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IFT-P.020/2002

Conformal Field Theory for the Superstring in a Ramond-Ramond Plane Wave Background

Nathan Berkovits1 e-mail: nberkovi@ift.unesp.br

Instituto de Física Teórica, Universidade Estadual Paulista

Rua Pamplona 145, 01405-900, São Paulo, SP, Brasil

A quantizable worldsheet action is constructed for the superstring in a supersymmetric plane wave background with Ramond-Ramond flux. The action is manifestly invariant under all isometries of the background and is an exact worldsheet conformal field theory.

March 2002

1. Introduction

It has recently been recognized that the Penrose limit of the $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ background with Ramond-Ramond (R-R) flux is a supersymmetric plane wave , and the superstring in this background is described in the light-cone Green-Schwarz (GS) formalism  by a quadratic worldsheet action  . The spectrum of physical states with nonzero $`P^+`$ momentum can easily be computed using this light-cone GS action, which has been useful for checking aspects of the Maldacena conjecture . However, to compute tree amplitudes or to describe physical states with vanishing $`P^+`$ momentum, the light-cone GS formalism is problematic even in a flat background. As will be discussed below, the problems associated with light-cone gauge become even more troublesome in the plane wave background since there is no $`J^+`$ isometry. Furthermore, it would be convenient to have a quantizable worldsheet action in which all isometries of the plane wave background are manifest, and not just those isometries which commute with the light-cone gauge choice.

Although the covariant GS action  can classically describe the plane wave background in a manner which preserves all isometries, it is not known how to covariantly quantize the GS action. Over the last eight years, an alternative formalism for the superstring has been developed which can be covariantly quantized  . In a flat background, this formalism has a quadratic worldsheet action and tree amplitudes can be easily computed in a manifestly super-Poincaré covariant manner. The formalism generalizes to curved backgrounds  and was used to construct quantizable actions for the superstring in $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ , $`AdS_3\times S^3`$  , and $`AdS_2\times S^2`$  backgrounds with R-R flux.

In this paper, this alternative formalism will be used to construct a quantizable action for the superstring in the plane wave background obtained by taking the Penrose limit of these $`AdS_{\frac{D}{2}}\times S^{\frac{D}{2}}`$ backgrounds. By using the “pure spinor” or “hybrid” versions of the formalism, all isometries of the plane wave background can be made manifest. The action is not quadratic, which is not surprising since the action for the bosonic plane wave background is not quadratic when written in conformal gauge. However, the action is simpler than its $`AdS_{\frac{D}{2}}\times S^{\frac{D}{2}}`$ counterpart and can be proven to be an exact conformal field theory.

In section 2 of this paper, the limitations of the light-cone GS formalism will be discussed. In section 3, a covariantly quantizable action will be constructed for the Penrose limit of the $`AdS_5\times S^5`$, $`AdS_3\times S^3`$, and $`AdS_2\times S^2`$ backgrounds with R-R flux. And in section 4, the action will be proven to be an exact conformal field theory.

2. Limitations of the Light-Cone GS Formalism

Since the light-cone action only depends on physical worldsheet variables, the light-cone formalism for the bosonic string and superstring is the most efficient way to compute the physical spectrum at non-zero $`P^+`$ momentum. However, besides the lack of manifest covariance, there are various other drawbacks of the light-cone GS action which are not present in the covariant action.2 This section is based on several discussions with Michael Green.

One drawback is that the light-cone gauge is only well-defined when $`P^+`$ is nonzero, so the light-cone action cannot be used to obtain the spectrum at vanishing $`P^+`$ momentum. Although in a flat background, one can always rotate any state with nonzero momentum to have nonzero $`P^+`$ momentum, this is not always possible in backgrounds such as the plane wave background where $`SO(9,1)`$ covariance is absent. So the light-cone formalism in a plane wave background may be unable to describe certain non-trivial physical states.

Another drawback of the light-cone formalism which is especially problematic for the light-cone GS formalism is the explicit dependence on interaction points in the computation of scattering amplitudes. Recall that $`N`$-point tree amplitudes in light-cone gauge are computed using the Mandelstam map

$$\rho (z)=\underset{r=1}{\overset{N}{}}P_r^+\mathrm{log}(zz_r)$$

where $`\rho (z)`$ maps the complex plane into the interacting string diagram and $`P_r^+`$ is the $`P^+`$ momentum of the $`r^{th}`$ external string. For the bosonic string in light-cone gauge, interactions are described by a simple overlap integral, so scattering amplitudes can be easily computed by evaluating correlation functions of light-cone vertex operators located at $`z=z_r`$ in the complex plane, which get mapped to $`\rho =\pm \mathrm{}`$ in the string diagram.

However, for the GS superstring in light-cone gauge, interactions are not simply overlap integrals but also include an explicit operator which must be inserted at the interaction point .3 For the RNS superstring in light-cone gauge, one also needs to include an interaction point operator when using the Mandelstam map of (2.1) to describe the string diagram . However, if one instead describes the string diagram using the map $`\rho (z,\theta )=_{r=1}^NP_r^+\mathrm{log}(zz_r\theta \theta _r)`$ where $`(z,\theta )`$ parameterizes a complex “super-plane”, one can avoid interaction point operators in the light-cone RNS formalism . Using $`SU(4)\times U(1)`$ notation, this interaction point operator is

$$|x_L+x_{[\mu \nu ]}S^\mu S^\nu +\frac{1}{24}x_Rϵ_{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }S^\mu S^\nu S^\rho S^\sigma |^2$$

where $`\mu =1`$ to 4 is an $`SU(4)`$ index, $`[S^\mu ,S_\mu ]`$ and $`[\overline{S}^\nu ,\overline{S}_\nu ]`$ are the left and right-moving SO(8) spinors decomposed in terms of a $`[4_{\frac{1}{2}},\overline{4}_{\frac{1}{2}}]`$ representation of $`SU(4)\times U(1)`$, and $`[x_L,x_{[\mu \nu ]},x_R]`$ is the SO(8) vector decomposed in terms of a $`[1_1,6_0,1_1]`$ representation of $`SU(4)\times U(1)`$. For an $`N`$-point tree amplitude described by the map of (2.1), the $`N2`$ interaction point operators are located at the points $`z_\kappa `$ where

$$\frac{\rho }{z}|_{z=z_\kappa }=\underset{r=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{P_r^+}{z_\kappa z_r}=0.$$

So scattering amplitudes are computed by evaluating correlation functions which involve both light-cone vertex operators at $`z=z_r`$ and interaction point operators at $`z=z_\kappa `$. Since expressing $`z_\kappa `$ in terms of $`z_r`$ requires finding the zeros of a polynomial of degree $`N2`$, the light-cone GS formalism has not yet been used to compute tree amplitudes with more than four external strings.4 One trick  for computing light-cone GS amplitudes in a flat background is to choose a Lorentz frame in which $`P_r^+0`$ for $`r=2`$ to $`N1`$. In this “short string” limit, $`z_\kappa z_r`$ for $`r=2`$ to $`N1`$ and the interaction point operator combines with the light-cone vertex operator to give an operator which resembles the covariant vertex operator in light-cone gauge. After computing the scattering amplitude in this “short string” limit, one can then use SO(9,1) covariance to derive the amplitude for generic values of $`P_r^+`$. However, this trick does not work in the plane wave background because of the absence of SO(9,1) covariance. Furthermore, singularities occuring when interaction points collide imply that one needs to include contact terms in the light cone interaction to remove these singularities . The precise form of these light-cone contact terms has not been worked out. Note that in a covariant formalism, these problems associated with light-cone interaction point operators are not present since one can always “smooth out” the interaction point using a conformal transformation.

A third drawback of the light-cone formalism is that in backgrounds which are not invariant under the $`J^+`$ Lorentz transformation, the light-cone action is complicated when written in the complex plane. For example, in the supersymmetric plane wave background, the light-cone GS action is

$$𝒮=d^2\rho (\frac{1}{2}_\rho x^j\overline{}_{\overline{\rho }}x^j+S^a\overline{}_{\overline{\rho }}S^a+\overline{S}^a_\rho \overline{S}^a+\frac{1}{2}\mu ^2x^jx^j+2\mu S^a\sigma _{ab}^{1234}\overline{S}^b)$$

where $`\rho `$ parameterizes the interacting string diagram, $`a=1`$ to 8 is an SO(8) spinor index, and $`F^{1234}=F^{5678}=\mu `$ is the R-R flux.

Using the Mandelstam map of (2.1), the action in the complex plane is therefore

$$𝒮=d^2z(\frac{1}{2}_zx^j\overline{}_{\overline{z}}x^j+S_z^a\overline{}_{\overline{z}}S_z^a+\overline{S}_{\overline{z}}^a_z\overline{S}_{\overline{z}}^a$$

$$+\frac{\mu ^2}{2}|\underset{r=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{P_r^+}{zz_r}|^2x^jx^j+2\mu |\underset{r=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{P_r^+}{zz_r}|S_z^a\sigma _{ab}^{1234}\overline{S}_{\overline{z}}^b)$$

where $`S_z^a=(\frac{\rho }{z})^{\frac{1}{2}}S^a`$ and $`\overline{S}_{\overline{z}}^a=(\frac{\overline{\rho }}{\overline{z}})^{\frac{1}{2}}\overline{S}^a`$.5 It is interesting to note that the $`\mu `$ dependence of the action of (2.1) drops out near the light-cone interaction points $`z_\kappa `$ satisfying (2.1). This suggests that the light-cone interaction point operator in a plane wave background is the same as the light-cone interaction point operator of (2.1) in a flat background. I would like to thank Michael Green for discussions on this point. This means that the Green’s function $`G^{jk}(z,z^{})`$ for $`x^j(z)z^k(z^{})`$ in the complex plane must satisfy the complicated differential equation

$$(_z\overline{}_{\overline{z}}\mu ^2|\underset{r=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{P_r^+}{zz_r}|^2)G^{jk}(z,z^{})=\eta ^{jk}\delta ^2(zz^{}).$$

Finding a solution to (2.1) is probably no easier than computing OPE’s using a conformally invariant action which is not quadratic.

So although the quadratic action in the light-cone GS formalism is extremely useful for computing the physical spectrum at nonzero $`P^+`$ momentum, it is not convenient for describing physical states with vanishing $`P^+`$ momentum or for computing tree-level scattering amplitudes.

3. Covariant Action for the Superstring in R-R Plane Wave Background

In this section, a quantizable action will be constructed for the supersymmetic plane wave background coming from the Penrose limit of the $`AdS_5\times S^5`$, $`AdS_3\times S^3`$ and $`AdS_2\times S^2`$ backgrounds with R-R flux. Although the action will have features in common with the covariant GS action in these backgrounds, there are some important differences which allow covariant quantization.

One difference is the presence of the worldsheet variables $`d_\alpha `$ and $`\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }}`$ which play the role of conjugate momenta to the left and right-moving $`\theta ^\alpha `$ and $`\overline{\theta }^{\overline{\alpha }}`$ variables.6 Even though $`\theta ^\alpha `$ and $`\overline{\theta }^{\overline{\alpha }}`$ have the same chirality for the Type IIB superstring, it will be convenient to distinguish the spinor indices on these left and right-moving variables by using barred or unbarred indices. These conjugate momentum variables break kappa symmetry, which is replaced by BRST invariance in the $`D=10`$ version of the action and by N=2 worldsheet superconformal invariance in the $`D=6`$ and $`D=4`$ versions of the action. A second difference with the covariant GS formalism is the presence of bosonic worldsheet ghost variables. In the $`D=10`$ version of the action, these worldsheet ghosts transform as pure spinors under Lorentz transformations, while in the $`D=6`$ and $`D=4`$ versions, they are Lorentz scalars.

