format: text

text:
# Theorem 1

Group Actions on Vector Bundles

on the Projective Plane

Satyajit Karnik

Abstract: We study the action of the group of automorphisms of the projective plane on the Maruyama scheme of sheaves $`_{P^2}(r,c_{1,}c_2)`$ of rank $`r`$ and Chern classes $`c_1=0`$ and $`c_2=n`$ and obtain sufficient conditions for unstability in the sense of Mumford’s geometric invariant theory. The conditions are in terms of the splitting behaviour of sheaves when restricted to lines in the projective plane. A very strong parallel is observed with Mumford’s theory for the action of the automorphism group of the projective plane on the spaces of curves of a fixed degree.

1. Introduction

The problem we study belongs mainly to the domain of geometric invariant theory. The action of the group of automorphisms of projective space on its hypersurfaces, or more generally on the Hilbert scheme of subvarieties with a fixed Hilbert polynomial has been studied since Mumford. What if we replace the Hilbert scheme of subvarieties with a suitable moduli space of sheaves or vector bundles? The group of automorphisms of the projective space $`PGL(n)`$ acts naturally on sheaves by pullback. What is the nature of the semistable or unstable points in the sense of Mumford’s GIT? This question was first posed by C.Simpson . We study this problem for sheaves on the projective plane.

For rank $`2`$ vector bundles the problem is intimately related to the action of $`SL(3)`$ on the space of curves of degree $`n`$ in $`P^2`$. Mumford has given a complete classification of stable, semistable and unstable points for this action when the degree of the curve is less than $`7`$. In general, for any degree, the description of the semistable and unstable points becomes exceedingly difficult. However two fairly general statements about the ‘best points’ and the ‘worst points’ remain true in all cases:

Let $`C`$ be a curve of degree $`n`$ in $`P^2`$.

1) If $`n3`$, and $`C`$ is nonsingular, then $`C`$ is stable under the $`SL(3)`$ action,

2) If $`C`$ has a point of multiplicity $`>`$ $`\frac{2n}{3}`$ then $`C`$ is unstable.

The purpose of this paper is to show that there is a remarkably similar picture when we consider the action of $`SL(3)`$ on sheaves on the projective plane. As a suitable candidate for the space of sheaves on the projective plane, we use Maruyama’s scheme $`_{P^2}(r,c_{1,}c_2)`$, of $`S`$-equivalence classes of Geiseker semistable sheaves on $`P^2`$ with fixed rank $`r`$ and Chern classes $`c_1`$and $`c_2`$. The precise definitions will follow in the subsequent section. On the open subset of $`_{P^2}(r,c_{1,}c_2)`$ consisting of Geiseker stable sheaves $`S`$-equivalence reduces to isomorphism of sheaves. We now state our main theorem

###### Theorem 1

Let $`SL(3)`$ act on $`_{P^2}(r,0_,n)`$ by pullback of sheaves.Under a suitable linearization of the action the following statements hold;
1) For $`n3`$, a generic point in $`_{P^2}(r,0_,n)`$ is stable,
2) For $`F_{P^2}(r,0_,n)`$, if there is a line $`lP^2`$such that $`F|_l=𝒪(d_i)`$ with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{d_i0}d_i>\frac{2n}{3},`$then $`F`$ is unstable.

In particular if $`F`$ is rank $`2`$ with $`c_1=0`$ and $`c_2=n`$ such that there is a line $`lP^2`$ with $`F|_l=𝒪(d)𝒪(d)`$ and $`d>\frac{2n}{3}`$ then $`F`$ is unstable under the $`SL(3)`$ action on $`_{P^2}(2,0_,n)`$. Note the similarity with the classical result for curves. The problem for vector bundles of rank $`2`$ is actually very closely related with the case of curves. The connection is through the so called Barth map , that assigns to each vector bundle of rank $`2`$ in $`_{P^2}(2,0_,n)`$ a curve of degree $`n`$ in $`P^2`$, called its curve of jump lines. The map is $`SL(3)`$ equivariant and a comparison theorem of Reichstein  allows us to compare the stability of bundles with the stability of curves. In higher rank, this facility of the Barth map is lost and a new technique becomes necessary to study stability. To do this we consider actions on suitable master spaces obtained by monadic constructions of Beilinson , Barth  and Horrocks . This is the main contribution of the paper.

The paper is organised as follows. We start with recalling some basic definitions and preliminaries in the next section. Then we work out the special case for rank $`2`$ sheaves, show how it gets related to the case of curves, and thus explain what to expect in general. In the final section we give a proof for higher rank.

Acknowledgements: I deeply thank my advisor Prof. Igor Dolgachev for pointing out this problem to me and for his continuing guidance and support. I would like to thank William Fulton, Mike Roth, Niranjan Ramachandran and Fedor Bogomolov for valuable comments and encouragement.

2. Definitions and Preliminaries.

Here we recall some basic definitions and preliminaries that will be used throughout. We begin with the fundamental notion of a semistable sheaf on a projective space. It is a well known fact that $`P_F(m)=`$dim $`H^0(P^n,F(m))`$ is a polynomial in $`m`$ for large enough $`m`$, called the Hilbert polynomial of $`F`$. Let $`r`$ be tthe rank of $`F`$. The polynomial $`p_F(m)=P_F(m)/r`$ is called the reduced Hilbert polynomial of $`F`$. Define $`\mu (F)=\frac{c_1(F)}{r}`$.

###### Definition 2

A coherent torsion free sheaf $`F`$ is called semistable (stable) if for every coherent subsheaf $`F^{^{}}F`$ of rank $`r^{^{}}`$ with $`0<r^{^{}}<r`$, we have $`p_F^{^{}}p_F`$ ($`<`$), the polynomials being ordered lexicographically, where coefficients are compared starting with the highest degree term in the polynomial.

On $`P^2`$ the reduced Hilbert polynomial looks like

$`p_F(m)=\frac{1}{2}m^2+(\frac{3}{2}+\mu (F))m+\frac{\chi (F)}{r}`$.

Thus $`p_F^{^{}}p_F`$ means that $`\mu (F^{^{}})\mu (F)`$ and in case of equality we require $`\chi (F^{^{}})/r^{^{}}\chi (F)/r`$.

The Riemann Roch theorem on $`P^2`$ reads

$$\chi (F)=r+\frac{1}{2}c_1(c_1+3)c_2$$

where $`r`$ is the rank of $`F`$ and $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$ are the first and second Chern classes respectively.

###### Proposition 3

Let $`F`$ be a non trivial semistable sheaf on $`P^2`$ of rank $`r`$ and $`c_1=0.`$Then $`H^0(F(1))=H^0(F)=H^2(F(1))=H^2(F)=0.`$ Also $`h^1(F(2))=h^1(F(1))=c_2,`$ and $`h^1(F)=c_2r.`$ In particular, $`c_2r.`$

Proof. The proof is a straightforward application of definitions and the Riemann roch theorem.We first show that $`H^0(F(1))=0`$. Suppose not. Then there is a non-trivial map $`𝒪F(1).`$ If $`G`$ is the image of $`𝒪`$, then since $`F(1)`$ and $`𝒪`$ are semistable we must have $`p_𝒪p_Gp_{F(1)}`$.But this requires $`\mu (𝒪)\mu (F(1)),`$that is $`01,`$ which is false. Hence $`H^0(F(1))=0`$. Also, by Serre duality $`H^2(F(1))H^0(F^{}(2))^{}=`$ Hom$`(F,𝒪(2))^{}`$. A non-trivial map $`F𝒪(2)`$ results in $`\mu (F)\mu (𝒪(2))`$, that is $`02`$, which is false. Hence $`H^2(F(1))=0`$. Therefore $`\chi (F(1))=`$dim $`H^1(F(1))0`$, and by Riemann Roch $`\chi (F(1))=c_2`$. This implies that $`c_20`$ and $`h^1(F(1))=c_2`$.By exactly the same line of argument we get $`h^1(F(2))=c_2`$.

Now we show that $`H^0(F)=0.`$ Suppose not. Then there is a non-trivial map $`𝒪F,`$ leading to $`p_𝒪p_F.`$ Since we have $`\mu (𝒪)=\mu (F)`$ semistability requires that $`\chi (𝒪)\chi (F)/r,`$ that is $`1\frac{rc_2}{r}=1\frac{c_2}{r}`$. Now since $`c_20,`$ we have $`c_2=0.`$But there are no semistable sheaves other that the trivial one with $`c_1=c_2=0,`$ and we have assumed that $`F`$ is non-trivial. Hence $`H^0(F)=0`$.Similarly $`H^2(F)=0`$ and hence by Riemann Roch $`\chi (F)=rc_2=h^1(F)`$, so that $`h^1(F)=c_2r`$.

To give interesting and useful examples of stable bundles we will first look at bundles $`F`$ with $`c_1=0`$ that acquire a section after a single twist by $`𝒪(1)`$, that is, $`H^0(F(1))0`$. Such bundles are called Hulsbergen, after Wilfred Hulsbergen who initiated their study in his thesis . If $`s`$ is a section of $`F(1)`$ then we get an exact sequence

$$0𝒪F(1)_Z(2)0\text{.}$$

where $`𝒵`$ is the zero scheme for $`s`$. We will first prove the following

###### Proposition 4

The Hulsbergen bundle $`F`$ is Geiseker stable if and only if not all points of $`𝒵`$ lie on a line in $`P^2`$.

Proof. The proof rests on a simple observation that a rank $`2`$ bundle on $`P^2`$ with $`c_1=0`$ is stable if and only if $`H^0(F)=0`$. If $`F`$ is stable then clearly $`H^0(F)=0`$ by the above proposition. Conversely, suppose that $`H^0(F)=0`$. Let $`GF`$ be a rank $`1`$ subsheaf. Because $`F`$ is reflexive we may assume that $`G`$ is in fact a bundle. Hence $`G=𝒪(d)`$ for some integer $`d`$. But this means that $`F(d)`$ has a section and hence $`H^0(F(d))0`$. This implies that $`d<0`$ and hence $`\mu (G)<\mu (F)`$ proving stability.

Now consider the Hulsbergen bundle $`F`$ with the above sequence. Twisting by $`𝒪(1)`$ we see that $`H^0(F)=0`$ if and only if $`H^0(_Z(1))=0`$, which is equivalent to the geometric condition that not all points of $`Z`$ lie on a line in $`P^2`$. The proof is complete.

Let $`F`$ be a semistable sheaf on $`P^2`$ with reduced Hilbert polynomial $`p_F`$.Then there is a filtration $`F_0=(0)F_1\mathrm{}F_n`$, such that the quotients $`F_i/F_{i1}`$ are stable with reduced Hilbert polynomial $`p_F`$. Define $`gr(F)=F_i/F_{i1}`$. It can be shown that $`gr(F)`$ is independent of the filtration chosen for $`F`$.

###### Definition 5

Two semistable sheaves $`F`$ and $`G`$ are said to be $`S`$equivalent if $`gr(F)gr(G).`$

This is an equivalence relation on the set of semistable sheaves. On stable sheaves $`S`$ equivalence reduces to isomorphism of sheaves.

###### Theorem 6

(Maruyama ) There exists a moduli space $`_{P^2}(r,c_{1,}c_2)`$ of $`S`$ equivalence classes of semistable sheaves of rank $`r`$ and Chern classes $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$. The moduli space is projective. If $`(\chi ,r,c_1)=1`$ the moduli space is smooth and fine. The dimension of $`_{P^2}(r,c_{1,}c_2)`$ is $`r^2(2\mathrm{\Delta }1)+1`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{2rc_2(r1)c_1^2}{2r^2}`$.

###### Theorem 7

(Drezet, Le Potier) The space $`_{P^2}(r,c_{1,}c_2)`$ is irreducible.

###### Theorem 8

(Drezet ) The Picard group Pic$`_{P^2}(r,c_{1,}c_2)`$ is isomorphic to $``$ if $`r=n`$, and is isomorphic to $``$ if $`rn`$.

Next we state some basic definitions and facts about group actions.

Let $`G`$ be a reductive algebrac group acting linearly on a vector space $`V=^{n+1}`$. Then $`G`$ acts on the projective space $`P^n=P(V)`$. Let $`YP^n`$ be a closed $`G`$ invariant subvariety. If such an embedding of $`Y`$ in $`P^n`$ is defined by the ample line bundle $`L`$, then the action of $`G`$ is said to be linearized with respect to $`L`$.

###### Definition 9

A point $`aY`$ is said to be semi-stable if there is a homogeneous $`G`$ invariant polynomial of positive degree that does not vanish at $`a`$. Let $`Y^{ss}`$ denote the set of semi-stable points of $`Y`$. A point $`aY`$ is said to be stable if it is semi-stable and if the orbit map $`\phi _a:GY^{ss}`$ defined by $`\phi _a(g)=g.a`$ is proper.

The following fact can be verified easily .

###### Proposition 10

Let $`a^{}V\backslash \{0\}`$ be any representative of $`aY`$. Then $`a`$ is semi-stable if $`0\overline{orb(a^{})}`$, where $`\overline{orb(a^{})}`$ denotes the closure of the orbit of $`a^{}`$in $`V`$. Also, $`a`$ is stable if $`orb(a^{})`$ is closed and the stabilizer $`stab(a^{})`$ is finite.

