi }\xi \overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}2\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}\xi \mathrm{\Pi }`$ (124)
of the $`N=4`$ Toda (KdV) hierarchy described in terms of the superfield $`\xi `$ (117).

To close this section we would like to note that four closed subalgebras, isomorphic to the $`N=4`$ $`SU(2)`$ superconformal algebra (SCA), can be extracted from the $`N=4`$ superfield form of the $`N=4`$ $`O(4)`$ (large) SCA,  (see also references therein)555Some $`N=4`$ $`SU(2)`$ SC subalgebras of the $`N=4`$ $`O(4)`$ SCA were discussed in  at the component level.

$`\{\sigma ,\sigma \}=\left(c_1+c_2(\mathrm{\Pi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }})+\sigma ^{}(𝒟_+\sigma )\overline{𝒟}^+(\overline{𝒟}^+\sigma )𝒟_+(𝒟_{}\sigma )\overline{𝒟}^{}(\overline{𝒟}^{}\sigma )𝒟_{}\right)\delta ^{N=4},`$ (125)
where $`\sigma =\sigma (Z)`$ is the $`N=4`$ $`O(4)`$ unconstrained supercurrent with $`16`$ independent field components. $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$ are two independent central charges. These subalgebras are defined using the operators

$`\pi _\pm (𝒟_+𝒟_{}\pm \overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{})^1,𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^{}\pi _\pm =𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^+\pi _\pm =\pi _\pm 𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^{}=\pi _\pm 𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^+=0,`$
$`\pi _\pm ^{2n}=(1)^n(\mathrm{\Pi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}),\pi _\pm ^{2n+1}=(1)^n\pi _\pm ,\pi _+\pi _{}=(\mathrm{\Pi }\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }})\{\pi _+,\pi _{}\}=0,`$ (126)
where the operators $`\{\pi _+,\pi _{},\pi _+^2,\pi _+\pi _{}\}`$ form a linearly independent set of degenerate operators satisfying the constraint (117). Then we may define four supercurrents expressed in terms of $`\sigma `$ by

$`\xi _\pm =\pi _\pm \sigma ,\widehat{\xi }=\pi _+^2\sigma ,\xi =\pi _+\pi _{}\sigma .`$ (127)
Each of them satisfies the constraints (117) and, as a consequence, possesses only $`8`$ independent superfield components. The degenerate mapping $`\xi `$ to $`\sigma `$ (127) gives the precise relationship between the Poisson structures (123) and (125). The central charge of the $`N=4`$ $`SU(2)`$ SC subalgebra of the $`N=4`$ $`O(4)`$ SCA is $`c=c_1+c_2`$. The superfield relationship (127) between the $`N=4`$ superconformal $`SU(2)`$ and $`O(4)`$ algebras could give a bridge towards the resolution of the longstanding problem of constructing an $`N=4`$ $`O(4)`$ KdV hierarchy (if any), but this problem is out of the scope of the present paper and will be considered elsewere.

## 4 Real forms and discrete symmetries of the N=4 Toda (KdV) hierarchy in N=4 superspace

It is well known that different real forms derived from the same complex integrable hierarchy are nonequivalent in general. Keeping this in mind it seems important to find as many different real forms of the $`N=4`$ Toda (KdV) hierarchy as possible. This task was already analysed in  at the level of the second and third flows of the hierarchy in the real $`N=2`$ superspace, and three nonequivalent complex conjugations were constructed for these flows. Nonequivalent here means that it is not possible to relate any two of them via obvious symmetries. Now, based on the results of the previous sections we are able to extend these complex conjugations to $`N=4`$ superspace and prove that all the flows $`\frac{}{t_l}`$ of the hierarchy in $`N=4`$ superspace are invariant under any of these complex conjugations.

We will use the standard convention regarding complex conjugation of products involving odd operators and functions (see, e.g., the books ). In particular, if 𝕆 is some even differential operator acting on a superfield $`F`$, we define the complex conjugate of 𝕆 by $`(\text{𝕆}F)^{}=\text{𝕆}^{}F^{}`$.

Let us prove the statement

the flows (35) are invariant under the following three complex conjugations:

$`(𝒥,\overline{𝒥})^{}=(𝒥,\overline{𝒥}),(z,\theta ^\pm ,\eta ^\pm )^{}=(z,\theta ^\pm ,\eta ^\pm ),t_l^{}=(1)^lt_l,`$ (128)
$`(𝒥,\overline{𝒥})^{}=(𝒥𝒟_{}𝒟_+\mathrm{ln}\overline{𝒥},\overline{𝒥}),(z,\theta ^\pm ,\eta ^\pm )^{}=(z,\theta ^\pm ,\eta ^\pm ),t_l^{}=t_l,`$ (129)
$`(𝒥,\overline{𝒥})^{}=(\overline{𝒥},𝒥),(z,\theta ^\pm ,\eta ^\pm )^{}=(z,\theta ^\pm ,\eta ^\pm ),t_l^{}=t_l.`$ (130)
With this aim let us describe the properties of the Lax operator $`\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T`$ (19) and of the quantity $`\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0`$ entering into the flow equations (35) under these involutions. They are

$`(\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T)^{}=\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T,\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0^{}=(1)^l\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0`$ (131)
$`(\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T)^{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{𝒥}}}\stackrel{~}{L}_1\overline{𝒥},\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0^{}=\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{𝒥}}}[\left(\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_1\right)^T\overline{𝒥}],`$ (132)
$`(\stackrel{~}{L}_1^T)^{}=(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}_+)^1\stackrel{~}{L}_1(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}_+),\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0^{}=\left((\stackrel{~}{L}_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{T})^{2l}\right)_0,`$ (133)
where the identities (17) and (30) have been used when deriving equations (132) and (133), respectively. Now, using these relations as well as the identity (32) it is a simple exercise to verify that the flows (35) are indeed invariant under the complex conjugations (128130).