Since the alternative formalism for the superstring can be defined in any consistent supergravity background, it is straightforward to construct the worldsheet action in any specific background. In either the $`AdS_{\frac{D}{2}}\times S^{\frac{D}{2}}`$ background with R-R flux or its corresponding plane wave limit, the worldsheet action is

$$𝒮=𝒮_{GS}+d^2z(d_\alpha \overline{L}^\alpha +\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }}L^{\overline{\alpha }}\frac{1}{2}d_\alpha \overline{d}_{\overline{\beta }}F^{\alpha \overline{\beta }})+𝒮_{comp}+𝒮_{ghost}$$

where $`F^{m_1\mathrm{}m_{\frac{D}{2}}}`$ is the constant $`\frac{D}{2}`$-form self-dual Ramond-Ramond flux and $`F^{\alpha \overline{\beta }}=`$ $`\frac{1}{(\frac{D}{2})!}F^{m_1\mathrm{}m_{\frac{D}{2}}}(\gamma _{m_1\mathrm{}m_{\frac{D}{2}}})^{\alpha \overline{\beta }}`$.

The first term $`𝒮_{GS}`$ in (3.1) is the standard covariant GS action

$$𝒮_{GS}=d^2z[\frac{1}{2}\eta _{mn}L^m\overline{L}^n+𝑑yϵ^{IJK}(\gamma _{m\alpha \beta }L_I^mL_J^\alpha L_K^\beta +\gamma _{m\overline{\alpha }\overline{\beta }}L_I^mL_J^{\overline{\alpha }}L_K^{\overline{\beta }})]$$

constructed using the Metsaev-Tseytlin currents

$$G^1G=P_mL^m+Q_\alpha L^\alpha +Q_{\overline{\alpha }}L^{\overline{\alpha }}+\frac{1}{2}J_{mn}L^{mn},$$

$$G^1\overline{}G=P_m\overline{L}^m+Q_\alpha \overline{L}^\alpha +Q_{\overline{\alpha }}\overline{L}^{\overline{\alpha }}+\frac{1}{2}J_{mn}\overline{L}^{mn},$$

where $`G(x^m,\theta ^\alpha ,\overline{\theta }^{\overline{\alpha }})=\mathrm{exp}(x^mP_m+\theta ^\alpha Q_\alpha +\overline{\theta }^{\overline{\alpha }}Q_{\overline{\alpha }})`$, $`[x^m,\theta ^\alpha ,\overline{\theta }^{\overline{\alpha }}]`$ are $`N=2`$ $`D`$-dimensional superspace variables7 In $`D=6`$, the action of (3.1) uses the hybrid superstring formalism with eight $`\theta `$’s and eight $`\overline{\theta }`$’s. As discussed in , the $`D=6`$ action of  using the hybrid superstring formalism with four $`\theta `$’s and four $`\overline{\theta }`$’s can be obtained from (3.1) by using the “harmonic” constraint to gauge away $`(\theta ^{\alpha 2},\overline{\theta }^{\overline{\alpha }2})`$ and to replace $`(d_{\alpha 2},\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }2})`$ with $`(d_{\alpha 1}e^{\rho i\sigma },\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }1}e^{\overline{\rho }i\overline{\sigma }})`$. with $`m=0`$ to $`D1`$ and $`[\alpha ,\overline{\alpha }]=1`$ to $`(2D4)`$, the generators $`[P_m,Q_\alpha ,Q_{\overline{\alpha }},J_{mn}]`$ form a super-Lie algebra with the commutation relations

$$[P^m,P^n]=\frac{1}{2}R^{mnpq}J_{pq},\{Q_\alpha ,Q_\beta \}=2\gamma _{\alpha \beta }^mP_m,\{Q_{\overline{\alpha }},Q_{\overline{\beta }}\}=2\gamma _{\overline{\alpha }\overline{\beta }}^mP_m,$$

$$[Q_\alpha ,P^m]=\gamma _{\alpha \beta }^mF^{\beta \overline{\gamma }}Q_{\overline{\gamma }},[Q_{\overline{\alpha }},P^m]=\gamma _{\overline{\alpha }\overline{\beta }}^mF^{\gamma \overline{\beta }}Q_\gamma ,\{Q_\alpha ,Q_{\overline{\gamma }}\}=\frac{1}{2}J_{[mn]}\gamma _{\alpha \beta }^mF^{\beta \overline{\delta }}\gamma _{\overline{\delta }\overline{\gamma }}^n,$$

$`J_{mn}`$ generate the usual Lorentz algebra, $`R^{mnpq}`$ is the spacetime curvature which is related to $`F^{\alpha \overline{\beta }}`$ by the identity

$$R^{mnpq}(\gamma _{pq})_\alpha ^\beta =\gamma _{\alpha \gamma }^mF^{\gamma \overline{\delta }}\gamma _{\overline{\delta }\overline{\kappa }}^nF^{\beta \overline{\kappa }}\gamma _{\alpha \gamma }^nF^{\gamma \overline{\delta }}\gamma _{\overline{\delta }\overline{\kappa }}^mF^{\beta \overline{\kappa }},$$

$`\gamma _{\alpha \beta }^m`$ and $`\gamma _{\overline{\alpha }\overline{\beta }}^m`$ are $`(2D4)\times (2D4)`$ symmetric $`\gamma `$-matrices, and $`𝑑yϵ^{IJK}(\gamma _{m\alpha \beta }L_I^mL_J^\alpha L_K^\beta +\gamma _{m\overline{\alpha }\overline{\beta }}L_I^mL_J^{\overline{\alpha }}L_K^{\overline{\beta }})`$ is the Wess-Zumino term which is constructed such that $`𝒮_{GS}`$ is invariant under $`\kappa `$-symmetry. Under $`G\mathrm{\Omega }GH`$ for global $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and local $`H`$, the currents $`G^1G`$ are invariant up to a tangent-space Lorentz rotation using the standard coset construction where $`[P_m,Q_\alpha ,Q_{\overline{\alpha }},J_{mn}]`$ are the generators in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`J_{mn}`$ are the generators in $`H`$. So as long as the action is constructed from Lorentz-invariant combinations of currents, the action is invariant under the global target-space isometries generated by $`[P_m,Q_\alpha ,Q_{\overline{\alpha }},J_{mn}]`$. Note that because the R-R field-strength is self-dual, only $`(3D10)`$ of the $`\frac{1}{2}D(D1)`$ Lorentz generators $`J_{mn}`$ appear in (3.1). So only $`(3D10)`$ of the $`L^{mn}`$ currents are nonzero in (3.1).

The terms $`d_\alpha \overline{L}^\alpha `$ and $`\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }}L^{\overline{\alpha }}`$ in (3.1) break kappa symmetry but allow quantization since they imply non-vanishing propagators for $`\theta ^\alpha `$ and $`\overline{\theta }^{\overline{\alpha }}`$. And the term $`\frac{1}{2}d_\alpha \overline{d}_{\overline{\beta }}F^{\alpha \overline{\beta }}`$ comes from the R-R vertex operator and implies that certain components of $`d_\alpha `$ and $`\overline{d}_{\overline{\beta }}`$ are auxiliary fields. For the $`D=10`$ background, the term $`𝒮_{comp}`$ is absent, while for the $`D=6`$ and $`D=4`$ backgrounds, $`𝒮_{comp}`$ is the action for an $`N=2`$ $`c=\frac{3}{2}(10D)`$ superconformal field theory which describes the $`(10D)`$-dimensional compactification manifold.

Finally, $`𝒮_{ghost}`$ describes the action for the worldsheet ghosts. This action is non-trivial in the $`D=10`$ background since the $`D=10`$ ghosts transform under Lorentz transformations and therefore couple through their Lorentz currents to the spacetime connection and curvature of the background. In $`D=10`$, this ghost action is

$$𝒮_{ghost}=d^2z[_{ghost}^{flat}+\frac{1}{2}N_{mn}\overline{L}^{mn}+\frac{1}{2}\overline{N}_{mn}L^{mn}+\frac{1}{4}N_{mn}\overline{N}_{pq}R^{mnpq}]$$

where $`_{ghost}^{flat}`$ is the free Lagrangian in a flat background for the left and right-moving worldsheet ghosts $`(\lambda ^\alpha ,w_\alpha )`$ and $`(\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{\alpha }},\overline{w}_{\overline{\alpha }})`$, $`\lambda ^\alpha `$ and $`\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{\alpha }}`$ are pure spinors satisfying $`\lambda \gamma ^m\lambda =\overline{\lambda }\gamma ^m\overline{\lambda }=0`$ for $`m=0`$ to 9, $`w_\alpha `$ and $`\overline{w}_{\overline{\alpha }}`$ are their conjugate momenta, $`N_{mn}=\frac{1}{2}\lambda \gamma _{mn}w`$ and $`\overline{N}_{mn}=\frac{1}{2}\overline{\lambda }\gamma _{mn}\overline{w}`$ are their left and right-moving Lorentz currents, and $`R^{mnpq}`$ is the target-space curvature tensor. Note that $`𝒮_{ghost}`$ is invariant under local tangent-space Lorentz rotations, which is necessary for the action to be well-defined on the coset superspace described by $`G(x,\theta ,\overline{\theta })`$. In the $`D=6`$ and $`D=4`$ actions, the worldsheet ghosts are Lorentz scalars so their Lorentz currents vanish and $`𝒮_{ghost}=𝒮_{ghost}^{flat}`$.

The various terms in (3.1) have been chosen such that the $`D=10`$ action is BRST invariant and such that the $`D=6`$ and $`D=4`$ actions are N=2 worldsheet superconformally invariant. To check these invariances at the classical level, it is useful to compute the equations of motion for $`d_\alpha `$ and $`\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }}`$.

Suppose one varies $`Z^M=[x^m,\theta ^\alpha ,\overline{\theta }^{\overline{\alpha }}]`$ such that $`E_M^\alpha \delta Z^M=\rho ^\alpha `$, $`E_M^{\overline{\alpha }}\delta Z^M=\overline{\rho }^{\overline{\alpha }}`$, and $`E_M^m\delta Z^M=0`$ where $`L^\alpha =E_M^\alpha Z^M`$, $`L^{\overline{\alpha }}=E_M^{\overline{\alpha }}Z^M`$, $`L^m=E_M^mZ^M`$, and $`[L^\alpha ,L^{\overline{\alpha }},L^m]`$ are defined in (3.1). Then the covariant GS action $`𝒮_{GS}`$ transforms as

$$\delta 𝒮_{GS}=2\rho ^\alpha L^m\gamma _{m\alpha \beta }\overline{L}^\beta +2\overline{\rho }^{\overline{\alpha }}\overline{L}^m\gamma _{m\overline{\alpha }\overline{\beta }}L^{\overline{\beta }}.$$

The transformation of (3.1) is related to kappa symmetry since when $`\rho ^\alpha =\kappa _\beta L^m\gamma _m^{\alpha \beta }`$ and $`\overline{\rho }^{\overline{\alpha }}=\overline{\kappa }_{\overline{\beta }}L^m\gamma _m^{\overline{\alpha }\overline{\beta }}`$, $`\delta 𝒮_{GS}`$ is proportional to the Virasoro constraints $`\eta _{mn}L^mL^n`$ and $`\eta _{mn}\overline{L}^m\overline{L}^n`$.