A non-trivial morphism of algebraic groups $`\lambda :C^{}G`$ is called a $`1`$-parameter subgroup of $`G`$. If $`G`$ acts linearly on $`V`$, then $`C^{}`$ acts acts on $`V`$ by composition. By reductivity and commutativity of $`C^{}`$ we get a decomposition of $`V`$ as $`V=V_m`$ where $`\lambda (t)(v)=t^mv`$, for $`vV_m`$. Let $`vV`$ be written as $`v=\mathrm{\Sigma }v_m`$. Then we define

$$\mu (v,\lambda )=min\{m/v_m0\}.$$

Let $`YP^n=P(V)`$be a closed $`G`$ invariant subvariety and let $`yY`$. Let $`y^{}V\backslash \{0\}`$ be any representative for $`y`$. We put

$$\mu (y,\lambda )=\mu (y^{},\lambda )\text{.}$$

It is easy to check that the definition is independent of the choice of the representative of the point $`y`$. The following theorems are central to all our computations.

###### Theorem 11

(Hilbert-Mumford) Let $`G`$ be a reductive group acting linearly on a vector space $`V=C^{n+1}`$. A point $`xP(V)`$ is semi-stable (stable) under the action of $`G`$ if and only if it is semi-stable (stable) under the action of all $`1`$-parameter subgroups of $`G`$.

###### Theorem 12

(Hilbert-Mumford criterion) Let $`G`$ act on $`V=C^{n+1}`$ linearly. Let $`YP^n`$ be a closed $`G`$ invariant subvariety. A point $`yY`$ is semi-stable (stable) with respect $`G`$ if and only if $`\mu (y,\lambda )0`$ for all $`1`$-parameter subgroups $`\lambda `$ of $`G`$.

We now recall the classical result for curves.

###### Proposition 13

Consider the action of $`SL(3)`$ on the space $`P^N`$ of curves of degree $`n`$ in $`P^2`$. If $`CP^N`$ has a point of multiplicity greater than $`\frac{2n}{3}`$ then $`C`$ is unstable.

Proof. Let $`f(X,Y,Z)=0`$ be the equation for the curve $`C`$ in $`P^2`$.Without loss of generality we can assume that the point of multiplicity $`>\frac{2n}{3}`$ is $`(0;0;1)`$ in the projective space $`P^N`$. Then the equation of $`C`$ looks like

$`f(X,Y,Z)=f_m(X,Y,Z)+f_{m+1}(X,Y,Z)+\mathrm{}+f_t(X,Y,Z)`$ where $`f_i=\mathrm{\Sigma }c^{(i)}X^aY^bZ^c`$ with $`a+b+c=n`$ and $`a+b=i`$. In particular, $`f_m(X,Y,Z)=\mathrm{\Sigma }c^{(m)}X^aY^bZ^c`$ with $`a+b=m`$ and not all $`c^{(m)}=0`$, since then the multiplicity would not be $`m`$. The coordinates of $`CP^N`$ are just the coefficients $`c^{(j)}`$ of the monomials in $`X`$, $`Y`$ and $`Z`$. Note that $`a+b=m>\frac{2n}{3}`$ and $`a+b+c=n`$ implies that $`c<\frac{n}{3}`$.

Take the $`1`$parameter group $`\lambda `$ that defines the action $`\lambda (t)X=tX`$, $`\lambda (t)Y=tY`$ and $`\lambda (t)Z=t^2Z`$ on the coordinates of the projective plane. Under the action of this $`1`$parameter group the equation $`f(X,Y,Z)`$ gets transformed into

$`\lambda f(X,Y,Z)=\mathrm{\Sigma }c^{(m)}t^{a+b2c}X^aY^bZ^c+\mathrm{\Sigma }c^{(m+1)}t^{p+q2r}X^pY^qZ^r+\mathrm{}`$

In all of the above sums $`a+b2c>0`$, $`p+q2r>0`$,…etc. That is, the power of $`t`$ is always $`>0`$ in all the sums. This is because $`a+b>\frac{2n}{3}`$ and $`2c<\frac{2n}{3}`$. Thus we see that if $`t0`$ the point $`C`$ in $`P^N`$ tends to $`0`$ implying that $`0`$ is in the closure of the orbit of $`\stackrel{~}{C}`$ a representative of $`C`$ in $`^{N+1}`$. Thus $`C`$ is unstable.

Let $`G\times H`$ act on a projective variety $`X`$ linearized with respect to an ample line bundle $`L`$, where $`G`$ and $`H`$ are reductive algebraic groups. Then the group $`H`$ acts on $`X`$ by restriction. Let $`X^{ss}(H)`$ be the set of semistable points for the action of $`H`$ on $`X`$. Let $`Y=X//H`$ be the GIT quotient and let $`\pi `$ be the quotient map $`X^{ss}(H)Y`$. By GIT, $`Y`$ comes equipped with an ample line bundle $`E`$ such that $`\pi ^{}(E)=L^m|_{X^{ss}(H)}`$ for some $`m>0`$. Now $`G`$ acts on the quotient space $`Y`$ and the action is linearized with respect to the ample line bundle $`E`$. We will need to know the unstable points for this action. Let us call this set $`Y^{un}(G)`$.Let $`X^{un}(G\times H)`$ be the locus of unstable points for the action of $`G\times H`$ on $`X`$ linearized by the line bundle $`L`$. Consider the intersection $`V=X^{un}(G\times H)X^{ss}(H)X^{ss}(H)`$.

###### Proposition 14

$`\pi (V)=Y^{un}(G)`$.

Proof. The proof follows from the equality

$`H^0(Y,E^n)^G=H^0(X,L^{mn})^{G\times H}`$ for all $`n`$, and $`m`$ as described in the above paragraph. Now let $`yY`$ be unstable. Let $`x`$ be a preimage under $`\pi `$. By definition of an unstable point, if $`sH^0(Y,E^n)^G`$ then $`s(y)=0`$, for any $`n`$. But from the above equality of groups, if $`tH^0(X,L^k)^{G\times H}`$ then $`t(x)=0`$, for any $`k`$. And this means that $`xX^{ss}(H)`$ is $`G\times H`$ unstable. The converse also follows.

3. The Barth Map and GIT

In this section we will show how the theory of jump lines can be used to study stability of sheaves. We begin with the classical notion of a jump line.

###### Definition 15

Let $`F`$ be a torsion free coherent sheaf on $`P^2`$ with $`c_1=0`$ and rank $`r`$. A line $`lP^2`$ is called a jump line for $`F`$ if $`F|_lr𝒪`$.

The following proposition is a corollary of a famous theorem of Grauert and Mullich.

###### Proposition 16

Let $`F`$ be a semistable sheaf of rank $`2`$ on $`P^2`$ with $`c_1(F)=0`$. Then for a general line $`lP^2`$ we have $`F|_l=𝒪𝒪`$. That is, a generic line is non jumping.

The set of jump lines, in fact, has a better structure, as is proved by Barth.

###### Theorem 17

(W.Barth ) Let $`F`$ be semistable of rank $`2`$ on $`P^2`$ with $`c_1=0`$. The set of jump lines of $`F`$, $`J(F)`$ $`P^2^{}`$ is a curve of degree equal to $`c_2`$.

We explain the scheme structure of $`J(F)`$ now. Consider the incidence manifold $`IP^2\times P^2^{}`$ defined by $`I=\{(x,l)/xl\}`$. Let $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$ be the projections $`p_1:IP^2`$ and $`p_2:IP^2^{}`$. Consider the sheaf $`R^1p_2p_1^{}F(1)`$. Define $`J(F)`$ to be the zero scheme of the Fitting ideal associated to the sheaf $`R^1p_2p_1^{}F(1)`$. To see that $`J(F)`$ as defined above is indeed the set of jump lines, we must prove that a line $`l`$ is a jump line if and only if $`H^1(F(1)|_l)0`$.But this is clear since a line $`l`$ is jumping for $`F`$ if and only if there is a map $`F(1)|_l𝒪_l(2)0`$, which in turn gives a surjection $`H^1(F(1)|_l)H^1(𝒪_l(2))0`$, and since $`H^1(𝒪_l(2))0`$, we have $`H^1(F(1)|_l)0`$ and we are done.

###### Proposition 18

The Barth map, b, which is the assignment $`FJ(F)`$ is well defined on $`S`$ equivalence classes of semistable sheaves. Hence we have a regular map on the moduli space b: $`_{P^2}(2,0_,n)P^N`$, where $`N=\frac{(n+1)(n+2)}{2}1`$.

Proof. Let $`F`$ be semistable. Then there is a Jordan-Holder filtration $`(0)F_1F`$ such that both quotients $`F_1`$ and $`F/F_1=G_1`$ have the same reduced Hilbert polynomial as $`F`$. In particular, $`c_1=0`$ for both $`F_1`$ and $`G_1`$. We claim that $`J(F)=J(F_1)J(G_1)`$. In view of this let $`lJ(F_1)J(G_1)`$. Then either $`H^0(F_1(1)|_l)0`$ or $`H^0(G_1(1)|_l)0`$ implying that $`H^0(F(1)|_l)0`$. Conversely, if $`lJ(F_1)J(G_1)`$ then $`H^0(F_1(1)|_l)=H^0(G_1(1)|_l)=H^0(F(1)|_l)=0`$ which means that $`l`$ is not a jump line for $`F.`$ Thus if $`f=0`$ and $`g=0`$ are the equations of $`J(F_1)`$ and $`J(G_1)`$ respectively then $`J(F)`$ has equation $`fg=0`$. Since the Jordan-Holder filtration is unique upto isomorphism of quotients, $`J(F)`$ is well defined on $`S`$ equivalence classes of sheaves. this completes the proof.

The Hulsbergen bundles offer examples of curves of jump lines. Let $`F`$ be a Hulsbergen bundle defined by the sequence

$$0𝒪F(1)_Z(2)0$$

where $`𝒵`$ is a zero scheme in $`P^2`$. Suppose that $`d+1`$ point of $`𝒵`$ lie on a line $`lP^2`$.When restricted to this line $`l`$ the sheaf $`_Z`$ is simply $`𝒪_l(d1)`$. The above defining sequence gives a surjection $`F|_l𝒪(d)0`$. Since $`F`$ is rank $`2`$ and $`c_1(F)=0`$, the kernel of the map must be $`𝒪(d)`$. Since $`H^1(P^1,𝒪(2d))=0`$ for $`d0`$, the restricted sequence splits and we get the decomposition $`F|_l=𝒪(d)𝒪(d)`$. Hence if $`d1`$ the line $`l`$ is a jump line for $`F`$.

One can in fact write down equations for the curve of jump lines. Let $`Z`$ be the zero scheme of $`n+1`$ distinct points $`\{x_1,\mathrm{},x_{n+1}\}`$ in $`P^2`$ no three of which are collinear. Let $`L_1,\mathrm{},L_{n+1}`$ be linear forms that are equations for the lines $`x_1^{},\mathrm{},x_{n+1}^{}`$ in $`P^2`$. Let $`f_i=\mathrm{\Pi }_{ji}L_j`$. Let $`W=span\{f_1,\mathrm{},f_{n+1}\}H^0(P^2,𝒪(n))`$. Hulsbergen proves that thee is an isomorphism $`Ext(I_Z(2),𝒪)W=^{n+1}`$ such that if $`FExt(I_Z(2),𝒪)`$ corresponds to $`(a_1,\mathrm{},a_{n+1})W`$ the the curve of jump lines of $`F`$, $`J(F)`$, is given by the equation

$$a_1f_1+\mathrm{}+a_{n+1}f_{n+1}=0\text{.}$$

For a generic $`F`$, the curve of jump lines is clearly nonsingular.

In order to exploit the Barth map to understand stability of sheaves we need the following comparison theorem of Reichstein on a relative Hilbert-Mumford criterion.

###### Theorem 19

(Reichstein) Let $`X`$ and $`Y`$ be projective varieties on which a reductive group acts. Let $`f:XY`$ be a $`G`$equivariant map. Let the actions of $`G`$ on $`X`$ and $`Y`$ be linearized by ample line bundles $`L`$ and $`M`$ respectively. Let $`L_d=f^{}M^dL`$. For large $`d`$ the following holds
(i) If $`f(x)=y`$ and $`y`$ is unstable, then $`x`$ is unstable under the linearization $`L_d`$,
(ii) If $`f(x)=y`$ and $`y`$ is stable, then $`x`$ is stable under the linearization $`L_d`$.

We now prove our first theorem for rank $`2`$ sheaves.

###### Theorem 20

Let $`F_{P^2}(2,0_,n)`$. Suppose there is a line $`lP^2`$ such that $`F|_l=𝒪(d)𝒪(d)`$ with $`d>\frac{2n}{3}`$, then $`F`$ is unstable for the $`SL(3)`$ action suitably linearized. Also, a generic point in $`_{P^2}(2,0_,n)`$ is stable.

Proof. With the previous background the proof is quite easy. Consider the Barth map $`b:_{P^2}(2,0_,n)P^N`$. On $`J(F)`$ the line $`l`$ corresponds to a point of multiplicity $`m`$, with $`md`$. this can be seen in Barth’s fundamental paper . Now since $`d>\frac{2n}{3}`$, we have $`m>\frac{2n}{3}`$. Hence $`J(F)`$ is unstable. Hence by Reichstein’s theorem $`F`$ is unstable under suitable linearization.

To prove that a generic point is stable we simply produce a stable point. Genericness follows from the irreducibility of the moduli space. Consider a zero scheme $`𝒵`$ of length $`n+1`$ in $`P^2`$ such that no three points are on a line. Let $`F`$ be a vector bundle on $`P^2`$ given by the Hulsbergen sequence

$$0𝒪F(1)_𝒵(2)0\text{.}$$

Then the curve of jump lines $`J(F)`$ is nonsingular and hence stable by Mumford’s result. But then by Reichstein’s theorem $`F`$ is also stable. The proof is complete.