The complex conjugations (128130) extract different real forms of the algebra (7). It may be verified that the real forms of the algebra (7) with the involutions (128129) correspond to a twisted real $`N=4`$ supersymmetry, while the real form corresponding to the involution (130) reproduces the algebra of the real $`N=4`$ supersymmetry.

We would like to close this section with a few remarks.

First, a combination of the two complex conjugations (130) and (129) being applied twice generates a manifestly $`N=4`$ supersymmetric form of the $`N=4`$ Toda chain equations666This way of deriving discrete symmetries was proposed in  and applied to the construction of discrete symmetry transformations of the $`N=2`$ supersymmetric GNLS hierarchies.

$`𝒥^{}=𝒥𝒟_{}𝒟_+\mathrm{ln}\overline{𝒥},\overline{𝒥}^{}=\overline{𝒥}\overline{𝒟}^{}\overline{𝒟}^+\mathrm{ln}𝒥^{}`$ (134)
which is the one-dimensional reduction of the two-dimensional $`N=(2|2)`$ superconformal Toda lattice . They form an infinite-dimensional group of discrete Darboux symmetries of the $`N=4`$ supersymmetric Toda chain (KdV) hierarchy . In other words, if the set $`\{𝒥,\overline{𝒥}\}`$ is a solution of the $`N=4`$ Toda (KdV) hierarchy, then the set $`\{𝒥^{},\overline{𝒥}^{}\}`$, related to the former by equations (134), is a solution of the hierarchy as well. Let us also present equations (134) written in the $`N=4`$ superfield basis $`\{\mathrm{\Omega },\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}\}`$ (57), where the $`N=4`$ flows are local

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^{}=\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}+𝒟_{}\mathrm{ln}[\overline{𝒟}^+\mathrm{\Omega }],\mathrm{\Omega }^{}=\mathrm{\Omega }+\overline{𝒟}^{}\mathrm{ln}[𝒟_+\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^{}].`$ (135)
Second, a combination of the two complex conjugations (128) and (129) generates an order two discrete symmetry of the odd flows $`\frac{}{t_{2l+1}}`$,

$`(𝒥,\overline{𝒥})^{}=(𝒥+𝒟_{}𝒟_+\mathrm{ln}\overline{𝒥},\overline{𝒥}),(𝒥,\overline{𝒥})^{}=(𝒥,\overline{𝒥}).`$ (136)
Third, a combination of the two complex conjugations (130) and (128) generates the substitution (25), $`\mathrm{\#}`$.

Fourth, a direct verification shows that the second and third flows (6667) as well as the recursion relations (114) are invariant under two additional complex conjugations

$`(𝒥,\overline{𝒥})^{}=(𝒥,\overline{𝒥}),(z,\theta ^\pm ,\eta ^\pm )^{}=(z,i\eta ^\pm ,i\theta ^\pm ),t_l^{}=(1)^lt_l,`$ (137)
$`(𝒥,\overline{𝒥})^{}=(𝒥,\overline{𝒥}),(z,\theta ^\pm ,\eta ^\pm )^{}=(z,\theta ^{},\eta ^{}),t_l^{}=(1)^lt_l.`$ (138)
It means that all the flows (35) of the hierarchy are invariant under these complex conjugations as well.

## 5 N=4 Toda (KdV) hierarchy in N=2 superspace

Let us present the relationship of the formulation of the $`N=4`$ Toda (KdV) hierarchy in the $`N=4`$ superspace developed in previous sections with its description in the three different $`N=2`$ superfield bases (a), (b) and (c) from  (see equations (4.5) and (4.3a,b,c) therein) at the level of the second flow equations (66). As a byproduct, a correspondence with the formalism of references  will be established.

The basis (a) $`\{\stackrel{~}{V},F,\overline{F}\}`$.

$`(a)`$ $`\stackrel{~}{V}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[D_{}D_+^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)\right](z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{}=0,\eta ^+,\eta ^{}=0),`$ (139)
$`F𝒥(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{}=0,\eta ^+,\eta ^{}=0),`$
$`\overline{F}\overline{𝒥}(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{}=0,\eta ^+,\eta ^{}=0),`$
where $`\stackrel{~}{V}\stackrel{~}{V}(z,\theta ^+,\eta ^+)`$, $`FF(z,\theta ^+,\eta ^+)`$ and $`\overline{F}\overline{F}(z,\theta ^+,\eta ^+)`$ are new unconstrained, chiral and antichiral,

$`𝒟_+F=0,\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{F}=0,`$ (140)
even $`N=2`$ superfields, respectively, and $`D_\pm `$ is defined in equation (9). Using the chirality constraints (8) and the definition of the superfield $`\stackrel{~}{V}`$ (139) one can express the derivatives $`𝒟_{}\overline{𝒥}`$ and $`\overline{𝒟}^{}𝒥`$ in terms of $`𝒟_+\stackrel{~}{V}`$ and $`\overline{𝒟}^+\stackrel{~}{V}`$

$`\overline{𝒟}^{}𝒥=2𝒟_+\stackrel{~}{V},𝒟_{}\overline{𝒥}=2\overline{𝒟}_+\stackrel{~}{V}.`$ (141)
Using these inputs, one can transform (66) to the superfield basis $`\{\stackrel{~}{V},F,\overline{F}\}`$ where they take the following local form:

$`\frac{}{t_2}\stackrel{~}{V}=([𝒟_+,\overline{𝒟}^+]\stackrel{~}{V}+2\stackrel{~}{V}^2F\overline{F}){}_{}{}^{},`$
$`\frac{}{t_2}F=F{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }+4𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^+(F\stackrel{~}{V}),`$
$`\frac{}{t_2}\overline{F}=+\overline{F}{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }+4\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+(\overline{F}\stackrel{~}{V}).`$ (142)
The basis (c) $`\{\stackrel{~}{J},\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\}`$.