Furthermore, the commutation relations of (3.1) imply that

$$\delta L^\alpha =\rho ^\alpha +\frac{1}{4}(\gamma ^{mn})_\beta ^\alpha L_{mn}\rho ^\beta +F^{\alpha \overline{\beta }}\gamma _{\overline{\beta }\overline{\gamma }}^mL_m\overline{\rho }^{\overline{\gamma }},$$

$$\delta L^{\overline{\alpha }}=\overline{\rho }^{\overline{\alpha }}+\frac{1}{4}(\gamma ^{mn})_{\overline{\beta }}^{\overline{\alpha }}L_{mn}\overline{\rho }^{\overline{\beta }}F^{\beta \overline{\alpha }}\gamma _{\beta \gamma }^mL_m\rho ^\gamma ,$$

$$\delta L^{mn}=(\gamma ^{[m}F\gamma ^{n]})_{\beta \overline{\gamma }}\rho ^\beta L^{\overline{\gamma }}+(\gamma ^{[m}F\gamma ^{n]})_{\beta \overline{\gamma }}L^\beta \overline{\rho }^{\overline{\gamma }}$$

where $`(\gamma ^{[m}F\gamma ^{n]})_{\alpha \overline{\delta }}=\frac{1}{2}(\gamma _{\alpha \beta }^mF^{\beta \overline{\gamma }}\gamma _{\overline{\gamma }\overline{\delta }}^n\gamma _{\alpha \beta }^nF^{\beta \overline{\gamma }}\gamma _{\overline{\gamma }\overline{\delta }}^m).`$

So by varying $`\rho ^\alpha `$ and $`\overline{\rho }^{\overline{\alpha }}`$, one obtains the equations of motion

$$\overline{}d_\alpha =2\gamma _{\alpha \beta }^mL_m\overline{L}^\beta +\frac{1}{4}d_\beta (\gamma _{mn})_\alpha ^\beta \overline{L}^{mn}\overline{d}_{\overline{\beta }}F^{\gamma \overline{\beta }}\gamma _{\gamma \alpha }^mL_m+\frac{1}{2}(\gamma ^{[m}F\gamma ^{n]})_{\alpha \overline{\gamma }}(N_{mn}\overline{L}^{\overline{\gamma }}+\overline{N}_{mn}L^{\overline{\gamma }}),$$

$$\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }}=2\gamma _{\overline{\alpha }\overline{\beta }}^m\overline{L}_mL^{\overline{\beta }}+\frac{1}{4}\overline{d}_{\overline{\beta }}(\gamma _{mn})_{\overline{\alpha }}^{\overline{\beta }}L^{mn}+d_\beta F^{\beta \overline{\gamma }}\gamma _{\overline{\gamma }\overline{\alpha }}^m\overline{L}_m\frac{1}{2}(\gamma ^{[m}F\gamma ^{n]})_{\gamma \overline{\alpha }}(N_{mn}\overline{L}^\gamma +\overline{N}_{mn}L^\gamma ).$$

Plugging into (3.1) the equations of motion $`\overline{L}^\alpha =\frac{1}{2}F^{\alpha \overline{\beta }}\overline{d}_{\overline{\beta }}`$ and $`L^{\overline{\alpha }}=\frac{1}{2}F^{\beta \overline{\alpha }}d_\beta `$ which come from varying $`d_\alpha `$ and $`\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }}`$, one finds

$$\overline{}d_\alpha =\frac{1}{2}(\gamma ^{[m}F\gamma ^{n]})_{\alpha \overline{\gamma }}(N_{mn}\overline{L}^{\overline{\gamma }}\frac{1}{2}\overline{N}_{mn}F^{\delta \overline{\gamma }}d_\delta ),$$

$$\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }}=\frac{1}{2}(\gamma ^{[m}F\gamma ^{n]})_{\gamma \overline{\alpha }}(\frac{1}{2}N_{mn}F^{\gamma \overline{\delta }}\overline{d}_{\overline{\delta }}+\overline{N}_{mn}L^\gamma ),$$

where the spin connections in the covariantized derivatives $``$ and $`\overline{}`$ are $`L^{mn}`$ and $`\overline{L}^{mn}`$.

When $`D=10`$, BRST invariance implies that the left and right-moving BRST operators, $`\lambda ^\alpha d_\alpha `$ and $`\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{\alpha }}\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }}`$, must be holomorphic and antiholomorphic. To check that this is implied by (3.1), note that the equations of motion of $`\lambda ^\alpha `$ and $`\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{\alpha }}`$ coming from (3.1) are

$$\overline{}\lambda ^\alpha =\frac{1}{8}R^{mnpq}(\gamma _{mn})_\beta ^\alpha \lambda ^\beta \overline{N}_{pq},$$

$$\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{\alpha }}=\frac{1}{8}R^{mnpq}(\gamma _{pq})_{\overline{\beta }}^{\overline{\alpha }}\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{\beta }}N_{mn}.$$

So (3.1) and (3.1), together with the identity of (3.1), imply that

$$\overline{}(\lambda ^\alpha d_\alpha )=\frac{1}{2}\lambda ^\alpha (\gamma ^{[m}F\gamma ^{n]})_{\alpha \overline{\gamma }}N_{mn}\overline{L}^{\overline{\gamma }},$$

$$(\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{\alpha }}\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }})=\frac{1}{2}\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{\alpha }}(\gamma ^{[m}F\gamma ^{n]})_{\gamma \overline{\alpha }}N_{mn}L^\gamma .$$

Since $`N_{mn}=\frac{1}{2}(\lambda \gamma _{mn}w)`$ and $`\lambda ^\alpha \lambda ^\beta `$ is proportional to $`(\lambda \gamma ^{pqrst}\lambda )(\gamma _{pqrst})^{\alpha \beta }`$, the right-hand side of (3.1) is proportional to $`\gamma _{mn}\gamma _{pqrst}\gamma ^{[m}F\gamma ^{n]}`$. But since $`\gamma _m\gamma _{pqrst}\gamma ^m=0`$, one finds that

$$\gamma _{mn}\gamma _{pqrst}\gamma ^{[m}F\gamma ^{n]}=\gamma _{pqrst}\gamma ^nF\gamma _n=\gamma _{pqrst}\gamma ^n\gamma _{uvwxy}\gamma _nF^{uvwxy}=0.$$

So $`\overline{}(\lambda ^\alpha d_\alpha )=(\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{\alpha }}\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }})=0`$ as desired.

When $`D=4`$ and $`D=6`$, N=2 worldsheet superconformal invariance implies that the left and right-moving superconformal generators must be holomorphic and antiholomorphic. In these actions, (3.1) implies that $`\overline{}d_\alpha =\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }}=0`$ since $`N_{mn}`$ and $`\overline{N}_{mn}`$ vanish. And since the left and right-moving N=2 superconformal constraints in the $`D=4`$ and $`D=6`$ formalisms are constructed out of Lorentz-invariant combinations of $`d_\alpha `$ and $`\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }}`$, (3.1) implies that these constraints are holomorphic and antiholomorphic.

Up to now, the analysis of the action for the Ramond-Ramond plane wave background has been identical to the analysis of the action for the $`AdS_{\frac{D}{2}}\times S^{\frac{D}{2}}`$ background. The only difference between the backgrounds is that the $`(2D4)\times (2D4)`$ matrix $`F^{\alpha \overline{\beta }}`$ is invertible for the $`AdS_{\frac{D}{2}}\times S^{\frac{D}{2}}`$ background, whereas $`F^{\alpha \overline{\beta }}`$ is not invertible and has rank $`D2`$ for the R-R plane wave background. However, as will now be shown, this difference considerably simplifies the quantum analysis of the action in the R-R plane wave background. Although the $`AdS_{\frac{D}{2}}\times S^{\frac{D}{2}}`$ action has only been proven to be conformally invariant at the one-loop level8 For the $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ action, one-loop conformal invariance has not yet been proven for the ghost contribution (3.1) to the action. For the “harmonic” version of the $`AdS_3\times S^3`$ action in , exact conformal invariance has been proven., it will be possible to prove exact conformal invariance for the action in a Ramond-Ramond plane wave background.

4. Conformal Invariance of the Action in an R-R Plane Wave Background

In a Ramond-Ramond plane wave background, the only nonzero components of the self-dual field strength are $`F^{j_1\mathrm{}j_{\frac{(D2)}{2}}}`$ where $`j`$ ranges over the light-cone directions $`j=1`$ to $`(D2)`$. It is convenient to split the $`SO(D1,1)`$ spinor representation labeled by $`\alpha `$ and $`\overline{\alpha }`$ into $`SO(D2)`$ representations labeled by $`(a,a^{})`$ and $`(\overline{a},\overline{a}^{})`$ where $`(a,a^{},\overline{a},\overline{a}^{})`$ range from 1 to $`(D2)`$. Using this notation,

$$(\gamma ^{})_{ab}=\delta _{ab},(\gamma ^{})_{a^{}b^{}}=0,(\gamma ^+)_{ab}=0,(\gamma ^+)_{a^{}b^{}}=\delta _{a^{}b^{}},$$

$$(\gamma ^{})_{\overline{a}\overline{b}}=\delta _{\overline{a}\overline{b}},(\gamma ^{})_{\overline{a}^{}\overline{b}^{}}=0,(\gamma ^+)_{\overline{a}\overline{b}}=0,(\gamma ^+)_{\overline{a}^{}\overline{b}^{}}=\delta _{\overline{a}^{}\overline{b}^{}}.$$

Since $`F^{a\overline{b}^{}}=F^{a^{}\overline{b}^{}}=F^{a^{}\overline{b}}=0`$, the commutation relations of (3.1) imply that

$$[P^{},P^j]=\mu ^2J^{+j},\{Q_a,Q_b\}=2P^+\delta _{ab},\{Q_{\overline{a}},Q_{\overline{b}}\}=2P^+\delta _{\overline{a}\overline{b}},$$

$$[P^{},Q_a]=\delta _{ab}F^{b\overline{c}}Q_{\overline{c}},[P^{},Q_{\overline{a}}]=\delta _{\overline{a}\overline{b}}F^{c\overline{b}}Q_c,$$

where $`\mu ^2=F^{a\overline{b}}F^{c\overline{d}}\delta _{ac}\delta _{\overline{b}\overline{d}}`$. Therefore, $`[Q_a^{},Q_{\overline{a}^{}},J_{jk}]`$ are never created from commutators of $`[P_m,Q_a,Q_{\overline{a}}]`$. So $`[L^a^{},L^{\overline{a}^{}},L^{jk}]`$ in (3.1) only depend on $`(\theta ^a^{},\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}^{}})`$ and are independent of $`(x^m,\theta ^a,\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}})`$. This implies that if $`\theta ^a^{}`$ and $`\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}^{}}`$ are defined to carry charge $`+1`$ and $`d_a^{}`$ and $`\overline{d}_{\overline{a}^{}}`$ are defined to carry charge $`1`$, all terms in the action of (3.1) carry non-negative charge.