3. Higher Rank: Group Action on $`_{P^2}(r,0,n)`$

When the rank $`r3`$ the facility of the Barth map is lost. Hulek has tried to recover the theory of jump lines for higher rank. However, it turns out that in the event that a curve of jump lines can be assigned to a vector bundle, a lot of information is lost in the process. For one, the degree of the curve is much larger than $`c_2`$ and the multiplicities of points on the curve are very weakly related to the splitting of the bundle over the line. Thus in order to get sharp results we need to adopt a different approach.

In 1970 Horrocks realized a remarkable philosophy of recovering a vector bundle from its cohomology groups and certain maps between them. This is his theory of monads. Monadic representations allow us to view the moduli space as a GIT quotient of subvarieties of products of Grassmanians. In this sense it replaces the so-called Quot scheme. This structure is more convenient to study Picard groups and group actions. The GIT is reduced to calculations on products of grassmanians. We start by stating a fundamental result of Beilinson on spectral sequences.

###### Theorem 21

(Beilinson ) Let $`E`$ be a rank $`r`$ torsion free sheaf on $`P^n`$. Then there is a spectral sequence $`E_r^{pq}`$, for $`0qn`$ and $`np0`$, with $`E_1`$ term given by $`E_1^{pq}=H^q(P^n,E(p))\mathrm{\Omega }^p(p),`$which converges to

$`E^i`$ $`=E\text{ if }i=0,`$
$`E^i`$ $`=0\text{ otherwise.}`$
###### Definition 22

A monad is a complex of sheaves

$$0ABC0$$

exact at $`A`$ and $`C`$ but not necessarily exact in the middle.

###### Proposition 23

Let $`E`$ be a semistable sheaf of rank $`r`$ on $`P^2`$ with Chern classes $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$. Assume that $`E`$ is normalized, that is, $`r<c_10`$. Then $`E`$ is the middle cohomology of the monad

$$0H^1(E(2))𝒪(1)H^1(E(1))\mathrm{\Omega }(1)H^1(E)𝒪0\text{.}$$

Proof. Consider the $`E_1`$ term

$$E_1^{pq}=H^q(P^n,E(p))\mathrm{\Omega }^p(p)\text{.}$$

Since our base space is $`P^2`$, $`E_1^{p,q}=0`$ if $`q>2`$. Thus $`q=0,1,2`$ are the only values of $`q`$ yielding non zero $`E_1`$terms. Moreover, by semistability of $`E`$ we have $`H^0(P^2,E(p))=H^2(P^2,E(p))=0`$ for $`p=0,1,2`$. Thus $`E_1^{p,0}=E_2^{p,2}=0`$ for $`p=0,1`$ and $`2`$. The differential maps at level $`1`$ are defined as $`d_1^{p,q}:E_1^{p,q}E_1^{p+1,q}`$. We now have $`\mathrm{ker}d_1^{2,1}=E_2^{2,1}=A`$(say), $`\mathrm{ker}d_1^{1,1}/imaged_1^{2,1}=E_2^{1,1}=B`$(say) and $`co\mathrm{ker}d_1^{1,1}=E_2^{0,1}=C`$(say). The differentials at level $`2`$ are defined $`d_2^{p,q}:E_2^{p,q}E_2^{p+1,q1}`$ and hence are degenerate. The spectral sequence therefore degenerates at the $`E_2`$ term. By Beilinsons’ theorem $`E_2^{2,1}=E_2^{0,1}=0`$, and $`E_2^{1,1}=E`$ .This simply means that we have a complex

$$0E_1^{2,1}E_1^{1,1}E_1^{0,1}0\text{,}$$

whose middle cohomology is $`E`$. Reading the terms of the complex we get the required monad whose middle cohomology is $`E`$.

###### Corollary 24

Let $`E`$ be semistable of rank $`r`$ on $`P^2`$ with $`c_1=0`$ and c$`{}_{2}{}^{}=r`$. Then $`E`$ occurs as the cokernel in the exact sequence

$$0^r𝒪(1)^r\mathrm{\Omega }(1)E0\text{.}$$

Proof. First note that dim$`H^1(E)=\chi (E)=c_2r=0`$. Adding this information in the statement of the above proposition we see that $`E`$ is the cokernel in the exact sequence of the form

$$0H^1(E(2))𝒪(1)H^1(E(1))\mathrm{\Omega }(1)E0\text{.}$$

By Riemann Roch theorem each of $`H^1(E(2))`$ and $`H^1(E(1))`$ are $`r`$ dimensional vector spaces. The result follows.

The corollary of Beilinson’s theorem helps us to construct the moduli space $`(r,0,n)`$ as a GIT quotient of a certain ‘space of monads’. We describe this construction below.

Let $`K,H,L`$ and $`V`$ be fixed vector spaces of dimensions $`n,n,nr`$ and $`3`$ respectively. The projective plane under consideration will be $`P^2=P(V)`$. Consider the product of grassmannians $`G(n,HV)\times G(HV^{},nr)`$, where $`G(n,HV)`$ is the grassmannian of subspaces of $`HV`$ of dimension $`n`$ and $`G(HV^{},nr)`$ is the grassmannian of quotients of $`HV^{}`$ of dimension $`nr`$. A pair $`(K,L)`$ in $`G(n,HV)\times G(HV^{},nr)`$ gives maps $`a:K𝒪(1)H\mathrm{\Omega }(1)`$, and $`b:H\mathrm{\Omega }(1)L𝒪`$. Consider the subspace $`𝔐G(n,HV)\times G(HV^{},nr)`$ comsisting of pairs $`(K,L)`$ such that $`ba=0`$. This is the master space of monads. The group $`SL(H)`$ acts on $`𝔐`$. The following theorem of Le Potier is very crucial for us;

###### Theorem 25

(Le Potier) For the polarization $`(rmn,n)`$ on $`G(n,HV)\times G(HV^{},nr)`$ restricted to $`𝔐`$, with $`m`$ sufficiently large, we have the isomorphism

$$𝔐//SL(H)_{P^2}(r,0,n)\text{.}$$

The GIT quotient $`_{P^2}(r,0,n)`$ comes equipped with an ample line bundle which we denote by $`E_m`$. Our discussion of stability is with respect to the action of $`SL(3)`$ linearized with respect to $`E_m`$.

We will need the following lemma.

###### Lemma 26

Let $`(K,L)`$ be a pair defining a semistable sheaf $`F`$. Let $`vV`$ and let $`v^{}V^{}`$ be the annihilating space for $`v`$. The injection $`KHV`$ gives a natural map $`\alpha _v:K`$ Hom$`(v^{},H)`$ and this map is injective.

Proof. Suppose that there is a $`vV`$, $`v0`$ such that the map $`\alpha _v`$ is not injective. Then there is a $`kK`$, such that $`k0`$ and $`\alpha _v(k)=0`$.

Blow up $`P^2`$ at the point $`x=.vP^2`$ and denote the $`\sigma `$ process at $`x`$ by $`\sigma :\widehat{P^2}P^2`$. Embed $`\widehat{P^2}`$ in $`P^2\times P^1`$ as an incidence manifold. Let $`p`$ and $`q`$ denote the projections to $`P^2`$ and $`P^1`$ respectively. Let $`E\widehat{P^2}`$ be the exceptional curve. Then we have $`\sigma ^{}(𝒪_{P^2}(1))=q^{}(𝒪_{P^1}(1))(E)`$. Now we have the exact sequence

$$0p^{}F(2)q^{}(𝒪_{P^1}(1))p^{}F(1)q^{}𝒪_{P^1}p^{}F(1)q^{}𝒪_{P^1}|_{\widehat{P^2}}0\text{.}$$

The direct image of this sequence under $`q`$ gives the following sequence on $`P^1`$,

$$0q_{}(p^{}F(2)q^{}(𝒪_{P^1}(1)))|_{_{\widehat{P^2}}}K𝒪_{P^1}(1)H𝒪_{P^1}\text{.}$$

A point $`lP^1`$ corresponds to a line $`LP^2`$ such that the equation for $`L`$ is $`z=0`$ for $`zv^{}V^{}`$. Thus the rank one subsheaf $`kq_{}(p^{}F(1)q^{}𝒪_{P^1})`$ lies in the kernel of the right hand arrow. Hence $`q_{}(p^{}F(1)q^{}𝒪_{P^1})`$ contains $`𝒪_{P^1}(1)`$ as a subsheaf and we have

$$p^{}F(1)q^{}𝒪_{P^1}(1)\sigma ^{}F(E)^1\sigma ^{}F$$

which implies that $`\sigma ^{}F`$ contains a nontrivial section. But this is a contradiction since we know that by semistability $`H^0(F)=0`$. This concludes the proof.

In a similar vein we have the following proposition.

###### Proposition 27

If $`V^{}V^{}`$ is a one dimensional subspace of $`V^{}`$ then the image of the restricted map $`HV^{}L`$ is $`(0)`$.

Proof. We know that $`0L^{}H^{}V`$. If $`vV`$, we will show that $`L^{}(H^{}(v))=(0)`$. The proof is along the same lines as the previous lemma except that we need to use properties of $`F^{}`$ namely that it is torsion free and $`H^0(F^{}(1))=0`$. By Serre duality $`L^{}=H^1(F)^{}H^1(F^{}(3))`$, and similarly $`H^{}=H^1(F(1))^{}H^1(F^{}(2))`$. Suppose that we have $`\beta L^{}(H^{}(v))`$, $`\beta 0`$. Let $`v^{}=ann(v)V^{}`$ be the annihilating subspace in $`V^{}`$.

Blow up $`P^2`$ at the point $`x=.vP^2`$, and denote this $`\sigma `$ process at $`x`$ by $`\sigma ;\widehat{P^2}P^2`$. Embed $`\widehat{P^2}`$ in $`P^2\times P^1`$ as an incidence manifold. Let $`p`$ and $`q`$ denote the projections to $`P^2`$ and $`P^1`$ respectively. Let $`E\widehat{P^2}`$ be the exceptional curve. Then we have $`\sigma ^{}(𝒪_{P^1}(1))=q^{}(𝒪_{P^1}(1))(E)`$. Now we have the exact sequence

$$0p^{}F^{}(3)q^{}(𝒪_{P^1}(1))p^{}F^{}(2)q^{}𝒪_{P^1}p^{}F^{}(2)q^{}𝒪_{P^1}|_{\widehat{P^2}}0\text{.}$$

The direct image under $`q`$ gives the following sequence on $`P^1`$,

$$0q_{}(p^{}F^{}(2)q^{}𝒪_{P^1})|_{\widehat{P^2}}L^{}𝒪_{P^1}(1)H^{}𝒪_{P^1}\text{.}$$

A point $`lP^1`$ corresponds to a line $`LP^2`$ such that the equation for $`L`$ is $`zv^{}V^{}`$.

Thus the rank one subsheaf $`kq_{}(p^{}F^{}(2)q^{}𝒪_{P^1})`$ lies in the kernel of the rightmost arrow.Thus $`q_{}(p^{}F^{}(2)q^{}𝒪_{P^1})`$ containes $`𝒪_{P^1}(1)`$ as a subsheaf and hence

$$p^{}F^{}(2)q^{}F^{}(1)\sigma ^{}F^{}(1)L(E)^1\sigma ^{}F^{}(1)\text{.}$$

This implies that $`\sigma ^{}F^{}(1)`$ contains a non trivial section. But this is a contradiction since we know that $`H^0(F^{}(1))=0`$. This concludes the proof.

We now begin to study actions on products on grassmannians. For convenience we will consider grassmannians of subspaces only rather than grassmannians of quotients. Results for the latter can be obtained simply by dualizing the actions.

###### Proposition 28

Let $`G=SL(H)\times SL(V)`$ act on the space $`Y=G(n,HV)\times G(m,HV)`$ linearized by the line bundle $`(p,q)Pic(X)`$. Then $`SL(V)`$ acts on $`Y`$ by restriction. A point $`(K,L)Y`$ is unstable with respect to the $`SL(V)`$ action if and only if there is a subspace $`V^{}V`$ such that if $`K^{}=KHV^{}`$ and $`L^{}=LHV^{}`$ then

$$\frac{p\text{ dim}K^{}+q\text{ dim}L^{}}{\text{dim}V^{}}>\frac{p\text{ dim}K+q\text{ dim}L}{\text{dimV}}\text{.}$$

Proof. First assume that the pair $`(K,L)`$ satisfies

$$\frac{p\text{ dim}K^{}+q\text{ dim}L^{}}{\text{dim}V^{}}\frac{p\text{ dim}K+q\text{ dim}L}{\text{dimV}}$$

for every $`V^{}V`$. We will prove that $`(K,L)`$ is semistable. Let $`\lambda `$ be a $`1`$parameter subgroup of $`SL(V)`$. Choose subspaces $`V_jV`$ such that $`t(v_j)=t^{u_j}v_j`$ for $`v_jV_j`$ and $`t\lambda `$. Let $`F_i=_{p=1}^iHV_p`$. Without loss of generality we can assume that $`u_1>u_2>\mathrm{}u_s`$. Then we have the flag

$$F_1F_2\mathrm{}F_s=HV\text{.}$$

Define $`K_i=KF_i`$ and $`L_i=LF_i`$ for $`i=1,\mathrm{}s`$. Now we know that

$$\mu ((K,L),\lambda )=p\mu (K,\lambda )q\mu (L,\lambda )\text{.}$$

Hence

$$\mu ((K,L),\lambda )=p\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=1}^su_i(\text{dim}K_i\text{dim}K_{i1})+q\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=1}^su_i(\text{dim}L_i\text{dim}L_{i1})\text{.}$$

The assumed inequality for $`(K,L)`$ gives us

$$(u_{i=1}u_i)(p\text{ dim}K_{i1}+q\text{ dim}L_{i1})c(\text{dim}F_{i1})(u_{i1}u_i)$$

for $`i=2,\mathrm{}s`$ and

$$u_s(p\text{ dim}K_s+q\text{ dim}L_s)c\text{ dim}F_su_s\text{.}$$

Adding all these inequalities we get $`\mu 0`$. By the Hilbert-Mumford criterion this means that $`(K,L)`$ is a semistable point.