$`(c)`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\mathrm{\Phi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})i\stackrel{~}{J}𝒥(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{},\eta ^+=0,\eta ^{}=0),`$ (143)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\mathrm{\Phi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})+i\stackrel{~}{J}\overline{𝒥}(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{},\eta ^+=0,\eta ^{}=0),`$
$`\stackrel{~}{J}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}(𝒥\overline{𝒥})|_{\eta _\pm =0},\mathrm{\Phi }\left[D\overline{D}^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)\right]|_{\eta _\pm =0},\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\left[\overline{D}D^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)\right]|_{\eta _\pm =0},`$ (144)
where $`\stackrel{~}{J}\stackrel{~}{J}(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{}),\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{})`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{})`$ are new unconstrained, chiral and antichiral,

$`D\mathrm{\Phi }=0,\overline{D}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}=0,`$ (145)
even $`N=2`$ superfields, respectively, and $`D,\overline{D}`$ are $`N=2`$ odd covariant derivatives,

$`D{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(D_++iD_{}),\overline{D}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(D_+iD_{}),\{D,\overline{D}\}=,D^2=\overline{D}^2=0.`$ (146)
Using the explicit realization of the odd derivatives $`D_\pm `$ (4) and $`𝒟_\pm `$, $`\overline{𝒟}^\pm `$ (7) as well as the chirality constraints (8), one can express the derivatives $`𝒟_\pm \overline{𝒥}`$ and $`\overline{𝒟}^\pm 𝒥`$ in terms of $`D_\pm \overline{𝒥}`$ and $`D_\pm 𝒥`$

$`\overline{𝒟}^\pm 𝒥=D_\pm 𝒥,\overline{𝒟}^+\overline{𝒟}^{}𝒥=D_+D_{}𝒥,𝒟_\pm \overline{𝒥}=D_\pm \overline{𝒥},𝒟_+𝒟_{}\overline{𝒥}=D_+D_{}\overline{𝒥}.`$ (147)
Using these inputs, one can transform equations (66) to the superfield basis $`\{\stackrel{~}{J},\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\}`$ where they take the following local form:

$`i\frac{}{t_2}\stackrel{~}{J}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\mathrm{\Phi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}){}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }2(\stackrel{~}{J}(\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})){}_{}{}^{}+[D,\overline{D}](\stackrel{~}{J}(\mathrm{\Phi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})),`$
$`i\frac{}{t_2}\mathrm{\Phi }=2D\overline{D}(\stackrel{~}{J}{}_{}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{J}^2{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\mathrm{\Phi }^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}),`$
$`i\frac{}{t_2}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}=2\overline{D}D(\stackrel{~}{J}{}_{}{}^{}+\stackrel{~}{J}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}).`$ (148)
It is also instructive to present explicitly the Lax operator $`L`$ (6) expressed in terms of the $`N=2`$ superfields $`\{\stackrel{~}{J},\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\}`$,

$`Li(\overline{D}D){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\mathrm{\Phi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}+2i\stackrel{~}{J}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{D}+D+i[^1(\overline{D}\mathrm{\Phi }D\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})]}}.`$ (149)
The basis (b).

The $`N=2`$ superfield basis (b) and the corresponding second flow equations can be obtained from equations (143144) and (148) of the basis (c) by the following substitution:

$`(b)\{\stackrel{~}{J},\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\}\{\stackrel{~}{J},i\mathrm{\Phi },i\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\},t_2it_2.`$ (150)
Therefore, we are led to the conclusion that the second flow equations (66) unify the three particular ”$`SU(2)`$ frames” of the $`N=4`$ KdV hierarchy in $`N=2`$ superspace (compare equations (142) and (148) with equations (4.5) and (4.3a,b,c) from ). The same property is certainly valid for any other flow of the $`N=4`$ Toda (KdV) hierarchy in the $`N=4`$ superspace.

It is interesting to remark that if one introduces an auxiliary $`N=4`$ superfield $`V^{12}`$ as

$`V^{12}V^{21}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}D_{}D_+^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)`$ (151)
as well as the following notations:

$`V^{11}i\overline{𝒥},V^{22}i𝒥,𝒟_1𝒟_+,𝒟_2\overline{𝒟}^{},\overline{𝒟}^1\overline{𝒟}^+,\overline{𝒟}^2𝒟_{},`$ (152)
then the constraints (8) and (151) can equivalently be rewritten in the covariant form:

$`𝒟^{(i}V^{jk)}=0,\overline{𝒟}^{(i}V^{jk)}=0,i,j,k=1,2,`$ (153)
where the indices $`i,j,k`$ are raised and lowered by the antisymmetric tensors $`ϵ^{ij}`$ and $`ϵ_{ij}`$, respectively, ($`ϵ^{ij}ϵ_{jk}=\delta _{}^{i}{}_{k}{}^{}`$, $`ϵ_{12}=ϵ^{12}=1`$) and $`(ijk)`$ means symmetrization. The $`SU(2)`$ spin 1 $`N=4`$ supercurrent $`V^{ij}=V^{ji}`$ was initially introduced in  for the description of the $`N=4`$ KdV equation. Thus, formulae (151152) establish the precise correspondence777It is also necessary to replace the coordinate $`z`$ by $`iz`$. with . Using this correspondence, one can calculate, e.g. the matrices $`a^{ij}`$ from ,

$`a=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right),a=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right)`$ (158)
which correspond to (142) and (148), respectively, as well as establish the one–to–one correspondence of the second Hamiltonian structure $`J_2`$ (90) with the $`N=4`$ superspace form of the $`N=4`$ SU(2) superconformal algebra used in .