The term with zero charge in (3.1) is

$$𝒮_{(0)}=𝒮_{GS}|_{\theta ^a^{}=\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}^{}}=0}+d^2z(d_a\overline{L}_{(0)}^a+d_a^{}\overline{}\theta ^a^{}+\overline{d}_{\overline{a}}L_{(0)}^{\overline{a}}+\overline{d}_{\overline{a}^{}}\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}^{}}\frac{1}{2}d_a\overline{d}_{\overline{b}}F^{a\overline{b}})$$

$$+S_{comp}+d^2z[_{ghost}^{flat}+N_j\overline{L}_{(0)}^j+\overline{N}_jL_{(0)}^j+N_jN_k\eta ^{jk}]$$

where $`[L_{(0)}^m,L_{(0)}^a,L_{(0)}^{\overline{a}},L_{(0)}^j]`$= $`[L^m,L^a,L^{\overline{a}},L^j]|_{\theta ^a^{}=\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}^{}}=0}.`$ Also, at $`\theta ^a^{}=\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}^{}}=0`$, one can use the commutation relations of (3.1) to show that the Wess-Zumino term in (3.1) simplifies to $`\frac{1}{2}(\overline{L}_{(0)}^aL_{(0)}^{\overline{b}}L_{(0)}^a\overline{L}_{(0)}^{\overline{b}})F_{a\overline{b}}^1`$ where $`F_{a\overline{b}}^1`$ is the inverse to the $`(D2)\times (D2)`$ matrix $`F^{a\overline{b}}`$. So one can write

$$𝒮_{GS}|_{\theta ^a^{}=\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}^{}}=0}=d^2z[\frac{1}{2}\eta _{mn}L_{(0)}^mL_{(0)}^n+\frac{1}{2}F_{a\overline{b}}^1(\overline{L}_{(0)}^aL_{(0)}^{\overline{b}}L_{(0)}^a\overline{L}_{(0)}^{\overline{b}})].$$

After integrating out $`d_a`$ and $`\overline{d}_{\overline{a}}`$, one obtains the action

$$𝒮_{(0)}=d^2z[\frac{1}{2}\eta _{mn}L^m\overline{L}^n\frac{1}{2}F_{a\overline{b}}^1(3\overline{L}_{(0)}^aL_{(0)}^{\overline{b}}+L_{(0)}^a\overline{L}_{(0)}^{\overline{b}})$$

$$+d_a^{}\overline{}\theta ^a^{}+\overline{d}_{\overline{a}^{}}\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}^{}}+_{ghost}^{flat}+N_j\overline{L}_{(0)}^j+\overline{N}_jL_{(0)}^j+N_jN_k\eta ^{jk}]+𝒮_{comp}.$$

As will now be shown, $`𝒮_{(0)}`$ is conformally invariant. This can be used to prove conformal invariance of the action of (3.1) since all terms with positive charge in (3.1) are related to $`S_{(0)}`$ by isometries of the action. In other words, the global isometries of the background imply that the action is constructed from the currents of (3.1) in combinations which are invariant under tangent-space Lorentz transformations. These combinations are

$$\eta _{mn}L^m\overline{L}^n,𝑑yϵ^{IJK}(\gamma _{m\alpha \beta }L_I^mL_J^\alpha L_K^\beta +\gamma _{m\overline{\alpha }\overline{\beta }}L_I^mL_J^{\overline{\alpha }}L_K^{\overline{\beta }}),d_\alpha \overline{L}^\alpha ,\overline{d}_{\overline{\alpha }}L^{\overline{\alpha }},$$

$$d_\alpha \overline{d}_{\overline{\beta }}F^{\alpha \overline{\beta }},N_{mn}\overline{N}_{pq}R^{mnpq},_{ghost}^{flat}+\frac{1}{2}(N_{mn}\overline{L}^{mn}+\overline{N}_{mn}L^{mn}),$$

and only the coefficients in front of the various combinations can be adjusted without breaking the isometries. However, the coefficients are determined once one knows $`S_{(0)}`$, so if $`S_{(0)}`$ is conformally invariant, the entire action of (3.1) is conformally invariant.

To show that $`S_{(0)}`$ is conformally invariant, note that the first line of (4.1) has precisely the $`G/H`$ coset space structure discussed in  where $`_0=J^{+j}`$, $`_1=Q_a`$, $`_2=P^m`$, and $`_3=Q_{\overline{a}}`$. Using the analysis of , one can therefore prove that the first line of (4.1) is one-loop conformally invariant. Furthermore, one can prove the exact conformal invariance of $`𝒮_{(0)}`$ by computing the currents

$$G^1G=P_mL_{(0)}^m+Q_aL_{(0)}^a+Q_{\overline{a}}L_{(0)}^{\overline{a}}+J_jL_{(0)}^j$$

where $`G(x^m,\theta ^a,\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}})=\mathrm{exp}(x^+P^{})\mathrm{exp}(x^{}P^++x^jP^j+\theta ^aQ_a+\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}}Q_{\overline{a}})`$. One finds that

$$𝒮_{(0)}=d^2z[\frac{1}{2}x^m\overline{}x_m2F_{a\overline{b}}^1\theta ^a\overline{}\overline{\theta }^{\overline{b}}+\frac{1}{2}x^+\overline{}x^+\mu ^2x^jx^j$$

$$+x^+\delta _{ab}\theta ^a\overline{}\theta ^b+\overline{}x^+\delta _{\overline{a}\overline{b}}\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}}\overline{\theta }^{\overline{b}}+d_a^{}\overline{}\theta ^a^{}+\overline{d}_{\overline{a}^{}}\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}^{}}+_{ghost}^{flat}$$

$$+\mu ^2(x^j(\lambda ^b^{}\sigma _j^{ac^{}}\delta _{b^{}c^{}}w_a\overline{}x^++\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{b}^{}}\sigma _j^{\overline{a}\overline{c}^{}}\delta _{\overline{b}^{}\overline{c}^{}}\overline{w}_{\overline{a}}x^+)+(\lambda ^b^{}\sigma _j^{ac^{}}\delta _{b^{}c^{}}w_a)(\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{b}^{}}\sigma ^{j\overline{a}\overline{c}^{}}\delta _{\overline{b}^{}\overline{c}^{}}\overline{w}_{\overline{a}}))]+𝒮_{comp}.$$

By separating the worldsheet variables in (4.1) into background values and quantum variables, and integrating over the quantum variables, one computes the quantum effective action. Since $`[x^{},\lambda ^a,w_a^{},\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{a}},\overline{w}_{\overline{a}^{}}]`$ appear in the quadratic part of (4.1) but do not appear in the vertices, the variables $`[x^+,w_a,\lambda ^a^{},\overline{w}_{\overline{a}},\overline{\lambda }^{\overline{a}^{}}]`$ can be set to their background value in the vertices of (4.1). After doing this, all quantum variables appear at most quadratically in (4.1), which means they can only give a one-loop contribution to the effective action. This one-loop contribution is easily computed to vanish where the $`x^+`$ dependence cancels after integrating over the $`x^j`$ and $`[\theta ^a,\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}}]`$ quantum variables, and the central charge cancels for the same reason as in a flat background.

It has therefore been proven that the action of (3.1) for the superstring in an R-R plane wave background is an exact conformal field theory. It would be interesting to try to use this conformal field theory to compute scattering amplitudes. Since this conformally invariant action does not require interaction point operators, the amplitude computations might be simpler than using the light-cone gauge action. Although the action of (3.1) is more complicated than the quadratic light-cone action, there might be certain amplitude computations in which “charge conservation” of the $`(\theta ^a^{},\overline{\theta }^{\overline{a}^{}})`$ variables implies that the complicated action of (3.1) can be replaced by the simpler action of (4.1).

Acknowledgements:

NB would like to thank Chris Hull, Juan Maldacena, Arkady Tseytlin, and especially Michael Green for useful discussions, the Newton Institute for their hospitality, and CNPq grant 300256/94-9, Pronex grant 66.2002/1998-9 and FAPESP grant 99/12763-0 for partial financial support. This research was partially conducted during the period that NB was employed by the Clay Mathematics Institute as a CMI Prize Fellow.

References

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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Recently Hochberg and Visser  have investigated in detail the null energy conditions for wormholes  in the totally skew symmetric torsioned spacetime where torsion is proportional to Kalb-Ramond fields of closed strings of low-energy physics.They showed that the presence of KR fields insteat of allowing the energy condition violations be dumped into torsion degrees of freedom they worsen the WEC and do not collaborate to the wormhole throat stability but helps to collapse it. In this paper we show that in fact this analysis would not be necessary since static spherically symmetric KR wormholes are forbidden in torsioned spacetime since torsion vanishes not only locally in the wormhole throat but actually torsion vanishes globally in wormhole spacetime. This simple proof is obtained by making use based on the recently obtained result by SenGupta and his group  which show that static spherically symmetric Kalb-Ramond geometry like Scharzschild metric can be obtained. Actually one can say that wormholes of anytype are forbidden in KR torsioned spacetimes since as pointed out recently by SenGupta and myself  there are no time dependent solutions of ECKR gravity field equations. The proof is straightforward and comes from the ECKR system

$$e^\lambda (\frac{1}{r^2}\frac{\lambda ^{}}{r})\frac{1}{r^2}=k(h_1h^1+h_2h^2+h_3h^3h_4h^4)$$
(1)
$$e^\lambda (\frac{1}{r^2}\frac{\nu ^{}}{r})\frac{1}{r^2}=k(h_1h^1+h_2h^2h_3h^3+h_4h^4)$$
(2)
$$e^\lambda (\nu \mathrm{"}+\frac{\nu _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2}\frac{\nu ^{}\lambda ^{}}{2}+\frac{\nu ^{}\lambda ^{}}{r})e^\nu (\ddot{\lambda }+\frac{\dot{\lambda }^2}{2}\frac{\dot{\lambda }\dot{\nu }}{2})=2k(h_1h^1h_2h^2+h_3h^3+h_4h^4)$$
(3)
$$e^\lambda (\nu \mathrm{"}+\frac{\nu _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2}\frac{\nu ^{}\lambda ^{}}{2}+\frac{\nu ^{}\lambda ^{}}{r})e^\nu (\ddot{\lambda }+\frac{\dot{\lambda }^2}{2}\frac{\dot{\lambda }\dot{\nu }}{2})=2k(h_1h^1+h_2h^2+h_3h^3+h_4h^4)$$
(4)
where we use the spherically symmetric geometry

$$ds^2=e^{\nu (r,t)}dt^2e^{\lambda (r,t)}dr^2r^2(d\theta ^2+sin^2\theta d\varphi ^2)$$
(5)
and the remaining conditions on the ECKR gravity field are

$$e^\lambda \frac{\lambda }{r}=2kh_3h^4$$
(6)
$$h_2h^4=h_1h^4=h_2h^3=h_1h^2=h_3h^1=0$$
(7)
Here $`H_{\mu \nu \eta }=_{[\mu }B_{\nu \eta ]}`$ is the strenght of the KR field $`B_{\mu \nu }`$. The KR field strenght components $`H_{012},H_{013},H_{023}`$ and $`H_{123}`$ are respectively denoted by $`h_1`$,$`h_2`$,$`h_3`$ and $`h_4`$. Since the LHS of equations (3) and (4) are identical from expressions (7) one obtains

$$h_1=h_2=0$$
(8)
with this great simplification the KR field equations  read

$$h^3,_3=h^4,_4=0$$
(9)
which means that both KR fields are not dependent of the coordinate $`\varphi `$ and finally the remaining KR field equations are

$$h^3,_2+cot\theta h^3=0$$
(10)
and

$$h^4,_1+(\frac{\nu ^{}+\lambda ^{}}{2}+\frac{2}{r})h^4=0$$
(11)
and

$$h^4,_2+cot\theta h^4=0$$
(12)
The purely space dependent metric imply that the metric coefficients $`\nu `$ and $`\lambda `$ depend on the radial coordinate r. We consider here just the case where $`h_4=0`$ and only $`h_3`$ component survives since the converse has been proved by SenGupta and Sur  to be unphysical in the sense that torsion would give a finite value as the radial coordinate r approaches infinity.Therefore as shown by SenGupta and Sur  the solution is given by