Conversely, suppose that there is a subspace $`V^{}V`$ such that we have the inequality

$$\frac{p\text{ dim}K^{}+q\text{ dimL’}}{\text{dim}V^{}}>\frac{p\text{ dim}K+q\text{ dim}L}{\text{dimV}}\text{.}$$

Let $`V=V^{}V^{\prime \prime }`$. Take the $`1`$parameter group $`\lambda SL(V)`$ that has the action defined by $`t(v^{})=t^{\text{dim}V^{\prime \prime }}v^{}`$ for $`v^{}V^{}`$ and $`t(v^{\prime \prime })=t^{\text{dim}V^{}}v^{\prime \prime }`$ for $`v^{\prime \prime }V^{\prime \prime }`$. Calculating $`\mu `$ we find that $`\mu ((K,L),\lambda )<0`$, which proves unstability.

For any subspace $`V^{}V`$, there is an induced map $`LL^{}0`$, where $`L^{}`$ is defined as follows: The injection $`V^{}V`$ gives a surjection $`V^{}V^{}`$ with a kernel $`W^{}`$. We get a map $`HW^{}L`$ by restriction. If $`L^{\prime \prime }`$ is the image then $`L^{}`$ is defined as $`L/L^{\prime \prime }`$. We use this consturction in the proposition below.

###### Corollary 29

Let $`SL(H)\times SL(V)`$ act on the space $`X=G(k,HV)\times G(HV^{},m)`$ where the action of $`SL(V)`$ on $`V^{}`$ is defined by transpose. Let the action be linearized by the ample line bundle $`(p,q)`$ on $`X`$. A point $`(K,L)`$ is unstable for the $`SL(V)`$ action if and only if there is a subspace $`V^{}V`$ such that if $`K^{}=KHV^{}`$and $`L^{}`$is as defined above we have

$$\frac{p\text{ dim}K^{}+q\text{ dim }L^{}}{\text{dim}V^{}}>\frac{p\text{ dim}K+q\text{ dim}L}{\text{dim}V}\text{.}$$

Proof. By dualizing we can think of $`G(HV^{},m)`$ as the grassmannian of subspaces $`G(m,H^{}V)`$ . Under this identification let the pair $`(K,L)`$ correspond to the pair $`(K,W)`$. Then from the proof of the above proposition, $`(K,W)G(m,H^{}V)`$ is $`SL(V)`$ unstable if and only if there is a subspace $`V^{}V`$ such that if $`K^{}=KHV^{}`$ and $`W^{}=WH^{}V^{}`$, we have

$$\frac{p\text{ dim}K^{}+q\text{ dim}W^{}}{\text{dim}V^{}}>\frac{p\text{ dim}K+q\text{ dim}W}{\text{dim}V}\text{.}$$

The vector spaces $`L`$ and $`W`$ are related by the th equality $`W=L^{}`$. The subspace $`W^{}`$ of $`W`$ thus corresponds to a subspace $`L^{}`$ of $`L^{}`$. Hence we get the quotient $`LL^{}`$. Since $`L^{}`$ and $`W^{}`$ are of the same dimension the above inequality reduces to

$$\frac{p\text{ dim}K^{}+q\text{ dim}L^{}}{\text{dim}V^{}}>\frac{p\text{ dim}K+q\text{ dim}L}{\text{dim}V^{}}$$

which is the stated criterion. The proof is complete.

###### Corollary 30

Let $`F_{P^2}(r,0,n)`$ and let $`(K,L)G(n,HV)\times G(HV^{},nr)`$ be a pair corresponding to $`F`$. If $`(K,L)`$ is such that there is a vector subspace $`V^{}V`$ with

$$\text{dim}K^{}>\frac{\text{dim}V^{}.\text{dim}K}{\text{dim}V}\text{.}$$

where $`K^{}=HV^{}K`$. Then $`(K,L)`$ is $`SL(V)`$ unstable. Moreover, for the above inequality to hold we need dim$`V^{}=2`$.

Proof. Note that for the inequality in the hypothesis to hold we must have dim$`V^{}=2.`$For if dim$`V^{}=1`$, then dim$`K^{}=0`$, by the lemma proved before and the inequality does not hold. We know that $`(K,L)`$ is unstable if and only if there is a subspace $`V^{}V`$ such that if $`K^{}=KHV^{}`$ and $`L^{}`$ as defined before we have

$$\frac{(rmn)\text{ dim}K^{}+n\text{ dim}L^{}}{\text{dim}V^{}}>\frac{(rmn)\text{ dim}K+n\text{ dim}L}{\text{dim}V}$$

where $`m>>0`$. Simplifying the above inequality gives

$$\frac{\text{dim}K^{}}{\text{dim}V^{}}>\frac{\text{dim}K}{\text{dim}V}+\frac{1}{rmn}\left(\frac{n\text{ dim}L^{}}{\text{dim}V^{}}+\frac{n\text{ dim}L}{\text{dim}V}\right)\text{.}$$

Since $`m`$ is very large the above inequality is equivalent to

$$\text{dim}K^{}>\frac{\text{dim}V^{}.\text{dim}K}{\text{dim}V}\pm $$

where $``$ $`>0`$, and is very small. Since dim$`K^{}`$ is an integer, the inequality in the hypothesis,

$$\text{dim}K^{}>\frac{\text{dim}V^{}.\text{dim}K}{\text{dim}V}\text{,}$$

implies the inequality for unstability. The proof is complete.

This will be crucial in the final steps of the proof. Roughly, the ’undemocratic’ polarization leads the second factor to eventually drop out of the analysis.

The following theorem relates the geometry of $`F`$ to its $`SL(V)`$ unstability.

###### Theorem 31

Let $`F_{P^2}(r,0,n).`$ If there is a line $`lP^2`$ such that $`F|_l=𝒪(d_i)_{j=1,\mathrm{},p}C_j`$ with

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{d_i0}d_i+p>\frac{2n}{3}\text{.}$$

then $`F`$ is unstable under the $`SL(3)`$ action on $`_{P^2}(r,0,n)`$ with respect to the polarization $`E_m`$.

Proof. Assume that there is a line $`lP^2`$with the given property of $`F`$. Let $`(K,L)`$ be a point in the space of monads that defines $`F`$. Let $`l=P(V^{})`$, where dim $`V^{}=2`$. We prove that $`V^{}`$ is a destabilizing subspace for the pair $`(K,L)`$. We have the exact sequence

$$0F(2)F(1)F(1)|_l0\text{,}$$

from which we get the cohomology sequence

$$0H^0(F(1)|_l)KHH^1(F(1)|_l)0\text{.}$$

Then $`K^{}=KHV^{}`$ is also the image of $`H^0(F(1)|_l)`$ in $`K`$. To check this first recall that $`K`$ is a subspace of $`HV`$. For $`lV^{}`$ the map $`\varphi _l:KH`$ is obtained as follows. Let $`kK`$ be written as $`k=\mathrm{\Sigma }h_iv_i`$.Then $`\varphi _l(k)=\mathrm{\Sigma }\varphi _l(v_i)h_i`$. Since $`l=P(V^{})`$, $`\varphi _l`$ annihilates $`V^{}`$ and hence if $`kKHV^{}`$ then $`\varphi _l(k)=0`$ which means that $`kH^0(F(1)|_l)`$.

Conversely, assume that $`\varphi _l(k)=0`$. Think of $`k`$ as $`k=h_1v_1+h_2v_2+h_3v_3`$ where $`v_1,v_2V^{}`$ and $`v_3V^{}`$. Then $`\varphi _l(k)=\varphi _l(v_3)h_3=0`$, which implies that $`h_3=0`$, and hence $`kKHV^{}`$. Thus $`K^{}`$ is the image of $`H^0(F(1)|_l)`$ in $`K`$. A simple computation on $`P^1`$yeilds dim $`K^{}=\mathrm{\Sigma }_{d_i0}d_i+p`$. Since dim $`V=3`$ and dim$`K=n`$, the given inequality is therefore the same as

$$\text{dim }K^{}>\frac{\text{dim }V^{}\text{ dim }K}{\text{dim }V}\text{,}$$

which is the unstability criterion for the pair $`(K,L)`$ for the $`SL(V)`$ action on the space of monads. Hence the sheaf $`F`$ is unstable for the $`SL(3)`$ action by pullback, linearized with respect to the line bundle $`E_m`$.The proof is complete.

Note that when $`F`$ is a vector bundle there are no skyscraper sheaves in the splitting of $`F`$ over a line.

Our next task is to prove that for the action of $`SL(3)`$ on $`_{P^2}(r,0,n)`$ a generic point is stable. We will prepare for this direction by first giving examples of semistable sheaves of arbitrary high rank that are $`SL(3)`$ unstable. The Serre criterion helps us construct bundles of rank $`2`$ with desired splitting properties when restricted to lines in $`P^2`$. Choose $`n+1`$ points $`x_1,\mathrm{}x_{n+1}`$ in $`P^2`$ such that $`d+1`$ of them lie on a line $`l`$, $`dn`$. Let $`𝒵`$ be the zero scheme corresponding to the $`n+1`$ points. Let $`F^{}`$ be given as an extension

$$0𝒪_{P^2}F^{}_Z(2)0\text{.}$$

Let $`F=F^{}𝒪(1)`$. Then $`c_1(F)=0`$ and $`c_2(F)=n`$. Also, since not all the points are on a line, $`F`$ is a stable bundle. Moreover, $`F|_l=𝒪(d)𝒪(d)`$. Choosing $`d>\frac{2n}{3}`$, $`dn`$, we have lots of examples of stable bundles that are $`SL(3)`$ unstable. The following proposition enables a construction of $`SL(3)`$ unstable sheaves in higher rank.

###### Proposition 32

Fix an integer $`q<n`$, and a line $`lP^2`$. Then there are $`F_{P^2}(r,0,n)`$ such that $`F|_l=𝒪(d_i)_{j=1,\mathrm{}p}C_j`$ where $`C_j`$ are skyscraper sheaves and

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{d_i0}d_i+p=q\text{.}$$

Proof. Note first that it is enough to prove the existence of such an $`F`$ for some line $`l^{}P^2`$. For then, we can choose an automorphism $`f`$ of $`P^2`$ such that $`f^1(l^{})=l`$, and then $`f^{}(F)`$ provides the required example. Tthe proof will be by induction on the rank of the sheaf. The statement is true for rank $`2`$ sheaves by the Serre construction described above. Assume now that the statement holds for rank $`r`$. We need to construct rank $`r+1`$ sheaves with the desired property.

Suppose that $`F`$ is semistable of rank $`r`$ such that there is a line $`lP^2`$ with $`F|_l=𝒪(d_i)_{j=1,\mathrm{}p}C_j`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{d_i0}d_i+p=q`$. Recall that $`H^1(F)=Ext(𝒪,F)=nr`$. Consider the extension

$$0FG𝒪0\text{.}$$

Then $`G`$ is semistable and we have $`0H^0(F(1)|_l)H^0(G(1)|_l)0`$. Let $`G|_l=𝒪(e_i)_{j=1,\mathrm{}s}D_j`$. Then

$$H^0(G(1)|_l)=\mathrm{\Sigma }_{e_i0}e_i+s=H^0(F(1)|_l)=\mathrm{\Sigma }_{d_i0}d_i+p=q\text{.}$$

Choosing $`q>\frac{2n}{3}`$ we can construct examples of unstable sheaves of arbitrary rank.

###### Theorem 33

For the $`SL(3)`$ action on $`_{P^2}(r,0,n)`$, linearized by the line bundle $`E_m`$ a generic point is stable.

Proof. It is enough to produce one stable point. Since the space $`_{P^2}(r,0,n)`$ is irreducible genericness will follow. We know, from the Hulsbergen construction that a generic poimt in $`_{P^2}(2,0,n)`$ is stable. The proof will be by induction on the rank of the sheaf $`rn`$. Assume that there is a $`SL(3)`$ stable point $`G`$ in $`_{P^2}(r1,0,n)`$. Consider a non split extension $`0GF𝒪0`$. Then $`F`$ is Geiseker semistable with rank $`r`$ and Chern classes $`c_1=0`$ and $`c_2=n`$ and hence determines a point in $`_{P^2}(r,0,n)`$. We will show that $`F`$ is stable under the $`SL(3)`$ action. In order to show this we need to prove that the pair $`(K(F),L(F)),`$where $`K(F)H^1(F(2))`$ and $`L(F)H^1(F)`$, is $`SL(H(F))\times SL(V)`$ stable in the space of monads under the action of $`SL(H(F))\times SL(V)`$, where $`H(F)H^1(F(1))`$. Let $`T_G=SL(H(G))\times SL(V)`$ and $`T_F=SL(H(F))\times SL(V)`$. Note that from the sequence defining $`F`$ we get $`K(G)K(F)=K`$(say) and $`H(G)H(F)=H`$(say). Thus $`T_GT_F`$ $`=T`$ (say). For computational convenience we will think of the space of monads as a subset of product of grassmanians of subspaces rather than quotients. A pair $`(K,L)`$ corresponds to a pair $`(K,W)`$ under this identification.