## 6 Alternative Lax pair construction in N=4 superspace

The results of the previous sections can be used as inputs for an alternative, heuristic construction of a Lax pair representation of the $`N=4`$ Toda (KdV) hierarchy in $`N=4`$ superspace. Indeed, let us remember that there exist another Lax pair formulation of the $`N=4`$ KdV hierarchy in the $`N=2`$ superfield basis (a) $`\{\stackrel{~}{V}(z,\theta ^+,\eta ^+),F(z,\theta ^+,\eta ^+),\overline{F}(z,\theta ^+,\eta ^+)\}`$ with the second flow equations (142) . The corresponding Lax operator $``$ is

$`=\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1\left(2\stackrel{~}{V}F^1\overline{F}\right)\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1.`$ (159)
We introduce a new superfield basis $`\{V(z,\theta ^+,\eta ^+),\overline{V}(z,\theta ^+,\eta ^+)\}`$ inspired by the formulae (143144) of the basis (c),

$`V{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(F+\overline{F})i\stackrel{~}{V},\overline{V}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(F+\overline{F})+i\stackrel{~}{V},`$ (160)
$`\stackrel{~}{V}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}(V\overline{V}),F𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^+^1(\overline{V}+V),\overline{F}\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1(\overline{V}+V),`$ (161)
$`=\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1\left(i(V\overline{V})[𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^+^1(\overline{V}+V)]^1[\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1(\overline{V}+V)]\right)\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1.`$ (162)
Finally, in analogy with our derivation of the Lax operator $`L_1`$ in (9), we replace the $`N=2`$ superfields $`V`$ and $`\overline{V}`$ in (159) by one chiral $`𝒱(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{},\eta ^+,\eta ^{})`$ and one antichiral $`\overline{𝒱}(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{},\eta ^+,\eta ^{})`$ even $`N=4`$ superfield,

$`\text{𝔻}_\pm 𝒱=0,\overline{\text{𝔻}}^\pm \overline{𝒱}=0.`$ (163)
One can check that the resulting Lax pair representation

$`(1)^{l+1}\frac{}{t_l}_1=[(_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{l})_+,_1]`$ (164)
with the new $`N=4`$ Lax operator $`_1`$,

$`_1=\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1\left(i(𝒱\overline{𝒱})[𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^+^1(\overline{𝒱}+𝒱)]^1[\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1(\overline{𝒱}+𝒱)]\right)\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1,`$ (165)
gives consistent $`N=4`$ supersymmetric flows $`\frac{}{t_l}`$ as well. Here, we have introduced a new superspace basis $`\{𝒟_\pm ,\overline{𝒟}^\pm \}`$ $``$ $`\{\text{𝔻}_\pm ,\overline{\text{𝔻}}^\pm \}`$ defined by

$`𝒟_+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(\overline{\text{𝔻}}^{}+\text{𝔻}_+),\overline{𝒟}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(\overline{\text{𝔻}}^{}\text{𝔻}_+),`$
$`𝒟_{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(\text{𝔻}_{}\overline{\text{𝔻}}^+),\overline{𝒟}^+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(\text{𝔻}_{}+\overline{\text{𝔻}}^+),`$
$`\{\text{𝔻}_k,\overline{\text{𝔻}}^m\}=\delta _{k}^{}{}_{}{}^{m},\{\text{𝔻}_k,\text{𝔻}_m\}=\{\overline{\text{𝔻}}^k,\overline{\text{𝔻}}^m\}=0,k,m=\pm .`$ (166)
As an example, let us present explicitly the second flow equations

$`i\frac{}{t_2}𝒱=(+i\text{𝔻}_{}\text{𝔻}_+\overline{𝒱}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\text{𝔻}_{}\text{𝔻}_+^1\overline{𝒱})^2{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}𝒱^2){}_{}{}^{}\text{𝔻}_{}\text{𝔻}_+(\overline{𝒱}\overline{\text{𝔻}}^{}\overline{\text{𝔻}}^+^1𝒱),`$
$`i\frac{}{t_2}\overline{𝒱}=(i\overline{\text{𝔻}}^{}\overline{\text{𝔻}}^+𝒱{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\overline{\text{𝔻}}^{}\overline{\text{𝔻}}^+^1𝒱)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\overline{𝒱}^2){}_{}{}^{}+\overline{\text{𝔻}}^{}\overline{\text{𝔻}}^+(𝒱\text{𝔻}_{}\text{𝔻}_+^1\overline{𝒱})`$ (167)
resulting from equations (164165).

Let us analyze these equations in the same way as it has been done in the previous section. We introduce the $`N=2`$ superfield basis $`\{\stackrel{~}{𝒱}(z,\theta ^+,\eta ^{}),\varphi (z,\theta ^+,\eta ^{}),\overline{\varphi }(z,\theta ^+,\eta ^{})\}`$

$`\stackrel{~}{𝒱}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}((\text{𝔻}_{}+\overline{\text{𝔻}}^{})(\text{𝔻}_++\overline{\text{𝔻}}^+)^1(\overline{𝒱}𝒱))(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{}=\theta ^+,\eta ^+,\eta ^{}=\eta ^+),`$
$`\varphi 𝒱(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{}=\theta ^+,\eta ^+,\eta ^{}=\eta ^+),\text{𝔻}_+\varphi =0,`$
$`\overline{\varphi }\overline{𝒱}(z,\theta ^+,\theta ^{}=\theta ^+,\eta ^+,\eta ^{}=\eta ^+),\overline{\text{𝔻}}^+\overline{\varphi }=0`$ (168)
which is similar to the basis (a) (139). Then one observes that the corresponding second flow equations reproduce the second flow equations (148) of the basis (c) with the following correspondence:

$`\{\stackrel{~}{J},\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }},D,\overline{D},\frac{}{t_2}\}\{\stackrel{~}{𝒱},\varphi ,\overline{\varphi },\text{𝔻}_+,\overline{\text{𝔻}}^+,\frac{}{t_2}\}.`$ (169)
Therefore, we conclude that the $`N=4`$ superfield equations (66) and (167) are the second flow equations of the same $`N=4`$ supersymmetric Toda (KdV) hierarchy written in two different $`N=4`$ superfield bases, $`\{𝒥,\overline{𝒥},𝒟_\pm ,\overline{𝒟}_\pm \}`$ and $`\{𝒱,\overline{𝒱},\text{𝔻}^\pm ,\overline{\text{𝔻}}^\pm \}`$, respectively. The explicit relation between these two bases is the following:

$`2i𝒱=\overline{𝒥}𝒥+(𝒟_{}+\overline{𝒟}^{})(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥),`$
$`2i\overline{𝒱}=\overline{𝒥}𝒥(𝒟_{}+\overline{𝒟}^{})(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥),`$
$`\text{𝔻}_+={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(𝒟_+\overline{𝒟}^{}),\overline{\text{𝔻}}^{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^{}),`$
$`\text{𝔻}_{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(\overline{𝒟}^++𝒟_{}),\overline{\text{𝔻}}^+={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_{}).`$ (170)
Actually, the Lax pair representation (164165) is a direct consequence of the Lax pair representation (4849). In order to show this, one can first express the Lax operator $`_1`$ (165) in terms of the superfields $`𝒥`$ and $`\overline{𝒥}`$ using equations (170), then verify that it is the square of the Lax operator 𝕃 (49),

$`_1`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1\left([(𝒟_{}+\overline{𝒟}^{})(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)]𝒥^1\overline{𝒥}\right)\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1`$ (171)
$``$ $`\left(\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1\left(𝒟_{}\overline{𝒟}^{}+[(𝒟_++\overline{𝒟}^+)^1(\overline{𝒥}+𝒥)]\right)\overline{𝒟}^+𝒟_+^1\right)^2\text{𝕃}^2.`$
If one introduces the notation

$`\text{𝕍}^{12}\text{𝕍}^{21}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\text{𝔻}_{}+\overline{\text{𝔻}}^{})(\text{𝔻}_++\overline{\text{𝔻}}^+)^1(\overline{𝒱}𝒱),`$ (172)
$`\text{𝕍}^{11}\overline{𝒱},\text{𝕍}^{22}𝒱,\text{𝔻}_1\text{𝔻}_+,\text{𝔻}_2\overline{\text{𝔻}}^{},\overline{\text{𝔻}}^1\overline{\text{𝔻}}^+,\overline{\text{𝔻}}^2\text{𝔻}_{},`$ (173)
then the chirality constraints (163) and relations (172) can equivalently be rewritten as

$`\text{𝔻}^{(i}\text{𝕍}^{jk)}=0,\overline{\text{𝔻}}^{(i}\text{𝕍}^{jk)}=0,i,j,k=1,2`$ (174)
which is similar to the formulae (151153). In terms of the objects $`\{V^{ij},𝒟^i,\overline{𝒟}^i\}`$ and $`\{\text{𝕍}^{ij},\text{𝔻}^i,\overline{\text{𝔻}}^i\}`$ the transformation (170) is the $`SU(2)`$ rotation

$`\text{𝔻}^i=(S𝒟)^i,\overline{\text{𝔻}}^i=(S\overline{𝒟})^i,\text{𝕍}^{ij}=(SVS^T)^{ij},S={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}+1& 1\\ +1& +1\end{array}\right),`$ (177)
where the matrix $`SSU(2)`$ and $`S^T`$ is the transposed matrix.

## 7 Conclusion

In this paper, we have developed a consistent Lax pair formulation of the $`N=4`$ supersymmetric Toda chain (KdV) hierarchy in $`N=4`$ superspace. The explicit general formulae (35) for its bosonic flows in terms of the Lax operator in $`N=4`$ superspace have been derived. Then, a change of basis in $`N=4`$ superspace has allowed us to eliminate all nonlocalities in the flows (6063). We have also explicitly presented the general formula for the corresponding Hamiltonians (70), the first two Hamiltonian structures (8690) as well as the recursion operator (104-114) in $`N=4`$ superspace. Then, we have simplified these formulae by rewriting them in terms of the single real linear $`N=4`$ superfield $`\xi `$ (122124) whose flows are local. Furthermore, we have established its relationship (127) to the $`N=4`$ $`O(4)`$ superconformal supercurrent which hopefully could shed light on the longstanding problem of constructing the $`N=4`$ $`O(4)`$ KdV hierarchy. Then, we have shown that all these flows possess five complex conjugations (128130) and (137138) as well as an infinite-dimensional group of discrete Darboux symmetries (134). Finally, the explicit formulae (151152) and (172173) relating the two different descriptions of the flows in $`N=4`$ superspace used in  and  have established. It is obvious that there remain a lot of work to do in order to improve our understanding of the hierarchy in $`N=4`$ superspace, but the construction of the $`N=4`$ Lax pair formulation presented in this paper is a crucial, necessary step towards a complete description.

Acknowledgments. A.S. would like to thank the Laboratoire de Physique de l’ENS Lyon for the hospitality during the course of this work. This work was partially supported by the PICS Project No. 593, RFBR-CNRS Grant No. 01-02-22005, Nato Grant No. PST.CLG 974874 and RFBR Grant No. 99-02-18417.


text:
# HEAVY BARYONS: A COMBINED LARGE 𝑁_𝑐 AND HEAVY QUARK EXPANSION FOR ELECTROWEAK CURRENTS

## 1 Introduction

The hadrons are strongly bound states of quarks and gluons. Their description directly from QCD—the underlying theory of strong interactions—is a daunting task significantly impeded by the highly non-perturbative nature of QCD at low energies. Lattice QCD is the only fully non-perturbative framework at the present time to calculate the low energy hadronic observables from QCD. Its present capabilities, however, are at a rudimentary level to perform fully dynamical (non-quenched) calculations of interesting QCD and electroweak observables. In the absence of the direct analytical methods, we turn to the approximations which lead to model independent predictions.