$$e^\lambda =(1+\frac{c_1}{r}+\frac{\tau r}{r})^1$$
(13)
and

$$e^\nu =\frac{c_2}{r(r+\tau +c_1)}exp[\frac{2dr}{r+\tau +c_1}]$$
(14)
To apply the SenGupta-Sur solution to a static wormhole let us consider a general wormhole spacetime  line element given by

$$ds^2=e^{2\varphi (r,t)}dt^2\frac{dr^2}{(1\frac{b(r)}{r})}r^2(d\theta ^2+sin^2\theta d\varphi ^2)$$
(15)
This is the Morris-Thorne wormhole , where $`b(r)`$ is the wormhole throat parameter which vanishes when the wormhole throat collapses and

$$\tau (r)=kr^2h^2(r)𝑑r$$
(16)
Since as shown by SenGupta and Sur  $`h(r)=\frac{\beta }{r^2}`$ by comparing the solutions (13) and (15) one obtains

$$e^\lambda =(1+\frac{c_1}{r}\frac{\beta }{r^2})$$
(17)
and

$$c_1r+\beta =\beta (r)$$
(18)
where we have computing $`\tau `$ by from the integral (16) and the value of $`h^2`$ yielding $`\tau =\frac{\beta }{r}`$.Here $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$ are integration constants. By applying the traversable wormhole condition

$$b(r_0)=r_0$$
(19)
at the wormhole throat into the condition (18) one obtains

$$b(r_0)=c_1r_0+\beta $$
(20)
which yields the following conditions

$$c_1=1$$
(21)
and

$$\beta =0$$
(22)
Since $`\beta `$ is a constant this result is not only a local result valid only at the wormhole throat but is actually a global result valid thoughout spacetime. Of course this also means that the only nonvanishing KR field strenght component $`h_3`$ vanishes. These last two constraints on the solution yields do not means that there are no torsioned wormholes at all but that there are no KR wormholes at all but that there are no spherically symmetric KR wormholes time dependent or not. Actually cosmological torsioned KR wormholes or Kerr wormholes could be found in ECKR theory of gravity. This investigation is now under progress.

## Acknowledgement

I am very much indebt to Prof. Soumitra SenGupta ,Prof. K.S. Thorne and Prof. Matt Visser for helpful discussions on the subject of this paper. Financial support from CNPq. and UERJ are gratefully ackowledged.


text:
# Supermassive Black Hole Masses of AGNs with Elliptical Hosts

## 1 Introduction

The masses of central black holes (MBH) in about 40 nearby galaxies have been recently obtained using the stellar and gas dynamics methods by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) (for a recent review see Kormendy & Gebhardt 2001). A tight correlation between black hole mass and bulge velocity dispersion ($`\sigma `$) has been found for nearby galaxies (Gebhardt et al. 2000a; Ferrarese & Merritt 2000). With the reverberation mapping technique (Netzer & Peterson 1997), the supermassive black hole (SMBH) masses of about 20 Seyfert 1 galaxies (Wandel, Peterson & Malkan 1999; Ho 1999) and 20 nearby quasars (Kaspi et al. 2000) were estimated based on a virial assumption about the dynamics of the broad line region of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). Interestingly, the black hole masses derived for a few Seyfert galaxies with measured central velocity dispersions of their host galaxies follow the same MBH-$`\sigma `$ relation as nearby galaxies (Gebhardt et al 2000b; Ferrarese et al. 2001). This indicates that the MBH-$`\sigma `$ relation is probably universal for both active and inactive galaxies. The small scatters of this relation also imply that it may be more fundamental than the relation between black hole mass and bulge luminosity (Magorrian et al. 1998). The close correlation between black hole mass and bulge properties has important implications to the formation and evolution of SMBHs and galaxies.

On the other hand, the tight MBH-$`\sigma `$ relation suggests an interesting possibility to estimate the central black hole masses for galaxies using the measured values of bulge velocity dispersions. This straightforward method is particularly important for AGNs because the dynamical method can not be applied for the determinations of the black hole masses for most of them. For some AGNs, especially BL Lacertae objects, the reverberation mapping technique can not be applied because they have no or only very weak emission lines in their optical spectra. However, AGNs usually have very bright nuclear emission, which makes it very difficult to measure their stellar velocity dispersions with the spectroscopic method. So far, stellar velocity dispersions have been obtained only for some nearby Seyfert galaxies (Nelson & Whittle 1995; Ferrarese et al. 2001) and recently for one nearby BL Lac object Mrk 501 (Barth, Ho & Sargent 2002). For most AGNs, one has to look for other methods to determine the central velocity dispersions of their host galaxies in order to use the MBH-$`\sigma `$ relation to estimate the SMBH masses.

Imaging studies on the host galaxies of AGNs with HST have clearly revealed that a lot of AGNs, including almost all BL Lac objects, radio galaxies, radio-loud quasars, and some radio-quiet quasars, have massive elliptical hosts (Urry et al. 2000; McLure et al. 1999; Dunlop et al. 2002). It is well known for ellipticals that three observables, the effective radius, the corresponding average surface brightness and the central velocity dispersion, follow a surprisingly tight linear relation (so called fundamental plane, see Djorgovski & Davis 1987; Dressler et al. 1987; Faber et al. 1989). Some subsequent studies have shown that the elliptical hosts of radio galaxies follow the same fundamental plane as normal ellipticals (Bettoni et al. 2001). Because the fundamental plane is probably universal and exists also for elliptical hosts of AGNs, it is possible to estimate the central velocity dispersions from the morphology parameters of the host galaxies (McLure & Dunlop 2001). This provides another possible way to derive the SMBH masses for AGNs which have been obtained high quality images of their host galaxies.

In this paper we adopt the fundamental plane to estimate the central velocity dispersions and SMBH masses for some AGNs which have been imaged by HST. In section 2 we introduce the fundamental plane for AGN elliptical hosts. The SMBH masses of these AGNs are derived in Section 3. In Section 4 the physics nature of these AGNs are briefly discussed based on our results.

## 2 Fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies

The fundamental plane of ellipticals has been extensively studied and well established with the ground based observations ( Djorgovski & Davis 1987; Dressler et al. 1987; Faber et al. 1989; Jorgensen, Frank & Kjaergaad 1996). Such a plane has been shown to be close to the plane defining the viral equilibrium if a rigorous homology among galaxies is assumed (Faber et al. 1989). Imaging studies on the host elliptical galaxies of low redshift radio galaxies found a similar fundamental plane as for inactive elliptical galaxies (Bettoni et al. 2001), with radio galaxies representing the brightest end of the population of early type galaxies. This also implies that the global properties of early-type galaxies are not influenced by the gas accretion process around the central black hole. It is therefore quite likely that not only radio galaxies but also other AGNs with elliptical host galaxies follow the similar fundamental plane as normal ellipticals.

Using the observational data of about 300 normal ellipticals and radio galaxies, Bettoni et al. (2001) found that the fundamental plane can be robustly described as

$$\mathrm{log}R_e=(1.27\pm 0.04)\mathrm{log}\sigma +(0.326\pm 0.007)<\mu _e>_R$$

$$8.56\pm 0.06,$$
(1)
where $`R_e`$ is the effective radius in $`kpc`$, $`\sigma `$ is the central velocity dispersion in $`kms^1`$, and $`<\mu _e>_R`$ is the average surface brightness in R-band. If we assume that all AGNs with elliptical hosts follow this fundamental plane, we can estimate their central velocity dispersions based on the morphology parameters, $`R_e`$ and $`<\mu _e>_R`$, which can be derived from high quality imaging studies of their host galaxies.

## 3 Black hole masses of AGNs

In this section we will adopt the fundamental plane and the MBH-$`\sigma `$ relation to estimate the SMBH masses of some BL Lac objects, radio galaxies and quasars that have been imaged by the HST recently. The higher spatial resolution of HST can provide high quality images of the host galaxies of AGNs, which enables us to reliably derive the morphology parameters.

### 3.1 BL Lac objects

The BL Lac snapshot survey using the HST WFPC2 camera has obtained images for 110 BL Lac objects in a well selected sample (Scarpa et al. 1999). By fitting the surface brightness profiles using de Vaucouleurs model, Urry et al. (2001) has obtained host galaxy parameters for 72 BL Lac objects. They showed that these detected hosts are very luminous, round galaxies with a median absolute magnitude of $`<M_R>=23.7`$ mag and a median effective radius of $`<R_e>=8.5`$ kpc (we used $`H_0=50\mathrm{k}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ and $`q_0=0`$ throughout the paper). Among these BL Lacs, 63 objects have measured redshifts. 51 of them are classified as high-frequency peaked BL Lacs (HBL) and 12 of them as low-frequency peaked BL Lacs (LBL). The morphology parameters of their elliptical hosts, including the angular effective radius $`r_e`$, corresponding surface brightness $`\mu _e`$ and absolute R magnitude $`M_R`$, have been reported in Urry et al. (2001). It has been shown that the $`\mu _e`$-$`r_e`$ relation for the elliptical hosts of these BL Lac objects is all most the same as normal elliptical galaxies. This strongly suggests the the fundamental plane of normal ellipticals exists also for the host galaxies of BL Lac objects. Urry et al. (2001) also mentioned that there are no systematic differences in the host galaxies of HBLs and LBLs.

In Table 1 we listed 63 BL Lac objects, together with their redshifts, R-band apparent and absolute magnitudes, effective radius and average surface brightness of their host galaxies. The values for redshifts, R-band absolute magnitudes, and effective radii are taken from Urry et al. (2001). The R-band apparent magnitudes have been corrected for Galactic extinctions, cosmological dimming and K-corrections. The average surface brightness was derived from the formula:

$$<\mu _e>_R=R+5\mathrm{log}r_e+2.5\mathrm{log}(2\pi )$$
(2)
where the effective radius $`r_e`$ is in unit of arcsecends. We can then estimate the central velocity dispersions for the hosts of BL Lac objects using the fundamental plane (Eq. (1)). The SMBH masses of these objects can be derived by the $`M_{BH}`$-$`\sigma `$ relation. Such a relation has been given as

$$M_{BH}=1.3\times 10^8M_{}(\sigma /200kms^1)^{4.72}$$
(3)
by Merritt & Ferrarese (2001, hereafter MF01) and as

$$M_{BH}=1.2\times 10^8M_{}(\sigma /200kms^1)^{3.75}$$
(4)
by Gebhardt et al. (2000a, hearafter G00). Note that The derived central velocity dispersion using Eq. (1) is in an aperture of diameter of $`1.19h^1`$kpc ($`h=0.5`$ in this paper), while the luminosity-weighted average velocity dispersion in G00 relation is in the half-light radius ($`r_e`$) and the ’central’ velocity dispersion in MF01 relation in an aperture of radius $`r_e/8`$. There is a systematic difference among these velocity dispersions. However, as demonstrated in G00, MF01 and Barth et al (2002), such a difference is remarkably less significant when $`rr_e`$. In fact, if we follow the aperture correction method suggested by Jorgensen, Frank, & Kjaergaard (1995), we can estimate the difference of these velocity dispersions to be as small as several percents. Therefore, we ignore such a difference in our present work. In Table 1 we give the derived central velocity dispersions and black hole masses using the above relations for 63 BL Lacs.