Let $`\lambda `$ $`T`$ be a $`1`$-parameter subgroup. Then $`\lambda =\lambda _1.\lambda _2`$ where $`\lambda _1SL(H)`$, and $`\lambda _2SL(V)`$ are $`1`$-parameter subgroups. Choose $`H_iH`$ such that $`H=_iH_i`$ and $`\lambda _1(h_i)=t^{p_i}h_i`$ for $`h_iH_i`$, and $`V_jV`$ such that $`\lambda _2(v_j)=t^{q_j}v_j`$ for $`v_jV_j`$. Then rearragne so that

$$HV=_{i,j}E_{i,j}=_{p=1,\mathrm{},s}E_p$$

where $`E_{i,j}=H_iV_j`$ and $`\lambda (e_p)=t^{u_p}e_p`$ for $`e_pE_p`$ and $`u_1>u_2>\mathrm{}>u_s`$. Note that by construction if $`E_p=E_{i,j}`$ then $`u_p=p_i+q_j`$. Let $`F_t=_{p=1,\mathrm{},t}E_p`$. Then we have a flag

$$F_1F_2\mathrm{}F_s=HV\text{.}$$

Define $`K_i=KF_i`$ and $`W_i=WF_i`$ for $`i=1,\mathrm{},s`$.

We know that $`\mu ((K(G),W(G)),\lambda )>0`$, by the stability of $`G`$. We need to prove that $`\mu ((K(F),W(F)),\lambda )>0`$. Stability of $`F`$ will follow from the Hilbert-Mumford criterion. Now for the action linearized by $`(p,q)`$,

$$\mu ((K,W),\lambda )=p\mu (K(G),\lambda )q\mu (W(G),\lambda )$$

hence

$$\mu ((K(G),W(G)),\lambda )=p\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=1,\mathrm{},s}u_i(\text{dim}K_i\text{dim}K_{i1})+q\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=1,\mathrm{},s}u_i(\text{dim}W_i(G)\text{dim}W_{i1}(G))$$

and

$$\mu ((K(F),W(F)),\lambda )=p\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=1,\mathrm{},s}u_i(\text{dim}K_i\text{dim}K_{i1})+q\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=1,\mathrm{},s}u_i(\text{dim}W_i(F)\text{dim}W_{i1}(F))\text{.}$$

Simplifying the equalities gives

$$\frac{1}{p}\mu ((K(G),W(G)),\lambda )=\mathrm{\Sigma }u_i(\text{dim}K_i\text{dim}K_{i1}+\frac{q}{p}(\text{dim}W_i(G)\text{dim}W_{i1}(G)))\text{.}$$

Recall that for the action on $`_{P^2}(r1,0,n)`$, $`p=(r1)mn`$ and $`q=n`$. For large $`m`$, we have $`p>>q`$ and hence

$$\frac{1}{p}\mu ((K(G),W(G)),\lambda )\mathrm{\Sigma }u_i(dimK_idimK_{i1})<0\text{,}$$

since $`\frac{1}{p}\mu ((K(G),W(G)),\lambda )>0`$. When we consider the action on $`_{P^2}(r,0,n)`$, $`p=rmn`$ and $`q=n.`$Again for large $`m`$, $`p>>q`$ and we have $`\frac{1}{p}\mu ((K(F),W(F)),\lambda )\mathrm{\Sigma }u_i(`$dim$`K_i`$dim$`K_{i1})`$. Since the right hand side has been proved to be negative, we get $`\mu ((K(F),W(F)),\lambda )>0`$ thus proving stability of $`F.`$


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

According to the Review of Particles Physics (RPP) , the mass of the $`f_0(980)`$ scalar resonance is $`980\pm 10`$ MeV whereas the width ranges from 40 to 100 MeV. The reasons for such an uncertainty in the width are the great amount and variety of experimental data and the different approaches used to extract the intrinsic properties of the resonance. To these points we could also add the lack of a precise definition of what is meant by mass and width, although there seems to be consensus in using the pole approach, where the mass and width of the resonance are found from the position of the nearest pole in the $`T`$-matrix (or equivalently, the $`S`$-matrix). However, even if this approach is adopted the final results differ on the number, location and physical interpretation of the poles. This is because the pole approach is not enough to completely fix the framework needed to perform the resonance analysis; in fact there are different formalisms that made use of it. An example is field theory, where a finite imaginary part of the propagator arises after Dyson summation of the one-particle-irreducible diagrams contributing to the two-point function. Unitarity also implies a general complex structure of the $`T`$-matrix in terms of which the pole approach becomes relevant to define the mass and width of the resonance. However, the general solution to the unitarity constraint has no implications regarding the number and/or locations of the poles. Thus, most analyses using the pole approach must involve further assumptions.

Far from physical thresholds, the identification of the mass and width of a resonance in terms of the nearest pole in the $`T`$-matrix is not ambiguous. However, when the resonance lies in the vicinity of a threshold this identification is not so obvious and more than one single pole can be required for a correct description of the resonance (see for example Ref. ). This could be the case for the $`f_0(980)`$ whose mass is very close to the $`K\overline{K}`$ threshold. In Ref. , Morgan and Pennington (MP) use a formalism general enough to avoid any assumption about the number of poles associated to a resonance. For the particular case of the $`f_0(980)`$, their exhaustive analysis leads to the conclusion that the $`f_0(980)`$ is most probably a Breit-Wigner-like resonance —with a narrow width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }52`$ MeV— which can be described in terms of two nearby poles (in the second and third sheets). Moreover, the precision data coming from $`J/\psi \varphi (MM)`$ decays, where $`(MM)`$ stands for $`\pi \pi `$ or $`K\overline{K}`$, play an essential rôle as a crucial check in favour of the two-pole description of the $`f_0(980)`$ and disfavour the cases with one or three poles. These results indicate that the description of the $`f_0(980)`$ using a Breit-Wigner parametrization seems to be appropriate and should give results similar to those in Refs. . However, an existing analysis using a Breit-Wigner parametrization performed by Zou and Bugg (ZB)  concludes that the $`f_0(980)`$ is most likely a resonance with a large decay width ($`400`$ MeV) and a narrow peak width ($`47`$ MeV). Later on, MP  and ZB  have both confirmed their former results, leaving the agreement between the two approaches as an open question.

The pole approach formalism has been successfully applied to hadronic resonances such as the $`\rho (770)`$  and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }(1232)`$ . An important advantage of this formalism is that it yields process and background independent results. This background independence is only valid if other resonances are not present within the kinematical region under consideration111 The amplitude associated to a given resonance is not expected to describe the physics in a large kinematical region (compared to the width of the resonance) where additional resonances can exist.. Thus, if one insists on this point, as we will, it is important to restrain the analysis to a neighborhood of the resonance under study. Due to the previous consideration, we exclude from our analysis of the $`f_0(980)`$ the central production data $`ppp(\pi \pi ,K\overline{K})p`$ , which covers a much wider energy range and whose phenomenological description requires not only $`\pi \pi `$ and $`K\overline{K}`$ scattering but also a production mechanism involving many parameters. We also exclude the experimental data on $`J/\psi \omega (\pi \pi ,K\overline{K})`$ decays because the $`f_0`$ signal is too weak 222 After submission of this manuscript the BES Collaboration has confirmed these results . and the inclusion of these data in the fit would require further parameters333 A phenomenological analysis of the $`J/\psi VS`$ decays assuming $`U(3)`$ symmetry predicts that for ideally mixed scalar and vector states the values of the relevant coupling constants are: $`g_{J/\psi \varphi f_0}=g_{J/\psi \omega \sigma }=1`$ and $`g_{J/\psi \omega f_0}=g_{J/\psi \varphi \sigma }=0`$. The small departure from ideal mixing of the $`\varphi `$ and the $`f_0`$ states explains, in a first approximation, the importance of the $`f_0`$ contribution to the $`J/\psi \varphi (\pi \pi ,K\overline{K})`$ decays and, on the contrary, the minor rôle played in the $`J/\psi \omega (\pi \pi ,K\overline{K})`$ decays ..

Our purpose in this work is to extract the mass and width of the $`f_0(980)`$ scalar resonance using the pole approach. As a byproduct, we also obtain values for the coupling constants $`g_{f_0\pi \pi }`$ and $`g_{f_0K\overline{K}}`$. We suggest that, for narrow resonances as the $`f_0(980)`$, the complete one-loop scalar propagator must be used in the pole equation. Thus, our analysis is based on a generalized Breit-Wigner description of a scalar resonance coupled to two channels, not only satisfying unitarity but also including loop effects. As far as the pole is concerned, we pay special attention to the possibility of describing the $`f_0(980)`$ in terms of more than one pole, a phenomenon which is known to occur when the mass of the resonance is close to a threshold. Nevertheless, it is worth remarking that the need of two poles is not guaranteed, it strongly depends upon the precise value of the renormalized mass of the resonance and its coupling constants to the two channels.

Values of the renormalized mass $`m_R`$ and the coupling constants $`g_{f_0\pi \pi }`$ and $`g_{f_0K\overline{K}}`$ are obtained from a fit to experimental data including the $`\pi \pi `$ phase shift and inelasticity as well as the $`J/\psi \varphi \pi \pi (K\overline{K})`$ invariant mass spectra. We then look for poles in the four Riemann sheets associated to a resonance coupled to two channels. Our conclusion is that the $`f_0(980)`$ can be described in terms of a single pole whose precise position depends upon the $`\pi \pi `$ data used (see Eq. (19) of the main text for details).

## 2 Formalism

Before discussing the formalism used for the particular case of the $`f_0(980)`$, it is convenient to briefly summarize two well-known definitions of mass and width of a given resonance, both widely used in the hadron physics literature (see Ref.  and references therein). One definition, known as the *conventional approach*, is based on the behavior of the phase shift of the resonance as a function of the energy, while the other, known as the *pole approach*, is based on the pole position of the resonance, which as discussed in the introduction includes several approaches. We will not consider here the powerful formalism developed in Ref.  since it goes beyond a Breit-Wigner-like description of the resonance, to which our analysis is restricted. In this sense, it is worth noticing that these more powerful methods provide further support to the Breit-Wigner description of the $`f_0(980)`$. Thus, the analysis carried in this paper is more restricted in scope, although it turns out to be general enough for the $`f_0(980)`$ case.

In the conventional approach, the mass and width of the resonance are defined in terms of the phase shift $`\delta `$ as444We use the subindexes $`\delta `$ and $`p`$ to denote the mass and width of the resonance in the conventional and pole approaches respectively.

$$\delta (s=M_\delta ^2)=90^{},\mathrm{\Gamma }_\delta =\frac{1}{M_\delta }\left[\frac{d\delta (s)}{ds}\right]_{s=M_\delta ^2}^1,$$
(1)
respectively. Since the phase shift is extracted from direct comparison with experimental data, the decay width defined in this way is usually called the *visible* or *peak width*. For an elastic Breit-Wigner (BW) resonance the phase shift is chosen as555A $`s`$-dependent width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\delta (s)`$ in Eq. (2) is mandatory when a background around the resonance is assumed .

$$\mathrm{tan}\delta (s)=\frac{M_\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_\delta (s)}{sM_\delta ^2},$$
(2)
which leads to the partial-wave amplitude

$$a=\frac{e^{2i\delta }1}{2i}=\frac{M_\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_\delta (s)}{sM_\delta ^2+iM_\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_\delta (s)},$$
(3)
where $`s`$ is the center-of-mass energy squared.

In the pole approach (or $`S`$-matrix approach), the resonance shows up as a pole in the amplitude

$$a=\frac{R}{ss_p}+B,$$
(4)
where the two terms correspond to the resonant and background contributions separated according to Refs. . Eq. (4) is understood as a power series expansion of the amplitude around $`s_p`$, therefore, in order this description to make sense, the background around the pole (which is fixed from the fit to experimental data) should be a smooth function of $`s`$ affecting minimally the pole position. In this approach, the mass and width of the resonance are defined in terms of the pole position $`s_p`$ as666The relationship between the mass and width parameters defined in the conventional and pole approaches can be found in Ref. .

$$s_p=m_p^2im_p\mathrm{\Gamma }_p.$$
(5)
The pole approach provides a definition for the parameters of an unstable particle which is *process independent* (independent of the process used to extract them) and also *background independent* (different parametrizations of the background will hardly modify the values obtained for the pole parameters of the resonance).

In the remaining of this section we pursue the pole approach for the case of a resonance coupled to two channels, including furthermore the possibility of a strongly $`s`$-dependent width due to the opening of a second two-body threshold. Two ingredients are required in order to build the scattering amplitude to be used in our formalism: unitarity and the complete one-loop scalar propagator.