A popular approach to describe systems at low-energies in a model independent way is to use the methods of effective field theories (EFT) $`^\mathrm{?}`$. These methods are most successful when the spectrum of the underlying theory exhibits a large enough scale separation so that the low-energy interactions of relevant degrees of freedom can be described in terms of a small number of operators with the remainder being suppressed by higher powers of the ratio $`E/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, where $`E`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are typical low-energy and high-energy scales. A power counting scheme—a critical ingredient of EFT—selects all dominant interactions at a given order in the expansion in powers of $`E/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. A finite number of undermined constants at each order can be found from experiment and used to predict the outcome of others.

The symmetries of the system of interest greatly constrain model-independent power counting schemes. It is often the case that such symmetries are approximate and manifest themselves in a particular limit of QCD. An example is the well-known chiral symmetry in the light-quark sector of QCD which appears in the zero quark mass limit. Chiral perturbation theory—an effective theory describing interactions of pions and nucleons—is based on power counting emerging from the underlying chiral symmetry.

Another example is heavy quark effective theory (HQET) $`^\mathrm{?}`$ used to describe hadrons containing a single heavy quark—the heavy mesons and heavy baryons. HQET is based on the heavy quark spin-flavor symmetry which emerges in the heavy quark limit, i.e. when the heavy quark mass, $`m_Q`$, goes to infinity. The heavy quark effective Lagrangian has a form of an expansion in powers of $`k/m_Q`$, where $`k`$ ($`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD})`$) is a typical momentum of the light degrees of freedom inside the heavy hadron. To stress the non-perturbative nature of these degrees of freedom they are often collectively referred to as the brown muck.

The heavy quark spin-flavor symmetry relates the heavy hadrons moving at the same 4-velocity. The symmetry is described by the unitary transformations corresponding to $`SU(2n_f)`$ group, where $`n_f`$ is the number of heavy flavors. This symmetry implies a number of important phenomenological consequences. In the heavy baryon sector of QCD, which is of the primary interest here, the heavy quark symmetry restricted to charm and bottom flavors predicts, for example, an existence of the degenerate heavy quark spin doublets. An approximately degenerate doublet of the excited charm baryons has been observed—($`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{c1},\mathrm{\Lambda }_{c1}^{}`$). The symmetry breaking is of order of $`1/m_Q`$ as expected. Heavy quark symmetry also leads to the relation between electroweak matrix elements that determine the semileptonic decay form factors of heavy baryons. In particular, the normalization of these form-factors at zero recoil is given by the conserving heavy quark number $`^\mathrm{?}`$.

Here we will discuss a combined heavy quark and large $`N_c`$ limit for the heavy baryon sector of QCD. It turns out, in this limit the spectrum of heavy baryons exhibits an approximate symmetry associated with a contracted $`O(8)`$ group $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$. This symmetry connects the low-energy excited states of heavy baryons to the ground state. An effective field theory can be derived to describe these low-energy excited states and their electroweak decays $`^\mathrm{?}`$.

Large $`N_c`$ QCD $`^\mathrm{?}`$ is a very useful framework to obtain model independent predictions for baryons $`^\mathrm{?}`$. In particular, the baryons containing only $`u`$ and $`d`$ quarks in the large $`N_c`$ exhibit light quark spin-flavor symmetry described by the contracted $`SU(4)`$ group $`^\mathrm{?}`$. An infinite dimensional irreducible representation of this symmetry is given by baryons with the spin-isospin quantum numbers $`I=J=1/2,3/2,5/2`$, etc. The two lowest states $`I=J=1/2,3/2`$ correspond to the large $`N_c`$ analogs of the nucleon and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The baryons in the large $`N_c`$ limit arise as solitons of the non-linear chiral Lagrangian $`^\mathrm{?}`$.

## 2 The Bound State Picture

The attractiveness of the combined heavy quark and large $`N_c`$ limit can be seen in a simple model, or more precisely, the type of models that have been considered in the past $`^\mathrm{?}`$. In these models the heavy baryon is thought of as the bound state of a heavy meson and an ordinary baryon. For example, the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ baryon is thought of as bound state of $`D`$ or $`D^{}`$ meson and a nucleon. As both $`m_Q`$ and $`N_c`$ tend to infinity, the difference between the heavy quark mass, $`m_Q`$, and the heavy meson mass, $`m_H`$, as well as the difference between the brown muck mass and the nucleon mass, $`m_N`$, are suppressed by powers of $`1/N_c`$ and $`1/m_Q`$.

The combined limit is taken in such a way as to hold the ratio $`N_c\mathrm{\Lambda }/m_Q`$ constant but arbitrary (here $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ represents a typical hadronic scale of order of $`1GeV`$). In other words, the results are independent of the order in which two limits are taken. The corrections to the limiting values are given in powers of small dimensionless parameter $`\lambda `$,

$$\lambda \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{m_Q},\frac{1}{N_c}.$$
(1)
In the combined heavy quark and large $`N_c`$ limit both $`m_Q`$ and $`m_N`$ go to infinity. On the other hand, as shown by Witten $`^\mathrm{?}`$, the meson-baryon interaction is of order of $`N_c^0`$. As a result, the two heavy particles, the heavy meson and a nucleon, are bound by the potential of order unity. The lowest excitations of such a system correspond to excitations of the three dimensional harmonic oscillator with the spring constant $`\kappa `$ of order $`\lambda ^0`$ and mass $`\mu =m_Nm_Q/(m_N+m_Q)\lambda ^1`$. The energy splitting between the low-lying excited states is $`(\kappa /\mu )^{1/2}`$ which is of order $`\lambda ^{1/2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$. Hence, as $`\lambda `$ goes to infinity in the combined limit, the low-lying states become degenerate and exhibit a new symmetry. This symmetry is described by a contracted $`O(8)`$ group.