Figure 1 shows the relation of derived central velocity dispersions and black hole masses with R-band absolute magnitudes of the host galaxies of BL Lac objects. Figure 2 shows the histograms of the derived black hole masses (according to the G00 relation) for HBLs and LBLs. It is clear that there is no significant difference in the central velocity dispersions and the black hole masses between HBLs and LBLs. The average black hole masses of both HBLs and LBLs are around $`2\times 10^8M_{}`$. Most of BL Lacs have black hole masses in the range of $`10^{7.5}M_{}`$ to $`10^{9.5}M_{}`$. A T-test gives a significance of 81% that the distributions of SMBH masses of HBLs and LBLs are from the population with the same true variance. Considering the substantial uncertainties in deriving the R-band absolute magnitude and central velocity dispersions of host galaxies, we adopt the ordinary least square (OLR) bisector method (Isobe et al. 1990) to fit the relations shown in Figure 1, which gives: $`\mathrm{log}\sigma =4.49\pm 1.30(0.29\pm 0.05)M_R`$, $`\mathrm{log}M_{BH}^{MF01}=15.83\pm 2.08(1.01\pm 0.08)M_R`$, and $`\mathrm{log}M_{BH}^{G00}=12.18\pm 1.95(0.86\pm 0.08)M_R`$. We noted that the $`M_{BH}`$-bulge luminosity relation we obtained here is consistent with that found previously for normal galaxies and AGNs (Laor 2001; Wu & Han 2001).

Recently Barth et al. (2002) measured the calcium triplet lines in the spectra of a nearby bright BL Lac object Mrk 501 taken with the Palomar Hale 200-inch telescope and derived the stellar velocity dispersion of the host galaxy as $`372\pm 18\mathrm{k}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{s}^1`$. The R-band absolute magnitude of the host galaxy has been estimated to be -24.6 (Nilsson et al. 1999). From Figure 1 we can see the observational data of Mrk 501 are well agreement with the relation that we found for other BL Lac objects. Therefore we think it is quite possible that Mrk 501 hosts a supermassive black hole with mass of about $`(13)\times 10^9M_{}`$. We note that this is much larger than the maximum primary black hole mass ($`10^8M_{}`$) required for the binary black hole model of Mrk 501 (Rieger & Mannheim 2000) and the mass ($`10^7M_{}`$) estimated from the $`\gamma `$-ray variability timescale (Fan, Xie & Bacon 1999).

We note that there are significant uncertainties in our derived velocity dispersions and SMBH masses, which are caused by the systematic errors of fundamental plane relation (Eq. (1)), the measurement uncertainties of $`<\mu _e>_R`$ and $`R_e`$, and the scatters of the $`M_{BH}`$-$`\sigma `$ relation. Considering the typical uncertainties of $`<\mu _e>_R`$ ( about 0.5 $`Rmagarcsec^2`$) and $`R_e`$ ( about 1 $`kpc`$), Eq. (1) gives an uncertainty $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma /\sigma `$ as large as of about 50%. This leads to an uncertainty $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{BH}/M_{BH}`$ of about 2. Such a significant uncertainty of the derived SMBH masses should be kept in mind when these values are adopted in any correlation studies.

### 3.2 Radio galaxies, radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars

A deep HST imaging study of the host galaxies of a sample of 10 radio galaxies (RGs), 10 radio-loud quasars (RLQs) and 13 radio-quiet quasars (RQQs) has been performed recently (McLure et al. 1999; Dunlop et al. 2002). It has been found that the hosts of both radio-loud AGNs and bright radio-quiet AGNs are virtually all massive ellipticals. The basic properties of these host galaxies are indistinguishable from those of normal ellipticals. Therefore, it is quite possible that the host galaxies of these low redshift AGNs also follow the same fundamental plane as normal ellipticals. Using the same approach as we did for BL Lac objects, we can also derive the central velocity dispersions and black hole masses for this sample of AGNs based on the morphology parameters of their host galaxies.

Table 2 listed the name, redshift, R-band apparent magnitude and absolute magnitude, effective radius and average surface brightness of 10 RGs, 10 RLQs and 9 RQQs with elliptical hosts (Dunlop et al. 2002). The R-band apparent magnitudes of the host galaxies have been corrected for the Galactic extinctions (taken from NED111http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu), cosmological dimming and K-corrections (assuming spectra index of $`\alpha =1.5`$, Dunlop et al. 2002). The angular size of effective radius was derived using Eq. (9.94) in Peterson (1997) from $`R_e`$ listed in Dunlop et al. (2002) (where they adopted $`q_0=0.5`$):

$$r_e(^{\prime \prime })=\frac{0.0688h_0q_0^2(1+z)^2}{zq_0+(q_01)(1+\sqrt{2q_0z+1})}R_e(\mathrm{kpc}).$$
(5)
The R-band absolute magnitudes of the host galaxies were also calibrated to the case of $`q_0=0`$. The average surface brightness was calculated using Eq. (2) for each objects. With these parameters, the central velocity dispersions of the host galaxies of 29 AGNs can be estimated using Eq. (1), and their SMBH masses can be derived using Eq. (3) and (4). The results are listed in Table 2.

Figure 3 shows the relation of derived central velocity dispersions and black hole masses with R-band absolute magnitudes of the host galaxies for 10 RGs, 10 RLQs and 9 RQQs. Figure 4 shows the histograms of the derived black hole masses (according to the G00 relation) for these AGNs. It is clear that there is no significant differences in the central velocity dispersions and SMBH masses among RGs, RLQs and RQQs. The average SMBH masses of RGs, RLQs and RQQs are $`10^{8.13}M_{}`$, $`10^{8.22}M_{}`$and $`10^{7.90}M_{}`$ respectively. Most of these AGNs have black hole masses in the range of $`10^{7.5}M_{}`$ to $`10^9M_{}`$. Our results indicate that there is no difference in SMBH masses of BL Lacs, RGs and RLQs. A T-test shows a possibility of 44% that the distributions of SMBH masses of RGs and RLQs are from the same population. Different from some previous claims that RLQs have more massive SMBHs than RQQs (Laor 2000), our result shows that there is only weak difference in our derived SMBH masses for RQQs and RLQs in this sample. The mean SMBH mass of 9 RQQs is smaller by only a factor of two than that of 10 RLQs. However, a T-test gives a possibility of only 4.5% that the two distributions are from the same population. Although it may indicate some statistical differences between RLQs and RQQs (see also Dunlop et al. 2002), a more definitive conclusion about such a difference can be reached only with with larger and more complete samples of quasars. The OLR bisector fits of the relations shown in Figure 3 give: $`\mathrm{log}\sigma =1.92\pm 0.71(0.18\pm 0.03)M_R`$, $`\mathrm{log}M_{BH}^{MF01}=10.39\pm 2.35(0.78\pm 0.10)M_R`$, and $`\mathrm{log}M_{BH}^{G00}=6.93\pm 2.02(0.64\pm 0.08)M_R`$. These relations are slightly flatter than those we obtained for 63 BL Lac objects. This may be caused by the smaller sample of 29 AGNs or several offset LBLs shown in Figure 1.

We noted that the SMBH masses of 10 RLQs and 7 RQQs in our AGN sample have been estimated in McLure &Dunlop (2001) based on the $`H\beta `$ emission line width measurements and an empirical relation between broad line region size and optical luminosity (Kaspi et al. 2000). By re-calculating the SMBH masses assuming the characteristic velocity in the broad line region of AGN can be estimated the observed FWHMs of $`H\beta `$ lines by $`V_{BLR}=\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}FWHM_{H\beta }`$ (Wandel et al. 1999), in Figure 5 we plotted the comparison of the SMBH masses derived by using the fundamental plane with those obtained by $`H\beta `$ line study. The agreement is not bad but on average the SMBH masses estimated based on $`H\beta `$ line study are larger than those obtained by us by a factor of two. If the relation between $`V_{BLR}`$ and $`FWHM_{H\beta }`$ was assumed to be $`V_{BLR}=1.5\times FWHM_{H\beta }`$ as did by McLure & Dunlop (2001), the difference between the SMBH masses obtained by $`H\beta `$ line study will be larger than our estimations by approximately a factor of 5. It is unclear whether such differences are due to our assumption of the fundamental plane for AGN host galaxies or the overestimations of the broad line region sizes of AGNs according to the empirical relation between the broad line region size and the optical luminosity (Kaspi et al. 2000). We note that the latter relation is much more scattered than the previous one. Another advantage of our method is that it is model independent, while the method based on $`H\beta `$ line study sensitively depends on the assumptions of the dynamics and geometry of broad line regions of AGNs (Krolik 2001). Considering that both methods may have uncertainties of as larger as a factor of a few, the difference in SMBH estimations shown in Figure 5 is not unexpected.

Using the derived SMBH masses, we can estimate the Eddington ratio (defined as the ratio of bolometric luminosity and Eddington luminosity) of the source in our sample of RGs, RLQs and RQQs. We adopted the assumptions of $`L_{bol}10\lambda L_{5100\AA }`$ (Kaspi et al. 2000) and $`f_\nu \nu ^{0.2}`$ (Dunlop et al. 2002) to convert the R-band luminosity to the bolometric luminosity for the nuclear component of AGNs. Figure 6 shows the distributions of Eddington ratios of 9 RGs, 10 RLQs and 9 RQQs. It is clear that the Eddington ratios of RGs are systematically smaller than those of RLQs and RQQs by two orders, while there is less significant difference in Eddington ratios for RLQs and RQQs. Our result is qualitatively consistent with that obtained by Ho (2002) who recently suggested that the strongly active AGNs have larger Eddington ratios. Figure 6 shows that both RLQs and RQQs have the bolometric luminosity comparable to the Eddington luminosity. A T-test also shows a significance of 56% that the Eddington ratios of RLQs and RQQs are from the same population. Therefore, our results indicate that the SMBH masses of RLQs may be slightly larger than those of RQQs, their Eddington ratios may not be significantly different. However, we must noted that these results were obtained with a small sample of radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars. More definitive conclusions can be reached only with larger and more complete samples.

## 4 Discussions

The SMBH masses of AGNs are important to understand the nature of AGN activities, however, there are only very limited methods which can be used to derive the mass of them (Ho 1999). Many observational studies have shown that a lot of AGNs, especially radio-loud AGNs, have massive elliptical hosts. The basic properties of these host galaxies are indistinguishable with the normal ellipticals. By assuming that the elliptical hosts of AGNs follow the same fundamental plane as normal ellipticals and adopting the $`M_{BH}`$-$`\sigma `$ relation recently discovered for both inactive and active galaxies, we estimated the SMBH masses for 63 BL Lac objects and 29 other AGNs which has been imaged by HST recently. Our results, though with substantial uncertainties, show that the SMBH masses of these AGNs are mostly in the range of $`10^{7.5}M_{}`$ to $`10^{9.5}M_{}`$. There are no significant differences in SMBH masses for different AGNs with elliptical hosts. This seems to be a natural consequence if we believe that that the tight correlations between the SMBH masses and the galaxy properties also exist for the host galaxies of AGNs. In Figure 7, we compare our results obtained for AGNs with the measured central velocity dispersions and black hole masses of 20 nearby elliptical galaxies compiled by Kormendy & Gebhardt (2001). Except for the outlier NGC 4486B whose outer region may have been stripped away in the tidal interactions with a more massive companion galaxy (Faber 1973), the relations of our derived central velocity dispersions and SMBH masses with the R-band absolute magnitudes are consistent with the trends for normal ellipticals. In fact, the derived SMBH masses of AGNs, have a significant overlap with those of massive normal ellipticlas. Moreover, we note that the consistency of our derived $`\sigma `$-$`M_R`$ relation with the recent measurement of the stellar velocity dispersion of Mrk 501 (Barth et al. 2002) also supports that using the fundamental plane to derive the central velocity dispersions of AGN elliptical hosts is possible and practical.