Concerning the first of the ingredients, unitarity sets stringent constraints on the amplitudes needed for the description of a resonance coupled to several channels. The correct incorporation of these constraints into the $`S`$-matrix is compulsory for an adequate analysis of experimental data. The analysis in the general case would require a model independent approach, as in Ref. , to determine the number and location of poles associated to the resonance. However, previous analyses  have shown that the $`f_0(980)`$ can be described in terms of a Breit-Wigner-like resonance with two poles associated to it. The Breit-Wigner parameterization is nevertheless a particular case of an amplitude fulfilling unitarity. Indeed, for a relativistic particle, the general solution to the unitarity constraint can be written as

$$T_{ab}=\frac{e^{2i\delta _a(s)}1}{2i\sqrt{\beta _a\beta _b}}\delta _{ab}\frac{e^{i(\delta _a(s)+\delta _b(s))}}{\sqrt{\beta _a\beta _b}}\frac{\sqrt{G_aG_b}}{F(s)+iG(s)},$$
(6)
where $`\delta _{a,b}`$ stands for the phase shifts describing the background in channels $`(a,b)`$, $`\beta _{a,b}=\sqrt{14m_{a,b}^2/s}`$ with $`m_{a,b}`$ the masses involved in the two-body decays of the two channels, $`F(s)`$ and $`G(s)`$ are arbitrary real functions of $`s`$, and $`G_i(s)`$ are positive functions with the property $`G(s)=_{i=a,b}G_i(s)`$. Identifying $`F(s)=sm_p^2`$ and $`G(s)=m_p\mathrm{\Gamma }_p`$, the amplitude (6) reduces in the one channel case to the amplitude (4) up to an overall normalization factor.

The second of the ingredients mentioned above will be used in our framework in order to identify the functions $`F(s)`$ and $`G(s)`$ to the real and imaginary parts of the complete one-loop propagator respectively. The previous identification has the advantage of incorporating automatically thresholds effects (see below). This procedure requires the use of an effective field theory in order to calculate the full propagator of the $`f_0(980)`$. In general, effective field theories are of limited use in the description of hadron physics where one expects the interactions to be strong. There are cases, however, where these theories can be used. The treatment of width effects, when the width to mass ratio (taken as an expansion parameter) is small, is an example where effective field theories can be useful for the description of narrow resonances, but not for broad ones. Notice in this respect that for the $`f_0(980)`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{f_0}/m_{f_0}`$ 0.04–0.1 . Concerning the final form of the scalar propagator, the use of a simple Breit-Wigner parametrization with constant width, which is applicable only to narrow resonances far from thresholds, is not enough due to the closeness of the $`K\overline{K}`$ threshold and the $`f_0`$ mass. Instead, one could use an energy dependent width, incorporating the kinematic dependences on the energy, but this approach amounts to include only the imaginary part of the self-energy. In our analysis, we prefer to use the fully corrected one-loop propagator, including both the real and imaginary parts of the self-energy, since this approach allows us to have a consistent description of the analytical properties, i.e. it provides a proper analytic continuation of the scattering amplitude below the $`K\overline{K}`$ threshold.

After Dyson summation, the propagator of a scalar particle is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(p^2)=\frac{i}{p^2m_0^2+\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)},$$
(7)
where $`m_0`$ is the *bare* or tree-level mass of the resonance and $`\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)`$ is the one-particle-irreducible (1PI) two-point function. In the *on-shell scheme*, a Taylor expansion of the real part of $`\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)`$ around the resonance mass allows to rewrite the scalar propagator as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(p^2)=\frac{iZ}{p^2m_R^2+im_R\mathrm{\Gamma }_R}+\mathrm{},$$
(8)
where the renormalized mass $`m_R`$ (the so-called *on-shell mass*) and the wave-function renormalization factor $`Z`$ are defined as

$$\begin{array}{c}m_R^2=m_0^2\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }(m_R^2),\hfill \\ Z^1=1+\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }^{}(m_R^2),\hfill \end{array}$$
(9)
with $`\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }^{}(p^2)=d\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)/dp^2`$. By analogy with a Breit-Wigner resonance, the width is defined by777This definition applies only to narrow resonances, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_Rm_R`$, where $`\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)`$ can be approximated by $`\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }(m_R^2)`$ over the width of the resonance. If the resonance is broad, the full energy dependence of $`\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)`$ must be taken into account.

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_R=\frac{1}{m_R}Z\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }(m_R^2).$$
(10)
However, this *on-shell* definition of the resonance width is inadequate since it vanishes when a two-particle $`s`$-wave threshold is approached from below . Due to the failure of the Taylor expansion of $`\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)`$ around $`m_R^2`$, Eq. (10) has not the desired behaviour for a width properly defined. This is precisely the case under consideration since the $`K\overline{K}`$ threshold lies in the vicinity of the $`f_0(980)`$ mass.

On the contrary, the *pole approach* provides a consistent definition of the resonance width that behaves sensibly in the threshold region. In this approach, the Taylor expansion of $`\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)`$ is not performed and the scalar propagator (7) is written as

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \mathrm{\Delta }(p^2)& =& \frac{i}{p^2m_0^2+\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)}\hfill \\ & =& \frac{i}{p^2m_R^2+\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }(m_R^2)+i\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)},\hfill \end{array}$$
(11)
where $`m_R^2=m_0^2\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }(m_R^2)`$. Within the framework of the pole approach, the scattering amplitude (6) describing a resonance coupled to two channels is obtained by identifying the functions $`F(s)`$ and $`G(s)`$ with the denominator of the complete one-loop scalar propagator in Eq. (11): $`F(s)=sm_R^2+\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }(s)\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }(m_R^2)`$ and $`G(s)=\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }(s)`$. This procedure leads to

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill T_{ab}& =& \frac{e^{2i\delta _a(s)}1}{2i\sqrt{\beta _a\beta _b}}\delta _{ab}\frac{e^{i(\delta _a(s)+\delta _b(s))}}{\sqrt{\beta _a\beta _b}}\frac{\sqrt{s}\sqrt{\mathrm{\Gamma }_a\mathrm{\Gamma }_b}}{sm_R^2+\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }(s)\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }(m_R^2)+i\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }(s)}\hfill \\ & =& \frac{e^{2i\delta _a(s)}1}{2i\sqrt{\beta _a\beta _b}}\delta _{ab}\frac{e^{i(\delta _a(s)+\delta _b(s))}}{16\pi }\frac{g_ag_b}{sm_R^2+\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }(s)\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }(m_R^2)+i\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }(s)},\hfill \end{array}$$
(12)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{a,b}=\frac{g_{a,b}^2}{16\pi \sqrt{s}}\beta _{a,b}`$ are the partial decay widths of the resonance in channels $`(a,b)`$. The common relation $`\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)=\sqrt{p^2}\mathrm{\Gamma }(p^2)`$ is not used to avoid confusion (the width of the resonance in the pole approach is related to the pole position, *it is not* given by the tree level result following from the optical theorem). The renormalized mass $`m_R`$ and the tree-level coupling constants of the resonance to the two channels $`g_{a,b}`$ are the parameters to be fitted when confronting the scattering amplitude (12) with data. Once these parameters are extracted from experimental data, the *pole mass* $`m_p`$ and *pole width* $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p`$ of the resonance are obtained from the pole equation

$$D(s_p)=s_pm_R^2+\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }_+(s_p)\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }_+(m_R^2)+i\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_+(s_p)=0,$$
(13)
with $`s_p=m_p^2im_p\mathrm{\Gamma }_p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_+(s)\mathrm{\Pi }(s+iϵ)`$. The pole equation (13) involves a complex function of a complex variable. If for real $`s`$, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_+(s)=R(s)+iI(s)`$, then for arbitrary complex $`s`$

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_+(s)=\mathrm{Re}R(s)\mathrm{Im}I(s)+i\left[\mathrm{Im}R(s)+\mathrm{Re}I(s)\right].$$
(14)
In order to find *all* the poles associated with a resonance coupled to channels $`(a,b)`$ we have to look for the poles of Eq. (13) in the four different Riemann sheets defined by the complex channel momenta $`p_{a,b}`$. Following the conventional classification, the sheets are enumerated according to the signs of $`(\mathrm{Im}p_a,\mathrm{Im}p_b)`$:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{sheet}\mathrm{I}\hfill & (++):\hfill & (\mathrm{Im}p_a>0,\mathrm{Im}p_b>0),\hfill \\ \mathrm{sheet}\mathrm{II}\hfill & (+):\hfill & (\mathrm{Im}p_a<0,\mathrm{Im}p_b>0),\hfill \\ \mathrm{sheet}\mathrm{III}\hfill & ():\hfill & (\mathrm{Im}p_a<0,\mathrm{Im}p_b<0),\hfill \\ \mathrm{sheet}\mathrm{IV}\hfill & (+):\hfill & (\mathrm{Im}p_a>0,\mathrm{Im}p_b<0).\hfill \end{array}$$
(15)
We restrict ourselves to the case of two-body channels involving particles of the same mass. Thus, the thresholds for channels $`(a,b)`$ are $`2m_{a,b}`$ and the momenta are defined as $`p_{a,b}(s)=\sqrt{s4m_{a,b}^2}/2`$ ($`m_a<m_b`$ is assumed). Since the complete propagator $`D(s)`$ is indeed an explicit function of the momenta $`p_{a,b}`$, $`D(s)=D[s,p_a(s),p_b(s)]`$, a change in the sign of the imaginary part of the momentum —a change of sheet— is achieved with the replacement of $`p_{a,b}`$ by $`p_{a,b}`$ in the propagator. Therefore, the poles are found solving the following four pole equations:

$$\begin{array}{cc}D[s,p_a(s),p_b(s)],\hfill & D[s,p_a(s),p_b(s)],\hfill \\ D[s,p_a(s),p_b(s)],\hfill & D[s,p_a(s),p_b(s)].\hfill \end{array}$$
(16)
For the case of interest, namely the $`f_0(980)`$ scalar resonance coupled to a pair of pions and a pair of kaons888 In our analysis, we work in the isospin limit and therefore the mass difference between $`K^0`$ and $`K^+`$ is not taken into account for the $`K\overline{K}`$ threshold. The inclusion of this mass difference would deserve a more refined 3-channel analysis with eight Riemann sheets that is beyond the scope of the present work., the real and imaginary parts of the finite part of the 1PI two-point function $`\mathrm{\Pi }(s)`$ are

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill R(s)& =& \frac{g_{f_0\pi \pi }^2}{16\pi ^2}\left[2\beta _\pi \mathrm{log}\left(\frac{1+\beta _\pi }{1\beta _\pi }\right)\right]+\frac{g_{f_0K\overline{K}}^2}{16\pi ^2}\left[2\beta _K\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{1+\beta _K}{1\beta _K}\right)\right]\mathrm{\Theta }_K\hfill \\ & +& \frac{g_{f_0K\overline{K}}^2}{16\pi ^2}\left[22\overline{\beta }_K\mathrm{arctan}\left(\frac{1}{\overline{\beta }_K}\right)\right]\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}_K,\hfill \\ \hfill I(s)& =& \frac{g_{f_0\pi \pi }^2}{16\pi }\beta _\pi +\frac{g_{f_0K\overline{K}}^2}{16\pi }\beta _K\mathrm{\Theta }_K,\hfill \end{array}$$
(17)
where $`\beta _i=\sqrt{14m_i^2/s}`$ for $`i=\pi ,K`$, $`\overline{\beta }_K=\sqrt{4m_K^2/s1}`$, $`\mathrm{\Theta }_K=\mathrm{\Theta }(s4m_K^2)`$, and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}_K=\mathrm{\Theta }(4m_K^2s)`$. It is worth remarking that the step functions $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ are not introduced by hand but result from the present calculation and play a crucial rôle in the determination of the pole structure.

So far we have discussed the framework needed for the description of a resonance coupled to two channels. However, there are not current experiments that allow for a direct comparison of two-particle scattering amplitudes with experimental data. Therefore, in order to carry out the numerical analysis one has to rely on production processes such as $`J/\psi \varphi (\pi \pi ,K\overline{K})`$ and $`J/\psi \omega (\pi \pi ,K\overline{K})`$ or central production in proton-proton scattering $`ppp(\pi \pi ,K\overline{K})p`$. As stated in the Introduction, we will perform our analysis using only the former $`J/\psi \varphi (\pi \pi ,K\overline{K})`$ decays as a mechanism for producing pairs of pions and kaons. In this respect, we follow Ref.  to relate the production amplitude $`F`$, also constrained by unitarity, to the scattering amplitudes $`T_{ab}`$ in Eq. (12). The corresponding amplitudes for $`J/\psi \varphi (\pi \pi ,K\overline{K})`$ are then written as

$$\begin{array}{c}F_\pi F(J/\psi \varphi \pi ^+\pi ^{})=\sqrt{\frac{2}{3}}\left[\alpha _\pi (s)T_{\pi \pi }+\alpha _K(s)T_{K\pi }\right],\hfill \\ F_KF(J/\psi \varphi K^+K^{})=\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}}\left[\alpha _\pi (s)T_{\pi K}+\alpha _K(s)T_{KK}\right],\hfill \end{array}$$
(18)
where the real coupling functions $`\alpha _{\pi ,K}(s)`$ are parametrized as $`\alpha _i(s)=\gamma _{i0}+\gamma _{i1}s`$ and the $`\gamma _i`$ are obtained from the fit. Note that the theoretical expression for the $`\pi \pi `$ phase shift and inelasticity are obtained from the $`T_{\pi \pi }`$ scattering amplitude in Eq. (6). The $`\pi \pi `$ data used in our fits are extracted from three different experimental analyses, two of them  based on data from the reaction $`\pi ^{}p\pi ^+\pi ^{}n`$  and the third one  from $`\pi ^{}p_{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}n`$  and $`\pi ^{}p\pi ^0\pi ^0n`$ .