This symmetry has been shown to arise in a model-independent way in the heavy baryon sector in the combined limit $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$. This symmetry can be used to construct an effective theory in the combined limit which describes low-energy excited states of heavy baryons $`^\mathrm{?}`$. The dominant excitations in the combined limit are the harmonic modes of the collective motion of the brown muck as whole relative to the heavy quark. These excitations are of order $`\lambda ^{1/2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$ while the excitations of the brown muck (e.g. the rotation in the isospin space) are of order $`\lambda ^0\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$.

The effective Hamiltonian can be derived from QCD using the operators which excite the collective motions of the brown muck relative to the heavy quark. It turns out that the effective Hamiltonian has the form of an expansion in powers of $`\lambda ^{1/2}`$. The leading non-trivial terms exhibit a contracted $`O(8)`$ symmetry and contain one undetermined parameter corresponding to a spring constant $`\kappa `$. At next-to-leading order an additional parameter must be fit to experiment. Additional observables can be obtained from the effective expansion of the heavy baryon electroweak currents. This does not introduce any new constants at leading and next-to-leading order in $`\lambda ^{1/2}`$.

The effective theory can be used to determine a number of heavy baryon observables, namely masses of the excited states, semileptonic form factors and electromagnetic decay rates. At leading order these predictions coincide with corresponding ones obtained from bound state models. The corrections at next-to-leading order are expected to be $`𝒪(1/N_c)`$.

Here we will describe a method to obtain a combined heavy quark and large $`N_c`$ expansion of the heavy baryon electroweak current needed to calculate semileptonic form factors $`^\mathrm{?}`$.

## 3 A Combined Expansion of the Heavy Quark Currents

In HQET the $`1/m_Q`$ corrections include those that are proportional to $`m_N/m_Q`$. These corrections are suppressed in HQET. However, in the combined limit $`m_N`$ is formally of the same order as $`m_Q`$, so that the convergence of the heavy quark expansion is spoiled. Note, that the ratio $`m_N/m_Q`$ is approximately $`1/2`$ for charmed meson, which is not much smaller unity. This may have some phenomenological consequences. In fact, the effective theory in the combined limit predicts the ratio of the charm to bottom electromagnetic decay rates to be approximately $`0.2`$ at leading order while the leading order HQET value is unity $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$. It is desirable, therefore, to improve the convergence of the effective expansion in the combined limit.

The effective $`1/m_Q`$ expansion in HQET is obtained by integrating out the types of the heavy quark interactions that are $`1/m_Q`$ suppressed relative to the leading terms. One effect corresponds to the heavy quark spin interactions with the chromomagnetic field. The suppression is made explicit by splitting the heavy quark field in two parts using projection operators $`P_\pm =(1\pm \overline{)}v)/2`$. The lower components of the heavy quark field are $`1/m_Q`$ suppressed. In the combined heavy quark and large $`N_c`$ limit such suppression holds as well.

Another suppressed effect comes from the off-shell momentum of the heavy quark due to its interaction with the brown muck, $`k=pm_Qv\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$, where $`p`$ and $`v`$ are the heavy quark 4-momentum and 4-velocity. In the heavy quark limit $`p`$ and $`v`$ are almost equal to the total 4-momentum and 4-velocity of the heavy hadron. In the combined limit, however, the brown muck contribution to the total 4-momentum is formally of the same order as that of the heavy quark since $`m_Nm_Q\lambda ^1`$. Thus, it is more appropriate to define the off-shell momentum of the heavy quark as $`k=P(m_Q+m_N)v\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$, where $`P`$ is the total 4-momentum of the heavy hadron.

The suppression of the heavy quark off-shell fluctuations is made explicit in HQET by redefining a phase of the heavy quark field:

$$h_Q(x)=e^{im_Qvx}P_+Q(x),H_Q(x)=e^{im_Qvx}P_{}Q(x)$$
(2)
where $`Q(x)`$ is the total heavy quark field and $`v`$ is the 4-velocity of the heavy hadron. The operators $`P_\pm =(1\pm \overline{)}v)/2`$ project the total heavy quark field in two parts. The $`H_Q(x)`$ component is suppressed by $`1/m_Q`$ relative to $`h_Q(x)`$ which can be seen from equations of motions written in terms of these fields.

The typical 4-momentum carried by the field $`h_Q(x)`$ in the heavy hadron state is $`kMm_Q`$, where $`M`$ is the total mass of the hadron, so that in HQET $`k`$ is $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}/m_Q)`$. However, in the combined limit $`km_N\lambda ^1`$ and is not suppressed. In order to remove the brown muck contribution to the off-shell momentum one can redefine the effective fields $`h_Q(x)`$ and $`H_Q(x)`$ by changing their phases:

$`h_Q(x)`$ $``$ $`h_Q^\lambda (x)=e^{i(m_Q+m_N)vx}P_+Q(x),`$
$`H_Q(x)`$ $``$ $`H_Q^\lambda (x)=e^{i(m_Q+m_N)vx}P_{}Q(x),`$ (3)
where a superscript $`\lambda `$ indicates that effective fields $`h_Q^\lambda (x)`$ and $`H_Q^\lambda (x)`$ are used in the combined expansion. The field $`h_Q^\lambda (x)`$ defined in Eq. (3) carries a typical off-shell 4-momentum $`kM(m_Q+m_N)\lambda ^0\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$ which is suppressed in the combined limit.