Our results show that both HBLs and LBLs have the similar SMBH masses in the range from $`10^7M_{}`$ to $`10^{9.5}M_{}`$. The SMBH masses of BL Lac objects are similar as those in radio galaxies and radio-loud quasars. This indicates that the different observational appearances among HBLs, LBLs and radio-loud AGNs can not be dominated by the different SMBH masses. Several evolutionary scenarios have been recently suggested for radio-loud AGNs. Ghisellini et al (1998) proposed an evolutionary sequence HBL $``$ LBL$``$ flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ) according to the increasing level of external radiation to the soft radiation field in the emitting region. D’Elia & Cavaliere (2000) and Cavaliere & D’Elia (2001) suggested that the gradual depletion of the central environment may lead to the evolution from FSRQ$``$ LBL $``$ HBL. Similarly, Böttcher & Dermer (2002) recently argued that the decline of accretion power can also lead to such an evolutionary sequence. As indicated by Böttcher & Dermer (2002), the key parameter of these scenarios is accretion rate rather than the SMBH mass. The depletion of accretion power can lead to the decrease of the accretion rate, which may result in the transition of different accretion modes. Theoretical investigations have pointed out that accretion near the Eddington limit may produce optically thick accretion disks extending all the way to the innermost stable orbit, while accretion at very lower accretion rate may lead to advection dominated accretion mode (see Narayan et al. 1998 for a review). In fact, Fabian & Rees (1995) has proposed that the nearby galaxies can be modeled with the advection-dominated accretion flow. The radio properties of some low-luminosity AGNs may be also related to the advection-dominated accretion mode (Ulvestad & Ho 2001). Recently Ghisellini & Celotti (2001) also proposed that the separation of FR I and FR II radio galaxies may be closely related to the critical accretion rates. In addition, the state transition of Galactic black hole X-ray transients has been explained according to the different accretion modes at the different accretion rates (Esin et al. 1998). Recently Fender & Kuulkers (2001) also found that the formation and luminosity of jets in Galactic X-ray transients are closely related to the accretion rates. From all these points we suspect that the main reason for the evolutionary sequence of radio-loud AGNs may be accretion rate rather than the SMBH mass. Our estimations of the SMBH masses and Eddington ratios of different AGNs are also consistent with this suspension. In addition, our results show that there may be still a difference in SMBH masses of radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars, but such a difference is not significant as previously claimed. The Eddington ratios of these two sub-class of quasars seem to be from the same population. These points are very important to our understanding of the physics of quasars and are obviously need to be confirmed with larger samples.

We note that the relations between SMBH mass and the elliptical host luminosity derived by us for AGNs are a little different from those obtained by some previous studies. McLure & Dunlop (2002) derived such a relation for 92 active and inactive galaxies as $`\mathrm{log}M_{BH}0.50M_R`$. They argued that it is consistent with a linear scaling between the black hole and bulge mass. Wandel (2002) reached a similar conclusion for a sample of 35 quiescent galaxies and 47 broad line AGNs. However, Laor (2001) and Wu & Han (2001) obtained steeper slopes of the $`M_{BH}`$ \- bulge luminosity relation for different samples of AGNs and argued that the scaling of the black hole and bulge mass is nonlinear. Here we provide an additional argument for this nonlinear relation. In our present study, the slope of the relation between SMBH mass and the elliptical host luminosity is estimated from -0.64 to -1.02 for different samples. This is identical to a nonlinear relation between the black hole and bulge mass $`M_{BH}M_{bulge}^{(1.271.95)}`$ if the mass-to-light ratio of the host galaxy is taken to be $`M/LL^{0.31}`$ (Jorgensen et al. 1996). In fact, we can obtain this conclusion directly from some existed relations. From the fundamental plane Eq. (1), the $`M_{BH}`$ -$`\sigma `$ relation Eq.(3) or (4), and the formula for average brightness (Eq.(2)), we can derive a relation between the SMBH mass and R-band absolute magnitude of the host galaxy as: $`\mathrm{log}M_{BH}(0.961.21)M_R`$. This clearly indicates a nonlinear relation: $`M_{BH}M_{bulge}^{(1.832.31)}`$. Such a result is in well agreement with that in Wu & Han (2001) who obtained $`M_{BH}M_{bulge}^{(1.74\pm 0.14)}`$. However, we noted the large uncertainties in our derived SMBH masses and host galaxy luminosities may have significant effects on the correlation between SMBH and galactic bulge masses. Although the non-linear scaling between them has been also implied in some theoretical models (e.g. Adams et al. 2001; Wang et al. 2000), more detailed theoretical investigations, as well as more high quality imaging observations on larger samples of active and inactive galaxies, are obviously needed to confirm it.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the referee, Todd Boroson, for a construcitve referee’s report and Jiansheng Chen, Jun Ma, Hong Wu, Xiang-Ping Wu, Xu Zhou for stimulating discussions. This work was supported by the NSFC (No. 10173001) and the Scientific Fundation for Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, Ministry of Education, China. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. .


text:
# Indications of incommensurate spin fluctuations in doped triangular antiferromagnets

\[

## Abstract

The incommensurate spin fluctuation of the doped triangular antiferromagnet is studied within the $`t`$-$`J`$ model. It is shown that the commensurate peak near the half-filling is split into six incommensurate peaks in the underdoped and optimally doped regimes. The incommensurability increases with the hole concentration at lower dopings, and saturates at higher dopings. Although the incommensurability is almost energy independent, the weight of these incommensurate peaks decreases with energy and temperature.

\]

The high-$`T_c`$ cuprate superconductors exhibit many unusual properties , one of the most striking being the anomalous incommensurate antiferromagnetism in the normal state in the underdoped regime . These unusual properties are closely related to the fact that cuprate superconductors are doped Mott insulators, obtained by chemically adding charge carriers to a strongly correlated antiferromagnetic (AF) insulating state . Neutron-scattering measurements show that when the commensurate AF long-range-order (AFLRO) phase is suppressed and the hole concentration exceeds $`3\%`$, incommensurate dynamical short-range magnetic correlations appear , with four peaks located at the reciprocal space positions $`[(1\pm \delta )\pi ,\pi ]`$ and $`[\pi ,(1\pm \delta )\pi ]`$ (square lattice notations, unit lattice constant). Even more remarkable is that for very low dopings the incommensurability $`\delta `$ varies almost linearly with the concentration $`x`$, but saturates at higher dopings. Moreover, the incommensurate peaks broaden and weaken in amplitude as the energy increases. This incommensurate antiferromagnetism of doped cuprates results from special microscopic conditions : (1) Cu ions situated in a square-planar arrangement and bridged by oxygen ions, (2) weak coupling between neighboring layers, and (3) doping in such a way that the Fermi level lies near the middle of the Cu-O $`\sigma ^{}`$ bond. One common feature of these doped cuprates is the square-planar Cu arrangement. However, some materials with a two-dimensional (2D) spin arrangements on non-square lattices have been synthetized. In particular, it has been reported  that there is a class of doped cuprates, RCuO2+δ, R being a rare-earth element, where the Cu ions sites sit not on a square-planar, but on a triangular-planar lattice, therefore allowing a test of the geometry effect on the spin fluctuations, while retaining some other unique microscopic features of the Cu-O bond. In other words, the question is whether the incommensurate magnetic fluctuations observed on the doped square antiferromagnet exist also in the doped triangular antiferromagnet? In addition, the doped triangular antiferromagnet, where geometric frustration is present, is also of theoretical interest by himself, with many unanswered fascinating theoretical questions . Historically the undoped triangular antiferromagnet was firstly proposed to be a model for microscopic realization of the resonating valence bond spin liquid due to the strong frustration . It has been argued  that this spin liquid state plays a crucial role in the superconductivity of doped cuprates. Moreover, it has been shown  that the doped and undoped triangular antiferromagnets present a pairing instability in an unconventional channel.

The incommensurate antiferromagnetism of the doped square antiferromagnet has been extensively studied, and some fundamentally different microscopic mechanisms have been proposed  to explain the origin of the incommensurate antiferromagnetism, where there is a general consensus that incommensurate antiferromagnetism emerges due to doped charge carriers. Recently, it has been shown very clearly  that if the strong electron correlation is treated properly and strong spinon-holon interaction is taken into account, the $`t`$-$`J`$ model can correctly reproduce all main features of the incommensurate antiferromagnetism in the underdoped square antiferromagnets, including the doping dependence of the incommensurate peak position and the energy dependence of the amplitude of these peaks. Since the strong electron correlations are present in both doped square and triangular antiferromagnets, it is expected that the unconventional incommensurate antiferromagnetism existing in the doped square antiferromagnet may also be seen in the doped triangular antiferromagnet. In this paper, the purpose is to apply the successful approach  for the doped square lattice antiferromagnet to triangular lattice. We hope that the information from the present work may induce further experimental works in doped antiferromagnets on the non-square lattice.

As in the doped square antiferromagnet, the essential physics of the doped triangular antiferromagnet is well described by the $`t`$-$`J`$ model on the triangular lattice,

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`t{\displaystyle \underset{i\widehat{\eta }\sigma }{}}C_{i\sigma }^{}C_{i+\widehat{\eta }\sigma }+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.\mu {\displaystyle \underset{i\sigma }{}}C_{i\sigma }^{}C_{i\sigma }`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`J{\displaystyle \underset{i\widehat{\eta }}{}}𝐒_i𝐒_{i+\widehat{\eta }},`$ (2)
with the electron single occupancy local constraint $`_\sigma C_{i\sigma }^{}C_{i\sigma }1`$, where the summation is over all sites $`i`$, and for each $`i`$, over its nearest-neighbor $`\widehat{\eta }`$, $`𝐒_i=C_i^{}\stackrel{}{\sigma }C_i/2`$ are spin operators with $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }=(\sigma _x,\sigma _y,\sigma _z)`$ as Pauli matrices, and $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential. In the $`t`$-$`J`$ model (1), the strong electron correlation manifests itself by the local constraint , therefore the crucial requirement is to impose this local constraint. It has been shown  that this constraint can be treated properly in analytical calculations within the fermion-spin theory based on the charge-spin separation, where the constrained electron operators are decomposed $`C_i=h_i^{}S_i^{}`$ and $`C_i=h_i^{}S_i^+`$, where the spinless fermion operator $`h_i`$ describes the charge (holon) degrees of freedom, while the pseudospin operator $`S_i`$ describes the spin (spinon) degrees of freedom, then the low energy behavior of the $`t`$-$`J`$ model (1) on the triangular lattice in the fermion-spin representation can be written as ,

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`t{\displaystyle \underset{i\widehat{\eta }}{}}h_ih_{i+\widehat{\eta }}^{}(S_i^+S_{i+\widehat{\eta }}^{}+S_i^{}S_{i+\widehat{\eta }}^+)+\mu {\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}h_i^{}h_i`$ (3)
$`+`$ $`J_{\mathrm{eff}}{\displaystyle \underset{i\widehat{\eta }}{}}𝐒_i𝐒_{i+\widehat{\eta }},`$ (4)
where $`J_{\mathrm{eff}}=[(1\delta )^2\varphi ^2]`$, $`\delta `$ is the hole doping concentration, and $`\varphi =h_i^{}h_{i+\widehat{\eta }}`$ is the holon particle-hole order parameter. At half-filling, the $`t`$-$`J`$ model is simply the Heisenberg model. Many authors have shown that as in the square lattice, there is indeed AFLRO in the ground state of the AF triangular Heisenberg model , but this AFLRO is destroyed more rapidly with increasing dopings than on the square lattice due to the strong geometric frustration, then away from the half-filling, there is no AFLRO for the doped triangular antiferromagnet, i.e., $`S_i^z=0`$, and holons move self-consistently in the background of the spinon liquid state.