## 3 Numerical analysis

Before proceeding with the numerical analysis we should keep in mind that our method is based on the pole approach and thus, in order to obtain a background independent fit to the data, we need to restrain ourselves to a neighborhood of the $`f_0(980)`$ resonance. For this reason we have chosen to work with experimental data on $`J/\psi \varphi \pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ and $`J/\psi \varphi K^+K^{}`$ decays  and on the $`\pi \pi `$ phase shift and inelasticity  in the range $`0.8\sqrt{s}1.1`$ GeV. It is worth noticing that within the kinematical region between 0.8 GeV and the point where the rising of the $`\pi \pi `$ phase shift starts due to the appearance of the $`f_0(980)`$, the contribution of the $`\sigma `$ scalar resonance to the phase shift in this region can be reasonably described in terms of an energy polynomial999 Moreover, the choice of using experimental data only around 980 MeV avoids the need of describing the broad bump seen in the $`\pi \pi `$ phase shift around 600 MeV for which a simple polynomial parametrization is not adequate. (see below).

For the $`\pi \pi `$ phase shift we have used three different sets of data. The first two sets differ mainly in the point lying just around 980 MeV and correspond to solutions B  (including this controversial point) and D  (not including it) of Ref. . The last set of data corresponds to the “down-flat” solution of Refs.  that seems to be the most preferable solution after a joint analysis of the $`S`$-wave $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ and $`\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ data . In the following we will denote these three sets of $`\pi \pi `$ phase shift data as sets B, D and DF respectively. Part of the differences concerning the pole parameters of the $`f_0(980)`$ resonance reported in the literature could be due to the use of different data. In this work, in order to quantify the influence of the $`\pi \pi `$ phase shift used, we have performed fits using data-sets B, D and DF.

In the data fitting, a background term can be introduced for one or both channels and furthermore different energy dependences of the phase shifts can be considered. In our analysis we have included a background for the $`\pi \pi `$ and $`K\overline{K}`$ channels both with an energy dependence ranging from constant $`(\delta =b_0)`$ to quadratic $`(\delta =b_0+b_1s+b_2s^2)`$. For the $`\pi \pi `$ case, the contribution of the $`\sigma `$ resonance to the background term is included in this way. For the $`K\overline{K}`$ case, only $`b_1`$ and $`b_2`$ are independent parameters since the background term must vanish by continuity below the kaon threshold. So then, the maximum number of parameters of our fits is 12: the renormalized mass $`m_R`$, the coupling constants $`g_{f_0\pi \pi }`$ and $`g_{f_0K\overline{K}}`$, the parameters $`b_0^\pi ,b_1^\pi `$ and $`b_2^\pi `$ for the background term for pions, $`b_1^K`$ and $`b_2^K`$ for the kaon background, and the constants $`\gamma _{\pi 0},\gamma _{\pi 1}`$ and $`\gamma _{K0},\gamma _{K1}`$ parametrizing the $`F_\pi `$ and $`F_K`$ amplitudes.

The results of the different fits performed show that *i)* the $`\chi ^2`$ improves when a $`K\overline{K}`$ background is included, although changing its energy dependence makes no relevant difference; *ii)* the values obtained for the physically relevant parameters ($`m_R`$, $`g_{f_0\pi \pi }`$ and $`g_{f_0K\overline{K}}`$) change only a few percent when different backgrounds are considered. The outcome of the fit for the case of quadratic backgrounds for pions and kaons is written in Table 1 and shown in Fig. 1. The values for the renormalized mass $`m_R`$, the coupling constants $`g_{f_0\pi \pi }`$ and $`g_{f_0K\overline{K}}`$, the $`\chi ^2`$ per degree of freedom and the other fitted parameters are presented for sets B, D and DF of $`\pi \pi `$ data. Concerning the values of the coupling constants obtained from the fit, we observe that the coupling of the $`f_0(980)`$ to kaons is stronger than the coupling to pions: $`g_{f_0K\overline{K}}^2/g_{f_0\pi \pi }^2=3.52,2.46,2.82`$ for sets B, D and DF respectively. Model dependent values for these coupling constants have been recently reported by the SND , CMD-2  and KLOE  Collaborations. Their analyses, based on the study of the $`\varphi \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma `$ radiative process, give $`g_{f_0K^+K^{}}^2/g_{f_0\pi ^+\pi ^{}}^2=4.6\pm 0.8`$ (SND), $`3.61\pm 0.62`$ (CMD-2) and $`4.00\pm 0.14`$ (KLOE)101010The coupling constants $`g_{f_0\pi \pi (K\overline{K})}`$ used in our analysis are related to the more common coupling constants $`g_{f_0\pi ^+\pi ^{}(K^+K^{})}`$ and $`g_{\pi (K)}`$ used in experimental analyses by $`\frac{2}{3}\frac{g_{f_0\pi \pi }^2}{4\pi }=\frac{g_{f_0\pi ^+\pi ^{}}^2}{4\pi }=\frac{4}{3}g_\pi m_{f_0}^2`$ and $`\frac{1}{2}\frac{g_{f_0K\overline{K}}^2}{4\pi }=\frac{g_{f_0K^+K^{}}^2}{4\pi }=g_Km_{f_0}^2`$.. Other analyses, based either on $`ppp(\pi \pi ,K\overline{K})p`$ central production  or on $`f_0(980)`$ production in hadronic $`Z_0`$ decay , suggest the same behaviour for the coupling constants and obtain $`g_K/g_\pi =2.1\pm 0.6`$ and $`g_K/g_\pi 10`$ respectively. On the contrary, the analysis by the E791 Collaboration  on the $`f_0(980)`$ production in $`D_s3\pi `$ decays gives $`g_K/g_\pi =0.2\pm 0.6`$. The values we obtain for both coupling constants and for their ratio are smaller than model predictions  and also than previous determinations .

Let us now proceed to determine the mass and width of the $`f_0`$ resonance within the pole approach. Fits to the data sets B, D and DF lead to values for the renormalized mass of $`m_R=983\pm 2`$ MeV, $`m_R=991\pm 1`$ MeV and $`m_R=989\pm 2`$ MeV respectively. The pole parameters of the resonance are determined once the values of the renormalized mass and the ones regarding the coupling constants (see Table 1) are included in the pole equation (13). The numerical solution of the pole equation yields for data sets B, D and DF:

$$\begin{array}{cc}m_p^B=987\pm 3\text{MeV},\hfill & \mathrm{\Gamma }_p^B=42\pm 9\text{MeV},\hfill \\ m_p^D=999\pm 2\text{MeV},\hfill & \mathrm{\Gamma }_p^D=39\pm 8\text{MeV},\hfill \\ m_p^{DF}=1001\pm 6\text{MeV},\hfill & \mathrm{\Gamma }_p^{DF}=52\pm 16\text{MeV}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(19)
This determination of the pole mass and width of the $`f_0(980)`$ resonance together with its couplings constants to the $`\pi \pi `$ and $`K\overline{K}`$ channels constitute the main result of this work. Our results in Eq. (19) are in fair agreement with several values of the $`f_0(980)`$ pole parameters appeared recently in the literature. The values $`m_p=994\text{MeV}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p=28\text{MeV}`$ are obtained from an analysis of meson-meson interactions in a nonperturbative chiral approach . Similar analyses give $`m_p=987\text{MeV}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p=28\text{MeV}`$  or $`m_p=981.4\text{MeV}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p=44.8\text{MeV}`$ . Other analysis based on the study of meson-meson interactions in different coupled channel unitarity models give $`m_p=1015\pm 15\text{MeV}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p=86\pm 16\text{MeV}`$ , $`m_p=991\pm 3\text{MeV}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p=71\pm 14\text{MeV}`$ , $`m_p=1008\text{MeV}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p=54\text{MeV}`$ , $`m_p=993.2\pm 6.5\pm 6.9\text{MeV}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p100\text{MeV}`$  or $`m_p=1006\text{MeV}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p=34\text{MeV}`$ .

In addition to this result we have also analyzed the variation of the pole position as a function of the renormalized mass $`m_R`$, i.e. the coupling constants $`g_{f_0\pi \pi }`$ and $`g_{f_0K\overline{K}}`$ are kept fixed to their values for set D in Table 1. In Fig. 2, we show $`m_p^2`$ versus $`m_p\mathrm{\Gamma }_p`$, which are related to the real and imaginary parts of the pole $`s_p`$, for values of the renormalized mass in the range $`941m_R1027`$ MeV. Thus, each point on the plot corresponds to a solution of the pole equation (13) —in terms of the values obtained for $`m_p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p`$— for a given value of $`m_R`$. Only the physically relevant pole is shown in Fig. 2; complex conjugate poles or any other kind of poles are not included. In order to generate Fig. 2, we looked for solutions of the pole equation in each of the four Riemann sheets reaching the following conclusions:

1. We did not find a pole neither in sheet I nor IV in the vicinity of 980 MeV (we looked for poles in the range 960–1020 MeV).
2. We find poles in sheet II in the range $`941m_R1027`$ MeV. From these solutions we see that the pole mass is always larger than the renormalized mass, i.e. $`m_p^{II}>m_R`$. When $`4m_\pi ^2<m_R^2<4m_K^2`$, we obtain a pole width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p`$ that has to be identified with the $`f_0\pi \pi `$ decay width. The width so found does not coincide with the decay width calculated from the tree level expression $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{f_0\pi \pi }=g_{f_0\pi \pi }^2\beta _\pi /16\pi \sqrt{s}`$, the difference arising from the contribution of the Im$`R(s)`$ term in Eq. (14) once $`s`$ takes a complex value.
3. We find poles in sheet III *only* for $`m_R>1020`$ MeV. In this case, the pole mass is always of the order of 20 MeV smaller than the renormalized mass, i.e. $`m_p^{III}<m_R`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p`$ should be identified with the tree level width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{f_0\pi \pi }+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{f_0K\overline{K}}`$. Again, this decay width does not coincide with the pole width for the same reasons as before.

From points 2 and 3 above we conclude that only one pole in sheet II will be necessary to describe the $`f_0(980)`$ resonance, since poles in sheet III only appear for $`m_R>1020`$ MeV while our fit to data always yields $`m_R<1`$ GeV. Moreover, these points also indicate that the *overlapping of poles is not possible*. The idea of the overlapping of poles states that values of the renormalized mass $`m_R`$ close but below the kaon threshold $`(m_R<2m_K)`$ may lead to values of the pole mass $`m_p`$ above the threshold $`(m_p>2m_K)`$ and that values of $`m_R`$ close but above the threshold $`(m_R>2m_K)`$ may lead to values of $`m_p`$ below the threshold $`(m_p<2m_K)`$. We stress that our conclusion *is not* general, it depends upon the values used for the coupling constants, in particular on the ratio $`g_{f_0K\overline{K}}^2/g_{f_0\pi \pi }^2`$ .

## 4 Conclusions

Using a generalized version of the Breit-Wigner parametrization based upon unitarity and a propagator obtained from effective field theory including loop contributions, we have performed a fit to experimental data on the $`\pi \pi `$ phase shift, the inelasticity and the $`J/\psi \varphi \pi \pi `$ and $`J/\psi \varphi K\overline{K}`$ decays. The fit has been restricted to a neighborhood of 980 MeV ($`0.8\sqrt{s}1.1`$ GeV) thus providing a process and background independent way of extracting the intrinsic properties (pole mass and width) of the $`f_0(980)`$ scalar resonance.

The solution of the pole equation for the values of the parameters resulting from the fit allows us to conclude that the $`f_0(980)`$ is described in terms of a *single pole in sheet II* and yields the values $`m_{f_0}^B=987\pm 3`$ MeV and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{f_0}^B=42\pm 9`$ MeV, $`m_{f_0}^D=999\pm 2`$ MeV and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{f_0}^D=39\pm 8`$ MeV, and $`m_{f_0}^{DF}=1001\pm 6`$ MeV and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{f_0}^{DF}=52\pm 16`$ MeV for the data-sets B, D and DF respectively. We also analyzed the behaviour of the pole position as a function of the renormalized mass $`m_R`$ and found that a pole in sheet III only arises when $`m_R>1020`$ MeV while our fit to data yields always values $`m_R<1`$ GeV.

## Acknowledgements

R. E. acknowledges A. Farilla, F. Nguyen, G. Venanzoni and N. Wu for valuable discussions, A. Bramon for a careful reading of the manuscript, L. Lésniak for providing us with the latest $`\pi \pi `$ data, and J. R. Peláez for the Mathematica program for extracting the poles from the scattering amplitudes. Work partly supported by the EU, EURODAPHNE (TMR-CT98-0169) and EURIDICE (HPRN-CT-2002-00311) networks. Work also partly supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and FEDER (FPA2002-00748), and CONACYT.


text:
# Generalized dimensions of Feigenbaum’s attractor from renormalization-group functional equations

## Abstract

A method is suggested for the computation of the generalized dimensions of fractal attractors at the period-doubling transition to chaos. The approach is based on an eigenvalue problem formulated in terms of functional equations, with a coefficient expressed in terms of Feigenbaum’s universal fixed-point function. The accuracy of the results is determined only by precision of the representation of the universal function.

1Institute of Radio-Electronics, Russian Academy of Sciences,
Zelenaya 38, Saratov 410019, Russian Federation
2Department of Mathematical Sciences Loughborough University,
Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK

PACS numbers: 05.45.Df, 05.45.-a, 05.10.Cc

The multifractal or thermodynamic formalism is an important tool for description of strange sets arising in dynamical systems in different contexts. Its basic ideas have been clearly formulated e.g. in the paper of Halsey et al. . Some of the examples presented by these and other authors relate to the fractal attractors that occur at the onset of chaos via period doubling and quasiperiodicity . The multifractal analysis reveals global scaling properties of these attractors, such as the generalized dimensions and the $`f(\alpha )`$ spectra. They are of principal interest because of their universality for systems of different nature. Moreover, they allow a measurement in physical experiments .