The phase redefinition in Eq. (3) limits the off-shell fluctuations of the effective heavy quark fields $`h_Q^\lambda (x)`$ and $`H_Q^\lambda (x)`$. However, it can potentially spoil relative scaling of the fields $`h_Q^\lambda (x)`$ and $`H_Q^\lambda (x)`$. Indeed, using the equations of motion that follow from the heavy quark Lagrangian, $`_Q=\overline{Q}(x)\left(i\overline{)}Dm_Q\right)Q(x)`$, one sees that $`H_Q(x)(1/m_Q)h_Q(x)`$ while $`H_Q^\lambda (x)(m_N/m_Q)h_Q^\lambda (x)`$. Thus, it seems that new definition, Eq. (3), prevents the consistent elimination of $`H_Q^\lambda (x)`$ in terms of $`h_Q^\lambda (x)`$. This seeming inconsistency is resolved, however, by noting that in the combined limit the equations of motions for $`h_Q^\lambda (x)`$ and $`H_Q^\lambda (x)`$ should be obtained not from $`_Q`$ but from an effective Lagrangian that takes into account the large contribution of the brown muck.

What is this Lagrangian? The total Lagrangian has the form:

$$=_Q+_q+_{YM},$$
(4)
where $`_q`$ is the light quark Lagrangian and $`_{YM}`$ is the Yang-Mills Lagrangian for gluon fields. In the combined limit $`_q+_{YM}`$ contains a large piece corresponding to the brown muck mass $`m_N`$. This contribution can be made explicit by adding and subtracting from the total Lagrangian an effective term $`m_N\overline{Q}\overline{)}vQ`$, which contains only the heavy quark fields:

$$=(_Qm_N\overline{Q}\overline{)}vQ)+(_q+_{YM}+m_N\overline{Q}\overline{)}vQ).$$
(5)
The operator $`\overline{Q}\overline{)}vQ`$ in the heavy baryon reference frame counts the number of heavy quarks.

To obtain the correct scaling of $`h_Q^\lambda (x)`$ and $`H_Q^\lambda (x)`$ one needs to use equations of motion obtained from an effective Largangian, $`_{eff}=_Qm_N\overline{Q}\overline{)}vQ`$. Indeed, it can be shown that in this case $`H_Q^\lambda `$ is $`𝒪(\lambda h_Q^\lambda )`$ in the combined limit. As a result, $`H_Q^\lambda (x)`$ can be consistently eliminated from the effective Lagrangian, $`_{eff}`$, and heavy quark operators at each order in the combined expansion. In fact, the resulting expansion of the heavy quark current has the same form as the corresponding expansion in HQET:

$$\overline{c}\mathrm{\Gamma }b=\overline{h}_c^\lambda \mathrm{\Gamma }h_b^\lambda +\frac{1}{2m_c}\overline{h}_c^\lambda \mathrm{\Gamma }(i\overline{)}D)h_b^\lambda \frac{1}{2m_b}\overline{h}_c^\lambda \mathrm{\Gamma }(i\stackrel{}{\overline{)}D})h_b^\lambda +𝒪(\lambda ^2),$$
(6)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ gives a Dirac structure of the current.

The first term in Eq. (6) contributes $`𝒪(\lambda ^0)`$ to the heavy baryon matrix elements while the two other terms give $`𝒪(\lambda )`$ contributions. This happens because the covariant derivative brings down one power of $`k`$ which is $`𝒪(\lambda ^0)`$ if the field $`h_Q^\lambda (x)`$ is defined as in Eq. (3). In other words, the corrections proportional to $`m_N/m_Q`$ are summed to all orders.

The expansion in Eq. (6) can be used to determine the semileptonic form factors of the heavy baryons in the combined limit. The effective Hamiltonian in the combined limit has a form of expansion in powers of $`\lambda ^{1/2}`$. Hence, at leading and next-to-leading order only the first term in Eq. (6) contributes to the electroweak matrix elements. The matrix elements of this leading operator can be determined in the combined limit. They give the leading contributions to the semileptonic form factors $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ defined by $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$:

$`<\mathrm{\Lambda }_c(\stackrel{}{v}^{})|\overline{c}\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)b|\mathrm{\Lambda }_b(\stackrel{}{v})>`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Theta }\overline{u}_c\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)u_b(1+𝒪(\lambda ^{3/2})),`$ (7)
$`<\mathrm{\Lambda }_{c1}(\stackrel{}{v}^{})|\overline{c}\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)b|\mathrm{\Lambda }_b(\stackrel{}{v})>`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{3}\mathrm{\Xi }\overline{u}_c\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)u_b(1+𝒪(\lambda ^{3/2})),`$
$`<\mathrm{\Lambda }_{c1}^{}(\stackrel{}{v}^{})|\overline{c}\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)b|\mathrm{\Lambda }_b(\stackrel{}{v})>`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Xi }\overline{u}_{c\nu }(\sigma ^{\nu \mu }\gamma _5g^{\mu \nu })u_b(1+𝒪(\lambda ^{3/2})),`$
where $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{c1},\mathrm{\Lambda }_{c1}^{})`$ is a doublet of the first excited state of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ with $`J=1/2`$ and $`J=3/2`$; $`u_{c\nu }`$ is a Rarita-Schwinger spinor normalized by $`\overline{u}_{c\nu }u_c^\nu =1`$. Equations (3) are valid for the velocity transfers $`|\stackrel{}{v}^{}\stackrel{}{v}|^2`$ of order $`\lambda ^{3/2}`$.

## 4 Conclusion

We have discussed the way to obtain the combined heavy quark and large $`N_c`$ expansion for the heavy baryon electroweak currents. The definition of the effective heavy quark fields differs from the corresponding definition in HQET by a phase factor (Eq. (3)) proportional to the brown muck mass. The latter is suppressed in HQET but formally is of the same order as the heavy quark mass in the combined limit. In the combined expansion the $`m_N/m_Q`$ corrections are summed to all orders.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, under Grant No. DOE-93ER-40762-251.

## References