Within the framework of the fermion-spin theory, the spin fluctuations couple only to spinons, but the strong correlation between holons and spinon is included through the holon’s order parameter $`\varphi `$ entering the spinon propagator, therefore both spinons and holons are responsible for the spin fluctuation. In this case, the incommensurate spin dynamics in the doped square antiferromagnet and integrated spin response in the doped triangular antiferromagnet have been discussed  by considering the spin fluctuation around the mean-field (MF) solution, where the spinon part is treated by a loop expansion to second-order. Following their discussions , we can obtain the dynamical spin structure factor for the doped triangular antiferromagnet as,

$`S(𝐤,\omega )=2[1+n_B(\omega )]\mathrm{Im}D(𝐤,\omega )=2[1+n_B(\omega )]`$ (5)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{B_k^2\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(𝐤,\omega )}{[\omega ^2\omega _k^2B_k\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(𝐤,\omega )]^2+[B_k\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(𝐤,\omega )]^2}},`$ (6)
where the full spinon Green’s function, $`D^1(𝐤,\omega )=D^{(0)1}(𝐤,\omega )\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(𝐤,\omega )`$, and the MF spinon Green’s function $`D^{(0)1}(𝐤,\omega )=(\omega ^2\omega _k^2)/B_k`$, $`\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(𝐤,\omega )`$ and $`\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(𝐤,\omega )`$ being the imaginary and real parts of the second order spinon self-energy, respectively. They are obtained from the holon bubble,

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(𝐤,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{Zt}{N}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \underset{pp^{}}{}}(\gamma _{kp}+\gamma _{p^{}+p+k})^2{\displaystyle \frac{B_{k+p^{}}}{2\omega _{k+p^{}}}}`$ (7)
$`\times `$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{F_1(k,p,p^{})}{\omega +\xi _{p+p^{}}\xi _p+\omega _{k+p^{}}}}`$ (8)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{F_2(k,p,p^{})}{\omega +\xi _{p+p^{}}\xi _p\omega _{k+p^{}}}}),`$ (9)
where $`B_k=\mathrm{\Delta }[(2ϵ\chi _z+\chi )\gamma _k(ϵ\chi +2\chi _z)]`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=2ZJ_{eff}`$, $`ϵ=1+2t\varphi /J_{eff}`$, $`\gamma _k=[\mathrm{cos}k_x+2\mathrm{cos}(k_x/2)\mathrm{cos}(\sqrt{3}k_y/2)]/3`$, $`Z`$ is the number of the nearest neighbor sites, $`F_1(k,p,p^{})=n_F(\xi _{p+p^{}})[1n_F(\xi _p)]+[1+n_B(\omega _{k+p^{}})][n_F(\xi _p)n_F(\xi _{p+p^{}})]`$, $`F_2(k,p,p^{})=n_F(\xi _{p+p^{}})[1n_F(\xi _p)]n_B(\omega _{k+p^{}})[n_F(\xi _p)n_F(\xi _{p+p^{}})]`$, $`n_F(\xi _k)`$ and $`n_B(\omega _k)`$ are the fermion and boson distribution functions, respectively, the MF holon excitation $`\xi _k=2\chi tZ\gamma _k+\mu `$, and MF spinon excitation, $`\omega _k^2=\mathrm{\Delta }^2(A_1\gamma _k^2+A_2\gamma _k+A_3)`$ with $`A_1=\alpha ϵ(\chi /2+ϵ\chi _z)`$, $`A_2=ϵ[(1Z)\alpha (ϵ\chi /2+\chi _z)/Z\alpha (C_z+C/2)(1\alpha )/(2Z)]`$, $`A_3=\alpha (C_z+ϵ^2C/2)+(1\alpha )(1+ϵ^2)/(4Z)\alpha ϵ(\chi /2+ϵ\chi _z)/Z`$, the spinon correlation functions $`\chi =S_i^+S_{i+\widehat{\eta }}^{}`$, $`\chi _z=S_i^zS_{i+\widehat{\eta }}^z`$, $`C=(1/Z^2)_{\widehat{\eta }\widehat{\eta ^{}}}S_{i+\widehat{\eta }}^+S_{i+\widehat{\eta ^{}}}^{}`$, and $`C_z=(1/Z^2)_{\widehat{\eta }\widehat{\eta ^{}}}S_{i+\widehat{\eta }}^zS_{i+\widehat{\eta ^{}}}^z`$. In order to satisfy the sum rule for the correlation function $`S_i^+S_i^{}=1/2`$ in the absence of AFLRO, a decoupling parameter $`\alpha `$ has been introduced in the self-consistent MF calculation, which can be regarded as the vertex correction .

The Brillouin zone of the triangular system is shown in Fig. 1, where the AF wave vector $`𝐐=[1,\sqrt{3}]`$ (hereafter we use the units of $`[2\pi /3,2\pi /3]`$). In Fig. 2, we plot the dynamical spin structure factor $`S(𝐤,\omega )`$ in the \[$`k_x,k_y`$\] plane at doping (a) $`x=0.015`$ and (b) $`x=0.06`$ with temperature $`T=0.15J`$ and energy $`\omega =0.05J`$ for parameter $`t/J=2.5`$. From Fig. 2, we find that a commensurate-incommensurate transition in the spin fluctuation $`𝐐`$ vector occurs with doping, i.e., the commensurate peak near half-filling ($`x0.015`$) is split into six peaks in the underdoped regime, while the positions of these split peaks are incommensurate with the underlying lattice, and correspond to six 2D rods at $`[(1\delta _x),(\sqrt{3}\pm \delta _y)]`$, $`[(1\delta _x^{}),(\sqrt{3}\pm \delta _y^{})]`$, and $`[(1\delta _x^{\prime \prime }),(\sqrt{3}\pm \delta _y^{\prime \prime })]`$ with $`\sqrt{\delta _x^2+\delta _y^2}=\sqrt{(\delta _x^{})^2+(\delta _y^{})^2}=\sqrt{(\delta _x^{\prime \prime })^2+(\delta _y^{\prime \prime })^2}=\delta `$. At low temperatures, the incommensurate peaks are very sharp at lower energies, which means that these excitations have a dynamical coherence length that is larger than the instantaneous correlation length. The present dynamical spin structure factor spectrum $`S(𝐤,\omega )`$ has been used to extract the doping dependence of the incommensurability parameter $`\delta (x)`$, defined as the deviation of the peak position from the AF wave vector $`𝐐`$, and the result is plotted in Fig. 3. Our result shows that $`\delta (x)`$ increases with the hole concentration in lower dopings, but it saturates at higher dopings, which is qualitatively similar to the results for the square antiferromagnet .

In order to study the effects of energy and temperature on the incommensurate spin fluctuation, we have calculated the dynamical spin structure factor $`S(𝐤,\omega )`$ at different temperatures and energies, and the result at doping $`x=0.06`$ for parameter $`t/J=2.5`$, temperature $`T=0.15J`$ and energy $`\omega =0.1J`$ is shown in Fig. 4. In comparison with Fig. 2(b) for the same set of parameters except for $`\omega =0.05J`$, we see that although the positions of the incommensurate peaks are almost energy independent, the weight of these peaks decreases with increasing energy, and tends to vanish at high energies. This reflects that the inverse lifetime of the spin excitations increases with increasing energy. In correspondence, the dynamical spin structure factor $`S(𝐤,\omega )`$ at doping $`x=0.06`$ for parameter $`t/J=2.5`$ in energy $`\omega =0.05J`$ and temperature $`T=0.3J`$ is plotted in Fig. 5. Comparing with Fig. 2(b) for the same set of parameters except for $`T=0.15J`$, we find that the peak weight is suppressed with increasing temperature. Our results also indicate that although the positions of the incommensurate peaks in the doped triangular antiferromagnets are much different from these in the doped square antiferromagnets due to the geometric frustration, the behavior of the energy and temperature dependence of the magnetic fluctuation is qualitatively similar to these in the doped square antiferromagnets .

As in the case of the doped square antiferromagnet , the effect of holons on the spinons due to the strong spinon-holon interaction is critical in determining the characteristic feature of the incommensurate spin fluctuation in the doped triangular antiferromagnet. This is reflected by the renormalization of the spinon excitation $`E_k^2=\omega _k^2+B_k\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(k,E_k)`$ in Eq. (3). Figure 6 shows this renormalized spinon excitation for doping $`x=0.015`$ (solid line), $`x=0.03`$ (dashed line), and $`x=0.06`$ (dot-dashed line), and for $`t/J=2.5`$ and $`T=0.15J`$. An over damping around the AF wave vector $`𝐐`$ occurs for doping $`x0.015`$. The incommensurate peaks emerge in the dynamical spin structure factor $`S(𝐤,\omega )`$ when the incoming neutron energy $`\omega `$ is equal to the renormalized spin excitation $`E_k`$, i.e. $`W(𝐤_\delta ,\omega )[\omega ^2\omega _{k_\delta }^2B_{k_\delta }\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(𝐤_\delta ,\omega )]^2=(\omega ^2E_{k_\delta }^2)^20`$ for some critical wave vectors $`𝐤_\delta `$ (positions of the incommensurate peaks). Then the weight of these peaks is determined by the imaginary part of the spinon self-energy $`1/\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(𝐤_\delta ,\omega )`$. Therefore near half-filling, the spin excitations are centered around the AF wave vector $`𝐐`$, so the commensurate AF peak appears there. Upon doping, the holes disturb the AF background self-consistently, and induce over damping of the spinon excitation around the AF wave vector $`𝐐`$, leading to incommensurate antiferromagnetism. Since the weight of the incommensurate peaks is determined by the imaginary part of the spinon self-energy, it is then understandable that they are suppressed as energy and temperature are increased. Moreover, the symmetry of the incommensurate pattern is determined by the lattice symmetry in the spinon self-energy renormalization due to holons. We have plotted the function $`W(𝐤,\omega )`$ along the line shown in the inset of Fig. 7 at doping $`x=0.06`$ for parameter $`t/J=2.5`$ and temperature $`T=0.15J`$ and energy $`\omega =0.05J`$ in Fig. 7. There is a strong angular dependence with minima at $`[(1\delta _x),(\sqrt{3}\delta _y)]`$, $`[(1\delta _x^{}),(\sqrt{3}\delta _y^{})]`$. These are exactly the positions of the incommensurate peaks determined by the dispersion of very well defined renormalized spin excitations. This incommensurate pattern is much different from that in the doped square antiferromagnet , since the lattice symmetry in the triangular lattice is much different from that in the square lattice.

In summary, we have discussed the incommensurate spin fluctuation of the doped triangular antiferromagnet within the $`t`$-$`J`$ model based on the fermion-spin theory. It is shown that the commensurate peak near the half-filling is split into six incommensurate peaks in the underdoped and optimally doped regimes. The incommensurability increases with the hole concentration at lower dopings, and saturates at higher dopings. Although the incommensurability is almost energy independent, the weight of these incommensurate peaks decreases with energy and temperature.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors would like to thank Dr. Feng Yuan for helpful discussions. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation under the Grant No. 10074007, 10125415, and 90103024, and the Grant from Ministry of Education of China.