One of the well-studied multifractal objects is the Feigenbaum attractor, which occurs at the period-doubling transition to chaos in unimodal one-dimensional maps with quadratic extremum and in a wide class of more general nonlinear dissipative systems . Beside the original procedure of Halsey et al. (namely the construction and analysis of the partition functions defined as sums over some natural covering of the attractor), several other approaches to the computation of the multifractal characteristics have been developed. Bensimon et al.  used a method based on a break up of a partition sum into two components with subsequent use of the scaling property. Kovács  suggested a procedure of extracting the dimensions from the eigenvalue problem for the Frobenius-Perron operator. Christiansen et al.  exploited the idea of approximating the strange sets by periodic orbits and expressed the desired quantities in terms of cycle expansions. (To our knowledge, the calculation of the Hausdorff dimension of the Feigenbaum attractor in Ref.  remains the most precise to date.)

In some sense, the global description of scaling properties in the multifractal formalism seems opposite to the local description in terms of the Feigenbaum renormalization group approach . The latter is based on the solution of the functional fixed-point equation and associated with scaling relations for the evolution operators in a neighborhood of the extremum of the map under consideration.

In this note we present a novel method for precise computation of the multifractal characteristics: the problem may be presented in terms of the Feigenbaum renormalization transformation applied to some auxiliary function. The desired quantities, such as the generalized dimensions and the $`f(\alpha )`$ spectrum, can be extracted from an eigenvalue problem, formulated as a functional equation involving Feigenbaum’s universal fixed-point function. An analogous approach was previously suggested in application to the problem of the effect of noise onto the period-doubling transition . That problem appears to be linked with one special generalized dimension, as noted e.g. in Refs. , and this circumstance obviously supports a possibility of the generalization we undertake here. A similar idea was used in Ref.  for a study of scaling regularities in the Fourier spectrum and response function of the quadratic map at the period-doubling transition to chaos.

Using the representation of the Feigenbaum function from Ref.  we obtain the generalized dimensions with high precision in excellent agreement with the previously known data. Also we present accurate results for generalized dimensions of the multifractal attractors at the onset of chaos in the unimodal maps of degrees 4, 6, and 8, for which the universal functions $`g(x)`$ are available in the literature in the form of numerically found polynomial expansions .

To estimate the multifractal characteristics for the Feigenbaum attractor by the standard approach the generalized partition functions $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k(q,\tau )=\underset{i=1}{\overset{2^k}{}}p_i^q/l_i^\tau `$ are exploited. Here $`q`$ and $`\tau `$ are some real parameters, $`p_i=2^k`$, $`l_i=|x_ix_{i+2^k}|`$, and the sequence $`x_i`$ results from iterations of the unimodal map at the limit point of the period-doubling accumulation, starting from the extremum point. Obviously, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k(q,\tau )=2^{qk}S_{2^k}(\tau )`$, where $`S_{2^k}(\tau )=\underset{i=1}{\overset{2^k}{}}l_i^\tau `$. For each given $`q`$ an appropriate value of $`\tau =\tau (q)`$ may be found that ensures an asymptotic equality $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{k+1}(q,\tau )=\mathrm{\Gamma }_k(q,\tau )`$ as $`k\mathrm{}`$. Vice versa, for a given $`\tau `$ we can select a respective value of $`q=q(\tau )`$. This relation of $`q`$ and $`\tau `$ is used then to obtain the generalized dimensions and $`f(\alpha )`$ spectrum.

For large $`k`$ the lengths of the intervals $`l_i`$ are small, and they may be estimated via the derivatives as

$$l_i|dx_i/dx_1|l_1.$$
(1)
In this approximation we can compute them together with the sums $`S`$ step by step via simultaneous iterations of the relations

$$\begin{array}{c}x_{i+1}=f(x_i),\hfill \\ l_{i+1}=|f^{}(x_i)|l_i,\hfill \\ S_{i+1}=S_i+l_{i+1}^\tau \mathrm{\Psi }(x_i).\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
We have introduced here an auxiliary function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x)`$ which at this moment is supposed to be identically equal to 1.

By twofold application of Eqs. (2) we obtain

$$\begin{array}{c}x_{i+2}=f(f(x_i)),\hfill \\ l_{i+2}=|f^{}(f(x_i))f^{}(x_i)|l_i,\hfill \\ S_{i+2}=S_i+l_{i+2}^\tau \left[|f^{}(f(x_i))|^\tau \mathrm{\Psi }(x_i)+\mathrm{\Psi }(f(x_i))\right].\hfill \end{array}$$
(3)
Now we perform Feigenbaum’s scale change $`xx/\alpha `$, $`ll/|\alpha |`$ ($`\alpha `$ is the Feigenbaum constant) and arrive at the equations, which are of the same form as (2), but with new functions $`f_{\mathrm{new}}(x)=\alpha f(f(x/\alpha ))`$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{new}}(x)=L_{f,\tau }\mathrm{\Psi }(x)`$ where $`L_{f,\tau }`$ is the linear operator

$$L_{f,\tau }:\mathrm{\Psi }(x)|\alpha |^\tau \left[|f^{}(f(x/\alpha ))|^\tau \mathrm{\Psi }(x/\alpha )+\mathrm{\Psi }(f(x/\alpha ))\right].$$
(4)
This transformation may be repeated again and again. Asymptotically, $`f(x)`$ converges to the fixed-point function satisfying the Feigenbaum-Cvitanović equation $`g(x)=\alpha g(g(x/\alpha ))`$, and the sequence $`\mathrm{\Psi }_k(x)`$ will follow the recursion $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{k+1}(x)=L_{g,\tau }\mathrm{\Psi }_k(x)`$.

Thus, as $`k\mathrm{}`$, the function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_k`$ tends to the eigenfunction associated with the largest eigenvalue of the linear operator $`L_{g,\tau }`$, the eigenproblem being

$$\nu (\tau )\mathrm{\Psi }(x)=|\alpha |^\tau \left[|g^{}(g(x/\alpha ))|^\tau \mathrm{\Psi }(x/\alpha )+\mathrm{\Psi }(g(x/\alpha ))\right].$$
(5)
(A particular case of this equation for $`\tau =2`$ appears in the theory of effect of noise onto the period-doubling transition. A possibility of computation of the noise scaling constant via sums of the derivatives over the Feigenbaum attractor was noted e.g. in Refs. .)

¿From the construction, we see that the eigenvalue $`\nu (\tau )`$ indicates a rate of growth or decrease of the sums $`S`$:

$$S_{2^k}(\tau )\nu (\tau )^k.$$
(6)
To have $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k\mathrm{const}`$ as $`k\mathrm{}`$, we must have

$$\nu (\tau )=2^q,\mathrm{or}q=\mathrm{log}_2\nu (\tau ).$$
(7)
Then, in accordance with the multifractal formalism, we can obtain the generalized dimensions

$$D_q=\frac{\tau }{q1},$$
(8)
and the $`f(\alpha )`$ spectrum as an implicitly defined relation between the variables

$$\alpha =\frac{d\tau }{dq}\mathrm{and}f=q\frac{d\tau }{dq}\tau .$$
(9)
Although our argumentation starts from the approximate relation (1), we believe that the final Eq. (5) is exact. The data from the numerical computations presented below strongly supports this conjecture: the generalized dimensions are in excellent agreement with the best known numerical results, up to all reliable digits. Apparently, in the asymptotics of $`k\mathrm{}`$ the approximate nature of (1) becomes inessential. One might hope that a rigorous proof can be found.

We have performed numerical solutions of the eigenvalue problem (5) for the classic Feigenbaum attractor of the quadratic map and for unimodal maps of even integer degrees $`d`$ = 4, 6, and 8. In principle, the achievable precision of the results is determined only by accuracy of the approximation of the universal functions.

With the known polynomial approximation of $`g(x)`$ and value of the scaling constant $`\alpha `$ we have numerically performed the functional transformation defined by the right-hand side of Eq. (5). The unknown function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x)`$ is represented by a table of its values at the nodes of a one-dimension grid on the interval $`[0,1]`$ and by an interpolation scheme between the nodes. In actual computations it was convenient to use a grid of constant step along the axis of variable $`y=|x|^d`$ and a fourth-order interpolation in terms of $`y`$. Given the input table for $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x)`$ the program yields an analogous table as output.

Suppose we fix $`\tau `$ and wish to estimate $`q`$. We define an initial condition as $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x)1`$, perform the functional transformation, and normalize the resulting function as $`\mathrm{\Psi }^0(x)=\mathrm{\Psi }(x)/\mathrm{\Psi }(0)`$. The new function is taken as the initial condition and so on. This operation is repeated many times, until the form of the function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x)`$ stabilizes. Then, the value of $`\mathrm{\Psi }(0)`$ before the normalization is taken to be $`\nu (\tau )`$, and we finally set $`q(\tau )=\mathrm{log}_2\nu (\tau )`$.

To find $`\tau `$ for a given $`q`$ we use the above procedure together with a simple iteration scheme for the numerical solution of the algebraic equation $`q(\tau )=q`$. We may then calculate $`D_q=\tau /(q1)`$ at $`q1`$. In particular, $`D_0`$ is the Hausdorff dimension, and $`D_2`$ is the correlation dimension.

To obtain the information dimension $`D_1`$ it is necessary to determine the limit as $`q1`$, that is, as $`\tau 0`$. Formally, this follows from L’Hôpital’s rule: $`D_1=\underset{q1}{lim}\frac{\tau (q)}{q1}=\left(\frac{d\tau }{dq}\right)_{q=1}=\left(\frac{dq}{d\tau }\right)_{\tau =0}^1.`$ To compute this without loss of accuracy we use the following algorithm. For $`\tau 1`$ let us write $`\mathrm{\Psi }_k(x)=2^k|\alpha |^{k\tau }[1+\tau h_k(x)]`$ and substitute this expression into Eq. (LABEL:eq5). To first order we have

$$h_{k+1}(x)=\frac{1}{2}\left[h_k(x/\alpha )+h_k(g(x/\alpha ))\right]+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}|g^{}(g(x/\alpha ))|.$$
(10)
Numerically, representing $`h_k(x)`$ by a table of its values and performing a large number of steps of the transformation one can observe that $`h_{k+1}(x)h_k(x)\theta =\mathrm{const}`$ as $`k\mathrm{}`$. This implies that $`\mathrm{\Psi }_k|\alpha |^{k\tau }2^ke^{k\theta \tau }`$. On the other hand, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_k2^{kq(\tau )}2^{k(q+\tau dq/d\tau )}=2^{k(1+\tau /D_1)}`$. Hence,

$$D_1=\frac{\mathrm{ln}2}{\mathrm{ln}|\alpha |+\theta }.$$
(11)
For quadratic maps we have performed the computations based on a polynomial representation of $`g(x)`$ with coefficients taken from the paper of Lanford . His data are of very high precision, but in our calculations the accuracy is limited due to a use of standard double-precision arithmetic. As a result, we get not more than 14 true digits in the generalized dimensions. These data are presented in the first column of Table 1. Note excellent agreement of the Hausdorff dimension (up to the last decimal digit!) with the result of Christiansen et al. . Other dimensions for the Feigenbaum attractor were presented by Kovács , and they coincide with our results up to the 10-th digit, the accuracy achieved in that work.

In the remaining three columns of the Table 1 we present results for the generalized dimensions of the multifractal attractors at the onset of chaos in unimodal maps of degrees 4, 6, and 8 obtained using the universal functions given e.g. in Ref..

As an alternative to the traditional definition of the generalized dimensions $`D_q`$ one might consider a family of dimensions enumerated by the index $`\tau `$. Let us designate them as $`D^\tau `$: $`D^\tau =D_{q(\tau )}=\tau /(q(\tau )1)`$. As mentioned, for $`\tau =2`$ the equation (5) is of a form studied in the theory of noise effect onto the period-doubling transition ; the noise scaling constant is defined as $`\gamma =\sqrt{\nu (2)}`$. Hence, the dimension $`D^2`$ is linked with the effect of noise. The scaling factor $`\gamma `$ is expressed via the dimension $`D^2`$ as $`\gamma =2^{1/D^2+1/2}`$. In Table 2 we present high-precision data for values of $`q(2)`$, dimensions $`D^2`$, and noise scaling factors obtained from the numerical solution of the eigenproblem (5) for maps of degree 2, 4, 6, and 8. The data for the factors $`\gamma `$ improve the previously known results . (Observe that value of $`q`$ depends on the degree, so one cannot speak on a definite dimension from the family $`D_q`$ associated with the noise effect!)

For the problem of unimodal maps, our method of calculation of the generalized dimensions does not have obvious computational advantages over those of Refs. , but it does represent the problem in a new light and indicates novel links between global and local descriptions of the scaling regularities. An analogous use of renormalization-group equations will be feasible in the calculation of multifractal properties in many other situations at the onset of chaos, e.g. in bimodal one-dimensional maps , asymmetric one-dimensional maps , two-dimensional period-doubling maps , quasiperiodically forced maps , and complex analytic maps . Such an approach will be useful especially for situations where computations based on the traditional partition-function approach are difficult.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge support from the London Mathematical Society.